Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry (Hellenistica Groningana, 26) 9789042945791, 9789042945807, 9042945796

Citation preview

HELLENISTICA GRONINGANA

WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY EDITED BY

M.A. HARDER J.J.H. KLOOSTER R.F. REGTUIT G.C. WAKKER

PEETERS

WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

HELLENISTICA GRONINGANA MONOGRAPHS Editorial Board: M.A. Harder J.J.H. Klooster R.F. Regtuit G.C. Wakker Advisory Board: M.P. Cuypers, Dublin R. Höschele, Toronto T. Nelson, Cambridge F. Overduin, Nijmegen I. Petrovic, Charlottesville E. Sistakou, Athens 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Callimachus, 1993. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Theocritus, 1996. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, 1998. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Apollonius Rhodius, 2000. L. Rossi, The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach, 2001. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Hellenistic Epigrams, 2002. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Callimachus II, 2004. G. Berkowitz, Semi-Public Narration in Apollonius’ Argonautica, 2004. A. Ambühl, Kinder und junge Helden. Innovative Aspekte des Umgangs mit der literarischen Tradition bei Kallimachos, 2005. J.S. Bruss, Hidden Presences. Monuments, Gravesites, and Corpses in Greek Funerary Epigram, 2005. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Beyond the Canon, 2006. É. Prioux, Regards alexandrins. Histoire et théorie des arts dans l’épigramme hellénistique, 2007. M.A. Tueller, Look Who’s Talking: Innovations in Voice and Identity in Hellenistic Epigram, 2008. E. Sistakou, Reconstructing the Epic. Cross-Readings of the Trojan Myth in Hellenistic Poetry, 2008. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Nature and Science in Hellenistic Poetry, 2009. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Gods and Religion in Hellenistic Poetry, 2012. E. Sistakou, The Aesthetics of Darkness. A Study of Hellenistic Romanticism in Apollonius, Lycophron and Nicander, 2012. C. Cusset, N. Le Meur-Weissman, F. Levin, Mythe et pouvoir à l’époque hellénistique, 2012. J. Kwapisz, The Greek Figure Poems, 2013. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Hellenistic Poetry in Context, 2014. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Past and Present in Hellenistic Poetry, 2017. Y. Durbec, F. Trajber, Traditions épiques et poésie épigrammatique, 2017. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry, 2018. J.J.H. Klooster, M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, Callimachus Revisited. New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship, 2019. C. Cusset, P. Belenfant, C.-E. Nardone, Féminités hellénistiques. Voix, genre, représentations, 2020.

HELLENISTICA GRONINGANA 26

WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

Edited by M.A. HARDER J.J.H. KLOOSTER R.F. REGTUIT G.C. WAKKER

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. © 2021 – Peeters – Bondgenotenlaan 153 – B-3000 Leuven – Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any forms or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the holder of the copyright. ISBN 978-90-429-4579-1 eISBN 978-90-429-4580-7 D/2021/0602/115

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Jacqueline KLOOSTER Introduction: Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry . . . . . .

1

Benjamin ACOSTA-HUGHES That I be your plaything. The cult of Arsinoe-Aphrodite in Image and text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

Giulia BIFFIS Lycophron’s Cassandra, a Powerful Female Voice . . . . . . . . .

35

Matthew CHALDEKAS Seeing Statues: Authority, Erotic Power, and the Gendered Gaze in Theocritus’ Idyll 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59

Sophia DECKER Dorians are allowed to speak Doric: Theocritus’ Idyll 15 in the context of Panhellenization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83

Brett EVANS Courting the Queen: The Power Dynamics of Marriage as Metaphor in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

Irene GIAQUINTA Hypsipyle from Euripides to Apollonius Rhodius: New Perspectives Regarding Female Power in Hellenistic Poetry . . . . 121 Kathleen KIDDER What angers Demeter also angers Dionysus: Demeter and Dionysus as Ptolemaic Queen and King in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 André LARDINOIS Sappho as Anchor for Male and Female Greek Poets in the Hellenistic Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Flavia LICCIARDELLO Female Gaze in Dedications: The Case of Nossis . . . . . . . . . . 193 Fabiana LOPES DA SILVEIRA Sit back and watch: Female Power in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

VI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Davide MASSIMO Huntress and Midwife: Two Aspects of Artemis in Hellenistic Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Brian D. MC PHEE Power Divine: Apollonius’ Medea and the Goddesses of the Homeric Hymns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Jackie MURRAY Poetically Erect again: Herodas and Female Oriented SexHumor in Mimiambus 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Thomas J. NELSON The Coma Stratonices: Royal Hair Encomia and PtolemaicSeleucid Rivalry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Simone OPPEN Revising Gender and Power in Callimachus Hymn 5 . . . . . . . 321 Valeria PACE Moschus’ Europa as Epic Poetry Gendered Female . . . . . . . . 341 Michael TUELLER Youth, Beauty, and Erotic Power: Women and Boys in Greek Epigram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Index rerum et nominum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Index locorum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

INTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY Jacqueline KLOOSTER

The 14th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry was held on 21-23 August 2019 and focused on a theme that had been suggested two years previously by Benjamin Acosta-Hughes at the end of the festive Hellenistic Workshop in honour of Annette Harder’s career: Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry. A year or so earlier another sizeable conference on a theme very close to ours had already been organised at the ENS in Lyon by Christoph Cusset and his colleagues. The wonderful volume resulting from that conference has been published in 2020 in the series Hellenistica Groningana.1 It is a testimony to the richness of the topic of women in Hellenistic poetry that our conference, and hence this present volume, despite continuity in theme and similar approaches to the matter of women in poetry shows little actual overlap in terms of texts discussed with the earlier one, and yet was able to garner 17 papers on the theme of women and power in Hellenistic Poetry. That the 2019 Groningen conference took up this specific focus moreover indicates that women in ancient literature, both as authors and as topic, are at the centre of attention once more, after having been successfully introduced into classical studies in the 1970s and 80s. We may wonder whether this renewed surge in interest in themes related to gender and power, which are currently also clearly visible across the discipline of classics in other eras, genres and fields of study, is in any way related to contemporary social developments. Prominent among them is of course the #metoo movement which got underway in 2017 and exposed a number of barely hidden yet largely undiscussed issues connected to gender and power inequalities in the workplace, the political and cultural worlds, and beyond. At the same time, the rise of women shattering the glass ceiling and joining the ranks of international politics and the top positions of corporate businesses and academia seems likewise more in evidence than ever before. Perhaps it is the emergence of these societal developments which allows us to look at the ancient world with a new perspective, and to pose new questions to the material we thought we knew. 1. C. Cusset et al. 2020.

2

JACQUELINE KLOOSTER

It is a well-known and striking fact that Hellenistic poetry is full of powerful and powerfully present women, ranging from Ptolemaic and other queens to female (semi-)divinities and epic heroines. But the Hellenistic era is likewise remarkable for being relatively rich in female authors, specifically in the domain of epigrammatic poetry. These symptoms would seem to reflect a social reality which was a far cry from the female archetype that Pericles allegedly sketched in the funeral oration Thucydides puts in his mouth, when addressing his widowed female contemporaries: “[I]f I must say anything on the subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad.” (2.45.2, transl. Strassler)

Between the praised obscurity of the Athenian woman in Thucydides’ Periclean Funeral Oration and the outright wielding of power of any kind lie worlds of difference, and even if the women studied in this volume are powerfully present to us, we may still wonder what their actual power and agency consisted in. Indeed, to pursue the analogy with Athens in the classical era shows that on the one hand women were powerfully present in Attic tragedy and comedy as well (note Lucian’s remark that Athenian tragedy featured more women than men),2 but the question is of course what kind of social reality (if any) this reflected.3 On the other hand, we also hear from near contemporaries that Pericles’ own partner, the famous Aspasia, was anything but silent and obscure.4 This means that literature cannot simply be taken to reflect social realities, in either direction. Still, with these provisos and caveats firmly at the back of our minds, it remains interesting to ask, as this volume hopes to do, what kind of power is ascribed to women in Hellenistic poetry. What does it consist in? Is it in any way different from the power men have? Or is a woman’s visible presence, voice, or ‘gaze’ enough to signify her power? Looking beyond the expected power-figures, such as divinities and queens, we may thus wonder which types of women held specific kinds of power. It seems clear that hierarchically lower situated women, such as hetairas, wives, and mothers, can certainly exert their own brand of power, e.g. reproductive, erotic, or domestic.

2. Lucian: De Saltatione 28, cf. Ach. Tat. 1.8. 3. See on this e.g., Zeitlin 1996; Hall 2006: 93-126; Foley 2001. 4. Cf. Plato’s Menexenus 235e, 236b, Xenophon Memorabilia II.6.36.

INTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

3

This volume sets out to broach not only the question who the powerful women of Hellenistic poetry were, and what their power consisted in, but also, quite emphatically, in what ways they differ from or resemble previous literary representations of women in, for example, Homeric epic, archaic lyric, and Athenian tragedy, and why. Taking a turn for the metapoetical, our glance is also directed at the poetic implications of the representation of female voice and female agency in the hands of both male and female authors. The distinct position in the canon of female epigrammatists such as Nossis and Anyte, and their relation to previous female authors like Sappho and Erinna forms an important part of such analyses. The papers in this volume are presented alphabetically, as is habitual for this series, but it is nevertheless possible to discern thematic strands, which not only link various discussions of individual authors (such as, prominently, Callimachus, Apollonius, and Theocritus), but also themes such as the representation of Ptolemaic and other Queens, the power of female divinities (Artemis, Athena and Demeter), or the approaches taken to various subjects, e.g. the metapoetic approach, or the study of female agency and the female gaze. It is especially in these thematic nodes that the value of this volume as a whole lies: one approach complements or sheds lights on others. The following gives a brief, thematically arranged overview of the papers in this volume, hoping to bring out these connections and thematic highlights of the collection. A first cluster of papers centers around female deities, and the way their numinous power is perceived and described in hymns and other poetry, with a pronounced emphasis on Callimachus’ Hymns. Surely one of the most tantalising among them is the goddess Artemis, not least because her representation seems to shift a great deal over the ages, both in cult and in literary representation. As Davide Massimo shows in his contribution, (Huntress and Midwife: Two aspects of Artemis in Hellenistic poetry) by the Hellenistic period Artemis had become a complex goddess whose powers and domains overlapped with those of other deities such as Hecate and Eileithyia. Massimo analyses some elements (the arrows, the chiton, the nymphs) which Hellenistic poets (especially Callimachus) associated with Artemis, showing that they mirror a complex cult reality and at the same time create an intricate layer of allusions. Fabiana Lopes da Silveira and Simone Oppen on the other hand, take a more text immanent focus and approach Callimachus’ hymns with an analysis of the gendered gaze. Lopes da Silveira (Sit back and watch:

4

JACQUELINE KLOOSTER

female power in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter) focuses on how various acts of looking are presented in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, and on some interpretive implications of the adoption of a female perspective from which the reader is invited to watch Demeter’s power and character. The first section demonstrates the importance given to the act of looking already from the opening lines of the hymn. The second section argues that the mixture of comic and tragic elements in the account of Erysichthon’s story and the manner in which Demeter’s interacts with Erysichthon result in a form of dark humour. The third section focusses on the punishment of males by females due to male transgressive acts (of looking, mainly) and deepens the connections between gender and dark humour in the hymn. With a similar attention to female focus and the visual, Oppen (Revisiting Gender and Power in Callimachus Hymn 5) approaches gender and power through the narrow lens of Callimachus’ citation practice in Hymn 5. Therein, a poetic narrator invokes female collectives with discrete identities in previous Greek literature, training their focus on the goddess Athena in order to bring about her epiphany. Through their focus on the goddess, these female collectives become capable of revising the judgement of Paris and even enticing Athena to come join them in Argos. Though it is tempting on this basis to read proto-feminist sentiment into Callimachus, the hymn’s larger project ultimately appears to be demonstrating its own efficacy by creating the conditions in which the goddess would choose to be seen. In many hymnic poems written in the ambit of the court, a relation between the Ptolemies and the deities is lurking beneath the surface. Such representation was apparently encouraged by the royal dynasty, who were eager to deify male as well as female members of their family. This brings us to a second theme: Ptolemaic and other queens in Hellenistic poetry. In his paper That I Be Your Plaything. A Study of the Cult of Arsinoe-Aphrodite in Image and Text, Benjamin Acosta Hughes explores the example of the deification of Arsinoe II Philadelphus and the powerful images and literary expressions this queen called forth. He offers a comparative reading of images in contemporary poetry and artwork that recall a court (and national) iconography celebrating Arsinoe II Philadelphus. Queen of Egypt for not even a decade, she was the figure who came to dominate early Ptolemaic court ideology. The causes for Acosta-Hughes’ interest in such a cultural study of Arsinoe II are four. The first is the possible importance of the poem we now know as Callimachus fr. 228 Pf., the Deification of Arsinoe, for Roman literature, particularly literature of apotheosis and celebration of royal women.

INTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

5

The second is related to the anathematika in the new epigrams attributed to Posidippus (36-41 AB), which give Arsinoe II a cultural position parallel to Alexander. The third was the discovery, in the underwater archaeological explorations off Alexandria led by Frank Goddio, of several images that enhanced our imagination of this queen’s presence in the city of Alexandria; whether in pharaonic or Hellenic style, hers was an image that could be seen, admired, and experienced. The fourth arose from Acosta-Hughes’ own work on the Alexandrian edition of Sappho, and an increased awareness of the role that Sappho’s figuring of female power and beauty was to play for the later male poets at the court of a Macedonian queen. Staying on the topic of deified queens, Kathleen Kidder (What Angers Demeter also Angers Dionysus: Demeter and Dionysus as Ptolemaic Queen and King in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter) argues that the joint wrath of Demeter and Dionysus in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter symbolizes the synergistic relationship of the Ptolemaic queens and kings. Discussing the ideological relevance of the two gods for the monarchs and the political implications of the other five Callimachean Hymns, she demonstrates that the couplet featuring the two gods (71-70) marks an important shift in the representation of Demeter’s power. Whereas Demeter struggles in the first half of the poem, Dionysus’ collaboration completes the punishment of Erysichthon. In a similar way, the Ptolemaic queens solicited the aid of their husbands the kings to solidify their cultural and political power. How exactly did the Hellenistic Poets at court navigate the powerful status of these queens as patrons? Turning to another Ptolemaic queen, but remaining with the same poet, Brett Evans (Courting the Queen: The Power Dynamics of Patronage as Metaphor for Marriage in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices) argues that Callimachus portrays his Victoria Berenices as a metaphorical bride-price (ἕδνον) for Berenice, his victorious patron qua ‘bride’. By reviewing the usage of ἕδνον he challenges the established view that the word means ‘gift’ at the Victoria’s opening; instead he shows how Callimachus adapts a Pindaric discourse of epinician exchange as marriage to forge a new metaphor of his poem as his laudanda’s ‘bride-price’. Evans shows how bridal imagery throughout the Victoria, including Heracles styled as a bride, bolsters Callimachus’ metaphor. He argues that the entire poem portrays Berenice as a patron qua bride sought after by many competing ‘suitors’ at court, and that Callimachus hereby lays claim to a distinguished position as Berenice’s only poet. He closes by suggesting that Callimachus’ poem offers Berenice the bride-price of the status of eternal bride.

6

JACQUELINE KLOOSTER

There were of course queens beyond the Ptolemaic court, who may have seen their Ptolemaic counterparts and the poetry they received as rivals and competing claims to power and glory, as Thomas Nelson reminds us in his article The Coma Stratonices: Hair Encomia, Queenly Power, and Ptolemaic-Seleucid Rivalry. He investigates how Ptolemaic poets’ presentation of their queens compares with and relates to the practice of their major rivals, the Seleucids. No poetic celebration of a Seleucid queen survives extant, but an anecdote preserved by Lucian sheds intriguing light on Seleucid poetic practice (Pro Imaginibus 5): queen Stratonice, bald through a long illness, organised a competition in which poets elaborately praised her non-existent locks. Nelson subjects this testimonium to a close analysis. First, he considers the details and reliability of Lucian’s account, arguing that it reflects key aspects of the queen’s character and story as told elsewhere, and is likely drawn from a pre-existing source, perhaps even from the ambit of the Seleucid court itself; then he compares this episode with Alexandrian poets’ encomia of Ptolemaic queens, highlighting parallel encomiastic techniques and possible direct connections with the poetry of Callimachus, especially his own poem on queenly hair: the Coma Berenices. Given the nature of the evidence, the arguments must be considered tentative and exploratory, but Nelson attractively suggests that the anecdote offers hints of an inter-dynastic poetic rivalry: royal women and their hair stood at the centre of a literary battleground, in which poets not only celebrated the status of their own queens, but also negotiated the poetry and authority of their rivals. Beyond female deities and deified or other queens, Hellenistic poetry pays ample attention to queenly protagonists from the mythical past. In the representations of these figures, the literary history of Greece invariably plays an important and often complex role, as a next group of papers in this volume amply demonstrates. As Brian McPhee shows (Power Divine: Apollonius’ Medea and the Goddesses of the Homeric Hymns), the models Hellenistic poets used are not always obvious, and new insights are still to be found on a careful reading. For instance, Apollonius’ evocation of Homeric characters as allusive models is one of his best recognized techniques of characterization. As a rule, these models are both comparative and contrastive: a character’s departure from the Homeric paradigm is often more illuminating than its adherence to it; superficial similarities throw more serious differences into relief. McPhee applies this approach to an analysis of Apollonius’ Medea, but expands the pool of her potential ‘Homeric’ models to include the goddesses from the Homeric Hymns, a critical but understudied poetic

INTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

7

corpus within the literary archaeology of the Argonautica. Just as a program of allusions to the Odyssey positions Apollonius’ Medea as a “Mephistophelean” Nausicaa, so McPhee argues that Apollonius alludes to Homer’s other body of hexametric poetry in order to characterize Medea as a sort of chthonic inversion of the Olympian goddesses of the Homeric Hymns. Through a series of paradigmatic readings of allusions to the hymns to Athena (28), Demeter (2), and Aphrodite (5), he shows that Apollonius stresses Medea’s awesome magical powers, which are literally godlike, but consistently portrays the effects thereof as far more destructive and violent than those of her hymnic antecedents. Zooming in on another Apollonian protagonist, and unearthing her complex literary history, Irene Giaquinta (Hypsipyle from Euripides to Apollonius Rhodius: New Perspectives regarding Female Power in Hellenistic Poetry) looks at the Aeschylean and Euripidean representations of Hypsipyle, who is portrayed in the works of these tragedians as an exile in Nemea. The Argonautica’s first book, on the other hand, focuses on the period preceding Hypsipyle’s Nemean exile, when, after the slaughter of the men, Hypsipyle reigns on Lemnos. Apollonius provides a new insight into the character of the queen, taking inspiration from Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ homonymous tragedies but also going further in the psychological characterization of this powerful woman. Whereas in Euripides’ work Hypsipyle is a helpless slave in Nemea, forced to face the death sentence imposed on her, Apollonius lends the queen not only the role of a guide within the community, but also that of a shrewd rhetorical talent. Giaquinta shows that in Hellenistic poetry women distinguish themselves through self-awareness, common sense and, most importantly, the ability to plan for the future on the basis of contingent circumstances, an incumbent sense of duty and moral responsibility. A deeper linguistic analysis and a detailed comparison between meaningful passages from the Argonautica and Euripides’ Hypsipyle shows that in his poem Apollonius opens up new perspectives on the female world through this lesser-known female character. Remaining in epic spheres, Valeria Pace (Moschus’ Europa as epic poetry gendered female) focuses on Moschus’ Europa, arguing that this poem ought to be seen as an attempt to write epic poetry gendered female. It reacts to the androcentric perspective of traditional epic poetry by creating a world which is ruled by the will of Aphrodite. Europa, a young girl, is the sole protagonist of the story; she does not appear as an ancillary figure helping a hero. Pace contends that the poem adopts two key strategies in its fashioning of female epic. On the one hand, the poem configures the role of Aphrodite as different from her usual role in

8

JACQUELINE KLOOSTER

epic poetry: she is presented as a powerful goddess who outwits Zeus and governs the cosmos. On the other, previous female moments in the epic tradition are replayed, gesturing towards a tradition for female epic. Focusing our attention on another intriguing female protagonist on the boundary of epic and tragedy, Giulia Biffis (Lycophron’s Cassandra, a powerful female poetic voice) considers Lycophron’s Alexandra as a fundamental text for the study of the ancient Greek conceptualization of womanhood. She investigates how Lycophron’s unique poetic vision finds expression within this perspective, in that he makes Cassandra, a woman, the narrative voice for practically the entirety of the poem. Biffis demonstrates how Lycophron establishes the female perspective by exploiting some of the main typological features identified by gender studies as characterizing the female sphere in Greek literature. Lycophron strengthens his readers’ appreciation of Cassandra as a female narrator thanks to Cassandra’s typically feminine modes of speech, her selfpresentation and, finally, the selection and focalization of the subject matter in her prophecy. He enlarges the scope of his articulated depiction of womanhood in Greek society, which Cassandra offers in her mythological prophetic accounts, to the role of women in society, both as ritual agents (the Locrian and Daunian maidens) and possible recipients of cult (Cassandra herself in Daunia). This last aspect is the unusual and original twist that Lycophron gives to his representation of the female. In Cassandra’s words rituals seem to fulfil the traditional role of poetry: preservation of everlasting memory. However, the choice of the narrator, who is a true prophetess, but destined not to be believed, complicates Lycophron’s poetic discourse. Alexandra raises again the question of the relationship between poetry and truthfulness in Greek literature, this time from a female perspective. Therefore, in the final analysis, Biffis aims to explain how Lycophron’s problematizing of this issue is heavily interconnected with the Greek understanding of womanhood in society. A number of representations of women in Hellenistic poetry are emphatically concerned with their erotic allure, or even power, which brings us to a next thematic nexus. Women and the erotic are coupled both in writings by and writings about women. To start with the former, as noted, Hellenistic poetry is remarkably for its relatively large number of prominent female poets. How did these poets shape their own position in the canon? And, conversely what was the reception of the canonical female poets in female and male Hellenistic poets? André Lardinois (Sappho as Anchor for Male and Female Poets in the Hellenistic Period) considers the example of Sappho. She was widely read and much appreciated in the Hellenistic period. Sappho was seen as an authority especially

INTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

9

on love and female speech, and was included as the only female poet in the canon of nine lyric poets. Lardinois looks at the use of Sappho as model and “anchor” in the late classical and Hellenistic poets, notably Erinna, Anyte, Nossis, Moero, Posidippus, Apollonius of Rhodes, Theocritus and Meleager, with a brief excursus on Catullus 51. He argues that the male poets (Posidippus, Apollonius, Theocritus, Meleager and Catullus) use Sappho as an anchor to speak as a poet about female characters or feminine behaviour, while Erinna and Nossis, in the surviving parts of their poetry, use her as an anchor to speak as a woman poet, a subtle but significant difference. In the case of Anyte and Moero the link with Sappho is harder to establish. One of the most notable poetic followers of Sappho, Nossis, is the focus of a paper by Flavia Liciardello (Female gaze in dedications: the case of Nossis). An almost exclusive focus on female subjects has regularly been acknowledged as a central feature of Nossis’ poetry. Liciardello reconsiders Nossis’ female perspective by comparing her epigrams with other texts belonging to the same genre. More specifically, the analysis focuses on dedicatory epigrams, which represent the most prevalent form for her epigrams with a female subject. Votive offerings made by women (or in their honour) are not a novelty in the Greek world. While admittedly rarer than those performed by men alone, female dedications are celebrated by inscribed epigrams from the archaic age onwards, representing a recurring topic within Hellenistic book epigrams. Moving from the comparison with a comprehensive corpus of inscribed and book epigrams from the archaic age to the beginning of the second century BC, Liciardello reveals that Nossis’ epigrams are deeply rooted in the tradition of dedicatory epigrams. Points of contact with the pre-Hellenistic tradition, as well as with coeval inscribed and book epigrams, are multiple. Within the framework of a general adherence to the tradition, however, Nossis introduces certain significant innovations. These usually develop from conventional elements, which are reinterpreted in a peculiarly female way. In particular, the very act of rendering her female gaze explicit within the text is what most powerfully characterises Nossis’s treatment of female dedications, at least in comparison with earlier and contemporary dedicatory epigrams. Nossis and the tradition of female erotic poetry are also at the center of Jackie Murray’s revisionary reading of Herodas’ Mimiambi 6 and 7. The communis opinio regarding the metapoetics of these Mimiambi is that the allusions to the female poets, Erinna and Nossis, contribute to a misogynist attack against them and the type of poetry they espoused. Such a reading, however, assumes that Herodas is recycling the tired

10

JACQUELINE KLOOSTER

misogynist dildo-jokes found in Old Comedy. Scholars have never explored the possibility that Herodas may be invoking Erinna and Nossis to signal his appreciation and appropriation of their poetics in his Mimiambi. Murray re-evaluates Mimiambus 6 in light of this likelihood and contends that Herodas, like his contemporary Callimachus, adapted their transgendered poetics to create authentic female characters whose sex-talk reflected a female centered subjectivity. Accordingly, Mimiambus 6 features a new kind of dildo-joke that is oriented toward women and reflects female-centered sexuality. Far from being a metapoetic attack, the allusions to Erinna and Nossis in Mimiambus 6 express Herodas’ appreciation for and indebtedness to their female-oriented poetry. Whereas Murray thus sheds new light on the sexual agency of women as perceived by Herodas, Michael Tueller (Youth, Beauty, and Erotic Power: Women and Boys in Greek Epigram) seeks to determine the landmarks in the fading of (sexual) attractiveness and beauty as these are represented in epigram, and whether it differs for men and women. He also examines how these factors affected power: the power to attract, the power to choose a sexual partner, and the power to fulfil sexual desires. His conclusions, when it comes to the perceived attractiveness of ageing women are quite surprising, when compared with the modern cult of youth. It seems that, all in all, it was much more difficult for boys to remain the object of desire than it was for women. Remaining on the topic of the erotic power as perceived and represented in women, Matthew Chaldekas (Seeing Statues: Authority, Erotic Power, and the Gendered Gaze in Theocritus) takes a new look at Theocritus’ Idyll 3. The female beloveds in Theocritus’ love poems remain silent and often appear to be absent. Amaryllis, the addressee of the third Idyll, has been considered a figment of the narrator’s imagination or a mute statue which he treats as real. Despite her silence, the poem creates a significant role for her as viewer within its erotic frame. Such female vision has precedents in the two major Theocritean ecphrases. The ecphrastic gaze present in Idylls 1 and 15 is derived from Hellenistic epigrams by female authors, many of which depict statues or paintings of women that seem to be real. While these texts have already been recognized as a model for the ecphrasis of Idyll 15, Chaldekas suggests that Theocritus also draws upon them to craft the visual dynamics of the ecphrasis of the cup and the fictive erotic ‘exchange’ of Idyll 3. By taking the realism and fictive gazes of his models a step further, i.e., by staging these artworks within the social exchange of eros, Theocritus subtly acknowledges the social value of artworks of and by women, even while framing his own authorial voice in

INTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

11

self-deprecating terms. To conclude, Chaldekas returns to Idyll 3 to explore traces of this ‘gendered gaze’ in the goatherd’s mythological song. It has become common to note that the mythological pairings of this song offer foreboding exempla for the goatherd, since the male beloveds in these stories will die. Chaldekas examines how each of these pairings suggests a dominant female gaze, like that which the goatherd demands in the narrative frame of his poem. Here too, sculpture and other artistic representations of powerful female figures serve as evidence. Although it is never stated explicitly, these poems show that Theocritus’ pastoral imaginary leaves room to contemplate female power and female artistic authority. In another paper on Theocritus’ treatment of the female world, Sophia Decker uses a sociolinguistic approach to shed light on the cultural and metapoetic significance of the exchange between Praxinoa and the unnamed stranger in Theocritus’ Idyll 15. In the Hellenistic era, the spread of the Koine as the dominant dialect put linguistic pressure on other dialects, with some even dying out. This desire to maintain local dialects manifested itself in various ways, e.g. hyper-correct forms on inscriptions. In composing his hexameter poetry in Doric, Theocritus, a native speaker of a Doric dialect, would seem to be participating in a poetic trend (perhaps started by Erinna, another Doric speaker who composed her Distaff in Doric Hexameters). However, in his Idyll 15, Theocritus has his characters comment on the use of regional dialects. Decker argues that the conversation between Praxinoa and the unnamed stranger in lines 89-95 of Theocritus’ Idyll 15 is simultaneously a commentary on the sociolinguistic situation of Hellenistic Greece, and a defense of the linguistic choices that Theocritus himself has made as a poet. Theocritus, by implicitly endorsing Praxinoa’s arguments for the right to speak one’s own native dialect, makes her short apology for the Doric dialect a complex metapoetic argument that relies on the sociolinguistic and political situation of the time for its efficacy. This collection of papers is the result of a lively and wonderful workshop, at which the responses of the audience, and the individual respondents in particular, were, as always, helpful, incisive and characterised by the spirit of extraordinary scholarly generosity so typical of the Groningen Workshops on Hellenistic Poetry. We would like to acknowledge the helpful remarks and insightful discussions of all present as chairs, respondents and participants. The organisation of the conference moreover benefited greatly from the help of our student assistants. Foremost among them Hylke de Boer should be named, who not only designed the beautiful conference poster, but took excellent care of many practicalities; he was

12

JACQUELINE KLOOSTER

assisted in turn by Evelien de Graaf, Cornelia Hefting, Juul van der Harst and Janine Rook. The generous financial support of OIKOS, GUF, Anchoring Innovation, and ICOG enabled the organisation of our conference in the way we had envisaged it, and helped with the costs for the editing of the volume. We are grateful that their support ensured the continuity of these valuable scholarly gatherings. Further thanks go out to Martine Cuypers, for advice and support before and at the time of the conference, and to Sven Smeman and Sil Hooijsma for their help with the Indices. REFERENCES Cusset, C., P. Belenfant, C.-E. Nardone (eds.) 2020, Féminités Hellénistiques: Voix, Genre, Représentations, Leuven Foley, H. 2001, Female Acts in Tragedy, Princeton Hall, E. 2006, ‘The Sociology of Athenian Tragedy.’ In P.E. Easterling: The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge (e-book) 93-126 Zeitlin, F. 1996, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Greek Literature. Chicago

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING THE CULT OF ARSINOE-APHRODITE IN IMAGE AND TEXT Benjamin ACOSTA-HUGHES ABSTRACT This is a comparative reading of images in contemporary poetry and artwork that recall a court (and national) iconography celebrating Arsinoe II Philadelphus. Queen of Egypt for not even a decade, she was the figure who came to dominate early Ptolemaic court ideology. The proximate causes for my interest in such a cultural study of Arsinoe II are four. The first is the possible importance of the poem we now know as Callimachus fr. 228 Pf., the Deification of Arsinoe, for Roman literature, particularly literature of apotheosis and celebration of royal women.1 The second is the anathematika in the new epigrams attributed to Posidippus (36-41 AB), which give Arsinoe II a cultural position parallel to Alexander. The third was the discovery, in the underwater archaeological explorations off Alexandria led by Frank Goddio, of several images that enhanced our imagination of this queen’s presence in the city of Alexandria; whether in pharaonic or Hellenic style, hers was an image that could be seen, admired, and experienced. The fourth arose from my own work on the Alexandrian edition of Sappho, and an increased awareness of the role that Sappho’s figuring of female power and beauty was to play for the later male poets at the court of a Macedonian queen.

1. Arsinoe II: historical background and chronology With Ptolemy’s wife the Alexandrian court poets confronted a novel problem; how were they to celebrate powerful royal women, given the absence of celebratory poetry of women in previous Greek culture? In part the answer was to assimilate these ladies to the role of male laudandus, as is the case with Arsinoe in Callimachus fr. 228 Pf., mourned in language evoking the dead Hector. In part the answer was to incorporate pharaonic imagery of the king’s wife as the fertile, life-giving Isis, or to associate her with Hathor, the Egyptian equivalent of Aphrodite. And in part the answer lay in a new reading of Sappho’s poetry by male court poets. The assimilation of the Ptolemaic queen to Aphrodite in the Greek pantheon (and to Hathor in the Egyptian one) brought new light upon Sappho’s 1. Acosta-Hughes (2019).

14

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

performative celebrations of Aphrodite, just as the prominence of Helen as a sympathetic figure in Sappho’s verse found a modern parallel in the Egyptian queen’s identification with the Spartan goddess.2 As Sappho’s poetry was collected and arranged in metrical volumes, some of the goddess images of her poetry were assimilated into the cult of a later, Ptolemaic Aphrodite, the queen of Egypt. At the time of the Roman embassy to Ptolemy (273 BCE), Ptolemaic hegemony stretched over much of the eastern Mediterranean. Today many come to Ptolemaic Egypt from a particular historical point, namely its end; the Battle of Actium and the death of Cleopatra VII in 31 BCE are the moments most familiar to us through our introduction to Ptolemaic Alexandria in Roman poetry. The Alexandria the Romans first encountered in 273 BCE was at a very different point in its evolution; Rome was a nascent power in central Italy, Egypt the overlord of much of the then known world. And Arsinoe II, daughter of Ptolemy I and sister-wife of Ptolemy II, assimilated to Aphrodite and figured as mother goddess of the subsequent royal house, was, for a brief but crucial period of time, Egypt’s queen. Arsinoe II, older sister of Ptolemy II, was married first to Lysimachus, one of Alexander’s generals and overlord of Thrace, at some point around 300, and by him had at least two sons (these were to be her only biological children).3 Lysimachus was killed at the battle of Corupedion in Lydia at the beginning of 281 (Arsinoe had been his wife for at least 15 years). Her half-brother, Ptolemy Keraunos, son of Ptolemy I and his first wife, Eurydice, now attempted a spectacular seizure of power, during the brief course of which he compelled his half-sister to marry him, and then murdered two sons by her previous husband. Arsinoe fled first to Samothrace, and thence made her way back to Egypt (around 279). Here she intrigued against her brother’s wife, Arsinoe I, who, being the daughter of Lysimachus, was also Arsinoe II’s step-daughter. Before 274 Arsinoe II married her full brother Ptolemy Philadelphus, the occasion for a number of celebratory poems. Arsinoe II dies in 270. Arsinoe is alive in Theocritus Idylls 15 and 17; in these two poems it seems that Berenice I died recently (she dies in 279). Idyll 18, the epithalamium of Menelaus and Helen, is a celebratory allegory of the wedding of Ptolemy and Arsinoe; Idyll 17 (I argue) also celebrates this occasion. We have one line (fr. 392) of the poem 2. Griffiths, (1979) study remains crucial. 3. Carney (2013) argues strongly for three sons. On the figure ‘Ptolemy the Son’ identified in the Mendes Stele see now Skuse (2017).

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

15

Callimachus composed for this celebration,4 and a surviving elegy of Posidppus (SH 960) can likely be attributed to the same occasion. Arsinoe II is dead in the new Posidippus epigrams, but there is no mention yet in these poems of Berenice II. D. Thompson has convincingly argued that the younger Berenice of the hippika is Berenice Syra, sister of Ptolemy III.5 In Callimachus the situation is more complicated: in fr. 392 Pf. Arsinoe II is clearly alive. In the London scholia to Aetia fr. 2a,1 Harder the situation is unclear (the apparent inclusion of Arsinoe’s name among the Muses need not presume apotheosis, as, e.g., the assimilation of the living Berenice II as the fourth Grace in Callim. Ep. 51 Pf. = 15 GP does not). In fr. 110, the Lock of Berenice, and also in the Victoria Berenices, Arsinoe II is dead. In terms of strict chronology, the concluding poem of Aetia 4 predates the opening poem of Aetia 3, but that only reflects their original performance, not their inclusion in a larger work. Assuming that the lament of Medea in severing her lock of hair in the opening lines of Argonautica 4 is meant in part to recall Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice,6 we can sketch a fragile chronology of poems related to Ptolemaic queens, but given how little we know of the performance, circulation and publication of these individual works, much must remain uncertain. Arsinoe II, perhaps the most celebrated figure in extant Alexandrian poetry, may have been queen of Egypt for as little as six years, possibly less.

2. The cult of Arsinoe-Aphrodite and its representation in poetry and art I begin my consideration of the texts and images associated with the cult of Arsinoe-Aphrodite with a comparative ‘reading’ of two works, a Callimachus epigram (5 Pf. = 14 GP), part of a long-known poetic heritage of this cult, and a statue, which is a relatively new discovery. Κόγχος ἐγώ, Ζεφυρῖτι, παλαίτερον· ἀλλὰ σὺ νῦν με, Κύπρι, Σεληναίης ἄνθεμα πρῶτον ἔχεις, ναυτίλος ὃς πελάγεσσιν ἐπέπλεον, εἰ μὲν ἀῆται, τείνας οἰκείων λαῖφος ἀπὸ προτόνων, εἰ δὲ γαληναίη, λιπαρὴ θεός, οὖλος ἐρέσσων ποσσὶν †ἱν’ ὡσπ† ἔργῳ τοὔνομα συμφέρεται,

4. Callim. fr. 392 Pf. Ἀρσινόης ὦ ξεῖνε γάμον καταβάλλομ’ ἀείδειν, ‘guest-friend, I begin singing the wedding of Arsinoe’. 5. Thompson (2005: 275-278). 6. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 47-49).

16

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

ἔστ’ ἔπεσον παρὰ θῖνας Ἰουλίδας, ὄφρα γένωμαι σοὶ τὸ περίσκεπτον παίγνιον, Ἀρσινόη, μηδέ μοι ἐν θαλάμῃσιν ἔθ’ ὡς πάρος (εἰμὶ γὰρ ἄπνους) τίκτηται νοτερῆς ὤεον ἁλκυόνος. Κλεινίου ἀλλὰ θυγατρὶ δίδου χάριν· οἶδε γὰρ ἐσθλά ῥέζειν καὶ Σμύρνης ἐστὶν ἀπ’ Αἰολίδος. Long ago, Zephyritis, I was a conch, but now you, Kypris, have me, the first offering of Selenaia, I who used to sail as a nautilus on the sea, if there was a breeze, stretching out my sail from my own forestays, but if it was calm, radiant goddess, rapidly rowing with my feet – and so my name is fitting to the action – until I fell upon the shores of Iulis, that I might be for you, Arsinoe, your much admired plaything, nor in my chambers any longer as before – for I am without breath – may the egg of the sea halcyon be laid. But show favor to the daughter of Kleinias. For she knows to do good works, and is from Aeolian Smyrna.7

This epigram plays with many of the standard features of the dedicatory poem that might be expected to be associated with a votive object. It plays upon the conceptualization of Arsinoe-Aphrodite as Euploia, guardian of safe sea journeys, a crucial image for the vast Ptolemaic naval empire. The description of the formal material of the votive offering evolves into an extended disquisition on natural history.8 The fiction of the poem inscribed on the object extends through the long winding period that encompasses the first 10 lines. Effectively the poet creates a nautilus shell in verse.9 As in other statuary poetry of Callimachus, both the detailed description and the journey are foregrounded in a poem that utilizes its own generic traditions to create a βίος, a “life,” of the votive object. The poem is also a miniature hymn to the goddess Arsinoe-Aphrodite, with the varied cletic nomenclature of the goddess (Zephyritis, Kypris, Galenaia, Arsinoe) in the succeeding verses.10 The poem, like the nautilus shell, becomes a votive offering to the goddess, Arsinoe-Aphrodite, whose temple at East Canopus appears in Strabo’s description of Egypt as a ναΐσκον, ‘small temple’ (Geographica 17.1.16.23).

7. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are my own. 8. See Gutzwiller (1992: 194-209); Selden (1998: 309-313). 9. The poem serves as a striking parallel to the technopaignia of Simias of Rhodes. 10. The epigram shares features with the anonymous hexameter hymn to Arsinoe Aphrodite (P. Goodspeed 101 col. 1-4 [and possibly 5]), which celebrates Arsinoe Aphrodite as protector of mariners (col. 2 line 14 πρόπασα καρτοῦσα σὺ πόντον ὀπάζεις e.g.) and goddess of marriage (col. 3 line 5 ὦ [καλὴ Ἀρρ]ογένεια γαμό[σ]στόλε καὶ χαριτέρπνη). On this poem see esp. Barbantani (2005) and Meliadò (2008).

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

17

When I first wrote on this poem in 2002,11 while there were other passages from Hellenistic poetry that evoked this goddess, there was not really an image with which to associate these lines, although it was possible to imagine one. This situation now may have changed. Among the extraordinary finds of his marine archaeological expeditions off the coast of Alexandria, Frank Goddio and his team have recovered a breathtakingly beautiful statue in black granodiorite that Goddio has posited to be an image of Arsinoe-Aphrodite.12 The statue is a syncretic one: the material, similar to granite but with a higher volume of quartz, is typically Egyptian, while the pose is more typically Greek, with the veiling characteristic of Hellenistic statuary of Aphrodite created with the effect of wet drapery (so partially nude, partially veiled), and also of statues of Hellenistic queens (though without the standard clothing below the veiling). An Isis knot, the mark of a Ptolemaic queen, is bound above the figure’s right breast. Several features of this statue from East Canopus are unusual:13 there is no back column (typical of many Ptolemaic statues), the body is sculpted as carefully in back as in front, and the image has a distinctly erotic appeal. The viewer’s attention is drawn particularly to the womb, as befits an image that is of maternity/fecundity. The Canopus image stands 59.1 inches (150 cm) high. The area of East Canopus, where the Zephyrium temple of ArsinoeAphrodite is thought to have stood, the nearby town of Heracleion with its celebrated temple of Heracles, and the city of Menouthis with its famous temple of Isis, are now under water to the east of the Abu Qir peninsula. This is true of much of what Antiquity knew as Alexandria’s Mediterranean shore: the impressive site that stunned the novelist Achilles Tatius at the opening of the fifth book of his novel Leucippe and Cleitophon is now gone, something of an Egyptian Atlantis, a conjured memory rather than an archaeological reality. Unlike the Roman Forum, or the Athenian Acropolis, there is no extant site of ancient Alexandria per se; the ancient city lies either under the modern one, or, much of it, now under water, the result of many centuries of silt poured into the Mediterranean by the Nile, as well as a series of natural catastrophes that have transformed the shore-line. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries 11. Acosta-Hughes (2002: 287-288). 12. Goddio & Fabre (2006: 106); Goddio (2003: 136). See also Yoyotte (2006). Albersmeier (2004: 197) argues for a later date in the Ptolemaic period. 13. For a more detailed discussion see Albersmeier (2004).

18

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

Fig. 1. veiled female nude statue in black granite of a Ptolemaic queen, thought by some scholars to be of Arsinoe-Aphrodite from the temple at Zephyrium. Credit: Christoph Gerigk ©Franck Goddio/ Hilti Foundation

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

19

much of the land around the Bay of Abu Qir was in private ownership, in particular that of Prince Omar Toussoun (1872-1944). Prince Toussoun was devoted to archaeological exploration, both of the land area of his own vast estates and, as an early aviator, of the Bay of Abu Qir. His gift of discovered antiquities formed the early nucleus of Alexandria’s Greco-Roman museum. His observations on the material under the waters of the Bay of Abu Qir have now, a half-century later and more, been much further realized in the underwater expeditions led by Frank Goddio and his team and their extraordinary finds. While we have long had many impressions of what the poets of ancient Athens and ancient Rome viewed, this has been far less true of Alexandria.14 The new finds are an important addition to our conceptualization of ancient Alexandria’s visual space, and our imagination of what Alexandrian poets gazed upon. The Canopic mouth of the Nile, the river’s westernmost mouth, lies between Alexandria and Rosetta. According to a myth preserved by the first-century BCE Greek mythographer Conon, Canopus was the helmsman of Menelaus, whose death (Con. Narr. 8) by snakebite provides the etiology of the town’s name. The narrative is clearly an evolution of the Odyssean tale and of others that follow it. These tell of a voyage of Helen and Menelaus to Egypt, and so begin a long tradition that celebrates the Alexandrian shore as a cultural limen between Europe and Africa. This same Mediterranean shoreline was to prove the limen, in the early days of aviation, between modern Egypt and an ancient GrecoRoman city partly under water: it was by flying low over the calm Mediterranean waters at the shore-line that the early aviator Toussoun first recognized the extent of the ruins and statuary below the sea.15 A brief review of the story of Helen in Egypt. When Telemachus sets out from Ithaca to seek word of his father, he comes first to Pylos in Od. 3, to the elderly king Nestor and the world of the Iliad. From there he comes to Sparta and to the world of the Nostoi, of magic and its dangers, and of Egypt. When Helen first appears here, she appears as a figure associated with Egyptian luxury, one figured in imagery of gold and silver (Od. 4.120-127). The Spartan king Menelaus later narrates his visit to the island of Pharos. At this point in time the island is not yet accessible from the shore except by boat, for the construction of the Heptastadion lies far in the future. 14. An important recent collection that considers many of the images that we do have is Lilant de Bellefonds & Prioux (2017). 15. Goddio (2006: 43).

20

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

Thrown off-course on the return home from Troy, Menelaus obtains the necessary information for his return to Sparta from Proteus, a local sea-god. Helen, at the same time, obtains a certain amount of pharmaceutical training from Polydamna, the wife of the local king, whose name (significantly) is Thon (Od. 4.228). From the newly recovered stele of the late Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo I, we now know that Thonis is the Egyptian name for the port city of Heracleion,16 which flourished under the last Egyptian dynasties, and was a major point for the collection of maritime import/export duties.17 The stele has the revealing lines ‘Pharaoh orders that this stele be raised at Thonis, in the city of the Sea of the Greeks’. In Odyssey 4, Thon’s wife’s name, Polydamna, ‘she who conquers/subdues all’, is clearly Greek, though she is identified here as an Egyptian woman (line 229). Particularly intriguing is the reference to Paieon at line 232: ἰητρὸς δὲ ἕκαστος ἐπιστάμενος περὶ πάντων ἀνθρώπων· ἦ γὰρ Παιήονός εἰσι γενέθλης. Each doctor is knowledgeable beyond all men, for they are born from the Healing God.

Commentaries on these lines of Odyssey 4 generally focus on the ‘problem’ of associating the title Paion or Paieion with the god Apollo this early,18 but an answer to this problem may lie in Egyptian, rather than Greek, mythology. Given that this is an Egyptian setting, it might be better to consider an Egyptian god known to Greeks, especially those Greeks residing in Egypt, whether around Memphis or in the port cities that lined the Mediterranean shore. One possibility is Nefertem, worshipped at Saqqara, the necropolis of ancient Memphis, a figure that would have been known to – for example – the Hellenomemphites.19 With his father Ptah (sometimes equated with the Greek god Hephaestus) and his mother Sekmet (the lion-headed goddess associated with both Astarte and Aphrodite) Nefertem forms part of the Memphite triad.20 Nefertem is often depicted as a young man wearing, on his head or forehead, his symbolic blue lotus representing both his association with medicine 16. Fabre (2006); Goddio (2003: 166-180). 17. This stele was published by G. Maspero in 1913 (EMAE 7.195-197), with the first reference in Egyptian to the city of Naucratis. The second stele was recovered from the Mediterranean only in the Goddio expedition, and refers to Thonis (Heracleion) and the Sea of the Greeks. On the Naucratis stele see Lichtheim (1980: v. 3.86-89). 18. The figure appears twice in the Iliad at 5.401, 599, and at Hes. Fr. 307 (M – W), where Paieon is specifically differentiated from Apollo. 19. On the Hellenomemphites see Thompson (2012). 20. On the Memphite triad see Quaegebur et al. (1985); Thompson (2012: 91, 132, 194).

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

Fig. 2. The God Nefertem. Egypt, Earthenware. Inv.: E3502. Photo: Les frères Chuzeville Musée du Louvre. Paris. France.

21

22

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

(the flower has narcotic properties) as well as perfume; one of his roles in Egyptian mythology is easing the suffering of the aging god Ra with the blue lotus.21 The blue lotus appears elsewhere in the Odyssey: this is the flower of the Lotus-eaters that causes their guests/victims to forget their yearning for their return (Od. 9.96-98). This episode of the lotus-eaters is thought by many to be situated in the Cyrenaica, which returns the reader to the North African shore.22 In Egyptian medicine the lotus can be used as a narcotic sedative:23 the narcotic alkaloids present in the bloom and the rhizome are soluble in wine, not in water, so Helen’s decision to cast her pharmakon into wine at Od. 4.220-221 is the correct one. While the image of North Africa to a Homeric audience might appear, especially as a narrative tool, as Chamoux has well observed, ‘a mysterious and distant region where it is easy to place the adventures of heroes and gods’,24 and while certainly the mirage égyptien is in some sense a reality of Homer’s poetic geography, the Odyssey’s references to Egypt seem to capture a present reality of access to Egypt, acquisition of Egyptian objects (Helen’s medicines), and a certain knowledge of and familiarity with Egypt’s Mediterranean shore. Menelaus may be wrong on the distance of Pharos from the mainland (Od. 4.354-359), but this does not mean that the passage is informed solely by a passive cultural awareness of Egypt.25 Herodotus offers a different version of Helen and Menelaus in Egypt (Hist. 2.112-120), yet one that retains some of the same narrative features. Here Proteus is not a marine deity but an Egyptian king,26 and his sanctuary is not on Pharos but at the capital of Lower Egypt, at Memphis. There in Memphis Herodotus tells of a sanctuary of Proteus, in which there is a temple of a ‘foreign Aphrodite’, who, Herodotus proposes, is in fact Helen, daughter of Tyndareus: Ἔστι δὲ ἐν τῷ τεμένεϊ τοῦ Πρωτέος ἱρὸν τὸ καλέεται Ξείνης Ἀφροδίτης. Συμβάλλομαι δὲ τοῦτο τὸ ἱρὸν εἶναι Ἑλένης τῆς Τυνδάρεω, καὶ τὸν λόγον ἀκηκοὼς ὡς διαιτήθη Ἑλένη παρὰ Πρωτέϊ, καὶ δὴ καὶ ὅτι ξείνης 21. On Nefertem and the lotus see Morenz and Schubert (1954: 14-22); Piankoff (1933: 99-101). 22. Froidefond (1971: 18-20). 23. Nunn (1996: 157-158). 24. Chamoux (1952: 84). 25. Also true of Odysseus’ second Cretan tale (Od. 14.191-359). 26. On the episode itself see Vasunia (2001: 124-126); Asheri et al. (2007: 322-326). While Proteus is an Egyptian king, the name is Greek (although some scholars have tried to find Egyptian associations in the name); see Lloyd (1988: 111-112).

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

23

Ἀφροδίτηs ἐπώνυμόν ἐστι· ὅσα γὰρ ἄλλα Ἀφροδίτης ἱρά ἐστι, οὐδαμῶς ξείνης ἐπικαλέεται. (Hdt. Hist. 112.2) In the sanctuary of Proteus there is a shrine called ‘of the foreign Aphrodite’. I suggest that the shrine is of Helen daughter of Tyndareus, both on hearing the story of how Helen was placed with Proteus, and especially because of the name of the ‘foreign Aphrodite’. For of all the other shrines of Aphrodite, none are called ‘of the foreign’.

The shrine of Helen associated with Aphrodite intriguingly prefigures the concept of a co-templed god, a σύνναος θεός, which will be a factor in the treatment of Aphrodite and the Ptolemaic queen in Hellenistic culture. That this temple of Aphrodite is especially associated with the Tyrian settlers around it in Herodotus’ narrative may indicate something more of the syncretic nature of this god. Strabo’s account of this temple (17.1.31.23) differs from Herodotus’ in that Aphrodite is rather referred to as ‘Greek’ (Ἑλληνίδος). The ‘foreign Aphrodite’ is Astarte,27 associated with both Egyptian Sekmet and Greek Aphrodite, and the temple is referred to in Greek papyri as the Aphrodision. Herodotus then narrates the following: upon taking Helen from his Spartan host Menelaus, Paris was blown off-course as he approached the Aegean Sea and was carried to the Canopic mouth of the Nile. There he and his followers came to the temple of Heracles at Heracleion, where his attendants denounced him to the priests and to the ‘guard of the Nile’, who happens to be named Thonis. Thonis then sends them to Memphis, to the king, Proteus. Herodotus then discusses the treatment of this narrative in Homer, and cites Odyssey 4.227-230 as support for Homer’s awareness of the Memphite narrative. In his narrative, Herodotus associates the temple of Heracles with Thonis (Thonis we know is the earlier, Egyptian name of Heracleion). Here Thonis has become something of an anthropomorphic version of the mouth of the Nile, and of the city, Thonis/Heracleion. Further there is the association of Egypt’s Mediterranean shore and Memphis, capital of Lower Egypt of the New Kingdom and seat of the late pharaohs in the Greek dark ages and the Archaic period. Again, a narrative of earlier heroic figures appears to capture something of a reality of cross-cultural ties, and of Egypt’s Mediterranean shore as limen between the Greek world and Egypt.

27. Cf. Lyc. Alex. 831-833. On Astarte in Egypt see Mercer (1935).

24

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

Two aspects of Helen’s characterization in Homer’s Iliad also pertain to this discussion. These are Helen’s devotion to and longing for her brothers and her role as something of an avatar or human embodiment of Aphrodite. Both find emblematic representations in Iliad 3. At the conclusion of the Teichoskopia, after identifying prominent Achaean leaders for the Trojan elders, Helen wonders at the absence of her two brothers from the field (Iliad 3.236-242). The particularly close fraternal/sororal bond (line 238 αὐτοκασιγνήτω, τώ μοι μία γείνατο μήτηρ, ‘my very own brothers, whom one mother bore for me’), siblings as one birth and as one self, is a feature that will undergo expansive development in a later evolution of Helen in Egypt, where Helen and the Dioscuri and their close jointure come into confluence both with the loving brother/sister relationships of Zeus and Hera and of Isis and Osiris (the latter couple are also the issue of a single birth). A similar pre-figuring comes a bit later in Iliad 3: that of Helen as ‘avatar’ of Aphrodite (Il. 395-418). Here Helen recognizes Aphrodite in her true form, although the goddess is disguised as an elderly wool-worker to the surrounding Trojan women (lines 386-387). Helen alone recognizes the goddess’ truly remarkable beauty (lines 396-397), a striking parallel with the old men wondering at Helen’s beauty some lines earlier (154-158, where they praise her beauty as divine). The ensuing dialogue (lines 399-417) marks the particularly close relationship of Aphrodite and Helen, her favorite, who is also a child of Zeus (line 418).28 As Helen, now veiled, passes unnoticed among the Trojan woman (so replicating Aphrodite’s passage among them in disguise), it is the goddess who leads her. This commingled relationship will come to be reconfigured in Hellenistic Egypt in the identification of Helen and Aphrodite as cultural paradigms for the Ptolemaic queens and for their divine instantiation.

3. Arsinoe and Helen A second “reading” of two images: the first a fragment of Sappho from the first book of the Alexandrian edition of her poems, the second an auction house catalogue image of a now “disappeared” bust of Arsinoe Philadelphus – each a narrative of loss and of partial recovery, each with a later narrative involving Egypt. First the fragment (23 V., P. Oxy. 1231 fr. 14. 1-14):

28. In Homer’s Iliad Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione: cf. Il. 5.370-374.

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

25

]ἔρωτοϲ ἠλπ[ ] ὡϲ γὰρ ἄν]τιον εἰϲίδω ϲ[ε, φαίνεταί μ’ οὐδ] Ἐρμιόνα τεαύ[τα ἔμμεναι,] ξάνθαι δ’ Ἐλέναι ϲ’ ἐίϲ[κ]ην οὐδ’ ἒν ἄει]κεϲ ]ιϲ θνάταιϲ, τόδε δ’ ἴϲ[θι] τὰι ϲᾶι ]παίϲαν κέ με τὰν μερίμναν ]λαιϲ’ ἀντιδ[ ]΄[ ]αθιοϲ δὲ ] δροϲόεν]ταϲ ὄχθοιϲ ]ταιν παν]νυχίϲ[δ]ην … of love … for when I look at you face to face, (not even) Hermione (seems to me to be) like you, but to compare you to shimmering Helen (is not unseemly) … mortal women, know this, by your … to (free) me from cares … (dewy) banks … to stay awake all the night …

The comparison of an unknown female figure to Helen comes from shreds of a papyrus: P. Oxy. 1231 is the major witness to the first book of Sappho (poems in Sapphic strophe). The papyrus fragment gives an astonishing image of what was, and of what might have been, a comparison of mortal woman to female divinity, of erotic imagery and allnight revel. My second image is of a bust of Arsinoe II known only as the “Hirsch Arsinoe” (Cat. no. 53 Smith). Sold by a businessman forced to leave Alexandria in the exodus of Europeans following the Suez Crisis, the bust came into the hands of the Swiss collector Jacob Hirsch, on whose death in 1957 it was sold at auction in Luzern. The bust thereupon disappeared into private collection. All that is known of it now is that it remained in Switzerland for some decades before it came into private ownership in California. The image exists now in a peculiar nonlieu between absence and presence; it is not lost, for it is known to exist, but it can be neither viewed nor cited, as the ownership is unknown. Only four photos somehow saved from the auction-house catalog preserve this image of Ptolemy II’s sister-queen, her wide eyes reflecting her divine nature, her strong brow and rather prominent (clearly restored) nose comparable to other extant, though more damaged statuary busts in Hellenic style. The Homeric epics are not the only narratives that tie Archaic Greece and Egypt together. The legend of Argos, Io, Epaphus and then of Aegyptus and the Danaids form another Archaic narrative that bind the two cultures, and these come to have a reflection in the Hellenistic recollection of ancient ties between Egypt and Greece. Both of these narratives feature

26

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

Fig. 3. Hirsch Arsinoe

a primeval journey to Egypt followed by a return to Greece, a narrative that joins the two cultures in an ancient mytho-historical cycle, a cycle that Pindar captures in the opening of his tenth Nemean ode.29 The legends of Argos and the Danaids (here represented by Hypermnestra, the only one Danaid who spared her Egyptian husband, Lynceus), and of Perseus and Medusa’s head, spin an interconnective web across the Greek world (particularly Argos) and Egypt. Io’s long wandering journey ends in Egypt where she becomes Isis-Hathor, whose son, Epaphus, is particularly tied to the Egyptian city of Memphis (the capital of the late kingdom) and to the Apis bull. The daughters of Danaus flee to Argos to avoid marrying their Egyptian husbands, and Hypermnestra and Lynceus 29. Nem. 1.1-7. On these lines and their Argive mytho-history see Henry (2005) ad loc.; Cannatà Fera (2004); D’Alessio (2004).

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

27

end up founding the Danaid dynasty of Argive rulers. Journey and foundation lead to journey and foundation – a cycle that encompasses multiple figures and multiple generations. In this cycle, the journey to and from Egypt serves as the catalyst for subsequent narratives and foundations. The ode concludes with an arrangement of philadelphic afterlife (lines 73-90): the immortal brother (Polydeuces) agrees to share in the death of his mortal brother (Castor), thus foregrounding an image of fraternal love in death. These themes of philadelphic love and immortality are continued in the conclusion of Euripides’ Helen, when Helen’s deified brothers tell her that on her death she will become a divinity with them.30 Their association with Egypt is implicated in their role as guardian gods of navigation. The journey ‘upward’ from Egypt works on multiple levels: the passage of the vessel itself, Helen’s gaze drawn up to the celestial figures of her brothers, and the prospect of her own future apotheosis.31 Euripides’ play traces out the early narrative, already found in Herodotus, of Helen’s stay in Egypt during the Trojan war, her asylum with a local king (here Proteus) and her eventual return to Greece under the protection of her two brothers, whom she will join in the afterlife and with whom she will partake of the same honors. In Callimachus fr. 228 (the Deification of Arsinoe) the two brothers, the Dioscuri, bear the ‘new’ Helen, Arsinoe, on her death unto heaven.

4. Apotheosis My third pair of text and image are several lines of Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice (fr. 110 H) and an image of Arsinoe recently sold at Sotheby’s. The final aition of Callimachus’ long elegiac poem narrates the lock’s journey from earth to heaven and its transition from mortal to divine. This poem, too, was composed for a specific occasion (the return of Ptolemy III from the third Syrian War), and serves to initiate the new queen, Berenice II, into the divine family of her bridegroom. The poem is best known to us through Catullus’ adaptation; however, the discovery of a part of the Greek poem on papyrus has given us some idea of the original.32 Berenice dedicated a lock of her hair for the safe return of her new husband; the day after the dedication, the lock had vanished, but 30. Eur. Hel. 1662-1669. 31. Acosta-Hughes (2012b). 32. PSI 1092.

28

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

the court astronomer observed that it was now a constellation in the night sky. Callimachus configures the lock’s journey from an altar in Alexandria to a small temple of the deified Arsinoe on the Canopic mouth of the Nile. I shall return to this temple shortly, but here would like to address the surviving lines that feature the apotheosis itself (lines 51-58): ἄρτι [ν]εότμητόν με κόμαι ποθέεσκον ἀδε[λφεαί, καὶ πρόκατε γνωτὸς Μέμνονος Αἰθίοπος ἵετο κυκλώσας βαλιὰ πτερὰ θῆλυς ἀήτης, ἵππο[ς] ἰοζώνου Λοκρίδος Ἀρσινόης, []ασε δὲ πνοιῇ με, δι’ ἠέρα δ’ ὑγρὸν ἐνείκας Κύπρ]ιδος εἰς κόλπους ἔθηκε αὐτή μιν Ζεφυρῖτις ἐπὶ χρέο[ς Κ]ανωπίτου ναιέτις α[ἰγιαλοῦ. ὄφρα δὲ] μὴ νύμφης Μινωίδος ο[ ]ος ἀνθρώποις μοῦνον ἐπι. [ , φάεσ]ιν ἐν πολέεσσιν ἀρίθμιος ἀλλ[ὰ φαείνω καὶ Βερ]ενίκειος καλὸς ἐγὼ πλόκαμ[ος, My sister hairs were longing for me, just now cut, and suddenly Ethiopian Memnon’s twin [sc. Zephyr] came rushing, circling his dappled wings, a fertile breeze, the Locrian horse of violet-girdled Arsinoe; with a breath he bore me, and carrying me through the wet aether he set me … in Aphrodite’s lap. Him for this purpose Zephyritis … who inhabits the Canopian shore. That not of Minos’ bride [sc. Ariadne] … alone for men … but that I be numbered among many [lights] I too the fair lock of Berenice …

The lines detail the lock’s journey across the Mediterranean shore, eastward from Alexandria, possibly from the mortuary temple begun under Ptolemy II near the Emporion, to Canopus, where the temple of ArsinoeAphrodite once stood.33 The twin gods Memnon and Zephyr take on the role here of the Dioscuri in the conclusion of Euripides’ Helen. The lock is set in the temple, indeed upon the lap of the temple figure, and at the same time upon the lap of the goddess in her celestial home (the role of the temple and its statue as representing the god in its celestial home is very significant here). The passage is imbued with the vocabulary and coloring of the Archaic poet Sappho, as befits the ‘journey’ of a girl to marriage, and of a chevelure, or lock of hair, to its celestial home.34 The marked emphasis on Philadelphia, on brotherly love, as well as the erotic language and imagery is an on-going feature of the poetic (and artistic) characterization of early Ptolemaic ruler cult. Arsinoe II was celebrated in several ways in early Alexandria: with her brother as the

33. West (1985). 34. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 63-81). See also Vox (2000).

29

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

Theoi Adelphoi and so as a part of the cult of Alexander;35 and in cult herself upon her death.36 One of the epigrams of Posidippus (AB 116) from the Firmin-Didot papyrus also features this temple of ArsinoeAphrodite at East Canopus: μέσσον ἐγὼ Φαρίης ἀκτῆς στόματός τε Κανώπου ἐν περιφαινομένῳ κύματι χῶρον ἔχω, τήνδε πολυρρήνου Λιβύης ἀνεμώδεα χηλήν, τὴν ἀνατεινομένην εἰς Ἰταλὸν Ζέφυρον, ἔνθα με Καλλικράτης ἱδρύσατο καὶ βασιλίσσης ἱερὸν Ἀρσινόης Κύπριδος ὠνόμασεν. ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὴν Ζεφυρῖτιν ἀκουσομένην Ἀφροδίτην, Ἑλλήνων ἁγναί, βαίνετε, θυγατέρες, οἵ θ’ ἁλὸς ἐργάται ἄνδρες· ὁ γὰρ ναύαρχος ἔτευξεν τοῦθ’ ἱερὸν παντὸς κύματος εὐλίμενον.

(5)

(10)

Midway between the shore of Pharos and the mouth of Canopus in the waves seen from all round I have my place, the windy breakwater of Libya rich in sheep, facing the Italian Zephyr, where Callicrates set me and named me shrine of Arsinoe Cypris. So to her who will be named Zephyritis Aphrodite come, chaste daughters of the Greeks, and you who work upon the sea. For the captain built the shrine as a safe harbor from the waves.

The epigram celebrates the goddess’ temple and cult. Lines 5-6 and 7, the ending of the first period and the beginning of the second, function as a transition, both in the poem and in the time frame (foundation of temple and then the fame of the cult, as denoted with the future participle ἀκουσομένην). Arsinoe in these lines effectively becomes Aphrodite, with the four-syllable words βασιλίσσης at line 5 and Ἀφροδίτην at line 7 encompassing the transition from queen to goddess. In its loose geographical framework (Pharos, Canopic mouth of the Nile, i.e. Egypt, Italy, and Greece) the poem, spans corners of the Ptolemaic Mediterranean empire. The references to the Samian nauarch Callicrates at the conclusion of the poem’s two periods highlights both the power of the Ptolemaic navy and the association of the Ptolemaic empire with the sea. The next image is from a recent sale at Sotheby’s. The bust is dated to late 3rd or early 2nd cent. BCE, a “Hellenistic marble head of a queen or goddess”) and is conjecturally ascribed to Arsinoe II. As with the Hirsch Arsinoe, the widely opened eyes mark the subject’s divinity.

35. Fraser (1972: 228-230); Hölbl (2001: 94-95). 36. Satyrus On the Demes of Alexandria details regulations of the cult of Arsinoe Philadelphus, P. Oxy. 2465 fr. 2 col. 1; see further Fraser (1972: 229).

30

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

Fig. 3. Sotheby Arsinoe

5. Women at the festival My final pair of text and image is a perhaps surprising one, but one I think particularly interesting in terms of this syncretic court culture. The text is one that I have discussed at some length elsewhere,37 the opening of the Argive woman’s song in Theocritus’ ‘Women at the Adonis Festival’ (Idyll 15.106-111): Κύπρι Διωναία, τὺ μὲν ἀθανάταν ἀπὸ θνατᾶς, ἀνθρώπων ὡς μῦθος, ἐποίησας Βερενίκαν, ἀμβροσίαν ἐς στῆθος ἀποστάξασα γυναικός· τὶν δὲ χαριζομένα, πολυώνυμε καὶ πολύναε, ἁ Βερενικεία θυγάτηρ Ἑλένᾳ εἰκυῖα Ἀρσινόα πάντεσσι καλοῖς ἀτιτάλλει Ἄδωνιν. 37. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 71-72; 2014: 54-55).

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

31

Cypris, daughter of Dione, you, so men’s story goes, made Berenice immortal from mortal, when you distilled ambrosia into her woman’s breast. Indulging you, you of many names and many temples, Berenice’s daughter, she who is like Helen, Arsinoe cherishes Adonis with all sorts of lovely things.

The lines are both reflective of Greek cultural tradition, evoking both the anointing of the bodies of Patroclus and Hector in the Iliad,38 and at the same time referencing the imagery of the Egyptian art of embalming.39 They also closely associate the female figures of Aphrodite (divine), Helen (semi-divine), recently deceased queen (Berenice I), and living queen (Arsinoe). The song, imbued with erotic imagery (cf. esp. χαριζομένα, ἀτιτάλλει), coalesces, as it were, the four female figures, all associated with one another, with the generous fostering of the dead Adonis. To this text I would like to compare an image from the Pithom stele, which dates to c. 264 BCE.

Fig. 4. Pithom Stele Image

Here Ptolemy II Philadelphus (on the left) offers sacrifice to Atum, Isis and his deceased sister Arsinoe II (‘the royal wife, the royal sister, the princess queen of the two lands… Arsinoë, the mighty Isis, the great Hathor”).40 Two features of the description are noteworthy in comparison with our Theocritus text. First, a living figure honors a plurality of divine ones, one of whom is the dead Arsinoe, in company with Isis. Arsinoe’s image (the one at the far right), here figured with those of Atum and Isis, 38. Il. 19.38-39, 23.186-187. 39. Stephens (2003: 153-154). 40. Translation from the online Translations of Hellenistic Inscriptions.

32

BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

implicates the deceased, now deified queen with these divinities in something like the associative web of the Theocritus text. Here I think the crucial point is what the Alexandrians were gazing upon – the Pithom stele, is later than Theocritus Idyll 15 (c. 264), but as a representation of a royal figure treated as divine, it is an important witness to what Greeks in a culturally Greco-Egyptian syncretic setting might easily have seen. REFERENCES Acosta-Hughes, B., 2019, “A lost ‘Pavane for a Dead Princess’ Callim. Fr. 228 Pf.”. In: J.J.H. Klooster et al. (eds), Callimachus Revisited. New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Hellenistica Groningana 24). LeuvenParis-Dudley, MA, 5-25. ―, 2014. “Dans l’image d’Hélène ou comment se figurer une reine. Les representations d’Arsinoé II.” In: E. Brunet-Prioux, A. Rouveret, M. CojannotLe Blanc & C. Pouzadoux (eds), l’Héroique et le champêtre: la théorie rhétorique des styles appliquée aux arts, entre modele analytique et scheme explicatif. Paris, 41-58. ―, 2012. “Les Dioscures dans la poésie alexandrine: caractère et symbolique”. In: C. Cusset, N. Le Meur-Weissman & F. Levin (eds), Mythe et Pouvoir à l’époque héllenistique. Louvain, 155-169. ―, 2010, Arion’s Lyre. Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry. Princeton. ―, 2002, Polyeideia. The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition. Berkeley. Albersmeier, S., 2010, “Statues of Ptolemaic Queens from Alexandria, Canopus and Heracleion-Thonis”. In: D. Robinson & A. Wilson (eds), Alexandria and the North-Western Delta. Joint Conference Proceedings of Alexandria: City and Harbour (Oxford 2004) and The Trade and Topography of Egypt’s North-West Delta (Berlin 2006). Oxford, 191-201. ―, 2004. “Das Isisgewand der Ptolemäerinninen”. In: Bol, P., Kaminski, G., & Maderna, C. (eds), Fremdheit, Eigenheit: Ägypten, Griechenland und Rom: Austausch und Verständnis. Prestel, 421-432. Asheri, D. et al., 2007, A Commentary on Herodotus Books I-IV. Oxford. Barbantani, S., 2005, “Goddess of Love and Mistress of the Sea. Notes on a Hellenistic Hymn to Arsinoe-Aphrodite (P. Lit. Goodsp. 2, I-IV)”. AncSoc 35, 133-163. Bellefonds, P. Linant de & E. Prioux (eds), 2017, Voir les Mythes. Poésie hellénistique et arts figuratives. Paris. Cannata Fera, M., 2004, “Poesia e statuaria: gli eroi argivi di Pindaro e di Antifane”. In: P. A. Bernardini (ed), La città di Argo. Mito, storia, tradizioni poetiche. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Urbino, 13-15 giugno 2002. Urbino, 95-106. Carney, E. D., 2013, Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life. Oxford. Chamoux, F., 1952, Cyrène sous la monarchie des Battiades. Paris. D’Alessio, G. B., 2004, “Argo e l’Argolide nei canti culturali di Pindaro”. In: P. A. Bernardini (ed), La città di Argo. Mito, storia, tradizioni poetiche. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Urbino, 13-15 giugno 2002. Urbino, 107-125.

THAT I BE YOUR PLAYTHING …

33

Emboden, W., 1980, Narcotic Plants. New York. Fraser, P. M., 1974, Ptolemaic Alexandria. 3 vols. Oxford. Ferrari, G., 2013, “History and its Margins in the Pictorial Narrative of the Nile Mosaic at Praeneste”. In: F. Grewing, B. Acosta-Hughes & A. Kirichenko (eds), The Door Ajar. False Closure in Greek and Roman Literature and Art. Heidelberg, 129-142. Froidefond, C., 1971, Le mirage égyptien dans la littérature grecque d’Homère à Aristote. Aix-en-Provence. Goddio. F., 2006, Trésors Engloutis d’Égypte. Paris. Griffiths, F. T., 1979, Theocritus at Court (Mnemosyne Supplement 15). Leiden. Gutzwiller, K. A., 1992, “The Nautilus, the Halcyon, and Selenaia: Callimachus’ Epigram 5 Pf. = 14 G.-P.”. ClAnt 11, 2, 194-209. Hölbl, G., 2001, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire. London. Lichtheim, M., 1980, Ancient Egyptian Literature. A Book of Readings. Volume III: The Late Period. Berkeley. Lloyd, A. B., 1988, Herodotus Book II. Commentary 92-182. Leiden. Meliadò, C. (ed), 2008. “E cantando danzerò” (PLitGoodspeed 2): Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento. Messina. Mercer, S., 1935, “Astarté in Egypt”. In: Mercer, S. (ed), Egyptian Religion III. New York, 192-203. Nunn, J. F., 1996, Ancient Egyptian Medicine. Norman. Skuse, M. L., 2017, “Coregency in the reign of Ptolemy II: Findings from the Mendes Stela”. JEA 103.1, 89-101. Stephens, S. A., 2003, Seeing Double. Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Berkeley. Thompson, D., 2012, Memphis Under the Ptolemies. Princeton. Vasunia, P., 2001, The Gift of the Nile. Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander. Berkeley. Vox, O., 2000, “Sul genere grammaticale della Chioma di Berenice”. MD 44, 175-181. West, S., 1985, “Venus Observed? A Note on Callimachus, fr. 110”. CQ 89, 61-66. Yoyotte, J., 2008, “As Beautiful as Aphrodite – a Ptolemaic Queen’. In: F. Goddio & D. Fabre (eds), Egypt’s Sunken Treasures, 2nd ed. London, 124-129.

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE Giulia BIFFIS ABSTRACT This paper considers Lycophron’s Alexandra as a fundamental text for the study of the ancient Greek conceptualization of womanhood. It investigates how Lycophron’s unique poetic vision finds expression within this perspective, in that he makes Cassandra, a woman, the narrative voice for practically the entirety of the poem. This paper demonstrates how Lycophron establishes the female perspective by exploiting some of the main typological features identified by gender studies as characterizing the female sphere in Greek literature. Lycophron strengthens his readers’ appreciation of Cassandra as a female narrator thanks to Cassandra’s typically feminine modes of speech, her self-presentation and, finally, the selection and focalization of the subject matter in her prophecy. He enlarges the scope of his articulated depiction of womanhood in Greek society, which Cassandra offers in her mythological prophetic accounts, to the role of women in society, both as ritual agents (the Locrian and Daunian maidens) and possible recipients of cult (Cassandra herself in Daunia). This last aspect is the unusual and original twist that Lycophron gives to his representation of the female. In Cassandra’s words rituals seem to fulfil the traditional role of poetry: preservation of everlasting memory. However, the choice of the narrator, who is a true prophetess, but destined not to be believed, complicates Lycophron’s poetic discourse. Alexandra raises again the question of the relationship between poetry and truthfulness in Greek literature, this time from a female perspective. Therefore, in the final analysis, this paper aims to explain how Lycophron’s problematizing of this issue is heavily interconnected with the Greek understanding of womanhood in society.

1. Introduction This paper considers Lycophron’s Alexandra as a fundamental text for the study of the ancient Greek conceptualization of womanhood.1 At the same time, it investigates how Lycophron’s unique poetic vision finds expression within this perspective, in that he chooses to make Cassandra, a woman, the narrative voice for practically the entirety of his poem. In Hellenistic poetry the adoption of a female perspective is not unusual, 1. This paper is based on a reworking of the conclusions reached in my doctoral thesis (Biffis 2012).

36

GIULIA BIFFIS

and a certain predilection for it is one of the characteristics of the period. One of the most notorious examples is that of Simaetha’s dramatic monologue to win back her lover in Theocritus’ Idyll 2, but more female speakers could be listed.2 To understand how Lycophron distinguishes himself from these many examples of feminine voices in Hellenistic literature, we need to highlight the complexity of Cassandra’s role within the poem. This approach challenges the widespread tendency in scholarship to consider Cassandra a mere narrative device designed to connect a series of juxtaposed erudite tableaux and so compensate for the weak internal consistency of the poem. By contrast, elements of Alexandra that, at first reading, appear heterogeneous (i.e. descriptions of cults, rituals versus mythographic narratives) are instead interconnected, according to patterns that reveal their meaning only when considered in their entirety. As I shall argue, Cassandra is the unifying principle around which Lycophron builds the interrelation of these different elements. In order to achieve this, with respect to Cassandra’s traditional characterization, Lycophron exploits her prophetic knowledge, but even more her femininity. Lycophron strengthens the readership’s appreciation of Cassandra as a female narrator thanks to her typically feminine modes of speech, her self-presentation and, finally, the selection and focalization3 of the subject matter of her prophecy, which corresponds to almost the entirety of the poem itself. Cassandra’s prophetic words constitute a speech within the speech of another character of the poem: the servant who has been asked to watch over Cassandra by Priam. In Lycophron’s fiction the servant reports verbatim to Priam what Cassandra has been saying sometime before. Therefore Cassandra is technically a secondary internal narrator. Nevertheless, Lycophron confines the guard’s voice to prologue and epilogue (1-30 and 1461-1474).4 In this frame the guard gives a portrait of Cassandra that foregrounds her as a female speaker, a further aspect of the poem that 2. Some other examples are the description of the festival of Adonis in Alexandria by two housewives, Gorgo and Praxinoa, in Theocritus’ Idyll 15; the Epithalamium for Helen’s and Meaos’ wedding sung by the Spartan maidens in Theocritus’ Idyll 18; the narratives by Medea, Arete and Hypsipyle in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica; the lament of Aphrodite for Adonis’ death in Bion of Smyrna’s Epitaph of Adonis. 3. By focalization I mean the fact that the fictional world is presented as if perceived and interpreted by a character internal to the story; in the case of Alexandra the focalizer coincides with the narrators: first the guard, and then Cassandra. More technically this is called ‘variable internal focalization’: Genette (1972: 206-211); cf. De Jong (1987). 4. On these sections of the poem see Spiro (1888: 194-201); Cusset (2006: 43-9) and 56-8; Cusset (2009: 119-33); Durbec (2006: 81-2); Kossaifi (2009: 141-59); Looijenga (2009: 59-80); Fountoulakis (2014: 103–24); McNelis-Sens (2016: 47-66).

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

37

corroborates its female perspective.5 In addition, the transition between the two narrators, primary and secondary, is gradual, rather than neatly marked by the guard’s introduction of Cassandra’s utterance at line 30. As soon as the servant starts reporting to Priam, his language assumes peculiar stylistic features that will characterize Cassandra’s prophecy (hapax legomena, neologisms, metaphors and glosses).6 Lycophron’s fiction gradually encourages the reader to forget about Priam’s servant, giving him or her the impression of listening to the prophetess herself. Cassandra’s voice progressively comes to the fore within the guard’s narrative. The guard’s emphatic claims of accuracy in repeating Cassandra’s words (esp. τὰ πάντα νητρεκῶς 1, ἀρχῆς ἀπ᾽ ἄκρας 2, cf. 1470-1471) are formalized in accordance with the standard features of the so-called “tragic messenger-speech”, or tragic rhesis. Hence, Lycophron appeals to the conventional acceptance of the objectivity of messengers’ reported speeches.7 Both epic texts and tragedies offer many examples of speeches reported verbatim, and there are also cases in which messengers report prophets’ utterances, such as in the case of the Alexandra (e.g. S. Aj. 749-780). Therefore, the fact that Cassandra’s own voice takes over from line 31 does not appear as a novelty, except for the unusual length of her speech.

2. Female speaking traits in Cassandra’s prophecy When Cassandra starts speaking, the servant has already given an articulated description of her behaviour and distinctive way of speaking, on which he will elaborate further at the end of his report. As he understands Cassandra to possess oracular knowledge, he uses vocabulary that connects to the mantic sphere to describe her utterance.8 He portrays a maiden who behaves similarly to a divinely inspired woman such as the Pythia and the Sibyls;9 and indeed, he explicitly calls Cassandra 5. Biffis (2012: 40-62). 6. Holzinger (1985: 26-27); Hornblower (2015: nn. 1, 7 and 27). 7. On this aspect see Barrett (2002: xvii); and on the conventionality of messengerspeeches Barrett (2002: 15-18). 8. E.g. χρησμῶν 4, δαφνηφάγων 6, φοίβαζεν 6, παρθένου φοιβαστρίας 1468. 9. The expression ἔνθεον … βακχεῖον στόμα (28) suggests a proper ecstatic speech, for which cf. οὐ γὰρ ἥσυχος (3) and αἰόλον στόμα (5). Sibyls have been invested with a ‘raging mouth’ since the time of Heraclitus, and share it with the Pythia in Plutarch (Heraclitus, fr. 92 D in Plut. De Pyth. Or. 6.397a; cf. Plut. De. Pyth. Orac. 398c and De Ser. Num. 566d; Phlegon, FGrHist 257 F 37: Crippa (1998: 165-166) and Lightfoot (2007: 4 n. 4).

38

GIULIA BIFFIS

‘Μελαγκραίρας κόπις Νησοῦς θυγατρός’ (1464-5), alluding to the Cumaean Sibyl.10 The association of the princess with the Sybil is widespread in literature.11 In Lycophron’s narrative, Sibyls and Cassandra share the unfamiliar sound of their voice,12 the agitated behaviour and ‘frenzied mouth’13 and their life in isolation.14 What is more, Sibyls were also believed to foretell calamity, and even though the guard does not openly anticipate the ominous essence of Cassandra’s words, this will become apparent as soon as she starts her speech. Unlike the Pythia, who is invested with the power of giving a truthful oracle, and consequently is approached by petitioners, Sibyls, like Cassandra, speak without being prompted, and are independent of their audience; they do not offer suggestions, but present the future as a sequence of inevitable events. In addition, they show themselves to be well aware of their roles as prophetesses, by asserting their truthfulness. This is another trait that dissociates Cassandra from the Pythia, who never refers to herself in her responsa, but always behaves as a mouthpiece of the god Apollo.15 Sibyls, then, allow themselves to speak about their own persona,16 and their prophecies may include autobiographical parts in which they reveal their names, define their nature in relation to their kinship with either a god or a nymph,17 and foresee their own deaths. 18 Lycophron’s Cassandra mirrors all these features.19 This autobiographical element in the sibylline diction needs to be singled out as a major catalyst of the feminine perspective in the poem, among all the traits of Cassandra’s prophecy that

10. Μελαγκραίρας ‘black-haired᾽ with reference to the Cumaean Sibyl who is identified with the Erythraean Sibyl in ps.-Arist. Mir. 95a. For the Sybil as daughter of Nesus and Dardanus and granddaughter of Teucer see Arr. apd. Eust. Il. 2.814 = FGrHist 156 F 95. 11. On the similarity between Lycophron’s Cassandra and the Sibyl see Lévêque (1955: 53-55); Parke (1988: 16-17); Amiotti (1993: 140, 149); Mazzoldi (2001: 251-2, 258); Cusset (2004: 53-60). 12. Manetti (1997: 248); Crippa (1998: 169, 171- 172); Lightfoot (2007: 4, 11, 14, 16-17, 18). 13. See n. 8. 14. With respect to this last aspect, it is interesting to see the similarity between Cassandra’s self-portrait in the poem (349-350) and her description of the Cumaean Sibyl (1278-80): Biffis (2012: 198-199); McNelis-Sens (2016: 216). 15. Lightfoot (2007: 8 n. 30 and 15 n. 76). For the sole exception, see Parke-Wormell (1956: no. 487). 16. Manetti (1997: 244); Crippa (1998: 181-182); Lightfoot (2007: 14-15, 15-16, 140, 412 and 532-533). 17. E.g. Eumelus PEG fr. 8; Paus. 10.12.2 and 3; Clem. Al. Strom. 1.21.384 and Or. Sibyll. 1.288-90; 3.815 and 827. 18. Plu. Mor 398c; Paus. 10.12.3, 6; Or. Sibyll. 7.157-159. 19. Biffis 2012: 197-200.

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

39

are remarkable markers of the sibylline oracular tradition.20 Cassandra, like the Sibyls, intercalates third-person narratives with powerful selfreferential moments (in first-person register) and numerous apostrophes to those involved in what she is foreseeing (in the second-person). With respect to the variable use of first-, second- and third-person registers, the prophetic nature of sibylline utterances makes the third person prevail over the others and this happens in Alexandra too. The predominance of an apparently detached presentation of future events and the wide scope of Cassandra’s narrative (the Trojan War along with its precursors 31-364; its aftermath 365-1282; the conflict between Eastern and Western world 1283-1450) assimilate her voice to that of an extradiegetic narrator. Cassandra is not affected by the limitations that usually characterize internal narrators as she knows everything and can take an omniscient viewpoint typical of external narrators. Nevertheless, the parts of the prophecy in which she addresses her own future, and those in which she apostrophises those belonging to the stories she narrates, make the poem more vivid and intense because they capture the attention of the readership. This helps Lycophron to keep Cassandra always present in her narrative and in the reader’s mind, while at the same time strengthening further the establishment of a female voice for the poem (see below). Besides enhancing the subjectivity of the Sibylline utterances, Lycophron also borrows their way of combining prophetic content with lamentation.21 While the guard’s voice fades away, the interjection αἰαῖ (31) marks clearly the transition to Cassandra’s own voice, as she recalls the first destruction of Troy at the hands of Heracles. Cassandra’s utterance starts here to draw both upon the prophetic mode of a powerful female figure such as the Sybil, and upon lamentation, a mode typologically distinct for feminine expression in Greek culture.22 This category of speech is consistently crystallized in different literary genres such as epic, tragedy and historiography and, therefore, is a powerful manifestation of how the constructed nature of gender identity in Greek culture shows 20. On the close relationship between the sibylline traditions (pagan, Judeo-Christian and Roman) and Alexandra see e.g. Ziegler (1927 cols. 2379-81); Parke (1988: 16); Lightfoot (2007: 8-9); Biffis (2012: 197-206) and Hornblower (2015 n.1465). With a specific attention to the relationship with the Oracula Sibyllina see Camassa (2006); Hornblower (2015 n. 1465) and (2018: 126-135). 21. E.g. Or. Sibyll. 3.55; 5.287; 7.114; 11.122 and the frequent use of interjections such as αἰαῖ (37 times): Lightfoot (2007: 14 n. 68 and 17). 22. The first book that emphasised the importance of women’s, rather than men’s, songs of lament in Greek culture is Alexiou (2002 [1974]); Holst-Warhaft (1992); McClure (1999: 40-47); McClure (2001: 6-11). Against a gender distinction in tragic laments see Suter (2008: 156-180).

40

GIULIA BIFFIS

a remarkable continuity, of which Lycophron appears to be fully aware. Cassandra not only describes herself as a lamenting woman several times in the poem (72, 302-306, 314 and 1451-1453; cf. the servant’s epilogue 1463), but seems to enact a sort of ritual lamentation. Lycophron exploits the genre of lamentation to make Cassandra alternate detached oracular diction with the pathetic mourning register. I will not here go into the relationship between Alexandra and stylistic aspects that mark lamentation, such as a specific formalised structure, apostrophes, interjections and so on,23 but I will focus on typological themes. These show how lamentation frames the narrative contents of Cassandra’s prediction as from a female perspective. While in ritual lament people mourn the past,24 Cassandra grieves about the dire future she foresees. Her prophecy seems to be a sort of proleptic goos, comparable to important Iliadic cases of female speeches such as Thetis’ prediction of Achilles’ death in the Iliad (e.g. 1.413-418 and 18.51-60), and Andromache’s last speech to Hector in which she foreshadows the fall of Troy and its terrible consequences for the royal family (6.407-413 and 429-432). However, Cassandra’s words broaden the scope of her sorrow considerably and her suffering will turn out to be shared by many enemies as punishment: her own πένθος (302) equates to that of the Greeks (284), the Segestans (969) and the Locrians (1141). She amplifies this concept to such an extent that even the dead in the underworld will wail for a considerable time (οἷς οὑμὸς ἔσται κἀχερουσίαν πάρα / ῥηγμῖνα δαρὸν ἐστεναγμένος γάμος 411-412).25 Nature too is personified so that seabanks can groan for the imminent Trojan disaster (Καὶ δὴ στένει Μύρινα καὶ παράκτιοι … ᾐόνες 243-44).26 Cassandra’s continuous references to pain and sorrow seem almost to turn her prophecy into a universal lamentation. The exceptionality of Cassandra’s pain enhances the importance she gives to the relatives she is mourning for, as in lament the intensity of grief is proportionate to the greatness of the deceased. Greek women are called upon to turn the expression of absolute suffering into a ritual that provides the dead with eternal glory, as masterfully exemplified by the Homeric Hecuba, Andromache and Helen at the end of the Iliad.27 The paradigmatic lamentations of the Iliad mirror the female custom in Greek society of mourning husbands and relatives, while praising and celebrat23. Biffis (2012: 179-183). 24. E.g. Alexiou (2002 [1974]: e.g. 92, 123, 161-177). 25. ‘And by the shore of Acheron / the Greeks will long lament my marriage.’ (Hornblower 2015). 26. ‘And now Myrina and the seaside beaches / groan’. 27. Segal (1993: 62).

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

41

ing them. Such is the case with Cassandra, when she talks about Hector. In her prophecy, there is place for only one hero: her brother, the only one she defines as ‘μέγας / ἥρως’ (1204-1205) in the whole poem. Cassandra is the spokesperson of the glory of Troy and her family members, amongst whom Hector stands out on account of his ‘κλέος … μέγιστον’ (1212).28 While Cassandra foresees and mourns his death, she utters a proper aretalogy of him. In Cassandra’s words Hector is a model of honourable conduct in war, while Achilles is not; his victory over the Trojan prince turns him into an antiheroic figure, rather than making him triumph.29 Another common feature of lament is to wish that the enemy of the dead might suffer a comparably dreadful fate as that experienced by the person for whom the mourner is lamenting.30 When mourners lament for a death that has come unjustly or violently, they often ask for vengeance.31 Greek literature is full of representations of this archaic feature of lamentation,32 and Alexandra can be seen in this light. Cassandra’s prediction of the Greeks’ imminent sorrow takes on the characteristics of a sort of curse intended to avenge the Trojan defeat. When Cassandra foresees Hector’s death, she exclaims οὐ μὴν ἀνατεί (‘but not with impunity’ 283) in order to forcefully project a view of vengeful retribution, by which future Greek suffering can be interpreted; Cassandra grieves for the suffering of the vanquished Trojans, but she also predicts the pain that the victorious Greeks will face because they will either die abroad or will meet with a harsh destiny once they are home. Thus she concludes with her prediction of the doom awaiting the Greeks and their unhappy nostoi as a direct consequence of their destruction of Troy (Τοσαῦτα μὲν δύστλητα πείσονται κακὰ / οἱ τὴν ἐμὴν μέλλοντες αἰστώσειν πάτραν 1281-1282).33 The heroine, though, does not actually pursue a vendetta. 28. Durbec (2009: 399); Biffis (2012: 187-88); McNelis-Sens (2016: 181-185). 29. On the anti-heroic treatment of Achilles see West (2003: 86-87); Durbec (2008: 17-30); Sistakou (2008: 164-165); McNelis-Sens (2011: 66-69 and 73-76); Biffis (2012: 92-93); McNelis-Sens (2016: 114-128). On the replacement of Achilles by Hector as a model of heroic conduct McNelis-Sens (2016: 79-80 and 198-199). 30. Alexiou (2002 [1974]: 178). 31. Alexiou (2002 [1974]: 144-148). 32. For example, in the Choephoroi Orestes and Electra ask for help from Agamemnon, after having been prompted to seek revenge by the chorus of lamenting women: Johnston (1999: 101); Foley (2001: 26-27 and 33-35). Another example is the kommos in Sophocles’ Electra, where the heroine uses lamentation to incite revenge (e.g. S. El. 160-163 uttered by Electra, 193-200 by the female chorus, 201-212 again by Electra): Foley (2001: ch. 3.2, esp. 148). 33. ‘Such are the woes, hard to bear, which they will suffer, / they who will destroy my fatherland’. The feeling of having revenge over your enemies by cursing them to have a bad nostos is a recurrent theme in tragedy (Biffis 2018: 152).

42

GIULIA BIFFIS

The expected scenario is here transmuted because she does not need to seek revenge: she foresees it. In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, where the interweaving of lament and prediction is also an important aspect of Cassandra’s characterization, she too predicts and mourns her own death (1313-1314; 1322-1329), while at the same time appealing for vengeance (1324-1325) and predicting its fulfilment (1280). What is only alluded to in Aeschylus is magnified in Alexandra. The idea of taking revenge on the Greeks constitutes a true leitmotif throughout the poem. Cassandra specifically points to Ajax’s sacrilegious assault on her (357-362) as the catalyst for the subsequent reversal of the Greeks’ fortunes (Ἑνὸς δὲ λώβης ἀντί … / Ἑλλὰς στενάξει πᾶσα… 365-366) and repeats this idea at each key moment of her prophecy.34 Immediately after the description of the first tragic nostos, that of Ajax himself, she says that all Greece will be full of suffering and lament for her marriage, where γάμος stands for her forced intercourse with Ajax (408-412).35 She reiterates this idea when she turns from describing the deaths of the heroes who will not return home (10871089) to foretelling the doomed destiny of those who will return, but die tragically there like Idomeneus, who will be the last Greek hero betrayed at home (1214-1216). Cassandra goes so far as to present herself as the actual avenger,36 when she describes the Locrian tribute to Athena Ilias.37 Despite the fact that this tribute will be paid to Athena to make amends for Ajax’s sacrilegious violation of her temple at Troy, Cassandra substitutes herself for the goddess: she will be the one to inflict great pain on the Locrian women, because she is the one that has been sacrilegiously violated (ἐμῶν ἕκατι δυσσεβῶν γάμων / ποινὰς Γυγαίᾳ τίσετ’ Ἀγρίσκᾳ θεᾷ. 1151-1152).38 34. ‘In requital for the sin of one man, / all Greece shall mourn’… 35. The connection of this well-known episode (cf. the mention of it in Procl. Chrest. 227, PEG p. 94, probably depending on the Nostoi (Hornblower 2015: 9); Stesichorus fr. 105 F., Alcaeus fr. fr. 298 Voigt; cf. fr. 306Ah A. Ag. 653-660) and Ajax is also in Virgil (Aen. 1.39-41). 36. Compare Cassandra’s characterization in Euripides’ Trojan Women as she makes herself her own avenger (E. Tr. 364; 404-405; 457; 460-461). 37. Al. 1141-1143: Πένθος δὲ πολλαῖς παρθένων τητωμέναις τεύξω γυναιξὶν αὖθις, αἳ στρατηλάτην ἀθεσμόλεκτρον… ‘But I shall cause grief to many women in the future, bereft of their maiden daughters. They will long bewail the commander, the breaker of sexual law’… 38. ‘All of you, because of his impious sexual intercourse with me, will pay requital to Gygaia, the Agriskan goddess’…

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

43

Such strong involvement in her prophetic goos enhances the selfreflective component of lamentation. This is exemplified already in the Iliad, for instance, when the women mourning the death of Patroclus are said to weep also for their own grief (Il. 19.301-302). A woman suffers the loss that death brings, but this also invites her to think of her own life. As exemplified in the Homeric lamentations, while women may mourn for a single death, they may also encompass the totality of their world, especially by referring to the family to which they belong. The death of a relative is an opportunity for a woman to reassess her position in the family and, through that, in the world. For example, Andromache in her proleptic goos refers both to Hector and to her family of origin (Il. 6.414-428); she remembers how they died and while evoking their memory she reflectively thinks of herself. Briseis does this too when she mourns not just Patroclus, but also her previously deceased brothers and husband (Il. 19.291-294). Helen’s lament strengthens the attention driven to Helen herself. She inverts the amount of attention paid to the deceased versus the mourner, as her lament for Hector focuses on the hero only in relation to the fact that he alone, with Priam, had been respectful of her marriage.39 Thus her lament revolves more around her reputation than around Hector’s glory. Furthermore, in the Iliad, while women grieve, they do not simply look back into their past, but also towards their future. When Andromache first fears for Hector’s death and then weeps over Hector’s body, she draws attention to her own wretched destiny as a widow subject to enslavement (Il. 6.410-413 and 24.731-732), and to that of Astyanax as an orphan in danger of his life (Il. 6.407-410, 431-432, 22.482-485 and 24.725-727). Briseis’ lamentation for Patroclus gives her the opportunity to draw attention to her condition as a captive and to her now deluded hope of marrying Achilles (Il. 19.297-300). Finally, Helen says that Hector’s misfortune is her own misfortune (Il. 24.773) because she can see the consequences that his death will bring to her life. Therefore, in mourners’ lamentation references to their own present, past and future co-exist; such is the case in Cassandra’s prophecy too, but in Lycophron the heroine is allowed even more space for self-expression. Cassandra points out her present condition as an isolated maiden in a dark prison (εἱρκτῆς … λυγαίας 351); then, through a flashback, she looks into her past and draws attention to her rejection of Apollo as the 39. Andromache similarly sees herself sharing her destiny with Hector (Il. 22.477), but her thoughts are confined to the present, while Helen heeds both her present situation and her future memory.

44

GIULIA BIFFIS

salient moment that led her to resolve to preserve her virginity for life (352-356). The choice here is functional: to strengthen the violence that she will endure during Ajax’s subsequent assault in the temple of Athena, which she describes immediately after (357-362). A powerful ‘ἐγὼ δὲ τλήμων’ (348) begins her self-lamentation, and is later echoed by another ‘ἐγὼ δέ’ (1108), introducing the second section of the prophecy concerning herself:40 the description of her assassination at the hands of Clytemnestra (1108-1119).41 Both self-referential narratives are climatic ends of the two macro-sections of the prophecy: the first related to the fall of Troy and the second to its aftermath together with the Greek heroes’ ill-omened nostoi. Cassandra therefore counters the intensity of her desire to preserve her virginity with the dramatic conditions in which this transition to womanhood will take place. Ajax’s violence against Cassandra is the ultimate symbol of the Greeks’ brutal aggression and the trigger of their future misfortunes. In a crescendo, Cassandra mourns the destruction of her city (31, 52, 69, 72), the deaths of all her family members,42 and, finally, her rape. Coming as it does immediately after the description of the assassination of the Trojan royal family, the description of Cassandra’s rape is indirectly presented as an act of violence comparable to death. It is actually Agamemnon’s enslavement of Cassandra and her concubinage which cause the heroine’s murder at the hands of Clytemnestra, but even this last tragic episode emphasises the connection between Cassandra’s abused sexuality and death.

3. Cassandra’s self-reflective discourse This correlation between Cassandra’s abused sexuality and death recalls how the Greek conceptualization of marriage metaphorically exploits the link between loss of virginity and a figurative death.43 This aspect becomes evident in Cassandra’s repeated use of the term γάμος to refer to the multiple episodes of her life in which the proper transition to womanhood is subverted (360, 412, 1089, 1151). Aeschylus and Euripides had 40. Compare ‘ἐγὼ δέ’ at lines 302 and 1139 for other sections referring to herself. 41. She briefly refers to her death a second time towards the end of the poem (13731374). 42. Namely Paris (90), Hector (280 cf. 1189), Troilus (308), Laodice (314, 316-322), Polyxena (314, 323-329), Hecuba (315, 330 cf. 1174) and Priam (335-339). 43. For the literary evidence (e.g. the tragic representation of figures such as Iphigenia and Antigone) see Rose (1925: 238-242); Alexiou and Dronke (1971: 825-841); Rehm (1994: 1-6); Seaford (1987: 107-109) and (1990: 76-90).

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

45

previously emphasized this idea in their characterizations of Cassandra. In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon the subversion of traditional elements of Greek wedding ceremonies is an important feature of Cassandra’s story.44 Similarly, in Euripides’ Trojan Women the ironic makarismos of Cassandra, in which motives of nuptial celebration are interwoven with elements of mourning, is one of the most powerful moments of the drama (308-341).45 In Alexandra Cassandra’s problematic relationship with her partheneia functions as the overarching marker of her identity.46 She presents herself as an anomalous maiden whose sexual status significantly transgresses the norm, both because of Ajax’s and Agamemnon’s violence, and because of her proclaimed intention of emulating Athena’s virginity. Cassandra’s compromised sexuality is the pivotal element of all other self-referential sections of the poem. Immediately after the account of her own assassination, the prophetess describes at length two ritual practices linked to Ajax’s assault on her: first, the supplication of Cassandra’s statue in a temple dedicated to her in Daunia, which will be enacted by girls unwilling to get married (1126-1140), and, secondly, the atonement of Ajax’s guilt through the tribute of the Locrian maidens to Athena in Ilion (11411173). Subsequently, the epilogue of Cassandra’s prophecy elaborates on Apollo’s revenge for her refusal to have sex with him. Cassandra’s farewell displays exceptional dramatic intensity when she laments the consequences of her resolve to remain a virgin: her vexing isolation (1451-1453) and her drama of being a prophetess who is not believed (1454-1460). With the Daunian cult and the tribute of the Locrian maidens, Cassandra introduces a religious dimension into an already multifaceted picture of womanhood. She presents the role of women in society as both ritual agents and, possibly, as recipients of cult (Cassandra herself).47 The study of these two rites reveals their connection with pre-marital practices, although this is not explicitly stated by Cassandra.48 They deepen her discourse on female transition to womanhood by integrating the ritual perspective into it and adding a further dimension to female characterization in Greek culture. The cult of a heroic figure with mythological features similar to that of Cassandra, as emphasized in her self-lament, 44. Seaford (1987: 127-128); Rehm (1994: 44-49). 45. Rehm (1994: 128-136). 46. Biffis (2012: 94-101). 47. Al. 1139-1140: ‘κείναις ἐγὼ δηναιὸν ἄφθιτος θεὰ / ῥαβδηφόροις γυναιξὶν αὐδηθήσομαι.’ ‘Among these rodbearing women / I shall be called an immortal god for ever’. 48. For a treatment of this aspect with respect to these two ritual practices see Mari (2009); Biffis (2012: 140-148); Hornblower (2015: 96 and ad loc).

46

GIULIA BIFFIS

would be fully compatible with this type of ritual. It is precisely because of her frustrated transition from childhood to womanhood that she can be regarded as a guarantor of a good marriage. The worship of figures whose life experience has a tragic outcome is not uncommon in Greek religion, because such figures were thought capable of averting a similar misfortune for their worshippers.49 The verses narrating Cassandra’s own story recall the way in which women exploit self-lament for their own purposes, especially in tragedy. Sophocles’ lyric exchange between Antigone and the chorus in the fourth episode of the Antigone (806-882) is emblematic of this; while the heroine laments her premature death, she gives a powerful selfportrait to the audience by offering her own personal interpretation of the events that lead to her death sentence. Antigone insists on the injustice of Creon’s punishment, claiming that what she has done should not have been condemned. Antigone and Cassandra both portray themselves as victims of an injustice operated against the values they wished to embrace in their lives. Cassandra’s rejection of marriage and her story challenge the Greek conceptualization of the woman at the time of the transition from childhood to adulthood. As numerous female characters do in Athenian tragedy, she problematises the codified female role in society. While marriage was one of several τέλη of a Greek man (being a warrior, a politically active citizen and a husband), it was the main or even sole τέλος of Greek women.50 Through Cassandra Lycophron seems to give voice to women’s unease with respect to the essentially sexual construction of female identity. Some scholars speak of a sort of ‘anti-sex’ perspective overlapping with the anti-Greek focalization of the narrative in the poem.51 Extramarital loves, lustful pursuits, betrayals and erotic grief are popular themes in Hellenistic literature,52 and in Cassandra’s prophecy many passages refer to these topics. However, Cassandra’s prophecy shows a more rounded interest in the impairment of positive gender, of which her own personal experience constitutes the most articulated example. Cassandra dissects this topic into different aspects of the feminine nature, before marriage and after, through a subversion of marriage itself. Cassandra offers a strong 49. Larson (1995: 116-121); Lyons (1997: 45); Kearns (1998: 101). 50. Seaford (1987: 106); Redfield (2003: 32-43); Swift (2010: 249-250). 51. West (1984: 147); Sistakou (2008: 120); Sens (2010: 305), from whom the expression ‘anti-sex’ has been taken. 52. E.g. Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica 3, Theocritus’ Idyll 11, the genres of the epyllion and novel, Alexander Aetolus’ and Parthenius of Nicaea’s Erotika Pathemata in Sistakou (2008: 30-34, 132-133, 136 and passim).

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

47

analysis of problematic female transition to adulthood: there are maidens who are denied the chance of marriage because of violent and premature death (e.g. Iphigenia 183-191 and Polyxena 326-329), others undergoing forced transition through rape and abduction (e.g. the Leucippides 547-548 and Helen 102, 104 and 505) or Cilla engaging with clandestine love (319-322). Cassandra shows contempt for adulterous women (τὰς ἀλεκτόρων πικρὰς / στεγανόμους ὄρνιθας 1094-1095),53 whose betrayals become means to discredit their Greek husbands (e.g. Aegialeia 612-614; Helen 87, 850; Clytemnestra 1099-1106; Meda 1213-1225). The anti-Greek perspective influences Cassandra’s words to the point of turning Penelope into a prostitute, who squanders all Odysseus’ fortune by banqueting with her suitors (771-773).54 Cassandra’s words try to compensate for the weakness of abused femininity with depictions of empowered women either as negative agents or positive figures, as happens in tragedy. As just mentioned, adulterous wives impinge on their husbands’ honour. Helen, after first being presented as the young bride-to-be par excellence, when she is about to be abducted by Paris (102-103), turns into a lascivious woman (πεντάλεκτρος 143, cf. 850-851). The sacrificed virgin Iphigeneia becomes the killer of the Greeks (Ἑλλάδος καρατόμον 187) and a ruthless priestess (196-199). By contrast, Cassandra pits heroic virginal figures presented in a good light against examples of infamous Greek masculine behaviour, for example Penthesileia against Thersites (999-1001) or Clete against the Achaeans (993-1007).55 She describes with tragic pathos the death of Seteia, whose name will not be washed away as her abandoned corpse will be (1075-1082).56 In the third part of the poem (1283-1450) Cassandra refers to a series of sexual abductions that initiated the conflict between Asia and Europe

53. ‘The embittered housebound hens / of the cockerels’… 54. For other testimonies of Penelope’s lascivious behaviour see ps-Apoll. Ep. 7.38; Paus. 8.12.6; for Penelope as mother of Pan see Theocritus’ Syrinx (Anth. Pal. 15.21) and Duris of Samos (FGrHist 76 F 21) in Gigante Lanzara (1995: 92-94). 55. Clete was Penthesileia’s servant. On her way to Troy she was cast ashore in South Italy. There she founded her eponymous city. In Lycophron’s words she is the ‘δούλης γυναικός’ (996 slave-woman) who managed to enslave the Achaeans who came to her land on the Trojan aftermath. She is the ‘ἄτρομον κόρην’ (1003 fearless maiden), who, victorious over many others, was finally killed by the Crotonians. 56. Seteia was a Trojan prisoner. She lead her fellow Trojan women to burn the Greek ships once they reached the Ionian coast (Strabo 6.262) so as not to become slaves once in Greece. She was then crucified on a sea rock as punishment. On the exceptionality of Lycophron’s mention of the ‘crag Setaion’, the rock named after the heroine see Scheer (2018: 125), who argues for the rarity of memorabilia connected with heroines.

48

GIULIA BIFFIS

and will add fuel to it. The literary model is Herodotus’ prologue,57 but Lycophron’s text stands apart from this model because of Cassandra’s sympathy for women injured either by divine or human male desire. The narrative encompasses the misadventures of Io (1291-1295), Europa (1296-1303), Medea (1307-1312), Antiope (1313-1331) and Helen (1362-1368). It is difficult not to think of a parallel between these events and Cassandra’s abduction in the context of the Trojan War. Indeed, her subjective narrative is inextricably linked to the fate of her own part of the world. From this perspective, the attention she constantly gives during her prophecy to people that have contributed,58 and will contribute, to the establishment of her honourable lineage appears not only as an important feature of female lamentation, but also as a tool to connect her personal story to that of the whole world. Cassandra’s celebration of her Trojan lineage, from ancestors to descendants, assumes a particular strength in relation to the self-referential dimension of her prophecy. As in the case of the Homeric laments, this Trojan discourse seems to be meant to place her, the female mourner, in the foreground.

4. Celebration of the Trojan glory as expression of Cassandra’s own honour Just as the defeat of the Greeks is explicitly interpreted as the fulfilment of Cassandra’s personal revenge, the celebration of her noble parentage and the subsequent glory of Rome is an expression of her own pride.59 In the two most debated passages of Alexandra, Cassandra predicts, first, the triumph of Rome over the whole world as the supreme expression of Trojan ‘κλέος’ (1226-1230), and second, the success of a mysterious kinsman of hers (αὐθαίμων ἐμός 1446) in putting a final end to the conflict between Asia and Europe (1446-1450).60 Through these two 57. Hornblower (2015: 51, 452-53) for the comparison with Herodotus in relation to this specific aspect. 58. Trojan lineage (1226, 1307) and specific key figures of it (Teucer 452; Aeneas 1232; Ilus 1341). 59. On the relationship between the passages praising Roman power and the restoration of Trojan glory: McNelis-Sens (2011: 54-65). They discuss Al. 1230-1231 and 1125-1140, 1141-1173, but with almost exclusive attention to the Troy / Rome relationship (McNelisSens 2011: 55 and 64 n. 22); cf. McNelis-Sens (2016: 189-204). I consider instead the celebration of Cassandra in Daunia to be the main focus in the development of the theme of kleos in the poem, to which the affirmation of Rome acts as a completion, and not vice versa. 60. For a complete summary of the main interpretative views on this man’s identity see Hornblower (2015, ad loc.); cf. Schade’s chart, (1999: 220-228) and Hurst (2008: xxi-xxiv).

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

49

sections of the prophecy Cassandra voices her pride in belonging to the Trojan stock. In the prophecy the term κλέος is linked with Hecuba (1174) and Hector (1212) too, but only in association with the above-mentioned episode related to the ancestors of Rome (1226) does it refer to the fame that comes from becoming an object of mention, in the present and in the future, by virtue of one’s own honourable actions. In relation to Cassandra’s family members the term is used in a different context. Cassandra explains that Hector’s eusebeia will not be ignored (1190-1193) and will correspond to the institution of his cult in Thebes (1194-1211), through which the Thebans will celebrate the hero’s immense glory by performing libations equal to those offered to the gods (1212-1213). Hector’s kleos will revive in time, not in the repeated account of his deeds, but in specific ritual actions dedicated to him. Similarly, in the passage on Hecuba, it is the cenotaph raised in her honour by Odysseus (1181), and on which he will pour libations (1185-1186), that will guarantee the everlasting kleos of the woman (1174-1175).61 Cassandra also mentions the creation of several heroic cults dedicated to Greek heroes, but the kleos / cult combination is confined to the Trojan sphere. Even though she does not speak of kleos for herself, the peculiarity of this association seems to reflect on her too. The prophecy draws particular attention to the previously mentioned rituals related to Cassandra, because the number of lines employed to describe them is exceptional, when it is compared to parts of the poem referring to other religious practices. The cult of Cassandra in Daunia by young girls who want to remain unmarried (1126-1140) and the ritual performed by the Locrian maidens (1141-1173) to atone for Ajax’s assault on Cassandra are presented in the text as forms of restoration of Cassandra’s shamed honour during the war. While the Locrian tribute is not directly dedicated to her, the Daunian practice lets Cassandra not only escape the oblivion of death (1126-1127), but also gain eternal memory as a goddess (11391140). The rituals of which Cassandra speaks bring together her past story and her future, the violence suffered and the overcoming of it in a future ritual celebration, which will be perpetual.

61. Although we can doubt whether a cenotaph should be considered a sign of the institution of a cult (and in fact the idea that a funerary monument, and in particular a tomb visible from the sea, had the power to preserve the memory of the deceased is already Homeric, without attesting to the existence of a cult: e.g. Il. 7.86-91; Od. 1.239-40 [cf. 24.32-33], 4.584, 24.80-84), in the Alexandra the association between a tomb and libations is always implemented in the context of real cult institutions (e.g. 718-720, 929 and 1213 [cf. 542]).

50

GIULIA BIFFIS

This connection echoes the link kleos / cult established for Hector and Hecuba and becomes even more explicit when we look at the evident linguistic similarities between the verses that envisage the rise of the power of Rome62 and those that speak of Cassandra’s acquisition of immortal memory in Daunia.63 Cassandra and Troy will both gain future celebration, but through somewhat different means. For Cassandra it will be through worship (σέβας), for the Trojans through the celebration (κλέος) of their deeds. Therefore, cult and glory appear as two sides of the same coin in Cassandra’s prophecy.

5. Cassandra’s aetiological discourse Cassandra foresees the institution of several cults and ritual practices. In the fiction of the poem these rites belong to the future of the characters and of Cassandra who speaks of them. Instead, from the point of view of the readers, Cassandra’s account of their institutions functions as a proper aition. In the Hellenistic age aitia are extremely relevant, being a nexus between poetry, historiography and even popular (maybe oral) traditions, with respect to both a Panhellenic dimension (e.g. the multiple versions of the well-known Locrian tribute) and a local one (e.g. the otherwise unknown ritual of the Daunian virgins). However, aitia characterize the entire Greek literary tradition and Attic tragedy is an important forum for experimentation regarding the combination of myth and ritual to generate heroic aetiologies. Aitia have been interpreted as instrumental in the creation of aspects of Athenian identity (e.g. the institution of the Areopagus in Aeschylus’ Eumenides). It is Euripides, however, who offers aetiologies that are closest to those mentioned by Cassandra about herself and her family members. In Cassandra’s prophecy the power of perpetual memorialisation by a ritual acts as a kind of consolation to the

62. Al. 1226-27 and 1230-31: Γένους δὲ πάππων τῶν ἐμῶν αὖθις κλέος μέγιστον αὐξήσουσιν ἄμναμοί ποτε…. οὐδ’ ἄμνηστον, ἀθλία πατρίς, κῦδος μαρανθὲν ἐγκατακρύψεις ζόφῳ. ‘The glory of the race of my grandfathers will be greatly increased by their descendants… Nor, my miserable fatherland, will you hide your renown, withered away in darkness’. 63. Al. 1126-1127: Oὐ μὴν ἐμὸν νώνυμνον ἀνθρώποις σέβας / ἔσται, μαρανθὲν αὖθι ληθαίῳ σκότῳ… ‘Nor shall my own cult be at all obscure among men, / or wither away in forgetful darkness’.

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

51

characters for their tragic vicissitudes and works in the same way as aetiologies function at the end of Euripides’ Hippolytus (1423-1430) and Iphigenia in Tauris (1435-1467).64 These aitia not only create a connection between the stage and the audience (that is, a connection between myth and contemporary institutions), but also have a structural role within the story, as they provide a positive end to the lives of those who belonged to it. In the case of Alexandra, aitia work similarly. The two cults related to Cassandra are fully integrated into her story. They appear as a projection of her own understanding of maidenhood and they have a fundamental role in compensating for Cassandra’s degraded honour. The predicted cults dedicated to Hector and Hecuba work similarly. Therefore, all these cults are a fundamental element in the celebration of the Trojan stock. Nevertheless, they have no power to glorify with respect to Cassandra’s own timeframe. In the final part of the poem, in fact, Cassandra’s desperation grows in intensity due to the fact that her prophecy will not be heeded (1451-1453). Cassandra reflects on her role as prophetess, defining her speech as ‘truthful prophetic wisdom’ (πρόμαντιν ἀψευδῆ φρόνιν 1456), but infused with a ‘lying sound’ because of Apollo’s punishment (ψευδηγόροις φήμαισιν 1455). Cassandra, furthermore, is doubly distraught because she knows that her prophetic lamentation neither guarantees the celebration of the glory of her lineage nor stimulates mourning in those who are listening to the tragic events that will come.65 While mourners can count on the fact that their weeping will be shared by their community, and in this communion they can find a means to overcome the tragedy of their loss, Cassandra is isolated. In epic, heroes are celebrated because of their suffering, as Helen’s words implicitly say in the Iliad (6.357-358), and the celebration of kleos counterbalances penthos so that there cannot be one without the other.66 If the proclamation of the kleos deriving from painful experiences is a way to appease the penthos connected to them, either in lamentation or in poetic utterances (e.g. Hes. Th. 98-103 and Il. 9.186), this does not occur for Cassandra. Cassandra’s lament is only a potential ‘γόος εὐκλεής᾽67 at the moment of her utterance; it lacks realization, just as her warning is

64. Most of other Euripidean aetiologies appear to be independent from the dramatic plot: Codrignani (1958: 539-541). 65. Consider the servant’s lack of empathy towards Cassandra in prologue and epilogue and his stance towards her speech: Biffis (2012: 20-39). 66. Nagy (1999 [1979]: 94-102 and 111-114). 67. At the start of the kommos of Electra and Orestes for their father, in Aeschylus’ Choephoroi, Orestes speaks of a lament that engenders glory (321).

52

GIULIA BIFFIS

destined to be ineffectual. She remains without any consolation, and so is described by the servant who closes his report with the description of her in the act of entering her cell, weeping (1463). When a woman’s lament cannot find a hearer, the cathartic power embedded in the threnos is denied. Through the complicated status of the narrator Cassandra, who is a true prophetess, but destined not to be believed, Lycophron joins the literary debate about the relationship between poetry and truthfulness. The Homeric Odysseus is a good comparison for a narrator like Cassandra.68 Alcinoos compares him to a bard (Od. 9.368), an external narrator par excellence, so that he implicitly recognizes the truthfulness of his story. Thus this line establishes a parallelism between the hero and Homer himself.69 However, later in the poem, at the court of Ithaca, the same hero tells the so-called Cretan tales, which the internal listener perceives as true (e.g. Penelope, Od. 19.164ff.), but the external recipients, that is us, do not recognize as such. The contrast between these two episodes is the first critical approach to the issue of poetic veracity.70 If we compare Odysseus with Cassandra, with respect to their role of narrators their position is reversed: while the internal narratees believe in Odysseus’ lies (Polyphemus, Penelope, but cf. Eumaeus who has doubts) and the external narratee (the public and then the reader of Homer) does not believe them, for Cassandra exactly the opposite happens, since the public (the reader) knows well the aftermath of the Trojan war, while the internal narrator (Priam’s servant) still does not. When in a self-referential moment Cassandra proclaims that she will hear the truth of her words confirmed from Hades at the moment when her predictions come true (1372-1373), she anticipates the final lines of her prophecy, which sanction the divine nature of her prophecies and the inevitability of their fulfilment (1458-1459). From Cassandra’s perspective, therefore, mythological or historical happenings, rather than words or verses, are the bearers of truth. She shifts the focus from the moment of the utterance to the development of the events. Cassandra’s prescient knowledge coincides with the retrospective knowledge of the poet Lycophron. Cassandra and Lycophron move from opposite points of historical space, but converge in the verification of the past that the present offers: prophecy becomes history. Cassandra’s point of view and

68. Biffis (2012: 74, 85-86, 116-117 and 121-123). 69. E.g. Segal (1983: 23-24); Goldhill 1991: 57-67. 70. Cf. Od. 19. 203 and Hes. Th. 27: cf. Segal (1983: 27).

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

53

that of Lycophron merge in Cassandra’s role as a narrator – the narrator who knows precisely what the poet knows. While Cassandra knows that she will not be understood by her contemporaries, in the future she will be. In her present her words will not win either compassion, or consolation through the promise of glory; but she expects future generations to restore her own kleos, and that of her family, through cult. From her perspective, the Trojans will establish renown and eternal memory not through the account of their deeds, handed down in epic words, but by overcoming the humiliation of defeat by the defeat itself that will be celebrated in rituals. Rituals alone, not words, fulfil the traditional role of poetry of preserving everlasting memory. Therefore, even though Cassandra does not openly draw a parallel between the role of poetry and that of cult, her prophecy implies it. The poem explores in the literary dimension how the rite can actively preserve the memory of the past. The prophecy of Cassandra entrusts to cult the same power that poetry has, that of breaking down the divisions between different times, creating an achronic dimension in which a tragedy in the present (such as that of the Trojan war) is ritualised in the future, which, in turn, preserves its memory eternally. In addition, although cult is usually a phenomenon confined to a specific place, historical moment or community, it seems to be considered by Cassandra to be a universal fact, as much as poetry. When Cassandra presents hero cults as a form of restoration of personal dignity and compensation for the events suffered, cults appear to overlap with the function of epic poetry, as described before in relation to heroic penthos. Both the role of Cassandra as narrator and the register of lamentation (because of its relationship with poetry) facilitate an overlap between the heroine and Lycophron. However it is specifically the female essence of her speech that compromises this overlap. Because she is a woman she is victimised by Apollo and distrusted. This distrust helps Lycophron draw attention to the specificity of his own work as a poet, namely the recovery and poetization of aetiological data and erudite excursus, rather than the descriptions of epic happenings. The two ritual practices related to the figure of Cassandra in the poem exemplify how Lycophron’s aetiological and scholarly work focuses on the preservation of the mythical-historical Greek tradition, rather than on the value of poetry as a means to attain future glory. The equivalence between poetry and worship thus acquires its full meaning, that is to say the equivalence between the glory and immortality guaranteed by the celebration of poetry (which Cassandra cannot enjoy) and that guaranteed by the ritual celebration (of which Cassandra is a full beneficiary). The introduction

54

GIULIA BIFFIS

of aetiology into Cassandra’s lamentation for Troy, intertwined with the prediction of the glory of Troy to come, constitutes the cipher of Lycophron’s poetics.

6. Conclusions In Lycophron the process itself by which Cassandra rescues her own truth and kleos is fundamentally aetiological. For example, we have considered how, while she describes the ritual performed by the Locrian maidens, she emphasizes the interrelation between it and her own life, turning this practice into an act of atonement for the violence she has suffered at the hands of Ajax. This sort of interrelation is at the basis of Lycophron’s poetic manifesto. The importance of rituals in preserving Cassandra’s everlasting memory and dignifying her own persona sets Alexandra apart from the display of antiquarian erudition in Hellenistic poetry, which generally keeps stories that explain the origin of a religious practice (or a social / political institution) independent from the main narrative subject. It is on Cassandra’s violated femininity that Lycophron builds the opposition between her unbelieved lamentation and its prophetic truth, which is fundamental to enhance his new poetic discourse. As we have seen, lament aligns female speakers to the role of poets in memorialising the past. Nevertheless, Cassandra has no listeners among her people; nobody will share her pain for the soon-to-be defeated Trojans or will appreciate her celebration of their glorious future to come. Her lament is sterile, despite its intrinsic veracity, but the cults and practices she describes belong to the understanding of her future erudite recipients. Cassandra’s irredeemably compromised auctoritas turns the learned work of antiquarian and erudite research, rather than poetic composition, into the real protagonist of Lycophron’s literary production. REFERENCES Alexiou, M., 2002, The ritual lament in Greek tradition (revised ed. 1974). Rowman and Littlefield. Alexiou, M. and Dronke, P., 1971, “The Lament of Jephtha’s Daugther: Themes, Tradition and Originality”. Studi Medievali, 3. 12. 2, 819-63. Amiotti, G., 1993, “Il rapporto fra gli oracoli sibillini e l’Alessandra di Licofrone”. In: Marta Sordi (ed.), La profezia nel mondo antico. Contributi dell’Istituto di storia antica, Vol. XIX. Milano, 139-49. Barrett, J., 2002, Staged Narrative: Poetics and the messenger in Greek Tragedy. Berkeley.

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

55

Biffis, G., 2012, Cassandra and the Female Perspective in Lycophron’s Alexandra. UCL Ph.D. thesis. Biffis, G., 2018, “Nostos, a Journey towards Identity in Athenian Tragedy ”. In: S. Hornblower and G. Biffis (eds.), The returning hero: nostoi and traditions of Mediterranean Settlment. Oxford, 148-176. Camassa, G., 2006, “Ripensando il poema di Licofrone. La Sibilla Giudaica d’Alessandria e la profezia finale dell’Alessandra”. Hespería 21, 11-26. Codrignani, G., 1958: “L’Aition nella poesia greca prima di Callimaco”. Convivium 26, 527-45. Cole, S. G., 2004, Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience. Berkeley. Crippa, S., 1998, “La voce e la visione”. In: I. Chirassi Colombo e T. Seppilli (eds.), Sibille e linguaggi oracolari. Mito, Storia, Tradizione. (Atti del convegno Macerata-Norcia – Settembre 1994). Pisa – Roma 53-74. Cusset, C., 2004, “Cassandre et/ou la Sibylle. Les voix dans l’Alexandra de Lycophron”. In: M. Bouquet and F. Morzadec (eds.), La Sibylle. Parole et representation. Rennes, 53-60. Cusset, C., 2006, “Dit et non-dit dans l’Alexandre de Lycophon”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Beyond the canon (Hellenistica Groningana 11). Leuven-ParisDudley, MA, 43-60. Cusset, C., 2009, “L’Alexandra dans l’Alexandra: du récit spéculaire à l’oeuvre potentielle”. In: Cusset, C. and É. Prioux (eds.), (2009), Lycophron: éclats d’obscurité, Saint-Etienne, 119-40. Jong, I. J. F. de, 1987, Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad. Amsterdam. Dowden, K., 1989, Death and the maiden: girls’ initiation rites in Greek mythology. London-New York. Durbec, Y., 2006, “Lycophron et la poétique de Callimaque. Le prologue de l’Alexandra, 1-15”. ARF 8, 81-4. Durbec, Y., 2007, “La prophétie de Cassandre: le kleos dans l’‘Alexandra’ de Lycophron”. PP 62.6, 430-40. Durbec, Y., 2008, “Le pire des Achéens: le blâme d’Achille dans l’Alexandra de Lycophrone”. Appunti Romani di Filologia 10, 17-30. Durbec, Y., 2009, “Représentations de la mort et de l’au delà dans l’Alexandra de Lycophron”. In: Cusset, C. and É. Prioux (eds.), (2009), Lycophron: éclats d’obscurité, Saint-Etienne, 393–402. Flower, M. A., 2008, The Seer in Ancient Greece. Berkeley. Foley, H. P., 2001, Female acts in Greek tragedy. Princeton. Fountoulakis, A., 2014, “The Poet and the Prophetess: Lykophron’s Alexandra in Context”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Hellenistica Groningana 20). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 103–24. Genette, G., 1972, Figures III. Paris. Gigante Lanzara, V., 2000, Alessandra. Milano. Goldhill, S., 1991, The Poet’s Voice. Cambridge-N.Y. Holst-Warhaft, G., 1992, Dangerous voices: women’s laments and Greek literature. London. Holzinger von, W. C., 1895, Alexandra [von] Lykophron, Leipzig. Hornblower, S., 2015, Lykophron’s Alexandra. Text and commentary. Oxford. Hornblower, S., 2018, Lykophron’s Alexandra, Rome, and the Hellenistic World. Oxford.

56

GIULIA BIFFIS

Hurst, A. and A. Kolde, 2008, Alexandra. Paris. Johnston, S. I., 1999, Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley. Kearns, E., 1989, “The nature of the heroines”. In: S. Blundell and M. Williamson (eds.), The Sacred and the Feminine, London-New York. 96-110. Kossaifi, C., 2009, “Poétique messager. Quelques remarques sur l’incipit et l’épilogue de l’Alexandra de Lycophron”. In: Cusset, C. and É. Prioux (eds.), (2009), Lycophron: éclats d’obscurité, Saint-Etienne, 141-59. Larson, J., 1995, Greek Heroine Cults. Madison (Wis.). Lefkowitz, M. R., 2007, Women in Greek Antiquity. Baltimore. Lévêque, P., 1955, “Lycophronica”. REA 57: 36-56. Lightfoot, J. L., 2007, The Sibylline oracles: with introduction, translation, and commentary on the first and second books. Oxford. Looijenga, A. R., 2009, “Unrolling the Alexandra. The allusive messengerspeech of Lycophron’s prologue and epilogue”. In: Cusset, C. and É. Prioux (eds.), (2009), Lycophron: éclats d’obscurité, Saint-Etienne, 59-80. Loraux, N., 1986, Tragic ways of killing a woman (French publ. 1985). Cambridge (Mass.). Lyons, D., 1997, Gender and immortality: heroines in ancient Greek myth and cult. Princeton (N.J.). Manetti, G., 1997, “The language of the Sibyls”. Euphrosyne 25, 237-250. Mazzoldi, S., 2001, Cassandra la vergine e l’indovina. Identità di un personaggio da Omero all’Ellenismo. Pisa and Rome. McClure, L. K., 1999, Spoken like a woman: speech and gender in Athenian drama. Princeton. McClure, L. K., 2001, “Introduction”. In: A. Lardinois, and L. K. McClure (eds.), Making silence speak: women’s voices in Greek literature and society. Princeton, 3-16. McNelis, C. and A. Sens, 2011, “Trojan Glory: kleos and the survival of Troy in Lycophron’s Alexandra”. Trends in Classics: 3.1, 54-82. McNelis, C. and A. Sens, 2016, The Alexandra of Lycophron. A Literary Study. Oxford. Nagy, G., 1999, The Best of the Achaians: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (revised ed. 1979). London. Parke, H. W., 1988, Sibyls and sibylline prophecy in classical antiquity. London. Parke, H. W. and Wormell, D. E. W., 1956, The Delphic Oracle. Oxford. Pöhlmann, E. and West, M. L., 2001, Documents of Ancient Greek Music. Oxford. Redfield, J. M., 1982, “Notes on the Greek Wedding”. Arethusa 15, 181-201. Rehm, R., 1994, Marriage to death: the conflation of wedding and funeral rituals in Greek tragedy. Princeton (NJ). Rose, H. J., 1925, “The Bride of Hades”. CP 20: 238-42. Schade, G., 1999, Lycophrons Odyssee. Alexandra 648-819 (Übersetzt und kommentiert). Berlin-New York. Scheer, T. 2018, “Women and nostoi”. In: S. Hornblower and G. Biffis (eds.), The returning hero: nostoi and traditions of Mediterranean Settlment. Oxford, 124-146. Seaford, R., 1987, “The Tragic Wedding”. JHS 107, 106-30. Segal, C., 1983, “Kleos and its ironies in the Odyssey”. AC 52, 22-47.

LYCOPHRON’S CASSANDRA, A POWERFUL FEMALE VOICE

57

Segal, C., 1993, “The female voice and its contradictions: from Homer to tragedy”. In: J. Dalfen et al. (eds.), Religio Graeco-Romana: Festschrift für Water Pötscher. Grazer Beiträger, Horn, Suppl. 5, 57-75. Sens, A., 2010, “Hellenistic Tragedy and Lycophron’s Alexandra”. In: J. C. James and M. Cuypers (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Oxford, 297-313. Sissa, G., 1990, Greek virginity (transl. by Goldhammer Arthur). Cambridge (MA). Sistakou, E., 2008, Reconstructing the Epic. Cross-Readings of the Trojan Myth in Hellenistic Poetry. Leuven. Sourvinou-Inwood, C., 1988, Studies in Girls’ transitions: aspects of the Arkteia and Age Representation in Attic iconography. Athens. Spiro, F., 1888, “Prolog und Epilog in Lykophrons Alexandra”. Hermes 23, 194-20l. Suter, A. 2008, “Male lament in Greek tragedy”, in Lament: studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and beyond, Oxford: 156-180. Swift, L.A., 2010, The Hidden Chorus: Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric. Oxford. West, S. R., 1984, “Lycophron italicised”. JHS 104, 127-51. West, S. R., 2003, “Lycophron’s Alexandra. Something old and something new”. In: J. A. López Férez (ed.), Mitos en la literatura griega helenística e imperial. Madrid, 79-95. Ziegler, K., 1927, s.v. “Lycophron” (8), RE 13 (2), coll. 2316-2381.

SEEING STATUES: AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3 Matthew CHALDEKAS ABSTRACT The female beloveds in Theocritus’ love poems remain silent and often appear to be absent. Amaryllis, the addressee of the third Idyll, has been considered a figment of the narrator’s imagination or a mute statue which he treats as real. Despite her silence, the poem creates a significant role for her as viewer within its erotic frame. Such female vision has precedents in the two major Theocritean ecphrases. The ecphrastic gaze of Idylls 1 and 15 is derived from Hellenistic epigrams by female authors, many of which depict statues or paintings of women that seem to be real. While these texts have already been recognized as a model for the ecphrasis of Idyll 15 (Skinner 2001), I suggest that Theocritus also draws upon them to craft the visual dynamics of the ecphrasis of the cup and the fictive erotic ‘exchange’ of Idyll 3. By taking the realism and fictive gazes of his models a step further, i.e. by staging these artworks within the social exchange of eros, Theocritus subtly acknowledges the social value of artworks of and by women, even while framing his own authorial voice in self-deprecating terms. To conclude, I return to Idyll 3 to explore traces of this ‘gendered gaze’ in the goatherd’s mythological song. It has become common to note that the mythological pairings of this song offer foreboding exempla for the goatherd, since the male beloveds in these stories will die. I examine how each of these pairings suggests a dominant female gaze, like that which the goatherd demands in the narrative frame of his poem. Here too, sculpture and other artistic representations of powerful female figures serve as evidence. Although it is never stated explicitly, these poems show that Theocritus’ pastoral imaginary leaves room to contemplate female power and female artistic authority.

The pastoral poems of Theocritus exhibit a strongly gendered perspective. Females are addressed or referred to, but they often have no voice and no claim to space. In short, Theocritus’ pastoral poems seem to be a ‘boy’s club’ that excludes female perspectives. This is perhaps best demonstrated by comparison with the non-pastoral poems.1 Cusset (2017) 1. The extent to which we can separate the poems of Theocritus into ‘pastoral’ and ‘non-pastoral’ categories was questioned by Halperin (1983). For two recent efforts to broaden the category of pastoral, see Stephens (2006) and Krevans (2006). In defense of treating the pastoral poems separately, cf. Payne (2010). The manuscript tradition suggests an early division of the corpus into separate scrolls based on pastoral themes and on nonpastoral themes (Gutzwiller 1996: 141).

60

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

notes this “absence inquiétante” but also contrasts it with the “saturation du féminin” in Idylls 2 and 15.2 In fact, as Cusset has shown, there is a similar elision of the male perspective in those two poems, even to the extent of there being no male narrator to mediate the female voices. In contrast, in several pastoral poems, the male narrator does not just mediate, but wholly constructs the voice and perspective of the female. The absence of the female is thus highlighted by the fact that the male characters address her in her absence and even create a role for her in a fictive erotic exchange. Where do these female characters come from? On the one hand, they seem to come from the imagination of the male character, on the other hand, there are hints that they derive from real personae of female poets, specifically Erinna, Nossis, and Anyte. In drawing this connection between Theocritus and these earlier poets, I seek to expand on a claim made by Marilyn Skinner, who has suggested that the female perspectives of the narrators in Idyll 15 derive from these poets and their authoritative female personae.3 By showing that the influence of these epigrammatists extends to Theocritus’ pastoral poems, I reveal how important they were for his poetic program more generally. The word ‘authority’ in my title situates Theocritus’ allusion to these female poets not only in terms of their authorship, but also because these allusions often place the constructed female perspective in the authoritative or socially dominant position within the dramatic situation of the poem. This dominance is made explicit through references to or representations of their gaze. Given the fact that many of these female perspectives are constructed as absent, i.e. invisible, the social power of their gaze gains special emphasis. My study will focus on the third Idyll, in which the absent female is most clearly constructed – both literally and literarily.

2. On the absent woman in Theocritus’ pastoral poems, see most recently Kossaifi (2020), whose reading of Idyll 3 (2020: 375-376) differs in some respects from mine, while occasionally noting the ways in which women are treated as statues (2020: 371, 373, 375). 3. Reconstructing this female poetic perspective does not, however, require a separate female poetic tradition that is intended only for a female audience. Bowman (2004) notes how attempts to posit such a separatist female tradition ignore the many points of contact between this putative female tradition and the normatively male poetic tradition. On the other hand, acknowledging that female poetry was not a world apart does not prohibit us from recognizing distinctly female perspectives or poetic personae. On gendered perspectives in Hellenistic epigram more generally, cf. Tueller (this volume) and Murray and Rowland (2007, with further bibliography).

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

61

1. Constructing the Erotic Gaze in Idyll 3 The goatherd of Idyll 3 courts the nymph Amaryllis, who never appears or responds. His speech addresses Amaryllis, repeatedly refers to her vision, and situates it within an erotic context.4 Several times he solicits her gaze. He reproaches her for not peeking out at him from her cave (παρκύπτοισα, 3.7). He explicitly begs her to look at him (θᾶσαι μάν, 3.12).5 Later, he expresses a wish for her to see him and poses beneath a pine tree in case she appears (3.38-9). Her vision seems to be at the forefront of his thoughts. He wonders, like Polyphemus in Idyll 11, whether he appears ugly to her (3.8-9). The goatherd’s cajoling tone and repeated attention to Amaryllis’ vision are accompanied by other overt signs of wooing, including a garland (3.21), a gift of apples (3.10), and amorous epithets for his beloved (3.6, 18).6 This repeated emphasis on Amaryllis’ vision makes it clear that one of the primary aims of the goatherd’s speech is simply to get the nymph to look at him. The goatherd articulates a particular viewing position for her and a potential erotic role for her in relation to himself. This solicitation of her gaze is a corollary of his solicitation of her love more generally. The focus on the nymph’s vision in Idyll 3 is written even into the character herself. Amaryllis’ name comes from the verb ἀμαρύσσειν which can denote both shimmering and a quick look. The name, along with the goatherd’s many solicitations of the nymph’s vision, suggests that the character can be reduced to “the essence of a flashing glance, or the personification of the seductiveness inherent in that glance”.7 This symmetry between the name of the nymph and the goatherd’s expectancy about her behavior – in addition to the evanescent visual characteristics

4. The erotic performance of the goatherd belongs to the ancient genre of the kômos (κωμάσδω, 3.1). For more on this genre and its performance, cf. Hunter (1999: 107-110). 5. Wakker’s conclusions about the attitudinal particle μάν suggest that this phrase is focused on her actual vision and not some more metaphorical use of the command ‘look!’ (1996: 260-61). 6. These other elements of the goatherd’s attempted seduction also implicate themselves upon Amaryllis’ vision. The garland he wears serves to make him appear more attractive. The apples he offers are presented to her sight, as the deictic adverb indicates (ἠνίδε τοι δέκα μᾶλα φέρω, 3.10). Finally, the goatherd addresses his beloved with the epithet ‘winsomely glancing’ (ὦ τὸ καλὸν ποθορεῦσα, 3.18). This description highlights her vision even as it makes it an aspect of her beauty, i.e. making her the object of his vision, cf. Hunter (1999: 199). 7. Gutzwiller (1991: 119). The base meaning of ἀμαρύσσειν probably refers to the shimmer which can be seen, rather than to the sight of the eye that creates it (Hunter 1999: 111).

62

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

associated with the name – explains why some suggest that Amaryllis may be no more than a figment of his imagination.8 Another reason for thinking that Amaryllis is a figment of the goatherd’s imagination is the fact that she never actually appears in the poem. The goatherd emphasizes this absence at the one point in which he speaks of his own vision: ἅλλεται ὀφθαλμός μευ ὁ δεξιός· ἆῥά γ᾽ ἰδησῶ αὐτάν; ᾀσεῦμαι ποτὶ τὰν πίτυν ὧδ᾽ ἀποκλινθείς, καί κέ μ᾽ ἴσως ποτίδοι, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἀδαμαντίνα ἐστίν. (Idyll 3.37-39) My right eye leaps. So will I see her? I’ll recline here beneath the pine and sing, and maybe she’ll look at me, since she’s not made of adamant.9

This is the only time in the poem that he refers directly to his own vision, and it suggests for the first time that the goatherd might seek a more active role as lover. This expectation is immediately subverted, however, when he poses beneath the tree in hopes of her gaze. His desire to see her quickly reverts to a desire to be seen by her. Commentators note that the leaping right eye is a sign of positive things to come in certain forms of divination.10 This interpretation may hold for the speaker – earlier he has confessed to consulting a sieve-diviner (3.31-32) and playing an equivalent of ‘she-loves-me-not’ with flower petals (3.29-30) – but for the reader, a more fitting parallel may be the common tendency for a twitching eye to serve as a sign of mental or physical abnormality. Herophilus, for example, considers spasms to be a voluntary action of the nerves.11 This medical schema would interpret the spasm as representing not an external sign of things to come, but the goatherd’s own impulses.12 His aching head and use of the medical term βρόχθος suggest that such a medical perspective would not be foreign to this poem.13 There is little evidence that the goatherd predicts correctly, and, in the end, his prediction proves false. The goatherd’s twitching eye and misinterpretation of it then become a means for the reader to evaluate him. His success at 8. Hunter (1999: 109, 113); Cusset (2017: 226). 9. All translations are my own. Unless otherwise noted, the text of Theocritus follows that of Hunter, and for poems not included in Hunter, that of Gow. 10. Gow (1952²: 72-3); Hunter (1999: 121). 11. Von Staden (1989: §149); cf. §140a for the eye as controlled by nerves. 12. Cf. also unusual movements of the eyes in the symptomology of tragic madness (Padel 1992: 60). 13. The term appears twice in the Hippocratic treatise Diseases 2. In particular note: ‘Every hour, he vomits about a few drops, about two throatfuls’ (κατὰ δύο βρόχθους, Morb. 2.74). The term καταβροχθίζειν ‘to gulp down’ also appears in Coan Prognoses 62. Cf. Σ Nicander Theriaca 366: βρόχθος γὰρ τὸ κοῖλον ἢ ὀλίγον ὕδωρ ῥέον ἀπὸ τοῦ βρόχθου τοῦ ἐν τῷ λαιμῷ, ὅθεν καὶ τὸ καταβροχθίζειν. ‘Brochthos is a cavity or a little liquid flowing from the throat in the neck, from which the term “gulping” comes.’

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

63

wooing Amaryllis is brought into question by several factors,14 but the nymph’s persistent absence suggests that rather than just a failure, his love is an impossibility. The Amaryllis he woos exists only in his own mind. There is another way of understanding Amaryllis as a construction of the goatherd’s imagination in this poem, namely, that she is a statue that he treats as if real. This agalmatophilic behavior was not unheard of in antiquity and could be a great source for humor.15 There are hints of this in the goatherd’s description of her as stone: τὸ πᾶν λίθος, ὦ κυάνοφρυ νύμφα ‘[you are] all stone, dark browed nymph’ (3.18-19).16 The combination of Amaryllis’ status as nymph and her residence in a cave (3.13) also suggest that she may be a statue.17 There is a similar irony in the goatherd’s hopeful expectation of Amaryllis’s imminent arrival ‘since she is not made of steel’ (ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἀδαμαντίνα ἐστίν, 3.39). While he intends the description metaphorically – i.e. she is not immune to desire – the choice of another material hints again that she may be an object.18 (This remark also plays off the earlier reference to her as stone: if she truly is a statue made of stone, the description of her as ‘not steel’ adds to the humor because it is literally true.) Finally, the goatherd’s rebuke when he threatens to kill himself offers an ironic double reading: καἴ κα μὴ ’ποθάνω, τό γε μὰν τεὸν ἁδὺ τέτυκται ‘Even if I don’t die, your pleasure will surely be made’ (3.27). In essence, he is suggesting that Amaryllis takes pleasure in his suffering, but the final verb also implies an act of artistic creation. The verb τεύχω often suggests that something is built or made physically by art or skill, and the perfect third-person τέτυκται appears in the same form and sedes twice in the ecphrasis of Idyll 1 (see below).19 Amaryllis’ pleasure in the goatherd’s death is a creation just as the nymph herself may be. Of course, these references 14. The description of his eye is one of a few moments that allow the audience of the poem to imagine how the goatherd looks, but all of them, like the close-up of the twitching eye, seem grotesque. We also see his snub-nose and pointy beard (3.8-9) and his soon-to-be frayed garland (3.21-23). A successful erotic encounter requires reciprocal vision. Both the absence of Amaryllis and the goatherd’s undesirable appearance discount the likelihood of such reciprocity in Idyll 3. 15. Pygmalion is the most famous of these (Ovid Met. 10.243-297), but Athenaeus mentions a certain Cleisophus of Salymbria as well (Deip. 13.605f). For a similar, roughly contemporary account, see SH 706 (= Posidippus 147 AB). 16. The Scholia suggest a particular type of stone, marble, which also implies that she is an artistic creation. 17. Gutzwiller (1991: 119-20); Hunter (1999: 113, 116); Cusset (2017: 226). Statues of nymphs also likely appear in Idyll 1 (Hunter 1999: 75). 18. Cf. the description of the chair of Heracles in Idyll 17, which is ‘made of steel’ (τετυγμένα ἐξ ἀδάμαντος, 17.21). 19. Idyll 1.32, 39; cf. Nossis (8.1, see below) and τετυγμένα in 17.21 and 24.135. The particle phrase γε μάν likely contrasts the creation of the pleasure (τό γε μὰν τεὸν ἁδὺ) with the death of the goatherd in the preceding clause, cf. Wakker (1996: 257).

64

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

to Amaryllis as art object are all subtextual rather than explicit. We do not need to read them as the primary meanings of these phrases, all of which have their own place within the goatherd’s fictive erotic exchange. Nevertheless, subtext is important in this poem, and especially in the goatherd’s song, as we will see. The goatherd fails to recognize much of the subtext of what he says, and the implication that Amaryllis is a statue is merely part of this. This reading of Amaryllis as statue also resolves one of the issues with the theory that she is merely a figment of his imagination. Several of his comments suggest that he and the nymph have had previous interactions.20 The apples that he brings are not a spontaneous gift; he brings them in response to a previous request (Id. 3.10-11). The erotic exchange that the goatherd constructs may be imaginary, but if he has also imagined Amaryllis in the past, then she is a repeated hallucination. Such recurring visions in antiquity usually accompany complete insanity. Despite the goatherd’s absurdity and naiveté, he does not seem to be genuinely insane. A solution arises if we accept Amaryllis’ material form as a statue. The goatherd, then, is so slow-witted, or so blinded by his infatuation, that he mistakes the statue for a real woman. That he has done this more than once adds further emphasis to his stupidity. In the end, we must admit uncertainty. Is the nymph present or absent? Is she real or imaginary? Is she alive or a statue? The poem offers no definite answers to these questions, but, as I hope to have shown, it does raise them. Our uncertainty as readers results from the unreliability of the narrator, whose own mental instability never fully allows us access to the reality of his situation. The unresolved ambiguity of the goatherd’s main addressee may strike us at first as unsettling, but it plays an important role not only in Theocritus’ other poems, but also in the female epigrammatic perspectives upon which he draws.

2. Gazing (at) Artworks in Theocritus and Female-Authored Epigram A similarly ambiguous figure appears in the first vignette of the goatherd’s cup in Idyll 1. Here the setting seems to be in the city – the proper location for a kômos like that which we find in Idyll 3. In Idyll 1, the situation is not that of the exclusus amator, but rather a competition for the woman’s love. Nevertheless, we find two men who are shut out figuratively by the woman’s continually shifting attention: 20. Stanzel (1995: 196).

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

65

ἔντοσθεν δὲ γυνά, τι θεῶν δαίδαλμα, τέτυκται, ἀσκητὰ πέπλῳ τε καὶ ἄμπυκι· πὰρ δέ οἱ ἄνδρες καλὸν ἐθειράζοντες ἀμοιβαδὶς ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος νεικείουσ’ ἐπέεσσι· τὰ δ’ οὐ φρενὸς ἅπτεται αὐτᾶς· ἀλλ’ ὅκα μὲν τῆνον ποτιδέρκεται ἄνδρα γέλαισα, ἄλλοκα δ’ αὖ ποτὶ τὸν ῥιπτεῖ νόον· οἳ δ’ ὑπ’ ἔρωτος δηθὰ κυλοιδιόωντες ἐτώσια μοχθίζοντι. (Id. 1.32-38) Within, a woman, some creation of the gods, is wrought, decorated with robe and snood. Beside her, men with lovely, long hair take turns, one after the other, battling with words. These don’t catch her attention. But now she looks at this one smiling, and then again she turns her mind to the other. And they, long swollen-eyed with love, struggle in vain.

Let us reckon the similarities with Idyll 3. Here is a woman (γυνά), or is she a statue (δαίδαλμα)? As both woman and creation, she may evoke Pandora, but her true nature remains unclear.21 Instead of one lonely goatherd, she is paired with two men who quarrel over her, but like the goatherd of Idyll 3, both seem to be vying for her love, despite the fact that she may not be alive. The manner of this quarrel suggests another similarity. It may be a poetic competition, as they are said to quarrel with ἔπεα, a common word for poetic speech, and they take turns (ἀμοιβαδίς), as many bucolic singers do.22 The phrase ἐτώσια μοχθίζοντι appears elsewhere in Theocritus (Idyll 7.48) of poets who vie with Homer. Such a direct song competition between lovers is nowhere evidenced in the Theocritean corpus, but is also not entirely unimaginable.23 The scene concludes with a striking reference to erotic vision. The men’s vision is weakened; they are ‘swollen-eyed from love.’ In contrast, the woman/ statue employs an “indifferently shifting gaze.”24 She looks at one and then turns her mind to the other.25 Like Idyll 3, in this scene, the woman’s 21. Cf. Miles (1977: 146-47). 22. Cf. Hunter (1999: 80). For ἔπεα as poetry, cf. Theocritus Epigram 21.6. (On the authenticity of this epigram, cf. Rossi 2001: 329-330.) Others have noted the parallel appearance of ἀμοιβαδίς in the Homeric ecphrasis of the shield, which is a valid intertext, but it may not be the only referent, especially given the amoebaean nature of bucolic song. Cf. Gow (1952²: 9): “the circumstances of the quarrel-scene on the shield of Achilles… are very different”. 23. Theocritean lovers, who do find themselves in love triangles, also fail in competition for the affection of their beloved: Aeschynus loses Cynisca to Lycus (Id. 14.24-38); for the correspondence of this situation to that on the cup, cf. Stanzel (1995: 187n8). Aratus loses Philinus to Molon (7.98-125; cf. Gow 1952²: 162). Simaetha worries that she has lost Delphis to someone whom she doesn’t know (2.154-58). Polyphemus (6.26; 11.77-78) and the goatherd in Idyll 3 (34-36) both feign interest in another woman to attract their beloveds. 24. Burton (1995: 108). 25. The ‘turning of the mind’ (1.37) does not expressly evoke vision, but implies it (cf. the verb νοεῖν, which often denotes vision). The previous line does explicitly refer to

66

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

gaze dominates even if the result is not what the male lovers would have hoped for. To the men’s powerless swollen eyes, described by the semimedical term κυλοιδιόωντες, we might compare the spastic eyeball of the unsuccessful goatherd.26 Much of this important scene in this programmatic poem anticipates the situation of the third Idyll. This suggests that such a situation is important to Theocritean poetry more generally and encourages us to look for further parallels elsewhere. The gazing female/statue in Idyll 1 and her/its putative double in Idyll 3 offer a surprising connection with the other famous ecphrasis in Theocritus. Like the men on the cup and the goatherd in Idyll 3, the Syracusan housewives of Idyll 15 produce their own erotic gaze, when they ogle the image of young Adonis on the tapestries: [Go:] Πραξινόα, πόταγ’ ὧδε. τὰ ποικίλα πρᾶτον ἄθρησον, λεπτὰ καὶ ὡς χαρίεντα· θεῶν περονάματα φασεῖς. [Pr:] πότνι’ Ἀθαναία, ποῖαί σφ’ ἐπόνασαν ἔριθοι, ποῖοι ζωογράφοι τἀκριβέα γράμματ’ ἔγραψαν. ὡς ἔτυμ’ ἑστάκαντι καὶ ὡς ἔτυμ’ ἐνδινεῦντι, ἔμψυχ’, οὐκ ἐνυφαντά. σοφόν τι χρῆμ’ ἄνθρωπος. αὐτὸς δ’ ὡς θαητὸς ἐπ’ ἀργυρέας κατάκειται κλισμῶ, πρᾶτον ἴουλον ἀπὸ κροτάφων καταβάλλων, ὁ τριφίλητος Ἄδωνις, ὁ κἠν Ἀχέροντι φιληθείς. (Id. 15.78-86) [Go.] Praxinoa, come here. Look first at the tapestries, how subtle and graceful they are. You would call them garments of the gods. [Pr.] Lady Athena, such great weavers labored at this; such great painters drew these accurate lines. They stand as if real, and they move about as if real, with a soul in them, not woven in. What a wise thing man is! How wondrous he looks lying back on his silver couch, sprouting the first down from his temples. Adonis loved three-times, loved even in the underworld.

These lines and the ecphrasis that they sketch are a major point of contention in Theocritean scholarship. The women clearly employ terminology that can be identified as programmatic within Hellenistic poetry. The point of contention arises over whether their perspective is to be seen as sympathetic or ironized. I am less concerned with answering this difficult question than with showing how this passage evokes a similar viewing situation to that of Idylls 1 and 3. Praxinoa seems enchanted by what she vision (ποτιδέρκεται) and the parallel construction (ἀλλ’ ὅκα μὲν… ἄλλοκα δ’…) suggests that the shift in the second line involves her gaze as well. Hughes Fowler compares this scene with a painting of Achilles surrendering Briseis in which “there can be no doubt that Achilles is casting his thought as well as his glance toward Briseis” (Hughes Fowler 1989: 6-7). 26. Cf. Hunter (1999: 80-81): “κύλα are the tender parts under the eyes”. The verb is used to describe the effects of poison in Nicander Theriaca 466.

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

67

sees – a situation that the goatherd of Idyll 3 would clearly envy – and she might even give further expression to her erotic feelings if she were not interrupted by the rude stranger immediately after this passage. Her beloved Adonis lies in repose (κατάκειται) not unlike the goatherd who lies in repose as he sings to Amaryllis (ἀποκλινθείς, 3.38), and she notices the same feature about which the goatherd worries in Idyll 3: Adonis’ young, downy face makes a much prettier sight than the goatherd’s prominent beard and broad nose.27 Praxinoa plays precisely the role that the goatherd imagines for Amaryllis, but as in Idyll 3, the erotic exchange is not realized because one of the members is an artwork that seems to be alive. As has already been studied, this aspect of Idyll 15 evokes a programmatic perspective derived from ecphrastic epigrams authored by women. Skinner (2001) explains the literary influence of this “gendered gaze” on Theocritus’ mime, and I will briefly summarize some of her argument here. An epigram by Erinna expresses a familiar wonder at the lifelikeness of a work of art: Ἐξ ἀταλᾶν χειρῶν τάδε γράμματα· λῷστε Προμαθεῦ, ἔντι καὶ ἄνθρωποι τὶν ὁμαλοὶ σοφίαν. ταύταν γοῦν ἐτύμως τὰν παρθένον ὅστις ἔγραψεν αἰ καὐδὰν ποτέθηκ᾿ ἦς κ᾿ Ἀγαθαρχὶς ὅλα. (AP 6.352 = HE 3) This image comes from gentle hands. Great Prometheus, there are even men who rival you in skill. Whoever painted this girl so truly, if he added a voice too, it would be Agatharchis completely.

This poem, which is often recognized as the earliest extant ecphrastic epigram, engages with earlier discussions about artistic creation, mimesis, and voice. But as with Idyll 3, the persona of the narrator – which, in the lack of indicators to the contrary, we must assume is Erinna herself – is important. In short, “as a female viewer, accordingly, [the narrator of Erinna’s poem] stands in a privileged position with respect to the reader of the epigram, for she alone can assure him of the picture’s fidelity to life.”28 The only thing which breaks this illusion is the image’s silence. This lack of voice reminds us of the poet’s own capacity with words, as do the γράμματα which, as in Idyll 15, refer to a painting but

27. The description of Aphrodite’s love for Adonis in the hymnist’s song (15.128-135) also suggests Adonis’ erotic power and repeats the detail which attracts Praxinoa’s attention, namely his newly grown beard. 28. Skinner (2001: 209). For a reading of the poem as “[demonstrating] how authentic female voice is suppressed by male art”, cf. Murray and Rowland (2007: 223-225).

68

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

quietly evoke the poet’s own use of words as well.29 The rivalry between the painter and Prometheus surely reminds us of his most famous creation: Pandora, who is both a woman and something made. More significant for our purposes are the epigrams in which art images are bestowed with their own gazes. Licciardello (this volume) shows the significance of the female gaze in Nossis, so I limit myself to one epigram which depicts a work of art that gazes back: Αὐτομέλιννα τέτυκται· ἴδ᾿ ὡς ἀγανὸν τὸ πρόσωπον. ἁμὲ ποτοπτάζειν μειλιχίως δοκέει. ὡς ἐτύμως θυγάτηρ τᾷ ματέρι πάντα ποτῴκει· ἦ καλὸν ὅκκα πέλῃ τέκνα γονεῦσιν ἴσα. (AP 6.353 = HE 8) Melinna herself is made. Look how gentle the face is. She seems to watch us serenely. How truly the daughter resembles the mother in every way. It’s good when children are like their parents.

After a brief description of the image and its appearance, we find that the artwork seems to gaze back at the speaker. In fact, we find a rudimentary exchange of vision in the narrator’s order for the reader to ‘look’ (ἴδ᾿) and the image’s return of that glance.30 The final two lines draw a connection between Melinna’s appearance and that of her mother, utilizing the same phrase that Praxinoa repeats when viewing Adonis (ὡς ἐτύμως ‘how truly’). The precise significance of the mother is unclear, but does clearly refer to some form of artistic authority.31 A similar use of maternal genealogy to evoke female authority appears in another epigram (AP 6.265 = HE 3) where she identifies herself as the daughter of Theophilis, daughter of Cleocha.32 Yet another epigram (AP 9.332 = HE 4) describes a community of female viewers traveling to a temple of Aphrodite to gaze upon the statue. These and other details suggest that Nossis’ poetry addresses a female audience and articulates a female poetic perspective.33 Like Erinna’s epigram, this poem constructs both 29. Männlein-Robert (2007: 41-43). For the femininity of the hands which paint the image, cf. Gutzwiller (2002: 88-89). 30. A similar female gaze is insinuated in Nossis’ Epigram 7 where verbal play suggests that the woman looks at and fawns upon the reader/viewer: σαίνοι κέν σ᾿ ἐσιδοῖσα καὶ οἰκοφύλαξ σκυλάκαινα ‘seeing you, might fawn even the house-guarding girl pup’ (7.3). After a brief description of the painting, the beginning of this line suggests that the image gazes at the reader by means of the female participle and the ambiguous verb σαίνοι, which clearly means ‘to wag the tail’ when we reach the puppy at the end of the line, but might simply mean ‘fawns over’ when we first encounter it. The reader might identify as the “you” in the beginning of the line, before he realizes that it apostrophizes the painting, cf. Tueller (2008: 167-68). 31. On the mother as Nossis herself, cf. Männlein-Robert (2007: 50-51). 32. Cf. Skinner (1991: 23). 33. Cf. Skinner (1991); Gutzwiller (1997: 219).

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

69

a female object of vision and a female viewing authority. After all, the gaze of Melinna’s image must in some way derive from the gaze of the woman herself. But when we look more closely at the woman herself, a familiar ambiguity arises. The poem frames the name Melinna, which refers to the actual subject who was painted, between the neuter prefix αὐτο- and the verb τέτυκται. This framework objectifies the girl, making it unclear if Αὐτομέλιννα is the girl herself or the artwork.34 Finally, an epigram by Anyte describes the cult statue of Aphrodite, which performs a reciprocal exchange of gazes with the sea: Κύπριδος οὗτος ὁ χῶρος ἐπεὶ φίλον ἔπλετο τήνᾳ αἰὲν ἀπ᾿ ἠπείρου λαμπρὸν ὁρῆν πέλαγος ὄφρα φίλον ναύτῃσι τελῇ πλόον· ἀμφὶ δὲ πόντος δειμαίνει λιπαρὸν δερκόμενος ξόανον. (AP 9.144 = HE 15) This is the precinct of Kypris, since it is always dear to her to see the shining sea from the land, so that she might bring good sailing to boatsmen; and all around, the sea is afraid, seeing the brilliant statue.

Here, the animation of the statue is an index of its divinity rather than some ambiguity between humanity and art. That a statue of a goddess would behave as if alive would not be a surprise for an ancient reader. Aphrodite’s observation of the sea is an aspect of her role as maritime deity, but there is also a reciprocity of gazes. She gazes upon the sea, but the last two words of the poem emphasize that, like Melinna, she is an object to be seen. Despite the implicit eroticism that always accompanies Aphrodite, the sea is not aroused, but afraid, an index of the goddess’ power. Skinner uses these poems to reconstruct a female poetic perspective that deploys what she calls a “gendered gaze.” As noted above (see note 3), the traits of these poems are not unique to female-authored epigrams, but I agree with Skinner that the gender of the gaze is marked in both these epigrams and Theocritus. In both the epigrams and Idyll 15, artworks are seen through a female perspective and praised for their lifelike verism.35 In Theocritus, the gaze only goes in one direction: the image of Adonis does not gaze back, but the women’s vision and their gender stand out. The erotic undertones of Praxinoa’s comments might be found in the speech of a man, the traditional pursuer of beautiful young boys, but in Theocritus, in general, the male face is only to be viewed by a woman. We have already seen the goatherd’s concern in 34. For a more expansive exploration of the poem’s play with the boundaries between humanity and artwork, cf. Tueller (2008: 169-172). 35. Cf. Männlein-Robert (2007: 287).

70

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

Idyll 3 about how he appears to Amaryllis. In Idyll 11, Polyphemus also worries about how his face appears to Galatea (11.30-33). Even Simichidas’ homoerotic song about the beautiful boy Philinus frames the boy’s appearance through the perspective of women: αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες, / ‘αἰαῖ,’ φαντί, ‘Φιλῖνε, τό τοι καλὸν ἄνθος ἀπορρεῖ’ ‘The women say, “alas, Philinus, your beautiful bloom abandons you”’ (7.120-21).36 So, Praxinoa’s gaze at the lifelike image of Adonis concurs with emphatically female gazes from female-authored epigram and from elsewhere in Theocritus. Whether we consider Theocritus’ Syracusan women as sympathetic or not, it is clear that their gender and their gaze are connected. This is likely enough to evoke the parallels that Skinner suggests. To further demonstrate how Theocritus follows the female epigrammatists’ ecphrastic example, we can note an instance where he emphatically does not do so. Among the ecphrastic epigrams attributed to Theocritus, one about a statue of the poet Anacreon seems to evoke a direct contrast with Erinna’s Agatharchis epigram:37 Θᾶσαι τὸν ἀνδριάντα τοῦτον, ὦ ξένε, σπουδᾷ, καὶ λέγ’ ἐπὴν ἐς οἶκον ἔνθῃς· ‘Ἀνακρέοντος εἰκόν’ εἶδον ἐν Τέῳ τῶν πρόσθ’ εἴ τι περισσὸν ᾠδοποιῶν’. προσθεὶς δὲ χὤτι τοῖς νέοισιν ἅδετο ἐρεῖς ἀτρεκέως ὅλον τὸν ἄνδρα. (Theocritus, Epigram 17 = HE 15) Observe that statue carefully, O stranger, and say when you come home, “I saw in Teos an image of Anacreon, extraordinary among the earlier poets, if anyone is.” If you add that he took pleasure in young men, you will describe the man completely.

The promise of adding one fact to portray the man completely (ὅλον τὸν ἄνδρα) parallels Erinna’s remark that the addition of a voice would portray Agatharchis completely (Ἀγαθαρχίς ὅλα). This parallel has been noticed since at least Gow and Page’s commentary,38 but as far as I am aware, none have suggested an explicit allusion to Erinna. Several other parallels allow us to accept this conclusion. First, the verbs signifying the addition are essentially the same. Erinna’s ποτέθηκ᾽ is a Doric form of the verb προστίθημι. Theocritus indicates his addition with the Ionic participle of the same verb (προσθεὶς). Furthermore, like Erinna’s painting of Agatharchis, Theocritus’ statue is also without a voice. The second

36. Cf. also Simaetha’s gaze at the beautiful Delphis and his friend Eudamippus (2.77-83). 37. For the authenticity of these poems, see Rossi (2001: 355-59). 38. Gow and Page (19652: 284, 532); Bing (1988: 121); Rossi (2001: 285).

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

71

couplet gives the reader/viewer a voice, but the statue remains emphatically silent.39 The final lines also displace the voice of the statue in favor of that of the reader. Anacreon’s poetry, i.e. his voice,40 proclaims his love for boys, but this information must be spoken by the reader (ἐρεῖς), rather than Anacreon. Finally, the speech act itself is imbued with accuracy, like the act of painting in Erinna’s poem (Theocritus: ἀτρεκέως, Erinna: ἐτύμως). This poem allows us to confirm Theocritus’ engagement with Erinna, but also offers an essential contrast to the pastoral passages discussed above. Significantly, this statue is not lifelike and the reader never questions its status as object.41 In addition, although the epigram mentions Anacreon’s eroticism, this poem includes neither erotic vision nor gender distinctions. The female gender is excluded completely, a fact which may be emphasized by the objects of Anacreon’s love (“young men”) and the poem’s ending with the word “man” (ἄνδρα). The male model and implicit male context of this artwork does not take up the themes of lifelikeness, erotic vision, or female gender which appear in Theocritus’ pastoral ecphrases, despite the fact that Theocritus clearly alludes to Erinna in this poem. This contrast helps to underscore the significance of her and the other female epigrammatists as models for his pastoral ecphrases. To return to our discussion of the pastoral poems of Theocritus, we can note that many of the parallels between Idyll 15 and the femaleauthored epigrams can also be found in Idylls 1 and 3. The ambiguity between artwork and living person is paramount, but we can also recognize the importance of female authority. As we have seen, in both Idyll 3 and the scene on the goatherd’s cup, the woman holds the power, despite the possibility that she is a lifeless object. The gazing artworks in the three epigrams we have surveyed all exert their own power and authority. Melinna’s image does not rely upon any male authority to prove its accuracy. Instead, the mother serves as the touchstone against which the artistry is to be judged. In Anyte, Aphrodite looks out over the sea in the dominant position. Her ability to bring good sailing to sailors shows that she can control the sea, and, when the sea does look upon her, it fears her. It may be worth noting that the gendered gaze of Idyll 15, in which women gaze at artworks, is practically inverted in the pastoral poems, where women gaze as artworks. In fact, the gazing women/statues of Idylls 1 and 3 evoke the gendered gaze of the female epigrammatists 39. Cf. Bing (1988: 122): “the mute stones do not speak.” 40. On this metapoetic dimension of the voice more generally, see Männlein-Robert (2007). 41. Bing (1988: 120-121).

72

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

more directly than Idyll 15, in which the artwork depicts a male who does not gaze back. In Idylls 1 and 3, like the female-authored epigrams, this gendered gaze is doubly embedded within an artwork. The gazing statue of Idyll 1 is itself embedded within the ecphrasis of the cup. Amaryllis, on the other hand, is framed by the goatherd’s performative, comastic ravings. But Idyll 3 offers a further embedding of the female gaze in an artwork. In the middle of the goatherd’s ravings, he sings a song (3.40-51). This song is in essence a series of historiolae, i.e. mythical examples that reality is meant to follow, but the scenes that it sketches may also recall Amaryllis’ uncertain status as woman/artwork.

3. Dominant Gazes in the Goatherd’s Song It is often noted that this serenade is filled with exempla upon which the goatherd models his romantic interaction with Amaryllis and that these exempla forebode his own destruction.42 I suggest another aspect of these exempla, namely that they demonstrate a similar economy of gazes to that which the goatherd proposes in the rest of the poem: a dominant female gazing at a subordinate male.43 The condensed nature of the mythical exempla – they vary in length from three lines to little more than one – means that the relevance of the myth, including the gaze of the female, can often only be understood by an audience who knows the myth from other sources. The myths of Atalanta and Aphrodite are the longest and most explicit in their evocation of the female lover’s vision. As such, they serve as a guide to the reader’s interpretation of the more condensed myths. The fact that some of these scenes have antecedents in the artistic tradition may also accentuate the poem’s ambivalent presentation of Amaryllis as woman/statue. The first myth which the goatherd narrates is the most explicit both in depicting vision and in drawing an analogy with the goatherd and Amaryllis: Ἱππομένης, ὅκα δὴ τὰν παρθένον ἤθελε γᾶμαι, μᾶλ’ ἐν χερσὶν ἑλὼν δρόμον ἄνυεν· ἁ δ’ Ἀταλάντα ὡς ἴδεν, ὣς ἐμάνη, ὣς ἐς βαθὺν ἅλατ’ ἔρωτα. (Id. 3.40-42)

42. Cf. Fantuzzi (1996: 22-27). 43. I pass over the second episode of the song, in which the seer Melampus wins Pero from her father, Neleus, and gives the woman to his brother, Bias. No extant version of this story involves a powerful woman or her gaze, but it may be significant that the male lover of the story, Bias, remains inactive and largely powerless.

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

73

Hippomenes, when he wished to wed the maiden, took apples in his hands and completed the race. Atalanta, as soon as she saw, she went mad, and leapt into the depths of love.

When Atalanta sees the apples – or Hippomenes holding them, the object of ἴδεν is not clear – she is overcome with love, as if the apples are a successful love token rather than a trick to win the race. Comparing this scene with the goatherd’s attempt to lure Amaryllis out of her cave by showing her apples (Id. 3.10) makes clear that the figures in the myth serve as analogues for the goatherd and Amaryllis.44 More significantly for our purposes, in this myth Atalanta is dominant. She is the better athlete and only loses because of Hippomenes’ trick with the apples. Nevertheless, she sees something and then she falls in love. The goatherd’s selection of this myth to open his song suggests that he seeks a dominant woman, even if he hopes that she will be subdued by love. This example offers an explicit parallel between the myth and the goatherd’s own situation. In the rest of the myths the parallels are only implicit, although the power dynamics are more obvious. The final three myths in the goatherd’s song each refer to a goddess who falls in love with a mortal. In addition to inverting the usual gendered power dynamic of Greek heterosexual love, each of these pairings may also highlight the female goddess’ erotic gaze. In the case of Adonis, his beauty and its effect on Aphrodite are well known (e.g. Ovid Met. 10.529-32). In Idyll 3, Adonis’ beauty is not explicitly mentioned, but we are told that: τὰν δὲ καλὰν Κυθέρειαν ἐν ὤρεσι μῆλα νομεύων οὐχ οὕτως Ὥδωνις ἐπὶ πλέον ἄγαγε λύσσας, ὥστ’ οὐδὲ φθίμενόν νιν ἄτερ μαζοῖο τίθητι; (Id. 3.45-47) Tending his sheep in the mountains, did not Adonis drive the beautiful Kytherian so mad that she did not part him from her breast even when he was dying?

The first two lines present the reader with the enigma of Adonis shepherding in the mountains and Aphrodite falling in love with him. How did she fall in love with him while he simply tended his herds? A precedent for this exists in the story of Aphrodite’s love for Anchises: Ἀγχίσεω δ᾽ ἄρα οἱ γλυκὺν ἵμερον ἔμβαλε θυμῷ, ὃς τότ᾽ ἐν ἀκροπόλοις ὄρεσιν πολυπιδάκου Ἴδης βουκολέεσκεν βοῦς δέμας ἀθανάτοισιν ἐοικώς. τὸν δἤπειτα ἰδοῦσα φιλομμειδὴς Ἀφροδίτη ἠράσατ᾽, ἐκπάγλως δὲ κατὰ φρένας ἵμερος εἷλεν. (Hom. Hymn 5.53-57) 44. Lawall (1967: 40).

74

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

[Zeus] threw into her heart sweet desire for Anchises, who was tending his herd on the highest peaks of many-springed Ida and resembled immortals in build. When smile-loving Aphrodite saw him, she fell in love, and desire seized her mind completely.

In both Idyll 3 and the Hymn we find a herdsman in the mountains and an explicit indication that Aphrodite’s mind was altered, although Theocritus uses the more abstract term lyssa rather than the physiological description of the hymn. The parallels between these two lovers of the goddess may not seem striking at first, but these two scenes – Anchises on Ida and Adonis tending his sheep – are mentioned together elsewhere in Theocritus (Id. 1.105-110). The importance of vision in this scene is supported by an intratextual parallel. The description of Adonis is placed in juxtaposition with the story of Atalanta by means of a subtle pun: Hippomenes woos Atalanta by showing her μᾶλα, while Adonis woos Aphrodite by tending his μῆλα. Unlike Hippomenes, Adonis does not have to do anything special to enflame Aphrodite with love, and the implication may be that he does it unintentionally. This punning juxtaposition of the Atalanta and Adonis myths encourages the reader to recognize the implicit gaze of Aphrodite within these lines by analogy with the explicit gaze of Atalanta. Perhaps relevant is the fact that Adonis and Aphrodite are depicted together often in ancient art, almost always in a situation of erotic gazing.45 The exact nature of the scene varies, but the goddess’ gaze remains prominent.46 We find this scene in several media (vases, mirrors, pendant) spanning several centuries (5th B.C.E.–3rd B.C.E.) and from a wide geographical range (Athens, Corinth, Locris, Etruria). This consistency across these categories suggests that this scene could have appeared in some form in Alexandria, or wherever Theocritus was when he wrote this poem. In any event, it was likely a common enough motif to be recognizable to Theocritus and his audience. The appearance of the scene on mirrors suggests a playful awareness of the gaze and its return. The scene which Theocritus describes, of Adonis dying in Aphrodite’s arms, certainly seems suitable for an artistic depiction.47 Bion later depicts the scene of Adonis’ death with a notable emphasis on the goddess’ vision: 45. LIMC s.v. Adonis nos. 8, 9, 11-14, 16-21. See Appendix, Figures 1 and 2. 46. In some of the scenes, e.g. LIMC s.v. Adonis no. 12 (Appendix, Fig. 2), Aphrodite sits below Adonis and seems to be enchanted by his beauty. This subordination of the goddess parallels the dominant but enchanted Atalanta described above. 47. Our only extant examples come from the Roman period, e.g. LIMC s.v. Adonis nos. 35 and 36. The Scholia see φθίμενόν as a reference to Adonis’ cohabitation with Aphrodite for half of the year and with Persephone for the other half. Perhaps the reader would recall an artistic motif in which Aphrodite carries Adonis back from underworld in

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

75

ὡς ἴδεν, ὡς ἐνόησεν Ἀδώνιδος ἄσχετον ἕλκος, ὡς ἴδε φοίνιον αἷμα μαραινομένῳ περὶ μηρῷ, πάχεας ἀμπετάσασα κινύρετο, ‘μεῖνον Ἄδωνι. (Bion, Epitaph for Adonis 40-42) As she looked, as she saw the impossible wound of Adonis, as she saw the red blood around his dying thigh, she threw out her arms and wailed.

The goddess’ grief is a dramatic elaboration of the same scene in Theocritus’ Idyll, and the first line utilizes a parallel construction to that which describes Atalanta’s vision and reaction above. The final two myths of the song are both very brief but are similar in form to the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis. Endymion, like Adonis, was known for his superlative beauty, which the goddess sees and which enchants her.48 Although again the goddess’ gaze is not explicitly mentioned, the goatherd does profess his envy for the sleeping Endymion (3.49-50), and most forms of the myth emphasize that when Endymion sleeps Selene watches. In Apollonius’ Argonautica, Mênê, another appellation of Selene, complains of being unable to satisfy her love for Endymion when Medea makes her provide a dark night, i.e. leave the sky (Arg. 4.57-61). The goddess’ gaze is implicit in her complaint at having to leave the sky, from where she can see her beloved.49 Sappho seems to be the first source for this story, although her version is no longer extant.50 Stehle suggests that Sappho’s lost story of Selene and Endymion may have had parallels with Aphrodite and Adonis: Endymion is sleeping, Adonis dying. By portraying a man’s ‘strengthlessness,’ Sappho reinstates hierarchy: the young man is demoted to passivity and the goddess prevails. The goddess can gaze at the young man with a possessive look. (Stehle 1996: 224)

If Stehle’s conjecture is correct, Sappho’s representation of these figures is typical of later literary and artistic versions of the scene.51 A common a chariot with the young man pressed to her chest and staring into her eyes (LIMC s.v. Aphrodite nos. 1556-1558). 48. Cf. [Apollod.] Bib. 1.7.5: τούτου κάλλει διενεγκόντος ἠράσθη Σελήνη ‘Selene loved that one because he excelled in beauty.’ 49. Although composed much later, the versions of Lucian and Quintus of Smyrna make this gaze explicit: ‘Selene… whenever you are in Caria, you stop your car and stare at (ἀφορῶσαν) Endymion sleeping in the open air’ (Lucian D. Deor. 19.1); ‘Divine Selene once looked down on (ὑψόθεν ἀθρήσασα) Endymion sleeping beside his flock, and came down from the sky. For sharp desire of the youth drove her although she was a virgin goddess’ (Q. S. Posthom. 10.128-31). 50. Page (1955: 273-74). The testimony comes from the Scholia to Argonautica 4.57. 51. This scene would have stood out in Sappho, whose poems do not often depict objectifying gazes, cf. Stehle (1996: 224): “Selene’s gaze on Endymion must have been straightforward, the gaze that Sappho’s poetry usually avoids constructing”.

76

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

artistic representation of Selene and Endymion shows the goddess looking down on him, while he either sleeps or looks away.52 Other plastic versions show the two in a reciprocal gaze, although Selene still gazes down from above in a position of power.53 Like the artistic representations of Aphrodite and Adonis, the goddess’ gaze remains prominent across time, space, and media, suggesting that the Theocritean audience may have had an artistic rather than a literary model in mind.54 The goatherd’s jealousy of a sleeping Endymion (Id. 3.49-50) shows his preference for a passive role in the encounter, and likely emphasizes his desire to be the object of Amaryllis’ gaze. The myth of Demeter and Iasion has fewer extant representations to aid interpretation, but seems to be of a similar type. Iasion, like Adonis and Endymion, appears to be a beautiful youth, while Demeter is usually represented as the initiator.55 The famous mention of Iasion and Demeter by Calypso frames this pair as emblematic of a relationship where a goddess actively pursues a mortal lover (Od. 5.118-26). Although Demeter is the active pursuer, Calypso still makes clear that she ‘yielded to her passion’ (ᾧ θυμῷ εἴξασα, Od. 5.126). The cause of this passion is not mentioned, but it would not be unusual for it to be caused by the mortal’s beauty.56 All of these myths have the potential to highlight the female gaze, especially within the context of the Idyll’s emphatic attention to Amaryllis’ vision. Only the last two myths explicitly state the goatherd’s envy for mortals who obtain immortal lovers, but they all offer a potential parallel for the goatherd and Amaryllis. The role he sets out for himself is that of a captivating young man, and the role he sets out for Amaryllis is that of a powerful woman or goddess driven to love by something she sees (most 52. LIMC s.v. Endymion nos. 19, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 46, 50, 53. 53. LIMC s.v. Endymion nos. 13, 14, 37, 61, 87a. See Appendix, Figs. 3 and 4. Endymion’s open eyes may not signify an active gaze since one version of the myth has him put to sleep with his eyes open in order to make his full beauty visible to the goddess (Ath. Deip. 13.564C). 54. An artistic model for this scene is first suggested by Ott (1969: 182). 55. The scarcity of textual and material testimony for the Iasion myth makes any characterization of it provisional. I have found no textual testimony which refer to Iasion’s appearance. The LIMC entry for Iasion identifies only one certain iconographic representation, a pottery fragment, which depicts Iasion in a Phrygian cap, but his curly hair may be a sign of youthful beauty (LIMC V.1.628). 56. The goatherd’s reference to the ‘uninitiated’ (βέβαλοι, Id. 3.51) probably alludes to the Eleusinian mysteries. (The plural seems to indicate a generalized group of which Amaryllis is part, cf. Hunter 1999: 128.) The meaning of such an allusion is hard to determine due to our incomplete understanding of that ritual. Nevertheless, the mysteries do seem to center on some form of visual revelation (Foley 1994: 38-39, 54, 66, 68-70). Perhaps, the goatherd’s identification of Amaryllis as uninitiated serves as one last attempt to lure Amaryllis into looking at him by tempting her with the promise of a forbidden sight.

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

77

often the young man). The goatherd’s failure to convince Amaryllis to look at him places him in ironic juxtaposition with these figures. The artistic parallels for two of the goddesses that serve as models for Amaryllis may recall her ambivalent status as woman/artwork. If the goatherd is alluding to artistic scenes, then his role as the male beloved would frame him as part of the same artwork. This wish to transform into the same nature as the beloved is not unlike Polyphemus’ desire to grow gills so he can join the water nymph Galatea underwater (Id. 11.54-55). By drawing upon the viewing perspectives of powerful females, a few of whom were even endowed with the authority over cultic activity, the goatherd’s song serves as a microcosm for the poem as a whole, in which Theocritus also draws upon the perspectives – literally and figuratively – of female epigrammatists.

4. Conclusion This reading of Idyll 3 reveals its emphasis on female authority and female vision both within the drama of its narrative and as a poetic and artistic precedent for that narrative. On the surface, this poem offers a straightforward tale of a love-struck simpleton who struggles to manage and express his feelings. His ravings and incoherence make the reality of his situation difficult for a reader to comprehend. Some basic facts are clear: he wishes to be seen by Amaryllis; despite his aggressive overtures, he wishes to be the passive partner in the courtship; and Amaryllis may not be as real as the goatherd thinks she is. Close attention to the poetic and artistic models, including the programmatic ecphrases within the Theocritean corpus, strengthens a subtextual implication of the poem: that Amaryllis is not a woman, but an artwork. The ambiguity of her status is something that the poem never resolves, and neither do the ecphrastic epigrams upon which it draws. The power that the goatherd seeks to bestow upon Amaryllis parallels Theocritus’ own acknowledgement of the authority of his female epigrammatic models. This allows us to return to the “absence inquiétante” of Cusset with which we opened this study. Amaryllis’ voice may be absent, but that absence itself helps reveal the important female literary voices upon which Theocritus draws. Many near contemporaries of Theocritus celebrated Erinna as the most famous female epigrammatist, emphasising her femininity to the point of reducing her to it, in effect reifying her as more woman than poet. 57 57. See Gutzwiller (1997: 220). She describes this process using the metaphor of death rather than objectification.

78

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

Nossis, on the other hand, was an object of derision for Herodas, who at one point even reduces her to a pair of shoes (Mim. 7.57).58 Theocritus’ muted allusion to the female epigrammatists avoids such reification, and even draws attention to the issue of female objectification by emphasizing the ambivalent status of female beloveds as both human and art objects. The fact that Theocritus does not specifically name his sources is no reason to doubt their presence. His process of intertextual memorialization makes his debt clear.59

58. See Skinner (1991: 35-36). 59. I would like to thank the participants of the Groningen Hellenistic Poetry Workshop for their helpful comments and discussion. Particular thanks go to Chiara Pesaresi, Thomas J. Nelson, and Jacqueline Klooster. Parts of this chapter have benefitted from the suggestions of William G. Thalmann and Irmgard Männlein-Robert. All errors remain my own. This project was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 405662736 – SFB 1391, “Andere Ästhetik.”

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

79

APPENDIX: Artistic Representations of Gazing Goddesses

Figure #1 – LIMC s.v. Adonis no. 8, Athenian lecythos, late 5th B.C.E.: Aphrodite stands above Adonis and looks down at him, while seductively pulling at her dress; Eros holds a plate of apples. (Louvre L58; MNB 2109) © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski

Figure #2 – LIMC s.v. Adonis no.12, Corinthian bronze mirror, late 4th B.C.E.: Aphrodite grasps Adonis by his nape and stares into his eyes; Eros looks on. (Louvre BR1715) © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski

80

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

Figure #3 – LIMC s.v. Endymion no. 13, Thessalian gilded silver mirror, late 4th B.C.E.: Selene gazes down upon Endymion; Eros looks on. (National Archaeological Museum Athens, Metalwork Collection, inv. no. X 16111) © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (Law 3028/2002), object belongs to the National Archaeological Museum, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports / Archaeological Resources Fund

Figure #4 – LIMC s.v. Endymion no. 61, Roman marble sarcophagus; early 3rd C.E.: Two scenes: on left, Selene dismounts her chariot and looks down on Endymion, who is put to sleep by Hypnos while cherubs observe; on right, Selene remounts her chariot post-coitus. (Getty Museum, Malibu, California; Villa Collection 76.AA.8) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program

AUTHORITY, EROTIC POWER, AND THE GENDERED GAZE IN THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 3

81

REFERENCES Austin C. & G. Bastiani (eds), 2002, Posidippi Pellaei Quae Supersunt Omnia. Milan. Bowman, L., 2004, “The ‘Women’s Tradition’ in Greek Poetry”. Phoenix 58, 1-27. Burton, J. B., 1995, Theocritus’ Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender, Patronage. Berkeley. Cusset, C., 2017, “Les voix féminines dan les Idylles de Théocrite: une question de genre?”. In: C. Cusset et al. (eds), Présence de Théocrite. ClermontFerrand, 221-242. Fantuzzi, M., 1996, “Mythological Paradigms in the Bucolic Poetry of Theocritus”. PCPS 42, 16-45. Foley, H. P., 1994, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Princeton. Gow, A. S. F. (ed), 1952, Theocritus. 2 vols. Cambridge. Gow, A. S. F. & Page, D. (eds), 1965, Hellenistic Epigrams. 2 vols. Cambridge. Gutzwiller, K. J., 1991, Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre. Madison, WI. ―, 1996, “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books”. In: Harder, M.A. et al. (eds), Theocritus (Hellenistica Groningana 2). Groningen, 119-148. ―, 1997, “Genre Development and Gendered Voices in Nossis and Erinna”. In: Y. Prins & M. Scheiber (eds), Dwelling in Possibility: Women Poets and Critics on Poetry. Ithaca, NY, 202-222. ―, 2002, “Art’s echo: The tradition of Hellenistic ecphrastic epigram”. In: Harder, M.A. et al. (eds), Hellenistic Epigrams (Hellenistic Groningana 6). Leuven, 85-112. Halperin, D. M., 1983, Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry. New Haven, CT. Hughes Fowler, B., 1989, The Hellenistic Aesthetic. Madison, WI. Hunter, R. L., 1999, Theocritus: A Selection. Cambridge. Kossaifi, C., 2020, “La belle à la voix qui défaille . La femme dans les Idylles bucoliques de Théocrite : une présence dans l’absence”. In Cusset, C. et al (eds), Féminités hellénistiques: Voix, genre, représentations (Hellenistic Groningana 25). Leuven, 367-386. Krevans, N., 2006, “Is There Urban Pastoral? The Case of Theocritus, Id. 15”. In Fantuzzi, M. & T. Papanghelis (eds), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral. Leiden: 119-46. Lawall, G., 1967, Theocritus’ Coan Pastorals. Cambridge, MA. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 1981-1999, 9 vols. Zürich. Lloyd-Jones, H. & P. Parsons, 1983, Supplementum Hellenisticum. Berlin. Männlein-Robert, I., 2007, Stimme, Schrift und Bild: Zum Verhältnis der Künste in der hellenistischen Dichtung. Heidelberg. Miles, G. B., 1977, “Characterization and the Ideal of Innocence in Theocritus’ Idylls”. Ramus 6, 139-64. Murray, J. & J.M. Rowland, 2007, “Gendered Voices in Hellenistic Epigram”. In: Bing, P. & J.S. Bruss (eds), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram. Leiden, 211-232. Ott, U., 1969, Die Kunst des Gegensatzes in Theokrits Hirtengedichten. Hildesheim.

82

MATTHEW CHALDEKAS

Padel, R., 1992, In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self. Princeton. Page, D., 1955, Sappho and Alcaeus. Oxford. Payne, M., 2010, “The Bucolic Fiction of Theocritus”. In Clauss, J. J. & M. Cuypers (eds), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Malden, MA., 224-37. Rossi, L., 2001, The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Hellenistica Groningana 5). Leuven. Skinner, M. B., 1991, “Nossis Thelyglossos: The Private Text and the Public Book”. In: Pomeroy, S. B. (ed), Women’s History and Ancient History. Chapel Hill, 20-47. —. 2001. “Ladies’ Day at the Art Institute: Theocritus, Herodas, and the Gendered Gaze”. In: Lardinois, A. & L. McClure (eds), Making Silence Speak: Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society. Princeton, 201222. Staden, H. von, 1989. Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria. Cambridge. Stanzel, K-H., 1995, Liebende Hirten: Theokrits Bukolik und die alexandrianische Poesie. Stuttgart. Stehle, E., 1996, “Sappho’s Gaze: Fantasies of a Goddess and Young Man”. In: Greene, E. (ed), Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches. Berkeley, CA, 193-225. Stephens, S., 2006, “Ptolemaic Pastoral”. In: Fantuzzi, M. & T. Papanghelis (eds), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral. Leiden, 91-117. Tueller, M.A., 2008, Look Who’s Talking: Innovations in Voice and Identity in Hellenistic Epigram (Hellenistica Groningana 13). Leuven. Wakker, G., 1996, “The Discourse Function of Particles: Some Observations on the Use of μάν/μήν in Theocritus”. In: Harder, M.A. et al. (eds), Theocritus (Hellenistica Groningana 2). Groningen, 247-63.

DORIANS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK DORIC: THEOCRITUS’ IDYLL 15 IN THE CONTEXT OF PANHELLENIZATION Sophia DECKER ABSTRACT This paper uses a sociolinguistic approach to shed light on the cultural and metapoetic significance of the exchange between Praxinoa and the unnamed stranger in Theocritus’ Idyll 15. In the Hellenistic era, the spread of the Koine as the dominant dialect put linguistic pressure on other dialects, with some even dying out. A desire to maintain local dialects manifested itself in various ways, e.g. hyper-correct forms on inscriptions. In composing his hexameter poetry in Doric, Theocritus, a native speaker of a Doric dialect, would seem to be participating in a poetic version of this trend (perhaps started by Erinna, another Doric speaker who composed her Distaff in Doric Hexameters). In any case in his Idyll 15, Theocritus has his characters comment on the use of regional dialects. This paper argues that the conversation between Praxinoa and the unnamed stranger in lines 89-95, is simultaneously a commentary on the sociolinguistic situation of Doric in the Hellenistic era, and a defense of the linguistic choices that Theocritus himself has made as a poet. Theocritus, by implicitly endorsing Praxinoa’s arguments for the right to speak one’s own native dialect, makes her short apology for the Doric dialect a complex metapoetic argument that relies on the sociolinguistic and political situation of the time for its efficacy.

1. Introduction By the time Theocritus composed the Idylls, the common language of communication throughout the Mediterranean, North African, and Near Eastern world, i.e. the Attic-Ionic dialect, referred to simply as koine, had become the standard common language of the Greek speaking world.1 The linguistic pressure this common dialect exerted threatened local dialects.2 This paper considers the interesting focus in Theocritus’ Idyll 15 on the use of local dialects in Alexandria, notably Doric, and it applies a sociolinguistic lens to the exchange between Praxinoa and the unnamed 1. On the notion of ‘Standard Greek’ see Georgapoulou & Silk (2009); Giannakis et al. (2018). 2. See Brixhe (1993); for koine in Cyrene see Dobias-Lalou (1987); in Sicily see Mimbrera (2012).

84

SOPHIA DECKER

stranger in Theocritus’ Idylls 15. In this paper, I will argue that Praxinoa’s short apology for the Doric dialect relies on the sociolinguistic and political situation of the time for its cultural and metapoetic efficacy. For Ancient Greeks, a defining characteristic of their ethnic identity was the language. In Book 8 of Herodotus’ Histories, the Athenians, informing Spartan envoys of their determination not to ally themselves with Xerxes against the Spartans, describe themselves and Spartans as ‘ὁμόγλωσσοι’.3 According to Herodotus, the fact that the Athenians and Spartans shared a common language superseded all other ethnic differences, and prevented them from becoming allies with Xerxes. Indeed, shared language was a crucial part of what it meant to be Greek in antiquity. Although Herodotus would have us believe that all Greeks spoke the same language, he was doubtless equally aware that each Hellenic group was effectively defined by its own unique dialect. As is well known, our own word “dialect” is derived from διαλέκτος, the term used by grammarians to refer to the distinctive versions of the Greek language.4 Even common people were credited with awareness of the distinguishing features of different Greek dialects. Euripides, for example, takes it for granted that his audience is familiar with the features of Greek spoken outside of Attica. In the Libation Bearers, Orestes says: ἄμφω δὲ φωνὴν ἥσομεν Παρνησσίδα, γλώσσης ἀυτὴν Φωκίδος μιμουμένω. (Aesch. Cho. 563-564) We will both speak the language of Parnassus, imitating the sound of the Phocian tongue.5

In a similar manner, I argue, dialect-consciousness plays an integral role in the exchange about language in Theocritus’ Idyll 15. In this poem, two Syracusan women, Gorgo and Praxinoa, are in Alexandria to participate in a festival of Adonis that Queen Arsinoe II is hosting in the royal quarter of the city. As they talk among themselves, praising the beauty of the statues they encounter, they are rudely interrupted by a stranger, who says: παύσασθʹ, ὦ δύστανοι, ἀνάνυντα κωτίλλοισαι, τρυγόνες· ἐκκναισεῦντι πλατειάσδοισαι ἅπαντα. (Theoc. 15.87-88)

3. Herodotus, Histories 8.144.2. 4. Consani (2013). 5. All translations are my own.

DORIANS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK DORIC

85

Stop, wretches, chattering endlessly, turtle-doves, they’ll wear you out, broadening everything.

Praxinoa, however, immediately retorts:6 μᾶ, πόθεν ὥνθρωπος; τί δὲ τίν, εἰ κωτίλαι εἰμές; πασάμενος ἐπίτασσε· Συρακοισίαις ἐπιτάσσεις. ὡς εἰδῇς καὶ τοῦτο, Κορίνθιαι εἰμὲς ἄνωθεν, ὡς καὶ ὁ Βελλεροφῶν. Πελοποννασιστί λαλεῦμες, Δωρίσδειν δʹ ἔξεστι, δοκῶ, τοῖς Δωριέεσσι. μὴ φύη, Μελιτῶδες, ὃς ἁμῶν καρτερὸς εἴη, πλὰν ἑνός. οὐκ ἀλέγω. μή μοι κενεὰν ἀπομάξῃς. (Theoc. Id. 15.89-95) Goodness, where is this person from? What is it to you if we are chattering? Order the ones you bought! You are ordering Syracusan women around. Know this too: we are Corinthians by descent, As also Bellerophon was. We speak Peloponnesian! And it is allowed, it seems to me, for Dorians to speak Doric. Melitodes, do not bring someone to be our master, Except one! I do not heed you. Do not level an empty pot for me!

To contextualize this exchange, we should not forget that the entire poem is composed in Doric dialect. So, to the reader of the poem, all the characters seem to be speaking the same language. While the manuscript transmission of Theocritus’ Idylls is often problematic, Hunter notes that the transmission of at least the stranger’s comment “is fairly unanimous”.7 The man who chastises Praxinoa and Gorgo for speaking Doric, is himself also speaking Doric. Thus, his complaint calls attention to itself as some kind of sociolinguistic commentary, in much the same way the depiction of a New Yorker criticizing the drawl of women from Virginia in a text written completely in standard English would invite such a reading. In other words, by choosing to highlight the regional differences that can only be detected when the dialect is spoken, Theocritus seems to be speaking back to critiques against the sound of certain subforms of Doric when spoken. What is less clear is why Theocritus would choose to set up this intra-dialectical critique and give the role of defending Syracusan Doric, his own subform, to these women.

6. Here I follow Gow’s text. However, a minority of editors follow the reading in PHVTr that attribute 89-93 to Gorgo and 94-5 to Praxinoa. My argument would not be not affected by changing the attribution of these lines. It would still be the case that the women are defending their right to speak their Syracusan form of Doric within the Doric speaking socio-political environment of Alexandria. 7. Hunter (1996: 11).

86

SOPHIA DECKER

2. There is “Doric” and then there is “Doric Doric” In order to correctly interpret the sociolinguistic commentary of Theocritus’ Idyll 15, it is first necessary to establish the dialect used by Theocritus’ characters here. To say that it is “Doric” is insufficient, as the designation “Doric” encompasses many different subdialects, each of which would have had its own unique cultural connotations.8 Magnein proposed that this Idyll is written in the Syracusan subdialect.9 Given that Gorgo and Praxinoa are from Syracuse, if Magnein is correct, this Idyll could be considered linguistically mimetic. However, this hypothesis does not withstand closer scrutiny.10 Apart from our lack of evidence of Syracusan dialect, the question still remains why the stranger is speaking in the same dialect as the women.11 This detail is obviously not mimetic at all. However, the most important argument against the mimesis theory is that the language used in Idyll 15 contains forms not found in the Syracusan dialect. For example, the feminine participle ending -οισα is not attested in any epigrams from 3rd century Syracuse, nor is it found in the 5th century writings of Epicharmus or Sophron.12 In fact, the only Doric subdialect in which this form is found is Cyrenean.13 However, the dialect employed by Theocritus is not purely Cyrenean either. Hinge concludes that the dialect is purely literary and borrows forms from a variety of regional dialects.14 While the transmission of this text is problematic and thus it is difficult to come to conclusions that rely on the inclusion of specific forms, it nevertheless seems likely that Hinge is correct, as it was common practice for Greek poets to mix dialects in their works. Aristotle himself recommends the alteration of forms in his Poetics.15 All these factors together make it unlikely that Theocritus intended to imitate the speech of any particular group. However, it seems equally unlikely that Theocritus’ linguistic choices were completely arbitrary. In order to have a fuller appreciation of the language used by

8. On Theocritus’ Doric in general see Gow’s Introduction (1950: LXXII) and Ruijgh (1984); cf. Colvin (2007: 257-259); Horrocks (2010: 89, 98-99); Clackson (2015: 54-62). 9. Magnien (1920: 49-85, 112-138). 10. Cf. Ruijgh (1984). 11. Willi (2012: 278). 12. Willi (2012: 267). 13. Hinge (2010: 72). 14. Hinge (2010: 73). 15. οὐκ ἐλάχιστον δὲ μέρος συμβάλλεται εἰς τὸ σαφὲς τῆς λέξεως καὶ μὴ ἰδιωτικὸν αἱ ἐπεκτάσεις καὶ ἀποκοπαὶ καὶ ἐξαλλαγαὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων (‘lengthenings, shortenings, and modifications of words especially contribute the clarity of the words’, Arist. Poet. 1458b).

DORIANS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK DORIC

87

Theocritus in Idyll 15, we must turn to the complex sociolinguistic situation of the Hellenistic era. Before the fourth century BCE, there seems to have been no standard or prestige dialect of Greek. Buck found that, with only a few exceptions, the local dialect of the writer, rather than that of the recipient or any third party, was used in dedications, epitaphs, honorary decrees, and arbitrations.16 Even treaties between two Greek-speaking city-states were written in the local dialects of the regions in which they were found.17 Buck quite reasonably suggests that the other party to each of these treaties may have kept a copy written in its own dialect. If there had been a standard or prestige dialect at the time, we would expect to find it, if not in official documents of individual city-states, at least in documents concerning multiple parties who did not speak the same dialect. However, this is entirely absent in our sources before the 4th century. This situation changed radically after the conquests of Alexander the Great. In the Hellenistic world, Koine became the standard dialect. Despite being ‘common’, however, this dialect was not received with universal acceptance. Many Greek speakers living in the Hellenistic world were proud of their ethnic identities and saw their dialect as an expression of this identity. In Lucian’s Phalaris, the priests of Delphi appeal to the Doric identity they share with their audience, showing that a Doric heritage continued to be considered a point of pride, at least by the Dorians themselves.18 In Thessaly, an inscription from this time period includes the form οἰδενός although the Thessalian form of this word is in fact οὐδενός, identical to the Koine form.19 This is an instance of hyper-correction, which happens when a perceived grammatical rule is over-applied. Some Thessalian morphemes do include the diphthong οι where the Koine counterpart has ου. However, the ου- of οὐδενός is a derivational morpheme indicating negation that certainly did not become οι- in Thessalian. The hyper-correct form οἰδενός seems to have been used in an attempt to distance the local Thessalian dialect from the standard Koine. Even after the rise of Koine as the standard dialect of the Hellenistic period, some groups continued to take pride in the non16. Buck (1913:133-150). 17. Buck (1913: 155). 18. ἱκετεύομεν ὑμᾶς ἡμεῖς οἱ Ἀκραγαντῖνοι Ἕλληνές τε ὄντες καὶ τὸ ἀρχαῖον Δωριεῖς, προσέσθαι τὸν ἄνδρα φίλον εἶναι ἐθέλοντα καὶ πολλὰ καὶ δημοσίᾳ καὶ ἰδίᾳ ἕκαστον ὑμῶν εὖ ποιῆσαι ὡρμημένον (‘we, Acragantines, being Hellenes and Dorians originally, beseech you to grant the man wishing to be your friend access [to the sanctuary], for he is moved to confer many benefits on each and all of you, both public and private’, Luc. Phal. 1.14). 19. Consani (2013).

88

SOPHIA DECKER

standard features of their own local dialects. This desire to retain and even enlarge the differences between local dialects and Koine is a productive frame work for understanding Theocritus’ use of non-Syracusan forms. Ruijgh classifies various Doric subdialects as ‘strong’, ‘middle’ or ‘mild’, (Dorien sévère, dorien doux, dorien moyen) depending on their level of similarity to Attic. In his scheme, Syracusan is ‘mild’ (doux). The first extant use of literary Doric appears in the works of Alcman, whose Old Laconian dialect Ruijgh considers ‘strong’ (sévère).20 Participles ending in -οισα are common in Alcman’s text. Since Idyll 15 includes the theme of resisting the ‘new’ Koine in favor of the ‘old’ local dialects, borrowing features from Alcman, whose poetry is the oldest extant work composed in Doric, seems to be a logical choice. It roots Theocritus in the oldest forms of Doric poetry. It’s worth mentioning that Alcman’s poetry featured songs for women and girls to sing at festivals. Doric thrived as the language of choral and lyric poetry, notably the choruses of Athenian tragedies. It was a comedic dialect used by such authors as Epicharmus, another Syracusan. However, when choral odes fell out of favor in the 5th century B.C,21 Doric fell into disuse as a literary dialect. So, Theocritus to a certain extent was resurrecting literary Doric and became the first poet to use it in hexameter poetry.22 The juxtaposition of epic meter with bucolic themes would certainly have seemed as novel to Theocritus’ audience as the juxtaposition of epic meter with the Doric dialect. From ancient times, different poetic forms were associated with specific dialects. This is the case in modern English just as it was in Ancient Greek. It would be considered ridiculous, for example, for someone to write a rap in Elizabethan English. Doric hexameters could have been unusual if not jarring to a Hellenistic audience. Theocritus’ dialect choice, then, was a very deliberate one. If hexameter lends an air of nobility to the ordinary rustic people of Theocritus’ poetry, it lends this same nobility to the Doric dialect.23

20. Note however that Ruijgh (1984) argues that the dialect is Cyrenean. Cf. Hunter (1996: 37) and (1999: 21-24) who argues for Syracusan. 21. Tribulato (2010: 396). 22. Willi (2012: 279). 23. Cf. Σ prol. p. 7, 8–10 and p. 12. 4–25 Wendell, where the scholiast suggests that Theocritus is recreating the dialect of Sicilian country folk. I owe the editor for this observation.

DORIANS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK DORIC

89

3. Theocritus and the prestige of Doric By Theocritus’ time, Koine had become the standard dialect of the Greekspeaking world. Nevertheless, Willy Clarysse shows that Doric names were common among the aristocrats of Ptolemaic Alexandria at the same time that the common people began to give up their native dialects in favor of Koine.24 Since Doric names were associated with the highly educated members of the Ptolemaic court, Doric may have enjoyed some prestige. In addition, Greek speakers whose native language was not Greek probably would have spoken Koine, and knowledge of a regional dialect may have set individuals apart as ‘real Greeks’. Yet even if Doric enjoyed some prestige in the Ptolemaic empire, it was dying out during Theocritus’ lifetime. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, under whom Theocritus wrote some of his Idylls, was born on Cos, a Doric-speaking island in the Mediterranean. He was apparently proud of the site of his birth, which was immortalized in Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos. Philadelphus also claimed descent from Hercules, the quintessentially Doric hero.25 Because the Ptolemies announced their Dorianness throughout the Hellenistic world, they could be appealed to on this basis. For example, in a request for money made to the Xanthians, a group of Dorians appeal to their own kinship with the Ptolemaic rulers.26 It is therefore reasonable to assume that Doric was a prestige dialect in Alexandria. To be Doric, and, by extension, to speak a Doric dialect, could have indicated affinity with and loyalty to the Ptolemaic dynasty. Doric, however, was not a single dialect, but a group of local subdialects. Clarysse’s onomastic evidence does not conclusively identify which of the many Doric subdialects were represented in the Alexandrian court, but the evidence suggests that it may have been Cyrenean. This theory is quite plausible since Alexandria was home to a large community of well-educated Cyrenean expatriates, including the poet-scholars Callimachus and Eratosthenes. Theocritus’ Gorgo and Praxinoa, on the other hand, are ordinary housewives from Sicily. Real women like them may well have spoken a low-prestige Doric subdialect.

24. Clarysse (1998: 11). 25. Theoc. Id. 17.26-27. 26. Clarysse (1998: 12).

90

SOPHIA DECKER

In addition, despite any prestige that may have been attached to it, Doric was never the standard dialect. Hence, Doric’s association with the upper echelons of Alexandrian society did not prevent it from dying out. Local dialects were ‘old fashioned’. It is not impossible that in the real world of Alexandria someone like the stranger might scoff at Syracusans stubbornly holding on to their local dialect in the face of the panhellenizing influence of Koine. Thus, Theocritus’ use of Praxinoa, a woman of seemingly ordinary status, to defend Syracusan Doric seems significant on several levels. Despite her appearance as an uneducated and even ridiculous housewife, Praxinoa makes a very articulate argument for her right to speak in her own native dialect. After revealing that she is from Syracuse, she styles herself as a ‘Corinthian’, alluding to the tradition that Syracuse was settled by colonists from Corinth. This allows her to connect her lineage with that of the hero Bellerophon who was already an ancient hero at Iliad 6.155-221. The argument Theocritus makes through Praxinoa, then, is that Syracusan is a dialect which gives the impression of being the language of uneducated common folk, but is actually the language of illustrious heroes. Praxinoa proceeds to invoke Persephone as Melitodes to show off her learning further to the bossy stranger, wishing for no master ‘except one’. The ‘one’ can, of course, be assumed to be Ptolemy himself. Significantly, Theocritus paints a portrait of Ptolemy from the perspective of his female character as one who, unlike the male stranger, would not insist on linguistic conformity. In the Encomium to Ptolemy, it is the ethnic diversity of Ptolemy’s kingdom that indicates Ptolemy’s greatness. Likewise, in Idyll 15, the linguistic diversity of Ptolemy’s subjects signifies his greatness.27 Moreover Praxinoa’s retort can be read as praising not only Ptolemy II, but also Arsinoe II. The Queen is, of course, the one hosting the festival. Praxinoa’s appeal to Persephone highlights the gendered dimension of her speech patterns. Women invoked Persephone (and Demeter), especially in all-female contexts. The Queen, moreover, has hired an Argive woman’s daughter to sing the Adonis, presumably in her own specific subdialect of Doric. The implication is that Arsinoe has the same attitude toward the ethnic diversity of the Ptolemaic realm as her husband. It is significant, then, that Praxinoa and Gorgo approve of the Argive Adonis. The learned male poet, speaking through his female characters, 27. Cf. Theoc. Id. 17.87-92 where the vastness of the Ptolemies influence is showcased in terms of the various ethnic groups under their sway..

DORIANS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK DORIC

91

whom the anonymous male Doric speaker has criticized for speaking a different kind of Doric, defends both his own kind of Doric and celebrates variety within an endangered dialect. However, Theocritus is not merely ventriloquizing his female characters to express his views on dialects. Through Praxinoa and Gorgo, Theocritus seems to be deploying what Jackie Murray (with Jonathan Rowland) refers to as ‘transgendered poetics’.28 Theocritus creates an analogy between intradialect conformity and the restrictions on female speech in society and in poetry. So, speaking through his female characters, he deploys an authentic female subjectivity that calls attention to the way female speech is controlled. It is significant that the Doric of Idyll 15 is purely literary, i.e. not imitative of any real Doric spoken in Theocritus’ world. The literary dialect of the text highlights, on the one hand, the anonymity of the stranger, and on the other hand, the erasure of dialect differences in the Panhellenic poetic context. Nowhere in the poem is the man’s ethnicity specified. In fact, it is a question left unanswered when Praxinoa asks where he is from (89). Alexandria, as the capital of the Ptolemaic empire, attracted inhabitants from all areas of the Hellenistic world. Worshippers traveled from far away to participate in festivals like the one for Adonis represented in the Idylls. The stranger’s anonymity means that he could be anyone from anywhere speaking any dialect. Theocritus’ argument in favor of local dialects, and Sicilian Doric in particular, thus does not target a particular linguistic group. Praxinoa’s justification of her non-standard dialect is addressed to the entire Hellenistic world. So, the interaction can be read simultaneously as an intra- and inter-dialect exchange.

4. Concluding remarks Besides its sociolinguistic significance, Idyll 15 also has metapoetic significance. Hexameter poetry, in its quintessentially Panhellenic form, the Homeric epics, was composed in a predominantly Ionic artificial dialect. In other words, Homeric dialect could be considered the equivalent of Koine for hexameter poetry. In the same way that Gorgo and Praxinoa insist on speaking in a Doric dialect, Theocritus challenged the epic tradition by writing hexameter poetry in a literary Doric dialect.

28. Murray (2007; 2019).

92

SOPHIA DECKER

Gorgo and Praxinoa

Theocritus

From Syracuse

From Syracuse

Live in Alexandria

Lives in Alexandria

Speak Doric

Writes in Doric

The rude stranger, then, can be taken to represent Theocritus’ detractors. In this light, Praxinoa’s retort is imbued with new significance. Theocritus may also be responding to critiques that his poetry does not ‘speak properly’. By appealing to Bellerophon, Theocritus is presumably also appealing to an allegedly older hexameter tradition. For, not only was Bellerophon Doric, but he was several generations before the heroes of the Homeric epic (cf. Iliad 6.150-221). Praxinoa’s genealogy is reaching back before the Trojan War; in the same way, Theocritus is suggesting that his literary pedigree reaches back before Homer himself. And if Ptolemy, his only master and patron, does not object to his kind of Doric hexameters, no one else has the right to do so. In Idylls 15, Theocritus argues for the right to speak one’s native Greek dialect explicitly through Praxinoa’s reference to Bellerophon and appeal to the authority of Ptolemy. In doing so, he praises Ptolemy, who traced his lineage to the Doric hero Hercules and rules an ethnically and linguistically diverse population. If the Doric dialect has ties to such illustrious heroes as Bellerophon, Hercules, and even Ptolemy, Dorians are indeed allowed to speak Doric, even in hexameter poetry. REFERENCES Brixhe, C., 1993, “Le déclin du dialecte crétois: essai de phénomenologie”. In: E. Crespo et al. (eds). Dialecta Graeca. Actas del II Coloquio internacional de Dialectología Griega. Madrid, 37-71. Bubenik, V., 1989, Hellenistic and Roman Greece as a Sociolinguistic Area. Philadelphia, PA. Buck, C. D., 1913, “The Interstate Use of the Greek Dialects”. CP 8: 133-159. Clarysse, W., 1998, “Ethnic Diversity and Dialect Among the Greeks of Hellenistic Egypt”. In: A. Verhoogt & S. Vleeming, (eds), The Two Faces of Graeco-Roman Egypt. Leuven, 1-14. Consani, C., 2013, “Ancient Greek Sociolinguistics and Dialectology”. In: G. Giannakis (ed). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics. Leuven: Brill. Accessed November 24, 2015. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-ancient-greek-language-and-linguistics/ ancient-greek-sociolinguistics-and-dialectology-COM_00000024 Colvin, S., 2007, A Historical Greek Reader: Mycenaean to the Koiné. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

DORIANS ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK DORIC

93

Dobias-Lalou, C., 1978, “Dialecte et koiné dans les inscriptions de Cyrénaïque”. Verbum 10:29-50. Georgakopolou, A. & M. Silk (eds.), 2009, Standard Language and Language Standards: Greek, Past and Present. Farnham – Burlington. Giannakis, G. et al., 2018, Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Berlin/Boston. Hinge, G., 2010, “Language and Race: Theocritus and the Koine Identity of Ptolemaic Egypt.” In Hinge, G. and Krasilnikoff, J. A. eds, Alexandria: A Religious and Cultural Melting Pot. Santa Barbara, CA, 66-79. Horrocks, G., 2010, A History of the Language and its Speakers. 2nd Edition. Oxford. Hunter, R., 1996, Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge. Hunter, R., 1999, Theocritus. A Selection: Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13. Cambridge. Hunter, R., 2005, “Speaking in Glossai: Dialect Choice and Cultural Politics in Hellenistic Poetry”. In: W.M. Bloomer (ed), The Contest of Language. Notre Dame, IN, 187-206. Magnien, V., 1920, “Le syracusain littéraire et l’Idylle XV de Théocrite dans Mémoires de la Société de linguistique”, 21: 49-85, 112-38. Mimbrera, S., 2012, “The Sicilian Doric Koina”. In: O. Tribulato (ed), Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily. Cambridge, 223-250. Murray, J. (with Jonathan M. Rowland), 2007, “Gendered voice in Hellenistic Epigram”. In: P. Bing & J. Bruss (eds), Brill Companion to Hellenistic Epigrams. Leiden, 2007, 211-232. Murray, J., 2019, “Poetically Erect: The female oriented Humor in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter”. In. M.A. Harder et al (eds), New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Hellenistica Groningana 24). Leuven, 249-263. Ruijgh , C.J., 1984, “Le dorien de Th é ocrite: dialecte cyr é nien d’Alexandrie et d’Egypte”, Mnemosyne 37: 56-88. Striano, A., 2018, “Koiné, Koiná, Koinaí: Are We Talking About The Same Thing?”. In: G. Giannakis et al. (eds) Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Berlin-Boston, 131-147. Tribulato, O., 2010, “Literary Dialects”. In: E.J. Bakker (ed), A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language. Chinchester, 388-400. Willi, A., 2012, “We Speak Peloponnesian: Tradition and linguistic identity in post-classical Sicilian literature”. In: O. Tribulato (ed), Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily. Cambridge, 265-290.

COURTING THE QUEEN: THE POWER DYNAMICS OF MARRIAGE AS METAPHOR IN CALLIMACHUS’ VICTORIA BERENICES1 Brett EVANS ABSTRACT This paper argues that Callimachus portrays his Victoria Berenices as a metaphorical bride-price (ἕδνον) for Berenice, his victorious patron qua ‘bride’. By reviewing the usage of ἕδνον I challenge the established view that the word means ‘gift’ at the Victoria’s opening; instead I show how Callimachus adapts a Pindaric discourse of epinician exchange as marriage to forge a new metaphor of his poem as his laudanda’s ‘bride-price’. I then demonstrate how bridal imagery throughout the Victoria, including Heracles styled as a bride, bolsters Callimachus’ metaphor. I argue that the entire poem portrays Berenice as a patron qua bride sought after by many competing ‘suitors’ at court, and that Callimachus hereby lays claim to a distinguished position as Berenice’s only poet. I close by suggesting that Callimachus’ poem offers Berenice the brideprice of the status of eternal bride.

1. Introduction Callimachus opens his elegy celebrating Berenice II’s victory in chariot racing at Nemea by calling it a χαρίσιον ἕδνον: Ζηνί τε κα⌞ὶ Νεμέῃ τι χαρίσιον ἕδνον ὀφείλω⌟, νύμφα, κα[σιγνή]των ἱερὸν αἷμα θεῶν ἡμ[ε]τερο[] εων ἐπινίκιον ἵππω[ν.] To Zeus and Nemea, bride, holy blood of the Sibling Gods, I owe a pleasing hednon, our epinician…of horses.2 (Call. fr. 54.1-3 Harder)

1. I wish to thank the Workshop’s participants, Annette Harder as editor, and both Ivana Petrovic and Peter Bing for offering generous feedback on this paper. I am also thankful to audiences at the University of Virginia and the Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in Washington, D.C. for their questions and conversation. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Jacqueline Klooster and all the organizers for such gracious hospitality in Groningen. 2. All translations are my own.

96

BRETT EVANS

The meaning of this phrase has long proved troublesome. For good reason: the word ἕδνον is rare and largely restricted to Archaic epic, where it appears to designate both ‘bride-price’ and ‘dowry’; worse still, in some cases neither meaning appears to make sense. Callimachus’ ἕδνον has long been taken as one of these exceptions. Communis opinio established by Parsons holds that Callimachus probably uses ἕδνον to nod to Berenice’s marriage to Ptolemy III in 246,3 but that the word here – for the first time – likely means ‘gift’ without reference to marriage.4 In this paper I argue that Callimachus figures his Victoria as a metaphorical ‘bride-price’ for Berenice, his patron and victor qua ‘bride’, so as to stake a claim to her exclusive, long-lasting favor and patronage. In the first section I review the usage of ἕδνον and challenge the view that it means no more than ‘gift’ here. I argue instead that Callimachus’ ἕδνον establishes a new metaphor for patronage as marriage whose seeds lie in Pindaric epinicia, especially the Cyrenean ode Pythian 9. In the second section I examine how Callimachus weaves brides and marital imagery throughout the Victoria’s extant fragments to bolster his opening conceit. I especially offer a new interpretation of two fragments in which Heracles, Berenice’s Ptolemaic ‘ancestor’ and star of the poem’s inset narrative, is surprisingly portrayed as a bride. In the third section I argue that Callimachus’ ἕδνον-metaphor reflects the agonistic social dynamics of Hellenistic courts by portraying his patron, Berenice, as a bride vied for by many courtiers qua suitors seeking to offer the finest ἕδνα. This interpretation is strengthened by the similar competition for Cydippe’s hand waged by ἕδνα in Aetia 3 (fr. 67.9-10), and I examine the relationship between her wooing and Berenice’s in detail. In closing I suggest that Callimachus’ ἕδνον of the Victoria Berenices and Aetia 3-4, which it introduces, offers Berenice the tantalizing gift of immortality as a bride.

3. See especially Pfeiffer (1949: 308 ad fr. 383.1); Parsons (1977: 8); Fuhrer (1992: 129-130); Massimilla (2010: 227 ad fr. 143.2); Harder (2012: 2.395 ad fr. 54.2). All prudently observe that ἕδνον and νύμφα cannot be taken as sure evidence for the Nemean victory’s celebration on the heels of the royal wedding, since royalty can always be styled young; nevertheless, the victory is generally dated to the Nemean games of 245 or 241. 4. Hunter (1998: 116 n. 9), however, noted marriage’s significance to the poem, and now Kampakoglou (2019: 34-44) explores the Victoria’s intertwining of marriage and victory. I discuss the latter’s interpretation of ἕδνον below.

COURTING THE QUEEN

97

2. The poet’s bride-price5 What did Callimachus and his readers think that ἕδνον meant? Before Callimachus, ἕδνα appear primarily in Archaic epic (fourteen times in Homer, six in Hesiod), but also in iambic (once in Hipponax), lyric (twice in Pindar), and tragedy (twice in Aeschylus, once in Prometheus Bound, three times in Euripides). ἕδνον was thus a word redolent of the heroic past. In most instances it refers to an archaic marital practice whereby suitors offered gifts (‘bride-price’6) for a bride to her father or male kin;7 as I shall show in section 4, Callimachus imagines a similar contest for Cydippe’s hand when he calls her ἑδνῆστιν κεράων…ἀντὶ βοῶν (‘a bride given in exchange for the bride-price of horned cattle’, fr. 67.9-10). Already in Homeric epic, however, in two passages regarding Penelope (Od. 1.277 = 2.196) ἕδνα may signify gifts given by the bride’s family. The scholia express confusion over these passages,8 and modern scholars disagree over whether dowry is really meant here.9 Be that as it may, in Pindar (O. 9.10) and Euripides (Andr. 2) the term’s use for dowry is secure. To complicate matters further, three ἕδνα have long been alleged to be neither bride-price nor dowry, but ‘wedding-presents to a wedded pair by their guests’ (LSJ s.v. 3; cf. BDAG s.v. 2); and in Theocritus’ Idyll 25. 114, ἕδνον is claimed to mean ‘gift’ without connection to marriage (LSJ s.v. 4), as proposed for the Victoria.

5. My discussion of the interpretation of ἕδνον in this section is complemented by the detailed examination of Archaic suitors’ competition with ἕδνα (‘bride-price’) for brides in section 4. 6. The term ‘bride-price’ wrongly implies sale, as demonstrated by Finley (1955 = 1981: 233-245). I use the term only for convenience’s sake. 7. LfgrE s.v. ἕδνα, ἔεδνα 1; LSJ s.v. ἕδνον 1. Snodgrass (1974: 116) cautions that there is generally not enough context in Homer to determine whether these ἕδνα are given to the bride’s family (bride-price) or to the bride (indirect dowry); since he cannot identify any sure case of indirect dowry, I treat these all as bride-price. 8. See the scholia to Od. 1.277 and 2.196, both discussed by Finley (1955: 182-183 = 1981: 239). 9. LfgrE s.v. ἕδνα, ἔεδνα 2; LSJ s.v. ἕδνον 2. Whether ἕδνα in Homer ever means ‘dowry’ has been hotly debated. On the one hand, Finley (1955: 184-187 = 1981: 240241) and Lacey (1966: 55-61) argue for a Homeric marital exchange in which the bride’s father gave the groom ἕδνα counter to those the groom offered for the bride, while Snodgrass (1974: 115-118) argues that dowry exists in Homer as a result of the epics’ conflated historical strata. On the other hand, Morris (1986: 106-110) and Perysinakis (1991) argue that ἕδνα in Homer are only bride-price. Their argument, however, that at Od. 1.277 = 2.196 ἔεδνα refers to the bride-price Penelope’s kin will fetch from her suitors rather than gifts they will furnish her seems to rest on a dubious interpretation of ἀρτυνέουσιν (‘they make ready’).

98

BRETT EVANS

Upon closer reading, however, the evidence for these aberrant ἕδνα proves slim. The only alleged exception pre-dating Callimachus occurs in Pindar. At Pythian 3.94-95 Pindar describes ἕδνα that Cadmus and Peleus received from the gods at their weddings to Harmonia and Thetis on Olympus. The scholiast writes ἀκύρως τὰ δῶρα ἕδνα εἶπε (‘[Pindar] incorrectly called the gifts hedna’),10 and modern scholars argue that these ἕδνα are guests’ wedding presents.11 Yet Harmonia and Thetis are goddesses, so the gift-givers are their kin; further, both Pindar and the scholia specify that the gifts are received by the grooms, not the couple together.12 These ἕδνα, then, seem to be the gods’ dowries given to their progeny’s husbands. The two other alleged ‘wedding presents’, much later than Callimachus (D.C. 79.12.2, Orph.A. 873), similarly seem to be bride-price rather than wedding gifts.13 Also admitting reconsideration is the claim that ἕδνον in Idyll 25 means ‘gift’ without marital significance. Here the poet, a third-century figure who had read Callimachus and perhaps Apollonius,14 calls the innumerable herds given by Helios to his son Augeas τόγε μυρίον ἕδνον (‘this countless hednon’, 114). Since the livestock are a gift from father to son, scholars assume catachresis and translate ἕδνον as ‘gift’.15 In fact pseudo-Theocritus has good reason to call the herds a ἕδνον, for cattle and other animals were the ἕδνα par excellence in Archaic epic.16 Hellenistic poets knew this well: Callimachus in ‘Acontius and Cydippe’ writes that mothers tried to offer oxen as bride-price for Cydippe (ἑδνῆστιν κεράων…ἀντὶ βοῶν, ‘a bride given in exchange for the 10. Σ P. 3.167a, ed. Drachmann (1910). 11. See e.g. Gentili et al (1995: 422 ad loc). 12. P. 3.94-95 ἕδνα τε / δέξαντο (‘and they received hedna’), the subjects of which are Cadmus and Peleus. The scholia likewise specify that the gifts are received by Peleus (τῷ…Πηλεῖ) and Cadmus (τῷ…Κάδμῳ). The scholia then gloss the famous gifts the men received and their givers (Poseidon gave Peleus horses, Hephaestus gave a sword, and Aphrodite gave Cadmus Harmonia’s necklace); I am not convinced that Pindar had these specific gifts in mind. 13. D.C. 79.12.2 describes how the emperor Elagabalus (called ‘Sardanapalus’) collected ἕδνα from his subjects for Urania, whom he had wooed. These are not wedding presents from Elagabalus’ subjects but property he has extracted to give her as bride-price. Orph.A. 873 calls the dragon’s teeth Jason sows a ἕδνον that Phrixus brought to Colchis. Since Phrixus married king Aeetes’ daughter Chalciope (Apollod. 1.9.1), we may reasonably suppose that the poet considered these teeth Phrixus’ bride-price. 14. Schmitz (2012: 260). For Id. 25’s lexical borrowings from the Victoria see Parsons (1977: 44). 15. So Gow (1950: 2.453 ad loc.). Gow supports his argument by referring to Callimachus’ supposedly catachrestic ἕδνον, thereby risking circularity. 16. See LfgrE s.v. ἕδνα, ἔεδνα 1. Similarly ἀλφεσίβοιος (‘yielding cattle’) at Il. 18.593 and h.Ven. 119 is used of a marriageable girl: see Finley (1955: 181 n. 44 = 1981: 293 n. 41); Edwards (1991: 229 ad Il. 18.593-594).

COURTING THE QUEEN

99

bride-price of horned cattle’, fr. 67.10); and when Acrotime of Idyll 27 asks Lycidas what ἕδνον he will offer (33), Lycidas replies πᾶσαν τὰν ἀγέλαν, πάντ’ ἄλσεα καὶ νομὸν ἑξεῖς (‘you will have my entire flock, all my groves and pasture’, 34). So, there is a connection between Augeas’ livestock in Idyll 25 and marital exchange after all. His wondrous herds are a μυρίον ἕδνον in substance, with the potential to be given as dowry or bride-price. Thus, the word seems to indicate the purpose for which Helios bequeathed Augeas his flocks: so that he might give them as a wondrous bride-price and secure a prosperous marriage. The last evidence scholars have adduced in order to argue that Callimachus’ ἕδνον is a non-marital gift comes from Pindar’s fragmentary fourth Paean, whose fourth line presents ἑδνώσεται (‘he/she/it will offer bride-price/dowry’, fr. 52.4); the scholiast explains ἀντὶ τοῦ ὑμνήθη (‘instead of “he/she was hymned”’).17 Accepting that Pindar used ἑδνόομαι in a way semantically bleached of marital exchange, Fuhrer argues that Callimachus followed suit in the Victoria, perhaps to make a philological point on Pindaric usage.18 We cannot fully evaluate Pindar’s usage for ourselves owing to the text’s fragmentary state. Even so, it seems as likely as not that Pindar used ἑδνόομαι metaphorically, with bride-price or dowry as a metaphor for song.19 In a recent discussion Kampakoglou argues that Callimachus’ ἕδνον indeed has marital significance and “merges the celebrations for Berenice’s Nemean victory with the rituals for her wedding to Ptolemy III”.20 His interpretation of ἕδνον, however, presents several problems. He dismisses the Homeric meaning of ἕδνον as bride-price or dowry as irrelevant to the Victoria’s context, while at the same time he maintains that ἕδνον situates the poem at Berenice’s wedding: “One needs to take ἕδνον here, more generally, as a textual marker of the occasion for the embedded textual performance”.21 This view takes Parsons’ suggestion, that ἕδνον merely alludes to Berenice’s wedding, one step farther in seemingly identifying Callimachus’ ἕδνον as a wedding present given to Berenice upon her marriage to Ptolemy. As I have shown, however, persuasive evidence for this meaning of ἕδνον is not to be found. Kampakoglou then attempts to explicate ἕδνον by focusing on the adjective χαρίσιον (‘pleasing’) 17. The scholiast evidently read ἑδνώσατο instead of the papyri’s ἑδνώσεται. Rutherford (2001: 285 n. 10) prints the aorist, but the future may be third-person performative. 18. Fuhrer (1992: 129-130). 19. Thus Rutherford (2001: 28); Kampakoglou (2019: 41-43). 20. Kampakoglou (2019: 35). 21. Kampakoglou (2019: 34 n. 61).

100

BRETT EVANS

which modifies it. He considers the word’s use in Aristophanes (fr. 211.2 K-A) and Eubulus (fr. 1.3 K-A), both fragments cited by Athenaeus (14.646b), to refer to a kind of cake: in Aristophanes χαρίσιος modifies the noun πλακούς (‘flat cake’), and in Eubulus it functions substantively. Kampakoglou claims that the χαρίσιος was a sacrificial cake. He provides no support, however, for this interpretation, and available evidence argues against it: according to Athenaeus (15.668c) the χαρίσιος was a cake awarded at a παννυχίς (‘all-night celebration’) to the man who stayed awake all night dancing.22 Be that as it may, Kampakoglou, assuming that χαρίσιος is a sacrificial cake, goes on to conclude that Callimachus’ χαρίσιον ἕδνον is a sacrificial offering that he makes to Zeus and Nemea at Berenice’s wedding on her behalf.23 Even if there were evidence for his interpretation of χαρίσιος, this interpretation of χαρίσιον ἕδνον emphasizes the substantive meaning of χαρίσιος to such an extent that it overshadows the noun, making ἕδνον bear the unprecedented meaning of a sacrificial offering made at a wedding. In sum, given the lack of evidence for these interpretations of ἕδνον and χαρίσιος, and the additional distortion of meaning caused by this interpretation of χαρίσιον ἕδνον together, we should seek another interpretation of Callimachus’ ἕδνον, one which takes into account not only its general connection to marriage, but its specific meaning of bride-price or dowry. What Parsons and others have not considered is whether Callimachus could have used ἕδνον metaphorically, that is, posing as either Berenice’s suitor offering her bride-price or as her father offering her dowry. Could either possibility make sense? A dowry-song might at first seem attractive owing to the historical circumstances of Berenice’s wedding. Berenice’s father, Magas of Cyrene, died around 250,24 so when she came to Alexandria in 246 as Ptolemy III’s bride she had no father. As her fellow Cyrenean and a long-prominent poet at the Ptolemaic court, might Callimachus have stepped in as her civic kin presenting her with a dowrysong?25 There are, however, several problems with this hypothesis. According to Callimachus Berenice does have parents: she is ‘holy blood 22. Callimachus possibly refers to this custom in his Pannychis (fr. 227) when he writes ὁ δ’ ἀγρυπνήσας…τὸν πυραμοῦντα λήψεται (‘the man having stayed awake… will receive the sesame-cake’, fr. 227.5-6), but note that he calls this cake a πυραμούς, not a χαρίσιος. 23. Kampakoglou (2019: 34-35). 24. Determining Magas’ death-date is difficult: Van Oppen de Ruiter (2015: 8-13) summarizes the problems and possibilities. 25. D. 27.69, e.g., refers to the practice of fellow citizens providing dowries for their relatives and friends who lacked the funds to do so; for further parallels and discussion see Beauchet (1897: 1.272-273) and RE 23.1.141-142.

COURTING THE QUEEN

101

of the Sibling Gods’ (ἱερὸν αἷμα θεῶν, fr. 54.2), Ptolemy II and his sister-wife Arsinoe II, whose full blood daughter Berenice was claimed to be upon her marriage to Ptolemy III.26 Second, Callimachus specifies that his ἕδνον is owed to Zeus and Nemea, while a dowry would be given to Berenice or perhaps to her conspicuously absent groom, Ptolemy III. Finally, dowries are parting gifts that mark the bride’s departure from her father’s home to her husband’s,27 while in the mid to late 240s Callimachus would have been looking to develop or strengthen his relationship with his new patrons in Alexandria.28 What, then, of a metaphorical ‘bride-price’? We have already seen that in ‘Acontius and Cydippe’ Callimachus uses the idea of ἕδνον as a bride-price. This intratextual link alone suggests that we consider the same meaning in the Victoria. By offering his poem as a bride-price, Callimachus could powerfully figure the close relationship he wished to enjoy with his new queen. One might immediately object that this metaphor would contradict the Ptolemaic poets’ portrayal of their queens as ‘sexually passionate wives’ whose reciprocal and faithful love with their husbands secured the empire’s welfare.29 But the ‘marriage’ Callimachus proposes is not a threat to Ptolemy’s marriage of physical charis. It is a poetic marriage where the charites exchanged are the poet’s verses and his patron’s favors and privileges. I shall discuss the roles of Zeus and Nemea as fitting recipients of Callimachus’ bride-price below; first, I wish to demonstrate that the metaphor of marriage as the relationship between poet and patron in fact originates in the very genre which Callimachus’ Victoria resurrects: Archaic epinician.30 Seiler and now Kampakoglou suggest that Callimachus’ ἕδνον recalls Pindar’s extended simile at Olympian 7.1-12, where the poet’s epinician, bringing χάρις to the victor, is compared to an all-golden bowl filled with wine, libations from which effect a bond between father and future son-in-law.31 Yet there is a crucial difference between these passages: whereas Pindar plays father-in-law to the victor 26. Van Oppen de Ruiter (2015: 36-40) discusses the sources and possible motivations for Berenice’s full-blood Ptolemaic genealogy. 27. ἕδνα are only associated with marriages in which the bride transfers to a new house: Lacey (1966: 55). 28. Gutzwiller (1992: 373) writes that Callimachus’ influence at court was “assured” with Berenice’s arrival from Cyrene; it was still imperative, however, for Callimachus, like any other man at court, to prove his continued value in order to maintain his position. 29. See e.g. Pomeroy (1984: 31-38); Gutzwiller (1992: 362-369); Hunter (2003: 128130 ad Id. 17.38-39); Caneva (2014: 31-36). 30. See Kurke (1991: 116-134). 31. Seiler (1992: 52); Kampakoglou (2019: 37-39).

102

BRETT EVANS

qua groom, Callimachus poses as his laudanda’s groom-to-be, thereby adapting his Archaic model’s metaphor to the present demand for praise for a victorious woman, a reality unthinkable in Pindar’s day. Closer to Callimachus’ stance in the Victoria is Pindar’s self-portrayal as an ἐραστής offering his victors qua ἐρώμενοι the gift of praise.32 Still closer, however, was a poem common to both Callimachus and Berenice as Cyreneans: Pythian 9 for Telesicrates of Cyrene. In this ode Pindar famously tells of the marriage of Apollo and the nymph Cyrene, the foundation of her city, and the city’s subsequent successes in athletic victories. Apollo desired Cyrene, Pindar tells us, upon catching sight of her ‘wrestling a mighty lion alone, without weapons’ (λέοντι… / ὀβρίμῳ μούναν παλαίοισαν ἄτερ ἐγχέων, P. 9.26-28). Impressed by ‘the woman’s courage and great strength’ (θυμὸν γυναικὸς καὶ μεγάλαν δύνασιν, 30), he asks the centaur Chiron who she is and if it is right for him to marry her. After humorously reproving the god of prophecy for asking what he must already know, Chiron answers: ταύτᾳ πόσις ἵκεο βᾶσσον τάνδε, καὶ μέλλεις ὑπὲρ πόντου Διὸς ἔξοχον ποτὶ κᾶπον ἐνεῖκαι· ἔνθα νιν ἀρχέπολιν θήσεις, ἐπὶ λαὸν ἀγείραις νασιώταν ὄχθον ἐς ἀμφίπεδον· νῦν δ’ εὐρυλείμων πότνιά σοι Λιβύα δέξεται εὐκλέα νύμφαν δώμασιν ἐν χρυσέοις πρόφρων· ἵνα οἱ χθονὸς αἶσαν αὐτίκα συντελέθειν ἔννομον δωρήσεται, οὔτε παγκάρπων φυτῶν νάποινον οὔτ’ ἀγνῶτα θηρῶν. You have come to this glen as her [Cyrene’s] spouse, and you are about to carry her beyond the sea toward the excellent grove of Zeus; there you will make her a ruler of a city, having gathered a host of islanders to the hill surrounded by plains. But now queen Libya of wide meadows will welcome your famous bride gladly in her golden chambers; there straightaway she will present to her as a gift an allotment of land to hold lawfully, a land neither without compensation of plants bearing all kinds of fruits nor without knowledge of beasts. (P. 9.51-59)

In this passage Pindar aetiologizes the city of Cyrene as the gift which came to its eponymous nymph upon her wedding to Apollo. Apollo himself, says Chiron, will gather men for his bride to rule; there is an obvious parallel between his action and that of an Homeric groom, who would offer cattle as ἕδνα for his bride. But these men are not the only gift the 32. Nicholson (2000), discussing especially I. 2; P. 6; O. 1.

COURTING THE QUEEN

103

bride will receive: complementing Apollo’s ἕδνα, Libya ‘will gift’ (δωρήσεται, 58) Cyrene with her own fertile portion of land. Scholars have already noted Libya’s remarkable agency in offering Cyrene her gift of self (cf. πρόφρων, ‘gladly’, 57).33 Her power and role as giver deserve further mention: she is a ‘queen of wide meadows’ (εὐρυλείμων πότνια, 55), and in willingly welcoming the bride, she acts as a queen welcoming a new princess by marriage into her home. Libya’s gift of territory not only endows Cyrene with land, but even imparts on her, it seems, the role of πότνια (‘queen’) as the royal house expands. Libya’s wedding gift of land allows Apollo’s ἕδνα of men to thrive and become a gift that keeps on giving, for the athletic nymph Cyrene is subsequently ‘famous for contests’ (κλεινάν τ’ ἀέθλοις, 70) through her civic sons. As Carson and Kurke demonstrate, Pindar describes these victories in marital terms, so that each Cyrenean victory replays and renews Cyrene’s marriage to Apollo.34 In his Pythian victory, for example, Telesicrates ‘mingled her [Cyrene] with flourishing success’ (νιν… εὐθαλεῖ συνέμειξε τύχᾳ, 71-72), a sexual image which conflates his victory with Cyrene’s marriage to the Pythian god.35 The collapsing of marriage and victory is in fact already present in the beginning of the ode, where Pindar says he wishes to ‘proclaim’ (γεγωνεῖν, 3) Telesicrates a στεφάνωμα Κυράνας (‘crown of Cyrene’, 4). This image recalls not only the crowns awarded victors at the pan-hellenic games, but also the crowns worn by brides.36 In proclaiming Telesicrates a victor, Pindar thus crowns Cyrene as a victorious bride once more. Scholars have noted that Callimachus’ use of ἕδνον forms a direct link with Pindar, who was apparently the first to use the word in the singular.37 I suggest further that with ἕδνον Callimachus fashions a close link between his Victoria and Pythian 9. His use of the ode elsewhere suggests it was both well-known and important to him.38 For celebrating Berenice’s victory, Pythian 9 offered unbeatable possibilities for praise. Callimachus harnesses Pindar’s lion-wrestling nymph Cyrene as a civic 33. See Carey (1981: 81 ad P. 9.58b); for Pythian 9’s interrelation of colonization and marriage see Dougherty (1993: 136-156). 34. Carson (1982: 121-125); Kurke (1991: 127-133). 35. Kurke (1991: 131-132). 36. On bridal crowns see LSJ s.v. 1.2; Oakley & Sinos (1993: 16-21). Kampakoglou (2019: 35) makes a related point about Berenice’s victory crown (not mentioned in the Victoria’s extant fragments) as both athletic and bridal. This association originates with Pindar. 37. Fuhrer (1992: 129-130); Massimilla (2010: 227 ad fr. 143.2); Harder (2012: 2.396 ad fr. 54.2). 38. Pythian 9 is an important intertext for Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, as Stephens (2015: 75) notes; see her commentary for specific examples.

104

BRETT EVANS

and literary model for his own athletic queen, whom he implicitly compares, we shall see, to Heracles, victor over the Nemean lion.39 Just as Apollo desires to wed Cyrene when he sees her wrestling the lion, and just as Telesicrates and Pindar renew Cyrene’s marriage to the god by crowning her with their victory and victory-song, so too Callimachus offers the victorious Berenice his own poetic ἕδνον, a Pindaric elegy which portrays Berenice as a new Cyrene. But there is also a more profound, material bond between Pythian 9 and the Victoria Berenices which is fashioned by the exchange of the Cyrenaica in the weddings of both Pindar’s Cyrene and Berenice. When Berenice came to Alexandria as Ptolemy’s bride, she in effect brought the Cyrenaica, which had been estranged from Ptolemaic power for decades, with her as her dowry;40 and as we shall see in the next section, she seems to have displayed impressive agency in doing so. Pindar’s queen Libya displayed similar agency when she gifted her own land to Cyrene to complement Apollo’s ἕδνον. I suggest that Callimachus, in commemoration of and in return for Berenice’s ‘Libyan’ gift to Ptolemaic Alexandria, offers her a marvelous ἕδνον in return: a Pindaric-style epinician that not only writes her into Cyrenean literary history inaugurated by Pythian 9, but also imports her and Cyrene’s literary history into the Alexandrian court, her marital home. For this metaphor of bride-price I have proposed to work, we must now account for the role of Zeus and Nemea in the first couplet. Callimachus writes, ‘I owe a pleasing bride-price to Zeus and Nemea’ (Ζηνί τε κα⌞ὶ Νεμέῃ τι χαρίσιον ἕδνον ὀφείλω⌟, fr. 54.1). We have seen that bride-price was customarily offered to the bride’s parents. Zeus, then, seems an apt recipient for Berenice’s bride-price, since he was the Ptolemies’ ancestor via Heracles,41 and Callimachus hails Berenice as a full-blooded Ptolemy in line 2 (κα[σιγνήτ]ων ἱερὸν αἷμα θεῶν, ‘holy blood of the Sibling Gods’). Why, though, if Berenice’s parents are Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, does Callimachus offer his bride-price to Zeus and Nemea? What I suggest we must keep in mind is the blatant artificiality of Berenice’s Ptolemaic genealogy. Everyone knew that Berenice was the daughter of Magas, not the Sibling Gods; courtiers nevertheless 39. Clayman (2014a: 146) connects lion-slaying Heracles to Cyrene in Call. H. 2.9092; Kampakoglou (2019: 43-44) notes Berenice’s alignment with Cyrene as a bride and discusses the importance of “Cyrenean folklore” to both Pythian 9 and the Victoria. 40. Clayman (2014a: 39-41). 41. Ptolemy I’s genealogy stretching from Heracles to Zeus is celebrated in Theoc. Id. 17.13-27; for discussion of the genealogy see Acosta-Hughes & Stephens (2012: 168170).

COURTING THE QUEEN

105

won favor by promoting the dynastic fiction. If Callimachus, then, could celebrate Berenice’s descent from the Sibling Gods which came about through her marriage to Ptolemy, why not fashion her a new genealogy upon her Nemean victory that emblematized the ideological significance of her achievement for her reign? Hellenistic rulers capitalized on panhellenic victories to confirm their royalty.42 By portraying Berenice as the child of Zeus and Nemea, Callimachus makes manifest her newlyproven status as a Ptolemaic queen. As a Nemean victor she is Nemea’s daughter, and as a queen she is a child of Zeus; as Callimachus earlier proclaimed at H. 1.79, quoting Hesiod (Op. 57), ‘Kings come from Zeus’ (ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες). By offering his ἕδνον for Berenice to Zeus and Nemea, Callimachus puts on full display his value as a court poet: not only can he promote the current ideology of Berenice’s Ptolemaic descent, but he can also fashion new public images for her queenship.

3. Brides and marriage in the Victoria Berenices Thus far we have considered the bride-price metaphor in the Victoria’s first couplet. In this section I will demonstrate that, like Pindar in Pythian 9, Callimachus weaves marital imagery throughout his epinician so that his ἕδνον is the culmination of a long history of marital exchanges into which Callimachus inscribes Berenice. Just after the opening lines, Callimachus describes how word of Berenice’s victory reached Alexandria: ἁρμοῖ γὰρ ⌞Δαναοῦ γ⌟ῆς ἀπὸ βουγενέος εἰς Ἑλένη[ς νησῖδ]α καὶ εἰς Παλληνέα μά[ντιν, ποιμένα [φωκάων], χρύσεον ἦλθεν ἔπος. For recently the golden word came from the land of cow-born Danaus to the island of Helen and to the Pallenean prophet, shepherd of seals. (fr. 54.4-6 Harder)

Scholars have discussed these lines as a tour de force of allusive geopoetics evoking the history of migrations between Greece and Egypt.43 In light of Callimachus’ ἕδνον-metaphor, what comes to the fore are the marital concerns motivating each migration. By calling the Argolid ‘the land of cow-born Danaus’, Callimachus recalls not only Io’s bovine

42. See e.g. Barbantani (2012: 45-46). 43. Stephens (2010: 60-61); Acosta-Hughes & Stephens (2012: 163-165, 168-170, 185-187); Clayman (2014a: 146).

106

BRETT EVANS

wanderings from Greece to Egypt,44 but also her son Danaus’ flight from Egypt back to Greece. He left Egypt with his fifty daughters because his brother Aegyptus was forcing on them the marriage of his fifty sons. The Aegyptids, however, pursued Danaus and the Danaids, and so on their wedding night Danaus had his daughters murder their cousingrooms. All obeyed except Hypermnestra, whether because he allowed her to preserve her virginity (Apollod. 2.1.5) or because she loved him (A. Pr. 865-868; Σ Pi. P. 9.195b). All the Ptolemies claimed descent from Hypermnestra,45 but she and her sisters were especially important ancestors for Berenice in light of her tumultuous path to Alexandria. Berenice’s father Magas had betrothed her to Ptolemy III (Just. Epit. 26.3),46 but after Magas’ death her mother Apame, a Seleucid, arranged for Demetrius the Fair to wed Berenice. According to Justin Apame then began an affair with Demetrius, whereupon Berenice had Demetrius killed in her mother’s bed (Epit. 26.4-8). Berenice then made herself Ptolemy’s bride as her father had intended.47 Berenice’s new Ptolemaic ‘ancestors’ offered Callimachus attractive models for his queen who had a hand in her prior husband’s death.48 In fact, Berenice united and reconciled the divergent actions taken by Hypermnestra and her sisters. Like the latter, she killed a husband forced upon her against her father’s will, while like the former she married her Egyptian cousin-‘brother’. The transit of Berenice’s victory-report ‘from the land of cow-born Danaus’ to Alexandria thus evokes a return of the Danaids in the person of their ‘descendant’ Berenice. From Argos news traveled ‘to Helen’s island’ off Alexandria’s coast, where Helen waited out the Trojan War fought over her shadow. Many have noted that this mention of Helen cements Berenice’s Ptolemaic 44. It is tempting to see in βουγενής, which Harder (2012: 2.401 ad fr. 54.4-6) shows is connected to bees, another Callimachean allusion to the bee’s pharaonic symbolism: see Stephens (2003: 1-4, 107-108). 45. The genealogy connecting Hypermnestra’s husband Lynceus to Archelaus, mythical ancestor of the Macedonian royal house, is celebrated in the prologue of Euripides’ Archelaus (TrGF fr. 228a); see Kampakoglou (2013: 114 n. 7) for discussion. 46. On Berenice’s betrothal to Ptolemy III see Clayman (2014a: 32); Van Oppen de Ruiter (2015: 19). 47. On Justin’s account see Clayman (2014a: 36-39); Van Oppen de Ruiter (2015: 19-20). 48. Clayman (2014a: 95-96) discusses the Danaids as paradigmatic for Berenice but without emphasis on Hypermnestra. Van Oppen de Ruiter (2015: 25-26) rejects tout court Clayman’s attempts to interpret tales of rape and murder in Callimachus and Apollonius as efforts to find positive models for Berenice’s conduct. I agree that we must be extremely cautious in using literature as historical evidence, but in the case of the Victoria, which celebrates Berenice, I think that analogies between her and the poem’s mythical women would have been easily drawn.

COURTING THE QUEEN

107

ancestry, for Helen was assimilated to Arsinoe II, Berenice’s ‘mother’.49 But Helen also offers, like the Danaids, an important model for Berenice, in this case for her masculine athleticism. In Theocritus’ epithalamium for Helen, the Spartan maidens describe how none of them, when they anoint themselves with manly oils, rivals Helen in athletics (Id. 18.2225). Callimachus’ mention of Helen thus forges a new link between the Spartan princess and Berenice, Arsinoe-Helen’s dynastic ‘daughter’. While we would not expect to find bridal imagery in the rest of the poem, concerned as it is with the xenia of Heracles and Molorcus, even here it is present.50 It has often been acknowledged that Callimachus implicitly compares Berenice, his Nemean victor, to her Ptolemaic ancestor Heracles, slayer of the Nemean lion.51 What has not been noted is that Callimachus makes this comparison blatant in fr. 60a Harder (= fr. 677 Pf.), where he describes how Heracles made the lion-skin his headgear: τὸ δὲ σκύλος ἀνδρὶ καλύπτρη / γιγνόμενον, νιφετοῦ καὶ βελέων ἔρυμα (‘and its hide becoming a veil for a man, a defense against snow and missiles’).52 Other descriptions of the lion-skin use the verbs καλύπτω (‘to cover’) and ἀμφικαλύπτω (‘to surround’),53 but Callimachus adds a gendered spin: a καλύπτρα is properly speaking a woman’s ‘veil’, hence ἀνδρί (‘for a man’).54 There is, to be sure, formal similarity between the hide and a καλύπτρα: both are precious garments, and both cover much of the body.55 But in light of Callimachus’ use of ἕδνον and 49. On Arsinoe II’s identification with Helen see Visser (1938: 19-20); Griffiths (1979: 86-91); Basta Donzelli (1984); Prioux (2011: 221-222); Caneva (2014: 38-39). 50. There is, however, tantalizing mention of the Danaids, Danaus, and Aegyptus in a new fragment (54a Harder) attributed to the Victoria’s beginning: cf. lines 2 Ἰναχ[ίδα]ις, 4 Ἀμυμών[η], 6 Δαναοῦ, 8 Αἴγυπτος. For its attribution and possible content see Harder (2012: 2.413-415). Danaus is also mentioned at fr. 54e.4 Harder. 51. Fuhrer (1992: 107-112) discusses Heracles as paradigmatic for Berenice’s position between divinity and mortality; Gutzwiller (1992: 378-379 n. 54) and Prioux & Trinquier (2015: 44-45) note an implicit comparison between Heracles and Berenice; Kampakoglou (2013: 118-120) discusses Berenice’s public image as a ‘warrior queen’ (120). 52. Pfeiffer (1949: 445 ad fr. 677) argued against attributing this fragment to Callimachus’ narrative of Heracles and Molorcus because he thought that Apollod. 2.5.1 depicted Heracles dragging the Nemean lion to Mycenae alive. Harder (2012: 2. 489 ad fr. 60a), however, rightly notes that in Apollodorus’ account Heracles ‘strangled’ (ἔπνιξε) the lion before going to Mycenae and thus he could have worn its skin. Additional evidence supports the fragment’s attribution to the Victoria, especially its lexical similarities with Id. 25: the fragment’s gloss σκύλος (‘hide’) is used at Id. 25.142, and καλύπτει (‘it covers’) at Id. 25.176 echoes the fragment’s καλύπτρη. See Harder (2012: 488-489) for full discussion of the attribution. 53. See Harder (2012: 2.488 ad fr. 60a). 54. Pfeiffer (1949: 445 ad loc.); cf. LSJ s.v. καλύπτρα 1; Massimilla (2010: 550-551 ad fr. 274); Harder (2012: 2.289 ad loc.). 55. Llewellyn-Jones (2003: 32) describes καλύπτραι and their occasional exoticism.

108

BRETT EVANS

νύμφα in the first couplet, it is also significant that καλύπτραι were a necessary adornment for brides.56 The Nemean lion-skin’s color, described by Euripides as πυρσός (‘flame-colored’, HF 361), might also have called to mind bridal veils, which seem to have been saffron-colored.57 Strange as a bridal Heracles might seem to us, he would have been familiar to Callimachus’ audience. For a year the hero had been the Lydian queen Omphale’s slave, and his attendant feminization is attested in cultural productions from the fifth century on. A red-figure vase (ca. 430), for example, shows Heracles exchanging his lion-skin for a robe as Omphale beckons.58 Ion wrote a satyr-play Omphale in whose extant fragments Heracles is made to dress in voluptuous Lydian style, perhaps as a woman.59 In a comedy Heracles even seemingly starred as a bride: Justin Pollux attributes to Aristophanes’ contemporary Nicochares a Ἡρακλῆς γαμούμενος (‘Heracles being married’, 7.40).60 Meineke suggests that the comedy might have concerned Heracles’ year with Omphale;61 the play likely got its name from a scene or gag featuring Heracles being dressed as a bride. In the Hellenistic period, the hero may even have described his servitude to Omphale in Diotimus’ epic Labors of Heracles.62 There is also ample precedent for the way that Callimachus analogizes his female victor Berenice to Heracles veiled in the lion-skin. Pythian 9, in which Pindar implicitly compares his male laudandus Telesicrates to the lion-wrestling nymph Cyrene,63 may have served as inspiration. The Lydian queen Omphale, who is depicted donning Heracles’ lion-skin

56. See Oakley & Sinos (1993: 14, 16-20); Llewellyn-Jones (2003: 215-258) examines veiling rituals at weddings. 57. According to Llewellyn-Jones (2003: 223-227) there is no explicit description of Greek bridal veils’ color. Nevertheless, he demonstrates that indirect evidence – including Aeschylus’ mention of the ‘drippings of saffron’ (κρόκου βαφάς, Ag. 239) shed by the nymphal Iphigenia at her sacrifice in Agamemnon, the reddish color of the Roman bridal veil (flammeum), and red colors’ marital and erotic significance in Greece – strongly points to their red-yellow hue. 58. The vase is Brit. Mus. E370; see Vollkommer (1988) for discussion. Kirkpatrick & Dunn (2002: 40-41 n. 28) note additional parallels. 59. Ion TrGF 19 fr. 17a-33a; the fragments concerning adornment are 22 and 24-25, discussed by Easterling (2007: 287-288). Achaeus also wrote a satyr-play Omphale, whose contents are unknown. 60. Frustratingly the Suda (Ν 407 Adler) transmits Ἡρακλῆς γαμῶν (‘Heracles marrying’), but this can be explained as a scribal correction of the surprising Ἡρακλῆς γαμούμενος. 61. Meineke (1839: 255). 62. For this hypothesis see Nelson (forthcoming). 63. Carson (1982: 124-125); Dougherty (1993: 139-140).

COURTING THE QUEEN

109

as early as the fourth century, may also have been a model.64 Turning to historical women, Alexander’s mother Olympias may have been another: a Severan-period contorniate depicts Olympias wearing the lion-skin and holding a club.65 While we cannot know if this iconography of Olympias dates to Callimachus’ day,66 it would cohere with her image promulgated elsewhere in the early Hellenistic period.67 Callimachus’ analogy of Heracles veiled in the lion-skin to Berenice suggests another positive model for the action Berenice took as Ptolemy’s bride. Just as Heracles felled the Nemean lion, made its hide his veil, and restored fertility to Argos, Berenice had Demetrius killed, veiled herself as Ptolemy’s bride, and brought the fertile Cyrenaica into the Ptolemaic fold.68 Callimachus’ use of the lion to negotiate Berenice’s gendered power strongly resonates with an anecdote from Aelian (NA 5.39) that a Ptolemaic Berenice was accompanied at court by a lion who licked her face and smoothed her wrinkles. Prioux and Trinquier have persuasively argued that this story concerns Berenice II69 and explain how by taming the lion associated elsewhere with masculine heroes, Berenice puts the beast instead at the service of the “feminine world of the women’s quarters”.70 Callimachus does much the same: his Heracles turns the beast into a veil which makes him a model for the victorious bride Berenice.71 Callimachus’ veiled Heracles can also be read profitably in tandem with the many well-known coin series depicting Berenice wearing a veil and diadem on the obverse and an overflowing cornucopia on the reverse.72 Ager suggests that such coins depicting veiled queens with cornucopiae recall their identity as abundantly fertile brides.73 Callimachus’ collapsing of Berenice and Heracles seems to make a further point: Berenice’s violent exercise of power in murdering Demetrius before becoming 64. Coins from Phocaea (ca. 387-326 BC) depict Omphale wearing the lion-skin: see BMC Ionia 211, 52-55, pl. 5, 8; LIMC s.v. ‘Omphale’ no. 55. 65. See Carney (2006: 122-123). 66. Prioux & Trinquier (2015: 46) suggest with hesitation the possibility of a Hellenistic original. 67. Douris of Samos tantalizingly portrays Olympias as going to war like a bacchant (Athen. 13.560f). 68. See Prioux & Trinquier (2015: 45) for the analogy. On Cyrene’s fertility see e.g. Pi. P. 9.6a-8. 69. Prioux & Trinquier (2015: 40-48). 70. Prioux & Trinquier (2015: 45). 71. It is tempting to regard Aelian’s anecdote as influenced by Callimachus’ bridal Heracles and Berenice, but perhaps the more likely scenario is that Callimachus’ poem and the anecdote betray a common association between Berenice and lions at court. 72. For images and analysis see Mørkholm (1991: no. 307 with discussion at 108); Kyrieleis (1975: 95-96); Clayman (2014a: 128-12Z9); Van Oppen de Ruiter (2015: 45-49). 73. Ager (2017: 174-175).

110

BRETT EVANS

Ptolemy’s bride was a prerequisite for bringing the fertile Cyrenaica into the Ptolemaic house. While Heracles veiled in the lion skin offers a compelling and positive model for Berenice’s masculine power, we should still keep in mind the comic heritage of Ἡρακλῆς γαμούμενος (‘Heracles being married’), especially since comedy informs Callimachus’ depiction of Heracles’ stay with Molorcus.74 What significance may lie in the fact that Callimachus veils Heracles, the savior of Argos, in a way that recalls the hero’s weakest moment as Omphale’s slave? I would suggest that in this way Callimachus tames, as it were, Berenice’s violent past so as to make her power more palatable to the members of her new court. After felling the lion and leaving Molorcus’ hut the next morning, Heracles remembered to thank his host: οὐδὲ ξεινοδόκῳ λήσαθ’ ὑποσχεσίης, / πέμψε δέ οἱ τὸ[ν] ὀρῆα, τίεν δέ ἑ ὡς ἕνα πηῶν (‘And he did not forget his promise to his host, but sent him the mule and paid him honors like one of his in-laws’, fr. 54i.19-20 Harder). Scholars generally understand πηοί as ‘kin’.75 The word’s original and commoner meaning, however, is ‘relative by marriage’.76 Given Callimachus’ demonstrated interest in Archaic kinship terminology,77 it seems reasonable to ask what significance Callimachus’ gloss might have here, in this concluding passage of the epinician’s mythic panel, if not also the poem.78 Heracles’ and Molorcus’ gift-exchange in the context of a relationship similar to that of in-laws returns us by ring composition to Callimachus’ offer of a bride-price for Berenice at the beginning of the Victoria. The poem thus seems to end in a sort of mise-en-abyme: the mule which the victorious Heracles gifts to his new ‘in-law’ Molorcus prefigures the counter-gift which Callimachus hopes that Berenice will give him in exchange for his ἕδνον, thereby sealing their poetic marriage. 4. Competing for the queen’s hand However the Victoria debuted, its primary audience was the Ptolemaic court, where Callimachus was far from the only poet fighting for Berenice’s attention. We now possess three epigrams of Posidippus (Hippika AB 78, 79, 74. For comedy’s influence on the episode of Heracles and Molorcus see Ambühl (2002: 26-32). 75. Pfeiffer (1949: 64 ad loc); Gow (1950: 2.310 ad Id. 16.25 πηῶν); Harder (2012: 2.482 ad loc.). 76. Miller (1953: 49), noted by Harder (2012: 2.482). See LSJ s.v. 77. See H. 3.135 εἰνάτερες γαλόῳ τε with Bornmann (1968: 67 ad loc.). 78. See Harder (2012: 2.474 ad fr. 54i).

COURTING THE QUEEN

111

82) celebrating horse-racing victories by Berenices, perhaps Berenice II.79 A royal victory offered poets the chance to compete for patronage and court status and to win their rulers’ favor.80 Posidippus’ epigram AB 78 from the Hippika makes this competition all but explicit. This epigram for an Olympic victory is spoken by Berenice herself, who pronounces [ε]ἴπατε, πάντες ἀοιδοί, ἐμὸν [κ]λέος (‘Tell, all you singers, of my fame’, 1). Enjoining all poets to commemorate her victory, Berenice effectively opens a competition among them to produce the finest poem. How was one to stand out from the rest? The last couplet suggests Posidippus’ answer. Having begun by addressing all poets, Berenice concludes by addressing the Macedonians specifically: τεθρίππου δὲ τελείου ἀείδετε τὸν Βερ[ε]νίκη[ς] / τῆς βασιλευούσης, ὦ Μακέτα[ι], στέφανον (‘Sing on, Macedonians, of the crown of reigning Berenice for her perfect four-horse team’, 13-14). By honing in on one audience for Berenice’s praises, Posidippus suggests himself as the preeminent poet for the Macedonians.81 Callimachus, however, wanted to be more than just one of Berenice’s many poets. By casting his epinician as a ἕδνον, he angles for an exclusive position. His metaphor hearkens back to the heroic past when suitors competed for the hands of brides by offering the most numerous and pleasing gifts.82 The mentality governing this competitive giving is revealed in Helen’s wooing in Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women. The Athenian hero Menestheus’ thymos urges him to give exceeding gifts ἐπεὶ ο[ὔ] τιν’ ἐέλπε[το φέρτατον εἶναι] / [πάντω]ν ἡρώων κτήνεσσί τε δω[τίναις τε] (‘since he expected none of all the heroes to be superior both in possessions and in gifts’, fr. 200.8-9 M-W). A man only gave ἕδνα for Helen if he thought he had a chance to win her, and so gave as much as he could. Competing for Berenice’s patronage was a game of similar stakes. 79. Huß (2008) and Clayman (2014a: 147-158) attribute the victories to Berenice II, refuting the arguments of Criscuolo (2003) and Thompson (2005) in favor of Berenice Syra. 80. Other court festivities welcomed poetic competitions: see Nelson (this volume: 299-320) on Lucian’s anecdote (Pr.Im. 5) about a poetic competition sponsored by the Seleucid queen Stratonice to praise her hair. Callimachus’ twelfth Iambus describes the gods’ competitive gift-giving at Hebe’s birth, with Apollo’s poem besting the other gifts; the Olympian court’s competition may be read as a model for competition at the Ptolemaic court. On this poem see now Petrovic (2019); I thank Annemarie Ambühl for suggesting this parallel. 81. On Callimachus’ and Posidippus’ competition and differing audiences see Stephens (2005). 82. See e.g. ἐπεὶ πόρε μυρία ἕδνα (‘since he gave countless bride-price’, Il. 16.190, 22.472; Od. 11.282) and πορὼν ἀπερείσια ἕδνα (‘having given countless bride-price’, Il. 16.178, 19.529) describing how men win brides by offering bride-price to their fathers.

112

BRETT EVANS

Callimachus’ metaphor of ἕδνον exalts Berenice as a queen worth fighting for and implies that this poem is the most splendid gift he has to offer. And it is a splendid poem: a full-blown Pindaric epinician casting her as the latest bride in the line of Pindar’s Cyrene, the Danaids, Helen, and even Heracles. His ἕδνον is one to cast all other victory poems, Posidippus’ epigrams included, in the shade. Who, though, gets to decide whether Callimachus will be Berenice’s ‘wedded’ poet? In the Archaic world, the decision lay in the hands of the father. But is that the case here? Callimachus announces that he owes his ἕδνον to Zeus and Nemea, yet he says this to Berenice, whom he calls νύμφα (‘bride’). His direct address, I think, suggests that Berenice has an important role to play in deciding whether or not to accept Callimachus’ ἕδνον, and thus the matter of her own patronage qua marriage. This impression grows stronger when we read the Victoria in its literary context, Aetia 3-4, where there is an intriguing parallel to Callimachus’ wooing of Berenice in ‘Acontius and Cydippe’ (fr. 67-75e Harder). To emphasize Cydippe’s prodigious beauty even as a young girl, Callimachus writes πολλαὶ Κυδίππην ὀλ[ί]γην ἔτι μητέρες υἱοῖς / ἑδνῆστιν κεραῶν ᾔτεον ἀντὶ βοῶν (‘Many mothers were asking for Cydippe, while she was still little, [to be] for their sons a bride given in exchange for the brideprice of horned cattle’, fr. 67.9-10). The hapax ἑδνῆστις strongly echoes Callimachus’ ἕδνον in the Victoria’s first line and thus forges a link between the wooing of Cydippe and of Berenice.83 Clayman, moreover, has argued that Cydippe is in some way an analogy for Berenice,84 and others have pointed out that Acontius, instructed by Eros in authorial techne, is a foil for the poet.85 In light of these connections, I would like to draw additional attention to Cydippe’s crucial role as a reader in her marriage to Acontius.86 Albeit unwittingly, Cydippe decided the matter of her marriage to Acontius by reading aloud the oath he inscribed upon the apple he threw before her; her act of reading obviated the offers of ἕδνα those many mothers had made to her parents. My argument about the Victoria implies that Berenice’s act of reading, in the context of Aetia 3-4, similarly holds great significance. Berenice, like Cydippe, is the 83. The significance of Cydippe’s wooing for Callimachus’ poetic project is further signaled by the couplet’s metapoetic veneer: the contrast between ‘many mothers’ (πολλαὶ…μητέρες) and ‘little Cydippe’ (Κυδίππην ὀλ[ί]γην) recalls the imagery of the Aetia prologue, and ᾔτεον (‘they were asking’) echoes the Aetia’s very name. 84. See Clayman (2014a: 97; 2014b: 89-93), suggesting in particular that Cydippe (‘Glory of Horses’) is a speaking name recalling Berenice (‘Bringer of Victory’), a name attested for racehorses. 85. E.g. Hutchinson (2003: 52); Gutzwiller (2007: 66). 86. On Cydippe’s reading see Rosenmeyer (1996: 13).

COURTING THE QUEEN

113

poem’s most important reader who will become her writer’s bride; unlike Cydippe, however, Berenice has the power to choose whose ἕδνον she will accept.87 Callimachus’ epinician ἕδνον, then, creates a powerful public image for Berenice as a victorious bride sought after by many poet-suitors and endowed with the power to choose between them. This power, however, comes at a price. If Berenice accepts Callimachus’ ἕδνον, then Callimachus professes his entitlement to recognition as her special poet. He demands fidelity, even exclusivity in her attentions to him and his poetry, a lifetime relationship of poetic charis for the charis of a patron. The power he offers her, in other words, continues only as long as she returns his favor. 5. A bride eternal This paper opened with a re-evaluation of the meaning of ἕδνον, and I would like to close by reconsidering another word from the first couplet, νύμφα. Parsons writes: “the word may mean ‘wife’ as well as ‘bride’; and in any case, royal persons are notoriously slow to age. Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II could still qualify as νυμφίος and νύμφα, after six years of marriage (Theoc. 17.129, Call. fr. 228.5.)”.88 Mere royalty, however, does not confer eternal youth. Never to age is the prerogative of divinity: as Oedipus puts it to Theseus, μόνοις οὐ γίγνεται / θεοῖσι γῆρας οὐδὲ κατθανεῖν ποτε (‘for the gods alone does old age not come about, nor ever to die’, S. OC 607-608). The Ptolemies knew this association of agelessness and divinity well, as did their poets. The singer at Arsinoe’s Adonia festival described by Theocritus lingers over Aphrodite’s lover Adonis’ youth, which merits an entire line (ὀκτωκαιδεκέτης ἢ ἐννεακαίδεχ᾽ ὁ γαμβρός, ‘the bridegroom, eighteen or nineteen years old’, Id. 15.129) and whose soft lips and their newly-grown saffron hair receive further praise (130). The pair’s wedding couch, too, is adorned with an image of eternal youth, for on it is sculpted Ganymede, Zeus’s ‘wine-pouring boy’ (οἰνοχόον…παῖδα, 125) and eromenos, preserved in ageless beauty. As gods on earth the Ptolemies would be eager to acquire this divine youth, and Theocritus offers it to them. In Idyll 17 he describes the Olympian symposium, where Heracles rejoices beholding his descendants Alexander and Ptolemy I Soter ὅττι σφεων Κρονίδης μελέων ἐξείλετο 87. It may be significant that the sole legal decision attributed to Berenice (Hyg. 2.24) concerned dowries: see Marinone (1990: 295-299); Clayman (2014a: 124). 88. Parsons (1977: 8); Clayman (2014a: 146).

114

BRETT EVANS

γῆρας (‘since the son of Cronus removed old age from their limbs’, Id. 17.24). Alexander died young; Soter, however, did not, and Hunter suggests that Theocritus may be promulgating a court fiction of his Olympian rejuvenation.89 Then near the end of the Encomium Theocritus portrays a perpetual rejuvenation taking place in the bedchamber of Philadelphus and Arsinoe II: αὐτός τ’ ἰφθίμα τ’ ἄλοχος, τᾶς οὔτις ἀρείων νυμφίον ἐν μεγάροισι γυνὰ περιβάλλετ’ ἀγοστῷ, ἐκ θυμοῦ στέργοισα κασίγνητόν τε πόσιν τε. Both he and his mighty wife, than whom no better woman casts her arm around her bridegroom in their halls, loving passionately both her sibling and her spouse. (Id. 17.128-130)

By referring to Philadelphus as Arsinoe’s νυμφίος (‘bridegroom’, 129) held in her arms, Theocritus makes it as if the queen’s marital embrace turns back the clock and renews his status as groom on their marriage night.90 It is no accident that this description of the royal marriage comes just before the Encomium’s close, where Theocritus explicitly hails Philadelphus as one of the ἡμιθεοί (‘demigods’, 136): Arsinoe’s embrace has already freed his limbs from age. If Zeus and Arsinoe are agents of deification, though, it is because Theocritus makes them so: as praise poet he plays a crucial role in deifying his patrons. Theocritus even seems to glance at his power to immortalize and rejuvenate in the lines just considered. Zeus, he says, removed old age from Heracles’ descendants’ μέλη, a word which can signify not only physical ‘limbs’, but also (lyric) ‘songs’. It is tempting to see Theocritus proclaiming Zeus’s grant of agelessness not only to the Ptolemies’ bodies, but also to the poetry celebrating them, Idyll 17 included. Physical and literary agelessness go hand in hand.91 Idyll 18, the epithalamium for Helen and Menelaus sung by Helen’s companions, makes the role of the poet and his readers in deification more explicit. The chorus, having proclaimed Helen now a wife (τὺ μὲν οἰκέτις ἤδη, Id. 18.38), describe how they will establish a cult for her the next morning,92 when they will go to the racetrack to pluck flowers, wind them into garlands, and place them on a plane tree which will be inscribed ὡς παριών τις / ἀννείμῃ Δωριστί· ‘σέβευ μ’· Ἑλένας φυτόν εἰμι’ (‘so that someone passing by may read in Doric: “Revere me; 89. 90. 91. 92.

Hunter (2003: 119 ad Id. 17.24); pace Gow (1950: 2.330 ad loc.). See Hunter (2003: 191-192 ad loc.). Theocritus states this explicitly at Id. 16.34-56. See Hunter (1996: 160 n. 83) on ἦρι (Id. 18.39).

COURTING THE QUEEN

115

I am Helen’s tree”’, Id. 18.47-48). Scholars have focused on the ritual whose aition Theocritus offers, but far less on the aition itself and Theocritus’ interest in it.93 It is noteworthy in this respect that the climax of the prospective cult foundation is the tree’s inscription and its future reading by a passerby. In fact, all of the girls’ actions preceding the inscription blush metapoetic. Plucking flowers and weaving garlands are established metaphors for poetic composition;94 the sweet fragrance exuded by their garlands (ἁδὺ πνέοντας, ‘breathing sweetly’, 40) may remind us of Theocritus’ finest metapoetic object, the goatherd’s cup (κεκλυσμένον ἁδέι κηρῷ, ‘sealed with sweet wax’, Id. 1.27; ὡς καλὸν ὄσδει, ‘how beautiful it smells’, 149); and the oil libation (ἄλειφαρ, ‘unguent’, 45) to the tree they will inscribe (45-46) may evoke the use of cedar oil to preserve papyrus rolls, a practice to which Callimachus alludes in his prayer to the Charites at the Aetia’s beginning (fr. 7.13-14; cf. ἄλειφα ῥέει, ‘unguent flows’, fr. 7.12).95 The girls’ metapoetic offerings to Helen’s tree thus emphasize that their inscription and the endless acts of reading it makes possible are the crucial agents of Helen’s deification. The girls will offer garlands and oil tomorrow, but after that it is the inscription which will instruct readers to become Helen’s worshippers. Theocritus by analogy promotes his own role as a writer and that of his readers in deification. By composing Helen’s epithalamium as a text, he makes it possible for readers to re-perform the wedding song and merge their voices with those of the girls and their imagined passerby. Theocritus’ readers thus enact the worship that Helen’s girls envision; reading is an integral part of ritual.96 Theocritus further underscores his ability as a poet to preserve Helen as an ageless bride through his clever narrative handling of the cult foundation. Helen’s companions sing about the cult that they will establish the next morning. As Theocritus’ readers we know that the cult has been founded, but in our act of reading it is as if the morning never comes. Theocritus has thus elided the moment of the cult’s foundation; instead, we worship Helen frozen in time, as it were, on her wedding night. Griffiths has demonstrated that Theocritus fashions close parallels between Helen-Arsinoe II and Menelaus-Philadelphus, and suggested attractively 93. For attempts to identify the ritual see Gow (1950: 2.358-359 ad Id. 18.43-48); Hunter (1996: 160-161). Hunter (1996: 157) sees the Spartan poem as politicallymotivated Ptolemaic ‘cultural rescue-archaeology’. 94. See e.g. Gutzwiller (1998: 79) discussing Nossis’ first epigram. 95. See Petrovic & Petrovic (2002: 196-197). 96. Theocritus himself encourages this metapoetic and textual interpretation by describing the maidens’ song’s setting πρόσθε νεογράπτω θαλάμω (‘near the newlypainted chamber’, Id. 18.3). The adjective, first attested here, in this context means ‘newlypainted’, but could also mean ‘newly-written’ referring to Theocritus’ poem.

116

BRETT EVANS

that Theocritus wrote the poem for the royal wedding.97 By so promising and effecting Helen’s deification as a perpetual bride, Theocritus would offer an enviable gift for Arsinoe upon her marriage. Callimachus, too, offered his queens bridal agelessness. In the Ektheosis Arsinoes, he addresses the queen as νύμφα (‘bride’, fr. 228.5), preserving her forever as she was on her wedding day. In Aetia 3-4, bookended by the Victoria and Coma Berenices, I would suggest that he took this bridal poetics to new heights. The new books of the Aetia begin, I have argued, with Callimachus’ poetic proposal to Berenice, a splendid brideprice that makes her the culmination of a long line of powerful brides, and even a bridal Heracles. Books 3-4 then wind their way through manifold Aetia centered on women, marriage, childbirth, child-killing, adultery, political marriage, and more, finally concluding with the Coma Berenices. Two episodes in these books especially recall Theocritus’ play with inscriptionality and the temporality of marriage in Idyll 18. The first is fr. 73 of ‘Acontius and Cydippe’, when lovesick Acontius announces the ‘letters’ (γράμματα, fr. 73.2) he will inscribe on the trees to proclaim Cydippe’s beauty. But Acontius’ carving of Cydippe’s beauty into the woods does not stay still. Callimachus describes the genesis of his own elegy through his act of reading the prose account of Xenomedes (cf. fr. 75.53-55). Callimachus thus lays bare the chain of textual incorporation and production which culminates in his own Aetia, which will celebrate Cydippe forever as a bride. The Aetia then close with the Coma Berenices, another poem which like Idyll 18 plays with the notion of inscription98 and preserves Berenice’s status as a νύμφα in a most elaborate manner. Among the many models for Berenice’s dedication of the lock is the practice of παρθένοι to dedicate a lock of hair before their transition to life as married women.99 Berenice, however, had been married a year before she dedicated her lock upon the safe return of her husband from the Third Syrian War.100 It is thus as if she has remained perpetually a νύμφα on the verge of marriage. Callimachus does his part to encourage this interpretation: the lock laments that, when still connected to virginal Berenice’s head, he enjoyed unscented perfumes, but did not drink the scented perfumes proper to married women (fr. 110.77-78).101 The Coma thus perpetuates an image of Berenice as eternally a bride, bolstering her claim to divinity. 97. Griffiths (1979: 86-91). 98. See Harder (1998: 98-99). 99. Gutzwiller (1992: 369-373). 100. On the Third Syrian War see e.g. Hölbl (2001: 48-51). 101. Concerning the gender of the lock: ‘he’ is technically right, but note that the lock’s gender is somewhat ambiguous; see Harder (2012: 2.805).

COURTING THE QUEEN

117

6. Conclusion I hope to have shown in this paper that Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices is no ordinary ‘gift’ but a ἕδνον in the word’s full, Archaic sense, a ‘bride-price’-poem for Berenice upon her Nemean victory. We have seen that the Victoria triangulates Berenice between her pre-marital past and married future: on the one hand, Callimachus’ allusions to Pythian 9 fashion her as a new nymph Cyrene; on the other, her juxtaposition with Heracles veiled in the lion-skin emblematizes her new status as a Ptolemaic bride. Quite fittingly, then, this ἕδνον performs Berenice’s transformation from Cyrenean princess into victorious, Ptolemaic queen. In exchange for this powerful public image for his queen, however, Callimachus stipulates that he receive a share of her power. For his ἕδνον, Callimachus demands Berenice’s exclusive gift of self in a relationship of patronage qua marriage, thus setting him above all the others wrangling for her favor at court, like so many suitors. Berenice did, it seems, accept her poet’s bride-price gladly, to judge from Callimachus’ placement of the Victoria at the start of Aetia 3-4. In this literary context, it is as if Callimachus’ ἕδνον has multiplied from one poem into two scrolls of elegies. What a marvelous demonstration of the fruitfulness of this poetic marriage, and its power! For Callimachus’ ἕδνον now culminates in the Coma, a poem which preserves Berenice always on the threshold of marriage – forever young, already divine. His ἕδνον is a gift truly worthy of a wedded poet. REFERENCES Acosta-Hughes, B. & S. Stephens, 2012, Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets. Cambridge. Ager, S.L., 2017, “Symbol and Ceremony: Royal Weddings in the Hellenistic Age”. In: A. Erskine et al (eds), The Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra. Swansea, 165-188. Ambühl, A., 2002, “Entertaining Theseus and Heracles: The Hecale and the Victoria Berenices as a Diptych”. In: M.A. Harder et al (eds), Callimachus II (Hellenistica Groningana 7). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 23-47. Barbantani, S., 2012, “Hellenistic Epinician”. BICS Supplement 112, 37-55. Basta Donzelli, G., 1984, “Arsinoe simile ad Elen (Theocritus Id. 15,110)”. Hermes 112, 306-316. Beauchet, L., 1897, Histoire du droit privé de la république athénienne: I: Le droit de famille. Paris. Bornmann, F. (ed), 1968, Callimachi Hymnus in Dianam. Florence. Caneva, S.G., 2014, “Courtly Love, Stars and Power: The Queen in ThirdCentury Royal Couples, Through Poetry and Epigraphic Texts”. In: M.A. Harder et al (eds), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Hellenistica Groningana 20). Leuven-Paris-Walpole, MA, 25-57.

118

BRETT EVANS

Carey, C., 1981, A Commentary on Fives Odes of Pindar: Pythian 2, Pythian 9, Nemean 1, Nemean 7, Isthmian 8. New York. Carney, E.D., 2006, Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great. London. ―, 2013, Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life. Oxford. Carson, A., 1982, “Wedding at Noon in Pindar’s Ninth Pythian”. GRBS 23, 121-128. Clayman, D.L., 2014a, Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt. Oxford. ―, 2014b, “Historical Contexts for Two Aitia From Book III: ‘Acontius & Cydippe’ (frr. 67-75 Pf.) and ‘Phrygius & Pieria’ (frr. 80-83 Pf.)”. In: M.A. Harder et al (eds), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Hellenistica Groningana 20). Leuven-Paris-Walpole, MA, 85-102. Criscuolo, L., 2003, “Agoni e politica alla corte di Alessandria: Riflessioni su alcuni epigrammi di Posidippo”. Chiron 33, 311-333. Dougherty, C., 1993, The Poetics of Colonization: From City to Text in Archaic Greece. Oxford. Drachmann, A.B. (ed), 1910, Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina. Vol. II: Scholia in Pythionicas. Leipzig. Easterling, P., 2007, “Looking for Omphale”. In: V. Jennings & A. Katsaros (eds), The World of Ion of Chios. Leiden-Boston, 282-292. Edwards, M.W., 1991, The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume V: Books 17-20. Cambridge. Finley, M.I., 1955, “Marriage, Sale and Gift in the Homeric World”. RIDA (3rd ser.) 2, 167-194. ―, 1981, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece. New York. Fuhrer, T., 1992, Die Auseinandersetzung mit den Chorlyrikern in den Epinikien des Kallimachos. Basel-Kassel. Gentili, B. et al (eds), 1995, Pindaro: Le Pitiche. Verona. Gow, A.S.F. (ed), 1950, Theocritus. 2 vols. Cambridge. Griffiths, F.T., 1979, Theocritus at Court. Leiden. Gutzwiller, K., 1992, “Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice: Fantasy, Romance, and Propaganda”. AJP 113, 359-385. ―, 1998, Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley. ―, 2007, A Guide to Hellenistic Literature. Malden, MA. Harder, M.A., 1998, “‘Generic Games’ in Callimachus’ Aetia”. In: M.A. Harder et al (eds), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 3). Groningen 1998, 95-113. ―, (ed), 2012, Callimachus: Aetia. 2 vols. Oxford. Heubeck, A. et al (eds), 1988, A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey: Volume I. Introduction and Books I-VIII. Oxford. Hölbl, G., 2001, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire. Trans. T. Saavedra. London. Hunter, R., 1996, Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge. ―, 1998, “Before and After Epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25”. In: M.A. Harder et al (eds), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 3). Groningen, 115-132. ―, (ed), 2003, Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Berkeley. Huß, W., 2008, “Die Tochter Berenike oder die Schwiegertochter Berenike? Bemerkungen zu einigen Epigrammen des Poseidippos von Pella”. ZPE 165, 55-57.

COURTING THE QUEEN

119

Hutchinson, G.O., 2003, “The Aetia: Callimachus’ Poem of Knowledge”. ZPE 145, 47-59. Kampakoglou, A., 2013, “Victory, Mythology and the Poetics of Intercultural Praise in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices”. Trends in Classics 5, 111-143. ―, 2019, Studies in the Reception of Pindar in Ptolemaic Poetry. Berlin-Boston. Kirkpatrick, J. & F. Dunn, 2002, “Heracles, Cercopes, and Paracomedy”. TAPA 132, 29-61. Kurke, L., 1991, The Traffic in Praise: Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy. Ithaca. Kyrieleis, H., 1975, Bildnisse der Ptolemäer. Berlin. Lacey, W.K., 1966, “Homeric ΕΔΝΑ and Penelope’s ΚΥΡΙΟΣ”. JHS 86, 55-68. Llewellyn-Jones, L., 2003, Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece. Swansea. Marinone, N., 1990, “Berenice e le fanciulle di Lesbo”. Paideia 45, 293-299. Massimilla, G. (ed), 2010, Aitia: Libro terzo e quarto. Callimaco. Pisa-Rome. Meineke, A., 1839, Fragmenta comicorum graecorum: Volumen I. Historiam criticam comicorum graecorum continens. Berlin. Miller, M., 1953, “Greek Kinship Terminology”. JHS 73, 46-52. Mørkholm, O., 1991, Early Hellenistic Coinage: From the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336-188 B.C.), P. Grierson & U. Westermark (eds). Cambridge. Morris, I., 1986, “The Use and Abuse of Homer”. CA 5, 81-138. Nelson, T.J., forthcoming, “Early Hellenistic Epic”. In: M. Perale et al (eds), Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus. Cambridge. Nicholson, N., 2000, “Pederastic Poets and Adult Patrons in Late Archaic Lyric”. CW 93, 235-259. Oakley, J.H. & R.H. Sinos, 1993, The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison. Oppen de Ruiter, B.F. van, 2015, Berenice II Euergetis: Essays in Early Hellenistic Queenship. New York. Parsons, P.J., 1977, “Callimachus: Victoria Berenices”. ZPE 25, 1-51. Perysinakis, I.N., 1991, “Penelope’s ΕΕΔΝΑ Again”. CQ 41, 297-302. Petrovic, I., 2019, “Poetry for the New Goddess: A Gift That Keeps On Giving”. In: J.J.H. Klooster et al (eds), Callimachus Revisited: New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Hellenistica Groningana 24). Leuven-ParisBristol, CT, 285-304. Petrovic, I. & A. Petrovic, 2003, “Stop and Smell the Statues: Callimachus’ Epigram 51Pf. Reconsidered (Four Times)”. MD 51, 179-208. Pfeiffer, R. (ed), 1949, Callimachus: Volumen 1: Fragmenta. Oxford. Pomeroy, S.B., 1984, Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra. New York. Prioux, E., 2011, “Callimachus’ Queens”. In: B. Acosta-Hughes, L. Lehnus & S. Stephens (eds), Brill’s Companion to Callimachus. Leiden-Boston, 201-224. Prioux, E. & J. Trinquier, 2015, “L’autruche d’Arsinoé et le lion de Bérénice: Des usages de la faune dans la representation des premières reines lagides”. In: P. Linant de Bellefonds et al (eds), D’Alexandre à Auguste: Dynamiques de la création dans les arts visuels et la poésie. Rennes, 31-56. Rosenmeyer, P.A., 1996, “Love Letters in Callimachus, Ovid and Aristaenetus or the Sad Fate of a Mailorder Bride”. MD 36, 9-31.

120

BRETT EVANS

Rutherford, I., 2001, Pindar’s Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre. Oxford. Schmitz, T.A., 2012, “Herakles in Bits and Pieces: Id. 25 in the Corpus Theocriteum”. In: M. Baumbach & S. Bär (eds), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception. Leiden-Boston, 259-282. Seiler, M.A., 1997, Ποίησις Ποιήσεως: Alexandrinische Dichtung κατὰ λεπτόν in strukturaler und humanethologischer Deutung: Kall. fr. 254-268 C SH; Theokr. 1, 32-54; Theokr. 7; Theokr. 11; ,Theokr.‘ 25. Stuttgart-Leipzig. Snodgrass, A.M., 1974, “An Historical Homeric Society?” JHS 74, 114-125. Stephens, S., 2003, Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Berkeley. ―, 2005, “Battle of the Books”. In: K. Gutzwiller (ed), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book. Oxford, 229-248. ―, 2010, “Ptolemaic Alexandria”. In: J.J. Clauss & M. Cuypers (eds), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Malden, MA-Oxford, 46-61. ―, 2015, Callimachus: The Hymns. Oxford. Thompson, D.J., 2005, “Posidippus, Poet of the Ptolemies”. In: K. Gutzwiller (ed), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book. Oxford, 269-283. Visser, E., 1938, Götter und Kulte im ptolemäischen Alexandrien. Amsterdam. Vollkommer, R., 1988, “Die früheste Darstellung der Omphale?” Annales d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie 10, 27-37.

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS: NEW PERSPECTIVES REGARDING FEMALE POWER IN HELLENISTIC POETRY Irene GIAQUINTA ABSTRACT In the Hellenistic Age poets portray female figures playing various important roles. Powerful women are able to combine their femininity with a vigorous and conscious management of their responsibilities, both in the public and in the private spheres. An important example, which has not yet received enough attention, can be found in Apollonius Rhodius (I 653-909): the events on the island of Lemnos, and, above all, the development of the character of the queen Hypsipyle. The Argonautica’s first book focuses on the period preceding the Nemean exile, when, after the slaughter of the men, Hypsipyle reigns on Lemnos. Apollonius provides a new insight into the character of the queen, taking inspiration from Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ homonymous tragedies but also going further in the psychological characterization of this powerful woman. Whereas in Euripides’ work Hypsipyle is a helpless slave in Nemea, forced to face the death sentence imposed on her, Apollonius lends the queen not only the role of a guide within the community, but also that of a shrewd rhetorical talent. In this article I will argue that in Hellenistic poetry women distinguish themselves through self-awareness, common sense and, most importantly, the ability to plan for the future on the basis of contingent circumstances, an incumbent sense of duty and moral responsibility. A deeper linguistic analysis and a detailed comparison between meaningful passages from the Argonautica and Euripides’ Hypsipyle will show that in his poem Apollonius opens up new perspectives on the female world through this lesser-known female character.

1. Introduction The aim of this research is to outline the figure of Hypsipyle in Apollonius Rhodius and to highlight its innovative aspects in comparison to the heroine’s profile as developed by tragedy in the 5th century B.C.1 In the Classical Age the character, known since the time of the Homeric poems, was the protagonist of numerous theatrical works: Aristophanes, 1. I want to express my gratitude to Prof. Brown, who read this paper: he has given to me precious suggestions and showed great kindness even if I was not able to take physically part in the Workshop. A huge thanks also goes to Prof. Klooster, who has been always so sympathetic and helpful towards all my personal difficulties.

122

IRENE GIAQUINTA

Nicochares, Antiphanes, Diphilus, Turpilius and Alexis wrote plays on the mythical events of Lemnos; Aeschylus wrote the Λήμνιαι (TrGF 3 F, 247-248), while Sophocles (TrGF 4 F, 384-389) was the author of a tragedy of the same name, but a lot of fragmentary papyri and the indirect tradition allow us to read, and to a large extent to reconstruct, Euripides’ Hypsipyle.2 Hypsipyle is part of a trilogy to which belonged the Phoenissae and Antiope (Schol. vet. in Aristoph. Ran. 53) and its plot represents one of two possible αἴτια of the Nemean Games; the other αἴτιον attributes their institution to Heracles, after he had slain the Nemean Lion (see Bacchylides, B. 13.46-57).3 A systematic analysis between Euripides and Apollonius allows us to identify some common themes that have been elaborated from a radically different perspective by the Rhodian, two centuries later.4 Among the most significant themes that highlight an opposite treatment by the two authors is the theme of εὐσέβεια, as a sense of pietas towards gods and towards men. 2. A systematic analysis: εὐσέβεια The Euripidean tragedy depicts how, about twenty years after being sentenced to exile and sold into slavery for having spared her father Thoas from the Lemnian massacre of the men, Hypsipyle lives in Nemea at the palace of Lycurgus and Eurydice, where, deprived of liberty, she assumes the role of nurse of Opheltes. While the woman is taking care of the child, the Argive seer Amphiaraus arrives near the palace; he was forced by a promise to join Polynices’ army against his brother Eteocles, who ruled in Thebes.5 After mentioning the ancient oath that led him to 2. Radt (1985: 233). Euripides’ Hypsipyle presents serious lacunae; it is mostly preserved by papyrus fragments and, in particular, by the important POxy.VI.852 published by Grenfell – Hunt (= G.-H.) in 1908; the most up-to-date edition of the drama is edited by Cockle 1987. Lomiento (2005: 56) adds that another tragedy by Aeschylus, with the same title, examined the theme of the crime of the women of Lemnos. See also Roscher (1884-1897: 1937). 3. Cockle (1987: 39-41). 4. Also in other artistic fields, such as sculpture, the figure of the woman undergoes important renovations in the Hellenistic Age, see Dillon (2012: 263-277). 5. Diodorus Siculus (D.S. 4.65) reports that Eriphyle, sister of Adrastus and wife of the seer Amphiaraus, was bribed by Polynices, who gave her Harmonia’s necklace of eternal youth to convince Amphiaraus to join the expedition against Thebes. Amphiaraus, who had received the gift of clairvoyance by Apollo, agreed reluctantly because he knew the expedition would have a disastrous outcome. Shortly before being killed, Amphiaraus is saved by Zeus, who precipitates him into a chasm and leads him directly to the underworld

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

123

be part of the expedition, Amphiaraus asks Hypsipyle to show him a spring of clear water to carry out ritual libations before continuing his way to Thebes. The dramatic observation that for him there is no return (οὐκ ἔστι νόστος ἀνδρὶ τῶιδε πρὸς δόμος)6 strikes Hypsipyle, who, impressed by such firmness despite his misfortune, asks Amphiraus why, if the Argive enterprise is destined to end ruinously, he nevertheless wishes to perform the sacred rite. Amphiaraus answers her heroically that it is always better to honor the gods:7 ἄμεινον· οὐδεὶς κάματος εὐσεβεῖν θεούς It is better so; no labour, to worship the gods8 (frr. 1, 5, 65, 75, 85, p. 71 Cockle)

Such a noble attitude towards destiny and inevitability impresses Hypsipyle. She lays Opheltes down on the lawn and leads Amphiaraus to the libation spring: δείξω μὲν Ἀργείοισιν Ἀχελῴου ῥόον: ‘I will show the Argives the stream of Achelous’ (fr. 753 N2, p. 73 Cockle). Her action will lead to Opheltes’ death by a snake bite, and to her own condemnation for negligence. As noted, Amphiaraus preaches the importance of εὐσεβεῖν τοὺς θεούς, to be devoted to the gods, and this εὐσέβεια becomes his distinctive trait, especially in the epilogue, when it will play a decisive role in the liberation of Hypsipyle from the unjust death sentence. Before the speech in her defense in the presence of queen Eurydice, the Argive seer will point out that his weapon is not strength, but pity: εἰδὼς ἀφῖγμαι τὴν τύχην θ’ ὑπειδόμην τὴν σὴν ἃ πείσῃ τ’ ἐκπεπνευκότος τέκνου, ἥκω δ’ ἀρήξων συμφοραῖσι ταῖσι σαῖς, τὸ μὲν βίαιον οὐκ ἔχων, τὸ δ’ εὐσεβές. I knew before I came: I divined your fate, and all you must suffer because her son has breathed his last. And I am here to aid you in your distress, armed not with power but piety (fr. 60 + 87, 103 Cockle)9

by consecrating that place as an oracle seat. Another source is Ps.Apoll. Bibl. 3.60-61; see also Roscher (1884-1897: 293-302). 6. Only few letters of this verse survive; this reading is by Roberts in Page (1952: 92), v. 150. 7. Plu. quom. adol. 20d9, would have praised this sentence, as it shows an exemplary behavior for the education of children. 8. Page (1952: 95); I use this translation for all examples of Euripides’ Hypsipyle. 9. Page (1952: 101).

124

IRENE GIAQUINTA

This dialogue represents the encounter between two individuals deprived of their freedom: Hypsipyle and Amphiaraus, both forced to leave their homeland, act in obedience to a law of necessity within which, however, they are good at being generous. In accepting to lead the Argive to the spring, Hypsipyle, even as a humble slave, is ready to listen to the requests of other people and makes a welcoming gesture towards foreigners – one that will be rich in implications. From the prologue to the final supplication, this subservience distinguishes every initiative of Hypsipyle. Amphiaraus on the other hand, while subjected to his own destiny, acts as a guide and liberator, thanks to that spirit of εὐσέβεια with which he will guide Eurydice to a just verdict that will allow him to prevent Hypsipyle’s death sentence.10 In Apollonius Rhodius the first appearance of Hypsipyle is in 1, 621, where she is performing an act of εὐσέβεια towards her father Thoas, king of Lemnos. Following the repudiation suffered by their husbands, who fell in love with Thracian women, the Lemnians decided to massacre all the males of the island, including fathers and children, in order to never have to expiate the crime, not even in the future.11 Among all the women, only Hypsipyle feels pity for her elderly parent: οἴη δ’ ἐκ πασέων γεραροῦ περιφείσατο πατρός Ὑψιπύλεια Θόαντος, ὃ δὴ κατὰ δῆμον ἄνασσε, λάρνακι δ’ ἐν κοίλῃ μιν ὕπερθ’ ἁλὸς ἧκε φέρεσθαι, αἴ κε φύγῃ… Alone of all the women, Hypsipyle saved her aged father Thoas, who in fact was ruling over the people. She set him to drift on the sea in a hollow chest, in the hope that he might escape. (A.R. 1.620-623, p. 79 Vian)12

Against the collective decision, the woman spares her father and offers him an escape route entrusting him to the sea, locked up in a box. The expression γεραροῦ περιφείσατο πατρός uses the adjective γεραρός, which in this case is influenced by the Homeric connotation. We can think of e.g., Il. 3.170, where γεραρός, with reference to the majesty of 10. Also in the epilogue Amphiaraus acts because of his wish to repay the debt of generosity to Hypsipyle and because of necessity (see below). 11. The mythical episode of the massacre of the men of Lemnos was already proverbial, as it is testified by the saying Λήμνια κακά: Ruta (2018: 398-411); Thalmann (2011: 71-75). In A.R. 3.423 Apollonius uses ἄφθογγος and ἀμηχανία in reference to Jason, who after learning the entity of the enterprise imposed by Eeta remains mute and desperate in the face of misfortune. 12. The text of Apollonius is cited from the Budé edition of Francis Vian, Paris 19741981; references to the first and the second book of Argonautica are in Vian I, first of the three volumes. Translation by Race (2008: 53); for all A.Rh. quotations I use this translation.

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

125

Agamemnon’s appearance, is equivalent to “worthy of honor”.13 In fact, although the pity of Hypsipyle may also conceal a sense of cowardice, the scholiast explains this choice with three orders of motivation: the first is the filial bond, which made it necessary that Thoas, as a father, demanded salvation from his daughter; the second reason is the age of the king, who was πρεσβύτερος; the third reason is that he was not guilty of or complicit in the conduct of the men towards the women (οὐκ αἴτιος ἦν, οὐδὲ συνεργός).14 The interpretation of the scholiast is entirely credible also for the use of the rare γεραρός (1.620) in reference to Thoas, who is worthy of salvation because of the role he plays. However, it is highly significant that of all the Lemnian women, only the queen chooses to act differently, οἴη δ ‘ἐκ πασέων (1.620): Hypsipyle consciously operates in spite of the collective decision, running the risk of the community discovering her action. It is noteworthy that in Euripides, who narrates the period following the discovery of Thoas’ rescue, Hypsipyle never shows an attitude of repentance or remorse for the compassion towards her father. In this tragedy the moral stature of the character is not affected by her subsequent punishment. From this point of view the story told by Apollonius Rhodius seems to be in harmony with the sense of ἀξία and προσῆκον given to the character by the Euripidean narrative: the rescue reveals her firm determination to decide independently, despite the awareness of the serious risks her choice entails. Hypsipyle’s action is resolute and free of uncertainties; it is a gesture of conscience and freedom.

3. Characterization of female identity Another element common to Euripides and Apollonius is the space dedicated to the characterization of female identity, with elements that in the Hellenistic poet betray a strong focus on the psychological aspect and the perception that women have of themselves. In the prologue to the tragedy Hypsipyle describes the dance of Dionysus at Delphi: the reference to the god, Thoas’ father, allows her to present her own γένος and thus to illustrate her divine origins.15 The proemial section has been preserved only partially, but from the papyrus 13. The adjective γεραρός does not have the same meaning in A.R. 1.683 and 4.203, see Mooney (1912: 108). 14. Schol. ad Ap. Rh. Arg. 1.620 ex codice Par. Gr. 2727, p. 50; Schol. ad Ap. Rh. Arg. 1.620 ex cod. Laur. Gr. 32, 9, p. 337. 15. Bond (1963: 54).

126

IRENE GIAQUINTA

fragments it is possible to guess that the protagonist also qualified herself through references to Jason and the Argo (Συμπληγάδων, v. 5, 55 Cockle), and then to her own past as queen of Lemnos, in contrast to her current status as a slave. The use of terms such as ἀπόπτολιν, τύχαις, φάος, ζυγῷ (fr. 96 + 70, p. 55 Cockle) has led scholars to hypothesize that the last part of the monologue was a description of her unfortunate present in Nemea, marked by the exile and slavery.16 Hypsipyle tells the Chorus of Nemean women her own story and a female portrait emerges marked by the events on Lemnos and the subsequent encounter with the Argonauts, which represents the true terminus post quem. In this perspective the past contributes substantially to delineate her identity as woman and mother. This aspect explains why the heroine is characterized by a sense of rejection of the present and, ever since the beginning of the scenic action, the suffering and powerlessness connected to her life far away from the homeland. The parodos in particular marks the beginning of a section entirely dedicated to the theme of slavery and regret for the life she has lost. Hypsipyle cradles Opheltes and states that there is no relief for her, except to chant a song for the baby; no song of Lemnos will comfort her, she can only sing for him (Μοῦσα θέλει με κρέκειν, 11, 59 Cockle). The Chorus listens to her complaint, which clearly describes her nostalgia for the faraway homeland: τί σὺ παρὰ προθύροις, φίλα; πότερα δώματος εἰσόδους σαίρεις, ἢ δρόσον ἐπὶ πέδῳ βάλλεις οἷά τε δούλα; What are you doing at the doorway, friend? Are you sweeping the entrance to the palace, or sprinkling water on the ground, like a slave? (fr. 1, 15-18, p. 59 Cockle)17

After an exchange of words with the women, who are listening to Hypsipyle’s memories and trying to alleviate her melancholy, Amphiaraus arrives at the palace and immediately manifests feelings similar to those of Hypsipyle. After having complained about the discomforts of those who are in a country that is not their own and are forced to wander, the Argive hero turns to Hypsipyle and asks where she has come from:

16. Bond (1963: 56). 17. Page (1952: 85), with adaptations.

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

127

καί σ’, εἴτε δούλη τοῖσδ’ ἐφέστηκας δόμοις εἴτ’ οὐχὶ δοῦλον σῶμ’ ἔχουσ’, ἐρήσομαι, τίνος τάδ’ ἀνδρῶν μηλοβοσκὰ δώματα Φλειουντίας γῆς, ὦ ξένη, νομίζεται; Now you – whether as slave you watch over the house, or not a slave, I ask you: what man is called master of these halls, madam, where sheep are pastured in the land of Phlius? (fr. 1 + 92 + 3, pp. 67- 68 Cockle)

Amphiaraus cannot establish whether Hypsipyle is a free woman or a slave. Asking who is the master of the palace to which he has come, he uses a formula that alludes to the legal status of Hypsipyle: δοῦλον σῶμα ἔχειν, ‘being a slave’. This exchange of words leads the Argive seer to introduce himself and to ask the interlocutor to do the same (1-5, 71 Cockle). We cannot exclude that, despite having lost her freedom and being a prisoner in a foreign land, a sense of dignity given by her royal past was not alien to Hypsipyle, and as such remained visible to all who met her. These two dialogues, which portray the woman in a glimpse of authentic everyday life, are marked by the idea of an oppressive servile condition (οἷά τε δούλα … δούλη… εἴτ’ οὐχὶ δοῦλον σῶμ’ ἔχουσα) of which, both the Chorus and Amphiaraus are immediately and empathetically aware. A picture of life completely consistent with the appellative of τάλαινα μῆτερ (fr. 64 v. 1592, p. 121 Cockle) emerges and can be applied to Hypsipyle until the recognition of the sons, Euneus and Thoas. Concerning the characterization of Hypsipyle, it is worth pointing out that among the fragments of Sophocles’ Λήμνιαι there is a verse (TrGF 4, 387) stating: ἄπλατον ἀξύμβλητον ἐξεθρεψάμην, ‘I nourished an unapproachable, incomprehensible being’ (my translation). It has been argued that this phrase was pronounced by the Lemnian nurse Polyxo in reference to Hypsipyle.18 The adjective ἄπλατος is otherwise found in Sophocles as referring to the lion of Nemea, ‘unapproachable beast’ (ἄπλατον θρέμμα, Tr. 1093), and to the ‘atrocious destiny’ of Ajax (αἶσ’ ἄπλατος, Aj. 256), but it is never used for a human being. This is confirmed by Eur. Med. 150, where we find a metaphor of death, ἄπλατος κοίτη, ‘horrible bed’.19 Even more difficult to understand is the use of ἀξύμβλητος / ἀσύμβλητος, ‘incomparable, difficult to understand’ (LSJ, s.v.). In another context Deianira (Soph. Tr. 694) uses the word to 18. Welcker (1839: 328) 19. Radt (1999: 338). In Bacchylides (B. 5.62) it refers to Echidna; on the meaning of ἄπλατος with reference to a huge army: Fries (2014: 233).

128

IRENE GIAQUINTA

describe the prodigious crumbling in the sun of the woolen ball, which was soaked with the centaur’s blood. If we accept Welcker’s hypothesis, the Sophoclean fragment would indeed offer a radically different image of the queen from that built up by Euripides in his tragedy. We can now better understand that the decision to narrate a moment in the life of Hypsipyle, which had until then been overlooked in contemporary theatrical production, guaranteed Euripides the freedom to outline with completely new elements a female figure that was already known, but only partially. Euripides’ Hypsipyle is an exile and a slave, deprived of her true motherhood through her exile. She can find herself only next to Opheltes, for whom she plays the role of nurse with authentic emotional involvement. In this way the character is configured as the positive counterpart of the τάλαινα μήτηρ par excellence, Medea (Eur. Med. 902).20 In Apollonius Rhodius, after the massacre, the Lemnian women take on masculine tasks: they wear bronze weapons, they work the cornfields, they realize in every respect a reversal of daily life devoting themselves to war, agricultural and pastoral activities: Τῇσι δὲ βουκόλιαί τε βοῶν χάλκειά τε δύνειν τεύχεα πυροφόρους τε διατμήξασθαι ἀρούρας ῥηίτερον πάσῃσιν Ἀθηναίης πέλεν ἔργων, οἷς αἰεὶ τὸ πάροιθεν ὁμίλεον (…) Now for all the women to tend kine, to don armour of bronze, and to cleave with the plough-share the wheat-bearing fields, was easier than the works of Athena, with which they were busied aforetime. (A.R. 1.627-630, p. 79 Vian I)

The phrase χάλκειά τε δύνειν / τεύχεα strongly reminds the readers of the Amazons, devoted to war, whom Apollonius describes in 2.9851000.21 But, on closer inspection, already on the occasion of the massacre, the Lemnian women had shown that they were able to use violence and even to kill (1.609-610, 616-619).

20. Hunter (1993: 46-52); on the contrast between the character of Hypsipyle and that of Medea: see also Thalmann (2011: 71-75). Statius in the Thebaid gives Hypsipyle traits that are not very different from those of the Euripidean character and portrays, according to Scaffai (2002: 237), the archetype of the virgo, the vidua and the univira matron. 21. ‘For the Amazons who lived on the plain of Doeas were by no means gentle or respectful of justice, but devoted to grievous violence and the works of Ares, for indeed they were descended from Ares and the nymph Harmonia, who bore war-loving daughters to Ares after sleeping with him in the glens of the Acmonian grove’, Race (2008: 191).

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

129

Suddenly, at the sight of the ship Argo, convinced that they were about to face an invasion of the Thracians, all the women of the island wear their weapons – Hypsipyle wears her father’s weapons – and they pour onto the beach: Θυάσιν ὠμοβόροις ἴκελαι, φὰν γάρ που ἱκάνειν Θρήικας· Ἡ δ’ ἅμα τῇσι Θοαντιὰς Ὑψιπύλεια δῦν’ ἐνὶ τεύχεσι πατρός. Ἀμηχανίῃ δ’ ἔχέοντο ἄφθογγοι, τοῖόν σφιν ἐπὶ δέος ᾐωρεῖτο. [They poured forth to the beach] like ravening Thyiades; for they deemed that the Thracians were come; and with them Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, donned her father’s harness. And they streamed down speechless with dismay; such fear was wafted about them. (A.R. 1.636-639, pp. 79-80 Vian I)

They appear ‘similar to Bacchae eating raw meat’: θυιάς, from θύω, designates the woman possessed by a god, the followers of Bacchus, and the scholiast adds that the adjective ὠμόβορος is given because of the habit of the Bacchae to eat pieces of raw meat to contain the μανία (Schol. Ap. Rh. Arg. 1, 636). On the beach the Lemnian women are described as mute (ἄφθογγοι), tormented by indecision (ἀμηχανίῃ) and by fear (δέος): it is a contradictory image, in which their feral attitude is accompanied by a form of dismay.22 The choice to portray the inhabitants of the island in arms on the beach, and yet fearful and uncertain in the face of what is about to happen, offers a glimpse of authentic humanity that is coherently part of the multifaceted Hellenistic morale, in which the inability to act and decide, the ἀμηχανία, is a characterizing trait of the new epic hero / anti-hero.23 In a possibly significant way, a contrario, there is, among the last preserved lines of the Euripidean tragedy, the term μηχανή. After the recognition, Euneus tells Hypsipyle of his childhood, of how they followed Orpheus in Thrace after Jason’s death and how they finally returned to Lemnos under the guidance of Thoas. On hearing of her father Hypsipyle asks if he is safe, and Euneus answers: Βακχίου γε μηχαναῖς. Yes, by the skill of Bacchus… (fr. 64ii + 91 + 115, p. 123 Cockle) 22. Scaffai (2002: 233), points out that this attitude of Amazons that Apollonius attributes to the women of Lemnos is completely absent in Statius Theb. 5-6, where the portrait of women responds to a different-minded audience, in which the woman is described as a paradigm of incorruptibility, guardian of her own decorum and characterized by a reserved demeanor. 23. Pike (1993: 27–37).

130

IRENE GIAQUINTA

Thoas, after being placed by his daughter in a box and entrusted to the sea, managed to save himself ‘thanks to the expedients of Bacchus’. In the prologue Hypsipyle, speaking of the divine ancestor, mentions τὸ δωδεκαμήχανον ἄστρον ‘a star knowing twelve tricks’ (fr. 755, 1 N2 = 765b Kannicht). Another key element that helps to fully understand the complexity of Hypsipyle’s character is her relationship with the past, which Euripides and Apollonius deal with in diametrically opposed ways. As already mentioned, in the parodos Hypsipyle lingers on the threshold of the palace, a pose that the Chorus attributes to her servile condition (see supra, οἷά τε δούλα, fr. 1, 18, p. 59 Cockle); they ask her if, while Nemea, Adrastus and the Argive army are preparing to march against Thebes, she returns with her mind to her island. The answer is indirectly affirmative: Hypsipyle remembers the moment of Argo’s landing at Lemnos; she suggests that someone else should take care of singing the Greeks’ enterprises (Δαναῶν δὲ πόνους / ἕτερος ἀναβοάτω, 14-16, 63 Cockle, ‘Let another sing loud the labours of the Greeks’24). When the Chorus comforts her by remembering the fate of other girls who suffered for their distant homeland (Europa, Io) and wishes that Dionysus may free her, they give her an ambiguous γνώμη: ταῦτ’ ἂν θεὸς εἰς φροντίδα θῆι σοι, [στέρξει]ς δή, φίλα, τὸ μέσον [ἐλπὶς δ’οὐκ] ἀπολείψει if God set this in your heart, beloved, the path of moderation shall content you: and Hope shall not fail you… (fr. 1 I 67, p. 65 Cockle):

The beginning of the verse is incomplete for a space of about 6 letters; according to Radermacher’s conjecture (στέρξεις, TrGF 5.1, 752) the meaning would therefore be: ‘If the god has placed such things in your soul, you will love moderation, dear one, and hope will not disappoint you’.25 Hypsipyle’s answer is the rejection of all comfort: even if Procris 24. Page (1952: 87). 25. Page (1942: 89). The insertion [ἐλπὶς δ’οὐκ] is by Wilamowitz. In the description in the apparatus Kannicht emphasizes that, besides a trace on the upper part of the staff, it is possible to identify part of the lower arc of a sigma, which led Wilamowitz to propose συνιεῖς, ‘understand moderation’. The publishers did not dwell on the meaning and adequacy of this proposal, which is problematic, especially since τὸ μέσον with the meaning of ‘moderation, equilibrium, is rarely used (Arist. EN 1121b12; Men fr. 740, 18). To our opinion the expression poses a problem of critical-textual order. Bond (1963: 75) comments that the meaning given by Page is appropriate, because the comfort follows the exhortation. However, Hypsipyle is immersed in the memory of her past life: after

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

131

– the unfortunate heroine mentioned by the Chorus – had to die, her lament will not cease and will not remain unheard.26 The discomfort of the character is communicated by the vocabulary (πάθεα, δάκρυσι, ἀνοδυρομένα, πόνους, frr. 5-9, p. 67 Cockle), which relates entirely to the area of pain and suffering. The Chorus can do nothing to help, but notes the arrival of the Argive army. It is noteworthy that in the main character there is no regret for the power she has lost: she only suffers for her beloved island and for the love she experienced after Argo’s arrival, the double effect of falling in love with Jason and the subsequent maternity due to the relationship with him.27 In Apollonius Hypsipyle has a very different, and perhaps even more problematic relationship with her past, which she needs to hide from strangers. It is necessary, first of all, for her to justify the total absence of men on the island to the Argonauts: to do this, the queen, μύθοισι αἰμυλίοισι (1, 792, ‘with cajoling words’28), provides Jason with a partial version of the truth, in a speech of which the rhetorical nature has already been highlighted by other scholars.29 Hypsipyle is characterized by the resourcefulness with which she manages the arrival of the heroes and the cunning with which she addresses Jason and proposes to him to stay in Lemnos. In the analysis of the rhetorical structure of Hypsipyle’s speech it is possible to identify an exordium (793-797), in which there is a synthesis of the main points of the speech and a captatio benevolentiae; a διήγησις of betrayal (vv. 798-807); the construction of ἦθος of the Lemnian women humiliated by husbands and deprived of family relations because of the women of Thrace. Hypsipyle in this way arouses the pity of the mentioning other equally unfortunate women, the exhortation to search for the μετριότης, as an invitation not to despair beyond measure, seems out of place. We believe it is not to exclude that instead στέρνοις was originally read there. This proposal, on the prosodic level equivalent to that of Wilamowitz, is a very common term in tragedy and in epic, where it indicates the point of the human body in which emotions dwell (A. Ch. 746; S. Tr. 482; E. Ph. 134; A. R. 3. 634-635; 4.1061). Consequently, we would understand: ‘If the god has placed such things in your mind, in the center of your chest, darling, hope will not deceive you’, where the co-presence of φροντίς and στέρνον could indicate that Hypsipyle’s longing for the distant homeland involves both its rational (φροντίς) and emotional (by metonymy στέρνον) part: mind and heart. The variatio due to the status in place instead of the motion towards a place does not seem to create a difficulty. 26. Bond (1963: 76); a study on Euripides’ heroines that reject all comfort is in ChongGossard (2003: 218-222). 27. The contrast between the youth spent in royalty and the maturity lived in slavery allows us to detect some analogies with the character of Andromache, see Scaffai (2002: 245). 28. Race (2008: 67). 29. Berardi (2012: 19-27).

132

IRENE GIAQUINTA

listener (807-817). The concern for the plausibility of her story is documented by the presence of two prokatalepseis: the first, in which Hypsipyle states that they received from a god the courage (θάρσος) necessary to drive away their husbands (vv. 818-823), the second, where she explains the absence of children on the island by the will of the fathers to keep them with them in Thrace (824-826). For Berardi, the entire story takes the form of an elaborate rhetorical speech based on the figure of diapotyposis, a detailed narrative of events, which reproduces the facts before the eyes of the listeners, and of διασκευή, the vivid and pathetic narration of the facts, with a systematic amplification aimed at creating emotion in the listener (Ps. Hermog. inv. 166, 15- 170, 17 Rabe). The ars loquendi of Hypsipyle and her determination become even more evident because of the perennial uncertainty that troubles Jason, a ‘modern’ hero or, according to a more radical reading, anti-hero par excellence.30 In Euripides, it is the second episode which highlights the τέχνη ῥητωρική of the main characters, and in particular of Amphiaraus. The attack of the snake against Opheltes has already occurred and Hypsipyle, aware of the fatal punishment that awaits her for neglecting the custody of the child, is in the grip of terror and upheaval.31 At first her only hope is to escape, but when she assumes she can find someone to take her away from Nemea, the Chorus dissuades her from her intention: [οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις βούλεται] δούλους ἄγειν32 no man will want to guide a slave (frr. 20 + 21 + 44, pp. 87 and 157 Cockle)

At this juncture the servile status of Hypsipyle influences the events and her possibilities of action: it is not possible for her to escape. The frr. 34 + 35 present seriously incomplete verses, but scholars agree on the presence on the scene of Eurydice, the Chorus and Hypsipyle; the queen gradually learns the truth by posing pressing questions first to the women of Nemea and then to the very culprit, in a crescendo of

30. Lawall (1966: 119-169); Jackson (1992: 155-162); Paduano-Fusillo (1994: 187) have highlighted the initiative and the concreteness of the “new” character of Hypsipyle on two occasions: vv. 790-835, “più prende risalto la censura del massacro, sostituito con la presunta migrazione degli uomini, comunque attribuita all’iniziativa delle donne: è questo l’atto di ‘estremo coraggio’ che allude, velandola, alla strage”; vv. 886-898, “in Ipsipile prevalgono le ragioni biologiche della conservazione della collettività” (195). 31. Only a few verses of the first stasimon preserve the mention, by the Chorus, of the dispute between Tydeus and Polynices in Argos and their marriage with the daughters of Adrastus, see Cockle (1987: 45). 32. According to Murray’s conjecture, see Cockle (1987: 157).

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

133

pathos.33 Eurydice alludes to the possibility that it was not an accident, but that Hypsipyle intentionally killed little Opheltes: the subordinate condition of Hypsipyle is accompanied by a movement of distrust and contempt of Eurydice towards her, to the point of attributing to her a gesture of unparalleled cruelty. In front of the terrible accusation Hypsipyle makes a strenuous attempt to exculpate and, in order to reaffirm the sincerity and depth of her affection for Opheltes, she reminds Eurydice that, as the child’s nurse, she has always loved him as if he were her own son; the child was able to give her genuine comfort (ὠφέλημ’ ἐμοὶ μέγα) in a life marked by slavery and nostalgia: ὡς τοῦ θανεῖν μὲν οὕνεκ’οὐ μέγα στένω, εἰ δὲ κτανεῖν τὸ τέκνον οὐκ ὀρθῶς δοκῶ, τοὐμὸν τιθήνημ’, ὃν ἐπ’ ἐμαῖσιν ἀγκάλαις πλὴν οὐ τεκοῦσα τἄλλα γ’ ὡς ἐμὸν τέκνον στέργουσ’ ἔφερβον, ὠφέλημ’ ἐμοὶ μέγα. I have not many tears for death, only for the false thought that I killed your son, the babe I nursed, whom in my arms I fed, whom in all – save that I bore him not – I loved as my own child, my own great comfort. (frr. 60-87, p. 101 Cockle)

The thought of being condemned to death does not distress Hypsipyle as much as the accusation of the voluntary nature of the crime and now she is convinced that the welcoming gesture towards the Argives was in vain (κενὰ δ’ ἐπῃδέσθην ἄρα, ‘it seems, my compassion was in vain’34), and she desperately calls for Amphiaraus’s help. By virtue of his divine nature and the sacredness of his role as a seer, he will be able to bear witness to the truth about Opheltes’ death before Eurydice: what happened is called συμφορά both by the heroine (εἰπὲ τῇδε συμφορὰν τέκνου) and by Amphiaraus (frr. 60 + 87, p. 103 Cockle).35

33. In Bond (1963: 96-97) it is suggested that Eurydice had moved away and was absent from the palace at the time of Opheltes’s death, but there is no agreement among scholars; Cockle (1987: 158). 34. Page (1952: 99). 35. Chantraine, s.v. φέρω, explains that συμφορά is vox media in Herodotus (1.41; 7.190) and Thucydides, where it has the meaning of “event”; in Alcman and Pindar (P. 8.87) it is used with the sense of ‘accident’, ‘disgrace’; this last value is then maintained in tragedy, as confirmed by the Euripidean use, always with a negative meaning. In the Alcestis, for example, it is a key term that connotes the personal story of the protagonist and her family, and that is able to reveal the true temperament of the characters before the tricks of Fate: Alc. 42, 405, 416, 555, 673, 754, 802, 856, 893, 1048, 1155; cf. Med. 1018; Heracl. 232; HF 101; Ion 381.

134

IRENE GIAQUINTA

The Argive seer reveals to Hypsipyle that he always knew what was going to happen, but now he will alleviate her suffering not by force but by piety, in the name of the good he received (see above, frr. 60 + 87, 103 Cockle and n.11). To Eurydice Amphiaraus recommends not to be guilty against human life (εἰς μὲν γὰρ ἄλλο πᾶν ἁμαρτάνειν χρεών, ψυχὴν δ’ἐς ἀνδρὸς ἢ γυναικὸς οὐ καλόν, ‘err about all things else; but not against the life of man or woman – that is sin!’36). In reaction to these words the Queen of Nemea declares herself ready to listen to the seer in virtue of his wisdom. The discourse he presents has a solid rhetorical structure: in the διήγησις of Opheltes’ death, which henceforth will be remembered as Archemoros, ‘initiator of destiny’ Amphiaraus adds incontrovertible considerations of an existentialist nature. Since there is no mortal that does not experience suffering, it makes no sense to complain about what is κατὰ φύσιν; all that remains is to make the memory of Opheltes eternal by instituting games in his honor. Hypsipyle, however, is innocent and must return to freedom. Indeed, Amphiaraus completely overturns the terms of the question: not only is she not guilty of what would have happened anyway, but she contributed decisively to the glorification of the lineage of Lycurgus. In Apollonius, on the other hand, the rhetorical δεινότης is an allfemale talent, of which another character also gives proof: the nurse Polyxo. Persuaded by the herald Aethalides to receive the travelers, Hypsipyle convokes a town assembly to propose to the others to bring gifts to the Argonauts and ensure that they leave the island to prevent them from learning the news of the terrible crime of the women. The choice of bringing together all the inhabitants to formulate a common decision regarding the treatment of guests reproduces the assembly dynamics of the πόλεις of democratic order.37 Hypsipyle, as the only sovereign of the island, takes on the role of σύμβουλος who guides and instructs the δήμος, illustrating the need to dismiss the travelers as soon as possible. Nevertheless she also addresses an invitation to the meeting to intervene with other valid proposals, even if they are different from hers (ὑμέων δ’ εἴ τις ἄρειον ἔπος μητίσεται ἄλλη, / ἐγρέσθω· τοῦ γάρ τε καὶ εἵνεκα δεῦρο κάλεσσα, 1.665-666, p. 81 Vian I, ‘if any of you can devise a better plan let her rise, because it was also for this reason that I summoned you here’38). This gives to the scene the atmosphere of an authentic democratic debate.39 36. 37. Taaffe 38. 39.

Page (1952: 101). These aspects recall themes already present in the Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusai, see (2015: 103-133). Race (2008: 57). Polyxo’s speech (Ap.Rh. 1.675-696) has been studied by George (1972: 55-56).

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

135

Curved under the weight of the years but with the authority that comes from seniority, Polyxo gets up on shaky legs and makes her proposal, which starts with the interruption of Hypsipyle.40 From a rhetorical point of view the old nurse seems to share the queen’s point of view, indeed, she declares that sending gifts before sending the travelers on their way is certainly the best thing (δῶρα μέν, ὡς αὐτῇ περ ἐφανδάνει Ὑψιπυλείῃ, / πέμπωμεν ξείνοισιν, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἄρειον πάσσαι, 1.675-676, ‘Let us send gifts to the strangers, just as Hypsipyle herself wishes, for it is better to give them’41). However Polyxo goes on to illustrate a radically different proposal by means of a series of rhetorical questions aimed at emphasizing the condition of need in which, within a few years, the entire community of survivors on Lemnos will find itself.42 Life among women alone on the island does not guarantee that in the future they will be able to protect their physical safety and procure food: given the absence of men, how will women be able to defend themselves from possible external attacks? And once all of them have become old, how will they manage animal husbandry and fields and make sure they have what they need to live? These questions, deliberately left unanswered, become more effective because they appear to be addressed in a disinterested manner: these are problems that Polyxo will not have to deal with, because she will soon die (1.689-692). Younger women are given the task of remedying this anomalous situation in their exclusive interest, welcoming the foreigners and introducing them to the entire city.43 Polyxo’s choice to guide the audience towards a real perception of the situation, according to a gradual procedure based on a series of questions, has been defined as a sort of “Socratic inquiry”.44

40. Finkmann (2015: 3) highlights the role of Polyxo as an advisor and compares it to that of Euryclea in Hom. Od. 1.438 and 2.346, and of Aegyptius, mentor of Telemachus, in Od. 2.15. Her speech to the community of the Lemnian women is compared to that which Heracles, as the oldest expedition hero, addresses to the Argonauts in A.R. 1.867871, when he accuses them of forgetting their mission. 41. Race (2008: 57). 42. Ap. Rh. 1.677-688, pp. 81-82 Vian I. 43. The risk of spending old age in a state of sickness and poverty impresses the community, which unanimously approves the nurse’s proposal, and the queen calls Jason to propose him to stay on the island. According to Mori (2008: 48), the Odyssean themes of hospitality, nostalgia and old age are reworked by Apollonius in the Lemnos episode, where the council of Polyxo invites women to give life to a new generation by hosting the Argonauts in their homes. From the social point of view, the hospitality of women conceals a practical political agenda: by taking advantage of the arrival of foreigners, they have the opportunity to heal their now crumbling community. 44. A procedure that goes from concrete examples to probable conclusions, see George (1972: 56).

136

IRENE GIAQUINTA

However, the passage that most of all reveals the revolutionary nature of Apollonius is vv. 703-705 in which Hypsipyle assumes the role of a true leader, mouthpiece of popular opinion: “Ὄρσο μοι, Ἰφινόη, τοῦδ’ ἀνέρος ἀντιόωσα / ἡμέτερόνδε μολεῖν ὅστις στόλου ἡγεμονεύει, / ὄφρα τί οἱ δήμοιο ἔπος θυμηδὲς ἐνίσπω, ‘Please go, Iphinoe, and entreat that man, whoever it is that leads the expedition, to come to my palace so that I may tell him a decision of the people that will please his heart’45. The story is entirely organized by Apollonius from the point of view of women, even in politics: Lemnos is ruled by female power at every level and decisions are discussed and taken in an authentic democratic, matriarchal society. Concluding remarks It can be said that in Apollonius the women’s population appears to be characterized by contradictory attitudes: they are able to perform acts of ruthless violence like the Amazons but fear the arrival of foreigners; they seem mad as Bacchantes, yet they appoint a city assembly to determine how to act with unexpected visitors; they are proud of their independence but must accept its transience. The portrait of the Lemnian women developed by Apollonius shows an intrinsic inconsistency and a natural unpredictability that faithfully reproduce, with a profoundly modern sensibility, the inconstantia of the female universe, which oscillates here in an authentic and surprising way between anger and prudence, madness and rationality. If Euripides equips the Lemnian Hypsipyle with completely new elements and sets up a plot that exalts the docility and meekness of the heroine, who appears to be reconciled with her own unfortunate destiny, Apollonius aims instead to describe the anti-conventional sensibility, the initiative and autonomy of a woman who on every occasion shows confidence in herself and in her practical sense and who is surrounded by equally aware and determined female characters. All this is a document of a cultural revolution, a sign of a changed Weltanschauung that also bears witness of the vision of the Hellenistic age on the female universe.46 45. Race (2008: 59-61). 46. A concrete sign of the progressive importance that women acquired during the Hellenistic age is represented by the numerous possibilities for public patronage in the Greek world. The documents dating back to the Hellenistic period show that the woman carried out not only religious-type positions, as a priestess, but also as benefactress or magistrate: in Greece, wealth knew no distinction of sex, see Bielman (2012: 247). A broad spectrum analysis of the evolution of the conception of women in the Ptolemaic and Hellenistic Ages, from Tanagra figurines to female patronage, from the presence of women on Hellenistic grave stelai to women in Menander, and so on, see James & Dillon (2012: 229-366).

HYPSIPYLE FROM EURIPIDES TO APOLLONIUS RHODIUS

137

REFERENCES Aricò, G., 1991, La vicenda di Lemno in Stazio e Valerio Flacco. In: M. Korn & H.J. Tschiedel (eds.), Ratis omnia vincet. Untersuchungen zu den Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Hildesheim, 197-210. Berardi, F., 2012, “L’oratoria di Ipsipile: tecniche dell’evidenza in Apoll. Rh. Arg. 1, 789-835”. In: F. Berardi, Sotto la lente della retorica: Apollonio Rodio e l’epica delle immagini, Perugia, 15-40. Bielman. A., 2012, “Female Patronage in the Greek Hellenistic and Roman Republican Periods”. In: S.L. James & S. Dillon (eds.), A Companion to Women in Ancient World. Malden/Oxford/Chichester, 238-248. Bornmann, F., 1970, “Su alcune reminiscenze virgiliane nell’episodio delle donne di Lemno in Valerio Flacco”. In: A. Barigazzi et al. (eds), Studia Florentina A. Ronconi oblata. Roma, 41-50. Brunck, R.F.P., 1813, Apollonii Rhodii Argonautica, accedunt Scholia Graeca ex codice Bibliothecae Imperialis Parisiensis, II. Lipsiae. Carrara, P., 2014, “L’Issipile di Euripide e la partecipazione di Toante ed Euneo ai primi giochi Nemei”. Prometheus 40, n.s. 3, 75-87. Chantraine, P., 1980, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue grecque. Histoire des mots. Paris. Chong-Gossard, J.H.K., 2003, “Song and the Solitary Self: Euripidean Women Who Resist Comfort”. Phoenix 57, 209-231 Cockle, W.E.H., 1987, Euripides. Hypsipyle. Roma. Dillon, S., 2012, “Female Portraiture in the Hellenistic Perio,. In: S.L. James & S. Dillon (eds.), A Companion to Women in Ancient World. Malden/Oxford/ Chichester, 263-277. Finkmann, S., 2015, “Polyxo and the Lemnian Episode – An Inter- and Intratextual Study of Apollonius Rhodius, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius”. Dictynna 12, 1-33. Fries, A., 2014, Pseudo-Euripides, Rhesus, edited with Introduction and Commentary. Berlin/Boston. George, E.V., 1972, “Poet and Characters in Apollonius Rhodius’ Lemnian Episode”. Hermes 100, 47-63. Grenfell, B.P. & Hunt, A.S., P. Oxy. VI. London. Heslin, P., 2016, “A perfect murder: the Hypsipyle epyllion”. In: N. Manioti (ed.), Family in Flavian epic (Mnemosyne supplements 394). Leiden/ Boston, 89-121. Hunter, R., 1993, The Argonautica of Apollonius. Cambridge Jackson, S., 1992, “Apollonius’ Jason: Human Being in an Epic Scenario”. G&R 39, 155-162. James, S.L., & S. Dillon (eds.), 2012, A Companion to Women in the Ancient World. Malden/Oxford/Chichester 2012. Kannicht, R., 2004, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta. Euripides (TrGF 5.1). Göttingen. Keil, H., 1854, Apollonii Argonautica emendavit apparatum criticum et prolegomena adiecit R. Merkel, Scholia vetera e codice Laurentiano edidit H. Keil. Lipsiae. Korn, M. & H.J. Tschiedel (eds.), 1971, Ratis omnia vincet. Untersuchungen zu den Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus, Hildesheim.

138

IRENE GIAQUINTA

Lawall, G., 1966, “Apollonius’ Argonautica. Jason as Anti-Hero”. YClS 19, 119169. Lomiento, L., 2003, “Lettura dell’Ipsipile di Euripide”. In R. Raffaelli et al. (eds), Vicende di Ipsipile da Erodoto a Metastasio. Urbino, 55-71. Mooney, G.W., 1912, The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, edited with Introduction and Commentary. Dublin. Menozzi, E., 1910, “I nuovi frammenti dell’Ipsipile”. SIFC 18, 1-18. Mori, A., 2008, The Politics of Apollonius’ Argonautica. Cambridge. Mori, A., 2012, Mediation vs. Force: Thoughts on Female Agency in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica. Aitia 2 ([http://journals.openedition.org/aitia/337L). Paduano, G. & M. Fusillo, 1994, Apollonio Rodio. Le Argonautiche. Milano. Page, D.L., 1952, Greek Literary Papyri, I. London and Cambridge. Papanghelis, T.P. & A. Rengakos, 2001, A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius. Leiden/Boston/Köln. Pike, D., 1993, “Jason’s Departure: Apollonius Rhodius and Heroism”. AC 36, 27–37. Pompella, G., 1968, Le Argonautiche (testo, traduzione e note). Napoli I-II (III - IV 1971). Race, W.H., 2008, Argonautica, edited and translated. Cambridge MA/London. Radt, S., 1985, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta. Aeschylus (= TrGF 3). Göttingen. Radt, S., 1999, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta. Sophocles (= TrGF 4). Göttingen. Roscher, W.H., 1884-1937, Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie. Leipzig/Berlin. Ruta, A., 2018, Il libro I dell’ Epitome proverbiorum Didymi et Tarrhaei di Zenobio: introduzione, edizione critica e commento filologico (prov. 1-30). Diss. Palermo. Scaffai, M., 2002, “L’Ipsipile di Stazio, ovvero le sventure della virtù”. Prometheus 28, 151-170, 233-252. Scatena, V., 1950, “Contributo a una ricostruzione dell’Ipsipile euripidea”. Dioniso 13, 3-17. Taaffe, L.K., 2015, Aristophanes and Women. London/New York. Thalmann, G., 2011, Apollonius of Rhodes and the Spaces of Hellenism. Oxford. Vian, F., 1974-1981, Apollonios de Rhodes Argonautiques, texte établi et commenté, Paris (I 1974, II 1980, III 1981). Welcker, F.G., 1839, Die griechischen Tragödien mit Rücksicht auf den epischen Cyclus. Bonn

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS: DEMETER AND DIONYSUS AS PTOLEMAIC QUEEN AND KING IN CALLIMACHUS’ HYMN TO DEMETER Kathleen KIDDER ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that the joint wrath of Demeter and Dionysus in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter symbolizes the synergistic relationship of the Ptolemaic queens and kings. Discussing the ideological relevance of the two gods for the monarchs and the political implications of the other five Callimachean Hymns, I demonstrate that the couplet featuring the two gods (71-70) marks an important shift in the representation of Demeter’s power. Whereas Demeter struggles in the first half of the poem, Dionysus’ collaboration completes the punishment of Erysichthon. In a similar way, the Ptolemaic queens solicited the aid of their husbands the kings to solidify their cultural and political power.

1. Introduction Halfway through Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, the female speaker recounts the goddess’s punishment of Erysichthon.1 Incensed at this mortal’s desecration of her beloved grove, Demeter inflicts him with an insatiable hunger (65-67). Yet Erysichthon’s boundless appetite does not remain confined to edibles: σχέτλιος, ὅσσα πάσαιτο τόσων ἔχεν ἵμερος αὖτις. εἴκατι δαῖτα πένοντο, δυώδεκα δ’ οἶνον ἄφυσσον. καὶ γὰρ τᾷ Δάματρι συνωργίσθη Διόνυσος τόσσα Διώνυσον γὰρ ἃ καὶ Δάματρα χαλέπτει.

71 70

Wretched one, as much as he ate, a desire for the same amount seized him again. Twenty prepared a feast, and twelve drew wine. For in fact, Dionysus grew furious along with Demeter. Whatever angers Demeter also angers Dionysus. (Call. Cer. 68-71)

1. As a participant in a festival restricted to women (1; 118), the speaker is female. For analysis of the interaction between this female voice and Callimachus, see Bing (2009: 55-60) and Murray (2019: 253-262). For discussion of the multiple versions of the Erysichthon myth, see McKay (1962: 5-33); Hopkinson (1984: 18-26); Müller (1987: 65-76). Erysichthon’s daughter Mestra is absent in this version.

140

KATHLEEN KIDDER

After indicating that Erysichthon’s elaborate feasts involved copious amounts of wine (69), the speaker explains that Dionysus also became angry (71), as the same things vex both gods (70). With the transposition applied,2 the result is a clever and chiastic couplet that pairs the two gods of foodstuffs (cf. Pi. I. 7.3-5; E. Ba. 274-285), while also juxtaposing two forms of Dionysus’ name: Διόνυσος and Διώνυσον. Despite the playfulness of this couplet and the brevity of Dionysus’ appearance in a hymn devoted to Demeter, the significance of both gods for Ptolemaic ideology invites a political reading of these two lines, as well as the poem as a whole. As I will argue, Callimachus implicitly casts Demeter and her punishment of Erysichthon as an articulation of Ptolemaic queenly power. Specifically, such a power activates the collaboration of the male for the achievement of a goal. The joint wrath of Demeter and Dionysus symbolizes the synergistic relationship between the Ptolemaic queens and kings. To substantiate the political reading of these two lines, I begin the paper with a brief overview of the two gods’ role in Ptolemaic cult and ideology. From there, I touch upon the political dimension of the other Hymns, discussing the convincing hypothesis of Athena in the Hymn to Athena standing for a Ptolemaic queen. Applying this hypothesis to the Hymn to Demeter, I argue that the couplet 71-70, which appears near the center of the poem, reflects an important shift in the representation of Demeter’s power and by extension that of the queen. Whereas the speaker in the first half of the poem depicts Demeter as struggling, in the second half Demeter wields her power to achieve the degradation of Erysichthon. While Demeter commences the penalty (65-67), Dionysus ultimately brings it to completion. Together the two deities deprive Erysichthon of any sense of satiety and accomplish his social, economic, and political destruction. In doing so, they demonstrate their joint power. In a similar way, the Ptolemaic monarchs worked together to solidify their power. Indeed, after various misfortunes, Arsinoe II was able to solicit the aid of her brother-husband Ptolemy II in Egypt, becoming not just queen but also a goddess.

2. In the manuscript, τόσσα Διώνυσον … χαλέπτει precedes καὶ γὰρ … συνωργίσθη Διόνυσος. Hopkinson (1984: 137) argues, “The transition from general assertion to particular instance is intolerable: 71 is weak and anticlimactic”. For this reason, Hopkinson adopts the transposition. I do as well, while maintaining the original numbering. All translations in this paper are my own.

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

141

2. Demeter and Dionysus in Alexandria Through the ritual frame (1-6; 118-138), the Hymn evokes the worship of Demeter. While scholars dispute the actuality of Callimachus’ described ritual,3 Demeter did receive worship in Alexandria and Egypt.4 Polybius (15.27.1), for instance, provides evidence for a temple in Alexandria dedicated to Demeter Thesmophoros (‘Law Giver’).5 In the Hymn, the speaker alludes to this aspect of Demeter while listing preferable topics to hymn: ὡς πολίεσσιν ἑάδοτα τέθμια δῶκε (‘how she gave pleasing laws to cities’, 18). Along with this aspect, the speaker stresses Demeter’s association with fertility in the ritual refrain: Δάματερ, μέγα χαῖρε, πολυτρόφε πουλυμέδιμνε (‘Demeter, a great welcome, who nourishes many, who brings much grain’, 2; 119), doing so with the paired epithets containing πολυ-. Such an association with plenty would be especially pertinent in an Egyptian context. As the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, Alexandria accumulated the immense bounty of grain from Egypt.6 In an Egyptian context, moreover, Demeter’s association with fertility led to her assimilation with Isis, whose spheres of influence included fertility, children, magic, healing, love, and marriage. These numerous aspects in turn allowed for Isis’ association with multiple Greek goddesses, such as Hera and Aphrodite.7 At the same time, Isis assimilated with the divinized Ptolemaic queens, who themselves merged with multiple goddesses.8 As a result, we may see Isis as a link binding together Demeter and the Ptolemaic queens. Indeed, the queens, as rulers of Egypt, fulfilled Isis’ numerous roles, acting to ensure order and abundance. Their iconography reflects this role, as cornucopiae appear on their coins and on faience oenochoae bearing the inscriptions Ἀγαθῆς 3. For such doubts, see Hopkinson (1984: 32-43). Cf. Stephens (2015: 266), who counters Hopkinson’s hesitation. The scholiast asserts that the basket ritual occurred in Alexandria in imitation of Attic ritual. While noting that this Hymn replicates the context of performance, Depew (1993: 77) denies an actual performance. 4. Thompson (1998: 699-707). 5. Fraser (1972: 1, 199) conjectures that the structure was located near the Inner Palace. 6. Fraser (1972: 1, 148). 7. For the association between Isis and Demeter, see Hdt. 2.59. For discussions of Isis’ multifarious roles, see Heyob (1975: 1); Wilkinson (2003: 146-148). Aphrodite assimilated with the cow goddess Hathor, who had merged with Isis. See Dunand (1973: 14-15). 8. For instance, on the Pithom stele (I. Cair. 22183), Arsinoe is called the ‘Image of Isis and Beloved of Hathor’. For analysis of the assimilation between Arsinoe II and Isis, see Plantzos (1991: 122). Tondriau (1948: 15-23) gathers evidence for the comparisons between the Ptolemaic queens and other goddesses. Berenice II was also assimilated with Isis. See Fraser (1972: 1, 238-239); Pantos (1987: 343-352).

142

KATHLEEN KIDDER

Τύχης Ἀρσινόης Φιλαδέλφου Ἴσιος (‘Agathe Tyche Arsinoe Philadelphus Isis’).9 Like Demeter, Dionysus was also a popular deity in Alexandria. The Ptolemies claimed divine descent from the god, and Dionysus’ return from India served as an analogue to Alexander’s victorious expedition from the East. To foster these associations, the Ptolemies promoted his worship.10 In fact, Dionysus’ role as wine god resonated with the luxuriousness of Ptolemaic royalty. In his account of Ptolemy Philadelphus’ Grand Procession, which Athenaeus preserves, Callixeinus fixates on the procession to Dionysus (Ath. 5.197e-202a). The cart depicting Dionysus’ return from India featured a 12-cubit statue of the god seated upon an elephant and adorned with a purple cloak, a golden crown, a golden thyrsos lance, and embroidered slippers (Ath. 5.200d).11 The predominance of Dionysus in this account solidifies the connection between Dionysus and luxury. At the same time, Dionysus’ chthonic connections made him ripe for assimilation with Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld.12 This association, already present in Herodotus (2.144), would assume great significance for the Ptolemies, whose kingship fused Greek and Egyptian ideas. For the Egyptians, the pharaoh was the human analogue of Osiris. Thus, in adapting the Egyptian model of divine kingship,13 the Ptolemaic kings were also associated with Osiris, corroborating their correlation with Dionysus.

3. The Hymns: Kings and Queens This cultural and political milieu of Ptolemaic Alexandria shaped the composition and reception of Callimachus’ six Hymns.14 While treating the gods, the Hymns contain various references to the monarchs and to areas of geopolitical significance.15 The Hymn to Zeus, in particular,

9. The double cornucopia (dikeras) was a symbol of Arsinoe II (Ath. 11.497b-c). For discussion of the queens’ coinage, see Hazzard (1995: 424) for Arsinoe and Clayman (2014: 129) for Berenice. For the oenochoae, see Thompson (1973: 31-32). 10. Fraser (1972: 1, 202). 11. For discussion of Callixeinus’ reliability, see Rice (1983: 1-6). See Caneva (2016: 81-127) for analysis of Dionysus in this procession. 12. See Fraser (1972: 1, 206). 13. See Koenen (1993: 25-115). 14. Selden (1998: 302-303); Stephens (2003: 74-77); Petrovic (2016: 179). 15. The most explicit reference appears in the Hymn to Delos, when Apollo in utero prophesizes the birth of Ptolemy II on Cos and the defeat of the Galatians (Call. Del. 162-195). For kingship in the Hymns, see Barbantani (2011). For a detailed treatment of Ptolemaic kingship in the Hymn to Zeus, see Brumbaugh (2019: 21-124).

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

143

offers a fertile place for communicating the power of the king.16 Not only ‘from Zeus are kings’, according to the Hesiodic maxim (Th. 96) that Callimachus quotes (Call. Jov. 79), the Ptolemaic king, through his divinity, qualifies as the human analogue of Zeus. Yet, as has been pointed out,17 Callimachus makes no overt reference to the queens in the Hymns. This absence is surprising as Callimachus does center the queens in other works: e.g., Apotheosis of Arsinoe (fr. 228 Pf.), Victory of Berenice (Aet. fr. 54-60b Harder), and the Lock of Berenice (Aet. fr. 110 Harder).18 Additionally, since four of the six Hymns deal with female deities (Artemis, Delos, Athena, and Demeter), we would expect a parallel between the goddesses and the queens to accompany the king/Zeus analogy. For instance, as Brumbaugh observes,19 in the Hymn to Artemis, Artemis receives the title ἄνασσα (‘queen’, Call. Dian. 137), which parallels ἄναξ for Zeus (Call. Jov. 2). In the Hymn to Demeter, moreover, Callimachus dubs Demeter μέγα κρείοισα θεάων (‘great queen of goddesses’, 138), a title likewise evocative of royalty. In his reading of the poem, Bing in fact entertains the notion that the Hymn to Demeter was composed to appeal to the queen and her circle. Nevertheless, he rejects this hypothesis, deeming the evidence for the queens’ assimilation with Demeter too meager.20 As I noted above, however, the queens’ multifarious aspects facilitated association with numerous goddesses, both Greek and Egyptian, with Isis assimilated to both Demeter and the queens. In the Apotheosis of Arsinoe, Arsinoe II’s full sister Philotera was related with Demeter in cult (fr. 228.43-45 Pf.). The verbal similarities in this poem and in the Hymn to Demeter suggest some relationship between the two works,21 in turn increasing the likelihood of the Demeter/queen association in the poem. Additional support for this hypothesis stems from the Hymns’ thematic and verbal unity, which has led scholars to favor authorial grouping and ordering.22 For instance, the Hymn preceding the Hymn to Demeter, 16. See Hunter and Fuhrer (2002: 167-175). See Clauss (1986) for arguments that the king in this poem is Ptolemy II. 17. Cf. Depew (2004: 125); Cusset et al. (2017: 107); Brumbaugh (2019: 192). 18. For an overview of Arsinoe’s appearances in poetry, see Lelli (2002: 5-29); Prioux (2011: 201-224); Acosta-Hughes (2015: 41-58). For the bibliography on the Victory of Berenice and Lock of Berenice, see Harder (2012: 2, 384; 793). 19. Brumbaugh (2019: 206). 20. Bing (2009: 61). 21. ἁρπαγίμας (‘snatched away’) and ἄπυστα (‘undetected’) in 9 parallel ἄπ[υστος] (fr. 228.45 Pf.) and ἁρπαγίμα (fr. 228.46 Pf.). These parallels, however, do not establish which poem was written first. See Stephens (2015: 21-22). 22. Petrovic (2016: 168-173) points out that the Hymns are concerned with familial relationships. For other discussions of the Hymns’ unity, see Haslam (1993: 111-125);

144

KATHLEEN KIDDER

the Hymn to Athena, also features a Doric dialect, a ritual frame, and an embedded narrative of a man incurring punishment because of a goddess.23 These similarities encourage us to read the two poems as a unit, and in their analysis Cusset et al. have constructed a convincing case for connecting Athena with a queen, either Arsinoe II or Berenice II.24 First, the Argive setting (Lav. Pall. 4) is significant, as Io’s journey from Argos to Egypt served as an exemplum for the movement of Greeks into Egypt.25 Io in fact assimilated with Isis (Hdt. 2.41).26 Moreover, Athena had merged with Neith (Pl. Ti. 23d-e), an Egyptian goddess also connected to Isis (Plu. De Is. et Os. 9).27 Finally, the Hymn to Athena includes two references to the Dioscuri (24-25; 30), savior deities associated with the queens.28 This evidence combined produces a persuasive hypothesis and heightens the likelihood of a similar reading for the subsequent paired poem. Even if Callimachus had originally composed a version of the Hymn to Demeter without the queen in mind, its placement at the end of this collection would influence its meaning.29 Just as Zeus and Athena in their respective Hymns stand for the king (Ptolemy II) and queen (Arsinoe II or Berenice II), so too can the pairing of Demeter and Dionysus symbolize the union of the Ptolemaic monarchs.30 Like the Hymn to Zeus, the Hymn to Demeter is an expression of divine royal power, but it involves two gods, not just one. Depew 2004: (117-137); Acosta-Hughes and Cusset (2012: 124-131). While considering the ordering of the first four Hymns, Fantuzzi (2011: 448-453) does not think Callimachus was necessarily the editor. 23. For discussion of the relationship between these two poems, see Hopkinson (1984: 13-17); Müller (1987: 46-64). Major distinctions are the meter (elegiac couplets vs. hexameters) and the intent of the transgressor. Whereas Erysichthon purposely commits wrong, Tiresias in the Hymn to Athena gazes upon the bathing Athena unwillingly (78). 24. Cusset et al. (2017: 107-110; 142-148). Clayman (2014: 80-84) analyzes the poem with Berenice II in the background. Cf. Manakidou (2017: 197-204). Brumbaugh (2019: 219 n.103) argues that the associations connecting goddesses to individual queens are not mutually exclusive. 25. Callimachus alludes to this narrative at the beginning of the Victory of Berenice (fr. 54.4-6 Harder). See Stephens (2010: 60-61). 26. For the relevance of the Isis/Io connection to Arsinoe II, see Prioux (2009: 156). 27. At the temple of Athena-Neith at Saïs, Ptolemy II dedicated a statue of Arsinoe Isis. See Quack (2008: 284-285). 28. The Dioscuri appear on the queens’ coinage, as stars or as their caps (Hazzard (1995: 432 n.10)). At Samothrace, Arsinoe II promoted the worship of the Great Gods (OGIS 15), deities linked with the Dioscuri. 29. See Brumbaugh (2019: 230-234) for the suggestion that Callimachus revised the Hymn to Demeter for placement at the end of the Hymn collection. A version of the Hymn on P.Oxy 2226 lacks lines 118-137. Brumbaugh argues that the emphasis on abundance and order in these lines is fitting for the Hellenistic queens’ roles as benefactors. 30. Depew (2004: 134-135).

145

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

4. The Couplet Redux Combined with the ideological relevance of Demeter and Dionysus, the overt and oblique references to the monarchs in the other five Hymns substantiate a political reading of the couplet. It is useful to repeat the couplet and its preceding two lines: σχέτλιος, ὅσσα πάσαιτο τόσων ἔχεν ἵμερος αὖτις. εἴκατι δαῖτα πένοντο, δυώδεκα δ’ οἶνον ἄφυσσον. καὶ γὰρ τᾷ Δάματρι συνωργίσθη Διόνυσος τόσσα Διώνυσον γὰρ ἃ καὶ Δάματρα χαλέπτει.

71 70

Wretched one, as much as he ate, a desire for the same amount seized him again. Twenty prepared a feast, and twelve drew wine. For in fact, Dionysus grew furious along with Demeter. Whatever angers Demeter also angers Dionysus. (Call. Cer. 68-71)

With the compound verb συνωργίσθη (‘grew furious’, 71), Callimachus stresses the shared nature of the deities’ anger. Additionally, τόσσα (‘whatever…’) in 70 picks up ὅσσα πάσαιτο τόσων (‘as much as he ate… for the same amount’, 68), reflecting a direct correlation between the two gods’ wrath and Erysichthon’s lack of satiety. The couplet further embodies balance through its placement at the approximate center of the poem. Such a placement is noteworthy, as the poem exhibits a considered symmetrical structure, bound by the mimetic frame.31 Significant both for its pairing of two ideologically charged deities and for this placement, this couplet signals an important shift in the representation of Demeter’s power. After struggling in the first half of the poem, Demeter reassumes her divine form to instigate Erysichthon’s punishment. Dionysus’ collaboration, however, marks the culmination of this punishment. 4.1 Shared Struggles Towards the beginning of the poem, the hymnic narrator’s experience of fasting (6) leads her to recall Demeter’s deprivation after the kidnapping of Persephone: πότνια, πῶς σε δύναντο πόδες φέρεν ἔστ᾿ ἐπὶ δυθμάς, ἔστ᾿ ἐπὶ τὼς μέλανας καὶ ὅπα τὰ χρύσεα μᾶλα; οὐ πίες οὔτ’ ἄρ’ ἔδες τῆνον χρόνον οὐδὲ λοέσσα. τρὶς μὲν δὴ διέβας Ἀχελώϊον ἀργυροδίναν, 31. See Hopkinson (1984: 11), who calculates that 23 lines of ritual surround 92 lines of narrative.

146

KATHLEEN KIDDER

τοσσάκι δ’ ἀενάων ποταμῶν ἐπέρασας ἕκαστον, τρὶς δ’ ἐπὶ Καλλιχόρῳ χαμάδις ἐκαθίσσαο φρητί αὐσταλέα ἄποτός τε καὶ οὐ φάγες οὐδὲ λοέσσα. Lady, how could your feet carry you as far as the setting sun, as far as the Black men, and where the golden apples are? During that time, you did not drink, and you did not eat, and you did not even bathe. Three times indeed you crossed the silver-eddying Achelous. The same number of times you forded each of the ever-flowing rivers. Three times you sat on the ground at the well of Callichorus, parched, without drinking, and you did not eat or even bathe. (Call. Cer. 10-16)

Through the narrator’s mention of this event, Callimachus points the reader back to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which thematized Demeter’s wandering after the kidnapping of Persephone.32 Although condensing this account before terminating the narrative at 17, the narrator does give some detail concerning these sufferings, listing the distant places where Demeter travelled (11). Such an extent is remarkable considering that Demeter is neither eating nor drinking. Yet the goddess’s extensive travels bear no fruit in finding her kidnapped daughter, and the narrator stresses the futility of Demeter’s exertions with the repetition of the threes (τρίς…τρίς),33 while also restating Demeter’s deprivation in 16. This persistent deprivation results in an obvious paradox. In refusing to eat, the goddess of grain undercuts her own sphere of influence, and in so doing, repudiates her assigned power. This power is further destabilized by her refusal to partake in water, which is necessary for the growth of crops. Indeed, with the enumeration of various bodies of water, from biggest (Ἀχελώϊον, ‘Achelous’, 13) to smallest (Καλλιχόρῳ φρητί, ‘well of Callichorus’, 15), Callimachus produces an ironic tension between the omnipresence of water and Demeter’s abstention from drinking and bathing. This denial is ultimately a manifestation of her powerlessness. Even if Hesperus could persuade her to drink (8), he could not solve the root cause of her depression.

32. See Bing (2009: 51-55); Faulkner (2011: 77) for discussion of the verbal and thematic similarities between the Homeric Hymn and this Hymn. The theme of famine links both poems. In the Homeric Hymn, Demeter starves herself while wandering (h.Cer. 49-50; 200) and later causes famine for mankind by destroying the crops (h.Cer. 305-309). In Callimachus’ version she produces Erysichthon’s personal famine. 33. Hopkinson (1984: 11 n.2) observes the prevalence of the number three in this Hymn: Τριπτόλεμος (‘Triptolemus’, 21) Τριόπᾳ (‘Triopas’, 30), Τριοπίδαισιν (‘Triopidae’, 31), τρίτον (‘third’, 98), τριόδοισι (‘crossroads’, 114), and τρίλλιστε (‘thrice called upon’, 138). Stephens (2015: 179) proposes that Demeter crossing the river three times suggests a kind of ritual.

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

147

Demeter’s experiences in fact exhibit similarities with incidents in the life of Arsinoe II. After the death of her first husband Lysimachus of Thrace in 281 BCE, Arsinoe fled Ephesus to Cassandria. Later, when her half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus asked for her hand in marriage, she assented, hoping to secure safety and power for herself and her two younger sons. Upon marrying her, however, Ptolemy Ceraunus slaughtered these two sons and drove her into exile. Arsinoe then sought asylum in Samothrace until returning to Egypt and marrying her brother Ptolemy II (Just. Epit. 24.3.10). While not exact, the similarities between Demeter and Arsinoe’s situations are noteworthy. Both experienced wandering and the loss of children caused by a sibling. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Demeter’s brother Hades kidnaps Persephone with the approval of her other sibling Zeus (h.Cer. 2-3). Persephone’s descent to the underworld equates to death. Similarly, Arsinoe’s half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus murders her sons. When deprived of a husband and two of her sons, Arsinoe endured a blow to her power, as a husband and male children constituted her conduits for influence.34 Yet, just as Demeter eventually recovers Persephone, so too did Arsinoe reacquire her family (Ptolemy II) when returning to Egypt. 4.2 The Grove: Femininity, Fertility, and Luxury Acknowledging the depressing nature of Demeter’s subjection (17), the hymnic narrator proposes more suitable topics. After listing some options (18-21), the narrator commences the selected narrative with a description of the sacred grove at Dotium, the target of Erysichthon’s impiety: καλὸν ἄλσος ἐποιήσαντο Πελασγοὶ δένδρεσιν ἀμφιλαφές· διά κεν μόλις ἦνθεν ὀιστός· ἐν πίτυς, ἐν μεγάλαι πτελέαι ἔσαν, ἐν δὲ καὶ ὄχναι, ἐν δὲ καλὰ γλυκύμαλα· τὸ δ᾿ ὥστ᾿ ἀλέκτρινον ὕδωρ ἐξ ἀμαρᾶν ἀνέθυε. The Pelasgians fashioned a lovely grove, thick with trees. Scarcely would an arrow pass through it. In it were a pine tree, giant elms, pear trees, and lovely sweet-apples. The amber-like water bubbled from the channels. (Call. Cer. 25-29)

By clustering multiple kinds of trees (27-28) in the description of this space, the narrator offers an antidote to the prior description of Demeter’s hunger, and the mention of the amber-like water (ἀλέκτρινον ὕδωρ, 28) counteracts the depiction of her thirst. Replete with such fertility, the 34. See Carney (2013: 54-64).

148

KATHLEEN KIDDER

grove, a stereotypical locus amoenus, embodies Demeter’s divine power. In this fertile state, the grove at Dotium functions on multiple related levels. In sheltering nymphs (38), who are themselves connected to trees (39),35 the grove represents a feminized space befitting a female deity. The narrator further suggests the femininity of this space with the mention of sweet-apples (γλυκύμαλα, 28), a fruit found in a Sapphic fragment (fr. 105a V).36 Additionally, by noting that an arrow can scarcely penetrate the trees (26), the narrator constructs the image of the grove’s inviolability and separation from the sphere of masculine violence. Along with this feminized atmosphere, the grove radiates wealth and luxury. Commentators, for instance, have noted that this grove resembles Alcinous’ lush garden in the Odyssey (7.115-121).37 An evocation of this garden simultaneously recalls Alcinous’ decadent palace (7.85-97), which featured gold and silver guard dogs (7.91-93). Similarly, Callimachus’ use of ἀλέκτρινος (‘amber-like’) in 28 for the sheen of the water suggests luxury. Electrum can refer to either fossilized tree sap or a mixture of gold and silver,38 both luxury goods. This confluence of fertility, femininity, and luxury, I suggest, evokes the milieu of the Ptolemaic queens. Indeed, the agricultural profusion of Egypt enabled the accumulation of luxury goods in their royal courts.39 As is clear from Callixeinus’ account of Ptolemy’s Grand Procession, such luxury exuded power. 4.3 The Attack and Demeter’s First Attempt The fertility of this feminine space invites masculine invaders. Attended by Giant-like men (34), Erysichthon attacks the grove and cuts a poplar tree (37-39). Upon sensing the tree’s pain (40), Demeter takes immediate action to assert her authority and remedy the situation. Despite her wrath (41), Demeter initially grants Erysichthon a chance to cease his violence, first manifesting in mortal form. By likening herself to Nicippe, the city’s

35. Specifically, poplar trees are the transformed Heliades, who wept amber tears after their brother Phaethon’s death (Ov. Met. 2.340-366). See McKay (1962: 78-84) for a discussion of the nymph/tree duality in this Hymn. As he observes, ἀλέκτρινον (28) may be a nod to this myth. 36. See Hopkinson (1984: 104). The word appears at Theoc. 11.39, echoing Sappho. 37. E.g., Hopkinson (1984: 102-103). Alcinous’ garden has pear trees (ὄγχναι, Od. 7.115). 38. The scholiast (Σ 28), however, interprets the phrase to mean ‘shining’. For electrum as amber, see Od. 15.460; as the metal mixture: Od. 4.73. 39. For evidence of Arsinoe’s wealth, see Theoc. 15.111-125. For Ptolemaic wealth in general, see Theoc. 17.106-107; 123-124.

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

149

priestess (42),40 Demeter selects a woman of great religious authority. Armed with the symbols of this authority, the poppy and key (39), Demeter employs soothing language (45), addressing him as τέκνον πολύθεστε τοκεῦσι (‘child much prayed-for by his parents’, 47). Here, Demeter calls attention to his role within his family, while also appealing to a sense of piety. Both rhetorical strategies fail, as Demeter is not addressing a person who respects religious matters, but rather a man who is ‘wicked and without shame’ (κακὸν καὶ ἀναιδέα, 45). Indeed, a pious and respectful individual would not have defiled the grove in the first place. Demeter’s initial attempt thus represents a failure to assess her audience. As is clear from his hateful look like a lioness (50-52) and the subsequent threat (53), Erysichthon’s outrage knows no bounds. Faced with this trifling mortal threatening to upend her power, Demeter reverts to her divine aspect by morphing into her colossal size (58). Such immense size not only attests to her awesome power,41 but also supplies a contrast with the hungry, thirsty, and dirty Demeter described at the beginning of the poem. While the transformation is necessary for initiating the punishment, this mention may also hint towards the queens’ assumption of divinity. Along with their assimilation to various goddesses, Arsinoe II and Berenice II were divinized.42 However, as with the previously proposed comparison between the sufferings of Arsinoe and Demeter, the parallel is not exact. Unlike the queens who ascended to divinity, Demeter has always been a goddess, and for this reason some commentators have taken issue with the literal reading of γείνατο δ᾿ ἁ θεύς (‘she became the goddess’, 57).43 Retaining this sense of ‘becoming the goddess’, I suggest, becomes less problematic if we interpret the phrase as applying more to the queen than to Demeter. That is, whereas Demeter merely resumes her divine aspect, Arsinoe and her successor Berenice were upgraded to such a status.

40. Clayman (2014: 87) detects the similarity in the names Nicippe and Berenice. Additionally, she points out that the meaning of Nicippe’s name (‘victory in horses’) applies nicely to Berenice, whose horses won the Nemean games (Aet. fr. 54-60b Harder). 41. As Bing (2009: 52) points out, this reference to Demeter’s gigantic size echoes the scene in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, when Demeter’s head grazes the roof of Celeus’ house (h.Cer. 188-189). 42. For discussion of the queens’ deification, see Hölbl (2001: 101-105). The Mendes Stele (I. Cair. 22181 = Urk. II: 28-54), for instance, proclaimed Arsinoe’s status as a temple-sharing deity, requiring that statues of her be placed in all the country’s temples. 43. See Hopkinson (1984: 130), who adopts Bergk’s emendation αὖ (‘again’).

150

KATHLEEN KIDDER

4.4 The Punishment After a string of harsh words (63-64) and Demeter’s instigation of the punishment (65-67), Dionysus appears in the couplet (71-70). Since the narrator mentions Dionysus only here, it is tempting to downplay his importance. We should note, however, that Demeter also vanishes in the description of the punishment, until the hymnic narrator readdresses her at 116-117. The absence of both deities in 72-115 enables the narrator to focus entirely on the social, economic, and political ramifications of Erysichthon’s ravenous appetite.44 This ability to devastate Erysichthon in so many respects attests to the two gods’ collaborative and wide-reaching power. Such a power, in turn, compares to that of the Ptolemaic queen and king. The narrator first dwells on Erysichthon’s social isolation. Ashamed at his endless appetite, his parents devise numerous excuses to prevent him from attending others’ feasts and social engagements (73-86). This aspect of the punishment suits the crime, as Erysichthon cut down the grove to build a hall for feasting with his friends (54-55). Afflicted by Demeter and Dionysus, however, Erysichthon endures not only a lack of satiety but also deprivation of social interaction. The word for feasts, ξυνδείπνια (72), in fact emphasizes the communal nature of this activity. At the same time, the prefix ξυν- recalls συνωργίσθη a few lines earlier in 71. This repetition, I suggest, provides a pointed contrast between the goddess Demeter and Erysichthon. Whereas she can motivate the collaboration of Dionysus, Erysichthon, denied of feasting, can no longer achieve any solidarity. Similarly, the situation strains Erysichthon’s family and household. While his female relatives and caregivers bemoan their inability to nourish him (94-95), his aged father Triopas vainly entreats Poseidon for aid (98-110). Although Erysichthon’s grandfather (98-100), Poseidon ignores Triopas’ entreaty to remove the disease (103) or to feed Erysichthon (103-104). On the one hand, Poseidon’s inaction is expected. Food and wine fall outside his sphere of influence and thus should not elicit his concern. However, Poseidon’s complete disregard for his mortal progeny marks another blow to Erysichthon’s social network. The only figure potentially capable of countering Demeter and Dionysus’ anger does not act, and through this inaction Poseidon further aids Demeter, his sister, in destroying Erysichthon’s household. Thus, yet again Demeter mobilizes her family’s support for the evisceration of Erysichthon. 44. Cf. Hopkinson (1984: 8).

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

151

At the same time, this lament to Poseidon allows Triopas to elucidate the economic ramifications of the punishment. Since the cooks’ indulgence has caused Erysichthon to exhaust all the regular food, Erysichthon has devolved into eating the other animals: the asses, the cow, both the prize and war horses, and finally even the white-tailed animal (104-110). This enumeration contributes to the humor that scholars have detected in the poem.45 Yet all these creatures play a crucial role in the household’s economy.46 In detaching the asses from the carts for Erysichthon’s meal (107), the cooks deplete a labor source. Even the white-tailed animal (110) is important, as it protects the grain by warding off tiny animals, presumably rats and mice. As a result, Erysichthon’s indiscriminate appetite has further impaired the household’s economic power, which his incessant consumption of food and wine has already dampened. With the disappearance of his family’s wealth, Erysichthon experiences the loss of his political power when he becomes reduced to a beggar at the crossroads: ἀλλ’ ὅκα τὸν βαθὺν οἶκον ἀνεξήραναν ὀδόντες, καὶ τόχ’ ὁ τῶ βασιλῆος ἐνὶ τριόδοισι καθῆστο αἰτίζων ἀκόλως τε καὶ ἔκβολα λύματα δαιτός. But when his teeth drained up the deep wealth, then the king’s son sat in the crossroads, begging for crumbs and trash thrown from the feast. (Call. Cer. 113-115)

In juxtaposing ὁ τῶ βασιλῆος (‘king’s son’) and ἐνὶ τριόδοισι (‘in the crossroads’) in 114, the narrator underscores the paradox of a royal son sitting in the crossroads, the realm of beggars.47 At the same time, the verb καθῆστο (‘sat’, 114) recalls ἐκαθίσσαο (‘you sat’) for Demeter at 15, forging a parallel between the currently desperate Erysichthon and the formerly destitute Demeter.48 Important distinctions, however, separate the circumstances of the two. Demeter’s deprivation, while a manifestation of her powerlessness in finding Persephone, is her choice and ultimately temporary. She eventually reunites with Persephone and restores fertility to the earth (h.Cer. 471-474). Erysichthon, by contrast,

45. McKay (1962: passim); Giuseppetti (2012: 114). Faraone (2012: 76) connects the comedic tone with rituals designed to banish famine demons. 46. See Stephens (2015: 292). 47. As Hunter (1992: 32) notes, the scene is reminiscent of the φαρμακός (ritual scapegoat). Moreover, as Bulloch (1977: 108) observes, this section contains allusions to Odyssey 17.197-253, when Odysseus is disguised as a beggar. ἄκολος (‘crumb’) is a Homeric hapax from Od. 17.222. 48. See Faulkner (2011: 89).

152

KATHLEEN KIDDER

cannot control his appetite, and paradoxically his deprivation entails abundance. Before exhausting his prosperous household, he did not lack resources or the efforts of his family, but satiety. 4.5 Nothing to Do with Dionysus?: Shared Enemies Inspired by the exemplum of this narrative, the narrator readdresses Demeter: Δάματερ, μὴ τῆνος ἐμὶν φίλος, ὅς τοι ἀπεχθής / εἴη μηδ’ ὁμότοιχος· ἐμοὶ κακογείτονες ἐχθροί (‘Demeter, may that man not be my friend, whoever is hateful to you, may he not even be my neighbor. Bad neighbors are hateful to me’, 116-117). In wishing to shun these people as friends, the narrator reveals the pervasiveness of Demeter’s influence. Just as her favor secures abundance and order for a community (134-137), her malice wreaks extensive devastation, as can be seen by the social, economic, and political dissolution of Erysichthon and his family. Although this wish contains only Demeter’s name, I suggest that we should extend this sentiment to encompass Dionysus, Demeter’s associate in the poem. Since the same things upset both gods (71-70), they would logically share enemies. At the same time, as is evident from his major narratives, Dionysus also loathes and punishes transgressors like Erysichthon. In fact, the Hymn to Demeter features reminiscences of these narratives. Bulloch, for instance, sees a resemblance to the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, where the god transforms the thieving pirates into dolphins.49 More similar, however, is Dionysus’ punishment of Pentheus, as depicted in Euripides’ Bacchae. While refusing to accept Dionysiac worship, Pentheus falls for the disguised Dionysus’ trap (Ba. 812) and dresses up as a Maenad (Ba. 917) to spy on the Bacchic rites (Ba. 1075). For this transgression, his mother and aunts tear him to shreds, maddened by the god (Ba. 1094-1141). Not only do the Erysichthon and Pentheus narratives consist of disguised gods (Demeter as priestess; Dionysus as mortal) and encroachment into forbidden spaces,50 both punishments culminate in animalistic slaughter. Pentheus, imagined as a lion by Agave (Ba. 1142), is butchered like one, whereas Erysichthon consumes all the animals in his ravening hunger (104-110). In both cases, moreover, the divine punishment breeds familial devastation that undermines the female family members. While Erysichthon’s mother and female relatives fail as caregivers (94-95), Agave and her sisters completely negate their familial 49. Bulloch (1977: 99-101). 50. See Heyworth (2004: 155-156).

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

153

roles in slaughtering Pentheus. Together these thematic and structural resemblances between the two narratives signal the strong influence of Euripides’ Bacchae on this Hymn. This influence in turn implies Dionysus’ continued relevance for the Hymn after the couplet 71-70. Indeed, the couplet itself points back to the Bacchae, as the pairing of Demeter and Dionysus occurs in Tiresias’ warnings against impiety (Ba. 274-285).51 Comparison with Theocritus Idyll 26 provides additional support for reading Dionysus’ significance for the Hymn to Demeter. In containing a description of Pentheus’ punishment, Idyll 26 also engages with the Bacchae. At the same time, this poem exhibits numerous similarities to Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, combining references to ritual actions (26.2-9),52 emphasis on the number three (26.3; 6), and a simile featuring a ferocious lioness (26.21).53 In particular, the poem includes a repudiation similar to 116-117 in the Hymn to Demeter: Οὐκ ἀλέγω· μηδ’ ἄλλος ἀπεχθομένω Διονύσῳ φροντίζοι, μηδ’ εἰ χαλεπώτερα τῶνδε μογήσαι, εἴη δ’ ἐνναετὴς ἢ καὶ δεκάτω ἐπιβαίνοι· αὐτὸς δ’ εὐαγέοιμι καὶ εὐαγέεσσιν ἅδοιμι. I do not care. May no one else show regard to an enemy of Dionysus, not even if he were to suffer a fate more terrible than this and be in his ninth year or coming in on his tenth. May I myself be pious and be pleasing in the eyes of pious people. (Theoc. 26.27-30)

Despite the textual and interpretive difficulties plaguing these lines,54 the speaker voices a clear desire to disregard those hated by Dionysus. Not only does this wish correspond roughly to the one in the Hymn to Demeter 116-117, ἀπεχθομένω (‘enemy’, 26.27) resembles ἀπεχθής (‘hateful’, 116). Along with the other correspondences, this verbal resemblance suggests a textual relationship between the two poems, both of which show Dionysus punishing a wrongdoer. Of course, while Dionysus is the sole retaliator in Idyll 26, he acts as Demeter’s collaborator in the Hymn to Demeter. Unfortunately, however, the two poems’ uncertain

51. The evocation of Tiresias is significant, as his punishment forms the subject of the previous Hymn. See Heyworth (2004: 156-157). 52. For observations about the similarities between this Idyll and Callimachus’ mimetic hymns, see Gow (1952: 2, 475). Cairns (1992: 5-9) deals with the ritual elements in the poem. 53. Specifically, Agave’s scream is compared to that of a lioness that has just given birth (τοκάδος, 21). Cf. Call. Cer. 50-52. Both similes are modeled off the one in Euripides’ Medea (187). 54. See Gow (1952: 2, 480-483).

154

KATHLEEN KIDDER

chronology renders it impossible to determine who is influencing whom.55 Nevertheless, in composing such similar poems, Callimachus and Theocritus further attest to the close association between Demeter and Dionysus. Indeed, the enemies of both gods merit shunning. Combined the strong influence of Euripides’ Bacchae and the similarities with Idyll 26 support construing Dionysus in the wish at 116-117. Both gods hate the same kinds of transgressors and afflict similar punishments, which can wreak widespread devastation to the family and community. At the same time, the association between the two gods and the Ptolemaic monarchs allows us to draw an additional inference from 116-117. Whoever is despised by Demeter and Dionysus is an enemy of the queen and king, in the same way that whoever fights the king also fights Apollo (Call. Ap. 26-27).56

5. The Queen and King: By Our Powers Combined In reading Demeter and Dionysus in the Hymn as analogues for the queen and king, I proposed some possible connections to real historical circumstances. Demeter’s experience of wandering is comparable to the sufferings of Arsinoe II. At the same time, Demeter and Arsinoe II are divine, ensuring abundance and order in fertile and wealthy Egypt, just like Isis. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the problematic nature of directly correlating actual events with the material presented in a poem, especially for one with an unconfirmed date. Indeed, while my analysis has centered Arsinoe II as the queenly model, such observations apply equally as well to her successor Berenice II, who also suffered before ascending to the Egyptian throne.57 Additionally, although historical context and material conditions influence the production of poetry, poems do not cohere one-to-one with historical reality. The predominance of the queens in the works of Callimachus and his contemporaries does not mean that these women truly wielded power equal to that of

55. On the dating issue, see Gow (1952: 1, xxxiii) and more recently Cusset (2001: 29-31). Theoc. 26.30 parallels Call. Del. 98, where Apollo proclaims εὐαγέων δὲ καὶ εὐαγέεσι μελοίμην (‘I am pure and may I be a concern to those also pure’). On the reasons for this resemblance, see Gow (1952: 2, 483) and Cairns (1992: 19-20), who hypothesize that this was a ritual phrase. 56. Petrovic (2016: 178) considers the political dimension of 116-117 by noting that φίλος (‘friend’, 116) is a technical term for courtiers. 57. See Clayman (2014: 85-89). For instance, Clayman points out that Berenice II lost a daughter (OGIS 56) and proposes a parallel between Erysichthon and Demetrius the Fair.

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

155

their husbands. An accurate assessment of their power, I think, would be difficult for even a person involved in the Ptolemaic court. With actuality impossible to grasp, I suggest that we should focus on the perception surrounding the queens’ power. Arsinoe’s divinity, though obviously not real, made her appear equal to her brother, and in particular their joint cult of the Theoi Adelphoi embodied this notion of parity.58 For their mortal subjects, does it matter which divine monarch exerts more sway over the other? The extent to which Arsinoe participated in her own divine P.R. campaign remains impossible to answer. To assume this divinity, however, she ultimately needed her husband, both for her cults’ initial establishment and propagation.59 Similarly, Arsinoe’s role in cultural affairs shaped the perception of her power. Theocritus in Idyll 15 fashions the image of a wealthy and beneficent queen by describing Arsinoe’s sponsorship of the Adonia.60 By funding such public events, Arsinoe let her image propagate. The boundless wealth of fertile Egypt seemed to belong to her, as much as to Ptolemy II. Moreover, her predominance in poetry suggests her sponsorship.61 Arsinoe’s role as poetic patron in fact corresponds to the metapoetic readings that scholars have applied to Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter. Erysichthon, in his excess and inability to obtain fulfillment, represents the inferior type of poetry, whereas Demeter embodies Callimachus’ poetic ideals.62 In this reading, it is fitting that Dionysus collaborates with Demeter. As god of tragedy and wine, he bears responsibility for poetic production, just as his human analogue Ptolemy II bankrolled poetic contests.63 Aside from her divinity and influence in cultural affairs, Arsinoe’s power seemingly seeped into military affairs and foreign policy.64 For instance, the Decree of Chremonides (Syll.3 434-35), passed by the 58. Fraser (1972: 2, 364-365 n.208). 59. Quaegebeur (1988: 42); Carney (2013: 128-129). For discussion of the development of Arsinoe’s worship, including her posthumous cults, see Caneva (2016: 129-178). 60. See Burton (1995: 133-154). 61. For Arsinoe as poetic sponsor, see Carney (2013: 102-103). 62. For such readings, see Müller (1987: 30-45), who argues for interaction with the Aetia prologue and the end of the Hymn to Apollo, two sections with clear metapoetic importance. Demeter appears in both sections, either as the preferred work by Philitas (Aetia fr. 1.10 Harder) or as the recipient of the bees’ pure water (Call. Ap. 109). See also Murray (2004: 214), who emphasizes the metaphor of ὕλη (‘forest’) as subject matter. Faulkner (2011: 91-92), however, problematizes the interpretation of Erysichthon as bad poetry, noting that thinness is emblematic of the Callimachean aesthetic. 63. For instance, Theocritus at Idyll 17.112-116 describes Ptolemy II’s support of the poetic contests of Dionysus. See Hunter (2003: 182-184). 64. For instance, Arsinoe accompanied Ptolemy to inspect the frontier at Pithom (I. Cair. 22183). See Carney (2013: 90).

156

KATHLEEN KIDDER

Athenians in 268/267 BCE to wage war against Antigonus Gonatas, framed Ptolemy II’s support of Greek freedom as ‘in accordance with the policies of his ancestors and sister’. While the reference to Ptolemy’s ancestors is expected, the Athenians’ choice to mention his sister Arsinoe in an important official document is highly unusual. Despite arguments regarding this mention as a mere formality, Carney has revived earlier assessments by contending that the decree points to a politically influential Arsinoe.65 At the same time, the decree reveals Ptolemy II’s desire to help his sister fight enemies, a situation not unlike Dionysus’ collaboration with Demeter in the Hymn to Demeter.

6. Conclusion As the final poem in a collection that begins with Zeus and his human analogue the king, the Hymn to Demeter symbolizes the culmination of royal power, that of the queens. This queenly power entails harnessing the efforts of the male in the achievement of a goal. A third view at the transposed couplet and its word order sheds light on these power dynamics between female and male: καὶ γὰρ τᾷ Δάματρι συνωργίσθη Διόνυσος τόσσα Διώνυσον γὰρ ἃ καὶ Δάματρα χαλέπτει.

71 70

For in fact, Dionysus grew furious along with Demeter. Whatever angers Demeter also angers Dionysus.

Wedged between Δάματρι and Δάματρα, the placement of Dionysus’ names casts him as a crucial vector of Demeter’s power. Unlike the male deities in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Dionysus assists Demeter after her initial failure to stop Erysichthon, enhancing the punishment of Erysichthon by including the unquenchable thirst for wine. To express this unique collaborative power in his Hymn to Demeter, Callimachus has modified the traditional hymnic form, infusing ritual with humor, piety with poetics, and divinity with economic, social, and political considerations. All these elements converge in the joint power of Arsinoe II and Ptolemy II and later their successors Berenice II and Ptolemy III. Together these divine monarchs ensure wealth, fertility, and poetry, while also punishing their enemies. 65. Carney (2013: 93). Cf. Macurdy (1932: 118-124); Hauben (1983: 114-119). Burstein (1982: 210-212) rejects this decree as evidence for Arsinoe’s political and military activity. For a summary of the issue, see Hazzard (2000: 81-100).

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

157

REFERENCES Acosta-Hughes, B., 2015, “À l’image d’Hélène ou comment se figurer une reine: sur quelques représentations d’Arsinoé II”. In: É. Prioux et al. (eds), L’Héroïque et le Champêtre Volume II: appropriation et déconstruction des théories stylistiques dans la pratique des artistes et dans les modalités d’exposition des œuvres. Paris, 41-58. Acosta-Hughes, B. & C. Cusset, 2012, “Callimaque face aux Hymnes homériques”. In: R. Bouchlon et al. (eds) Hymnes de Grèce antique: approches littéraires et historiques. Lyon, 123-133. Acosta-Hughes, B. et al. (eds), 2011, Brill’s Companion to Callimachus. Leiden. Barbantani, S., 2011, “Callimachus on Kings and Kingship”. In: B. AcostaHughes et al. (eds), 178-200. Bing, P., 2009, The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry. Ann Arbor. Brumbaugh, M., 2019, The New Politics of Olympos: Kingship in Kallimachos’ Hymns. Oxford. Bulloch, A.W., 1977, “Callimachus’ Erysichthon, Homer and Apollonius Rhodius”. AJPh 98, 97-123. Burstein, S., 1982, “Arsinoe II Philadelphos: A Revisionist View”. In: W.L. Adams & E.N. Borza (eds), Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage. Washington DC, 197-212. Burton, J.B., 1995, Theocritus’s Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender, and Patronage. Berkeley. Cairns, F., 1992, “Theocritus, Idyll 26”. PCPhS 38, 1-38. Caneva, S., 2016, From Alexander to the Theoi Adelphoi: Foundation and Legitimation of a Dynasty. Leuven. Carney, E.D., 2013, Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life. Oxford. Clauss, J.J., 1986, “Lies and Allusions: The Addressee and Date of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus”. ClAnt 5, 155-170. Clayman, D.L., 2014, Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt. Oxford. Cusset, C., 2001, Les Bacchantes de Théocrite: texte, corps et morceaux. Paris. Cusset, C. et al., 2017, L’Hymne pour le Bain de Pallas: récit d’une épiphanie impossible”. In: P. Linant de Bellefonds & É. Prioux (eds), Voir les mythes: Poésie hellénistique et arts figurés. Paris, 107-150. Depew, M., 1993, “Mimesis and Aetiology in Callimachus’ Hymns”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 57-77. ―, 2004, “Gender, Power, and Poetics in Callimachus’ Book of Hymns”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 117-137. Dunand, F., 1973, Le culte d’Isis dans le bassin oriental de la Méditerranée 1. Le Culte d’Isis et les Ptolémées. Leiden. Fantuzzi, M., 2011, “Speaking with Authority: Polyphony in Callimachus’ Hymns”. In: B. Acosta-Hughes et al. (eds), 429-453. Faraone, C., 2012, “Boubrôstis, Meat Eating and Comedy: Erysichthon as Famine Demon in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 61-80. Faulkner, A., 2011, “Fast, Famine, and Feast: Food for Thought in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter”. HSCP 106, 75-95.

158

KATHLEEN KIDDER

Fraser, P.M., 1972, Ptolemaic Alexandria. 3 vols. Oxford. Giuseppetit, M., 2012, “Two Poets for a Goddess: Callimachus’ and Philicus’ Hymns to Demeter”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 103-130. Gow, A.S.F., 1952, Theocritus. 2 vols. Cambridge. Harder, M.A., 2012, Callimachus Aetia. 2 vols. Oxford. Harder, M.A. et al. (eds), 1993, Callimachus (Hellenistica Groningana 1). Groningen. ―, 2004, Callimachus II. (Hellenistica Groningana 7). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA. ―, 2012, Gods and Religion in Hellenistic Poetry. (Hellenistica Groningana 16). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA. Haslam, M.W., 1993, “Callimachus’ Hymns”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 111125. Hauben, H., 1983, “Arsinoé II et la politique extérieure de l’Égypte”. In: E. van’t Dack et al. (eds), Egypt and the Hellenistic World. Leuven, 99-127. Hazzard, R.A., 1995, “Theos Epiphanes: Crisis and Response”. HThR 88, 415-436. ―, 2000, Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda. Toronto. Heyob, S.K., 1975, The Cult of Isis Among Women in the Graeco-Roman World. Leiden. Heyworth, S.J., 2004, “Looking into the River: Literary History and Interpretation in Callimachus, Hymns 5 and 6”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 139-159. Hölbl, G., 2001, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire. London. Hopkinson, N., 1984, Callimachus: Hymn to Demeter. Cambridge. Hunter, R., 1992, “Writing the God, Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena”. MD 29, 9-34. ―, 2003, Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Berkeley. Hunter, R. & T. Fuhrer, 2002, “Imaginary Gods? Poetic Theology in the Hymns of Callimachus”. In: F. Montanari & L. Lehnus (eds), Callimaque. Geneva, 143-187. Koenen, L., 1993, “The Ptolemaic King as a Religious Figure”. In: A. Bulloch et al. (eds), Images and Ideologies: Self-definition in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley, 25-115. Lelli, E., 2002, “Arsinoe II in Callimaco e nelle testimonianze letterarie alessandrine (Teocrito, Posidippo, Sotade e altro)”. ARF 4, 5-29. Macurdy, G.H., 1932, Hellenistic Queens: A Study of Woman-power in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt. Baltimore. Manakidou, F., 2017, “Past and Present in the Fifth Hymn of Callimachus: Mimesis, Aitology and Reality”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Past and Present in Hellenistic Poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 24). Leuven-ParisBristol, CT, 181-209. McKay, K.J., 1962, Erysichthon, a Callimachean Comedy. Leiden. Müller, C.W., 1987, Erysichthon: Der Mythos als narrative Metapher im Demeterhymnos des Kallimachos. Stuttgart. Murray, J., 2004, “The Metamorphoses of Erysichthon: Callimachus, Apollonius, and Ovid”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 207-241. ―, 2019, “Poetically Erect: The Female Oriented Humor in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Callimachus Revisited: New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Hellenistica Groningana 24). Leuven-Paris-Bristol, CT, 249-263.

WHAT ANGERS DEMETER ALSO ANGERS DIONYSUS

159

Pantos, P.A., 1987, “Bérénice II Démèter”. BCH 111, 343-352. Petrovic, I., 2016, “Gods in Callimachus’ Hymns”. In: J.J. Clauss et al. (eds), The Gods of Greek Hexameter Poetry: From the Archaic Age to Late Antiquity. Stuttgart, 164-179. Plantzos, D., 1991, “Ἐκθέωσις Ἀρσινόης: On the Cult of Arsinoe Philadelphos”. Archaiognosia 7, 119-134. Prioux, É., 2009, “Géographie symbolique des errances de Protée: un mythe et sa relecture politique à l’époque hellénistique”. In: A. Rolet (ed), Protée en trompe-l’œil: Genèse et survivances d’un mythe, d’Homère à Bouchardon. Rennes, 139-164. ―, 2011, “Callimachus’ Queens”. In: B. Acosta-Hughes et al. (eds), 201-224. Quack, J.F., 2008, “Innovations in Ancient Garb? Hieroglyphic Texts from the Time of Ptolemy Philadelphus”. In: P. McKechnie & P. Guillaume (eds). Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World. Leiden, 275-289. Quaegebeur, J., 1988, “Cleopatra VII and the Cults of Ptolemaic Queens”. In: R.S. Bianchi (ed). Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies. New York, 41-54. Rice, E.E., 1983, The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Oxford. Selden, D., 1998, “Alibis”. ClAnt 17, 289-412. Stephens, S.A., 2003, Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Berkeley. ―, 2010, “Ptolemaic Alexandria”. In: J.J. Clauss & M. Cuypers (eds), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Chichester, 46-61. ―, 2015, Callimachus: The Hymns. Oxford. Thompson, D.B., 1973, Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience: Aspects of Ruler-Cult. Oxford. ―, 1998, “Demeter in Greco-Roman Egypt”. In: W. Clarysse et al. (eds), Egyptian Religion: The Last Thousand Years Part 1. Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur. Leuven, 699-707. Tondriau, J.L., 1948, “Princesses ptolémaïques comparées ou identifiées à des déesses, IIIe-Ier siècles avant J.-C.”. Bulletin de la Société archéologique d’Alexandrie 37, 12-33. Wilkinson, R.H., 2003, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. London.

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS IN THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD André LARDINOIS ABSTRACT Sappho was widely read and much appreciated in the Hellenistic period. She was seen as an authority especially on love and female speech, and was included as the only female poet in the canon of nine lyric poets. My paper will look at the use of Sappho as model and “anchor” in the late classical and hellenistic poets, notably Erinna, Anyte, Nossis, Moero, Posidippus, Apollonius of Rhodes, Theocritus and Meleager with a brief excursus on Catullus 51. I will argue that the male poets (Posidippus, Apollonius, Theocritus, Meleager and Catullus) use Sappho as an anchor to speak as a poet about female characters or feminine behaviour, while Erinna and Nossis, in the surviving parts of their poetry, use her as an anchor to speak as a woman poet, a subtle but significant difference. In the case of Anyte and Moero the link with Sappho is harder to establish.

In the Spring of 2017 a group of Dutch Classicists, united in the national research school OIKOS, received a large grant from the Dutch government to investigate innovation processes in antiquity in a research programme called “Anchoring Innovation”.1 Underlying this programme is the idea that innovations occur not only in the technical domain or in medicine but in all human domains (e.g. art, language, literature, politics and religion), and that for their acceptance it is necessary that innovations not only deliver something new, but also remain connected to (are “anchored in”) what is already familiar and recognisable to the people who adopt this innovation. As part of this research agenda I am studying the reception of the archaic Greek lyric poets in later Greek and Roman authors. My contention is that the references of these authors to their illustrious predecessors were one way in which they anchored their writings in the literary tradition. The Romans described this creative process with the terms imitatio 1. For an explanation of the concept, see Sluiter (2017). For more information about the research programme and its results, see the website www.anchoringinnovation.nl. Anchoring Innovation is the Gravitation Grant research agenda of the Dutch National Research School in Classical Studies, OIKOS. It is financially supported by the Dutch ministry of Education, Culture and Science (2017-2027). The research for this article was funded by this programme (project number 024.003.012).

162

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

et aemulatio: one had to imitate famous predecessors, but at the same time add new elements that could compete with the old writings.2 The imitatio is part of the process of “anchoring”, while the aemulatio constitutes the innovative part. In this way ancient authors were able to develop a wide range of new genres, from tragedy in the classical period to the novels in Roman times, and to introduce ever new elements within these genres. The purpose of these authors was namely not merely to repeat forms and insights of earlier archaic and classical Greek poets (for that it would be better to read these poets themselves), but to introduce new forms and ideas. I will argue that the imitatio helped to make these new forms and ideas more readily acceptable. This paper studies the use of Sappho as model or “anchor” by Greek poets in the late classical and Hellenistic periods. Personal preference has determined my choice of Sappho, but also the gender aspect that is inextricably attached to her: everyone in antiquity was acutely aware that Sappho was a woman.3 A secondary question will therefore be if male and female poets used her differently as an anchor for their poetry. In this way I hope to come to a clearer understanding both of the reception of Sappho in antiquity and of the way in which the concept of anchoring innovation is applicable to ancient Greek literature. Sappho was an authority in antiquity. She was without a doubt the most famous female poet and the only one included in the canon of nine lyric poets that was established at least by the Hellenistic period but probably already earlier.4 She is regularly referred to as the tenth Muse in Hellenistic epigrams and must have been popular till late antiquity, given the relatively high number of papyri that were found of her in Egypt, including some recent finds.5 I lack the space and competence to discuss all Greek and Latin authors who allude to Sappho – there are many. I will however discuss all the female poets from the Hellenistic and late classical periods whose poetry has survived, some in more detail (Nossis, Erinna) than others (Anyte, Moero),6 and three male poets, Posidippus, 2. E.g. Reiff (1959), Conte & Most (2012). 3. Rosenmeyer (1997: 133-36) and Hunter (2021). 4. See Hadjimichael (2019) and Nagy (2020b). 5. On the reception of Sappho in later Greek and Roman authors, see Yatromanolakis (2007), Acosta-Hughes (2010: chs. 1 and 2); Thorsen & Harrison (2019); and Finglass & Kelly (2021: chs. 19-23). The papyri date from the early third cent. BCE (Tithonus song) to a piece of codex from the sixth century CE (frs. 94-96). For the most recent finds, see Gronewald & Daniel (2007) and Obbink (2016). For references by Hellenistic poets to their predecessors in general, see Klooster (2011). 6. I consider Corinna a fifth-century BCE poet and will therefore leave her out of consideration: see Collins (2006: 19–20) for an overview of the arguments; add Thorsen (2012), who defends the reliability of Tatian’s report that Silanion made a sculpture of

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

163

Theocritus and Apollonius of Rhodes, with a brief excursus to Meleager Ep. 22 and Catullus 51. I will argue that the male poets use Sappho as an anchor to speak as a poet about women or feminine behaviour, while the female poets use her as anchor to speak as a woman poet, a subtle but significant difference.7

1. Nossis The first poet I would like to discuss is Nossis, of whom twelve or eleven epigrams are preserved in the Anthologia Palatina.8 She lived around 300 BCE and therefore belongs to the first generation of Hellenistic poets. She probably contributed in a significant way to the development of the literary epigram, being, for example, one of the first Greek epigrammatists whom we know with reasonable certainty to have collected her poems herself and published them on a scroll.9 Many of the female Greek poets whose work is preserved refer in one way or another to Sappho, but Nossis is very explicit about it. In Ep. 11 (= AP 7.718) she establishes a direct connection between her poetry and Sappho’s: Ὦ ξεῖν’, εἰ τύ γε πλεῖς ποτὶ καλλίχορον Μιτυλάναν τᾶν Σαπφοῦς χαρίτων ἄνθος ἐναυσόμενος, εἰπεῖν ὡς Μούσαισι φίλαν τήνᾳ τε Λοκρὶς γᾶ10 τίκτε μ’· ἴσαις δ᾿ ὅτι μοι τοὔνομα Νοσσίς, ἴθι. O stranger, if you sail to Mytilene with the beautiful choruses to let yourself be inspired by the flower of Sappho’s Graces, tell them that the Locrian land bore me, who is dear to the Muses and to her. And knowing that my name is Nossis, go. Corinna in the fourth century BCE. Following Raimondi (1995-1998) and Bowie (f.c.), I date Melinno to the second century CE. I will discuss her Hymn to Roma briefly in the conclusion of this paper. 7. In this paper, I use the word “female” when referring to the biological condition of being a woman and “feminine” for a concept or behaviour that a given culture typically associates with women, but can be applied to men as well. On Greek concepts of the feminine (and its applications to male characters), see e.g. Zeitlin (1996). 8. The assignment of Ep. 12 (= AP 6.273) to Nossis is disputed: see Gow & Page (1965: 443). For Nossis and the other Hellenistic epigrammatists I follow the text of Page (1975), who follows the numbering of Gow & Page (1965). I have added the AP numbers behind brackets, when first mentioning an epigram derived from AP. All translations in this article are my own, unless noted otherwise. 9. Gutzwiller (1997; 1998: 74-88); Skinner (2001). 10. Alternatively the reading Λόκρισσα (“a Locrian woman” [bore me]) has been suggested. The parallelism between Μιτυλάναν (end of line 1) and Λοκρὶς γᾶ (end of line 3) argues in favour of the reading adopted here (Acosta-Hughes 2010: 86 n.87).

164

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

The verb ἐναύω at the end of line 2 is somewhat strange and therefore has been doubted. In the active it means kindling a fire, but in the middle it can be used for acquiring poetical inspiration.11 This is probably the intended meaning here as well: the stranger addressed at the beginning of the epigram is asked if he is on his way to Mytilene – one of the cities of Lesbos that is identified as the birthplace of Sappho in ancient biographies12 – to be inspired by the flower of Sappho’s Graces. This “flower” (ἄνθος) refers undoubtedly to Sappho’s poetry. Sappho herself refers to her songs as “roses of Pieria”,13 and we will see that Nossis uses this image in another epigram as well. It may not be accidental that Nossis specifies the flower as that of the Graces of Sappho. We know that book 3 of Sappho, in the Alexandrian edition of her poetry, started with a hymn to the Graces (fr. 53), just as the first book started with a hymn to Aphrodite (fr. 1), and that this third book of Sappho was arranged in distichs, which Nossis could have associated with the elegiacs she composed.14 Epigram 11 of Nossis takes the form of a funerary epigram in which the deceased speaks to a passer-by. It is obviously not the real inscription that stood above her grave, but a literary epigram.15 The recognized master of the funerary epigram was Simonides and the opening words of Nossis’ epigram are reminiscent of the opening words of his famous epigram for the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae: ὦ ξεῖν᾿, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε / κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι (“o stranger, report to the Spartans that we lie here obedient to their decrees”).16 The internal addressee in both epigrams is a male stranger, but in contrast to the death of the soldiers on the battlefield reported in Simonides’ epigram, Nossis speaks about her birth as a woman and a poet. 11. Gow & Page (1965: 2.442), who quote, among other passages, Callimachus fr. 203.13 Pfeiffer. 12. E.g. P. Oxy. 1800 fr. 1 = Sappho test. 1. Cf. Hdt. 2.135 about Sappho’s brother, Charaxus, who, according to Herodotus, came from Mytilene. I follow Campbell (1990) in the text and numbering of the fragments and testimonia of Sappho, unless noted otherwise. 13. Sappho Fr. 55, see below. 14. Nossis probably composed her epigrams before the first Alexandrian edition was made, but P. Köln inv. Nr. 21351, which dates from the late fourth or early third cent. BCE, already divides the monostichs of the Tithonus poem into distichs. See Prauscello (2006: 188-96) and Acosta-Hughes (2010: 95-96) on the arrangement of Book 3 of Sappho and the association of its metre, already in antiquity, with distichs. Whether Sappho originally composed these poems in distichs is another matter: see Hunter (1996: 174). 15. Gutzwiller (1998: 85). 16. Simonides Ep. 22(b). Note that Nossis in line 3 follows her opening address with an infinitive of command, just as Simonides does.

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

165

The male stranger who is addressed in the opening line of Nossis’ epigram is himself presented as a poet who wishes to be inspired by Sappho’s poetry. Nossis asks him not to bring her message to her fatherland, as the fallen Spartan soldiers in Simonides’ epigram do, but instead from her birthplace (“the Locrian land”) to Mytilene, the city of Sappho. Bowman has argued that through this reversal Nossis presents Sappho as her literary mother and Mytilene as her literary birthplace.17 Whether one accepts this or not, it is clear that in this epigram Nossis explicitly connects her poetry with that of Sappho. The image she uses is that of friendship or possibly kinship (φίλαν τήνᾳ). Even love is not excluded: note that in her fragment 1 Sappho prays to Aphrodite to bring a woman (back?) to her philotês (fr. 1.19),18 which is what Nossis in a way offers her in this epigram. At the same time this epigram is very different from any poems that Sappho ever composed.19 It signals this difference by suggesting in the first line that Sappho’s poems were sung by beautiful choruses in Mytilene, while Nossis’ poem has to be read, like an inscription on a stone. Love turns out to be the aspect of Sappho’s work with which Nossis in particular wishes to associate herself, as evidenced by epigram 1 (= AP 5.170). In this epigram Sappho is not named, but a connection with her poetry is made through several intertextual allusions: Ἅδιον οὐδὲν ἔρωτος· ἃ δ’ ὄλβια, δεύτερα πάντα ἐστίν· ἀπὸ στόματος δ’ ἔπτυσα καὶ τὸ μέλι. τοῦτο λέγει Νοσσίς· τίνα δ’ ἁ Κύπρις οὐκ ἐφίλησεν, οὐκ οἶδεν τήνας τἄνθεα, ποῖα ῥόδα. “Nothing is sweeter than desire. Other blessings all come second. From my mouth I even spit honey.”20 That says Nossis. Whom Cypris does not favour, (s)he does not know the flowers of her, what kind of roses they are. 17. Bowman (1998: 41). 18. The reading of this line in Sappho fr. 1 is disputed: see Saake (1971: 54-59) and Caciagli (2011: 78-82). If ἄψ is read at the beginning of line 19, as Lobel suggested, based on the letter traces in P. Oxy. 2288, Sappho would be asking Aphrodite to bring her beloved back to her, but the reading of the line in the manuscripts of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Comp.23), while not entirely clear either, suggests that she asks the woman to be brought to her for the first time. This reading would probably fit the reference in Nossis slightly better, but both readings allow for an allusion. 19. It is unlikely that Nossis already knew any of the epigrams ascribed to Sappho by Meleager and, if so, truly believed they were by Sappho herself. On these epigrams, see Campbell (1990: 205) and Acosta-Hughes (2010: 82-84). 20. I consider ἔπτυσα in line 2 a “tragic aorist”, i.e. an aorist that expresses a speech act in the present: see Rijksbaron (2002: 29-30), who cites ἀπέπτυσα in Eur. Hipp. 614 and Hec. 1276 as examples of such an aorist, and compare the translations of Snyder (1989: 77) and Gutzwiller (1998: 76). It is, however, also possible to translate the verb

166

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

The reading of the last line of this epigram is uncertain, but I follow here the text of Page (1975). According to this reading τήνας, the Doric equivalent of Attic ἐκείνης (“of her”), refers back either to Cypris, a name Sappho often uses for Aphrodite,21 or to Nossis in line 3, and “her flowers” can be the flowers of Aphrodite or of Nossis. I will argue that both readings are pertinent to the interpretation of this epigram. The first line contains an allusion to the opening strophe of Sappho’s fragment 16, as Skinner, among others, has argued.22 In this strophe the first person speaker, whom Nossis undoubtedly will have identified with Sappho,23 declares that “some say a host of cavalry, others of soldiers, and still others of ships is the most beautiful thing on the black earth, but I say that it is whatever one desires” (ἔγω δὲ κῆν’ ὄττω τις ἔραται).24 Nossis agrees with Sappho that erôs is best and that all other pleasures come second. The final line of Nossis’ epigram contains an allusion to another poem of Sappho, which is known as fragment 55.25 According to Plutarch and Stobaeus, who both quote the fragment, Sappho speaks in this poem to an uneducated or uncultured woman, which in the context of Sappho’s poetry probably meant that she did not participate in the performances of her songs.26 The first person speaker, whom Nossis and her readers again would have identified with Sappho, tells the woman the following: Κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσῃ οὐδὲ πότα μναμοσύνα σέθεν ἔσσετ᾽ οὔδε πόθα εἰς ὔστερον. οὐ γὰρ πεδέχῃς βρόδων τῶν ἐκ Πιερίας, ἀλλ᾽ ἀφάνης κἀν ᾽Αίδα δόμῳ φοιτάσῃς πεδ᾽ ἀμαύρων νεκύων ἐκπεποταμένα. When you will lie dead, there will be no memory of you nor longing for you in later times, for you have no share in the roses from Pieria, but unseen even in the house of Hades will you roam among the shadowy corpses having flown from our midst.

with a past tense, as Rayor (1991: 133) does: “even honey I’ve spat from my mouth”. Similarly, I consider ἐφίλησεν in line 3 a gnomic aorist, but it could also be translated with a past tense: “whom Cypris did not favour”. 21. Schlesier (2016: 369-376). E.g. Sappho frs. 2.13, 5.18, 15.9 and the new Cypris poem. 22. Skinner (1989: 7). Cf. Gutzwiller (1998: 76). 23. For the problem of the identification of the first person speaker in Sappho, see Lardinois (2021). Ancient readers had a tendency to identify the first person speaker in Greek lyric poetry with the poets themselves (Lefkowitz 2012; Bouchard 2020), especially in the case of Sappho (Hunter 2021). 24. Sappho Fr. 16.1-4. 25. Skinner (1989: 9). 26. Lardinois (2008).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

167

In this fragment, poetry and its performance are presented as roses of the Muses, who according to tradition were born in Pieria, a region in northern Greece.27 Nossis conjures up the same image of poetry as flowers, and more particularly roses, in both epigram 1 and 11. She suggests in this way that her poems are like the poetic flowers that Sappho obtained from the Muses.28 According to epigram 1 Nossis derives her poetic inspiration, however, not from the Muses but from Cypris or Aphrodite: it is only when Cypris favours, loves or kisses you (all possible meanings of ἐφίλησεν in line 3) that you know her roses (in the sense of Aphrodite’s roses), in other words: only then can you write love poetry.29 Aphrodite is thus represented as the source of Nossis’ inspiration. The same was said of the role that Aphrodite plays in the poetry of Sappho.30 The roses that Nossis mentions in the final line of her poem could, however, also have a sexual meaning. Roses were often used in antiquity, as they are still today, as a metaphor for the female pudenda.31 In that case Nossis would be presenting herself in this epigram not only as a writer of love poetry, but also as a sexually active woman, an image that also existed of Sappho in this period.32 Skinner and Gutzwiller have both argued that in this epigram Nossis not only associates her poetry with Sappho’s and identifies Aphrodite as the source of her inspiration, but at the same time rejects other types of poetry, when she says in line 2 that she spits out even honey from her mouth.33 This line seems to contain an allusion to Hesiod’s Theogony 96-97: ὃ δ᾽ ὄλβιος, ὅντινα Μοῦσαι / φίλωνται· γλυκερή οἱ ἀπὸ στόματος ῥέει αὐδή (“Blessed is he whom the Muses favour. Sweet the 27. E.g. Hes. Th. 53 with West’s commentary (1966: 174). 28. Meleager refers to Sappho’s poetry as “roses” (ῥόδα) as well (Ep. 1.5-6 = A.P. 4.1.1-6). 29. Skinner (1991a: 92-93). τίνα δ’ ἁ Κύπρις οὐκ ἐφίλησεν in line 3 may also contain an allusion to line 2 of the newly discovered Cypris poem of Sappho, in which the words Κύπρι, δέϲποιν’, ὄττινα [δ]ὴ (or [μ]ὴ) φίλ[….] can be read, but because there are several possible reconstructions of this line, it is unclear what this allusion could mean: see Obbink (2016) and (2020), Neri (2017), Lardinois (2018a) and Benelli (2019) for possible reconstructions of this line. 30. Both Skinner (1991a: 85-90) and Hunter (2007: 220-221) refer in this regard to the placement of Sappho’s so-called hymn to Aphrodite (fr. 1) at the beginning of the Hellenistic collections of her poetry. Nossis’ Ep. 1 similarly may have opened her collection of epigrams: see Gutzwiller (1998: 75) with earlier references. 31. White (1980) 19-20; Henderson (1991) 135. See Snyder (1989: 78-79) for the application of this metaphor to Nossis Ep. 1. 32. On the image of Sappho in antiquity as an active, sexual woman who could indulge in both homoerotic and heteroerotic affairs, see note 89 below. 33. Skinner (1989: 9-10); Gutzwiller (1997: 213).

168

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

voice that flows from his mouth.”). The word ὄλβιος, the words ἀπὸ στόματος from which sweetness comes, and the expression “whomever goddess(es) X favour or love”, all recur in Nossis Ep. 1. This accumulation of references strongly suggests that we are dealing with a deliberate allusion to this passage in Hesiod. Honey is another, frequently used metaphor for poetry, which also informs the sweet voice that flows from the mouth of whomever the Muses favour in Hesiod.34 Nossis, however, does not let this honey flow from her mouth, but she spits it out. In so doing, she appears to reject the blessings (ὄλβια) that the Muses give to poets like Hesiod in favour of erôs and the inspiration that Aphrodite provides. Nossis thus places herself in the tradition of Sappho, who like her composed love poetry and derived her inspiration from the goddess of love, according to contemporary readings of her poetry. But did she also do so because Sappho was a female poet? According to Skinner and Gutzwiller she did, but Bowman has argued that Nossis refers to Sappho only because she was a famous poet, just as she refers to Hesiod or Simonides in her epigrams. I agree with Skinner and Gutzwiller, because Nossis treats these male poets very differently from Sappho: she distances herself from them – she rejects the Muses of Hesiod and inverts Simonides’ epigram for the fallen Spartan soldiers –, while embracing Sappho as her model. If we may read in the roses of Ep. 1.4, furthermore, not only a reference to Sappho’s poetry but also to the female genitals, she clearly associates herself with Sappho both as a poet and as a woman. In the other remaining epigrams of Nossis the influence of Sappho is harder to detect, but it is of course not necessary for a poet to refer to a predecessor in every single epigram or line in order to establish a link. If epigrams 1 and 11 constituted the opening and closing poems of Nossis’ collection of epigrams, as has been argued,35 they would suffice to signal to her readers that she was anchoring her poetry in Sappho’s. Her use of Sappho as anchor, in particular her association with Sappho as an erotic poet, in these programmatic epigrams will also have influenced the way in which the other epigrams in the collection were read. Although Nossis’ other remaining epigrams are not overtly erotic, many of them describe women, their bodies or gifts to the gods in ways that are reminiscent of Sappho.36 Anchors therefore not only help authors to 34. West (1966: 187) and Waszink (1974). Bacchylides similarly calls the Muses of Hesiod sweet (γλυκεῖαν Ἡσίοδος πρόπολος Μοῦσαν, 5.191-193). 35. Gutzwiller (1998: 75 and 85) with earlier references. 36. Skinner (1989: 13-15).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

169

establish a certain acceptability, but also to signal to their readers how they would like their work to be understood. Nossis succeeded in so far as her poetry was considered erotic by readers in antiquity.37

2. Erinna The next female poet whose relationship to Sappho I would like to discuss is Erinna. She probably lived in the first half of the fourth century BCE,38 which technically places her before the Hellenistic period. She was, however, much read and admired by the Hellenistic poets, as no less than nine epigrams devoted to her in the Anthologia Palatina testify.39 In 1928 a papyrus was discovered with 54 (incomplete) lines of the poem for which she was most famous in antiquity, the Distaff, which, according to the Suda, consisted of 300 lines.40 It seems to have consisted of a lament for her dead friend Baucis, who had only recently left her in order to get married. Soon after the publication of the papyrus, Bowra already detected parallels between her work and Sappho’s: “Erinna’s mention of her [= Baucis] recalls the way in which Sappho felt the sharp pang of parting when her followers were married and left for a new life.”41 At the end of his article Bowra expands on this idea and refers to one of Sappho’s fragments in particular: “In this poem Erinna moves quickly and naturally from one memory to another, and much of her effect lies in the clarity and delicacy with which she recalls the past. Once at least Sappho did the same thing, when in ε 3 [= fr. 94 Campbell] she recalled the happy time passed with a lost friend, its flowers, its feasts, its festivals.”42 Many years later Rauk made an extensive comparison between Sappho fragment 94 and the remains of Erinna’s Distaff and concluded 37. Meleager (Ep. 1.10 = AP 4.1.10) stresses the erotic nature of her poetry by claiming that Eros melted the wax on her tablets (Νοσσίδος, ἧς δέλτοις κηρὸν ἔτηξεν Ἔρως). This must have been based, at least in part, on his understanding of the epigrams that he included in his Garland. 38. Neri (2003: 42-47). 39. Test. 4-12 Neri. 40. For the complete text, including extensive commentary and photographs of the papyrus, see Neri 2003: Fragment 4. There are also three epigrams in the Anthologia Palatina preserved under her name, but there is serious doubt that they were written by her: for text and discussion of these epigrams, see Neri (2003: 85-88 and 162-65). The Suda entry under her name is η 521 = test. 16a Neri. 41. Bowra (1936: 333). If the women to whom Sappho bids farewell really left her in order to get married is contested. 42. Bowra (1936: 342).

170

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

that there are indeed many similarities between the two poems: “Both poems present farewells made to women; in both the speaker remembers times that she and her departing friend have shared and when doing so accuses her friend of forgetting those times. Both works contain laments over the departed friend, and, finally, both are primarily concerned with the speaker’s state and emotions, not with those of the companion.”43 Rauk believes that these similarities are not the result of Erinna imitating Sappho directly, however, but that they are based on a common type of farewell addresses by women. I have my doubts about this explanation, because fragment 94 is not the only fragment of Sappho to which the Distaff refers: others have seen a reference to fragment 16 of Sappho in Erinna’s accusation that because of Aphrodite Baucis forgot everything when she entered her marriage bed (Fr. 4, lines 28-30 Neri).44 The new Brothers Poem further reveals that in her poetry Sappho could present herself as a young woman, just as Erinna does: since Sappho mentions that her brother Larichus is not yet a man, she cannot be too old herself, assuming that she is the first person speaker in the poem.45 The similarities between Erinna’s Distaff and Sappho’s poetry further extend to Erinna’s use of Aeolic forms in what is otherwise a predominantly Doric composition.46 Even the metre, the dactylic hexameter, can be matched with Sappho’s up to a point. Skinner is undoubtedly right that the laments of the women in the Iliad were important models for this,47 but Sappho also composed poems in dactylic hexameters, including wedding songs that could adopt a mournful tone.48 Erinna thus seems to have used Sappho as her model and to imitate her voice in speaking about the loss of her friend Baucis. She identifies herself with Sappho both as a woman and as a poet, just as Nossis does. It could be argued, however, that this is true for the first-person speaker in her poem, but not necessarily for Erinna herself. Martin West has famously argued that the Distaff was composed by a male poet, pretending 43. Rauk (1989: 115). 44. Stehle (2001: 193). In Sappho fragment 16.9-12, Helen is said to have forgotten her child and dear parents when she sailed to Troy after Aphrodite led her astray. 45. Ferrari (2014: 1), who points out that in the Tithonus poem by contrast the first person speaker presents herself as an old woman, and Obbink (2015: 3). On Sappho’s persona as possibly representing a young girl, see Nagy (2020a: 32). 46. Some of these Aeolic forms are also found in Homer, but clearly not all: see Neri (2003: 521-525). The Suda already noted that the poem was written “in both the Aeolic and Doric dialect” (ποίημά δ᾿ ἐστιν Αἰολικῆι καὶ Δωρίδι διαλέκτωι, test. 16a Neri). 47. Skinner (1982). 48. E.g. Sappho Fr. 104a. On Sappho’s wedding laments, see Lardinois (2001).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

171

to be a nineteen year old girl named Erinna.49 In that case he (or she, if the poet was female) would be doing the same thing as we will see that Theocritus is doing, when he creates the figure of Simaetha in Idyll 2, using references to Sappho to give her a recognisable, feminine voice. There is a difference, however: Theocritus clearly identifies Simaetha as a character who is different from the poet by his use of female gender forms and the explicit mention of her name (lines 102 and 114). In Erinna’s Distaff there is a continuity between first person speaker and poet. For this the epigrams written about her are important witnesses, because they identify Erinna both as the composer of the Distaff, and as the woman who speaks in the poem. Erinna also names herself in the poem (Fr. 4, line 38 Neri), just as Sappho did in her fragment 1 and Nossis in Ep. 1 and 11. She identifies herself with the first person speaker in the poem and through her with Sappho in this way. It is important to note, however, that Erinna’s Distaff is not only imitatio of Sappho but aemulatio as well. As far as we know, Sappho never composed a 300 line hexameter poem in which she described growing up with another woman, their friendship and her premature death soon after her marriage. This is all new. Sappho’s poetry is also not the only anchor for Erinna’s poem, because it clearly draws on the female laments in the Iliad as well.50 In that sense Erinna’s poem is an early example of the Kreuzung der Gattungen, which comes to define Hellenistic poetry. This experimentation becomes both acceptable and better understandable through the recognizable anchors that Erinna deploys.

3. Anyte and Moero For the other Hellenistic women poets whose poetry has been partly preserved, Anyte and Moero, it is harder to argue that they used Sappho as their model in their extant poetry. Nagy has argued that Catullus’ passer poems go back to Sapphic originals:51 if that is the case, they could be models for Anyte’s animal poems. Her epigrams for young girls who died before their time find echoes in Sappho’s wedding laments 49. West (1977; 1996: 24-26). He thinks the poem is too complex for a girl who was nineteen years old. Why he therefore concluded that the poet was male remains something of a mystery. He does not seem to have considered the possibility that Erinna could have written the poem at a more advanced age, as Sappho may well have done in the case of the Brothers poem. 50. Skinner (1982). In AP 9.190 Erinna is compared both with Homer and with Sappho: see Klooster (2011) 68-69. 51. Nagy (2018).

172

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

or farewell poems, and one of the few precursors to Anyte’s pastoral poetry in archaic Greek poetry is Sappho fragment 2, which contains an idyllic description of a garden shrine of Aphrodite. These similarities are not supported by verbal echoes, however, and can be found in male poets, like Leonidas of Tarentum, as well. Finally, West assigns to Anyte four hexameter lines that are preserved on a papyrus (P. Oxy. 8.4-7 = Powell [1925: 186]) and contain a number of Aeolicisms in imitation of Sappho or Erinna.52 If he is right, Anyte may have modelled herself on Sappho at least in her hexameter poetry, but the assignment of the fragment to Anyte remains uncertain. Of Moero too little survives to say with any certainty whether she made use of Sappho in her poetry or not: two epigrams and ten lines from a hexameter poem.53 The first epigram (Ep. 1 = AP 6.119) commemorates the, probably fictional, dedication of a bunch of grapes to Aphrodite, a goddess who is of course frequently invoked in Sappho’s poetry, while the second epigram (Ep. 2 = AP 6.189), which is a prayer to water nymphs to safeguard a man named Cleonymus, may find a faint echo in Sappho’s prayer to the Nereïds to return her brother safely to her,54 but these themes are also attested in the male epigrammatists and they are not supported by any verbal similarities between these epigrams of Moero and the poems of Sappho. More promising is the hexameter fragment.55 Modern scholars have criticized the rigid, paratactic style with syntactic stops after every second line, but this may in fact be the result of Moero’s decision to create a poem in distichs. We do not know if the whole composition, which bore the name Mnemosyne, was composed in this way, but even if only parts of it were, a close parallel would be the poems of Sappho collected in books 2 and 3 of the Alexandrian editions of her poetry.56 Finally, Moero also composed lyric poetry, according to the Suda,57 and it is of course possible that in this poetry she followed Sappho as a model more closely, but we cannot argue from silence and it is therefore better to admit that,

52. West (1977: 114). 53. The epigrams are printed in Page (1975: 67). 54. Sappho Fr. 5. For a new reconstruction of this poem, based on the new papyrus finds, see Obbink (2016: 22-23) or Cinti & Neri (2017: 6). 55. See Powell (1925: 21-22) for the Greek text or Skinner (2005: 93-94) for the Greek text and translation. The text can also be found in Athen. 11.491b, who preserved the fragment for us. 56. See note 14 above. Skinner (2005) finds allusions to Hesiod and Erinna and possibly Aratus and Anyte in Moero’s poetry, but not to Sappho. 57. Suda s.v. Μυρώ, quoted by Gow & Page (1965: 2.414).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

173

based on the available evidence, it does not appear that Anyte and Moero adopted Sappho as their model in any significant way.58 We may conclude that at least some of the women poets from the late classical and Hellenistic period not only considered Sappho their Muse, but actually identified themselves with her as a woman and a poet. This is more obvious in the case of Nossis and Erinna than in that of Anyte and Moero. In this way they “anchored” their own activities as women poets in the example of Sappho who had acquired immortal fame as a female poet. Their poetry had to be anchored because it was new and innovative: Nossis was one of the first epigrammatists to write as a woman about women and no poem like Erinna’s Distaff seems to have existed before it. If Anyte and Moero used anchors and which anchors these were deserves further study.

4. Posidippus Can male poets adopt Sappho as their model and, if so, how did they do it? In order to answer this question I will first look at three epigrams of Posidippus, in which he explicitly refers to Sappho. Subsequently, I will discuss Theocritus and Apollonius of Rhodes and finally Meleager Ep. 22 and Catullus 51, who in these two poems allude to Sappho fragment 31. Posidippus was an epigrammatist who was active one generation after Nossis. He became instantly famous when at the end of the twentieth century a long papyrus text was discovered with more than 100 epigrams by his hand.59 Among these new epigrams there are two in which Posidippus refers explicitly to Sappho. The first is epigram 51. Because of a hole in the papyrus, the text is not very well preserved; about 7-9 letters are missing from the middle of the lines. I follow the reconstruction of Seidensticker (2015) here: ‘δακρυόεσσα[ι ἕπεσθε, θε]οῖς ἀνατείνατε πήχεις’ τοῦτ’ ἐπὶ πα[ιδὸς ἐρεῖτ’ αὐ]τόμαται, Καρύαι, Τειλεσίης, ἧς [νεῖσθε πρὸ]ς ἠρίον· ἀλλὰ φέρουσαι εἴαρι πορφυρέ[ωι φύλλ’ ἐς ἀ]γῶνα νέμους 58. Viola Palmieri pointed out in her response to my paper at the Groningen conference that Anyte and Moero share a distich with Sappho both in the opening poem of Meleager’s Garland (Ep. 1.5-6) and in Antipater of Thessalonica’s catalogue of the female poets (Ep. 19.3-4 = A.P. 9.26.3-4). This shows that these two poets saw a link between these three female poets, but this link could simply be that all three of them were famous female poets. 59. Bastianini & Gallazzi (2001); Seidensticker et al. (2015). For a freely accessible on-line edition, see https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/1341. I cite Posidippus’ epigrams from the edition of Austin & Bastianini (2002), unless noted otherwise.

174

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

θῆλυ ποδήν[εμον ἔρνος] ἀείδετε, δάκρυσι δ’ ὑμέων κολλάσθω Σα[πφοῦς ἄισμ]ατα, θεῖα μέλη. “Follow us with your tears, stretch out your hands to the gods!” That you will say spontaneously, women of Karyai, for the girl Teilesia, to whose tomb you come. But while you bring, in the purple spring, leaves from the wooded glade to the competition, sing of this female, wind-swift shoot,60 and let your tears be joined with songs of Sappho, divine melodies.

The apparent reference to Sappho concerns the songs that the women of the city of Karyai are to sing at the grave of the girl Teilesia. Posidippus uses Sappho, in other words, to invite the female characters in his poem to sing and speak like Sappho.61 We will see the male poets do this more often. In this case Posidippus may be referring in particular to the mournful songs with which Sappho bids farewell to women who previously enjoyed her company. Erinna did so too, but she did it in a composition in which she presented herself as the speaker.62 In the other “new” epigram that explicitly refers to Sappho, epigram 55, Posidippus also attributes the performance of her songs to a female character, but in this case not to the mourners but to the young woman whom they mourn. They make up the songs she sang while she was weaving and still alive: πάντα τὰ Νικομάχης καὶ ἀθύρματα καὶ πρὸς ἑώιαν κερκίδα Σα‹π›φώιους ἐξ ὀά‹ρ›ων ὀάρους ὤιχετο Μοῖρα φέρουσα προ{σ}ώρια· τὴν δὲ τάλαιναν παρθένον Ἀργείων ἀμφεβόησε πόλις, Ἥρης τὸ τραφὲν ἔρνος ὑπ’ ὠλένος· ἆ τότε γαμβρῶν τῶν μνηστευομένων ψύχρ{α} ἔμενον λέχεα. Everything of Nicomache, both her toys and the Sapphic songs she would sing one after the other at her loom in the morning Fate took away, carrying them off before their time. And the city of Argives bemoaned the poor girl, the young sprout that grew up in the arms of Hera.63 Ah, the beds of the bridegrooms who bid for her hand then remained cold. 60. The girl, according to Seidensticker (2015: 213), is presented as a former runner or dancer. 61. The opening words of the poem are also reminiscent of Sappho’s songs, in particular fr. 140. 62. See above. I am thinking in particular of Sappho frs. 16, 94, 96. They are referred to in the literature as “Trostlieder” (Merkelbach 1957: 12) or “poemi della lontananza e del ricordo” (Aloni 1997: lii), which have as their subject “the loss of the beloved by parting” (Stehle 1981: 56). On possible allusions to Sappho in Posidippus Ep. 52 and 53, see Di Benedetto (2003). 63. The mentioning of Hera could refer to her role as protector of women in general or to her function as patron goddess of Argos (Seidensticker 2015: 226).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

175

The translation of the words ἐξ ὀά‹ρ›ων ὀάρους is debated.64 The word ὄαρος can refer both to the idle, sometimes amorous, talk of young girls (e.g. Hes. Th. 205) or to simple songs (e.g. Pi. P. 1.98), like the songs sung by women while weaving.65 Because of the specification that these are Σαπφῶιοι ὄαροι and because of the parallel with Posidippus Ep. 49, where “the golden voice” of a girl who sang at her loom but now has died is mentioned, I am inclined to think that the reference is to Sappho’s songs.66 Just as in epigram 51, however, Posidippus puts them in the mouth of a female character. Among the earlier known epigrams of Posidippus there is another one that explicitly refers to Sappho: epigram 122 in the edition of Austin and Bastianini (2002). In this epigram Posidippus compares himself in a certain way with Sappho, but I will argue that he at the same time distances himself from her. The epigram is devoted to Doricha, whom we know from the biographical tradition of Sappho as the beloved of her brother Charaxus.67 According to Herodotus, Sappho criticised her or Charaxus in a song,68 because he spent a great sum of money to free the woman, who worked as a prostitute in the Egyptian city of Naucratis. Traces in Sappho’s fragments, including the new Brothers poem, indicate that this story likely goes back to her own poetry.69 According to Posidippus, however, Sappho nevertheless immortalised Doricha: Δωρίχα, ὀστέα μὲν σὰ πάλαι κόνις ἦν ὅ τε δεσμὸς χαίτης ἥ τε μύρων ἔκπνοος ἀμπεχόνη, ᾗ ποτε τὸν χαρίεντα περιστέλλουσα Χάραξον σύγχρους ὀρθρινῶν ἥψαο κισσυβίων. Σαπφῷαι δὲ μένουσι φίλης ἔτι καὶ μενέουσιν ᾠδῆς αἱ λευκαὶ φθεγγόμεναι σελίδες οὔνομα σὸν μακαριστόν, ὃ Ναύκρατις ὧδε φυλάξει, ἔστ’ ἂν ἴῃ Νείλου ναῦς ἐφ’ ἁλὸς πελάγη. 64. For an overview of opinions, see Álvarez (2018). 65. See Karanika (2014) for a study of such songs in antiquity. 66. Cf. Nagy (2016) with reference to earlier postings. This does not mean that Posidippus really thought that Sappho composed songs to be performed at the loom, although Sappho fr. 102 presents itself that way. More likely, women, while weaving, sang songs that Sappho originally composed for other occasions, as Nagy (2016) and Álvarez (2018) argue. 67. E.g. P. Oxy. 1800 fr. 1 = Sappho test. 1; Athenaeus 13.596b-c. Herodotus (2.134135) calls her Rhodopis (“Roseface”). 68. Hdt. 2.134-35. There is uncertainty about the referent of μιν in Hdt. 2.135.6 (Χάραξος δὲ ὡς λυσάμενος Ῥοδῶπιν ἀπενόστησε ἐς Μυτιλήνην, ἐν μέλεϊ Σαπφὼ πολλὰ κατεκερτόμησέ μιν). It can refer to Charaxus or to Rhodopis / Doricha: see Kazanskaya (2020), who argues for Doricha. Athenaeus (previous note) also claims that Sappho criticized Doricha. 69. Ferrari (2014) and Lardinois (2016: 169-173). Bowie (2016: 157-164) has argued that the Brothers poem was actually addressed to Doricha, but I am not convinced.

176

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

Doricha, your bones were dust long ago, and the ribbon of your hair, and the perfume-breathing shawl, wherewith you once wrapped the lovely Charaxus, skin to skin, until you took hold of the morning cups. But the white columns of Sappho’s lovely ode are still here and they will go on celebrating your most fortunate name, which Naucratis will thus treasure, as long as ships sail from the Nile over the waves of the sea.70

The interpretation of this epigram is disputed. Some commentators maintain that the epigram shows that in a lost poem Sappho spoke positively about Doricha and her relationship with Charaxus: they assume that lines 2-4 repeat the content of this poem.71 Others argue that this need not be the case and that Posidippus means that, even if Sappho spoke negatively about Doricha and her affair with Charaxus, she profited from it, because her name is preserved through the ages as the result of Sappho mentioning her in one (or more) of her songs.72 I am inclined to follow this second line of interpretation, because there is no corroboration in the fragments of Sappho or the biographical tradition that she ever spoke positively about Doricha. Not only the poems of Sappho, however, preserve the name of Doricha for eternity, but so does Posidippus’ own epigram. It is interesting in this regard that Posidippus specifies the white columns of the papyrus roll on which Sappho’s song about Doricha was written. His own epigram was, after all, written on a scroll as well and its readers were holding similar white columns in their hands while reading it. The poems of Sappho and Posidippus in this way intersect and serve similar purposes: the preservation of Doricha’s name. At the same time, however, Posidippus keeps his distance from Sappho. First he does so in a small detail, namely that he wrote an epigram while he refers to Sappho’s poem as a song (ᾠδῆς, line 6). More importantly, however, he does not criticize Doricha, like Sappho, but instead portrays her as an example of the luxurious life (ἁβροσύνη) for which Sappho and her poetry were famous in his time.73 Posidippus exploits a contrast between the persona Sappho creates in her poetry about Chararaxus, in which she presents herself as a pious and

70. Translation, slightly adapted, of Austin in Austin & Bastianini (2002: 159). 71. Lidov (2002: 223) and Nagy (2015). 72. E.g. Yatromanolakis (2007: 327) and Klooster (2011: 28-30). 73. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 3). Nagy (2015) detects references to Sappho’s erotic poetry, notably fr. 31, in Posidippus’ description of Doricha in lines 2-4. He believes that they go back to a description of Doricha in Sappho’s poetry, but I don’t think that is necessary.

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

177

honourable sister who condemns his pursuit of a “longed-for love”,74 and the persona of her love poems, who is madly in love herself.75 Posidippus is further suggesting that what Sappho as a sister rejected in the behaviour of Doricha, in fact appeals to him as a man, as it did to her brother. There is also a certain irony in the ships that preserve Doricha’s name, as long as they sail from Egypt to the rest of the world. Some critics have pointed out that this refers to the papyri that were exported from Egypt to other countries and on which the poems of both Sappho and Posidippus were written,76 but it also recalls the ship with which Charaxus returned to Lesbos either with Doricha herself or tales about her, instead of the rich cargo Sappho’s interlocutor in the Brothers poem hopes for.77 Posidippus thus imitates Sappho, in immortalising the name of Doricha, but he also distances himself from her by disagreeing with her about Doricha’s behaviour. He corrects Sappho in this epigram.

5. Apollonius of Rhodes and Theocritus Two other Hellenistic poets, Apollonius of Rhodes and Theocritus, refer extensively to Sappho’s work, but like Posidippus, they do not identify with her but use her predominantly to characterize the behaviour of female characters in their poetry. Famous is Apollonius’ portrayal of Medea, which is based in part on Euripides’ tragedy,78 but also on Sappho’s poetry.79 Sappho’s fragment 31, her famous description of the pathêmata a woman suffers when seeing her beloved talking and laughing to a man, in particular plays a prominent role. Because this is a much imitated poem of Sappho, which we will encounter several more times, I cite the fragment here in full: φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν ἔμμεν’ ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνείσας ὐπακούει

74. Honourable: fr. 5.10; pious: Brothers song; “longed for love” (πόθε[ννον εἰϲ] ἔρον): fr. 15.11-12 Campbell with supplements of Edmonds and Hunt. 75. E.g. Sappho frs. 1, 31, the Cypris song. 76. Rosenmeyer (1997: 132); Acosta-Hughes (2010: 3). 77. Brother’s song, line 6 Obbink (2016). 78. Schmakeit (2003: esp. 49-62). 79. For an overview of allusions to Sappho in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, see Hunter (1989); Acosta-Hughes (2010: 40-61); and Hunter (2021). The examples I discuss in the following paragraphs are taken from their work.

178

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν, τό μ’ ἦ μὰν καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν· ὠς γὰρ σ’ ἴδω βρόχε’, ὤς με φώναισ’ οὐδ’ ἒν ἔτ’ εἴκει, ἀλλὰ κὰμ μὲν γλῶσσα ἔαγε λέπτον δ’ αὔτικα χρῶι πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμηκεν, ὀππάτεσσι δ’ οὐδ’ ἒν ὄρημμ’, ἐπιρρόμβεισι δ’ ἄκουαι, κὰδ δ’ ἴδρως ψῦχρος χέεται, τρόμος δὲ παῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ’ ὀλίγω ’πιδεύης φαίνομ’ ἔμ’ αὔτ[αι·

5

10

15

ἀλλὰ πὰν τόλματον ἐπεὶ †καὶ πένητα† To me it seems that man has the fortune of gods, whoever sits beside you and close, who listens to you sweetly speaking and laughing temptingly. My heart flutters in my breast whenever I even glance at you– I can say nothing, my tongue is broken. A delicate fire runs under my skin, my eyes see nothing, my ears roar, cold sweat rushes down me, trembling seizes me, I am greener than grass. To myself I seem needing but little to die. Yet all can be endured, since …80

As Acosta-Hughes remarks: “Sappho’s poem resonates each time Medea perceives Jason.”81 When Eros strikes Medea with his arrow, we are told that she became speechless (τὴν δ’ ἀμφασίη λάβε θυμόν, A.R. 3.284), that the arrow burned deep down in the girl’s heart like a flame (βέλος δ’ ἐνεδαίετο κούρῃ / νέρθεν ὑπὸ κραδίῃ φλογὶ εἴκελον, A.R. 3.286-87; cf. 3.291-97), and that her prudent thoughts fluttered from her breast in distress (καί οἱ ἄηντο / στηθέων ἐκ πυκιναὶ καμάτῳ φρένες, A.R. 3.28889). These lines are reminiscent of fragment 31, lines 5-6 and 10-11. 80. Text Neri & Cinti (2017: 44) and translation of Rayor in Rayor & Lardinois (2014: 44). 81. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 56).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

179

When Jason and Medea meet face to face, Apollonius reminds us again of Sappho fragment 31: Medea’s heart drops in her breast, her eyes darken with mist, and a hot blush colours her cheeks (ἐκ δ’ ἄρα οἱ κραδίη στηθέων πέσεν, ὄμματα δ’ αὔτως / ἤχλυσαν, θερμὸν δὲ παρηίδας εἷλεν ἔρευθος, A.R. 3.962-64). In this scene there is also an allusion to another fragment of Sappho: Jason and Medea are compared to two oak trees that are shaken by a gust of wind, because they are touched by the breezes of Eros.82 This passage is reminiscent of Sappho fragment 47.83 Medea is not the only female character in the Argonautica whose feelings of love are coloured by reminiscences of Sappho’s poetry: when the water nymph spots Hylas in book 1 of the Argonautica, “Cypris caused her wits to flutter and in her helplessness she could barely collect her spirit” (Τῆς δὲ φρένας ἐπτοίησε / Κύπρις, ἀμηχανίηι δὲ μόγις συναγείρατο θυμόν, A.R. 1.1232-33). Here we are reminded not only of Sappho’s fragment 31.6 (τό μ᾿ ἦ μὰν / καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν),84 but perhaps also of fragment 1.3-4, in which Sappho prays to Aphrodite not to subdue her spirit (μηδ’ ὀνίαισι δάμνα, / πότνια, θῦμον). As AcostaHughes concludes: “Sappho… provided Apollonius with a way of articulating female desire.”85 In doing so, he “anchors” his description of these lovelorn women in the verses of the one female poet who was famous for her articulations of the love felt by a woman. Such loss of control as a result of love was considered typically feminine in antiquity.86 Theocritus also makes use of Sappho’s fragment 31, clearly one of her best known poems in antiquity, in his description of the love pains of the witch Simaetha in Idyll 2, as many commentators have noted.87 The symptoms she describes in lines 82-86 and 106-10 in particular are reminiscent of the pathêmata that the first-person suffers in Sappho fragment 31. The similarity with this fragment of Sappho is enhanced by the fact that Simaetha describes her love pains in the first person, just like Sappho does. The fact that Simaetha is in love with a man, while the 82. A.R. 3.967-72: τὼ δ’ ἄνεῳ καὶ ἄναυδοι ἐφέστασαν ἀλλήλοισιν, / ἢ δρυσὶν ἢ μακρῇσιν ἐειδόμενοι ἐλάτῃσιν, αἵ τε παρᾶσσον ἕκηλοι ἐν οὔρεσιν ἐρρίζωνται / νηνεμίῃ, μετὰ δ’ αὖτις ὑπὸ ῥιπῆς ἀνέμοιο / κινύμεναι ὁμάδησαν ἀπείριτον – ὧς ἄρα τώγε / μέλλον ἅλις φθέγξασθαι ὑπὸ πνοιῇσιν Ἔρωτος. 83. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 57). Sappho fr. 47: Ἔρως δ᾿ ἐτίναξέ μοι / φρένας, ὠς ἄνεμος κὰτ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέτων (“Love shook my heart like a wind falling on oaks on a mountain”). 84. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 60). 85. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 61). 86. E.g. Zeitlin (1996, 349-352). 87. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 18) with references to earlier treatments of this allusion (n. 26). Add Likosky (2018: 88-89) and Hunter (2021).

180

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

first person speaker in Sappho fragment 31 desires another woman, apparently did not bother Theocritus nor, for that matter, Apollonius or Catullus, who both use the poem to describe heterosexual love. This must have something to do with the fact that in antiquity homosexual and heterosexual love were not seen as sharply contrasted with one another,88 and that Sappho was known as a poet who wrote about love in general, not specifically about female homosexuality, although the ancients were well aware that she uses female homoerotic relationships as her examples.89 There are several poems in which Theocritus refers to Sappho,90 but I will discuss only three more here. The first one is Idyll 18, his wedding song for Helen. Sappho’s compositions are not the only intertexts in this poem, but they are important ones. It seems to draw in particular on the wedding songs of Sappho,91 but there are allusions to other songs by Sappho as well. As Acosta-Hughes remarks: “The wedding song for Helen is in part a lament for Helen’s separation, through marriage, from the communal life of the young girls.”92 As such it recalls Sappho’s farewell addresses to women from her circle (frs. 16, 94 and 96), also invoked by Erinna and Posidippus.93 In this case Sappho’s words are put in the mouths of a chorus of young women who are Helen’s age-mates. They are another example of female speakers who are marked as feminine through allusions to Sappho’s poetry. In this case, however, the identification of a chorus of young women as “Sapphic” may also rely on her reputation as a choral poet in the Greek literary tradition.94 In how far this relates to the original performance of her poetry is a matter of debate,95 but for the reception of Sappho this is of little consequence: later Greek and Roman authors could use her as a model both for choral and monodic poetry. Note that Nossis refers to Sappho’s birthplace as “Mytilene with the beautiful choruses” (καλλίχορον Μιτυλάναν) in 88. E.g. Dover (1978: 1); Halperin (1990: 33-35); and Calame (1999: 54-55). Note that Sappho herself can compare her love for Anactoria with Helen’s love for Paris in fragment 16. 89. Pseudo-Longinus (De Subl. 10.3) cites Sappho fr. 31.1-16 as an example of the feelings that affect all people who are in love (περὶ τοὺς ἐρῶντας). References to Sappho being a “woman-lover” (test. 1, 2, 17 and 19) exist alongside stories of her love for male poets (test. 8) or for the boatman Phaon (e.g. Ovid, Her. 15). 90. See Acosta-Hughes (2010: 17 n.23) for a list. 91. For a detailed overview of the comparison, see Acosta-Hughes (2010: 32-34). 92. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 39). 93. See note 62 above. 94. Ladianou (2016). 95. Bowie (2016), D’Alessio (2018) and Power (2020) have questioned the choral performance of Sappho’s poetry, contra Lardinois (1996) and Nagy (2020a).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

181

Ep. 11, quoted above, and that Posidippus identifies a group of women as singing Sappho’s divine songs at the tomb of a young girl in Ep. 51, also quoted above. To be fair, Theocritus uses Sappho’s verses to characterise at least one male character: the Cyclops in Idyll 11.96 The Cyclops’ feelings of love, described in lines 10-16, bear some resemblance to the pathêmata suffered by the first person speaker in Sappho fragment 31, but there are no verbal echoes with this poem. Instead, verses of Sappho are used to colour the love song which the Cyclops sings for his beloved Galatea. He is thus identified with her as a love poet, but at the same time he is distanced from her, because the allusions to Sappho mainly function to demonstrate the boorishness of his composition and to add humour to his song. His transformation of Sappho’s “whiter than milk” (γάλακτος λευκοτέρα) and “more sweet-singing than a harp” (πάκτιδος ἀδυμελεστέρα), preserved in Sappho fragment 156, into “whiter than cream cheese” (λευκοτέρα πακτᾶς, line 20) is particularly telling. Sappho is used in this Idyll as the prototypical love poet, only to show that the Cyclops is nothing like her. Finally some words need to be said about the four Idylls that Theocritus composed in the Aeolic dialect (28-31). His use of this dialect could mark a close identification with Sappho as poet, as we saw in the case of Erinna. In two of these Idylls, 29 and 30, however, Theocritus appears to adopt primarily the other Lesbian poet as his model: Idyll 29 even opens with a citation of Alcaeus.97 Of Idyll 31 very little remains, but, like Idylls 29 and 30, it appears to be a song devoted to the love of boys in the vein of Alcaeus.98 Idyll 28 looks more like a poem that could have been inspired by Sappho’s poetry. Acosta-Hughes notes that: “Not only do the dialect and the imagery of the female world bear a distinct overtone of Sappho’s verses, but some of the vocabulary does also.”99 I can add that this Idyll contains one of the few occurrences of the epithet φιλάοιδος (song-loving) in Greek poetry, a word that occurs for the first time in Sappho’s Tithonus poem, where it defines the lyre of the first 96. Hunter (1999: 229-239). The following paragraph is heavily indebted to his analysis of the poem. Hunter finds allusions to Sappho frs. 2, 49, 63 and 156 and one can add fr. 122 (cf. Theoc. 11.26-27). 97. Alcaeus Fr. 366. On the intertexts of Theoc. 29 and 30, including Alcaeus, see Hunter (1996: 171-186). 98. That Alcaeus wrote pederastic poetry is mainly known from comments of later Greek and Roman authors, see Vetta (1982) and Hunter (1996: 171-172). Horace (c. 1.32.912) is quite explicit. 99. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 108-109). He cites some verbal resemblances in his footnote 12.

182

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

person speaker.100 Theocritus in line 23 calls himself a “song-loving guest-friend” (τὼ φιλαοίδω ξένω), thus clearly identifying himself with Sappho in this way. More recently Spelman has suggested a more direct allusion to a badly preserved fragment of Sappho, fragment 101, in which she speaks about “napkins” (χερρόμακτρα), which someone sent to her as precious gifts (ἔπεμψ᾿ ἀπὺ Φωκάας / δῶρα τίμια).101 The meaning of χερρόμακτρα (“napkins” or headscarves”) is debated, but Spelman argues convincingly that it must mean napkins here and that a distant friend had presented these napkins to Sappho as a gift, perhaps in the context of a love relationship.102 In Theocritus’ Idyll 28 this situation is reversed. The first person speaker, who identifies himself as a poet, does not receive a gift from a faraway friend, but he sends one himself, and the gift is not napkins, arguably used at dinner parties, but an ivory distaff, with which the recipient Theugenis, the wife of his good friend Nicias, “will create many pieces of work for men’s robes and many flowing garments such as women wear.”103 I agree with Spelman that Theocritus depicts the wife of his friend in sharp contrast to the erotic Sappho we encounter in so much other Hellenistic poetry, including in his own portrayal of Simaetha and the Cyclops.104 This contrast would have been reinforced if the Sapphic original to which this Idyll alludes was a love poem addressed to Aphrodite, similar to Sappho’s fragment 1.105 One cannot escape the impression, however, that the gift of a “distaff” must also contain an allusion to Erinna’s famous poem.106 Arguably this young girl who worked so hard at her loom is held up as a more appropriate model for Theugenis than Sappho, while Theocritus’ own poem takes

100. Besides in Theocritus Id. 28.23, the word later reappears in an epigram of Antipater of Sidon (Ep. 43.1 = AP 6.47), in an anonymous epigram in the Greek Anthology (A.P. 9.372.4) and in the female poet Damo (Ep. 83 Bernand & Bernand). In all these cases there is a likely allusion to Sappho’s use of the term: see Bowie (f.c. 2). 101. Spelman (2017). 102. Spelman (2017: 248-250). One is reminded of Sappho fr. 1.22: αἰ δὲ δῶρα μὴ δέκετ’, ἀλλὰ δώσει. An amorous context is suggested by the fact that Athenaeus (9.410e), who quotes the fragment, says that Sappho addressed these words to Aphrodite. 103. Theoc. 28.10-11. Translation Hopkinson (2015). 104. Spelman (2017: 253). Note also line 14: οὔτως ἀνυσίεργος, φιλέει δ᾿ ὄσσα σαόφρονες (“So industrious is she and she loves all that is prudent”). Cf. Papadopoulou (2016: 230): “[Theugenis] is portrayed as a fine woman, just what a woman should be like, as fine as the fine garments (vv. 10-11) she will produce with the distaff/spindle in her competent hands… Her praise is the centrepiece of this poetic fabric…” 105. See note 102 above. 106. Gutzwiller (2007: 94) and (2020). Theoc. 28.1: ἀλακάτα, cf. Erinna fr. 4.39 Neri: ἀλακάταν. In Theocritus the form is Aeolic, in Erinna Doric or Aeolic.

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

183

the form of a modest, non-erotic form of praise, unlike Sappho’s.107 It thus appears that Theocritus, undoubtedly in a playful manner, corrects Sappho in this poem, not unlike what we saw Posidippus do in his epigram 122 about Doricha.

6. Meleager Ep. 22 and Catullus 51 One would expect a great influence of Sappho on Hellenistic erotic epigrams, but I find the evidence collected in Acosta-Hughes (2010: 87-91) not always convincing. An exception is Meleager Ep. 22 (= AP 12.132a), which echoes Sappho fragment 31, quoted above: ἆ ψυχὴ βαρύμοχθε, σὺ δ᾽ ἄρτι μὲν ἐκ πυρὸς αἴθῃ, ἄρτι δ᾽ ἀναψύχεις, πνεῦμ᾽ ἀναλεξαμένη. τί κλαίεις; τὸν ἄτεγκτον ὅτ᾽ ἐν κόλποισιν Ἔρωτα ἔτρεφες, οὐκ ᾔδεις ὡς ἐπὶ σοὶ τρέφετο; οὐκ ᾔδεις; νῦν γνῶθι καλῶν ἄλλαγμα τροφείων, πῦρ ἅμα καὶ ψυχρὰν δεξαμένη χιόνα. αὐτὴ ταῦθ᾽ εἵλου: φέρε τὸν πόνον. ἄξια πάσχεις ὧν ἔδρας, ὀπτῷ καιομένη μέλιτι. My soul, heavily afflicted, now you burn from fire and now you are refreshed, having caught your breath. Why do you weep? When you nursed pitiless Eros on your lap didn’t you know that you nursed him to your sorrow? Didn’t you know? Now recognize the return of your cares, having felt fire together with cold snow. You yourself chose this. Bear your labour. You suffer rightly for what you have done, burning from boiling honey.108

Line 6 of this epigram recalls Sappho’s description of the first person speaker in fragment 31, who simultaneously feels a fire running under her skin and breaks out in a cold sweat,109 and the injunction that his soul 107. Gutzwiller (1998: 77) argues that a similar opposition between the erotic Sappho and the chaste, bee-like Erinna can be detected in Nossis Ep. 1. Compare also epigram 43 of Antipater of Sidon, referred to in note 100 above, where the first person speaker rejects a “song-loving weaver’s shuttle” (κεκρίδα τὴν φιλαοιδόν – perhaps an allusion to Erinna’s Distaff ?) in favour of the works of Cypris (i.e. songs like those of Sappho?). 108. Translation based on Acosta-Hughes (2010: 89) with some slight changes. 109. Sappho fr. 31, 10 and 13, reading κὰδ δ’ ἴδρως ψῦχρος χέεται in line 13 with Neri & Cinti (2017). Others, like Campbell (1990) read κάδ δέ μ’ ἴδρως κακχέεται in line 13, but there is abundant evidence that the Greeks in later times knew a version of the poem that spoke of cold sweat (ἴδρως ψῦχρος) running down the body of the first person speaker in fragment 31, including Pseudo-Longinus who paraphrases lines 10-13 by saying that she “both freezes and burns” (ἅμα ψύχεται καίεται, De Subl. 10.3): see Neri & Cinti (2017: 307) and Budelmann (2018: 136) with further references.

184

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

should bear this burden (line 7), recalls the opening of the final strophe of this song. In his epigram Meleager is thus equating his feelings of love with those of Sappho, assuming again that he, like most Hellenistic readers, equated the first person speaker in Sappho fragment 31 with Sappho.110 Yet he projects these feelings not onto his own person, but onto his psyche, which he addresses as if it has a separate identity. His soul suffers these feelings of love, not he, and it may not be accidental that psyche is a feminine noun. Such loss of control was considered typically feminine in ancient Greek culture.111 Like Posidippus in Ep. 122, Meleager identifies part of his poetic persona (his psyche that feels love) with the persona that Sappho creates in fragment 31, but at the same time he keeps his distance from her. In my view Catullus adopts a very similar stance in his carmen 51, his famous Latin adaptation of Sappho’s fragment 31. At first sight it looks as if this is a poem in which the male poet fully identifies with Sappho: he translates Sappho’s words into Latin, while maintaining the same metre, and applies them to his feelings for his beloved. Much of the interpretation of this poem depends, however, on the question whether the last strophe, starting with the line otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est (“Idleness, Catullus, does you harm”), is considered to be part of the poem or not.112 Most commentators assume that it is and I think they are right.113 In the strophe that starts with otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est Catullus distances himself from the persona he created in the previous lines. He is like Sappho only if he is overcome by otium and surrenders himself to Sapphic feelings of love, but that is not the only Catullus, as the poet tells us in the last strophe, because he can choose to resist these feelings. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 89) argues that there is an allusion both to fragment 31 and to fragment 48 of Sappho in Meleager’s epigram. 110. See note 23 above. 111. See note 86 above. 112. For an overview of opinions, see Quinn (1973: 245) and Greene (2007: 147 n. 10). 113. If this strophe does not belong to the poem, it would make up a separate poem, consisting of a single Sapphic stanza, which is unparalleled in Greek or Latin literature. There is furthermore some evidence that Sappho’s fragment 31 also continued with an extra strophe after her description of the pathêmata that afflict the first person speaker. The words ἀλλὰ πὰν τόλματον, ἐπεὶ †καὶ πένητα†, quoted above, are preserved in one of the manuscripts of Pseudo-Longinus’ Peri hypsous, following the quotation of lines 1-16 of Sappho fr. 31. This line suggests that the first person speaker at the end of this poem may have distanced herself from the intense feelings that she described in the first sixteen lines as well, but by saying that these feelings can be endured she does not apologise for them or deny that they are her own feelings, but owns up to them.

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

185

The only person whom Catullus marks in the poem as permanently like Sappho is Lesbia, his female beloved named after her. It is significant that Catullus mentions her name in line 7 of his poem, because Sappho does not seem to mention the name of her beloved in fragment 31. This poem therefore confirms the trend we saw in the epigrams of Posidippus: male poets invoke the authority of Sappho to express what they identify as feminine behaviour. In the case of Meleager and Catullus this concerns their own behaviour, but only when they are overwhelmed by love.

7. Conclusion Overall, Catullus’ poem thus adheres to the pattern we saw among the male Greek poets: they use Sappho’s poetry primarily to characterise female characters or feminine behaviour, which at times they may exhibit themselves, in their poetry, but they do not identify their own poetic personae with Sappho the way Nossis and Erinna explicitly identify with her both as a woman and as a poet. Of course this conclusion is based only on a selection of female poets and on the remnants of their work, which may have been partly preserved because of their allusions to Sappho. Perhaps Nossis and Erinna distanced themselves from their Lesbian predecessor in other poems that have not survived. I also examined only a selection of Greek male poets, and it may well be that other poems exist, written by male poets, in which they do identify themselves as poets with Sappho. I hope this paper stimulates others to come forward with such examples, while I shall keep looking for them myself as well. We have also seen that a poetic identification with Sappho is harder to demonstrate in the case of Anyte or Moero. However, when we look at the Greek female poets in the Roman period whose work has been partly preserved (Melinno, Julia Balbilla and Damo), we find a strong identification with Sappho as poet again. Melinno wrote her hymn to Roma in Sapphic strophes and, at least in part, in the Aeolic dialect, while Julia Balbilla and Damo composed their epigrams, inscribed on the left foot or leg of the so called Colossus of Memnon in Egypt, in Aeolic as well.114 The use of Aeolic in later Greek poetry is really exceptional: after Theocritus we find it attested only in the compositions of these three female poets, and, although we must acknowledge that other poetry that 114. On the influence of Sappho on Melinno, see Bowra (1957) and Bowie (f.c. 1); for Julia Balbilla and Damo, see Rosenmeyer (2008).

186

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

was composed in Aeolic in the Roman period may have been lost, their use of Sappho’s dialect can hardly be accidental. I therefore maintain that if female Greek poets from the late classical, Hellenistic or Roman periods use Sappho as their anchor, they did so to identify themselves with her as women poets. Finally, it is legitimate to ask the question what the added value is of conducting this research under the aegis of the “Anchoring Innovation” programme. After all, one can research the reception of Sappho in antiquity perfectly well without using the concept of anchoring innovation. I think that it nevertheless has merit to apply this perspective, because it opens up the possibility of comparing the reception of ancient authors with similar processes in other domains, such as politics, art and religion. Such a comparison shows that the reference to illustrious predecessors is not an isolated, literary phenomenon, but fits a larger pattern in Greek and Roman culture to connect new developments with concepts and ideas with which people are already familiar. We should not forget that poets like Nossis, Erinna, Posidippus and Theocritus were very innovative and, while they refer to Sappho repeatedly, they wrote poetry that is very different from hers. The same is true of the Greek women poets in Roman times. Thus Rosenmeyer remarks about Julia Balbilla: “Through literary mimesis, Julia Balbilla creates something dynamic and new; she claims the personal fame of Sappho as a successful female poet, but adapts Sappho’s rhetoric of erotic praise to a contemporary political context.”115 The concept of anchoring innovation helps us better to understand the reasons behind the frequent allusions to poets like Sappho by later Greek and Roman authors. This research into the reception of Sappho in its turn, however, also contributes to a better understanding of the concept of anchoring innovation. What this study shows is that an anchor does not need to have the same meaning for all people all the time, and that the gender of the person applying the anchor can play a significant role in the meaning that is attached to it. Male poets use Sappho in a different way from female poets, but among the male and female poets themselves there are interesting differences as well. The female poets, for example, relate to very different aspects of Sappho’s work, such as her erotic poetry (Nossis), her laments and farewell poems (Erinna) or her hymns to goddesses (Melinno). The male poets I studied in this paper seem to refer particularly to her erotic work, but there are prominent exceptions here too: Posidippus and Theocritus both invoke her for her choral poetry and her laments, as does Callimachus, arguably, in his 115. Rosenmeyer (2008: 351).

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

187

Lock of Berenice.116 These are all different aspects that the Hellenistic and Roman Greek poets found in Sappho’s poetry and that their readers could recognize as well. They used these allusions so their own poetry would be more readily accepted and better understood.117 REFERENCES Acosta-Hughes, B., 2010, Arion’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry. Princeton. Aloni, A. (ed.), 1997, Saffo. Framenti. Florence. Álvarez, R., 2018, “Musical Performance of Sappho’s Songs in the New Posidippus Papyrus”. Presentation at the 149th SCS Annual Meeting in Boston. https:// classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/149/abstract/musical-performancesappho’s-songs-new-posidippus-papyrus. Austin, C. and G. Bastianini (eds.), 2002, Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt ominia. Milan. Bastianini, G. and C. Gallazzi (eds.), 2001, Posidippo di Pella. Epigrammi. Milan. Benelli, L., 2019, “Ancora un ‘pianto’ in Saffo (Kypris Poem, vv. 1-4)”. ZPE 209, 29-39. Bernand, A and E. Bernand (eds.), 1960, Les inscriptions grecques et latines du colosse de Memnon. Paris. Bierl, A. and A. Lardinois (eds.), 2016, The Newest Sappho: P. Sapph. Obbink and P. GC inv. 105, frs. 1-4. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, vol. 2. Leiden. Bouchard, E., 2020, “The Self-Revealing Poet: Lyric Poetry and Cultural History in the Peripatetic School”. In: Currie and Rutherford (2020) 182-202. Bowie, E.L., 1990, “Greek Poetry in the Antonine Age”. In: D.A. Russell (ed.), Antonine Literature. Oxford, 53-90. ―, 2016, “How Did Sappho’s Songs Get into the Male Sympotic Repertoire?”. In: Bierl and Lardinois (2016) 148-164. ―, F.c. 1, “Singing Rome”. In: B. Delignon et al. (eds.), Performance et mimesis: variations sur la lyrique cultuelle de la Grèce archaïque au Haut Empire romain, forthcoming. ―, F.c. 2, “Philicus’ Demeter: not a hymn?”. In: M. Perale et al. (eds.), Hellenistic poetry before Callimachus, forthcoming. Bowman, L., 1998, “Nossis, Sappho and Hellenistic Poetry”. Ramus 27, 39-59. 116. Acosta-Hughes (2010: 63-75). 117. An earlier, much shorter version of this paper, focussing only on Nossis and Posidippus, was published in Dutch (Lardinois 2018b). This paper was written during a very pleasant stay at the Center for Hellenic Studies in February and March 2019. I wish to thank several people for allowing me to see their forthcoming work, including Ewen Bowie, Richard Hunter and Kathryn Gutzwiller, and further Ewen Bowie, Hans Hansen, Jacqueline Klooster, Greg Nagy and Floris Overduin for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the participants in the Groningen conference for their questions and suggestions, in particular Annette Harder and Viola Palmieri.

188

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

Bowra, C.M., 1936, “Erinna’s Lament for Baucis”. In: C. Bailey et al. (eds.), Greek Poetry and Life: Essays presented to Gilbert Murray on his seventieth birtday. Oxford, 325-342. Reprinted in C.M. Bowra, Problems in Greek Poetry. Oxford 1953, 151-168. ―, 1957, “Melinno’s Hymn to Rome”. JRS 47, 21-28. Reprinted in C.M. Bowra, On Greek Margins. Oxford 1970, 199-212. Budelmann, F., 2018, Greek Lyric: A Selection. Cambridge. Caciagli, S., 2011. Poeti e Società: Comunicazione poetica e formazioni sociali nella Lesbo del VII/VI secolo a. C. Amsterdam. Calame, C., 1999, The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece. Princeton. Campbell, D. A. (ed.), 1990. Greek Lyric. Vol. 1: Sappho and Alcaeus. Second corrected edition. Cambridge, MA. Collins, D., 2006, “Corinna and Mythological innovation”. CQ 56, 19-32. Conte, G.B. and G.W. Most, 2012, “Imitatio”. In: S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Fourth edition. Oxford, 727-728. Currie, B. and I. Rutherford (eds.), 2020, The Reception and Transmission of Greek Lyric Poetry from 600 BCE to 400 CE. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, vol. 5. Leiden. D’Alessio, G.B. 2018. “Fiction and Pragmatics in Ancient Greek Lyric”. In: F. Budelmann and T. Philips (eds.), Textual Events: Performance and the Lyric in Early Greece. Oxford, 31-62. Di Benedetto, V., 2003, “Omero, Saffo e Orazio e il nuovo Posidippo”. Prometheus 29, 1-16. Dover, K.J., 1978, Greek Homosexuality. London. Ferrari, F., 2010, Sappho’s Gift: The Poet and Her Community, translated by B. Acosta-Hughes and L. Prauscello from the Italian. Michigan. ―, 2014, “Saffo e i suoi fratelli e altri brani del primo libro”. ZPE 192, 1-19. Finglass, P.J. and A. Kelly (eds.), 2021, The Cambridge Companion to Sappho. Cambridge. Gow, A.S.F. and D.L. Page (eds.), 1965, The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams. 2 vols. Cambridge. Greene, E. (ed.), 2005, Women Poets in Ancient Greece and Rome. Norman, OK. ―, 2007, “Catullus and Sappho”. In: M. Skinner (ed.), A Companion to Catullus. Oxford, 131-150. Greene, E. and M. B. Skinner (eds.), 2009, The New Sappho on Old Age: Textual and Philosophical Issues. Washington DC. Also available on-line: https:// chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3534 Gronewald, M. and R. W. Daniel, 2007, “429. Sappho”. In: C. Armoni et al. (eds.), Kölner Papyri (P. Köln), vol. XI. Papyrologica Coloniensia VII/11. Paderborn, 1-11. Gutzwiller, K., 1997, “Genre Development and Gendered Voices in Erinna and Nossis”. In: Prins and M. Shreider (eds.), Dwelling in Possibilities: Women Poets and Critics on Poetry. Ithaca, NY, 202-222. ―, 1998, Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley. ―, 2007, A Guide to Hellenistic Literature. Oxford. ―, 2020, “Under the Sign of the Distaff: Aetia 1.5, Spinning and Erinna”. CQ, 70, 177-191.

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

189

Hadjimichael, T.A., 2019, The Emergence of the Lyric Canon. Oxford. Halperin, D. M., 1990, “One Hundred Years of Homosexuality”. In: idem, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on Greek Love. London, 15-40. Henderson, J., 1991, The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy. Second edition. New York and Oxford. Hopkinson, N., 2015, Theocritus, Moschus, Bion. Loeb Classical Library Nr. 28. Cambridge, MA. Hunter, R., 1989, Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book III. Cambridge. ―, 1996, Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge. ―, 1999, Theocritus: A Selection. Cambridge. ―, 2007, “Sappho and Latin poetry”. In: G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds.), I papiri di Saffo e di Alceo. Florence, 213-225. ―, 2021, “Sappho and Hellenistic Poetry”. In: Finglass and Kelly (2021), ch. 20. Karanika, A., 2014, Voices at Work: Women, Performance, and Labor in Ancient Greece. Baltimore. Kazanskaya, M., 2020, “Indirect Tradition on Sappho’s kertomia”. In: Currie and Rutherford (2020) 257-276. Klooster, J., 2011, Poetry as Window and Mirror: Positioning the Poet in Hellenistic Poetry. Leiden. Ladianou, K., 2016, “Female Choruses and Gardens of Nymphs: Visualizing Chorality in Sappho.” In: V. Cazzato and A. Lardinois (eds.), The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, vol. 1. Leiden, 343-369. Lardinois, A., 1996, “Who Sang Sappho’s Songs?”. In: E. Greene (ed.), Reading Sappho. Contemporary Approaches. Berkeley, 150-172. ―, 2001, “Keening Sappho: Female Speech Genres in Sappho’s Poetry”. In: Lardinois and McClure (2001) 75-92. ―, 2008. “‘Someone, I say, will remember us’: Oral Memory in Sappho’s Poetry”. In Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World, ed. A. MacKay. Leiden, 79-96. ―, 2016, “Sappho’s Brothers Song and the Fictionality of Early Greek Lyric Poetry”. In: Bierl and Lardinois (2016) 167–187. ―, 2018a, “Sufferings which Sappho Sustains: A New reconstruction of the First Strophe of Sappho’s Kypris Poem”. ZPE 205,1-5. ―, 2018b, “Sappho als anker voor mannelijke en vrouwelijke dichters in de hellenistische tijd”. Lampas 51, 295-310. ―, 2021, “Sappho’s Personal Poetry”. In: Finglass and Kelly (2021), ch. 12. A. Lardinois and L. McClure (eds.), 2001, Making Silence Speak: Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society. Princeton. Lefkowitz, M.R., 2012, The Lives of the Greek Poets. Second edition. Londen. Lidov, J., 2002, “Sappho, Herodotus, and the Hetaira”. CPh 97, 203-237. Likosky, M., 2018, Representations of Women in Theocritus’s Idylls. New York. Lloyd-Jones, H. and P. Parsons (eds.), 1983, Supplementum Hellenisticum. Berlin. Merkelbach, R., 1957, “Sappho und ihr Kreis”. Philologus 101, 1-29. Nagy, G., 2015, “Sappho’s ‘fire under the skin’ and the erotic syntax of an epigram by Posidippus”. https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/sapphosfire-under-the-skin-and-the-erotic-syntax-of-an-epigram-by-posidippus/.

190

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

―, 2016, “Weaving while singing Sappho’s songs in Epigram 55 of Posidippus”. https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/weaving-while-singing-sapphossongs-in-epigram-55-of-posidippus/. ―, 2018, “Two small comments on Catullus Two”. https://classical inquiries. chs.harvard.edu/two-small-comments-on-catullus/. ―, 2020a, “Genre, Occasion, and Choral Mimesis Revisited, with Special Reference to the ‘Newest Sappho’”. In: M. Foster et al. (eds.), Genre in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, vol. 4. Leiden, 31-54. ―, 2020b, “On the Shaping of the Lyric Canon in Athens”. In: Currie and Rutherford (2020) 95-111. Neri, C., 2003, Erinna. Testimonianze e Frammenti. Bologna. ―, 2017, “Afrodita violenta (Sappho fr. 26 = ‘Kypris Poem’)”. Eikasmos 28, 9-21. Neri, C and F. Cinti (eds.), 2017, Saffo. Poesie, frammenti e testimonianze. Milan. Obbink, D., 2015, “Interim Notes on ‘Two New Poems of Sappho’”. ZPE 194, 1-8. ―, 2016, “The Newest Sappho: Text, Apparatus Criticus, and Translation”. In: Bierl and Lardinois (2016) 13-33. ―, 2020, “Kypri Despoina: Sappho’s ‘Kypris Poem’ Reconsidered”. In: P. Burian et al. (eds.), Euphrosyne. Contributions in Memory of Diskin Clay. Berlin. Page, D.L. (ed.), 1975, Epigrammata Graeca. Oxford. Papadopoulou, M., 2016, “Textile and Textual Poetics in Context: Callimachus’ 4th Iamb and Theocritus’ Idyll 28”. In: G. Fanfani et al. (eds.), Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: the Use of textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature. Oxford, 217-239. Pitotto, E. and A.A. Raschieri, 2017, “Which Sappho? The Case Study of the Cologne Papyrus”. In: E.J. Bakker (ed.), Authorship and Greek Song: Authority, Authenticity and Performance. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, vol. 3. Leiden, 265-283. Plant, I.M., 2004, Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology. Norman, OK. Powell, J.U. (ed.), 1925, Collectanea Alexandrina. Oxford. Power, T., 2020, “Sappho’s Parachoral Monody”. In: M. Foster et al. (eds.), Genres of Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry: Theories and Models. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, vol. 4. Leiden, 82-108. Prauscello, L., 2006, Singing Alexandria: Music between Practice and Textual Transmission. Leiden. Quinn, K., 1973, Catullus: The Poems. Second edition. New York. Raimondi, V., 1995-1998, “L’Inno a Roma di Melinno”. Helikon 35-38, 283-307. Rauk, J. 1989. “Erinna’s Distaff and Sappho Fr. 94”. GRBS 30, 110-116. Rayor, D., 1991, Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece. Berkeley CA. Rayor, D. and A. Lardinois, 2014, Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works. Cambridge. Reiff, A., 1959, Interpretatio, imitatio, aemulatio: Begriff und Vorstellung literarischer Abhängigkeit bei den Römern. Würzburg.

SAPPHO AS ANCHOR FOR MALE AND FEMALE GREEK POETS

191

Rijksbaron, A., 2002, The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek. Third edition. Amsterdam. Rosenmeyer, P., 1997, “Her Master’s Voice: Sappho’s Dialogue with Homer”. MD 39, 123-149. ―, 2008, “Greek Verse Inscriptions in Roman Egypt: Julia Balbilla’s Sapphic Voice”. Classical Antiquity 27, 334-358. Saake, H., 1971, Zur Kunst Sapphos: Motiv-analytische und kompositionstechnische Interpretationen. Munich-Paderborn-Vienna. Schlesier, R., 2016, “Loving, but not Loved: Some Thoughts about the New Kypris Song in the Context of Sappho’s Poetry”. In: Bierl and Lardinois (2016) 368-395. Schmakeit, I.A., 2003, Apollonios Rhodios und die attische Tragödie: gattungsgüberschreitender Intertextualität in der alexandrinischen Epik. PhD Dissertation. Groningen University. Seidensticker, B., 2015, “Epitymbia (51, 55-56)”. In: Seidensticker et al. (2015) 211-215, 224-229. Seidensticker, B. et al. (eds.), 2015, Der Neue Poseidipp: Text – Übersetzung – Kommentar. Gutenberg. Skinner, M.B., 1982, “Briseïs, the Trojan women, and Erinna”. CW 75, 265-269. ―, 1989, “Sapphic Nossis”. Arethusa 22, 5-18. ―, 1991a, “Aphrodite Garlanded: Erôs and Poetic Creativity in Sappho and Nossis”. In: F. de Martino (ed.), Rose di Pieria. Bari, 79-96. ―, 1991b, “Nossis Thelyglossos: The Private Text and the Public Book”. In: S.B. Pomeroy (ed.) Women’s History and Ancient History. Chapel Hill, 20-47. ―, 2001, “Ladies’ Day at the Art Institute: Theocritus, Herodas and the Gendered Gaze”. In: Lardinois and McClure (2001) 201-222. ―, 2005, “Homer’s Mother”. In: Greene (2005) 91-111. Sluiter, I., 2017, “Anchoring Innovation: A Classical Research Agenda”. European Review 25, 1-19 Snyder, J.M., 1989, The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome. Carbondale, IL. Spelman, H., 2017, “Borrowing Sappho’s Napkins: Sappho 101, Catullus 12, Theocritus 28”. HSCP 109, 237-260. Stehle [Stigers], E., 1981, “Sappho’s Private World”. Women’s Studies 8, 47-63. Stehle, E., 2001, “The Good Daughter: Mother’s Tutelage in Erinna’s Distaff and Fourth Century Epitaphs”. In: Lardinois and McClure (2001) 179-200. Thorsen, T.S., 2012, “Sappho, Corinna and Colleagues in Ancient Rome. Tatian’s Catalogue of Statues (Oratio ad Graecos 33-4) Reconsidered”. Mnemosyne 65, 695-715. Thorsen, T.S. and S. Harrison (eds.), 2019, Roman Receptions of Sappho. Oxford. Vetta, M., 1982, “Il P. Oxy. 2506 fr. 77 e la poesia pederotica di Alceo”. QUCC NS 10, 7-20. Waszink, J.H., 1974, Biene und Honig als Symbol des Dichters und der Dichtung in der griechisch-römischen Antike. Opladen. West. M.L., 1966, Hesiod. Theogony. Oxford. ―, 1977, “Erinna”. ZPE 25, 95-119. Partly reprinted in idem, Hellenica: Selected Papers on Greek Literature and Thought, vol. 3, 437-445. Oxford 2013

192

ANDRÉ LARDINOIS

―, 1996, Die griechische Dichterin, Bild und Rolle. Lectio Teubneriana. Stuttgart. Reprinted and translated as “The Greek Poetess: Her Role and Image,” in idem, Hellenica: Selected Papers on Greek Literature and Thought, vol. 3, 315-340. Oxford 2014. ―, 2014, “Nine Poems of Sappho”. ZPE 191, 1–12. White, H., 1980, Essays in Hellenistic Poetry. Amsterdam. Yatromanolakis, D., 2007, Sappho in the Making; The Early Reception. Cambridge, MA. Zeitlin, F.I., 1996, “Playing the Other: Theater, Theatricality, and the Feminine in Greek Drama”. In idem, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago, 341-74. Earlier versions appeared in Representations 11 (1985) 63-94 and in J.J. Winkler and F.I. Zeitlin (eds.), Nothing to Do with Dionysos?. Princeton 1990, 63-96.

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS Flavia LICCIARDELLO* ABSTRACT An almost exclusive focus on female subjects has regularly been acknowledged as a central feature of Nossis’ poetry. In this paper, I reconsider Nossis’ female perspective by comparing her epigrams with other texts belonging to the same genre. More specifically, the analysis focuses on dedicatory epigrams, which represent the most prevalent form for her epigrams with a female subject. Votive offerings made by women (or in their honour) are not a novelty in the Greek world. While admittedly rarer than those performed by men alone, female dedications are celebrated by inscribed epigrams from the archaic age onwards, representing a recurring topic within Hellenistic book epigrams. Moving from the comparison with a comprehensive corpus of inscribed and book epigrams from the archaic age to the beginning of the second century BC, this paper reveals that Nossis’ epigrams are deeply rooted in the tradition of dedicatory epigrams. Points of contact with the pre-Hellenistic tradition, as well as with coeval inscribed and book epigrams, are multiple. Within the framework of a general adherence to the tradition, however, Nossis introduces certain significant innovations. These usually develop from conventional elements, which are reinterpreted in a peculiarly female way. In particular, the very act of rendering her female gaze explicit within the text is what most powerfully characterises Nossis, treatment of female dedications, at least in comparison with earlier and contemporary dedicatory epigrams.

In the list of the nine most excellent female poets celebrated in one of his epigrams, Antipater of Thessalonica included the thelyglossos Nossis,1 an epigrammatist from Epizephyrian Locri, who lived during the first half of the third century BC. The entire corpus, which survives from the hand of Nossis, are twelve tetrastich epigrams. The majority of these celebrate offerings made by women and offer a glimpse into a world populated by women and relate in particular to the life of Epizephyrian Locri.

* I wish to thank Valentina Garulli, Camillo Neri, and Annette Harder, as well as the workshop participants, whose thoughtful suggestions helped me to improve this paper. 1. See Antip.Thess. AP 9.29.7 = GPh 181.

194

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

This almost exclusive focus on female subjects has been acknowledged as a central aspect of Nossis’ poetry.2 In this paper, I shall reconsider Nossis’ female perspective by comparing her epigrams with other texts belonging to the same genre. More specifically, my analysis will focus on dedicatory epigrams. These constitute the recurring form for Nossis’ epigrams with a female subject. Eight of the twelve epigrams by Nossis celebrate dedications by women.3 However, in only five of these is the dedicatory context explicit,4 while three epigrams simply describe female portraits. Even those, however, must have been connected to dedications and can be interpreted as such,5 especially when we consider that all of these epigrams were likely to be arranged in a collection, whereby the contextual presence and juxtaposition of similar poems would likely have influenced their individual interpretation.6 Votive offerings made by women (or made in their honour) are scarcely a novelty in the Greek world. Although much rarer than those performed by men alone, female dedications are celebrated by inscribed epigrams from the archaic age onwards and represent a recurrent theme in Hellenistic book epigrams. Moving from a comparison with this background, this paper illustrates how Nossis presents the female subjects of her verses. Herewith I also consider how and whether Nossis differentiates her poetry from more traditional poetic models and their reworking by coeval epigrammatists. Thanks to a survey of all inscribed and book epigrams – from the earliest examples in the archaic age, to the beginning of the second century BC from the entire Greek world7 – I have been able to individuate all of those epigrams that either celebrate a dedication by a woman or otherwise recognize and celebrate women. The epigrams selected were used as a comparative reference point for the analysis of Nossis’ verses. Through this, it was possible to highlight similarities with the preceding and contemporary tradition, as well as innovations introduced by the Locrian epigrammatist. 2. On Nossis’ woman-oriented poetic see Skinner (1989; 2001; 2005). Gutzwiller (1998: 74–88) analyses Nossis’ epigrams in relation to the contemporary background in which the first epigrammatic collections developed. She highlights the influence that Nossis’ invention of a sense of a female author’s persona had on the evolution of the epigrammatic genre. 3. This count includes AP 6.273 (HE 2835–2838), which is labelled in the Palatine codex as ὡς Νοσσίδος. The remaining epigrams are a gnomic epigram about the primacy of love, a dedication of the spoils of war, an epitaph for the comic Rhinthon, and a Schlussgedicht in the form of an auto-epitaph. 4. AP 6.273 (HE 2835–2838) does not explicitly present a dedication. It is a prayer to Artemis, whose form recalls analogous prayers often accompanying dedications. 5. See Gow & Page (1965: vol. 2.437) and Gutzwiller (1998: 82). 6. See Gutzwiller (1998: 80–84). 7. For book epigrams, the corpus examined includes texts by fourth- and third-century poets collected by Gow and Page (1965).

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

195

1. Women in dedicatory epigrams Temple inventories confirm that, in Ancient Greece, women were as pious dedicators as men.8 If, however, we consider only inscribed dedications, then the percentage of female dedicators drops dramatically.9 Accordingly, inscribed epigrams celebrating dedications performed by women constitute only a small portion of all inscribed dedicatory epigrams. The most ancient preserved example of an epigram that celebrates an offering made by a woman (CEG 403) was found in Delos, dating to the end of the seventh century BC. For the time frame selected, as the table shows (Tab. 1), inscribed epigrams for female dedications constitute a small minority when compared with epigrams presenting male dedications.10 Dedicatory epigrams recording female dedications appear even fewer in number when we consider only those epigrams in which women are presented as the sole person responsible for the dedication, and are not mentioned as co-dedicators (viz. in association with men).11 From a geographical point of view, the dedications collected are scattered across the entire Greek world, from Southern Italy to Asia Minor. Besides cases in which they are the dedicator, women appear in dedicatory epigrams in other circumstances, too. A recurring situation is that whereby a woman is represented by a statue and praised in the accompanying epigram. In other cases, women are mentioned in dedicatory epigrams because they are involved in the situation connected with the

8. See Day (2016: 1). In the inventories of the dedications made in the Asklepieion in Athens, the recorded female dedications slightly outnumber those performed by men. These inventories are incomplete and mostly refer to third-century dedications (see Dillon 2002: 27). Nonetheless, this testimony offers us an interesting picture of dedicatory customs that do not seem too different from those outlined in other sources. For an introduction to female dedications in classical Antiquity, see Kron (1996: 155–171), Dillon (2002: 9–36) and Foxhall (2013: 150–153). 9. See Dillon (2002: 9) and Day (2016: 1). This situation is unsurprising since preserved inscribed dedications are usually statues, whose erection required considerable financial resources. Commenting upon the temple inventories in the Athenian Asklepieion, Dillon (2002: 27) notes: “as might be expected, the offerings of jewellery and vases were largely those of women. Where men markedly outnumbered women was in stone dedications, which would never have cost a mere few drachmas, and would reflect the generally greater access of men to finance.” On the financial resources supporting women’s dedications, see Kron (1996: 166). For the typical objects dedicated by women, see Kron (1996: 158–159): these included pinakes, personal adornments, and mirrors. 10. The percentages refer to the share of female dedicators across the entirety of dedicatory inscribed epigrams from the same century. 11. The cases in which a woman appears as a co-dedicator can normally be linked to family dedications, whereby women are sometimes presented in a subordinate role to a male relative, who is the main person responsible for the dedication; see, e.g., CEG 759 (Athens, before c. 350? BC).

196

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

Total epigrams

7th century BC th

9.5

Percentage

Epigrams with a female dedicator alone

Percentage

1

11%

1

11%

Epigrams with a female dedicator

6 century BC

110.5

3

3%

2

2%

5th century BC

148.5

12

8%

11

7%

4th century BC

149.5

11

7%

8

5%

rd

3 century BC

103

8.5

8%

8

8%

2nd century BC (200–175 BC)

7

0.5

7%

ø

0%

Table 112

dedication,13 or because they are introduced as relatives of the dedicator(s), who (in this case) is likewise invariantly female.14 In general, women constitute a minor presence in the corpus of inscribed verse dedications analysed. The situation is different for Hellenistic book epigrams. Among 115 book epigrams analysed, female dedicators are found in 37 cases (c. 32% of all dedications).15 This larger number can be adduced to the fact that book epigrams preserve records of smaller dedications of perishable objects (such as garments, jewels, or hair-nets), for which no inscriptions are preserved but which nevertheless represented an important class of female dedications. Moreover, we can find among book epigrams some recurring topics, like dedications by hetaerae: the popularity of such motives and the tendency towards imitation and variation on the same theme may have contributed to the multiplication of book epigrams with a female dedicator.16 As for all other dedications, the occasions associated with female dedications – at least as they emerge from epigrams – are many and varied. Among inscribed dedications, a recurring situation is that whereby 12 Epigrams dated in between two centuries have been counted as a half unit in both centuries. 13. In SGO 12/03/02 (Susa, 250–200 BC) Khaires makes a dedication to Apollo, who saved his wife and daughter. 14. The only exception is CEG 830 (Olympia, c. 400–350 BC): Eumolpos dedicates a statue of Gorgias and, without giving her a name, mentions his grandmother, Gorgias’ sister, thereby establishing a link between Eumolpos and the famous sophist. 15. Women alone are responsible for 36 dedications. 16. For an analysis of book epigrams from different ages, presenting a dedication to Aphrodite and involving women, see Natsina (2012).

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

197

the woman enacting the dedication is a priestess. Frequently, women are presented and honoured as mothers and spouses, whereas dedications of tithes signal that the woman dedicating enjoyed a personal income and may have been a worker. This is explicit in CEG 774 (Athens, after c. 350? BC), which celebrates Melinna’s dedication to Athena Ergane. Besides presenting her as a mother, the text insists on her working skills:17 χερσί τε καὶ τέχ[ν]αις ἔργων | τόλμαις τε δικαίαις | θρεψαμένη τέκνων γεν[εὰ]ν | ἀνέθηκε Μέλιννα | σοὶ τήνδε μνήμην, θεὰ Ἐργάνη, | ὧν ἐπόνησεν | μοῖραν ἀπαρξαμένη κτεάνων, | τιμῶσα χάριν σήν. With her hands and the craft of her works, and with right courage Melinna raised her children and dedicated to you, Goddess Ergane, this memorial, offering a share of her possession, for which she worked hard, in honour of your charis.

Most of these motives are likewise found in Hellenistic book epigrams, although the two groups reveal some differences. The most striking difference concerns the dedications by hetaerae, which represent a significant group among all book epigrams celebrating female dedications. Such texts can be put in relation to the development of erotic and sympotic epigrams: although they formally refer to a dedication, they often describe sympotic scenes.18 The topic is extraneous to coeval inscribed dedicatory epigrams, and sympotic themes in book epigrams most likely derive from a non-inscriptional tradition. Nonetheless, dedications by prostitutes per se are not an invention of Hellenistic poets.19 Another difference between book and inscribed dedicatory epigrams relates to the objects dedicated. Book epigrams paint a varied picture in terms of the typologies of objects dedicated. Among these, we find pinakes, cups, dresses, and embroidered cloths: all objects that, as temple inventories and iconographical sources attest, were normally dedicated by women.20

17. On dedications by working women, see Kron (1996: 161–165). 18. It is unsurprising that some of these epigrams are transmitted in the fifth book of the Palatine Anthology, in which erotic epigrams are collected. 19. On dedications by prostitutes, see Dillon (2002: 197–198) and Keesling (2005). 20. See Kron (1996: 158–159). On dedications of clothing to Artemis in Athens, see Dillon (2002: 19–23); according to the inventories, such cloths were often accompanied by labels or could be embroidered with dedicatory formulas. The inscribed epigrams analysed mostly accompany the dedications of statues, reliefs, statuettes, altars, and bronze vessels. In most cases, the object is not explicitly mentioned in the text and it is difficult to determine with certainty what it may have been.

198

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

In concluding this brief survey on women in dedicatory epigrams, it is important to highlight that the picture we get from the analysis of inscribed and book examples is varied but coherent. Across the ages, women are often presented – and, indeed, praised – as wives and mothers. These two roles, however, are not the only ones associated with women in dedicatory epigrams. In CEG 774, when Melinna expressed her pride for what she earned with her manual labour, she makes explicit the attitude that probably inspired similar dedications of tithes by other women. Book epigrams are more detailed in these instances, introducing us to a world of weavers and hetaerae in the preponderance of cases. The picture sketched hereby constitutes the framework surrounding Nossis’ dedicatory epigrams.

2. Nossis and female dedications: presenting women Among Nossis’ epigrams, an interesting case is AP 6.265 (HE 2799– 2802). Here, the dedicator is Nossis herself, who, together with her mother (Theuphilis, Cleocha’s daughter), wove a linen garment and dedicated it to Hera:21 Ἥρα τιμήεσσα, Λακίνιον ἃ τὸ θυῶδες πολλάκις οὐρανόθεν νισομένα καθορῇς, δέξαι βύσσινον εἷμα τό τοι μετὰ παιδὸς ἀγαυᾶς Νοσσίδος ὕφανεν Θευφιλὶς ἁ Κλεόχας. Esteemed Hera, you who often come from the sky to look upon your fragrant Lacinian temple, receive a linen robe that Theuphilis, Cleocha’s daughter, wove for you with her noble daughter Nossis.22

The family relationships presented in the epigram involves women alone: we are informed of the name of Nossis’ mother, Theuphilis, as well as Theuphilis’ mother, Cleocha. The presentation of an all-female genealogy has been put in relation to Plb. 12.5.6, according to which nobility in Locri was transmitted along the female line, and the metronymic was thus interpreted as a Locrian custom.23 The weak ground on which this hypothesis is built has been 21. The adjective βύσσινον is usually translated as ‘linen’. Its meaning, however, is uncertain. For more on this, see Gutzwiller (1998: 82). 22. Translation by Gutzwiller (1998: 80). 23. See Oldfather (1927: 1345–1346), who cites Nossis AP 6.265 (HE 2799–2802) as evidence for such a custom. See also Gow and Page (1965: vol. 2.437) and Degani (1981: 50–51).

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

199

pointed out by Skinner (1987),24 who interprets the use of the metronymic not as a local habit but as a female speech trait, according to which women talking to one another would present themselves with the name of their mothers. As a consequence, the metronymic in Nossis would stress that the epigrammatist primarily envisioned for her verses a female audience. Although this hypothesis is alluring, the evidence for such a gender-specific speech trait are scarce and uncompelling.25 It is, however, undeniable that the metronymic – and more generally the exclusively female genealogy – bears significant implications upon the importance of female experience and context in Nossis’ poetry. A comparison with the tradition of dedicatory epigrams may help to illuminate the innovations introduced by Nossis. The relationship between mothers and their sons (or daughters) are frequently highlighted in dedicatory epigrams. However, there is no other example of a dedication performed by a mother and her daughter(s) alone. In IG 14.433 (Taormina, third–second century BC), a mother and daughter are both mentioned as dedicators in a family dedication, in which their husband and father also participated. In inscribed dedications, two or more women are never left alone: either the woman dedicating is the only person named in the epigram or, if some other relatives are mentioned, then these always include at least one man.26 There are no surviving examples whereby one or more women are presented with a metronymic only or are mentioned in relation to other women, exclusively.27 This also holds true for most book epigrams. The only exception is Leon. AP 6.286 (HE 2207–2212), which celebrates the dedication of a garment embroidered by three 24. See, also, Cazzaniga (1972: 74). 25. Skinner’s interpretation is based on Cunningham’s (1971: 71) suggestion that women used a metronymic when speaking in private among themselves, since this is the most frequent (albeit not the unique) situation in Herondas. It seems, however, inappropriate to deduce a general rule from a single source, also because one of the two passages mentioned by Cunningham (Herod. 6.20) may have in fact been influenced by Nossis’ epigram (see infra n. 48). 26. The situation was likely similar in pre-Hellenistic sepulchral epigrams: Tsagalis (2008: 184–185) observes that, in the fourth century, Attic funerary epigrams for women were much more likely to highlight their family relations in comparison to epitaphs for men. Indeed, the family members mentioned are, in most cases, men. The only two epigrams that he registers as mentioning mothers and daughters alone (CEG 487 and 533; see Tsagalis 2008: 186) are uncertain cases. 27. A possible exception might be CEG 317 (Athens, c. 450? BC): Geagan (2011: 10) argues that the form ΣΤΕΦΑΝΩ in v. 3 should be interpreted as the accusative of a feminine name (Stephano), which would introduce in the epigram a second female character. According to his reading, the Stephano mentioned would be Lysistrate’s daughter and the subject of the statue (or herm) dedicated by her mother. The interpretation is, however, greatly contested and there are no certain elements that can confirm this reading. On the different possible interpretations of this passage, see Hansen (1983: 170).

200

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

women, whose reciprocal relationships are unspecified.28 In two other epigrams by Leonidas (AP 6.288 = HE 2213–2222 and 289 = HE 2223– 2230), the dedication is performed by a group of sisters, who dedicate their weaving tools to Athena. In these last two cases, the women dedicating are presented with a patronymic.29 Although the man is not actively involved in the dedication, naming the father complies here with the traditional situation, in which more than one female name never appears alone in the epigram. The fact that the dedication in AP 6.265 (HE 2799–2802) is performed by women alone is therefore not a unicum. Nonetheless, the presentation of women with a metronymic only and the focus on an all-female lineage covering three generations has no parallel among pre-Hellenistic and Hellenistic dedicatory epigrams.30 A closer look at the remnant epigrams by Nossis shows that the relationship between mothers and daughters is a recurring topic in her poetry.31 In her pseudo auto-epitaph (AP 7.718 = HE 2831–2834), Nossis presents herself again as the daughter of a ‘Locrian woman’ (vv. 3–4 Λόκρισσα / τίκτεν). The name of the mother is not specified in this case. However, if the epigrams were gathered in a collection, the reader could have easily retrieved it from AP 6.265 (HE 2799– 2802). In another epigram, Nossis (AP 6.353 = HE 2819–2822) praises the physical resemblance between a daughter and her mother.32 More generally, in Nossis’ dedicatory epigrams, men are almost entirely absent.33 The sole exception is the mythological Adonis, who is mentioned in AP 6.275.4 (HE 2810) as Aphrodite’s lover. As frequently occurs in both inscribed and coeval book epigrams, the women offering are introduced with no reference to the name of any relative, whether male or female. The fact that Nossis presents herself in this epigram as the descendant of an exclusively female lineage can be put in relation to other elements that exceed the importance accorded to the mother-daughter relationship in her poetry. It is important to consider the nature of the donation: 28. A partial exception is also Call. AP 6.146 (ep. 53 Pf. = HE 1153–1156), where Lycaenis makes a dedication for the birth of her daughter, who, however, remains unnamed. Moreover, the epigram closes with a prayer for the birth of a boy. 29. In Leon. AP 6.289 (HE 2223–2230), besides the patronymic, the name of the mother is also given. 30. The picture for sepulchral epigrams is slightly different in this case: see, e.g., Anyt. AP 7.486 (HE 680–683), where the mother Cleina mourns her young daughter Philaenis. 31. See also Gutzwiller (1998: 82). 32. According to Skinner (1987: 41–42), Nossis here appropriates and remodels the common saying that it is good for children to resemble their fathers, viz. as evidence of their legitimacy. 33. Even Thaumareta’s dog in AP 9.604 (HE 2815–1818) is a female dog, as the hapax with the feminine ending -αινα stresses.

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

201

Nossis and her mother dedicate to Hera a garment that they have woven together. Several sources confirm the importance of textile production in the life of Greek women, who probably devoted most of their time to this activity.34 For young girls, the training in textile manufacture was likely to begin under the supervision of their mother and other female relatives at home, then being continued after marriage in their conjugal household.35 The fact that the dedication is addressed to Hera may indicate that the context is indeed an upcoming marriage36 and this rite of passage is celebrated by a dedication of a cloth woven together by the trainer, Theuphilis, and her trainee, Nossis.37 We can plausibly imagine that the transmission of weaving craft was matrilinear: Nossis learnt from her mother, Theuphilis, who in turn was instructed by her own mother, Cleocha. Naming these women together is a way of acknowledging the contribution that – whether directly or indirectly – each one gave to the final product. The picture evoked in these four verses of a mother and a daughter weaving together is not new in Greek female poetry. A short fragment by Sappho (fr. 102 V.) presents an analogous situation: a mother and a daughter by the loom. γλύκηα μᾶτερ, οὔτοι δύναμαι κρέκην τὸν ἴστον πόθωι δάμεισα παῖδος βραδίναν δι’ Ἀφροδίταν Truly, sweet mother, I cannot weave my web, for I am overcome with desire for a boy because of slender Aphrodite.38

The fragment has a particularly erotic theme: the girl confesses that she is unable to weave because she is distracted by her desire for a boy.39 According to Karanika, the situation described marks a transition in the girl’s life, viz. her wedding.40 Another text in which mothers, daughters, 34. See Foxhall (2012: 194–199) and Brøns (2017: 52–53). The sources mentioned by Foxall and Brøns mostly refer to Athens. However, in ancient Greece, the experience of weaving must have been equally important to women everywhere; for select passages on women and weaving in Greek literature, see Neri (2003: 47 n. 52). On textile production in antiquity, also see Harlow & Nosch (2014). 35. On the family training for learning textile production, see Foxhall (2012: 198–199). 36. The absence of further details makes it difficult to determine whether the occasion for the dedication is some ritual in honour of Hera, perhaps involving ritual garments, as alluded to in, e.g., Call. Aet. fr. 66.2–4 Pf. On analogous rites, see Harder (2012: vol. 2.536), with further bibliography. 37. See Skinner (2001: 215). Even the syntax in vv. 3–4 (τό τοι μετὰ παιδὸς ἀγαυᾶς / Νοσσίδος ὕφανεν Θευφιλὶς) seems to highlight Theuphilis’ leading role in the dedication. 38. Translation by Campbell (1982: 126). 39. The Greek term παῖδος used here is not gender-specific. In this case, however, it seems safe to presume that a boy is intended, as Neri (Neri & Cinti 2017: 368) observes. 40. See Karanika (2014: 185–189), who also points out that the fragment may preserve an allusion to the fact that wedding songs could be performed in private as working songs.

202

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

weaving, and marriage are closely related is Erinna’s hexametrical poem, the Distaff. In particular, vv. 21–27 refer to some shared moments between Erinna and her friend, Baucis, which took place during their prenuptial education, in which Erinna’s mother must have had a training role, and of which weaving must have formed a significant part.41 Furthermore, Erinna’s verses allude to the fact that such an education did not uniquely encompass textile manufacture. As the situation depicted in the Distaff confirms, the loom can be seen as a forum not only for the development of affective relationships among women, but for education and, as Sapph. fr. 102 V. testifies, the performance of song.42 Warranting further attention is the verb used by Nossis to describe the production of the garment dedicated: ὑφαίνω (v. 4 ὕφανεν). This verb can be used to refer both to the act of weaving and to poetic composition. More generally, weaving is a common metaphor for performance and the composition of poetry.43 Such a metaphor appears particularly effective to describe female poetic art, since the source domain (weaving) is a female activity par excellence.44 In other words, Nossis may be alluding to the fact that she is not only able to weave the garment but also to compose the verses celebrating its dedication. In this context, the involvement of Nossis’ mother and grandmother may fulfil a specific function. Comparing this epigram with Sappho and Erinna’s aforementioned passages, we can imagine that, in weaving together, mother and daughter could have shared something greater than their handicraft.45 Although it is not necessary to read in AP 6.265 (HE 2799–2802) a specific allusion to a poetic education received from her mother, the epigram can be read as a programmatic statement regarding the creativity that inspired Nossis and was transmitted to her in matrilineal succession: Nossis’ artistic and creative skills nurtured in an all-female context. Not only was Theuphilis “her earliest creative mentor” (Skinner 2005: 115), but, as the mention of the grandmother Cleocha suggests, her poetry is embedded in a female framework and tradition. Such a programmatic statement is reinforced in AP 7.718 (HE 2831–34), where Nossis asks the xenos to report to 41. See Neri (2003: 93 and 357–58) and, more generally, on the art of weaving in Erinna’s verses, see Neri (2016). 42. See Foxhall (2012: 199) and Karanika (2014: 180–181). 43. For an introduction to textile metaphors in Greek and Latin literature, see Fanfani et al. (2016). On poetry as weaving, see Skinner (2001: 214, with further bibliography). 44. On weaving as a mode of communication for Greek women, see Bergren (2008: 15): “the semiotic activity peculiar to women throughout Greek tradition is not linguistic. Greek women do not speak, they weave.” See also Buxton (1994: 122–127), on the importance of weaving for women in Greek mythology. 45. See Hauser (2016: 152): “Nossis’ third epigram, in particular, pays tribute to her mother and grandmother’s influence in her literary upbringing and education”.

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

203

Sappho’s homeland the news that a Locrian woman gave birth to a woman, who is dear to the Muses and Sappho, and whose name is Nossis. In these verses, Nossis not only declares that Sappho is her poetic model but restates her female genealogy and seems to include Sappho therein, highlighting again the female framework in which her poetry developed. Moreover, both the context depicted in AP 6.265 (HE 2799–2802) and the metaphor comparing poetry and textile art potentially allude to Erinna’s poetic work.46 The allusion to Erinna would thus complete the picture of Nossis’ sources of creativity and inspiration.47 In this epigram, therefore, Nossis appropriates some elements and motifs typical of the epigrammatic and dedicatory tradition, such as maternal love and textile dedications. However, she also reinterprets them in an exclusively female framework. The context evoked in the epigram is traditionally female, as it had already been celebrated by earlier female poets, who represented a source of inspiration for the epigrammatist.48 The importance of the female inspiration of her verses is further confirmed by the exclusive use of a metronymic, which is a unicum among other dedicatory epigrams analysed and celebrates here the female milieu through which her artistic and poetic skills developed.

3. The female context in Nossis An analogous original reworking of common topics likewise characterises other epigrams. The following constitutes an interesting example to this end (AP 9.332 = HE 2803–2806): ἐλθοῖσαι ποτὶ ναὸν ἰδώμεθα τᾶς Ἀφροδίτας τὸ βρέτας, ὡς χρυσῷ δαιδαλόεν τελέθει. εἵσατό μιν Πολυαρχίς, ἐπαυρομένα μάλα πολλὰν κτῆσιν ἀπ᾿ οἰκείου σώματος ἀγλαΐας. Let us go to the temple and see Aphrodite’s statue, how intricately is adorned with gold. Polyarchis set it up, enjoying the great wealth she has from the beauty of her own body.49

46. See Skinner (2001: 214–215). 47. On Erinna and Nossis, see Gutzwiller (1998: 77–79). 48. Both the fact that Nossis used a metronymic with programmatic intent and that she followed Erinna’s poetic model may have inspired the mocking presentation in Herod. 6.20 (Νοσσὶς […] ἠρίννης) of a certain ‘Nossis, daughter of Erinna’. On the particular allusion within this passage to the two female poets and their poetic relationship, see Neri (1994) and Skinner (2001: 216–217). 49. Translation by Gutzwiller (1998: 81).

204

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

A female speaking voice invites other women to visit Aphrodite’s temple, where they can admire the statue of the goddess, adorned with gold, which Polyarchis dedicated from the earnings she obtained with her beautiful body. The dedication to Aphrodite and the reference to the wealth derived from her beauty had been commonly interpreted as signs that the dedication had been performed by a hetaera. Two elements are particularly interesting in this epigram: the explicit reference to a female audience and the fact that the epigram addresses the recurring topic of dedications by hetaerae. The participle ἐλθοῖσαι, at the epigram’s incipit, clarifies from the beginning that the speaking voice is female and addresses other women. Such a specific address to a female audience for an epigram celebrating a woman is not a unicum in the epigrammatic tradition. A parallel is found in a Hellenistic epigram from Kaunos, which was engraved on the base of a statue representing Euanthis and dedicated by her son Protogenes (I.Kaunos 51, c. 300 BC). ὧ]δε τις εἰσοράουσα γυνὴ τέκνα γούνασι θέσθω καὶ φίλιον στόμασιν μαστὸν ἐπὶ προθέτω τάνδε γὰρ εἰκόνα παῖς Εὐανθίδι δῶρα Μελάνθου στᾶσε θυγατρὶ σέβων ματέρα Πρωτογένης. In this way, a woman should watch and take her children on her knees and offer her lovely breast to their mouths. Honouring his mother, the son Protogenes set up this image as a gift for Euanthis, Melanthos’ daughter.

The female observer is here invited to observe the statue and follow Euanthis’ example as a devoted mother. Both AP 9.332 (HE 2803–2806) and I.Kaunos 51 present their female characters as subjects worthy of admiration to other women. Nevertheless, the two epigrams betray significant differences. In I.Kaunos 51 the perspective is male rather than female: the dedication is made by Euanthis’ son, Protogenes, who praises her mother by presenting her to other women as a successful female model. In Nossis, by contrast, the perspective is entirely female. The speaking voice is that of a woman, who includes herself in the group of potential admirers of Polyarchis (see v. 1 ἐλθοῖσαι ποτὶ ναὸν ἰδώμεθα). The object of admiration is the precious statue dedicated and the good use Polyarchis made of her wealth.50

50. Praise regarding the good use of one’s wealth in offering a dedication to the gods is typical in dedicatory epigrams, see, e.g., IG 9.2.637 (Larisa, third century BC) and, among dedications by women, CEG 317 (Athens, c. 450? BC).

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

205

With regard to other epigrams on dedications by hetaerae, Nossis’ epigram evinces both similarities and differences. The first thing to consider is that AP 9.332 (HE 2803–2806) is entirely focused on the dedication and its display in a temple. Unlike certain other epigrams, it does not depict a sympotic scene nor does it specifically allude to sexual intercourse.51 Two aspects emerge in the epigram for Polyarchis: the beauty of her body and the wealth derived from it. Both elements are not unusual in other dedications. References to the body of the woman offering are common in epigrams for hetaerae. Indeed, in Hedyl. AP 6.292 (HE 1825–1830), the occasion for the dedication is a victory in a beauty contest. Apart from Hedyl. AP 6.292 (HE 1825–1830) and Asclep. AP 5.203 (6 Sens = HE 832–837), the physical appearance of the woman dedicating, however, is not especially lauded. Likewise, the prosperity of the hetaera is not normally explicitly stressed. Nonetheless, almost all dedications contain at least either a gold or silver item (or something gilded): a detail that likely alluded to a certain degree of luxury.52 Overall, Nossis’ dedication presents several points of contact with analogous epigrams by male authors. The main difference is represented by the all-female setting. By making explicit her female voice in this epigram, as well as the female audience to which she addresses herself, Nossis inserts the dedication into an exclusively female context.53 This circumstance combines with, and perhaps even reinforces, the eulogizing tone of the epigram, which is hard to retrace in epigrams on the same topic.54 The invitation to look at the object dedicated that opens AP 9.332 (HE 2803–2806) is a Leitmotiv in Nossis epigrams. The same invitation is found in four ekphrastic epigrams describing female portraits dedicated in a temple. Two of these portraits are explicitly presented as pinakes,55 51. See, e.g., Asclep. AP 5.203 (6 Sens = HE 832–837), Hedyl. AP 5.199 (HE 1831– 1836), Phal. HE 2935–2938. 52. The idea that being a hetaera could be quite a rewarding job for a woman is ironically stressed in some epigrams addressing the topic of a weaver turned hetaera, thereby hoping to improve her income: see e.g. [Nicarch.] AP 6.285 (HE 2737–2746), Antip.Sid. AP 6.47 (HE 459–463), and Anon. AP 6.48 (HE 3812–3817). 53. The apostrophe to a female audience does not imply that Nossis expected her poems to be read by women alone. In dedicatory epigrams, the addressees in the text does not usually coincide with the expected audience and in this case, too, the women addressed can be interpreted as characters in her poetry rather than as real readers. 54. In an epigram by Callimachus for a dedication by a prostitute (AP 13.24 = ep. 38 Pf. = HE 1143–1148), the tone is rather deprecatory (see v. 5 τάλαινα θάρσους). For a different interpretation of this epigram, see Natsina (2012: 266 n. 49). Natsina suggests that the closing formula may refer to the dedicator’s troubled future following her retirement. Unfortunately, the last verse is partially corrupted and there are no further elements in the text to confirm Natsina’s reading. 55. See AP 9.605.1 (HE 2811) τὸν πίνακα and 604.1 (HE 2815) ὁ πίναξ.

206

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

whereas, for the other two, the type of object is unspecified and could be either pinakes or statues.56 Pinakes were commonly dedicated by women and female portraits are celebrated in some inscribed epigrams.57 Among book epigrams, the dedication of a portrait of a female dedicator is presented in Call. AP 13.24 (ep. 38 Pf. = HE 1143–1148), while in Leon. AP 6.355 (HE 2203–2205) a mother dedicates a painted portrait of her son.58 A painting portraying a woman is also described in an epigram transmitted under the name of Erinna (AP 6.352 = 7 Neri = HE 1796– 1800), which is usually indicated as the direct model for Nossis’ ekphrastic epigrams.59 In Nossis, the description of the painting is used as a chance to highlight and praise the beauty and virtues of the woman represented. Eulogetic formulas are not a novelty in dedicatory epigrams for women: they are found in the oldest extant example of a female dedication,60 and also characterise Hellenistic book epigrams. In CEG 858 (Erythrae, fourth century BC), the statue dedicated by Timo, Zoilos’ wife, is presented as an ‘an image of beauty and a demonstration of excellence and wealth’.61 Even though the statue did not represent the woman offering, the qualities listed can confidently be transferred to her.62 In Nossis’ verses, the praise always begins with a consideration of the image. The impression is that the qualities admired in the women can be discerned by looking at their portrait.63 Stressing the resemblance of the portrait to the woman portrayed is a way for Nossis to move from the praise of the work of art to the praise of the woman thereby represented.64 56. In AP 6.353 (HE 2819–2822), the portrait is presented with the verb τέτυκται (v. 1), which might refer to different kinds of works: from statues to garments. In AP 6.354.2 (HE 2824), μεγαλειοσύνᾳ has been interpreted as a reference to the stature of a statue (see Skinner (2005: 121)). However, μεγαλειοσύνᾳ is a conjectural hapax suggested by Reiske to correct the a-metrical μεγαλωσύνᾳ in the Palatine codex; see Tueller (2008: 168). 57. See, e.g., IG 2/3².3464 (Athens, fourth/third century BC). 58. See, also, Theaet. AP 6.357 (HE 3342–3347), where two parents dedicate a portrait of their children, Nikanor and Philia, which may either be a statue, a relief, or a painting. 59. See Gutzwiller (1998: 77–78). West (1977: 115) even suggested that the epigram is actually Nossis’ work, but the reasons adduced are not compelling. On Erinna’s epigrams and their debated authenticity, see Neri (2003: 85–88). 60. See CEG 403.2 ἔℎσοχος ἀλήον (= ἔξοχος ἄλλων), ‘excellent among others’. 61. See CEG 858.3 εἰ]κ[ό]να μὲμ μορφῆς, ἀρετῆς δ᾿ ἐπίδειγμα καὶ ὄλβου. Translation by Furley (2010: 165). 62. See Furley (2010: 165). 63. An analogous situation is presented, e.g., in I.Kaunos 51 and IG 2/3².3464 (Athens, fourth/third century BC). 64. On the artful exploitation of the confusion between representation and subject represented in Nossis’ ekphrastic epigrams, see Tueller (2008: 166–172).

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

207

Besides this emphasis on the visual aspect,65 Nossis’ epigrams are also characterised by an almost exclusive focus on the woman represented and her qualities. While in Erinn. AP 6.352 (7 Neri = HE 1796–1800) highlighting the precise resemblance between Agatharchis and her portrait is a way of praising the painter,66 in Nossis, the focus is always on the woman’s features, which can be admired through the portrait.67 Although laudatory formulas are common in dedicatory epigrams for women, the focus usually remains on the presentation of the dedication to the god. On the contrary, in Nossis epigrams the praise of the woman portrayed prevails.68 A further interesting aspect in Nossis’ ekphrastic epigrams is that recurrent apostrophes to the observer, as well as the repetition of first-person expressions, seem to bind them all in a unitary discourse, where the speaker, just like the addressee, is an observer.69 As Gutzwiller (1998: 83–84) highlights, in the context of a book in which her epigrams were collected, it would have been natural to assume that this narrating voice belongs to Nossis herself.70 This narrating voice, moreover, is not only identified as that of an observer but it is also explicitly presented as a female voice. As aforementioned, AP 9.332 (HE 2803–2806) opens with the exhortation ἐλθοῖσαι ποτὶ ναὸν ἰδώμεθα (v. 1), in which the speaker presents herself as a female voice addressing other women, seemingly inaugurating a tour towards the dedications presented in the following epigrams, as though they were displayed in a temple one next to the other.71 65. See Liviabella Furiani (1991: 184): “in questa percezione estetico-esoterica della femminilità è la vista […] il senso privilegiato.” Sight played a significant role in Sappho’s poetry already and, more generally, in archaic lyric poetry; on this, see Cazzato & Lardinois (2016). 66. On the possibility that the adjective ἀταλός in ἐξ ἀταλᾶν χειρῶν (v. 1) alludes to a female painter, see Neri (2003: 439). More generally, Murray & Rowland (2007: 224–225) point to the ‘feminising’ function of the adjective, which may also highlight the fact that the author of the epigram is a woman. 67. See also Skinner (2005: 118) who notes how Nossis “is preoccupied not so much with the painter’s success in effecting a physical likeness as with his ability to capture distinctive traits of the sitter’s personality.” 68. Among her epigrams, an exception to this general rule consists in AP 6.275 (HE 2807–2810), on the dedication of a head-dress to Aphrodite. In this case, the epigram focuses on the reaction of the goddess on receipt of the gift. On this epigram, see Natsina 2012, 270–271. 69. See Noss. AP 9.332.1 (HE 2803) ἰδώμεθα and 6.354.4 (HE 2826) ἔλπομ’ ὁρῆν. 70. Such an assumption is further eased by the fact that Nossis repeats her name in three of the 12 epigrams transmitted under her name: AP 5.170.3 (HE 2793), 6.265.4 (HE 2802), and 7.718.4 (HE 2834). In AP 5.170.3 (HE 2793), which is usually considered the opening epigram for her collection, the name is the subject of a verbum dicendi: τοῦτο λέγει Νοσσίς (‘Nossis says this’). 71. See Prioux (2008: 151–154).

208

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

Such a perspective, in which the speaking voice is explicitly the observer, constitutes a novelty in dedicatory epigrams, just like the fact that the speaker is a woman. By assuming the perspective of a woman looking at other women,72 Nossis thereby introduces an important innovation not only in the way in which female dedications were presented and celebrated but more generally in the frame of reference typically adopted by dedicatory epigrams.73

4. Concluding remarks Nossis’ epigrams are profoundly rooted in the tradition of dedicatory epigrams. Points of contact with the pre-Hellenistic tradition, as well as with coeval inscribed and book epigrams, are many and varied. While generally adhering to the traditions of the genre, Nossis proffers some significant innovations. These usually develop from conventional elements, which are reinterpreted in a peculiarly female way. For instance, from the archaic age onwards, women dedicating are sometimes presented with no reference to their fathers, husbands, or indeed any other male figure. Nossis reworks this custom while introducing an entire female genealogy in an epigram with a programmatic intent (AP 6.265 = HE 2799–2802). Another interesting aspect of Nossis’ verses is the space reserved for eulogising female characters. The praise of women per se is not a novelty in female dedicatory epigrams. Nossis, however, renders this element the focus of her epigrams celebrating dedications of statues and paintings representing women. The most striking innovation is her introduction of an external speaker, namely, the observer. The fact that the speaker in the epigram is an external observer marks an important point of difference from the tradition of dedicatory epigrams, whereby the speaking voice typically emanates from the object dedicated, or from the place wherein the inscription is set.74 If the adoption of a frame of reference liberated from the object 72. On the female gaze as it regards women, see Skinner (2001: 210–211). 73. Albeit in a different context, the situation of a speaking woman addressing (and giving instructions to) her companions likewise recurs in Sappho’s verses. See, e.g., the examples presented by D’Alessio (2018: 46–53). 74. This orientation of the text is typical for dedications, while in sepulchral epigrams, the external speaker is more common; see, e.g., Tsagalis (2008: 255–257) on the ‘firstperson mourner’ in epitaphs, who may be identified as a relative or friend of the deceased. In such cases, however, the speaking voice is not usually explicitly removed from the spatial context where the inscription is set, as it happens in Nossis. For example, in Heraclit. AP 7.465 (HE 1935–1942), the speaking voice addresses the passer-by and

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

209

characterises Hellenistic epigrams in general,75 then the fact that the speaker is a female observer is, however, a unicum. This element – together with numerous apostrophes to the onlooker – highlights Nossis’ role as a kind of guide in the contemplation and reception of the works of arts thereby dedicated. In so doing, Nossis also guides her reader in the appreciation and admiration of the women who are the subjects of her poetry. In other words, Nossis expands upon the traditional function of the epigram as a text guiding the reception of the monument on which it is inscribed76 in order to guide her readers in the acknowledgment of a series of qualities in the women she describes. In conclusion, the act itself of making her female gaze explicit in the text is what most powerfully characterises Nossis’ treatment of female dedications in comparison with earlier and contemporary dedicatory epigrams, with which Nossis’ epigrams nevertheless share many elements. REFERENCES Inscriptions are cited according to the abbreviations in the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Bergren, A., 2008, Weaving Truth. Essays on Language and the Female in Greek Thought. Washington, DC. Brøns, C., 2017, “Power through textiles. Women as ritual performers in ancient Greece”. In: M. Dillon et al. (eds), Women’s Ritual Competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. London-New York, 46–64. Buxton, R., 1994, Imaginary Greece. The contexts of mythology. CambridgeNew York. Campbell, D.A., 1982, Greek Lyric. I. Sappho and Alcaeus. Cambridge, Mass.London. Cazzaniga, I., 1972, “Nosside, nome aristocratico per la poetessa di Locri ?”. ASNP 2 (s. 3), 173–176. Cazzato, V. & A. Lardinois (eds), 2016, The Look of Lyric. Greek Song and the Visual. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, vol. 1. Leiden-Boston. invites them to read the inscription, thus adopting an external point of view in relation to the inscription engraved on the monument. Even in this case, however, the speaker seems to be in the same place as the inscription. 75. The number of speakers who can be found in both inscribed and book dedicatory epigrams proliferates in the Hellenistic age. In Hellenistic epigrams, we find a series of speakers (e.g., the dedicator) who introduce an external perspective into the presentation of the dedication. Nonetheless, Noss. AP 9.332 (HE 2803–2806) is the only case – at least until the end of the third century BC – in which the speaker is explicitly identified as the observer. On speakers and addresses in Hellenistic dedicatory epigrams, see Licciardello (2018). 76. This topic is often addressed in the text of epigrams. Even the simple presence of the epigram inscribed on the monument and its layout could guide the observer in its reception. On this, see Day (2010: 48–59 and 76–84).

210

FLAVIA LICCIARDELLO

Cunningham, I.C., 1971, Mimiambi. Oxford. D’Alessio, G., 2018, “Fiction and pragmatics in ancient Greek lyric. The case of Sappho”. In: F. Budelmann & T. Phillips (eds), Textual Events. Performance and the Lyric in Early Greece. Oxford, 31–62. Day, J.W., 2010, Archaic Greek Epigram and Dedication. Representation and Reperformance. Cambridge. Day, J.W., 2016, “Servants of the goddess: Female religious agency in archaic and fifth-century Greek epigrams and dedications”. In L. Foschia & E. Santin (eds), L’épigramme dans tous ses états: épigraphiques, littéraires, historiques. Lyon, doi:10.4000/books.enseditions.5889. Degani, E., 1981, “Nosside”. GFF 4, 43–52. Dillon, M., 2002, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. LondonNew York. Fanfani, G. et al., 2016, “Textile and clothing imagery in Greek and Latin literature: structuring, ordering and dissembling”. In G. Fanfani et al. (eds), Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom. The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature. Oxford-Philadelphia, 323–339. Foxhall, L., 2012, “Family time: temporality, gender and materiality in ancient Greece”. In J. Marincola et al. (eds), Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras: History without Historians. Edinburgh, 183–206. Foxhall, L., 2013, Studying gender in classical antiquity. New York. Furley, W.D., 2010, “Life in a line: a reading of dedicatory epigrams from the archaic and classical period”. In M. Baumbach et al. (eds), Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram. Cambridge, 151–166. Geagan, D.J., 2011, The Athenian Agora, 18. Inscriptions. The dedicatory monuments. Princeton. Gow, A.S.F. & Page, D.L., 1965, The Greek anthology, [1.] Hellenistic epigrams. Cambridge. GPh  Gow, A.S.F. & Page, D.L., 1968, The Greek Anthology, [2.] The Garland of Philip and Some Contemporary Epigrams. Cambridge. Gutzwiller, K.J., 1998, Poetic Garlands. Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley-London. Hansen, P.A., 1983, Carmina Epigraphica Graeca. 1. Berolini-Novi Eboraci. Harder, A., 2012, Callimachus. Aetia. Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary. Oxford. Harlow, M. & M.-L. Nosch (eds), 2014, Greek and Roman Textiles and Dress. An Interdisciplinary Anthology. Oxford-Philadelphia. Hauser, E., 2016, “In her own words: the semantics of female authorship in ancient Greece, from Sappho to Nossis”. Ramus 45, 133–164. HE, see Gow & Page (1965). Karanika, A., 2014, Voices at Work. Women, Performance, and Labor in Ancient Greece. Baltimore. Keesling, C.M., 2005, “Heavenly bodies. Monuments to prostitutes in Greek sanctuaries”. In L. McClure & C.A. Faraone (eds), Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison, 59–76. Kron, U., 1996, “Priesthoods, dedications, and euergetism. What part did religion play in the political and social status of Greek women?”. In: P. Hellström

FEMALE GAZE IN DEDICATIONS: THE CASE OF NOSSIS

211

& B. Alroth (eds), Religion and Power in the Ancient Greek World. Uppsala, 139–182. Licciardello, F., 2018, Deixis and Frames of Reference in Hellenistic Dedicatory Epigrams. PhD Thesis, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Liviabella Furiani, P., 1991, “Intimità e socialità in Nosside di Locri”. In: F. De Martino (ed.), Rose di Pieria. Bari, 177–195. Murray, J. & J.M. Rowland, 2007, “Gendered voices in Hellenistic epigram”. In: P. Bing & J. Bruss (eds), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram. Down to Philip. Leiden-Boston, 211–232. Natsina, C., 2012, “The debt towards Aphrodite: female dedicators and their interrelations with the goddess in votive epigrams of the Greek Anthology”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Gods and Religion in Hellenistic Poetry. LeuvenParis-Walpole, MA, 249–279. Neri, see Neri 2003 Neri, C., 1994, “Erinna in Eronda”. Eikasmos 5, 221–232. Neri, C., 2003, Erinna. Testimonianze e frammenti. Bologna. Neri, C., 2016, “Erinna’s Loom”. In: Fanfani, G. et al. (eds), Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom. The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature. Oxford-Philadelphia, 195-216. Neri, C. & F. Cinti, 2017, Saffo. Poesie, frammenti e testimonianze. Santarcangelo, RN. Oldfather, W.A., 1927, “Lokroi”. In: RE 13/2, 1135–1288. Pf. Pfeiffer, R., 1949 (1), 1953 (2), Callimachus, 2 vols. Oxonii. Prioux, É., 2008, Petits musées en vers: epigramme et discours sur les collections antiques. Paris. Sens Sens, A., 2011, Asclepiades of Samos. Epigrams and Fragments. Oxford. Skinner, M.B., 1987, “Greek women and the metronymic. A note on an epigram by Nossis”. AHB 1, 39–42. Skinner, M.B., 1989, “Sapphic Nossis”. Arethusa 22, 5–18. Skinner, M.B., 2001, “Ladies’ day at the art institute: Theocritus, Herodas, and the gendered gaze”. In: A. Lardinois & L. McClure (eds), Making Silence Speak. Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society. Princeton, 201–222. Skinner, M.B., 2005, “Nossis Thêlyglôssos. The private text and the public book”. In: E. Greene (ed.), Women Poets in Ancient Greece and Rome. Norman, 112–138. Tsagalis, C., 2008, Inscribing Sorrow. Fourth-Century Attic Funerary Epigrams. Berlin-New York. Tueller, M.A., 2008, Look Who’s Talking. Innovation in Voice and Identity in Hellenistic Epigram. Leuven. V. Voigt, E.M., 1971, Sappho et Alcaeus. Amsterdam. West, M.L., 1977, “Erinna”. ZPE 25, 95-119.

SIT BACK AND WATCH: FEMALE POWER IN CALLIMACHUS’ HYMN TO DEMETER1 Fabiana LOPES DA SILVEIRA ABSTRACT The present paper focuses on how various acts of looking are presented in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, and on some interpretive implications of the adoption of a female perspective from which the reader is invited to watch Demeter’s power and character. The first section demonstrates the importance given to the act of looking already from the opening lines of the hymn. The second section argues that the mixture of comic and tragic elements in the account of Erysichthon’s story and the manner in which Demeter interacts with him result in a form of dark humour. The third section focuses on the punishment of males by females due to male transgressive acts (of looking, mainly) and deepens the connections between gender and dark humour in the hymn. Some of these arguments are articulated in comparison with film. However anachronistic this may sound at first glance, approaches of this sort have proven to be a helpful tool for enriching the interpretation of ancient works.2

1. The first glimpse(s) of divine power In order to better illustrate how the act of looking functions in the first lines of Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, it would be helpful to compare them to the beginning of another mimetic hymn in the collection,3 namely the Hymn to Apollo:4 1. This paper first came about as a presentation at the seminar “Callimachus’ Hymns”, organised by Professor Felix Budelmann at the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford in 2018. Many thanks to Prof. Budelmann and all the colleagues that attended the seminar for the fruitful discussions, especially Dr. Theodora Hadjimichael and Emily Clifford (whose presentation on the Hymn to Athena inspired me to investigate the ways of looking in the Hymn to Demeter). I also thank the attendants of the Workshop for their remarks, suggestions and recommendations that have greatly helped me improve this paper, especially Professors Annette Harder, Jackie Murray, Annemarie Ambühl and Dr. Thomas Nelson. 2. For instance, Kozak (2017). 3. I follow the use of the term ‘mimetic’ as presented by Harder (1992: 386), who understands a mimetic passage as one in which “the speaker is either addressing himself as a fictional character or addressing other fictional characters”. For a thorough account of scholarship on the topic and an attentive investigation of the matter in Callimachus’ mimetic hymns, see Vestrheim (2012). On this aspect with regard to Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, specifically, see Gramps (2018). 4. Translation Stephens (2015) for all of Callimachus’ hymns mentioned here.

214

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

οἷον ὁ τὠπόλλωνος ἐσείσατο δάφνινος ὅρπηξ, οἷα δ᾽ ὅλον τὸ μέλαθρον· ἑκὰς ἑκὰς ὅστις ἀλιτρός. καὶ δή που τὰ θύρετρα καλῷ ποδὶ Φοῖβος ἀράσσει· οὐχ ὁράᾳς; ἐπένευσεν ὁ Δήλιος ἡδύ τι φοῖνιξ ἐξαπίνης, ὁ δὲ κύκνος ἐν ἠέρι καλὸν ἀείδει. αὐτοὶ νῦν κατοχῆες ἀνακλίνασθε πυλάων, αὐταὶ δὲ κληῖδες· ὁ γὰρ θεὸς οὐκέτι μακρήν· (Call. Ap. 1-7) How Apollo’s laurel branch shakes! How the whole edifice shakes! Begone, begone, whoever is sinful! It surely must be Apollo kicking at the doors with his fair foot. Do you not see? The Delian palm gently nodded its head, (5) of a sudden, and the swan sings beautifully in the air. Now you doorfastenings open of your own accord, and you bolts! The god is no longer far away.

As observed by Stephens (2015: 73; see bibliography ad loc.), the reader is left quite unsure as to whose voice is speaking throughout the hymn. This uncertainty creates a disorienting effect, one amplified by the visual disorientation also taking place in these opening lines.5 The scene is built by the isolating of distinct elements, each having its own main sentence: the laurel branch, the building, the doors, the foot, then the palm, and the swan. This sequence produces a rather cinematic effect, as if the scene consisted of a series of cut-out frames that progressively allow the readerspectator (οὐχ ὁράᾳς;) to build the cultic context of the narrative. Spatial disorientation is also at play by the mentioning of both the Delphic laurel and the Delian palm: the location of the ritual, just as the hymn’s voice, remains unidentifiable.6 Similar mechanisms occur in the opening lines of Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter: τῶ καλάθω κατιόντος ἐπιφθέγξασθε, γυναῖκες· ῾Δάματερ, μέγα χαῖρε, πολυτρόφε πουλυμέδιμνε.᾽ τὸν κάλαθον κατιόντα χαμαὶ θασεῖσθε, βέβαλοι, μηδ᾽ ἀπὸ τῶ τέγεος μηδ᾽ ὑψόθεν αὐγάσσησθε μὴ παῖς μηδὲ γυνὰ μηδ᾽ ἃ κατεχεύατο χαίταν, μηδ᾽ ὅκ᾽ ἀφ᾽ αὑαλέων στομάτων πτύωμες ἄπαστοι. Ἕσπερος ἐκ νεφέων ἐσκέψατο – πανίκα νεῖται; (Call. Cer. 1-7) As the basket returns, speak out, women: ‘a great welcome, Demeter, the nurturer of many, the provider of much corn.’ You will watch the returning basket from the ground, uninitiated, (5) not from the roof, nor from above 5. This spatial/visual disorientation was noted by Xavier Buxton at his presentation about Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo at the Callimachus’ Hymns Seminar (see note 1). 6. This is further complicated by the associations with Cyrene in lines 65-95 (Stephens 2015: 74 and bibliography ad loc.).

SIT BACK AND WATCH

215

let any child or woman gaze, not even one who has let her hair down, not even when we spit from parched mouths in our fasting. Hesperus has watched from the clouds – when will it arrive?

Similarly to the Hymn to Apollo, this hymn starts with a scene of mortals worshipping a deity. The voice, again anonymous (but later shown to be that of a woman; see below), provides ritual instructions. The opening line of both hymns also presents a specific object that has associations with each god: a basket in the Hymn to Demeter7 and a laurel branch in the Hymn to Apollo. Both scenes are also filled with anticipation: in the Hymn to Apollo, of Apollo’s epiphany, in the Hymn to Demeter, of the arrival of the basket. Nonetheless, while in the Hymn to Apollo the visual disorientation comes from a constant change in external focus, i.e. what we are looking at, in the Hymn to Demeter the disorientation comes from a change in internal focus, i.e. who is looking (or not allowed to look), and where from (as highlighted in the quotation above: each spectator is in italics, each spatial reference underlined, and each verb for watching in bold). The effect of these visual shifts is again cinematic: the ‘camera’ moves progressively from the ground up to the clouds as the first ones to appear are the uninitiated (βέβαλοι) watching the basket on the ground (χαμαί), followed by the roof above, where no child or woman is allowed to gaze (αὐγάσσησθε), until the reader is prompted to go even higher, as Hesperus watches from the clouds (ἐκ νεφέων). Despite the different approach, the changes in both spatial and subjective perspectives also produce ‘cut-out-frames’ that slowly build the ritual scene. Also disorienting are the allusions to ritual. On the one hand, the use of the first person plural πατεῦμες in line 124 (Stephens 2015: 263) when the interlocutors are female confirms that the narrator is a female taking part in the ritual; this, combined with the facts that these women are fasting and that the procession takes place in the evening, strongly suggests the second day of the female-only Thesmophoria, called Nesteia.8 On the other hand, the references to initiation in line 3 (βέβαλοι) and in lines 128-129 as well as the ceremonial basket, seem like allusions to the Eleusinian Mysteries,9 which were attended by both men and women. A plausible middle ground is considered by Stephens (2015: 265): “it is possible (…) to imagine that Callimachus was addressing only women 7. An object that has been associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries (Clem.Al. Prot. 2.21.2). 8. Foley (1994: 72); Stephens (2015: 265). 9. See n. 7 and Stephens (2015: 265).

216

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

in a mixed-gender mystery rite.”10 The following sections may reinforce the second view as they demonstrate how much the interpretation of the hymn proposed here gains from an imagined setting where observers from each gender may have different responses to the female perspective showcased by the narrator – in fact, the acknowledgement of different subjectivities watching in the first lines forecasts that. The moment when the ‘camera’ moves up to the clouds and adopts Hesperus’ perspective serves as a way of interweaving ‘real time’, i.e. the start of the evening, and ‘mythic time’, i.e. Demeter’s fasting and wandering in search for Persephone: Ἕσπερος, ὅς τε πιεῖν Δαμάτερα μῶνος ἔπεισεν, ἁρπαγίμας ὅκ᾽ ἄπυστα μετέστιχεν ἴχνια κώρας. πότνια, πῶς σε δύναντο πόδες φέρεν ἔστ᾽ ἐπὶ δυθμάς, ἔστ᾽ ἐπὶ τὼς Μέλανας καὶ ὅπα τὰ χρύσεα μᾶλα; οὐ πίες οὔτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἔδες τῆνον χρόνον οὐδὲ λοέσσα. τρὶς μὲν δὴ διέβας Ἀχελώϊον ἀργυροδίναν, τοσσάκι δ᾽ ἀενάων ποταμῶν ἐπέρασας ἕκαστον, τρὶς δ᾽ ἐπὶ Καλλιχόρῳ χαμάδις ἐκαθίσσαο φρητί αὐσταλέα ἄποτός τε καὶ οὐ φάγες οὐδὲ λοέσσα. μὴ μὴ ταῦτα λέγωμες ἃ δάκρυον ἄγαγε Δηοῖ· (Call. Cer. 8-17) Hesperus, who alone persuaded Demeter to drink, when she followed the undetectable tracks of the girl who was carried off. (10) Mistress, how could your feet carry you as far as the sun’s setting, as far as the Black Men, and where the golden apples are? You did not drink, you did not eat during that time, you did not even bathe. Three times indeed you crossed the silver eddy of the Acheloüs, as many times you crossed each of the ever-flowing rivers; (15) three times you sank to the ground by the well of Callichorus, parched and thirsty, and you did not eat or bathe. Do not, do not speak things that bring a tear to Deo.

In other words, the visual moving of the ‘camera’ from lower to higher interacts with the moving from mortal action to immortal action. Faulkner (2011: 76) has argued how the plea not to ‘speak things that bring a tear to Deo’ sounds misleading at first, as the main story of Callimachus’ hymn, namely Erysichthon’s cutting of Demeter’s tree in her sacred grove, is yet another unfortunate episode for the goddess. By the end of the hymn, however, we are given a sense that Demeter has the last laugh – and a malicious one, as the following sections try to demonstrate.

10. See also Murray (2019: 254-255).

SIT BACK AND WATCH

217

2. Dark humour The dubious manner with which Demeter is portrayed by the female narrator has a sinister component. When Demeter senses her tree is in pain, she is immediately angry (χωσαμένα), but she still speaks to Erysichthon soothingly (παραψύχοισα) and calls him ‘child’ (τέκνον): ᾄσθετο Δαμάτηρ, ὅτι οἱ ξύλον ἱερὸν ἄλγει, εἶπε δὲ χωσαμένα· ‘τίς μοι καλὰ δένδρεα κόπτει;’ αὐτίκα Νικίππᾳ, τάν οἱ πόλις ἀράτειραν δαμοσίαν ἔστασαν, ἐείσατο, γέντο δὲ χειρί στέμματα καὶ μάκωνα, κατωμαδίαν δ᾽ ἔχε κλᾷδα. φᾶ δὲ παραψύχοισα κακὸν καὶ ἀναιδέα φῶτα· ‘τέκνον, ὅτις τὰ θεοῖσιν ἀνειμένα δένδρεα κόπτεις, τέκνον, ἐλίνυσον, τέκνον πολύθεστε τοκεῦσι, παύεο καὶ θεράποντας ἀπότρεπε, μή τι χαλεφθῇ πότνια Δαμάτηρ, τᾶς ἱερὸν ἐκκεραΐζεις.’ (Call. Cer. 40-49) Demeter sensed that her sacred wood was in pain, and spoke in her anger: ‘Who is cutting my beautiful trees?’ Immediately, she assumed the likeness of Nicippe, whom the city had appointed as her public priestess, and she took a garland and a poppy in her hand, and held a key against her shoulder. (45) She spoke soothingly to the base and shameless man: ‘Child, you who are chopping down trees dedicated to the gods, child, cease, child much prayed for by your parents, stop, and dismiss your attendants, so that Mistress Demeter does not at all grow angry; you are devastating her sacred place.’

While Demeter’s way of addressing Erysichthon at this point make her sound like a patient maternal figure, the reader already knows that the goddess is angry (χωσαμένα). This opens up the possibility of Demeter’s sweet tone being somewhat insincere – significantly at a point in the narrative where Demeter is in fact in disguise. The context may also add a layer of mockery in Demeter’s use of τέκνον, as this story takes place when Erysichthon is a youth still living in his parents’ house (Murray 2019: 259): this fact not only contributes to the hymn’s overall “female orientation”,11 but also “allows the narrator”, in this case through Demeter, “to treat Erysichthon as an overgrown baby” (Murray 2019: 259).12 These aspects considered, the way in which Demeter calls Erysichthon

11. “Since babies and children were the concern of female members of the household, this infantilization of Erysichthon contributes to the female orientation and subjectivity of Callimachus’ persona” (Murray 2019: 259). 12. Murray (2019: 259) points out how this infantilisation is also performed by other characters in the hymn: “even his father refers to him as a baby, brephos (100)”.

218

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

a ‘child’ here sounds more sarcastic and menacing than comforting and affectionate. Still, Erysichthon dismisses the warning in the most arrogant way, to his own dismay: εἶπεν ὁ παῖς, Νέμεσις δὲ κακὰν ἐγράψατο φωνάν. Δαμάτηρ δ᾽ ἄφατόν τι κοτέσσατο, γείνατο δ᾽ ἁ θεύς· ἴθματα μὲν χέρσω, κεφαλὰ δέ οἱ ἅψατ᾽ Ὀλύμπω. οἱ μὲν ἄρ᾽ ἡμιθνῆτες, ἐπεὶ τὰν πότνιαν εἶδον, ἐξαπίνας ἀπόρουσαν ἐνὶ δρυσὶ χαλκὸν ἀφέντες. ἁ δ᾽ ἄλλως μὲν ἔασεν, ἀναγκαίᾳ γὰρ ἕποντο δεσποτικὰν ὑπὸ χεῖρα, βαρὺν δ᾽ ἀπαμείψατ᾽ ἄνακτα· ‘ναὶ ναί, τεύχεο δῶμα, κύον κύον, ᾧ ἔνι δαῖτας ποιησεῖς· θαμιναὶ γὰρ ἐς ὕστερον εἰλαπίναι τοι.’ (Call. Cer. 56-64) The boy spoke, and Nemesis kept the account of his evil speech. Demeter was unspeakably angry, and she became the goddess. Her feet were on the ground, but her head touched Olympus. The attendants, half-dead when they saw the lady, (60) suddenly fled and left their bronze in the trees. And she let the rest go, for they followed by necessity under a despotic hand, but she replied to their overbearing master: ‘Yes, yes, build your chamber, dog, dog; and in it you will make feasts. In the future your banquets will crowd upon each other.’

The contrast in address upon Demeter’s epiphany is striking. The goddess goes from ‘child, child’ to ‘dog, dog’: when Demeter allows her real form to be seen, she also reveals her ‘true colours’. The sharp change may also highlight the mocking connotation of ‘child, child’. The way in which Erysichthon’s fate is told in the hymn also hints at the complexity of Callimachus’ Demeter and female narrator. Towards the end of the hymn, Erysichthon’s insatiable hunger becomes unsustainable to his family: μέστα μὲν ἐν Τριόπαο δόμοις ἔτι χρήματα κεῖτο, μῶνον ἄρ᾽ οἰκεῖοι θάλαμοι κακὸν ἠπίσταντο. ἀλλ᾽ ὅκα τὸν βαθὺν οἶκον ἀνεξήραναν ὀδόντες, καὶ τόχ᾽ ὁ βασιλῆος ἐνὶ τριόδοισι καθῆστο αἰτίζων ἀκόλως τε καὶ ἔκβολα λύματα δαιτός. Δάματερ, μὴ τῆνος ἐμὶν φίλος, ὅς τοι ἀπεχθής, εἴη μηδ᾽ ὁμότοιχος· ἐμοὶ κακογείτονες ἐχθροί. (Call. Cer. 111-117) As long as there was money in Triopas’ halls, only his private chambers knew of the evil, but when his teeth had drained the house’s deep pockets, then the son of the king sat in the crossroads, (115) begging for morsels and refuse cast out from the feast. Demeter, do not let that one be a friend to me who is hateful to you nor be a neighbor.

SIT BACK AND WATCH

219

This tragic, Oedipus-like ending of a king’s son as a beggar at a crossroads (Heyworth 2004: 157) strangely contrasts with the humorous depiction of Erysichthon’s endless hunger that precedes it, when his parents keep finding flimsy excuses (relatable even to the modern reader) for the absence of their son in social gatherings, lest he would eat virtually anything in front of him: οὔτε νιν εἰς ἐράνως οὔτε ξυνδείπνια πέμπον αἰδόμενοι γονέες, προχάνα δ᾽ εὑρίσκετο πᾶσα. ἦνθον Ἰτωνιάδος νιν Ἀθαναίας ἐπ᾽ ἄεθλα Ὀρμενίδαι καλέοντες· ἀπ᾽ ὦν ἀρνήσατο μάτηρ· ‘οὐκ ἔνδοι, χθιζὸς γὰρ ἐπὶ Κραννῶνα βέβακε τέλθος ἀπαιτησῶν ἑκατὸν βόας.’ ἦνθε Πολυξώ, μάτηρ Ἀκτορίωνος, ἐπεὶ γάμον ἄρτυε παιδί, ἀμφότερον Τριόπαν τε καὶ υἱέα κικλήσκοισα. τὰν δὲ γυνὰ βαρύθυμος ἀμείβετο δακρύοισα· ‘νεῖταί τοι Τριόπας, Ἐρυσίχθονα δ᾽ ἤλασε κάπρος Πίνδον ἀν᾽ εὐάγκειαν, ὁ δ᾽ ἐννέα φάεα κεῖται.’ δειλαία φιλότεκνε, τί δ᾽ οὐκ ἐψεύσαο, μᾶτερ; δαίνυεν εἰλαπίναν τις· ‘ἐν ἀλλοτρίᾳ Ἐρυσίχθων.’ ἄγετό τις νύμφαν· ‘Ἐρυσίχθονα δίσκος ἔτυψεν’, ἢ ‘ἔπεσ᾽ ἐξ ἵππων’, ἢ ‘ἐν Ὄθρυϊ ποίμνι᾽ ἀμιθρεῖ.’ ἐνδόμυχος δἤπειτα πανάμερος εἰλαπιναστάς ἤσθιε μυρία πάντα· (Call. Cer. 72-88) His parents, in their shame, did not send him to feasts or common banquets; every excuse was found. The Ormenidae came, inviting him to the games in honor of Itonian Athena. (75) His mother put them off. ‘He is not in; yesterday he went to Crannon, collecting a hundred oxen in payment of a debt.’ Polyxo came, the mother of Actorion, for she was arranging a marriage for her child, inviting both, Triopas and his son. (80) The woman answered her weeping and with a heavy heart: ‘Triopas will attend, but a boar has wounded Erysichthon in the fair dales of the Pindus, and he has been lying sick for nine days.’ Wretched mother, who loves her son, what lies did you not tell? Someone invited him to a feast: ‘Erysichthon is out of town.’ (85) Someone was getting married: ‘A discus struck Erysichthon,’ or ‘He fell from his chariot,’ or ‘He is counting the flocks on Othrys.’ In the inmost part of the house, then, an all-day banqueter, he consumed a myriad of things.

The apostrophe ‘Wretched mother, who loves her son, what lies did you not tell?’, Murray (2019: 261) observes, “reinforces the mock-epic tone of the hymn, evoking the frequent use of the device in the Iliad”. The effect reached by this clash between seriousness and humour can be well illustrated by means of another comparison with cinema, this time a specific film. Something slightly similar happens in the 1971 Stanley Kubrick classic A Clockwork Orange, based on the book with

220

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

the same name by Anthony Burgess (1962). The scene in question is the one in which Alex, the main character played by Malcom McDowell, attacks a husband and wife (who is also sexually abused) while dancing to and singing the song “Singin’ in the Rain”, by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. Malcom McDowell later revealed in interviews how the scene came about: as he simply carried out his act of ‘ultraviolence’, McDowell says, the scene “just didn’t work. It was very flat” (McDowell in LoBrutto 1997: 366). Kubrick, then, instructed the actor to sing and dance (LoBrutto 1997: 365), which led McDowell to spontaneously start singing the song. The intriguing aspect of this otherwise grotesque scene is that the sinister nature of Alex was only truly conveyed in film when a light-hearted and joyous song from a musical-romantic comedy film overlapped with his extreme act of violence.13 It was this overlap that expressed Alex’s lack of empathy and his cruelty in the most efficient, yet brutal way. A similar effect takes place in Callimachus’ hymn when the very tragic fate of a mortal is mixed with comic elements.14 This, added to the fact that the hymn’s narrator refuses to sing the things that brought tears to Demeter in line 17, teases the reader to see a certain level of dark humour and sadism in the goddess’s punishment and in how it is told by the narrator: there seems to be a vengeful sense of enjoyment in Erysichthon’s suffering. This act of punishment may not seem necessarily related to gender at first glance, but if one considers the many ways in which Erysichthon’s deed and subsequent suffering echoes Demeter’s distressing experiences and suffering provoked by male deities (namely Hades, who abducts Persephone, and Zeus, who assists him) in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, it is evident that the treatment Demeter gives Erysichthon in Callimachus’ hymn is tinged with rage towards other male malefactors.15 13. Another example of cheerful songs accompanying scenes of physical violence is found in the Argentinian movie El Clan (2015), by Pablo Trapero. Admittedly, this overlap between joyousness and violence is not exclusive to film or the arts in general: it is reported to happen in war crimes, for instance. Many thanks to Prof. Harder for making these observations. 14. For comedic elements in tragedy, see Seidensticker (1982), in particular chapter 5.4 (Seidensticker 1982: 115-129) about Euripides’ Bacchae – this play has important links with Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, as the following section discusses. 15. Bing (1996) and Faulkner (2011) mention a number of links between the Homeric and the Callimachean hymns to Demeter. From a thematic standpoint, both hymns address Demeter’s anger (χωσαμένη, h.Cer. 91; χωσαμένα, Call. Cer. 41) triggered by a violation of things dear to her – of Persephone by Hades in the Homeric hymn, and of the tree by Erysichthon in Callimachus’ (Persephone and the tree react in the same way when assaulted: they ‘shriek’ (ἰάχησε, h.Cer. 20; ἴαχεν, Call. Cer. 39). In both hymns, Demeter inflicts hunger (λιμός): in the Homeric hymn, against all mankind by causing a drought, and in Callimachus against Erysichthon, who is punished by feeling perpetually hungry. Erysichthon’s hunger also echoes Demeter’s own fasting both in Callimachus and in the

SIT BACK AND WATCH

221

3. Male transgressions, female punishments There are other passages of the hymn where the tension between genders is more evident. One of them also occurs in the encounter between Demeter and Erysichthon. When the goddess first addresses the mortal, still in disguise, Erysichthon’s way of looking is compared to that of a lioness in an extended, epic-like simile: τὰν δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὑποβλέψας χαλεπώτερον ἠὲ κυναγόν ὤρεσιν ἐν Τμαρίοισιν ὑποβλέπει ἄνδρα λέαινα ὠμοτόκος, τᾶς φαντὶ πέλειν βλοσυρώτατον ὄμμα, ‘χάζευ’, ἔφα, ‘μή τοι πέλεκυν μέγαν ἐν χροῒ πάξω. ταῦτα δ᾽ ἐμὸν θησεῖ στεγανὸν δόμον, ᾧ ἔνι δαῖτας αἰὲν ἐμοῖς ἑτάροισιν ἄδην θυμαρέας ἀξῶ.’ (Call. Cer. 50-55) Glaring at her more fiercely than the lioness who has given birth gazes at a hunter in the Tmarian mountains (they say her eyes are then the fiercest), ‘Go away,’ he said, ‘lest I stick my great axe in your flesh! These will make my hall securely roofed, in which I shall provide savory banquets (55) for my companions in abundance.’

Bing (1996: 35) draws special attention to the oddity in the crossing of genders, i.e. having a male character being compared to a female animal. Assuming that the setting of the hymn is probably the Thesmophoria (Bing 1996: 34), Bing claims that this simile would be more familiar to the feminine world and a way of portraying the speaker “as speaking woman to woman” (Bing 1996: 35). Murray (2019: 254-255) argues for greater complexity: “Erysichthon’s glare (masculine) is fixed on the goddess disguised as her priestess (feminine); this is compared to the glare of the lioness (feminine) fixed on a hunter (masculine)”. The importance of “the tension between genders” at play here, she adds, “is stressed by the position of ἄνδρα beside λέαινα” (Murray 2019: 261). The gender tension expressed in the lioness simile could also be yet another instance of female-oriented humour (Murray 2019) in the hymn. This can be demonstrated by two different passages which are very Homeric hymn. By the end of his myth (Call. Cer. 114), Erysichthon sits (καθῆστο) at the meeting of three roads (τριόδοισι), an echo of Demeter sitting three times at the well of Callichorus in Callimachus (τρὶς δ᾽ ἐπὶ Καλλιχόρῳ χαμάδις ἐκαθίσσαο, Call. Cer. 15). Both passages also allude to dirt, with Erysichthon’s begging for scraps from a feast (Call. Cer. 115) and Demeter not washing herself (Call. Cer. 12). Demeter’s food and drink deprivation, in turn, is also associated with her sitting down in the Homeric hymn (h.Cer. 200-201). Harder (2019) also identifies in Callimachus’ hymn a number of allusions to Homeric epic (mostly the Iliad) that “suggest a view of Erysichthon as a character which (…) is acting against the standards set by Homer” (Harder 2019: 143), thus reinforcing the notion of male misconduct.

222

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

relevant to Callimachus’. The first, pointed out by many (for instance, Bing 1996: 32), is a similar comparison found in Euripides’ Medea, where Medea’s look is also described as that of a lioness: καίτοι τοκάδος δέργμα λεαίνης ἀποταυροῦται δμωσίν, ὅταν τις μῦθον προφέρων πέλας ὁρμηθῇ. (E. Med. 187-189) … though she glowers at the servants with the look of a lioness with cubs when any of them approaches her with something to say.16

The allusion to Medea in Callimachus leads to Erysichthon being compared not only to a female animal (the gender overlap in itself can be a way of demeaning his masculinity), but also to an angry, revengeful female, when he is about to become the target of an angry female’s revenge himself.17 If the first layer of the simile (Erysichthon is like a lioness) ‘threatens’ his masculinity by giving him female features, the second layer of the simile (Erysichthon is like Medea) threatens his masculinity by reminding the reader of how dangerous an underestimated female can be. Thus, both subversions of the passage (1. the simile serves a man rather than a woman; 2. the male looks like a hurt vindictive female when he is about to be punished by one) result in a subversion of the power dynamics between male and female: what is a joke to the female part of the audience is a warning to its male counterpart.18 The second related passage is an “extended epic-like simile” (Bing 1996: 32) that occurs in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter – this is in fact the longest instance of one in the Homeric hymns (Bing 1996: 32). As similes are uncommon both in the Homeric and in Callimachus’ hymns (Bing 1988: 123),19 it seems quite likely that Callimachus had the Homeric antecedent in mind when writing the lioness simile in his hymn to the same goddess. The circumstances in which Callimachus’ simile occurs indeed seems to nod to those of the Homeric one: the Homeric simile 16. Translation Kovacs (1994). 17. When commenting on other similes featuring cubs threatened by hunters, Ambühl (2021 forthcoming) observes how “similes depicting animal families establish a narrative of parental love”. In this sense, the parental protection instinct depicted in Erysichthon’s lioness simile could also nod to Demeter’s own maternal instinct towards both Persephone (in which case, the hunter would stand for Hades) and her tree (see n. 15). Many thanks to Prof. Ambühl for sharing her very helpful article with me before its publication. 18. The assertion of female power by means of humour in the hymn may be reinforced by the proposition made by Kidder (this volume: 142-144) that Demeter may stand for a Ptolemaic queen and that the hymn may have been written to please the queen and her circle. 19. The similes found in Callimachus, Bing (1988: 123) also points out, are listed in Lapp (1965).

SIT BACK AND WATCH

223

happens when Demeter is still disguised as a mortal and is applied to Demeter’s interlocutors – young women she encounters at the outskirts of Eleusis and addresses as τέκνα (h.Cer. 119 and 136; this clearly relates to Demeter’s address of Erysichthon as τέκνον – see previous section). Demeter begs for a place where she could find shelter, and the girls do not hesitate to help the woman:20 … ταὶ δὲ φαεινά πλησάμεναι ὕδατος φέρον ἄγγεα κυδιάουσαι. ῥίμφα δὲ πατρὸς ἵκοντο μέγαν δόμον, ὦκα δὲ μητρί ἔννεπον ὡς εἶδόν τε καὶ ἔκλυον· ἣ δὲ μάλ᾽ ὦκα ἐλθούσας ἐκέλευε καλεῖν ἐπ᾽ ἀπείρονι μισθῶι. αἳ δ᾽ ὥς τ᾽ ἠ᾽ ἔλαφοι ἢ πόρτιες εἴαρος ὥρηι ἅλλοντ᾽ ἂν λειμῶνα κορεσσάμεναι φρένα φορβῆς, ὣς αἳ ἐπισχόμεναι ἑανῶν πτύχας ἱμεροέντων ἤϊξαν κοίλην κατ᾽ ἀμαξιτόν, ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται ὤμοις ἀΐσσοντο κροκηΐωι ἄνθει ὁμοῖαι. τέτμον δ᾽ ἐγγὺς ὁδοῦ κυδρὴν θεόν, ἔνθα πάρος περ κάλλιπον· αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα φίλα πρὸς δώματα πατρός ἡγέονθ᾽… (h.Cer. 169-181) … so they filled their gleaming pails with water and carried them away with heads held high. They soon reached their father’s mansion, and quickly told their mother what they had seen and heard. She told them to go quickly and invite the woman to come, at an unstinting wage. They then, like deer or heifers in springtime who frisk over the meadow after feeding their fill, drew up the folds of their lovely dresses and ran along the rutted carriageway, their saffron-yellow hair flying about their shoulders. They found the glorious goddess by the roadside where they had left her, and then they led the way to their father’s dear house…

Similar to what Callimachus’ would later do with Erysichthon, the young women are here compared with animals. As carefully analysed by Richardson (1974: 202), the Homeric simile carries an allusion as well, in this case to Il. 15. 263 ff., “where Hector is compared to a horse galloping out to pasture, and immediately after the Greeks are compared to dogs chasing deer or wild goats” (1974: 202). The allusion also plays with gender, as the masculine echo of war-like Hector serves a delicate scene of young women running with their hair flying.21 20. Translation West (2013). 21. It is also worth mentioning that h.Cer. 169-181 is echoed in Apollonius’ Argonautica (3.871-5) when describing Medea’s maidservants accompanying her in a chariot: “The echo hints at a similarity between Demeter and Medea” (Hunter 1989: 193). It is beyond the scope of this paper to address the relative chronology between Callimachus and Apollonius, but an observation by Hunter (1993: xvi) seems relevant here: “most scholars see Apollonius as borrowing constantly from Callimachus, and this may often be

224

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

Despite these similarities, the similes in the Homeric hymn and in Callimachus’ have almost opposite implications. While in the Homeric hymn the simile embellishes the women who honour Demeter, giving the narrative a flavour of joyous femininity, the simile in Callimachus denigrates a man who dishonours the goddess, while giving the narrative a taste of sinister femininity instead. This shift in Callimachus’ allusion seems quite coherent with the overall portrayal of Demeter’s character in the hymn as per argued in the previous section. In a way, it accompanies Demeter’s own shift from the sweet form of address ‘child, child’ to the mean ‘dog, dog’ (see previous section). The simile in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter “may reflect part of the ceremonies at Eleusis, i.e. a procession or ritual dance, led by the priestesses, of whom the daughters of Celeus may be the prototypes” Richardson (1974: 201). While the references to the girls’ trailing robes (h.Cer. 176) and loose hair (h.Cer. 177-178) seem natural to a poem from the archaic period, “their occurrence together is suggestive, since they are often mentioned in connection with festivals and cults” (Richardson 1974: 203).22 If this is compared to the simile in Callimachus, there seems to be a shift in power which is, yet again, connected to gender. In Callimachus, ritualistic femininity is not merely what is spoken of: it is what speaks – the simile is uttered by a female narrator in a ritualistic setting. In this case, replacing the Homeric simile that echoes epic for one that echoes tragedy, a genre in which women are known to be given more voice,23 is just as significant.24 a correct assessment (…); we must remember, however, that it is very likely that poets read and discussed each other’s work in a constant process of dialogue and revision before ‘publication’, and so to see the problem as merely one of establishing ‘priority’ may well convey a misleading impression of what was actually happening”. The Demeter-Medea connection would be reinforced if either of the two poets wrote their respective passages with their contemporary’s in mind. Many thanks to Dr. Thomas Nelson for pointing out this echo. 22. Most of them being, however, cults of Bacchus and Cybele (see references in Richardson 1974: 203). 23. Of course, this does not mean that a woman’s act of speaking is often cherished in Greek tragedy – it is often quite the opposite (see Roisman 2004; McClure 1999; Lopes da Silveira 2018). For gender-genre tensions, see Murray (2019). 24. Bing (1996: 35-36 n. 28) also hints at this conclusion: “if the feminine aspect of Callimachus’ simile is illuminated by reference to its model in the Medea, its novelty in a hymnic framework may be brought out by contrast with its counterpart in the Homeric Hymn. As previously noted (…), one of the very rare instances of an extended simile in the Homeric Hymns (…) occurs at Homeric Hymn to Demeter vv. 174-178 (…): its voicing and style are studiously epic. If Callimachus is indeed recalling that simile in his overall context even as he draws on the very different model of Euripides, that recollection serves to highlight the transformation undergone by the traditional hymnic narrative voice”. Stephens (2015: 285) associates Callimachus’ lioness simile with epic rather than

SIT BACK AND WATCH

225

The allusion to tragedy and the subversion of power in the context of female-dominated ritual activity evoke Euripides’ Bacchae. Pentheus and Erysichthon are both males punished by females, and both their transgressions are anticipated by the ‘transgression’ of them being somehow dressed as females – Pentheus in the literal sense, and Erysichthon by means of the lioness simile. The moment of both their punishments is also associated with a transgressive act of looking: Pentheus tries to spy on the women taking part in the rites (κατάσκοπον, E. Ba. 981), and Erysichthon looks at Demeter with defiant anger. The link is strengthened even more by the indication of Demeter and Dionysus having a similar response to hybris (Heyworth 2004: 156-157), right after Demeter’s epiphany and her imposing of a ‘cruel and fierce hunger’ (χαλεπόν τε καὶ ἄγριον… λιμόν, Cer. 66) upon Erysichthon:25 σχέτλιος, ὅσσα πάσαιτο τόσων ἔχεν ἵμερος αὖτις. εἴκατι δαῖτα πένοντο, δυώδεκα δ᾽ οἶνον ἄφυσσον. καὶ γὰρ τᾷ Δάματρι συνωργίσθη Διόνυσος τόσσα Διώνυσον γὰρ ἃ καὶ Δάματρα χαλέπτει. (Call. Cer. 68-70) Wretched one, as much as he ate, the desire for as much immediately took him. Twenty labored for his feasting, twelve drew his wine. (70) What angered Demeter also angered Dionysus. For Dionysus grew angry along with Demeter.

Heyworth (2004: 155) also observes that both Pentheus and Erysichthon are given warning of the danger of their intents and proceed anyway. “The way that the god then plays with the mortal fool may disgust our sensibilities, but in both the tragedy and the hymn, the wickedness of the man has been demonstrated first” (Heyworth 2004: 155). The off-putting ending of these two characters reminds one of another punishment of a male by dismemberment, this one in Herodotus: Κλεομένης δὲ παραλαβὼν τὸν σίδηρον ἄρχετο ἐκ τῶν κνημέων ἑωυτὸν λωβώμενος· ἐπιτάμνων γὰρ κατὰ μῆκος τὰς σάρκας προέβαινε ἐκ τῶν κνημέων ἐς τοὺς μηρούς, ἐκ δὲ τῶν μηρῶν ἔς τε τὰ ἰσχία καὶ τὰς tragedy, namely “Il. 17.133-36, where Ajax, standing guard over a fallen comrade, is likened to a male lion with his young”. The effect would not be dissimilar to the Medea allusion in making Erysichthon less masculine: “Callimachus transposes this to the more common example of the lioness, and in so doing ironizes the simile” (Stephens 2015: 285) – though, rather than irony, this could simply reflect the fact that Callimachus had the option to use the feminine while “Homer does not yet have a specific term for the lioness (λέαινα) but uses the masculine form as a common gender noun” (Ambühl 2021 forthcoming; see also Bing 1996: 35 n. 27). 25. For an interpretation of Demeter and Dionysus as Ptolemaic queen and king, see Kidder in this volume.

226

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

λαπάρας, ἐς ὃ ἐς τὴν γαστέρα ἀπίκετο, καὶ ταύτην καταχορδεύων ἀπέθανε τρόπῳ τοιούτῳ, ὡς μὲν οἱ πολλοὶ λέγουσι Ἐλλήνων, ὅτι τὴν Πυθίην ἀνέγνωσε τὰ περὶ Δημαρήτου λέγειν γενόμενα, ὡς δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι μοῦνοι λέγουσι, διότι ἐς Ἐλευσῖνα ἐσβαλὼν ἔκειρε τὸ τέμενος τῶν θεῶν, ὡς δὲ Ἀργεῖοι, ὅτι ἐξ ἱροῦ αὐτῶν τοῦ Ἄργου Ἀργείων τοὺς καταφυγόντας ἐκ τῆς μάχης καταγινέων κατέκοπτε καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ ἄλσος ἐν ἀλογίῃ ἔχων ἐνέπρησε. (Hdt. 6.75) Then Cleomenes took the weapon and set about gashing himself from his shins upwards; from the shin to the thigh he cut his flesh lengthways, and from the thigh to the hip and the flank, till he reached the belly, and cut it into strips; thus he died, as the most of the Greeks say, because he over-persuaded the Pythian priestess to tell the tale of Demaratus; as the Athenians say (but none other) because he invaded Eleusis and laid waste the precinct of the gods; and as the Argives say, because when Argives had taken refuge after the battle in their temple of Argus he brought them out thence and cut them down, and held the sacred grove itself in no regard but burnt it.26

Faulkner (2011: 87) mentions this passage as parallel to Ovid’s rendition of Erysichthon’s tale in Met. 8.875-878, which culminates in autophagy. But the invasion of Eleusis and destruction of the τέμενος of the gods (Demeter being clearly implied) could also be relevant for Callimachus. Firstly, the verb for Cleomenes’ act of destruction, κείρω, can also mean ‘to cut’. Secondly, the Argives’ version of the story is that Cleomenes cut them down (κατέκοπτε) and burned the sacred grove (τὸ ἄλσος). These might be echoed in Callimachus’ story by means of Erysichthon’s cutting of Demeter’s tree.27 In fact, the cutting of a male’s body becomes associated with the Thesmophoria later. In a fragment attributed to Aelian (fr. 47 Hercher), Battus longed to experience the mysteries of law-giving Demeter and applied violence (προσῆγε βίαν) with ‘gluttonous eyes’ (λίχνοις ὀφθαλμοῖς). The priestesses tried to hold him back unsuccessfully, with 26. Translation Godley (2014). 27. This hypothesis relates another possible allusion to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in Callimachus, also put forward by Bing (1996: 33). He refers to the Homeric passage in which the goddess is taking care of Demophon, saying that she knows “a powerful counter-cut to beat the herb-cutter” (οἶδα γὰρ ἀντίτομον μέγα φέρτερον ὑλοτόμοιο, h.Cer. 229). The term ὑλοτόμος has puzzled scholars for a long time (e.g. Richardson 1974: 230; Foley 1994: 48 and bibliography ad loc.), their best possible solution being that it refers to someone who cuts herbs for magico-medical purposes. But it seems that the word never appears in this sense elsewhere: “whether as adjective or noun, or in the verbal form ὑλοτομεῖν, it refers to cutting wood” (Bing 1996: 33). Bing’s theory is that Callimachus could have been intrigued by this oddity to the point of bringing plant-cutting to the very centre of his own hymn. For a possible allusion to Homeric epic in Erysichthon’s cutting of the tree, see Harder (2019: 124-125).

SIT BACK AND WATCH

227

the result that the priestesses leaped upon him to take off ‘the part of him that made him a man’. A sense of male anxiety about what women could do when in charge of a ritual (Zeitlin 1982: 146) seems to linger. The eye-related image above may actually have been inspired by Callimachus. As Erysichthon’s father laments his son’s fate to Poseidon, he says that νῦν δὲ κακὰ βούβρωστις ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσι κάθηται (‘now evil ox-hunger sits in his eyes’, Call. Cer. 102) – the phrase seems to reflect a punishment for both his greedy attitude towards the tree and his transgressive look towards Demeter at once. This fable-like lesson for behavior had actually been forecasted earlier in the hymn, in a line that was unfortunately damaged in the archetype. The remains of the passage are a purpose clause (ἵνα) about avoiding transgression (ὑπερβασίας) followed by an infinitive related to sight (ἰδέσθαι) – these are the last verses before Erysichthon’s story: κάλλιον, ὡς (ἵνα καί τις ὑπερβασίας ἀλέηται) π – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏑ ἰδέσθαι. (Cer. 22-23) (…) better, how (so that one may avoid going too far)… to see.

While the extant evidence does not allow one to reconstruct the passage reliably, a connection between (avoiding) transgression and the act of looking seems quite likely. This, in turn, relates to one of the many connections between Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter and his Hymn to Athena (Lav.Pall.).28 There, a mortal male is also punished for a transgressive look at a female goddess – even though the context for Tiresias’ act of looking is clearly different from Erysichthon’s.29 Heyworth (2004: 156) has argued for a relationship between both hymns for their tragic components, “by evoking a sense of choral performance and an audience” (2004: 156) – yet another element of watching. The strong emphasis both hymns place on the suffering of the victims’ parents also seems to create the sense of an audience, this one within the stories themselves. The effect in both hymns is rather brutal: the inclusion of the parents’ perspective in watching their children’s suffering adds an element of cruelty to the divine punishment – it is not 28. Both hymns are mimetic; both create “an imagined ritual setting” (Hopkinson 1984: 13); both use the doric dialect etc (Hopkinson 1984: 13-17). 29. Firstly, unlike Erysichthon’s, Tiresias’ act of looking is unintentional (οὐκ ἐθέλων, Lav.Pall. 78); secondly, the problem with Tiresias’ act of looking is that Athena is undressed when she had not previously allowed the mortal to look at her under these circumstances, while the problem with Erysichthon’s action is the defiance in his look.

228

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

by chance that the same A Clockwork Orange scene mentioned in the previous section has the husband tied in a corner watching his wife get abused and his whole house get destroyed. The possibility of Demeter’s actions in the Callimachean hymn being a form of double revenge (i.e. for both what happened in Callimachus’ and in the Homeric hymn; see previous section) reappears here: a mother who knows very well the pain of having a child in peril in the hands a god now causes similar pain herself.

4. Final remarks Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter clearly nods to its Homeric antecedent in how overwhelming Demeter’s power can be, and in how her power is connected to gender. In the Homeric hymn, Demeter threatens not only mankind with her drought, but also the gods who are deprived ‘of their honorific gifts and their sacrifices’ (γεράων τ᾽ ἐρικυδέα τιμήν / καὶ θυσιῶν ἤμερσεν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντας, h.Cer. 311-312). The situation gets so critical that Zeus makes every one of the gods go to Demeter one by one in lines 325-326, begging her to return to Olympus for a reconciliation (αὖτις ἔπειτα μάκαρας θεοὺς αἰὲν ἐόντας / πάντας ἐπιπροΐαλλεν, ‘father sent all the blessed eternal gods, one after the other’).30 The way in which the Homeric hymn puts Demeter, Persephone, and Hecate on one side, and Zeus, Hades, and Helios on the other, as well as the elaboration on Demeter as a maternal figure not only towards her own daughter, but also towards Demophon, show how gender is already a fundamental aspect of the power tensions that arise in the Homeric hymn.31 This is also implied in line 138 of Callimachus’ hymn (μέγα κρείοισα θεάων, ‘most powerful of the divinities’ – note the feminine θεάων), that closes the poem. Therefore, if we accept that the original order in which these hymns were arranged corresponds to the canonical order, one could argue that Callimachus’ sequence is framed by the two genealogically oldest and most authoritative deities praised in the collection – the male on one end (the Hymn to Zeus), and the female on the other (the Hymn to Demeter). The fact that the first word of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus is a genitive masculine (Ζηνός, Jov. 1) and that the last word of his 30. For the contrasting view that Demeter’s drought in the Homeric hymn is a manifestation powerlessness rather than power, see Kidder in this volume (146). 31. See Foley 1994 (especially 103-137) and Murray (2019).

SIT BACK AND WATCH

229

Hymn to Demeter is a genitive feminine (θεάων, Cer. 138)32 reinforces the connection between these two compositions as the (male) beginning and the (female) ending of Callimachus’ cycle of hymns. Callimachus’ hymn is also strongly connected to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in how Demeter’s character is portrayed as complex, severe, and dark – all effects which, nonetheless, Callimachus achieves by means of his own. By situating the hymn in the context of a mixedgender ritual with a strong emphasis on watching, one is invited to take a peek from a female perspective in order for the women to laugh at and the men to be warned by the bad male exemplum in the face of a goddess who does not punish moderately. By overlapping tragic and comic elements, Demeter’s complexity gains extra texture, her severity becomes ruthless, and her darkness borders the perverse. Yet she remains the provider of abundance (Cer. 134-138), and her ambiguous nature of a maternal goddess who is at times loving and nurturing, at other times bitter and depriving,33 is well kept. REFERENCES Ambühl, A., 2021 (forthcoming), “Animal Similes in Roman Imperial Epic in Their Literary, Cultural, and Political Contexts”. In: A. Oegema et al. (eds), Parables, Fables and Similes in the Graeco-Roman World (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, Tübingen. Bing, P., 1988, The Well-Read Muse, Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets. Göttingen. Bing, P., 1996, “Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter”. SyllClass 6, 29-42. Cahen, É., 1930, Les hymnes de Callimaque: Commentaire explicatif et critique. Paris. Clay, J.S., 1989, The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns. Bristol. Detienne, M., 1989, “The Violence of Wellborn Ladies: Women in the Thesmophoria”. In: M. Detienne & J. Vernant. (eds), The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Chicago-London, 129-147. Faulkner, A., 2011, “Fast, Famine, and Feast: Food for Thought in Callimachus’ ‘Hymn to Demeter”. HSPh 106, 75-95. Foley, H.P., 1994, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary and Interpretative Essays. Princeton. Godley, A.D., 2014, Herodotus: The Persian Wars. With an English Translation by A.D. Godley. Cambridge, MA.

32. As pointed out by Professor Stephen Heyworth on the occasion of my presentation of this material in the referred Seminar (cf. note 1). 33. See Cahen (1930: 261).

230

FABIANA LOPES DA SILVEIRA

Gramps, A., 2018, “Rethinking ‘Mimetic Poetry’ and Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), 2018, Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 23). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA. Harder, M.A., 1992, “Insubstantial voices: Some Observations on the Hymns of Callimachus”. CQ 42:2, 384-394. Harder, M.A., 2019, “From Scamander to Demeter: Allusions to Homer in the Sixth Hymn of Callimachus”. In: J.J.H. Klooster et al. (eds), Callimachus Revisited (Hellenistica Groningana 24), Leuven-Paris-Dudley, 121-145. Hercher, R., 1864-1866, Claudii Aeliani De natura animalium libri XVII: Varia historia; Epistolae; Fragmenta. Leipzig. Heyworth, S.J., 2004, “Looking into the River: Literary History and Interpretation in Callimachus, Hymns 5 and 6”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Callimachus II (Hellenistica Groningana 7). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 139159. Hopkinson, N., 1984, Callimachus: Hymn to Demeter. Cambridge. Hunter, R.L., 1989, Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III. Cambridge. Hunter, R.L., 1993, Jason and the Golden Fleece (The Argonautica). Oxford. Kovacs, D., 1994, Euripides: Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea. Cambridge, MA & London. Kozak, L., 2017, Experiencing Hektor: Character in the Iliad. LondonNew York. Lapp, F., 1965, De Callimachi Cyraneaei Tropis et Figuris. Thesis. Bonn. LoBrutto, V., 1997, Stanley Kubrick. London. Lopes da Silveira, F., 2018, “Brazilian Voices in the Making: Paulo Pontes, Chico Buarque and Euripides’ Medea”. St Anne’s Academic Review 8. McClure, L., 1999, Spoken Like A Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama. Princeton. Murray, J., 2019, “Poetically Erect: The Female Oriented Humor in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter”. In: J.J.H. Klooster et al. (eds), Callimachus Revisited (Hellenistica Groningana 24), Leuven-Paris-Dudley, 249-263. Richardson, N. J., 1974, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Oxford. Roisman, H. M., 2004, “Women’s Free Speech in Greek Tragedy”. In: I. Sluiter & R. M. Rosen (eds), Free Speech in Classical Antiquity. Leiden. Seidensticker, B., 1982. Palintonos Harmonia: Studien zu komischen Elementen in der griechischen Tragödie. Göttingen. Stephens, S. A., 2015, Callimachus: The Hymns. Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. New York. Vestrheim, G., 2012, “Voice and Addressee in the Mimetic Hymns of Callimachus”. SO 86:1, 21-73. West, M., 2003, Homeric Hymns; Homeric Apocrypha; Lives of Homer. Cambridge, MA. Zeitlin, F. I., 1982, “Cultic Models of the Female: Rites of Dionysus and Demeter”. Arethusa 15:1, 129-157.

HUNTRESS AND MIDWIFE: TWO ASPECTS OF ARTEMIS IN HELLENISTIC POETRY Davide MASSIMO ABSTRACT Scholars have highlighted how the cult of Artemis is subject to several developments over time in Greek religion and in its literary representations: in particular, by the Hellenistic period Artemis had become a more complex goddess whose powers and domains overlapped with those of other deities such as Hecate and Eileithyia. In this paper, I will contribute to this line of reasoning by analysing some elements (the arrows, the chiton, the Nymphs) which Hellenistic poets (especially Callimachus) associated with Artemis, showing that they mirror a more complex cult reality and at the same time create a complex layer of allusions.1

1. Introduction: Artemis and her literary representations Artemis is a complex deity, one that underwent many changes and transformations in Greek religion.2 She occupies a marginal role in Homer and Hesiod and is mainly portrayed as a slayer of women, a representation that left a deep mark in epic or epicising portraits of her, but that does not seem to do justice to her widespread and complex cult (cf. Petrovic 2010). Her main character as a goddess has been summarised by Wilamowitz’s formula ‘Göttin des Draußen’3 (‘Goddess of the Outdoors’): she rules over the wilderness, but also presides over the transition from wilderness to civilisation and civilised life. This is expressed in her link to rites of passage for both sexes, such as the female rites at Brauron and the male ones at Sparta. She is deeply connected to the feminine world and its transitions, including a girl’s coming of age, her development of sexual 1. The core of this paper originated during an Oxford Seminar on Callimachus’ Hymns in Michaelmas Term 2018: I am grateful to the audience of that seminar for feedback. Though I did not present this paper at the 2019 Groningen Workshop, I benefited greatly from all the papers and related discussions from that occasion and from individual feedback that I received at later stages. I wish to thank Jacopo Khalil, Jacqueline Klooster, Massimo Giuseppetti, and Enrico Emanuele Prodi and for their feedback, and Thomas Nelson for the many suggestions on specific points and for polishing the English. 2. For a general overview, cf. Graf-Ley (2006), Föcking (2010); a classic account is in Burkert (1985: 149-152). 3. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1931/32: 177).

232

DAVIDE MASSIMO

maturity (cf. the word νύμφη and the association of Artemis with Nymphs),4 and childbirth.5 Concerning this last aspect, already in Classical times and more often in the Hellenistic period she is associated or identified with Eileithyia, the pre-Hellenic goddess of childbirth (for which see below). In Asia Minor she is more linked to city cults, a notion that also spreads westwards during Hellenistic times. Ivana Petrovic has extensively studied the development of Artemis’ cult and her literary representations in the Hellenistic period.6 She argued that Callimachus played a prominent role in this development with his Hymn to Artemis, which enacted a ‘literary makeover’ of the Homeric Artemis, balancing a respect for the epic model alongside new, contemporary religious changes, such as Artemis’ transformation into a ‘city goddess’. This builds on her previous research on the cult of Artemis in Theocritus and Callimachus,7 which argued more broadly for the reflection of contemporary cult practices in the work of both poets. In this paper, I intend to build on Petrovic’s work and develop an even more nuanced picture by introducing some other Hellenistic texts as comparanda for the portrayal of Artemis, which will help to give us new and different interpretations. Two prominent aspects that seem to emerge are the image of Artemis as a huntress and that of Artemis as helper in childbirth: the juxtaposition of the two is the result of the complex religious aspect of Artemis which we have outlined above. As we shall see, however, numerous Hellenistic texts subtly play on this underlying ambivalence at the heart of the goddess’ presentation.8

2. Artemis and childbirth It goes without saying that childbirth is a fundamental moment of life and therefore it was natural for Greeks to entrust it to some divine power. This power was Eileithyia, a pre-Hellenic goddess who already figures 4. Cf. Larson (2001: 100-120). 5. For an overview on Artemis and women, cf. King (1993). 6. Petrovic (2010). 7. Petrovic (2007). 8. Hymn 3 is an ‘especially complex’ one (Hutchinson 1988:68) and there is abundant bibliography on it. Since I am less interested here in its purely literary aspects, I refrain from an extensive bibliographical account: some points of reference remain Herter (1929), McKay (1963), Bing-Uhrmeister (1994), and several papers contained in Harder et al. (1993) and (2004); on the different images of Artemis in the Hymn, cf. Rodríguez Maldonado (2014); for a recent overview, cf. Stephens (2015). Furthermore, there are two new forthcoming commentaries on the Hymn by Zsolt Adorjáni and Ivana Petrovic.

HUNTRESS AND MIDWIFE: TWO ASPECTS OF ARTEMIS IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

233

in Linear B tablets found in Knossos and Amnisos (where there is a sacred cave mentioned in Hom. Od. 19.188).9 The function of Eileithyia is to preside over childbirth, and she is usually invoked for this end in both literary sources (e.g. the opening of Pi. N. 7) and inscriptions.10 Over time, Eileithyia’s powers were gradually co-opted by Artemis, who was assimilated to her or at least shared her patronage over childbirth already in the Classical period.11 Many epithets of Artemis refer to this prerogative: λοχία or λοχεία (aiding birth, e.g. Eur. IT 1097), λυσίζωνος (who loosens the belt, e.g. Plut. Symp. 3.10, Schol. A. R. 1.288), μογοστόκος (of birth-pangs, e.g. Theoc. Id. 27.29), σοωδίνα (saving in travail, IG VII 3407), ὠκυλόχεια (who speeds the travail, Hymn. Orph. 36.8). However, Artemis was also the virgin goddess par excellence. Already in antiquity, her simultaneous association with both virginity and childbirth was regarded as striking and in need of an explanation. Callimachus devoted an aition to this very issue in the Aetia, although this section of the poem is unfortunately known to us only in the fragmentary and summarized form of the Diegesis:12 Tεῦ δὲ χάρινο[ κικλήc-] κουσιν ἑξῆ[c] φ[ηcι γυναῖκαc δ]υcτοκούcαc τὴν Ἄρτε[μιν καίπερ ο]ὖcαν παρθένον ἐπ[ικαλεῖν, ὅτι] τη ἀπεκυήθη, ἢ ὅτι δ[ιὰ ἐφημοc]ύνην τοῦ Διὸc ἡ Εἰλείθυια [αύτὴν] τοῦτ’ ἔχειν ἔδωκεν ἐξ[α]ίρετον, ἢ διότι τὴν ἑαυτῆc μητ[έρα ἐ]λύcατο τῶν ὠδίνων ὅτε ἀπέτικτεν τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα. (Diegesis I 27-36 = FF 79-79a Pfeiffer / Harder = 182 Massimilla)

9. For an overview on Eileithyia, cf. Graf (2006) with older bibliography. In the Iliad she is mentioned three times, plus once in the plural as Εἰλείθυιαι, daughters of Hera (Il. 16.187). The goddess is also called the daughter of Hera from Hesiod (Th. 922) onwards. 10. For information on inscriptions and dedications for Eileithyia, as well as cult practices, cf. also Pingiatoglou (1981), and esp. pp. 144-170 for a catalogue of literary and epigraphic sources. Note that the spelling of her name varies according to the source and the material transmission of the text: Εἰλείθυια, Ἐλείθυια, Ἐλείθυα, Ἱλείθυα, Ἑλείθυα, are all attested. 11. Some early examples of this are A. Suppl. 676, Eur. Hipp. 161-169, Eur. IT 10901100. Cf. Pingiatoglou (1981) and Graf (2006) for cultic evidence on Eileithyia invoked as a form of Artemis in specific cult sites. 12. On this issue in Callimachus, cf. Tapia Zúñiga (1991-1992).

234

DAVIDE MASSIMO

Why do they call… Next he says that women who are having difficulty in giving birth invoke Artemis, although she is a virgin, because she was born …,13 or because Eileithyia allowed her to have this privilege because of an order from Zeus, or because she relieved her own mother from pain when she bore Apollo.14

This is a case where Callimachus gives competing aetiologies. As Fantuzzi-Hunter remarked: 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 find Callimachus concerned to provide a complete and internally consistent account. (Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 57)

That Callimachus did not commit to a specific explanation might be further evidenced by the fact that all three reasons given in the aition find a parallel in other Callimachean texts:15 for the idea that Artemis does not cause pain to the mother during childbirth (if the hypothesis on the lacuna is correct), cf. Hymn 3.22-25;16 the link between Eileithyia and Artemis seems to be suggested by Callim. Ia. F 202.1 Pfeiffer;17 and the suggestion that Artemis relieved the pain of Leto during Apollo’s birth is compatible with the version of this episode narrated in Callimachus’ Hymn 4, where Artemis is born before her brother. In addition to this, Callimachus mentions Eileithyia on three other occasions in the Hymns (Hymn 1.12, 4.257, 6.131), plus in ep. 53 Pf. (= 23 GP). Taken together, the Aetia fragment and these other mentions show Callimachus’ deep awareness of and interest in Artemis/Eileithyia’s role in childbirth. And yet, at first glance, this role seems marginal in the poet’s Hymn to Artemis. As I shall argue here, however, a series of details in this Hymn in fact demonstrate Callimachus’ awareness of Artemis’ complex cultic aspects, which also find parallels in other Hellenistic texts. 13. Massimilla (2010:398) and Harder (2012.2: 669) hypothesise that the first reason is that Artemis did not cause her mother pain when she was born. 14. Text and translation are quoted from Harder (2012). 15. cf. Harder (2012) and Massimilla (2010) ad locum. 16. …ᾗσί με Μοῖραι / γεινομένην τὸ πρῶτον ἐπεκλήρωσαν ἀρήγειν, / ὅττι με καὶ τίκτουσα καὶ οὐκ ἤλγησε φέρουσα / μήτηρ, ἀλλ’ ἀμογητὶ φίλων ἀπεθήκατο γυίων, “The Fates ordained me to help them when I was first being born, because my mother did not suffer pain either in carrying me or giving me birth, but she released me effortlessly from her own womb.” (Unless otherwise stated, translations of the Hymns are from Stephens (2015)). 17. Ἄρτεμι Κρηταῖον Ἀμνισοῦ πέδον: cf. Pfeiffer ad locum and Petrovic (2007: 251-252).

HUNTRESS AND MIDWIFE: TWO ASPECTS OF ARTEMIS IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

235

2.2 The Chiton At Hymn 3.225, Artemis is hailed as Χιτώνη, a cult-title that is also mentioned in Hymn 1.77-78 (…ἐπακτῆρας δὲ Χιτώνης / Ἀρτέμιδος, “[we say that] hunters [belong to] Artemis Chitone”). Bearing in mind Artemis’ request to Zeus at the beginning of Hymn 3 (ll. 11-12, ἀλλὰ φαεσφορίην τε καὶ ἐς γόνυ μέχρι χιτῶνα / ζώννυσθαι λεγνωτόν, ἵν’ἄγρια θηρία καίνω, “and grant me to wear an embroidered chiton, reaching to my knees, so that I can slay wild beasts”),18 one might be tempted to associate this epithet to her short tunic suitable for hunting. Such interpretation, however, would be slightly simplistic and misleading insofar as it would not account for the complexity of the divine figure.19 A subtler explanation is to be sought elsewhere. The scholium to Hymn 1.77 offers a helpful pointer: Νηλεὺς ὁ Κόδρου ἀποικίαν θέμενος ἀπὸ Ἀθηνῶν ἔλαβε χρησμὸν ἐγεῖραι ξόανον τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι ἀπὸ παγκάρπων ξύλον. Καὶ δήποτε ἑορτῆς τελουμένης τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι ἐν τῇ Χιτώνῃ (ἔστι δὲ δῆμος τῆς Ἀττικῆς) ἀπελθὼν εὗρε δρῦν πάμπολυν καὶ διάφορον ἔχουσαν ἠρτημένον καρπόν. Καὶ ἐκ τούτου ἐποίησεν ἄγαλμα τῇ θεᾷ καὶ οὕτω μετῴκησεν ἐν Μιλήτω. ἀπὸ τοῦ δήμου οὖν ἔσχε τὴν ὀνομασίαν ἡ Ἄρτεμις· ἢ ὅτι τικτομένων τῶν βρεφῶν ἀνετίθεσαν τὰ ἱμάτια τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι. Neleus, son of Codrus, wanting to found a colony from Athens, received an oracle ordering him to erect a statue of Artemis with wood from different trees. So, once, after leaving a procession in honour of Artemis at Chitone (that is an Attic deme) he found a large oak which had many fruits. From that he made a statue for the goddess and so he settled in Miletus. Therefore, Artemis got this name from the deme. Alternatively, because when children are born the himatia are dedicated to Artemis.20

This scholium is rather interesting. The existence of an Attic deme called Chitone is not attested anywhere else and so its mention here has not been deemed trustworthy; the link with Attica itself is considered an invention of Callimachus or his sources (Herda 1998: 27). However, the link with Miletus is undoubtable. The cult of Artemis Κιθώνη (Ionic form of Χιτώνη) is attested in Miletus. The cult’s mythical foundation by Neleus is mentioned in Hymn 3.226, immediately after the goddess was hailed as Χιτώνη at l. 225 (cf. Bornmann 1998: 106); the festival in honour of Artemis Neleis is mentioned by Callimachus himself in 18. My translation. 19. As already noted by Herda (1998: 31 n.35), the comment ad locum by McLennan (1977: 115) is misleading (and so already was Mair (1955: 44 n.C, 79 n.F)) since it links the epithet only with the hunt. 20. Text quoted from Pfeiffer (1953); the translation is my own.

236

DAVIDE MASSIMO

Aet. FF 80-84 Pf. (= Harder) in the context of the story of Phrygius and Pieria. This cult has been extensively studied by Herda (1998), who showed that this epithet originates probably from the dedication of chitons in the yearly festivals of Νηληΐς,21 and who deems the Attic connection plausible because of the parallel of the clothing dedication in the cult of Artemis Brauronia. We have actual epigraphic records of the sanctuary of Brauron which includes different types of clothing.22 Some of these are garments of women who died during childbirth, a practice which is also attested by some Hellenistic dedicatory epigrams of the Greek Anthology. These epigrams address either Artemis and/or Eileithyia, again demonstrating the overlap of the two deities.23 One of the objects which is often dedicated is the belt, which women loosened when entering labour: hence the epithet λυσίζωνος, which is used, for example, by Theocritus (Id. 17.60, of Eileithyia invoked by Antigone, mother of Berenice I, when giving birth).24 Going back to Callimachus, in the light of these considerations, the use of the epithet Χιτώνη is somewhat ambiguous: it seems to be presented in contexts where it is linked to the image of Artemis as a huntress with a short tunic, but at the same time it is linked to an actual cult in which chitons were dedicated, a practice which is also attested by various sources. Behind this single epithet, thereby, lies an allusion to a more complex reality. 2.3. The arrows of Artemis Ever since her depictions in the Iliad, Artemis is seen using her bow and arrows while hunting. However, she does not only slay wild beasts, but also women.25 She seems to share this proclivity with her brother Apollo, 21. Herda (1998: 31). 22. Collected by Cleland (2005). See also the contribution of Petsalis-Diomidis (2018), who tries to integrate epigraphic and material records on clothes dedication with literary sources, including some Hellenistic epigrams. 23. These are: A.P. 6.200 = Leonidas 38 GP (Ambrosia dedicates a headband and garments to Eileithyia), A.P. 6.202 = Leonidas 1 GP (Atthis dedicates a belt and garments to Leto), A.P. 6.270 = Nicias 3 GP (Ampharetas dedicates garments to Eileithyia – this time before childbirth), A.P. 6.271 = Phaedimus 1 GP (Themistodike dedicates garments to Artemis after childbirth), A.P. 6.272 = Perses 2 GP (Timaessa dedicates a belt and garments to Leto), A.P. 6.273 = ‘Nossis’ 12 GP (Artemis is invoked to free Alketis from the pains of labour), A.P. 6.274 = Perses 3 GP (Tisis offers a brooch and diadem to Artemis-Eileithyia after childbirth). 24. On the function of clothes in the cult of Artemis, particularly in relation to women, cf. King (1993) and Lee (2012). 25. Hom. Il. 6.205, 6.428, 19.59, 24.606.

HUNTRESS AND MIDWIFE: TWO ASPECTS OF ARTEMIS IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

237

who is also known in the Iliad to shoot arrows at people who then die of a sudden death. The repartition of killings is rigidly gendered, and Apollo seems to always kill men whereas the death of women is caused only by Artemis.26 It is not clear whether for Apollo this is an old feature or if this was modelled after the behaviour of Artemis. For Artemis, however, this is certainly an original feature linked to her status as Huntress Goddess; the fact that the shafts are aimed at women and women alone will be due to her special connection to women as recalled above.27 The goddess also displays the same behaviour in the Odyssey,28 with the difference that here the sudden death of women is characterised as pleasant and peaceful.29 In one Homeric instance (Il. 11.270) the shafts are sent by Eileithyiai to women in labour – though not causing their death, the suffering inflicted by these goddesses is linked to their pain. In Callimachus’ Hymn 3, Artemis’ arrows have a prominent role. The youthful Artemis is about to ask Zeus for bow and arrows, but then corrects herself saying that the Cyclopes will fabricate them for her. The quest for these weapons occupies the central part of the Hymn: the request is reiterated before the Cyclopes and the motivation brought forward by Artemis is that she wants to be equal to her brother Apollo (l. 83, … καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ Λητωιὰς ὥσπερ Ἀπόλλων, “for I am a child of Leto, just as Apollo is”) and that she wants to slay wild beasts (ll. 84-85 μονιὸν δάκος ἤ τι πέλωρον θηρίον, “…[hunt] some solitary beast or some terrible creature”).30 At ll. 120-128, the narrator lists Artemis’ first targets after receiving her bow: the fourth occasion, the punishment of the city of the unjust men, results in terrible calamities which includes the death of women in childbirth (ll. 126-127 αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες…βληταὶ θνῄσκουσι λεχωίδες, “their wives die … stricken in childbirth”). That women dying in labour are killed by the arrows of Artemis is a new development, but quite an understandable one: she is already perceived as having much power over women’s life and death, and she was known to shoot arrows to kill women in the Iliad, so the link is not a huge conceptual leap; and the connection between Artemis and Eileithyia is well-established by this point, as we have seen. The choice of the arrows 26. This is also shown by the earliest literary attestation of the myth of the Niobids, i.e. Hom. Il. 24.602-617, in which Apollo kills the sons of Niobe while Artemis kills her daughters (cf. also schol. Hom. Il. 24.602). 27. On the whole matter, cf. Heubeck-Hoekstra (1989) on Od. 15.410 with further bibliography. 28. Od. 11.172-173, 11.324, 15.409-411, 18.202-203, 20.61-63, 20.80. 29. Cf. Petrovic (2010: 212). 30. This is a part of the larger theme of the Hymn of the competition of Artemis with Apollo, for which see Plantinga (2004).

238

DAVIDE MASSIMO

thus represents these two intertwined aspects: Artemis, the fierce huntress and killer of women, and Artemis who presides over childbirth. As we have already noted, women in childbirth also feature in several epigrams of the Greek Anthology, especially women who dedicate objects to plead for a successful childbirth. The latter group include epigrams variously addressed to Artemis or Eileithyia, who – as we have seen – share the same protective function. It is interesting how these poems play on the ambiguous function of the arrows, as in Callimachus’ Hymn. It is worth having a closer look at some of them. First, an epigram that was possibly composed by Nossis:31 Ἄρτεμι, Δᾶλον ἔχουσα καὶ Ὀρτυγίαν ἐρόεσσαν, τόξα μὲν εἰς κόλπους ἅγν’ ἀπόθου Χαρίτων, λοῦσαι δ’ Ἰνωπῷ καθαρὸν χρόα, βᾶθι δ’ † ἐς οἴκους λύσουσ’ ὠδίνων Ἀλκέτιν ἐκ χαλεπῶν. (A.P. 6.273 = ‘Nossis’ 12 GP) Artemis, lady of Delos and lovely Ortygia, lay by thy stainless bow in the bosom of the Graces, wash thee clean in Inopus, and come to Locri to deliver Alketis from the hard pangs of labour.32

Artemis is asked to set aside her bow and come to the help of Alketis who is giving birth. That is the traditional reading of the prayer: cf. Gow-Page (1965.2: 443), who suppose that washing in the Inopus offers a purification from hunting, and cite the parallel of A.R. 2.937 (ll. 937939 “[the Parthenius] a most gentle river, in which Leto’s daughter cools her body with its pleasing waters when she goes up to heaven from the hunt”; cf. also Callimachus, Aet. F 74.25). However, in another passage of Apollonius, Artemis is described as purifying herself in the waters of the river Parthenius or the Amnisus, together with the nymphs Amnisidae, without specification of the reason for purification: οἵη δέ λιαροῖσιν ἐφ᾿ ὕδασι Παρθενίοιο ἠὲ καὶ Ἀμνισοῖο λοεσσαμένη ποταμοῖο, χρυσείοις Λητωὶς ἐφ’ ἅρμασιν ἑστηυῖα ὠκείαις κεμάδεσσι διεξελάῃσι κολώνας, τηλόθεν ἀντιόωσα πολυκνίσου ἑκατόμβης· τῇ δ’ ἅμα νύμφαι ἕπονται ἀμορβάδες, αἱ μὲν ἀπ’ αὐτῆς ἀγρόμεναι πηγῆς Ἀμνισίδος, αἱ δὲ λιποῦσαι ἄλσεα καὶ σκοπιὰς πολυπίδακας, ἀμφὶ δὲ θῆρες κνυζηθμῷ σαίνουσιν ὑποτρομέοντες ἰοῦσαν… (A.R. 3.877-884) 31. The heading of the epigram in the manuscript is actually ὠς Νοσσίδος, which Gow-Page (1965.2: ad locum) interpret as a trace of ancient doubts over the authorship of this epigram. 32. Translation by Paton; cf. also Posidippus 56 AB, II.1-2.

HUNTRESS AND MIDWIFE: TWO ASPECTS OF ARTEMIS IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

239

And as after bathing in the mild waters of Parthenius, or the river Amnisus, Leto’s daughter stands upon her golden chariot and courses over the hills with her swift-footed roes, to greet from afar some richly-steaming hecatomb; and with her come the nymphs in attendance, gathering, some at the spring of Amnisus itself, others by the glens and many-fountained peaks; and round her whine and fawn the beasts cowering as she moves along …33

In this passage, Artemis serves as a point of comparison for Medea, a parallel that is motivated especially by the link between the goddess and marriage and childbirth, as Hunter points out (1989: 194). As Hunter further notes, “it is tempting to suppose that Artemis has been bathing in the river to cleanse herself of stains and pollution arising from her attendance at a birth (…) just as the Parthenios refreshes her after hunting.” Another factor to bear in mind is the series of river purification rituals for goddesses’ statues that are linked to their virginity (Guthrie 1950:103), which also lies behind the Bath of Pallas in Callimachus’ Hymn 5. In the light of these passages and conceptions, one wonders if Alketis’ prayer to Artemis to put aside her bow and come to help during childbirth might also hint at the goddess’ other function and the other use she makes of her deadly arrows: that is to say, Alketis hopes that Artemis does not come back from the hunt only to direct her arrows towards her in childbirth. Another example is Phaedimus 1 GP (= A.P. 6.271), a dedication to Artemis by Themistodike, who prays that the goddess take care of her newly born child:34 Ἄρτεμι, σοὶ τὰ πέδιλα Κιχησίου εἵσατο υἱὸς καὶ πέπλων ὀλίγον πτύγμα Θεμιστοδίκη, οὕνεκά οἱ πρηεῖα λεχοῖ δισσὰς ὑπερέσχες χεῖρας ἄτερ τόξου, πότνια, νισσομένη. Ἄρτεμι, νηπίαχον δὲ καὶ εἰσέτι παῖδα Λέοντος νεῦσον ἰδεῖν κοῦρον γυῖ’ ἐπαεξόμενον. Artemis, the son of Cichesias dedicated the shoes to thee, and Themistodice the simple folds of her gown, because that coming in gentle guise without thy bow thou didst hold thy two hands over her in labour. But Artemis, vouchsafe to see this baby boy of Leon’s grow great and strong.35

33. Translation by Seaton (adapted). 34. Phaedimus is tentatively placed by Gow-Page (1965.2: 453) in the 3rd century BC, even though only three of his epigrams survive and there are no other clues for chronology besides his style. 35. Translation by Paton. On the text of l.6, cf. Gow-Page (1965.2: 454).

240

DAVIDE MASSIMO

Here, Artemis is explicitly asked to come ἄτερ τόξου, ‘without the bow’. Gow-Page (1965.2: 443) want to make a distinction from ‘Nossis’ 12 GP, stating that, in this case, the phrase might refer to the shafts of Eileithyia: but besides the fact that there is not much scope for this distinction, given the identification or closeness of Artemis and Eileithyia, here too the author might be playing on the ambiguous role of the goddess’ arrows (even though one has to admit that it might be a ‘derivative’ play, i.e. Phaedimus is exploiting this feature drawn from other poets). To add to the complexity of the goddess, the last part of the prayer clearly refers to her role as Kουροτρόφος.36 A fragment of a curse-poem by Euphorion offers further evidence of the complex picture of Artemis and her arrows. The text is fragmentary, but several lines from the best-preserved section refer to the goddess: ἢ καί νιν σφεδανοῖο τανυσσαμένη ἀπὸ τόξου Ταιναρίη λοχίῃσι γυναικῶν ἐμπελάτειρα Ἄρτεμις ὠδίνεσσιν ἑῷ ταλάωρι μετάσποι. (Euphorion, F 9.10-12 Powell/Acosta-Hughes & Cusset)37 Or, taking aim from her death-dealing bow, May the Taenarian, visitor of child-birth pangs, Artemis, hunt him down with her arched weapon.38

The epithet ‘Taenarian’ has infernal connotations39 and clearly shows that Artemis is invoked in her aspect of Hecate as appropriate for the curse practice.40 She is asked to use her arrows to shoot down the target, a weapon that she is known to use in other contexts, i.e. to kill women in childbirth, which we have already mentioned above as a new development. It might also be worth mentioning that the so-called ‘Tattoo-elegy’, a fragmentary curse poem of unknown authorship from the Hellenistic age, features the scene of the Calydonian boar sent by Artemis.41 The fragmentary state of this poem does not allow for too much speculation, but in the context where infernal elements are mentioned one might read an allusion to Artemis’ darker aspect, Hecate. 36. On the topic, cf. Price (1978). 37. = F 12 Van Groningen = F 11 Lightfoot. 38. Translation by Lightfoot (2009: 225) and cf. n. 14 there on the gender of νιν. 39. Cape Taenarum was believed to be the an entrance of the Underworld (cf. e.g. Pi. Pyth. 4.43 ff., Ar. Ran. 187); cf. also A.R. 1.102 (Ταιναρίην ἀίδηλος ὑπὸ χθόνα δεσμὸς ἔρυκε). 40. On the link between Artemis and Hecate cf. Petrovic (2007:3-10) with further references. Cf. Cusset&Acosta-Hughes (2012: 38 n.62): “Artémis a sans doute ici un rôle menaçant et défavorable et il faut songer à l’Artémis capable de causer la mort subite des femmes”. 41. For a recent introduction and commentary to the ‘Tattoo Elegy’, cf. Rawles (2017).

HUNTRESS AND MIDWIFE: TWO ASPECTS OF ARTEMIS IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

241

The arrows are Artemis’ most prominent weapon and therefore it is natural that they are frequently mentioned in connection to her. However, it is interesting to note how, in the texts that we have analysed, the arrows allude to other, partially new functions of the goddess: they are not only aimed at wild beasts and women anymore, but also at pregnant women and objects of curses. Thus, they become another indicator of religious complexity. 2.4 The nymphs Amnisidae In Callimachus’ Hymn 3, a wide variety of Nymphs is associated with Artemis. However, this association has not been a constant in Greek religion, as Larson has pointed out (2001: 107-110). The Homeric simile of Nausicaa and her maidens compared to Artemis and the Nymphs established this image as canonical for epic: a clear later example is Apollonius’ reworking of the simile for Medea (A.R. 3.881-883);42 but apart from the epic genre, Nymphs do not seem to have been often or constantly associated with Artemis in cult practice, at least until the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It seems that with time this association strengthens, and it is then that the Nymphs are depicted as ‘handmaidens of Artemis’. As Larson puts it: The nymphs, then, have two functions in relation to Artemis. First, they serve as a divine escort of the type that many other deities, such as Aphrodite, Apollo, and Dionysos, have. Second, as has been well recognized by Calame and others, they, like Artemis herself, are mythopoetic representatives of the Greek maiden at adolescence. Artemis has a special relationship with her chorus: she herself is one of the chorus members, the most beautiful and outstanding, the one who leads the dance. As Burkert notes, her virginity is not asexual, like that of Athena, but is highly eroticized, just like that of the Greek maiden of marriageable age. Nymphs in their relations with Artemis are not themselves objects of cult, nor do they give or withhold blessings, but they are representative of the social rituals by which females come of age and take their place in society. (Larson 2001: 109)

Callimachus and Apollonius then seem to mirror this religious complexity. On one hand, they inherit the Homeric image of Artemis and her retinue of handmaid-nymphs; on the other hand, they offer a more complex image of the goddess. A hint of this complexity might be found in the mention of the Amnisidae nymphs.

42. Cf. Hunter (1989) ad locum.

242

DAVIDE MASSIMO

As we have seen above, Amnisos was a cult site of Eileithyia already in the Mycenaean age. It is therefore possible that the association of Artemis with the Amnisidae is a result of her association with Eileithyia, as Larson proposes (2001: 187-188). I. Petrovic has further elaborated on this interesting question (Petrovic 2007: 249-265). She argues that in Hymn 3 Callimachus is accurately reflecting contemporary developments in Artemis’ cult on Hellenistic Crete, which grew in popularity and was either associated with or completely replaced the local cult of Eileithyia: this would motivate the Amnisidae’s presence in the Hymn to Artemis (l. 15 and l. 162). She also suggests that Apollonius’ mention of the Amnisidae (A.R. 3.882, quoted above) is dependent on Callimachus (taking into account other elements that seem to show that Apollonius is influenced by the Hymn to Artemis). To sum up, Nymphs are increasingly associated with Artemis in Greek religion, and in a parallel way, Artemis’ association with Eileithyia also increases in cult practice and conceptions. The association of Artemis with the Amnisidae nymphs might well be a consequence of this latter development; but the fact that in the Hymn these Nymphs accompany Artemis in the hunt is a reminder of the complexity of the goddess and these semi-divine figures. Nymphs are not only associated with the feminine world and coming-of-age rituals, but they retain their link with the natural world, a link they share with Pan and Hermes,43 just like Artemis still remains a huntress goddess while retaining her power over the female world and some of its crucial moments, like childbirth. 3. Conclusion It has become clear in recent years that the cult of Artemis is more complex than imagined and, at the same time, that Callimachus and the Hellenistic poets do not exclusively or primarily use obscure material, but also probably refer to some contemporary religious practices which are not well documented for us. This picture can be better defined by integrating readings from other genres, which, either under the influence of Callimachus or independently, seem to mirror this very same religious complexity. It has been shown how some elements that are traditionally (though not constantly) associated with Artemis, namely the chiton, the arrows, and the Nymphs, reveal how complex this divine figure has become by the Hellenistic age. Putting literary evidence – including the 43. On associations between rustic deities, cf. Borgeaud (1988: 48), and esp. pp. 156157 on Artemis and Pan.

HUNTRESS AND MIDWIFE: TWO ASPECTS OF ARTEMIS IN HELLENISTIC POETRY

243

sometimes more neglected texts such as epigrams and fragmentary poetry – into dialogue with cult practice and material record might therefore help them illuminate one another and do justice both to these texts and to the religious phenomenon. REFERENCES Acosta-Hughes, B., & Cusset, C. (eds.), 2012, Euphorion. Œuvre poétique et autres fragments. Paris. Bing, P. & Uhrmeister, V., 1994, “The Unity of Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis”, JHS 114, 19-34. Bornmann, F., 1968, Callimachi Hymnus in Dianam. Florence. Borgeaud, P., 1988, The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece. Chicago; London. [translation of Borgeaud, P., 1979, Recherches sur le dieu Pan. Rome]. Burkert, W., 1985, Greek Religion, Cambridge (MA). [transl. from Burkert, W., 1977, Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche. Stuttgart.] Cleland, L., 2005, The Brauron Clothing Catalogues: Text, Analysis, Glossary, and Translation. Oxford. Fantuzzi, M. & Hunter, R., 2004, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge. Föcking, M, 2010, “Artemis”. In: Moog-Grünewald, M., Brill’s New Pauly Supplements I – Volume 4: The Reception of Myth and Mythology. Gow, A.S.F. & Page, D.L., 1965, The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams. 2 vols. Cambridge. Graf, F. & Ley, A., 2006, “Artemis”. In: Cancik, H. & Schneider, H. (eds), Brill’s New Pauly. Graf, F., 2006, “Eileithyia”, In: Cancik, H. & Schneider, H. (eds), Brill’s New Pauly. Guthrie, W.K.C., 1950, The Greeks and their gods. London. Harder, M.A., et al. (eds.), 1993, Callimachus. Groningen. Harder, M.A., et al. (eds.), 2004, Callimachus II. Groningen. Harder, M.A., 2012, Callimachus: Aetia. Oxford; New York. Haslam, M.W., 1993, “Callimachus’ Hymns”, in Harder, M.A. et al. (eds.), 1993, Callimachus. Groningen, 111-125. Herda, A., 1998, “Der Kult des Gründerheroen Neileos un die Artemis Kithone in Milet”, JÖAI 67, 1-48. Herter, H., 1929, “Kallimachos und Homer. Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation des Hymnos auf Artemis”. In: Xenia Bonnensia. Festschrift zum 75jahrigen Bestehen des Philologischen Vereins und Bonner Kreises (Bonn, 50-105) = Kleine Schriften (Munich 1975) 371-416. Heubeck, A. & Hoekstra, A., 1989, A commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, II: books IX-XVI. Oxford. Hunter, R., 1989, Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica Book III. Cambrdige. Hutchinson, G.O., 1988, Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford. King, H., 1993, “Bound to Bleed: Artemis and Greek Women”. In: Cameron, A. & Kuhrt, A. (eds.), Images of Women in Antiquity. London, 109-127.

244

DAVIDE MASSIMO

Larson, J., 2001, Greek Nymphs. Myth, Cult, Lore. Oxford. Lee, M. M., 2012, “Maternity and Miasma: Dress and the Transition from Parthenos to Gunē”. In: Hackworth Petersen, L. & Salzman-Mitchell, P. (eds.), Mothering and Motherhood in Ancient Greece and Rome, Austin, 23-42. Lightfoot, J. L, (2009), Hellenistic Collection: Philitas, Alexander of Aetolia, Hermesianax, Euphorion, Parthenius (Loeb Classical Library 508). Cambridge, MA; London. Massimilla, G., 1996, Callimaco. Aitia, Libri primo e secondo, Pisa. Massimilla, G., 2010, Callimaco. Aitia, Libri terzo e quarto, Pisa; Rome. McKay, K.J., 1963, “Mischief in Callimachus’ hymn to Artemis”, Mnemosyne 16, 245-249. McLennan, G. R., 1977, Hymn to Zeus. Rome. Petrovic, I., 2007, Von den Toren des Hades zu den Hallen des Olymp: Artemiskult bei Theokrit und Kallimachos. Leiden; Boston. Petrovic, I., 2010, “Transforming Artemis: from the goddess of the outdoors to city goddess”. In: Bremmer, J. N. & Erskine, A. (eds), 2010, The gods of ancient Greece: identities and transformations. Edinburgh, 209-227. Petsalis-Diomidis, A., 2018, “Undressing For Artemis: Sensory Approaches to Clothes Dedications in Hellenistic Epigram and in the Cult of Artemis Brauronia”. In: Kampakoglou, A. & Novokhatko, A. (eds), Gaze, Vision, and Visuality in Ancient Greek Literature, Berlin. Pingiatoglou, S., 1981, Eileithyia. Würzburg. Pfeiffer, R., 1949. Callimachus, v. 1: Fragmenta. Oxford. Pfeiffer, R., 1953. Callimachus, v. 2: Hymni et epigrammata. Oxford. Plantinga, M., 2004, “A parade of learning: Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis (lines 170-268), in Harder, M.A. et al. (eds.), 2004, Callimachus II. Groningen, 257-277. Price, T. H., 1978, Kourotrophos: cults and representations of the Greek nursing deities. Leiden. Rawles, R., 2017, “The Tattoo Elegy”. In: Sider, D. (ed.), Hellenistic Poetry: a Selection. Ann Arbor, 40-55. Rodríguez Maldonado, M. A., 2014, “Imagen de Ártemis en el Himno III de Calímaco”. Nova Tellus, 31, n.2, 159-184. Stephens, S. A., 2015, Callimachus. The Hymns. Oxford. Tapia Zúñiga, P.C., 1991-1992, “Diana Lucina (un problema de Calímaco)”. Nova Tellus, n. 9-10, 9-20. Van Groningen, B. A., 1977, Euphorion. Les témoignages. Les fragments. Le poète et son œuvre. Amsterdam. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. v., 1931/32, Der Glaube der Hellenen. 2 vols, Berlin.

POWER DIVINE: APOLLONIUS’ MEDEA AND THE GODDESSES OF THE HOMERIC HYMNS Brian D. MCPHEE ABSTRACT Apollonius’ evocation of Homeric characters as allusive models is one of his best recognized techniques of characterization. As a rule, these models are both comparative and contrastive: a character’s departure from the Homeric paradigm is often more illuminating than its adherence to it; superficial similarities throw more serious differences into relief. This paper applies this approach to an analysis of Apollonius’ Medea, but it expands the pool of her potential ‘Homeric’ models to include the goddesses from the Homeric Hymns, a critical but understudied poetic corpus within the literary archaeology of the Argonautica. Just as a program of allusions to the Odyssey positions Apollonius’ Medea as a “Mephistophelean” Nausicaa, so I argue that Apollonius alludes to Homer’s other body of hexametric poetry in order to characterize Medea as a sort of chthonic inversion of the Olympian goddesses of the Homeric Hymns. Through a series of paradigmatic readings of allusions to the hymns to Athena (28), Demeter (2), and Aphrodite (5), I show that Apollonius stresses Medea’s awesome magical powers, which are literally godlike, but consistently portrays the effects thereof as far more destructive and violent than those of her hymnic antecedents.

1. Introduction Apollonius’ Medea is notoriously multifaceted, a novel combination of the terrifying sorceress and priestess of Hecate familiar from Euripides with the figure of the lovesick ingénue so popular in the Hellenistic period.1 One of Apollonius’ recognized techniques for capturing the nuances of this and other of his complex creations is the evocation of Homeric characters as allusive models.2 These models are frequently 1. Medea’s ‘bipolarity’ dominates the early studies of her character, whereas more recent scholarship has emphasized the unity, or else the progressive development, of her personality. A good deal of the vast bibliography can be traced through Herter (1944–1955: 290–294); Pavlou (2009: 200 n. 69); Klooster (2018: 80 n. 3); Cassidy (2019: 1 n. 2). 2. On this practice, see above all Knight (1995). To be sure, Homeric models are privileged in this epic poem, but Apollonius avails himself of models drawn from a great variety of genres. In Medea’s case, tragedy looms large, and not just Euripides’ Medea; see, e.g., Sansone (2000).

246

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

both comparative and contrastive, or “antiphrastic”:3 surface similarities between Medea and her Homeric predecessors often serve to emphasize their deeper differences, the places where the analogy breaks down.4 For example, one of the most sustained characterological analogies in the poem serves to liken Medea to Nausicaa, the Phaeacian princess of Odyssey 6–8, but as Campbell observes, “Medea is anything but a normal girl…. Indeed, the Nausicaa-Medea equation is not an equation at all. It is carefully set up only to be swept aside”.5 Clauss has even called Medea “the Mephistophelean Nausicaa”, a young girl who turns out to be “the helper-maiden from Hell”. To achieve success, Jason must make a deal, not quite with the devil, but at any rate with a “Hecatean power”.6 By invoking the standard of the Homeric Nausicaa, Apollonius sets Medea’s otherness in relief.7 This paper proposes a new set of intertextual models for Apollonius’ Medea drawn from another branch of the Homeric corpus that is often overlooked in studies of the Argonautica, namely, the Homeric Hymns. I argue that, just as Apollonius draws Medea as an anti-Nausicaa, the poet uses the same technique to characterize Medea as a sort of chthonic inversion of the Olympian goddesses of the Homeric Hymns. There are, I think, two a priori reasons for broadening the pool of Medea’s potential ‘Homeric’ models to include the goddesses of these hymns, which were commonly attributed to Homer in antiquity.8 First, Apollonius himself flags the importance of the Homeric Hymns for his project straightaway by alluding to the envoi of the Homeric Hymn to Selene (32.18–19) in the opening words of the poem (A.R. 1.1–2).9 Indeed, with its hymnic 3. A term I borrow from Murray (2005: 100), who explains that an antiphrastic allusion “does not signal alignment with, but deviation from” its model (italics original). 4. Pavlock (1990: 67–68): “He [Apollonius] revealed the potential for creative imitation by inverting the ethical implications of the Homeric originals and offered a model for creating a context in which characters could be fully played out against their originals”. See further Newman (1986: 81 n. 23, 85); Klooster (2018: 82–83); cf. the approach of Hunter (1993: ch. 1, esp. 11–15, 18–22). 5. Campbell (1983: 60). 6. Clauss (1997); quotations are from the title of his chapter and pp. 175, 176, respectively. Cf. Beye (1982: 141). 7. Clauss (1997: 177). For more on the Medea-Nausicaa analogy, see esp. Pavlock (1990: 51–63); Knight (1995: 224–244). See also Natzel (1992: 57–58) for a more sympathetic reading of this analogy; cf. Klooster (2018: 83): “[C]ould Medea actually be like Nausicaa, given the circumstances?” 8. For ancient testimonies regarding the ‘Homeric’ authorship of the Hymns, see Allen et al. (1936: lxiv–lxxxii); Faulkner (2011: 176–178). 9. Cf., e.g., Clauss (1993: 16): “[T]hrough the striking hymnic phraseology, set conspicuously in the opening lines of the poem, Apollonius makes it clear that he will not be restricted in the exposition of his epic theme by considerations of genre”. On the pre-Apollonian date of the Homeric Hymn to Selene, see Hall (2013).

POWER DIVINE

247

introduction (1.1–22, esp. 1–2) and envoi (4.1773–1781), Apollonius’ epic presents itself as, in Hunter’s words, a “‘Hymn to the Argonauts’, that is a hymn on the traditional ‘Homeric’ model in which the central mythic narrative has been greatly extended, but in which the hymnic frame remains”.10 Such a poem invites close scrutiny of the Homeric Hymns as one of its primary generic models.11 Second, the association of Medea with goddesses is unsurprising in light of certain references in early Greek poetry that make it clear that Medea, like her aunt Circe, was originally conceived of as a goddess.12 The Argonautica’s Medea is quite humanized, and yet even there, as Knight observes, her extraordinary magic to some extent usurps the place of divine intervention in Apollonius’ epic economy.13 Indeed, I argue that the analogy that Apollonius draws between Medea and the hymnic goddesses often relates to her power, or more precisely, to the striking combination of disarming vulnerability and supernatural might that defines Apollonius’ heroine. In the three sections that follow, I trace a series of allusions to select Homeric Hymns that bear on this question of Medea’s power by presenting Athena, Persephone, and Aphrodite, respectively, as resonant models and anti-models for Medea’s character as it unfolds over the course of Argonautica 3–4. In the process, I hope to shed new light on the most richly developed character in the Argonautica,14 and, indeed, one of the most fascinating characters in Hellenistic poetry.

2. Athena I begin at the end, by analyzing Medea’s final appearance in the poem. First, however, it will be useful briefly to contextualize the role of Medea’s powerful magic in the plot of the latter half of the epic; her first epithet, πολυφάρμακος, ‘knowing many drugs’, provides a convenient starting-point.15 The choice of this epithet is singularly appropriate not 10. Hunter (1996: 46). 11. Apollonius’ engagement with the Homeric Hymns is the subject of my dissertation (McPhee 2020), which substantiates the claims made in the foregoing sentences in detail. 12. See RE (15.1: 44.14–51); West (1966 ad Hes. Th. 992); Krevans (1997: 75–76). 13. Knight (1995: 281); see further Natzel (1992: 70 n. 133); Lovatt (2013: 336 n. 67). For Medea’s godlikeness, see esp. Fantuzzi (2007, 2008), who notes Medea’s power to compel even the gods with her magic (particularly at A.R. 4.59–61) and thus reverse the natural hierarchy between humanity and divinity. 14. Fränkel (1968: 327). 15. On this epithet, see Belloni (1981).

248

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

only because it captures Medea’s essential plot function – her magic is crucial to the Argonauts’ success – but also because, like the famously double-sided term φάρμακον itself, Medea’s magic has the power both to help and to harm.16 The first use of this epithet, on Medea’s introduction to the narrative proper at the beginning of Book 3, has reference to the beneficial aspect of Medea’s magic: Hera devises a plan by which ‘Aeetes’ daughter, expert in magic drugs’ (κούρην Αἰήτεω πολυφάρμακον, 27), can be made to fall in love with Jason and thus help him to return the Golden Fleece to Hellas (25–29).17 And indeed, Medea’s magic proves instrumental first in preserving and empowering Jason as he undergoes Aeetes’ nigh-impossible trial (3.1026–1051, 1246–1407)18 and then in lulling to sleep the Colchian dragon so that Jason can retrieve the Golden Fleece (4.145–166). Apart from 3.27, Medea’s epithet recurs just once to mark her final appearance in the poem,19 in which she casts the evil eye with lethal efficacy against Talos, the bronze guardian of Crete (4.1639–1693).20 The reader’s response to this incredible execution is guided by the narrator, who reacts to his own story with the following outburst:21 Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἦ μέγα δή μοι ἐνὶ φρεσὶ θάμβος ἄηται, εἰ δὴ μὴ νούσοισι τυπῇσί τε μοῦνον ὄλεθρος ἀντιάει, καὶ δή τις ἀπόπροθεν ἄμμε χαλέπτει, ὡς ὅ γε χάλκειός περ ἐὼν ὑπόειξε δαμῆναι Μηδείης βρίμῃ πολυφαρμάκου.

1675

16. Cf. 3.803; Albis (1996: 89); Holmberg (1998: 147). Notably, the range of connotations observable in Apollonius’ two uses of the epithet finds an exact precedent in Homer, who applies the same epithet once to healers tending to the wounded Achaean chieftains (Il. 16.28) and once to Circe – Medea’s aunt – when she still poses a threat to Odysseus (Od. 10.276; van den Eersten [2013: 22]; cf. [Hom.] Ep. 14.15); see further Belloni (1981: 118–120). 17. Text and translation of the Argonautica are taken from Race (2008). 18. Pindar had applied the comparable epithet παμφάρμακος to Medea in precisely this context (Pyth. 4.233). 19. In fact, Medea is mentioned one more time in connection with her handmaids in the etiology for the scurrilous ritual at Anaphe (4.1722), but her own participation therein is implicitly denied (Natzel [1992: 124 n. 164]). In the next episode, Apollonius also replaces the Pindaric Medea with Jason in the role of foretelling the destiny of Euphemus’ descendants (cf. Pyth. 4.9–58 with A.R. 4.1731–1764; Jackson [1987: 28–29]; Krevans [1997: 80–81]; Newman [2008: 427 n. 37]). Apollonius thus ensures that our last image of Medea will be that of the Talos episode (Krevans [1997: 81]). 20. For this episode’s connections to ancient magical practices and to atomist theory, see esp. Dickie (1990); Powers (2002). 21. Medea’s power is also underlined through a series of Iliadic echoes; see, e.g., Hutchinson (1988: 140); Kyriakou (1995: 53–60).

POWER DIVINE

249

Truly, Father Zeus, great astonishment confounds my mind, if in fact death comes not only through disease and wounds, but even from afar someone can harm us, just as he [Talos], though made of bronze, yielded in defeat to the power of Medea the sorceress. (A.R. 4.1673–1677)

The repetition of the epithet πολυφάρμακος marks the end of Medea’s narrative arc via ring-composition, but Apollonius’ use of this technique belies the evident shift in the adjective’s connotation.22 Here, the epithet has taken on a sinister undertone, marking Medea’s terrible power to harm her enemies.23 The Talos episode is, indeed, both the poem’s clearest revelation of the extraordinary extent of her magical powers24 and our first real glimpse of her magic’s capacity to hurt as well as to protect.25 This aspect of the episode is emphasized by the evident sympathy that the narrator cultivates for Talos,26 not least by implicitly leaguing ‘us’ against Medea as potential victims of her sort of ‘harm from afar’.27 It is no wonder that several scholars have found this episode “eerie and disturbing”,28 and particularly foreboding for Jason’s future relationship 22. Fantuzzi (2008: 290–291). Although the term φάρμακον can refer to intangible incantations (Pharr [1932: 272–274]; Graf [1992: 276–277]), Apollonius never uses it this way; thus πολυφάρμακος at 4.1677 has seemed jarring to some critics (Kyriakou [1995: 59]; Powers [2002: 87]), for here, almost uniquely (cf. 4.42, 59), Medea relies not on physical drugs, but on verbal spells and mental effort. The poet has evidently gone out of his way to connect Medea’s first and last appearances, even though repeating this epithet involves a departure from his standard usage. He may also be alluding to versions in which Medea does wield physical φάρμακα against Talos; see [Apollod.] Bib. 1.9.26 and, for visual media, Robertson (1977); Zinserling-Paul (1979: 422–423). 23. Belloni (1981: 122–125). 24. Belloni (1981: 126); Buxton (2000: 271). 25. Paduano (1971: 46); Fusillo (1985: 1985: 379–380). There are earlier suggestions of Medea’s power to harm in references to her baleful drugs (3.790, 803, 807; 4.21, 51–53; cf. 3.910–911), and Medea once uses her drugs deceptively in order to lure her brother Apsyrtus into an ambush (4.442–444); cf. 3.864–866. I note further that Book 4 is framed by powerful displays of Medea’s magic against monsters (Green [2007 ad A.R. 4.1223–1231]), but there is a stark contrast in her gentle treatment of the Colchian serpent and her efficient elimination of Talos (Cassidy [2019: 13]). 26. Kyriakou (1995: 59): “By the sympathetic portrayal of Talos’ death Apollonius stresses as emphatically as possible Medea’s horrifying control over her victims”. 27. For Talos as a sympathetic figure, see, e.g., Fränkel (1968 ad A.R. 4.1673–1677, 1680); Zyroff (1971: 97); Rose (1985: 43); Kyriakou (1995: 56–59); Cassidy (2019: 4); cf. Dyck (1989: 469–470). I note also the fact that Medea’s killing of Talos is strictly superfluous, since landing on Crete is not a matter of life and death for the Argonauts (Paduano [1971: 48 n. 7]; Holmberg [1998: 155]; Fantuzzi [2008: 300]). The notion of Kauffman (2016) that the sympathy Apollonius generates for his monsters is intentionally incongruous, designed to point up the artificiality of the pathos produced by Homeric death similes, is contradicted by the fact that the narrator establishes sympathy for these monsters in other ways as well; 4.1675 is a case in point. 28. See, e.g., Dyck (1989: 470); Krevans (1997: 81); Buxton (1998: 87 n. 4, whence the quotation).

250

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

with Medea.29 Unlike the other ἀριστεῖαι that spotlight the special talents of individual Argonauts, this passage is meant to make us fear her. The narrator denotes Medea’s awesome ‘power’ in this confrontation with the term βρίμη (1677), an extremely rare word that the scholiast glosses with ἰσχύς, ‘strength’; fittingly, a secondary connotation seems to be the idea of terror.30 Its significance for the present argument lies in the fact that one of its only two other appearances in extant Greek literature is in the medium-length Homeric Hymn to Athena (28),31 in the description of the goddess’ birth from Zeus’ head.32 The Hymn presents Athena as a dread goddess, ‘unbending of heart’ (ἀμείλιχον ἦτορ ἔχουσαν, 2); the hymn’s mythic section (4–16) is largely devoted to listing the awed reactions of the gods, Mt. Olympus, the earth, the sea, and the sun to her impressive natal epiphany in full armor.33 The word βρίμη occurs at the beginning of the passage describing Athena’s effect on the various parts of the cosmos: ‘great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might of the bright-eyed goddess’ (μέγας δ᾽ ἐλελίζετ᾽ Ὄλυμπος | δεινὸν ὑπὸ βρίμης γλαυκώπιδος, 9–10).34 Apollonius, like other Hellenistic poets, often uses rare vocabulary from Homer, especially hapax legomena, to allude to particular contexts in the Homeric poems.35 Hapax legomena from the epics have received the lion’s share of scholarly attention, but Apollonius engages with the Homeric Hymns in the same way; βρίμη is a case in point. Both here and in A.R. 4.1677, a form of this vanishingly rare word occurs in the same metrical sedes36 and precedes a compound epithet in the genitive before the bucolic diaeresis. In context, both passages show much larger entities reacting helplessly to formidable women;37 it is also notable 29. See particularly Albis (1996: 87–88) and Cassidy (2019), who show how the account of Talos’ death inverts details from earlier in Jason and Medea’s relationship; see further Faerber (1932: 105); Hopkinson (1988: 195); Natzel (1992: 123–124); Buxton (2000: 272, 273); Powers (2002: 87); Murgatroyd (2007: 122); Pavlou (2009: 201–202). 30. See Allen et al. (1936 ad h.Hom. 28.10). 31. Otherwise, the word occurs only in an Orphic fragment (79 Kern), but there its meaning must be something like ‘roar’ (cf. βριμάομαι and cognates). 32. Apollonius plainly alludes to this hymn when he himself mentions the story of Athena’s birth; see Livrea (1973 ad A.R. 4.1310). For other Apollonian echoes of the hymn, see Campbell (1981: 122). 33. Text and translation of the Homeric Hymns are taken, with some modifications, from Evelyn-White (1914). 34. On the text here, see Gemoll (1886 ad loc.). 35. For an overview of this Hellenistic practice, see, e.g., Cusset (1999: 25–112); on Apollonius in particular, see esp. Kyriakou (1995). 36. Boesch (1908: 4); Olson (2012 ad h.Hom. 28.10). 37. Cf. particularly Talos’ ‘tremendous crash’ as he falls to the ground (A.R. 4.1688) with the roaring of the earth in awe of Athena’s might (h.Hom. 28.10–11).

POWER DIVINE

251

that the hymn juxtaposes βρίμης and γλαυκώπιδος, as Medea here casts the evil eye against Talos (4.1670).38 And, as if to mark the allusion, Apollonius has the Argonauts build a shrine to Minoan Athena once they manage to land safely on Crete (4.1690–1691),39 despite the fact that this goddess plays no role in this episode,40 and has in fact not figured substantially into the plot since helping the Argonauts to pass through the Symplegades (2.537–548, 598–603).41 Apollonius’ allusion to h.Hom. 28.10 most immediately suggests that finally, in the Talos episode, Medea, like the newborn Athena, reveals the full extent of her fearsome power – her βρίμη – and that this power is quite literally godlike. But on further inspection, the parallel between Medea and Athena that this allusion proffers begins to suggest differences much more profound than these surface similarities. Most obviously, Medea’s power is emphatically chthonic: to effect Talos’ destruction she calls on ‘the heart-devouring Fates of Death, the swift hounds of Hades’ (Κῆρας | θυμοβόρους, Ἀίδαο θοὰς κύνας, A.R. 4.1665–1666). Indeed, the word βρίμη is evocative of her patron goddess, the chthonic Hecate Βριμώ (3.861–862, 1211).42 Athena’s power, by contrast, may be aweinspiring, but it stems from, and is subordinated to, her father Zeus, who himself rejoices in his mighty offspring at the end of the hymn’s mythic section (γήθησε δὲ μητίετα Ζεύς, h.Hom. 28.16).43 This joy finds a striking foil in the Apollonian narrator’s horrified appeal to ‘Father Zeus’, in shock at what Medea’s magic can do;44 and we can contrast the motif 38. Cf. A.R. 4.727–729 on the radiant eyes that mark all of the descendants of Helius, including Medea. 39. For another example of a goddess’s name marking an allusion to her hymn, see Jackson (1990). 40. Vian (2002: 3.66). 41. Glei and Natzel-Glei (1996: 2.179 n. 3). In this way, Apollonius may be signaling that Medea has effectively replaced Athena as the Argonauts’ quasi-divine helper in the second half of the poem. 42. Livrea (1973 ad A.R. 4.1677–1678). 43. Indeed, in Hesiod’s version of the story, Zeus swallows Athena’s mother Metis, and thus gives birth to Athena from his own head, precisely in order to secure his reign on Olympus (Th. 886–900); in this context, the epithet μητίετα here may even be designed to allude to this myth (cf. Athena’s epithet πολύμητιν in line 2). 44. This exclamation near the end of the poem harks back to the similar exclamation (‘Lord Zeus’ [Ζεῦ ἄνα], 1.242) pronounced by the men of Iolcus at the beginning of the quest, once again in the manner of ring-composition. Notably, however, the object of astonishment at 4.1673 is no longer the impressive host of heroes whom Jason has assembled, but Medea’s terrifying magical powers. Several details align Talos with Zeus and the other gods, so that Medea almost seems to defy them in killing the bronze guardian: Talos was Zeus’ gift to Europa (4.1643); his ichor (1679) is a godlike characteristic; and Apollonius may allude to the tradition that Talos was forged by Hephaestus (see Livrea [1973 ad Argon. 4.1645]).

252

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

of Athena’s birth with the death that Medea works against Talos, which in fact represents the permanent extinction of his race of bronze men (cf. 4.1642).45 In the final analysis, Apollonius’ allusion to Athena’s hymn points up Medea’s godlike might but highlights its chthonic roots and destructive potential, deepening our ominous impression near the close of the epic that Jason has allied himself with a terrible, anti-Olympian power.

3. Persephone I move from this isolated allusion to one of the minor Homeric Hymns to a more complex example involving one of the major hymns, to Demeter (2). Apollonius’ use of this hymn has been recognized in several passages;46 here, I focus on the analogy that the poet suggests between Medea and another maiden from the Homeric corpus, Persephone. This analogy is most obviously intimated in the lead-up to Medea’s meeting with Jason at the temple of Hecate, where she plans to give him the drug that ensures his success in Aeetes’ contest. While she awaits his arrival, she proposes to pass the time first by playing (μολπῇ, 897) with her group of attendant handmaidens, like Nausicaa before meeting Odysseus (Od. 6.100–101); but second, she suggests gathering flowers (τὰ δὲ καλὰ τερείνης ἄνθεα ποίης | λεξάμεναι, A.R. 3.898–899) – a suggestion laden with allusive significance. In Greek literature, the motif of a girl’s flower gathering, especially with playmates of like age, serves as a common prelude to rape or abduction.47 The locus classicus for this trope is Hades’ abduction of Persephone as she picks flowers with a group of playmates in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.48 In fact, Apollonius has already alluded to 45. We might further note parallel abnormalities in each scene: Zeus, the father, gives birth to Athena by himself (a major point of contention with Hera: Hes. Th. 924–929, h.Hom. 3.307–354), while Medea, a woman, boasts before an all-male crew of heroes that she will kill Talos ‘by [her]self’ (μούνη, A.R. 4.1654). Both scenes also revolve around the head, which figures as the point from which Athena is born and Medea’s magic emanates (n.b. νόον, A.R. 4.1679), respectively. 46. See esp. Richardson (1974: 69–70). 47. See, e.g., Richardson (1974 ad h.Hom. 2.6); Campbell (1983: 61); Rosenmeyer (2004: 176 n. 29). 48. Indeed, like Medea, Persephone both ‘plays’ and picks flowers (παίζουσαν … ἄνθεά τ᾿ αἰνυμένην, h.Hom. 2.5–6; παίζομεν ἠδ᾿ ἄνθεα δρέπομεν, 425); cf. Apollonius’ own reference to the story, which has Persephone ‘playing’ with the Sirens before her abduction (μελπόμεναι, A.R. 4.898). The floral motif in the Sirens episode (Ἀνθεμόεσσαν, 892; λείριον, 903) may remind us that Persephone had specifically been picking flowers when she was abducted. I would note that λείρια figure among the flowers that Persephone picks before her rape at h.Hom. 2.427.

POWER DIVINE

253

the hymn in the lead-up to this scene.49 First, the description of Medea’s attendants’ following her to the temple of Hecate (A.R. 3.872–875) draws on the scene in which Celeus’ daughters run to fetch Demeter (h.Hom. 2.174–178).50 We then get another allusion to the Hymn in the simile that follows immediately thereafter, which compares Medea as she rides to meet Jason to Artemis on her deer-drawn chariot (A.R. 3.876–886). I return to this simile again below with reference to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, but here I would underline the phrase χρυσείοις … ἐφ᾿ ἅρμασιν, which Apollonius uses of Artemis ‘in her golden chariot’ (878). In its general outline this image may be inspired by Callimachus’ description of Artemis’ chariot (Hymn 3.110–112), which is similarly golden (χρύσεον … δίφρον, 111) and pulled by deer (κεμάδεσσι, 112; the same form also at A.R. 3.879).51 But whereas Callimachus emphasizes the golden nature of all of Artemis’ equipment, including her arms, belt, and reins (plus the horns of her deer: Hymn 3.102), Apollonius singles out the goddess’ golden chariot, and he does so with a phrase that distinctly echoes the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: it was in another ‘golden chariot’ (ἐν ἅρμασι χρυσείοισιν, 431) that Hades carried Persephone down into the underworld.52 Taken together, these passages suggest that Apollonius evokes not only the general story pattern of flower-picking followed by abduction, but that he alludes to the specific model provided by the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.53 The allusion establishes an analogy between Medea and Persephone, Jason and Hades, and particularly foreshadows the hero’s taking his bride-to-be from her native land to his own kingdom. Notably, 49. For reasons of space, I can only cite a number of intertexts from other parts of the epic that offer further support to the Medea-Persephone analogy that I draw here: see particularly A.R. 3.30 ~ h.Hom. 2.414 (which parallel lends support to A.R. 3.29 ~ h.Hom. 2.30); A.R. 3.1024 ~ h.Hom. 2.357–358; A.R. 4.70 ~ h.Hom. 2.20, 432; A.R. 4.163 ~ h.Hom. 2.27 (which lends support to A.R. 4.146 ~ h.Hom. 2.21). Another intertext in the lead-up to the flower-picking scene is A.R. 3.834–835 ~ h.Hom. 2.196, but Od. 5.230– 232 must be the proximate model (Rengakos [1993: 101]). Campbell (1981: 119) records these and many more of Apollonius’ “echoes and imitations” of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. 50. See Hunter (1989 ad 3.874–875). 51. See, e.g., Vian (2002: 2.137 ad A.R. 3.869), who further compares Παρθενίη (Call. Hymn 3.110) and Παρθενίοιο (A.R. 3.876). Cf. h.Hom. 9.3, where Artemis’ chariot is rather pulled by horses. 52. The echo is recorded by Campbell (1981: 55); I note that in both passages, ἅρμασι(ν) occupies the fourth foot of a spondaic line. Cf. also Sappho fr. 1.8–9 LP, where χρύσιον may go with ἄρμ᾿. 53. Cf. the concept of “collective security”: one clear allusion to a work increases the likelihood that another less clear allusion to the same work is also intentional (Hinds [1998: 28]). I note that Valerius Flaccus makes the Medea-Proserpina comparison explicit in an analogous scene in his Argonautica (5.341–349); see further Sen. Med. 11–12.

254

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

the only other instance of flower gathering in the Argonautica occurs in the Phaeacian episode, in which a group of nymphs gather flowers for use in Jason and Medea’s wedding (4.1143–1145, 1151–1152).54 Yet the parallel with the Homeric Persephone must be qualified almost as soon as it suggests itself.55 In the Homeric Hymn, Hades forcefully abducts Persephone very much against her will (ἀέκουσαν, h.Hom. 2.19), but, crucially, by the arrangement of her father Zeus.56 To compare Medea’s situation involves us in the complex question of her agency and motivation in absconding with Jason, a question explicitly problematized in the proem of Book 4.57 But this complexity notwithstanding, Medea’s experience bears little resemblance to Persephone’s violent abduction,58 and in many ways is directly opposite. Unlike Zeus vis-à-vis Persephone, Medea’s father staunchly opposes her future husband, whereas Medea herself falls in love with Jason and freely offers him her surreptitious aid. Medea may then be ‘forced’ to flee from Colchis in order to escape her father’s resultant wrath,59 and to this extent she can claim, in a rhetorically charged context, to have left unwillingly (μὴ … ἐθέλουσα, A.R. 4.1021) – but only as a direct and predictable60 consequence of her decision to help Jason against Aeetes’ wishes (cf. 4.733–735, 1015–1024, 1080–1083). In fact, before departing Medea makes sure to extract an oath from Jason that he will marry her in Hellas (4.88–98), so that Jason can accurately characterize her as consenting (ἐθέλουσαν, 4.194) to their union before their flight.61 Thus, as with Nausicaa, the parallel between Medea and Persephone 54. Campbell (1983: 61) also compares these scenes. This erotico-floral motif might be further connected to Apollonius’ choice of the name ‘Drepane’ for the island of the Phaeacians, in preference to the Homeric ‘Scheria’ or its contemporary identification with Corcyra. The cognate verb δρέπω can be used both of picking flowers (e.g., Hom. Hymn 2.425, 429) and for the metaphorical ‘culling’ of love (e.g., Pind. frr. 122.7–8, 123.1–2); both usages are relevant to the wedding of Jason and Medea, the major plot development that Apollonius sets on the island. 55. Cf. Clayton (2017), who argues that Apollonius uses the Homeric Hymn to Demeter as a model for the abduction of Hylas (A.R. 1.1207–1272), but similarly finds that Persephone is as much a foil for Hylas as a parallel. Clayton further links Hylas to Medea and similarly contrasts her with Persephone. 56. Lenz (1975: 58–69); Parker (1991: 6–7); Foley (1994: 104). 57. Klooster (2018: 81, 97–98). Hunter (1987) is fundamental on the mixture of motivations that spur on Medea’s flight. 58. Clayton (2017: 135). 59. For Medea’s fear of her father’s anger – which is well-founded (A.R. 4.231–234) – see 4.5, 11–15, 48, 53, 83–85, 379–381, 735, 752, 1022–1024, 1043–1044, 1083; cf. 3.631–635. 60. See 3.779–781; 4.9–10, 84–85, 212–213; Beye (1982: 136); Natzel (1992: 52–53, 67–68); cf. Duckworth (1933: 72). 61. For Medea’s consent on the basis of Jason’s oath, see further 4.357–362, 372–373.

255

POWER DIVINE

actually serves to direct attention to their considerable differences. Unlike either the chaste Nausicaa or the childish Persephone, Medea, as Pindar succinctly puts it, ‘in opposition to her father made her own marriage’ (πατρὸς ἀντία Μήδειαν θεμέναν γάμον αὐτᾷ, Ol. 13.53).62 It is in light of this qualified analogy with Persephone that I would propose to understand an earlier passage, in which Medea engages in a very different sort of flower gathering. Shortly before Medea’s proposal to pick flowers with her attendants, the narrator describes how she once fashioned the drug that she is about to give to Jason (3.844–868). This drug is called Prometheum (Προμήθειον, 845) because it is made from the sap of a strange flower that sprang from Prometheus’ blood as Zeus’ eagle fed upon his liver in the Caucasus (851–853). The narrator describes the flower itself in some detail (854–857) and records how Medea collected its sap, including a disturbing detail about the Titan himself: τῆς οἵην τ᾿ ἐν ὄρεσσι κελαινὴν ἰκμάδα φηγοῦ Κασπίῃ ἐν κόχλῳ ἀμήσατο φαρμάσσεσθαι, ἑπτὰ μὲν ἀενάοισι λοεσσαμένη ὑδάτεσσιν, ἑπτάκι δὲ Βριμὼ κουροτρόφον ἀγκαλέσασα, Βριμὼ νυκτιπόλον, χθονίην, ἐνέροισιν ἄνασσαν, λυγαίῃ ἐνὶ νυκτὶ σὺν ὀρφναίοις φαρέεσσιν. μυκηθμῷ δ᾿ ὑπένερθεν ἐρεμνὴ σείετο γαῖα, ῥίζης τεμνομένης Τιτηνίδος· ἔστενε δ᾿ αὐτὸς Ἰαπετοῖο πάις ὀδύνῃ πέρι θυμὸν ἀλύων.

860

865

Its sap, like the black juice of a mountain oak, she had collected in a Caspian shell to prepare the drug, after bathing herself seven times in everflowing streams, and calling seven times on Brimo the youth-nourisher, Brimo the night-wanderer, the infernal goddess, queen of the nether dead – all in the gloom of night, clad in dark garments. And with a bellow the black earth beneath shook when the Titanian root was cut, and the son of Iapetus himself groaned, distressed at heart with pain. (A.R. 3.858–866)

Medea’s actions in this passage – harvesting the miraculous Promethean flower’s sap all alone, at night, in the Caucasian wilderness – could hardly differ more sharply from the flower-picking that she proposes just over thirty lines later – surrounded by her twelve handmaids, shortly after dawn, before the temple of Hecate. Read in conjunction with each other, these two passages capture much of the duality in Medea’s character: 62. Cf. A.R. 4.746. Text and translation of Pindar are taken from Race (1997). This insight helps to make sense of the allusion to h.Hom. 2.431 at A.R. 3.878: it is significant that in the hymn, it is the rapist Hades who drives the golden chariot that bears off Persephone, whereas Apollonius likens Medea, who should be the maiden Persephone’s counterpart, to a goddess driving her own golden chariot of her own volition.

256

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

Medea can pick flowers like any ordinary girl in Greek literature, but she is also given to root-cutting, the distinctive domain of sorceresses (A.R. 4.52–53).63 As I noted at the beginning of this paper, many scholarly treatments of Medea’s character in the Argonautica have centered around this very dichotomy: she is at once a girlish princess and a powerful sorceress. But despite their differences, these two passages share a common intertext, I argue, in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Among the various flowers that Persephone and her companions pick in the hymn, one marvelous narcissus is singled out by the narrator, for it is this wondrous flower whose picking acts as the signal that triggers Hades’ abduction: ἄνθεά τ᾿ αἰνυμένην ῥόδα καὶ κρόκον ἠδ᾿ ἴα καλά λειμῶν᾿ ἂμ μαλακὸν καὶ ἀγαλλίδας ἠδ᾿ ὑάκινθον νάρκισσόν θ᾿, ὃν φῦσε δόλον καλυκώπιδι κούρῃ Γαῖα Διὸς βουλῇσι, χαριζομένη Πολυδέκτῃ, θαυμαστὸν γανόωντα, σέβας τό γε πᾶσιν ἰδέσθαι ἀθανάτοις τε θεοῖς ἠδὲ θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποις. τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ ῥίζης ἑκατὸν κάρα ἐξεπεφύκει κηώδης τ᾿ ὀδμή· πᾶς δ᾿ οὐρανὸς εὐρὺς ὕπερθεν γαῖά τε πᾶσ᾿ ἐγέλασσε καὶ ἁλμυρὸν οἶδμα θαλάσσης. ἣ δ᾿ ἄρα θαμβήσασ᾿ ὠρέξατο χερσὶν ἅμ᾿ ἄμφω καλὸν ἄθυρμα λαβεῖν· χάνε δὲ χθὼν εὐρυάγυια Νύσιον ἂμ πεδίον, τῇ ὄρουσεν ἄναξ Πολυδέγμων ἵπποις ἀθανάτοισι, Κρόνου πολυώνυμος υἱός.

10

15

[Hades seized Persephone as she was] picking flowers across the soft meadow, roses and saffron and lovely violets, iris and hyacinth, and narcissus, that Earth put forth as a snare for the maiden with eyes like buds by the will of Zeus, as a favor to the Hospitable One. It shone wondrously, an awe-inspiring thing to see both for the immortal gods and for mortal men. From its root a hundred heads grew out, and a perfumed odor; the whole broad sky above and the whole earth smiled, and the salty swell of the sea. In amazement she reached out with both hands to take the pretty plaything. But the broad-wayed earth gaped open on the plain of Nysa, and there the Hospitable Lord rushed forth with his immortal steeds, Kronos’ son whose names are many. (h.Hom. 2.6–18)

This narcissus differs from the Promethean flower in several particulars, but certain structural resemblances serve to liken the two plants at the level of narrative patterning. Both passages deal with marvelous flowers that receive a brief account of their origins (h.Cer. 2.8–9) followed by an anatomical description (10–14). In both cases, the narrator then details how a maiden either goes to pick the flower (15–16) or cut its root, 63. Cf. Pavlock (1990: 61).

POWER DIVINE

257

thereby triggering a reaction in the earth: in the Argonautica, the earth shakes; in the hymn, the earth gapes open for Hades’ entrance (16–18). In each passage, the earth’s reaction is then followed by distressed vocalizations – whether they be Prometheus’ cries of pain or Persephone’s futile cries for help (20–21). Beyond these structural correspondences, two details in Apollonius’ account are particularly suggestive. First is a brief simile. Toward the end of the hymn, Persephone recounts her abduction from her own point of view, and in her retelling, she specifically compares the narcissus to saffron (νάρκισσόν θ᾿, ὃν ἔφυσ᾿ ὥς περ κρόκον εὐρεῖα χθών, 428). Likewise, in his description of the Promethean flower, the Argonautic narrator compares its color to that of a ‘Corycian crocus’ (χροιῇ Κωρυκίῳ ἴκελον κρόκῳ, A.R. 3.855). Significantly, the crocus, like the narcissus itself, was associated with Demeter and Persephone.64 But most telling is the description of the rites that Medea performs for Hecate in order to empower the drug. According to the narrator, she calls seven times upon ‘Brimo [= Hecate] the youth-nourisher, Brimo the night-wanderer, the infernal goddess, queen of the nether dead’ (Βριμὼ κουροτρόφον … | Βριμὼ νυκτιπόλον, χθονίην, ἐνέροισιν ἄνασσαν, 861–862). This last title is crucial – this honorific constitutes the only place in the Argonautica in which Hecate is overtly identified with Persephone, queen of the underworld (cf. A.R. 2.915–916).65 It turns out that Medea’s sorcery is empowered by rituals dedicated to her own literary model as syncretized with the goddess whom she serves as priestess (3.252). The syncretism of Persephone and Hecate revealed in this passage is the key, I argue, to understanding the qualified analogy that Apollonius constructs between Medea and the hymnic Persephone. As Jason takes her away under the compulsion of fear, Medea may bear a superficial resemblance to the abducted Persephone of the Homeric Hymn, but in fact, she is not nearly so innocent or so helpless.66 As the Prometheum 64. Richardson (1974 ad h.Hom. 2.6); cf. Schaaf (2004: 178). 65. Hunter (1989 ad A.R. 3.862), among other commentators; see also his comments ad 3.847, 860–861. This identification is attested as early as Soph. Ant. 1199, Eur. Ion 1048. Apollonius’ epithet for Hecate-Persephone is a female adaptation of Hades’ epithet ἄναξ ἐνέρων, which occurs, notably, at h.Hom. 2.357, in a context relating precisely to Persephone’s establishment as the god’s wife and queen of the underworld (δεσπόσσεις, 365); cf. Il. 20.60, where the same epithet occurs in a less relevant context. Apollonius varies his construction, however, both in word order and by using the dative case, evidently with an eye to Il. 15.188 (Ἀίδης, ἐνέροισιν ἀνάσσων). 66. Cf. Beye (1982: 45). In the Homeric Hymn, both Persephone and Hecate are represented as young girls; the latter is explicitly ‘tender-hearted’ (ἀταλὰ φρονέουσα, 2.24). Even when Persephone becomes established in her new position in the underworld, the

258

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

digression reveals, even prior to meeting Jason Medea is much more like the dread nether-queen who Persephone later becomes, and who is later identified with Hecate, the chthonic goddess of magic.67 Perhaps this is why, when Apollonius mentions the story of Persephone’s abduction himself, he refers to her by the periphrasis ‘Demeter’s mighty daughter’ (Δηοῦς | θυγατέρ᾿ ἰφθίμην, 4.896–898)68 – a curious way of talking about a victim of rape, but one consonant with the terrible bride of Hades. In contrast to her hymnic counterpart but like his Medea, Apollonius’ Persephone was always already strong, and we might well wonder how Hades, or Jason, will manage with his far less tractable, far more formidable bride.

4. Aphrodite My final example of a goddess who serves as both model and foil for Medea is Aphrodite as she appears in her major Homeric Hymn (5). This hymn is unusual in that it celebrates Aphrodite’s erotic power by highlighting its limitations (7–33) and by recounting a tale in which Zeus turns the tables on the love goddess and inspires her with desire for a human.69 It is this theme – ‘a taste of your own medicine’70 – that principally connects the hymnic Aphrodite to Apollonius’ heroine, because Medea is subject to much the same trope. She is, in brief, ‘the bewitcher bewitched’:71 the sorceress supreme who is herself irresistibly ‘charmed’ by love’s arrows. This paradox, destined to become a topos in Latin love elegy,72 was perhaps suggested to Apollonius by Pindar’s rendition of the myth, in which Jason seduces the sorceress by means of literal magic in the form of the ἴυγξ, a love charm given to him by Aphrodite

hymn plays down her status as the “dread goddess of the dead” in order to emphasize the beneficent role that she plays in the Eleusinian Mysteries (Foley [1994: 103]). 67. For Medea as a more powerful version of the hymnic Persephone, see also Hunter (2015 ad A.R. 4.162–163). 68. The use of Demeter’s name here may signal an allusion to her Homeric Hymn; cf. Jackson (1990); Hunter (2015 ad A.R. 4.896–899). 69. See Clay (2006: 155), with earlier bibliography. 70. de Jong (1989) and Clay (1997: 505) denote this theme with the phrase “the biter bit”. 71. I borrow this term from Hunter (1989 ad A.R. 3.4 s.v. θέλγεις); see also on this paradox, e.g., Campbell (1994 ad 3.27 s.v. πολυφάρμακον); Green (2007 ad 4.51–54); Fantuzzi (2008: 294); cf. Hutchinson (1988: 117–118). 72. Eitrem (1941: 82–83). For the Roman topos, see Prince (2003). Cf. also Theocr. Id. 2.16, where Medea may already represent an ironic exemplum of the sorceress’s (in-) ability to bind her beloved with love magic (Hopkinson [1988 ad loc.]).

259

POWER DIVINE

(Pyth. 4.213–219).73 Apollonius replaces Pindar’s ἴυγξ with the direct intervention of Eros himself, but he still maintains the Pindaric irony by applying the same language of ‘enchantment’ (θέλξις) that he uses of Medea’s magic74 to the effects that Eros has upon her own person.75 In fact, he does so almost heavy-handedly, four times in just over a hundred lines at the beginning of Book 3 (28, 33, 86, 143; cf. 3.4);76 he thus casts Medea in the role of the sorceress ironically ‘spellbound’ herself by Eros from the beginning of her narrative. But it is at the beginning of Book 4 that Apollonius spells out the ‘bewitcher bewitched’ paradox most clearly.77 In a striking passage that boldly punctuates the pathos of Medea’s flight from Colchis, the Moon looks down on the sorceress and delivers a brief soliloquy brimming with Schadenfreude:78 τὴν δὲ νέον Τιτηνὶς ἀνερχομένη περάτηθεν φοιταλέην ἐσιδοῦσα θεὰ ἐπεχήρατο Μήνη ἁρπαλέως, καὶ τοῖα μετὰ φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἔειπεν· “οὐκ ἄρ᾿ ἐγὼ μούνη μετὰ Λάτμιον ἄντρον ἀλύσκω, οὐδ᾿ οἴη καλῷ περιδαίομαι Ἐνδυμίωνι. ἦ θαμὰ δὴ καὶ σεῖο, κύον, δολίῃσιν ἀοιδαῖς μνησαμένη φιλότητος, ἵνα σκοτίῃ ἐνὶ νυκτὶ φαρμάσσῃς εὔκηλος, ἅ τοι φίλα ἔργα τέτυκται. νῦν δὲ καὶ αὐτὴ δῆθεν ὁμοίης ἔμμορες ἄτης, δῶκε δ᾿ ἀνιηρόν τοι Ἰήσονα πῆμα γενέσθαι δαίμων ἀλγινόεις. ἀλλ᾿ ἔρχεο, τέτλαθι δ᾿ ἔμπης, καὶ πινυτή περ ἐοῦσα, πολύστονον ἄλγος ἀείρειν”.

55

60

65

And when the Titanian goddess, the Moon, newly rising above the horizon, saw her [Medea] wandering in distress, she exulted gleefully over her and spoke these thoughts to herself: “So I am not the only one, after all, to flee to the Latmian cave, nor alone in burning for handsome Endymion. How often indeed did your crafty incantations, shameless one, remind me of my love, so that in the dark of night you could calmly work the spells that are dear to you. But now it appears that you too have been allotted a similar obsession, for a cruel god has given you Jason as a grievous affliction. Go on, and in spite of your cleverness bring yourself to endure pain full of tears”. (A.R. 4.54–65)

73. Green (1997: 55–56). 74. Medea’s drugs are repeatedly designated by the phrase θελκτήρια φάρμακα (3.738, 766, 820; 4.442, 1080); Medea also ‘enchants’ the Colchian dragon (4.147, 150) and the death spirits she summons against Talos, if θέλγε is to be read at 4.1665. 75. See, e.g., Nyberg (1992: 8, 130). 76. Cf. Albis (1996: 68), who notes how rare such repetitions are in Apollonius. 77. Fantuzzi (2008: 301) calls this passage “a quintessential reflection on the amusing paradox of a love-magician in love”. 78. Hutchinson (1988: 122–123) has good comments on the tone of the passage; see also Ibscher (1939: 78).

260

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

Despite a well-known textual crux in line 59,79 the sense of this passage is not in doubt.80 The Moon is describing the magical practice of ‘drawing down the moon’,81 a ritual which is here cleverly eroticized.82 The better to work her magic in the black of a moonless night, Medea would frequently draw down the Moon; and, evidently, she would do so specifically by using some form of love magic to stoke the goddess’s desire for Endymion, for whose company she would then forsake the heavens.83 Consequently, the Moon now rejoices in the sorceress’s own erotic discomfiture. What I want to emphasize here is that by eroticizing the ritual in this way, Apollonius has manufactured a close structural parallel between his Medea and the hymnic Aphrodite. Medea’s lovesickness is cast as her rightful comeuppance for so often afflicting the Moon with desire – that is, for using her magic to play the role of Aphrodite vis-à-vis the Moon – just as in the hymn, Zeus avenges himself on Aphrodite for all the times that she has caused him to fall in love with mortals (h.Hom. 5.34–55). In the narrative that the Moon presents, Medea becomes not just the ‘bewitcher bewitched’ but, like the hymnic Aphrodite, – to put it somewhat clunkily – the ‘inspirer of love made to fall in love herself’. This structural parallel is pointed up by several verbal allusions to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite throughout Argonautica 3–4,84 but once 79. For an overview of the various emendations proposed for the transmitted κύον (4.59), see Fantuzzi (2007: 91–93), with the caveat noted by Hunter (2015 ad loc.). 80. For the following reconstruction of the scenario presupposed by the Moon’s rather elliptical account, see Wilamowitz (1924: 2.213 n. 3); Fränkel (1968: 459); Clack (1982: 452); Valverde Sánchez (1996: 265 n. 580); Vian (2002: 3.149); Green (2007 ad A.R. 4.65); Fantuzzi (2007: 82–87, 2008: 302–304); Hunter (2015 ad A.R. 4.54–65); Hulse (2015: 63); pace Chaldekas (this volume: 75). 81. On this rite, see Hill (1973). 82. As Fränkel (1968: 459) notes, Apollonius has creatively combined the tropes of the Moon’s interest in love affairs, her own love for Endymion, and the magical practice of ‘drawing down the moon’. The erotic tinge of this passage is enhanced by echoes of Sappho and Theocritus’ second Idyll (Acosta-Hughes [2010: 21–29, 59]); I would add that the Moon’s reference to the magical practices that are dear to Medea (τοι φίλα ἔργα, 61) parallels Solon fr. 26.1 (ἔργα δὲ Κυπρογενοῦς νῦν μοι φίλα); cf. Pind. Pyth. 2.17, Emped. B17.20.23–24. 83. The Moon is drawing a parallel between her own going to see Endymion (οὐκ ἄρ᾿ ἐγὼ μούνη μετὰ Λάτμιον ἄντρον ἀλύσκω), which would cause a moonless night (cf. ἵνα σκοτίῃ ἐνὶ νυκτὶ | φαρμάσσῃς), and Medea’s nocturnal flight to join Jason aboard the Argo (cf. νῦν δὲ καὶ αὐτή and ἀλλ᾿ ἔρχεο). See further several other passages, including the scholium ad A.R. 4.57, that explicitly envision Selene as leaving the sky in order to visit her beloved Endymion (Theocr. Id. 20.37–39; Catull. c. 66.5–6; Ov. Her. 18.65; Lucian Alex. 39, De sacr. 7, Dial. d. 19.232; Quint. Smyrn. 10.129–130). 84. Campbell (1981: 120) lists fifty-odd verbal echoes of the Aphrodite hymn in the Argonautica, of which some are surely fortuitous, but others represent probable imitations. With regards to Medea, I would point especially to the following: A.R. 3.4–5 ~ h.Hom.

261

POWER DIVINE

again, these allusions are typically double-edged, underscoring not the similarity, but the disjunction between Aphrodite and the darker figure of Medea. For reasons of space, I here focus on one of the clearest cases of this phenomenon, namely, another allusion set within the simile that compares Medea’s riding with her attendants to meet Jason for the first time to Artemis’ driving her chariot in the company of her nymphs to partake of a hecatomb (A.R. 3.876–886). As is well known, the overarching model for Apollonius’ simile is the passage in the Odyssey in which Nausicaa’s beauty outshines that of her playmates just as Artemis’ does that of her nymphs when they hunt boar and deer together (Od. 6.102– 109).85 According to the logic of the Odyssean simile, Artemis’ hunting corresponds, perhaps somewhat loosely, to Nausicaa’s ballgame (6.99– 101).86 Apollonius’ driving simile forges a more direct connection between Medea’s and Artemis’ activities (A.R. 3.878–880).87 Nevertheless, he finds a way to retain the animal element from the Odyssey simile, making it, in fact, another major point of comparison between vehicle and tenor. Apollonius’ simile ends as follows: ἀμφὶ δὲ θῆρες κνυζηθμῷ σαίνουσιν ὑποτρομέοντες ἰοῦσαν· ὣς αἵ γ᾿ ἐσσεύοντο δι᾿ ἄστεος, ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶ εἶκον ἀλευάμενοι βασιληίδος ὄμματα κούρης.

885

[A]nd all around wild animals fawn on her [Artemis], cowering with whimpers as she makes her way; thus did they [Medea and her attendants] hasten through the city, and all around them the people gave way as they avoided the eyes of the royal maiden. (A.R. 3.883–886)

5.82; 3.464 ~ 5.198–199; 3.535–536 ~ 5.7, 33 (cf. 3.530 ~ 5.5); 4.412 ~ 5.253; 4.1165 ~ 5.3; cf. also 4.429 (in light of 1.803, 850) ~ 5.2. At the level of ‘type scene’, Medea’s toilette before her meeting with Jason (3.828–837) reworks a few Homeric passages, including Aphrodite’s beautification before going to Anchises’ hut (5.58–67; cf. 84–90, 162–167; h.Hom. 6.6–14; Od. 8.362–366; Cypria frr. 5–6); see, e.g., Hunter (1989 ad A.R. 3.828–835); Natzel (1992: 69); Pavlou (2009: 190). 85. Noted already by Σ ad A.R. 3.876; see further, e.g., Knight (1995: 236–237). 86. Both activities are denoted by forms of the verb παίζω (Od. 6.100, 106); for this verb used of hunting, see Soph. El. 567 with Finglass (2007 ad loc.). 87. See, e.g., Clausing (1913: 31–32); Drögemüller (1956: 125–126). Apollonius’ similes characteristically feature greater degrees of correspondence between vehicle and tenor than do Homer’s; see, e.g., Faerber (1932: 22; 29–40); Carspecken (1952: 82–88); Fusillo (1985: 327–329); Nimis (1987: 105–108); Gummert (1992: 110–114); cf. Hunter (1993: 129); Knight (1995: 17–20).

262

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

In Apollonius’ reworking, the animals cowering around Artemis correspond to the people of Colchis who yield to Medea and avert their gaze as she passes by. These animals are not the hunted beasts of the Odyssey passage, but rather come from a scene in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite when the goddess first lights on Ida and heads to Anchises’ hut: Ἴδην δ᾿ ἵκανεν πολυπίδακα, μητέρα θηρῶν, βῆ δ᾿ ἰθὺς σταθμοῖο δι᾿ οὔρεος· οἳ δὲ μετ᾿ αὐτήν σαίνοντες πολιοί τε λύκοι χαροποί τε λέοντες ἄρκτοι παρδάλιές τε θοαὶ προκάδων ἀκόρητοι ἤϊσαν· ἣ δ᾿ ὁρόωσα μετὰ φρεσὶ τέρπετο θυμόν, καὶ τοῖς ἐν στήθεσσι βάλ᾿ ἵμερον, οἳ δ᾿ ἅμα πάντες σύνδυο κοιμήσαντο κατὰ σκιόεντας ἐναύλους.

70

She reached Ida with its many springs, mother of wild creatures, and went straight for the steading across the mountain, while after her went fawning the grey wolves and fierce-eyed lions, bears and swift leopards insatiable for deer. Seeing them, she was glad at heart; in their breasts too she cast longing, and they all lay down in pairs in their shadowy haunts. (h.Hom. 5.68–74)

Several lexical parallels connect Apollonius’ simile back to this passage in addition to the underlying narrative pattern of ‘woman passes (people compared to) fawning animals as she goes to meet her beloved’.88 As with Persephone and Hades before, this allusion suggests, at the outset of their relationship, an analogy associating Medea and Jason with Aphrodite and Anchises, and there are indeed notable similarities in their respective affairs. The hymnic narrative ends with Aphrodite’s warning to Anchises not to boast of their union to anyone, lest Zeus grow angry and strike him with his thunderbolt (h.Hom. 5.281–290). As Apollonius would have known from later sources, Zeus does indeed eventually smite Anchises for betraying Aphrodite’s trust – an ominous precedent for Jason.89 Likewise, both Aphrodite and Medea are deeply ashamed of their loves; Aphrodite even names the resultant son Aeneas (Αἰνείας, 198), ‘because awful grief took me in that I fell into the bed of a mortal man’ (οὕνεκά μ᾿ αἰνὸν | ἔσχεν ἄχος, ἕνεκα βροτοῦ ἀνέρος ἔμπεσον εὐνῇ, 198–199).90 88. These parallels are detailed by Vian (2002: 2.137 ad A.R. 3.869); see also Campbell (1981: 55); Natzel (1992: 72). 89. For the realization of Anchises’ punishment in other sources, see Lenz (1975: 146–149); Clay (2006: 199–200). 90. For Aphrodite’s shame, see also h.Hom. 5.247–255. The shamefulness of Medea’s actions is a constant refrain in the Argonautica: see 3.630–632, 640–641, 649–653, 681, 736–737, 741–743,785, 789–801, 904, 1068, 1132, 1144–1145, 1162; 4.5, 59, 234, 360, 367–368, 375, 379, 380, 411–413, 746–748, 1017, 1023, 1041, 1080–1082. Medea’s conflict between ἔρως and αἰδώς in Book 3 is well-analyzed by Barkhuizen (1979).

POWER DIVINE

263

Nevertheless, Apollonius’ adaptation utterly transforms the emotional coloring of the original passage: whereas Aphrodite inspires love (ἵμερον, 73), Medea inspires fear (cf. κνυζηθμῷ … ὑποτρομέοντες, A.R. 3.884).91 Just as with Nausicaa, this radical change underscores the differences that separate Medea from Aphrodite rather than their similarities.92 It is thus fitting that this allusion is set within a simile that in fact compares Medea to Artemis, a dread huntress of mountain beasts (Od. 6.102–104) and a perpetual virgin,93 who frequently represents Aphrodite’s polar opposite in Greek thought.94 The affective disjunction between alluding text and model text ultimately reflects, I argue, the divergent outcomes of their heroines’ respective relationships. Besides shame and injury, the product of Aphrodite’s affair is Aeneas, a fine son (h.Hom. 5.279) destined to found an enduring dynasty of Trojan kings (196–197). As a mortal, this son may be doomed to die and bring his deathless mother sorrow (cf., e.g., Il. 18.429–441),95 but the hymnist never registers this fact explicitly (cf. h.Hom. 5.50–51, 254–255).96 What, conversely, is the consequence of Medea’s love for Jason? Although scholars typically assume that the Argonautica is written as a self-conscious ‘prequel’ to Euripides’ Medea, Apollonius never explicitly predicts the murders that mark the climax of that tragedy. 97 91. Vian (2002: 2.137 ad A.R. 3.869); Effe (2008: 208–209 with n. 38). This atmosphere of fear is reinforced by further allusions in this passage to other Homeric intertexts involving Circe (Od. 10.215–219), Athena (16.163), and Apollo (h.Hom. 3.2), all noted by Campbell (1981: 55). The allusive texture of this simile, the longest in the epic (Drögemüller [1956: 124]; Broeniman [1989: 77]), is dense even by Apollonian standards, but here we have a good example of the way that Apollonius can integrate material from several different models, including the Homeric epics and the Homeric Hymns, within a single, thematically unified program of allusion. In this case, the poet provocatively intermingles discordant notes of dread and foreboding with allusions to Homeric exemplars of beauty and desire (Nausicaa and Aphrodite) in order to underscore their function as foils to the darker figure of Medea. 92. See, e.g., Campbell (1983: 56–59), who contrasts Medea here with both Nausicaa and Aphrodite. 93. Apollonius recalls Artemis’ virginity by beginning this simile with her bathing in the Parthenius river (A.R. 3.876); for the etymological wordplay, see Vian (2002: 1.280 ad A.R. 2.945). Knight (1995: 237 with n. 353) detects a note of danger in the motif of the goddess’s bathing, comparing Call. Hymn 5.107–116. 94. Most famously in Euripides’ Hippolytus; see also h.Hom. 5.16–20. For the ArtemisAphrodite dichotomy in the Argonautica, including in this scene, see Nelis (1991: 101). 95. For this theme in epic poetry, see, e.g., Thalmann (1984: 106–109). 96. See further Clay (2006: 192–193). Nagy (1999: 119 n. 5, 268 n. 8) notes that the permanence of the dynasty of the Aeneidae is meant to compensate for Anchises’ personal mortality. 97. In fact, Apollonius maintains a rigorous uncertainty concerning the precise nature of Jason and Medea’s future together and even foreshadows mutually exclusive versions thereof; see Byre (2002: chh. 3–4).

264

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

Within the scope of his epic, however, the Apollonian narrator does directly attribute another effect to Medea’s love for Jason, namely, the murder of her brother Apsyrtus, in a famous apostrophe to Eros that decries his malign influence on human beings (4.445–451). Tellingly, there is, I would argue, another allusion to the same scene of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite immediately before this apostrophe.98 Medea convinces her brother with guest gifts (422–434) and a series of false promises (435–441) to rendezvous at the temple of Artemis, where he will be fatally ambushed by Jason. But first, she adds a touch of magic to her program of persuasion: τοῖα παραιφαμένη θελκτήρια φάρμακ᾿ ἔπασσεν αἰθέρι καὶ πνοιῇσι, τά κεν καὶ ἄπωθεν ἐόντα ἄγριον ἠλιβάτοιο κατ᾿ οὔρεος ἤγαγε θῆρα. [S]aying such deceitful things, she released into the air and the breezes enchanting drugs, which could have lured a wild beast, even one far away, down from a steep mountain. (A.R. 4.442–444)

This magic represents an overdetermining factor in Apsyrtus’ beguilement.99 We never hear of its effect on him, and he is apparently deceived well enough by Medea’s lies alone (456). But, although substantial verbal parallels are lacking, the supernatural allurement of a mountain beast in this erotically charged context100 points once again to Aphrodite’s allurement of the beasts of Ida in her Homeric Hymn. Indeed, just like the simile at A.R. 3.876–886, this passage jarringly evokes the Aphrodite scene in a decidedly Artemisian context, as Medea lures Apsyrtus to his death at the goddess’s temple. Here, too, the allusion invites us to compare the effects of love on Medea and Aphrodite in terms of their own effects on animals, and whereas the goddess causes the Idan beasts to mate, Medea lures Apsyrtus to his grisly doom. Medea turns Aphrodite’s powers of attraction to violent ends, and once again, she is closer to the death-dealing virgin huntress than the goddess of love who promotes procreation. Both Aphrodite and Medea may represent variations of ‘the bewitcher bewitched’, but, as the Apsyrtus episode shows, the outcome

98. This paper focuses on allusions to the Homeric Hymns relating to Medea, but I may briefly mention here yet a third passage in which Apollonius reworks material from this scene in the Hymn to Aphrodite, namely, in his description of Cybele’s epiphany on Mt. Dindymum (A.R. 1.1144–1145). With that allusion the poet may intend to play upon Ida’s status as another of the mountains sacred to the Great Mother. 99. Stoessl (1941: 109); Natzel (1992: 104). 100. For the erotic elements in Medea’s ‘attraction’ of Apsyrtus, see Byre (1991: 224–225); Hunter (2015 ad A.R. 4.428–429, 444).

POWER DIVINE

265

of Medea’s bewitchment is kin-murder. As readers, we can only imagine the dire ramifications of this fact for her future with Jason beyond the scope of the epic.

5. Conclusion This study of Medea’s allusive relationship with the hymnic Athena, Persephone, and Aphrodite has touched on several of the key scenes that comprise Medea’s arc through Argonautica 3–4. By approaching this material through the lens of that other corpus of Homeric hexameters, the Homeric Hymns, I hope to have shed new light on these passages and to have foregrounded some of the vital aspects of Medea’s character. She is, like Athena, a phenomenally powerful woman, though the source of her awful βρίμη is not Olympus but the chthonic Hecate Brimo. It is with this picture of the sorceress that Apollonius leaves us at the close of the epic, but the true extent of Medea’s power, and especially its capacity to harm, is only revealed gradually. At first, she seems like a moreor-less ordinary girl, one who even bears comparison with the Homeric goddesses in their weaker moments: the victimized Persephone or the humbled, lovestruck Aphrodite. In retrospect, however, these comparisons must be qualified, for there were signs all along of Medea’s underlying nature – of a ‘dark side’, with a fearsome potential for violence. The learned reader may be able to appreciate these signs, but what of Jason? Notably, his reactions to Medea’s magic are never given.101 If I may hazard a final interpretation of a probable allusion to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Medea turns out to resemble the hymnic Aphrodite when she disguises herself as an ‘unwed maiden’ (παρθένῳ ἀδμήτῃ, h.Hom. 5.82; cf. 133) in order to seduce Anchises, lest he be terrified by her divine appearance (83). Indeed, after the consummation, when the goddess reveals her true form, Anchises cowers in fear as predicted (170–183) – the unions of mortals and goddesses do not often end well (cf. Od. 5.118–129). Likewise, Apollonius begins the story of Medea’s love with an invocation to the Muse Erato, explaining, ‘for you have a share also of Cypris’ power and enchant unwed girls with your anxieties’ (σὺ γὰρ καὶ Κύπριδος αἶσαν | ἔμμορες, ἀδμῆτας δὲ τεοῖς μελεδήμασι θέλγεις | παρθενικάς, 3.3–5).102 Medea herself is a prime example of 101. Cassidy (2019: 15); cf. A.R. 3.1221. 102. Scholars usually refer the phrase ἀδμῆτας … παρθενικάς to the Medea-Nausicaa analogy, as the Phaeacian princess is described in similar terms at Od. 6.109, 228 (παρθένος ἀδμής). But the erotic, and indeed, Cyprian context of A.R. 3.3–5 arguably makes the hymnic passage an even stronger intertext.

266

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

such an ‘unwed girl’ enchanted by Cypris, but as with Aphrodite, this characterization would belie her enormous supernatural power. Should then Jason, like Anchises, be afraid as the contours of her godlike power are increasingly revealed to him over the course of the poem? Through allusions like those tracked in this paper, Apollonius at least gives us many reasons to think so.103 REFERENCES Acosta-Hughes, B., 2010, Arion’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry. Princeton. Albis, R.V., 1996, Poet and Audience in the Argonautica of Apollonius. Lanham, MD. Allen, T.W. et al., 1936, The Homeric Hymns, 2nd ed. Oxford. Barkhuizen, J.H., 1979, “The Psychological Characterization of Medea in Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 3, 744–824”. AC 22, 33–48. Belloni, L., 1981, “Medea πολυφάρμακος”. CCC 2, 117–133. Beye, C.R., 1982, Epic and Romance in the Argonautica of Apollonius. Carbondale. Boesch, G., 1908, De Apollonii Rhodii elocutione. Diss. Göttingen. Broeniman, C.S., 1989, Thematic Patterns in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius: A Study in the Imagery of Similes. Diss. Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Buxton, R., 1998, “The Myth of Talos”. In: C. Atherton (ed), Monsters and Monstrosity in Greek and Roman Culture. Bari, 83–112. ―, 2000, “Les yeux de Médée: Le regard et la magie dans les Argonautiques d’Apollonios de Rhodes”. In: A. Moreau & J.-C. Turpin (eds), La magie: Actes du colloque international de Montpellier, 25–27 mars 1999, vol. 2. Montpellier, 265–275. Byre, C.S., 1991, “The Narrator’s Addresses to the Narratee in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica”. TAPhA 121, 215–227. ―, 2002, A Reading of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica: The Poetics of Uncertainty (Studies in Classics 20). Lewiston, NY. Campbell, M., 1981, Echoes and Imitations of Early Epic in Apollonius Rhodius. Leiden. ―, 1983, Studies in the Third Book of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (Altertumswissenschaftliche Texte und Studien 9). Hildesheim. ―, 1994, A Commentary on Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica III 1–471. Leiden. Carspecken, J.F., 1952, “Apollonius Rhodius and the Homeric Epics”. YCS 13, 33–143. Cassidy, S., 2019, “Wedding Imagery in the Talos Episode: Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.1653–88”. CQ 69.1, 1–16.

103. I would like to thank Patricia Rosenmeyer as well as everyone at the conference, especially my respondent Jacopo Khalil, Tom Nelson, and the editors of this volume, for their generous feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. Any remaining errors are solely my responsibility.

POWER DIVINE

267

Clack, J., 1982, An Anthology of Alexandrian Poetry. Pittsburg. Clausing, A., 1913, Kritik und Exegese der homerischen Gleichnisse im Altertum. Diss. Freiburg im Breisgau. Clauss, J.J., 1993, The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book 1 of Apollonius’ Argonautica (Hellenistic Culture and Society 10). Berkeley. ―, 1997, “Conquest of the Mephistophelean Nausicaa: Medea’s Role in Apollonius’ Redefinition of the Epic Hero”. In: J.J. Clauss & S.I. Johnston (eds), Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art. Princeton, 149–177. Clay, J.S., 1997, “The Homeric Hymns”. In: I. Morris and B. Powell (eds), A New Companion to Homer. Leiden, 489–507. ―, 2006, The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns, 2nd ed. London. Clayton, B.L., 2017, “Heracles, Hylas, and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in Apollonius’s Argonautica”. Helios 44.2, 133–156. Cusset, C., 1999, La Muse dans la Bibliothèque: Réécriture et intertextualité dans la poésie alexandrine. Paris. Dickie, M., 1990, “Talos Bewitched: Magic, Atomic Theory and Paradoxography in Apollonius Argonautica 4.1638–88”. In: F. Cairns & M. Heath (eds), Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar: Sixth Volume. Leeds, 267–296. Drögemüller, H.-P., 1956, Die Gleichnisse im hellenistichen Epos. Diss. Hamburg. Duckworth, G.E., 1933, Foreshadowing and Suspense in the Epics of Homer, Apollonius, and Vergil. Diss. Princeton. Dyck, A.R., 1989, “On the Way from Colchis to Corinth: Medea in Book 4 of the Argonautica”. Hermes 117, 455–470. van den Eersten, A., 2013, “To this well-nightingaled vicinity? Epithets in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica”. M.A. thes. Amsterdam. Effe, B., 2008, “The Similes of Apollonius Rhodius: Intertextuality and Epic Innovation”. In: T.D. Papanghelis & A. Rengakos (eds), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, 2nd ed. Leiden, 199–220. Eitrem, S., 1941, “La magie comme motif littéraire chez les Grecs et les Romains”. SO 21.1, 39–83. Evelyn-White, H.G., 1914, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (Loeb Classical Library 57). Cambridge, MA. Faerber, H., 1932, Zur dichterischen Kunst in Apollonios Rhodios’ Argonautica: Die Gleichnisse. Diss. Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität. Fantuzzi, M., 2007, “Medea maga, la luna, l’amore (Apollonio Rodio 4, 50–65)”. In: A. Martina & A.-T. Cozzoli (eds), L’epos argonautico. Rome, 77–95. ―, 2008, “Which Magic? Which Eros? Apollonius’ Argonautica and the Different Narrative Roles of Medea as a Sorceress in Love”. In: T.D. Papanghelis & A. Rengakos (eds), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, 2nd ed. Leiden, 287–310. Faulkner, A., 2011, “The Collection of Homeric Hymns: From the Seventh to the Third Centuries BC”. In: A. Faulkner (ed), The Homeric Hymns: Interpretive Essays. Oxford, 175–205.

268

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

Finglass, P.J., 2007, Sophocles. Electra. Cambridge. Foley, H.P., 1994, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretative Essays. Princeton. Fränkel, H., 1968, Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios. Munich. Fusillo, M., 1985, Il tempo delle Argonautiche: Un’analisi del racconto in Apollonio Rodio. Rome. Gemoll, A., 1886, Die homerischen Hymnen. Leipzig. Glei, R., & S. Natzel-Glei, 1996, Apollonios von Rhodos. Das Argonautenepos, 2 vol. Darmstadt. Graf, F., 1992, “An Oracle against Pestitence from a Western Anatolian Town”. ZPE 92, 267–279. Green, P., 1997, “‘These fragments have I shored against my ruins’: Apollonios Rhodios and the Social Revalidation of Myth for a New Age”. In: P. Cartledge et al. (eds), Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography. Berkeley, 35–71. ―, 2007, The Argonautika (Hellenistic Culture and Society 25) (expanded ed.). Berkeley. Gummert, P.H., 1992, Die Erzählstruktur in den Argonautika des Apollonios Rhodios. Frankfurt am Main. Hall, A.E.W., 2013, “Dating the Homeric Hymn to Selene: Evidence and Implications”. GRBS 53, 15–30. Herter, H., 1944–1955, “Bericht über die Literatur zur hellenistischen Dichtung seit dem Jahre 1921. II. Teil: Apollonios Rhodios”. Bursians Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der Altertumswissenschaft 285, 213–410. Hill, D.E., 1973, “The Thessalian Trick”. RhM 116, 221–238. Hinds, S., 1998, Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. Cambridge. Holmberg, I.E., 1998, “Μῆτις and Gender in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica”. TAPhA 128, 135–159. Hopkinson, N., 1988, A Hellenistic Anthology. Cambridge. Hulse, P., 2015, The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, Book 4, 1–481. Diss. Nottingham. Hunter, R.L., 1987, “Medea’s Flight: The Fourth Book of the Argonautica”. CQ 37.1, 129–139. ―, 1989, Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III. Cambridge. ―, 1993, The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies. Cambridge. ―, 1996, Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry. Cambridge. ―, 2015, Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book IV. Cambridge. Hutchinson, G.O., 1988, Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford. Ibscher, R., 1939, Gestalt der Szene und Form der Rede in den Argonautika des Apollonios Rhodios. Diss. Munich. Jackson, S., 1987, “Apollonius’ Argonautica: Euphemus, a Clod and a Tripod”. ICS 12.1, 23–30. ―, 1990, “Apollonius of Rhodes and the Corn-goddess: A Note on Arg. 4.869– 76”. LCM 15.4, 53–56. de Jong, I.J.F., 1989, “The Biter Bit: A Narratological Analysis of H. Aphr. 45–291”. WS 102, 13–26. Kauffman, N., 2016, “Monstrous Beauty: The Transformation of Some Death Similes in Apollonius’ Argonautica”. CPh 111, 372–390.

POWER DIVINE

269

Klooster, J., 2018, “Apollonius of Rhodes”. In: K. De Temmerman and E. van Emde Boas (eds), Characterization in Ancient Greek Literature (Mnemosyne Supplements 411). Leiden, 80–99. Knight, V., 1995, The Renewal of Epic: Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius. Leiden. Krevans, N., 1997, “Medea as Foundation-Heroine”. In: J.J. Clauss & S.I. Johnston (eds), Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art. Princeton, 71–82. Kyriakou, P., 1995, Homeric Hapax Legomena in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius: A Literary Study (Palingenesia 54). Stuttgart. Lenz, L.H., 1975, Der homerische Aphroditehymnus und die Aristie des Aineias in der Ilias (Habelts Dissertationsdrucke, Reihe klassische Philologie 19). Bonn. Livrea, E., 1973, Apollonii Rhodii Argonauticon Liber Quartus. Florence. Lovatt, H., 2013, The Epic Gaze: Vision, Gender and Narrative in Ancient Epic. Cambridge. McPhee, B.D., 2020, Blessed Heroes: Apollonius’ Argonautica and the Homeric Hymns. Diss. North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Murgatroyd, P., 2007, Mythical Monsters in Classical Literature. London. Murray, J., 2005, Polyphonic Argo. Diss. Washington. Nagy, G., 1999, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry, 2nd ed. Baltimore. Natzel, S.A., 1992, Κλέα γυναικῶν: Frauen in den Argonautika des Apollonios Rhodios (Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium). Trier. Nelis, D.P., 1991, “Iphias: Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.311–16”. CQ 41.1, 96–105. Newman, J.K., 1986, The Classical Epic Tradition. Madison. ―, 2008, “Golden Fleece. Imperial Dream”. In: T.D. Papanghelis & A. Rengakos (eds), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, 2nd ed. Leiden, 413–444. Nimis, S.A., 1987, Narrative Semiotics in the Epic Tradition. Bloomington. Nyberg, L., 1992, Unity and Coherence: Studies in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica and the Alexandrian Epic Tradition (Studia Graeca et Latina Lundensia). Lund. Olson, S.D., 2012, The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and Related Texts: Text, Translation and Commentary. Berlin. Paduano, G., 1971, “L’episodio di Talos: Osservazioni sull’esperienza magica nelle Argonautiche di Apollonio Rodio”. SCO 19–20, 46–67. Parker, R., 1991, “The Hymn to Demeter and the Homeric Hymns”. G&R 38.1, 1–17. Pavlock, B., 1990, Eros, Imitation, and the Epic Tradition. Ithaca. Pavlou, M., 2009, “Reading Medea through Her Veil in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius”. G&R 56.2, 183–202. Pharr, C., 1932, “The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law”. TAPhA 63, 269–295. Powers, N., 2002, “Magic, Wonder and Scientific Explanation in Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1638–93”. PCPS 48, 87–101. Prince, M., 2003, “Medea and the Inefficacy of Love Magic: Propertius 1.1 and Tibullus 1.2”. CB 79.2, 205–218. Race, W.H., 1997, Pindar (Loeb Classical Library 56), 2 vol. Cambridge, MA. ―, 2008, Apollonius Rhodius: Argonautica (Loeb Classical Library 1). Cambridge, MA.

270

BRIAN D. MCPHEE

Rengakos, A., 1993, Der Homertext und die hellenistischen Dichter. Stuttgart. Richardson, N.J., 1974, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Oxford. Robertson, M., 1977, “The Death of Talos”. JHS 97, 158–160. Rose, A., 1985, “Clothing Imagery in Apollonius’s Argonautika”. QUCC 21.3, 29–44. Rosenmeyer, P.A., 2004, “Girls at Play in Early Greek Poetry”. AJPh 125.2, 163–178. Sansone, D., 2000, “Iphigeneia in Colchis”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Apollonius Rhodius (Hellenistica Groningana 4). Leuven, 155–172. Schaaf, I., 2014, Magie und Ritual bei Apollonios Rhodios: Studien zur ihrer Form und Funktion in den Argonautika (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 63). Berlin. Stoessl, F., 1941, Apollonios Rhodios: Interpretationen zur Erzählungskunst und Quellenverwertung. Bern. Thalmann, W.G., 1984, Conventions of Forms and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry. Baltimore. Valverde Sánchez, M., 1996, Apolonio de Rodas: Argonáuticas (Biblioteca Clásica Gredos 227). Madrid. Vian, F. (ed), & É. Delage (trans), 2002. Apollonios de Rhodes: Argonautiques, 3 vol., rev. ed. Paris. West, M.L., 1966, Hesiod: Theogony. Oxford. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von., 1924, Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2 vol. Berlin. Zinserling-Paul, V., 1979, “Zum Bild der Medea in der antiken Kunst”. Klio 61.2, 407–436. Zyroff, E.S., 1971, The Author’s Apostrophe in Epic from Homer to Lucan. Diss. Johns Hopkins.

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN: HERODAS AND FEMALE ORIENTED SEX-HUMOR IN MIMIAMBUS 6 Jackie MURRAY ABSTRACT The communis opinio regarding the metapoetics of Mimiambi 6 (and 7) is that the allusions to the female poets, Erinna and Nossis, contribute to a misogynist attack against them and the type of poetry they espoused.1 Such a reading, however, assumes that Herodas is recycling the tired misogynist dildo-jokes found in Old Comedy. To my knowledge, scholars have never explored the possibility that Herodas may be invoking Erinna and Nossis to signal his appreciation and appropriation of these female poets’ poetics in his Mimiambi. This paper revaluates Mimiambus 6 in light of this likelihood and contends that Herodas, like his contemporary Callimachus, adapted their transgendered poetics to create authentic female characters whose sex-talk reflected a female centered subjectivity. Accordingly, Mimiambus 6 features a new kind of dildo-joke that is oriented toward women and reflects female-centered sexuality. Far from being a metapoetic attack, the allusions to Erinna and Nossis in Mimiambus 6 express Herodas’ appreciation for and indebtedness to their female-oriented poetry.

1. Introduction This paper continues an earlier discussion of the transgendered poetics of Erinna and Nossis that Jonathan Rowland and I began theorizing in “Gendered voice in Hellenistic Epigram” (2007). We argued that Erinna, and then Nossis, exploited the capacity of the text to be a “safe-space” for authentic female expression even within male oriented genres, such as epic and dedicatory epigram. In her epic poem, Distaff, and in her dedicatory epigrams, Erinna introduced an authentic female voice complete with female perspective and subjectivity into these traditionally male oriented genres. Since the text allowed her voice to be completely disembodied, Erinna could escape the restrictions on female voice imposed by the expectations of genres dedicated to glorifying and normalizing patriarchal 1. Cunningham (1971: 164, 182); Lawall (1976); Skinner (1989); Rist (1993); Neri (1994); Anagnostou-Laoutides (2015); most recently Warwick (2020), which appeared too late to address here.

272

JACKIE MURRAY

power. What marks Erinna’s voice as authentically female in these genres is not just its orientation toward traditionally female themes, such as childhood, domestic crafts, and marriage, but more importantly its selfawareness and its preoccupation with navigating the ways that the totalizing male-orientation of these genres capture female subjectivities and control female speech. Nossis followed her in giving authentic female subjectivities to her dedicatory epigrams. We labeled this poetics that allowed poets to represent an authentic female voice and perspective in a male-oriented genre “transgendered.” However, it was not limited to female poets. Erinna’s observation in GP 3 that male poets seem incapable of giving their perfectly crafted women authentic female voices presented the male poets who admired her poetry with a challenge. Could male poets adopt and adapt transgendered poetics and create authentic female voices in their poetry? In my most recent article in this series, “Poetically Erect: The female oriented humor in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter” (2019), I showed how Callimachus took up the challenge and appropriated transgendered poetics to give the narrator of his Hymn to Demeter an authentic female voice and subjectivity.2 To undermine the genre’s traditional totalizing male subjectivity, Callimachus balanced his narrator’s feminine subjectivity with his own masculine authorial subjectivity. His female narrator interrupted the Rape of Persephone at the moment when the narrative would have moved into the domestic sphere, a move that can be read as the poet’s critique of the way more traditional hymns to Demeter, e.g. Homeric and Orphic, grant the male poet an omniscient perspective that allows him to know what he cannot know, i.e. what goes on in the female world. His narrator’s choice to tell instead the Erysichthon myth reflects Callimachus’ attempt as a male poet to create an authentic female subjectivity that is limited by his ignorance of what women actually talk about in all-female settings. Callimachus, thus, subtly admits that, as a man, he has no direct access to the stories that women tell in the Thesmophoria festival. So, he presents a female narrator who is faced with story-telling options that reflect his limited repertoire and it is her choice that expresses her authentic female perspective. His female narrator chooses from the options available the story with the most potential for her to express a female subjectivity in religious mockery. The Erysichthon story is best suited to the shift of the focus in the hymn to the feminine domestic sphere. By treating the collapse of Triopas’ household, by focalizing the narrative through the 2. See Murray (2019); cf. Murray and Rowland (2007) with Gutzwiller (1997 and 1998) and Stehle (2001).

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

273

women of the family, by feminizing the male figures, and by infantilizing Erysichthon himself, Callimachus’ female narrator reoriented the gendered perspective of the Erysichthon story while she also dramatized the tension inherent in transgendered poetics by constant gender-switching in the imagery and language throughout the narrative. In this paper, I argue that, like Callimachus, Herodas admired the transgendered poetics of Nossis and Erinna and appropriated it in his Mimiambi to create authentic female voices and female centering sexhumor in the ostensibly male oriented hybrid genre of mimiambus.3 My argument contradicts the prevailing interpretation of Herodas’ Mimiambi 6 (and 7) as a misogynist attack against Erinna and Nossis, indicating his disapproval of their female oriented poetry.4 In the first section, I discuss the difference between sex-humor attributed to women that is, nevertheless, based on male-centering assumptions about female sexuality (exemplified in the dildo-humor of Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae and Lysistrata) and sex-humor attributed to women that is based on femalecentering assumptions exemplified by the vibrator-jokes of the hit HBO series, Sex and the City. Then, in section 2, I provide a translation and close reading of Mimiambus 6, demonstrating that the dildo-humor is female centering. Section 3 argues for a metapoetic interpretation of Mimiambus 6 that reads the allusions to Erinna and Nossis as explicit statements of indebtedness to their transgendered poetics and a rejection of the inauthentic transvestite and ventriloquized female voices of Old Comedy.

2. Male-Centering vs Female-Centering Sex-Humor The baseline for the male-centering sex-humor attributed to women that I will argue shortly Herodas is subverting in Mimiambus 6 is found in Old Comedy, specifically in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae and Lysistrata. In the former, the plot is that the women of Athens have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the women-only festival of Demeter to hold their own “citizens” assembly and discuss the biggest danger they face: Euripides. The tragedian, they charge, keeps creating 3. See Hordern (2004: 28) citing Cunningham (1971: 3). Although we have no direct indication that the title that appears in the London Papyrus was Herodas’ title; however, there is also no reason to doubt that it was his title. He was associated with the genre in antiquity. For discussion of the bibliography see Chesterton (2016: 172 n.525 and 196). On the focus on sex-humor in the collection see Anagnostou-Laoutides (2015). 4. See discussion below in section 3.

274

JACKIE MURRAY

plays featuring wicked heroines, like Phaedra, who give womankind a bad reputation. The aim of holding the assembly is to ratify a resolution to have Euripides executed. When the play opens, Euripides has found out about the women’s plans and proceeds to convince his kinsman to infiltrate the assembly disguised as a woman. Apart from the fact that the kinsman’s disguise is not very convincing, he betrays his sex in other ways, most significantly in they way he speaks about sex. During the assembly, the disguised kinsman makes a speech about his female persona’s sexuality that reflects the male-centered patriarchal sexual ideology of the Athenian audience of the play (Arist. Th. 477-496). I have many terrible things on my conscience, but the most terrible was when I was a bride for just three days, and my husband was sleeping next to me. I had a lover, the one who plundered my sexual innocence when I was seven. He came in heat and scratched at my door and straightaway I knew who it was. Then I snuck downstairs. My husband asked, “Where are you going downstairs?” “Where? Colic has my belly, husband, and cramps. So, I am going to the toilet.” “Go on then.” And then while he was grinding juniper, dill and sage, I poured water on the door hinge and went out to my lover. Then bending forward I was rammed hard while holding on to the laurel tree on Agyieus street. See, Euripides never mentioned that. Nor how we get pounded by slaves as well as mule-drivers if we don’t have anyone else. Nor how whenever we get stuffed by someone during the night, at dawn we chew up garlic so that when the husband comes in from outside the walls he won’t catch the smell and then suspect we were up to something bad.

In accordance with the Athenian male’s stereotypical obsession with the paternity of their own as well as other citizens’ children, the kinsman’s female persona confesses her sexual crimes from the perspective of a cuckold. The projection of male sexual disappointment and inadequacy is evident in the contrasting images he creates between his female persona being vigorously penetrated by her lover (ἠρείδομαι) and her imaginary husband submissively grinding herbs to calm her supposed upset stomach (κᾆθ᾿ ὁ μὲν ἔτριβε κεδρίδας, ἄννηθον, σφάκον, 486). Grinding herbs is, of course, a task carried out by women and the verb τρίβειν is a euphemism for masturbation. So the kinsman’s reference to grinding underscores the sense of sexual frustration and emasculation. The male orientation of the sex-humor in this speech is clearest in the brazen way the kinsman’s female persona can speak about being raped in childhood. He describes the rape as if it were a salacious guilty pleasure that triggered her supposedly innate and latent insatiable lust. Yet rape, especially childhood rape, is a subject that few women could ever find the courage to admit in the most intimate setting. In general, this type of

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

275

rape-joke is the projection of grossly misogynist male sexual fantasies based on assumptions about female sexuality and desire that center male pleasure and erase or normalize the violence. The kinsman’s male-centered logic assumes regardless of how young a girl is or how violent the event that any sexual experience a woman has will kindle her alleged latent and insatiable female appetite for penetration by a man.5 In this conception of female sexuality which reflects other aspects of the male-dominated Athenian worldview that Aristophanes exploited in his comedies, all women and girls are always eager to be penetrated by a man, any man. Aristophanes’ dildo-jokes are built on these premises and assume that women prefer real penises, and that all substitutes are inadequate. Hence, women only resort to dildoes when men are not around.6 Lysistrata showcases the typical male-centered dildo-joke in the context of the women’s complaints about the scarcity of men brought on by the war (Arist. Lys. 107-110): Kalonike: There isn’t even a speck of a lover left around. Since Miletus revolted from us, I haven’t seen even an eight-finger slider (ὄλισβον ὀκτωδάκτυλον), which might have been our leather ally.

Here Kalonike’s male subjectivity about female sexuality is evident. She mentions the dearth of dildoes to emphasize the severity of the dearth of men. The humor turns on the idea that by removing all the real and imitation penises the war has made sexual pleasure impossible for women.7 In the context of the original stage performance, where all the male characters would have huge ithyphallic prostheses that signify their sexual incontinence, Kalonike’s reference to a barely adequate eight-fingers dildo adds to the male-oriented humor by characterizing her as the insatiable female counterpart.8 Aristophanes’ dildo-jokes are based on the assumption that given a choice women prefer penises to dildoes. This type of humor supported the patriarchal status quo by oppressively censoring female sexuality that fell outside of the hegemonic male constructed bounds of appropriate femininity.

5. Tsoumpra (2020: 6-13) puts this stereotype in the context of ancient medical discourse about women. See also Dean-Jones (1992) and Faraone (2011). 6. Cf. Arist. fr. 592 Kass. Aust.; Sophr. fr. 24 Kaibel. In comic representations of what Athenian males imagined to be unfettered female sexuality, the dildo, as Jeffery Henderson (1991: 221) points out, “was used by women … whose constant need of sexual input was momentarily frustrated by the absence of husbands (or less charitably, the absence of adulterers, mule-drivers, or slaves).” 7. See Konstan (1995: 47) who points out, “The women’s primary motive for ending the hostilities between the Athenian and Spartan alliances is sex.” 8. Cf. Arist. Lys. 157-161 where Kalonike complains about the inadequacy of dildoes.

276

JACKIE MURRAY

The sex-humor that survives Old Comedy and its adjacent genres like mime and iambic poetry is also male-oriented and reflects a male-centering construction of female sexuality. Scholars of Herodas’ Mimiambus 6 have approached its sex-humor assuming that it is based on the same premises. The resulting reading of the Mimiambi is typically misogynist, and 6, in particular, is a misogynist attack on Erinna and Nossis. This hostile reading is the consequence of trying to force the poem into a procrustean mold. Mimiambus 6 does not fit because it is a rare instance of female centering sex-humor. However, before I can make that argument, it is important to establish what female centering sex-humor actually looks like. An apt contrast to the male-centered sex-humor of Old Comedy is the female-centered humor of Sex and the City which is built around the assumption that the audience will be predominantly (but not exclusively) heterosexual women, and centers the sexuality of heterosexual women. This female-centering sexuality expresses itself most clearly in the series’ leitmotif–previously unthinkable in the mainstream media: women flirting with the fact that men are not necessary to their enjoyment of sex. The series, of course, does not offer a radical overthrow of patriarchal norms.9 The “liberated” women of Sex and the City still need to cloak their sexual expression in a veneer of “nice-girlness.” Despite the series’ professed allegiance to a sex-positive feminism, all the female characters still seek to be perceived by men as a “good woman,” i.e. “the marrying kind.” In fact, since men still maintain social, cultural, and political hegemony, Sex and the City’s Cinderella-like ending–where the main character, Carrie, ends up finally marrying Mr. Big, her extremely well-endowed (sexually and financially) philandering love interest–unmasks the series’ full support of traditional norms. Even Samantha, who is apparently the most sexually liberated of the group, often objects to the idea of doing without men and regularly calls attention to her age and the need to marry well before it is too late. And although, according to the series, “The marrying kind” of woman is certainly not a virgin, she does have to be veiled in the respectability of conspicuous luxury consumerism: expensive designer shoes, spacious luxury Manhattan apartments, and the latest trendy cocktails in exclusive bars and restaurants make these women attractive to a husband who is like Mr. Big, a “good catch.”

9. See Hermes (2002).

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

277

Nevertheless, Sex and the City uses authentic female-centered vibrator-jokes in its pretense to challenging patriarchal constructions of femininity, and these jokes serve as a good foil for Aristophanes’ malecontering dildo-jokes. The first vibrator-joke of the series appeared in the 9th episode of the first season, “The Turtle and the Hare.”10 In a fancy Manhattan restaurant, Miranda declares to the other characters that she has found the ultimate vibrator and that its existence will hasten the obsolescence of men within the next 50 years. Although the other characters express incredulity at the discovery, all except Samantha, who has a promising date with a real man, are curious enough to follow Miranda to an upscale department store to see–and perhaps purchase–this miraculous invention. Miranda: [Presenting a fancy purple box] Ladies, I’d like you to meet The Rabbit. Carrie: $92! Miranda: Please! Think about the money we spend on shoes. Charlotte: I have no intention of using that. I’m saving sex for someone I love. Miranda: Fantastic. Is there a man in the picture? [Carrie takes the rabbit out of the box and examines it] Charlotte: Oh look! Oh it’s so cute. Oh, I thought it would be all scary and weird but it isn’t. It’s pink! For girls! And look the little bunny has a little face, like Peter Rabbit. Carrie: Hmm, it’s even got a remote. I mean, how lazy do you have to be?11

Of all the characters in the series Charlotte most adheres to traditional male-oriented notions of female respectability. She is a “good girl” or at least acts like one, i.e. she pretends to be sexually naive and inexperienced. Accordingly, in the gag the name of the vibrator, “The Rabbit”, which highlights the playful tension between girls’ toy animals and women’s sex-toys, helps establish Charlotte as the “straight-man” who follows the “good-girl” script. The climax of the joke occurs when Charlotte switches to the “liberated woman” script and is exposed as having taken Miranda’s world view too far. Carrie: Hello. Charlotte: Carrie, it’s Charlotte. I’m really sorry, but I’m gonna have to cancel; I’m totally wiped out.

10. Sex and the City (1998: Season 1, Episode 9). 11. Sex and the City (1998: Season 1, Episode 9).

278

JACKIE MURRAY

Carrie: Uh huh. [Voice-over: “Wiped out.” That was Charlotte-speak for “I’m spending the night with my vibrator.”] Charlotte: But you guys have fun though. Carrie: [Voice-over: There was only one thing we could do: a rabbit intervention!] [Later Miranda and Carrie barge into Charlotte’s apartment]. Miranda: Come on, let’s go! Carrie: Okay. Where is it? Charlotte: What are you talking about? Miranda: The rabbit, Charlotte. Where’s the rabbit? Charlotte: Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! It’s a vibrator. It’s not like it’s crack! Carrie: Oh Charlotte! You hid the rabbit behind a stuffed rabbit! That is so you. Charlotte: You guys have a lotta nerve coming in here. You’re the one who made me get it. Miranda: I thought you could handle it. Charlotte: It’s no big deal. I just rather stay home with the rabbit than go out and deal with men.12

Charlotte has become so fond of her Rabbit that she no longer desires to meet men or even socialize with her girlfriends. Consequently, Carrie and Miranda must stage an intervention to initiate Charlotte’s recovery as if she were a drug addict who needs to be confronted about her dangerous lifestyle. She, however, opposes the comparison of her innocuous sex-toy habit to drug addiction: “It’s a vibrator. It’s not like it’s crack!” she says. And the double-entendre in “the Rabbit” becomes concrete when she hides her Rabbit vibrator behind her stuffed toy rabbit. At the end of the joke, the logic of the traditional male-centered understanding of female sexuality has been completely overturned. Women do not use vibrators because they do not have a man; rather, they use vibrators to enjoy sex without men. Another aspect of female centering sex humor is the self-conscious negotiation of the hegemonic patriarchal construction of femininity. An excellent analogy is the way stores that sell sex-toys to women use strategies of respectability politics to open up the market. In her study of the marketing of sex-toys, Lynn Comella notes that shops that cater to women attempt to distinguish themselves from the more traditional male-oriented stores by drawing a bright line through upscale decor, elegant windowdressing, and feminized packaging that emphasizes the “sleaziness” of shops targeting men.13 This effort to construct a gendered opposition

12. Sex and the City (1998: Season 1, Episode 9). 13. Comella (2017: 88-112)

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

279

between “respectable” and “sleazy” sex-toy shops allowed the retailers to navigate the policing of the public expression of female sexuality. The pressure that sex-shops catering to women are under is similar to the pressure forcing female centered sex humor to adhere to the hegemonic patriarchal construction of femininity. Another episode entitled, “Critical Condition”, thematizes this analogy between selling sex-toys to women and telling female centering sex-jokes. In the upscale yuppie gadget shop called Sharper Image, an unquestionably male oriented space, a salesman officiously refuses to allow Samantha to return a malfunctioning vibrator because she uses its vox propria. Samantha: I’d like to return this vibrator. Salesman: We don’t sell vibrators. Samantha: Yes you do. I bought it here six months ago. Salesman: That’s not a vibrator; it’s a neck massager. Samantha: No, it’s a vibrator. Salesman: Sharper Image doesn’t sell vibrators; it’s a neck massager. Samantha: You expect me to believe that women buy these to massage their sore necks? Salesman: It’s a neck massager. Samantha: Fine. I’d like to return this neck massager.14

The salesman, who is contractually bound to stick to the non-sexual script, is set up as the straight-man in the gag. Samantha plays out the sexual script. She willfully rides roughshod over the social norms, publicly calling a vibrator a vibrator. The climax of the joke comes when Samantha becomes the de facto salesperson. She drives up sales as she explains the features of the various “neck massagers” to the other women in the store, proving definitively just how counterproductive to a store’s bottom line the hegemonic patriarchal construction of femininity actually is. The vibrator-jokes of Sex and the City provide useful examples of sexhumor that centers the female experience while navigating hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality. Crucial to this kind of sexhumor, which differs substantially from the sex-humor of Old Comedy, is the premise that men are not necessary for women to enjoy sex.15 Also important for the authentic feminine subjectivity of the humor are the self-conscious references to the ways female sexuality is restricted in the wider male dominated culture.

14. Sex and the City (2002: Season 5, Episode 72). 15. Hermes (2002).

280

JACKIE MURRAY

In the next section, I translate Mimiambus 6 and offer a close reading of the dildo-joke that will demonstrate that it produces its sex-humor in much the same way Sex and the City does.16 Mimiambus 6 shares the same premise that men are not necessary to female sexual pleasure. It also has a very similar relationship to its own historically contingent hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality as well as the same self-consciousness as its characters navigate their sexuality within its framework. As with Sex and the City, by positioning the reader of the dildo-joke as a eavesdropper on the characters’ private conversation, the textuality of Mimiambus 6 also has the effect of neutralizing the “sleaziness” that would attend a public performance.17 So, the dildojoke proceeds like the vibrator-jokes of Sex and the City, beginning with a non-sexual script and self-conscious gestures to the hegemonic patriarchal constructions of femininity that govern women’s sex-talk and then switching to the overtly sexual script at the climax.

3. Lost in Translation: A Close Reading the Herodas’ Female Oriented Dildo-joke Translation of Mimiambus 6 Koritto: Sit, Metro! Give the woman a seat, you get up! Must I do everything myself! You sorry wretch, you wouldn’t do a thing on your own. Demeter! You’re a block of stone – not a slave – in the house over there! But if I’m measuring out the barley, 5 you are counting the crumbs! And if so much as a speck trickles off, the whole day, the walls can’t bear you going on with your muttering and blustering! Are you now wiping it off and making it shine, because there is a need? You pirate! Make an offering to this woman, 10 since I could have made you taste my fists. Metro: Koritto my friend, you and I rub the same yoke. Day and night I also snarl and bark like a dog at these nameless wretches. Well, why I came to see you – get out of here! 15 16. Unless indicated otherwise my translation is based on Zanker’s text. 17. I am not persuaded by Mastromarco (1984), who argues that the Mimiambi were intended for the stage. I follow Hutchinson (1988:241; 2008) who believes that the collection was intended primarily for readers and not intended for performance. For similar views see Zanker (2006, 2010: 4-5); Kutzko (2006, 2008); Stanzel (1998: 121-122, 2010); Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi & Hunter (2004: 33); Hunter (1993: 39, 43-44).

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

281

Die already, you cabbage-heads, ears and tongues only, but the rest is on holiday! I beg you, don’t lie, Koritto my friend, who on earth was it who stitched for you the red βαυβών? Koritto: Where have you seen it, Metro? Metro: Nossis, Erinna’s daughter, had it three days ago. Demeter! What a lovely gift! Koritto: Nossis? Where did she get it from? Metro: Are you going to talk badly about me if I tell you? Koritto: I swear by these sweet ones, Metro my friend, out of Koritto’s mouth you won’t hear so much as a word of whatever you are going to say. Metro: Bitis’ wife, Euboule, gave it to her and told her not to let anyone know. Koritto: Women! That very woman will destroy me one day! Because she kept begging me, I felt ashamed and gave it to her, Metro, before I had enjoyed it myself. But she, as if she found it, snatches it up and presents it as a gift and to someone she shouldn’t! To hell with her, since she is such a friend, and instead of me, let her consider the other woman as her girlfriend. To think that she is enjoying my things with Nossis! To her I don’t think – I am growling louder than is ladylike, pardon me, Adrasteia – if there were a thousand, I wouldn’t even hand over one that’s filthy! Metro: Now, Koritto, don’t hold your bile on the nose immediately, if you learn some stupid story. The decent woman must bear everything. I am to blame for this by blabbing a lot; well, my tongue ought to be cut out. But back to that thing that I especially mentioned to you: Who stitched it? Please, tell me. Why are you looking at my face and laughing? Now have you seen Metro for the first time? Why is this so splendid to you? I am beseeching you, Koritto, don’t lie to me, But tell me the man who stitched it. Koritto: Ma! What are you begging me? Kerdon stitched it. Metro: Which Kerdon? Tell me! Because there are two Kerdons, one is the grey neighbor of Myrtaline, daughter of Kylaithis, but he couldn’t stitch a plectrum to a lyre. The other one lives near the apartment building of Hermodorus as one leaves the broad street. Once upon a time he was someone, but now he has grown old. Kylaithis, may she rest in peace, used to deal with him – may her relatives remember her.

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

282

JACKIE MURRAY

Koritto: He is neither of the ones you mention, Metro. But I don’t know if he is someone from Chios or he came from Erythrai He’s bald, short. You will say he looks exactly like Prexinus; no fig resembling another fig 60 so much could you have, except when he talks, you would recognize that he’s Kerdon and not Prexinus. He works at home making deals in secret, because nowadays every door shivers at the tax collectors. But the workmanship! The workmanship is of such high quality! Athena’s 65 very own handiwork, not Kerdon’s you will believe you are seeing. And one – because he came with two, Metro – when I saw it, my eyes bulged out of their sockets with competing desire.18 Men don’t make – we are alone after all – their little dicks so erect! And not only this, 70 but the softness is sleep, and the straps are wool, not leather. A more well-intentioned cobbler toward women you will not find if you search for another. Metro: How did you let the other one get away? Koritto: Metro, you mean what didn’t I do? What kind of inducement didn’t I apply on him to persuade 75 him. I was kissing him, massaging his bald head, making him drink strong wine, I was sweet-talking him, only my body I didn’t give him to enjoy. Metro: But, if you thought it was worth it, even this you should have given. Koritto: Indeed, I should have, but the timing was off and inappropriate. 80 Bitis’ wife’s slave wandered in in the middle of things. You see, day and night by grinding our millstone she turned it to slag in order to avoid pounding her own worth four obols. Metro: And how did he find the way to you, 85 Koritto my friend? Don’t lie to me about this. Koritto: Artemeis the wife of Kandas the tanner pointed out my roof and sent him. Metro: Artemeis is always finding a new deal, drinking the broker’s fresh pressed wine from afar. 90 Well, since you weren’t able to purchase the pair, you should have found out who reserved the other one. Koritto: I kept asking, but he swore he would not tell me, because he was really fond of her, Metro. Metro: You mean my road now is to Artemeis, 95 in order to know who Kerdon is. Take care of yourself for me, Koritto. He’s hungry and it’s time for us to be off. 18. I follow Kutzko’s (2000) emendations for these lines: ἑ[νος] μὲν – δύο γὰρ ἦλθ’ ἔχων, Μητροῖ – | ἰδοῦσ’ ἀμίλλη τὤμματ’ ἐξεκύμηνα·

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

Koritto: Lock the door. You there, chick-feeder, count to see if the hens are safe, and throw them some seed. To be sure, bird-thieves are making havoc, even if one feeds them in her lap.

283

100

The structure of Mimiambus 6 falls into four parts that are clearly marked by Metro’s attempts to direct the conversation to her goal of obtaining the information she needs to set up her own arrangement with Kerdon. At the transition between each section, Metro begs Koritto for the information about the dildo-maker three times, using similar language: λίσσομαί σε, μὴ ψεύσῃ, φίλη Κοριττοῖ (6.17-19); ἐνεύχομαι, Κοριττί, μή μ’ ἐπιψεύσῃ (6.46-47); κῶς δ᾽οὗτος εὗρε πρός σε τὴν ὁδὸν ταύτην, | φίλη Κοριττοῖ; μηδὲ τοῦτό με ψεύσῃ (6.85-86). In the first section (6.1-19), the setting of the joke is established. Metro has arrived at Koritto’s home and she makes a ruckus with her slave-girls to prepare a comfortable chair.19 Metro drives the slavegirls out of earshot with abusing insults that imply that they are eavesdroppers and tattle-tales (φθείρεσθε, νώβυστρα, ὦτα μοῦνον καὶ γλάσσαι, 6.17). Her actions make clear that the subsequent conversation will be conducted in complete privacy. They also simultaneously signify Koritto’s and her own dominant status in the social hierarchy, which invokes the hegemonic patriarchal constructions of femininity as the framework within which the humor must operate. For the expectation of modesty and respectability would not operate if they were slaves. Once absolute privacy has been secured, Metro asks Koritto who stitched the red βαυβών (6.19). The hapax is a euphemism; however, it should be emphasized that there was no bad-word for “dildo”. Max Nelson’s study of the word ὄλισβος, the word generally assumed to be the vox propria, convincingly demonstrates that even this word was not the vulgar way to refer to a dildo.20 Nelson furthermore shows that all surviving textual references to dildoes are made through double-entendres. Hence, translating ὄλισβος or other double-entendres exegetically as “dildo”, causes any humorous word-play to be lost. His observations about dildo-words in Greek are crucial to understanding the deployment of the hapax βαυβών in Mimiambus 6. For, the whole joke is in danger of being completely misunderstood if the dildo is a dildo right from the start. There are three likely connotations of this euphemism for dildo:

19. Koritto’s urgency suggests that Metro is perhaps carrying a baby, whom she refers to at the end of the poem before leaving saying, “someone is hungry.” 20. Nelson 2000.

284

JACKIE MURRAY

βαυβάω, “lull to sleep,” as a nursing mother does a baby, βαυβώ, “womb,” and Βαυβώ, Baubo/Iambe the figure from the Rape of Persephone myth who makes Demeter laugh by telling obscene jokes and/or making obscene gestures, including exposing her genitals.21 Scholarly consensus has been elusive because most arguments insist on one derivation to the exclusion of the others. For example, Nelson argues it must be derived from βουβών, “male genitalia” or “glands”. No doubt, the scholarly expectation that βαυβών should refer to something that resembles male sex organs has contributed to the controversy. Yet, I would argue that Herodas’ dildo-joke depends on the hapax βαυβών being a new coinage for dildo intended to capture all three etymologies at once, i.e. lull to sleep/sleep with, womb, and Baubo, as a new “triple”-entendre for dildo. The point of having Metro, whose name means mother, refer to the object as a βαυβών is to signal that the dildo joke will be female centering and female oriented. The hapax is deployed at the beginning of the joke precisely to establish the non-sexual script in the mind of the reader who would not be expecting a dildo-joke that centers female sexuality. In the male oriented-sexual script, the coinage of βαυβών as an unexpected euphemism for dildo characterizes Metro as the straight-man who is making an effort to keep the register of the conversation within the framework of respectability. In the second section (6.20-47), Metro’s first attempt to find the identity of the man who stitched the βαυβών fails because her question starts to unravel a web of secrecy and betrayal. Koritto is surprised by Metro’s question, and instead of answering, she starts her own interrogation. She asks Metro where she saw the βαυβών, expecting the answer to be “with Euboule” since, as she admits later, she gave it to Euboule shortly after she got it from the cobbler. The βαυβών is thus treated by these women as a kind of vehicle for prestige that everyone wants. Metro refers to it as a lovely gift (μᾶ, καλόν τι δώρημα, 6.22). It is clearly the kind of gift a woman cannot resist showing off to her girlfriends if she had received it; this is precisely what Nossis does with it. Yet, it is also the kind of gift the giver would want to keep a secret. When Metro gives the unexpected answer that Nossis, Erinna’s daughter, showed the βαυβών to her, 21. Zanker (2010: 171) following P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (1968) s.v. βαυβάω suggests that “βαῦβωνα is probably related to the verb βαυβάω, ‘sleep,’ or ‘lull to sleep’; for ὄλισβος as the usual word for dildo see Aristophanes Lysistrata 109, Epicharmos fr. 226, Kratinos fr. 354, Sophron fr. 23, Alkaios fr. 303 Voight = Sappho fr. 99.1.5 Lobel-Page. On Baubo and Iambe see Clem.Al. Protr. 2.16-17, Euseb. PE 2.3.30-35, Arnob. Advers.Nat. 5.25-26. Nelson (2000) suggests βουβών, “[male] genitals”. Hesychius: Βαυβώ (sc. Βαυβώ) κοιλία.

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

285

Koritto is ready to fly into a rage. She obviously posed the question because she thought that Euboule should have kept the fact that she had received the βαυβών from her a secret. But Metro’s answer shoved that concern aside and replaced it with the more distressing realization that Euboule has betrayed her by giving the βαυβών to Nossis. When Koritto then presses Metro about who gave it to Nossis, she already knows the answer. Metro suspects she does, which is why she becomes reluctant to say it without an oath of secrecy. Once Metro divulges that Nossis received it as a gift from Euboule, adding that Euboule told Nossis not to reveal where she got it, Koritto nearly explodes with rage, and loses her control over her speech. In her angry complaint that is meant to gain Metro’s sympathy, Koritto reveals that Euboule begged her for the βαυβών importunately and that she gave it to her out of a sense of aidōs, even before she had enjoyed it herself (ἐγὼ μὲν αὐτὴν λιπαρεῦσαν ᾐδέσθην / κἤδωκα Μητροῖ, πρόσθεν ἢ αὐτὴ χρήσασθαι, 6.28-29). Evidently, Koritto gave the βαυβών to Euboule hoping to create a special bond between them and now she feels tricked. Koritto’s complaint also inadvertently reveals an aspect of her relationship with Euboule and Euboule’s relationship with Nossis that should not be exposed, not even in private. Her sarcastic wish that Euboule go to Hell and replace her with Nossis as her girlfriend hints at her jealousy. But when she says out loud that she imagines Euboule is enjoying the βαυβών with Nossis (τἀμὰ Νοσσίδι χρῆσαι / τῆι μὴ δοκέω, 6.33-34), it should be clear that the type of jealousy she is experiencing is sexual.22 It is worth noting that as soon as the sexual nature of Koritto’s jealousy is out in the open, there is an immediate focus on controlling female speech. Koritto knows she has gone too far and she immediately acknowledges that she has said something punishable (μέζον μὲν ἢ δίκη γρύζω, / λάθοιμι δ’, Ἀδρήστεια, 6.34-35). Metro, too, realizes that her initial question broke down the dam of secrets and that the flood of fury in Koritto poses a serious obstacle to her own goal of getting a βαυβών for herself. So, she tries to get Koritto to behave like a good woman, advising her not to get angry, but instead to bear everything nobly. Metro also takes responsibility for causing trouble by gossiping and even wishes to have her tongue cut out. But it is already too late. At the end of this 22. All translators translate χρῆσαι here bizarrely to mean “lend.” This is patent nonsense; a woman simply would not “lend” a dildo to another woman. In the context, the women are clearly giving the dildo to their friends / love interests as gifts. What upsets Koritto is that Euboule and Nossis have a sexual relationship. See Marshall & Ripat (2014) on the sexual meaning of the verb.

286

JACKIE MURRAY

section, Metro is forced to repeat her initial question to get the conversation back on track. The penultimate section (6.48-86) is the longest and contains the climax of the dildo-joke. Here, the script switches completely from the expected male centered perspective on female sexuality to a female centered perspective when Metro asks again who stitched the βαυβών, expecting resistance from Koritto. As before, she replies by asking a question: But this time her question merely reflects her distracted mental state: “Ma! What are you begging me?”. Once she remembers what they were talking about, she blurts out the answer right away: “Kerdon stitched it.” Metro clearly expected Koritto to withhold the information about Kerdon, but Koritto’s attention is so taken up with her sexual jealousy that she readily gives up the identity of the dildo-maker. However, his name is not enough information for Metro; she knows two Kerdons. In observing that the Kerdon who lives near Kylaithis’ daughter cannot stitch a plectrum to lyre, Metro uses a metaphor that links lyre playing with dildo-making and activates the latent doubleentendre in “plectrum”, which because of its phallic shape was another dildo-word.23 The other Kerdon had a relationship – presumably an illicit sexual relationship – with Kylaithis. By using a known dildo-word in relation to the first and implicating Kylaithis in adultery with the second, Metro’s discussion of the two Kerdons she knows follows the script of male-oriented dildo-jokes, reinforcing her position as the straight-man in the gag and paving the way for Koritto to switch to the female centered script. As Koritto describes the dildo-maker and praises his expertise and craftsmanship, the βαυβών becomes a dildo, she becomes very excited remembering how magnificent his handiwork was. She mentions that he brought two with him and that she had a hard time choosing: “my eyes bulged out of their sockets with competing desire” (6.68). Significantly, it is with a gesture to the framework of respectability that she then delivers the punchline: “Men do not make–we are alone after all–their little dicks so erect!” (6.69-70). Koritto points out that Kerdon’s innovation of stitching with wool proved he was the most considerate of women of all dildo-makers (6.71-72). Metro’s follow-up question shows that she has become distracted from her goal by the description of the amazing dildoes. She now wants to know why Koritto felt forced to choose between them: “How did you let the other one get away?” (6.73). In other words, why did she not simply buy both? Koritto responds that she 23. Stern (1979: 253).

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

287

used all her sexual wiles trying to persuade Kerdon to sell the second dildo to her, but he refused, claiming that he had already promised it to someone else. She was willing even to exchange with Kerdon sex for the dildo had Euboule’s slavegirl not interrupted them. Koritto takes the premise of the female centering dildo-joke to its logical extreme. Herodas has upended the male oriented male centering dildo-joke; his women do not resort to dildoes because men are not available. His women do not need men for sexual pleasure. In fact, men are so incidental to their sexual pleasure that they treat having sex with a man as a mere the means to an end.24 As in the female-centering vibrator-jokes of Sex and the City, women do not need men if they have a well-made dildo. When Koritto mentions that Euboule’s slavegirl prevented her from trading sex for the second dildo, Metro takes the opportunity to divert the conversation away from the sore subject to ask how Kerdon found Koritto’s door. In the final section (6.77-102) Koritto tells Metro that Artemeis, the wife of Kandas the tanner, was the go-between who pointed out her roof to Kerdon. Metro, however, is not happy with the news that she has to deal with Artemeis, and she complains: “Artemeis is always finding a new deal, drinking the broker’s fresh pressed wine from afar” (6.89-90). At this point, it is worth interrupting my reading of the Mimiambus to introduce David Kutzko’s (2006) compelling reading of this section of the conversation. He argues: Koritto provides almost all the information Metro needs to acquire a dildo for herself: the name of the maker and how and where he sells his products. She even appeals to Metro’s urgency to buy a dildo by extensively praising Kerdon’s handiwork. It is all the more surprising then, when Metro ignores all but one minor detail in the middle of her speech: κῶς οὖν ἀφῆκας τὸν ἕτερον; (74 ‘How is it then that you let the other one go?’). What began as a passing remark, that Kerdon had two dildoes, oddly becomes a dominant topic of the conversation. Koritto tells Metro that she begged to have both dildoes and would have given sexual favors in exchange for the other one, had it not been for the presence of her neighbor Euboule (6.74-84). Metro then appears to drop the topic and abruptly changes her line of questioning (85-86).25

24. Hutchinson (1988: 253) observed this inversion of the usual male oriented logic long ago, but did not make anything of it. 25. Kutzko (2006: 129).

288

JACKIE MURRAY

After quoting the text of Metro asking how Kerdon found Koritto, Kutzko observes: This question would have followed naturally immediately after Metro had learned about Kerdon. The most obvious explanation for why Metro asks this is that she will use this person as a ‘contact’ to get to Kerdon. The digression about the second dildo in between lines 74 and 84, then, stands out all the more: why would Metro care why Koritto did not buy two dildoes, if she were only interested in setting up a meeting with Kerdon, as most scholars claim? Furthermore, when Metro learns that this ‘contact’ is Artemis, her reaction is far from enthusiastic (87-90).26

Kutzko goes on to remark that Metro’s unprompted return to the second dildo is puzzling. The two distinct thoughts – Metro’s distaste for Artemis and her interest in the fate of the second dildo – are thus deliberately juxtaposed and this juxtaposition creates a mysterious effect. More than just mysterious, there is something slightly suspicious about the way in which Metro phrases her words in lines 91-92. How is it that Metro knows that the second dildo was ordered by someone in the first place? Koritto had only said that Kerdon would not give it to her; she did not specify Kerdon’s reasons for doing so, let alone that he was reserving it for another woman.27

According to Kutzko, the best explanation is that Metro came to Koritto with an ulterior motive. Since Metro does not say her good-byes until after she has ascertained that Koritto does not know who bought the other dildo, her sudden departure must be related to her returning the conversation back to the second dildo. He says: On closer inspection of the actual order of her line of questioning, we have seen that Metro is not as interested in meeting Kerdon as she is in how much Koritto knows about Kerdon’s other customer and in exactly how Koritto learned about Kerdon and his merchandise. Herodas has created a mystery around Metro’s motivations. By the poem’s end, we start to suspect that the mystery woman is none other than Metro herself. The beginning of the next poem, in which Metro and Kerdon greet each other warmly (7.1-4), confirms this suspicion.

Compelling as it is, I am not convinced by Kutzko’s interpretation here. Firstly, it is not clear to me why Metro–who under his reading would have to be worried about word getting out that she is the possessor of the other dildo–would risk her secret being exposed by visiting Koritto ostensibly to discuss the dildo in the first place. Likewise, in 7, why

26. Kutzko (2006: 173). 27. Kutzko (2006: 175).

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

289

would Metro risk exposing her supposedly secret dildo-for-sex relationship with Kerdon by bringing other women along with her to his shop? However, the crucial oversight that Kutzko makes in his reading is that Metro has all the information she needs from Koritto to purchase a dildo from Kerdon. In fact, what Koritto has told her so far would only help her to identify him on the street. But Metro needs to know how to get Kerdon to bring his wares to her house. She would obviously run afoul of the social norms if she tried to buy dildoes in public. This very tension between the social norms and the female-orientation of the dildo-joke is exploited in Mimiambus 7, in which Metro arrives with other women at Kerdon’s shop ostensibly to buy shoes.28 As in 6, Metro is the straightman in the gag, but this time she is set opposite Kerdon, who tries to take advantage of the women’s visit to his shop to sell them some of his other merchandise. But just as in fictional Manhattan, so in the fictional world of Herodas’ Mimiambi, men cannot sell sex-toys to women in public. So, as Kerdon rattles off his catalogue of “shoe-styles” that all seem like double-entendres for dildoes his sexual innuendos become more transparent. He also becomes increasingly flirtatious with Metro until he eventually crosses the boundary into overt sleaziness and the women all flee his shop out of embarrassment.29 Returning to my reading of Mimiambus 6: Koritto had said that she had a hard time choosing between the two dildoes and explains how hard she tried to persuade Kerdon in vain to sell the other dildo to her not difficult to guess why he refused. I do not think, as Kutzko does, that Koritto needs to have already mentioned that the other dildo was reserved for another customer for Metro to come to that conclusion. Why else would Kerdon pass up the opportunity to sell two dildoes? I agree with Kutzko that Metro’s reaction to learning that Artemeis is the go-between is one of distaste. However, I would argue that Metro’s statement that “Artemeis is always finding a new deal, drinking the broker’s fresh pressed wine from afar”, expresses her worry that there will be an exorbitant broker’s fee involved. In Mimiambus 7, Kerdon mentions paying Artemeis for colors in the context of his complaints about being overcharged by the tanners (7.25-38). Hence, Metro returns to the whereabouts of the second dildo and the possibility of convincing the current possessor to give it to her as a gift. But when Koritto says that she was

28. See Kutzko (2006) on reading 6, Girlfriends or Private Conversation as one half of a diptych with 7, The Cobbler, much like Ovid’s elegiac companion pieces. 29. Rist (1993); Kutzko (2006: 172-180); Sumler (2010).

290

JACKIE MURRAY

unable to persuade Kerdon to say who bought the other dildo, Metro realizes that she has no choice but to deal with Artemeis. After Metro has gone, Koritto muses on the situation: Euboule used her to get the a fancy βαυβών made by Kerdon without having to deal with Artemeis and her exorbitant broker fees by pretending to be interested in a sexual relationship. Euboule seduced Koritto into giving the βαυβών as a gift to her so that she could then in turn give it to her real girlfriend, Nossis, daughter of Erinna. Koritto orders her chicken-feeder to lock the doors and count the hens at the end of the poem revealing her hurt feelings in a quasi-proverbial expression. The reader is left sympathizing with her sense of loss. Hence, the dildo-joke in Mimiambus 6 is not based on the same premises about female sexuality as the dildo-joke in Old Comedy. Rather it operates in much the same way as the vibrator-jokes in Sex and the City, with which it shares the same female-centering basis for its sex-humor. Mimiambus 6 also has a similar relationship to its historically contingent hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality as the series. Accordingly, Herodas is especially self-conscious about the way his female characters navigate within the framework of respectability politics, often calling attention to the policing their sex-talk.

4. A Metapoetic Interpretation of Mimiambus 6 Ever since Crusius (1892) pronounced the allusions to Erinna and Nossis, “eine literarische Bosheit,” most scholars have followed this negative assessment without questioning its bases.30 The main reason for this negative assessment is, of course, that Herodas associates Erinna and Nossis with dildoes. In 6, as noted above, Nossis, the daughter of Erinna has the βαυβών and in 7 Kerdon lists “Nossides” and “Baukides” in the catalogue of shoes styles, which are all double-entendres for dildoes. Jacob 30. Crusius (1892: 118); Headlam (1922: 290); Cunningham (1964; 1971: 32 n.3). Cf. both Nairn (1904:72) and Groeneboom (1922: 182) who dismissed the metapoetic interpretation as implausible on the basis that inscriptions from Cos suggest that the name Nossis was quite common. Marilyn Skinner (1991, 2005) focuses on Herodas’ possible moral objections to Nossis and Erinna’s poetry. In her view, Herodas attacked Nossis and Erinna in 6 and 7 because they were “emblems of perverted female sexuality, given to practices either solitary or indulged in with another woman but in either case devoted to ends other than the gratification of a male partner” (1991: 35). She concludes that the reference to Baukis in 7 indicates that “it was Erinna’s passionate attachment to her friend – expressed in both her epigrams and her greatly admired epyllion, the Distaff – that invited this insulting appropriation of her name” (1991: 35). Skinner’s point is well taken: certainly exploiting anxiety female sexuality is an important aspect of Herodas’ humor.

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

291

Stern, for example, infers from these associations that Herodas must have thought Erinna’s Distaff was, like Callimachus’ poetry, too sentimental and pedantic, asserting that Herodas felt Nossis and Erinna were “taking the art of poetry in wrong directions”.31 This interpretation assumes that Herodas found Callimachus’ poetry as repugnant as Stern seems to have. Yet, the Mimiambi show that, like most of his contemporaries, Herodas was a great admirer of Callimachus, and as I argue here, he also appreciated the poetry of Erinna and Nossis. Their transgendered poetics gave him a way to escape the transvestism and ventriloquism of the stage in his attempt to represent authentic female voices on the page. The cult of Demeter, which featured women-only gatherings, aischrologia, and obscene jokes, often provided a poetic “safe space” for male poets to represent women airing their grievances about men. And, as I have argued vis-à-vis Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, the Thesmophoriazusae was a particular flashpoint for male poets in the Hellenistic period who wanted to meet Erinna’s challenge to create authentic female characters in their poetry. For Herodas, who was working in a comedy-adjacent genre, where the male-oriented expectations were for sex-humor that is largely misogynous and certainly male-centering, the self-conscious parodying of the transvestism and ventriloquism of the Thesmophoriazusae offered an excellent foil for his poetic project. Stern supports this suggestion with his a strong and convincing argument that the cult of Demeter and Kore is an atmospheric backdrop for Mimiambus 6.32 The characters have names that recall the Rape of Persephone myth: Metro, Koritto, Euboule, and Artemeis correspond to Demeter, Kore, Eubouleus and Artemis respectively and of course the “βαυβών”. as I already mentioned, alludes to Baubo, the character in the Orphic version of the myth.33 In fact, his suggestion that Mimiambus 6 could be read as a parody of the myth is very plausible. Koritto’s anger and sadness when she realizes that she has been robbed of her precious βαυβών resonates on the comic register with the Demeter’s reaction to learning of the abduction of her daughter.34 Herodas use of βαυβών as his dildo-word evokes with the Thesmophoriazusae’s parodying of transvestism through the Ur-bawd of myth, Baubo/Iambe, who is the foil of his respectable housewives in 31. Stern (1979: 253). 32. Stern (1979: 249-252) summarizes most of the allusions to the cult of Demeter. The exclamation μᾶ (22, 47), a shorter Aeolic and Doric form of μάτηρ used by women, and the reference to Athena, one of Persephone’s companions at the time of her abduction, further connects the poem to the myth. 33. See above note 21. 34. Stern (1979: 252-254) summarizes the metapoetic imagery. There may also have been allusions to the Demeter cult in the Distaff.

292

JACKIE MURRAY

Mimiambus 6. Just like Callimachus in his Hymn to Demeter used the ritual context to establish the female orientation of his narrator’s voice and subjectivity, so Herodas uses a similar all-female context loaded with references to the cult of Demeter to establish the female orientation of his characters’ voice and subjectivity. In both cases, The allusions to the cult of Demeter hint at the origins of iambic poetry in all-female sexually charged ritual mockery. Recognizing that Herodas has taken this untrodden path with his dildo-joke clarifies the true metapoetic significance of his allusions to Erinna and Nossis. Metapoetic self-mockery is an important aspect of the sex-humor Thesmophoriazusae that Herodas adapts to his Mimiambi. As Stern (1979) observes, the repeated references in 6 to “stitching” (6.18, 43, 47, 48, 51) invoke a well-established metaphor for composing poetry and tropes the dildo-maker as a figure for the poet.35 Homer himself seems to be invoked by Koritto’s claim that she does not know whether the correct Kerdon was from Chios or Erythrai, which evokes contemporary scholarly debates over Homer’s birthplace.36 Herodas even stressed the metapoetic resonance of the dildo and dildo-maker with Metro’s dismissal of one of the false Kerdons, saying that “he would not stitch a plectrum to a lyre” (ἀλλ’ οὖτος οὐδ’ ἂν πλῆκτρον ἐς λύρην ράψαι, 6.51). The πλῆκτρον, as noted above, is a double-entendre for dildo; but here it is worth focusing on its primary denotation.37 Max Nelson draws strong evidence from M. L. West’s (1970) discussion of the phrase χόρδαισι ὀλισβοδόκοισι (ὄλισβος-welcoming strings) in P.Oxy.2291 (= Sappho fr. 99 Lobel-Page) for both ὄλισβος and πλῆκτρον being synonyms for the same musical instrument.38 Nelson concludes: For all we know, the word ὄλισβος for dildo may simply have been a comic usage of Cratinus adopted by Aristophanes (more likely than the other way around because of chronological limitations). The reason we are so well-informed about the term is likely not because it was a widespread one but because of the great ancient and medieval interest in commenting on Aristophanes.39

It can hardly be incidental that both ὄλισβος and πλῆκτρον are drawn from lyric, a genre associated with women’s voices, e.g. Alcman’s Partheneion, and of course, Sappho’s lyrics. So, Metro’s quip about the 35. Cf. Pi. N. 2.1-3. 36. Pi. N. 2. 1-3: ὅθεν περ καὶ Ὁμηρίδαι / ῥαπτῶν ἐπέων τὰ πόλλ’ ἀοιδοί ἄρχονται; Stern (1979: 253). 37. Stern (1979: 253). 38. West (1970: 324). 39. Nelson (2000: 80).

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

293

false Kerdon’s inability to stitch a good dildo reproduces Erinna’s complaint in GP 3 the male poets cannot give women authentic female voices. In fact, Herodas develops this metapoetic allegory fully. In other words, the dildo stands for the female voice and making dildoes for women, i.e. making Mimiambi, stands for making poetry that features women in a male-oriented comedic genre who talk to each other the way women would actually talk to each.40 Significantly, one group of double-entendres for dildo are words meaning “imitation”, notably μίμημα, which Plutarch uses to refer to the imitation of Osiris’ penis, and τὰ μεμιμημένα, which Kalonike in Lysistrata uses to refer to cheap dildoes.41 It has long been observed that Μιμιάμβος is a hybrid genre that combines the vulgar subject matter and character types of mime and comedy with the invective tone and poetic form of iambic poetry.42 In this context, Herodas’ coining of βαυβών, as simultaneously a double-entendre for dildo and an allusion to Baubo/Iambe, the original comic bawd, seems intended to be a pun on Μιμιάμβος and thus troping his entire oeuvre as a dildo, which is only reinforced by the phallic shape of the bookroll.43 According to this metapoetic allegory, the two false Kerdons are inferior poets who are either incompetents or has-beens. Whereas, among these cobbler-poets, the true Kerdon, Herodas himself, is the most well-intentioned toward women (εὐνοέστερον σκυτέα / γυναικὶ διφῶσ’ ἄλλον οὐκ ἀνευρήσεις, 6.72-73). His innovation of using wool instead of leather to stitch his dildoes-mimiambi makes his βαυβώνες “as soft as sleep” (ἀλλ’ ἠ μαλακότης ὔπνος, οἰ δ’ ἰμαντίσκοι | ἔρι’, οὐκ ἰμάν[τες], 6.71-72). The wool used to stitch the βαυβώνes would have been produced by women spinning with a distaff, which given its phallic shape could easily have been another double-entendre for dildo. In this metapoetic context, the allusions to Erinna set her up as the source of the innovative authentic female voice of Herodas’ Mimiambi, Kerdon’s βαυβών stitched with wool evokes Erinna’s Distaff as the original dildo-poem, i.e. a poem designed for female pleasure composed in a male oriented genre.

40. Kutzko (2007) discusses the importance of the metapoetic dimension of Herodas’ mimes in general, with specific focus on Mimiambus 1. 41. Plutarch Isis and Osiris 358 B; Aristophanes Lysistrata 159. 42. For the generic composition of the Mimiambi see Rosen (1992), Hunter (1993), Fountoulakis (2002), Kutzko (2012), and recently Chesterton (2016: esp. 175-183). 43. Chesterton (2016: 199-214) comes to a compatible conclusion; however, he focuses on the double-entendre of βαυβών as a profanation of a cult object in the same way that the characters are profanations of the goddesses, Demeter, Kore, and Artemis.

294

JACKIE MURRAY

5. Conclusion In this paper, I have argued against the communis opinio that in Mimiambi 6 (and 7) Herodas is attacking the female poets, Erinna and Nossis as well as the type of poetry they espoused. I have shown that this metapoetic interpretation is based on the false premise that Herodas is recycling the tired misogynist male-centering dildo-jokes found in Old Comedy. The Aristophanic dildo-joke mocks women who are the fabrication of male conceptions of female sexuality: the sexually frustrated housewives who have to “make do” with fake penises in the absence of real male “input”. Moreover, this misogynist interpretation does not explain why Herodas chose to attack Erinna and Nossis and not their more famous Archaic predecessor, Sappho, who by the 4th century was a popular source of sexual humor on the stage and generally believed to have been a hetaira.44 The difference between Sappho and her Hellenistic successors is in the gendered expectations of the genre in which they expressed with authentic female voices. Thanks to Sappho, lyric was a genre that welcomed authentic female voices, whereas, epic and dedicatory epigram, the genres of Erinna and Nossis, were male dominated and normalized male voices and subjectivities. As I have argued in previous publications, navigating the demands of aidōs, i.e. the hegemonic patriarchal construction of femininity, in maleoriented genres like epic while presenting an authentic female voice and subjectivity is the essence of the transgendered poetics of Erinna and Nossis. Here I have contended that Herodas appropriated their transgendered poetics to represent an authentic female voice in his Mimiambi, a generic hybrid of two male-oriented genres, mime and iambic poetry. His women are not the misogynist fabrications typically found in these genres. Accordingly, the sexual humor reflects a female orientation and the dildojoke is female centered. Herodas’ women prefer well-made dildoes to the real thing, as Koritto says, “Men don’t make – we are alone after all – their little dicks so erect!” For these women, sex with a man is a means to an end, and that end is acquiring a good-dildo. Herodas’ women also refer self-consciously to their need as good women to navigate the demands of aidōs by monitoring their sex-talk.45 They even use a double-entendre for 44. Sappho in Old Comedy: Aristophanes Lysistrata. 10, fr. 320. 13; Cratinus 316. Sappho was also the title of comedies by Ameipsias, Amphis, Antiphanes, Dïphilus, Ephippus, and Timocles; see Dover (1978: 174) and Lidov (2002) for discussions of Sappho in comedy. 45. Kutzko (2006: 172-180) gives a nice discussion of the tensions between public and private on the speech of the women. However, he still falls into the trap of assuming that

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

295

dildo that, as I have shown, is intended to center female sexuality. The hapax βαυβών is Herodas’ coinage that alludes simultaneously to cognate words evoking motherhood, βαυβάω lull to sleep, βαυβώ, “womb,” and Βαυβώ, Baubo/Iambe the figure from the Rape of Persephone myth. Hence, by appropriating the transgendered poetics of Nossis and Erinna Herodas has created a new kind of dildo-joke, one that anticipated by over two millennia the female centering vibrator joke of Sex and the City. Thus, a perfunctory misogynist interpretation of Mimiambus 6 obscures the poem’s real significance as evidence of the sophistication of Hellenistic poets, male and female, vis-à-vis exploiting the potentialities of text to breakdown essentialist notions about the relationship between gender and genre and their willingness to present authentic female voices and subjectivities. Ultimately, what should stand out the most about Herodas’ treatment is the unusual way he handles female sexuality in a comedic genre. In the fashion of his times, he managed to stay off the “welltrodden path” of misogynist dildo jokes and produce one of the rare glimpses of female sexuality from an authentic female perspective.

REFERENCES Anagnostou-Laoutides, E., 2015, “Herodas’ Mimiamb 7: Dancing Dogs And Barking Women”. The Classical Quarterly 65, 153-166. Chesterton, B., 2016, “The Bookish Turn: Assessing the Impact of the BookRoll on Authorial Self-Representation in Early Hellenistic Poetry”. Diss. Durham University. Comella, L., 2017, Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure. Durham, NC. Crusius, O., 1892, Untersuchungen zu den Mimiamben des Herondas. Leipzig. Cunningham, I.C., 1964, “Herodas 6 and 7”. The Classical Quarterly, 14, 32-35. Cunningham, I.C., 1971, Herodas: Mimiambi. Oxford. Dean-Jones, L., 1992, “The Politics of Pleasure: Female Sexual Appetite in the Hippocratic Corpus”. Helios 19, 73–91. Dover, K.J., 1978, Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA. Fantuzzi, M. & R. Hunter, 2004, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford. Faraone, C., 2011, “Magical and Medical Approaches to the Wandering Womb in the Ancient Greek World”. Classical Antiquity 30, 1-32. Fountoulakis, A., 2002, “Herondas 8.66-79: Generic Self-Consciousness and Artistic Claims in Herondas’ Mimiambs”. Mnemosyne 55, 301-319. Groeneboom, P., 1922, Les Mimianbes d’Herodas I-VI. Groningen.

the women see possession of the dildos as something shameful to reveal even among peers and confidants.

296

JACKIE MURRAY

Gutzwiller, K., 1997, “Genre development and gendered voices in Nossis and Erinna”, in Yopie Prins, Maeera Shreiber (eds.) Dwelling in Possibility: Women Poets and Critics on Poetry. Ithaca, 202-222. Gutzwiller, K., 1998, Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley. Headlam, W., 1966, Herodas: The Mimes and Fragments. London. Henderson, J., 1991, The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy. Oxford. Hermes, J., 2002, “Television and Its Viewers in Post-Feminist Dialogue Internetmediated Response to ‘Ally McBeal’ and ‘Sex and the City’”. Etnofoor 15, 194-211. Hordern, J.H. (ed), 2004, Sophron’s Mimes. Oxford. Hunter, R., 1993, “The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi.” Antichthon 27, 31-44. Hutchinson, G.O., 1988, Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford. Hutchinson, G.O., 2008, Talking Books: Readings In Hellenistic And Roman Books Of Poetry. Oxford. Konstan, D. ,1995, Greek Comedy and Ideology. Oxford. Kutzko, D., 2000, “Koritto in Herodas 6”. Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 133: 35-41. Kutzko, D., 2006, “The Major Importance Of A Minor Poet: Herodas 6 And 7 As A Quasi-dramatic Diptych”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Beyond the Canon (Hellenistica Groningana 11), Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 167-184. Kutzko, D., 2007, “All the World’s a Page: Imitation of Metatheater in Theocritus 15, Herodas 1 and Virgil Eclogues 3”. The Classical Journal 103, 141-161. Kutzko, D., 2012, “In pursuit of Sophron: Doric mime and Attic comedy in Herodas’ Mimiambi.” Theater Outside Athens: 367-390. Lawall, G., 1976, “Herodas 6 and 7 Reconsidered”. Classical Philology 71,165-169. Lidov, J.B., “Sappho, Herodotus, and the ‘Hetaira.’” Classical Philology 97, 203–237. Marshall, C., & P. Ripat, 2014, “Enjoying a Slave Woman in P.Oxy. LXXIV 5019”. Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 191, 231-234. Mastromarco, G., 1984, The Public of Herondas. Amsterdam. Murray, J., 2019, “Poetically Erect: The female oriented humor in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Hellenistica Groningana 24). Groningen 249263. Murray, J. and Rowland, J. 2007. “Gendered Voices in Hellenistic Epigram”. In: P. Bing & J. Bruss (eds), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram. Leiden: 211-232 Nairn, J.A., 1904, Herondas. Oxford. Nelson, M., 2000, “A note on the ὄλισβος”. Glotta 76, 75-82. Ormand, K., 2003, “Oedipus the Queen: Cross-Gendering without Drag.” Theatre Journal 55: 1-28. Rist, A, 1993, “That Herodean Diptych Again”. The Classical Quarterly 43, 440-444. Rosen, R.M, 1992.,“Mixing of Genres and Literary Program in Herodas 8”. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 94, 205-16. Skinner, M., 1991, “Nossis Thêlyglôssos”. In: S. B. Pomeroy (ed) Women’s History and Ancient History. Chapel Hill, 20–47.

POETICALLY ERECT AGAIN

297

Skinner, M., 2005, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture. Oxford, 2005, 188– 190. Stern, J., 1979.,“Herodas’ Mimiamb 6”. GRBS 20, 247-253. Stanzel, K.-H., 1998, “Mimen, Mimpen und Mimiamben.” In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 3). Groningen 143-165. Sumler, A., 2010, “A Catalogue of Shoes: Puns in Herodas ‘Mime’ 7”. The Classical World 103, 465-475. Tsoumpra, N., 2020, “More than a Sex-Strike: A Case of Medical Pathology in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata”. The Classical Journal 116, 1-20. Ussher, R.,G., 1980, “The Mimiamboi of Herodas”. Hermathena 129, 65-76. Ussher, R.G., 1985, “The Mimic Tradition of ‘Character’ in Herodas”. Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, N.S. 21, 45-68. West, M.L., 1970, “Burning Sappho”. Maia 22, 307-330. Warwick, C., 2020, “Nossis’ Dildo: A Metapoetic Attack on Female Poetry in Herodas’s Sixth Mime”. TAPA 150, 333-356. Zanker, G., 2006, “Poetry and Art in Herodas”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Beyond the Canon (Hellenistica Groningana 11), Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 357-377. Zanker, G., 2010, Herodas: Mimiambs. Oxford.

THE COMA STRATONICES: ROYAL HAIR ENCOMIA AND PTOLEMAIC-SELEUCID RIVALRY?* Thomas J. NELSON ABSTRACT In this paper, I investigate how Ptolemaic poets’ presentation of their queens compares with and relates to the practice of their major rivals, the Seleucids. No poetic celebration of a Seleucid queen survives extant, but an anecdote preserved by Lucian sheds intriguing light on Seleucid poetic practice (Pro Imaginibus 5): queen Stratonice, bald through a long illness, organised a competition in which poets elaborately praised her non-existent locks. I subject this testimonium to a close analysis. First, I consider the details and reliability of Lucian’s account, arguing that it reflects key aspects of the queen’s character and story as told elsewhere, and is likely drawn from a pre-existing source, perhaps even from the ambit of the Seleucid court itself; then I compare this episode with Alexandrian poets’ encomia of Ptolemaic queens, highlighting parallel encomiastic techniques and possible direct connections with the poetry of Callimachus, especially his own poem on queenly hair: the Coma Berenices. Given the nature of the evidence, my arguments must be considered tentative and exploratory, but I suggest that the anecdote offers hints of an inter-dynastic poetic rivalry: royal women and their hair stood at the centre of a literary battleground, in which poets not only celebrated the status of their own queens, but also negotiated the poetry and authority of their rivals.

Ptolemaic Egypt was not the only home of powerful queens in the Hellenistic world. Every major Hellenistic kingdom had its own cast of prominent royal women who played a central role in the politics of their day. Beyond Alexandria, we may particularly think of Apollonis, wife of Attalus I, as well as the string of early Seleucid queens: Apama, Stratonice, Laodice I and more. Such female figures feature prominently in modern

* Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2019 CCC Panel ‘Cherchez la femme’ and the 2019 Groningen workshop. I am very grateful to the organisers of both events and the audiences on both occasions for their extremely useful feedback. For generous comments on written drafts, I am particularly indebted to Aneurin Ellis-Evans, Richard Hunter, Jacqueline Klooster, Max Leventhal, Daniel Ogden, Henry Spelman and especially Annemarie Ambühl, my respondent in Groningen. For helpful discussion on specific points, I also thank Jane Draycott and Branko F. van Oppen de Ruiter. The research for this project was supported by Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

300

THOMAS J. NELSON

scholarship on Hellenistic history,1 but they receive scant attention in literary studies. This is no doubt a reflection of the Ptolemaic context of much extant Hellenistic poetry, which celebrates the likes of Arsinoe and Berenice in both explicit and allegorical terms, overshadowing their rivals from other dynasties.2 If we look closely, however, we can still find intriguing poetic scraps that relate to other Hellenistic queens, such as the nineteen epigrams purportedly inscribed at Cyzicus by Eumenes II and Attalus II to celebrate their mother Apollonis (AP 3).3 By paying more attention to such isolated snippets, we can gain a richer picture of the role that royal women played in Hellenistic poetry across and between kingdoms. In this paper, I wish to pursue this agenda by exploring how Ptolemaic poets’ presentation of their queens compares with and relates to the practice of their major rivals, the Seleucids. Such a study is not straightforward, since no poetic celebration of a Seleucid queen survives today.4 But we have one key piece of extant evidence, an anecdote preserved by Lucian which may shed some light on Seleucid poetic practice (Pro Imaginibus 5). In what follows, I shall subject this testimonium to a close analysis. In section I, I shall consider the details and reliability of Lucian’s account; and in section II, I shall compare the episode he recounts with Alexandrian poets’ encomia of Ptolemaic queens. Given the nature of the evidence, my arguments must be considered tentative and exploratory, but I shall suggest that the anecdote offers hints of an inter-dynastic poetic rivalry: royal women and their hair stood at the centre of a literary battleground in which poets not only celebrated the status of their own queens, but also negotiated the poetry and authority of their rivals.

1. See e.g. Carney (2000), (2011); Bielman Sánchez et al. (2016); Coşkun & McAuley (2016); Hämmerling (2019); Carney & Müller (2020). Macurdy (1932) remains a valuable resource. 2. See e.g. Caneva (2014); Clayman (2014: esp. 78-104); and various contributions to this volume: Acosta-Hughes (13-33), Evans (95-120), Kidder (139-159). See too n. 31 below. 3. See Livingstone & Nisbet (2010: 99-101). The dating of these epigrams is debated: they are commonly considered post-Hellenistic (Demoen 1988; Cameron 1993: 147-148), but Merkelbach & Stauber (2001: 18) remain undecided and argue that at least the prose introductions were produced soon after the peace of Apamea in 188 BCE. 4. On the literary climate of the Seleucids in general, see Primo (2009); Barbantani (2014); Kosmin (2014a: esp. 31-76), (2018: esp. 87-88); Visscher (2019), (2020).

THE COMA STRATONICES

301

1. The Coma Stratonices In the first half of Lucian’s Pro Imaginibus, Polystratus recounts Panthea’s criticism of the Imagines, a text in which she (Panthea, the mistress of the emperor Lucius Verus) had been flatteringly compared to the masterpieces of classical Greek art.5 Her response (which is mediated now not by images, but by Polystratus’ reported speech) complains of the excesses of flattery and the impropriety of comparing a mortal woman to goddesses and heroines. It is in the context of this complaint that we find an account of Seleucid poetic practice, as one of two illustrative exempla of such depraved flattery. Queen Stratonice, while still the wife of Seleucus I (c. 300-294 BCE), is said to have set up a competition to see which poet could best praise her hair: παραπλήσιον δὲ καὶ μακρῷ τούτου γελοιότερον Στρατονίκην ποιῆσαι τὴν Σελεύκου γυναῖκα. τοῖς γὰρ ποιηταῖς ἀγῶνα προθεῖναι αὐτὴν περὶ ταλάντου, ὅστις ἂν ἄμεινον ἐπαινέσαι αὐτῆς τὴν κόμην, καίτοι φαλακρὰ ἐτύγχανεν οὖσα καὶ οὐδὲ ὅσας ὀλίγας τὰς ἑαυτῆς τρίχας ἔχουσα. καὶ ὅμως οὕτω διακειμένη τὴν κεφαλήν, ἁπάντων εἰδότων ὅτι ἐκ νόσου μακρᾶς τὸ τοιοῦτον ἐπεπόνθει, ἤκουε τῶν καταράτων ποιητῶν ὑακινθίνας τὰς τρίχας αὐτῆς λεγόντων καὶ οὔλους τινὰς πλοκάμους ἀναπλεκόντων καὶ σελίνοις τοὺς μηδὲ ὅλως ὄντας εἰκαζόντων. (Lucian, Pro imag. 5) She said that Stratonice the wife of Seleucus did something similar and even more ridiculous than this: she set up a contest for poets with a talent as the prize for whoever could best praise her hair – despite the fact that she was bald and didn’t even have a few hairs of her own. Even so, although this was the state of her head and everybody knew that it had happened because of a long illness, she listened to those wretched poets calling her hair hyacinthine, plaiting thick tresses, and comparing her completely non-existent curls to celery.6

This is an intriguing passage, with many peculiar details. Stratonice had apparently lost all her locks through a protracted illness, but this did not stop Seleucid poets, impelled by the prospect of a talent’s reward, from praising her ‘hair’ in ornate and figurative terms.7 In particular, the 5. This pair of dialogues has attracted much scholarly interest: see e.g. Goldhill (2001: 184-193); Sidwell (2002); Vout (2007: 213-239); Cistaro (2009). 6. Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Throughout, I translate σέλινον as ‘celery’, rather than ‘parsley’: see Andrews (1949). 7. Baldness from illness was an acknowledged danger in antiquity: see e.g. Ov. Am. 1.14.41, Lucian Dial. meret. 12.5. For baldness and lovesickness, see p. 306-307 below. Notably, Stratonice was not the only Hellenistic queen concerned with hair-loss: a handbook on cosmetics attributed to Cleopatra VII included recipes for this condition: Gal. Com. med. loc. 12.403-404 Kühn; Fraser (1972: II 548 n.306); Rowlandson (1998: 41).

302

THOMAS J. NELSON

description of Stratonice’s allegedly ‘thick’ (οὔλους) and ‘hyacinthine’ (ὑακινθίνας) hair recalls the beautified locks of the Homeric Odysseus, whom Athena divinely enhanced before his meetings with both Nausicaa and Penelope: μείζονά τ᾿ εἰσιδέειν καὶ πάσσονα, κὰδ δὲ κάρητος οὔλας ἧκε κόμας, ὑακινθίνῳ ἄνθει ὁμοίας. (Homer, Od. 6.230-231 = 23.157-158) [Athena made him] taller and broader to look upon, and from his head she made the locks flow thick like the hyacinth flower.

Such an underlying Homeric analogy renders this praise doubly culpable in Panthea’s eyes: not only does it falsify the truth of Stratonice’s bald state (it is not ‘appropriate’ to her nature, cf. προσόν, Pro imag. 2), but it also associates the queen with a major figure of the heroic age, transgressing Panthea’s sense of encomiastic decorum (cf. Pro imag. 7). The whole scene is a travesty of κολακεία σαφής, ‘outright flattery’. In such a context, the verb ἀναπλεκόντων is particularly appropriate, since it not only denotes the plaiting or garlanding of hair, but also evokes a common metaphor of poetic production: the Seleucid poets ‘weave’ Stratonice’s locks into existence, fashioning a deceptive and poetic εἰκών (cf. εἰκαζόντων).8 Like the goddess Athena, they are purveyors of artifice.9 Despite (or because of) its oddities, this anecdote is particularly alluring for our exploration of the poetic celebrations of Seleucid queens. Before going any further, however, we must assess the reliability of Lucian’s account. What should we make of this anecdote? And is it any truer than the author’s playfully apocryphal ‘True Stories’? Lucian is a difficult source, frequently inventive and creative in his handling of the (literary) past, so we must be extremely careful. Indeed, we must seriously consider

8. For poetic ‘weaving’, see e.g. Snyder (1981); Scheid & Svenbro (1996: 111-155); Fanfani (2017); Evans (this volume: 115 with n. 94). For this specific verb, cf. Agathias AP 11.64.2 (ῥυθμὸν ἀνεπλέκομεν); Dion. Hal. Comp. 25, ΙΙ.133.4-7 Usener-Radermacher (ὁ δὲ Πλάτων τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ διαλόγους κτενίζων καὶ βοστρυχίζων καὶ πάντα τρόπον ἀναπλέκων). The metaphor is particularly apt here, since both celery (σέλινον) and hyacinth (ὑάκινθος) were used in woven garlands: e.g. Anac. 410 PMG, Pind. Ol. 13.32-34, Isth. 2.16, Theoc. Id. 3.23 for celery; Alc. fr. 296b.8 Voigt (suppl. Page), Cratinus fr. 105.4 K-A for hyacinth. 9. This play with appearances and artifice would be particularly apt if Stratonice wore a wig to conceal her bald state (as is likely given her status and the stigma attached to hair loss in antiquity): we would then have a three-way analogy between Athena, the poets, and wigmakers as crafty distorters of reality. On wigs and baldness in the ancient world, see e.g. Draycott (2018); Davies (2019: 152-154).

THE COMA STRATONICES

303

the possibility that this account is simply the product of his own fertile imagination. There are certainly arguments that could be made to support such a conclusion. In its Lucianic context, for example, this account forms a diptych with another episode of excessive flattery. Panthea reportedly mentioned a similar situation in which a short but otherwise ‘beautiful and well-proportioned’ noble woman was praised by a poet for being ‘tall’ like a poplar tree: ἔφη γυναῖκά τινα τῶν ἐπιφανῶν τὰ μὲν ἄλλα καλὴν καὶ κόσμιον, μικρὰν δὲ καὶ πολὺ τοῦ συμμέτρου ἀποδέουσαν, ἐπαινεῖσθαι πρός τινος ποιητοῦ ἐν ᾄσματι τά τε ἄλλα καὶ ὅτι καλή τε καὶ μεγάλη ἦν· αἰγείρῳ δ’ αὐτῆς εἴκαζεν ἐκεῖνος τὸ εὔμηκές τε καὶ ὄρθιον. τὴν μὲν δὴ γάνυσθαι τῷ ἐπαίνῳ καθάπερ αὐξανομένην πρὸς τὸ μέλος καὶ τὴν χεῖρα ἐπισείειν, τὸν ποιητὴν δὲ πολλάκις τὸ αὐτὸ ᾄδειν ὁρῶντα ὡς ἥδοιτο ἐπαινουμένη, ἄχρι δὴ τῶν παρόντων τινὰ προσκύψαντα πρὸς τὸ οὖς εἰπεῖν αὐτῷ, ‘πέπαυσο, ὦ οὗτος, μὴ καὶ ἀναστῆναι ποιήσῃς τὴν γυναῖκα.’ (Lucian, Pro imag. 4) She said that a woman of a distinguished family, who was beautiful and well-proportioned in other respects, but much shorter than the average, was praised in song by a poet for being, among other things, beautiful and tall; he likened her to a poplar for her great height and upright stature. She was truly delighted by the praise, as though she were going to grow to match the song, and she shook her hand in applause. The poet kept repeating the same song, since he saw that she enjoyed being praised, until at last one of the company leaned over and said in his ear, ‘Stop, you fool, before you make the woman stand up!’

This episode closely parallels that of Stratonice: in both, a prominent woman’s physical imperfections are falsely praised through poetry. And in each case, this praise is primarily achieved through comparison (εἴκαζεν, 4 ~ εἰκαζόντων, 5) to the flora of the natural world (poplar and hyacinth/celery). As in the Stratonice anecdote, there is a strong emphasis on poetic artifice and deception: the poet is encouraged to stop before the laudanda stands up in applause, exposing her short height and the mendacity of his song. And as in Pro imag. 5, we might also be able to detect an allusion to the Homeric verses on Odysseus’ divine makeover: the short woman is presented as tall (μεγάλη), just as Odysseus appears ‘taller’ thanks to Athena’s intervention (μείζονα, Od. 6.230, 23.157).10 Given the degree of overlap and parallelism between these two passages, we might wonder whether Lucian has simply fabricated two mirror episodes to substantiate Panthea’s point. 10. The comparison of the woman to a poplar might also recall Odysseus’ later likening of Nausicaa to another tree, a young palm (Od. 6.160-169).

304

THOMAS J. NELSON

Within the wider context of Lucian’s work and the literature of the Second Sophistic, we could also see both these stories as instantiations of a common literary type: the paradoxical encomium, “one of Lucian’s favourite genres”.11 Elsewhere in his works, he selects objects of praise which would not usually be thought worthy of any adulation, such as the fly or a parasite, and exalts them with much irony and satire.12 The best parallel for our Stratonice passage, however, is offered by the work of a slightly earlier author: Dio Chrysostom’s Praise of Hair, which is preserved in Synesius’ Praise of Baldness.13 Both these texts display the same concerns as Lucian’s Stratonice anecdote. Dio, in particular, begins by claiming to be in ill health, with neglected (if not bald) hair, and goes on to cite the same Odyssean passage which Lucian’s Seleucid poets echo (Od. 6.230-231). The text does not contain praise of Dio’s own coiffure, but rather of ‘hair-lovers’ in general (οὐκοῦν ἐπῄει μοι τοὺς φιλοκόμους ἐπαινεῖν), so it is not a precise parallel. But even so, Lucian’s anecdote might conceivably allude to Dio’s earlier treatment of this similar theme, exaggerating its satirical edge by transforming the dishevelled Dio into the bald Stratonice. Moreover, the echo of the Homeric Odysseus in both passages also reflects the general climate of second sophistic paideia, paralleling Dio’s and Lucian’s frequent and deep engagement with Homer elsewhere.14 And more generally, the very topic of baldness seems to have particularly interested Lucian, since it recurs in a number of his works.15 In many ways, therefore, Lucian’s Stratonice anecdote appears to be a product of its (Imperial) age, and we could question whether it really has any historical or Hellenistic pedigree. Nevertheless, however tempting it is to see Lucian up to his old tricks, in this case I believe there are substantial grounds for seeing the Syrian author building on some kind of prior tradition and not just freely inventing. For a start, it is significant that Lucian names Stratonice explicitly here, unlike the anonymous noblewoman of his first anecdote. Such specificity requires explanation. Either Lucian chose her as the butt of 11. Sidwell (2004: 419-420 n.7), cf. his pp. 241-243. 12. E.g. Praising a Fly (Muscae Encomium); About the Parasite (De Parasito). 13. Cf. too Lucius’ praise of hair at Apul. Met. 2.8-9, Menophilus of Damascus’ hexametric celebration of his beloved’s ‘ever-blooming locks’ (ἀειθαλέας πλοκαμῖδας, SH 558.12) and Eumolpus’ laments over hair loss at Petron. Sat. 109.9-10, which together suggest a broader rhetorical tradition of hair encomia (and lament). 14. Cf. Kim (2010). For Homer and Lucian, see too Householder (1941), esp. his statistics on p. 41; Bouquiaux-Simon (1968). The same Odyssean passage is also echoed in the pseudo-Lucianic Amores (Amor. 26). 15. The adjective φαλακρός (‘bald’) appears nineteen times in his extant oeuvre: e.g. Alex. 59; Luct. 16.

THE COMA STRATONICES

305

an invented joke (perhaps through fondness for her character and a sense of geographical kinship), or rather he drew on a pre-existing tradition attached to her name. Given the degree to which this episode maps onto other accounts attached to this Seleucid queen, the second of these options seems more plausible. Daniel Ogden has noted how well the whole episode coheres with Lucian’s account of Stratonice in the De Dea Syria, in which the queen (again, while still married to Seleucus) suffers from a serious illness after failing to heed a dream-request from HeraAtargatis to construct a temple in Hierapolis Bambyce (μιν μεγάλη νοῦσος ἔλαβεν, Syr. D. 19).16 Such a ‘serious illness’ (μεγάλη νοῦσος) parallels the ‘long illness’ (νόσου μακρᾶς) which caused her baldness in the anecdote and which ‘everybody was aware of’ (ἁπάντων εἰδότων, Pro imag. 5).17 In both these passages, Lucian appears to be building off different elements of the same Stratonice story.18 Nor is the cohesion of this Stratonice story restricted to Lucian’s own corpus. As Ogden has further noted, the ‘healthy sense of self-deprecating humour’ which Stratonice seems to show in Lucian’s account is paralleled by another anecdote concerning the queen’s portrayal by a different creative artist, in this case a painter:19 innotuit … Ctesicles reginae Stratonices iniuria. nullo enim honore exceptus ab ea pinxit volutantem cum piscatore, quem reginam amare sermo erat, eamque tabulam in portu Ephesi proposuit, ipse velis raptus. regina tolli vetuit, utriusque similitudine mire expressa. (Pliny, HN 35.140) Ctesicles became famous as a result of his insult to Queen Stratonice. Because she did not receive him in honourable fashion, he painted her rolling around with the fisherman with whom she was rumoured to be in love. He put the picture on display in Ephesus’ harbour before making a quick escape by sail. The queen forbade its removal, because he had represented each of them with amazing accuracy.

16. Ogden (2017: 180-182). 17. The expression ἁπάντων εἰδότων may even serve as a kind of ‘Alexandrian footnote’ in Pro imag. 5, signposting Lucian’s debt to a prior tradition which he expects ‘all’ his readers to ‘know’. On appeals to audience knowledge as markers of allusion, cf. Nelson (forthcoming b: § III). 18. Cf. Ogden (2017: 182): “the nature of Lucian’s handling of the baldness tale, which makes no effort to relate it to or explain it by means of the De dea Syria’s Combabus-Stratonice tale, rather hints that the story-complex as a whole may have had an independent existence beyond his oeuvre”. 19. Ogden (2017: 181), from whom the following translation is drawn.

306

THOMAS J. NELSON

Here too, we find a playfully subversive Stratonice who seems to revel in her unqueenly behavior (adultery with a fisherman), just as in Lucian she revels in her unqueenly appearance (baldness). This Pliny passage further highlights a recurring aspect of Stratonice’s character which is only implicit in the Lucianic anecdote: her erotic allure. The queen’s amatory escapades with the fisherman parallel other accounts of her alleged liaisons with her step-son Antiochus (Syr. D. 17-18; Plut. Dem. 38) and the courtier Combabus (Syr. D. 19-27), all of which seem to reflect her cultic association with Aphrodite.20 This same element is present in Lucian’s account, but on a more implicit level through the poet’s description of Stratonice’s ‘hair’. Flower similes are a staple feature of erotic literature, a topos which lends an underlying amatory flavour to the comparison of her locks to hyacinth and celery, especially given the erotic association of both flowers.21 And this is reinforced further by the Seleucid poets’ Odyssean echoes, which point to two specific Homeric moments in which Odysseus’ beauty is divinely enhanced before his encounters with Nausicaa and Penelope (scenes endowed with a great deal of erotic potential).22 Stratonice’s ill health (νοῦσος, Syr. D. 19; νόσου, Pro imag. 5) may also reflect this erotic association. It is well known that the noun νόσος/ νοῦσος can refer to lovesickness as much as a real disease. Indeed, this meaning dominates the story of Antiochus’ love for Stratonice, in which the doctor explicitly recognizes the prince’s ‘illness’ as ‘love’ (ἔγνω τὴν νοῦσον ἔρωτα ἔμμεναι, Syr. D. 17).23 But one particular symptom of 20. Antiochus-Stratonice: Ogden (2017: 207-246). Combabus-Stratonice: Ogden (2017: 174-206). Stratonice and Aphrodite: Engels & Erickson (2016: 59-63); cf. Ogden (2017: 181 n.21) on the cults of Aphrodite Stratonicis at Smyrna (OGIS 228-229) and Teos (CIG 3075). Kosmin (2014b: 186) attractively suggests that Pliny’s narrative may result from “a misunderstanding of a cult painting that depicted the queen as Aphrodite and perhaps attempted to project Seleucid maritime sovereignty”. 21. Cf. Tarán (1985) for the association of hair and flowers in erotic contexts. Hyacinth grows in response to the lovemaking of Zeus and Hera in its sole Iliadic appearance (Il. 14.346-349); symbolises a vulnerable bride (Sappho fr. 105b Voigt: Griffith 1989: 56); adorns the hair of a bridal chorus (Id. 18.2); and has a special connection with Aphrodite (Cypria fr. 5.3 West; Alc. fr. 296b.8 Voigt, suppl. Page; Sappho fr. 194 Voigt; Anac. 346 fr. 1.7-9 PMG). Celery was a sexually suggestive foodstuff (Cratinus fr. 116.3 K-A: Bakola 2010: 171 n.160), symbolic of female genitalia (Hesych. σ 384: σέλινον· τὸ γυναικεῖον, cf. com. adesp. 536 K-A; Henderson 1991: 136); and even the mere handling of it could be sexually alluring (Ar. Nub. 982, cf. Pherecrates fr. 138.3 K-A, Robson 2013: 58). The prominence of celery in Calypso’s garden (Od. 5.72) may not be coincidental, given Odysseus’ amatory sojourn on her island. 22. See Irwin (1990); Brockliss (2019: 56-73). For further Hellenistic echoes of these verses in other amatory contexts, cf. Prauscello (2007); Nelson (2020: 390-392). 23. Cf. LSJ s.v. νόσος, II 2; Eur. Hipp. 764-766 (ἐρώτων … Ἀφροδίτας νόσῳ). On ancient lovesickness, see Toohey (1992).

THE COMA STRATONICES

307

such extreme desire is hair loss. In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, the daughters of Proteus are inflicted with a mad lust for offending Hera (μαχλάδα, fr. 83 Most; μαχλοσύνης στυγερῆς, fr. 81 Most = 132 M-W = 47 Hirschberger) and suffer physical deterioration as a result: καὶ γάρ σφιν κεφαλῇσι κατὰ κνύος αἰνὸν ἔχευεν· ἀλφὸς γὰρ χρόα πάντα κατέσχεθεν, αἱ δέ νυ χαῖται ἔρρεον ἐκ κεφαλέων, ψίλωτο δὲ καλὰ κάρηνα. (Hesiod fr. 82.3-5 Most = 133 M-W = 49 Hirschberger) for onto their heads she poured a dread itch; for a scabby illness seized hold of all their skin, and their hair fell from their heads, and their beautiful heads became bald.24

Similarly, in Theocritus’ second Idyll, lovestruck Simaetha starts to lose all the hair from her head (ἔρρευν δ’ ἐκ κεφαλᾶς πᾶσαι τρίχες, Id. 2.89),25 while in a fragment dubiously attributed to Euphorion, the otherwise unknown Eutelidas loses his formerly ‘fair locks’ (καλαὶ φόβαι) after falling in love with his own reflection and suffering an ‘unseemly sickness’ (νοῦσος ἀεικής, fr. 197 Acosta-Hughes & Cusset = fr. 189 Lightfoot = Plut. Mor. 682b-c). The whole story of Stratonice’s long illness and hair loss thus complements and resonates fruitfully against the queen’s larger association with immoderate passions. Considered against the larger backdrop of the ‘Stratonice tradition’, therefore, Lucian’s anecdote in the Pro Imaginibus does not seem so fanciful. Indeed, it reflects key aspects of her character and story that can be found elsewhere: her illness, sly humour and erotic allure. Taking the evidence together, I think it likely that Lucian drew this episode from a pre-existing source.26 24. Tr. Most (2018: 169). Ps.-Apollodorus claims that in Hesiod’s version the girls offended Dionysus, not Hera (2.2.2: fr. 79 Most = fr. 131 M-W) but other sources (e.g. Probus: fr. 80 Most = 131 M-W; Philodemus: fr. 83 Most) suggest the slight was directly against the goddess. For discussion of the myth and fragments, see Hirschberger (2004: 298-302). 25. See Hunter (2019: 55-56), who notes the lack of Sapphic precedent for this image, and points instead to Hesiod’s Proetids. 26. The whole episode also fits into a wider pattern of rulers’ concern with hair loss. Besides Cleopatra VII’s recipes against the condition (p. 301 n.7), many Roman emperors were troubled by baldness (e.g. Julius Caesar, Suet. Iul. 45.2; Caligula, Suet. Calig. 50.1; Otho, Suet. Otho 12.1). Domitian offers a particularly good parallel: he apparently produced a libellus de cura capillorum (‘a little book On the Care of Hair’), a parodic consolatio which wittily adapted Achilles’ sentiments on the inevitability of death (Il. 21.108-110) to the inevitability of baldness (Suet. Dom. 18.2): Morgan (1997). The emperor was mocked as a ‘bald Nero’ by Juvenal (calvo Neroni, 4.38), but was depicted with a full head of hair in his portraits (Strong 1988: 136-137) and in more laudatory poetry (e.g. crinibus, Stat. Theb. 1.28).

308

THOMAS J. NELSON

Of course, this conclusion does not prove the strict historicity of the episode, something which is ultimately unprovable on current evidence.27 Rather, it suggests that traditions surrounding Stratonice were already circulating in antiquity before Lucian’s day, part of the larger canon of Seleucid legend which has been so well charted by recent scholars.28 Like many other elements of that legend, however, it is likely that this tale too can be traced back to the myth-making of the Seleucid court itself. At various other points in his works, Lucian appears to treat Seleucid myth in a way that seems to echo Seleucid ideology and literature. The romance of Antiochus and Stratonice (Syr. D. 17-18), for example, has been traced back to Seleucid propaganda, while Lucian’s account of Antiochus’ Elephant victory (Zeux. 8-11) also appears to reflect Seleucid commemorations in the wake of the battle.29 Given these parallels, it is likely that Lucian’s account of Stratonice’s baldness can also be traced back to Seleucid traditions, even if perhaps in a comically distorted form.30 In that case, it is worth asking how this scene of queen Stratonice and her poetic celebration compares with Alexandrian poets’ praise of Ptolemaic queens. How similar is it, and can we see any relationship between the poetic praise of each kingdom? These questions will be the focus of the second half of this paper.

27. Though see Lightfoot (2003: 39, 390) on the historical plausibility of the Seleucids’ involvement in the construction of Hierapolis: the first Greek coins minted there bear Seleucus’ name, the city was thought to have received its name under ‘Seleucus’ (Ael. NA 12.2), and the identification of the god Nebo with Apollo may also reflect Seleucid involvement (given his central role as “Stammvater of the dynasty”); cf. Cohen (2006: 172-178, esp. 175). The story of Stratonice’s sickness, then, can at least be pinned to a real historical context. 28. Esp. Primo (2009); Kosmin (2014a); Ogden (2017). 29. Antiochus/Stratonice: Almagor (2016); see his p. 77 n.41 for possible Hellenistic sources; cf. Visscher (2020: 132 n.56). Elephant Victory: Nelson (forthcoming a: § 3), where I argue that the source is more likely to be a prose history rather than Simonides of Magnesia’s epic treatment of the battle (723 SH = BNJ 163). On echoes of Seleucid propaganda in later sources more generally, see Primo (2009: 179-307). 30. Perhaps the Seleucid poets originally celebrated the artifice and lifelikeness of Stratonice’s artificial wig or reminisced about the virtues of her lost locks (like Anacreon 347.1-2 PMG and Ovid Am. 1.14.3-34), rather than simply pretending that she had never lost her hair in the first place (as Lucian implies). The queen’s hair loss could also have served as a source of royal propaganda, a celebration of her devotion and religiosity, especially if it was associated with her construction of a temple to Hera-Atargatis (see p. 305 above).

THE COMA STRATONICES

309

2. Inter-Dynastic Poetics If Lucian’s anecdote in the Pro Imaginibus does indeed reflect Seleucid tradition, as I have suggested, it provides a rare opportunity to compare this poetic presentation of a Seleucid queen with the more well-known treatment of Ptolemaic queens by Alexandrian poets. In this section, I shall begin by comparing the encomiastic techniques of the poets in Lucian’s anecdote and their Alexandrian peers, before turning to a more specific exploration of the possible connections between the anecdote and several Callimachean poems, especially the most famous Alexandrian poem on queenly hair: the Coma Berenices. Taking Lucian’s tale at face value, the encomiastic practice of the Seleucid poets can be readily paralleled with that of their Ptolemaic peers. In particular, the most direct point of overlap comes in their parallel strategy of epicising. As we have already noted, the description of Stratonice’s ‘thick’, ‘hyacinthine’ hair recalls the Homeric Odysseus (Od. 6.230-231, 23.157-158). Such an allusive association of the queen with a figure of the heroic past was one of Panthea’s key concerns in the Pro Imaginibus. Yet this technique of epic analogy was also a common feature of Alexandrian poetry. In Theocritus’ Idyll 15, for example, Arsinoe is similarly aligned intertextually with a host of epic prototypes, including Arete, Circe and Helen, while in Idyll 17, both Berenice and Arsinoe are variously associated with Alcmene and Arete.31 Such allusive associations were a staple of Alexandrian praise poetry. By employing the same kind of intertextual manoeuvre, Lucian’s Seleucid poets exhibit a kindred encomiastic technique. However, there is a significant difference between these Alexandrian instances and our Stratonice example. All the Ptolemaic parallels involve the association of Arsinoe or Berenice with epic women, ensuring a continuity of gender between the tenor and vehicle of each implicit comparison. The only possible exception is the analogy drawn between Berenice and Heracles in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices, explored by Brett Evans in this volume (pp. 107-110). But even here we should note that this connection is made with Heracles when he is at his most effeminate: the hero is assimilated to a bride in a poem which avoids dwelling on his

31. Id. 15: Basta Donzelli (1984); Foster (2006: 136-144), (2016: 214-223). Id. 17: Hunter (2003: 94, 128-129 on Id. 17.38-39, 166-167 on Id. 17.90-91). Cf. too Id. 18 (Helen and Arsinoe: Griffiths 1979: 86-91); Argon. 4.982-1222 (Arete and Arsinoe: Mori 2001); generally, Evans (this volume: 106-107).

310

THOMAS J. NELSON

defeat of the Nemean lion, downplaying his heroic masculinity.32 In Stratonice’s case, by contrast, a female queen is associated with a male hero in full vigour, blurring gender roles even further.33 The point may be to assert the dominance and power of Stratonice, establishing her as an equal to the masculine warriors of epic. After all, the military associations of her name (evoking στρατός, ‘army’, and νίκη, ‘victory’) suggest that she is not out of place in the most masculine of spheres. Whereas Ptolemaic queens primarily remained models of femininity, Stratonice proves to be something more.34 Besides this general parallel of technique, however, we can also situate the Seleucid episode against a specific Ptolemaic poem which treats queenly locks: Callimachus’ Coma Berenices (fr. 110-110f Harder). At the end of the Aetia, Callimachus famously ventriloquises a lock cut from Berenice’s head after her husband Ptolemy III had safely returned from war in Syria. In the surviving Greek version of the text, the lock recalls its journey to become a new star and laments its departure from Berenice’s head. The context and frame of this poem is significantly different from that of Lucian’s Seleucid encomium, but there are nevertheless notable points of overlap. In both, hair serves as the medium and topic by which the queen is praised, in part through celebration of her tresses (Berenice’s καλὸς … πλόκαμ[ος], ‘beautiful lock’, fr. 110.62; Stratonice’s ‘thick’, ‘hyacinthine’ curls). Both involve some kind of hair loss (for Berenice, a single lock; for Stratonice, her whole coiffure). And both develop each queen’s association with Aphrodite: we have already noted the evocation of Stratonice’s erotic allure through the floral similes, but in Callimachus’ poem this is even more explicit since it is Aphrodite 32. Cf. Lopes da Silveira (this volume: 222) for a comparable inversion of gender roles in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter: Erysichthon’s allusive association with Medea undermines his masculinity. More speculatively, Berenice’s hair dedication in the Coma Berenices could also recall the Homeric Achilles, who similarly offered a lock of hair to his dead friend Patroclus (Il. 23.140-153); however, we lack any direct verbal parallels and such hair offerings were common in antiquity: cf. Draycott (2017). 33. We might compare the ‘reverse similes’ of the Odyssey (for which, see Foley 1978). Stratonice may thus also be aligned with Penelope, another queen who was associated with male figures: a just king (Od. 19.108-114), a shipwrecked sailor (Od. 23.233240), and (implicitly) her husband Odysseus. 34. Though contrast the Ptolemaic tradition of armed queens (Stephens 2005: 240-243), and Arsinoe II’s adoption of male iconography (Masséglia 2015: 49-50). As Aneurin EllisEvans highlights (per litteras), this blurring of gender roles contrasts with the conventionally feminine role that Seleucid queens later played in other spheres, such as euergetism; see e.g. the benefactions of Antiochus III and Laodice at Iasos: while the former supported the masculine sphere of civic politics (e.g. sponsoring ‘foreign judges’ and rebuilding political institutions), Laodice focused on traditionally feminine concerns like dowries for the daughters of poor citizens (Ma 1999: 180-182).

THE COMA STRATONICES

311

herself who receives the queen’s lock and sets it in the sky.35 Both Lucian’s Seleucid poets and the Ptolemaic Callimachus thus dwell on the same unusual subject matter to effect their praise. If this were the only point of contact between these two poetic utterances, we would not be able to take our analysis any further. Fortunately, however, another possible connection does exist, since Callimachus’ poem appears to allude to the Seleucid kingdom at several points. As Marijn Visscher has recently demonstrated, Callimachus co-opts the Ptolemies’ anti-Persian and anti-Seleucid rhetoric from the Third Syrian War to cast the Seleucids as the heirs of an outdated, barbarian and non-Greek empire.36 Judging from Catullus’ later translation of the poem (Catull. 66 = fr. 110d Harder), Callimachus appears to have described this rival kingdom in distinctly orientalising terms as ‘the land of Assyria’ (finis … Assyrios, 66.12) and ‘Asia’ (Asiam, 66.36), invoking geographical polarities that go back to the Persian Wars.37 The extant portion of the Greek text, meanwhile, explicitly recalls Xerxes’ construction of a canal through Mount Athos (fr. 110.45-46), a “byword for Persian hybris” which “invites the reader once more to view the events of the Third Syrian War in light of an essentially barbarian tradition of empire”.38 Within the broader context of Ptolemy Euergetes’ war against Seleucus II, the poem contains an underlying strain of anti-Seleucid rhetoric. As Visscher has further shown, such an anti-Seleucid sentiment extends to other key passages of Callimachus’ oeuvre, including the programmatic Aetia Prologue and the similarly metapoetic epilogue of the Hymn to Apollo.39 In the former, the poet pejoratively dismisses the Persian σχοῖνος as a tool for measuring poetry (Aet. fr. 1.18 Harder), aligning his poetic preferences with Ptolemaic anti-Persian polemic. In the latter, his poetic patron Apollo similarly dismisses the large and filthy 35. Esp. fr. 110.56 ([Κύπρ]ιδος), 64 ([Κύπρι]ς). See Gutzwiller (1992: 362-369) on Ptolemaic queens’ links with Aphrodite. The Coma may also offer a parallel for the Seleucid poets’ blurring of gender, given the possible description of Berenice as μεγάθυμον (fr. 110.26[?], cf. magnanimam, Catull. 66.26: Harder 2012: II 809-811) and the lock’s emphasis on simple, masculine ointments (fr. 110.75-78: Harder 2012: II 843-844). 36. Visscher (2017: esp. 219-223), (2020: esp. 143-148). 37. Visscher (2017: 219-223), (2020: 143-148) with due caution about the dangers of relying too heavily on Catullus’ Latin version (cf. Bing 1997). She notes that Catullus tends to render proper names more faithfully than other words (citing Pfeiffer 1975: 135) and that Catullus’ use of Assyrios notably diverges from other uses of the word in the first century BCE. Such rhetoric may build on the Seleucids’ own self-presentation as inheritors of Achaemenid Asia: cf. Kosmin (2014a: 121-125); Nelson (forthcoming a: § 3). For Seleucid and Ptolemaic geopolitical competition, see too Kosmin (2017: esp. 91-94). 38. Visscher (2017: 223), (2020: 148). 39. Visscher (2017: 224-228), (2020: 148-153).

312

THOMAS J. NELSON

Euphrates (‘the great stream of the Assyrian river’, Ἀσσυρίου ποταμοῖο μέγας ῥόος, hAp. 108) in favour of small and pure drops from a holy spring – a particularly loaded assertion given the centrality of the Euphrates to Seleucid geography and myth-making.40 In both passages, the Seleucid empire and its heritage are presented squarely as what Callimachus’ poetry is not. The rival kingdom stands as a foil for Callimachus’ poetic programme. Within such a context of inter-dynastic literary polemic, it is worth returning to the relationship between Lucian’s Seleucid poets and Callimachus’ Coma Berenices. Visscher closed her paper by noting that “Whether or not Callimachus had ‘real’ Seleukid literature and culture in mind when he rejected the Assyrian river and Persian schoinos is a moot point.”41 Given our limited extant evidence, this is a reasonable and appropriately cautious conclusion. However, I would like to suggest tentatively that in the Coma, at least, Callimachus could have had in mind the kind of Seleucid poetic traditions preserved in Lucian’s anecdote. Stratonice was queen of Seleucus I at the very start of the third century (c. 300-294 BCE), well before the composition of Callimachus’ poem (c. 245 BCE).42 Knowledge (if not texts) of a native Seleucid tradition of royal hair encomia could have easily reached Egypt during the intervening decades and become familiar to the famously well-read Alexandrian poet, author of the Pinakes. In that case, Callimachus’ treatment of Berenice and her hair would be even more complex, as would the antiSeleucid strand of his poem. In the face of the Seleucids’ more traditional conceits of flower-like curls, Callimachus produced his own far more elaborate encomium, outdoing the Seleucid poets at their own game. Moreover, if the γελοιότερον aspect of the Seleucid poets’ praise was traditional and well-known, Callimachus would also be outdoing their humour by producing an even more playful poem, spoken in the voice of a ventriloquised lock. In so doing, Callimachus would have agonistically positioned himself and his queen against the literary tradition of a rival kingdom. Such a scenario can, of course, be nothing more than a tantalising possibility on current evidence. Nevertheless, we can perhaps pursue this line of thinking even further: Callimachus may also have engaged with the same Seleucid tradition in his other major poem for queen Berenice, 40. Seleucid Euphrates: Visscher (2017: 217-218), (2020: 141); Ogden (2017: 67). For other suggestions of an anti-Seleucid underlayer to the Hymn, cf. Strootman (2010: 35-36); Kosmin (2014a: 317 n.32); and esp. Brumbaugh (2016). 41. Visscher (2017: 229). 42. For the date of the Coma Berenices, see Harder (2012: II 796-797).

THE COMA STRATONICES

313

the Victoria Berenices (frr. 54-60j Harder).43 In this elegy, Callimachus celebrates the queen’s victory in a chariot-race at the Nemean Games and narrates the embedded myth of Heracles’ visit to Nemea and his stay with the old farmer Molorcus. As part of the poem, Callimachus told the aetion of the celery wreath as the victory crown for the Nemean Games: the word σέλινον itself is not transmitted in our extant fragments, but Athena appears to have prophesied its use as a prize (ἀέθλιον) instead of horses or cauldrons (fr. 58 Harder), and to have predicted its later adoption at the Isthmian games (fr. 54i.2-9 Harder).44 As Harder notes, the attention lavished on this aetion not only reflects Callimachus’ antiquarian interests, but also “illustrates the importance of the Nemean Games and the prestige of the celery wreath won by Berenice”.45 Given this strong focus on celery, the Victoria too gains further point when set against the tradition lying behind Lucian’s anecdote: the Seleucid poets compared Stratonice’s missing locks to curly σέλινον as a kind of false garland (cf. στεφανοῦντας, Pro imag. 6); but Callimachus’ Berenice has won a real victory crown made of σέλινον. If the details of Lucian’s anecdote reflect the wording of an original Seleucid encomium, we could see Callimachus here – as in the Coma – striving to outdo his Seleucid predecessors. Berenice’s real crown of celery signals her superiority to Stratonice’s fabricated, celery-like locks. However sycophantic and flattering the Seleucid poets may have been, Callimachus implies that Berenice’s appearance and achievements ultimately surpass those of Stratonice.46 Taken together, therefore, these possible allusions to Seleucid tradition in both the Coma and Victoria Berenices may offer a rare example of Hellenistic inter-dynastic literary polemic in action, as Callimachus positioned himself and his queen against the poetic tradition of a rival kingdom. Notably, these polemical moments appear to occur at structurally significant points of the Aetia (the start of Book 3 and close of Book 4), 43. I thank Annemarie Ambühl for encouraging me to pursue this further connection. 44. See Harder (2012: II 387-388, 474-476, 487-488). Cf. too Probus’ mention of the celery wreath (apiacea corona, fr. 60c.8 Harder), and Callimachus’ similar references to celery in the Victoria Sosibii (σελινοφόρον, fr. 384.4 Pf.; σέλινα, fr. 384.21 Pf.). 45. Harder (2012: II 475). 46. Notably, the post-Callimachean Seleucid poet Euphorion appears to have taken up the same aetion concerning celery and its use at the Isthmian and Nemean games in his Dionysus (fr. 18 Acosta-Hughes & Cusset = fr. 107 Lightfoot), with several echoes of the Victoria Berenices (esp. τρηχεῖα λαβή, v. 3 ~ τρηχὺς ἄεθλος, fr. 55.3 Harder; Μήνης παῖδα, v. 4 ~ fr. 56 Harder). Could he have been responding in some way to Callimachus’ inter-dynastic polemic? Euphorion’s temporal play, focusing on events before Callimachus’ account (cf. οὐ γάρ πω, ‘not yet’, v. 3), certainly suggests a competitive attempt to rival Callimachus: he can outdo the Alexandrian poet by treating the even more distant past.

314

THOMAS J. NELSON

framing the second half of the poem with an intertextual competition between the Ptolemaic Berenice and Seleucid Stratonice. Alongside the anti-Seleucid sentiment of the Aetia prologue (cf. p. 311 above), it seems that Callimachus’ poem was punctuated at key points by an underlying inter-dynastic rivalry, centred especially on competing models of queenship. On current evidence, however, this can be nothing more than an attractive hypothesis. Rather than pursue this line of thought any further, therefore, I would like to close by considering whether this putative Seleucid tradition of hair encomium finds any echoes in the later literary traditions of Rome.47 Hair, baldness and encomia are recurring concerns of Roman poets, especially elegists and epigrammatists.48 Ovid compares a hairless head to the ugliness of a hornless bull, a field without grass and a tree without leaves (turpe pecus mutilum, turpis sine gramine campus, | et sine fronde frutex, et sine crine caput, Ov. Ars. Am. 3.249250), while Martial repeatedly mocks the baldness of his satirical targets (e.g. 2.66, 6.57, 10.83). More pertinently for our current discussion, however, Propertius imagines praising his beloved’s errant locks in an allusive catalogue of poetic genres at the start of his second book: seu vidi ad frontem sparsos errare capillos, gaudet laudatis ire superba comis. (Prop. 2.1.7-8) if I have seen the locks straying scattered on her brow, I praise her hair and for joy she walks with head held high.49

As in Lucian’s anecdote, an aesthetic infelicity (in this case, errant hair) is transformed into an object of praise. As James Zetzel has noted, this scene serves as a paradigm of praise poetry, reinforced through a bilingual pun (laudatis … comis ~ ἐγκώμιον, ‘encomion’): the praising of hair is the archetypal encomiastic activity (at least from an elegist’s perspective).50 Behind this sentiment we might detect a reference not only to 47. Besides the following Latin examples, Daniel Ogden attractively suggests (per litteras) that the Emperor Julian’s Misopogon (‘Beard-Hater’, 363 CE) might also engage with this Seleucid tradition: it is a paradoxical and satirical attack on the emperor’s own beard (“an unwelcome hair-growth in the age of the clean-shaven, as opposed to an unwelcome hair-loss”; see esp. 338b-339c), which is notably addressed to the people of Antioch and involves explicit recollection of Antiochus’ love for Stratonice (347a-348b). Amid Julian’s many literary references and allusions, it is certainly possible to detect a nod to local traditions surrounding another ruler’s abnormal hair. 48. See e.g. McKeown (1989: 364-365); Hälikkä (2001); Hohenwallner (2001); Burkowski (2012); Pandey (2018). 49. Tr. adapted from Goold (1990: 103). 50. Zetzel (1983: 92); see his pp. 91-93 for the generic catalogue at Prop. 2.1.5-16.

THE COMA STRATONICES

315

Callimachus’ Coma Berenices, but also to Seleucid traditions of hair encomia. Most significant, however, is Ovid’s Amores 1.14, a poem to which I have already referred on several occasions in previous footnotes. The speaker of this poem gloats over his beloved’s loss of her hair (through dyeing) and blames her for its disappearance. The majority of the poem is spent celebrating the virtues of the now lost hair through a host of flattering comparisons (1.14.3-34).51 In the past, scholars have connected this poem with Callimachus’ Coma Berenices, noting especially the parallel presentation of the girl’s hair “as the innocent victim of torture”.52 I wonder, however, whether the Seleucid tradition of hair encomia attested by Lucian may also lie behind Ovid’s poem. Not only does Ovid compare his lover’s locks to flora (cedar stripped of its bark, 1.14.11-12) like the Seleucid poets (hyacinth/celery), but he also flatteringly compares the lost locks to the coiffure of the goddess Venus (1.13.33-34), a deity with whom Stratonice was closely aligned, as we have noted above (p. 306 with n.20). Moreover, later in the poem, Ovid explicitly denies that his beloved’s hair loss is the result of a violent disease (nec tibi vis morbi nocuit, 1.14.41), implicitly setting this cosmetic accident against the tradition of Stratonice’s illness. Again, we can only draw tentative conclusions, but perhaps in Ovid’s poem we see the combination of both the Seleucid and Ptolemaic traditions of royal hair encomia, as the Roman elegist adapts and reconciles two competing ‘strands’ of Hellenistic poetics. If so, this Ovidian elegy attests to the diverse influence of Hellenistic literature at Rome; not everything can be traced back to a solely Alexandrian source. REFERENCES Abbreviations Acosta-Hughes & Cusset: Acosta-Hughes, B. & C. Cusset, 2012, Euphorion: œuvre poétique et autres fragments (Fragments 14). Paris. BNJ: Worthington, I. (ed.) Brill’s New Jacoby (http://referenceworks.brillonline. com/browse/brill-s-new-jacoby).

51. Here too, Zetzel (1996: 73-81) detects an underlying metapoetic commentary; cf. Papaioannou (2006). 52. See McKeown (1989: 372-373 on Am. 1.14.23-30), who particularly notes the parallel with Aet. fr. 110.47-48 Harder: τί πλόκαμοι ῥέξωμεν, ὅτ᾿ οὔρεα τοῖα σιδήρῳ | εἴκουσιν; (‘what may we locks of hair do, when such mountains yield to iron?’). For recent studies on other Roman receptions of the Callimachean Coma, see too Höschele (2009); Ambühl (2016).

316

THOMAS J. NELSON

CIG: Boeckh, A. et al., 1828-1877, Corpus inscriptionum graecarum. 4 vols. Berlin. Harder: Harder, M.A., 2012, Callimachus, Aetia: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary. 2 vols. Oxford. Hirschberger: Hirschberger, M., 2004, Gynaikōn Katalogos und Megalai Ēhoiai: Ein Kommentar zu den Fragmenten zweier hesiodeischer Epen (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 198). Munich-Leipzig. K-A: Kassel, R. and Austin, C., 1983-2001, Poetae Comici Graeci. 8 vols. BerlinNew York. Kühn: Kühn, K.G., 1821-1833, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia. 20 vols. Leipzig. Lightfoot: Lightfoot, J.L., 2009, Hellenistic Collection: Philitas, Alexander of Aetolia, Hermesianax, Euphorion, Parthenius (Loeb Classical Library 508). Cambridge MA-London. Most: Most, G.W., 20182 [20071], Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments (Loeb Classical Library 503). Cambridge MA-London. M-W: Merkelbach, R. & M.L. West apud F. Solmsen, 1990, Hesiodi Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum. Fragmenta Selecta ediderunt R. Merkelbach et M.L. West. Oxford. OGIS: Dittenberger, W., 1903-1905, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. 2 vols. Leipzig. Pf.: Pfeiffer, R., 1949-1953, Callimachus. 2 vols. Oxford. PMG: Page, D.L., 1962, Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford. SH: Lloyd-Jones, H. & P.J. Parsons, 1983, Supplementum Hellenisticum (Texte und Kommentare 11). Berlin. Usener-Radermacher = Usener, H. & L. Radermacher, 1899-1929, Dionysii Halicarnasei Opuscula. 2 vols (Dionysii Halicarnasei quae exstant 5-6). Leipzig. Voigt: Voigt, E.-M., 1971, Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta. Amsterdam. West: West, M.L., 2003, Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC (Loeb Classical Library 497). Cambridge MA-London. Works Cited Almagor, E., 2016, “Seleukid Love and Power: Stratonike I”. In: A. Coşkun & A. McAuley (eds), Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire (Historia Einzelschriften 240). Stuttgart, 67-86. Ambühl, A., 2016, “Literary Love Triangles: Berenice at Alexandria and Rome”. In: F. Cairns & R. Gibson (eds), Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar, Sixteenth Volume, 2016: Greek and Roman Poetry; The Elder Pliny (ARCA 54). Prenton, 155-184. Andrews, A.C., 1949, “Celery and Parsley as Foods in the Greco-Roman Period”. CPh 44, 91-99. Bakola, E., 2010, Cratinus and the Art of Comedy. Oxford. Barbantani, S., 2014, “‘Attica in Syria’: Persian War Reenactments and Reassessments of the Greek-Asian Relationship: A Literary Point of View”. Erga-Logoi 2, 21-91. Basta Donzelli, G., 1984, “Arsinoe simile ad Elena (Theocritus Id. 15,110)”. Hermes 112, 306-316.

THE COMA STRATONICES

317

Bielman Sánchez, A. et al. (eds), 2016, Femmes influentes dans le monde hellénistique et à Rome: IIIe siècle avant J.-C. – Ier siècle après J.-C. Grenoble. Bing, P., 1997, “Reconstructing Berenike’s Lock”. In: G.W. Most (ed.), Collecting Fragments: Fragmente sammeln (Aporemata 1). Göttingen, 78-94 [reprinted in Bing (2009: 65-82)]. Bing, P., 2009, The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry. Ann Arbor. Bouquiaux-Simon, O., 1968, Les lectures homériques de Lucien (Mémoires de l’Académie royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres 59.2). Brussels. Brockliss, W., 2019, Homeric Imagery and the Natural Environment (Hellenic Studies 82). Washington DC – Cambridge MA-London. Brumbaugh, M., 2016, “Kallimachos and the Seleukid Apollo”. TAPA 146, 61-97. Burkowski, J.M.C., 2012, “The Symbolism and Rhetoric of Hair in Latin Elegy”. PhD Thesis, University of Oxford. Cameron, A., 1993, The Greek Anthology: From Meleager to Planudes. Oxford. Caneva, S., 2014, “Courtly Love, Stars and Power: The Queen in Third-Century Royal Couples, through Poetry and Epigraphic Texts”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Hellenistica Groningana 20). Leuven-Paris-Walpole MA, 25-57. Carney, E.D., 2000, Women and Monarchy in Macedonia. Norman. ―, 2011, “Being Royal and Female in the Early Hellenistic Period.” in: A. Erskine & L. Llewellyn-Jones (eds), Creating a Hellenistic World. Swansea, 195-220. Carney, E.D. & S. Müller (eds), 2020, The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Abingdon-New York. Cistaro, M., 2009, Sotto il velo di Pantea: Imagines e Pro imaginibus di Luciano (Orione 3). Messina. Clayman, D.L., 2014, Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt. New York-Oxford. Cohen, G.M., 2006, The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa (Hellenistic Culture and Society 46). Berkeley-Los AngelesLondon. Coşkun, A. & A. McAuley (eds), 2016, Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire (Historia Einzelschriften 240). Stuttgart. Davies, G., 2019, “Cultural Representations”. In: M. Harlow (ed.), A Cultural History of Hair in Antiquity. London, 145-161. Demoen, K., 1988, “The Date of the Cyzicene Epigrams: An Analysis of the Vocabulary and Metrical Technique of AP, III”. AC 57, 231-248. Draycott, J.L., 2017, “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Use of Real, False and Artificial Hair as Votive Offerings”. In: J.L. Draycott & E.-J. Graham (eds), Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future (Medicine and The Body in Antiquity). Abingdon-New York, 77-94. ―, 2018, “Prosthetic Hair in Ancient Rome”. In: J.L. Draycott (ed.), Prostheses in Antiquity (Medicine and The Body in Antiquity). Abingdon-New York, 71-96.

318

THOMAS J. NELSON

Engels, D. & K. Erickson, 2016, “Apama and Stratonike: Marriage and Legitimacy”. In: A. Coşkun & A. McAuley (eds), Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire (Historia Einzelschriften 240). Stuttgart, 39-65. Fanfani, G., 2017, “Weaving a Song. Convergences in Greek Poetic Imagery between Textile and Musical Terminology. An Overview on Archaic and Classical Literature”. In: S. Gaspa et al. (eds), Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD. Lincoln NE, 421-436. Foley, H.P., 1978, “‘Reverse Similes’ and Sex Roles in the Odyssey”. Arethusa 11, 7-26. Foster, J.A., 2006, “Arsinoe II as Epic Queen: Encomiastic Allusion in Theocritus, Idyll 15”. TAPhA 136, 133-148. ―, 2016, Reading Voices: Five Studies in Theocritus’ Narrating Techniques (Lang Classical Studies 21). New York. Fraser, P.M., 1972, Ptolemaic Alexandria. 3 vols. Oxford. Goldhill, S., 2001, “The Erotic Eye: Visual Stimulation and Cultural Conflict”. In: S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge, 154-194. Goold, G.P., 1990, Propertius: Elegies (Loeb Classical Library 18). Cambridge MA-London. Griffith, R.D., 1989, “In Praise of the Bride: Sappho Fr. 105(A) L-P, Voigt”. TAPhA 119, 55-61. Griffiths, F.T., 1979, Theocritus at Court (Mnemosyne Supplement 55). Leiden. Gutzwiller, K.J., 1992, “Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice: Fantasy, Romance, and Propaganda”. AJPh 113, 359-385. Hälikkä, R., 2001, “Sparsis comis, solutis capillis: Loose Hair in Ovid’s Elegiac Poetry”. Arctos 35, 23-34. Hämmerling, R., 2019, Zwischen dynastischem Selbstbild und literarischem Stereotyp: Königinnen der Seleukiden und der Mittelmächte Kleinasiens (Pharos 44). Rahden. Harder, M.A., 2012, Callimachus, Aetia: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary. 2 vols. Oxford. Henderson, J., 19912 [19751], The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy. New York-Oxford. Hirschberger, M., 2004, Gynaikōn Katalogos und Megalai Ēhoiai: Ein Kommentar zu den Fragmenten zweier hesiodeischer Epen (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 198). Munich-Leipzig. Hohenwallner, I., 2001, Venit odoratos elegia nexa capillos: Haar und Frisur in der römischen Liebeselegie (Arianna 2). Möhnesee. Höschele, R., 2009, “Catullus’ Callimachean Hair-itage and the Erotics of Translation”. RFIC 137, 118-152. Householder, F.W., Jr., 1941, Literary Quotation and Allusion in Lucian. New York. Hunter, R.L., 2003, Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Hellenistic Culture and Society 39). Berkeley-Los Angeles-London. ―, 2019, “Notes on the Ancient Reception of Sappho”. In: T.S. Thorsen & S.J. Harrison (eds), Roman Receptions of Sappho (Classical Presences). Oxford, 45-59.

THE COMA STRATONICES

319

Irwin, M.E., 1990, “Odysseus’ ‘Hyacinthine Hair’ in Odyssey 6.231”. Phoenix 44, 205-218. Kim, L.Y., 2010, Homer between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature (Greek Culture in the Roman World). Cambridge-New York. Kosmin, P.J., 2014a, The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire. Cambridge MA-London. ―, 2014b, “Seeing Double in Seleucid Babylonia: Rereading the Borsippa Cylinder of Antiochus I”. In: A. Moreno & R. Thomas (eds), Patterns of the Past: Epitēdeumata in the Greek Tradition. Oxford, 173-198. ―, 2017, “The Politics of Science: Eratosthenes’ Geography and Ptolemaic Imperialism”. Orbis Terrarum 15, 85-96. ―, 2018, Time and its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire. Cambridge MALondon. Lightfoot, J.L., 2003, Lucian: On the Syrian Goddess, Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Oxford. Livingstone, N. & G. Nisbet, 2010, Epigram (G&R New Surveys in the Classics 38). Cambridge. Ma, J., 1999, Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor. Oxford. Macurdy, G.H., 1932, Hellenistic Queens: A Study of Woman-Power in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt (Studies in Archaeology 14). BaltimoreLondon. Masséglia, J., 2015, Body Language in Hellenistic Art and Society (Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation). Oxford. McKeown, J.C., 1989, Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and Commentary. Vol. II: A Commentary on Book One (ARCA 22). Leeds. Merkelbach, R. & J. Stauber, 2001, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten. Band 2: Die Nordküste Kleinasiens (Marmarameer und Pontos). MunichLeipzig. Morgan, L., 1997, “Achilleae Comae: Hair and Heroism According to Domitian”. CQ 47, 209-214. Mori, A., 2001, “Personal Favor and Public Influence: Arete, Arsinoë II, and the Argonautica”. Oral Tradition 16, 85-106. Most, G.W., 20182 [20071], Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments (Loeb Classical Library 503). Cambridge MA-London. Nelson, T.J., 2020, “Penelopean Simaetha: A Flawed Paradigm of Femininity in Theocritus’ Second Idyll”. In: C. Cusset et al. (eds), Féminités hellénistiques: Voix, genre, représentations (Hellenistica Groningana 25). LeuvenParis-Bristol CT, 387-405. ―, forthcoming a, “Beating the Galatians: Ideologies, Analogies and Allegories in Hellenistic Literature and Art”. In: A. Coşkun (ed.), Galatian Victories and Other Studies into the Agency and Identity of the Galatians in the Hellenistic and Early-Roman Periods (Colloquia Antiqua 33). Leuven. ―, forthcoming b, Markers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry. Cambridge. Ogden, D., 2017, The Legend of Seleucus: Kingship, Narrative and Mythmaking in the Ancient World. Cambridge. Pandey, N.B., 2018, “Caput mundi: Female Hair as Symbolic Vehicle of Domination in Ovidian Love Elegy”. CJ 113, 454-488. Papaioannou, S., 2006, “The Poetology of Hairstyling and the Excitement of Hair Loss in Ovid, Amores 1, 14”. QUCC 83, 45-69.

320

THOMAS J. NELSON

Pfeiffer, R., 1975, “Βερενίκης πλόκαμος”. In: A.D. Skiadas (ed.), Kallimachos. Darmstadt, 100-152 [reprinted from Philologus 87 (1932: 179-228)]. Prauscello, L., 2007, “A Homeric Echo in Theocritus’ Idyll 11. 25-7: The Cyclops, Nausicaa and the Hyacinths”. CQ 57, 90-96. Primo, A., 2009, La storiografia sui Seleucidi: da Megastene a Eusebio di Cesarea (Studi ellenistici 10). Pisa. Robson, J., 2013, “Beauty and Sex Appeal in Aristophanes”. Eugesta 3, 43-66. Rowlandson, J. (ed.), 1998, Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook. Cambridge. Scheid, J. & J. Svenbro, 1996, The Craft of Zeus: Myths of Weaving and Fabric (tr. C. Volk) (Revealing Antiquity 9). Cambridge MA-London. Sidwell, K.C., 2002, “Damning with Great Praise: Paradox in Lucian’s Imagines and Pro Imaginibus”. In: K.C. Sidwell (ed.), Pleiades Setting: Essays for Pat Cronin on his 65th Birthday. Cork, 107-126. ―, 2004, Lucian: Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches, Translated with an Introduction and Notes. London. Snyder, J.M., 1981, “The Web of Song: Weaving Imagery in Homer and the Lyric Poets”. CJ 76, 193-196. Stephens, S.A., 2005, “Battle of the Books”. In: K.J. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book. Oxford-New York, 229-248. Strong, D.E., 19882 [19761], Roman Art. New Haven-London. Strootman, R., 2010, “Literature and the Kings”. In: J.J. Clauss & M. Cuypers (eds), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Malden-Oxford-Chichester, 30-45. Tarán, S.L., 1985, “ΕΙΣΙ ΤΡΙΧΕΣ: An Erotic Motif in the Greek Anthology”. JHS 105, 90-107. Toohey, P.G., 1992, “Love, Lovesickness, and Melancholia”. ICS 17, 265-286. Visscher, M.S., 2017, “Imperial Asia: Past and Present in Callimachus’ Lock of Berenike”. In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Past and Present in Hellenistic Poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 21). Leuven-Paris-Bristol CT, 211-232. ―, 2019, “Poets and Politics: Antiochos the Great, Hegesianax and the War with Rome”. In: A. Coşkun and D. Engels (eds), Rome and the Seleukid East: Selected Papers from Seleukid Study Day V, Brussels, 21-23 August 2015 (Collection Latomus 360). Brussels, 61-85. ―, 2020, Beyond Alexandria: Literature and Empire in the Seleucid World. New York-Oxford. Vout, C., 2007, Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome. Cambridge. Zetzel, J.E.G., 1983, “Re-Creating the Canon: Augustan Poetry and the Alexandrian Past”. Critical Inquiry 10, 83-105. ―, 1996, “Poetic Baldness and Its Cure”. MD 36, 73-100.

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 51 Simone OPPEN ABSTRACT This paper approaches gender and power through the narrow lens of Callimachus’ citation practice in Hymn 5. Therein, a poetic narrator invokes female collectives with discrete identities in previous Greek literature, training their focus on the goddess Athena in order to bring about her epiphany. Through their focus on the goddess, these female collectives become capable of revising the judgement of Paris and even enticing Athena to come join them in Argos. Though it is tempting on this basis to read proto-feminist sentiment into Callimachus, the hymn’s larger project ultimately appears to be demonstrating its own efficacy by creating the conditions in which the goddess would choose to be seen.

1. Introduction To judge by Homer, Greek tragedy, and even documents such as the Lindian chronicle, Athena is an epiphanic goddess par excellence. This paper illuminates the care with which Callimachus considers how the goddess might want to be seen in preparation for her epiphany at Argos. In citing Greek drama and a story belonging to others in Hymn 5, the poet juxtaposes two modes of looking at the divine female body: a revision of the judgement of Paris in which Athena’s athleticism appears triumphant; and the story of Tiresias’ eroticizing gaze on the occasion of a past bath. This paper argues that the poet’s citation practice in Hymn 5 is part of a larger project to revise aspects of the relationship between gender and power in preparation for the goddess’ epiphany, as follows. First, female collectives from earlier Greek literature are called to witness and trained as connoisseurs of Athena’s imminent physicality, in particular by being cast as an internal audience to the judgement of Paris as depicted in drama.2 Second, the contrast between female collective viewership 1. My paper’s title is intended to echo, and thus indicate my debt to, Depew’s groundbreaking treatment of gender and power in Callimachus’ Hymns in an earlier volume of Hellenistica Groningana (2004). 2. Collectives are invoked in other Hymns of Callimachus, both mimetic and nonmimetic (on the distinction, see Harder 1992: 384 n.2 and Morrison 2007: 109-115). As the following brief survey illuminates by contrast, the invocation and description of female onlookers in Hymn 5 is distinctive within the Hymns for its frequency and the variety of

322

SIMONE OPPEN

and the eroticizing male gaze may refine an external audience’s focus on the athletic power of the female body. That is, instead of seeing the female body as powerful for the erotic effect of its momentarily glimpsed nudity, such an audience is led to view it in a more sustained manner as powerful for its athleticism. This does not rule out that one might find the athleticism of the female body erotic, but it shifts the basis from which such subjective judgement might arise away from the overtly eroticizing gaze associated with male viewers in the poem. Lastly, this revision of aspects of the relationship between gender and power – regardless of whether or not it relates to an actual Argive ritual of bathing a statue of Athena3 – may reflect poetic and historical realities. Female collectives are frequently invoked with various epithets in Callimachus Hymn 5 (1, 4, 13, 15, 27, 33, 34, 45, 47, 56, 57, 134, and 138).4 Their direct and indirect invocation highlights the poem’s structure, epithets used. In Hymn 2 to Apollo, the poetic narrator directly addresses the door-fastenings, bolts, and a group of young men with a quick succession of second-person plural imperatives (6-8). These young men arguably also sing a paean at lines 25-97 of the hymn (Morrison 2005: 28 and Bing 2009: 37-47). In Hymn 3 to Artemis, the poetic narrator includes the goddess’ direct speech as she commands the Cyclopes to make her a bow, arrows, and quiver (81-85). In Hymn 4 to Delos, the poetic narrator directly asks the Muses whether oaks were born at the same time as nymphs (82-85). Morrison briefly discusses this moment as part of his larger exploration of the Muses in Callimachus’ œuvre (2011: 343-344). This hymn also includes Leto’s direct address to the Thessalian nymphs (109111), Hera’s direct address to the Ζηνὸς ὀνείδεα or ‘Zeus’ disgraces’ (240-243), and Delos’ own direct address to other lands and islands (266-273). Hymn 6 to Demeter begins with commands addressed to two groups of women participating in a festival for the goddess: the first group is commanded to address her with a hexameter (1-2); the second merely to watch from the ground (3-4). By contrast to these other Hymns of Callimachus, Hymn 5 invokes collectives 10 times directly (with several different epithets) and three times indirectly. Accordingly, one main aim of this paper is to provide a full treatment of this strikingly developed feature of Hymn 5, which has been treated briefly in foundational earlier scholarship: Fantuzzi (1993: 937), Morrison (2005: 30), and Manakidou (2017: 188-191, 201). 3. As the first scholion to Hymn 5 preserved by the manuscript tradition states: ἔν τινι ἡμέρᾳ ὡρισμένῃ ἔθος εἶχον αἱ Ἀργεῖαι γυναῖκες λαμβάνειν τὸ ἄγαλμα τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς καὶ Διομήδους καὶ ἄγειν ἐπὶ τὸν Ἴναχον ποταμὸν κἀκεῖσε ἀπολούειν· ὃ δὴ καὶ λουτρὰ ὠνομάζετο τῆς Παλλάδος (‘on a certain defined day the Argive women held a custom of taking the statue of Athena and Diomedes and bringing [it] to the river Inachus to wash [it] there; [a custom] which was accordingly called the baths of Pallas’). This translation and others in the paper are my own unless otherwise indicated. This comment and the identity of the statue to which it and perhaps also Hymn 5 refer have been much discussed. A scholion to line 37 of Hymn 5 identifies the statue as the Trojan Palladium. While Bulloch (1985: 3, 11, 14-17, 146-147, 244), and Stephens follow this identification (2015: 233-236, 247, 252), other scholars have called it into question (Billot 1997-1998: 23-25, including a summary of earlier work) or even suggested that the Palladium arguably referred to around line 37 is distinct from the statue whose washing the hymn celebrates (Robertson 1996: 410-412). 4. I cite Pfeiffer’s 1953 text of Callimachus Hymn 5 here and elsewhere in this paper.

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

323

particularly as it relates to the poet’s citation practice.5 In the first part of the poem (1-32), as I discuss in greater detail below (324–325), language first attested in Homer and Aeschylus is used to directly address these collectives (λωτροχόοι ‘bath-pourers’ 1, 15; σοῦσθε Πελασγιάδες ‘run, Pelasgian women’ 4). These addressees are then brought inside the judgement of Paris, as depicted in Sophoclean satyr play, to revise this scenario by their focus on Athena’s superlative qualities (ὦ κῶραι ‘oh maidens’ 27). Apostrophe to Athena frames the second part of the poem (33-56), beginning with the poetic narrator’s first direct words to the goddess and followed by an indirect invocation of the female addressees from part one as a singular collective (ἔξιθ’, Ἀθαναία· πάρα τοι καταθύμιος ἴλα ‘come out, Athena; here for you is a pleasing band’ 33). The last, transitional lines of part two likewise indirectly invoke these women as these lines remarkably state that the story to follow is not the narrator’s own (πότνι’ Ἀθαναία, σὺ μὲν ἔξιθι· μέσφα δ’ ἐγώ τι / ταῖσδ’ ἐρέω· μῦθος δ’ οὐκ ἐμός, ἀλλ’ ἑτέρων ‘Queen Athena, you come out! Meanwhile, however, I will tell something to these women; the story is not mine but from others’ 55-56).6 Direct address to female collectives (παῖδες ‘children’ 57, λωτροχόοι 134, ὦ κῶραι 138) frames the third and longest part of Hymn 5 (57-139). The final part of the poem (140-142), by contrast, turns back to Athena (χαῖρε, θεά ‘welcome, goddess’ 140).7 Taken together, juxtaposition of modes of looking at the female body and invocation of female collectives serve to purify the gaze of the internal and external audiences to Hymn 5. To be more specific, I argue that this juxtaposition and invocation refines the gaze of these audiences to an ideal state (OED s.v. purify 5), at least for the circumstances of the poem. This state consists of sustained contemplation of the strength and 5. Kleinknecht notes the address of both female collectives and the Argive people (1939: 318), but suggests it serves primarily to set the scene for a ritual culminating in Athena’s epiphany rather than highlighting crucial yet subtle aspects of Hymn 5’s structure (as I show). 6. The story of Acontius and Cydippe in Callimachus Aetia fragments 67-75e is also described as a μῦθος in the fragment in which it is attributed to someone else (ἔνθεν ὁ παιδός / μῦθος ἐς ἡμετέρην ἔδραμε Καλλιόπην ‘from where the boy’s story ran to our Calliope’ fr. 75.76-77; cf. ὅς ποτε πᾶσαν / νῆσον ἐνὶ μνήμῃ κάτθετο μυθολόγῳ ‘[Xenomedes] who once set down the whole island in mythological memory’ 54-55). Harder suggests that the citation of Xenomedes as the source for the story of Acontius and Cydippe in fragment 75 is one of this story’s “aetiological elements” (2012: 542-543). Krevans hypothesizes that this citation may be Acontius and Cydippe’s principal aetion (2004: 180-181). 7. This partition of Hymn 5 on the basis of addressee both affirms and clarifies previous thematic divisions of the poem, which present some variation (McKay 1962: 59-74, 113; Bulloch 1985: 109; Manakidou 2013: 155-156; Stephens 2015: 233-234, 251, 254, 262).

324

SIMONE OPPEN

capability of the whole female body in action, epitomized in its athleticism (as in the poem’s introduction and judgement of Paris, 5-8, 23-28). This state is also defined by opposition to momentary glimpses of the female body focused on nudity and, in particular, gender difference (as in the case of a Pelasgian man and Tiresias, 51-54, 78, 88). As I examine in section two an internal audience comprised of female collectives from earlier Greek literature is trained to appreciate the athleticism of Athena’s body. The viewership of these women is then used to draw forth the goddess and contrasted to the gaze of another internal audience, a Pelasgian who might lose his sight if he sees the goddess naked. I explore this contrast in section three before showing how Athena’s subsequent citation from Kronos’ laws within Tiresias’ story lends authority to the hymn’s larger project: ὅς κε τιν’ ἀθανάτων, ὅκα μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἕληται, / ἀθρήσῃ, μισθῶ τοῦτον ἰδεῖν μεγάλω (‘whoever should gaze at some one of the immortals, whenever the god himself does not choose, this seeing comes at a great price’ 101-102). That is, this poem strives to create the conditions in which the goddess would choose to be seen, using allusion to revise aspects of the relationship between gender and power crucial to this effort. In the fourth section, I suggest poetic and historical contexts that might enhance our understanding of the poet’s efforts to model such purification of the gaze for an external audience.

2. Training the focus of female collectives The language with which female collectives are invoked in the first part of Hymn 5 hints at their pedigree within earlier Greek poetry and prose. These women are initially called λωτροχόοι (‘bath-pourers’ 1) with a Doric form of an adjective found prior to Callimachus in Homer and Xenophon.8 At line four, the poet appears to acknowledge both tragedy and historiography with his narrator’s command: σοῦσθέ νυν, ὦ ξανθαὶ σοῦσθε Πελασγιάδες (‘hurry now, oh hurry fair-haired Pelasgian women’). In Aeschylus’ Supplices, a member of a subsidiary chorus of Egyptians repeatedly orders the Danaids to leave Argos with this same imperative (σοῦσθε σοῦσθ’ at 836 and 842).9 With the substantive 8. In Homer this adjective is used to describe both a tripod cauldron (λοετροχόον Il. 18.346 and Od. 8.435) and a bath-pourer (λοετροχόῳ Od. 20.297), whereas Xenophon only uses this adjective substantively to describe bath-pourers (λουτροχόους Cyr. 8.8.20). Bulloch provides inscribed parallels for the root λωτ- in Callimachus’ form of this adjective (1985: 110-111). 9. As Stephens notes (2015: 247 n.4).

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

325

Πελασγιάδες,10 the poet similarly appears to acknowledge earlier accounts of the Pelasgian connection to Argos and the Peloponnese (in Supplices 249-253 and Herodotus 1.56-58).11 That is, the language with which female participants are invoked in the opening lines of Hymn 5 appears to superimpose at least two collectives associated with Argos: the imperative σοῦσθε recalls the relationship between the women of Argos and the Danaids; while the epithet Πελασγιάδες stresses the Argive claim to autochthony (as articulated by Aeschylus’ Pelasgus) and fixity (in Herodotus’ Pelasgian ethnography). The epithet with which the poetic narrator next invokes female participants casts them as yet another collective (Ἀχαιιάδες ‘Achaean women’ 13). In the Iliad, the term Ἀχαιιάς is used only twice, both times by Athena to describe the larger collective of Achaean women to which Helen belongs (5.422, 424).12 Theocritus reprises this usage in his description of Helen, albeit at a time before the Homeric storyline (οἵα Ἀχαιιάδων γαῖαν πατεῖ οὐδεμί’ ἄλλα ‘no other such Achaean woman walks the land’ Idyll 18.20). Anthony W. Bulloch has argued that Callimachus emulates Idyll 18, Theocritus’ epithalamium for Helen and Menelaus, in lines 23-28 of Hymn 5.13 He suggests that the use of the epithet Ἀχαιιάδες in line 13 of Hymn 5 is an example of “academic irony.”14 Following the language in lines one through four, this epithet is also a further indication of the varied identities of the collectives brought together by invocation in Callimachus’ poem.15 That is, apparently discrete identities in previous literature, from the ‘bath pourers’ in Homer and Xenophon to the ‘Pelasgian women’ in Aeschylus and Herodotus to 10. The patronymic Πελασγιάδες is also used in the Aetia to address the springs of Argos collectively (fr. 66.9; further, see Harder 2012: 538-540). See also Stephens for bibliography on Callimachus’ neologisms and in particular his use of adjectives in -ιάς, as here (2015: 26). 11. Stephens (2015: 247 n.4) and Bulloch (1985: 115 n.4) note these intertexts. As Sourvinou-Inwood discusses (2003: 115-117), however, most but not all mythical genealogies for Pelasgos are focused on Argos (others are associated with Thessaly and Arcadia). 12. In the Odyssey, by contrast to the Iliad, the term Ἀχαιιάς is used to describe Achaean women generally (3.261, 21.160) and, in particular, those whose anger Penelope says she hopes to avert by completing Laertes’ shroud (μή τίς μοι κατὰ δῆμον Ἀχαιϊάδων νεμεσήσῃ ‘lest some one of the Achaean women about town should resent me’ 2.101, 19.146, 24.136). 13. Bulloch establishes the relative chronology of these poems on the basis of internal, stylistic criteria (1985: 127 n.18-28; 131-138 n.23-28). 14. Bulloch makes this suggestion on the basis of the distinction between Achaean and Pelasgian Argos in the scholia to the Iliad, which he argues that Callimachus ignores by using the terms Πελασγιάδες and Ἀχαιιάδες in lines four and 13 (1985: 122-123 n.13). 15. Cheshire considers how an Alexandrian audience (going beyond the Ptolemaic court, library, and museum to include the wider city) may have understood the language in line four and epithet in line 13 (2014: 61-62).

326

SIMONE OPPEN

the ‘Achaean women’ discussed here,16 are now addressed as a composite collective. These women are ostensibly drawn together to participate as ‘bathpourers’ in an Argive ritual. However, a secondary objective is their development as connoisseurs of Athena’s imminent physicality, beginning with the ways in which the goddess is described to them. From its third line, Hymn 5 uses description and contrast to carve out the space for appreciating the athleticism of Athena’s body in a manner that is not overtly eroticized. Recent commentators gloss the rare adjective εὔτυκος in line three as ‘ready’ (ἁ θεὸς εὔτυκος ἕρπεν ‘the goddess is ready to come’).17 In view of its surviving previous usage (particularly in Aeschylus’ Supplices),18 however, this adjective can also be translated ‘well-built.’ The latter translation makes sense of the transmitted manuscript reading (the conjugated verb ἕρπει rather than its 1870 emendation by Otto Schneider to the explanatory Doric infinitive ἕρπεν).19 Translating εὔτυκος as ‘well-built’ here also asserts the physical power of the goddess’ form in a manner that provides a smooth transition to the following lines of Hymn 5. That is, description of the goddess’ delayed self-care fills out this assertion in lines five through eight by offering a glimpse of her powerful body: οὔποκ’ Ἀθαναία μεγάλως ἀπενίψατο πάχεις, / πρὶν κόνιν ἱππειᾶν ἐξελάσαι λαγόνων (‘never has Athena washed [her] mighty forearms before driving out the dust from mares’ flanks’ 5-6). In addition, Athena’s unwashed forearms hint at the capability of the rest of her body as does the description of her return from the Gigantomachy (οὐδ’ ὅκα δὴ λύθρῳ πεπαλαγμένα πάντα φέροισα / τεύχεα ‘not even when carrying all her gore-spattered armor…’ 7-8). Lines 13-17 continue to make space for invoked female collectives (and, implicitly, others in the hymn’s external audience) to appreciate Athena’s body in a way that is not overtly eroticized. First, a delayed imperative makes it clear through repetition that these women need ‘bring 16. See 324-325 above for discussion of these ‘bath pourers’ and ‘Pelasgian women’ in earlier literature. 17. See Bulloch (1985: 113 n.3) and Stephens (2015: 247 n.3). 18. The adjective εὔτυκος is used with the meaning ‘well-built’ by Pelasgus in describing the welcome Argos will provide to the Danaids (εὐτύκους ναίειν δόμους ‘to dwell in well-built houses’ Aesch. Supp. 959; cf. 974, 994 for the meaning ‘ready’). In its extant use to describe people (including characterization of one as an insect), the meaning of this adjective is ambiguous (pace LSJ ad loc.): Λάκων ὁ τέττιξ εὔτυκος ἐς χορόν (‘the Laconian cicada well-built/ready for dance’ Pratin. 2 PMG 709 Page 1962); θεῖος προφ[άτ]ας / εὔτυκος Φλειοῦντά τε καὶ Νεμεαίου / Ζηνὸς εὐθαλὲς πέδον / ὑμνεῖν (‘divine prophet well-built/ready to sing of Phlius and the flourishing plain of Nemean Zeus’ Bacchyl. 9.3-6). 19. Pace Bulloch (1985: 113 n.3).

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

327

neither sweet oils nor alabasters…nor a mirror’ for Athena (καὶ μὴ μύρα μηδ’ ἀλαβάστρως…οἴσετε μηδὲ κάτοπτρον 13-17). The absence of perfume is explained as the goddess’ personal preference (οὐ γὰρ Ἀθαναία χρίματα μεικτὰ φιλεῖ ‘for Athena does not like mixed ointments’ 16). The command not to bring a mirror is followed by a statement on the timelessness of Athena’s beauty (ἀεὶ καλὸν ὄμμα τὸ τήνας ‘her face is always beautiful’ 17). Notably, the use of καλός in this statement is unique in Callimachus’ Hymns, which elsewhere employ the adjective to describe the physicality of male divinities (1.55; 2.3, 36).20 Following this gleam of an aesthetic statement, these women are invited to further develop their connoisseurship via a layered allusion that transports them through time and space and into another story. The poetic narrator casts this inset audience as witnesses to the judgement of Paris beginning in line 18. The phrase with which this scenario is introduced in Callimachus’ hymn reflects its depiction in Sophocles’ satyr play Krisis (τὰν Ἴδᾳ Φρὺξ ἐδίκαζεν ἔριν ‘the strife on Mt. Ida the Phrygian judged’ 18).21 Our surviving description of the Krisis mentions Athena ‘exercising’ (γυμναζομένην),22 but neither this nor other ancient literary sources on the judgement of which I am aware refer to such a female collective.23 With the words ὦ κῶραι in Hymn 5 (27), however, the 20. The adjective καλός occurs 19 times in the Hymns. In Hymn 1 to Zeus it is used twice to describe the god’s growth (55). In Hymn 2 to Apollo it describes the god’s foot (3), a swan’s song (5), the god’s overall appearance (36), Ortygia (59), and a beautiful shrine (77). In the Hymns to female divinities, other than at line 17 of Hymn 5 to Athena, this adjective is confined to entities external to the goddess: a fair chorus (3.181); Anticlea (3.211); contests (3.261); a bath (5.51); the Hippocrene fountain (5.71); things better to speak of before Demeter (6.18, 19, 22); a grove (6.25); sweet-apples (6.28); and trees (6.41). The use of the adjective καλός to describe Athena’s visage in Hymn 5 is, however, in line with its use to describe mortal women in the Aetia: Cydippe in fr. 67.1, 67.8 (together with Acontius), and 73.2; and Berenice’s lock in fr. 110.62. 21. As Stephens suggests (2015: 249 n.18). 22. As others have noted (see Bulloch 1985: 130 n.21-22), the actions summarized in Athenaeus’ description of the Krisis appear to be referenced in lines 18-28 of Callimachus Hymn 5: Σοφοκλῆς δ’ ὁ ποιητὴς ἐν Κρίσει τῷ δράματι τὴν μὲν Ἀφροδίτην Ἡδονήν τινα οὖσαν δαίμονα μύρῳ τε ἀλειφομένην παράγει καὶ κατοπτριζομένην, τὴν δὲ Ἀθηνᾶν Φρόνησιν οὖσαν καὶ Νοῦν, ἔτι δ’ Ἀρετὴν ἐλαίῳ χριομένην καὶ γυμναζομένην (‘in the drama Krisis [‘Judgement’] the poet Sophocles brings in Aphrodite – Pleasure being some goddess – anointed with perfume and looking at herself in a mirror, but [he brings in] Athena – Wisdom being also Mind, and even Virtue – smeared with oil and exercising,’ Deipnosophistae 15.35.25-30 in Kaibel’s 1890 edition; TrGF 4 fr. 361 in Radt’s 1977 edition). For a diachronic analysis of the verb γυμνάζω and its association with nude athletic activity, see Christesen (2002). 23. Literary sources on the judgement of Paris include: Il. 24.25-30; Cratin. Dionysalexandros in POxy. 4 663.1-19; E. Hel. 23-30, IA 1304-1309, Tr. 924-937, and the scholia to Andr. 277; Isoc. Helen 41-44 (these last four sources are gathered by Bulloch, 1985: 127 n.1); Ov. Ep. 5.33-40, 16.51-88; Hyg. Fab. 92; Apollod. Epit. 3.2. As Sophocles’

328

SIMONE OPPEN

female participants are explicitly called to witness the after-effects of Athena’s physical prowess in twice running the diaulos on Mount Ida (23): ὦ κῶραι, τὸ δ᾽ ἔρευθος ἀνέδραμε, πρώϊον οἵαν ἢ ῥόδον ἢ σίβδας κόκκος ἔχει χροϊάν. Oh maidens, the flush ran up, the sort of color the early rose or pomegranate seed has. (27-28)

The invocation ὦ κῶραι may add another layer to the allusion to the judgement of Paris, suggesting that the female participants witness the goddess like the maiden attendants at Theocritus 18.24 see Helen beside the river Eurotas.24 Rather than recalling how this goddess’ physicality failed to impress Paris, lines 18-28 of the hymn shift the focus: delimiting a space within which Athena’s form and athleticism can be appreciated in a new way by female onlookers. In sum, the connoisseurship of these female participants is not just developed but, via layered intertext, can add fresh dimension to a well-known story. These participants thus embody a transformative, non-eroticized way of viewing Athena that the poetic narrator uses to entice her epiphany through contrast to the male gaze.

3. Contrasting female viewership to the eroticizing male gaze By calling female collectives to witness the goddess’ form and athleticism in the first part of Hymn 5 (1-32), the poetic narrator sets up a contrast between their viewership and the overtly eroticizing male gaze in parts two and three (33-139). Previous scholarship on the presentation of Athena in this poem has used the goddess’ purported eroticism or masculinity to characterize the complex phenomenon of her physicality and behavior. Fotini Hadjittofi argues that the eroticism of Callimachus’ Athena is characterized by its ambiguity and pervades the poem.25 By comparison, Deborah MacInnes describes lines 1-32 as “[t]he Masculinization of Krisis is a satyr play, one might speculate that the perspective of the female collective in Callimachus Hymn 5.18-28 is in deliberate contrast to that of a male satyr chorus. 24. See Bulloch (1985: 137 n.27). 25. 2008: 9-10. Hadjittofi suggests that the poet effects this pervasive eroticism, in particular, through allusion to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite visible in parallels between Anchises’ and Tiresias’ encounters with goddesses (2008: 15-24). Hunter (1992: 25) and Stephens (2015: 257 n.78, 257-258 n.88) also note that Tiresias’ story eroticizes Athena’s body.

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

329

Athena,”26 and Andrew D. Morrison (2005: 41) relies on what he characterizes as Athena’s masculinity to explain the inadequacy of the goddess’ consolation of the nymph Chariclo in the story of Tiresias (57-139). I contend that the apparent divergence in these scholars’ opinions is the result of a carefully staged contrast between ways of viewing Athena that becomes apparent from the second part of the hymn, and which may ultimately reflect Callimachus’ historical moment. 27 After being presented with Athena’s strength and athletic prowess (as discussed in the previous section), the female collective is instead presented to the goddess.28 The poetic narrator begins the second part of Hymn 5 by directing Athena’s attention to the nature of this girl ‘band’ (ἴλα), simultaneously designating them as a singular collective for the first (and only) time in the poem: ἔξιθ’, Ἀθαναία· πάρα τοι καταθύμιος ἴλα, παρθενικαὶ μεγάλων παῖδες Ἀρεστοριδᾶν· Come out, Athena! At hand for you is a pleasing band, the maiden daughters of the great sons of Arestor. (33-34)

In the first part of this hymn, the poetic narrator invoked female collectives with plural epithets indexing their discrete identities in earlier Greek poetry and prose (λωτροχόοι ‘bath-pourers’ 1, 15; Πελασγιάδες ‘Pelasgian women’ 4; and Ἀχαιιάδες ‘Achaean women’ 13), before using a less distinctive term emphasizing their youth (κῶραι ‘maidens’ 27). Immediately following the sole reference to a singular collective at the beginning of part two (33-56), their youth is again emphasized in the passage quoted above (παρθενικαὶ μεγάλων παῖδες Ἀρεστοριδᾶν 34).29 As earlier in the hymn, behind one female collective stand (and 26. 2005: 21-22. In particular, MacInnes labels as “masculine traits”: Athena’s battle prowess, physical strength, courage, and skill with horses. 27. Depew connects the portrayal of Athena in Hymn 5 to that of Arsinoe and Berenice in Posidipp. AB 36 and 78-82 (2004: 130-131). Manakidou takes Depew’s arguments further, suggesting in particular that both the nymph Cyrene and Berenice II underlie Athena’s enigmatic portrayal and that their presence drives the hymn’s hybrid generic qualities (2017: 183-186). I explore the historical context of this hymn further in section four below. On Cyrene, see also the paper by Evans in this volume 102–105. 28. The goddess’ preferences are emphasized elsewhere: in the description of Eumedes ‘a priest dear to you’ (τεῒν κεχαρισμένος ἱρεύς 37); and of her delight ‘in the clash of horses and shields’ (ἵππων καὶ σακέων ἁδομένα πατάγῳ 44). Unlike this priest and conflict, however, the female collective is described as present in the ritual Hymn 5 purports to enact. 29. As Cheshire observes (2014: 61-62; cf. Stephens 2015: 252 n.34), the patronymic Ἀρεστοριδᾶν (34) solidifies the Argive characterization of the female collective suggested by Πελασγιάδες (4).

330

SIMONE OPPEN

can be made to stand) others.30 In part two of the hymn, however, this collective is presented as encouraging to the goddess for the first time: an audience who is ‘pleasing’ (καταθύμιος 33), 31 and, seemingly for this reason, also an enticement for her to obey the poetic narrator’s repeated commands to come out (ἔξιθ’ 33, 43, 55). In the poetic narrator’s presentation, the allure of this female collective appears to be the relative control they offer Athena over how she is seen. Their way of seeing is contrasted to the eroticizing gaze associated with, though of course not the exclusive domain of,32 a male viewer. This contrast emerges in the second part of Hymn 5 (33-56) and becomes increasingly clear in part three, the inset story of Tiresias (57-139). Female participants are still invoked (with comparative infrequency at lines 45, 47, 57, 134, and 138), but these parts of the hymn focus on the experience of individual male viewers, as the following transitional lines demonstrate: … ἀλλά, Πελασγέ, φράζεο μὴ οὐκ ἐθέλων τὰν βασίλειαν ἴδῃς. ὅς κεν ἴδῃ γυμνὰν τὰν Παλλάδα τὰν πολιοῦχον, τὦργος ἐσοψεῖται τοῦτο πανυστάτιον. But, Pelasgian man, take care lest even unwillingly you should see the queen. Whoever sees Pallas the city-protector naked, he will look at this Argos for the last time. (51-54)

Anticipation of the male gaze and its aftermath thus emphasizes the difference between what a male viewer – as opposed to the female collectives in the first part of the hymn (3, 5, 7-8, 27) – might see (γυμνὰν τὰν Παλλάδα 53). The story of Tiresias that follows sharpens the contrast between collective female viewership in the first part of the hymn and the overtly 30. Bulloch (1985: 154 n.45, 155 n.47) distinguishes multiple layers within the female collective in the second part of Hymn 5 (33-56): first ‘water-bearers’ (ὑδροφόροι 45) and then ‘female slaves’ separate from them (αἱ δῶλαι 47). With the epithet ὑδροφόροι, the poet appears to reprise a mode of invocation utilized in the first part of this hymn (1-32). That is, the female collective is invoked with language that hints at its pedigree within earlier Greek poetry and prose. The epithet ὑδροφόροι is prominent in the titles of fragmentary plays by both Aeschylus (Σεμέλη ἢ Ὑδροφόροι ‘Semele’ or ‘The water-bearers’ TGrF 3 fr. 221-224 Radt 1985) and Sophocles (Ὑδροφόροι ‘The water-bearers’ TrGF 4 fr. 672-674 Radt 1977). In addition, this term appears in Herodotus (3.14.4), Xenophon (An. 4.5.10), and Theophrastus (De pietate fr. 18.20, 28). 31. As Bulloch notes, the meaning of the adjective καταθύμιος shifted from the Homeric ‘in the mind’ to ‘pleasing’ by the Hellenistic period (1985: 144 n.33). 32. Hadjittofi, for instance, suggests that the nymph Chariclo and the goddess Athena may share a romantic relationship on the basis of their portrayal in Hymn 5 (2008: 13).

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

331

eroticizing male gaze. This is particularly apparent in foreshadowing achieved through adjectival and thematic repetition. Repetition of the adjective καταθύμιος (33, 69) stresses the indirect emotional threat of this gaze, even for a woman ‘pleasing’ to Athena (in this case, Tiresias’ mother, the nymph Chariclo): ἀλλ’ ἔτι καὶ τήναν δάκρυα πόλλ’ ἔμενε, καίπερ Ἀθαναίᾳ καταθύμιον ἔσσαν ἑταίραν. But still even for that woman many tears remained, though she was a companion pleasing to Athena. (68-69)

As in the warning to the Pelasgian man above (51-52), the involuntary nature of Tiresias’ gaze is highlighted: ‘wretched man; unwillingly he saw what is not allowed’ (σχέτλιος· οὐκ ἐθέλων δ’ εἶδε τὰ μὴ θεμιτά 78). A final moment of foreshadowing is provided by the goddess herself, when she describes Tiresias’ punishment to him just before it is related as occurring (80-81). When the encounter between Tiresias and Athena is described by his mother in retrospect, she notes an eroticizing focus on body parts that reveal gender difference in his gaze (εἶδες Ἀθαναίας στήθεα καὶ λαγόνας ‘you saw the bosom and loins of Athena’ 88).33 We can make fuller sense of this contrast between female viewership and the overtly eroticizing male gaze through Athena’s citation from Kronos’ laws in the midst of Tiresias’ story (57-139). This citation is showcased by its placement in the midst of this 82-line μῦθος…ἑτέρων (‘story…from others’ 56). Located at the beginning of Athena’s second direct speech within this story (97-130), this citation is also at a third remove from the ritual Hymn 5 purports to enact. In addition, the authority of the speech containing this citation is marked by the term used to describe it (ἔπος 96):34 καί νιν Ἀθαναία πρὸς τόδ’ ἔλεξεν ἔπος. ‘δῖα γύναι, μετὰ πάντα βαλεῦ πάλιν ὅσσα δι’ ὀργάν εἶπας. ἐγὼ δ’ οὔ τοι τέκνον ἔθηκ’ ἀλαόν. οὐ γὰρ Ἀθαναίᾳ γλυκερὸν πέλει ὄμματα παίδων ἁρπάζειν. Κρόνιοι δ’ ὧδε λέγοντι νόμοι. (100) ὅς κε τιν’ ἀθανάτων, ὅκα μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἕληται, ἀθρήσῃ, μισθῶ τοῦτον ἰδεῖν μεγάλω. 33. As Bulloch’s comment on the body parts mentioned in line 88 corroborates: “[t]he two most feminine and intimate parts of the Greek female body” (1985: 197 n.88 with further references). 34. See LSJ s.v. ἔπος I 4 and Callimachus’ own use of the term to mark divine or prophetic language elsewhere in his corpus (Hymn 4.162, 238, 265; Aet. fr. 75.21; Epigr. 1.8).

332

SIMONE OPPEN

And to her in response to this Athena spoke a word. ‘Excellent woman, take back again as many things as you said in anger. I certainly did not make your son blind. For it is not sweet for Athena to seize children’s eyes. But thus state the laws of Kronos. ‘Whoever should gaze at some one of the immortals, whenever the god himself does not choose, this seeing comes at a great price.’ (96-102)

This citation from Kronos’ laws during Athena’s inset epiphany lends authority to the hymn’s larger project. 35 That is, the contrast between female viewership and the eroticizing male gaze works to create conditions in which the goddess herself would choose to be seen, the reverse of the second clause in the law quoted above (ὅκα μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἕληται 101). As the poetic narrator has demonstrated, an internal audience of female collectives can be trained to appreciate Athena’s athleticism and then used, apparently for this very reason, to entice her epiphany. In the following section, I explore how their example and Tiresias’ story may also work together to purify an external audience’s focus on the athletic power of the female body.36

4. A reflection of poetic and historical realities? This section briefly situates the revision of gender and power explored in the previous two parts of this paper in its possible poetic and historical contexts. First, Hymn 5 may support critical thought about the conditions in which the goddess would choose to be seen in a manner similar to sacred regulations, which share its elegiac meter,37 and concern, broadly speaking, with mental purity.38 Second, the participation of Hellenistic 35. Notably, this is the only mention of Kronos in Callimachus’ Hymns outside of Hymn 1 to Zeus (where the former is mentioned at lines 53, 61, and 91). 36. See 323 above for how I define the verb purify. 37. There has been much discussion of the elegiac meter of Hymn 5 – unique among Callimachus’ Hymns – in comparison to literary precedent. Bulloch provides a survey of earlier bibliography on this issue (1985: 31-38). More recently: Lehnus suggests that the meter of Hymn 5 reflects Callimachus’ transformation of local historiography to honor Athena (2004) and Manakidou connects the meter of this hymn to Callimachus’ elegiac praise of Berenice in the Victoria and Coma of his Aetia (2017: 203). Stephens summarizes and briefly discusses other scholars’ theories on the hymn’s elegiac meter (2015: 35-36). However, sacred regulations that might shed light on Callimachus’ metrical choice in this poem have received less attention. 38. I. Petrovic has observed that lines 13-17, 29-32, and 137-139 of Hymn 5 provide ritual instructions similar to sacred regulations (2012: 281-282). I build on this exciting suggestion, by exploring how this hymn may also share sacred regulations’ concern with what I. Petrovic elsewhere terms “purity of mind” (2006, with A. Petrovic).

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

333

queens in athletic competitions administered by Argos and, more generally, the increased documentation of elite women participating in equestrian competitions in this era provide a plausible context for the hymn’s focus on ways of viewing the female body. I stress that these are but two possible poetic and historical contexts and, for this reason, I hope that more skeptical readers will still find value in the previous sections of this paper even if they do not accept the necessarily speculative arguments put forth in this one. 4.1. Sacred regulations that share Hymn 5’s elegiac meter and concern with mental purity Ivana and Andrej Petrovic (2006) collect 26 inscribed metrical sacred regulations, five of which are in elegiac couplets.39 As they note, concern with mental purity appears frequently in the elegiac subset of these regulations, which contains inscriptions that arguably date from the second century BCE to the third century CE.40 Despite their broad range in date, these inscriptions express this concern with notable consistency:41 εἰ καθαράν, ὦ ξεῖνε, φέρεις φρένα καὶ τὸ δίκα[ι]ον ἤσκηκες ψυχῇ, βα[ῖ]νε κατ’ εὐίερον· εἰ δ’ἀδίκων ψαύεις καί σοι νόος οὐ καθαρεύει, πόρρω ἀπ’ ἀθανάτων [ἔ]ργεο καὶ τεμένους· οὐ στέργει φαύλους [ἱ]ερὸς δόμος, ἀλλὰ κολάζει, τοῖς δ’ὁσίοις [ὁ]σίους ἀντινέμει [χάριτας].

39. SGO I 01/17/01, SGO II 09/07/01, LSCG Suppl. 108, I.Lindos 484, and I.Lindos 487. I use the abbreviations for epigraphic corpora provided by the SEG. 40. Errington dates SGO I 01/17/01 to the second century BCE by its lettering (1993: 29), but Voutiras argues for a Hadrianic date on the basis of its substrate’s apparent architectural role in the temple of Zeus at Euromos (1998). Marshall dates SGO II 09/07/01 to the late first century BCE or early first century CE by prosopography (1916: 156-157). As Sokolowski notes, we know neither the exact provenance nor cult of LSCG Suppl. 108, but might date this inscription by its hypothetical relationship to Asclepius or Sarapis cult (1962: 177). Blinkenberg dates I.Lindos 484 to the imperial period and I.Lindos 487 to the third century CE (1941: 866, 872). 41. Two undated epigrams from Book 14 of the Anthologia Palatina also express a similar concern. AP XIV 71 enjoins a mentally-pure stranger to enter the sanctuary after bathing (Ἁγνῆς εἰς τέμενος καθαρός, ξένε, δαίμονος ἔρχου / ψυχὴν νυμφαίου νάματος ἁψάμενος ‘into the precinct of the chaste goddess, stranger, come pure / in your soul having grasped the nymphs’ spring’) while AP XIV 74 explains that bathing is essentially useless without inner purity (ὅστις δ’ οὐλοὸν ἦτορ, ἀπόστιχε· οὔποτε γὰρ σὴν / ψυχὴν ἐκνίψει σῶμα διαινόμενον ‘but whoever [has] a destructive heart, go away; for a body though it be wetted will never purify your soul’). I. and A. Petrovics’ work brought these epigrams to my attention (2006, with further discussion).

334

SIMONE OPPEN

If you bring a pure mind, stranger, and if you have practiced justice in your soul, come to this place of sanctity. But, if you touch the unjust and if your mind is not pure, stay far away from gods and their sanctuary. The holy house does not approve of villains, it castigates them, and gives pious deserts to the pious in return.42 (SGO I 01/17/01) ἁγνὸν χρὴ ναοῖο θ[υ]ώδεος ἐντὸς ἰόντ[α] ἔνμεναι· οὐ λουτρ󰰍ι ἀλλὰ νόῳ καθαρόν. He ought to be undefiled if he is going inside a fragrant temple; [made] pure not by bathing but through [his] mind. (LSCG Suppl. 108.4-7) τάν ποτ’ Ὀλύμπον ἔβας ἀρετάφορον εἴσιθι. τοιγὰρ εἰ καθαρὸς βαίνις, ὦ ξένε, θαρραλέως. εἰ δέ τι πᾶμα φέρις, τὸν ἀπάμονα κάλλιπε ναόν, στεῖχε δ’ ὅπα χρήζις Παλλάδος ἐκ τεμένους. Having trodden the virtuous path toward Olympus, enter – that is to say, if you are coming pure, stranger, enter without fear. But if you are carrying blame with you, leave the blameless temple and go wherever you want, but stay away from Athena’s precinct. (I.Lindos 487.22-26)

SGO I 01/17/01 locates purity in the addressee’s mind and, further, suggests that this state is supported by practice in the soul (εἰ καθαράν, ὦ ξεῖνε, φέρεις φρένα καὶ τὸ δίκα[ι]ον / ἤσκηκες ψυχῇ). Being pure through mental action is likewise stressed by LSCG Suppl. 108, where such purity is opposed to that achieved by merely bathing (οὐ λουτρ󰰍ι / ἀλλὰ νόῳ καθαρόν). I.Lindos 487, though later than SGO I 01/17/01, shares its concern with the practice underlying mental purity (τάν ποτ’ Ὀλύμπον ἔβας ἀρετάφορον εἴσιθι. τοιγὰρ / εἰ καθαρὸς βαίνις). Hymn 5’s focus on the process of purifying its audience’s gaze is analogous to these regulations’ concern with mental purity and, in particular, the process by which one achieves it. In sum, through its focus and unique meter – epitomized in Athena’s citation from Kronos’ laws (101-102) – Hymn 5 may share in the authority of such sacred regulations.43 42. The English translations of SGO I 01/17/01 and I.Lindos 487 are from I. Petrovic (2012: 288). 43. The larger class of Greek metrical sacred regulations, of which the elegiac inscriptions I analyze are a subset, range in date from the fourth century BCE to the third century CE. I. and A. Petrovic theorize that these sacred regulations suggest divine authority through the ambiguity of their speakers and, generally, their location in sanctuaries (2006, 2014).

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

335

4.2. Historical context for Hymn 5’s focus on ways of viewing the female body Hellenistic queens participated in Panhellenic athletic competitions,44 and in particular the Nemean games arguably transferred to Peloponnesian Argos in the first half of the third century BCE.45 Contemporary poetry celebrating this participation (Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices and Posidippus’ Hippika) may even suggest that Berenice II personally participated in the Nemean games.46 If we accept Dee L. Clayman’s argument that Athena stands in for Berenice II in Hymn 5,47 we might read this poem as one that explores the implications of a poetic conceit that Berenice II drove a chariot drawn by her horses to victory in these games. More conclusively, however, Hymn 5 appears to reflect a larger phenomenon whose traces extend beyond the literary record. Inscriptions document numerous women participating in equestrian competitions 44. Our evidence for their participation is literary (Call. Aet. fr. 54, Posidipp. AB 78-79, 82, and 87-88, and Hyg. Astr. 2.24), as discussed by Bennett (2005), Fantuzzi (2005), and Clayman (2014: 145-158). 45. On the basis of literary sources (Liv. 34.41, Paus. 8.50.3, Liv. 27.30, Plb. 2.70.4 and 5.101.5, and Plu. Cleom. 17) and two inscriptions (Inscriptiones Argivae III=DGE 90 and IG II 181 [edit. min. 365]=SEG 30-66), Vollgraff suggests that the Nemean games were moved to Argos between 315 and 251 BCE (1916: 65-69). This view is seemingly accepted by Clayman who places the move of the Nemean games to Argos in 271 BCE (2014: 138). Tomlinson hypothesizes that this relocation may stem from an agreement between Argos and Cleonai (1972: 136-137). Miller, however, finds that the use periods indicated by pottery in a well filled at Nemea in the late Hellenistic or early Roman era problematize the theory that the Nemean games were celebrated at Argos from the midthird century BCE (1976: 190-192). 46. Livrea (1982: 200) reads the Victoria Berenices (Call. Aet. fr. 54) to suggest that Berenice II herself drove the victorious chariot in the Nemean games. On the basis of the vocative νύμφα (2) and what he suggests is a second-person possessive adjective (.εων 3), Livrea reconstructs lines 8-9 thus: ἔθρεξαν προ[τέρω]ν οὔτινες ἡνιόχων / ἄσθματι χλι[ῆναί] σ⟨ε⟩ ἐπωμίδας… (‘none of the charioteers in front ran / with [their] breath to warm you in respect to [your] shoulders…’). Harder aptly points out that this reconstruction leads to “an awkward hiatus before ἐπωμίδας” (2012: 407). A similar poetic conceit is, however, arguably visible in the Hippika (Posidipp. AB 79.3-4): τάχει δ’ ἀπελίμπανεν ἵππων / δίφρος ἐπεὶ [κάμψα]ι τὸν πολὺν ἡνίοχον (‘and by the horses’ swiftness the chariot left behind many a charioteer whenever she turned’). On the identity of Berenice in Posidippus’ Hippika, see Clayman (2014: 148). 47. In particular, Clayman connects the sacred mares and Athena’s devotion to horses in Hymn 5.1-12 with equestrian victories of Berenice II at the Olympian, Pythian, and Nemean games (2014: 82). Clayman’s argument is especially appealing in light of visual evidence linking the goddess and queen (a cameo and intaglio in which Berenice II is stylized as Athena, see Vollenweider and Avisseau-Broustet 1995: 80-82, nos. 63 and 65) and the physical location of the stadium at Argos in which the Nemean games were celebrated. Pausanias 2.24.2 reports that this stadium was adjacent to the temple of Athena Oxyderkes on the way to the acropolis of Argos, suggesting a topographic link between the goddess and equestrian competition.

336

SIMONE OPPEN

in the Hellenistic era.48 Though sponsors of chariots generally did not compete themselves, we have literary evidence for girls’ personal participation in footraces honoring Hera at Olympia with parallels in imperial inscriptions celebrating girls’ victories in footraces at the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games.49 Female participation in athletic competitions, particularly as documented from the Hellenistic era on, thus suggests a historical context in which it becomes increasingly consequential to think critically about how the female body is viewed, as I have argued Hymn 5 prompts its internal and external audiences to do.

5. Conclusion This paper has made the case that Hymn 5 strives to create the conditions in which the goddess would choose to be seen, using allusion to revise aspects of the relationship between gender and power crucial to this effort. In section two, I showed how the poet used an allusion to the judgement of Paris (as portrayed within Sophoclean satyr play) to suggest that Athena might appear triumphant if viewed from a perspective other than that of the Phrygian prince. This revision of a well-known scenario via the introduction of a collective, female perspective is prelude to the more overt contrast, explored in section three, between their perspective and the eroticizing male gaze. By citing a story from others, the poet demonstrates the consequences of looking at Athena when she does not choose it and, hence, that training the gaze through the example of invoked female collectives serves an important purpose. Viewers like Tiresias may be punished for looking at Athena when she does not choose it, but this hymn also suggests that looking at the goddess in the manner of these female collectives may result in her choice to appear, or epiphany. The inference that Hymn 5 can train its implicit, external audience to look at Athena in the manner of its invoked, internal audience may be supported by its poetic contexts. As I suggested in section four, inscribed sacred regulations that share this hymn’s meter and concern with mental purity may enhance the authority of its model for purifying the gaze. The ambiguous sex of the poetic narrator may also demonstrate this model’s 48. Moretti provides a list of women’s victories in equestrian competitions (primarily recorded in inscriptions), noting that these victories were more frequently documented in the Hellenistic era than in the Roman era (1953: 42-43). 49. Dillon discusses this evidence and provides additional bibliography (2000: 460463). More recently, Tsouvala explores epigraphic evidence for female membership in gymnasia in the Roman east (2014).

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

337

efficacy.50 As I have shown, the hymn presents the male gaze as problematic through the examples of the Pelasgian man and Tiresias. However, the poem does not say that all men would risk being blinded or preventing the goddess’ epiphany by their presence. If we regard the hymn’s narrator as male, his participation in the ritual the hymn purports to enact – particularly in his final greeting to Athena (χαῖρε, θεά ‘welcome, goddess’ 140) – suggests the efficacy of looking at the goddess in the manner of female collectives and, ultimately, the power of Callimachus’ poetry to train one to follow their example.51 REFERENCES Austin C. & G. Bastianini (eds), 2002, Posidippi Pellaei Quae Supersunt Omnia. Milan. Bennett, C., 2005, “Arsinoe and Berenice at the Olympics”. ZPE 154, 91-96. Billot, M.-F., 1997-1998, “Sanctuaires et cultes d’Athéna à Argos”. OAth 22-23, 7-52. Bing, P., 2009, The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry. Ann Arbor. Blinkenberg, C., 1941, Lindos. Fouilles et recherches, II. Fouilles de l’acropole. Inscriptions. 2 vols. Berlin. Bulloch, A.W., 1985, Callimachus: the Fifth Hymn. Cambridge. Cheshire, K., 2014, “Callimachus’ Hymn 5 and an Alexandrian audience”. In M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Hellenistic poetry in context (Hellenistica Groningana 20). Leuven-Paris-Walpole, MA, 59-83. Christesen, P., 2002, “On the Meaning of γυμνάζω”. Nikephoros 15, 7-37. Clayman, D.L., 2014, Berenice II and the golden age of Ptolemaic Egypt. New York. Depew, M., 2004, “Gender, Power, and Poetics in Callimachus’ Book of Hymns”. In M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Callimachus II (Hellenistica Groningana 7). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 117-137. Dillon, M., 2000, “Did Parthenoi Attend the Olympic Games? Girls and Women Competing, Spectating, and Carrying out Cult Roles at Greek Religious Festivals”. Hermes 128, 457-480. Errington, R.M., 1993, “Inschriften von Euromos”. EA 21, 15-31.

50. Morrison characterizes the narrator’s sex as ambiguous (2005: 27-29 and passim). 51. I have benefitted at every stage of this paper from the intellectual exchange and generosity offered by the University of Groningen’s 14th workshop in Hellenistic poetry. I am particularly grateful for feedback I received from Annette Harder, Nita Krevans, and Thomas Nelson after my presentation of an earlier draft in August 2019 as well as to Jacqueline Klooster and the other organizers for their efforts, patience, and the honor of inviting me to present in the first place. Finally, I wish to thank my colleagues Anna Conser, Jennifer Lynn, and Yujhán Claros for offering helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All remaining errors are my own.

338

SIMONE OPPEN

Fantuzzi, M., 1993, “Preistoria di un genere letterario: a proposito degli Inni V e VI de Callimaco”. In R. Pretagostini (ed), Tradizione e Innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’età Ellenistica. Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili. Rome, 927-946. Fantuzzi, M., 2005, “Posidippus at Court: The Contributions of the Ἱππικά of P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309 to the Ideology of Ptolemaic Kingship”. In K.J. Gutzwiller (ed), The new Posidippus: a Hellenistic poetry book. New York, 249-268. Hadjittofi, F., 2008, “Callimachus’ Sexy Athena: The Hymn to Athena and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite”. MD 60, 9-37. Harder, M.A., 1992, “Insubstantial Voices: Some Observations on the Hymns of Callimachus”. CQ 42, 384-394. Harder, M.A., 2012, Callimachus Aetia. Volume II. Commentary. Oxford. Hunter, R., 1992, “Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena”. MD 29, 9-34. Kaibel, G. 1890, Athenaei Naucratitae deipnosophistarum libri xv. Volume III. Leipzig. Kleinknecht, H., 1939, “ΛΟΥΤΡΑ ΤΗΣ ΠΑΛΛΑΔΟΣ”. Hermes 74, 301-350. Krevans, N., 2004, “Callimachus and the Pedestrian Muse”. In M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Callimachus II (Hellenistica Groningana 7). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 173-184. Lehnus, L., 2004, “Agro, Argolide e storiografia locale in Callimaco”. In P.A. Bernardini (ed), La città di Argo. Mito, storia, tradizioni poetiche. Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Urbino, 13-15 giugno 2002). Rome, 201-209. Livrea, E., 1982, “I cavalli di Berenice”. Studi in onore di Aristide Colonna. Perugia, 199-202. MacInnes, D., 2005, “Divine Vulnerability: Callimachus’ Baths of Pallas”. CB 81, 19-33. Manakidou, F.P., 2013, ΚΑΛΛΙΜΑΧΟΣ. Εἰς λουτρὰ τῆς Παλλάδος. Athens. Manakidou, F.P., 2017, “Past and present in the fifth Hymn of Callimachus: mimesis, aitiology and reality,” in M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Past and present in Hellenistic poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 21). Leuven, 181-209. Marshall, F.H., 1916, The collection of ancient Greek inscriptions in the British Museum. Volume IV. Oxford. McKay, K.J., 1962, The Poet at Play: Kallimachos, The Bath of Pallas (Mnemosyne Supplement 6). Leiden. Merkelbach, R. & J. Stauber, 1998, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten. I. Die Westküste Kleinasiens von Knidos bis Ilion. Stuttgart-Leipzig. Merkelbach, R & J. Stauber, 2001, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten. II. Die Nordküste Kleinasiens (Marmarameer und Pontos). Munich-Leipzig. Miller, S., 1976, “Excavations at Nemea, 1975”. Hesperia 45, 174-202. Moretti, L., 1953, Iscrizioni agonistiche greche. Rome. Morrison, A.D., 2005, “Sexual Ambiguity and the Identity of the Narrator in Callimachus’ Hymn to Athena”. BICS 48, 27-46. Morrison, A.D., 2007, The narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic poetry. Cambridge. Morrison, A.D., 2011, “Callimachus’ Muses”. In B. Acosta-Hughes et al. (eds), Brill’s Companion to Callimachus. Leiden, 329-348. Page, D.L., 1962, Poetae melici Graeci. Oxford.

REVISING GENDER AND POWER IN CALLIMACHUS HYMN 5

339

Petrovic, I. & A. Petrovic, 2006, ““Look who is talking now!”: Speaker and Communication in Greek Metrical Sacred Regulations”. In E. Stavrianopoulou (ed), Ritual and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World (Kernos supplément 16). Liège, 111-139. Petrovic, I. & A. Petrovic, 2014, “Authority and Generic Heterogeneity of Greek Sacred Regulations”. In E. Werner et al. (eds), Öffentlichkeit-MonumentText: XIV Congressus Internationalis Epigraphiae Graecae et Latinae 27.-31. Augusti MMXII: Akten. Berlin, 626-628. Petrovic, I., 2012, “Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo and Greek Metrical Sacred Regulations”. In M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Gods and religion in Hellenistic poetry (Hellenistica Groningana 16). Leuven-Walpole, MA, 281-306. Pfeiffer, R., 1949, Callimachus. Volume 1. Oxford. Pfeiffer, R., 1953, Callimachus. Volume 2. Oxford. Radt, S., 1977, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Volume 4. Göttingen. Radt, S., 1985, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Volume 3. Göttingen. Robertson, N., 1996, “Athena and early Greek society: Palladium shrines and promontory shrines”. In M. Dillon (ed), Religion in the ancient world: New themes and approaches. Amsterdam, 383-475. Schneider, O., 1870, Callimachea. Volume I. Leipzig. Sokolowski, F., 1962, Lois sacrées des cités grecques: Supplément. Paris. Sourvinou-Inwood, C., 2003, “Herodotos (and others) on Pelasgians: Some Perceptions of Ethnicity”. In P. Derow et al. (eds) Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest. Oxford, 103-144. Stephens, S.A., 2015, Callimachus The Hymns. New York. Tomlinson, R.A., 1972, Argos and the Argolid; from the end of the Bronze Age to the Roman occupation. Ithaca, NY. Tsouvala, G., 2014, “Women Members of a Gymnasium in the Roman East (IG IV 732)”. In J. Bodel et al. (eds), Ancient Documents and Their Contexts: First North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy. Leiden, 111-123. Tybout, R.A., 2017, “Abbreviations”. In A. Chaniotis et al. (eds), Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Leiden. Online Resource. Vollenweider, M.-L. & M. Avisseau-Broustet, 1995, Camées et intailles. Tome I: Les portraits grecs du Cabinet des médailles. Catalogue raisonné. Paris. Vollgraff, W., 1916, “Novae inscriptiones argivae”. Mnemosyne 44, 46-71. Voutiras, E., 1998, “Nachtrag zu einer metrischen Inschrift aus Euromos”. EA 30, 148.

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE Valeria PACE ABSTRACT This paper argues that Moschus’ Europa ought to be seen as an attempt to write epic poetry gendered female. The poem reacts to the androcentric perspective of traditional epic poetry by creating a world which is ruled by the will of Aphrodite. Europa, a young girl, is the sole protagonist of the story; she does not appear as an ancillary figure helping a hero. It is the contention of this paper that the poem adopts two key strategies in its fashioning of female epic. On the one hand, the poem configures the role of Aphrodite as different from her usual role in epic poetry: she is presented as a powerful goddess who outwits Zeus and governs the cosmos. On the other, previous female moments in the epic tradition are replayed, gesturing towards a tradition for female epic.

1. The androcentric perspective of traditional epic poetry Epic poetry has a generic commitment to manhood: it focuses on the great deeds of heroes showing ἀνδρεία, courage, in performing κλέα ἀνδρῶν, the famous deeds of men. The first word of the Odyssey is indeed ἄνδρα, pronouncing ‘man’ the subject-matter of song.1 In the Iliad, the most clearly martial of the two Homeric poems, a common rallying cry is the injunction to ‘be men’: ἀνέρες ἔστε φίλοι.2 Correspondingly, heroes trade insults on the battlefield or in the assembly comparing one another to children and women when their behaviour does not conform to what is expected of a hero.3 Though women are assigned important and compelling roles in both the Iliad and Odyssey, the poems themselves repeatedly claim women’s marginality to the genre. Scenes that include a formula that is used to rebuke women who overstep the boundaries of appropriate behaviour (ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει | πᾶσι, μάλιστα δ’ ἐμοί, it will be a concern for all 1. Cf. Goldhill (1991: 2) on how ‘in andra, then there is… an announcement that the narrative to come will explore the terms in which an adult male’s place is to be determined’. 2. See Graziosi and Haubold (2003) for an interesting account of the poems’ sophistication in dealing with masculinity. 3. E.g. Il. 2.284-290; Il. 7.96-120; Il. 20.251-255.

342

VALERIA PACE

men, especially for me) are loci in which the androcentric discourse of the poems is spelled out particularly clearly.4 Telemachus’ use of the phrase to silence his mother after she asks the bard Phemius to sing a different song in Book 1 of the Odyssey is perhaps the most heavily charged instance. As Telemachus claims that μῦθος is the concern of men (Od. 1.358-359) he makes a claim that may be taken to have metapoetic value. The context in which his silencing of Penelope occurs is in fact a scene featuring a poetic performance and the reaction of an audience to it. Though μῦθος specifically means ‘heroic, authoritative speech’ (in this case, even more specifically, ‘command’) and not just speech in general,5 a wider interpretation is invited by Telemachus’ statement. Epic is not poetry about women (Penelope herself describes the task of singers as singing the works of men and gods, ἔργ’ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε Od. 1.338), and it is not poetry for women as Telemachus is now asserting. Though Telemachus is telling Penelope off for issuing commands, he specifically criticises the command she issues. Penelope fails to play according to the rules of the game of epic performance; the singer sings whatever he is inspired to sing and Penelope should endure to hear it – Zeus is to blame for the grievous events of which he sings, not the singer (Od. 1.346-353). Penelope’s intervention of course does not change the course of the poetic performance, and Telemachus indicts her as a bad audience of epic poetry; he connects her inept way of listening to the story to the fact that she is a woman. In a strong reading of the metapoetic value of the scene, thus, Telemachus’ assertion that μῦθος is a concern for men may be understood in the sense that the μῦθος, the story, the plot of epic poetry is a concern for men, not women. Of course, Penelope in fact plays a crucial role in the denouement of this epic plot. However, the role she plays is, on the face of it at least, unconscious,6 and the omniscient narrator who knows the mind of his characters so well keeps us suspensefully in the dark as to her real

4. Il. 6.490-493; Od. 1.358-359; Od. 11.350-353; Od. 21.352-3. On the formula see Clark (2001: 337); Currie (2016: 224–227) argues that the Odyssey alludes to Hector’s scolding of Andromache in these passages. 5. On μῦθος as a marked form of speech in the Iliad see Martin (1989). See also Clark (2001) showing that the Odyssey also knows the heroic, marked sense of μῦθος, and that Telemachus is here upbraiding his mother’s use of that form of speech, rather than outrageously upbraiding female speech tout court. 6. See Murnaghan (1986).

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

343

desires and intentions.7 Penelope’s ignorance of Odysseus’ return is repeatedly presented as an important piece of Odysseus’ plan to eliminate the suitors.8

2. The Europa and the plot of Aphrodite Whilst Homeric epic poetry emphatically positions itself as poetry that is not for or about women, Hellenistic poetry opens new spaces for women in the genre. In the Argonautica, Medea is central to the story; it is clear that without her help Jason would not have been able to accomplish his challenge. Callimachus’ Hecale concentrates on Theseus’ visit of an old woman’s hut. Theocritus’ Idyll 24 in turn foregrounds Alcmena. Both Hecale and Alcmena are to become famous thanks to the exploits of the heroes who intersect their lives. The contention of this paper is that Moschus’ Europa furthers the progressive importance of the female in Hellenistic epic poetry to the point that it creates epic gendered female. Whilst previous Hellenistic epic poems highlight women in an ancillary position to a male hero, the Europa wholly focuses on a heroine rather than a hero. The poem, narrating in 166 hexameters the story of Europa’s abduction by Zeus, might seem to be an odd choice for such a project. The story of Europa is told in the Hesiodic Catalogue in 14 lines which act as introduction to a longer section on her children from Zeus, who are to become great kings.9 In the Europa, the balance is reversed; the children of Europa are mentioned in only four lines of the poem,10 and the entire poem is concerned with the girl and her experiences. The first scene of the poem shows Europa visited by a dream that forecasts that she is to leave home. Upon awakening, Europa wishes that the dream might come true and goes with her companions to the sea shore to gather flowers. Her golden flower-basket, which features images from the story of Io as decoration, and its provenance are described. Zeus, disguised as bull, appears and Europa and the girls are filled with an impulse of ἔρως. 7. The Odyssey knows a formula to tell us that Penelope acts in a certain way but her mind had other intentions νόος δέ οἱ ἄλλα μενοινᾷ (Od. 2.92; 13.381; 18.283). Scholars have attributed all manners of intentions to Penelope to make sense of the inner workings of a character whose interiority is not presented. 8. E.g. Od.11.441-456; Od. 13.383-385; Od. 13.192; Od. 15.14-23. 9. Fr. 90.1-14 Most. Hunter (2005: 255–256) argues that the Europa may be seen as a poem that fills out the gaps left open by the Catalogue. 10. Zeus announces to her that she will bear children from him (160-161); the narrator closes the poem mentioning her offspring (165-166).

344

VALERIA PACE

Europa suggests that they all ride the bull, but when she climbs on the bull’s back he takes off towards the sea and starts swimming. After she laments her fate the bull reveals his real identity and tells her of their upcoming marriage, which is to take place on Crete. The poem’s focus on a young girl’s emotional experience has been taken to represent a form of ‘anti-epic’, a subversive reaction to the genre. Indeed, the poem has long been thought to be a prime example of the epyllion. The epyllion is a modern category that has been used to gather under one umbrella short epic poems of ‘Alexandrian flavour’ which pit themselves in various ways against the grandiose project of epic.11 In them, the grand narrative and the large-scale implications typical of epic are abandoned to turn to the small-scale and the personal; formally, the poems are made up by separate vignettes, including a specific taste for ecphrasis and often featuring large portions of direct speech. In this paper I shall argue that the Europa represents an attempt to fashion a grand narrative with cosmic implications featuring a female protagonist,12 thus inaugurating a form of epic gendered female. I will examine two strategies used in the poem. In this section I will explore the centrality of Aphrodite in the poem, and in the next I will discuss how the poem amplifies previous female moments in epic poetry. The poem opens with a dream sent by Aphrodite in which the important event in world history described in the poem is prefigured. In this dream, Europa sees two women wrangling over her. The two women stand in for continents, one looks like a native woman and the other like a foreigner; they are in fact Asia and ‘the land opposite’, we are told. Asia clings to Europa, claiming that Europa is her daughter, but the other woman manages to wrest her away. Europa is dragged away ‘not unwillingly’, while the foreign woman tells her that Zeus arranged for Europa to be her prize. In leaving unnamed the land that snatches Europa away, the poem is gesturing to the future naming of this continent after Europa herself. This foreshadowing is, however, not matched by an aetiological narrative that explains the name of the continent Europe (I discuss this issue in more detail in Pace 2021). Some scholars have suggested we lack the 11. Cf. Gutzwiller (1981: 5) ‘The epyllion is epic which is not epic, epic which is at odds with epic, epic which is in contrast with grand epic and old epic values’. See also Merriam (2001: 1–24). See however Baumbach and Bär (2012) for a redefinition of the genre. 12. Cf. instead Sistakou (2009: 312) ‘epic praxis is postponed until the end of the poem, i.e. after its mundane preliminaries have been treated in a series of Hellenistic vignettes’.

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

345

ending of the poem, others that the poem is simply not interested in the narrative of how continents received their names, rather focusing on the curious and prurient narrative of the strange love between a girl and a bull.13 Jonathan Smart in particular suggests that the teasing nod to such narrative ought to be read as a rejection of the narrative of intercontinental strife that is often attached to the myth of Europa.14 He claims that in fact the version of the myth featured in the Europa represents a universal narrative of female coming of age and burgeoning desires connected with adolescence.15 The poem however tells another story, one in which the rejection of strife and battle is not subservient to focusing on Europa’s emotions or on a female coming of age narrative but to telling a story of cosmic importance. In this epic gendered female, the story does not represent a small section of the larger plan of Zeus,16 we rather get to see a small section of the plan of Aphrodite. Europa’s dream is sent to her by Aphrodite, a goddess she is said to resemble in the flower-picking scene that follows the dream scene; Europa there is said to stand out among her friends like Aphrodite among the Graces (69-71). This type of simile reworks a simile in the Odyssey that highlights the beauty of Nausicaa amid her handmaidens, where Nausicaa is said to stand out in the same way as Artemis stands out among the girls in her chorus (Od. 6.102-109). Whereas Artemis is the natural goddess with whom to compare the leader of a group of girls engaged in choral activities, the substitution of Aphrodite for Artemis in the Europa is pointed. Europa is not only beautiful and desirable, she is also an active desiring agent. In the short speech Europa utters in response to her dream, she notices that she felt desire for the foreign woman who takes her away (25); ἔρως moves her and her handmaidens to draw close to the bull later in the poem (90-91). Though in her dream Europa hears that her displacement to a new land is fated by Zeus (14-15), Aphrodite sends the prophetic dream to Europa before Zeus is struck by a coup de foudre upon seeing Europa. Thus, we 13. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1906: 100–101) posited a lacuna at the end of poem; Bühler (1960: 202); Hopkinson (1988: 200); Campbell (1991: 24) are happy with the aition being only implicitly alluded to in the dream. See Buxton (1992); Buxton (2009: 131–134); Harden (2011: 101) for arguments that the Europa is not concerned with an aetiological narrative. 14. Smart (2012: 46). 15. Smart (2012: 44) following Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004: 217–219). 16. Debates on the meaning of the Διὸς βουλή have been wide-ranging. I take the view expressed by Allan (2008) on the matter: it constitutes a shorthand for the plot of an epic poem, but it also refers to the larger cosmic project of Zeus.

346

VALERIA PACE

ought to understand that at the time when Europa sees the prophetic vision, Zeus had no plans in store for her. The suddenness of the passion he conceives for her is underscored in the use of the same structure that is used to describe Zeus’ sudden overwhelming passion for Hera in Il. 14.294: ὡς δ᾿ ἴδεν, ὥς μιν ἔρως πυκινὰς φρένας ἀμφεκάλυψεν (and when he saw her, then love engulfed his shrewd mind),17 a structure that Theocritus also uses to describe a coup de foudre in Id. 2.82. Book 14 of the Iliad is notably another moment in which Zeus is overcome by the powers of Aphrodite. ἦ γὰρ δὴ Κρονίδης ὥς μιν φράσαθ’ ὣς ἐόλητο θυμὸν ἀνωίστοισιν ὑποδμηθεὶς βελέεσσι Κύπριδος, ἣ μούνη δύναται καὶ Ζῆνα δαμάσσαι. δὴ γὰρ ἀλευόμενός τε χόλον ζηλήμονος Ἥρης παρθενικῆς τ’ ἐθέλων ἀταλὸν νόον ἐξαπατῆσαι κρύψε θεὸν καὶ τρέψε δέμας καὶ γείνετο ταῦρος. No sooner had the son of Cronus noticed her than he was in turmoil in his heart, overcome by the unexpected arrows of Cypris, who alone can overcome even Zeus. Indeed, to avoid the anger of jealous Hera and wishing to deceive the girl’s simple mind, he hid his godhead, altered his shape, and became a bull.18 (Moschus, Europa 74-79)

The passage illustrates the gap of power and knowledge that exists between Aphrodite and Zeus. Aphrodite’s arrows are uniquely capable of taming even the strongest of gods. Zeus in turn seems to be completely unaware that his behaviour is conforming to a broader plan devised by Aphrodite. Her arrows are indeed ἀνώϊστος, which Neil Hopkinson’s translation renders with ‘unexpected’ but might also mean ‘unnoticed’.19 Zeus decides to turn into a bull as a result of his sudden desire for Europa, wishing to deceive her, but in fact it is Aphrodite who has deceived Zeus, and what he thinks is his own plan is fitting into Aphrodite’s own designs. Aphrodite’s capacity for deceiving Zeus in matters of love is underscored in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (h.Hom. 5.38-39), a poem in which Zeus gives Aphrodite a taste of her own medicine. The Europa seems to portray an occasion of Aphrodite’s use of her powers of deception. Europa, a girl who most resembles the goddess, will not be deceived by Zeus as she has been prepared for the meeting by the dream the goddess had sent her. Aphrodite’s plot involves enlisting Zeus, unwitting, into a plan that will create a glorious future for the girl. Whereas in her 17. Translation from Murray and Dimock (1995b). 18. Translations of the Europa are from Hopkinson (2015). 19. See the Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek s.v.

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

347

dream Europa hears that Zeus’ plan is to make her a prize for a foreign land, Aphrodite will arrange for her to gain a foreign land as her prize. Europa’s dream thus foreshadows the ensuing developments in the poem, although it does not do so straightforwardly. This is slightly puzzling, as the narrator and the character appear to describe the dream as a ‘true’ prophetic dream; the god-sent dream is dispensed at the time when true dreams are herded (5), and she is told to experience it ὡς ὕπαρ, as if it were real (17). As a dream that foreshadows ensuing events in a distorted way, the dream is very similar to the dream of Medea in Book 3 of the Argonautica.20 Scholars who have analysed Medea’s dream have debated whether her dream is to be interpreted as a predictive or a non-predictive dream.21 Her dream seems to be both a distorted prophecy and a projection of her fears and desires.22 The depiction of her dream is influenced on the one hand by Stoic oneirocritical theories that argue that when a dreamer’s soul is perturbed it will not be able to receive clear prophetic messages;23 on the other, it also seems influenced by theories that posit that confused souls will project their fears and desires in their dream.24 Against this backdrop, we perhaps ought to understand that although Aphrodite sent a true prophetic dream to Europa, the girl is just of the right age to be perturbed by passions, and her soul accordingly muddles Aphrodite’s prophetic message. The dream, moreover, also appears to capture Europa’s desires and fears. Her reaction to the dream encompasses these two emotions.25 Ultimately, Europa wishes her dream might come true (27). Europa’s dream thus combines the classic Homeric godsent dream with Apollonius’ use of an epic dream as a tool to give the reader insights into the psychology of the dreamer.

20. Giangrande (2000: 111–112) on how Medea’s dream foreshadows aspects of the ensuing action; Cusset (2001: 65) similarly on the Europa. See also Sistakou (2009: 314) on Europa’s dream. 21. Predictive: Kessels (1982); predictive but distorted: Giangrande (2000); nonpredictive, projection of desires and anxieties: Fusillo (1994); Reddoch (2010). 22. Cf. Kessels (1982: 158), who argues that Apollonius combined the conception of the dream as wish fulfilment fantasy and as prophecy. 23. See Giangrande (2000: 113–114). Medea’s dreams are described as ἠπεροπῆες, deceptive (A.R. 3.617) and ὀλοοί, destructive (A.R. 3.618), which appears to codify the dream as false prediction (cf. Agamemnon’s οὖλος ὄνειρος, destructive dream Il. 2.6). 24. See Reddoch (2010). 25. See Walde (2001: 207) who argues that the dream spells out two contradictory pulls in Europa: a desire for distant lands and individuality, and fear to leave her home and family. Cf. also Schmiel (1981: 268).

348

VALERIA PACE

Understanding what Europa made of her dream, thus, is important for our reading of the poem. The narrative of the dream, I contend, is focalised from her perspective, as it is introduced as what Europa thought she saw (7-8); the text therefore gives us clues that Europa understands the allegorical implications of her dream. We are told in fact that she sees two continents which take the shape of two women (8-10), not that she sees two women who stand for continents. This suggests that Europa is aware of the fact that the two women in her dream represent lands. Whilst she recognises that one of the two women is Asia, the other woman is simply ‘a foreigner’ and the land opposite Asia. Though Europa asks in her monologue who the foreign one was (24), this does not need to mean that Europa has not understood that the foreign woman is in fact a continent. The two women in the dream narrative are said to look different in lines 10-11: ‘of these, one had the appearance of a foreigner (ξείνης μορφὴν ἔχεν), while the other resembled a native woman’. This suggests that the foreign land is not given a name because Europa cannot recognise the foreign features of the woman as she never had an opportunity to see people who resemble her. The poem is set in a remote, absolute past,26 in the early stages of the heroic age when gods still mingled with mortals, and continents were still unnamed. This was also certainly a time when men had few occasions to travel, and different races of men were absolutely separate.27 An important model for the allegoresis of lands as women in a dream is Atossa’s account of her dream in Aeschylus’ Persians. Whilst the two women in the Europa exhibit different somatic traits but identical behaviour (both want to keep hold of Europa), the two women in Atossa’s dream are remarkably similar physically but behave differently. The similarity of the two is underscored by the use of the dual in the description of their looks (Pers. 184-185). Both are described as preternaturally tall, and blameless in beauty; indeed, they are sisters of the same stock. One just so happens to live in Greece, and therefore wears Dorian dress, and the other just so happens to live in Persia and wears the appropriate garb (Pers. 182-187).

26. See Sistakou (2009: 296) on the temporal setting of the epyllion. 27. This is a key concern of the Argonautica. Clauss (2000: 26) argues that the voyage of the Argo is to be seen as a voyage that first opens up connections between East and West. Medea too has a muddled conception of geography even though she is born much later than Europa: she thinks Circe lives on an island (A.R. 3.1074) though in fact in the Argonautica Circe’s home is on the mainland, as Knight (1995: 186) notes.

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

349

This significant difference seems to be the key to understanding the momentous nature of what is to happen to Europa. Europa’s removal to Europe is one of the crucial events that will eventually allow Aeschylus to describe lands such as Greece and Persia as ‘sisters’. The intermingling and crossing of peoples and cultures that was to happen in historical times had just been set in motion in the remote, absolute past in which Europa’s myth takes place, and Europa’s trip across the sea is a crucial event in this process. The correct interpretation of Europa’s dream thus gives us two crucial pieces of information for the understanding of the poem. On the one hand, it shows us that Europa’s displacement away from Asia is an event that helped shape the world as we know it. The poem, thus, assumes cosmogonic value. Aphrodite’s action of making Zeus fall in love with mortal women is not a thoughtless whim; it is part of her broader plan for the world. Jonathan Smart suggested that echoes of Atossa’s dream in the poem act as a signpost to the road the poem does not take, namely staging a narrative of intercontinental strife. Indeed, in light of our analysis of the intertext we can say further that Aphrodite’s plan involves the creation of a more interconnected world, in which her power, the power of φιλία, can bring humanity closer together. On the other hand, the dream helps us understand Europa’s psychology. It shows her that she is to roam so far off from her homeland and that people inhabiting this land have different somatic traits from hers. This, she is told, has been established by Zeus. Europa’s reaction to the dream tells us that she not only desires independence and adventures in foreign lands but also that she is clearly delighted to be the object of the plan of a god, and that she desires the high status that mortals acquire due to their involvement in divine plans. As the description of the decorations and the history of her flower basket illustrates, other women in her family became enmeshed in the plans of gods and gained high status from such encounters. The description of Europa’s flower basket is modelled on Homeric ecphraseis. The object-biography encompassing the previous owners of the flower basket (39-42) reminds the reader of the description of Agamemnon’s sceptre (Il. 2.100-108); the function of the description, however, is most similar to the function of the description of Achilles’ shield. Just like Achilles’ shield and Agamemnon’s sceptre, the basket is a product of Hephaestus’ craftsmanship. The description of the basket is marked by the sequence ἐν μέν + a form of the verb τεύχω (44) … ἐν δέ (50) … just like the description of the shield of Achilles.28 The description of 28. Cf. Il. 18.483 Ἐν μὲν γαῖαν ἔτευξ’, ἐν δ’ οὐρανόν, ἐν δὲ θάλασσαν.

350

VALERIA PACE

Europa’s flower basket has important repercussions on two levels of the narrative. On the one hand, it allows us to understand Europa’s motivations, on the other, it gives us insights into the broader cosmological aspects of Aphrodite’s plan. The basket tells the story of Io, Europa’s ancestor. She too becomes the object of Zeus’ desire, and she is also displaced as a result of it. Whilst the story of Io lends itself to tragic retelling, the images on Europa’s basket do not suggest grief. In the first scene on the basket, Io’s wanderings are not told as a painful experience, rather as a wonder for people to see – the scene indeed contains a spectatorship (48-49) for the marvellous occurrence of a sea-going cow. Calling the cow ποντοπόρον βοῦν (49) evokes the naming of the Bosphorus after her wanderings (βόσπορος, the passage of the cow) and of a sea after her name, the Ionian sea; this too lightens the mood of the scene, stressing the prominence of the honours she is to receive. Her wanderings, furthermore, find an end in the second scene, where Zeus’ touch restores her to human form. This scene is a happy one and it also looks forward to further honours for Io. Zeus is said to touch her calmly with his hand (ἐπαφώμενος ἠρέμα χερσί v.50); this configures Zeus’ touch of Io as not an act of violence,29 and evokes the son that Io is to bear to Zeus, Epaphus. This second scene thus gestures to her role as queen of Egypt (it is set by the river Nile) and as head of a great dynasty of heroes and heroines. There is a third scene on the basket, depicted on the rim, Hermes’ slaughter of Argus. David Petrain notes that the slaughter of Argus is told out of sequence: though it is described last, it is the event that initiates Io’s wanderings.30 He suggests this has the effect of maintaining narratorial objectivity;31 arguably, instead, its effect is that violence of any kind is removed from the main storyline and gets banished to the rim of the basket, and transformed into a marginal decorative feature. Argus’ blood indeed gives birth to a beautiful bird. As the brief object-biography that prefaces the description of the basket illustrates, the other women in Europa’s family who became involved with a divinity received honours in return. Equally, the scenes from Io’s story that decorate Europa’s flower basket do not offer up the girl as an exemplum of the sufferings of a young woman who becomes object of 29. Manakidou (1993: 176–177; 185) notes how the description of Zeus’ touching Io ἠρέμα, gently (50) sets the tone of the mood of the scene; the same adverb is used to describe Europa’s touch of the bull (95). 30. Petrain (2006). 31. Petrain (2006: 263).

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

351

divine attention. Within the world of the Europa the mood of these mortal-divine encounters is genuinely a happy one: women are rewarded for mingling with gods. The combination of her dream, her reaction to it and the description of the flower basket tell us that Europa is excited to comply with the plan that Zeus has in store for her. She thus seems purposefully to decide to travel to a meadow on the seashore, a place that is erotically charged.32 The images on the basket, however, also give us a sense of containing not only a miniature image that displays the broader values of the poem33 but also of holding universal value. Hellenistic scholars interpreted the Shield of Achilles as a cosmogonical allegory.34 Accordingly, we can see cosmogonical implications in the depiction of Europa’s flower basket. The two cities depicted on the shield, one at peace, and one at war, were interpreted to stand in for the two Empedoclean creative impulses of φιλία and νεῖκος. In the depiction of the story of Io, we have seen that the elements of νεῖκος have been pushed to the periphery of the flower basket and φιλία is foregrounded. This way of presenting the story of Io is fitting for a poem in which Aphrodite’s plan is foregrounded as a cosmic force that shaped the world as we know it. The second song of Demodocus in the Odyssey also received allegorical interpretation and in it Aphrodite and Ares were interpreted to stand in for φιλία and νεῖκος. The broader progression of the poem starts with a scene of νεῖκος in Europa’s dream to gradually leave space space to φιλία, the power of Aphrodite, which guides the actions of Europa and Zeus. By exalting the goddess Aphrodite the poem responds to an epic tradition that belittles the goddess. The goddess is not depicted in her dread potential in the Homeric poems; she is either shown to be laughably out of place in armed conflict (as when she is wounded by a mere mortal, Diomedes at Il. 5.330-340), outwitted by Hera (Il. 14.188-223), or exposed to the laughter of the gods as she is caught in flagrante delicto in bed with Ares in the Odyssey (Od. 8.325-327). The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite shows her straightforwardly humiliated. This treatment of Aphrodite is a divine counterpart of the programmatic passages that banish women to the margins of the genre. 32. Pace Kuhlmann (2004: 291–292); Kuhlmann (2012: 479–482), who argues respectively that Europa is rendered the object of the narrator’s irony by going to the place that caused so much grief to her ancestor, and that the narrator is himself ‘incompetent’ by not highlighting the dangers inherent to the encounters between young women and gods. 33. In this the description is probably influenced by the description of the cup in Theoc.1.27-56. 34. See Hardie (1985) on this tradition.

352

VALERIA PACE

3. Amplification of female moments in the epic tradition In addition to creating a universe that is ruled by the will of Aphrodite, the poem adopts another strategy to create ‘female epic’. It replays and expands previous female moments in the epic tradition, thus forging a tradition for female epic itself. Women who unusually claim fame or powers for themselves in the epic tradition are used as models for Europa. Nausicaa, Persephone and Medea are accordingly important for the poem. The broad structure of the poem recalls closely the Nausicaa episode in the Odyssey; the succession of god-sent dream and trip to the seashore in fact is also found in Book 6 of the Odyssey. Though in Europa’s dream there are no explicit mentions of a wedding, the memory of Nausicaa’s dream makes us supply the information that a γάμος will come to pass in the compass of the poem. Europa’s dream itself however, we have seen, is typologically closer to Medea’s dream in Book 3 of the Argonautica. Medea’s character is also modelled in significant ways on Nausicaa’s. In the Argonautica we get a clear sense that this does not only happen insofar as Nausicaa is just another young girl in the epic tradition; Nausicaa is a uniquely influential female character. Odysseus supplicates her for help, and from her he discovers that queen Arete wields a very unusual kind of power in Phaeacia. Nausicaa, moreover, is the only woman in the Homeric poems to tell a hero to remember her as his saviour: χαῖρε, ξεῖν’, ἵνα καί ποτ’ ἐὼν ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ | μνήσῃ ἐμεῖ’, ὅτι μοι πρώτῃ ζωάγρι’ ὀφέλλεις (farewell, stranger, and hereafter even in your own native land may you remember me, for to me first you owe the price of your life, Od. 8.461-462).35 This inverts the general trajectory of memory in epic poetry; usually women survive men who die in battle and preserve their memory, often in their laments.36 Nausicaa, thus, is an apt precursor of heroines such as Medea and Europa who are bent on gaining glory for themselves so that they will be remembered. Europa is carried off while picking flowers in a meadow, just like Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. This Homeric Hymn is unique insofar as in it a female goddess manages to receive new honours from Zeus – in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, instead, limits to Aphrodite’s powers are established.37 The Homeric Hymn to Demeter 35. Translation from Murray and Dimock (1995a). 36. Cf. e.g. Andromache in Il. 24.742-745 who regrets that she has not been able to gain a final πυκινὸν ἔπος from Hector to remember. Penelope too wins κλέος for having been able to remember Odysseus well (Od. 24.194-196). On the relationship between memory as κλέος, and female lamentation see Pantelia (2002); Murnaghan (1999). 37. See Foley (1994: 116).

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

353

is so focused on female experience and on female power that Ann Suter made a case for female authorship of the poem.38 This hymn is thus identified by the Europa as a sort of precursor of a female-centric form of epic, where women obtain honours from Zeus. Moreover, the description of Europa as carried off ‘by force, not unwilling’ (ἡ δ’ ἑτέρη κρατερῇσι βιωομένη παλάμῃσιν | εἴρυεν οὐκ ἀέκουσαν, 13-14) in her dream puts the reader in mind of the ‘unwillingness’ repeatedly protested by Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.39 Scholars have however argued that there are hints in the poem that make us surmise that Persephone is not as unwilling to marry Hades as she purports to be, desirous as she is of winning the honours connected with becoming his wife.40 Accordingly, the poem finds in Persephone a precursor of Europa’s desire to take on powers separate from those of her parents thanks to marriage. Of course the idea that receiving certain honours might constitute an acceptable trade-off for violence is a deeply troubling patriarchal construct. Europa’s response of desire to the violence contained in her dream however appears to be somewhat grounded in such an idea. Medea constitutes a further model for the creation of the character of Europa. We have already discussed how the dream of Medea influences the presentation of the dream of Europa. The poem, however, adopts an additional technique derived from the Argonautica, establishing a very close relationship between the narrator and a female character. It is a peculiar feature of the Argonautica that it operates a reversal of what happens in the Odyssey. In the Odyssey indeed the narrator is close to Odysseus but presents the minds of women, and in particular the mind of Penelope, as unreadable. Much suspense is built in the poem by obscuring Penelope’s intentions. In the Argonautica, instead, we are constantly puzzled by the actions of Jason and we rarely get an insight into what he is thinking and feeling; by contrast we are offered full access to the psyche of Medea in Book 3. The narrator of the Europa signals his closeness to Europa in various ways. We have seen that Europa’s dream is presented by the narrator from Europa’s focalisation. The narrator of the Europa further signals closeness with his character by echoing the moment in which such closeness breaks in the Argonautica. Mark Payne has argued that the 38. Suter (2005). 39. Smart (2012: 49–50). 40. See Suter (2005) for an account of the hymn that sees Persephone desirous, though scared of marriage from the outset. Foley (1994: 130–131) however rejects the idea that we can read some hint of seduction in the scene.

354

VALERIA PACE

narrator of the Argonautica marks the end of his special relationship with his character when she finally takes the decision to submit to ἔρως. This split between narrator and character, signalled clearly in the proem to Book 4, where Apollonius seeks the help of the Muse to understand Medea’s motivations, is foreshadowed in a proleptic comment: σχετλίη· οὐ μὲν δηρὸν ἀπαρνήσεσθαι ἔμελλεν | Ἑλλάδα ναιετάειν (The poor girl! Not for long was she going to refuse to live in Hellas, A.R. 3.1133-1136).41 Moschus alludes to this proleptic comment to demonstrate, instead, his understanding of the mind of Europa. After Europa picks a rose the narrator exclaims: οὐ μὲν δηρὸν ἔμελλεν ἐπ’ ἄνθεσι θυμὸν ἰαίνειν, | οὐδ’ ἄρα παρθενίην μίτρην ἄχραντον ἔρυσθαι (not for long was she to please her heart with the flowers or keep her virgin girdle undefiled, 72-73). In these two lines the narrator gives us access to the mind of the girl in a scene that the poem does not describe, if not summarily. By saying that the girl will no longer guard, protect42 her undefiled girdle the narrator is supplying to us the information that her intercourse with Zeus will be consensual. In keeping with the role of a poet who sings of Aphrodite’s plan, the narrator underscores how he will not lose his special relationship with his character when she surrenders to ἔρως. Another way in which the narrator and Europa’s perspectives are shown to be closely aligned is in making the narrator linger on details Europa’s attention is captured by. After she is snatched by Zeus, Europa, engrossed in her strange voyage, pronounces a distressed monologue only when she is too far from home to be able to see any signs of land (131-134). Correspondingly, the narrator describes very briefly her distressed reaction to her abduction (111-112) but lingers on a description of her sea voyage (113-130). Finally, Europa echoes an expression of distress that recurrently appears in the mouth of heroines who claim to feel trapped by their own bad decisions; in lines 146-148 of her final monologue she echoes the words of Helen (Il. 3.173-176) and Medea (A.R. 4.368-369; A.R. 4.360-365; A.R. 4.1041).43 Both Helen and Medea ‘use’ their desperation either, in Helen’s case, to enlist the listeners’ compassion or, in Medea’s, to remind the listeners of how much she sacrificed for them and how much they owe her.44 Whilst Helen’s and Medea’s desperation is genuine, Europa’s speech of lamentation and self-blame seems not to be constructed as 41. 42. 43. 44.

Payne (2013: 304–5). Translation from Race (2008). See the Brill dictionary of Ancient Greek s.v. ἔρυμαι. Bühler (1960: 186). On Helen’s rhetorically oriented self-blame see Blondell (2010).

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

355

a genuine expression of distress. Only 3 lines of the 18 of her speech are devoted to an expression of despondency, the rest expresses her wonder at the strangeness of her experience and her conviction that a divine intervention is behind it. Having learnt from her dream that she is to be involved into a divine plan, she realises that what the dream portended is indeed coming to pass. Europa thus uses her desperation speech to goad the god disguised as bull into telling her what is to happen of her. The opening words of the speech in fact are ‘Where are you carrying me, godlike bull? Who are you?’ (135) and the closing words of her speech are a prayer to Poseidon to receive her kindly (149-152). After Europa’s speech, Zeus is induced to reveal to her who he is and that he is bringing her across the sea to Crete and that she is to bear children from him. Whilst Zeus set out to trick the girl, towards the end of the poem we see that Europa goads him into revealing his intentions and his plans. Once we hear of the future fate of Europa as a dynastic heroine, the poem quickly wraps up, announcing that Europa is to abandon girlhood to become a woman and mother.

4. Conclusions To conclude, reading the Europa carefully leads us to believe that the poem is a version of epic, namely female epic, rather than anti-epic. The poem gives us an epic vision of a world led by the will of Aphrodite. The goddess, an allegory of the cosmogonic principle of φιλία, acts to intermingle the separate races of men. Clay convincingly argued that Zeus acts to curtail Aphrodite’s power to advance his plan to keep gods and humans absolutely separate in the Hymn to Aphrodite.45 The poem’s setting shows us a world in which what is presented as Zeus’ plan is really Aphrodite’s plan, a time before Zeus’ power is fully established. Aphrodite’s broader project involves the specific fate of Europa, a girl she loves and who desires to receive honours and to explore foreign lands. Aphrodite thus weaves a plan that involves making Zeus fall in love with Europa, establishing her as a queen and a dynastic heroine. She will be honoured in turn by giving her name to the foreign land to which she is displaced. In creating this female version of epic, the poem reacts to the androcentricity of the epic tradition. It highlights pre-existing female moments in epic poetry, thus speaking back to the idea that the epic plot is a concern for men. The parallels between Nausicaa, Persephone, Medea 45. Clay (2006: 196).

356

VALERIA PACE

and Europa help fashion a tradition of female epic. The poem also expands on the experiments with gender in epic poetry that the Argonautica already advanced. Apollonius gives us unlimited access to the mind of Medea over the course of Book 3, whilst he obscures the motivations of Jason’s actions – a reversal of the access to the characters’ mind we have in the Odyssey, where we know and understand Odysseus’ mind but have no access to Penelope’s. Apollonius’ experiment ends with Medea’s submission to the power of ἔρως; in the Europa, the narrator instead maintains contact with Europa’s interiority throughout a story dominated by ἔρως. Finally, the Europa toys with another gendered paradigm offered by the Odyssey. Indeed, if in the Odyssey Penelope’s ἄγνοια of the part she had to play in the plan to reinstate Odysseus as king of Ithaca is of paramount importance, in the Europa Zeus’ ἄγνοια becomes part of Aphrodite’s plan to grant Europa access to foreign lands and future honours.46 REFERENCES Allan, W., 2008, “Performing the Will of Zeus: The Διὸς Βουλή and the Scope of Early Greek Epic.” In: M. Revermann & P. Wilson, (eds), Performance, Iconography, Reception: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin. Oxford, 204–16. Baumbach, M., & S. Bär (eds), 2012, Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception (Brill’s Companions in Classical Studies). LeidenBoston, MA. Blondell, R., 2010, “‘Bitch That I Am’: Self-Blame and Self-Assertion in the Iliad.” TAPhA 140 (1), 1–32. Bühler, W. (ed), 1960, Die Europa des Moschos: Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar (Hermes Einzelschriften 13). Wiesbaden. Buxton, R.G.A., 1992, “Psychologie et paysage dans l’Europe de Moschos.” In: M. Chassignet (ed), Actes du XXVème Congrès International de l’A.P.L.A.E.S. Strasbourg, 33–41. ―, 2009, Forms of Astonishment: Greek Myths of Metamorphosis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Campbell, M (ed), 1991, Moschus: Europa (Altertumswissenschaftliche Texte und Studien 19). Hildesheim. Clark, M., 2001, “Was Telemachus Rude to His Mother? ‘Odyssey’ 1.356-59.” CPh 96 (4), 335–54.

46. This paper has been developed from my PhD thesis. Many thanks are owed to the audience in Groningen for the discussion, and in particular to Tom Nelson for his helpful notes. Part of the argument contained in this paper is also developed in Pace (2021), though the point I make there is a substantially different one. The Società Friulana di Archeologia enabled me to travel to the conference by providing funding.

MOSCHUS’ EUROPA AS EPIC POETRY GENDERED FEMALE

357

Clauss, J.J., 2000, “Cosmos without Imperium: The Argonautic Journey through Time.” In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Apollonius Rhodius (Hellenistica Groningana 4). Leuven, 11–32. Clay, J.S., 2006, The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns. 2nd ed. Bristol. Currie, B., 2016, Homer’s Allusive Art. Oxford. Cusset, C., 2001, “Le jeu poétique dans l’ Europé de Moschos.” BAGB 1 (1), 62–82. Fantuzzi, M., & R.L. Hunter, 2004, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge. Foley, H.P. (ed), 1994, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. Princeton, NJ. Fusillo, M., 1994, “El Sueño de Medea.” Revista de Occidente 158/159, 92–102. Giangrande, G., 2000, “Dreams in Apollonius Rhodius.” QUCC 66 (3), 107–23. Goldhill, S., 1991, The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature. Cambridge. Graziosi, B., & J. Haubold, 2003, “Homeric Masculinity: ΗΝΟΡΕΗ and ΑΓΗΝΟΡΙΗ.” JHS 123, 60–76. Gutzwiller, K.J., 1981, Studies in the Hellenistic Epyllion (Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 114). Königstein/Ts. Harden, S.J., 2011, “Eros Through the Looking-Glass? Erotic Ekphrasis and Narrative Structure in Moschus’ Europa.” Ramus 40 (2), 87–105. Hardie, P.R., 1985, “Imago Mundi: Cosmological and Ideological Aspects of the Shield of Achilles.” JHS 105, 11–31. Hopkinson, N., (ed), 1988, A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics). Cambridge. ―, (ed), 2015, Theocritus. Moschus. Bion (The Loeb Classical Library 28). Cambridge, MA. Hunter, R.L., 2005, “The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry.” In: R.L. Hunter (ed), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Constructions and Reconstructions. Cambridge, 239–65. Kessels, A.H.M., 1982, “Dreams in Apollonius’ Argonautica.” In: J. den Boeft & A.H.M. Kessels (eds.), Actus: Studies in Honour of H.L.W. Nelson. Utrecht, 155–73. Knight, V.H., 1995, The Renewal of Epic: Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius (Mnemosyne supplementa 152). Leiden. Kuhlmann, P., 2004, “Moschos’ Europa zwischen Artifizialität und Klassizismus: Der Mythos als verkehrte Welt.” RhM 147 (3/4), 276–93. ―, 2012, “The Motif of the Rape of Europa: Intertextuality and Absurdity of the Myth in Epyllion and Epic Insets.” In: M. Baumbach & S. Bär (eds), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception (Brill’s Companions in Classical Studies). Leiden, 473–90. Manakidou, F.P., 1993, Beschreibung von Kunstwerken in der hellenistichen Dichtung (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 36). Stuttgart. Martin, R.P., 1989, The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad (Myth and Poetics). Ithaca, NY. Merriam, C.U., 2001, The Development of the Epyllion Genre through the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (Studies in Classics 14). Lewiston, NY. Murnaghan, S., 1986, “Penelope’s Agnoia: Knowledge, Power, and Gender in the Odyssey.” Helios 13, 103–15.

358

VALERIA PACE

―, 1999, “The Poetics of Loss in Greek Epic.” In: M.H. Beissinger, J. Tylus, & S.L. Wofford (eds), Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World. Berkeley, CA, 204–21. Murray, A.T., & G.E. Dimock, (eds), 1995a, Odyssey. Books 1-12 (The Loeb Classical Library 104). 2nd revised ed. Cambridge, MA. ―, (eds), 1995b, Odyssey. Books 13-24 (The Loeb Classical Library 105). 2nd revised ed. Cambridge, MA. Pace, V., 2021, “Aetiology in Moschus’ Europa.” in: M.C. Alvino et al., Le voyage d’Europe au fil des siècles – Europa’s journey through the ages: Histoire et réception d’un mythe antique (Recherches sur les Rhétoriques Religieuses 34), Turnhout, 27–43. Pantelia, M.C., 2002, “Helen and the Last Song for Hector.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 132 (1), 21–27. Payne, M., 2013, “Aristotle on Poets as Parents and the Hellenistic Poet as Mother.” In: V. Zajko & E. O’Gorman (eds), Classical Myth and Psychoanalysis: Ancient and Modern Stories of the Self (Classical Presences). Oxford. Petrain, D., 2006, “Moschus’ Europa and the Narratology of Ecphrasis.” In: M.A. Harder et al. (eds), Beyond the Canon (Hellenistica Groningana 11). Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA, 249–70. Race, W.H., 2008, Argonautica (The Loeb Classical Library 1). Cambridge, MA. Reddoch, M.J., 2010, “Conflict and Emotion in Medea’s ‘Irrational’ Dream (A.R. 3.616-35).” AClass 53, 49–67. Schmiel, R., 1981, “Moschus’ Europa.” CPh 76 (4), 261–72. Sistakou, E., 2009, “‘Snapshots’ of Myth: The Notion of Time in Hellenistic Epyllion.” In: J. Grethlein & A. Rengakos (eds), Narratology and Interpretation: The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature. Berlin. Smart, J., 2012, “Intertextual Dynamics in Moschus’s Europa.” Arethusa 45 (1), 43–55. Suter, A., 2005, “Beyond the Limits of Lyric. The Female Poet of the Hymn to Demeter.” Kernos (18), 17–41. Walde, C., 2001, Die Traumdarstellungen in der griechisch-römischen Dichtung. München. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, 1906, Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker. Berlin.

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM Michael TUELLER ABSTRACT On the basis of Greek epigram, this paper will attempt to determine the landmarks in the fading of (sexual) attractiveness and beauty, and whether it differs for men and women. It will also examine how these factors affected power: the power to attract, the power to choose a sexual partner, and the power to fulfill sexual desires.

1. Introduction Amy Schumer has encapsulated the idea of women’s fading desirability under the name of the ‘Last Fuckable Day.’1 In her terms, this day is an actress’s transition between playing roles of a love interest and playing older roles. The suddenness of this transition, is, in her telling, emblematized by Sally Field, who in the space of six years went from playing Tom Hanks’ love interest (Punchline, 1988) to playing his mother (Forrest Gump, 1994). Male actors, on the other hand, are ‘fuckable forever.’ The discourse surrounding this concept occupies the nexus of gender, age, and power. Younger women have the power to win more desirable roles, but only when they age do they gain the power to make certain decisions about their own bodies: once they are declared ineligible for romantic roles, they can dress and eat however they want. All women, however, are subject to ‘the media’, who decide when their ‘last fuckable day’ arrives. The fact that male attractiveness has no publicly acknowledged expiration date, and that it is not dependent on cosmetics or vigor, keeps them permanently in a position of power: power to land good roles, in which they inevitably appear alongside younger women. While fading beauty is a commonplace, its contours are likely to vary in other times and cultures. Using ancient Greek epigram as its ground, this paper will attempt to determine the landmarks in the fading of attractiveness, and whether it differs for men and women. It will also examine 1. ‘Last F…able Day’, Inside Amy Schumer, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= XPpsI8mWKmg.

360

MICHAEL TUELLER

how these factors affected power: the power to attract, the power to choose a sexual partner, and the power to fulfill sexual desires. Ancient Greek epigram provides particularly good material for this effort because both males and females, in approximately equal measure, are the objects of erotic desire. Unlike the stereotypes reinforced by Hollywood and referenced by Amy Schumer, it is not universally the case that only females are assumed to be pursued (and therefore must be beautiful) and that males are always pursuers. Thus both genders experience transition into less attractiveness, when, as a beloved (ἐρώμενος/ ἐρωμένη) they lose power to interest a lover (ἐραστής). Complicating this picture, however, is a second transition made by men, from beloved to lover, which has some bearing on the first. 2. Becoming attractive The decline of attractiveness is not the first beauty transition charted by erotic epigram. Some epigrams also note when people first become attractive. The metaphor of ripening grapes is common:2 οὔπω σοι καλύκων γυμνὸν θέρος, οὐδὲ μελαίνει βότρυς ὁ παρθενίους πρωτοβολῶν χάριτας, ἀλλ᾽ ἤδη θοὰ τόξα νέοι θήγουσιν Ἔρωτες, Λυσιδίκη, καὶ πῦρ τύφεται ἐγκρύφιον. φεύγωμεν, δυσέρωτες, ἕως βέλος οὐκ ἐπὶ νευρῇ· μάντις ἐγὼ μεγάλης αὐτίκα πυρκαϊῆς.

5

Your summer crop is not yet bare of its husks, nor has the grape darkened and brought forth its first virgin charms; but already the young Loves sharpen their swift arrows, Lysidice, and a hidden fire is smoldering. Let us flee, we unlucky lovers, before the arrow is on the string; I prophesy a sudden great conflagration.3 (Philodemus, AP 5.124) παῖς τις ὅλως ἁπαλὸς τοῦ γείτονος οὐκ ὀλίγως με κνίζει· πρὸς τὸ θέλειν δ᾽ οὐκ ἀμύητα γελᾷ· οὐ πλεῦν δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐτῶν δυοκαίδεκα. νῦν ἀφύλακτοι ὄμφακες· ἢν δ᾽ ἀκμάσῃ, φρούρια καὶ σκόλοπες. My neighbor’s boy, utterly tender, excites me not a little; as for willingness, he laughs like one not uninitiated – and he’s no more than twelve years old! The unripe grapes aren’t guarded, but when he’s in his prime, there will be fortifications and pales. (Strato, AP 12.205) 2. Less clear about the timing of the onset of beauty are AP 5.194 (Posidippus/ Asclepiades), AP 12.14 (Dioscorides), AP 5.111 (Antiphilus), and AP 12.228 (Strato). Francis Cairns (2016: 343–344) also notes the metaphor of ripening grapes. 3. Except as noted below, all translations are mine.

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM

361

All the epigrams that note the onset of desirability invoke this same scene: a child who from initial indications will soon blossom into great beauty, or one who is already starting to do so despite tender age. These poems seem to imply that the more usual case is on the order of the ‘ugly (or at least unremarkable) duckling’: a child of whom no-one took any notice, but who with age blossomed into beauty. Considering, however, that a striking narrative can also be created around such a case, it is curious that epigrams do not address it. Perhaps, then, it was not so unusual for very young children to attract erotic attention, accompanied even by an implication that they are already erotically aware. If this is the case, then the surprise in the above poems comes, not from the early blooming of the children in question, but from the fact that the prospective lover is willing to admit his attraction, given the shame that can attach to an attempted seduction of one so young.4 We have, then, a landmark for when beauty begins: it is very young; for boys, perhaps as early as twelve. And with that landmark come intimations of the exercise of power: arrows are sharpened, fire is readied. (The ‘scratch’ [κνίζει] of the young boy is perhaps a foretaste of the actual stroke of an arrow.) The beautiful beloved thus has some initial degree of power over the lover. But lovers also implicitly have some power, because defensive measures – fortifications and pales – must be raised against them.

3. The end of attractiveness for boys Epigram agrees, almost universally, on the point at which a boy’s attractiveness ceases:5 νῦν αἰτεῖς, ὅτε λεπτὸς ὑπὸ κροτάφοισιν ἴουλος ἕρπει καὶ μηροῖς ὀξὺς ἔπεστι χνόος· εἶτα λέγεις· ‘ἥδιον ἐμοὶ τόδε’; καὶ τίς ἂν εἴποι κρείσσονας αὐχμηρὰς ἀσταχύων καλάμας; Now you ask – when fine down creeps under your temples and prickly fuzz is on your thighs! Then you say ‘I like this better’? Who would say that dry stalks are better than ears of grain? (translation from Sens, with minor changes) (Asclepiades, AP 12.36)

4. As seen in Strato AP 12.228. 5. And elsewhere; Sonya Lida Tarán (1985) designates the theme by its two-word summation in Anonymous, AP 12.39: εἰσὶ τρίχες. See also Sens (2011: 320–321).

362

MICHAEL TUELLER

Counterexamples are few: εἰ καί σοι τριχόφοιτος ἐπεσκίρτησεν ἴουλος καὶ τρυφεραὶ κροτάφων ξανθοφυεῖς ἕλικες, οὐδ᾽ οὕτω φεύγω τὸν ἐρώμενον· ἀλλὰ τὸ κάλλος τούτου, κἂν πώγων, κἂν τρίχες, ἡμέτερον. Even if down, verging on hair, and your temples’ delicate blonde curls, have pounced on you – even so I don’t flee my beloved! No – his beauty, even if there is a beard, if there is hair – is mine! (Strato, AP 12.10)6

This treatment, however, is the exception that proves the rule: the poet four times flags his feelings as unusual: ‘even if’ (εἰ καί), ‘not even so’ (οὐδ᾽ οὕτω), and again ‘even if’ twice (κἄν). A boy’s loss of beauty happens suddenly, and the period of attractiveness it terminates is short: εἰ κάλλει καυχᾷ, γίνωσχ᾽ ὅτι καὶ ῥόδον ἀνθεῖ· ἀλλὰ μαρανθὲν ἄφνω σὺν κοπρίοις ἐρίφη. ἄνθος γὰρ καὶ κάλλος ἴσον χρόνον ἐστὶ λαχόντα· ταῦτα δ᾽ ὁμῇ φθονέων ἐξεμάρανε χρόνος. Since you trumpet your beauty, know that a rose blooms too – but the instant it is withered it is cast on the dungheap. A bloom and beauty are allotted the same time; spiteful time withers them both at once. (Strato, AP 12.234)

The most extreme example of the suddenness of this change is explored by Strato, in two epigrams that may have been intended to be read as a pair. The first poses a series of questions that seem rhetorical, until the second answers them:7 τίς δύναται γνῶναι τὸν ἐρώμενον εἰ παρακμάζει, πάντα συνὼν αὐτῷ μηδ᾽ ἀπολειπόμενος; τίς δύνατ᾽ οὐκ ἀρέσαι τὴν σήμερον, ἐχθὲς ἀρέσκων; εἰ δ᾽ ἀρέσαι, τί παθὼν αὔριον οὐκ ἀρέσει; Who can know when his beloved passes his prime if he is always with him and doesn’t leave him? Who can displease today when he pleased yesterday? And if he pleases now, what will make him displease tomorrow? (Strato, AP 12.248)

6. Strato AP 12.9 is similar. 7. A series of epigrams from the Garland of Philip follow a similar theme, of a boy who returns from a journey with a beard, and has therefore become undesirable: AP 12.24–27.

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM

363

οὐκ ἐχθὲς παῖς ἦσθα; καὶ οὐδ᾽ ὄναρ οὗτος ὁ πώγων ἤλυθε. πῶς ἀνέβη τοῦτο τὸ δαιμόνιον καὶ τριχὶ πάντ᾽ ἐκάλυψε τὰ πρὶν καλά; φεῦ, τί τὸ θαῦμα; ἐχθὲς Τρωΐλος ὢν πῶς ἐγένου Πρίαμος; Weren’t you just a boy yesterday? This beard didn’t even come in a dream! How did this fiend come up and cover all your former beauty with hair? Argh, what a surprise! Yesterday you were Troilus – how did you turn into Priam? (Strato, AP 12.191)

Hair, then, can appear overnight, and surprise the older lover. Sometimes, it is the boy who is apparently taken by surprise; the situation is dramatized above in Asclepiades, AP 12.36, but perhaps more clearly here: πώγων καὶ λάσιαι μηρῶν τρίχες, ὡς ταχὺ πάντα ὁ χρόνος ἀλλάσσει· Κόννιχε, τοῦτ᾽ ἐγένου. οὐκ ἔλεγον· ‘μὴ πάντα βαρὺς θέλε μηδὲ βάναυσος εἶναι· καὶ κάλλους εἰσί τινες Νεμέσεις’; ἦλθες ἔσω μάνδρης, ὑπερήφανε· νῦν ὅτι βούλει, οἴδαμεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐξῆν καὶ τότ᾽ ἔχειν σε φρένας. A beard and shaggy hair on your thighs – how quickly time changes everything! This is what you’ve become, Connichus! Didn’t I say ‘you mustn’t always be heavy-handed or vulgar – even beauty has its payback’? You’ve come into the corral, your highness: now we know what you want – but you might have had sense then too. (Automedon, AP 11.326)

This epigram is told from the point of view of the lover – as such epigrams are generally – and we can infer that he has for some time been trying, without success, to persuade his beloved to give in to his entreaties. Among his arguments, he has pointed out that the boy’s attractiveness will not last, and he will soon lose the hold he has over older men. The boy’s refusals he has interpreted as arrogance: the boy has known the power he holds, and has been holding out for something better, heedless of his own expiration date. Now that that time has come, the boy is forced to admit that he too has wanted all along what he has denied his potential lovers. But it deserves notice that the epigram does not actually say that the boy has wanted sex all along (neither does AP 12.36 above, for that matter): it only says that he wants it now. It is thus at least as well suited to a very different explanation, which is offered by modern child psychology: the boy has refused sexual favors because he simply does not want a sexual relationship at his young age; but with the arrival of puberty, he gains a new interest, and begins to explore sex, at first venturing in the direction that has so far incessantly been pressed upon him. Disappointed

364

MICHAEL TUELLER

at first in his inability to escape his needling lover, he is now disappointed again once he is (at least a little) better able to understand his own nascent sexual feelings.8 The ancient and modern perspectives thus offer very different views on the power dynamics in a boy’s short-lived sexual attractiveness. In the ancient view, the beloved has power over his lover: he is attractive; the lover is besotted. But when his attractiveness ends, his power ends equally abruptly. In the modern view, the boy lacks power at every turn: at first, he is unable to escape his lover, even if he does not want to satisfy him. Then, when he ceases to be attractive to his lover, he is abandoned, now unequipped to understand his own sexuality. More overt poetic expressions of power will be seen more below. For now, let us turn to women’s sexual attractiveness: it follows a very different path.

4. The lasting attraction of women A few epigrams compare boys to women as a potential beloved. They often reach conclusions such as this: οὐκέτι μοι Θήρων γράφεται καλὸς οὐδ᾽ ὁ πυραυγὴς πρίν ποτε, νῦν δ᾽ ἤδη δαλὸς Ἀπολλόδοτος. στέργω θῆλυν ἔρωτα· δασυτρώγλων δὲ πίεσμα λασταύρων μελέτω ποιμέσιν αἰγοβάταις. I no longer count Theron fine, nor Apollodotus, who used to blaze like fire, now a mere torch. I am fond of a feminine love; goat-mounting herdsmen can concern themselves with pounding hairy-holed queers. (Meleager, AP 12.41)

Meleager has gone through two boys, both of whose beauty has now lapsed; the thought of sex with them now fills him with disgust. As a consequence, he turns to women. A later epigram from the Cycle of Agathias sets forth explicitly the advantage women have in this competition: ἄρσενας ἄλλος ἔχοι· φιλέειν δ᾽ ἐγὼ οἶδα γυναῖκας, ἐς χρονίην φιλίην οἷα φυλασσομένας. οὐ καλὸν ἡβητῆρες· ἀπεχθαίρω γὰρ ἐκείνην τὴν τρίχα τὴν φθονερήν, τὴν ταχὺ φυομένην.

8. While the place of child sexuality in today’s culture is quite different from antiquity, and thus comparisons are fraught at best, studies indicate that children who are sexually abused tend to demonstrate more overt sexual behaviors in the wake of their abuse than do other children (Homma et al. 2015, Tharinger 1990).

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM

365

Let males be for others; I can love only women, whose love lasts a long time. There is no beauty in pubescent youths: I loathe that hateful hair that begins to grow too soon. (Eratosthenes Scholasticus, AP 5.277)

As a beloved, at least, women have the advantage over boys: their beauty is lasting. Eratosthenes hints at a biological reason for this: pre-pubescent boys and women are similar in their lack of beards and general adult hairiness – a condition that Greek ἐρασταί found universally desirable. For women, however, this state is permanent, while for boys it comes to an end. By this standard, we might expect women’s beauty to last well into old age. Is this what the epigrammatic evidence indicates? Admittedly, one epigram – probably our earliest relevant example – asserts that, as in the case of boys, it is short-lived: τῷ μήλῳ βάλλω σε· σὺ δ᾽ εἰ μὲν ἑκοῦσα φιλεῖς με, δεξαμένη τῆς σῆς παρθενίης μετάδος· εἰ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽, ὃ μὴ γίγνοιτο, ὀκνεῖς, τοῦτ᾽ αὐτὸ λαβοῦσα σκέψαι τὴν ὥρην ὡς ὀλιγοχρόνιος. I throw an apple at you; if you love me freely, accept it and give your virginity in exchange. But if (heaven forbid) you hesitate, take the apple itself and consider how short-lived beauty is.9 (Plato, AP 5.79)

But most epigrams tell a different story. When they mention the fading beauty of women, they put this event in their old age. The following epigram of Meleager, in particular, paints a savage picture of the body of a prostitute, but, given her gray hair, she is clearly past middle age at least: οὐκέτι Τιμαρίον, τὸ πρὶν γλαφυροῖο κέλητος πῆγμα, φέρει πλωτὸν Κύπριδος εἰρεσίην· ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ μὲν νώτοισι μετάφρενον, ὡς κέρας ἱστῷ, κυρτοῦται, πολιὸς δ᾽ ἐκλέλυται πρότονος, ἱστία δ᾽ αἰωρητὰ χαλᾷ σπαδονίσματα μαστῶν, ἐκ δὲ σάλου στρεπτὰς γαστρὸς ἔχει ῥυτίδας, νέρθε δὲ πάνθ᾽ ὑπέραντλα νεώς, κοίλῃ δὲ θάλασσα πλημμύρει, γόνασιν δ᾽ ἔντρομός ἐστι σάλος. δύστανος τίς ζωὸς ἔτ᾽ ὢν Ἀχερουσίδα λίμνην πλεύσετ᾽ ἄνωθ᾽ ἐπιβὰς γραὸς ἐπ᾽ εἰκοσόρου;

5

10

9. Philodemus, AP 5.80 features similar reasoning, though it does not explicitly say that beauty is short-lived. See also Marcus Argentarius, AP 5.118.

366

MICHAEL TUELLER

Timarium, once the hull of a slick corsair, can no longer support Cypris’ rowing and keep afloat. The ribs on her back are bowed, like a yard on a mast; her gray forestays are slack, and her drooping breasts are like flapping sails. Undulations have given her belly knotted wrinkles; below, she is full of bilge-water, the sea is flooding her hold, and her knees tremble. What wretch, while yet alive, would sail down to the lake of Acheron aboard such an old twenty-benched coffin-galley?10 (Meleager, AP 5.204)

There is much counterevidence, though. Many epigrams observe that beauty is unfaded even in old age. One of them counts the years: ἑξήκοντα τελεῖ Χαριτὼ λυκαβαντίδας ὥρας, ἀλλ᾽ ἔτι κυανέων σύρμα μένει πλοκάμων, κἀν στέρνοις ἔτι κεῖνα τὰ λύγδινα κώνια μαστῶν ἕστηκεν μίτρης γυμνὰ περιδρομάδος, καὶ χρὼς ἀρρυτίδωτος ἔτ᾽ ἀμβροσίην, ἔτι πειθὼ πᾶσαν, ἔτι στάζει μυριάδας χαρίτων. ἀλλὰ πόθους ὀργῶντας ὅσοι μὴ φεύγετ᾽, ἐρασταί, δεῦρ᾽ ἴτε, τῆς ἐτέων ληθόμενοι δεκάδος.

5

Charito has completed sixty years, but her train of dark hair still remains, and on her bosom those marble-white cones of her breasts still stand firm, even stripped of their encircling girdle. Still her unwrinkled skin distills ambrosia, distills every fascination, distills countless charms. You lovers who do not shrink from swelling desire, come here, and forget the decade of her years.11 (Philodemus, AP 5.13)

We occasionally see some nuance in this picture. Antipater of Sidon tells of a woman who became a courtesan after thirty years of widowhood:12 κερκίδα τὴν φιλαοιδὸν Ἀθηναίῃ θέτο Βιττὼ ἄνθεμα, λιμηρῆς ἄρμενον ἐργασίης. εἶπε δέ· ‘χαῖρε, θεά, καὶ τήνδ᾽ ἔχε· χήρη ἐγὼ γὰρ τέσσαρας εἰς ἐτέων ἐρχομένη δεκάδας ἀρνεῦμαι τὰ σὰ δῶρα, τὰ δ᾽ ἔμπαλι Κύπριδος ἔργων ἅπτομαι· ὥρης γὰρ κρεῖσσον ὁρῶ τὸ θέλειν.’

5

10. Other epigrams that show that desirability faded late are Anonymous, AP 6.283 (no longer has lovers, but this happened late in life); and Philetas of Samos, AP 6.210 (still sexually adventurous at more than fifty). A few epigrams (Plato, AP 6.1; Secundus, AP 9.260) note that the beauty of the famous courtesan Laïs faded late in life – but she was supposed to have lived to a very great age (Myrinus, AP 11.67). 11. Similar ideas are found in Anonymous, AP 5.26. Bassus, AP 11.72, while not explicitly noting its subject’s beauty, does say that she remains ἀρτίπος, οἷά τε νύμφη, even at a rhetorically lengthened age of more than a thousand. Asclepiades, AP 7.217 assumes that Archeanassa’s beauty used to be greater in her youth, but claims that she is still beautiful in old age: ‘sweet Love sits/sat even on her wrinkles’ (καὶ ἐπὶ ῥυτίδων ὁ γλυκὺς ἕζετ᾽ Ἔρως – the elision allows for present or imperfect tenses). 12. I find this the most persuasive reading of the text, but it is also possible that Bitto is ‘a widow, now entering her fourth decade’ – still not young, but not as old as ‘four decades a widow’ would imply.

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM

367

Bitto dedicated to Athena her melodious shuttle, the implement of her famishing trade. She said ‘Farewell, goddess; take this. For as I enter my fourth decade as a widow, I renounce your gifts, and instead take up the works of Cypris. I see that the will beats youth and beauty.’ (Antipater of Sidon, AP 6.47)

Bitto does not claim that she remains beautiful. Rather, it is her will (τὸ θέλειν) that makes her a fair competitor for younger and more beautiful women. This could mean nothing more than her own desire for sexual activity, in the face of the coy demurral of younger women. In practice, this strategy is likely to be effective: ἡ χαλεπὴ κατὰ πάντα Φιλήστιον, ἡ τὸν ἐραστὴν μηδέποτ᾽ ἀργυρίου χωρὶς ἀνασχομένη, φαίνετ᾽ ἀνεκτοτέρη νῦν ἢ πάρος. οὐ μέγα θαῦμα φαίνεσθ᾽· ἠλλάχθαι τὴν φύσιν οὐ δοκέω. καὶ γὰρ πρηϋτέρη ποτὲ γίνεται ἀσπὶς ἀναιδής, δάκνει δ᾽ οὐκ ἄλλως ἢ θανατηφορίην.

5

Philestium, cruel in every way, who never tolerated a lover without money, now seems more tolerant than before. It is no great wonder that she seems so, though I don’t believe her nature has changed. Even the ruthless asp grows tamer at times, but its bite is never other than lethal. (Maecius, AP 5.114)

Philestium has lowered her rates; perhaps she now even has sex for free – at least with first-time customers. But it seems that time has affected only her initial appeal: she still has a bite as lethal as an asp. By this we are surely to understand that, once she has attracted a lover, he finds it very difficult to escape her: he falls in love with her as surely as he did when she was younger. Unsurprisingly, scoptic epigram sees this continued appeal differently: τὴν κεφαλὴν βάπτεις, τὸ δὲ γῆρας οὔποτε βάψεις, οὐδὲ παρειάων ἐκτανύσεις ῥυτίδας. μὴ τοίνυν τὸ πρόσωπον ἅπαν ψιμύθῳ κατάπλαττε, ὥστε προσωπεῖον κοὐχὶ πρόσωπον ἔχειν. οὐδὲν γὰρ πλέον ἐστί. τί μαίνεαι; οὔποτε φῦκος καὶ ψίμυθος τεύξει τὴν Ἑκάβην Ἑλένην.

5

You dye your head, but you will never dye away your old age, nor make your wrinkled cheeks taut. So don’t plaster your whole face with lead, so that you have a mask, not a face – it does no good. Why go crazy? Rouge and lead will never make Hecuba Helen! (Lucillius,13 AP 11.408)

13. Of the two major manuscripts for the Greek Anthology, Pl attributes the epigram to Lucillius, and P to Lucian. Floridi (2014: 547) considers the attribution to Lucillius probable.

368

MICHAEL TUELLER

The attractiveness of older women, then, is the product of hair dye and makeup. (Other epigrams of this type also mention wigs.) These artificial measures, Lucillius claims, fool no-one.14 Of course in reality this claim could not be entirely true: if it were, the practice would have been abandoned. Overall, epigram paints a positive picture of women’s desirability. It may fade some with age, but in general older women retain, or perhaps contrive, at least some attractiveness to men. Their power to choose a lover may be diminished – hence the mentions of willingness, or of tolerating a lover without money – but we do not get the impression that they are forced to go without sex. This, of course, may be because the poems in this section all adopt a male point of view, and are relatively unconcerned with the fulfillment of women’s desires, though we will see a few examples of this in the next section.

5. Female desire and male erectile dysfunction Earlier epigrammatists took more notice of female desire, as demonstrated by the following: ἅδιον οὐδὲν ἔρωτος· ἃ δ᾽ ὄλβια, δεύτερα πάντα ἐστίν· ἀπὸ στόματος δ᾽ ἔπτυσα καὶ τὸ μέλι. τοῦτο λέγει Νοσσίς· τίνα δ᾽ ἁ Κύπρις οὐκ ἐφίλασεν, οὐκ οἶδεν τήνας τἄνθεα, ποῖα ῥόδα. Nothing is sweeter than love; all good things come second: even honey I spat from my mouth. Nossis says this; and whomever Cypris has not kissed, does not know what roses her flowers are. (Nossis, AP 5.170)

Nossis’s poem is (no doubt intentionally) susceptible of a great many meanings, including, as scholars are fond of noting, a programmatic one. Among these possible meanings, however, the straightforward implication of Nossis’s claims – that she knows the sweetness of love, and (at least implicitly) has felt the kiss of Cypris – is sexual: Nossis feels sexual desire, and has experienced its fulfilment.15 Male epigrammatists of the 14. Antiphilus (AP 11.66) and Lucillius (AP 11.68 & 69) agree on the impossibility of achieving effective beauty. Myrinus, AP 11.67, on the other hand, implies, at least in its tone, that cosmetics are silly, but does not indicate that they are ineffective. In one case (Myrinus, AP 6.254), a man who adopted feminine attire is described in the same terms: he artificially maintained his beauty into old age. 15. For more on the various meanings of this poem, and on their relation to Sappho, see Andre Lardinois’s contribution to this volume.

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM

369

same period also acknowledged women’s sexual needs; Asclepiades (AP 12.153) wrote of a woman who felt the bitter-sweetness of unrequited desire, and Callimachus seems to predict sexual frustration for a beloved woman that parallels the male lover shut out in a paraklausithyron (AP 5.23). We even have a hint, though laced with masculine disapproval, of women finding a sexual outlet that avoided dealing with men altogether: αἱ Σάμιαι Βιττὼ καὶ Νάννιον εἰς Ἀφροδίτης φοιτᾶν τοῖς αὐτῆς οὐκ ἐθέλουσι νόμοις, εἰς δ᾽ ἕτερ᾽ αὐτομολοῦσιν ἃ μὴ καλά. δεσπότι Κύπρι, μίσει τὰς κοίτης τῆς παρὰ σοὶ φυγάδας. The Samian women Bitto and Nannium refuse to visit Aphrodite’s temple in accordance with her laws, but desert to other things that are not good. Mistress Cypris, hate those who flee the bed in your temple. (Asclepiades, AP 5.207)

Most epigrammatists beyond this generation, however, seem quite unconcerned with female desire.16 Philodemus, however, initiates one theme that will give at least some place for consideration of a woman’s desire. He paints a picture of female sexual frustration that, curiously, puts the onus on the man. A woman complains to her lover: δακρύεις, ἐλεεινὰ λαλεῖς, περίεργα θεωρεῖς, ζηλοτυπεῖς, ἅπτῃ πολλάκι, πυκνὰ φιλεῖς· ταῦτα μέν ἐστιν ἐρῶντος. ὅταν δ᾽ εἴπω ‘παράκειμαι’ καὶ σὺ μένῃς, ἁπλῶς οὐδὲν ἐρῶντος ἔχεις. You weep, you talk piteously, you watch me excessively, you show your jealousy, you touch me often, you kiss me hard; these are the deeds of a lover. But when I say ‘Here I am next to you,’ and you wait, you simply have nothing of the lover in you. (Philodemus, AP 5.306)

There is no sign that this woman is unattractive – quite the opposite. Nor does she lack desire.17 What is happening? Philodemus once offers the excuse that, in his old age, he has outgrown sexual passions (AP 5.112), but this covers for the real reason. His physical capacity has diminished: 16. We can only speculate as to the reason for this absence. Perhaps it is to be explained, at least in part, by the near-total absence of women epigrammatists at this time, and the longer span that stood between the male poets and the first generation of literary epigrammatists, especially Nossis. 17. A companion poem, Philodemus, AP 5.120, is somewhat clearer on this matter. In that poem, the woman has made her way to her lover through night and rain, and also risks the wrath of her husband – only to find, again, that her lover is unresponsive.

370

MICHAEL TUELLER

ὁ πρὶν ἐγὼ καὶ πέντε καὶ ἐννέα, νῦν, Ἀφροδίτη, ἓν μόλις ἐκ πρώτης νυκτὸς ἐς ἠέλιον, οἴμοι μοι, καὶ τοῦτο κατὰ βραχύ· πολλάκι δ᾽ ἤδη ἡμιθανές κεῖται τοῦτο τὸ τερμέριον.18 ὦ γῆρας, γῆρας, τί ποθ᾽ ὕστερον, ἢν ἀφίκηαι, ποιήσεις, ὅτε νῦν ὧδε μαραινόμεθα;

5

I used to go five, even nine, O Aphrodite, but now barely one from the start of night to the dawn, and that – woe, woe is me – only briefly! This little battering ram now often lies half-dead. Old age, old age, what will you do later on, if you arrive, since we are already withering like this now? (Philodemus, AP 11.30)

While Philodemus claims that he is not yet old, he knows that his erectile function is no longer what it once was, and anticipates that it will become worse when he does become old.19 Epigram has thus painted a picture of heteroerotic power imbalance quite different from that seen today. Women’s beauty may fade, but they do not lose the ability to attract men, or the desire for sexual fulfillment. They thus always retain some power over men, which gives them the ability to fulfill their sexual needs. Men, on the other hand, are limited only by their wealth in their choice of a woman, which gives them some power to counterbalance the fact that their own undiminished sexual need makes them vulnerable. But with age they – unlike women – lose the ability to fulfill this desire, a fate from which no amount of money – and only the rare woman – can rescue them: τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀσίης ὀρχηστρίδα, τὴν κακοτέχνοις σχήμασιν ἐξ ἁπαλῶν κινυμένην ὀνύχων, αἰνέω, οὐχ ὅτι πάντα παθαίνεται οὐδ᾽ ὅτι βάλλει τὰς ἁπαλὰς ἁπαλῶς ὧδε καὶ ὧδε χέρας, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι καὶ τρίβακον περὶ πάσσαλον ὀρχήσασθαι οἶδε καὶ οὐ φεύγει γηραλέας ῥυτίδας· γλωττίζει, κνίζει, περιλαμβάνει· ἢν δ᾽ ἐπιρίψῃ τὸ σκέλος, ἐξ ᾅδου τὴν κορύνην ἀνάγει.

5

The dancer from Asia who executes lascivious postures, quivering from her tender finger-tips, I praise, not because she expresses every emotion, not because she moves her tender hands tenderly this way and that, but because she can dance around a worn-down knob and is not put off by the wrinkles of age. She licks, she tickles, she grasps; and if she throws her leg over, she brings the staff back from the dead.20 (Automedon, AP 5.129) 18. On the emendation κεῖται in line 4, and the punctuation of lines 2–4, see Battezzato (2003: 125–127). 19. Automedon (AP 11.29 and 5.129) confirms this. See also Strato, AP 12.240. 20. We might have expected that these pictures of male erectile dysfunction would be paralleled by stories of menopause, but it does not make an appearance in erotic relationships in epigram. Perhaps most poets were simply unconcerned about it.

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM

371

6. A poetic language of power Many of the erotic themes found in Latin elegy have precursors in epigram. What of the theme of the domina, the woman to whom the poetic lover must submit? We have already seen the ways in which women could be seen to have power. Curiously, though, epigrammatists do not use expressions similar to the Latin domina of the women they love; these terms are reserved for boys:21 ἐξέφυγον, Θεόδωρε, τὸ σὸν βάρος. ἀλλ᾽ ὅσον εἴπας ‘ἐξέφυγον τὸν ἐμὸν δαίμονα πικρότατον,’ πικρότερός με κατέσχεν. Ἀριστοκράτει δὲ λατρεύων μυρία δεσπόσυνον καὶ τρίτον ἐκδέχομαι. I escaped your weight, Theodorus. But the moment I said ‘I escaped my daimon most cruel,’ a crueler one gripped me. I serve Aristocrates endlessly while I wait to be mastered a third time. (Dioscorides, AP 12.169)

This sort of language spreads to heteroerotic epigram only later, with the direction of influence likely being from Latin elegy to Greek epigram: σοί με λάτριν γλυκύδωρος Ἔρως παρέδωκε, Βοῶπι, ταῦρον ὑποζεύξας εἰς πόθον αὐτόμολον, αὐτοθελῆ, πάνδουλον, ἑκούσιον, αὐτοκέλευστον, αἰτήσοντα πικρὴν μήποτ᾽ ἐλευθερίην ἄχρι φίλης πολιῆς καὶ γήραος. ὄμμα βάλοι δὲ 5 μήποτ᾽ ἐφ᾽ ἡμετέραις ἐλπίσι βασκανίη. Love, the giver of sweet gifts, gave me over to you, Boöpis, for a servant, yoking to desire a bull that came himself, of his own free will, at his own bidding, an abject slave who will never ask for bitter freedom until his own gray old age. May no evil eye cast its glance on our hopes! (Rufinus, AP 5.22)

The theme of the domina is powerful because of its irony; men, who should be the masters in a sexual relationship, find themselves in the position of servant. The Greek epigrammatic tradition does not note this particular irony: it is males who consistently occupy the commanding position. Rather, epigram plays with the irony of the fact that boys will soon be men, and find their role reversed. While none of the epigrams with ‘mastery’ language specifically invokes this theme, it is closely connected to the haughtiness of beautiful boys: χαῖρέ ποτ᾽ οὐκ εἰπόντα προσεῖπέ τις. ἀλλ᾽ ὁ περισσὸς κάλλεϊ νῦν Δάμων οὐδὲ τὸ χαῖρε δέχῃ.22 21. Other instances: ἄναξ, θεός in Meleager, AP 12.158; δεσπότης in Strato, AP 12.196; δεσπόσυνος in Strato, AP 12.246. 22. I accept the emendation of Gärtner (2007: 10), δέχῃ for λέγει. Admittedly, this emendation not only improves sense, but also the drama of the poem. Still, even without it, the epigram remains clearly an example of a beloved boy’s transition.

372

MICHAEL TUELLER

ἥξει τις τούτου χρόνος ἔκδικος· εἶτα δασυνθεὶς ἄρξῃ χαῖρε λέγειν οὐκ ἀποκρινομένοις. Once, to one who didn’t say ‘hello,’ someone offered it. But you, Damon, surpassingly beautiful, don’t even accept the ‘hello’! A time will come that avenges this: you will be hairy then, and start to say ‘hello’ to people who don’t answer. (Diocles, AP 12.35)

Damon’s situation is easy to fathom, because the time between the roles of beloved and lover was so short.23 While one epigram (Strato, AP 12.228) can discern an intervening time, it is most common to see little or none:24 ἄρτι γενειάζων ὁ καλὸς καὶ στερρὸς ἐρασταῖς παιδὸς ἐρᾷ Λάδων. σύντομος ἡ Νέμεσις. The beautiful Ladon, inured to lovers, is just sprouting a beard – and loves a boy. Retribution is instantaneous! (Flaccus, AP 12.12)

The irony of this situation is evident – and it is inaccessible to women.

7. Conclusions To attribute power to an attractive beloved, one must presuppose not only some species of beauty in the beloved, but also a powerful desire in the lover, which must be framed as a vulnerability. One must also suppose that the beloved is not susceptible to that same desire, or at least not to the same degree. Of course, a culture that habitually does not take women into account may simply ignore women’s desire as irrelevant. The humor in Amy Schumer’s ‘Last Fuckable Day’ sketch emerges from the fact that it is filled with famous actresses who cheerfully accept this paradigm. They never mention their own sexual desires and accept that men’s desires are all that matter. Their only sexual power lies in their beauty, which is subject to the arbitration of the faceless media, and when it passes, sometime in middle age, their lament is brief. The ancient picture, as we have seen, is more complicated. In some senses, it may even be said that men and women were held to the same standard. Both become attractive at about the same (very young) age, and become the beloved of men. In old age, both sometimes encounter difficulties with sexual fulfillment: women become less attractive, and men suffer erectile dysfunction. Both sexes also feel sexual desire, at least 23. In addition to the evidence below, this is a clear implication of some of the poems above, in section 2. 24. Strato, AP 12.9–10 imply that there may even be some overlap.

YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND EROTIC POWER: WOMEN AND BOYS IN GREEK EPIGRAM

373

from late adolescence onward, and both can find ways to gratify this desire without the other sex (though the recognition of this fact in the case of women is fleeting). Against this background, the modern implications of fading beauty cannot hold, at least not in the same way. One element of continuity from antiquity to today is important: adult men are assumed to hold the power of choice in erotic relationships. From this fact springs the central drama that aging brings to the ancient erotic landscape: boys, whose power lies in their beauty, become men, whose power is inherent in their gender. Both the lover and the beloved have difficulty navigating this adjustment, which takes place almost in an instant. Women, by comparison, experience a gradual evolution rather than an abrupt transition: their beauty lasts longer, well into old age. Even then, it can be artificially extended. Of course, members of a society are inevitably biased when they picture the distribution of power within that society. This paper by no means intends to suggest that the real power of the ancient beloved is somehow an even match for that of the lover (always male, nearly always older), or that women and men had equal license to make choices governing their own sexual relationships. Ancient misogyny was a powerful force. But we err if we assume that the contours of this misogyny were approximately the same as they are today, or even that they remained unchanged between the fifth century and the third. Most notably, standards of feminine beauty, while still tilted in favor of the young, were much more capacious than we find in the case of, say, Sally Field.

REFERENCES ‘Last F…able Day’, Inside Amy Schumer, season 3, episode 1. Comedy Central. Originally aired 21 April 2015. Television. See https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=XPpsI8mWKmg Battezzato, L., 2003, “Sul linguaggio erotico di Filodemo: a proposito di P. Oxy. 3724 iv 30 e di AP XI 30”. Eikasmos 14, 121–127. Cairns, F., 2016, Hellenistic Epigram: Contexts of Exploration. Cambridge. Floridi, L., 2014, Lucillio, Epigrammi. Berlin. Gärtner, T., 2007, “Textkritische Bemerkungen zu erotischen Epigrammen der Anthologia Palatina”. Scripta classica Israelica 26, 1–18. Homma, Y., N. Wang, E. Saewyc, and N. Kishor, 2015, “The Relationship Between Sexual Abuse and Risky Sexual Behavior Among Adolescent Boys: A Meta-Analysis”. Journal of Adolescent Health 51, 18–24. Sens, A., 2011, Asclepiades of Samos: Epigrams and Fragments. Oxford. Tarán, S., 1985, “Εἰσὶ Τρίχες: An Erotic Motif in the Greek Anthology”. JHS 105, 90–107. Tharinger, D., 1990, “Impact of Child Sexual Abuse on Developing Sexuality”. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 21, 331–337.

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

#metoo: 1 A Clockwork Orange: 220, 228 Achelous: 146 Achilles: 41, 43 shield: 349, 351 Achilles Tatius (Leucippe and Cleitophon): 17 Acontius and Cydippe: 98, 101, 112, 116 Acrotime: 99 Actium: 14 Adonia: 113, 155 Adonis: 31, 67-70, 73-76, 113 Aeetes: 252 Aegialeia: 47 Aelian: 109, 227 Aeolic dialect: 185-186 Aemulatio: 162, 171, 325 Aeneas: 262-263 Aeschylus: 42, 44-45, 50, 97, 323325, 348 Aetiology: 50-51, 54, 122, 233-234, 313, 344-345 Agalmatophilia: 63 Agamemnon: 44-45, 125 sceptre: 329 Agatharchis: 70, 207 Agathias (Cycle of): 364 Agave: 152 Aging: 359-373 Ajax: 42, 44-45, 54 Alcaeus: 181 Alcinous: 52, 148 Alcman: 88, 92, 133, 292 Partheneion: 292 Alcmena: 343 Alexander the Great: 87 Alexandra: see Lycophron Alexis: 122 Alketis: 239 Allusion: 3, 7, 9-10, 60, 70, 78, 106, 151, 165-168, 179-182, 185-187, 202-203, 215, 221-226, 236, 240,

246-247, 251-252, 255, 258, 260266, 273, 290-291, 293, 303, 305, 313-314, 324, 327-328, 336 Allusive characterization: 245-246, 251-253, 261-265 Amaryllis: 10, 59-80 Amazons: 128, 136 Amekhania (ἀμηχανία): 124, 129 Amnisidae: see Nymphs Amnisos (settlement): 233, 242 Amnisus (river): 238 Amphiaraus: 122-124, 126-127, 132134 Anacreon: 70-71 Anathematika: see Posidippus Anchises: 73-74, 262, 265-266 Anchoring Innovation: 12, 161-162, 168, 186 Andromache: 40, 43 Antigone: 46 Antigonus Gonatas: 155 Antiochus: 306, 308 Antiope: 48 Antipater of Sidon: 366 Antipater of Thessalonica: 193 Antiphanes: 122 Anyte: 3, 9, 60, 69, 71, 162, 171-173 Apama: 106, 299 Aphrodite/Venus: 7, 13-32, 68-69, 71-76, 113, 164-167, 170, 172, 247, 253, 258-266, 306, 310, 315, 341355 Apollo: 38, 43, 45, 51, 53, 102-103, 154, 213-215, 237 Apollonis (wife of Attalus I): 299 Apollonius Rhodius: 3, 6-7, 9, 15, 75, 121-136, 163, 177-183, 241, 245266, 343, 347 Apotheosis: 4, 13, 15, 27-28, 143 Apsyrtus: 264 Archemoros (Opheltes): 134; see Opheltes Areopagus: 50

376

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

Ares: 351 Arete (Phaeacian queen): 352 Argonauts: 126, 131, 245-266; see Apollonius Rhodius Argos: 26, 144, 321, 324-325, 330, 333, 335 Argus (and Hermes): 350 Aristophanes: 100, 121, 273-275 Lysistrata: 273, 275 Thesmophoriazusae: 273-275, 291292 Aristotle (Poetics): 86 Arrows: 236-241, 242 Arsinoe II Philadelphus: 4-5, 13-32, 101, 140, 142-144, 147-149, 154-156 Arsinoe-Aphrodite (cult): 13-32 Hirsch Arsinoe (statue): 25-26, 29 Artemis: 3, 143, 231-243, 253, 261, 263 Artemis Brauronia: 236 Artemis Neleis: 235 as Huntress Goddess: 237, 263 Asclepiades: 361, 363, 369 Asia Minor: 232 Aspasia: 2 Astarte: 20, 23 Atalanta: 72-74 Athena: 3-4, 7, 45, 140, 142-144, 247252, 265, 303, 321-337 Athena Ergane: 197 Bath of Pallas: 239 Athenaeus: 100, 142 Attalus I: 299 Attalus II: 300 Augeas (son of Helios): 98-99 Bacchantes: 129, 136 Bacchylides: 122 Baldness: see Hair loss Bath of Pallas: see Athena Battus: 227 Baubo/Iambe: 283-284, 291, 293-294 Baucis: 170 Bellerophon: 85, 90, 92 Berenice II: 5, 14-15, 27-28, 31, 95-117, 141-144, 149, 154, 299-300, 309-310, 312-315; see Callimachus Berenice Syra: 15 Bion: 74 Bosporus: 350

Bow: 236-240 Brauron: 231, 236 Bride: 5, 47, 95-117, 253, 258, 309 Bride-price: 95-101, 104-105, 110, 117 Brime (βρίμη): 250-251, 265 Brimo (= Hecate): 257, 265; see also Hecate Briseis: 43 Cadmus: 98 Callichorus (well): 146 Callicrates: 29 Callimachus: 3-5, 6, 10, 13, 15-16, 27-28, 95-117, 141-156, 186, 213229, 232-234, 237-238, 253, 272273, 290-291, 299, 309-315 Acontius and Cydippe: 98, 101, 112, 116 Aetia: 115, 115, 233-234, 310-311, 313-314 Coma Berenices: 15, 116-7, 143, 187, 309-313 Apotheosis of Arsinoe: 13, 27-28, 116, 143 Hecale: 343 Victoria Berenices: 15, 95-117, 143, 312-313 Callixeinus: 142, 148 Calydonia: 240 Calypso (Odyssey): 76 Canopus: 19 Cassandra: 8, 35-54 Cassandria: 147 Catullus: 9, 163, 171, 180, 183-185 Caucasus: 255 Celeus: 253 Characterization: 6-7, 24, 28, 36, 42, 45, 121, 125-127, 136, 245-246, 254, 266 Charaxus: 175-177 Chariclo: 329, 331 Charites/Graces: 115, 164 Childbirth: 116, 231-234, 236-240, 242 Chios: 292 Chiron: 102 Chiton: 235-236, 242 Chitone (Attic deme): 235 Chremonides (decree of): 155

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

Cilla: 47 Circe: 247 Cleocha: 68, 198, 201 Cleonymus: 172 Cleopatra VII: 14 Clete: 47 Clytemnestra: 44, 47 Colchis: 254, 258, 261 Colossus of Memnon: 185 Combabus: 306 Community: 7, 51, 53, 68, 89, 121, 125, 135, 152, 154 Competition: 5-6, 64-65, 96-97, 110111, 301, 314-315, 333, 335-336, 364, 367 Conon: 19 Corynth: 90 Cos: 89 Cosmogony: 349, 351, 355 Court: passim ideology: 4, 13-32, 105, 140, 308 society: 89, 95-117, 299-315 Creon: 46 Crete: 242, 344, 355 Cult: 36, 39, 45, 48-51, 53, 54 Cycle of Agathias: 364 Cyclops: 181-182, 237; see Polyphemus Cydippe: 96-99, 101, 112-113, 116 Cypris (Aphrodite): 16, 166-167, 179, 265-266, 368; see Aphrodite Cyrenaica: 104, 110 Cyrene: passim city: 100-102, 117 nymph: 102-104, 108, 112, 117 Cyzicus: 300 Damo: 185 Damon: 372 Danaids: 26, 106-107, 112, 325 Danaus: 26-27, 105-106 Daunia: 8, 35, 45, 49-50 Dedications: see Votive offerings Deianira: 127 Delos: 143 Delphi: 87, 125 Demeter: 3, 4, 5, 7, 76, 139-156, 213229, 272-273, 280, 283, 291 Demeter Thesmophoros: 141 and Iasion: 76

377

Demetrius the Fair: 106, 109 Demodocus: 351 Demophon: 228 Diegesis (διήγησις): 131-132, 134, 233 Dildo: 271-295 Diomedes: 351 Dialects (literary): 86-88, 91-92 Dio Chrysostom (Prais of Hair): 304 Dionysus/Bacchus: 129-130, 139-156, 225 Dioscuri (Castor and Polydeuces): 27-28, 144 Diotimus: 108 Diphilus: 122 Diversity: passim ethnic: 84, 87, 90 linguistic: 83-92 Divinities: 2, 3 Domina: 371 Doric dialect: 83-92, 144 Doricha: 175-177, 183 Dotium: 147-148 Dowry: 96-101, 104 East Canopus: 17 Ecphrasis: 10, 59, 63, 66, 72, 205-207, 344, 349-351 in epigram: see Epigrams Egypt: 13-32, 106, 144, 147, 177, 185 Egyptian mythology: 13-14, 20-22, 26, 31, 141-143 Ptolemaic Egypt: 13-32, 141-142, 299-300 Eileithyia: 3, 231-243 Elegiac meter: 332-333 Eleusinian Mysteries: 215-216, 223-224 Encomium: 304, 310, 312-314 of Ptolemy: 90 Paradoxical: 304, 310 Sincere: 310, 312-314 Endymion and Selene: 75-76, 259-260 Ephesus: 147 Epicharmus: 86, 88 Epigrams: 59-60, 64-65, 67-72, 77-78, 236, 238-241, 243 dedicatory: 9, 16, 193-209, 236, 271272, 294 ecphrastic: 64-72, 205-207; see Ecphrasis

378

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

erotic: 168-169, 183, 197, 359-373 funerary: 164-165 inscribed: 9, 16, 185, 193-200, 206, 208-209, 300 observer in: 64-72, 204, 207-209 speaker in: 207-209 visuality and: 64-72, 193-209 Epinician: 5, 95, 101, 104-105, 110-113 Epiphany: 321, 328, 332, 336-337 Epithet: 61, 141, 181, 233, 235-236, 240, 247-250, 322, 325, 329 Epizephyrian Locri: 193 Epyllion: 344 Erato: 265 Eratosthenes: 365 Erinna: 3, 9-10, 11, 60, 68, 70-71, 162, 169-174, 180, 182, 185-186, 201-203, 206, 271-273, 276, 280, 284, 289-295 Distaff: 169-171, 173, 182, 271 Eros: 112,177-178, 259, 264 Erotic vision: 65, 71 Erysichthon: 139-140, 145, 148, 150152, 155-156, 213, 217-223, 225, 272-273 Erythrae: 206: 292 Eteocles: 122 Euanthis: 204 Euboule: 281, 284-287, 289, 291 Eubulus: 100 Eumaeus: 52 Eumenes II: 300 Euneus: 129 Euphorion: 240 Euripides: 27, 44-45, 50-51, 84, 97, 121-136, 152-153, 177, 222, 225, 245, 263, 273-274 Antiope: 122 Phoenissae: 122 Europa: 48, 130, 341-35 Eurydice (queen of Nemea): 122, 124, 132-133 Eusebeia (εὐσέβεια): see Pietas Exile: 121-122, 126, 128 Exordium: 131-132 Female: passim athleticism: 73, 104, 321-322, 324, 326, 328, 332 audience: 68, 199, 204-205

collectives: 4, 321-337 creativity: 202-203 epic: 7-8, 341-356 gaze: 3, 9, 11, 59, 68, 70, 72, 76, 193-209 narrator: 8, 35-54, 64-72, 207-208, 217-218, 224, 272-273 oriented humour: 222, 271-295 oriented poetry: 10, 271-295 poets: 64-72, 161-187, 193-209 voice: 3, 35-54, 60, 205, 207 voice (authentic): 271-273, 291-295 voice (poetic): 59-60, 67, 77 see also Women Film (comparison with): 213, 220 Freedom: 124-125, 126-127, 134 Galatea (Theocritus): 70, 77, 181 Galenaia (Aphrodite): 16 Ganymede: 113 Gender roles (inversion): 309-310 Glory: see Kleos Gorgo (Theocritus): 84-85, 89-90 Graces: see Charites Greek Anthology: 238 Hades: 52, 228, 252-254, 256-258, 262, 353 Hair: passim encomia: 299-315 loss: 306-307, 310, 315 Hapax legomena (Homeric): see Homer Harmonia: 98 Hathor: 13-14, 26, 31 Hecate: 3, 228, 240, 245, 252, 257-258, 265 Hector: 31, 40-41, 49, 51, 223 Hecuba: 40, 49, 51 Hednon (ἕδνον): 95-117 Helen: 14, 19-20, 22-25, 27, 31, 43, 47-48, 105-107, 111-112, 114-116, 180, 325, 354 Helios: 98, 228 Hephaestus: 20, 349 Hera: 200, 336, 351 Hera-Atargatis: 305 Heracleion: 17 Heracles/Hercules: 5, 17, 89, 92, 96, 104, 107-110, 112-114, 116-117, 122, 309, 313

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

Hermes: 350 Herodas: 9-10, 78, 271-295 Herodotus: 22-23, 84, 325 Heroine: 121, 126, 131, 133, 136 Hesiod: 97, 111, 168, 231, 307 Hesperus: 146 Hetaerae: 2, 196-198, 204-205, 294 Hierapolis Bambyce: 305 Hippomenes: 73-74 Hipponax: 97 Homeland: 124, 126, 130, 131 Homer: 22-25, 52, 91-92, 97, 102, 121, 228, 231, 237, 241, 247, 323-325 allusion to: 124, 301-304, 309 hapax legomena: 250 Iliad: 19, 24, 31, 40, 43, 51, 92, 170-171, 219, 221, 236-237, 325, 341, 346 Odyssey: 7, 20, 22-23, 148, 237, 246, 261-262, 341-342, 345, 351353, 356 Homeric Hymns: 73-74, 139-156, 222224, 228-229, 245-266, 346, 351-353 Homosexuality: 180 Honey: 165-168, 183 Honour: see Kleos Humour: 4, 63, 102, 151, 156, 181, 213, 217-220, 222, 271-295, 305, 307, 312, 372 sex-humour: 271-295 Hylas: 179 Hypermnestra: 26, 106 Hypsipyle: 7, 121-136 Iasion: see Demeter Iconography: 4, 13, 109, 141, 197 Ida: 74, 262 Ilion: 45 Imitatio: 161-162, 171, 195 Inconstantia/inconsistency: 136 Innovation: see Anchoring Innovation Inopus (river): 238 Inter-dynastic poetics: 299-300, 309315 Intermediality: 74, 76 Intertextuality: 60-64, 72, 75, 78, 165, 180, 246, 256, 309, 314, 349 Io: 26, 48, 105, 130, 144, 343, 350-351 Ion (dramatist): 108 Ionic dialect: 83, 91

379

Iphigeneia: 47 Iphinoe: 136 Isis: 13, 17, 26, 141-144, 154 Jason: 126, 129, 131, 178-179, 248249, 252-255, 258, 261-266 Julia Balbilla: 185-186 Justin: 106 Kalonike: 275 Karyai: 174 Kaunos: 204 Kerdon: 281-282, 285-290, 292-293 Kleos (κλέος): 40-41, 43, 47-51, 53-54 Knossos: 233 Koine: 83, 87-91 Koritto: 280-289, 291-292, 294 Kronos: 113-114, 324, 331-332, 334 Kylaithis: 286 Lament: 39-46, 48, 51-54, 169-171, 180, 186 Laodice I: 299 Last Fuckable Day: 359, 372 Lemnos 121-124, 126, 129-131, 135136 Lesbia: 185 Lesbos: 177 Leto: 238 Leucippides: 47 Libya: 103 Lifelike artwork: 67, 69-71 Linear B: 233 Lioness (simile): 221-223, 225 Locus amoenus: 148 Lotus flower: 20-22 Love poetry: 167-168, 177, 182 Love sickness: 116, 307 Lucian: 2, 6, 87, 299-315 De Dea Syria: 305 Phalaris: 87 Pro Imaginibus: 299-315 Lycidas: 99 Lycophron: 8, 35-54 Lycurgus: 122 Lynceus: 26 Lysimachus of Thrace: 14, 147 Maenad: 152 Magas of Cyrene: 100, 104, 106

380

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

Male: passim gaze: 321-322, 328-332, 336-337 oriented genre: 271-279, 284, 286, 291-294 Marriage: 5, 28, 42-44, 46-47, 95-117, 147, 170-171, 180, 201-202, 239, 255, 272, 344, 353 Meda: 47 Medea: 6, 48, 75, 128, 177-178, 222223, 239, 241, 245-266, 343, 347, 352-356 Medusa: 26 Meleager: 9, 163, 183-185 Melinna: 68-69, 71, 197-198 Melinno: 185-186 Melitodes (Persephone): 90; see Persephone Memnon and Zephyr: 28 Memorialisation: 50, 54 Memphis: 20, 26 Mene (moon): see Endymion and Selene Menelaus: 19, 22-23, 115, 325 Menestheus: 111 Menouthis: 17 Messenger (tragic): see Tragedy Metapoetic: 83-84, 91, 271, 273, 290293 Metro: 280-289, 291-292 Metronymic: 198-200 Miletus: 235 Mimiambus: 9-10, 271-295 Moero: 9, 162, 171-173 Mnemosyne: 172 Molorcus: 107, 110 Moon (goddess): see Endymion and Selene Moschus: 7, 341-355 Mother and daughter: 196-202, 204, 206 Motherhood: 128, 294 Mythological exempla: 59, 72 Mytilene: 164-165, 180 Mythology (Egyptian): see Egypt Nausicaa: 7, 246, 252, 254-255, 261, 345, 352, 355 Nemea: 26, 95-96, 99-101, 104-105, 107-109, 112, 117, 122, 127, 132, 134 Nemean games: 26, 122, 335-336

Nereids: 172 Nesteia: 215 Nicias: 182 Nicippe: 148 Nicochares: 108, 122 Nile: 17, 19, 23, 29 Nossis: 3, 9-10, 60, 68, 78, 161-187, 193-209, 271-273, 276, 280-281, 284-285, 289-291, 293-295 Nymphs (Amnisidae): 232, 238, 241242 Observer (in epigrams): see Epigrams Odysseus: 47, 49, 52; see Homer, Odyssey Odyssey: see Homer Oedipus: 219 Old Comedy: 10, 273-276, 279, 294 Olympias (mother of Alexander): 109 Olympus: 98, 228, 250, 265 Omphale: 108 Opheltes: 122-123, 132-134 Orestes: 84 Orpheus: 129 Osiris: 142, 293 Ovid: 226, 314-315 Pandora: 65, 68 Panthea (mistress of Lucius Verus): 301-303, 309 Paris: 22, 47 judgement: 4, 321-324, 327-328, 336 Parodos: 126, 130 Partheneia: 45 Parthenius (river): 238 Pastoral: 11, 59-60, 71, 128, 172 Patroclus: 31, 43 Patronage: 96, 111-112, 117 Pederasty: 359-364, 372-373 Peleus: 98 Penelope: 47, 52, 342-343, 352-353, 356 Pentheus: 152-153, 225 Penthesileia: 47 Pericles: 2 Persephone: 90, 145-147, 151, 216, 220, 228, 247, 252-258, 262, 265, 272, 283, 291, 294, 353, 355

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

Perseus: 26 Phaedimus: 239 Phaedra: 274 Phemius: 342 Philestium: 367 Philinus: 70 Philodemus: 369-370 Philotera: 143 Phrygius and Pieria: 236 Pietas: 122-124 Pinakes: 206, 312 Pindar: 26, 96-99, 101-103, 108, 112, 255, 258-259 Pithom stele: 31-31 Pity: 123-125, 131 Pliny the Elder: 305-306 Plutarch: 166 Polyarchis: 204-205 Polydamna: 20 Polynices: 122 Polypharmakos (πολυφάρμακος): 247, 249 Polyphemus: 52, 61, 70, 77; see Cyclops Polystratus: 301 Polyxena: 47 Polyxo: 127, 134-135 Portrait (of women): see Women Poseidon: 150-151, 355 Posidippus: 9, 13-15, 29, 110-111, 162, 173-177, 180-181, 183-184, 186 Anathematika: 5, 13 Hippika: 15, 110-111 Power: passim divine: 6, 148, 213-217, 232 domestic: 2 erotic: 8, 10, 59-80, 258 political: 5, 139, 151 reproductive: 2 of women: see Women Praise (of women): see Women Praxinoa: 11, 66-70, 83-85, 89-92 Priam: 36-37, 52 Procris: 130 Prometheum (Προμήθειον): 255, 257 Prometheus: 68 Prometheus Bound: 97 Propertius: 314 Proteus: 20

381

Protogenes: 204 Ptah: 20 Ptolemy Ceraunus: 14, 147 Ptolemy II Philadelphus: 13-28, 89-90, 92, 101, 104, 140, 142, 144, 147148, 155-156 Encomium of : see Theocritus Grand Procession of: 142, 148 Ptolemy III: 15, 96, 99-101, 105-106 Punishment: 213, 220-221, 225-226 Pythia: 37-38 Queens: 2, 3, 4-6, 7; see Arsinoe II Philadephus, Berenice II, Berenice Syra Queenship (Hellenistic): 299-315 Reception: 8, 142, 161-162, 180, 186, 209 Reliability: passim Lucianic: 299-300, 302 unreliable narrator: 64 Rhetoric: 7, 121, 131-132, 134-135, 149, 186, 254, 311, 362 rhetorical questions: 135 Roman reception of Hellenistic poetry: 315 Rome: 14, 48-50 Roses: 164-167 Sacred regulations: 332-334, 336 Sappho: 3, 5, 8-9, 13, 24-25, 28, 75, 161-187, 201-203, 292, 294 Alexandrian edition: 13, 24 Schadenfreude: 259 Second Sophistic: 304 Sekmet: 20, 23 Seleucid poetry: 299-315 Self-expression: 43-44 Seteia: 47 Sex and the City: 273, 276-280, 286, 290, 295 Sex-humour: see Humour Sibling Gods: 95, 101, 104-105 Simaetha: 96, 171, 179, 182 Simichidas: 70 Simile: 101, 153, 221-225, 241, 257, 261-263, 306, 310, 345 Simonides: 164-165, 168

382

INDEX RERUM ET NOMINUM

Slavery: 7, 43-44, 108, 110, 121-122, 124, 126, 128, 131, 133, 283, 286287 Sophocles: 46, 127-128, 323, 327 Antigone: 46 Krisis: 327 Lemniai: 127-128 Sophron: 86 Sparta: 231 Speaker (in epigrams): see Epigrams Stobaeus: 166 Strabo: 16 Strato: 362-363, 372 Stratonice (wife of Seleucus I): 6, 299315 Suda: 169, 172 Sybil: 37-39 Symboulos (σύμβουλος): 134 Synesius (Praise of Baldness): 304 Syracuse: 70, 86-88, 90, 92 Taenarian (epithet of Artemis): 240 Talos: 248-252 Teilesia: 174 Telemachus: 342 Telesicrates of Cyrene: 102-104, 108 Thebes: 49, 122 Themistodike: 239 Theocritus: 3, 9, 10-11, 14-15, 30-32, 59-80, 83-92, 97, 107, 113-115, 153-155, 163, 171, 177-183, 185186, 232, 307, 325, 328 Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus: 90 Theoi Adelphoi (cult): 29, 155 Theophilis: 68 Thermopylae: 164 Thersites: 47 Thesmophoria: 215, 221, 227, 272 Thesmophoriazusae: see Aristophanes Thesmophoros: see Demeter Thessaly: 87 Thetis: 98 Theugenis: 182 Theuphilis: 198, 201 Third Syrian War: 116 Thoas: 125 Thrace: 129, 131-132

Thucydides: 2 Timo: 206 Tiresias: 321, 324, 328-332, 336-337 Tithonus: 181 Tragedy: 2, 3, 8, 46-47, 50-51, 53, 97, 121-122, 125, 128-129, 155, 162, 177, 224-225, 263, 321, 324 Attic: 2, 46, 50 tragic messenger: 37 Triopas: 272 Trojan stock: 48-49, 51 Turpilius: 122 Tyndareus: 22 Underwater archaeology: 13, 19 Unreliable narrator: see Reliability Veil: 107-110, 117 Veracity (poetic): 52, 54 Vibrator: 273, 276-280, 286, 289-290, 295 Visuality and epigrams: see Epigrams Voice (female): see Female Votive offerings: 193-194 Weaving: 174-175 and female weavers: 198, 200-202 and poetry: 115, 200-202 Wedding songs: 115, 170-171, 180 Weltanschauung: 136 Womanhood: 35, 44-46 Women: passim as authors: 2-3, 10 in ancient literature: 1 portrait: 194, 205-207 position in the ancient world: 1-12 power of: 1-12 praise of: 195, 197, 204, 206-207 see also Female Xenophon: 325 Xerxes: 84, 311 Zephyr: 28 Zephyritis (Aphrodite): 16 Zephyrium: 17-18 Zeus: 8, 100, 104-105, 112-113, 143144, 228-229, 237, 250, 252, 254255, 258, 260, 262, 343, 345-347, 349-351, 354-356 Zoilos: 206

INDEX LOCORUM

Aelianus fr. 47 Hercher: 227 NA 5.39: 109 Aeschylus Ag. 1280: 42 Ag. 1313-1314: 42 Ag. 1322-1329: 42 Cho. 563-564: 84 Pers. 179-200: 348 Supp. 676: 233n.11 Antipater of Sidon AP 6.47 (43 HE): 366-367 Anyte AP 9.144 (15 HE): 69 Apollonius Rhodius 1.288: 233 1.609-610: 128 1.616-619: 128 1.620-623: 124, 125 1.627-630: 128 1.636-639: 129 1.665-666: 134 1.675-676: 135 1.689-692: 135 1.703-705: 136 1.792: 131 1.793-797: 131 1.798-807: 131 1.807-817: 132 1.818-823: 132 1.824-826: 132 1.1232-33: 179 2.937-939: 238 3.3-5: 265, 265n.102 3.27: 258, 258n.71 3.284: 178 3.286-87: 178 3.288-89: 178 3.291-97: 178 3.616-627: 347, 347n.20, 347n.23, 352

3.858-866: 255 3.871-75: 223n.21 3.876-886: 253, 261, 264 3.877-884: 238-239 3.882: 242 3.883-886: 261 3.898-899: 252 3.962-64: 179 3.967-72: 179n.82 3.1133-1136: 354 4.54-65: 259, 260n.80 4.194: 254 4.442-444: 249n.25, 264 4.1021: 254 4.1673-1677: 248-249, 249n.27 Aristophanes Ran. 187: 240n.39 Th. 477-496: 274 Lys. 107-110: 275 Asclepiades AP 5.203 (7 HE): 205 AP 5.207 (7 HE): 369 AP 11.326 (10 GP): 363 AP 12.36 (46 HE): 361, 363 AP 12.153 (19 HE): 369 Athenaeus 5.197e-202a: 142 5.200d: 142 11.497b-c: 142n.9 Automedon AP 5.129 (1 GP): 370, 370n.19 Bion Epitaph for Adonis 40-42: 74-75 Callimachus Aetia (numbers refer to Harder’s edition unless otherwise indicated) fr. 1.10: 155n.62 fr. 54-60b: 143, 149n.40 fr. 54-60j: 312-313

384

INDEX LOCORUM

fr. 54.1-3: 95, 96n.3, 101, 103n.37, 104 fr. 54.4-6: 105, 106n.44 fr. 54.4-6: 144n.25 fr. 54i.19-20: 110 fr. 60a: 107, 107n.52, 107n.53 fr. 67.9-10: 96, 97, 112 fr. 73: 116 fr. 74.25: 238 fr. 80-84: 235-236 fr. 110: 15, 27-28, 143 fr. 110-110f: 310-311 fr. 110.77-78: 116 Apotheosis of Arsinoe fr. 228 Pf.: 13, 27 fr. 228.5 Pf.: 113, 116 fr. 228.43-45 Pf.: 143 fr. 228.46 Pf.: 143n.21 Diegesis I 27-36 (= fr. 79-79a Pfeiffer/ Harder = 182 Massimilla): 233234 Epigrams AP 13.24: 206 14 GP (5 Pfeiffer): 15-16 15 GP (51 Pfeiffer = AP 5.146): 15 63 GP (63 Pfeiffer = AP 5.23): 369 fragmenta incerta fr. 392 Pf.: 15, 15n.4 Hymn to Zeus 1: 229 2: 143 12: 234 79: 143 Hymn to Apollo 1-7: 214 26-27: 154 109: 155n.62 Hymn to Artemis 15: 242 22-25: 234 83-85: 237 110-112: 253 120-128: 237 126-127: 237 137: 143 162: 242 225: 235

Hymn to Delos: 89 98: 154n.55 162-195: 142n.15 4.257: 234 Hymn to Athena 1: 322, 323, 324, 329 3: 330 4: 144, 322, 323 5-8: 324 13: 322, 325, 325n.14, 325n.15, 329 13-17: 326-327, 332n.38 15: 322, 323 18-28: 327n.22, 328, 328n.23 24-25: 144 27: 322, 323, 327, 329, 330 27-28: 328 30: 144 33: 322, 323, 330, 331 33-34: 329 34: 322, 329 45: 322, 330, 330n.30 47: 322, 330, 330n.30 51-54: 324, 330 56: 322, 331 57: 322, 323, 330 68-69: 331 78: 144n.23, 227n.29, 324, 331 88: 324, 331 96-102: 331-332 134: 322, 323, 330 138: 322, 323, 330 Hymn to Demeter 1: 139n.1 1-7: 214-215 2: 141 6: 145 8-17: 216 9: 143n.21 10-16: 145-146 13: 146 15: 146, 151 17: 146 18: 141 18-21: 147 21: 146n.33 22-23: 227 25-29: 147 28: 147-148 30: 146n.33 31: 146n.33

INDEX LOCORUM

34: 148 37-39: 148 39: 221n.15 39: 149 40: 148 40-49: 217 41: 148 42: 149 45: 149 47: 149 50-52: 149, 153n.53 50-55: 221 53: 149 54-55: 150 56-64: 218 57: 149 58: 149 63-64: 150 65-67: 139, 140, 150 68-70: 225 68-71: 139-140, 145, 150, 152-153, 156 72: 150 72-88: 219 73-86: 150 98: 146n.33 94-95: 150, 152 98-110: 150 102: 227 103-104: 150 104-110: 151-152 111-117: 218-219 113-115: 151 114: 146n.33, 151 116-117: 150, 152-154 118: 139n.1 119: 141 131: 234 134-137: 152 134-138: 229 138: 143, 146n.33 Ia. fr. 202.1: 234 Cassius Dio 79.12.2: 98, 98n.13 Catullus 51: 184-185 CEG 403: 195 CEG 774: 197, 198 CEG 858: 206

385

Conon Narr. 8: 19 Diocles AP 12.35 (4 GP): 371-372 Dioscorides AP 12.169 (8 HE): 371 Eratosthenes Scholasticus AP 5.277: 364-365 Erinna AP 6.352 (3 HE): 67, 206, 207 Distaff fr. 4 Neri: 170-171, 182n.106 Euripides Andr. 2: 97 Bacch. 274-285: 140, 153 812: 152 917: 152 981: 225 1075: 152 1094-1141: 152 1142: 152 Hipp. 161-169: 233n.11 Hipp. 1423-1430: 51 Hyps.: 122 1-5: 127 5: 126 11: 126 101: 134 150: 123 fr. 1: 123, 126, 127, 130 fr. 3: 127 fr. 5: 123 frr. 5-9: 131 fr. 20: 132 fr. 21: 132 fr. 34: 132 fr. 35: 132 fr. 44: 132 fr. 60: 123, 133, 134 frr. 60-87: 133 fr. 64: 127 fr. 64ii: 129 fr. 65: 123 fr. 70: 126

386 fr. fr. fr. fr. fr. fr. fr. fr.

INDEX LOCORUM

75: 123 85: 123 87: 123, 133, 134 91: 129 92: 127 115: 129 753: 123 755: 130

IT 1090-1100: 233n.11 IT 1435-1467: 51 Med. 187: 153n.53 Med. 187-189: 222 Med. 902: 128 Tro. 308-341: 45 Euphorion fr. 9.10-12 Acosta-Hughes & Cusset (= 12 Van Groningen = 11 Lightfoot): 240 fr. 18 Acosta-Hughes & Cusset (= 107 Lightfoot): 313n.46 Flaccus AP 12.12 (10 GP): 372 Hedylus AP 6.292: 205 Herodas Mimiambus 6: 280-287, 290-293 Mimiambus 7: 288, 289 Herodotus 2.41: 144 2.59: 141n.7 2.112-120: 22-23 2.144: 142 6.75: 226 8.114.2: 84 Hesiodus Catalogue of Women fr. 82 Most (= 133 M-W = 49 Hirschberger): 307 Catalogue of Women fr. 200.8-9 M-W: 111 Th. 98-103: 51 Th. 96: 143 Th. 922: 233n.9

Homer Iliad 1.413-418: 40 3.154-158: 24 3.236-242: 24 3.386-387: 24 3.395-418: 24 6.150-221: 92 6.205: 236n.25 6.357-358: 51 6.407-410: 43 6.407-413: 40 6.410-413: 43 6.414-428: 43 6.428: 236n.25 6.429-432: 40 6.431-432: 43 9.186: 51 11.269: 237 15.263ff: 223 16.187: 233n.9 17.133-36: 225n.24 18.51-60: 40 19.38-39: 31n.38 19.59: 236n.25 19.291-294: 43 19.297-300: 43 19.301-302: 43 22.482-485: 43 23.186-187: 31n.38 24.602-617: 237n.26 24.606: 236n.25 24.725-727: 43 24.731-732: 43 24.773: 43 Odyssey 1.277 = 2.196: 97, 97n.8, 97n.9 1.328-359: 342 3: 19 4.73: 148n.38 4.120-127: 19 4.220-221: 22 4.227-230: 23 4.228-9: 20 4.232: 20 4.354-359: 22 6.102-109: 261, 263 6.230-231: 302-304, 309 7.85-97: 148

INDEX LOCORUM

7.91-93: 148 7.115-121: 148 8.461-462: 352 9.96-98: 22 9.368: 52 11.172-173: 237n.28 11.324: 237n.28 15.409-411: 237n.28 15.410: 237n.27 15.460: 148n.38 17.197-253: 151n.47 17.222:151n.47 18.201-205: 237n.28 19.164ff: 52 19.188: 233 20.61-63: 237n.28 20.80-83: 237n.28 23.157-158: 302-304, 309 ‘Homer’ h.Cer. 2-3: 147 6-18: 256 20: 221n.15 49-50: 146n.32 91: 220n.15 119: 223 136: 223 169-181: 223, 223n.21 176: 224 177-178: 224 188-189: 149n.41 200: 146.32 200-201: 221n.15 229: 226n.27 305-309: 146n.32 311-326: 228 428: 257 431: 253 471-474: 151 h.Hom. h.Hom. h.Hom. h.Hom. h.Hom. h.Hom.

5.53-57: 73-74 5.68–74: 262 5.82: 265 5.133: 265 5.198–199: 262 28.9–10: 250

Hymn. Orph. 36.8: 233

387

I.Cair. 22181: 149n.42 I.Cair. 22183: 141n.8, 155n.64 I.Kaunos 51: 204 IG VII 3407: 233 IG XIV 433: 199 Justinus Epit. 24.3.10: 147 Epit. 26.3-8: 106 Leonidas AP 6.200 (38 GP): 236n.23 AP 6.202 (1 GP): 236n.23 AP 6.286: 199 AP 6.288: 200 AP 6.289: 200 AP 6.355: 206 Lucian De Saltatione 28: 2n.2 Phalaris 1.14: 87n.18 Pro Imaginibus 2: 302 Pro Imaginibus 4: 303 Pro Imaginibus 5: 300-301, 303, 305-307, 305n.17, 309 Pro Imaginibus 6: 313 Pro Imaginibus 7: 302 Lucillius AP 11.408 (132 Floridi): 367 Lycophron Alexandra 1-30: 36 31: 39, 44 31-364: 39 52: 44 69: 44 72: 40, 44 87: 47 102: 47 102-103: 47 104: 47 143: 47 183-191: 47 187: 47 196-199: 47 243-244: 40 283: 41

388 284: 40 302: 40 302-306: 40 314: 40 319-322: 47 326-329: 47 348: 44 351: 43 352-356: 43-44 357-362: 42, 44 360: 44 365-366: 42 365-1282: 29 408-412: 42 411-412: 40 412: 44 505: 47 547-548: 47 612-614: 47 771-773: 47 850: 47 850-851: 47 969: 40 993-1007: 47 999-1001: 47 1075-1082: 47 1087-1089: 42 1089: 44 1094-1095: 47 1099-1106: 47 1108: 44 1108-1119: 44 1126-1127: 49, 50n.63 1126-1140: 45, 49 1139-1140: 49 1141: 40 1141-1173: 45, 49 1151: 44 1151-1152: 42 1174: 49 1174-1175: 49 1181: 49 1185-1186: 49 1190-1193: 49 1194-1211: 49 1212-1213: 49 1204-1205: 41 1212: 41, 49

INDEX LOCORUM

1213-1225: 1214-1216: 1226: 49 1226-1231: 1226-1230: 1281-1282: 1283-1450: 1291-1295: 1296-1303: 1307-1312: 1313-1331: 1362-1368: 1372-1373: 1446: 48 1446-1450: 1451-1453: 1454-1460: 1455: 51 1456: 51 1458-1459: 1461-1474: 1463: 52

47 42 50n.62 48 41 39, 47 48 48 48 48 48 52 48 40, 45, 51 45 52 36-38

Maecius AP 5.114 (1 GP): 367 Meleager AP 5.204 (60 HE): 365-366 AP 12.41 (94 HE): 364 AP 12.132a (22 HE): 183 Moero AP 6.119 (1 HE): 172 AP 6.189 (2 HE): 172 Mnemosyne: 172 Moschus 1-27: 345-348, 353 38-42:349 43-62: 349-350 69-71: 345 72-73: 354 74-79: 346 121-148: 354-355 162-166: 343n.10 Nicias AP 6.270 (3 GP): 236n.23

INDEX LOCORUM

Nossis AP 5.170 (1 HE): 165-168, 167n.30, 167n.31, 171, 183n.107, 368 AP 6.265 (3 HE): 198, 200, 202, 203, 208 AP 6.275 (5 HE): 200 AP 6.353 (8 HE): 68, 200 AP 7.718 (11 HE): 163-165, 180181, 200, 202 AP 9.332 (4 HE): 203, 204, 205, 207 ‘Nossis’ AP 6.273 (12 HE): 236n.23, 238 OGIS 15: 144n.28 OGIS 56: 154n.57 Orphica Argonautica 873: 98, 98n.13 Ovid Am. 1.14: 301n.7, 308n.30, 315, 315n.52 Met. 2.340-366: 148n.35 Met. 8.875-878: 226 P.Oxy. 1231 fr. 14.1-14: 24-25 Perses AP 6.272 (2 GP): 236n.23 AP 6.274 (3 GP): 236n.23 Phaedimus AP 6.271 (1 GP): 236n.23, 239 Philodemus AP 5.13 (2 GP = 9 Sider): 366 AP 5.112 (18 GP = 5 Sider): 369 AP 5.124 (10 GP = 16 Sider): 360 AP 5.306 (13 GP = 25 Sider): 369 AP 11.30 (27 GP = 19 Sider): 370 Pindar Isthm. 7.3-5: 140 Nem. 7: 233 Nem. 10: 26-27 Ol. 7.1-12: 101

389

Ol. 9.10: 97 Pyth. 3.94-95: 98, 98n.12 4.43ff: 240n.39 9.3-4: 103 9.26-28: 102 9.30: 102 9.51-59: 102-103 fr. 52.4: 99 Plato Menex. 235e-236b: 2n.4 Tht. 149b: 233 Ti. 23d-3: 144 ‘Plato’ AP 5.79 (4 FGE): 365 Pliny the Elder HN 35.140: 305-306 Plutarch De Is. et Os. 9: 144 Symp. 3.10: 233 Polybius 12.5.6: 198 15.27.1: 141 Posidippus AB 51: 173-175, 181 AB 55: 174 AB 78.1: 111 AB 116: 29 AB 122: 175-176, 183, 184 SH 960: 15 Propertius 2.1.7-8: 314 Rufinus AP 5.22 (8 Page): 371 Sappho fr. 1: 164, 165, 165n.18, 167n.30, 179, 182 fr. 2: 171-172 fr. 16: 166, 166n.24, 170, 170n.44, 180n.88 fr. 31: 173, 176n.73, 177-185, 180n.89, 183n.109, 184n.113

390 fr. fr. fr. fr. fr. fr. fr. fr.

INDEX LOCORUM

47: 179, 179n.83 53: 164 55: 166 99: 292 101: 182 102 V: 201, 202 105 V: 148 156: 181

Schol. Callim. Aetia fr. 2a.1 Harder: 15 Schol. Callim. Hymn. 1.77: 235-236 Schol. Hom. Il. 24.602: 237n.26 Seneca the Younger Med. 11-12: 253n.53 Simonides AP 7.249 (22b FGE): 164-165, 164n.16, 168 Sophocles Aj. 749-780: 37 Ant. 806-882: 46 Lemniai TrGF. 4. 387: 127 Strabo 17.1.16.23: 16 17.1.31.23: 23

2: 36, 171, 179 3.37-39: 62 3.40-42: 72 3.45-47: 73 11: 181 11.39: 148n.36 15: 14, 32, 83-92 15.78-86: 66 15.87-88: 84-85 15.89: 91 15.89-95: 85 15.106-111: 30-31 15.111-125: 148n.39 15.129-130: 113 17: 14-15 17.24: 113-114, 114n.89 17.60: 236 17.106-107: 148n.39 17.112-116: 155n.63 17.123-124: 148n.39 17.128-130: 114 18: 14, 180 18.22-25: 107 18.47-48: 114-115 25.114:97-98 26.2-9: 153 26.21: 153n.53 26.27-30: 153 27.29: 233 27.33-34: 98-99 28: 181-182, 182.n100

Strato AP 12.10 (10 Floridi): 362 AP 12.191 (32 Floridi): 363 AP 12.205 (46 Floridi): 360 AP 12.228 (71 Floridi): 360n.2, 361n.4, 372 AP 12.234 (74 Floridi): 362 AP 12.248 (90 Floridi): 362

Epigram AP 9.599 (17 Gow = 15 HE): 70

Syll.3 434-35: 155-156

Xenophon Mem. II.6.36: 2n.4

Theocritus Idylls 1.32-38: 65

Thucydides 2.45.2: 2 Valerius Flaccus 5.341-349: 253n.53