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Hellenistic Poetry Fantuzzi - Hunter
Hellenistic Poetry Fantuzzi - Hunter
oiv
For this reason it is in no way permitted for the virgins of Attica to behold with their
eyes the rites of Demeter Thesmophoros before they have come with a husband
to the marriage bed (Callimachus fr. 63. 912)
The immediately following episode, however, is spoken as we eventually
learn by the long-dead Simonides.
31
With a shock, we come to see that
we have intruded upon the great mans train of thought:
coo c]v :ci Kcupivc :cocv scscv csscocv [v]opc,
sivn]ti, coicu :uc, ttisptuoci
sci ,]cp tucv sc:t onuc, s:.
28
Annette Harder points out that Pieria obviously played an important speaking r ole in her poem,
whereas Cydippe remains silent (cf. below, p. 66).
29
Fr. 114 (=64 Massimilla) might be an example of juxtaposed Apolline aitia, but too much is uncertain
about this fragment for condence.
30
Cf. POxy 2211 fr. 1 r.
31
On this episode cf. Bing (1988) 6770.
3 Aetiology 49
Not even the moving of Kamarina
32
would threaten so great an evil as the moving
of a pious mans tomb. For once my tomb (suffered this fate) . . . (Callimachus fr.
64.13)
Here, it is tempting to think, is a very clear example of poetry which is co
oinvtst,, not continuous.
33
3 aeti ology
Aetiology, the explanation of the reasons for names, customs and cults, had
a long history in Greek poetry before the Hellenistic age,
34
but becomes a
very prominent feature of Hellenistic and Roman poetry. The reasons for
this are, as is well known, complex and have been placed in the context
of a general Callimachean poetics of displacement by Daniel Selden
35
but if we ask after the aetiology of the Aitia itself, more than one answer
presents itself. The aetiological project of poets such as Callimachus and
Apollonius takes its place within both the totalising Ptolemaic culture of the
Alexandrian centre and the world of the Hellenistic cities, with their own
local traditions, cults, and politics. If Callimachus work is in one sense
a contribution to canon formation, a revision of the inherited Hesiodic
canon of myth and explanatory story, we must ask about the relationship
between this revised canon and the inherited conglomerates of local tradi-
tion. Why were some stories chosen and others not? To what extent does
this Callimachean act of krisis, of inclusion and exclusion, replay (and how
deliberately?) the processes by which some local narratives had acquired
pan-Hellenic status and others had either disappeared or were destined to
remain in the realmof the quaint? To what extent, then, is this poetic return
to the local and the particular not pure antiquarianism, the Librarian at
play, but rather a politically and culturally charged act of repetition? The
mythic origins of cities, and the links between them which mythic nar-
ratives created, remained real and vital forces in inter-state diplomacy; if
32
The citizens of Sicilian Kamarina had been warned: Dont move Kamarina, but they drained nearby
lake Kamarina with disastrous results.
33
Cf. below, p. 69.
34
Cf. G. Codrignani, L aition nella poesia greca prima di Callimaco Convivium 26 (1958) 527
45; F. Graf, Greek Mythology (BaltimoreLondon 1993) 11018; Veyne (1988) 246; M. Fantuzzi,
Aitiologie in der griechischen Dichtung in Der neue Pauly I (Stuttgart 1996) 36971. For the large
modern literature on the theory of aetiology see the survey in Loehr (1996) 138; valuable also in
this connection are the opening chapter of K. S. Myers, Ovids Causes (Michigan 1994) and F. Graf,
R omische Kultaitia und die Konstruktion religi oser Vergangenheit in M. Flashar, H.-J. Gehrke,
E. Heinrich (eds.), Retrospektive (Munich 1996) 12535.
35
Selden (1998); cf. also Y. L. Too, The Idea of Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford 1998) chapter 4.
50 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
much about Callimachean aetiology seems obviously ironic or playful, we
must not imagine that all Hellenistic aetiology shared these characteristics.
More specically, the collection, and hence preservation, of the past
must have something to do with that consciousness of belatedness which is
everywhere present in the poetry and scholarship of the age. No doubt, also,
Ptolemaic interest in the wider Greek world gave a leading court poet ample
excuse to research and write about local antiquities. So, too, the dominance
in elite poetry of the aetiological mode must take its place within the slow
development which saw mythology join myth; the collection, writing
down and comparison of mythical material was part of the great system-
atisation of knowledge which so characterises the Hellenistic and Roman
periods. Myths, like customs, constitutions and courtesans, were sorted by
various methods of ordering and recorded for posterity. The Alexandrian
version of this activity almost always involved not merely collection, but
also the exercise of judgement, krisis, whether the matter was the authentic-
ity of a work of literature, the explanation of a Homeric hapax or the origin
of a curious custom. Aetiology, as we nd it in Callimachus and Apollonius
is, at one level, the manifestation in the world of myth and custom of an
all-pervasive habit of mind in Alexandrian scholarship. This is, of course,
not to say that it is a mode unique to Alexandrian scholarship; far from it
there is much, for example, that recalls the critical methods of Herodotus
36
but it is crucial to the appreciation of Callimachus practice to recognise
that it is a very self-conscious transference to poetry of a manner redolent
of other modes of discourse.
The aetiological mode of explanation suits the boundless curiosity of the
scholar and the child Callimachus two most prominent modes of self-
presentation but it also offers a world which is invented and then remains
without change. The idea that customs and rites have a single explanation
and then remain without evolution of form or meaning might seem to us
a very naive indeed, childlike one, and one which we might be loath
to ascribe to Callimachus, however widespread this pattern of thought was
in antiquity (cf. the idea of the rst inventor). At one level, of course,
such a simplied explanatory model is rather easier to turn into poetry
than anything more subtle would be, but Callimachus himself leaves us in
no doubt that the model is not to be invested with too great an authority.
The quotation of variant versions and variant sources, the poets parodically
condent parade of knowledge, and the way in which aitia constantly spill
over and get in each others way, make the playful quality of the poetic
36
Cf. O. Murray, Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture CQ 22 (1972) 20013.
4 Hesiod and Callimachus 51
material very clear; we can hardly doubt that the Aitia are intended for an
audience well-versed in the manner of ritual reconstruction, as practised
by both scholarly curiosity and patriotic fantasy. The very variety of Calli-
machus sources and the localities on which he draws, certainly at one level,
construct a readership of (paradoxically) common purpose every Greek of
every origin has his story to tell
37
but we should be wary of seeking grand
explanations for the aetiological mode in terms of a desire to compensate
for an alleged sense of deracination felt by Alexandrian Greeks, through
the forging of close links between the past and an observable present.
38
The
fact that in what survives of the poetry (as opposed to the Diegeseis), the
poet, like a modern social anthropologist, always uses the present tense
Why is it that X does Y? is to be connected with his self-presentation,
particularly in Books 1 and 2, as a man and scholar who literally lives in
the past, whose intellectual horizons are determined by what he has read;
for the narrator (as opposed to the poet) of the Aitia, these customs really
do still exist, because they are recorded and one can point to authorities
for them. The dream of rejuvenation with which he introduces the poem
is symbolic at several levels, one of which is a rejection of the present his
real life is in the past. It is, however, important to remember that different,
often apparently incompatible, ways of looking at the world coexist in the
minds of men of all ages.
39
Callimachus is not to be turned into a modern
rationalist or sociologist; he may well have more personal belief invested
in the aetiological mode of explanation than we would be happy with, but
every discourse he touches erotic, religious, political becomes in his
hands a vehicle for a distinctively ironic way of viewing the world, and
aetiology is no different.
4 hesi od and calli machus
The aetiology of Books 1 and 2, at least, of Callimachus poem also has
its own specic aition. The opening sequence presented Callimachus as a
newHesiod, meeting the Muses on Mt Helicon and receiving information
37
Cf. M. Asper, Gruppen und Dichter: zu Programmatik und Adressatenbezug bei Kallimachos A&A
47 (2001) 84116.
38
Cf. the otherwise helpful accounts of Zanker (1983) 1323 and (1987) 1223. Such a motivation is
not far from the patriotic piety which Veyne (1988) 45 ascribes to Callimachus; this hardly does
justice to the complex tone of the Aitia. Veyne is closer to the mark when he describes mythology
(as opposed to myths) as acquiring the prestige of the elite knowledge that marks its possessor as
belonging to a certain class.
39
The matter has been very much discussed; the work of Geoffrey Lloyd is fundamental. See also
Veyne (1988), Feeney (1998) chapter 1.
52 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
from them; that the style and metre are entirely un-Hesiodic is only what
we would have expected from Callimachus. During the third century,
the shrine of the Muses below Helicon and the games which took place
there, the Mouseia, were reorganised, if not actually invented,
40
and Hesiod
enjoyed something like hero-status in association with the Muses, whose
fame he had promulgated.
41
The cult found some notable patrons during
the century, most famously Ptolemy IV Philopator and his wife Arsinoe
III, but perhaps also Philadelphus and his sister-wife. Unfortunately, the
identity of the Arsinoe who married her brother (Pausanias 9.31.1), whose
statue, seated on an ostrich, Pausanias saw on Helicon, is disputed, but
the wife of Philadelphus is not impossible.
42
Be that as it may, there is
solid evidence for political connections between Ptolemaic Alexandria and
Boeotia at various stages of the century,
43
and Callimachus revival of the
Boeotian poet is very likely to have had contemporary signicance.
The poem proper presumably began with the rst aetiological inter-
change with the Muses, in which Klio explains to the poet why the Graces
are worshipped on Paros without pipe music and the wearing of garlands;
Minos was sacricing to the Graces when word came of the death of his
son, and rather than disturb the ritual he merely stopped the music and
took off his garland. In another sense, however, that aition seems itself to
have been proemial to the main body of the poem.
44
It concludes with an
invocation to the Graces:
tc:t v0v, tt,cioi o tvinocot itcoc,
ytpc, tuc,, vc uci tcuu utvcoiv t:c,.
Come now and wipe your hands, rich with oil, upon my elegies, so that they may
last for many a year. (Callimachus fr. 9.1314 M.)
It seems easier to imagine this programmatic wish spoken by the poet
outside the framework of the dream rather than by the young dreamer,
but there can be no certainty. Nevertheless, an important similarity with
40
Cf. R. Lamberton, Plutarch, Hesiod, and the Mouseia of Thespiai ICS 13 (1988) 491504. The
standard collection of evidence is A. Schachter, Cults of Boeotia 2. Herakles to Poseidon (BICS Suppl.
38.2, London 1986) 14779.
41
Cf. the essays of Calame, Hurst and Veneri in A. Hurst and A. Schachter (eds.), La montagne des
Muses (Geneva 1996).
42
Cf. Cameron (1995) 142.
43
Cf. S. Barbantani, Competizioni poetiche tespiesi e mecenatismo tolemaico Lexis 18 (2000) 12772.
44
For the Graces as part of the opening sequence cf. Massimilla (1996) 2534, Harder (1998) 1067.
The presence of the Graces, alongside the Muses, in the Epilogue (fr. 112) and the apparent echoes
of fr. 7 at the end of the Argonautica and in Catullus 1 are particularly suggestive. Serious problems,
of course, remain about what followed vv. 1314. For further echoes of this passage in subsequent
literature, cf. G. Massimilla, Linvocazione di Callimaco alle Cariti nel primo libro degli Aitia (fr. 7,
914 Pf.) in Proceedings of the XXth International Congress of Papyrology (Copenhagen 1994) 3225.
4 Hesiod and Callimachus 53
the opening of Hesiods Theogony is observable. In that poem, an opening
invocation and description of the Muses (121) is followed by the account
of their epiphany and instructions to the poet (2235); the poet then obeys
their instruction (34) by singing rst of the Muses themselves and their gifts
to men (36103), before invoking them afresh:
ycipt:t :tsvc ic,, oc:t o utpctoocv cionv
stit:t o cv:cv tpcv ,tvc, citv tcv:cv, s:.
Hail, children of Zeus, grant lovely song! Sing of the holy race of the ever-living
deathless ones . . . (Hesiod, Theogony 1045)
The prayer for utpctooc cion corresponds to Callimachus wish for
elegies over which the Graces have wiped their hands.
45
Hesiod then asks
the Muses to sing of the holy race of the ever-living deathless ones, i.e. the
subject of the Theogony proper (10515); the beginning, marked as such by
tpc:io:c, follows immediately:
n:ci utv tpc:io:c Xc, ,tvt: co:cp ttti:c
Ic topo:tpvc,, s:.
First of all was Chaos, but then broad-breasted Earth . . . (Hesiod, Theogony 11617)
In a poet such as Callimachus, we will not look for simple replication, and
the texts are far too broken to allow condence, but the similarity of the
patterns should be apparent.
46
That Callimachus recognised v. 116 as the
beginning of the Theogony is suggested by what survives of his account of
Hesiods meeting with the Muses:
tciutvi unc vtucv:i tcp yvicv ctc, ttcu
Hoicoc Mcuotcv touc, c: nv:icotv
u]tv c Xtc, ,tvto[
. . . when the group of Muses met the shepherd Hesiod as he was grazing his ocks
by the footprint of the swift horse . . . the creation of Chaos . . . (Callimachus fr.
4.13 M.)
Here the Theogony is evoked, as ancient poems standardly were, by its
opening.
47
Moreover, just as Hesiod performs as a theogonic poet before
the start of the Theogony proper, so Callimachus Muses explain the Graces
45
Lynn (1995) 1512 well observes the importance of the opening structure of the Theogony, but links
vv. 10415 with the Musenanruf , which linked Prologue to Dream rather than with the appeal to
the Graces, cf. further below.
46
The Hesiodic pattern lends further colour to Lobels tv]vtt at the head of fr. 7.15.
47
For Chaos as the beginning of the Theogony cf. also Virg. Georg. 4.347, Ovid, Met. 1.7, Barchiesi
(1997b) 2323. If v. 5 (cf. WD 265) similarly stands for the whole of the Works and Days (cf. Pfeiffer
and Massimilla ad loc.), then the choice of verse may be connected with the recurrent theme of
malignity, cf. Cameron (1995) 12930.
54 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
to the poet before the start of the poem proper. It is a fair guess that the
subject of the Graces did not just leap into the poets mind, but arose from
something the Muses themselves said to him; it is the Graces who accom-
pany the Muses, not only throughout Greek literature,
48
but specically in
the Theogony prologue (v. 64), and it may be thought a very Hellenistic
procedure to choose to elaborate upon what is but a brief mention in the
archaic model.
49
Moreover, it is the Hesiodic model which also serves to
explain the poets choice of subject.
50
The Theogony tells of the ancestry
of the Olympians, their coming to power, and the functions assigned to
each; to some extent, it also covers the birth of the heroes and demi-gods.
Although the Theogony, like the Works and Days, has a strong aetiological
direction, what it does not do, with one major exception, is to tell the aitia
of the various cults and rites by which men honour the gods and heroes;
51
Callimachus Aitia is thus a kind of sequel to the Theogony, which takes the
story to the next stage in this progression, the existence of gods precedes
the existence of cult and religion, rather than (as some Greek thinkers
held) being a product of it. The major exception in the Theogony is, of
course, the account of how Prometheus tried to trick Zeus and, along with
all mankind, was punished for it (535616); Prometheus trick of making
Zeus choose the bones rather than the esh of a sacriced animal is clearly
in essence an aition for the nature of Greek sacrice. This, however, remains
merely implicit, and the episode itself clearly marked off by sci ,p at
the beginning (535) and a closing moral (61316) explicitly tells of why
Prometheus was punished, and of the origin from Pandora of the race of
women, not of why men sacrice as they do. Nevertheless, here at the heart
of the Theogony, Callimachus found the seed from which his own poem
grew.
As the Theogony shows a world-order coming into being, so the Aitia
presents a series of second-order renements and local variations within
the Hesiodic structure, most notably within the Pan-Hellenic sacricial
order established by Prometheus. Aetiology takes the place of genealogy
as the predominant explanatory mode, but the similarities between the
two are as important as the differences. Genealogy, at least as practised in
Greece, is an even more strongly teleological narrative form than aetiology,
48
Cf. e.g. E. Schwarzenberg, Die Grazien (Bonn 1966) 445.
49
The scholiast on Theogony 64 claims that there was a shrine of the Graces on Helikon; this would
cetainly be an obvious way for them to enter the poem, but there is no other evidence for this cult.
They are, of course, very much at home elsewhere in Boeotia (Orchomenos etc.).
50
Cf. e.g. Harder (1988) 5.
51
It is noteworthy that c:ic, and its cognates do not occur in our remains of Hesiod.
4 Hesiod and Callimachus 55
and particularly Callimachean aetiology, with its frequently disconcerting
randomness.
52
Genealogy constructs the past out of the present for partic-
ular contextualised purposes. Both genealogy and aetiology leap from the
crucial beginning, whether legendary founder or one-time ritual event, to
the present, with a tendency to elide all time in between. Moreover, the
Hesiodic concern with sequence and order, the telling t pyn,, from the
beginning (Theog. 45), is replaced in the Aitia by a sequencing dependent
(as far as we can tell) upon the interests of the poet-enquirer. The imma-
nent teleology of the Theogony has been replaced by a purely human, poetic
ordering.
The Theogony brings its story down to Zeus matings with women of
the generation before the Trojan War, or even later, depending on where
the end of the poem is placed. Nevertheless, unlike the Works and Days, the
main body of the poem remains very rmly in what it is fair to think
of as mythic time. The rst aition of Callimachus poem, however, is set
in the time of Minos, the great Aegean king who lived long before the
Trojan War, but to whom Thucydides (1.4.1) gives special prominence as
the earliest man of whom we know by report (scn) to have established a
eet and whose rule marked a turning-point in Aegean history (1.8.2). Did
Callimachus use Minos as a further marker that his poem was to become
the standard account of periods covered by oral and written tradition, as
Hesiod provided the authority for earlier events? The fact that the story
of Minos is followed by narratives of the Argonauts and of Heracles, and
that the whole four-book poem nishes with Callimachus own patrons,
Euergetes and Berenice, lends colour to the idea that the Aitia is to be
seen as a complete human history to match the divine history of the
Theogony.
53
Ovids Metamorphoses subsequently combines both by moving
from chaos to Augustus.
The Hesiodic model, then, provides one aition for Callimachean aetiol-
ogy. Any full account must wait until we know more of how the narrative
of the dream and the aition of the Graces was actually conducted. It is
clear, however, that Callimachus made much of the naive enthusiasm of
the young scholar, whose questioning of the Muses gave ample opportunity
for the epideixis of his own knowledge.
54
Thus, he tells the Muses that he
52
Cf. Selden (1998) 3214.
53
It must be stressed that this chronological frame is just that, a frame. Within the frame no such
progression can be traced; thus the Argonauts reappear immediately before the Coma Berenices.
There is a useful survey of the chronological scope of the Aitia in A. Harder, The Invention of Past,
Present and Future in Callimachus Aetia Hermes 131 (2003) 290306.
54
Cf. e.g. Lynn (1995) 16971.
56 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
knows of three competing genealogies for the Graces, inwhich, however, the
father (Zeus) was always the same; the authoritative answer given by Klio
(Dionysos and the Naxian nymph Koronis) was entirely different.
55
Why
did Callimachus place this form of exchange near the head of the poem?
One obvious answer lies in the characterisation of the narrator (see below),
but another lies in the nature of Callimachean aetiology itself. Having to
choose between mythological (particularly genealogical) variants was not
an experience unique to Hellenistic poets, and it is a process to which Calli-
machus constantly recurs in the Hymns, but placed at the head of the Aitia
this procedure threatens to destabilise the undertaking before it has really
got off the ground. The open acknowledgement of competing authorities
both sets the poem in a context of agonistic scholarship and ironises, as we
shall see Callimachus doing again, the very pursuit of truth. Truth is the
subject of perhaps the three most famous verses of the Theogony:
tciutvt, c,pcuci, ss tt,ytc, ,co:tpt, ccv,
outv totc tcc t,tiv t:ucioiv cucc,
outv o, to: ttcutv, ntc ,npococi.
Shepherds of the eld, wretched disgraces, mere bellies we know how to speak
many lies which are like true things, and we know, when we wish, to speak the
truth. (Hesiod, Theogony 268)
It may be thought unlikely that the opening sequence of the Aitia failed to
make some allusion to this celebrated address by the Muses. One exploita-
tion at least lies in the competing genealogies of the Graces. Genealogy
itself, however, is the prime structuring mode of the Theogony, whereas it
plays a much smaller r ole in Callimachus poem; its prominence in the rst
aition of the poem should, therefore, be seen as a further Hesiodic marker,
a trace of the ancestor. Moreover, the parentage of the Graces which Klio
reveals is amusingly different from the Hesiodic answer to the same ques-
tion (Theog. 9079).
56
Hesiod may provide the literary frame, but he is no
guide to truth; when Klio and her sisters told Hesiod of the parentage of
the Graces, they were lying, as they had precisely warned the poet that they
could (Theog. 27).
57
Hesiod almost certainly was not identied by name
55
Schol. Flor. 2935 (Pfeiffer I p. 13, Massimilla (1996) 76). Massimilla (1996) 247 notes that Klios
answer may have a Ptolemaic connection; this wouldcertainly strengthenits links withthe Epilogue.
The exact relation between the enquiry concerning the Parian rite and that concerning the parentage
of the Graces remains unclear: were there two separate questions, or merely one question and one
answer? The discussion of this passage by Loehr (1996) 1968 is unsatisfactory. For Ovids reuse of
this passage cf. e.g. A. Barchiesi, PCPS 37 (1991) 8.
56
Cf. Reinsch-Werner (1976) 390.
57
Callimachus in fact uses the Hesiodic genealogy elsewhere (cf. fr. 384.45). On the importance of
possible Hesiodic untruthfulness within the subsequent didactic tradition, cf. Barchiesi (1997b)
1836.
4 Hesiod and Callimachus 57
in the Callimachean text he is concealed behind the innocent-looking
c o . . . ttcv some others have claimed of fr.6 (= 8 M.)
58
but the
point would hardly be lost on any reader. Who is to say that Klio and her
sisters are not lying again? The genealogy of the Graces, no more than the
genealogy of Eros, is a subject upon which no one authoritative opinion
can be given; Greek society had always known this, but scholarly habits
and constant recourse to written records reinforced this truth. As for the
genealogy which Klio offers, a Naxian parentage (and a Naxian source?)
may make sense in the context of an aition concerned with the famous cult
of the Graces on the nearby island of Paros, but the narrowly local speci-
city of the explanation
59
contrast the rival pan-Hellenic explanations,
in which the mother is either Hera, or a daughter of Ocean or of Ouranos
sits in slightly uneasy juxtaposition with the pan-Hellenic worship of the
Graces. It is almost as though Callimachus here reects upon the relation
between local cult and Olympian gure; the form of the aition presupposes
the oddity of the Parian worship in the context of the universal cult of
the Graces (cf. fr. 7.911 = 9.911 M.), but these Graces have a very local
parentage.
It is particularly unfortunate that we are even less well informed about
the other clear case where competing aetiologies were explicitly listed. In
Book 3, Callimachus dealt with the question of why women experiencing
difculty in childbirth call for assistance upon the virgin Artemis; the sur-
viving summary indicates that he offered three explanations: either because
[Artemis herself ] was born [painlessly], or because on Zeus instructions
Eileithyia bestowed this special function upon her, or because she freed
her own mother from labour pains when she was giving birth to Apollo
(Diegeseis i 2736). The wording of the summary suggests that the poet
himself did not choose between these explanations, each of which is of
itself perfectly sensible. This passage has been interpreted as offering a
complex three-part aetiology covering Artemis own birth, prerogatives,
and paradigmatic intervention, but it would at least be surprising to nd
Callimachus concerned to provide a complete and internally consistent
account.
60
Less surprising would be a set of competing aetiologies which
both over-explain the ritual phenomenon and leave it entirely unexplained.
58
The placing of this book fragment here is conjectural, but impossible to resist.
59
Massimilla suggests a Ptolemaic motive in view of the importance of Dionysus for the royal house;
both Naxos and Paros were within the orbit of Ptolemaic inuence in the Aegean. At Diod. Sic.
5.52.23 Koronis is one of three Naxian nymphs who nursed the infant Dionysus, and as a result of
this the inhabitants had the gods gratitude (ypi:c,): is this a rationalising origin for the story of
the Charites? At Arg. 4.4245 the Graces are said to have woven a cloak for Dionysus on Dia (i.e.
Naxos), but it is unclear whether we are to imagine him as their nursling or their lover.
60
As suggested by Loehr (1996) 1956.
58 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
Be that as it may, what binds this example to that of the genealogy of the
Graces is not only the excess of aetiological material available, but also the
excess of the poets knowledge. The aetiological impulse here grows not
from ignorance, but from knowledge; or, we might rather say that it is
knowledge which brings the painful awareness of ignorance.
Even here, we may sense a Hesiodic dimension. In Works and Days,
Hesiod juxtaposes two explanations of why life is hard: the Pandora myth
and the account of the Five Ages. Modern scholars have debated at great
length whether those explanations are competing or complementary,
61
but
from the perspective of a later age, it must have been clear enough that
they were different explanatory models one strictly aetiological, together
with the discontinuities of time entailed in such a model, and the other a
diachronic process. Hesiod never explicitly chooses between them, perhaps
because truth encompasses both; scholar-poets, however, claim to need
single right answers.
It has often been remarked that, whereas in Homer and Hesiod (par-
ticularly the Theogony) it is the Muses, rather than the poet, who have
the knowledge, in Callimachus there is a much more even distribution.
Whereas Homer allotted all knowledge to the Muses (Iliad 2.486), the
young Callimachus immediately tells the Muses what he knows, i.e. that
there are at least three competing genealogies for the Graces. Most memo-
rably, he prefaces a request for information about Zankle with a parade of
his knowledge of the foundation legends of virtually all other Sicilian cities
(fr. 43 = 50 M.); I shall tell you . . . I know . . . I know . . . I can explain
articulate the parade. At one level, this catalogue lays bare once again the
process of selection which is always on view in the Aitia the poet may
know these things, but we are none the wiser
62
but, at another level, the
whole project of completeness is exposed for what it is: as we shall see also
with the summary of Xenomedes Cean history in fr. 75,
63
catalogue style
in fact advertises, rather than conceals, silences. The poet may indeed nd
any gap in his knowledge intolerable, but the undertaking is as doomed as
the wish to make decisions between competing aitia. This poet is, however,
nothing if not indefatigable: cf. fr. 31b (=35 M.), So she spoke, and at once
my thumos questioned them again. No sooner has Klio nished explaining
about the nameless founder of Zankle than the poet has another question
for her:
61
For some guidelines and bibliography cf. T. Rosenmeyer, Hesiod and Historiography Hermes 85
(1957) 25785, C. Rowe, JHS 103 (1983) 1323.
62
Cf. below, p. 64; for a rather different perspective cf. Harder (1998) 102.
63
Cf. below, pp. 645.
4 Hesiod and Callimachus 59
c[,] n utv itt u0cv, t,c o tti sci [:c tu]toci
n]tcv n ,p uci uc, ott:ptg[t:]c
K]ioocon, tcp 0ocp Otcocioic Kn[oocv t]cp:nv
n] tci, n Koucu sc, Aicp:c, c,[ti
So she stopped speaking, and I wanted to know this too for my amazement was
nourished: Why does Haliartus, Cadmus city, celebrate the Theodaisia, a Cretan
festival, by the waters of the Kissousa . . .? (Callimachus fr. 43.847 (= 50.847
M.))
What is the nature of this uc,, wonder? Not, I think, merely won-
der . . . at hearing the answer to so obscure a question,
64
for we are now
well into the second book, nor merely a just wonder at the rich variety
of cultic practices to be found, or at the range of Klios wisdom. This
wonder causes the poet to ask about a Boeotian practice with no obvious
link to the Sicilian episode which has preceded. The apparent randomness,
emphasised by the parenthetic structure of vv. 845, is important. At one
level, this is mimetic of the jerkiness and brief attention span, as well as the
curiosity, of the child (cf. fr. 1.56), but at another, Callimachus exploits
an aetiology of philosophy (desire for knowledge) which we nd in both
Plato (Theaetetus 155d) and a famous passage of Aristotle:
It is owing to their wonder (:c cuutiv) that men both now begin and at rst
began to philosophise; they wondered originally at the obvious difculties, then
advanced little by little and stated difculties about the greater matters, e.g. about
the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and the stars, and about the
genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders (tcpcv sci
cuucv) thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense
a lover of wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they
philosophised in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing
science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. And this is conrmed by
the facts; for it was when almost all the necessities of life and the things that make
for comfort and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge began to be
sought. Evidently then we do not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but
as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for anothers, so we
pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake. (Aristotle,
Metaphysics 1.982b 1227, trans. W. D. Ross)
Philosophical enquiry has its origins in wonder, and Callimachus
enquiries are no different. This famous passage of the Metaphysics, how-
ever, throws into relief two particularly signicant aspects of those enquiries.
64
Hutchinson (1988) 44. This in fact is the only occurrence of uc, in Callimachus, and c0uc
and its cognates are not found; elsewhere, uc, often connotes a kind of terror, but here it seems
little more than wonder.
60 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
Aristotle traces a progression from wondering enquiries about small mat-
ters to the larger subjects of astronomy. Into which category would Calli-
machus enquiry about the conduct of the Cretan Theodaisia at Haliartos
in Boeotia fall? Moreover, Aristotle clearly connects the growth of phi-
losophy with wonder about observable astronomical phenomena the
sun, the stars etc.; the ancients at least seem to have linked cuutiv
with the t- root, seeing.
65
The objects of Callimachus wonder are, more
often than not, things that he has never seen, sometimes explicitly so
(cf. fr. 178.2730 = 89. 2730 M.).
66
In many cases, it may be doubted
whether any one of Callimachus generation had seen these practices. Thus,
it is the gulf betweenthe inheritedintellectual structure andthe use to which
it is put that most clearly imperils the whole procedure. Secondly, Aristotle
stresses that philosophy is pursued for its own sake; it is thus like the free
man who does not exist for the sake of someone else, and (we may infer) it
is also an activity appropriate only to the free man. There is more at stake
for Callimachus here than merely another battle in the endless war over
whether poetry serves any useful purpose or not. Elsewhere, he uses the
rhetoric of freedom v. slavery to characterise his intellectual enquiries,
67
and so here the wonder which prompts him to question the Muses is
part of the complex presentation of an intellectualism which has become a
crucial diagnostic sign for the free man.
5 aconti us and cydi ppe
The longest continuous passage to have survived from the Aitia is the story
of Acontius and Cydippe in Book 3. This narrative was very inuential
in Roman poetry (Virgil, Eclogue 2 and 10; Propertius 1.18; Ovid, Heroides
2021), and a surviving prose version from late antiquity (Aristainetos 1.10)
is clearly derived ultimately from Callimachus. The story is as follows:
Acontius of Ceos fell in love with Cydippe of Naxos when he saw her at the
festival of Apollo on Delos. He inscribed on an apple an oath by Artemis
to marry Acontius, threw the apple towards Cydippe and her nurse, and
Cydippe trapped herself by reading out the oath in the holy precinct of the
goddess. When, back onNaxos, Cydippes father triedto marry his daughter
off to another suitor, she repeatedly fell ill, until her father consulted Apollo
and learned the truth; the god told him to full Cydippes oath, and so
65
Cf. Et. Mag. 443.3748 Gaisford.
66
This passage may in fact have stood close to the appeal to wonder near the head of Book 2, cf.
below, p. 80.
67
Fr. 178.19, cf. below, p. 78.
5 Acontius and Cydippe 61
the couple were married. The account of Acontius lovesickness, which
caused him to seek the solitude of the countryside, where he poured out
his woes and carved Cydippes name on trees, was particularly important
for later poets, but only a few verses of this survive. What does survive is
an extended account of Cydippes fathers unsuccessful attempts to arrange
his daughters wedding (fr. 75. 149).
68
The rst surviving verses take us
straight to the self-conscious practice of aetiology:
non sci scpc tcptvc, tovoc:c,
:tuicv c, tsttut tpcvugicv 0tvcv ic0oci
cpotvi :nv :civ tcioi ouv ugict.
Hpnv ,p sc:t gcoi scv, scv, oytc, ciopt
uut, o , tion sci : ttp coy coin
cvcc sp: tvts c0 :i tn, ot, tpc gpis:n,,
t cv ttti sci :cv npu,t, o:cpinv.
n tcuioptin ycttcv scscv, co:i, scp:t
,coon, c, t:tcv tc, cot uc0iv tyti.
. . . and already the maiden was in bed with the boy, as the rite prescribed that
a bride should sleep her pre-wedding sleep with a boy whose parents were both
alive. For they say that once upon a time dog, dog, my shameless soul, you would
sing even of what is not lawful. It is very lucky for you that you have not seen
the mysteries of the dread goddess, since you would have vomited out their story
too. Much learning is in truth a terrible curse, when someone cannot control their
tongue. This child really does have a knife.
69
(Callimachus fr. 75. 19)
Although the opening context is broken, it is not unreasonable to believe
that v. 1 teases us with the possibility that Cydippe is already enjoying a
wedding night with someone other than Acontius; in fact, however, she
is merely taking part in an obscure Naxian rite by which a bride spent the
night before her marriage with a pre-pubertal boy. In accordance with the
raison detre of the Aitia, the poet starts to tell the origin of the custom an
imitation of the youthful lovemaking of Zeus and Hera (Iliad 14.2956)
but breaks off when he realises, with archly proper piety, that to tell such a
story would be blasphemous. The idea of the poet as a child is recurrent in
the Aitia, but his shifting of the blame to his thumos and his lament about
the difcult burden of much knowledge in a poem expressly devised
to display that knowledge! are not merely witty, but again call attention
68
Recent discussions include Cairns (1979) 11720, Hopkinson (1988) 10210, Harder (1990) and
(2002) 1959, 2024, Lynn (1995) 192262, Cameron (1995) 25661, 3512, Nikitinski (1996) 12835,
P. Rosenmeyer, Love Letters in Callimachus, Ovid and Aristaenetus or the Sad Fate of a Mailorder
Bride MD 36 (1996) 931.
69
A reference to the proverb: Dont give a child a knife.
62 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
to the process of selection which must lie at the heart of any such poem.
70
Moreover, the poets lament for his much knowledge follows immediately
upon the statement that he does not know about the rites of Demeter;
the poetic voice constantly undercuts itself with brilliant and bewildering
speed. Some aitia, however, are omitted for lack of space, others for lack of
courage. For they say that once upon a time Hera . . . (v. 4) nds a close
parallel in an anonymous Sotadean verse preserved in Hephaestion:
Hpnv tc:t gcoiv ic :cv :tptistpcuvcv
They say that once upon a time Zeus who delights in thunder . . . Hera (Sotades
fr. 16 Powell)
It is an attractive speculation
71
that Sotades himself was the author of this
verse and that it comes from perhaps indeed was the rst verse of a
poem which laughed at Philadelphus marriage to his sister Arsinoe (cf.
Sotades fr. 1 Powell); if so, Callimachus allusion to it would evoke the fate
of Sotades, and thus emphasise the real dangers to which the poets much
knowledge was exposing him.
After one false start, the poet begins his narrative all over again, but
this time from the apparently pious subject of sacrice. The image of the
sudden anguish of the sacricial cattle as they catch a reected glimpse of
the blade which is to end their lives (vv. 1011) is a startling intrusion of
the pathetic fallacy after the witty self-mockery of the previous verse. This
empathy with the cattle undercuts the immediately preceding claimto strict
piety, a claim already made problematic by the paradoxical self-makarismos
of someone who has not been initiated at Eleusis; contrast the condent
assertion of the archaic Hymn to Demeter:
cic, c, :o ctcttv ttiycvicv vpctcv
c, o :tn, tpcv, c, : cuucpc,, c0 tc cucicv
cocv tyti giutvc, ttp otc cgc topctv:i.
Blessed the mortal man who has seen these things. He who has not been initiated
in the holy things, who has no share of them, never partakes of like things when
he is dead amidst the dank gloom. (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 4802)
The archaic hymns aetiological tale would have tted perfectly into the
Aitia, but some things are best covered in silence . . . The Hippocratic
dismissal in v. 14 of the divine origins of epilepsy is moreover a further
70
It is tempting to believe that ,coon, tongue also suggests gloss and thus looks forward to the
rare uc0i, which follows; here is someone who really cannot control his use of gl ossai.
71
Cf. Pretagostini (1984) 144, Lynn (1995) 20415.
5 Acontius and Cydippe 63
reason to doubt the conventional piety of the poet.
72
Such a dismissal,
which gestures towards the writing of a further, medical aetiology
73
, is
also of course a display of the poets much knowledge; in this case, it
really is a difcult burden, because the poet has got it wrong Cydippes
illness does in fact have a divine cause, namely the oath to Artemis.
74
These
verses, therefore, display a brilliant control of poetic voice, exploiting the
claims to omniscience by a poet who sets himself up to narrate origins, but
is defeated by the multiple ramications of the material he chooses. The
Apolline voice of the poet, who recounts Cydippes history with an interest
in symptoms and duration which would suit a real doctor, then gives way
to Apollo, the divine doctor himself, but it is an Apollo who speaks very like
Callimachus. The listing of Artemis haunts, the concern with Cean ritual,
and the implicit etymology of Etesian from ci:toci
75
point clearly to
the distinctive voice of the Aitia; the elaborate paraphrase for the Etesian
winds, by which many quail are entangled in the linen clouds (i.e. nets),
adapts the obscure language of an oracle to Callimachus extraordinary eye
for everyday detail. The poets special relationship with Apollo, a familiar
feature of Callimachean poetics, here provides a speech whose unity of tone
and voice stands in sharp contrast to what has preceded. All the problems
of aetiology disappear when you let Apollo do the talking: medicine offers
an alternative aetiological structure which also seeks to explain the present
from the past, but it is doomed to failure unless it carries Apollos personal
guarantee.
If the earlier verses dramatised the problem of selection which poetry
of this kind imposes, so too does the summary in the nal twenty-eight
verses of the prose chronicle of the Cean historian Xenomedes, named by
Callimachus as his source for the story of Acontius and Cydippe.
76
When
confronted with such expanse of time, the poet can dawdle or hurry at
will. As we have seen, the problem with aetiology is not merely that one
custom may have different explanations, but that almost everything could
72
The relevant text is On the Sacred Disease 15. It is noteworthy that when the Hippocratic author
exemplies other diseases which seem to him just as divine as epilepsy he cites quotidian, tertian
and quartan (:t:cp:cci) fevers (chapter 1). It is tempting to believe that this lies behind Cydippes
second illness.
73
For a collection of medical passages which use ci:icc,ic or its cognates cf. Loehr (1996) 32.
74
Cf. Nikitinski (1996) 135.
75
Cf. Hyginus, De astr. 2.6 (p. 27 Vir e), 2 Arg. 2.498527b. It is not the least of the interesting problems
concerning the relation between Callimachus and Apollonius in the matter of the etesian winds that
the latter does not make his etymology (annual) explicit; in paraphrasing Apollonius account, 2
Arg. 2.498527a felt compelled to add the explanation which Apollonius has omitted.
76
Cf. G. Huxley, Xenomedes of Keos GRBS 6 (1965) 23545, R. L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography
(Oxford 2000) 3704.
64 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
require an aition; the poet must therefore select and control. Unlike the
archaic catalogue poet, Callimachus professes no need or desire to tell every-
thing, because the poet is now no longer the repository of the communitys
knowledge; now there are prose sources which claim comprehensiveness
(vv. 545 the whole island) and accuracy,
77
although neither claim will
in fact stand up to examination (note uucc,c, v. 55, and the pointed
juxtaposition of vv. 767):
ts ot ,ucu stivcic ut, c0vcuc utt vttoci
on ,cp t out:tpcv g0cv Ascv:ioci
tcu :i sci ttpi:iucv lcuioi vcit:cuoiv,
Ktt, :tcv o nut, utpcv tscutv
:cvot tcp pycicu -tvcunotc,, c, tc:t tcocv
vnocv tvi uvnun s:t:c uucc,c,
cpyutvc, c, vugnoiv tvcit:c Kcpusinoiv,
:c, tc lcpvnooc0 , toict ut,c,,
Yopc0oocv : c sci uiv tgnuiocv, s:.
From that marriage a great name was destined to arise, for your tribe, the Akonti-
adai, still dwell in great numbers and great honour at Ioulis, Cean. Of your desire
we heard from ancient Xenomedes, who set down the whole island in a mytholog-
ical history, beginning with how it was inhabited by Corycian nymphs, whom a
great lion chased away from Parnassus; for that reason they called it Hydroussa . . .
(Callimachus fr. 75.508)
cpyutvc, c, is the Callimachean equivalent of the Homeric tvtv tcv c,,
taking up the story from when . . ., and should indicate the point within
a larger story, from where the poet begins his own narrative (cf. fr. 7.25 =
9.25 M., h.3.4);
78
instead, however, of being a marker of selectivity, it here
reinforces tcocv to showthat Xenomedes really didbeginat the beginning,
with the rst settlement on Ceos of nymphs chased away fromParnassos by
a lion, as no narrative poet of Callimachean sensibilities ever would. The
summary of Xenomedes chronicle in fact seeks to reproduce (parodically)
the catalogue style appropriate to a work structured by strict chronology
and the comprehensiveness which that chronology imposes: [Xenomedes
told] how (56) . . . and how (58) . . . and how (60) . . . and how (70).
79
On the other hand, only someone with access to Xenomedes book will be
able to say howcomprehensive it, or Callimachus report of it, was. The list
of names and successive generations merely advertises how many potential
Acontii are passed over in silence, by Callimachus and perhaps also by
77
It is tempting to believe that t:n:uuin ututnutvc, whose concern was truth (v. 76) echoes or
evokes some claim in Xenomedes himself; such a historiographical topos is very familiar.
78
Cf. Lynn (1995) 162.
79
Cf. Orpheus cosmogonical song at Arg. 1.496511, and the song of Silenus at Virg. Ecl. 6.3173.
5 Acontius and Cydippe 65
Xenomedes. The fact that one of the most prominent gures of Ceanmythic
history, Aristaios, appears in the speech of Apollo, but not apparently
80
in
the summary of Xenomedes history, makes manifest how the summary
itself is an exercise in selection. If the poetry of origins will always face
an embarrassment of material, so too will the prose chronicle. Moreover,
Callimachus does not limit his aetiological focus to the earlier section:
vv. 568 explain the name Hydroussa, appropriate once the nymphs had
arrived; vv. 602 suggest, but offer no answer to, the enquiry: Why does
Zeus receive offerings from the Carians to the sound of war-trumpets?,
and v. 63 all but gives us the origin of the name Ceos. Any attempt to
distinguish between Xenomedes own words and the summary of the
aetiologicallyobsessed poet would be folly; the two voices have become as
one.
81
If we ask what does Acontius and Cydippe explain, then the most
obvious answer is the origin of the Cean Akontiadai.
82
The projection
forwards to the present at vv. 502 (cited above), marked by the aetiological
t:i, together with the fact that the poem opens with a foreshadowing of
Acontius success in capturing and marrying the beloved Cydippe (fr. 67.1
4), suggests that this is the telos to which the poem has been moving. When
the poet advertises the process of selecting his material, it is Acontius sharp
love
83
which is singled out, in a reprise of the opening verses:
ttt ot, Ktt,
u,spctv: co:c, cuv tpc:c ottv
tptou, t:n:uuin ututnutvc,, tvtv c tc[i]oc,
u0c, t, nut:tpnv topcut Kcictnv.
The old man who cares for truthfulness told, Cean, of your erce love, mixed up
with all these. From this source, the boys story travelled down to my Calliope.
(Callimachus fr. 747)
This love was lying mixed up with all the other potential stories until
Callimachus rescued it;
84
ttt . . . tpc:c ottv leaves quite ambigu-
ous just how extensive Xenomedes treatment was. As we have seen,
however, the poem is littered with other aitia, hinted at or passed by,
85
80
Efforts are still made to accommodate him in vv. 589, cf. A. S. Hollis, ZPE 86 (1991) 1113.
81
Good remarks in Lynn (1995) 237.
82
This is rejected by, e.g. Fraser (1972) I 727 (with II 1017 n. 77) on the grounds that there is no other
example of such a genealogical quasi-aition.
83
Surely another (cf. fr. 70) allusion to an etymology of Acontius as the javelin.
84
u,spctv: co:c, [sc. :c, tctoi] is certainly odd, but Maas vici, is unconvincing.
85
Cf. e.g. Eichgr un (1961) 121, Lynn (1995) 204. Lynn sees the (omitted) explanation of the origins of
the Naxian prenuptial rite as the principal aition of the poem. Some colour would be given to this
view by the fact that the immediately following aition is the nuptial rite at Elea (frs. 767a), but
this does not seem to account for the general direction of the poem.
66 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
and particularly in the context of Books 3 and 4 of the Aitia we should
perhaps not worry too much about pinning down the principal aition.
One other aition cannot, however, be passed by in silence. Although the
poem is almost universally referred to as Acontius and Cydippe, it is really
only Acontius story the tcioc, u0c, of vv. 767 and it is a Cean,
not a Naxian, story. As Acontius marriage has ramications in the present
day, so Callimachus gives us the aition of how he has come in the present
to write this story of the past. Aetiology works in two parallel lines, one
descending from the institution of rites and practices to their continua-
tion to a future age, often the present, and the other from Callimachus
sources to the Aitia. The poem begins with Acontius and Cydippe and
ends with Acontius and Calliope to mark this double process; Kydippe
must become Kalliope, the recording Muse, before she can enter the world
of poetry. The emphasis upon Xenomedes age and antiquity (vv. 54, 66,
76) may, of course, pick up something from his own work he wrote the
chronicle in old age
86
as well as stressing the time gap between chronicler
and poet; rather similar is Callimachus reference to a source in fr. 92 as
the old (tccici) researches of Leandros.
87
Nevertheless, it also serves to
emphasise the unbroken line of tradition upon which Callimachus the
child, like the present-day Akontiadai themselves, draws. Aetiology in
Callimachus is always, at least in part, a reection upon the practice of
writing.
6 the reply to the telchi nes
If Acontius and Cydippe presents the aetiology of the subject-matter of
Callimachus poetry, the Reply to the Telchines (fr. 1) offers the aetiol-
ogy of both subject and style. The parallel r ole played by Apollo in both
passages it is his instruction which leads to the marriage (frs. 75.2143)
and his instruction which produces the Aitia (fr. 1.219) conrms the
double-headed nature of Callimachus aetiology.
The Reply to the Telchines (fr. 1)
88
is a programmatic and polemical
preface to (some, at least, of ) the Aitia. It is a matter of great dispute
whether this passage was written as a preface to an edition, dating perhaps
from the 270s, of Books 1 and 2, or was added much later, perhaps when
86
So, e.g. Huxley (n. 76 above) 244 n. 62.
87
Cf. Ovid, Fasti 1.7 sacra recognosces annalibus eruta priscis. For Callimachus presentation of the past
see Nikitinski (1996) passim; on tccic, pp. 1879.
88
On the history of interpretation see G. Benedetto, Il sogno e linvettiva (Florence 1993), Cameron
(1995). The fullest discussion of the Reply is now Asper (1997).
6 The reply to the Telchines 67
Callimachus put together Books 3 and 4, in which the dialogue with the
Muses framework was abandoned. Callimachus certainly presents himself
as a (very) old man, indeed as a Tithonus who lived for ever but did not
retain his youth (vv. 6, 3340),
89
but this image works on more than one
level, and need not be interpreted merely literally. The Reply itself poses
extraordinary problems of interpretation, beyond the historical one of its
place and relative dating within the overall structure of the Aitia, and
nothing like a complete account will be attempted here.
90
tcs]i uci Ttyvt, tti:pcuoiv cio n,
vniot, c Mcon, cos t,tvcv:c gici,
tvtstv coy tv ctiouc oinvtst, n coi[n
. . . . . .]c, tv tcc, nvuoc yiioiv
n. . . . .].cu, npcc,, ttc, o tti :u:cv t[iooc
tc, c:t, :cv o t:tcv n otsc, cos ci,n.
. . . . . .].[.]sci Tt[]yoiv t,c :cot ''g0cv c[
. . . . . . .] :ns[tiv] ntcp ttio:utvcv,
. . . . . .]. . ptnv [c]i,co:iyc, c sctsti
. . . .tcu :nv ucspnv cutvic Otoucgcpc[,
:cv ot] oucv Miuvtpuc, c:i ,us,, c sc:c tt:cv
. . . . . .] n ut,n o cos toioct ,uvn.
. . . . .]cv tti Opnsc, t Ai,t:cic [tt:ci:c
cuc:]i lu,ucicv nocutvn [,]tpc[vc,,
Mcooc,t:ci sci ucspcv co:tcitv tt cvopc
Mnocv] [nocviot,] o cot utiyp[c]:tpci.
tt:t Bcoscvin, cccv ,tvc, coi ot :tyvn
spivt:t, ]un oycivc ltpoioi :nv ocginv
uno t tut0 oigc:t ut,c cgtcuocv cionv
:is:toci pcv:cv cos tucv, c Aic,.
sci ,cp c:t tpc:io:cv tuc, tti ot:cv tnsc
,cvcoiv, Atccv tttv c uci sic,
. . . . . . .] . . .ciot, :c utv c, c::i tyio:cv
ptci, :n]v Mc0ocv o c,ct tt:ctnv
tpc, ot ot] sci :co cvc,c, :c un tc:tcuoiv cucci
:c o:titiv, t:tpcv yvic un sc cu
oigpcv t]cv uno cucv vc tc:v, c sttcu,
:pit:c]u,, ti sci o:tivc:tpnv toti,.
: c ticun]v tvi :c, ,cp tiocutv c i,uv nycv
:t::i,c,, ]cpucv o cos tginocv cvcv.
npi utv coc:ctv:i tcvtistcv c,snoci:c
cc],, t,c o tnv co[c]y,, c t:tpcti,,
89
Cf. G. Crane, Tithonus and the Prologue to Callimachus Aetia ZPE 66 (1986) 26978, C. Brillante,
Studi sulla rappresentazione del sogno nella Grecia antica (Palermo 1991) 11243.
90
Some of this section reuses material from Hunter (2001b).
68 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
c tv:c,, vc ,npc, vc opcocv nv utv tioc
tpcsicv ts oin, ntpc, tocp tocv,
coi :c o tsociui, :c uci pc, coocv ttto:i
:pi,cyiv cc c vnoc, tt L,stoc.
. . . . . . .Mc0oci ,cp cocu, ocv cuc:i tcoc,
un c c, tcicu, cos tttv:c gicu,.
The Telchines often mumble against my poetry ignorant and not born friends of
the Muse because I did not accomplish one continuous poemin many thousands
of verses on kings or . . . heroes, but like a child I [unroll] my poem little by little,
though the decades of my years are not few. . . . To the Telchines I say: . . .
race . . . who know how to rot your liver [i.e. with envy/malice], . . . of few lines
but the fertile Thesmophoros far outweighs the long . . . of the two poems the
small-scale, not the large woman, taught that Mimnermus is sweet. . . . May the
crane, which delights in the blood of Pygmies, [y] from Egypt to the Thracians,
and may the Massagetai shoot from afar at the [Median] soldier. [Nightingales]
are sweeter like this. Off with you, wretched race of Malice! In future [judge] ne
poetry by art, not by the Persian schoinos. Do not look to me for the birth of a
loud-resounding poem: thundering is not my job, but Zeus. When I rst placed
the writing-tablet on my knees, Apollo, the Lycian one, said to me: . . . poet,
[feed] the sacricial victim to be as fat as possible, but, my good friend, nourish
a slender Muse. [Moreover], this too I bid you: proceed on paths not trodden by
wagons, do not [drive your chariot] in the common tracks of others nor on the
broad highway, but on [unworn] roads, even if you will drive a narrower path. We
sing among those who love the pure sound of [cicadas], not the raucous noise of
donkeys. Let [another] bray like the long-eared beast, but may I be the light one,
the winged one; ah yes, that I may sing feeding upon the dew from the divine air,
and old age, may I shed it it weighs upon me like the three-cornered island [i.e.
Sicily] upon terrible Enceladus. . . . All those upon whom the Muses have looked
with straight eye as children, they do not expel them from their friendship when
they are grey. (Callimachus fr. 1.138)
Just as, for example, Aristophanes and Terence present their aesthetic creeds
as replies to criticism or lack of success, so Callimachus couches his poetic
declaration as a reply to the criticism of the Telchines, legendary spirits
who were attached particularly to Rhodes (cf. fr. 75.645) and associated
with spiteful malice and the power to cast the evil eye. The Telchines are no
friends of the Muses (i.e. they are ignorant about poetry),
91
but Callimachus
belongs to those friends who will be cherished by the protecting eyes of
the Muses (378). There is no good reason to doubt that Callimachus
style of poetry had in fact attracted unfavourable comment, but the very
familiarity of the reply to criticism device, to which Callimachus also has
91
This is the clear implication of v. 2, although the syntax of that verse remains disputed, cf.
E. Magnelli, Quelle bestie dei Telchini ZPE 127 (1999) 528, Acosta-HughesStephens (2002).
6 The reply to the Telchines 69
recourse in Iambus 13, should warn us against wholescale reconstruction of
literary feuds; one ancient list of these Telchines does in fact survive,
92
containing, among others, the names of the epigrammatists Asclepiades
and Posidippus and the peripatetic Praxiphanes of Mytilene, against whose
views Callimachus is known to have written a prose treatise (fr. 460). It is
very difcult to judge howmuch guesswork and howmuch hard knowledge
lies behind this list. The substance of the Telchines complaint, expressed
by Callimachus in indirect speech and thus marked as mediated to us by the
poet, seems to be that Callimachus has not written one continuous poem
in many thousands of verses on the subject of kings or heroes; rather, he
rolls out his verses little by little, behaving like a child, though he has in
fact left childhood far behind.
93
This has often been understood as, and was
certainly appropriated by Roman poets as, a reference to long epic poems
of a traditional kind, which Callimachus certainly did not write, but Alan
Cameron has argued that the reference is rather to repetitive catalogue
elegy, of the kind most familiar to us from the fragments of Hermesianax
and Phanocles, but clearest for Callimachus generation in the Lyde of
Antimachus; Callimachus would thus be differentiating the style and the
manner of the Aitia from other long elegiac poems, and it is certainly the
case that the manner and voice of the Aitia seem entirely different from
anything that had been written before. However these verses are interpreted
in detail, the reference must primarily be to style, both verbal style and
arrangement, rather than to genre, as this termis commonly understood.
94
Callimachus proceeds not, as he is often understood, to reject long
poems tout court, but rather to reject length as a valid aesthetic criterion.
What matters is techne, poetic craft, however long the poem. The proof
of this lies in the fact that the shorter poems of Mimnermus and Philetas
are better than their long poems (although the interpretation of these
broken verses is particularly problematic).
95
That said, however, it is the
case that for Callimachus himself, though not necessarily for every poet, the
short poem, or at least the poem which can easily be broken into short
units, is the preferred mode of composition. Long poems are like loud
thunder (i.e. at the level of style, mere inated bombast), and here there
92
In the Florentine scholia (Pfeiffer I p. 3, Massimilla (1996) 62), cf. Cameron (1995) 185232.
93
On the image of the child cf. Asper (1997) 14950. B. Acosta-Hughes and S. Stephens, Aetia fr. 1.5:
I told my story like a child ZPE 136 (2001) 21416, propose t[tc rather than tiooc at the end
of v. 5.
94
So rightly already H. Herter, Gnomon 12 (1936) 452. For a speculative interpretation of the phrase in
terms of Aristotelian ideas cf. Hunter (1993a) 1905.
95
Among recent contributions are W. Luppe, ZPE 115 (1997) 504, K. Spanoudakis, ZPE 121 (1998)
5961, and C. W. M uller, ZPE 122 (1998) 3640.
70 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
does seem to be an unmistakeable linkage between length and style; the
transitional sleight of hand is effected through ut,c in v. 19, which picks
up the language and ideas of length (note especially ut,n in v. 12), but
in an adverbial phrase with cgtcuocv in fact shifts the emphasis towards
quality and style. This is reinforced by what seem like clear echoes of the
debate between the thunderer Aeschylus and Euripides in Aristophanes
Frogs.
96
The two tragedians debate the quality and nature of the language
of poetry, and Euripides accuses the older poet of lling his poems with
a meaningless bombast, which he was then forced to remove by placing
tragedy on a thinning diet (Frogs 93944). So, too, Callimachus presents
Apollo as having told himthat sacrices should be full of fat, but the Muse
should be kept tt:ctc,, which carries implications of both slenderness
and neness. Being a god, Apollo wants a decent meal, but being the god
of medicine, he also knows the dangers of too much fat;
97
he gets the best of
both worlds by asking for the former for himself, but generously spares the
Muse, who is after all only his attendant, an unhealthy diet. Callimachus
elsewhere seems to use tcy, as a term of literary disapprobation,
98
and
this will reinforce the pointed contrast. Both the Aristophanic Euripides
and Callimachus wish to pare poetry down to what is strictly necessary,
to an intellectual poetry where nothing is wasted and every word counts.
Moreover, this is a poetry where innovation is important.
The Callimachean Apollo echoes, very appropriately, the (cruelly frag-
mentary) words of a Pindaric paean in honour of Apollo to urge the new
poet not to go where everyone else goes, but to seek a more individual
road:
99
stconoc 0uvcu,,
Ounpcu [ :pi]t:cv sc: uci:cv
icv:t,, [ ]c:pici, v ttci,
Make your hymns resound, going [not?] on the worn wagon-track of Homer . . .
[nor on?] the horses of another . . . (Pindar, Paean 7b.1012)
Callimachus appropriation of the Pindaric voice has been foreshadowed in
the earlier rejection of coscvin, the jealous malice of the Telchines, for
96
Cf. e.g. Wimmel (1960) 115, Pfeiffer (1968) 1378, Cairns (1979) 810, N. OSullivan, Alcidamas,
Aristophanes and the Beginnings of Greek Stylistic Theory (Stuttgart 1992), Lynn (1995) 12031.
97
Cf. Asper (1997) 15675.
98
Fr. 398, cf. Krevans (1993).
99
Varying interpretations in V. Di Benedetto, Pindaro, Pae. 7b, 1114 RFIC 119 (1991) 16476; id., Da
Pindaro a Callimaco: peana 7b, vv. 1114 Prometheus 29 (2003) 26982; G. B. DAlessio, Pindaro,
Peana VIIb (fr. 52h Sn.-M) in Proceedings of the XIXth International Congress of Papyrology (Cairo
1992) I 35373; Asper (1997) 6470, who, however, doubts a direct imitation of Pindar; Rutherford
(2001) 2479; FurleyBremer (2001) i 1556, ii 1045.
6 The reply to the Telchines 71
this is one of the most common Pindaric themes, particularly familiar from
the end of the Hymn to Apollo. The importance in the third century of the
Pindaric voice, which stresses exclusivity and rejects the banal, is generally
familiar, but the fact that the Pindaric verses refer explicitly to Homer offers
some guidance as to the direction in which Callimachus is moving. Rather
than seeing here any (of itself entirely improbable) indictment of Homer,
it is the very existence of Homer which itself compels the good poet to seek
the narrow path; only asses, traditionally a very un-Apolline animal,
100
would continue their ugly braying along the highway which Homer has
built. Here again, it is principally style, rather than genre, which is at
stake;
101
what is rejected are poems that pushed unsophisticated imitation
of either Homer or Hesiod too far.
102
In the fth book of his On Poems,
103
Philodemus reports and criticises a
set of views on literature, probably to be associated with Heraclides Ponticus
(fourth century), which seems irresistibly to bring to mind Callimachus
Reply. The scheme in question apparently categorised poems (at least
partly) by size, or at least matched size to style and thought: thus, at vii.25
32 Mangoni we learn that, according to this critic, the solider and greater
kind of poetry (:c o:tptc:c:c sci utic :cv tcinu:cv)
104
requires,
in addition to the standard poetic virtues, such as clarity and concise-
ness (ouv:cuic), both richness (tcu:ttic), or perhaps fullness,
105
and
weight (tupitic). How the one or more other categories were described
remains unclear, though we do hear (viii.1619 Mangoni) of middling
(utoc) poems, and various references to lightness (:c tcgpcv) have led
100
Cf. A. Amb uhl, Callimachus and the Arcadian asses: the Aitia prologue and a lemma in the London
scholion ZPE 105 (1995) 20913.
101
Critics note how c,snoci:c in v. 31 suggests stylistic c,sc,; as the only spondeiazon in what
survives of the Reply, the rhythm is imitative of stylistic roughness, as the sound of the verse also
seems to echo with the ass bray (E. Livrea, Callimaco e gli asini SIFC 89 (1996) 568). For further
discussion of Callimachus use of the gure of the ass cf. Andrews (1998) 78, A.-T. Cozzoli, QUCC
54 (1996) 203.
102
Cameron (1992) 310.
103
Cf. Mangoni (1993) 2015. For the possible relationship between the critics attacked in Philodemus
work and trends in Hellenistic poetry cf. below pp. 44961. R. Janko, Philodemus On Poems
and Aristotles On Poets CErc 21 (1991) 564 argues that the object of attack in On Poems 4 was
Aristotles lost On Poets, a work likely to have been very inuential at Alexandria. The ourishing
of Hellenistic didactic poetry, however, probably has little to do with Philodemus advocacy of
hexameter epic over tragedy (pace Janko 278). So, too, Philodemus preference for perfectly made
poems (cspc, tttcinutvc) over the appeal of emotional reversals (xxxvi Mangoni) may perhaps
overturn Aristotles whole ranking of the genres of poetry (Asmis (1992) 413), but we must be very
cautious about associating this with the Callimachean demand for craftsmanship.
104
The translation is that of D. Armstrong in Obbink (1995).
105
This seems very unlikely to refer to Hellenistic poikilia, as it has sometimes beentaken(cf. Mangoni
(1993) 205).
72 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
some critics to see here a tripartite division, which may or may not have
corresponded to a generic one.
106
As often with Philodemus, there are
uncertainties concerning which terms are his and which derive from the
object of his criticism and/or whether he uses his opponents terms in
the sense in which his opponent did. However, what such references to,
for example, weighty and even tumid (c,scon) poems (cf. Call. fr. 1.31
c,snoci:c)
107
showis not that Callimachus was picking up the language of
any particular critical scheme, but (as the comparison with Aristophanes
Frogs also makes clear) that the Reply plays provocatively with familiar
terms of literary discussion, drawn in fact from many areas and genres,
108
as part of the production of a paradigmatically light poem.
In place of the heavy braying of the ass, Callimachus chooses for himself
the model of the cicada, beloved of the Muses because its only concern
is song (Plato, Phaedrus 259bd). Against the heavy weight of ass poetry
is set, in words which echo the Platonic Socrates famous description of
the poet in the Ion,
109
the fragile lightness of the winged cicada with its
pure sound. An Aristotelian treatise on sounds classies the song of the
cicada as i,upc, (clear, high) and tt:c, (thin, On things heard 804a
224).
110
The cicada is, however, also a vulnerable creature resembling an
old man,
111
and one which can so easily be crushed by those who do not
appreciate its special beauty. In one respect, however, Callimachus must
confess to a likeness to the ass, the quintessential beast of burden. However
light his song, the poet bears a heavy burden (pc,),
112
that of old age,
which cannot be sloughed off. It crushes himas Sicily crushes the giant who
rebelled against Zeus, and his only consolation although no small one
is that the Muses do not abandon their favourites, unlike the dawn-goddess
Eos, who abandoned Tithonus (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 21838). Still,
106
Cf. e.g. F. Sbordone, La poetica oraziana alla luce degli studi pi` u recenti ANRWII 31.3 (BerlinNew
York 1981) 18661920, p. 1883.
107
Alongside tumid poems Philodemus places those without vigour (un t0:cvc); the precise refer-
ence is unclear, but it is difcult not to recall Hor. AP 267 sectantem leuia nerui |deciunt animique;
professus grandia turget (where see Brinks notes).
108
Cf. Harder (2002) 20611, Acosta-HughesStephens (2002).
109
Cf. Hunter (1989b), Depew (1992) 3267. Acosta-HughesStephens (2002) 2512 helpfully adduce
the Trojan elders of Iliad 3, who are compared to singing cicadas.
110
Good discussion of such descriptions of sound in Asper (1997) 17798.
111
Cf. Iliad 3.14853, Wimmel (1960) 11112.
112
The opposition which is evoked here is sharpened by the fact that cp, is the standard term
for deep sounds, the opposite of c,, cf. [Arist.], On things heard 803a 8, LSJ s.v. cp, III 1.
The loud thundering (cf. Asper (1997) 1968) which Callimachus rejects (v. 20) prepares for this
opposition. Callimachus here may not merely be playing with a conventional piety (together with
the familiar assimilation of Homer to Zeus), but he may also have an eye on Aristophanes Clouds,
where not only does Pheidippides dismiss Aeschylus as ccu ttcv, full of bombast (13667),
but thunder is explicitly denied to Zeus by the impious Socrates and the buffoonish Strepsiades
(374ff.); by implication, the Telchines are aligned with such tasteless creatures.
6 The reply to the Telchines 73
in old age the poet is able to write as he would wish: vv. 378 rework
famous verses from the prologue of Hesiods Theogony (Theog. 814), both
to demonstrate the continued poetic power which is the blessing of the
Muses
113
and, on any reconstruction of the relationship between Reply
and Dream, to prepare for the Hesiodic scene which is to follow.
The poets wish for rejuvenation seems to have been granted, in that
he recalls how he fell asleep (while studying the Theogony?), and dreamed
that he really was young again
114
and was transported to meet the Muses
on Helicon. Callimachus here replays Hesiodic experience in two related
ways. Although in the proem to the Theogony, Hesiod himself gives no
indication of how old he was when confronted on the mountainside by the
Muses, it is a reasonable guess that the Hellenistic age constructed Hesiods
encounter with the Muses as an experience of his youth the boy sent out
once upon a time (Theogony 22) to look after the lambs
115
as also were the
corresponding encounter between the Muses and the young Archilochus
116
and the young Aeschylus dream of Dionysus.
117
The Hesiodic text itself
encourages such a construction by representing the meeting with the Muses
as something which happened in the past, once upon a time (Theogony 22);
Hesiod recalls what the Muses then said to him, as Callimachus recalls
the youthful instructions he received from Apollo. Secondly, Callimachus
seems to evoke a tradition, attested explicitly only in later antiquity, that
Hesiod was in fact rejuvenated and thus lived twice, a tradition that may, as
Ruth Scodel demonstrated,
118
also be important for the choral song on old
age in Euripides Heracles (637700), to which Callimachus makes explicit
allusion (vv. 356 Her. 63840), and which is important for this whole
section of Callimachus prologue.
119
As the Euripidean chorus asserts that
it will never cease to mingle the Graces with the Muses (Her. 6735), so
113
Note the elaborate uariatio: Aic, sc0pci ut,cic Mc0oci, ,tivcutvcv tcoc,; Callimachus
cuc:i . . . un cc perhaps picks up Hesiods tv:t, t, co:cv cpcoi oicspivcv:c tuio:c, |
itinoi oisnoiv, all look at [the good king] as he distributes ordinances with straight justice.
114
Cf. Lynn (1995) 1478, Andrews (1998) 1417; Massimilla (1996) 237 prefers to see a memory of a
dream the poet had as a young man.
115
Ascraeo . . . seni at Virg. Ecl. 6.70 does not, I think, argue against this hypothesis. Note the virtuoso
combinationof Homer, Hesiod and Callimachus at Quintus Smyrnaeus 12.30810out, ,cp tcov
uci tvi gptoi nsc: cionv, | tpiv uci t: ugi tcptic sc:cosiovcoci cucv, | 2upvn, tv
octtocioi ttpisu:c unc vtucv:i, s:., you placed all the song in my heart, before my cheek
grew dark with the rst beard, when I grazed my glorious ocks in the elds of Smyrna . . ..
116
SEG xv.517, inscribed about the middle of the third century in the Archilocheion at Paros, cf.
A. Kambylis, Zur Dichterweihe des Archilochos Hermes 91 (1963) 12950, below, p. 74.
117
When he was a boy, Aeschylus fell asleep while guarding grapes in the countryside, and Dionysus
appeared to him and told him to write tragedy (Pausanias 1.21.2 = Aesch.TrGF Test. 111).
118
R. Scodel, Hesiod redivivus GRBS 21 (1980) 30120.
119
Cf. G. Basta Donzelli, La seconda giovinezza di Callimaco (fr. 1, 32ss. Pf.) in Studi di lologia
classica in onore di Giusto Monaco (Palermo 1991) I 38794; E. Livrea, Callimachus senex, Cercidas
senex ed i loro critici ZPE 119 (1997) 3742.
74 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
at the very head of his poem Callimachus does just this, for the Muses are
introduced in the Dream and are central to the whole structure of Books
1 and 2, whereas the rst aition of Book 1 is the Parian ritual in honour of
the Graces (frs. 59 M.).
120
If Callimachus rejuvenation takes the form of
a dream experience, in which he reaches into the distant past to relive the
experience of Hesiod, this may prompt us to ask about the nature of the
old age which oppresses him. When interpreting this literally, we must
always allow for humorous exaggeration. The Telchines have accused him
of behaving like a child, though he is a grown man, and so he exaggerates
just how old he is as part of the demonstration of the absurdity of their
criticisms.
121
Whatever view is taken of how old Callimachus actually was
when he composed the Reply, it seems clear that there is more at stake
here than just encroaching senility.
The approach or arrival of the weakness of old age seems to have been
a familiar poetic topos (cf. Alcman, PMG 26 (= 90 Calame), Eur. Her.
loc.cit.), which suggests that it may not be correct to read it at a simple,
literal level; it is rather a recognisable poetic code, even when the poet is
in fact (and is known to be) old. For Callimachus, the best contemporary
witness tothe code is the so-calledSeal of Posidippus (SH705 =Posidippus
118 AB), in which the poet from Pella invokes the Muses in the context
of hateful old age
122
and, perhaps under the inuence of the (?) newly
founded Archilocheion on Paros, wishes to become a second Archilochos,
as Callimachus was a second Hesiod, with honours and a cult decreed by
Apollo.
123
While his poetry will nd immortal kleos, he himself will nd
his own kind of eternity:
unot :i, cov ytci ospucv. co:cp t,c
,npc uuo:iscv cucv tti Pcoucvuv sciunv
onuc sci c c tcv:i tctivc, tcv,
ositcv tv tcooi sci cpcttn, v cuicv
sci titcv :tsvci, ocuc sci ccv tucv.
Let no one shed a tear, but in old age may I travel the mystic path to Rhadamanthys,
missed by the citizens and all the people, needing no staff to walk and speaking
clearly to the multitude, leaving house and prosperity to my children. (Posidippus
118.215 AB)
120
Cf. above, pp. 524.
121
Cf. e.g. Lynn (1995) 180 n. 17. On the charge of being a child cf. Asper (1997) 14950.
122
Austin-Bastianini adopt Friedrichs ouvctipc:t for the transmitted ouvctiocot in v. 5, rather than
Diels ouvctioc:t; this text makes the parallel with Callimachus even closer.
123
I follow H. Lloyd-Jones, JHS 83 (1963) 88; the Delphic decree which Lloyd-Jones discusses was also
a very striking example of divine favour to a poet, and must have struck a particular chord with an
initiate, if that indeed is what Posidippus was.
6 The reply to the Telchines 75
What in Callimachus is a wish for rejuvenation is in Posidippus a wish
for good health up until death in old age,
124
followed by a journey on the
mystic path to Rhadamanthys. Whether we interpret this as meaning that
Posidippus was merely initiated into the mysteries of the Muses or that he
was actually an initiate of a Dionysiac or Orphic cult,
125
Posidippus prays
to remain cpcttn,, speaking properly, to the end of his life; the prayer
for bodily health to the last, being ositcv tv tcooi, nds many parallels
throughout Greek literature, but it looks here like a reworking of Hesiods
description of men of the Golden Age, when there was no terrible old
age, but ever undiminished in feet and hands they took pleasure in feasts,
free of all ills (WD 11315). Whereas, therefore, Callimachus uses Hesiod
to console himself with the Muses protection of their favourites and his
own piety, Posidippus prays for public honours from his own people
126
and continued good health until old age, followed by the certain reward
of the just initiate. Not for Posidippus the impossible wish of becoming
young again (cf. v. 25); his immortality will be more certain and more
long-lasting.
As for Callimachus, the wish to rid himself of the burden of old age,
like the cicada, arises from Apollos poetic programme: cicada-poetics is
the poetics of the Mc0oc tt:ctn and the narrow path. The sequence
of thought suggests that the old age which crushes the poet is at one level
what we have learned to call the burden of the past, that consciousness of
tradition, of Hesiod, Pindar, Euripides, Aristophanes and the other great
gures of the past whose voices well up through Callimachus verses, a
consciousness which hems our every move with qualication, deferral and
doubt, and which, like old age, restricts the freedom of action we associate
with the light one, the winged one. In Platos myth cicadas were the rst
poets, free to sing and honour the Muses as they liked, with no constraining
tradition of song behind them. It is Callimachus who, for us, makes the
decisive move in understanding rejuvenation in terms of the literary tra-
dition, thus completing the triangle of related ideas the weight of years,
the weight of tradition, and the hope for immortality. Tradition is gured
in terms of human aging. Callimachus is old and weary, crushed by the
immobilising sense of the years which have preceded. When the Telchines
tell Callimachus to grow up, what they mean is that he should adopt a
124
For the poetic heritage of such a wish cf. Mimnermus fr. 6 West (2nd ed.).
125
Cf. Laura Rossi, ZPE (1996) 65, W. Burkert in W. Burkert et al. (eds.), Fragmentsammlungen
philosophischer Texte der Antike. Le raccolte dei frammenti di loso antichi (G ottingen 1998) 3945.
For the former view see Asper (1997) 86, with bibliography.
126
The model here is not merely Archilochus, but possibly also Philetas of Cos, cf. A. S. Hollis, Heroic
honours for Philetas? ZPE 110 (1996) 5662, A. Hardie, Philitas and the plane tree ZPE 119 (1997)
2136. For the tradition behind Posidippus expression cf. Pind. Nem. 8.359.
76 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
poetics sanctioned by time and archaic practice (cf. Iambus 13), together
with the moral seriousness that attends it. Callimachus rejects both the
poetics and the gravitas in his extraordinary wish to start all over again.
7 calli machus and the i ci an
A further passage which sheds light on Callimachus self-positioning as an
aetiological poet is the story of the Ician in fr. 178 (= 89 M.).
127
This
tells how the Athenian Pollis the name is known only from a citation
in Athenaeus continued to celebrate Attic festivals in the Alexandria of
the poets own day. At Pollis party to commemorate the Attic festival in
honour of Erigone, the cicpc, the poet met Theogenes, a visitor from the
Aegean island of Ikos (modern Alonnisos):
nc, coot tici,i, tvcvtv coo c:t occi,
nucp Opto:tici tuscv c,cuoi yct,
lscpicu sci tcioc, c,cv ttt:ticv c,io:v,
A:ioiv cis:io:n, ocv gc,, Hpi,cvn,
t, oci:nv tstootv cuntc,, tv ot vu :coi 5
tvcv c, Ai,t:c scivc, vto:ptgt:c
utucsc, oicv :i sc:c yptc, nv ot ,tvtnv
lsic,, c uvnv tycv t,c sioinv
cos tti:, cvc, Ounpisc,, citv cuccv
c, tc,, co tuon,, t, :cv cuccv c,ti. 10
sci ,cp c Opnisinv utv tto:u,t ycvocv cuuo:iv
cpctc:tv,
128
ci,c o not:c sioouic.
: c utv t,c :o ttc ttpio:tiycv:c, tiocu
:c :pi:cv, to: tonv c0vcuc sci ,tvtnv
n u ttc, :co nt,, c: co ucvcv 0oc:c, cocv, 15
t:i sci toyn, cvc, tytiv ttti.
:nv nut, cos tv ,cp puo:nptooi gcpt:ci
coot uiv ti, :tvt, cgpc, civcyccv
ci:noti, cpccv c: tttpc, :utvc ocivti
cutv yctt c gpucscv tv tcuc:i, 20
Ot,tvt, cooc o tutc ottv tpc uuc, sc0oci
iycivti, :ot uci tcv vtipcutvc
Mupuiocvcv toonvc :[i t:picv 0]uui ottoci
lntc, sc, lsc uv[c :c Otooci]s,
:t0 o tvtstv ,n:ticv io[. .]u:[. . . .]p:cv tycuoc 25
npcc, sccocu tc[,
127
The following is a revised and (in part) abbreviated version of Hunter (1996c). In addition to the
standard commentaries cf. Fabian (1992), Harder (2002) 21217.
128
On this reading cf. Massimilla (1996) 408.
7 Callimachus and the Ician 77
tioc:t, c, tvttcu[oiv
stivnv n ttpi onv [
c0 t:tpnv t,vcsc :[
c0c:c uutoci cucutvci, vtycv. 30
:c0: tuttv tcv:c[,
:piouscp, n tcpcv cic, tooi ut:c,
vcu:iin, ti vniv tyti, icv tuc, cicv
sucoiv ciuin, uccv tocisioc:c.
. . . nor did the day of the Jar Opening pass him by, nor when the Choes of Orestes
bring a white day for slaves. And when he kept the yearly ceremony for Icarius
child your day, Erigone, who are most pitied by women of Attica he invited
to a banquet his friends, and among them a stranger who had not been in Egypt
for long, having come on some private business. He was an Ician by birth, and I
shared a couch with him not by design, but the saying of Homer is not false that
god ever brings like to like. For he too loathed draining goblets of neat wine, like
the Thracians, but took pleasure in a small cup. To him I said, as the beaker was
going round for the third time, when I had learned his name and descent: This
indeed is a true saying, that wine would have not only its portion of water, but also
of conversation. Therefore for we do not pass conversation around in ladles, nor
will you ask for it by gazing at the haughty brows of the cup-bearers, when the free
man fawns upon the slave let us, Theogenes, throw the drug of conversation into
the tedious drink; do tell me in answer to my question all that my heart yearns to
hear from you: Why is it the tradition of your country to worship Peleus, king of
the Myrmidons? What has Thessaly to do with Ikos? For what purpose does [a girl]
holding an onion . . . the procession of the hero . . . according to the account of
those who know . . . holding ears ready for those who are willing to tell their story.
When I had spoken thus . . . Truly, you are thrice blessed, happy as few are, if you
lead a life which is ignorant of sea-faring. But my life has been spent more among
the waves than is that of the gull. (Callimachus fr. 178, trans. Trypanis, adapted)
Verses 910 allude to Melantheus abuse of Eumaeus and the disguised
Odysseus in Odyssey 17:
v0v utv on uc t,yu scsc, scscv n,nti,
c, citi :cv cuccv c,ti tc, c, :cv cuccv.
t n on :cvot uccpcv c,ti,, ut,cp:t ouc:c,
t:cycv vinpcv, oci:cv tcuucv:npc; 220
c, tc n, gi noi tcpco:c, it:ci cucu,,
ci:icv sccu,, cos ccpc, coot tn:c,
:cv s t uci ocin, o:cucv pu:npc ,tvtoci
onscscpcv : tutvci ccv : tpigcioi gcpnvci,
sci stv cpcv tivcv ut,nv tti,cuvioc t:c. 225
ttti cov on tp,c ss tuuctv, cos ttnoti
tp,cv ttciytoci, c t:coocv sc:c onucv
ct:ci ci:icv costiv nv ,co:tp cvc:cv.
78 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
Now indeed do the worthless lead the worthless and, as always, god brings like to
like. Miserable swineherd, where are you taking this lthy creature, this loathsome
beggar, this scavenger of banquets? He will be a lounger at many mens doors,
rubbing his back against the posts, seeking for scraps, not swords or cauldrons. If
you gave him to me to guard the farmstead, sweep out the pens and take green
fodder to the young goats, then he might drink whey and round out his thighs.
But no he has learned bad ways and will never keep at any work; instead, he
means to go cringing and begging about the country to ll his never-sated belly.
(Homer, Odyssey 17. 21728, trans. Shewring, adapted)
By moving after three rounds
129
to the pleasures of conversation, Theogenes
and the poet will certainly not be oci:cv tcuucv:npt,, scourges of the
feast.
130
Those who do not follow their lead, on the other hand, are little
better than beggars, who add nothing to the pleasures of the feast; ci:noti,
(v. 19) picks up ci:icv (Od. 17.222, 228) to point this implication. The
really free man (v. 19) will have freed himself fromthe tyranny of Dionysus
the liberator, the Looser who, paradoxically, binds mind and body in
the toils of confusion and sleep, thus reducing the free man to the status of
a shackled slave.
131
Ltutpt, was a title of Dionysus at Athens and Attic
Eleutherai; the cult statue of Dionysus Eleuthereus was associated with the
theatre of the god at Athens (Pausanias 1.20.3). That Callimachus should
allude to this manifestation of the god ts perfectly with the fact that his
host was an Athenian interested in the festivals and cults of his home city.
Moreover, his insistence on a fastidious independence is marked, as often
in Callimachus, by a rare gloss: :unv, servant, is the kind of language
whichfree menuse.
132
Pollis party thus joins a long traditionof intellectual
symposia, of which Platos Symposium, which also begins with a rejection
of heavy drinking (176ae), is the most famous. The tradition was very
much alive in Alexandria and Alexandrian literature;
133
we may compare
the famous Letter of Aristeas, a (?) late second-century account of how
Philadelphus posed moral questions at a series of symposia he held with
the Jewish sages who were engaged in translating the Hebrew holy books
into Greek.
134
Callimachus has moreover appropriated a long tradition of
129
For the fourth round as marking the descent into immodest drinking cf. Eubulus, PCG 93 (= 94
Hunter) with the notes of Kassel-Austin and Hunter.
130
On the meaning of tcuucv:np cf. Russo on Od. 17.220; it is not clear how Callimachus would
have interpreted the word.
131
Cf. Hesiod fr. 239 MW. For the paradox cf. Propertius 3.5.21 mentem uincire Lyaeo (with Fedelis
note).
132
Cf. Pfeiffer on fr. 507.
133
Cf. Cameron (1995) chapter 4.
134
Cf. M. Hadas, Aristeas to Philocrates (Letter of Aristeas) (NewYork 1951), S. Honigman, The Septuagint
and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (London 2003).
7 Callimachus and the Ician 79
sympotic poetry on the subject of correct and moderate behaviour
135
and a
more recent prose tradition, particularly associated with the peripatetics, of
c,ci ouutc:isci.
136
A standard motif of such moralising was an alleged
distinction between the moderate drinking and intellectual pleasures of
the Greek symposium and the drunken excesses of barbarian others,
in this case Thracians, who were alleged to drink unmixed wine in great
quantities.
137
Callimachus use of this theme was probably reinforced by
the poets apparent innocence of seafaring (vv. 2734), for the imaging of
the symposium (particularly one where wine owed freely) as a sea voyage
was very common.
138
Two sympotic models give shape to Callimachus rejection of heavy
drinking. One is the ritual frame provided by the introductory verses. The
aiora, Swinging Festival, commemorated Erigone, who hung herself from
the tree under which her father, Ikarios, was buried after he had been killed
by shepherds crazedby Dionysus gift of (unmixed) wine,
139
andthe rst two
festival days named inthe surviving verses, the Pithoigia (Jar Opening) and
the Choes (Pitchers), clearly evoke the pleasures and dangers of drinking.
The drinking contests which characterised the Athenian Choes presumably
encouraged the drinking of neat or only lightly diluted wine,
140
and the
Choes pattern of solitary, silent drinking (in memory of the hospitality
offered in Athens to the matricide Orestes) is one which Theogenes and
the poet explicitly reject. The licence granted to slaves (vv. 12) becomes,
in the Callimachean view of the symposium, a distasteful subservience
(v. 19). Neat wine and solitary drinking are also the hallmarks of the other
rejected sympotic model which hovers over Pollis party. The Icians rejec-
tion of excessive drinking is described in the language of pleasure and
loathing:
135
Cf. e.g. Bielohlawek (1940), W. J. Slater, Sympotic Ethics in the Odyssey in O. Murray (ed.),
Sympotica (Oxford 1990) 21320.
136
Thus, for example, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Hieronymus, and Chamaileon all wrote treatises On
Drunkenness, and cf. Plato, Laws 1.637a642b; cf. further below, p. 112.
137
Cf. C. Corbato, Scritti di letteratura greca (Trieste 1991) 314. Alexis, PCG 9.812 contrasts Greek
drinking, characterised by moderately sized cups and pleasant conversation, with the other sort,
which is a bath, not a symposium.
138
W. J. Slater, Symposium at Sea HSCP 80 (1976) 16170, remains the seminal discussion.
139
For Callimachus use of the ritual background cf. R. Scodel, Wine, Water and the Anthesteria in
Callimachus fr. 178 Pf. ZPE 39 (1980) 3740.
140
Cf. Ar. Ach. 1229. Whether or not the wine drunk during the Choes-contest was mixed with water
has been the subject of much recent discussion; the most reasonable solution might be that each
drinker was given a jug of neat wine and when he poured it into his cup could mix it or not as
he chose (cf. N. Robertson, HSCP 95 (1993) 2234, and contrast A. M. Bowie, Aristophanes. Myth,
Ritual and Comedy (Cambridge 1993) 38) to drink it neat presumably increased ones chances of
nishing rst. Callimachus point is not affected by the precise detail here.
80 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
sci ,cp c Opnisinv utv tto:u,t ycvocv cuuo:iv
cpctc:tv, ci,c o not:c sioouic.
For he too loathed draining goblets of neat wine, like the Thracians, but took
pleasure in a small cup. (vv. 1112)
Callimachus pointed oxymoron a small kissubion evokes the large
kissubion in which Odysseus served the powerful wine to the Cyclops
in Odyssey 9 (cf. v. 346), an allusion conrmed by the pleasure which
both drinkers nd in their respective cups (not:c v. 12, noc:c Od. 9.353).
Whereas, however, three of these capacious draughts befuddled the Cyclops
sufciently for Odysseus purposes (9.361), the third round is the sign for
Callimachus and Theogenes to move on to the pleasures of intellectual
conversation. Hard drinking at a symposium places you on the same level
as the Cyclops, whose story like that of Ikarios and Erigone is a clas-
sic example of the dangers of wine. Callimachus has fused the drinking
contests of the Choes with the fate of the Cyclops to produce a powerful
negative image of rejected sympotic behaviour.
Fr. 178 Pf. cannot be placed with certainty within the overall structure
of the Aitia, but there is now something of a scholarly consensus in favour
of a suggestion made by Anna Swiderek in 1951.
141
Swiderek suggested that
fr. 178 belonged to the opening of Book 2 and that it preceded fr. 43 Pf.
(= 50 M.), the De Siciliae urbibus, which is known to come from Book
2.
142
Theogenes replies to the poets tell me all that my heart craves to hear
from you
143
with an Odyssean lament (cf. Od. 5.3067) for a life spent at
sea; the poet, on the other hand, both by his own admission (vv. 2730)
and by Theogenes pointed echo in v. 33 of Hesiods own profession of
ignorance about ships and the sea (WD 649),
144
is marked as a Hesiod
who acquires information (whether fromthe Muses or a human informant)
and transmits it to others. Here then, we may see a renewal, in the opening
of Book 2, of the Hesiodic persona established in the opening sequence
of Book 1. Of particular interest in this context are vv. 1217 of fr. 50 M.:
141
J.Jur.Pap. 5 (1951) 234 n. 18; for subsequent discussion, cf. J. E. G. Zetzel, On the Opening of
Callimachus, Aetia II ZPE42 (1981) 313, Fabian(1992) 13740, 31518 (who remains more cautious),
Cameron (1995) 13340, Massimilla (1996) 145, 320, 400.
142
If correct, the passage will form a ring with the allusion to Athens which apparently closed the
book, cf. fr. 51 ( = 60 Massimilla), Hunter (1996c) 22.
143
This grand wish (cf. Hutchinson (1988) 278) reads almost like a reworking of Sapphos prayer to
Aphrodite at fr. 1.267, but it may in fact owe more to Odysseus words at Od. 9.1213. iycivti is
another typical example of Callimachus use of a rare word with contextual signicance: the learned
gloss points both to the scholastic nature of the poets interests and, just as importantly, to his ironic
self-awareness of the seeming triviality of those interests.
144
Cf. Reinsch-Werner (1976) 3834.
7 Callimachus and the Ician 81
sci ,cp t,c :c utv cooc scpnc:i :nuc, tocsc
cvc ouv tocouci, cpc itn o:tgvci,,
ctvcc tv: t,tvcv:c tcpc yptc,, cooc : cocv:cv
tvoci vticipv : ti, ypio:cv tou, 15
sci :cv cootv tutivtv t, c0picv cooc o scuc,
tiottunv, t:i uci uc0vc tpto:i :ot.
. . . for certainly all the soft amber ointments and the fragrant garlands I then put
on my head swiftly breathed no more, and of all that passed my teeth and plunged
into the ungrateful belly nothing remained till the morrow; but the only things
which I still keep are those that I laid in my ears. (Callimachus fr. 50.1217 M.,
trans. Trypanis)
These verses are followed in the papyrus by a paragraphos, which may mark
the end of an episode or of a particular aetiological subject (e.g. a change
from Ikos to Sicily); the poet appears to speak continuously until v. 55,
where he is immediately answered by Klio. It is an attractive speculation
but no more that frs. 178 + 43.155 Pf. form a single narrative by the poet
to the Muses (in the course of the dream which seems to have occupied all
of Books 1 and 2): in his dream, unless this was interrupted at the head of
Book 2, the poet tells the Muses of Pollis party and of all he learned at it,
before asking them to ll in the gaps in his Sicilian knowledge.
145
Despite the Hesiodic sequence with which the Aitia opens, the Odyssey,
with its many included tales and four books devoted solely to Odysseus
account of his diverse adventures, was a crucial model against which the
Aitia was written. It was the much-travelled hero who saw the cities of
many men and came to know their minds (or, with Zenodotus, customs)
whose physical journeys Callimachus recreates in the mind, leaving Alexan-
dria only in dreams; the gatherer of information may nowremain stationary
in one spot, whether it be a library or a symposium, rather than travelling
the world like an Odysseus or a Herodotus.
146
tiottunv (v. 17) evokes
this intellectual journey, as the verb is properly used of loading a ship
(LSJ s.v.2), whereas the despised details of the menu sink to the depths of
the belly, just as the endless food consumed by Erysichthon owed like
rivers into the depths of the sea (h. 6.8890). Not for Callimachus the
dangers of shipwreck among the tables; whereas the Muses had charged
Hesiod and his companions with being mere bellies, here the poet tells the
Muses that he has no interest in the culture of food.
147
In fr. 43.1217 we
see the poet placed halfway between the Phaeacians and their mysterious
145
This was the suggestion of Zetzel (n. 141), although he himself did not accept it.
146
Cf. further Hunter (1996c) 24 on Polybius and Timaeus.
147
The possible relevance of Hesiod, Theog. 26 was suggested by Fabian (1992) 149.
82 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
guest. As an avid listener, the poet is like the Phaeacians,
148
but as some-
one who recognises the curse of the belly, he resembles Odysseus himself
(cf. Od. 7.21521);
149
the model to be rejected here is not just the professed
hedonist, but precisely the Cyclops, whose devotion to his stomach had
been turned by Euripides into a blasphemous worship (Cycl. 3348). The
professed lack of interest in garlands and food is not merely the declaration
of an elitist, which takes its place within a long tradition of debate about the
relative value of physical and intellectual experience,
150
but also acts as an
introductory recusatio to the following aition, the elaborate account of the
origins of the cities of Sicily: this is to be no didactic poem on the courses
of a dinner (contrast, e.g. Matrons parodic A::iscv ottvcv, SH 534),
151
but rather a voyage, like Odysseus, around the cities of Sicily (cf. Od. 1.3).
Contrary to all accepted wisdom I hate, says the proverb,
152
a drinking-
companion with a memory Callimachus proves to have a prodigious
memory for what his fellow-symposiasts say. Callimachus aural memory
includes, of course, what he has read in books,
153
and fr. 178.27, tioc:t, c,
tvttcuoi as those with knowledge assert may be a typically Callimachean
allusion to his written sources (? the Ikiaka of Phanodemus).
154
Memory is important alsoinfr. 178. Whenthe poet suggests toTheogenes
that they throw the drug of conversation into the cup from which they are
drinking (v. 20), there is an obvious allusion to the (Egyptian!) drug which
Helen placed in the wine of Menelaos and Telemachos to make themforget
grief (Od. 4.21926).
155
In the Odyssey pleasure comes from forgetfulness,
in the Aitia from memory. Another Homeric pharmakon is also important
here. This is the gpucscv tocv benecent drug which Hermes gives
to Odysseus to protect him against Circes evil pharmaka; Circe turns men
148
On the Odyssean heritage of the Aitia and on Callimachus self-presentation as a listener cf.
D. Meyer, Nichts Unbezeugtes singe ich: Die ktive Darstellung der Wissenstradierung bei
Kallimachos in W. Kullmann and J. Althoff (eds.), Vermittlung und Tradierung von Wissen in der
griechischen Kultur (T ubingen 1993) 31736.
149
ypio:c, varies cvc:c, at Od. 17.228, 18.364. The adjective does not merely make a topical
point about the ingratitude of the stomach (cf. Massimilla (1996) 323), but marks the symposium
where the pleasures of the stomach dominate as lacking in that charis which is the dominant virtue
of the well-ordered symposium, as Odysseus himself knew (Od. 9.5), cf. W. J. Slater, Peace, the
symposium and the poet ICS 6 (1981) 20514.
150
Cf. A. Barigazzi, Prometheus 1 (1975) 911. Callimachus may allude in particular to the famous
epitaph of Sardanapallos, SH 335.
151
Cf. S. D. Olson and A. Sens, Matro of Pitane and the Tradition of Epic Parody in the Fourth Century
BCE (Atlanta 1999). It is relevant also that later antiquity knew a substantial literature on garlands
(RE 11.1604), some of which was almost certainly available also to Callimachus.
152
Cf. PMG 1002, with Pages parallels.
153
Cf. Fabian (1992) 151, Meyer art. cit. (n. 148).
154
Cf. Fabian (1992) 3223, Fraser (1972) I 732. Pfeiffer, however, interprets the phrase as a reference
to sailors who have actually visited Ikos.
155
Cf. further Massimilla (1996) 412.
8 Poems for a princess 83
into pigs, just as does the excessive drinking against which Callimachus sets
his face. By protecting himself against this with the drug of conversation,
Callimachus seems to foreshadow (or reect) allegorical interpretations
of Hermes in Odyssey 10 as the rational logos which prevents the wise man
from yielding to base pleasures.
156
This passage thus has an important place
in the history of elite self-fashioning in the Hellenistic period.
Finally, it is important that in an Athenian context, and one which
specically evokes the licence of a festival with close links to Athenian
comic drama,
157
the poetic voice of the Aitia turns away towards the arcane
traditions of a small island off the Magnesian coast. The Athenian tradi-
tion, which was already on the way to being constructed as the classical
tradition, is thus both the necessary background to Callimachean poetry,
but also part of what must be set aside as the poet marks out his own
poetic space. Pollis act of cultural displacement, the recreation in Alexan-
dria of Athenian festivals, is both like and unlike Callimachus recreation
of the Greek poetic heritage. Pollis is non-selective in his mimesis he never
misses a festival and, like Xenomedes of Ceos (above p. 64), he serves as
an alternative and rejected model which throws Callimachus aetiological
practice into high relief. Callimachus poetry is no mere nostalgic copy-
ing, but rather an extraordinarily inventive use of the inherited tradition.
The real programmatic weight of the passage, wherever it originally stood
in the Aitia, lies not so much in the typically Callimachean stress upon
smallness and purity, but rather in its demonstration of Callimachus self-
consciousness about his poetic position and the remarkable virtuosity with
which the tradition is re-employed. As such, the passage is indeed a worthy
partner for the Reply to the Telchines.
8 poems for a pri ncess
The great occasion piece which opened Book 3, the so-called Victoria
Berenices (SH 25469), again highlights the central problem of aetiol-
ogy that different aitia spill over to infect each other, forcing impossible
choices upon the hardworking poet. This poem, which was perhaps as long
as 200 verses, celebrated in epinician (and, specically, Pindaric) style a vic-
tory at the Nemean Games of a chariot team entered by Queen Berenice,
156
Cf. E. Kaiser, MH 21 (1964) 20810. The poet of [Theocr.] 9.356 seems to echo Hesiod and
Callimachus in making the Muses a source of protection against Circe.
157
For drama at the Anthesteria cf. A. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (2nd ed.,
Oxford 1968) 1517. In the Acharnians Aristophanes equates victory at a Choes drinking contest
with the victory of his own play in the dramatic competition.
84 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
the Cyrenean wife of Euergetes.
158
The principal aition seems to have
been the origin of the sacrices and wreathes of wild celery associated with
the Nemean Games, and perhaps also the origin of the Nemean Games
themselves. The Pindaric heritage of the poem is seen clearly in its enco-
miastic purpose, the aetiological thrust of the myth, and the choice of that
myth: Heracles was regarded as an ancestor of the Ptolemaic house, and so
Berenices victory replays in the world of the present a triumph of the autho-
rising past; such a pattern is very familiar from the epinicians of Pindar. In
particular, Callimachus seems to have evoked Pythian 4, by far the longest
of the epinicians, which celebrated the chariot victory of an earlier ruler of
Cyrene, Arcesilas. The central part of the Victoria tells the story (for which
we depend largely on a narrative of Probus, SH 266) of how Heracles, on
his way to ght the Nemean lion, is entertained at Kleonai by Molorkos,
a humble peasant.
159
Molorkos tells the hero of the damage to the coun-
tryside which the lion has inicted; the land lies squalid and unworked,
and Molorkos is unable to go outside, and thus can only provide Heracles
with the humblest of cold meals. He offers to sacrice his only ram in
order to provide better entertainment, but Heracles tells him to postpone
the sacrice until the lion has been killed, when Molorkos will once again
have abundant meat. The ram thus functions as a vow against Heracles
safe return, as the lock of hair was vowed against Euergetes return in the
companion Coma.
160
Heracles sets off again and kills the lion, probably
with the help of Athena; the heroic feat was narrated very briey, if at all.
On his return, Heracles relates to Molorkos a prophecy of Athena regarding
the crowning of future victors in the Nemean and Isthmian Games, and
when he has returned to Argos he sends Molorkos a gift of a mule.
This extraordinary poem offered ample opportunity for aitia: we learn
not merely of the Nemean Games, but also of the crowns at the Isthmian
Games (SH 265.59), of Heracles lionskin (SH 268BC), and of a ritual
(c,io:tin) connected with the Games (SH 265.21); it is an attractive sug-
gestion of Peter Parsons that the catasterism of the Nemean lion gured
somewhere in the poem, thus increasing the parallelism with the Coma, in
which the constellation Leo all but certainly gured.
161
The most striking
feature of the poem, however, is the manner in which Heracles heroic feat
is displaced from the centre of interest by the description of Molorkos rus-
tic life. Here, the ultimate model is Eumaeus entertainment of Odysseus,
158
The fullest discussion and bibliography is Fuhrer (1992); see also P. A. Rosenmeyer, Acold reception
in Callimachus Victoria Berenices (S. H. 257265) CQ 43 (1993) 20614.
159
For the spelling of the name cf. J. D. Morgan, The origin of Molorc[h]us CQ 42 (1992) 5338.
160
Cf. below pp. 858.
161
Parsons (1977) 43. Cf. Catullus 66.65 and the scholia to the Greek poem (Pfeiffer I p. 118).
8 Poems for a princess 85
and there are obvious similarities with Hecales entertainment of Theseus
in the Hecale.
162
It was probably during the rst evening with Heracles that Molorkos
is troubled by mice and must set traps for them (SH 259 = fr. 177 Pf.),
an episode which perhaps formed an aition for particular types of mouse-
trap.
163
Molorkos battle with the mice, rather than Heracles ght with the
lion, was in fact probably the central heroic feat of the poem. The strug-
gle is depicted in suitably epic terms: an elaborate epic time-periphrasis
(vv. 58),
164
similes (vv. 1011, 21), and humorously grand language
oiv:ci, ravagers, is used of the mice, where Homer used it (appropri-
ately) of wild beasts, including lions; Molorkos weary complaint in v. 14
that god moulded (ttcotv) [mice] as a bane to hosts/guests both evokes
a cosmological aition for the little creatures and parallels Heras creation
of the Nemean lion to be a difcult challenge for the son of Zeus (SH
267). If the mice resemble the suitors on Ithaca who eat everything in
sight,
165
Molorkos cunning is an amusing echo of Odysseus or the guile
of the divine craftsman Hephaestus.
166
Moreover, as Enrico Livrea pointed
out,
167
Molorkos battle with the mice replays a foundation legend, accord-
ing to which Kleonai was settled by Chalcidians escaping from a mouse
plague; at every turn, then, aitia present themselves, and the presence of
aitia for the most ordinary of situations threatens to undermine the very
category which the poet has established: aetiology was never designed for
purposes as homely as this.
Framing Books 3 and 4 with the Victoria is the famous poem spoken
by a lock of Queen Berenices hair. When Ptolemy III Euergetes went
off to the Syrian War in 246bc, his recently married bride, the Cyrenean
princess (and Euergetes second cousin) Berenice, vowed that she would
dedicate a lock of her hair to the gods if her husband returned safe. When
he did so, Berenice duly fullled her vow, almost certainly in the temple of
her deied mother, Aphrodite-Arsinoe at Cape Zephyrium.
168
When the
lock disappeared, the learned astronomer Konon announced that he had
identied it, now catasterised as a constellation, in a previously unnamed
group of stars near Leo and Virgo. Callimachus celebrated this splendid
event in a rst-person elegiac poem, in which the lock expresses its regret
that it is no longer on the queens head (fr. 110). In form, the poem may be
seen as an extended version of the epigrammatic form in which an object
162
Cf. below pp. 196200.
163
For the language used cf. Parsons (1993) 17.
164
For this epic feature cf. Fantuzzi (1988a) 12154. Particularly relevant is Ap. Rhod. Arg. 4.162930.
165
Cf. Hutchinson (1988) 46 n. 42.
166
Cf. Pfeiffer on fr. 177.16f.
167
Maia 32 (1980) 2523.
168
This is not certain, but is the most likely interpretation, cf. Gutzwiller (1992) 363 n. 16. For this
temple cf. below p. 382.
86 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
which has been dedicated in a temple explains itself and how it came to be
there.
169
The mode of the poem is, however, as far removed from that of
a simple dedicatory epigram as is its length. The lock speaks to the world
at large, referring to the queen in the third person (vv. 78, 758), but also
occasionally turns aside to address its complaint directly to Berenice (vv.
40, 45);
170
its mastery of the rhetorical techniques of emotional pathos is
brilliantly funny.
In addition to a few verses preserved in the indirect tradition and some
brief prose paraphrases, two papyri (PSI 1092, POxy 2258c) preserve over
thirty verses of this poem, and we also have Catullus Latin translation,
apparently of the whole poem (Catullus 66).
171
POxy 2258 seems to be a
codex anthology of Callimachean texts, in which the Coma Berenices is
immediately followed by the Victory of Sosibios (fr. 384), another courtly
elegy; the Diegesis, however, identies the Coma Berenices as the last piece
in the fourth book of the Aitia. (Unfortunately, the text is missing at the
corresponding point of POxy 1011, which preserves the epilogue of the
Aitia (fr. 112)).
172
This, together with the fact that Catullus 66 contains at
least one passage to which nothing in the Greek text corresponds (vv. 79
88)
173
and also does not seem to translate the nal two verses of the Greek
text, has prompted the now widely held view that Callimachus originally
wrote the Coma Berenices as a separate court poem, but then included a
lightly revised version of it as the nal poem of the Aitia, matching it with
the Victoria Berenices which opened Book 3. That Catullus knew the
poem within the Aitia seems, however, probable from the fact that Poem
65, the elegiac epistle which introduces the Latin Coma Berenices, exploits
the narrative of Acontius and Cydippe from Aitia 3,
174
thus making a very
appropriate introduction to a translation from Aitia 4.
Ludwig Koenen and Daniel Selden have recently produced powerful
readings of Callimachus poem in terms of the royal ideology and Graeco-
Egyptian symbolismof the Ptolemaic-Pharaonic court; Berenices ritual act
replays Isis mourning for Osiris, as well as nding many parallels in the
169
Cf. e.g. M. Burzachechi, Oggetti parlanti nelle epigra greche Epigraphica 24 (1962) 354; further
bibliography in Kerkhecker (1999) 183 n. 3.
170
Cf. Harder (1998) 99.
171
For the caution needed in reconstructing Callimachus from Catullus cf. P. Bing, Reconstructing
Berenikes Lock in G. W. Most (ed.), Collecting Fragments. Fragmente sammeln (G ottingen 1997)
7894.
172
Cf. above p. 46. I have left POxy 1793 (fr. 387 Pfeiffer) out of account because of the uncertainty of
the ascription to the Coma.
173
For recent discussion and full bibliography cf. Marinone (1997) 4154, Laura Rossi, La Chioma di
Berenice: Catullo 66, 7988, Callimaco e la propaganda di corte RFIC 128 (2000) 299312.
174
Cf. Hunter (1993c), below, pp. 4745.
8 Poems for a princess 87
traditions of Greek cult and literature. From these major studies, the poem
emerges as a primary witness to the creative fusion of Greek and Egyptian
motifs within Ptolemaic court-poetry.
175
Here, there is space merely to note
how this poem forms a very suitable closure to the remarkable games with
poetic voice, which are perhaps the most striking feature of the Aitia.
Although the lock is grammatically masculine (tcscuc,, co:puyc,),
much of its rhetoric resembles that of a woman carried away to marriage
or abandoned by a lover; the pathos recalls that of Sapphic poems of sepa-
ration.
176
In emphasising the femaleness of the lock, Catullus exploited not
merely the gender of the Latin Coma Berenices,
177
but also genuine fea-
tures of his Greek original. The locks complaint at vv. 758 well illustrates
its dilemma:
co :ot uci :coonvot gtpti ypiv co[oc]v tstivn,
]oyc scpugn, cost:i icutv[c,,
n, ctc, tcp[]tvin utv c: nv t:i, tcc tttcsc
i:, ,uvcisticv o cos ttcuoc upcv.
These things do not bring me as much pleasure as the pain of no longer touching
that head, from which, when she was still a virgin, I drank many simple oils, but
never enjoyed the perfumes of married women. (Callimachus fr. 110.758)
The locks memory exploits the traditional comic theme of the bibulousness
of women, but also highlights how the lock sees itself as both an extension
of the queen but also now cut off from the new pleasures which the queen
enjoys. The lock seeks solace in the thought that it is missed:
cp:i vtc:un:cv ut scuci tcttoscv ot[gtci (v. 51)
My sister locks longed for me who had just been cut
However, the despairing hope with which the poem ends (sidera corruerint
utinam . . .)
178
shows just how self-deceiving such consolation is. The
cutting of the lock stands in fact for more than one separation; it is a
multivalent symbol for many partings, some reparable and some eternal.
Loss of virginity both is and is gured as the cutting-off of a lock of hair.
179
175
Cf. Koenen (1993) 89113, Selden (1998) 32654.
176
Cf. O. Vox, Sul genere grammaticale della Chioma di Berenice MD 44 (2000) 17581. If Cal-
limachus lock lies behind Medeas plea to Queen Arete at Ap. Rhod. Arg. 4.10212 (cf. Hunter
(1995a) 245), it will be hard to believe that it spoke with an unambiguously male voice.
177
Cf. A. Barchiesi, MD 39 (1997) 21217. The most powerful case for a female voice in the Greek
poem has been put by Gutzwiller (1992); cf. further Harder (2002) 2046.
178
The text is very uncertain, cf. Marinone (1997) 2214, but the tone of lamentation in the nal
Catullan distich is hard to miss.
179
Cf. esp. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 4.279: Medea leaves behind a lock of her hair as a memorial of her
maidenhood.
88 The aetiology of Callimachus Aitia
vtc:un:cv newly cut seems to evoke vtcoun:cv, newly wedded (Eur.
Medea 623) or newly killed (Eur. Rhesus 887), as scuci suggests scpci. The
locks sisters miss her, not only as Berenice longed for her absent husband,
but also as young girls miss a friend who has been taken away to the death
of marriage (cf. Theocritus 18.42). tctv to long for is applicable to the
longing felt both for those who are dead and for an absent friend or lover;
in accordance with his own poetic concerns, Catullus lugebant changes
the balance of the phrase. That the lock was carried from the temple into
the bosom of Aphrodite by Zephyros, the west wind, reinforces this erotic
sense, as the tendency of winds (especially Boreas and Zephyros) to carry
away young women is a familiar fact of the Greek mythic imagination.
180
As
Aphrodite snatched up Berenice I and gave her a share in her own temples
(Theocritus 17.4650), and the Dioscuri snatched away Arsinoe herself,
Berenice IIs mother (Callimachus fr. 228), so the carrying off of the lock
both foretells its own divinisation as a constellation and foreshadows the
certain fate which awaits Berenice II when she dies.
In its patent insecurity, the voluble lock, by turns proudly arrogant and
transparently self-pitying, functions as a humorous analogy to the voice of
the encomiastic poet, always overrating his own importance while being
only too painfully aware of just how dispensable he is. The helpless femi-
nised voice captures this (constructed) powerlessness in a witty game which
the young Berenice may well have been sophisticated enough to appreci-
ate. The poem that began with the insufferably know-all young scholar,
relentlessly questioning the Muses, ends with the pathetically ineffectual
complaints of a small constellation, visible only to the cunning eye of the
court astronomer, which wants to reverse the whole aetiological moment
and thus deprive the poet of his subject. As there was no end to the scholars
questions, so the lock will never stop its complaints it will babble until
the destruction of the universe but the real poet has one power at least:
he can, quite literally, cut the lock off.
180
Cf. Gutzwiller (1992) 3801; E. Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley
1979) 1689.
chapter 3
The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
1 epi c song
Like Callimachus, Apollonius is a gure fromthe very heart of Alexandrian
scholarship. Our sources are almost unanimous that he came from Alexan-
dria itself; if this is correct, the designation Rhodian must go back to some
close connection with the island, perhaps through his family or because he
spent time there.
1
Be that as it may, Apollonius served as Librarian in the
royal Library at Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus and
thus occupied perhaps the most important position of patronage within
the institutionalisation of culture established by the rst two Ptolemies,
and what we know of his scholarly prose works clearly reects the literary
concerns of the Museum. Thus, in one treatise he tackled Homeric prob-
lems, including textual problems, in a manner which apparently took issue,
in what might be thought a typically Greek agonistic spirit, with his great
forerunner as Librarian, Zenodotus;
2
in other works he discussed issues
in the interpretation of Hesiod and Archilochus. Apollonius career thus
illustrates how textual immersion in the poetry of the past may become the
basis for the production of new poetry.
However, unlike both his famous predecessor and his successor,
Zenodotus and Eratosthenes, it is as a poet, rather than as a scholar,
that Apollonius was best known both in antiquity and today, although
with the exception of the Argonautica only the scantiest fragments of
his poetic output survive. Of particular interest are the titles and exigu-
ous fragments of poems on the foundations of cities, Ktiseis;
3
we hear of
such poems concerning Kaunos, Rhodes, Knidos, Naucratis and Alexandria
1
The ancient Lives have him withdrawing to Rhodes after the initial failure of the Argonautica
in Alexandria. For our sources on Apollonius and more detailed discussion cf. Hunter (1989a)
19.
2
Cf. Pfeiffer (1968) 1468.
3
On these cf. Hunter (1989a) 1012, N. Krevans, On the Margins of Epic: the Foundation-poems of
Apollonius in HarderRegtuitWakker (2000) 6984.
89
90 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
itself. This poetic exploration of a mythic past, the ramications of which
are visible in the existing cultures of the present, both nds contem-
porary parallels in the work of Callimachus (who wrote a prose work
on Foundations of Islands and Cities and Changes of Name and who
treated the foundation of the cities of Sicily in Book 2 of the Aitia)
and foreshadows the great mythico-historical enterprise of Virgil in the
Aeneid.
The Argonautica,
4
an extended multi-book epic poem on a mythical
subject, stands out as something of a one-off amidst the remains of
Hellenistic poetry. To what extent it would in fact have seemed unusual in
the third century is a subject about which debate continues to rage,
5
but
two preliminary points are worth making. The story of Jasons quest for the
Golden Fleece is cited by Circe in the Odyssey in a way which suggests that
it is partially analogous to Odysseus journey (Od. 12.6972), and the sim-
iliarities and possible inter-dependence of the two stories was well known
to Hellenistic scholarship. Apollonius, therefore, has chosen a story which
Homer has avoided, as Odysseus is to avoid the Wandering Rocks, but
one which is given, already in Homer, an oblique and suggestive relation-
ship to the Homeric narrative. The Homeric treatment of Jasons story is
thus made emblematic of Apollonius own oblique relationship to Homer.
Secondly, it is clear that, if indeed large-scale imitation is a formof homage,
subsequent Greek and Roman poetry was in no doubt as to the importance
of the Argonautica and its place at the centre of Alexandrian poetry.
6
By
accident or design, the only surviving Greek epic between Homer and
the later Roman Empire was to be extraordinarily inuential in the future
directions which epic poetry was to take.
For antiquity, the Argonautica was an epic (ttn, ttctciic, epos), just
as the Homeric poems were; post-Renaissance distinctions between epic
and romance or between oral and literary epic were never more than
foreshadowed in antiquity.
7
Apollonius himself marks his generic status in
the opening verse through the phrase which designates the subject of his
song, tcci,tvtcv stcgc:cv. Inthe Odyssey, Demodocus is inspiredby
the Muse to sing stc vopcv (Od. 8.73), Achilles sings of stc vopcv
4
The best guide to recent trends in scholarship on the Argonautica are the collections of Harder
RegtuitWakker (2000) and PapanghelisRengakos (2001).
5
The two poles of the debate are now symbolised, rightly or wrongly, by Ziegler (1966) and Cameron
(1995).
6
Cf. below, pp. 465, 47785 for the Nachleben of the Argonautica in Roman poetry.
7
For epic and romance cf. especially Quint (1993). The comparison by Longinus of the Iliad and
the Odyssey (De subl. 9.13) is of particular interest in this regard.
1 Epic song 91
when withdrawn from the ghting itself (Il. 9.189),
8
and Phoenix tells
Achilles that there have been epic parallels to his own situation:
9
c0:c sci :cv tpcotv tttucutc stc vopcv
npccv, c:t stv :iv ttigtc, ycc, sci
ocpn:ci :t ttcv:c tcpppn:ci : ttttooi.
Thus we have heard too of the great deeds of heroic men of former times, when
terrible anger came upon them: they could be won over by gifts and persuaded by
words. (Homer, Iliad 9.5246)
The opening verse of the Argonautica therefore announces the genre of
the poem, and 1.24 describe its subject.
10
Such an ordering foregrounds
the consciousness of the poet rather than the r ole of tradition, which had
been given prominence in the opening Homeric invocations to the Muse.
There is however, as we shall see, no straightforward distinction between
Hellenistic and archaic practice.
The adjective which Apollonius applies to the Argonauts, tcci,tvt,
of old, born a long time ago, marks a crucial fact about the Hellenistic epic.
Phoenix evoked the deeds of heroic men before us in order to encourage
Achilles to emulation; the story which he proceeds to relate still lives in
his memory, though it is long ago, not at all recent (Il. 9.527). So too in
the Odyssey, Demodocus sings of men and events of his own generation
Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, the fall of Troy. Most striking of all, in
Book 1 of the Odyssey Phemios sings of the nostos of the Greeks from Troy
(Od. 1.3267), events which are of very recent happening and are indeed, at
least for Odysseus, still going on. Here the poet fashions for us a glimpse of
the beginnings of a particular song tradition. The poet of the Iliad himself,
as opposed to his characters, draws a famous distinction between the heroic
prowess of his characters and men as they are now,
11
so that the epic itself
8
For Virgils translation of stc vopcv in the opening verse of the Aeneid cf. Conte (1986) 703.
Horaces designation of epic poetry as res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella (AP 73, cf. Epist.
2.1.2501) gives a distinctively public and Roman tinge to the idea. For some reservations about the
use of the phrase in Homer cf. Ford (1992) 5767.
9
Cf. below, p. 107. To what extent Phoenix is improvising to suit the rhetorical task in hand is not
relevant here, cf. L. Edmunds, Myth in Homer in MorrisPowell (1997) 41541, pp. 42532.
10
The question of whether 1.14 introduces the whole poem or merely Books 12 (cf. e.g. K ohnken
(2000)) may be left out of account here. It is sometimes asserted (e.g. Carspecken (1952) 111) that
the substitution of gc:cv for the Homeric vopcv in this phrase marks the difference between
heroes and ordinary mortals, including women. Too much should not, however, be made of this,
particularly if the phrase bears some relationship to Hom.Hymn 32.1819, cf. Hunter (1993a) 129 n.
110, O. Vox, Noterelle di epica ellenistica Rudiae 11 (1999) 16372, pp. 1635; the phrase may have
been much more widespread in hymnic poetry than we can now establish.
11
Cf. Il. 5.3024, 12.3803, 44750, 20.2857.
92 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
tells of heroes (cf. Il. 1.4) born long ago, though those heroes themselves
listen to contemporary stories and songs. This difference between the
subject of Homers song and the subjects of which his bards sing may be
seen as a fundamental part of Homers creation of a distant, heroic world.
Nevertheless, despite the gap between then and now, and however walled
off absolutely from all subsequent times
12
the epic past in Homer may be,
Homer does not in fact emphatically foreground the temporal distance
between himself and the subjects of his song, as Apollonius does in the very
opening verse; even the slighting references to men as they are now, which
establish Homers implied audience as a nameless collectivity, a weaker
and more ignorant generation of mortals living long after the heroes,
13
are
rhetorically not muchstronger thanNestors unfavourable contrast between
his own youth and the present lot (Il. 1.2712, 7.12360).
14
Apollonius,
however, in both the proemand the closing envoi stresses his own temporal
distance from the Argonauts, and indeed from all gures of the heroic age,
the divinely-born tpc:tpci cvopt, of 3.91921; moreover, in the only scene
of epic performance in the Argonautica, the Argonauts listen to Orpheus
cosmological song (1.497511), which tells of events truly long ago, thus
reproducing within the epic the relationship between audience and song
implied by the framing poem.
Apollonius apparent distance from his characters is merely one mani-
festation of a self-conscious generic placement, which is a central feature of
all surviving Greek and Latin epic after Homer, but whose seeds lie already
in Homers own nuanced attitude to the tradition in which he worked.
Apollonius stance towards characters born long ago thus develops from
one already found in the Homeric poems: it is not a matter of a radical
break with the past through the creation of a new poetics, but rather of
a rearrangement of emphasis giving new meaning to particular elements
within a pre-existing repertoire. Whereas, however, this generic placement
emphasises distance between then and now, the powerful aetiological
drive of the Argonautica works to break down that distance and to prob-
lematise the nature of epic time.
15
This is merely one of several strategies by
12
M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination(ed. M. Holquist (Austin1981) 15). Bakhtins very inuential
account of the epic past (ibid. 1518) is really applicable only to the Iliad of classical epics, and even
there important reservations are necessary.
13
A. Ford, Epic as genre in MorrisPowell (1997) 396414, p. 410.
14
This is not, of course, to deny the importance of such passages as the opening of Iliad 12 on the
destruction of the Achaean wall (cf. Hunter (1993a) 1034, I. J. F. De Jong, Narrators and Focalizers:
the Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (Amsterdam 1987) 445), but it is the explicitness of the
Hellenistic poet which is at issue.
15
For aetiology in Arg. cf. Fusillo (1985) 11658, Goldhill (1991) 32133, M. Valverde S anchez, El aition
en las Argon auticas de Apolonio de Rodos (Murcia 1989).
1 Epic song 93
which Apollonius collapses the hierarchy of time which he inherited with
the epic tradition.
16
If, however, much has changed, the fundamental purpose of epic, the
perpetuation of mens fame, kleos, remains. The act of remembering (uvn-
ocuci, 1.2) is central to the whole generic project,
17
for without epic song the
great deeds of the past will be forgotten. Gods may know of stc vopcv
without the aid of the bard (Od. 10.330, 4579 (Circe)), but men are depen-
dent upon the poet; this is the commemorative r ole which Herodotus took
up in his famous opening, declaring the purpose of his history to be that
the great and marvellous feats of the Greeks and barbarians should not lack
kleos. Great deeds can indeed travel almost miraculously. Thus, whereas
Phemios ability to sing of the nostos of the Achaeans does not really stretch
credulity (Od. 1.3267), whatever part we assign to the Muses, we ought
perhaps to be surprised that Demodocus is able to sing of events at Troy:
what is the source of his information?
18
The Phaeacians are like gods in
many ways, and Demodocus is exceptional among bards (Od. 8.445), but
Odysseus extravagant praise precisely thematises this marvel:
nucocs, tcyc on ot pc:cv civicu ctv:cv
n ot ,t Mc0o toioct, Aic, t,, n ot , Atccv
inv ,cp sc:c scoucv Aycicv c:cv tioti,,
coo tpcv : ttccv :t sci coo tuc,nocv Aycici,
c, :t tcu n co:c, tcptcv n ccu scoc,.
Demodocus, I admire you beyond all other men: either the Muse, child of Zeus,
taught you, or it was Apollo. With absolute rightness you sing the fate of the
Achaeans all that the Achaeans did and suffered and toiled as if somehow you
yourself were there or had heard from another! (Homer, Odyssey 8.48791)
In fact, the poet had noted that the kleos of the song of the quarrel of
Odysseus and Achilles at that time reached broad heaven (8.74), suggesting
that Demodocus sings a popular favourite, though that is not really a full
explanation for his knowledge. As with Odysseus, however, so Aeneas fame
reaches Carthage before any Trojan does: the decoration on the temple of
scenes fromthe battle for Troy (Aen. 1.45393) picks up the idea of Odysseus
kleos among the Phaeacians, and both the poet (uidet Iliacas ex ordine
16
Cf. below, pp. 1002. This account naturally simplies: by the Hellenistic period the time hierarchy
was no longer a simple, univocal model. Choerilus of Samos had written an epic on the Persian
Wars (SH 41323) and, whatever ones view of the existence of Hellenistic epic, an epic manner of
describing contemporary events was certainly familiar. Nevertheless, despite the very fragmentary
nature of our evidence, it does seem clear that it is against the archaic pattern which Apollonius
seeks to be measured.
17
On memory in Arg. cf. below, pp. 11726.
18
The formulation of Scodel (1998) 179 requires modication here.
94 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
pugnas | bellaque iam fama totum uulgata per orbem, 1.4567)
19
and Dido
herself (quis genus Aeneadum, quis Troia nesciat urbem etc., 1.565) explain
away this improbability. The Argonautic quest was of a rather different
kind, but even so the absence of such internal advertisement within the
poem is noteworthy. Like Circe or the Sirens, whose words they echo
(Od. 12.18990), the Libyan heroines know of the epic quest (4.131921),
but their intervention reverses the Sirens purpose by preventing a total
abnegation of the purpose of epic:
sci v stv co:c0 tv:t, tc cn, ticotv
vcvuuci sci cgcv:ci ttiycvicioi ocnvci
npccv c cpio:ci vnvo:c tt tc
There and then they would have all departed fromlife, the best of heroes with their
task uncompleted, leaving no name or trace by which mortal men might know
them. (Argonautica 4.13057)
In this poetics, the failure to leave a trace is as good as never having
existed.
20
Apollonius has replaced this extraordinary power of impersonal tradition
or divine inspiration in Homer by an allusive mode which works in two
directions. The fame of Jason and Medea does indeed go before them,
but it is a fame, associated above all with Euripides, which looks to the
future rather than the past.
21
Here again, however, Apollonius works within
Homeric patterns, for the futures of both Achilles and Odysseus are, in
different ways, inscribed within their respective epics. Secondly, the rich
literary texture, the constant reworkings of and allusions to Homeric and
post-Homeric scenes (above all, from the Odyssey) and language, mean that
there is another sense in which the kleos of the Argonauts goes before them,
because we as readers have been here, or somewhere similar, before. As they
retrace the wanderings of Odysseus in Book 4, or as Jason and Medea play
out a different version of the meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaa in Book 3,
we realise that in a literate and allusive poetics, kleos, like memory itself, is
a highly complex virtue. As the Odyssey acknowledges the Argonautic story
as prior in time (12.6972), so the Argonautica exploits the Odysseys literary
priority.
Apollonius mimesis of Homers foundational texts is quite different in
kind from that of Virgil. For Apollonius, Homer is, in the terminology
19
uulgata per orbemperhaps suggests the r ole of the epic cycle in spreading the Trojan story, cf. Barchiesi
(1997a) 273.
20
For the Libyan scenes cf. Hunter (1993a) 126, (2001a) 1014.
21
As such, it has obvious links with the phenomena discussed by Barchiesi (1993).
1 Epic song 95
of Gian Biagio Conte and Alessandro Barchiesi, far more a modello-
esemplare than a modello-genere.
22
Apollonius rewrites, evokes, anal-
ogises and gestures towards Homeric language, specic scenes, themes and
techniques; meaning is regularly created by the interplay of similarity to and
difference fromthe Homeric text.
23
What Apollonius does not do is scrivere
come Omero, i.e. not merely to rework Homeric language and scenes as a
storehouse of epic set pieces fromwhich to draw, but to create a mimesis of
stili, convenzioni, norme, generi, which requires the Homeric text to act
as a matrice generativa fromwhich something quite newmay be derived.
24
Apollonius innovations can indeed look quite unepic, and the resul-
tant whole differs radically from the massive consistency and (apparent)
transparency of the Homeric text.
The most important single difference between the inner design of the
Homeric poems and that of the Argonautica is that no character is as central
to the latter as Achilles and Odysseus are to the poems in which they appear,
or as Aeneas is to the Aeneid.
25
Achilles, Odysseus and Aeneas all appear
by name or periphrasis in the opening verse of their epic (as indeed does
Hecale), whereas Jason does not enter the Argonautica until the explanatory
narrative of 1.517. The prominent announcement (1.202) and position
of the Catalogue reinforces the statement of the opening verse that the
subject of the poem will be tcci,tvtcv stc gc:cv, the glorious deeds
of men of old. So too, it is the whole collective of Argonauts to whom
the poet bids farewell at the end of the poem, as the singer of the Homeric
Hymns bids farewell to the god who has been the subject of his song.
26
We
may wish to see the group of Argonauts taking the place of the central
hero,
27
or prefer to see the poem as the story of an action, the bringing
of the Golden Fleece to Greece, but the plurality of Argonauts imposes its
own shape upon the generic pattern. We must, of course, be wary of over-
interpreting the difference between Apollonius and Homer in this matter,
but other epic models were also available and may seem structurally rather
closer than Homer to Apollonius.
22
Cf. Barchiesi (1984) 91122.
23
The standard synthetic account is nowKnight (1995). On Apollonius recreation of a Homeric verbal
style see esp. Fantuzzi (1988a), (2001a), and below, pp. 26682.
24
Barchiesi (1984) 95. Contes discussion of the epic code ((1986) 14151) is also relevant here. For
Apollonius attitude to repetition cf. below, p. 123.
25
For the history of the hero in critical approaches to the epic cf. D. C. Feeney, Epic Hero and Epic
Fable Comp. Lit. 38 (1986) 13758. The following paragraphs are a revised version of Hunter (2001a)
1225.
26
On the hymnic frame of the Argonautica cf. nowO. Vox, Dionigi Alessandrino e Apollonio Rodio:
cornici innodiche Lexis 20 (2002) 15370.
27
So Carspecken (1952).
96 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
The Epigonoi (Descendants [of those who fought at Thebes]) began
v0v co ctc:tpcv vopcv pycutc Mc0oci, Now again, Muses, let
us begin to sing of younger men (fr. 1 Davies), which might be thought
to have had some inuence upon Apollonius opening tcci,tvtcv . . .
gc:cv. Although younger men may be seen as virtually equivalent to
descendants and so this verse is not parallel to Apollonius generically pro-
grammatic opening,
28
nevertheless such a poem, like the cyclic Nostoi, is
parallel to the Argonautica in having a plurality of heroes built into its very
structure. So, too, the Thebais clearly had a rich cast of warriors,
29
and its
opening verse, Ap,c, ctiot tc tcuoiicv tvtv cvcs:t,, Sing, goddess,
of thirsty Argos from which the lords . . . (EGF 1), points to this multiplic-
ity. Howprecisely the termsusiscv is to be glossed and to which poems it
applies are matters of very considerable debate,
30
but the central specimens
of the type were clearly poems such as the Cypria, the Aithiopis, the Little
Iliad and the Nostoi which (at least when viewed from a third-century per-
spective) completed Homer by telling the stories of what happened before,
betweenand after the Iliad and the Odyssey;
31
some (if not all) of these poems
were, like the Argonautica, considerably shorter than the Homeric poems.
The Argonautica is not on a Trojan theme, but deals with what, together
with the Theban story, is the most prominent mythic complex set before
the Trojan War and one to which Homers Circe herself famously refers
(Od. 12.6972); the link between the two stories is plainest in the gure of
the Argonaut Peleus, Achilles father. Argonautic material played a promi-
nent r ole in the Corinthiaca of Eumelus (? c. 700 bc) and the anonymous
Naupactia, both of which Apollonius seems to have used;
32
it would not,
therefore, be difcult to see the Argonautic story as (in some senses) a
cyclic one. Moreover, much of what happens in Apollonius poem has
closer afnities to what modern scholars regard as typically cyclic than to
Homeric themes.
33
As far as we can judge, superhuman abilities, such as the vision of a
Lynceus
34
or the (virtual) invulnerability of a Kaineus (1.5764) or a Talos,
28
Cf. above, pp. 901.
29
Helpful survey in Davies (1989) 239.
30
Cf. Pfeiffer (1968) 230, Cameron (1995) 3949, Davies (1989) 18.
31
Such a way of viewing the Cycle may, of course, misrepresent the original relation between these
poems and Homer, cf. e.g. J. S. Burgess, The Non-Homeric Cypria TAPA 126 (1996) 7799, J. M.
Foley, Epic Cycles and Epic Traditions in KazazisRengakos (1999) 99108.
32
Cf. Hunter (1989a) 1516 with bibliography. On the Corinthiaca cf. now M. L. West, Eumelos: a
Corinthian epic cycle? JHS 122 (2002) 10933, pp. 11826.
33
The most helpful modern discussion is J. Grifn, The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer
JHS 97 (1977) 3953; cf. more briey Davies (1989) 910.
34
Cf. Cypria, EGF 13.
1 Epic song 97
were familiar cyclic motifs.
35
Such characteristics are, of course, almost
normal among the Argonauts. So, too, the magical and the supernatural
seem to have been far more prominent in the cyclic poems than in (most
of ) Homer; Medeas lulling of the dragon or Circes puricatory magic
would be perfectly at home in such a poetic context, and for some of
the fantastical tales which are recorded in the Argonautica a cyclic version
and/or origin is known.
36
So, too, the treacherous killing of Apsyrtus and
the maschalismos performed by Jason on the young mans corpse more
easily nd cyclic than Homeric counterparts; at a different aesthetic level,
the apparent prominence of erotic romance in what we know of the Cycle
has often been remarked, and the whole business of Zeus desire for Thetis,
which plays such a prominent r ole at 4.790816, almost certainly owes an
extensive debt to the Cypria.
37
It was the same poemwhich was the principal
epic source for the character of the blasphemous Idas,
38
who appears from
time to time in the Argonautica to express his displeasure, rather like a
frustrated reader who nds himself in a poem different from the one he
expected. More important perhaps than cataloguing the cyclic forerunners
of individual stories and motifs is the overall impression of a poem which
revels in much that has no real Homeric analogue, even where verbal echo
of the Homeric poems predominates. It is perhaps not misleading to view
Apollonius epic as, in subject, a cyclic poem done in the modern, non-
cyclic style.
39
Finally, we may note the narrative pattern which informs epic song.
Orpheus cosmological song at 1.496511 gestures towards the alternation
of philia and neikos, a theme which has a special place in the epic tradition.
In the Iliad the theme is most fully worked out in the relations of Achilles
and Agamemnon, which are set against the behaviour of Zeus and Hera
in Book 1, where an angry neikos (cf. 1.521, 579) between the divine pair
gives way to laughter and conjugal sleep (philia as lovemaking); so, too, the
duel between Menelaus and Paris, which was supposed to impose philotes
upon the neikos between Greeks and Trojans (Il. 3.73, 94), ends rather
with renewed strife, but lovemaking for Paris and Helen (Il. 3.441, 453).
35
For the invulnerability motif as it relates to the cyclic Achilles and Ajax cf. Davies (1989) 5861.
36
For Zeus mating with Philyra in the shape of a horse (2.123141) cf. Titanomachia fr. 9 Davies.
37
Cf. Cypria EGF 2, Vian III 1756. From the point of view of the Argonautica (and Catullus 64), the
loss of Nestors account of Theseus and Ariadne in the Cypria (EGF p. 31.389) is keenly felt.
38
Cf. EGF p. 31.2831, fr. 14.
39
This is not, of course, to say that the Argonautica is necessarily the object of Callimachus distaste
in Epigram 28Pf.; what Callimachus actually thought (or would have thought) of Apollonius epic,
we have no idea. For the Argonautica and cyclic epic cf. now A. Rengakos, Die Argonautica und
das kyklische Gedicht in A. Bierl et al. (eds.), Antike Literatur in never Deutung (Leipzig 2004)
277304.
98 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
The epic itself closes in the truce which Achilles and Priam arrange for
the burial of Hector (24.66070), though the resumption of neikos is not
far away. So, too, the Odyssey comes to a conclusion because Zeus wishes
to impose peace and philia (24.4856) and Athena commands the neikos
to stop (24.543). In the Aeneid, Juno apparently abandons her opposition to
the Trojansettlement of Italy and accedes to conubia felicia, leges and foedera,
i.e. giic in its fully political sense (Aen. 12.8212).
40
For the Argonautica,
however, beyond the immediate context of the quarrel between Idmon and
Idas,
41
the theme resonates most strongly in our knowledge of the future
relations of Jason and Medea;
42
the cyclic story of the Argonautic voyage
itself moves to a different rhythm.
2 an epi c world
Whatever other models and narrative patterns have left their impress upon
the Argonautica, it is Homer who is the determinant inuence, and if the
Argonautica is in part an exploration of the Homeric poems, it must also
confront their signicance, as Virgils Augustan epic too recreates (with
differences) the moral and social protreptic at the heart of Greek cultures
reception of Homer. Long before the third century, the Homeric poems had
been invested with huge moral and political authority. Some of this derived
from the r ole of the warriors as founding heroes of cities all over the Greek
world,
43
and as the Argonauts circumnavigate the known and unknown
world, the poems pervasive aetiology explicitly recreates this reception of
the Homeric poems into cultural history. Moreover, Homers characters
had long since been received into Greek culture and educational practice as
models for emulation.
44
It is not so much, despite Platos fears, that every
Athenian schoolboy was taught to try to be an Achilles or an Odysseus as
that the poems offered paradigmatic social and moral patterns whose didac-
tic potential was not limited to any particular socio-cultural context. So,
too, we are encouraged to read Virgils Aeneas as a paradigmatic model to
be imitated and yet inimitable by the fact that he partially foreshadows the
living Roman who embodies all that is worth imitating, namely Augustus.
40
This picture of course over-simplies, cf. D. C. Feeney, The reconciliations of Juno CQ 34 (1984)
17994.
41
Cf. below, pp. 11214.
42
For the future vtsc, cf. Eur. Med. 904, 1140.
43
Cf. e.g. I. Malkin, The Returns of Odysseus (Berkeley 1998).
44
Cf. e.g. Plato, Prt. 325e6a; Platos Protagoras has, of course, his own agenda, but there seems little
reason to doubt the general truth of his characterisation of education. The Aristophanic Aeschylus
is devoted to a comic version of the same didactic model, and the same attitude is also writ large
centuries later in Plutarchs How to Study Poetry.
2 An epic world 99
The situation with the Argonautica is, however, much more ambiguous, as
there is little in the poem which seems obviously designed to encourage
such nc,. The Argonautica parades a quite different relationship with
its cultural context than that which Greek society had constructed for the
Homeric poems. One measure of this is expressed through the myth itself.
Although the Argonauts are the greatest heroes of the generation before the
Trojan War, a continuity particularly marked by the presence of Achilles
father, Peleus, Jason himself is a young man without children, and the
children he was destined to have by Medea were to die young in an anti-
paradigm of parental (lack of ) care. The passing-on of wisdom and heroic
values from father to son within the epic, most famously staged in the
relations of Odysseus and Telemachus in the Odyssey, acts as a gure for the
values which the epic itself transmits to successive generations and the cul-
tural signicance which it bears; so, too, Achilles distance from and lack of
contact with his father mark his peculiar tragedy. In the Argonautica, family
relations are principally sources of grief (Jason and his parents, Cyzicus and
his young bride) or hostility (Medea and her parents). Viewed from this
perspective, Jason has no future, and his epic remarkably scripts its own
marginality.
Style and signicance here go hand in hand. In his work on sublimity,
0c,, lit. height, Longinus denies the higher regions of sublimity to Apol-
lonius by calling him ct:c:c,, unfalling, not putting a foot wrong (De
subl. 33.4),
45
thus casting himinto much the same category as Horace, who,
with self-deprecating humour, puts himself in Odes 4.2: whereas Horace
is content to imitate the low-ying bee which takes no risks in the pro-
duction of operosa carmina, any poet who seeks to imitate Pindar, the
soaring Theban swan, is bound to fall like Icarus. Crucial here is the link,
fundamental in almost all ancient literary criticism, between subject and
style (cf. already Ar. Frogs 105860): Pindars words, which break free of all
restraint, sing of gods, kings, Centaurs, the Chimaera, athletes raised to the
heaven and have the power to lift those whom he praises to the stars, but
small poets treat small subjects. Epic and tragedy are the biggest, high-
est genres of them all. Philip Hardie has explored how the grand theme
of Virgils Aeneid is reected both in motifs drawn from cosmological and
theogonic poetry, such as the battles of Hesiods Olympians against the
Giants and Typhoeus and the work of Empedocles, and in a persistent
pattern of hyperbolic expression suggestive of the cosmic signicance of
the poem.
46
In the former matter, part of Virgils impulse derives from
45
Cf. below, p. 446.
46
Hardie (1986).
100 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
encyclopaedic readings of Homer, such as that of Demodocus song of Ares
and Aphrodite as a cosmological allegory, or of the shield of Achilles as a
symbol of the entire universe. Where does Apollonius position his poem
on this vertical axis?
Orpheus cosmological song at 1.496511 is a cosmic overture,
47
sug-
gestive of the grandeur of the theme of the narrative, and two sets of
scenes in the Argonautica seem indeed to foreshadow the cosmology of
the Aeneid. One is the passage through the Symplegades in Book 2, where
echoes of the Hesiodic Titanomachy mark the Argonauts achievement as
the imposition of order the rocks are xed for ever upon the previously
unknown and ungovernable.
48
The second is the extended series of episodes
in Book 4 Circe with her Empedoclean animals, Talos fromthe Hesiodic
Bronze Age, the empty and terrifying chaos from which they are saved by
Apollo which mark the return to Greece as a voyage through cosmogo-
nical, as well as literary, time and space.
49
In following in the footsteps
of a nameless traveller from the dawn of time (4.25981), the Argonauts
are pushed back through a world not yet governed by the regulations of
time.
It is, however, clear that the cosmic resonances of the Argonautica are
far less pervasive than those of the Aeneid, or even of Homer, when read
from the perspective of much post-Homeric criticism, and a Hellenistic
aesthetic of tonal poikilia is not the sole reason for this. A sugges-
tive passage is the description of the storm which wrecks the ship of
the sons of Phrixos (2.10971121); the Odyssey had bequeathed storm
and shipwreck scenes to subsequent tradition as one of the quintessen-
tial hallmarks of epic, and echoes of the Odyssey storms, as also of
Iliad 15.6239 and perhaps also Aratus,
50
litter this Apollonian text.
51
If by the standards of subsequent epic this Apollonian storm is rather
low-key, this will in part be the result of the fact that it is not the
Argonauts who are the storms victims, but rather a minor set of char-
acters, whose all too human experience is to be measured against the
heroic passage of the Argonauts through the Symplegades. Nevertheless,
47
For this phrase cf. Hardie (1986) 84. On this song cf. Hunter (1993a) 14850, 1623, Nelis (1992).
48
Cf. Hunter (1995a) 17. With 2.5667 cf. Hes. Theog. 67880.
49
Cf. Hunter (1991), (1993a) 1648, J. J. Clauss, Cosmos without imperium: the Argonautic journey
through time in HarderRegtuitWakker (2000) 1132.
50
The mighty plank (2.1111) which saves the sons of Phrixos might be not merely a memory of the
improvised raft on which Odysseus saves himself after his shipwreck (Od. 12.4205), but also a witty
reversal of Aratus, Phain. 299 where ci,cv . . . cv refers to the whole ship in a description of
the terrors of sailing; note also Phain. 425 otcpuyc vcu:icv:ci Arg. 2.11067 uuoctci . . .
gtpcv otc sucoiv.
51
Cf. Vian on 2.1117, Knight (1995) 736; see also M. Williams (1991) 2206.
2 An epic world 101
the brevity of the description,
52
which matches the brevity of the storm,
53
and the fact that the victims are only four people, none of whom thanks
to Zeuss plan lose their life, minimises the potentially epic, hyperbolic
quality of the storm. The terrible rainstorm (cupc, togc:c,) of 2.1115
17 affects the sea and the Island [of Ares] and all the mainland opposite
where the insolent Mossynoikoi lived; the geographical specicity here
works against, rather than with, any cosmic universalisation of the threat.
One particular way in which the hyperbolic potential of this storm is
controlled is in the very passage which might seem to convey the most
miraculous feature of it:
tvc o ot tvvtoinoi tcv tioupt, ttp tcv:t,
ocpc:c, cptcv:c ttcpicu, c :t tc
pciotion, ststoco:c cci, ouvcpnpc:c ,cugci,.
With the help of the gods the four of them clung to one of those mighty planks
which had been held together by sharp bolts, but which came loose as the ship
broke up. (Argonautica 2.111012)
The plank which saved the sons of Phrixos was merely one of many, as hap-
pens in any shipwreck.
54
This is not merely a technique for literary enargeia.
Epic universalising in the Argonautica is seen as much in the assimilation of
what happens to a construction of universal and ordinary experience as in
grand hyperbole; we may indeed think of this as a lowering of tonal level,
a kind of epic version of the boast of the Aristophanic Euripides to have
brought tragedy within the realmof ordinary experience. Apollonius invests
his poem with some of the cultural and social value of Homer by making it
reect general experience. So it is that when the priestess Iphias fails to speak
to Jason because of the press of the crowd, she is left behind as the old are by
the young (1.31516). In the famous simile of 2.5418 the speed of the cloud-
borne Athena as she travels to the area of the Clashing Rocks is compared
to the speed of the thoughts of a homesick traveller, as indeed we wretched
men often do wander . . . The reworking of an Iliadic simile (Il. 15.803)
turns every reader into an Odysseus, c, uc tcc t,yn,
55
thus
52
This brevity has caused suspicion of the transmission, cf. Fr ankel (1968) 28790, F. Vian, REA 75
(1973) 99100.
53
ntv cu ntic at the head of 2.1121 comes as something of a surprise.
54
Cf. Fr ankel (1968) 286.
55
Cf. B. Marzullo, Hom. O 804 (Nascita di un pattern: esistenziale, storico, letterario. MCr 30/1
(1995/6) 718. It is tempting also to associate this simile with the very processes of mental envision-
ing necessary to read an epic description such as that of Athena on her cloud, cf. Reitz (1996) 545,
D. Meyer, Zur Funktion geographischer Darstellungen bei Apollonios Rhodios und in der Peri-
hegese an Nikomedes (Ps.-Skymnos) in Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption 8 (Trier 1998)
6181, pp. 678.
102 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
inscribing within the epic itself the generic and didactic signicance asoci-
ated with Homeric poetry. The sympathy between ourselves and the char-
acters of epic is now explicitly marked by the shared patterns which govern
both their lives and ours (4.11659 is particularly noteworthy here). In very
broad and simplifying terms, what might be called the particularity of the
archaic epic is replaced by a mode, which we might perhaps call exemplary,
in which actions and scenes are overtly loaded with a cultural signicance
beyond the narrative which governs them; in the earlier period, the closest
analogues for this mode are to be found in lyric and elegiac poetry, not in
hexameter narrative.
Immediately after the Catalogue we read:
co:cp ttti ouctooiv ttcp:tc tv: t:t:us:c
cooc ttp tv:vcv:ci ttnptt, tvoci vnt,,
to: cv c,n yptc, cvopc, ottip cc vcu:itoci,
on :c: ocv ut:c vnc oi co:tc,, s:.
When the servants had made ready everything with which oared ships are equipped
when men are forced to voyage over the sea, then the heroes went through the city
towards their ship . . . (Argonautica 1.2347)
Are we to say that the heroic expedition is here reduced to just another trad-
ing mission,
56
or is Apollonius concern rather with generic exemplarity?
After all, even if his Argo was not the rst ship, it is the ship par excellence.
The men to whom the poet refers in 1.236 are not specied further with
regard to the age in which they live, but they are most naturally taken to
be sailors of Apollonius own day.
57
Rather similar is a slightly later scene.
The Argonauts feast on the beach on the evening prior to their departure:
ut:ttti:c o ucicoi, ncioi
uut0v c :t tcc vtci tcpc oci:i sci cvc
:tptvc, ticcv:ci, c: cc:c, 0pi, ttin.
They swapped stories of the kind young men always do when taking their pleasure
over a meal and wine, and all excess which is never satised has been banished.
(Argonautica 1.4579)
Once again, the generic signicance of the scene is made explicit, and again
the young men are most naturally understood as not bound to a particular
time.
58
56
There may here also be a glance towards a rationalising versioninwhichthe Argonauts are merchants
who carried off a local girl (cf. Hdt. 1.2.23). Cf. in general D. Braund, Georgia in Antiquity (Oxford
1994) chapter 1.
57
Apollonius accounts of sailing and ship-building seem to mix the archaising with the realistic. The
account in J. Rostropowicz, The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes as a nautical epic Eos 78
(1990) 10717 does not squarely confront the issues.
58
On this scene cf. below, pp. 11214.
2 An epic world 103
In Homer, particularly in the Iliad, some of this generalising power of
epic poetry is carriedby those similes whichanalogise heroic actionto events
from a non-heroic and often suggestively contemporary world. Their force
draws the audience into the poem (they create empathy) and compels it
to admiration of the remote wonder of heroic events. In a broad generali-
sation, we may say that Homeric similes often render heroic action intel-
ligible. In the Argonautica, however, the picture is perhaps more varied.
59
Some similes do indeed generalise: the fantasy of Athenas movement, for
example, is compared to something all men may experience (cf. above).
The complex literariness of other similes, however, and the fact that the
simile is a recognisable generic marker, and hence always in a special sense
programmatic, acts to distance such intelligibility; Apollonius seems to
have explored the simile as a site of distance from, rather than closeness to,
the events of the framing narrative. Thus, whereas the rst extended simile
of the Iliad compares the gathering of the Greek army to the swarming of
bees (Il. 2.8793), the rst extended simile of the Argonautica compares the
weeping Alcimede to a young girl who seeks solace in her nurse from the
torments of a stepmother:
un:np o c, :c tpc: tttytc:c tnytt tcioi,
c, tyt:c scicuo oivc:tpcv, n:t scpn
cictv otcoic, tcinv :pcgcv ugittoc0oc 270
upt:ci, n c0s tioiv t: cci snotucvnt,,
otc un:pui n ic:cv cpuv n,nti
sci t vtcv tcttooiv cvtiotoiv to:ugtit,
: n ot : coupcutvn otot:ci stcp tvoctv c:n,
coo tyti tsgci :coocv ,ccv coocv cptyt 275
c, oivcv scitostv tcv tco ,sc, tycuoc
Asiuton, s:.
Just as his mother had at the very rst thrown her arms around her son, so now
she clung to him weeping bitterly. As a lonely young girl falls with relief upon her
grey-haired nurse and cries she has no longer anyone else to care for her, but
drags out a wearisome life at the beck and call of a stepmother. Just now she has
been battered by the ladys many reproaches, and as she grieves her heart within
her is held fast in the bonds of its misery, and she has not the strength to sob forth
all the sorrow that throbs within just so did Alkimede weep bitterly as she held
her son in her arms. (Argonautica 1.26877)
There is here a thick Homeric texture: the primary models are the narrators
simile describing Odysseus weeping at Demodocus song of the fall of
59
On Apollonius similes, which will not be considered here in any detail, cf. Hunter (1993a) 129
38, Effe (1996), id. The similes of Apollonius Rhodius. Intertextuality and epic innovation in
PapanghelisRengakos (2001) 14769, Reitz (1996), Fantuzzi, below, pp. 27582, all with further
bibliography.
104 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
Troy (Od. 8.52331) and Achilles simile describing the weeping Patroclus
(Il. 16.711); we remember also the suffering whichAndromache fears awaits
the orphan Astyanax at Il. 22.496501 (note to:gtit, v. 273). This last
pattern of echo continues the extended evocation of the death of Hector
which hangs over Jasons departure from his parents home, as he enacts
the timeless ritual of the young man leaving for a war from which he may
well not return. Alkimede weeps like a young girl whose only solace is an
old nurse; she is about to lose her only consolation (Jason), and the simile
explores with great insight the complementary vulnerability of the old and
the young. Nevertheless, the simile is emotionally distancing: the young
girl has not a mother (as in Iliad 16), but a stepmother, which both activates
a set of literary stereotypes,
60
and makes the situation particular, because
narrowly dened, rather than general and universal, as with the tears of
the young girl in Achilles simile.
61
The simile itself evokes a concealed
narrative (note 271, 273) to whichwe are refusedaccess; inthe corresponding
simile of Odyssey 8, however, the suggested narrative is precisely that of the
death of Hector and the fall of Troy, i.e. that of the framing context (the
song of Demodocus). In short, this very broad distinction between Homer
and Apollonius may be seen as a rearrangement in the later poet of the
balance between the particularity of epic narrative and the timelessness of
the inherited world of the simile.
3 heroi c anger
Homeric tradition had established that at the heart of an epic praxis stood
the behaviour and fates of individuals, and Jason has an obviously privileged
r ole within the poem, and one which can only be interpreted against the
pattern of the principal Homeric heroes. Thus, for example, the meeting
of Jason and Medea at the temple of Hecate rewrites the fatal duel between
Achilles and Hector in Iliad 22;
62
Hector was thus mistaken in his belief
that he and Achilles could not speak together as a young man and a girl
(Il. 22.12628). The reworking foreshadows the ultimately disastrous con-
sequences of this meeting. It is obviously signicant for the concerns of
the epic that one of Jasons two aristeia in the poem is a rhetorical victory
over an already lovesick girl; here, Jason is abetted by Hera (cf. 3.91926),
as he will be by Medeas magical advice in his second aristeia. The critical
60
Cf. P. Watson, Ancient Stepmothers: myth, misogyny, and reality (Leiden 1994).
61
Cf. the comment of the bT-scholia, ccv to:tt, tpc,uc ut,cctpttc, sci ut: tvcp,tic,
co:c tsgtpti, the poet takes an ordinary event and enlarges it with grandeur and envisionment.
62
Cf. Hunter on 3.95661, id. (1993a) 489.
3 Heroic anger 105
inferences to be drawn from these facts are, however, the subject of erce
debate. Too much modern criticism has been concerned with assessing
whether or not Jason measures up to Homeric standards, as though those
standards were self-evidently worth simple replication. More productive
would be to see the Apollonian text as (in part) an exploration of the
Homeric text, concerned to tease out what is important and what is elided
in the archaic texts creation of a (? awed) heroic world. A scene such
as Jasons testing of the crew after the Clashing Rocks have been safely
passed is a clear example of how Apollonius puts Homer under the critical
spotlight.
63
The primary technique for this exploration of Homer is the transference
of Homeric scenes and patterns to new contexts. Thus, for example, the
impenetrable darkness which descends upon the Argonauts as they are
sailing home throughthe Aegean(4.16941718) has its Homeric counterpart
in the dark fog which Zeus pours around the combatants in Iliad 17 and
from which Ajax asks Zeus to save them:
64
Zt0 t:tp c ou p0oci ot ntpc, uc, Aycicv,
tcinocv o cpnv, oc, o cgcucoiv iotoci
tv ot gti sci ctoocv, ttti v :ci t0cotv c0:c,.
c, g:c, :cv ot tc:np ccgpc:c ospu ytcv:c
co:isc o ntpc utv ostocotv sci tcotv cuiynv,
ntic, o tttcut, uyn o tti tcoc gcvn
Father Zeus, save the sons of the Achaeans from this darkness, make the air clear,
and allowus to see. Destroy us in daylight, if this is your wish. So he spoke, and the
Father pitied him as he wept; straightaway he scattered the darkness and dispersed
the fog, the sun shone out, and the whole battle was clear to see. (Homer, Iliad
17.64550)
Ajaxs words are much admired in the critical tradition. Longinus praises
them as an example of how Homer enters into heroic greatness (De subl.
9.10), and the scholia on vv. 6457 express admiration for the fact that Ajax
asks for daylight, not so that he can be saved, but so that he can continue
to perform heroic deeds; this is the true mark of the ut,ccgpcv. At rst
reading, Jasons behaviour might seem the very opposite of heroic, by the
standards of the interpretative tradition:
. . .co:cp lnocv
ytpc, vcoycutvc, ut,n cti 1ccv :ti,
pococi sctcv, sc:c o tppttv oycccv:i
ospuc tcc ot luc ottoyt:c, tcc o Ausci,,
63
Cf. Hunter (1988) 4457.
64
For other aspects of the Apollonian scene cf. Hunter (1993a) 167.
106 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
tcc o t, Op:u,inv ttptioic ocpc scuiootiv.
An:cion, :vn ot sc: copcvc0 stc tt:pc,
piugc Mtcv:ticu, pinscc,, c : tvi tcv:c
nv:ci
Jason, however, raised up his hands and in a loud voice called upon Phoibos,
summoning him to save them. In his despair tears owed down; countless were
the offerings he promised to provide, many at Pytho, many at Amyklai, many to
Ortygia. Son of Leto, you heard his prayer and swiftly descended from heaven to
the two Melantian rocks which lie in the open sea. (Argonautica 4.17018)
Jasons position is, however, entirely different from that of Ajax: the Arg-
onauts do not even know where they are, in an extreme version of the
uncertainty as to the supernatural forces at work which characterises the
whole journey,
65
whereas Ajaxs control of the world around him is marked
by his certainty that not even a complete fool would fail to recognise that
Zeus was aiding the Trojans (Il. 17.62930). Jasons urgent prayers (17045),
which are to prove successful, mark the desperateness of the Argonauts
plight, but they also echo the prayer to Apollo with which the voyage
began (1.41619), thus reminding the god of his promises with regard to
their nostos (1.3602), a theme reintroduced at 4.17001. Whatever view,
then, is taken of the Apollonian scene, it is clear that any simple distinction
between heroic and non-heroic behaviour misrepresents the complexity
of both texts. The Homeric scholia in fact express their surprise at Ajaxs
tears, noting that this unique show of emotion on his part marks the great
pathos of the situation. Tears are more common from Jason, and the addi-
tion of oycccv:i (4.1703, cf. 1718) even interprets those tears for us, but
here again the starting-point is already found in the Homeric pattern.
66
Alongside epic heroism goes, in the traditional account, epic emotion,
and here too the portrayal of Jason has seemed to many critics remarkably
decient. Here too, however, Apollonius epic must be set within its literary
and contemporary context. The primary narrative motor of the Iliad is
Achilles wrath, rst the unforgetting unvi, which determines the suffering
of the Greeks (1.15) and thenthe explosive mixture of anger and guilt which
leads himto resume ghting and to mistreat the body of Hector. The wider
semantic eld of anger is, however, not the prerogative of Achilles alone:
67
the rst divine emotion of the poem is the anger of Apollo, introduced
65
Cf. e.g. Hunter (1993a) 789. Pietsch (1999) now provides a useful bibliographical survey of work
on character in the Argonautica.
66
There is, of course, much more involved in the Apollonian text than merely the difference from
Homeric patterns. Jasons prayer seems also to rework a passage from Book 1 of Callimachus Aitia
(fr. 20 Massimilla).
67
For useful surveys of anger in the Iliad cf. Galinsky (1988) 3406, Manakidou (1998) 2424, N. J.
Austin, Anger and disease in Homers Iliad in KazazisRengakos (1999) 1149.
3 Heroic anger 107
as early as the ninth verse, c ,cp coini yccti, (cf. 1.44, 46, 75 etc.);
Agamemnons rst speech (1.2632) seems angry as well as threatening,
68
and the kings anger becomes an explicit theme soon enough (1.78, 812,
102ff. etc.).
69
In a famous passage after the death of Patroclus, Achilles
reects upon the pleasures and dangers of anger:
c, tpi, ts :t tcv ts : vpctcv tcci:c
sci ycc,, c, : tgtnst tcgpcv ttp ycttnvci,
c, :t tcu ,usicv uti:c, sc:cticutvcic
vopcv tv o:ntooiv tt:ci n0:t sctvc,
c, tut v0v tyccotv cvc vopcv A,cutuvcv.
c :c utv tpc:t:yci tocutv yvutvci ttp,
uucv tvi o:ntooi gicv ocuocv:t, v,sn.
Would that strife should vanish from the world of gods and men, and anger too,
which enrages even a man of great sense. Anger is far sweeter than trickling honey
and grows big in the hearts of men like smoke. This is how the ruler of men,
Agamemnon, has brought me to anger. But let us, despite our distress, forget the
past and forcibly suppress the passion in our hearts. (Homer, Iliad 18.10713)
In wishing for the disappearance of tpi, and ycc,, Achilles wishes away
not merely the terrible narrative in which he nds himself trapped, but the
whole world of martial epic constructed out of strife and anger. It is this
heroic anger which Ajax still nurses, even in the Underworld (Od. 11.544,
55362). So too, Phoenixs attempt in Book 9 to win Achilles over conjures
up a whole world of real or potential epics (stc vopcv) fuelled by
wrath (Il. 9.5245). The association of Achilles with anger lives on in the
Argonautica through the wrath (ycc,) of his mother Thetis against her
husband Peleus (4.81017, 8645, 879).
In the Odyssey, it is the anger of Poseidon, introduced as early as 1.20
(cf. 1.69, 78 etc.), which determines much of the suffering of Odysseus,
though it is the anger of Helios at the killing of his cattle (12.376) which
brings nal destruction upon the rest of the crew. Anger is felt by many
characters, divine and human, through the Odyssey,
70
but it is only very
rarely ascribed explicitly to Odysseus himself.
71
Alcinous acknowledges that
68
Cf. the observation of the bT-scholia on 1.29, tcc, ttpisctc, tyti c c,c,, :c uuiscv
tugcivcv.
69
Cf. Hor. Epist. 1.2.13 ira quidem communiter urit utrumque (sc. Achilles and Agamemnon); the
prominence Horace gives to ira in this poem is a clear sign of its generic signicance.
70
J. S. Clay, The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey (Princeton 1983) studies the theme of
divine anger.
71
The possible signicance of his name as Man of Wrath may be left out of account here. It is telling
that at 17.14 Telemachus, who now knows the identity of the stranger, raises the possibility that he
will feel menis, but in a speech designed to mislead Eumaeus. So, too, the potential for anger is
ascribed to Odysseus by others at 22.59, 369.
108 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
Odysseus was angered (yccutvc,) by Euryalos tactless remarks (8.238),
though Odysseus had merely declared himself roused (ttc:puvc, ot ut
titcv) by the thumos-biting speech (8.185). So, too, the disguised hero tells
Iros not to anger him (18.20), but here he is, at the very least, playing a r ole.
Less ambiguous perhaps is the poets statement that Odysseus felt anger
(,citoci) at the evil deeds of the maidservants (20.16), and the phrase
otcopc iocv, frequently used of Odysseus harsh stare (e.g. to Iros (18.14),
Melantho (19.70), and Eurymachos (22.60)) was certainly interpreted by
later grammarians as a mark of anger.
72
Nevertheless, this meagre harvest
is one manifestation of the presentation of Odysseus as a man who weighs
up the options offered by any situation and prefers strategy to immediate,
potentially reckless, action (cf. e.g. 9.299305, 17.2358, 20.621); Achilles
observed that even the tcgpcv man may be driven to anger (Il. 18.108)
and hence by implication to actions which he comes to regret, but
Odysseus, the most tcgpcv of all Greek heroes, is the extreme example
of self-control.
The differences between Achilles and Odysseus, like the more familiar
contest between Ajax (in one way an ersatz Achilles) and Odysseus over the
arms of Achilles, were always available to be used to construct an oppo-
sition between the two, and some texts clearly exploit this potential. The
man of action versus the uent speaker is a powerful, if simple, idea. In
commenting upon the opening of Achilles great speech to Odysseus in
Iliad 9, which expresses the heros distaste for less than truthful speech, the
scholia connect the wish for such straightforward speech with the anger
which Achilles feels. Here, then, Odysseus two principal characteristics
apparent emotional control and rhetorical skill are opposed to one heroic
pattern; the importance of such linkage for the Argonautica should be
clear. Of particular interest is Aristophanes Frogs, in which it is the loud-
thundering (814) Aeschylus who is characterised by violent anger (cf. 804,
814, 844, 856), whereas Euripides condently relies upon powers of crit-
ical argument. Aeschylus is, of course, fashioned as a traditionalist, an
Achilles (992) to Euripides Odysseus, who is a schemer devoted to long
speeches and intellectual games. Anger is part of this epic portrayal of the
older playwright; the grand emotion has been appropriated as a mark of
the past. The Aristophanic Aeschylus anger is also to be connected with
the grandeur for comedy, unintelligible, bombastic grandeur of his
style. His language swells no less than his emotions, whereas the rhetorical
tt:cc,ic of Euripides is constructed as unworthy of the emotional
72
It is worth noting that Apollonius does not use this epic formula, or any variation of it (cf. Call.,
Hecale fr. 72 Hollis), in Arg.; this may be one small measure of his distance from Homer.
3 Heroic anger 109
power of tragedy, however clever it may be. Anger and the style which
attends it thus carry a distinct generic resonance. When Horace discusses
the relation between subject and style he notes that comedy can take on
tragic tones:
interdum tamen et uocem comoedia tollit
iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore
Sometimes, however, comedy too raises its voice and the angry Chremes rages with
swollen mouth . . . (Horace, Ars Poetica 934)
Both Chremes anger and his swollen style are out of place generically:
they belong to the higher realms of tragedy. Although, as we shall see,
there is plenty of anger in the Argonautica, the relation of the central male
character to this emotion may be important in assessing the stance adopted
by an epic poet to the generic tradition.
In the matter of anger, Apollonius Jason stands far closer to Homers
Odysseus than to Achilles, though still some distance away.
73
In the Argo-
nautica, anger is, above all, the emotion of Zeus,
74
of Aietes,
75
and, of the
Argonauts, Idas (1.492, 3.566, 1170, 1252).
76
The only other mortal characters
who are central to the narrative and who are explicitly stated to feel anger
are Heracles (1.1263), Telamon (1.1289, 3.383), Minos (3.1000, where he acts
as a parallel to Aietes), Medea (4.391, 16712) and, once, the collective of
Argonauts as a whole (2.20). The only passage, in fact, in which the poet
himself associates Jason with anger is the simile describing his rest period
between sowing the eld and doing battle with the warriors who spring up:
. . . c o ts tc:cucc pccv
co: n guooutvc, suvtn ototv 0oc:i oicv
,vut ot ,cvc: tcgp, ut,cv o tutnoc:c uucv
sn,, uciuccv oui tstc,, c, p : cocv:c,
n,ti nptu: noiv tt vopoiv, ugi ot tcc,
gpc, tc o:cuc:c, ycuoi, ptt yccutvcic.
With his helmet he then drew water from the owing river to quench his thirst;
he exed his knees to keep them supple and lled his great heart with martial
spirit. He was eager for the fray, like a wild boar which sharpens its tusks against
men who hunt it and streams of foam ow to the ground from its angry mouth.
(Argonautica 3.134853)
73
Cf. Manakidou (1998), and on the whole subject of anger in Arg. cf. also P. Dr ager, Die Argonautika
des Apollonios Rhodios. Das zweite Zorn-Epos der griechischen Literatur (MunichLeipzig 2001), esp.
pp. 6276.
74
Cf. 4.458.
75
3.3678, 449, 493, 607, 614, 632; 4.9, 235, 512, 740, 1083, 1205.
76
The language in which Idmon describes the effect of wine on Idas (1.4778) derives from Phoenixs
account of Meleagers anger (Il. 9.5534).
110 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
The boar is the classic example of the angry creature,
77
and the simile marks
Jasons present tness for the task ahead. Even here, however, anger is not
explicitly ascribed to Jason and, like the foaming mouth, is not as appropri-
ate to him as to the hunted boar; here too, then, there is no straightforward
presentation of an angry Jason.
78
As Achilles is the uuction,, the pas-
sionate man, par excellence, so it is noteworthy that uuc,, in all its related
senses, is associated with Jason in a strikingly small number of cases.
79
At
3.51114 Peleus condent words to Jason use the term pointedly:
ti o c0 :ci uc uuc, t n tti t,yu tttcitv
nvcptn, un: co:c, ttti,tc un:t :iv ccv
:cvo vopcv tt:civt tcpnutvc, co ,cp t,c,t
oynocu, ttti vc:c, ,t :c sv:c:cv toot:ci c,c,.
If however, your heart does not have very full condence in its manly courage,
then neither stir yourself to it nor sit here seeking some other man from among
us: I shall not hold back since the worst grief that can befall is death. (Argonautica
3.51114)
The response of the other heroes is clear enough:
c, tgc: Aicsion, Ttcucvi ot uuc, cpivn,
ottpycutvc, o vcpcuot cc, tti ot :pi:c, loc,
cp:c ut,c gpcvtcv, tti o utt Tuvocptcic
ouv ot sci Oivtion,, tvcpiuic, cincoiv
vopoiv coot ttp coocv ttcviccv:c, iccu,
v:tcv :cic c tipt:c sp:t uuc,.
So did the son of Aiakos speak. Telamons heart was stirred and he leapt up in
eagerness for the task; so too did proud Idas, and also the two sons of Tyndareos.
With them also was the son of Oineus, placing himself among men in their prime,
though there was not yet any sign at all of his rst soft beard; so great was the
strength bursting in his spirit. (Argonautica 3.51520)
Of Jasons thumos there is no further word.
Ancient ethical discussions standardly represent anger as a reaction to real
or perceived wrong, often involving a desire for revenge.
80
This is obviously
relevant to the cases both of Achilles, in relation to rst Agamemnon and
then Hector, and of Odysseus, in relation to the suitors and their hangers-
on. Heroic anger is intimately tied to perceptions of self-worth, a theme
which is all but entirely elided in the Argonautica. In Jasons case, the most
77
Cf. Ovid, Met. 7.5456 etc.
78
Cf. further Effe (1996) 3089.
79
Cf. 3.787, 1084, 4.1748; for 1.1289 cf. below, pp. 11516. I leave out of account the instances of the
thumos of all the Argonauts.
80
Cf. Arist. Rhet. 2.1378a 313, Lactantius, De ira dei 17.13, citing various Hellenistic denitions. There
is much of value on the whole subject in D. S. Allen, The World of Prometheus (Princeton 2000), see
Index s.v. anger, W. V. Harris, Restraining Rage (Cambridge, Mass. 2001).
3 Heroic anger 111
obvious object for anger would be Pelias, who, in the traditional story as we
nd it evoked in Pythian 4, usurped the throne which belonged rightly to
Jason but offered to step aside if the young man would recover the Fleece.
This, however, is a theme towhichApollonius gives very little prominence;
81
it appears explicitly only at 3.3334 in the course of Argos speech to Aietes,
where, however, it is only Jasons ancestral property, not any claim to the
throne of Iolcus, which is at stake. At 1.9023 Jason tells Hypsipyle that it
will be enough for him to be allowed by Pelias to live in [his] homeland
and to be delivered by the gods from his present trials; no word here of rule
in Iolcus. However opaque the situation evoked, it is clear that Pelias has
committed some wrong against the young hero, but it is a wrong which
calls forth no anger or thirst for revenge; it is stressed more than once that
Pelias will be punished not by Jason, but by Medea, who is acting as Heras
instrument of revenge for quite other wrongs done to her (cf. 3.11336,
4.2423). Pelias devises the voyage to rid himself of Jason, whom, on the
basis of the oracle he has received, he perceives as the potential source of
his own downfall, but Jasons r ole will in fact be limited to bringing back
with him the real destroyer; like many oracles, this one misleads. Thus, a
narrative technique which is usually seen as merely an elliptical variation
upon archaic fullness is in fact closely tied to Apollonius rewriting of
central epic concerns.
In his account of anger, the De ira, Seneca makes much of the fact that
anger cannot be concealed it shows itself with every icker on the face
of an angry man (De ira 1.1.57). Jasons inwardness, his apparent passivity
in the face of events, is one of the most frequently remarked features of
Apollonius central character,
82
and the apparent absence of anger is an
important part of this presentation. For Aristotle, an absence or deciency
of anger (cp,noic) was opposed to an excess (cp,ic:n,) and to the
commendable mean, which he calls tpcc:n, (EN 2.1108a 49, 4.1125b26
26b10); he notes, however, that names for these conditions are not really
in common usage. The man who is decient in anger comes in for some
harsh words:
Those who are not angry at the things they should be angry at are thought to be
fools (niici), and so are those who are not angry in the right way, at the right
time, or with the right persons; for such a man is thought not to feel things nor
to be pained by them, and, since he does not get angry, he is thought unlikely
to defend himself; and to endure being insulted and put up with insult to ones
friends is slavish. (Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 5.1126a48)
81
Cf. Pietsch (1999) 3241.
82
On possible connections between such inwardness and literacy cf. P. Toohey, Epic and rhetoric in
I. Worthington (ed.), Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London 1994) 15375.
112 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
Apollonius Jason is not, of course, cp,n:c, in any absolute sense, any
more than he is a passionless Stoic sage; he presumably shares the anger
which all the Argonauts feel at Amycus challenge at 2.1920. Nevertheless,
this Aristotelian criticism can suggest just how provocative and puzzling a
gure Jason is, when viewed within the epic tradition.
No scene dramatises these issues more powerfully than the party on the
evening before the Argonauts set sail. This scene of feasting carries the
didactic force of a long tradition of poetry and prose dealing with
the correct conduct of the symposium;
83
Idas drunken boasting is a clear,
negative paradigm, for this was an occasion without hybris, and Idmons
speech urging other words with which to encourage and console (1.476
84), accompanied by a mythological exemplum tting the present situa-
tion, evokes the strongly gnomic element of earlier sympotic lyric and elegy.
The crucial Homeric passages in this tradition are rstly Odysseus famous
praise of the pleasures of the well-ordered feast (Od. 9.211), which stands in
counterpoint both to the brutality of the Cyclops, whose descendant Idas
is, and to the lawless feasting of the suitors, and secondly the feast of the
gods which concludes Iliad 1. In this latter passage, Hephaestus intervenes
to stop Zeus and Hera quarrelling (coot :i oci:c, | ton, toot:ci noc,,
ttti :c ytpticvc visc, there will be no pleasure in the splendid feast, when
worse behaviour gets the upper hand1.5756), and then the sight of him
bustling about moves all the divine diners to laughter. In both Homeric
passages, the performance of song is crucial to the pleasure of the properly
ordered feast (cf. the performance of Apollo and the Muses at Il. 1.6034),
and that r ole is fullled in the Argonautica by Orpheus.
While most of the Argonauts swap stories (1.4579, above p. 102), a
preoccupied Jason has nothing to say:
tv co: Aiocvion, utv unycvc, tiv tc co: c
tcpgptostv tsco:c, sc:ngiccv:i tcisc,
:cv o cp otcgpcoti, ut,n cti vtistotv loc,
Aiocvion, :ivc :nvot ut:c gptoi un:iv tiooti,;
c0oc tvi utoocioi :tcv vccv. nt ot ocuvc
:pc, ttitcutvcv, :c : vsioc, cvopc, :ti;
o:c v0v ocpu c0pcv, c:c ttpicoicv ccv
s0oc, tvi t:ctucioiv tipcuci, coot u cgtti
Ztu, :cocv coo:icv ttp tucv ocpu, un v :i tnuc
ci,icv tootoci uno spcv:cv ctcv
83
Cf. Bielohlawek (1940), Hunter (1983a) 186. Of particular interest is the normative account at Xen.
Cyr. 2.2.114. It is interesting that Philodemus dealt with correct sympotic behaviour in On the Good
King According to Homer (below, p. 127), cf. frs. xviixviii, xx Dorandi.
3 Heroic anger 113
lotc totcutvcic, sci ti tc, v:icc:c
:ccv u Apnvntv coon:npc scuiti,.
There, however, the son of Aison pondered upon everything helpless and absorbed,
like a man in despair. Idas observed himwith scorn and abused himin a loud voice:
Son of Aison, what is this plan which you are turning over in your mind? Tell us
all what you are thinking! Has fear come over you and crushed you with its weight?
It is this which panics men who are cowards. Be witness now my rushing spear,
with which above all other men I achieve glory in wars for Zeus is not the source
of so much strength as is my spear that no grief shall destroy us nor shall our
challenge be left unachieved while Idas travels with you no, not even should a
god confront us, so powerful a helper am I whom you have brought from Arene.
(Argonautica 1.46071)
Idas demands that Jason speak openly, tvi utocioi, rather than plotting in
silence (un:iv tiooti,), if it is not in fact fear which has taken over. Silence
during a symposium may be a mark of disagreeable standofshness
84
or of
the wise self-control of the philosopher,
85
but the two opposed models of
behaviour which Idas words set up may both be seen as extreme readings
of epic patterns of behaviour. On the one hand, Idas sets himself as an
Achilles, the best of the Greeks, and one who famously proclaimed the
necessity to speak openly without concealment (Il. 9.30813); so, too, in
his account of ut,ccuyic, which may be seen in part as the ethicised
version of traditional virtue, Aristotle observes that such a man must be
open in his hatred and his affections, for to act with concealment, to care
more for what people think than for the truth, is a sign of fearfulness, and he
must speak and act openly, for he always speaks freely (tcppnoico:n,) and
truthfully, except when speaking ironically to the many (EN 4.1124b 26
31). So too, the ut,ccuyc, considers himself worthy of great deeds and
honours, whereas someone who does not consider themselves so deserving
may be ocgpcv but could not be great (EN 4.1123b 111).
86
Whether
or not Aristotles account can shed light upon the actual presentation of
Jason,
87
Idas boastfulness must be seen within a number of intersecting
contexts epic tradition, ethical theorising, traditional moral values. At
best, his self-presentation is a mildly parodic misrepresentation of Achillean
characteristics Achilles did indeed ght with gods, but the blasphemous
Idas was to be blasted for so doing as is made clear when the action of Jason
84
Cf. Plut. Mor. 456e, at a drinking-party, the man who remains silent is disagreeable and irksome to
the company (ttcyn, :c, ouvc0oi sci gcp:isc,).
85
Cf. Plut. Mor. 503d4a.
86
ocgpcv and related words do not appear in the Argonautica; Homer has occgpcv once each in
the Iliad and the Odyssey, and occgpcovn twice in the Odyssey.
87
Cf. e.g. DeForest (1994) 917.
114 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
and the rest of the crewto restrain the quarrel (1.4925) is described in verses
which rework Achilles own action to check a quarrel between Idomeneus
and the angry Ajax (Il. 23.48898); Achilles is a far more complex character
than the shallow and stereotyped set of responses displayed by Idas.
88
As for Jason, Idas presents him as a kind of Odysseus, particularly the
Odysseus of the second half of the Odyssey, who plots in silence against the
suitors. We may think particularly of Od. 20.130, in which the disguised
hero restrains his desire to exact instant punishment fromthe wicked maid-
servants, and as he plots and tosses and turns (tioot:c) on his bed, he is
compared to a man constantly turning over a roasting blood-pudding. One
of the principal Homeric forerunners of this scene is indeed Demodocus
song of the neikos between Odysseus and Achilles at a feast of the gods (Od.
8.7582);
89
the scholia explain that the two heroes quarrelled over the best
way to take Troy, i.e. to complete the task in hand, whether by intelligence
(ovtoi,) or by bravery (voptic): the scholium on 8.77 expresses this as
a contrast between uyis and ocuc:is. The Apollonian scene offers a
more nuanced (and ironic) version of the scholiastic dichotomy. Moreover,
part of Apollonius dramatisation of the Homeric narrative also dramatises
a central difference of technique. In the Odyssey, Odysseus weeps as he
listens to the bards song in which he himself is a character, covering his
face for shame (Od. 8.8395); the meaning of the gesture is clear enough
to Alcinous, the only Phaeacian to observe it. In the Argonautica, however,
Jasons demeanour remains ambiguous to both readers and the other char-
acters (1.4601), while his r ole in the quarrel itself passes to Idmon, whose
very name suggests knowledge/understanding, the ovtoi, of the account
in the scholia.
90
It is in general true that Apollonius tells us much less than
does Homer about the motives and drives of all his principal characters,
with the partial exception of Medea; our uncertainties as readers mirror the
mist of partial knowledge in which they themselves move. Nevertheless,
this poetic technique has a particular importance for the portrayal of Jason.
Restraint, the thinking through of a strategy (cf. Arg. 1.461), may indeed be
misread; the outwardness of irrational anger cannot be misunderstood.
The apparent absence of the emotion of anger from the presentation of
Jason is again thematised in the scene which follows the abandonment
of Heracles (c cpio:c,, 1.1285) in Mysia. Jasons silent distress is now
contrasted with the overt anger of Telamon, Achilles uncle:
88
It is tempting to see Idas unmannerly drinking (1.4724) as a memory of Phoenixs account of how
the infant Achilles used to make him wet with wine (Il. 9.4901).
89
Cf. e.g. Nelis (1992) 169, Clauss (1993) 803; above, p. 93.
90
For the etymology of Idmons name cf. 2.8212.
3 Heroic anger 115
. . . c o unycvinoiv :uyti,
coot :i :ccv ttc, ut:tgcvttv coot :i :ccv
Aiocvion,, no:c cptin vtictv c:n
uucv tocv. Ttcucvc o ttv ycc,, cot : ttittv
no c0:c, t0snc,, ttti v :ci cputvcv ntv
Hpcsnc ittv otc o ts:ci un:i, cpcptv,
cgpc :c stivcu s0oc, v Loc un ot scn,
c st tci occoiv otc:pctcv cscot vco:cv.
c :i ucv noc,; ttti sci vcogiv t:cipcv
tui :tcv c :cvot occv ouvt:ts:nvcv:c.
The son of Aison was so struck by helplessness that he could not speak in favour
of any proposal, but sat gnawing at his heart because of the grim disaster which
had occurred. Telamon, however, was gripped by anger and spoke out: Sit there
at your ease, since it was you who arranged to abandon Herakles. This was your
plan. You did not want his glory to overshadow yours throughout Greece, if the
gods ever allow us to return safe. But why waste time on words? I shall go after
him, even without these friends of yours who helped you plan this treachery!
(Argonautica 1.128695)
Here too a version of Odysseus is opposed to a version of Achilles. The
language of Telamons speech (un:i,, vco:c,, occ,) clearly paints Jason as
an Odysseus, a perspective reinforced by the narrators introduction, which
reworks Circes words to Odysseus at Odyssey 10.3789:
:ig c0:c,, Oouot0, sc: cp ttci oc, vcoc,
uucv tocv, s:.
Why, Odysseus, do you sit thus like a speechless man, eating your spirit . . .?
(Homer, Odyssey 10.3789)
So, too, Telamons rejection of words in 1294 echoes Achilles at Il.18.80,
as he too reect on the loss of his dearest comrade:
91
un:tp tun, :c utv cp uci Outic, tt:ttootv
c :i uci :cv noc, ttti gic, ct t:cpc,
l:pcsc,, :cv t,c ttpi tv:cv :cv t:cipcv
ocv tu n stgc n;
Mother, these things are the work of the Olympian. But what pleasure is there for
me in them, seeing that my comrade, Patroclus, has perished, he whomI honoured
above all comrades, equal to my own life? (Homer, Iliad 18.7982)
His eyes blaze, in imitation of those of Achilles (Il. 19.3656). The sequel
continues, but alters, these rewritings. When the epiphany and speech of
91
Cf. Clauss (1993) 2001.
116 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
Glaucus has caused Telamon to regret his anger (ycc,, 1.1289), he asks
Jason not to feel anger (ycc,) against him(1.1332); Jason replies that he will
not nurse bitter rage, despite the hurt (co nv :ci otustc unviv tc,
| tpiv ttp vinti,) because of the proper motives of Telamons anger.
Jasons behaviour now gestures towards and away from that of Achilles
(cf. Il. 19.678);
92
the poet has created a fusion of the quarrel of Iliad 1
with the synkrisis of Achilles and Odysseus in a powerful exploration of the
dynamic tensions within a group. This is also an excellent example of how
Apollonius characters are textured rewritings of earlier literary gures; such
a debt to the past, and particularly to Homer, was an enduring feature of
the ancient epic tradition.
Just as Glaucus conrms the folly of Telamons initial response, so at
3.3825 Jason restrains the son of Aiakos from a swift and angry response
to (the angry) Aietes, which would have been destructive (cccv); here, too,
Jason is distanced from heroic wrath,
93
and from the thumos which moti-
vates both Telamon and Aietes (3.383, 396). This scene sets Jasons soothing
words and submissive manner against not only Telamons impulsiveness
but also against the epic response of Aietes, whose subsequent decision to
test the Argonauts is phrased in a close reworking of formulaic Homeric
decision-making. Jasons distance fromtraditional patterns is here as clear as
anywhere.
94
So, too, Idas anger (3.557, 566) at the suggestion that the crew
seek Medeas help rather than mounting a frontal assault is plainly futile;
Idas preferred option would lead to certain destruction. It is not just Jason
who is distanced from the emotion of anger, but the whole value structure
of the poem. The repeated pattern by which Jason is distanced from the
central gure of the Iliad is, of course, of crucial signicance for any reading
of this aspect of the poem: that a beautifully embroidered cloak worn for a
meeting with a princess takes the place of Achilles divinely-wrought shield
has obvious signicance, though its meanings remain ercely debated.
95
What is less often appreciated is the complexity of the poetic context within
which this pattern is set and which actively works against any simplistic
interpretation of Jason as an inadequate hero.
If it is both tempting and dangerous to seek to draw broad conclusions
of socio-cultural history from the negative representation of anger in the
Hellenistic epic, there was at least one fairly recent paradigm which could
92
Cf. Beye (1982) 87, Hunter (1988) 4445.
93
Cf. Campbell ad loc., attractively suggesting a memory of Athenas restraint of Achilles in Iliad 1.
94
Jasons subsequent silence, unycvtcv scsc:n:i, has a model in the reaction of the Greeks to
Hectors challenge at Il. 7.923, but that is, at the very least, a two-edged model, given Menelaos
reproaches, Ayciiot,, cost: Aycici (7.96).
95
Cf. Hunter (1993a) 529 (with bibliography).
4 Epic memory 117
hardly not be remembered. The surviving accounts of Alexander, some of
which draw extensively on the memoirs of Ptolemy Soter, stress both his
habitual courtesy and restraint, but also his proneness to extreme anger,
stories of which run like a leitmotif through the histories;
96
no one asserts
Seneca baldly was as prone to anger as Alexander (De ira 2.23.3). This char-
acteristic is, of course, connected to his self-fashioning as an Achilles,
97
but
the extant histories draw a close link between Alexanders irascibility and
his (occasional) over-indulgence in drink; Plutarch has a scientic explana-
tion for the fact that Alexander was tc:isc, sci uuction, (Alexander 4.4),
and notes that when he lingered too long over his cups he would become
unpleasantly boastful . . . too much the soldier (23.4). The combination of
Achilles, drinking, boastfulness, and the threat of violence offers a curious
parallel for the Apollonian Idas. Though there are many stories of sympotic
brawls told of Alexander, the famous occasion in Samarkand on which he
killed Kleitos, who objected to the blasphemous boasting of his atter-
ers (cf. Idas boasts), holds a special place;
98
it entered the rhetorical and
philosophic traditions as a stock example of the evil of anger.
99
According
to most accounts, both men give way to drunken boasting, but Alexanders
passionate anger hadfatal consequences. It is not that Idas or Jasonor Idmon
stand for any historical character in this scene; the motifs are arranged in
quite different sequences. Rather, after Alexander, sympotic behaviour and
the place of anger in social relationships will have held a special place
in reections upon leadership.
100
Here, epic tradition, recent history, and
contemporary ethical reection overlap in very productive ways.
4 epi c memory
If anger is intimately connected to a perception of harm suffered or threat-
ened, it will obviously be closely tied to memory, and this is given particular
emphasis in the presentation of Junos anger in the Aeneid, and its mor-
tal counterpart, the unforgetting anger of Dido (4.532), which surpasses
even that of Juno in trying to control the whole of future history, not just
the immediate fate of Aeneas (4.60729).
101
Aeneas sufferings are saeuae
96
Cf. Arrian, Anab. 4.8.9, 7.29.1, Quintus Curtius 3.12.19, 8.1.4352, Plut. Alex. 9.4, 13.2, 50.1.
97
Cf. Arrian, Anab. 1.12.1, 4.9.5, 7.14.4, 7.14.810, 7.16.8, Plut. Alex. 15.5.
98
Arrian, Anab. 4.8, QC 8.1, Plut. Alex. 501, R. Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (London 1973) 30914,
N. G. L. Hammond, Sources for Alexander the Great (Cambridge 1993) 8994.
99
Cf. Cic. TD 4.79, Sen. De ira 3.17.1.
100
Cf. further below, pp. 1267.
101
This is not the place for a discussionof anger inthe Aeneid; for some starting-points andbibliography
cf. Galinsky (1988), M. C. J. Putnam, Anger, Blindness and Insight in Virgils Aeneid in M. C.
Nussbaum (ed.), The Poetics of Therapy (Apeiron 23.4, 1990) 740, D. P. Fowler, Epicurean Anger
in S. M. Braund and C. Gill (eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (Cambridge
1997) 1635, pp. 305, Hardie (1997) 14251.
118 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
memorem Iunonis ob iram, and the combination of the goddess knowledge
of the threat posed to her beloved Carthage and the burning memory of
past affront (1.1232, 36 aeternum seruans sub pectore uulnus) are the motive
forces which dictate her actions. Virgils principal models here are, rst,
Poseidons anger in the Odyssey and, secondly, Heras desire for revenge
on Pelias and the dark anger of Zeus against the Aiolidai (2.1195, 3.3369),
apparently intensied after the death of Apsyrtus (cf. 4.558), in the Argonau-
tica.
102
Virgil overturns the divine structure of the Argonautica, in which
Hera (for her own motives) protected Jason on his travels. By comparison
with Virgil, however, Apollonius use of the motif of unforgetting divine
anger is, like much in the Hellenistic epic, understated. The brief narrative
in the proem of how Pelias paid due honour to his father Poseidon and
the other gods, but neglected Pelasgian Hera (1.1314) evokes and inverts
Homeric patterns: Pelias is cast in the r ole of the Cyclops, another son of
Poseidon, whereas the probable results of neglecting Hera will not need to
be spelled out to anyone familiar with the resentful Iliadic goddess. The
Iliad in fact offers a close parallel to Heras anger in Phoenixs account
of how Artemis sent the Calydonian boar because Oineus forgot to make
offerings to her alone of all the gods, n t: n cos tvcnotv oc:c ot
ut,c uuc either he forgot or it did not occur to him; his mind made a
terrible mistake (Il. 9.53340). The narrative pattern is in fact made explicit
in the Argonautica in the included story of Aphrodites wrath against the
Lemnians for failing to pay her due honour (1.61415, 8023);
103
this is part
of a wider technique in which events on Lemnos reect and illuminate
the patterns of the narrative which frames them.
104
So too, the story of
Paraibios (2.46889) is one of the punishment of impiety and of gratitude
for benefactions, a theme which one day will acquire ominous importance
for Jason who listens to the tale.
The importance of memory for epic narrative is far wider than merely its
link with anger, itself a primary narrative force;
105
in the Odyssey, the danger
posed by the Lotus-eaters is of forgetting ones nostos (Od. 9.97), which
would, of course, put an end to the epic of nostos, and the conclusion of that
epic will require an act of forgetting so that conict may cease (Od. 24.484
5). Even in relatively small details, such as the death of Elpenor, forgetting
102
On these latter themes cf. Feeney (1991) 629, Hunter (1993a) 7980, Campbell (1994) on 3.3369.
103
Cf. Feeney (1991) 59. Hypsipyles substitution of Aphrodites cocutvn . . . unvi, for the ycc,
civc, ascribed to her by the narrator is part of the rhetorical partiality of the princess account, cf.
Hunter (1993a) 11112.
104
Cf. Hunter (1993a) 4752.
105
Cf. J. A. Notopoulos, Mnemosyne in oral literature TAPA 69 (1938) 46593, though his account
of the effects of the introduction of literacy to an oral culture is now outdated; R. P. Martin, The
Language of Heroes. Speech and Performance in the Iliad (Ithaca 1989) 7789.
4 Epic memory 119
is inimical to the continuation of epic (Od. 10.557, 11.62); Polyphemos and
the Phaeacians remain for ever as symbols of those who suffered because
they remembered too late (Od .9.507, 17283),
106
and the Trojans repeat
the fatal pattern as they bring the Wooden Horse within the city, instamus
tamen immemores caecique furore | et monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce
(Aen. 2.2445). If it is Junos memory which activates the action of the
Aeneid, it is rather the memory of the Muses which is made responsible
for narrative (cf. Il. 2.492, Aen. 1.8, 7.41, 645). Apollonius, however, stresses
his personal control of poetic memory and narrative (1.12, 1822, 23), as
part of his now familiar distance from the impersonal Homeric voice.
107
Memory, however, also functions in epic in at least three other important,
and related, ways.
First, epic narration itself is always an act of memory, implying a
past narrative worth telling: thus, Aeneas sees his narrative task as infan-
dum . . . renouare dolorem (2.3), and the epic of Meleager is one which
Phoenix saw for himself and remembers (Il. 9.527). One aspect of this
valuation of memory is the privileged place epic gives to included narra-
tives, both of direct relevance to the principal story (e.g. Achilles to Thetis
in Iliad 1) and of more oblique signicance (e.g. the stories of Nestor and
Phoenix in the Iliad, or of Menelaus in the Odyssey).
108
In this feature
also, discretion within generic parameters, sometimes amounting to an
apparent preference for silence, is the Apollonian hallmark. In part, this
is because of the new prominence of the narrator, who himself is able to
expand tangential stories at length (e.g. the story of Aristaios, 2.498528),
and, as the Aristaios narration suggests, there is a sense in which aeti-
ology, which binds the present to the past, has taken the place of epic
stories, which rather accentuate the divide between the two. This distinc-
tion between Homer and Apollonius is not, of course, absolute. Phineus
account of his companion Paraibios (2.46889) evokes, as we have seen,
familiar epic themes; Lycus narrative of Heracles at 2.774810 suggests
the various Heracles epics known to antiquity,
109
and athletic competitions
at funeral games (2.7805) is another well-known setting for epic poetry.
Nevertheless, brevity and ellipse are striking hallmarks of Apollonius epic.
Jason himself summarises the poem so far for Lycus at 2.76272, in a
catalogue which makes Odysseus account of his adventures to Penelope
106
The abandonment of Heracles in Mysia seems also related to this theme, though Apollonius does
not explicitly attribute that to forgetfulness (ioptinoi, 1.1283).
107
This remains true, whatever nuance is given to Mc0oci o otcgn:cpt, ttv cion, in 1.22.
108
Cf. Hardie (1993) 99, epic heroes themselves feel a strong pressure to narrate, by telling stories of
past heroic events.
109
Cf. Hunter (1998), and below p. 214.
120 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
(Od. 23.31043) seem positively verbose. A similar impression is left by a
comparison of Argos brief plea to the Argonauts for help (2.112333) with
Odysseus speech to Nausicaa when in a not dissimilar predicament (Od.
6.14985). A particularly interesting example is the encounter between the
Argonauts and the sons of Phrixos in Book 2.
In response to Jasons question as to the identity of the shipwrecked
foursome, Argos provides an Apollonian version of the familiar genealogical
self-presentation of the Homeric hero:
Aicionv 1picv :iv g Loc, Acv stoci
:ptstc, ocstc tcu sct:t sci tpc, co:ci,
1picv c :i, t:citpcv vnutv Ain:cc
spic0 ttcutcc,, :cv pc ypoticv tnstv
Lputic, scc, ot sci tiot:i v0v stv ociot 1145
ttt:utvcv coicioiv tti opuc, sptucvtooiv 1145a
:cv utv ttti: tppttv t n, otcnucovnoiv
1uic ts tv:cv Kpcvion Aii sci uiv tots:c
Ain:n, ut,pc, scpnv :t c t,,uitv
Xcsictnv vtovcv tugpcovnoi vccic
:cv t ugc:tpcv tiutv ,tvc,, c utv non 1150
,npcic, vt 1pic, tv Ain:cc ocucioiv
nut, o, co:isc tc:pc, tgt:ucv t,cv:t,,
vtut t, Opycutvcv s:tcvcv Aucv:c, tsn:i.
ti ot sci c0vcuc ontv ttiti, otocnoci,
: cot Ku:ioocpc, ttti c0vcuc, : cot :t 1pcv:i,, 1155
: c ot Mtc,, tut o co:cv ttistici:t stv Ap,cv.
That a descendant of Aiolos called Phrixos trevelled to Aia from Hellas I have no
doubt you yourselves are already aware. Phrixos reached the city of Aietes mounted
on a ram, which Hermes made golden, and even to this day you can see its eece
spread out on the thickly leaved branches of an oak. Then on its own instructions,
Phrixos sacriced the ram to the son of Kronos, Zeus Phyxios this chosen from
all his titles and Aietes received him in the palace and, as a gesture of his kindly
intentions, gave him in marriage his daughter Chalkiope and asked no bride-price
for her. These two are our parents. Phrixos died an old man in Aietes house and,
in accordance with our fathers instructions, we are travelling to Orchomenos to
recover Athamas possessions. If, as is natural, you wish to learn our names, this
mans name is Kytissoros, this is Phrontis, and this Melas. Myself you may call
Argos. (Argonautica 2.114156)
The most famous such speech in Homer is Glaucus response to Diomedes
at Il.6.145210 (as are the generations of leaves, so are those of men . . .),
containing the lengthy narrative about Bellerophon, and that scene does
indeed seem to have been in Apollonius mind. In both epics, the speech
of self-presentation leads to a recognition of relationship (Il. 6.215 Arg.
4 Epic memory 121
2.1160), but two specic features in the use of this motif mark the later epic.
Bellerophons grandfather was the Aeolid Sisyphus, a brother of Kretheus,
Jasons grandfather, and of Athamas, the grandfather of the sons of Phrixos.
Family relationship is therefore doubly gured in the dependence of the
Apollonian speech upon the Homeric; genealogy becomes a metaphor of
literary afliation or, to put it in the terms of the Odyssey, recognition is
now of textual as well as personal identity. Secondly, there is the difference
in technique between the speeches. Having rst rejected the importance of
,tvtn in the face of human change, Glaucus then expatiates at length, not-
ing with a typically heroic concern for kleos that many men knowof my
family already (Il. 6.151).
110
Argos, however, dispenses with preamble: That
a descendant of Aiolos called Phrixos travelled to Aia from Hellas I have no
doubt you yourselves are already aware. We recognise a typical reworking
of an archaic motif the assumed fame of ones family history but the
formof the reworking forces us to ask: why should these complete strangers
(cf. 2.11234) know this? Perhaps Argos is so self-absorbed that he cannot
conceive of a human being ignorant of the story of the Golden Fleece, but
perhaps rather the literate poet, always concerned to put ironising distance
between himself and the discursive, repetitive style of archaic epic, not only
cuts the storytelling short but, in doing so, lays bare the assumptions of epic
form.
111
Such commentary on inherited poetic techniques and themes is
a central feature of the Hellenistic epic. It is this poetic voice again which
we hear shortly after through Jasons words:
c :c utv sci toc0:i, tvicutv ncioi,
v0v o toocot tpcitv.
But we will talk of these things at a later time; nowrst put on clothes. (Argonautica
2.11656)
Homeric characters always had time to talk.
Memory is thematised in the Argonautica through Jasons relations
with Hypsipyle and Medea.
112
Both ask Jason to remember them (1.896
8, 3.106971), as Nausicaa had asked of Odysseus (Od. 8.4612); Jason
promises never to forget Medea (3.107980), as Odysseus had promised
to honour Nausicaa eternally for all days (Od. 8.468). Whereas, however,
110
For other relevant considerations here cf. Scodel (1998) 1756. The claim that the genealogy is
already famous is a familiar strategy of Iliadic heroes, cf. Il. 20.2035, Ford (1992) 637.
111
It is instructive of the difference between Apollonius and Virgil in their approach to epic form
that the latter avoids such a difculty in the comparable scene of Achaemenides meeting with
Aeneas and his crew (cf. R. Heinze, Virgils Epic Technique Eng. trans (London 1993)) by having
Achaemenides recognise them as Trojans from clothes and weapons (3.5967).
112
Cf. Hunter on 3.1069, id. (1993a) 512.
122 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
Nausicaa is never mentioned again in the Odyssey after she and Odysseus
have said their farewells
113
though some readers have found signicance
in her absence from Odysseus summary of his adventures to Penelope at
23.31041 we knowthat Jasonwill forget Medea soonenough, andalready
in the fourth book she is driven to accuse Jason of forgetfulness now that
he has got what he wanted (4.356). The recurrent analogy of Theseus and
Ariadne (3.9971004, 4.42434)
114
casts this theme into relief, for Theseus
abandonment of Ariadne is an act which subverts the epic privileging of
memory which is indeed one of the reasons it is given pride of place
within Catullus un-epic epic, Poem64.
115
An epic with a forgetful central
character is generically unsettling: just as we never hear Jason himself give
anything like a full account of his past, so he also apparently cannot share
in the genres memorialising function.
Memory also functions withinepic texts throughrepetition, of language
or scene, both within individual texts and intertextually.
116
Paradigm cases
of the various types are, on the one hand, Homeric formula language and,
on the other, the constant reworking and evocation of Homeric scenes
in the Aeneid.
117
The language of memory as a marker of intertextual
allusiveness has recently been much studied with regard to Latin poetry,
particularly Ovid,
118
but it is the epic tradition that most fully exploits the
various layers of meaning in ideas of memory. Virgil, for example, sites his
poem against Homer through Junos memory, which here functions also as
the poets memory of epic tradition:
ueterisque memor Saturnia belli,
prima quod ad Troiam pro caris gesserat Argis -
necdum etiam causae irarum saeuique dolores
exciderant animo; manet alta mente repostum
iudicium Paridis spretaeque iniuria formae
et genus inuisum et rapti Ganymedis honores . . .
The daughter of Saturn, remembering the old war which she had once waged at
Troy on behalf of her dear Argos neither the causes of her anger nor the savage
grief were forgotten: deep in her mind lie stored the judgement of Paris, the wrong
done to her slighted beauty, her hatred for the race, and the honours paid to
Ganymede, snatched away . . . (Virgil, Aeneid 1.238)
113
A non-Homeric tradition, perhaps going back to the epic cycle, had Nausicaa marry Telemachus
and bear him a son called Perseptolis (Hellanicus, FGrHist 4 F156, Arist. fr. 512 Gigon).
114
Cf. Hunter on 3.9971004.
115
Cf. Catullus 64.58, 135, 2312, 248.
116
Good remarks in J. Nishimura-Jensen, The poetics of Aethalides: silence and poikilia in Apollonius
Argonautica CQ 48 (1998) 45669.
117
For the details cf. G. N. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer (G ottingen 1964); for the implications
Quint (1993), esp. chapter 2.
118
Cf. Conte (1986) 5762; J. F. Miller, Ovidian Allusion and the Vocabulary of Memory MD 30
(1993) 15364; Hinds (1998) 34; below, p. 470.
4 Epic memory 123
Apollonius largely avoids repetition of the most familiar Homeric kind,
that of formulaic language and of scene-type; variation, rather than same-
ness, is the principal determinant.
119
It has oftenbeenthought that the move
away from repetition reects (or perhaps inuenced) contemporary schol-
arly disapproval of excessive verbatim repetition in Homer, but the matter
is far from certain; the nature and scope of Zenodotus critical work on the
Homeric text, for example, remains unclear in many areas,
120
as does the
relation of Apollonius text to Zenodotean readings in Homer.
121
It seems
safe to say that third-century scholarship took an interest in Homeric repe-
tition, but nothing suggests a full-scale effort to eliminate it from the text;
indeed, such an undertaking seems barely imaginable, except as a scholarly
joke. Whatever the connection between the two, the language, dialect and
style of the Argonautica are recognisably epic,
122
though they mark out a
new, Alexandrian space within that tradition.
Inother ways also, the Argonautica exploits some of the areas of epic mem-
ory which we have been considering. The return voyage of the Argonauts
offers an elaborate series of returns to scenes from the outward voyage.
123
Thus, for example, the paired deaths of the seer Idmon, son of Abas, and
the steersman Tiphys on the way out (2.81556) are repeated in the deaths of
Kanthos, grandson of (? the same) Abas, and the seer Mopsos on the return
voyage (4.14851536). The deaths of the two seers foreground similarity and
difference, almost as if to advertise the gulf between Alexandrian and tra-
ditional epic (cf. 2.815204.15026). Both are killed by the vicious teeth of
animals trying to keep cool, but one in a watery place, the other in the burn-
ing desert. On the other hand, the passage through the Wandering Rocks
replays in a quite different key the voyage through the Symplegades in Book
2; now there is no need for heroic effort at all everything is accomplished
by the playful Nereids. The successful passing of the Sirens, on the other
hand, could hardly be more different from its Homeric model;
124
from the
perspective of Book 4, the previous three books, no less than the Homeric
119
Cf. Hunter (1989a) 3940; below, pp. 26282. Here, too, Virgils practice is different and more
Homeric, cf. Conte (1986) 646. F. Cairns, Orality, Writing and Reoralisation: Some Departures
and Arrivals in Homer and Apollonius Rhodius in H. L. C. Tristram (ed.), New Methods in
the Research of Epic. Neue Methoden der Epenforschung (T ubingen 1998) 6384 seeks to gloss the
conventional view by noting reoralisation of certain recurrent rhetorical genres in Arg. This
would amount to the stylistic equivalent of the familiar practice of verbal analogising.
120
Cf. K. Nickau, Untersuchungen zur textkritischen Methode des Zenodotos von Ephesos (BerlinNew
York 1977) 62123, M. L. West, Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad (MunichLeipzig
2001) 3345, and A. Rengakos review of West in BMCR 2002 (December).
121
Cf. Rengakos (1993) 5378, id. Apollonius Rhodius as a Homeric scholar in PapanghelisRengakos
(2001) 193216.
122
Cf. esp. Fantuzzi (1988a), (2001a), and below, pp. 26282.
123
Cf. Hutchinson (1988) 12141, M. Williams (1991) 27394.
124
Cf. Goldhill (1991) 298300, Knight (1995) 2007.
124 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
texts, belong to epic tradition. It is tempting to wonder whether it is here
that we should look for Apollonius contribution to epics persistent con-
cern, bequeathed to the tradition by the Odyssey,
125
with ctionality. To
what extent the Homeric poems were true was an issue which was in the
air: Eratosthenes famously dismissed the whole of Odysseus wanderings
as pure invention,
126
and any recreation of the epic of wandering could
hardly avoid the whole matter. The poets gradual disappearance behind
his Muse through the successive invocations to Books 1, 3 and 4, no less
than the contrasting modes of Phineus and Argos (cf. below), is perhaps a
self-conscious acknowledgement of the range of responses possible to epic
narrative. The Muse, daughter of Memory and hence preserver of truth
(i.e. that which is handed down), is also the creative force behind poetic
invention.
127
Repetition, which always foregrounds similarity and differ-
ence, is a vehicle for ctions which are, as Hesiods Muses put it, like
truth.
The fantastical landscapes of Book 4 in fact extend the horizons of epic
in both time and space: the difference but clearly pointed relationship
(cf. 4.258, 2592.421) between the allusive obscurity of Argos speech of
direction
128
and the dry and detailed ethnography of the prophet Phineus
is a paradigm case of difference within epic sameness. In drawing upon
oral tradition of a time before the world as the Argonauts knew it (gcoi,
4.272)
129
to explain the origin of the inscribed spit, preserved in Colchis,
Argos thematises the functioning of memory over almost inconceivable
stretches of time; the inclusion of such material within epic authorises epics
own claims to memorialise (cf. 4.1774 ti, t:c, t t:tc,). So, too, the pattern
seen in Book 2 of detailed prediction followed by a close working-out of the
prediction conrms generic power in more than one way. Phineus plays
a r ole partly modelled on that of Circe and Tiresias in the Odyssey and,
as we have seen, such repetition is a distinct feature of epic. Moreover,
the conrmation of prediction within the epic is one way in which the
predictive power of the poem itself is conrmed. The famous sequence
125
The bibliography on the Odysseys concern with ctionality is very large; some of it may be traced
through Goldhill (1991) 3668, L. H. Pratt, Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar (Michigan 1993),
and E. L. Bowie, Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman
(eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter 1993) 137.
126
Cf. Pfeiffer (1968) 1668.
127
On how Apollonius constructs his relationship to the Muses and traditional narrative modes cf.
Albis (1996), Hunter (2001a) 94103.
128
On this speech cf. Hunter (1991) 949.
129
They say and related forms are, of course, often a nod to the use by the poet (and often his
characters) of written sources (cf. e.g. Hinds (1998) 12); this can, however, function alongside a
more literal signicance in which orality is actually important.
4 Epic memory 125
of subsequently conrmed deathbed predictions in the Iliad (Sarpedon,
Patroclus, Hector) leaves no doubt of Achilles fate beyond the poem, and
Hectors death and the lamentation it produces pregures, as the hero
himself was aware (Il. 6.44765), the sack of the city itself. The certainty
of Tiresias mysterious predictions for Odysseus beyond the narrative of
the Odyssey is established by the dramatisation of true prediction within
the poem. In the Aeneid, Virgil adopts a rather similar technique, although
predicted events beyond the narrative of the poem (e.g. Jupiters promise
to Venus at 1.26196) are partly conrmed within it through such devices
as the parade of future heroes in Book 6 and the Shield of Aeneas in Book
8. Important here is not merely the Homeric nature of Virgils mimesis,
but also the r ole of prophecy and prediction in Roman society.
130
Explicit prediction of the future outside the poem plays a smaller r ole
in the Argonautica. The poet assures us that Heras revenge on Pelias will
become a reality,
131
Glaucus foretells the futures of Heracles, Polyphemus
and Hylas (1.131525), and Hera tells Thetis that Achilles is destined to
marry Medea in the Elysian Fields (4.81114), as indeed he did in some
(fairly arcane) traditions. Three factors (at least) may be relevant to Apollo-
nius distinctive use (or failure to use) this technique. One is the prominent
foreshadowing of the future grim history of Jason and Medea which runs
through Books 3 and 4, signalled in ways other than explicit prediction.
Sucha technique may be associatedwiththe familiar Hellenistic andRoman
device of poeticising the prequels of famous stories, as for example in
Theocritus depiction of the youth of the Cyclops.
132
Secondly, Apollonius
decision to write the story of the Argonautic voyage, and not, for exam-
ple, an epic about Jason, and to do so in a linear fashion, beginning at the
beginning and nishing the moment the voyage ends, offers (in one sense) a
closed structure and one not disposed explicitly to look beyond itself. Here,
Apollonius works both with and against epic tradition. Both Homeric epics
(as also the Aeneid) conclude with an episode not explicitly foreshadowed
in the proem the burial of Hector, the battle between Odysseus and the
suitors families and the actual end of both poems was in fact disputed
in ancient transmission. An alternative ending (or, rather, beginning of a
new direction) for the Iliad survives, c, c , ugittcv :gcv Ls:cpc,,
nt o Auccv | Apnc, u,:np ut,cn:cpc, vopcgcvcic, so they
conducted the burial of Hector. An Amazon, the daughter of great-hearted,
man-slaying Ares arrived . . ., a phenomenon indicative of the expectation
130
On the whole subject cf. J. J. OHara, Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergils Aeneid (Princeton
1990).
131
Cf. above, p. 111.
132
Cf. e.g. Barchiesi (1993).
126 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
in an oral tradition that an epic narrative will be continued.
133
The con-
clusion to the Argonautica formally substitutes the hope of ritual repetition
(4.17745) for the expectation of continuation, as though the telos really had
been reached; all readers, however, know better than this. The end of the
Odyssey was placed at 23.296, otoici ts:pcic tccic0 toucv scv:c,
gladly, they renewed their former partnership in bed, by Aristophanes of
Byzantium and later Aristarchus, and it is tempting to see an allusion to
such a critical theory in the nal verse of the Argonautica, however impor-
tant Od. 23.242, otoici o tttcv ,cin,, scsc:n:c gu,cv:t,, gladly,
they stepped onto land, having escaped disaster, is as well.
134
An end which
is no true end is indeed what the Argonautica offers.
Finally, we may note the status of prophecy within the epic itself.
135
As harsh experience has taught Phineus not to exceed certain limits in
foretelling the future, so the deaths of Idmon and Mopsus both illustrate
the power of necessity, yptc, coc (2.817, 4.1503), a power which is not
(always) to be foreseen by men. The obscurity of the gods purposes in
the Argonautica is thus matched by a relative unwillingness to commit to a
knowable future.
5 an epi c leader
It was not Virgil who rst linked epic indissolubly to issues of government
and power, for Greek culture had long since given the Homeric poems a
central place in the articulation of social and political structures; the regular
recitation of the Iliad and Odyssey at the Athenian Panathenaia is merely the
most visible manifestation of their paradigmatic power. Within the poems,
Homer depicts a wide variety of political structures and the potential
conicts which they generate. In the Iliad, the most relevant structures are
those of the Greek army (Agamemnon and the council of leading heroes,
with the different challenges posed by Achilles and Thersites), of Troy,
and of Olympus. At the centre of the Odyssey is the corruption of power
on Ithaca as the result of Odysseus prolonged absence, but the story of
Odysseus wanderings offers a further range of models from the idealised
Phaeacian society of Alcinous and Arete, through the incestuous fantasy
of Aeolus island to the solitary autarkeia of the Cyclops. Post-Homeric
133
Hardie (1997) 139. The verses are often associated with the Aithiopis, but cf. M. Davies, Epicorum
Graecorum Fragmenta (G ottingen 1988) 48 and id. (1989) 61.
134
For discussion and bibliography cf. Hunter (1993a) 11920, E.-M. Theodorakopoulos, Epic closure
and its discontents in Apollonius Argonautica in HarderRegtuitWakker (1998) 187204.
135
Cf. S. Said, Divination et devins dans les Argonautiques in AccorintiChuvin (2003) 25575.
5 An epic leader 127
tradition found in these various models a wealth of political advice, and
Homer became a central text in the copious kingship literature of the
Hellenistic age. The fragments of Philodemus On the Good King According
to Homer are the best known representatives of an important prose genre.
136
Like the Homeric poems, the Argonautica displays a wide variety of
political and social structures, many characterised by typically Apollonian
irony. Thus, the feminine republic of Lemnos has a ruling princess, Hyp-
sipyle, the daughter of the former king, but she puts important decisions
to a democratic assembly, in which anyone can speak and unanimity is
an important ideal (cf. 1.655, 700, 705, 714). Among males, such a socio-
political structure must have had many close analogues in the Hellenistic
world, and it foreshadows a standard scenario of the Greek novel; hover-
ing over the Lemnian assembly, however, is Apollonius ironised depiction
of rational decision-making in the service of the universal desire for love-
making and reproduction. As so often, what is unspokenat a public meeting
is at least as signicant as what is said openly. The unspoken is also central to
the representation of Alcinous and Arete, the rulers of Drepane, and char-
acters very familiar from the Odyssey. Whether or not we are to see in this
royal couple a partial reection of the ruling Ptolemy and his sister-wife,
137
it is clear that Alcinous is presented as an incarnation of the Hesiodic good
king who administers ordinances with straight justice (Theog. 846, cf.
Arg. 4.1100, 11769). By revealing his decision about Medea to his wife in
bed before he reveals it publicly and then falling asleep at once,
138
he allows
us to understand that he is giving his wife, whose wishes in the matter he
knows only too well, time to make sure that the relevant conditions have
been fullled before the decision is announced. This is straight justice,
but of a very particular kind. The Hesiodic good king puts an end to
great quarrels ttio:cutvc, (Theog. 87): so Alcinous very skilfully uses his
knowledge to put an end to a vtsc, (cf. 4.1010, 1103). Alcinous is not the
only good king in the Argonautica. The whole idea is the source for broad
humour in the description of the king of the Mossynoikoi, who sits in
his high hut and administers straight judgements to the large population
(2.10267), but if he makes a mistake, the people lock him up and keep
him hungry for a day. Whatever anthropological observation lies behind
this claim, there is a humorous reversal appropriate for the topsy-turvy
customs of the Mossynoikoi of the Hesiodic pattern by which straight
justice banishes hunger from a city (WD 230).
136
Cf. T. Dorandi, Il buon re secondo Omero (Naples 1982), O. Murray, Philodemus On the Good
King According to Homer JRS 55 (1965) 16182, Cairns (1989) 184.
137
Cf. Hunter (1993a) 1612, (1995a) 225.
138
Cf. Hunter (1993a) 71.
128 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
The two most important political structures of the Argonautica are the
tyranny of Aietes and the decision-making processes of the Argonauts them-
selves. The former, as displayed in Books 3 and 4, is characterised by secrecy
and the exploitation of fear, the latter by openness and a sense of commu-
nity. The scene in which Heracles imposes the leadership of the expedition
upon Jason has been very variously interpreted by modern critics,
139
but
there can be little doubt that at its centre lie very real issues about the nature
and qualications of leadership:
c gici, uvc, ,cp t, Loc vco:c, ctiooc,
uvci o cuui ttcv:ci t, Ain:cc sttuci,
:cvtsc v0v :cv cpio:cv gtionocv:t, ttot
cpycucv outicv, c stv :c tsco:c utci:c,
vtistc ouvtoic, :t ut:c tivcioi ctoci.
But, my friends, common is our hope for return to Hellas in the future, and
common our paths to Aietes palace therefore nowwithout other thoughts choose
the very best man as your leader the man who will be concerned with every detail
in conducting both our quarrels and our agreements with men of foreign lands.
(Argonautica 1.33640)
Jason is not, of course, c cpio:c, in a Homeric sense, but he may be the
best leader in the circumstances of the expedition and in the context of
such a quest poem, as indeed Heracles (not usually regarded as a literary
critic) seems to recognise. Nor is it enough to argue: We accept Jasons
leadership through our intellectual grasp of narrative rather than from
emotional commitment to him as a character.
140
Heracles himself is not
the gure to lead a communal exercise, as his loss to the expedition in
Mysia demonstrates: there, he is driven by his own personal passions,
141
as at Lemnos he seems driven by the desire for kleos. A leader, however,
must be concerned with :c tsco:c, all the details, and with the safety
of everyone (1.339, 461, 2.6317).
142
Behind a leader, however, can stand a
king-maker, and Heracles uses the physical threat he represents to impose
his choice of leader; the situation nds many analogues in the military
states which followed in Alexanders wake.
143
Whether or not the choice of Jason as leader was a good one has pre-
occupied much of modern Apollonian scholarship, but it must always be
139
For what follows cf. Hunter (1988) 4423.
140
DeForest (1994) 54.
141
Note esp. the simile of 1.12657.
142
Cf. Philodemus, On the Good King fr. viii Dorandi, the most kingly thing is :c tv:c, tttp tn
ouvc:cv, [tgcpcv] (suppl. Murray).
143
Cf. A. Mori, Mutiny, Marriage, and Murder: Political Authority in Apollonius Argonautica (Disser-
tation, Chicago 1999).
5 An epic leader 129
remembered how many images of how many leaders are partially reected
in the epic. Most obviously, the relationship between Jason and the other
Argonauts both gestures towards and is utterly different from that between
Odysseus and his crew.
144
No third century reader could, however, also fail
to see in the Argonautic expedition a fore-echo of Alexanders eastern cam-
paign, particularly as the expedition of Sesostris, which Argos evokes as a
forerunner of the Argonauts return to Greece (4.25693), had already been
shaped by literary tradition as the model for Alexander.
145
This is not, of
course, to say that Jason is Alexander, and indeed we have already seen one
important particular, proneness to anger, in which they could hardly be
more different; the most cursory reading of the extant Alexander-histories
will conrm extreme difference rather than similarity. Nevertheless, per-
ceptions of Alexander are one of the texts against which the epic poem
can be read, with whatever consequences for that reading. Moreover, there
were by the third century a number of other literary models for such an
expedition and the problems of leadership it posed.
One possible such model has been identied in Xenophons Anaba-
sis.
146
A comparison of Xenophon and Alexander occurs more than once in
Arrian(Anab. 1.12.34, 2.7.89 (inAlexanders ownmouth)); however much
this owes to Arrians own persistent imitation of Xenophon (here observ-
able in the very title Anabasis of Alexander after Xenophons Anabasis of
Cyrus), the comparison may have been familiar froma relatively early date.
In Xenophons Anabasis, as in the Argonautica, Greeks achieve a perilous
return journey by a circuitous route through dangerous, barbarian territory.
Common to both journeys are the territory and rivers (cf. Anab. 5.6.9) from
the Hellespont to the south-eastern shore of the Black Sea, which the Arg-
onauts traverse eastwards and Xenophon and his companions westwards;
landmarks such as the Acherousian route to the Underworld (2.73445,
Anab. 6.2.2) and the curious customs of the Mossynoikoi are also com-
mon to both texts (2.101529, Anab. 5.4.324), and a potential Argonautic
blueprint is in fact written into Xenophons journey.
147
At 5.67, as the
Greeks nd themselves on the Black Sea coast between Sinope and Trebi-
zond, Xenophon must persuade the troops of the falsity of a rumour that
he intends to lead them back eastwards to Colchis, where the king was
a grandson of Aietes (5.6.37). The return to the Aegean is thus gured as
a rejection of the Argonautic pattern.
144
Cf. Hunter (1988) 4412.
145
Hecataeus of Abdera is a key gure here, cf. Fusillo (1985) 524, Stephens (2003a) 1768.
146
Cf. Beye (1982) 756.
147
As was perhaps realised by the author of the Argonautic interpolation at 6.2.1.
130 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
It is perhaps unsurprising that certain narrative motifs are shared by the
two journey descriptions. Both Jason and Xenophon, for example, receive
the sanction of Apollo for their undertaking (1.35962, Anab. 3.1.67), and
the r ole of prophecy and mantike in the Anabasis is very prominent. At
various crucial points in Xenophons account, we may be reminded of
scenes from Apollonius epic: Clearchus refusal to command an initial
breakaway (1.3.15) begins not unlike Heracles refusal of command (1.345
7), but the two brief speeches could in fact hardly be more unlike in tone.
There is also a striking similarity between one of Xenophons rhetorical
strategies and Jasons invitation to his crew in the Colchian marshes:
148
But now is the time for action, for the enemy may be here very soon. Those who
think that these proposals [of mine] are good should vote to approve them at once
so that they may be put into action. But if someone has any improvement on these
plans to offer, he should feel free to put it forward, even if he is a private soldier,
for we all share the need for common safety. (Xenophon, Anabasis 3.2.32)
c gici, n:ci t,c utv c uci tticvovti co: c
ttptc, :c0 o 0uui :tc, spnnvci tcist.
uvn ,cp yptic, uvci ot :t u0ci tcoi
tcoiv cuc, c ot o,c vccv cunv : ttpscv
o:c sci vco:cu :cvot o:ccv cc, tcpc,.
Friends, I shall tell you the plan I myself favour, but it is for you to give it your
assent. Common is our need, and common to all alike the right to speak. The
man who holds back his view and opinion in silence should know that he alone
deprives our expedition of its chance for safe return. (Argonautica 3.1715)
The democratic rhetoric is shared, as it is also by Hypsipyle in the Lemnian
assembly (1.6646), but the differences between Xenophon and Jason are
palpable. The far fuller picture whichXenophonpresents of himself suggests
a much more condent, resourceful and commanding gure than Jason:
If you choose to set out on this course, I am prepared to follow you, but if you
place me in the position of leadership, I make no excuses on the grounds of my
youth, but I think that I am in the prime of my powers to ward off disasters from
myself. (Xenophon, Anabasis 3.1.25)
Xenophon really is a leader who takes care of :c tsco:c, a man on the
model of Odysseus, whose strategic sense and wisdom far outweigh the
qualities of those he leads (cf. 5.1.4); here again it is the nature of the Argo-
nautic crew which determines so much about the presentation of Jason.
148
Jasons words have been variously interpreted, but there are certainly no grounds for seeing an
abnegation of leadership, cf. Campbell on 3.17195.
5 An epic leader 131
We know all there is to know about Xenophon as a textual gure this
apparent transparency is not the least effective of Xenophons literary tech-
niques whereas the refusal to explain his characters is, as has often been
pointed out, a very striking feature of Apollonius technique. When, for
example, immediately after the speech quoted above, there is only one
dissenter (Apollonides, apparently a Boeotian) from Xenophons proposal,
Xenophon rounds on himroughly, ccuucoic:c:t cvpctt, o,t coot
cpcv ,i,vcosti, coot sccv utuvnoci s:., you amazing fellow, you
see and yet you do not understand, you hear and do not remember . . ., and
concludes that he brings disgrace upon his homeland and all of Greece
(Anab. 3.1.2730); Xenophons sarcasm is immediately justied by the dis-
covery that Apollonides is no Boeotian, but a barbarian with pierced ears. In
Argonautica 3, Idas alone expresses disgust at the idea of relying on Medea
and Aphrodite, the good sense of which proposal seems already to have
been conrmed by an omen. Jason, however, seems entirely to ignore Idas
intervention, but rather than simply passing by in silence, the poet makes
himcall attention to the omission: Argos should set out fromthe ship, since
everyone agrees to this plan (3.5689); the awkwardness is strengthened if
we remember Hypsipyles very similar speech in a situation where everyone
did agree (1.700). Whether this is thought to be brilliant leadership or awk-
ward gaucherie, the sequence is much more opaque than in the Anabasis;
we are offered no privileged, authorial access to a reality behind the surface
of the text. Moreover, there is in the Anabasis, particularly in Xenophons
speeches, a clear didactic and moralising direction (and not just in matters
of military tactics) which is quite absent from the Argonautica. To some
extent, the Anabasis is an excellent example of the usurpation by prose texts
of some of the traditional functions of poetry, a fact merely emphasised by
Xenophons own occasional assimilation of his adventures to the Home-
ric texts (cf. the games at 4.8.258, the encouragement to the troops at
6.5.24 etc.).
In short, the Anabasis is more important as an illustration of a mode of
writing which offers one possible literary code for the Argonautica than as
a model text from which Apollonius has drawn. Whatever models and
codes are reected in the pattern of the Argonautic expedition, there can
be little doubt that the pursuit of power does not stand at its centre.
Whereas the Odyssey stages a return which re-founds secure and legitimate
authority, and the Aeneid is in part the story of a journey which is to lead
to the foundation of a great imperial power (Aen. 1.5, 33), the Argonautica
merely gestures towards certain traditional topics associated with kingship.
132 The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition
The almost total suppression of the motif of Pelias usurpation
149
may be
seen as part of this rejection of the discourse of power. So, too, Jasons
polite refusal of Hypsipyles offer of the Lemnian kingship (1.83940) is,
of course, required by the plot, but Virgils elaboration of this hint into
Aeneas near assumption of kingly authority in Carthage shows the road
which Apollonius chose not to take.
149
Cf. above, p. 111.
chapter 4
Theocritus and the bucolic genre
1 theocri tus and the reali sm of everyday li fe: i n
search of new worlds for poetry
Within the panorama of Hellenistic literature, Theocritus of Syracuse
reects, as much or more than any other author of his period, the taste
for polyeideia writing in many literary genres. Like his contemporary,
Callimachus of Cyrene, he is a courtly encomiastic poet (Idylls 15, 16 and
17) and also a poet of epyllia (Idylls 13, 22, 24);
1
there is also a group of
short poems in the Aeolic metre and dialect (Idylls 2831), the last three
of which are paederastic in character and clearly imitate Aeolic lyric of the
archaic period, rather as Callimachus composed both Iambi, which partly
recall the spirit, metre and dialect of the poetry of Hipponax, and also other
poems in lyric metres, which probably reected models drawn fromarchaic
lyric poetry.
2
Furthermore, Theocritus also wrote a signicant number of
poems with realistic urban (Idylls 2, 14, 15) or rural (Idylls 1, 37, 1011) set-
tings, which describe scenes of daily life, for the most part in dialogue form.
It is very likely that the roots of Theocritus description of and opposition
betweenurbanandrural environments
3
lie inthe Sicilianmime, towhich, as
the scholia inform us, Theocritus was indebted for two urban mimes, Idylls
2 and15.
4
Throughthe representationof typical humble characters andtheir
daily occupations, rather than strikingly dened individuals, the Sicilian
mime gave the countryside and those who lived in it a literary prominence
which they had not enjoyed before. Epicharmus wrote a comedy entitled
1
Cf. above, Chapter 2.
2
On the question whether Callimachuss Mtn were included in the book of Iambi, cf. above, p. 29
n. 115.
3
Cf. Th. Reinhardt, Die Darstellung der Bereiche Stadt und Land bei Theokrit (Bonn 1988).
4
Two introductory scholia on Idyll 2, which are probably the remains of an ancient hypothesis, state
that Theocritus derived the character of Thestylis crudely (ttipcsc,, cf. Wendel (1920) 70)
from the Mimes by Sophron and that (the author) derives the plot (otctoi,) of the spell from the
Mimes by Sophron (cf. pp. 26970 Wendel); the rst scholium on Idyll 15 states: (the author) has
formed the poem by analogy with Sophrons Women Attending the Isthmian Games (p. 305 Wendel).
133
134 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
Land and Sea (PCG 209, see also frs. 158 and 162), where he probably
imagined a competition for supremacy between the two elements, in which
each boasted of the different products for which they were responsible.
This contrast between different types of environment was probably no less
signicant in Sophrons mime entitled The sherman to the farmer (PCG
4244, see also fr. 96).
5
An analogous interest in the humble members of
the town population was shown in roughly the same period as Theocritus
by Herondas, and the taste for the description of the countryside and its
characters also nds parallels in other poetry of the period, particularly
the epigrams of Leonidas and Anyte.
6
However, what most sets the bucolic
poems of Theocritus apart is the detail and consistency of the newworld for
high poetry in hexameters which he creates; this new world is principally
based in an emphasis on bucolic music and song, which, on the contrary,
remain a wholly marginal element in, for example, the bucolic epigram.
7
The relative prominence of bucolic poems within the extant Theocritean
corpus does not say much, in itself, in favour of a specic preference by
Theocritus for this type of poetry; this prominence may have been the
result, at least partly, of the popularity that pastoral poetry subsequently
enjoyed and which saw what for Theocritus may have been still only one of
the possibilities of mimic poetry transformed into a separate literary genre.
It is rather the image that Theocritus chooses to give in Idyll 7 of his own
personality as a poet that tells us something more certain about his own
bucolic poetics.
Idyll 7 is a rst-person narration by Simichidas. Even if this is not the
name of the author (Theocritus), and even if, at times, especially in the
early stages of their encounter, the other protagonist of the poem, Lycidas,
seems to regard Simichidas with a certain superior detachment and humour
(cf. esp. vv. 216),
8
it is clear that Simichidas represents, in many respects,
5
It cannot be a coincidence that this type of Sicilian mime plot reappears in Moschus and Bion.
Moschus fr. 1 concerns the relative merits of sea and land (cf. the comedy of Epicharmus), and Bion
fr. 2 the relative value of the seasons.
6
The accepted chronology of both Leonidas and Anyte has recently been questioned by Bernsdorff
(2001) 10426. Anytes bucolic epigrams are, in any case, not many (two dedications to Pan, APlan.
231 = HE 738ff. and 291 = HE 672ff., and two invitations to take refuge from the heat under a tree,
AP 9.313 = HE 726ff., APlan. 228 = HE 734ff.); as for Leonidas, there are a dozen epigrams which
have shepherds or farmers as their protagonists, or contain descriptions of the countryside, but these
should be considered alongside the large group of epigrams whose subjects are other humble workers
(shermen, carpenters, musicians, spinning-women, hunters, woodcutters, etc.), which are at least
as numerous.
7
Cf. Bernsdorff (2001) 13954.
8
The irony applied at times to the gure of Simichidas (cf. Hunter (2003a)) is, however, not such as
to suggest that the author does not identify with him at all, as has been claimed by B. Effe, Das
poetologische Programm des Simichidas: Theokrit. Id. 7, 3741 WJA 14 (1988) 8791; see also Simon
(1991) 7782.
1 Theocritus and the realism of everyday life 135
the author himself. Simichidas presents himself as a town poet (cf. vv. 2,
24), who appears to be investedas a bucolic poet by the expert, perhaps semi-
divine, poet Lycidas; he undoubtedly demonstrates that he has thoroughly
mastered the magic of the countryside when he enthusiastically describes
the locus amoenus at the end of the poem.
9
The implicit self-reference in the
rst-person narration led many ancient scholars into fanciful biography
some went so far as to imagine that Theocritus was a native of Cos, the
island where the Idyll is set,
10
in spite of the fact that elsewhere he makes
two distinct references to his Syracusan origins.
11
Be that as it may, if the
I of Idyll 7 is interpreted as an ideal image of the poet (and one which at
least evokes Theocritus himself ), we discover that Simichidas/Theocritus
chooses to present himself (vv. 3941) as one who was previously a town
poet, and as such owed a poetic debt to, or was at least full of admiration
for, Asclepiades of Samos, who is most famous for erotic epigrams, and the
scholar-poet Philetas of Cos; the setting of the idyll on Cos is probably an
act of homage to Philetas native island, and it is important that Philetas
too wrote love poetry. Furthermore, the example of song that Lycidas offers
to Simichidas appropriates for the bucolic world the motifs of sympotic
love poetry:
toot:ci A,tvcs:i scc, tcc, t, Mi:unvcv,
yc:cv tg tottpici, Lpigci, vc:c, o,pc oicsn
suc:c, ycpicv c: tt cstcv c tcoc, oyti,
c sc :cv Ausiocv ct:tutvcv t Agpcoi:c, 55
pon:ci tpuc, ,cp tpc, co:c ut sc:citi.
ysucvt, o:cptot0v:i :c suc:c :v :t coocv
:cv :t vc:cv :cv : topcv, c, toyc:c gusic sivt,
csucvt,, ,cusc, Nnpnioi :ci :t uio:c
cpviycv tgintv, coci, :t ttp t cc, c,pc. 60
A,tvcs:i tccv oinutvc t, Mi:unvcv
cpic tv:c ,tvci:c, sci t0tcc, cpucv sci:c.
sn,c :nvc sc: cucp vn:ivcv n pcoctv:c
n sci tuscicv o:tgcvcv ttpi spc:i guoocv
:cv l:ttc:iscv cvcv tc spc:npc, guc 65
tcp tupi stsiutvc,, scucv ot :i, tv tupi gput.
y o:ic, toot:ci tttuscoutvc to: tti tcyuv
svc : ogcotc :t tcu,vut:c :t otivc.
sci ticuci uccsc, utuvcutvc, A,tvcs:c,
co:c, tv suistooi sci t, :p,c ytc, tptiocv. 70
9
Cf. further below.
10
Cf. Suda 166 (II p. 687.189 Adler) 2upcscoic,, c ot gcoi Kccv from Syracuse; but some say
from Cos.
11
In Idyll 28 Theocritus uses the term compatriot for the Syracusan wife of his friend Nicias (cf. vv.
1618), and he jokingly calls Polyphemus the Cyclops from our area (11.7).
136 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
conot0v:i ot uci oc tciutvt,, t, utv Aycpvt,,
t, ot Auscti:c, c ot Ti:upc, t,,tv ot
c, tcsc :c, -tvtc, npooc:c Agvi, c c:c,,
yc, cpc, ugttcvt:c sci c, opt, co:cv tpnvtuv, s:.
Ageanax will have a good sea-crossing to Mytilene, even if the south wind drives
the moist waves, while the Kids are in the west, and if Orion places his feet on
the Ocean if he frees Lycidas, burnt by the re of Aphrodite, for I am consumed
by a hot love for him. The halcyons will calm the waves and the sea, and the
south and south-east wind, which rufes even the deepest sea weeds, the halcyons,
favourites of the sea-green Nereids and of all who catch their food in the sea. May
every moment be propitious for Ageanax in his navigation to Mytilene, and may
he arrive at the port after a good voyage. On that day, I will wear a garland of anise
and roses and white stocks around my head, and lying beside the re, I will draw
some wine of Ptelea from the bowl, while someone toasts the broadbeans over the
re. I will have a bed padded with eabane and asphodel and curly celery, one
cubit high, and with the memory of Ageanax, I will drink the wine longingly to
the dregs, pressing my lips to the cups. Two shepherds will pipe for me, one from
Acharnae and the other from Lycope, and close by, Tityrus will sing of the time
when the cowherd Daphnis fell in love with Xenea, and the mountain suffered for
him, and the oak-trees lamented him, etc. (Theocritus 7.5274)
Lycidas song begins with what appears to be a propemptikon to his beloved
Ageanax, but already in the fourth line we discover that this propemptikon
is subject to a rather unusual condition: Ageanax is to arrive safe and sound
at Mytilene only if he frees (pon:ci) Lycidas from Aphrodite (vv. 556).
The meaning of this condition has been much discussed: does Ageanax
have to free Lycidas from his passion by gratifying him, or by leaving him
for ever (perhaps the likeliest alternative),
12
or at least for a long enough
period for his love to die down? Even if, however, pon:ci is taken to mean
satises, it is a fact that the song that Lycidas looks forward to is no longer
dedicated to Ageanax: once the latter has gone, Lycidas will be able to devote
himself to the serene joy of a symposiumin the countryside, where the sweet
memory of his beloved will undoubtedly remain in his cups (vv. 6970),
but the beloved, or Lycidas passion for him (whether still burning or now
nished), will no longer be the theme of the song. To the accompaniment
of two shepherds pipes, Tityrus will sing of Daphnis and Comatas, semi-
mythical heroes who were the founders of bucolic poetry; he will sing a
song somewhat similar to the one that Thyrsis sings in Idyll 1 about the fate
of Daphnis, and then he will evoke the happy lot of Comatas, a mythical
12
So Y. Furusawa, Eros und Seelenruhe in den Thalysien Theokrits (W urzburg 1980) 3640; in this case,
the chronological details of vv. 534 would communicate the idea that Ageanax should leave as soon
as possible. Contra, with equal vigour, Stanzel (1995) 27075, for whom vv. 534 offer Ageanax the
possibility of delaying his departure as long as possible, without any consequent problems.
1 Theocritus and the realism of everyday life 137
shepherd who had been saved fromdeath by poetry, because the Muses had
arranged for himto be nourished with honey by bees when his cruel master
had closed him inside a chest to die of hunger. The stories of Daphnis and
Comatas take the place of the amorous discourse on the beloved which
the rst section of Lycidas poem had led the reader to expect. Thus, after
starting as a love poem a propemptikon for his beloved, rich in allusions
to the atmosphere of archaic poetry
13
Lycidas song puts aside the theme
of love as a subjective experience,
14
even if it subsequently resumes the
traditional sympotic framework of archaic love poetry and describes it with
a skill and a wealth of detail worthy of Xenophanes descriptions of the
symposium.
15
Simichidas song, which is characterised by a looser structure and the use
of lower iambic models than the poetry to which Lycidas alluded,
16
moves
in the same direction: the opening proclaims his happy and contented
love for Myrto, and contrasts it with that of his friend Aratus, to whose
unhappy love the rest of his song appears to be dedicated. Simichidas,
however, does not appear to be very interested in the question of love itself:
he does not even know who the object of Aratus desire is: whether it is
the delicate Philinus or someone else, v. 105. What Simichidas wants, right
from the beginning, is to release Aratus from his situation of erotic distress:
consequently, instead of the love poem that we might have expected, we
nd a magic prayer to the god Pan, in an attempt to obtain the love of
Philinus for Aratus.
17
After trying to eliminate Aratus sufferings by using
magic, the simple mention of Philinus (vv. 118121) leads Simichidas to
solve his friends suffering in a different, more radical way. The traditional
appeal to the beloved to yield, because youth is not eternal (vv. 1201)
becomes in Simichidas song the starting-point for the nal refusal of eros
and the poetry associated with it: Philinus is passing his prime, it is no
longer worthwhile courting him, and it is time to stop freezing in the cold
in order to offer him paraklausithyra; instead we should only seek couyic
tranquillity (vv. 12227).
18
At the end of the poem, Simichidas describes,
in terms of an idealised locus amoenus, the natural riches of the symposium
organised by Phrasidamus, which seem to exemplify this same need for
serenity, materialised in a rustic form, and to be the rst real performance
of the new bucolic poet.
19
13
Halcyons are a favourite theme of archaic erotic poetry, cf. Krevans (1983) 215.
14
As Stanzel (1995) 275 also admits (for his interpretation see above n. 12).
15
See vv. 6370; cf. e.g. Xenophanes fr. 13 Gent.Prato.
16
Cf. Hunter (2003a) 2259.
17
On this point, see below, pp. 15860.
18
The pastoral element in Lycidas song is seriously underestimated by Halperin (1983) 12025. Both
Lycidas and (more supercially) Simichidas appropriate erotic motifs for their bucolic poetry.
19
Cf. below, pp. 1458.
138 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
The poetic choices of Simichidas/Theocritus and his bucolic master
Lycidas enact some of the choices by which Theocritus constructs his
bucolic poetics in other idylls. Thus, the whole of Idyll 3, for example,
is made up of a parodic adaptation of a paraklausithyron,
20
while the song
of the Cyclops in Idyll 11 and the song of Bucaeus in Idyll 10 (vv. 2437)
are parodies of serenades; a more serious dramatisation of love in the
manner of the subjective love poetry of archaic lyric and elegiac poetry
is to be found in the urban poems 2 and 14.
21
Moreover, the celebration
of a semi-mythical singer who is the example and prototype of the bucolic
poet, analogous to the song of Lycidas, is the theme of Idyll 1, and the ideal
of hasychia and rural beauty as prerequisites for bucolic poetry are among
the most basic and pervasive themes of Theocritus bucolic works.
22
This
is not, of course, to say that when Theocritus elaborated the possibility of
hexameter bucolic mime, taking off fromthe pre-existing literary mime, he
realised that he was inventing a new literary genre; nevertheless, he was
bound to be aware that few, if any, precedents existed for his combination
of rustic contents and epic metre, and thus some of his poems do indeed
inaugurate the pastoral genre.
23
In the second chapter of the Poetics, Aristotle distinguishes three possi-
ble levels at which the objects of artistic imitation are situated, in terms of
moral worth, with respect to our daily experience: such objects are better,
or worse, or exactly the same. Hexameter poetry offered him both subjects
which are more serious than daily life (the heroic epics of Homer) and sub-
jects worse thandaily life, suchas the parodies of Hegemonandthe Atii,
of a certain Nicochares. The little that we know of Nicochares depicts him
as a comic poet; almost nothing is known of the Atii, (the Viliad?), but
20
Both ancient and some modern scholars have wished to link the oiuc, protagonist of Idyll 3 to
Simichidas inIdyll 7; cf. e.g. C. Meillier, Th eocrite, Idylle VII et autour de lIdylle VII, inArrighetti
Montanari (1993) 10810.
21
The characters of Idyll 14 are plainly townspeople, even if their party is held in the country, cf.
Stanzel (1995) 1921.
22
Cf. below, pp. 1457.
23
Ancient scholarship identied pre-Theocritean bucolic in the popular song which characterised
rustic rituals for country divinities (above all, Artemis, cf. schol. Theocritus, Proleg., pp. 2 and 79
Wendel); mythical bucolic poets were also found: Daphnis (cf. Diodorus Siculus 4.84, who may
have been inuenced by Timaeus, FGrHist 566F83; Hermesianax, CA fr. 2; Diomedes, Gramm. Lat.
1, 487.810 Keil); Diomus (cf. Athen. 14.619ab), a character already mentioned by Epicharmus
(PCG 4 and 104), and Menalcas, for whom Eriphanis, a lyric poetess who was in love with him,
is supposed to have written poems (Athen. 14.619cd). Aelian (Var. hist. 10.18) suggests that the
initiator of bucolic utctciic was the Sicilian poet Stesichorus, to whom Crates of Mallos had
already ascribed a short poem about Daphnis: PMGF 27980. Whether or not this attribution is
reliable (cf. L. Lehnus, SCO 24 (1975) 1916, O. Vox, Belfagor 41 (1986) 31117), the very fragility of
this tradition shows how widespread the reputation of Theocritus was as the initiator of the genre.
1 Theocritus and the realism of everyday life 139
the title itself, with its pun on li,, suggests a parodic contrast between
grand Homeric language and lowsubject-matter: we may perhaps compare
the gastronomic poetry of Matron of Athens. As an example of poetic works
which represent objects exactly the same as us, Aristotle is only able to a
name a single author, Cleophon, a tragedian who inappropriately lowered
the level of his works by using words and/or characters that were too hum-
ble and common, thus obtaining an effect bordering on comedy (Poetics
1458a1820, Rhetoric 3.1408a1015). The representation of daily life is thus
reduced, in the Aristotelian system of literary genres, to little more than a
faux pas of tragedy, consisting in the use of the wrong lexical register by a
single author. Any suspicion that this Cleophon might have gone consider-
ably beyond the well-known bourgeoisication of language and of certain
tragic situations, initiated by Euripides, is quashed by a consideration of
the titles that are listed in the Suda, which are almost all of a mythological
nature (TrGF 77T1). Aristotle himself does not seemto pay much attention
to this apparent one-off: at the end of the second chapter of the Poetics,
when he moves from theoretical discussion to the subject of drama, which
is of course his principal preoccupation, he completely ignores the middle
term of his trichotomy and limits himself to speaking about tragedy (with
subjects that are higher than everyday life) and comedy (with subjects that
are lower than everyday life).
24
Poetry in hexameters, on the other hand, even in the time of Aristotle,
had never witnessed accidents of this kind: there was epic poetry, which
represented characters and situations of the utmost seriousness, the glorious
deeds (stc) of heroes or the acts (tp,c) of heroes and gods (cf. Iliad 9.189
and Odyssey 1.3378, 8.73),
25
and there was parody which used heroic lan-
guage for non-serious subjects, such as the gastronomic poetry of Matron
and the pseudo-Homeric Margites, with its buffoonish anti-hero. Poetic
contents could be related to the real world in a variety of ways (:pctci),
and some Hellenistic thinking on the matter is probably available in a
scholium to Iliad 14.34251. According to this text, one possibility is that
poetic subject-matter imitates reality (c uiun:isc, :c0 nc0,) another
24
It is a great pity that we cannot be sure of the origin of the denition of mime as an imitation of life
which includes both lawful and unlawful things (schol. Aristophanes, Proleg. xxiv.3.167 Koster).
If it really goes back to Theophrastus, as is often claimed, this would have important consequences
for the scholastic background to Theocritus mimes.
25
One of the specic aims of epic poetry, according to scholars, was tstni, astonishment, and
the relations between gods and men were crucial to this effect; cf. scholia on Homer, Il. 15.695,
16.459, 20.612, and Feeney (1991) 4256. On the hexameter as a particularly suitable verse-form
for mythical-heroic, or at least sublime, material, cf. Aristotle, Poet. 1449a267, 1459b3437, Rhet.
1404a345, Demetrius, Eloc. 5 and 42.
140 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
is that subject-matter derives from imagination based on reality (sc:c
gcv:coicv :n, ntic,), and a third one is achieved by going beyond
reality and by imagination (sc ottptoiv ntic, sci gcv:coicv); this
last is exemplied in the scholium by means of characters like the Cyclopes
or the Laestrygones and facts about the gods (:c ttpi tcv). There are
undoubtedly traces of all three categories in Homer (as the scholium to
Iliad 2.4789 reminds us), but the extraordinary world of heroes and gods
remains by far the most dominant in epic poetry, and this separates it rad-
ically both from the imitation of daily life which we nd, for example, in
New Comedy, and from ction, in the sense of gcv:coic based on the
real world. Epic remained the vehicle for the transmission of the stable,
structural truths to be found in the mythical deeds of gods and heroes,
truths which transcended the precarious, non-permanent truths of every-
day life.
26
The everyday world of humble people, very largely excluded
from epic, had found expression almost exclusively in the mime and in
Sicilian comedy. Moreover, the mimes of Sophron, who, as we have seen,
27
supplied Theocritus with models for two of his urban mimes, were com-
posed in a kind of rhythmic prose which was so marginal in the system of
literary genres that it did not even deserve a name to distinguish it from
prose.
28
If Theocritus did not specialise in any particular genre, his poetry as a
whole in some ways challenged the traditional system of genres, in which
the hexameter had regularly been combined with high subjects and heroic-
divine protagonists (or, for parodic purposes, with their exact opposite). It
has, for example, long been noted that Theocritus mythological epyllia
tend to humanise or normalise the mythical heroes who are their protag-
onists.
29
Moreover, the two poems dedicated to encomium (Idylls 16 and
17) both begin with forceful proems, in which the traditional gesture of
mythological recusatio in the face of the limitations of human knowledge
(cf. Ibycus, PMGF S151.1031, Simonides, IEG 11.1522) is reshaped with
a new pride in the dignity of hexameter poetry about human subjects.
Idyll 16.14 is particularly striking:
30
citi :c0:c Aic, scpci, utti, citv cioc,,
ouvtv cv:cu,, ouvtv ,ccv stc vopcv.
Mcoci utv tci tv:i, tcu, tci tiocv:i
cuut, ot pc:ci cot, pc:cu, pc:ci tiocutv.
26
For the kind of truth to be sought in myth cf. Diodorus Siculus 4.8. Aristophanes, Wasps 117480
is enlightening here.
27
Cf. above, n. 4.
28
Cf. Aristotle, Poet. 1447a28b13.
29
Cf. e.g. Horstmann (1976) 5779, Effe (1978) 6476. Cf. also below, pp. 20110, 25566.
30
Cf. Fantuzzi (2000b) and (2001b).
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 141
It is always dear to the heart of the daughters of Zeus and always to poets to
celebrate the immortal ones, to celebrate the deeds of valiant men but the Muses
are goddesses, and goddesses sing of gods; we who are here are mortals, and as such
let us mortals sing of mortals!
This proud condence in a division of domains between the Muses and
the poets who are inspired by them, on the one hand, and the class of
poets in which Theocritus includes himself, on the other, is in perfect, and
perhaps programmatic, harmony with the spirit of his bucolic and urban
poems, which take the hexameter in quite new directions.
In creating a new kind of hexameter poetry as an alternative or comple-
ment to high epos,
31
Theocritus succeeded in creating an organic, coher-
ent structure, a possible world, for the characters and the settings of his
poetry, which stand halfway between the imitation of the real and imag-
ination based on the real world (cf. above), and are therefore inevitably
more precarious and unstable than those of the mythical world, which were
traditionally seen as offering paradigmatic models for the understanding
of the real world.
32
This new and coherent world which his poetry cre-
ates, a world which, for all its differences, is no less coherent than the
heroic-mythological world of epic, is Theocritean bucolics most notice-
able difference both from the mime, which was based, in all probability, on
the more or less direct mirroring (and of course distortion) of the real world,
and from the simple imagination based on the real world of comedy, with
its paradoxical internal logic which changed from play to play.
2 veri si mi li tude and coherence
The search for internal coherence is most obvious in the bucolic poems,
perhaps because the urban mimes already had well-developed models in the
long para-literary tradition of the Sicilian and other contemporary mimes
(cf. above pp. 1334). Theocritus bucolic poetry is based on the unrealistic
presupposition that the professional requirements of a shepherds life,
connected with the activity of looking after the ock, are but a minor
distraction from the principal pastimes of music and singing, particularly
song contests.
33
This same selective stylisation
34
is enshrined in the use
of the verb cuscioocuci, which never means I am a cowherd (or
a shepherd),
35
but always and only I sing bucolic songs, mainly in the
31
Cf. Halperin (1983) 21748.
32
On this difference between the world of mythology and the possible worlds of ction cf. Th. G.
Pavel, Fictional Worlds (Cambridge, MA 1986) 3942.
33
Cf. e.g. Grifn (1992) 1989.
34
Cf. Stanzel (1995) 11518.
35
Properly speaking, the term cuscc, designated the cowherd, but the broader meaning is already
presupposed in Homer (Il. 20.221).
142 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
context of an agonistic or friendly exchange of songs (5.44 and 60, 7.36);
36
so too, the adjective cuscisc, is found in Theocritus only as an attribute
of the words cio song and Mcoc Muse.
37
This stylisation has its
roots in a traditional vision of the shepherd and of rustic life, familiar in
literature as early as the archaic age;
38
besides the shepherds on Achilles
shield, who already delight inplaying the syrinx (cf. below), inthe Philoctetes
of Sophocles, the Chorus says of someone who has been heard making a
noise, but whose identity they do not know: He does not have the melody
(uctn) of a syrinx, like the shepherd wandering through the elds (ll.
21314). The modern suggestion that cuscicouc, was a termgoing back
before Theocritus, and one which specically indicated a form of popular
singing said to have been invented by a certain Diomus, a Sicilian shepherd
already referred to by Epicharmus (see above, n. 23
39
), is therefore not
unreasonable.
This same transference is seen in the description of the boy guarding the
vine in the ekphrasis of the cup in Idyll 1 (ll. 4554). The boy is regularly
seen as an image of the bucolic poet:
40
he is so taken up with weaving
reed-cages (or traps) for grasshoppers that he neglects both the vine and
his own lunch, in an ideal opposition to the psychological and physical
suffering of the protagonists of the other two scenes depicted on the cup
(the lovesick men and the toiling sherman):
41
:u:cv o coocv ctctv ci:p:cic ,tpcv:c,
ttpsvcoi o:cgucoi sccv tpitv c,
:cv ci,c, :i, scpc, tg cucoicoi guooti
nutvc, ugi ot viv o cttst,, utv v cpyc,
gci: n oivcutvc :cv :pciucv, o tti tnpc
tv:c occv :tycioc :c tcioicv co tpiv vnotv
36
Even the song of Thyrsis in Idyll 1 is presented as a re-performance of a song already sung by Thyrsis
himself in a competition with Chromis of Libya (vv. 234).
37
Cf. 1.20, 7.49, and the refrains of Thyrsis song.
38
For the status of the shepherd in Greek culture before Theocritus, cf. Grifn (1992) 1945 and
Gutzwiller (1991) 2379.
39
Cf. Nauta (1990) 12629 (for a different view cf. Halperin (1983) 7884).
40
As Hunter (1999) 82 notes, the boy is the image of the bucolic poet because, just like the latter, he
constructs something beautiful from natural materials. It should not come as a surprise that the
boy is a guardian of a vineyard, and not a shepherd: the cup is not a simple representation of the
bucolic world there are, e.g., no ocks because the ecphrastic relation here constructed between
a described object and the poem in which it occurs is not that of original and copy (Hunter
(1999) 77). This image is taken up by Longus in Daphnis and Chloe, where, on the contrary, its
pastoral value is made explicit: Chloe was gathering some branches of asphodel and was weaving
some cages, and as she was wholly taken up by this work, she lost sight of her lambs (1.10.2).
41
The three scenes on the cup are presented in such a way as to form a priamel that brings out the
superiority of the life of the pastoral poet, as a life concentrated on a tcvc,, which is at the same
time the greatest delight; cf. F. Cairns, Theocritus First Idyll: the Literary Programme WS 18 (1984)
1035.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 143
gc:i tpiv
n sp:io:cv tti npcoi scin
.
42
co:cp c, vtpiscioi sccv ttsti spiocnpcv (v.l. spiocnscv)
oycivc tgcpucoocv utt:ci ot c c0:t :i tnpc,
c0:t gu:cv :coonvcv cocv ttpi tt,uc:i ,ct.
A little further on from the old man worn by the sea, there is a vineyard laden with
dark bunches of grapes, guarded by a boy sitting on a little wall; beside him there
are two foxes, one of which is prowling between the rows of vines to steal the ripe
grapes, while the other is plotting all kinds of attacks against the boys lunch-bag,
thinking that he will not leave the boy without (?) stealing his lunch from him (?).
But the boy is weaving a pretty trap (var. lect. cage) for crickets, using asphodels
combined with reeds, and he has less care for the lunch-bag or the vines, than the
joy he takes in his weaving. (Theocritus 1.4554)
Like the bucolic poet who weaves a web of words and sounds,
43
the boy
is totally dedicated to his task, capable even of disregarding the most basic
needfor food. Theocritus may here have beenborrowing froma famous pas-
sage in Platos Phaedrus, the dialogue which foreshadows so many bucolic
motifs;
44
the passage in question is the aetiology for the love for singing
and the peculiar diet (i.e. dew) of cicadas, whose chirping characterises the
natural music of the countryside, in the Phaedrus no less than in Theocritus
and the poetic tradition.
45
At a certain point of their conversation beside
the Ilissos, Socrates and Phaedrus start discussing how people write well, or
otherwise, both in poetry and in prose (cf. 258d), and Socrates nds it par-
ticularly suitable that they are dealing with this difcult subject under the
auspices, and also the protection, of the cicadas. The cicadas would mock
them if they let themselves fall asleep in the afternoon heat, like sheep or
slaves seduced (sncuutvcu,) by the insects song; on the contrary, if the
cicadas saw that they were wide awake and ready (like them) for a dis-
cussion, they would be pleased to give them what it is their prerogative
to give to men (258e259b), in other words the inspiration of the Muses
(259bc):
46
42
The text of this verse is quite uncertain, but the sense seems to be that the fox will not stop its attacks
until it has eaten the boys food.
43
As Hunter (1999) 77 has already noted, that the art of poetry is expressed through an image (a boy
weaving a cage) is itself a manifestation of how poetry works. On the metaphor of weaving for
poetic creation cf. e.g. J. M. Snyder, The Web of Song: Weaving Imagery in Homer and the Lyric
Poets CJ 76 (1981) 19396 and chapter 5 of J. Scheid and J. Svenbro, The Craft of Zeus: Myths of
Weaving and Fabric (Cambridge, MALondon 1996).
44
Cf. C. Murley, Platos Phaedrus and Theocritean Pastoral TAPhA 71 (1940) 28195, Hunter (1999)
145.
45
Cf. DaviesKathirithamby (1986) 11619.
46
For understanding Theocritus use of Plato, the attitude of the Platonic Socrates to the cicadas is
of secondary interest; for different views, cf. G. R. F. Ferrari, Listening to the Cicadas: a Study of
Platos Phaedrus (Cambridge 1987) 2530 and A. Capra, Il mito delle cicale e il motivo della bellezza
sensibile nel Fedro Maia 52 (2000) 22547, pp. 2279.
144 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
It is narrated that the cicadas were once men, in a period when the Muses had not
yet been born; when the Muses were born, and singing was invented, some men
of that time were so overwhelmed by the pleasure that derived from it, that they
started to sing, disregarding food and drink, and thus without realising it, brought
about their own death. The race of the cicadas was thus born from them, and
they received this gift from the Muses: from their birth, they do not need to feed
themselves, but immediately start singing, without eating or drinking until they
die; afterwards, they go and tell the Muses which of the men down here venerate
each of them.
In Theocritus too, spiot, crickets/grasshoppers, which are traditionally
connected with music no less than were cicadas,
47
and :t::i,t, cicadas are
the habitual accompaniment of the shepherds song, and also the standard
termof comparison both for the song itself and, in general, for the sounds of
the world of nature.
48
If the boy guarding the vine is an image of the bucolic
poet, then there might be a particular signicance also in the imminent
loss of his lunch, due to his lack of attention for the material necessities of
life, compared with the pleasure (,ct, v. 54) that he derives from weaving
cages; we might compare, on one hand, the little attention for the external
world shown by the shepherds depicted on Achilles shield in Homer, Iliad
18.5256 (. . . they were followed by two shepherds who were taking their
delight in the syrinx, without suspecting an attack) and, on the other, the
shepherds accused by Hesiods Muses (Theogony 26) of being ,co:tpt,
ccv pure stomachs, that is to say, oblivious to anything apart from their
simple need for food. Theocritus boy is an example of the total dedication
to singing which Plato had used as an aetiological explanation for the frugal
diet of the cicada,
49
a diet known to the poetic tradition at least since the
pseudo-Hesiodic Shield (vv. 39395) and one which appears to have been
extended at times also to crickets (spiot,).
50
The Platonic link between the cicadas love for singing and their special
diet has another importance for Theocritus image. The habit of catching
crickets and keeping them in a cage in order to listen to their singing is well
attested in Hellenistic epigram,
51
but in light of the fact that it was not rare
47
Cf. e.g. Anyte, AP7.190.1 =HE742, Leonidas, AP7.198.34 =HE20867, Meleager, AP7.195.12 =
HE 40589. [Aristotle], audib. 804a had already linked spiot, with cicadas and nightingales as
animals that were endowed with a i,upc, resonant voice.
48
Cf. 1.148, 5.289, 7.41, 7.138. In this last passage, Theocritus speaks of the cicadas song as a tcvc,
toil, a word resonant in Theocritean and Hellenistic poetics, cf. above, p. 5 n. 15, Berger (1984)
1820.
49
Cf. Aristotle, Hist. anim. 532b1114, Theocritus 4.1516 etc.
50
As the unfortunately corrupt text of Meleager, AP 7.195.78 = HE 40645 suggests, cf. E. K.
Borthwick, A Grasshoppers Diet CQ 16 (1966) 1056.
51
Cf. DaviesKathirithamby (1986) 1378.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 145
for the origins of poetry to be traced to the imitation of bird song,
52
and
in particular in the light of Platos comment that the cicadas had received
from the Muses the prerogative of mediating between men and the Muses
themselves, it is tempting to imagine that this complete absorption in
catching crickets is a sort of metaphor for the birth of bucolic poetry itself.
The myth of the Phaedrus and the Iliad s shepherds, who pay no attention
to their surroundings but concentrate on their musical activity,
53
lead us
into this image and help us to interpret it.
Equally idealised is the Theocritean countryside. It is never a really wild
countryside, a place of dangers and hardships, one quite inhospitable to
humans; on the contrary, the Theocritean countryside is always peacefully
under human control.
54
Furthermore, there is, for the most part, sympa-
thetic harmony between the countryside and the shepherds. The beauty of
the countryside reects and guarantees the sweetness of the music of the
syrinx
55
and of the context in which the shepherds listen.
56
The opening of
the rst Idyll has a particular importance,
co :i :c ipiouc sci c ti:u,, citct, :nvc,
c tc:i :c, tc,coi utioot:ci, cou ot sci :
oupioot,, s:.
O goatherd, sweet is the murmuring created by that pine-tree over there, near the
springs, and sweetly do you play the pipe . . .
Note also the rival places for singing suggested by Lacon and Comatas in
Idyll 5, vv. 314 and 459 (respectively):
coicv o n
:to otc :cv sc:ivcv sci :cotc :c0:c scic,.
uypcv 0ocp :cu:ti sc:ctit:ci cot ttgsti
tcic, y o:ic, cot, sci spiot, cot ct0v:i
. . .
coy tpc :nvti. :cu:ti opt,, cot sttipc,,
cot sccv cut0v:i tc:i ouvtooi utiooci,
tv 0oc:c, uypc spcvci oc, :ci o tti otvopti
cpviyt, cc,t0v:i, sci c osic cootv cucic
:c tcpc :iv ti ot sci c ti:u, oct scvci,, s:.
You will sing more sweetly here, sitting under the oleaster and these trees: here the
water gushes cool, here the grass grows, and there is this place to lie down, and here
52
Cf. e.g. Alcman, PMGF 39, Democritus, VS 68B154; Gentili (1988) chapter 4.
53
For the history of this cultural paradigm cf. Gutzwiller (1991) 2379.
54
Cf. A. Perutelli, Natura selvatica e genere bucolico ASNP 5 (1976) 76375. A dangerously wild
countryside would obviously not be conducive to bucolic couyic tranquillity (cf. 7.126); cf. further
Segal (1981) 21527, H. Edquist, Aspects of Theocritean otium Ramus 4 (1975) 10114.
55
Traditionally nopcc,: cf. e.g. Euripides, El. 703.
56
Cf. Schmidt (1987) 2936.
146 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
the crickets are chirruping [. . .] I will not come there. Here there are oak-trees,
here there is galingale, here the bees buzz sweetly round the hives, here there are
two springs of fresh water, the birds are twittering on the tree, and the shade is
totally different from what you have got around you; the pine-tree sheds its cones
from on high, as well . . .
Theocritus will certainly have found more than one parallel in previous
literary tradition for the sympathetic sweetness of the countryside as a
premise for song, and he undoubtedly found at least one in another passage
from Platos Phaedrus (230bc):
A lovely place for us to stop! This plane-tree is very leafy and tall; the height and
the shade of the agnus are ideal, and fully blossomed as it is, it lls the place with
fragrant scents. And then under the plane-tree ows a beautiful spring, with very
cool water, as you can feel with your foot. From the images and the statues, it
looks like a place sacred to certain Nymphs and to Achelous. And, if you like, feel
how pleasant and gentle the breeze is in this place. A summer murmur answers the
chorus of the cicadas. But the sweetest thing of all is this grass, which slopes gently
down, and is made for one to lie down on, resting the head very comfortably.
In Theocritus, however, descriptions of the pleasures of the countryside
normally remain within the bounds of the plausible. In only one case do
we nd an extensive description of a locus amoenus which culminates in a
radically idealised, and therefore unrealistic, representation of the sympa-
thetic participation of the world of nature; the passage comes at the end of
Idyll 7:
tcci o cuuiv 0ttpt sc:c spc:c, ocvtcv:c 135
c,tipci t:ttci :t :c o t,,tv tpcv 0ocp
Nuugcv t cv:pcic sc:ticutvcv stput.
:ci ot tc:i osicpc, cpcocuvioiv cicicvt,
:t::i,t, cc,t0v:t, tycv tcvcv c o ccu,cv
:nctv tv tusivcoi :cv :ptostv svci, 140
ctiocv scpuoci sci scviot,, to:tvt :pu,cv,
tc:cv:c cuci ttpi tiocsc, ugi utiooci.
tv: cootv tptc, uc ticvc,, coot o ctcpc,.
cyvci utv tcp tcooi, tcpc ttupcoi ot ucc
ocitc, cuv tsuivot:c, :ci o tstyuv:c 145
cptcst, pcicioi sc:cpicv:t, tpct.
Many poplars and elm-trees were swaying over our heads, and nearby, there was
the babble of the sacred stream, which ows down from the grotto of the Nymphs.
On the shady branches, the smoky-coloured cicadas toiled at their chirping; the
tree-frog could be heard in the distance among the close-packed briar thorns; larks
and nches were singing, the turtle-dove was moaning, and the bees were buzzing
around the springs. Everything smelled of a rich harvest and ripe fruits: pears at
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 147
our feet, apples rolled plenteously alongside us, and boughs laden with sloes hung
down to the ground. (Theocritus 7.13546)
In this single case, a primitivistic idealisation suggestive of the Golden
Age, in which the fruit automatically dropped off the trees for the men, is
achieved in the ritualised atmosphere of a rural harvest festival. The ideal-
ising imagination grows from rural reality there is indeed a superabun-
dance of fruit in the season of the harvest and from the logic of religious
thought. Phrasidamus and Antigenes were descendants of the noble family
of Merops, the legendary king of Cos, who were said to have given hospi-
tality to Demeter, while she was wandering in search of her lost daughter;
the story is reported by one scholiast on vv. 59, and had probably already
featured before Theocritus in Philetas Demeter.
57
The exceptional nature
of this setting is emphasised by the narrating Simichidas, who in all proba-
bility wants to present the setting created by Phrasidamus for the Thalysiae
as equal to the one where Phrasidamus forefather, Chalcon, had performed
the natural miracle of opening up the Bourina spring with a kick (ll. 47),
in a sort of parallel to Hesiods Hippocrene.
58
Theocritus intention, then,
would be to contrast a modern miracle of the bucolic world, of which
Simichidas has just been appointed the singer, with a true miracle of the
mythological past; the countryside, which Phrasidamus has organised into
an idealised locus amoenus, then enters into competition with the mythical
deeds of his forefathers.
59
Moreover, the enthusiastic interpretation that the
town poet Simichidas gives of the closing locus amoenus is a demonstra-
tion of the positive inuences exerted on Simichidas, both by his meeting
with Lycidas and, more generally, by the landscape and the presence of
the Nymphs:
60
the place celebrated by Simichidas appears to be conse-
crated to the Nymphs, and Simichidas had acknowledged their inspiration
(vv. 9193), in offering himself as a newHesiod, but one taught by Nymphs,
not Muses (see below, p. 154).
In the Phaedrus, too, the spot on the banks of the Ilissos, where the
dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus took place, was sacred to the
57
Cf. Sbardella (2000) 1768.
58
Cf. Krevans (1983) 20912. The Bourina spring may be identical with the spring of the Nymphs
at the end of the poem, cf. Puelma (1960) 162 n. 58, Sbardella (2000) Appendix I. Nevertheless,
there is no clear indication of this, and the different symbolic values connected with the two springs
(mythological characters versus living gures; Hesiodic inuences versus bucolic poetry; Muses
versus Nymphs) suggest rather that they embody an opposition between two different atmospheres.
59
Cf. Berger (1984) 289 and Hunter (1999) 192, for whom the technique is similar to that whereby
Pindar suggests that the achievements of his victor-patrons recall and replay the achievements of
their ancestors [. . .] the legendary past is not merely replayed in the near past of Simichidas memory,
but that near past is already itself mythic.
60
Cf. Pearce (1988) 209304.
148 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
Nymphs (230b), as was the spring overlooking that locus amoenus; Socrates
himself stated several times that he was inspired by the Nymphs (cf. below,
pp. 1512). Moreover, Phaedrus put down the naivety of Socrates descrip-
tion of the locus amoenus to the sense of initial discovery of the countryside
by the town-dwelling philosopher (230cd):
O most excellent Socrates, you seem to me to be a truly odd man. As you say, you
are like a stranger led by a guide, and not like a native of this place. It seems to me
that you never go beyond the limits of the town, or even outside the walls.
The Phaedrus allows us to understand that Simichidas unrealistic idealisa-
tion of the locus amoenus is motivated by the enthousiasmos generated by
the Nymph-controlled environment on the rst performance of this new
bucolic poet, or, in more prosaic terms, by the enthusiasm of the town
poet on rst discovering the countryside as a theme of poetry.
Selective, rather thancomplete, idealisation, is thenTheocritus preferred
mode, even in the locus amoenus of Idyll 7. Not uncommonly, however, this
is combined with more realistic elements drawn from the bucolic world of
the shepherds, often indeed to make the artice of selection and partiality,
the ctional character of his bucolic world, less evident. Thus, for example,
there are exchanges between pairs of shepherds, in which the one who is
about to sing or play is careful to ask the other one to look after his ock
in the meantime, or sometimes the companion who declares his readiness
to do so in advance, or again, before singing, both shepherds take care to
leave their animals in a safe place, so as to have more freedom for their
song.
61
So too, when the song is over, the shepherds may remember their
ocks and their individual duties, and sometimes they start to speak again
in crude, concrete language.
62
It is this selective mixture of idealisation and
reality that distinguishes Theocritean realism from the idealised and/or
imprecise description
63
of the countryside and pastoral life that we nd
in the poems of his Greek imitators and in Virgils Eclogues: for them, the
world of shepherds is merely an apparatus of objects, images and forms
of expression, codied, for the Greek poets, in a now recognisable literary
genre, and, for Virgil, as a sentimental alternative to town life.
61
Cf. 1.1214, 3.15. On the contrary, the Cyclops, a parody of the shepherd, entirely forgot his ock
while he serenaded Galatea (11.1213).
62
Cf. e.g. 1.1512, recalling the crude naturalness of animal sex, immediately after the conclusion of the
drama of Daphnis, 4.4449, and 5.14150, where the allusion to the Homeric Melanthius reminds
us that these shepherds are Theocritus shepherds, who know their Homer; for such mixed effects in
Theocritus, cf. W. G. Arnott, Lycidas and Double Perspectives Ecl as 26 (1984) 33346.
63
On imprecision and scarce attention to realismin the spurious works of the corpus, cf. Rossi (1971b),
and in general W. Elliger, Die Darstellung der Landschaft in der griechischen Dichtung (BerlinNew
York 1975) 31964.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 149
Just as there is at least one case in which Theocritus describes an ide-
alised locus amoenus for the ritualised, mythologised atmosphere of the
Thalysiae so there are some exceptional cases in which he suspends the
selective realism with which he habitually presents his characters, and
allows the world of nature and the world of human activity and suffering
to ow into each other. The exceptions are Daphnis (7.727 and 1.64145)
and the divine Comatas of 7.7885,
64
both of whom are gures belonging
to the mythical past of bucolic poetry, and are in a certain sense its hero-
founders. They therefore have a special claim to the highly mythologised
atmosphere which Theocritus creates for them. Nature is humanised by
the pathetic fallacy which attributes to it a sentimental participation and
interaction with human affairs: the bees feed Comatas, who is closed inside
a chest; all nature mourns for Daphnis,
65
both tame animals and wild ones,
including a highly improbable Sicilian lion, in a scene which breaks down
the otherwise habitual separation between wild nature and domesticated
herding (cf. 1.715 and 11517). Moreover, as in heroic epic, in the story of
Daphnis a direct participation in human affairs is imagined for the gods,
both Olympian (Hermes, Aphrodite) and other (Pan, Priapus). The gods
seemto have been part of the legend of Daphnis before Theocritus (accord-
ing to Diodorus Siculus 4.84.34, Daphnis was a member of the musical
entourage of Artemis), but otherwise they have no interaction with his
herdsmen, who are imagined as Theocritus living contemporaries.
The coherence of Theocritus bucolic world can also be seen in the
different characterisation of the contemporary Daphnis of Idyll 6 and the
mythical Daphnis of Idylls 1 and 7. The relationship between the Daphnis
of Idyll 6 and the mythical gure has been much debated, but whether or
not he is a different character, called Daphnis as a tribute to his poetic
ability,
66
the Daphnis of Idyll 6 is undoubtedly presented in a realistic
environment, in which the everyday needs of pastoral life make themselves
felt.
67
He engages in a singing competition (tpiootv, v. 5) with a shepherd
friend of his, in terms that are perhaps more amicable, but otherwise not
very different from those of the realistic shepherds of Idyll 5.
68
In both
64
It is not clear whether these verses all refer to the goatherd Comatas, or rst to a goatherd who
suffered the same fate as Comatas and then to Comatas himself; cf. Hunter (1999) 1756.
65
Diodorus Siculus 4.84.1 describes the region of Sicily where Daphnis lived (the Heraean mountains)
as a lush locus amoenus, in terms which may themselves be inuenced by the myth of Daphnis.
66
Cf. Legrand (1898) 151.
67
Verses 12 they gathered the herd together in a single place allude to the harmony of the two
shepherds (cf. Bernsdorff (1994) 41), but also has an obvious effect of realism for two shepherds
about to engage in a song contest; cf. 1.13, where Thyrsis asks the goatherd to play his syrinx,
assuring him that he will pasture his goats in the meantime.
68
On the parallelism between the boukoliasmoi of Idylls 5 and 6, cf. Serrao (1977) 18994.
150 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
poems, there is sally and riposte, though these are multiple in Idyll 5,
whereas there is only a single exchange of lengthier songs in Idyll 6; in
this latter poem, Daphnis imagines that he is the friend and advisor of
the Cyclops, and Damoitas, Daphniss companion, assumes the r ole of the
Cyclops to answer Daphnis. Much of the irony of Idyll 6 derives from the
fact that this living Daphnis
69
warns Polyphemus not to be too difcult
with Galatea by ignoring her, because in that way he would be destined
to be unhappy in love (ootpc,
70
); in other words, Daphnis warns him
about the very unhappiness of which Priapus accused the mythical Daphnis
in 1.8288
71
. However, the Cyclops, as interpreted by Damoitas, seems to
adopt the stubbornness of the mythical Daphnis, although he interprets
this in his own way: he pretends to ignore her, so he claims, as part of a
strategy to win Galatea as his wife (cf. vv. 323).
Idyll 6 is thus an interpretation in a facetious key of the tragic story of the
Daphnis of Idyll 1, and at the same time an interpretation in a more or less
serious key of the comic clumsiness of the Cyclops of Idyll 11; it is as if the
representation of the stories by two living, contemporary shepherds, and
the assimilation of those stories to their own rustic scheme of logic, could
moderate the tragic or parodic dimensions implicit in the two heroes of the
bucolic world par excellence, Daphnis and Polyphemus. Howfar Theocritus
(andhis Damoitas) tookthe Cyclops marriage strategy seriously, or whether
the whole of the Cyclops song in Idyll 6 is a cruel manifestation of the self-
deception suggested at the end of Idyll 11 (ll. 769), depends, in part, on the
question of whether Theocritus knew and expected his audience to know
the version of the myth which included the birth of a son to the Cyclops
and Galatea, and thus the consummation of the Cyclops dream of love.
72
Be that as it may, the bucolic mask of the lovesick Cyclops in Idyll 6 has
none of the parodic features which characterise the versication of Idyll
11; the hexameters of the Cyclopss love song in Idyll 11 are as clumsy as
the song itself, but the hexameters of Idyll 6 are fully in keeping with the
69
As the introductory scholium b to Idyll 1 already calls him, to distinguish him from the mythical
character.
70
In 1.85 and 6.7 this term, whose precise meaning is controversial, probably implies an inability to
love the persons who could actually reciprocate the love, cf. R. M. Ogilvie, JHS 82 (1962) 10610
and F. W. Williams, JHS 89 (1969) 1223. For a different view, i.e. deeply affected by the bitterness
of love, cf. Schmidt (1987) 5766.
71
Alternatively, the Daphnis of Idyll 1 falls into the error of which the Daphnis of Idyll 6 invites him
to beware, cf. Bernsdorff (1994) 45. On the Cyclops of Idyll 6 as another Daphnis, cf. Stanzel (1995)
18690.
72
The version was known already to Timaeus (FGrHist 566F69). For later references cf. Propertius
3.2.910 and Nonnus 39.25764, 40.55357.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 151
principles of harmony to which Theocritus other bucolic poems, like the
hexameters of Callimachus, aspire.
73
Analogously, the Daphnis of Idyll 6,
the pragmatic advisor in questions of love, whose advice is not to play hard
to get but rather to seize the opportunity and who lives in perfect (perhaps
even erotic
74
) harmony with his shepherd friend Damoitas in a natural
realistic setting, is to be seen as an exemplary contrast to the Daphnis of
Idyll 1, who was the victim of his tragically ootpc, character and who was
in contact with the gods in an unreal, mythologised setting.
Theocritus bucolic world not only has its specic natural setting and its
specic heroes, but it also has its specic gods. One of the important ways
in which Theocritus gives coherence and credibility to the setting and to
the bucolic characters is through the specialisation of their pantheon. For
the Greeks, there was of course a real division in the areas of responsibility
and competence among the various gods, and this was true of rustic deities,
no less than any others. In his Cynegeticus (chap. 35), Arrian explicitly notes
that different activities require the attention of different gods:
those who sail the seas commence from the gods whose concern is human safety,
and when they are rescued, they offer thanksgiving sacrices to the sea gods,
Poseidon, Amphitrite and the Nereids; those who till the land offer sacrices to
Demeter and her daughter and to Dionysus; those who practise crafts, to Athena
and Hephaestus . . . so also keen hunters must be sure not to neglect Artemis the
Hunter, and Apollo, and Pan, and the Nymphs, and Hermes, god of journeys, and
Hermes the Guide, and all the other divinities of the mountains.
Long before Arrian, and before Theocritus, this specialisation of the rustic
pantheon is clearly seen not only in the two writers of epigrams who pay
the greatest attention to the rustic world of humble people, Leonidas and
Anyte,
75
but also in Platos Phaedrus and Menanders Dyskolos, in which
the rural setting plays a prominent role. In the Phaedrus, Socrates explains
his choice to hold the discussion in the rst real locus amoenus of Greek
literature (230bc, cf. above) by pointing out that the place is sacred to the
Nymphs and to Achelous (230b89) and that Pan and the Nymphs, the
daughters of Achelous, are the divinities who will inspire the discussion
76
73
Cf. Fantuzzi (1995b), and above, pp. 347.
74
Cf. E. L. Bowie, Frame and Framed in Theocritus Poems 6 and 7 in HarderRegtuitWakker
(1996) 91100.
75
For Leonidas, the recipients of the veneration of farmers, shepherds, etc. are Pan, the Nymphs and
Hermes. Cf. AP 6.334 = HE 1966ff., Nymphs, Hermes, Pan; 6.188 = HE 1972ff., Pan; 9.326 = HE
1979ff., Nymphs; 9.329 = HE 1984ff., Nymphs; 6.13 = HE 2249ff. and 6.35 = HE 2255ff., Pan;
POxy. 662 = HE 2277ff., Pan and Nymphs. For Anyte cf. APlan. 291 = HE 672ff. (dedication of a
shepherd to Pan and the Nymphs), and APlan. 231 = HE 738ff. (Pan presented as a shepherd).
76
Cf. Gutzwiller (1991) 767.
152 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
(cf. 238d, 241e, 263d). At the end of the dialogue, Socrates addresses his
salutation and nal prayer to Pan and the other gods of the place (279b).
A few decades later, in the Dyskolos, a comedy by Menander which is, most
unusually, not set in town but in the countryside, the god who presents
the prologue is Pan and the chorus might be composed of followers of
Pan.
77
At the centre of the stage, moreover, there is the door of the temple
of Pan and the Nymphs;
78
the action will come to a head during a sacrice
at this temple, and Pan plays a very important r ole throughout the whole
drama. It is Pan who causes Sostratus to fall in love with the daughter of
Cnemon while she is paying honour to the Nymphs (vv. 3952), and he
also causes the mother of Sostratus to have a dream, in which he reveals
indirectly to her what he had already told the spectators in the prologue
(vv. 40718).
Theocritus bucolic mimes carry the specialised narrowing of the rustic
pantheon even further, but in other poems too he pays particular attention
to the specialisation of the divinities that inspire poetry. The Muses had
been the most common divine inspirers of poetry in all literary genres, but
for the archaic hexameter epos of Homer and Hesiod they have a particular
importance; as divinities, they can function as particularly trustworthy
witnesses of stories about the deeds of gods or heroes in a remote past
(cf. e.g. Iliad 2.48486 and Odyssey 8.48791) and as guarantors of the
ethical and theological truths presented by Hesiod.
79
In his two encomiastic
poems, Theocritus too appears to make a distinction between the Muses
and other divinities who inspire song, based on the status of the protagonist
of the song. In the case of the semi-divine laudandus of Idyll 17, Ptolemy
II Philadelphus a pc:c, mortal (v. 4), who is also a contemporary
vnp ,cc,, namely a contemporary hero
80
Theocritus contrasts his
personal choice of this theme with the habitual thematic choice of the
Muses (the gods) and the habitual choice of the ancient bards inspired by
the Muses (the heroes); he thus adopts as a term of comparison both
for similarity and difference archaic hymnody and epic. In the course
of the poem he explicitly presents encomiastic poetry for Ptolemy as a
new possibility for inspiration by the Muses: the spokesmen (otcgn:ci)
of the Muses celebrate Ptolemy for his benefactions (vv. 11516). In Idyll
16, however, which is a promise of an encomium for a laudandus whose
77
If we accept the emendation of tcicvio:,, which is metrically difcult, to tcvio:,, v. 230.
78
The combined worship of Pan and the Nymphs was widespread, cf. above n. 75, Ch. M. Edwards,
Greek Votive Reliefs to Pan and the Nymphs (Diss. New York 1985) 207.
79
Cf. e.g. Finkelberg (1998) 713.
80
Cf. O. Vox, ,ccv stc,: poeta e committente nelle Cariti Kleos 7 (2002) 193209, pp. 1968.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 153
virtues fall entirely within the eld of human characteristics and capacities
(Hieron II of Syracuse), Theocritus at times evokes the Muses (vv. 13, (for
the polemical tone here, see above, p. 1401), 29, 58, 69, 107), and at times
the Graces (vv. 612, 1089); in this way, he continues a tradition typical of
epinician poetry, which saw the Muses and the Graces united as guarantors
of the beauty which enhances the deeds of the laudandus and attracts the
favour of the public for the song, thus ensuring a lasting continuity for the
latter and glory for the laudandus himself.
81
In Idylls 1 and 37 by Theocritus, which we may call the serious bucolic
idylls (in opposition to the agricultural Idyll 10 and the bucolic-parodic
Idyll 11),
82
we nd that the Muses play an utterly marginal r ole. Rather, it
is the Nymphs who, as the inspirers of pastoral poetry, very often occupy
the place which in poetic tradition had always been occupied exclusively
by the Muses; it is as if the Muses can no longer be up-to-date and effec-
tive witnesses for the new bucolic world, which is, if anything, now the
realm of the Nymphs. Thus, for example, the Muses are almost com-
pletely absent from the perspective of the two herdsmen of Idyll 5, the most
realistic of Theocritus song competitions; on the contrary, they believe
that they owe their inspiration to the Nymphs, to whom they gratefully
offer sacrice at the end of their songs (cf. vv. 140, 149). The opposition
between the Muses and the Nymphs is also very clear in Idyll 7. At the
beginning of the poem, the protagonist, Simichidas, presents himself as a
town-dweller (v. 2) and as an cioc, whom public opinion considers to
be a resonant mouth of the Muses (v. 37); unlike Simichidas, Theocritus
shepherds never call themselves cioci, though Komatas in Idyll 5 applies
the term to the mythical Daphnis (5.801, cf. below, p. 1546), nor do they
ever describe their singing as tiotiv, a verb perhaps a little too closely
associated with heroic epic, the poetry of the Muses par excellence. In his
rst speech, Lycidas speaks of Simichidas as a person tied to the urban
world and its habits (vv. 245: are you hurrying off to a dinner without
being invited, or are you racing to some townsmans winepress?), though
Simichidas explains that he considers himself currently to be on loan to
the pastoral world, on the occasion of the journey which he is making to
take part in the rural celebration of the Thalysiae for Demeter (vv. 3136);
this authorises him to think that he can vie with Lycidas in singing (v. 30)
and, specically, in pastoral song (vv. 356). Later, however, in the spirit of
81
For the combination of the Muses and Graces in a poetic context cf. e.g. Pindar, Nem. 9.535;
Bacchylides 5.314, 9.15; Euripides, HF 67386; B. MacLachlan, The Age of Grace (Princeton 1993)
87123.
82
Further evidence for considering Idylls 1 and 37 as a group is metrical, cf. Fantuzzi (1995a).
154 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
the rustic song that Lycidas had introduced in vv. 501 (see, my friend, if
you like this little song that I composed recently on the mountainside), it
is to the Nymphs that Simichidas makes reference as his teachers (vv. 913)
in an obvious rewriting of Hesiods inspiration (Theogony 223) by the
Muses:
. . . Ausioc git, tcc utv cc
Nugci snut oioccv v cptc cusctcv:c
to, s:.
My dear Lycidas, the Nymphs have also taught me many other good songs, while
I was herding on the mountains . . .
The turn to Hesiod perhaps suggests the tradition in which Simichidas
places not only his own poetry, but bucolic poetry as a whole.
83
Finally,
when at the culmination of the description of the locus amoenus, which
sets the seal on the idealisation of the pastoral world, he seeks inspiration
in order to magnify by means of mythological paradigms the excellence
of Phrasidamuss wine, Simichidas does not invoke the Muses, even on a
mythological subject; rather, he invokes the Nymphs Nymphs of Castalia,
you who inhabit the cliffs of Parnassus (v. 148) where it is not by chance
that he chooses to name, as the home of the Nymphs, a mountain and
a spring which were already (or were in the process of becoming) closely
connected with the Muses. Moreover, he also chooses to imitate the Iliadic
epithet with which Homer had regularly invoked the Muses, Outic
ocuc: tycuoci whose habitation is on Mount Olympus, whenever he
had to ask for their help at points of particular difculty.
84
The Muses resume the full exercise of their function as witnesses of a
remote past, unattainable for men of the present, and as goddesses with the
task of singing of the gods (cf. Idyll 16.3), when the scene does not present
shepherd-singers imagined as living, contemporary gures, but rather when
the singer or the theme of the song is one of the semi-mythical hero-founders
of bucolic poetry, or at least one of its leading exponents, who is therefore
in a certain sense mythologised (like Lycidas). For this reason, both the
divine Comatas, whose feats as a bucolic hero are sung by Lycidas in Idyll 7
(cf. v. 82: the Muse poured sweet nectar on to his lips), and Daphnis, who
appears to have been celebrated as a hero-founder of bucolic poetry at least
83
Cf. Hunter (1999) 1789.
84
Cf. Il. 2.484, 11.218, 14.508, 16.112. The rst certain reference to a connection between the Muses and
Parnassus is in a fragment of one of the epigraphic Hymns from Delphi (p. 71 Crusius); cf. further
J. Schmidt, RE 18.16548.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 155
as early as Stesichorus
85
and thus already had a place in literary tradition
and mythology before Theocritus, are connected with the Muses. This is
consistent with the fact that, unlike Theocritus ordinary herdsmen, these
two heroes of bucolic poetry are placed in a fable-like setting outside
time, characterised by the pathetic fallacy (cf. above, p. 149) and by the
participation of the gods in human affairs. The Daphnis of Idyll 6, however,
remains untouched by the inspiration of the Muses, and his world has not
the slightest trace of the mythologised or the unreal; so too, the Comatas
of Idyll 5 is not the mythical hero of bucolic poetry, but rather is presented
in a low, hyper-realistic manner, and it is only momentary hyperbole that
leads him to claim that the Muses love me much more than Daphnis, the
singer (vv. 801), for he too has the Nymphs and Pan as leading gures
in his pantheon (vv. 17, 58, 70, 149). By way of contrast, the Muses are
at the heart of Thyrsis song about the mythical Daphnis in Idyll 1: the
goatherd states in his opening encomium of Thyrsis that Thyrsis song
will be second only to that of the Muses (v. 9), though on the contrary
Thyrsis himself compares the goatherd to Pan, in view of his ability at
playing the syrinx (v. 3); so too, the refrains that punctuate Thyrsis song
are addressed to the Muses, as are the envoi and promise of libations which
close the song (vv. 1445).
86
As for Lycidas, he is a semi-divine singer, who
has the authority to invest Simichidas as a pastoral poet, or perhaps even a
god in disguise: Pan, a satyr, and Apollo Lykios have all been suggested.
87
Simichidas introduces his song by calling Lycidas dear to the Muses (v. 95),
and subsequently he says that the stick given to him by Lycidas was a gift
of friendship from the Muses (v. 129), just as the encounter with Lycidas
was, as he tells us, with the Muses (v. 12); these details are recognitions
of the higher nature of Lycidas himself and reinforce the idea that we
are witnessing a poetic investiture of a Hesiodic kind.
88
This counterpoint
between the Nymphs and the Muses nds expression also in the description
of Daphnis in Idyll 1.141 as the man dear to the Muses, and not hateful
to the Nymphs: the semi-divine Lycidas is dear to the Muses (7.95),
85
Cf. above n. 23.
86
Myrinus, AP 7.703 = GPh 2574ff. has Thyrsis asleep and besieged by Eros; the epigram attributes
to the Nymphs, not to the Muses, the task of taking care of Thyrsis safety, presumably as a result
of the importance of the Nymphs in Theocritus bucolic poems, cf. Bernsdorff (2001) pp. 1523.
87
For the divine characteristics of the epiphany of Lycidas cf. Puelma (1960), Archibald Cameron,
The Form of the Thalysia in Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di A. Rostagni (Turin 1963)
291307, Hunter (1999) 147 with further bibliography. Among the very few voices who dissent from
this interpretative koine are B. M. Palumbo Stracca, Lironia di Teocrito nella polemica letteraria
delle Talisie Boll. Class. Lincei 27 (1979) 6978 and Horstmann (1976) 15960; for the position of
Effe, see also above, n. 8.
88
Cf. Pearce (1988) 2901.
156 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
but Daphnis is a mythical hero-poet of the past (and, as such, a follower
of the Muses), but also one in whose story the Nymphs played a major
r ole.
89
The internal coherence of the Theocritean system is not only revealed
in his choice of the divinities that haunt the landscape and inspire pas-
toral poems, but there is also a more general specialisation of the bucolic
pantheon. Apart from the omnipresent Nymphs, the pastoral idylls feature
almost exclusively Pan
90
, Apollo Paean
91
, and Priapus
92
, and this speciali-
sation is in fact dramatised by Theocritus in Idyll 1. Whatever might have
been Daphnis behaviour towards Aphrodite, about which Theocritus is
notoriously elusive, the opposition between the two is an essential element
in the heroic stature given to Daphnis in this poem that celebrates him;
nevertheless, Thyrsis creates a sharp contrast between the, at least initially,
hostile Aphrodite and the series of rustic gods Pan, Hermes, Priapus
who come to offer advice and mourn for Daphnis. Hermes even echoes
the famous words of Aphrodite (!) to Sappho in a scene (fr. 1 Voigt) of
epiphany and consolation: Aphrodite had appeared to Sappho with her
usual divine smile, utioicio cv:c tpcoctc with a smile on her
immortal face (l. 14), whereas she comes to Daphnis cotc . . . ,tcioc, |
pn utv ,tcioc, cpuv o vc uucv tycioc rejoicing sweetly, rejoic-
ing internally, but displaying grief (ll. 956).
93
Sapphos Aphrodite (vv. 18
20) had asked :ivc ono:t ttic | c o c,nv t, ocv gic:c:c, :i, o c |
1tg oisnti; who shall I persuade to lead you back to her love? Who is
wronging you, OSappho? In Theocritus, on the contrary, it is Hermes who
proves to be a ouucyc, of Daphnis (cf. Sappho vv. 278), and asks him,
in the reverse order, Agvi, | :i, :u sc:c:pyti, :ivc,, c,ct, :coocv
tpcoci; Who is tormenting you, Daphnis? With whomare you so in love?
(vv. 778). Thus, Theocritus inverts the r ole of Aphrodite, and Hermes
plays for Daphnis the r ole that the benevolent Aphrodite had played for
Sappho.
Theocritus shepherds are equally coherent in swearing only by Pan
94
,
the Nymphs
95
, or Apollo Paean
96
; there is hardly a place for the tradi-
tional guarantors of oaths in Greek literature, such as Zeus and Heracles.
89
According to the best-known version of the legend, both Daphnis mother and lover were Nymphs;
Diodorus Siculus 4.84 has him also brought up by the Nymphs.
90
1.3, 1.16, 4.63, 5.58, 7.103, 7.106.
91
5.79, 6.27.
92
1.21, 1.81.
93
For this passage, whose meaning is much disputed (cf. G. Tarditi, Il sorriso di Afrodite in Filologia
e forme letterarie: studi offerti a F. Della Corte (Urbino 1987) I.34753), I follow the interpretation
offered by G. Zuntz, Theocritus I, 95f., CQ 10 (1960) 3740.
94
4.47, 5.14 and 141, 6.21.
95
1.12, 4.29, 5.17 and 70.
96
Cf. above, n. 91.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 157
The few exceptions are placed in the mouth of rather dubious characters.
In Idyll 4.50, the character who utters an oath by Zeus is Battus, who
throughout that poem is repeatedly ridiculed for his pathetic excesses, and
who is also characterised linguistically by exaggerated, para-tragic forms
of expression:
97
his interlocutor Corydon, the example of the good shep-
herd who possesses a clear sense of reality, swears by the Nymphs (v. 29)
and Pan (v. 47). When Lacon swears by Zeus at 5.74, this must be read
against Comatas immediately preceding oath by the Nymphs (v. 70) and
immediately following exclamation: O Paean! (v. 79); Comatas will win
the song contest, and it is easy to understand whose form of oath is the
more correct. So, too, the parodic Cyclops swears by Zeus (11.29), but by
Pan and Paean in 6.21 and 6.27, in a scene in which he is being represented
by the shepherd Damoitas and thus now conforms to bucolic norms (cf.
above, pp. 1501).
A certain specialisation, aimed in this case at an effect of realism, can
be observed also in the way in which religious celebrations are presented.
The great traditional celebrations for Demeter and Adonis which dominate
respectively the nal parts of the bucolic Idyll 7andthe urbanIdyll 15 become
central toandemblematic of the poetic contexts inwhichthey are presented.
Thus, the Thalysiae of Idyll 7 become the opportunity for a mise en abme of
the broader, idealised locus amoenus of Theocritus bucolic poetry, and the
Adonia raises to its highest peak of magnicence the urban setting which
had been presented at the beginning of the poem in the parodic tones of
mime. Prayer is another area in which traditional practice involving the
Olympian gods gives way to expressions invoking good luck and forms of
popular superstition like the apotropaic spitting of 6.39 and 7.1267
98
or
the sieve-divining of the scosivcucv:i, Agroio in 3.312.
99
It is magic,
not with fewexceptions, such as the Thalysiae the traditional Olympian
religion, which now dominates, whether it be the song of Simaitha in the
urban Idyll 2, or that of Simichidas in the bucolic Idyll 7. Magical practice
had, of course, featured occasionally in high literature before the 0uvc,
otouic, binding song of Aeschylus Erinyes (Eumenides 30796)
100
is an
obvious example but it is in Sicilian mime and Menander that we should
look for Theocritus immediate forebears. Sophronis claimedby the ancient
scholiasts as the model both for the magical rite of Idyll 2 and, specically,
97
Cf. Segal (1981) 95106.
98
Cf. D. E. Gershenson, Averting coscvic in Theocritus: a Compliment CSCA 2 (1969) 14555.
99
Cf. W. G. Arnott, Coscinomancy in Theocritus and Kazantzakis Mnemosyne 31 (1978) 2732.
100
On which cf. Ch. A. Faraone, Aeschylus 0uvc, otouic, (Eum. 306) and Attic Judicial Curse Tablets
JHS 105 (1985) 1504.
158 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
for the character of Thestylis (cf. above, n. 4); the reference may be to
the mime The women who say that they are driving out the goddess (Tci
,uvcst, c :cv tcv gcv:i ttcv, PCG frs. 3
9),
101
and this same rite
also occurred in the Ot::n, Thessalian Witch, of Menander (PCG 170
5). Sophron and Menander show how magic was represented as an integral
part of daily life, as indeed it was: the large corpus of curse tablets, tabellae
dexionis, suggests that the prominence of magic was in fact increasing,
and this importance nds clear expression in Theocritus.
Idyll 2 is a magical ,c,n, a spell to draw the beloved one into ones
arms.
102
So, too, though of a rather different kind, is the request to help
Aratus which Simichidas addresses to Pan in Idyll 7:
:cv uci, lv, Oucc, tpc:cv ttocv co:t tc,yc,,
csn:cv :nvcic gic, t, ytpc, tptioci,
t: to: cpc 1ivc, c uccsc, t:t :i, cc,. 105
sti utv :c0: tpoci,, c lcv git, un:i :u tcot,
Apscoisci osicioiv otc ttup, :t sci cuc,
:cvisc uco:icitv, c:t sptc :u:c tcptin
ti o cc, vtoci, sc:c utv ypcc tv: cvytooi
ocsvcutvc, svocic sci tv sviocioi sctoci,, 110
tn, o Hocvcv utv tv cptoi ytiuc:i utooc, s:.
O Pan, you who have received by lot the lovely plain of Homole, press him [the
beloved], without the need for any invitation, into the loving arms of that man
[his friend Aratus] whether it is really the delicate Philinus or another. If you
do this, dear Pan, may the boys of Arcadia never scourge you with squills on your
sides and your shoulders, when there is insufcient meat. But if you do not give
your consent, may you scratch the bites all over your body with your nails, and
sleep among stinging nettles and stay out on the mountains of the Edonians in
mid-winter . . . (Theocritus 7.10311)
The combination of prayer and threats is typical of the prayers found in
magical texts;
103
particularly close to Simichidas poem is the following
magical text, in which the practitioner threatens to throw the demons
that he invokes into the ames, if they do not bring his beloved into his
arms: If you bring Euphemia to me [. . .] I will give you Osiris Nophri ot
101
For this magical practice: Hipp., Morb. Sacr. 4, Plato, Gorg. 513a, Ar. Clouds 74950, Lucian,
Dial. Mer. 1 and Philops. 14, PGM 34 Preisendanz. For discussion cf. C. Pr eaux, La lune dans la
pensee grecque (Brussels 1970) 1212, R. van Compernolle, Faire descendre la lune in Grec et latin
1982:
Etudes et documents dedies ` a la memoire de G. Cambier, (Brussels 1982) 537, and the note of
P. Fedeli on Prop. 1.1.19, p. 79.
102
Cf. Ch. A. Faraone, The Performative Future in Three Hellenistic Incantations and Theocritus
Second Idyll CPh 90 (1995) 115.
103
Cf. R. W. DanielF. Maltomini, Supplementum magicum, I (Opladen 1990) 169 on 45.14, and
FantuzziMaltomini (1996).
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 159
[. . .] and he will revive your spirits. But if you do not do what I am
asking you, E oneby oth will burn you. I swear it to you, demons that are
here present (Suppl. mag. I, 45.1115 DanielMaltomini). It is obvious that
Egyptian traditions had an important inuence on the practice and spread
of magical prayers, but there was, in all probability, already an example of
a threatening prayer in an erotic situation in Greek literary tradition. In
a fragment of Anacreon (PMG 445), the poet apostrophises the naughty
Erotes (insolent and irresponsible, you who do not know who you will
strike with your arrows), and Himerius (Or. 48.4) introduces his quotation
of this fragment as follows:
Now I would have needed the songs from Teos [Anacreons birthplace], now I
would have needed the lyre of Anacreon, which he knew how to use even against
the Erotes themselves, when he was spurned by pretty boys . . . Perhaps I, too,
wouldhave pronouncedthe threat (nttinoc:nv ttinv) that Anacreonuttered
against the Erotes: once when he had fallen in love with a beautiful youth and saw
that the youth was not interested in him, he tuned his lyre and threatened (nttiti)
the Erotes that if they did not strike the youth at once, he would never again sing
a song in their praise (unst:i utc, t0gnucv ti, co:cu, vcspcococi).
Himerius might, of course, have exaggerated a merely playful gesture by
Anacreon, under the inuence of the magical practice of the Hellenistic and
late antique worlds.
104
Nevertheless, in Poem 11 of the Anacreontea, which
expands or varies Anacreons themes and language, the poet has bought a
wax statue of Eros froma boy in the street and therefore imagines that he has
the god under his control (Nowlight the re of love for me immediately! If
you do not obey, you will melt amid the ames); it is therefore reasonable
to suppose that the song from which Himerius quotes, or some other song
by Anacreon, really was a magical prayer, or at least could be interpreted as
such, and not only by Himerius.
One echo of Anacreon may be heard in Simichidas request to the Erotes
to strike (tiv) the boy that Aratus loves (vv. 11719): this invitation
might recall the exhortation to the Erotes to :i:pcostiv wound the
unwilling youth with love, which Himerius leads us to suppose was present
in Anacreon. If so, the literary operation is of a particularly sophisticated
kind. Theocritus writes for Simichidas a realistic prayer-threat, but bucol-
icises it by having him apostrophise one of the most important gods of the
bucolic pantheon, Pan, and by describing himas a shepherd (cf. v. 113: and
in spring may you pasture your ocks among the Aethiopes) who sleeps in
104
On possible afnities between the fragment of Anacreon and the magical prayer, cf. G. Azzarello,
KAl 2KOTO2 L2TAl: la minaccia nella preghiera magica (Diss. University of Pisa 1996).
160 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
the open air (v. 110). Pan is also the homosexual god par excellence, and he is
therefore the ideal recipient for this homosexual prayer;
105
the two aspects
of the god, the bucolic and the sexual, are thus seen as mutually comple-
mentary, just as Callimachus (fr. 689) united the two specialisations of the
god by calling Pan Maleietes :ptcvcv citciscv goatherd screwer.
106
By referring to the Erotes immediately afterwards, Theocritus may cap the
magical prayer with an allusion to one of the very few literary precedents
for such a prayer; moreover, as this precedent comes fromthe world of sym-
potic lyric, it appropriately matches Lycidas song and his bucolicisation
of the symposium.
107
Mythology, too, plays its part in Theocritus creation of a coherent
bucolic world. Mythological exempla, the stories of gods and heroes, were
the vehicle of positive and negative paradigms for human behaviour in
archaic and classical literature of all levels, and Theocritus wrote against
the background of the popularity in the fourth and third centuries of
mythological catalogue poetry. In such poems, episodes from the stories
of gods or heroes were presented as exemplary portraits with an application
to the real world and the situation of the poet; we know of such poems on
love, both heterosexual (Lyde by Antimachus, Leontion by Hermesianax,
and perhaps Apollo by Alexander Aetolus) and homosexual (Erotes or the
Beautiful Ones by Phanocles), for which the principal (real or claimed)
archaic models were Mimnermus Nanno and the Hesiodic Catalogue of
Women, and also curse poems, catalogues of exemplary sufferings and
terrible fates, to be used as paradigms with which to curse ones enemies
(the Arai Curses by Moiro, the tattoo poem (cf. Huys 1991), the Ibis
by Callimachus, and the Thracian, the Cup stealer and the Chiliads
by Euphorion).
108
For the characters of Theocritus, however, paradigms
of comprehensibility and truth are to be found rather in everyday, rus-
tic proverbs. In Idyll 5 alone, where the effect of pastoral realism is per-
haps strongest, we nd ve proverbs which are identied as such by the
scholia;
109
at least three also occur in the opening dialogue of Idyll 10 (The
harvesters), which is the other poemwhere realistic effects are most strongly
felt.
110
In this second case, all the proverbs are in the mouth of Milon,
the hard-working labourer whose Hesiodic perspective leaves little space
for erotic fantasy; the lovesick Bucaeus, poet of a very clumsy serenade
105
As the schol. on v. 103a already noted.
106
It is possible that the ritual mentioned by Theocritus was connected with hunting, as some ancient
scholars thought, cf. schol. on vv. 1068a.
107
Cf. above, pp. 1357.
108
Cf. Fantuzzi (1995b) 29, 35 and Cameron (1995) 3806.
109
Cf. scholia on vv. 23, 267, 31, 38, 65.
110
Cf. scholia on vv. 11, 13, 17; also vv. 545.
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 161
(cf. Milons ironic comment, vv. 3840), can no more utter rustic proverbs
than he can concentrate upon his work: his proverbial truth, one which
he himself should heed, is rather about the unpredictability and injustice
of Eros: Wealth is not the only blind god, blind also is reckless Eros
(vv. 1920).
111
The use of proverbs is mimetic of the illiterate simplicity typical of
the logic and language of bucolic characters,
112
and is thus a technique of
rustic realism. Aristotle, perhaps the rst thinker to give serious attention
to proverbs, considered them as residues of ancient philosophy which
had been lost in the great catastrophes of humanity, saved thanks to their
brevity and acuteness (fr. 463 Gigon),
113
a very noble origin, and one
analogous to the one offered for the traditional belief of ancient thinkers
in the divine character of nature (cf. Metaph. 12.1074b114).
114
Aristotle
designated farmers as the social group most inclined to use proverbs (they
are ,vcuc:tci: Rhet. 2.1395a67); so too, the use of proverbs was suitable
for the old, but not for the young or those lacking in experience, for
whom proverbial speech revealed a lack of culture (tciotu:cv).
115
It is
thus signicant that proverbs are wholly naturalised in the language of the
characters of the bucolic or rustic idylls, without ever being signalled by
the context, whereas they are often introduced by expressions which mark
them as proverbs (as the saying goes etc.) in the urban mimes, Idylls 14
and 15.
116
Theocritus humble characters, whether bucolic or urban, employ
mythological paradigms only sparingly. The only mythological passage of
any extent the exempla in the song of the goatherd of Idyll 3 (vv. 4051) is
marked by errors, which betray both the limited familiarity of this charac-
ter with the world of mythology, and a certain lack of faith on the part of the
111
Cf. V. Buchheit Amor Caecus C&M 25 (1964) 1301.
112
Cf. the use of proverbs by the characters of Herondas, discussed by W. G. Arnott, G&R 18 (1971)
1301.
113
Aristotles attention to proverbs was an attitude which aroused perplexities in some quarters (cf.
Aristotle fr. 464 Gigon) which may perhaps suggest its novelty.
114
One must regard this as an inspired utterance, and reect that, while probably each art and science
has often been developed as far as possible and has again perished, these opinions, with others, have
been preserved until the present like relics of the ancient treasure (Metaph. 12.1074b 913, trans.
Ross).
115
On proverbs as an element of popular (onuc:iscv) knowledge, cf. also Demetrius, Eloc. 232. There
was a lively interest in paroemiography in the fourth and third centuries, in the wake of Aristotles
collection lcpciuici (frs. 4634 Gigon), on the part of both the peripatetic school (Theophrastus,
Dicaearchus, Clearchus) and Chrysippus (SVF III p. 202). The scholia show that the identication
of proverbial expressions was one of the subjects that received most attention from the ancient
commentators of Theocritus, cf. Wendel (1920) 1427.
116
Cf. 14.43, 14.51, 15.77. In Idylls 11, 13, and 29 an opening proverbial maxim is presented as an opinion
shared by the author, which motivates the following narration.
162 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
author in the security of meaning of mythological paradigms (cf. below).
In Idyll 7 Simichidas, a character with whom Theocritus at least partly
identies, cites a couple of mythological paradigms when he magnies the
sublime nature of the locus amoenus at the end of the poem (vv. 14855).
The song of the lovesick Cyclops in Idyll 11 is presented as a exemplum for
the truth that singing brings healing from love (vv. 12), and the alleged
love of Galatea for the Cyclops is said by the cowherd Daphnis in Idyll 6
to illustrate the truth that love often considers beautiful that which is not
so (vv. 1819). In all of these paradigms, there is a kind of breakdown of
exemplarity: the stories offer an excess of meanings, some of which are
far from exemplary, and which therefore subvert the univocal paradigmatic
value for which the story itself is quoted. This phenomenon was, of course,
already known to fth-century tragedy, which made a serious, genuinely
paradigmatic use of mythological exempla,
117
but in Theocritus this break-
down represents the form in which mythological paradigms are regularly
presented: mythologicalheroic material is radically foreign to the literary
world created by bucolic poetry, even when it is apparently functioning as
exempla.
In the course of the paraklausithyron of Idyll 3, the goatherd believes
at a certain point, on the basis of a rustic omen, that Amaryllis is about
to yield to him; he thus tries to facilitate her surrender to love by listing
a series of mythical stories in which a period of courting nally led to
marriage. However, in virtually every case the happy end was followed by
wretched fates for one or both partners (Atalanta and Hippomenes, Adonis
and Aphrodite, Endymion and Selene, Jason and Demeter), and in the
case of Bias-Melampus-Pero (vv. 437), the love relationship was sealed,
not in favour of the one who had carried out the courting (Melampus), but
rather a third party (Bias) who enjoyed the fruits of the sacrices that the
courting had involved.
118
The validity of these exempla therefore depends on
whether we share the limited perspective of the goatherd and are prepared
to forget a large part of the meaning that the exempla would have had as
complete stories, or not to consider alternative versions whichdid not have a
happy ending. Neither ancient nor modernreaders will, however, ignore the
gap between the story as a whole and the specic narrative segment (or the
specic version) which the goatherd chooses; this gap might underline
the clumsiness of the goatherd in his inability to master the polysemy of
117
Cf. S. Goldhill, The Failure of Exemplarity in I. J. F. de Jong and J. P. Sullivan (eds.), Modern
Critical Theory and Classical Literature (Leiden 1994) 5173, G. Nagy, Mythological Exemplum in
Homer in R. Hexter and D. Selden (eds.), Innovations of Antiquity (New York 1992) 326.
118
Cf. Fantuzzi (1995b).
2 Verisimilitude and coherence 163
mythical stories,
119
or it might suggest an(unconscious) pessimismabout his
hopes of success, for his exempla are overshadowed by an aura of death.
120
We may also wish to fall back on the explanation of authorial irony at
the expense of the characters;
121
but it may rather be that mythological
paradigms and the secure interpretations which classical poetry had offered
for them are simply foreign to the new world of bucolic poetry.
A similar conclusion may be drawn for Idyll 7, not as a result of the rustic
clumsiness of any character, but rather from the astute rhetorical questions
of Simichidas himself, which explicitly raise the issue of the relevance of
mythological paradigms. The locus amoenus of vv. 13546, which, as we have
seen(cf. above pp. 1378), represents the idealisationof bucolic couyicand,
partly by means of the extreme renement of the gures of speech used in
it, emblematises how the poetics of Theocritus superimposes itself on the
real world of shepherds and the countryside to create a newpoetic world,
122
leads to a sublime nale of almost Pindaric grandeur:
:t:ptvt, ot ticv ttt:c spc:c, ctigcp.
Nugci Kco:ciot, lcpvoicv ctc, tycioci,
cp ,t tc :cicvot 1cc sc:c ivcv cv:pcv
spc:np Hpcsni ,tpcv to:oc:c Xipcv, 150
cp ,t tc :nvcv :cv tciutvc :cv tc: Avtc,
:cv spc:tpcv lcgcucv, c, cptoi vcc, tct,
:ccv vts:cp tttiot sc: c0ic tcooi ycpt0oci,
ccv on :csc tcuc oitspcvoc:t, Nugci,
cu c tcp Auc:pc, ccioc,,
He took the four-year-old seal off the top of the wine-jars. O Nymphs of Castalia,
who inhabit the peak of Parnassus, did ever old Chiron offer Heracles such a cup
in the rocky cave of Pholus? Was ever that shepherd who lived close to the Anapus,
the mighty Polyphemus who ung mountains at ships, persuaded to dance in his
sheepfolds by a nectar like the drink that you mixed for us, O Nymphs, beside the
altar of Demeter of the Threshing-Floor? (Theocritus 7.14755)
Simichidas apparently calls on the testimony of goddesses who inspire and
preserve the memory of mythic material, as if exhuming the traditional
119
Cf. e.g. G. Lawall, Theocritus Coan Pastorals (Cambridge, MA 1967) 401 and Dover (1971) 118.
120
For detailed analyses cf. R. Whitaker, Myth and Personal Experience in Roman Love-Elegy (G ottingen
1983) 4952, Stanzel (1995) 1317, M. P. Pattoni, Il III Idillio di Teocrito AevAnt 10 (1997) 18799,
though all appear to take too positive a view of the goatherds rst pair of exempla.
121
Against a pan-ironic interpretation of Theocritean poetry cf. Stanzel (1995) 10444, who, however,
goes too far in the other direction.
122
Cf. Hunter (1999) 193: the overt artice of the passage matches the artice of the locus which
Phrasidamus and his family have created; both pleasures are man-made [. . .] this passage thus
establishes the dialectic of art and nature which was to dominate all subsequent pastoral literature,
which claims to describe the natural, but does so in overtly articial ways.
164 Theocritus and the bucolic genre
gesture of calling the Muses toones aidat the beginning of a particularly tax-
ing mythological telling (cf. Iliad 2.4846, Ibycus, PMGF S151, Apollonius
Rhodius, Arg. 1.202 etc.). Here, however, we have not the Muses, but the
pastoral Nymphs, and the myths that follow have settings and characters
that are clearly pastoral; the Nymphs, therefore, here offer a guarantee of
reliability equal to that which the Muses traditionally offered. Elated by the
excellent wine served during the rustic symposium, Simichidas-Theocritus
seeks, in the nest Pindaric manner, a parallel in myth for this wine, and
so he asks the Nymphs if the wine mixed with the water that poured from
their spring (v. 154; cf. also v. 137) was the same as the wine of two famous
episodes of the mythical past. This passage raises this rustic symposium to
the sublime level of myth.
123
Every ancient andmodernreader, however, also
knows what it meant for Polyphemus to drink the extraordinary wine
124
that Odysseus offered him, and the reference to the Cyclops who ung
mountains at ships (v. 152) skilfully evokes the whole Homeric episode,
including the monsters blinding. Chiron too got no joy from offering the
marvellous wine of the Centaurs to Heracles:
125
in this story, the Centaurs
swarmed towards the bouquet; in the following skirmish, poor Chiron was
wounded (accidentally) by Heracles poisoned arrows and died a horrible
death. Thus, whereas the traditional use of mythological paradigms would
have suggested an afrmative answer to Simichidas questions, knowledge
of the whole story of the Cyclops andof Heracles andChironsuggests a quite
different answer: Lets hope not, for the sake of Phrasidamus guests . . .
The contrast between the bloody consequences of these two mythical sym-
posia and the peaceful atmosphere of Phrasidamus celebration emphasises
once again the ideal of bucolic couyic.
As for Idylls 6 and 11, the very existence of the two poems undermines
any alleged univocality of meaning in the story of the Cyclops love. Parallel
to the inversion of Daphnis in this poem (cf. above p. 149), Idyll 6 presents
a sort of overturning of the tragicomic Cyclops of Idyll 11 with his delirious,
passionate love. Leaving aside questions of the relative chronology of the
two poems, it is clear that each casts humorous light on the paradigmatic
nature of the other. In Idyll 11 the song of Polyphemus is supposed to
123
Cf. G. B. Miles, Ramus 6 (1977) 158: [the rhetorical questions of vv. 14855] express the narrators
heady exaltation, his feeling on this occasion of being something more than his normal self a
feeling which is in keeping with the Golden Age setting.
124
Cf. Odyssey 9.3579 .
125
The story was familiar in Sicilian literature before Theocritus, in the Geryoneis of Stesichorus
(PMGFS19), a comedy of Epicharmus (Heracles, PCG67), and another Sicilian comedy of uncertain
authorship, the Chiron ([Epich.] PCG 289
uucivtoscv,
pcv ttitvticv:t tupc, otc,, cp:c o u:un
n:t us:cv vtucv pcuc,, c0, :t uio:c
otioic:t, ut,c cgc, citcci to:ticv:c.
At rst the bulls showed their savage anger by exhaling a erce blast of glowing re;
their breath arose like the groan of buffeting winds which cause terried sailors to
take in the great sail. (Apollonius, Argonautica 3.13269)
In Book 15 of the Iliad, near to the image of the rock exposed to the winds
which had been exploited for the rst simile referring to Jason in his aristeia
(above p. 275), a simile describes Hectors furious attack and the strenuous
resistance of the Greeks:
tv o ttto c, c:t s0uc c n tv vni ttonoi
pcv otci vtgtcv vtuc:ptgt, n ot :t tcoc
cyvn ottspgn, vtucic ot otivc, n:n
o:ic tuptut:ci, :pcutcuoi ot :t gptvc vc0:ci
otioic:t, :u:cv ,cp ot ts cv:cic gtpcv:ci
c, tocit:c uuc, tvi o:ntooiv Aycicv.
He fell on them as when a wave, wind-fed to high fury under the clouds, falls on
a fast ship and shrouds it wholly in foam: the fearful blast of the wind roars in the
sail, and the sailors hearts tremble with fear, as they are carried only just out of
the grip of death so the Achaians spirits were troubled in their breasts. (Iliad
15.6249, trans. Hammond)
Homer and Apollonius thus share a nexus of images: Hector = bulls =
forces of the sea; Greeks = Jason = rock/sailors. In the passage of the Iliad,
however, the simile was centred around the image of the wave, and not so
much on that of the winds and their roar; in Apollonius, it is the winds
which hold centre-stage, because the ery blasts are, in reality, the arms
of Jasons antagonists, whereas, in Homer, the winds and the waves had
only been metaphors for Hectors erceness. Furthermore, only the roar of
the wind against the mast was mentioned in Homer, whereas the sailors
4 Apollonius Rhodius 279
action of striking the sails is described explicitly in Apollonius, in order
to underline the extreme danger of the bulls ery blast. This dissonance
betweenmodel andimitationis signalledalready inv. 1327, whenApollonius
transforms a highly formulaic expression from the Iliad, cp:c o u:n the
battle-cry rose up into cp:c o u:un the blaze rose up, thus underlining
the peculiar character of Jasons encounter:
96
his enemies do not react with
the typical battle-cry, but with bursts of re from their mouths.
This complex pattern of similarity to and difference from the Homeric
model is also clearly seen in the following image, the appearance of the
warriors born from the earth:
c o non sc:c tcocv vco:cytoscv cpcupcv
,n,tvtt, gptv ot ttpi o:icpc, ocsttooiv
ocpcoi : ugi,ci, scptooi :t cutcutvnoiv
Apnc, :tutvc, gioiupc:cu, st:c o c,n
vtictv O0uutcvot oi ntpc, o:pt:cuoc.
c, o ctc:, t, ,ccv tctc, vigt:cc ttocv:c,,
c tc ytiutpic, vtgtc, tstocoocv ctci
u,cin otc vus:i, :c o pcc tv:c gcvn
:tiptc cutt:ccv:c oic svtgc, c, cpc :ci,t
utcv vconoscv:t, ottp ycvc,, s:.
The earth-born were now springing up all over the ploughed eld. The enclosure
of Ares the man-destroyer bristled with stout shields and sharpened spears and
shining helmets; the gleam ashed through the air, reaching all the way from the
earth to Olympus. As when, after a heavy snowfall, wind gusts suddenly scatter the
wintry clouds in the gloom of night, and all the stars of heaven shine brilliantly
in the darkness; just so did the earth-born shine as they rose from the earth . . .
(Apollonius, Argonautica 3.135463)
Of particular importance is the description of a battleeld at Iliad 13.33943:
tgpitv ot uyn gioiupc:c, t,ytinoi
ucsp n,, , tycv :cutoiypcc, coot o cutpotv
co,n ycstin scpcv ctc cutcutvcv
cpnscv :t vtcouns:cv ocstcv :t gctivcv
tpycutvcv cuuoi,, s:.
The murderous battle shivered with the long spears they held to cut through esh:
their eyes were blinded in the ash of bronze from shining helmets and new-
polished corselets and bright shields as the men came on in their masses . . . (Iliad
13.33943, trans. Hammond)
96
Cf. Knight (1995) 112, the density of similes, along with other similarities to Homer, constructs
Jasons aristeia as a perverse kind of battle scene; the exaggeration of Homeric elements and their
appearance in new contexts shows the contrast with Homer.
280 The style of Hellenistic epic
The virtuosity of Apollonius reworking is underlined by the repetition, at
the beginning of the description, of the keyword gptv; this verb, which
had been used metaphorically in Homer to indicate the upright position of
spears, is used by Apollonius in terms very close to its primary meaning, the
bristling of hair (often due to trembling). Ancient scholars already noted
the fact that gpiootiv at Iliad 13.339 was a metaphor close to a simile for the
upright position of the spears, seen as something similar to the movement
of ears of wheat (cf. the schol. ex. ad loc.); Homer in fact uses gpiootiv in
this primary, concrete meaning at Il. 23.5989:
. . . c, t :t ttpi o:cytooiv ttpon,
nicu onoscv:c,, c:t gpioocuoiv cpcupci, s:.
. . . like the dew on a grain-eld, as the crop grows, and the elds bristle . . .
Apollonius divides up, between the rst and the last verses of his description
of the bristling earthborn men, the two verbs that Homer had combined
in the same line of this last passage of the Iliad (gptv <gpioocuoiv and
vconoscv:t, <onoscv:c,). He thus underlines, as he does again in
the simile of vv. 138691, to which we will return, that while the image of
the ears of wheat, which stand for spears in Iliad 13, is indeed reused, it is
so for warriors who are in fact born, like ears of wheat, from the earth; the
verb that indicates this growth in v. 1354 is vco:cytiv, to grow up like
an ear of corn, in what is actually both a battleeld and a true cpcupc,
just ploughed and sown.
The agonistic spirit underlying the attitude of Apollonius towards the
Homeric model is seen also in the detail that the glint (c,n) of the arms
of the earthborn st:c . . . vtictv O0uutcvot oi ntpc, o:pt:cuoc
ashed through the air, reaching all the way from the earth to Olym-
pus. This image is based on two Homeric passages, in which the c,n
of arms tcugcvccoc oi citpc, copcvcv st arrived gleaming in the
sky (Il. 2.458, cf. 19.362), but it substitutes Olympus for the sky, appar-
ently presupposing their identication; whether or not Homer accepted
this identication was a problem discussed by philologists before and
after Apollonius, though it is undoubtedly presumed in some fth-century
poetry.
97
As for the simile which accompanies this description, vv. 135963,
this borrows from several images which appear in Homeric similes (cf. Il.
8.55559, 12.27883, 19.35760), but it cannot be closely connected with
any of them. The effect is a simile which sounds very Homeric, but at
97
Cf. M. Noussia, Olympus, the Sky, and the History of the Text of Homer in F. Montanari (ed.),
Atti del convegno internazionale Omero tremila anni dopo (Rome 2002) 489503.
4 Apollonius Rhodius 281
the same time it is not really Homeric, but rather a truly autonomous
synthesis.
Most instructive of all perhaps are the last two similes for Jasons antago-
nists, in which the earthborn are literally mown down by Jason as a farmer
might prematurely harvest his crop:
c, o ctc:, ,ycpcioiv t,tipcutvcu tctucic,
otioc, ,ticucpc, un c tpc:ucv:ci pcpc,,
cptnv toscutn vtcn,tc ytpoi utucptc,
cucv ttiottocv stipti o:yuv, coot c noiv
uiuvti t, cpcinv :tponutvci nticic
c, c,t ,n,tvtcv stptv o:yuv
As when there is war between neighbouring peoples and a farmer fears that the
enemy will ravage his elds before the harvest: he snatches up his well-curved sickle
which has just been sharpened and hurriedly cuts the crop before it is fully ripe,
not waiting until harvest-time for it to be dried by the rays of the sun; just so did
Jason cut the crop of the earth-born. (Apollonius, Argonautica 3.138691)
Such slaughter had already been compared to the reaping of wheat in
Il. 11.6771:
c o, c, : un:npt, tvcv:ici ncioiv
c,ucv tcvcoiv vopc, uscpc, sc: cpcupcv
tupcv n spicv :c ot op,uc:c :cpgtc tit:ti
c, Tpct, sci Aycici tt ncioi cpcv:t,
oncuv, s:.
As bands of reapers work towards each other on a rich mans land, cutting their
swathes to meet across a eld of wheat or barley: and the crop falls handful after
handful to the ground. So the Trojans and Achaians leapt at each other and cut
men down . . . (Iliad 11.6771, trans. Hammond)
As was obvious to the ancient scholiasts,
98
the core of this very long-lived
image
99
is the functional analogy betweenarms andscythes. For Apollonius,
however, the common ground is much larger: the earthborn have, after all,
just sprung up like ears of wheat, and this allows Apollonius to reconstruct
a much more precise correspondence between the image and the narrative
context; moreover, Apollonius emphasis is specically on the fact that the
reaping is premature, rather than on the reaping tout court, as it had been
in Homer.
A comparable intensication of an image occurs in the following simile.
Apollonius imagines the bodies of the earthborn, which have only partly
98
He compared the ghters, with their swords and spears, to the reapers with their scythes.
99
Cf. e.g. Aesch. Suppl. 638, Ag. 536; Virg. Aen. 7.5206; Hor., Epist. 2.2.178.
282 The style of Hellenistic epic
developed when they are cut down by Jason, as out of proportion, with
big, heavy heads which they cannot support (tcocpcoi scpncoi with
drooping heads: v. 1398); he thus changes the image for the earthborn from
ears of wheat to shoots on a vine, which are battered down prematurely by
a violent rainstorm sent by Zeus:
tpvt tcu :cic,, ic, cott:cv cupnocv:c,,
gu:ci n vtcptt:c sc:nucuoiv tpct
scotv:c pintv, cncv tcvc, vopcv,
:cv ot sc:ngtin :t sci coccv c,c, svti
snpcu onucv:npc gu:c:pcgcv c, :c: cvcs:c,
Ain:cc cptci otc gptvc, ncv vci.
It is no doubt like this when a erce storm from Zeus causes young shoots in
the vineyard to bend to the ground, broken at the roots. The labour of the farm-
workers is wasted, and the farmer who owns the land is seized by despair and
bitter grief. Just so then did grievous pain grip King Aietes mind. (Apollonius,
Argonautica 3.13991404)
In this case also, Apollonius had two Homeric precedents behind him, a
comparison between the deaths of warriors and plants that fall under their
own weight (Il. 8.3068) and a comparison between the deaths of warriors
and shoots battered down by the violence of natural elements (Il. 17.5360).
Apollonius makes a complex use of these images, as he employs them both
to describe in greater detail how the earthborn are killed and collapse,
and to describe Aietes subsequent grief. A very brief mention in Iliad 17
of the farmer whose olive shoot is destroyed becomes the focal point of
Apollonius simile: the men born from the earth really are the shoots that
King Aietes had made Jason sow shortly before.
Jasons extraordinary exploits, which t neither into Homeric narrative
patterns nor the Homeric lexicon, thus become a sort of rustic epic, based
on a repertory of, mostly agricultural, images drawn from the similes with
which Homer had amplied his battle-narratives. The signicant analogy
between Jasons martial trials and ordinary agricultural activities motivates
and justies this reuse of these images and allows a closer match between
simile and narrative than we nd in Homer.
100
Thus could Apollonius be
both original and Homeric, or even more correct than Homer himself.
101
100
This motivation emerges openly at least once, in vv. 1340ff., when a periphrasis for the time of day
introduces a true ploughman, beside Jason who had himself just nished ploughing with the bulls.
101
Effe concludes in a recent study of Apollonian similes that they reveal an awareness that Homerus
non nisi imitando vincitur (Effe (1996) 312).
chapter 7
The epigram
1 i nscri pti on and epi gram: the prehi story of a genre
In accordance with their common derivation, tti,pcuuc and tti,pcgn
were originally almost synonymous: both referred to engraved writing on
a material which had not been specially constructed to receive writing,
such as a waxed tablet, parchment or papyrus. Even as late as the early
Hellenistic age, there is no indication that the idea of the epigram, as
a specic genre of short poems usually in elegiac couplets, ever existed.
1
Moreover, it is probably only from the end of the fourth century that
we can trace a tradition of literary epigrams, that is to say poems not, or
not necessarily, designed for public inscription; when it did appear, this
new form took up the two main earlier traditions of short poetry, namely
epitaphic or dedicatory inscriptions, usually in hexameters or, increasingly
from the end of the sixth century, elegiac couplets, and shorter lyric poetry
and erotic elegy (represented most notably by Mimnermus and the second
book of the corpus of Theognis). At the heart of this new form was the
quest for concentrated expression and the acuteness of a nal pointe, rather
than specic and generically determinative subject-matter; consequently
we nd, in our corpus of literary epigrams, sad epitaphs alongside both
serious and parodically solemn dedications, and playfully erotic anecdotes
alongside moral maxims, witticisms, and convivial banter.
From the earliest days, epigrams had two different origins and two dif-
ferent aims: they were both grafti engraved on cups or vases which were
never meant to last and were linked to particular social circumstances,
and also monumental texts, devised with eternity in mind, and there-
fore xed for ever on a durable substance, such as stone. In both cases,
the exceptional nature of this writing and the limitations imposed by the
requirement of public inscription determined the limited scope and size
which subsequently remained a peculiarity of the literary tti,pcuuc.
1
Cf. Puelma (1996).
283
284 The epigram
The r ole of public inscriptions in the development of the literary epigram
of a funerary or dedicatory nature has long been familiar, but occasional
inscriptions may also have contributed to Hellenistic erotic epigram. Most
of the occasional epigrams known to us are engraved on cups or vases of
the second half of the sixth century. Like the objects on which they are
engraved, these grafti are mainly connected with sympotic life: music,
singing, drinking and, above all, eros. These short texts are, with few excep-
tions, all in prose, and some function as captions to the gures represented
on the vases, often musicians or poets, but mythical characters also appear
in such contexts. Sometimes these grafti express, as in cartoons, rhythms
and words of songs or dialogue, or expressions taken from the poetic texts
that the depicted gures are imagined as reading or singing;
2
sometimes,
too, the grafti are independent of the representations on the vase, and they
are situated between the gures, offering sympotic advice and exhortation
such as (ou) ycpt sci tit (to) good health, and drink up. By far the
largest group, however, at least from the middle of the sixth to the third
quarter of the fth century, is made up of inscriptions proclaiming the
beauty of a young man, in the standard form: X scc, X is beautiful;
these inscriptions, and the cups on which they appear, thus served as pub-
lic avowals of love, designed to spread the kleos of the beloved among the
symposiasts. There survive also other, more generic, grafti of the kind c
tc, scc, this boy is beautiful, which could be used as professions of
love or admiration for any boy who took a symposiasts fancy.
These texts transformed the objects on which they were inscribed into
something more thansimple vessels for the symposium: they acted as substi-
tutes for more polishedverbal compliments (inthe case of the scc, inscrip-
tions), or as incentives for discussionandcomment among the symposiasts.
3
The banality and absence of any clear aesthetic ambition show that these
texts were not so much complete messages in themselves, but rather stim-
uli or aides-m emoire to oral sympotic performances, which would often
be in verse, whether extemporised compositions or recitals or adaptations
of earlier lyric or elegiac poetry. A symbiosis between, on the one hand, the
2
Poetic texts are in fact extremely rare among inscriptions of this kind; most examples depict poetic
quotations written on a papyrus resting on the knees of boys learning to read and write, cf. J. D.
Beazley, Hymn to Hermes AJA 52 (1948) 33640.
3
Cf. N. Slater, The Vase as Ventriloquist in E. A. Mackay (ed.), Signs of Orality: the Oral Tradition
and its Inuence in the Greek and Roman World (Leiden 1999) 14361; F. Lissarrague, Publicity and
Performance in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (eds.), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy
(Cambridge 1999) 3657. The compilation by W. Klein, Die griechische Vasen mit Lieblingsinschriften
(2nd ed., Leipzig 1898) is still useful.
1 Inscription and epigram: the prehistory of a genre 285
composition and reading of brief erotic and sympotic inscriptions and, on
the other, literary performance, whether of new or old poetic texts, was
therefore probably already a reality in the archaic Greek symposium. Many
erotic epigrams of the third century dramatise avowals of love or comment
appreciatively on the aesthetic qualities of boys and girls, and this form
is more prominent than our remains of archaic lyric and elegiac poetry
would have led us to expect; it may therefore be that the rst generation
of literary epigrammatists in the rst half of the third century, who had
behind them not a xed genre with its topoi and conventions, but rather
the unlimited cultural and literary heritage of the past, thought of their
texts as a meeting-point between the sympotic practice of composing and
reading grafti on vases and the rened literary forms elaborated in the
sympotic genres of archaic poetry.
Moreover, although there are very few non-epitaphic or non-dedicatory
inscriptions of the archaic period to which it might perhaps be possible to
attribute aesthetic ambitions, there are nevertheless some metrical grafti
which reveal a literary spirit foreshadowing that of the Hellenistic epigram.
These include the hexameter scratched during the last part of the eighth
century on a proto-geometric oenochoe (the Dipylon vase), apparently
to personalise the vase as a prize in a dancing contest (CEG 432): hc,
v0v cpyto:cv tv:cv :cc:c:c tciti of all the dancers, the one who
dances most sweetly.
4
Apart fromthe metrical form, the word :cc:c:c
leaves no doubt about the aesthetic ambition of the grafto. :cc, is an
uncommon Homeric and poetic word, used three times in archaic epic
in the neuter plural, as on the oenochoe, but always combined with the
verb gpcvtc I think
5
in the sense think childish thoughts or think
things typical of young people;
6
on the oenochoe, however, :cc:c:c is
combined with the verb tcic (I amuse myself , or more specically, I
dance), and the whole expressionmust meandances the sweetest dances or
dances in the sweetest way. This is not merely a change fromthe formulaic
combination of epic, but seems also to allude to Iliad 18.567 (the Shield
4
The verse was followed by the dactyl :c :cot this is his, and by an apparently meaningless series
of letters (suiv), cf. G. Annibaldis and O. Vox, La pi` u antica iscrizione greca Glotta 54 (1976)
2238.
5
Cf. Hom., Il. 18.567, Hes., Th. 989, HHom. Dem. 24. It has been conjectured that this adjective
arises from an erroneous division of :ccgpcvtc, cf. M. Leumann, Homerische W orter (Basel 1950)
13941.
6
On the meaning of :cc,, cf. C. Moussy, :cc,, :c, :i:c in Melanges de linguistique
et de philologie grecques offerts ` a P. Chantraine (Paris 1972) 15768.
286 The epigram
of Achilles), where the young people who danced at a harvest festival were
described as :cc gpcvtcv:t,.
7
Another eighth-century text which is certainly a product of the world
of the symposium
8
is the famous inscription on Nestors cup, found at
Ischia and dated to between 735 and 720
9
(CEG 454):
Nto:cpc, t[iu]i t0tc:[cv] tc:tpicv.
hc, o cv :c ot titoi tc:tpi[c] co:isc stvcv
hiutpc, hciptoti scio:t[g]vc Agpcoi:t,.
I am the cup of Nestor, easy to drink from. Whoever drinks from this cup, the
desire of fair-garlanded Aphrodite will seize him at once.
It is very likely that the rst line, which is more probably prose than a
trimeter composed of a choriamb and two iambic metra, regardless of the
choice between t ui/tiui and to:i/tv:i, alludes to the Nestor of the Iliad
(perhaps a namesake of the cups owner), whose monumental cup had
been made famous by the description in Iliad 11.6327, which concluded:
any other person could hardly have lifted it up from the table when it
was full, but old Nestor picked it up without any difculty.
10
With this
allusion, the rst line makes clear that, unlike the unwieldy vessel of the
heroic symposium, the little cup that bore the inscription was t0tc:cv
convenient for drinking, an adjective foreign to epic language and perhaps
a technical term from symposia (cf. Athenaeus 11.482b); analogously, in
view of what follows, tc:npicv was perhaps drawn from the language
of magical practice.
11
Be that as it may, the two hexameters which follow
rst lead us to expect a curse of a familiar kind which threatens severe
consequences for anybody who misuses the object on which the curse
is engraved;
12
this expectation is, however, defeated in a closural pointe
7
The Dipylon vase may have originated in the world of the symposium cf. Powell (1991) 1612 and
1723 but a public feast cannot be excluded as a possible context: cf. e.g. Friedl anderHofeit
(1948) 55.
8
Cf. Powell (1991) 165.
9
Cf. O. Vox, Bibliograa in G. Buchner and D. Ridgeway, Pithekoussai I: la necropoli (Rome 1993)
7519.
10
For a survey of the views which have been held about the Nestor of the cup cf. A. Bartonek and
G. Buchner, Die Sprache 37 (1995) 1534.
11
Cf. C. Faraone, Taking the Nestors Cup Inscription Seriously: Erotic Magic and Conditional
Curses in the Earliest Inscribed Hexameters, CA 15 (1996) 77112, p. 105. S. West, ZPE 101 (1994)
915 had also maintained that the inscription on Nestors cup descends from a Peloponnesian epic
tradition and is not connected to our Iliad; contra A. C. Cassio, Ktvc,, scio:tgcvc,, e la
circolazione dellepica in area euboica in Aion (archeol.) 1 (1994) 5568.
12
The roughly contemporary lekythos of Tataies, also from Magna Graecia, bears the inscription
Tc:cit, tui tquc, hc, o cv ut stgoti ugc, to:ci I am the lekythos of Tataie: anyone who
steals me will go blind, cf. L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (2nd ed., Oxford 1990)
409 no. 47.3.
1 Inscription and epigram: the prehistory of a genre 287
foreshadowing the technique of Hellenistic epigram: far frombeing cursed,
whoever drinks from the cup will be overcome by uncontrollable desire, a
very familiar (ancient and modern) result of too much to drink. The joke
would have been even funnier if, as has been suggested, the inscription also
alluded to an episode of the Cypria, in which Nestor gave hospitality to
Menelaus after Helen had eloped with Paris and tried to console him with
a series of mythological paradigms (PEG p. 40.269 = EGF p. 31.369);
it was probably on this occasion that Nestor declared (PEG fr. 17 = EGF
fr. 15): O Menelaus, in wine the gods have devised an excellent way for
mortal men to scatter their cares (cares of love, of course). The wine in
the Ischia-cup was no longer (as the heroic Nestor had claimed) a remedy
against the sufferings of love, but rather an aphrodisiac for the easy love
affairs of the symposium.
13
This common interpretation of the inscription on Nestors Cup
14
has
been challenged as too modern, and it has been suggested that the verses
may simply be a kind of magical formula asserting the effectiveness of
aphrodisiac potions which were to be drunk from the cup.
15
In any event,
even if it was truly epigrammatic ante litteram, Nestors Cup remained an
isolated example. With every allowance for the impermanence of pottery
in comparison with stone, verse inscriptions linked to the symposium and
other types of social occasion seemto have been very rare; verse is, however,
much more common for funerary and dedicatory inscriptions, and it is
likely that verse was thought the appropriate mode, as stone the appropriate
material, for inscriptions which were intended to offer eternal kleos.
Another exception which conrms the clear separation between lyric
and elegiac poetry which was largely oral, addressed to a particular indi-
vidual or group, and arose from particular social and performative con-
texts and written inscriptions which were intended to be read for ever
by a general public is offered by the didactic herms of the Athenian
tyrant Hipparchus (late sixth century), one of which is extant (CEG 304).
According to the account of [Plato], Hipparchus 228d229b, Hipparchus
wanted to make provision for the instruction also of those who lived in
the countryside, and so he had herms erected along the roads connect-
ing the towns and the single demes, on which were inscribed couplets
containing the name of Hipparchus himself (uvnuc :co lttpycu this
13
Cf. W. Kullmann, Die Quellen der Ilias (Wiesbaden 1960) 257; G. Danek, Der Nestorbecher von
Ischia, epische Zitiertechnik und das Symposion WS 1078 (199495) 2944.
14
Cf. P. A. Hansen, Pithecusan Humor: the Interpretation of Nestors Cup Reconsidered Glotta 54
(1976) 2543 and Powell (1991) 1637.
15
Cf. Faraone (n. 11 above).
288 The epigram
is a monument of Hipparchus) and brief maxims, such as o:tyt oiscic
gpcvcv go forward on the basis of just thoughts, or un gicv tct:c
do not deceive a friend; according to Pseudo-Plato, these maxims were
supposed to act as an alternative to Delphic wisdom, creating the desire in
countrymen to seek a more comprehensive education in town.
16
In this way
(contravening the principle of anonymity, which is a constant of all other
epigraphic texts of the archaic period and the fth century, and borrowing
from sympotic elegiac poetry, such as that composed by Phocylides and
Theognis, both the custom of the ogpc,i, seal and the taste for apho-
ristic maxims), Hipparchus exploited the epigraphic medium to reach the
wider non-aristocratic public with easily-digestible pills of wisdom and to
familiarise them with that ethical knowledge which had previously been
the prerogative of the speculations (and poetry) of aristocratic symposia.
This, however, remained an isolated exception. The history of the archaic
and early classical inscribed epigram is the history of a lesser literature,
more subordinated to, than operating in parallel with, orally transmitted
verse. Such poems are satised with anonymity: they convey a limited
number of messages in relatively standardised forms (see further below,
pp. 2967).
17
Not long after Hipparchus, Simonides began to write short poems in ele-
giac couplets, inwhich the to:pttc, c,c, for which Simonides became
famous anticipated the taste for the witty quip and the humorous anecdote
typical of the later literary epigram. Furthermore, Simonides was perhaps
the rst to link his name to sympotic epigrams and to clearly ctitious and
witty dedicatory and funerary texts, the most famous of which is the sarcas-
tic epitaph for his rival, Timocreon of Rhodes (AP 7.348 = FGE 831f.). He
was also credited with the authorship of real epitaphic and dedicatory epi-
grams, and thus continued the tradition which we have already surveyed.
There are, however, considerable uncertainties surrounding Simonides epi-
grams and their publication,
18
and not just because his taste for the witty
quip and brevity of expression might have led subsequent compilers of
anthologies to attribute to Simonides epigrams about contemporary g-
ures or events, or to imagine that some epigrams attributed to otherwise
unknown poets were actually by Simonides. Herodotus (7.228.3) attributes
16
Cf. A. Aloni, Lintelligenza di Ipparco QS 10 (1984) 10948.
17
The metrical form too is standardised: initially we nd only hexameters, but from the middle of
the sixth century the elegiac couplet becomes popular; inscribed epigrams in iambics or trochaics
appear at about the same time, but they are rare and disappear almost completely during the fth
century.
18
Cf. B. Gentili, Epigramma ed elegia in L
Epigramme Grecque (1968) 412; but cf. FGE pp. 11923
and Puelma (1996) 125 n. 8.
1 Inscription and epigram: the prehistory of a genre 289
an epitaph for the fortune-teller Megistias to Simonides (AP 7.677 = FGE
702ff.), but it is signicant that in citing the epigram, Herodotus, who lived
a generation after Simonides, observes that Simonides composed it because
he was united to Megistias by a bond of xenia; this perhaps suggests that
Herodotus received the information about Simonides authorship from an
oral source and not from some form of written anthology, created by, or
based on, the authors wish to assert his authorship. The extreme variability
between witnesses in recording the authorship of Simonides points in the
same direction: many poems are disputed between Simonides and another
poet, or are claimed by some as Simonidean and by others as anonymous.
19
The large number of epigrams referring to characters or events of the sixth
and fth centuries, some of which may be ancient but many of which
are clearly Hellenistic compositions falsely attributed to Simonides, Plato,
Anacreon, and a host of other authors whose interest in the epigram is
otherwise unattested (Sappho, Bacchylides, Empedocles, etc.), shows that
the custom of anonymity continued to be observed for a long time, and
gave rise to the Hellenistic practice of assigning anonymous poems to the
great gures of the past.
Before the Hellenistic age, we simply cannot know whether an author
deliberately decided to link his name to an inscribed text, which will thus
also have had a non-epigraphic transmission where the name of the author
was preserved. As for the idea of compiling an anthology of ones own
epigrams or those of others, it is important to remember that collections of
inscriptions in book formmust have been in circulation fromthe beginning
of the fourth century, and it is very tempting to hypothesise
20
that these
collections of inscriptions, both before and alongside the great editions of
archaic lyric and elegiac poetry prepared by the Alexandrian philologists,
acted as models for the collections of epigrams that a Leonidas or a Calli-
machus probably conceived for themselves (or others conceived for them,
shortly after their death).
21
What is certain is that in the fourth century,
which was the crucial period for the development of the literary epigram,
there are at least two clear examples of inscribed epigrams which include
the name of the author in the text (CEG 819 and 888
22
); in one of these two
cases, moreover, the epigrams of Ion of Samos (CEG819), the afrmation of
authorship is found, together with an element of literary innovation; this
raises doubts about the standard historical account, according to which
19
Cf. FGE pp. 11920.
20
Cf. Meyer (forthcoming) chapter A.5.1.
21
Onthe circulationand collectionof inscriptions inthe fourth century, cf. H. T. Wade-Gery, Classical
Epigrams and Epitaphs JHS 53 (1933) 71104, pp. 80 n. 35 and 8895.
22
The cases of 700. 3 and 889.78 appear more uncertain; see, however, CEG ii.283.
290 The epigram
(anonymous) inscribed epigrams were characterised by a relative roughness
and conventionality, and were then replaced by the literary epigram, bring-
ing with it greater renement and a new importance for authorial identity.
The epigrams of Ion, on the contrary, suggest that verse inscriptions had
already followed their own autonomous course towards literary pretension
and an authorial awareness, when the high period of the literary epigram
dawned.
CEG 819 consists of a triptych of three epigrams of two couplets each,
inscribed on the plinth of a group of bronze statues for the sanctuary
of Apollo at Delphi; the statues represented the Dioscuri, Zeus, Apollo,
Artemis, and Poseidon crowning Lysander, who had defeated the Atheni-
ans at Aegospotami, and also included images of twenty-eight other com-
manders of the Spartan eet (cf. Pausanias 10.9.710).
23
Both the better
preserved epigrams (CEG 819.ii and CEG 819.iii) include the name of the
author, Ion of Samos, and the text is not presented as the voice of the ded-
icator or of the statues (as is usual in dedicatory inscriptions), but rather as
the voice of the poet who comments on the statues, in a manner familiar
from Hellenistic deictic epigram:
[tc Aic,, c] lcotu[s]t, lcv [?sci :co]o tt,tici[,]
[?cvtcv] spntio to:tgvco[t ?:tc]v,
[pyc, tt]ti tpc:c,, tpc:tpc[, o t]:i :c0ot vcup[ycu]
[?to:c, c,]tucvcv Loc, top[uy]cpcu.
(CEG 819.ii)
[Child of Zeus], Polydeuces, [with these] elegiacs Ion crowned [your stone] base,
because you were the principal [commander], taking precedence even over this
admiral, among the leaders of Greece with its wide dancing-places.
tiscvc tcv vtnstv [tti] tp,c : cot c:t viscv
vcuoi cc, ttpotv Kt[s]pctiocv ovcuiv
Aocvopc,, Acstociucvc tcpt:cv o:tgcvcoc[,]
Loc, spctc[iv, s]ciycpcu tc:pioc.
tuc ugip:[c,] :t0t tt,tcv lcv.
(CEG 819.iii)
Lysander set up this image of himself on this monument when with his swift ships
he victoriously routed the power of the descendants of Kekrops and crowned the
23
In view of the script, these epigrams may be dated very close to the event that they commemorate;
cf. J. Bousquet, BCH 80 (1956) 5801; more commonly, however, they are dated to the late fourth
century, cf. R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (rev. ed., Oxford
1988) 290.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 291
invincible Lacedaimon, the citadel of Greece, the homeland with the beautiful
dancing-places. Ion of sea-girt Samos composed these elegiacs.
In the poem for Polydeuces, the author displays a highly developed self-
consciousness: as composer of the epigram, he has crowned (to:tgvcot)
the plinth (spnti,) of the statue, and the verb o:tgcvc0v raises Ion himself
to the same level as Lysander, who, as the other epigram says, had brought
glory to invincible Sparta (a metaphorical meaning which o:tgcvc0v
often has), or even to the level of the gods, who were represented crown-
ing Lysander quite literally. As Lysander himself seems to have fostered a
personality cult and even accepted divine honours, so the poet magnies
his own r ole. Here, then, is perhaps the earliest literary epigram, and it
is in fact an engraved monument-inscription, and one with a denitely
practical purpose.
2 funerary and dedi catory epi grams: epi graphi c
conventi ons and epi grammati c vari ati ons
2.1 The importance of the name
Hellenistic funerary and dedicatory epigrams are a favoured sphere for the
investigation of the literary character of Hellenistic poetry, and in particular
for its relationship with earlier literary genres. There is a relatively large
amount of comparative material, i.e. anonymous inscriptions, bothmetrical
and not, which have been found on tombs and monuments and against
which we can judge the literary versions of these forms.
Funerary and dedicatory inscriptions had certain clear facts to commu-
nicate. Dedications commemorated, in most cases, both the donor of the
votive offering and the recipient god, and usually also the reason for the
dedication; the identity of the god, however, was often of course supplied
by the monumental context in which the inscription was placed. Funer-
ary inscriptions identied the dead person on whose tomb they stood; the
identication normally included certain details, established by social con-
ventions which sometimes varied from one region to another, or depended
on the sex and the age of the deceased. Thus, for example, the name of
the dead is generally the only detail in the sepulchral inscriptions of most
of central Greece and Boeotia,
24
as well as of Sicyon,
25
whereas in Attica
24
Cf. P. M. Fraser and T. R onne, Boeotian and West Greek Tombstones (Lund 1957) 92101.
25
Cf. Pausanias 2.7.2.
292 The epigram
the demotic and the fathers name are almost always present in the case
of a male, or the name of the parents in the case of children; in the case
of a woman, the name of her husband is added to that of her father, but
it was considered to be excessive if the epitaph also specied her place of
birth and the name of her mother.
26
Hellenistic literary epigrams, which
were funerary or dedicatory, gradually moved ever further from any nec-
essary basis in the contexts of real life and became ctional works of the
imagination. Such distance from a real context encouraged the technique
of variation among literary epigrammatists, but at the same time the high
degree of conventionality and the repetitiveness of inscribed archaic epi-
gram created a precedent which, in a certain sense, authorised the highly
topical character of literary epigram, perhaps indeed the most topical genre
of all Greek poetry.
2.2 Tombs without names
The most basic element in the commemoration of the dead was the record-
ing of the name; on the tomb of Petosiris was written: pronouncing a
mans name means bringing him back to life again.
27
Funerary inscrip-
tions which do not record the deads name fall into more than one class:
non-metrical inscriptions for infants who had probably never been named
survive;
28
so, too, some of the few surviving verse-inscriptions which omit
the name of the dead
29
were for infants or young people, who in all proba-
bility had not yet achieved anything worthy of commemoration.
30
Among
26
Cf. Theophrastus, Characters 13.10 (with Diggle ad loc.), E. L. Hicks, JHS 3 (1882) 1412.
27
Cf. G. Lefebvre, Le Tombeau de Petosiris (Cairo 1954) i p. 136 no. 81, already quoted by Nicosia (1992)
17. On the general subject cf. also A. Stecher, Der Lobpreis der Toten in den griechischen metrischen
Grabinschriften (Diss. Innsbruck 1963) 1419, H. H ausle, Einfache und fr uhe Formen des griechischen
Epigramms (Innsbruck 1979) 10913 and S. Georgoudi, Comm emoration et c el ebration des morts
dans les cit es grecques in Ph. Gignoux (ed.), La Commemoration: Colloque du centenaire de la section
des sciences religieuses de l
Ecole pratique des hautes etudes (LouvainParis 1988) 77. This section is
based on Fantuzzi (2000a).
28
Cf. IG vii, 690722, 29001, 3118 (Boeotia), and IG ii/iii (2nd ed.): ii.2, 13184, 13185 (Attica): cf.
Pfohl (1953) 150 and 289 n. 53; M. Guarducci, Lepigraa greca dalle origini al tardo impero (Rome
1987) 387.
29
According to the data given by Page (1976) 169, out of the 711 pre-Christian sepulchral inscriptions
in GVI, 66 certainly omit the name. In most of these cases, however, it is difcult to know whether
the name of the dead person was completely omitted, or appeared in a non-metrical section of the
inscription, which was subsequently lost.
30
For example, GVI 89 (second century ad), 503 (second/rst century bc), 790 (third century ad),
793 (third century ad), 869 (after 150 ad), 977 (second/third century ad), 1012 (rst century ad),
1124 (second/third century ad), 1280 (second/third century ad), 1663 (third century bc). As for CEG
718 (400350 bc), Hansen is surely correct to explain that caput defuncti animum corpusque suum
lamentari dicitur.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 293
literary epigrams, the absence of the name is found almost exclusively (a)
in epitymbia for sailors found dead on the seashore, in which anonymity
underlines the exceptional bitterness of death at sea;
31
and (b) in a few
epigrams two by Leonidas, two by Antiphilus, and two in imitation of
the latter which develop another aspect of the lack of funeral honours,
namely the theme of the neglected, desecrated or defaced tomb and of
sacrilegious behaviour towards dead bodies, or in a few other anonymous
epigrams, which describe the criminal concealment of corpses.
32
There are, however, also a few literary epitymbia which do not name the
dead, but do not t into these classes. One of the earliest of these is a poem
of Asclepiades (AP 13.23 = HE 962ff.):
ic tcptptcv, uispcv, t :i s,scvt,, cscuocv
:c Bc:puc, ttpiooc on:c snon,
c, tptou, c,ocscv: t:cv :cv ts vtcv tctv
non :i :tyvc sci ocgcv t,cv:c.
gt0 :cv :tscv:c, gt0 ot sci ot, Bc:puc, gic, tc,
cocv cucipc, nocvcv tctu.
Ho! Passer-by, even if you are in haste, give ear to the grief of Botrys that passes
measure. An old man now of eighty years, he buried his child who already from
boyhood spoke with some skill and wisdom. Alas for your father and alas for you,
dear son of Botrys: with how many joys untasted have you perished! (trans. Paton,
adapted)
This clearly funerary epigram does not appear in Book 7 of the Palatine
Anthology, which is dedicated to epitymbia, but its uncommon metrical
form(couplets composed of catalectic iambic tetrameters and trimeters) led
to it being placed in Book 13, which contains epigrams written in unusual
metres. Even the most recent commentators, Gow and Page, fail properly
to appreciate its epitaphic character: according to them, it is in spite of
the form, rather a poem of mourning than a genuine, or epideictic epi-
tymbion.
33
The epitaphic form to which they refer is primarily the initial
apostrophe to the wayfarer and the invitation to stop and read, which are
31
Cf. AP 7.264 (Leonidas), 265, 268, 269 ([Plato]), 270 and 496 ([Simonides]), 276 (Hegesippus), 279
(adesp.), 282 (Theodoridas), 288 (Antipater Thess.), 350 (adesp.), 400 (Serapion), 404 (Zonas), 636
(Crinagoras), 651 (Euphorion). See S. Georgoudi, La Mer, la mort et les discours des epigrammes
fun eraires AION (Archeol.) 10 (1988) 58.
32
Leonidas, AP 7.478 and 480 = HE 2421ff. and 2427ff.; Antiphilus, AP 7.175 and 176 = GPh
929ff. and 935ff.; Heraclides, AP 7.281 = GPh 2390ff.; Isidorus, AP 7.280 = GPh 3887ff.; adesp.
AP 7.35660.
33
HE ii.139.
294 The epigram
very familiar features of sepulchral inscriptions and funerary epigrams.
34
One formal reason which in all probability led Gow and Page to consider
this epigram as a poem of mourning was the form of its presentation.
Compared with the most frequent forms of archaic sepulchral inscriptions,
where the persona loquens was the tomb or, later, the deceased, there has
been a tendency to consider ctitious those funerary epigrams in which an
external I mourns for the dead even more so if this external I sympa-
thises with and consoles the father of the dead no less than the deceased
himself, as happens for example in some epigrams by Callimachus.
35
Thus
scholars have considered epideictic-consolatory texts such as [Simonides],
AP 7.511 =FGE 1006f., onuc sc:cgiutvcic Mt,cstc, to: cv ocuci, |
cis:ipcot, :cv Kcic, c ttct, whenever I see the tomb of the dead
Megacles, I pity you, poor Callias: what distress you suffered!, in which an
external I sympathises with the sorrow of one of the dead persons near-
est and dearest, rather than mourning for the deceased, and addresses the
bereaved in the second person; such poems are not far from the manner
in which the external I mourns for Botrys and his son in the epigram by
Asclepiades (above p. 293). More recently, however, the anonymous rst
person mourner has been acknowledged as an important epitaphic form
of presentation,
36
and the epitaphic nature of the poems of [Simonides]
and Asclepiades has been properly appreciated. Inscribed examples include
CEG 470 of 550/540 bc, Ao:cstioc :cot otuc vtc tpcocpc v vic uci,
s:. when I see this tomb of Autokleides, I am distressed, etc., CEG 51 of
about 510bc, cis:ipctpcocpc [v] tcioc, :cot otuccvcv:c, | 2uis[c]
hc, :t gicv ctotv tt ,ctv.
37
I weep to see this tomb of a boy,
Smikythos, who has died, destroying the ne hopes of his dear ones, and
CEG 43.35 of about 525 bc, ]st, hc :cot ut:tp [. . .] ccgpcuci hcvts
chc[pc,] . . . . kles, whose mother this (tomb?) [. . .] I pity because
untimely . . .
34
This opening address is relatively more common in the metrical sepulchral inscriptions of the
sixth to the fourth century bc, cf. CEG 49 (sixth century bc), 556 (350 bc), 686 (fourth century
bc?), GVI 1670 (sixth century bc) and 1671 (sixth century bc), and the inscriptions from Selinunte
nos. 26, 28, 3034 (550450 bc) in R. Arena, Iscrizioni greche arcaiche di Sicilia e Magna Grecia. I:
Iscrizioni di Megara Iblea e Selinunte (2nd ed., Pisa 1996). See also Mnasalces, AP 7.488 =HE 2639ff.
and 7.491 = HE 2636ff.; [Simonides], AP 7.515 = FGE 986ff.
35
Cf. e.g. AP 7.517 = HE 1193ff., AP 7.519 = HE 1241ff.
36
Cf. D. M. Lewis, Bowie on Elegy: A Footnote JHS 107 (1987) 188; A. C. Cassio, I distici del
polyandrion di Ambracia e l io anonimo nellepigramma greco SMEA 33 (1994) 10617. See also
J. W. Day, JHS 109 (1989) 20 n. 31 and 26; R. Scodel, SIFC 10 (1992) 70.
37
For the text, cf. D. M. Lewis and A. C. Cassio (previous note); see also W. Peek, ZPE 23 (1976) 93 n.
1. The emendation of the initial indicative cis:ipc into the imperative cs:ipc<v> was proposed
by Willemsen and accepted by Hansen.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 295
Gow and Pages view of Asclepiades epigram was also explicitly inu-
enced by the absence of the dead persons name: a signicant fact, but if
this is a poem of mourning, it is possible that Asclepiades did not know
it. In fact, however, there is an alternative explanation: Asclepiades poem
might have been conceived as the metrical part of an inscription, in which
another non-metrical part, below, beside or beneath the verses, indicated
the name of the dead. This type of inscription is rst found in the fth
century, but becomes common from the fourth century, particularly, but
not exclusively, in Attica.
38
There are over one hundred and fty Attic verse
inscriptions of the fourth century, of which more than twenty belong to
this type.
39
From the fth century, however, only two inscriptions of this
kind are extant, CEG 77 and 89, both from Attica. In the earlier of the two,
CEG 77 (500475 bc), a couplet for the Spartan ltio:ic,, the absence
of the name was very probably made necessary by the difculty of tting
the name into dactylic verse. The later CEG 89 (late fth century) honours
Augcpt:n, which would t the metre, and so must be considered as an
anticipation of the practice of the fourth century.
Two fth-century Attic texts offer the earliest evidence for the difculty
that could be encountered when composing dactylic verse to contain the
name of the honorand. The earlier inscription, datedby Hansento 477/476,
was engraved on the pedestal of a monument to the tyrant-killers, perhaps
the one erected in their honour during the last decade of the sixth century.
As Apio:c,ti:cv could not t into a hexameter, the name was divided
betweenthe endof the hexameter andthe beginning of the pentameter; such
division was common for lyric cola, but hardly ever attested in recitative
poetry, let alone hexameters or elegiac couplets, t ut, Atvcicioi gcc,
,tvt<> tvis Apio:c|,ti:cv hittcpycv s:tvt sci hcpucoic, truly a
great light shone forth for the Athenians when Aristogeiton and Harmodius
killed Hipparchus (CEG 430). Another solution to the metrical problem
was found by Critias at the end of the century; when he had to name
Alcibiades, which, with its run of three successive short syllables, does
not t dactylic verse, the poet composed an iambic trimeter in place of a
pentameter and added an apology for the intrusion of a different metre: sci
v0v Ktivicu ucv Anvccv o:tgcvcoc | Asiionv vtcioiv ouvnoc,
:pctci, | co ,p tc, nv :c0vcu tgcpuctiv tt,tic, | v0v o tv icutic
stiot:ci cos ut:pc, and now I will crown the Athenian Alcibiades, son
38
CEG 684, e.g., is from Samos, the home of Asclepiades, CEG 724 from Macedonia.
39
Cf. CEG 472 (?), 477, 486, 490 (?), 495 (?), 497 (?), 499 (?), 512, 531, 532, 533, 534, 537, 544, 557, 558,
560, 564, 570, 571, 582 (?), 585, 589, 590, 594, 595, 596, 613, 615 (?), 620 (?), 621 (the question marks
indicate uncertain cases).
296 The epigram
of Clinias, singing of himin newways. It was not possible to adapt his name
to the elegiac couplet, and so now it will be in iambics, but not without
measure (fr. 2 Gent.Prato).
40
The practice of placing the name of the dead, usually together with
patronymic and nationality, on the tomb but not in the metrical epigram
thus offered a solution to the problem of tting certain proper names into
the hexameter, in a period when the elegiac couplet had almost completely
replaced the metrically more exible iambic trimeter as the ordinary form
for sepulchral inscriptions.
41
During the fourth century, however, the divi-
sion of sepulchral inscriptions between the metrical epigram in one part
and the name of the deceased (with patronymic and deme or tribe) in
another was not limited in Attica to the tombs of those whose names were
difcult for the hexameter. An example is CEG 532, which also bears very
clear witness to the conscious division of the space of the inscription into
two parts. This inscription, which is perhaps from the latter part of the
rst half of the fourth century, concerns a certain lpcvc,, a name which
could t into the hexameter perfectly well; the epigram, however, dwells
rather on the deceaseds nickname and refers the reader for the name of the
dead to a separate space on the monument:
42
[:cvc]uc utv :cucv sci tuc tc:pc, ,cpt[ti]
[o:n]n sci t:pcv tio:cv ot tp,cv tvtsc toyc[v]
[lio]:c, ttcvuuicv, co otvi, vopi :uytv.
The stele tells the names of myself and my father and our homeland. Because of
my faithful deeds I acquired the nickname Trusty a rare honour.
It is likely that private funerary monuments of the fourth century developed
a taste for this layout, not simply to solve the problem of difcult names,
but also in imitation of the bipartition of inscriptional space between met-
rical and non-metrical elements which had already been practised for some
time on polyandria, i.e. the public funerary monuments, on which lists of
those who had fallen in war could only appear separately from the metrical
40
Another solution was the hyper-Ionic spelling of Apytcc, as Apyttc, in a pentameter attributed
to Sophocles: cf. fr. 1 Gent.Prato: Thus it was possible to speak of him in a metrical form.
41
For examples from later periods, cf. SH 615, EG 805a, GVI 278 and 1326. For discussion, cf. Page
(1976) 1678 and W. Lapini, I frammenti alcibiadei di Crizia: Crizia amico di Alcibiade? (I parte)
Prometheus 21 (1995) 212.
42
References to the naming titulus in the metrical text are found also in later metrical inscriptions: cf.
GVI 632 (third century bc), 1260 (second century bc), 650 (rst/second century ad), 1087 (second
century ad). At Rome, there are clear cases of a functional differentiation between the prose part of
inscriptions, which contain the information about the persons name and life, and the comment
of the epigram in verse; cf. CIL i.2 (2nd ed.) 11 for Lucius Scipio (c. 16050); CIL i.2 (2nd ed.) 15
for Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Hispanus (c. 135 bc), on which see M. Massaro, Epigraphica 59 (1997)
97124.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 297
commentary provided by an epigram.
43
Such an inuence from public
funerary inscriptions to private ones is seen also in the conventional greet-
ing between passer-by and deceased; it is a polyandrion, CEG 4, which rst
attests an address by the living to the dead, a form which was to become
very common, whereas in the archaic age it was the dead who greeted
passers-by.
44
The Attic practice in which the funerary epigram did not necessarily
contain the name of the deceased was guaranteed a wider circulation,
towards the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the third, by the
Lti,puuc:c A::isAttic epigrams, a collectioncompiled by Philocho-
rus, the Attic historian;
45
this is one of the earliest collections of inscriptions
known to us, and may have offered a convenient catalogue of real mod-
els to Hellenistic epigrammatists. Philochorus readers, whether Attic or
Alexandrian, may well have gained the impression that this practice of sep-
arating the name of the dead from the poem in their honour was a modern
technique worth imitating; (we do not knowof any other collections of this
kind for another century, until the ltpi :cv sc:c tcti, tti,pcuu:cv
On epigrams, town by town compiled by Polemon of Ilium, early second
century bc). Asclepiades, AP 13.23 is not in fact the only literary epitymbion
without the name of the dead person which does not fall into one of the
two categories considered above, namely epitymbia for shipwrecked sailors
and those on desecrated tombs. Nevertheless, epigrams of this kind are
decidedly rare, at least until halfway through the rst century bc: all of the
surviving examples seem close in time to Asclepiades.
Let us start with the two epitymbia composed by Callimachus for his
father Battus and for himself, respectively AP 7.525 = HE 1179ff. and
AP 7.415 = HE 1185f.:
co:i, tucv tcpc onuc gtpti, tcoc, Kciuycu ut
oi Kupnvcicu tco :t sci ,tvt:nv.
tiotin, o cugc stv c utv sc:t tc:pioc, ctcv
nptv, c o ntiotv sptoocvc coscvin,.
co vtutoi, Mc0oci ,p, cocu, ocv cuuc:i tcoc,
un c c, tcicu, cos tttv:c gicu,.
43
Atitulus nomina praebens, obviously not inmetrical form, is either preserved or postulated regularly
by editors for the polyandria, mostly fromAttica, which are extant fromthe fth and fourth centuries.
44
Cf. Sourvinou-Inwood (1995) 180217 and 3689. For other indications of the inuence exerted by
public funerary monuments on private ones in classical Attica, cf. Clairmont (1970) 436.
45
We do not know the contents of this collection, but it is reasonable to expect from an author like
Philochorus, who is credited with a passion for collecting oracles in verse (FGrHist 328T6), that he
did not limit himself to collecting only historical inscriptions in prose: cf. FGrHist iiib (Suppl.) 1
p. 375.
298 The epigram
You who walk past my tomb, know that I am son and father of Callimachus of
Cyrene. You must know both: the one led his countrys forces once, the other sang
beyond the reach of envy. No marvel, for those on whom the Muses did not look
askance in boyhood, they do not cast off when their hairs are grey. (trans. Nisetich,
adapted)
Bc::iotc tcpc onuc gtpti, tcoc, to utv cionv
tioc:c,, to o cvc scipic ou,,toci.
You are walking past the tomb of Battiades, well versed in the art of song, and also
of mixing wine and laughter seasonably. (trans. Nisetich, adapted)
It is plausible that the two epigrams were devised as a complementary pair:
the rst verse of the epitymbion for the father calls the son Kciucyc,,
while the rst line of the one for Callimachus calls him Bc::ion,; the
two verses complement each other, thus forming the complete name; fur-
thermore, the name of the son and of the grandfather, Callimachus, is only
found in the epigramfor the father [. . .] the name of the father, on the con-
trary, which is not mentioned in the epigram for his death, appears in the
epigram for his son, included in the patronymic.
46
This literary game may
have had an extra-literary motivation, such as, for example, Callimachus
could not write much about his father, because there was not much to say
about him,
47
or he may have preferred not to speak about himself in his
own epitaph, trusting that his verses would be sufcient for people to recog-
nise him.
48
What we have, in fact, is a somewhat paradoxical epitymbion
by a son for his father, in which the father is not named, and the epitaph of
a poet for himself, which named him only by means of his own patronymic
(unless Bc::ion, is an epithet derived from the name of the founder of
Cyrene).
49
This is, however, not just another Alexandrian variation on the
standard practices of real sepulchral inscriptions, nor need we suppose that
it was impossible to t the name of Callimachus father into a hexameter.
50
Onomastic similarity may in fact have pointed to the complementarity of
46
G. Pasquali, Epigrammi callimachei (1919), now in id., Scritti lologici (Florence 1986) i.307. The
complementary relationship between the two epigrams would be a bit looser if we accept, with
Cameron (1995) 8 and 789 and White (1999), that Battiades is not a patronymic, but refers to the
founder of Cyrene.
47
Pasquali loc. cit. (previous note). The exegesis of Wilamowitz (1924) i.175 n. 2, followed by Pfeiffer,
is very similar; cf. also Meillier (1979) 1423;Walsh (1991) 934; Bing (1995) 126. The nal couplet
of AP 7.525, which is identical to fr. 1.378 Massimilla, is, I believe correctly, often viewed as an
interpolation.
48
Cf. White (1999) 170.
49
See above, n. 46. Similarly, J. Larson, Astacides the Goatherd CPh 92 (1997) 1317, argues that the
Ao:csion, of Callimachus, AP 7.158 = HE 1211ff. is not a proper name, but a poetic pseudonym
formed from the name of the town of Astacus in Bithynia.
50
Cf. Gow and Page ad loc. (HE ii.186).
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 299
the two characters: the obvious allusion in the nal couplet of the epigram
on Callimachus the father to the famous verses of Hesiod (Theogony 815)
on the protection of the Muses for just kings
51
might suggest that both the
poet and his grandfather, who had led the army of the city, had operated in
the sphere of the Muses, though in very different elds. The Callimachean
epigram might be seen as a meeting-point between the Hellenistic taste
for Erg anzungsspiel, in which the poet leaves his reader the task of working
out important details from allusive hints in the poem, and the tradition
of sepulchral inscriptions of the fourth century, in which the name of the
deceased was not included in the metrical epigram. This necessity for recip-
rocal reading between the two inscriptions might have been inuenced by
real examples of inscriptions that stood over the tombs of two deceased rel-
atives, placed side by side.
52
An example of the kind, once again fromAttica
and once again from the sixth century, has come down to us,
53
CEG 512 c
:cv tiuvno:cu o pt:c, tcpc tcoi tci:ci, | stivcv ttcivcv tycv:
cvopc tctivc:c:cv | tcioi giti :t ,uvcisi. :gc o tti oti,
un:tp, | stuci on, giic, cos tctitcutvc, Oh, you who won fame
and glory among your fellow-citizens by reason of your virtue, which will
never be forgotten, you who are sorely missed by your children and your
dear wife. I lie to the right of your tomb, mother, and am not separated
from your love. In this case, the name of the dead person, which is not
supplied in the metrical text, is given in a separate inscription, extra metrum,
on the same tombstone (Tntucyc, 2tcuocsp:c, 1ut,); the name
of the mother, however, who is mentioned without being named, must
be found from the nearby tombstone of the mother herself, which was
fortunately found in situ: Mti:n 2tcocsp:c, ,uvn 1utc, (IG ii/iii
2
:
iii.2, 7695).
Another example may be found on the Milan papyrus of Posidippus,
Poem 56 AB (ix.714 Bast.Gall.):
ttv:t utv coivtooiv ttnpc:c :ccv Ltuc,
oc ,vci, sc:c ocv o:cutvn tytcv
ts:n, o t covc, tctc, sci :c ocv ton
:tsvcv tv tocu:c vnticv ntic
uco:cv t:i otcp,cv:c ut:c:ptycv, not ouvct:cv
ospu sc: ugc:tpcv nut :uucyccv
ttv:t utv cov, Aoin:i ,vci, ucsptooi utnoti
:tsvcv, tv o tti oc, ,cvcoi sci ou scut,.
51
In the light of this Hesiodic allusion E. Livrea, Lepitao callimacheo per Batto (1992), now in
Livrea (1993) 10717, even suggested that this nal couplet should be referred not to Callimachus
the poet, but to Battos the father.
52
Cf. Bing (1995) 1278.
53
Cf. Bing (previous note).
300 The epigram
For ve labours Eleutho raised her bow, O noble woman, and stood beside your
bed. After the sixth labour you died and your infant child passed away on the
seventh day still seeking the swollen breast, and combined tears fell from the eyes
of both undertakers. Of ve of your children, Asiatic woman, the blessed ones will
take care, and one of them you too will tend as it lies on your knees. (trans. Austin)
If we accept the interpretation of Aoin:i ,vci proposed by the rst
editors,
54
Asian woman, the dead person remains without any name.
55
Another epigram of this kind is by Carphyllides (AP 7.260 = HE 1349ff.),
a minor author usually dated to the third century:
un utun tcpicv :c uvnuc: ucu, tcpco:c
cootv tyc pnvcv cicv coot cvcv.
:tsvcv :tsvc tcitc uin, ttcuoc ,uvcisc,
ou,,npcu :piooc, tcioiv tocsc ,ucu,,
t cv tcsi tcoc, tuc, tvtsciuioc sctci,,
cootvc, ciucc, co vcocv, co vc:cv
c ut sc:cottiocv:t, tnucvc :cv ,usuv 0tvcv
sciucoci ycpnv ttucv tt toottcv.
Find no fault with my fate, traveller, in passing my tomb; not even in death have I
aught that calls for mourning. I left childrens children, I enjoyed the company of
one wife who grew old with me. I married my three children, and many children
sprung from these unions I lulled to sleep on my lap, never grieving for the illness
or loss of one. They all, pouring their libations on my grave, sent me off on a
painless journey to the home of the pious dead to sleep the sweet sleep. (trans.
Paton)
Yet another example might be AP 7.662 = HE 3410ff., an epigram which
the bucolic manuscripts attribute to Theocritus, but the Palatine and
Planudean anthologies to Leonidas:
n tc, cyt: ccpc, tv tocuc no tvicu: c
ti, Aionv tcn, nisin, tpc:tpn,
oticin, tctcuoc :cv tiscounvcv otgcv,
vnticv o:cp,cu ,tuoutvcv cv:cu.
cic ttivc tcc0oc ltpio:tpn, c, tv t:ciuc
vpctci, ociucv nst :c u,pc:c:c.
The girl is gone to Hades before her time in her seventh year, before all her many
playmates, hapless child, longing for her little brother, who twenty months old
54
BastianiniGallazzi (2001) 1789.
55
Aoin:i, may, however, be a proper name. It is not otherwise attested, but related male names are
certainly known. Aoic and Aoicv are two of the readings suggested in IG xiv. 1421 (cf. SEG xxx.
1211 and xxxv. 1049), and Aoic was the name of one of the daughters of Themistocles (and is also
attested in Attic inscriptions of the fth and fourth centuries bc: cf. LGPN ii.723). For the name
with ,vci, cf. GVI 411.1, 2ctuc, vnp (second/third century ad).
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 301
tasted of loveless death. Alas, Peristera for your pitiable fate! How has Heaven
decreed that the saddest events come all too easily to human beings. (trans. Paton,
adapted)
ltpio:tpn, the proper name in the penultimate line, is standardly taken
as the name of the mother, and not that of the young girl who has died; it
is, however, more likely to be the name of the dead girl.
56
Among all the other epigrams of Book 7 of the Palatine Anthology which
can be attributed to poets fromthe third century to the rst half of the rst,
there is not one epitymbion which does not include the name of the dead
person, usually with patronymic and nationality.
57
Immediately after this
group, we have a small group of such epigrams by poets who lived between
the mid-rst century bc and the mid-rst century ad, which seemto testify
to a sort of relatively short-lived fashion for such poems: Apollonidas of
Smyrna, AP 7.180 and 389, Heraclides of Sinope, 7.281, Erycius of Cyzicus,
7.368, Antonius Thallos, 7.373, Leonidas of Alexandria, 7.547, Crinagoras
of Mytilene, 7.638. Apart from this small group, the signed epitymbia
without the name of the dead are very few and very late (sixth century):
Julianus of Egypt, AP 7.32 and 603, Macedonius the consul, 7.566, Agathias
Scholasticus, 7.5689. All other epigrams of this kind, some fteen in total,
are anonymous,
58
andit is reasonable to suppose that most are transcriptions
of actual sepulchral inscriptions,
59
where the name of the dead would have
occurred elsewhere on the stone.
For Callimachus, Posidippus (if Aoin:i, is not a proper name) and
Carphyllides, the unsuitability of the name of the dead person for the hex-
ameter might be argued to explain its absence, but this is less convincing for
Asclepiades, given that his epigram is iambic. The most plausible hypoth-
esis is that these poets, three and perhaps all of whom were born towards
the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the third, followed the
example of the bipartite inscriptions of the fourth century, in which, as we
have seen, it was not only names that were difcult which were placed
56
Cf. Laura Rossi, The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: a Method of Approach (Leuven 2001) 26577.
57
AP 7.472 by Leonidas of Tarentum(HE 2443ff.) does not belong here, as it is a philosophical diatribe
about the fragility of human life. As regards Callimachus, AP 7.728 = HE 1255ff., the name of the
priestess of Demeter to whom the epitymbion is dedicated is presumably concealed in the lacuna in
v. 3.
58
AP 7.48, 157, 323, 324, 325, 331, 332, 335, 336, 339, 342, 349 (attributed probably wrongly to
Simonides, cf. FGE p. 253), 361, 474, 734.
59
Cf. Weissh aupl (1889) 801. The lemmas which are sometimes placed before epigrams to record the
name of the dead person and/or the geographical location of the original inscription (see e.g.
AP 7.3304) demonstrate beyond all doubt that some of the epigrams of the Anthology were
transcriptions of inscriptions: cf. F. Chamoux,
tc]g0[iutvc(ic) ()
]
[
]
Sphinx, deadly dog, whose corpse do you sit and guard . . .? Stranger . . . of the
dead . . .
Together with these epigrams,
83
we should place other inscriptions of the
late fth and fourth centuries, which, so to speak, imply dialogue: they
suggest the possibility of a question or at least a comment by the passer-
by, but they express only the answer. The earliest is an Attic dedicatory
inscription of the beginning of the fth century, CEG 286:
tcoiv o vpctci, hutcspivcuci hco:i, t[pc]:ci
hc, u vtts vopc v Av:igvt, ots:tv.
To all men I answer the same, whoever asks which man dedicated me: Antiphanes,
as a tithe.
79
Cf. H. J. Rose, CR 37 (1923) 1623. Panamyes also appears in an inscription from Halicarnassus
which can be dated between 465 and 450: cf. R. MeiggsD. Lewis, (n. 23), no. 32.
80
Cf. Svenbro (1993) 5662. The paradoxical nature of the voice of the tombstone is also noted in SCO
05/01/42 = GVI 1745, of the third century bc: (tt:pc) gc,,c gt,,cutvc o:cuc:i (stone)
that speaks with a voiceless mouth.
81
For the frequent representation of the sphinx on a stele as the guardian of the tomb, cf. E. Vermeule,
Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley 1979) 171; Woysch-M eautis (1982) 837.
82
The opening of v. 3 has been variously interpreted as tvt (Peek) or as the genitive of a proper name
(e.g. -tivcsp:tc,, Friedl ander).
83
Cf. Kassel (1983) 11.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 309
Parallel to this is AP 6.269 = FGE 672ff., whose origin as an inscription is
clear both by the heading in the anthology, c, 2ctgc0,, in the manner
of Sappho,
84
and by the obvious exploitation of a monumental context:
tcot,, cgcvc, tcoc tc:tvvttc, c :i, tpn:ci,
gcvcv scu:cv sc:tutvc tpc tcocv
Aictic ut scpc Ac:c0, vtnstv Apio:c
Lpucsti:cc
:c 2c0vcoc,
oc tpctcc,, ototcivc ,uvciscv ou ycptoc
tpcgpcv cut:tpcv tostiocv ,tvtv.
Children, though I am a dumb stone, if anyone asks, then I answer clearly, having
set down at my feet the words I am never weary of speaking: Arista, daughter
of Hermocl- (?) the son of Sauneus, dedicated me to Artemis Aethiopia. Your
ministrant is she, sovereign lady of women; rejoice in this her gift of herself, and
be willing to glorify our race. (trans. Paton)
A question by the passer-by is also implicit in the second couplet of an
Attic inscription of about 350 bc (CEG 545): The earth has the bones and
the esh of the sweet boy [. . .] if you ask my name [. . .], I am Theogeiton,
etc., and we may also note another Attic sepulchral inscription of the late
fourth century (CEG 596), where a bilingual (Greek-Aramaic) metrical
titulus, containing the personal information about the dead, together with
the depiction of a lion and a gure, half-human, half-prow of a ship, is
accompanied on the tombstone by an epigram:
unti, vpctcv cuuct:c tiscvc :nvot,
c, ttpi utv ut tcv, ttpi ot, tpcp i,s:t:vuo:ci
nt ,cp tiypctcv :uc tcv otcpoci
c gici : nuuvcv sci ucu s:tpiocv :gcv c0:n
c0, ttcv gitcv, tpc, tc vnc, icv:t,
1civisnv o titcv, :tot ycvi ocuc stspuvuci.
Let no one wonder at this image, that on one side a lion stretches out, on the other
the prow of a ship. A hostile lion came, wishing to tear me apart. But my friends
fought for me and buried me here, the friends whom I most wanted, coming from
the holy ship. I left Phoenicia, and my body is buried here in the earth.
Here the opening anticipates and answers the surprised question of the
passer-by about the meaning of the gures (cf. further below, pp. 329
30).
85
In the inscriptions discussed so far, the epigraphic text acts to com-
plete the message of the tomb, which is transmitted in part symbolically
84
Cf. FGE pp. 1812.
85
Another Attic inscription of the fourth century, CEG 512, also has a dialogic form, but the dialogue
is not between the reader and the statue or the tombstone, but between the gures of two dead
people, mother and son, who are buried next to each other and portrayed on the stele.
310 The epigram
by a statue, by an object that the inscription accompanies, or by a gure
engraved on the tombstone. These inscriptions, however, do not perform
their didactic function descriptively that is to say, they do not describe
what the passer-by/reader can see; they presuppose the inscribed mon-
ument, which either speaks in the rst person, or is indicated briey by
means of a deictic pronoun or adjective. They thus transform the act of
vision (of the monument) and of reading (of the supplementary verbal
message) into an act of verbal dialogue, which, even if xed in writing,
creates a typically oral situation of communication between the ignorant
passer-by/reader and the stele or the dead person. In only one case, which
also displays an unconventional metrical structure,
86
do we nd a change
in these r oles, and the person who seems at the beginning of the epigram to
have the r ole of the passer-by turns out to be very well informed, with the
result that he can anticipate the self-description of the stele, which depicts
a bearded man and a woman (Onesimos and Melite), CEG 530:
ycpt :gc, Mti:n, ypno:n ,uvn tvot st:ci
gic0v:c
87
v:igic0oc :cv cvopc Ovnoiucv noc spc:io:n
:ci,cpc0v tct cvc0ov ot, noc ,cp ypno:n ,uvn.
sci ou ycpt gi:c: vopcv, c :cu, tucu, giti.
Hail tomb of Melite: a good woman lies here; returning the love of your husband
Onesimos, you were the best of women. Therefore in death he misses you, for
you were a good woman. And you too, hail, dearest husband, and cherish my
children.
Even if he received the ycpt of the dead woman which is usually addressed
to the passer-by (v. 4), and even if he speaks of himself and of his own image
on the stele in the third person (v. 3), the speaker of the rst three verses
must be Onesimos, as is conrmed by Melites nal exhortation: Love my
dear ones, and as the ancient reader of the inscription will have understood
at once from the depiction of a man standing up and talking to a woman.
The speaker is thus the person who had the stela set up, who is obviously
as well informed as the stele itself, even if he here assumes the r ole which is
usually played by the uninformed passer-by.
88
Dialogic inscriptions survive in their traditional forms into the Hellenis-
tic age (cf. e.g. GVI 1833 and 1850, of the second century; 1851, 1859, of the
86
Two hexameters and two catalectic trochaic tetrameters, a sequence for which no parallels are known
to me in metrical inscriptions.
87
The participle is an addition extra metrum to the text, probably requested by someone (perhaps
Onesimos) who was interested in recording Onesimos feelings. It has also been suggested (e.g.
Pircher (1979) 39) that the second verse is an imperfect hexameter.
88
Cf. Walsh (1991) 867.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 311
second/rst century; 1882, of the rst century), and appear to have become
a real fashion under the Roman Empire (GVI 18351849; 18601872; 1883
1887), to the point that they generated a parody by Paulus Silentiarius,
AP 7.307:
89
O0vcu uci . . . Ti ot :c0:c; lc:pi, ot uci . . . L, :i ot
:c0:c;
Ktivc0 o tiui ,tvcu,. Li ,cp gcupc::cu;
Znoc, o tvocc, titcv icv. Li ,cp occ,;
Ktuci o tvot v0v. Ti, :ivi :c0:c t,ti,;
My name is . . . What does it matter? My country is . . . And what does that
matter? I am of noble race. And if you were of the very dregs? I quitted life
with a good reputation And had it been a bad one? And I now lie here. Who
are you and to whom are you telling this? (trans. Paton)
Fromthe third and second centuries bc on, however, we also nd a different
form of dialogic dramatisation, which does not transform the moment of
vision and reading into a dialogue between the passer-by and the dead,
but merely translates the act of reading by the passer-by into an act of
listening; the message written on the monument is nowpronounced by the
monument itself. This form of presentation presupposes and, as it were,
transforms into a narrative monologue the previous convention of true
dialogue, leaving the responsibility for the message still with the inscription
and/or the dead: cf. e.g. GVI 1620.13 (third/second century bc): c :uc,
cos cocuc,, c ot :ci tt:pc, | :cv sc:vcv:c onucvt, :i, sci :ivc, |
t, Aiocv tcstv, s:. the tomb is not without signs, and the stone will
reveal the dead person: who, and the son of whom, has gone to Hades, etc.,
1745.3f. = SGO 05/01/42 (third century bc): to:c ot tt:pc scttpt
,cptti | :cv vtsuv gc,,c gt,,cutvc o:cuc:i, s:. above, the
smooth stone announces the dead, speaking with a mouth without sounds,
etc., 1621.3 (second century bc)
,,t]t ,pcgn, s:. the
inscription will announce, etc..
90
Inscriptions like those discussed so far are, more or less explicitly, words
that the convention of the speaking uvnuc, whether dedicatory or funerary,
lends to the stone, or to the dead person, or to the object to which the stone
refers. As such, they presuppose that the passer-by/reader had in front of
his eyes the monumental context of the dialogue, which was of course also
89
Kaibel (1893) 51 rather fancifully hypothesised that the occasion (real or imaginary) for the epigram
was the discovery of a fragmentary inscription in which a homo insipidus supplied foolish answers.
90
Many other examples in GVI 16221635. This compendious form of dialogue is not common in
literary epigrams, but cf. Callimachus, AP 7.447 = HE 1209f., the pseudo-Theocritean AP 7.262 =
HE 3504f., and Antipater Sid., AP 7.425.3 = HE 382.
312 The epigram
the subject of the dialogue: the passer-by was expected to ask about the
monument, not about anything else. When epigram-writers began to link
their names with the text of single epigrams, and to consider a circulation
for texts separate from inscription on stone, and hence a reception which
did not involve actual vision of a monument, it was to be expected that
this would affect the character of the dialogue itself.
In fact, literary epigrams of the third and second centuries present a
mixed picture. Some very faithfully follow epigraphical traditions, with the
presupposition of a monumental context: a passer-by asks questions and
a tombstone or monument explains itself. Examples of this kind include
Leonidas, AP 7.503 = HE 2355ff. and AP 7.163 = HE 2395ff.,
91
Phalaecus,
AP 13.5 = HE 2939ff.,
92
Theaetetus, AP 6.357 = HE 3342ff., Theodori-
das, AP 6.224 = HE 3524ff., Philetas of Samos, AP 7.481 = HE 3028ff.,
93
[Theocritus], AP 7.262 =HE 3504ff.
94
There are, however, also other more
ambiguous epigrams whichplay onthe absence of the monumental context.
An interesting case is Nicias, AP 6.122 = HE 2755ff.:
Mcivc, Lvucicu, tctucocst, c0pi spvtic,
:i, v ot nst tc ocpcv t,tpoiuyc;
Mnvic, n ,cp :c0 tcuc, ctc ' piugc cpc0oc
tv tpcuyci, Oopoc, onicv cu ttoicv.
Maenad of Ares, sustainer of war, impetuous javelin, who now has set you here, a
gift to the goddess who awakes the battle? Menios; for by springing lightly from
his hand in the forefront of the ght I wrought havoc among the Odrysae on the
plain. (trans. Paton, adapted)
This dedication of a javelin contrasts its present immobility with its past
violent speed. This was probably a common type of dedicatory epigram by
91
Leonidas was imitated by Antipater Sid., AP 7.164 = HE 302ff., who even copied the name of the
dead person (!); see also the further variations of Antipater or Archias, AP 7.165 = GPh 3658ff., and
of Amyntes, SH 43 = FGE 13ff. (cf. also Agathias, AP 7.552). A later dedicatory parallel is offered by
Philip of Thessalonica, AP 6.259 = GPh 2789ff.
92
The text is corrupt and the division of lines controversial. In all probability, the epigram is in the
form of a dialogue between a passer-by and the four characters on a monument; so, most recently,
Gow-Page and Buf` ere. The exegesis of Kaibel (1893) 501, followed by Beckby, according to which
the dialogue is between only two characters commemorated by the statue or the relief, is much less
likely.
93
Here, the dialogue is not between the dead person and the passer-by, but between the father of the
little girl, who will have been depicted on the stele, and the girl herself, likewise portrayed on the
stele: cf. CEG 512 (above, p. 299).
94
The inscription will say which tomb it is, and who lies beneath it: I am the tomb of the famous
Glauce, which nds a precise parallel in GVI 1625 (rst century bc)The stele will tell you of my
destiny, and the letters engraved on it will tell of my death and the name of my parents [. . .] my
name is Ploutos, and at the age of three I arrived at the threshold of Hades, etc. For Glauce, however,
seeing that she is cvcuccutvn famous, no other details are necessary, as Walsh (1991) 87 observes.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 313
Nicias time; its roots lie perhaps in Alcaeus description of an arms-room
(fr. 140 V.),
95
and other examples are found in [Simonides], AP 6.52 =
FGE 932ff., Mnasalces, AP 6.125 and 128 = HE 26112620, and Antiphilus
of Byzantium, AP 6.97 = GPh 909ff. There is a close parallel in Anyte,
AP 6.123 = HE 664ff.:
96
Lo:ci :cot, spvtic pc:cs:cvt, uno t:i u,pcv
ystcv ug cvuyc o:t gcvcv ocicv
vc ucpuptcv ocucv nutvc cituv Avc,,
c,,t vcptcv Kpn:c, Lytspc:ioc.
Stand here, you murderous javelin, no longer drip from your brazen barb the
dismal blood of foes; but resting in the high marble house of Athena, announce
the bravery of Cretan Echecratidas. (trans. Paton)
Anyte, perhaps writing before Nicias, gives greater prominence to her rela-
tionship with the lyric-archaic model of Alcaeus: ystcv[ . . .] ucpuptcv
ocucv picks up ucpucipti ot ut,c, ocuc, ysc the great hall sparkles
with bronze etc. in Alcaeus.
Anyone who read Nicias epigram in its monumental context, next to
the dedicated javelin, will not have had any doubts about its interpretation.
The visible dedication will have made clear that Maenad of Enyalius was
a metaphor for fury of Ares, a metaphor of a common kind in which
Dionysus and Ares were often involved.
97
The reaction of a reader of the
epigramin book formwill have been different, and Nicias may have wanted
to suspend understanding by means of the metaphorical uciv, and the
ambiguous Lvuic,, which was both one of the names of Ares and (less
commonly) an epithet of Dionysus.
98
Anyone who encountered the epi-
gram without its monumental context, however, might until the clear sig-
nals of v. 2 have been led to suppose that the apostrophe was addressed to
the statue of a Maenad of Dionysus, and that Enyalius was to be inter-
preted in its secondary, less common meaning; the uncertainty would only
95
Cf. M. B. Bonanno, Lallusione necessaria: ricerche intertestuali sulla poesia greca e latina (Rome 1990)
12546.
96
The standard view, deriving fromReitzenstein (1893) 1235, is that Anyte is the model for Nicias. This
has recently been denied by Bernsdorff (2001) 11314, in the course of a detailed survey, which lowers
the chronology of Anyte, traditionally considered to be an authoress of the very rst generation of
Hellenistic epigram-writers. The use of spvtic in the sense javelin is found only in these two
poems and would seemto guarantee a relationship between them. The ambiguity of Nicias opening
might point to the priority of Anyte.
97
Timotheus had called the shield the drinking-bowl of Ares (PMG 797) and cup of Ares to mean
shield or shield of Dionysus to mean cup are typical examples of a metaphor by analogy, according
to Aristotle, Rhet. 3.1407a1415; cf. also Rhet. 3.1412b34 and Poet. 1457b201.
98
Cf. PMG 1027b, Macrob., Sat. 1.19.1: Bacchus has the name of Lvuic,, which is also one of the
names used for Mars.
314 The epigram
be increased by spvtic, which normally means cornel tree, but here is
used for a spear made from cornel-wood. Someone, of course, who knew
Anytes poem, if it was indeed the earlier of the two, will have understood
from the end of v. 1 that the subject was a javelin, and that the starting-
point for the initial metaphor was the Homeric custom of personifying
lances and the hands of warriors who brandish them through the use of
the verb ucivtoci.
99
Nevertheless, initial misunderstanding will have been
even more likely if, at the beginning of the third century, the ekphrasis of
statues in dialogue form was already a common epigrammatic form. An
example from the late third century was inscribed on the plinth of a statue
of Lysippus the Younger:
100
gcvti uci, uis(s)c,, :i, o ttcot sci :ivc, t
tc,, | :ptstc,, t oci ,co(o)c vtc tu:ci, s:. tell me truly, little
boy, who formed you and whose child you are, if your young tongue is
loosened up, etc.. Other examples involving statues of Bacchants include
[Simonides], APlan. 60 =FGE 914f., Ti, cot, Bsyc. Ti, ot viv tot,
2sctc,. | Ti, o ttunvt, Bsyc, n 2sctc,, 2sctc, Who is this?
A Bacchant Who sculpted it? Skopas. Who inspired the passion,
Bacchus or Skopas? Skopas, and the non-dialogic Glaucus of Athens,
AP 9.774, 775 = GPh 386974, Paulus Silentarius, APlan. 57 and adesp.
APlan. 58.
101
Thus Nicias epigram, with its metaphorical use of spvtic,
perhaps in competition with Anytes, fully exploited the ambiguities cre-
ated in dialogues between passer-by and inscription, when these epigrams
could be read without the monumental context to which they refer.
Other epigram-writers too used the absence of the monumental context
to problematise, while pretending to adopt, the dialogic conventions of the
epigraphical tradition, which continued to be followed faithfully by many
literary epigrams. Consider Dioscorides, AP 7.430 = HE 1657ff.:
:i, :c vtcostu:c tc:i opui :cot scctv
tv:tc; :c tt:c Acpi, vc,pgt:ci;
tti ,cp Ouptc:i, og cuc:c, cot cyi:cv,
yut, t Ap,ticv :ci oc titcutc.
tv:c vtsuv uo:tut otocutc:c, un :i, t: tutvcu,
titcutvc, 2tp:c s0oc, tcut vccv.
oyt oiv. visc ,cp tt otioc, cot Acscvcv
gcvt:ci pcuci, cuc:c, Opuoc,
99
For lances that rage, cf. Iliad 8.111 and 16.75; for the hands of warriors, cf. 16.2445.
100
Text of R. Herzog, Epigramm der Kinderstatue eines Lysippos in Kos in Schumacher-Festschrift
(Mainz 1930) 2078; see also J. D. Beazley and A. S. F. Gow, CR 43 (1929) 1202.
101
The epigrams attributed to Simonides are notoriously difcult to date; Glaucus of Athens would
appear to be later than Nicias.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 315
yc :cot ucynoc, otcipti ttc,. c tpctc:cp Zt0,
o:cv vis:c oucc guctioc,.
Who hung the newly-stripped arms on this oak? By whom is the Dorian shield
inscribed? For this land of Thyrea is soaked with the blood of champions and we
are the only two left of the Argives. Seek out every fallen corpse, lest any left alive
illuminate Sparta in spurious glory. Nay! Stay your steps, for here on the shield
the victory of the Spartans is announced by the clots of Othryadas blood, and he
who wrought this still gasps hard by. O Zeus our ancestor, look with loathing
on those tokens of a victory that was not won. (trans. Paton, adapted)
This epigramwas includedby mistake inBook 7 of the Palatine Anthology,
but, despite its opening, it is not a votive offering. After the rst couplet,
which clearly recalls dialogic dedications, the reader, who is unaware of
the fact that this epigram could never be connected with any monument,
expects an answer. The poem develops, however, as a mimetic-dialogic
re-evocation of the night following the battle of Thyrea.
The Argives and the Spartans had decided to solve the question of the
possession of Thyrea by staging a ght between three hundred Spartans
and three hundred Argives. At the end, the two Argives who were left
alive thought that they were the only survivors and therefore considered
themselves the winners (cf. Herodotus 1.82.5: thinking that they had won,
they ran back to Argos); but one Spartan, Othryades, had also survived,
and he seized the arms of the fallen Argives and took them to the Spartan
camp as a sign of victory. Already by Herodotus time, the story of this battle
was subject to romantic variations: according to some people, the historian
informs us, Othryades committed suicide from guilt at being the only one
who returned home, while his fellow-soldiers had fallen on the battleeld.
Dioscorides is our earliest datable witness to a version in which Othryades,
with the arms he had taken from the Argives, erected a formal trophy
and inscribed on it in his own blood a declaration of Spartan victory.
102
This battle was, however, very popular with Hellenistic epigrammatists, and
Dioscorides will not have invented his version; an epigramof uncertain date
ascribed to Simonides (AP 7.431 =HE 3334ff.) mentions the shield, stained
with the manly blood of Othryades, and Nicander, AP 7.526 =HE 2723ff.
describes Othryades as the one who had inscribed the spoils captured
from the Inachidai (i.e. the Argives). Instead of offering the usual dialogic
reading of the dedicatory inscription, as the opening appears to announce,
Dioscorides expands on the story of the origin of the inscription itself,
102
This version, which enjoyed great fortune in the early imperial age, is also adopted by the two
historians Chrisermus and Theseus, FGrHist 287F2 and 453F2: cf. P. Kohlmann, Othryades
RhM 29 (1874) 46380.
316 The epigram
told in dialogue form through the words of the two Argives; moreover, the
perspective from which Dioscorides organises the aition of the inscription
reverses what a reader expected for dedicatory inscriptions, whether dialogic
or otherwise. The ordinary point of viewin such poems was, of course, that
of the person making the dedication, but here it is that of the enemies of the
dedicator; the value of the victory celebrated by the trophy of Othryades is
thus denied and, instead of containing the usual prayer to the god to accept
the dedication, the end of the poem consists of a prayer not to accept it. In
this way, Dioscorides overturns the conventions of the dedicatory epigram
and the expectations of readers.
It is Callimachus who plays most openly and frequently with the dialogue
formin dedicatory and sepulchral epigrams. In at least two of his dedicatory
epigrams, Callimachus exploits the epigraphical convention of the talking
monument, as the spokesman of the person who had it set up.
103
These
two epigrams are AP 6.147 = HE 1157ff.,
:c yptc, c, ttyti,, Aosntit, :c tpc ,uvcisc,
Anucoisn, Astocv cgttv toutvc,,
,ivcostiv nv o cpc n sci <oi,> uiv tci: n,,
gnoi tcpttoci ucp:upinv c tivc.
Acknowledge, Asklepios, that the vowAkeson made for his wife Demodices recov-
ery is hereby Paid in full. If you forget and bill me again, this tablet says it is my
receipt. (trans. Nisetich)
and AP 6.149 = HE 1161ff.:
gnoiv c ut o:noc, Locivt:c, (co ,cp t,c,t
,ivcosc) visn, v:i ut :n, ioin,
,stoci ysticv ts:cpc Tuvocpionoi
tio:tc 1ciopcu tcioi 1ictviotc.
Euainetos put me here, saying (I dont know myself ) that he dedicates me to the
sons of Tyndareus, a bronze cock in return for a victory I won. Just so: the son of
Phaidros, grandson of Philoxenos, has spoken. (trans. Nisetich)
In both cases, the truth of the traditional information presented in the rst
person by the inscription, namely the reason for the dedication, is ironically
problematised. In the rst case, the authors point of view attributes to the
inscription the somewhat comic desire to act as a sort of formal receipt,
guaranteeing Akeson against the possibility of a second request for thanks-
giving from the god: nothing could be farther from the usual devout tone
of dedications. In the second case, the point of view is indeed that of the
103
Cf. Meyer (1993a) 166; Gutzwiller (1998) 1923.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 317
talking monument, but it is a monument that expresses itself very idiosyn-
cratically. The epigram underlines the paradox of a bronze object which
speaks,
104
while the parenthetic I dont know myself stresses both that a
bronze object cannot have a perception of facts
105
and, in particular, cannot
know about a victory alleged to have taken place before it was created. The
talking cock monument is indeed prepared to credit the afrmations of the
dedicator, but it also humorously makes clear that if an object speaks, it
can only be the spokesman of the dedicator.
In another poem of Callimachus (AP 6.351 = HE 1151f.), it is not the
passer-by who apostrophises the dedicated monument, but rather we see a
preliminary phase, in which the dedicator presents his gift for acceptance
by the god:
Tiv ut, tcv:,y cvc oucs:cvt, gn,ivcv ccv
nst. Ti,, Apyvc, lcc,, O Kpn, Atycuci.
For you, Lord, Lion-strangler, Boar-slayer, I, an oak club, from Who? Archi-
nos. Of? Crete Got it. (trans. Nisetich)
The novelty of the speaker is increased by the further ambiguity of the
manner and the tone in which the divine interlocutor expresses himself:
the gesture of impatience with which he interrupts the pompous words of
the dedicator, together with the almost monosyllabic brevity of his ques-
tions, do not suggest so much the benevolent majesty of a god receiving a
gift, as the rudely imperious haste of a Ptolemaic ofcial, to whom a hum-
ble citizen has offered a small present.
106
Rather similar is Callimachus,
AP 7.277 = HE 1265ff.:
Ti,, tvc, c vcun,t; Atcv:iyc, tvot vtspcv
toptv tt ci,icc0, ycot ot : cot :gc
ocspoc, ttisnpcv tcv icv coot ,cp co:c,
nouyc,, ciuin o oc ccooctcpt.
Who are you, shipwrecked traveller? Leontichos found your corpse here on the
beach, and piled this grave with a tear for his own hazardous life: he too, without
peace, like a gull, roams the sea. (trans. Nisetich, adapted)
The opening four words suggest the usual question about the identity of
the dead, but this question remains unanswered. In the nineteenth century,
attempts were made to emend the text, so as to obtain a request about the
104
Cf. Meyer (forthcoming) chapter B.3.4.
105
That written discourse can be endowed with reason is denied in the passage of Platos Phaedrus
quoted below, p. 322.
106
Cf. G. Luck, Witz und Sentiment im griechischen Epigramm in L
Epigramme grecque 3923.
318 The epigram
identity of the person who had buried the dead, but the transmitted text
lends itself, in fact, to two interpretations, both of which are plausible and
presuppose a frustration of the expectations aroused by the tradition of the
dialogic inscription. Callimachus may simply have left the initial question
suspended, eliminating any answer at all. It is, however, more likely that
Callimachus plays on the ambiguity created by the ellipse of the verb in the
rst hemistich. The ancient reader expected the ellipse of t (Who are you,
shipwrecked stranger?), but Callimachus also suggests and favours the pos-
sibility of the ellipse of ycot (Who buried you, shipwrecked stranger?).
107
With either interpretation, the poem draws attention to the fact that there
is no answer to the traditional question it is unnecessary to force the
epigram into a dialogue structure, by emending toptv to topt u at the
beginning of v. 2.
108
On the more likely reading, however, Callimachus
inserts his own reection in place of the answer to the conventional ques-
tion, thus challenging the reader to understand why there was no answer;
the reason is, in fact, that the convention of question and answer about the
identity of the dead person clashed with another convention, attested only
in literary epigrams and only from the third century onwards, namely that
epitaphs for the shipwrecked were anonymous.
109
Another epigram, once again by Callimachus (AP 7.522 = HE 1227ff.),
is a sort of mise en sc`ene of the act of reading and recognition, or better
lack of recognition, of the monumental context. This, however, is not
the reading of an uninformed passer-by, but a highly personalised reading
by a far from generic gure, one who is so well informed as to rival the
monument itself and to be able to ll out its message:
110
Tiucvcn. :i, o tooi; uc ociucvc,, c0 o cv ttt,vcv,
ti un Tiuctcu tc:pc, ttnv cvcuc
o:nn sci Mnuuvc :tn tci,. n ut,c gnui
ynpcv vicoci ocv tcoiv Louutvn.
Timonoe. Which Timonoe are you? By the gods, I would not have known you, had
not the name of your father Timotheus come next on the stele, and Methymna,
107
Other exegeses have been attempted: cf. P. Waltz, vol. iv of the Bud e Anthologie, p. 174.
108
As T. L. Agar, CQ 17 (1923) 83 does, followed by Gow-Page.
109
Cf. above, pp. 2923; for a different interpretation, see Gutzwiller (1998) 2089. The same logic
might lie behind Serapion, AP 7.400 = GPh 3404ff.: Whose skull is this? That of a man who
worked hard. Then you will have been a merchant or a sherman in the blind wave. Tell mortal
men that they take pains to accomplish other hopes, but this hope here is the one that we have
access to.
110
Cf. Meyer (1993a) 166; Walsh (1991) 97103. Pace P. K unzle, RFIC 11 (1933) 76, GVI 1845 is not
parallel to Callimachus poem, for that poem has a traditional generic passer-by.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 319
your city. Euthymenes, your widowed husband, is full of grief: thats for sure.
(trans. Nisetich, adapted)
The implication that the gural representation, whether iconic
111
or ani-
conic,
112
by which the tomb indicated the identity of the dead woman was
inadequate suggests a sort of historical and metaliterary reection on the
nature of sepulchral inscriptions, underlining the indispensability of the
verbal element for a correct understanding of the iconic element.
113
At
the same time, however, the passer-by/reader of the inscription (in actual
fact, the author) also occupies the space of the standard epitaphic com-
ment, and, together with the essential personal information, he includes
his own highly personalised message. The inscription does not give any
answer, on behalf of the dead woman, to the usual question of the passer-
by/reader about her identity; Callimachus literally denies the inscription
the right to speak, by substituting for the comment of the inscription the
process of decoding what he sees engraved on the stele.
114
As a result, the
initial :i, o tooi unexpectedly proves to come from the soliloquy that
follows the reading of the name of the dead woman in the inscription,
and not from a dialogue between reader and tomb. Moreover, in the nal
sentence Callimachus comments emotionally himself, instead of repeating
the standard phrases by which the spouse or the parents, who had set up
the monument, expressed their mourning for the dead;
115
it is as if he were
saying, I, Callimachus, amtelling you this; I knewTimonoe well, so this is
not the usual rhetorical and generic expression you might nd on a funer-
ary stele.
116
The emotional reactions of the poet, not those of the person
who commissioned the work, remain in the foreground from beginning to
end; together with the process of reading, the poets gradual discovery and
his own feelings are dramatised, and we recognise here the Callimachus we
know, the shrewd detective and psychologist of the erotic epigrams. It is
in fact difcult to say whether this epigram is closer to dialogues between
111
Cf. Weissh aupl (1889) 956. Sepulchral portraits, could be not only badly executed but also generic,
paying little or no attention to the specic physiognomy of the dead: cf. Clairmont (1970) 62.
112
Cf. E. Livrea, Tre epigrammi funerari callimachei (1990), now in Livrea (1993) 923.
113
Iulianus Aegypt., AP 7.565 The painter has portrayed Theodota perfectly (co:nv Oticoc:nv c
c,pgc,). Ah, if only his art had betrayed him! He would have granted oblivion to us, who weep
for her represents a contrasting use of the same motif, and perhaps an imitation of Callimachus.
114
Cf. Meyer (1993a) 166 and Meyer (forthcoming) chapter B.3.5.
115
Some examples from the fourth century: CEG 477, 485, 503, 511, 585.
116
As W. Kullmann, Kallimachos in Alexandrien und Rom in Candide iudex: Beitr age zur augusteische
Dichtung. Festschrift f ur W. Wimmel (Stuttgart 1998) 170 observes, the reader of this epigram has the
impression that he is not dealing with the usual captatio benevolentiae, but rather acknowledging
the reactions provoked in a reader by a successful reading of the epitaph.
320 The epigram
passer-by and monument or to erotic epigrams like AP 12.71 = HE 1097
1102 (below p. 338): O Thessalian Kleonikos, poor, poor you! By the bright
sun, I didnt recognise you. Poor wretch, what has happened to you? Only
your bones and hair are left. Are you possessed by the same daimon that
dominates me? Have you had this ill fortune? I understand. Euxitheos has
enchanted you, too, etc.
A narrativised and contracted variant of the dialogue form, which is to
be interpreted in the light of typically Hellenistic inscriptions such as GVI
1620 (above), is Callimachus, AP 7.447 = HE 120910:
ov:cuc, nv c tvc, c sci o:iyc, co ucspc tcv
Onpi, Apio:cicu Kpn, tt tuci ociyc,.
The stranger was short, his epitaph verse will also not be long: Theris son of
Aristaios, of Crete is long on me.
The future tense of tcv inv. 1, about whichdoubts have beenexpressed,
117
has in fact many inscriptional parallels: the act of proclaiming a message is
almost always in the future (the stone will indicate who the dead person is,
the inscription will announce etc.),
118
and this is perfectly understandable,
given that the passer-by would see the inscription before reading the mes-
sage (i.e. the name) itself. The exegesis of the couplet is still controversial,
but whatever the explanation of the excessive length of the truly short
Onpi, Apio:cicu Kpn, the physical length of the inscription, compared
with its stone, which was short because Theris was not tall, or perhaps
rather its long-windedness, compared with the laconic Theris
119
the voice
of the poet, well informed about the dead, imposes itself on what remains,
only formally, the voice of the tomb (tt tuci); the poem once again prob-
lematises the suitability of the sepulchral message inthe light of the superior,
personal knowledge of the author. The epigram probably also alludes to
the taste for ci,co:iyic, an aesthetic preference which is typical of this
poet in particular.
120
117
See most recently HE ii.193 (with a survey of previous opinions) and P. Karpouzou in Pagonari-
Antoniou (1997) 136. For ucspcc,ic long-windedness as the opposite vice to ouv:cuic,
cf. Celentano (1995) 734.
118
Cf. also [Theocritus], AP 7.262.1 = HE 3504 and Antipater Sid., AP 7.425.3 = HE 382.
119
Cf. Celentano (1995) 756.
120
Cf. Celentano (1995) 745. This does not mean, obviously, that this celebration of concision did
not have precise contextual reasons; F. Cairns, The New Posidippus and Callimachus in Worte,
Bilder, T one. Studien zur Antike und Antikerezeption B. Kytzler zu ehren (W urzburg 1996) 778
supposes that this virtue was particularly appreciated in a Cretan, seeing that the Cretans had a
terrible reputation as liars.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 321
Let us now consider Callimachus, AP 7.725 = HE 12337:
121
Avit (sci ou ,cp cot) Mtvtspc:t, cos t:i tcu,
noc;
122
:i ot, tivcv co:t, sc:tip,oc:c;
n pc :c sci Ktv:cupcv; c uci tttpcutvc, 0tvc,
ntv, c ot :nucv cvc, tyti tpcgcoiv.
Menecrates of Ainos (you here, too!) were you not still in the prime of life? What
destroyed you, O best of guests? Maybe what killed the Centaur too? The sleep
came which was destined to me, but insolent wine provides the reason. (trans.
Nisetich, adapted)
Here Callimachus-the-reader is not a generic passer-by, but a close friend
of the dead, and thus better informed, or at least more objective, than the
inscription itself. Callimachus had imagined that Menecrates was still alive,
because he was in the prime of life (t:i tcu,); as soon as he discovers
that he is dead you here, too! (i.e. in a cemetery) the poet needs no
inscription to guess what has happened. The poet himself has witnessed the
sympotic excesses of this very dear guest of his: Menecrates was as tcu,
imposing as a Centaur, but wine destroyed him, just as it had destroyed
the Homeric Centaur.
123
The inscription itself adds nothing to the poets
hypothesis, except for the self-justication which could be expected from
the dead,
124
following in the wake of Elpenor in the Odyssey, who was led
to his death by too much wine:
125
the fatal day came for Menecrates, and
excessive drinking was no more than the contingent reason for his death.
That wine tyti tpcgcoiv (v. 4) is open to different interpretations. If the
words are given their usual meaning, then wine is justied/has an excuse
for itself , i.e. it is to be forgiven, because fault is not to be attributed to
it, but to inescapable destiny (cf. e.g. Demosthenes, Adv. Leptinem 140);
alternatively, the phrase may be interpreted as wine supplies destiny with
an excuse (cf. e.g. Plato, Rep. 5.469c9), or wine provides the occasion for
destiny (cf. e.g. Herodotus 4.79.1).
126
On any interpretation, Menecrates
disagrees with Callimachus assessment of the cause of death,
127
and the
121
I print the text and share the exegesis of M. Gronewald, Kallimachos Epigramm 42 G.-P. (61Pf.)
ZPE 100 (1994) 224.
122
For the sequence cos . . . noc, suspected, in my opinion wrongly, of being corrupt, cf. E. A.
Barber, CR 4 (1954) 230 and G. Giangrande, Hermes 91 (1963) 1546.
123
Cf. Od. 21.2956, Alcaeus Mess., AP 11.12 = HE 24ff., Nicarchus, AP 11.1.
124
Cf. Hutchinson (1988) 73: Menecrates is indeed sensitive to the disreputable appearance of his
decease.
125
In the Underworld, Elpenor explains to Odysseus: cot ut ociucvc, coc scsn sci togc:c,
cvc, the ill fortune of destiny and too much wine blinded me (Od. 11.61).
126
Cf. L. Pearson, Prophasis and Aitia TAPhA 83 (1952) 20523.
127
This is demonstrated by the highly probable imitation in [Virg.], Cat. 11.14: Quis deus, Octavi,
te nobis abstulit? An quae | dicunt, a, nimio pocula dura mero? | Vobiscum, si est culpa, bibi; sua
322 The epigram
epigram turns on the contrast between the diplomatically softened truth
of the presumed traditional inscription which Callimachus imagines that
he observes, and the objective voice of Callimachus-the-author which
suggests a message similar to that of other epigrams for those who died of
drink
128
(such as Callimachus, AP 7.454 = HE 1325f.).
129
Here again we
recognise the experienced psychologist familiar fromthe erotic epigrams.
130
A different mode of variation of dialogic conventions is found in three
other epigrams by Callimachus. Ideally, inscriptions should formulate the
informationthat they wishto display inanarticulate message, but the stone-
cutters of archaic inscriptions were well aware of the limits of such messages.
Inscriptions did not allowany possibility of feedback between the dead per-
son and the passer-by; inscribed messages were unchangeable, and therefore
remained deaf to the request of any future passer-by/interlocutor,
131
as can
be seen very clearly from CEG 286 (quoted on p. 308). A famous passage
of Platos Phaedrus (275d) makes this a characteristic of all writing:
There is one strange element which truly unites writing and painting. The gures
that are the fruit of painting stand in front of you as if they were alive, but if you
ask them a question, they remain solemnly silent. The same thing happens in the
case of written discourses. You might get the impression that they speak as if they
had some sensible thoughts, but if you ask them about something that they have
said, in order to understand it better, they continue to say one and the same thing.
The messages of archaic inscriptions remained limited either to information
about the dead (identity, virtues, kind of death) or, something particularly
common in Attic inscriptions fromthe late fourth century on, to the expec-
tations of the relatives concerning the afterlife that awaited the dead as a
result of their virtues. In three epigrams, however, Callimachus converses
with the tomb to elicit from the dead information about the quality of
(non-) life after death, a theme no less important in Hellenistic philosophy
quemque sequuntur | fata: quid immeriti crimen habent cyathi? What god, Octavius, took you away
from us? Perhaps, as they say, the cruel cups of too much undiluted wine? If it is an offence to
drink, I shared it with you. Everyone has his own destiny: why accuse the cups of a fault that is
not theirs? On the meaning of tpcgcoi,, cf. H. R. Rawlings III, A Semantic Study of Prophasis to
400 bc (Wiesbaden 1975) and A. A. Nikitas, Zur Bedeutung von lPO1A2l2 in der altgriechischen
Literatur (Wiesbaden 1976).
128
Leonidas, AP 7.455 = HE 2385ff. imitated by Antipater Sid. 7.353 = 356ff.; Dioscorides 7.456 =
1647ff.; Ariston 7.457 = 786ff.; Antipater Thess. 7.398 = GPh 423ff.; Marcus Arg. 7.384 = GPh
1469ff.; adesp. AP 7.329; adesp. FGE 1624ff.
129
For this passage, I follow the interpretation of E. Livrea, Due epigrammi callimachei (1989), now
in Livrea (1993) 95100. The reading co cuv, s:. attested by Athenaeus (and defended most
recently by G. Giangrande, Platon 50 (1998) 310) is, however, tempting; Callimachean irony can
never be ruled out.
130
Cf. below, pp. 33841.
131
Cf. Svenbro (1993) 2831.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 323
than in Plato.
132
The motif of the dead person/tomb that transmits messages
which are more wide-ranging than the conventional topics is developed by
Callimachus also in the Aitia (fr. 64 Pf.) and the Iambi (11, cf. fr. 201 Pf.),
though in both of these cases it is not the afterlife about which the dead
instruct us, but rather their nal moments on earth.
Let us begin with AP 7.524 = HE 1187ff.:
H p otc oci Xcpioc, vctct:ci; Li :cv Apiuuc
:c0 Kupnvcicu tcoc t,ti,, ot tuci.
0 Xcpioc, :i :c vtpt, lcu, osc:c,. A o cvcoci :i,
1t0oc,. O ot lc:cv, M0c,. Atccutc.
Oo:c, tuc, c,c, 0uuiv nivc, ti ot :cv nov
cti, ltcicu c0, ut,c, tiv Aion.
Tell me, is Charidas buried here? If it is the son of Arimmas of Cyrene you mean,
he is here. Charidas, how is it down there? Very dark. What of return?
A lie. And Pluto? A myth. We are done for, then. I have given you the
truth. If you prefer a pleasantry, beef is a penny a pound in Hades. (trans. Nisetich,
adapted)
The poet rst apostrophises the tomb (otc oci) and then the deceased
himself, whereas the talking tomb conventionally spoke either in the rst
person or in the voice of the dead. Here a conventional dialogue between
passer-by and tomb leads into a conversation with the deceased Charidas;
as the epigraphic tradition had so frequently imagined that not only the
tomb, on behalf of the dead, but also the dead person himself could speak
in the rst person through the inscription, why should it not be considered
legitimate to ask him for some more information, besides the usual details
of identity, particularly as the tomb itself had already taken care of these
details in the rst couplet?
The second epigram in this group is AP 7.520 = HE 1199ff.:
nv oin Tiucpycv tv Aoc,, cgpc tnci
n :i ttpi uyn, n ti tc, totci,
oitoci gun, l:ctucioc, utc tc:pc,
lcuocvicu onti, o co:cv tv toottcv.
If you search for Timarchus in Hades, to nd out anything about the soul, or how
you will exist again, search for the son of Pausanias of the tribe Ptolemais: you will
nd him among the pious. (trans. Nisetich, adapted)
The poem starts off in a similar manner to the second couplet of CEG 545:
the earth has the bones and the esh of the sweet boy, but his soul has
132
Cf. Callimachus, AP 7.471 = HE 1272ff., on Cleombrotus, who committed suicide after reading
the Phaedo.
324 The epigram
gone to the chamber (cuc,) of the devout. If you ask my name (ti ot
cvcuc n:t,), I who lie here in illustrious Athens am Theogeiton, the son
of Thymouchos, a Theban by birth; this and other epigraphic occurrences
demonstrate that this conditional clause was a part of epitaphic formulaic
language,
133
just as you will nd him in the area of the devout (onti, o
co:cv tv toottcv) also alludes to such repetitive assertions. In CEG
545 and other inscriptions, however, if you ask my name etc. refers to
the usual curiosity of the uninformed passer-by about the name of the
dead person,
134
but in Callimachus the addressee already knows who he is
looking for, and the investigation in which he is imagined to be engaged
from the beginning (nv oin) is completely different. Timarchus personal
details (v. 3) seem to be introduced only as necessary to trace him in Hades,
together with his new address (v. 4); the information that the passer-by
would like to receive is not of the traditional kind about the deceaseds
identity, but rather rst-hand information about the quality of life beyond
the grave, and the whole epigram is centred on the possibility of such
an extraordinary interview at this new, and highly unlikely, address in the
Underworld.
135
By starting inthe same way as sepulchral inscriptions, which
elicited the conventional request from the passer-by about the identity of
the dead person, and nishing with the equally conventional dwelling-
place of the blessed, Callimachus makes the tomb itself speak the whole
poem: an interview with the dead about life after death, which may be
supposed to be a motif invented by Callimachus, is introduced within
traditional epigraphic conventions, as if tombs could learn to speak with
the intellectual voice of Callimachus, as the bronze cock of Euainetos had
done (above pp. 31617).
Thus far the primary meaning of the epigram. But if Callimachus
Timarchus was the Alexandrian Cynic philosopher, who was a disciple
of Cleomenes,
136
and who, as a Cynic, will not have believed in life after
death and may even have written, as other Cynics did, against mythical
beliefs regarding Hades,
137
then the epigramacquires a high degree of irony.
133
Cf. GVI 1260.11 (second century bc) and 1163.3 (second/third century ad); the rst century
ad inscription in J. G. Milne, Catalogue general des antiquites egyptiennes du Musee du Caire
(Greek Inscriptions), Oxford 1905, 61 no. 9253.46; SGO 05/01/57 (third century ad), and 18/01/19
(second/third century ad).
134
Cf. CEG 535, 558, 593, which are all parallel to the funerary monument for the fallen at Potidea
(CEG 10) and reect the same religious conception as, e.g., Euripides, Supp. 5334: cf. A. Skiadas,
Lll TMB0l (Athens 1967) 812, J. D. Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion (Chapel HillLondon
1983) 77; R. Garland, The Greek Way of Death (London 1985) 75 takes a different view.
135
Cf. P. Karpouzou in Pagonari-Antoniou (1997) 1312.
136
Cf. Livrea (1993) 7884, Gutzwiller (1998) 2045, Meyer (forthcoming) chapter B.3.2.
137
We have the titles of two works of Antisthenes, ltpi :c0 tccvtv and ltpi :cv tv Aiocu (Socr.
et Socratic. rell. VA.xxviii Giannantoni and cf. vol. iv. 2501); according to Diogenes Laert. 6.5 (176
Giannantoni), he argued that true immortality consisted of a devout, just life.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 325
Callimachus, too, was probably sceptical, like the Cynics and Timarchus,
about life after death;
138
it is, at least, likely that he conceived of the after-
life in a more sophisticated manner than contemporary popular opinion.
The poem thus not only pokes fun at Timarchus himself (an atheist in
Paradise . . .), but becomes a parody of the conventions of inscriptional
dialogues with the dead and of their remorselessly certain pieties (cf. CEG
545 cited above). We may compare the case of Hippo, a natural philosopher
of the age of Pericles, who afrmed that nothing existed except what can be
perceived by the senses (VS 38A9); he was mocked for his materialism by
Cratinus, PCG 167, and is regularly called the atheist in later sources.
139
Nevertheless, he was credited with a self-epitaph which Clement of Alexan-
dria (Protrep. 4, p. 43 St ahlin) quoted as proof that Hippo had had a kind
of conversion, though modern scholars have normally seen it as satirical
(FGE 5645):
lttcvc, :cot onuc, :cv cv:cioi tcoiv
ocv ttcinotv Mcpc sc:cgiutvcv.
This is the tomb of Hippon, whom in death Fate made equal to the immortal
gods.
In Callimachus epigram, the exploitation of the stock expressions of sepul-
chral inscriptions is marked by the double specication in Hades/where
the devout are. We may ll out the translation as follows: If you want
to know what life after death is like, and therefore you are looking for
Timarchus in Hades but it must be Timarchus the Cynic, the son of
Pausanias of the Ptolemaic tribe of Alexandria you will nd him (the very
one who denied immortality), obviously inthe ycpc, tootcv (as epitaphs
put it)! The idea of a ycpc,/ocuc,/cuc, tootcv (or ucspcv) for
those who have lived righteously can be glimpsed in its very early stages in
the Odyssey andis commonly attestedinclassical literature.
140
There is, how-
ever, no epigraphical reference to any dwelling-place of the devout until
CEG545 (above pp. 3234) of the fourth century, though this becomes quite
frequent in the third and second centuries,
141
when sepulchral inscriptions
138
Cf. Livrea (1993) 83.
139
VS 38A4, 6, 8, 9 and B23.
140
Cf. E. Rohde, Psyche (4th ed., T ubingen 1907) i.30714 and ii.38185; P. Siegel, Untersuchungen zu
einigen mythologischen und eschatologischen Motiven in den griechischen metrischen Grabinschriften
(Diss. Innsbruck 1967) 22853; Sourvinou-Inwood (1995) passim but esp. 1756.
141
See, e.g., GVI 1572 (third century bc), GG 194 (third century bc), GVI 677 = SGO 03/02/62
(third/second century bc), 842 (third/second century bc), 2018 = SGO 01/20/25 (200 bc), 753 =
SGO05/01/49 (second century bc), 805 (second century bc), 1154 (second century bc), 1346 (second
century bc), 48 (rst century bc), 258 (rst century ad), 531 = SGO 03/02/60 (rst century ad),
1474 (rst century ad), 1967 (rst century ad), 973 (rst/second century ad), 1719 (rst/second
century ad), 1764 (rst/second century ad), 1970 (rst/second century ad), 2040 = SGO 06/02/32
326 The epigram
often express the comforting thought that the dead person is indeed in
Hades, but in the dwelling-place of the righteous and/or blessed.
142
It is
thus very likely that the expression was fashionable in the formulaic sepul-
chral language of the third century, as Callimachus ostentatious irony also
suggests.
143
Scepticismabout life after death was an element of Greek culture existing
alongside ordinary belief in the afterlife (cf. e.g. Euripides, Troades 1248
50 and Helen 1421), but it is not until the late imperial age that we nd
it clearly attested in sepulchral inscriptions.
144
Callimachean scepticism as
regards the topoi of funerary inscriptions, however, would appear to nd
an isolated parallel in an inscription of the third century bc, namely GVI
350, engraved on the stele of a tomb from Eutresis in Boeotia:
145
Lvo t,c stuci Pcoic,. :c ,tcc oictc
[s]ci otcscv ctpcv titc sc:c ,ccv ctcocv.
ci ot :i, v:it,ti, [sc]:cc, ot0p v:ic,ti:c.
Here I, Rhodius, lie. I do not utter jokes and I leave the cursed moles throughout
the whole land. If anyone has a different view, let him come down here to express
it.
The absurdities which Rhodius
146
proposes to pass over in silence are best
understoodas the usual expressions about the virtues of the deceasedandthe
immortality of the soul, and the last verse points out that if anyone wants to
converse with Rhodius and answer him back, he will have to go down into
Hades; this may be an implicit criticismof the idea of an interviewwith the
(rst/second century ad), 1871 (second century ad), 431 (second century ad), 1090 (second century
ad), 1162 (second century ad), 1776 (second century ad), 1289 (second/third century ad), 1562
(third century ad), 1772 (third century ad), 2061 (third/fourth century ad).
142
On this consolatory motif, cf. V erilhac (197882) ii 31332 and see, e.g., GVI 1128.56 (third
century bc); 1139.8 (second century bc); 1148.1720 (second century bc); 760.14 = SGO 05/01/35
(second/rst century bc); 994.3 (second/rst century bc); vv. 67 of the epigram (second/rst
century bc) published by E. Atalay and E. Voutiras, ArchAnz 1979, 64; GVI 764 (rst century bc);
642.46 = SGO 05/01/30 (rst century ad). See also Carphyllides, AP 7.260.8 = HE 1355f. (above,
p. 300): tnucvc :cv ,usuv 0tvcv | sciucoci ycpnv ttucv tt toottcv.
143
For further discussion of this epigram cf. Gutzwiller (1998) 2045. In another poem, Callimachus
parodies the topical expressions of dedications to the Dioscuri, AP 6.301 = HE 1175ff.: by playing
on the ambiguity of c, as both sea and salt, he reduces the sea-storms after which survivors
made dedications to the Dioscuri to the storms of debts (v. 2), from which Eudemus saved himself
by eating only bread and salt.
144
See, for example, GVI 1905 (third century ad) and 1906 (third/fourth century ad), and the epitaph
from Side SGO 18/15/13 (third century ad).
145
Cf. W. Peek, AthMitt 56 (1931) 120 n. 1 and Nicosia (1992) 54.
146
Rhodius could, of course, designate the deads origin, but the proper name is occasionally attested
(LGPN i.398 and ii.391; SGO 01/20/21.6 = GVI 1344.6 of the third/second century bc; Nuova
silloge epigraca di Rodi e Cos no. 267 Maiuri); the practice of giving only the name, with no further
details, was common in central Greece and in Boeotia (see above, p. 291).
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 327
dead, such as we have seen in Callimachus, or rather, more generally, of the
inscriptional convention of the dialogue between passer-by and deceased.
147
The epitaph of this newTimon remains an isolated third-century example,
but it offers a precious parallel for the scepticism with which Callimachus
deals with the typical expressions of sepulchral inscriptions in general, and
his particular fun with the conventional dialogue form: what if someone
took seriously the convention of a dialogue between passer-by and deceased
and actually went looking for Timarchus in Hades . . .? Rhodius too foresees
the possibility that someone may want to answer the bitter afrmations that
he has left writtenonhis tomb, but only inorder to demonstrate his scornful
certainty that nobody will ever come down to give him an answer after
all, only a person who had descended into the nether world could know as
much as he knew about it . . .
Lastly, let us consider AP 7.317 = HE 1269f., one of the two epigrams
which Callimachus dedicates to the best-known misanthrope, Timon
148
:
Tiucv (co ,cp t: tooi), :i :ci, osc:c, n gc,, typcv;
Tc osc:c, outcv ,cp tticvt, tiv Aion.
Timon (I can ask you, now youre dead), darkness or light: which do you hate?
Darkness, for there are more of you in Hades. (trans. Nisetich, adapted)
From the outset, Callimachus knows and presents the name of the dead,
thus violating one of the basic conventions of sepulchral dialogues; he
abandons the traditional r ole of uninformed passer-by and assumes the
r ole of astute poet, who pretends to be carrying out a sort of reportage
on life after death by contacting those who are most directly qualied to
answer. Immediately afterwards, however, the parenthetic co ,cp t: tooi
reveals a metapoetic awareness that he is exploiting that same convention
which the opening has violated: one who is no longer obviously cannot
really talk to a living person,
149
but he can do so within the inscriptional-
epigrammatic structure of dialogues with talking monuments.
We would be wrong, however, to think that this insistent game of
provocative play with the conventional structures of sepulchral epigrams
147
The second line is very difcult. Rhodius is perhaps referring to his good fortune in not being
plagued by moles, a curse which he is happy to leave to the rest of mankind, rather than the more
usual epitaphic topoi. The reference to moles must reect the paradoxographic tradition whereby
either the whole of Boeotia, or certain areas of it, were free from these beasts, cf. Aristotle, Hist.
anim. 8.605b31606a2, Aelian, Nat. anim. 17.10, Antigonus, Mir. 10. For earlier (less convincing)
attempts at interpretation, cf. H. Goldman, AJA 32 (1928) 17980 id., Excavations at Eutresis in
Boeotia (Cambridge, MA 1931) 27980; Peek and Nicosia (n. 145) and Peek, GG 3078.
148
See above, pp. 3026.
149
Cf. Hutchinson (1988) 72, for whomthe expression underlines the impossibility of the conversation
before it begins.
328 The epigram
can be found in all epigram-writers. Rather, the epigrammatists seem to
divide between (principally) Callimachus, who exploits changes in the cir-
culation and reception of epigrams for humour and ambiguity, and other
poets Anyte, Leonidas, Phalaecus, Posidippus, Theaetetus, Theodoridas,
etc. who prefer broadly to maintain the traditional conventions of the
dialogue between passer-by and tombstone (or statue); the intervention of
their authorial voice is mostly limited to the heightening of poetic imagery
and linguistic expression. It is, perhaps, not surprising that authors like
Callimachus (or Dioscorides), who were also masters of the purely liter-
ary form of the erotic epigram, felt freer of the typical conventions of real
inscriptions, even when writing on the traditional subjects of inscribed
epigram.
150
2.4 Puzzles and speculations
One extreme case of the didactic dialogue between the deceased (or the stele
on his behalf ) and the passer-by concerns the depictions of objects or ani-
mals that on funerary monuments sometimes accompanied, or more rarely
substituted for, the usual representation of the dead (and their relatives);
such depictions often had a r ole that was little more than decorative, but
at times they carried symbolic value, connected with the name of the dead
person, or the circumstances of his death, or his characteristics in life.
151
This is an extreme case because this is half-information, i.e. non-verbal
messages which are not immediately clear, or are not to be interpreted in
their primary meaning, and depend on the passer-by for their decoding.
Symbolic depictions on sepulchral monuments go back at least as far as
the fth century. For the most part, these were immediately understand-
able objects (arms, baskets, etc.) or animals (horses, birds, dogs, hares, etc.)
which recalled the name of the dead person, his rank, his merits, or his
favourite activities. Ambiguous cases undoubtedly existed: thus, for exam-
ple, a lion was often just a semi-decorative guardian of the tomb, but at
times it indicated the strength and warlike courage of a fallen soldier;
152
on the tomb of Atcv of Sinope (Attica, fourth century bc), it marks the
150
Without wishing to return to Reitzensteins division into schools, it would thus appear to be
true that the authors usually attributed to the Peloponnesian school felt closer to the epigraphic
tradition than did the authors traditionally considered Alexandrian: cf. H. Beckby, Anthologia
Graeca (Munich n.d., but 2nd ed. 1966), i.32.
151
Cf. Weissh aupl (1889) 6894.
152
The lion was a frequent efgy on polyandria for those who died in war: examples include the
polyandrion at Cnidos for the Athenians who died at sea in 394, and that for the Greeks who fell
at Chaeronea against Philip in 338 bc (cf. below, p. 334); for later periods, cf. GVI 34 (second/rst
century bc).
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 329
name of the dead,
153
and on the memorial of Atcvioc, and his compan-
ions who fell at Thermopylae
154
it obviously carried multiple signicance.
Another animal which frequently guarded tombs was the dog, but the dog
(scv) over the tomb of Diogenes of Sinope pointed to the Cynicism of
the man they called the dog,
155
whereas the bitch over the tomb of the
Athenian Lo:cuic etymologised her name, good keeper, and/or marked
her gifts as a housewife;
156
the hunting dog on the stele of Apollodorus and
Ascv, the sons of Ascv, very probably recalled the well-known breed
of Laconian hunting-dogs.
157
Such symbolic representations of names
158
were, on the whole, very easy to understand: the idea that names had
meanings was widespread even in archaic Greece,
159
and many words could
denote both a person and a category of objects or animals. Other symbols
were equally familiar and comprehensible: dogs, hares or horses evoked
the dead persons love of hunting (and therefore his aristocratic origins);
the wool basket recalled the diligence of a slave or a housewife, etc. The
straightforward comprehensibility of such depictions is shown by the fact
that there is no sepulchral or dedicatory monument of the classical period
in which an inscription explicitly refers to symbolic depictions on the mon-
ument, with the exception of the very unusual Greek-Aramaic stele CEG
596 (quoted above p. 309).
CEG 596 is on the sepulchral monument set up for Antipater the
Ascalonite by Domsalos of Sidon. The complex iconography of the monu-
ment consists of a dead person on a cofn (Antipater), a lion pouncing on
him from the left,
160
and on the right a composite gure defending him,
153
A. Conze, Die attischen Grabreliefs III (Berlin 1906) 285 no. 1318. For [Simonides], AP 7.344 = FGE
1022ff., the lion on the tomb of Atcv had both meanings.
154
Cf. Herodotus 7.225 and Lollius Bass., AP 7.243 = GPh 1591ff.
155
According to Diogenes Laert. 6.78; see also adesp. AP 7.63 and 64.
156
A. Conze, Die attischen Grabreliefs I (Berlin 1893) 21 no. 66.
157
Cf. B. Freyer-Schauenberg, K0N AAK0NO2K0N AAKAlNA AntKunst 13 (1970) 95
100. A particularly complex problem of ambiguity was created by gures which could, but need
not, allude to beliefs about death and the afterlife: e.g. birds, which were possible symbols of the
separation of the soul from the body, dogs, which were sacred to Hecate, and goats, which were
sacred to Dionysus and connected with mystery cults. The ancients will probably have solved these
ambiguities much more easily than we can; at any event, I do not know of any case in which this
kind of symbolism is reected in a verbal text on the tomb.
158
Cf. T. Ritti, Luso di immagini onomastiche nei monumenti sepolcrali di et` a greca ArchClass
2526 (197374) 63960.
159
Cf. M. G. Bonanno, Nomi e soprannomi archilochei MH 37 (1980) 6588.
160
It is difcult to imagine lions roaming freely in Attica in the fourth century: Antipater might have
been wounded by a lion in some other part of the Mediterranean and taken on a ship to the Piraeus,
where he died, or perhaps the lion escaped from a zoo in the Piraeus, or, more probably, the lion of
the relief may have been a Phoenician demon of death, which Domsalos and his companions had
driven away from Antipaters dead body before duly burying him: cf. Clairmont (1970) 11617 and
id., Classical Attic Tombstones (Kilchberg 1993) iii.315; Woysch-M eautis (1982) 767.
330 The epigram
human from the waist down, but the prow of a ship above (representing
Domsalos and his companions, who attended to the burial of Antipater).
The accompanying epigram, an explanatory caption for this sepulchral
depiction, is without parallel until the tomb of Menophila in the second
century (below pp. 3368), and the nationality of the dead and the dedica-
tor, the bilingual inscription in prose, and the narrative detail both on the
relief and in the inscription
161
might suggest that this inscription was a one-
off, foreign to the Greek culture of the fourth century. On the other hand,
this same Oriental inuence may well have been important for the sym-
bolism which characterised many Hellenistic sepulchral monuments from
Asia; moreover, the two principal composers of riddling funerary epigrams,
Antipater of Sidon and Meleager of Gadara, both came from Phoenicia,
like Domsalos of Sidon and Antipater of Ascalon. The analogy between
the rst verse of CEG 596 let no one be surprised (unti, vpctcv
cuuct:c) at this gure and the opening of a riddling epitaph of Antipa-
ter, do not be surprised (un uti) at seeing on the tomb of Miro, etc.
(AP 7.425 = HE 380ff., below, p. 333), might indeed suggest that the stele
for Antipater the Ascalonite is merely the only example from mainland
Greece of an Oriental tradition of symbolic sepulchral monuments, which
to some extent anticipates the custom of Hellenistic sepulchral enigmas.
Hellenistic epigrams which explained the riddling symbolism of (real or
ctitious) sepulchral representations probably developed alongside more
complex symbolic narrative ingeneral. Onthe other hand, inthe Hellenistic
age, portrayals of the dead gave less importance to the generic (and pre-
dictable) types of virtue privileged by Attic funerary monuments, in favour
of a greater emphasis on a whole series of minor details, which reected
specic, individual characteristics of the dead and which therefore had a
greater need of illustration.
162
This need for captions, created by the use of
a more complex gurative symbolism, was perhaps what in fact originally
gave rise to the Hellenistic epitaphic riddle. However that may be, it was
to be expected that games with complex symbolism would appeal to the
intellectualism of the period, and its taste for the Erg anzungsspiel,
163
which
soon created riddles for stelae which had never existed.
164
The earliest such epigram offers a perfect example of the complex
relationship between such poems and the dialogue form, which had
161
Cf. Clairmont (1970) 117.
162
Cf. Schmidt (1991) 11741; B. Schmaltz, Griechische Grabreliefs (Darmstadt 1983) 23641.
163
For the concept and a rich series of examples, cf. Bing (1995) and G. Zanker, Modes of Viewing in
Hellenistic Poetry and Art (Madison 2003) chapter 3.
164
Cf. Goldhill (1994) 197215 and Gutzwiller (1998) 26571.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 331
traditionally served to dramatise the transmission of information by the
verbal message on the stele. This epigram is by Leonidas of Tarentum,
AP 7.422 = HE 2092ff.:
:i o:cycocut ocu, ltioio:pc:t, ycv cpcv:t,
,ut:cv ottp :ucu stiutvcv o:p,ccv,
n pc ,tvnv c:i Xc,; tcist ,p. n p c:i tcis:c,
no :i,, co inv o, c,ct, ttio:ccc,,
n :c utv coot ovt,,u,, tv spn:c ot sc:ton,
Xic; vci ocstc, : cot tpcon,,iocutv.
What shall we conjecture about you, Pisistratus, when we see a Chian die carved
on your tomb? Shall we not say that you were a Chian? That seems probable. Or
shall we say that you were a gambler, but not a particularly lucky one, my friend?
Or are we still far from the truth, and was your lifes light put out by neat Chian
wine? Yes, I think now we are near it. (trans. Paton, adapted)
Both signiers, verbal and iconic, are presented in the rst couplet. It is
from the inscription on the stele that Leonidas will have learned (or, better,
will have imagined that he has learned) the name of the dead, Pisistratus;
seeing the name on the inscription and knowing that the dead person was
called Pisistratus was one and the same thing. The stele, however, also
implies something else about this Pisistratus, by means of the gure of a die
in the Chian position.
165
The poet does not appear particularly interested
in the explicit verbal information on the stele the name of the dead would
probably have been joined by other information, such as the patronymic
and his attempt to converse is solely concerned with the iconic signier.
Dice were in fact a frequent sepulchral symbol, for example, on reliefs
of the Hellenistic age from Asia Minor; on the tombs of those who had
met a premature death, the ccpci, they evoked the precarious nature of
human life, but the particular die that accompanies Pisistratus, lying in
the position of the least favourable throw, implies here a non-standard
meaning,
166
and thus the poet has to o:cytiv speculate. In spite of
the apostrophe of the poet, who asks to be guided, Pisistratus/the stele
does not answer, because the convention of inscriptional and epigrammatic
dialogue between passer-by and deceased presupposes that all conversation
will be one-way; Callimachus, as we have seen, takes pleasure in exploiting
this convention. The result is that instead of creating a dialogue between
the naturally well-informed deceased and the uninformed passer-by, who
165
See Gutzwiller (1998) 268 n. 82, with references to the various reliefs in PfuhlM obius (19779),
which include images of dice.
166
As observed by Gutzwiller (1998) 268.
332 The epigram
depends on the monument and/or the deceased for his knowledge, the
epigram focuses exclusively on the poet, here generalised by means of a
rst person plural,the other readers of the stele and I, and dramatises the
various mental steps by which he nally arrives at the interpretation that
he considers most likely.
167
Chronologically, the next sepulchral riddle in the sequence is AP 7.429 =
HE 96ff. by Alcaeus of Messene (end of the third century bc):
oinuci sc:c uucv, c:cu ypiv c tcpco:i,
oioosi gt uc0vcv ,puuc tc,yt tt:pc,
cc:tci, ouici, stsccuutvcv. cpc ,uvcisi
:c ycvi stucutvc Xiic, nv cvcuc,
:c0:c ,cp ,,tti scpugcutvc, ti, tv piuc,.
n :c utv ti, cpcv :pctcv cos tuctv,
c o cis:pcv vcicuoc :co npicv ttt:c 1tioi,,
v0v 2gi,,c, ,pigcu, Oioitc, tgpcoucv.
civt:c, cos oioocc scucv cvi,uc :tcic,
gt,,c, utv uvt:c,, uvt:ci, o tptc,.
I ask myself why this road-side stone has only two phis chiselled on it. Was the
name of the woman who is buried here Chilias [=Thousand]? The number which
is the sum of the two letters [i.e. 500 each] points to this. Or am I astray in this
guess and was the name of her who dwells in this mournful tomb Phidis [i.e.
twice phi]? Now am I the Oedipus who has solved the sphinxs riddle. He deserves
praise, the man who made this puzzle out of two letters, a light to the intelligent
and darkness to the unintelligent. (trans. Paton, adapted)
Alcaeus clearly imitates Leonidas at the formal level the opening uncer-
tainty, the presentation of different possible interpretations, the enthusiasm
and pride with which the most likely one is discovered but there is an
important variation in the formof the poem. Alcaeus does not see (or imag-
ines that he does not see) any name on the tomb, so there is no deceased
to question, no inscription that can speak; he has in front of him only
a symbolic signier, to which he must attribute a meaning. There is thus
no dialogic apostrophe addressed to the dead person, as there had been at
the beginning of the semi-monologue of Leonidas, but rather we have an
absolute monologue which presents the poet in heroic isolation and silence
(oinuci sc:c uucv, the poet searches inwardly), and which contrasts
him with the stele, a novel Sphinx, over which in the end he triumphs.
167
Why is the third interpretation, which appears to be the most abstruse of the three, also the most
certain? One plausible reason is that this exegesis is the most attractive precisely because it is the
least immediate and least obvious (cf. Gutzwiller (1998) 268). Perhaps, however, the truth of this
third interpretation suggests that Leonidas had personal knowledge of the dead.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 333
Some decades later, the epigrams of Antipater of Sidon (late second
century) develop this now established tradition of symbolic interpretation
in new directions,
168
by not giving undue emphasis to the gap between
the controversial signication of symbols and the univocal meaning of the
words of the inscription. As regards AP 7.425 = HE 380ff., we have already
seen its similarity to CEG 596 (cf. above pp. 32930):
un uti, uo:i,c Mupc0, tti ouc:i toocv,
,c0sc, icv, ycpctcv ycvc, ccv oscsc.
:cc utv coooti ut tcvt:cvcv c,t:iv cscu,
c ot scv :tsvcv ,vnoic scocutvcv
uo:i o cos ccv, tvt, ototc:iv, ,tpcycv
oucoi, sco:tipcv o tvoiscv utcsic,
ycv ot ocucv gucscv uttonucvc :cv o c<uc stovv>
,c0 cot ,cusc, lcoc, ugitccv.
:cicoo ug tp,cioiv t,tcv tvtv cutuvc,
:cio tuc o:c oucc :t0t Bi:cv.
Do not wonder at seeing on Myros tomb a whip, an owl, a bow, a grey goose and
a swift bitch. The bow proclaims that I was the strict well-strung directress of my
house, the bitch that I took true care of my children, the whip that I was no cruel
or overbearing mistress, but just a chastiser of faults, the goose that I was a careful
guardian of the house, and this owl that I was a faithful (?) servant of owl-eyed
Pallas. Such were the things in which I took delight, wherefore my partner Biton
carved these emblems on my grave-stone. (trans. Paton, adapted)
After forestalling the passer-bys surprise, by denying that there is any cause
for it, the epigram describes and explains the symbols themselves, as in
CEG 596. However, in order to do so, it adopts the structure of the now
familiar narrativised dialogue in which the message of the tomb is uttered
by the monument and listened to by the passer-by, as in the the stone will
tell you, the writing will give the message, the tomb will inform you
structures discussed above. Something analogous, but with an even greater
degree of condence in the expressive possibilities of symbols, is found in
Antipater, AP 7.423 = HE 362ff.:
:cv utv ti tcuucv, ti cv, c tvt, siooc
goti, :cv ot utc, ov:pcgcv cot si,
:cv Kpnoocv ot :c :cc, :c o tpic :cv gictp,cv,
cvotuc o co ui:pc, :cv tcicspc:cgcv
:civot o:cc0yc, co tsput Bi::ioc :uc,
:iutcypcv:cv
vuugioicv ccycv.
, cvtp, sci ycpt sci ciycutvcioiv t, Aiocv
:cv co:cv ucv coi, ctct ypiv.
168
Cf. esp. Gutzwiller (1998) 2716.
334 The epigram
The jay, stranger, will tell you I was ever a woman of many words, ever talkative,
and the cup that I was of a convivial habit. The bow proclaims the Cretan, the
wool a good workwoman, and the snood that tied up my hairs shows that I was
grey-headed. Such was the Bittis that this tomb with its stele covers, the wedded
wife . . . But, hail, good sir, and do us who are gone to Hades the favour to bid us
hail likewise in return. (trans. Paton, adapted)
Personal information about the dead, as conveyed by the traditional inscrip-
tion, had previously been supported in some cases, as we have seen, by
onomastic symbols. It was a different matter for the symbols to replace
written information. The polyandrion of the Greeks who fell at Chaeronea
against Philip was in the shape of a gigantic lion, and Pausanias (9.40.10)
comments: This might well refer to the courage of the fallen, but there is
no inscription, I imagine, because fortune did not reward this courage with
the result that they deserved; both the attention that Pausanias dedicates
to the absence of any inscription in this case and, above all, archaeological
evidence suggest that this inscriptionless practice was not common. In any
case, symbols unaccompanied by words offered true ainigmata, and for
Alcaeus of Messene, linking an abstruse symbol with a proper name had
been a success worthy of Oedipus. For Antipater, however, symbolic icons
and verbal signiers are on an equal and complementary footing; here, one
of the usual details, the nationality of the dead (Cretan), is expressed by
the symbol of the bow, whereas the names of the dead woman and her hus-
band seem to have been imagined by the epigram, as indicated in a verbal
inscription elsewhere on the monument. Symbols, for Antipater, convey
clear meanings, as do words.
Another epigram by Antipater (AP 7.426 = HE 390ff.), even if it is
included among the funerary riddles of Book 7 of the Palatine Anthology,
is in reality only a slight variation on the ancient dialogue structure in which
the passer-by is unaware of the identity of the dead and asks the sepulchral
monument for the name. In this case, the monument is iconic a lion but
for Antipater this sepulchral symbol is so obvious that the poet/passer-by
does not ask the monument what its meaning is, but he knows already in
v. 2 that the dead must have been someone with the courage of a lion; this
does not, however, prevent the statue conrming the information:
titt, tcv, giutvcic :ivc, :gcv ugitnsc,,
cug,t, :i, :c, oc, cic, nv pt:c,,
uc, Otuocpcic Tttu:ic,, c, ut,c tv:cv
gtp:tpc, nv, npcv coocv t,c stspiuci.
coyi u:cv to:csc, gtpc ot :i ouccv sc,
vtpc, nv ,cp on ououtvttooi tcv.
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 335
Tell, lion, whose tomb do you guard, you slayer of cattle? and who was worthy
of your valour? Teleutias, the son of Theodoros, who was far the most valiant
of men, as I am judged to be of beasts. Not in vain stand I here, but I signify
the prowess of the man, for he was indeed a lion to his enemies. (trans. Paton,
adapted)
AP 7.427 = HE 396ff. works in a very similar manner:
c o:c, gtp oc, :iv tyti vtsuv. c otocpsc
,puuc utv cootv tcu :uctv 0ttpt icu,
tvvtc o o:pc,cu, ttt:nc:c,, cv tioupt, utv
tpc:ci Atvopcu ucp:uptcuoi ccv,
c ot :c :c, vtc:c:c, tgisc, cvc,, tgncv,
t, o c,t ucvti Xc, gcupc:tpcv.
n pc :co ,,tcv:i Kci c ost:pcioi ut,cuyn,
yc cv nc :tpuc :c unotv tyti,
n :c utv c0, ocstc ot tc:i osctcv iuv tootiv
icv, Kpn:citu, c, :i, cio:ccc,
n, c cvcv Xc, utv, Atvopcu ot tc,yc,
c0vcu, tgntin o ct: tv cisic.
c, to :cv giutvcv vtcv cspi:c sci :c sututv
tvt0uc oi gt,s:cv ttt :i, o:pc,cv.
The stele, come on, let me see who lies under it. But I see no inscription cut on it,
only nine cast dice, of which the rst four represent the throw called Alexander;
the next four that called Ephebus, the bloom of youthful maturity, and the more
unlucky throw called Chian. Is their message this, that both the proud sceptred
potentate and the young man in his ower end in nothing? Or is that not so? I
think now like a Cretan archer I shall shoot straight at the mark. The dead man
was a Chian, his name was Alexander and he died in youth. How well one told
through dice without a voice of the young man dead by ill-chance and the breath
of life staked and lost. (trans. Paton, adapted)
Faced with a tombstone which has no inscribed verbal text, but rather
depictions of three typical dice throws, the poet is by now so familiar
with the sepulchral symbolism as to be guilty, at rst, of an excess of
imagination: the rst, highly symbolic, interpretation Alexander means
powerful, the Ephebe means young, and Chian means nothing is
immediately discarded in favour of another one, which starts, correctly,
from the absence of a verbal message, and attributes an almost lexical value
to the symbols the dead person was called Alexander; he was an ephebe
and a Chian; here, the symbols are read as if they were univocal words, and
the cgt,s:ci o:p,cci dice without a voice (v. 14) provide three of
the most basic pieces of sepulchral information: the name, the origin, and
the age of the dead.
336 The epigram
Two other epigrams by Antipater reveal his complete appropriation of
the traditional dialogue structure: AP 7.424 = HE 370ff. and AP 7.161 =
HE 296ff. The history of the enigmatic epitaph had begun with Leonidas
exploitation of the fact that the dead spoke only through the words of the
inscription and did not answer questions about the symbolic representa-
tions on the tomb, leaving their interpretation to the intelligent passer-by.
In the rst of these two epigrams by Antipater, the passer-by/poet is uncer-
tain in front of the paradoxically non-female symbols
169
that he nds on
the tomb of a woman, Lysidice, and he thus questions the dead woman; in
the second one, the uncertainty which Antipater displays is motivated in
all probability by a symbolic eagle, which appears to have been mainly used
elsewhere to indicate the survival of the soul and its separation from the
body after death.
170
Both Lysidice and the eagle, unlike the Pisistratus of
Leonidas, answer promptly and explain themselves, as if to make clear that
Antipaters epigrams describe stelae, whether real or ctitious, containing
an inscribed caption for the gurative designs.
This is, in fact, exactly what happens also in the epigram at the base of
the stele of Menophila, which was found at Sardis, and is contemporary
with Antipater, or slightly later. The relief shows the dead womans head
surrounded by symbolic gures (a lily, the letter alpha, a roll of papyrus, a
crown and a basket), together with an inscription:
171
scucv sci ycpitooc tt:pc, otisvuoi. :i, tv:i,
Mcuocv ucvti ,puuc:c Mnvcgicv.
:t0 o tvts tv o:c ,ut:cv spivcv not sci cgc,
c, sci :cpc,, :c, o tti sci o:tgcvc,,
n ocgic<u> utv ic,, c o co ttpi spc:i gcpnti,
pycv ucvti, ucuvc,cvcv ot :c tv,
to:s:cu o pt:c, :cpc, uvuuc, :c o cvc,
:cv suv, ociucv cv:iv tnioc:c.
scgc :ci scvi, ugittci :ci not cvcon.
c, c,cvci ot ,cvt,, :c, titt, ospuc.
The graceful stone reveals a pretty lady. Who is she? The letters of the Muses tell
you: Menophila. Why are a lily and an alpha carved on her stone, a book and a
basket, and above them a garland? The book points to her wisdom, the garland
worn around the head to her rule, the one [i.e. alpha] to the fact that she was
169
Cf. A.-M. V erilhac, Limage de la femme dans les epigrammes fun eraires grecques in id. (ed.), La
Femme dans le monde mediterraneen (LyonParis 1985) 85112 and Pircher (1979) passim; on funerary
reliefs at Smyrna in the second century bc, cf. Zanker (1993) 21213.
170
Cf. adesp. AP 7.61, 62 and above, n. 157, for the sepulchral symbolism of the bird.
171
Text in accordance with SGO 04/02/11 (PfuhlM obius (197779) i.141 no. 418; GVI 1881).
2 Funerary and dedicatory epigrams 337
an only child, the basket to her orderly virtue, the ower to her youthful prime,
of which fate robbed her. May the earth be light upon you, buried here. Your
parents, alas, are childless; to them you have left only tears.
The closest analogy between this inscription and Antipaters epigram lies
in the fact that both texts attribute the caption for the symbolic gures
to the voice of the monument. The passer-by, who does not know who is
buried in the tomb, is informed by the inscription that the dead woman
is Menophila (nine letters, the number of the Muses); then the passer-by
wonders what the meaning of the symbols may be, and in the following
lines they are explained by the monument (i.e. read on it), just as the
name had been read in v. 2. As had happened in the case of the assumed
inscription in the epigram of Antipater, here too the inscription includes
a caption for the gures, because these are gures whose meaning is, for
the most part, not the conventional one.
172
A crown regularly (especially at
Smyrna) denotes the honorary crown that the deceaseds fellow-citizens had
conferred on him; for Menophila, on the contrary, the crown symbolises
that the dead woman had occupied the public position of stephanephoros.
The roll of papyrus is a symbol here, as frequently elsewhere, of wisdom
or culture, but elsewhere it is almost always exclusively an attribute of
men: in spite of the increased cultural level of women in the Hellenistic
age,
173
cultural attainments are not usually among the virtues celebrated
in dead women; instead of a roll of papyrus, with very few exceptions,
174
woman are usually accompanied by images of jewels or objects from the
dressing-table
175
we may recall the observation of Antipater about the
strangeness of male symbols for Lysidice. Furthermore, the letter alpha, i.e.
one, indicating that Menophila was an only child, is another rather arcane
usage, appearing here for the rst time.
The quite exceptional tomb for Menophila was commissioned by the
demos of Sardis, according to a separate titulus on the stele, and the designer
may perhaps have had Antipater and the whole tradition of sepulchral rid-
dles in mind; the result is an epitaph which is no less literary than the
172
Cf. Pircher (1979) 545; Schmidt (1991) 1401; differently, D. M. Robinson, Two New Epitaphs
from Sardis in Anatolian Studies Presented to Sir W. M. Ramsay (London 1923) 3501; Gutzwiller
(1998) 2667.
173
Cf. e.g. S. Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt (New York 1984) 5972.
174
Cf. e.g. N. Firatli, Les St`eles funeraires de Byzance greco-romaine (Paris 1964) 33, who points out that
the only exception among the stelae of Byzantium is that of Mousa, the daughter of Agathocles,
of the second/rst century bc (no. 139), where, however, the papyrus was a professional symbol
denoting Mousa as a woman doctor.
175
As noted, e.g., by Zanker (1993) 222.
338 The epigram
epigrams of the Palatine Anthology. Its designers, Antipaters contempo-
raries, when faced with the problem of illustrating the many, exceptional
virtues of Menophila within the limited space of a relief, found it neces-
sary, like Antipater, to provide an explanation for symbols whose meaning
was far from fossilised. Whether life has here imitated art or vice versa, we
cannot say.
3 eroti c epi grams
The need to interpret, to make sense of visible signs, is dramatised by
epigrammatists, above all Callimachus,
176
also in the sphere of erotic epi-
grams. Callimachus here displays his cunning intelligence, not so much
in criticising and going beyond the conventional truths of inscriptions, as
in interpreting and bringing out the true meaning of social behaviour and
pretence. The detective who recognises Timonoe (above pp. 31819) and
who understands why Menecrates died (above pp. 3212) can also detect
love when he nds it (AP 12.71 = HE 1097ff.):
Otoocist Ktcvist :cv, :cv co uc :cv cv
nicv, c0 o t,vcv. oyt:it, tc0 ,t,cvc,,
co:tc oci sci uc0vcv t:i :piyt,. n p ot ociucv
couc, tyti, yctt n o nv:tc tuucpin,
t,vcv Loitc, ot ouvnptcot sci ou ,cp tcv
:cv sccv, c ucynp, tttt, ugc:tpci,.
Ah, poor, poor Cleonicus of Thessaly! By the suns rays, I could not recognise you.
Where have you been, wretched one? Nothing but bones and hair. Can it be that
the god I worship got you in his clutches and you have met a terrible fate? I knew
it: Euxitheos conquered you as well as me. Yes, when you came, you rascal, you
were looking at his beauty with no eyes for anything else. (trans. Nisetich, adapted)
Similar is AP 12.134 = HE 1103ff.:
tsc, tycv c tvc, tvcvtv c, vinpcv
tvt0uc oic o:ntcv tot,, vn,,t:c,
:c :pi:cv nvis ttivt, :c ot pcoc gucct0v:c
:cvopc, tc o:tgvcv tv: t,tvcv:c ycuci
ct:n:ci ut,c on :i, uc ociucvc, cos tc puouc0
tisc, gcpc, o yvic gcp tuccv.
The guest kept his wound hidden. How painful the breath he drew did you
notice? at the third toast, and the petals drooping from the mans garland littered
the oor. He is done to a turn. By god, I guess not at random: a thief myself, I
know a thief s tracks. (trans. Nisetich, adapted)
176
Cf. Walsh (1990).
3 Erotic epigrams 339
In this second epigram, the motif of the symptoms of love is intertwined,
probably not for the rst time, with that of drunkenness as the litmus
test of love. If, as seems likely, Asclepiades was an older contemporary
of Callimachus, Asclepiades, AP 12.135 = HE 894ff. will be earlier than
Callimachus version:
cvc, tpc:c, tt,yc, tpcv pvtutvcv nuv
n:cocv c tcci Nisc,cpnv tpctcoti,
sci ,cp tospuotv sci tvo:cot sci :i sc:ngt,
tttt, yc ogi,yti, cos tutvt o:tgcvc,.
Wine is the proof of love. Nicagoras denied to us that he was in love, but those
many toasts convicted him. Yes! He shed tears and bent his head, and had a certain
downcast look, and the wreath bound tight round his head kept not its place.
(trans. Paton, adapted)
The epigrams of Asclepiades and Callimachus present several similarities.
Though the physical symptoms of love vary, both poets have the detail of
the collapsed garland as a further symptom, perhaps here making its rst
appearance in Greek literature,
177
and in both poems drunkenness guar-
antees the truthfulness of the revelations, in Asclepiades explicitly (v. 1),
whereas Callimachus is less direct (after the third glass . . .).
178
Both poets
also appeal to a proverbial expression,
179
though Asclepiades at the begin-
ning and Callimachus at the end.
180
The similarities between the two poems
are so great that we may suspect that the last sentence of Callimachus
epigram in fact announces its intertextual connection with Asclepiades.
The standard interpretation is that Callimachus has understood what is
happening to his friend not out of puouc, (i.e. puuc,), because, as a
person who has been in love, he can recognise the sequential series (the
177
This is obviously not a strong argument, but Athenaeus (15.669d) did discuss the matter and had
the opportunity to cite pre-Callimachean poetry which he did not do.
178
Why the third glass, and not the fourth, or the tenth? According to G. Giangrande, Sympotic
Literature and Epigram in L
Epigramme grecque 1202, Callimachus hints that his friend is so
smitten that he betrays his feelings after the last of the three ritual libations (to the Olympian
Zeus, to the heroes and to Zeus Soter), with which participants used to start the symposium.
This is possible, but there are many texts which point to the importance of the third round, but
no parallel for a link between drunkenness and the three initial libations. Relevant texts include
Panyassis, PEG 17 = EGF 13, ll. 59; Eubulus, PCG *93, and Callimachus fr. 178.1320 (above,
pp. 7880).
179
Cf. W. Ludwig, Die Kunst der Variation im hellenistischen Liebesepigramm in L
Epigramme
grecque 313.
180
Both proverbs are already attested in Aristotle, Eth. Eud. 7.1235a69. The idea of sex, particularly
but not exclusively adultery, as something stolen is found as early as Homer (Il. 6.161) and Hesiod
(WD 329). That love is a furtum seems, however, to be a Latin idea, cf. Catullus 68.136, 140 etc.
340 The epigram
rhythmos
181
) of signs in a person who is in love. Perhaps too, however, Cal-
limachus suggests that, as a love poet, he knows how to follow the line of
interpretation (the traces) of an earlier poet, and as a result, his decoding
follows the same series of stages already followed by the latter; his specula-
tions were not outside the pattern.
Asclepiades, in his turn, has appropriated a traditional motif.
182
The
contexts of Alcaeus fr. 333 Voigt, cvc, ,cp vpctc oict:pcv wine lets
you see into a man, and fr. 366 V., cvc,, c git tc, sci ctc, s:.
wine dear boy and truth, are unknown, but we must not assume that
these were necessarily erotic: wine is the mirror of the soul tout court, and
drunkenness is the state in which the symposiast reveals the truth on all
subjects, not just his erotic desires.
183
A broad interpretation is suggested
both by the texts which quote fr. 366
184
and by other instances of the
motif (e.g. Theognis 499502).
185
Excess of wine and eros had, of course,
frequently been put together in sympotic lyric poetry, but the relationship
between the two was complex:
186
as well as being the cause of sympotic and
erotic exuberance, wine could also be a remedy for the pangs of love,
187
and for sufferings in general.
188
Just, then, as drunkenness as the revealer of
love draws out hints from the poetic tradition, rather than simply taking
over the motif wholesale, so also the theme of the hiding of love, and
the discovery of its symptoms, suddenly becomes prominent in Hellenistic
epigram, but is not exclusive to it. Descriptions of the symptoms of love
181
puuc,, which appears to be a technical term in the eld of music or medicine, had already, since
Archilochus, IEG 128.7, denoted the predictable seriality, or orderly succession of the events of
human life in general, which must be learnt (,ivcost) in order to avoid making wrong evaluations
of the successes or failures of ones life.
182
Cf. O. Knauer, Die Epigramme des Asklepiades vom Samos (Diss. T ubingen 1935) 12.
183
Cf. R osler (1995).
184
Both Athen. 2.37e and schol. Plato, Symp. 217e speak of this as a text which proves that wine leads
people to tell the truth not specically the truth about feelings of love.
185
The speaker of Theocritus 29 adopts the expression of Alcaeus to justify his regrettable criticism of
his beloved. See also Aeschylus, TrGF 393; Ion, fr. 1.12 Gent.Prato; Plato, Laws 649a-b; Ephippus,
PCG 25; Eratosthenes, Erig. fr. 6 Rosokoki = CA 36; Calleas Arg., AP 11.232.34.
186
Cf. Theognis 8735 Ah, wine, I praise you in part, and I criticise you in part, and I cannot either
hate you or love you completely: you are both a blessing and an evil, etc. See also the scientic-
medical ratication of this opinion by Mnesitheos ap. Athenaeus 2.36ab (PCGadesp. 101); Horace,
Carm. 1.18.
187
Cf. e.g. Anacreon, PMG 346 fr. 4; Propertius 3.17.36.
188
Cypr., PEG fr. 17 (see above, pp. 2867); Alcaeus, frs. 335 and 346 Voigt; Theognis 87984; Pindar,
frs. 52d.256 Maehler = D4.256 Rutherford, 124ab and 248 M.; Sophocles, TrGF 758; Euripides,
Bacch. 27883. The best analysis of the ambivalence of wine and drunkenness from Homer to the
classical age remains G. A. Privitera, Dioniso in Omero e nella poesia arcaica (Rome 1970) chapter 3;
but see also J. Garz on Di az, Vino y banquete desde Homero a Anacreonte Helmantica 30 (1979)
6396 and S. Darcus Sullivan, The Effects of Wine on Psychic Entities in Early Greek Poetry Eirene
33 (1997) 918. For a different perspective, cf. E. Belore, Wine and Catharsis of the Emotions in
Platos Laws CQ 36 (1986) 42137.
3 Erotic epigrams 341
are common in archaic and classical poetry;
189
Sappho fr. 31 V. is the most
famous example, with the parodos of Euripides Hippolytus not far behind.
Neither the character who conceals his love nor the poet (or a character)
who sits in judgement as an expert and revealer of symptoms of love appear,
however, before the early fourth century.
190
Even in a passage of Antiphanes
(fourth century bc), concealed love and drunkenness are not connected in
a causal relationship, but simply appear in parallel, as the two conditions
which it is most difcult to hide: a person can succeed in hiding everything
else, Phidias, but in two cases it is not possible: when he is a wine-drinker
and when he is in love. Both are revealed in the gazes and in what is said,
and consequently those who deny these conditions are exposed most of all
(PCG 232).
191
There is in the fourth century, however, at least one certain
example of the expert who is able to interpret the symptoms, even when
the lover tries to conceal his love. This is Platos Socrates, who tells the
blushing young Hippothales: in other things Im of little use, Im a good-
for-nothing, but this is a gift that Ive received, perhaps from the god: Im
quick to recognise a person who is in love, and a person who is loved (Plato,
Lysis 204bc), and in Menanders Misoumenos the motifs of concealed love
and revelatory drunkenness appear in the form familiar from Hellenistic
epigram: tctv : concv :c, ouvc0oi :nv vcocv | ouvn[ocu.][. . .]
tcugit ,cp :c sc:tco:cv :c0:c ucu | sci cvvtiv cucutvcv
n utn tc:t I shall be able to conceal the disease from those around me
[. . .] sooner or later, drunkenness will take away this bandage, even if I
want to keep my wound hidden (vv. 3612 and 3645 Sandbach = 7623,
7656 Arnott).
There was a very long tradition of philosophical and rhetorical specula-
tion about, and mistrust of, eros; all the Hellenistic philosophical schools
concerned themselves with the topic.
192
Philosophers had also tried various
ways of saving eros as a force for good: the Stoics in effect neutralised
the charge of loves passion, by making it equivalent to friendship or spiri-
tual love, or by emphasising its educational aspects,
193
but Epicurus attack
upon sexual desire was very inuential, and even Cicero, who gives a careful
account of Stoic spiritualised love (Tusc. Disp. 4.702), afrms Epicurus
189
For archaic epic poetry, cf. M. S. Cyrino, InPandoras Jar: Lovesickness inEarly Greek Poetry (Lanham
London 1995).
190
Cf. Pasquali (1964) 514. The motif is common in Latin poetry: cf. Catullus 6; Propertius 1.9.58
and 3.8.178; Tibullus 1.8.16; Horace, Ep. 11.810.
191
Cf. P. K agi, Nachwirkungen der alteren griechischen Elegie in den Epigrammen der Anthologie
(Diss. Z urich 1917) 545.
192
Cf. F. Lasserre, Lpc:isci c,ci MH 1 (1944) 16978.
193
See, e.g., SVF i frs. 2478 for Zeno, iii frs. 71622 for Chrysippus; cf. D. Babut, Les Stociens et
lamour REG 76 (1963) 5563.
342 The epigram
position. Love was, on this view, the most violent of the perturbationes
animi, not only because it leads at times to rape or incest, but also because
of the reprehensible mental alteration that it creates (perturbatio ipsa mentis
in amore foeda per se est, 4.75). Love was indeed standardly considered as
a sort of irrational passion. Theophrastus could not be clearer in fr. 557
Fortenbaugh (love is the excess of an irrational desire, which is quick in
its attack, but slow in its solution), but even Epicurus saw sexual desire
as a pleasure which is natural, but not necessary (cf. fr. 456 Usener), and
thus placed it one level below the necessary pleasures; Aristotle, on the
contrary, had put sex and eating on exactly the same level (EN 3.1118b8
12). Epicurus also emphasised the disruptive irrationality of love, which he
dened as ov:cvc, cpti, gpcoioicv ut:c co:pcu sci onucvic,
an intense appetite for sexual intercourse, with obsession and frustra-
tion (fr. 483 Usener), and as something gc0cv contemptible (ibid., cf.
fr. 574), rather than divine.
194
According to Diogenes Laertius (10.118), the
Epicureans do not accept that the wise man falls in love and the same opin-
ion, according to Stobaeus (4.20.31), was also maintained by the Megarian
philosophers Menedemus and Alexinus, who thus provoked the acrimo-
nious opposition of Chrysippus (SVF iii fr. 720). Antisthenes too had taken
part in the debate: while maintaining that love was a defect of nature (scsic
gotc,), and those worthless souls who are not capable of coping with it
consider this illness divine (Socr. et Socratic. rell. VA.123 Giannantoni), he
also afrmed that the intellectual must fall in love, because he is the only
one who knows who he must love (SSr VA.58).
Some of the earliest writers of erotic epigrams show considerable interest
in the paradoxical fact that the intellectual elite (i.e. themselves and their
friends) could fall prey to the passion of love, which was of course a disease
of the reason.
195
Both Posidippus and Callimachus, for example, appear to
suggest that the intellectual could or should be exposed less than others to
the risks of love. From Posidippus there is AP 12.98 = HE 3074ff. = 137
AB:
:cv Mcuocv :t::i,c lcc, onoc, tt svci,
sciuitiv ttti t0p otc ttupc ccv
n ot tpiv tv ci, tttcvnutvn c tpiti
196
uyn vinp c ociucvi utugcutvn.
194
Cf. R. D. Brown, Lucretius on Love and Sex (Leiden 1987) 10818.
195
Cf. J. G. Grifths, Love as Disease in id., Atlantis and Egypt with Other Selected Essays (Cardiff
1991) 607.
196
This is Jacobs suggestion for the transmitted cc tpiti gathers other harvests; other suggestions
include cic :piti Wilamowitz, ntc :piti Peppm uller. ttti in v. 2 (as Gow and Page already
noted) suggests that the poets resistance is more or less victorious: passion would like to kill
him/reduce him to silence, but . . .
3 Erotic epigrams 343
Desire, having bound the Muses cicada on a bed of thorns, wishes to silence it by
throwing re under its sides. But my soul, previously exercised in book-lore, has
no care for other things, laying the blame on the troublesome god. (trans. Austin,
adapted)
More ambiguous in tone is AP 12.150 = HE 1047ff., in which Callimachus
combines the boast of the intellectuals strength of mind with a dignied
consciousness of poverty:
197
c, ,ccv lcgcuc, vtpc:c :cv ttcciov
:cpcutvc vci Icv, cos ucn, c Ksc.
c Mcoci :cv tpc:c sc:ioyvcivcv:i, 1iittt
n tcvcst, tv:cv gpucscv c ocgic.
:c0:c, ocstc, y iuc, tyti ucvcv t, :c tcvnp
:c,ccv, tssct:ti :cv gictcioc vcocv.
to cuiv y csco:c, gtiotc tc::cv Lpc:c
:c0: ttci Ktiptu :c t:tp, tciopicv
coo cocv ::pc,cv :u otociscut, c ,cp ttcoci
csci :c ycttc :pcuc:c, ugc:tpci.
How ne a lovers charm Polyphemus hit on! By god, that Cyclops knew his stuff.
The Muses, Philip, shrink a lovers swelling, poetry is a drug for every ill. Only
hunger good for nothing else in difcult circumstances is as good at rooting
out the craze for boys. . . . to Eros when he comes on strong, I say: You might as
well clip your wings, sonny! I am not afraid of you. I have at home both charms
against your cruel wounds. (trans. Nisetich, adapted)
If, of course, poets did not fall in love, there would be no love-poetry,
and two centuries after Callimachus, Bion of Smyrna showed that he had
realised this, by beginning a declaration in favour of seruitiumto love poetry
(fr. 9 Gow) with a quotation and correction of v. 3 of this epigram of
Callimachus.
198
Callimachus and Posidippus, however, sought to explain
how they could both be intellectuals and not only in love but also love
poets. One of the strategies by which Callimachus, in particular, justied
his situation is implicit in his frequent detection of the symptoms of love
itself; in this way, he reafrms his psychological insight into, and hence
control of, the irrationality of passion, both that of others and his own.
Another of his strategies is the one that we have seen in action, in an ironic
form, in AP 12.150: love poetry is a gpucscv against love, a palliative
which, according to Callimachus, reduces the suffering, but which also, as
we readers perceive, is the exclusive prerogative of the poet-intellectual (with
197
The same synthesis is also present in Callimachus, Iambus 3 (above, pp. 1213), and cf. also the
opening of Theocritus 16.
198
Cf. also adesp. AP 12.100.4 (= HE 3667) :cv ocgcv tv Mcoci, Ktpi, t:pcot ucvn Cypris
alone struck the wise friend of the Muses. See above, pp. 1801.
344 The epigram
the rather grotesque exception of the Cyclops), and thus allows him again
to exhibit and enjoy his superiority.
Another more widespread strategy consisted of searching for an excuse
for love; Attic drama, in particular, sometimes excused offences committed
under the impulse of eros, by celebrating the great, even if negative, power
of love.
199
Epigram-writers found an excuse for love in the drunkenness
which removes self-control, by stating that desire arose from the same lack
of intellectual self-control which was often regarded as its consequence.
Homers Odysseus had already introduced a somewhat boastful story by
saying: I will tell you a rather boastful story. I am urged on by wine,
which makes people mad, and prompts even the wise man to sing and
laugh foolishly, or loosens him up for the dance, inspiring words which it
would be better not to say (Od. 14.46366; cf. also Il. 8.22932); Theognis
too had emphasised the fact that too much wine makes even the wisest of
men lose their self-control (47983; cf. also 499502, quoted above), and
Plato (Republic 9.573c) had made a close connection between the absence
of self-control of the person in love and that of the person who is drunk: a
person becomes despotic when he is subject to drunkenness, love or mad-
ness (utuo:isc, :t sci tpc:isc, sci utc,ycisc,). Epigram-writers
exploited this tradition to present their fall into the irrationality of passion
as a not very serious mistake, something almost justied by circumstances.
We have already seen AP 12.135 by Asclepiades (above pp. 33941). From
Posidippus comes AP 12.120 = HE 3078ff. = 138 AB:
toctc sci tpc, ot ucynocuci, coo ttpc0uci
vn:c, tcv ou o, Lpc,, unst:i uci tpcoc,t.
nv ut n, utcv:, ctc, tsoc:cv cypi ot vngc,
:cv tcpc:cutvcv tpc, ot c,ioucv tyc.
I am well armed and will ght with you and not give in, though I am a mortal.
And you, Love, attack me no more. If you catch me drunk, carry me off a prisoner,
but as long as I stay sober, I have reason drawn up in battle against you. (trans.
Austin)
With this epigram we may contrast Anacreon, PMG 396 and 346 fr. 4: in
these poems, wine gives Anacreon the recklessness to face up to Eros or
to accept him without a ght but it also consoles him for the sufferings
caused by Eros; the possibility raised by Posidippus of facing up to Eros
and actually defeating him is not contemplated at all. Another instance of
the theme in Posidippus is AP 5.134 = HE 3054ff. = 123 AB:
199
Cf. J. de Romilly, LExcuse de linvincible amour dans la trag edie grecque in Miscellanea tragica
in honorem J. C. Kamerbeek (Amsterdam 1976) 30921.
3 Erotic epigrams 345
Ktspcti, pcvt, ,uvt, tcopcocv isuoc Bsycu,
pcvt, opcoitoc ouucisn tpctcoi,.
oi,oc Znvcv c ocgc, ssvc, c :t Ktvcu,
uc0oc utci o nuv c ,ustispc, Lpc,.
Cecropian jug, pour out the dewy moisture of Bacchus, pour it out: let the toast we
all share be refreshed. Let Zeno the wise swan be silent, and the Muse of Cleanthes.
Let our concern be with love and the bitter-sweet. (trans. Austin)
This poem has recently been interpreted as a plan by Posidippus, who
had previously been a student of Stoic philosophy at Athens, to give up
philosophical activity in favour of a career as an erotic poet;
200
it might,
however, be interpreted simply as one of the various statements of the
suspension of rationality infavour of drunkenness andtherefore of love (and
love poetry). In the Anacreontea (cf. above, pp. 180 and 183) and elsewhere,
we nd related, though distinct, choices in favour of the erotic-sympotic
life; another example is Antipater of Thessalonica, AP9.305 =GPh 267ff:
201
0oc:c, spn:cu stscpnutvc c,yi tcpco:,
yicv tuci tytcv Bsyc, ttt :ot
t0oti, cicv 0tvcv ttycutvcv Agpcoi:n.
titt uci, c vngcv, tttci lttc:cu,
:pti un :i tn, tvci,sicv. c, c utv titcv
cyt:, tuci o tc :n, cost:i :tptvcv 0ocp.
I had drunk my ll of unmixed water, when Bacchus yesterday, standing by my bed,
spoke thus: You sleep a sleep worthy of them whom Aphrodites hates. Tell me,
you sober man, have you heard of Hippolytus? Fear lest you suffer some fate such
as his. Having so spoken, he departed, and ever since then water is not agreeable
to me. (trans. Paton, adapted)
Callimachus and Meleager frequently use the motif of the sympotic
custom of drinking to the name of the beloved with undiluted wine (cf.
e.g. Theocritus 2.1503, 14.1819); this motif almost triggers a distortion
of the normal sequence, and instead of introducing the toast as the effect
of love, the toast becomes the starting-point, and is presented as the cause
of the more or less irrational manifestations of love. In AP 12.118 = HE
1075ff., for example, Callimachus remembers a manifestation of his passion
for Archinus:
ti utv tscv, Apyv, tttscucoc, uupic utugcu
ti o cscv nsc, :nv tpctt:ticv tc.
cspn:c, sci Lpc, u nv,scocv cv c utv co:cv
200
Cf. Gutzwiller (1998) 15761.
201
On the waterwine opposition in this poem cf. below, pp. 4489.
346 The epigram
tstv, c o cos tc :nv tpctt:ticv tcv.
tcv o cos tcnoc, :i, n :ivc,, tginoc
:nv ginv ti :c0: to: oisnu, oisc.
If, Archinos, I came carousing on purpose, load me with ten thousand reproaches;
but if I am here because I could not help it, pass over my temerity. Wine at full
strength and love forced me. Love dragged me and drink prevented me fromlaying
aside my temerity. I did not shout: it is so-and-so, son of so-and-so, but I kissed
the doorpost. If that is a crime, I am a criminal.
It has been noted that epigram-writers of the Hellenistic age never break a
door down, and never kidnap a girl, as happens regularly in New Comedy
(and as probably happened in reality).
202
Here, Callimachus appears to
apologise even for the most innocuous and mildest of komastic gestures,
203
simply because it was an irrational consequence of drunkenness.
There is a close parallel between the insistence of Callimachus on the
aetiology (wine) of the komos as the culminating manifestation of the irra-
tionality of eros and, two centuries later, the disjointed dialogue between
the poet and his own soul, which we nd in Meleager, AP 12.117 = HE
4092ff.; there is some uncertainty about the division between speakers, but
it is clear that the opposing interlocutors are the rational intellect, with its
desperate appeal to hard study, and the uuc,, the soul in the grip of the
irrationality of alcohol and eros:
Btnoc sc, ct:t tcptocuci. Hviot :cucv,
civccpt,. :iv tyti, gpcv:ioc, Kcuocuci,
scuocuci, lc, uut, :pttn, Ti o tpc:i c,iouc,,
ct:t :yc,. lc0 o n tpcot c,cv utt:n,
Lppigc ocgic, c tcu, tcvc, tv ucvcv coc
:c0, c:i sci Znvc, nuc scttv Lpc,.
Try the hazard! Light torches! I will go. Come, be bold! You drunkard, what do
you have in mind? A revel I will hold, a revel. Mind, whither do you stray?
What is logic to love? Quick, light a torch! And where is all your old study of
reasoning? Away with the labour of wisdom! I know this only, that Zeus too by
Love was brought to naught. (trans. Headlam, adapted)
Similar is another poem of Meleager, AP 12.119 = HE 4098ff.:
coc, vci uc ot, Bsyt, :c ocv poc, c,tc, scucv
cpyt tc, vc:cv cvicyti spcoicv
202
Thus D. H. Garrison, Mild Frenzy: a Reading of the Hellenistic Love Epigram (Wiesbaden 1978)
46. Menanders Demeas assumes that Chrysis seduced Moschion when the latter was in a state of
drunkenness (Samia 3402 Sandbach): Undiluted wine and youth produce many foolish deeds,
when they nd an accomplice close at hand.
203
This extreme, exaggerated courtesy, from which the rst two couplets had led us to expect the bit-
terest consequences, is obviously the pointe of the epigram: cf. G. Giangrande, Sympotic Literature
and Epigram in L
Epigramme grecque 127.
3 Erotic epigrams 347
tv tupi ,tvvcti, o:tp,ti, gc,c :cv tv Lpc:i
sci ut tiv onoc, :cv ocv c,ti, st:nv.
n tpcoc:c, sctio:c, tgu,, :tc o cp,ic spt:tiv
coocv tsgcivtiv :uc ou v0v ttti,.
Bacchus, by you I swear, I shall bear your boldness. Lead on, begin the revel: you
are a god: govern a mortal heart. Born in the ame, you love the ame love has, and
again bring me, your suppliant, in bonds. Really you are a traitor and unreliable:
while you bid me hide your mysteries, you would now bring mine to light.
This last poem includes the now familiar motifs of the person in love who
hides his feelings out of shame, and of wine which frees a person from that
shame, thus causing him to display the symptoms of love; in his complete
subjection to wine, to which he has abandoned himself in the hope of
consolation (vv. 34), the poet cries out that he has been betrayed, when
the wine does away with his restraint and causes him to reveal the object
of his erotic desire.
This same motif is also found in Callimachus, AP 12.51 = HE 1063ff.:
t,yti sci tiv titt: Aicstc,. coo Ayt cc,
stivcu :cv tpcv ciovt:ci sucv.
scc, c tc,, Ayt ct, inv scc, ti ot :i, coyi
gnoiv, ttio:ciunv uc0vc, t,c :c sc.
Pour in the wine, and again say: To Diocles! And Achelous does not have to touch
the ladlefuls hallowed to him. Beautiful is the boy, Achelous, passing beautiful;
and if any say No, let me alone know what beauty is. (trans. Paton, adapted)
Here, the close of the poem leaves somewhat unclear whether the afrma-
tion of the extraordinary beauty of Diocles accounts for the poets falling
in love (and hence the toasts), or whether it is the toasts which excite
Callimachus and allow him to be so sure that he is not making a mis-
take about Diocles, in spite of the fact that others (who are sober?) may
think differently. On either interpretation, there is probably an amusing
ambiguity behind the mention of the river god, Achelous. On one hand,
Achelous was a relatively common metonymic usage for water, and one
which was particularly suitable here, because this god was considered to
be the rst inventor of the habit of mixing wine with water (cf. Sappho
fr. 212 V.);
204
on the other hand, this same river god was famous for his pas-
sionate love for Deianira, which led him to ght with Heracles for her.
205
Ostensibly, then, Callimachus apologises for not allowing Achelous to
204
Cf. S. R. Slings, Callimachus, Epigr. 29 Pf. = V G.P. Mnemosyne 26 (1973) 285.
205
For the metonymy, cf. G. Bond, Euripides. Hypsipyle (Oxford 1963) 86. The metamorphic exploits
of Achelous in his ght against Heracles had been narrated several times, cf. Archilochus, IEG 287,
Pindar, fr. *249a Maehler, Sophocles, Trach. 921.
348 The epigram
take part in the toasts for Diocles: this was a love-toast, which must be
carried out with unmixed wine. At a second level, however, Callimachus
suggests that, in view of the irresistible beauty of Diocles, it is better if
Achelous does not notice him, because he might go mad with love once
again and challenge Callimachus to a ght; Achelous is thus a potential
rival, a r ole which Zeus often assumes in epigrams where the beauty of
the beloved is compared to that of Ganymede.
206
In the case of Achelous,
this risk might have seemed even more plausible, seeing that a widespread
symbolic interpretation considered the death of youths by drowning to be
a form of kidnapping for love by water divinities (most commonly, the
Nymphs).
207
The alibi of drunkenness was not only a justication for irrational
love, but it could also carry complex metapoetic implications. Poets who
were in love Posidippus, Callimachus or Meleager could thereby con-
nect the love that they described as a rst-person experience specically
withthe occasionfor poetic performance at a symposium, whichwas indeed
the primary context for which the erotic epigram was (more or less c-
titiously) conceived:
208
the poets seem to declare: I, Callimachus (or I,
Posidippus, or I, Meleager), even if I have been brought up to make use
of my intellect under the guidance of the Muses, I, too, sometimes get
drunk, and therefore I fall in love, but only because I am/I want to become
a sympotic poet. Drunkenness at a symposium had also been explicitly
marked by love poets such as Asclepiades or Callimachus as a justication
for speaking about other peoples love, even if this was hidden; as writers
of erotic epigrams, they wore the mask of symposiasts, and they therefore
placed themselves in that state of parrhesia, i.e. complete liberty to speak
about anyone or anything, which both Plato (Laws 1.649ab) and Philo-
chorus (FGrHist 328F170) considered to be natural in drunkenness.
209
For
these epigrammatists, drunkenness was the litmus test which conrmed the
discovery of other peoples symptoms of love, and this gave their poems
about love anintellectual edge. As inall epistemological models basedonthe
conjectural analysis of individual cases and circumstances, the investigation
of symptoms of love was open to the risk of looking like purely speculative
206
For this topos, cf. Tar an (1979) 751.
207
Hylas is the most famous case, but the motif is found also in sepulchral inscriptions, cf. GVI 952
(rst/second century ad) and 1897 (second century ad); V. Raimondi, Gli epigrammi per Isidora:
una ripresa del mito di Ila in ambito egiziano Appunti romani di lologia (1998) 93120.
208
Cf. Cameron (1995) 71103.
209
That the person who goes to excesses in drinking wine loses control of his tongue and his mind
was also, of course, a very common poetic thought: cf. e.g. Theognis 47980 and Meleager, AP
12.119.56 = HE 4102f.
3 Erotic epigrams 349
serendipity, and of course the more that individual traits were considered
pertinent, the more concrete this risk was, and the possibility of attaining
exact scientic knowledge diminished.
210
By pointing to specic conjec-
tural paradigms, namely to specic sets of symptoms, Hellenistic poets
demonstrated not only psychological perspicacity in identifying them, but
also a rational clear-sightedness in their evaluation.
In Platos Symposium, the participants decide to deliver encomia of love,
because this was the only god who had not yet been celebrated appropriately
by a poet (177ad); they take this decision immediately after agreeing that
they will drink as they like, but inmoderation, so that nobody will get drunk
(176ad). Love as an earthly, material passion bursts in, of course, towards
the end of the party, in the gure of Alcibiades, and here already that passion
is rmly linked to drunken excess. In Platos brilliant representation, and
in archaic and classical sympotic culture generally, we can see the origins of
the justication that epigram-writers of the beginning of the third century
bc present for being in love and writing love poetry. We must not, however,
underestimate the novelty of this complex of the guilt of love and its excuse
in drunkenness. The elaboration of these ideas was a precise, more or less
conscious, choice, which distinguishes the emphatic self-awareness of these
epigram-writers as learned poets; from Philetas on (cf. fr. 12 Sbardella,
CA 10), these poets are only too conscious of the intellectualism of their
aesthetics, and their repeated afrmations of superiority as spirits brought
up by the Muses keep them removed from those who were not.
210
See on this C. Ginzburg, Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm (1979), now in id., Clues, Myths,
and the Historical Method (Turin 1986, trans. BaltimoreLondon 1989) 10525.
chapter 8
The languages of praise
1 calli machus hymns and the hymni c tradi ti on
Four hymns to Isis of the early rst century bcby one Isidorus were inscribed
on the temple of Isis-Hermouthis at Medinet Madi in the southern Fayum;
1
twoare inhexameters, andtwoinelegiac couplets. The content of the poems
suggests a mixture of Greek and Egyptian religious conceptions, expressed
in Greek hymnic forms and a language which, on the one hand, harks
back to the Greek epic-poetic tradition
2
Homeric words and echoes are
frequent and, on the other, has many elements in common with the
surviving Isiac aretalogies (i.e. descriptions of the goddess powers and
benefactions) of the late Hellenistic and Roman periods. The promise of
1.25, ototc:i, co nc ut,nv ovcuiv ocu tiocv, Lady, I shall not
cease fromsinging of your great power, is of a kind familiar to any reader of
the Homeric Hymns, and the rst three poems end with traditional requests
to the goddess for health, happiness, and prosperity (cf. e.g. Callimachus,
Hymn to Zeus 967, Posidippus 101 AB etc).
3
The rst part of the third
hymn concentrates upon Isis r ole, equivalent to that of the Greek Demeter
with whom she is identied in v. 2 (cf. 1.3, 22), as giver of (particularly
agricultural) wealth:
4
oio:cv utotcuoc tcv, Lpuc0i cvcooc,
loi c,vn, c,ic, ut,n, ut,ccvuut Anc,
otuvc::n oc:tip ,ccv utpcttooi ctcoi
toottoiv ut,c, ypi:c, sci tc0:cv tocsc,,
sci cnv ,ustpnv :t tytiv sci :tpiv pio:nv 5
ccv, to:uyinv sci ocgpcovnv :t cutcv.
1
For the hymns cf. IMEGR 6312, Vanderlip (1972), M. Totti, Ausgew ahlte Texte der Isis-und Sarapis-
Religion (HildesheimZurichNew York 1985) 7682; further discussion and bibliography in L. V.
Zabkar, Hymns to Isis in her Temple at Philae (HanoverLondon 1988) 13560.
2
Vanderlip (1972) 6.
3
Cf. BastianiniGallazzi (2001) 2278. On the endings of Isidorus hymns cf. below, p. 362.
4
Minor textual problems in this passage do not affect the argument here.
350
1 Callimachus Hymns and the hymnic tradition 351
cooci ot ccuoi ucsp:c:ci, cvopt, cpio:ci,
osct:pcgcpci coit, :t sci cooci scipcvci tioi,
co:ci oci tttycv:t, voocuo cypi :t ,npc,,
cutpcv sci itcpcv sc:ctitcv:t, tcuv c[cv 10
uoi ucvcoi sci vopoi :coi ut:c0:i,.
cv ot st gi:c:cv toyt vs:cv n coitic
sci Aoic, :t sci Lopctn, :t vooti,
tipnvnv :t c,cv, scptci picuoiv tt co: c
tcv:cicv ,ccv, scptcv :t gtpcv:t, cpio:cv. 15
cttcu on tctuci :t vopcs:coici :t uio:c
uupiocv cycv :t :c ocv otvc,, n ovc[ui, ocu,
tnc, tnucpco, ci,cioi ot poc, t[ocst.
Ruler of the highest gods, Queen Hermouthis, Isis, pure, holy, great, great-named
Deo, most reverend giver of good things to all mortals, to the pious you give
great favours and wealth, a sweet life, the best form of happiness, prosperity, good
fortune, and a wisdomwhich is free frompain. Those whose lives are most blessed,
the best of men, sceptre-bearing kings and men of power, all these rule until old
age, if they heed you, and they leave behind prosperity, gleaming and rich in great
quantity, to their sons and their grandsons and to those who come after. He whom
the Queen holds most dear of rulers rules over Asia and Europe; he brings peace,
under him the crops are heavy with good things of every kind and bear marvellous
harvest. Where there are wars and countless slaughter, your strength, your power
wipes out the countless enemy throng and gives courage to the few. (Isidorus 3.118)
The Hellenistic world was full of sceptre-bearing kings, but the most
fortunate among them (vv. 1215) is obviously the reigning pharaoh/king,
here favoured by Isis as the just basileus in Hesiod is favoured by the Muses
(Theogony 8093); that Hesiods king is a speaker of gentle words and
a settler of disputes, whereas Isidorus rules over continents, is a marker
of the shift both from the local settlements of the archaic period to the
geographical enormity of the Hellenistic world and from mainland Greece
to Egypt. For those approaching this passage fromGreek tradition, however,
there is indeed a striking similarity between Isidorus formulations and
some very well known passages of early Greek poetry. In Book 19 of the
Odyssey, Odysseus compares Penelope to a good and just king under whose
leadership the earth and the seas provide their bounty and the people
prosper (vv. 10814). Such a conception of the link between the goodness
of the ruler and the prosperity of his land and people is traditional in many
ancient cultures, and is perhaps most familiar in Greek fromits inversion by
Sophocles at the opening of the Oedipus Tyrannus. It was given a particular
twist by Hesiod in the Works and Days in a passage which, together with
Theogony 8093, it is very tempting to think was in Isidorus mind:
352 The languages of praise
c ot oisc, tivcioi sci tvonucioi oioc0oiv
itic, sci un :i tcptscivcuoi oiscicu,
:coi :tnt tci,, cci o vtcuoiv tv co: n
Lipnvn o vc ,nv scupc:pcgc,, coot tc: co:c,
p,ctcv tctucv :tsucipt:ci topctc Zt, 85
coot tc: iuoisnoi ut: vopoi Aiuc, ctnot
coo A:n, cin, ot utunc:c tp,c vtucv:ci.
:coi gtpti utv ,cc tcuv icv, c0ptoi ot op0,
cspn utv :t gtpti cvcu,, utoon ot utiooc,
tipctcsci o cit, ucc, sc:ctpicoiv 90
:is:cuoiv ot ,uvcst, tcisc:c :tsvc ,cvt0oiv
cuoiv o ,ccoi oicuttpt, coo tti vncv
viocv:ci, scptcv ot gtpti tiocpc, cpcupc.
As for those who give straight judgements to visitors and to their own people
and do not deviate from what is just, their community ourishes, and the people
blooms in it. Peace is about the land, fostering the young, and wide-seeing Zeus
never marks out grievous war as their portion. Neither does Famine attend straight-
judging men, nor Blight, and they feast on the crops they tend. For them Earth
bears plentiful food, and on the mountains the oak carries acorns at its surface
and bees at its centre. The eecy sheep are laden down with wool; the womenfolk
bear children that resemble their parents; they enjoy a continual sufciency of good
things. Nor do they ply on ships, but the grain-giving ploughland bears themfruit.
(Hesiod, Works and Days 22537, trans. West)
Here, peace and agricultural prosperity depend not on a single just ruler,
but on the justice of the inhabitants of a town; war is an evil which Zeus
spares the just. In Isidorus poem, war rather is an (unfortunate) fact of life,
but one which conrms the power of the goddess and her earthly favourite
(vv. 1618). It may be that specic troubles or rebellions in Egypt lie behind
these verses,
5
but they are certainly also a version of a very familiar topos
of Egyptian royal ideology, namely the pharaohs ability to smite countless
foes in wars of conquest. The contrast between peace (v. 14) and war (v. 16)
will thus also be a contrast between home and abroad.
Both this structure and a shared heritage of Hesiodic themes, such
as the god-given wealth (tc0:c,, cc,) which is the reward of just
behaviour (WD 22537, 2801, 31213 etc.), bring this passage of Isidorus
hymn very close to Theocritus hymnic praise of Ptolemy Philadelphus
in Idyll 17; vv. 77120 of the Encomium recount the wealth of Egypt, the
peaceful prosperity which reigns there, and the extent of Philadelphus
Mediterranean empire, enforced by his ships and his soldiers. Both poems
clearly reect both traditional Greek ideas and aspects of Egyptian royal
5
Cf. Vanderlip (1972) 545.
1 Callimachus Hymns and the hymnic tradition 353
ideology,
6
and they shed light upon a kind of lingua franca of praise which
turns up in many different guises all over the Hellenistic world, not just in
Egypt. Callimachus six hymns are not only rewritings of archaic poetry,
principally of the major poems of our collection of Homeric Hymns, but
they also mark themselves off against this lingua franca, requiring us to
notice both similarity and difference.
Callimachus rewrote this same passage of Hesiod in his hymns to both
Zeus and Artemis. In the Hymn to Zeus, Callimachus combined, as Isidorus
appears to have done, the ourishing Just City of the Works and Days with
the basileus beloved by the Muses of the Theogony:
ts ot Aic, coint,, ttti Aic, cootv vs:cv
tic:tpcv : c sci ogt :tnv tspivcc iv. 80
ocsc, ot t:citpc gucootutv, tc o co:c,
cspno tv tcitooiv, ttcic, c :t oisnoi
ccv otc osci no c : tutciv ivcuoiv
tv ot pungtvinv tct, ogioiv, tv o ci, ccv
tcoi utv, co uc o ocv. tcist ot :tsunpcoci 85
nut:tpc utotcv:i ttpitpc ,cp topu tnstv.
tottpic, stvc, ,t :tt : stv npi vcnon
tottpic, :c ut,io:c, :c uticvc o, to:t vcnon.
c ot :c utv tticvi, :c o coy tvi, :cv o tc tutcv
co:c, cvnv tsccuoc,, tvtscooc, ot utvcivnv. 90
But from Zeus are kings, for nothing is more divine than the rulers of Zeus;
therefore you chose them as your own portion. You gave them cities to guard,
and you yourself took your seat on the citadels, watching to see who direct their
people with crooked judgements, and who differently. You gave them owing
wealth, and propserity in abundance; all received, but not equally. One can judge
by our ruler, for he outstrips all by far. By evening he brings to fullment the
thoughts of the morning; by evening the greatest thoughts, lesser ones as soon as
they are conceived. Others accomplish some things in a year, but others not in one;
the fullment of others you yourself utterly frustrate, and break off their desire.
(Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus 7990)
Bothpoets use Hesiodic reminiscence toconrmthe very close link between
the basileus here on earth and his heavenly protector; whereas, however, in
Poem3, Isidorus maintains a clear distinction between the heavenly queen
(v. 12) and the ruler she most favours, Callimachus all but runs the heavenly
and earthly Zeuses together.
7
The virtual simultaneity of thought and
deed in the case of Ptolemy (vv. 878) picks up a theme of both Greek
and Egyptian divine praise.
8
In the Hymn to Artemis, Callimachus uses the
6
For Idyll 17 cf. Hunter (2003b), Stephens (2003a) 14770.
7
Cf. HunterFuhrer (2002) 169.
8
Cf. Theocritus 17.1314 (the divinised Soter) with Hunter (2003b) 109.
354 The languages of praise
Hesiodic passage to describe the different effects which Artemis favour and
disfavour create:
:c :t:pc:cv cost: tti op0v
uiv ti, oiscv tct, tciv, c :t ttpi ogtc,
c :t ttpi tivcu, i:nucvc tcc :ttoscv.
oyt:ici, c, :vn ycttnv tuutci cp,nv
s:nvt giv ciuc, sc:ccost:ci, tp,c ot tyvn, 125
stipcv:ci ot ,tpcv:t, tg uoiv, c ot ,uvcst,
n n:ci vnoscuoi tyciot, nt gu,c0oci
:is:cuoiv :cv cootv tti ogupcv cpcv vto:n.
c, ot stv toution, :t sci cc, co,oonci,
stivci, to utv cpcupc gtpti o:yuv, to ot ,tvtn 130
:t:pctcocv, to o csc, tt:ci coo tti onuc
tpycv:ci tnv to:t tcuypcvicv :i gtpcoiv
coot oiyco:coin :pcti ,tvc,, n :t sci to ttp
cscu, to:nc:c, toivc:c :ci ot ucpcv
tiv:tpt, ,ccc :t uicv ttpi oigpc :itv:ci. 135
The fourth time you no longer shot (?) at a tree, but at a city of unjust men, who
commit wicked acts against each other and against strangers. Wretched are those
on whom you impress your bitter anger. Plague feeds on their cattle and frost on
their crops, old men cut their hair in mourning for their sons, and women are either
struck down and die in childbirth or, if they survive, bear children who cannot
stand on upright ankle. But those upon whom you look with favouring smile,
their elds yield crops, and their animals and house prosper. They do not go to the
tomb except to bury the very aged. Strife, which lays waste even to well-established
houses, does not wound their race: the wives of brothers and sisters-in-law set their
chairs around one table. (Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 12135)
The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite lists a city of just men among the things
in which Artemis takes pleasure (v. 20), and Callimachus here exploits the
special relationship between Artemis and her father, which the opening of
his poemhas established and which will be conrmed at its end by the echo,
in the armed dance of the Amazons in honour of Artemis (vv. 2407), of the
dance of the Kouretes by which the infant Zeus was protected (cf. Call. h.
1.524);
9
Artemis plays a r ole assigned to Zeus in Hesiods poem, or rather
she embodies the Hesiodic Dike, another virginal daughter of Zeus who
sits with her father and tells him of the outrages of unjust men (WD 256
62).
10
Callimachus typically inimitable rewriting of Hesiod
11
in Artemis
9
ttpi tpiv cpynocv:c lls the second half of a (spondeiazon) verse in both passages, a very rare
repetition within our corpus of Callimachus, cf. F. Lapp, De Callimachi Cyrenaei tropis et guris
(Diss. Bonn 1965) 68; the adverb coc is also common to both passages.
10
Cf. M. Erler, Das Recht (AlKH) als Segensbringerin f ur die Polis SIFC 80 (1987) 536, with the
remarks of Hunter in HunterFuhrer (2002) 1823.
11
Cf. Reinsch-Werner (1976) 7486; on p. 75 she notes the possible inuence of the Hesiodic Hecate.
1 Callimachus Hymns and the hymnic tradition 355
honour is an excellent illustration of how he distinguishes his verse from
the lingua franca of praise which we have identied, but it also shows how
rmly rooted his hymns are in traditional religious ideas and language. His
all-powerful Artemis may owe something to the widespread syncretism of
Artemis-Demeter-Isis, such as we nd it, for example, in Isidorus hymns,
12
but both here and in Isidorus 3 (above pp. 3501) we may also be reminded
of the remarkable praise of Artemis cousin Hecate in Hesiods Theogony
(vv. 41152). In this passage, Hecate is honoured above all other gods by
Zeus, whose power hers comes to resemble, and she herself bestows honour
and prosperity (cc,) upon whomsoever she chooses; she is powerful in
lawcourts (beside reverend basileis, v. 434) and at public gatherings, grants
victory in war and athletic contests, and is responsible for the success of
shermen and the increase of herds. Such multi-faceted power, combined
with the gods repeatedly emphasised discretion in its use (vv. 419, 429, 430,
432, 439, 443), strongly foreshadow features of divine encomium which are
often claimed to be distinctively Hellenistic. As so often, it is Callimachus
mode of expression and imagery, not his matrix of ideas, which turn out to
be poetically radical.
Another case where we may trace Callimachus relation to a particular
language of praise comes fromthe Hymn to Delos.
13
Inthis poem, a prophecy
of the foetal Apollostops his mother giving birthtohimonthe islandof Cos,
for that is reserved for another god (v. 165), namely Ptolemy Philadelphus;
the prophecy, which functions as a positive rewriting of the negative not
Telphousa, but Delphi episode of the Homeric Hymn, occupies the centre
of the poem and is one of the most direct passages of royal encomium
surviving from Callimachus. With courtly wit, the poet makes the god
link his miraculous intervention in 279, which saved Delphi from being
sacked by Gauls coming down from the north, to Ptolemys crushing of a
short-lived rebellion of Gallic mercenaries in Egypt in c. 275:
c ts Mciptcv :i, cgticutvc, tc, cc, 165
to:i, 2cc:npcv 0tc:cv ,tvc, c otc ui:pnv
t:ci cos tscuoc Mcsnocvi scipcvttoci
ugc:tpn utoc,tic sci c tt,tooi snv:ci,
utypi, ctcu ttp:n :t sci cttctv cstt, ttci
Hticv gcptcuoiv c o tot:ci ntc tc:pc,. 170
sci v tc:t uvc, :i, ttot:ci cuuiv ctc,
12
Cf. also Orphic Hymn 36 to Artemis, which concludes with a prayer for fair crops, lovely peace,
fair-tressed health.
13
On the relation of the Hymn to Delos with the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and various Pindaric texts cf.
esp. Bing (1988) 91146, Depew (1998), G. Most, Callimachus and Herophilus Hermes 109 (1981)
18896.
356 The languages of praise
0o:tpcv, cttc:cv c utv tg Lnvtooi uycipcv
cpcpisnv sci Kt:cv vco:nocv:t, Apnc
ci,cvci Ti:nvt, g tottpcu toyc:ccv:c,
pcocv:ci, vigotooiv tcisc:t, n iopiuci 175
:tiptoiv, nvisc tto:c sc: ntpc cusctcv:ci s:.
But to her is due from the fates another god, highest offspring of the Saviours.
Under his power, quite willing to be governed by a Macedonian, shall come both
land masses and the islands in the sea, as far as the western horizon and from
where the swift horses bear the sun. And he shall know the ways of his father.
One day in the future, a common struggle will come upon us, when the late-born
Titans raise barbarian sword and Celtic war against Greeks, rushing down from
the furthest west, like snowakes or equal in number to the stars, when they cluster
most thickly in the heavens . . . (Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 16576)
Callimachus has thus enfolded a Pythian hymn within a Delian one,
in an artful variation of the structure of the archaic Hymn to Apollo; the
destruction of the late-born Titans at Delphi replaces the gods killing of
the Pythian serpent, which had (inter alia) reared Typhoeus, Heras dread
child which she had conceived after invoking the Titan gods (h. Apollo 335
6). Both killings mark the imposition, or re-imposition, of Olympian order
upon rebellious chaos. The Gallic sweep into the Mediterranean seems in
fact to have inspired a considerable body of poetry withits ownconventions
andstock phrases,
14
andCallimachus will not have beenthe only panegyrist
to make the link between the two victories over the Gauls. Cos had in
fact close links with both the main Apolline centres. From the late 280s
at least it had regularly sent theoroi to Delos,
15
and very shortly after the
Gauls were forced to abandon the attack upon Delphi, Cos had declared
sacrices of thanksgiving in Delphi and sacrices to Pythian Apollo, Zeus
Soter, and Victory, and a public holiday on Cos to celebrate the gods
intervention against the barbarians on behalf of the safety (oc:npic) of
the Greeks (SIG 398);
16
the island was thus inextricably tied to both the
Delphic Apollo and his Alexandrian counterpart (i.e. Philadelphus). The
Delphians themselves instituted a festival, the Soteria, to celebrate their
deliverance from the Gauls,
17
and the Callimachean Apollos designation
14
Bing (1988) 129 n. 66. There is a full treatment in Barbantani (2001) and cf. also Weber (1993) 30811;
I have left the poems with which Barbantani is concerned (SH 958, 969) out of account here, because
of the uncertainties which surround them, but they do, I think, conrm the general picture which
is offered.
15
Cf. Bruneau (1970) 97101, S. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos (G ottingen 1978) 912.
16
For this text cf. also Nachtergael (1977) 4013. The link between the Coan celebrations and
Callimachus hymn was made by, e.g. Fraser (1972) I 660.
17
For a full study cf. Nachtergael (1977).
1 Callimachus Hymns and the hymnic tradition 357
of Philadelphus as highest offspring of the Saviours (v. 166) thus looks to
a traditional Greek rhetoric as well as to Philadelphus parents, the Saviour
gods.
The Coan decree makes plain (as does virtually all the evidence, both epi-
graphic and literary (Pausanias), for the Gallic invasions) that the rhetoric
generated by the resistance to the Gauls was modelled upon the rhetoric
through which Greek resistance to the Persians in the early fth century
had long been remembered and/or imagined. In setting Greeks against
the barbarian sword, the prophetic foetus thus both apes and inaugurates
what was to become the standard language of public celebration of the
Gallic defeat, seen for example in the many surviving decrees connected
with a reorganisation of the Delphic Soteria in the middle of the third
century.
18
In extant Callimachus, v. 173 of the Hymn to Delos offers the only
example of cpcpisc, (there are none of pcpc,), and the only other
example of Lnvt, is in a brief fragment also about the Gallic invasions:
19
c0, Bptvvc, g tottpicic coon,
n,c,tv Lnvcv tt vo:coiv, s:.
whomBrennos brought fromthe westernsea todestroy the Greeks. . . (Callimachus
fr. 379)
The language of Callimachus Apollo thus gestures towards the prosaic,
though emotionally charged, language of public documents, but is also
utterly transformed from it. The gods extraordinary zeugmatic expres-
sion, raising barbarian sword and Celtic Ares [i.e. war], illustrates this
transformation very clearly; barbarian sword both refers specically to the
strange Gaulish weapons which made such an impact upon the Greeks, as
can be seen from the prominence given to the enemy shields as trophies
of war (vv. 1857), but seems also to vary the poetic habit of using ocpu
sword in the transferred sense of army or war.
20
So, too, the gods use of
Ares may reect a poetic language that developed at an early date around
the Gaulish invasions:
21
thus, an epigram ascribed to Anyte tells of three
18
These texts are gathered by Nachtergael (1977) 43547.
19
Cf. Hunter (1991) 846; the fragment is assigned by Pfeiffer to the Galateia of Callimachus. G. Petzl,
Kein Umsturz beim Galater-