Structures of Epic Poetry: Vol. I: Foundations. Vol. II.1/II.2: Configuration. Vol. III: Continuity 3110492008, 9783110492002

Table of contents :
Volume I: Foundations
Acknowledgements
Contents
Introduction
Part I: Theories of epic
Ancient and modern theories of epic
The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic
Learning the epic formula
Narratology and classical epic
Epic and rhetoric
Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic
Part II: Classification and genre
Intergeneric influences and interactions
History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic
Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions
Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition
Epic fragments
Narrative patterns and structural elements in Greek epyllia
Epic structures in classical and post-classical Roman epyllia
Part III: Core structures
The invocation of the Muses and the plea for inspiration
Closure and segmentation: endings, medial proems, book divisions
‘Almost-episodes’ in Greek and Roman epic
Aetiology and genealogy in ancient epic
Epic catalogues
Similes and comparisons in the epic tradition
Artefact ekphrasis and narrative in epic poetry from Homer to Silius
Indices
Volume II.1: Configuration
Front Matter 2
Contents
Part I: Battle scenes
Battle scenes in ancient epic – a short introduction
Arming scenes, war preparation, and spoils in ancient epic
Simply the best? Epic aristeiai
Single combat in ancient epic
Mass combat in ancient epic
Chain-combats in ancient epic
Teichoscopies in classical and late antique epic
Nyktomachies in Graeco-Roman epic
Theomachy in Greek and Roman epic
Naval battles in Greek and Roman epic
River battles in Greek and Roman epic
Flight, pursuit, breach of contract, and ceasefire in classical epic
Epic games: structure and competition
Death, wounds, and violence in ancient epic
Death, ritual, and burial from Homer to the Flavians
Indices
Volume II.2: Configuration
Front Matter 3
Contents
Part II: Journeys and related scenes
Epic journeys and related scenes – a short introduction
Arrival and reception scenes in the epic tradition from Homer to Silius
Banquet scenes in ancient epic
Scenes of departure by sea in the epic tradition from Homer to Silius
Sea-storms in ancient epic
Part III: Time
Time in ancient epic – a short introduction
Time in Greek epic
‘Time as such’: chronotopes and periphrases of time in Latin epic
Part IV: Space
An introduction to the concept of space in ancient epic
Cities in ancient epic
Landscapes in Greek epic
Landscapes in Latin epic
Mythical places in ancient epic
Abodes of the gods in ancient epic
Abodes of the dead in ancient epic
Part V: Communication
Principles of communication in Greek and Roman epic-a short introduction
Messenger scenes in Greek epic
Messenger scenes in Roman epic
Dream scenes in ancient epic
Prophecies in Greek epic
Prophecies in Roman epic
Apparition scenes in ancient epic
Divine council scenes in ancient epic
Necromancies in ancient epic
Indices
Volume III: Continuity
Front Matter 4
Contents
The origin, tradition, and reinvention of epic structures – a short introduction
Poetic form and narrative theme in early Greek and Akkadian epic
The transformation of the epic genre in Late Antiquity
Greek biblical epic: Nonnus’ Paraphrase and Eudocia’s Homerocentones
Between imitation and transformation: the (un)conventional use of epic structures in the Latin biblical poetry of Late Antiquity
Epic forms and structures in late antique Vergilian centos
The tradition of epic poetry in Byzantine literature
Medieval epicity and the deconstruction of classical epic
Narrative structures in Neo-Latin epic from 1440 to 1500
Narrative structures in Neo-Latin epic: 16th–19th century
Experiments in digital publishing: creating a digital compendium
Overview: Graeco-Roman epyllia and epics from Homer to Late Antiquity
Core bibliography
Indices
List of contributors

Citation preview

Structures of Epic Poetry

Structures of Epic Poetry Volume I: Foundations

Edited by Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

ISBN 978-3-11-049200-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-049259-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-049167-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019953831 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Eric Naujoks (Rostock), Dr. Jörn Kobes (Gutenberg) Cover image: Carrara Marble Quarries, © Wulf Liebau (†), Photograph: Courtesy of Irene Liebau Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements Ancient epic and, in particular, structures of epic poetry have stood in the centre of Christiane Reitz’ research for a long time. Due to this continued interest in the various structural elements of the epic genre more than 10 years ago in a working group with long-time collaborators the idea was born to bring experts and new voices in the field of epic poetry together in order to develop a comprehensive companion to the structures of ancient epic. With the generous support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the arrival of Simone Finkmann who joined Christiane Reitz from the University of Oxford to take on this truly ‘epic’ task with great enthusiasm and new ideas, this complex concept could finally be realised and developed into its current form, a four-volume compendium on the structural elements and narrative patterns of the literary tradition from Homer to Neo-Latin epic. It is a testament to the closely-knit community of scholars working on epic poetry that many of the colleagues who came together a decade ago to discuss this project indeed became contributors of this compendium and that those who were unable to contribute papers of their own acted as important advisers. As the latter group does not appear in this compendium, we would like to take this opportunity to thank them and acknowledge their invaluable support and input: Thomas Baier, Ludwig Braun, Claudia Klodt, Gernot Michael Müller, Christine Schmitz, Ferdinand Stürner, and last but not least, Christine Walde who advised and encouraged us throughout the project. We would moreover like to thank Manuel Baumbach, Pramit Chaudhuri, Christopher Forstall, Lavinia Galli Milić, Gesine Manuwald, Damien Nelis, Peter Orth, and Alessandro Schiesaro for their extensive feedback and advice on individual papers as well as the entire project at several stages of our work. We are most grateful to all our contributors who not only agreed to write the comprehensive diachronic chapters but also took time out of their busy schedules to share and discuss their results with us during a series of colloquia, lectures, workshops, and conferences at Rostock, Berlin, and Vandœuvres. We are especially indebted to those colleagues who kindly offered to contribute more than one chapter or who agreed to write a paper at a later stage of the project, following belated author withdrawals or conceptual additions to our volumes. This is also the reason why we took it upon ourselves to contribute more than one chapter each to our compendium. In addition to the German Research Foundation, without whom this project would not have been possible, we received financial support from the Heinrich Schliemann-Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, the Philosophische Fakultät, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-202

VI | Acknowledgements

the Professorinnenprogramm funded by the University of Rostock and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, and the Department ‘Wissen–Kultur–Transformation’ of the Interdisciplinary Faculty of the University of Rostock, which allowed us to employ a team of research assistants, undertake crucial research stays in London at the Institute of Classical Studies and in Vandœuvres at the Fondation Hardt, and to organise additional workshops, such as our two main conferences ‘Non nisi grandia canto – Die Transformation narrativer Strukturelemente in der epischen Tradition’ (15.–17.12.2016) and ‘Narratology and Structure in Ancient Epic’ (16.–17.11.2017) in Rostock. We are excited that the work on our project has led to a new departmental partnership with the Classics Department at the University of Georgia, and we are grateful to Thomas Biggs and his colleagues, as well as to Gesine Manuwald and our Erasmus partners Alison Sharrock and Marco Fucecchi for hosting us and/or members of our team, as well as to the many other colleagues who invited us to give lectures during this time, allowing us to present our on-going work to a wider audience. We were also able to discuss our plans and findings in an interdisciplinary setting during the conference we held in December 2016 and on various other occasions with colleagues from neighbouring disciplines both in Rostock and at other institutions. We are very thankful to Lavinia Galli Milić, Damien Nelis, and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) for hosting the joint workshop ‘Exploring the Boundaries of Narrative Structures in Epic Poetry’ (3.–5.2.2017) at the Fondation Hardt in Vandœuvres and to our publishing house De Gruyter, especially Serena Pirrotta, Katharina Legutke, and Torben Behm, for their kind and professional supervision of the book publication, their encouragement and support, as well as their generous offer to host workshops for us in Berlin and to finance a part-time research assistant for the preparation of the index rerum and the index nominum. During our work on the manuscript we could rely on the help of many supportive collaborators. We were so fortunate to work with an excellent team of student helpers and research assistants without whom the editing of our four volumes would not have been feasible: Felix Apel, Maria Dreier, Jannien Finck, Lars Liemer, Maria Lüchow, Katja Milkowski, Laura Rodegro, Eric Starzynski, and Martin Wagner all supported us in various phases of our project. We are, in particular, indebted to Patrick Hilmer who became an invaluable team member in the final two years of our projects and to Hellmut Braun who diligently helped us prepare the index nominum and the index rerum. We are moreover grateful to Konrad Löbcke, Christopher Londa, and Orla Mulholland who assisted us with the correction of the contributions by non-native speakers and, as experts in the field of Classics

Acknowledgements |

VII

themselves, also provided some of our authors with excellent translations of their work. Eric Naujoks’ expertise, patience, and meticulous work on the typesetting of our compendium cannot be praised highly enough. If it had not been for his, and in the final stages of the project, also Jörn Kobes’ very capable and conscientious work, our four volumes would have taken on a very different appearance. The same can be said not only of our De Gruyter editors but also of the entire Konvertus team, Anne Rudolph, Katja Schubert, and especially Simone Hausmann, who very competently supervised the editing process. Just as crucial to the success of the project was Matteo Romanello from the Digital Humanities Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) who designed our EpiBau digital companion, a web application (http://epibau.ub. uni-rostock.de/app/) and API (http://epibau.ub.uni-rostock.de/api/) that make the compendium’s contents more readily accessible and easily searchable for its readers, and allowed us to extract the cited ancient literature semi-automatically for our index locorum with his Cited Loci citation mining technology. We are also grateful for the support from the University Library in Rostock and its Digital Library Division, especially Robert Zepf, Karsten Labahn, and Robert Stephan, who helped us design the digital compendium in the early stages and who will curate the database to ensure its long-time accessibility. At the Heinrich Schliemann-Institut für Altertumswissenschaften we could always rely on the kind and competent help of Brigitte Meyer, Grit Rausch, and especially Anke Wegner, as well as on the encouragement of our colleagues, some of whom have also become contributors to our compendium. Last, but certainly not least, we are extremely grateful to our loving families and friends for their patience, support, and understanding during what has been a demanding, but most rewarding research project. Christiane Reitz Simone Finkmann

Contents Acknowledgements | V Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann Introduction | 1

Part I: Theories of epic Philip Hardie Ancient and modern theories of epic | 25 Joseph Farrell The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 51 Egbert Bakker Learning the epic formula | 81 Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill Narratology and classical epic | 99 Christiane Reitz Epic and rhetoric | 115 Gregor Bitto Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic | 133

Part II: Classification and genre Annemarie Ambühl Intergeneric influences and interactions | 167 Jason Nethercut History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic | 193 Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions | 213

X | Contents

Alison Sharrock Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition | 275 Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel Epic fragments | 317 Simone Finkmann Narrative patterns and structural elements in Greek epyllia | 357 Nicola Hömke Epic structures in classical and post-classical Roman epyllia | 443

Part III: Core structures Claudia Schindler The invocation of the Muses and the plea for inspiration | 489 Andrew Zissos Closure and segmentation: endings, medial proems, book divisions | 531 Heinz-Günther Nesselrath ‘Almost-episodes’ in Greek and Roman epic | 565 Anke Walter Aetiology and genealogy in ancient epic | 609 Christiane Reitz, Cédric Scheidegger Lämmle, and Katharina Wesselmann Epic catalogues | 653 Ursula Gärtner and Karen Blaschka Similes and comparisons in the epic tradition | 727 Stephen Harrison Artefact ekphrasis and narrative in epic poetry from Homer to Silius | 773 Indices | 807

Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Introduction On 21 April 1797 Friedrich Schiller wrote to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that a chief characteristic of the epic poem is the independence of its parts.¹ Indeed, ancient philologists, especially those engaged in early Homeric criticism, have long since observed that within the Iliad and the Odyssey certain recognisable scenes organise the poems’ sequences of action.² The scholiasts and ancient commentators, however, did not develop an overarching concept for the analysis of this phenomenon; rather, they discussed the individual scenes separately according to their shared content: e.g. arming scenes, messenger scenes, and typical actions on the battlefield. In 1933 Arend published his dissertation Die typischen Scenen bei Homer. This influential work identified recurring narrative themes in the Homeric epics and assessed both how a given pattern may be altered to fit each new poetic context and how schematic ‘type-scenes’ accentuate actions within the poem. Such scenes included, for example, meal preparations, sacrifices, arrivals, and assemblies. At the same time as classical philologists of the early 20th century were studying Homeric type-scenes, scholars of oral poetry, at that point a still developing field of research, made similar observations about their material. Edwards (1991, 11–15), in his concise overview of Homer’s orality,³ traces the roles played by ‘type-scenes’ and ‘story patterns’ within developing conceptions of the production and reception of oral poetry.⁴ Today many Homeric scholars, while accepting the importance of orality for their subject, nevertheless take a measured view of the issue, a position nicely illustrated by the Basler Gesamtkatalog⁵ or by the introduction to Graziosi/ Haubold (2010, 17):

1 “Es wird mir aus allem was Sie sagen, immer klarer, daß die Selbstständigkeit seiner Theile einen Hauptcharakter des epischen Gedichtes ausmacht.” In their correspondence during the spring of 1797 Goethe and Schiller examine the parallels and differences between the epic and the dramatic form. Their discussion combines theoretical reflection with their own practical experience. This exchange of ideas came to be known as the shared text “Über epische und dramatische Dichtung”. The letter is quoted from the edition of Beetz (1990). 2 Cf. Nünlist (2009, 307–15). 3 See also Edwards (1975) and Edwards (1992). 4 On oral tradition, see, e.g., Foley (1991) and Bakker in this volume. 5 Cf. de Jong/Nünlist (3 2005, 170–1). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-001

2 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Traditional patterns, then, should not be regarded as the unwieldy legacy of an oral tradition, but rather as versatile poetic resources. The poet commands a very rich and diverse tradition, from which he draws together and combines many different elements.

This tradition, as research on early epic poetry has shown, encompasses preHomeric developments in Greek poetry as well as the likely influence of ancient Near-Eastern narrative modes.⁶ Structural elements, whose roots may be found in oral traditions, become formative for the genre of epic poetry after Homer. The German term ‘Bauform’ (translated as “structural element” or “building block” in this compendium) was first employed by Lämmert in 1955 for describing aspects of German narrative literature. In 1971 the concept gained currency in the field of Classical Philology with Jens’ study Die Bauformen der griechischen Tragödie. The assessment of structural elements in ancient epic poetry, however, brings a different set of questions to the foreground than those that are germane to drama. The aim of the present compendium is to identify and to trace those epic scenes and structures diachronically whose set forms, sequences, and recognisable features mark them as a lasting and integral part of the ancient epic tradition. Our notion of the bauform or ‘epic structure’ is more capacious than that of the established concept of the ‘type-scene’ and goes far beyond the conceptual scope of epic formulae. Our underlying theoretical considerations are reflected by a deliberate variety of concepts. Firstly, we build on the ideas of structuralist thinkers and, in particular, the tradition of Russian Formalism. The terminology of the Geneva School of Linguistics (Ferdinand de Saussure), a differentiated and productive engagement both with synchronic and with diachronic observations, and the acceptance of the systemic structural nature of language and literature form the basis of the studies collected in this compendium. Yet, we have to take into account that already at an early stage, Formalism opted against a too ‘scholastic formalism’. To name one example, Tynjanov and Jakobson explicitly argued for a view on literary products that includes both a historical approach and a structural analysis.⁷ We aim at achieving a mode

6 On structures of Indo-European narratives, cf. the influential book by Watkins (1995, esp. 12–27) and the short but fundamental article by Schmitt (1968). On the Mycenaean roots of the Homeric poems, cf. the summary in Latacz (2003, 200–5 and esp. 261–95 with the example of the Catalogue of Ships). On ancient Near-Eastern epic with a view to the Homeric poems, see, in particular, the work of West (2007, esp. 35–6 on structures). 7 Cf. Tynjanov/Jakobson (1972, 382–3): “Die entschiedene Gegenüberstellung von synchronischem (statistischem) und diachronischem Schnitt war noch unlängst für die Linguistik wie für die Literaturgeschichte eine fruchtbare Arbeitshypothese, da sie den Systemcharakter der Sprache (bzw. der Literatur) für jeden einzelnen historischen Moment aufzeigte. Heutzutage veranlassen uns die aus der synchronischen Konzeption gewonnenen Einsichten, auch die Prinzipien der

Introduction

| 3

of speaking that is both theoretically grounded and practicable, and that requires us as scholars to engage with the material in its structural form and to attend to the dynamic processes of its reception and imitation. Through a conscious synthesis of established methods, we strive to build a theory and terminology based on the texts themselves. We acknowledge that in recent years the terminology of narratology and the analytic apparatus of intertextuality have fundamentally influenced how scholars interpret ancient texts. The study of ancient epic, in particular, has always been concerned with the processes of reception and imitation. A few stages of scholarly preoccupation with the phenomenon of literary imitatio deserve a brief outline. Within the broader humanities but also among classical philologists an increased interest in literary theory⁸ and a need for a consistent terminology for describing how texts interact and mutually influence one another⁹ have led scholars to engage thoroughly with the intellectual processes underlying the practice of literary reference. The theories of intertextuality¹⁰ and narratology¹¹ are established research paradigms available to readers and researchers for describing these complex pro-

Diachronie neu zu überprüfen. Entsprechend der Entwicklung auf dem Gebiet der synchronischen Betrachtungsweise ist man auch auf dem der diachronischen dazu gekommen, das Konzept einer mechanischen Agglomeration der Erscheinungen durch den Begriff des Systems, der Struktur zu ersetzen.” 8 The work of Wellek/Warren (1948), a quintessential expression of thought in New Criticism and the Structuralist School, is often mentioned as one of the starting points. How influential this book became can be seen from a quotation from Delarue (2000, 53), who takes the idea that “Le plaisir que l’on prend à un œuvre d’art naît à la fois d’un sentiment de nouveauté et d’un sentiment de reconnaissance” as his basis for interpreting the teichoscopy and the river battle in Statius by comparison to Homer. 9 Among other works, the often cited but little read study of Reiff (1959) on terminology merits mention. Nevertheless, Reiff’s study does not investigate the particulars of these practices as they relate to epic. 10 We cannot strive for completeness in this brief introduction: exemplary are the works of Conte, who on the shoulders of Kristeva and Genette laid the groundwork for this kind of inquiry; cf., e.g., Conte (1980). On the relationship of model and imitation, Conte (1980, 121) writes: “Omero non è solo spesso . . . il Modello-Esemplare di Virgilio . . . ma anche, e costantemente, il ModelloCodice. Omero è dunque presente come il modello costituito da una sequenza di singole imitazioni sedimentate, ma rappresenta anche l’istituto epico tout court.” Conte’s work formed the basis for future research; cf., e.g., Barchiesi’s wide-reaching studies: Barchiesi (2001a) and Barchiesi (2001b). 11 Sullivan summarises the development and importance of de Jong’s work in the area of narratological theory as part of their joint collected volume; cf. de Jong/Sullivan (1994, 1–26). In the present compendium, narratology is given further treatment in a short essay by Kirstein/Abele/Nill intended to relieve this introduction and the other contributions from the demands of reviewing its specific terminology.

4 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

cesses.¹² Here, especially the works in the wake of Conte merit mention.¹³ Most recently, studies of literary forgery and authorial attribution have brought new focus to questions of originality and imitation.¹⁴ As both a spur and an aid to the analysis of imitatio, studies like those of Knauer (1964) and Juhnke (1972) emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Their intensive comparisons of the Homeric text to Latin epic produced the surveys and tables that formed the basis for future research into the referential practices of individual authors.¹⁵ Moreover, in recent decades imperial epic has received greater scholarly attention.¹⁶ As new editions, translations, and essay collections on Quintus of Smyrna and Nonnus demonstrate, this new scrutiny extends to the period’s Greek poems as well as those in Latin.¹⁷ In addition to an abundance of single-themed studies and companions,¹⁸ a host of imperial poets have received edited volumes devoted to their works and careers. There are now companions to Silius Italicus¹⁹ and Lucan,²⁰ as well as multiple collections of essays on Statius and Valerius Flaccus.²¹ A comparable revival can be seen in scholarship on Hellenistic epic. Since the 1990s, after a period of relative disinterest, Apollonius Rhodius has been the subject of many monographs as well as a companion.²² A particularly

12 On Vergil and the Homeric epics, see recently Dekel (2012). 13 For Conte, see note 10 above. 14 See McGill (2012) and Peirano (2012). 15 Delarue (2000, 41–59), for example, does this pointedly in his introductory chapter on Statius and Homer. Additionally, cf. the review by Dominik (2002), which concurrently gives a short survey of French-language works on Flavian epic. 16 Providing an overview is not possible in this setting. After earlier individual studies like Kytzler (1955) and Schetter (1960), and influential works on Lucan (e.g. Ahl, 1976) and on Flavian writers of epic (e.g. Reitz, 1982 or Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy, 1986), scholarly interest in imperial epic increased considerably in the 1990s and continues into the present day. By way of example, we may point to the Lucan-Projekt under the direction of Walde (see, e.g., Walde, 2005) and the series of volumes with the title Ratis omnia vincet on Valerius Flaccus, with the review by Toohey (2002). Hardie (1993) is surely the best summary of the topic. 17 Cf. Gärtner (2005) and Gärtner (2010); the collected volume La poésie épique grecque (2006) contains an essay on Nonnus; Paschalis (2005) combines contributions on epic production in both languages. 18 From these we would highlight, in particular, the reflections on structure, like Roberts/Dunn/ Fowler (1997) on “closure” (see esp. the contribution by Hardie, 1997) and Kyriakidis/de Martino (2004) on “middles” (see esp. the contribution by Tipping, 2004). 19 Cf. Augoustakis (2010a). See also the essay collection Studi su Silio Italico (Castagna, 2006) and the volume edited by Schaffenrath (2010). 20 Cf. Asso (2011). 21 See, for example, Smolenaars/van Dam/Nauta (2008), Heerink/Manuwald (2014) on Valerius Flaccus, and Dominik/Newlands/Gervais (2015) on Statius. 22 See Knight (1995), Reitz (1996), and Papanghelis/Rengakos (2 2008).

Introduction

| 5

important study is Nelis’ discussion of Apollonius’ reception by Vergil.²³ Moreover, the epyllion and its idiosyncratic poetics have been the focus of productive new research.²⁴ Likewise, interest in epitomised and epitomising epic continues to increase.²⁵ Diachronic surveys of ancient epic in its entirety or of the Latin or Greek epic tradition separately complete this field of research.²⁶ Within this growing body of scholarship a number of approaches are distinguishable. Works of literary criticism range from studies of particular authors and poems to extended treatments of whole epochs.²⁷ New scholarly attention to issues of gender has put the questions it entails at the forefront of many research projects and programmes.²⁸ Another fruitful approach investigates the relationship between politics and poetry, especially as it pertains to the conditions of literary production under dictatorial regimes.²⁹ The perspective of cultural history increasingly informs single-author studies and multi-author collections on epic. Works of this kind, e.g. Galinsky (1996) on the Augustan period and the volumes by Boyle/ Dominik (2003) and Kramer/Reitz (2010) on the Flavian period, illuminate the contexts and historical processes that bear on the various modes and media of expression within a given epoch. Furthermore, today the afterlives of texts and authors in the Middle Ages and in Neo-Latin epic receive treatment not only in individual studies, but also in more general overviews.³⁰ Given this profusion of work on intertextual theory and ancient epic, one might suppose that the field is suitably outfitted. Yet, through all the surveys, edited volumes, and cross-sections thus far, scholarship on ancient epic lacks an overarching and systematic way of discussing and comparing epic structures across poems. A reader intent on examining the occurrences and variations for a particular type-scene – to borrow momentarily the terminology of Homeric philology – or one who wants to compare underworld scenes across ancient epic must rely on

23 Cf. Nelis (2001). 24 Cf. Baumbach/Bär (2012). 25 Conferences on the Ilias Latina in particular (Erlangen, January 2019) and on epitomising practices in general (Zurich, February 2019) reflect this renewed interest. See also Reitz (2007). 26 Cf. Boyle (1993) and Foley (2005). The introductory summary by Rüpke (2012) has a different ambition and shows how urgently the field still needs an entry point that is academically rigorous and organised by objective criteria. 27 See Feeney (1991). Tipping (2010) is an example of an especially convincing study that focuses on structure. See also Tipping (2004). 28 For example, Sannicandro (2010) on Lucan, Klodt (2001) on Statius, and Augoustakis (2010b) on Silius. 29 See Dominik (1994b), McGuire (1997), Ripoll (1998), Bernstein (2008a), and Bernstein (2008b). 30 See Hardie (2002b) on Ovid, Dominik (2002) on Silius Italicus, and Walde (2009) on Lucan. On structural elements in Neo-Latin epic, see Braun (2010–2011).

6 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

the remarks of commentaries, individual studies, or in the most fortunate cases the highly abbreviated entries of lexical reference works like Der Neue Pauly.³¹ Farrell (1991, 8), in his résumé of the reactions to Knauer (1964), notes this gap in scholarship when he observes that the standard conventional elements of epic need to be seen as “integral parts of a tightly woven fabric of intertextuality” and when he describes the epic tradition as “an extensive systematic programme of allusion based on an analytical reading of major sources.”³² Broad cross-sectional works on individual structural elements exist only in a small number. There are, however, a series of exemplary studies examining the use of a single bauform. Miniconi (1951), for instance, attempts to gather the vast number of structural elements pertinent to warfare. Looking at the deployment of funeral games in Statius, Lovatt (2005) highlights how the poet both engages and departs from his epic predecessors. Foucher (1997) discusses aristeiai and Gibson (2008) studies battle scenes in Statius.³³ The account of dream sequences given by Walde (2001a) is another example of this kind of fruitful studies.³⁴ Especially the phenomenon of ekphrasis has received much critical attention in recent years.³⁵ Nevertheless, a study like that of Putnam (1998) demonstrates that political readings – in this case the presupposition that Vergil is a critic of the Augustan regime – often hazard opportunities to approach this narrative bauform objectively. Naturally, interest in the interaction between figurative and textual storytelling dominates the study of ekphrasis. Departure scenes in the poetry of Valerius Flaccus form the focus of Tschiedel’s article from 2004. Klodt (2003) and Reitz (2012a) explore arming scenes, especially those in Vergil. Romano Martín (2009) investigates the councils of the gods as a recurring scene, while Reitz (2012b) analyses their function in the plots of Flavian epics. Bettenworth’s extensive study of banquets from 2004 illustrates the pragmatics and variability of this commonly occurring situation. Thus, structural approaches to elements of epic narratives indeed exist, and studies that combine a sensitivity for the systematic aspects of epic with an understanding of its historical context are highly fruitful, as many examples have

31 Cf., for example, the following lemmata: Aristie, ekphrasis, Gastmahl, Gleichnis, katabasis, Katalog, Teichoskopie. 32 Farrell (1991, 9). 33 On the battle scenes in Ovid, cf. Braun (2009). 34 By contrast, Bouquet (2001) gives an unsatisfactory account of the same topic. Cf. the review by Weber (2002). 35 Cf. the lemma ekphrasis in DNP (Fantuzzi/Reitz/Egelhaaf-Gaiser, 1997). The most important essay on the intellectual richness of ekphrastic elements is still Fowler (1991). See also Zeitlin (2013).

Introduction

| 7

demonstrated. Nevertheless, the terminology at play in these efforts is still in a state of flux. The term ‘type-scene’, for instance, cannot be used sensibly for narrative patterns, such as the epic catalogue or ekphrasis, nor does it encompass similes and proems. These structural elements are not restricted to single episodes, but they occur within epic poems, providing unity and coherence to the plot. On occasion they also comment on the narrative proper or offer the path for pro- and analeptic extensions of the storyline. Varied in kind, these structures characterise epic narratives and serve as genre markers. They merit being discussed together under a single conceptual framework (‘core structures’). With our compendium we aim to put forward a systematic overview of the most important structural elements in ancient epic. The frequent interplay and juxtaposition of individual narrative elements makes it clear that epic poems are neither limited nor constrained by tradition. To the contrary, they can also be influenced by other genres.³⁶ Epic poetry develops its power for innovation precisely out of the recognisability of its fixed structures. In reference to Statius, Henderson (1993, 162) described the great variety of epic structures as total chaos: Olympian inserts, twin catalogues and teichoscopy, necromancy and underworld scenography, funeral games and aristeiai, prayer-sequences and prophecy, tragic included narrative and aetiological hymn, developed formal similes, battle-Sturm und Drang, mountain vastness . . . in extenso – the whole works!

We are more optimistic to be able to find a systematic approach. Set forms and familiar contents, on the one hand, enable recipients to orient themselves within the vast texture of an epic narrative and form a shared set of expectations, which allows the epic poet either to fulfil them or to be innovative by deviating from them. They can be reversed, compressed, or simply alluded to as, for example, in ‘almost-episodes’. Epic structures, by their very consistency, facilitate variation. The overarching design for our own work evolved step by step, taking its start in a group of like-minded colleagues. The now classic monograph by Heinze (3 1928) formed an important impetus.³⁷ The format as it now stands was then further developed by Reitz and Finkmann. The first volume (‘Foundations’) contains theoretical considerations on the architecture of ancient epic that lay the foundation for our study: contributions on genre and genre theory, on formularity in epic narration, on classification, i.e. the

36 See Ambühl (2017). 37 See the appraisal of Heinze by Schmidt (1995, 137–41) in his essay on Latin philology. Schmidt identifies Heinze as perhaps the only ‘unideological’ Vergilian scholar of the first half of the 20th century, esp. in German Classical Philology.

8 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

distinctions between didactic and narrative epic, and the use of mythological and historical material. Every scholar and reader of epic literature is confronted with the problem that in many respects Ovid’s Metamorphoses occupies an exceptional place in the epic tradition. Consequently, we have left it up to the contributors whether to include the Metamorphoses in their essays or whether to exclude the work from their purview. To address potential gaps in coverage arising from our editorial guidelines, a separate contribution examines Ovid’s engagement with traditional epic structures using the poet’s battle, storm, and hospitality scenes as representative examples. The question of book divisions as early attempts to identify structures, and the role of the authorial voice in the initial proem, the internal proem, and the sphragis are handled in individual contributions. As we encouraged a plurality of narratological approaches, we included the aforementioned chapter on narratology and epic poetry in this volume to unburden the single contributions from repetitive methodological introductions. Volume I also broaches the topic of those structural elements whose function may denote those structural elements that pause or accompany the main action. They are, in a sense, situated alongside the plot, not disconnected to it but capable of coming loose. In addition to forming narratological digressions, they can contain inset narratives of parallel stories or offer retrospect and proleptic narration. In this respect, structural elements, like catalogues, aetiological and genealogical digressions, ekphraseis, or similes, are also open to metapoetic interpretations. The comparably rare but important occurrence of ‘almost-episodes’ is also treated separately in this volume. Whereas the essays designated for each individual bauform keep their focus within the genre of epic, a separate contribution discusses the intergeneric aspects of structural elements, especially in connection to tragedy. Similarly, special manifestations of epic forms, like parody, are not treated in the essays on individual structural elements. Rather, the topic is taken up in the contributions on Greek and Roman epyllia. Another problem is raised by texts transmitted only in fragments, which may nonetheless have formed an important influence on later poems. Therefore, a separate contribution is devoted to examining the traces of epic structures in fragmentary epic poems. In volumes II.1 and II.2 (‘Configuration’) we aim to provide a comprehensive approach to the discussion of the most important epic structures that are tied to epic plots. Volume II.1 is devoted to representations of battle scenes, proceeding sequentially through war preparations (arming), observation (teichoscopy), the individual stages and modes (single combat, mass combat, chain-reaction fights, naval and river battles), and extraordinary feats (aristeiai) of epic combat, as well as its aftermath (deaths, burial rites, and funeral games). The first section of volume II.2 is dedicated to epic journeys and their related scenes, most importantly arrivals,

Introduction

| 9

banquet scenes, departures, and storm scenes, which are at the core of nostos and ktisis epics. The recognition that epic action takes place in time and space (both on the horizontal and vertical axis) informs the second and the third section of volume II.2. A set of contributions explores how epic poetry understands and makes use of time (and, by extension, weather and the challenges or blessings it provides) in its varying structural functions and of space, especially with regard to the portrayal of landscapes, cities, mythical places, as well as the abodes of the dead and of the gods. The fourth and final section of volume II.2 encompasses the broad domain of communication. The scope includes not only communication as it transpires between the characters of a given poem (e.g. in messenger and council scenes), but it also extends to communication with the past and the future in the context of underworld scenes, prophecies, epiphanies, and dreams. In volume III our authors address the question of epic structures on a timeline from Akkadian epic to the Neo-Latin texts of the 19th century. The final paper discusses one of the many possibilities provided by digital research tools and methods for the study of structural elements and narrative patterns in the epic tradition. By including extensive bibliographies³⁸ and indices of sources, names, and subjects, we have endeavoured to make the compendium as accessible as possible not only for classical philologists, but for any literary scholar or reader interested in narrative genres. We are convinced that the contributions in these volumes furnish the concept of the bauform with the needed structural rigor, new analysis, and fresh presentation. The sophisticated toolkit available to today’s philologists and recent theoretical insights into epic imitation have together enabled this project, in all its intended plurality, to plumb the utility of existing methodologies and to leverage a clear structure and comprehensible organisation into attaining the following goal: to give an overview of ancient epic structures that describes their diachronic development, analyses their varied instantiations, and ultimately provides a key to the intertextual character of ancient epic narrative and its tradition.

Further reading Accorinti, D. (ed., 2016). Brill’s companion to Nonnus of Panopolis. Leiden. Adamietz, J. (1976). Zur Komposition der Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Munich.

38 The core bibliography in volume III provides an overview of the most important primary literature (translations, editions, commentaries). It may serve as an introduction to the field of epic poetry and will be expanded and digitally updated as part of our EPN Network website (www. epic-poetry-network.com).

10 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Ahl, F. M. (1976). Lucan: an introduction. Ithaca, NY/New York. Ahl, F. M./Davis, M. A./Pomeroy, A. (1986). Silius Italicus, ANRW II.32: 2492–561. Aichele, K./Jens, W. (eds., 1971). Die Bauformen der griechischen Tragödie. Munich. Ambühl, A. (2015). Krieg und Bürgerkrieg bei Lucan und in der griechischen Literatur. Studien zur Rezeption der attischen Tragödie und der hellenistischen Dichtung im Bellum ciuile. Berlin/Boston. Ambühl, A. (2017). Narrative Potentiale von Anfängen und Enden im hellenistischen (Klein-) Epos, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 79–103. Angelucci, P. (1990). La tecnica poetica di Aratore. Rome. Arend, W. (1933). Die typischen Scenen bei Homer. Berlin. Arweiler, A. H. (1999). Die Imitation antiker und spätantiker Literatur in der Dichtung De spiritalis historiae gestis des Alcimus Avitus: mit einem Kommentar zu Avit. carm. 4.429–540 und 5.526–703. Berlin. Asso, P. (ed., 2011). Brill’s companion to Lucan. Leiden/Boston. Augoustakis, A. (ed., 2010a). Brill’s companion to Silius Italicus. Leiden/Boston. Augoustakis, A. (2010b). Motherhood and the other: fashioning female power in Flavian epic. Oxford. Augoustakis, A. (ed., 2013). Ritual and religion in Flavian epic. Oxford. Augoustakis, A. (ed., 2014). Flavian poetry and its Greek past. Leiden/Boston. Augoustakis, A. (ed., 2016). Flavian epic. Oxford. Bachvarova, M. R. (2016). From Hittite to Homer. The Anatolian background of ancient Greek epic. Cambridge. Baier, T. (ed., 2012). Götter und menschliche Willensfreiheit: Von Lucan bis Silius Italicus. Munich. Baker, P. (2015). Italian Renaissance Humanism in the mirror. Cambridge. Bakker, E. J. (1997). Poetry in speech: orality and Homeric discourse. Ithaca, NY. Barchiesi, A. (1984). La traccia del modello. Effetti omerici nella narrazione virgiliana. Pisa. Barchiesi, A. (2001a). Genealogie letterarie nell’epica imperiale. Fondamentalismo e ironia, in: Fondation Hardt (ed.), L’histoire littéraire immanente dans la poésie latine. Geneva: 315–54. Barchiesi, A. (2001b). Speaking volumes. Narrative and intertext in Ovid and other Latin poets. London. Barchiesi, A. (2015). Homeric effects in Vergil’s narrative. Princeton, NJ. Bartsch, S. (1994). Actors in the audience: theatricality and doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA. Bartsch, S. (2009). Ideology in cold blood: a reading of Lucan’s Civil War. Cambridge, MA/ London. Bartsch, S./Elsner, J. (eds., 2007). CPh 102. [Special issue: Ekphrasis]. Bassett, S. E. (1938). The poetry of Homer. Berkeley, CA. Baumbach, M./Bär, S. (eds., 2007). Quintus Smyrnaeus: transforming Homer in second Sophistic epic. Berlin/New York. Baumbach, M./Bär, S. (eds., 2012). Brill’s companion to Greek and Latin epyllion and its reception. Leiden/Boston. Bažil, M. (2009). Centones Christiani. Métamorphoses d’une forme intertextuelle dans la poésie latine chrétienne de l’Antiquité tardive. Paris.

Introduction

| 11

Beck, D. (2012). Speech presentation in Homeric epic. Austin. Beetz, M. (1990). Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe in den Jahren 1794 bis 1805. Munich. Belloni, A. (1912). Il poema epico e mitologico. Milan. Berlincourt, V./Galli Milić, L./Nelis, D. P. (eds., 2016). Lucan and Claudian: context and intertext. Heidelberg. Bernard, F./Demoen, K. (eds., 2012). Poetry and its contexts in eleventh-century Byzantium. Burlington. Bernstein, N. W. (2008a). Ancestors, status, and self-presentation in Statius’ Thebaid, TAPA 133: 353–79. Bernstein, N. W. (2008b). In the image of the ancestors. Narratives of kinship in Flavian epic. Toronto. Bessone, F. (2011). La Tebaide di Stazio: epica e potere. Pisa. Bessone, F./Fucecchi, M. (eds., 2017). The literary genres in the Flavian Age. Canons, transformations, reception. Berlin/Boston. Bettenworth, A. (2004). Gastmahlszenen in der antiken Epik von Homer bis Claudian. Göttingen. Beye, C. (1982). Epic and romance in the Argonautica of Apollonius. Carbondale-Edwardsville. Bitto, G. (2016). Vergimus in senium. Statius’ Achilleis als Alterswerk. Göttingen. Borrell Vidal, E. (1991). Las palabras de Virgilio en Juvenco. Barcelona. Bouquet, J. (2001). Le songe dans l’épopée latine d’Ennius à Claudien. Brussels. Bowra, C. M. (1930). Tradition and design in the Iliad. Oxford. Boyd, B. W. (ed., 2002). Brill’s companion to Ovid. Leiden/Boston/Cologne. Boyd, B. W. (2017). Ovid’s Homer: authority, repetition, reception. Oxford. Boyer, R. et al. (eds., 1988). L’épopée. Turnhout. Boyle, A. J. (ed., 1993). Roman epic. London/New York. Boyle, A. J./Dominik, W. J. (eds., 2003). Flavian Rome: culture, image, text. Leiden/Boston. Braun, L. (2007). Ancilla Calliopeae. Ein Repertorium der neulateinischen Epik Frankreichs (1500–1700). Leiden. Braun, L. (2009). Epische Kampfszenen in Ovids Metamorphosen, WJA 33: 85–103. Braun, L. (2010–2011). Über den Wandel epischer Bauformen im lateinischen Epos der Neuzeit, Hyperboreus 16–17: 479–92. Brauneiser, M. (1944). Tagzeiten und Landschaft im Epos der Griechen und Römer. Würzburg. Breed, B. W./Rossi, A. (eds., 2006). Ennius and the invention of Roman epic. Baltimore. Buchheit, V. (1963). Vergil über die Sendung Roms. Untersuchungen zum Bellum Poenicum und zur Aeneis. Heidelberg. Burck, E. (ed., 1979). Das römische Epos. Darmstadt. Burgess, J. S. (2001). The tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle. Baltimore/ London. Burkard, T./Schauer, M./Wiener, C. (eds., 2010). Vestigia Vergiliana. Vergil-Rezeption in der Neuzeit. Berlin. Cairns, D. L. (ed., 2001). Oxford readings in Homer’s Iliad. Oxford. Cairns, D. L./Scodel, R. (eds., 2014). Defining Greek narrative. Edinburgh. Cairns, F. (1989). Virgil’s Augustan epic. Cambridge. Cameron, A. (1970). Claudian: poetry and propaganda at the court of Honorius. Oxford. Castagna, L. (2006). Studi su Silio Italico, Aevum(ant) 6: 65–83. Chaudhuri, P. (2014). The war with god: theomachy in Roman imperial poetry. Oxford.

12 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Clark, M. (2004). Formulas, metre and type-scenes, in: R. L. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Homer. Cambridge/New York: 117–38. Clausen, W. V. (2002). Virgil’s Aeneid: decorum, allusion, and ideology. Munich/Leipzig. Clauss, J. J. (1993). The best of the Argonauts: the redefinition of the epic hero in Book 1 of Apollonius’s Argonautica. Berkeley, CA. Clauss, J. J./Cuypers, M. (eds., 2010). A companion to Hellenistic literature. Malden, MA. Conte, G. B. (1974). Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario. Turin. Conte, G. B. (1980). Il genere e i suoi confini. Cinque studi sulla poesia di Virgilio. Turin. Conte, G. B. (1986). The rhetoric of imitation. Genre and poetic memory in Virgil and other Latin poets. Edited and with a foreword by C. Segal. Ithaca, NY. D’Alessandro Behr, F. (2007). Feeling history: Lucan, stoicism, and the poetics of passion. Columbus. Day, H. J. M. (2013). Lucan and the sublime: power, representation and aesthetic experience. Cambridge. De Jong, I. J. F. (1987). Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad. Amsterdam. De Jong, I. J. F. (2001). A narratological commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge. De Jong, I. J. F. (2 2004). Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad. London. De Jong, I. J. F./Nünlist, R. (3 2005). Homerische Poetik in Stichwörtern, in: J. Latacz (ed.), Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar. Prolegomena. Munich/Leipzig: 159–71. De Jong, I. J. F./Sullivan, J. P. (eds., 1994). Modern critical theory and classical literature. Leiden. Dekel, E. (2012). Virgil’s Homeric lens. New York/London. Delarue, F. (2000). Stace, poète épique. Originalité et cohérence. Louvain/Paris. Dinter, M. T. (2012). Anatomizing civil war: studies in Lucan’s epic technique. Ann Arbor, MI. Dominik, W. J. (1994a). Speech and rhetoric in Statius’ Thebais. Hildesheim. Dominik, W. J. (1994b). The mythic voice of Statius. Power and politics in the Thebaid. Leiden. Dominik, W. J. (2002). Review of F. Delarue. Stace, poète épique. Originalité et cohérence. Leuven/Paris 2000, CR 52: 70–2. Dominik, W. J./Newlands, C. E./Gervais, K. (eds., 2015). Brill’s companion to Statius. Leiden/ Boston. Drögemüller, H.-P. (1956). Die Gleichnisse im hellenistischen Epos. Diss. Hamburg. Due, O. S. (1974). Changing forms. Studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Copenhagen. Edwards, M. W. (1975). Type-scenes and Homeric hospitality, TAPA 105: 51–72. Edwards, M. W. (1987). Homer. Poet of the Iliad. Baltimore. Edwards, M. W. (ed., 1991). The Iliad. A commentary, vol. V: Books 17–20. Cambridge. Edwards, M. W. (1992). Homer and oral tradition: the type scene, Oral Tradition 7: 284–330. Effe, B. (1977). Dichtung und Lehre: Untersuchung zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts. Munich. Eigler, U./Lefèvre, E. (eds., 1998). Ratis omnia vincet. Neue Untersuchungen zu den Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Munich. Elliger, W. (1975). Die Darstellung der Landschaft in der griechischen Dichtung. Berlin. Elliott, J. (2013). Ennius and the architecture of the Annales. Cambridge. Elsner, J./Hernández Lobato, J. (eds., 2017). The poetics of Late Latin literature. Oxford. Enenkel, K. A. E. (2015). Die Stiftung von Autorschaft in der neulateinischen Literatur (ca. 1350–ca. 1650). Zur autorisierenden und wissensvermittelnden Funktion von Widmungen, Vorworttexten, Autorporträts und Dedikationsbildern. Leiden.

Introduction

| 13

Estèves, A./Meyers, J. (eds., 2014). Tradition et innovation dans l’épopée latine de l’Antiquité au Moyen Âge. Bordeaux/Paris. Fabre-Serris, J./Keith, A. (eds., 2015). Women and war in antiquity. Baltimore. Fantham, E. (2004). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Oxford. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. (eds., 2002). Muse e modelli. La poesia ellenistica da Alessandro Magno ad Augusto. Rome/Bari. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. L. (2004). Tradition and innovation in Hellenistic poetry. Cambridge. Fantuzzi, M./Reitz, C./Egelhaaf-Gaiser, U. (1997). Ekphrasis. Griechisch, DNP 3: 942–5. Fantuzzi, M./Tsagalis, C. C. (eds., 2015). The Greek Epic Cycle and its ancient reception. A companion. Cambridge. Farrell, J. (1991). Vergil’s Georgics and the traditions of ancient epic. New York. Farrell, J. (2003). Classical genre in theory and practice, New Literary History 34: 383–408. Feeney, D. C. (1991). The gods in epic. Poets and critics of the classical tradition. Oxford. Fenik, B. (1968). Typical battle scenes in the Iliad. Studies in the narrative techniques of Homeric battle description. Wiesbaden. Finkelberg, M. (ed., 2010). The Homer encyclopedia, 3 vols. Malden, MA/Oxford. Finkmann, S./Behrendt, A./Walter, A. (eds., 2018). Antike Erzähl- und Deutungsmuster: Zwischen Exemplarität und Transformation. Festschrift für C. Reitz zum 65. Geburtstag. Berlin/ Boston. Finley, M. I. (1954). The world of Odysseus. New York. Fisher, J. (2014). The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic tradition. Baltimore. Fitzgerald, W./Gowers, E. (eds., 2007). Ennius perennis. The Annals and beyond. Cambridge. Foley, J. M. (1991). Immanent art: from structure to meaning in traditional oral epic. Indianapolis. Foley, J. M. (ed., 2005). A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA. Ford, A. (1994). Homer. The poetry of the past. Ithaca, NY. Foucher, A. (1997). Formes et sens des aristies épiques, Euphrosyne 25: 9–23. Fowler, D. P. (1991). Narrate and describe: the problem of ekphrasis, JRS 81: 112–22. Fowler, R. L. (ed., 2004). The Cambridge companion to Homer. Cambridge/New York. Fränkel, H. (1921). Die homerischen Gleichnisse. Göttingen. Fränkel, H. (1968). Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios. Munich. Franchet d’Espèrey, S. (1999). Conflicte, violence, et non-violence dans la Thébaïde de Stace. Paris. Freund, S./Vielberg, M. (eds., 2008). Vergil und das antike Epos. Festschrift Hans Jürgen Tschiedel. Stuttgart. Friedrich, W.-H. (1956). Verwundung und Tod in der Ilias: Homerische Darstellungsweisen. Göttingen. Frings, I. (1991). Gespräch und Handlung in der Thebais des Statius. Stuttgart. Fröhlich, U. (2000). Regulus, Archetyp römischer Fides. Das sechste Buch als Schlüssel zu den Punica des Silius Italicus. Tübingen. Gärtner, U. (1994). Gehalt und Funktion der Gleichnisse bei Valerius Flaccus. Stuttgart. Gärtner, U. (2005). Quintus Smyrnaeus und die Aeneis. Munich. Gärtner, U. (ed., 2010). Quintus von Smyrna. Der Untergang Trojas. Griechisch und Deutsch. Übersetzt und kommentiert von U. Gärtner. Darmstadt. Gale, M. R. (ed., 2004). Latin epic and didactic poetry: genre, tradition, and individuality. Swansea. Galinsky, G. K. (1969). Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome. Princeton, NJ.

14 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Galinsky, G. K. (1975). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. An introduction to the basic aspects. Oxford. Galinsky, K. (1996). Augustan culture: an interpretive introduction. Princeton, NJ. Ganiban, R. T. (2007). Statius and Virgil. The Thebaid and the reinterpretation of the Aeneid. Cambridge. Gaßner, J. (1972). Kataloge im römischen Epos. Vergil – Ovid – Lucan. Diss. Munich. Gibson, B. (2008). Battle narrative in Statius, Thebaid, in: J. J. L. Smolenaars/H.-J. van Dam/ R. R. Nauta (eds.), The poetry of Statius. Leiden: 85–109. Goldberg, S. M. (1995). Epic in Republican Rome. New York/Oxford. Goold, G. P. (ed., 1977). Manilius, Astronomica. Edited with translation. Cambridge, MA. Gransden, K. W. (ed., 1976). Virgil, Aeneid. Book 8. Edited with introduction, translation, and commentary. Cambridge/New York. Graziosi, B. (2002). Inventing epic: the early reception of epic. Cambridge. Graziosi, B./Haubold, J. (2005). Homer. The resonance of epic. London. Graziosi, B./Haubold, J. (eds., 2010). Homer. Iliad 6. Cambridge. Green, R. P. H. (ed., 1991). The works of Ausonius. Edited with introduction and commentary. Oxford. Green, R. P. H. (2006). Latin epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator. Oxford. Gregory, T. (2006). From many gods to one. Divine action in Renaissance epic. Chicago, IL. Grethlein, J. (2006). Das Geschichtsbild der Ilias. Eine Untersuchung aus phänomenologischer und narratologischer Perspektive. Göttingen. Grethlein, J. (2017). Die Odyssee: Homer und die Kunst des Erzählens. Munich. Grethlein, J./Rengakos, A. (eds., 2009). Narratology and interpretation. The content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin/New York. Griffin, J. (1987). Homer. The Odyssey. Cambridge. Grimal, P. (1985). Virgile ou la seconde naissance de Rome. Paris. Gwynne, P./Schirg, B. (eds., 2018). Economics of poetry. The efficient production of Neo-Latin verse, 1400–1720. Bern. Habermehl, P. (ed., 2002). R. Herzog, Spätantike Studien zur römischen und lateinischchristlichen Dichtung. Göttingen. Häußler, R. (1976). Das historische Epos der Griechen und Römer bis Vergil. Studien zum historischen Epos der Antike, I. Teil: Von Homer bis Vergil. Heidelberg. Häußler, R. (1978). Das historische Epos von Lucan bis Silius und seine Theorie. Studien zum historischen Epos der Antike, II. Teil: Geschichtliche Epik nach Vergil. Heidelberg. Hainsworth, J. (1991). The idea of epic. Berkeley. Hainsworth, J. B. (1968). The flexibility of the Homeric formula. Oxford. Hardie, P. R. (1986). Virgil’s Aeneid: cosmos and imperium. Oxford. Hardie, P. R. (1993). The epic successors of Virgil: a study in the dynamics of a tradition. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (1997). Closure in Latin epic, in: D. H. Roberts/F. M. Dunn/D. P. Fowler (eds.), Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ: 139–62. Hardie, P. R. (1998). Virgil. Oxford. Hardie, P. R. (2002a). Ovid’s poetics of illusion. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (ed., 2002b). The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (2009a). Lucretian receptions: history, the sublime, knowledge. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (ed., 2009b). Paradox and the marvellous in Augustan literature and culture. Oxford.

Introduction

| 15

Hardie, P. R. (2012). Rumour and renown. Representations of Fama in western literature. Cambridge. Harich-Schwarzbauer, H. (ed., 2009). Lateinische Poesie der Spätantike. Internationale Tagung in Castelen bei Augst, 11.–13. Oktober 2007. Basel. Haubold, J. (2013). Greece and Mesopotamia: dialogues in literature. Cambridge. Heerink, M. (2015). Echoing Hylas: a study in Hellenistic and Roman metapoetics. Madison, WI. Heerink, M./Manuwald, G. (eds., 2014). Brill’s companion to Valerius Flaccus. Leiden/Boston. Heiden, B. (2008). Homer’s cosmic fabrication. Choice and design in the Iliad. Oxford. Heinze, R. (3 1928). Virgils epische Technik. Leipzig. Heinze, R. (5 1965). Virgils epische Technik. Darmstadt. Hellmann, O. (2000). Die Schlachtszenen der Ilias. Das Bild des Dichters vom Kampf in der Heroenzeit. Stuttgart. Helzle, M. (1996). Der Stil ist der Mensch: Redner und Reden im römischen Epos. Stuttgart. Henderson, J. (1993). Form remade: Statius’ Thebaid, in: A. J. Boyle (ed.), Roman epic. London/ New York: 162–91. Herzog, R. (1975). Die Bibelepik der lateinischen Spätantike. Munich. Heslin, P. (2005). The transvestite Achilles, gender and genre in Statius Achilleid. Cambridge. Heyworth, S. (ed., 2007). Classical constructions: papers in memory of D. Fowler. Oxford. Highet, G. (1972). The speeches in Vergil’s Aeneid. Princeton, NJ. Hinds, S. E. (1998). Allusion and intertext. Dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry. Cambridge. Hoekstra, A. (1965). Homeric modifications of formulaic prototypes. Amsterdam. Hölscher, U. (1939). Untersuchungen zur Form der Odyssee. Szenenwechsel und gleichzeitige Handlung. Berlin. Hölscher, U. (2 1989). Die Odyssee: Epos zwischen Märchen und Roman. Munich. Hömke, N./Reitz, C. (eds., 2010). Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Between epic tradition and aesthetic innovation. Berlin. Hofmann, H. (1988). Überlegungen zu einer Theorie der nichtchristlichen Epik der lateinischen Spätantike, Philologus 132: 101–59. Holzberg, N. (ed., 2005). Die Appendix Vergiliana. Pseudepigraphen im literarischen Kontext. Tübingen. Holzberg, N. (2006). Vergil. Der Dichter und sein Werk. Munich. Hopkinson, N. (ed., 1994). Studies in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. Cambridge. Horsfall, N. (1995). A companion to the study of Virgil. Leiden. Hunger, H. (1978). Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, 2 vols. Munich. Hunter, R. L. (1993). The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary studies. Cambridge. Hutchinson, G. O. (1988). Hellenistic poetry. Oxford. IJsewijn, J./Sacré, D. (eds., 1998). Companion to Neo-Latin studies. Part II: Literary, linguistic, philological and editorial questions. Leuven. Jauß, H. R./Fuhrmann, M. (eds., 1968). Die nicht mehr schönen Künste – Grenzphänomene des Ästhetischen. Munich. Johnson, W. R. (1987). Momentary monsters. Lucan and his heroes. Ithaca, NY. Juhnke, H. (1972). Homerisches in römischer Epik flavischer Zeit: Untersuchungen zu Szenennachbildungen und Strukturentsprechungen in Statius’ Thebais und Achilleis und in Silius Italicus’ Punica. Munich. Kahane, A. (1994). The interpretation of order: a study in the poetics of Homeric repetition. Oxford/New York.

16 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Keith, A. M. (1992). The play of fictions: studies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 2. Ann Arbor, MI. Kirk, G. S. (1962). The songs of Homer. Cambridge. Kißel, W. (1979). Das Geschichtsbild des Silius Italicus. Frankfurt. Klingner, F. (1967). Virgil. Bucolica, Georgica, Aeneis (Interpretation der Werke Virgils). Zurich. Klodt, C. (2001). Die Frauenfiguren in der Thebais des Statius. Hamburg. Klodt, C. (2003). The ancient and the modern hero: Turnus and Aeneas donning their armour, Classica Cracoviensia 8: 7–40. Klooster, J. (2011). Poetry as window and mirror. Positioning the poet in Hellenistic poetry. Leiden/Boston. Knauer, G. N. (1964). Die Aeneis und Homer. Studien zur poetischen Technik Vergils, mit Listen der Homerzitate in der Aeneis. Göttingen. Knight, V. (1995). The renewal of epic. Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius. Leiden. Knox, P. E. (ed., 2009). A companion to Ovid. Oxford. Konstan, D./Raaflaub, K. A. (eds., 2014). Epic and history. Chichester. Korenjak, M. (ed., 1996). Die Ericthoszene in Lukans Pharsalia: Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Frankfurt am Main. Korenjak, M. (2016). Geschichte der neulateinischen Literatur. Vom Humanismus bis zur Gegenwart. Munich. Koster, S. (1970). Antike Epostheorien. Wiesbaden. Kramer, N./Reitz, C. (eds., 2010). Tradition und Erneuerung: Mediale Strategien in der Zeit der Flavier. Berlin/Boston. Krischer, K. (1971). Formale Konventionen der homerischen Epik. Munich. Kühlmann, W. (1973). Katalog und Erzählung. Studien zu Konstanz und Wandel einer literarischen Form in der antiken Epik. Diss. Freiburg im Breisgau. Küppers, J. (1986). Tantarum causas irarum. Untersuchungen zur einleitenden Bücherdyade der Punica des Silius Italicus. Berlin. Kullmann, W. (1956). Das Wirken der Götter in der Ilias. Untersuchungen zur Frage der Entstehung des homerischen ‘Götterapparats’. Berlin. Kyriakidis, S./de Martino, F. (eds., 2004). Middles in Latin poetry. Bari. Kytzler, B. (1955). Statius-Studien. Beiträge zum Verständnis der Thebais. Diss. Berlin. Lachmann, K. K. F. W. (1847). Betrachtungen über Homers Ilias. Mit Zusätzen von M. Haupt. Berlin. Lämmert, E. (1955). Bauformen des Erzählens. Stuttgart. Latacz, J. (1977). Kampfparänese, Kampfdarstellung und Kampfwirklichkeit in der Ilias, bei Kallinos und Tyrtaios. Munich. Latacz, J. (2003). Troja und Homer. Munich. Lebek, W. D. (1976). Lucans Pharsalia. Dichtungsstruktur und Zeitbezug. Göttingen. Lee, D. J. N. (1964). The similes of the Iliad and the Odyssey compared. Melbourne. Leigh, M. (1997). Lucan: spectacle and engagement. Oxford. Lenz, A. (1980). Das Proöm des frühen griechischen Epos. Ein Beitrag zum poetischen Selbstverständnis. Bonn. Lobe, M. (1999). Die Gebärden in Vergils Aeneis. Zur Bedeutung und Funktion von Körpersprache im römischen Epos. Frankfurt am Main. Lohmann, D. (1970). Die Komposition der Reden in der Ilias. Berlin. Lord, A. B. (1960). The singer of tales. Cambridge, MA.

Introduction

| 17

Lorenz, G. (1968). Vergleichende Interpretationen zu Silius Italicus und Statius. Diss. Kiel. Louden, D. B. (2011). Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East. Cambridge. Lovatt, H. V. (2005). Statius and epic games: sport, politics, and poetics in the Thebaid. Cambridge. Lovatt, H. V. (2013). The epic gaze: vision, gender and narrative in ancient epic. Cambridge. Lowrie, M. (2009). Writing, performance, and authority in Augustan Rome. Oxford. Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1987). Further voices in Vergil’s Aeneid. Oxford. Maciver, C. A. (2012). Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica. Engaging Homer in Late Antiquity. Leiden/Boston. Manioti, N. (ed., 2016). Family in Flavian epic. Leiden/Boston. Manuwald, G./Voigt, A. (eds., 2013). Flavian epic interactions. Berlin. Marg, W. (1976). Kampf und Tod in der Ilias, WJA 2: 7–19. Martin, R. P. (1989). The language of heroes. Speech and performance in the Iliad. London. Martindale, C. (ed., 1997). The Cambridge companion to Virgil. Cambridge. Masters, J. (1992). Poetry and civil war in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Cambridge. McBrine, P. (2017). Biblical epics in Late Antiquity and Anglo-Saxon England. Toronto. McCall, M. H. (1969). Ancient rhetorical theories of simile and comparison. Cambridge, MA. McClure, J. (1981). The biblical epic and its audience in Late Antiquity, PLLS 3: 305–21. McGill, S. (2005). Virgil recomposed. The mythological and secular centos in antiquity. Oxford. McGill, S. (2012). Plagiarism in Latin literature. Cambridge. McGill, S. C./Pucci, J. (eds., 2016). Classics renewed. Reception and innovation in the Latin poetry of Late Antiquity. Heidelberg. McGuire, D. T. (1997). Acts of silence: civil war, tyranny, and suicide in the Flavian epics. Hildesheim/Zurich/New York. McIntyre, J. S. (2008). Written into the landscape: Latin epic and the landmarks of literary reception. St. Andrews. McNelis, C. A. (2007). Statius’ Thebaid and the poetics of civil war. Cambridge. Mehmel, F. (1934). Valerius Flaccus. Diss. Hamburg. Meister, K. (1921). Die homerische Kunstsprache. Leipzig. Minchin, E. (ed., 2012). Orality, literacy and performance in the ancient world. Leiden. Miniconi, P.-J. (1951). Étude des thèmes ‘guerriers’ de la poésie épique gréco-romaine. Paris. Montanari, F./Rengakos, A. (eds., 2006). La poésie épique greque. Métamorphoses d’un genre littéraire. Geneva. Morris, I./Powell, B. (eds., 1997). A new companion to Homer. Leiden. Moul, V. (ed., 2017). A guide to Neo-Latin literature. Cambridge. Moulton, C. (1977). Similes in the Homeric poems. Göttingen. Myers, K. S. (1994). Ovid’s causes. Cosmogony and aetiology in the Metamorphoses. Ann Arbor, MI. Nagy, G. (1999). The best of the Achaeans. Concepts of the hero in archaic Greek poetry. Revised edition. Baltimore. Nauta, R./van Dam, J. J./Smolenaars, J. J. L. (eds., 2006). Flavian poetry. Leiden/Boston. Nelis, D. P. (2001). Vergil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonios Rhodios. Leeds. Nesselrath, H.-G. (1992). Ungeschehenes Geschehen. ‘Beinahe-Episoden’ im griechischen und römischen Epos von Homer bis zur Spätantike. Stuttgart. Niemann, K.-H. (1975). Die Darstellung der römischen Niederlagen in den Punica des Silius Italicus. Diss. Bonn. Nimis, S. A. (1987). Narrative semiotics in the epic tradition. The simile. Bloomington, IN.

18 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Nissen, T. (1940). Historisches Epos und Panegyrikos in der Spätantike, Hermes 75: 298–325. Norden, E. (1915). Ennius und Vergilius: Kriegsbilder aus Roms großer Zeit. Leipzig. Nünlist, R. (2009). The ancient critic at work. Terms and concepts of literary criticism in Greek scholia. Cambridge. O’Hara, J. J. (2007). Inconsistency in Roman epic. Studies in Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid and Lucan. Cambridge. Otis, B. (1964). Virgil. A study in civilized poetry. Oxford. Otis, B. (2 1970). Ovid as an epic poet. Cambridge. Otten, W./Pollmann, K. (eds., 2007). Poetry and exegesis in premodern Latin Christianity: the encounter between classical and Christian strategies of interpretation. Leiden. Papaioannou, S. (2005). Epic succession and dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623–14.582, and the reinvention of the Aeneid. Berlin/New York. Papaioannou, S. (2007). Redesigning Achilles: ‘recycling’ the Epic Cycle in the ‘Little Iliad’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1–13.622). Berlin/New York. Papanghelis, T. D./Harrison, S. J./Frangoulidis, S. A. (eds., 2013). Generic interfaces in Latin literature. Encounters, interactions and transformations. Berlin/Boston. Papanghelis, T. D./Rengakos, A. (eds., 2 2008). Brill’s companion to Apollonius Rhodius. Leiden. Parry, A. (ed., 1971). The making of Homeric verse: the collected papers of Milman Parry. Oxford. Parry, M. (1928). L’épithète traditionnelle dans Homère. Paris. Paschalis, M. (1997). Virgil’s Aeneid: semantic relations and proper names. Oxford. Paschalis, M. (ed., 2005). Roman and Greek imperial epic. Herakleion. Peirano, I. (2012). The rhetoric of the Roman fake. Latin Pseudepigrapha in context. Cambridge. Peters, C. (2016). Mythologie und Politik. Die panegyrische Funktionalisierung der paganen Götter im lateinischen Epos des 15. Jahrhunderts. Münster. Pollmann, K. (2017). The baptized muse. Early Christian poetry as cultural authority. Oxford. Putnam, M. C. J. (1995). Vergil’s Aeneid: interpretation and influence. Chapel Hill, NC. Putnam, M. C. J. (1998). Virgil’s epic designs: ekphrasis in the Aeneid. New Haven, CT. Raabe, H. (1974). Plurima mortis imago. Vergleichende Interpretationen zur Bildsprache Vergils. Munich. Radicke, J. (2004). Lucans poetische Technik: Studien zum historischen Epos. Leiden. Ratkowitsch, C. (1986). Vergils Seesturm bei Iuvencus und Sedulius, JbAC 29: 40–58. Ratkowitsch, C. (ed., 2006). Die poetische Ekphrasis von Kunstwerken. Eine literarische Tradition der Großdichtung in Antike, Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. Vienna. Ready, J. L. (2011). Character, narrator, and simile in the Iliad. Cambridge. Ready, J. L./Tsagalis, C. C. (eds., 2018). Homer in performance. Rhapsodes, narrators, and characters. Austin, TX. Reed, J. D. (2007). Virgil’s gaze. Nation and poetry in the Aeneid. Princeton, NJ. Reggi, G. (ed., 1993). Aspetti della poesia epica latina. Lugano. Reiff, A. (1959). Interpretatio, imitatio, aemulatio: Begriff und Vorstellung literarischer Abhängigkeit bei den Römern. Diss. Cologne. Reinhardt, K. (1961). Die Ilias und ihr Dichter. Göttingen. Reitz, C. (1982). Die Nekyia in den Punica des Silius Italicus. Bern/Frankfurt am Main. Reitz, C. (1996). Zur Gleichnistechnik des Apollonios von Rhodos. Frankfurt am Main. Reitz, C. (2007). Verkürzen und Erweitern – Literarische Techniken für eilige Leser? Die Ilias Latina als poetische Epitome, Hermes 135: 334–51.

Introduction

| 19

Reitz, C. (2012a). “Of arms and men”: arming scenes in the epic tradition and in Vergil’s Aeneid, in: C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin literature and Roman history, vol. I6. Bruxelles: 5–22. Reitz, C. (2012b). Vocem fata sequuntur: Entscheidungsfindung und epische Konvention in der flavischen Epik, in: T. Baier (ed.), Götter und menschliche Willensfreiheit: Von Lucan bis Silius Italicus. Munich: 29–42. Rengakos, A. (2004). Die Argonautika und das ‘kyklische Gedicht’. Bemerkungen zur Erzähltechnik des griechischen Epos, in: A. Bierl/A. Schmitt/A. Willi (eds.), Antike Literatur in neuer Deutung. Munich: 277–304. Rengakos, A./Zimmermann, B. (eds., 2011). Homer-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung. Stuttgart. Richardson, S. (1990). The Homeric narrator. Nashville, TN. Ripoll, F. (1998). La morale héroïque dans les épopées latines d’époque flavienne: tradition et innovation. Paris. Rivoltella, M. (2005). Le forme del morire. La gestualità nelle scene di morte dell’Eneide. Milan. Roberts, D. H./Dunn, F. M./Fowler, D. P. (eds., 1997). Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ. Roberts, M. (1985). Biblical epic and rhetorical paraphrase in Late Antiquity. Liverpool. Romano Martín, S. (2009). El tópico grecolatino del concilio de los dioses. Hildesheim/Zurich/ New York. Rossi, A. (2004). Contexts of war: manipulation of genre in Virgilian battle narrative. Ann Arbor, MI. Rüpke, J. (2012). Antike Epik. Eine Einführung. Munich. Rutz, W. (ed., 1970). Lucan. Darmstadt. Rutz, W. (1989). Studien zur Kompositionskunst und zur epischen Technik Lucans, herausgegeben und mit einem bibliographischen Nachwort versehen von A. W. Schmitt. Frankfurt am Main. Sacchi, G. (2006). Fra Ariosto e Tasso: vicende del poema narrativo. Pisa. Sammons, B. (2017). Device and composition in the Greek Epic Cycle. Oxford. Sannicandro, L. (2010). I personaggi femminili del Bellum civile di Lucano. Rahden, Westfalen. Schadewaldt, W. (1938). Iliasstudien. Leipzig. Schadewaldt, W. (4 1965). Von Homers Welt und Werk. Aufsätze und Auslegungen zur homerischen Frage. Stuttgart. Schaffenrath, F. (ed., 2010). Silius Italicus. Akten der Innsbrucker Tagung vom 19.–21. Juni 2008. Frankfurt am Main. Schenk, P. (1999). Studien zur poetischen Kunst des Valerius Flaccus: Beobachtungen zur Ausgestaltung des Kriegsthemas in den Argonautica. Munich. Schetter, W. (1960). Untersuchungen zur epischen Kunst des Statius. Wiesbaden. Schmidt, P. L. (1995). Zwischen Anpassungsdruck und Autonomiestreben: Die deutsche Latinistik vom Beginn bis in die 20er Jahre, in: H. Flashar (ed.), Altertumswissenschaft in den 20er Jahren. Neue Fragen und Impulse. Unter Mitarbeit von S. Vogt. Stuttgart: 115–82. Schmitt, R. (1968). Indogermanische Dichtersprache. Eine Skizze, in: R. Schmitt (ed.), Indogermanische Dichtersprache. Darmstadt: 334–43. Schmitz, C./Telg genannt Kortmann, J./Jöne, A. (eds., 2017). Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg. Schönberger, O. (ed., 1998). Der Kampf um Theben. Publius Papinius Statius. Einleitung, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen. Würzburg. Schwind, J. (1990). Arator-Studien. Göttingen.

20 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Scodel, R. (2008). Epic facework: self-presentation and social interaction in Homer. Swansea. Segal, C. (1971). The theme of the mutilation of the corpse in the Iliad. Leiden. Shorrock, R. (2001). The challenge of epic: allusive engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. Leiden/Boston. Shorrock, R. (2011). The myth of paganism. Nonnus, Dionysus and the world of Late Antiquity. Bristol. Simms, R. C. (ed., 2018). Brill’s companion to prequels, sequels, and retellings of classical epic. Leiden/Boston. Skempis, M./Ziogas, I. (eds., 2014). Geography, topography, landscape: configurations of space in Greek and Roman epic. Berlin/Boston. Smolenaars, J. J. L./Nauta, R. R. (eds., 2006). Flavian poetry. Leiden. Smolenaars, J. J. L./van Dam, H.-J./Nauta, R. R. (eds., 2008). The poetry of Statius. Leiden. Springer, C. P. E. (1988). The gospel as epic in Late Antiquity. The Paschale carmen of Sedulius. Leiden. Stanford, W. B. (1963). The Ulysses theme: a study in the adaptability of a traditional hero. Oxford. Stoevesandt, M. (2004). Feinde–Gegner–Opfer. Zur Darstellung der Trojaner in den Kampfszenen der Ilias. Basel. Strasburger, G. (1954). Die kleinen Kämpfer der Ilias. Diss. Frankfurt am Main. Strasburger, H. (1972). Homer und die Geschichtsschreibung. Heidelberg. Strauss Clay, J. (2011). Homer’s Trojan theater: space, vision, and memory in the IIiad. Cambridge. Stürner, F. (2011). Zwischen Tradition und Innovation: Zur Struktur der Punica des Silius Italicus, WJA 35: 147–66. Suerbaum, W. (1968). Untersuchungen zur Selbstdarstellung älterer römischer Dichter. Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Ennius. Hildesheim. Suerbaum, W. (1999). Vergils Aeneis. Epos zwischen Geschichte und Gegenwart. Stuttgart. Tarrant, R. J. (ed., 2012). Vergil. Aeneid, Book XII. Cambridge. Thraede, K. (1962). Epos, RAC 5: 983–1042. Tigay, J. (1982). The evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia. Tipping, B. (2004). Middling epic? Silius Italicus’ Punica, in: S. Kyriakidis/F. de Martino (eds.), Middles in Latin poetry. Bari: 345–70. Tipping, B. (2010). Exemplary epic: Silius Italicus’ Punica. Oxford. Toohey, P. (1992). Reading epic. An introduction to the ancient narratives. London. Toohey, P. (1996). Epic lessons. An introduction to ancient didactic poetry. New York. Toohey, P. (2002). Review of U. Eigler/E. Lefèvre (eds.). Ratis omnia vincet. Neue Untersuchungen zu den Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Munich 2000, CR 52: 73–5. Tynjanov, J./Jakobson, R. (1972). Probleme der Literatur- und Sprachforschung, in: W.-D. Stempel (ed.), Texte der russischen Formalisten, vol. II. Texte zur Theorie des Verses und der poetischen Sprache. Munich: 387–8. Usher, P. J. (2014). Epic arts in Renaissance France. Oxford. Van der Poel, M. (ed., 2014). Neo-Latin philology. Old tradition, new approaches. Proceedings of a conference held at the Radboud University, Nijmegen, 26–27 October 2010. Leuven. Verhelst, B. (2017). Direct speech in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca: narrative and rhetorical functions of the characters’ “varied” and “many-faceted” words. Leiden/Boston. Vessey, D. W. T. C. (1973). Statius and the Thebaid. Cambridge. Visser, E. (1997). Homers Katalog der Schiffe. Stuttgart/Leipzig.

Introduction

| 21

Von Albrecht, M. (1964). Silius Italicus. Freiheit und Gebundenheit römischer Epik. Amsterdam. Von Albrecht, M. (1999). Roman epic. An interpretative introduction. Leiden. Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. (3 1966). Die Ilias und Homer. Berlin. Walde, C. (2001a). Antike Traumdeutung und moderne Traumforschung. Düsseldorf. Walde, C. (2001b). Die Traumdarstellungen in der griechisch-römischen Dichtung. Munich/ Leipzig. Walde, C. (ed., 2005). Lucan im 21. Jahrhundert. Munich. Walde, C. (2009). Lucans Bellum Civile. Studium zum Spektrum seiner Rezeption von der Antike bis ins 19. Jahrhundert. Trier. Walter, A. (2014). Erzählen und Gesang im flavischen Epos. Berlin/Boston. Ware, C. (2012). Claudian and the Roman epic tradition. Cambridge. Watkins, C. (1995). How to kill a dragon: aspects of Indo-European poetics. Oxford. Weber, G. (2002). Review of J. Bouquet (2001). Le songe dans l’épopée latine d’Ennius à Claudien. Brussels 2001, CR 52: 297–9. Wellek, R./Warren, A. (1948). Theory of literature. New York. West, M. L. (2007). Indo-European poetry and myth. Oxford. Williams, G. W. (1968). Tradition and originality in Roman poetry. Oxford. Wilson, D. F. (2002). Ransom, revenge, and Heroic identity in the Iliad. Cambridge. Zeitlin, F. I. (2013). Figure: ekphrasis, G&R 60: 17–31.

| Part I: Theories of epic

Philip Hardie

Ancient and modern theories of epic Abstract: This chapter will analyse the range of ancient statements and debates about the nature and goals of epic poetry, both as formulated explicitly in surviving discussions in the ancient literary critics, chief among whom Plato, Aristotle, Horace, and the fragmented theory of epic to be excavated from the scholia; and as formulated implicitly in ‘werkintern’ or ‘werkimmanent’ representations within the epic texts: performances by fictional epic bards and the response thereto by internal audiences, ekphrasis, figures of fama, etc. Questions of authority and tradition in this most authoritative and traditional of genres prompt ancient theorisation of the status and exemplarity of the two ‘gods’ of ancient epic, Homer and Vergil: topics will include the idea of the universality of Homer as source, and of Vergil, the Roman Homer; and the importance of allegorisation as a means of defending the authority of epic, and of asserting the profundity of its doctrine. The universalist view of Homer sees him as the source of all genres; ancient theory of epic is much concerned with the relationship of epic to other genres, both to other kinds of poetry within the broader category of hexameter epos (bucolic, didactic), and to other genres (tragedy, lyric, elegy, etc.). Within the genre of epic there is discussion and negotiation of subgenres, in their relationship to the ‘gold standard’ of Homer and Vergil: cyclical epic, historical epic, panegyrical epic, epyllion. The chapter will also look forward to Renaissance and modern theories of epic, in terms of their reception both of ancient epic and of ancient theories of epic. For example the protracted Renaissance debate over epic and romance picks up on Ovid’s testing of the limits of Vergilian epic in his Metamorphoses. Bakhtin’s contrastive characterisation of epic and the novel gives a negative cast to ancient epic’s claim to authority.

1 Literary history and generic classifications There is no single ancient theory of epic, no tradition of treatises dedicated to defining the nature and goals of the genre, and only intermittent evidence of debates about the proper limits and expectations of the epic poem, such as the fictional Eumolpus’ presumed reactions to Lucan’s divergence from the norms of epic, based on a reading of the Bellum Ciuile in Petronius’ Satyricon (Petron. 119–24). There is nothing surviving on the scale of the literary-theoretical quarrels in Renaissance Italy over Dante (is the Commedia an epic or not?), or over Ariosto and https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-002

26 | Philip Hardie

Tasso (does the romance represent a falling away from the Aristotelian principles by which epic proper is to be judged?).¹ As a genre (and this is true of ancient genres in general), epic is defined principally by the praxis of poets working within and against a tradition that creates expectations for both composers (or writers) and their audiences (or readers). With regard to tradition and authority, epic is marked by its position at the summit of the hierarchy of genres, by its claim to be the oldest, and hence most authoritative of genres, and by the exceptional status of the father of the genre, Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey define the genre in a way that exceeds the respect normally accorded to the early practitioners of a genre. While we have no surviving monographs from antiquity dedicated to epic, we do have treatises dedicated to Homer: the Homeric Allegories (or Homeric Problems) ascribed to one Heraclitus, and the Ps.-Plutarchan Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer.² Homer holds this position of a revered supremacy for both Greek and Roman epic poets; Vergil will come to hold an analogous supremacy within Roman epic, and the Aeneid correspondingly represents the norms to which later Roman epic poets feel the pressure to conform or from which they consciously fall away. Theoretical and literary-critical statements about epic occur in the course of treatises on poetics in general (most importantly those of Plato, Aristotle, and Horace), which naturally give a privileged place to epic; or in the course of discussions on literary, cultural, philosophical, theological matters. General theoretical and critical positions can also be excavated from the ancient scholia and commentaries;³ and critical positions on epic are also contained in the ancient lives of the poets.⁴ Epic poems themselves may be read for comment on their own poetics. Because the epic narrator does not, with rare exceptions, intrude his own personality or views into his narratives, epic as a genre is not often as explicit about its own workings and goals as some other genres, chiefly those which use the first person to speak about the poet’s aims and intentions both in the world outside the text and within the world of the text (e.g. lyric, notably Pindar;⁵ Latin love elegy; comedy, especially Old Comedy). However, some epic poets do step forward to make statements about their poems in paratextual prologues (sometimes separate from the main body of an epic, as in Claudian’s prefatory poems)⁶ and epilogues.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Cf. Weinberg (1961, 819–911 and 954–1073). Cf. Russell/Konstan (2005). Aristotle also devoted a work to Homer, the lost Homeric Questions. See Richardson (1980), Feeney (1991, 5–56), and Nünlist (2009). See Graziosi (2002). See Richardson (1985). See Felgentreu (1999).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

27

Occasionally (and, in the case of Lucan, more than occasionally) epic poets voice their own reactions to their poems within the main body of an epic. There are, however, many indirect routes into implicit epic theories through ‘werkintern’ or ‘werkimmanent’ readings. The singer or bard is a standard character in the epic cast-list from the time that Homer introduces the aoidoi Phemius and Demodocus into the world of the Odyssey, inaugurating the history of the poet in the text;⁷ the blind Demodocus, in particular, was taken as a self-portrait by Homer.⁸ In the Iliad the outstanding hero, Achilles, himself takes on the role of epic singer in his self-enforced absence from the battlefield. Another standard part of the epic tool-kit is the ekphrasis, the description of a work of art, these days read almost automatically as a visual counter-part to and reflection on the verbal text of which it is a part.⁹ The ancient scholia already took the web woven by Helen in Iliad 3, into which she was weaving “the contests of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-tunicked Achaeans, which they endured at the hands of Ares on her behalf” (Hom. Il. 3.125–8) as an artistic representation of the subject-matter of the Iliad itself. Other places where modern critics have looked for self-reflexive commentary in epic include invocations to the Muses,¹⁰ the epic underworld (viewed as a repository and ordering of tradition),¹¹ scenes of prophecy,¹² outlines of the plot of epic Fate or the plan of Zeus (Dios boule), the epic poet as Zeus/Jupiter, and personifications of Fama (such as in Vergil, Aeneid 4 and Ovid, Metamorphoses 12).¹³

2 The person of the epic poet and the sources of his poetry In the person of the aoidos Demodocus, the Odyssey introduces a figure of the epic poet determinative for the whole of the later tradition: Hom. Od. 8.43b–5 καλέσασθε δὲ θεῖον ἀοιδὸν / Δημόδοκον· τῷ γάρ ῥα θεὸς πέρι δῶκεν ἀοιδὴν / τέρπειν, ὅππῃ θυμὸς ἐποτρύνῃσιν ἀείδειν, “Summon the divine bard, Demodocus. For him the god gave special powers of song, to give delight in whatever direction his spirit stirs

7 See Goldhill (1991, 56–68, esp. 57 n. 98 with further bibliography). 8 See Graziosi (2002, 138–42). 9 Cf. Harrison in this volume. 10 Cf. Schindler in this volume. 11 See Most (1992) and Hardie (1993, 59–65). See also Reitz in volume II.2. 12 Cf. Beck and Finkmann/Reitz/Walter in volume II.2. 13 See Hardie (2012, 78–125) on Vergil and Hardie (2012, 150–77) on Ovid.

28 | Philip Hardie

him to sing.”¹⁴ At 8.73 the divinity urging him to sing “the famous deeds of heroes” (κλέα ἀνδρῶν) is named as the Muse. The inspiration of the Muse, or a Muse-like figure, is a fixed feature of epic, whether we are to take this as the actual belief of the poet and his audience, or as merely a convention to which the book-learned poet of later centuries adheres to lend epic elevation to his poetry, or as a figure to express the sense of some inner and not entirely explicable power by which the poet is moved.¹⁵ The divine inspiration of the epic poet becomes part of Democritus’ more general theory of poetic enthousiasmos, the state of having the ‘god within’, and of Plato’s theory of poetic madness (mania); the rhapsode’s claim to divine inspiration is the target of Socrates’ ironical questioning in Plato’s Ion.¹⁶ The inspired poet is the sublime poet. Sublimity is attributed to the greatest poet, Homer,¹⁷ but is foregrounded particularly in the Latin epic tradition, where the supercharged epic sublimity of the Aeneid creates a norm for much post-Vergilian epic, in imperial Latin epic notably Lucan, Statius, and Silius Italicus.¹⁸ In these poets the epic sublime is mirrored in figures other than the fictional epic bard but who have an affinity with the epic poet: for example, the manically possessed Sibyl in the Aeneid (6.42–82),¹⁹ or the priest and prophet Thiodamas in Statius’ Thebaid (10.160–75).²⁰ The greatest monument of English epic, Paradise Lost, established the ‘Miltonic sublime’ at the centre of British and European literature.²¹ Ps.-Longinus associates enthousiasmos with the sublime. He also derives sublimity from a mimesis of previous great writers whose influence he compares to the inspiration that the Pythian priestess draws from the divine vapours that arise from the cleft at Delphi, and speaks of Plato “drawing off for his own use ten thousand runnels from the great Homeric spring” (Ps.-Longinus, On the Sublime 13.2–3).²² Much later the Neo-Latin poet Girolamo Vida ends his De arte poetica with a hymn to Vergil as the poetic god who inspires the modern epic poet. In the Hellenistic period Homer had a temple in Alexandria, the Homereion, which is probably repre-

14 Koster (1970, 4–5); see also Goldhill (1991, 49–54). 15 On the epic Muse, see Detienne (1960), Laird (2002) and Spentzou/Fowler (2002). 16 See Russell (1981, 69–83). 17 Cf. Porter (2016, 360–81). 18 See Hardie (2013). 19 See Gowers (2005). 20 On Thiodamas as prophet and narrator, see Walter (2014, 181–90). 21 See Hoxby/Coiro (2016, index s.v. “sublime, the”). 22 On Ps.-Longinus’ On the Sublime and inspiration, see Porter (2016, 533–6).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

29

sented on the relief by Archelaus of Priene, showing a Zeus-like Homer worshipped by personifications of literary genres and virtues.²³ The closeness of the epic poet to divinity and the topos of inspiration receive a fresh charge in the long line of biblical epics which begins with Juvencus’ early fourth-century Euangeliorum libri IV and which turn from the pagan gods to the inspiration of the third person of the Christian God, the Holy Spirit, or to a Christian Muse, Urania.²⁴ Milton, in his own way, is as serious about the Christian divine sources of Paradise Lost as Homer appears to be about the dependence of Demodocus on the teaching of the Muse.

3 The knowledge and powers of the epic poet The divine sources of the poet give access to knowledge extensive in space and time. The poet is able to report on events in all parts of the human world, in the world of the gods on Olympus, and in the world of the dead beneath the earth.²⁵ He ranges far back in time, and has perfect recall of events long past. All this is thanks to the Muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne (Hes. Th. 53–4). Epic is the poetic genre par excellence of memory, through which it both memorialises the history and traditions of the culture, and perpetuates the glorious deeds of its heroes. These functions bring it into a close relationship with the prose genre of history, which developed later than, and in close dependence on, the Homeric poems. The relationship between epic and historiography drew the attention of later critics and theorists.²⁶ Not only do the Muses convey information to the epic poet, enabling him to be an omniscient and ‘objective’ narrator,²⁷ but they also enable him to visualise, and describe for his audience, the events narrated in a particularly vivid way (enargeia).²⁸ Homer calls on the Muses to put him in mind of all the leaders and their ships that came to Troy: Hom Il. 2.485–6 ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, / ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, “For you are goddesses, and are present, and know all things, but we hear only a report and do not know

23 See Brink (1972) and Pollitt (1986, 15–16). 24 See Campbell (1935). 25 Cf. Kersten and Reitz on the abodes of the gods and the dead in volume II.2. 26 On historical epic, cf. Häußler (1976). See also Nethercut in this volume. 27 For a qualification of the received idea that the epic poet is an ‘objective’ narrator, see de Jong (1987). 28 On enargeia, see Zanker (1981) and Nünlist (2009, 194–8).

30 | Philip Hardie

anything.” At Hom. Od. 8.491 Odysseus then praises Demodocus for his song on the fate of the Achaeans (events in which he himself was an actor), “as if you yourself were present, or had heard it from another” (ὥς τέ που ἢ αὐτὸς παρεὼν ἢ ἄλλου ἀκούσας). The Olympian competence of Homer, combined with his status as one of the earliest, and certainly the greatest, of Greek poets, encouraged still greater claims for the scope of his knowledge. The relief by Archelaus of Priene, as well as divinizing Homer, suggests that he is a universal poet, the source of all later literary kinds,²⁹ and, crowned by figures of Chronus and Oikoumene, he is a poet for all times and all places. In a common image, Homer is like the stream of Ocean described at Hom. Il. 21.195–7, from which flow all the rivers of eloquence.³⁰ For Silius Italicus Homer is the poet who “in his song encompassed earth, sea, stars and underworld” (carmine complexus terram, mare, sidera, manis, Sil. 13.788). Still more ambitiously, Homer is seen as the source of all arts and forms of wisdom, as expounded at length in the Ps.-Plutarchan On the life and poetry of Homer, possibly by a late second century AD grammatikos, and probably typical of how Homer was taught in the Roman Empire. The author sums up by saying that he has attributed to Homer “physical, political, and ethical discourse and all sorts of wisdom.”³¹ A similar status was accorded in Late Antiquity to Vergil, regarded by Servius and Macrobius as a repository of all manner of learning and wisdom. Servius comments, on the beginning of Aeneid 6, totus quidem Vergilius scientia plenus est, in qua hic liber possidet principatum (Serv. Aen. 6.1). This characterisation of the ‘gods’ of Greek and Roman epic encouraged a more general sense of epic as an encyclopaedic genre, with pretensions to embrace the whole of human culture and learning. An emphasis on the doctrinal content of epic was also encouraged by the status shared by Homer and Hesiod as founders of the Greek poetic tradition, by the shared metre (hexameter) of heroic epic and didactic epos, by the shared language of the Homeric and Hesiodic traditions, and by the fact that in antiquity didactic poetry was not given a separate generic definition, but, together with heroic epic, was ascribed to the category of epos.³² Hexameter was also the metre of the verse expositions of their philosophies by Xenophanes, Empedocles, and Parmenides. In later centuries epic continued to be accommodating of scientific and philosophical content. In the proem to his Annals, Ennius defines himself as the

29 On the generic encyclopaedism of Homer, see below. 30 See Williams (1978) on Call. Ap. 105–13. Cf. also Quint. Inst. 10.1.46. 31 See Keaney/Lamberton (1996). 32 On didactic epic, cf. Effe (1977) and Toohey (1996). See also Buglass/Fanti/Galzerano in this volume.

Ancient and modern theories of epic | 31

Roman Homer, in his report of the dream in which the shade of Homer announced to him that the true soul of Homer had been reincarnated in Ennius; appeal to the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis to explain this claim signals Ennius’ own interest in infusing his Roman historical epic with philosophical content, and inaugurates a newly vigorous symbiosis of narrative epic and philosophical didactic in Roman epic. Vergil progresses from didactic (the Georgics) to epic (the Aeneid), but Lucretius’ didactic poem on Epicurean physics, the De rerum natura, is as powerful a presence in the latter as in the former, and the Aeneid shows an awareness of other schools of philosophy, notably Stoicism, whose world-view is repeatedly aired and tested in Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile.³³ In literary terms, epic becomes a kind of supergenre: Homer was the source of all later kinds of literature, and post-Homeric epics aspire to a generic inclusiveness (on which see below). This was a view that continued into the Middle Ages and Renaissance, informing the poetics of Dante’s Commedia and of Milton’s Paradise Lost. The latter is an encyclopaedic epic, in terms of the range of literary kinds which it accommodates, and it is also an epic with a strong didactic content, teaching the truths of a Christian world-history and a Christian world-view.³⁴ According to one of the most important Renaissance literary theorists, Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558), epic is “the chiefest of all forms, because it contains all kinds of subject-matter.”³⁵ In a further expansion of the status of the epic poet, divinity and comprehensiveness combine to yield the figure of the epic poet as demiurge, creating a poetic cosmos analogous to the physical cosmos, in an act of poetic cosmogony. This idea is famously expressed by Torquato Tasso (1544–1595), the greatest epic poet of the Italian Renaissance, and an important theorist of epic in his Discorsi del poema eroico, where he says that the poet is called ‘divine’ for no other reason than that he resembles the supreme craftsman in his operations, shaping in his poem a little world.³⁶ A similar conception of the epic poet can, however, be traced back to antiquity.³⁷ The Homeric shield of Achilles was interpreted as an image of the physical and human cosmos, and Hephaestus’ making of the shield was allegorised as the creation of the cosmos by the demiurge.³⁸ Vergil alludes to this interpretation

33 Cf. Schotes (1969) and Roche (2009, 30 n. 56). 34 See Lewalski (1985, 4–5). 35 Julius Caesar Scaliger, Poetices libri septem 1.3 (Deitz/Vogt-Spira) idcirco omnium est princeps, quia continent materias uniuersas. 36 Cf. Mazzali (1977, 41). 37 There is much relevant material in Lieberg (1982), who, however, takes poeta creator in a wider sense than ‘poet as demiurge’. 38 Cf. Heraclitus, Allegoriae 43; see also Buffière (1956).

32 | Philip Hardie

and allegorisation of the Homeric shield in his ekphrasis of the shield of Aeneas in Aeneid 8, an image of the creation of the cosmos of Roman world empire, forged by a Vulcan who is haud uatum ignarus (“not unaware of the seers/poets”, Verg. Aen. 8.627).³⁹ This comes close to an equation of Vulcan with the poet as demiurge, an equation that is also hinted at by Ovid at the beginning of the Metamorphoses, where the narrative of cosmogony, the poet’s opening creation of his universe, hints at the ekphrasis of the Homeric shield.⁴⁰ Tasso’s formulation of the microcosmic creation of the poet may be indebted to Macrobius’ characterisation of the variety of styles in Vergil, who followed no guide but Nature herself (Macr. Sat. 5.1.19): Quippe si mundum ipsum diligenter inspicias, magnam similitudinem diuini illius et huius poetici operis inuenies. Nam qualiter eloquentia Maronis ad omnium mores integra est, nunc breuis nunc copiosa nunc sicca nunc florida nunc simul omnia, interdum lenis aut torrens: sic terra ipsa hic laeta segetibus et pratis ibi siluis et rupibus hispida, his sicca arenis hic irrigua fontibus, pars uasta aperitur mari. Indeed, if you carefully examine the world itself, you will see a great similarity between that divine creation and this poetic one: just as Maro’s eloquence is a complete whole that responds to the characters of all people – now brief, now abundant, now dry, now colourful, now all at once, sometimes gentle, sometimes turbulent – so the earth itself has fertile fields and meadows in one place, shaggy woods and rugged crags in another, dry desert sands here, places soaked by springs there, and part opened up to the desolate expanse of the sea.

4 The goals and effects of epic poetry When Demodocus is introduced in the Odyssey, the effect of his songs is that of giving pleasure (τέρπειν, Hom. Od. 8.45).⁴¹ The content of his songs are κλέα (“famous deeds”): in other words, another goal of his poetry is to perpetuate the fame of heroes. Epic is, before anything else, praise poetry. Servius states that the two intentions of the Aeneid are “to imitate Homer, and praise Augustus through his ancestors” (intentio Vergilii haec est, Homerum imitari et Augustum laudare a parentibus, Serv. Aen. praef.). Demodocus’ songs about the Trojan War have the further effect of moving Odysseus to tears. Odysseus is not a typical audience, since he is a chief actor in the events of which Demodocus sings, but nevertheless we see that epic song works on the emotions as well as giving pleasure. The elevated

39 See Hardie (1986, 336–76). 40 See Wheeler (1995). 41 See Koster (1970, 143–51 [“Ziele der Dichtung”]). On the particularly potent, and potentially dangerous, form of pleasure that is thelxis (“enchantment”, “bewitching”), see Goldhill (1991, 60–1 and 64–6).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

33

status of the epic poet and the vast range and profundity of his subject matter also make of him a teacher (as we have seen in the previous section). The idea that the poet is a teacher is deeply rooted in ancient thought,⁴² but the epic poet is a teacher par excellence. Thus the three officia of the orator (docere, delectare, mouere) are also regarded as the goals of the epic poet, but different critics give differing emphases. In an important passage for the history of Homeric criticism Strabo takes issue with the Alexandrian scholar and poet Eratosthenes who asserted that poets aim at psychagogia (“winning over the soul”), i.e. entertainment, rather than to teach. In response Strabo asserts the utility of poetry, saying that men of old regarded poetry as the first form of philosophy, introducing us to the art of life and instructing us, with pleasure, in character, emotions, and actions (Str. 1.2.2–3). For Strabo, Homer is in possession of vast learning (polymatheia). Horace famously sums up a view that “the poet who mixed the useful with the sweet, won every vote” (omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, Hor. ars 343), a statement about poetry in general, but including epic. When it comes to the effects of epic poetry on the emotions, many commentators on Aristotle’s Poetics have taken a cryptic remark on epic (Arist. Po. 1462b13–14) to imply that the tragic emotions of pity and fear are those proper to epic as well.⁴³ However, different epics make different demands on an audience’s emotions, and expectations in this respect change over time. Many modern readers would agree that the Iliad is a more dramatic and tragic poem than the Odyssey, and this was the view of Ps.-Longinus, for whom in the Odyssey “declining emotional power passes into character portrayals” (ἡ ἀπακμὴ τοῦ πάθους ἐν τοῖς μεγάλοις συγγραφεῦσι καὶ ποιηταῖς εἰς ἦθος ἐκλύεται, Ps.-Longinus, On the Sublime 9.15). The tragic passions are foregrounded in Heinze’s account of the aims (“Ziele”) of the Aeneid, under the headings of pathos (“pity and fear”) and ekplexis (“astonishment”).⁴⁴ The violent interventions of Juno at the beginning of the first and second halves of the poem, through the hyperbolic storm of Book 1 and the terrifying eruption from hell of the Fury Allecto in Book 7, are programmatic for this Vergilian intensification of epic emotions, which also serves a greater striving for the sublimity for which the Homeric poems are in any case the most frequently cited texts in Ps.-Longinus’ On the Sublime.⁴⁵

42 See Russell (1981, 84–98). 43 See Halliwell (1986, 263). 44 Cf. Heinze (3 1957, 466–93). 45 Cf. Heinze (3 1957, 481–93). On the Vergilian sublime, see also Conte (2007); on the Homeric sublime, see Porter (2016, index s.v. “Homer”).

34 | Philip Hardie

5 Gods and heroes Ps.-Longinus takes examples of the Homeric sublime from the actions of both gods and heroes: Poseidon striding across the landscape (Ps.-Longinus, On the Sublime 9.8), or Hector raging across the battlefield like a forest fire (9.11). Another aspect of the universalism of the epic as a genre is that it takes as its characters both humans and gods. Theophrastus may be the ultimate source of the following standard definition of epic: Diom. Gramm. 483.27–484.2 Keil Epos dicitur Graece carmine hexametro diuinarum rerum et heroicarum humanarumque comprehensio; quod a Graecis ita definitum est, ἔπος ἐστὶν περιοχὴ θείων τε καὶ ἡρωικῶν καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων.⁴⁶ Another version is that of Servius: nam est metrum heroicum et actus mixtus, ubi et poeta loquitur et alios inducit loquentes. est autem heroicum quod constat ex diuinis humanisque personis continens uera cum fictis (Serv. Aen. 1.63b–6a). A narrative that operates on the two levels of gods and men is definitive of the Homeric tradition of epic. The Homeric gods are not identical with the gods of the cults of the Greek city-states, but neither do they inhabit a completely separate world of literary fiction. Herodotus takes Homer and Hesiod as central to the definition of Greek theology: Hdt. 2.53.2 οὗτοι δὲ εἰσὶ οἱ ποιήσαντες θεογονίην ῞Ελλησι καὶ τοῖσι θεοῖσι τὰς ἐπωνυμίας δόντες καὶ τιμάς τε καὶ τέχνας διελόντες καὶ εἴδεα αὐτῶν σημήναντες, “They are the poets who composed our theogonies and gave the gods their titles, and allotted them their offices and powers, and declared their shapes.” The presence of the gods as actors in epic narratives is both a distinguishing feature of epic, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks for the survival of the archaic genre into the centuries of philosophy and of new religions. The need to accommodate the Homeric gods leads to the development of a theory of fictionality, and to new ways of reading epic, to save the dignity and credit of the Homeric gods.⁴⁷ A radical solution to the ‘problem’ of the divine machinery of traditional epic was to cut the gods out of the action altogether, as Lucan does in his Bellum Ciuile, a poem whose political iconoclasm involves human and divine actors alike.⁴⁸ Lucan’s

46 See Koster (1970, 86–7). 47 On fiction, allegorisation, and rationalisation, see below. On the strategies developed by postclassical Christian writers of epic to provide a monotheistic equivalent to the divine machinery of pagan polytheism, see Gregory (2006). See also Schubert, Bažil, and Verhelst in volume III. 48 On Lucan’s attitude to the gods in epic and to state religion, see Feeney (1991, 262–301).

Ancient and modern theories of epic | 35

epic is a historical epic, and that in itself was nothing new in antiquity,⁴⁹ but for his almost entire elimination of the divine machinery of epic Lucan was viewed as more like a historian than a poet: Serv. Aen. 1.382 Lucanus namque in numero poetarum esse non meruit, quia uidetur historiam composuisse, non poema. The poetaster Eumolpus in Petronius’ Satyricon gives a specimen of a poem on the Civil War, which is widely held to be some kind of a response to Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, and which reintroduces the divine machinery excised by Lucan. Eumolpus introduces his effort with a miniature theory of civil war epic (in fact one of the longest such statements on epic to survive from ancient Rome) at Petron. 118.6:⁵⁰ non enim res gestae uersibus comprehendendae sunt, quod longe melius historici faciunt, sed per ambages deorumque ministeria et fabulosum sententiarum †tormentum†⁵¹ praecipitandus est liber spiritus, ut potius furentis animi uaticinatio appareat quam religiosae orationis sub testibus fides . . . It is not a question of recording real events in verse; historians do that far better. But the free spirit must plunge headlong into obscurities and divine interventions and rack itself [?] for great thoughts of a mythological kind, so that the result should appear rather the prophecy of an inspired spirit than the exactitude of a statement made on oath before witnesses . . .

The term ambages can perhaps be translated as “oblique representations” (Feeney, 1991, 263), with reference to the greater distance that epic traditionally keeps from historical truth, and deorum ministeria is most naturally taken of the traditional epic divine machinery; praecipitandus est liber spiritus, ut potius furentis animi uaticinatio appareat speaks the language of inspiration, of the excited kind that we find in Ps.-Longinus: Eumolpus is in tune with the heated sublimity that characterises much of post-Vergilian Roman epic.⁵² In the ancient hierarchy of genres epic stands at the top of a kind of class system. In keeping with this decorum the human actors in epic are predominantly of the better sort: in his categorisation of the objects of imitation for different genres, Aristotle (Arist. Po. 1448a1–4) defines the persons of tragedy and Homeric epic as σπουδαῖοι (“good”) or βελτίους (“better”). The social superiority of the human actors is registered in shorthand expressions for epic, such as the reges et proelia (“kings and battles”) that Vergil claims that he was setting out to sing when Apollo reminded him that a shepherd should sing a slender song (Verg. ecl.

49 On historical epic, see Häußler (1976) and Nethercut in this volume. 50 Cf. Schmeling (2011, ad loc.), with further bibliography. 51 Poletti (forthcoming) argues for the authenticity of tormentum in his recent dissertation: “l’intreccio meraviglioso di sentenze”. 52 Cf. e.g. Stat. Theb. 1.3 Pierius menti calor incidit and 10.827–31 on the maior amentia needed to sing of Capaneus’ assault on the gods.

36 | Philip Hardie

6.3–5). This is not to say that epic is uncritically laudatory of its heroes. A critique of heroic behavioural models is built in to the genre from the time that the hero of the Odyssey survives and succeeds by learning and living up to excellences that are markedly different from those that might qualify a hero in the Iliad to be “the best of the Achaeans”. New philosophies and theologies lead to revaluations of the epic hero, explicitly when Milton declares himself (Paradise Lost 9.27–33):

30

Not sedulous by nature to indite Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deemed chief mastery to dissect With long and tedious havoc fabled knights In battles feigned; the better fortitude Of patience and heroic martyrdom Unsung.

6 Allegorisation and rationalisation The behaviour of the Homeric gods early drew criticism from thinkers who held that neither the nature nor the morality of the Homeric gods was in keeping with what should be expected of the divine. An early critic was Xenophanes, who objected that “Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods everything which in mankind is disgrace and reproach: stealing, committing adultery, deceiving one another” (πάντα θεοῖσ’ ἀνέθηκαν ῞Ομηρός θ’ ‘Ησίοδός τε, / ὅσσα παρ’ ἀνθρώποισιν ὀνείδεα καὶ ψόγος ἐστίν, / κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν, B11 Diels/Kranz). The anthropomorphic toing and froing of the Homeric gods was not in keeping with what befitted divinity: god should be thought of rather as unmoving, and as controlling the universe from a distance through the power of his mind (B25 and B26 Diels/Kranz). The most famous attack on the Homeric gods is that of Plato in the Republic harshly criticising the false myths of gods who attack their fathers and make war on each other (Pl. R. 377d4–8d).⁵³ One defence against moralising and philosophical attacks of this kind was to allegorise the Homeric poems and, in particular, the actions of the gods.⁵⁴ This approach goes back to the very beginnings of Homeric criticism. The sixth-century BC Theagenes of Rhegium is cited in a scholion as an authority for the interpretation of the battle of the gods in Iliad 20 as being in truth an allegorical representation

53 Cf. Bernard (1990). 54 On the allegorisation of Homer, see Buffière (1956) and Struck (2004). For the reception of ancient allegoresis in the Renaissance, see Seznec (1953) and Borris (2000).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

37

of the conflict in the natural world between the principles of hot and cold, dry and wet, etc. This kind of natural-philosophical allegorisation was eased by the fact that a number of the Olympian gods were traditionally associated with parts of the natural world (Zeus–sky, Hera–air, Poseidon–sea, Apollo–sun, etc.). The association of some gods with psychological principles (Athena–wisdom, Hermes–reason) further encouraged moralising or psychological allegorisation of the Homeric narratives. A third kind of allegorisation is the historical, or rationalizing, as practiced by Palaephatus’ Περὶ ἀπίστων, in which mythological marvels and monsters are explained away as figures for natural events or objects (e.g. Cadmus did not fight a dragon, but a king of Thebes called Draco).⁵⁵ The incentives to allegorisation can be of either a negative kind (a defensive response to rationalist attacks on the Homeric gods), or a positive kind, based on the conviction (see above) that Homer is a profoundly wise poet, the master of knowledge, and the source of all later developments in philosophy and the arts.⁵⁶ Allegoresis (i.e. allegorical interpretation) of poetry and, in particular, of epic is continuous from archaic Greece, through Late Antiquity, into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, although it was resisted or belittled by some scholars and thinkers. Plato does not have much time for allegoresis as a way of explaining away the immorality of the Homeric pantheon. Nor did the Alexandrian school of philology and Homeric criticism encourage allegorical interpretation, whereas the Pergamene School, of which Crates of Mallus was a leading light, did.⁵⁷ The Homeric Allegories, attributed to one Heraclitus (late first or early second century AD), expounds the allegorical method and applies it to a sustained reading of the Homeric poems.⁵⁸ For Heraclitus, if Homer expressed nothing through allegory, then he was utterly impious (Heraclit. All. 1.1). The Iliad is a continuous song of the philosophy of Homer, in which he allegorised the doings of the gods (Heraclit. All. 60.1). The wanderings of Odysseus in the Odyssey are nothing but a vast allegory, and Odysseus himself is like an instrument of all the virtues in which Homer displays his philosophy, out of his hatred for the vices that consume human life. Odysseus is the wise man who overcomes vices in the shape of the various monsters and obstacles that delay his return to Ithaca. Horace provides a similar reading in Hor. epist. 1.2, which takes the Iliad as a series of lessons in the deleterious effects of vices, anger, love, lust, etc., while the Odyssey provides in the person of its hero a useful example of what virtue and wisdom are capable of. Moralizing turns into allegorisation in Horace’s reference to a very common interpretation

55 56 57 58

For Palaephatus, see the edition of Stern (1996). For the concepts of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ allegory, see Tate (1949). See Hardie (1986, index s.v. “Crates of Mallus”). See the edition of Buffière (1962).

38 | Philip Hardie

of Circe’s beasts as images of the spiritual, rather than physical, bestialisation of man through enslavement to the passions.⁵⁹ Yet, more elaborate allegorisations of the Homeric poems were developed by the Neoplatonists of later antiquity.⁶⁰ Porphyry’s Cave of the Nymphs, an interpretation of the eleven-line description of the cave of the nymphs in Ithaca in Odyssey 13 in terms of Neoplatonist metaphysics and eschatology, is an important and influential example.⁶¹ Allegorical interpretation fed into allegorical composition. It has become increasingly clear that the surface mimesis of Vergil’s Aeneid works, intermittently at least, in an allegorical mode:⁶² Jupiter is opposed to Juno as the upper aether to the lower aer, the place of storms, such as the storm raised by Juno at the beginning of the poem. The shield of Aeneas is informed by the reading of the Homeric shield of Achilles as a natural-philosophical allegory of cosmogony (see above). The song of Demodocus (Hom. Od. 8.266–369) on the scandalous adulterous liaison of Ares (god of war) and Aphrodite (god of love) was sanitised as an allegory of Empedoclean physics about the interactions of the principles of Strife and Love. The Vergilian equivalent of Demodocus, Iopas, the bard at the court of Dido, sings a song explicitly on natural-philosophical questions (Verg. Aen. 1.740–7), as if to reveal the true nature of the song of Demodocus. Palaephatus rationalises the monster Scylla as a pirate-ship, which attacked Odysseus and his companions; Scylla is also the name (and presumably the figurehead) of one of the ships in the ship-race in Aeneid 5 (together with other ‘monstrous’ ships, a Pristis, a Chimaera, and a Centaur). Allegoresis of the Aeneid surfaces occasionally in Servius’ commentary.⁶³ For a sustained allegorical reading of the Aeneid we have to wait for the Expositio Vergilianae continentiae secundum philosophos moralis of Fulgentius (6th century), in which the career of Aeneas becomes a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress. The first fully allegorical epic is Prudentius’ Psychomachia (c. AD 400), which however brings on to the epic battlefield a cast of personifications of virtues and vices, rather than staging the allegorical journeys and battles of a hero or heroes. Prudentius draws on traditions of allegoresis both classical and Christian. Allegory flourished in both interpretation and composition of epic in the Renaissance. The Florentine Humanist and Platonist, Cristoforo Landino, commentator on Dante’s allegorical ‘epic’ as well as Vergil’s Aeneid, developed an influential

59 See Kaiser (1964). 60 See Lamberton (1986). 61 See Lamberton (1983) and Akcay (2016). 62 This is a central argument of Hardie (1986). 63 On the tradition of allegorising Vergil, see Ziolkowski/Putnam (2008, index s.v. “allegory”).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

39

allegorisation of the Aeneid.⁶⁴ Torquato Tasso provided an allegorical commentary L’allegoria del poema (1576) on his own epic, the Gerusalemme Liberata, intended as a defence of his poem against accusations of impiety, and therefore not to be taken straightforwardly as the poet’s own reading of his epic, but yet showing how his compositional practice can be situated in the traditions, to which Tasso appeals as precedents, of allegorising Homer, Vergil, and Dante.⁶⁵ With regard to the combination of external imitation of human actions and internal allegory, with which Tasso begins his L’allegoria del poema, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene tends more to the allegorical, with characters who are at times little more than schematic personifications of the parts of the Platonic soul which underpin Tasso’s allegory.⁶⁶ The complexities of the allegorical tradition, as it had evolved by the late Renaissance, continue to inform the very different kind of epic that is Milton’s Paradise Lost.

7 Fact and fiction, truths and lies, the probable and the verisimilar Allegorisation, the assertion that the superficial lies of the epic narrative conceal profound philosophical and moral truths, is one way of dealing with the scandal of the traditional divine machinery of epic. Another way is to allow that the actions of the epic gods, as well as the unbelievable or unacceptable parts of the action on earth, exist in a separate realm of the fictional. Antiquity struggled to achieve a fully developed theory of the autonomy of fiction,⁶⁷ although it did evolve a hierarchy of narrative types that distinguished between “history” (ἱστορία, historia), “fictitious story” (πλάσμα, argumentum) and “myth” (μῦθος, fabula),⁶⁸ and also formalised the idea of a “poetic licence” (ἐξουσία ποιητική, licentia poetica).⁶⁹ Aristotle went some way to circumventing Plato’s condemnation of poets as liars, observing that “moreover, correctness in poetry is not the same thing as correctness in politics, nor yet is it the same as correctness in any other art” (πρὸς δὲ τούτοις οὐχ ἡ αὐτὴ ὀρθότης ἐστὶν τῆς πολιτικῆς καὶ τῆς ποιητικῆς οὐδὲ ἄλλης τέχνης καὶ ποιητικῆς,

64 Cf. Müller-Bochat (1968). 65 See Borris (2000, 41–6). 66 See Quint (2003). 67 For a subtle account of some of the stages in antiquity’s dealings with fiction, see Feeney (1991, 5–56). 68 See Brink (1971) on Hor. ars 338–42. 69 Cf. Nünlist (2009, 174–84).

40 | Philip Hardie

Arist. Po. 1460b13–15). Petronius’ Eumolpus affirms the licence of the epic poet to deal in fabulae (see above). A recognition that poets deal in lies goes back to one of the earliest statements on poetics, Hesiod’s report that, when he met the Muses as a shepherd on Mount Helicon, they told him: “We know how to say many lies that are similar to true things, and we know how to speak true things, when we wish.” (ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, / ἴδμεν δ’, εὖτ’ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι, Hes. Th. 27–8). To make the Muses the mouthpiece gives authority and licence to the practice of the poet of epos (covering both didactic epic and heroic narrative epic) of departing from what in later centuries would be called historical truth. A rather less reputable supernatural source for the mixture of fact and fiction, but a personage closely related to the Muses, is the personification of Fama in Aeneid 4, who is “clinging to distorted fiction as much as she reports the truth” (tam ficti prauique tenax quam nuntia ueri, Verg. Aen. 4.188).⁷⁰ In the immediate context Fama is the embodiment of the rumours, half true, half false, that swirl about the relationship between Dido and Aeneas, but she is also a dark reflection of the power of the epic poet to propagate and immortalise his own version of events. There is a more particular self-reflexivity in that the story of Dido’s uncontrollable passion for Aeneas is in conflict with what before Vergil was the more usual story of a chaste Dido who upheld her loyalty to her dead husband, and this story may even be Vergil’s own invention. Ovid unpacks still further some of the implications of Vergil’s Fama in his description of the house of Fama at Ov. met. 12.39–66, esp. 12.54–8:

55

mixtaque cum ueris passim commenta uagantur milia rumorum confusaque uerba uolutant. e quibus hi uacuas implent sermonibus aures, hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti crescit, et auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor. And everywhere wander thousands of rumours, falsehoods mingled with the truth, and confused reports flit about. Some of these fill their idle ears with talk, and others go and tell elsewhere what they have heard; while the story grows in size, and each new teller makes contribution to what he has heard.⁷¹

There is the same mixture of truth and fictions, to which are added reflections on the relationships of poet to audience, and poet to poet within an epic tradition: the intertexts for uacuas . . . aures (12.56) point predominantly to the role of poetry in

70 See Hardie (2012, 134). 71 All translations of Ovid are taken from Miller (1916).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

41

entertaining or giving pleasure,⁷² while in the transmission of the subject matter of poetry from one poet to another “the fiction grows in scale”⁷³, and new elements are added to the received material. By its positioning within the Metamorphoses, Ovid’s house of Fama acts as a kind of prologue to Ovid’s ‘Little Iliad’ (to be followed by Ovid’s ‘Little Aeneid’), so that the poetics of Ovid’s Fama are more specifically the poetics of the epic tradition as Ovid looks back on it from his own vantage point in literary history. The hierarchy of narrative types according to their degree of factual truth (ἱστορία, historia; πλάσμα, argumentum; μῦθος, fabula) introduces us to the notion of the verisimilar. The second term, πλάσμα or argumentum, refers to a fiction that is like the truth, ueri simile, or, in one of Horace’s formulations, ficta uoluptatis causa sint proxima ueris (Hor. ars 338).⁷⁴ This, probably Hellenistic, doctrine of the πιθανόν πλάσμα, goes back to Aristotle’s statements on the principles of necessity (τὸ ἀναγκαῖον) and probability (τὸ εἰκὸς).⁷⁵ In a highly influential section of the Poetics Aristotle distinguishes between the functions of the poet and the historian (Arist. Po. 1451a36–b7):

5

φανερὸν δὲ ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων καὶ ὅτι οὐ τὸ τὰ γενόμενα λέγειν, τοῦτο ποιητοῦ ἔργον ἐστίν, ἀλλ’ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο καὶ τὰ δυνατὰ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον. ὁ γὰρ ἱστορικὸς καὶ ὁ ποιητὴς οὐ τῷ ἢ ἔμμετρα λέγειν ἢ ἄμετρα διαφέρουσιν [1451b] εἴη γὰρ ἂν τὰ ῾Ηροδότου εἰς μέτρα τεθῆναι καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἂν εἴη ἱστορία τις μετὰ μέτρου ἢ ἄνευ μέτρων· ἀλλὰ τούτῳ διαφέρει, τῷ τὸν μὲν τὰ γενόμενα λέγειν, τὸν δὲ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο. διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ’ ἱστορία τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστον λέγει. It is also evident from what has been said that it is not the poet’s function to relate actual events, but the kinds of things that might occur and are possible in terms of probability or necessity. The difference between the historian and the poet is not that between using verse or prose; Herodotus’ work could be versified and would be just as much a kind of history in verse as in prose. No, the difference is this: that the one relates actual events, the other the kinds

72 Cf. Verg. georg. 3.3 cetera, quae uacuas tenuissent carmine mentes (“other themes, which else had charmed with song some idle fancy”), Hor. epist. 1.16.25–6 si quis bella tibi terra pugnata marique / dicat et his uerbis uacuas permulceat aures (“Suppose a man were to speak of wars fought by you on land and sea, and with words like these flatter your attentive ears.”), and Ov. met. 4.39–41 utile opus manuum uario sermone leuemus / perque uices aliquid, quod tempora longa uideri / non sinat, in medium uacuas referamus ad aures (“let us . . . lighten with various talk the serviceable work of our hands, and to beguile the tedious hours, let us take turns in telling stories, while all the others listen”). All translations of Vergil are taken from Fairclough (1916); the translations of Horace are taken from Fairclough (1926). 73 Hardie (2012, 151). 74 See Feeney (1991, 50), with reference to Kroll (1924, 52). 75 Cf. Halliwell (1986, 99–106).

42 | Philip Hardie

of things that might occur. Consequently, poetry is more philosophical and more elevated than history, since poetry relates more of the universal, while history relates particulars.

Aristotle returns to the topic of the probable with specific reference to epic in chapter 24 of the Poetics (Arist. Po. 1460a26–9), where Homer is praised for showing how to utter lies as they should be, and it is stated that plausible impossibilities (ἀδύνατα εἰκότα) are preferable to things that are possible but incredible (δυνατὰ ἀπίθανα). In this section Aristotle also comes back to the topic of wonder and the marvellous (τὸ θαυμαστόν), and says that “the irrational” or “absurd” (τὸ ἄλογον) is more acceptable in epic than in tragedy, because the actions are not viewed, as they are on stage.⁷⁶ Horace makes room for “brilliant fantasies” (speciosa miracula), such as the king of the Laestrygonians, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Cyclops in his prescription for the good epic poem (Hor. ars 144–5).⁷⁷ One of the most striking fantasies in the Aeneid, the transformation of Aeneas’ ships into nymphs (Verg. Aen. 9.107–22) was criticised in antiquity as a poeticum figmentum (Serv. Aen. 9.81). Might Vergil have constructed the episode on purpose to test the limits of the marvellous and epic decorum? It became a central exhibit in the Renaissance debates on the marvellous and the verisimilar.⁷⁸ Torquato Tasso reconciled verisimilitude and the marvellous by defining the marvellous as the work of divinity in his Discorsi del poema eroico (see above): faith transforms a supernatural into a natural cause.

8 Narratology The narrative management of the Homeric poems is the subject of important statements by Plato and Aristotle. In the third book of the Republic (Pl. R. 392d–4d) Plato distinguishes between two narrative modes, according to whether the poet “himself is the speaker and does not even attempt to suggest to us that anyone but himself is speaking” (ἁπλῆ διήγησις, “simple, or pure, narrative”), or whether the poet “delivers a speech as if he were someone else” (μίμησις, “imitation”).⁷⁹ Epic is a mixed kind, since passages of narrative are interspersed with speeches put in the mouths of characters within the narrative.⁸⁰ In the Poetics Aristotle picks up on the Platonic distinction between the diegetic and the mimetic (Arist. Po. 1460a5–11),

76 See Halliwell (1986, index s.vv. “wonder, or the marvellous”). 77 See Citroni (2009). 78 See Hathaway (1968, 109–32). 79 Cf. Genette (1980, 162–6). 80 See Reitz in this volume.

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

43

and praises Homer for saying least in his own diegetic voice, compared to other epic poets, but impersonating through mimetic speeches of characters. Aristotle also praises Homer for the unity of plot (μῦθος) of his epics, a unity which the Iliad and the Odyssey share with the best form of tragic plot, which has a beginning, middle, and end, in accordance with necessity (ἀνάγκη, Arist. Po. 1450b26–31).⁸¹ By ἀνάγκη is to be understood “the cardinal principle of ‘necessity or probability’, which represents the internal and intelligible cohesion of the action dramatized in the poetry.”⁸² Unity is not secured by a plot based on the history of a single hero, since many disparate things happen to an individual: the Odyssey does not tell the whole history of Odysseus, but a single action (πρᾶξις) of the hero. Horace makes influential statements on the epic plot in the Peripatetic tradition in the Ars poetica (Hor. ars 146–52):

150

nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ouo: semper ad euentum festinat et in medias res non secus ac notas auditorem rapit et quae desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit atque ita mentitur, sic ueris falsa remiscet, primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum. Nor does he begin Diomedes’ return from the death of Meleager, or the war of Troy from the twin eggs. Ever he hastens to the issue, and hurries his hearer into the story’s midst, as if already known, and what he fears he cannot make attractive with his touch he abandons; and so skilfully does he invent, so closely does he blend facts and fiction, that the middle is not discordant with the beginning, nor the end with the middle.

Unlike the writers of cyclical epic, Homer does not go right back to the ultimate origin of a story, but he hurries to the outcome. In Hor. ars 151–2 Horace combines a statement on the poet’s combination of poetic falsehood and factual truth with an Aristotelian emphasis on the need for the tight coherence of beginning, middle, and end: here the point is that fictions and truths should be fitted together in such a way as to leave visible no joint between them.⁸³ The famous statement in Hor. ars 148–9 about launching an epic in medias res combines a consequence of the need for unity of the plot with an observation on psychagogia, the emotional effect of sweeping along (rapit) the audience. Related comments on the oikonomia (“plot management”) of the Homeric epics, both of which begin from events towards the

81 On the unity of the tragic and the epic plot, see Arist. Po. 1450b22–1a35 (chs. 7 and 8) and 1459a17–b7 (ch. 23). 82 Halliwell (1986, 99). 83 I follow the interpretation of Brink (1971, 223).

44 | Philip Hardie

end of the story as a whole, are to be found in the Homeric scholia and the Ps.Plutarchan On the life and poetry of Homer.⁸⁴ Horace may have in mind specifically the in medias res opening of Vergil’s Aeneid, the violent storm raised by a furious Juno and designed to work on the emotions (pathe) of the readers.⁸⁵ Both the Odyssey and the Aeneid famously fill in parts of ‘the story so far’ with flashback narratives from the mouth of the main hero. What modern critics since Genette call analepsis, together with its complement, prolepsis, a looking forward to later events in the plot, are the subject of comment in the scholia.⁸⁶ Roman epic poets inscribe references to the Peripatetic doctrine of the unified plot in their own poems. The scenes of the Trojan War in the Carthaginian temple of Juno in Aeneid 1 are introduced by the narrator as Iliacas ex ordine pugnas / bellaque iam fama totum uulgata per orbem (“the battles of Ilium, the warfare now known by fame throughout the world”, Verg. Aen. 1.456b–7), where per orbem puns on the Epic ‘Cycle’, criticised by Horace, which narrated the whole of the Trojan War in chronological order, as opposed to the partial and analeptic narratives of Homer and Vergil.⁸⁷ Ovid alludes to the Vergilian pun in his description of a personified Fama, undiscriminatingly exhaustive in her information gathering, who “searches throughout the world” (totumque inquirit in orbem, Ov. met. 12.63). Within Ovid’s ‘Little Iliad’ Fama opens a narrative of the Trojan War that begins with the assembling of the Greek fleet at Aulis at the very start of the ten years.⁸⁸ This extended retelling of the Iliad is in keeping with the plot of the Metamorphoses as a whole, an ‘epic’ which starts at the very beginning of everything, the creation of the world, and goes down to the latest possible date, Ovid’s own times. Statius’ very Ovidian epic on Achilles, the Achilleid, provocatively sets out to narrate not an Iliad-sized chunk of the life of its hero, but to “go through the whole [life of] the hero” (ire per omnem . . . heroa, Stat. Ach. 1.4–5). An argument over the unity of the epic plot is at the centre of the Renaissance debates over epic and romance, focused in the quarrel over the unified plot of Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata in contrast to the romance wanderings and interlaced narratives of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.⁸⁹

84 Cf. Schol. A Hom. Il. 1.1 and Ps.-Plu. Vit. Hom. 162. 85 Servius Danielis notes the parallel between the in medias res openings of the Odyssey and the Aeneid: Serv. auct. Aen. 1.34 ut Homerus omisit initia belli Troiani, sic hic non ab initio coepit erroris. 86 See Nünlist (2009, index s.vv. “analepsis” and “prolepsis”). Note that Genette’s analepsis is not used by the ancient scholars in this sense. On analepsis and prolepsis, see also Harrison (2001). 87 So Barchiesi (1999, 334–5). 88 See Hardie (2012, 154–6). 89 See Weinberg (1961).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

45

9 Genre and the rota Vergilii Epic stands at the summit of the ancient hierarchy of genres, regal and noble poetry about regal and noble characters. A reflection of the imperialist ambition of epic as a genre is antiquity’s view that epic is also the source of other genres, and that in some sense it contains all genres, as an encyclopaedic genre. Self-consciousness on the part of writers and critics of epic about its place within the system of genres, and about the relationship between epic and other genres goes back at least to Aristotle, whose discussion of epic in the Poetics is conducted mostly in terms of the relationship between epic and tragedy. This self-consciousness becomes pronounced in the Hellenistic period, and turns into an obsession with Roman poets of the late Republic and early Empire.⁹⁰ In the form of the recusatio poets working in lesser genres proclaim their inability to aspire to the lofty heights of epic, defined in one-sided terms as poetry of heroic warfare; particularly sublime themes regarded as typical of epic are Gigantomachy and the secrets of natural philosophy.⁹¹ These simple oppositions are seen, for example, in Hor. carm. 1.6, a refusal to write of the military exploits of Agrippa, with the central opposition of tenues grandia (“[I a] slender [poet do not attempt] grand themes”, Hor. carm. 1.6.9). Yet Horatian lyric is perfectly capable of accommodating military and heroic subject matter. Similar schematic oppositions structure statements by Vergil about epic and epic achievement in the Eclogues and Georgics. The recusatio of Eclogue 6 opposes the “kings and battles” (reges et proelia, Verg. ecl. 6.3) of the epic from which Vergil claims that Apollo has warned him off with the “fine-spun song” (deductum . . . carmen, 6.5) and “slender reed” (tenuis harundo, cf. 6.8) of his lowly songs about shepherds. The sphragis to the Georgics contrasts the rural subject matter of both Eclogues and Georgics, composed by a Vergil who shuns fame in the otium of Naples, with the epic thundering of Caesar Augustus as he forges a path to Olympus in his great wars in far-distant countries. Vergilian practice, as opposed to programmatic statement, is more complicated. The Eclogues contains poems of lofty, indeed epic, aspiration, above all Eclogues 4, 5 and 6, while the four books of the Georgics can be read as progressively charting a path in the direction of the heights of the epic

90 Rossi (1971) is an important discussion of the ‘laws’ of genre in antiquity. Genre has been at the centre of much recent work on Latin poetry: for a succinct survey of ancient and modern theories of genre, see Harrison (2007, 1–33); for a range of recent essays on generic play in epic and didactic, see Papanghelis/Harrison/Frangoulidis (2013). 91 See Innes (1979).

46 | Philip Hardie

to which Vergil turned next.⁹² Furthermore, Vergil’s three major works, all in the same metre, Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, taken together structure themselves as a sequence that ascends from the lowly to the elevated, a sequence that in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was formalised as the rota Vergilii (“wheel of Vergil”), in which subject matter, genre, and style are matched in ascending order: Eclogues (herdsmen–pastoral–humble style); Georgics (farmers–didactic–middle style); Aeneid (soldiers–epic–high style).⁹³ These three works also map out a poetic career, in which the young poet tries out his strength on lesser genres before spreading his wings for epic flight, a pattern discernible to some extent in the careers of Edmund Spenser and John Milton in English literature.⁹⁴ The contamination or enrichment of genres that is found in Vergil’s earlier works continues in the Aeneid, which contains, for example, episodes of pastoral, elegiac, didactic, tragic, and comic colouring, as well as resonances with prose genres, oratory, and historiography. In some cases there are self-reflexive cues to non-epic genres, as in the cothurnus worn by Venus (disguised as a huntress) when she appears to Aeneas in Book 1; cothurnus is the boot worn by hunters, but it is also the word for the tragic “buskin”, appropriate for a divinity who is about to deliver a Euripidean prologue to the ensuing ‘tragedy’ of Dido.⁹⁵ Milton, whose Paradise Lost is also generically encyclopaedic, is more explicit in the switch from a rural interlude in the epic to tragedy as he prepares to narrate the Fall (9.1–8):

5

No more of talk where God or angel guest With man, as with his friend, familiar used To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast . . . . . . I now must change Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of man, revolt, And disobedience: . . .

This kind of reflection on the limits and transgressive possibilities of epic as a genre is frequent in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a poem which could almost be said to practice a theory about the history and genre of epic. For example, the narrative of the rape of Proserpina in Book 5 may be read as a dynamic exploration of the relationships between epic and elegy.⁹⁶ Not all readers of epic are as open-

92 93 94 95 96

See Farrell (1991). See Ziolkowski/Putnam (2008, index s.vv. “rota Vergilii”). See Hardie/Moore (2010). See Harrison (1972–1973). See Hinds (1987).

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

47

minded as Ovid about the generic pluralism of epic: the late antique Vergilian commentator Tiberius Claudius Donatus, for example, assigns the Aeneid to the genus laudatiuum, and his commentary is a sustained exercise in reading the poem as unambiguous epic praise of its hero Aeneas. Modern readers of the Aeneid have been more willing to find ‘further voices’ in Vergil’s epic, voices that may express themselves through genres other than that of the dominant epic voice. This generic polyphony is one of the reasons why Bakhtin’s characterisation of epic as a onedimensional, monologic genre, in contrast to the dialogism of the novel, is these days often regarded a misrepresentation.⁹⁷

Bibliography Akcay, N. (ed., 2016). Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs in its intellectual context. Diss. Dublin. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The epic and the novel. Towards a methodology for the study in the novel, in: M. Holquist (ed.), The dialogic imagination. Austin: 3–40. Barchiesi, A. (1999). Representations of suffering and interpretation, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), Virgil: critical assessment of classical authors, vol. III. London: 324–44. Bernard, W. (1990). Spätantike Dichtungstheorien. Untersuchungen zu Proklos, Herakleitos und Plutarch. Stuttgart. Borris, K. (2000). Allegory and epic in English Renaissance literature. Heroic form in Sidney, Spenser, and Milton. Cambridge. Brink, C. O. (1971). Horace on poetry. The Ars poetica. Cambridge. Brink, C. O. (1972). Ennius and the Hellenistic worship of Homer, AJPh 93: 547–67. Buffière, F. (1956). Les Mythes d’Homère et la pensée grecque. Paris. Buffière, F. (ed., 1962). Héraclite. Allégories d’Homère. Paris. Campbell, L. B. (1935). The Christian Muse, The Huntington Library Bulletin 8: 29–70. Citroni, M. (2009). Horace’s Ars poetica and the marvellous, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), Paradox and the marvellous in Augustan literature and culture. Oxford: 19–40. Conte, G. B. (2007). Anatomy of a style: enallage and the new sublime, in: G. B. Conte/S. J. Harrison (eds.), The poetry of pathos: studies in Virgilian epic. Oxford: 58–122. De Jong, I. J. F. (1987). Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad. Amsterdam. Deitz, L./Vogt-Spira, G. (eds., 1995). Julius Caesar Scaliger: Poetices libri septem. Sieben Bücher über die Dichtkunst, 5 vols. Stuttgart. Detienne, M. (1960). Les Muses d’Homère et d’Hésiode. Paris. Diels, H./Kranz, W. (eds., 1903). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Griechisch und Deutsch. Berlin. Effe, B. (1977). Dichtung und Lehre: Untersuchung zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts. Munich.

97 See Bakhtin (1981).

48 | Philip Hardie

Fairclough, H. R. (ed., 1916). Virgil, vol. I: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid. Books 1–6. Translated by H. R. Fairclough. Cambridge, MA/London. Fairclough, H. R. (ed., 1926). Horace. Satires, Epistles, The Art of Poetry. Translated by H. R. Fairclough. Cambridge, MA. Farrell, J. (1991). Vergil’s Georgics and the traditions of ancient epic. New York. Feeney, D. C. (1991). The gods in epic. Poets and critics of the classical tradition. Oxford. Felgentreu, F. (1999). Claudians praefationes: Bedingungen, Beschreibungen und Wirkungen einer poetischen Kleinform. Stuttgart. Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse. An essay in method. Translated by J. E. Lewin. Oxford. Goldhill, S. (1991). The poet’s voice. Essays in poetics and Greek literature. Cambridge. Gowers, E. (2005). Virgil’s Sibyl and the ‘many mouths’ cliché (Aen. 6.625–7), CQ 55: 170–82. Graziosi, B. (2002). Inventing epic: the early reception of epic. Cambridge. Gregory, T. (2006). From many gods to one. Divine action in Renaissance epic. Chicago, IL. Häußler, R. (1976). Das historische Epos der Griechen und Römer bis Vergil. Studien zum historischen Epos der Antike, I. Teil: Von Homer bis Vergil. Heidelberg. Halliwell, S. (1986). Aristotle’s Poetics. London. Hardie, P. R. (1986). Virgil’s Aeneid: cosmos and imperium. Oxford. Hardie, P. R. (1993). The epic successors of Virgil: a study in the dynamics of a tradition. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (2012). Rumour and renown. Representations of Fama in western literature. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (2013). Flavian epic and the sublime, in: G. Manuwald/A. Voigt (eds.), Flavian epic interactions. Berlin: 125–38. Hardie, P. R./Moore, H. (eds., 2010). Classical literary careers and their reception. Cambridge. Harrison, E. L. (1972–1973). Why did Venus wear boots? Some reflections on Aeneid 1.314 ff. PVS 12: 10–25. Harrison, S. J. (2001). Picturing the future: the prophetic ekphrasis from Homer to Vergil, in: S. J. Harrison (ed.), Texts, ideas, and the Classics: scholarship, theory, and classical literature. Oxford: 70–92. Harrison, S. J. (2007). Generic enrichment in Vergil and Horace. Oxford/New York. Hathaway, B. (1968). Marvels and commonplaces: Renaissance literary criticism. New York. Heinze, R. (3 1957). Virgils epische Technik. Darmstadt. Hinds, S. E. (1987). The metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the self-conscious muse. Cambridge. Hoxby, B./Coiro, A. B. (eds., 2016). Milton in the long Restoration. Oxford. Innes, D. (1979). Gigantomachy and natural philosophy, CQ 29: 165–71. Kaiser, E. (1964). Odyssee-Szenen als Topoi, MH 21: 109–136, 197–224. Keaney, J. J./Lamberton, R. (eds., 1996). Plutarch. Essay on the life and poetry of Homer. Atlanta, GA. Keil, H. (1857). Grammatici Latini, vol. I. Leipzig. Koster, S. (1970). Antike Epostheorien. Wiesbaden. Kroll, W. (1924). Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur. Stuttgart. Laird, A. (2002). Authority and ontology of the Muses in epic reception, in: E. Spentzou/D. Fowler (eds.), Cultivating the muse. Struggles for power and inspiration in classical literature. Oxford: 117–40. Lamberton, R. (ed., 1983). Porphyry. On the Cave of the Nymphs, translation and introductory essay. Barrytown, NY.

Ancient and modern theories of epic |

49

Lamberton, R. (1986). Homer the theologian. Neoplatonist allegorical reading and the growth of the epic tradition. Berkeley, CA. Lewalski, B. K. (1985). Paradise Lost and the rhetoric of literary forms. Princeton, NJ. Lieberg, G. (1982). Poeta creator. Studien zu einer Figur der antiken Dichtung. Amsterdam. Mazzali, E. (ed., 1977). Toquato Tasso. Scritti sull’arte poetica. Turin. Miller, F. J. (ed., 1916). Ovid, Metamorphoses, vol. I: Books 1–8. Revised by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA. Most, G. (1992). Il poeta nell’Ade: catabasi, epica e teoria dell’epos tra Omero e Virgilio, SIFC 85: 1014–26. Müller-Bochat, E. (1968). Leon Battista Alberti und die Vergil-Deutung der Disputationes Camaldulenses: zur allegorischen Dichter-Erklärung bei Cristoforo Landino. Krefeld. Nünlist, R. (2009). The ancient critic at work. Terms and concepts of literary criticism in Greek scholia. Cambridge. Papanghelis, T. D./Harrison, S. J./Frangoulidis, S. A. (eds., 2013). Generic interfaces in Latin literature. Encounters, interactions and transformations. Berlin/Boston. Poletti, S. (forthcoming). Teologia della guerra civile. Il Bellum civile di Petronio e la tradizione epica latina. Rahden, Westfalen. Pollitt, J. J. (1986). Art in the Hellenistic age. Cambridge. Porter, J. I. (2016). The sublime in antiquity. Cambridge. Quint, D. (2003). The anatomy of epic in Book 2 of The Faerie Queene, Spenser Review 34: 28– 45. Richardson, N. J. (1980). Literary criticism in the exegetical scholia to the Iliad: a sketch, CQ 30: 265–87. Richardson, N. J. (1985). Pindar and later literary criticism in antiquity, PLLS 5: 383–401. Roche, P. (ed., 2009). Lucan De Bello Ciuili. Edited with a commentary. Oxford. Rossi, L. E. (1971). I generi letterari e le loro leggi scritte e non scritte nelle letterature classiche, BICS 18: 69–94. Russell, D. A. (1981). Criticism in antiquity. London. Russell, D. A./Konstan, D. (eds., 2005). Heraclitus: Homeric Problems. Leiden. Schmeling, G. (ed., 2011). A commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius. Oxford. Schotes, H. A. (1969). Stoische Physik, Psychologie und Theologie bei Lucan. Bonn. Seznec, J. (1953). The survival of the pagan gods. Mythological tradition in Renaissance humanism and art. New York. Spentzou, E./Fowler, D. (eds., 2002). Cultivating the muse. Struggles for power and inspiration in classical literature. Oxford. Stern, J. (ed., 1996). Palaephatus. On unbelievable tales. Wauconda, IL. Struck, P. T. (2004). Birth of the symbol. Ancient readers at the limits of their texts. Princeton, NJ. Tate, J. (1949). Allegory. Greek, OCD: 38–9. Toohey, P. (1996). Epic lessons. An introduction to ancient didactic poetry. New York. Walter, A. (2014). Erzählen und Gesang im flavischen Epos. Berlin/Boston. Weinberg, B. (1961). A history of literary criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. Chicago, IL. Wheeler, S. M. (1995). Imago mundi: another view of the creation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, AJPh 116: 95–121. Williams, F. (1978). Callimachus. Hymn to Apollo. Oxford. Zanker, G. (1981). Enargeia in the ancient criticism of poetry, RhM 124: 297–311.

50 | Philip Hardie

Ziolkowski, J. M./Putnam, M. C. J. (eds., 2008). The Virgilian tradition. The first fifteen hundred years. New Haven, CT.

Joseph Farrell

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic Abstract: The most characteristic themes of Greek and Roman epic are warfare and voyaging. Most epics therefore develop or examine the proposition that ‘life is a battle’ or that ‘life is a journey’. Epic treatments of both themes regard them as consummately heroic undertakings, but may present them either as unproblematically compatible with one another, or else as antithetical or complementary themes. Hercules, for instance, travels the world in what is a series of battles. For Achilles, on the other hand, a journey home stands in sharp contrast to the glorious but short life that he has chosen. But Odysseus’ long-delayed homecoming is the defining achievement of his heroic career. For Homer and most of his critics, Achilles and Odysseus are mutually incompatible, even antagonistic types of hero; yet, Vergil seems to suggest that Aeneas’ ‘Odyssean’ wandering is a necessary prelude to his ‘Iliadic’ victory. These story patterns inform not only mythic but historical epic as well, and once again in various ways. The pattern of voyage followed by war may have been intrinsic to the subgenre of ktisis (foundation) epic, particularly in the case of Greek cities that traced their origins to the colonisation movement of the archaic period. Such poems seem also to have followed the practice of local historians and mythographers by tracing the origins of the cities and peoples that they celebrated back to the heroic period (as is most clearly visible in Ennius’ Annales, despite its fragmentary condition); alternatively, they correlated historical events with mythic antecedents in a typological way (as can be seen variously in the remains of Rhianus’ Messeniaca or Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum and with great clarity in Vergil’s Aeneid). Sophisticated responses to these tendencies are to be found in Apollonius’ Argonautica, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, and in Flavian epic.

1 Archetypal story patterns A commonplace has it that there are only two plots in all of literature: someone goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. But this is really the same story told from two different perspectives, that of the traveller, and that of the people he visits. In classical epic poetry, variations on the journey of adventure are one element in a

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-003

52 | Joseph Farrell

different pair of dominant story patterns;¹ the other is warfare, perhaps the genre’s quintessential theme.² Thus, the power of epic narrative largely depends upon the intuitive appeal of two archetypal motifs, with most epic plots focusing on warfare or voyaging to state the proposition that ‘life is a battle’ or ‘life is a journey’. Individually and in combination, these twin master plots inform all surviving specimens of Greek and Latin epic to such an extent that the history of the genre demands to be written in these terms. At the same time, ancient critics regarded epic poetry through quite different lenses. Among them, a mythographic perspective regarded individual epics as components of heroic sagas or ‘cycles’ connected with specific places, protagonists, and events. But the most successful cycles achieved a Panhellenic relevance that transcended regional origins; so, for our purposes, the distinctive character of the sagas is best understood with reference not to locale, but to the kind of plot that each involved. Of what may have been many archaic traditions, three had a particular impact on literary epic. The earliest of these in mythic time is the story of the Argonauts, which begins and ends in Thessaly. It involves a collective enterprise by many Greek heroes against a barbarian ‘other’ in the extreme East. No fragment or explicit attestation of an archaic ‘Argosy’ survives, although there is good reason to believe such a poem did exist, as we shall see. The Argonautic saga is fundamentally the story of a voyage, or rather two voyages, a quest (to Colchis for the Golden Fleece) and a nostos (the ‘return home’ to Iolcus). Surviving treatments always emphasise the themes of adventure, exploration, colonisation, and mercantile or political expansion, rather than warfare as such. Next in mythic time comes the Theban Cycle of four epics for which we do have direct evidence.³ The Oedipodeia probably covered the same events as Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus; similarly, the plot of the Thebaid is reflected in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. The Epigonoi told of a second expedition undertaken by the sons of the Seven. The Alcmeonid, named for the Argive hero Alcmaeon, one of the Epigonoi, concerned his revenge against his mother, Eriphyle, who had convinced Amphiaraus, her husband and Alcmaeon’s father, to march to his doom with the rest of the Seven. The focus of this saga is the story of its second instalment, the Thebaid, which is the quarrel between Oedipus’ sons, Eteocles and Polynices, over which of them would inherit their father’s throne. The quarrel becomes a war in which the brothers not only kill one another, but also cause a band of heroes

1 Cf. Ripoll in volume II.2 on arrival and departure scenes in classical epic. 2 Cf. the individual contributions on different aspects of epic battle scenes in volume II.1. 3 On these poems, see Davies (1989, 19–30), West (2003, 38–63), and Davies (2015).

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 53

recruited from Argos and other parts of Greece to perish; and this causes the sons of these heroes to destroy Thebes in the next generation. As a whole, the saga represents warfare, in the form of fraternal strife, civil war, and conflict between the peoples of Greece, as a pointless, self-destructive means of settling nothing. The Trojan Cycle is the latest of the sagas in mythic time and the most varied and prolific.⁴ Its plot is set in motion by the fact that Zeus desired the nymph Thetis, but knew that she was fated to bear a son more powerful than his father. The stakes were enormous: Zeus was third in a series of kings among the gods, and each of the first two had been violently deposed by his son, Uranus by Cronos and Cronos by Zeus himself.⁵ He therefore married Thetis to a mortal hero, Peleus, to whom she bore Achilles. At the same time, Zeus conceived a plan to rid the earth of excess population by killing off the race of heroes in a great war between the ruling families of Argos and Troy. The saga thus represents a number of themes that were enormously important to Greek cultural identity. As the greatest in a series of joint ventures among the peoples of Greece, the expedition against Troy represents a sense of ethnic identity and shared values that result in victory over a powerful external foe. At the same time, because it is the last venture of the Heroic Age, it represents the end of mythic time and the start of a more ordinary, historical epoch, in which ‘we ourselves’ live. The Trojan Cycle is thus enormously consequential for the entire Greek conception of both past and present. In addition to these, there were probably other sagas based on other regional mythologies, and still others devoted to the heroes like Hercules and Theseus; but almost nothing of them survives.⁶ Within the landscape of archaic epic, the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey offer a substantial challenge, but also a welcome opportunity, both stemming from the poems’ exceptional monumentality. On the one hand, these masterpieces

4 See Davies (1989, 32–91), West (2003, 64–171), and West (2013). The Trojan Cycle comprised eight epics. The first (Cypria, in eleven books) began with the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the parents of Achilles, and continued all the way to the opening of the Homeric Iliad, which was the second installment. The third (Aethiopis, five books) dealt with two Trojan allies, the Amazon warrior Penthesilea and the Ethiopian hero Memnon, both slain by Achilles, and with Achilles’ own death. The fourth (Little Iliad, four books) dealt with subsequent events, including the construction of the Trojan Horse and the Judgment of the Arms. Next the Iliupersis (two books) narrated the actual sack of the city, and the Nostoi (five books) told of the homecomings of the Greek heroes, except that of the last to arrive, which is the subject of the Odyssey. There was also a Telegonia (two books) that told of a later journey by Odysseus from Ithaca to Thesprotia, which ended with the hero’s death at the hands of Telegonus, his son by Circe. See also Bär/Schedel on epic fragments in this volume. 5 The canonical account is that of Hesiod in the Theogony. 6 See West (2003, 172–285).

54 | Joseph Farrell

effectively eclipsed many other epics, not only of the Trojan Cycle but also of other regional traditions, because they grew by absorbing them. On the other hand, we can read in the Iliad and Odyssey traces of the poems and traditions that they absorbed. With respect to post-archaic epic, this same process accounts for the extent to which the Iliad and Odyssey became the essential points of reference for all subsequent epic poetry, whether of warfare or voyaging, dealing with any mythical or historical theme.

2 The Iliad, the Odyssey, and archaic epic The Iliad and Odyssey became the paradigmatic epics of warfare and voyaging in part because the Trojan Cycle in particular offered circumstances favourable to the development of two such masterpieces. The fact that both warfare and voyaging were intrinsic components of the saga – as is not true in either the Argonautic or the Theban Cycles – is of crucial importance. In addition, the Trojan Cycle insistently thematises the question of who is the greatest hero of all. In an important sense, the entire saga is a confrontation between Achilles, the irresistible warrior, and Odysseus, the resourceful voyager. The enormous cultural significance surrounding the Trojan War lends this confrontation all the more urgency and force. By the same token, the enormous prestige achieved by the Iliad and Odyssey greatly reinforced the importance of Trojan mythology as well. The narrative economy of the Iliad is such that it came to serve as a précis of almost the entire Trojan Cycle, or at least of those portions involving the war itself. This it does first by incorporating episodes, such as the Catalogue of Ships⁷ and the teichoscopy,⁸ that it must have borrowed from earlier portions of the Trojan Cycle (the mustering of the Greek fleet at Aulis and the first appearance of the army beneath the walls of Troy). In addition, as the poem draws to a close, the inevitability and proximity of Achilles’ youthful death is made palpably present by those of Patroclus and Hector, while in practical terms Hector’s death guarantees that Troy will soon fall. In this sense, the Iliad contains all the essential aspects of the warfare theme as offered by the Trojan Cycle. At the same time, it is a critical examination of the warrior as a cultural ideal. Achilles’ devotion to a martial heroism is so strong that he can recognise no other measure of human dignity or achievement. His single-mindedness sets the plot of the Iliad in motion by pitting him against Agamemnon, a lesser warrior but an older, more experienced, ‘kinglier’

7 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann in this volume. 8 Cf. Fucecchi in volume II.1.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic |

55

figure and the leader of the Greek expedition. Achilles, the consummate warrior, therefore refuses to fight, unable to accept an ethical standard that would place Agamemnon, or anyone, above him in honour. By the same token, the Iliad concentrates upon warfare to the almost total exclusion of voyaging as a heroic theme. One finds this, again, in the Catalogue of Ships, which in the Iliad does not concern the voyage of the fleet from Aulis but the size of the Greek army besieging Troy. Similarly, when Phoenix, Ajax, and Odysseus visit Achilles to persuade him to return to battle, Achilles announces his intention to sail home, choosing nostos and a long, inglorious life over the short life and posthumous fame that he had come to Troy to earn. This amounts to a choice by the hero of the Iliad to live according to anti-Iliadic values. Yet, the same episode contains the strongest expression of Achilles’ difference from and even antipathy towards Odysseus. When the latter uses silver-tongued persuasion to coax Achilles back to the fray, Achilles sees right through him, and famously replies: “I hate as I hate the gates of death that man who hides one thing in his heart, and says another.”⁹ This rebuff establishes the two heroes as antithetical, Achilles being straightforward, uncomplicated, and reliant on his sheer physical strength, where Odysseus is crafty, even devious, and reliant mainly on strategy. In keeping with the poem’s dominant perspective on life as a battle, it treats Achilles as clearly the greater hero. And it is, of course, in battle alone that Achilles must realise his heroic destiny. This he ultimately does when he takes revenge against Hector, the greatest of the Trojan champions, for slaying his beloved friend, Patroclus. In the grip of battle fury, Achilles is revealed as more than a match not only for any mortal, but even for the elements of fire and water, and nearly for the gods. In the Odyssey, by contrast, the hero’s stature is defined not by battle-prowess but by intelligence and, especially, by success in achieving his long-delayed homecoming. Where the Iliad adumbrates the end of the war by brooding over the fates of the greatest fighters on both sides, the Odyssey instead recalls its hero’s cleverness in critical situations.¹⁰ And just as the Iliad sums up what the Trojan Cycle has to say about warfare, so, too, does the Odyssey surpass any other tale of heroic voyaging. This is true in the first place because Odysseus, simply by obtaining a successful nostos, shows himself superior to the other Greek heroes, most of

9 Hom. Il. 9.312–13 ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς ᾿Αίδαο πύλῃσιν / ὅς χ’ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ. 10 Cf. the recollections of Odysseus offered by Nestor in Book 3 (Hom. Od. 3.120–9) and by Helen and Menelaus in Book 4 (4.220–89), and two of Demodocus’ songs in Book 8 (the quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus, 8.72–82, and the ruse of the Trojan Horse, 8.487–520). In addition, these episodes, which mainly concern the final stages of the war, continue the process of incorporating cyclic material into the Homeric Odyssey.

56 | Joseph Farrell

whom either perished on the journey home or met with some disaster upon arrival. References to these disasters are very frequent in the poem.¹¹ Moreover, the hyperbolic difficulty of Odysseus’ homecoming only enhances his heroic stature. Such a plot is the perfect vehicle for celebrating Odysseus’ innate qualities and for demonstrating how these develop along the way. Above all, with regard to the question of who is the greatest hero of the Trojan Cycle, it is crucially important that Odysseus’ heroism depends not on devotion to an inflexible code of honour, but on endurance, versatility, and cunning. His greatness consists not in winning every battle, but in absorbing and learning from defeat to prevail in the end. His task, unlike that of Achilles, is to stay alive at all costs, rather than die gloriously in battle. Accordingly, near the very centre of the Odyssey, Homer again confronts Odysseus with Achilles to contrast their respective types of heroism.¹² This time, Odysseus meets Achilles’ shade in the land of the dead; and when he questions Achilles about the afterlife, Achilles answers that he would rather be the slave of a poor man among the living than be king of all the dead (Hom. Od. 11.488–91).¹³ This is, in effect, a claim by the Odyssey that the choice Achilles makes in the Iliad – to forego his nostos in favour of a short but glorious life – was a mistake, and an assertion that the resourceful voyager, not the steadfast soldier, has chosen the superior life. Each of these traditions thus claims superiority over the other; but an asymmetry involving the ‘belatedness’ of the Odyssey allows the poem to thematise its belatedness to its advantage. Two episodes of epic performance, again one in each poem, figure the relationship between the kind of narrative that each represents. In the Iliad, just before Achilles receives the embassy in Book 9, he is found singing the klea andron (Hom. Il. 9.189), “the glorious deeds of heroes”, i.e. epic songs of war. This is the only category of heroic poetry that the Iliad recognises. By contrast, at the beginning of the Odyssey, we find the bard Phemius singing about the homecomings (nostoi) of the Greek heroes who fought at Troy. This disturbs Penelope, who tells him to sing something else; but Telemachus rebukes her, arguing that it is only right for Phemius to sing one of the new songs that people want to hear.

11 References to the nostoi of the other Greek heroes are very frequent. In the concilium deorum that opens the narrative, Zeus himself makes reference to the disastrous homecoming of Agamemnon, which remains a leitmotif throughout the poem (Hom. Od. 1.32–43; cf. also 11.385–464 and 24.1–97). Not much later in Book 1, the bard Phemius entertains the suitors with songs about the homecomings of those who fought at Troy (1.325–64). On his visits to Pylos and Sparta, Telemachus hears different homecoming stories from Nestor (3.102–312) and Menelaus (4.351–592). 12 Cf. Demodocus’ song about the quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus (see above) with Nagy (1979, 15–29). 13 Cf. Finkmann and Reitz in volume II.2.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 57

With this, the Odyssey acknowledges the martial Iliad as the more primal of the two epics while representing itself – a poem of nostos – as a ‘new song’, and one that is preferable to a younger audience (Hom. Od. 1.325–64). There is a second asymmetry: The Iliad must dispense altogether with the motif of voyaging, except to treat it in a wholly negative way: for Achilles to have acted on his impulse to return home would have been to confess his failure as a hero. On the other hand, Odysseus, though one of the greatest voyagers in world literature, would nevertheless be a pallid hero indeed if not for the battles and other adventures in which he prevails – not least his final battles, in which he dispatches the suitors and all who support them. Thus the Odyssey does not conclude before establishing the hero’s superiority in arms, even if his victory over the suitors is carried out by cunning, and not brute force alone. In effect, the poem presents its hero as a multivalent response to the unitary character of the Iliadic Achilles. In this sense, as many have maintained, warfare is the definitive and indispensable epic theme, while the motif of voyaging is an alternative theme that becomes heroic (instead of merely picaresque) only by virtue of the superhuman challenges that the voyager must overcome along the way. In this way, our earliest epics establish norms for the treatment of our two principal plot types. The Iliad is simpler than the Odyssey: it has no room for cunning or for new songs. It is the epic of warfare par excellence. The Odyssey is an epic of voyaging that contains many different adventures. As such, it cannot be simple. It is also a new poem, a secondary poem; but even if cunning is the defining characteristic of its hero, he must show martial prowess, as well. In addition to the cognate material that allows the monumental Iliad and Odyssey to summarise almost the entire Trojan War saga, both poems draw upon quite distinct traditions to reflect upon their main themes and to expand their frame of reference, especially in a Panhellenic sense. Again in the crucially important embassy episode of Iliad 9, the emissary who is closest to Achilles, his tutor Phoenix, tells him a story, ‘The Anger of Meleager’, to help convince Achilles to relent from his own anger (Hom. Il. 9.527–605). Like the Iliad, it is a story of honour and dishonour in the context of a great collective enterprise, in this case the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, a major episode of Aetolian mythology. Although Meleager himself kills the boar, a battle breaks out over who deserves credit for the success of the venture between Meleager’s own Aetolians and their neighbours and allies, the Curetes, led by his uncles. In this battle Meleager kills one of his uncles, causing his mother Althaea to curse him; whereupon he in anger refuses to defend his city against the Curetes. The parallels to Achilles’ situation are sufficiently clear that the story seems to be not just a convenient exemplum, but possibly even evidence of a fundamental story pattern shared by epics of warfare across regional traditions. If it is that, than Phoenix’ citation

58 | Joseph Farrell

could be taken as signalling the ambition of the Iliad poet to produce the definitive example of such a poem, not just within the Trojan Cycle, but in archaic epic in general. Traces of a fully developed Aetolian saga are lacking, so that inferences such as these must remain somewhat conjectural. In confrontations between the Trojan and Theban Cycles, we are on firmer ground. In Iliad 4, Agamemnon attempts to rally his troops by going through the ranks and speaking to their leaders in ways that seem intended to rouse the fighting spirit of each man. When he comes to the Argive heroes Diomedes and Sthenelus, he accuses them of being inferior warriors to their fathers (Hom. Il. 4.364–400) – thus inscribing them within one of the key themes that define Achilles in relation both to Zeus and to Agamemnon himself. Sthenelus replies indignantly that their fathers, who were among the Seven who marched on Thebes, failed to take the city, while they themselves, the Epigonoi, succeeded, and were therefore better than their fathers (Hom. Il. 4.401–10); and even if Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, is only a minor figure in the Iliad, Diomedes’ stature is impressive indeed. As a result, Sthenelus’ words can easily be read as asserting the superiority not only of Diomedes over his father Tydeus (himself a major figure in the Thebaid), but also of the Trojan saga over the Theban. Despite the success of the original Epigonoi, however, their name came to signify ‘belated’ and, in a literary sense, ‘derivative’ and ‘unoriginal’. At the same time, the archaic Thebaid was later imitated by poets like Antimachus of Colophon (fl. c. 400 BC), who won for himself a reputation as second to Homer in the Greek epic canon, but not at all close to him in quality.¹⁴ This is the very definition of second-rateness; and in keeping with this judgment, an epic Thebaid came to signify the uninspired treatment of a second-rate theme. This perspective is easy to understand, since the attack of the Seven was, indeed, a failure that settled nothing. By comparison, the Trojan War ended the Heroic Age in accordance with the plan of Zeus, ushering in the Age of Iron and the historical epoch. It is hard to imagine a more important set of results than that. The Odyssey, too, draws on archaic sagas other than the Trojan Cycle in ways that are even more determinative. Odysseus’ most famous adventures take place in a largely imaginary, symbolic landscape in which east and west are not so much geographical coordinates as metaphors pointing to a cosmic frame of reference; and there are good reasons to suspect that these episodes are additions to an original Odyssey tradition. Until his escape from the Laestrygonians, Odysseus commands a small fleet of a dozen ships, but afterwards he makes his way in just one. It is also at this point that his voyage takes on certain Argonautic contours.

14 Cf. Quint. inst. 10.1.53.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 59

His next adventure is on the island of Aea, the home of Circe, daughter of the Sun and sister of King Aeetes, keeper of the Golden Fleece and father of Medea. When Circe instructs Odysseus on the best way to set his course for home after he leaves her, she says that after getting clear of the Sirens – who probably figured in an earlier Argonautic epic, as they do in later ones¹⁵ – he has a choice of trying to sail either through the Planctae (the ‘Clashing Rocks’) or between the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Since she adds that only the world-famous Argo ever managed to steer a course through the Planctae, and then only with the help of Hera, Odysseus chooses the alternative. This makes practical sense, but in metanarrative terms, the poem is also signalling that it will return to the narrative arc of a traditional Odyssey instead of continuing to pursue the path of the Argo, while at the same time acknowledging how much our Odyssey owes to the story of the Argonauts. On one level, the incorporation of Argonautic adventures into an Odyssey resembles the inclusion of an intradiegetic ‘Anger of Meleager’ within an Iliad. However, these Argonautic elements serve a purpose that goes well beyond that of intertextual commentary. In the first place, by adding Argonautic episodes to traditionally Odyssean ones, Odysseus’ voyage becomes much more heroic than any previous ‘Odyssey’ or ‘Argosy’; even more, by taking advantage of Circe’s geographical and cosmic associations – as the daughter of the Sun, who dwells in the Far East, near the Sun’s risings, on the banks of the river Oceanus.¹⁶ Sailing in the stream of the Ocean itself, Odysseus is able to keep pace with the sun in his diurnal journey, starting at morning in the extreme east, arriving in the evening at the farthest reaches of the Ocean in the Far West, and returning to Aea by night, arriving with the dawn. At the centre of Odysseus’ cosmic voyage around the entire world is the nekyia, which is the actual point of this particular adventure.¹⁷ There are no convincing indications that a nekyia or a katabasis was a traditional episode of the Argonautica or of any pervious Odyssey. The most convincing theory is that the episode was ultimately inspired by Near Eastern stories like that of Gilgamesh.¹⁸ But just before Odysseus leaves the site of the nekyia, he encounters the shade of Hercules, who remarks on the similarities between them, specifically citing his own journey to fetch the hellhound Cerberus, conventionally the last of his labours. Odysseus then remarks that he lingered awhile in the hope of seeing the shades of Theseus

15 Cf. West (2005, 45–7). 16 Homer places at the centre of his poem a heroic circumnavigation of the entire world in the course of a single day. 17 Cf. Reitz in volume II.2. 18 Cf. West (2005, 62–4). See also Haubold in volume III.

60 | Joseph Farrell

and Pirithous, until a multitude of shades appeared, frightening him back to his ship (Hom. Od. 11.601–40). With these references to previous katabatic heroes, the poem appears to ‘cite’ two eschatological voyages from earlier Greek epic, whether as conceptual parallels, as specific sources or models, or perhaps as both. In these ways, one can see how that Iliad and Odyssey, in the process of growing to monumental dimensions, arrogated to themselves the major themes and heroic energy associated with warfare and voyaging not only in the Trojan Cycle, but in other archaic traditions as well. In the process, they maintained an attitude of mutual opposition, which was asymmetrical in the ways that have been stated, but remained powerful, and was even exaggerated in reception.

3 Classical, Hellenistic, and early Roman developments The influence of Homer was such that no subsequent poem in any genre, especially any epic, could escape it. This applies equally to mythological and, eventually, to historical epic. No matter its subject, no epic after Homer could avoid being read as a poem of Iliadic warfare, Odyssean voyaging, or some combination of the two. Not that epic remained an especially prolific genre after the Homeric poems attained their final form. During the archaic period, other poems ascribed to Homer were composed or written down, and the poems of the Epic Cycle, variously ascribed to Homer and to other poets, emerged from the same ancient oral traditions that gave rise to the Iliad and Odyssey themselves.¹⁹ A few additional names are known as the authors of still other epics.²⁰

19 Stasinus is said to be the author of the Cypria, Arctinus of the Aethiopis and the Iliupersis, Lesches of the Little Iliad, Agias or Eumelus of the Nostoi, and Eugammon of the Telegonia. Cinaethon and Antimachus of Teos appear as authors in the Theban Cycle, but the situation there is even more uncertain. See Bakker on oral poetry and performance of the Homeric poems in this volume. 20 West (2005) categorises the epic poetry of this period, apart from the Trojan and Theban Cycles, under the rubrics of “poems on Heracles and Theseus”, which include The Capture of Oechalia ascribed to Creophylus of Samus, two epics of Heracleia by Pisander of Camirus and Panyassis, and an anonymous Theseid, and “genealogical and antiquarian epics”, among which the remains of Carcinus’ Naupactia seem mainly concerned with the Argonautica; other titles include the Titanomachia ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth and the regional epics of Thestorides of Phocaea (?) entitled Phocais, Danais, etc.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic |

61

In the classical period, the most important contexts of epic reception were tragedy in the fifth century and philosophy in the fourth century BC.²¹ After Aeschylus’ Achilleid, an influential re-imagination of the Iliad as a dramatic tetralogy, tragedians tended to shy away from the consummately heroic, but troublingly solipsistic Achilles, although they did explore the issue of heroic education, by focusing on episodes of Achilles’ youth and that of his son, Neoptolemus.²² Odysseus, on the other hand, fared badly at the hands of tragedians, who used him as a kind of stage villain.²³ In this way, the Homeric dichotomy between the steadfast soldier and the versatile voyager and strategist, if anything, intensified in the classical period, to the disadvantage of the latter. But in the time of the Sophists and the Socratici uiri, this situation began to reverse itself, so that Achilles came to seem merely intransigent, while the flexible Odysseus spoke more convincingly to the complex challenges faced by citizens of the fourth-century polis. This process only continued, to the point that ethical philosophers in the Hellenistic period identified the heroes of the Iliad mainly as negative examples of ‘kingly’ behaviour – i.e. of engaged citizenship – and Odysseus himself as a more appropriate model of ethical self-comportment. In epic poetry itself, poets of the Hellenistic period avoided challenging Homer by drawing inspiration too obviously from the Iliad, the Odyssey, or indeed the Trojan Cycle. The most successful epicist of this period was Apollonius of Rhodes, author of that exceedingly rare thing, a Hellenistic poem that has survived in a regular medieval manuscript tradition. His four-book Argonautica illustrates the importance of the Homeric prototypes for all subsequent epic poets, along with the imitative and emulative techniques adopted by the best poets to assert control over a crushing burden of expectation. By composing an Argonautica, Apollonius might be seen as having chosen, like the unfortunate Antimachus, to circumvent the challenge posed by Homer’s twin masterpieces, and to some extent this is the case. The voyage of the Argo, like the assault of the Seven against Thebes, belongs to a different heroic saga than the Trojan Cycle, and even if we cannot say to what extent Apollonius drew directly on archaic material, we can identify ways in which he engaged with surviving Argonautic poetry by Pindar, Euripides, and others. But we have also seen that the Homeric Odyssey itself is an Argonautic poem, and Apollonius was well aware of the Argonautic element in the Odyssey. He exploited this by causing his Argonauts to ‘anticipate’ the adventures of Odysseus at every stage, and to do so not once,

21 Cf. Ambühl in this volume on intergeneric influences and interactions. 22 Cf. Michelakis (2002, 22–57). 23 Cf. Stanford (1963, 102–17).

62 | Joseph Farrell

but twice. Recall here that any ‘Argosy’ involves a double voyage, a quest for the Golden Fleece and a successful nostos. This it is certainly true of Apollonius’ poem: the double nature of the voyage is greatly emphasised by symmetrical treatment, the first two books telling of the voyage from Iolcus to Colchis, and the latter two of the return. But more than that, both legs of the journey are described in ways that emphasise their similarity to the voyage of Odysseus. Specifically, both the outward and the homeward legs of the Argo’s round-trip are modelled on Odysseus’ adventures as he describes them to Alcinous in his Apologoi. Now, the Apologoi include the episodes that Homer borrowed from an archaic Argonautica; so that Apollonius’ double imitation of the Apologoi effectively comments on the Argonautic element in Homer’s poem. This is no straightforward imitation of Homer by a belated follower, but a sophisticated instance of the ‘future reflexive’ intertextual mode, which permits a later author to produce a poem as if it were ‘prior to’ and even ‘predictive of’ an older poem on which the new one is in fact based.²⁴ Critics of Apollonius commonly stress the similarity between the Argonautica and the Odyssey precisely as epics of seafaring adventure. This is entirely understandable, but it should not cause anyone to overlook the importance of the Iliad to Apollonius’ conception of heroism. The first book of the Argonautica is mightily concerned, almost to the point of obsession, with Iliadic questions about heroic excellence.²⁵ Throughout this book, Iliadic issues and motifs are replayed, in every case through detailed intertextual permutation. The result is to invite the readers to reflect on leadership by reworking the Homeric theme of who is the best of the Achaeans, asking instead which of Apollonius’ heroes will be the best of the Argonauts. This means deciding which hero is most fit to lead such an expedition. The potential antithesis that exists between Jason and Hercules quickly develops into antipathy on the part of the latter. Fortunately, the Argonauts accidentally abandon Hercules in Mysia; but towards the end of the poem, when they barely miss encountering their former shipmate in the Garden of the Hesperides, the poet admits that if the meeting had taken place, Hercules would have killed them all. This leaves no doubt either that Hercules is a greater warrior than any of the Argonauts, or that he entirely lacks a flexible capacity for taking advantage of whatever others may have to offer. In this sense, the Iliadic elenchus of Book 1 is misleading: the Argonautica is a poem that has almost no place for consummately solipsistic warriors like Achilles and Hercules, requiring instead a hero who is, if anything, even more pliable that Odysseus himself. And in the end, of course – at least, within the boundaries of Apollonius’ narrative – Jason is more successful

24 Cf. Barchiesi (1993). 25 Cf. Clauss (1993).

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic |

63

than Odysseus as well, in that he performs a double version of Odysseus’ nostos and arrives home not alone, but with his crew almost entirely intact. Apollonius was also a prolific author of historical epics dealing with city foundations, or ktisis epics. Virtually nothing of his work in this genre survived; but it may be possible to draw inferences from the Argonautica, which reflects Apollonius’ world as defined by the spate of foundations by Alexander and his successors.²⁶ Moreover, whereas the Argonautica notably enlists both Iliadic and Odyssean motifs in a confrontation between the warrior and the voyager, it would not be surprising if the pattern of voyaging followed by warfare was symbiotically combined in his ktisis epics. In a related way, both the Argonautica and ktisis epic represent a departure from the norms of archaic, or at any rate Homeric epic, for Homer is not an aetiological poet. In contrast, the Argonautica is full of aetiology, and ktisis epic, being concerned with foundations of cities, must have been consummately aetiological.²⁷ And by treating the origin story of a people, whether this was shrouded in myth or based on historical sources, the purpose of ktisis epic was very likely to make some fundamental point about the nature of that people in the present. Because this approach involves comparisons between the heroic past and the present day, presumably encouraging the inference that the present is a worthy successor to the past, it would be a mistake to exaggerate the difference between mythical and historical epic.²⁸ As it happens, our clearest examples of ktisis epic are found in the fragments not of Greek poetry, but of Gnaeus Naevius and Quintus Ennius, the earliest Roman poets to work in this genre. In addition, both these poets treat the foundation of Rome explicitly as a continuation of the Trojan Cycle. This is the result of a process by which, over the previous two centuries or so, mythographers came to regard the Romans as descendants of the ancient Trojans.²⁹ The charter myth that warranted

26 Cf. Thalmann (2011); see also Clauss (2000), Clare (2002), and Meyer (2 2008). 27 On aetiology and genealogy in classical epic, cf. Walter in this volume. 28 Cf. Nethercut in this volume. It is entirely open to conjecture whether the various foundation epics drew appreciably upon the regional sagas of archaic epic. On the other hand, it is clear that these poems were influenced by Homer. We see this in Rhianus’ Messenica, a poem on the Second Messenian War (c. 675 BC) written about four and a half centuries after the event. Rhianus drew explicitly on Homeric prototypes to characterise the Messenians’ heroic struggle for freedom from enslavement by the Spartans; and we find this same basic technique employed in the epics of Naevius, Ennius, and Vergil (see immediately below and section 4). 29 On this process, see Galinsky (1969), Gruen (1992), and Casali (2010). Already Livius Andronicus had written his Odusia, which means that the first Roman epic of which any trace has survived is a translation of Homer. Livius, Naevius, and Ennius were all playwrights as well, which means that they were schooled in the reception of Homer in Athenian tragedy, and they produced plays on Trojan themes even more frequently than their fifth-century predecessors.

64 | Joseph Farrell

this conception is in Book 20 of the Iliad, where Poseidon informs the hero Aeneas of his destiny after the fall of Priam’s city to rule over the remaining Trojans; and by the early third century, these Trojans and their descendants had come to be identified with the people of Rome. This conception was useful to the Greeks as they struggled to understand the ascendency of an upstart people, who quickly became their rulers, and to the Romans, who gained from it both a locus standi within the traditional Greek system of heroic genealogy as well as an aura of millennial inevitability that, as it turned out, was ratified by historical events. In this way, the Trojan Cycle, already preeminent among the archaic sagas of heroic myth, achieved a new importance, which contained an implicit conception of cyclical prophecy. Just as the Heroic Age came to an end, and the historical era began with a great, Panhellenic expedition and victory over a formidable eastern opponent, so now, a thousand years later, a young western power, the Roman descendants of the vanquished Trojans, were asserting their hegemony over the Greeks along with all the peoples of the Mediterranean oecumene. Thus, Naevius in his Bellum Poenicum and Ennius in his Annales both incorporate the fall of Troy and Aeneas’ journey to Italy into their respective treatments of Roman history in ways that reflect a decisive acceptance of this mythic ancestry. As a result, epic poetry in Rome would always take its bearings from the Trojan Cycle, treating every conflict, mythical or historical, as a version of the Iliad, and every voyage, whether by land or sea, as a version of the Odyssey. The Homeric paradigms remain relevant even in the last decades of the Roman Republic, a period characterised by the “obsolescence of epic”.³⁰ The most interesting poets at this time deliberately cultivated several species of anti-epic. Lucretius’ didactic poem on the nature of the universe is a key example.³¹ By virtue of its length and hyper-Ennian style, it invited comparison with the Annales and with Homer, Ennius’ avowed model. And Lucretius praises Epicurus for winning greater triumphs than military victors like Pyrrhus and Scipio, for being a greater civilising force than Hercules, and for conducting an intellectual voyage, far greater than that of Odysseus, through the entire universe.³² Lucretius thus draws on epic motifs of warfare and voyaging in the service of expounding an extremely anti-epic philosophical system. Catullus, a contemporary of Lucretius, also takes a sceptical approach as he conjures with both of the archetypal Homeric plots. Unlike Lucretius, he takes his bearings not from Ennius’ Annales but from the shorter epics or epyllia and from 30 Otis (1964, 5–40). 31 On epic and didactic poetry, see Buglass/Fanti/Galzerano in this volume. 32 The motifs of triumph and intellectual exploration are combined at Lucr. 1.62–79; the comparison with Hercules and other culture heroes appears at 5.13–54.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic |

65

the stylistic ideals promulgated and practiced by the Alexandrian poets, especially Callimachus.³³ We can only guess at how closely Catullus’ masterpiece, Carmen 64, resembled the works of like-minded friends, like the Zmyrna of Gaius Helvius Cinna or the Io of Gaius Licinius Calvus. If one can draw inferences from these titles and from subsequent treatments of the same themes, it seems possible that heroic journeys were plot-elements in both these poems, however obliquely related to the principal theme of love, but it is hard to imagine that they had much time for Iliadic warfare. In fact, it seems likely that a rejection of martial values, as in Lucretius, was an important element of these poems, and that the theme of warfare was supplanted by that of love – though here, too, Cinna and Calvus may have shared with Lucretius a certain scepticism about the life of love, even if they must have presented their case in a very different way. Catullus is part of the same world, but Carmen 64 is remarkable in taking on the theme of love while addressing the heroic values of the Odyssean quest as well as those of Iliadic warfare. Catullus opens with the voyage of the Argo – the prototype of Odysseus’ nostos, as we have seen – and, specifically, with the moment when Peleus and Thetis first saw one another (Catull. 64.1–21). He moves briskly on to their wedding, which places the reader right at the beginning of the Trojan Cycle, which in Homer concludes with the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope. But instead of a permanently happy resolution, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis takes place under a cloud of ominous warnings. One of these is a wedding gift, a tapestry depicting another instance of seafaring and the erotic union involving Theseus and Ariadne, which ends with Theseus’ abandoning her (Catull. 64.47–206). The second troubling omen is the song of the Parcae (or Fates), which concludes the poem by predicting the carnage that Achilles, the offspring of Peleus and Thetis’ union, will wreak havoc on Greeks and Trojans alike (Catull. 64.303–408). In this way, the poem grapples with both of Homer’s foundational epic plots, brings them together in a remarkable tour de force, and does so in a way that voices extreme scepticism about the entire value system represented by heroic poetry. Catullus works entirely within mythical paradigms, but strong thematic parallels between this poem and the rest of his œuvre³⁴ lend these mythical paradigms a strong relevance to contemporary historical realities.³⁵

33 On Greek and Roman epyllia, see Finkmann and Hömke in this volume. 34 For instance, his own sense of erotic rejection by Lesbia, the association of Troy with his brother’s death as well as the death of so many heroes, his evident fascination with lessons learned from travel, and his ostentatious disgust with business of administering an empire. 35 Cf. Putnam (1961) and Konstan (1977).

66 | Joseph Farrell

4 Vergil and his contemporaries It was against this background that Vergil began his career and became the poet who would eventually write the Aeneid. His first work, a collection of ten Eclogues (or Bucolics), is another kind of anti-epic collection in the Hellenistic and Neoteric manner, but it does repeatedly allude to epic themes and motifs. This is especially evident in Eclogue 4 and 6, which are frank explorations of ideas that lie beyond the usual confines of pastoral or bucolic poetry. To name only the most obvious elements, Eclogue 4 predicts that the future has in store another Argonautic voyage and that Achilles will go again to Troy; and in Eclogue 6, the Song of Silenus begins with prominently Argonautic themes, while making near its conclusion a sophisticated reference to the Scylla of the Odyssey as an erotic heroine.³⁶ Other poems in the collection present travel and militarism as negative forces antithetical to the world of the Eclogues – or the world as the poet of the Eclogues would prefer to imagine it – especially in the framing Eclogues 1 and 9.³⁷ Horace, whose Satires (or Sermones) were written not long after the Eclogues – he may even have begun them before Vergil’s collection was complete – probably published his first poetry book as a collection of ten Satires, also in hexameters, in response to Vergil’s example.³⁸ Like the Eclogues, the Satires distinguish themselves pointedly from the epic of Homer and Ennius, even as they, too, borrow the epic motifs of journey and battle in quite sophisticated ways: journey, outstandingly, in Satire 5, in which Horace accompanies Maecenas on an overland voyage to a diplomatic conference in Brundisium, a poem modelled on an earlier travel satire by Lucilius; battle almost surreptitiously in Satire 7, a quasi-legal altercation set in the military camp of Brutus the Liberator shortly before Philippi. Both poems point unmistakably to the expectation that the tense peace of the triumviral years could not but give way to another round of civil war, as in fact it was soon to do. In such different ways, both these books of ten short, ostensibly anti-epic poems draw upon readers’ Iliadic and Odyssean paradigms to put mythical and historical subjects in the service of commenting on current events and their likely outcome in the very near future. At the end of his own libellus, Horace praises Vergil as the best contemporary poet of molle atque facetum (sc. epos), of “gentle, witty epic”, which seems, es-

36 Cf. Verg. ecl. 4.34–6 and 6.43–4 (the Hylas episode). 37 Cf. Verg. ecl. 1.64–78 (Meliboeus, in dialogue with Tityrus, anticipates a journey into exile at the end of the earth after his lands are taken from him), 9.2–6 (Moeris reintroduces the theme of dispossession and exile in conversation with Lycidas). 38 Cf. Putnam (1996), Reckford (1999), and Zetzel (2002).

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic |

67

pecially to modern ears, almost a contradiction in terms. But when in the same passage Horace contrasts Vergil’s efforts with the “brave, spirited epic” (forte epos acer) of his and Vergil’s friend, Varius Rufus, it seems very unlikely that he was praising Varius as a more frankly Homeric poet (Hor. sat. 1.10.43–5). We know very little about Varius’ poem beyond its title, De morte (“On Death”), which it shared with a philosophical treatise by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, the head of a school in Herculaneum. Vergil, Horace, Varius, and other literary friends apparently met Philodemus there, and the philosopher later dedicated at least one of his works (De adulatione, “On Flattery”) to them.³⁹ Thus it is a very reasonable inference that Varius’ epic, though written in a more serious and sublime style than the Eclogues or the Sermones, was a kind of didactic poem, more Lucretian than Ennian or Homeric, and quite possibly not a poem that it would be useful for us to group with conventional epics of quest or battle.⁴⁰ The Battle of Actium in 31 BC ended the tense stalemate of the triumviral years and introduced a briefer period of anxious expectation. Horace published a second book of Satires shortly thereafter; it includes a burlesque nekyia featuring Odysseus and Tiresias (Hor. sat. 2.5), along with a few other mock-epic touches. However, Vergil’s nearly contemporary Georgics would prove to be the most ambitious Homeric essay in some decades. This four-book didactic poem is ostensibly a verse treatise on farming, but is easily recognised as a profound meditation on man’s place in the universe and on what might be done to regenerate a just society. Like Satires 2, it was written mainly during the triumviral years, and it fully reflects the uncertainty of those times. But it was not finished until after Actium, so that it also reveals a measure of hope for the future as well as real uncertainty about what the young Caesar, now victor in a civil war, will do next.⁴¹ This is not the place to address fully the poem’s extensive engagement with Homer. Long considered simply as Vergil’s attempt to make himself the Roman Hesiod, the poem largely leaves behind formal imitation of Works and Days by the end of Book 1, developing a polyphonous approach to poetic and prose models from which Homer emerges at last as the leading voice.⁴² Iliadic and Odyssean themes are in fact woven throughout the poem, but they emerge with great force and clarity in Book 4. There an account of beekeeping represents the hive as analogous to a human city (and specifically to Rome), and the bees as both Odyssean wanderers and Iliadic warriors in ways that draw upon mock-epic conventions without obscuring an underlying seriousness of purpose. Later in the book, the virtuosic concluding tale 39 Cf. Gigante (1995, 47) and Farrell (2014). 40 Cf. Gigante (1995, 47). 41 Cf. Nappa (2005). 42 Cf. Farrell (1991) and Gale (2000).

68 | Joseph Farrell

of Aristaeus, Orpheus, and Eurydice combines references to specific, emblematic scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey (for example, Achilles’ acceptance of new armour from Thetis; Odysseus’ nekyia) in a way that forges Homer’s contrasting themes into an unexpected, even astonishing unity.⁴³ If one can form a general judgment on the basis of what happens to have survived, then, the best and most imaginative epic poetry written during the second half of the first century BC took various forms of alternative epic – didactic, erotic, ‘humble’ bucolic, or satirical parody – and still, the essential Homeric story patterns remain very much in evidence. When Vergil turned to epic in a frankly heroic mode, he produced, over the course of a decade during which the victor of Actium was establishing himself as Augustus, a poem that engages as no one had ever done before, or would do since, with the story patterns of both Homeric masterpieces in the fullest possible way.⁴⁴ The Aeneid also pays due attention to the Argonautic character of Odysseus’ and Aeneas’ voyages through reference to Apollonius’ poem, while at the same time incorporating elements of both the Naevian and Ennian approaches to ktisis epic, reflecting on the entire history of Rome and its empire while paying special attention to the mythical origins of the new ruler’s ancestors and to his recent victory over all opponents.⁴⁵ In the Aeneid, neither voyaging nor warfare is in any sense a tangential or merely metaphorical motif. Both are symbolic: the life and career of the mythical hero Aeneas, along with that of his historical descendant Augustus, Vergil’s contemporary, and the historical experience of an entire people, from their pre-Roman period of legendary wandering as refugees from the Trojan War, to the notional fulfilment of their destiny as an imperial power bestowed by fate – a fate best articulated when Anchises enjoins Aeneas, and every Roman, “to impose the habit of peace, to spare the humbled and war down the proud.”⁴⁶

5 Post-Vergilian epic One could say that the Aeneid was a glorious aberration, and that conventional epic remained ‘obsolete’ as Vergil’s successors continued to devise imaginative approaches to the genre. The first of these were Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Lucan’s

43 Cf. Farrell (1991) and Morgan (1999). 44 Knauer (1964) remains the fundamental study. 45 See Nelis (2001) on Apollonius, Buchheit (1963) on Naevius, as well as Norden (1915) and Goldschmidt (2013) on Ennius. 46 Verg. Aen. 6.853 parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic |

69

Bellum Ciuile, both decidedly heterodox in respect to generic convention and to the Aeneid in particular. Then the Flavian period returned to a style that is superficially more conventional and more Vergilian, but that represents still another reinterpretation of the genre. In the Metamorphoses, Ovid looks beyond epic to draw inspiration from cosmogony, mythography, and universal history.⁴⁷ Indeed, the poem’s structure, which moves from the creation of the universe through mythical time to the author’s present, resembles that of a mythological encyclopaedia, such as the Bibliotheca once erroneously attributed to Apollodorus of Athens.⁴⁸ This framework allows Ovid to incorporate all of the principal heroic sagas and all the most prestigious epic poems of earlier antiquity, together with important contributions from tragedy. Thus, in just two books (Metamorphoses 3–4), he recites almost the entire Theban Cycle within a structure largely adapted from Euripides’ Bacchae. This episode has been seen as the first post-Vergilian essay in ktisis epic because it begins with Cadmus’ foundation of Thebes, thus inviting comparison between Thebes and Rome.⁴⁹ In Book 7, Ovid treats the Argonautic saga largely as the story of Medea, a character who accompanied the poet throughout his career.⁵⁰ With her escape to Athens at the end of the book, the focus shifts to the heroic careers of Theseus and Hercules before Ovid transitions into a highly asymmetrical rendition of the entire Trojan Saga, de-emphasising material from the Iliad and Odyssey in favour of the Cyclic poems and, once again, tragedy.⁵¹ At this point Ovid departs decisively from the pattern represented by Ps.Apollodorus. The latter concludes his survey with the Trojan Cycle, the boundary between mythical and historical time. Ovid instead transitions seamlessly from Memnon’s death, an episode of the Cyclic Aethiopis, to his ‘Little Aeneid’, a masterly reworking of Vergil’s masterpiece in a completely different key. He all but ignores Dido and Lavinia, while nevertheless greatly emphasising the theme of love.⁵² From Aeneas’ voyage Ovid moves on to Roman history as far as the apotheosis of

47 Cf. Wheeler (2002). See also Sharrock in this volume. 48 Apollodorus belongs to the second century BC, while the Bibliotheca is of imperial date, and certainly post-Ovidian, but its structure is assumed to depend on an earlier source, possibly the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women; see West (1985). Cole (2004) and Cole (2008) develop the observations of earlier scholars regarding this similarity, but emphasise time over genealogy as a structural principle. 49 Cf. Hardie (1990). 50 Cf. Hinds (1993). 51 An important contribution from tragedy is the episode of Ajax and Odysseus’ contest for the arms of Achilles, which had been the subject of tragedies by (probably) Aeschylus and both Accius and Pacuvius. 52 Cf. Galinsky (1975, 217–51), Nagle (1988), and Farrell (1992).

70 | Joseph Farrell

Julius Caesar, which Caesar is said to deserve primarily because he is the (adoptive) father of Augustus. In this way, having begun with the creation of the world out of elemental chaos and having continued with a ‘comprehensive’ survey of the Greek myths, Ovid represents the foundation of Rome and its refoundation in the Augustan regime as the culminating episodes of both natural philosophy and the human experience. Perhaps in reference to the pax Augusta that prevailed in the years when the poem was written, Ovid handles the indispensable epic motif of warfare with a certain irony, as in the comical mock-epic warfare between Perseus and his uncle Acrisius (Book 4), the erotically inflected hunt for the Calydonian Boar (Book 8), or battles featuring two invulnerable warriors, Caeneus and Cycnus (Book 12). However, where one might most expect to find it, warfare is actually eliminated.⁵³ For instance, Ovid’s ‘comprehensive’ treatment of the Theban Cycle manages to ignore the assaults of the Seven and the Epigonoi altogether.⁵⁴ By the same token, the ‘Little Aeneid’ is represented not in the form of an Odyssey followed by an Iliad, but mainly as a voyage along an itinerary made familiar many times in the poem, a pattern of migration from east to west. This is inscribed in the cosmic order by the Sun’s daily journey across the sky and in the stories of numerous individuals, such as Daphne, Phaethon, Bacchus, Ino, Daedalus, Evander,⁵⁵ Pythagoras, and Asclepius. Notably, the destination of many of travellers is Italy, and even Rome; in Daphne’s case it is the house of Augustus itself. Thus the motif of the heroic journey instantiates the theme of translatio imperii (while of course taking many other forms as well).⁵⁶ It would take more time before Lucan could devise yet another new approach to epic by focusing relentlessly on a single, epochal event, the war that ended the Roman Republic. In his Bellum Ciuile, Lucan largely eschews mythic materials, and with them any serious reference to the heroic ancestors and founders of Rome. Instead, he represents Julius Caesar, victorious in the civil war that he waged against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, less as the founder of a dynasty still in power

53 For a more detailed discussion of battle scenes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, cf. Sharrock in this volume. 54 Only many books later are Eteocles and Polynices ‘named’, very obliquely and in passing, and Oedipus himself even more so, at Ov. met. 15.429, a passage evidently noted and cited by Lucan. 8.407 and Stat. Theb. 1.313 et passim. 55 On Evander, see Fantham (1992), Labate (2003), Labate (2010, 157–92), and Farrell (2013, 239–50). 56 Some of these include the gadfly-driven wanderings of Io (Ov. met. 1.722–37), Phaethon’s journey to the palace of the Sun (which is elided by the transition between Books 1 and 2), the abduction of Europa and Cadmus’ quest for her (2.872–3.25), the aerial excursions of Ceres (5.438–63), Medea (7.350–403), and Daedalus (8.183–235), as well as the stormy sea voyage of Ceyx (11.474–572).

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 71

when Lucan was writing, and more as the anti-founder or destroyer of a Republic that had endured almost 500 years. In keeping with this inversion, some of the most characteristic features of earlier epic are absent. Above all, famously, the poem lacks the divine ‘machinery’ of Homer, Apollonius, Vergil, Ovid, and the rest.⁵⁷ Neither is there an invocation of the Muse, or revelatory prophecy on the part of Jupiter or any other god. Critics argue about whether the poem has a hero, or who he is, or how many of them might be. These reversals extend to Lucan’s treatment of his epic predecessors and to his handling of the motifs of warfare and voyaging, and with them the ethical values that they had traditionally represented. Lucan launches his narrative as if in medias res – specifically, in what he characterises as the tenth year of a (therefore) Iliadic conflict between the surviving members of the First Triumvirate. Indeed, Lucan generally depicts the relationship between Caesar and Pompey as an instauration of the angry Achilles’ quarrel with the older and more distinguished Agamemnon.⁵⁸ But these roles are not absolutely fixed: Caesar’s marshalling of forces to march on Rome recalls the catalogue of Agamemnon’s forces in Iliad 2, though Lucan lists not Caesar’s own troops, but the Gallic tribes left unguarded when he crosses the Rubicon.⁵⁹ Further details remind the reader of Rome’s Trojan identity while emphasising the theme of civil conflict. Still within the catalogue, the Gallic Aureni are said to have claimed kinship with the Romans on the basis of shared Trojan ancestry; then, soon afterwards, when news arrives in Rome of Caesar’s advance, panic quickly grips the city as the people anticipate another Iliupersis.⁶⁰ To avert this fate, the city is purified by (among others) the Vestal Virgins, “who alone have divine warrant to behold Trojan Minerva”⁶¹ – i.e. the Palladium brought from Troy to Italy by Aeneas. Much later, Caesar’s indulgence in battlefield tourism when he visits the abandoned site of Troy recalls the landscape of the Iliad as a whole together with the Trojans’ exploration of the ‘abandoned’ Greek encampment in Aeneid 2 and Aeneas’ visit to Buthrotum in Book 3.⁶²

57 Although Feeney (1991, 250–69) shows that there is more to the story than that. 58 Cf. Green (1991) and Roche (2009, 19–20). 59 Cf. Lucan. 1.392–465. Similarly Caesar, again like Agamemnon, is required to put down a mutiny in Book 5 (5.237–373). 60 Cf. Lucan. 1.427–8 and 1.488–98, with Roche (2009, ad loc.). The Iliupersis motif is further developed in Book 2 (Ambühl, 2010, 17–38) and in the death of Pompey, which Lucan bases on Asinius Pollio’s treatment of the event in his Histories but with an eye on Vergil’s adaption of this episode to the death of Priam in Aeneid 2 (on which see Delvigo, 2013). 61 Cf. Lucan. 1.597–8 Vestalemque chorum ducit uittata sacerdos / Troianam soli cui fas uidisse Mineruam. 62 On the motif of ‘war tourism’ in Latin poetry, see Hardie (2013).

72 | Joseph Farrell

At the same time, all of the poem’s would-be heroes, and even some of its least heroic figures, undertake notably heroic, or ‘heroic’, voyages. In all cases, Lucan alludes to epic precedents in unexpected but also unmistakable ways. The Battle of Massilia episode reads both as an Iliadic melee and an Odyssean storm at sea.⁶³ Later a contingent of Caesar’s soldiers attempt a bizarre voyage across the Adriatic Sea on improvised rafts, but when intercepted by Pompey’s men avoid being captured by deciding to slay one another (Lucan. 4.402–581). Equally strange is Caesar’s own attempt, after gaining the Illyrian coast with part of his forces, to sail back to Brundisium in a raging storm to convince Marcus Antonius to bring the rest of the troops across (Lucan. 5.476–721). Lucan makes the journey seem just as pointless as his storm is hyperbolic, and the episode mainly serves Lucan’s ambition to outbid all his epic predecessors. Other journeys, whether by land or sea, involve grotesque inversions of Odysseus’ successful nostos.⁶⁴ Homer and Vergil are by no means the only epic predecessors laid under contribution. The poem’s theme is not just war, but war distorted into civil war, and worse, because the combatants were once linked by marriage.⁶⁵ This enables Lucan to invoke the Theban paradigm.⁶⁶ Among the prodigies that forecast the war, Vesta’s flame “split in two . . . like the funeral pyres of Thebes” – i.e. the joint pyre of Eteocles and Polynices.⁶⁷ Shortly thereafter, a Fury besets the city, “like the Fury that maddened Theban Agave and armed cruel Lycurgus” – i.e. producing different responses to the arrival of Bacchus.⁶⁸ Then, during the panic that grips the city as Caesar approaches, a Roman matron raves like a bacchant over the traditional Theban landscape (1.673–80). Individual set-pieces point to other typical epic subjects, if not always to specifically identifiable treatments of them.⁶⁹ 63 On the sources of this episode, see Masters (1992, 11–42). 64 E.g. Pompey escapes from Pharsalus by sea, via Lesbos, to Egypt, where he is murdered (Lucan. 8.536–636); Cato survives a torturous march across the parched and snake-infested Libyan desert (Book 9) – an episode partly inspired by Apollonius, whose Argonauts portage their vessel along a similar route (A.R. 4.1381–92) – to no real purpose, as the reader knows that Cato will soon commit suicide, though his death is not treated in the Bellum Ciuile. 65 Pompey’s deceased wife Julia, Caesar’s daughter, appears to him in a dream vision at Lucan. 3.1–45. 66 Cf. Masters (1992, 161–2). 67 Lucan. 1.551–2a scinditur in partes . . . / Thebanos imitata rogos is subsequently recalled at 4.551b dirum Thebanis fratribus omen (the myth of the Sparti, a dreadful omen for the Theban brothers; cf. 9.714); see also 6.356 (a reference to the Seven against Thebes) and 8.407 (the sons of Oedipus again). 68 Cf. Lucan 1.574b–6a Thebanam qualis Agauen / inpulit aut saeui contorsit tela Lycurgi / Eumenis. 69 Cf. especially the episode of Curio’s demise at the site of Hercules’ battle with Antaeus (Lucan. 4.581–824). The topothesia of Thessaly as a landscape shaped by Gigantomachy (6.381–412),

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 73

In respect of voyaging, Lucan finds specifically Argonautic relevance in some episodes. In Book 2, when Caesar has Pompey’s fleet pinned down in the harbour of Brundisium, but the latter manages to escape through a narrow opening in the blockade, a simile recalls the passage of the Argo through the Symplegades (Lucan. 2.709–25). This inaugurates a series of Argonautic comparisons inspired by the triumph that the historical Pompey had celebrated for his victory over Mithridates of Pontus.⁷⁰ The poem ends with two episodes depicting Caesar as unequal to either of the principal Homeric heroes. The first episode is anticipated by a series of observations on the immensity and unknowability of the African continent and on the Romans’ naiveté in thinking they could ever rule it (Lucan. 9.411–62). So, when Caesar asks the Egyptian priest Acoreus to tell him about the origins of his race, the geography of Egypt, and the customs of its people and their religion, the reader is invited to consider Lucan’s ‘hero’ as a type of Odyssean voyager, questing after knowledge of the world (Lucan. 10.177–9).⁷¹ However, the comparison is not a flattering one: the knowledge Caesar seeks is not the hard-won knowledge of experience, but mere table talk, unverified and unverifiable. It is therefore no surprise when the end of the same book (and of the poem as we have it) finds Caesar trapped in a tower by a surprise Egyptian attack, looking not at all like an Achillean warrior or founder of a great imperial dynasty. Instead, he seems a mere pretender who is in no way equal to the ambitions that he affects. If Lucan surpasses his epic predecessors, he does so not by celebrating an even greater hero, but by exposing the pretensions of a would-be hero, and perhaps of heroes in general. It would then not be until the Flavian period that Silius Italicus, Valerius Flaccus, and especially Statius discovered new possibilities offered by the genre in its Homeric and Vergilian form. Silius’ Punica may be seen as restoring a degree of generic decorum to a genre that had been so greatly distorted by Lucan in particular. The choice to write a historical epic not about the fall of the Republic in a civil war, but on the Republic’s greatest victory over a worthy foreign foe, is one element of this design. Another is Silius’ treatment of Lucan specifically. Allusion to the Bellum Ciuile marks civil war as a fundamental theme in the Punica. However, Silius associates this theme with the Romans only in Books 4–10, which cover the disasters at the Ticinus, the Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae; but once the tide

conventionally the ultimate epic battle theme, points to the poem’s fundamental theme of battle narrative. 70 See Murray (2011). 71 With Lucan. 10.178 uulgique edissere mores cf. Hom. Od. 1.3 πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω.

74 | Joseph Farrell

of the war turns, it is the Carthaginians in Books 11–17 who are stalked by Lucan until their eventual defeat.⁷² Even more than Silius, both Valerius Flaccus in his Argonautica and Statius in his Thebaid could be seen as returning to a Vergilian ‘norm’ by choosing mythological subjects, but ones that allow them to avoid direct competition with the Aeneid and the political aspects of the Trojan saga. However, both poets do not wish merely to restore traditional epic decorum, but also to engage the opportunities and challenges presented to them by Vergil, Ovid, and Lucan.⁷³ For our purposes, it is also significant that each poet takes as his theme the definitive mythic example of voyaging or warfare, respectively, and that the particular stories that they choose involve not homecoming and foreign conquest, but a voyage of exploration and a civil war. Their handling of these themes in relation to the political, social, and intellectual atmosphere of their times was little appreciated until not long ago. The critical inquiries of recent years have revealed the depth and power of both poems, and suggest that there is much more to learn about them. Early in the Argonautica, Valerius praises Domitian’s circumnavigation of Britain, carried out by his legate Agricola in 82 AD, in contrast to the failure of the Julio-Claudians to accomplish this same feat (Val. Fl. 1.7–10).⁷⁴ By mentioning this recent nautical ‘first’, Valerius establishes a favourable connection between the current regime and his mythical subject.⁷⁵ To be sure, it is a different sort of connection than that between the previous dynasty (who are dismissed as the “Phrygian” – i.e. not just “Trojan”, but insufficiently manly – Julians) and their mythical ancestors. Still, it is an important step towards opening the poem to political interpretation. Valerius returns to this motif when Jupiter praises the Argonauts as exemplars of translatio imperii, celebrating the succession of one imperial power by another (Val. Fl. 1.542–60). We have seen that Ovid invokes this motif as part of his teleological reading of world history, which ends with Augustus. However, after the regime change that brought the Flavians to power, the idea of transferring imperium must have assumed a different meaning. Not only the epochal migration of authority from one imperial capital to the next, nor even the untroubled succession of one emperor by another, but the chaotic end of the Julio-Claudians and the violence of the year 69 AD must also be potentially in

72 Cf. Marx (2010). 73 They appear to be attentive to, and perhaps competitive with one another as well, but the chronology makes it difficult to sort out the direction of influence in specific cases. 74 See Zissos (2008, ad loc.); cf. also Feeney (1991, 334–5). 75 On the ‘primacy of sailing’ motif, see Braund (1993) and Newman (2 2008). On epic adventure, see Feeney (1991, 319). On political aspects of the opening of the Caledonian Sea, see Hardie (1993, 83); on the conquest of Judea, see Clauss (2014, 103–4).

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 75

view.⁷⁶ It is thus very significant when Valerius initially rejects civil war as possible theme, only later to accept that his chosen material requires him to deal with it (Val. Fl. 1.71–3). The massacre of the Lemnian men, for instance, a canonical part of the ‘Argosy’, is a kind of civil war, and an intrafamilial one, at that (Val. Fl. 2.107–310). Later Valerius introduces the motif of civil, and indeed, fraternal war even against tradition. In Book 6, the Argonauts oblige Aeetes by making war upon his brother, Perses, King of the neighbouring Sarmatians. But in Apollonius, though the Sarmatians are said to be a threat to Aeetes, there is no Perses, no war between Aeetes and his brother, nor any such demand on Aeetes’ part.⁷⁷ In this respect, then, Valerius is the successor not only of Vergil: after Lucan, warfare in Roman epic will always have the potential to be a civil war. This was perhaps inevitable, in that an empire coextensive with the entire world, even if only in ideological terms, can find no opportunity for war, except with itself. And in this light, it is notable that Valerius, in an epic of voyaging, has made Jason himself a much more significant warrior than had Apollonius.⁷⁸ The archaic Theban saga, as we have seen, is about self-destructive civil war, and Theban mythology is deployed by Ovid as a rejoinder to Vergil’s treatment of ktistic themes in the Aeneid. Lucan, too, had exploited this material in a poem about civil war in Rome. Statius, for his part, accentuates the motif of Thebes as an avatar of Rome in representing Venus and Mars as the divine progenitors of Cadmus’ city (Stat. Theb. 3.260–323).⁷⁹ This is a significant reworking of the Empedoclean myth that had figured in Julian ideology.⁸⁰ If Venus and Mars are Love and Strife, their union produced a daughter, Harmony – or in Latin Concordia, an important political slogan in virtually all periods – who is the bride of Cadmus, 76 See Feeney (1991, 35) on the theme of harmony among the Flavians versus chaos under Nero; cf. Clauss (2014, 113 n. 39). 77 See Buckley (2010) and Stover (2012, 113–50); cf. A.R. 3.351–3 and 3.392–5. The only Perses named by Apollonius (via the patronymic Perseis, 3.467) is a Titan, the father of Hecate, as in Hes. Th. 409–11. 78 On Jason’s superior martial prowess in Valerius (e.g. Val. Fl. 3.80–6 and 6.613–56) vis à vis Apollonius (cf. Val. Fl. 5.128 and 5.218 ∼ A.R. 3.2–3; Val. Fl. 5.363–5 ∼ A.R. 3.319–25, Val. Fl. 6.602–8 ∼ Hom. Il. 22.26–31, Verg. Aen. 10.272–5, cf. Val. Fl. 5.368–72 ∼ A.R. 3.957–9), see Hershkowitz (1998, 119–25); cf. also Clauss (2014, 105): “The reimagining of Jason as an archaic hero fiercely desirous of glory (Val. Fl. 1.76–8), a Jason more at home in pre-classical versions of the myth as far as can be reconstructed from largely fragmentary texts and vase paintings, serves the larger mythopoeic goal of connecting Flavian Rome with the first – and thus pre-Julian – Trojan War.” 79 On relations between Venus and Mars, see McNelis (2007, 61–7). 80 Venus, the mother of Aeneas, is the genetrix of the Roman people, while Mars, the father of Romulus, is the divine progenitor. Their adulterous affair, humorously narrated by Homer’s Demodocus, had been interpreted by Empedocles as a cosmic allegory, so that the pair represented Love and Strife.

76 | Joseph Farrell

founder of Thebes. In this sense, Thebes, like Rome, ought to be a convincing symbol of political stability founded on cosmic equilibrium. But, of course, that is only half of the story, or less than half. Not all of Cadmus’ people were born of Harmony; many came from the Sparti, the warriors who sprang from the earth when Cadmus sowed the teeth of a dragon he had slain and immediately began killing one another. The concepts represented in this foundation legend have to do with autochthony and colonisation, and also with internecine strife in the face of external aggression. It is a commonplace that Rome, too, was founded on fratricide. Like the Julio-Claudians, the Flavians came to power in a civil war. It is hard to imagine that any well-informed ancient reader could have overlooked these facts.

6 Conclusion Poets of the second century AD showed little interest in heroic epic, and the literary culture of the third began to change in significant ways along with the political and social environment of the Empire itself. By the fourth and fifth centuries, epic poetry began to renew itself, once again along with a more general political and literary renaissance. These changes, however, which are manifest both in the specific character of the new literary production and, what is no less important, in the sheer volume of what survives, makes treating late antique epic as a simple continuation of earlier epic both ill-advised and, frankly, unfeasible. In addition, the particular elements of epic poetry that we have been tracing – the motifs of warfare and voyaging in relation to the major local traditions of the archaic period – become less salient, even if they do not disappear altogether.⁸¹ Eventually, they re-emerge with vigour in the chansons de geste of the Middle Ages, when claims of Trojan descent by the ruling families of different European kingdoms would give new relevance to the matière de Rome, in which the erotic element assumes great prominence, as in the anonymous Roman d’Enéas and the Roman de Troie of Benoît de Sainte-Maure in the 12th century and in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato and Chaucer’s Troilus and Creseyde in the 14th century.⁸² Fundamental to this process was the reception of the late antique novelistic prose treatments of the 81 Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica places itself squarely in the tradition of the Trojan Cycle, covering roughly the same events as the Aethiopis, Little Iliad, and Ilupersis. The date and social context of the poem are controversial; it has been placed as early as the second century and as late as the fifth. Nonnus’ Dionysiaca narrates Dionysus’ civilising mission in a manner that may resemble that of the lost Hercules epics. It shares certain elements with the Theban Cycle, particularly as handled by Ovid. Nonnus probably wrote in the late fourth or early fifth century. 82 Cf. Verbaal on medieval Latin epicity in volume III.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic |

77

Trojan War by Dictys of Crete and Dares of Phrygia, who also tell of a visit by the Argonauts to Laomedon’s Troy. This tradition influenced Benoît’s Roman de Troie, which devotes over 1000 lines to an Argonautic episode, which in turn influenced later treatments of the theme in Trojan romance.⁸³ Also in the 12th century there appears an anonymous Roman de Thèbes, which influenced Boccaccio’s Teseide and Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale. In these ways, the narrative structures of archaic and classical epic find new life in the masterpieces of medieval romance.

Bibliography Ambühl, A. (2010). Lucan’s ‘Iliupersis’: narrative patterns from the Fall of Troy in Book 2 of the Bellum ciuile, in: N. Hömke/C. Reitz (eds.), Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Between epic tradition and aesthetic innovation. Berlin: 17–38. Barchiesi, A. (1993). Future reflexive: two modes of allusion and Ovid’s Heroides, HSPh 95: 333–65. Braund, D. (1993). Writing a Roman Argonautica: the historical dynamic, Hermathena 154: 11– 17. Bruckner, M. T. (2015). Remembering the Trojan War: violence past, present, and future in Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie, Speculum 90: 366–90. Buchheit, V. (1963). Vergil über die Sendung Roms. Untersuchungen zum Bellum Poenicum und zur Aeneis. Heidelberg. Buckley, E. (2010). War-epic for a new era: Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, in: N. Kramer/C. Reitz (eds.), Tradition und Erneuerung: Mediale Strategien in der Zeit der Flavier. Berlin/Boston: 431–55. Casali, S. (2010). The development of the Aeneas legend, in: J. Farrell/M. C. J. Putnam (eds.), A companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its tradition. Malden, MA: 37–51. Clare, R. J. (2002). The path of the Argo. Language, imagery and narrative in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Cambridge. Clauss, J. J. (1993). The best of the Argonauts: the redefinition of the epic hero in Book 1 of Apollonius’s Argonautica. Berkeley, CA. Clauss, J. J. (2000). Cosmos without imperium: the Argonautic journey through time, in: M. A. Harder/R. F. Regtuit/G. C. Wakker (eds.), Apollonius Rhodius. Leuven: 11–32. Clauss, J. J. (2014). Myth and mythopoesis in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, in: M. Heerink/G. Manuwald (eds.), Brill’s companion to Valerius Flaccus. Leiden/Boston: 99–114. Cole, T. (2004). Ovid, Varro, and Castor of Rhodes: the chronological architecture of the Metamorphoses, HSPh 102: 355–422. Cole, T. (2008). Ouidius Mythistoricus: legendary time in the Metamorphoses. Frankfurt am Main. Davies, M. (1989). The Greek Epic Cycle. Bristol. Davies, M. (2015). The Theban epics. Cambridge, MA.

83 On the medieval Argonautica, see Bruckner (2015).

78 | Joseph Farrell

Delvigo, M. L. (2013). Per transitum tangit historiam: intersecting developments of Roman identity in Virgil, in: J. Farrell/D. P. Nelis (eds.), Augustan poetry and the Roman Republic. Oxford: 19–39. Fantham, R. E. (1992). The role of Evander in Ovid’s Fasti, Arethusa 25: 155–71. Farrell, J. (1991). Vergil’s Georgics and the traditions of ancient epic. New York. Farrell, J. (1992). Dialogue of genres in Ovid’s ‘Lovesong of Polyphemus’ (Metamorphoses 13.719–879), AJPh 113: 235–68. Farrell, J. (2013). Complementarity and contradiction in Ovidian mythography, in: R. S. Smith/ S. M. Trzaskoma (eds.), Writing myth: mythography in the ancient world. Leuven: 223–51. Farrell, J. (2014). Philosophy in Vergil, in: M. Garani/D. Konstan (eds.), The philosophizing muse: the influence of Greek philosophy on Roman poetry. Cambridge: 61–90. Feeney, D. C. (1991). The gods in epic. Poets and critics of the classical tradition. Oxford. Gale, M. (2000). Virgil on the nature of things: the Georgics, Lucretius and the didactic tradition. Cambridge. Galinsky, G. K. (1969). Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome. Princeton, NJ. Galinsky, G. K. (1975). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. An introduction to the basic aspects. Oxford. Gigante, M. (1995). Philodemus in Italy: the books from Herculaneum. Translated by D. Obbink. Ann Arbor, MI. Goldschmidt, N. (2013). Shaggy crowns. Ennius’ Annales and Virgil’s Aeneid. Oxford. Green, C. M. C. (1991). Stimulos dedit aemula virtus: Lucan and Homer reconsidered, Phoenix 45: 230–54. Gruen, E. S. (1992). Culture and national identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, NY. Hardie, P. R. (1990). Ovid’s Theban history: the first ‘Anti-Aeneid’?, CQ 40: 224–35. Hardie, P. R. (1993). The epic successors of Virgil: a study in the dynamics of a tradition. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (2013). Trojan palimpsests: the archaeology of Roman history in Aeneid 2, in: J. Farrell/D. P. Nelis (eds.), Augustan poetry and the Roman Republic. Oxford: 107–23. Hershkowitz, D. (1998). Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. Abbreviated voyages in Silver Latin Epic. Oxford. Hinds, S. E. (1993). Medea in Ovid: scenes from the life of an intertextual heroine, MD 30: 9–47. Knauer, G. N. (1964). Die Aeneis und Homer. Studien zur poetischen Technik Vergils, mit Listen der Homerzitate in der Aeneis. Göttingen. Konstan, D. (1977). Catullus’ indictment of Rome: the meaning of Catullus 64. Amsterdam. Labate, M. (2003). Tra Grecia e Roma: l’identità culturale augustea nei Fasti di Ovidio, in: R. Gazich (ed.), Fecunda licentia: tradizione e innovazione in Ovidio elegiaco. Milan: 71–118. Labate, M. (2010). Passato remoto: età mitiche e identità augustea in Ovidio. Pisa. Marx, R. (2010). Silius and Lucan, in: A. Augoustakis (ed.), Brill’s companion to Silius Italicus. Leiden/Boston: 127–54. Masters, J. (1992). Poetry and civil war in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Cambridge. McNelis, C. A. (2007). Statius’ Thebaid and the poetics of civil war. Cambridge. Meyer, D. (2 2008). Apollonius as a Hellenistic cartographer, in: T. D. Papanghelis/A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s companion to Apollonius Rhodius. Leiden: 267–85. Michelakis, P. (2002). Achilles in Greek tragedy. Cambridge. Morgan, L. (1999). Patterns of redemption in Virgil’s Georgics. Cambridge. Murray, J. (2011). Shipwrecked Argonauticas, in: P. Asso (ed.), Brill’s companion to Lucan. Leiden/Boston: 57–79. Nagle, B. R. (1988). A trio of love-triangles in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Arethusa 25: 11–31.

The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 79

Nagy, G. (1979). The best of the Achaeans: concepts of the hero in archaic Greek poetry. Baltimore. Nappa, C. (2005). Reading after Actium: Vergil’s Georgics, Octavian, and Rome. Ann Arbor, MI. Nelis, D. P. (2001). Vergil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonios Rhodios. Leeds. Newman, J. K. (2 2008). The Golden Fleece. Imperial dream, in: T. D. Papanghelis/A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s companion to Apollonius Rhodius. Leiden: 309–41. Norden, E. (1915). Ennius und Vergilius: Kriegsbilder aus Roms großer Zeit. Leipzig. Otis, B. (1964). Virgil. A study in civilized poetry. Oxford. Putnam, M. C. J. (1961). The art of Catullus 64, HSPh 65: 166–205. Putnam, M. C. J. (1996). Pastoral satire, ARion 3: 303–16. Reckford, K. J. (1999). Only a wet dream? Hope and scepticism in Horace, Satire 1.5, AJPh 120: 525–54. Roche, P. (ed., 2009). Lucan De Bello Ciuili. Edited with a commentary. Oxford. Stanford, W. B. (1963). The Ulysses theme: a study in the adaptability of a traditional hero. Oxford. Stover, T. (2012). Epic and empire in Vespasianic Rome: a new reading of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. New York. Thalmann, W. G. (2011). Apollonius of Rhodes and the spaces of Hellenism. Oxord/New York. West, M. L. (1985). The Hesiodic catalogue of women. Its nature, structure, and origins. Oxford. West, M. L. (ed., 2003). Greek epic fragments: from the seventh to the fifth centuries BC. Cambridge, MA. West, M. L. (2005). Odyssey and Argonautica, CQ 55: 39–64. West, M. L. (ed., 2013). The Epic Cycle: a commentary on the lost Troy epics. Oxford. Wheeler, S. M. (2002). Ovid’s Metamorphoses and universal history, in: D. S. Levene/D. P. Nelis (eds.), Clio and the poets: Augustan poetry and the traditions of ancient historiography. Leiden/Boston: 163–89. Zetzel, J. E. G. (2002). Dreaming about Quirinus: Horace’s Satires and the development of Latin poetry, in: T. Woodman/D. C. Feeney (eds.), Traditions and contexts in the poetry of Horace. Cambridge: 38–52. Zissos, A. (ed., 2008). Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. Book I. Edited with introduction, translation, and commentary. Oxford/New York.

Egbert Bakker

Learning the epic formula Abstract: This chapter offers a broad overview of oral-formulaic theory. It argues that the conditions for formulaic composition of epic poetry in hexametric verse are not confined to the historical context envisaged by oral-formulaic theory: the production of epic song in the complete absence of writing and texts. Reading and writing in their earliest stages do not end a poet’s reliance on the interplay between formulas and the verse. Nor are formulas as such a phenomenon that is confined to oral-formulaic poetry: ordinary language is full of ready-made phrases and word combinations, and the way in which an apprentice poet learns the epic language is not fundamentally different from the way in which children learn their native language. The chapter ends with a brief analysis of some lines of the late antique epic poet Quintus of Smyrna as an illustration that even under conditions of full literacy poets can acquire and interiorise the epic language.

1 Introduction The epic formula: this phrase has come to typify Homeric poetry like no other. In the course of the 20th century, it came from being the quintessential building-block of Homeric diction to being nothing less than the key to the correct understanding of Homer as oral poetry. The key names are Milman Parry and his student Albert Lord, whose theory of oral-formulaic composition dominated Homeric scholarship in the 1960s and 1970s in the English-speaking world, propelled to prominence by the interest of the age in formal and structural properties of literature. Due to Parry’s rigorous analysis of Homeric style the formula became for those who embraced the oral poetry programme a master trope evoking mathematical precision and proof.

2 Milman Parry: from traditionality to orality Building on earlier German scholarship on the dependence of epic language on the epic verse,¹ oral-formulaic theory developed by Parry started as an (unacknowledged) exercise in structuralism (he wrote a doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne in

1 See Ellendt (1864), Düntzer (1872), Witte (1912), and Meister (1921). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-004

82 | Egbert Bakker

Paris)² and ended with bringing ethnographic fieldwork into the philologist’s study. The first step was a study of the so-called noun-epithet formulas in Homer (phrases consisting of a noun or name and an adjective) that was of an unprecedented rigor. Parry was able to demonstrate that the noun-epithet formulas are not merely ‘ornamental’, but interact in systematic ways with the structure of the verse, forming ‘systems’ in which the metrical form of the epithet ensures the required structural difference with other phrases in the system. Thus, the phrase πολύμητις ᾿Οδυσσεύς (“much/many-minded Odysseus”), filling the metrically significant slot between the fourth-foot caesura (Hephthemimeres) and the end of the line, is different in a systemic, structural way, from πολύτλας δῖος ᾿Οδυσσεύς (“much-suffering godlike Odysseus”), which runs from the middle (trochaic) caesura to the end of the line. For Parry, the difference between these two phrases becomes structural and ‘systemic’ when we observe that (1) each of the two phrases is unique (there is no other formula for Odysseus filling the same metrical slot); and that (2) the same difference exists for all the other major gods and heroes in the epic tale. Parry spoke in this regard of “an extended system of great simplicity.”³ No conclusions concerning oral poetry are drawn at this point, though Parry’s conception of the structural regularity he observed provides the perspective for his later conception of oral poetry. Parry reasoned that the elaborate systems of formulas he detected could never have been the creation of any individual poet; instead, they had to be traditional. In other words, ‘traditional’ is set up in opposition with, and against a background of, individual poetic creativity. This is a significant and telling assumption, since Parry could also have set the formulaic structures as a specialised form of language against a background of language use in general. After all, Ferdinand de Saussure, the original founder of structuralism, had called the system of a language a ‘tradition’ – of course without the need to argue that language cannot be the creation of a single individual.⁴ Yet, Parry hews to a solidly romantic perspective, in which original expression of an individual poet is the default case. Homeric poetry, having been found to be not original and not individual, has to be evaluated as a particular kind of poetry in the absence of the features that make up ‘normal’ poetry. What fundamentally sets Homer apart, according to Parry, is his ‘fidelity to the formula’, a blind trust in the ornamental meaning of a phrase that is used solely for its metrical utility, which the poet uses “without ever thinking of using other words to express the same

2 Cf. Parry (1928). On Parry in the Parisian intellectual context, see De Vet (2005), Bakker (1997, 15), and Bakker (2009). 3 Parry (1971, 17). See also Parry (1928, 20): “un système très étendu et d’une grande simplicité.” 4 Cf. De Saussure (1982, 31): “[la langue] extérieure à l’individu, qui à lui seul ne peut ni la créer ni la modifier.”

Learning the epic formula |

83

idea, without ever so much as considering the possibility of utilising the portion of the line taken up by the epithetic words for the expression of some original idea.”⁵ The result is a stable universe in which people and things are what they are, regardless of literary or narrative context, a semantics to which the original audience is attuned through extensive exposure to epic tales told in the same formulaic and traditional idiom as the Homeric poems. The decisive step toward the final conceptualisation of this special kind of poetry came with Parry’s fieldwork on the South-Slavic bardic tradition with the assistance of his student Lord. Observing the Serbo-Croatian and Bosnian guslari brought Parry to the conclusion that what he had termed the ornamental and traditional features of Homeric epic were necessitated by the constraints and demands of the composition of the epic tale in oral performance: unlike the writing poet, Parry argued, the orally composing poet has no time for the search of the mot juste under the pressures of the performance before a live audience. The extensive formulaic systems with their remarkable economy that he had formulated in the Paris dissertation on Homer could now be seen as an adaptive response to the need to compose the tale under time pressure, a response developed over many generations of singers. The Iliad and the Odyssey, in other words, had turned from traditional poetry into oral poetry. The composition-in-performance of the Homeric poems that Parry had distilled out of his observation of the South-Slavic singers would seem to be a phenomenon that can be studied and theorised for its own sake and on its own terms. In reality, however, oral poetry remained defined in terms of writing and written poetry, as precisely the absence of the features that for Parry characterised ‘writtenness’. The formula is the element that fills the gap created by writing’s absence, the sole device that can make up for the loss of the compositional opportunities that writing provides. Formulas are thus a consequence of the production of the song rather than a matter of its deliberate design; they are not repetition for its own sake, and they are used for no other reason than being ‘useful’: “when the element of usefulness is lacking, one does not have a formula but a repeated phrase which has been knowingly brought into the verse for some special effect.”⁶ Nor is being repeated a necessary condition for being a formula, though many formulas are in fact repeated: since Homer is considered to be merely a tiny sample of early Greek epic oral poetry that has survived, any single phrase may simply be the sole reflex of a formula that is otherwise lost:

5 Parry (1971, 14). 6 Parry (1971, 272–3).

84 | Egbert Bakker

It is important [. . . ] to remember that the formula in Homer is not necessarily a repetition, just as the repetitions in tragedy are not necessarily formulas. It is the nature of an expression which makes of it a formula, whereas its use a second time in Homer depends largely upon the hazard, which led a poet, or a group of poets, to use it more than once in two given poems of a limited length. We are taking up the problem of the Homeric formulas from the side of the repetitions, but only because it is easier to recognise a formula if we find it used regularly, and that it helps the poet in his verse-making.⁷

Parry holds that the oral poet has no concern, or ability, other than filling out his verses in a standardised, formulaic way. This exclusive concern with production and ‘on-line’ composition was an essential, albeit controversial, correction of an unreflective conception of Homeric diction as ‘poetic’ language. Within the community of Homer scholars it was hailed by some as the definitive answer to the Homeric question, but its success in the 1960s and 1970s (especially after the publication of Parry’s collected writings by his son in 1971) can also be attributed, at least in part, to the interest in ‘form’ and ‘structure’ that was typical of the age. Yet, critique was vigorous, from the start, assailing Parry’s theory precisely on its principal claim regarding the formula as the opposite of poetic individual originality. The result was a zero-sum game in which critiquing one side was paramount to joining the other camp. In recent decades, however, it has become possible to critique Parry’s and Lord’s original conception. Parry’s conception had the effect of isolating Homeric poetry from writing and so from all other early Greek literature, and this was its intent as well. However, softening the boundaries between Homeric ‘oral’ poetry and ‘writing’, and later written epic poetry, far from ‘diluting’ the case for orality actually strengthens it. For Parry and Lord, writing is a self-evident given, just like originality. We make a crucial adjustment, and put an end to the quarrel of Parry and his critics as an opposition between ‘orality’ and ‘literacy’ as mutually exclusive entities, when we turn the perspective around, treating traditionality and speaking as a given, and view originality and writing as the phenomenon in need of explanation and understanding. Let us start with the latter.

3 Performance, speech, and writing The idea of the oral poet rests on the assumption that oral poetry is in and of itself incompatible with writing. Writing for Parry suppresses the unique conditions that make the system of formulas indispensable, and it splits the figure of the oral bard

7 Parry (1971, 304).

Learning the epic formula |

85

into two: he either becomes the original poet who now has the leisure to ponder over the right word or phrase to create a fully original style; or he degenerates from being a creative aoidos (“singer”) to being a mere rhapsoidos (the reciter of a fixed text that he has learned by heart without having to rely on the system of formulas that now has become unnecessary and obsolete).⁸ Parry himself did not discuss the paradox of Homer as an oral poet and the existence of our Homeric text; this issue was discussed by Lord in the form of the concept of the ‘oral dictated text’: the oral poet dictates his poem to a scribe, who is qua scribe, an outsider to the tradition. The contact with writing as recording, observing medium has to be tangential and peripheral, or the true nature of oral-formulaic composition is irrevocably altered.⁹ We now know that the boundaries between oral composition and recitation as well as between oral composition and writing are not so sharp and clear-cut. The study of medieval vernacular traditions has revealed that early writing in its historical context is neither the facilitator of an original and individual literate style nor an ‘objective’ recording mechanism of the unspoiled and undisturbed oral poem. The transformation of an oral tradition into a written text has long been seen in terms of the printed critical editions that scholars are studying, but in the course of the past decades it has become clear that those early texts are hardly closed or fixed. They are imbued with ‘orality’, in various ways. The idea that writing reduces performance to recitation, a mechanical replication of the written text, has come to be replaced with a vision in which primacy has shifted from text to performance. That is, even in the presence of a written text the poem does not cease to be an action, and the impulse to produce texts of the poem as ‘transcripts’ derives from its life as a performance tradition. Hence the existence of variants between manuscripts that cannot be accounted for in terms of the usual conception of vertical textual transmission envisaged by conventional textual criticism. There is what the medievalist Zumthor (1983, 253–6) called mouvance, the textual mobility in a transmission in which performance and writing, ‘orality’ and ‘literacy’, are deeply intertwined.¹⁰ Writing has penetrated into the originally textless universe of the singer of tales, but it is a writing that extends the work’s oral potential and its distribution, instead of ending it. In this situation the hard distinction between aoidos and rhapsoidos begins to break down. In the work of Nagy (1996) the latter is not the mere reciter of the

8 See Lord (1960, 129): “The written technique . . . is not compatible with the oral technique . . . The two by their very nature are mutually exclusive”. Cf. also Kirk (1985, 15–16) who considers writing as incompatible with the flourishing of “the creative oral genius”. 9 Cf. Lord (1953, 130–2) on the oral-dictated poem as an ‘ideal’ text of higher quality than would have been possible without writing, yet without writing essential to the poem’s conception. 10 Cf. Cerquiglini (1989) and Nagy (1996, 107–52).

86 | Egbert Bakker

Homeric poems and as such external to their composition and transmission; the rhapsoidos is an essential component in the transmission as he recomposes the work of Homer in performance, thereby becoming Homer, the legendary composer, himself.¹¹ But even when a text is produced, not to facilitate a future performance, but in order to copy an already existing text qua text, the act of writing has been found to be aligned with the performance of the poem. Whether a text comes into being through dictation or textual replication, the act of writing, performed by a scribe who presumably would have been intimately familiar with the tradition’s idiom and ‘special speech’, would be aural and vocal: the writing is prompted by voice, either the voice of the performing poet or that of the scribe himself.¹²

4 Formulas as constructions The ‘hard’ Parryist would reply here that the activity of a scribe is very different from that of the singer in performance, who is under constant time pressure and needs formulas to propel him on under these conditions. But the presence of the Homeric text as a central cultural institution in the archaic and classical ages turns that purely oral aoidos into something of a mirage. The rhapsodes and scribes need much the same skills as the singer if the tradition of the poem is to be carried on, all of them having learned the elaborate ways in which the words and phrases of the epic tradition interact with the verse. The way this competence is acquired, whether or not in interaction with written texts, is very much like the acquisition of a secondary language, or as Lord (1960, 35–6) puts it, “the ‘grammar’ of the poetry, a grammar superimposed, as it were, on the grammar of the language concerned.” The acquisition of epic formulaic language as a ‘superimposed grammar’, however, is different from first language acquisition in degree, not in essence. Ordinary language is not a background of freedom and ‘originality’ against which the singer learns the system of metre-bound formulas. The underlying grammar of the language is just like the superimposed poetic grammar formulaic to a high degree and in ways that were not understood in Parry’s and Lord’s day.¹³ The rise of corpus-based empirical linguistics in recent decades has revealed that speakers are far less ‘original’ than was always supposed: they remember entire phrases

11 Cf. Nagy (1996, 61–2). 12 See Doane (1994) and Ready (2015). 13 An early discussion of formularity in ordinary language is Kiparsky (1976). See also Bakker (1997, 157–9). For an overview of formularity in ordinary language, see Bozzone (2010), to which the present discussion is much indebted.

Learning the epic formula |

87

wholesale, use standard collocations of varying degrees of fixity, and show that idiomaticity is a central feature of language use, not a matter of isolated instances. As Bolinger (1961, 381), one of the pioneers of this conception of language, puts it: At present we have no way of telling the extent to which a sentence like I went home is a result of invention, and the extent to which it is a result of repetition, countless of speakers before us having already said it and transmitted to us in toto. Is grammar something where speakers ‘produce’ (i.e. originate) constructions, or where they ‘reach for’ them, from a pre-established inventory?¹⁴

The pure freedom of originality in syntax is especially avoided by native speakers, who keep to a relatively limited number of formulaic utterances out of the much larger number of sentences that are strictly speaking grammatical, but are felt as not ‘nativelike’. In other words, true originality is for foreigners.¹⁵ And what is true of nativelike mastery of a language also applies to the way this mastery is acquired from infancy. Bozzone (2010, 34–7) has shown that Lord’s description (1960, 21–9) of the process by which the young apprentice singer learns the art of singing from his mentor matches the phases by which children learn their native language as laid out by Wray/Perkins (2000). In a first phase, young children learn phrases ‘holistically’ by repeating what they hear, just like the apprentice singer, who hears and repeats the formulaic phrases that his mentor utters. In a second phase grammatical competence becomes more ‘compositional’: the child learns how to substitute terms within phrases, just as the singer substitutes terms within the formulas he has learned. The relative ‘freedom’ thus acquired is countered when, in a third phase, the ‘prefabs’ begin to form a corpus of useful expressions, a storehouse from which phrases can be ‘pulled’ in the form of routinised discursive behaviour. In the final, mature phase the speaker is able to draw on this storehouse for recurrent situations while honing his skills in the combinatory, ‘analytic’ creation of new phrases for new situations. Likewise, the fully trained oral poet is able to reach for numerous formulaic prefabs for the frequently recurring situations in the tale, while being able to generate new phrases, as the situation requires. A comprehensive ordinary language analogue to the epic formula is the socalled ‘construction’, commonly defined as a “learned pairing of form and func-

14 Similar also Bozzone (2010) citing Bolinger (1976, 2–3): “we are now in a position to recognize that idiomaticity is a vastly more pervasive phenomenon than we ever imagined, and vastly harder to separate from the pure freedom of syntax, if indeed any such fiery zone as pure syntax exists.” 15 See also Erman/Warren (2000).

88 | Egbert Bakker

tion.”¹⁶ Constructions can be idioms or prefabs that speakers retrieve wholesale from their memory, such as the following list from Goldberg (2013, 27): You’ve got to be kidding! Wear out welcome What’s up? What for? Shoot the breeze Are you all right? Tell me what happened I’m sorry to hear that It just goes to show

Double whammy Eat, drink and be marry Excuse French Face the music sooner or later What did you say? Can I come in? Need any help? I see what you mean

They can also be compositional, containing variables that can be filled in by elements that can be substituted for each other. Here is a list¹⁷ of constructions arrayed on a cline running from fixed to structurally flexible: Construction Word Word (partially filled) Idiom (filled) Idiom (partially filled) Idiom (minimally filled): The Xer the Yer Ditransitive construction: S V O1 O2 (unfilled) Passive: S aux VPpp (PPby) (unfilled)

Examples Iran, another, banana pre-N, V-ing Going great guns, give the Devil his due Jog memory The more you think about it the less you understand. He gave her a fish taco; he baked her a muffin. The armadillo was hit by a car.

The distinction between ‘filled’ and ‘partially filled’ idiom seems particularly relevant for the study of Homeric formulas, since it aligns with a distinction made by Parry (1971, 275) himself between fixed formulas and compositional formulas, phrases that have one or more variables: Formulas are of two sorts. First, there are those which have no close likeness to any other, as, so far as we know, is the case for ὀνείαθ’ ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα in the following verse [Hom. Od. 4.67]: οἱ δ’ ἐπ’ ὀνείαθ’ ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα χεῖρας ἴαλλον. The other kind of formula is that which is like one or more which express a similar idea in more or less the same words, as, for example, ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε is like ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἑλόντες, or as ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοί

16 See, more fully, Goldberg (2006, 5): “Any linguistic pattern is recognized as a construction as long as some aspects of its form or function is not strictly predictable from its component parts or from other constructions recognized to exist. In addition, patterns are stored as constructions even if they are fully predictable as long as they occur with sufficient frequency.” 17 Cf. Goldberg (2013, 17).

Learning the epic formula |

89

is like ἀρετῶσι δὲ λαοί and δαίνυτό τε λαός. We may say that any group of two or more such like formulas make up a system, and the system may be defined in turn as a group of phrases which have the same metrical value.

The difference between ‘partially filled’ idioms in ordinary language and Homeric diction is of course that in the latter the conditions under which the substitution of constitutive elements takes place is highly constrained by metre. One can “jog John’s memory” or “jog Jonathan’s memory” or put the idiom in the past tense; in Homer such simple inflections can take place only within the metrical space that the verse allows and may involve forced, ‘grammatical’ substitutions. For example, the idea “suffer sorrow” as participial phrase after the bucolic diaeresis will change the participial element according to case: ἄλγεα πάσχων || ἄλγε’ ἔχοντα ||

And the corresponding active expression, “inflict sorrow”, in the same metrical slot, will change the verb according to the tense required: ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε || ἄλγεα τεύχει ||

There is in Homer, then, a fusion of syntax and lexicon. Each case form, as in the former case, and each tense form, as in the latter, constitutes its own idiom, as it calls for a metrically conditioned lexical choice. So what for Goldberg in the list of ‘constructions’ above is one partially filled combination can become, in Homeric formulaic grammar, a series of fixed combinations. But is it confined to Homer? The formulaic systems in their metrical contexts are for Parry, as we saw, in function of rapid extemporaneous composition; they can perform that function because they put strong constraints on the flow of verbalisation.¹⁸ But those constraints at the same time constitute a stable structure that allows hexametric formulaic language to survive the early Greek epic tradition.

18 For a discussion of constraints as a form of organisation that keeps oral traditions stable, see Rubin (1995).

90 | Egbert Bakker

5 From Homer to Quintus The complex system of preferred and forbidden word end that characterises and constrains Homeric language must have come into being with the gradual emergence of the formulaic system and is an integral part of the ‘grammar’ of Homeric language.¹⁹ In other words, frequently uttered phrases of certain metrical profiles have over time shaped the metrical cola of the hexameter, such as:

¯˘˘ ¯ ¯˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯ ¯˘˘ ¯¯˘ ˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯¯˘ ˘ ¯˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯¯˘ Anyone who has read hexameter poetry in sufficient quantity and with sufficient attention will know what parts of the hexameter these sequences represent. It is important to realise, however, that originally they are recurrent phrases, not metrical slots. But once the dactylic hexameter is in place as a stable metrical structure, the cola become preverbal shapes that have to be interiorised by anyone composing hexametrical poetry in any quantity or with any ease. Together they constitute the interconnected system of the dactylic hexameter, with its intricate pattern of caesurae and ‘bridges’. Homeric syntax tends to follow the contour of the metrical cola in an intricate interplay between language and verse. The formulaic constructions, the metrical ‘words’ that make up the hexameter, are interiorised not only by the poets and performers, but also by the listeners, thus facilitating not only the production, but also the comprehension of the tale. The result is a stylised form of speech in which the cola match the ‘intonation units’ of ordinary speech, the short ‘spurts’ of vocalisation by which speakers move from one conscious moment to the next in the production and presentation of their speech.²⁰ This system is transmitted, with remarkably few modifications, to poets and poetic traditions after the early Greek epic tradition. The stability of the system has been captured with the term ‘localisation’: the focus on wholesale cola now yields to the ‘placement’ of words in the metrical space of the hexameter under the constraints due to the various metrical boundaries. The localisation of the metrical ‘word-types’, as demonstrated by O’Neill (1942), differs very little across authors, periods, and genres. For example, a word of the metrical shape has

˘ ¯˘˘

19 For the idea that formula generates metre (rather than the other way around) in a diachronic perspective, see Nagy (1974) and Nagy (1990, 18–35). Cf. also Bakker (1997, 184–90). 20 See in detail Bakker (1997).

Learning the epic formula | 91

little chance of being ‘placed’ anywhere but between the trochaic caesura and the bucolic diaeresis, regardless of author, genre, or ‘medium’.²¹ Every poet in any genre and in either language has to abide by this diachronically and generically stable structure. For some the art is to ‘hide’ the contours of the verse and to produce a syntactic flow that does not seem to be determined by the metre. The result (or aim) is a prose-like quality of the way in which the syntax moves through the metrical space of the hexameter, as in the following extract from Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (A.R. 3.913–18):

915

αὐτίκα δ’ Αἰσονίδην ἑτάρων ἄπο μοῦνον ἐρύσσας ῎Αργος, ὅτ’ ἤδη τήνδε κασιγνήτων ἐσάκουσεν ἠερίην ῾Εκάτης ἱερὸν μετὰ νηὸν ἰοῦσαν, ἦγε διὲκ πεδίου· ἅμα δέ σφισιν εἵπετο Μόψος ᾿Αμπυκίδης, ἐσθλὸς μὲν ἐπιπροφανέντας ἐνισπεῖν οἰωνούς, ἐσθλὸς δὲ σὺν εὖ φράσσασθαι ἰοῦσιν. And immediately, having drawn the Aesonid away from his companions, Argus, when he had heard from his brothers that she [Medea] in early morning was going to the temple of Hecate, he led across the plan; and with them came Mopsus son of Ampycus, skilled at reading the bird signs that appeared before them, and skilled at advising those who were on their way.

The ‘feel’ of this passage is very different from that of Homeric narrative. The participial phrase in A.R. 3.913 precedes the subject of the complex sentence, Argus, whose principal act, expressed in the main verb of the sentence, ἦγε (3.916), is separated by an intervening temporal sub-clause. The hearer / reader is constantly asked to process syntactic elements that look ahead, such as the participle ἐπιπροφανέντας (3.917), which is not fully understood until οἰωνούς in the next line. The Hellenistic producer of ‘art epic’ honours all the metrical rules and restrictions inherited from the early tradition, but has been able to produce a prose-like narrative that is unlike anything we find in Homer. This is all grist for the mill of Parry, for whom Apollonius’ syntax and apparent lack of ‘feel’ for the formula is nothing other than the loss of the typical mechanics of oral poetry due to writing.²² However, dated some six centuries after Apollonius and more than a millennium after the formative phase of the early Greek epic

21 See O’Neill (1942, 143): table 11 lists 95.3% placement in this position for the Iliad and 98.8% for the œuvre of Callimachus. 22 Parry (1971, 251–65) compares Homer with Apollonius and Vergil in the context of a study of enjambment, which in Homer tends to take place in the form of ‘adding’ entire speech units that ‘enjamb’ into the next line, in line with the general match between metrical structure and colon sequence. See also Bakker (1990).

92 | Egbert Bakker

tradition, we have the Posthomerica of Quintus of Smyrna. This work is a sequel to the Iliad, composed after the cyclical poems covering the traditional events between the death of Hector and the sack of Troy (the Aethiopis, Ilias mikra, and Ilioupersis) had apparently been lost. We know nothing about the conditions under which Quintus’ epic was received by its original audience, in performance (through recitation?) or through silent reading. But for those who have competence in Homeric Greek, a feel for the formulaic rhythms that is necessary to be able to compose and ‘speak’ in the epic idiom, the flow of Quintus’ narrative and the way in which his syntax follows the rhythmical contours of the verse must have felt familiar. Quintus reproduces the ‘feel’ of Homeric narrative, as befits an ‘extension’ of the Iliad, but he does not replicate the Homeric formulas. The Posthomerica creates formulaic tendencies of its own, in spite of the fact that Quintus does not seem keen on formulaic repetition for its own sake or to pursue the ‘thrift’ that was for Parry one of the hallmarks of the formulaic style.²³ A typical example is the following extract (Q.S. 1.373–86), a narratorial comment following on the mistaken expectation of an anonymous Trojan that the Achaeans will not return home alive, now that Penthesilea is wreaking havoc among their ranks:

375

380

385

ὣς ἄρ’ ἔφη Τρώων τις ἐνὶ φρεσὶ πάγχυ γεγηθώς, νήπιος· οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἐφράσσατ’ ἐπεσσύμενον βαρὺ πῆμα οἷ αὐτῷ καὶ Τρωσὶ καὶ αὐτῇ Πενθεσιλείῃ. οὐ γάρ πώ τι μόθοιο δυσηχέος ἀμφὶ πέπυστο Αἴας ὀβριμόθυμος ἰδὲ πτολίπορθος ᾿Αχιλλεύς ἀλλ’ ἄμφω περὶ σῆμα Μενοιτιάδαο κέχυντο μνησάμενοι ἑτάροιο, γόος δ’ ἔχεν ἄλλυδις ἄλλον. τοὺς γὰρ δὴ μακάρων τις ἐρήτυε νόσφι κυδοιμοῦ, ὄφρ’ ἀλεγεινὸν ὄλεθρον ἀναπλήσωσι δαμέντες πολλοὶ ὑπὸ Τρώεσσι καὶ ἐσθλῇ Πενθεσιλείῃ ἥ σφιν ἐπασσυτέροις κακὰ μήδετο, καί οἱ ἄεξεν ἀλκὴ ὁμῶς καὶ θάρσος ἐπὶ πλέον, οὐδέ γ’ ποτ’ αἰχμὴν μαψιδίην ἴθυνεν, ἀεὶ δ’ ἢ νῶτα δάιζε φευγόντων ἢ στέρνα καταντίον ἀισσόντων. Thus spoke one of the Trojans, fully contented in his heart, the fool; he was evidently unaware of heavy ruin hurtling, toward himself, the Trojans, and Penthesilea herself. For not yet had word of the awful battle-din reached Ajax strong of spirit, and Achilles the sacker of cities; both were bent over the tomb of Menoetius’ son,

23 Foley (1991, 25–7) notes that the economy that figures so prominently in Parry’s theory seems to be typical for Homer, being far less characteristic of other epic formulaic traditions, such as the Serbo-Croatian tradition that was Parry’s principal comparandum.

Learning the epic formula | 93

remembering their comrade, and exchanging lament. These two one of the blessed ones was keeping far from the battle, so that, beaten, they would fill up the full measure of their painful demise, many of them, at the hands of the Trojans and valiant Penthesilea, who wrought ruin to them, one after the other, and it increased for her, strength and likewise courage as well, and never once did she aim her spear in vain: again and again she pierced the back of those who fled, or the chest of those confronting her face to face.

Q.S. 1.373 (which is identical to 4.32) contains the partially filled construction ἐνὶ φρεσὶ(ν) ¯˘˘ ¯¯˘ where the open space specifies what happens in or with the φρένες in question. In Homer the obvious formulaic implementation is σὺ δ’ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσι (“and you, throw this in your mind”). Quintus’ phrase is not found in Homer (the participle γεγηθώς itself does not occur²⁴), but it has an intuitively Homeric ‘feel’ due to such formulas as γεγήθει δὲ φρένα Νηλεύς (“and Neleus rejoiced in his heart”, Hom. Il. 11.683) or γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα ποίμην (“and the shepherd rejoices in his heart”, Hom. Il. 8.559). The construction in question as deployed in both authors can be arranged as in Tab. 1 (see below). We see that there is very little overlap between the two systems. The Homeric system is heavily weighted toward the βάλλεο σῇσι formula, but apart from this system there is considerable variation. Many expressions occur only once, just as in Quintus. The second line (Q.S. 1.374) begins with a narratorial comment on a character’s ignorance or foolishness that is familiar from the Iliad (Hom. Il. 2.38, 12.113, 16.686). The typical construction is || νήπιος, οὐδ’ (ἄρ), which is followed by Quintus; the late antique poet then diverges and does so formulaically (the line is repeated in Q.S. 13.20); ἐφράσσατ’(ο) is Homeric, but not in this position.²⁵ A similar case of the combination of tradition and innovation is Q.S. 1.376. The phrase οὐ γάρ πώ τι with πέπυστο is Homeric, but whereas Homer keeps the verb with the temporal modifier (Hom. Il. 13.521 || οὐδ’ ἄρα πώ τι πέπυστο and 22.437 οὐ πώ τι πέπυστο ||), Quintus separates the two. The intervening phrase has the epithet δυσήχεος in the expected metrical position between the trochaic caesura and the bucolic diaeresis (14 times in Homer). However, whereas in Homer the epithet always modifies either πολέμοιο or θανάτοιο, Quintus has it preceded by the Iliadic battle word μόθοιο in an inflected form that never occurs in Homer. The next line (Q.S. 1.377) has the Hesiodic (Hes. Th. 140) epithet ὀβριμόθυμος (not in Homer), of which Quintus is fond: he uses it 27 times. Just like in Parry’s

24 γεγηθώς || is used further in Q.S. 1.353 and 3.473. 25 See, for example, Hom. Il. 24.352 ἐφράσσατο κῆρυξ || and Hom. Od. 4.529 ἐφράσσατο τέχνην ||.

94 | Egbert Bakker

Homer, the epithet is sensitive to the heroes’ names: it typically fits Ajax and Memnon, whose names can be placed between the beginning of the verse and the epithet. It is for metrical reasons not easy, whether in Homer or in Quintus, for Achilles to be “strong of spirit”, or to be “strong” (ὄβριμος) in general.²⁶ Tab. 1: Partially filled constructions in Quintus and Homer Quintus of Symrna

Homer

| ἐνὶ φρεσὶ(ν) πάγχυ γεγηθώς || (Q.S. 1.373, 4.32) | ἐνὶ φρεσὶ(ν) καγχαλόωντες || (Q.S. 3.136, 14.403) ἔζεεν αἷμα (Q.S. 3.163) πένθος ἀέξων (Q.S. 3.490) πένθος ἔχουσαι (Q.S. 14.385) μήδεται ἦτορ (Q.S. 4.93) τείρεται ἦτορ (Q.S. 6.10) ταῦτα μενοινᾷ (Q.S. 5.171) σῇσι βαλέσθαι (Q.S. 9.493) μητιάασθε (Q.S. 12.9, 12.51)

βάλλεο σῇσι || (7× Iliad, 7× Odyssey) θυμὸς ἐτόλμα || (Hom. Il. 10.232) θυμὸς ἄητο (Hom. Il. 21.386) θυμὸς ἰάνθη (Hom. Il. 24.321, Hom. Od. 15.165) πένθος ἔχοντα (Hom. Od. 7.218) πένθος ἔκειτο (Hom. Od. 24.423) μαίνεται ἦτορ (Hom. Il. 8.413) ἵλαος ἔστω (Hom. Il. 19.178) σῇσι νοήσεις (Hom. Od. 3.26) μήδετο νόστον (Hom. Od. 3.132) μερμήριξει/-ίζει (Hom. Od. 2.93, 16.73, 20.38, 20.41, 24.128) βυσσοδόμευον (Hom. Od. 4.676) μῆτιν ὑφήνας (Hom. Od. 4.739) ὁρμαίνοντες (Hom. Od. 4.843) εἴδεται εἶναι (Hom. Od. 9.11) μήσεαι ἔργον (Hom. Od. 11.474) πάντα ἰδυῖα (Hom. Od. 13.417) θυμὸν ὄρινας (Hom. Od. 15.486) κέρδε’ ἐνώμας (Hom. Od. 18.216)

These short examples suffice to show that Quintus creates his own formulaic diction, modifying or extending the Homeric prototype in various ways. His treatment of Homeric diction is in fact reminiscent of the way in which Homeric diction itself has been seen as an elaboration of earlier and simpler formulaic phraseology:²⁷ Homeric formulas are split, substitutional paradigms extended, and new formu-

26 In the Iliad it is used only at Hom. Il. 19.408 in the vocative (ὄβριμ’ ᾿Αχιλλεῦ). The epithet suits bisyllabic names beginning with the vowel, such as ῎Αρης or ῞Εκτωρ (placed at line-end). Quintus extends the construction ὄβριμος ¯˘¯ beyond Homeric usage, frequently employing ὄβριμος υἱός and ὄβριμος ἀνήρ and inflected forms. 27 On this, see Hoekstra (1965) and Hainsworth (1968).

Learning the epic formula | 95

las created. Quintus performs a balancing act by remaining close to the Homeric prototype while at the same time studiously avoiding some of its most salient features:²⁸ for example, his elaborate system of speech-introductory formulas, the partially filled construction with two variable slots τὸν δ’ [particle ˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯] προσέφη [name ],²⁹ which serves in Homer as the ‘staging’ for many of ˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯¯ the noun-epithet combinations in the nominative case,³⁰ is largely absent; Quintus deploys it only once, pointedly filling in the variable slots with material that is not found in Homer: τὸν δ’ ὑποδερκόμενος προσέφη μενεδήιος Αἴας (Q.S. 3.252). Nor is Quintus interested in achieving the economy in his formulaic usage that Parry had observed for Homeric diction (to the extent that Quintus had noticed economy in Homer at all). Here are, for example, some line-end noun-epithet formulas for Achilles in the genitive case (none of them being Homeric): | ἀταρτηροῦ ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 4.476) | ἀμειλίκτου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 8.335) | ἐυπτολέμου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 3.552, 7.183, 7.576, 8.76) | φιλοπτολέμου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 6.79, 7.245, 8.256) | μενεπτολέμου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 7.245, 7.583, 8.285)

Homer knows μενεπτόλεμος in the nominative case in the same position, most often followed by Πολυποίτης. The ‘competing’ epithet φιλοπτόλεμος is in Homer only used for collectives (e.g. Trojans, Achaeans, and Myrmidons). There does not seem to be any reason not to extend its use to individual heroes, and Quintus has not hesitated to create the metrical and prosodic ‘synonyms’ based on the two epithets. There can be no doubt that Quintus of Smyrna, working in what most scholars think is the fourth century AD, ‘wrote’. But that is hardly a defining characteristic of his epic poem. Quintus shows that formulaic usage is not simply, or is not always, the result of the typical conditions under which the epic poem is composed in performance. Many of the features that are so characteristic of Homer, the formulas, the synchrony of metrical and syntactic structure, can also be studiously pursued, even under conditions of ‘full’ orality. Nor is ‘result’ uersus ‘aim’ a distinction that sets Homeric poetry as oral poetry apart from written epic poetry. Even in the (hypothetical) case of an entirely textless performance is there conscious rhetorical design, as there is in ordinary speech.³¹

28 See also Bouvier (2002, 196–202). 29 Cf., e.g., τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις ᾿Οδυσσεύς, which is used 5× in the Iliad, and 45× in the Odyssey. See Beck (2018, 209). 30 On the ‘staging’ of noun-epithet formulas, see Bakker (1997, 162–73). 31 Cf. Bakker (1997, 125–38).

96 | Egbert Bakker

It seems reasonable to suppose that Quintus’ primary aim is to ‘imitate’ Homer. But the way he achieves this aim is not through replication of Homeric formulas. Quintus aims at a mimesis of Homer in the sense that his poetry comes across as Homeric. In the process he has developed his own ‘sense of the formula’ based on a deep ‘nativelike’ competence in the interaction of metre and epic diction. If the Homeric bard learns his formulas the way a speaker learns his language, then Quintus has become completely fluent in a second language.

Bibliography Bakker, E. J. (1990). Homeric discourse and enjambment: a cognitive approach, TAPA 120: 1–21. Bakker, E. J. (1997). Poetry in speech: orality and Homeric discourse. Ithaca, NY. Bakker, E. J. (2009). Rhapsodes, bards, and bricoleurs: Homerizing literary theory, Classics@ 3. (Available at https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/1311). Beck, D. (2018). Odysseus Polyonymous, in: J. L. Ready/C. C. Tsagalis (eds.), Homer in performance. Rhapsodes, narrators, and characters. Austin, TX: 205–29. Bolinger, D. (1961). Syntactic blends and other matters, Language 37: 366–81. Bolinger, D. (1976). Meaning and memory, Forum Linguisticum 1: 1–14. Bouvier, D. (2002). Le sceptre et la lyre. L’Iliade ou les héros de la mémoire. Grenoble. Bozzone, C. (2010). New perspectives on formularity, in: S. W. Jamison/H. C. Melchert/B. Vine (eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference. Bremen: 27–44. Cerquiglini, B. (1989). Éloge de la variante. Histoire critique de la philologie. Paris. De Saussure, F. (1982). Cours de linguistique générale. Edition critique préparée par Tullio de Mauro. Paris. De Vet, T. (2005). Parry in Paris: structuralism, historical linguistics, and the oral theory, ClAnt 24: 257–84. Doane, A. N. (1994). The ethnography of scribal writing and Anglo-Saxon poetry: scribe as performer, Oral Tradition 9: 420–39. Düntzer, H. (1872). Über den Einfluss des Metrums auf den homerischen Ausdruck, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie 10: 673–94. Ellendt, J. E. (1864). Einiges über den Einfluss des Metrums auf den Gebrauch von Wortformen und Wortverbindungen bei Homer, in: J. E. Ellendt (ed.), Drei homerische Abhandlungen. Leipzig: 6–34. Erman, B./Warren, B. (2000). The idiom principle and the open choice principle, Text 20: 29– 62. Foley, J. M. (1991). Immanent art: from structure to meaning in traditional oral epic. Indianapolis. Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work. Oxford. Goldberg, A. E. (2013). Constructionist approaches, in: T. Hoffmann/G. Trousdale (eds.), The Oxford handbook of construction grammar. Oxford: 15–31. Hainsworth, J. B. (1968). The flexibility of the Homeric formula. Oxford. Hoekstra, A. (1965). Homeric modifications of formulaic prototypes. Amsterdam.

Learning the epic formula | 97

Kiparsky, P. (1976). Oral poetry: some linguistic and typological considerations, in: B. A. Stolz/ R. S. Shannon (eds.), Oral literature and the formula. Ann Arbor, MI: 73–106. Kirk, G. S. (1985). The Iliad. A commentary, vol. I: Books 1–4. Cambridge. Lord, A. B. (1953). Homer’s originality: oral dictated texts, TAPA 84: 124–34. Lord, A. B. (1960). The singer of tales. Cambridge, MA. Meister, K. (1921). Die homerische Kunstsprache. Leipzig. Nagy, G. (1974). Comparative studies in Greek and Indic meter. Cambridge, MA. Nagy, G. (1990). Greek mythology and poetics. Ithaca, NY. Nagy, G. (1996). Poetry as performance: Homer and beyond. Cambridge. O’Neill, E. G. (1942). The localization of metrical word-types in the Greek hexameter: Homer and the Alexandrians, YClS 8: 105–78. Parry, A. (ed., 1971). The making of Homeric verse: the collected papers of Milman Parry. Oxford. Parry, M. (1928). L’épithète traditionnelle dans Homère. Paris. Ready, J. L. (2015). The textualization of Homeric epic by means of dictation, TAPA 145: 1–75. Rubin, D. C. (1995). Memory in oral traditions: the cognitive psychology of epic, ballads, and counting-out rhymes. Oxford. Witte, K. (1912). Zur Flexion homerischer Formeln, Glotta 3: 110–17. Wray, A./Perkins, M. R. (2000). The functions of formulaic language: an integrated model, Language & Communication 20: 1–28. Zumthor, P. (1983). Introduction à la poésie orale. Paris.

Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

Narratology and classical epic Abstract: Narrative theory or narratology, to use the term coined by Tzvetan Todorov in the late 1960s, has in recent decades evolved into a key concept of literary theory. Its subject, the oral and written, literary and non-literary narrative has become almost a principal paradigm of Cultural Studies. In this view, narrative appears as an anthropologically given (culturally and socially variable) fact, as a ubiquitous means both of individual and collective interpretation of the world and of the making of cultural meaning. No other literary genre of modern literature is so closely linked to the aspect of the search for meaning in an increasingly fragmented and uncertain world as the novel. This gives rise to two aspects that are relevant for the narratological interpretation of ancient Greek and Latin texts: first, a significant portion of current narratological theorizing takes place around the (modern) novel. Second, the special role of the ancient epic as an object of narratological analysis within the study of Classical Philology is given by the fact that epic poetry has been viewed as the literary precursor of the novel since the 18th century. The occasional objection that narratology, with a certain arbitrariness, imposes unfitting, modern theories upon ancient texts proves problematic since the earlier research of the 20th century – in a time when the term ‘narratology’ was still unfamiliar – was partially based upon the same theoretical approaches that, together with (French) structuralism, led to today’s concept of narratology. The first part of this article deals with the history, methodology, and terminology of narratological research from the late 1960s until now both in the general field of Literary Studies and in Classics. The second part responds to the ‘clash of cultures’ between traditional hermeneutics and modern theory. The third and final section discusses themes and trends in the area of narratology and Classics.

1 Narratology: beginnings and context The study of classical literature in the West, both Greek and Latin, experienced a rather delayed application of theoretical approaches and methods – which also applies to narratology. This principle lack was diagnosed at an early stage by Segal (1968, 10):

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-005

100 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

When we come to consider specific methods of criticism, it is clear that classical critics have not of late been pioneers or innovators of new approaches, as they were in the early part of the century. No new critical theories have arisen from classical studies per se.

Among common explanations one finds the notion that Classics as the oldest philology and “leader in the field of literary interpretation” (de Jong, 2014b, 6–7) did not feel particular pressure of innovation. Therefore, it failed to keep pace with the literary theories and concepts developed within the neighbouring modern philologies.¹ Narratology’s delayed entry into Classics is all the more striking since, as de Jong (2014b, 3) has pointed out, “in fact, narratology can be said to have started in antiquity, when a number of central concepts were developed”. As examples de Jong refers to Plato’s differentiation between dihegesis and mimesis (Pl. R. 3.392–3) or Aristotle’s remarks on the tripartite structure of plot (Arist. Po. 7). In the 1970s Rubino (1977, 66) called on classicists to draw their attention to the works of French structuralism: I am making a plea for active and strenuous reading, for the lectio difficilior of my title. There is no substitute for reading the structuralist texts themselves, difficult though that may be; for, with very few expectations, one page of Barthes or Lévi-Strauss is worth many pages of explanation by the Anglo-American interpreters and critics.

In this period, French structuralism being rooted in the theories and concepts of the Russian formalists and Ferdinand de Saussure, developed a wider response.² The journal Arethusa started to dedicate several issues to ‘modern’ interdisciplinary and theoretical methods, such as Psychoanalysis and the Classics (1974, Arethusa 7), Classical literature and contemporary critical perspectives (1977, Arethusa 10), Women and their world (1978, Arethusa 11), Semiotics and Classical Studies (1983, Arethusa 16), Audience-oriented criticism and the Classics (1986, Arethusa 19).³ One branch of greater importance became the study of signs or semiotics, initiated by the philosophical work of Charles Sanders Peirce and adopted by Roland Barthes (Système de la mode, 1967) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (Mythologiques, vol. 1, 1964). Their thinking influenced the classicist ‘Paris-School’ and the Greek studies of Jean-Pierre Vernant (Mythe et pensées chez les Grecs, 1965) and Pierre Vidal-Naquet (Économies et sociétés en Grèce ancienne. Périodes archaïque et classique, 1972).

1 Cf. de Jong (2014b, 6–7). 2 Cf. Rubino (1977). On the application of further modern literary theories on classical studies, see the volumes edited by Hexter/Selden (1992) and de Jong/Sullivan (1994) on psychoanalysis, aesthetic reception, speech act theory, gender studies, and Poststructuralism, as well as Schmitz (2 2006) and Schmitz (2007). 3 Cf. also Fowler/Fowler (3 2005, 873).

Narratology and classical epic |

101

They also influenced North American classical scholarship: early examples are Charles Segal (Landscape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1969) and Froma Zeitlin (The ritual world of Greek tragedy, 1973). Another semiotic concept, which has had a vast impact on classical studies, was Julia Kristeva’s intertextuality (Word, Dialogue, and Novel, written in 1966). Based on the general notion that “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another”,⁴ this concept enhanced the idea that via ‘allusions’ and ‘parallels’ ancient authors intentionally referred back to literary predecessors. Classical philologists such as Gian Biagio Conte (Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario, 1974; The rhetoric of imitation, 1986), Alessandro Barchiesi (La traccia del modello, 1984; Homeric effects in Vergil’s narrative, 2015), and R. O. A. M. Lyne (Further voices in Vergil’s Aeneid, 1987) then applied this approach to the interpretation of Latin literature, which had a far-reaching effect on classical scholarship – especially on the reappraisal of the so-called ‘Silver Latin’ works, such as Flavian epic.⁵ Another most influential branch of structuralism has been widely received until today: the formal analysis of narratives, also known as narratology.⁶ Building on Todorov’s study Grammaire du Décaméron (1969), Gerard Genette (Figures III, 1972) elaborated a comprehensive and highly systematic framework analysing Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (1913–1927). The main focus of Genette’s Figures lies on the relationship between the narrated world (histoire), the narrative representation of the narrated world (récit), and the narrative representation through a narrating instance (narration). This concept proved to be an adaptable and fruitful approach to ancient texts, not only to narrative genres such as epic and the novel, but also to drama, lyric, elegy, hymns, didactic poetry, epistolography, and historiography.⁷ In the 1980s a breakthrough of structuralist-narratological analyses of classical texts took place, comprising a wide range of genres, such as on epinicean poetry by Hurst (1983) and Köhnken (1983), on Greek epic by Fusillo (1985, with a special focus on Genette’s notion of time), and on the Greek novel by Fusillo (1988). A prominent narratological study of the Latin novel was provided by Winkler (1985),

4 Kristeva (1980, 66). 5 Cf. Fowler/Fowler (3 2005, 872) and Augoustakis (2016, 1–14). 6 For a concise overview of the history of narratology and its most influential theorists, see de Jong (2014b, 3–6). 7 On ground-breaking narratological studies in the various genres of ancient Greek and Latin prose and poetry, cf. Grethlein/Rengakos (2009b). Cf. also Suerbaum (1968) whose principle approach can be characterised as ‘narratological’, even though the term ‘narratology’ was not coined yet.

102 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

but it was especially de Jong’s monograph Narrators and focalizers (2004) which leveraged narratology to advance the field of Classics and inspire Greek and Latin scholars to take up modern narrative theory. This fundamental study offers an analysis of focalisation in Homeric epic: its analytical categories are based on the narratological model provided by Mieke Bal (3 2009), one of Genette’s students, who refined his methodological instruments. Since then, a rapidly increasing amount of narratological approaches to ancient texts continues to appear. Introductory monographs, volumes, and articles – some of them with emphasis, however, on literary theory rather than on narratology in its narrow sense – comprise Galinsky (1992), Hexter/Selden (1992), de Jong/Sullivan (1994), Harrison (2001c), Schmitz (2 2006), Schmitz (2007), Grethlein/Rengakos (2009b), Konstan/ Nünlist (2009), and Scodel (2014). Since 2012 the Mnemosyne supplements comprises a subseries dedicated to Studies in ancient Greek narrative. The most comprehensive introduction to the application of narratology and its methods to Greek and Roman literature is given by de Jong’s influential monograph Narratology and Classics. A practical guide (2014; 2017). It deals with narratology in a systematic way (narrators and narratees, focalisation, time, and space) and draws examples from both modern and ancient sources – and here not only from narrative genres such as epic poetry, but also from historiography, biography, the ancient novel, and even drama and lyric. Theory building in the area of narratology has been based mainly on the analysis of 19th and early 20th century novels. If one assumes ancient epic, in line with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and others, to be the major forerunner of this genre, a tentative and careful application of these modern theories on ancient texts seems both inviting and justified.⁸ Narratological studies in the field of Classics add to an overall diachronic (transgeneric and transcultural) understanding of narrative and open up new perspectives for interdisciplinary cooperation: “It combines the synchronic and the diachronic, offering not only analyses of the handling of a specific narrative device by individual authors, but also a larger historical perspective on the manner in which techniques change over time.”⁹ An example for the enrichment of our understanding of narrative texts on a diachronic axis is given by de Jong’s observation that metalepsis in ancient Greek literature

8 Hegel characterises the modern novel as “moderne bürgerliche Epopoë” in the second volume of his Ästhetik (1965, 452). 9 De Jong (2014b, 11). See also Grethlein/Rengakos (2009a, 3–4), Scodel (2014, 2–3), and von Contzen (2015, 97); for narratology and Medieval literature, cf. von Contzen/Kragl (2018). Von Contzen/Tilg (forthcoming) are currently preparing an interdisciplinary handbook of historical narratology.

Narratology and classical epic |

103

adds credibility and authority to the narrator rather than in modern literature where it often serves as an “illusion disturbing” device.¹⁰

2 Narratology and Classics: a clash of cultures? Particularly in the 1990s the growing emergence of theoretical and narratological studies in Classics caused strong reservations and tensions within the Classics community. Hexter/Selden (1992, p. xii) made this internal friction a subject of discussion in their volume’s introduction: Whatever the ultimate cause or value of the turn toward theory in modern language studies, this state of affairs contrasts sharply with the situation in most Classics departments today. Some would say our longer view holds us above fluctuations in interpretative fashions. Many, however, whether by accident or force of will, remain largely ignorant of even the basic issues that are being debated among contemporary theorists. Others have read and pondered the new theories, only to reject them, it would seem, or in any case their application to the Classics.

Schmitz (2007, 6–10) summarises the most prominent reproaches made against literary and narrative theory: “Theory for theory’s sake”, “modern theories are inappropriate to ancient texts”, “new wine in old wineskins”, “literary theory is too fashionable”, “texts must be approached unprejudiced”, “literary theory uses incomprehensible jargon”.¹¹ He states that these objections are by no means a sufficient reason for flatly condemning the study of theory. . . . we, who have the privilege of a regular and easy access to the rich and enriching cultural heritage of antiquity, should view opinions that differ from our own not as a threat, but as a supplementation and a challenge, in the spirit of cheerful pluralism.¹²

In his general introduction, Harrison (2001a) emphasises this necessity of cooperation between theoretical studies and traditional scholarship within Classics. In the same volume, Fowler (2001, 68) argues in a similar way: Viewed as a bundle of techniques, narratology fits as easily into such traditional concerns as the construction of authorial intention (why did Vergil narrate this event before this event?)

10 See de Jong (2009); cf. also Grethlein/Rengakos (2009a, 5). 11 For criticism against narratological methods and approaches, cf. Pearcy (1988) and Kullmann (2002). 12 Schmitz (2007, 10).

104 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

or of historical ‘reality’ (is this detail focalised from Thucydides’ point of view or that of one of his characters?) as it does into postmodernism.

Additionally, Harrison (2001a, 6) claims that both approaches should be considered not only with regard to academic research, but also to teaching:¹³ The ideal graduate student of the 21st century in classical literature should be able both to analyse and discuss the relative merits of variant manuscript readings, and to give a coherent account of the basic features of narratology and reader-response theory, and their possible effects on literary interpretation.

What seems to be most important and more and more generally accepted is the observation that narratology, though being theoretical in its foundation, does not lead away from the text, but conversely provokes its close and careful reading. Today, the vigorous debate between the allegedly dichotomous approaches has noticeably cooled down. The great potential narrative theory has for the interpretation of ancient texts has become evident in the vast variety of articles, volumes, and monographs which have been published since the beginning of the 21st century. Even though the major part of those contributions does not offer narratological analyses in a strict sense, they at least demonstrate a strong affinity with models and categories of narrative theory. In retrospect, Donald and Peta Fowler’s observation from 1996, that “the narratology of Genette and Bal . . . , with a wealth of new terminology and methods, is often seen as the least ‘threatening’ approach by traditional scholars”¹⁴ appears to still hold true, especially for Greek and Roman epic, but more and more also with regard to genres which do not rely as much on narratives.

3 Themes and trends Narratology in Classics has brought closer attention to multiple aspects of narration. Examples are narrators and narratees,¹⁵ the notion of focalisation or point of view,¹⁶ the determination of different levels of voices,¹⁷ the categories of time, and more recently, of space, the narrative potential of ekphrasis and other forms

13 14 15 16 17

For a recent example taking this approach, see Polleichtner (2018). Fowler/Fowler (3 2005, 871). See de Jong/Nünlist (2004) and de Jong/Nünlist/Bowie (2004). Cf. Fowler (1990), Nünlist (2003), de Jong (2 2004), and Kirstein (2015a). See Barchiesi (2002), Rosati (2002), Barchiesi (2006), and Slater (2017).

Narratology and classical epic |

105

of description,¹⁸ the analysis of beginning and closure,¹⁹ or the phenomenon of metalepsis,²⁰ all aspects which are of central importance for the interpretation of large scale narrative texts, such as ancient Greek and Roman epic. Grethlein/Rengakos (2009a, 2), taking up Harrison’s and Fowler’s positions, propose a furthering of classical narratology by cultural studies or theories from neighbouring fields in order to create new methodological resources and tools for interpretation: “the singular ‘narratology’ has given way to a plurality of ‘narratologies’ . . . While many of these interdisciplinary and intermedial narratologies still rely on traditional structuralist concepts, some scholars have ventured to set narratology on a new footing.” The notion of multiple narratologies reflects an on-going trend in narratology to enhance and refine traditional concepts by postclassical and post-structuralistic approaches, for instance cognitive (shifting from text to the act of reception and reader-response theory), cultural (e.g. post-colonial, feminist), functional, and historical.²¹ On a different axis of thought, when discussing the different major genres of ancient literature, there seems to be no need for modelling a variety of narratological toolboxes. De Jong (2014b, 171–2) makes this point with regard to ancient historiography: All in all, for ancient historiography our position can be more that of Barthes, White and Genette: ancient historians make use of the same narrative devices as their literary counterparts. The reason is not difficult to imagine: the first historians were heavily indebted to the Homeric epics, in terms of both content (the focus on individuals) and form (the speeches and prolepses/analepses). . . . Therefore, there is no need to develop a separate historiographic narratology, and narratology can help to detect how historians adapt traditional narrative devices or invent new ones to convey their view of the past.

There is also growing influence of postmodernism in literary theory and narratology which triggers an interest in themes and concepts, such as body and space,²² visu-

18 On this, see Fowler (1991), Putnam (1998), Harrison (2001b), Bartsch/Elsner (2007), Harrison (2009), de Jong (2011), and Koopman (2018). 19 Cf. Dunn/Cole (1992), Hardie (1997), Roberts/Dunn/Fowler (1997), Fowler (2000a), Fowler (2000b), Asper (2013), and Schmitz/Telg genannt Kortmann/Jöne (2017). 20 See de Jong (2009), Nauta (2013a), and Nauta (2013b). 21 Cf. Fowler (2001, 67), Nünning (2002), Herman (2009, 26), Alber/Fludernik (2010), Scodel (2014, 5), and Grethlein (2017). Psychological approaches can be problematic for the interpretation of ancient texts because of our limited knowledge and empiric data of the authors as well as the contemporary readers. 22 See de Jong/Nünlist (2007), de Jong (2012), Klooster (2014), Skempis/Ziogas (2014), Ziogas (2014), Kirstein (2015a), and Nelis (2015); for a digital approach to spatio-narratological issues, cf. Viehhauser et al. (2017). See also Kirstein in volume II.2.

106 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

ality,²³ concepts of character and characterisation,²⁴ the Possible Worlds Theory,²⁵ or the representation of violence in literature.²⁶ Particularly structuralist narratology has also led to a revision of traditional philological genres. The most prominent example is de Jong’s seminal narratological commentary on Homer’s Odyssey from 2001.²⁷ On Ovid’s Metamorphoses there is a commentary of Book 8 by Tsitsiou-Chelidoni (2003) and a commentary of all books edited by a team around Barchiesi and Rosati from 2005 to 2015. There remains, however, still a great need of commentaries with a narratological focus in the field of Classics.²⁸ Narratology also plays an important role for this project (Structures of Epic Poetry). First, it allows for a more precise analysis of individual epic structures both within the poems under discussion and across time periods, authors, and works from Homer to Nonnus, especially, though not necessarily when questions of inter- or intratextuality come into play.²⁹ Secondly, narratological analyses provide a better understanding of narrative, for instance, by contributing to an overall diachronic research, which extends the vertical timeline beyond antiquity to medieval, early modern and modern literature.

Bibliography Alber, J./Fludernik, M. (eds., 2010). Postclassical narratology: approaches and analyses. Columbus. Asper, M. (2013). Minding the gap: aetiology and (false) closure, in: F. F. Grewing/B. AcostaHughes/A. Kirichenko (eds.), The door ajar: false closure in Greek and Roman literature and art. Heidelberg: 63–82. Augoustakis, A. (ed., 2016). Flavian epic. Oxford. Bal, M. (3 2009). Narratology: introduction to the theory of narrative. Toronto. Barchiesi, A. (1984). La traccia del modello. Effetti omerici nella narrazione virgiliana. Pisa.

23 Cf. Fondermann (2008), Lovatt (2013), Lovatt/Vout (2013), and Kampakoglu/Novokhatko (2018). 24 Cf. de Temmerman/van Emde Boas (2017). 25 Cf. Kirstein (2015b). 26 Cf. Nill (2018). 27 On the study’s impact in the field, cf., e.g., Scodel (2008, 4). 28 A new series on narratological commentaries is planned by de Jong and Kirstein: Brill’s Narratological Commentaries to Ancient Texts. 29 Recent examples are Barchiesi (2015), Fulkerson/Stover (2016), and Augoustakis (2016). On intertextuality and narratology in general, cf. Bal (3 2009, 69); on intertextuality in the context of literary theory, see Schmitz (2007, 77–85).

Narratology and classical epic |

107

Barchiesi, A. (2001). Speaking volumes. Narrative and intertext in Ovid and other Latin poets. London. Barchiesi, A. (2002). Narrative Technique and Narratology in the Metamorphoses, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge: 180–99. Barchiesi, A. (ed., 2005). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. I: Libri I–II. A cura di A. Barchiesi con un saggio introduttivo di C. Segal, testo critico basato sull’edizione oxoniense di R. J. Tarrant, traduzione di L. Koch. Milan. Barchiesi, A. (2006). Voices and Narrative ‘Instances’ in the Metamorphoses, in: P. E. Knox (ed.), Oxford Readings in Ovid. Oxford: 274–319. Barchiesi, A. (2015). Homeric effects in Vergil’s narrative. Princeton, NJ. Barchiesi, A./Rosati, G. (eds., 2007). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. II: Libri III–IV, traduzione di L. Koch. Milan. Barthes, R. (1967). Système de la mode. Paris. Bartsch, S./Elsner, J. (eds., 2007). CPh 102. [Special issue: Ekphrasis]. Bassenge, F. (ed., 1965). Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Ästhetik, 2 vols. Frankfurt am Main. Beck, D. (2012). Speech presentation in Homeric epic. Austin. Clare, R. J. (2002). The path of the Argo. Language, imagery and narrative in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Cambridge. Conte, G. B. (1974). Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario. Turin. Conte, G. B. (1986). The rhetoric of imitation. Genre and poetic memory in Virgil and other Latin poets. Edited and with a foreword by C. Segal. Ithaca, NY. De Jong, I. J. F. (2 2004). Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad. London. De Jong, I. J. F. (2009). Metalepsis in ancient Greek literature, in: J. Grethlein/A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and interpretation. The content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin/New York: 87–115. De Jong, I. J. F. (2011). The shield of Achilles: from metalepsis to mise en abyme, Ramus 40: 1–14. De Jong, I. J. F. (ed., 2012). Space in ancient Greek literature. Leiden/Boston. De Jong, I. J. F. (2014b). Narratology and Classics. A practical guide. Oxford. De Jong, I. J. F. (2017). I classici e la narratologia. Guida alla lettura degli autori greci e latini. Rome. De Jong, I. J. F./Nünlist, R. (2004). From bird’s eye view to close up: the standpoint of the narrator in the Homeric epics, in: A. Bierl/A. Schmitt/A. Willi (eds.), Antike Literatur in neuer Deutung. Munich: 63–83. De Jong, I. J. F./Nünlist, R. (eds., 2007). Time in ancient Greek literature. Studies in ancient Greek narrative, vol. II. Leiden/Boston. De Jong, I. J. F./Nünlist, R./Bowie, A. (eds., 2004). Narrators, narratees, and narratives in ancient Greek literature. Studies in ancient Greek narrative, vol. I. Leiden/Boston. De Jong, I. J. F./Sullivan, J. P. (eds., 1994). Modern critical theory and classical literature. Leiden. De Temmerman, K./van Emde Boas, E. (eds., 2017). Characterization in Ancient Greek Literature. Leiden. Dufallo, B. (2013). The captor’s image: Greek culture in Roman ekphrasis. Oxford. Dunn, F. M./Cole, T. (eds., 1992). Beginnings in classical literature. Cambridge. Elsner, J. (ed., 2002). Ramus 31. [Special issue: The verbal and the visual: cultures of ekphrasis in antiquity]. Foley, J. M. (ed., 2005). A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA.

108 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

Fondermann, P. (2008). Kino im Kopf. Zur Visualisierung des Mythos in den Metamorphosen Ovids. Göttingen. Fowler, D. P. (1990). Deviant focalisation in Virgil’s Aeneid, The Cambridge Classical Journal 36: 42–63. Fowler, D. P. (1991). Narrate and describe: the problem of ekphrasis, JRS 81: 112–22. Fowler, D. P. (2000a). First thoughts on closure: problems and prospects, in: D. P. Fowler (ed.), Roman constructions. Readings in postmodern Latin. Oxford: 239–83. Fowler, D. P. (2000b). Second thoughts on closure, in: D. P. Fowler (ed.), Roman constructions. Readings in postmodern Latin. Oxford: 284–307. Fowler, D. P. (2001). Introduction, in: S. J. Harrison (ed.), Texts, ideas, and the Classics: scholarship, theory, and classical literature. Oxford: 65–9. Fowler, P. G./Fowler, D. P. (3 2005). Literary theory and classical studies, OCD: 871–5. Fulkerson, L./Stover, T. (eds., 2016). Repeat Performances: Ovidian Repetition and the Metamorphoses. Madison, WI. Fusillo, M. (1985). Il tempo delle Argonautiche: un’analisi del racconto in Apollonio Rodio. Rome. Fusillo, M. (1988). Textual patterns and narrative situations in the Greek novel. Groningen: 17–32. Galinsky, K. (ed., 1992). The interpretation of Roman poetry: empiricism or hermeneutics? Frankfurt am Main. Genette, G. (1972). Figures III. Paris. Goldhill, S. (1991). The poet’s voice. Essays in poetics and Greek literature. Cambridge. Grethlein, J. (2006). Das Geschichtsbild der Ilias. Eine Untersuchung aus phänomenologischer und narratologischer Perspektive. Göttingen. Grethlein, J. (2017). Die Odyssee: Homer und die Kunst des Erzählens. Munich. Grethlein, J./Rengakos, A. (2009a). Introduction, in: J. Grethlein/A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and interpretation. The content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin/New York: 1–14. Grethlein, J./Rengakos, A. (eds., 2009b). Narratology and interpretation. The content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin/New York. Hardie, P. R. (1997). Closure in Latin epic, in: D. H. Roberts/F. M. Dunn/D. P. Fowler (eds.), Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ: 139–62. Hardie, P. R. (ed., 2015). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. VI: Libri XIII–XV, traduzione di G. Chiarini. Milan. Harrison, S. J. (2001a). General introduction: working together, in: S. J. Harrison (ed.), Texts, ideas, and the Classics: scholarship, theory, and classical literature. Oxford: 1–18. Harrison, S. J. (2001b). Picturing the future: the prophetic ekphrasis from Homer to Vergil, in: S. J. Harrison (ed.), Texts, ideas, and the Classics: scholarship, theory, and classical literature. Oxford: 70–92. Harrison, S. J. (ed., 2001c). Texts, ideas, and the Classics: scholarship, theory, and classical literature. Oxford. Harrison, S. J. (2009). Picturing the future again: proleptic ekphrasis in Silius’ Punica, in: A. Augoustakis (ed.), Brill’s companion to Silius Italicus. Leiden/Boston: 279–92. Herman, D. (2009). Basic elements of narrative. Malden. Hexter, R./Selden, D. L. (eds., 1992). Innovations of antiquity. New York. Hinds, S. E. (2002). Landscape with figures: aesthetics of place in the Metamorphoses and its tradition, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge: 122–49.

Narratology and classical epic |

109

Hurst, A. (1983). Temps du récit chez Pindare (Pyth. 4) et Bacchylide (11), MH 40: 154–68. Kampakoglu, A./Novokhatko, A. (eds., 2018). Gaze, vision, and visuality in ancient Greek literature. Berlin. Keith, A. M. (1999). Versions of epic masculinity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in: P. R. Hardie/A. Barchiesi/S. Hinds (eds.), Ovidian transformations: essays on the Metamorphoses and its reception. Cambridge: 214–39. Kenney, E. J. (ed., 2011). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. IV: Libri VII–IX, traduzione di G. Chiarini. Milan. Kirstein, R. (2015a). Der sehende Drache. Raumnarratologische Überlegungen zu Ovids Metamorphosen, in: C. Kugelmeier (ed.), Translatio humanitatis. Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Peter Riemer, Hermeneutik und Kreativität. St. Ingbert: 209–38. Kirstein, R. (2015b). Ficta et Facta. Reflexionen über den Realgehalt der Dinge bei Ovid, Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 60: 257–77. Klooster, J. (2014). Time, space, and ideology in the aetiological narratives of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, in: C. Reitz/A. Walter (eds.), Von Ursachen sprechen. Eine aitiologische Spurensuche. Telling origins. On the lookout for aetiology. Hildesheim: 519– 44. Köhnken, A. (1983). Mythical chronology and thematic coherence in Pindar’s Third Olympian Ode, HSPh 87: 49–63. Konstan, D./Nünlist, R. (2009). Narrative, literary, in: M. Gagarin (ed.), The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford. Koopman, N. (2018). Ancient Greek ekphrasis: Between description and narration: five linguistic and narratological case studies. Leiden. Kristeva, J. (1980). World, Dialogue, and Novel, in: L. S. Roudiez (ed.), Desire in language. A semiotic approach to literature and art. Translated by A. Jardine, T. Gora and L. S. Roudiez. New York: 64–91. Kullmann, W. (2002). Realität, Imagination und Theorie. Kleine Schriften zu Epos und Tragödie in der Antike. Stuttgart. Leigh, M. (1997). Lucan: spectacle and engagement. Oxford. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1964). Mythologiques, vol. I: Le cru et le cuit. Paris. Lovatt, H. V. (2013). The epic gaze: vision, gender and narrative in ancient epic. Cambridge. Lovatt, H. V./Vout, C. (eds., 2013). Epic visions: visuality in Greek and Latin epic and its reception. Cambridge. Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1987). Further voices in Vergil’s Aeneid. Oxford. Masters, J. (1992). Poetry and civil war in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Cambridge. Nauta, R. (2013a). Metalepsis and metapoetics in Latin poetry, in: U. E. Eisen/P. von Möllendorff (eds.), Über die Grenze. Metalepse in Text- und Bildmedien des Altertums. Berlin: 223–56. Nauta, R. (2013b). The concept of metalepsis: From rhetoric to the theory of allusion and to narratology, in: U. E. Eisen/P. von Möllendorff (eds.), Über die Grenze. Metalepse in Textund Bildmedien des Altertums. Berlin: 469–82. Nelis, D. P. (2015). Vergilian cities: visions of Troy, Carthage and Rome, in: T. Fuhrer/F. Mundt/J. Stenger (eds.), Cityscaping: constructing and modelling images of the city. Berlin/Boston: 19–45. Nill, H.-P. (2018). Gewalt und Unmaking in Lucans Bellum Civile. Textanalysen aus narratologischer, wirkungsästhetischer und gewaltsoziologischer Perspektive. Leiden/Boston. Nünlist, R. (2003). The Homeric Scholia on Focalization, Mnemosyne 56: 61–71. Nünning, A. (ed., 2002). Neue Ansätze in der Erzähltheorie. Trier.

110 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

Pearcy, L. T. (1988). Theme, dream, and narrative: reading the sacred tales of Aelius Aristides, TAPA 118: 377–91. Polleichtner, W. (ed., 2018). Literatur- und Kulturtheorie und altsprachlicher Unterricht. Speyer. Proust, M. (1913–1927). Á la recherche du temps perdu, 7 vols. Paris. Putnam, M. C. J. (1998). Virgil’s epic designs: ekphrasis in the Aeneid. New Haven, CT. Reed, J. D. (ed., 2013). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. V: Libri X–XII, traduzione di G. Chiarini. Milan. Richardson, S. (1990). The Homeric narrator. Nashville, TN. Roberts, D. H./Dunn, F. M./Fowler, D. P. (1997). Afterworld. Ending and aftermath, ancient and modern, in: D. H. Roberts/F. M. Dunn/D. P. Fowler (eds.), Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ: 251–73. Rosati, G. (2002). Narrative techniques and narrative structures in the Metamorphoses, in: B. W. Boyd (ed.), Brill’s companion to Ovid. Leiden/Boston/Cologne: 271–304. Rosati, G. (ed., 2009). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. III: Libri V–VI. A cura di G. Rosati, testo critico basato sull’edizione oxoniense di R. J. Tarrant, traduzione di G. Chiarini. Milan. Rubino, C. A. (1977). Lectio difficilior praeferenda est: some remarks on contemporary French thought and the study of classical literature, Arethusa 10: 63–83. Schmitz, C./Telg genannt Kortmann, J./Jöne, A. (eds., 2017). Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg. Schmitz, T. A. (2 2006). Moderne Literaturtheorie und antike Texte. Eine Einführung. Darmstadt. Schmitz, T. A. (2007). Modern literary theory and ancient texts: an introduction. Malden. Scodel, R. (2008). Epic facework: self-presentation and social interaction in Homer. Swansea. Scodel, R. (2014). Introduction, in: D. L. Cairns/R. Scodel (eds.), Defining Greek narrative. Edinburgh: 1–10. Segal, C. P. (1968). Ancient texts and modern literary criticism, Arethusa 1: 1–25. Segal, C. P. (1969). Landscape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A Study in the Transformations of a Literary Symbol. Wiesbaden. Skempis, M./Ziogas, I. (eds., 2014). Geography, topography, landscape: configurations of space in Greek and Roman epic. Berlin/Boston. Slater, N. W. (ed., 2017). Voice and voices in antiquity. Leiden. Stoddard, K. (2004). The narrative voice in the Theogony of Hesiod. Leiden. Suerbaum, W. (1968). Die Ich-Erzählungen des Odysseus. Überlegungen zur epischen Technik der Odyssee, Poetica 2: 150–177. Thalmann, W. G. (2011). Apollonius of Rhodes and the spaces of Hellenism. Oxord/New York. Tissol, G. (1997). The face of nature: wit, narrative, and cosmic origins in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Princeton, NJ. Todorov, T. (1969). Grammaire du Décameron. The Hague/Paris. Toohey, P. (1992). Reading epic. An introduction to the ancient narratives. London. Tsitsiou-Chelidoni, C. (2003). Ovid, Metamorphosen Buch VIII: Narrative Technik und literarischer Kontext. Frankfurt a. M. Vernant, J.-P. (1965). Mythe et pensées chez les Grecs. Études de psychologie historique. Paris. Vidal-Naquet, P. (1972). Économies et sociétés en Grèce ancienne. Périodes archaïque et classique. Paris. Viehhauser, G. et al. (2017). Cadmus and the Cow. A Digital Narratology of Space in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in: P. Fogliaroni/A. Ballatore/E. Clementini (eds.), Proceedings of Workshops and Posters at the 13th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2017). L’Aquila: 293–304.

Narratology and classical epic | 111

Von Contzen, E. (2015). Narratology and Classics. A transhistorical approach. Review of: I. J. F. de Jong, Narratology and Classics. A practical guide. Oxford 2014, Diegesis 4: 97–102. Von Contzen, E./Kragl, F. (eds., 2018). Narratologie und mittelalterliches Erzählen. Autor, Erzähler, Perspektive, Zeit und Raum. Berlin. Von Contzen, E./Tilg, S. (eds., forthcoming). Handbuch Historische Narratologie. Stuttgart. Wheeler, S. M. (1999). A discourse of wonders: audience and performance in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Philadelphia. Wheeler, S. M. (2000). Narrative dynamics in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Tübingen. Winkler, J. (1985). Auctor and actor: a narratological reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass. Berkeley, CA. Zeitlin, F. I. (1973). The ritual world of Greek tragedy. New York. Ziogas, I. (2014). The topography of epic narrative in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in: M. Skempis/ I. Ziogas (eds.), Geography, topography, landscape: configurations of space in Greek and Roman epic. Berlin/Boston: 325–48.

Further reading Ahl, F. M. (1989). Homer, Vergil, and complex narrative structures in Latin epic: an essay, ICS 14: 1–31. Auerbach, E. (11 2015). Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur. Tübingen. Baragwanath, E. (2008). Motivation and narrative in Herodotus. Oxford. Barchiesi, A. (1997). Virgilian Narrative (b) – Ecphrasis, in: C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Virgil. Cambridge: 271–281. Beck, B. (2017). Lost in the middle: story time and discourse time in the Iliad. Leiden. Block, E. (1982). The Narrator Speaks: Apostrophe in Homer and Vergil, TAPA 112: 7–22. Bonfanti, M. (1985). Punto di vista e modi della narrazione nell’Eneide. Pisa. Byre, C. S. (1991). The Narrator’s Address to the Narratee in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, TAPA 121: 215–227. Cuypers, M. (2005). Interactional Particles and Narrative Voice in Apollonius and Homer, in: A. Harder/M. Cuypers (eds.), Beginning from Apollo: Studies in Apollonius Rhodius and the Argonautic Tradition. Dudley, MA: 35–69. D’Alessandro Behr, F. (2005). The Narrator’s Voice: A Narratological Reappraisal of Apostrophe in Virgil’s Aeneid, Arethusa 38: 189–221. De Jong, I. J. F. (1985). Iliad 1.366–392: A mirror story, Arethusa 18: 1–22. De Jong, I. J. F. (1991). Narratology and Oral Poetry: The Case of Homer, Poetics Today 12: 405– 23. De Jong, I. J. F. (2002). A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Principles and Problems, in: R. K. Gibson/C. Shuttleworth Kraus (eds.), The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theory. Leiden: 49–66. De Jong, I. J. F. (2005). Aristotle on the Homeric Narrator, CQ 55: 616–21. De Jong, I. J. F. (2014a). Diachronic narratology (The example of ancient Greek narrative), in: P. Hühn et al. (eds.), The living handbook of narratology. Hamburg. (Available at http:// www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/).

112 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

Doherty, L. E. (1995). Siren Songs: Gender, Audiences, and Narrators in the Odyssey. Ann Arbor, MI. Doherty, L. E. (2001). The Snares of the Odyssey: A Feminist and Narratological Reading, in: S. J. Harrison (ed.), Texts, ideas, and the Classics: scholarship, theory, and classical literature. Oxford: 117–33. Effe, B. (1975). Entstehung und Funktion ‘personaler’ Erzählweisen in der Erzählliteratur der Antike, Poetica 7: 135–57. Effe, B. (1983). Epische Objektivität und auktoriales Erzählen, Gymnasium 90: 171–86. Effe, B. (2004). Epische Objektivität und subjektives Erzählen. Trier. Elliger, W. (1975). Die Darstellung der Landschaft in der griechischen Dichtung. Berlin. Faulkner, A./Hodkinson, O. (eds., 2015). Hymnic narrative and the narratology of Greek hymns. Leiden/Boston. Fusillo, M. (2001). Apollonius Rhodius as ‘Inventor’ of the Interior Monologue, in: T. D. Papanghelis/A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s companion to Apollonius Rhodius. Leiden/Boston: 127–46. Gale, M. R. (2004). The Story of Us. A Narratological Analysis of Lucretius De Rerum Natura, in: M. R. Gale (ed.), Latin epic and didactic poetry: genre, tradition, and individuality. Swansea: 49–72. Georgacopoulou, S. (2005). Aux frontières du récit épique: l’emploi de l’apostrophe du narrateur dans la Thébaïde de Stace. Brussels. Grethlein, J. (2007). Epic Narrative and Ritual. The Case of the Funeral Games in Iliad 23, in: A. Bierl/R. Lämmle/K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion: Wege zu einer mythischrituellen Poetik bei den Griechen. Berlin/New York: 151–77. Grethlein, J. (2010). The Greeks and their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE. Cambridge. Heinze, R. (5 1965). Virgils epische Technik. Darmstadt. Hellwig, B. (1964). Raum und Zeit im homerischen Epos. Hildesheim. Hölscher, U. (1939). Untersuchungen zur Form der Odyssee. Szenenwechsel und gleichzeitige Handlung. Berlin. Hornblower, S. (1994). Narratology and Thukydides, in: S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek historiography. Oxford. Oxford: 131–66. Keith, A. M. (2007). Imperial Building Projects and Architectural Ecphrases in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Statius’ Thebaid, Museion 7: 1–26. Kimmerle, N. (2015). Lucan und der Prinzipat. Inkonsistenz und unzuverlässiges Erzählen im Bellum Civile. Berlin. King, K. C. (2009). Ancient Epic. Chichester. Köhnken, A. (2009). Odysseus’ Scar: An Essay on Homeric Epic Narrative Technique, in: L. E. Doherty (ed.), Homer’s Odyssey. Oxford: 44–61. Konstan, D. (1989). What is New About New Approaches to the Classics, in: P. Culham/L. Edmunds (eds.), Classics: a discipline and profession in crisis? Lanham, MD: 45–9. Konstan, D. (1991). The death of Argus, or what stories do: audience response in ancient fiction and theory, Helios 18: 15–30. Laird, A. (1999). Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin Literature, Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford/New York. Lazzarini, C. (1989). Elementi di una poetica serviana: Osservazioni sulla construzione del racconto nel commentario all’Eneide, I and II, SIFC 7: 56–109. Lowe, N. J. (2000). The classical plot and the invention of Western narrative. Cambridge.

Narratology and classical epic |

113

Ludwig, K. (2014). Charakterfokalisation bei Lucan. Eine narratologische Analyse. Berlin/ Boston. Maatje, F. C. (1975). Versuch einer Poetik des Raumes. Der lyrische, epische und dramatische Raum, in: A. Ritter (ed.), Landschaft und Raum in der Erzählkunst. Darmstadt: 392–416. Manuwald, G. (2014). ‘Fact’ and ‘Fiction’ in Roman Historical Epic, G&R 61: 204–21. Nikolopoulos, A. (2004). Ouidius polytropos: metanarrative in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Zurich. Nill, H.-P. (2015). Friedrich Hölderlins Lucan-Übersetzung aus raumnarratologischer Perspektive, in: A. Gil/R. Kirstein (eds.), Wissenstransfer und Translation. Zur Breite und Tiefe des Übersetzungsbegriffs. St. Ingbert: 163–192. Papanghelis, T. D. (2009). Aeneid 5.362–484: Time, Epic and the Analeptic Gauntlets, in: J. Grethlein/A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and interpretation. The content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin/New York: 321–34. Paul, J. (2013). Film and the Classical Epic Tradition. Oxford/New York. Reichel, M. (1990). Retardationstechniken in der Ilias, in: W. Kullmann/M. Reichel (eds.), Der Übergang von der Mündlichkeit zur Literatur bei den Griechen. Tübingen: 125–51. Reichel, M. (1998). Narratologische Methoden in der Homerforschung, in: H. L. C. Tristram (ed.), New Methods in the Research of Epic. Neue Methoden der Epenforschung. Tübingen: 45–61. Rengakos, A. (2004). Die Argonautika und das ‘kyklische Gedicht’. Bemerkungen zur Erzähltechnik des griechischen Epos, in: A. Bierl/A. Schmitt/A. Willi (eds.), Antike Literatur in neuer Deutung. Munich: 277–304. Rengakos, A. (2006). Homer and the Historians, in: F. Montanari/A. Rengakos (eds.), La poésie épique greque. Métamorphoses d’un genre littéraire. Geneva: 183–214. Schlonski, F. (1995). Studien zum Erzählerstandort bei Lucan. Trier. Scodel, R. (2004). The Story-teller and his Audience, in: R. L. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Homer. Cambridge/New York: 45–55. Seeck, A. (1978). Der epische Erzähler und das Problem der Erzählperspektive in der antiken Geschichtsschreibung, Mitteilungen für Lehrer der Alten Sprachen 9.2: 3–16. Slater, N. W. (2008). Apuleian ecphraseis. Depiction at play, in: W. Riess (ed.), Paideia at play: learning and wit in Apuleius. Groningen: 235–50. Squire, M. (2011). The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae. Oxford. Sternberg, M. (1978). Expositional modes and temporal ordering in fiction. Baltimore. Strasburger, H. (1972). Homer und die Geschichtsschreibung. Heidelberg. Strauss Clay, J. (2011). Homer’s Trojan theater: space, vision, and memory in the IIiad. Cambridge. Syré, E. (2018). Gewalt und soziale Bindung in Silius Italicus’ Punica. Rahden, Westfalen. Tristram, H. L. C. (ed., 1998). New Methods in the Research of Epic. Neue Methoden der Epenforschung. Tübingen. Videau, A. (2000). Deux descriptions épiques à l’époque augustéenne: le combat avec le serpent [Virgile, Énéide II, 199–225 et Ovide, Métamorphoses III, 28–98], Vita Latina 157: 19–29. Wray, D. (2000). Apollonius’ Masterplot: Narrative Strategy in Argonautica I, in: M. A. Harder/ R. F. Regtuit/G. C. Wakker (eds.), Apollonius Rhodius. Leuven: 239–65.

Christiane Reitz

Epic and rhetoric Abstract: Speech and discourse are stock components of the narrative from the beginning of the epic tradition. The speakers’ rhetorical skills become part of the narrative discourse, as can be seen from Iliad 3: Helen in the teichoscopy characterises Odysseus by his rhetorical skills. Statistically speaking, 45% of the Iliad and 67% of the Odyssey are made up of direct speech. Epic speeches, both Greek and Latin, have been subjected to rhetorical analysis and theoretical discussion by the ancient critics, and epic poets have been evaluated – or denigrated, as in the case of Ovid and Lucan – by their use of rhetoric. In this survey, I concentrate on the interaction between theory and rhetorical practice, as evident from its use in epic poetry.

1 Introduction In the third book of the Iliad, Priam and the Trojan leaders stand on top of the city walls and survey the Greek enemies gathering outside. Helen responds to Priam’s questions and identifies the individual heroes. The Trojan Antenor adds his personal observations about Odysseus to Helen’s response and elaborates on the hero’s eloquence (Hom. Il. 3.200–6 and 3.212–23): 200

205

“οὗτος δ’ αὖ Λαερτιάδης πολύμητις ᾿Οδυσσεύς, ὃς τράφη ἐν δήμῳ ᾿Ιθάκης κραναῆς περ ἐούσης εἰδὼς παντοίους τε δόλους καὶ μήδεα πυκνά.” τὴν δ’ αὖτ’ ᾿Αντήνωρ πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα· “ὦ γύναι ἦ μάλα τοῦτο ἔπος νημερτὲς ἔειπες· ἤδη γὰρ καὶ δεῦρό ποτ’ ἤλυθε δῖος ᾿Οδυσσεὺς σεῦ ἕνεκ’ ἀγγελίης σὺν ἀρηιφίλῳ Μενελάῳ·” “That one is Laertes’ son, Odysseus of many wiles, who was reared in the land of Ithaca, rugged though it is, and he knows all manner of tricks and cunning devices.” Then to her in turn answered Antenor, the prudent: “Lady, that is a true word that you have spoken, for once before also noble Odysseus came here on an embassy concerning you, together with Menelaus, dear to Ares.”

* This paper is building on my contribution “Rhetorik im Epos – Rhetorik des Epos” to the German Handbuch der Rhetorik (2018). I am very grateful to both the editors, M. Erler and C. Tornau, as well as our publisher De Gruyter for giving me permission to incorporate this revised version of the paper in our compendium. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-006

116 | Christiane Reitz

215

220

ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μύθους καὶ μήδεα πᾶσιν ὕφαινον ἤτοι μὲν Μενέλαος ἐπιτροχάδην ἀγόρευε, παῦρα μὲν ἀλλὰ μάλα λιγέως, ἐπεὶ οὐ πολύμυθος οὐδ’ ἀφαμαρτοεπής· ἦ καὶ γένει ὕστερος ἦεν. ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ πολύμητις ἀναίξειεν ᾿Οδυσσεὺς στάσκεν, ὑπαὶ δὲ ἴδεσκε κατὰ χθονὸς ὄμματα πήξας, σκῆπτρον δ’ οὔτ’ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπρηνὲς ἐνώμα, ἀλλ’ ἀστεμφὲς ἔχεσκεν ἀίδρει φωτὶ ἐοικώς· φαίης κε ζάκοτόν τέ τιν’ ἔμμεναι ἄφρονά τ’ αὔτως. ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος εἵη καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν, οὐκ ἂν ἔπειτ’ ᾿Οδυσῆί γ’ ἐρίσσειε βροτὸς ἄλλος· But when they began to weave the web of words and of devices in the presence of all, Menelaus to be sure spoke fluently, with few words, but very clearly, since he was not a man of lengthy speech nor rambling, even though in years he was the younger. But whenever Odysseus of many wiles arose, he would stand and look down with eyes fixed on the ground, and his staff he would move neither backwards nor forwards, but would hold it stiff like a man of no understanding; you would have thought him some sort of a churl and nothing but a fool. But when he projected his great voice from his chest, and words like snowflakes on a winter’s day, then could no other mortal man rival Odysseus.¹

Antenor recalls his reception of Menelaus and Odysseus when they were sent to Troy as Achaean ambassadors and proceeds to characterise them with regard to their outward appearance and their rhetorical skills. This is even more remarkable in the context of a teichoscopy, in which the act of seeing, i.e. the focalisation of characters, is of central importance.² Not only have speech and discourse been stock components of the narrative from the beginning of the epic tradition insofar as the characters within the plot perform speech acts in direct or indirect discourse such as monologues, dialogues, or generic interlocutions, but also the speakers’ rhetorical skills themselves become part of the narrative discourse.³ This is in line with the rhetorical theory of later centuries, which postulates that epic poems and their speech representation should be analysed according to the same aesthetic criteria as dramatic texts. Aristotle describes both narrative and dramatic poetry as the imitation of action (mimesis); epic dialogues are discussed on the same level as those of drama.⁴

1 This translation is taken from Murray/Wyatt (2 1999). 2 Cf. Fucecchi in volume II.1. 3 Note that Achilles is said to have been educated as “both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (Hom. Il. 9.443). 4 Cf., e.g., Arist. Rh. 3.1409b and Arist. Po. 1448a, 1449b.

Epic and rhetoric |

117

The correlation between a character’s general portrayal and his speech characteristics is an important rhetorical and philosophical theorem. It is true that, within its context, Seneca’s dictum (Sen. epist. 114.1) talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis uita (“The way people speak is the same way they live”) argues that a person’s character traits and speech characteristics are indicative of the general decline of oratory and the depravation of an entire era. Still, Seneca’s statement shows that implicit and explicit characterisation through speech is an important principle both in epic poetry and rhetorical theory. Rhetoric is not a foreign element that intrudes into the epic text and shapes its form, but it is intrinsic to the genre. For, in a broader sense, rhetoric and rhetorical speech form the basis for the communication within a given society. To a certain extent, rhetoric thus constitutes a part of all literary genres.⁵ This is not only true for Roman literature even though post-Vergilian epic in particular has been characterised as ‘rhetorical’ – a label, that was for a long time considered to be a pejorative judgement of aesthetic inferiority in comparison to earlier epics.⁶ Although Greek epic predates the invention of rhetoric,⁷ as it were, readers from antiquity onwards have interpreted it in terms of its rhetorical form and function.⁸ Categories such as ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ or ‘oral’ and ‘written’ are therefore inadequate to examine differences in the epics’ respective rhetorical embellishment properly.⁹ In view of this finding, a diachronic analysis of Greek and Latin epic has to be supplemented with more theoretical considerations regarding the speech acts of epic characters, be they in the epic poems themselves or in theoretical treatises. Furthermore, it will be necessary to give an overview of the potential motivations for characters to speak and the corresponding typology of speech acts in epic poetry. It will become clear that not all of these classifications have become part of rhetorical handbooks, i.e. they did not develop into clearly defined set-pieces. However, even the (direct or indirect) speeches that do not conform to any strict

5 For a general discussion of these matters, see Calboli/Dominik (1997, 3–12, esp. 10). 6 This tendency to denigrate rhetoric is still present although more recent literary criticism has adopted a more sober perspective. For the judgements passed on Lucan, starting from Quint. inst. 10.1.90, and for a summary of the discussion about rhetoric’s negative impact on epic, see Radicke (2004, 531). 7 See Toohey’s (1994, 153) introductory remarks. Toohey follows Kennedy (1982) and distinguishes between “primary” and “secondary rhetoric”. 8 Cf. Kenney (1966, 331): “A poem may be composed in a manner that is perfectly just to call ‘rhetorical’ and yet exemplify not a single schema from the handbooks. It is a matter of degree and proportion in the systematic exploitation of linguistic and literary resources and of the relationship of ends to means.” 9 See Farrell (1997, 135).

118 | Christiane Reitz

formal description never lack a conscious design that reinforces their respective intention. An overview is provided in the following table:¹⁰ Tab. 1: Classification of rhetorical speech acts in epic poetry Speeches within the rhetorical canon

Speeches outside the rhetorical canon

– – – – – –

– – – – – – – –

forensic orations speeches of persuasion prayers speeches of mourning and consolation exhortations speeches of praise and blame

narratives descriptions monologues apostrophes challenges, threats, and taunts commands prophecies questions and responses

Obviously, analysing speeches within their narrative context raises an abundance of narratological questions. The roles of speakers and addressees are constantly changing, which entails a variation in the linguistic and stylistic characteristics of their speeches. Even though these aspects cannot be part of the subsequent overview, every single case is worth being studied in detail.

2 Greek epic Among many other honorary titles, Homer was called the inventor of rhetoric by ancient critics.¹¹ The speeches in his epics were regarded as paramount examples of oratory.¹² His speeches even take up more space than his battle descriptions; striking examples of rhetorical speeches are to be found in the long speeches of assemblies (agorai or boulai) or divine councils. According to the ancient critics, three characters of the Iliad represent the three rhetorical styles: Odysseus stands for the high, Nestor for the middle, and Menelaus for the low style. Although the

10 This typology is based on Dominik (1994). Also see Dominik (1994, esp. 19–23) for general considerations and definitions, for remarks on opening and closing formulae as well as on direct and indirect speech, including further bibliographical references. 11 Cf. Kennedy (1957, 26–9). 12 On speech representation in Homeric epic, see Cantilena (2002) and Beck (2012).

Epic and rhetoric |

119

terminology was not used consistently, we may reasonably assume that these categories prevailed.¹³ The oral tradition underlying Homer’s work is discernible not only in its narrative passages, but also in its speeches, not least because of their predominantly paratactic structure.¹⁴ The verbal utterances of humans and gods clearly aim at convincing other characters; the speech acts frequently serve a parenetic purpose, i.e. they admonish others to do something and fulfil the function of instigating or continuing certain actions. They also serve to characterise the respective speakers.¹⁵ This feature is especially salient with Nestor’s speeches, seeing that – due to his old age – he does not actively fight any battles in the Iliad. Nevertheless, he delivers numerous speeches, four of which are rather lengthy (Hom. Il. 1.254–84, 7.124–60, 11.656–803, and 23.625–50).¹⁶ Using language- and content-related criteria, Nestor’s speeches can be interpreted as examples of ἠθοποιία.¹⁷ It would be a mistake, however, to identify the characterisation of certain character types, e.g. that of the loquacious old man, as the speeches’ principal aim. The fact that most rhetorical speeches issue an appeal raises the question as to the specific effects of every individual element. In Nestor’s case, we would have to ask how the seemingly redundant flashbacks to his youth help achieve the overall aims of his speeches. By comparing Nestor’s first three speeches with his last one in Book 23, Primavesi (2000) shows that the flashbacks to Nestor’s earlier deeds are paradigmatic. According to Aristotle (Arist. Rh. 1.1357b), such paradigms, i.e. examples that provide a basis for comparison, may be used as arguments in order to convince other people. In this sense, Nestor’s first three speeches can be seen as being perfectly in line with rhetorical theory. The very absence of such a paradigm in Book 23 of the Iliad points to the fact that this speech works towards a different goal, in this case the expression of thanks for an honorary gift. There are also a number of speeches that are in some way related to one another and whose meaning only becomes clear by discerning the more or less subtle differences between

13 See Nünlist’s (2009, 220–1) discussion of the relevant scholia. 14 Cf. Toohey (1994, 154). For an analysis of the language used in Homeric speeches, see Griffin (1986). 15 See Minchin (2006–2007) for an examination of gender differences within speeches and Minchin (2011) for an analysis of the speeches delivered by gods. 16 It is remarkable that these four belong to the group of 22 analeptic speeches, i.e. speeches about events taking place before the action of the Iliad; cf. Fingerle’s overview in Primavesi (2000, 45 n. 1); see Primavesi (2000) on the dating of Book 10 and its implications for the interpretation of the speeches. See Lohmann (1970, 55) on the speeches in the Iliad and Martin (1989) for the rhetoric idiolects of the characters. 17 Helzle (1996, 23–4) notes that Nestor is rather fond of using the expression ὦ πόποι and of using repetitions, especially polyptota and paronomasiai.

120 | Christiane Reitz

them (for instance, Nestor’s speech in Book 23 addressing the funeral games for Patroclus refers to his lengthy speech to Patroclus in Book 11). Cross references such as these prove that repetitions have several functions in early Greek epic: on the one hand, in the context of the poems’ recitation,¹⁸ they aid memory and characterisation. On the other hand, even slight variations of seemingly repetitive passages may point out key characteristics of the respective correlation. In this way, repetitions can open up an immense frame of reference, which in the case at hand is constituted by both of Nestor’s speeches, the advice to Patroclus and the retrospective view after his death. The Odyssey in particular is profoundly shaped by its speeches. Lengthy passages of its texts are made up of narratives related by different speakers, such as prophecies, tales, and plot elements unfolded after the fact. Odysseus’ account of his wanderings at the palace of the Phaeacians (his so-called Apologoi in Books 9–12) is a case in point. Statistically speaking, 45% of the Iliad and 67% of the Odyssey are made up of direct speech.¹⁹ Narratological research has focused on different narrators and their respective narrative perspectives.²⁰ This narratological point of view examines various narrative ‘voices’, including those of the bards who – e.g. on the occasion of a banquet – function as intradiegetic narrators. Their self-contained accounts contain more or less specific references to the main narrative. At the Phaeacian banquet, Odysseus listens to his own story as related by the bard Demodocus. Being moved by the song, Odysseus finally reveals his true identity and starts to give his own account of the events. As becomes clear, e.g., in the case of apostrophes and interjections, Odysseus here takes on the role of the epic poet, as it were. In the second half of the Odyssey though, he is presented as the master of deceit. He makes a number of speeches in which he lies about his true intentions and his identity. For instance, he tells the swineherd Eumaeus (Hom. Od. 14.199–359) as well as his wife Penelope (19.172–202) a story made up of both true and false claims about his Cretan origin and his alleged adventures during the

18 It is undisputed that the large-scale epics transmitted to us go back to an oral tradition. This paper, however, cannot elaborate on how much of this tradition can still be identified in the written texts. 19 Cf. de Jong (2 2004, 149). Larrain (1987) offers a structural interpretation of the “invariant” speeches in the first eight books of the Odyssey. He focuses on drawing a clear distinction between the different types of speeches pointing either backward or forward in the plot. 20 The research conducted by de Jong has paved the way in this respect, cf. de Jong (2 2004). Baier (1999) compares the narrative perspectives in the works of Homer, Vergil, and Ovid. Bakker (2009) uses the example of the Odyssey to show that it is often close to impossible to draw a definite distinction between the voice of the characters and that of the narrator.

Epic and rhetoric |

121

Trojan War.²¹ His intention is not only to protect himself by misleading others but also to put to the test his addressees’ loyalty. In tragedies, deceptive speeches later became a productive means to create dramatic irony. Sinon’s famous speech in the second book of Vergil’s Aeneid or Pelias’ and Aeetes’ deceitful speeches in Book 1 and 5 of Valerius’ Argonautica can also be seen as an adoption of this rhetorical strategy. Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days cannot be considered as epic poems in the narrower sense since they do not depict any continuous plot. This is why they are treated separately in this volume and this chapter does not elaborate on the way these works can be analysed and interpreted in terms of rhetoric. It is essential to realise though, as stated by Strauss Clay, that the proems of these genealogical and didactic texts address the question of whether divinely inspired poetry is necessarily truthful and reliable.²² It is striking that in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica speeches only make up a rather small portion of the text (some 30%). Toohey (1994) interprets this finding in the light of the fact that the written medium had taken on crucial importance in Hellenistic culture and literature.²³ In analogy to primary and secondary epic, Toohey defines the different types of rhetoric in the Argonautica as either primary or secondary. His thesis is that in the Hellenistic epic the emotions of the characters are predominantly internalised and much less likely to be openly expressed in the characters’ speeches. Toohey regards this as a general tendency in later Greek epic. Mori (2007, 458–72) points to another aspect in which Apollonius appears to distinguish his epic from the Iliad, albeit with a different intention. He finds that most speeches having a significant bearing on the plot are set in an atmosphere of privacy. Furthermore, he observes, the characters’ intentions as well as the epic’s plotlines, which tend to work against each other, are embedded in a network of rhetorical acts. The words and speeches of Jason in particular, but also of Argus and others, are frequently referred to by the poet as “sweet” or “charming”.²⁴ They often serve to mediate between adversaries, to work out a compromise in order to avoid aggression. What makes this thesis convincing is the fact that the

21 Cf. Grossardt (1998), whose research focuses partly on the oral tradition of deceitful speeches and partly on their literary productivity. He also elaborates on their development into “Schwindelliteratur”. 22 Strauss Clay (2007, 447–57, here 447): “Hesiod is the first to extend the Muses’ domain from poetry to rhetoric and thereby to put the power of persuasion under divine patronage.” 23 Toohey (1994) uses four speeches of the Argonautica’s third book to exemplify this interiorisation of feelings. 24 Cf. Nishimura-Jensen (1998).

122 | Christiane Reitz

epic introduces two characters who adopt a standpoint opposite to that of the rhetorically educated heroes: Heracles departs from the epic’s plotline and is left “speechless” (A.R. 1.1168–71); Aeetes, the king of Colchis, rejects any serious negotiation (3.372–81) and is finally defeated in a conflict that could have been avoided. According to Mori, the epic poet from the Hellenistic era demonstrates that speeches can have an impact on the audience’s emotions and passions. This is completely in line with the tenets of rhetorical education, which had already been established and which we can grasp in ancient rhetorical handbooks, albeit of a later date.²⁵ Jason’s rhetoric, however, is not free from dishonesty and intrigue: e.g. when convincing Medea of his proposal (3.997–1007), he confines his comparison between her and Ariadne to the very point that serves his purpose; a few words too many would have turned the mythical example against him. When Jason and Medea are compared to trees at their first meeting, we find an explicit reference to the power of words:²⁶ the mute trees, agitated by the wind or by Eros, begin to rustle. The artificial mingling of epic convention and innovation is not least achieved by the rhetorical power wielded by Jason, whose imperfect standards of morality disqualify him as a hero in the positive sense. This relationship is also illustrated by one of the images on Jason’s coat, which was given to him by Hypsipyle on Lemnos.²⁷ Some of these images look back at past actions and the last one to be mentioned presents a conversation between Phrixus and the ram with the Golden Fleece (1.765–7): 765

κείνους κ’ εἰσορόων ἀκέοις, ψεύδοιό τε θυμόν, ἐλπόμενος πυκινήν τιν’ ἀπὸ σφείων ἐσακοῦσαι βάξιν, ὃ καὶ δηρόν περ ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι θηήσαιο. Beholding them thou wouldst be silent and wouldst cheat thy soul with the hope of hearing some wise speech from them, and long wouldst thou gaze with that hope.²⁸

Somewhat paradoxically, the ekphrasis allows for an image to underline the crucial role of speeches within mythical narratives.

25 Mori (2007, 466) compares the conflict between Jason and Aeetes to the examples Demetrius uses to describe the emergence of political crises (Demetr. Eloc. 189.291–3). The fact that we cannot exactly pinpoint the time of composition for Demetrius does not weaken Mori’s argument since, as he rightly emphasises, the handbooks only reproduce what had already been firmly established in rhetorical instruction. 26 On similes in Apollonius’ Argonautica, cf. Reitz (1996). 27 Cf. Mori (2007, 469). 28 This translation is taken from Seaton (1912).

Epic and rhetoric |

123

3 Latin epic Livius Andronicus’ (280–205 BC) translation of the Odyssey, the Odusia, marks the birth of Latin epic. It was composed in the old Roman Saturnian meter. Even though most of this translation has been lost, we can clearly discern a profound influence of the Homeric poems. The second Latin epicist we know of is Naevius (275–201 BC), who wrote the Bellum Poenicum, a historical epic on the First Punic War. Only about 60 fragments survive, which were also composed in the Saturnian meter.²⁹ The fragments of the Annals, written by Ennius (239–169 BC), add up to about 600 lines. Even though this small portion of the original text makes it difficult to judge the role of speeches and rhetoric in the Annals, it is not only evident that Ennius was Naevius’ successor but also that he makes exceptionally clear references to his Greek role models. In addition to using typical scenes and structures from Homer’s and Hesiod’s works (e.g. the invocation of the Muse, the account of the poet’s calling, divine councils, battle scenes, and similes), Ennius introduces the dactylic hexameter to Latin poetry, replacing the Saturnian and having a lasting impact on Latin poetical diction. The fragments attest that speeches make up a large portion of his work. For instance, fragment frs. 304–8 Vahlen (324 Skutsch), transmitted in Cicero’s rhetorical treatise entitled Brutus (Cic. Brut. 58), can be read as a metapoetical statement. Here, Ennius appears to praise the rhetorical skill of C. Cornelius Cethegus and to make a connection to Suada, the personification of eloquence. In his commentary, Skutsch interprets Suada as the translation of Peitho, the Greek goddess of oratory and persuasion. It is clear that the Annals were characterised by their rhetorical flourish since many fragments have been preserved for this very reason. For instance, a Late Republican handbook on rhetoric (Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.18) cites a speech from Romulus addressing Titus Tatius, the king of the Sabines: O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti (“Oh Titus Tatius, tyrant, you have borne upon yourself so much”, fr. 109 Vahlen, 104 Skutsch). Although the unknown author of the handbook warns his readers against the overuse of alliterations, the line certainly appears to have been familiar and memorable. Other fragments attest that battle descriptions were introduced by the respective military leaders addressing their troops (adlocutio, e.g. Hannibal promises the Carthaginian citizenship to a number of auxiliary troops joining the battle, fr. 280 Vahlen, 234 Skutsch). Publius Vergilius Maro wrote the Aeneid probably between 29 and 19 BC. Despite being innovative in many regards, the work is firmly rooted in the epic tradi-

29 Cf. Bär/Schedel in this volume.

124 | Christiane Reitz

tion. As far as speeches are concerned, the Aeneid takes up typical epic structures, such as the flashback narrated by a character within the story (similar to Odysseus’ Apologoi): having arrived as a stranger at Queen Dido’s court in Carthage, Aeneas gives a first-hand account of the sack of Troy and of the survivors’ subsequent wanderings. Among the longest speeches of the epic are the prophecies such as the prediction by Helenus, which is later reproduced by Aeneas in Book 3, or the announcement of Rome’s future greatness made by Anchises (in the course of the so-called katabasis in Book 6). The battle narrative in the second half of the epic provides the opportunity for important battle speeches (e.g. Numanus Remulus, Verg. Aen. 9.598–620) and final exhortations of the troops by the respective commanders (e.g. by Turnus at 10.279–84 and Aeneas at 12.565–73). When gods communicate or assemble, their speeches often provide information about future events: Jupiter lets the goddess Venus know that her son Aeneas will eventually overcome all obstacles on his way to greatness (1.257–96). Before the final confrontation between the Trojan invaders and the Italic natives (12.830–40), Jupiter assures Juno, who still adamantly opposes Aeneas’ cause, that the two peoples will eventually mingle and become a great empire. Extensive research has been done on the speeches in the Aeneid,³⁰ not least because they were constantly emulated by later epic poets. Apart from the scenic design of the speeches, monologues, dialogues, or assemblies, more recent research has taken into consideration the way these elements are embedded into larger structures. Scholars have also focused on gestures and other processes of non-verbal communication.³¹ Narducci (2007), following Highet (1972), points out a connection between epic and tragedy in that speeches frequently serve to express emotions. He goes on to assert that speeches are also relevant to the plot development, especially when they are delivered at assemblies or when they further ‘diplomatic’ aims. Moreover, they represent contemporary rhetorical practices in Rome. Narducci (2007, 382–412) is right to claim that the way ancient writers judged Vergil as a poet and as an orator underwent a marked change: while Quintilian judged both aspects separately, the assessment of later critics was one-sided in that they regarded Vergil’s speeches as showpieces of rhetoric. This tendency is evident, for instance, in Ilioneus’ introduction of the Trojans to the Carthaginians at Verg. Aen. 1.522–58 or in his lengthy speech to Latinus at 7.213–48. Servius meticulously identifies the individual loci of this speech,

30 Both older and more recent works on speeches in ancient epic poetry base their considerations on the statistical study by Lipscomb (1909); for the Aeneid, see Highet (1972). Narducci (2007) offers a summary of the past research on Vergil as well as a brief comparison with Lucan. Harrison (2010) analyses the use of colloquialisms, focusing on speeches delivered by gods. 31 Ricottilli (2000) takes into account modern theories of communication; see Lobe (1999) for a rather conventional analysis of gestures.

Epic and rhetoric |

125

the textbook elements of rhetorical education in his commentary on the Aeneid from the 4th century AD. It is crucial to note that the following warning given by Highet (1972, 9) is relevant to ancient commentators and modern interpreters alike: “It is always tempting to apply the neat patterns of the rhetorical manuals to any extended speech, whether the author meant it to be a piece of oratory or not.” Due to the markedly different narrative structure of Ovid’s (43 BC–17 AD) carmen perpetuum, this discussion will only provide a brief overview of the most important aspects of Ovid’s speech representation. Although the Metamorphoses cover the entire period from the creation of the world to the Augustan era, they do not depict a linear plotline. Instead, they come up with a number of tableaus, containing tales of transformation; the stories form a whole by means of a complex interrelation between one extradiegetic and several intradiegetic narrators. Ovid places rhetorical ‘courses of action’ in the mythical realm when he, for instance, has the gods put forward their arguments in assemblies reminding readers of the Roman Senate. His characters often make use of rhetorical devices to convince others of their proposals. In the last book, the lengthy speech made by Pythagoras (Ov. met. 15.60–478) makes clear that Ovid employs narrators as well as orators to advance arguments and voice opinions. Pythagoras, in his didactic speech, addresses the transmigration of souls, which can be seen as the theoretical basis of all metamorphoses. The fact that Ovid himself was rhetorically educated – as we know, for instance, from Seneca the Elder (Sen. contr. 2.2.8) – has frequently brought him into disrepute. He has been considered slick, unauthentic, and ‘rhetorical’; a view that became prevalent for the interpretation of later epic. The epic poet most often accused of ‘rhetorisation’ is Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (39–65 AD). The first instances of criticism are already voiced in antiquity: Quintilian’s statement on Lucan in the tenth book of his Institutes of Oratory (c. 100 AD) has often been (mis)interpreted as being disparaging.³² The grammarian Fronto (Marcus Cornelius Fronto, c. 100–70 AD) finds fault with the proem of Lucan’s civil-war epic (Front. de or. 6). He criticises the poet for using ever-changing words to express one and the same idea. As a matter of fact, the work is profoundly shaped by its rhetorical devices: the narrative is full of antitheses, contrasts, and other aspects that some critics have tried to explain by pointing to the rhetorical style of controuersiae and suasoriae. What is more, Lucan indulges in unusual expressions and paradoxes; he enjoys going to extremes and using colores, the

32 See Quint. inst. 10.1.90 Lucanus . . . oratoribus magis quam poetis imitandus (“Lucan should be imitated by orators rather than by poets”). Ahl (2010) reads this as a political statement: it opens up, though cautiously, the possibility to stand up for liberty and to oppose the system of the Principate.

126 | Christiane Reitz

rhetorical ‘colouring’ of descriptions and accounts. Throughout the work, readers feel the presence of the intrusive narrator, who does not hide his dismay at the events he recounts.³³ Helzle (1996) thoroughly analysed the speeches in the Bellum Ciuile.³⁴ He shows that the poem’s protagonists are characterised and assessed by the way they talk (their idiolects). Caesar is unable to priuata loqui, i.e. he cannot switch to a tone appropriate for private matters, even if this is what the circumstances call for. His talk is always that of a military leader; he is prone to using imperatives, even when praying to the gods. Pompey’s speeches, however, more often refer to private matters than to public ones. Helzle (1996, 134–7) observes that, strikingly, the register of military discourse recedes into the background at the very point where a speech delivered by a true general would have been appropriate, i.e. just before the decisive battle at Pharsalus (Lucan. 7.343–82). As far as Cato is concerned, we have to doubt whether his speeches, full of old Roman patriotism and embellished by sententiae, characterise him as an indisputably positive character.³⁵ As Thorne (2010, 5) has shown by analysing the speeches of Cato and Brutus in the second book of the Civil War, it is rather about presenting Cato as part of a shared remembrance, as a monument of a free Rome that is lost and is never to return. Ambühl (2015) points out that Greek tragedies have regularly provided models for Lucan’s speeches. Therefore, it is not surprising that they are not only shaped by rhetorical devices but also indicative of an overall arrangement based on dramatic considerations. Rolim de Moura (2010) also identifies a basic structure that underlies the epic as a whole and that frames the individual characters’ speeches. His study, focusing on the seventh book, shows that different voices – be they of specific characters, of the troops, or of the narrator – are constantly engaged in a dialogue with one another. This is even the case when the plot does not appear to allow for such communication. Both the history of the civil war and the conflicting ideologies at work are not least expressed by the characters’ verbal utterances. Rolim de Moura (2010) reads as a metapoetic experiment the fact that, e.g., Caesar’s speeches appear to be a reaction to Pompey’s. In Lucan, this phenomenon extends far beyond its Homeric model.³⁶ The composition of his speeches attests

33 Walde (2003) takes up the research on rhetoric as an interpretive paradigm with Lucan’s epic; cf. Ambühl’s (2015, 13) summarising remarks. 34 See also Tasler (1972). 35 See Helzle (1996, 138–43) on Cato. 36 See Hom. Il. 9.160 and 9.362: In both cases, we encounter the same characterising adjective directly after a speech was ended; cf. Rolim de Moura (2010, 90).

Epic and rhetoric |

127

that Lucan is “an original writer who is at the same time historian, orator, and poet.”³⁷ The following assessment made by Dominik (1994, 2) does not only apply to Statius, but also to the other epic poets of the Flavian era, Valerius Flaccus and Silius Italicus, which will subsequently be discussed in what has commonly been accepted as the most likely chronological order: Even a cursory analysis of the epic . . . poetry . . . reveals a deep indebtedness to the literary and rhetorical traditions that preceded him; this is the case with respect to the different generic forms and conventions of literature and rhetoric, especially the various speech types.

As noted in Dominik’s introduction (1994, p. xxx), literary production and rhetorical tenets are basic components of ancient epic texts, which cannot be separated. Most speeches we encounter in the epics are also dealt with in the rhetorical handbooks. The only exceptions are warnings against battles and laudatory or vituperative speeches in the course of a fight. There are however several models for these speech types as well, not only in the epic but also in the historical tradition. Gaius Valerius Flaccus (died 90 AD) composed the Argonautica, an epic of eight books that is probably unfinished. The poem recounts the Argonauts’ journey to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Colchis, making it a ‘prequel’ to the events unfolding around Jason and Medea. In a way, the Argonautica transfers this plotline from the epic tradition into the Roman world. Modern scholarship has interpreted Valerius Flaccus’ panegyrical references to the Flavian dynasty as praise for the military achievements of Vespasian and Titus in particular. Similar references may, of course, be found in the works of all three epic poets of the Flavian era. Such a reading can be supported, for example, by the divine council of the first book, in which Jupiter asserts that the Argonauts’ triumph will eventually lead to Rome’s dominion over the world (Val. Fl. 1.531–60). This teleological view is also proclaimed in Jason’s speeches (e.g. when he talks to his companions and to Aeetes in Book 5). On the structural level, Valerius experiments with the ways speeches are delivered. During the banquet at Aeetes’ court (Book 5), the host formally enumerates a catalogue of his troops that will be sent into battle the following day. Medea’s response to her father’s deceit, her deliberation and subsequent decision to help the stranger are, on the one hand, based on epic role models such as Apollonius’ Medea and Vergil’s Dido, on the other hand, the banquet scene, combined with the correspondent dialogues between Jason and Medea, highlights this epic’s tendency to use dramatic irony in direct speech acts and point forward to the inevitably tragic ending of the story. A range of hints and comments serve

37 Rolim de Moura (2010, 89–90).

128 | Christiane Reitz

to show the action and the speeches in a different light: the fact that Medea will eventually murder her children and that Jason will kill Medea’s brother are never absent from the epic; the tension may even be said to increase towards its end. In this regard, the speeches are often not (to be) experienced first-hand, but are of a rather retrospective character. Publius Papinius Statius’ Thebaid comprises twelve books and was probably published in 92 AD. The work stands out in that it takes up a markedly dramatic subject. It is true that the Seven against Thebes as well as the fatal duel between Oedipus’ sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had also been presented in epic poetry. However, none of these epics survive and the tragedies revolving around the myths of Thebes were certainly predominant, not least in Rome. It is thus not surprising that the epic is continuously competing, both explicitly and implicitly, with the dramatic genres. The Thebaid exploits the potential of epic narratives by means of diversified catalogues that, for instance, present the Argives assembling at the city walls in a kind of teichoscopy (Book 7).³⁸ This tendency is also exemplified by the lengthy flashback in Hypsipyle’s story (Book 5) and it is a clear connection to the tale of the Argonauts.³⁹ What is more, dramatic settings often provide the role models for both why and how characters speak in the Thebaid.⁴⁰ In order to examine the epic’s narrative structure and its competition with the dramatic genres, it is worthwhile analysing the speeches of those characters who are closely interlinked. As Helzle (1996, esp. 175–88) has shown, several characters of the Thebaid should be interpreted in pairs. This is not only the case for the brothers Eteocles and Polynices but also for the two female protagonists, Argia and Antigone, the two seers, Amphiaraus and Tiresias, and the two rulers, Adrastus and Creon. Moreover, Oedipus’ ghost, which ascends from the underworld and starts the action, and Theseus, who functions as a deus ex machina in the twelfth book, are not least linked by the diametrically opposed ways in which they speak. Towards the end of the epic, we encounter two speeches aimed at preventing the fight that will lead to the death of both brothers. These speeches thus mark a situation of a particularly tragic nature. While Jocasta makes haste to reach the Theban camp and to dissuade Eteocles from fighting, Antigone, speaking from the top of the city walls, tries to change Polynices’ mind. Both scenes and both speeches (Stat. Theb. 11.329–53 and 11.363–82) emphasise the importance of dialogues, which – technically speaking – are not an inherently prominent feature of epic poetry.

38 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann on epic catalogues in this volume. 39 On the role of speeches in Flavian epic, see Dominik (2002). See Walter (2014) on the narrators in Flavian epic poems and Soerink (2014) on Hypsipyle’s story. On the competition between dramatic and epic forms within the Thebaid, see Bessone (2011). 40 Cf. Frings (1991).

Epic and rhetoric |

129

The women involve the addressees into their speeches by means by interjections, invocations, gesticulations and touches, but also by adding detailed descriptions to their appeals: a dramatic scene is framed by an epic speech. As opposed to the tragic model, both speakers pursue the same aim and both are doomed to fail. For, at the very moment when Polynices appears to yield to his sister’s emotional entreaty, we read of the Fury’s intervention, prompting him to make his attack. A short, heated argument between the two ensues (11.389–92 and 11.393–5) and marks the beginning of the battle. Here the text attests to the flexibility of epic narratives, combining speeches and actions, retardation and acceleration to reach a thrilling climax. The Punica, composed by Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus (c. 25–101 AD), was composed at roughly the same time as the Thebaid. Even though its 17 books on the Second Punic War are based on the respective historical events, they also vary and summarise the action using typical narrative patterns of the epic tradition, such as divine councils and lengthy descriptions. Due to the large number of military leaders who were in charge during the 17 years of fighting (218–211 BC), it is hard to identify one of the protagonists as the main hero. Yet, it is worth noting that the future Scipio Africanus is introduced as a young warrior before being built up as Hannibal’s chief opponent in the last books. The various – and often unsuccessful – Roman generals are not least characterised by the way they talk. Flaminius, who is responsible for the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene, is characterised by his speeches as blasphemous and haughty (Book 5). On this occasion, his words are contradicted by a speech of Corvinus, who was presumably invented for this very purpose. Corvinus is described as standing out due to both his ancestry and his rhetorical skills (Sil. 5.76–100, esp. 5.77). It is possible that the name of this character, similar to the names of some fighters, is supposed to evoke a historical relationship pertaining to the recent past or even contemporary Rome.⁴¹ It may refer to the fictitious Corvinus’ potential descendants in Rome, i.e. the Augustan orator Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus.⁴² This would mean that Silius establishes a sense of continuity not only with regard to the military achievements but also rhetorical (i.e. political) virtues. Similarly, the way he talks is one major aspect characterising the consul Gaius Terentius Varro, whose rash actions eventually bring about the defeat at Cannae. His ambition – not least reflected in his rhetoric – and his correspondent style are described as immoderate, hasty, and wild. A simile, taking up the common metaphor of the orator as charioteer, highlights that Varro has lost control of his

41 Cf., e.g., McGuire (1997). 42 See Helzle (1996, 244–7).

130 | Christiane Reitz

team.⁴³ The conflict between the two consuls Aemilius Paulus and Varro leads to an altercation reminding readers of a controuersia, a fixed pattern of arguments and contradictions. Their dispute could almost be part of a schoolbook on rhetoric. Their speeches present virtuous characters, such as Fabius Maximus and Scipio, as being of superior prudence. Helzle (1996, 258 n. 2) has shown that, on the one hand, Hannibal’s speeches are most prominently marked by his aggressive diction and by a sharp focus on his respective opponent. Scipio, on the other hand, can be seen as the spokesman of Roman virtues in that he refers to pietas and makes use of historical exempla. It is striking that Silius does not have Scipio deliver a speech at the very moment when the story is about to come to its triumphant end: on the Roman side, there is no adlocutio right before the battle of Zama! This goes to show that the poet, at the proper time, may even choose to refrain from imitating rhetorical brilliance in order to characterise his protagonist. Farrell (1997) has rightly claimed that the later Greek epics, Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica (3rd century AD) and Nonnus’ Dionysica (5th century), have closer ties to the imperial Latin epics than to the works of Homer due to the quantity, quality, and contextualisation of the speeches in later Greek epic. Farrell righty emphasises that we face serious dangers when reading and interpreting post-Vergilian epics. It is tempting to presume that the seemingly inferior quality of these works was due to the development (or the degeneration) of the ars rhetorica. The conclusion at which Farrell (1997, 142–4) arrives for post-Vergilian epic may also serve as a fitting conclusion for this brief overview in general: “Rhetoric in epic is not confined to speeches.” What we need is a set of precautions against importing bias and prejudice, be they ancient or modern, into our reading of epic poetry. One of these precautions is not to look for ‘rhetoric in the epic’ but for ‘the rhetoric of epic’.

Bibliography Ahl, F. M. (2010). Quintilian and Lucan, in: N. Hömke/C. Reitz (eds.), Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Between epic tradition and aesthetic innovation. Berlin: 1–15. Ambühl, A. (2015). Krieg und Bürgerkrieg bei Lucan und in der griechischen Literatur. Studien zur Rezeption der attischen Tragödie und der hellenistischen Dichtung im Bellum ciuile. Berlin/Boston. Baier, T. (1999). Die Wandlung des epischen Erzählers. Apologe bei Homer, Vergil und Ovid, Hermes 127: 437–54.

43 Helzle (1996, 248) provides all relevant references.

Epic and rhetoric |

131

Bakker, E. J. (2009). Homer, Odysseus, and the narratology of performance, in: J. Grethlein/A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and interpretation. The content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin/New York: 117–36. Beck, D. (2012). Speech presentation in Homeric epic. Austin. Bessone, F. (2011). La Tebaide di Stazio: epica e potere. Pisa. Calboli, G./Dominik, W. J. (1997). Introduction, in: W. J. Dominik (ed.), Roman eloquence: rhetoric in society and literature. London: 2–12. Cantilena, M. (2002). Sul discorso diretto in Omero, in: F. Montanari/P. Ascheri (eds.), Omero tremila anni dopo. Atti del Congresso di Genova, Genova 6.7.–8.7.2000. Rome: 21–39. De Jong, I. J. F. (2 2004). Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad. London. Dominik, W. J. (1994). Speech and rhetoric in Statius’ Thebais. Hildesheim. Dominik, W. J. (2002). Speech in Flavian epic, in: P. Defosse (ed.), Hommages à Carl Deroux, vol. I: Poésie. Brussels: 183–92. Farrell, J. (1997). Towards a rhetoric of (Roman?) epic, in: W. J. Dominik (ed.), Roman eloquence: rhetoric in society and literature. London: 131–46. Frings, I. (1991). Gespräch und Handlung in der Thebais des Statius. Stuttgart. Griffin, J. (1986). Homeric words and speakers, JHS 106: 36–57. Grossardt, P. (1998). Die Trugreden in der Odyssee und ihre Rezeption in der antiken Literatur. Bern. Harrison, S. J. (2010). Sermones deorum: divine discourse in Vergil’s Aeneid, in: E. Dickey/A. Chahoud (eds.), Colloquial and literary Latin. Cambridge/New York: 266–78. Helzle, M. (1996). Der Stil ist der Mensch: Redner und Reden im römischen Epos. Stuttgart. Highet, G. (1972). The speeches in Vergil’s Aeneid. Princeton, NJ. Kennedy, G. A. (1957). The ancient dispute over rhetoric in Homer, AJPh 78: 23–35. Kennedy, G. A. (1982). Classical rhetoric and its Christian and secular tradition from ancient to modern times. Chapel Hill, NC. Kenney, E. (1966). Rezension von: H. Cancik (ed., 1966). Untersuchungen zur lyrischen Kunst des Publius Papinius Statius. Hildesheim, CR 16: 331–3. Larrain, C. J. (1987). Struktur der Reden in der Odyssee 1–8. Hildesheim. Lipscomb, H. C. (1909). Aspects of the speech in the later Roman epic. Diss. Baltimore. Lobe, M. (1999). Die Gebärden in Vergils Aeneis. Zur Bedeutung und Funktion von Körpersprache im römischen Epos. Frankfurt am Main. Lohmann, D. (1970). Die Komposition der Reden in der Ilias. Berlin. Martin, R. P. (1989). The language of heroes. Speech and performance in the Iliad. London. McGuire, D. T. (1997). Acts of silence: civil war, tyranny, and suicide in the Flavian epics. Hildesheim/Zurich/New York. Minchin, E. (2006–2007). Men’s talk and women’s talk in Homer: rebukes and protests, MedArch 19/20: 213–24. Minchin, E. (2011). The words of gods: divine discourse in Homer’s Iliad, in: A. P. M. H. Lardinois/J. H. Block/M. G. M. van der Poel (eds.), Sacred words: orality, literacy and religion. Orality and literacy in the ancient world, vol. VIII. Leiden/Boston: 17–35. Mori, A. (2007). Acts of persuasion in Hellenistic epic: honey-sweet words in Apollonius, in: I. Worthington (ed.), A companion to Greek rhetoric. Oxford: 458–72. Murray, A. T./Wyatt, W. F. (eds., 2 1999). Homer, Iliad. Edited with translation by A. T. Murray. Revised by F. W. Wyatt, 2 vols. Cambridge, MA.

132 | Christiane Reitz

Narducci, E. (2007). Rhetoric and epic: Vergil’s Aeneid and Lucan’s Bellum Civile, in: W. J. Dominik/J. Hall (eds.), A companion to Roman rhetoric. Oxford: 382–95. Nishimura-Jensen, J. (1998). The poetics of Aethalides: silence and Poikilia in Apollonius’ Argonautica, CQ 48: 456–69. Nünlist, R. (2009). The ancient critic at work. Terms and concepts of literary criticism in Greek scholia. Cambridge. Primavesi, O. (2000). Nestors Erzählungen. Die Variationen eines rhetorischen Überzeugungsmittels in der Ilias, in: C. Neumeister/W. Raeck (eds.), Rede und Redner. Bewertung und Darstellung in den antiken Kulturen. Möhnesee: 45–64. Radicke, J. (2004). Lucans poetische Technik: Studien zum historischen Epos. Leiden. Reitz, C. (1996). Zur Gleichnistechnik des Apollonios von Rhodos. Frankfurt am Main. Ricottilli, L. (2000). Gesto e Parola nell’Eneide. Bologna. Rolim de Moura, A. (2010). Lucan 7: speeches at war, in: N. Hömke/C. Reitz (eds.), Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Between epic tradition and aesthetic innovation. Berlin: 71–90. Seaton, R. C. (ed., 1912). Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. With an English translation. London/Cambridge, MA. Skutsch, O. (ed., 1985). The Annals of Quintus Ennius. Oxford. Soerink, J. (2014). Beginning of doom, Statius Thebaid 5.499–753: introduction, text, commentary. Groningen. Strauss Clay, J. (2007). Hesiod’s rhetorical art, in: I. Worthington (ed.), A companion to Greek rhetoric. Oxford: 447–57. Tasler, W. (1972). Die Reden in Lucans Pharsalia. Diss. Bonn. Thorne, M. A. (2010). Lucan’s Cato, the defeat of victory, the triumph of memory. Diss. Iowa. (Available at http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1934&context=etd). Toohey, P. (1994). Epic and rhetoric, in: I. Worthington (ed.), Persuasion: Greek rhetoric in action. London: 153–75. Vahlen, J. (ed., 1903). Ennianae poesis reliquiae. Leipzig. Walde, C. (2003). Le partisan du mauvais goût oder: Anti-Kritisches zur Lucan-Forschung, in: B.-J. Schröder/J.-P. Schröder (eds.), Studium declamatorium: Untersuchungen zu Schulübungen und Prunkreden von der Antike bis zur Neuzeit. Munich/Leipzig: 127–52. Walter, A. (2014). Erzählen und Gesang im flavischen Epos. Berlin/Boston.

Gregor Bitto

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic Abstract: It remains a matter of debate when the two Homeric poems were divided into 24 books each. A wide range of suggestions has been offered: from a division that ultimately goes back to the poet himself to an attribution solely to the Alexandrian editors. Apollonius’ Argonautica, the first ancient epic after Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey to survive in its entirety, exhibits clear characteristics of a book division very consciously made and one that refers back to the aforementioned predecessors. Its substantial reduction of book numbers, from 24 to 4, adds special weight to each book in terms of unity and separation. Additional proems to Books 3 and 4 underline the segmentation and its potential to create narrative meaning. Composing an epic poem with special attention to book division becomes fashionable for Roman epicists, at least since Ennius: Livius Andronicus is likely to have adopted the book division of his Greek original; there is evidence for a posthumous, post-Ennian book division in Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum (Suet. gramm. 2). Ennius’ 18 books of the Annales show a division into triads. Fragments of the proems to Books 7 and 10 display metapoetic statements that emphasise the book division and make use of the special attention readers give to beginnings. The prime importance of book division for the macrostructure of an epic poem is most prominent in the 12 books of Vergil’s Aeneid, without being employed schematically or pedantically: for example, the double structure of an Odyssean and an Iliadic half is suggested, but the proem in the middle in Book 7 is not situated directly at the beginning but a little later, thus undermining a clear-cut division. The reception of Vergil transformed his Aeneid into the model Roman epic. Just to mention two examples: playing with book divisions is characteristic for Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the 12-book structure serves as a benchmark for Statius’ Thebaid. Accordingly, my paper focuses on the reception of the (Alexandrian-)Homeric book division in subsequent epics, including, of course, the reception of such receptions, in order to highlight how this structuring device, totally disconnected from its originally mostly pragmatic function, is employed by later epicists to add layers of meaning to their narrative.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-007

134 | Gregor Bitto

1 Introduction A 21st century reader of Homer’s Iliad or Vergil’s Aeneid is accustomed to the epics’ traditional subsections, often called ‘book’ or ‘song’, with their consecutive numbering, the equivalent of our modern book divisions into chapters. An ancient reader was, however, not confronted with one copy of one medium, but with several units of one medium – papyrus scrolls.¹ The maximum length of an ancient papyrus scroll designed for reading covered about 3 500 lines² and would not have sufficed to accommodate a work of 10 000 or more lines. Simply for reasons of practicality, the division into several scrolls was a necessary procedure. This contribution therefore examines how Alexandrian editors developed an originally pragmatic division into an aesthetic criterion that was subsequently adopted by poets as an artistic device for structuring large works.³

2 Homer There is strong disagreement among scholars about the Homeric book division and, in particular, on questions such as the date of the original division and its architect.⁴ The scope of proposals⁵ ranges from ascribing the division to the poet himself⁶ to a subsequent fixation in writing in 6th century BC Athens,⁷ and to Alexandrian scholars, such as Zenodotus or Aristarchus.⁸

1 A general introduction to the physical media of ancient (not only Graeco-Roman) epic is provided by Haslam (2005). See Birt (1882, 444–6) for evidence of extra-long scrolls that contained both Homeric poems together. As Birt (1882, 287) himself notes, such a format is extremely unpractical for reading and philological study. Cf. also the ensuing explanations by Birt (1882, 288–341) regarding book formats for different genres. On the subject of listeners and recitations, see below. 2 For this calculation, see van Sickle (1980, 7). 3 The 4th century BC historian Ephorus is supposed to be the first writer who divided his longer works into books. See Birt (1882, 446–61) and Higbie (2010, 16–17) for later book divisions of pre-Alexandrian works. 4 The Symbolae Osloenses-debate of 1999 is a good example for the liveliness of this discussion. The article by Skafte Jensen, which puts forward the controversial thesis that the two epics with their 24 songs were dictated on just as many days in sixth century BC Athens, is followed by ten different responses from distinguished experts on Homer like Gregory Nagy or Stephanie and Martin West. 5 See the surveys of de Jong (1996, 21–2), Skafte Jensen (1999, 6–10), and Heiden (2000, 247–8). 6 See Goold (1977, 26–30). 7 See West (1967, 18–25). 8 De Jong (1996, 30) proposes Zenodotus, while Taplin (1992, 285) suggests Aristarchus.

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

135

From a modern perspective, it is surprising that for such an essential change as the introduction of the structural division of texts into books for a central author such as Homer, there are no valid ancient testimonies that allow at least for an approximate dating. There are only a few hints whose interpretation is still a matter of debate: in Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero the division of both Homeric poems according to the letters of the alphabet is not attributed to the poet, but to Aristarchus and his disciples (Ps.-Plu. Vit. Hom. 2.4).⁹ A Pindaric scholion explains the word ‘rhapsode’ by connecting it to ῥάπτειν (“to sew”): the rhapsodes are supposed to have sown together, i.e. to have united, separate, independent Homeric songs, thereby creating the two long poems (Schol. Pi. N. 2.1d). That would imply that the division, too, is not Homeric, but was introduced by a later editor. Whether an original segmentation played any role in the division of the books remains, of course, an open question. Those who favour a later dating of the book division point to the ancient practice of quoting Homer.¹⁰ The earliest quotations from Homer (beginning with Hdt. 2.116), cite the name of the author, the work, and/or the episode in which the quote is to be found, but never the number of a book.¹¹ The earliest citation of Homer by book number appears on a papyrus dating from the second century BC.¹² Combining these two facts, one could conclude that the book division is Alexandrian. Adding Apollonius’ reception of the book division (see below, section 3), Zenodotus has to be credited as the inventor for chronological reasons.¹³ Furthermore, the alphabetic order seems to be typical for Zenodotus.¹⁴

9 Heiden (1998, 68 n. 4) discards this passage as evidence. Nünlist (2006) points to another testimonium for Alexandrian division, an h-class scholion, cited in Erbse’s testimonial apparatus to Schol. b Hom. Il. 2.877b. This scholion is ascribed by Erbse (1969) to Nicanor (2nd century AD). In contrast to the passage above, the scholion speaks of the anonymous γραμματικοί who divided the continuous Homeric epic into 24 books according to the alphabet. As Nünlist (2006) notes, this makes the Alexandrian dating in Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero seem more than just an ad hoc-invention. 10 See Skafte Jensen (1999, 10–11); for criticism, see Heiden (2000, 248). 11 For a more detailed discussion, see Higbie (2010, 3–8). 12 See Higbie (2010, 10). Hillgruber (1994, 89–90) adduces two papyri of the Odyssey from the 3rd century BC that contain hints to an existing book numbering and argues for Aristarchus to be excluded from the list of potential originators of the book division. 13 Cf. de Jong (1996, 30). Closural parts of a scene do not necessarily imply the closure of a book. Apollonius does not necessarily refer to an existing Homeric book division, but could simply adopt his or somebody else’s analysis of closural parts. See also Taplin (1992, 286), who contends that 24 is just one possibility and that one could just as well divide the Iliad into a different number of books. 14 See Alpers (1975, 116) with further references.

136 | Gregor Bitto

This reasoning has incurred several objections. Heiden (2000, 249), for example, doubts that a division made by Zenodotus would have been accepted so quickly and universally by his philological contemporaries and successors.¹⁵ On the other hand, as Higbie (2010) has shown, quoting Homer by episode titles remained an accepted practice until the 1st century AD, alongside the reference to book numbers. Athenaeus is the first to cite all authors and works by book number, although he is familiar with the older practice. Higbie attributes this development to the growing literacy of the audience that provided authors and readers alike with an easier way of dealing with texts in a more philological manner.¹⁶ Those who opt for an earlier dating of the Homeric book division argue that the older practice of referring to Homer by episode titles is to be explained by the very different practice of reception (sc. via recitations) that does not exclude an original book division. Those who think of Homer rather in terms of recitation than of reading are more likely to think in terms of performance practice with its self-contained rhapsodies.¹⁷ It is striking that an early dating is based on aesthetic criteria – that is, the segmentation of the medium corresponds to a division regarding the content and is supported by certain signals in the text. The more subtle these signals, the more plausible it seems that the original author and not a later editor is responsible for the division.¹⁸ Inversely, aesthetically displeasing or arbitrary divisions are supposed to indicate the opposite,¹⁹ like the equal division of both Homeric poems, despite their unequal length, into 24 books each, both with alphabetic numbering – a ‘childish division’ according to Lachmann.²⁰ Irrespective of who is to be credited with the book division of the Homeric poems (I am personally more inclined to link it to the Alexandrians’ editorial practices), the division itself has received a lot of attention from scholars studying the reception of Homer, as we will see below. Even if an Alexandrian dating is

15 This argument is not as solid as it may seem at first glance. A pre-Alexandrian division could have already existed that was just modified, or another type of division could have been harmonised. The fast acceptance could be seen as a sign for the high esteem in which Alexandrian scholarship and its combination of aesthetic and pragmatic issues was held. Already at this point it becomes clear that we are working with hypotheses that are all equally plausible. 16 See Higbie (2010, 27–8). 17 Cf. Skafte Jensen (1999, 11). 18 See, for example, Heiden (1998) and Heiden (2000). Cf. also Stanley (1993), who assumes a revision and division of the original text by the rhapsodes. For that reason, he argues for a pre-Alexandrian division; see esp. Stanley (1993, 249–61 [for the book divisions] and 279–93 [for a reconstruction of the genesis of book divisions in the sixth century BC]). 19 For all 23 divisions of the Iliad, see Taplin (1992, 285–93). Taplin (1992, 2–31) proposes a division into three parts that corresponds to an original performance during three days or nights. 20 Cf. Lachmann (2 1865, 93): “kindische Eintheilung beider Werke.”

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

137

favoured, it remains an open question whether the division is the result of aesthetic considerations – both from a later editor and a later poet adopting the division, irrespective of the time span between them – that pre-date the edition and division, or whether text segments formed the basis for aesthetic criteria for the division. An even more important question for the ancient reception is who was credited with the book division by ancient readers. The passages quoted at the beginning of this section indicate that it was mainly attributed to the Alexandrians. This a very likely assumption with regard to their editorial practice in general, such as in the case of the Alexandrian edition of Pindar’s Epinician Odes.²¹ An overview of their editorial criteria may illustrate how subtle the Alexandrian editors’ interest in these matters was. Lowe (2007, 171–4) has identified eight different criteria: 1. Authorship (attribution of a certain ode to Pindar). 2. Suprageneric rule (εἰς θεούς – εἰς ἀνθρώπους). 3. Number of books per genre (not, as in the case of Bacchylides, one genre and one book). 4. Prestige of the festival. 5. Prestige of the event. 6. Status of the victor; victors with several odes get a prominent place, then follow the ones with only one ode (with the exception of Pi. N. 1 and Pi. N. 9, where criterion 5 is more important). 7. The victor with the highest number of odes occupies the first place in the collection. 8. Within such groups, the more important – i.e. the longer odes – precede the others (e.g. Pi. P. 4 before Pi. P. 5). It becomes clear in such a collection of poems that the author never intended joint publication: the diligence of the editor is meant to be perceived by the reader in order to avoid the impression of arbitrariness – e.g. that several odes belonging to one victor appear in different places in the book instead of in a sequence (criterion 6). Such a book division and composition presupposes sensitive editors and readers who expect such standards from contemporary literary productions and who, out

21 This, of course, is a parallel only to a limited extant: the Homeric book division and the Alexandrian edition of Pindar’s Epinician Odes are linked by their concept of books as aesthetic units. An important difference, however, is that Pindar’s poems are simply too short to form a book on their own. Therefore, they had to be collected into books and put into a certain order; one may compare Callimachus’ Aetia. In the case of Homer, it is the other way round: a poem that is too long to fit into one book had to be segmented. Barchiesi (2005) justly advises against a perspective that is too idealistic with regard to the perfect poetry book and that does not take into account the materiality of the medium and the reception practices.

138 | Gregor Bitto

of their contemporary literary experience, expect such standards from their literary heritage and its presentation in books.

3 Apollonius Rhodius Already at first glance the difference between Apollonius’ Argonautica and its Homeric predecessors becomes apparent:²² the Argonautica comprises just four books instead of 24, all of which are significantly longer than each of the Homeric books, but add up to just half of the length of the Odyssey.²³ Thus, each division becomes more significant and the reader’s attention is drawn to the book division itself.²⁴ Since there are no longer several divisions, each of the three receives special attention. Books 1 and 2 narrate the adventures of the Argonauts during their voyage to Colchis; Book 3 recounts the events in Colchis; Book 4, finally, the stealing of the Golden Fleece and the voyage home. This clear and absolutely linear structuring of the content is accentuated by the distribution of the proems.²⁵ Book 2, in contrast to the other three, is not introduced by an individual proem as the journey continues directly from the first book to the second.

22 This paper focuses on epic poetry; therefore Callimachus’ Aetia is omitted, even though this (collection of) elegiac poem(s) had an enormous influence on the composition of poetry in books; see, for example, Krevans (1984, 138–300) and Hutchinson (2008, 42–63). Equally omitted from this discussion is Callimachus’ Hecale, an epyllion, which was contained within a single book. See Finkmann and Hömke in this volume. 23 According to van Sickle (1980, 11) the average book length of the Iliad is 654 lines and of the Odyssey 505 lines; the average length of Apollonius’ books, by comparison, is 1458 lines. Hutchinson (2008, 77) notes that the overall length of the four books of Apollonius’ Argonautica corresponds to the four books of Homer’s Apologoi (Books 9–12 of the Odyssey). Van Sickle (1980, 8–12) assumes a development of Alexandrian books, beginning with an older practice (3rd century BC) of units of 1000 to 2000 lines (cf. Callimachus’ Aetia and Hecale) and a younger one (from the 1st century BC onwards) that favoured a total of 300 to 900 lines. The latter became the model for Roman poets since Vergil. This, according to van Sickle, also explains why we have fragmentary papyri that contain several Homeric books in one scroll; cf. West (1967, 22–3, esp. 25 n. 48). For West (1967, 19) these different book lengths are also evidence against an Alexandrian division of the Homeric poems. 24 See also Hutchinson (2008, 82) who regards the book division as the most important structuring device of the first two books. 25 This linear narrative is counterbalanced by several digressions, aetiologies, and internal crossreferences; cf. Nelis (2005, 355–6).

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

139

At the same time, book endings highlight important events:²⁶ the end of Book 1, the loss of Heracles; the end of Book 2, the landing in Colchis. With Book 3, the Medea episode begins and this new stage of the narrative is introduced by the invocation of the Muse Erato and the following Olympic scene, the only one in the whole epic.²⁷ The end of Book 3 coincides with the end of a day in contrast to the two sunrises that close Books 1 and 2.²⁸ In addition, it marks the end of Jason’s fight against the bulls,²⁹ while the stealing of the Golden Fleece gets a special place at the opening of Book 4. These two climactic events are highlighted by their respective book boundaries, whereas proems of five lines each link Books 3 and 4 in contrast to the four-line proem of Book 1.³⁰ The double dawn at the end of Books 1 and 2 is interpreted by de Jong (1996, 30) as a contrasting reference to Homeric book endings that close several times with a sunset.³¹ This inversion, according to de Jong, mirrors Apollonius’ aspiration for independence from the epic model Homer and turns the book ending with a sunset in Book 3 into a contrastive imitation so that both the epic tradition and Apollonius’ deviation from it are highlighted. There is an analogous tension between book boundaries and narrative continuities across those boundaries in the book pairs 1–2 and 3–4.³²

4 Republican epics: Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius About a generation after Apollonius, the history of Latin epic poems is about to begin with Livius Andronicus’ Latin adaptation of the Homeric Odyssey.³³ He

26 See Campbell (1983, 154) and Ambühl (2017). For the meaning of book endings, cf. Fowler (2000, 251–9) and Schmitz (2017). See also Zissos in this volume. 27 Cf. Reitz on divine council scenes in volume II.2. 28 Cf. Wenskus on time in Greek epic in volume II.2. 29 Campbell (1983, 154) concludes that this is more important than the voyage home that begins at A.R. 4.212. See also Hutchinson (2008, 9–82) for the unifying ἄεθλος-motif that is noticeable in the book composition. 30 See also the parallel of Jason’s ἄεθλος in the last line of Book 3 and Medea’s κάματος in the first line of Book 4. For the proems within the narrative structure, see Köhnken (2010, 139–40) and Schindler in this volume. 31 Cf. the overview in de Jong (1996, 22–3 and esp. 24–9) for the caesura created by dawns and sunsets in Homer. For a more detailed discussion of the recapitulating beginnings of books, see Campbell (1983, 154–5). 32 For a more detailed account, see Köhnken (2010, 140–2). 33 Toohey (1992, 90) calls attention to this synchronicity.

140 | Gregor Bitto

uses the Saturnian verse (Liv. Andr. carm. frs. 1–36 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel), as does his successor Naevius for his Bellum Poenicum before, with Ennius’ Annales, the hexameter becomes the standard epic meter in Roman epic.³⁴ After Ennius, hexameters are used for the composition of Livius’ Odusia, as well (Liv. Andr. carm. frs. 37–40 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel). Regarding these two versions of the Odusia, Courtney (1993, 46) states that only the hexametric version of Livius’ Odusia had a book division, whereas the first version was contained in one scroll.³⁵ This, according to Courtney, is due to the fact that the Homeric Odyssey has been divided into books by Aristarchus – that is, after Livius Andronicus; but, as we have seen, his dating is a matter of debate (see above, section 2). Proof for his hypothesis is that there is only one quotation from Livius Andronicus that is accompanied by the book number: the grammarian Priscian cites a fragment from Book 1 (Liv. Andr. carm. fr. 37 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel, with an equivalent in Odyssey 1). The authenticity of a second quotation with book number has been questioned.³⁶ From the first quotation, there is nothing to be gleaned about the total number of books and their correspondence to the Homeric division. Furthermore, Courtney’s explanation that the Homeric division was introduced by Aristarchus after Livius is far from certain. Finally, there are serious doubts whether Livius translated the complete Odyssey at all or just a section of it.³⁷ With Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, we are on much firmer ground. Suetonius refers to this poem as proof of the developing Roman interest in philology, after the visit to Rome in 168 BC of Crates of Mallus, a contemporary of Aristarchus. According to Suetonius, Octavius Lampadio divided Naevius’ epic, which was originally contained in one scroll, into seven books.³⁸ However, concerning the structure of this work and its books, opinions are divided among scholars. Generally, it is clear that the first three books contained the early Roman history from the fall of Troy to the founding of Rome, while Books 4–7 were devoted to the main topic, the First Punic War. Depending on how we deal with a quotation from the grammarian

34 For the aesthetic appeal of Saturnian verse, see Goldberg (1995, 58–82). 35 So also Goldberg (2005, 432). Cf. Gell. 18.9.5 offendi enim in bibliotheca Patrensi librum [singular!] uerae uetustatis Liui Andronici, qui inscriptus est ᾿Οδύσσεια . . . , “For in the library at Patrae I found a manuscript of Livius Andronicus of undoubted antiquity, entitled ᾿Οδύσσεια . . . ” This translation is taken from Rolfe (1927). 36 On Liv. Andr. carm. fr. 42 Morel, which was not included by Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel, see Courtney (1993, 46) and Suerbaum (1992, 168 n. 35). 37 See Suerbaum (1992, 168–70). 38 Cf. Suet. gramm. 2 C. Octauius Lampadio Naeuii Punicum bellum quod uno uolumine et continenti scriptura expositum diuisit in septem libros, “Gaius Octavius Lampadio thus treated the Punic War of Naevius, which was originally written in a single volume without a break, but was divided by Lampadio into seven books.” This translation is taken from Rolfe (1914).

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

141

Charisius (Char. gramm. fr. 3 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel) in terms of textual criticism, two options for the overall structuring of the narrative emerge: it is either a long flashback after the beginning of the war as an inserted story within the story or a prehistory that is told separately.³⁹ Several quotations situate the events in Troy and its continuation in Book 1.⁴⁰ However, Char. gramm. fr. 3 introduces a few lines about the expedition of Manius Valerius, the consul of 263 BC, with the designation “from Book 1”. Combining these two pieces of evidence, Book 1 would then begin with the events of 264–262 BC and continue with a long digression from Troy to Rome. Beginning with Book 4, the remainder of the war – that is, the years from 261 to 241 BC – would have been told with about five years being covered in each book. In order to avoid such an enormous digression, Baehrens (1886) wanted to change belli Punici libro I to belli Punici libro IIII. A decision on whether this question is ever to be solved definitively depends on how much literary refinement one is ready to grant ‘archaic’ literature.⁴¹ A linear narrative seems to be the easier solution, especially in view of the ‘prologue’ of the Odyssey, the Telemachy (Odyssey 1–4). On the other hand, the Odyssey itself offers proof of a flashback that covers several books (Odyssey 9–12). So, to my mind, there is a lot to be said for drawing surprising but reasonable conclusions from texts without the need for alteration. One has to note, though, that apparently for Naevius himself, as well as for Livius before him, the artistic device of book divisions was not of any interest, in contrast to the readers of a later generation. These readers expect their epics to be divided into books, and so older epics have to be adapted to suit the new standards, as Suetonius attests for Naevius.⁴² With Ennius, we have the first Roman epic in which the poet himself adapts the Hellenistic interest in book divisions.⁴³ As far as can be seen from the remaining fragments, Ennius introduces at least Books 6, 7, 10, and 16 with individual proems

39 For the inserted episode, cf. von Albrecht (1999, 48) and Goldberg (2005, 433); for the ‘mythical prologue’ (“mythischer Vorbau”), cf. Häußler (1976, 96–7). See also the overview in Toohey (1992, 94). 40 See, for example, Char. gramm. frs. 6, 9, and 14 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel. 41 See Toohey (1992, 94) and von Albrecht (1999, 48). 42 There are very different estimates of the total number of lines of the Bellum Poenicum: about 5000 lines, like Apollonius, according to von Albrecht (1999, 50), and, similarly, Toohey (1992, 94) who compares the average book length of the Homeric and Vergilian epics; or not more than 1850 lines in order to fit onto one scroll – uno uolumine, as Suetonius says: thus Suerbaum (1992, 165). 43 Cf. Jocelyn (1972, 1010): “His basic unit of composition was not the pontiff’s whitened board but the Hellenistic book trade’s average-length papyrus roll.” Jocelyn draws a parallel with the Homeric division that he dates to Alexandrian philological activity. See also Classen (1999) for Ennius’ general influence on Roman literature.

142 | Gregor Bitto

that accentuate the boundaries between the respective books.⁴⁴ In total, the Annales covered 18 books, as attested by Diomedes (Diom. gramm. 1.484 Keil). These are commonly grouped into six triads.⁴⁵ The last triad begins with the proem to Book 16 in which the poet refers to the tribulations of old age. This proem is interpreted by Skutsch (1985) as the troublesome resumption of poetic activity (Enn. ann. 401). Together with a note in Pliny the Elder (Plin. nat. 7.101) that Ennius added Book 16, this is seen as a hint that Ennius added a sixth triad, having finished his Annales previously in 15 books.⁴⁶ The established thematic structuring runs as follows:⁴⁷ Books 1–3: Books 4–6: Books 7–9: Books 10–12: Books 13–15: Books 16–18:

Reign of the kings Conquest of Italy and the war against Pyrrhus Punic Wars Events in Greece War in Syria Recent wars (sc. during Ennius’ life time).

The proems to Books 7 and 10 separate the Punic Wars in a unified subsection, especially because in the proem to Book 7 Ennius refers to the existing literary tradition – that is, Naevius’ epic about the First Punic War – and distances himself from his predecessor’s aesthetics.⁴⁸ However, as Enn. ann. 164 Skutsch (the opening line of Book 6) demonstrates, not only were the boundaries between the triads highlighted, but also boundaries between individual books. This way the structuring into individual books receives special attention. This applies to the reception of Ennius’ book division, too: this line is quoted by Quintilian as part

44 See Hutchinson (2008, 26). As Elliott (2013, 67) notes, 267 of the 623 fragments are quoted with their book number. 45 See Elliott (2013, 38–40, esp. 39 n. 65 for older literature, 213–14, and 298–302); however, she raises doubts, too, concerning this communis opinio. 46 Cf. Skutsch (1985, 5–6). For Gärtner (2005, 5), this addition indicates that the five triads where not aesthetically intertwined, since the symmetry would have been destroyed by a sixth triad. 47 See Skutsch (1985, 5) and Elliott (2013, 298–302). Cf. also Elliott (2013, 18–74) for a thorough correction of a too rigid classification of the narrative structure of Ennius’ Annales as the result of a too narrow understanding of the title. For Classen (1999, 133–4), the book division of the Annales is not only a literary achievement, but it also introduces a division for Roman history. 48 See Enn. ann. 206–9 Skutsch scripsere alii rem / Vorsibus quos olim Faunei uatesque canebant / [cum] neque Musarum scopulos / Nec dicti studiosus [quisquam erat] ante hunc, “Others have written of the matter in verses which once upon a time the Fauns and seers used to sing, when no one had surmounted the rough rocks of the Muses nor was anyone mindful of style before this man.” This translation is taken from Warmington, 1935. Note the reference to the Alexandrian philological tradition: dicti studiosus. For the context in which this fragment has been preserved (Cic. Brut. 71), see Elliott (2013, 180–1).

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

143

of witty reply by Cicero who is using this opening line and the book number in reference to a defendant named Sextus Annalis (Quint. inst. 8.3.86). This joking reference to a book by its number and opening line proves that in Cicero’s time it is impossible to think of an epic poem without paying attention to its book division.

5 Vergil Being the first complete extant narrative epic poem of Latin literature,⁴⁹ Vergil’s Aeneid allows for a more reliable⁵⁰ analysis of the structuring into books. With 12 books, the Aeneid is only half as long as the Homeric epics, although, as already noted by Servius, Vergil’s epic contains an Iliadic and an Odyssean half, albeit in reverse order of Homer’s narrative chronology:⁵¹ Books 1–6, Odyssey; Books 7–12, Iliad.⁵² This division, however, does not appear to be systematic. The beginning

49 This does not include Lucretius’ didactic poem or the lost Republican epics: e.g. Hostius’ Bellum Histricum in at least two books, Accius’ Annales in at least 27 books, Cicero’s De consulatu suo and De temporibus meis in three books each, Furius Bibaculus’ Annales Belli Gallici in at least 11 books, and Varro Atacinus’ Bellum Sequanicum in at least two books. Cf. Nethercut’s overview (Tab. 2) in this volume. For Lucretius, see the short overview in Kenney (2 2014, 10–11 n. 37) with further literature. The most important aspects shall be briefly summarised here: the six books are structured into three pairs (Books 1–2: atoms, Books 3–4: soul, Books 5–6: world); the central position of Books 3–4 is emphasised by the framing repetition of Lucr. 1.76–7 in 5.89–90; the contrast between the symmetry of Books 3–4 in the central position, linked by 3.31–40 corresponding to 4.26–44, and a linear climax occurs at the beginning of each pair (Epicurus as homo in 1.66, pater in 3.9, and deus in 5.8). The incomplete editorial status, however, impedes the analysis; see Bailey (1947, 31–7) for the connection between the book composition and the genesis of the poem. As Butterfield (2015, 2 n. 6) makes clear, lines 6.92–5 show that Book 6 was supposed to be the last and 6.937 indicates that the first book in the manuscript tradition was meant to take this position. 50 This has to be qualified insofar as Vergil was not able to edit his almost finished work by himself. Existing discrepancies, such as half lines, do not concern the epic’s organisation into books. On the cross-references between Books 1 and 12 that mark the twelfth book as the last one, see Tarrant (2012, 3). For the unfinished status of the Aeneid, see O’Hara (2010). 51 In contrast, cf. the programmatic statement at the beginning: Verg. Aen. 1.1 arma uirumque. 52 Cf. Serv. Aen. 7.1. See also Macr. Sat. 5.2.6 and Don. vita Verg. 21. McNelis (2004, 263) links the caesura in Book 7 to the caesura in Enn. ann. 7 Skutsch. Suerbaum (1999, 141–9) shows that an exact correspondence of the two halves to the two Homeric epics and their composition cannot be established, except for a general analogy of a half with errores and another with bella. On the twofold division of the Odyssey (Books 1–12: wanderings, Books 13–24: Ithaca) as the main model for the Aeneid, cf. also Schmidt (1988) who points out the problems of the Iliadic / Odyssean structuring of the Aeneid and argues for the Odyssey as the principal structural model. For a thorough analysis of Vergil’s reception of Homer, see the seminal study by Knauer (1964).

144 | Gregor Bitto

of the second half is not placed at the beginning of Book 7, but it is postponed until Verg. Aen. 7.37 and introduced by a so-called proem in the middle,⁵³ thus separating the second half for a second time. This unusual division between Books 6 and 7 calls the attention of the reader (who is used to a structuring into halves in Vergil’s previous poems)⁵⁴ to the delayed middle proem and beginning of the second half: it is therefore the delay itself that provides special emphasis.⁵⁵ We find an analogous play with divisions and links in the tetradic substructure⁵⁶ of the Aeneid: Book 4 concludes the Dido episode; with Book 9 the actual fighting begins; and at the same time Aeneas looks back to Carthage in Verg. Aen. 5.1–7 (cf. respiciens in Verg. Aen. 5.3 with metapoetic resonance) and thus in the same book that begins with interea.⁵⁷ This technique will be adapted and developed even further by Ovid in the Metamorphoses.⁵⁸ To what extent Vergil is thinking of book structures⁵⁹ when composing his epic can be illustrated by the following examples:⁶⁰ Aeneas’ account of his past to Dido comprises exactly two books, with Aeneid 2 covering the events in Troy and Aeneid 3 his following wanderings.⁶¹ The idea to begin a new book with a speech by the epic’s main protagonist that is so long that it continues beyond the end of the book is borrowed from Homer: Odysseus’ Apologoi (Odyssey 9–12). Similarly, the games in Iliad 23 are not only the model for Aeneid 5, but also for the creative

53 Cf. Conte/Harrison (2007, 218–31). Holzberg (1998, 90) and Nickbaht (2006), however, interpret the last two lines of Book 6 that mention the anchoring of the ships as a metapoetic reference to reaching the end of the first half. On the imagery of seafaring as a metaphor for writing epic poetry, cf. Harrison (2007). See also Schindler and Zissos in this volume. 54 See the recusatio in Verg. ecl. 6 and the proem to Verg. georg. 3. 55 For links between Books 1 and 7, see Lebek (1976, 210–13). 56 See Duckworth (1968, 68–9) for the superposition of several structural patterns in the Aeneid. 57 For the synchronicity of Books 8 and 9, see below. 58 Cf. also Sharrock in this volume and see below (section 6). 59 The late antique argumenta to the individual books of the Aeneid (AL 1–2 Shackleton Bailey) witness the same way of conceptualising the Aeneid as an epic composed in books. Cf. Serv. Aen. 5.871: the lines of Verg. Aen. 6.1–2 originally formed the end of Book 5 and were transposed to the beginning of Book 6 by Varius and Tucca. This indicates the artistic importance ascribed to book division, as Thomas (2014) rightfully concludes. 60 For the compositional unity of the individual books, see Heinze (3 1915, 448–53); cf. also Heinze (3 1915, 463) for the emotional uariatio displayed in the sequence of the books. For an elaborate analysis of the book composition of the Aeneid, cf. Worstbrock (1963, 33–121, esp. 118): “Die Reihe der zwölf Bücher stellt keinen linearen kontinuierlichen Verlauf dar, sondern geschlossene Einheiten erzählter Zeit.” 61 Note the framing repetition in the first and last lines: Verg. Aen. 2.1 conticuere and 3.718 conticuit.

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

145

decision to devote an entire book to this topic.⁶² Vergil does not employ other structuring motifs, such as sunrise, at the opening of a book as often as Homer, but it is used for the opening of Book 11.⁶³ Books 8 and 9 narrate simultaneous events in different locations (Book 8: Aeneas visiting Evander, Book 9: the Trojan camp near the Tiber), while during the simultaneous events of Book 9 the main hero is absent for the whole book. In general, the beginnings and endings of books in the Aeneid are, according to Worstbrock (1963, 69), “prominent, often structurally independent parts of the composition” that serve as a means to emphasise the unity of the individual book and highlight the ‘compositional joints’ (“Kompositionsfugen”) and do not serve primarily as transitional passages.⁶⁴ Through ‘ruptures’, lapses of time or a sudden change of scenery, Vergil places greater emphasis on the unity of the book than on creating a linear narrative.⁶⁵ With the Aeneid, he establishes a new point of reference for all subsequent epics.

6 Ovid The number of books in Ovid’s Metamorphoses comes as a surprise: 15 books, not 24 as in Homer, or half of that, as in Vergil. Merli (2004) takes this as a programmatic signal: in the epic tradition, multiples of six are the favoured numbers (Homer: 24, Ennius: 18, Vergil: 12). Ovid instead seems to draw inspiration from the units of smaller poetic genres (cf. Vergil’s 10 Eclogues) and especially his own elegiac

62 See below (section 8), for Statius and Silius. Cf. the overview in Lovatt (2005, 18). There is a structural parallel: Iliad 23 and Aeneid 5 take the penultimate position, though admittedly in the Aeneid, it is the penultimate book of the first (and Odyssean) half. 63 See de Jong (1996, 22–3). If de Jong (1996, 30) is right about Apollonius’ reception of Homer in this respect (see above, section 3), with Aeneid 11 Vergil would turn Apollonius’ contrast into a parallel. 64 Kytzler (1990), by contrast, stresses book middles, calculated by line numbers, as prominent passages. This is, according to Kytzler (1990, 184–5), not to be seen as a pedantic game of numbers, but displays Vergil’s sense of harmony and balance. For middles and endings of the Aeneid, see also Thomas (2004, esp. 136–46) and Schindler (2017). 65 Cf. Worstbrock (1963, 70). Thomas (2014) points out that book endings are often marked by a death scene: Creusa in Book 2, Anchises in Book 3, Dido in Book 4, Palinurus in Book 5, Pallas, Lausus, and Mezentius in Book 10, Camilla in Book 11, and Turnus in Book 12; Caieta’s death is delayed until the beginning of Book 7, after the underworld in Book 6. On the importance of death scenes in epic poetry, cf. Dinter in volume II.1.

146 | Gregor Bitto

poetry (15 poems in Amores 1 and 3), thus hinting at the elegiac colouring of his epic poem.⁶⁶ Ovid himself refers to these 15 books in the Tristia two times by ter quinque uolumina (Ov. trist. 1.1.117 and 3.14.19). Rieks (1980, 95 n. 50) wants to take this periphrasis not just as a metrically convenient way of saying ‘15’, but as a serious reference to the structure of the Metamorphoses.⁶⁷ He sees a connection between programmatic passages and compositional aspects. Therefore, he emphasises the metapoetic relevance of the Muses in Ov. met. 5.250–678, of Orpheus in 10.413–739, and of Pythagoras in 15.75–478, as well as the sphragis at the end of Book 15.⁶⁸ Both Ovid’s book composition and the composition of the Metamorphoses overall have been the subject of much debate.⁶⁹ Especially in the past two decades the book structure of Ovid’s opus magnum has received great scholarly attention,⁷⁰ and has resulted in a re-evaluation of the poet’s motive with the overriding of the book boundaries⁷¹ being no longer interpreted as a narrative device solely designed to stress the epic’s narrative continuity and to keep the audience in suspense.⁷²

66 Cf. Kenney (2005), who sees Metamorphoses and Fasti with their originally intended 12 books as a diptych; cf. Ov. trist. 2.549 sex ego Fastorum scripsi totidemque libellos. Within this diptych, the Fasti would represent the other end of the spectrum: an epic book number, corresponding to the Aeneid, for an elegiac and Callimachean work. For the question about the unfinished status of the Fasti, see Barchiesi (1997, esp. 197–207). Hofmann (1985, 225), by contrast, compares the Metamorphoses to the 15 books of the first edition of Ennius’ Annales and argues for an “Ennian superstructure” in contrast to the Homeric 12 books of the Aeneid; see Hofmann (1985, 237 n. 10) for evidence that in Augustan Rome it was known that the first edition of the Annales contained 15 books. Furthermore, Hofmann refers to a parallel in the book division: Ovid’s Metamorphoses 14–15, from the apotheosis of Romulus and Hersilia to the beginning of Numa’s reign, corresponds to Ennius’ Annales 1–2. For further Ennian parallels, see Hofmann (1985, 225–6). See also Holzberg (1998, 82), who agrees with Hofmann’s conclusion, and Merli (2004, 305), who remains sceptical. 67 For periphrases and their importance in Latin poetry in general, see Vogel (2014); for the passages from the Tristia mentioned above, see Vogel (2014, 277–83). 68 Cf. Rieks (1980, 90–4) for parallels and similar connections in Ovid’s other works. See also Holzberg (1998, 78) and Gärtner (2004, 3–4). 69 Reviews of the early scholarship on the composition of the Metamorphoses are offered by Rieks (1980, 86–90), Crabbe (1981, 2274–6), Holzberg (1998, 77–8 and 95–8) with extensive bibliography, and Gärtner (2004, 2–4). 70 Contra Coleman (1971, 471): “One unit of structure Ovid has ignored, namely the division into books, which Vergil had exploited so effectively in Aeneid.” 71 As Wheeler (1999, 87) notes, there are explicit references to the book boundaries by the narrator. 72 Besides these functions, Holzberg (1998) highlights the metapoetic relevance of the book boundaries and argues for a pentadic macrostructure, while Gärtner (2004) concentrates on the composition of the individual books in contrast to superstructures spanning across multiple books. For these two basic explanations provided in earlier scholarship, cf. Wheeler (1999, 87). See also Fowler (2000, 258–9).

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

147

Already the first transition from the first book scroll to the second is, for the reader acquainted with the epic tradition from Homer to Vergil, an interpretative tour de force: Clymene advises her son Phaethon to visit his father Sol in order to gain certainty about his origin (Ov. met. 1.775). Book 1 ends with Phaethon’s travel (1.776–9) and Book 2 begins with an ekphrasis of the regia Solis (2.1–18). It is not a literal sunrise that opens Book 2, but rather a metaphorical one: for the reader, the sun rises with the ekphrasis and thus a closer look at Sol’s home. At the same time, as Wheeler (1999, 88) points out, the destabilisation of the boundary is established through the final word of Book 1: ortus. On a narrative level, the term is used to describe the area of the rising sun as Sol’s home, while hinting at Phaethon’s origin, too; as a word denoting a ‘beginning’, it is also a metapoetic pun at the end of the book. The boundary between Book 1 and 2 mirrors Clymene’s statement that Sol’s home is terrae contermina nostrae (1.774),⁷³ thus fittingly separating the spheres of the human and the divine. Clymene’s last words to Phaethon are introduced as follows: si modo fert animus, 1.775. As correctly identified by Holzberg (1998, 90), this refers back to the beginning of Book 1 and the whole epic: 1.1 in noua fert animus. The narrator and Phaethon are connected via the established metapoetic imagery of travelling, with regard to Phaethon’s story, especially of travelling by chariot.⁷⁴ The reader, too, finds his own journey from one book to another mirrored in Phaethon’s travel and this book boundary.⁷⁵ A concluding glance at the central Book 8 may suffice to illustrate the meaning of book division in the Metamorphoses.⁷⁶ It is the only book of the epic that actually begins with an epic sunrise (8.1–3).⁷⁷ This sunrise is preceded, as Holzberg (1998, 84) has shown, by a metapoetic transition at the end of Book 7. Through this transition, the character of Cephalus, who is introduced as an epic warrior from

73 Thus, convincingly, Wheeler (1999, 88–9). 74 According to Wheeler (1999, 88), the narrator’s cosmology in Ov. met. 1 matches Phaethon’s ekphrastic look at the regia Solis in Book 2. Cf. also Holzberg (1998, 91) and Harrison in this volume. Ovid links fert animus with the metapoetical chariot imagery in Ov. ars 3.467–8 fert animus propius consistere: supprime habenas, / Musa, nec admissis excutiare rotis, “My spirit bids me take a closer stand; draw in the reins, my Muse, nor dash headlong with ungoverned wheels.” This translation is taken from Mozley (1929). 75 Cf. Holzberg (1998, 90), Wheeler (1999, 89), and Sharrock in this volume. See also Ripoll in volume II.2 on epic journeys. 76 Cf. the extensive discussion in Crabbe (1981, 2315–26). See also Hardie (2004, 159–64) on the reception of the bipartite structure of Vergil’s Aeneid and the importance of Ovid’s Metamorphoses 8. 77 See Barchiesi (2005, 340): “a spoof of the convention of dawns as segmentations of long continuous actions, as their function was in Homer’s corpus.”

148 | Gregor Bitto

7.501 onwards and receives an elegiac colouring in the Procris episode narrated by himself (7.690–862), is brought back into the epic world (7.863–5):⁷⁸

865

F l e n t i b u s haec l a c r i m a n s heros memorabat, et ecce Aeacus ingreditur duplici cum prole nouoque m i l i t e; quem Cephalus cum f o r t i b u s accipit a r m i s. This story the hero told with many tears. And now Aeacus came in with his two sons and his new levied band of soldiers, which Cephalus received with their valiant arms.

The end of Book 8 introduces Achelous’ story about his fight with Hercules in Book 9. This correspondence between the transition from the narrator to a character’s narration to the transition from one book to another occurs frequently in the epic tradition:⁷⁹ see Odysseus in Odyssey 9⁸⁰ and Aeneas in Aeneid 2.⁸¹ The words with which Achelous proclaims his own ability to transform himself into a bull enclose a metapoetic reference to the book division:⁸² “put my strength into my horns”, he says in the last line of Book 8 (Ov. met. 8.882 uires in cornua sumo). As Mart. 11.107.1 illustrates in the penultimate epigram of this book, one says ad sua cornua when one reaches the end of the book, i.e. the umbilicus. The Aeneid’s dichotomy between narrative unity and a self-contained book structure also becomes part of the composition of the Metamorphoses, but takes on an exceptionally intense form: there are more book boundaries due to the higher number of books, but none of these boundaries separates episodes from one another. Instead, book boundaries have an important narrative and metapoetic importance:⁸³ the Metamorphoses is a carmen perpetuum and a carmen in libros diuisum at the same time.⁸⁴

78 The emphasised words are those of Holzberg (1998, 84); the translation is taken from Miller/ Goold (1916). 79 See Sharrock in this volume. 80 For the analogous stichometric allusions, see Lowe (2013, 443 n. 1–3). 81 Cf. Holzberg (1998, 83). 82 See Holzberg (1998, 84) and Wheeler (1999, 92–3). 83 On the different functions of book boundaries, see the summary in Holzberg (1998, 95). 84 The same ambivalence characterises the first truly Roman epic, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, too, which was divided into books posthumously (see above, section 4). This is perhaps a reception of Alexandrian philology: see above for an h-class scholion in Erbse’s testimonial apparatus to Schol. b Hom. Il. 2.877b stating that Homer composed an uninterrupted corpus (ἑνοῖ τὸ σωμάτιον καὶ τὰ ἔπη ἐν εἱρμῷ), which was eventually divided into individual books by the grammarians. Even if this scholion is to be attributed to Nicanor, a philologist working under Hadrian and thus after Ovid, it applies Aristotle’s idea of unity in epic poetry, as Nünlist (2006, 48) correctly observes. See also Wheeler (1999, 90–2), who compares the reader’s implicit surprise about the book boundary (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2–3) introduced by the author to the Alexandrian (that is, if this dating is

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

149

7 Lucan Whereas the unfinished status of the Aeneid does not pose any problems with regard to the question of book composition and division,⁸⁵ and Ovid’s announcement in Ov. trist. 1.7 that the Metamorphoses are an unfinished work can be considered a fictional reception of Vergil,⁸⁶ with Lucan the reader encounters a serious problem: the narrative breaks off abruptly in the middle of Book 10 (Lucan. 10.546).⁸⁷ The architecture of the whole epic is not as clear as that of the Aeneid. Even if almost ten complete books are extant, any reconstruction that extrapolates a compositional plan for the entire epic has to work with a certain degree of speculation, which explains the variety of proposed solutions.⁸⁸ The present communis opinio⁸⁹ may be summarised as follows: Lucan planned to write an epic in 12 books, matching the number of books in the Aeneid, with Cato’s death as the climax of Book 12⁹⁰ and Lucan’s necromancy in the middle of the epic (Book 6) as counter-part to Vergil’s famous underworld scene in Aeneid 6.⁹¹ The only epic sunrise at the beginning of a book is to be found in Book 7 of the Civil War (Lucan. 7.1–6) and immediately indicates the degree of perversion of

correct) book division of Homer and the reader’s exposure to it while reading one of the Homeric poems. 85 See above. 86 Cf. Krevans (2010). 87 See Lovatt (1999) for observations on Lucan’s and Statius’ respective endings, the lack of closure through abundance, and the appropriate lack of conclusion for poems dealing with civil war. See also Walde (2017). 88 See the overviews in Radicke (2004, 59 n. 27–9), Rutz (1989, 193–217), and Bruère (1970, 218–22). 89 See the most recent arguments by Stover (2008) and Radicke (2004, 59–65); earlier verdicts on the deficient composition of Lucan’s epic are collated by Schönberger (1970, 277). 90 Scholars who interpret the extant part as a complete version include Kaestner (1824, 20), Vögel (1968, 223), Bruère (1970, 217 n. 1), Haffter (1970), Masters (1992, 216–59), and, most recently, Tracy (2011, 52–3), who argues that, despite his early death, Lucan had enough time between the exposure of the Pisonian affair and his suicide to create a meaningful break-off, irrespective of the original plan. This is in itself close to biographical interpretation. Masters’ argumentation is criticised by Radicke (2004, 56–7) and Stover (2008, 571 n. 1). For the status of Book 10, see the detailed discussion of scholarly approaches in Berti (2000, 25–41), who comes to the conclusion that Lucan’s Civil War has most likely been conceived in 12 books. An overview of the different opinions about the ending is offered by Vögel (1968, 222–6) and Radicke (2004, 58–9 n. 26). 91 It is not an affirmative reception, but almost a caricature: an extensive analysis of the Erichtho scene and its relationship to Vergil is provided by Korenjak (1996, esp. 39–43). Cf. also Finkmann and Reitz in volume II.2.

150 | Gregor Bitto

the traditional motif:⁹² the sun only rises reluctantly because it will have to see the Battle at Pharsalus. Lebek (1976, 213–27) demonstrates how Lucan adopted correspondences between Aeneid 1 and 7 in his corresponding books. Although Lucan’s seventh book does not open the second half of his epic with bella like Aeneid 7,⁹³ it is in Book 7 that the central battle at Pharsalus takes place.⁹⁴ As in the Aeneid, other compositional patterns determine the macrostructure. A tetradic structure is observed by several scholars:⁹⁵ from Book 4 to Book 5 the setting, characters, and the line of action change; the same applies for the transition from Book 8 to Book 9.⁹⁶ The final book of each tetrad moreover ends with a prominent death: Curio in Book 4, Pompey in Book 8, and, one may suspect, as a climax, Cato in Book 12.⁹⁷ Radicke (2004, 46) acknowledges the flowing transitions, but convincingly argues for the individual books to be separated by a change of perspective or the reflection and / or commentary on the events.⁹⁸ Rutz (1989, 57) also downplays the importance of the individual book as a compositional unit due to their blurred boundaries and attempts to explain the minor importance of the individual books by referring to Ovid’s Metamorphoses as Lucan’s model.⁹⁹ As we have seen above (section 6), this claim has been invalidated for the Metamorphoses by more recent research and the same may be proposed for Lucan, too. Gärtner (2009, 262–3), for example, has shown that the penultimate line of Book 6 of Lucan’s Civil War is a

92 The proem already highlights this perversion by presenting the absurd aspects of the civil war as a war against oneself (Lucan. 1.1–32). 93 Even in Book 2 of Lucan’s Civil War, there is fighting in Troy. 94 See Radicke (2004, 64–5), who refers to Lucan. 9.985–6 for the title Pharsalia and the importance of the Battle at Pharsalus. For the significance of Books 6 and 7 for the whole work, see Tesoriero (2004). 95 See Marti (1970), Schönberger (1970, 281–2), Rutz (1989, 57), and Radicke (2004, 48–50) for analogies between the tetrads. Marti (1970), however, proposes four tetrads, with a caesura after Pompey’s death in Book 8. 96 See Radicke (2004, 49). 97 For the climax as the compositional principle of Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, see Rutz (1989, 54). For dyads, see Radicke (2004, 51–2); triads are missing according to Radicke (2004, 54–5), but they are proposed by Schönberger (1970, 281). 98 Cf. the connective opening words in Books 2, 6, and 10: Lucan. 2.1 iam, 6.1 postquam, and 10.1 ut primum. For the composition of the individual books, see Radicke (2004, 157–510) and Rutz (1989, 15–63) as well as the extensive discussion in Mitchell (1971, 325–8): for her, every book consists of three or four compositional units with several subsections (ranging from 6 to 14) that are arranged according to symmetrical or sequential principles that establish either a parallel or a contrast. Each book focuses on one character and one location. An overview of older literature is provided by Mitchell (1971, 5–13). 99 Cf. Rutz (1989, 53–5). For Lucan’s reception of the Metamorphoses, see Wheeler (2002).

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

151

contrastive intertextual reference to the penultimate line of Aeneid 6. This is just one of many examples that indicate that for Lucan book endings appear to have the same intertextual prominence as for Ovid.¹⁰⁰

8 Flavian epic: Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus The textual transmission of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica gravely impedes any attempt to interpret the book composition. Directly after the beginning of a speech by Jason, the text breaks off at the end of Val. Fl. 8.467, an almost ironic break off: [sc. putas] me talia uelle? It is unclear whether it is just the transmission that breaks off here or if Valerius himself was not able to compose the remainder.¹⁰¹ Basically, two proposals have been made for the overall book number with about the same number of lines:¹⁰² 8 books (double the number of Apollonius’ Argonautica) and 12 books (following Vergil’s Aeneid). The former is more plausible, as we will see,¹⁰³ and constitutes the current communis opinio. Despite this, a general tendency of ‘Vergilisation’ of Apollonius¹⁰⁴ can be perceived in Valerius’ epic.¹⁰⁵ As has often been noticed, corresponding to the Aeneid,¹⁰⁶ the Argonautica is divided into two halves,¹⁰⁷ of which the second half displays a delayed beginning like Aeneid 7 (the voyage to Colchis lasts until Val. Fl. 5.216 when the second half

100 See also Gärtner (2009, 260–2) on Lucan. 2.725–3.6 and Verg. Aen. 2.795–3.12. 101 See the overviews in Adamietz (1976, 107–9) and Zissos (2008, pp. xxvi–xxviii). Poortvliet (1991) identifies places where the Argonautica exhibits traces of missing “the last file”. From these passages, he concludes that the Argonautica generally constitutes an unfinished poem. This is to my mind no definitive argument against a complete first version needing some amendment, but including an ending that was only lost in transmission. Informed by reception aesthetics, Hershkowitz (1998, 1–35) discusses the issue of the unfinished/incomplete Argonautica against the background of the prolepseis, the reader’s knowledge of the myth, and the several possible endings provided by this myth. 102 For more on this, see Adamietz (1976, 110). 103 This is impressively demonstrated by Schetter (1994). For parallels between Argonautica 1 and 8, see also Zissos (2008, pp. xxxi–xxxii). 104 For Vergil himself, of course, Apollonius was an important point of reference, see Nelis (2001). 105 Cf. Nesselrath (1998, 350): “Vergilisierung”. 106 See also the suggestion made by Hershkowitz (1998, 9) that “it is equally possible to imagine the epic finishing not with the heroes’ return but with a Turnus-like murder of Absyrtus at the hands of Jason (and Medea?).” 107 Cf. also the two-part division of Apollonius with a second proem in book 3; see above (section 3).

152 | Gregor Bitto

is introduced by an invocation of the Muse in Val. Fl. 5.217–24a),¹⁰⁸ whereas in Apollonius Rhodius Colchis is reached at the end of Book 2.¹⁰⁹ Nevertheless, the initial word of Book 5 contains metapoetic relevance, as is the case for Books 1 (Val. Fl. 1.1 prima) and 3 of the Argonautica (3.1 tertia) as well: 5.1 altera lux haud laeta uiris emersit Olympo (“The next day’s light brought no joy to the heroes as it broke forth from Olympus”).¹¹⁰ The beginning of the new scroll with altera lets the reader expect a paratextual commentary about the second half of the poem: altera pars Argonauticon incipit. Although this speculation is proved wrong, it is a correct interpretation on a structural level: Books 1 and 5 are linked by two divine scenes (1.498–573 and 5.618–95)¹¹¹ through which, apart from the macrostructure of the Aeneid, the two councils of the gods in Odyssey 1 and 5 are echoed as a connecting motif.¹¹² Valerius continues the tendency of Ovid and Lucan to blur the book boundaries: the Cyzicus episode spans Books 2 and 3; the episode with Hercules in Mysia spans the boundary of Book 3 to Book 4; the Lycus episode does the same with Books 4 and 5; the return journey does not begin with the last book, but is delayed until 8.134.¹¹³ Accordingly, Adamietz (1976, 117–18) observes that on the one hand an effort is made to establish smooth transitions, while, on the other hand, the importance of book boundaries is emphasised: “similar situations that belong to different adventures are placed at the beginnings and endings of books and, thus, contribute to structuring the narrative.”¹¹⁴ Statius’ Thebaid is the first extant Latin epic about whose editorial status there are no doubts whatsoever.¹¹⁵ The Thebaid is also the Flavian epic that follows the

108 Valerius deviates from Apollonius’ version of the myth in order to include fights in Book 6 that correspond to the bella of the Aeneid; cf. Gärtner (2008, 8) and Zissos (2008, p. xxvi). For middles in Valerius, see Zissos (2004) and in this volume. 109 There is an extensive discussion of this structuring signal in Schetter (1994, 83–8). 110 This translation is taken from Mozley (1934). Cf. Barchiesi (2005, 340). See also the negatively connoted sunrise in Lucan 7.1–6 (see above, section 7). 111 Cf. Adamietz (1976, 113). 112 For further parallels between Argonautica 1 and 5, see Zissos (2008, p. xxxi). 113 Cf. Burck (1979, 217–18). 114 Cf. Adamietz (1976, 118): “gleichartige Situationen, die verschiedenen Abenteuern angehören, [sind] an die Buchanfänge und Buchenden gestellt und tragen so zur Strukturierung der Handlung bei”; e.g. meals at the end of Books 2, 4, and 5; nightfall at the end of Books 3, 5, and 6; dawn with the beginning of Books 3 and 5; cf. also the contrast of the tranquillity of the gods at the end of Book 5 with the restlessness of Mars at the beginning of Book 6. For a more comprehensive discussion of the composition of the individual books, see Lüthje (1971). 115 Statius himself points this out in the contemporaneous Silvae: Stat. silv. 1 praef. 6 and 4 praef. 17–18.

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

153

structure of the Aeneid most closely:¹¹⁶ like the Aeneid, it comprises 12 books that are structured into two halves, of which the first is devoted to preparations for war and the march against Thebes, while the second features the fighting itself.¹¹⁷ The significance of the book boundaries in the Thebaid is still a matter of debate. Krumbholz (1955, 252) sees them as mechanical divisions that are inserted whenever a certain number of lines has been reached. Schetter (1960, 80–1 on Thebaid 6 and 12) is willing to attribute an individual status to some of the books, whereas Burck (1979, 312) identifies Statius’ books as predominantly self-contained units like those of the Aeneid,¹¹⁸ attaching no or very little importance to book boundaries and reducing the Thebaid to a poem of temporal or narrative continuities.¹¹⁹ Some draw a parallel to Ovid’s Metamorphoses and its episodic structure.¹²⁰ Mostly, without question,¹²¹ Statius’ book endings are composed as grand finales,¹²² while at the same time the boundary is often blurred in the narrative sense and therefore highlights a crucial stage within the narrative.¹²³ This double function of providing continuity as well as a boundary can be seen very clearly in the recapitulations at the beginning of Thebaid 9 and 11: they present the ending of the previous book in an epitomised version and, thus, emphasise continuity while also allowing the reader to re-immerse himself in the narrative after changing the book roll. However, the macrostructure of the Aeneid is always present, albeit in variation: the funeral games do not take place in Book 5, but in

116 Gärtner (2008, 8) concludes that Statius is the most conservative in his imitation of the Aeneid. 117 Cf. Burck (1979, 311) and Gärtner (2005, 8) contra Vessey (1973, 317). See also Lebek (1976, 213–16) for correspondences between Thebaid 1 and 7 and Aeneid 1 and 7 as well as McNelis (2004) on the relevance for the Thebaid’s macrostructure. A statement about the time the poet spent working on the Thebaid at Stat. Theb. 12.811 (bis senos . . . per annos) suggests that Statius spent one year per book, and six for each half of the poem. For the periphrasis of numbers in Ovid, see above, section 6. 118 An extensive analysis of the transitions from one book to another is conducted by Kytzler (1955, 56–109), who concludes (64–5) that book endings can both represent climaxes and provide narrative continuity; for exceptions, see 67–9, esp. for the strong caesura between Books 3 and 4. 119 Cf. Vessey (1973, 319–21). See also Schetter (1960, 78–9), who argues against the triadic structuring, proposed by Kytzler (1955, 72–109), who asserts (59) that the Thebaid does not comprise books that form a self-contained narrative unit such as Aeneid 2, 4, and 6. 120 Cf. Schetter (1960, 79) and more explicitly Vessey (1973, 322). 121 An exception is Krumbholz (1955, 252), who, at the same time, also likens the Thebaid to a mosaic of self-contained and thus often dispensable episodes. 122 As Vessey (1973, 319 n. 3) observes, Thebaid 1, 2, 4, and 5 end with a prayer, while 7–10 end with the death of one of the Seven in analogy to the deaths at the end of Aeneid 2–5 and 10–12 (see above). 123 See Schetter (1960, 71) on Thebaid 6–7 and Schetter (1960, 92–3) on Thebaid 7–10.

154 | Gregor Bitto

Book 6;¹²⁴ the nocturnal activities of Hopleus and Dymas, whose models Nisus and Euryalus are explicitly mentioned by the narrator (Stat. Theb. 10.445–8),¹²⁵ are related in Book 10 (like the Doloneia in Iliad 10), not in Book 9. The end of Book 11 with the last word umbra (Stat. Theb. 11.761) points towards the final word of the Aeneid (Verg. Aen. 12.952 umbras);¹²⁶ the two brothers Eteocles and Polynices die in Book 11, while Aeneas’ main adversary Turnus is killed in Aeneid 12,¹²⁷ but the Thebaid continues in an additional book with a less abrupt ending and a sphragis and, thus, implicitly surpasses the Aeneid.¹²⁸ Several beginnings of books moreover display metapoetic references: in Stat. Theb. 7.1, at the beginning of the bella-half, Jupiter sees the primordia bella that are delayed. The actual fighting only starts at 7.470 (an epic sunrise!) and thus mirrors the delayed opening of the second half of the Aeneid. Almost jokingly, Book 4 opens with the term tertius¹²⁹ in reference to the third year that has passed while at the same time, ironically irritating the reader who has just opened the fourth book roll. The unfinished Achilleid shall at least be addressed in passing here.¹³⁰ The manuscript tradition contains different book divisions, but the division after Stat. Ach. 1.960 has been authenticated through quotations from late antique grammarians.¹³¹ The second book, in traditional epic fashion, begins with a sunrise, whose function goes beyond marking the beginning of a new section; its epic connotations are important for the subsequent depiction of Achilles¹³² and establish a significant intratextual parallel to the transition between Books 3 and 4 of the Thebaid.¹³³

124 For the epic games in Statius, see Lovatt (2005) and Lovatt in volume II.1. 125 As Hinds (1998, 92) observes, at the same time there is a stichometric allusion to the model, Verg. Aen. 9.446–9. 126 Vergil’s reference to the end of the Iliad is obvious: for this ending, see Fowler (2000, 245–6). 127 Theseus’ murder of Creon in Book 12 creates another parallel to Turnus’ death. The interpretation of Thebaid 12 is debated: see the overview in Criado (2015, 291–2); for Book 12 as the final book, see Hardie (1997, 151–8). 128 The sphragis addresses the distance to the Aeneid (Stat. Theb. 12.816) as well as the contemporaneous success (12.813–15); the poet’s ability to follow the Aeneid (Stat. Theb. 12.817) and his own posthumous fame (12.818–19) are stressed, too; see Parkes (2012, 10). For Statius’ self-conscious awareness of his belatedness, cf. also Stat. silv. 4.7.25–8 129 The metapoetic relevance is pointed out by Parkes (2012, ad loc.). 130 For the overall plan of the Achilleid, see the overview in Bitto (2016, 175–7). 131 See Anderson (2009, pp. xii–xiii). 132 See Bitto (2016, 337–9). 133 Cf. Gärtner (2009, 268–9).

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

155

The importance of Vergil’s Aeneid as primary model for Silius’ Punica is apparent in many aspects;¹³⁴ curiously, though, its book number, 17, is a glaring exception: 17 books can neither be divided into two halves nor into hexads, tetrads or triads and, thus, do not fit the established patterns. It comes as no surprise that several scholars have speculated about an originally intended number of 18 books, in analogy with the 18 books of Ennius’ Annales, which could be subdivided into halves and hexads, and would move Books 9 and 10 about the Battle at Cannae into the centre of the narrative.¹³⁵ Küppers, by contrast, points out the difficulties of a potential hexadic structuring of the Punica¹³⁶ and highlights the general importance of narrative continuity in imperial epic as particularly relevant for Silius and indicative of the influence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.¹³⁷ Book endings, as Gärtner (2009, 269–70) demonstrates, address important events and contain significant information: ten out of 17 books, for instance, end with a prophecy (Books 2–6, 8, 10, 11, 13, and 14), a technique Silius is supposed to have adopted from Lucan (Books 1, 2, and 5). Silius’ reception of Vergil’s book composition is not dominated by numerical aspects: the proem in the middle of the Punica at Sil. 14.1–10, for example, follows the nekyia in Book 13 and mirrors the analogous sequence of Books 6 and 7 in the Aeneid without adopting the structuring into halves or a similar macrostructural device.¹³⁸ The paradoxical

134 Cf. the second part of von Albrecht (1964). See also Pliny’s obituary and the veneration of Vergil attested there (Plin. epist. 3.7.8). 135 See Bickel (1911), Wallace (1958), Burck (1979, 260–70, esp. 270 n. 42), and Kißel (1979, 211–18). For Cannae as the middle of the epic, see Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy (1986, 2505–11) who assume a total of 17 books with an alternating macrostructure of two and three books and Books 8–10 in the centre. A double structure of 18 books is proposed by Delarue (1992) consisting of halves in the divine sphere and hexads in the human sphere. A review of past literature on this topic is offered by Küppers (1986, 176–8), Fröhlich (2000, 18–28), and Gärtner (2010, 78–83). 136 Küppers (1986, 180–3) argues that, among other things, a caesura between Books 12 and 13 that corresponds to the one between Books 6 and 7 is missing. An additional problem is that Book 17 is by no means an incomplete ending. Wallace (1958, 102) and Burck (1979, 270 n. 42) therefore postulate that Silius seeing his waning powers or death approaching changed his original plan and fitted the material of two books into 17. For the last book of the Punica, see Hardie (1997, 158–62). Stürner (2011, esp. 148–51) argues against the 18 book theory and for a completion within 17 books, as originally intended. Reitz (2010) also defends the unusual book number. She suggests that it might be a purposeful allusion to historiographical writing. 137 Cf. Küppers (1986, 187–8, esp. 191) for spatial continuity: Books 1–3 Spain; Books 4–10 North and Middle Italy; 11.1–13.380 South Italy; beginning with the second half of Book 13, this continuity is given up, as explicitly stated in the proem in the middle at Sil. 14.1–10. 138 Cf. Gärtner (2010, 84–6 and esp. 86–90) for an additional reception of the delayed new beginning in Aeneid 7 through the delayed intervention by Juno beginning with Sil. 8.25. The parallel appearance of Juno in Punica 1 and 8 reminds Gärtner of Juno in Aeneid 1 and 7. An

156 | Gregor Bitto

relationship between continuity and division has been characterised by Gärtner (2010, 94) in the following way: Silius does not refrain from structuring his Punica into 17 books, but he dispenses with the numerical balance.¹³⁹ With the funeral games, though, an epic set-piece par excellence¹⁴⁰, the Punica shows a numerical and structural correspondence to the ultimate point of reference for an ancient epic poem, the Iliad:¹⁴¹ both funeral games occupy a penultimate position in the sequence of the books (Punica 16 and Iliad 23).¹⁴²

9 Conclusion and the later epic tradition To conclude, we have seen how the book division of the Homeric poems, which can most likely be attributed to Alexandrian scholarship, served as a reference for the early generations of Alexandrian scholars and poets, as evidenced by Apollonius’ Argonautica. A culmination and at the same time a turning point for composing epics in books is reached with Vergil’s Aeneid. Its books are, on the one hand, conceived as self-contained units while, on the other hand, book division begins to be blurred. The most obvious example is the proem in the middle, which is not, as in Book 3 of Apollonius’ Argonautica, at the exact beginning of the second half, but which is delayed and does not coincide with the start of Aeneid 7. This technique of blurring the book boundaries is developed further by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.

asymmetrical structuring is also perceived in the development of Hannibal because the turning point comes in Book 11 of 17; cf. Gärtner (2010, 90–4). On the importance of the number 17 in Silius, ancient medicine, and its subdivision in Peripatetic number theory, see Wenskus (2010). 139 Cf. Stürner (2011, 162), who contends that Silius does not structure his epic primarily according to an overall number, but composes in hebdomads and triads; cf. also the scheme in Stürner (2011, 156): a central triad (Books 8–10) is surrounded by hebdomads that comprise a triad focusing on Hannibal at the beginning and a triad focusing on Scipio at the end. Fröhlich (2000, 50–8) suggests a different subdivision of the 17 books into three corresponding pentads (1–5, 7–11, and 13–17) while Books 6 and 12 are singled out; see Fröhlich (2000, 28–49) for an analysis of each book and its place in the whole work. 140 Another traditional epic motif Silius employs to structure his epic is the use of day and night as start and end points in his narrative. See Telg genannt Kortmann (2017). 141 For a full analysis of Silius’ reception of Homeric scenes and structures, see Juhnke (1972, 185–267 and 377–410) with an extensive catalogue. 142 This was already seen by Lorenz (1968, 231) and independently repeated, as it seems, by Fröhlich (2000, 397 n. 3). For the reception of Homer in Silius’ games, see Juhnke (1972, 229–67); in the Aeneid, the penultimate position is not as clear (see above) as the position of Statius’ games in Thebaid 6. For parallels between the games in Statius and Silius, see the second part of Lorenz (1968) and Lovatt (2010).

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

157

However, book boundaries retained their significance in narrative and metapoetic respects, and in some cases even increased. The tension between continuity and division is handled very differently by the Flavian poets, overtly in Valerius Flaccus and Statius, and in a more restrained manner by Silius. Even though my discussion of book divisions ended with the 1st century AD in accordance with the main scope of this volume, this by no means suggests that later epic did not continue this tradition. Quite the contrary: Gärtner has demonstrated the importance placed on book divisions in late antique and medieval Latin epic.¹⁴³ Alongside classical models, especially Vergil, as in Corippus’ Iohannis, other models gain importance¹⁴⁴ – for example, in biblical epic. The four books of Juvencus point to the four canonical gospels;¹⁴⁵ likewise in Sedulius’ Carmen paschale, in which a first book with scenes from the Old Testament is followed by four books that represent a gospel harmony.¹⁴⁶ As a last example, this time from Greek epic, I cite Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, an epic in 48 books that cover in a manner of speaking Iliad and Odyssey taken together (cf. the Aeneid) and constitute something like a Homeric sum.¹⁴⁷ The second invocation of the Muse in Nonn. D. 25.1–10 requests a continuation of the Muse and underlines the caesura after the first 24 books. In doing so, a leap in time into the last year of Dionysus’ battle against the Indians is explicitly justified by referring to Homer (25.6–10) and a second Iliadic half is introduced, even though there have been fighting scenes in previous books, too (cf. Aeneid 2).

143 See Gärtner (2005, 9–30 and 30–3) with a short overview on Neo-Latin epic. Late antique and medieval epic decontextualises the book division and retains it as a purely aesthetic device because with the codex the older limitation of the papyrus scroll is actually obsolete. 144 See Gärtner (2008, 33–40). 145 For the book division in Juvencus, see Thraede (2001). 146 Cf. also the reference to the four canonical Evangelists in Sedul. carm. pasch. 1.355–8. The five relatively short books (Book 5 with 438 lines being the longest) – when compared to Juvencus and classical epic – use book division as a structuring device. The number of five books corresponds to the five books of Psalms and the Pentateuch; cf. Springer (1988, 97–9). For more details on the epic substance of these works, see Green (2006). 147 For Nonnus, see the recent and voluminous companion by Accorinti (2016), especially the contributions by Gigli Piccardi (2016) on Nonnus’ metapoetics and Bannert/Kröll (2016) on Nonnus’ reception of Homer. At least in passing I would like to refer to the very instructive articles by Schenk (1997), Schmidt (1999), and Gärtner (2017) on the composition of Quintus’ Posthomerica that pay attention to book composition, division, and number.

158 | Gregor Bitto

Bibliography Accorinti, D. (ed., 2016). Brill’s companion to Nonnus of Panopolis. Leiden. Adamietz, J. (1976). Zur Komposition der Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Munich. Ahl, F. M./Davis, M. A./Pomeroy, A. (1986). Silius Italicus, ANRW II.32: 2492–561. Alpers, K. (1975). Review of Lloyd W. Daly, Contributions to a history of alphabetization in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Brussels 1967, Gnomon 74: 113–17. Ambühl, A. (2017). Narrative Potentiale von Anfängen und Enden im hellenistischen (Klein-) Epos, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 79–103. Anderson, H. (2009). The manuscripts of Statius, vol. I: introduction and catalogs of materials. Arlington, VA. Baehrens, E. (1886). Fragmenta poetarum Romanorum. Leipzig. Bailey, C. (1947). Titi Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex. Edited with prolegomena, critical apparatus, translation and commentary, vol. I. Oxford. Bannert, H./Kröll, N. (2016). Nonnus and the Homeric poems, in: D. Accorinti (ed.), Brill’s companion to Nonnus of Panopolis. Leiden: 479–506. Barchiesi, A. (1997). Endgames: Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15 and Fasti 6, in: D. H. Roberts/F. M. Dunn/D. P. Fowler (eds.), Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ: 181–208. Barchiesi, A. (2005). The search for the perfect book: a PS to the New Posidippus, in: K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The new Posidippus: a Hellenistic poetry book. Oxford: 320–42. Berti, E. (2000). M. Annaei Lucani Bellum Ciuile, liber X. Florence. Bickel, E. (1911). De Silii Punicorum libris VII ss. post Domitianum abolitum editis, RhM 66: 500–12. Birt, T. (1882). Das antike Buchwesen in seinem Verhältnis zur Litteratur. Berlin. Bitto, G. (2016). Vergimus in senium. Statius’ Achilleis als Alterswerk. Göttingen. Blänsdorf, J./Büchner, K./Morel, W. (eds., 3 1995). Fragmenta poetarum Latinorum epicorum et lyricorum praeter Ennium et Lucilium. Stuttgart/Leipzig. Bruère, R. T. (1970). Der geplante Endpunkt des historischen Epos Lucans, in: W. Rutz (ed.), Lucan. Darmstadt: 217–56. Burck, E. (ed., 1979). Das römische Epos. Darmstadt. Butterfield, D. (2015). The early textual history of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. Cambridge. Campbell, M. (1983). Apollonian and Homeric book division, Mnemosyne 36: 154–6. Classen, C. J. (1999). Ennius: ein Fremder in Rom, Gymnasium 99: 121–45. Coleman, R. (1971). Structure and intention in the Metamorphoses, CQ 21: 461–77. Conte, G. B./Harrison, S. J. (2007). The poetry of pathos: studies in Virgilian epic. Oxford. Courtney, E. (ed., 1993). The fragmentary Latin poets. Edited with commentary. Oxford. Crabbe, A. (1981). Structure and content in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, ANRW II.31.4: 2274–327. Criado, C. (2015). The constitutional status of Euripidean and Statian Theseus: some aspects of the criticism of absolute power in the Thebaid, in: W. J. Dominik/C. E. Newlands/K. Gervais (eds.), Brill’s companion to Statius. Leiden/Boston: 291–306. De Jong, I. J. F. (1996). Sunset and sunrises in Homer and Apollonius of Rhodes: book-divisions and beyond, Dialogos 3: 20–35. Delarue, F. (1992). Sur l’architecture des Punica de Silius Italicus, REL 70: 149–65.

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

159

Duckworth, G. E. (1968). The old and the new in Vergil’s Aeneid, in: D. C. Allen/H. T. Rowell (eds.), The poetic tradition. Baltimore: 63–80. Elliott, J. (2013). Ennius and the architecture of the Annales. Cambridge. Erbse, H. (1969). Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia vetera) vol. I: Praefationem et scholia ad libros A–D continens. Berlin. Fowler, D. P. (2000). First thoughts on closure: problems and prospects, in: D. P. Fowler (ed.), Roman constructions. Readings in postmodern Latin. Oxford: 239–83. Fröhlich, U. (2000). Regulus, Archetyp römischer Fides. Das sechste Buch als Schlüssel zu den Punica des Silius Italicus. Tübingen. Gärtner, T. (2004). Die Bedeutung der Buchgliederung für die kompositionelle Gestaltung der Metamorphosen Ovids, Studia Humaniora Tartuensia 5.A.3. (Available at https://www.ut. ee/klassik/sht/2004/gaertner2.pdf). Gärtner, T. (2005). Die Bucheinteilung als künstlerisches Gliederungsprinzip lateinischer Erzähldichtung in Antike und Mittelalter, MLatJb 40: 3–33. Gärtner, T. (2008). Untersuchungen zur Gestaltung und zum historischen Stoff der Johannis Coripps. Berlin. Gärtner, T. (2009). Buchgrenzen in der lateinischen Epik als Kristallisationspunkte intertextueller Bezugnahmen, Maia 61: 260–73. Gärtner, T. (2010). Überlegungen zur Makrostruktur der Punica, in: F. Schaffenrath (ed.), Silius Italicus. Akten der Innsbrucker Tagung vom 19.–21. Juni 2008. Frankfurt am Main: 77–96. Gärtner, U. (2017). Ohne Anfang und Ende? Die Posthomerica des Quintus Smyrnaeus, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 313–38. Gigli Piccardi, D. (2016). Nonnus’ Poetics, in: D. Accorinti (ed.), Brill’s companion to Nonnus of Panopolis. Leiden: 422–42. Goldberg, S. M. (1995). Epic in Republican Rome. New York/Oxford. Goldberg, S. M. (2005). Early Republican epic, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 429–39. Goold, G. P. (1977). The nature of Homeric composition, ICS 2: 1–34. Green, R. P. H. (2006). Latin epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator. Oxford. Häußler, R. (1976). Das historische Epos der Griechen und Römer bis Vergil. Studien zum historischen Epos der Antike, I. Teil: Von Homer bis Vergil. Heidelberg. Haffter, H. (1970). “Dem schwanken Zünglein lauschend wachte Cäsar dort”, in: W. Rutz (ed.), Lucan. Darmstadt: 264–76. Hardie, P. R. (1997). Closure in Latin epic, in: D. H. Roberts/F. M. Dunn/D. P. Fowler (eds.), Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ: 139–62. Hardie, P. R. (2004). Ovidian middles, in: S. Kyriakidis/F. de Martino (eds.), Middles in Latin poetry. Bari: 151–82. Harrison, S. J. (2007). The primal voyage and the ocean of epos. Two aspects of metapoetic imagery in Catullus, Virgil and Horace, Dictynna 4. (Available at https://journals.openedition. org/dictynna/146). Haslam, M. W. (2005). The physical media: tablet, scroll, codex, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 142–63. Heiden, B. (1998). The placement of ‘book divisions’ in the Iliad, JHS 118: 68–81. Heiden, B. (2000). The placement of ‘book divisions’ in the Odyssey, CPh 95: 247–59. Heinze, R. (3 1915). Virgils epische Technik. Darmstadt.

160 | Gregor Bitto

Hershkowitz, D. (1998). Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. Abbreviated voyages in Silver Latin Epic. Oxford. Higbie, C. (2010). Divide and edit: a brief history of book divisions, HSClPh 105: 1–31. Hillgruber, M. (ed., 1994). Die pseudoplutarchische Schrift De Homero, Teil 1: Einleitung und Kommentar zu den Kapiteln 1–73. Stuttgart. Hinds, S. E. (1998). Allusion and intertext. Dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry. Cambridge. Hofmann, H. (1985). Ovid’s Metamorphoses: carmen perpetuum, carmen deductum, Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 5: 223–41. Holzberg, N. (1998). Ter quinque volumina as carmen perpetuum: the division into books in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, MD 40: 77–98. Hutchinson, G. O. (2008). Talking books. Readings in Hellenistic and Roman books of poetry. Oxford. Jocelyn, H. D. (1972). The poems of Quintius Ennius, ANRW I.2: 987–1026. Juhnke, H. (1972). Homerisches in römischer Epik flavischer Zeit: Untersuchungen zu Szenennachbildungen und Strukturentsprechungen in Statius’ Thebais und Achilleis und in Silius Italicus’ Punica. Munich. Kaestner, E. (1824). Quaestionum in Lucani Pharsaliam particula I. Guben. Keil, H. (1855–1880). Grammatici Latini, 7 vols. Leipzig. Kenney, E. J. (2005). On the number of books in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: a postscript, CQ 55: 650. Kenney, E. J. (2 2014). Lucretius, De rerum natura. Book III. Cambridge. Kißel, W. (1979). Das Geschichtsbild des Silius Italicus. Frankfurt. Knauer, G. N. (1964). Die Aeneis und Homer. Studien zur poetischen Technik Vergils, mit Listen der Homerzitate in der Aeneis. Göttingen. Köhnken, A. (2010). Apollonius’ Argonautica, in: J. J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A companion to Hellenistic literature. Malden, MA: 136–50. Korenjak, M. (ed., 1996). Die Ericthoszene in Lukans Pharsalia: Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Frankfurt am Main. Krevans, N. (1984). The poet as editor: Callimachus, Virgil, Horace, Propertius and the development of the poetic book. Diss. Princeton, NJ. Krevans, N. (2010). Bookburning and the poetic deathbed: the legacy of Vergil, in: P. R. Hardie/ H. Moore (eds.), Classical literary careers and their reception. Cambridge: 197–208. Krumbholz, G. (1955). Der Erzählungsstil in der Thebais des Statius, Glotta 36: 231–60. Küppers, J. (1986). Tantarum causas irarum. Untersuchungen zur einleitenden Bücherdyade der Punica des Silius Italicus. Berlin. Kytzler, B. (1955). Statius-Studien. Beiträge zum Verständnis der Thebais. Diss. Berlin. Kytzler, B. (1990). In medio mihi Caesar erit. II. Zur Struktur der Aeneis, JAC 5: 179–86. Lachmann, K. K. F. W. (2 1865). Über Zenodots Tagberechnung der Ilias, in: K. K. F. W. Lachmann (ed.), Betrachtungen über Homers Ilias (mit Zusätzen von M. Haupt). Berlin: 90–6. Lebek, W. D. (1976). Lucans Pharsalia. Dichtungsstruktur und Zeitbezug. Göttingen. Lorenz, G. (1968). Vergleichende Interpretationen zu Silius Italicus und Statius. Diss. Kiel. Lovatt, H. V. (1999). Competing endings: re-reading the end of Statius’ Thebaid through Lucan, Ramus 28: 126–51. Lovatt, H. V. (2005). Statius and epic games: sport, politics, and poetics in the Thebaid. Cambridge.

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

161

Lovatt, H. V. (2010). Interplay: Silius and Statius in the games of Punica 16, in: A. Augoustakis (ed.), Brill’s companion to Silius Italicus. Leiden/Boston: 155–76. Lowe, D. (2013). Women scorned: a new stichometric allusion in the Aeneid, CQ 63: 442–5. Lowe, N. J. (2007). Epinician eidography, in: S. Hornblower/C. Morgan (eds.), Pindar’s poetry, patrons, and festivals. Oxford: 167–76. Lüthje, E. (1971). Gehalt und Aufriss der Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Diss. Kiel. Marti, B. (1970). Sinn und Bedeutung der Pharsalia, in: W. Rutz (ed.), Lucan. Darmstadt: 104– 32. Masters, J. (1992). Poetry and civil war in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Cambridge. McNelis, C. (2004). Middle-march: Statius’ Thebaid 7 and the beginning of battle narrative, in: S. Kyriakidis/F. de Martino (eds.), Middles in Latin poetry. Bari: 261–309. Merli, E. (2004). On the number of books in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, CQ 54: 304–7. Miller, F. J./Goold, G. P. (eds., 1916). Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2 vols. With an English translation. Revised by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA. Mitchell, B. J. M. (1971). A structural analysis of the Bellum Ciuile by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus. Diss. Florida. Morel, W. (ed., 2 1927). Fragmenta poetarum Latinorum epicorum et lyricorum praeter Ennium et Lucilium. Leipzig. Mozley, J. H. (1929). Ovid: The Art of Love, and other poems. With an English translation by J. H. Mozley. London/Cambridge, MA. Mozley, J. H. (ed., 1934). Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica. Translated by J. H. Mozley. Cambridge, MA. Nelis, D. P. (2001). Vergil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonios Rhodios. Leeds. Nelis, D. P. (2005). Apollonius of Rhodes, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 353–63. Nesselrath, H.-G. (1998). Jason und Absyrtus – Überlegungen zum Ende von Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, in: U. Eigler/E. Lefèvre (eds.), Ratis omnia vincet. Neue Untersuchungen zu den Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Munich: 347–54. Nickbaht, M. A. (2006). Closure and continuation: the poetics of Aeneid 6.900–1, Philologus 150: 95–101. Nünlist, R. (2006). A neglected testimonium on the Homeric book-division, ZPE 157: 47–9. O’Hara, J. J. (2010). The unfinished Aeneid?, in: J. Farrell/M. C. J. Putnam (eds.), A companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its tradition. Malden, MA: 96–106. Parkes, R. (ed., 2012). Statius, Thebaid 4. Edited with an introduction, translation, and commentary. Oxford. Poortvliet, H. M. (1991). Valerius Flaccus and the last file, in: M. Korn/H. J. Tschiedel (eds.), Ratis omnia vincet. Untersuchungen zu den Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Hildesheim: 35–43. Radicke, J. (2004). Lucans poetische Technik: Studien zum historischen Epos. Leiden. Reitz, C. (2010). Silius als Epitomator?, in: F. Schaffenrath (ed.), Silius Italicus. Akten der Innsbrucker Tagung vom 19.–21. Juni 2008. Frankfurt am Main: 99–109. Rieks, R. (1980). Zum Aufbau von Ovids Metamorphosen, WJA 6: 85–103. Rolfe, J. C. (ed., 1914). Suetonius. With an English translation by J. C. Rolfe. London/Cambridge, MA. Rolfe, J. C. (ed., 1927). Aulus Gellius: Attic Nights, 3 vols. London/Cambridge, MA.

162 | Gregor Bitto

Rutz, W. (1989). Studien zur Kompositionskunst und zur epischen Technik Lucans, herausgegeben und mit einem bibliographischen Nachwort versehen von A. W. Schmitt. Frankfurt am Main. Schenk, P. (1997). Handlungsstruktur und Komposition in den Posthomerica des Quintus Smyrnaeus, RhM 140: 363–85. Schetter, W. (1960). Untersuchungen zur epischen Kunst des Statius. Wiesbaden. Schetter, W. (1994). Die Buchzahl der Argonautika des Valerius Flaccus, in: O. Zwierlein (ed.), Kaiserzeit und Spätantike. Kleine Schriften 1957–1992. Stuttgart: 79–88. Schindler, C. (2017). Anfang als Ende, Ende als Anfang. Der Schluss der Aeneis und die frühneuzeitlichen Aeneis-Supplemente, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 357–376. Schmidt, E. G. (1988). Vergil und die Odyssee. Strukturfragen der Aeneis, in: E. G. Schmidt (ed.), Erworbenes Erbe. Leipzig: 306–18. Schmidt, E. G. (1999). Quintus von Smyrna – der schlechteste Dichter des Altertums, Phasis 1: 139–50. Schmitz, C. (2017). Einleitung, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 9–35. Schönberger, O. (1970). Zur Komposition des Lucan, in: W. Rutz (ed.), Lucan. Darmstadt: 277– 82. Shackleton Bailey, D. R. (ed., 1982). Anthologia Latina, tom. I.1: Libri Salmasiani aliorumque carmina [AL]. Stuttgart. Skafte Jensen, M. (1999). Dividing Homer. When and how were the Iliad and the Odyssey divided into songs? Report, OS 74: 5–35. Skutsch, O. (ed., 1985). The Annals of Quintus Ennius. Oxford. Springer, C. P. E. (1988). The gospel as epic in Late Antiquity. The Paschale carmen of Sedulius. Leiden. Stanley, K. (1993). The shield of Homer: narrative structure in the Iliad. Princeton, NJ. Stover, T. (2008). Cato and the intended scope of Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, CQ 58: 571–80. Stürner, F. (2011). Zwischen Tradition und Innovation: Zur Struktur der Punica des Silius Italicus, WJA 35: 147–66. Suerbaum, W. (1992). Zum Umfang der Bücher in der archaischen lateinischen Dichtung: Naevius, Ennius, Lukrez und Livius Andronicus auf Papyrus-Rollen, ZPE 92: 153–73. Suerbaum, W. (1999). Vergils Aeneis. Epos zwischen Geschichte und Gegenwart. Stuttgart. Taplin, O. (1992). Homeric soundings: the shaping of the Iliad. Oxford. Tarrant, R. J. (ed., 2012). Vergil. Aeneid, Book XII. Cambridge. Telg genannt Kortmann, J. (2017). Tag und Nacht als Anfangs- und Endpunkte in Silius Italicus’ Punica, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 253–76. Tesoriero, C. (2004). The middle of Lucan, in: S. Kyriakidis/F. de Martino (eds.), Middles in Latin poetry. Bari: 183–215. Thomas, R. F. (2004). “Stuck in den the middle with you”: Vergilian middles, in: S. Kyriakidis/ F. de Martino (eds.), Middles in Latin poetry. Bari: 123–50. Thomas, R. F. (2014). Book divisions, in: R. F. Thomas/J. M. Ziolkowski (eds.), The Vergil encyclopedia. Chichester: 199. Thraede, K. (2001). Anfänge frühchristlicher lateinischer Bibelepik: Buchgrenzen bei Iuvencus, in: M. Salvadore (ed.), La poesia tardoantica e medieval. Alessandria: 13–23.

Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic |

163

Toohey, P. (1992). Reading epic. An introduction to the ancient narratives. London. Tracy, J. (2011). Internal evidence for the completeness of the Bellum Ciuile, in: P. Asso (ed.), Brill’s companion to Lucan. Leiden/Boston: 33–53. Van Sickle, J. (1980). The book roll and some conventions of the poetic book, Arethusa 13: 13– 32. Vessey, D. W. T. C. (1973). Statius and the Thebaid. Cambridge. Vögel, G. (1968). Das neunte Buch innerhalb der Pharsalia des Lucan und die Frage der Vollendung des Epos, Philologus 112: 222–68. Vogel, M. (2014). Ter quinque volumina. Zahlenperiphrase in der lateinischen Dichtung von ihren Anfängen bis ins zweite Jahrhundert n. Chr. Münster. Von Albrecht, M. (1964). Silius Italicus. Freiheit und Gebundenheit römischer Epik. Amsterdam. Von Albrecht, M. (1999). Roman epic. An interpretative introduction. Leiden. Walde, C. (2017). Tu ne quaesieris scire nefas quem finem . . . di dederunt . . . : Reflexionen zur Debatte um das Ende von Lucans Bellum Civile, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/ A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 169–98. Wallace, M. V. T. (1958). The architecture of the Punica: a hypothesis, CPh 53: 99–103. Warmington, E. H. (ed., 1935). Remains of old Latin, vol. I: Ennius and Caecilius. London/ Cambridge, MA. Wenskus, O. (2010). Die Siebzehn als kritische Zahl, in: F. Schaffenrath (ed.), Silius Italicus. Akten der Innsbrucker Tagung vom 19.–21. Juni 2008. Frankfurt am Main: 97–8. West, S. (1967). The Ptolemaic papyri of Homer. Cologne. Wheeler, S. M. (1999). A discourse of wonders: audience and performance in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Philadelphia. Wheeler, S. M. (2002). Lucan’s reception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Arethusa 35: 361–80. Worstbrock, F. J. (1963). Elemente einer Poetik der Aeneis. Untersuchungen zum Gattungsstil vergilianischer Epik. Münster. Zissos, A. (2004). Terminal middle. The Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, in: S. Kyriakidis/F. de Martino (eds.), Middles in Latin poetry. Bari: 311–44. Zissos, A. (ed., 2008). Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. Book I. Edited with introduction, translation, and commentary. Oxford/New York.

| Part II: Classification and genre

Annemarie Ambühl

Intergeneric influences and interactions Abstract: This chapter examines the genre-specific conventions of Graeco-Roman epic before the backdrop of intertextual and intergeneric references to epic poetry in other genres – and vice versa –, a dynamic process through which the reciprocal boundaries of the various genres have been defined and developed. In this context, the idea of the Homeric epics as the source of all other genres, which has been propagated mainly from the Hellenistic period onwards, is scrutinised (e.g. the view of the Homeric speeches as matrices of rhetoric in Quintilian), as well as the typological analysis of the relationship between epic and tragedy found in Aristotle’s Poetics and its further developments in Ps.-Longinus and the ancient commentary tradition. These formal approaches are then compared and contrasted with recent scholarship on Hellenistic and Roman epic. In particular, the literaryhistorical and structural cross-connections between epic and tragedy and the issue of ‘tragic epic’, which have been defined in widely diverging ways, are reviewed critically. Finally, a few select examples are adduced in order to demonstrate the impact of intergeneric interactions on specific epic type-scenes and structural elements, and the changes they undergo in the course of the epic tradition as a result of it. It is argued that self-conscious reflections of such processes can be found in certain epic similes that point to an immanent poetics of intergeneric exchange.

1 Intergeneric relations in ancient literature The status of epic as the ‘oldest’ and ‘grandest’ genre of Greek and Roman literature – in any case according to retrospective constructions of literary history – entails that the other, ‘younger’ or ‘minor’ genres define themselves by their closeness to or distance from epic.¹ This concept is not only found in ancient literary criticism, whose peculiar view of the evolution of genres of course should not be adopted unquestioningly, but even to a higher degree in the practice of writers of works classified (by the authors themselves or in subsequent literary criticism)

1 The term ‘epic’ is used here in a flexible, non-normative sense. Cf. Hutchinson (2013, 223–4 and 275–8) on the hexameter “supergenre”. For classical and modern approaches to the complex issue of ancient genre, see, for example, Depew/Obbink (2000), Farrell (2003), Rosenmeyer (2006), Harrison (2007, 1–33), and Harrison (2013, 1–11). See also Hardie on ancient and modern theories of epic poetry in this volume. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-008

168 | Annemarie Ambühl

as lyric, drama, elegy, epigram, or bucolic. The intricate play with self-definition through explicit or implicit references to epic exhibited in these texts has been studied intensely in classical scholarship. Yet, such a dynamic can also be viewed from the reverse point of view: how does epic react to the appropriation or rejection by other genres of formal or thematic elements that are perceived as typically epic? Surely, epic does not stay unaffected by such intergeneric negotiations but evolves along with them, resulting in a process of “generic enrichment”.² Indeed, as has often been observed, at least from the Hellenistic period onwards epic incorporates elements from other genres. This phenomenon is reflected in the careers of poets who are versatile in different genres, such as the Roman Republican writers who compose both epics and dramas. Now epic becomes ‘tragic’ and in a sense ‘bucolic’ as well, as Vergil overwrites Apollonius’ reception of Attic tragedy with his own reception of Homer and Greek and Roman drama. He composes his Aeneid as the culmination of his poetic œuvre, building on the Eclogues and the Georgics. The elegiac world view, which by Roman writers of love elegy presenting themselves as the successors of Callimachus is polemically construed as the ‘other’ to martial epic, is imported back into epic (far beyond Vergil’s Dido) and developed simultaneously with the ever-changing forms of Ovidian elegy.³ Even the epigram, which in its programmatic brevity had established itself as the ‘unepic’ genre par excellence by the Hellenistic period, can be re-inscribed within epic, for example, in the form of epitaphs.⁴

2 The concept of generic enrichment was developed by Harrison (2007), who defines it as “the way in which generically identifiable texts gain literary depth and texture from detailed confrontation with, and consequent inclusion of elements from, texts which appear to belong to other literary genres” (Harrison 2007, 1). This conveys the reciprocal dynamics of intergeneric exchange better than the older term ‘crossing of genres’ (“Kreuzung der Gattungen”) coined by Kroll (1924, 202–24). For a critical evaluation of the terminological and ideological implications of the concept of ‘crossing’, see Barchiesi (2001), Hinds (2000, esp. 221–3), and Farrell (2003, esp. 392–3); cf. also Fantuzzi (1980) on contamination and the evolution of genres in Hellenistic literature, Fedeli (1989) on “intersezioni dei generi e dei modelli” in Latin literature, and Walde (2009, esp. 30–5) on intercultural and intergeneric processes of ‘literary hybridisation’ in Rome; for case studies of intergeneric relations in Latin literature, cf. Papanghelis/Harrison/Frangoulidis (2013). 3 On elegiac elements in Lucan, see Caston (2011) and Esposito (2017) with further literature. To an even higher degree, Statius’ Achilleid is a paradoxically ‘elegiac’ epic; on this, see Davis (2015); cf. also Hinds (2000) on the idea of an “essentially epic epic”. See also Ripoll on the ‘elegisation’ of scenes of departure by sea in the course of the epic tradition in volume II.2. 4 On epigrams in Apollonius, cf. Koukouzika (2016); on the Aeneid, see Dinter (2005) and Harrison (2007, 217–25); on Valerius Flaccus, cf. Dinter (2009). By contrast, the contributions on interactions between epic and epigram in Durbec/Trajber (2017) mainly focus on the reception of Homer in epigram.

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

169

Similar phenomena can be observed in the interactions of epic poetry with prose genres. Among them, historiography has especially close ties with epic. This is however not a simple one-way or two-way process, but rather a triangulation involving drama as well, as historiography often employs dramatizing techniques, a tendency visible not only in Hellenistic ‘tragic history’ (a type of historiography that particularly appeals to the audience’s emotions and was notoriously criticised by Polybius),⁵ but actually already in the 5th century BC historiographers. In Latin literature, too, historical epic, historical drama (fabula praetexta), and historiography have developed in close interaction.⁶ Due to their common subject matter, epic and history (as well as drama) share many generic scenes involving instances of successful or failed leadership and decision-making, such as speeches and council scenes or battle descriptions, but also more specific elements such as scenes of female lament, where intergeneric interactions can be observed on a micro level.⁷ With respect to other genres, it is questionable whether labels like ‘rhetorical epic’, ‘philosophical epic’, or ‘satiric epic’, which have all been applied to Latin epic from the early imperial period, really are helpful in describing the nature of these epics.⁸ This is not to say that the impact of rhetoric (especially the declamations) or philosophy (especially Stoicism) is to be neglected, as these cultural practices certainly played an important part in the educational background of authors and audience alike and therefore shaped expectations.⁹ Yet, the reduction to one single and often ideologically biased line of interpretation such as a Stoic reading unnecessarily constrains other possible readings. Rather, the question should be in what ways these epics succeed in integrating all kinds of discourses and how these discourses in turn shape the multiform identity of epic. Despite this wide range of examples, such phenomena of generic evolvement and redefinition seem to be less prominent in epic than in other genres. The main reason for this is probably that in view of epic’s nearly unchallenged status epic poets do not need explicit programmatic statements in order to legitimise their works; if they do so at all, they place themselves within the epic tradition by invoking the founders of the genre, Homer or Vergil, as for instance Ennius, Lucan,

5 For a re-examination of Plb. 2.56.3 and 2.56.6–13 as well as the issue of ‘tragic history’, see Marincola (2013). 6 Cf. Leigh (2007), Levene/Nelis (2002), and Miller/Woodman (2010); on Vergil, see Rossi (2004); on Lucan, cf. Leigh (1997). 7 On lament in epic and drama, see Beissinger/Tylus/Wofford (1999, esp. 187–236), Suter (2008), and Rossi (2004, 40–9). 8 See Jenkyns (2005, 572), who labels Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile “a satiric epic”. 9 On rhetoric and epic, cf. Reitz in this volume.

170 | Annemarie Ambühl

Silius, Statius, and Nonnus do.¹⁰ In contrast, intergeneric signposts are not usually flagged up conspicuously in epic (with the partial exception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a poem that advertises its epic identity alongside its generic variety in a highly self-conscious manner),¹¹ but introduced in more subtle ways through intertextuality and through gradual transformations of traditional epic elements or mutual adaptations of elements from other genres. In view of the Protean nature of the evidence and the limited scope of this chapter, it is not possible to give a systematic and exhaustive overview of all intergeneric interactions, even if considering only the epics that have been transmitted in a more or less complete state and leaving out epyllia.¹² Nor will Hellenistic and late antique cross-generic experiments be discussed here, such as brief hexametric compositions that borrow ‘elliptic’ structural elements from tragedy (e.g. Theocritus’ Idyll 26 that adapts a messenger speech or the Megara, ascribed to Moschus, that mainly consists of a dramatic exchange of rheseis) or hexametric tragedies (e.g. the so-called Alcestis Barcinonensis or the short poems by Dracontius). As historical epic and its relations with historiography as well as didactic epic and its relations with scientific and philosophical prose writings are treated elsewhere in this volume, the following survey focuses predominantly on mythological epic and its interactions with other poetic genres.¹³ For the present purpose, the contribution’s focus is not on the influence of epic on other genres, but on the impact that interactions with other genres may have had on the development and the self-definition of Greek and Roman epic.¹⁴ The interrelations between epic and

10 Cf. Zeitlin (2001, 236–8): Ennius in the fragmentary proem to his Annales represents himself by means of a dream as Homer reincarnated, Lucan evokes the “bard of Smyrna” (Lucan. 9.984) and his fame in a sphragis in the context of Caesar’s visit to the ruins of Troy, and Silius has his protagonist Scipio meet the shade of Homer in the underworld (Sil. 13.778–97), whereas Statius in the epilogue of his Thebaid invokes the “divine Aeneid” as his revered model (Stat. Theb. 12.816; but cf. Homer in Stat. Ach. 1.3–4). Nonnus repeatedly invokes Homer by name; cf. Hopkinson (1994, 9–14), Shorrock (2001, 116–19 and 170–4), as well as Kröll (2016, 98–100). While in the proem of the Dionysiaca he refers to Homer’s Odyssey as a model to be both followed and rejected (Nonn. D. 1.36–8), in the second proem in Book 25, he asks the Muse to arm him with the weapons of “father Homer” (25.253–70, esp. 25.265; cf. also 13.50 and 32.184). For a more detailed discussion of these references to epic predecessors and the traditional invocations of the Muse, cf. Schindler in this volume. 11 Cf. Solodow (1988, 17–25), Farrell (2009), Harrison (2002), and Keith (2002). See also Sharrock in this volume. 12 Cf. Finkmann and Hömke in this volume. 13 Cf. the contributions by Nethercut and by Buglass/Fanti/Galzerano in this volume. 14 See Jenkyns (2005, 562): “the incorporation into epic poetry of themes and colours drawn from literature of different kinds; and the influence of epic poems upon writers whose own work

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

171

tragedy will be highlighted, as they offer a rich field for studying various ancient as well as modern approaches to the issue.

2 Interrelations between epic and other genres as reflected in ancient literary criticism Intergeneric interactions thus form an integral part of ancient literary practice. Are such phenomena reflected in ancient literary theory, too, and if so, in what way?¹⁵ Epic’s central place in the system of genres finds it counter-part in catalogues of canonical authors, where epic regularly comes first, e.g. in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Book 2, epitome 2) or in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (10.1.46–55 and 85–92).¹⁶ Homer is worshipped as the ‘divine poet’ (e.g. Arist. Po. 1459a30 θεσπέσιος), which also reflects the aforementioned status of epic as the genre from which all the other genres take their origins.¹⁷ An analogous concept informs the well-known Hellenistic relief by Archelaus of Priene, which depicts the apotheosis of Homer in the presence of Zeus and the Muses; there personifications of various genres (according to the subscriptions Myth, History, Poetry, Tragedy, and Comedy) take part in the sacrificial procession honouring the poet, while the Iliad and the Odyssey kneel before his throne.¹⁸ According to Quintilian, Homer, who is compared to the Ocean, appears as the model and source of eloquence and all its parts (Quint. inst. 10.1.46 Hic [sc. Homerus] enim, quem ad modum ex Oceano dicit ipse amnium fontiumque cursus initium capere, omnibus eloquentiae partibus was not of epic character”; Garner (2005) in his overview of epic and other genres in the ancient Greek world concentrates on the latter, while Jenkyns (2005) himself in his companion piece on the Roman world combines both. Hutchinson (2013, 323–54) studies the interplay within the ‘supergenre’ as well as with other genres. Regarding the interactions between tragedy and epic, cf. the reversal of perspective in Scodel (2009, 195): “Epic, having created tragedy, recreated itself on the model of its creation.” 15 Although ancient literary theory is in many ways very different from modern literary theory, here the term is used to refer to theoretical reflections by ancient scholars and literary critics, as opposed to immanent poetics derived from the poems themselves. On ancient literary criticism and poetic theories, see, e.g., Fuhrmann (2 1992), Ford (2002, esp. 250–71 on genre), Laird (2006b), with the general thoughts by Laird (2006a) and Feeney (2006), as well as Müller (2012). 16 Cf. the lists of poetic genres in Hor. ars 73–85 and 401–6 that both start with Homer. 17 Cf. Brink (1972, 547–56) and Hunter (2004, esp. 235) on Homer as the ‘source’ and ‘father’ of all later literature. On the role of Homer in Greek and Roman culture, see Lamberton (1997), Zeitlin (2001), Farrell (2004), Zimmermann (2011), and Hardie (2011); cf. also Hillgruber (1994, 5–35) on Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero. 18 On the relief, see also Hardie’s discussion in this volume.

172 | Annemarie Ambühl

exemplum et ortum dedit).¹⁹ In a similar way, the speeches by Menelaus, Nestor, and Odysseus in the Homeric epics are viewed as prototypes of the different modes of rhetoric (Quint. inst. 12.10.64). Among poetic genres, epic is regularly aligned with tragedy as its fellow genus grande.²⁰ Plato in his criticism of poetry in the Republic differentiates between epic and tragedy on formal grounds, with epic representing the mixed genre consisting of narrator-text and direct speeches as compared to purely mimetic drama (Book 3); on moral grounds, however, both are to be banned from his ideal state because of their shared mimesis (Book 10), for Homer is the “first teacher and leader of all the tragedians” (Pl. R. 595c1–2 τῶν καλῶν ἁπάντων τούτων τῶν τραγικῶν πρῶτος διδάσκαλός τε καὶ ἡγεμών; cf. 598d7–8 τήν τε τραγῳδίαν καὶ τὸν ἡγεμόνα αὐτῆς ῞Ομηρον) and the “greatest poet and first among tragic poets” (607a2–3 ῞Ομηρον ποιητικώτατον εἶναι καὶ πρῶτον τῶν τραγῳδοποιῶν).²¹ Aristotle, who in his Poetics (cf. esp. chapters 3–5, 8, and 23–4) adapts and modifies Plato’s formal distinctions, puts more emphasis on the parallels between both genres with regard to plot structure, characters, and style; ideally, they differ only in scope, not in ‘dramatic’ quality. As a crucial structural element shared by both genres he mentions the recognition scene (ἀναγνώρισις: chapters 11, 14 and 16; cf. 1459b11 and chapter 15 on epic). Interestingly, despite his historicising approach to the evolution of the genres, Aristotle describes epic retrospectively from the point of view of tragedy. In his teleological construction, tragedy is, as it were, the perfection of epic and therefore the superior art form (chapter 26), for tragedy encompasses all the elements of epic, whereas epic does not feature all the elements of tragedy (1449b18–20 and 1462a14–17). Ps.-Longinus’ treatise On the Sublime (9.11–15) takes up Aristotle’s definition of the Iliad as “full of pathos / suffering” (Arist. Po. 1459b14 παθητικόν) and of the Odyssey as “full of ethos / character” (1459b15 ἠθική) by characterising the Iliad as “dramatic” (δραματικόν, 9.13) and the Odyssey as “narrative” (διηγηματικόν, 9.13). However, in comparing the Odyssey to a comedy (9.15 οἱονεὶ κωμῳδία τίς ἐστιν ἠθολογουμένη), it deviates from Aristotle, who derives tragedy from both the Iliad and the Odyssey and comedy from the Margites (Arist. Po. 1448b38–9a2; cf. 1451a28–30 and 1459b1–3). Another intriguing quote, which unfortunately has been transmitted without context, is ascribed to the Platonist philosopher Polemon of Athens, who according to Diogenes Laertius called Homer an “epic Sophocles” and

19 On the rhetorical reception of Homer, see Hunter (2015, esp. 686). Cf. also Reitz in this volume. 20 On Plato’s criticism of poetry, see, e.g., Murray (1996), on Aristotle’s conceptions of epic and drama, cf. Schwinge (1990), Schmitt (2009), and Kircher (2018, 57–125). On ancient theories of epic and drama in general, see Koster (1970) and Fuhrmann (2 1992). 21 See also Hardie on ancient theories of epic in this volume.

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

173

Sophocles a “tragic Homer” (D.L. 4.20 ἔλεγεν οὖν τὸν μὲν ῞Ομηρον ἐπικὸν εἶναι Σοφοκλέα, τὸν δὲ Σοφοκλέα ῞Ομηρον τραγικόν). All these comparisons of epic and drama are rather general, whereas more specific interactions between the genres on the level of structural elements are not often discussed in the ancient treatises, with the partial exception of Aristotle’s Poetics. Some isolated remarks can be found in ancient commentaries as well.²² The Homeric scholia state that by beginning the Iliad literally with Achilles’ wrath Homer “invented the tragic proem for tragedies” (AT scholia on Hom. Il. 1.1a ἄλλως τε καὶ τραγῳδίαις τραγικὸν ἐξεῦρε προοίμιον). Here a structural element typical of epic, the proem (προοίμιον),²³ is associated with the prologue of a tragedy (πρόλογος: cf. Arist. Po. 1452b16 and 1452b19); at the same time, the scholiast may be alluding to the conception of the Iliad itself as a ‘tragedy’, which then becomes the model for Attic tragedy.²⁴ The ensuing explanation that the narration of misfortunes renders the audience more attentive and that the poet, like a good doctor, first exposes the diseases of the soul before administering the cure (AT scholia on Hom. Il. 1.1a καὶ γὰρ προσεκτικοὺς ἡμᾶς ἡ τῶν ἀτυχημάτων διήγησις ἐργάζεται, καὶ ὡς ἄριστος ἰατρὸς πρῶτον ἀναστέλλων τὰ νοσήματα τῆς ψυχῆς ὕστερον τὴν ἴασιν ἐπάγει) reminds of the Aristotelian katharsis (Arist. Po. 1449b27–8 δι’ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν) as the emotional effect tragedy has upon the audience.²⁵ Likewise, the bT scholia use the dramatic term peripeteia (τὰς περιπετείας, cf. Arist. Po. 1450a34, 1452a22, and 1456a19 on tragedy, and 1459b10 on epic) for Athena’s interventions when she stops Achilles from killing Agamemnon (bT scholia on Hom. Il. 1.195b) and the troops from failing Agamemnon’s test (bT scholia on Hom. Il. 2.156); in the latter case, Homer is also credited with having invented the deus ex machina for the benefit of the tragedians (bT scholia on Hom. Il. 2.156 πρῶτος δὲ καὶ τοῖς τραγικοῖς μηχανὰς εἰσηγήσατο; cf.

22 On terms and concepts of literary criticism in Greek scholia, see Nünlist (2009), who in his chapter on narrative and speech (‘diegetic’ vs. ‘dramatic’) cautions that he does not address the classification by genre, which is not given much attention in the scholia; cf. Nünlist (2009, 94 n. 1). Elsewhere Nünlist (2009, 307) notes that the scholia recognise the concept of Homeric type-scenes, although they do not use a particular term. On the relationship of the Homeric epics to tragedy and comedy, cf. also Hillgruber (1999, 423–34) on Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero 213–14, with references to the scholia. 23 Cf. Schindler in this volume. 24 By translating the phrase as “invented a tragic prologue for his tragedies”, Rinon (2008, 5) implies such a reading. 25 For similar medical metaphors describing emotional effects on the reader, cf. Nünlist (2009, 143 n. 29).

174 | Annemarie Ambühl

Arist. Po. 1454b1–2 with respect to tragedy and epic, adducing the same example from the Iliad).²⁶ Greek discussions of the relations between the genres of epic and drama thus often involve teleological constructions. On a more (inter)textual level, the Latin commentary tradition sometimes notes Vergil’s debts to Greek and Roman dramatists in general or to specific plays. For instance, Servius auctus comments on the theatrical simile in Book 4 of the Aeneid (see below, section 4.1) that Vergil expressed a phrase in a tragic manner by imitating Euripides (Serv. auct. Aen. 4.470 SOLEM GEMINVM tragice dixit, imitatus Euripidem).²⁷ The note on Dido’s suicide remarks that Vergil does not introduce her in the act of killing herself but shows her already dead (Serv. auct. Aen. 4.664 CONLAPSAM ASPICIVNT non induxit occidentem se, sed ostendit occisam. et hoc tragico fecit exemplo, apud quos non uidetur quemadmodum fit caedes, sed facta). This is compared to the tragic convention of not showing the act of killing on stage but having it reported instead (Hor. ars 179–88). Vergil’s narrative choice is thus compared to a tragic messenger speech; however, this does not exactly correspond with the epic sequence, where Dido has just given her farewell speech ‘on stage’ and is not removed from the scene during her suicide.²⁸ The epic narrative achieves a similar distancing effect through a sudden shift of perspective to the onlookers who witness Dido collapsed on the sword. Later on, the dirge of Euryalus’ mother (Verg. Aen. 9.473–502) is described as a “tragic and pitiable lament” (Serv. Aen. 9.287 unde sequitur matris eius tragicus et miserabilis ille conquestus). Here again, the type-scene of female lament found in epic (from the Iliad onwards) as well as in tragedy is explained in terms of a tragic element and the tragic emotion of pity evoked by it (cf. ἔλεος in Arist. Po. 1449b27).²⁹ This fits in with the characterisation of the second, ‘Iliadic’ half of the

26 Cf. Nünlist (2009, 267–9). The bT scholia on Hom. Il. 21.34b explicitly call Homer the inventor of the “theatrical peripeteia”: πρῶτος οὖν καὶ τὸ τῶν περιπετειῶν εἶδος ἔδειξε, ποικίλον ὂν καὶ θεατρικὸν καὶ κινητικόν. 27 Cf. also Serv. auct. Aen. 4.469 and 4.471. 28 The last words and suicide of Deianira, one of Dido’s tragic models, are reported by her nurse (S. Tr. 899–946). However, Ajax, another model for Dido, commits suicide on stage (S. Aj. 815–65); cf. Panoussi (2002, 113–14). 29 In contrast, Macrobius derives the lament of Euryalus’ mother exclusively from Andromache’s lament for Hector in the Iliad (Hom. Il. 22.437–515); cf. Macr. Sat. 5.9.12 Mater Euryali ad dirum nuntium, ut excussos de manibus radios et pensa demitteret, ut per muros et uirorum agmina ululans et comam scissa decurreret, ut effunderet dolorem in lamentationum querelas, totum de Andromache sumpsit lamentante mortem mariti, “When Euryalus’ mother reacts to the dreadful news by hurling her shuttles and wool from her hands, running with a howl and tearing her hair among the ranks along the walls, pouring out her grief in a torrent of plaintive lamentation, the whole passage is taken from Andromache’s lament at her husband’s death.”

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

175

Aeneid as a ‘tragic work’ full of wars (Serv. Aen. 7.1 et re uera tragicum opus est, ubi tantum bella tractantur), in line with the above-mentioned definitions of the Iliad as a ‘tragedy’. While in the commentaries such notes are limited in scope, Macrobius in Book 5 of his Saturnalia has a more extended discussion. After a lengthy comparison of Vergil with Homer (Macr. Sat. 5.2–16), the focus shifts to other authors and genres, among them Apollonius, Pindar, and Aristophanes (5.17–18.12). Then tragedy is introduced, for Vergil is said to have been enormously familiar with the writers of Greek tragedies (5.18.21 est enim ingens ei cum Graecarum tragoediarum scriptoribus familiaritas). As in the other cases, the material presented here is extremely diverse, ranging from single phrases to motifs and whole scenes borrowed from Greek dramatists; so the cutting of Dido’s lock at the end of Book 4 of the Aeneid (Verg. Aen. 4.693–705) is derived from Euripides’ Alcestis and lines from Dido’s magic ritual (4.513–14) are associated with Medea’s magic from Sophocles’ lost Rhizotomoi (Macr. Sat. 5.19.1–14). While these examples are not explained in terms of structural elements, in one instance an entry from the catalogue of the Latin forces in Book 7 of the Aeneid (Verg. Aen. 7.684–90) is linked to a detail from a messenger speech in Euripides’ lost play Meleager:³⁰ Macr. Sat. 5.18.13 Sunt in libro septimo illi uersus quibus Hernici populi et eorum nobilissima, ut tunc erat, ciuitas Anagnia enumerantur. The following lines are found in Book 7, where the Hernici and Anagnia, their best known city, as it was then, are listed in the catalogue. Macr. Sat. 5.18.16 morem uero Aetolis fuisse uno tantum modo pede calceato in bellum ire ostendit clarissimus scriptor Euripides tragicus, in cuius tragoedia quae Meleager inscribitur nuntius inducitur describens quo quisque habitu fuerit ex ducibus qui ad aprum capiendum conuenerant. That it was the Aetolians’ custom to go to war with only one foot shod is shown by Euripides, the most brilliant of tragic poets, in his tragedy Meleager, when a messenger enters to describe the dress of each of the leaders who had assembled to capture the boar.

Although the parallel function of the epic catalogue (enumerantur) and the tragic messenger speech (nuntius . . . describens) to convey ethnographical information is not spelled out explicitly, the naming of the respective structural elements hints at the intergeneric exchange between epic and tragedy.³¹

30 All translations of Macrobius are taken from Kaster (2011). 31 The catalogue as a structural element of epic had been introduced shortly before in the comparison with Homer; cf. Macr. Sat. 5.15–16, esp. 5.15.1 Ubi uero enumerantur auxilia, quem Graeci

176 | Annemarie Ambühl

3 Interactions of epic with other genres from the perspective of modern scholarship: the issue of ‘tragic’ epic In ancient literary theory and practice, epic appears as a kind of supergenre which incorporates elements from a wide range of genres and from which the other genres distance themselves in turn through dynamics of interdependencies and reciprocal boundaries that are constantly being negotiated between poets and audiences in changing cultural contexts. While ancient literary critics do recognise certain cross-generic formal and intertextual exchanges, for instance, between epic and tragedy, they do not normally study them in a systematic manner. Modern scholarship, too, has identified such historical and structural cross-connections between epic poetry and other genres. These interactions have, however, been defined in widely diverging ways and therefore need to be reviewed critically, with particular attention to their impact on the genre-specific conventions of epic and the possible changes that structural elements undergo as a result. In the course of literary history, intergeneric and intertextual layers build up in an on-going process of accumulation, as epic poets react to their predecessors’ experiments with genre, so that innovative epics become themselves model epics to be imitated and modified all over again.³² So, for instance, post-Vergilian epic takes up the Aeneid’s engagement with tragedy on the one hand by reinforcing the status of ‘tragic’ epic within the epic tradition and on the other hand by in turn referring back to drama as a generic model as well as to specific plays. Recent research has focused predominantly on epic’s interaction with drama (and vice versa). One common factor that unites many of these studies is their recourse to Aristotelian definitions of the tragic. Although Aristotle’s positions need not necessarily have been the predominant view in antiquity, for the present purpose such an approach serves well as a working hypothesis insofar as it focuses on formal and textual elements rather than presupposing wider conceptions of a

catalogum uocant . . . See also Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann on epic catalogues in this volume. 32 Cf. Hinds (2000, 235): “Does this outcome mean that even elements that had been emplotted by Vergil as transgressive for epic (like the erotic dalliance at Carthage) were now read as normative for the genre? Once the Aeneid became the code model, did it lose all potential to be read as, in places, an unepic epic?” With a somewhat different emphasis, Harrison (2007, 208) in his chapter on ‘epic inclusivity’ in Vergil’s Aeneid discusses the accommodation to the ‘host’ genre of ‘guest’ generic material from tragedy, elegy, lyric, epigram, hymn, pastoral, and didactic, which “is appropriated to enhance rather than to oppose traditional epic plot and values.”

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

177

tragic universe, interesting though these might be.³³ Strictly speaking the notion of ‘tragic’ epic can only be applied to epics composed after the emergence of tragedy in the 6th century BC and its subsequent development as a literary genre. Nevertheless, the idea of the tragic has been projected back onto the Homeric epics; this seemingly anachronistic approach invokes the authority of Aristotle, who had closely assimilated tragedy and the Homeric epics (see section 2).³⁴ In the more specific sense of an interaction between epic and tragedy as genres with distinct characteristics developed in the course of their evolution, various Hellenistic and Latin epics have been characterised as ‘tragic’ or ‘dramatised’ epics.³⁵ The implications of this concept vary considerably in the different studies, depending on the underlying definition of the ‘tragic’. It has been applied to formal structures on the level of the plot or the composition of single books, to intertextual relationships with single plays, as well as to narrative strategies (e.g. the association of the epic narrator with a tragic chorus), type-scenes, or characters generally seen as deriving from or related to tragedy. Moreover, wider issues such as mythical and ritual patterns (Bacchic worship and Maenadism, madness, sacrifice, violence, and lament), the role of the gods and fate, the poet’s moral or political world view especially in times of crisis and (civil) war, the arousing of the audience’s emotions through pathos, and notions of poetics such as (meta)theatricality all have been brought into play. Finally, the association of epic and drama has biographical implications in the case of poets such as Naevius, Ennius, or Ovid, who composed works in both genres, thus opening up cross-connections within their own poetic corpus. Among the Hellenistic and Latin imperial epics that have been perceived as essentially ‘tragic’ in outlook are Apollonius’ Argonautica, Vergil’s Aeneid, Lucan’s

33 For an overview of the evolution from the genre of tragedy to the idea of the tragic in the history of literary criticism and philosophy, see Most (2000); for ancient, medieval, and modern concepts of the tragic, cf. Toepfer/Radke-Uhlmann (2015). On the transformations of tragedy and the tragic on its way from Athens to Alexandria, Rome, and beyond, see Garelli-François (1998), Panoussi (2005), Gildenhard/Revermann (2010, esp. 3, 9–10, and 20–2 on intergeneric reception and dialogue), and Sistakou (2016). 34 Redfield (1975) relies on Aristotle’s definition of the tragic hero and tragic error in his interpretation of the Iliad; see also Schmitt (2015) and Kircher (2018, esp. 19–56 and 127–88). Rinon (2008) identifies Aristotelic notions of the tragic in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, whereas Liebert (2017) takes a Platonic, anti-Aristotelian approach to ‘tragic pleasure’ in Homer. Cf. Scodel (2009, 195): “Thanks to the Poetics, it is often impossible to distinguish what tragedy took from Homer from what we see in epic because tragedy, and the history of criticism of tragedy, has directed our vision.” 35 On such a generic ‘transversity’, cf. Dangel (2009).

178 | Annemarie Ambühl

Bellum Ciuile, Valerius Flaccus’ incomplete Argonautica, and Statius’ Thebaid.³⁶ As it is impossible to give a full overview of scholarship on these aspects of the epics, only a few recent studies will be discussed here. Apollonius Rhodius engages with Euripides’ Medea (and other plays) in a highly allusive manner, so that the tragic events staged in Attic drama become the palimpsest upon which the future of the Hellenistic epic’s heroine is being written; moreover, as Sistakou (2016, 141–67) has argued, the impact of tragedy pervades the epic’s narrative structure, with certain episodes or whole books paralleling dramatic elements such as prologues, rheseis, and interventions by a ‘chorus’. Similar approaches to the Aeneid have mainly focused on Book 4, which is often defined as ‘the tragedy of Dido’ in Aristotelian terms in combination with the five-act structure typical of Hellenistic and Roman drama.³⁷ Yet, Vergil’s engagement with tragedy extends far beyond the ‘dramatic’ structure of single books: Aeneas’ recollections of the fall of Troy in Book 2 exhibit formal features of a messenger speech as well as thematic links with the tragic topoi of the capture of a city and female lament, as Rossi has shown (2004, 17–53),³⁸ and Panoussi (2009) develops this approach further by linking Vergil’s structural and intertextual engagement with Greek tragedy to larger issues such as ritual patterns of conflict and reconciliation reflecting the ideological tensions inherent in the establishment of the Augustan empire.³⁹ Obviously, the Metamorphoses are much more than a ‘tragic’ epic, although tragedy occupies a crucial place in Ovid’s self-conscious metageneric reflections, as Curley (2013, 101) claims by calling the Metamorphoses a “theater of epic”. Nevertheless, this epic, too, contains nuclei where the interaction with tragedy and tragic myths is especially highlighted: Ovid’s so-called ‘Thebaid’ (Hardie, 36 The fact that this list more or less coincides with the extant examples of mythological and historical epic from these periods might partly be due to chances of transmission. 37 Cf. Wlosok (1976) and Heinze (3 1957, 119), who classified Book 4 as a ‘tragic epyllion’ (“tragische[s] Epyllion”). See also Heinze (3 1957, 323–6) on the dramatic peripeteia. Lesueur (1998) reads Book 7 in similar terms of tragic structure and character. This reading of Book 4 is reinforced with intertextual links to tragic imagery and to specific plays; cf. Krummen (2004); Panoussi (2002) and Panoussi (2009, 182–98) on Sophocles’ Ajax; Panoussi (2005, 415–18) on Euripides’ Alcestis. This was already noted by ancient commentators (see section 2). Cf. also Harrison (2007, 208–14) on Vergil’s simultaneous engagement with tragedy and elegy. Fernandelli (2003) emphasises the tragic emotions evoked by reading Book 4 and the Aeneid as a whole, while Kircher (2018, 189–214, esp. 207–14) defines Book 4 as a Stoic rather than Aristotelian tragedy of affects. 38 See also Rossi (2004, 54–69) on the ‘tragic plot’ of Aeneid 9–12 centred on a peripeteia. 39 On interactions between epic and tragic narrative in Aeneid 2, cf. Deremetz (2000). Overviews of approaches to Vergil and tragedy are to be found in Hardie (1997); see also Hardie (1993, esp. 19–26, 36, 71–3). On the reception of this dimension in Latin imperial epics, cf. Galinsky (2003, 281), who points out “Vergil’s dramatisation, and concomitant problematisation, of Homer in the manner of the Greek tragedians”, as well as Curley (2013, 52–7).

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

179

1990) in Books 3 and 4 not only features Dionysiac themes and a marked sense of theatricality (after all Dionysus is the god of theatre), but also parricide (a quintessentially tragic plot according to Arist. Po. 1453b19–22) and civil war hinted at in the episode of the Sparti (see section 4.1).⁴⁰ To be sure, the Theban myth was treated in epics as well as in tragedies, but still, in Rome Thebes is perceived as a prototypically tragic subject, up to Statius’ epic Thebaid. Likewise Ovid’s selection of episodes from the Trojan War in the first part of Book 13 combines epic and tragic intertexts in its focus on the tragic characters of Ajax and Hecuba; the sacrifice of Polyxena and Hecuba’s revenge for the murder of Polydorus by Polymestor encompass the plots of whole tragedies within brief epic-dramatic scenes featuring a high proportion of direct speech and a focus on the protagonists’ emotions.⁴¹ Like Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which might even have been one of its models, the late antique Dionysiaca by Nonnus of Panopolis is not to be read in exclusively ‘tragic’ terms either, although in view of its subject matter it might appear as a quintessentially ‘theatrical’ epic. Rather, as Shorrock (2001) and Kröll (2016) have shown, this hyper-Homeric and at the same time anti-Homeric epic in 48 books interacts with a whole range of genres besides epic.⁴² One of its conspicuous intergeneric experiments with tragedy is an epic re-writing of Euripides’ Bacchae in the ‘Pentheid’ of Books 44–6. Latin imperial epics build on Vergil and Ovid and on their own contemporaries’ works in their appropriations and transformations of patterns derived from tragedy. Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile and Statius’ Thebaid mirror each other’s subject matters, respectively historical civil wars and mythical fraternal wars, by engaging not only with their predecessors’ ‘tragic’ epics but also with the genre of tragedy itself. While Statius directly adapts Greek and Roman dramas dealing with the conflict between the sons of Oedipus and the war of the Seven against Thebes (but also

40 On interactions with epic and tragedy in Ovid’s ‘Thebaid’, see also Gildenhard/Zissos (2000), as well as Keith (2002, 258–68) and Keith (2010). Other passages have been interpreted in tragic terms as well: cf. in general Gildenhard/Zissos (1999); Seng (2007) analyses the Phaethon story in Book 2 of the Metamorphoses as a dramatic narrative structured in five acts and enriched with epic elements such as ekphrasis and catalogue; Panoussi (2005, 418–22) associates the distorted rites of marriage, Maenadism, and sacrifice in the Procne episode in Book 6 with issues of Greek drama; Schmitz (2015) reads the Myrrha episode in Book 10 as a dramatic presentation (by means of the heroine’s monologue and the nurse’s role) of an ‘un-tragic’ character. 41 On Ovid’s “dramatised epic reconstruction” of the fall of Troy, see Papaioannou (2007, 18–19 and 207–51) as well as Curley (2013, 101–15, 153–61, and 185–200); Curley also studies Medea and Hercules as tragic characters across Ovid. 42 Specifically on the role of tragedy in the Dionysiaca, see Shorrock (2001, 189–97); cf. also Kröll (2016, 147–50) on the Ampelus episode in Books 10–12.

180 | Annemarie Ambühl

with other tragic subjects such as Hypsipyle and the Lemnian women),⁴³ Lucan (whose epic is one of Statius’ models) uses tragic subtexts in a more indirect way. On the one hand, he alludes to tragic myths in similes, catalogues, and ekphraseis, on the other hand, through intertextual references or more general evocations of tragic motifs, he associates his protagonists Caesar and Pompey with tragic characters like Eteocles and Polynices, and moreover uses dramatizing narrative techniques such as a narrator who acts as a dramatis persona in order to involve the audience emotionally in his civil war epic.⁴⁴ Valerius Flaccus takes up the Argonautic theme that obviously has both epic and tragic intertextual resonances (prominently, but by no means exclusively in the figure of Medea);⁴⁵ moreover, he uses dramatic elements and plot structures in the composition of single episodes or whole books, as Sauer (2011) has argued, again with recourse to Aristotelian categories. However, another important background for all three poets is Senecan drama, which fulfils a mediating role between the genres of epic and tragedy, as Seneca adapts epic narrative elements in his dramas, which in turn serve as dramatic models for contemporary and later epicists (see section 4.2). What is at stake in all these cases is not the identity of the genres allegedly being endangered by the intrusion of foreign elements, but rather a gradual convergence that helps to put the characteristics of the individual works and their innovative moves within their respective genres into sharper relief.

43 See the brief overviews by Marinis (2015) on Statius and Greek tragedy and by Augoustakis (2015) on Statius and Senecan drama; cf. Heslin (2008) and Hulls (2014) on epic and tragic Athens, Thebes, and Rome; see also Soerink (2014) on Hypsipyle. A fuller discussion of the roles of epic and tragedy in the Thebaid’s narrative of fraternal war is found in Ripoll (1998) and Bessone (2011). 44 On the various aspects of Lucan’s engagement with tragedy, see Ambühl (2015). In a critical review of modern definitions of the Bellum Ciuile as a ‘tragic epic’ (including the narrator as ‘leader of a chorus’, the role of fate, and the main characters as ‘tragic’ heroes), Ripoll (2016) tries to reconcile the resulting contradictions through a political reading and comes to the conclusion that it is not a ‘tragic epic’ but as an ‘epic with a tragic mask’. Marti (1975) and D’Alessandro Behr (2007, esp. 9 and 76–87) discuss dramatic techniques and the emotional involvement of the audience, whereas Leigh (1997) relies on more general notions of ‘spectacle’ and ‘tragic history’. The classification of Lucan’s epic as a tragedia in the Middle Ages on the grounds of its style and subject matter cannot be pursued here; cf. von Moos (1979). 45 Cf. Buckley (2014) and Davis (2014).

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

181

4 Intergeneric interactions in epic structures: select examples As emerges from the foregoing overview, ancient and modern definitions of the interaction of epic with other genres, notably with tragedy, differ widely, despite the fact that some of the modern studies professedly apply an Aristotelian approach. While ancient critics, on the one hand, highlight the global resemblances between the genres of epic and tragedy and, on the other hand, identify isolated cases of intertextual relations, modern scholarship tends to focus on the similarities and differences between the epic and the tragic hero and on the social and political impact of both genres in their respective cultural contexts. In contrast, intergeneric influences with specific regard to structural elements are not usually singled out as an object of study, with the exception of (at times somewhat forced) readings of single epic books in terms of a five-act structure and more global comparative narratological analyses of epic and dramatic narrative.⁴⁶ Of course, there are obvious correspondences between both genres, despite the fact that epic, roughly speaking, is a predominantly diegetic genre in comparison to the largely mimetic drama. Among the elements shared by both genres are direct speeches or typical scenes such as dreams, epiphanies, and prophecies. Conversely, seemingly typical epic elements such as ekphraseis and similes are also found in mainly narrative parts of drama such as messenger speeches or teichoscopies.⁴⁷ It is precisely these grey areas of overlap that offer an interesting field of study. In the last part of this chapter, a few exemplary case studies will be discussed through a combination of narratological and poetological approaches while also considering diachronic intertextuality.

4.1 The simile as a locus of inter- and metageneric reflections Even if epic does not normally comment explicitly on its own generic status in the way other genres do, in a few special cases intertextual and/or metaliterary signposts may draw attention to passages interacting with drama. A well-known example is the description of the rocky bay that forms the backdrop to Aeneas’ landing on the shores of Libya in Book 1 of the Aeneid as a ‘stage’ (Verg. Aen. 1.164

46 On narrative elements in Greek tragedy, see, for example, Goward (1999). Cf. also the crossgeneric narratological series ‘Studies in ancient Greek narrative’ by de Jong/Nünlist/Bowie (2004), de Jong/Nünlist (2007), and de Jong (2012). 47 For the aforementioned structural elements, see volume II.1 and II.2.

182 | Annemarie Ambühl

scaena) and his ensuing encounter with Venus in the guise of a huntress wearing the cothurn (1.337 coturno). Situated shortly before Aeneas’ arrival at Carthage and his first meeting with Dido, this theatrical setting together with the references to the theatre being built under the supervision of the queen (1.427–9) can be read as an anticipation of the imminent ‘tragedy of Dido’, to be postponed due to the flashback in Books 2 and 3. Yet, on the formal level, these ‘metatragic’ markers are embedded in an essentially epic sequence of scenes from the sea-storm to the shipwrecked party’s meeting with a goddess disguised as a native huntress and their kind reception at the royal court. In Book 4, however, the combination of epic and dramatic elements even extends to the structural level (see section 2 and 3). This is further underlined by means of a simile that associates Dido, who is terrified by nightmares, with tragic characters acting on the (Greek or Roman) stage (4.469–73):

470

Eumenidum ueluti demens uidet agmina Pentheus et solem geminum et duplices se ostendere Thebas, aut Agamemnonius scaenis agitatus Orestes, armatam facibus matrem et serpentibus atris cum fugit ultricesque sedent in limine Dirae. As when Pentheus out of his mind sees the troop of the Eumenides and the sun double and Thebes appearing twice, or when Agamemnon’s son Orestes chased across the stage flees his mother, who is armed with torches and black snakes, and the avenging Dirae sit on the threshold.

This simile stages the live experience of a theatrical performance of these famous scenes of tragic madness from the point of view of the actor and/or the spectator. Thereby the epic simile explicitly acknowledges the existence of tragedy as another literary genre, which informs the intertextual interaction underlying the simile and its narrative context.⁴⁸ While this ‘metageneric’ simile has regularly been adduced in studies on the ‘tragic’ quality of Vergil’s Aeneid, it is often overlooked that it also set an

48 Already Servius auctus recognises both dimensions, when he refers both to the Greek tragic stage and to tragedies as literary texts (according to him, the frequentative verb agitare reflects the high number of plays featuring Orestes): Serv. auct. Aen. 4.471 SCAENIS AGITATVS famosus, celebratus tragoediis, [qualiter a Graecis in scaena inducitur]. et ‘agitatus’, quia et furuit, et multae sunt de eo tragoediae: quasi frequenter actus. Modern scholars have studied the Orestes myth and especially Aeschylus’ Oresteia as a crucial intertext for the literary and political design of the Aeneid; cf. Hardie (1991) and Rebeggiani (2016).

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

183

important precedent for later epics.⁴⁹ In another explicitly theatrical simile from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the men sprung from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus are compared to figures rising on a curtain in the theatre (Ov. met. 3.111–14): sic ubi tolluntur festis aulaea theatris, surgere signa solent primumque ostendere uultus, cetera paulatim, placidoque educta tenore tota patent imoque pedes in margine ponunt. As, when curtains are raised at the theatre on festival days, images are wont to rise and show forth first the faces and then the rest little by little, and are exposed, drawn up in a gentle motion, and set their feet on the lowest edge.⁵⁰

At first sight the content of this simile refers to the theatre (theatris) rather than specifically to tragedy, but its context within the Theban Cycle of the Metamorphoses lends it a tragic character, too, especially in connection with the motif of fratricide and civil war (3.116–23).⁵¹ Lucan in his Bellum Ciuile reflects on both of his predecessors’ similes by transforming them into similes of his own. In the Vulteius episode in Book 4 he reverses the relationship between Ovid’s simile and its narrative context, for the element of performance now is acted out on the level of the epic action in the mass suicide staged by the Caesarian soldiers, and the mythic paradigm of both the Theban and the Colchian Sparti (the latter under Medea’s spell) is transferred to the simile (Lucan. 4.549–56). Although on the surface of the text more general impressions of (amphi)theatricality and spectacularity prevail, the simile evokes tragic as well as epic subtexts through its intertextual associations with Ovid and Apollonius, who themselves had imported tragic elements into their epics.⁵² In his description of Caesar’s nightmares after the Battle of Pharsalus in Book 7, Lucan reworks Vergil’s Dido simile by staging the same two tragic characters, Orestes and Pentheus, together with the latter’s mother Agave (Lucan. 7.777–80): haud alios nondum Scythica purgatus in ara Eumenidum uidit uultus Pelopeus Orestes,

49 On this simile and the other metatragic markers in the Aeneid, see Hardie (1997, 322) and Curley (2013, 53–5) with further references. Vergil’s and Ovid’s similes are briefly compared in Barchiesi (1993, 352–3), Hardie (1990, 226 n. 14), and Keith (2010, 193–4). 50 This translation is taken from Feldherr (2010, 181). 51 Keith (2010, 194) also points out the contrast between a typically epic martial simile (Ov. met. 3.704–7) and the theatrical setting of the Pentheus episode (Ov. met. 3.708–11), which according to her implicitly inscribes “a literary contest between the genres of epic and tragedy”. 52 See Ambühl (2015, 99–108) with further references.

184 | Annemarie Ambühl

nec magis attonitos animi sensere tumultus, cum fureret, Pentheus aut, cum desisset, Agaue. Even so Pelopean Orestes beheld the faces of the Furies, before he was purified at the Scythian altar; nor did Pentheus in his madness, or Agave, when she had returned to her senses, feel more horror and disturbance of mind.⁵³

In this case, too, Lucan adapts the dramatic contents of Vergil’s simile without explicitly acknowledging its metatheatrical dimension, but again the intertextual background functions as a metaliterary signal for the employment of tragic patterns in the immediate context, such as the issue of tragic guilt and the denial of burial to fellow citizens. Valerius Flaccus in turn splits Vergil’s and Lucan’s double similes into two similes in Book 7 that again evoke the same scenes from tragic plays (Val. Fl. 7.147–52: Orestes; 7.301–4: Pentheus), thus marking Medea’s gradual transformation into the character known from tragedy.⁵⁴ Through this chain of examples, the mythological simile referring to tragic plots evolves into a new subcategory within the tradition of this typically epic element and comes to function as an intertextual marker for processes of intergeneric exchange.⁵⁵ Such metageneric markers are not limited to similes but may also occur in connection with other structural elements. For instance, in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca (12.147–53, esp. 12.152), a reference to Dionysiac musical performances and the Attic institution of the theatre is embedded in a prophetic speech of Atropos, one of the Fates (Nonn. D. 12.142–71); here the epic/tragic device of prophecy is inserted in the dramatic episode of the death of Ampelus, thus underlining the tragic associations of the epic narrative.⁵⁶

4.2 Messenger scenes and teichoscopies across epic and tragedy Messenger scenes and teichoscopies may function as another test case for such gradual assimilations between the genres of epic and tragedy, for they are typescenes shared by both genres.⁵⁷ Whereas in Greek literature dramatic messenger

53 This translation of Lucan is taken from Duff (4 1957). See also the discussion in Ambühl (2015, 87–98). 54 See Gärtner (1994, 185–90 and 195–8), who downplays the role of Lucan as a mediator. 55 On the role of tragic myths in Lucan and in Flavian epic (not exclusively in similes) before the background of Vergil, Ovid, and Seneca, see Esposito (2012). 56 Cf. Kröll (2016, 148–9, 167–9, 204, and 254). 57 Cf. Dinter/Khoo, Finkmann, and Fucecchi in volume II.2.

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

185

speeches have been analysed using narratological and intertextual approaches in order to identify tragic responses to the Homeric epics,⁵⁸ in Latin literature a reciprocal comparison should be enabled by the near-contemporary composition of both epics and tragedies. Still, there, too, such interactions have been studied mainly from the point of view of (Senecan) drama. Indeed, the tragedies of Seneca in their extensive narrative passages such as messenger speeches, teichoscopies or ekphraseis display markedly epicising or even ‘hyper-epicising’ tendencies, to quote a phrase coined by Baertschi.⁵⁹ They combine a reworking of Greek and Latin dramatic models with epic intertexts from the Augustan era, notably from Vergil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and integrate typically epic set-pieces such as descriptions of storms, catalogues, or extended similes. The same question can be asked from the reverse perspective: how does Latin epic from the early imperial period engage with Greek and Roman dramatic models through teichoscopies and related type-scenes?⁶⁰ For the present purpose a few observations have to suffice.⁶¹ In epic a teichoscopy usually precedes or follows a battle scene after the model of the Iliad, where Helen in Book 3 points out the Greek heroes to Priam before the duel between Menelaus and Paris (Hom. Il. 3.121–244), while at the end of Book 22 the Trojans and his wife Andromache lament Hector’s death from the walls (Hom. Il. 22.405–515). In tragedy, the teichoscopy assumes a slightly different structural function, as at least in the extant tragedies from the Theban Cycle it is not immediately followed by the duel of the enemy brothers, but leads to scenes of supplication. In Euripides’ Phoenician Women, the teichoscopy forms part of the prologue (88–201), consisting in a dialogue between Antigone and her pedagogue about the identity of the Seven, which itself is an adaptation of the messenger speech from Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes (369–652). The teichoscopy is thus widely separated from the fatal duel of the brothers and the ensuing battle between the two armies, events reported only in the fifth epeisodion in a long messenger speech (E. Ph. 1335–479). Before, in the first epeisodion, Jocasta in vain tries to reconcile her sons, whereupon in the fourth epeisodion, another, more

58 Cf. Barrett (2002). 59 Cf. Baertschi (2010) and Baertschi (2015). 60 On the predominantly epic teichoscopy, see Augoustakis (2013, 157–70) as well as Lovatt (2006) and Lovatt (2013, 217–46); cf. esp. Lovatt (2013, 27): “Teichoscopy is a central epic trope, and yet it is always at the margins of epic, threatening to become tragedy or even elegy.” On the predominantly tragic teichoscopy, see Scodel (1997) and Goldhill (2007). Another example of a type-scene interacting across the genres of epic and tragedy is the necromancy; cf. Augoustakis (2015, 378–85) on adaptations in Statius’ Thebaid of the necromancy scenes from Seneca’s Oedipus and Finkmann in volume II.2. 61 For a more detailed discussion, see Fucecchi in volume II.1.

186 | Annemarie Ambühl

conventional teichoscopy reported by a messenger and his appeal to Jocasta to try to prevent the imminent duel (1067–263) follows. As appears from this paraphrase, Euripides’ Phoenician Women is an extraordinarily lengthy tragedy (irrespective of the disputed authenticity of its exodos) with a high proportion of narrative parts. Therefore, this drama is an ideal model for epic adaptations; not by coincidence, it was one of Euripides’ plays that was held in great esteem during his later reception, also in Latin literature. The second part of Seneca’s dramatic fragment Phoenissae reproduces Euripides’ play in an abbreviated version: the teichoscopy, which again assumes the form of a dialogue between Antigone and an attendant, is combined with their urgent appeals to Jocasta to perform a mother’s supplication (Sen. Phoen. 363–442), followed by her failed mediation between her sons on the very battlefield (443–664). Finally, Statius in Books 7 and 11 of his Thebaid combines epic and tragic structural elements: after a compressed messenger speech (Stat. Theb. 7.227–31), which briefly resumes the long epic catalogue of the Argive forces⁶² from 4.32–344, Antigone performs a teichoscopy of the Theban allies through a dialogue with the aged Phorbas (7.243–373); then she joins her mother to beseech Polynices, a mediation scene aborted by the outbreak of open war (7.470–627). A similar sequence is reproduced in Book 11, where Jocasta is informed of the imminent duel between her sons and unsuccessfully tries to stop Eteocles from going to fight his brother, while Antigone fails to dissuade Polynices from the wall (11.315–402). Statius thus successfully reintegrates dramatic sequences (already with epic touches) from Euripides’ and Seneca’s plays consisting of abbreviated messenger speeches, teichoscopies (partly as a dramatic replacement of an epic catalogue), and scenes of failed mediation into his epic narrative.

5 Conclusion As a consequence of the high status of epic within the ancient system of genres, intergeneric interactions have often been viewed from the point of view of the other genres that adapt and transform type-scenes and structural elements typical of epic. Yet, epic itself, too, evolves in a process of constant negotiation with other genres. While in ancient literary criticism such issues are mainly approached from a formal or teleological perspective and specific case studies are not often discussed on a larger scale, modern scholarship has paid much attention to such intergeneric processes, in particular to the impact of tragedy on the formal characteristics, the thematic focuses, and the political outlook of epic. As specific examples of

62 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann on epic catalogues in this volume.

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

187

exchanges between epic and tragedy, here a small selection of similes, messenger scenes, and teichoscopies has been adduced in order to demonstrate the gradual assimilation between elements of the respective genres that in turn constitute new precedents for subsequent epics. A more systematic survey would have to study every single epic type-scene or structural element along these lines and look for subtle adaptations and transformations that may have occurred during the sustained evolvement of epic’s interaction with other genres. This, however, would be a task far beyond the scope of the present chapter.

Bibliography Ambühl, A. (2015). Krieg und Bürgerkrieg bei Lucan und in der griechischen Literatur. Studien zur Rezeption der attischen Tragödie und der hellenistischen Dichtung im Bellum ciuile. Berlin/Boston. Augoustakis, A. (2013). Teichoskopia and katabasis: the poetics of spectatorship in Flavian epic, in: G. Manuwald/A. Voigt (eds.), Flavian epic interactions. Berlin: 157–75. Augoustakis, A. (2015). Statius and Senecan drama, in: W. J. Dominik/C. E. Newlands/K. Gervais (eds.), Brill’s companion to Statius. Leiden/Boston: 377–92. Baertschi, A. M. (2010). Drama and epic narrative: the test case of messenger speech in Seneca’s Agamemnon, in: I. Gildenhard/M. Revermann (eds.), Beyond the fifth century: interactions with Greek tragedy from the fourth century BCE to the Middle Ages. Berlin: 249–68. Baertschi, A. M. (2015). Epic elements in Senecan tragedy, in: G. W. M. Harrison (ed.), Brill’s companion to Roman tragedy. Leiden: 171–95. Barchiesi, A. (1993). Future reflexive: two modes of allusion and Ovid’s Heroides, HSPh 95: 333–65. Barchiesi, A. (2001). The crossing, in: S. J. Harrison (ed.), Texts, ideas, and the Classics: scholarship, theory, and classical literature. Oxford: 142–63. Barrett, J. (2002). Staged narrative. Poetics and the messenger in Greek tragedy. Berkeley, CA. Beissinger, M./Tylus, J./Wofford, S. (eds., 1999). Epic traditions in the contemporary world: the poetics of community. Berkeley, CA. Bessone, F. (2011). La Tebaide di Stazio: epica e potere. Pisa. Brink, C. O. (1972). Ennius and the Hellenistic worship of Homer, AJPh 93: 547–67. Buckley, E. (2014). Valerius Flaccus and Seneca’s tragedies, in: M. Heerink/G. Manuwald (eds.), Brill’s companion to Valerius Flaccus. Leiden/Boston: 307–25. Caston, R. R. (2011). Lucan’s elegiac moments, in: P. Asso (ed.), Brill’s companion to Lucan. Leiden/Boston: 133–52. Curley, D. (2013). Tragedy in Ovid: theater, metatheater, and the transformation of a genre. Cambridge. D’Alessandro Behr, F. (2007). Feeling history: Lucan, stoicism, and the poetics of passion. Columbus. Dangel, J. (2009). L’héritage des genres grecs à Rome: épopée et tragédie, une généricité traversière?, BAGB 2: 146–64.

188 | Annemarie Ambühl

Davis, P. J. (2014). Medea: from epic to tragedy, in: M. Heerink/G. Manuwald (eds.), Brill’s companion to Valerius Flaccus. Leiden/Boston: 192–210. Davis, P. J. (2015). Statius’ Achilleid: the paradoxical epic, in: W. J. Dominik/C. E. Newlands/ K. Gervais (eds.), Brill’s companion to Statius. Leiden/Boston: 157–72. De Jong, I. J. F. (ed., 2012). Space in ancient Greek literature. Leiden/Boston. De Jong, I. J. F./Nünlist, R. (eds., 2007). Time in ancient Greek literature. Studies in ancient Greek narrative, vol. II. Leiden/Boston. De Jong, I. J. F./Nünlist, R./Bowie, A. (eds., 2004). Narrators, narratees, and narratives in ancient Greek literature. Studies in ancient Greek narrative, vol. I. Leiden/Boston. Depew, M./Obbink, D. (eds., 2000). Matrices of genre: authors, canons, and society. Cambridge, MA/London. Deremetz, A. (2000). Le livre II de l’Énéide et la conception virgilienne de l’épopée: épopée et tragédie dans l’Énéide, REL 78: 76–92. Dinter, M. T. (2005). Epic and epigram: minor heroes in Virgil’s Aeneid, CQ 55: 153–69. Dinter, M. T. (2009). Epic from epigram: the poetics of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, AJPh 130: 533–66. Duff, J. D. (ed., 4 1957). Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia). Edited with translation. Cambridge, MA/ London. Durbec, Y./Trajber, F. (eds., 2017). Traditions épiques et poésie épigrammatique. Leuven. Esposito, P. (2012). Su alcuni miti tragici in Lucano e nell’epica flavia, in: T. Baier (ed.), Götter und menschliche Willensfreiheit: Von Lucan bis Silius Italicus. Munich: 99–126. Esposito, P. (2017). Dall’epitaffio al sogno: dal Marcello di Properzio al Pompeo di Lucano, thersites 5: 37–52. Fantuzzi, M. (1980). La contaminazione dei generi letterari nella letteratura greca ellenistica: rifiuto del sistema o evoluzione di un sistema?, Lingua e Stile 15: 433–50. Farrell, J. (2003). Classical genre in theory and practice, New Literary History 34: 383–408. Farrell, J. (2004). Roman Homer, in: R. L. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Homer. Cambridge/New York: 254–71. Farrell, J. (2009). Ovid’s generic transformations, in: P. E. Knox (ed.), A companion to Ovid. Oxford: 370–80. Fedeli, P. (1989). Le intersezioni dei generi e dei modelli, in: G. Cavallo/P. Fedeli/A. Giardina (eds.), Lo spazio letterario di Roma antica, vol. I: La produzione del testo. Rome: 375–97. Feeney, D. (2006). Criticism ancient and modern, in: A. Laird (ed.), Oxford readings in ancient literary criticism. Oxford: 421–39. Feldherr, A. (2010). Playing gods. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the politics of fiction. Princeton, NJ. Fernandelli, M. (2003). Virgilio e l’esperienza tragica. Pensieri fuori moda sul libro IV dell’Eneide, Incontri triestini di filologia classica 2: 1–54. Ford, A. (2002). The origins of criticism. Literary culture and poetic theory in classical Greece. Princeton, NJ. Fuhrmann, M. (2 1992). Die Dichtungstheorie der Antike: Aristoteles–Horaz–Longin. Eine Einführung. 2. überarbeitete und veränderte Auflage. Darmstadt. Gärtner, U. (1994). Gehalt und Funktion der Gleichnisse bei Valerius Flaccus. Stuttgart. Galinsky, K. (2003). Greek and Roman drama and the Aeneid, in: D. Braund/C. Gill (eds.), Myth, history and culture in Republican Rome. Studies in honour of T. P. Wiseman. Exeter: 275– 94. Garelli-François, M.-H. (1998). Rome et le tragique, ed. by M.-H. Garelli-François, vol. 49.

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

189

Garner, R. S. (2005). Epic and other genres in the ancient Greek world, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 386–96. Gildenhard, I./Revermann, M. (eds., 2010). Beyond the fifth century: interactions with Greek tragedy from the fourth century BCE to the Middle Ages. Berlin. Gildenhard, I./Zissos, A. (1999). ‘Somatic economies’: tragic bodies and poetic design in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in: P. R. Hardie/A. Barchiesi/S. Hinds (eds.), Ovidian transformations: essays on the Metamorphoses and its reception. Cambridge: 162–81. Gildenhard, I./Zissos, A. (2000). Ovid’s Narcissus (met. 3.339–510): echoes of Oedipus, AJPh 121: 129–47. Goldhill, S. (2007). What’s in a wall?, in: C. Kraus et al. (eds.), Visualizing the tragic: drama, myth, and ritual in Greek art and literature. Essays in honour of Froma Zeitlin. Oxford: 127– 47. Goward, B. (1999). Telling tragedy: narrative technique in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. London. Hardie, P. R. (1990). Ovid’s Theban history: the first ‘Anti-Aeneid’?, CQ 40: 224–35. Hardie, P. R. (1991). The Aeneid and the Oresteia, PVS 20: 29–45. Hardie, P. R. (1993). The epic successors of Virgil: a study in the dynamics of a tradition. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (1997). Virgil and tragedy, in: C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Virgil. Cambridge: 312–26. Hardie, P. R. (2011). Homer in der lateinischen Literatur der Antike, in: A. Rengakos/B. Zimmermann (eds.), Homer-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung. Stuttgart: 308–22. Harrison, S. J. (2002). Ovid and genre: evolutions of an elegist, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge: 79–94. Harrison, S. J. (2007). Generic enrichment in Vergil and Horace. Oxford/New York. Harrison, S. J. (2013). Introduction, in: T. D. Papanghelis/S. J. Harrison/S. A. Frangoulidis (eds.), Generic interfaces in Latin literature. Encounters, interactions and transformations. Berlin/ Boston: 1–15. Heinze, R. (3 1957). Virgils epische Technik. Darmstadt. Heslin, P. J. (2008). Statius and the Greek tragedians on Athens, Thebes and Rome, in: J. J. L. Smolenaars/H.-J. van Dam/R. R. Nauta (eds.), The poetry of Statius. Leiden: 111–28. Hillgruber, M. (ed., 1994). Die pseudoplutarchische Schrift De Homero, Teil 1: Einleitung und Kommentar zu den Kapiteln 1–73. Stuttgart. Hillgruber, M. (ed., 1999). Die pseudoplutarchische Schrift De Homero. Teil 2: Kommentar zu den Kapiteln 74–218. Stuttgart. Hinds, S. E. (2000). Essential epic: genre and gender from Macer to Statius, in: M. Depew/D. Obbink (eds.), Matrices of genre: authors, canons, and society. Cambridge, MA/London: 221–44. Hopkinson, N. (1994). Nonnus and Homer, in: N. Hopkinson (ed.), Studies in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. Cambridge: 9–42. Hulls, J.-M. (2014). Greek author, Greek past: Statius, Athens, and the tragic self, in: A. Augoustakis (ed.), Flavian poetry and its Greek past. Leiden/Boston: 193–213. Hunter, R. L. (2004). Homer and Greek literature, in: R. L. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Homer. Cambridge/New York: 235–53. Hunter, R. L. (2015). The rhetorical criticism of Homer, in: F. Montanari/S. Matthaios/A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s companion to ancient Greek scholarship, vol. II: Between theory and practice. Leiden: 673–705.

190 | Annemarie Ambühl

Hutchinson, G. O. (2013). Greek to Latin. Frameworks and contexts for intertextuality. Oxford. Jenkyns, R. (2005). Epic and other genres in the Roman world, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 562–73. Kaster, R. A. (ed., 2011). Macrobius: Saturnalia, 3 vols. Cambridge, MA/London. Keith, A. M. (2002). Sources and genres in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1–5, in: B. W. Boyd (ed.), Brill’s companion to Ovid. Leiden/Boston/Cologne: 235–69. Keith, A. M. (2010). Dionysiac theme and dramatic allusion in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 4, in: I. Gildenhard/M. Revermann (eds.), Beyond the fifth century: interactions with Greek tragedy from the fourth century BCE to the Middle Ages. Berlin: 187–217. Kircher, N. (2018). Tragik bei Homer und Vergil. Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zum Tragischen Epos. Heidelberg. Koster, S. (1970). Antike Epostheorien. Wiesbaden. Koukouzika, D. (2016). Epigrams in epic? The case of Apollonius Rhodius, in: E. Sistakou/A. Rengakos (eds.), Dialect, diction, and style in Greek literary and inscribed epigram. Berlin/ Boston: 139–50. Kröll, N. (2016). Die Jugend des Dionysos. Die Ampelos-Episode in den Dionysiaka des Nonnos von Panopolis. Berlin/Boston. Kroll, W. (1924). Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur. Stuttgart. Krummen, E. (2004). Dido als Mänade und tragische Heroine: Dionysische Thematik und Tragödientradition in Vergils Didoerzählung, Poetica 36: 25–69. Laird, A. (ed., 2006a). Oxford readings in ancient literary criticism. Oxford. Laird, A. (2006b). The value of ancient literary criticism, in: A. Laird (ed.), Oxford readings in ancient literary criticism. Oxford: 1–36. Lamberton, R. (1997). Homer in antiquity, in: I. Morris/B. Powell (eds.), A new companion to Homer. Leiden: 33–54. Leigh, M. (1997). Lucan: spectacle and engagement. Oxford. Leigh, M. (2007). Epic and historiography at Rome, in: J. Marincola (ed.), A companion to Greek and Roman historiography, vol. II. Malden, MA/Oxford: 483–92. Lesueur, R. (1998). Pour une lecture tragique du livre VII de l’Éneide, Pallas 49: 289–96. Levene, D. S./Nelis, D. P. (eds., 2002). Clio and the poets: Augustan poetry and the traditions of ancient historiography. Leiden/Boston. Liebert, R. S. (2017). Tragic pleasure from Homer to Plato. Cambridge/New York. Lovatt, H. V. (2006). The female gaze in Flavian epic: looking out from the walls in Valerius Flaccus and Statius, in: R. Nauta/J. J. van Dam/J. J. L. Smolenaars (eds.), Flavian poetry. Leiden/Boston: 59–78. Lovatt, H. V. (2013). The epic gaze: vision, gender and narrative in ancient epic. Cambridge. Marincola, J. (2013). Polybius, Phylarchus, and ‘tragic history’: a reconsideration, in: B. Gibson/ T. Harrison (eds.), Polybius and his world. Essays in memory of F. W. Walbank. Oxford: 73–90. Marinis, A. (2015). Statius’ Thebaid and Greek tragedy: the legacy of Thebes, in: W. J. Dominik/ C. E. Newlands/K. Gervais (eds.), Brill’s companion to Statius. Leiden/Boston: 343–61. Marti, B. M. (1975). Lucan’s narrative techniques, PP 30: 74–90. Miller, J. F./Woodman, A. J. (eds., 2010). Latin historiography and poetry in the early empire: generic interactions. Leiden/Boston. Most, G. W. (2000). Generating genres: the idea of the tragic, in: M. Depew/D. Obbink (eds.), Matrices of genre: authors, canons, and society. Cambridge, MA/London: 15–35. Müller, R. (2012). Antike Dichtungslehre: Themen und Theorien. Tübingen.

Intergeneric influences and interactions |

191

Murray, P. (ed., 1996). Plato on poetry: Ion, Republic 376e–398b9, Republic 595–608b10. Edited with commentary and introduction. Cambridge. Nünlist, R. (2009). The ancient critic at work. Terms and concepts of literary criticism in Greek scholia. Cambridge. Panoussi, V. (2002). Vergil’s Ajax: allusion, tragedy, and heroic identity in the Aeneid, ClAnt 21: 95–134. Panoussi, V. (2005). Polis and empire: Greek tragedy in Rome, in: J. Gregory (ed.), A companion to Greek tragedy. Malden, MA: 413–27. Panoussi, V. (2009). Greek tragedy in Vergil’s Aeneid: ritual, empire, and intertext. Cambridge/ New York. Papaioannou, S. (2007). Redesigning Achilles: ‘recycling’ the Epic Cycle in the ‘Little Iliad’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1–13.622). Berlin/New York. Papanghelis, T. D./Harrison, S. J./Frangoulidis, S. A. (eds., 2013). Generic interfaces in Latin literature. Encounters, interactions and transformations. Berlin/Boston. Rebeggiani, S. (2016). Orestes, Aeneas, and Augustus. Madness and tragedy in Virgil’s Aeneid, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), Augustan poetry and the irrational. Oxford: 56–73. Redfield, J. M. (1975). Nature and culture in the Iliad: the tragedy of Hector. Chicago, IL. Rinon, Y. (2008). Homer and the dual model of the tragic. Ann Arbor, MI. Ripoll, F. (1998). La Thébaïde de Stace entre épopée et tragédie, Pallas 49: 323–40. Ripoll, F. (2016). Peut-on considérer la Pharsale comme une ‘épopée tragique’?, in: V. Berlincourt/L. Galli Milić/D. P. Nelis (eds.), Lucan and Claudian: context and intertext. Heidelberg: 61–76. Rosenmeyer, T. G. (2006). Ancient literary genres: a mirage?, in: A. Laird (ed.), Oxford readings in ancient literary criticism. Oxford: 440–54. Rossi, A. (2004). Contexts of war: manipulation of genre in Virgilian battle narrative. Ann Arbor, MI. Sauer, C. (2011). Valerius Flaccus’ dramatische Erzähltechnik. Göttingen. Schmitt, A. (2009). Epostheorie, Maßstäbe der Literaturkritik, zum Verhältnis von Epos und Tragödie (Kap. 23–26), in: O. Höffe (ed.), Aristoteles. Poetik. Berlin: 195–213. Schmitt, A. (2015). Tragik vor der Tragödie? Scheiterndes Handeln im Homerischen Epos – und ein kurzer Vergleich mit dem Scheitern des Handelns im mittelalterlichen Nibelungenepos, in: R. Toepfer/G. Radke-Uhlmann (eds.), Tragik vor der Moderne. Literaturwissenschaftliche Analysen. Heidelberg: 201–44. Schmitz, C. (2015). Tragisches Design: Myrrhas inzestuöse Leidenschaft in Orpheus’ Erzählung (Ov. met. 10.298–502), in: R. Toepfer/G. Radke-Uhlmann (eds.), Tragik vor der Moderne. Literaturwissenschaftliche Analysen. Heidelberg: 245–83. Schwinge, E.-R. (1990). Aristoteles und die Gattungsdifferenz von Epos und Drama, Poetica 22: 1–20. Scodel, R. (1997). Teichoscopia, catalogue, and the female spectator in Euripides, ColbyQ 33: 76–93. Scodel, R. (2009). Tragedy and epic, in: R. W. Bushnell (ed.), A companion to tragedy. Chichester: 181–97. Seng, H. (2007). Ovids Phaethon-Tragödie (met. 1.747–2.400), in: M. Janka/U. Schmitzer/H. Seng (eds.), Ovid. Werk – Kultur – Wirkung. Darmstadt: 163–81. Shorrock, R. (2001). The challenge of epic: allusive engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. Leiden/Boston.

192 | Annemarie Ambühl

Sistakou, E. (2016). Tragic failures: Alexandrian responses to tragedy and the tragic. Berlin/ Boston. Soerink, J. (2014). Tragic / epic: Statius’ Thebaid and Euripides’ Hypsipyle, in: A. Augoustakis (ed.), Flavian poetry and its Greek past. Leiden/Boston: 171–91. Solodow, J. B. (1988). The world of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Chapel Hill, NC. Suter, A. (ed., 2008). Lament: studies in the ancient Mediterranean and beyond. New York/ Oxford. Toepfer, R./Radke-Uhlmann, G. (eds., 2015). Tragik vor der Moderne. Literaturwissenschaftliche Analysen. Heidelberg. Von Moos, P. (1979). Lucans tragedia im Hochmittelalter: Pessimismus, contemptus mundi und Gegenwartserfahrung (Otto von Freising, Vita Heinrici IV, Johann von Salisbury), MLatJb 14: 127–86. Walde, C. (2009). Roman dream works, in: Y. Maes/J. Papy/W. Verbaal (eds.), Latinitas perennis, vol. II: Appropriation and Latin literature. Leiden: 13–40. Wlosok, A. (1976). Vergils Dido-Tragödie: Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Tragischen in der Aeneis, in: H. Görgemanns/E. A. Schmidt (eds.), Studien zum antiken Epos. Meisenheim am Glan: 228–50. Zeitlin, F. I. (2001). Visions and revisions of Homer, in: S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek under Rome. Cultural identity, the Second Sophistic and the development of empire. Cambridge: 195–266. Zimmermann, B. (2011). Homer in der griechischen Literatur der Antike, in: A. Rengakos/B. Zimmermann (eds.), Homer-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung. Stuttgart: 293–307.

Jason Nethercut

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic Abstract: This essay explores the boundaries that separate historical epic from mythological epic, concluding that these are much more malleable than one may think. By analysing specific structural elements that recur indiscriminately in both mythological and historical epic (e.g. type-scenes), I emphasise the similarities between these two modes of epic. In fact, diachronic, intertextual analysis of the epic tradition underscores how productive the cross-fertilisation between these two strands was. Select examples treated in this essay come from Homer, Choerilus of Samos, Apollonius, Ennius, Vergil, Lucan, and Flavian epic.

1 Introduction To juxtapose mythological epic with historical epic presupposes that historical epic exists as a category, yet the existence of such a genre remains an open question.¹ On the one hand, it is undoubtedly true that we have a number of poems written in dactylic hexameter in both Greek and Latin that treat events that were also narrated in prose historiography.² On the other hand, it is difficult to isolate elements in these putative historical epics, aside from subject matter, that differentiate them from mythological epics like those of Homer.³ This paper first enumerates the evidence we have for historical epic from Homer to Silius, then advances the argument that the boundaries that separate historical epic from mythological epic are, in fact, quite permeable by showing how mythological epic can be viewed as historiographical and how historical epic often contains mythological elements. Both mythological and historical epic offer ways of conceptualising the past, and both regularly do so with reference to the audience’s present moment. The essay concludes with necessarily selective close readings of passages in which the same structural element occurs diachronically in mythological and historical epic, which underscore the affinities between mythological and historical epic canvassed in the first three parts of this paper.

1 Fundamental are the discussions in Ziegler (2 1966) and Cameron (1995, 263–73). 2 For general accounts of historical epic, see Kroll (1916), Ziegler (2 1966), Clinard (1967), Häußler (1976), and Häußler (1978). 3 Fundamental for the relationship between ancient historiography and myth are Gomme (1954), Wiseman (1979), Veyne (1983), and Woodman (1988); cf. Feeney (1991, 253–62). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-009

194 | Jason Nethercut

2 Evidence for historical epic We have substantial evidence for a body of epic poems written on historical themes.⁴ It seems likely that many of the archaic epics whose fragments we possess derived from localised traditions (e.g. the Phocais and Danais);⁵ such poems could be conceptualised as a sort of inchoate epic historiography on a local scale. Despite such suggestive beginnings, however, the first epic we know of which was properly historiographical was Choerilus of Samos’ Persica, written sometime towards the end of the Peloponnesian War.⁶ Though it is hazardous to make sweeping conclusions on the basis of the few fragments left to us of this poem, we know from the Suda that Choerilus wrote about the Athenian victory over Xerxes.⁷ In the proem to his epic, Choerilus laments the dearth of new material available to the contemporary epic bard, jealously pining for the ἀκήρατος λειμών that was available to earlier poets like Homer (SH 317). This passage almost certainly functioned as an apology for the subject matter of the poem that followed.⁸ In any case, Choerilus is rightly seen as the primus inuentor of historical epic. In the Hellenistic Period, the evidence for historical epic becomes problematic. We do have testimonia that historical epic like Choerilus’ Persica continued to be written.⁹ For example, we know that Agis the Argive (SH 6–7) and Anaximines of Lampsacus (SH 18) wrote epics about Alexander the Great’s exploits, and Simonides of Magnesia is said to have written an epic about Antiochus I and his battle against the Galatians (SH 349).¹⁰ Of the actual fragments we do possess from this period, however, the vast majority comes from what look like either mythological epics (e.g. the Heraclea by Diotimus of Adramyttium [SH 181–2] or the

4 I gather together all of this evidence for the reader to consult in the two tables at the end of this paper. 5 On epic fragments, see the contribution by Bär/Schedel in this volume. 6 See Huxley (1969) and Hollis (2000) for a more detailed discussion of Choerilus and his poem. 7 See Suda, s.v. Χοιρίλος, Σάμιος (SH 315). On the scope of the Persica, cf. MacFarlane (2006), who concludes that we should accept evidence from Strabo and Ephorus that Choerilus included in his narrative the construction of Darius’ Scythian bridge. For MacFarlane Choerilus’ poem imitated in epic verse the broad narrative and temporal scope encountered in Herodotus’ prose version of the conflict with Persia. 8 See MacFarlane (2009) for an analysis of this proem in the context of Choerilus’ poetic achievements in the other remaining fragments of the Persica. 9 Cameron (1995, 263–73) suggests that none of the evidence we have from this period should be understood as historical epic on a grand scale. 10 We also have fragments from epics written on themes from Jewish history: 20 lines of an epic on the history of Jerusalem by Philo the Elder (SH 328–31) and almost 45 lines from an epic by Theodotus (SH 360–5).

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

195

Bacchic epic by Theolytus of Methymna [CA 9]) or so-called ktisis epics (e.g. the Lyrcus by Nicaenetus of Samos [CA 1–2] or the 28 lines from various ktisis epics by Apollonius of Rhodes [CA 4–8]). Unfortunately, fragments are all that remain for us of any putative genre of historical epic in the Hellenistic period. That different scholars can point to the same evidence either to articulate an entire theory of historical epic qua genre or repudiate the very existence of this genre should serve as a cautionary reminder about the allure of the fragmentary. We are on much firmer footing in the Roman period, as concrete evidence for Latin historical epic is available in spades, including the only fully extant historical epic we possess, Silius’ Punica. From the beginning, Roman epic focused on Roman history, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum and Ennius’ Annales setting the stage for the historical epics of the Republican period. The figures behind the names Hostius, Furius, and Volusius are as inaccessible to us as the exact nature of their poems. We can ascertain, however, that very recent history was a popular subject for historical epic in the Republic. Naevius himself fought in the First Punic War, the subject of his epic poem written in the Saturnian metre. Ennius not only accompanied Fulvius Nobilior to Aetolia, which campaign Ennius probably narrated in Annales 15, but Ennius is also reported to have added on three books to the Annales to cover the years between the publication of his original 15 book epic and the present day.¹¹ In the middle of the 1st century BC, Cicero writes an epic on his own consulship and Varro Atacinus writes a Bellum Sequanicum on Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul. From the Augustan Period we possess fragments of a Bellum Siculum by Cornelius Severus, which presumably narrated the war with Sextus Pompey (Courtney 320–8), a few lines from an epic by Rabirius that features Mark Antony (Courtney 332–3), and a papyrus that preserves almost seventy hexameters from an epic on the Battle of Actium.¹² This is the background against which one should understand the historiographical sections of the Aeneid, e.g. the shield of Aeneas, which depicts, among other scenes from Roman history, Augustus’ triple triumph of 29 BC. During the imperial period, Albinovanus Pedo wrote an epic under Tiberius on the exploits of Germanicus (Sen. suas. 1.15 Courtney 315–18). The epics of Lucan and Silius, which, of course, provide us with the most extensive evidence for historical epic in the Graeco-Roman tradition and which prominently narrate events that no one living had personally experienced, would appear to deviate from the thematic norms established by earlier Roman historical epic. In the later imperial period,

11 We know from Macrobius that Enn. ann. 391–8 Skutsch, which describe the Istrians fighting during a siege (Macr. Sat. 6.2.32 in obsidione), come from Annales 15. It is reasonable to conclude that this siege includes Istrian participants is Ambracia. 12 Pierluigi Gatti is currently preparing a new edition of this papyrus (P.Herc 817).

196 | Jason Nethercut

Claudian resumes the norm of writing on contemporaneous events in both De Bello Gildonico and De Bello Gothico. We have evidence, therefore, that historical epic was written almost continuously from the end of the Peloponnesian War through the Flavian period. Aside from the problematic vestiges from the Hellenistic period, we can say that diachronically in this period historical epic usually narrated events from recent memory.

3 Epic myth as historiography Given that we have such abundant evidence for historical epic in the Graeco-Roman tradition, it should not surprise us, perhaps, that mythological epic beginning with Homer exhibits its own historiographical tendencies and that ancient authors often treat mythological epic as a source of historiographical information. The two Homeric epics both contain elements that could be read as a sort of inchoate historiography. Most famously, perhaps, one could point to Odysseus’ narration to the Phaeacians of his travels as a sort of intradiegetic historiography, insofar as Odysseus provides his own oral version of past events in order to explain how he came to be where he is at the present moment. The same could be said about Menelaus’ narration in Odyssey 4, the story of Meleager at Hom. Il. 9.527–605, or the many tales of Nestor in both Homeric poems. An informative example of how such “epic historiography” functions comes from 4.364–400, when Agamemnon chastises Diomedes and Sthenelus for being inferior to their fathers Tydeus and Capaneus, both members of the Seven Against Thebes. Agamemnon retells the story of how Tydeus killed all but one of the over fifty Thebans who ambushed him on his way home from the city, in order to juxtapose Diomedes’ inaction to his father’s prowess. Agamemnon’s narration of Tydeus’ past aristeia,¹³ however, is open to interpretation, as Sthenelus accuses Agamemnon of lying (4.404) and affirms the superiority of the Epigonoi, who were successful in their siege of Thebes, to their fathers, who died to a man outside the city’s walls. Unlike the ‘histories’ narrated by Odysseus, Menelaus, Nestor, or Phoinix, here we read an actual negotiation of historical fact and its relevance for the present. Obviously, this is subtextual and not the immediate point in this passage from Iliad 4, but it is clear that passages like this not only emphasise that the past serves as a repository of significance for the present within (Homeric) mythological epic, but that this significance is open to interpretation by both narrator and audience.

13 See also Stocks’ diachronic study of aristeia from Homer to Flavian epic in volume II.1.

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

197

It is also the case that we have many ancient witnesses who treat the Homeric epics as a form of historiography. To put this another way, already in antiquity the Homeric poems were viewed as historical epics.¹⁴ Herodotus, for example, takes the events in Homer as factual and uses them to explain the origins of the animus that the Persians felt towards the Greeks (Hdt. 1.3–5). Similarly, at 2.112–14, he treats Homer as a historical source for his account of Helen’s sojourn in Egypt. Thucydides (1.3) likewise takes Homer as a source for his contention that the Greeks did not conceive of themselves as a collective group called Hellenes until after the Trojan War and for his assessment of the size of the group who sailed against Troy (Th. 1.10.3). Perhaps the most explicit discussion of the Homeric poems (and the Epic Cycle) as a form of historiography comes from Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. In the context of proving the mortality of the world (Lucr. 5.324–31), Lucretius argues that the world must have had some origin, and must not, therefore, be immortal. In order to support his argument, he points to the newness of the world, as evidenced by the fact that we do not possess historiographical accounts of events before the Theban and Trojan wars in epic poetry (5.327 cecinere poetae). His point is that if the world were immortal, we would expect to have written records of many other deeds beyond what we find in Homer and the Epic Cycle. This argument presupposes that the Homeric poems and the Epic Cycle narrate reliable information about the history of humanity, and, therefore, represent a sort of epic historiography; this is precisely the way in which Herodotus and Thucydides engage with the Homeric poems.¹⁵

4 Myth in historical epic While there are reasons to recognise the historiographical aspects of the Homeric epics, the epics that are traditionally considered historical also contain mythological elements. This fact further establishes the interpenetration of the mythological and the historical in the epic tradition. The most prominent of these mythological elements is the interventionist divine apparatus that appears in almost all historical epics that we possess, with the noticeable exception of Lucan.¹⁶

14 See Kim (2010, 22–46). On the historicity of the Homeric poems, see Finley (1954), Gomme (1954), Snodgrass (1974), Geddes (1984), Morris (1986), Sherratt (1990), Taplin (1992), Raaflaub (1993), Crielaard (1995), and Petrakis (2006). 15 Strabo similarly devotes the first two sections of his work entirely to establishing the historical and geographical authority of Homer; see Kim (2007). 16 Feeney (1991) remains a seminal study on this subject.

198 | Jason Nethercut

Owing to the fragmentary nature of Hellenistic historical epic, we cannot say with certainty much about the role of the gods in these poems. In the fragments of Choerilus’ Persica, we have no secure mention of the gods outside of the metaphor of drunken violence in πνεῦμα Διονύσοιο (SH 321). If P.Oxy. 2524 contains fragments of the Persica, then it is suggestive that both Zeus and the vocative Φοῖβε appear there. Commentators often point out the “strange mixture” of the mythological and historical in the fragments of this papyrus.¹⁷ It is too corrupt to make any definite conclusions, but, generally, these fragments would appear to show that Choerilus was not overly concerned with removing the gods from his historical narrative, even if it does not provide actual proof that he included divine participation in his poem.¹⁸ The fragments that have been argued to come from Hellenistic historical epic offer no evidence of how the gods participated in the narrative, but it is reasonable for us to assume some role for the gods in these epics.¹⁹ We can, however, assume that Hellenistic ktisis epics featured an interventionist divine apparatus, not least because the patterns of ktisis narratives regularly associate the mythological past with the foundation of a present city.²⁰ As a result, it would make sense that the gods of myth were featured in these narrative patterns when appropriate.²¹ Perhaps the most explicit sanction for this assumption comes from the Foundation of Lesbos, traditionally ascribed to Apollonius of Rhodes.²² One longer fragment of this epic narrates the story of how Pisidice falls in love with Achilles and helps him sack Methymna (cf., e.g., Hom. Il. 9.129). Apollonius attributes Pisidice’s betrayal of her city to the actions of Aphrodite who makes her fall in love with Achilles (CA 12.5b–9): 5

θαλερὴ δέ μιν ἄασε Κύπρις ῾Η γαρ ἐπ᾿ ᾿Αιακίδῃ κούρης φρένας ἐπτοίησεν Πεισιδίκης, ὅτε τόν γε μετὰ προμάχοισιν ᾿Αχαιῶν

17 Cf. Huxley (1969, 27). 18 Generally, scholars have been prepared to deny any divine participation in the Persica; cf. Ziegler (2 1966, 24–8 and 67), Clinard (1967, 19), and Misgeld (1968, 29–30); see also the refutation of this claim by Häußler (1976, 65–6) and Feeney (1991, 265–6). 19 Of course, this must remain speculation in the absence of any positive evidence. For a series of circumstantial arguments, which, to my mind, are quite convincing, see Feeney (1991, 266–7) with further bibliography. 20 On this aspect of aetiology in Hellenistic epic, cf. Klooster (2014). See also Walter’s discussion of aetiology in Apollonius of Rhodes in this volume. 21 On the almost universal acceptance in antiquity of the basic information in the inherited mythological tradition, see Häußler (1978, 22–38) and Feeney (1991, 253) with further bibliography. 22 For the best general treatment of Apollonius’ ktisis epics, see Sistakou (2 2008).

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

199

χάρμῃ ἀγαλλόμενον θηέσκετο, πολλὰ δ᾿ ἐς ὑγρὴν ἡέρα χεῖρας ἔτεινεν ἐελδομένη φιλότητος. And blooming Cypris led her astray, for she confounded the mind of the girl Pisidice with love for the Aeacid, when she watched him among the front ranks of the Achaeans, delighting in battle; and often did she raise her hands into the liquid air, wishing for his love.²³

This example in which Aphrodite afflicts a young girl with love for a foreign enemy resonates with Apollonius’ own narrative of Medea’s love for Jason in the Argonautica. At the same time, it serves as an example of the notion that the activity of the gods in human affairs was not confined to the mythological past in Hellenistic ktisis epics, insofar as such divine intervention had a causal relationship with the lived realities of the audience’s present. In Roman historical epic, these possibilities that we find in the fragments of epic in the Hellenistic period appear to be fully developed.²⁴ This is clear already with the earliest Roman historical epic, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, over one third of which was devoted to a mythological digression (probably in the form of a flashback), replete with divine actors.²⁵ What is most important, because it was most novel and had the biggest impact on subsequent Latin epic (e.g. Verg. Aen. 1.223–96), was Naevius’ use of divine prophecy as sanction for Rome’s historical achievement.²⁶ Likewise, we have every reason to think that divine participation in Ennius’ Annales was not, as earlier scholars insisted, confined to the first ‘mythological section’ of the poem.²⁷ On the basis of the fragments we possess, it seems certain that the gods’ involvement continued into the Pyrrhus narrative of Book 6 (Enn. ann. 203–4 Skutsch), and it seems probable that there was divine intervention in Ennius’ narrative of the Punic Wars (Enn. Ann. 232 and 53 Skutsch, with Serv. Aen. 1.281) and possibly even as late as Book 15 (Enn. ann. 399–400 Skutsch). The

23 This translation is taken from Race (2009). 24 Cf. Feeney (1991, 269): “With such gaps in our knowledge, there is no room for dogmatism. But what we know of the tradition inclines us to regard as most likely the hypothesis that divine participation in Roman historical epic (in whatever guise) was the norm rather than the exception.” 25 The crucial contribution to our reconstruction of the Bellum Poenicum was Strzelecki (1935); cf. Rowell (1947). We should remember that the book divisions of Naevius’ epic were not the work of the poet, but of the later editor Octavius Lampadio; cf. also Bitto’s discussion of Alexandrian book divisions in this volume. Along with Rowell (1947), Mariotti (1955), Büchner (1982), and Feeney (1991, 117), I follow Strzelecki’s reconstruction of Naevius’ mythological aetion as a flashback. For further bibliography, see Waszink (1972, 905–10). 26 Cf. Macr. Sat 6.2.31 and Naev. carm. frg. 14–16 Strzelecki, along with Feeney (1991, 109–15). 27 On the gods in the Annales, see Feeney (1991, 120–8) and Elliott (2013, 45–51 and 263–9) with citations of earlier scholarship that dismisses the possibility of divine participation outside of the early mythology section of the poem.

200 | Jason Nethercut

role of the gods in Naevius and Ennius, as Feeney has powerfully demonstrated, was at once literary and political.²⁸ Insofar as these earliest Roman historical epics were grafting themselves onto the tradition of poetry that originated in the Homeric poems, anthropomorphised, interventionist divinities would have been a generic feature for poets like Naevius and Ennius to adopt. Given that both Naevius and Ennius emphasise the especially Roman aspects of the Homeric Zeus in their poems – Naevius refers to Jupiter as optimum (Naev. carm. frg. 14 Strzelecki) and Ennius calls him maxime diuom (Enn. ann. 444 Skutsch) – we understand that these poets are claiming the literary past under the banner of contemporaneous Roman hegemony. Among the fragments of Republican historical epic after the Annales, our most extensive evidence for an interventionist divine apparatus comes from Cicero’s poem on his own consulship, in which we are told Cicero himself was admitted into a concilium deorum and was instructed by Minerva how best to protect Rome (Ps.-Sall. in Tull. 2.3). This striking scene would have appeared in addition to the extended list of omens anticipating the Catilinarian conspiracy narrated by Urania to Cicero (Cic. div. 1.17–22). From the generation immediately after Ennius, Hostius’ Bellum Histricum contains one fragment (Host. carm. frg. 4 Courtney) that commentators have variously connected with a council of the gods or, more probably, given allusions to Homer, to a scene where Minerva and Apollo survey the epic battlefield.²⁹ We cannot know this for certain, of course, and the listing of divine epithets for Apollo in this fragment does not necessitate the god’s appearance in the narrative at all. Macrobius (Macr. Sat. 6.1.32 ad Verg. Aen. 1.539) provides a fragment from the sixth book of a poem traditionally identified as the Annales Belli Gallici by Furius Bibaculus in which some interlocutor addresses Jupiter as Saturno sancte create (Bibac. carm. frg. 11 Courtney). Although again we cannot know this with any level of certainty, this fragment suggests Jupiter may have appeared in the narrative. What we can say for certain is that one character’s appeal to Jupiter was featured in this epic. Whatever one might say about the Aeneid as a specimen of historical epic, it is clear that when Vergil includes historiographical sections in his poem they are intricately connected to mythological material. The most linear narrative of Roman history in the poem occurs in a prophecy voiced by Jupiter to Venus in Book 1; the ‘Heldenschau’ that reflects in poetry the sculptural program of the summi uiri in the Forum of Augustus takes place in the underworld amidst all manner of mythological personalities and monsters; the narrative of the Battle of

28 Cf. Feeney (1991, 113–17 and 127–8); see also Elliott (2013, 263–9). 29 See Vinchesi (1984, 48–51) and Courtney (1993, 53–4).

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

201

Actium on Aeneas’ shield takes the form of a theomachy, as the gods of Rome take part in the battle to oppose those of Egypt; Aeneas himself constantly serves as the mythological avatar of the historical Augustus. In the imperial period, Silius Italicus and Claudian both follow the norm by admitting a robust divine apparatus into their narratives of Roman history. The outlier, of course, is Lucan, whose rejection of the epic divine machinery was already viewed as problematic in antiquity (Petron. 118.6, Serv. Aen. 1.382).³⁰ On the one hand, the absence of the anthropomorphic, interventionist gods in Lucan’s narrative is perhaps the most prominent instance of Lucan’s deviation from epic norms. On the other hand, Lucan does include mythological elements in his poem and this underscores the interpenetration of myth and history throughout the epic tradition. When we encounter myth in Lucan, it is in the service of aetiology.³¹ At 4.589–660, Lucan has a local African explain to Curio the place named “Antaeus’ kingdom”, by relating at length the story of Hercules’ battle with Antaeus.³² Similarly, at 9.619–99, Lucan relates the story of Medusa and Perseus as a backdrop for the catalogue of snakes that Cato encounters in Libya.³³ Lucan inherits this use of myth as historical aetiology generally from Hellenistic ktisis epic, but specifically, in the context of Roman historical epic, from Naevius and Ennius, both of whom grafted their stories of recent events in Roman history onto the mythological background of Aeneas’ adventures after the fall of Troy. Obviously, Vergil provides Lucan with another model here, not least insofar as Lucan’s Hercules and Antaeus are reworkings of Vergil’s Hercules and Cacus. In the end, therefore, even Lucan provides us with evidence that it is impossible to sustain any bifurcation of “history” and “myth” as discrete categories in the epic tradition.

5 Structural elements in mythological and historical epic The interpenetration of myth and history that we have been tracking throughout the epic tradition so far is also apparent when one juxtaposes how structural elements

30 On the divine in Lucan, see Schönberger (1958, 235–8), Häußler (1978, 96–7), Johnson (1987, 4–11), and Feeney (1991, 270–301). 31 On Lucan’s use of Ovidian mythology, cf. Keith (2011). 32 On this episode, see Grimal (1949), Ahl (1972), Ahl (1976, 91–103), and Saylor (1982). 33 The Medusa inset has received much attention recently. Cf. Wick (2004, ad loc.), along with Eldred (2000), Raschle (2001), Saylor (2002), Malamud (2003), Papaioannou (2005), and Bexley (2010).

202 | Jason Nethercut

are deployed in ‘mythological’ versus ‘historical’ epic. It would take more space than I have here to explore this topic comprehensively, so in what follows I will limit myself to treating the instances of one specific structural element across these two types of epic, namely the theme of lumberjacking. On the one hand, this topos does not appear in the current volume’s list of epic structures. Insofar as the motif appears in funerals, sieges, and departure scenes, it is more accurate to consider it an important part of many different structural elements rather than an element in itself. On the other hand, the very ubiquity of lumberjacking in the epic tradition makes it a useful motif to work with in order to juxtapose ‘myth’ and ‘history’ in Graeco-Roman epic. This is especially true, insofar as the double valence of ὕλη / silua makes it an inherently metapoetic topos. The chopping down of woodland material inside the narrative reflects the compiling of poetic material that produces the narrative. With each subsequent deployment of the tree-felling topos, therefore, the epic poet identifies the tradition into which he inserts his poem and actively develops a space for his poem in this tradition.³⁴ In any case, the appearance of this topos in the epic tradition underscores, above all, the permeability of any boundaries that separate mythological and historical epic as well as the diachronic cross-fertilisation between these two modes of epic.³⁵ This topos ultimately derives from Homer, and the two Homeric poems provide the two major contexts in which this topos appears. The original instance occurs as part of Patroclus’ funeral in the Iliad (Hom. Il. 23.114–23), where the Greeks cut down trees to construct the pyre. Similarly, at the end of the Iliad (24.782–7), the Trojans gather wood for the pyre of Hector, whose funeral concludes the poem. The Odyssey provides us with the other narrative context in which this topos is deployed, when Odysseus cuts down trees to build a ship on Ogygia (Hom. Od. 5.234–45). Given the metapoetic associations of ships and wayfaring in ancient poetry (e.g. Hor. carm. 1.3), the Odyssean instance of the tree-felling topos was especially ripe for reflexive appropriation. It is no accident that mythological epyllia regularly feature this Odyssean context for the deployment of the tree-felling topos

34 On the tree-felling topos, see Williams (1968, 263–8), Wigodsky (1972, 57–8), Häußler (1978, 149–52), Leeman (1985), Goldberg (1995, 83–5), Schmidt (1997), Hinds (1998, 10–14), Goldschmidt (2013, 205), and Kersten (2018, 68–97). On tree-felling in Latin poetry, cf. Thomas (1988) and Lowe (2011). 35 One might investigate any number of the structural elements, of course, and another useful data set for my current topic would be the use of the warhorse simile as we encounter it in mythological epic (Hom. Il. 6.506–11 and 15.263–8, A.R. 3.1259–62, and Verg. Aen. 11.492–7) and historical epic (Enn. ann. 535–9 Skutsch), along with von Albrecht (1969) and Wülfing-von Martitz (1972, 267–70). See also Gärtner/Blaschka for a more detailed discussion of warhorse similes in classical epic in this volume and Schaffenrath for Neo-Latin epic in volume III.

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

203

(Catull. 64.1–10, Triph. 59–61, and Colluth. 192–200; cf. Verg. Aen. 3.5–6 and Ov. fast. 4.273–6).³⁶ The Odyssey’s deployment of this topos represents a less obvious model, but one invested with as much Homeric authority as the instance from Iliad 23. By aligning themselves with the Odyssey rather than the Iliad, these epyllia emphasise their epic authority, while also signalling their innovative characteristics. The tree-felling topos occurs most frequently in the epic tradition as part of funeral proceedings. After the two instances of the topos in the Iliad, we do not encounter it until the first Latin poem written in hexameters, Ennius’ Annales (Enn. ann. 175–9 Skutsch). Macrobius (Macr. Sat. 6.2.27) provides us with these lines, specifically ascribing them to Annales 6 and juxtaposing them with Verg. Aen. 6.179–82, where trees are cut down for the funeral pyre of Misenus. We do not know the narrative context in the Annales, but it is a reasonable inference on the basis of Macrobius’ citation that these lines from Ennius describe funeral preparations and that Vergil repurposed this narrative context for his use of the topos at Verg. Aen. 6.179–82. Since we know that these lines came from Book 6 of the Annales, we could then assume that this topos describes funeral preparations during the war with Pyrrhus of Epirus. What Ennius appears to have contributed to the history of this trope are the onomatopoeic effects that he achieves through alliteration and assonance (e.g. Enn. ann. 178–9 Skutsch pinus proceras peruortunt: omne sonabat / arbustum fremitu siluai frondosai). While he seems to have developed and expanded these features from the Homeric original (Hom. Il. 23.116 πολλὰ δ᾿ἄναντα κάταντα πάραντά τε δόχμιά τ᾿ἦλθον), they became primary markers of allusion to Ennius (e.g. Accius, Annales 4 Courtney, whose narrative context is completely unrecoverable) in subsequent deployments of the topos. Vergil provides two instances of this topos in the Aeneid (Verg. Aen. 6.179–85 and 11.135–8), both in the context of gathering wood for funeral preparations. The allusive aspects of these Vergilian passages have already been thoroughly discussed by Hinds (1998).³⁷ I would only add to his trenchant discussion that Vergil self-consciously highlights his appropriation of both Homer and Ennius and that he does so both times in an aetiological context (Misenus’ funeral location explains a toponym; the funerals in Aeneid 11 are part of the war that will ultimately allow Aeneas Romanam condere gentem (1.33). These two facts underscore the causal interaction between mythology and history that I have been tracing in the epic tradition, but that also finds its perfect instantiation in Vergil’s Aeneid as a whole.

36 On Greek and Roman epyllia, see Finkmann and Hömke in this volume. 37 Cf. Hinds (1998, 10–14).

204 | Jason Nethercut

In the period between the Aeneid and the Flavian epicists, we find the treefelling topos deployed in novel ways by both Ovid and Lucan. This novelty is a reflection of the innovative, albeit differently innovative, epics composed by these two poets. In the Metamorphoses, as part of his narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice, Ovid completely reverses the basic logic of the tree-felling topos, while signalling via narrative cues that this is precisely what he is doing (Ov. met. 10.90–108). After losing Eurydice for a second time, Orpheus mourns her for three years (10.79–82). Such lamentation is a regular part of epic funerals going back to Hector’s funeral in Iliad 24. On this Homeric model, the felling of trees for the construction of the pyre should follow Orpheus’ lamentation. Of course, this is not possible in the case of Eurydice. In the place of the tree-felling topos that the reader coming from the epic tradition might be expecting, however, we find an elaborate catalogue of trees (Ov. met. 10.90–108).³⁸ True to Ovid’s manipulation of the structural elements of epic poetry, this passage can be seen to conflate two different structures: the catalogue and lumberjacking.³⁹ Only, instead of cutting trees down, Orpheus creates a spectacularly impossible configuration that combines trees that cannot actually grow in the same localities. It is fitting that Orpheus, the archetypal poet and an especially poetological character in the Metamorphoses, is the figure who gathers together all of these trees into a new, impossible grove, cobbling together with his song an elaborate silua made up of all manner of epic “material”. Especially Ovidian is the fact that many of these trees (e.g. Daphne, the innuba Laurus at 10.92) feature in stories of metamorphosis elsewhere in the poem. In any case, Ovid may signal his appropriation of the tree-felling topos here by beginning his catalogue with the oak, which he calls Chaonis arbor (10.90). The loaded epithet Chaonis refers to the oak’s location in Epirus, and we remember that Ennius’ introduction of the topos into Latin epic occurred in Annales 6 during the narrative of the war with Pyrrhus of Epirus. After these Ovidian innovations, Lucan similarly deploys the tree-felling topos in an unconventional way in the Bellum Ciuile. As part of his narrative of the Siege of Massilia, Lucan tells how Caesar desecrates a holy grove in order to build a rampart (Lucan. 3.399–445).⁴⁰ The funereal associations of this topos remain implicit in Lucan’s narrative. That this rampart eventually is engulfed in flames and

38 Hinds (2002, 127) takes this catalogue as an aetiology of the locus amoenus. 39 There may be a link in this respect with the opening of Catullus 64. In general, cf. Schubert (1984). 40 On this scene in Lucan, which is modelled on Ovid’s Erysichthon’s (Ov. met. 8.741–76) similar desecration of Ceres’ grove, see Phillips (1968, 298–9), Masters (1992, 25–9), and Leigh (1999). Lucan prepares for this disruption of the topos at 2.669–79, where Caesar uses trees to obstruct the departure of Pompey.

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

205

anticipates the funeral Pompey never will receive underscores the displacement of the traditional associations of tree-felling in Lucan’s handling of the trope.⁴¹ The metapoetic valences of the trope are also operative in Lucan, as the desecration of the grove can be seen to parallel the desecration of the epic tradition itself.⁴² The Flavian epicists appear to return to a more traditional deployment of the tree-felling motif, even as they continue to highlight their own innovations. In the Flavian Argonautica (Val. Fl. 3.163–5), the topos occurs in the context of the battle with Cyzicus, but Valerius displaces the topos into a simile that describes Hercules laying his opponents low like so much lumber. Statius (Stat. Theb. 6.90–117) includes the topos as part of the funeral preparations for Opheltes that initiate the Nemean Games. Of the extant instances of this topos that pertain to funeral preparations, Statius’ is the most elaborate, including an assortment of trees that rivals Ovid’s catalogue. At 6.99 (Chaoniumque nemus brumaeque illaesa Cupressus, “the Chaonian grove and the cypress, unharmed in winter”), Statius could be seen to signal through window allusion his command over the entire epic history of the tree-felling topos, appropriating Ovid’s possible nod to Ennius’ use of the topos as the first in Latin epic (Chaoniumque nemus) in the same line that he mentions the cypress, the tree whose metamorphosis provides the narrative context for Ovid’s tree catalogue (Ov. met. 10.86–147). Statius thus can be seen to delineate a literary tradition for his use of the topos that includes the foundational epic of Ennius, as well as the more experimental epic of Ovid. One conclusion that such a delineation suggests is that Statius aspires to culminate the entire tradition of Latin epic in this passage and the poetic materies that he incorporates in his version of the topos includes both historical and mythological epic. Finally, Silius Italicus includes one instance of this topos at Sil. 10.529–39, where Hannibal has his soldiers cut down trees to build the funeral pyre for the Carthaginian war-dead after Cannae. Silius appears to return to the Homeric model, even as he signals his own connection to the literary past with the metapoetic comment about the ilex (“holm oak”) that it is proauorum consita saeclo (“sown in the age of our great-grandfathers”, Sil. 10.532), all while alluding specifically to language that occurs in Vergil’s handling of the topos, which itself derives from Ennius (Sil. 10.531 scinditur; Verg. Aen. 6.182 frangitur: Enn. ann. 177 Skutsch).⁴³ My diachronic analysis of this trope shows that tree-felling becomes part of the epic action regardless of any mythological or historical content. What is primarily operative is the implication that such lumberjacking is part of funeral 41 Cf. esp. Masters (1992, 26–7) and most recently Kersten (2018, 68–97). 42 Cf. Masters (1992, 29): “all poetic writing, in Lucan’s vision, is an impious war.” 43 Cf. Littlewood (2017, 207–9). Von Albrecht (1964, 162–3) rejects the idea that Silius was directly influenced by Ennius here.

206 | Jason Nethercut

preparations. It is important to note that the Odyssean model where the tree-felling motif is used for ship-building is productive only in the epyllion. Second, this topos continues to serve as an intertextual locus where each subsequent poet can position himself in the tradition of epic poetry. The novel deployments of the motif by Ovid and Lucan only underscore their innovation in this tradition. We justly focus on the generic abnormalities of the Metamorphoses and Bellum Ciuile, but, outside of the context provided by the epic tradition, such abnormalities might not be recognised as such. As a result, it is clear that the tree-felling topos provides us with good evidence that the structural elements of epic themselves were not deployed differently in mythological epic compared to historical epic. In fact, the use of this topos uniformly underscores the equivalence to poets in the epic tradition between mythological epic and historical epic. Such a similarity corresponds with the other considerations in this paper regarding the interaction of myth and history throughout the Graeco-Roman epic tradition.

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

207

Tab. 1: Greek historical epic (Overview) Author

Date (BC)

Choerilus of Samos

5th

Nicaenetus of Samos/Abdera

3rd c.

Phaestus Apollonius of Rhodes

c.

3rd c. (?) mid-3rd c.

Agis the Argive Anaximenes of Lampsacus Hegemon of Alexandria Troas

3rd c. (?) 3rd c. (?) 3rd c. (?)

Simonides of Magnesia

late 3rd c.

Demosthenes of Bithynia

early 2nd c.

Rhianus of Crete

early 2nd c.

Hyperochus of Cumae Idaeus of Rhodes Philo the Elder

2rd c. (?) 2nd c. (?) 2nd c.

Theodotus

late 2nd c.

Nicander of Colophon

late 2nd c.

Aulus Licinius Archias

1st c.

Thyillus

mid-1st c.

Title Persica (historical epic on the Persian Wars; see Supplementum Hellenisticum 314–23) Lyrcus (historical epic on Caunus; 10 lines preserved, Collectanea Alexandrina 1–2) Lacedaemonica (Macedonica?) (1 line remains; CA 28 and SH 316–7) Canobus (3 lines); The Founding of Alexandria (title only); The Founding of Caunus (5 lines); The Founding of Cnidus (title only); The Founding of Naucratis (6–7 lines); The Founding of Rhodes (2 lines); The Founding of Lesbos (21 lines); see CA 4–8 Epic poem about Alexander the Great (SH 6–7) Epic poem about Alexander the Great (SH 18) Epic poem on the Leuctrian War (title only); SH 236–7 Epic poem about Antiochus I and the Battle against the Galatians (SH 349) Bithyniaca (at least 10 books, only about 10 lines of which survive; see CA 25–7) Heraclea (1 line); Thessalica (15 lines); Achaica (4 lines); Eliaca (2 lines); Messeniaca (5 lines); see CA 9–18 and SH 346–7 Cumaica (only testimonia); see SH 249–50 Rhodiaca (title only); see SH 250 Around 20 lines of an epic poem on the history of Jerusalem (SH 328–31) Epic poem on Jewish history (c. 45 lines; see SH 360–5) Colophoniaca (title only, possibly a prose work); Oetaica (at least 2 books; 4 lines remain); Thebaica (at least 3 books; 2 lines remain); Sicelia (at least 8 books; 2 lines remain); Europia (at least 5 books; 7 lines remain) Epic poems on the Cimbrian Wars (Cic. Arch. 9.19); on the War with Mithridates, definitely in Greek (Cic. Arch. 9.21; Cic. Att. 1.16.15); on the deeds of Metellus (Cic. Arch. 10.25; Cic. Att. 1.16.15) Country of the Eumolpidae (Cic. ad Att. 1.9.2; SH 366)

208 | Jason Nethercut

Tab. 2: Latin historical epic (Overview) Author Gnaeus Naevius

Date (BC/AD) end of

3rd

c.

Hostius

late 2nd c.

Accius

late 2nd c.

Furius Antias

early 1st c.

Cicero

mid-1st c.

Furius Bibaculus

mid-1st c.

Varro Atacinus

mid-1st c.

Volusius Hortensius (?)

mid-1st c. mid-1st c.

Albinovanus Pedo

Augustan Period

Cornelius Severus

Augustan Period

Rabirius

Augustan Period

Anon.

Augustan Period

Anon.

Augustan Period

Lucan

39–65 AD

Silius Italicus Claudian

26–101 AD 370–404 AD

Title Bellum Poenicum (Saturnian meter; 7 books); see Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel (3 1995) Bellum Histricum (?) (at least 3 books; 7 lines remain); probably on the Istrian War of 129 BC; see Vinchesi (1984), Courtney (1993, 52–5), and Casali (2006, 591–3) Annales (7 or 27 books; subject matter difficult to discern; 12 lines remain); see Courtney (1993, 56–60) Epic poem, possibly on the Cimbrian War fought by Catulus (6 lines remain); see Courtney (1993, 97–8) De Consulato Suo (3 books; c. 80 lines remain); De Temporibus Suis (3 books; no lines extant, though some discussion of the subject matter in the letters and subsequent authors; cf. Harrison, 1990); see Courtney (1993, 149–78) Annales Belli Gallici (at least 11 books originally; 14 lines remain); probably on Julius Caesar’s Gallic expedition; see Courtney (1993, 192–200) Bellum Sequanicum (at least 2 books; 1 or maybe 2 lines remain); on Julius Caesar’s campaign against Ariovistus in 58 BC; see Courtney (1993, 235–8) Annales (cacata charta, mentioned in Catull. 36) Annales (possibly mentioned alongside Volusius in Catull. 95, which, however, is a notoriously difficult crux) Epic poem on Germanicus (23 hexameters, no title); see Sen. suas. 1.15 and Courtney (1993, 315–19) Res Romanae (at least one book); Bellum Siculum; Carmen Regale (?): total of 40 hexameters; see Courtney (1993, 320–8) 6 hexameters of historical epic that featured Mark Antony; see Courtney (1993, 332–3). Carmen De Bello Actiaco (papyrus containing 67 hexameters on the war against Mark Antony and Cleopatra); see Courtney (1993, 334–40) Ov. Pont. 4.16.23 quique acies Libycas Romanaque proelia dixit Bellum Ciuile (10 books, incomplete); see Shackleton Bailey (1997) Punica (17 books, complete); see Delz (1987) De Bello Gildonico; De Bello Gothico; see Hall (1985)

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

209

Bibliography Ahl, F. M. (1972). Hercules and Curio: some comments on Pharsalia, 4.581–824, Latomus 31: 997–1009. Ahl, F. M. (1976). Lucan: an introduction. Ithaca, NY/New York. Bexley, E. M. (2010). The myth of the Republic. Medusa and Cato in Lucan Pharsalia 9, in: N. Hömke/C. Reitz (eds.), Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Between epic tradition and aesthetic innovation. Berlin: 135–53. Blänsdorf, J./Büchner, K./Morel, W. (eds., 3 1995). Fragmenta poetarum Latinorum epicorum et lyricorum praeter Ennium et Lucilium. Stuttgart/Leipzig. Büchner, K. (ed., 1982). Fragmenta poetarum latinorum epicorum et lyricorum praeter Ennium et Lucilium. Leipzig. Cameron, A. (1995). Callimachus and his critics. Princeton, NJ. Casali, S. (2006). The poet at war. Ennius on the field in Silius’ Punica, Arethusa 39: 569–93. Clinard, J. B. (1967). A study of the historical epic at Rome from the Early Republic to the Neronian period. Diss. Chapel Hill, NC. Courtney, E. (ed., 1993). The fragmentary Latin poets. Edited with commentary. Oxford. Crielaard, J. P. (1995). Homer, history, and archeology: some remarks on the date of the Homeric world, in: J. P. Crielaard (ed.), Homeric questions. Amsterdam: 201–88. Delz, J. (ed., 1987). Sili Italici Punica. Stuttgart. Eldred, K. O. (2000). Poetry in motion. The snakes of Lucan, Helios 27: 63–74. Elliott, J. (2013). Ennius and the architecture of the Annales. Cambridge. Feeney, D. C. (1991). The gods in epic. Poets and critics of the classical tradition. Oxford. Finley, M. I. (1954). The world of Odysseus. New York. Geddes, A. G. (1984). Who’s who in Homeric society?, CQ 34: 17–36. Goldberg, S. M. (1995). Epic in Republican Rome. New York/Oxford. Goldschmidt, N. (2013). Shaggy crowns. Ennius’ Annales and Virgil’s Aeneid. Oxford. Gomme, A. W. (1954). The Greek attitude to poetry and history. Berkeley, CA. Grimal, P. (1949). L’épisode d’Antée dans la Pharsale, Latomus 8: 55–61. Häußler, R. (1976). Das historische Epos der Griechen und Römer bis Vergil. Studien zum historischen Epos der Antike, I. Teil: Von Homer bis Vergil. Heidelberg. Häußler, R. (1978). Das historische Epos von Lucan bis Silius und seine Theorie. Studien zum historischen Epos der Antike, II. Teil: Geschichtliche Epik nach Vergil. Heidelberg. Hall, J. B. (1985). Claudii Claudiani carmina. Leipzig. Harrison, S. J. (1990). Cicero’s De temporibus suis. The evidence reconsidered, Hermes 118: 455–63. Hinds, S. E. (1998). Allusion and intertext. Dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry. Cambridge. Hinds, S. E. (2002). Landscape with figures: aesthetics of place in the Metamorphoses and its tradition, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge: 122–49. Hollis, A. S. (2000). The reputation and influence of Choerilus of Samos, ZPE 130: 13–15. Huxley, G. L. (1969). Choirilos of Samos, GRBS 10: 12–29. Johnson, W. R. (1987). Momentary monsters. Lucan and his heroes. Ithaca, NY. Keith, A. M. (2011). Ovid in Lucan. The poetics of instability, in: P. Asso (ed.), Brill’s companion to Lucan. Leiden/Boston: 111–32.

210 | Jason Nethercut

Kersten, M. (2018). Blut auf pharsalischen Feldern. Lucans Bellum Civile und Vergils Georgica. Göttingen. Kim, L. (2007). The portrait of Homer in Strabo’s Geography, CPh 102: 363–88. Kim, L. (2010). Homer between history and fiction in imperial Greek literature. Cambridge. Klooster, J. (2014). Time, space, and ideology in the aetiological narratives of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, in: C. Reitz/A. Walter (eds.), Von Ursachen sprechen. Eine aitiologische Spurensuche. Telling origins. On the lookout for aetiology. Hildesheim: 519– 44. Kroll, W. (1916). Das historische Epos, Sokrates 4: 1–14. Leeman, A. D. (1985). Baumfällen. Vergil als Glied in der antiken epischen Tradition, in: A. D. Leeman (ed.), Form und Sinn. Studien zur römischen Literatur (1954–1984). Frankfurt am Main: 203–11. Leigh, M. (1999). Lucan’s Caesar and the sacred grove. Deforestation and enlightenment in antiquity, in: P. Esposito/L. Nicastri (eds.), Interpretare Lucano. Napoli: 167–205. Littlewood, R. J. (ed., 2017). A commentary on Silius Italicus’ Punica 10. Oxford. Lloyd-Jones, H./Parsons, P. (eds., 1983). Supplementum Hellenisticum [SH]. Berlin. Lowe, D. (2011). Tree-worship, sacred groves, and Roman antiquities in the Aeneid, PVS 27: 99–128. MacFarlane, K. A. (2006). Choerilus of Samos and Darius’ Bridge. The scope and content of the Persica (SH 316–23), Mouseion 6: 15–26. MacFarlane, K. A. (2009). Choerilus of Samos’ lament (SH 317) and the revitalization of epic, AJPh 130: 219–34. Malamud, M. (2003). Pompey’s head and Cato’s snakes, CPh 98: 31–44. Mariotti, S. (ed., 1955). Il Bellum Poenicum e l’arte di Nevio. Saggio con edizione dei frammenti del Bellum Poenicum. Rome. Masters, J. (1992). Poetry and civil war in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Cambridge. Misgeld, W. R. (1968). Rhianos von Bene und das historische Epos im Hellenismus. Diss. Cologne. Morris, I. (1986). The use and abuse of Homer, ClAnt 5: 81–138. Papaioannou, S. (2005). Epic transformation in the second degree. The decapitation of Medusa in Lucan, BC 9.619–889, in: C. Walde (ed.), Lucan im 21. Jahrhundert. Munich: 216–36. Petrakis, V. P. (2006). History versus the Homeric Iliad. A view from the Ionian islands, CW 99: 371–96. Phillips, O. C. (1968). Lucan’s grove, CPh 63: 296–300. Powell, J. U. (ed., 1925). Collectanea Alexandrina [CA]. Reliquiae minores poetarum Graecorum aetatis Ptolemaicae, 323–146 A.C., epicorum, elegiacorum, lyricorum, ethicorum. Oxford. Raaflaub, K. A. (1993). Homer to Solon: The rise of the polis (the written sources), in: M. H. Hansen (ed.), The ancient Greek city-state. Symposium on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1.7.–4.7.1992. Copenhagen: 41–105. Race, W. H. (ed., 2009). Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. Edited and translated by W. H. Race. Cambridge, MA/London. Raschle, C. R. (2001). Pestes harenae. Die Schlangenepisode in Lucans Pharsalia (9.587–949). Frankfurt am Main. Rowell, H. T. (1947). The original form of Naevius’ Bellum Punicum, AJPh 68: 21–46. Saylor, C. (1982). Curio and Antaeus. The African episode of Lucan Pharsalia 4, TAPA 112: 169– 77.

History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic |

211

Saylor, C. (2002). Vana species leti: Cato’s march in Lucan, Pharsalia 9, in: P. Defosse (ed.), Hommages à Carl Deroux, vol. I: Poésie. Brussels: 458–63. Schmidt, E. A. (1997). Vergil und episches Holzfällen. Zu einer unerkannten Technik poetischer Verdichtung, Hyperboreus 3: 57–81. Schönberger, O. (1958). Zu Lucan. Ein Nachtrag, Hermes 86: 230–9. Schubert, W. (1984). Von Bäumen und Menschen. Anthropomorphe Bäume in griechischen und lateinischen Dichtungen mit Ausblicken auf die neuere Literatur, Arcadia 19: 225–43. Shackleton Bailey, D. R. (ed., 1997). M. Annaei Lucani De Bello civili libri X. Stuttgart. Sherratt, E. S. (1990). “Reading the texts”. Archeology and the Homeric question, Antiquity 64: 807–24. Sistakou, E. (2 2008). Beyond the Argonautica: in search of Apollonius’ ktisis poems, in: T. D. Papanghelis/A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s companion to Apollonius Rhodius. Leiden/Boston: 311–40. Skutsch, O. (ed., 1985). The Annals of Quintus Ennius. Oxford. Snodgrass, A. M. (1974). An historical Homeric society?, JHS 94: 114–25. Strzelecki, W. M. L. (ed., 1935). De Naeviano Belli Punici carmine quaestiones selectae. Krakow. Taplin, O. (1992). Homeric soundings: the shaping of the Iliad. Oxford. Thomas, R. F. (1988). Tree violation and ambivalence in Virgil, TAPA 118: 261–73. Veyne, P. (1983). Les Grecs ont-ils cru à leurs mythes? Essai sur l’imagination constituante. Paris. Vinchesi, M. A. (1984). Il Bellum Histricum di Ostio. Epos storico ennianeggiante, in: V. Tandoi (ed.), Disiecti membra poetae. Studi di poesia latina in frammenti, vol. I. Foggia: 35–59. Von Albrecht, M. (1964). Silius Italicus. Freiheit und Gebundenheit römischer Epik. Amsterdam. Von Albrecht, M. (1969). Ein Pferdegleichnis bei Ennius, Hermes 97: 333–45. Waszink, J. H. (1972). Zum Anfangsstadium der römischen Literatur, ANRW II.2: 869–927. Wick, C. (ed., 2004). M. Annaeus Lucanus, Bellum Civile. Liber IX. Kommentar. Munich. Wigodsky, M. (1972). Vergil and early Latin poetry. Wiesbaden. Williams, G. W. (1968). Tradition and originality in Roman poetry. Oxford. Wiseman, T. P. (1979). Clio’s cosmetics. Three studies in Greco-Roman literature. Leicester. Woodman, A. J. (1988). Rhetoric in classical historiography. Four studies. London. Wülfing-von Martitz, P. (1972). Ennius als hellenistischer Dichter, in: O. Skutsch (ed.), Ennius. Sept exposés suivis de discussions. Vandœuvres: 253–89. Ziegler, K. (2 1966). Das hellenistische Epos. Ein vergessenes Kapitel griechischer Dichtung. Leipzig.

Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions Abstract: This chapter explores the continuity, flexibility, and limits of genre classification between the hexameter genres of didactic and epic, and the interferences between didactic and epic poetry with regard to structural patterns and type-scenes. The first section of the chapter explores the origins and the definitions of the didactic genre. Parallels with Near-Eastern instructional texts encourage us to consider its origins within the wider context of wisdom literature. Ancient sources do not provide a univocal definition of didactic poetry, but rather focus on some key features, such as meter, theme, intent, and author–addressee relationship. Most modern critics follow the same pattern; however, new critical perspectives have begun to shed light both on critical phases in the development of didactic poetry and on its fluid boundaries, in close relationship (and reciprocal influence) with other poetic genres but also with didactic prose. After some introductory remarks on the coexistence and interaction of different types of didactic poetry from Hesiod to Roman authors up to the end of the first century AD, the second section of the chapter offers an overview of the presence of the addressee in Greek and Roman didactic poetry in chronological order. The discussion will focus on the following structural patterns: the presence of the addressee within the text, his relationship with the poetic persona, and the performative value of the didactic works. The third and final section of the chapter uses illustrative examples of epic structures and formulas to explore the effect of the epic genre on didactic poetry, and, to a lesser extent, the reverse. The discussion explores the blurring of the boundaries between the two genres as well as the artful, even didactic, use of repetitions and formulas in epic poetry from Homer onwards.

* In this contribution, each co-author was responsible for several sub-sections of the chapter. Manuel Galzerano wrote sections 1–6, Giulia Fanti sections 7–9, and Abigail Buglass sections 10–11, for which grateful thanks go to Gavin Kelly and Michael Lurie for numerous helpful suggestions and comments. The authors are indebted to the editors for their invaluable feedback as well as to Alessandro Schiesaro for his comments and guidance from the outset. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-010

214 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

1 Introduction In antiquity didactic poetry¹ was mainly understood as a form of hexameter poetry,² designed to instruct on a specific field of knowledge, which sometimes even entails the reader’s moral enhancement. Most modern critics agree that didactic poetry cannot be defined as a genre, but rather as a subgenre within epic poetry.³ The modern canon⁴ includes the most remarkable examples of classical didactic poetry: on the Greek side, Hesiod’s Works and Days, the physical poems (Περὶ φύσεως) written by the Pre-Socratic philosophers, Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles,⁵ Aratus’ Phaenomena, and Nicander’s Theriaca and Alexipharmaca;⁶ on the Latin side, Ennius’ Hedyphagetica, the tradition of translations of Aratus’ poem (Cicero, Germanicus, and Avienus), Lucretius’ De rerum natura, Vergil’s Georgics, Ovid’s Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, Medicamina faciei femineae, and Halieutica, Manilius’ Astronomica, Grattius’ Cynegetica, the Aetna, and Columella’s Garden.⁷

2 Near-Eastern and Egyptian forerunners It is useful to consider the origin of Greek didactic poetry within the wider context of ‘wisdom literature’.⁸ Hesiod’s Works and Days, the first extant example

1 ‘Didactic poetry’ is a modern definition, which does not have a parallel in antiquity; see Effe (1977, 9–25) and Toohey (1996, 2). As Sider (2014, 18) argues, “it may come as a surprise to learn that they never actually used the adjective διδακτικός to modify ποίημα or ποίησις, and in fact it is not clear when the term ‘didactic poetry’, in any language, was first used.” Cf. Sider (2014, 14–15). See also Fowler (1982, 106–11) and Volk (2002, 42–3). 2 See Kroll (1925, 1851–3), Effe (1977, 184–6), and Sider (2014, 28–9) on non-hexametric didactic poetry. 3 See Pavese (1998, 86) and Ercolani (2010, 34–5) for a wide definition of epic poetry. 4 This list includes only the most influential didactic poems, excluding other relevant poems such as Callimachus’ Aetia, Horace’s Ars poetica, or Ovid’s Fasti and Metamorphoses, whose incorporation in the list of didactic poems has been the subject of debate. For a more comprehensive list of authors and works, see Kroll (1925), Pöhlmann (1973), Effe (1977), and Sider (2014, 28–9). 5 For an overview of the debate about the existence of a single Empedoclean poem or rather two poems, Καθαρμοί (“Purifications”) and Περὶ φύσεως (“On Nature”), see Petrovic/Petrovic (2016, 79–80). 6 For Nicander’s other didactic poems, see Magnelli (2010, 211–13). 7 On Latin didactic poems in Late Antiquity (e.g. Avienus’ Ora maritima and Periegesis, Terentianus Maurus’ De litteris, De syllabis, De metris, and Nemesianus’ Cynegetica), see Effe (1977) and Toohey (1996, 194–211). 8 Cf. the introduction to Greek wisdom literature in Ercolani (2010, 39–44 with bibliography).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

215

of Greek didactic poetry,⁹ “shows noteworthy affinities with the long-established wisdom traditions of the Near East.”¹⁰ Works of exhortation and instruction have been composed in Mesopotamia since the early second millennium BC and in the Egyptian tradition from the time of the Old Kingdom onwards.¹¹ Regarding Mesopotamian tradition,¹² it is worth mentioning The Sumerian Agricultural Handbook (early second millennium BC), The Sumerian Instructions of Suruppag (18th century BC), The Father to His Misguided Son, the Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom (second half of the second millennium BC [?]), and The Book of Ahiqar (fifth century BC). Relevant examples for the Egyptian tradition of books for instruction are: The Maxims of Ptahhotep (Old Kingdom), The Eloquent Peasant (Middle Kingdom), The Instructions of Ipuwar (New Kingdom), The Instructions of Amenemope (13th century BC), and The Instructions of Onchsheshonqy (first millennium BC).¹³ It is also useful to consider the Hebrew tradition, in particular The Book of Proverbs (probably written in the fifth century BC, but reusing older texts) and The Book of Amos (eighth century BC).¹⁴ The parallels between Hesiod’s poem and Near-Eastern wisdom literature embrace the following aspects of both form and content:¹⁵ a less or more fictitious narrative setting,¹⁶ the importance of the relationship between teacher and ad-

9 See West (1997, 306). For other didactic poems attributed to Hesiod (in particular, the Great Works, the Precepts of Chiron, and the Astronomy) and for Greek gnomic poetry (Phocylides and Theognis), see West (1978, 22–5) and Ercolani (2010, 17). On the question of Hesiod’s identity and poetic persona as well as the definition of his work as a literary or oral product, see Blümer (2005) and Ercolani (2010, 15–16). 10 West (1978, 27–30). The relationship between Hesiod’s Works and Days and Near-East literature was already suggested by Dornseiff (1934). For a history of the debate about Near-Eastern influence on Hesiod’s poem, see Schmitz (2004, 311–19). 11 Cf. West (1978, 12). 12 See Walcot (1966), West (1978, 3–7), West (1997, 307–33), and Rutherford (2009, 17–19). For other Akkadian wisdom texts comparable with Hesiod’s Works and Days, see Haubold (2013, 57) and Haubold in volume III. 13 Cf. Lichtheim (1973, 134–5), West (1978, 8–13), and Dieleman/Moyer (2010, 437); for a comparison of ancient Egyptian didactic language with Greek narrative works, see Lazaridis (2009, 67–87). 14 See West (1978, 12–13) and Rutherford (2009, 18–19). 15 Cf. Ercolani (2010, 39–41). The situation is far from clear for the mythical accounts of the Four Ages of Man, Prometheus, and Pandora in Hesiod’s poem. Rutherford (2009, 19–20) convincingly argues against West (1997, 310–19) that “they are just as likely to be the result of a more general cultural diffusion and some of them may not be the result of borrowing at all.” 16 See West (1978, 34) and Stoddard (2004, 17–19).

216 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

dressee,¹⁷ the presence of moral precepts,¹⁸ the use of myths and fables to instruct the reader,¹⁹ and the possibility of displaying ‘tones’, peculiar to other genres, such as complaint and prophecy.²⁰ As Rutherford (2009, 19–20) claims, the similarities between the Works and Days and these texts are most likely “due to a cultural koine in this region,”²¹ “to the transmission of literary forms, narratives and motifs,”²² or “the reflection of underlying similarities in the political and social structures of the cultures in question.”²³ Unlike the Homeric poems and Hesiod’s Theogony,²⁴ there is no evidence of a direct relationship between Hesiod’s Works and Days and any particular Near-Eastern Egyptian works.²⁵ However, as Canevaro (2015, 37) highlights, “it is not the possibility of direct influence that makes such comparisons so fruitful, but the glimpse they give into a pre-existent tradition.” Whereas there is no consensus about how and to what extent Near-Eastern wisdom literature influenced Greek didactic literature, it is generally agreed that Hesiod’s Works and Days shows original features, corresponding to a particular social and cultural context, which is different from the Near-Eastern tradition.²⁶ Therefore, Near-Eastern influence, regardless of its impact, is not passively absorbed, but reworked and reshaped to fit into a new, Greek context.

17 Cf. West (1997, 306–8). In the ‘didactic’ tradition of the Near East, the addressee can either be a member of the family (usually a son) or a ruler. The speaker has often suffered injustice from the addressee and is therefore indignant (see, e.g., The Complaints of the Peasant, Instructions of Onchsheshonqy) while the addressee can be depicted as a scoundrel in need of correction and personal exhortation, leading a dissipated life (see, e.g., The Father and His Misguided Son). 18 See West (1997, 324–8). The speaker often shares moral precepts, generally using sententious speech and proverbs (e.g. Instructions of Shuruppaq, Counsels of Wisdom, Instructions of Amenemope, Proverbs), including warnings against unjust gain (e.g., Instructions of Amenemope), and injustice in the division of inheritances (e.g., Maxims of Ptahhotep). 19 See, for example, The Instructions of Shuruppaq and The Book of Ahiqar. 20 Cf. Dieleman/Moyer (2010, 439). Didactic texts may include non-didactic sections and didactic sections may also be found in non-didactic works. 21 See Penglase (1994, 4–5), Burkert (2005, 300–1) referring to Homeric poems, but potentially valid also for Hesiodic poems, and Haubold (2013). 22 On myths in Hesiod’s Works and Days, see Rutherford (2009, 20–2). 23 Nelson (2005, 335) considers the Greek didactic tradition as the autochthonous “reflection of a long peasant tradition”; some aspects could even derive directly from an original Indo-European tradition; see West (1978, 26) and West (2007, 71). 24 Cf. Haubold (2002), Burkert (2005, 297), and Rutherford (2009, 22–35). 25 See Rutherford (2009, 22) and Lazaridis (2016, 200–2). 26 Cf. Schmitz (2004, 329–30) and Ercolani (2010, 34–5). As Volk (2002, 44–5) puts it, “while the tradition of Wisdom Literature thus sheds light on a number of features of the Works and Days . . . , it is not sufficient to explain all its characteristics.”

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

217

3 Ancient definitions It is not possible to propose a univocal definition for what modern critics call “didactic poetry”,²⁷ but following Poehlmann’s subdivision,²⁸ ancient testimonies about didactic poetry can be divided into four groups: 1. Didactic poetry as a borderline case of epic poetry:²⁹ according to this interpretation, meter is the hallmark of poetry. Therefore, as a type of hexameter poetry, didactic poetry is incorporated into the wider genre of epic. Quintilian’s list of hexameter poetry and its authors, for instance, includes not only didactic but also epic-cosmologic and pastoral poetry (Quint. inst. 10.1.46–56 and 10.85–92).³⁰ 2. Didactic poetry as an example of a non-poetic, or only formally poetic, genre:³¹ the locus classicus is Aristotle’s famous statement in the Poetics,³² according to which, the hexameter is the only point of contact between Homer and Empedocles. Therefore, only Homer would be considered a real poet, whereas Empedocles would rather be classified as a natural philosopher.³³ Their similarity is only formal,³⁴ because genuine poetry cannot be ἀμίμητος (without μίμησις). Aristotle’s statement demonstrates how most of his contemporaries conversely considered Empedocles’ hexameters as an example of ἐποποιία.³⁵ Likewise, in his essay De Pythiae oraculis Plutarch includes Hesiod in his list of philosophers (402e8–a3): Orpheus, Hesiod, Parmenides, and Empedocles are not poets, but philosophers, who used poetry to enhance their message. The same can be said about astrological poetry, which can also be traced back to Hesiod’s model. Plutarch makes an analogous statement in De audiendis poetis 16c3–d1: Empedocles, Parmenides, Nicander, and Theognis used verses

27 See Effe (1977, 9–25) and Conte (1991, 118). For a general introduction to and interpretation of didactic poetry, cf. Riffaterre (1972, 15–30). 28 See Pöhlmann (1973, 816–35). 29 Cf. Pöhlmann (1973, 820–5): “Das Lehrgedicht, ein Grenzfall des Epos.” 30 Cf. also Manil. 2.1–48. 31 Cf. Pöhlmann (1973, 816–20): “Das Lehrgedicht als Musterfall einer unpoetischen Gattung.” 32 Cf. Arist. Po. 1447b16–20. Plato draws a similar distinction between philosophers (οἱ σοφοί) such as Parmenides and Empedocles and poets (οἱ ποιηταί) such as Homer (Pl. Tht. 152e). See Fabian (1968, 68). 33 See Obbink (1993, 51 n. 4) for a different interpretation (with bibliography). Obbink argues that Aristotle does not deny Empedocles the status of poet, but simply classifies him as “a nonrepresentational poet read allegorically.” 34 In the Περὶ ποιητῶν (fr. 1 Ross = D.L. 8.57), Aristotle praises Empedocles defining him as ῾Ωμηρικός with reference to his language and style. Cf. Fabian (1968, 69). 35 Cf. Martin (2005, 11).

218 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

3.

as a means to ennoble their non-poetical contents.³⁶ The same opinion is expressed in the scholia to the Hellenistic grammarian Dionysius Thrax (Grammatici Graeci, vol. I, pars 3, Hilgard, 1901, 166.13–15 and 168.8–12): didactic (Empedocles), parenetic (Tyrtaeus), and astronomic authors are not authentic poets because their poetry is ἄμυθος (such as the Pythia’s prophecies).³⁷ An echo of this interpretation also appears in Lactantius (Lact. inst. 2.13) who extended its application to Empedocles’ Latin heirs, Lucretius and Varro.³⁸ The poetic nature of didactic poetry and its non-mimetic character:³⁹ this interpretation appears in the Tractatus Coislinianus (derived from an early peripatetic tradition), which contrasts ‘mimetic’ with ‘non-mimetic’ poetry (divided into didactic/παιδευτική and historical/ἱστορική). Didactic poetry can be divided into expositive (ὑφηγητική) and theoretical (θεωρητική) poetry, including both Hesiod and physical poets (Empedocles and Parmenides).⁴⁰ Similarly, in the Scholia ad Hesiodum, Hesiod is named as an example of ‘diegematic’ poetry, that is, a text in which only the poet speaks.⁴¹ Diomedes’ De poematibus refers to this kind of poetry as enarratiuum uel enuntiatiuum (translating the Greek ἐξηγητικόν and ἀπαγγελτικόν),⁴² subdividing it into three types: ἀγγελτική (containing sententiae and chriae, like Theognis’ Elegies), ἱστορική (containing enarrationes and genealogiae, such as Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women) and διδασκαλική (containing Empedocles’ and Lucretius’ philosophical poetry, Aratus and Cicero’s astronomic poetry, and Vergil’s georgic poetry).⁴³

36 The same opinion about didactic poetry as a versification of non-poetic content appears in Cic. de orat. 1.69, Lucr. 1.932–50, and Verg. georg. 3.290. 37 Cf. Wöhrle (1993). Cic. de orat. 1.217 shares the same opinion, with one noteworthy exception: Empedocles’ egregium poema. However, Cicero also considered Aratus, Nicander, and Lucretius as examples of great poetry; cf. Cic. de orat. 1.69 and Cic. ad Q. fr. 2.9.3. 38 See Fabian (1968, 70). 39 Cf. Pöhlmann (1973, 825–32): “Das Lehrgedicht, der Typus amimetischer Dichtung.” 40 Cf. Fabian (1968, 71) and Sider (2014, 15–16). See also Volk (2002, 41) on the difference between instructional-expositive and theoretical didactic poetry in the Tractatus Coislinianus. 41 Cf. Poetae minores Graeci, vol. II, Gaisford (1823, 5.9–10): καὶ διηγηματικὸν μέν ἐστιν ἐν ᾧ ὁ ποιητὴς μόνος φαίνεται φθεγγόμενος. As for the classification of poetry in three characters (δραματικόν; διηγηματικόν; μικτόν), cf. Scholia in Theocritum uetera, Wendel (1914, 11): in ‘diegematic’ poetry, the person of the poet is always present (τὸ διόλου ἐμφαῖνον) and there are no other characters (λόγος ἄνευ προσωποποιίας). 42 Diom. gramm. 1.482.17–25 Keil. About Diomedes’ sources, in particular Suetonius’ De poetis, but also Varro and Theophrastus, see Pöhlmann (1973, 830–2). 43 Diom. gramm. 1.482.30–483.3 Keil. Contra Vesperini (2015, 25–6 n. 1), who underlines that the distinctions in Diomedes’ scheme were not universally recognised.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

219

4. The key elements of didactic poetry:⁴⁴ the most important example is Servius’ definition of didactic poems⁴⁵ (libri didascalici) as works addressed to someone (ad aliquem) in order to instruct him, thus requiring two personae: the teacher (doctoris persona) and the pupil (discipuli persona), who usually is a persona muta.⁴⁶ This interpretation underlines the importance of the didactic intention whereas meter is only a medium.⁴⁷

4 Did ancient poets have a notion of a ‘didactic (sub)genre’? 4.1 Greek poets Literary sources from the Archaic and Classical Age do not explicitly distinguish ‘didactic poetry’ as a separate genre.⁴⁸ Conversely, passages such as Aristophanes’ Frogs (Ar. Ra. 685–6 and 1030–6) suggest that, in this period – mainly characterised by an oral culture⁴⁹ – all the poets are equally considered as “teachers of mankind.”⁵⁰ However, the absence of written evidence and an explicit definition of didactic poetry does not mean that ancients did not perceive the differences

44 This is a partial re-interpretation of Pöhlmann’s category “Das Lehrgedicht zwischen Fachbuch und Dichtung”. 45 Fabian (1968, 74) notes that since Late Antiquity, the Georgics have been considered an example of useful poetry, aimed at teaching (docere) in contrast to the Bucolics, an example of playful poetry aimed at entertaining (delectare). 46 Cf. Serv. georg. praef. 129 Thilo. See also Philarg. Verg. ecl. praef. 4.8–15 Hagen, Verg. georg. praef. 195.1–5 Hagen, and Scholia uetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies, Pertusi (1955, 3). Contra Vesperini (2015, 25–69). 47 See Scholia uetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies, Pertusi (1955, 1). The same opinion is expressed in Proclus’ first scholion to Hesiod’s Works and Days (Procl. ad Hes. Op. 1.1–18, Marzillo, 2010, ad loc., n. 3). On Proclus’ classification of Hesiod’s Works and Days as an educational text (παιδευτικός), see van den Berg (2014). In fact, in the sixth essay of his Commentary on the Republic (Procl. in R. 1.177.7–9.32) Proclus ranks didactic poetry as ‘middle-class poetry’ between superior poetry (divinely inspired) and inferior (mimetic) poetry. See van den Berg (2014, 393). 48 Cf. Conte (1991, 118–20) and Sider (2014, 17–22). 49 Cf. Pavese (1998, 85–6) and Ercolani (2010, 17, 26–9, and 44–9). Orality explains another feature of Hesiod’s poem, absent in later didactic literature, i.e. the formal discontinuity and lack of coherence. See also Bakker in this volume. 50 Cf. Pl. Ion 540d, Pl. Phdr. 245a, and Hdt. 2.53. See also Schuler/Fitch (1983, 6), Martin (2005, 15), and Nelson (2005, 335). For didactic intentions in archaic elegy (e.g. Tyrtaeus and Theognis), cf. Sider (2014, 18).

220 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

between Homer and Hesiod: the “implicit laws” of didactic poetry could have been universally acknowledged and respected.⁵¹ A list of these characterising features could include: the hexameter, a standard length, the existence of a teacher-student constellation, involving the presence of particular forms (e.g. imperatives), and an explicit instructional aim.⁵² The Hellenistic Age represents a crucial phase in the development of the identity of didactic poetry. First, Hesiod is explicitly recognised as the ‘father’ of didactic poetry.⁵³ Callimachus calls Aratus a ‘new Hesiod’ (Call. epigr. 27 Pfeiffer = AP 9.507 ῾Ησιόδου τό τ’ ἄεισμα καὶ ὁ τρόπος, “The rhythm and the manner are Hesiod’s.”⁵⁴) with reference to the Work and Days.⁵⁵ In the Aetia Callimachus himself gives special attention to Hesiod’s ‘didactic’ model.⁵⁶ Similarly, Nicander shows a profound debt to Hesiod and Aratus,⁵⁷ who will remain a point of reference for later Greek didactic poetry, from Dionysius to the two Oppians, covering new topics of instruction such as geography, hunting, and fishing.⁵⁸ The Hellenistic Age brings about another innovation: the new hexameter poems are aimed at versifying didactic literature in prose on technical issues, a genre that had reached its definitive pinnacle.⁵⁹ This development would give priority to the poet’s technical skills,⁶⁰ which become prominent, weakening the strong ethical intent of archaic and classical didactic poets.

51 Cf. Rossi (1971), Heath (1985, 11 n. 29), Conte (1991, 12–18), and Canevaro (2015, 124–5). 52 See Toohey (1996, 3), who underlines that, following the Hesiodic model, most of the didactic poems “preserve the single-book format and their lengths are generally in the 500–1000 vv. range.” On book lengths and divisions in epic poetry, cf. Bitto and Zissos in this volume. 53 For a definition of genre as imitation of a literary ‘father figure’, see Rosenmeyer (1985, 81–2) and esp. Conte (1991, 17): “genre means, after all, family.” See also Hunter (2014, 40–122). The thematic contrast between Homer and Hesiod was enhanced by the progressive depiction of Homer as a ‘poet of war’ (with reference to the Iliad) and of Hesiod as a ‘poet of peace’, giving advice to common people. Cf. the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi and Ercolani (2010, 15–16). 54 This translation of Callimachus is taken from Paton (1917). 55 On the influence of Hesiod’s Work and Days on Aratus’ poem as well as Menecrates of Ephesus, see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 11), Fakas (2001), Volk (2010, 199), and Sider (2014, 23). 56 Cf. Reinsch-Werner (1976): “Callimachus Hesiodicus.” See also Sistakou (2009) and Harder (2010, 92). 57 Cf. Magnelli (2010, 216–18) and Hunter (2014, 20). 58 A list of late antique didactic poems is provided by Toohey (1996, 208–9). 59 For instance, Aratus’ poem is a versification of Eudoxus’ prose text. See also Sider (2014, 22–3). 60 Archestratus’ Hedypatheia (late fourth century BC) shows the existence of a parodic type of Hellenistic didactic poetry as an alternative to the higher Aratean model. On this ‘gastronomical Baedeker’, see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 11–12).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

221

4.2 Latin poets The influence of Greek didactic poetry on Latin literature is first testified in the second century BC, with Ennius’ Hedyphagetica, a translation of Archestratus’ parodic gastronomic poem Hedypatheia, and the first example of Latin hexameter poetry.⁶¹ However, the most influential Greek didactic poet for Latin literature is Aratus who inspired a Latin tradition of Aratea (Cicero, Germanicus, and Avienus).⁶² At the same time, Latin didactic poetry also revived Empedocles’ model of both philosophical and prophetic-didactic poetry about the nature of the universe (natura rerum or rerum causae). The most distinguished example is Lucretius’ De rerum natura, in which the poet introduces himself as a ‘new Empedocles’ (Lucr. 1.716–41).⁶³ Similarly, Vergil’s Georgics (Verg. georg. 4.6–7) are greatly influenced both by the Empedoclean-Lucretian model and by Aratus-Nicander in addition to its main model, Hesiod (Verg. georg. 2.176 Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen, “and through Roman towns to sing the song of Ascra”).⁶⁴ Latin authors clearly distinguished between different types of didactic poetry. On the one hand, Ov. trist. 2.471–91 reveals the existence of a parodic-playful type of didactic poetry, teaching practical activities (from sports to board games), but actually meant to entertain the readers (2.491 talia luduntur fumoso mense Decembri, “Such playful verses as these are written in smoky December”⁶⁵). Ovid’s Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, and Medicamina can also be included in this list.⁶⁶ On the other hand, authors recognise the existence of a high-level epic didactic poetry, treating cosmology, natural phenomena, and their causes,⁶⁷ referring primarily to Hesiod and Empedocles.⁶⁸ Inserts of this kind of poetry appear in recusationes (e.g. Prop. 3.5.25–46) as well as in special sections of non-didactic works (e.g. Silenus’

61 On archaic Latin didactic poetry, see Kruschwitz (2005). 62 About the tradition of Aratea, see Hübner (2005) and Volk (2010, 208–9). 63 Lucretius’ poem also introduces the new format of the “multi-book didactic poem”. Cf. Toohey (1996, 4). 64 All translations of Vergil are taken from Fairclough (1916) and Fairclough (1918). 65 All translations of Ovid’s Tristia are taken from Wheeler (1924). On this passage, see Toohey (1996, 167) and Lowrie (2009, 367). 66 Another example sometimes included in the canon of didactic hexameter poetry is Horace’s Ars poetica: see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 19) and Reitz (2005) contra Volk (2002, 42–3). 67 Cf. Volk (2005) and Gale (2005b, 181–2). 68 This type includes, among others, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid’s Fasti, and Manilius. Since Lucretius (Lucr. 1.921–50), the functions of docere and delectare are interlaced. See also Sen. epist. 79.5–7.

222 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

song in Verg. ecl. 6.31–40, Iopa’s song in Verg. Aen. 1.740–6, Anchises’ speech in 6.724–51, and Pythagoras’ speech in Ov. met. 15.75–478).⁶⁹

5 Modern definitions Modern theories of didactic poetry can be divided into two groups: on one side, ahistorical (or synchronic) approaches, aiming at identifying some key features which may characterise didactic poetry despite its evolution in time; on the other side, some scholars take a diachronic approach to underline the variation of didactic poems in different historical, social, and cultural contexts. In many respects, the first group of modern definitions of didactic poetry can be described as a reformulation of the aforementioned ancient theories. Developing the ancient interpretation of didactic poetry as a “Grenzfall des Epos”, Hutchinson (2013a, 19) defines didactic as a subgenre of the ‘supergenre’ of hexameter poetry.⁷⁰ A more radical interpretation is proposed by Vesperini (2015, 25), who denies the existence of didactic poetry as a genre, defining it as an “invention des modernes”, due to the modern distinction (absent in antiquity) between “description” and “narration”.⁷¹ Following the sources that aim at identifying the key elements of didactic poetry (first of all, Servius), Schiesaro (1993, 129–31) argues that a minimal definition of didactic poetry can be found in the existence of a didactic project, involving both a teacher (doctor) and a pupil (discipulus). Similarly, according to Fowler (2000, 205), the fundamental elements of didactic poetry include a teacher, a body of knowledge that is to be imparted, and a pupil. Volk (2002, 36–40) identifies four characteristics of didactic poetry: teacher–student constellation, didactic intent, “poetic self-consciousness”, and “poetic simultaneity”. Effe (1977, 40–79), who attributes a pivotal role to the didactic intent of the poet, distinguishes between three fundamental types (“Grundtypen”) of didactic poetry from Aratus onwards: the directly instructional (“sachbezogen”), including Lucretius, Manilius, and Diony-

69 For didactic influence on epic poetry, see Toohey (1996, 213–37). Cf. Hardie (1995), Sider (2014, 25–6), and Sharrock in this volume on the classification of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a didactic poem. This tendency dates back to Apollonius Rhodius, who includes didactic sections in his Argonautica (A.R. 1.496–511 and 4.672–81), thus reviving the Hesiodic, Empedoclean, and Parmenidean models in an epic context. See also Kyriakou (1994, 309–19). 70 Hutchinson (2013b, 278–81) outlines some invariable and specifically didactic features in contrast to epic poetry. 71 According to this interpretation, there is no difference between epic poetry and didactic poetry: they share the same meter (hexameter) and they are designed both to teach and to entertain.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

223

sius Periegetes; the indirectly or obliquely instructional (“transparent”), including Aratus, Oppian, and Vergil; the astonishing or ornamental (“formal”): including Nicander and Nemesianus.⁷² In order to embrace also mnemotechnical writers such as Terentianus Maurus and parodists such as Ovid, Effe proposes a special category (“Sonderformen”). Similarly, Heath (1985, 10–12) suggests a distinction between ‘final’ didactic (i.e. having a real didactic commitment, like Lucretius’ De rerum natura) and ‘formal’ didactic (i.e. deprived of a real didactic purpose, such as Ovid’s Ars amatoria). Unlike synchronic classifications, diachronic definitions do not find their roots in ancient interpretations.⁷³ Toohey (1996, 2–14) distinguishes six phases of didactic poetry, also defined as a collateral form of epic poetry⁷⁴ characterised by the presence of three or four technical instructions, an addressee, the hexameter, a length of 400 or more verses, and the use of narrative, mythological, or explanatory insets.⁷⁵ According to Sider, “didactic poetry as a genre was essentially invented in Hellenistic times, and then retrojected backward in time to include only those earlier poets that conformed to Hellenistic notions: in primis Hesiod,⁷⁶ but also the Pre-Socratics.”⁷⁷ Therefore, Sider (2014, 22) proposes a threefold diachronic distinction: the archaic and classical phase, in which “didactic as such does not exist as a genre until, perhaps, the three Pre-Socratic versifiers”; the Hellenistic phase, in which poets versify pre-existing prose treatises; the Roman phase, in which Latin poets introduce an innovation, translating into Latin Hellenistic didactic poems. The situation is fluid, because authors in stage 2 or 3 can return to the earlier form or mix didactic with other genres.

72 Cf. Effe’s categories provided by Kenney (1979, 71): “Broadly speaking, a didactic poet aspires either to instruct or to astonish: if the former, the ostensible subject of instruction may not be the real one.” 73 Plutarch, De Pythiae oraculis 402e–f and 406e, however, seems to allude to an oral phase of didactic poetry, in which didactic prose did not yet exist. 74 Cf. Grilli (1993) for a definition of didactic poetry (e.g. Vergil’s Georgics) as a “non-Homeric” type of epic poetry. 75 Cf. Toohey (1996, 247), who stresses that “the societal significance” of didactic poetry consists in “the role adopted by leisure and play.” 76 See Hunter (2014, 51). 77 Sider (2014, 22) contra Canevaro (2015, 124–5).

224 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

6 New perspectives Almost 40 years ago, in his review of Effe’s book, Schrijvers (1982, 400–2) firmly stated that, in the field of didactic poetry, specific studies were more necessary than global interpretations: “pour l’instant, nous n’avons pas besoin de grand peintres de fresques mais plutôt de miniaturistes.” Modern research has shed light on many aspects, laying the foundation for a new systematic study about didactic poetry. Such a new “great fresco” should pay particular attention to the grey area of the interaction of didactic poetry with other (sub)genres, taking into account that generic boundaries are often more open and fluid than it seems. This becomes clear if we consider, for example, the relationship between didactic poetry and other types of hexameter poetry, in particular heroic epic. In fact, since its beginning, didactic poetry is perceived as a part of the “epic archipelago”,⁷⁸ sharing the same meter and the same language we find in other forms of epic poetry. The close connection between ‘heroic’ epic and ‘didactic’ epic is confirmed by their continuous overlapping through the centuries: it is sufficient to mention the recurrence of didactic sections in epic poems (e.g. their predominant role in Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile) and, conversely, of epic features in didactic poems (e.g. Empedocles or Lucretius).⁷⁹ At the same time, archaic and classical Greek didactic poems can be better understood, if considered within the wider context of ‘wisdom literature’, in relation with other forms of educational writing (e.g. fable, parenetic, gnomic, catalogic, and genealogical poetry). Such an approach should also take into account the metrical form. Most didactic poetry is hexametric, but it is important to stress the existence of other possibilities; first and foremost, the elegiac distich, which plays a fundamental role in archaic gnomic and parenetic poetry⁸⁰ as well as in Hellenistic instructional poetry (e.g. Callimachus’ Aetia).⁸¹ Only taking into account this long

78 Rossi (2010). 79 See Gale (2005a, 440): “Lucretius invites us in a number of more concrete and specific ways to read his work against the background of Homeric and Ennian Epic.” Cf. also Gale (2005b, 181–2): “Lucretius self-consciously sets out to revitalize didactic tradition with a new infusion of ‘epic-ness’.” 80 See Griffith (1983) for a comparison of Hesiod’s Works and Days with Theognis’ gnomic poetry. However, only a systematic comparison could help us understand, as Stoddard (2004, 6) puts it, to what extent “the difference between these metres implies a difference – perhaps a significant one – between the artistic goals of the two poets and the conventions of their respective genres.” 81 See Hutchinson (2008, 62) and Harder (2010, 92), who accepts Fantuzzi’s and Hunter’s interpretation of this “complex and highly experimental work” as a continuation of Hesiod’s Theogony.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

225

tradition, for example, Ovid’s choice of the distich in his didactic works like Ars amatoria or Fasti can be fully appreciated.⁸² Another issue to be considered is the relationship between prose and poetry: it cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional antinomy, with poetry as just a means (ὥσπερ ὄχημα, using Plutarch’s words) to ennoble prosaic content.⁸³ On the contrary, didactic poetry and didactic prose (e.g. ‘Fachliteratur’) are closer than we expect, often obeying to the same rhetorical schemes and constantly influencing one another.⁸⁴ It is important to underline that a new interpretation of didactic poetry should concentrate on some (often underestimated) critical phases in its long history. For instance, the study of Roman didactic poetry ought to be opened to the reevaluation of Latin ‘pre-classical’ didactic literature,⁸⁵ which is more than just Ennius’ Hedyphagetica. Late Antiquity would also deserve better attention: although often regarded as a time of crisis, it gave a significant contribution to the development of new and experimental poetic forms, which prompted the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages.⁸⁶

On Callimachus’ imitation of Hesiod, esp. the “didactic voice” of the Works and Days, cf. Kaesser (2005, 95–114) and Sistakou (2009, 227–8). 82 Cf. Miller (1992) and Volk (2002, 42–3). 83 Cf. Schuler/Fitch (1983, 4), Nieddu (1993, 155–9), Wright (1998), Osborne (1998), Primavesi (2005, 69–93), Kruschwitz/Schumacher (2005, 14), and Hutchinson (2008, 228–50). 84 See Reitz (2003) and Hutchinson (2008, 230–1). About didactic poems contained in technical prose treatises, cf. Formisano (2005). The concept of polymorphism, applied to ancient ‘Fachliteratur’, could be easily extended to didactic poetry; see Fögen (2003, 34). 85 See Volk (2002, 59–60), Kruschwitz (2005), and Kruschwitz/Schumacher (2005), who use a remarkably broad definition of didactic poetry, derived from Kühlmann (2000, 393): “überwiegend versgebundenes Schrifttum zur Vermittlung von Sach-, Verhaltens- und Orientierungswissen.” This definition embraces a far greater number of texts than the common didactic canon. As for the existence of an archaic Latin didactic tradition in verse, perhaps Saturnians, authored by Marcius the uates, Appius Claudius, and Cato, see West (1978, 16). 86 Cf. Schindler (2005). As for late antique didactic poetry and its relationship with Christian apologetic poetry (e.g. Prudentius’ Hamartigenia and Claudius Marius Victorius’ Alethia), see Toohey (1996, 209–11), Haskell (1999, 6), Salvadore (2009), and Kuhn-Treichel (2016). Haskell rightly highlights that didactic poetry is in continual evolution; therefore, it is better to reconsider the idea that “classical didactic poetry is a discrete entity, hermetically sealed off from what followed in the Middle Ages.” On medieval didactic poetry, see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 21), Haye (1997), and Feros Ruys (2008).

226 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

7 Coexistence and interaction of different types of didactic poetry Identifying different types of didactic poetry has been a common approach to the genre since the Tractatus Coislinianus. Two main streams may be identified, one mainly concerned with the delivery of a moral (and, therefore, with the reader’s cognitive development), and another of a more technical knowledge. It is therefore worth considering how, from the origins of the genre, so far as we can determine, different types of didactic poetry coexisted and interacted. Hesiod’s instrumental use of poetry to communicate a moral and his expositive approach to the subject cannot be separated from a more instructional mode, which will be developed by the Hellenistic technocrats, Aratus and Nicander in primis (and, to a lesser extent, the two Oppians in the Imperial Age), representative of the Alexandrian taste for refined details and erudition. Denying the Pre-Socratics the label of poets, as Aristotle and Plutarch did, would deprive their poems of any didactic value, although in their works the poetic language is ancillary to the expression of philosophical truths, purged from technical sections of Hesiod’s Works and Days. A more genuine aim of converting the audience comes to the fore: the interaction with an addressee becomes increasingly crucial, as it will also be in the Roman successors, first among all Lucretius’ De rerum natura, which it would nonetheless be unduly restrictive to classify as just a philosophical work.⁸⁷ Cicero’s Aratea display a lively intertwining of didactic types. The author’s concern for a careful translation of originally Greek concepts (an attitude which is itself didactic, as a flawed translation might cause a distorted learning) coexists with an attempt to exploit the subject matter both as a form of personal translation exercise, and as a chance to display erudition, though not distinct from a philosophical zeal. Manilius’ Astronomica blends together Cicero’s didacticism towards a precise translation, his Alexandrian care for details, and the more concerned position of a Stoic philosopher: both the typical Alexandrian and Pre-Socratics (and Lucretian) types well merge in his persona. Vergil’s Georgics and Ovid’s poetry appropriate this polyphony at best. The philosophical zeal of the Georgics is not defined by a definite philosophical programme, and Vergil himself showcases such lack of ambition (Verg. georg. 2.483–6). The poem is interspersed with very technical sections dealing with agricultural

87 Cf. Lucr. 1.921–50 on the role of docere and delectare. See Kenney (1970) on the Hellenistic influence upon Lucretius’ poem. Cf. Murley (1939) on Lucretius and satire.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

227

matters, which bring it closer to the Hesiodic and Hellenistic models, rather than to the Pre-Socratics. At the same time, the celebration of the Italian countryside sets the poem close to imperial panegyrics, to such an extent that the Georgics have also been portrayed as a meditative, rather than a didactic poem.⁸⁸ Ovid’s works appear kaleidoscopic, and he himself seems to acknowledge the existence of different types of didactic poetry (Ov. trist. 2.471–91). Far from the subject matters typical of high-level didactic poetry, his poetry connects a more playful vein with the Alexandrian taste for erudite information: On his profound knowledge of, and admiration for, the masters of the genre – Empedocles, Lucretius, Vergil – . . . the Ars, Fasti and Remedia resort to the structure and syntax of didacticism to describe . . . a world of uncertainty dominated more by mutable desires (human and divine) and elusive memories than by unyielding natural or providential laws.⁸⁹

8 The (un)named addressees of didactic poetry The presence of an addressee and a honed self-confidence of the poetic persona mark a significant divergence between epic and didactic poetry. The addressee is one of the qualifying features of the latter, essential for the construction of a didactic discourse between the poet/praeceptor, and his audience/pupil, who is addressed both in the second person singular and with less direct passive forms.⁹⁰ The addressee is the author’s interlocutor, and the exchange between the two becomes an interactive progress. The addressee can be admonished, offered advice about the topic under discussion, and made to feel comfortable with any potential difficulties of the subject matter. The discussion of the addressee in didactic poetry has attracted considerable scholarly attention, although an inclusive treatment remains a desideratum, and some crucial questions still need to be discussed more thoroughly.⁹¹ This contribution attempts to offer a general overview of the presence of the addressee in Greek and Roman didactic poetry following a paradigmatic and diachronic order. The analysis will focus on the presence of a named addressee, the dedicatee of the poem; the unnamed addressee, which is a more pervasive presence gener-

88 Cf. Wilkinson (1969) and Perkell (1989). 89 Schiesaro (2002, 62). 90 Cf. Toohey (1996) and Volk (2002). On imperatives in Latin didactic literature, cf. Gibson (1998, 67–98). 91 The most valuable contributions remain the special volume of MD 31 (1993) and Volk (2002).

228 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

ally identifiable with a generic second person singular addressed throughout; the performative value of didactic poetry.

8.1 Named addressee Addressing a named individual is a way for the poet “to present himself as a wise and sympathetic person concerned for the welfare of his friend, rather than a lecturing old curmudgeon, haranguing the general public.”⁹² It gives a dramatic setting to the lesson, adding credibility to it. It goes without saying that the impact of the text upon the reader differs according to the kind of intra-textual addressee sketched by the poet, who can play “the role of a foil.”⁹³ It ranges from a perfect overlapping between them (mainly possible when the latter remains an indistinct character, more easily customisable by the extra-textual addressee) to a more pronounced discrepancy (especially when the intra-textual addressee is presented with highly typical traits, therefore urging the extra-textual reader to react). Hesiod’s Works and Days⁹⁴ is unique among Greek didactic poems: Perses, his brother, is engaged in a conversation soon after the proem (Hes. Op. 10), which, consistently with the epic tradition of hexameter poetry, presents an invocation to the Muses, who are to praise their father Zeus. Hesiod will proclaim truths (ἐτήτυμα μυθησαίμην, 10) to Perses, who is nonetheless not explicitly admonished until line 27, where he is urged to steer up in his spirit the oppressive Strife: ὦ Πέρση, σὺ δὲ ταῦτα τεῷ ἐνικάτθεο θυμῷ. Hesiod addresses his poem to the kings as well (202 and 248), a more blurred presence and, like Perses, a mute interlocutor,⁹⁵ both presented as νηπίοις, and functioning as a κωφὸν πρόσωπον,⁹⁶ “a literary device . . . within a poem that is really addressed to an unmentioned external audience.”⁹⁷ Perses’ failings are not only “different in different contexts, but are determined by the requirements of the context in each place.”⁹⁸ He is addressed by name nine times (in a poem of 828 lines), which all correspond to a critical moment in his

92 Stoddard (2004, 15). 93 Volk (2002, 38). See also Schiesaro (1993). 94 Dornseiff (1934) and Kranz (1961) consider Hesiod’s quarrel with Perses as mere literary convenience. West (1978), inter alios, is instead convinced of its reality. For an overview of the relationship between Hesiod and Perses, see Stoddard (2004, 15–26). 95 Cf. Strauss Clay (1993, 23): “After Hesiod, the silent presence of the addressee becomes a convention of didactic poetry.” 96 Cf. Strauss Clay (1993, 24). 97 Heath (1985, 253). The prolegomena and scholia first considered the possibility of Perses’ fictionality. See West (1978, 33–40). 98 West (1978, 36–7).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

229

education.⁹⁹ Hesiod’s recurrent stress on the foolish spirit of his addressee has three consequences: it creates a hiatus with the fine thoughts spoken by the poetic persona (286 σοὶ δ’ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση, “To you, Perses, you great fool, I will speak my fine thoughts”);¹⁰⁰ it prompts the extra-textual readers to dissociate themselves from the negative models that the poet is targeting, and to follow his prescriptions uerbatim, outdoing the counter-model presented in the text, and implementing the teachings offered; it serves as an effective didactic device, as the audience is shielded from any potential criticism, which is rather addressed, in the first instance, to the νήπιος addressee. The author’s acknowledgment of Perses’ failure in the educative process might cause his fading from the last section of the poem, which suggests that the lesson has progressed regardless of Perses’ idleness, and, not least, that it was not exclusively conceived for his sake. The character of the inept dedicatee also appears in some of the Pre-Socratics’ works, first of all in Empedocles’ On Nature: he addresses his mortal companion Pausanias (1),¹⁰¹ reaching and benefitting him thanks to the intercession of the Muse Calliope (e.g. 4), who attends the poet while delivering ἀγαθὸν λόγον (131).¹⁰² We understand that Pausanias is not the most dedicated pupil (17 and 21), which is why he has to be guided step-by-step (110 and 111) and needs to be admonished: Pausanias mirrors the condition of an audience, worthy of conversion, interested in engaging with Empedocles’ philosophy, but in danger of backsliding. This pattern will establish itself as a model for those works dealing with the teaching of natural philosophy, above all, Lucretius’ De rerum natura. Quintilian’s judgement about the lack of an identifiable voice in Aratus’ poem (Quint. inst. 10.1.55), which unavoidably reflects on the unnamed addressee of the Phaenomena, could easily be extended to most Hellenistic and Imperial didactic poems and their teachings for the sake of erudition rather than cognitive development. For this reason, the addressees appear more as recipients of a literary endeavour, presented to them as homage, rather than a (counter-)model prompting the audience to engage in the educative process. We will not encounter another character with the complexity of Hesiod’s Perses: the addressee’s invitation to read, his predominant anonymity, and the lack of a specific occasion, encourage us “to identify ourselves with this role in the act of reading.”¹⁰³

99 Cf. Strauss Clay (1993, 26–7). 100 All translations of Hesiod are taken from Most (2006). 101 Obbink (1993) remains to date the only thorough study of the addressees of Empedocles. 102 Empedocles (On Nature 131) appeals to Calliope by direct address, mainly in the form of a traditional ὕμνος κλητικός; see also Obbink (1993, 59). She is also invoked for apotropaic purposes, for instance in Emp. 3.1–5, 23, and 131. 103 Bing (1993, 99).

230 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

There is no space for the addressee in the proem of the Phaenomena, which “owes its form to the traditions of Hesiodic epic and its content to the contemporary themes of Stoicism”:¹⁰⁴ an invocation to Zeus (Arat. 15) is followed by an address to the elder race (16), most likely Aratus’ astrological models, and to the Muses (16).¹⁰⁵ Nicander, by contrast, restores the exchange between poet and addressee absent in Aratus.¹⁰⁶ Hermesianax is addressed in line 3 of the Theriaca, in an apostrophe that runs up to line 7. We learn that Hermesianax was the most honoured of many kinsmen (Nic. Th. 3), which could induce us to believe that he was a real person, and possibly a fellow doctor.¹⁰⁷ Protagoras (Nic. Al. 3) is the dedicatee of the Alexipharmaca and is apostrophised at 1–11. In the same way as Aratus’ vagueness might find an explanation in the “centrality of the fixed order of nature in which no individual is particularly important,”¹⁰⁸ Nicander’s choice to introduce named addressees gives the poems a better connection with reality, as if they were real healing tools. Although Nicander, besides the named addressees that occur in the proems, has a second addressee in mind, “he conflates them in one person so that there is no formal distinction between the doctors and those who receive the remedies.”¹⁰⁹ Both Oppian’s Halieutica and Pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica are dedicated to Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius and Caracalla respectively, which, according to Lightfoot (2014, 101–2), compromise the didactic attitude of the poets/teachers, who would rather act as courtiers, pointing out to their royal masters the wealth of their empire. I rather agree with Toohey (1996, 200), who highlights the typical didactic features of the poems, in which there is an “unequivocal use of the addressee.” The poet’s concern for a noteworthy dedicatee might undoubtedly influence his didactic mode, but does not invalidate his didactic attempts. Memmius, the controversial character of Lucretius’ dedicatee in the De rerum natura, stands out among the named addressees in Latin didactic poetry.¹¹⁰ What Epicurus did for humankind – to free men from the oppressing chains of religio

104 Kidd (1997, 161). 105 Dionysius Periegetes displays striking similarities with Aratus, both for the lack of a named addressee and for the (lack of) performative value that it entails, as we shall show. He also invokes the Muses four times, where they are not associated with the traditional epic themes, but rather accommodated to geography; see Lightfoot (2014, 107). 106 Cf. Lightfoot (2014, 102). 107 On the identity of Hermesianax, see Overduin (2014, 39–40). 108 Hunter (2008, 168). 109 Lightfoot (2014, 111). 110 Publius Silvinus is another notable lay addressee in Latin didactic poetry, dedicatee of Columella’s De re rustica. He is addressed at Colum. 10.1, to reappear again only at the end of the composition at 10.433, giving the 436 line-poem a circular structure. However, the dedicatee

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

231

(Lucr. 3.1–30) – Lucretius aims to achieve for his Roman audience, most immediately his explicit dedicatee.¹¹¹ Memmius’ vague presence (he is named only eleven times) and the absence of any reference to his progress or engagement suggest that the De rerum natura was not shaped around him: his presence and absence are rather explicable by his possible relationship with or withdrawal from Epicureanism or from Lucretius’ friendship.¹¹² Clay’s argument that the second person instances in the De rerum natura involve the character of Memmius is questionable.¹¹³ If, on the one hand, the poet acknowledges Memmius’ reticence towards Epicurean philosophy (1.410–11),¹¹⁴ on the other hand, he discloses certainty about the success of his teachings on the readers’ keen-scented mind (1.407–9).¹¹⁵ The dedication to Memmius, therefore, is rather a munus amicitiae than evidence of the poet’s intent to convert the dedicatee. The polyphony of the Georgics also finds expression in the way in which the poet engages with his addressees.¹¹⁶ Schiesaro (1993, 136) rightly speaks of “strategia incentrata sulla moltiplicazione, e, in parte, sulla confusione dei ruoli.” In addition to the country gods (Verg. georg. 1.1–42),¹¹⁷ Vergil also invokes Bacchus (2.1–8) and Maecenas (2.39–46) at the start of Book 2,¹¹⁸ Maecenas and Caesar in the proem to Book 3 (3.1–48), and again Caesar at the end of Book 4 (4.559–66).

fades completely throughout the poem, and, when, at 10.35–40, the Muses are prayed for divine inspiration, the readers soon forget about him. 111 On the historical character of Memmius, see Münzer (1931); for a résumé of his life, see Neudling (1955, 126–9). On Memmius’ dubious allegiance with Epicureanism (Cic. fam. 13.1.3), see Fanti (2017). 112 Cf. Giussani (1896), Mussehl (1912), Bailey (1947), and Fanti (2017). 113 Cf. Clay (1983). 114 Lucretius might have selected Memmius for literary reasons as a possible patron: he evidently had a taste for poetry (Cic. Brut. 247). 115 Contra Mitsis’ theory (1993) of Lucretius’ readers as νήπιοι. Classen’s suggestion (1968) to read De rerum natura as a cooperative interchange between mutually consenting adults suits the teacher-pupil relationship in the De rerum natura better. 116 See Wilkinson (1950) and Wilkinson (1969), who interprets Vergil’s poem as a celebration of the Italian countryside. See Otis (1964, 144): “The Georgics is didactic only in the most superficial sense”; Batstone (1997, 135): “meaning in the Georgics . . . is so difficult to name because the epistemological certainty presupposed by didaxis is exactly what the poem puts in question.” 117 Thomas (1988a, ad loc.) claims that this forces an arbitrary assertion of similarity between Octavian, the divinities of the Roman countryside, and Vergil’s poem. Schiesaro (1993, 135–6) stresses how the proem of the Georgics opens up the text to the direct contact with multiple extra-textual addressees. 118 Schiesaro (1993, 147) suggests that Maecenas’ presence in the poem, which is all but univocal, traces the different levels of reception intended by the Georgics.

232 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

While the addressees of Ovid’s didactic poems and the anonymous Aetna remain unnamed, Manilius’ Astronomica opens with an invocation to Caesar (whose identity is debated).¹¹⁹ He is the one who inspired Manilius’ purpose, giving him the strength to undertake his poetic endeavour: Manil. 1.7–10a hunc mihi tu, Caesar, patriae princepsque paterque, / qui regis augustis parentem legibus orbem / concessumque patri mundum deus ipse mereris, / das animum, “You, Caesar, First Citizen and Father of your Country, who rule a world obedient to your august laws and merit the heaven granted to your sire, yourself a god, are the one who inspires this purpose . . . ”¹²⁰ However, as Neuburg (1993, 256–7) claims, “the living Caesar, no matter who he is, is of value to Manilius mainly as a poetic device.” Conversely, the role fulfilled by Diana in the proem of Grattius’ Cynegetica goes beyond that of a mere poetic device. The first section of the poem focuses on the relationship between author and goddess, openly praised at Gratt. 1–4 and again at 13–15, and on the invocation to Ratio (5–9), who respectively donated hunting to humankind and allowed it to develop.¹²¹ The role traditionally fulfilled by the apostrophes to the reader is subordinated to Grattius’ poetic ambitions: his work discloses divine gifts to humankind, from which even demigods could have benefitted (65–6).¹²²

8.2 tu or the unnamed addressee(s) The named addressees tend to fade throughout the didactic discourse, leaving room for the pivotal addressee of the poet’s teachings: the unnamed addressee. Hesiod’s Perses disappears in the last section of the poem,¹²³ where a generic second person singular prevails, especially in the highly technical section from Hes. Op. 306 onwards when the reader is instructed about good conduct, agriculture, farming, and fishing. Perses seems to lend his foolishness to the anonymous addressee, as we understand from 646, establishing an inescapable model for

119 For an overview of Manilius’ emperor(s) and the date of the Astronomica, see also Housman (1903, pp. lxix–lxxii), Gebhardt (1961), and Volk (2009, 137–73). 120 All translations of Manilius are taken from Goold (1977). 121 Henderson (2001, 9) reads this invocation as a real “teleology of Reason”. 122 See the use of what is a highly emphatic tone throughout the poem, with frequent apostrophes (to mythical and historical characters, and even to dogs), e.g. Gratt. 95, 176, 209, 317–22, 427, 451, and 528. Cf. Fanti (2018). 123 Strauss Clay’s suggestion (1993) that Hesiod would shift to an ideal listener as his brother would be incapable of dealing with the increased role of chance in the latter section of the lesson (therefore far from the ἐτήτυμα promised at the beginning), but still practising hard work and δίκη, is certainly grounded.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

233

subsequent didactic works (εὖτ᾿ ἄν ἐπ΄ ἐμπορίην τρέψας ἀεσίφρονα θυμόν, “if you turn your foolish spirit to commerce”). The brother’s character serves as a pattern for Hesiod to depict his ideal audience of citizens and farmers: the predominance of negative orders (“do not . . . ”) in the section on traditional customs (695–756) implicitly hints at the flawed behaviour of the addressee, suggesting the counter-action they have to take to outdo the wrong example set by Perses. Parmenides’ On Nature can rather be classified as a prophetic account than a didactic discourse ad personam as, in some respects, the Works and Days were: the author becomes the addressee (and the pupil) of the goddess’ teachings. Parmenides, prompted by a missionary zeal, offers his experience to further cognitive development in the readers, albeit without any final revelation.¹²⁴ At Parm. 4.1–2, the poet’s right attitude is essential to follow the goddess’ precepts (2.1 κόμισαι δὲ σὺ μῦθον ἀκούσας, “have a care for this discourse when you have heard it”).¹²⁵ There is just one way of enquiry, to which the goddess points (8.7–9). Empedocles sets himself closer to the Hesiodic model.¹²⁶ It is for his reader that Empedocles intends to speak words that do not deceive.¹²⁷ The frequent use of apostrophes¹²⁸ is not only part of the lesson (such as in Emp. 35), but renders the narrative more engaging, especially at key stages of the discourse, such as when introducing the four irreducible elements. The poet’s voice guides the reader through the lesson (35.1–3) and demands the pupil’s (and by extension the reader’s)¹²⁹ attention through a sequence of imperatives,¹³⁰ promising a positive reward (110). Given the Hellenistic and imperial poets’ predominant concern with aesthetics, their didactic intent is not always spelled out. Continuous oscillations between the apostrophes to the generic “you” and to farmers and sailors, particularly interested

124 See Tulli (1993, 37). 125 All translations of Parmenides are taken from Laks/Most (2016). 126 On Hesiod and Empedocles, see Hershbell (1970). 127 At Emp. 17.26, Empedocles seems to set himself at a distance from the deceitful arrows of the Parmenidean goddess (8.51–2); cf. Trépanier (2004, 49). 128 If Pausanias’ name fades from the surviving text, apostrophes to a more general reader are largely attested: peremptory imperative forms and second person singular pronouns constitute the bulk of the work. Over 90% of the remaining sections consisting of consecutive lines contain some sort of invocations or exhortations – numbers that are only matched in early Greek poetry by Hesiod’s Works and Days. See Obbink (1993, 72–3) for an account of the most interesting cases. 129 The poem offers six instances of the second person plural, which widen the perspective standing as “a foil to Empedocles’ audience” (Obbink, 1993, 52): Emp. 112 and 114, addressed to the citizens of Acragas; 124, 136, 141, and 145 to men in their folly; 11 pertains to the understanding of Empedocles’ argument. See Trépanier (2004, 46–8 and 50–1) on Empedocles’ plural addresses. 130 Cf., e.g., Emp. 345, 346, 349, 355, 356, 368, and 398 Kirk/Raven/Schofield.

234 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

in the interpretation of stars and weather signs for their activities,¹³¹ are characteristics of Aratus’ poem.¹³² Aratus’ addressee is “one perhaps with a general interest, but no immediate practical or occupational need.”¹³³ That Aratus and his pupil “were certainly not contemplating the sky together”¹³⁴ is validated by the forms of the apostrophes to the audience, especially through temporally neutral forms¹³⁵ such as present imperatives instead of aorist (which would expect an immediate reaction). Although the poem leaves us with “little sense of personal communication,”¹³⁶ Aratus does pay attention to a second person singular addressee, directing the information at the reader,¹³⁷ whose action is prompted, through the fictitious image of an inquiring internal addressee (Arat. 156–9), and with whom Aratus sometimes seems to sympathise, anticipating his fears, acknowledging his (slight) effort, and promising rewards.¹³⁸ In Nicander’s Theriaca, the instructions primarily inform the addressee about what he has to do in order to save his own life, not those of others (Nic. Th. 539–40 and 915–16), while the Alexipharmaca focuses on the antidotes against poisons and their effects: Klauser (1898, 3) noted how the Alexipharmaca gives Protagoras instructions to help the others, while the Theriaca are directed to those who are victims themselves. Although the poetic voice in Nicander’s works is mainly de-

131 Arat. 408–29 is a good example of Aratus’ continuous shift of attention from an addressee to another: from mankind to the second person singular, from the sailors and back to the second person singular again. 132 According to Bing (1993, 100), the references to farming are less frequent, only occurring in 24 lines, as compared to 66 for seafaring. 133 Bing (1993, 103). Hutchinson (1988) believes that Aratus is not addressing his teachings primarily to sailors and farmers, while Ludwig (1963) and Effe (1977) identify the target of the poem in them. 134 Lightfoot (2014, 110). 135 Cf. Erren (1967). Dionysius’ Periegesis results in an instructional book for the pleasure of the reader, who is sitting at home, “projected into the text as an armchair traveller” (Lightfoot, 2014, 103) and metaphorically tours the world with the poet’s guidance. The only imperative in the poem, φράζεο, suggests that imagination allows the reader to realise a clear portrait of the lands described without relying on autopsy; the addressee engages in the lesson to gain respect (D.P. 171–3) and knowledge (884–6). 136 Hutchinson (1988, 224). 137 92 instances of second person singular and plural forms can be counted throughout the poem, while Aratus’ persona only crops up 17 times: for a list of all the occurrences, see Bing (1993, 109). 138 Cf. Arat. 290, 758–62, and 1153–4. On Aratus’ Stoic optimism, see Toohey (1996, 72–3). Compare Hesiod’s Works and Days: at 826–8, the poet praises the man who has heeded Hesiod’s advice. See also Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) and Emp. 132.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

235

tached,¹³⁹ the pronounced self-consciousness of his poems creates the premises for an authoritative didactic discourse and a tight relationship with the audience.¹⁴⁰ However, if we consider the Theriaca, it is only at Nic. Th. 493–4 that a second internal addressee is explicitly introduced: Nicander says he will expound to mankind (ἀνδράσιν, 494) all the remedies for these ills, the herbs, and the time to cut their roots. The communication between the praeceptor and the pupil is neutral in tone and no personal engagement is envisaged: the resulting tone is dry and the second person forms often seem to meet structural needs rather than to engage the readers, linking the different sections of list-like accounts of the poisonous creatures or plants.¹⁴¹ Among imperial didactic poetry, Oppian’s Halieutica is concerned with the moral instruction of the reader:¹⁴² fish are anthropomorphised and the sea is a mirror of human existence.¹⁴³ At Opp. H. 3.457, the malanuri are said to be foolish, in contrast with the wisdom of their fishermen (νήπιοι, οὐδ’ ἐδάησαν ὅσον πινυτώτεροι ἄνδρες, “Foolish fishes! which know not how much more cunning are men”), which indirectly implicates the reader.¹⁴⁴ Similarly, the swordfish perishes because of its own folly (3.568).¹⁴⁵ Is Oppian, as Kneebone (2008) suggests, pointing out the discrepancy between the foolish creatures and the readers, who cannot fail to engage with the poet’s warnings about the danger of stupidity evoked by the school of fish? Oppian may point out to his audience, alongside his imperial dedicatee, the advantages yielded through his precepts. This would encourage both the reader’s complicity with the poet, but also dissociation from the recalcitrant targets of the poem. Since Ennius’ first didactic endeavour with the Hedyphagetica (AP 39),¹⁴⁶ we note the attempt to engage with an (unnamed) addressee. In his Aratea,¹⁴⁷ Cicero

139 See Overduin (2014). This creates a sharp contrast between the medium and the message, and draws the reader’s attention mainly to the form, rather than the content. 140 Note ῥεῖα, used as the very first word of the Theriaca (Nic. Th. 1), and the acrostic with his name (345–53). Nicander refrains from the traditional invocation to Muses or Zeus, the poetic voice of the Alexipharmaca is, however, still less marked than in the Theriaca; cf. Overduin (2014, 69). 141 Cf., e.g., Nic. Th. 21, 40, 45, and 87. 142 See Effe (1977). 143 Cf. Ovid’s Halieutica and Toohey (1996, 196): “fish have been substituted for women and men.” 144 All translations of Oppians’ Halieutica are taken from Mair (1928). 145 Compare Hesiod’s disparaging tone towards his νήπιος brother. 146 Of the surviving 11 hexameters, three imperatives are addressed to the reader (37 sume, 38 scito, 39 fac). 147 In the fourth century AD, Avienus attempted a translation of Aratus’ Phaenomena. See Soubiran (1981, 40–65). The clarity of thought and expression is often affected by the redundancy of the

236 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

first (and Germanicus following his example) reflects on how the addressee is engaged in the didactic discourse. Cicero’s concern with accurate translation from the Greek allows the addressee to learn “about the process of constructing an equivalent sphere in the Latin language,”¹⁴⁸ and supports his learning by providing the details needed to understand his lesson (e.g. Cic. Arat. 27 and 36–7). Germanicus’ Aratea is set in the present (nunc, Germ. 11), during the reign of Augustus. This immediacy increases the impact of his lesson and strengthens his relationship with the addressee (1 ab Ioue principium magno deduxit Aratus). It is with Lucretius’ De rerum natura that the didactic interaction between the magister and his discipulus fully develops.¹⁴⁹ The problem of Lucretius’ audience was already addressed by Bruns (1884, 4).¹⁵⁰ In contrast with Memmius’ presence, that of the general reader is constant throughout the text, and instances of second person singular forms occur every 17.4 lines on average.¹⁵¹ Being a very concerned teacher, Lucretius makes sure he guides his pupil through the conversion to Epicureanism step-by-step, first uprooting his false beliefs, then constructing the foundation for the Epicurean tenets. This explains the hammering tone that dictates the steps the addressee ought to undertake, especially in the first half of the lesson. The querulous pupil “is continually made to voice objections to the poet’s teaching, or associated with erroneous views.”¹⁵² The reader’s incorrect approach is pointed out from the beginning, as well as his reluctance to trust Lucretius’ words (Lucr. 1.267 ne qua forte tamen coeptes diffidere dictis), against which the poet warns him categorically (1.269 accipe praeterea quae corpora tute necessest,

form, making it a highly rhetorical exercise for schools; cf. Gee (2007, 583). The didactic intent of the text lies in its performative values, more than in what Soubiran (1981, 65) calls “le goût du grandiose.” 148 Possanza (2004, 12). 149 Lucretius moreover addresses Venus (Lucr. 1.1–49), Epicurus (3.1–30), and Calliope (4.92–5). On the invocation of Venus and its interpretations, see Bignone (1945), Bailey (1947, p. ii and 590), Furley (1966), Schrijvers (1970, 27–86), Nichols (1976, 25–45), Giancotti (1978), Asmis (1982), Clay (1983, 82–110 and 226–34), Brown (1984, 41), and Sedley (1998, 15–21). On the literary and interpretative background of the hymn, cf. Gale (1994, 208–23) and Campbell (2014). On the invocation of Calliope, see Clay (1983) and Godwin (1991). Cf. also Schindler in this volume. 150 The similes of the sick children in need of being nursed (Lucr. 1.936–42 = 4.11–17) and frightened of the dark (2.55–6, 3.87–8, and 6.35–6) suggest that Lucretius does not regard his readers as equals. Lucretius’ reader is not an Epicurean yet – cf. Bruns (1884, 8–11) –, although he appears keen to be converted (1.402–3, 5.1281–2, and 6.527–34). 151 Keen (1985, 3) observes how Lucretius encourages his reader’s use of perceptions throughout, “the chief form of mental activity in Lucretius’ program.” Townend (1978) surveys Lucretius’ ways of addressing his reader; cf., inter alios, Clay (1983), Conte (1991), Mitsis (1993), Gale (2001), and Fanti (2016). 152 Gale (2001, 24). For a sketch of the reader’s progress, see Gale (2001, 23–4).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

237

“learn in addition of bodies which you must yourself of necessity . . . ”).¹⁵³ The dubitative formula si forte putas underlines the reader’s proclivity to being lured by other philosophical creeds.¹⁵⁴ However, the poet not only criticises, but also supplies the right attitude (2.1041b–3 sed magis acri / iudicio perpende et, si tibi uera uidentur, / dede manus, aut, si falsum est, accingere contra, “but rather ponder it with keen judgement; and if it seems to be true, own yourself vanquished, or, if it is false, gird up your loins to fight”). Lucretius’ attitude towards the audience becomes more positive in the second half of the lesson, suggesting the reader’s intellectual development, prompting him to adopt what the teacher regards as the right view. Not surprisingly, percipe, often emphasised at the beginning of the line (2.335, 2.731, 4.111, 4.270, 6.536, and 6.768), is the most recurrent imperative form: empiricism is at the core of scientific inference in Epicureanism.¹⁵⁵ Emblematic of this prescriptive mode is also the formula nonne uides, a “formula di transizione all’esempio”,¹⁵⁶ an appeal to the reader’s visual memory.¹⁵⁷ Besides these appeals, the use of second person singular indicative or subjunctive creates a more conversational atmosphere throughout the lesson by anticipating the topic or recapitulating what has already been said.¹⁵⁸ An important role is played by the anticipation of the reader’s doubts and objections (e.g. 2.80–2 and 2.739–40). The employment of final clauses also justifies what the poet is doing and how he is doing it. For instance, 1.52 ne . . . relinquas, 1.80 ne . . . rearis, and 1.267 ne . . . coeptes diffidere are aimed at keeping the reader free from incorrect beliefs. Frequently, as stated by Gale (2011, 24), the pupil’s possible objections are attributed to anonymous speakers (si forte aliquis . . . ), whose views are swiftly refuted (e.g. 2.225, 2.931, 5.908, and 6.673),¹⁵⁹ a didactic strategy that shields the addressee from the poet’s criticism, which would hinder their relationship. In his process of conversion, the

153 All translations of Lucretius are taken from Rouse (1924). For similar examples, cf. Lucr. 2.730–6 and 2.739–40. See also Piazzi (2011, ad loc.): “mira a prevenire le reazioni del lettore, smontandone anticipatamente le false opinioni attraverso una occupatio.” 154 See Lucr. 1.770, 1.916, 2.80, 3.533, and 3.698. 155 Other occurrences of percipe can be found at Lucr. 4.115, 4.723, 4.880, and 6.46. On Epicurean empiricism and epistemology, see Asmis (1984). 156 Schiesaro (1984). 157 nonne uides occurs with this same sense at Lucr. 2.196, 2.207, 2.263, 4.122, 4.808, 4.1201, 4.1286, 5.382, 5.556, 5.602, 5.646, 6.806, 6.813, 6.900, and 6.1103. 158 Marković (2008, 146) notes that all the rhetorical elements in the De rerum natura “function as cognitive and mnemonic aids for the reader.” On the repetition of didactic formulas, such as nunc age, see section 10. 159 A similar didactic strategy is employed at Lucr. 3.952–60, where the warnings of the personified Natura are applied first to the whole of humankind, and afterwards to an old man. Cf. Wallach (1976) and Reinhardt (2002).

238 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

teacher’s confidence towards the pupil (6.534) may encourage him to progress in his survey of nature, whose successful outcome is promised as early as in Book 1 (1.408b–9 poteris caecasque latebras / insinuare omnis et uerum protrahere inde, “so will you be able . . . to penetrate all unseen hiding-places, and draw forth the truth from them”). The reader “is left to quell the sources within himself of a belief in divine anger and to accept the subliminal visions of the true gods of Epicurean philosophy with a newfound calm and serenity . . . (6.78).”¹⁶⁰ Although Lucretius’ influence is pervasive in the literary texture of Vergil’s poem,¹⁶¹ the polyphonic nature of the addressee in the Georgics is not borrowed from this model. Lucretius’ most characteristic didactic strategies are adapted by Vergil’s protean interlocutor(s): a lively succession of second person singular forms, plural imperatives, jussive subjunctives, questions (e.g. Verg. georg. 2.433–4), and interjections (e.g. 1.63 ergo age and 3.515 ecce autem) confers a sense of urgency to the discourse, and traditionally Lucretian phrases, such as nonne uides (e.g. 1.86, 3.103, and 3.250), set the agricultural content in a didactic frame.¹⁶² The effect of a lively relationship with the audience is increased by the depiction of the addressee’s reactions and emotions, for instance, at 1.335, 1.459, and 4.239, and Vergil puts the addressee at ease (3.66–8), when “he admits his own dismay at alarming signs, and waxes eloquent on the transience of human success.”¹⁶³ Vergil also instructs the farmers (e.g., 1.101 agricolae, 1.210 viri, 2.35–6 agricolae, 3.288 coloni, 3.420 pastor) to manage their farms and crops, visualising himself as part of the rural community (1.257 speculamur and 2.393–4 ergo . . . dicemus), or offering realistic, self-deprecating insights (1.456b–7 non illa quisquam me nocte per altum / ire neque a terra moneat conuellere funem, “On such a night let none urge me to travel on the deep, or pluck my cable from the land”)¹⁶⁴ and an experienced view

160 Clay (1983, 225). 161 See Gale (2000). 162 Nelson (1998) suggests a comparative reading of Hesiod’s and Vergil’s poems. See also Farrell (1991, 131–68) on the influence of Hesiod and Aratus on the Georgics. 163 Rutherford (2008, 86). 164 On the identity of Vergil’s rural addressees, see Wilkinson (1969, 53): “he would generally be an absentee landlord, if a landlord at all.” Vergil’s farmer was most likely a colonus, an “oldfashioned yeoman – uetus colonus – revived” (Wilkinson (1969, 53–4), someone whom he idealises in the portrait of the Corycian old man, as in Verg. georg. 4.125–46. Vergil also addresses inanimate objects or places: e.g. at Verg. georg. 2.95–6, 2.102, 2.159–60. There is, however, inconsistency in Vergil’s attitude, especially when he sets himself apart from this same rural community (2.458–9a o fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, / agricolas!, “O farmers, happy beyond measure, could they but know their blessings!”). Cf. Schiesaro (1993, 138).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

239

(1.193, 1.197, and 1.318 uidi – 1.472 or uidimus).¹⁶⁵ However, the variable relationship that Vergil establishes with the addressee is compromised by the generic fiction going on in the Georgics, as the poet himself points out (2.42, 3.284, 4.147), when disclosing awareness of his incapacity to achieve thoroughness in his treatment of natural philosophy (2.475–86). The lack of a dynamic quest that bestows an idea of progression upon the poem also contributes to a sense of fictionality in the relationship between the poet and his addressee.¹⁶⁶ The audience of Ovid’s love poems (Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, and Medicamina faciei femineae) is overall homogeneous.¹⁶⁷ While the Ars is a lesson on how to fall in love, conceived for his young fellow Roman citizens (pueri are the addressees of Book 1 and 2 of the Ars, puellae of Book 3),¹⁶⁸ the Remedia appears as a “rehabilitative therapy”¹⁶⁹, primarily for decepti iuuenes (Ov. rem. 41), but eventually also for puellae (49–52), whom Ovid instructs on how to fall out of love (41–2). The Medicamina, on the other hand, targets married women, who are advised to employ cultus to please their husbands (Ov. medic. 25–6).¹⁷⁰ The lessons that Ovid offers in the Ars amatoria and in the Remedia “resemble . . . scenes in a drama”;¹⁷¹ similarly, the parodic aspects of the Medicamina have frequently been pointed out in modern scholarship.¹⁷² Ovid, as praeceptor Amoris (Ov. ars 1.17), guides his addressee through the lesson, which, if followed uerbatim,

165 Cf. Rutherford (1995, 21–2). Vergil highlights his teaching authority throughout (e.g. Verg. georg. 3.295, 3.300, 3.440, and 4.264). 166 On the opposition between Vergil and Lucretius, see Schiesaro (1993, 139) and Rutherford (1995, 27). 167 Shifts of addressees are recurrent in Ovid’s poems, too. The case of the Medicamina is emblematic: the puellae, who are apostrophised at Ov. medic. 1 (discite quae faciem commendet cura, puellae, “Learn, O women, what pains can enhance your looks”) and 43 again (prima sit in uobis morum tutela, puellae, “Think first, ye women, to look to your behaviour”), are suddenly replaced by a more generic second person singular (disce age), which resembles the dry impersonal style of the metaphrasts; see also Ov. medic. 69–75 and Watson (2001). 168 Cf. Ov. ars 1.35–40. The reference might go to women of a certain class, to whom certain privileges were recognised by law (3.58 quas pudor et leges et sua iura sinunt). Cf. also 3.195 sed non Caucasea doceo de rupe puellas, “But I am not teaching girls from the cliffs of Caucasus.” Miller (1992) sees this concession as an index of Ovid’s growing lack of control in the didactic discourse. 169 Rosati (2006, 155). 170 The simile offered in the proem links the Sabine women both with the elegiac puellae and the matronae. Cf. Rosati (1985, 9–19) and Watson (2001, 469). 171 Holzberg (2006, 42). 172 Cf. Toohey (1996, 160): “The didactic strategy in all of this . . . is persistently parodic”; see also the different reading by Volk (2010, 9): “With Medicamina Ovid begins his foray into didactic poetry.” See, moreover, Wilkinson (1955) and Rimell (2006).

240 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

will lead to successful results.¹⁷³ Ovid’s self-awareness is positively reflected in what Holzberg (2006) calls the reader’s response, the active participation of the addressee in Ovid’s love poems:¹⁷⁴ the enactments of Ovid’s erotic theories, not least with references to his personal experience, prompt the pupil to put the lesson to good use. On the other hand, when in the Remedia Ovid helps the victims of love to unlearn what he taught them (Ov. rem. 211 dediscis amare, “unlearn your love”; 503 intrat amor mentes usu, dediscitur usu, “By wont love comes into the mind, by wont is love unlearnt”; 752 dum bene de uacuo pectore cedat amor, “until love ebb quite away from your empty heart”), he engages them in a negative process and seems to expect credit from his pupils for the harmful teaching he imparted to them before.¹⁷⁵ Johnson (1978, 8) rightly claims that the content of the Fasti “baffled Ovid and its form therefore eluded him.”¹⁷⁶ A wide range of technical instructions about the Roman calendar (from astronomy to the origins of names, customs, and festivals) is delivered by a Protean poetic persona to an equally protean addressee(s). While the first proem predicts calendrical honours for Germanicus and his family (Ov. fast. 1.11–12), at the same time it promises to treat Augustus’ religious festivals (1.13–14), therefore embracing a sort of imperial panegyric, causing difficulty for the readers as it ranges “from the serious to the perfunctory to the downright comic.”¹⁷⁷ Ovid’s main topics of discussion in the Fasti, causas (aetiologies), and tempora (festival rituals), as programmatically announced in the proem (1.1–2), are addressed respectively to a Roman reader, who mainly benefits from aetiological instructions, and to a diversified group of people. Raising the style when issuing ritual directions, as if in a dramatic festival hymn, Ovid addresses an audience (1.75–6, 2.623, 2.631–6, 4.135–8, 4.867–9, etc.) that ranges from a more impersonal crowd (1.74 liuida turba and 1.659 tu populus), to farmers (1.663 iuuenci), mariners (4.625 nauita), pontiffs (4.630 pontifices), boys and girls (3.815 pueri . . . puellae), and even prostitutes (4.865 uolgares . . . puellae): Ovid shifts to one or the other, now identifying with them, then distancing himself, playing either the role of leader of the ceremonies,

173 The poet foresees a reward for the pupil, for example, at Ov. ars 1.2, 2.741–3, and 3.792. 174 See Holzberg (2006, 48–9) on other examples of reader’s response. Ovid assumes the identity of a medical man in the Remedia (Ov. rem. 43–4, 76, 81, 91, 101, 109, etc.); cf. Toohey (1996, 171). 175 All translations of Ovid’s Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, and Medicamina faciei are taken from Mozley (1979). See Hardie (2006) and Rosati (2006) on the paradoxical didactic process of “unlearning” in the Remedia. 176 Volk (2002, 42) concludes that in Ovid’s Fasti “there is no indication that the persona’s main intent is to teach anyone about the Roman calendar.” We shall, nonetheless, consider the Fasti as a didactic poem in our discussion. 177 Miller (1992, 14).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

241

or a Roman Callimachus.¹⁷⁸ The polyphony of the Fasti meets the didactic aims of the poem more satisfactorily than Vergil’s Georgics: the multifaceted didactic persona changes alongside the addressee, directing the teachings appropriately. There is no overlapping between the Roman educated readers and the populus: whilst the former, although likely involved in the performance of these ceremonies, were mainly interested in the scholarly aspects of the poem, the latter is the explicit target of the poet’s ad personam instructions. In Manilius’ Astronomica the introduction of the addressee is delayed until Manil. 1.194.¹⁷⁹ As Green (2011, 122) has argued, Book 1 “amounts to a descriptive, static representation of the heavens”; yet, by its close, the reader has not gained any significant astrological knowledge, as Manilius’ purpose here is to “map out the cosmic backdrop for a study of astrology.”¹⁸⁰ The content influences the presence of the reader also in the other books: the highly technical nature of Books 2 and 3 engages the audience closely, while, in Book 4 and 5, which do not have “the essential difficulty, astrological or astronomical, of Books 2 and 3,”¹⁸¹ the interlocutor is introduced only after apostrophes to the mortales (4.12) and the Moon (5.7), and his presence remains vague. Manilius’ concern is mainly addressed to the reader’s observation and mental effort,¹⁸² which should aim at nouisse (1.16), representing the first step towards knowledge, and scire (1.17), the theoretical act that follows. The transition from the first to the second step is marked by cernere (1.18–19a quaque regat generetque suis animalia signis / cernere, “to mark how it controls the birth of all living beings through its signs”). The poet involves the pupil in a dynamic process (3.36–9), his work is aimed at anyone (quicumque, 3.36) willing to take on a highly technical subject matter, anyone who has the capability to understand (potes),¹⁸³ and to follow carefully the poet’s teachings (3.43–6). Such a work could not be intended for an uninterested audience, nor can it be considered

178 E.g. Ov. fast. 1.681, in contrast with 1.695. Cf. Miller (1980) and Schiesaro (2002). 179 In Aratus’ poem we also encounter a delayed appearance of the reader (Arat. 75). Neuburg (1993) surveys Manilius’ use of the second person singular. 180 Green (2011, 123). On Manilius’ proems, see Landolfi (2003). There are significant gaps where the reader is a mostly silent presence and is addressed only at the beginning and the end of these passages, as if the poet wanted to secure his attention before focusing on scientific explanations, thereby anticipating his possible doubts, as at Manil. 1.373, 1.458, 1.562, 1.648–9, 1.666, and 1.859. 181 Housman (1920, p. iv). See also Green (2011, 128). 182 The most common verbs are aspicere (5×), uidere (3×), accipere (5×), percipere (8×), and cernere (3×). Related to the next step of mental discernment are: posse cognoscere / discernere (2×), ne mirere (7×), and credere (2×). 183 On the ambiguity of Manilius’ idea of knowledge (universal and elitist), cf. Volk (2001, 85–117) and Volk (2011, 104–19). See also Manil. 2.137 nec in turba nec turbae carmina condam, “Not in the crowd nor for the crowd shall I compose my song.”

242 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

a “coffee-table” book, as Volk (2009) puts it. Manilius hides his audience behind the simile of the rudes pueri (2.755):¹⁸⁴ Manilius’ audience is rudis, i.e. the poet has to teach ab initio. However, only those who do not bind the cosmos and subjugate it to their wishes (2.127–8) are allowed to approach this superior knowledge. It is therefore not a poem for everyone: the discriminatory line lies in the acceptance of the Stoic creed, which confers credibility upon the uates’ words. A delayed apostrophe to the addressee is shared by Grattius’ Cynegetica, where it is introduced as late as at line 62. Grattius’ audience is engaged with the lesson from 127 onwards when they are provided with a list of instructions for hunting that needs to be followed uerbatim. However, as we understand from 62–6, Grattius is primarily urging his pupil to consider his poetic merits. Lines 73–4a also validate this argument with the imperative directing the reader towards the poet’s authority exige, si qua meis respondet ab artibus . . . / gratia, “Consider, then, what benefit, derived from the arts I treat . . . ”.¹⁸⁵ Grattius defines the artes as meae, granted to him by Diana: the audience is just a spectator and Grattius does not appear to be concerned with their understanding of the arts (73), for there are no signs of progression in knowledge nor does the poet appear to follow any “gerarchia conoscitiva.”¹⁸⁶ The addressee’s passivity is characteristic of the Aetna as well: he only gradually makes his appearance in the poem following the step-by-step actions prescribed by Stoic epistemology,¹⁸⁷ occurring once every 14 lines (7.1%). The reader is apostrophised directly only at Aetna 144–5 (tu modo subtiles animo duce percipe causas / occultamque fidem manifestis abstrahe rebus, “Let but your mind guide you to a grasp of cunning research: from things manifest gather faith in the unseen”¹⁸⁸). Trenchant imperatives serve as a reminder of the correct approach before the start of the lesson¹⁸⁹ and the addressee’s field of action seems mainly restricted to the most empirical aspects of the survey.¹⁹⁰ When senses cannot succeed, the addressee’s presence is drastically reduced, and, conversely, the teacher’s presence

184 Cf. the Lucretian simile of the sick children in need of healing at Lucr. 1.943–9 (= 4.18–24). 185 All translations of Grattius are taken from Duff/Duff (1982). 186 Schiesaro (1993, 137). On Grattius’ poetic persona and addressee, see Fanti (2018). 187 See Cic. ac. 1.42, with reference to Zeno. 188 All translations of the Aetna are taken from Duff/Duff (1982). 189 First one’s senses need to be trusted: cernere (11×), putare (6×), and credere (2×) refer to the attitude to assume after the preliminary warning to percipere (Aetna 144), which stands as a sine qua non for approaching the poem, and, at the same time, for the comprehension of the phenomenon of volcanism. 190 Note the eclipse of the addressee in long portions of the poem, mainly because of the kind of content discussed.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

243

becomes preponderant, insinuating his unquestionable authority and guidance (duce me, 178). With Henderson’s claim (2002, 113) that Columella “composes The Garden as a definitionally separate world” the question arises if Columella’s hortus is also didactically separated from the rest of Book 10, reflecting the engagement between Columella and his audience. Although Columella’s didactic intent is made explicit from the outset of Book 10, his kaleidoscopic use of the addressees is striking and reminds us of Ovid’s Fasti¹⁹¹ with its continuous alteration between the first and second person plural and the second person singular: for instance, nescia plebs . . . ne parcite at Colum. 10.58 (most likely referring to those unaware of the art of gardening) is suddenly replaced by the anaphoric use of nos (both at 10.65 and 10.66, which ought to be interpreted as “we human beings”), which is eventually substituted with an unspecific tu (10.71, 10.72, and 10.73).¹⁹² This continual change blurs the poet-reader’s constellation invalidating the declared instructional aim of the poem. Instead, Columella’s authority, as established in the prose preface of Book 10, languishes in the hexameters and the same appears to happen to the engagement of the addressee. But what caused Columella to neglect the necessary clarity of a didactic discourse? Are his choices indicative of a feeling of inadequacy in comparison to his Vergilian model? Is it a desperate attempt to incorporate a wide range of poetic (and didactic) patterns in order to establish his own poetic authority? Or is this just Columella’s successful attempt to duplicate, in his poetic endeavour, the polyphonic nature of the Vergilian model? After all, clarity in the didactic discourse is certainly not one of the most commendable features in the Georgics.

9 Performative value of didactic poetry The problem of the performative value of didactic poems first emerged with Hesiod’s Works and Days. Did he genuinely intend to write an agriculture manual? Jaeger (1945) and Fränkel (1975) both believe in the performative value of the poem, a compendium of peasant wisdom that Hesiod, a peasant, would write

191 Columella’s alternations of addressees are not met by the poet’s different masks, which causes a detachment between the poet and his addressee. 192 At Colum. 10.96 and 10.105 Columella, for instance, addresses a second person plural; at 10.140 a first person plural; 10.163 date is in sharp contrast with the individual addressee of tu at 10.165. Columella also addresses mythological characters (e.g., 10.172 Cinyreia uirgo and 10.224 Delie te Paean). See also the apostrophe to uiri (10.159).

244 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

for other peasants, in the memorisable form of maxims for daily usage. However, whether we wish to accept the hypothesis of the Works and Days as a genuinely instructional poem or not, a question to bear in mind is whether Hesiod’ statements have anything of value to impart.¹⁹³ If Parmenides’ unique didactic patterns seem to lose most of the performative value characteristic of Hesiod’s Works and Days, where Perses’ negative example encourages a positive reaction in the readers, inviting them to detach from their negative model, Empedocles follows the Hesiodic example more faithfully.¹⁹⁴ No reaction is expected from Aratus’ audience, nor from Nicander’s and Oppian’s. Their reader mainly identifies with the elite of their time,¹⁹⁵ someone who would appreciate their multi-layered erudition without necessarily engaging directly with their lesson. Even if Nicander’s generalising “you” is directed at fellow doctors, “it is in their capacity as connoisseurs of literature, not as physicians, that they are addressed.”¹⁹⁶ The performative value of these poems is therefore limited to a personal reading, which only allows a full appreciation of their stylistic refinements: knowledge for knowledge’s sake is the message they seem to convey.¹⁹⁷ Lucretius’ Memmius offers the reader a counter-model, similar to Perses’ case in the Works and Days. Despite the intellectual development in the envisaged audience, we cannot determine whether their mental alertness and resulting progress are replicated by the beneficiaries of the work, as we lack evidence of Lucretius’ proselytism in Rome. Lucretius’ confidence in his imaginary pupil’s accomplishments might suggest both an attempt to convince his readers of their success¹⁹⁸ and a difference between the two – envisaged and actual – audiences. Lucretius might shape the former differently from his readers in order to manipulate them and conform them to the ideal model portrayed. More generally, offering to his real audience a model of a successful didactic process reflects the teacher’s confidence in his method, when delivered to an attentive disciple. The main, if not the sole, performative value that we can hypothesise for the Georgics is identifiable with the public readings in front of Augustus. Although he

193 See Stoddard (2004, 33). 194 The fragmentary condition of his work does not allow a comprehensive discussion of the reader’s performance. 195 Aratus belongs to that very elite; cf. Bing (1993, 100). Instances of inclusive discourse in the Phaenomena are Arat. 297, 768–72, and 1101–3. Cf. also Nic. Th. 309–19, 566–71, and 759–68 for references to the environment of Alexandria. 196 Overduin (2014, 43). 197 Cf. Jacques (1960) and Bing (1990) on Aratus’ acrostics and puns. 198 Marković (2008) does not put much weight on the different identities of Lucretius’ envisaged and real audience.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

245

was aiming at restoring interest in Italian agriculture, “no Roman farmer would have read the poem for practical instruction when Varro’s Res Rusticae was available; had he done so, moreover, his success would have been limited, for Vergil is extremely selective with his precepts.”¹⁹⁹ Ovid’s love poems “were not intended as a practical guide to ensnaring the opposite sex, any more than Vergil really intended his Georgics to be a practical handbook of farming.”²⁰⁰ Ovid himself admits (Ov. trist. 2.471) that the Ars ought to be treated as entertainment and that his love works are played in December (Ov. trist. 2.491) being “parlour games for winter for writer and reader alike.”²⁰¹ The way of un-teaching in the Remedia produces a unique detachment between the intra-textual and extra-textual addressee, as exemplified by the “paradoxical divinity,” at 549–78, Lethaeus Amor.²⁰² It personifies “the place held by memory and forgetting in the poem as a whole,” stressing that “even were it possible for the doctus amator to ‘unlearn’ (dediscere) love, it is the characteristic of the doctus lector that s/he does not, cannot, forget what has been read before,” thus undermining the performative value of the entire didactic discourse. Besides, “Ovid well knows that to continue to speak of love – even if only to repeat that it is over and that one is no longer in love – means continuing to dwell in the world of desire.”²⁰³ Equally, his warning to the readers against love poetry (Ov. rem. 756–8), after an earnest self-defence (357–98) explaining his enthusiasm for love poetry and the reader’s joy,²⁰⁴ clashes both with the action the audience is engaged with and impinges upon the implementation of the teachings. The overlap between Manilius’ intra-textual and extra-textual addressee is noteworthy. Volk (2009, 180) argues that “the readers of Manilius . . . wanted to . . . learn something (not everything) about the stars, without having any intention of putting what they learned into action.” Although the astronomical calculations we learn about are not primarily conceived for measuring the skies, they serve a deeper aim, and it is on this that both addressees grow in the learning process: a mature awareness of the cosmic divine order, according to the tenets of Stoic philosophy.

199 Thomas (1988a, 4). 200 Binns (1973, 85). 201 Toohey (1996, 167). Although Ovid claims he wrote the Medicamina to teach about those paints that will make women beautiful (Ov. ars 3.205–8), their practical use is doubtful. See Toohey (1996). A similar taste for the display of erudition emerges from Ovid’s fragmentary Halieutica, cf. Wilkinson (1955) and de Saint-Denis (1975). 202 Cf. Hardie (2006, 167–8). 203 Rosati (2006, 164). 204 On the relationship between form and content in the Remedia, see Brunelle (2001).

246 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Did Grattius intend to write a hunting manual? We understand that hunting was a widely practiced activity by the Roman elite in the 1st century AD.²⁰⁵ The Cynegetica is, therefore, mainly aimed to please such an audience by celebrating this popular leisure activity.²⁰⁶ The survey of the performative value in the most interesting cases of didactic poetry allows us to draw some important conclusions. The Hellenistic fashion of writing didactic poetry seems to clash with any form of progress, moral or intellectual, on the addressee’s side, being mostly concerned with the display of erudition, and with the delivery of list-like prescriptions in the guise of technical manuals. It is in fact with philosophical-related contents that a more active reaction from the addressee finds space, as they either espouse or shrink from the doctrine received. It is the poet’s belief in a certain worldview that guarantees a successful outcome of the lesson and any concrete attempt towards the creed that the addressee might undertake. While the performance of epic poetry was mainly, if not only, limited to the oral performance of the bards, didactic poetry adds another dimension to the performative value: communal educational dynamics tie together internal addressee and readers, who are not separate, but rather act and/or counter-act simultaneously in the plot.

10 Repetitions in epic and didactic hexameter poetry Homeric repetitions are frequent and unmistakeable, and appear in many different forms: individual words in identical line position, names or nouns with modifiers or modifying expressions, individual verses, multiple verses, and situations, or narratives using similar language.²⁰⁷ These repetitions were a source of bewilderment to scholars until Milman Parry in the 1920s and 1930s explained them with the oral composition of the Homeric epics.²⁰⁸ Putting aside the debate about oral composition, repetitions of various kinds in literary texts have long been viewed as a technical necessity of composition, and consequently have been little considered in terms of their literary and rhetorical merit. In didactic poetry, too, a range of

205 Cf. Hor. epist. 1.18.49–50 and Green (1996). 206 Grattius himself likely belonged to that elite; see Fanti (2018). 207 Cf. Clark (2004, 117–18). Hesiod also repeats himself, though not as frequently. According to Notopoulos (1960, 80) Homer repeats 33% and Hesiod 23%. Edwards (1971, 40–2), however, questions the validity of Notopoulos’ method and figures. 208 Cf. Parry (1971) and Clark (2004, 118–19) for a useful summary. See also Bakker in this volume.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

247

repetition-strategies may be observed. This relationship between the structural forms of didactic and epic warrants further exploration. Owing to limitations of space, our discussion is limited to a few important case studies of what is arguably the most fundamental and striking of relationships between the authors of didactic and epic hexameter genres: Lucretius and Vergil. This may reveal some of the idiosyncrasies of particular texts or authors (such as the ‘Homeric’ multi-linear repetition in Lucretius), but the selected examples are illustrative of the types of shared and divergent features of the hexameter genres of didactic and epic.²⁰⁹ This part of the chapter first explores the ways in which Homeric epic formulas have been used in later didactic poetry, finding a common function, but also suggesting that in didactic poetry, formulas have taken on a clearly didactic and even rhetorical role. The discussion moves on to an analysis of the ways in which type-scenes are verbally signposted in both epic and didactic poetry and explores what effect signposting has on the audience. Finally, attention is paid to broader structural connections between epic and didactic poetry. This includes exploration of the influence of epic on didactic and vice versa.

10.1 Didactic-epic formulas Studies of epic formulas have a rich history; formulas form the basis for Parry’s monumental work on the oral composition of the Homeric epics.²¹⁰ It is generally accepted that a formula is repeated and that it conveys something essential or common.²¹¹ Didactic poems also, unsurprisingly, make use of formulas and exhibit formulaic language. The opening of Lucretius’ controversial and influential didactic poem, De rerum natura, famously begins with a line redolent of an epic formula (Lucr. 1.1 Aeneadum genetrix hominum diuomque uoluptas, “Mother of Aeneas and his race, darling of men and gods”). Signalling to the reader that they are reading an epic, the line echoes Ennius, whose variations of the formula include diuomque hominumque pater, rex (Enn. ann. 591) and the closely related patrem diuumque hominumque

209 For the different kinds of repetition in Lucretius, see Deutsch (1939), Ingalls (1971, 227), and Buglass (2015). 210 Cf. Parry’s (1971, 13) much-quoted definition of a Homeric formula: “an expression regularly used, under the same metrical conditions, to express an essential idea.” 211 See also Hainsworth (1968, 33–9), who defines a formula as a repeated word-group, Ingalls (1972), Edwards (1987, 45–54, esp. 51), who talks about the repetition of formulas as giving “stability” and reassurance to an audience “by their familiarity”, and Visser (1999, 376). Edwards (1987, 51) claims that formulas do not necessarily indicate a connection in narrative, tone, or intention.

248 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

(592).²¹² These are apparently direct translations of Homer’s πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε (Hom. Il. 1.554); even -que . . . -que . . . echoes the Homeric τε . . . τε.²¹³ There is also the (looser) verse diuom pater atque hominum rex at Enn. ann. 6.203 Skutsch.²¹⁴ Vergil also recycles these three Ennian fragments in the Aeneid. It is possible that Vergil is alluding not (only) to Ennius, but also to Lucretius:

175

Verg. Aen. 10.174–6 insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis. tertius ille h o m i n u m d i u u m q u e interpres Asilas, cui pecudum fibrae, c a e l i cui sidera parent . . . an island rich in the Chalybes’ inexhaustible mines. Third comes Asilas, famous interpreter between gods and men, whom the victims’ entrails obey, and the stars of heaven . . . Lucr. 1.1–2 Aeneadum genetrix, h o m i n u m d i u o m q u e uoluptas alma Venus, c a e l i subter labentia signa Mother of Aeneas and his race, darling of men and gods, nurturing Venus, who beneath the smooth-moving heavenly signs . . .

The passage from the Aeneid refers to an interpreter hominum diuumque called Asilas, who reads the entrails as well as the stars. Lucretius, meanwhile, in Book 1 addresses Venus, the delight hominum diuumque, in his famous hymn, but this is followed by the paradoxical assertion of the gods’ disinterest in human affairs at Lucr. 1.44–6, and we cannot and should not take the hymn as straightforward. In Book 6 the formula is repeated when Lucretius asks the Muse Calliope to show him the way (6.92–5),²¹⁵ but this comes after a similar statement of the gods’ indifference (6.68–78), and directly before a statement of the importance of understanding the ratio caeli (6.80–91). It appears for a moment as if Lucretius buys into traditional ideas, signalled by the formula, but he subsequently corrects the reader’s momentary assumption. In this case, the content, but also the repetitions and formulas themselves are suggestive of the epic tradition and its values. However, in the

212 For these fragments, cf. Skutsch (1985, 111–12) and the section entitled sedis incertae annalium. See also Skutsch (1985, 730) on whether 591 and 592 are in fact separate fragments, contra Elliot (2008, 242–3), who views Ennius as repetitive in this case. There are inherent difficulties in discussing repetitions and formulas in fragmentary texts. 213 Cf. Hom. Il. 4.68, 5.426, 8.49, 8.132, 11.182, 15.12, 15.47, 16.458, 20.56, 22.167, 24.103, Hom. Od. 1.28, 12.445, and 18.137. There are four times as many occurrences of the formula in the Iliad as in the Odyssey. Cf. Hes. Th. 47 Ζῆνα θεῶν πατέρ’ ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν, “Zeus, the father of gods and of men.” See also Elliot (2008, 250). 214 For further connections between Lucretius, Ennius, and Homer, see West (1969, 30–4). 215 Cf. also Iuv. 13.31.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

249

De rerum natura, such obsequiousness to the gods can also be a foil for rational explanation and even anti-religious argument. Elliot (2008) argues that Vergil often appropriates Homeric formulas in the Aeneid via Ennius’ text rather than directly through Homer;²¹⁶ however, it seems right to insert Lucretius into the equation: Lucretian repetition and formularity are also emulated or Vergil is at the least aware of Lucretius’ use of the traditional formula. Not only are early epic texts exhibiting a degree of formularity which influences later epic texts, but didactic texts, such as Lucretius’ De rerum natura, exhibit the same formularity,²¹⁷ and can likewise influence an epic poem, such as the Aeneid. A similar phenomenon can be observed in the Georgics: Vergil takes the half verse simulacra modis pallentia miris (“similitudes . . . pallid in wondrous wise”) from Lucr. 1.123 and uses [simulacra] modis [pallentia] miris twice in the Georgics: a direct echo of Lucr. 1.123 at Verg. georg. 1.477 and a modified version (uisenda modis animalia miris, “creatures of wondrous wise to view”) at 4.309.²¹⁸ It is subsequently used four times in the Aeneid. Lucretius uses the line to paraphrase Ennius’ (lost) description of the simulacra of human bodies and souls that dwell in Acheron (Lucr. 1.116–23).²¹⁹ This paraphrase of Ennius’ writing is explicitly named by Lucretius as an example of ignorance as to the nature of the soul (1.112). Although versions of the phrase recur in Lucretius in different forms, it is in the Georgics, with uerbatim repetition and later adaptation of Lucr. 1.123, that [simulacra] modis [pallentia] miris becomes a formula.²²⁰ The half verse occurs in Lucretius 19 times aside from the instance at 1.123 in a related, but different, form: (multa) modis multis.²²¹ In almost every instance, Lucretius is explaining or describing certain natural phenomena, which are, in the end, caused by atoms and their interactions (e.g. 2.116, 4.128, and 4.861). These

216 See Elliot (2008, 242–8). We do not restrict ourselves to this view. 217 Manilius displays a (quasi-) formulaic (and sometimes Lucretian) language of his own, such as moenia mundi, praecordia mundi, lumine mundi, inania mundi, nomina signis, semina rebus, and lumina terrae. 218 The formula does not appear to have its origin in Greek epic-didactic poetry. Commentaries make no mention of a potential Homeric parallel; for Horsfall (2013, II, on Verg. Aen. 6.738), the expression modis . . . miris is “part of the traditional language of high poetry rather than a recognisable debt to a given author.” 219 Lucr. 1.124–6 goes on to summarise Ennius’ description of Homer’s ghost appearing to him. At 1.120 Lucretius quotes Enn. scaen. 107 with Acherusia templa. See also Brown (1984) on Lucr. 1.122. 220 Cf. Finkmann on necromancies in volume II.2. 221 The phrase is reminiscent of multis sum modis circumuentus, morbo exilio atque inopia in Enn. trag. 16. Cf. Skutsch (1985, 155).

250 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

uses of the phrase are linked both verbally and argumentatively with the simulacra modis pallentia miris of Lucr. 1.123. The line refers to mythical ghosts, after all, and the reader requires understanding of the nature of atoms – often explained using the related phrase (multa) modis multis – to overcome fear caused by belief in such myths. The formula’s first instance in the Georgics occurs where, in a line ending identical to Lucretius’ introduction of the formula, Vergil recounts the horrific omens which occurred on the day Caesar died, including the eclipse (Verg. georg. 1.466–97); the formulaic line describes ghosts of strange pallor which wandered in the darkness (1.477). The second instance appears at the beginning of the Bougonia exposition in Georgics 4, in which the author explains how to create a new stock of bees spontaneously from the carcass of an ox: Vergil describes how the creatures, in wondrous ways, begin to swarm together (4.308–10). Vergil then reuses the formulaic verse in the Aeneid: at Verg. Aen. 1.354 Venus describes how Dido saw the pale face of her dead husband’s ghost.²²² At 6.738, in Anchises’ description of the afterlife of the poor souls who have a pestis deeply ingrained and are punished in the underworld, we have modis inolescere miris; at 7.89 when Latinus visits the oracle and he sleeps and sees ghosts, one finds multa modis simulacra uidet uolitantia miris, which is so similar to Lucr. 1.123.²²³ Finally, there is ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris at Verg. Aen. 10.822, where Lausus’ face is described as modis . . . pallentia miris when Aeneas, who killed him, watches him die with pity. An epic formula (here from Lucretius as far as we can tell) has thus become a didactic formula, and is then transferred again to epic. The epic formula is irrevocably altered once it has been used in a didactic context and with a didactic function. Formulas can signal to a reader an epic worldview, or, they can undermine a particular worldview with which a particular formula is associated. In turn, a ‘didactic’ formula like modis . . . miris can lend ambiguity to a text like the Aeneid, when it is inserted into contexts which recall epic narratives that had already been undermined by a text like De rerum natura.²²⁴ Still, the formula, when used in didactic context, recalls the oral tradition of the Homeric epics and the traditional language of earlier didactic poems such as Hesiod’s Works and Days. Lucretius uses formulas, then, in obviously ‘epic’ ways, even if his end is to undermine certain aspects of the worldview portrayed and promoted in epic poems. But he also morphs the epic formula into a different type of formula: into a direct

222 Here pallentia is replaced with attollens pallida to create coniugis ora modis attollens pallida miris. 223 Cf. Lucr. 4.127–8, 4.164–5, and 4.724–5. 224 See Giesecke (2000) for a reading of the Aeneid against Lucretius’ De rerum natura.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

251

address to his addressee such as nonne uides, nunc age.²²⁵ These (repeated) addresses to the reader have a formulaic quality to them. While the oral performance of epic poems is in need of such structuring devices as formulas and epithets, the didactic poet uses these same structuring devices which are familiar to the audience, but adapts their function so that they serve several purposes. One of the purposes served by formulaic addresses is an obviously didactic one of allowing for a quasi-dialogue with the reader of the text (see above). Apart from this, formulaic addresses also perform a function closely related to their performance in epic poetry, of dividing the text and acting as a sort of placemarker, to gain or maintain the reader’s attention.²²⁶ The phrase quod superest, for example, which may be translated variously as something like “as for the rest”, or “for what remains”, implies that Lucretius is nearing the end of some sort of section or argument.²²⁷ This is evidently also connected to rhetorical prose: one also sees in Cicero’s forensic speeches numerous and repeated addresses to his audience, including the frequent quae cum ita sint and quid enim est.²²⁸ But, such addresses also “intrude” into the universe of the reader, which can be viewed as a form of metalepsis.²²⁹ In a didactic text, a refrain (such as a repeated address to the reader) may be indicative of the author’s acute awareness of the passage of time as the addressee reads.²³⁰ This is in some respect also connected

225 Nunc age also occurs at Manil. 2.939, 3.43, 3.275, 4.585, Verg. georg. 4.149, Verg. Aen. 6.756, and 7.37, but is notably absent from Ovid’s didactic poetry. Cf. also nonne uides at Verg. georg. 1.56, 3.103, and 3.250. On these phrases in the Georgics, cf. Thomas (1988a, 4), who sees such echoes as mainly formal emulation of Lucretius. 226 Volk (2002, 76) suggests that phrases like nonne uides give structure to the poem, but also lend it an “archaic feel”. Bailey (1947, 145) notes these repeated introductory phrases as a type of repetition in his prolegomena. 227 The phrase occurs 21 times in Lucretius’ De rerum natura: Lucr. 1.50, 1.921, 2.39, 2.183, 2.491, 2.546, 3.350, 3.905, 4.195, 4.768, 4.1283, 5.64, 5.91, 5.206, 5.261, 5.772, 5.1241, 6.219, 6.423, 6.906, and 6.1000. Other repeated phrases that belong to the same group are: nunc age (seen 15 times at 1.265, 1.921, 1.953, 2.62, 2.333, 2.730, 2.417, 4.110, 4.176, 4.269, 4.673, 4.722, 6.495, 6.535, and 6.738), quare etiam atque etiam (seen 13 times at 1.295, 1.1049, 2.243, 2.377, 2.1064, 3.228, 3.576, 3.686, 4.216, 4.289, 4.856, 4.1207, and 5.821), and quoniam docui (seen 7 times at 1.265, 1.951, 2.478, 2.522, 3.31, 4.45, and 6.43). These phrases may be seen as performing either or both of the functions. Cf. Schiesaro (1987, 46–7) for the ‘formula’ iam ostendimus in Lucretius, Cicero, and Rhet. Her. 228 The former is seen in works such as Catil., Mur., S. Rosc., Verr.; the latter, e.g., in Rab. perd., Balb., Phil. 229 Genette (1980, 234–5) describing metalepsis writes that “any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe . . . or the inverse, produces an effect of strangeness that is either comical . . . or fantastic.” See also de Jong (2009, 87–116) and Whitmarsh (2013). 230 We are indebted to Karen Caines and David Konstan for an illuminating discussion on these ideas.

252 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

with rhetorical strategy. After all, Lucretius is in a constant bid to persuade his audience of the accuracy of a hypothesis that is often debatable. Cicero is fond of the phrase ut supra dixi, and one can see a connection between this and Lucretius’ quae diximus (seen in both Cicero and Lucretius, though only once in Lucretius), ut diximus (ante) (seen in both Cicero and Lucretius), ut(i) docui, and ostendimus ante.²³¹ These phrases serve as a footnote to an earlier argument. They not only draw attention to the recurring importance of previous arguments in De rerum natura, but also say something about and make the reader all the more aware of the cumulative and interconnected nature of arguments in De rerum natura: arguments are constantly built upon to make a case for something related to, or at times, more complex than, an idea already discussed. One can claim connection to epic formulas both in the origin of these formulaic addresses, but also in the idea that allusions build connections between different narratives, and so the same might be said of self-allusions, as one might term a repetitive formula.²³² One may also suppose that with these repeated addresses Lucretius is in part attempting to give the reader this same awareness of time: to break the reader out of the fictive world and to come into their own world again briefly. A structuring device like quod superest might easily draw attention to the text qua creation by an author. This momentary slip between worlds would allow the reader to apply all that they read in Lucretius’ literary, textual world, to their own world. This is, after all, Lucretius’ whole objective for the reader. The transition out of the world of De rerum natura into the reader’s world may bridge the gap between the two, and in doing so, unite the textual world with the actual world: the text may be part of the world of the reader and the reader may enter back into the world of the text, ready again to apply to their world that which they find in the text. In these ways, didactic and epic differ. Arguably formulas give an epic poem structure, just as these quasi-formulas in Lucretius do.²³³ But, the use of formulas to give an awareness of time, to intrude into the world of the audience, and certainly as a

231 quae diximus (Lucr. 4.643, Cic. fin. 5.60.6, and Cic. Tim. 7.9), ut diximus (Lucr. 2.509, Cic. inv. 1.40.10, and Cic. Cato 48.3), ut diximus ante (Lucr. 3.538, 4.73, and 4.882), uti docui (Lucr. 1.539, 2.339, 2.1050, 3.522, and 5.364), ut docui (3.458 and 3.500), ostendimus ante occurs eight times in Lucretius, seven of which appear as part of a full verse repetition: three times in id quod iam supera tibi paulo ostendimus ante (Lucr. 1.429, 1.531, and 4.672); twice in multimodis uarians, ut paulo ostendimus ante at 6.989 and 6.997; and twice in corpora sunt, quorum naturam ostendimus ante at 3.810 and 5.355. See 6.774 res ad uitai rationem ostendimus ante. 232 For the footnote function of repetitions, cf. Smith (1966, 77) as well as Ross (1975, 78) and Hinds (1998, 5) on the “Alexandrian footnote”. This type of contextual connection is comparable to Knauer’s (1964, 145–7) ‘guiding-citations’ (“Leitzitate”); cf. Farrell (2005, 103–6). On “thematic links”, see Kelly (2008, 175). 233 See, e.g., Bowra (1930, 96–7) and Hainsworth (1968, 41).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

253

direct address to the reader, and a clear sign of self-consciousness, is didactic, not epic.²³⁴

10.2 Type-scenes from epic to didactic Type-scenes have been described as “one of the most important aspects of the Homeric epics”, and continued to be a key feature of the subsequent epic tradition.²³⁵ These repeated epic structures are also a prominent element of Lucretius’ didactic verse, who is influenced heavily by Homer in this regard. For example, one might read Lucretius’ famous and sorrowful depiction of Iphigenia’s sacrifice (Lucr. 1.84–101) against the respective Homeric type-scene. Homeric repetitions can carry the same didactic and rhetorical function as repetitions in didactic poetry.²³⁶ These building blocks do not only help the epic poet structure his poem, but they can emphasise a deliberate departure from or difference to the other context(s) of the repetition and might highlight progress or change in the narrative or character development.²³⁷ It will become clear in the following examples that the didactic function of these structural elements is related to their earlier epic function. The three messenger scenes, which occur in close proximity in Iliad 24, contain signposts or markers to indicate the repeated narrative.²³⁸ The first instance shows Iris who was sent by Zeus to summon Thetis and ask her to persuade Achilles to return the body of Hector to Priam (Hom. Il. 24.83–6):

85

εὗρε δ᾿ ἐνὶ σπῆι γλαφυρῷ Θέτιν, ἀμφὶ δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἄλλαι εἵαθ᾿ ὁμηγερέες ἅλιαι θεαί· ἣ δ᾿ ἐνὶ μέσσῃς κλαῖε μόρον οὗ παιδὸς ἀμύμονος, ὅς οἱ ἔμελλε φθίσεσθ᾿ ἐν Τροίῃ ἐριβώλακι τηλόθι πάτρης.

234 On self-consciousness in didactic poetry, see Volk (2002, 12–24). 235 Clark (2004, 134). Cf. Arend (1933) and Edwards (1992). Visser (1999, 370) considers this a “repeated scene”. 236 Minchin (1999, 348) proposes that “serial repetition” helps the poet as a storyteller in addition to helping composition. 237 This is hinted at in Bowra (1930, 88), who claims the audience is “more prepared” to hear something new after a repetition during which they can rest. Research on child-language acquisition shows that repetition renders the repeated information “common ground”, which in turn creates space for new information: Clark/Bernicot (2008, esp. 350 and 368). 238 The terminology is adapted from Farrell’s (2005, 100–1) “intertextual marker” and Hinds’ (1998, 4) “signpost”.

254 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

And she found Thetis in the hollow cave, and around her other goddesses of the sea gathered together, and she in their midst was weeping for the fate of her incomparable son, who was to perish in the deep-soiled land of Troy, far from his native land.²³⁹

In the second scene Thetis visits Zeus to hear what it is that he wishes her to do (Hom. Il. 24.98–9): εὗρον δ᾿ εὐρύοπα Κρονίδην, περὶ δ᾿ ἄλλοι ἅπαντες εἵαθ᾿ ὁμηγερέες μάκαρες θεοὶ αἰὲν ἐόντες And they found the son of Cronos, whose voice resounds afar, and around him sat gathered together all the other blessed gods who are forever.

In the third passage Thetis visits Achilles by his ship to persuade him to take the ransom for Hector’s body and return it to Priam (Hom. Il. 24.123–5):

125

ἷξεν δ᾿ ἐς κλισίην οὗ υἱέος· ἔνθ᾿ ἄρα τόν γε εὗρ᾿ ἁδινὰ στενάχοντα· φίλοι δ᾿ ἀμφ᾿ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι ἐσσυμένως ἐπένοντο καὶ ἐντύνοντο ἄριστον . . . came to the hut of her son. There she found him groaning ceaselessly, and round about him his dear comrades were busily making ready their early meal.

Verbal connections draw together the different stages of the narrative at hand, the requests and the fulfilments of those requests.²⁴⁰ The aorist of εὑρίσκω occurs in the same line-initial position when each searcher finds the character they are looking for.²⁴¹ The character found is surrounded by their fellow goddesses, gods, or companions respectively.²⁴² Thetis’ task is the same throughout each instance: to persuade Achilles to give up the body of Hector. The repetitions highlight that essential information is conveyed and generate unity in the narrative; at the same time, they also draw together different parts of the same story and stress the differences between the individual stages of the narrative. In general, verbal repetitions can help the audience recall what previously occurred.²⁴³

239 All translations of Homer are taken from Murray/Wyatt (2 1999). 240 See Manil. 5.640–1 and Hübner (2011, 149–50) for the use of repetition in an outward and return journey. 241 Cf. Shewan (1923, 157) on the common Homeric practice of repeating words in the same metrical position. 242 Cf. Hom. Il. 1.326–30 and 24.166–70. The companions are either described by ἀμφὶ (as in 24.83 and 24.124) or the synonym περὶ is used (24.98). Thetis’ own description as being ἐνὶ μέσσῃς at 24.84 emphasises this further. See also Verg. georg. 4.334–5, where Aristaeus’ mother Cyrene is found, also surrounded, by nymphs. 243 Mansfeld’s (1995) idea of “insight by hindsight” is helpful: he talks of allusion in anticipation.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

255

This technique of signposting plays a crucial role in the De rerum natura. In the proem to Book 5 Lucretius discusses the mortality (that is, subjection to death) of humans and the world, in almost identical language (Lucr. 5.59–61 and 5.65–6). In Book 5 the phrase mortali corpore appears five times (5.6, 5.65, 5.238, 5.321, and 5.377): three times this phrase occurs together with the adjective natiuus (5.235–40, 5.318–21, and 5.376–9), all occurring within an argument that the world was born and will eventually die. Again, as in Homer, different parts of the same story are drawn together by verbal repetition.²⁴⁴ What is more, on a basic level, the recurrence of natiuus and mortalis emphasises to the reader not only the world’s mortal status, but also that it did indeed have a birth at one point.²⁴⁵ Lucretius builds on this kind of (perhaps subconscious) repetition, which is seen in Homer, in his particular aim to help readers in their apprenticeship to Epicureanism. Lucretius, moreover, has a more obvious need to connect the argumentative contexts and “hammer in” assertions.²⁴⁶ Irrespective of whether one accepts or not that this type of repetition in Homer is consciously meant to have some effect on the reader, it is sensible to suggest a cause-effect relationship between the repetitions or internal allusions of Homer and Lucretius, and, extrapolating from this, between those which are found in epic and the subgenre of didactic epic.²⁴⁷ One also sees multi-linear repetitions in Homer as part of a bauform: our example here pertains to the same narrative of the recovery of Hector’s body, though the action shown occurs at different stages of the narrative. When Hecuba attempts to dissuade Priam from going to Achilles, she says that he has a “heart of steel” (σιδήρειόν νύ τοι ἦτορ). The phrase occurs as part of a multi-linear passage that will be repeated later in the book: Hom. Il. 24.203–5 = 24.519–21. Meanwhile, when Priam visits Achilles to recover Hector’s body, Achilles also tells Priam that his heart is made of steel, but here the meaning of the phrase σιδήρειόν . . . ἦτορ is clearly about bravery and not “hard-heartedness” or unfeeling behaviour.²⁴⁸ An identical repetition, not only of the phrase, but also of the multi-linear passage is

244 Note the repetition of constare and the identical word position of mortale corpus. 245 See, for example, Bailey (1947, 162–3). 246 For the idea of emphatic “hammering home” through repetition, see Bailey (1947, 162). Cf. Classen (1968, 98–9) and Deutsch (1939, 21 and 97–120). It is important to recognise that didactic poetry is arguably not usually seeking to teach what it professes to teach; see Volk (2009, 175–82). Classen (1968, 98–9) points out the rhetorical nature of emphatic repetition. 247 See Hübner (2011, 149–50). Volk (2009, 183) explains the inevitability of the interaction by those writing in hexameters with all those who have done so before, and the intentional imitatio and aemulatio. 248 Cf. the English expression “nerves of steel”. See Brügger (2009, on Hom. Il. 24.205), who notes the duplication of the verses and of σιδήρειόν . . . ἦτορ with different meaning: “zwei – nicht immer

256 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

therefore used to highlight the difference in perception:²⁴⁹ to Hecuba, her husband is immovable, stubborn, and hard; to Achilles, he is courageous and unrelenting. Hecuba resents these qualities, while Achilles admires them.²⁵⁰ Instances of multi-linear repetition in didactic poetry as a whole are not altogether common.²⁵¹ But there is a preponderance of it in Lucretius. Multi-linear repetition is used to connect different parts of the De rerum natura, to emphasise argumentative links and shared essential elements, while at the same time allowing the reader to detect a difference between the two (or more) uses of the passage. For example, Books 3 and 5 are connected in subject matter and by a repetition of 13 verses.²⁵² The passages are almost identical and assert the inevitable death of the human soul and the world respectively.²⁵³ Given the close connection between arguments, if the reader found the arguments in Book 3 for the mortality of the soul compelling, they would probably also find the arguments in Book 5 for the mortality of the world persuasive. As with the Homeric example, the separation of the two arguments by thousands of verses would not likely be an obstacle to the reader’s detection of the repetition: the lengthy duplication would trigger the memory of the reader.²⁵⁴ Lucretius uses the same strategy as in the Iliad to connect different parts of a ‘narrative’: here, one argument stated in two different contexts scharf voneinander zu unterscheidende – Sinnrichtungen”: “ausdauernde Stärke: ‘unermüdlich, beharrlich’” and “unerbittliche Gefühllosigkeit: ‘hartherzig, erbarmungslos’”. Brügger’s first meaning is not quite the “bravery” we suggest for 24.521; his suggestion “unerschütterlich” in the same note as a meaning for the phrase at 24.521 comes closer. Richardson (1993, on Hom. Il. 24.519–21) notes the verbal duplication but not the difference in perspective. On 24.203–5 he notes the repetition of σιδήρειόν . . . ἦτορ. Alden (2000, 311–18) provides an illuminating appendix on women entreating their husbands, but does not mention this repetition and the connection to Hecuba’s entreaty when discussing Priam’s mission. 249 For corrective allusions, cf. Thomas (1986, 188); on Manilius’ correction of Vergil, see Volk (2009, 185–6). 250 For more connections between Priam and Achilles, see Buxton (2004, 154–5). From the difference in how Hecuba and Achilles view Priam one could extrapolate ways in which the audience is meant to view Priam. 251 For example, the ‘father’ of didactic poetry, Hesiod prefers polyptota and small-scale repetition in general, though he does repeat whole verses at times. Neither Manilius’ nor Ovid’s didactic poetry is particularly repetitive. On repetition in poetry more broadly, see Wills (1996). 252 Lucr. 3.806–18 = 5.351–63 (but at 5.362 read qui for quis and dissiliant for diffugiant). It has been suggested that the passage in Book 3 has been incorporated into the text from a marginal note by a later hand. Lachmann (1850) deletes the verses; with Martin (1969) and others we retain the passage in both places. 253 Cf. Bailey (1947, 163–5). Bailey is on the whole concerned with which passage was written first (e.g. 165). 254 The reader has already seen a connection between the body of man and the body of the world through multi-linear repetition (Lucr. 3.784–97 and 5.128–41); the reader is therefore likely

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

257

so that it applies to bodies on two different scales. This is just one of many cases in which a continuation from epic to didactic can be determined in the use of repetition as a connecting structural device.

10.3 Further epic and didactic interactions 10.3.1 Bees The importance of the simile as an epic building block has long been established and is discussed in great detail by Ursula Gärtner and Karen Blaschka in this volume.²⁵⁵ Among the many different functions of similes in the epic plot are the creation of a pause in the narrative²⁵⁶ and the possibility for the poet to include ‘unepic’ material within an epic poem.²⁵⁷ The latter aspect applies no less to Vergil’s didactic epic, the Georgics. The bees of Georgics 4 are an apt illustration of interactions between the similes of epic and the similes of didactic poetry.²⁵⁸ The connection between the bees and human society has been suggested by many,²⁵⁹ and while aspects of Vergil’s bees are inherited from the heroic similes of Homer (esp. the bees of Hom. Il. 2.85–92),²⁶⁰ the didactic elements of Vergil’s description

to be more perceptive to the connection by 5.351. This argument is even more convincing if one considers Schiesaro’s (1994) theory that Lucretius’ De rerum natura was intended to be re-read, and the idea that epics were not heard only once. 255 See also Buxton (2004, 139–55). Farrell (1991, 240) tellingly assimilates the simile with epic style in general. Schindler (2000) provides an important study of the didactic simile, investigating the similes of Lucretius, Manilius, and Vergil. 256 Minchin (2001, 160) talks of “prolonging the pleasure of a selected narrative moment . . . for its listening audience.” On the question of similes and their relation to the narrative, see Edwards (1991, 30–4) and Buxton (2004, 141–2). 257 If one looks at the famous simile depicting Achilles’ battle with the river Scamander (Hom. Il. 21.257–64), one can easily detect a technical agricultural description. On the reception of the simile, see Richardson (1993); on river battles as a bauform of ancient epic, see Biggs in volume II.1. This passage is later echoed in the Georgics (Verg. georg. 1.104–10), but while the formerly epic simile becomes technical again, it retains its epic flavour. Cf. Thomas (1988a, 26–7) on the importance of similes and vignettes in the Georgics; see also Thomas (1988a) and Mynors (1990) on Verg. georg. 1.104–10. 258 See Farrell (1991, 239–53) for a masterful analysis of Vergil’s “Homeric program”. 259 See, for example, Griffin (1979, 62–3), Putnam (1979, 237), and Thomas (1982, 70–84). For the equivalence in Vergil’s inherited tradition, see Varro rust. 3.16.6 haec ut hominum ciuitates, quod hic est rex et imperium et societas (“Their commonwealth is like the states of men, for here are king, government, and fellowship”.). This translation of Varro is taken from Hooper (1935). 260 The bees of the Georgics are rich with Homerisms. Knauer (1981, 895) points out the striking number of similes in this part of the Georgics: six compared with seven in Books 1–3, and only

258 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

of the bees are inspired by a technical prose tradition which includes Varro²⁶¹ and perhaps the lost poem by Nicander.²⁶² Vergil takes an animal motif from epic poetry (itself cross-generic) and inserts it into his didactic poem, but he also portrays his bees as martial (Verg. georg. 4.67–98) and therefore in many ways epic. Putnam describes the bees as changing “from instinctive lovers of flowers to preternatural warriors.”²⁶³ As formal structures similes provide an opportunity for the author to include material which is not necessarily common to or representative of the genre in which he writes. There is a pause in time in which the epic poet need not be epic: he can “build up a picture of the world outside.”²⁶⁴ He can bring the everyday, agricultural world into the world of war.²⁶⁵ Likewise, one finds the same function in didactic poetry: Vergil’s bees allow him to include an epic world in the rustic universe he has created in his Georgics. Homer’s rural universe, by comparison, is not a peaceful one, as Buxton is keen to emphasise, but this is also a connecting theme between the epic and didactic forms: the Georgics, after all, portray images of violence between man and nature in both directions.²⁶⁶ To this one might compare Iliadic similes, which have been described as “depicting mankind in a losing struggle with nature.”²⁶⁷ Conversely, in the Georgics, man is often the victor. The bees of Georgics 4 also become the bees of the Aeneid. Again, the bees are a clear metaphor for human society: in Aeneid 1 the busy bees are the Carthaginians raising the city (Verg. Aen. 1.418–40).²⁶⁸ Vergil has transferred the epic simile to his didactic poem in the Georgics, subsequently bringing it into the epic Aeneid.²⁶⁹ The animal simile is arguably apt for this kind of transferral and generic interplay, given its mixed-genre heritage. The association of bees with poets perhaps makes it all the more inevitable that Vergil would consciously use this metaphor rich with

four in the Aristaeus episode. Cf. Fränkel (1921, 16–25) and Farrell (1991, 239–41). Cf. Hom. h. Merc. 4.533 for “bee-maidens” and Vergados (2013). 261 See Thomas (1988a, 8–11). 262 Farrell (1991, 239) emphasises the speculative nature of the connection to Nicander. 263 Putnam (1979, 246). Cf. Thomas (1988b, on 67–87). 264 Buxton (2004, 151–2). 265 See again Buxton (2004, 153): “the parallel world of the similes offers alternatives, a set of possibilities on which to gaze if the traumas of the battlefield become overwhelming.” 266 See, e.g., Putnam (1979, 26, 34–5, and 55–6), Thomas (1988a, 19–20), and Morgan (1999, 162–3). 267 Edwards (1991, 35). 268 Cf. Hardie (2009, 163). On the distinction between simile and metaphor, see Buxton (2004, 139–40). 269 See Thomas (1988a, 5 n. 15).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

259

associations of poetry.²⁷⁰ And yet Vergil chooses to make the bees of the Georgics entirely unpoetic.²⁷¹ The reappearance of the artless bees in one of the earliest similes of Vergil’s magnum opus is perhaps suggestive of Vergil’s conception of the Aeneid as a continuation of his undertaking in the Georgics. The song of the didactic poet Iopas (Verg. Aen. 1.740–6), at the close of Aeneid 1 before Aeneas is urged to tell his tale, and therefore before Aeneas’ personal Aeneid, is surely representative of this progression from didactic to epic.²⁷²

10.3.2 Teichoscopy Teichoscopy, the act of viewing the action from high walls, is another classic structure of epic poetry (for instance, at Hom. Il. 3.121–244).²⁷³ Lucretius takes this motif, which allows the viewing character special knowledge or insight, and transforms it into a metaphor for the limits of knowledge. He draws attention to the teichoscopy trope with repeated uses of the phrase moenia mundi. In Book 1 Epicurus is characterised as a general on a “foraging expedition”.²⁷⁴ The language is undoubtedly military: humanity lies prostrate under the rule of religio and Epicurus is first to dare to resist the enemy (Lucr. 1.66–7).²⁷⁵ West draws out the aforementioned metaphor for limits of knowledge in his discussion of the narrow bars of the gates at 1.70–1: “it is wonderfully suggestive of the narrow confines of man’s understanding before Epicurus enlarged it . . . he puts human limitations into correspondence with bolts.”²⁷⁶ The military context with which the phrase moenia

270 See Griffin (1979, 64 and 78 n. 18) for an anthology of evidence. 271 Cf. Griffin (1979, 64) and Ross (1987, 189–90). Griffin (1979, 64–8) reads this as a preliminary grappling with his imminent undertaking of the epic Aeneid, connecting the “apoetical” society of the bees in the Georgics and their recurrence in the Aeneid with the “traditional Roman state, in its impersonal and collective character.” 272 Even if one views the song of Iopas as Lucretius’ De rerum natura, one can still interpret it as a connection to and progression from a great didactic epic to a great epic. On Iopas, see Kinsey (1979), Segal (1971), and Segal (1981). 273 See Fucecchi in volume II.1 for a detailed discussion of teichoscopies in ancient epic. 274 Cf. Davies (1931) for the passage as a military triumph, which West (1969, 59–60) successfully refutes. 275 The repetition of contra, the use of obsistere, peruicit, extra moenia processit, the flammantia moenia, refert nobis uictor, and the final couplet of the section (Lucr. 1.78–9 quare religio pedibus subiecta uicissim / obteritur, nos exaequat uictoria caelo) all contribute to the militaristic image. 276 West (1969, 61).

260 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

mundi is associated early in the poem and the reference to walls themselves suggest to me that it is not unlikely that Lucretius had the epic teichoscopy in mind.²⁷⁷ In one sense the phrase moenia mundi is reused in the De rerum natura in precisely the same context: knowledge is used to disturb or traverse the “walls of the world” (i.e. the boundaries of current understanding). But Lucretius also alters the sense to a degree: whereas in Book 1 it is the general Epicurus who “proceeds far beyond” the moenia (1.72–3), by Book 5 one sees eos . . . qui, “those who . . . disturb” them (5.118–19). The change of verb from one mention of the moenia to another signifies that by Book 5, the notion of the challenge to the status quo is strengthened: Lucretius no longer discusses someone who “proceeds far beyond” the walls (1.72–3): now he disturbs them (5.119 qui ratione sua disturbent moenia mundi, “who with their reasoning shake the walls of the world”).²⁷⁸ At the start of the De rerum natura one sees a wish to “break” the gates’ bolts in order to go beyond the moenia; but towards the end of the poem the moenia are actually being disturbed, even destroyed. Even if the moenia mundi of Book 1 do not in isolation definitively indicate a teichoscopy, there are more connections to the tradition of this epic structure. The proem to Book 3, an eulogy to Epicurus, includes a passage that is inescapably reminiscent of the trope of viewing from the walls (3.14–17): the narrator describes his own vision of the universe (3.17 totum uideo per inane geri res) in a translation of Hom. Od. 6.41–5.²⁷⁹ The reference to vision with moenia mundi (in addition to the metaphorical meaning we have already observed) is further suggestive of the continuation of the epic trope. Lucretius describes how Epicurus’ reasoning gives voice to the nature of the world, natura rerum, and the walls of the world “open out” (discedunt, Lucr. 3.17). Instead of a view of a battle or destruction, Lucretius sees geri res: the events in the universe. He observes the diuum numen sedesque quietae, which are never disturbed (3.18–22). The gods of Homer have been made Epicurean; the narrator understands the peaceful nature of the gods. The passage ends with a description (3.28–30) of the narrator’s pleasure and awe at how thoroughly natura has been shown and revealed to him (3.29b–30 quod sic natura tua ui / tam manifesta patens ex omni parte retecta est, „because nature thus by your power has been so manifestly laid open and uncovered in every part“). This particular instance of moenia mundi affects the other instances of the phrase. Connections are built in the reader’s mind between the contexts associated with

277 Giesecke (2000, 63) views the passage as showing Lucretius’ harnessing of heroic epic. 278 There is a strong connection between effringere ut . . . cupiret at Lucr. 1.70–1 and the use of disturbent at 5.119. 279 Noted by Bailey (1947). See also West (1969, 31–3). For the passage as relating to Vergil’s Eclogue 5, see Mizera (1986, 367–8) and Giesecke (2000, 52–3).

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

261

the repeated phrase. So the moenia mundi become a metaphor for an obstacle to a complete understanding of the nature of things and the nature of the divine. Lucretius’ use of this structural element is later taken up by Vergil in the Aeneid.²⁸⁰ Vergil evidently saw Lucretius’ vivid descriptions of the moenia mundi as a sort of teichoscopy, connecting them with his own version of this structure. In Aeneid 2, Aeneas climbs to the roof of Priam’s palace, where he sees overwhelming panic and chaos as Troy falls and he watches Pyrrhus killing the aged King Priam (Verg. Aen. 2.458–566). Aeneas then has a vision of his father’s death, his sad wife, the fall of his house, and his son’s fate. Notwithstanding the much-disputed Helen episode at 2.566–87, soon thereafter, Aeneas’ mother Venus appears, explaining that the fall of Troy is not caused by human action, but by divine intervention (2.601–3): non tibi Tyndaridis facies inuisa Lacaenae culpatusue Paris, diuum inclementia, diuum has euertit opes sternitque a culmine Troiam. Know that it is not the hated face of the Laconian woman, daughter of Tyndareus, it is not Paris that is to blame; but the gods, the relentless gods, overturn this wealth and make Troy topple from her pinnacle.

What follows is a striking allusion to the Lucretian teichoscopy in Book 3, where the moenia mundi have been opened to reveal the true nature of the world. Venus describes a cloud dulling Aeneas’ human vision and offers to remove it so that his mortal vision will no longer be dimmed (Verg. Aen. 2.604–7). She also shows him the Olympian gods controlling the universe (2.608–18). It is striking that, completely unlike the Lucretian (and Homeric) vision of peaceful numina, the true nature of the world revealed to Aeneas is dominated by divine anger and hate: Juno is saeuissima and furens (2.610–11), and the gods are shown as being hostile to Troy (2.622–3a apparent dirae facies inimicaque Troiae / numina magna deum). To this language at 2.622–3 we ought to compare Lucr. 3.18 apparet diuum numen sedesque quietae, “before me appear the gods in their majesty, and their peaceful abodes.”²⁸¹ Aeneas then describes his vision of the fall of Troy (Verg. Aen. 2.624–31). Vergil’s teichoscopy is more than a viewing of action from walls: it opens Aeneas up to visions beyond this world. In this respect, the Lucretian, didactic metaphor of the moenia, representative of worldly understanding, has been transferred to the universe of the Aeneid: Aeneas now possesses knowledge beyond that of other mortals and sees things others do not see. Didactic poetry has thus taken

280 On the influence of Lucretian “visions” on Vergil, see Hardie (2009, 153–79, esp. 165–7). 281 Cf. Bailey (1947) and Hardie’s (2009, 168–9) brief but illuminating discussion.

262 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

the tradition of this popular scene from epic poetry, but Vergil in turn has been influenced by Lucretius’ manipulation of the teichoscopy for his Epicurean purposes. Didactic has therefore arguably extended the meaning of the Vergilian teichoscopy scene: once the De rerum natura was written, the epic landscape cannot really be the same.

10.3.3 Ghosts Another example of the ways in which epic affects didactic and vice versa is in scenes of communication with the dead.²⁸² Ghosts are a stock feature of epic poetry: for example, in the underworld Odysseus sees the ghost of his dead mother, and, after her speech tries to embrace her three times in vain (Hom. Od. 11.204–8); Creusa’s ghost similarly appears to Aeneas (Verg. Aen. 2.774–94), and she, too, after her speech, three times eludes his grasp (2.790–4). 790

h a e c u b i d i c t a d e d i t, lacrimantem et multa uolentem dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras. t e r conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; t e r frustra comprensa m a n u s e f f u g i t imago, p a r l e u i b u s u e n t i s u o l u c r i q u e s i m i l l i m a s o m n o. When thus she had spoken, she left me weeping and eager to tell her much, and drew back into thin air. Thrice there I strove to throw my arms about her neck; thrice the form, vainly clasped, fled from my hands, even as light winds, and most like a winged dream.

Lines 2.792–4 are repeated at 6.700–2 where Aeneas meets his father’s shade. The scenes in the Aeneid clearly allude to Hom. Od. 11.204–8a:

205

ὣς ἔφατ᾿, αὐτὰρ ἐγώ γ᾿ ἔθελον φρεσὶ μερμηρίξας μητρὸς ἐμῆς ψυχὴν ἑλέειν κατατεθνηυίης. τρὶς μὲν ἐφωρμήθην, ἑλέειν τέ με θυμὸς ἀνώγει, τρὶς δέ μοι ἐκ χειρῶν σκιῇ εἴκελον ἢ καὶ ὀνείρῳ ἔπτατ᾿. So she spoke, and I wondered in my heart how I might clasp the ghost of my dead mother. Three times I sprang toward her, and my will said, “Clasp her”, and three times she flitted from my arms like a shadow or a dream.

Vergil’s earlier didactic poem, the Georgics, also features an elusive ghost. Orpheus is unable to take hold of Eurydice’s spirit after she addresses him as part of the Aristaeus episode towards the end of the fourth book (Verg. georg. 4.499–502a): 282 Cf. Finkmann and Reitz in volume II.2.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

500

263

dixit et ex oculis subito, ceu fumus i n a u r a s commixtus t e n u i s , f u g i t diuersa, neque illum p r e n s a n t e m nequiquam umbras et m u l t a u o l e n t e m d i c e r e praeterea uidit. She spoke, and straightway from his sight, like smoke mingling with thin air, vanished afar and saw him not again, as he vainly clutched at the shadows with so much left unsaid.

The language is remarkably similar to Creusa’s appearance in Verg. Aen. 2.790–4 (and by extension the Odyssey passage):²⁸³ 790

haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et m u l t a u o l e n t e m d i c e r e deseruit, t e n u i sque recessit i n a u r a s. ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra c o m p r e n s a manus e f f u g i t imago, par leuibus uentis uolucrique simillima somno.

The epic motif of the vain embrace has been transferred to didactic poetry in the Georgics. It is worth pointing out that Book 4 of the Georgics is the most “epic” of the four books, so one might expect epic structures to be found in this book in particular.²⁸⁴ There are other slightly looser versions of this trope, in both Greek epic and Latin epic and didactic: all include the ghost’s escape from a loved one’s attempted grasp.²⁸⁵ There is clearly a conscious attempt by Vergil at building a connection between Greek epic, Roman didactic, and later Roman epic. But there is another important element to the vain embrace. Before Vergil writes the Georgics or the Aeneid, Lucretius explains how the soul cannot exist without the body, and that at the point of death it disperses, and breaks down in corpora prima, and therefore cannot be grasped at all (Lucr. 3.425–44). Again, Lucretius’ didactic poetry has changed the landscape, and the ghost motif has altered in some way with it. Verg. Aen. 2.791 dicere deseruit tenuisque recessit in auras alludes to Lucr. 3.232 tenuis enim quaedam moribundos deserit aura. Lucretius’ verse comes at the beginning of the argument that the soul is made of breath, heat, air, and a fourth nameless substance (3.230–57), and describes how breath mixed with heat leaves those about to die (moribundos).²⁸⁶ This is an anti-Homeric explanation, recollecting the repeated idea of the soul leaving the dying warrior,

283 For a more detailed comparison of the scenes, see Jöne (2017). 284 On various interpretations of Georgics 4, see Griffin (1979). See also Wilkinson (1969, 129) on the suitability of the form of epyllion to end the Georgics. On epyllia, see Finkmann and Hömke in this volume. 285 Cf., for example, Hom. Il. 23.99–101. See also Austin (1964) on Verg. Aen. 2.790. 286 This is part of the explanation of the nature of the mind and spirit at Lucr. 3.94–416.

264 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

even bemoaning their fate (e.g. Patroclus’ death at Hom. Il. 16.856–7). In Homer’s world the soul exists outside of the body and is even capable of consciousness and speech. Lucretius’ claims are striking when read against Homer, even more so when they come from the mouth of Vergil.

11 Conclusions This chapter explored the origins, points of contact, and distinctions between didactic and epic poetry. A survey of the earliest texts of instruction revealed the origins of didactic poetry, explored its development, and attempted to sketch the main features of what would later be acknowledged as the didactic genre. The analysis of ancient and modern theories about didactic poetry demonstrated that, though in different ways, most scholars recognise the existence of essential features of didactic poetry, distinct from epic, despite its clear continuity with epic poetry. The subsequent sections of the chapter analysed the structural forms of epic and didactic. A marked feature of didactic poetry is the presence of an addressee, whether named, or unnamed. This presence is closely connected to the strong voice of the poetic persona, which is particularly prominent in didactic verse. This is one of the points in which didactic and epic diverge: didactic poetry is seen to add another dimension to the performative aspects of the hexameter genres, in the continual interaction between external and internal addressee. Many interactions and continuities are evident between epic and didactic texts in the repetitions, formulas, and type-scenes so prominent in oral epic poetry. Didactic poetry incorporates structural elements, motifs, and formulas, but it adapts these epic forms to its own didactic and even rhetorical aims. This consciousness of a didactic mission presents another point of separation between epic and didactic hexameters and their structural forms. Further, didactic and epic poetry interact continuously, not only in the indisputable influence of early oral epic poetry on later epic and didactic verse, but also in the impact which didactic modifications and adaptations of existing epic structures had on later epic poetry. Undoubtedly, many questions remain as to the flexibility, continuity, and limits of the classification of the hexameter genres of epic and didactic. Through analysis of some important and illustrative examples of various structural points of contact between epic and didactic poetry, this chapter examined not only the shared ideas and concepts which are recalled and evoked by the use and adaptation of epic structures, but also the challenges and ambiguities which this adaptation can present.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

265

Bibliography Alden, M. J. (2000). Homer beside himself: para-narratives in the Iliad. Oxford. Arend, W. (1933). Die typischen Scenen bei Homer. Berlin. Asmis, E. (1982). Lucretius’ Venus and Stoic Zeus, Hermes 110: 458–70. Asmis, E. (1984). Epicurus’ scientific method. Ithaca, NY. Austin, R. G. (ed., 1964). P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber secundus. With a commentary. Oxford. Bailey, C. (1947). Titi Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex. Edited with prolegomena, critical apparatus, translation and commentary, vol. I. Oxford. Batstone, W. W. (1997). Virgilian didaxis: value and meaning in the Georgics, in: C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Virgil. Cambridge: 125–44. Bignone, E. (1945). Storia della letteratura latina, vol. II: La prosa romana sino all’età di Cesare, Lucilio, Lucrezio, Catullo. Florence. Bing, P. (1990). A pun on Aratus’ name in verse 2 of the Phaenomena, HSPh 93: 281–5. Bing, P. (1993). Aratus and his audiences, MD 31: 99–109. Binns, J. W. (ed., 1973). Ovid. London. Blümer, W. (2005). Hesiods Gedichte. Schriftlichkeit und Mündlichkeit in der archaischen griechischen Lehrdichtung, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 45–68. Bowra, C. M. (1930). Tradition and design in the Iliad. Oxford. Brown, P. M. (ed., 1984). Lucretius, De rerum natura I. Edited with introduction, commentary, and vocabulary. Bristol. Brügger, C. (ed., 2009). Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar, Band VIII: Vierundzwanzigster Gesang (Ω). Faszikel 2. Kommentar. Berlin/New York. Brunelle, C. M. (2001). Form vs. function in Ovid’s Remedia amoris, CJ 96: 123–40. Bruns, I. (1884). Lukrez-Studien. Freiburg. Buglass, A. (2015). Repetition and internal allusion in Lucretius De rerum natura. Oxford. Burkert, W. (2005). Near Eastern connections, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 291–301. Buxton, R. (2004). Similes and other likenesses, in: R. L. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Homer. Cambridge/New York: 139–55. Campbell, G. (2014). Lucretius, Empedocles and Cleanthes, in: M. Garani/D. Konstan (eds.), The philosophizing muse: the influence of Greek philosophy on Roman poetry. Cambridge: 26–60. Canevaro, L.-G. (2015). Hesiod’s Works and Days: how to teach self-sufficiency. Oxford. Clark, E. V./Bernicot, J. (2008). Repetition as ratification: how parents and children place information in common ground, Journal of Child Language 35: 349–71. Clark, M. (2004). Formulas, metre and type-scenes, in: R. L. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Homer. Cambridge/New York: 117–38. Classen, C. J. (1968). Poetry and rhetoric in Lucretius, TAPA 99: 77–118. Clay, D. (1983). Lucretius and Epicurus. Ithaca, NY. Conte, G. B. (1991). Generi e lettori: Lucrezio, l’elegia d’amore, l’enciclopedia di Plinio. Milan. Davies, H. S. (1931). Notes on Lucretius, The Criterion 11: 25–42.

266 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

De Jong, I. J. F. (2009). Metalepsis in ancient Greek literature, in: J. Grethlein/A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and interpretation. The content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin/New York: 87–115. De Saint-Denis, E. (ed., 1975). Ovide, Halieutiques. Edited with French translation and commentary in French. Paris. Deutsch, R. E. (1939). The pattern of sound in Lucretius. New York. Dieleman, J./Moyer, I. (2010). Egyptian literature, in: J. J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A companion to Hellenistic literature. Malden, MA: 429–47. Dornseiff, F. (1934). Hesiods Werke und Tage und das alte Morgenland, Philologus 89: 397–415. Duff, J. W./Duff, A. M. (eds., 1982). Minor latin poets, vol. I: Publilius Syrus. Elegies on Maecenas. Grattius. Calpurnius Siculus. Laus Pisonis. Einsiedeln Eclogues. Aetna. Edited with translation. Reprint of the revised edition. Cambridge, MA. Edwards, G. P. (1971). The language of Hesiod in its traditional context. Oxford. Edwards, M. W. (1987). Homer. Poet of the Iliad. Baltimore. Edwards, M. W. (ed., 1991). The Iliad. A commentary, vol. V: Books 17–20. Cambridge. Edwards, M. W. (1992). Homer and oral tradition: the type scene, Oral Tradition 7: 284–330. Effe, B. (1977). Dichtung und Lehre: Untersuchung zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts. Munich. Elliot, J. (2008). Ennian epic and Ennian tragedy in the language of the Aeneid: Aeneas’ generic wandering and the construction of the Latin literary past, HSPh 104: 241–72. Ercolani, A. (ed., 2010). Esiodo. Opere e giorni. Introduzione, traduzione e commento. Rome. Erren, M. (1967). Die Phainomena des Aratos von Soloi. Untersuchungen zum Sach- und Sinnverständnis. Wiesbaden. Fabian, B. (1968). Das Lehrgedicht als Problem der Poetik, in: H. R. Jauß/M. Fuhrmann (eds.), Die nicht mehr schönen Künste – Grenzphänomene des Ästhetischen. Munich: 67–89. Fairclough, H. R. (ed., 1916). Virgil, vol. I: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid. Books 1–6. Translated by H. R. Fairclough. Cambridge, MA/London. Fairclough, H. R. (ed., 1918). Virgil. Aeneid. Books 7–12. Appendix Vergiliana. Translated by H. R. Fairclough. London/Cambridge, MA. Fakas, C. (2001). Der hellenistische Hesiod. Arats Phainomena und die Tradition der antiken Lehrepik. Wiesbaden. Fanti, G. (2016). Poetic discourse in Roman didactic. Diss. Cambridge. Fanti, G. (2017). Memmius’ failure in Lucretius’ DRN, Latomus 76: 58–79. Fanti, G. (2018). Grattius’ Cynegetica: a protean poem at the heart of the Roman didactic tradition, in: S. Green (ed.), Grattius. Hunting an Augustan poet. Oxford: 61–76. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. L. (2004). Tradition and innovation in Hellenistic poetry. Cambridge. Farrell, J. (1991). Vergil’s Georgics and the traditions of ancient epic. New York. Farrell, J. (2005). Intertext and intent, Phoenix 59: 98–111. Feros Ruys, J. (ed., 2008). What nature does not teach: didactic literature in the medieval and early-modern periods. Turnhout. Fögen, T. (2003). Metasprachliche Reflexionen antiker Autoren zu den Charakteristika von Fachtexten und Fachsprachen, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Antike Fachschriftsteller. Literarischer Diskurs und sozialer Kontext. Stuttgart: 31–59. Formisano, M. (2005). Veredelte Bäume und kultivierte Texte. Lehrgedichte in technischen Prosawerken der Spätantike, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 295–312.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

267

Fowler, A. (1982). Kinds of literature: an introduction to the theory of genres and modes. Oxford. Fowler, D. P. (2000). The didactic plot, in: M. Depew/D. Obbink (eds.), Matrices of genre: authors, canons, and society. Cambridge, MA/London: 205–20. Fränkel, H. (1921). Die homerischen Gleichnisse. Göttingen. Fränkel, H. (1975). Early Greek poetry and philosophy. Translated by M. Hadas and J. Willis. Oxford. Furley, D. J. (1966). Lucretius and the Stoics, BICS 13: 13–33. Gaisford, T. (1823). Poetae minores Graeci: Scholia ad Hesiodum, 2 vols. Leipzig. Gale, M. (1994). Myth and poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge. Gale, M. (2000). Virgil on the nature of things: the Georgics, Lucretius and the didactic tradition. Cambridge. Gale, M. (2001). Lucretius and the didactic epic. London. Gale, M. (2005a). Avia pieridum loca. Tradition and innovation in Lucretius, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 173–91. Gale, M. (2005b). Lucretius, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 440–51. Gale, M. (2011). Digressions, intertextuality, and ideology in didactic poetry. The case of Manilius, in: S. J. Green/K. Volk (eds.), Forgotten stars. Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica. Oxford: 205–21. Gebhardt, E. (1961). Zur Datierungsfrage des Manilius, RhM 104: 278–86. Gee, E. (2007). Quintus Cicero’s astronomy?, CQ 57: 565–85. Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse. An essay in method. Translated by J. E. Lewin. Oxford. Giancotti, F. (1978). Il preludio di Lucrezio e altri scritti lucreziani ed epicurei. Messina. Gibson, R. (1998). Didactic poetry as popular form: a study of imperatival expressions in Latin didactic verse and prose, in: C. Atherton (ed.), Form and content in didactic poetry. Bari: 67–98. Giesecke, A. L. (2000). Atoms, ataraxy, and allusion: cross-generic imitation of the De rerum natura in early Augustan poetry. Zurich. Giussani, C. (ed., 1896). T. Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex. Revisione del testo, commento e studi introduttivi, 4 vols. Turin. Godwin, J. (ed., 1991). Lucretius, De rerum natura VI. Edited with translation and commentary. Warminster. Goold, G. P. (ed., 1977). Manilius, Astronomica. Edited with translation. Cambridge, MA. Green, C. M. C. (1996). Did the Romans hunt?, ClAnt 15: 222–60. Green, S. J. (2011). Arduum ad astra. The poetics and politics of horoscopic failure in Manilius’ Astronomica, in: S. J. Green/K. Volk (eds.), Forgotten stars. Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica. Oxford: 120–38. Griffin, J. (1979). The fourth Georgic, Virgil, and Rome, G&R 26: 61–80. Griffith, M. (1983). Personality in Hesiod, ClAnt 2: 37–65. Grilli, A. (1993). Dall’epica didascalica all’epica eroica, in: G. Reggi (ed.), Aspetti della poesia epica latina. Lugano: 27–39. Hainsworth, J. B. (1968). The flexibility of the Homeric formula. Oxford. Harder, M. A. (2010). Callimachus Aetia, in: J. J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A companion to Hellenistic literature. Malden, MA: 92–105. Hardie, P. R. (1995). The speech of Pythagoras in Ovid Metamorphoses 15: Empedoclean epos, CQ 45: 204–14.

268 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Hardie, P. R. (2006). Lethaeus Amor: the art of forgetting, in: R. K. Gibson/S. Green/A. Sharrock (eds.), The art of love. Bimillenial essays on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris. Oxford: 166–92. Hardie, P. R. (2009). Lucretian receptions: history, the sublime, knowledge. Cambridge. Haskell, Y. (1999). Introduction, in: P. R. Hardie/Y. Haskell (eds.), Poets and teachers: Latin didactic poetry and the didactic authority of the poet from the Renaissance to present. Proceedings of the fifth annual symposium of the Cambridge Society for Neo-Latin Studies, Clare College, Cambridge 9.9.–11.9.1996. Bari: 5–19. Haubold, J. (2002). Greek epic: a Near Eastern genre?, PCPhS 48: 1–19. Haubold, J. (2013). Greece and Mesopotamia: dialogues in literature. Cambridge. Haye, T. (1997). Das lateinische Lehrgedicht im Mittelalter. Leiden. Heath, M. (1985). Hesiod’s didactic poetry, CQ 35: 245–63. Henderson, J. (2001). Going to the dogs / Grattius the Augustan subject, PCPhS 47: 165– 202. Henderson, J. (2002). Columella’s living hedge: the Roman gardening book, JRS 92: 110–33. Hershbell, J. P. (1970). Hesiod and Empedocles, CJ 65: 145–61. Hilgard, A. (ed., 1901). Scholia in Dionysii Thracis Artem grammaticam. Grammatici graeci, vol. I, pars 3. Leipzig. Hinds, S. E. (1998). Allusion and intertext. Dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry. Cambridge. Holzberg, N. (2006). Staging the reader response: Ovid and his ‘contemporary audience’ in Ars and Remedia, in: R. K. Gibson/S. Green/A. Sharrock (eds.), The art of love. Bimillenial essays on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris. Oxford: 40–53. Hooper, W. D. (ed., 1935). Cato and Varro, On Agriculture. Edited with translation. Cambridge, MA. Horsfall, N. (ed., 2013). Virgil, Aeneid 6: a commentary, vol. I: Introduction, text and translation, vol. II: Commentary and appendices. Berlin/Boston. Housman, A. E. (ed., 1903). M. Manilii Astronomicon liber primus. London. Housman, A. E. (ed., 1920). M. Manilii Astronomicon liber quartus. London. Hübner, W. (2005). Die Rezeption der Phainomena Arats, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 133–54. Hübner, W. (2011). Tropes and figures: Manilian style as a reflection of astrological tradition, in: S. J. Green/K. Volk (eds.), Forgotten stars. Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica. Oxford: 141–65. Hunter, R. L. (2008). On coming after. Studies in post-classical Greek literature and its reception. Part 1: Hellenistic poetry and its reception. Berlin/New York. Hunter, R. L. (2014). Hesiodic voices: studies in the ancient reception of Hesiod’s Works and Days. Cambridge. Hutchinson, G. O. (1988). Hellenistic poetry. Oxford. Hutchinson, G. O. (2008). Talking books. Readings in Hellenistic and Roman books of poetry. Oxford. Hutchinson, G. O. (2013a). Genre and super genre, in: T. D. Papanghelis/S. J. Harrison/S. A. Frangoulidis (eds.), Generic interfaces in Latin literature. Encounters, interactions and transformations. Berlin/Boston: 19–35. Hutchinson, G. O. (2013b). Greek to Latin. Frameworks and contexts for intertextuality. Oxford. Ingalls, W. B. (1971). Repetition in Lucretius, Phoenix 25: 227–36. Ingalls, W. B. (1972). Another dimension of the Homeric formula, Phoenix 26: 111–22.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

269

Jacques, J.-M. (1960). Sur un Acrostiche d’Aratos (Phén. 783–787), REA 62: 48–61. Jaeger, W. (1945). Paideia: The ideals of Greek culture, vol. I, translated from the second German edition by G. Highet. Oxford. Jöne, A. (2017). Beinahe-Abschiede in der Aeneis, in: C. Schmitz/J. Telg genannt Kortmann/ A. Jöne (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos. Heidelberg: 119–40. Johnson, W. R. (1978). The desolation of the Fasti, CJ 74: 7–18. Kaesser, C. (2005). The poet and the polis. The Aetia as didactic poem, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 95–114. Keen, R. (1985). Lucretius and his reader, Apeiron 19: 1–10. Keil, H. (1857). Grammatici Latini, vol. I. Leipzig. Kelly, G. (2008). Ammianus Marcellinus: the allusive historian. Cambridge. Kenney, E. J. (1970). Doctus Lucretius, Mnemosyne 23: 366–92. Kenney, E. J. (1979). The typology of didactic, CR 29: 71–3. Kidd, D. A. (ed., 1997). Aratus, Phaenomena. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary. Cambridge. Kinsey, T. E. (1979). The song of Iopas, Emerita 47: 77–86. Kirk, G. S./Raven, J. E./Schofield, M. (eds., 2001). Die vorsokratischen Philosophen. Einführung, Texte und Kommentare. Stuttgart. Klauser, H. (1898). De dicendi genere in Nicandri Theriacis et Alexipharmacis quaestiones selectae, Dissertationes philologicae Vindoboneneses 6: 1–92. Knauer, G. N. (1964). Die Aeneis und Homer. Studien zur poetischen Technik Vergils, mit Listen der Homerzitate in der Aeneis. Göttingen. Knauer, G. N. (1981). Vergil und Homer, ANRW II.31: 870–918. Kneebone, E. (2008). The poetics of knowledge in Oppian’s Halieutica, Ramus 37: 32–59. Kranz, W. (1961). Sphragis, RhM 104: 3–46, 97–124. Kroll, W. (1925). Lehrgedicht, RE 12: 1842–57. Kruschwitz, P. (2005). Lehre oder Dichtung? Die archaische didaktische Poesie der Römer, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 115–32. Kruschwitz, P./Schumacher, M. (2005). Das vorklassische Lehrgedicht der Römer. Heidelberg. Kühlmann, W. (2000). Lehrdichtung, in: H. Fricke (ed.), Reallexikon zur deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, vol. II. Berlin: 393–7. Kuhn-Treichel, T. (2016). Die Alethia des Claudius Marius Victorius. Bibeldichtung zwischen Epos und Lehrgedicht. Berlin/Boston. Kyriakou, P. (1994). Empedoclean echoes in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, Hermes 122: 309–19. Lachmann, K. K. F. W. (ed., 1850). T. Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex. Berlin. Laks, A./Most, G. W. (eds., 2016). Early Greek philosophy, vol. V: Western Greek thinkers, Part 2. Edited and translated by A. Laks and G. W. Most. Cambridge. Landolfi, L. (2003). Integra Prata. Manilio, i proemi. Bologna. Lazaridis, N. (2009). Notes on the form and use of didactic language in ancient Egyptian and Greek narrative works, Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 36: 67– 87. Lazaridis, N. (2016). Different parallels, different interpretations. Reading parallels between ancient Egyptian and Greek works of literature, in: I. Rutherford (ed.), Greco-Egyptian interactions: literature, translation, and culture, 500 BC–AD 300. Oxford: 187–207.

270 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Lichtheim, M. (1973). Ancient Egyptian literature, vol. I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms. Berkeley, CA. Lightfoot, J. L. (ed., 2014). Dionysius Periegetes. Description of the known world. With introduction, text, translation, and commentary. Oxford. Lowrie, M. (2009). Writing, performance, and authority in Augustan Rome. Oxford. Ludwig, W. (1963). Die Phainomena Arats als hellenistische Dichtung, Hermes 91: 425–8. Magnelli, E. (2010). Nicander, in: J. J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A companion to Hellenistic literature. Malden, MA: 211–23. Mair, A. W. (ed., 1928). Oppian, Colluthus, and Tryphiodorus. Cambridge, MA. Mansfeld, J. (1995). Insight by hindsight: intentional unclarity in Presocratic poems, BICS 40: 225–32. Marković, D. (2008). The rhetoric of explanation in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. Leiden. Martin, J. (ed., 1969). Titi Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura libri sex. Leipzig. Martin, R. P. (2005). Epic as a genre, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 9–19. Marzillo, P. (ed., 2010). Der Kommentar des Proklos zu Hesiods Werken und Tagen. Edition, Übersetzung und Erläuterung der Fragmente. Tübingen. Miller, J. F. (1980). Ritual directions in Ovid’s Fasti: dramatic hymns and didactic poetry, CJ 75: 204–14. Miller, J. F. (1992). The Fasti and Hellenistic didactics: Ovid’s variant aetiologies, Arethusa 25: 11–31. Minchin, E. (1999). Serial repetition in Homer and the ‘Poetics of talk’: a case study from the Odyssey, Oral Tradition 14: 336–53. Minchin, E. (2001). Homer and the resources of memory: some applications of cognitive theory to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Oxford. Mitsis, P. (1993). Committing philosophy on the reader: didactic coercion and reader autonomy in De rerum natura, MD 31: 111–28. Mizera, S. M. (1986). Lucretian elements in Menalcas’ Song, Eclogue 5, Hermes 110: 367–71. Morgan, L. (1999). Patterns of redemption in Virgil’s Georgics. Cambridge. Most, G. W. (ed., 2006). Hesiod. Theogony – Work and days – Testimonia. Edited with introduction and translation. Cambridge, MA. Mozley, J. H. (ed., 1979). Ovid, Art of Love. Cosmetics. Remedies for Love. Ibis. Walnut-tree. Sea Fishing. Consolation. Edited with translation by J. H. Mozley. Revised by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA. Münzer, F. (1931). Memmius, RE 15: 602–22. Murley, C. (1939). Lucretius and the history of satire, TAPA 70: 380–95. Murray, A. T./Wyatt, W. F. (eds., 2 1999). Homer, Iliad. Edited with translation by A. T. Murray. Revised by F. W. Wyatt, 2 vols. Cambridge, MA. Mussehl, J. (1912). De Lucretiani libri primi condicione ac retractatione. Berlin. Mynors, R. A. B. (ed., 1990). Virgil, Georgics. Oxford. Nelson, S. A. (1998). God and the land. The metaphysics of farming in Hesiod and Virgil. Oxford. Nelson, S. A. (2005). Hesiod, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A companion to ancient epic. Malden, MA: 330–43. Neuburg, M. (1993). Hitch your wagon to a star: Manilius and his two addressees, MD 31: 243– 82. Neudling, C. L. (1955). A prosopography to Catullus. Oxford.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

271

Nichols, J. H. (1976). Epicurean political philosophy. The De rerum natura of Lucretius. Ithaca, NY. Nieddu, G. F. (1993). Neue Wissensformen, Kommunikationstechniken und schriftliche Ausdrucksformen in Griechenland im sechsten und fünften Jh. v. Chr.: einige Beobachtungen, in: W. Kullmann/J. Althoff (eds.), Vermittlung und Tradierung von Wissen in der griechischen Kunst. Tübingen: 151–66. Notopoulos, J. A. (1960). Homer, Hesiod and the Achaean heritage of oral poetry, Hesperia 29: 177–97. Obbink, D. (1993). The addressees of Empedocles, in: A. Schiesaro/P. Mitsis/J. Strauss Clay (eds.), Mega nepios: il destinatario nell’epos didascalico. Pisa: 51–98. Osborne, C. (1998). Was the verse the default form of Presocratic philosophy? Response to M. Wright, in: C. Atherton (ed.), Form and content in didactic poetry. Bari: 23–35. Otis, B. (1964). Virgil. A study in civilized poetry. Oxford. Overduin, F. (ed., 2014). Nicander of Colophon’s Theriaca. Edited with commentary. Leiden/ Boston. Parry, A. (ed., 1971). The making of Homeric verse: the collected papers of Milman Parry. Oxford. Paton, W. R. (ed., 1917). The Greek Anthology, vol. III: Book 9. The declamatory Epigrams. Edited with commentary. Cambridge, MA. Pavese, C. O. (1998). The rhapsodic epic poems as oral and independent poems, HSPh 98: 63–90. Penglase, C. (1994). Greek myths and Mesopotamia. Parallels and influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod. London. Perkell, C. G. (1989). The poet’s truth: a study of the poet in Virgil’s Georgics. Berkeley, CA. Pertusi, A. (ed., 1955). Scholia Vetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies. Milan. Petrovic, A./Petrovic, I. (2016). Inner purity and pollution in Greek religion. vol. I: Early Greek religion. Oxford. Pfeiffer, R. (ed., 1953). Callimachus, vol. II: Hymni et epigrammata. Oxford. Piazzi, L. (2011). Lucrezio. Le leggi dell’universo (La natura, Libro I). Venice. Pöhlmann, E. (1973). Charakteristika des römischen Lehrgedichts, ANRW I.3: 813–901. Possanza, M. A. (2004). Translating the heavens. Aratus, Germanicus and the poetics of Latin translation. New York. Primavesi, O. (2005). Theologische Allegorie: zur philosophischen Funktion einer poetischen Form bei Parmenides und Empedokles, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 69–93. Putnam, M. C. J. (1979). Virgil’s poem of the earth. Studies in the Georgics. Princeton, NJ. Reinhardt, T. (2002). The speech of Nature in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura 3.931–71, CQ 52: 291– 304. Reinsch-Werner, H. (1976). Callimachus Hesiodicus. Die Rezeption der hesiodischen Dichtung durch Kallimachos von Kyrene. Berlin. Reitz, C. (2003). Dichtung und Wissenschaft, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Antike Fachschriftsteller. Literarischer Diskurs und sozialer Kontext. Stuttgart: 61–71. Reitz, C. (2005). Horaz’ Literaturbriefe und die Lehrdichtung, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 211–26. Richardson, N. (ed., 1993). The Iliad: a commentary, vol. VI: Books 21–24. Cambridge. Riffaterre, M. (1972). Système d’un genre descriptif, Poétique 9: 15–30. Rimell, V. (2006). Ovid’s lovers: desire, difference, and the poetic imagination. Cambridge.

272 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Rosati, G. (ed., 1985). Ovidio, I cosmetici delle donne (Medicamina faciei femineae), edited with introduction, translation, and commentary. Venice. Rosati, G. (2006). The art of Remedia Amoris: unlearning to love?, in: R. K. Gibson/S. Green/ A. Sharrock (eds.), The art of love. Bimillenial essays on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris. Oxford: 143–65. Rosenmeyer, T. G. (1985). Ancient literary genres: a mirage?, Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 34: 74–84. Ross, D. O. (1975). Backgrounds to Augustan poetry: Gallus, elegy and Rome. Cambridge. Ross, D. O. (1987). Virgil’s elements. Physics and poetry in the Georgics. Princeton, NJ. Ross, W. D. (ed., 1955). Aristotelis Fragmenta selecta. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit W. D. Ross. Oxford. Rossi, L. E. (1971). I generi letterari e le loro leggi scritte e non scritte nelle letterature classiche, BICS 18: 69–94. Rossi, L. E. (2010). La comunicazione orale: Omero ed Esiodo nell’arcipelago epico, Critica del testo 13: 69–81. Rouse, W. H. D. (ed., 1924). Lucretius, On the nature of things. Edited with translation by W. H. D. Rouse. Revised by M. F. Smith. Cambridge, MA. Rutherford, I. C. (2009). Hesiod and the literary traditions of the Near East, in: F. Montanari/ A. Rengakos/C. Tsagalis (eds.), Brill’s companion to Hesiod. Leiden: 9–35. Rutherford, R. B. (1995). Authorial rhetoric in Virgil’s Georgics, in: D. Innes/H. Hine/C. Pelling (eds.), Ethics and rhetoric. Classical essays for Donald Russel on his 75th Birthday. Oxford: 19–29. Rutherford, R. B. (2008). Authorial rhetoric in Virgil’s Georgics, in: K. Volk (ed.), Vergil’s Georgics. Oxford: 81–93. Salvadore, I. (2009). Il Carmen apologeticum di Commodiano e la tradizione didascalica, RPL 12: 66–87. Schiesaro, A. (1984). Nonne uides in Lucrezio, MD 13: 143–57. Schiesaro, A. (1987). Lucrezio, Cicerone, l’oratoria, MD 19: 29–61. Schiesaro, A. (1993). Il destinatario discreto. Funzioni didascaliche e progetto culturale nelle Georgiche, MD 31: 129–47. Schiesaro, A. (1994). The Palingenesis of De rerum natura, PCPhS 40: 81–107. Schiesaro, A. (2002). Ovid and the professional discourses of scholarship, religion, rhetoric, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge: 62–76. Schindler, C. (2000). Untersuchungen zu den Gleichnissen im römischen Lehrgedicht (Lucrez, Vergil, Manilius). Göttingen. Schindler, C. (2005). Vom Kochrezept zu den Sternen: Aspekte der Gattungsgenese und Gattungsentwicklung im römischen Lehrgedicht, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 193–209. Schmitz, W. (2004). Griechische und nahöstliche Spruchweisheit. Die Erga kai hemerai Hesiods und nahöstliche Weisheitsliteratur, in: R. Rollinger/C. Ulf (eds.), Griechische Archaik: Interne Entwicklungen – Externe Impulse. Berlin: 311–34. Schrijvers, P. H. (1970). Horror ac diuina uoluptas. Études sur la poétique et la poésie de Lucrèce. Amsterdam. Schrijvers, P. H. (1982). Rez. Effe, B. (1977). Dichtung und Lehre. Untersuchungen zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts. Munich, Mnemosyne 35: 400–2. Schuler, R. M./Fitch, J. G. (1983). Theory and context of the didactic poem: some classical, medieval, and later continuities, Florilegium 5: 1–43.

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions |

273

Sedley, D. (1998). Lucretius and the transformation of Greek wisdom. Cambridge. Segal, C. P. (1971). The song of Iopas in the Aeneid, Hermes 99: 336–49. Segal, C. P. (1981). Iopas revisited (Aeneid 1.740 ff.), Emerita 49: 17–25. Shewan, A. (1923). Repetition in Homer and Tennyson, CW 16: 153–8. Sider, D. (2014). Didactic poetry: the Hellenistic invention of a pre-existing genre, in: R. L. Hunter/A. Rengakos/E. Sistakou (eds.), Hellenistic studies at a crossroads. Exploring texts, contexts and metatexts. Berlin/Boston: 13–30. Sistakou, E. (2009). Callimachus Hesiodicus revisited, in: F. Montanari/A. Rengakos/C. Tsagalis (eds.), Brill’s companion to Hesiod. Leiden: 219–52. Skutsch, O. (ed., 1985). The Annals of Quintus Ennius. Oxford. Smith, M. F. (1966). Some Lucretian thought processes, Hermathena 102: 73–83. Soubiran, J. (ed., 1981). Aviénus, Les Phénomènes d’Aratos. Paris. Stoddard, K. (2004). The narrative voice in the Theogony of Hesiod. Leiden. Strauss Clay, J. (1993). The education of Perses: from mega nepios to Dion genos and back, MD 31: 23–33. Thilo, G. (ed., 1961). Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, recensuerunt G. Thilo et H. Hagen. I. Aneidos librorum I–V commentarii recensuit G. Thilo. Hildesheim. Thomas, R. F. (1982). Land and peoples in Roman poetry. The ethnographical tradition. Cambridge. Thomas, R. F. (1986). Virgil’s Georgics and the art of reference, HSPh 90: 171–98. Thomas, R. F. (ed., 1988a). Virgil Georgics, vol. I: Books 1–2. Cambridge. Thomas, R. F. (ed., 1988b). Virgil Georgics, vol. II: Books 3–4. Cambridge. Toohey, P. (1996). Epic lessons. An introduction to ancient didactic poetry. New York. Townend, G. B. (1978). The fading of Memmius, CQ 28: 267–83. Trépanier, S. (2004). Empedocles. An interpretation. New York. Tulli, M. (1993). L’esortazione di Parmenide al sapere, MD 31: 35–50. Van den Berg, R. M. (2014). Proclus on Hesiod’s Works and Days and ‘didactic’ poetry, CQ 64: 383–97. Vergados, A. (ed., 2013). The Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Introduction, text and commentary. Berlin/Boston. Vesperini, P. (2015). La poésie didactique. Une invention des modernes, Anabases 21: 25–38. Visser, E. (1999). Formulae or single words? Towards a new theory on Homeric verse-making, in: I. J. F. de Jong (ed.), Homer: critical assessments. London/New York: 368–84. Volk, K. (2001). Pious and impious approach to cosmology, MD 47: 85–117. Volk, K. (2002). The poetics of Latin didactic: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius. Oxford. Volk, K. (2005). Lehrgedicht oder Naturgedicht? Naturwissenschaft und Naturphilosophie in der Lehrdichtung von Hesiod bis zur Aetna, in: M. Horster/C. Reitz (eds.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: 155–73. Volk, K. (2009). Manilius and his intellectual background. Oxford. Volk, K. (2010). Aratus, in: J. J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A companion to Hellenistic literature. Malden, MA: 197–210. Volk, K. (2011). Manilian self-contradiction, in: S. J. Green/K. Volk (eds.), Forgotten stars. Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica. Oxford: 104–19. Walcot, P. (1966). Hesiod and the Near East. Cardiff. Wallach, B. P. (1976). Lucretius and the diatribe against the fear of death. De rerum natura 3.830–1094. Leiden.

274 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Watson, P. A. (2001). Parody and subversion in Ovid’s Medicamina faciei femineae, Mnemosyne 54: 457–71. Wendel, C. (ed., 1914). Scholia in Theocritum uetera. Leipzig. West, D. (1969). The imagery and poetry of Lucretius. Edinburgh. West, M. L. (ed., 1978). Hesiod. Works and Days. Edited with prolegomena and commentary. Oxford. West, M. L. (1997). The East face of Helicon: West Asiatic elements in Greek poetry and myth. Oxford. West, M. L. (2007). Indo-European poetry and myth. Oxford. Wheeler, A. L. (ed., 1924). Ovid, Tristia, Ex Ponto. Edited with translation. Revised by. G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA. Whitmarsh, T. E. (2013). Radical cognition: Metalepsis in classical Greek drama, G&R 60: 4–16. Wilkinson, L. P. (1950). The intention of Virgil’s Georgics, G&R 19: 19–28. Wilkinson, L. P. (1955). Ovid recalled. Cambridge. Wilkinson, L. P. (1969). The Georgics of Virgil: a critical survey. Cambridge. Wills, J. (1996). Repetition in Latin poetry: figures of allusion. Oxford. Wöhrle, G. (1993). War Parmenides ein schlechter Dichter? Oder: Zur Form der Wissensvermittlung in der frühgriechischen Philosophie, in: W. Kullmann/J. Althoff (eds.), Vermittlung und Tradierung von Wissen in der griechischen Kunst. Tübingen: 167–80. Wright, M. R. (1998). Philosophers poets: Parmenides and Empedocles, in: C. Atherton (ed.), Form and content in didactic poetry. Bari: 1–22.

Alison Sharrock

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition Abstract: Where and how does Ovid’s extraordinary 15-book hexameter poem on stories of metamorphosis fit into the history of classical epic? At the turn of the eras, Latin epic had just found its definitive form in the shape of Vergil’s Aeneid, leaving an extraordinary challenge for anyone who might seek to pile Pelion on Ossa thereafter (to use, along with the Roman poets, the metaphor of Gigantomachy for the writing of epic). Ovid’s response to the Vergilian perfection is so outrageous that it risks stretching the generic boundaries beyond breaking point, and yet for every accusation of epic impropriety that could be made against the Metamorphoses, it would be possible also to find precedent in the epic tradition, including in the Aeneid itself. The argument of this chapter is that Ovid’s poem makes use of the traditional building blocks of epic in a way that is both conventional and daringly innovative. It is conventional in that all the parts are, in some way, present in the poem, but innovative in that those parts are tested near to or sometimes beyond the point of destruction. The overall effect is that all the elements of a proper epic poem can be identified within the Metamorphoses, but that the balance of parts, together with the Siren-like attraction of individual stories, constantly threatens to undermine the reader’s perception of the epic whole. After briefly considering the extensive cross-generic fertilisation of the poem (itself an epic feature with pedigree back to Homer, the source of all the genres) together with the problems of teleology and wholeness, my discussion concentrates on three major genredefining building blocks of epic: battles, journeys, and hospitality. In each case, I argue that the poem consciously situates itself within epic convention, while constantly straining on the leash as if to undermine its epic status in the very act of claiming it – and equally to claim it in the act of undermining.

1 Introduction Ovid’s Metamorphoses constitutes a challenge, to put it mildly, to the story of Graeco-Roman epic. The master of the elegiac couplet for the first and only time in his career turns – and draws attention to his turning – to hexameters, for a work of huge scale on a mythical and heroic subject matter which gradually morphs towards a Roman and political telos. As an epic, what is not to like? And yet the long debate continues over the poem’s generic status. Epic, the highest of the genres, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-011

276 | Alison Sharrock

the epitome of poetry, but nonetheless a flexible form since its earliest recorded days, had just found definitive shape in Vergil’s Aeneid. Ovid’s response to the Vergilian perfection is so outrageous that it risks stretching the generic boundaries beyond breaking point, and yet for every accusation of epic impropriety that could be made against the poem, it would be possible also to find precedent in the epic tradition, including in the Aeneid itself. If one were ticking off a checklist, the Metamorphoses’ use of the traditional building blocks of epic would be not far out of line with that of the rest of the Latin epic tradition. The difference, however, is proportion: the elements are all there, but the balance of parts, together with the Siren-like attraction of individual stories, constantly threatens to undermine the reader’s perception of the epic whole.¹ This chapter begins with a brief account of some of the ways in which the Metamorphoses makes a problem of its generic affiliation, touching on the issues of ‘crossing of genres’, continuity, and the self-presentation of the poet. Thereafter, I choose, from a vast potential range, three of the central building blocks of the epic genre, through which I explore ways in which the poem’s epic aspects are both paraded and compromised. I concentrate first on that most Iliadic of activities, fighting, which, as other contributions to this project show, is at the core of epic structures and is itself made up of many smaller building blocks. Next in line comes the journey, the structuring device of many epic narratives, which also acts as a powerful metapoetic image. Finally, I explore hospitality as an archaic social structure, which from its earliest days contains the seeds of something that will find its fullest form in Ovid’s poem – storytelling.²

2 To be or not to be epic One of the distractions to the epic reader of the Metamorphoses is its extraordinary degree of cross-generic infection, or (to view it more positively) fertilisation, with elegy, tragedy, didactic, hymns, pastoral, philosophical poetry, and even snippets of satire and invective, together with prose genres of rhetoric, mythography, geography, and historiography.³ So great is the crossing of genres in the poem that some

1 Cf. Rosati (2002, 277–9). 2 On battle scenes, cf. volume II.1; on epic journeys and hospitality scenes, cf. volume II.2. 3 See Harrison (2002, 89), Keith (2002), and Farrell (2009). For the Metamorphoses and elegy, see Knox (1986), Hinds (1987), and Fantham (2004, 121–5). For the Metamorphoses’ play with Hellenistic poetry, see Keith (1992), Myers (1994), and Tissol (1997, 131–66). Cameron (2004) discusses the Metamorphoses’ deployment of mythographical works. Curley (2013) examines the Metamor-

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

277

readers feel uncomfortable in calling it epic at all. Yet, Homer was regarded in antiquity as the source of all the genres, so there is good epic precedent for Ovid’s practice. All epics intertextually explore other genres.⁴ I shall not here be exploring the many other genres which contribute to the totality of the Metamorphoses, as the goal of this paper is to look at the poem from the point of view of epic. If Ovid’s poem is to be banished from the canon of true Graeco-Roman epic, the strongest case against it would be not the involvement of other genres, but rather the problem of continuity, for there is such a powerful impetus in ancient and modern theory and practice about epic towards singularity of purpose, to be expressed both in teleological drive and in stylistic and conceptual unity,⁵ that the labyrinthine and multivocal narrative extravaganza of the Metamorphoses can seem like an offence against this principle. As is well known, however, Ovid parades the continuity of his poem, the carmen perpetuum, at its very opening, provocatively calling out Callimachus and post-Vergilian readers, daring us to accuse his poem of not being continuous.⁶ The 15 books of tales of metamorphosis are indeed all woven together into one great story, in which even the (carefully placed) book divisions are not allowed to disrupt the flow as much as they do in conventional epic,⁷ and yet the experience of reading the poem has seemed to the vast majority of readers to be one in which the overall narrative line disappears

phoses’ dialogue with tragedy. For the Metamorphoses and Hesiodic didactic poetry, see Ziogas (2013) as well as Buglass/Fanti/Galzerano in this volume; for the Metamorphoses and pastoral, see Farrell (1992) and Barchiesi (2006); for the Ovidian epic and geography, see Ziogas (2014); for Ovid and the Homeric Hymns, see Barchiesi (1999); for rhetoric and the Metamorphoses, see Fantham (2009, 34–9) and Enterline (2000, 1–90), who explores the interplay among Ovidian epic, rhetoric, and bodily descriptions; for satire, see Connors (2005, 141–4); for the Metamorphoses’ engagement with historiography, see Hardie (2002b) and Wheeler (2002). See also Ambühl on intergeneric influences and interactions in this volume. 4 Cf. Quint. inst. 10.1.46. Papaioannou (2004) mentions that inclusion of multiple genres has a precedent in the Aeneid, on which she refers to Hardie (1986). 5 Cf. Bakhtin (1981) and Quint (1993). See also Hardie (1993, 1–11) on the totalising epic expectations of the post-Vergilian Latin poets. 6 Cf. Wheeler (1999, 25–30). See also Rosati (2002, 277): “a reconciliation of Callimachean and antiCallimachean approaches”. Marshall (2016) looks at the problem of continuity sideways, which he calls “segues” between episodes and which, he suggests, make all the difference between Ovid’s Metamorphoses and such catalogues of metamorphic stories as were to be found in Hellenistic works such as Nicander’s Heteroioumena and the elegiac poem on P.Oxy. 4711. See also TsitsiouChelidoni (1999) and the extensive earlier bibliography mentioned there. In the same volume Adamik (1999) nicely riffs on Quintilian’s description of the Metamorphoses not as one thing but as in speciem unius corporis (Quint. inst. 4.1.77). 7 Holzberg (1998, 79) notes that the ends of Books 5 and 10 do coincide with the end of a story, contrary to the usual pattern, thus highlighting the pentadic division of the poem, which he

278 | Alison Sharrock

behind the sparkling array of individual episodes.⁸ As a result, readers have to tell their own story of unity for the poem, finding it in metamorphosis itself, love, artistry, and the figure of the poet, among other constructions.⁹ Recent scholarship has fought hard, and with good results, against the natural-seeming tendency towards episodisation, and yet no amount of sensitivity to levels of narration, doublets, and the geographical and chronological big picture can get away from the fact that the Metamorphoses is very different from ‘pure’ epic,¹⁰ with its easy focus on a single hero’s story (however much else there might be going on in all their purity). In this regard, perhaps the nearest parallel among respectable, mainstream epics (that is, as opposed to epic-related work such as catalogue poetry and some forms of didactic) is Ennius’ Annals, which, like Ovid’s poem, expands the direct temporal range of the story beyond a single lifetime. But the Annals, as far as we can tell, behaves itself in other ways, and gains a firm sense of conceptual unity as a ktistic and martial epic with a strong political teleology. Ovid’s poem, by contrast, refuses to allow the big picture to dominate, but that is not because there is no big picture sketched out in the poem. As Rosati (2002, 277) rightly says: “the result is a poem which follows a double structural principle, combining chronological order (from chaos to the present) with analogical order (stories linked by connected themes, characters, or places).”¹¹ It seems clear to me that the Metamorphoses, with its spectacular change of meter, presents itself as and claims to be epic.¹² It is true that there are oddities in the

regards as crucial to the overall structure. See also Bitto on Alexandrian book division in this volume. 8 Cf. Wilkinson (1955, 149), Coleman (1971, 471), Solodow (1988, 14), and Gildenhard/Zissos (2016, 13–14). See also Holzberg (1998, 83–5), who argues that the book ends often take the reader back into the epic genre, when stories seem to have verged on experimentation with other genres. 9 For metamorphosis as a unifying theme of the poem, see Feldherr (2002) and esp. Barkan (1986, 91), who offers the possibilities of metamorphosis or love. For love, see also Armstrong (2005, 140–4) and Lightfoot (2009). For art, see Leach (1974), Lateiner (1984), and Johnson (2008). 10 Rosati (2002, 277) fittingly calls the poem “impure epic”. His chapter is an excellent account of and contribution to the narratological issues of the poem. 11 Hollis (1970, p. xiii) says that continuity “is hardly enough alone to produce an epic quality.” This is no doubt true, since not all continuous narrative is epic, but the crucial point is not that continuity alone makes epic, but that continuity is necessary for epic. It is the challenge to continuity that gives the greatest justification for refusing to call the Metamorphoses epic, regardless of how much we may find other forms of unity in the poem. Hollis (1970, p. xiv) sees the poem’s unity as coming from the author’s personality. I would say, however, that there is just enough continuity to allow it to be, sui generis, epic. 12 Sider (2014, 25) claims that the opening lines would present themselves to ancient authors as didactic, rather than epic in the purest sense being used here. For a didactic affiliation, see also Latacz (1979) and Myers (1994, 5–6). On the proem, see especially Kenney (1976), Heyworth

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

279

proem, such as the absence of both a singular Muse and an individual hero, which would make it fit more comfortably with the tradition of epic openings concentrated in Vergil’s arma uirumque as reprises of the initial words of both the Iliad and the Odyssey.¹³ Hopkinson (2000, 1–2) has made the brilliant suggestion that such a play is in fact going on in these lines, with animus reflecting the μῆνιν of Achilles in the first line of the Iliad and the mutatas . . . formas answering the πολύτροπον characteristic of Odysseus in the first line of the Odyssey. Such a reading, which requires a good lawyer but is hard to deny once it is seen, would be exactly in keeping with the kind of outrageous but undeniable claims for epic status that I see permeating the whole poem. Moreover, not only does the opening of the Metamorphoses place the poet in the tradition of Homer and Vergil themselves, but it links him more specifically to their internal bards. The opening words, fert animus, ambiguous though they may be between the idea of independent poetic choice and divine possession, nonetheless also evoke precisely what is said (by Telemachus) about the Ithacan bard at Hom. Od. 1.345–7, that he should be allowed to sing “whatever his mind urges” (τέρπειν ὅππῃ οἱ νόος ὄρνυται 1.347).¹⁴ A similar point is made about Demodocus at 8.44–5, with this time θυμός replacing νοῦς. Dido’s Iopas and the Argonauts’ Orpheus sing songs which relate closely in content to the earlier books of the Metamorphoses, while Demodocus caps his (cyclic) story of the Trojan Horse with a rather outrageous erotic encounter between Ares and Aphrodite, which would fit well with the content of the Metamorphoses, and indeed is also told by Ovid.

3 The epic programme and Ovidian battles: reges et proelia Vergil’s shorthand for epic, as expressed in his Callimachean recusatio in Eclogue 6, is reges et proelia (Verg. ecl. 6.3). On these criteria, the Metamorphoses tick the box, albeit in complicated ways. There are reges (and their daughters) aplenty in the

(1994), Gildenhard/Zissos (2000, 68–76), Keith (2002, 236–9), Fantham (2004, 5), O’Hara (2004), and Farrell (2009, 370–1). 13 Ovid, as is well known, had already played with arma uirumque (and with meter) in the opening of the Amores. 14 The reference to Odyssey 1 goes back at least to von Albrecht (1961). Barchiesi (2005, 135) suggests a possible connection with Orphic and philosophical poems in this regard. Boyd (2017) is a valuable account of the direct as well as the ‘window’ relationship between Ovid and the origins of Graeco-Roman epic.

280 | Alison Sharrock

poem: the overwhelming majority of the poem’s characters are regal, heroic, or divine (or indeed some combination of the three). Most of the lower-class characters in the poem are easily paralleled from the epic tradition, the Odyssey in particular. There are interesting examples of protagonists de plebe, such as Arachne, whose role as an independent artist and creator of a miniature Metamorphoses is a remarkable departure from epic norms. Even in this case there is some epic precedent in the form of the Iliad’s Thersites, although the strongly positive implied reading of Arachne as a proud plebeian artist is an Ovidian innovation in the aristocratic tradition of epic. What about the proelia? There is certainly fighting in the poem, but this is an area in which Ovid’s poem is highly unusual within the tradition of GraecoRoman epic, where war is the norm and war narratives are normative for the construction of the epic hero. In the Metamorphoses, by contrast, the narrative of war is minimised, occluded, and compromised – but always with just enough epic precedent for plausible deniability. In brief, the story of war in this poem consists of the following elements: ‘proper’ epic war which is summarised almost to invisibility; two major set-piece battles which both take place not on ordinary battlefields but in festal settings; and fights with monsters, including the other set-piece, the boar hunt. In a poem of over 12 000 lines, that is certainly not very much. None of it comes directly from that epitome of martial epic, Iliadic battle narrative, but all of it can claim some kind of connection with epic tradition. In the following paragraphs, I shall explore the poem’s various ways of narrating epic war while refusing to do so.

4 ‘Proper’ epic war War in its purest epic form, of course, takes place on plains before Troy. Ovid’s ‘Iliad’, as it is often called, contains one tiny and one longer episode in which battle is narrated, neither of which has its ancestry as regards its subject matter in the Iliad itself.¹⁵ The first short episode depicts that little matter of the death of Achilles,

15 Achilles’ duel with Cycnus and the death of the latter occur in the Cypria (Hes. fr. 237 Merkelbach/West). The combat between Achilles and the Ethiopian king Memnon appears in the Aethiopis (Procl. Chr. 172–89, Severyns). See also Polyxena’s death (Ov. met. 13.455–80), which occurs during the Iliupersis (Procl. Chr. 273–4, Severyns). On Ovid’s ‘Little Iliad’ and ‘Little Aeneid’, see esp. Ellsworth (1980), Ellsworth (1986), Papaioannou (2005), Papaioannou (2007), and Hardie (2012, 154–5).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

281

when Apollo, on Neptune’s suggestion in Ovid’s version (Ov. met. 12.597–603), directs Paris to stop wasting his time and to shoot the great hero (12.604–6).¹⁶

605

dixit et ostendens sternentem Troica ferro corpora Peliden arcus obuertit in illum certaque letifera direxit spicula dextra. So he [Apollo] spoke and, pointing out the son of Peleus laying low Trojan bodies with his sword, he turned his bow onto him and directed the death-bringing arrows with sure right hand.

And that is it. Priam has something to be happy about for the first time since Hector died (Ov. met. 12.607–8), the great Achilles is overcome by the “cowardly stealer of a Greek wife” (timido Graiae raptore maritae, 12.609), and the narrator rounds it off with a suggestive hint about Penthesilea (12.610–11). It hardly deserves to be called a battle narrative at all. Even less like a battle narrative is the final fall of Troy, which has a minimalist (if metapoetic) account in a single line at 13.403: once Philoctetes and his (previously Hercules’) bow are brought to Troy, “at last the final hand is placed on the long war” (imposita est sero tandem manus ultima bello). In between these two snippets, however, there has been a different sort of battle, an enormous battle of words between Ajax and Odysseus over inheritance of the arms of Achilles (12.620–13.398). Indeed, the narrator himself tells us that the shield of Achilles represents a war of words, an epic within an epic, like every martial ekphrasis:¹⁷ 12.620–1 ipse etiam, ut, cuius fuerit, cognoscere posses, / bella mouet clipeus, deque armis arma feruntur, “The shield itself indeed, as you could recognise from its owner, / causes battles, and arms are borne with regard to the arms.” Just as Odysseus claims for himself a share in the glory of all of Achilles’ martial deeds, on the grounds that it was through the Ithacan that the younger man came to Troy at all, so the battle of words appropriates the battle of deeds, turning it into narrative persuasion. Likewise, the non-narrative of the fall of Troy answers the bare narrative of the beginning of the war, in which the initiatory death of Protesilaus takes just over a line: Ov. met. 12.67b–8a et Hectorea primus fataliter hasta, / Protesilae, cadis, “and you fall, Protesilaus, fatally the first by the spear of Hector.” The opening lines of the Trojan War, in which Protesilaus falls, are more descriptive summary than narrative, but they do introduce the only extended piece of actual fighting 16 Fantham (2004, 99) points out that Achilles’ killing of Cycnus becomes integral in his own death, as Cycnus’ father Neptune in vengeance conspires with Apollo to arrange for Paris successfully to shoot him. This would be a strongly epic contribution to the structure of Ovid’s ‘Epic Cycle’. 17 Cf. Papaioannou (2005, 157).

282 | Alison Sharrock

that happens at Troy – the duel between Achilles and Cycnus (12.71–145). The narrative begins in miniaturised but nonetheless properly epic form, with a brief moment of aristeia for Cycnus (12.72b–3a iam leto proles Neptunia Cycnus / mille uiros dederat, “now Cycnus, child of Neptune, had given a thousand men to death”), balanced by the same for Achilles (12.73b–5a iam curru instabat Achilles / totaque Peliacae sternebat cuspidis ictu / agmina, “now Achilles kept on in his chariot and was scattering the whole battle lines with the blow of Peleus’ spear”), each with appropriate patronymic. Cycnus does well enough to attract Achilles’ attention – or rather, Achilles rushes around looking for either Cycnus or Hector, and comes across Cycnus. With a laconic comment the narrator remarks that the fight with Hector was put off until the tenth year (12.75–6); yet, it will never be narrated by him. Achilles urges on his horses (exhortatus equos, 12.78), brandishes his weapons (concutiens . . . uibrantia tela, 12.79), belittles and threatens his enemy (with an allusion to Aeneas that perhaps does not quite reach the heights of pathos of the original), then casts his spear (12.82). So far, so epic. Although a spear might well miss its target, for a range of reasons, this one in fact had nullus . . . error (12.83) – but no effect: it just bounced off. Cycnus responds with his own bit of epic boasting, in which he also explains that he only wears armour for show, because he is invulnerable to weapons (12.86–94). Cycnus’ return of fire then pierces Achilles’ shield in the approved epic manner, breaking through the bronze and the nine layers of oxhide, before it is stopped by the tenth (12.95–7). Achilles has two more attempts, both of which bounce off. His rising rage is encapsulated in a simile comparing him to a bull – an epically appropriate vehicle, except that this is a bull in the Circus Maximus being baited by a purple cloak (12.102–4). At this point, Achilles is beginning to lose his grip and the narrative starts to slip away from epic sobriety: first Achilles has to check that the point has not fallen out of his spear (12.105–6); next he tries to encourage himself with a brief catalogue of his deeds to date (12.106–14); and finally, almost casually, he kills a Lycian, by the name of Menoetes, to check that he is still the greatest hero. But it does not work against the wall of solid rock that is Cycnus (12.124), despite a sign of blood, which gives Achilles hope – but it was just Menoetes’ blood still left on the spear. This sends Achilles crazy (fremebundus, 12.128) and he starts battering his enemy’s face with his sword-hilt (12.133). Cycnus is shocked, and as he gives ground, he trips over a stone (12.137), which affords Achilles the opportunity to get on top of him and strangle him with his own helmet-strap (12.138–43). This final act may have epic precedent in the abortive duel between Menelaus and Paris, in which the Greek uses this technique on his rival until Aphrodite puts a stop to it (Hom. Il. 3.310–82). I have followed the battle between Achilles and Cycnus in some detail in order to draw attention to the presence of epic building blocks in the narrative, but at the

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

283

same time as an example of how war stories in the Metamorphoses are constantly undermined. Indeed, I would suggest that Achilles’ confused failure to penetrate Cycnus with his weapons is metapoetic for what happens to epic in this poem. In the end, standard epic wins, but at the loss of its standards.¹⁸ Narrative of war outside the Trojan Cycle is minimalist in the extreme, despite many opportunities. A case in point is the story arc linked to Minos, where the narrative frame is based on the Cretan king’s war of revenge against Athens, but in which fighting nonetheless barely registers. Indeed, the non-account of the fall of Megara has become emblematic of Ovidian narrative compression.¹⁹ After the extended exploration of the psychology of Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, with its eroticised teichoscopy (Ov. met. 8.14–42),²⁰ Scylla’s removal of her father’s magic lock of hair and her offer of it to Minos, the hero apparently takes the lock and the city, but we are not told so. As soon as he finishes voicing his rejection of Scylla’s proffered love, he has imposed laws on his captured enemies, and leaves (8.101–3). This most extreme example of narrative compression which heralds Scylla’s and Nisus’ metamorphoses is in keeping with the episode’s opening, in which the story of war (8.6–7) is really just the setting for the tale of love and transformation.²¹ Compressed also is Aeneas’ war in Italy. Although this is hardly surprising, given Ovid’s practice of minimising direct narrative of the subject matter of the Aeneid,²² what is remarkable is the authorial reflection on the psychology of war between Turnus and Aeneas, in direct contradiction of the final book of the Aeneid: both sides are said to have their gods and courage, which is like gods, but now they are not fighting for the kingdom, which comes as a dowry, nor for Lavinia as wife, “but they seek to win and they wage war out of shame of giving up” (sed uicisse petunt deponendique pudore / bella gerunt, 14.571–2a). And finally Turnus falls, and Ardea falls (14.573), to be mourned and memorialised by a metamorphic bird. It is difficult not to see an anti-Aeneid here.²³

18 Papaioannou (2004) gives a helpful account of the various swan-stories in the Metamorphoses, in which she reads the transformation of Diomedes’ companions into birds as metapoetic; cf. Papaioannou (2004, 59): “Diomedes’ quasi-swans symbolise Ovid’s stake in the epic world, similar to and yet separate from the one occupied by Vergil”. 19 On ‘almost-episodes’ in epic poetry, see Nesselrath in this volume. 20 On the epic building block ‘teichoscopy’, see Fucecchi in volume II.1. 21 On narrative compression, see Hollis (1970, 47), Galinsky (1975, 219–22), Solodow (1988, 127–8), Tissol (1997, 151), Holzberg (1998, 81–2), Kenney (2002, 83), and Thomas (2009, 302). 22 Cf. Galinsky (1975, 217–51, esp. 219). See also Thomas (2009, 299–303) with a different interpretation. 23 Hardie (2015, 441) comments on the brevity of the narrative and indicates how the “surprising demystification of the reasons for the war, such as to render indistinguishable the two sides in the conflict” will be developed into a major epic theme by the Flavians. I wonder whether there may

284 | Alison Sharrock

Moreover, after Ardea burns, the role of military narrative within Ovid’s poem decreases even further, despite the fact that a key model for continuity of the epic story after the death of Turnus is Ennius’ Annales, a poem of martial epic moving from myth to history in which war is often a central narrative focus.²⁴ There is some more very compressed narrative, or at least mention, of war among the early Romans at Ov. met. 14.772, where the focus of interest is on Venus getting the help of local nymphs to change the water from cold to hot and so to flood the gate which Juno had opened for the Sabines. After Numa and the extended Pythagoras episode, there is no battle narrative, however much compressed. By contrast, the transfer of the god Asclepius from Epidaurus to Tiber Island is a piece of bloodless imperialism.²⁵ There is one passage very near the end of the poem in which war appears again, but it is spoken by Jupiter in prophecy (15.822–31). It may be a prophecy of further martial epic on the wars of ‘Caesar’, but it is a poem which Ovid is not himself going to write.²⁶ This reduction in the role of battle narratives is set alongside the increase in aetiological and philosophical matters, to constitute, I suggest, a meditation on where epic can go after Vergil.²⁷

5 ‘Improper’ epic wars 5.1 Fights at wedding feasts So far, we have considered only those war narratives which behave in a ‘proper’ epic manner as regards their subject matter, if not their narration. I turn now to

be a reference in Ov. met. 14.571–2 to the Homeric description of Strife among the personifications driving the conflict (Hom. Il. 4.440–5). Hardie (2012, 54–5) draws out the relationship between this picture of Eris, on which the Vergilian Fama is clearly based, and the Hesiodic description of Pheme (Hes. Op. 761–2), as being “easy to lift up, but . . . hard to put down.” If Ovid has constructed a double window allusion here, it would be a correction of Vergilian teleological motivation by a return to archaic destructive forces. 24 See also Nethercut in this volume on myth and history in epic poetry. 25 On this important episode in the movement of the poem towards its completion, see Barchiesi (1997), Hardie (1997a), Hardie (1997b), and Wheeler (2000, 107–54). 26 Indeed, it looks for a moment like a Lucanian prophecy. It cannot be, not only because of chronology, but also because it is Augustus’ wars, not Julius’. Yet, it does rather look that way. For the historical background and the slippage between Philippi and Pharsalus in Roman poetry, see Hardie (2015, 606). 27 Aetiology, together with its Hellenistic connections, both epic and less so, is of course crucial to Roman epic, from the ktistic teleology of the Aeneid to Propertius’ elevation of his elegiac genre in the fourth book. See Myers (1994) and Walter in this volume.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

285

the two great set-piece battles, at the marriage feasts of Perseus and Andromeda in Book 5, and of Pirithous and Hippodamia in Book 12.²⁸ These two extended episodes are the most like mainstream epic battle-narratives of any part of the Metamorphoses, but nonetheless not only are they problematised as epic battles but they also have epic precedent for their oddities. The most obvious of these oddities is the very fact that both large-scale battles take place at wedding feasts, a context which one might assume would be the exact opposite of a pitched battle. Epic precedent here can come from Odysseus’ battle with the suitors in Odyssey 22, which, although not an exact parallel, is a kind of hinted parody of a wedding feast, the pinnacle of an answer to all the years of the suitors’ rampant courtship of Penelope. If Ovid’s Metamorphoses is in the dock to defend itself as an epic, then Homer’s festal bloodbath is a valuable witness for the defence. Moreover, Odysseus might bring further evidence to defend the Metamorphoses against another charge of ‘unepic’ activities, which is that both battles involve the kind of supernatural-magical elements that are generally sidelined in the purest epic tradition (i.e., the Iliad). In the first case, Perseus brings the battle to an end by using the head of Medusa as a weapon of mass destruction, while the second battle is between heroes and Centaurs, hybrid creatures who have no role in the most conventional epics. As Griffin (1977) has shown, such magical and folkloric stories are downplayed in the core narrative of Homer, especially the Iliad, occurring rather in internal narratives, especially the extended internal narrative of Odysseus himself, and in other poems of the Epic Cycle. In addition, Ovid’s battle of Lapiths and Centaurs is distanced from the core narrative: it is told by the great storyteller, Nestor, in the interstices of ‘Ovid’s Iliad’, just like in Homer’s Iliad where it is embedded at 1.262–72 when Nestor tries to convince Achilles to take his advice in the present by relating this story as an example of how heroes used to take his advice in his youth (1.272–3).²⁹ And finally, one could argue that the driving force of both bouts of festal fighting is competition between males over

28 Cf. Keith (1999), Papaioannou (2002), and Mader (2013). 29 In the Metamorphoses, Nestor’s role is not so explicitly that of an advisor on both occasions, but rather more a matter of entertainment. See Papaioannou (2007, 98–187) on the Ovidian centauromachy and its role in the Trojan Cycle, and Musgrove (1998) on Nestor’s role as storyteller. In the Homeric Nestor’s account, the Lapiths’ opponents are not explicitly mentioned as Centaurs, but Nestor refers to them as φηρσὶν ὀρεσκῴοισι (“beastly and mountain-bred”, Hom. Il. 1.268) in keeping with the Homeric tendency to downplay the exotic. There is, however, one explicit reference to Centaurs in the Iliad, in the description of Chiron as the δικαιότατος Κενταύρων (Hom. Il. 11.832).

286 | Alison Sharrock

rights to the most desirable female – precisely the situation at the root of both Iliad and Odyssey.³⁰ Nonetheless, despite all this justification from epic precedent, it remains provocative that Ovid’s most epic battles are so inappropriately staged. These are vastly inflated battle narratives, full of epic markers, but on the other hand there are elements in both scenes which seem to relate more closely to the Bakhtinian grotesque than to traditional martial epic narration. The grotesque is analysed by Bakhtin (1984) as a celebration of the body in its unfinished, evolving state, with even quite extreme violence being positively valorised as life-enhancing. In the Rabelais book, for example, Bakhtin describes the grotesque beating of the Catchpoles at a wedding, where the vicious but farcical violence is meted out as part of the general atmosphere of fertility surrounding a wedding.³¹ Somehow, it seems, horrendous abuse is a part of laughter and is life-affirming. In the case of Perseus and Andromeda, the chaotic free-for-all is only terminated by Perseus’ employment of the grotesque Gorgon’s head, while in that of Pirithous and Hippodamia, the grotesque Centaurs and Lapiths even more chaotically lay about each other for many lines on end, the final resolution depending on excessive deforestation of the surrounding land by the Centaurs in order to suffocate the invulnerable Cycnus – followed by his apparent metamorphosis into a bird. Although we might be uncomfortable with the idea that this violence is life-enhancing (such an idea is much easier to see in Vergil’s bees and the poor pulped bull), a connection between violence and fertility (such as that at the Lupercalia) is well known in ancient culture, high and low, while Bakhtin’s claim is that much of what he calls the carnivalesque derives from primitive popular culture and ritual. One might, moreover, expect that the Metamorphoses, in some sense the most bodily of all ancient literature, would be fertile ground for examination of the corporeal turbulence and excess which characterise the Bakhtinian grotesque.³² The violent wedding feasts offer one case, I suggest, where Bakhtinian carnival may help make better sense of the Metamorphoses. While I would not want to argue that Ovid (at the conscious level, or perhaps we should call it the official level) is in any direct sense suggesting that either of the scenes is life-enhancing, it seems remarkable that there should be such a strong association between weddings and violence in the poem. Perhaps somewhere deep in the myths there is a connection between violence and fertility driving these stories, a connection which Ovid’s exuberant excess makes visible in a way that is not the case for the more decorously epic 30 Cf. Keith (2002, 241). 31 Cf. Bakhtin (1984, 204), and on the life enhancing power of the grotesque, see Bakhtin (1984, 311–12). 32 Cf. Farrell (2007). On the grotesque in Ovid, see Myers (1994, 49).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

287

accounts of men fighting over access to women. If I am right to see something of the carnivalesque and grotesque in these episodes, if Ovid is introducing some kind of comic, ritualised violence into his epic set-pieces, then it would suggest that these apparently epic set-piece battles constitute some of the most anti-epic parts of the poem. In Bakhtin’s theory, the carnival grotesque is diametrically opposed to (his idea of) epic. Although most critics would probably now reject the extreme polarisation in Bakhtin’s views on genre, nonetheless the situation I have outlined above would, I think, be a paradox which Ovid would enjoy.

5.2 Fighting monsters There is also another kind of battling in the poem that has some pretensions to being epic: fighting monsters, such as the sea monster Perseus has already fought before engaging in his epic battle with Phineus and his followers. Earlier, the Theban Cycle opened with the story of the Ovidian world’s first epic hero (as opposed to god), Cadmus, who was sent wandering over the world by his father in search of his sister Europa, victim of Jupiter in the form of a bull (Ov. met. 3.1–5). As Barchiesi/Rosati (2007) note, Cadmus is presented as an epic hero and particularly as an Aeneas-figure, to which I would add that many Homeric characters move from place to place (and found cities) when escaping from some problem at home (3.6–9).³³ orbe pererrato (quis enim deprendere possit furta Iouis?) profugus patriamque iramque parentis uitat Agenorides, Phoebique oracula supplex consulit et, quae sit tellus habitanda, requirit. Having wandered around the globe (for who could catch the thefts of Jupiter?) as an exile the son of Agenor avoids his fatherland and the anger of his father and as a suppliant consults the oracle of Phoebus and asks what land he may inhabit.

33 See, for instance, Phoenix (Hom. Il. 9.444–95), who tells how he came to be accepted by Peleus and thus to become the carer and friend of Achilles after having escaped trouble at home, and Tlepolemus (2.653–70), who was exiled for murdering a relative and eventually founded three citystates in Rhodes. After being expelled by his father, Teucer founds Salamis on Cyprus. According to some versions of his myth, Odysseus himself is punished with exile for the killing of the suitors and consequently founds two cities, the Thesprotian Bouneima and Croton in Etruria, see Foster (2017, 65–6). See also Dougherty (1993), Malkin (1998, 23–4 and passim), and Garland (2014, 131–49).

288 | Alison Sharrock

But after he has followed the prophesied cow to Boeotia, Cadmus is preparing to offer sacrifice when his men are killed by a monstrous serpent (3.28–49). Cadmus responds like a hero and prepares for battle (3.52b–4): tegumen derepta leoni pellis erat, telum splendenti lancea ferro et iaculum teloque animus praestantior omni. His covering was a skin torn from a lion, his weapon a lance with shining iron and a javelin, and his spirit was more ready than any weapon.

Barchiesi/Rosati (2007, 136) point out the Herculean connotations of the lion-skin and describe the ensuing scene as a kind of heroic duel. On entering the grove, Cadmus sees the slaughtered bodies of his companions and declares his determination to avenge them (3.55–9). His first action is to pick up a stone and hurl it at the monster (3.59–60), an action and expression which Barchiesi and Rosati link to Hercules’ killing of Cacus at Verg. Aen. 8.250, another hero killing a monster. After 35 lines of heroic battle, Cadmus overcomes the serpent (3.60–94), at which point a mysterious voice foretells the snaky and spectacular metamorphosis awaiting the hero himself (3.95–8). As in the wedding-feast battles, here also epic fighting is bound up with the superhuman and subhuman, the mysterious and the marvellous. Epic is the aid of Minerva (uiri fautrix, 3.101), while marvellous is her advice to Cadmus to sow the dragon’s teeth, from which come the Sown Men, the survivors of whom will constitute the Theban aristocracy. The final ‘battle scene’ to consider is one that has famously been regarded as a key locus for the epic pretensions of the Metamorphoses, the Calydonian boar hunt. The immediate context for this over-determined gathering of early heroes is an intermittent ‘Theseid’, in which the trouble-shooting capacities of that hero are summarised at Ov. met. 8.267–9. Everyone asked for his help and so did Calydon, which was suffering from the ravages of a boar sent by a suitably epic offended deity, in this case Diana (8.272), the Calydonians having foolishly neglected to honour her alongside Ceres, Bacchus, and Minerva (8.273–8). The narrator draws attention to the epic credentials of such a situation with the comment that “anger touches the gods also” (tangit et ira deos, 8.279). Kenney (2011, 334) is right to call this comment ironic, in the context of the divine caprice which motivates so much of the action in the poem, but it is more than that. The words are also an answer to the question posed by the Vergilian narrator: Verg. Aen. 1.11 tantaene animis caelestibus irae?, “Can heavenly spirits cherish resentment so dire?”³⁴ Not only is the answer “yes”, but also that answer is core to the narrative drive of epic, the anger of Juno being

34 This translation is taken from Fairclough (1916).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

289

resolved only at the end of the Aeneid, and developing its epic form out of the anger of Poseidon in the Odyssey as well as the divinely-supported anger of Achilles in the Iliad. In addition, many minor episodes of epic narrative are explained by divine favouritism or petulance.³⁵ Although there is no single angry god driving the narrative of Ovid’s epic, not only are many individual stories motivated in such a way, but also there is a recurrent anger of Juno against those she perceives as her rivals for the affections of Jupiter, including their extended families, from Io through to Alcmena.³⁶ The idea of celestial wrath, then, is regularly at work in the metamorphic narrative. Such a motivation for the story of the monstrous boar comes, moreover, straight from its Homeric origins (as far as the Graeco-Roman epic tradition is concerned).³⁷ The tale of the Calydonian boar was used by Phoenix in the embassy to Achilles in Iliad 9 as an example of the mistake Meleager made in refusing to fight (in the battle between his own Aetolians and the Curetes in the aftermath of the hunt) and refusing to be mollified by the many gifts offered by his people, just as Achilles now is refusing to be mollified by Agamemnon’s gifts. The description of the offence taken by Artemis/Diana as a result of their failure to worship her is the part of Phoenix’ tale (Hom. Il. 9.529–37) which the Metamorphoses matches most closely (Ov. met. 8.273–8). Thereafter, where Homer summarises the boar’s damage, the gathering of huntsmen, and the killing of the animal, before developing the war in the aftermath of the hunt, Ovid expands the narrative of the hunt with a(n epic) catalogue of heroes, blow-by-blow activity, but also with the intrusion of an erotic complication (in the form of Atalanta and Meleager’s interest in her), which adds a non-Homeric motivation to the argument over the body of the beast, an argument which never moves from murder to war.³⁸ Many scholars have commented, more or less sympathetically, on the epic pretensions of the passage, with its failures and accidents seeming to mock those pretensions.³⁹ Horsfall (1979) argues that we should see the hunt as comic burlesque rather than anything more serious, with the result that we can keep a clear difference between proper epic heroes and the jokers in the Metamorphoses,

35 For instance, at Hom. Il. 1.194–221 Athena stops Achilles from killing Agamemnon; at 22.215–23 Athena falsely encourages Hector to encounter Achilles, a divine intervention that leads to the death of Hector; at 3.380–2 Aphrodite saves Paris from Menelaus by transporting the former to the palace. 36 Tsitsiou-Chelidoni (1999, 290) makes a good point about how we are reminded of the early victims of Juno’s divine anger when we are introduced to Alcmena in Book 9. 37 See Segal (1999) for the literary history of the episode. 38 Cf. Segal (1999, 312). 39 See Hollis (1969, 68), Otis (2 1970, 349), Anderson (1972, 357–8), Due (1974, 80), Bömer (1977, 93), Horsfall (1979), Segal (1999), Cameron (2004, 265–7), and Kenney (2011, 333); see also Reitz (1999, 365–7) on Ovid’s catalogue.

290 | Alison Sharrock

leaving pure epic untouched by such behaviour. While I would agree that there is humour in the passage and that Segal (1999, 317) can rightly refer to “the failed masculinity of these bumbling, hyperactive heroes”, I would suggest that what Ovid is doing here is only a more extreme form of the variation of tone which is present from the beginning of the epic tradition. Scholars have noted that there is humour even in the Iliad,⁴⁰ not to mention the Odyssey. The example given by both Clarke (1969) and Golden (1990), which is perhaps most relevant to our passage, is the behaviour of Paris in the Iliad, one moment showing off in all his finery and the next moment running away from Menelaus to Helen’s bedroom (Hom. Il. 3.310–94), or laughing in delight at his wounding of Diomedes’ foot (Hom. Il. 11.349–400) – and that is in real battle, not in a hunt. Even braver heroes than Paris regularly slip back into the body of their comrades when things get dangerous in the Iliad, so Theseus’ much-maligned encouragement to Pirithous to be brave from a distance at Ov. met. 8.405–7 is not so far out of line: at Hom. Il. 7.109–21 Agamemnon dissuades Menelaus from facing Hector, and Odysseus runs away from the fight at Hom. Il. 8.92, ignoring the request to help the wounded Nestor.⁴¹ Moreover, while it is true that these heroes of the generation before the Trojan War manage to miss rather often, spears that are well thrown but miss their target are common in epic battle narrative,⁴² including the case where the weapon misses its intended target but hits someone else.⁴³ Admittedly, the accidental target is not usually one of your own hunting dogs, as happens to Jason in our passage (Ov. met. 8.411–13), but this is a hunt, not a normal human battle. The hunt is, of course, a serious proxy for battle, more serious, perhaps, than that other proxy, athletic games.⁴⁴ Telamon trips over a tree root when the boar goes into the woods to evade the Dioscuri on horseback (8.372–9), which has a precedent in and is less ridiculous than the lesser Ajax slipping in the dung during the funeral games for Patroclus (Hom. Il. 23.784). This kind of tripping in epic battle is not unknown: at 15.645–51 Periphetes trips on his own huge shield and falls down, after which Hector attacks and kills him.

40 Cf. Clarke (1969), Pucci (1987, 147), and Golden (1990). 41 See Pache (2000). Conversely, Odysseus is the only one who does not run at Hom. Il. 11.401–10. 42 Cf. Hom. Il. 11.231–3 (Agamemnon’s spear misses Iphidamas), 16.608–16 (Meriones avoids Aeneas’ spear). Asteropaeus’ first spear misses Achilles (21.163–5) while the second slightly grazes Achilles’ hand and is then fixed on the ground (16.166–8). 43 See Hom. Il. 13.516–20 where Deiphobus throws a spear at Idomeneus, fails to hit him and, instead, the spear fatally hits Ascalaphus. On wounding and death in ancient epic, cf. Dinter in volume II.1. 44 On epic funeral games, cf. Lovatt in volume II.1.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

291

Kenney (2011, ad loc.), following Segal’s exposition of Ovid’s games with the literary history of the tale,⁴⁵ suggests that the objection of the uncles of Meleager to the latter’s erotically-inspired award of the boar’s hide to Atalanta should be seen in metaliterary terms as an old masculine epic objection to the intervention of Alexandrian eros. While this seems a useful reading, I would note that Meleager’s answer to the challenge is very much in the ‘old epic’ masculine tradition – he kills them. Segal (1999, 317–18) draws attention to the authorial moral condemnation of Meleager’s precipitous vengeance, and certainly killing your allies even if they do insult you is generally avoided in epic, although it might take divine intervention to stop the natural heroic reaction to insult (Iliad 1). Nonetheless, I would suggest that Meleager’s behaviour is only an exaggerated form of the epic norm, as indeed it derives from what happens in the Homeric paradigm. The Ovidian answer to ‘old epic’ is not Meleager’s retaliation, but the replacement of war between the Aetolians and Curetes in the Iliad with the extended exploration of the mental anguish of Althaea, followed by the magical death of Meleager (Ov. met. 8.515–25). Furthermore, it is to be found in the coda to the story, when Meleager’s sisters are overcome with grief, resulting in the metamorphosis of all but two of them into birds (8.533–46). It is to introduce this metamorphic extra that the narrator draws on the epic topos of ‘many mouths’ at 8.533–5:

535

non, mihi si centum deus ora sonantia linguis ingeniumque capax totumque Helicona dedisset, tristia persequerer miserarum uota sororum. Not if a god had given me a hundred mouths resounding with tongues, a capacious intellect, and the whole of Helicon could I express the sad prayers of the miserable sisters.

Is it right to call this a parody of epic narration? It might verge in that direction and it might not be unreasonable to consider the grief of these sisters, like the sisters of Phaethon, as excessive, but nonetheless it seems to me that there is nothing in the text but sympathy for the sufferings of these small victims of heroic and dynastic strife. If so, the topos has to be taken seriously.

6 Journeys As I began the discussion of war narratives with Vergil’s shorthand for the content of epic as reges et proelia, I turn now to the other major paradigm for epic content –

45 Cf. Segal (1999, 313).

292 | Alison Sharrock

the journey.⁴⁶ Although this highly active poetic metaphor rarely occurs in explicit ancient programmatic statements about the content of epic, it represents the structural basis of the Odyssey as the main alternative epic paradigm to proelia’s Iliad.⁴⁷ If war is not the driving force of an epic, the most respectable alternative is a purposeful journey, which may be a return home or a quest for new developments, especially in the foundation of cities, or both at once (as paradigmatically in the Aeneid). How does Ovid fit into this story? Just as the poem has no single hero it also has no great journey, whether outward or home.⁴⁸ It is true that the poem lacks singularity in this way, but, on the other hand, there is a vast amount of movement in many directions throughout the 15 books. Indeed, it is surely the most frenetically mobile of any ancient narrative poem. Some of that movement is multi-directional, chaotic, and superficially undermotivated, but, as Hardie (1993, 57–87) in particular has shown, there is also considerable purposive movement from East to West, which becomes more pronounced as the poem moves towards its end. Although it is not the journey of any one individual, the repeated migrations westward, towards Italy, constitute a teleological drive that partakes in epic norms, even if it does not reproduce them in a straightforward manner. In this section, I look briefly at three types of Ovidian journey: the epic paradigms of the Argo and of Aeneas (with a brief coda on storms), the kinetic busyness particularly of the earlier books, and the drive towards the west.⁴⁹ In the fluid metamorphic way, however, the distinctions between the three types cannot be held absolutely and the discussion ranges over them in a non-linear manner.

46 Cf. volume II.2. 47 For the poetic metaphor of the journey, see, for example, Verg. georg. 2.39–46, Hor. carm. 1.3, Ov. ars passim, Cody (1976, 82–7), Porter (1987, esp. 200–3 and 251–3), Sharrock (1994, 96–103), Holzberg (1998, 90–5), and Harrison (2007). The poetic journey metaphor is perhaps most powerfully developed with regard to epic by Horace’s poem on the ship of Vergil (Hor. carm. 1.3). On the metaphor of seafaring for poetry, see Lieberg (1969). 48 See Galinsky (1975, 81), Hardie (1993, 3–6), and Holzberg (2002, 130–1). 49 Cf. Wise (1977), Wheeler (2000, 130–1), Hardie (2002a, 326–7), Harrison (2007), Casali (2007), and Ziogas (2014, 331–42). Barkan (1986, 81) briefly discusses the significance of the movement from East to West, towards a Rome that he regards as encompassing more fixity in the poem than, as he, too, says, is suggested by Pythagoras.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

293

7 Proper epic journeys 7.1 Argonauts subverted Through the first paradigmatic journey from the epic tradition to feature in the Metamorphoses, that of the Argo, Ovid replays the Apollonian trope of imitating Homer by pre-empting him, hints briefly at the Catullan Carmen 64 (with the stress on the prima . . . carina at Ov. met. 6.721), and likely alludes also to Varro’s epic on the subject, now lost to us. The way he works with an Argonautic journey offers a good example of Ovid’s games with the epic genre, nominally fulfilling its criteria but messing up the proportions and vastly changing the emphases. Ovid’s ‘Argonautica’ is prefaced towards the end of Book 6 by a case of what I am calling ‘chaotic travel’ (to be discussed further below), in the form of the rape of Orithyia by the frenetically mobile north wind Boreas (Ov. met. 6.702–13), as a result of which she bears the winged twins who join the crew of the Argo (6.719–21). Those lines close the sixth book. When the seventh opens, much of the Argo’s outward journey has slipped into the gap between the books,⁵⁰ while the six lines it takes Jason and his crew to reach Colchis, via the flying visit to Phineus, are constructed largely in the pluperfect tense, again not only massively contracting but also suppressing the epic journey. Moreover, from the introduction via the sons of Boreas we might have expected a catalogue of heroes in this traditionally star-studded story, but that, too, is suppressed (and preserved for the Calydonian boar hunt in Book 8) with just cum Minyis at 6.720 and a quasi-Aeneadic multaque perpessi claro sub Iasone (“having experienced many adventures under their illustrious leader Jason”) at Ov. met. 7.5.⁵¹ The reason becomes clear shortly afterwards: this is not so much an Argonautica as a ‘Medeid’. The Colchian princess-witch totally dominates the first half of Book 7, in part as another case of Ovidian female and erotic psychology, in part as equally Ovidian exploration of the fantastic and phantasmagoric, but for our purposes here most interestingly as the protagonist of journeys.⁵² Where the Argo’s nostos is achieved through the extreme abbreviation of Ov. met. 7.157–8, after Medea has reached Corinth (as what Jason thought was spolia altera, 7.157) she becomes in her own right one of the most mobile characters of the poem. The voyage of the Argo, the original ship and the embodiment of the journey-epic, is

50 This sleight of hand is also played at the transition from the first to the second book (Phaethon) and the second to the third (Europa), where the actual journeys disappear into the gaps. 51 This translation is taken from Miller/Goold (1916). 52 On Medea’s flight, see Wise (1977, 44–59) and Pavlock (2009, 49–60).

294 | Alison Sharrock

replaced by Medea’s aerial journey in her divine-magical chariot (7.220), in order to gather the herbs needed for the rejuvenation of Aeson. Ovid is not, however, simply replacing the expected epic journey with an ‘unepic’ one. It is Medea’s journey which begins with hints of an epic departure scene (7.220–3): 220

quo simul adscendit frenataque colla draconum permulsit manibusque leues agitauit habenas, sublimis rapitur subiectaque Thessala Tempe despicit et certis⁵³ regionibus adplicat angues. As soon as she climbed up into the chariot and stroked the bridled necks of the dragons and shook the light reins with her hands, she is snatched high and looks down on Thessalian Tempe below her and directs the snakes in the places she had chosen.

Medea’s magical chariot may owe its origin to her spectacular exit from Euripides’ tragedy, at a later stage in her story, but it also takes its epic ancestry in the more generically respectable chariot-driving scene from Apollonius (A.R. 3.869–75): it takes place just after Medea has prepared the charm that she will give Jason to protect him from the fire-breathing bulls. Once Ovid’s Medea is airborne, however, she has entered a dimension not open to ordinary epic journeys, but rather one that a number of Ovidian mortals and semi-mortals share with the gods, with greater or lesser degrees of success (Phaethon, Perseus, Daedalus).⁵⁴ Medea’s first aerial journey is a magnificent tour de force of magical geography. Even more extraordinary, however, is her second flight. After Aeson is rejuvenated, Medea undertakes a deceptively ordinary suppliant journey (flight, in the ordinary mortal sense) very briefly at Ov. met. 7.297–8 in order to deceive the daughters of

53 Here I print and translate the text from Tarrant (2004). Anderson (1972) prints and obelises †Cretes†. 54 Cf. Pavlock (2009, 49), who argues that aerial flight in the Metamorphoses signifies the “liberation from normal human constraints.” Otis (2 1970, 91–101) explores the Phaethon episode as a particularly epic part of the poem. Wise (1977) argues that Phaethon’s and Daedalus’ vision of the world during their aerial journeys serve as a sort of a counter-part to the poet’s vision of the world. Bartholomé (1935, 74–80) suggests that the ekphrasis of Vulcan’s doors, pointing to the shield of Homeric Achilles, parallels the view of the world that Phaethon gets during his aerial journey. Leach (1974, 141 n. 43) notes that this parallelism is ironic, as the symmetry of the divine work of art fails to teach Phaethon how to react when he sees in front of him the Scorpion. See also Holzberg (1998, 90–1), who parallels the unfolding of Phaethon’s journey with the unfolding of the narrative of the Metamorphoses and Ovid’s use of the topos of the poem as a journey. For Phaethon’s ‘dangerous wonders’, see Barchiesi (2009, 164–70). On Perseus, in particular the connection with the equally volatile Mercury, see Barchiesi/Rosati (2007, 322–4). On Daedalus and especially Icarus in their aerial daring, cf. Sharrock (1994, 87–196, esp. 173–83).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

295

Jason’s enemy Pelias into killing him, believing they are undertaking the rejuvenation ritual. This crime culminates in an escape by flying chariot at 7.350, which initiates an outrageous voyage over similarly magical and symbolic geography (many of the same mountains and rivers are mentioned), this time seen, as Kenney (2011, ad loc.) suggests, through the eyes of a metamorphic artist. This is not a normal nostos,⁵⁵ not a journey from one place to another punctuated by trials which must be overcome, but rather a bird’s eye view of a range of 16 metamorphic stories hinted at or at most briefly narrated (by the primary narrator), ending with (a possibly invented) Alexandrian footnote, yet another version of the creation, this time via the story, which Kenney (2011, 265) says is not attested elsewhere, that humans derived from mushrooms. It is not surprising, therefore, that some scholars have seen Medea’s journeys as metaphors for the Metamorphoses as a whole.⁵⁶ In the typical Ovidian way, the well-known narrative of Euripides’ Medea, which must follow, is very brief (Ov. met. 7.394–7), ending with an escape (effugit, 7.397) and the third journey on the snake-drawn chariot, this time highly abbreviated (7.398–9). It is not only previous epic narratives which Ovid compresses in the Metamorphoses.⁵⁷ After Medea’s reception in Athens and the attempted murder of Theseus, she escapes again at 7.424 (effugit), this time right out of the poem.

7.2 Aeneadae and westward movement Just as the Argo is replaced by the metamorphic flights of Medea, so, as is well known, are the post-Trojan nostoi and especially the ktistic quasi-nostos of Aeneas subordinated to non-Vergilian material of a particularly Ovidian nature: the premonstrous Scylla, in an awkward love triangle with Glaucus and Circe, the preOdyssean Polyphemus seen through the eyes and narration of the nymph Galatea in another awkward love triangle,⁵⁸ and of course many metamorphoses.⁵⁹ I would suggest that the narrative of Aeneas’ journey from the dying Troy to proto-Rome – on the one hand really present, but on the other hand, abbreviated and subordinated

55 Although Medea does end up back in Corinth, her adopted home (Ov. met. 7.391–2) – a subtle play on the proverbial saying about going to Corinth; cf. Kenney (2011, 265) –, her destination and the location of the final metamorphic stories via her flight is by no means motivated in the manner of a nostos. 56 Cf. Pavlock (2009, 41 and 49–60) and Gildenhard/Zissos (2013, 120–3). 57 Of course, we cannot know to what extent he is playing with his own tragic Medea here. See Curley (2013, 37–49). 58 See Nagle (1988), Simpson (2001, 428), and Fantham (2004, 129). 59 The expansion of the Anius episode I shall consider in my discussion of Ovid’s hospitality scenes; see below.

296 | Alison Sharrock

to Ovidian stories, and yet, on the third hand, playing a crucial role alongside other East-West journeys towards the telos of the poem – may stand symbolically for a crucial element in Ovid’s epic technique. He ticks the boxes, but decorates them in such complex and idiosyncratic ways that we sometimes lose sight of the tick. Although there is, then, no single all-consuming journey to plot the narrative structure of the Metamorphoses, in the manner of Homer’s Odysseus, Apollonius’ Jason, or Vergil’s Aeneas, there are several individual journeys which together work towards adding up to a version of the epic journey in the maximalist sense, especially as many of them move westwards towards Italy. Hardie (2015) has shown how Glaucus’ journey to Circe at the beginning of Book 14 is a kind of internal continuation of the framing journey of Aeneas, which got blocked just before the beginning of Scylla’s story. As Hardie rightly suggests, we should see versions of the Aeneid’s foundational journey in a series of migrants, including Hippolytus-Virbius, Pythagoras, Myscelus, and most particularly Asclepius, whose peaceful (and highly geographic) transfer to Tiber Island (Ov. met. 15.685–744) constitutes the last story of the poem before the final apotheoses.⁶⁰ The healing god, son of Apollo, has a particularly strong claim to the status of totalising epic migrant, in that his story spans almost the entire epic, from his birth out of his mother’s ashes at 2.628–30, up to his arrival in Rome at 15.736.⁶¹ Rather less immediately obvious than Asclepius as an epic voyager, and early in the poem to be contributing to the East-West teleology, but nonetheless worth noting, is Arethusa. Her escape from the erotic attentions of the river god Alpheus is more than just the random wanderings of a terrified nymph. Arethusa may be said to partake in the activities of epic colonisers, in that she pleads with Ceres on behalf of her adopted country.⁶² Moreover, she undergoes a form of katabasis when she passes through the underworld on her submarine journey between her original home in Peloponnesian Elis and her refuge in Syracuse. As a result of this experience, she is able to inform Ceres of the whereabouts of the goddess’ stolen daughter, and thus to move the plot forward. In all, then, I would suggest that Arethusa’s journey should be admitted to the ranks of epic migration. Many other travellers in this highly mobile poem undertake journeys with varying degrees of epic potential. Phaethon’s quest to seek his father, like Telemachus,⁶³ and establish his paternity is offered in such terms at the very end of the first book, although, as has been noted, his actual journey falls into the gap between books. It is replaced by his magnificently audacious journey in the chariot of the Sun 60 See especially Hardie (2015, 371) on East-West journeys; cf. also Wheeler (1999, 196–7). 61 Cf. Hardie (1997a) and Hardie (1997b). 62 Cf. Ntanou (forthcoming). 63 See Boyd (2012).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

297

across the sky, which becomes a metaphorical epic shipwreck. The daring but doomed flight is both the goal and the risk of epic.⁶⁴ Cadmus’ wanderings and divinely-sanctioned settlement in Boeotia encapsulate ktistic epic. Minos and Cephalus travel around the Mediterranean as representatives of the two sides in a war barely told. The independent heroes, Perseus, Theseus, and Hercules, travel the world on their monster-fighting missions, and of course the belligerents in the Trojan War must also make their epically required movements, while Minos spends much longer in pre-war movement than in war itself (7.459–72). The frenetic aerial movement of Perseus is perhaps emblematic of this hyper-mobility (4.621–6 and 4.668–9).⁶⁵

8 The storm at sea Before we leave epic journeys, brief mention must be made of sea-storm scenes, which likewise play a programmatic role from their function in introducing the singular hero of both the Odyssey and the Aeneid, as well as their fertile life as a metaphor for the risks of writing epic.⁶⁶ Ovid offers us two extensive versions of epic storms, neither of them straightforward: the Flood in Book 1 and the disastrous journey of Ceyx in Book 11. Bate (2004) argues that we should see the Flood as an epic storm, while Ceyx’ shipwreck should be regarded as deliberately less epic and more erotic-elegiac.⁶⁷ I would suggest a slight nuance on this reading. As regards the cataclysm engendered by an angry Jupiter in the first book, the relationship with the tradition of epic storm scenes is both present and denied. Its position links it clearly with the storm manufactured by the angry Juno at the beginning of the Aeneid, itself a reflection of the Poseidon-induced storm, which introduces Odysseus to us in Odyssey 5. There are many connections with the Vergilian passage: Ovid’s Neptune (Ov. met. 1.276–84) is this time the provoker of the deluge, so in part playing the role of Aeolus in the Aeneid-storm, though also that of Poseidon in Hom. Od. 5.291–6, until Jupiter decides to stop the Flood and, at Ov. met. 1.330–2, Neptune picks up his pacificatory Aeneadic role (Verg. Aen. 1.124–56), which is developed

64 See Otis (2 1970, 109), Papaioannou (2007, 271–2), Kligour (2012, 321), and Lovatt (2013, 103). 65 Cf. Barkan (1986, 52–4). 66 See Biggs/Blum in volume II.2. 67 Cf. Griffin (1981, 149–52), Hardie (2002a, 285), and Bate (2004). See also Mayor (2017, 317), who suggests that “Ceyx and Alcyone represent the realisation of the elegiac desideratum.” See Bömer (1977, 345–7), Leigh (2010), and Dunsch (2013) for a wide-ranging account of tempestuous type-scenes in many genres.

298 | Alison Sharrock

in a highly visual picture together with Triton as trumpeter.⁶⁸ The big difference, however, is that Ovid’s Flood is no one’s journey (not even Nobody’s). Where there should be a hero battling the elements there is an absence – only doggy-paddling (metamorphic) wolves (Ov. met. 1.304) and a mild-mannered couple in a tiny boat (1.319). The set-piece of Book 11 is used by Dunsch (2013) as a paradigm for the stock motifs of a full-scale poetic storm, but, as both Bate (2004) and Dunsch (2013) point out, Ceyx’ shipwreck is not motivated by divine vengeance, despite the opportunity for this being available to Ovid from earlier versions.⁶⁹ Bate argues for seeing the storm in Book 11 as less epic and more elegiac than the Flood. I would suggest, however, that the storm-narrative for Ceyx is better seen as the peculiar type of Ovidian epic. Its size and rhetorical extravagance⁷⁰ take it far from the world of elegy, as does its teleology. Ceyx makes his trip for a purpose, one that is not simply greed. It is not a military purpose,⁷¹ such as motivates typical epic journeys to and from Troy or to and from Colchis, nor is it ktistic, like the journey to proto-Rome, but rather it is in order to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi for responsible political purposes – Ceyx is concerned that the metamorphosis of his brother Deucalion and that of the wolf which attacked Peleus’ herds might be signs of impending trouble (11.410–12). The strongest focus of the entire passage, however, is on the mutual love of the couple, which culminates in their mutual metamorphoses and unusual on-going fertility in their new lives (11.742–8). This outcome also is far from the world of elegy. If it is unusual in the world of epic, it is because this is an unusual epic.

68 Cf. Boyd (1990) and Barchiesi (2005, 196). Vergil’s Triton at this point just helps to save the ships, but later – si credere dignum est (Verg. Aen. 6.173) – he plays the role of offended deity in a contest of conch playing, drowning the presumptuous Misenus (6.171–4). In Moschus’ Europa (122–4), multiple Tritons play the flute and make music on shells. Ovid’s brief description of Neptune rising above the waves is clearly meant to evoke Vergil’s. That passage was the position for the remarkable first simile of the Aeneid, the statesman, subversively alluded to in Ovid’s early political simile during the council of gods, which precedes the Flood (Ov. met. 1.199–205). See Otis (2 1970, 99), Galinsky (1975, 191), and Solodow (1988, 56). 69 Cf. Reed (2013, 343). 70 Cf. Hardie (2012, 153) and Reed (2013, 349). 71 Reed (2013, 354) usefully draws attention to the military language used to describe the storm, including the simile of the soldier at Ov. met. 11.525, as an inversion of the pacific nature of Ceyx’ journey.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

299

9 Chaotic movement and narrative direction The final kind of movement that I would like to mention is the least like an epic journey, although many instances of it have different kinds of epic precedent. This is the kind of apparently random, highly frenetic movement that occurs throughout the poem, most intensely before the Trojan War and most obviously in the form of flight, especially of the gods. All movement contributes to the storyline, of course, and any journey can take the poem from one narrative place to another, as it moves from one geographical location to another. A particular feature of Ovidian mobile narrative, however, is the contribution of sudden, sometimes apparently unmotivated, translocation as an enactor and symbol of the transition between stories.⁷² From Homer onwards, the gods have arrived and departed suddenly and unexpectedly,⁷³ behaviour that in Ovid’s epic becomes a mechanism for continuity, whether we should call that ‘knowing’ or ‘tongue-in-cheek’. For example, at Ov. met. 5.250 (the end of the adventures of Perseus), Minerva flies off and goes to Helicon, thus initiating the long narrative of the Muses. A link is provided by her desire to see the new spring arising from the hoof of Pegasus (5.256–7), but the departure is no less sudden for that. Similarly, Apollo flies off (11.194–6) after having punished Midas for his poor musical judgement and goes to proto-Troy, thus enacting the movement of the overall narrative towards the Trojan War.⁷⁴ More troubling examples of divine sudden movement are the rape-narratives such as those of Jupiter. While supposedly putting the world to rights after the cataclysm of Phaethon’s destructive ride in the Sun’s chariot, he happens to catch sight of Callisto (2.409–10) and rapes her, after which he departs with extraordinarily heartless haste: 2.436–8a illa quidem pugnat; sed quem superare puella, / quisue Iouem poterat? superum petit aethera uictor / Iuppiter, “she indeed fights; but whom could a girl overcome, or who could overcome Jove? Jupiter as victor seeks the upper air.” Equally sudden, but rather more surprising, is the departure of Mercury after he has turned Aglaurus to stone in punishment for her obstruction of his affair with her sister Herse (2.833–5):

72 See Wheeler (2000, 58 and 130–1), Lyne (2001, 191), and Ziogas (2013, 334–47). 73 See, for instance, the abrupt appearances of the messenger Iris in Hom. Il. 2.786, 3.121, 8.409, and 15.172; Athena’s quick appearance as Mentes at Hom. Od. 1.96. 74 Reed (2013, 326) points out that the move towards Troy has been anticipated by the mention of Ganymede in Orpheus’ song.

300 | Alison Sharrock

835

Has ubi uerborum poenas mentisque profanae cepit Atlantiades, dictas a Pallade terras linquit et ingreditur iactatis aethera pennis. When the grandson of Atlas had inflicted this punishment for words and a profane mind, he left the land named after Pallas and entered the upper air on his beating wings.

The odd aspect is that Mercury apparently does not enter Herse’s bedroom once he has neutralised Aglaurus’ opposition. Perhaps this is an even more elliptical rape-and-departure – or perhaps it is because the poem is in a hurry to get onto the next story, for as soon as Mercury arrives back in heaven, Jupiter sends him back down to earth again, to the region of Tyre, in order to facilitate the rape of Europa.

10 Hospitality: the perfect opportunity for a story Xenia, the relationship between guests and hosts, including feasting and gift-giving, is central to archaic life and so to canonical epic, even in the relatively static Iliad.⁷⁵ In the dynamic journey-epics, hospitality not only plays a crucial enabling role to the story, but also provides the setting for narrative complexity, which adds another level of dynamism to the chronotopes of these poems, in the form of Odysseus’ and Aeneas’ flashback narrations.⁷⁶ Ovid’s hyper-mobile epic cannot and does not resist this gift horse. Not only does the translocation of characters create opportunities for new stories at the level of the primary narrative, but also travellers’ tales give the poet a cast-iron ‘epic’ excuse to integrate a host of additional stories into his poem. Common elements of the canonical epic hospitality scene have been drawn together by Reece, who mentions the role of stories as occurring “very often” among exchanges of information. No Homeric scene includes every motif, since, as Reece (1993, 28) says, there is considerable creativity even within the living oral type-scene, nor does any post-Homeric poet adhere tightly to the Homeric type, but so important is this scene in the epic world that Ovid needs only slight hints to enable such episodes to partake in the formality of epic, with whatever degree of naughtiness. Some of that naughtiness manifests itself in the tendency for the inserted stories to dominate over the hospitable frame. In this way, Ovid’s management of the hospitality scene is in keeping with his epic technique – to provide us with the building blocks of epic, but also to distract us from them. I

75 See Bettenworth and Ripoll in volume II.2. 76 Reece (1993, 5) counts twelve hospitality scenes in the Odyssey and four in the Iliad. On chronotopes in Latin epic, cf. Wolkenhauer in volume II.2.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

301

would suggest that the effort of reading for one continuous song, in this regard as in so many others, is what the poem quietly demands while constantly throwing stones in the reader’s path.⁷⁷ On my reckoning, there are six substantial heroic hospitality scenes in the poem, all in primary narrative and all containing additional stories. They are as follows: Perseus at the palace of Cepheus (with an abortive prequel with Atlas); Theseus and companions with Achelous; Cephalus with Aeacus; Peleus with Ceyx; Aeneas with Anius; Venulus with Diomedes (a marginal case); plus one closely related divine scene, that of Minerva with the Muses. In keeping with Ovid’s practice of avoiding direct repetition of Vergilian material, none of the heroic scenes straightforwardly performs the role of Odysseus with the Phaeacians and Aeneas at the court of Dido, but they all provide extensive opportunity for storytelling, with other elements of the type-scene played down, yet evoked sometimes with the tiniest of hints. Other important episodes to consider are the two theoxenies, the visits of Jupiter and Mercury to Lycaon and to Baucis and Philemon, the second of which in particular is closely tied up in epic hospitality. Neither of these is used as an occasion of storytelling, although the first is told by an internal narrator (Jupiter), and the second (narrated by Theseus’ companion Lelex) is itself part of the major hospitality scene with the river god Achelous. It is in this internal story that we see the most extensive details of the hospitality itself, rather than the narrative entertainment to which it gives rise.⁷⁸ Perseus, as mentioned above, is an extreme case of the wandering hero, whom one might expect to need traditional Homeric hospitality. He duly lands in the kingdom of Atlas at Ov. met. 4.628, looking for a place for the night.⁷⁹ A description of the place follows, with background on the owner.⁸⁰ Not backward in coming forward, Perseus accosts his potential host, addressing him, perhaps presumptuously, as hospes, and immediately launching into a statement of his ancestry and of his

77 See Tissol (1997, 153–6). 78 I am not considering Midas’ entertainment of Silenus (Ov. met. 11.94), nor Battus’ ill-fated welcome of Mercury, where the designation hospes (2.692) is heavy with the negative potential of the term. 79 The markers of time here, as frequently in the poem, are expressed in elevated, pseudoformulaic phraseology (Ov. met. 4.629–30). On Perseus as an epic hero, see Keith (1999, 221–3) and Keith (2002, 108–22), in which she draws out the Herculean aspects of Ovid’s Perseus, as well as the relationship between Ovid’s ‘Perseid’ and the war narratives of the Aeneid. The commentary by Barchiesi/Rosati (2007) is also important for enabling the ‘Perseid’ to stand out in its metamorphic frame. 80 Cf. Reece (1993, 13–14).

302 | Alison Sharrock

need (4.639–42).⁸¹ Unfortunately for him, however, he mentions his father’s name (Jupiter), but not his own, which creates the opportunity for mistaken identity, in that Atlas has been warned that a son of Jupiter would steal his golden apples – it is, of course, Hercules who is intended, not Perseus.⁸² Atlas therefore does what no Homeric host does, at least during a first visit, which is to refuse hospitality⁸³ and even to attempt to throw the hero out. At this point, Perseus picks up on a key element of guest-friendship, the giving of gifts, with the result that Atlas becomes the Atlas mountain (4.654b–6).⁸⁴

655

‘at quoniam parui tibi gratia nostra est, accipe munus’ ait laeuaque a parte Medusae ipse retro uersus squalentia protulit ora. “But since my friendship is of little value to you, receive a gift”, he said and from his left side, himself turned away, he brought forth the scaly face of Medusa.

In doing so, Ovid is (perhaps unintentionally on Perseus’ own part) alluding to the perversion of gift-giving in the form of the Cyclops’ undertaking to eat Odysseus last of all his companions (Hom. Od. 9.369–70). After leaving Atlas, Perseus is no less forthright in his next encounter. Given the circumstances, it is inevitable that the interaction between the hero and the family of Andromeda does not follow the usual pattern of hospitality, but it nonetheless contains some interesting elements. As soon as he catches sight of the maiden chained to the rock, Perseus demands to know her name, country, and business (that is, an explanation for why she is chained to a rock by the sea). The scene might also evoke a version (perhaps a perversion) of the topos of ‘meeting a maiden’.⁸⁵ When Andromeda’s parents suddenly appear at Ov. met. 4.691–2, their extraordinary uselessness is immediately attacked by the hero, the designated hospes (4.695), who says that this is not a time for tears, but for action. Again he immediately declares his identity, this time with his own name (4.697), and demands not just hospitality, but – that common subtext for the wandering hero – the hand of the princess if he succeeds in dealing with the monster. As the narrator

81 These elements are hints at traditional hospitality scenes, although hardly with the appropriate modesty. See Reece (1993, 20, 26–8, and 74). 82 See Barchiesi/Rosati (2007, 332) on the mistaken identity. 83 Hosts sometimes consider this course of action, while Aeolus does refuse Odysseus on his return visit after his men have opened the bag of winds (Hom. Od. 10.72–5). See Reece (1993, 18–19) on the hesitation of potential hosts. 84 For the clear allusions to Vergil’s description of the semi-anthropomorphic Atlas mountain, see Barchiesi/Rosati (2007, 329–31). 85 Cf. Reece (1993, 12–13).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

303

says (4.704), who could refuse him? Monster dealt with and marriage arranged, Perseus becomes the guest of honour at his own wedding feast, in a scene which, perhaps more than any other moment of hospitality in the Metamorphoses, hints obliquely at Odysseus/Aeneas as visiting potential husband and actual storyteller. After the briefest of hints at epic feasting-motifs,⁸⁶ Perseus launches into questions about the customs and spirit of the people. As if to indicate that it is really the role of the visitor to give an account of himself, Cepheus’ response is given (or rather, not given) in two words at 4.769 (simul edocuit), before the new father-in-law asks for an account of Perseus’ heroic history.⁸⁷ Again, however, there is a cheating of narrative expectation, as Perseus’ story of his defeat of Medusa is told at first in oratio obliqua, from its opening at 4.772 (narrat Agenorides)⁸⁸ until a premature initial ending at 4.790 (ante exspectatum tacuit tamen) with the result that one of the local elite has to ask the question to get him going again.⁸⁹ This time, the hospes (4.793) does speak directly to tell the story, not now of himself, but of Medusa’s personal history. It is as if Ovid does not quite want to allow him to be Odysseus/Aeneas, but only to speak when he is telling someone else’s tale. The next heroic hospitality scene in the poem is much further from the Homeric/Vergilian norm, especially in that its hero, Theseus, hardly speaks. In other ways, however, it is a magnificent example of the way Ovid uses and abuses this crucial building block of epic narratives. As Theseus and his companions are on their way back to Athens after the Calydonian boar hunt, they are stopped by the river god Achelous and forcefully invited to partake of his hospitality.⁹⁰ The watery excess which requires Theseus to stop overnight probably alludes to the storm which forces Callimachus’ Theseus, on the way to fight the Bull of Marathon, to take refuge in the hut of Hecale, in the Hellenistic poet’s short eponymous epic. That poem and its hospitality of a hero in a poor hut will be important for one of the internal narratives of the Achelous episode, but at this stage the allusion is poetologically playful, in that a river in spate is a well-known (and Callimachean) image

86 Ov. met. 4.765–6 postquam epulis functi generosi munere Bacchi / diffudere animos . . . (“having performed the feast, after they over-poured their spirits with the gift of generous Bacchus . . . ”). Cf. Reece (1993, 23–5). 87 This might have been expected at an earlier stage in their relationship, but it is highly appropriate to the Odysseus/Aeneas role offered to Perseus here. 88 Barchiesi/Rosati (2007, 324) note the extraordinary range of patronymics and related epic designations with which Perseus is honoured. 89 This may perhaps relate to the break in Odysseus’ narrative; see Anderson (1997, 495). Such a possibility is not raised by Barchiesi/Rosati, but see their note (Barchiesi/Rosati, 2007, 350) on the use and abuse of epic conventions in Perseus’ speech (and non-speech). 90 Scholars have noted that Theseus takes an odd route for this to happen; cf. Hollis (1970, 98) and Bömer (1977, 171).

304 | Alison Sharrock

for epic excess.⁹¹ What follows contains a number of motifs from the type-scene, albeit in rather unusual form, including a description of the place of hospitality (in typical Ovidian fashion, a gorgeous account slipping between natural cave and artificial atria, 8.562–4), seating arrangements (though Romanised, 8.566),⁹² and servants (barefooted nymphs) who, albeit very briefly, prepare the meal and serve wine afterwards (8.571–3).⁹³ Theseus then provides the opportunity for Achelous to start telling stories, by asking for information about the local geography. These stories (the nymphs turned into islands in punishment for neglecting Achelous, and the metamorphosis of Perimele) all involve the narrator as agent, as does the last story in the sequence, which is Achelous’ account of his battle with Hercules (he has just remembered that he is himself a shape-changer). It was in that battle that he lost one of his horns, which becomes the cornucopia and, right on cue, is brought in with the dessert by one of the nymphs (9.89–92). Theseus and his companions stay overnight and leave the following morning, as is epically appropriate, without waiting for the waters to subside. In between Achelous’ intradiegetic narrations, he and Lelex combine to provide two stories in which food and its proper use in human relationships are explored through self-consciously Callimachean intertexts.⁹⁴ Achelous’ story of Erysichthon,⁹⁵ who was punished with unstoppable hunger for violating a tree nymph sacred to Ceres, is epicised by comparison with its Callimachean counterpart in the Hymn to Demeter.⁹⁶ It is nonetheless substantially distant from the kind of traveller’s tale that is typical of epic hospitality narrations. Lelex’ pious tale of Philemon and Baucis, in which his only involvement is to have seen the resulting sacred trees himself (Ov. met. 8.622–3), is a complex mixture of epic and the disruption of epic. It is also one of the purest hospitality scenes of the Metamorphoses, the only extended example to be unadulterated by any further internal narrative (although internal narrative can be, as discussed above, itself an appropriate feature of an epic hospitality scene). To list the evidence for prosecution and defence on the epic status of this story, I would offer first, on the ‘epic’ side, the point that the story, in its telling by Lelex against the impious incredulity of Pirithous, belongs to the tradition

91 Cf. Hollis (1970), Rosati (2002), Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004, 269–74), Boyd (2006), and Hollis (2 2009). 92 See Reece (1993, 21–2). 93 See Reece (1993, 25). 94 See Myers (1994, 91–3), Murray (2004, 223–33), and Ziogas (2013, 131–2). 95 On Erysichthon’s daughter Mestra in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, see Hollis (1970, 128–9) and Ziogas (2013, 132). 96 See Hollis (1970, 130) and Murray (2004, 207–42).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

305

of Homeric paradigms told to make a moral point, which constitute one of the main ways in which wholly external stories enter into the Iliad in particular.⁹⁷ As a true theoxeny, the story partakes in a tradition which is broader than epic, but also very old and drawing on pre-epic folktale.⁹⁸ It is, moreover, always in the background of epic hospitality, as is shown explicitly by the warning given by one of the suitors at Hom. Od. 17.483–7, against Antinous’ ill-treatment of the beggar (the disguised Odysseus) at 17.485–7, because “the gods in the likeness of strangers from foreign parts, having taken on forms of all sorts, visit cities and observe the arrogant violence of men and their good order” (καί τε θεοὶ ξείνοισιν ἐοικότες ἀλλοδαποῖσι, / παντοῖοι τελέθοντες, ἐπιστρωφῶσι πόληας, / ἀνθρώπων ὕβριν τε καὶ εὐνομίην ἐφορῶντες). The episode is much better supplied with motifs of hospitality than are most Ovidian hospitality scenes: the travellers arrive and are received (Ov. met. 8.629) in a house which is described (8.630 and 8.637–8), as are its inhabitants (8.631–6); they are invited to sit (8.639) on a seat which has been made more comfortable for them by a covering (8.640); the meal is prepared (8.641–50, the details being in keeping with the rustic setting, rather than a heroic meal); there is friendly conversation, though importantly no request for the travellers to explain their identity before the meal (8.651–2); water for washing is provided (8.652–5); more description of the simple furnishings made comfortable for the guests (8.655a–63);⁹⁹ and details of the simple country fare provided (8.664–77).¹⁰⁰ At this point, the narrative moves away from the norms of human hospitality, when we would expect the beginning of questioning regarding identity and purpose. Instead, the magical refilling of the wine bowl initiates the recognition of the gods’ identity and the motifs of reward and punishment inherent in the theoxeny take over from standard hospitality. The story of Philemon and Baucis is not attested before Ovid,¹⁰¹ but the literary ancestry of the episode goes through an epic line which is itself disruptive of epic

97 Cf. Alden (2000). 98 See Louden (2011, 30–56) and Griffin (1991, 63), who rightly points out that many of the examples from epic and epyllion are not true theoxenies. Louden (2011, 31) describes the interventions of Athena in the form of Mentes as theoxeny, in which the eventual punishment of the suitors is additionally justified. On theoxeny, see also Reece (1993, 47–58, esp. 47–8) for its relationship with folktale and epic, and Hollis (2 2009, 341) with further bibliography and Appendix III. 99 Commentators have noted that here as elsewhere in the episode, Baucis and Philemon are presented as manifestations of the Roman rustic ideal. See, for example, Hollis (1970, 126) and Bömer (1977, 193–4). Leigh (2002) shows that the preparations for the couch subtly evoke the Roman ritual of lectisternium, in which the gods are invited to a feast as if they were human guests. 100 There are textual difficulties in this passage, which Hollis (1970, 117–18) believes may even arise from an Ovidian double recension. They do not significantly affect my argument. 101 See Kenney (2011, 364–5) and the references there.

306 | Alison Sharrock

norms. As is widely recognised, Ovid is here evoking Callimachus’ Hecale, itself an innovation in epic narrative, which nonetheless also has good epic precedent in the welcome offered to the disguised Odysseus in the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus.¹⁰² Aeneas’ visit to Evander is generally regarded as sitting in this tradition also. The well-developed motifs of hospitality are thus disrupted by their ‘Hellenistic’ concentration on the lives of little people. Bizarrely, Ovid’s Philemon and Baucisstory is generically more like Callimachus’ Hecale (a story of the hosting of Theseus) than his own hosting of Theseus, which forms its narrative frame. And yet, neither Philemon and Baucis, nor true theoxeny, has (as far as we know from extant fragments) any direct role in Callimachus’ Hecale.¹⁰³ On the one hand, Achelous’ story epicises Callimachus more obviously than does that of Lelex, and yet, I would suggest that the very fact that Ovid’s Philemon and Baucis-story is a true theoxeny, which its epic ancestors are not,¹⁰⁴ actually makes it more epic than either Callimachus’ or Achelous’ stories of hospitality. Moreover, it is a doublet of one of the earliest metamorphic stories in the poem, the visit of Jupiter to Lycaon.¹⁰⁵ Whereas in Lelex’ tale Jupiter and Mercury perform their roles as θεοὶ ξένοι properly, in Jupiter’s own account of their joint visit to Lycaon he gets it wrong.¹⁰⁶ He tells the council of the gods that he has been travelling through the world in human disguise in order to investigate the truth of claims regarding human wickedness (1.212–15), which is exactly what should happen in a theoxeny, but as soon as they arrive at Lycaon’s house, he goes straight in and gives a sign that a god has arrived (1.219–20). This is not what a θεόξενος is supposed to do. This is the story that begins with dignas Ioue . . . iras at 1.166 and culminates in the baroque magnificence of the Flood. My suggestion, then, is that the two scenes of theoxeny be read together as widely different manifestations of Ovid’s epic technique. In Aeneas’ visit to Evander, the Hecale-motif is overlaid on a story of political embassy. Ovid, of course, will not tell that story (mentioned in less than a line at Ov. met. 14.456), but instead develops the visit of Venulus to Diomedes to seek his help on the part of the Latins. There is little hospitality in the scene, but it does provide the opportunity for Diomedes to give a lengthy account of his experiences after the fall of Troy (14.464–511, part of the nostoi which are scattered through this book).

102 Cf. Hollis (2 2009, 343). 103 On Callimachus’ Hecale, cf. Bär/Schedel in this volume. 104 In them, great heroes (or a disguised hero as in the case of Odysseus) are hospitably entertained by lowly hosts. 105 In both cases, Jupiter punishes the vast majority of humankind with a flood. See Griffin (1992) and Fabre-Serris (2009). 106 Apostol (2014) makes the interesting case that we can read through Jupiter’s self-presentation to see a much more damning account of his behaviour in the episode.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

307

More traditionally hospitable is Aeacus, back in Book 7, where again the visits of Minos and then of Cephalus are political, with the embassy seeking military assistance. Both visits contain hospitality motifs. Even Minos, whose request will be rejected, has the host’s son (in fact, all three sons) recognise the arriving hero and approach him (7.475).¹⁰⁷ The successful visit of Cephalus, however, is a classic case of Ovidian narrative-based hospitality. Again the hero, with his companions, is recognised and lead into the palace (7.494–6).¹⁰⁸ The necessary business is done quickly (7.501–7) before Aeacus is given the opportunity to launch into a long account of the plague and the resulting origin of the Myrmidons (7.518–657). With that comment, we return briefly to the primary narrative, in which Aeacus invites Cephalus’ party to remain until the winds change appropriately – and we can be very sure that such winds will not change until more stories have been told. A few lines of summary hospitality, including more unnamed stories, follow (7.661–3). On the next day, there is a second occasion for extensive storytelling because the narrative has imposed delay: the winds have not changed, Telamon and Peleus are mustering troops, and Aeacus is still asleep. This is a perfect opportunity for the youngest son, Phocus, to hear the extended story of Cephalus and Procris (7.670–862). The inset narrative thus gets its revenge on the primary narrative. It is impossible not to be conscious that Phocus, the half-brother of Peleus and Telamon, is doomed to be killed by them. Several books later, such will be the cause of another hospitality scene, when Peleus has been exiled from home as a result of the murder (11.268–70) and takes refuge with the highly pacific Ceyx. Again there are hints at hospitality motifs, and again an opportunity for a separate story, the metamorphosis of Daedalion. The final heroic hospitality scene to consider is one involving Aeneas. Most of his canonical visits feature only in the briefest mention, but the Metamorphoses lingers over the Trojans’ stop-over in Delos. This is the visit related in Verg. Aen. 3.79–120 with emphasis on the confusing prophecy at 3.96 (antiquum exquirite matrem, “seek out your ancient mother”), which is replaced by Ovid with a much more extensive interaction with the priest-king Anius (Ov. met. 13.632),¹⁰⁹ after a bit of tourism to see the trees to which Latona clung while giving birth to Apollo and Diana. There are hints at proper hospitality, with the provision of food and wine briefly described and stories told at length.¹¹⁰ What is most important, however, is

107 Cf. Reece (1993, 17). 108 Cf. Reece (1993, 20–1). 109 Cf. Verg. Aen. 3.80. 110 The phrase talibus atque aliis . . . dictis (Ov. met. 13.675) echoes talibus atque aliis . . . sermonibus (7.661) after Aeacus’ account of the Myrmidons.

308 | Alison Sharrock

that the episode includes epic reciprocal gift-giving (13.679–704).¹¹¹ This important element of the archaic cultural economy appears regularly also in post-Homeric epic, but in the Metamorphoses only on this occasion. It is perhaps surprising that Ovid does not make more use of this motif, especially since gifts offer opportunities for independent stories. If they are elaborated with ekphrasis, as is the bowl that Anius here gives to Aeneas (13.681–701), the opportunities are extended still further. I tentatively suggest that Ovid uses the motif only on this occasion as a nod to Vergil and conventional epic, a metapoetic acknowledgement of his poem’s disruptions of epic norms and of its engagement with them. As well as these heroic hospitality scenes, there is a further variation, which is relevant to the appreciation of Ovid’s epic technique in this area. Macareus’ account of his visit to Circe (together with the other companions of Odysseus) uses a number of motifs of hospitality, including the quasi-formulaic introduction at Ov. met. 14.271 (haec ubi nos uidit, dicta acceptaque salute, “when she [sc. Circe] saw us, when greeting had been spoken and received . . . ”), which closely echoes the introduction to Glaucus’ visit to the same goddess to seek her help with his love for Scylla at 14.11 (quam simul aspexit, dicta acceptaque salute, “when he [sc. Glaucus] caught sight of her, when greeting had been spoken and received . . . ”). Glaucus’ visit belongs, or at least relates, to a subset of this structural element, which involves the visit of one god to another (in which they always recognise each other), usually with a request for help. A more epically conventional example of this type is the visit of Juno to Oceanus and Tethys (2.508–32). Although Juno’s goal here is to request that the catasterised Callisto be prohibited from entering the sea, in order to reduce the perceived insult to Juno’s position as Queen of the gods, the Ovidian scene could perhaps hint at the false Homeric visit of Hera to Oceanus and Tethys (Hom. Il. 14.200–10), which Hera claims to be about to undertake and for which she requests a loan of Aphrodite’s girdle – her real intention is of course to seduce Zeus. Be that as it may, the visit itself has Homeric ancestry in scenes such as Thetis visiting Hephaestus and his wife Charis in order to request new arms for Achilles (18.380–470). Pertaining both to divine visits and to hospitality as an excuse for narration is the trip Minerva makes to Helicon, in order, as she immediately explains on arrival, to see the new fountain, which is said to have arisen from the foot of Pegasus (Ov. met. 5.256–9). The Muse Urania receives her with the greatest politeness, addressing her as animo gratissima nostro (5.261), echoing the words of welcome offered by Homeric gods in such divine house-calls.¹¹² The Muse then “led Pallas to 111 Cf. Reece (1993, 35–6). 112 In the Odyssey, Calypso addresses Hermes likewise (αἰδοῖός τε φίλος τε, Hom. Od. 5.88). See also Eustathius’ comments on the lines (Stallbaum, 1826): 1.202.22–3 ῞Οτι φιλοξένου καὶ

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

309

the sacred waters” (ad latices deduxit Pallada sacros, 5.263), an action in keeping with archaic hospitality but, in the context of Hippocrene, over-determined with poetological significance.¹¹³ There follows a brief description (5.264–7) of the place to which the visitor has arrived, but the norms of hospitality quickly give way to a showpiece of extraordinary narrative complexity and artistic sophistication. The primary narrative is not entirely forgotten, but it is rather used metapoetically to entice the listener/reader further into the multiple levels of metamorphic narrative, when the narrating Muse stops speaking just as she is about to begin her account of Calliope’s winning entry in the song contest with the Pierides – to ask Minerva whether she has time to listen (Ov. met. 5.332–6)!

335

Hactenus ad citharam uocalia mouerat ora: ‘poscimur Aonides – sed forsitan otia non sint, nec nostris praebere uacet tibi cantibus aures?’ ‘ne dubita uestrumque mihi refer ordine carmen’ Pallas ait nemorisque leui consedit in umbra. Thus far she had engaged her vocal mouth to the accompaniment of the cithara. “We Aonides are called for – but perhaps you don’t have leisure for this, nor are you available to pay attention to our songs?” “Don’t hesitate and relate your song to me right through” says Pallas and she sat down in the light shade of the grove.

It is a nice irony that in the eagerness for stories of both Minerva and the Muses, only after the tale of Pyreneus, the challenge from the Pierides, and the latter’s song of Gigantomachy do they even get as far as sitting down.¹¹⁴ While both those stories have the excuse of being intradiegetic to the Muses, once we enter via the unnamed Muse into Calliope’s song of Ceres and Proserpina, and through Calliope into Arethusa’s account of her escape from Alpheus and the settlement in Sicily, we lose ourselves in the inside of the inside of Ovid’s metamorphic world.

11 Conclusion I have only scratched the surface of Ovid’s manipulative use of the building blocks of epic narratives in his Metamorphoses, for there would be much to be said about

φιλόφρονος / ἐρωτήσεως τε καὶ ὑποσχέσεως τὸ, τίπτε μοι εἰλήλουθας αἰδοῖός τε φίλος τε. In the Iliad, Charis and Hephaestus welcome Thetis in a similar way: αἰδοίη τε φίλη τε (Hom. Il. 18.386) and ἦ ῥά νύ μοι δεινή τε καὶ αἰδοίη θεὸς ἔνδον (18.394). 113 Cf. Hinds (1987, 18–21 and 126–7), Casali (2009, 351), as well as Ziogas (2013, 89). On the motif of leading the guest inside, see Reece (1993, 20–1). 114 This is an important motif of hospitality scenes; on which, see Reece (1993, 21–2).

310 | Alison Sharrock

other ways in which the poem plays into the world of epic, in areas such as descriptions of landscape, artistic ekphraseis, catalogues, katabaseis, similes, timemarkers, ring composition, patronymics, and other aspects of diction, as well as the specific allusions to particular poems which serve both to ground the poem in epic tradition and to create authoritative justifications for Ovid’s deviations. I shall end, however, with the difficulty of ending. For all its end-directed narrative trajectory and goal-oriented teleology, an ancient epic always struggles to achieve closure.¹¹⁵ From the genre’s very inception, as we and Ovid know it, a Graeco-Roman epic is a fragment of something greater, since the Iliad is only a fraction of the Trojan War, and the Trojan War only a part of the totality of heroic myth in bardic form. For all the closural enclosure of the funeral of Hector, already the Amazon is waiting in the wings. The unforgettable last moments of the Aeneid have seemed to many readers to beg for continuation, because the finality of Turnus’ death seems like a stage in the process rather than completion of it, however one may interpret the process itself. Yet, the final metamorphosis of Ovid into his own poetry and his spectacular prophecy of future life, uiuam (Ov. met. 15.879),¹¹⁶ both take the story beyond the confines of the narrative while also closing down the possibility of continuation. On the one hand, for all its Ennian allusions and poetic elevation, the sphragis of the Metamorphoses is to some extent out of keeping with epic endings, not just because of its generic crossing but also in its very excess.¹¹⁷ With the epilogue’s near-quotation of Hor. carm. 3.30 and Ovid’s adoption of Horace’s quasi-lyric first person voice, the reader might be tempted to perceive a metamorphosis of genre to match the one with which the entire poem opened.¹¹⁸ The metrical nature of that change, however, would seem to suggest that what we have here is not so much the transformation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into lyric but of Horace’s lyric into epic. On the other hand, moreover, ending with an apotheosis of the poet, which transcends the boundaries of the poem, has been in preparation since the apotheosis of Hercules, or indeed, since the opening cosmogony and its deus et melior . . . natura (Ov. met. 1.21), mapped by the pars melior of the metamorphic

115 On middles and endings in ancient epic, see Zissos in this volume. 116 Hardie (2015, 622) comments on how the opening of the epilogue with iamque (Ov. met. 15.871) seems like the beginning of a new book. On the new beginnings, see also Feeney (1999, 30) and Barchiesi (1997) including the acrostic INCIP at 15.871–5. Hardie (2015, 628) also sees the celebration of life in the final word of the Metamorphoses as an evocative contrast with the funeral of Hector and the death of Turnus. 117 Cf. Hardie (2015, 592). 118 See Galinsky (1975, 24–5), Barchiesi (1994, 262–4), and Hardie (2015, 617–22).

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

311

poet (cf. 15.875).¹¹⁹ The poem reaches its goal, taking the story all the way down to mea tempora, as promised at 1.4, in a way that is more teleological, more complete, than Vergil’s programme to condere urbem (Verg. Aen. 1.5), in which he only gets as far as the moment when the hero ferrum . . . condit (12.950) in the breast of Turnus. Ovid has replaced the closural deaths of the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid with even more closural apotheoses.¹²⁰ The question is whether he has left any chance of continuation. A possible answer would be in the negative, in that there is no on-going story for another poet to pick up, and after the Metamorphoses, Latin epic reverts to a more straightforwardly Vergilian form and better generic behaviour.¹²¹ On the other hand, Lucan’s deformations and Statius’ perversions are made possible because Ovid changed things first.

Bibliography Adamik, T. (1999). In speciem unius corporis: Struktur und Botschaft von Ovids Metamorphosen, in: W. Schubert (ed.), Ovid: Werk und Wirkung: Festgabe für Michael von Albrecht zum 65. Geburtstag. Frankfurt am Main: 257–68. Alden, M. J. (2000). Homer beside himself: para-narratives in the Iliad. Oxford. Anderson, W. S. (ed., 1972). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Books 6–10. Edited, with introduction and commentary. Norman. Anderson, W. S. (ed., 1997). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Books 1–5. With introduction and commentary. Norman. Apostol, R. (2014). In wolf’s clothing: a psychoanalytic reading of the Lycaon episode in Ovid, Metamorphoses 1, Helios 41: 109–37. Armstrong, R. (2005). Ovid and his love poetry. London. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: four essays. Translated by C. Emerson, edited by M. Holquist. Austin, TX. Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Bloomington, IN. Barchiesi, A. (1994). Il poeta e il principe: Ovidio e il discorso augusteo. Rome. Barchiesi, A. (1997). Endgames: Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15 and Fasti 6, in: D. H. Roberts/F. M. Dunn/D. P. Fowler (eds.), Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ: 181–208. Barchiesi, A. (1999). Venus’ masterplot. Ovid and the Homeric Hymns, in: P. R. Hardie/A. Barchiesi/S. Hinds (eds.), Ovidian transformations: essays on the Metamorphoses and its reception. Cambridge: 112–26.

119 Wickkiser (1999) explores the relationship between the sphragis and the rest of the poem, drawing out, in particular, the links between the beginning and the end. 120 Ennius may possibly have finished the Annals with a sphragis, though not the epigram alluded to here. See Hardie (2015, 617). 121 Cf. Hardie (1993).

312 | Alison Sharrock

Barchiesi, A. (ed., 2005). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. I: Libri I–II. A cura di A. Barchiesi con un saggio introduttivo di C. Segal, testo critico basato sull’edizione oxoniense di R. J. Tarrant, traduzione di L. Koch. Milan. Barchiesi, A. (2006). Music for monsters: Ovid’s Metamorphoses, bucolic evolution and bucolic criticism, in: M. Fantuzzi/T. D. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s companion to Greek and Latin pastoral. Leiden/Boston: 403–25. Barchiesi, A. (2009). Phaethon and the monsters, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), Paradox and the marvellous in Augustan literature and culture. Oxford: 163–88. Barchiesi, A./Rosati, G. (eds., 2007). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. II: Libri III–IV, traduzione di L. Koch. Milan. Barkan, L. (1986). The gods made flesh. Metamorphosis and the pursuit of paganism. New Haven, CT. Bartholomé, H. (1935). Ovid und die antike Kunst. Münster. Bate, M. (2004). Tempestuous poetry: storms in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Heroides and Tristia, Mnemosyne 57: 295–310. Bömer, F. (ed., 1977). P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphosen. Kommentar, vol. IV. Heidelberg. Boyd, B. W. (1990). Non hortamine longo: an Ovidian ‘correction’ of Vergil, AJPh 111: 82–5. Boyd, B. W. (2006). Two rivers and the reader in Ovid, Metamorphoses 8, TAPA 136: 171–206. Boyd, B. W. (2012). On starting an epic (journey): Telemachus, Phaethon, and the beginning of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, MD 69: 101–18. Boyd, B. W. (2017). Ovid’s Homer: authority, repetition, reception. Oxford. Cameron, A. (2004). Greek mythography in the Roman world. Oxford. Casali, S. (2007). Correcting Aeneas’s voyage: Ovid’s commentary on Aeneid 3, TAPA 137: 181– 210. Casali, S. (2009). The theophany of Apollo in Vergil, Aeneid 9: Augustanism and self-reflexivity, in: L. Athanassaki/R. P. Martin/J. F. Miller (eds.), Apolline politics and poetics. Athens: 299–327. Clarke, H. W. (1969). The Humor of Homer, CJ 64: 246–52. Cody, I. V. (1976). Horace and Callimachean aesthetics. Brussels. Coleman, R. (1971). Structure and intention in the Metamorphoses, CQ 21: 461–77. Connors, C. (2005). Epic allusion in Roman satire, in: K. Freudenburg (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Roman satire. Cambridge: 123–45. Curley, D. (2013). Tragedy in Ovid: theater, metatheater, and the transformation of a genre. Cambridge. Dougherty, C. (1993). The poetics of colonization: from city to text in archaic Greece. New York. Due, O. S. (1974). Changing forms. Studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Copenhagen. Dunsch, B. (2013). Describe nunc tempestatem. Sea storm and shipwreck type scenes in ancient literature, in: C. Thompson (ed.), Shipwreck in art and literature: images and interpretation from antiquity to the present day. New York: 42–59. Ellsworth, J. D. (1980). Ovid’s Iliad (Metamorphoses 12.1–13.622), Prudentia 12: 23–9. Ellsworth, J. D. (1986). Ovid’s Odyssey, Met. 13.623–14.608, Mnemosyne 41: 333–40. Enterline, L. (2000). The rhetoric of the body from Ovid to Shakespeare. Cambridge. Fabre-Serris, J. (2009). Constructing a narrative of mira deum: the story of Philemon and Baucis (Ovid, Metamorphoses 8), in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), Paradox and the marvellous in Augustan literature and culture. Oxford: 231–47. Fairclough, H. R. (ed., 1916). Virgil, vol. I: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid. Books 1–6. Translated by H. R. Fairclough. Cambridge, MA/London.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

313

Fantham, E. (2004). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Oxford. Fantham, E. (2009). Rhetoric and Ovid’s poetry, in: P. E. Knox (ed.), A companion to Ovid. Oxford: 26–44. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. L. (2004). Tradition and innovation in Hellenistic poetry. Cambridge. Farrell, J. (1992). Dialogue of genres in Ovid’s ‘Lovesong of Polyphemus’ (Metamorphoses 13.719–879), AJPh 113: 235–68. Farrell, J. (2007). Horace’s body, Horace’s books, in: S. Heyworth (ed.), Classical constructions: papers in memory of Don Fowler. Oxford: 174–93. Farrell, J. (2009). Ovid’s generic transformations, in: P. E. Knox (ed.), A companion to Ovid. Oxford: 370–80. Feeney, D. C. (1999). Mea tempora: patterning of time in the Metamorphoses, in: P. R. Hardie/ A. Barchiesi/S. Hinds (eds.), Ovidian transformations: essays on the Metamorphoses and its reception. Cambridge: 13–30. Feldherr, A. (2002). Metamorphosis in the Metamorphoses, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge: 163–79. Foster, M. (2017). The seer and the city: religion, politics, and colonial ideology in ancient Greece. Oakland. Galinsky, G. K. (1975). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. An introduction to the basic aspects. Oxford. Garland, R. (2014). Wandering Greeks: the ancient Greek diaspora from the age of Homer to the death of Alexander the Great. Princeton, NJ. Gildenhard, I./Zissos, A. (2000). Inspirational fictions: autobiography and generic reflexivity in Ovid’s proems, G&R 47: 67–79. Gildenhard, I./Zissos, A. (2013). The transformations of Ovid’s Medea (Metamorphoses 7.1–424), in: I. Gildenhard/A. Zissos (eds.), Transformative change in Western thought: a history of metamorphosis from Homer to Hollywood. London: 88–130. Gildenhard, I./Zissos, A. (eds., 2016). Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511–733. Latin text with introduction, study questions, vocabulary aid and commentary. Cambridge. Golden, L. (1990). Το γελοῖον in the Iliad, HSPh 93: 47–57. Griffin, A. H. F. (1981). The Ceyx legend in Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XI, CQ 31: 147–54. Griffin, A. H. F. (1991). Philemon and Baucis in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, G&R 38: 62–74. Griffin, A. H. F. (1992). Ovid’s universal flood, Hermathena 152: 39–58. Griffin, J. (1977). The Epic Cycle and the uniqueness of Homer, JHS 97: 39–53. Hardie, P. R. (1986). Virgil’s Aeneid: cosmos and imperium. Oxford. Hardie, P. R. (1993). The epic successors of Virgil: a study in the dynamics of a tradition. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (1997a). Closure in Latin epic, in: D. H. Roberts/F. M. Dunn/D. P. Fowler (eds.), Classical closure: reading the end in Greek and Latin literature. Princeton, NJ: 139–62. Hardie, P. R. (1997b). Questions of authority: the invention of tradition in Ovid Metamorphoses 15, in: T. Habinek/A. Schiesaro (eds.), The Roman cultural revolution. Cambridge: 182–98. Hardie, P. R. (2002a). Ovid’s poetics of illusion. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (2002b). The historian in Ovid. The Roman history of Metamorphoses 14–15, in: D. S. Levene/D. P. Nelis (eds.), Clio and the poets: Augustan poetry and the traditions of ancient historiography. Leiden/Boston: 191–209. Hardie, P. R. (2012). Rumour and renown. Representations of Fama in western literature. Cambridge. Hardie, P. R. (ed., 2015). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. VI: Libri XIII–XV, traduzione di G. Chiarini. Milan.

314 | Alison Sharrock

Harrison, S. J. (2002). Ovid and genre: evolutions of an elegist, in: P. R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ovid. Cambridge: 79–94. Harrison, S. J. (2007). The primal voyage and the ocean of epos. Two aspects of metapoetic imagery in Catullus, Virgil and Horace, Dictynna 4. (Available at https://journals.openedition. org/dictynna/146). Heyworth, S. (1994). Some allusions to Callimachus in Latin poetry, MD 33: 51–79. Hinds, S. E. (1987). The metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the self-conscious muse. Cambridge. Hollis, A. S. (ed., 1969). Ovid, Metamorphoses. Book VIII. Oxford. Hollis, A. S. (ed., 1970). Ovid, Metamorphoses: Book VIII. Edited with an introduction and commentary. Oxford. Hollis, A. S. (ed., 2 2009). Callimachus. Hecale. Second edition with introduction, text, translation, and enlarged commentary. Oxford. Holzberg, N. (1998). Ter quinque volumina as carmen perpetuum: the division into books in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, MD 40: 77–98. Holzberg, N. (2002). Ovid: the poet and his work. Translated by G. M. Goshgarian. Ithaca, NY. Hopkinson, N. (ed., 2000). Ovid, Metamorphoses. Book XIII. Cambridge. Horsfall, N. (1979). Epic and burlesque in Ovid, Met. 8.260ff. CJ 74: 319–32. Johnson, P. J. (2008). Ovid before exile: art and punishment in the Metamorphoses. Madison, WI. Keith, A. M. (1992). The play of fictions: studies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 2. Ann Arbor, MI. Keith, A. M. (1999). Versions of epic masculinity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in: P. R. Hardie/A. Barchiesi/S. Hinds (eds.), Ovidian transformations: essays on the Metamorphoses and its reception. Cambridge: 214–39. Keith, A. M. (2002). Sources and genres in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1–5, in: B. W. Boyd (ed.), Brill’s companion to Ovid. Leiden/Boston/Cologne: 235–69. Kenney, E. J. (1976). Ovidius prooemians, PCPhS 22: 46–53. Kenney, E. J. (2002). Ovid’s language and style, in: B. W. Boyd (ed.), Brill’s companion to Ovid. Leiden/Boston/Cologne: 27–89. Kenney, E. J. (ed., 2011). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. IV: Libri VII–IX, traduzione di G. Chiarini. Milan. Kligour, M. K. (2012). Milton and the metamorphosis of Ovid. Oxford. Knox, P. E. (1986). Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the traditions of Augustan poetry. Cambridge. Latacz, J. (1979). Ovids Metamorphosen als Spiel mit der Tradition, WJA 5: 133–55. Lateiner, D. (1984). Mythic and non-mythic artists in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Ramus 13: 1–30. Leach, E. W. (1974). Ekphrasis and the theme of artistic failure in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Ramus 3: 102–42. Leigh, M. (2002). Ovid and the lectisternium (Metamorphoses 8.651–60), CQ 52: 625–7. Leigh, M. (2010). Early Roman epic and the maritime moment, CPh 105: 265–80. Lieberg, G. (1969). Seefahrt und Werk. Untersuchungen zu einer Metapher der antiken, besonders der lateinischen Literatur. Von Pindar bis Horaz, GIF 21: 209–40. Lightfoot, J. L. (2009). Ovid and Hellenistic poetry, in: P. E. Knox (ed.), A companion to Ovid. Oxford: 219–35. Louden, D. B. (2011). Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East. Cambridge. Lovatt, H. V. (2013). The epic gaze: vision, gender and narrative in ancient epic. Cambridge. Lyne, R. (2001). Ovid’s changing worlds: English Metamorphoses, 1567–1632. Oxford.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic tradition |

315

Mader, G. (2013). The be(a)st of the Achaeans: turning tables / overturning tables in Ovid’s centauromachy (Metamorphoses 12.210–535), Arethusa 46: 87–116. Malkin, I. (1998). The returns of Odysseus: colonization and ethnicity. Berkeley, CA. Marshall, S. W. (2016). Narrative transitions in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 9, in: A. M. Keith/J. Edmondson (eds.), Roman literary cultures. Domestic politics, revolutionary poetics, civic spectacle. Toronto: 140–58. Mayor, J. M. B. (2017). Powerplay in Latin love elegy and its multiple forms of continuity in Ovid’s Metamophoses. Berlin. Merkelbach, R./West, M. L. (eds., 1969). Fragmenta Hesiodea. Oxford. Miller, F. J./Goold, G. P. (eds., 1916). Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2 vols. With an English translation. Revised by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA. Murray, J. (2004). The metamorphoses of Erysichthon: Callimachus, Apollonius, and Ovid, in: M. A. Harder/R. F. Regtuit/G. C. Wakker (eds.), Callimachus II. Leuven: 207–42. Musgrove, M. W. (1998). Nestor’s centauromachy and the deceptive voice of poetic memory (Ovid Met. 12.182–535), CPh 93: 223–31. Myers, K. S. (1994). Ovid’s causes. Cosmogony and aetiology in the Metamorphoses. Ann Arbor, MI. Nagle, B. R. (1988). A trio of love-triangles in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Arethusa 25: 11–31. Ntanou, E. (forthcoming). HAC Arethusa TENUS (Ov. Met. 5.642): geography and poetics in Ovid’s Arethusa, in: M. Malm/M. Möller/A. R. Sharrock (eds.), Ovidian readings: transformations of language, gender and the Metamorphoses. O’Hara, J. J. (2004). “Some god . . . or his own heart”: two kinds of epic motivation in the proem to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, CJ 100: 149–61. Otis, B. (2 1970). Ovid as an epic poet. Cambridge. Pache, C. (2000). War games: Odysseus at Troy, HSPh 100: 15–23. Papaioannou, S. (2002). Poetische Erinnerung und epische Dichtung: Nestors Rede in Ovid, Metamorphosen Buch 12, Gymnasium 109: 213–34. Papaioannou, S. (2004). Ut non [forma] cygnorum, sic albis proxima cygnis: Poetology, epic definition, and swan imagery in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Phoenix 58: 49–61. Papaioannou, S. (2005). Epic succession and dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623–14.582, and the reinvention of the Aeneid. Berlin/New York. Papaioannou, S. (2007). Redesigning Achilles: ‘recycling’ the Epic Cycle in the ‘Little Iliad’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1–13.622). Berlin/New York. Pavlock, B. (2009). The image of the poet in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Madison, WI. Porter, D. (1987). Horace’s poetic journey. A reading of Odes 1–3. Princeton, NJ. Pucci, P. (1987). Odysseus Polutropos. Intertextual readings in the Odyssey and the Iliad. Ithaca, NY. Quint, D. (1993). Epic and empire: politics and generic form from Virgil to Milton. Princeton, NJ. Reece, S. (1993). The stranger’s welcome: oral theory and the aesthetics of the Homeric hospitality scene. Ann Arbor, MI. Reed, J. D. (ed., 2013). Ovidio, Metamorfosi, vol. V: Libri X–XII, traduzione di G. Chiarini. Milan. Reitz, C. (1999). Zur Funktion der Kataloge in Ovids Metamorphosen, in: W. Schubert (ed.), Ovid: Werk und Wirkung: Festgabe für Michael von Albrecht zum 65. Geburtstag. Frankfurt am Main: 359–72. Rosati, G. (2002). Narrative techniques and narrative structures in the Metamorphoses, in: B. W. Boyd (ed.), Brill’s companion to Ovid. Leiden/Boston/Cologne: 271–304. Segal, E. (1999). Ovid’s Meleager and the Greeks: trials of gender, HSPh 99: 301–40.

316 | Alison Sharrock

Sharrock, A. R. (1994). Seduction and repetition in Ovid’s Ars amatoria 2. Oxford. Sider, D. (2014). Didactic poetry: the Hellenistic invention of a pre-existing genre, in: R. L. Hunter/A. Rengakos/E. Sistakou (eds.), Hellenistic studies at a crossroads. Exploring texts, contexts and metatexts. Berlin/Boston: 13–30. Simpson, M. (2001). The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Amherst, MA. Solodow, J. B. (1988). The world of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Chapel Hill, NC. Stallbaum, J. G. (1826). Eustathii Archiepiscopi Thessalonicensis Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam, vol. II. Cambridge. Tarrant, R. J. (ed., 2004). P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit R. J. Tarrant. Oxford. Thomas, R. F. (2009). Ovid’s reception of Virgil, in: P. E. Knox (ed.), Oxford Readings in Ovid. Oxford: 294–307. Tissol, G. (1997). The face of nature: wit, narrative, and cosmic origins in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Princeton, NJ. Tsitsiou-Chelidoni, C. (1999). Erzählerische Querverbindungen in Ovids Metamorphosen, in: W. Schubert (ed.), Ovid: Werk und Wirkung: Festgabe für Michael von Albrecht zum 65. Geburtstag. Frankfurt am Main: 269–303. Von Albrecht, M. (1961). Zum Metamorphosenprooem Ovids, RhM 104: 269–78. Wheeler, S. M. (1999). A discourse of wonders: audience and performance in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Philadelphia. Wheeler, S. M. (2000). Narrative dynamics in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Tübingen. Wheeler, S. M. (2002). Ovid’s Metamorphoses and universal history, in: D. S. Levene/D. P. Nelis (eds.), Clio and the poets: Augustan poetry and the traditions of ancient historiography. Leiden/Boston: 163–89. Wickkiser, B. L. (1999). Famous last words: putting Ovid’s sphragis back into the Metamorphoses, MD 42: 113–42. Wilkinson, L. P. (1955). Ovid recalled. Cambridge. Wise, V. M. (1977). Flight myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Ramus 6: 44–59. Ziogas, I. (2013). Ovid and Hesiod. The metamorphosis of the Catalogue of Women. Cambridge. Ziogas, I. (2014). The topography of epic narrative in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in: M. Skempis/ I. Ziogas (eds.), Geography, topography, landscape: configurations of space in Greek and Roman epic. Berlin/Boston: 325–48.

Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

Epic fragments Abstract: The epic poems of antiquity that have survived to the present day in their complete form constitute only a small part of what originally was composed. In many cases, we only know the titles and/or have synopses of the numerous epics which are now lost, or we only have sparse fragments consisting of as little as single words or lines that were cited by grammarians and antiquarians, generally without much context. Fragments and summaries are therefore rarely sufficient to allow coherent propositions on structural elements and narrative patterns. In this chapter, several questions will be addressed that arise from the seemingly inescapable conflict between the fragmentary state of the poems in question and a narratological approach: is it possible to find recurrent structural elements and narrative patterns in epic fragments? Which methodological requirements could plausibly be useful with respect to analysing fragments along those lines? And, what additional value can be gained from such an analysis? To this end, a selection of important fragments from ancient epic is analysed and discussed. The first main section of the chapter addresses Greek epic (esp. the so-called Epic Cycle, Panyassis’ Heraclea, and Callimachus’ Hecale); the second part is devoted to Latin epic (esp. Livius Andronicus’ Odusia, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, and Ennius’ Annales).

1 Introduction Only few of the epic poems that were produced in antiquity have survived in their complete state. Of the numerous epics which are now lost, we often only know their titles, or we merely have synopses of their content, or short fragments that consist of as little as a few individual words or lines that have been preserved in quotations by grammarians and antiquarians, generally without much context. Therefore, research has so far mainly focused on the analysis of aesthetic phenomena of the remaining fragments as part of the poetic techniques of their authors, on the introduction and evolution of epic in archaic Greece and in early Republican Rome, respectively, and on the possible contextualisation of individual fragments. In contrast, fragments and summaries are rarely considered to be sufficient to allow coherent propositions on structural elements and narrative patterns. Indeed, various questions arise from the seemingly inescapable conflict between the fragmentary state of the poems and a narratological approach: is it possible to find recurrent structural elements and narrative patterns in epic fragments? Which methodological requirements could plausibly be useful with respect to analysing https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-012

318 | Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

fragments along those lines? And, what additional value do we eventually gain from such an analysis? This chapter attempts to tackle these and similar problems by approaching some of the early Greek and Latin epic fragments from a narratological, purely text-based perspective, leaving aside any problematic speculation concerning their hypothetical contextualisation. To this end, a selection of important fragments from ancient epic is analysed and discussed diachronically. The first section addresses Greek epic and discusses, by way of example, some relevant testimonies and fragments of the Epic Cycle, Panyassis’ Heraclea, and Callimachus’ Hecale. The second part is devoted to Latin epic and exemplarily discusses the three pre-Vergilian epics of Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius from a narratological viewpoint. In Livius Andronicus’ Odusia, the primary focus lies on the invocation of the Muse, which is analysed from a spatial narratological perspective. In the discussion of Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, aspects concerning a fragmented ekphrasis are in the centre of attention. An examination of Ennius’ Annales with specific consideration of aspects of focalisation in a battle scene completes this chapter.

2 Greek epic fragments 2.1 The Epic Cycle Epic Cycle is a collective term for a number of epic poems that dealt with episodes from the Trojan War ‘around’ the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. They were composed in the 7th and 6th century BC and they were attributed to different authors, comprising the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the Ilias parua, the Iliou persis, the Nostoi, and the Telegony.¹ Aside from very few fragments (amounting to a total of approximately 100 lines), the content of these epics can only be reconstructed through later testimonies, the most important of which is a prose renarration by Proclus in his Chrestomathia (a text which has not survived in full, but only in a series of summaries by the Byzantine patriarch Photius as well as in the

1 Research literature on the Epic Cycle is immense. The most recent, and most important, reference works are the commentary by West (2013) and the companion edited by Fantuzzi/Tsagalis (2015). Further important studies, which also have introductory character, are those by Davies (1986), Davies (1989), and Scafoglio (2014–2015). In this chapter, fragments of the Epic Cycle are quoted according to the numeration system by West (2003), the latest and most accessible edition. The two other editions most commonly used are Bernabé (1987) and Davies (1988); cf. West (2003, 300–3) for a comparative numeration. The translation used is that by West (2003), with occasional modifications.

Epic fragments |

319

form of excerpts in some manuscripts of the Iliad).² Judging by these remains, the cyclic epics were probably considerably shorter and more straightforward in their narrative structure than the Iliad and the Odyssey. Each of these poems was selfcontained, but in total they were, as West (2015, 97) aptly puts it, “designed to form a segment of a vaster narrative continuum.” Despite this overarching narrative entity, it is important to note that the cyclic epics were not originally intended as a coherent collection, let alone a coherent piece of work. In fact, the designation Epic Cycle (ἐπικὸς κύκλος) was nothing more than a convenient umbrella term; indeed, the term was probably coined in the 4th century BC, but even then, the collection served primarily practical (or didactic) purposes. In addition to this, there was (and is) also disagreement as to which epics would actually have been classified as ‘cyclic’. Whereas the canonical definition only includes the Trojan Cycle, a broader interpretation would also incorporate the epics of the Theban Cycle (that is, the Theogony, the Titanomachy, the Oedipodea, the Thebaid, the Epigonoi, and the Alcmeonis).³ The following discussion will focus solely on the Trojan Cycle. In his brief chapter on narrative techniques in the Epic Cycle, Rengakos (2015b, 154) states that “one can say next to nothing about other elements of the narrative such as the narrator, the focalisation or the insertion of direct speech.” Furthermore, he also points to the fact that in Proclus’ summaries, there is considerable overlap in the plot of some of the Trojan epics,⁴ so that it is not always clear “whether the fragments that seem to exceed the boundaries of each epic as set by Proclus should be seen as analeptic or proleptic passages within their respective time frame or if we are simply faced with an artificial and therefore erroneous demarcation of each epic plot on his part.”⁵ With respect to epic structures, in turn, the situation may appear slightly more optimistic, as Proclus’ summaries give us a relatively good sketch of the content of each epic of the Trojan Cycle. Since the cyclic poems stem back from the same centuries-old oral roots as the Homeric epics do,⁶ we must assume that their authors/composers had access to the same system of fully-fledged, formulaic

2 Cf. Davies (1986, 100–9) and Fantuzzi/Tsagalis (2015, 34–40). The most comprehensive study on Proclus’ Chrestomathia is still that by Severyns (1938). Cf. also Scafoglio (2004). 3 On the scope and formation of the Epic Cycle, cf. the overviews provided by West (2013, 1–54) and Fantuzzi/Tsagalis (2015), as well as the chapter by West (2015), all with further references. West’s commentary (2013) only includes the six Trojan epics, whereas the chapters in Fantuzzi/ Tsagalis (2015) also incorporate the Theban Cycle. 4 Cf. Scodel (2012, 514–15) and the overview in Fantuzzi/Tsagalis (2015, 2 n. 3). 5 Rengakos (2015b, 154). 6 See especially Holmberg (1998) and Burgess (2001).

320 | Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

structures and that they made good use of it. However, the scarce textual evidence leaves us unable to decide what their concrete scope and implementation might have looked like.⁷ The beginning of Proclus’ summary of the Cypria (attributed to either Homer, Stasinus, or Hegesias) may give us a better idea of the problem: Ζεὺς βουλεύεται μετὰ τῆς Θέμιδος περὶ τοῦ Τρωικοῦ πολέμου. παραγενομένη δὲ ῎Ερις εὐωχουμένων τῶν θεῶν ἐν τοῖς Πηλέως γάμοις νεῖκος περὶ κάλλους ἐνίστησιν ᾿Αθηνᾷ, ῞Ηρᾳ καὶ ᾿Αφροδίτῃ, αἳ πρὸς ᾿Αλέξανδρον ἐν ῎Ιδῃ κατὰ Διὸς προσταγὴν ὑφ’ ῾Ερμοῦ πρὸς τὴν κρίσιν ἄγονται. Zeus confers with Themis about the Trojan War. As the gods are feasting at the wedding of Peleus, Strife appears and causes a dispute about beauty among Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, who, on Zeus’ instruction, are conducted by Hermes to Alexander on [mount] Ida for adjudication.

These lines evoke three well-known epic structures, namely, a divine council, a banquet scene, and an arrival scene. At the same time, it seems impossible to comment on their concrete nature and scope because of the ‘skeleton-like’ quality of the summary. For example, was the conversation between Zeus and Themis composed as a dialogue proper, or did it take place in the presence of other gods? Did it happen on Mount Olympus, or elsewhere? Was the divine banquet scene structured in analogy to the highly formalised type of banquet scenes among humans, as we know them from the Homeric epics onwards?⁸ And, in how much detail was Strife’s arrival reported? Simultaneously, the proem is not mentioned, since it is, obviously, not part of the plot; however, we must assume that the Cypria, too, opened with this traditional bauform.⁹ It is only on rare occasions that Proclus is comprehensive enough so as to allow the conclusion that a specific epic structure must have been fully elaborated. Such a case may be seen in the opening lines of the summary of the Iliou persis (attributed to Arctinus), which clearly points to an assembly proper, given the detailed character of the dispute (Procl. Chr. 1): †ὡς† τὰ περὶ τὸν ἵππον οἱ Τρῶες ὑπόπτως ἔχοντες περιστάντες βουλεύονται ὅ τι χρὴ ποιεῖν. καὶ τοῖς μὲν δοκεῖ κατακρημνίσαι αὐτόν, τοῖς δὲ καταφλέγειν, οἱ δὲ ἱερὸν αὐτὸν ἔφασαν δεῖν τῇ ᾿Αθηνᾷ ἀνατεθῆναι· καὶ τέλος νικᾷ ἡ τούτων γνώμη.

7 Cf. the accordingly clipped treatment of the ‘war motifs’ in the Epic Cycle in Miniconi (1951, 21–4). 8 Cf. Bettenworth (2004) and Bettenworth in volume II.2. 9 Cf. also below on Ilias parua fr. 1 West.

Epic fragments |

321

The Trojans are suspicious in the matter of the horse, and stand round it debating what to do: to some it seems wise to push it over a cliff, and to some to set fire to it, but others say it is a sacred object to be dedicated to Athena, and in the end their opinion prevails.

Only few of the remaining fragments contain traces of what we would typically call an epic structure. An ekphrasis is to be found in fr. 5 West of the Cypria, a passage that displays a description of Aphrodite’s beautiful garment which she puts on for the beauty contest:¹⁰

5

εἵματα μὲν χροὶ ἕστο, τά οἱ Χάριτές τε καὶ ῟Ωραι ποίησαν καὶ ἔβαψαν ἐν ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσιν ὅσσα φέρουσ’ ὧραι, ἔν τε κρόκῳ ἔν θ’ ὑακίνθῳ ἔν τε ἴῳ θαλέθοντι ῥόδου τ’ ἐνὶ ἄνθει καλῷ ἡδέι νεκταρέῳ ἔν τ’ ἀμβροσίαις καλύκεσσιν †ἄνθεσι ναρκίσσου καλλιρρόου δ’ οια† ᾿Αφροδίτη ὥραις παντοίαις τεθυωμένα εἵματα ἕστο. Her body was dressed in garments that the Graces and Horai had made for her and steeped in the spring flowers that the seasons bring forth, in crocus and hyacinth, and springing violet, and the rose’s fair, sweet, nectarine bloom, and the ambrosial buds of narcissus [. . . ] So Aphrodite was dressed in garments scented with blossoms of every kind.

More precisely, this fragment is in accordance with the traditional epic type-scene of a goddess getting dressed in order to encounter (or seduce) a lover (or make an impression on someone else), as we know it, most famously, from Aphrodite dressing to seduce Anchises in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, and from Hera dressing up for Zeus in Iliad 14.¹¹ In his commentary, West (2013, 76) notes that the “diction of the fragment is largely conventional” and Currie (2015, 299) concludes that this fragment, along with fr. 6 West (which describes the crowning of Aphrodite and her attendants), is “hard to square with any view that the Cypria had a uniformly rapid narrative pace.” At the same time, it must be acknowledged that an ekphrasis always constitutes retardation in the narrative development, since it is, by definition, a non-narrative element.¹² Therefore, we cannot draw too general a conclusion about the nature of the narrative pace in the cyclic epics on the sole

10 On this fragment, see Huxley (1969, 130–1), Griffin (1977, 50–1), West (2013, 75–6), and Currie (2015, 297–9, with further references). 11 Cf. West (1997, 203–5) on this epic genre scene and its Near Eastern parallels; see also Arend (1933, 97–8) on epic dressing as a Homeric type-scene. 12 Cf. Harrison in this volume.

322 | Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

basis of these two fragments; we can, however, safely maintain that this passage was (part of) an elaborated, non-narrative epic structure in a cyclic epic. The following (heavily damaged) line from the Aethiopis (attributed to Homer or Arctinus), transmitted on papyrus, suggests an arrival scene, namely, the arrival of Penthesilea at Troy and the words spoken to her upon arrival, probably by Priam:¹³ [“τίς πόθεν εἰς] σύ, γύναι; τίνος ἔκγον[ος] εὔχ[ε]αι εἶναι;” [“Who and whence are] you, lady? Whose child do you praise yourself to be?”

Due to the fact that these words conform to the highly standardised Homeric practice of how a stranger is addressed and asked about his/her background (viz. name, provenance, and descent), we may speculate that they were followed by a fully-fledged, formulaic arrival scene.¹⁴ In the case of the Ilias parua (attributed to either Homer, Lesches, or Thestorides), two lines of the proem have survived, quoted in Ps.-Herodotus’ Life of Homer (fr. 1 West):¹⁵ ῎Ιλιον ἀείδω καὶ Δαρδανίδην εὔπωλον, ἧς περὶ πόλλα πάθον Δαναοὶ θεράποντες ῎Αρηος. Of Ilios I sing, and Dardania land of fine colts, over which the Danaans suffered much, the servants of Ares.

Another two-liner, transmitted through Plutarch and attributed to Lesches, is sometimes also regarded as the proem to the Ilias parua (fr. 1 Bernabé = fr. 2 dub. Davies):¹⁶ Μοῦσά μοι ἔννεπε κεῖνα, τὰ μήτ’ ἐγένοντο πάροιθε μήτ’ ἔσται μετόπισθεν. [. . . ] Muse, sing me these things which neither happened before nor are going to be again afterwards. [. . . ]

Scafoglio (2006) argues that both fragments may have been the beginning and the end, respectively, of one and the same proem, with the middle part being lost.

13 On this fragment, cf. West (2013, 139) and Rengakos (2015a, 309–10). West also considers the possibility that the words may be spoken by Achilles upon his first encounter with Penthesilea on the battlefield. 14 Cf. Ripoll in volume II.2. 15 On this fragment, cf. West (2013, 173–4) and Kelly (2015, 329–31). 16 This fragment is not included in West’s edition (2003). The translation is ours.

Epic fragments |

323

If this is correct, the proem of the Ilias parua may be viewed as a precursor to the proem of Vergil’s Aeneid, which displays a similar shift from a first-person announcement (Verg. Aen. 1.1 arma uirumque cano, “of arms and the man I sing”) to a Muse invocation (1.8 Musa, mihi causas memora, “Muse, bring the reasons back to my memory”). It might even be speculated that the proem of the Ilias parua served as an intertextual model for Vergil’s national epic.¹⁷ Fr. 6 West of the Ilias parua provides us with an example of an epic genealogy: ἄμπελον, ἣν Κρονίδης ἔπορεν οὗ παιδὸς ἄποινα χρυσείην, φύλλοισιν ἀγαυοῖσιν κομόωσαν βότρυσί θ’, οὓς ῞Ηφαιστος ἐπασκήσας Διὶ πατρί δῶχ’, ὃ δὲ Λαομέδοντι πόρεν Γανυμήδεος ἀντί. The vine that Zeus had given in compensation for his son, golden, luxuriant with splendid foliage and grape clusters, which Hephaestus had fashioned and given to father Zeus, and he had given it to Laomedon in lieu of Ganymede.

To be more precise, this is an example of the traditional epic structure of a genealogy that explains the provenance of a precious heirloom (to which, in turn, a brief ekphrasis is added)¹⁸ – in this case, a gift offered to Ganymede’s father in recompense for the abduction of the beautiful youth, which is now in Priam’s possession. As the commentators point out,¹⁹ it deviates from the Homeric account in two respects: first, Ganymede is the son of Laomedon in this scene, whereas in the Iliad (Hom. Il. 5.265–6 and 20.231–5) and in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (h. Ven. 5.202–17) he is the son of Tros, thus two generations older. Secondly, according to the Iliad (Hom. Il. 5.265–7) the gift did not consist of a vine, but of divine horses. This fragment therefore represents a case where the cyclic version is not congruent with that of Homer. Since this concerns a non-trivial point, we are prone to conclude that there may have been further, significant deviations, which almost certainly will have affected the scope and nature of the cyclic structures. One line of the Ilias parua, fr. 14 West (transmitted by a scholiast on Euripides’ Hecuba), states that the sack of Troy happened in the middle of the night:²⁰

17 On Vergil’s relation to the cyclic epics, cf. Kopff (1981). 18 Cf. Harrison and Walter in this volume. 19 Cf. West (2013, 191–2) and Kelly (2015, 342–3). On the different genealogies of Ganymede in Greek mythology, see Gantz (1993, 557–60). 20 On this fragment, cf. West (2013, 208–9) and Kelly (2015, 334–5). The silent night motif (viz. the description of the peaceful night before the manslaughter) can also be found again at Triph. 498–505.

324 | Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

νὺξ μὲν ἔην μέσση, λαμπρὰ δ’ ἐπέτελλε σελήνη. It was the middle of the night, and the bright moon was rising.

Upon first glance, this line clearly insinuates that what was following must have been a nyktomachy, which probably combined elements of mass combat with elements of single combat.²¹ On the other hand, we must bear in mind that the capture of Troy is, of course, not an ordinary battle – it does not take place on the battlefield, and it is not a fair fight, but, rather, a one-sided manslaughter as a result of the ambush. We are therefore in no position to judge to what extent the description of the Trojan massacre in the Little Iliad may, or may not, have followed the conventions of an epic nyktomachy.²² Finally, in fr. 12 West from the Nostoi (attributed to either Homer, Agias/Hegias, or Eumelus), we can catch a quick glimpse of a cyclic battle scene:²³ ῏Ισον δ’ ῾Ερμιονεὺς ποσὶ καρπαλίμοισι μετασπών ψύας ἔγχει νύξε. [. . . ] Hermioneus chased after Isus with his swift feet and stabbed him in the groin with his spear. [. . . ]

Scholars disagree about the possible context of this fragment: West (2013, 270) argues that it must “no doubt [stem from] the battle in Aegisthus’ house” (Hermioneus being a son of Menelaus and a helper of Orestes in the killing of Aegisthus, and Isus being a helper of Aegisthus); Danek (2015, 366) disagrees with West and suspects that it may rather be a detail from the battle between Aegisthus and Agamemnon on the occasion of the latter’s return, arguing that the author of the Nostoi “strove for epic colouring in a fully described battle scene.” What seems most striking here, though, is the similarity to the type of battle scene we find in the mnesterophonia of the Odyssey; it therefore seems likely that the battle scene in the Nostoi may have been composed along similar lines.²⁴

21 Proclus’ summary of the Ilias parua does not provide any information on the type of fights employed, but cf. the combination of mass combat and single combat in the according scenes in Book 14 of Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica. See also Littlewood and Telg genannt Kortmann in volume II.1. 22 Cf. Dinter/Finkmann/Khoo in volume II.1. 23 On this fragment, cf. Huxley (1969, 167–8), West (2013, 269–70), and Danek (2015, 364–6). 24 Cf. Petropoulos (2012, 291), who argues that the Nostoi “underlay and fertilised the Odyssey as a whole and key sections of the Telemachy in particular.” See also Barker/Christensen (2014) on the idea of a ‘rivalry’ between the Odyssey and the Nostoi.

Epic fragments |

325

2.2 Panyassis, Heraclea Aside from the stories of the Theban and the Trojan saga, the life and deeds of Heracles were a theme that prevailed in Greek epic from the 7th to the 5th century BC; one may mention the Ps.-Hesiodic Shield of Heracles (extant), Creophylus’ The Capture of Oechalia (fragmentary), and Pisander’s Heraclea (fragmentary).²⁵ Moreover, we can find several references to Heracles and his adventures in the Homeric epics (fewer in the Odyssey than in the Iliad); on the basis of these references, the so-called ‘neo-analytic’ school has claimed the existence of further, lost ‘Heracles epics’ during the archaic period.²⁶ Here, however, we will focus only on one example of a Heracles epic, namely, the Heraclea by Panyassis of Halicarnassus. Panyassis was a contemporary (and relative) of Herodotus and is often regarded as the last representative of archaic Greek epic. The Heraclea consisted of 14 books and 9000 hexameters, of which only some 30 fragments, comprising a total of c. 60 lines, survive.²⁷ Based on these few fragments, it can be demonstrated that Panyassis’ epic language must have been largely Homeric; however, we cannot draw the conclusion that the Heraclea must also have displayed a narrative structure similar to that of the Homeric epics.²⁸ In fact, in consideration of the epic’s focus on the achievements of one hero, it seems more probable that the Heraclea would have displayed a relatively linear narrative. Matthews (1974, 21–6) attempts to establish the arrangement and layout of the labours in the poem, but simultaneously acknowledges the difficulties of this enterprise. In what follows, some of the surviving fragments wherein epic structures can be recognised are presented and discussed briefly. Let us begin with fr. 3 West, which is an example of catalogue poetry:²⁹ τλῆ μὲν Δημήτηρ, τλῆ δὲ κλυτὸς ᾿Αμφιγυήεις, τλῆ δὲ Ποσειδάων, τλῆ δ’ ἀργυρότοξος ᾿Απόλλων ἀνδρὶ παρὰ θνητῷ θητευσέμεν εἰς ἐνιαυτόν, τλῆ δὲ ὀβριμόθυμος ῎Αρης ὑπὸ πατρὸς ἀνάγκης.

25 Cf. Huxley (1969, 99–112) and West (2003, 19–24) for an overview. 26 Cf. Kullmann (1956, 25–35), Huxley (1969, 99–112), and Sbardella (1994). On Heracles in Greek epic from a narratological point of view, cf. Bär (2018). 27 Cf. Suda, s.v. Πανύασις. Fragments of the Heraclea are quoted according to the numeration system by West (2003). The major scholarly edition, with a commentary, is that by Matthews (1974). Furthermore, the Heraclea is also included in the editions by Bernabé (1987) and Davies (1988); cf. West (2003, 304–5) for comparative numeration. The translation used is that by West (2003), with occasional modifications. Otherwise, research on Panyassis is scarce; cf. only McLeod (1966) and Huxley (1969, 177–88). 28 Cf. McLeod (1966, 103–4). 29 On this fragment, see Matthews (1974, 91–5).

326 | Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

Demeter put up with it; renowned [Hephaestus], crooked on both sides, put up with it; Poseidon put up with it; silverbowed Apollo put up with menial service with a mortal man for the term of a year; and grim-hearted Ares too put up with it, under compulsion from his father.

According to Matthews (1974, 92), this passage most likely originates from a scene where someone was trying to console Heracles “for having to undergo service” – which will, in all likelihood, have been the service for either Omphale or Eurystheus. Additionally, since epic catalogues often have a metapoetic quality,³⁰ it might also be possible that these lines stood in connection with some sort of metapoetic statement, perhaps even with a Muse invocation.³¹ Furthermore, Matthews (1974, 93) argues that this four-liner constitutes an intertextual reference to Hom. Il. 5.383–4: πολλοὶ γὰρ δὴ τλῆμεν ᾿Ολύμπια δώματ’ ἔχοντες ἐξ ἀνδρῶν, χαλέπ’ ἄλγε’ ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισι τιθέντες. For many of us who have dwellings on Olympus have suffered at the hands of men, while bringing grievous woes on one another.³²

These lines, in turn, are spoken in a lengthy digression in which Dione consoles her daughter Aphrodite who has been wounded by Diomedes in battle with her stories about other divinities who were physically injured by mortals (Hom. Il. 5.381–404). Two of the stories include Heracles, which is why the intertextual link seems very probable. Since we do not know the context of Panyassis’ fr. 3 West, any further interpretation must remain speculative. However, it seems likely that what is going on here is an ironic inversion of the Iliadic subtext, insofar as Heracles is forced out of his role as an active hero and turned into a passive victim, along with a humiliating gender reversal. If this is so, we may understand the use of the catalogue, together with its salient anaphoric structure, as a means of adding emphasis to the ironic inversion. Unsurprisingly in an epic about Heracles, we find some fragments of the Heraclea that display scenes of drinking, dining, and feasting. These may, in turn, all point to a banqueting scene, and it is well conceivable that the Heraclea could have featured several fully-fledged scenes of this type. Fr. 9 West may, as Matthews (1974, 48) suspects, come from Heracles’ “visit to the Centaur Pholus by whom he was entertained”:³³

30 Cf. Reitz (2013) and Reitz (2017). 31 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann, and Schindler in this volume. 32 This translation is taken from Murray/Wyatt (2 1999). 33 On this fragment, cf. Matthews (1974, 48–9).

Epic fragments |

327

τοῦ κεράσας κρητῆρα μέγαν χρυσοῖο φαεινόν σκύφους αἰνύμενος θαμέας πότον ἡδὺν ἔπινεν. Mixing some of it in a great shining golden bowl, he took cup after cup and enjoyed a fine bout of drinking.

As we know from various sources, this scene ends with a bloody fight between Heracles and the Centaurs who are attracted by the scent of the wine.³⁴ We may therefore speculate that the feast was followed by a mass combat and that the banqueting scene itself might have been an example of what Bettenworth (2004, 395) calls ‘anti-banqueting scenes’ (“Antigastmähler”) – that is, “regalements which do not reach a normative ending, but which are abruptly reverted to a bloody fight in which the majority of the participants die”³⁵ – the most salient example of which is, of course, the killing of the suitors in the Odyssey. The three longest fragments from the Heraclea clearly belonged to banquet scenes (frs. 19–21 West), amounting to a total of 39 lines (19+15+5). It is even likely that they all belonged to one coherent passage, in which case we can assume that this must have been a particularly long and comprehensive banquet scene.³⁶ Fr. 19 West consists of a verbose invitation and encouragement to drink. Matthews (1974, 76) remarks that “according to Apollodorus, Pholus was reluctant to give Heracles wine when he called for it, and Heracles himself had to open the jar”; therefore, a reference to this banquet seems less probable, and a “more likely banquet is the one at the house of Eurytus, from which Heracles was ejected by his host.”³⁷ The subsequent two fragments, clearly also speeches, are admonitions against excessive drinking. Scholars disagree about their attribution: Matthews (1974, 77) hypothesises that it “may represent the sober moralising of Eurytus after he has thrown out his unruly guest”, whereas West (2003, 207 n. 21) believes them “to be from Heracles’ reply as he tries to restrain his too bibulous host” (in which case Panyassis would be depicting the Hercules Stoicus here).³⁸ West’s interpretation seems more plausible since dialogues and speeches between host and guest are

34 Cf. esp. Ps.-Apollod. 2.83–7 and D.S. 4.12.3–8. For more details, see Gantz (1993, 390–2). 35 Original German text: “Bewirtungen, die nicht in mehr oder weniger normgetreuer Weise zu Ende geführt werden, sondern unvermittelt in einen blutigen Kampf umschlagen, bei dem die Mehrzahl der Beteiligten den Tod findet.” This epic structure is discussed by Bettenworth (2004, 395–477). See also Bettenworth in volume II.2, as well as Sharrock in this volume on similar perverted banqueting scenes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. 36 On these three fragments, cf. Matthews (1974, 74–87); see also Galinsky (1972, 24–5). 37 Matthews (1974, 76). 38 We can find traces of a Hercules Stoicus also in Apollonius Rhodius, e.g. on the occasion of his admonition to the Argonauts to leave behind the isle of Lemnos and the feasting with the Lemnians (A.R. 1.865–74), and when he decides to abstain from dinner because he needs to find a

328 | Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

typical features of epic banquet scenes; indeed, they often constitute their actual climax.³⁹ A further detail should be highlighted: Matthews (1974, 81) notes that the first line of fr. 21 West may be modelled on a fragment from the Cypria (fr. 18 West): οἶνος θνητοῖσι θεῶν πάρα δῶρον ἄριστον. Wine is mortal’s finest gift from the gods.

(Heraclea fr. 21 West)

οἶνόν τοι, Μενέλαε, θεοὶ ποίησαν ἄριστον θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποισιν ἀποσκεδάσαι μελεδώνας. Wine, Menelaus, is the best thing the gods have made for mortal men for dispelling cares.⁴⁰

(Cypria fr. 18 West)

If we accept the possibility of verbal intertextuality between these two fragments, we might conclude that Panyassis may have composed the entire banquet scene (Heracles feasting at Eurytus’ palace) with reference to a banquet scene from the Cypria. Again, it is well conceivable that some sort of ironic inversion may have been at play here: the two-liner in the Cypria was “perhaps spoken by Nestor when Menelaus went and told him of Helen’s disappearance,” as West (2003, 97 n. 13) claims: Nestor (the host) may have offered Menelaus (the guest) wine as consolation, which the latter possibly turned down (in accordance with the ethic code of refusing food and drink in a context that requires sober thinking). In the Heraclea, in turn, Heracles (the guest) is reminding Eurytus (his host) of the necessity to drink in moderation after the latter already overdid it. Again, any attempt at further reconstruction would lead us into the realms of inappropriate speculation; yet, it is tempting to hypothesise that Panyassis’ epic could have been characterised, inter alia, by several (comic?) inversions of Homeric and cyclic structures.

2.3 Callimachus, Hecale Hecale is the eponymous heroine of a fragmentarily preserved hexameter poem by the Hellenistic/‘Alexandrian’ antiquarian poet Callimachus of Cyrene.⁴¹ From

tree for a new oar first (1.1187–9). This strand of interpretation was particularly emphasised by Fränkel (1968, 115 and 143). 39 Cf. Bettenworth (2004, 92–7). 40 On this fragment, cf. Huxley (1969, 135), West (2013, 101), and Currie (2015, 303–4). 41 The major scholarly edition, with translation and commentary, is Hollis (2 2009). We use Hollis’ translation with occasional modifications. For further editions, commentaries, and critical read-

Epic fragments |

329

the original poem that probably comprised c. 1000–1500 lines, a total of c. 180 fragments have survived (largely derived from papyri and from quotes in the Suda), but most of them consist of no more than a single line; often, all we have is as little as a few words.⁴² Thus, our knowledge of the plot details and, even more so, of the narrative structure is extremely limited. The general plot line must have been this:⁴³ on his way to Marathon, Theseus, sent by Medea in order to capture the Marathonian bull, seeks shelter from a storm in Hecale’s hut. Hecale – a poor, but hospitable and god-fearing old woman – promises to make a sacrifice to Zeus in case Theseus should be victorious against the bull. However, shortly thereafter she is found dead upon Theseus’ successful return. Theseus subsequently names one of Attica’s demes after Hecale. As this rough plot sketch demonstrates, we can trace several epic structures which will, in one way or another, have formed part of Callimachus’ Hecale: storm, arrival, ‘banquet’, departure, (failed) reunion, (failed) sacrifice, and perhaps also a funeral at the end. In what follows, we discuss some fragments which reveal traces of, or hints at, what could be regarded as a typically epic bauform. Frs. 18–19 Hollis describe the cloudless afternoon and, subsequently, the first signs of the approaching storm prior to Theseus’ departure from Athens:

5

10

⌞ὄφρα μὲν οὖν ἔνδιος ἔην ἔτι, θέρμετο δὲ χθών, τόφρα δ᾿ ἔην ὑάλοιο φαάντερος οὐρανὸς ἦνοψ⌟ οὐδέ⌟ ποθ⌞ι⌟ κν⌞ηκὶς ὑπεφαίνετο, πέπτατο δ᾿ αἰθήρ ἀν.[ν]έφελος· σ.[ μητέρι δ᾿ ὁππ[ότε δειελὸν αἰτίζ⌞ουσιν, ἄγουσι δὲ χεῖρας ἀπ᾿ ἔργου, τῆμος ἄρ᾿ ἐξ.[.]. . . [ πρῶτον ὑπὲρ Πά[ρνηθος,] ⌞ἐπιπρὸ δὲ μᾶσσον ἐπ᾿ ἄκρου Αἰγαλέως θυμόε⌞ντος, ἄγων μέγαν ὑετόν, ἔστη· τῷ δ.᾿ ἐπ.[ὶ] διπλόον . [

ings, cf. the bibliography in Hollis (2 2009, 362–8 and 437). Two more recent pieces of research that deserve to be singled out here are the narratological study by Sistakou (2009) and the monograph by Skempis (2010). For further references, cf. Skempis (2010, 353–99). 42 On the history of the text, cf. Hollis (2 2009, 26–53); on the length, cf. Hollis (2 2009, 337–40). For Hellenistic standards, this was a μέγα ποίημα, as the scholiast on Call. Ap. 2.106 (= test. 1 Hollis) notes; cf. Gutzwiller (2012). We avoid the term epyllion in this contribution because it implies the existence of a genre that in reality is a modern invention; on this complex issue, cf. Baumbach/Bär (2012) and Bär (2015). See also Finkmann and Hömke in this volume, who exclude Callimachus’ Hecale from their discussion of epyllia in accordance with their definition of the term. 43 An important source for the reconstruction of the plot line is the Diegesis to the Hecale preserved on P.Milan 18 Vogliano, 1937; cf. Hollis (2 2009, 48–9). For the further sources of the myth, see Gantz (1993, 256) and Hollis (2 2009, 5–10).

330 | Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

15

τρηχέος ῾Υμητ.τ.[οῖο⁴⁴ ἀστεροπα[ὶ] σελάγι[ζον ο.ἷ.[ο]ν ὅτε. κλονέ . [ Αὐσ.ό.ν[ι]ον κα.τὰ. π.[όντον ἡ δ᾿ ἀπὸ Μηρισ.οῖο θ⌞οὴ βορέαο κατάιξ εἰσέπεσεν ν.εφέλ.[ηισιν . . . [..]ν ὅθ[ ]ερ.[ . . . . . As long as it was still noonday, and the earth was warm, so long was the brilliant sky more translucent than glass, and nowhere did a small white cloud show itself, but the heaven stretched out cloudless [. . . ]. But when