Oppian's Halieutica: Charting a Didactic Epic 1108840833, 9781108840835

Citation preview

OPPIAN’S HALIEUTICA

Oppian’s Halieutica is a dazzling five-book Greek didactic poem about the sea and its wily, chaotic inhabitants. This book offers the first sustained reading of the poem as a didactic epic that meditates on the place of human beings within the cosmos at large, and on the lessons we can learn from fish. Using a combination of close reading and wider interpretative lenses, this book examines the literary texture and cultural relevance of the Halieutica by analysing its sophisticated refraction of earlier literary-critical theories and hexameter traditions, its commentary on human–animal relations, and its contribution to imperial Greek literary, political, and cultural debates. The book demonstrates the importance and cultural centrality of this understudied Greek didactic epic; it is written for students and scholars of imperial Greek literature and culture (including the ancient novel), ancient heroic and didactic epics, and those interested in human–animal relations in the ancient world.   is Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek Literature in the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Nottingham. She has published widely on Greek literature of the Roman imperial period.

      Series Editors ś , University of Oxford  , University of Cambridge  u¨ , University of Oxford  , King’s College London Founding Editors  .  ś    The Greek culture of the Roman Empire offers a rich field of study. Extraordinary insights can be gained into processes of multicultural contact and exchange, political and ideological conflict, and the creativity of a changing, polyglot empire. During this period, many fundamental elements of Western society were being set in place: from the rise of Christianity, to an influential system of education, to long-lived artistic canons. This series is the first to focus on the response of Greek culture to its Roman imperial setting as a significant phenomenon in its own right. To this end, it will publish original and innovative research in the art, archaeology, epigraphy, history, philosophy, religion, and literature of the empire, with an emphasis on Greek material. Recent titles in the series: The Resurrection of Homer in Imperial Greek Epic: Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica and the Poetics of Impersonation Emma Greensmith Oppian’s Halieutica: Charting a Didactic Epic Emily Kneebone Greek Epigram and Byzantine Culture: Gender, Desire, and Denial in the Age of Justinian Steven D. Smith Painting, Ethics, and Aesthetics in Rome Nathaniel B. Jones

Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Augustan Rome: Rhetoric, Criticism and Historiography Richard Hunter and Casper C. de Jonge Author and Audience in Vitruvius’ De Architectura Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols Visual Style and Constructing Identity in the Hellenistic World: Nemrud Dağ and Commagene under Antiochos I Miguel John Versluys Greek Myths in Roman Art and Culture: Imagery, Values and Identity in Italy,  BC–AD  Zahra Newby

OPPIAN’S HALIEUTICA Charting a Didactic Epic

EMILY KNEEBONE University of Nottingham

University Printing House, Cambridge  , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York,  , USA  Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India  Anson Road, #–/, Singapore  Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ : ./ © Emily Kneebone  This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published  Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Kneebone, Emily, author. : Oppian’s Halieutica : charting a didactic epic / Emily Kneebone, University of Nottingham. Other titles: Greek culture in the Roman world. : Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, . | Series: Greek culture in the Roman world | Includes bibliographical references and index. :   (print) |   (ebook) |   (hardback) |   (paperback) |   (epub) : : Oppian, active nd century. Halieutica. | Didactic poetry, Greek–History and criticism. | Fishes in literature. | Fishing in literature. | Human-animal relationships in literature. :  .   (print) |  . (ebook) |  /.–dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/  ---- Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

The world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations . . . It is a Sea, if we consider the Inhabitants. In the Sea, the greater fish devoure the lesse; and so doe the men of this world too. John Donne, sermon preached at The Hague ( December ) There isn’t any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know. A writer should always know too much. Ernest Hemingway, letter to Bernard Berenson on The Old Man and the Sea ( September )

Contents

Acknowledgements

page xi 

Introduction: On Fishing    





Didactic Epic





Knowledge and Pleasure





Mapping the Sea



    





Guile





Greed





Lust



    





Epic Similes





Analogical Animals





Humans and Other Animals



ix

x

Contents

      



 Locating Monsters



 An Empire of Fish



Bibliography Subject Index Index Locorum

  

Acknowledgements

This book is a study in obsession; it has enjoyed a lengthy gestation and accrued an even longer list of debts, only a few of which can be recorded here. I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my research at both doctoral and postdoctoral levels, and to Trinity Hall and Newnham College, Cambridge, for granting me fellowships in invigorating research environments. As a doctoral student I was fortunate in benefitting from the guidance of Mary Beard, Helen Morales, and William Fitzgerald; I am grateful also to Richard Hunter, who offered invaluable suggestions and support at crucial moments in this project, and especially to Simon Goldhill, who supervised the later stages of my doctoral thesis, and who has dispensed very helpful advice with boundless energy at every stage. I have learned a great deal from friends and colleagues in Cambridge and beyond, amongst whom David Butterfield, Lyndsay Coo, Ian Goh, Johanna Hanink, Daniel Jolowicz, David Thomas, and Shaul Tor deserve particular mention, along with my colleagues on the AHRC-funded Greek Epic of the Roman Empire project. I am very grateful to Oliver Thomas, and to the series editors and anonymous reader, for their generous and incisive comments on the manuscript. Tim Whitmarsh has been an extraordinary mainstay and interlocutor over many years; I could not imagine any of this without him. Finally, this book is dedicated to my parents Roger and Dusia, who have endured and encouraged my preoccupation with Oppian from the start.

xi

Introduction: On Fishing

[There is] a collision in his book; a confusion in the mind of the reader between fish and men . . . And while the fisherman sleeps, we who are presumably reading – but what kind of reading is this when we see through the words Corby’s trees and trout at the bottom of the page? – wonder, what does the fisherman dream? Of all the rivers rushing past – the Eden, the Test, and the Kennet, each river different from the other, each full of shadowy fish, and each fish different from the other; the trout subtle, the salmon ingenious; each with its nerves, with its brain, its mentality that we can dimly penetrate, movements we can mystically anticipate, for just as, suddenly, Greek and Latin sort themselves in a flash, so we understand the minds of fish?

Virginia Woolf, ‘Fishing’

The minds of fish, the dreams and disposition of the angler, and the captivating paradoxes of the fisherman’s art: Virginia Woolf’s essay on fishing addresses the relationship between literature and the natural world, and the status of fishing as a moral, technical, and psychological exercise. In her essay Woolf reviews J. W. Hills’ classic fly-fishing guide, A Summer on the Test (), dwelling on the power of the text to transport the reader into the environment it evokes. Transpose these concerns to the open sea, and her words could delineate the world of Oppian’s Halieutica, a second-century  Greek didactic epic in which fish and men, as well as poetry, politics, and pragmatism, collide before the reader’s eyes. In five hexameter books on fish and fishing, the Halieutica too sets out to ‘penetrate’ a shadowy aquatic domain, portraying the hopes, struggles, and character traits of both humans and the fish they pursue. Each of the poem’s myriad sea-creatures – or rather, each species, for, as often in 

Woolf : –. Woolf remained ambivalent about both fishing and John (‘Jack’) Waller Hills, who had married her stepsister Stella Duckworth shortly before the latter’s premature death in .





Introduction: On Fishing

hunting literature, the individual animal is also synecdochic, representing its kind at large – has its own habits and desires, its own peculiar mentality. Not for nothing did John Henry Newman label Oppian a ‘biographer of brutes’. With this Newman succinctly pinpoints both the spirit of the poet’s enquiry and the savage subject-matter of the poem, which illuminates the ‘lives and loves and enmities of fish’ (Hal. .), as well as the methods for their capture. For Oppian, fish are crafty and baffling carnivores prone to devouring one another without mercy, but creatures also capable of affection, joy, and co-operation. In the ancient world fishing was rarely represented as a dignified and reflective leisure-time pursuit, ‘the contemplative man’s recreation’ evoked in the subtitle to Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler (), still one of the most frequently reprinted books in English. Oppian stresses from the outset that the fisherman’s life is demanding, dangerous, and uncertain: nothing like the pleasant afternoon pastime that occupies a gentleman as he lolls idly by a shady rill, like Walton’s protagonists Venator and Piscator, or the fisherman dozing by Hills’ Hampshire chalk-streams. Oppian specifically differentiates his fisher from the leisurely terrestrial hunter, whose easy, bountiful life is contrasted with the terror and difficulty of life at sea (.–). If for Walton there can be no ‘more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling’, an activity framed as a modernday pastoral idyll, then for Oppian sea-fishing is fraught with a raw elemental danger. The poet is patently fascinated by the spectre of the sea as an unstable environment, an infinite space full of menacing terrors; this is a world closer to the roiling oceans of Melville’s Moby-Dick than to Walton’s quiet, gliding streams. Tossed on the waves in a paltry skiff, 

 



Newman : , marking his distaste for didactic poetry by denying Oppian (perhaps alongside ps.-Oppian) the status of ‘poet’, an overtly Aristotelian critical stance highlighted by his use of Empedocles as the model of ‘an historian of nature’ rather than a poet (on which see further Chapter , pp. –). As Newman puts it, ‘[f]idelity is the primary merit of biography and history; the essence of poetry is fiction’. Unless otherwise specified, unattributed references in this book are to Oppian’s Halieutica, largely following the text of Fajen , and all translations are my own. Like Walton’s Auceptor (introduced in later editions), Oppian’s fowler (.–) is brought in as a third point of contrast, but is dealt with swiftly, leaving the primary contrast that between hunter and fisherman. Walton  [–]: : ‘this kind of fishing, and laying night-hooks, . . . work for the owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice, as you know we have done this last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares under this sycamore, as Virgil’s Tityrus and his Meliboeus did under their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest Scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well-governed Angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us.’

Introduction: On Fishing



‘slaves to the storm-winds’, and ‘ever trembling at the darkening paths of the sea’, ‘the long-suffering fishermen’s labours are devoid of certainty, and unsteady hope beguiles their minds like a dream’. While Woolf’s sleeping fisherman dreams happily of his catch, for Oppian even the fisherman’s dreams collude cruelly with the wave-tossed deep. Part of this contrast is to be located in the dangers of sea-fishing as opposed to the comparative safety of freshwater streams and rivers, but part points also to the prevalent pre-modern conception of fishing as a demanding but banausic profession that occupies a very different conceptual space to its later popularity as a meditative recreational activity. A further facet of that distinction is the fisherman’s relationship to politics. Piscatorial literature tends to represent the sphere of fish and fishing as either a refuge from, or conversely a replication of, human social and political life. Walton’s anglers contrast their peaceful life with that of the busy lawyer or machinating politician; Woolf too opens her review by situating the domains of fishing and politics at opposite ends of a moral and mental spectrum, while ascribing the tension or ‘collision’ between fish and men in Hills’ manual to the fact that its author was not only a devoted fisherman but also a long-time Member of Parliament. Oppian’s sea is an overtly political world. In the Halieutica both the fisherman’s actions and the ‘dog-eat-dog’ tendencies of sea-creatures mark the sea as the site of an endless struggle for power, a battleground in which one species triumphs over another. Fish eat, chase, or elude one another in a manner disconcertingly familiar to the human observer, for all its raw savagery. The carnivorous predations of these creatures reveal the power relations that structure any complex ecosystem, whether terrestrial or aquatic. Fish thus operate as analogues for the human sphere despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that neither can thrive in the other’s natural element; they function as both a mirror and a distorted, cautionary model of the behaviour of humankind. 





.–: δούρασι δ’ ἐν βαιοῖσιν ἀελλάων θεράποντες | πλαζόμενοι, καὶ θυμὸν ἐν οἴδμασιν αἰὲν ἔχοντες, | αἰεὶ μὲν νεφέλην ἰοειδέα παπταίνουσιν, | αἰεὶ δὲ τρομέουσι μελαινόμενον πόρον ἅλμης; .–: τλησιπόνοις δ’ ἁλιεῦσιν ἀτέκμαρτοι μὲν ἄεθλοι, | ἐλπὶς δ’ οὐ σταθερὴ σαίνει φρένας ἠΰτ’ ὄνειρος. Woolf : : ‘While there is a Chinese proverb which says that the fisherman is pure at heart “as a white sea-shell”, there is a Japanese poem, four lines long, which says something so true but at the same time so crude about the hearts of politicians that it had better be left in its original obscurity. It may be this contradiction . . . which has produced a collision in the book, a confusion in the mind of the reader between fish and men.’ As Shakespeare’s fishermen observe in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, ‘“Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.” “Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones”’ (Act II Scene i).



Introduction: On Fishing

In Greco-Roman culture, moreover, fishing often served as a metaphor for power relations at large, and it is telling that the Halieutica should be addressed to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Fishing is a game of strategy, patience, craft, and deception, and for Oppian it operates as a prompt to reflect on intellectual and ethical qualities such as rationality, dissimulation, and manipulation, as well as violence, greed, and desire. Fishing is an act of domination, an imposition of one being’s will on another, and a reminder of the superior mental or physical capacities of the victor; it also marks out the limits of mankind’s control over the natural world. This is a sphere in which a single error can mean death, at times for the fisherman as well as the fish, and it maps with almost startling ease onto the domains of politics and military conflict. The sea has long retained a powerful force as both symbol and reality. As the epigraphs to this book suggest, the rich history of marine symbolism renders literary transition between the two planes almost effortless, at times insuppressible. For John Donne, preaching in , ‘the world is a sea’, and the sea an endless source of metaphorical significance. Expounding on Matthew :–, where Jesus’ first disciples are said to convert rapidly from fishermen to ‘fishers of men’, Donne finds symbolic potential in the sea’s ebbs and floods, in the cleansing potential of its waters, its tempests and calms, and its role not as a place of permanent residence but as a means of transition to new realms. For Donne, the devil deceives those he pursues with hooks and bait, wounding his fish in the catching, whereas the gospel is conceived as a net buoyed up with corks, promising the possibility of an abundant spiritual catch. If men are represented as fish, then fishing becomes an act with the potential for either good or evil, depending on the mode in which it is carried out. The sea is here heavily overdetermined: a space of multiple potential meanings and messages. The Halieutica, as we shall see, makes much of the metaphorical currency of tempests, nets, and bodies of water in ancient thought, and of the multiple valence of fishing, including its potential for misuse. Ernest Hemingway, from whom my second epigraph is drawn, affected to object vehemently to such schematic or overtly symbolic interpretations of the sea and its inhabitants. In response to critics’ identification of what they variously conceived as the allegory, symbolism, metaphor, or religious imagery at the heart of The Old Man and the Sea (), Hemingway instead emphasised the primacy of realism in his work. In a letter to the art critic Bernard Berenson in September , he claimed that ‘there isn’t any symbolism’ in the novel, even as he acknowledged the presence of deeper layers of meaning, a stance that bespeaks a desire to frustrate critical

Oppian’s Halieutica



attempts to ‘decode’ his works. Hemingway purports to write only about the realities of fishermen, fish, and their predators, but alludes nevertheless to his work’s mediation between real and metaphorical planes. A text can be both ‘about’ fishing and at the same time about more than just fishing; it can become a source of wider truths about the world. So too with the Halieutica: this is not an allegory, but a poem in which fish, fishermen, and sea may be read on multiple levels, and which slips easily between the concrete and the abstract, the literal and the literary, the world of fish and that of humankind.

Oppian’s Halieutica The Halieutica was composed by a Cilician during the joint rule of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (– ); little of biographical value is known about the author beyond the information contained in the poem itself. The work is addressed to the emperor and his son, and falls into two parts, the first of which treats fish themselves (books –) and the second the methods for their capture (books –). The first book opens with an invocation to Marcus Aurelius, a syncrisis of hunting, fowling, and fishing, a representation of the emperor fishing, and a meditation on the immensity of the sea. A catalogue of sea-creatures divided by habitat









In an interview for Time magazine, Hemingway also claimed, ‘“No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. That kind of symbol sticks out like raisins in raisin bread . . . I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true”’ (Time,  December : ). Berenson himself responded to precisely this impulse when he characterised The Old Man and the Sea as ‘an idyll of the sea as sea, as un-Byronic and un-Melvillian as Homer himself, and communicated in prose as calm and compelling as Homer’s verse. No real artist symbolizes or allegorizes – and Hemingway is a real artist – but every real work of art exhales symbols and allegories’ (Baker : ). The Halieutica refers only to an Antoninus and his son, but internal and external evidence points to Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. See Mair : xiii–xxiii; Keydell : –; Fajen : viii. Neither the Suda nor the Byzantine Vitae distinguish between the authors of the Halieutica and the Cynegetica, and both poems were attributed to Oppian in antiquity, along with an Ixeutica. The Cynegetica, a four-book didactic poem on hunting, was composed in the early third century, and alludes to the Halieutica throughout; the separate authorship of the two was first established by Schneider in  and has since been accepted near-universally. See Ausfeld ; James : –; Fajen : ix; Hamblenne ; Whitby ; contrast White . Athen. .c includes Oppian in a list of authors of verse Halieutica and prose treatises on fishing, and notes that the poet wrote ‘a little before our time’ (see Chapter , pp. –). The narrative of Oppian’s life in the Byzantine Vitae is interesting in its own right, but is chronologically implausible for the author of the Halieutica and geographically at odds with the claims made by the author of the Cynegetica. See e.g. Colonna ; Mazal ; Hamblenne ; Fajen : ix.



Introduction: On Fishing

prompts the poet’s reflection on the interconnected nature of the elements and the universe; the remainder of the book treats the mating habits of seacreatures, including the fierce love exhibited by animals for their offspring. Book  opens by emphasising the power and munificence of the gods, and focuses on the hostility, guile, and defensive strategies of different species of fish; substantial space is devoted to the mutual enmity between octopus, crayfish, and moray eel, and to the fluctuating fortunes of dolphins. The justice and restraint of the vegetarian grey mullet occasions an extended discussion of the absence of justice from the sea at large, followed by the claim that Justice has only recently entered the mortal sphere as a result of the peaceable reign of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Book  turns from fish to fishing, opening with an aetiological account of Zeus’ defeat of Typhon, whose blood is said to have stained the Cilician banks. The book focuses largely on the gluttony of fish, and on the bait used by fishermen to manipulate this impetuous greed. Book  revolves primarily around lust, offering up a ‘hymn’ to Eros and outlining the methods by which fishermen take advantage of the desires of fish, including their fervent attraction to members of their own species, as well as a range of more outré erotic partnerships; the end of the book treats other methods of capturing fish, some notably violent. The final book of the Halieutica treats large sea-creatures (κήτεα), and is dominated by the dramatic capture of a vast whale or sea-monster. The second half of the book includes a series of anecdotes about the remarkable companionship between humans and dolphins, as well as the sacrilegious dolphinhunts perpetrated by Thracian and Byzantine fishermen; the final vignette of the poem represents the death of a sponge-diver at sea. Supervening on top of the poem’s two-part division between fish and fishing, therefore, is a second organisational principle: the three middle books are devoted respectively to hostility, greed, and lust, a structure that represents the act of fishing as a punishment for moral failings, and that invites the reader to map the lives of fish onto those of men. The poem’s organising categories are heterogeneous, however, and at times material is included that does not fully fit the ostensible theme of the section. Each book is composed primarily of demarcated, self-standing episodes – as with much didactic poetry, there is no unitary or extended narrative plot – while several of these episodes are developed at considerable length or spin into the poet’s wider reflections on pertinent subjects. Subsidiary thematic clusters and motifs recur throughout, as do suggestive patterns, parallels, and juxtapositions between images or episodes; the reader is invited to seek out meaning in these patterns and to draw their own conclusions from the

Oppian’s Halieutica



poet’s selection and juxtaposition of vignettes. The emperor Marcus Aurelius, sometimes together with his son Commodus, is invoked in the proems to each book and at key transitional junctures, but a wider generic addressee is implicit throughout the remainder of the work, and a range of ‘voices’ may be heard in the poem. While Oppian’s factual material is drawn from earlier prose sources rather than direct first-hand observation, the zoological and piscatorial subject-matter of the Halieutica is related with an extraordinary anthropomorphic immediacy. The catalogue format that dominates the opening stretches of the poem soon cedes to a more expansive narrative mode in which a wide array of metaphors and extended similes – perhaps the most striking feature of the Halieutica – constructs a pervasive parallelism between fish and human beings. In more than  similes, metaphors, and analogies of varied length and poetic pedigree, the poet compares fish to a remarkable array of phenomena. These include banqueters, hurricanes, convalescing patients, children at school, animals hunted by predators, warriors in combat, cities under siege, athletes and their eager fans, wayward youths, singers drunk and sober, lawless robbers, and even an anxious grandmother. The poet uses analogy to probe the close relationship between fish, humans, and other animals, showing that sea-creatures are frequently dominated by what seems only a more exaggerated version of the same basic impulses that structure our own lives. Both the elegance of Oppian’s Greek and the imaginative richness of his representation of the marine world have impressed readers from antiquity onwards. Ps.-Oppian’s homage in the form of the Cynegetica, a four-book didactic poem on hunting composed partly as a terrestrial response to the Halieutica, indicates the regard in which the poet was held even by the early third century, while the poem’s influence on imperial Greek poets such as Quintus of Smyrna, Triphiodorus, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Nonnus is evident both linguistically and thematically. The Halieutica remained hugely popular well into Byzantine times (and elicited praise from Eusebius, Jerome, and Eustathius, among others), as the large number of manuscripts, scholia, Vitae, epigrams, references, and a prose paraphrase attest. Yet the poem’s later reception is notable primarily for 

Over seventy (predominantly Byzantine) manuscripts of the Halieutica survive, as well as papyrus fragments. Anonymous epigrams devoted to Oppian indicate that the Halieutica was used as a school text, as do the three families of Byzantine scholia on the poem. Byzantine Vitae are transmitted in several manuscripts of the Halieutica, and a paraphrase of the Halieutica, of which only the second half survives, is attributed to Eutecnius and preserved in a sixth-century manuscript. See Fajen ; Mair: : xiii–xviii. Jerome’s citation of Oppian to support the



Introduction: On Fishing

the contrast between the exceptionally high regard in which the work was held by a few, often very eminent, critics, and its otherwise widespread neglect. No less distinguished a critic than Julius Caesar Scaliger deemed Oppian the greatest of all Greek authors, a man who wrote divinely, and the only Greek poet worthy of comparison to Virgil. In  Sir Thomas Browne observed that Oppian ‘may be read with great delight and profit’, and considered him ‘one of the best Epick Poets’, even as he lamented that ‘his Elegant Lines’ were not more widely known. Widespread popularity continued to elude the Halieutica, however, and in the preface to Diaper and Jones’  translation, John Jones proclaimed his ‘Design of calling Oppian from Oblivion’, remarking that ‘I know not how it happens, but there is scarce any of the Ancients that deserves more, or meets with less Regard.’ During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Halieutica was frequently met not merely with disregard but with outright hostility. In a critical environment widely unsympathetic to post-classical Greek literature, and above all to didactic poetry, the poem was disparaged for its alleged tedium and for the poet’s lack of genuine personal involvement with his derivative factual material. This disdain is in part symptomatic of a predominantly Romantic preoccupation with the supposed

 

 



‘miracle of the  fish’ caught in John : – claiming in his commentary on Ezekiel :– that the Halieutica observes that there are  different species of fish in total – also raises the intriguing possibility that the subject-matter of the poem might have appealed symbolically to Christian readers. On Jerome and the Halieutica see Grant ; on the symbolism of fish in early Christianity see e.g. Gilhus : –, ; Jensen : –. Lilly :  calls the Halieutica ‘a poem that has met with extravagant praise as well as with the coldest neglect’. Cf. Fajen : vii. Scaliger : .: atque Oppianus quidem inter Graecos adeo sublimis est, adeo numerosus, ut eorum unus ad Vergilianam diligentiam aspirasse videatur. Scaliger was particularly fond of the similes of the Halieutica, to which he devotes the best part of this chapter of the Poetics. The poem was translated into Latin in  by Lorenzo Lippi; the editio princeps was published in  in Florence by Junta, and in the sixteenth century four separate editions of the Halieutica were produced, along with another of the Cynegetica only. This proliferation was not without its own problems: in the s Adrien Turnèbe and Jean Bodin levelled against one another accusations of plagiarism over their respective editions of the Cynegetica. Browne : ... Diaper and Jones : Dedication, . William Diaper, whose love of the Halieutica inspired his Sea-Eclogues of  (the marine pastoral poetry lampooned by Pope in his Dunciad), translated only two books of the Halieutica before his death in ; the work was completed by Jones. Scholarship on the Halieutica has often been marred by misfortune: Franz Lehrs died while finishing his edition of Poetae bucolici et didactici in , and neither Rezső Vári nor Kazimierz Kumaniecki finished their planned editions of the Halieutica; Kumaniecki’s work was wholly lost during the destruction of Warsaw in . Even Alexander Mair died shortly after the publication of his Loeb edition of the poem in . Lesky –:  declared that, whilst the Halieutica possesses a certain technical elegance, ‘doch kann diese Versifizierung tradierten Materials trotz manchen Einlagen unser Interesse nicht wacherhalten’; Wilamowitz :  called the poem ‘erschreckend langweilig’, criticising its

Oppian’s Halieutica



spontaneity of the creative process and with a poet’s presumed degree of emotional engagement with their material, as well as a broader concern with the primacy of narrative plot at the expense of less familiar poetic modes. Scholarship on the Halieutica remains sparse even by the standards of imperial Greek poetry, and has tended towards the narrowly linguistic or stylistic in scope. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, studies of Oppian were dominated by analysis of the poet’s vocabulary, biography, and sources, as well as the poem’s relationship to the zoological material transmitted by Aelian. Select linguistic and text-critical aspects of the poem continue to be explored, but more ‘literary’ approaches to the Halieutica are still in their infancy. Even as late as  Bernd Effe could remark upon ‘[d]ie weitgehende Vernachlässigung der Halieutika’ and reasonably state that the pages devoted to Oppian in his typological study of didactic poetry were the first to examine the poem at anything but the most superficial interpretative level. There are signs that Oppian’s fortunes are finally beginning to revive, and over the last fifty years slightly more critical attention has been paid to the poem; the monographs of James , Rebuffat , and Bartley  all offer helpful analysis of isolated aspects of the poem’s linguistic and stylistic techniques.





 



derivative content and genesis in ‘abgestandene Buchweisheit’; Gow :  remarked that ‘one might think [the Halieutica] hardly worth the aureus for every line with which Marcus Aurelius is reported in the Life of the author to have rewarded it’; Latacz :  lent his support to what he described as the communis opinio that ‘Oppians Halieutika weder poetisch noch sachlich besonders bedeutsam sind.’ See Martin ; Lohmeyer ; Ausfeld ; Munno , , ; James . On Oppian and Aelian see Jacobs ; Schöner ; Rudolph ; Wellmann , ; Baumann ; Keydell ; Richmond ; Benedetti . See West ; Gow ; Giangrande . Tomás Silva Sánchez’s unpublished  doctoral thesis offers text-critical and metrical analysis of the Halieutica and Cynegetica. Fritz Fajen’s reassessment of the manuscript tradition of the Halieutica (, , ) has culminated in his  Teubner edition of the Halieutica, the first critical edition of the text since Schneider’s kleinere Ausgabe of . Fajen regards the degree of contamination in the manuscripts as too great to allow the production of a satisfactory stemma; contrast Robin ; Leverenz . Effe :  n. . The Halieutica has been characterised by Hopkinson :  as ‘the most accomplished and attractive didactic poem to survive from the Imperial period’; by Bowersock :  as ‘a work of remarkable subtlety and poetic power’; and by Agosti :  as ‘perhaps the best poem from the first two centuries of the Imperial Age’. James  examines neologisms in the Halieutica, focusing on compound linguistic forms. A chapter of Toohey  (recapitulated, at times verbatim, in Toohey ) addresses the didactic aims of the poem, but treats Oppian and ps.-Oppian as one poet, despite his acknowledgement that they are two, and frequently looks to the Cynegetica to set the tone for the Halieutica, resulting in an often puzzling reading of the poem. In his important articles, Iglesias Zoido examines the poet’s praise of the emperors, the possible influence of Virgil’s Georgics, the structure of the Halieutica, and the poem’s content. Rebuffat  isolates formal ‘compositional



Introduction: On Fishing

A commentary is still a major desideratum, however, and until now no full-scale unified interpretation of the poem has been advanced. This book aims to re-evaluate Oppian, not simply in the sense of restoring the poet’s reputation, but by positioning the Halieutica critically in its wider cultural contexts. Close attention to the poem, I argue, sheds light on the evolving traditions of (didactic) epic poetry, on the literary, social, and political dynamics of the imperial Greek world, and on ancient ideas about nonhuman animals.

Interpretative Contexts The Greeks and Romans were surrounded by fish. This is true not simply in the basic practical sense of their geographical orientation – and that of the Roman empire more broadly – around the Mediterranean Basin, but also, and indeed consequently, as a matter of cumulative cultural exposure: ancient literary and material culture is crammed with representations of sea-creatures. Greek gastronomic texts manifest a pervasive obsession with fish, even a brief glance at Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae reveals, and the Romans adopted and expanded upon this fascination; Ennius’ gastronomic hexameter Hedyphagetica, for instance, advertises its overt debt to Archestratus’ Hedypatheia, while updating its geographical and piscine reference-points. The popularity of specific species on the dinner table was subject to the vagaries of fashion, but evidence suggests that the imperial period marked a further upswing in overall fish consumption. Fish must have contributed to the diet of wide swathes of the population, but the cultivation, presentation, and consumption of highly prized species was also closely indexed to social status and luxury in both Greek and Roman contexts, a notion bolstered not only by the speed at which fresh fish spoils, but by the role of fish as a primarily non-sacrificial food distanced from the religious and communal associations with which the meat of other animals was often invested. In part for these reasons, fish

 

techniques’ in the Halieutica, analysing the poem’s structure, sources, and rhetorical tropes (including catalogue technique, amplification, syncrisis, and gnomai), often relating these constructively to contemporary rhetorical practice; Bartley  offers selective linguistic commentary on features of similes and digressions in the Halieutica and Cynegetica. A number of ongoing PhD projects on the Halieutica and its reception promise to open up new frontiers of research in coming years. Marzano : . See e.g. Davidson ; Marzano , esp. –; Wilkins , esp. , on sacrifice. Tuna were sacrificed to Poseidon, however; on evidence for ancient fish sacrifice see Burkert : ; Durand : –. Deposition of bloodless offerings in sanctuaries must have been more

Interpretative Contexts



were commonly associated with comedy, parody, and satire in both Greek and Roman contexts. For Oppian, however, it is not the economic, comic, or gastronomic qualities of fish that are of central importance – indeed, the Halieutica makes almost no mention of the taste, use, or cost of a particular species – but rather their experiential world. The poet is interested in the habits, environment, characteristics, likes, and dislikes of sea-creatures, in their multifaceted relationships with one another, and above all in the parallels between the behaviour of sea-creatures and that of other species, including human beings. The sea is taken to represent an enticing yet inimical realm, an uncultivated sphere of possibility onto which human beings project their interests and concerns, but one that can never truly be tamed. This is a world filled with creatures both familiar and bizarre; it is a realm of splendour and danger, fertility and destruction. Fish are equally prominent in the visual culture of the ancient world. The Attic and South Italian fish-plates popular in the fifth and fourth centuries , for instance, feature a wide range of marine species, often rendered with impressive attention to detail; the representation of inedible or threatening as well as consumable sea-creatures evokes the bounty of the sea, but also its associated peculiarities and dangers, indicating a fascination with the symbolic as well as the pragmatic or gastronomic value of fish. As when reading a poem about sea-creatures, the diner is able to explore the terror, beauty, and abundance of this sphere from a safe distance; the electric ray may for once be ‘handled’ with impunity. Roman wallpaintings and mosaics from across the empire depict a wide array of seacreatures, portraying both local fauna and a more general vision of the sea as a sphere of jostling abundance. From the Hellenistic period through to late antiquity, mosaics of ‘swimming’ sea-creatures feature both on the floors of bath-houses or pools and (for instance) in triclinia; like the selfcontained episodes that together constitute the Halieutica, a single representative of a given species often occupies its own discrete space on these mosaics, each fish rendered in apparent isolation from the others. Not naturalistic interaction but an impression of diversity and abundance – an almost catalogic representation of different marine species – is the primary focus of these scenes.



common, and fishermen often dedicated their first-fruits or a portion of their catch to deities; zooarchaeological remains offer an important corrective to the picture suggested by written sources. See e.g. Lefèvre-Novaro ; Mylona : –; Theodoropoulou . See Trendall and McPhee , ; Delorme and Roux ; Kunisch .



Introduction: On Fishing

The close relationship between visual and verbal representations of marine life is encapsulated by the recurrent emblem of fierce engagement between an octopus, moray eel, and spiny crayfish. These species were thought to be motivated by a deep hostility towards one another, and their mutually destructive relationship was regarded in antiquity as a paradigm of diversity, violence, and rough natural justice. The conflict between the octopus, eel, and crayfish features prominently in the Halieutica, and is addressed by Aristotle, Pliny, Plutarch, Aelian, and other ancient authors; the intertwined group is also preserved on a large number of Roman wallpaintings and mosaics, including the second-century  Roman wallpainting reproduced on the cover of this book, as well as (for instance) late Hellenistic mosaics from Pompeii, Populonia, and Palestrina, and a late second- or early third-century  mosaic from Gurgi in North Africa. The popularity of the scene in both literature and art bespeaks an ancient fascination with the diverse, intoxicating hostility of the sea. Other ancient mosaics juxtapose fish with fishermen or winged Erotes who act as fishermen; later examples feature marine deities such as Oceanus or Tethys surrounded by fish. Here too parallels may be drawn with the Halieutica, which opens by promising to detail the ‘widely dispersed ranks of all kinds of sea-creatures, Amphitrite’s swimming clan’ (.–), and which exploits long-established associations between Eros and fishing by addressing the god at length in book  and dwelling on the ἔρως that causes these creatures to be caught by the fisherman. Fish, then, loomed large in the ancient imagination, but why a hexameter poem about fish? As a genre, didactic poetry has often puzzled modern critics: no reader of Hesiod’s Works and Days or Virgil’s Georgics, for instance, would be equipped to tend a farm on the basis of the information provided in those poems; nor would ancient farmers typically have read hexameters. Two questions therefore arise: why talk about fish in verse rather than prose; and what is being taught in this poetry, if it does not aim to instruct the would-be fisherman in the technicalities of bait or the mating practices of the sprat? It is important not simply to assume that modern critical practices necessarily map directly onto ancient ones; this book seeks instead to embed the Halieutica in ancient literary theories and interpretative debates. These include ancient discussions about the relative merits of verse and prose, as well as the aims and function of poetry at large; accounts of the close relationship between heroic and didactic epic,  

See further Section ., ‘Similes in Context’. See e.g. Reese : figs. –; Meyboom ; Dunbabin ; Andreae .

Interpretative Contexts



including debates about Homer’s authority as a technical expert; ancient stylistic and rhetorical theory; and traditions of interpreting Greek hexameter poetry that range from the analysis of individual words or tropes to the degree of consonance between epic poetry and the ‘real’ world. Imperial Greek literature has often been regarded as a sphere in which prose predominates. This, it has been suggested, is a world of performative sophistic display, of wit, erudition, and dizzying intellectual games, of novels and satirical dialogues, and a tension between contemporary Roman politics and an overriding obsession with the Greek past. The tenacity and allure of this picture stem in part, of course, from Philostratus’ influential characterisation of the Second Sophistic in his Lives of the Sophists, and important correctives to this picture are emerging. In the first place, none of these characteristics, which are often analysed as symptoms of a sophisticated, self-conscious, and belated culture of paideia, need be restricted to prose; indeed, a number of comparable trends are visible in the Halieutica: the influence of rhetorical practice, a fascination with erotic narratives, the playful, sometimes subversive adaptation of familiar topoi, a studied engagement with the past, including markedly archaising diction, a quasi-sophistic interest in the relationship between nature and culture, and an exploration of different modes of praising – and critiquing – those in power. This is a picture that suggests a more fluid notion of the Second Sophistic as a world in which poetry and prose offered alternative, and often mutually implicated, methods of addressing a wide range of contemporary issues. The popularity of Greek poetry in the imperial period, and the prominence of epic poetry in particular, has often been underestimated, but is at last attracting increasing scholarly interest. The continued importance of epic poetry in this era is evident not only in the fact that Homer remained at the heart of the educational curriculum, and that the sophists mentioned by Philostratus and others frequently quote poetry in their orations, but also in the zeal for the composition, consumption, and (competitive) performance of Greek epic poetry that is attested across the empire. We know of well over  Greek hexameter poems from the imperial period, many fragmentary, anonymous, or known merely from citations, but others as extensive as Quintus of Smyrna’s fourteen books on the Trojan War or Nonnus’ forty-eight books on Dionysus. Attested hexameter works range from lengthy heroic narratives to mythological epyllia to didactic poems, rhetorical exercises, encomiastic or ecphrastic verse, 

See e.g. Miguélez Cavero .



Introduction: On Fishing

centos, paraphrases of the bible, and much more. Didactic epic, moreover, stakes a particular claim in debates over the relative status of poetry and prose: this is a genre that valorises traditional knowledge, but that simultaneously asserts the primacy of poetry over the prose treatises from which it draws. From the first three centuries , substantial Greek didactic poems on geography, fishing, hunting, astrology, and medicine are preserved either in full or in significant part; these are often-neglected poems that have much to add to our understanding of this era. Unlike the long-observed tendency of much Greek literature of this period to eschew explicit references to the Roman imperial present, many didactic poets advertise their close relationship to the political structures of the imperial regime. Nero’s chief physician Andromachus, for instance, dedicates his didactic verse to the emperor; Marcellus of Side’s epitaph records that his medical didactic poetry was acquired by Hadrian and Antoninus Pius for their libraries in Rome; the Halieutica is addressed to Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, and comments directly as well as indirectly on the dynamics of Roman imperial society (not least in the meditation on peace, bellicosity, and the territorial extent of the Roman empire at the end of book ); ps.-Oppian’s Cynegetica opens with a lengthy encomium of Caracalla and his family, offering insights into Severan propaganda and the nature of imperial cult in the East. We witness here an abiding interest in negotiating the complex relationship between (Greek) knowledge and (Roman) power, as well as the relationship between literary history and the imperial present. In Oppian’s poem, the sea and its tribes of flawed and hostile inhabitants becomes an oblique forum for comment on contemporary human power relations and social structures. The Greek culture of the Roman empire is a repository of archived knowledge and of complex, layered literary traditions. To read Oppian is to reflect on the subtle ways in which the interpretation and significance of Homer, Hesiod, Plato, and Aratus, for instance, continued to be debated and reframed well into the imperial period. If one strand of this engagement may be related to a contemporary concern with education, culture, and sophistic display, then a (related) strand draws on cumulative traditions of engagement with earlier texts and authors. Homer and Hesiod are central to the Halieutica in multiple ways: Oppian signals his debt to the 

These include, respectively, the poetry of Dionysius the Periegete; Oppian; ps.-Oppian; Anubio (in elegiacs), Dorotheus of Sidon, and ps.-Manetho; Andromachus of Crete (elegiacs), Damocrates (iambics), and Marcellus of Side.

Interpretative Contexts



depiction of gods and monstrous adversaries in the Theogony, and to the didactic framework of the Works and Days; he refashions martial episodes and similes from the Iliad, elaborates on the figure of Odysseus as cunning seafarer, and draws on both Homeric and Hesiodic depictions of animals. Yet these foundational epics had also accreted a variety of ancient responses and critiques by the second century . These encompass (for instance) the Hesiodic didactic conventions reworked by Aratus, Nicander, and Dionysius the Periegete; Apollonius’ treatment of Homer; and a number of Hellenistic and early imperial interpretative strategies for explaining the Homeric epics. Oppian, in other words, was clearly familiar not only with Homer and Hesiod, but with later responses to these authors. The Halieutica thus announces its intervention in debates about the Homeric epics that range from the circumstances of Odysseus’ death, and the location of his fantastical journeys, to the contested meanings of Homeric hapax legomena. Oppian looks continually to the rich Greek literary tradition for insights into humanity’s relationship with the natural order, and filters these insights through a new imperial lens. This is writing that lies at the intersection between the traditions of heroic and didactic epic, zoological enquiry, and a wider, often philosophically inflected interest in ethics, morality, and the relationship between human and non-human animals. At its core the Halieutica interrogates the comparability of human and animal behaviour, partly through narratives of metamorphosis, animal speech, and interspecies encounters, and above all through the poem’s similes, metaphors, and resolutely anthropomorphic language. This book argues that analogy operates as both the dominant trope and the primary site of meaning in the poem, which strives continually to demonstrate that fish must be evaluated against other creatures, not least human beings (and vice versa). Analogy, for Oppian, is both a literary and a didactic device: it allows him to refract earlier Greek literature through a distinctively fishy lens, and it positions sea-creatures in relation to other animals, revealing the fundamental connections that undergird the cosmos. In this the poet builds on a range of ancient modes of aligning human and animal life: not only the animal similes of the Homeric epics, but also analogical omens, oracles, and fables, each of which assumes a high degree of consonance between human and animal existence. Like these, and to a far greater degree than more crisply ‘scientific’ prose authors, Oppian insistently applies the vocabulary of human social structures, emotions, and behaviour to non-humans, an 

On fables and related analogical modes, see Adrados , esp. –.



Introduction: On Fishing

act that urges the reader to confront the question of precisely what differentiates and connects the two. By the second century these were issues with lengthy pedigrees. Ancient philosophical and biological approaches to the relationship between humans and (other) animals are manifold, but a central contribution was Aristotle’s delineation, on the one hand, of the attributes common to many species (including human beings), and on the other his emphasis on certain crucial differences between humans and non-humans. Important here is Aristotle’s claim that the relationship between human and animal intelligence is primarily one of partial analogy rather than complete equivalence, and that certain virtues are only fully developed in humans, although they may be present in trace form in other animals. The issue of animal intelligence had long functioned as a fault-line for ancient thinkers, and early interest in the contiguities between human and animal life was successively refined and narrowed by philosophers such as Alcmaeon of Croton, Aristotle, and Chrysippus, who each in different ways denied animals the understanding or, in Aristotle’s crucial formulation, the reason (logos) that was taken to characterise human existence (although they allowed animals more basic perceptual faculties). The hard-line Stoic formulation of this position was influential in its uncompromising distinction between human rationality and animal irrationality, and in its suggestion that moral responsibility should be predicated on the possession of rational faculties. The Stoic claim that animals were motivated not by reason but by impulse was thus linked to the assertion that rational beings could recognise no bond of kinship or belonging, no oikeiōsis – and so no relationship of justice – with irrational beings, and that humans consequently bore no ethical responsibilities towards animals. Rationality is here taken to have a significant ethical corollary. Authors of the imperial period were clearly much exercised by these questions, and by the degree of consonance to be discerned between humans and other animals. Aelian’s early third-century treatise On the Characteristics of Animals, which shares much zoological and piscatorial material with the Halieutica, showcases a complex, philosophically – and in part Stoically – inflected interest in the virtues and intelligence of animals relative to human beings. Aelian both opens and concludes his treatise by comparing the degree to which humans and animals possess an   

See e.g. Arist. HA .a–b, .a–b–; Lennox ; Leunissen . On which see e.g. Dierauer ; Sorabji ; G. Steiner . See esp. Sorabji : –.

Interpretative Contexts



array of characteristics ranging from rationality to justice, devotion, selfcontrol, piety, and bravery. Aelian differs from Oppian, however, in placing substantial emphasis on the gulf between the rationality of humans and the irrationality of animals, even as he declares that animals are often endowed with a far greater natural virtue. Other thinkers objected more vehemently to the extremity of the Stoic position on animals. Plutarch, for instance, often insists on the intellectual kinship between human and non-humans, and his treatise on the intelligence of animals (De sollertia animalium) is shaped by the conviction that all animals share to some degree in reason. This treatise is also revealing for its pronounced interest in the peculiar qualities of sea-creatures: in response to the allegation that marine animals are devoid of intelligence and virtue, prone only to violence, their advocate Phaedimus alleges that sea-creatures may be less immediately accessible to us, and so less moulded by human contact than are terrestrial animals, but on closer inspection they prove surprisingly intelligent and responsive, and are often endowed with a strong sense of community spirit and mutual affection. It is, he implies, primarily because of our own ignorance and terrestrial location that we assume land animals to be necessarily more ‘like us’. Oppian too makes much of both the guile and the virtues of sea-creatures, and his marine world becomes not only an intellectual and physical battleground, but also a sphere for comparison between different species, not least fish and men. The poet is evidently fascinated by the status of the sea as a sphere of untapped wilderness and yet surprisingly familiar behaviour; and while his humans often emerge as triumphant victors over base animal impulse, it is by no means inevitable that they will always outwit the fish they pursue. The Halieutica thus posits a fundamental ethical and behavioural consonance between humans and other species: in both positive and negative contexts, humans are shown to behave in ways broadly indistinguishable from other animals, which are not necessarily demarcated – as they are for Aelian – either by an essential ‘natural’ virtue or by their substantial noetic distance from mankind. Recent critical theory has made much of the ‘posthuman turn’, an attempt to displace the alleged Western perception (in part rooted in selective reading of ancient sources) of humanity as distinct from and dominant over nature, and instead to understand the

 

 See further Section ., ‘Imperial Animals’. On Plutarch’s ethics see Newmyer . See esp. Plut. De sollert. anim. e–e, c.



Introduction: On Fishing

entire planetary ecology as interrelated in a non-hierarchical way. The Halieutica speaks to these debates, without being reducible to their terms. The poem tests and explores the relationship between human and nonhuman animals, showing that the supposedly alien world of fish proves the best vehicle for exploring the connections between the world’s constituent parts, as well as the limits of our ability to comprehend these puzzling beings.

Overview This book considers how the Halieutica reframes both didactic and heroic epic traditions, how it conceives of the relationship between humans and animals, and how it represents and negotiates its imperial context. My primary aim throughout is to examine the poem as a didactic epic, taking both halves of that label equally seriously. A central tenet of my approach is that the poetic status of the Halieutica, and above all its orientation towards Greek hexameter traditions, is not simply a decorative veneer that adorns the work’s bare transmission of technical facts, but that its poeticism lies at the heart of its didactic programme. Oppian adapts longestablished hexameter traditions in order to reflect on questions of morality and epistemology, on the relationship between Greek knowledge and Roman power, and on the close and complex relationship between humans and other living beings, moving with remarkable facility between the literal and the metaphorical, the practical and the abstract. My study is divided into four related parts. Part I examines the didactic drive of the Halieutica. The first chapter grounds the poem in ancient debates about didactic poetry, aiming to move beyond a long-entrenched critical preoccupation with the alleged artificiality of the genre by examining the paradigms through which ancient authors conceived of the relationship between heroic and didactic epic, as well as the connections between poetic, moral, and technical expertise. The proximity of didactic to heroic epic, I argue, constitutes less a generic problem than a realm of fruitful intersection between related hexameter traditions, and one that Oppian exploits by drawing from multiple epic precedents. Chapter  builds on these arguments by examining the didactic programme of the  

For posthumanism and the Classics, see now the collections of Bianchi, Brill, and Holmes ; Chesi and Spiegel . I use a wide range of terms in this book, including human, animal, mankind, and human and nonhuman animal, not without due consideration for the implications of nomenclature, but in an attempt to reflect aspects of ancient as well as contemporary usage.

Overview



Halieutica, assessing the poem’s claims about its own aims and status, and contextualising its strategies in light of ancient literary-critical debates. Oppian makes no claims about the immediate practical benefits of his poetry, and he writes with the expertise of a poet, not a fisherman. The poem, however, has much to teach its readers about the forces that dominate life at sea. I suggest that its didacticism lies primarily in its ethical rather than its technical guidance: the poet reveals the manifold flaws and errors that lead to the downfall of fish, and a pattern of transgression and punishment lies at the heart of the Halieutica. I map these patterns firstly by exploring the manner in which Oppian represents the sea as a (quasi-Hesiodic) sphere of lawless injustice, and a source of moral as well as zoological precepts, and secondly by examining the language in which the poet represents his own verse and its effects on the addressee. Rather than presuppose a necessarily uneasy opposition between form and content in didactic poetry, this chapter argues that we should instead take seriously Oppian’s promise to offer his readers both education and pleasure, and pay attention to his claims about the sweetness of his verse. Chapter  examines the didactic world-view articulated in the proem of the Halieutica, focusing on its densely allusive investigation of knowledge, toil, and the interpretation of signs necessitated by this difficult realm. The poet’s representation of the sea as an epistemological space programmatically evokes the didactic poetry of Hesiod, Aratus, Nicander, and Dionysius the Periegete, and demands to be situated within the evolving dynamics of a vibrant Greek didactic tradition that asks questions about immensity, visibility, and the relationship between divine and human knowledge. Part II turns from didactic to heroic epic models, and develops the arguments made in Part I by examining the moral structure of Oppian’s marine world. The three chapters in this section explore (respectively) the patterns of guile, greed, and lust that dominate life at sea. The poet, I argue, exhorts his readers to learn not only about fish, but also from them, revealing the ways in which the flaws exhibited by these creatures lead inevitably to retribution and death. In focusing on crafty deception and the downfall of appetitive fish, the poet adapts a cluster of cultural and literary topoi for a new marine environment, offering a fresh perspective on ancient debates about trickery and force, the tyranny of the stomach, and the destructive power of excessive desire. Chapters  and  also draw out the Odyssean overtones with which the act of fishing is imbued in the Halieutica. Odysseus becomes the archetypal seafarer and a model for the fisherman himself, a patient, wily trickster, and a figure whose



Introduction: On Fishing

knowledge about the sea and its inhabitants is placed under serious scrutiny; fish, on the other hand, are said to be dominated primarily by indolence, greed, rashness, and lust, and are assimilated to the ill-fated suitors, as well as to the Odyssey’s wider concern with the deadly consequences of immoral behaviour. Chapter  explores how the poet’s fixation on the perils of emotional excess emerges in book  as a concern over the choice of the ‘correct’ form of eros, a notion with a complex literary and philosophical heritage. The three chapters in this section together trace the ways in which Oppian reinvigorates his predecessors’ metaphorical language, adapting and reliteralising the metaphors of fluidity, capture, and storm-tossed seas that pervade the Greek literary tradition. The poet delights in the slippage between the literal and the literary, using the world of fish to breathe new life into a series of long-standing debates about poetry, ethics, and bodily desires. Part III examines the analogies drawn in the poem between human and non-human animals. Chapter  examines the function of Oppian’s extended similes as both a pedagogical catalyst and a site of engagement with the heroic epic tradition. The violent savagery of fish in the Halieutica is depicted not as the inevitable consequence of the biological food chain, but as a mode of destructive warfare that is assimilated to epic paradigms of battle, and to the Iliad in particular. Oppian, I show, pays minute attention to the dynamics of epic similes, and responds to ancient critical debates about Homeric practice; his extended similes illuminate the relationship between fish and other forms of life, comment on the instability of life at sea, and distil Homeric narratives in order to draw attention to the devastating effects of warfare. Chapter  expands on the implications of these arguments, demonstrating that the poet looks above all to Homeric representations of the close relationship between human and non-human animals; this interest is traced through scholiastic discussions of animals in the Iliad and Odyssey, as well as ancient scrutiny of the application of ‘human’ vocabulary to non-humans. Oppian displays a pronounced intellectual interest in the analogical relationship between sea-creatures and other forms of life, and in the underlying connections that structure the world. Chapter  examines the radical blurring of human and animal life in the Halieutica, setting the poem’s interest in erotic relations, metamorphosis, and animal speech in the context of a wider imperial Greek interest in the (sexual) habits of animals, the relationship between nature and culture, and the permeability of the boundaries between human and non-human animals.

Overview



Part IV focuses on the sea as a simultaneously real and mythical space, exploring Oppian’s interest in probing the juncture between the two. Chapter  examines the vast sea-creature whose capture dominates the final book of the poem: this is a densely intertextual battle with a mysterious beast that that absorbs into itself the monstrous threats of the supersaturated epic tradition. In part through its very excess, the encounter foregrounds the status of epic as a genre, and I suggest that the poet evokes a range of rationalising strategies used by ancient authors to scrutinise the relationship between epic poetry and the contemporary world. At stake here is the generic status of didactic poetry itself. Finally, Chapter  looks at the poet’s representation of the sea as a territory located simultaneously within and beyond the empire ruled by its addressee Marcus Aurelius. The depiction of the current regime, especially in the discussion of Justice at the end of book , reframes didactic precedents in order to scrutinise the nature of contemporary imperial rule, offering a cautionary image of a quasi-bestial human existence characterised by bloodshed and war. Oppian’s sea becomes a distorted mirror image of human life that both celebrates and assesses the credibility of Roman imperial rhetoric, and the poet acts in the role of the imperial advisor who harnesses Greek traditions in order to speak truth to (Roman) power by looking at animal life.

 

Didactic Poetry

 

Didactic Epic

. Poetry and Truth Didactic poetry has fallen firmly out of favour as a contemporary genre: it is a literary form rarely used by modern authors and seldom read by the twenty-first-century public. A remark in Shelley’s preface to Prometheus Unbound () offers one enduring explanation for its demise: ‘Didactic poetry is my abhorrence; nothing can be equally well expressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in verse.’ Why write in verse, the argument runs, if one aims at clarity and pedagogical precision; conversely, why aim to communicate factual information if one values sublimity and the poetic imagination? A technical manual in verse fits the perceived role of neither poetry nor prose. Yet for thousands of years – from antiquity well into the eighteenth century – didactic poems were not only avidly read but were produced with astonishing frequency in both Latin and the European vernaculars. Many of these works were modelled on classical didactic poems, drawing above all from Virgil and Lucretius; some trod the familiar classical terrain of farming, hunting, astronomy, and philosophy, while others ventured further afield, spanning topics as diverse as monarchy, music, magnetism, chocolate, childbirth, electricity, earthquakes, syphilis, cider, silk-worms, 

See Haye  on medieval Latin didactic; Roellenbleck  on Italian Renaissance didactic; Schmidt  on sixteenth-century French scientific didactic; Albertsen  on (primarily) seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German didactic, with Jäger ; Siegrist  on Enlightenment didactic, with Albertsen ; Ludwig  on Renaissance and Enlightenment neo-Latin didactic, esp. - on late-eighteenth-century generic self-consciousness; Haskell  on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Latin Jesuit didactic poetry, esp. – on poetic theory and continuities between Italian Renaissance and Enlightenment didactic; Schuler  on English scientific didactic poems from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment; Schuler and Fitch : – on scientific didactic poetry from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century; Broich  on didactic in English classicism; Steiner  on eighteenth-century philosophical didactic; Wondrich  on European didactic from antiquity to the Renaissance. The collections of Ruys  and Glaisyer and Pennell  examine medieval and early modern didactic prose and poetry.





Didactic Epic

sugar-cane, dancing, and gunpowder. As Joseph Trapp observed in , ‘any Thing in the World may be the Subject of this Kind of Poem [sc. didactic poetry]: The Business or Recreations of the City, or the Country; even the Conduct of common Life, and civil Converse’. Over  Latin didactic poems are known from the early modern period, to say nothing of those in the vernacular. The diversity and popularity of these works is staggering. Modern views of the genre, however, have been shaped less by the former popularity of didactic poetry than by its subsequent disparagement. Didactic poetry has begun to enjoy greater popularity as a topic of research across the humanities, yet a widespread lack of sympathy towards this literary form has engendered assumptions and misconceptions that continue to impede our understanding both of the wider genre and of individual didactic poems. This holds true not just of the Halieutica but of the many ancient didactic poems that have yet to receive the sophisticated critical attention from which Hesiod’s Works and Days, Lucretius’ De rerum natura, and Virgil’s Georgics have long benefitted. One of the key challenges facing the study of ancient didactic poetry is a general perplexity about its status and function, as well as the grounds for its former popularity. The genesis of this concern or suspicion can be traced most clearly in eighteenth-century critical attitudes towards didactic poetry. This is a period in which didactic poetry began to be scrutinised and defined more systematically as a literary genre, and that witnessed not only its 

  

Subject-matter is just one area in which the influence of classical didactic traditions may be traced, and many didactic poems treat ‘unclassical’ themes but are influenced by classical didactic poetry. Indeed, part of the lasting allure of didactic poetry must have been the opportunity it furnished to update an ancient model by treating very different material. Trapp : , outlining further didactic ventures to be undertaken by the ambitious poet. Times are beginning to change, however, and recent work on (for instance) Nicander, Dionysius the Periegete, ps.-Manetho, Grattius, and Manilius is opening up new advances on this front. The term ‘didactic poetry’ is an invention of this era, as is the German ‘Lehrgedicht’ in its more circumscribed modern sense. Although Warton’s Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope () is often credited with introducing the term ‘didactic poetry’, the earliest English attestation I have found is the lecture given by Joseph Trapp, first Professor of Poetry at Oxford, De poemate didactico seu præceptivo, published in his Praelectiones poeticae in  and translated as ‘Of Didactic or Preceptive Poetry’ in ; see Trapp : –; Trapp : –. The first English work explicitly to categorise itself as such is Richard Shepherd’s three-book The Nuptials: A Didactick Poem (). The term ‘Lehrgedicht(e)’ was coined by the German poet Georg Philipp Harsdörffer in , but was used of fable and educative literature in both verse and prose. On the term’s etymology, Haye :  corrects Albertsen : ; on its politics see Albertsen ; Albertsen : . As with ‘didactic poetry’, a certain inconsistency surrounds the term ‘Lehrgedicht’ until the mid-eighteenth century, and it was also used, for instance, of moralising epic.

. Poetry and Truth



immense popularity but also the emergent critical dissatisfaction that would eventually sound the genre’s death-knell. Didactic anthologies such as François Oudin’s three-volume Poemata didascalica, first published in , attest to the widespread appeal and continued composition of such poetry, particularly in Jesuit circles, while – taking English didactic poetry only by way of example – poems such as John Philips’ Cyder (), Christopher Smart’s The Hop-Garden (), and John Dyer’s The Fleece () indicate the degree to which the genre’s prominence was propelled by a renewed interest in ‘translating’ classical didactic topics into the vernacular. This popularity itself engendered disenchantment, however, as the young but already well-regarded poet Joseph Warton proclaimed in the ‘Advertisement’ to his Odes on Various Subjects (): ‘The Public has been so much accustom’d of late to didactic Poetry alone, and Essays on moral Subjects, that any work where the imagination is much indulged, will perhaps not be relished or regarded. The author . . . is convinced that the fashion of moralizing in verse has been carried too far, and as he looks upon Invention and Imagination to be the chief faculties of a Poet, so he will be happy if the following Odes may be look’d upon as an attempt to bring back Poetry into its right channel.’ Warton went on to explore these sentiments more fully in his controversial Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, which drew a sharp distinction between the stern reason of didacticism and the imagination and emotion of ‘pure poetry’. Warton’s claims were both symptom and catalyst of a widespread reevaluation of the literary canon that took place in subsequent decades, and by the early nineteenth century didactic poetry was ever more frequently denounced. In the words of one critic, ‘didactic verse seemed not just







Didactic verse had been composed for centuries, of course, and its validity as a form of poetry had long been subject to debate, especially in Renaissance Italy, catalysed in part by Aristotle’s criticism of Empedocles in the Poetics; see Hathaway : –. Yet it is largely in the eighteenth century that efforts were made across Europe to define the origins and characteristics of didactic poetry, and to distinguish it from (for instance) instructive prose, verse epistles, and descriptive poetry. The essay was published anonymously in two volumes ( and ). Warton characterises didactic, satiric, and moral poetry as second-class verse to be differentiated from ‘pure poetry’; see esp. Warton : iv–v, x. For pure poetry cf. Batteux’s exclusion of ‘les Poëmes didactiques’ from ‘Poësie pure’ in his Les Beaux-Arts réduits à un même principe (); cf. Mossop : –. See Chandler : ; Leedy ; Amarasinghe ; Patey ; Ross . As Leedy :  puts it, ‘Warton helped . . . to establish a dichotomy between what he called the man of “sense” and the “true poet.” Consciously or otherwise, he was helping to establish the fundamental cleavage between classicism and romanticism as they worked themselves out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.’



Didactic Epic

marginal but antithetical to Romantic conceptions of poetry’. If, as Wordsworth claimed in the preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (), ‘all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’, then the studied organisation and meticulous instruction taken to typify didactic poetry often seemed to pull against that spontaneity. Didactic poetry continued to be composed and enjoyed, of course, and Erasmus Darwin’s two-part didactic poem The Botanic Garden (, ) was enormously popular even in the face of contemporary ridicule. Yet the turn of the tide may be discerned across the Atlantic as well: Edgar Allan Poe’s posthumously published The Poetic Principle (), for instance, rails at the ‘corruption’ induced in poetry by didacticism, which he denounces as an ‘enemy’ of poetry. For Poe, didactic poetry is a contradiction in terms, an amalgam of fundamentally incompatible principles. As he puts it, ‘[h]e must be blind indeed who does not perceive the radical and chasmal difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.’ ‘Didacticism’, then, is frequently more than the recognition of a text’s instructive orientation: it is an aesthetic judgement, even an accusation. As 



 



Duff : . Analogous developments may be traced in German attitudes towards the genre: Lessing would not allow that Lucretius was a poet; Goethe :  maintained that didactic poetry ‘ist und bleibt ein Mittelgeschöpf zwischen Poesie und Rhetorik’; Hegel declared that didactic poetry could not be considered true art. See e.g. Fabian : . Such a schematic overview inevitably overstates the discontinuities between epochs, and the picture is naturally more complex; see e.g. Cohen  and Siskin : – on georgic poetry in this period. Not even the Romantics, moreover, subscribed in full to pronouncements about the incompatibility of poetry and instruction, and a gap between theory and practice is often to be observed. Many of the critics who railed against didactic poetry adhered to a strongly educative agenda elsewhere in their works; Wordsworth remarked that ‘[e]very great poet is a Teacher – I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing’, (de Selincourt : ), and his didacticism was noted by critics and admirers alike. Cf. Duff : : ‘when Romantic authors denounced or defined themselves against didactic writing, they were not simply engaging in a long-running quarrel with Neoclassicism and “the French School” of Dryden and Pope, but also responding to tendencies within their own literary culture and, more often than not, within themselves’. See also Tucker : – on moral didacticism in Victorian epic. Such attitudes endured: in his article on didactic poetry in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, the poet and critic Edmund Gosse asserts that the genre ‘became irrevocably obsolete at the close of the th century’ (: ), and that didactic poetry ‘had already been exposed, and discouraged, by the teaching of Wordsworth, who had insisted on the imperative necessity of charging all poetry with imagination and passion . . . Since the days of Coleridge and Shelley it has been almost impossible to conceive a poet of any value composing in verse a work written with the purpose of inculcating useful information.’ To Gosse, the genesis of didactic poetry in antiquity is merely a reminder of the scientific and technical naivety of the ancient world. Thompson : .

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



Willard Spiegelman remarks, ‘perhaps it should simply be acknowledged that ‘didactic’ is one poet’s opprobrious term for another’s work not to his liking. To call something didactic is to call it bad, superficial, preachy.’ Preconceptions about the artificiality of didactic poetry often still inform the reception of ancient didactic poetry, as does the conviction that such poetry must be not only dry, but by necessity dominated by a tension, gulf, or incompatibility between its factual and poetic elements. While those ancient literary genres still composed or enjoyed today are also liable at times to be misunderstood, denigrated, or interpreted anachronistically, even sophisticated criticism has often struggled to make sense of ancient didactic poetry, cleaving to a perceived incompatibility between instruction and pleasure, fact and poetry. Yet while this tension may characterise some didactic poems, and was of course formulated in analogous terms by some ancient poets and literary critics, we need not regard it as the defining feature of all didactic poems. By focusing primarily on the supposed dichotomy between form and content, I suggest, we frequently overlook more important dynamics in didactic poetry. Analysis of the Halieutica, for instance, has tended either to examine the technical content of the poem to the detriment of its poeticism (establishing the provenance and accuracy of Oppian’s piscatorial information, for instance), or to discuss the ‘ornamental’ aspects of the poem (its similes or literary allusivity) while dismissing its didactic aspirations altogether. This book argues that it is important not only to take didacticism seriously but also to consider how a work’s poetic qualities might not oppose but even advance its didactic cause.

. Ancient Didactic Poetry Didactic poetry was enormously successful in the ancient world. The influence of Hesiod’s Works and Days pervades Greek (and Latin) literature from its very inception, while – to take an example from Oppian’s own time – far more Greek didactic verse survives from the Antonine period 





Spiegelman : ; cf. Duff : : ‘we continue to apply double standards, reserving the term ‘didactic’ for texts whose palpable designs we disagree with, and calling by some other name those whose ideological motivations we approve’. Thus e.g. Cox : : ‘The improbable art of harnessing poetry to severely technical instruction originated almost accidentally in Greece, blossomed near-miraculously in Rome, and was never afterwards to be convincingly revived . . . Many would now claim that the art-form is defunct because it is in principle impossible (resting upon a fusion of incompatible elements)’; cf. EvelynWhite : x–xi. See e.g. Boys-Stones and Haubold ; Koning ; Hunter ; Van Noorden .



Didactic Epic

than does narrative epic. The explosion of didactic poetry in the Hellenistic and imperial periods is especially impressive: even given the partial state of our information, we know of more than fifty Hellenistic and imperial didactic poems in Greek alone, ranging in subject-matter from stones to flowers to astrology, medicine, geography, mathematics, and dried fish. The function of this poetry continues to perplex us, however, and some of the most important and difficult questions to arise from the study of ancient didactic poetry tackle the issue of didacticism. Critics have debated, for instance, the degree to which the ‘real’ aims of ancient didactic poems correspond to their purported field of instruction. It is often difficult to reconcile the technical information conveyed in much ancient didactic poetry with the fact that these poems would prove of limited practical use to an expert in that field, even were the average farmer or fisherman to read verse; the uninformed layman, on the other hand, would encounter considerable difficulties in implementing the technical instructions set out in such poetry, which tends to be evocative rather than systematic. If its factual material is presented in a manner that is comprehensive and detailed enough neither for the expert nor for the layman, then how is such poetry ‘didactic’? Who was meant to read it, and to what end? In response to such questions, scholars have attempted variously to distinguish different types of didactic poetry, to redefine the parameters of the genre, to claim that instruction is not the aim of (many) didactic poems, and to identify in them a broad, quasi-allegorical import or social commentary. Some have returned to the view that we ought to regard didactic poems as elite ‘coffee-table books’, works designed to convey an intellectually and aesthetically appealing sample of a topic without requiring practical engagement with its subject-matter. Ancient evidence for reading contexts is hard to come by: didactic poetry may be predicated on the idea that it will educate the reader in some way, but we are able to recover disappointingly little about the manner in which such poetry was read, or was even intended to be read. Nor can we assume that the reception histories of ancient didactic poems, even where these can be    

Although, as Bowie :  observes, ‘our picture may be skewed by the greater capacity for survival of apparently useful didactic poetry’. See Sider : – on Hellenistic didactic. This is a question that naturally applies to the ‘practical’ more than the ‘theoretical’ branch of ancient didactic poetry, to adopt the distinction drawn in the Tractatus Coislinianus. Dalzell : –; Volk : .

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



adequately reconstructed, map straightforwardly onto their original function. Equally taxing is the question of genre. As far as may be gathered from the scant and sometimes contradictory evidence, few ancient theoretical discussions of literature seem to have conceived of didactic poetry as a genre distinct from other forms of hexameter verse. Didactic poems are usually discussed by ancient critics either as individual works or in undifferentiated conjunction with narrative epic poems, a tendency related to the fact that much ancient literary criticism classifies poetry according to metre, thereby subsuming didactic poetry into the wider category of epic. Quintilian’s discussion of epic poetry, for instance, encompasses not only heroic epic, but also epyllion, bucolic, and didactic poetry, a stance typical of ancient attitudes at large. If ancient theoretical discussions tend to incorporate didactic poetry into the expansive territory of epic, then alternative systems of categorisation are limited largely to those who argue for the primacy of subjectmatter over metre. Aristotle’s famous verdict in the Poetics is that the non-mimetic quality of Empedocles’ verse renders him not a poet but a φυσιολόγος, a natural philosopher whose affinity to the ποιητής Homer is limited to their common use of the hexameter form. The premise from   







See Pöhlmann : –; Kroll ; Effe : –; Russell : –, –; Lausberg ; Gale : –; Dalzell : –; Volk : –; Käßer : –. See Farrell , esp. –; Pöhlmann : –; Steinmetz ; Zetzel : –. Quint. Inst. ..–. Even when Quintilian remarks on a key difference between narrative and didactic epic, this is framed not as a different kind of epic but as a criticism of Aratus as a poet (Inst. .., itself overlooking Dike’s speech at Phaen. –); cf. Inst. ..–, in which Lucretius is classified with e.g. Virgil, Lucan, and Valerius Flaccus; cf. Tac. Dial. .; Quint. Inst. ... Dionysius of Halicarnassus classifies both Empedocles and Antimachus of Colophon as epic poets (Dion. Hal. Comp. .); Manilius locates his own poetry within a tradition said to encompass the poetry of Homer, Hesiod (both Theogony and Works and Days), Aratus and other astronomical poets, Theocritus and the bucolic poets, hunting poets, and Nicander (Manil. Astron. .–). Plut. De aud. poet. c, claiming that the essence of poetry lies in its fictive quality, excludes didactic from the category of poetry. Plutarch notes the shared characteristics of Empedocles, Parmenides, Nicander, and Theognis, yet there was evidently no standard term to distinguish didactic from epic; didactic poems are seen as prosaic ἔπη distinguished from epic poetry largely by their content. Cf. Plut. De Pyth. e–f, in which Orpheus, Hesiod, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Empedocles, and Thales are said to have philosophised in poetic form, in contrast to later prose philosophers. Arist. Poet. b–. Cf. Σ Dion. Thrax .– Hilgard. On mimesis see e.g. Pöhlmann : ; Halliwell : –, ; Halliwell : –; contrast Janko : ; Obbink : – n.. For Crates of Mallus’ response to Aristotle, see Porter : –. This is not a judgement about quality: Aristotle elsewhere praises Empedocles, whom he characterises as Ὁμηρικός (fr.  Rose = Diog. Laert. .); it is even possible that Aristotle used Empedocles to illustrate his argument because of the admirable style of his verse; cf. e.g. Else : –; Janko : . The works of Parmenides and Empedocles are sometimes excluded from later lists of epic poetry and classed variously as ἔπη, φυσικοὶ ὕμνοι, and συγγράμματα (see  A–, 



Didactic Epic

which Aristotle’s remarks spring, however, and his complaint that οἱ ἄνθρωποι fail to distinguish between metrical compositions and poetry proper, reinforces the impression that there can have been no widespread recognition of the peculiar status of Empedocles’ poetry, let alone a category of didactic poetry at large. A handful of later treatises, however, point to a more positively defined ancient category of didactic poetry. These works – the Tractatus Coislinianus, Diomedes’ Ars grammatica, and Servius’ commentary on the Georgics – all allude in brief to a class of literature that broadly corresponds, as far as we can tell, to our concept of didactic poetry, labelled παιδευτική in Greek and didascalice in Latin, although it is hard to be sure how far back these theories may be traced. The testimonia furnish us with frustratingly limited, and relatively late, evidence for theoretical conceptions of didactic poetry as a self-standing genre, but it seems clear that the category was established by late antiquity, and that some earlier critics grouped together poems that we would







A– DK). On Renaissance debates over Empedocles’ status, see Hathaway : –; Haskell ; on Parmenides see Wöhrle . Cf. also Lactant. Div. inst. ... Arist. Poet. b–. Rather, Aristotle seems to have been reacting precisely against the communis opinio that poetry may be defined solely according to the presence or absence of metre, noting that there was no specific term in Greek for those supposed ‘poets’ who write in verse about medicine or natural philosophy. The claim that poetry might be defined solely as words with metre became standard in rhetorical theory. Tractatus Coislinianus (= CGF – Kaibel); Diomedes (= GL .– Keil); Serv. Praef. ad Georg. .– Thilo. See Pöhlmann ; Volk : –. Both Diomedes’ treatise and the Tractatus Coislinianus are difficult to date. The Tractatus Coislinianus is preserved in an early tenth-century manuscript, and is generally taken to be an epitome of a lost Peripatetic work; Janko has argued that the text is a sixth-century epitome of Aristotle’s lost second book of the Poetics, on which see Janko  and ; contrast Barnes : –; Arnott ; Schenkeveld ; Fortenbaugh . Pöhlmann :  argues for the probable Hellenistic roots of Diomedes’ thought; cf. Effe : . Proclus’ category of ‘didactic’ poetry may at first seem relevant, but should be regarded with caution. Although Proclus remarks on the didactic aims of the Works and Days ὁ μὲν οὖν σκοπὸς τοῦ βιβλίου παιδευτικός, Σ Hes. Op. proleg. A . Pertusi), and emphasises the benefits to be gained from reading the poem, his Neoplatonic conception of didaxis does not map easily onto our own, as may be inferred from his claim in his Sixth Essay on the Republic that in the Odyssey Phemius represents the ‘didactic poet’ par excellence, whereas Demodocus is the ‘inspired’ poet (see esp. .– Kroll). For Proclus’ division of poetry into the inspired, the didactic, and the mimetic, see Sheppard : –; Coulter : –; on Proclus and the Works and Days see Faraggiana di Sarzana . Cf. Marzillo : –, arguing that Proclus regards the Works and Days as inspired rather than didactic poetry. The Tractatus Coislinianus separates ποίησις into the mimetic and the non-mimetic, dividing the latter into ἱστορική and παιδευτική, and this last into ὑφηγητική and θεωρητική, an implicit revision of Aristotle’s claim that all poetry should be mimetic. In Platonic vein, the late-antique grammarian Diomedes divides poetry into dramatic, narrative, and mixed modes, subdividing narrative poetry into angeltice, historice, and didascalice (and citing Empedocles, Lucretius, Aratus, Cicero, and Virgil as practitioners of the latter). Servius characterises didactic poetry in terms of a relationship between the personae of poet-instructor and addressee-pupil, representing the poems of Virgil, Hesiod, and Lucretius as a group with established formal characteristics.

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



nowadays regard as didactic, even if these were not necessarily labelled as such. The earliest extant discussion of the Halieutica is preserved in the epitome of the first book of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae, and touches on many of these questions. In a discussion of the gastronomic habits of Homeric heroes, Athenaeus’ unnamed speaker claims that both Homer and the heroes of the Odyssey must have been familiar with the practice of fishing: [Homer] also compares the companions of Odysseus snatched by Scylla to fish caught with a long pole and thrown out of the water [Od. .–]. He is thus more accurate also about this art than those who have published poems or prose treatises directly treating such matters – I refer to Caecalus of Argos, Numenius of Heraclea, Pancrates of Arcadia, Poseidonius of Corinth, and Oppian of Cilicia, who lived shortly before our time. These are all the epic poets we have encountered who have written on fishing, while in prose there are the works of Seleucus of Tarsus and Leonidas of Byzantium. (Athen. .b–c)

The speaker is demonstrably more interested in the Homeric epics than in exploring the dynamics of didactic poetry per se, yet we are able to glimpse the popularity of fishing as the subject of didactic poems and prose treatises. Oppian’s is the only such work to survive in more than severely fragmentary form, and we can often do little more than guess at the content and style of most of the others, often based on the evidence





 

The epitome does not identify the speaker; for speculation see Heath : –. In referring (e.g.) to the arguments of Athenaeus, I do not imply that these views are necessarily Athenaeus’ own. εἰκάζει δὲ καὶ τοὺς ὑπὸ Σκύλλης ἁρπαζομένους Ὀδυσσέως ἑταίρους ἰχθύσι προμήκει ῥάβδῳ ἁλισκομένοις καὶ θύραζε ῥιπτομένοις. οὕτω καὶ ταύτην τὴν τέχνην ἀκριβοῖ μᾶλλον τῶν τοιαῦτα προηγουμένως ἐκδεδωκότων ποιήματα ἢ συγγράμματα, Καίκαλον λέγω τὸν Ἀργεῖον καὶ Νουμήνιον τὸν Ἡρακλεώτην, Παγκράτην τὸν Ἀρκάδα, Ποσειδώνιον τὸν Κορίνθιον καὶ τὸν ὀλίγῳ πρὸ ἡμῶν γενόμενον Ὀππιανὸν τὸν Κίλικα· τοσούτοις γὰρ ἐνετύχομεν ἐποποιοῖς Ἁλιευτικὰ γεγραφόσι. καταλογάδην δὲ τοῖς Σελεύκου τοῦ Ταρσέως καὶ Λεωνίδου τοῦ Βυζαντίου. The comment is occasioned by a discussion of Homeric dining practice, and the notorious absence of fish from banquets in the Iliad and Odyssey; cf. Athen. .c–e. In addition to the poets on Athenaeus’ list, Seleucus of Emesa (probably to be dated to the imperial period) is recorded by the Suda (σ  Adler) as having composed a four-book hexameter Aspalieutica. Editors of the Deipnosophistae often append Agathocles of Atrax to Athenaeus’ list of prose authors on the basis of Athen. .a and Suda κ  Adler; see also Kaibel : –. We may add Damostratus’ ten-book prose Halieutica, for which see Suda δ  Adler. Leonidas of Byzantium is often cited by Aelian, and is generally considered a key source for Oppian’s Halieutica, although the evidence is tenuous and indirect. See Keydell ; Wellmann ; Wellmann : ; Richmond ; Benedetti ; Zumbo ; Rebuffat : –.



Didactic Epic

provided by Athenaeus himself. The speaker, however, evidently conceives of Caecalus, Numenius, Pancrates, Poseidonius, and Oppian as a group of poets whose systematic treatment of marine subject-matter unifies them as a category, aligns them with the authors of prose treatises on the same topic, and distinguishes them from Homer’s wide-ranging heroic epics. Oppian’s poem takes its place within a well-established tradition of literature about fishing. It would, in other words, be misleading to infer that the dearth of extant theoretical discussions about the category of didactic poetry need have hindered the production of such poetry or have precluded a sense of generic self-definition, at least by Oppian’s time. On the contrary, as scholars have observed, ancient didactic poets often exhibit a marked self-consciousness about their place in this tradition. Poets who write about fishing are here termed ἐποποιοί, the word used throughout antiquity for both didactic and heroic epic poets. In the Deipnosophistae, for instance, Panyassis, Choerilus, Euphorion, and others are classed as ἐποποιοί, yet so are Oppian, Nicander, and others we would call didactic poets. The A-scholia to the Halieutica likewise open by listing Oppian as an ἐποποιός in the model of the Alexandrian canon of epic poets: Homer, Hesiod, Antimachus, Peisander, and Panyassis. This 



 

Little is known of Caecalus of Argos, and even his name is restored by Meineke on the basis of Suda κ  Adler; Poseidonius of Corinth is almost as obscure. Numenius of Heraclea, a didactic poet of the fourth or third century  whom Athenaeus quotes over twenty times, is said to have composed, besides his Halieuticon, didactic poems on gastronomy, medicines, and poisonous animals, and exemplifies the tendency for poets to compose didactic verse on a variety of topics (or perhaps for a cluster of didactic poems to be ascribed to the same author). The Θαλάσσια ἔργα of the Hellenistic poet Pancrates of Arcadia is quoted three times by Athenaeus, who indicates his propensity to record variant names for fish. Schuler and Fitch : : ‘[t]hroughout its long history, perhaps nothing is more striking about Didactic poetry than the continual discrepancies between the efforts of literary critics to denigrate, formalize, or confine the genre, and the luxuriant growth it enjoyed at the hands of its exuberant practitioners’; Hinds :  shows that ‘the gap between prescription and practice . . . [is] fundamental to the construction of genre in a classical Roman poem’. On literary criticism and ancient didactic poetry see Dalzell ; Volk : ; Volk b: . For the suggestion that Aratus might have engaged in the Phaenomena with Aristotle’s verdict on didactic poetry, see Fakas a. See e.g. Athen. .b, .b; Suda ο  Adler calls the poet an ἐποποιός. Σ. Hal. hyp. – Bussemaker, traditionally attributed to the prolific Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes. The scholiast remarks on the nature and categorisation of poetry, and labels Oppian an ἐποποιός, to be distinguished from (e.g.) tragic, lyric, dithyrambic, and other categories of poet. Of the three groups of scholia on the Halieutica, only the A-scholia have been published, in Bussemaker (), and there only partially and unsatisfactorily. The association of all (or even part) of the A-scholia with the twelfth-century scholar John Tzetzes is uncertain, and no adequate examination has yet been undertaken. Fajen : –, followed by Dyck :  n. , rejects Tzetzes’ authorship; contrast Wendel : . See further Colonna ; Budelmann ; Napolitano .

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



has important implications for the Halieutica. Critics of didactic poetry have sometimes tended to gravitate towards those few ancient sources that conceive of didactic poetry as a genre separate from narrative epic, seeking to distinguish the two in order to establish the validity of didactic poetry as an autonomous category. It seems to me, however, that there is much potential in examining the ways in which the Halieutica – and didactic poetry at large – engages with the hexameter traditions of heroic as well as didactic epic. An inscription set up in Rhodiapolis in the second century  in honour of a certain Heraclitus, for instance, records that this figure embodied the unprecedented combination of doctor, prose-writer, and poet of medical and philosophical works. Heraclitus is declared to have received acclaim from luminaries in Alexandria, Rhodes, and Athens, and to have been honoured publicly as ‘the Homer of medical poetry’. The claim not only marks Heraclitus’ fame and prestige, but also promotes this poetry as indebted to the model of Homeric epic even as it is distinguished by its medical focus. The relationship between heroic and didactic epic is addressed in ancient criticism of Aratus’ didactic poetry. Aratus’ debt to Hesiod in the Phaenomena is conspicuous, and need not be reiterated here; as Callimachus observes, Ἡσιόδου τό τ’ ἄεισμα καὶ ὁ τρόπος. Yet Aratus also draws from Homer: the linguistic and stylistic influence of the Iliad and Odyssey pervades the Phaenomena, and, as Kidd points out, Aratus’ ‘frequent use of rare Homeric words suggests that this was a deliberately contrived feature of his poetry’. Aratus’ Homericism was much discussed in 







TAM II  (= IGR III ). See Robert : ; Bowie . The inscription comes from a statue-base in Rhodiapolis and was erected by the βουλή, δῆμος, and γερουσία of that city. I have translated συγγραφεύς as ‘prose-writer’ rather than e.g. historian; it would be interesting indeed if Heraclitus wrote both prose and (didactic) poetry on the same topics, but this is a matter of speculation. TAM II  –: ὃν ἀνέγραψαν ἰατρικῶν ποιημάτων | Ὅμηρον εἶναι. Heraclitus’ fame is evident from the list of those who had accorded him honours, and from the decree that his statue was to have its honours renewed annually. Callim. AP . = Ep.  Pf. The Suda claims that Aratus ἀκουστὴς δὲ ἐγένετο γραμματικοῦ μὲν τοῦ Ἐφεσίου Μενεκράτους (α  Adler); for Menecrates’ conspicuously Hesiodic poetry on apiculture and agriculture, see SH –; Maass : –. On Aratus and Hesiod see Kaibel : –; Wilamowitz : –; Schu¨tze : –; Porter ; Ludwig : –; Solmsen ; Schwabl : –; Pendergraft : –, with Table VI; Hunter ; Fakas b; Van Noorden : –. See Cameron :  for the importance of Homer to Aratus; on Homeric and Hesiodic elements in the Phaenomena see Hutchinson : –; Pfeiffer : ; Fakas b:  n. ; Ludwig : ; Kroll : –. Callimachus’ epigram is often read as a polemical claim for the Hesiodic rather than the Homeric nature of Aratus’ poetry; see Farrell : –, ; Hunter a: –; Gow and Page : –; Cameron : –. Kidd : ; cf. Kroll : .



Didactic Epic

antiquity, and the scholia to the Phaenomena make regular reference to its Homeric qualities; the Aratean Vitae allege that Aratus composed poems about Homer and about the Iliad, and that he produced an authoritative edition of the Odyssey (and possibly the Iliad too). Claims about Aratus’ Homeric and Hesiodic affiliations, moreover, lay at the heart of an ancient scholarly dispute as to the nature of Aratus’ engagement with his illustrious epic predecessors. The Suda declares that Aratus wrote τὰ Φαινόμενα, ὧν θαυμάσιος ἡ εἰσβολὴ καὶ ὁ ζῆλος Ὁμηρικός, whereas one of the Aratean Vitae informs us that γέγονε δὲ ὁ Ἄρατος ζηλωτὴς Ἡσιόδου. These and similar claims recur throughout the extant Vitae, which preserve the tantalising imprint of a heated debate as to whether Aratus was a ζηλωτής of Homer or of Hesiod. This is discussed most fully in Vita II: In the composition of his verses [Aratus] was an imitator of the Homeric style. Some, however, say that he was rather an imitator of Hesiod, for just as Hesiod began the Works and Days with a hymn beginning ‘Muses of Pieria, glorifying with your song, come here and tell of Zeus’, so too Aratus began his poem with ‘Let us take our beginning from Zeus’. The story of the golden race is also like Hesiod, many other stories also. In the first book of his work on Aratus, Boethus of Sidon says that he was not an imitator of Hesiod, but of Homer, for the style of his poetry is greater than in the case of Hesiod. (Vit. Arat. II .– Martin)

Aratus is here figured as Homeric principally on stylistic grounds, and as Hesiodic principally in terms of structure and content; Boethus may perhaps gesture also towards broader notions of Homeric pedagogy. Nor was this solely a question of ancient literary criticism rather than poetic self-awareness, for Nicander programmatically orientates his Theriaca towards both Homer and Hesiod. In the sphragis at the end of the   



 Vit. Arat. I .– Martin. Vit. Arat. I .– Martin. Suda α  Adler; Vit. Arat. I . Martin. ζηλωτὴς δὲ ἐγένετο τοῦ ὁμηρικοῦ χαρακτῆρος κατὰ τὴν τῶν ἐπῶν σύνθεσιν. ἔνιοι δὲ αὐτὸν λέγουσιν Ἡσιόδου μᾶλλον ζηλωτὴν γεγονέναι. καθάπερ γὰρ ὁ Ἡσίοδος τῶν Ἔργων καὶ Ἡμερῶν ἀπαρχόμενος τῶν ὕμνων ἀπὸ Διὸς ἤρξατο λέγων ‘Μοῦσαι Πιερίηθεν ἀοιδῇσι κλείουσαι, δεῦτε Δί’ ἐννέπετε,’ οὕτω καὶ ὁ Ἄρατος τῆς ποιήσεως ἀρχόμενος ἔφη ‘ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα’· τά τε περὶ τοῦ χρυσοῦ γένους ὁμοίως τῷ Ἡσιόδῳ, κατὰ πολλοὺς ἄλλους μύθους. Βοηθὸς δὲ ὁ Σιδώνιος ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ αὐτοῦ φησιν οὐχ Ἡσιόδου αὐτὸν ζηλωτήν, ἀλλ’ Ὁμήρου γεγονέναι· τὸ γὰρ πλάσμα τῆς ποιήσεως μεῖζον ἢ κατὰ Ἡσίοδον. Cf. Vit. Arat. IV .– Martin: ζηλωτὴν δὲ τοῦτόν φασι γενέσθαι Ὁμήρου, οἱ δὲ Ἡσιόδου μᾶλλον. Obbink :  argues that ‘Boëthus’ interest in making Homer’s rather than Hesiod’s poetry foundational for Aratus’ poetry is explained in part by the philosophers’ contention that all artes and τέχναι were prefigured in Homer.’ Aratus’ Phaenomena is thus Homeric not simply in diction but insofar as Homer could be figured as the ultimate teacher of all matters, including astronomy (on which see further below). For Boethus’ Περὶ Ἀράτου see Gem. Isag. , Cic. De div. .., Σ Arat. Phaen. .

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



poem he depicts himself explicitly as a Homeric poet: καί κεν Ὁμηρείοιο καὶ εἰσέτι Νικάνδροιο | μνῆστιν ἔχοις, τὸν ἔθρεψε Κλάρου νιφόεσσα πολίχνη (‘and in future you will have the memory of Homeric Nicander, whom the town of snowy Clarus raised’, Nic. Ther. –). Nicander’s native Colophon was one of the cities that advertised its status as the birthplace of Homer, and the poem may lay claim to Homeric status on more than merely generic grounds, as the emphasis on Clarus suggests. Nevertheless, his advertisement of himself as a Homeric poet must also be related to the perception of such hexameter verse as ‘epic’, a quality displayed also in Nicander’s fondness for Homericisms, Homeric hapax legomena, epic glosses, and allusions to the Homeric epics. Yet the very premise of the Theriaca – the existence of poisonous creatures – is also represented as Hesiodic at the start of the poem, where, after a brief address to Hermesianax, Nicander relates the aetiology of spiders, reptiles, snakes, and the ἄχθεα μυρία γαίης (Ther. ) born from the blood of the Titans, εἰ ἐτεόν περ | Ἀσκραῖος μυχάτοιο Μελισσήεντος ἐπ’ ὄχθαις | Ἡσίοδος κατέλεξε παρ’ ὕδασι Περμησσοῖο (‘if indeed he spoke the truth, Ascraean Hesiod on the steeps of secluded Melisseeis by the waters of Permessus’, Ther. –). The Hellenistic didactic poetry of both Aratus and Nicander was both presented and perceived as lying at the intersection between Homeric and Hesiodic poetics. As we have seen, Athenaeus’ character sets Oppian and other piscatorial didactic poets against the model of Homeric epic. Yet this is no casual gesture of generic affiliation but a strikingly aggressive declaration of Homer’s technical superiority. The speaker draws the comparison only in order to assert, with brash confidence, that Homer represents the τέχνη of fishing more accurately than does any exclusively halieutic author. The  



Cf. e.g. Anon. AP .. Nicander’s use of two Homeric -οιο genitives in his programmatic verses at Ther.  marks that very claim. On Nicander and Homer see e.g. Jacques : lxxi; Vian : ; Touwaide ; Spatafora  and : ; Magnelli a, : –; Overduin , esp. –. On the relationship between the Theriaca and Works and Days see Jacques : lxix; Effe : –. No extant Hesiodic material supports Nicander’s statement, and the scholiast is sceptical (Σ Nic. Ther. a Crugnola). Jackson :  suggests that Nicander is ‘deliberately misquoting Hesiod’, but the scholia cite further attestations, and Gow and Scholfield []:  and Cazzaniga  suggest that Nicander alludes to the tradition that Hesiod related the gigantomachy in another work. As Clauss :  n.  points out, the authenticity of this work is irrelevant; the central point is Nicander’s ‘claim to belong to the Hesiodic School of Didactic Poetry’; cf. Effe ; Clauss  on ‘the almost total, if not also aggressive, inversion of [Nicander’s] Hesiodic model’, a reading that nevertheless still privileges Hesiod. Nicander further signals his didactic heritage by moving on to the Aratean subject of Orion, introduced at Nic. Ther. –. See Effe  and :  n. ; Martin : II  ad ; Clauss : –.



Didactic Epic

claim may come as a surprise to the reader of Oppian’s didactic poetry, which is not only technically accurate (in the main) but is also elaborated on a scale incomparable to the passing piscatorial allusions of the Homeric epics. Athenaeus bolsters his claim by citing two passages from Odyssey . The first, quoted in full, describes Odysseus’ companions fishing with bent hooks on Thrinacia (Hom. Od. .–), and is used to argue that the hero and his companions must have brought the hooks with them and so been accustomed to fishing even before they arrived on the island. The passage certainly points to Homer’s knowledge of the activity of fishing, but the mere mention of bent hooks tells us little about Homer’s own alleged expertise in the τέχνη of angling. Athenaeus’ other evidence is more revealing. This is a simile, paraphrased rather than quoted by the epitomist, in which Scylla is depicted snatching Odysseus’ companions like a fisherman catching fish with a rod and bait. The Homeric passage runs as follows: ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἐπὶ προβόλῳ ἁλιεὺς περιμήκεϊ ῥάβδῳ ἰχθύσι τοῖς ὀλίγοισι δόλον κατὰ εἴδατα βάλλων ἐς πόντον προΐησι βοὸς κέρας ἀγραύλοιο, ἀσπαίροντα δ’ ἔπειτα λαβὼν ἔρριψε θύραζε, ὣς οἵ γ’ ἀσπαίροντες ἀείροντο προτὶ πέτρας

(Hom. Od. .–)

And as a fisherman on a jutting rock casts in his bait as a snare to the little fish, and with his long pole lets down into the sea the horn of a field-dwelling ox, and then as he catches a fish flings it writhing out of the water, so were they drawn up towards the cliffs.

The most puzzling, and keenly debated, aspect of this Odyssean simile is the role of the βοὸς κέρας ἀγραύλοιο (‘horn of a field-dwelling ox’) as a form of fishing tackle, a reference paralleled in the Iliad by the simile in which Iris is compared to a fisherman’s ox-horn sinking to the depths of the sea. Uncertainty over the function of the horn has vexed anglers and Homeric scholars for millennia, and prompted a flurry of over thirty explanatory letters printed in the Times Literary Supplement in the 

 

Athenaeus’ claim sits uneasily with the reluctance with which the Homeric heroes turn to fishing, an activity conducted only out of necessity (ἀνάγκῃ, Hom. Od. .) and as a last resort (cf. Σ A Il. .c, Σ B Od. .). Athenaeus, perhaps wisely, omits the remainder of Od. . from his quotation. As do the well-known piscatorial similes at Hom. Od. ., .–, .–; Il. .–, .–. Hom. Il. .–: ἣ δὲ μολυβδαίνῃ ἰκέλη ἐς βυσσὸν ὄρουσεν, | ἥ τε κατ’ ἀγραύλοιο βοὸς κέρας ἐμβεβαυῖα | ἔρχεται ὠμηστῇσιν ἐπ’ ἰχθύσι κῆρα φέρουσα.

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



s. The theories propounded in those letters are varied and ingenious, but the most widely accepted explanation for the Homeric ox-horn as a fishing implement – despite certain technical problems with its application – is that, in the words of Leaf, ‘a little tube of horn was passed over the line just above the hook, to prevent the fish biting it through’. Ox-horn, if ever it played a key role in archaic piscatorial practice, seems to have been long obsolete as a form of tackle by the classical period. This apparently innocuous detail was therefore discussed from a very early stage in (what we know of ) the ancient reception of the Homeric epics. A number of authorities, including Aristarchus and perhaps Aristotle, are said to have subscribed to the view summarised by Leaf; others advanced competing theories that proved no more definitive than their twentiethcentury counterparts. The reference remained obscure, and by Athenaeus’ time the ox-horn was a locus for discussions about Homer’s status as an authority on fishing, and thus the technical arts more generally. The brevity of the reference merely stoked the flames of this debate, as may be observed from Socrates’ interrogation of the rhapsode Ion about the fishing simile of Iliad . Athenaeus’ citation of the simile alludes to a recognised problem in Homeric exegesis, engaging with ancient traditions that proclaimed or disputed Homer’s knowledge of obscure technical – here piscatorial – detail in order to support or detract from his status as an authority on matters well beyond the immediate focus of his heroic epics. In drawing this comparison, Athenaeus evokes ancient debates about specialisation and technical knowledge, and the status of Homer as an authority and educator, as well as the relationship between heroic and didactic epic. Although it is difficult to gauge the tone of these remarks from the epitome, Athenaeus’ statement draws on the ancient propensity to regard Homeric poetry as authoritative or even educational, a stance that further blurs any sharp distinction between the ambitions of didactic and narrative 

  



Prompted by reviews of a popular book on angling that itself offered various explanations for the Homeric ox-horn (Radcliffe : –). The issue of the κέρας is revisited in several reviews of Radcliffe’s book in classical journals, and is explored by Shewan . Couch  examines the letters to the TLS, which became so numerous that the editor of the TLS had to intervene and stem the flow. Leaf []: , although in the second edition of his commentary he revised this view in light of Haskins , who had argued that the κέρας was a form of artificial bait. Neither Oppian nor any other ancient piscatorial expert refers to κέρας as a form of fishing-tackle. Plut. De sollert. anim. f–a outlines several of these arguments. For the emendation of the transmitted Ἀριστοτέλης to Ἀρίσταρχος on the basis of e.g. Σ Q Od. . and Apoll. Soph. . Bekker, see Platt : ; Mayhew : –. Pl. Ion c–d, referring to Hom. Il. .–. See also Hunter : –.



Didactic Epic

epic. This is not the place to offer a detailed survey of ancient claims about the pedagogical force of the Homeric epics, but Xenophanes’ statement that ἐξ ἀρχῆς καθ᾿ ῞Ομηρον ἐπεὶ μεμαθήκασι πάντες (‘since all have learned from the outset according to Homer’, B DK) was echoed by innumerable ancient claims about the moral and practical didacticism of Homeric poetry. Anaxagoras is said to have initiated the interpretative tradition in which the Homeric epics were read as strongly ethical in content, while the exegetical scholia to the Iliad rarely tire of indicating the ethical and practical lessons to be drawn from Homer’s poetry, remarking on the teachings that the poet imparts in his verses (διδάσκει ὁ ποιητής . . .). This kind of interpretation is associated especially with Stoicism and with the practice of allegoresis, but recurs across ancient interpretation of the Homeric epics. Strabo, for instance, positions himself within a hotly disputed tradition that debated the position of Homer as the ἀρχηγέτης of the discipline of geography; so too the proem of the Odyssey could be read as framing Odysseus as a proto-ethnographer who ‘saw the cities of many men and learned their minds’ (πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, Hom. Od. .), a claim that has its own implications for the Halieutica and its project of mapping the sea and its inhabitants. Plutarch in De audiendis poetis accords the Homeric epics a crucial role in honing the moral sensibilities of the discriminating reader; and ps.-Plutarch’s (probably second-century) essay De Homero goes further in depicting a Homer who was not only au fait with but who had often founded or anticipated disciplines that range from philosophy to astronomy, ethics, rhetoric, medicine, history, arithmetic, music, law, and chariot-driving. As Aristophanes has Aeschylus point out in the Frogs, 



   

See e.g. Verdenius ; Koster : –; Sowinski : –; Roellenbleck : ; Kirsch , esp. –; Heath ; Lausberg : –; Gale : ; Brioso Sánchez : –; Dalzell : –; Most : –; Farrell :  n. ; Gale : ; Laird : . On the (considerably) later practice of reading non-didactic poetry ‘didactically’ see Ingram . The exchanges between Antisthenes and Niceratus in Xenophon’s Symposium, for instance, reveal the pedagogical weight placed upon the Homeric epics (Xen. Symp. .), and, for all Antisthenes’ criticism, the range of moral and practical subjects that Homer was thought to teach (Xen. Symp. .). On onions, chariot-racing, and the practical skills to be gleaned from Homer, cf. Pl. Ion, esp. a–b. Anaxag.  A DK: δοκεῖ δὲ πρῶτος . . . τὴν Ὁμήρου ποίησιν ἀποφήνασθαι εἶναι περὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ δικαιοσύνης. On the use of the Homeric epics as school-texts, see esp. Cribiore : –; on ancient Homeric interpretation, Lamberton and Keaney ; on the scholia, Wissman . Strab. ... See e.g. Schenkeveld ; Dueck , esp. –; Biraschi ; Kim . For which see e.g. Dougherty ; Kim ; the opening of Lucian’s VH (.) plays with this topos and with the question of authorial reliability and expertise.

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



poets could be perceived to have a socially educative function for the city at large: the pedagogical value of poets like Homer and Hesiod is taken to reside in the fact that they have something useful to teach; each, in his own sphere, χρήστ’ ἐδίδαξεν. The vast temporal, geographical, and generic range of these claims reminds us that the perceived educational value of Homeric poetry, however that was conceived in different times and intellectual climates, retained an extraordinary force throughout antiquity. There may have been little enough ancient agreement over what exactly Homer taught – and we should bear in mind that many arguments in support of Homeric didacticism explicitly or implicitly respond to attacks on the very validity of those claims – but it was widely acknowledged that Homeric poetry did teach something, if only one knew where and how to look. Scholars have expended much energy in the attempt to demarcate the explicitly pedagogical stance of didactic poetry from the ancient reading practices that treated the Homeric epics as ‘didactic’, but here too the slippage between narrative and didactic epic is important for my interpretation of the Halieutica, for it suggests that not only was Homeric poetry seen as akin to didactic epic in a broad generic sense, but that the Homeric epics were widely viewed as a source of both specialised knowledge and a broader moral didacticism. Oppian, as we shall see, looks to Homer as much as to Hesiod for both zoological and ethical inspiration. While it would be misleading to regard didactic poetry as a genre entirely separate from narrative epic, it would be equally misleading to suggest that no ancient critic perceived any difference between didactic poetry and the implicit pedagogy effected by epic poetry at large. Athenaeus’ remarks on fishing are, after all, predicated upon a distinction between Homeric epic and more systematic technical literature, even as they hold that distinction up to scrutiny. A number of ancient texts do seem to imply that Homer’s teaching was recognised as implicit rather than explicit in nature, and that a detailed examination of the technical disciplines of military strategy, geography, fishing, or astronomy, or indeed a comprehensive moral pedagogy, was not the exclusive aim – or even at the forefront – of Homeric poetry. A distinction in terms of scope thus



See esp. Ar. Ran. –, –, grouping Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, and Musaeus, for which cf. Pl. Ap. a, Ion b, Prt. d, Resp. e. See Arnott ; Blundell : –; Rosen ; Russell : –; Hunter b: , –. Cf. also Hor. Ars P. –.



Didactic Epic

recurs in ancient debates about the Homeric epics, and is visible not only in Athenaeus’ remarks on fishing, but also in the Homeric Problems of the (probably) first- or second-century grammarian Heraclitus. In a discussion of the constellations depicted on the shield of Achilles (Hom. Il. .–), Heraclitus equates the accuracy of Homer’s astronomical knowledge with that of Eudoxus and Aratus, but explains Homer’s evident lack of detail by remarking that in composing the Iliad Homer had a very different objective in mind from that of Aratus. The two poems are both aligned and differentiated: Aratus’ didactic epic becomes the hallmark of (allegedly) comprehensive, accurate, and detailed information about a specific area of expertise, namely that of the constellations and weather-signs; Homer’s martial epic, on the other hand, touches incidentally upon the stars, yet aims at and encompasses a far broader, and thus less detailed, field of knowledge. The two works may overlap in an area tangential to the main body of the Iliad, and Homer’s work is perceived as no less accurate than that of Aratus, but their poems are nevertheless taken to belong to different systems of instruction. My study reads the Halieutica as a didactic epic, namely a poem affiliated with both heroic and didactic epic traditions. It is also, I suggest, a work that uses its epic status to effect its didactic programme. Oppian draws not only from the exploits and attributes of Homeric heroes, but from the zoological and ethical precedents set by the Homeric epics. Central to this book is the claim that ancient didactic poetry was intimately related to heroic epic, and yet that a distinction in scope,





Heracl. Quaest. Hom. : διακριβολογησάμενος δ’ ὑπὲρ τῶν ὁλοσχερῶν ἀστέρων καὶ κατὰ μέρος ἐπιφανέστατα δεδήλωκεν· οὐ γὰρ ἠδύνατο πάντα θεολογεῖν, ὥσπερ Εὔδοξος ἢ Ἄρατος, Ἰλιάδα γράφειν ἀντὶ τῶν Φαινομένων ὑποστησάμενος ἑαυτῷ (‘having given this accurate description of the stars in general, he has also shown us in detail those which are most conspicuous: he could not of course include everything in his theology, like Eudoxus or Aratus, because he intended to write an Iliad, not a Phaenomena’). On ancient interpretations of Homer as a θεολόγος, see Lamberton , esp. –. The same passage of the Iliad prompts a similar comment from ps.-Plutarch. Outlining the astronomical knowledge shown by Homer in his description of Achilles’ shield, ps.-Plutarch remarks that εἰ δὲ μὴ πάντα τὰ περὶ τῶν ἄστρων θεωρούμενα διεξῆλθεν, ὡς Ἄρατος ἢ ἄλλος τις, οὐ χρὴ θαυμάζειν· οὐ γὰρ τοῦτο προέκειτο αὐτῷ (‘if [Homer] did not go into the entire matter of astronomy, as for instance Aratus does, this is no wonder, since that is not his subject’, ps.-Plut. De Hom. II – Kindstrand). Keaney and Lamberton :  n.  (and cf. p. ) suggest that ps.-Plutarch’s remarks set Homer specifically against the lost Astronomy attributed to Hesiod; on this text see Merkelbach and West  frr. –. Here too the authenticity or otherwise of that poem is irrelevant; important is rather the prevalence of ancient traditions that ascribed an Ἀστρονομία or Ἀστρολογία to Hesiod.

. Ancient Didactic Poetry



veracity, and detail was nevertheless perceived. Oppian, in other words, carves out a distinctively didactic world-view that marks its differentiation from the traditions of heroic epics even as it promotes that affiliation. The remaining two chapters in this Part set out the didactic parameters of the Halieutica, while Parts II and III turn to the poem’s engagement with heroic epic traditions.

 

Knowledge and Pleasure

. Didactic Authority ἔθνεά τοι πόντοιο πολυσπερέας τε φάλαγγας παντοίων νεπόδων, πλωτὸν γένος Ἀμφιτρίτης, ἐξερέω, γαίης ὕπατον κράτος, Ἀντωνῖνε· ὅσσα τε κυματόεσσαν ἔχει χύσιν, ᾗχί θ’ ἕκαστα ἐννέμεται . . . (.–)

The communities of the sea and the widely scattered brigades of all kinds of sea-creatures, Amphitrite’s swimming clan, I will describe to you, Antoninus, supreme power on earth: all the creatures that live in the surging stream, where each resides . . .

The opening verses of the Halieutica are rich and rewarding. They establish the poet’s authoritative first-person voice, the subject-matter and scope of the work, and the identity and significance of its addressee. Oppian also draws attention to his markedly anthropomorphic representation of seacreatures, and to the poem’s Homeric pedigree: as we will see in chapter , fish are figured programmatically in these lines as quasi-Iliadic warriors, and the poet engages in learned and allusive Homeric commentary. In didactic terms these lines both align and distinguish the work from the traditions of Homeric epic. The first verb of the poem, ἐξερέω, is emphatically delayed and set at the start of the third verse; it announces the poet’s aims and associates him with the poem’s addressee Marcus Aurelius. At key transitional moments in the Halieutica, including the proems to each book, Oppian again invokes the emperor, always in highly laudatory terms, and sometimes alongside his son Commodus. These addresses draw attention to the poet’s relationship with his imperial patrons, as 

.–, –; .–, –; .–; .–; .–, –. Commodus is neither addressed directly nor depicted independently of his father.



. Didactic Authority



Chapter  will explore, and at the same time impose a structure on the poet’s body of information, outlining the organising principles, content, aims, and imagined reception of the work. This explicit relationship with an addressee is an authorial stance that immediately differentiates such poetry from the narrative conventions of heroic epic. The first-person promise ἐξερέω is a recurrent marker of Homeric character speech, but its use here by the primary narrator – in a précis of the poet’s topic, pedagogical aim, and relationship to the named addressee – marks the point at which didactic epic conventions most obviously diverge from the narrative voice of heroic epic verse. Oppian adopts Homeric diction even as he promotes a new didactic agenda for his poem. This chapter explores the nature of this didactic agenda, paying close attention to the poet’s claims about his own expertise and the imagined impact of the poem. Oppian, I argue, represents his sea as a sphere of moral turmoil. Both individual species and the sea at large are imbued with Hesiodic resonances that evoke a world of indolence, injustice, and hostility; the poet’s lessons here take on a powerful ethical force. His strategy throughout is to foreground his expertise as a poet rather than a practical expert, moreover, and to outline the pleasure as well as the education that his poetry will bring its readers. These, I suggest, are tactics that need to be understood in the context of ancient literary-critical debates about (didactic) poetry, as well as ancient stylistic theory. Careful examination of the poet’s claims reveals an intimate association between poetry and pedagogy, and suggests that many of the work’s most appealing qualities – and above all the continual assimilation of fish and human beings – are also its most didactically important. Didactic poets frequently advance explicit claims about the practical or theoretical benefits that their poetry is to confer upon its addressee or reader. The μακαρισμός that concludes Hesiod’s Works and Days, for instance, asserts that whoever takes its details to heart will be εὐδαίμων τε καὶ ὄλβιος (Hes. Op. ) – happy and blessed, free from transgression and impropriety; Aratus emphasises the practical benefits of recognising weather-signs in order to anticipate and avert disaster (Arat. Phaen. –); Nicander’s Theriaca and Alexipharmaca abound with statements about the powerful effects of poison and the efficacy of the antidotes described, lessons that the reader is urged to learn well. This is not to say that this poetry was necessarily intended to instruct the reader in an  

ἐξερέω: e.g. Hom. Il. .; ., , , etc. Cf. also Empedocles at e.g.  B. DK,  B.– DK.



Knowledge and Pleasure

immediate practical sense – the dense and recherché style of Nicander’s poetry renders it notoriously ill-suited for direct tuition, and a claim about the tangible impact of a particular antidote is hardly the same as a claim about the practicality of the poem itself – but the rhetoric of utility is prominent nevertheless. At the beginning of the Theriaca Nicander states ostentatiously, if disingenuously, that the labouring farmer, herdsman, or woodcutter would ‘respect’ the learning displayed by the poem’s reader if they were ever bitten by a deadly snake (Nic. Ther. –). This is poetry in which erudition takes on a powerful symbolic value even in the face of its questionable practical utility. Dionysius the Periegete in turn draws on this rhetoric when he proclaims that his geographical poem will detail the world so that his reader may discourse knowledgeably to others, irrespective of their personal experience of the phenomena described; the power of the Periegesis is shown to lie in the dissemination of its information as part of an imperial culture of competitively paraded knowledge. Oppian, however, makes no such claim. Like the Works and Days and the Phaenomena, the Halieutica combines both theoretical (books –) and practical (books –) instruction. Its facts are clearly laid out and relatively accurate, at least by ancient standards; much information may be gleaned from this poem. Yet Oppian nowhere draws attention to the immediate practical benefits of his poetry: he does not claim that his verse will allow the reader to catch or identify a fish for themselves, nor does he refer to the consumption of fish, or to the desirability of a particular species in either gastronomic or financial terms. We are never told why we should be interested in catching these creatures – what they might taste like, how they will be cooked, or even that they will be sold – merely of their habits, characteristics, and how best to catch them. The poet is interested not in the mechanics of the fish trade, but in the behaviour of fish, the relationship between fish and fisherman, and the nature of the sea as an environment. In claiming to instruct their addressees or readers about a specific body of information, authors of didactic texts necessarily represent themselves as figures of authority. As Catherine Atherton observes, ‘[g]iven its selfimposed task, at least the appearance of authority proves essential to the   

Nicander also promotes the practical benefit of his poem at Ther. –. Dion. Perieg. –; cf. –. At least from a human perspective, although note .. Fish, on the other hand, continually consume one another, and are often compared to banqueting humans (on which see Chapter ); for the consumption of fish see ., .. Cf. Effe : ; contrast Bu¨rner : , who inexplicably ascribes ‘rein praktische Zwecke’ to the Halieutica.

. Didactic Authority



didactic enterprise, and even subversion of authority, or of expectations about authority . . . presupposes (expectations of ) access to authority, perhaps authority which is unique or uniquely appropriate’. Authors of ancient technical prose treatises often (affect to) guarantee the validity of the information they transmit by referring to their personal experience, scholarly activity, or professional expertise, or by citing oral reports, eyewitness accounts, and written sources, often supplemented by the citation of, or polemical engagement with, the views of experts, rivals, and predecessors. Assertions of this kind convince the reader that this is a tract composed by an experienced expert in the field, a feature central to the credibility of the specialised professional in a culture that did not typically rely on qualifying examinations or rigorous external regulation. Didactic poetry, on the other hand, lies at the interface between technical prose writing and hexameter epic, a juncture that can at times appear alien to us given the often divergent literary conventions and authoritative strategies associated with those two realms. Many a scholar has therefore lamented the lack of clear and logical organisation, factual accuracy, comprehensiveness, or direct personal experience in ancient didactic poetry. Yet the traditions of epic poetry – even poetry about fishing – demand a different interpretative framework than do those of technical prose. In the first place, didactic poets tend to abide by the authorising conventions not of technical prose treatises but of epic. Few Hellenistic and imperial Greek didactic poets seem, or even claim, to have composed their works from professional or practical experience in their topic.  

  



Atherton : viii; cf. Dalzell : . See e.g. Sharrock  on the topos of personal experience in didactic prose; von Staden  on the autoptic or empirical ego in Celsus; Adams : – and esp. n.  on personal experience and the ‘sociative’ use of the first-person plural in ancient medical and veterinary prose texts. See e.g. Nutton ; Doody :  on ancient medicine. See e.g. Horster and Reitz :  on ‘die Scharnierfunktion der Lehrdichtung zwischen Prosafachschrift und Poesie’; cf. Schindler : . As Verdenius : – observes of scholarship on the Works and Days, ‘immer wieder hat man vergessen, dass ein Lehrgedicht nicht dasselbe ist wie ein Lehrbuch’, noting that the poem’s overall ‘Mangel an Systematik ist immer der Hauptanstoss fu¨r die moderne Interpretation gewesen’. Wilamowitz a: – comes under particular scrutiny from Verdenius for athetising Hes. Op. – (on urinating or defecating into rivers) on the grounds that river pollution had been covered earlier in the poem. At stake here is less the specific structure and content of the Works and Days – or, for that matter, the Halieutica – than the conventions of didactic poetry at large. Cf. Nelson  and Nelson :  and  n.  on the agricultural section of the Works and Days; Perkell : – on the Georgics. This is not to say that a didactic poet could not advertise his personal experience in the field, merely that the conventions of Greek didactic verse did not depend on such claims. Marcellus of Side is unusual in (allegedly) writing as a doctor as well as a poet. See Kneebone : –; Overduin .



Knowledge and Pleasure

Unlike prose authors, moreover, Greek didactic poets rarely discuss their sources or differentiate explicitly between them. Despite the fact that we are informed that Aratus drew his astronomical material from Eudoxus and others, for instance, this debt remains unacknowledged in the Phaenomena itself. While some ancient critics indeed seem to focus on the factual inaccuracies to be detected in the work of Aratus and other didactic poets, often levelling the charge that these authors know little about their subjectmatter and that their poems are rife with errors and omissions, others distinguish the aims of didactic poetry and prose. Cicero, for instance, observes that the excellence of Aratus and Nicander’s poetry was appreciated by the cognoscenti despite the fact that the former was recognised to be poorly versed in astronomy and the latter in rural life. On this account the didactic poet writes as a poet rather than a practical expert, and needs to be judged accordingly. Oppian does not present himself as a practical or theoretical specialist in either fish or fishing. He does not specify or even allude to his sources, referring at best to a vague and unspecified φάτις about certain forms of animal behaviour, and nowhere claims to reproduce specialised or esoteric information to which he alone has access. The poet notes that he has ‘heard’ – or perhaps ‘read’ – about certain kinds of animal behaviour, yet these refer not to specialised knowledge but to familiar or even proverbial tales: the wily fox, the abstemious grey 





  

See e.g. Volk a:  n. . The iambic periegetic verse of ps.-Scymnus draws attention to its prose sources, but this is a work that operates outside the conventions of traditional hexameter didactic and signals its affiliation to prose geographical and historiographical traditions. See Jacoby : –; Marcotte : –; Boshnakov : –; Effe : –; Hunter a, esp. –; Korenjak : –. Criticism of Aratus was levelled, for instance, by Hipparchus of Nicaea; contrast the defence by Attalus of Rhodes and Vita Arati III Martin (esp. .–.). See Reitz  on ancient correction of perceived factual errors in Homer and Aratus; Doody  on criticisms of Virgil in Columella and Pliny. Cic. De or. .. As Hutchinson :  n.  remarks, Cicero is ‘presumably drawing on a tradition for his assertions about Aratus’ and Nicander’s expertise’, and the fact that this argument is held up by Crassus as an analogue for the role of the orator indicates that it must have been an established position by the first century . Cf. Cic. Rep. ., of Gallus’ report that Aratus had borrowed from Eudoxus and depicted the heavens non astrologiae scientia, sed poetica quadam facultate. Seneca too criticises, but recognises the poetic aims of, Virgil’s representation of agricultural practice in the Georgics; see esp. Sen. Ep. . (apropos of G. .). E.g. snake and morray eel (.), shellfish (.–), jackals and deer (.–), sponge (.). On the use of verbs of hearing to represent material encountered in written form, see e.g. Schenkeveld ; Nu¨nlist :  n. ; Rebuffat :  n. . .–. Vulpine craft was proverbial in antiquity, hence the epithet κερδώ, ‘the wily one’, used here as a synonym for ἀλώπηξ; see e.g. Pind. Pyth. .; Ar. Eq. ; ps.-Opp. Cyn. .; Ael. NA .; Babr. , , .

. Didactic Authority



mullet, the dignified death of the dolphin, and the polygamy of Eastern tribes. Nor does he draw any sharp distinction between the biological, mythological, and paradoxographical material contained in his poem. A generic and usually unspecified φασί is used throughout the Halieutica to introduce both piscatorial information and mythological lore, serving partly as distancing mechanism and partly as Alexandrian footnote, but even the poem’s mythological narratives are never marked off as irrelevant or fantastical. As other chapters of this book will explore, the poet’s sea is a realm that straddles myth and reality, and his language shuttles continually back and forth between the two. Wilamowitz, who remained resistant throughout his life to didactic poetry as a literary genre, at the turn of the twentieth century denounced the Halieutica as tedious and derivative, a poem written not from a fisherman’s personal experience but from stale book-learning and dusty academic lore. Yet Wilamowitz here assesses the Halieutica according to a set of criteria to which the poem never itself lays claim, and his comments draw attention to the dangers of misconstruing the poem’s overall



   



 



.–. Fabled for having empty intestines when caught, the mullet supposedly chose to starve rather than eat flesh; κεστρεὺς νηστεύει was a proverb for honest behaviour; see Section ., ‘Deliberation’. .–. See e.g. Arist. HA a–; Plin. NH .. At .– Oppian acknowledges the popularity of tales about the remarkable antics of dolphins. .–, a common ethnographic motif. For myth and science in didactic poetry, see Gale ; Lehoux ; and the objections of Sale . Technical details: .– (whale); .– (oniscus); .– (octopus); .– (parrot-wrasse); .– (Thracian Sea). Mythological lore: . (Pan); .– (Myrrha); .– (Minthe). More specialised details are sometimes vaguely implied to stem from some anonymous yet knowledgeable party: see esp. . (fishermen and parrot-wrasse), .– (sailors and remora). Contrast ps.-Oppian, who includes fantastical tales of metamorphosis (e.g. Cyn. .–), but is also keen to discredit alternative accounts (Cyn. .–, .–, .–) and to question the plausibility of myths. See esp. Chapters , , . In  Wilamowitz claimed outright that ‘our poetics deny a didactic poem the right to exist’ (apropos of the Georgics, for all his appreciation of certain aspects of that poem), incidentally damning Nicander in the same breath as ‘the most insufferable of Greek poets’; see Calder : . Wilamowitz : : ‘Dieses umfängliche, formell recht korrekte Gedicht hat Beifall gefunden, der, oft wohl unbesehen, weitergegeben wird. Es ist erschreckend langweilig; der Mann mag ja vielleicht auch einmal Netze gestellt und Angeln ausgeworfen haben, aber im wesentlichen bringt er die abgestandene Buchweisheit u¨ber die Fische in Verse, die schon mancher ohne jede eigene Beobachtung weitergegeben hatte . . . [Oppian] entnahm sie vermutlich dem Alexander von Myndos . . .’; cf. e.g. Croiset : : ‘Oppien n’a pas d’impressions personnelles; il met en vers ce qu’il a lu, sans s’élever au-dessus d’une habile médiocrité.’



Knowledge and Pleasure

project. Oppian probably did gather his information from written sources, yet this ought hardly to shock us: by the imperial period it was standard practice for didactic poets to draw their material from technical prose treatises rather than first-hand personal experience. Oppian no more claims to have composed his text from personal experience than does, for instance, Aratus; he writes as a poet, not a fisherman. References to the fisherman’s expertise are thus separated in the Halieutica from the poet’s self-presentation, at times even distancing him from this kind of specialised practical knowledge, and the poet never once implies that he has gone fishing, or has any personal experience in observing or identifying these creatures. In general Oppian skates lightly over the practical information essential to the fisherman’s enterprise, and rarely provides significant detail about a fish’s appearance or the precise method necessary to catch it. The fisherman is always discussed in the third person, or as an anonymous τις, and is no more associated with the poet than are sailors, divers, hunters, or other professionals. While effecting the transition from zoology (books –) to fishing (books –), Oppian offers a list of the implements used by fishermen (.–), but provides no practical information about their respective merits or suitability for different species. Instead he observes that different fishermen favour different methods, but τῶν πάντων καὶ μέτρον ὅσον καὶ κόσμον ἑκάστου | ἀτρεκέως ἴσασιν, ὅσοι τάδε τεκταίνονται (‘those men who devise all these things know accurately the due measure and good order of each’, .–). 









The notion of metaphrasis is often used to denigrate the creative role of the didactic poet. Schuler and Fitch : , for instance, claim that Hellenistic and imperial didactic poems became ‘merely versifications of existing prose treatises’; cf. Jenkyns : ; Lesky –: . A tendency so marked that Rebuffat :  n.  refers to the practice of turning prose treatises into verse as the key feature that unites the otherwise diffuse category of Hellenistic and imperial didactic poetry. Cf. Keydell : ; Amato :  n. ; Rebuffat : –, although the latter needs some qualification. Bekker-Nielsen :  contrasts this lack of personal experience with the firsthand experience emphasised in agricultural manuals; cf. Bekker-Nielsen : , where it is suggested that this difference reflects the low status of fishing in comparison to agriculture. It seems to me, however, that the difference lies partly in the divergent conventions of didactic poems and prose handbooks. See e.g. .–, .–, .–. Contrast ps.-Oppian’s emphasis on autopsy: e.g. ps.-Opp. Cyn. .: θαῦμα . . . ἔδρακον; Cyn. .: ἔδρακον, οὐ πυθόμεν, κεῖνόν ποτε θῆρα δαφοινόν; Cyn. .–: ναὶ μὴν ἄλλο γένεθλον ἐμοῖς ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν | ἀμφίδυμον (of Cappadocian horses, a black lion and the ostrich respectively). Agosta : , evidently much taken by ps.-Oppian’s account, has argued that ps.-Oppian must have travelled to North Africa, where he would have encountered this lion. Sailors: ., .; divers: .–; hunters: ., etc. Even when Oppian refers to native Cilician techniques (.–), he never implies that he has taken part in, or even observed, these traditions.

. Didactic Authority



The practical matter of fishing tackle is here subordinated to the fisherman’s expert judgement and left aside as irrelevant to the current project. None of this is to say that Oppian could not himself have seen the sea or even have spent many a pleasant hour fishing, but the point is that he has chosen not to portray himself in this role. The poet’s material on sea-fish and their capture is drawn instead from zoological and piscatorial treatises. The originality of the Halieutica lies not in its up-to-date technical material or fresh identification of the habits of fish, but in its elegant, novel, and arresting depiction of these creatures. Scholars have nevertheless remained eager to seek out evidence of the poet’s personal engagement with the technical material presented in the Halieutica. Enrico Rebuffat, for instance, has expended considerable energy attempting to discern what he takes to be hints of personal experience in the poem, arguing that it would be anomalous for such a work to be composed without personal insight into the subject, and that the Halieutica is imbued with a sense of the beauty of nature that can only have been inspired by familiarity with the field; he is even led to claim that because Oppian’s ideal fisherman is said to love the sea, so must Oppian. Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen is concerned by the lack of personal experience in the poem, whilst Frieda Klotz assumes that because 

 







There can be little certainty about the identity of these (now lost) sources, but they are likely to have included the ichthyological treatise of Leonidas of Byzantium and the zoological compendium of Alexander of Myndus; Oppian’s zoological lore overlaps in part with material in Plutarch’s De sollertia animalium and Aelian’s De natura animalium. The information in the Halieutica is relatively accurate, although see e.g. .– (on ‘high-flying’ squid, the family of Ommastrephidae, which in fact glide along the surface of the sea) or . (that fish breathe air). Cf. Rebuffat : . E.g. Corcoran : : ‘Oppian was born in Cilicia among people who drew their daily food from the sea, and he probably added his personal observations to knowledge taken from Greek handbooks.’ This despite his recognition that Oppian composed the Halieutica from written sources, and that he never claims direct experience in the subject. See e.g. Rebuffat : : ‘soltanto chi affronti la questione da un punto di vista meramente teorico è portato a negare negli Halieutica la presenza dell’autopsia: la lettura del poema, considerato nel suo complesso e in numerosi singoli passi, induce a pensare che esso non avrebbe potuto essere composto senza una certa esperienza personale, o perlomeno senza la frequentazione di pescatori’. Hal. .; Rebuffat : –. The flaws in Rebuffat’s arguments are self-evident, however: at .– Oppian also states that the fisherman should be strong, nimble, of medium build, crafty, daring, sharp-eyed and so forth. Presumably nobody is suggesting that Oppian was also nimble, daring, and of medium build; it seems more likely that the poet, aware of the hazards of sea-fishing (on which see .–), implies that fishing is a risk to be taken only by those eager for the labours involved. On the wider issue of autopsy and personal experience see Amato : –. Thus e.g. Bekker-Nielsen : : ‘[t]he form and literary style of the Halieutika raise a number of disturbing questions about the nature of the information it provides’. Cf. Bekker-Nielsen :  n. .



Knowledge and Pleasure

Oppian describes the actions of the skilful fisherman, he must be adopting a ‘fisherman pose’ and offering up first-hand experience in the art. This, however, is to misrepresent the poem. Not only do Hellenistic and imperial didactic poets rarely foreground their own experience, but their claims to authority tend to cleave to epic traditions by representing the poet’s prestige and privilege as stemming from the divine rather than the human sphere. As Hesiod implies in the nautilia of the Works and Days, practical or professional knowledge of the field is simply not necessary for the didactic poet, for the Muses have ‘taught’ (ἐδίδαξαν, Op. ) him to sing even that of which he has no personal experience. So too Dionysius the Periegete parades his status as a purely academic geographer, a scholar who has never actually ventured to any of those regions of which he so ‘easily’ and authoritatively speaks (Perieg. –). In contrast to the frequent claims of ancient prose geographers to have traversed and viewed the regions they describe, Dionysius disclaims personal experience in favour of the intellectual journey he has undertaken courtesy of the Muses and the traditions of academic endeavour that they now represent. The use of written sources for him becomes not a matter of stale or derivative book-learning but a symbol of distinction and learning, a claim to authority based on the poet’s privileged access to knowledge. As 







E.g. Klotz : : ‘If Oppian can describe exactly what the skilful fisherman should do, there is a clear implication that when it comes to fishing, he knows what he is talking about. These comments imply that Oppian has indepth [sic] knowledge of (and therefore personal familiarity with) the fisherman’s trade.’ Cf.  n. : Oppian’s ‘knowledgeable remarks [about fishing] imply that Oppian is aware of what is required, through his own experience’. Cf. Sharrock : . Hesiod of course creates an autobiographical framework for the Works and Days (Hes. Op. –), yet never claims direct personal experience in farming: it is the Muses to whom he appeals at the start of the Works and Days and who guarantee his information (Op. –). See e.g. Most ; Haubold : ; on epistemology and the divine in early Greek poetry see Tor . Cf. Hes. Theog. , where the Muses are said to have ‘taught’ (ἐδίδαξαν) the poet. On Hesiodic authority in the nautilia and beyond see Rosen , esp. ; D. Steiner ; Hunter : –. Hesiod claims that he will reveal the ‘measures’ or μέτρα of the loud-roaring sea (Op. –); as West  observes ad loc., ‘μέτρα is loosely used of the rules and formulae known to the expert’. This juxtaposition of poetic and technical expertise is refracted not only in Dionysius’ measuring or travelling Muses, where the verb μετρήσασθαι (Dion. Perieg. ) evokes both theoretical and physical movement (cf. Amato :  n. ), but also in Oppian’s use of μέτρα twice in his proem, both of practical experts (.; cf. .) and of the poet’s evaluation of his own task (.), the latter following the poet’s invocation to the gods and Muses (.–). In both cases this poetry is framed as an intellectual rather than a practical pursuit (νόος, Perieg. ; νοήμα, Hal. .). For μέτρον in association with poetic σοφία, see Solon fr. .– W; Thgn. ; on μέτρον and the intersection of practical and poetic expertise, see Dougherty : –; Ford : ; Purves a: –. Cf. the (hexameter) response of the Delphic oracle to Croesus’ test of oracular authority at Hdt. .., see Kindt : –. See e.g. Hunter b: , of Aratus.

. Didactic Authority



readers of the Periegesis have long recognised, Dionysius’ Muses here suggest not only the omniscient, synoptic vision associated with the gods and Muses of archaic epic poetry, but also the scholastic traditions associated with the Alexandrian Mouseion and the bodies of archived knowledge on which this poem is so evidently based. For Dionysius, the ‘Muses’ embody the difference between didactic poetry and didactic prose, between books and practical experience. The proems to each book of the Halieutica lay weight not on personal experience but on poetic authority and alleged proximity to the divine, associating the gods and Muses with the production and reception of this poem. Elsewhere the gods are even invoked to explain a number of zoological details. Severin Koster has deemed the opening of the Halieutica a proem of the ‘Nicandrian type’, claiming that Oppian adopts a ‘völlig “enttheologisierte” Form des Proömiums’ of the kind exemplified by Nicander, an allegedly secular mode that contrasts with the divinely orientated traditions of archaic didactic proems. Yet although Oppian does indeed open by referring to the power of the emperor rather than the gods, he does not provide the kind of ostentatiously secular rhetoric employed in the proems of the Theriaca and Alexipharmaca, where Nicander emphatically eschews all mention of the divine, focusing instead on his 



 

The Hesiodic and Hellenistic backdrop to this passage has been much discussed, as has Dionysius’ use of the Muses to represent education and intellectual or scholastic activity. See esp. Jacob : – (and cf. –); Amato : –, ; Hunter c: ; Lightfoot : –, –; for the Hellenistic ‘intellectualization of the Muses’ and their ‘role as goddesses who preside over education, scholarship and learning’, see Murray : ; Bing . On ‘savoir livresque et autopsie’ in geographical writings, see Marcotte : –. Eust. in Dion. Perieg. .– Mu¨ller notes the connection between this section of the Periegesis and Hes. Op. ; Hollis :  refers to the passage as a ‘synthesis’ of Callim. Hec. fr.  Pf. and Aet. fr. .– Pf. See further Jacob : –; Greaves : –; Bowie ; Bowie : ; Hunter c, esp. –; Khan : –, ; Knaack : ; Tsavari : ; Amato : . On archaic epic precedents for Dionysius’ representation of the Muses see Lightfoot : . At . Oppian uses the Muses to suggest education and intellectual pursuit. The poet offers hymns and prayers to Poseidon and the sea gods (.–); Zeus (.–); the gods at large (.–); Zeus and the gods (.–); Hermes (.–); Eros (.–); Poseidon (.–). See e.g. .–, –, –; ., –; .–, –, –, and esp. .–. Koster : . Pöhlmann :  shifts Nicander’s secularity onto a stylistic level. Cf. Fakas b:  n. ; Magnelli a: –: ‘Nicander, far from simply leaving out the mention of any god, replaces it with the secular and self-confident ῥεῖα, thus stating that he needs nothing else than his own skill and erudition . . . This is not a mere difference from Hesiod and Aratus; it rather implies the purpose of explicitly abandoning their path, and is better understood as belonging to a period in which such an ironical, detached and self-conscious attitude was already established as an important feature of Hellenistic poetry.’ Cf. Clauss ; Hunter : nn. , ; Hunter c: –.On Hesiod, Empedocles, and Parmenides see Erren ; on poets ‘disclaiming divine inspiration’ in their work see Miller .



Knowledge and Pleasure

own ‘easy’ mastery of the topic. Oppian may defer his address to the gods and Muses until near the end of his proem (.–), but this is not the same as an assertion of total independence from divine authority. Indeed, as we shall see in the next chapter, the poet lays particular emphasis on the contrast between mortal limitation and divine omniscience. The Halieutica may not be a poem composed by an expert fisherman, but ‘lessons’ are nevertheless promulgated throughout the work. These, I suggest, lie less in learning how to catch a mullet or identify a sea bream – this is not, after all, a technical fishing manual – than in understanding the wider patterns of behaviour that dominate marine life, and the mistakes that lead to these creatures’ capture or death. The poet reveals the workings of this most hostile of spheres and forces us to confront the fatal consequences of unrestrained or impulsive behaviour. The poem shows us that we cannot blithely assume that humans are innately superior to other species, in part because animals too offer paradigms of positive virtues, but also because we turn out to be more like these creatures than we might at first have supposed; humans too are prone to the flaws of hostility, greed, indolence, and lust. Oppian represents zoology and fishing first and foremost as a matter of ethics, for all his transmission of technical know-how.

. Hesiodic Lessons The poet’s most explicitly didactic comments are prompted by the cautionary tale of the Atlantic star-gazer, which Oppian calls the ἡμεροκοίτης or day-sleeper (.–). The fish is introduced with not one but two superlatives: φράζεο δ’ ἀφραδίῃ προφερέστατον ἡμεροκοίτην | ἰχθύν, ὃν παρὰ πάντας ἀεργότατον τέκεν ἅλμη (‘consider the day-sleeper, a fish of surpassing stupidity, which is lazy beyond all that the sea nourishes’, 



Cf. Brioso Sánchez : , who emphasises Oppian’s focus on the gods precisely in contrast to that of Nicander: ‘el poeta de Haliéuticas recupera el motivo piadoso, dejado de lado por Nicandro, al invocar aquí a Posidón y demás mitología marina, lo que no nos sorprende en su época’. It is thus untrue to claim that ‘[Oppian’s] Werk . . . wird auf keinerlei göttlichen Beistand verwiesen’ (Koster : ; cf. Pöhlmann : ; Iglesias Zoido b: –. Koster further claims that Oppian and ps.-Oppian represent the divergent models of ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ didactic proem. Yet this distinction is hardly justifiable: Oppian’s proem does address deities, while ps.-Oppian’s proem, composed in the supposedly ‘archaic’ religious style, likewise opens with an address to the emperor, hymning the glories of Caracalla and his parents well before the poet embarks upon his dialogue with Artemis. The opening lines the Cynegetica, moreover, are evidently modelled on the opening verses of the Halieutica, with the vocative Ἀντωνῖνε at the end of Cyn. . picking up the Ἀντωνῖνε at the end of Hal. ., on which see Schmitt : .

. Hesiodic Lessons



.–). This is a creature so gluttonous that if it finds sufficient food at hand, it will gorge itself until it either bursts or is eaten by another fish. The poet exhorts his readers to heed the creature’s sorry end: κλῦτε, γοναὶ μερόπων, οἷον τέλος ἀφραδίῃσι λαιμάργοις, ὅσον ἄλγος ἀδηφαγίῃσιν ὀπηδεῖ· τῷ τις ἀεργίην δυστερπέα τῆλε διώκοι καὶ κραδίης καὶ χειρός, ἔχοι δέ τι μέτρον ἐδωδῆς μηδ’ ἐπὶ πανθοίνῃσι νόον τέρποιτο τραπέζαις· πολλοὶ γὰρ τοῖοι καὶ ἐν ἀνδράσιν, οἷσι λέλυνται ἡνία, γαστρὶ δὲ πάντας ἐπιτρωπῶσι κάλωας· ἀλλά τις εἰσορόων φεύγοι τέλος ἡμεροκοίτου. (.–)

Hear, you generations of men, what kind of end comes with foolish gluttony, what kind of pain accompanies greed. So one should banish the evil pleasure of indolence far away from both heart and hand, and have some restraint in eating, and not delight in the tables of all kinds of splendid feasts. For among humans as well there are many of this type, who have slackened the reins and given all rope to the belly. But one should observe and avoid the end of the day-sleeper.

The movement from singular to plural addressees at . compounds the unusually explicit moral instruction in this passage, which the scholiast aptly terms a γνώμη. While the scene is introduced by the poet’s customary second-person-singular imperative (φράζεο, .; cf. τοι, .), the generic nature of the addressee is disclosed by the rapidity with which the poet moves on to humankind at large (κλῦτε, γοναὶ μερόπων, .); the scene ends by drawing attention to the lessons we are to learn from this fish, and the third-person optatives urging a generic τις to action (.–, ) expressly indicate how one ought to modify one’s behaviour in light of this knowledge. The slippage between (singular) addressee and humankind at large is tellingly easy, and is itself a familiar feature of didactic poetry, which frequently models its impact on a broader readership by addressing a named individual who stands in for, or allows the poet to transition into addressing, a wider range of figures who might benefit from the poet’s authoritative precepts. 

On didactic addressees see Schiesaro, Mitsis and Clay ; Dalzell : ; Lowrie . Cf. Obbink : : ‘[Empedocles] invokes now his personal Muse, Kalliopeia, now his devotee Pausanias, while at other points he reverts to a more general, public address in the second person plural.’ On Aratus’ largely generic second-person addressee see Erren : –; Bing , esp. –; Fakas b: –; Hunter b: . Semanoff  and : – offers an intriguing, if not always convincing, extension of this argument.



Knowledge and Pleasure

The permeability between named addressee and implied reader is reinforced by the fact that the emperor is not figured as the direct – or at least explicit – addressee of the poet’s discussion of fish and fish-bait. In fact, the emperor is never addressed in the technical body of the poem, and is represented less as a student than as a ruler of the realm whose inhabitants the poet details. Marcus is never alleged to require the poet’s tuition (unlike, say, a Perses or a Memmius), and the poet takes care to avoid any implication that his addressee is obtuse or misguided, an unflattering didactic paradigm self-evidently inappropriate for his imperial audience. The poem’s practical relevance to the emperor is also left unspecified; contrast, for instance, the implication in ps.-Oppian’s Cynegetica that the emperor will use the poet’s lessons to partake knowledgeably in the hunt. The proem to book  of the Halieutica may depict the emperor fishing in his sheltered fish-preserves (.–), but this is a very different kind of sport from the hard realities of life at sea represented in the remainder of the poem. The emperor is mentioned only in the proems to each book and at the conclusion of the sections of the poem devoted to fish (end of book ) and fishing (end of book ). Second-person-singular imperatives, optatives, and future indicatives are otherwise used throughout the poem, both for practical instruction in the art of fishing (‘you should use this type of bait’) and for a more theoretical engagement with particular fish and fishing methods, whether hypothetical observation (‘you would see’) or the assimilation of the scenes detailed in the poem (‘hear’ or ‘learn this’). Never, however, is a recipient specified for these exhortations. We cannot discount the idea that the emperor, lord of the earth, might be imagined to bait his hook with a worm or an onion (.–, ). Yet this is never explicitly stated, and it is important to note the ease with which in the episode of the day-sleeper the poet invokes a wider audience that moves beyond his imperial addressee to humanity at large. In this vignette, as throughout the poem, greedy fish bring about their own destruction, and emphasis is placed on the idleness (ἀεργίη) of the ἡμεροκοίτης: the creature sleeps throughout the day, is called ἀεργότατος at ., and is set against the potential ἀεργίη of humans at .. In     

Ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–. This in part reflects the difference in status between hunting and fishing; see e.g. Marzano : –. On which see Chapter , pp. –. Thus e.g. . (ὁπλίζοιο, of bait); . (ἐσόψεαι, of the dolphin attacking amia); . (πεύθεο, of the method for catching anthias). On second-person verbs see Rebuffat : –. Cf. also the prayers and apostrophes to gods and fish at e.g. .–, –; .–; .–, –. These being the only occurrences of the word in the Halieutica.

. Hesiodic Lessons



this the poet looks above all to the moral precepts about ἔργα in the Works and Days, where Hesiod urges Perses to industry: ἔργον δ’ οὐδὲν ὄνειδος, ἀεργίη δέ τ’ ὄνειδος (‘work is not a disgrace at all, but not working is a disgrace’, Hes. Op. ). There, idleness leads to hunger and evil-doing; here, as with Hesiod’s exemplum of the drones (Op. –), it is bound up with gluttony and excess. The tale of the day-sleeper is prominently positioned at the beginning of the poet’s ethical commentary, which runs across books –. While ethical precepts are implicit throughout the Halieutica, and we frequently witness the vices of fish whose behaviour seems uncomfortably close to that of humankind, the poet rarely engages in such direct admonition in the remainder of the poem. Instead, by explicitly articulating at the start of this sequence the moral that the reader is to draw from the marine world, the poet presents the day-sleeper as a didactically explicit template against which we are to interpret the creatures discussed in the rest of the poem. The reminiscences of the Works and Days in this episode foreground the poet’s powerful didactic voice and insist that we take note of these creatures’ failings and amend our own behaviour accordingly. This book of the Halieutica is saturated with Hesiodic resonances. Even the term used of the species, ἡμεροκοίτης, draws from the Hesiodic description of the ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνήρ – the day-sleeping man or thief (Hes. Op. ) against whom the reader of the Works and Days is cautioned. The fish is thus associated with the Hesiodic thief’s immorality and lack of proper diurnal industry, a resonance that can hardly be a coincidence in one of the most explicitly didactic passages of the poem. The species, after all, was known by several other names, including νυκτερίς (a term evidently familiar to the poet, who records it as an alternative term at .), the well-attested οὐρανοσκόπος, and the euphemistic καλλιώνυμος. In opting instead for ἡμεροκοίτης, the poet presents the day-sleeper’s failings as a Hesiodic vision of moral turpitude transposed to the sea. The proem to book  had already framed marine life in markedly Hesiodic terms by observing that fish continually eat one another:





See Hes. Op. –, in which ἀεργός and cognates recur six times. Hesiod remarks upon the loathing with which the idle are greeted and cites a parallel from nature: that of the drone that eats without working, benefitting from the labour of the bees (Op. –). Describing the day-sleeper, Oppian inverts the direction of this analogy, turning not from man to nature but from zoological exemplum to sententiae about mankind. Hsch. α  glosses ἁμεροκοίτης as ὁ καλλιώνυμος ἰχθῦς; cf. Ael. NA ..



Knowledge and Pleasure ἰχθύσι δ’ οὔτε δίκη μεταρίθμιος οὔτε τις αἰδώς, οὐ φιλότης· πάντες γὰρ ἀνάρσιοι ἀλλήλοισι δυσμενέες πλώουσιν· ὁ δὲ κρατερώτερος αἰεὶ δαίνυτ’ ἀφαυροτέρους, ἄλλῳ δ’ ἐπινήχεται ἄλλος πότμον ἄγων, ἕτερος δ’ ἑτέρῳ πόρσυνεν ἐδωδήν. (.–)

Neither justice nor any respect nor love are counted among fish, for they all swim with implacable hostility towards one other. The stronger always feasts on the weaker, one swims up and attacks another, bringing doom upon it, and the one becomes food for the next.

The emphasis on δίκη, αἰδώς, and φιλότης, all declared wholly absent from the interactions of sea-creatures, is heavily reminiscent of the Works and Days. Oppian here develops the influential Hesiodic claim that fish and other animals live in a realm devoid of justice, since Zeus has bestowed δίκη and its benefits upon mankind alone: τόνδε γὰρ ἀνθρώποισι νόμον διέταξε Κρονίων, ἰχθύσι μὲν καὶ θηρσὶ καὶ οἰωνοῖς πετεηνοῖς ἔσθειν ἀλλήλους, ἐπεὶ οὐ δίκη ἐστὶ μετ’ αὐτοῖς· ἀνθρώποισι δ’ ἔδωκε δίκην, ἣ πολλὸν ἀρίστη γίνεται· (Hes. Op. –)

For the son of Cronos ordained this law for men, that fish and beasts and winged birds should eat one another, since there is no justice among them; to men, however, he gave justice, which is by far the best. 





It is perhaps worth noting that Oppian here refers to hostility between different species, for few fish in the Halieutica exhibit hostility towards their own kind: the behaviour of the tuna (.–) is presented as an abhorrent exception. The disavowal of φιλότης, elsewhere said by the poet to motivate fish, also serves to advertise book  as an (Empedoclean) book of strife rather than love; the latter will be the subject of book  (on Empedocles see Chapter , pp. –). Oppian’s statement is thus in tension with his use elsewhere of φιλότης and φιλοτήσιος to denote the sexual desire exhibited by fish, particularly during mating season (e.g. ., , , , , , , ; ., , , ), as well as a more positive, selfless affection, such as dolphins’ love for their offspring (.; .) and friendship with men (.; .), and the loving collaboration of parrot-wrasse, dogfish, or pilot-fish, all of which come to the aid of distressed companions (., , ; .). For δίκη in the Works and Days see Section ., ‘Poetic Justice’; for the central role of αἰδώς for mankind, and the horror implied by its absence, see Hes. Op. ,  (on the iron race), and the triple anaphora of αἰδώς at Op. –, followed by the personification of Αἰδώς at Op.  (picking up on Op. ). Cairns : – discusses the close connection between αἰδώς and δίκη (and, to a lesser degree, φιλότης) in the Works and Days. With the exception of the grey mullet, αἰδώς and cognates are used in the Halieutica only of human beings, as at ., ., and .. The bitch guarding her puppies at . specifically does not feel αἰδώς, and the snake’s shame at .– refers only to its own reputation; on this difference between αἰδώς and αἰδέομαι, see Cairns : –.

. Hesiodic Lessons



This is a statement with a long reception history, and imperial Greek debates about animals refer frequently to Hesiod’s claim that mankind alone possesses justice, in contrast to the lawless injustice of carnivorous birds, beasts, and fish. Oppian, however, goes further in placing this Hesiodic vision at the core of his eternally hostile marine world: on his view the sea is a realm populated by fish that embody the principles of savage, unjust consumption. This holds true not only of the sea at large, as outlined near-explicitly at the end of book  (on which see Chapter ), but also of individual species, whose predations are often endowed with a specifically Hesiodic cast. Shortly after the account of the ἡμεροκοίτης, for instance, Oppian turns his attention to the octopus, which attacks a crayfish like a nocturnal thief assailing a drunken reveller: ὡς δέ τις ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνὴρ ληίστορι τέχνῃ ὁρμαίνων ἀίδηλα, δίκης σέβας οὔποτ’ ἀέξων, ἑσπέριος στεινῇσι καταπτήξας ἐν ἀγυιαῖς ἄνδρα παραστείχοντα μετ’ εἰλαπίνην ἐδόκευσε (.–)

Just as some day-sleeping man, devising dark plans with predatory craft and never paying heed to the reverence of justice, skulks at evening in the narrow streets and lies in wait for a man passing by after a feast . . .

The thief then overpowers the reveller and steals his belongings: the poet not only points to the injustice of all sea-creatures, ever eating another without mercy, but in doing so reminds us that humans too are prone to such behaviour; indeed, the thief all but kills his victim in his pursuit of injustice (.–). The unusual depiction of the octopus as a ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνήρ is based on Hesiod’s ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνήρ or thief, and evokes Hesiod’s outrage at the unjust behaviour of Perses. If the octopus – driven by dietary necessity – is unable to prevent itself from acting as a lawless, murderous villain and devouring a crayfish, then the human at least has a choice, for all that (s)he must work hard to remain on the straight and narrow. The reader of Oppian’s poem is no more immune from immoral behaviour than is a Perses. This is the second kenning or figurative circumlocution that Oppian uses to denote the octopus, which has already been introduced in recognisably Hesiodic terms with the claim that in winter (χείματι) these  

See e.g. Plut. De sollert. anim. b, b; Ael. NA .; Porph. De abst. ... Hes. Op. ; the phrase appears only in Oppian and in discussions of the Hesiodic passage. Aside from Euripides’ ἁμερόκοιτοι (of bleating kids at Cyc. ), Oppian’s seems to be the only ancient use of the adjective in post-Hesiodic Greek poetry at large. Cf. Bartley : .



Knowledge and Pleasure

creatures are afraid of storm-winds and do not venture out, but sit cowering in their hollow lair and feasting on their own feet (.–). The notion that octopuses ate their tentacles in times of hardship was widespread in antiquity; Oppian’s φασί (.) alludes to the ubiquity of the idea, if also to a suspicion of such tales. The image recalls Hesiod’s description of the miseries of winter in the Works and Days, where we hear of the παρθενική who lies down in the innermost recess of the house ἤματι χειμερίῳ, ὅτ’ ἀνόστεος ὃν πόδα τένδει | ἔν τ’ ἀπύρῳ οἴκῳ καὶ ἤθεσι λευγαλέοισιν (‘on a wintry day, when the boneless one gnaws its foot in its fireless house and dismal abodes’, Hes. Op. –). The Hesiodic kenning ἀνόστεος (‘boneless one’) has long vexed scholars, but while a number of ingenious modern suggestions have been propounded, in antiquity the ἀνόστεος was interpreted near-universally as referring to the octopus. Oppian exploits this Hesiodic precedent when he states that cephalopods – a class of mollusc composed primarily of the octopus, squid, nautilus, and cuttlefish – are oviparous, bloodless, and ‘boneless’ (ἀνόστεος, .). Abiding by the Aristotelian classification of bloodless animals into cephalopods, crustaceans, testaceans, and insects, Oppian’s unmistakeable description of the cephalopod as ἀνόστεος inscribes its Hesiodic qualities into the species’ very anatomy, providing a zoological parallel to the allusion activated afterwards by the poet’s wintry octopuses. Oppian’s taxonomy may be Aristotelian, but his explanation for the phenomenon is altogether different. Aristotle, alluding to the enmity of the octopus, eel, and crayfish, had argued that octopuses do not gnaw at their own feet – this being a misconception generated by the damage caused by



 

For the octopus see Antig. Mir. ., a view echoed by Σ Hes. Op. . Until recently modern scholarly consensus had also favoured the octopus: see e.g. West : ; Renehan : ; Jouanna . Dissent, however, has ramified. Mierow , in a suggestion that West :  labels ‘fatuous’, suggests that the kenning refers to a hungry sheepdog. Discussion has centred around the meaning of the hapax τένδει, which ancient commentators took to mean ‘eat’ or ‘gnaw’, but for which Troxler :  suggests ‘retract’. Interpretations range from the snail (Troxler : ; Edwards : ; Hofinger : –; Bader : –; Beall : –) to the mollusc at large (Bona Quaglia :  n. ) to ‘an invertebrate belonging to the phylum Coelenterata’ (Phillips : ). Sexual connotations have also been found in the phrase: see Watkins , Nagy : –; Campanile ; Martin : . Bagordo  stresses the possibility of multiple interpretative levels, while Canevaro : – emphasises the onus placed on the audience to interpret Hesiod’s riddles. Summarised at Arist. HA b. A connection between the Aristotelian system of classification and Hesiod’s ἀνόστεος is suggested by Σ Op. . The term ἀνόστεος is near-universally defined by ancient encyclopaedists with reference to Hesiod’s octopus.

. Hesiodic Lessons



eels nibbling at the octopuses’ tentacles. Debates over autophagic octopuses had some currency in this period: the diners in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae remark on the octopus’ alleged foot-nibbling as both poetic theme and factual inaccuracy, while both Plutarch and Pliny advance similar claims to Aristotle. Oppian, however, makes no mention of this more rational interpretation, despite its relevance to the ensuing narrative of the combat between octopus and eels; instead, his representation of the octopus, and his allusion to the tale’s renown (φασί, .), emphasises the octopus’ own actions and privileges the Hesiodic interpretation of the creature gnawing on its own foot. Oppian’s octopus therefore draws together two Hesiodic kennings: the boneless one and the day-sleeping man. The poet in turn connects the two when he compares the octopus’ consumption of the crayfish to a thief carrying off ill-gotten and lawless plunder (δυσκερδῆ τε φέρων καὶ ἀνέστιον ἄγρην, .). This use of the adjective ἀνέστιος extends the word’s literal sense of ‘hearthless’ or ‘homeless’ into something like ‘savage’ or ‘unjust’, designating the actions of a vagabond man who never fosters respect for justice (δίκης σέβας οὔποτ᾽ ἀέξων, .). Yet the literal sense of the alpha-privative ‘hearthless’ also lingers on, so that we read in this ἀνέστιος (lawless, hearthless) octopus a verbal and thematic echo of Hesiod’s ἀνόστεος octopus sitting in its miserable, fireless home ἀνόστεος ὃν πόδα τένδει | ἔν τ’ ἀπύρῳ οἴκῳ (Hes. Op. –). Three wider points are in order here. In the first place, these kennings appear in short succession in the section of the Works and Days devoted to agricultural precepts (Hes. Op. –). It was this extended sequence of instructions, the so-called ‘farmers’ almanac’, that above all established the formal conventions of the branch of didactic poetry that ostensibly instructs the reader in a given practical sphere such as farming, hunting, or fishing. In twice alluding to kennings from this sequence of precepts,    



Arist. HA a–. The phenomenon of the autophagic octopus has been defended by Higham . Athen. .e–f. Plut. De sollert. anim. a; Plin. NH .; Ael. NA .. Cf. e.g. Nestor at Hom. Il. .; the other use of the adjective ἀνέστιος in the Halieutica refers to the houseless hermit-crab appropriating an empty shell as its home, .. In addition to the ἀνόστεος of Hes. Op.  and the ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνήρ of Op. , this section of the Works and Days also includes the φερέοικος of Op. , as well as a number of other riddling or periphrastic phrases whose meaning, and status as kennings, has long been disputed. On the varieties of kenning in Greek poetry, see Wærn , esp. – and – on Hesiod. I do not wish to imply that the Works and Days, either in whole or in part, was intended as an instruction manual for farmers on how to till fields; my point is rather that the rhetoric of practical instruction presented in this portion of the Works and Days indisputably shaped the formal conventions of later didactic poetry.



Knowledge and Pleasure

Oppian writes his octopus into both the ethical and the technical traditions of Hesiodic didactic poetry. The octopus encapsulates not only the poet’s zoological subject-matter, but also the kind of unjust behaviour against which Hesiod cautions his brother and, by extension, the reader of the Works and Days. Hesiod’s kennings both refer, moreover, to the close relationship between human and animal life: wintry weather affects both the ‘boneless’ octopus and the tender maiden, while ‘day-sleeping’ thieves are to be deterred from one’s home by a well-fed guard-dog. The Works and Days is thus read as a work that comments on the close relationship between human beings and the rhythms of the natural world, and as such of particular importance to a didactic poem about zoology and mankind’s relationship to the natural world. Finally, Oppian’s choice to evoke kennings in particular – those riddling phrases that force the reader to puzzle out the poet’s meaning, and to distil the characteristic essence of a particular being, whether it be ‘boneless’ or ‘day-sleeping’ – positions the Halieutica as heir to the interpretative and ethical challenges posed by the Works and Days. The reader of each poem is guided carefully through the topic at hand, but is also prompted to puzzle out the deeper meanings at work in the text.

. Education and Entertainment Didactic poets, in setting forth ‘lessons’ for their addressee or reader, often comment explicitly on their own objectives in their work. Critics have accordingly scoured many didactic poems for implicit or explicit indications of the aims and function of the genre more widely. This is an important task, and one rendered particularly pressing by the dearth of ancient critical theories about didactic poetry as a self-standing literary genre. Yet it seems to me that an enduring, but often misleading, result of this quest has been the elevation to the status of a ‘manifesto’ for the genre at large of Lucretius’ claim that he has masked his philosophical precepts in sweet poetic garb like a doctor smearing honey on a cup of bitter wormwood. The image creates a dichotomy between sweet and enticing form and useful but bitter content. While this clearly speaks volumes about Lucretius’ approach to his own Epicurean philosophical poetry, it would, I think, be misleading to regard it as a template for all ancient didactic poems. Bernd Effe’s seminal monograph Dichtung und Lehre (), for 

Lucr. .– = .–, on which see esp. Gale : –, –; Gruber ; Lenaghan ; Clay : –; Wöhrle .

. Education and Entertainment



instance, takes Lucretius’ poem as the ‘normal’ or ‘ideal’ type of didactic poetry, and divides ancient didactic poetry into three main categories – the instructional, transparent, and formal – according to the degree to which the poet ‘genuinely’ intends to instruct. While Effe’s discussion of individual didactic poems is often sensitively observed, his analysis is overly rigid in drawing a strict distinction between these different types and in assigning each poem only to a single category; many didactic poems instead explore a range of instructional modes. What is more, Effe presupposes a fundamental dichotomy, inherent in all didactic poetry, between Dichtung and Lehre or poetry and instruction, sometimes expressed in terms of form and content. The opposition between instruction and entertainment is of course a familiar topic in ancient literary criticism, but it is by no means the only way of conceiving of the genre, and we cannot assume that every didactic poem circles uneasily around an irreconcilable tension between form and content. Thomas Haye’s excellent analysis of medieval Latin didactic poetry, for instance, points out that many of these poems envisage no such rift at their core: Die Iuxtaposition der fu¨r das Lehrgedicht zentralen Begriffe, carmen einerseits, doctrina andererseits, erfolgt in den meisten der genannten Fälle unbefangen und ohne Sensibilität fu¨r eine gattungstheoretische oder poetologische Problematik, die dem Lehrgedicht zugrunde liegen könnte. Denn die beiden Begriffe beziehen sich im Verständnis der Verfasser auf verschiedene Aspekte des Textes: carmen zielt auf das Medium, d.h. auf die metrische und poetische Form ab, doctrina hingegen auf die Intention, bestimmte Stoffe lehren zu wollen. Spannungen oder Widerspru¨che sind nicht erkennbar.

Nor, I argue, does the Halieutica exhibit a marked tension between form and content, or its educational and pleasurable aspects. The poet 

 



Effe’s three types are the ‘sachbezogen’ (didactic poems that aim to teach the reader about the technical material described in the poem; this is the normal or ideal type, of which Lucretius is taken as the exemplar); the ‘transparent’ (didactic poems that do aim to instruct, but in a sphere other than their purported subject-matter; this kind is typified by Aratus); and the ‘formal’ (purely ornamental didactic poetry in which the author seeks not to instruct but to impress the reader with an ostentatious poeticism; this kind is represented by Nicander). On Effe’s account, the Halieutica belongs to the transparent type, along with Aratus’ Phaenomena and Virgil’s Georgics. Effe appends various miscellaneous ‘Sonderformen’ of parodic and mnemotechnic didactic poetry. Heath , apropos of the Works and Days, offers a (loosely) similar system of categorisation, calling these the ‘instrumental’, ‘final’, and ‘formal’ types, and acknowledging Effe’s influence at  n. . For criticism of Effe’s approach, see Schrijvers ; Volk : . Effe returns repeatedly to the ‘problematische Verknu¨pfung von Dichtung und Lehre’, the ‘spannungsreiche[r] Gegensatz von Inhalt und Form’ and the ‘Kluft zwischen Dichtung und Lehre’ (Effe : –; cf. ). Haye : –; cf. Roellenbleck : – on related issues in Italian Renaissance didactic.



Knowledge and Pleasure

twice refers explicitly to his poetry’s effect on his audience, both times representing it as simultaneously instructive and pleasurable. The first of these claims is the address to Marcus Aurelius at the start of book : νῦν δ’ ἄγε μοι, σκηπτοῦχε, παναίολα δήνεα τέχνης | ἰχθυβόλου φράζοιο καὶ ἀγρευτῆρας ἀέθλους, | θεσμόν τ’ εἰναλιών ξυμβάλλεο, τέρπεο δ’ οἴμῃ | ἡμετέρῃ (‘Now come, sceptre-bearer, observe the cunning devices of the fisherman’s art and the labours of fishing, and understand the law of the sea and delight in my song’, .–). The chiastic structure of line  carefully juxtaposes, but does not oppose, the principles of education and pleasure; the emperor learns and takes pleasure simultaneously. Gian Biagio Conte has demonstrated the importance of the ‘proem in the middle’ as a site for programmatic self-consciousness and a counterpart to a work’s often more thematically orientated opening proem. In this middle book of the work, where the subject shifts from fish to fishing, Oppian reflects on aspects of the creative process from inspiration to reception, and represents himself ‘questing’ after the κλέος of his verse (.). The proem to book  again portrays the Halieutica as a source of joy to the emperors: ἀλλὰ σύ μοι, κάρτιστε πολισσούχων βασιλήων, αὐτός τ’, Ἀντωνῖνε, καὶ υἱέος ἠγάθεον κῆρ, πρόφρονες εἰσαΐοιτε καὶ εἰναλίῃσι γάνυσθε τερπωλῇς, οἵῃσιν ἐμὸν νόον ἠπιόδωροι Μοῦσαι κοσμήσαντο· καὶ ἐξέστεψαν ἀοιδῆς δώρῳ θεσπεσίῳ καί μοι πόρον ὑμετέροισι κίρνασθαι γλυκὺ νᾶμα καὶ οὔασι καὶ πραπίδεσσι. (.–)

But you, most powerful of the kings who protect cities, both you yourself, Antoninus, and your son of hallowed heart, listen graciously and delight in the marine pleasures with which the bountiful Muses have adorned my mind, and crowned me with the divine-sounding gift of song, and given me a sweet stream to mix up for your ears and your mind.

The depiction of the poem as a stream for the ears and mind (καὶ οὔασι καὶ πραπίδεσσι, .) amounts to a claim for both the aesthetic and the educational value of this verse; even the Muses’ adornment of the poet’s mind can be taken to evoke a secondary association of ordering its contents (κοσμήσαντο, .). Considerable emphasis is placed on the pleasurable aspects of the Halieutica: the addressee is urged to take pleasure (τέρπεο, .) in this verse and to rejoice in the pleasures of the sea (εἰναλίῃσι 

Conte ; on this proem in general see Rebuffat .

. Education and Entertainment



γάνυσθε | τερπωλῇς, .–); the poet claims to be the emperor’s τερπωλή as well as ὑμνητήρ (.); the poem is represented as a sweet stream or γλυκὺ νᾶμα (.). A didactic poem that advertises its status as ‘sweet’ and ‘delightful’ presents a problem for critics convinced of the necessarily dry or bitter nature of didacticism; Oppian’s emphasis on pleasure has caused scholars some discomfort, and is generally taken to signify that he thereby renounces any genuine claim to instruct in his verse. Frieda Klotz, for instance, claims that the Halieutica aims at playful sophistic display rather than true education, and so should not be regarded as a didactic poem at all; Enrico Rebuffat views the emphasis on pleasure as an extreme version of the Hellenistic tendency to disavow didacticism in favour of entertainment; Joachim Latacz, criticising Alan James’ attempts to establish Oppian as a ‘linguistic innovator’ in his use of neologisms, dismisses altogether the notion that the Halieutica aims to instruct the reader in any serious sense, arguing that nothing more than superficial ostentation underpins its allegedly innovative qualities: Derartige Absichten [sc. of originality] sind dieser Art von Epik, die echtes Originalitätsstreben nicht kennt, m.E. ohnehin inadäquat: das Wahrheitspathos und -ethos des aufklärerischen fru¨hgriechischen Sach-Epos eines Hesiod und Parmenides ist im hellenistischen ‘Lehrgedicht’ mit seiner Versifizierung verzweifelt nebensächlicher Stoffe der spielerischen Artistik gewichen, an die Stelle der ἀλήθεια ist im Selbstverständnis dieser Epiker die τερπωλή getreten (s. Opp. H. ,; , [sic]). Alle ‘Innovationen’ werden dadurch zu spielerischen Variationen eines im Grunde substanzlosen Virtuosentums.









Effe  all but ignores the proems to books  and  in his analysis of the Halieutica. Rebuffat : – offers a more nuanced view of the role of pleasure in the poem, but still maintains that the poet does not intend to teach, but only to please in aesthetic terms. Kolde  reads the proem to book  in light of the principles of euphony outlined by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others. Thus e.g. Klotz : –, , stating that ‘[t]he Halieutica may often have been classed as a didactic poem, but the variability of its second person addresses, and impractical nature of the information the poet conveys reveal that this is not really the case’ () and that ‘ultimately the poet’s aim is to provide enjoyment’. Klotz does allude in passing to the potential philosophical benefits to be drawn from the poem, but her criticism of ‘the often unquestioned assumption that the Halieutica is didactic’ (), although twice asserted, is never fleshed out, and her claim that the text’s didactic status is undermined by its multiplicity of addressees (presumably referring to passages in which the poet apostrophises fish, addresses a wider audience, or prays to divinities) is puzzling. Rebuffat : , apropos of Hal. .–: ‘In età imperiale troviamo alcuni poeti, innanzitutto Oppiano, che pongono l’accento sul delectare ed eliminano quasi completamente la componente e la finzione didattica.’ Latacz :  n. .



Knowledge and Pleasure

There is, I think, little need to counter Latacz’s objections point by point; the following analysis will demonstrate well enough where I disagree with his view of the Halieutica. Such claims are important, however, because they exemplify a vision of didactic poetry that locates Hesiod and the archaic Greek didactic poets at the pinnacle of a didactic tradition whose ‘genuine’ aim to instruct dissipates shortly thereafter. On this account, the tendency of Hellenistic and imperial didactic poets to rely on prose treatises rather than drawing from their own experience renders such poetry lifeless and devoid of true didactic aspiration. So too Reinhold Glei maps Effe’s three (ahistorical) categories of didactic poetry onto a new temporal scheme: as we move from the archaic and classical into the Hellenistic and imperial period, didactic poetry becomes mere ostentation, now stripped of any truly didactic aim. The Halieutica is thus explicitly relocated by Glei from Effe’s ‘transparent’ category to the ‘formal’ end of the spectrum, representing the type of ‘insincere’ didactic poetry in which the poet has no real interest in the material itself and seeks not to instruct but to impress with his dazzling poeticism. The pattern of a tradition that ‘loses its missionary zeal’ was once a commonplace in surveys of ancient didactic poetry; similarly dismissive attitudes were of course formerly prevalent in discussions of both Hellenistic and imperial Greek poetry more widely. Yet it seems to me deeply misleading to regard the Halieutica as a work whose didacticism is a mere pose, and whose fish are but a conduit for empty virtuosity. Not only is Oppian’s verse neither ostentatious nor obfuscatory, but there is little reason to conclude that his emphasis on pleasure need imperil his didactic enterprise or signal that the poem’s content is all but insignificant. For one thing, we cannot assume that pleasure and instruction were invariably polarised in Greek thought. While the close association in archaic literature between poetry, pleasure, and truth was famously challenged throughout antiquity, not least by Plato, a 





Glei : : ‘Die drei hier zu unterscheidenden Phasen lassen sich auf die drei o.g. Typen abbilden: Das L[ehrgedicht] der archa. Zeit (Hesiodos) ist dem transparenten, das L. der klass. Zeit (Vorsokratiker) dem sachbezogenen, das L. der hell. Zeit (Aratos, Nikandros) dem formalen Typ zuzuordnen.’ Glei similarly transfers Aratus from the transparent to the formal category. In response to criticism of his own earlier work, Effe  offers a slightly more nuanced integration of his typological analysis with a broadly chronological approach. Glei : . As Effe :  notes, the ‘formal’ type is that in which ‘ein Autor einen Gegenstand als Objekt poetischer Gestaltung wählt, dem er selbst ohne persönliches Interesse und Engagement gegenu¨bersteht und mit dessen dichterischer Entfaltung er keinerlei ernsthafte Lehrabsicht verfolgt’. Cf. Effe : . Schuler and Fitch : .

. Education and Entertainment



fixation with the opposition between poetry and truth rests above all on Hellenistic suspicions about poetry as a potential vehicle for deception and falsehood. A perceived contrast between the aesthetic function of poetry and the educative function of prose thus maps onto long-standing associations of poetry with ψυχαγωγία, or the capacity to enthral and direct the emotions. Strabo’s rebuttal of Eratosthenes at the start of his Geography outlines one version of this debate: For Eratosthenes says that every poet aims at entertainment [ψυχαγωγίας], and not instruction [διδασκαλίας]. But conversely, the ancients say that poetry is a kind of first philosophy that from childhood introduces us to life and educates the character and experience and actions by means of pleasure. And our people have said that only the poet is wise. And because of this too the Greek city-states educate the young first of all through poetry, not for the sake of pure entertainment, of course, but for the inculcation of moderation. (Strab. ..)

Strabo here seeks room for both ψυχαγωγία and διδασκαλία in (Homeric) poetry, rejecting the extremity of Eratosthenes’ position. The fifth book of Philodemus’ On Poems fills in some of the history of these debates: Heraclides of Pontus, Neoptolemus of Parium, and a Stoic who may or may not be identifiable with Aristo of Chios are all said to have claimed that poetry ought to be both pleasant and beneficial. 







ψυχαγωγία was not restricted to poetry, but was associated with persuasive speech and rhetoric more broadly (e.g. Pl. Phdr. a, c; Dem. Ex. .), and could confer either a positive or negative effect. Nevertheless, it was seen as an important effect of poetry (see e.g. Arist. Poet. a on ψυχαγωγία and tragedy) and is contrasted with serious teaching and benefit at e.g. Isoc. Evag. , Nic. ; Polyb. ... See esp. Halliwell :  n. . ποιητὴν γὰρ ἔφη πάντα στοχάζεσθαι ψυχαγωγίας, οὐ διδασκαλίας. τοὐναντίον δ’ οἱ παλαιοὶ φιλοσοφίαν τινὰ λέγουσι πρώτην τὴν ποιητικήν, εἰσάγουσαν εἰς τὸν βίον ἡμᾶς ἐκ νέων καὶ διδάσκουσαν ἤθη καὶ πάθη καὶ πράξεις μεθ’ ἡδονῆς· οἱ δ’ ἡμέτεροι καὶ μόνον ποιητὴν ἔφασαν εἶναι τὸν σοφόν. διὰ τοῦτο καὶ τοὺς παῖδας αἱ τῶν Ἑλλήνων πόλεις πρώτιστα διὰ τῆς ποιητικῆς παιδεύουσιν, οὐ ψυχαγωγίας χάριν δήπουθεν ψιλῆς, ἀλλὰ σωφρονισμοῦ. Cf. Strab. ... Not all critical views can have been as extreme as those of Eratosthenes, of course (hence Strabo’s recourse to the authority of the ancients, to the educational curriculum, and to Stoic views of poetry), and it is also worth bearing in mind that Eratosthenes is himself said to have composed poems that might be called didactic. Strab. ..: οὐκοῦν ἐχρῆν οὕτως εἰπεῖν, ὅτι ποιητὴς πᾶς τὰ μὲν ψυχαγωγίας χάριν μόνον ἐκφέρει τὰ δὲ διδασκαλίας· ὁ δ’ ἐπήνεγκεν ὅτι ψυχαγωγίας μόνον, διδασκαλίας δ’ οὔ (‘[Eratosthenes] should therefore have said that every poet writes partly for the sake of mere entertainment, and partly for instruction, but he said mere entertainment and not instruction’). Phld. De poem.  cols. –, ,  Mangoni. There are considerable difficulties in reconstructing not only the theories but the identities of Philodemus’ opponents at many points in book . The identification of the Stoic as Aristo by Jensen  is challenged by e.g. Parente ; Jensen ’s reidentification of Heraclides, whom he had originally labelled Neoptolemus, has met with more widespread agreement; see also Asmis .



Knowledge and Pleasure

Neoptolemus of Parium held that the ideal poet combines ὠφέλησις and χρησιμολογία with ψυχαγωγία, associating the latter with the aim to delight (τέρπειν). Heraclides had demanded both entertainment and benefit (ὠφέλεια) from the ideal poet; Philodemus’ objection that Heraclides failed to specify either the nature of either the delight or the utility, and that he demanded a wide range of technical expertise from the poet – encompassing, for instance, geometry, geography, and sailing – may indicate that Heraclides’ view of the latter encompassed both moral and practical utility. If this is indeed the case, then his ideas will be of particular relevance to didactic poetry such as the Halieutica, insofar as they constitute a theory of poetry that encompasses both narrowly technical and broader ethical precepts, and that aims at delight (τὸ τέρπειν) as an ideal counterpoint to instruction. A core argument of this book is that the poetic qualities of the Halieutica cannot be dissociated from the work’s wider didactic aims, and that it is precisely the ‘sweetest’ and most appealing elements of Oppian’s verse that communicate his message most powerfully. The comparison of fish to humankind thus offers an instructive model of how (not) to behave: the anthropomorphism of Oppian’s fish may be one of the most pleasing aspects of the poem, but it is also one of its most serious. If the poem aims to show the reader the workings of the sea and the ways to manipulate fish, then learning about this realm itself brings delight: the τερπωλή of the Halieutica extends beyond the elegance of the verse to the pleasure that stems from learning about the deep (thus .–). Strabo .., in defending Homeric poetry against Eratosthenes, likewise claims that the inclusion of mythical material in poetry is a kind of καινολογία or recounting of new things; on this view the appealing novelty of this unfamiliar material makes men eager to learn, and all the more so if an element of the marvellous is added as an inducement to learning. The Halieutica to an extent partakes in a similar kind of καινολογία, for it too depicts strange and wondrous phenomena. This is an aquatic realm that, like Strabo’s view of the mythical, offers an alluring world akin to, but also delightfully different from, our own. Yet unlike the mythical material attacked by Eratosthenes and defended by Strabo, Oppian’s marvellous sea is not a sweet but inaccurate ‘charm’ necessary to entice children into

 

See Asmis , see esp. –. Horace is alleged to have adopted a version of Neoptolemus’ argument in the Ars Poetica (see esp. –, –); see e.g. Brink : –. See e.g. Asmis : .

. Education and Entertainment



learning; on the contrary, the marine world is precisely what the poem seeks to teach. The charm of this poetry is also its medicine. The delight that accompanies learning is crystallised in the figures in the Halieutica whose reactions to marine phenomena parallel our own sense of discovery as we progress through the poem. A goatherd, shepherd, woodcutter, and hunter stop their work in surprise, for instance, when they marvel at a vast sea-creature caught by the toiling fishermen (.–); so too goatherds are seized by wonder on first discovering the extraordinary attachment of sargues to goats: ἔχει δέ τε θαῦμα νομῆας | πρωτοδαεῖς (.–). The emphasis that the goatherds learn about this phenomenon for the first time sets them in parallel with the reader: the neologism πρωτοδαής, formed from the generically loaded verb *δάω (to instruct, teach; to have learned, know) foregrounds the process of education encoded in the poem itself, and echoes the poet’s twice-repeated claim that he has transmitted to the reader the sum of his learning about fishing methods and the workings of the sea: τόσσα μὲν ἰχθυβόλων ἐδάην ἁλιεργέα τέχνης | δήνεα (.–); τόσσ’ ἐδάην . . . ἔργα θαλάσσης (.), the latter used to sum up the import of the poem as a whole. Sea-creatures too mingle learning with pleasure. In his discussion of animals’ affection for their offspring in book , the poet depicts two species distinguished by their extraordinary parental devotion: μαζὸν δ’ ἀμφοτέροισι παρίσχεται, οἶον ἑκάστῳ, θήσασθαι γάλα λαρόν· ἐπεί ῥά οἱ ὤπασε δαίμων καὶ γάλα καὶ μαζῶν ἰκέλην φύσιν οἷα γυναικῶν. ἀλλ’ ὅτε κουρίζωσιν ἑὸν σθένος, αὐτίκα τοῖσι μήτηρ ἡγήτειρα κατέρχεται εἰς ὁδὸν ἄγρης ἱεμένοις θήρην τε διδάσκεται ἰχθυόεσσαν, οὐδὲ πάρος τεκέων ἑκὰς ἵσταται οὐδ’ ἀπολείπει, πρίν γ’ ὅταν ἡβήσωσι τελεσφόρα γυῖα καὶ ἀλκήν, ἀλλ’ αἰεὶ ῥυτῆρες ἐπίσκοποι ἐγγὺς ἕπονται. οἷον δὴ τότε θαῦμα μετὰ φρεσὶ θηήσαιο τερπωλήν τ’ ἐρόεσσαν, ὅτε πλώων ἐσίδηαι αὔρῃ ἐν εὐκραεῖ δεδοκημένος ἠὲ γαλήνῃ δελφίνων ἀγέλας εὐειδέας, ἵμερον ἅλμης· ...



ð660Þ

ð665Þ

ð670Þ

Oppian’s myths thus underpin his didactic lessons: the tales of Minthe and Myrrha are paradigms of transgression and punishment; the metamorphosis of humans into dolphins underscores their proximity to humankind; the conflict between Zeus and Typhon mirrors the process of fishing with bait: see Section ., ‘Deliberation’, Section ., ‘Blurring Boundaries’, and Section ., ‘Hesiodic Monsters’.



Knowledge and Pleasure ὡς δ’ ὅτε μουσοπόλων ἔργων ἄπο παῖδες ἴωσιν ἀθρόοι, οἱ δ’ ἄρ’ ὄπισθεν ἐπίσκοποι ἐγγὺς ἕπονται αἰδοῦς τε πραπίδων τε νόου τ’ ἐπιτιμητῆρες πρεσβύτεροι· γῆρας γὰρ ἐναίσιμον ἄνδρα τίθησιν· ὣς ἄρα καὶ δελφῖνες ἑοῖς παίδεσσι τοκῆες ἕσπονται, μή τί σφιν ἀνάρσιον ἀντιβολήσῃ. Ναὶ μὴν καὶ φώκη κομέει γένος οὔτι χέρειον· καὶ γὰρ τῇ μαζοί τε καὶ ἐν μαζοῖσι γάλακτος εἰσὶ ῥοαί· τῇ δ’ οὔτι μετ’ οἴδμασιν ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ χέρσου λύετ’ ἀνερχομένῃ γαστρὸς μόγος, ὥριος ὠδίς· μίμνει δ’ ἤματα πάντα δυώδεκα σὺν τεκέεσσιν αὐτοῦ ἐνὶ τραφερῇ· τρισκαιδεκάτῃ δὲ σὺν ἠοῖ σκύμνους ἀγκὰς ἔχουσα νεαλδέας εἰς ἅλα δύνει παισὶν ἀγαλλομένη πάτρην ἅτε σημαίνουσα. ὡς δὲ γυνὴ ξείνης γαίης ἔπι παῖδα τεκοῦσα ἀσπασίως πάτρην τε καὶ ὃν δόμον εἰσαφίκηται, παῖδα δ’ ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσι πανηματίη φορέουσα, δώματα δεικνυμένη, μητρὸς νομόν, ἀμφαγαπάζει, τερπωλὴν ἀκόρεστον· ὁ δ’ οὐ φρονέων περ ἕκαστα παπταίνει, μέγαρόν τε καὶ ἤθεα πάντα τοκήων· ὣς ἄρα καὶ κείνη σφέτερον γένος εἰναλίη θὴρ ἐς πόντον προφέρει καὶ δείκνυται ἔργα θαλάσσης.

ð680Þ

ð685Þ

ð690Þ

ð695Þ

ð700Þ

(.–, –)

And [the dolphin] gives both [calves] her breast, one to each child, to suckle the sweet milk. For the god gave her both milk and breasts similar in nature to those of women. But when they reach the strength of youth, their mother immediately leads them in their eagerness to the path of hunting and teaches [διδάσκεται] them the pursuit of fish, and she does not leave them behind or stray far until the time when they grow into their full youthful form and strength, but the parents always follow them closely as protective guardians. What a marvel you would admire in your heart if on a sea-voyage you looked at this lovely delight [τερπωλή], watching in gentle breeze and calm weather the beautiful schools of dolphins, the charm of the sea. [The parents travel alongside their offspring] . . . And as when children come back from their scholarly duties in a throng, and their guardians follow closely behind them, overseers of reverence and heart and mind, respected elders, for old age makes a man righteous; so too the dolphin parents accompany their children, making sure no adversity befalls them. And indeed the seal takes no less care of its offspring; for the female too has breasts, and in her breasts there are streams of milk. But the freight of her womb is discharged not among the waves but when she has come out onto dry land in a timely birth. For twelve days in total she remains with her children there on dry land. And at dawn on the thirteenth she takes the newborn pups into her arms and dives into the sea, exulting in her children and pointing out, as it were, their fatherland. Just as a

. Education and Entertainment



woman who has given birth to a child in a foreign land arrives delightedly at her fatherland and her own home, and bears her child in her arms the whole day, and caresses it while with ceaseless pleasure [τερπωλή] she shows off the house, its mother’s abode; and the child, though it does not understand, scrutinises each part, the hall and all its parents’ favoured places. So too that marine creature brings her offspring out to the water and shows them the works of the sea [δείκνυται ἔργα θαλάσσης].

Dolphins and seals are presented as the kinds of sea-creatures – what we would call mammals – that we most closely resemble; they are shown here to mirror human beings in both behaviour and anatomy. The poet foregrounds this likeness in the similes that compare the instruction of dolphin and seal pups to the education of human children: both are shown to engage in pedagogical acts, teaching their offspring about the ways of the sea and how to catch fish. These, it need hardly be said, are the topics about which the reader of the Halieutica will also learn. In his analysis of Latin didactic poetry, Don Fowler has drawn attention to the ‘plots’ that structure didactic poems by imposing a linear narrative order on a non-linear body of knowledge. These plots, he argues, may be traced in the structural metaphors of education that pervade didactic poetry: the path followed, the child taught, the dawning of light, the ‘hunt’ for truth or wisdom. Each model structures and marks the progress of the addressee – and thus the implied reader – towards knowledge. Oppian’s image of a dolphin instructing its young includes three of these structural markers of learning: the path, the hunt, and the education of a child. The dolphin engages in a literal quest for fish; yet the ‘path’ of the hunt (ὁδὸς ἄγρης, .) here simultaneously represents the acquisition of knowledge and the process of education, mirroring the reader’s own experience. Just as their skill in hunting later allows dolphins to act as surrogate fishermen, ushering fish towards the boats and uniting in the destruction of a common prey (σύνθηρον . . . ὄλεθρον, .), so the dolphin that teaches (διδάσκεται, .) its offspring to fish operates as an internal parallel for the didactic relationship between poet and reader. The symmetry is heightened firstly by the poet’s observation that dolphins were themselves once men, retaining their human cognitive faculties despite their form (.–), and in turn by the second-person address at .–, in which the reader’s imagined delight in ‘watching’ the scene

 

Fowler . Cf. Volk : – on journey metaphors in relation to ‘poetic simultaneity’ and the self-referential nature of didactic poetry. Fowler : .



Knowledge and Pleasure

mirrors the calves’ own delight in taking part in it. Education and entertainment here go hand in hand. The poet makes much of the process of learning, and the scholia gloss the simile in strongly educational terms: the children are said to return from school, accompanied by their παιδαγωγοί, who act as guardians and διδάσκαλοι (Σ Hal. .–). The seal’s care for its offspring is also presented as a scene of education and delight, another ‘didactic plot’. The young seal pup knows only the dry land on which it was born, and now witnesses the sea for the first time; in the simile the curiosity of the human child about this new realm, and the unceasing τερπωλή (.) that accompanies the instruction, paves the way for the reaction of the reader who uncovers the unfamiliar ways of the deep. Crucially, moreover, the seal’s revelation to its offspring of the workings of the sea (δείκνυται ἔργα θαλάσσης, .) finds its echo at the end of the poem in Oppian’s assessment of his overall didactic enterprise. The poet sums up his project by declaring that he has revealed what he knows of the workings of the sea: τόσσ’ ἐδάην . . . ἔργα θαλάσσης (.). The reader has by this stage undergone precisely the process of education undertaken by these young sea-creatures, learning, like seal pups, about the sea, and, like dolphin calves, how to capture fish.

.

Literary Sweetness

The Halieutica, I have argued, blends education and entertainment without necessarily polarising the two. What, then, of Oppian’s claim that his pleasurable verse is also ‘sweet’? In the first place this is a markedly poetic claim: sweetness and pleasure are associated with the charm of poetry from the archaic period onwards, and Oppian’s declaration that the Muses have enabled him to mix a γλυκὺ νᾶμα (.) for the βασιλεύς recalls Hesiod’s depiction of the ‘sweet speech’ that flows from the mouths of kings and poets who are dear to the Muses, as well as the sweet sound produced by the Muses themselves. Yet, as Chapter  will show, the proem to book  is also awash with reflection on its own poetic status and place within Greek literary history. The self-proclaimed sweetness of the Halieutica can here be read, I suggest, as a specific claim about its stylistic qualities.  

 

These being the only two occurrences of the phrase in the poem. Hes. Theog. –, of the poet: ὁ δ’ ὄλβιος, ὅντινα Μοῦσαι | φίλωνται· γλυκερή οἱ ἀπὸ στόματος ῥέει αὐδή); cf. Theog. –. The Theogonic depiction of just kings and poets is itself evoked at the end of Hal. . For the metaphor of poetry as honey see e.g. Waszink ; Nu¨nlist : –. Thus Hes. Theog.  and , where the Muses are ἡδυέπειαι, and –, where τῶν δ’ ἀκάματος ῥέει αὐδὴ | ἐκ στομάτων ἡδεῖα. The passage has not been much discussed; Bartley : – is typically unexpansive.

. Literary Sweetness



Oppian elsewhere shows himself well versed in imperial Greek rhetorical theory, opening book  with an elaborate syncrisis and presenting several prosopopoeiae of the kind set out in contemporary progymnasmata. We witness in this poem not only the primacy of rhetorical education in the imperial period, but also a continued interest in the relationship between literary theory and practice. Indeed, Greek rhetorical theorists often looked to archaic poetry to identify stylistic precedents for their ideas, and both the Hesiodic representation of the ‘sweet’ speech of poets and kings and the Homeric representation of Nestor’s speech flowing ‘sweeter than honey’ (Il. .–) were later read by ancient theorists as exemplars of the sweet and mellifluous qualities associated with particular rhetorical styles, especially the ‘smooth’ or ‘middle’ styles. The stylistic quality of sweetness or γλυκύτης is discussed most fully in the Περὶ ἰδεῶν composed by Oppian’s contemporary and fellow Cilician Hermogenes of Tarsus. In this treatise sweetness is said to be a method of generating pleasure (ἡδονή) for the reader or listener; the work is orientated more towards prose than poetry (and looks in particular to Demosthenes), but evidently understands γλυκύτης to be an intensely poetic quality. For Hermogenes, sweetness is generated in a text by the inclusion of the following features: mythical elements; the description of matters pleasing to the senses, and of activities that one finds pleasurable;  





On which see Rebuffat : –, –. On the interpretation of the smooth, sweet qualities of Hesiodic poetry as an exemplar of Quintilian’s middle style, or Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ smooth style, see Hunter a: –. Nestor was widely interpreted in antiquity as an exemplar of the middle style: see ps.Plut. De Hom. II - Kindstrand, there in contrast to Odysseus’ grand style and Menelaus’ plain style. On the ancient identification of rhetorical traits in Homeric character speech see Russell : –; Knudsen : –. Hermogenes, who is said to have impressed Marcus Aurelius as an adolescent (Philostr. VS ; Cass. Dio .; Suda ε  Adler), allegedly composed the Περὶ ἰδεῶν by the age of eighteen or twenty (i.e. the very time at which Oppian was writing); however suspicious we may be of these biographical claims, and many have been very suspicious indeed, it is certainly plausible that Hermogenes’ stylistic analysis was prominent in Cilician literary circles in this period. Hermogenes clearly draws on earlier stylistic theories, moreover, and similar views were presumably already circulating in this period. Hermogenes regards sweetness as one of six subdivisions of ἦθος or character, itself one of the primary ἰδέαι into which style is divided. Character is discussed alongside clarity, grandeur, beauty, rapidity, and force (the latter, δεινότης, occupying a slightly different role insofar as it entails the appropriate use of the other styles). The distinction between categories and sub-categories is not always clearly drawn by Hermogenes. See Rutherford : – for Hermogenes’ system of styles (cf. Wooten : xii) and its relationship to the categories of Demetrius, Dionysius, and others; cf. Hagedorn ; broader context in Heath : –. All citations of Hermogenes’ Περὶ ἰδεῶν follow Rabe ; translations are those of Wooten , adapted. Poetry is said to be naturally sweeter than prose; sweetness is conferred on a prose text by the inclusion of ‘poetic’ quotations, cadences, or dialect (see esp. Hermog. Id. ..–).



Knowledge and Pleasure

thoughts relating to ἔρως; praise of one’s audience and their relatives; the personification of inanimate objects, including the attribution of human qualities to animals; and the liberal use of adjectives and epithets. Hermogenes’ theories are of particular relevance to the proem to book , where, as we have seen, Oppian singles out the sweetness of his verse: Ἄλλους δ’ ἀγρευτῆρσιν ὑπήγαγε ληΐδα θήρης ὑγρὸς ἔρως· ὀλοῶν δὲ γάμων, ὀλοῆς τ’ ἀφροδίτης ἠντίασαν, σπεύδοντες ἑὴν φιλοτήσιον ἄτην. ἀλλὰ σύ μοι, κάρτιστε πολισσούχων βασιλήων, αὐτός τ’, Ἀντωνῖνε, καὶ υἱέος ἠγάθεον κῆρ, πρόφρονες εἰσαΐοιτε καὶ εἰναλίῃσι γάνυσθε τερπωλῇς, οἵῃσιν ἐμὸν νόον ἠπιόδωροι Μοῦσαι κοσμήσαντο· καὶ ἐξέστεψαν ἀοιδῆς δώρῳ θεσπεσίῳ καί μοι πόρον ὑμετέροισι κίρνασθαι γλυκὺ νᾶμα καὶ οὔασι καὶ πραπίδεσσι. (.–)

But tender desire [ἔρως] entices other [fish] to become hunting spoils for the fishermen, and fatal are the marriages and fatal the lust [ἀφροδίτης] of which [the fish] partake, striving after their own amorous ruin. But you, most powerful of the kings who protect cities, both you yourself, Antoninus, and your son of hallowed heart, listen graciously and delight in the marine pleasures with which the bountiful Muses have adorned my mind and filled me to the brim with the divine-sounding gift of song and have appointed me to mix a sweet stream [γλυκὺ νᾶμα] to mix up for your ears and your mind.

The proem continues with a lengthy address to Eros. Strikingly, the proem encapsulates each of the qualities thought by Hermogenes to confer sweetness. The theorist’s discussion of γλυκύτης opens by reiterating that thoughts are sweet that deal with myth: his first example is the genealogy of Eros recounted by Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. Oppian not only refers in these opening lines to both Eros and Aphrodite, whose relationship is also addressed in the Platonic account, but goes on to discuss the different genealogies of Eros, here heavily influenced by Plato’s Symposium (.–, discussed further in Chapter ). Hermogenes next describes as sweet the description of anything pleasing to the senses, including touch, taste, and sight: ‘that which each man enjoys doing, he will also take pleasure in hearing described’. Relevant here is not only Oppian’s emphasis on the pleasure that his poetry will bring his imperial addressees, but also the multisensory richness with which he describes it, depicting 

Hermog. Id. ..–, referring to Pl. Symp. b–c.



Hermog. Id. ..–.

. Literary Sweetness



his poetry as a crown bestowed by the Muses, a divine-sounding song, and a sweet drink mixed up by the poet. The representation of the poem’s contents as the ‘pleasures’ of the sea (.–) suggests that his subjectmatter will be pleasing to the emperor, and looks back to the claim that fishing is itself a ‘sweet’ and delightful pastime for the emperor: οὐ μὴν τερπωλῆς ἀπολείπεαι, αἴ κ’ ἐθέλῃσθα | τέρπεσθαι, γλυκερὴ δὲ πέλει βασιλήιος ἄγρη (‘but you will not be deprived of pleasure, if pleasure is what you want, for royal fishing is sweet’, .–). Hermogenes notes that ‘in general all thoughts relating to eros are sweet’, and that pleasure is generated especially when members of one’s audience hear themselves or their relations or children praised, an effect that he deems a ‘political’ kind of pleasure. I need not belabour the relevance of these claims to a proem whose two key functions are to praise the emperor and his son and to introduce a book devoted to eros. Also important is Hermogenes’ claim that sweetness inheres in both ‘thought’ (ἔννοια) and ‘diction’ (λέξις), or both content and form; as regards the latter, poetry is said to be naturally sweeter than prose (and epithets to be especially sweet). What is more, the inclusion of elements that map onto different kinds of sweetness is said to compound a text’s pleasure. The wider the range of such elements, the sweeter the cumulative effect. Each of Hermogenes’ characteristics of γλυκύτης is pertinent to the Halieutica, but the most significant for our purposes is the sweetness said to be conferred by the attribution of animate qualities to inanimate objects, and the personification of animals. Hermogenes discusses examples in which emotion or agency is attributed to landscapes and other ‘irrational’ agents:

 



 Hermog. Id. ..–. Hermog. Id. ..–. Hermogenes deems the poetry of Stesichorus ‘very sweet because he uses a lot of epithets’ (Id. ..–). A suitably sweet epithet is said to be Socrates’ invocation of the ‘clear-voiced Muses’ (ἄγετε δή, ὦ Μοῦσαι λίγειαι), an example presumably chosen because it blends aural pleasure with the importation of poetic (here Homeric) diction into prose, and is itself used to introduce a mythical narrative about Eros (Pl. Phdr. a, although not a direct quotation; cf. Hom. Od. .). It is worth noting that Oppian’s description of the ἠπιόδωροι | Μοῦσαι at .– likewise adapts a rare epithet applied by Stesichorus to Aphrodite and itself drawn from Homer (see further Section ., ‘Poetic Streams’). Hermog. Id. ..–. For Hermogenes the ascription of agency, emotion, perception, or thought to landscapes and objects marks a kind of transference, a trope related to, but subtly different from, the kind of metaphor implicit in a ‘stream’ of words: while the latter transforms the sense of a word from the literal to the figurative, the former involves the transference of a word in its normal sense to a new domain. Hermogenes applies the same model to the transference of terms from human beings to animals. On ancient ideas about anthropomorphic transference see further Chapter , esp. Section ., ‘Catachresis’.



Knowledge and Pleasure The same thing also happens if you attribute human qualities to dumb beasts, as Xenophon does when he says that dogs frown and smile and trust or distrust tracks [κυθρωπάζειν καὶ πάλιν μειδιᾶν καὶ ἀπιστεῖν τοῖς ἴχνεσιν ἢ πιστεύειν, Cyn. ., ., .] and when he says: ‘But in their confidence they do not allow their wise fellow workers [τῶν συνεργῶν τὰς σοφάς] to advance, but prevent them by barking’ [Cyn. .]. Terms like ‘fellow workers’ and ‘wise’ apply to men, not to dogs. In fact that is true of everything that is said in this passage. You could find many similar examples in the Cynegeticus, in which the thought naturally gives much pleasure. Indeed it is so in several ways, but especially in reference to the thought, because the activity of hunting is naturally pleasing to the sight, as Xenophon himself points out when he says that there is no more pleasurable spectacle than to see a hare roused, fleeing, pursued, and taken. (Hermog. Id. ..–)

The sweetness said to inhere in Xenophon’s anthropomorphic language encompasses the application to animals of terms drawn from the domain of human social relations (a colleague or fellow worker, for instance), as well as character traits or emotions assumed to be the province solely of mankind (boldness, wisdom, sternness, belief ). The traditions that underlie claims about the transference of ‘human’ qualities to non-humans will be discussed further in Chapter , but it is crucial to note here that the ascription of (supposedly) human qualities to animals is the most prominent feature of the Halieutica as a whole. This kind of anthropomorphism is visible not only in the numerous extended similes that compare the two realms, but in the poet’s continual representation of fish using terms drawn from human emotions and social relations. This agenda is announced already in the opening lines, where the poet informs the emperor that he will describe ἔθνεά τοι πόντοιο πολυσπερέας τε φάλαγγας | παντοίων νεπόδων (‘the communities of the sea and the widely scattered brigades of all kinds of sea-creatures’, .–), detailing their διερούς τε γάμους διεράς τε γενέθλας | καὶ βίον ἰχθυόεντα καὶ ἔχθεα καὶ φιλότητας (‘watery marriages and watery births, their fishy lives and enmities and loves’, .–). Oppian’s assimilation of human and animal society extends 



ταὐτὸν δὲ συμβαίνει καί, εἴ τις τοῖς ἀλόγοις ζῴοις τὰ ἀνθρώπου ἴδια περιθείη, ὥσπερ ὁ Ξενοφῶν λέγων τὰς κύνας ἐπισκυθρωπάζειν καὶ πάλιν μειδιᾶν καὶ ἀπιστεῖν τοῖς ἴχνεσιν ἢ πιστεύειν, καὶ ὅταν εἴπῃ «θρασεῖαι δὲ αἱ οὐκ ἐῶσαι τῶν συνεργῶν τὰς σοφὰς εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν ἰέναι, ἀλλὰ ἀνείργουσι θορυβοῦσαι»· καὶ γὰρ τὸ «τῶν συνεργῶν» καὶ «τὰς σοφάς» καὶ σχεδὸν ἅπαντα τὰ εἰρημένα ἀνθρώπων ἴδια καὶ οὐ κυνῶν. καὶ ὅλως πολλὰ τοιαῦτα λάβοις ἂν ἐκ τοῦ Κυνηγετικοῦ παραδείγματα, ἐν ᾧ δὴ καὶ φύσει τὸ κατ’ ἔννοιαν ἔχον τὴν ἡδονήν· καὶ κατ’ ἄλλα μὲν γάρ, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἔννοιαν καὶ μᾶλλον, ὅτι φύσει τὸ πρᾶγμα ἡδὺ τὸ τῆς θήρας καὶ τῇ ὄψει, ὥς που καὶ τοῦτο αὐτὸς ἐπεσημήνατο ὁ Ξενοφῶν εἰπὼν ἥδιστον εἶναι θεαμάτων ἰδεῖν τὸν λαγὼν ἐξανιστάμενον, φεύγοντα, μεταδιωκόμενον, ἁλισκόμενον. On the anthropomorphic quality of these verses see Effe : ; Rebuffat .

. Literary Sweetness



well beyond the scowls or grins of the helpful dog described by Xenophon, for quasi-human concerns are shown to permeate virtually all aspects of a fish’s life, encompassing their behaviour, emotions, and social structures, and ranging from co-operative friendship to hatred, duplicity, marriage, and war. Oppian’s anthropomorphism is not only more extensive but more striking than that of Xenophon, moreover, in that fish are not normally expected to exhibit quasi-human behaviour. Unlike a dog, a fish rarely accompanies a human being on their daily business, and unlike a dog’s ‘grin’, the emotions of a fish are not normally discernible to the human eye. Further light is shed by the brief remarks on γλυκύτης preserved in the (probably) second-century  rhetorical treatise On Plain Discourse, once attributed to Aelius Aristides. According to ps.-Aristides, sweetness is conferred by the use of particular kinds of metaphors and similes, especially those that express small things in a grand way, or grand things in a small way. Ps.-Aristides finds ‘remarkable sweetness’ in Xenophon’s comment that Agesilaus would at times lead his army in close order and ‘quietly, just as a girl of the greatest modesty would walk’. Sweetness is here generated by the fact that the comparison is structured around a diminution of scale, and because the tenor and vehicle are not naturally associated and in many respects do not correspond – ‘for how is a girl like an army?’ Hermogenes and ps.-Aristides have rather different conceptions of γλυκύτης, but for both authors transference and metaphor is central to the idea of sweetness, and both illustrate their point by discussing Xenophon’s use of anthropomorphic vocabulary in the Cynegeticus: When you want to produce sweetness, use a particular type of metaphor, transferring words that naturally apply to one thing to another; [it is also produced] when you do not keep to words used in a strictly literal sense . . . Sweetness is also produced by saying important things in an unimportant way, and vice versa, and this truly remarkable trope, which adds sweetness to speech expressing unimportant things in an important way, is exemplified by speaking of a war [πόλεμον] between a dog and a wild beast: ‘Firstly 

  

The treatise is consonant with the Hermogenean scheme, but does not depend on it; Rutherford : – regards it as earlier than, and influential on, Hermogenes’ Peri Ideōn; Patillon : – attributes it tentatively to Aelius Harpocration, primarily on the basis of the latter’s known interest in Xenophon (the ideal stylistic model put forward in this treatise), but much doubt remains about its authorship. It may perhaps date from the later second or early third century . Ps.-Aristid. Aph.  [= Xen. Ag. .]: ἡσύχως δ’ ὥσπερ ἂν παρθένος ἡ σωφρονεστάτη προβαίνοι. Ps.-Aristid. Aph. : τὴν δὲ ἄνεσιν ἔχει τό τε μειοῦν τοῦ παραδείγματος καὶ τὸ μὴ πάντη ἐοικός· τί γὰρ ἔοικε στρατοπέδῳ παρθένος; Hermogenes also notes that the λέξις associated with γλυκύτης is the same as that of ἀφέλεια, Id. ..–.



Knowledge and Pleasure the dogs of each species must not be just any dogs, so that they are ready to do battle [πολεμεῖν] with the wild beast.’ (Ps.-Aristid. Aph. – Patillon)

The example of animal ‘battles’ exemplifies both ps.-Aristides’ metaphorical transference and Hermogenes’ transference of human qualities to animals in particular; it is described by ps.-Aristides as a transference that startles by juxtaposing high and low registers, or the large- and the smallscale. The application of terms for full-scale military combat to the instincts of carnivores is presumably deemed especially ‘sweet’ insofar as these are beasts whose lives are normally regarded with no great reverence by the men who hunt them, and whose mental faculties are such that they are normally assumed to be incapable of grand military strategy. Both kinds of sweetness are important to the Halieutica. In the first place, the representation of the marine food chain as a form of relentless warfare is one of the most prominent themes of the poem, whose opening line depicts φάλαγγες (‘brigades’ or ‘battle-ranks’, .) of sea-creatures. The sea is regarded throughout as a hostile sphere rife with ‘battles’: fish form army-like shoals, attack one another like warriors, and are caught by the fisherman in a form of marine warfare. Secondly, the poet delights in unexpected comparisons and juxtapositions of scale: fish are compared to the expected (an eel to a snake, for instance), to the initially surprising but soon familiar (shoals of bonitos to enormous armies on the move), and to the very unexpected (a grey mullet to a timid girl stealing a cake). So too with scale: Oppian sometimes represents his marine battles as truly immense and almost cosmic in scope (the mighty conflict with a seamonster in book ), but at other times engages in a sharp, almost absurd juxtaposition between the grand and the trivial (an eel taunts an octopus like a vaunting warrior, and is in turn ‘challenged to battle’ by a crayfish waving its antennae). In both cases the poet makes much of the rapid shift in scale, and of the application of heroic or military language to fish. Hermogenes’ discussion is particularly intriguing in its concern to identify and differentiate the sweetness produced by content (ἔννοια) and 

 

ὅπου δ’ ἂν θέλῃς γλυκύτητα ἐργάσασθαι, τοιαύταις χρήσῃ μεταφοραῖς, ὀνόματα ἐπ’ ἄλλων πραγμάτων κείμενα μεταφέρων ἐφ’ ἕτερα· καὶ ὅταν μὴ μένῃς ἐπὶ τοῖς ἀκριβῶς σημαντικοῖς . . . καὶ τὰ μεγάλα μικρῶς λέγων, τὰ δὲ μικρὰ μεγάλως γλυκύτητα ἐργάσῃ. τὸ οὖν τὰ μικρὰ μεγάλως ὀνομάζειν λέγομεν ὅτι γλυκύτητα παρέχει τῷ λόγῳ, καὶ ἔστι θαυμασιωτάτη ἡ τροπὴ ἡ τοιαύτη, πόλεμον εἰπεῖν κυνὸς καὶ θηρίου, ‘πρῶτον μὲν χρὴ εἶναι τὰς κύνας ἐκάστου γένους, μὴ τὰς ἐπιτυχούσας, ἵνα ἕτοιμαι ὤσι πολεμεῖν τῷ θηρίῳ. (= Xen. Cyn. .). Trans. Rutherford.  See Chapter . .–; .–; .–. .–; .–, on which see, respectively, Chapter  and Section ., ‘Talking Animals’.

. Literary Sweetness



by style (λέξις). γλυκύτης, we are to understand, can inhere in both. This has important implications for the Halieutica, for it suggests that the sweetness advertised in the γλυκὺ νᾶμα of . need not indicate that the poet necessarily privileges form (or ostentatious poeticism) over content (and so any serious engagement with his subject-matter). Instead, the emperor is imagined to delight precisely in the poem’s pleasurable marine contents (εἰναλίῃσι γάνυσθε | τερπωλῇς, .–). Particularly revealing is Hermogenes’ struggle to determine whether the transference of human qualities to non-humans represents a sweetness of content or style; the answer, he suggests, is ‘both’, although content may well have the edge. So too with the Halieutica: the sweet portrayal of the anthropomorphic qualities of animal life spans both content and form, thought and style. Once more it becomes clear that many of the work’s most intensely poetic qualities – and especially the thoroughgoing assimilation of the realms of human and animal through transference or metaphor and extended simile – are also its most didactically important. At the poem’s core lies the insight that human beings cannot and must not understand themselves as privileged beings operating in elevated isolation from the rest of the world; we must heed the lessons of the fish whose demise is brought about by their all-too-human flaws of hostility, greed, rash folly, and lust. Byzantine readers of the Halieutica, well versed in Hermogenean rhetorical theory, evidently recognised the poem’s implicit stylistic claims. Not only does Eustathius laconically call Oppian γλυκύτατος, but the scholia to the Halieutica identify numerous examples of what they term ‘sweetness’ or the ‘figure of sweetness’ (τῆς γλυκύτητος τὸ σχῆμα, etc.) in the poem. These usually denote instances of personification or anthropomorphism in the Hermogenean sense of transferring agency or human



  

Whereas the ps.-Aristidean treatise focuses in the first instance on diction (), Hermogenes refers primarily to sweetness of content (mythical elements, erotic subject-matter, pleasing topics, etc.), and only at the end turns to form (the use of verse, ‘poetic’ Ionic dialect, epithets). The transference of rationality and agency to landscapes is itself described by Hermogenes as a form of ‘poetic licence’ typical of verse rather than prose: τὰ μέντοι παρὰ τοῖς ποιηταῖς ἐξουσίᾳ λέγεται ποιητικῇ (Hermog. Id. ..–); δέδοται γὰρ καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τοῖς ποιηταῖς (Hermog. Id. ..–). For the influence of Hermogenes’ ideas on Eustathius, see Lindberg ; Stone ; van den Berg . Eust. in. Il. ..– van der Valk, commenting sensitively on the poet’s use of extended similes. On Eustathius and Oppian see esp. Dyck ; Cariou . Σ Hal. .; cf. .: σχῆμα τῆς γλυκύτητος; .: γλυκὺ τὸ σχῆμα; ., : σχῆμα γλυκύτατον; .: κατὰ λόγον γλυκύτατον; .: γλυκύτης. A new and complete edition of the Oppianic scholia is urgently needed, and will bring further insight on these and other matters.



Knowledge and Pleasure

like qualities from humans to animals (or, more rarely, inanimate objects). The lobster, for instance, is said to cherish an extraordinary love for its own den: if ever it is moved elsewhere, it seeks immediately to return to its own crevice (.–). The poet makes much of the lobster’s determined journey ‘home’, and uses its behaviour as a prompt to reflect on the similarity between human and animal: ὣς ἄρα καὶ πλωτοῖσιν ἑὸς δόμος ἠδὲ θάλασσα πατρῴη καὶ χῶρος ἐφέστιος, ἔνθα γένοντο, στάζει ἐνὶ κραδίῃ γλυκερὸν γάνος, οὐδ’ ἄρα μούνοις πατρὶς ἐφημερίοισι πέλει γλυκερώτατον ἄλλων· (.–)

So even sea-creatures find that their own home and ancestral sea and the familial space where they were born drips sweet joy into their heart, and it is not only to mortal men that one’s homeland is the sweetest thing of all.

The anthropomorphic qualities latent throughout the passage are now set centre stage: sea-creatures are accorded not only a home but a fatherland and a household, and implicit comparison crystallises into an explicit reminder not to assume that human beings are necessarily unique or superior to other animals in their social structures and affective relations. The claim that fish too have a γλυκερὸν γάνος and that to both humans and animals one’s fatherland is γλυκερώτατον now reads as a near-explicit advertisement of the stylistic sweetness that arises from the poet’s representation of animals themselves experiencing ‘sweet’ emotional attachment in the manner of human beings. Finally, we may return to Hermogenes’ observation that the sweetness in Xenophon’s account of hunting operates on multiple levels, insofar as anthropomorphic sweetness is compounded by the pleasure associated with hunting itself. A similar combination is at work in the Halieutica, and especially in Oppian’s description of imperial fishing as both sweet and pleasurable (τερπωλή, τέρπεσθαι, γλυκερός, .–), ‘for it brings great pleasure (τέρψις) to the eyes and mind to see a fish hooked and quivering and twisting about’ (.–). This delight is expressed above all in the joy felt by the emperor when he 



Inanimate objects: a ship stalled by the powerful grip of the remora ‘neither heeds the tiller nor obeys the winds’ (ἡ δ’ οὔτ’ οἰήκων ἐμπάζεται οὔτ’ ἀνέμοισι | πείθεται, .–), a refusal to comply that well parallels Hermogenes’ discussion of the unwilling landscape and trees of the Phaedrus; the scholiast glosses ἐμπάζεται with φροντίζει and notes σχῆμα τῆς γλυκύτητος. Cf. also the fisherman’s weel bringing ‘recompense’ of captured fish to the fisherman (.) – presumably, as the scholiast notes, in exchange for cake.  This passage is discussed further in Chapter , pp. –. Hermog. Id. ..–.

. Literary Sweetness



reels in a ‘willing’ fish (.–). The scholion to . notes the σχῆμα of γλυκύτης at work in the representation of a fish leaping onto the emperor’s hook in delighted homage to his power. We witness here the compounded pleasure derived from a pleasurable topic – the sight of the fish writhing on the hook – in combination with the ascription of deliberate choice to a being – the unfortunate fish – that almost certainly has no such thought in its mind. The Halieutica, then, represents itself as sweet or pleasurable in both form and content. This is not an exclusively literary pleasure, however, and one of the poem’s core messages is that we must learn to differentiate between different kinds of pleasure, and particularly between good and bad desires. Fish are usually enticed and entrapped by their desire for immediate physical satisfaction, whether for food or for sex. Yet this is soon revealed to be a short-lived pleasure, and the fish’s joy turns to a belated horror that contrasts with the fisherman’s more considered, longer-term satisfaction in his catch. The immoderate, impulsive pleasure of the fish leads only to its doom, whereas the fisherman’s joy acknowledges the connection between action and consequence. The difference between the fisherman’s pleasure and that of his prey lies in the ability of the former to differentiate himself from the foolish fish; the danger for men, however, lies in succumbing to a bestial pleasure of precisely the kind displayed by the fish. Here too Hermogenes reminds us that sweetness and pleasure (τέρψις, γλυκύτης, Id. ..) cannot be dissociated from one’s wider ethical stance, insofar as sweet or pleasurable thoughts will reflect one’s own view of what is pleasurable: moderate pleasures for the moderate man, but licentious pleasures for the undisciplined man. The didactic drive of the poem, I have argued, lies not in its practical utility as a fisherman’s guide, but in the lessons that we are to learn from  





See further Chapter , pp. –. On this contrast of perspectives, cf. Plutarch’s Autobulus in De sollert. anim. b. Compare too the piscatorial philosophy of Blaisdell : : ‘all the romance of trout fishing exists in the mind of the angler and is in no way shared by the fish’. The description of bait as a meal that brings evil pleasure (δαῖτα . . . δυστερπέα, .), for instance, picks up on the poet’s earlier warning that humans too must curb their pleasure-seeking ways: τῷ τις ἀεργίην δυστερπέα τῆλε διώκοι | καὶ κραδίης καὶ χειρός, ἔχοι δέ τι μέτρον ἐδωδῆς | μηδ’ ἐπὶ πανθοίνῃσι νόον τέρποιτο τραπέζαις (‘so one should banish the evil pleasure of indolence far away from both heart and hand, and have some restraint in eating, and not take pleasure in the tables of all kinds of splendid feasts’, .–). Hermog. Id. ..–: ὅσαι δέ εἰσιν αἰσχραὶ τῶν κατὰ τὰς ἀπολαύσεις ἡδονῶν, ἐοικυῖαν ἔχουσιν αὐταῖς καὶ τὴν διὰ τῆς ἀκοῆς τέρψιν καὶ γλυκύτητα· οἷς γὰρ ἕκαστος χαίρει πραττομένοις, ἐκείνοις οὗτος καὶ λεγομένοις ἡσθήσεται, ὁ μὲν ἀκόλαστος ἀκολάστοις, ὁ δὲ σωφρονῶν δηλαδὴ σώφροσι, καὶ ὁ ποιῶν δὲ ὡσαύτως ποιήσει; cf. Id. ..–: ἀλλ’ αἳ μέν εἰσιν αἰσχραὶ τῶν κατὰ ἀπόλαυσιν ἡδονῶν.



Knowledge and Pleasure

these doomed and foolish beasts. The author may not be a practical expert in the field, but that is simply not necessary, and it is often the most ‘poetic’ qualities of this verse that prove didactically efficacious. Oppian, as we have seen, represents his verse as both entertaining and educational: this is poetry for both the ears and the mind, and it uses its very appeal to educate. Throughout the poem we witness the delight experienced by figures as they learn about the sea, or watch sea-creatures themselves discovering this marvellous realm with pleasure. The many correspondences I have suggested between Oppian’s verse and Hermogenes’ discussion of stylistic sweetness, moreover, point to a shared second-century aesthetic, a reminder that the Halieutica demands to be understood as part of a wider Second Sophistic culture characterised above all by a thorough rhetorical education and an awareness of literary tradition, and in which the relationship between poetry and literary theory was both close and mutually influential. Yet this rhetorical interest is not just a playful veneer: the sweet and pleasurable qualities of Oppian’s verse are also central to its didactic aims, foregrounding the close connections between humans and animals, as well as the need to seek out the right kinds of pleasures. The issues raised throughout this chapter – the attribution of quasi-human qualities to animals; the failings of fish and the distinction between human and animal pleasures; the representation of the emperor at sea; and the relationship between literary analysis and poetic production – lie at the heart of the poem and will be addressed more fully in the remainder of this book. 

As, of course, was the relationship between rhetorical theory and contemporary prose: see Hunter : – on γλυκύτης in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe.

 

Mapping the Sea

. Mortal Incapacity The Halieutica opens by representing the sea as a vast, impenetrable, and unpredictable environment, its myriad inhabitants both fascinating and baffling. As often in ancient thought, the sea is imagined to bring both terror and adventure, mortal danger and new frontiers. For Oppian this is also a realm that marks an epistemological boundary, and the start of the poem is structured by a tension between what can be known and what cannot. The sea is in part available to be catalogued and described, yet its limits lie tantalisingly out of reach, and its depths have yet to be conquered by man. Book  – which catalogues sea-creatures according to habitat (.–), before discussing their mating practices (.–) – is not structured according to the moral qualities that dominate the following three books; it is concerned less with the failings of fish than with delineating the environment in which these creatures live and breed. In placing weight on the unfathomable enormity of the sea, I argue, the poet writes his work into a didactic epic tradition that draws attention to the process of gathering and disseminating knowledge, foregrounding not only the possibilities but also the epistemological challenges generated by the drive to catalogue such an immense and daunting realm. At the start of the book the poet promises to outline the habits of all kinds of fish (παντοίων νεπόδων, .), describing as many (ὅσσα, .) creatures as dwell in the sea, where each (ἕκαστα, .) lives, and as many (ὅσα, .) methods of catching them as fishermen have devised. Yet this confidence and implied comprehensiveness is immediately set in tension with the obscure and unfamiliar nature of the sea and its inhabitants. Fish are not only widely dispersed (πολυσπερέες, .) but ἄφραστοι (.), while the sea itself is ἀίδηλος (.), and its depths οὐκ ἐπίοπτα (.); 

Although parental devotion is discussed at .–.





Mapping the Sea

men require skill and courage even to venture across such a treacherous medium. A tension arises between, on the one hand, the τέχναι of mapping the sea (.) and controlling its inhabitants (.), and on the other the apparent resistance of the environment to those efforts. This contributes to the glory as well as the difficulty of the endeavour, but it also raises the question of what can and cannot be known about this curious world. The task of the fisherman is plagued from the start by uncertainty. In contrast to the easy life enjoyed by those who hunt on dry land, fishermen place themselves at the mercy of the elements and the unpredictable waters: τλησιπόνοις δ’ ἁλιεῦσιν ἀτέκμαρτοι μὲν ἄεθλοι, ἐλπὶς δ’ οὐ σταθερὴ σαίνει φρένας ἠύτ’ ὄνειρος· οὐ γὰρ ἀκινήτου γαίης ὕπερ ἀθλεύουσιν, ἀλλ’ αἰεὶ κρυερῷ τε καὶ ἄσχετα μαργαίνοντι ὕδατι συμφορέονται, ὃ καὶ γαίηθεν ἰδέσθαι δεῖμα φέρει καὶ μοῦνον ὑπ’ ὄμμασι πειρήσασθαι· δούρασι δ’ ἐν βαιοῖσιν ἀελλάων θεράποντες πλαζόμενοι, καὶ θυμὸν ἐν οἴδμασιν αἰὲν ἔχοντες αἰεὶ μὲν νεφέλην ἰοειδέα παπταίνουσιν, αἰεὶ δὲ τρομέουσι μελαινόμενον πόρον ἅλμης· (.–)

The labours of patiently toiling fishermen have no fixed signs, and unsteady hope beguiles their minds like a dream. For they do not fight on the unshakeable land, but are always confronted with icecold, impetuously raging water; it is terrifying even to see it from the land, just to attempt it with the eyes alone. They rove about in paltry timbers, in thrall to the storm-winds, and their hearts are always on the swelling waves, they are always on the look-out for dark clouds, always trembling at the darkening paths of the sea.

This is a changeable medium buffeted by powerful elemental forces, and in whose depths lurk all manner of monsters. Fishermen are afraid not only of the rough waters, but of the terrible beasts they encounter when they pass through the ‘inner sanctuary’ of the sea deep (εὖτ’ ἂν ὑποβρυχίης ἄδυτον περόωσι θαλάσσης, .). The poet paints the encounter almost as an act of trespass, mankind an interloper in this uncharted territory. Humans may make brief and sobering incursions into this most hostile of environments, but the depths of the sea lie well beyond our sphere of experience. Throughout the lengthy proem (.–) the poet draws attention to the faculty of vision and the difficulties faced by fishermen in perceiving the fish they seek. Both the opacity and the fluidity of the sea disguise 

On which see further Chapter .

. Mortal Incapacity



the creatures it contains, and the fisherman’s task is many times harder than that of the hunter; no tracking dogs aid him in his task, for the tracks of swimming creatures are invisible (ἴχνη γὰρ ἀείδελα νηχομένοισιν, .). Difficulties in detecting fish recur throughout: the path of the electric ray, for instance, is tricky to make out in the murky water (.–); worse still, the melanurus must be caught in stormy weather, and when these fish emerge from their haunts the fisherman is often confused by the turmoil of the sea and has to keep hauling up his line, unsure whether he has caught a fish at all (.–). Rarely, however, does Oppian describe fish themselves in visual terms: with remarkably few exceptions, most species of fish would be unrecognisable to the neophyte fisherman from the meagre physical descriptions they are accorded in the Halieutica. This may in part be a function of Oppian’s reliance on prose treatises rather than personal experience, but the emphasis on what can and cannot be observed stresses not the immediate practical needs of the would-be fisherman but the symbolic value of sight. Linguistically and conceptually, knowledge and vision are closely intertwined in Greek thought: what cannot be seen cannot be known, at least in the world of the Halieutica. The enormity of the sea, the multitude of fish that live in it, and the fact that human beings are unable to survive underwater mean that the marine world is open to exploration only within limited parameters: μυρία μὲν δὴ φῦλα καὶ ἄκριτα βένθεσι πόντου ἐμφέρεται πλώοντα· τὰ δ’ οὔ κέ τις ἐξονομήναι ἀτρεκέως· οὐ γάρ τις ἐσίκετο τέρμα θαλάσσης, ἀλλὰ τριηκοσίων ὀργυιῶν ἄχρι μάλιστα ἄνερες ἴσασίν τε καὶ ἔδρακον ἀμφιτρίτην. πολλὰ δ’ (ἀπειρεσίη γὰρ ἀμετροβαθής τε θάλασσα) κέκρυπται, τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο θνητὸς ἐών· ὀλίγος δὲ νόος μερόπεσσι καὶ ἀλκή. οὐ μὲν γὰρ γαίης πολυμήτορος ἔλπομαι ἅλμην παυροτέρας ἀγέλας οὔτ’ ἔθνεα μείονα φέρβειν. ἀλλ’ εἴτ’ ἀμφήριστος ἐν ἀμφοτέρῃσι γενέθλη εἴθ’ ἑτέρη προβέβηκε, θεοὶ σάφα τεκμαίρονται· ἡμεῖς δ’ ἀνδρομέοισι νοήμασι μέτρα φέροιμεν.

ð80Þ

ð85Þ

ð90Þ

(.–) 

See esp. .–. It is presumably the near-impossibility of witnessing underwater phenomena that means that the mating habits of the (still-unidentified) oniscus are unknown or unseen (.–). So too fry are born mysteriously from the sea after heavy rains: αἱ δ’ ἐν ἀτεκμάρτοισι καὶ ἀσκέπτοισι γάμοισιν | ἀθρόαι ἔκ τ’ ἐγένοντο καὶ ἔτραφον ἔκ τ’ ἐφάνησαν | μυρίαι, ἀβληχραί, πολιὸν γένος (‘and out of an unseen, unfathomable union they are born and grow and appear in droves, countless and feeble, a grey tribe’, .–).



Mapping the Sea Countless and indistinguishable are the breeds that swim in the depths of the sea, and nobody could name them accurately; for nobody has reached the boundaries of the sea, but up to a depth of about  fathoms men know and have observed it. But since the sea is vast and immeasurably deep, many things remain hidden, and no mortal could speak of these unseen things: for the mind and strength of humans is meagre. I do not think that the sea feeds fewer throngs or inferior tribes than bountiful mother earth. But whether the stock is evenly matched on both sides or whether one exceeds the other, the gods judge with certainty, whereas we must make our measurements using human perception.

Incomprehensible and impenetrable, the sea lies so far beyond human experience that even those who have gazed at its surface or eaten their share of sea bream know little of the creatures concealed in its depths. The proem to book  moves swiftly from the capabilities of fishermen to the inability of mortals to comprehend its immensity in full. With this Oppian concludes his introduction and launches into a catalogue of species arranged by habitat. Although the poet elsewhere describes the sea as unknown or impenetrable, his primary focus in the remainder of the poem lies (quite naturally) with what is known rather than what is not. The claims of the proem, on the other hand, programmatically represent the Halieutica as the very test case of didactic endeavour: to describe the boundless sea and its myriad inhabitants is to delineate the farthest boundaries of human knowledge. The poet thus situates his work within a long-established didactic tradition of reflecting on epistemological issues relating to the scope of one’s subject-matter. In contrast to the description of a sizeable but merely mortal activity like hunting, fishing, or farming, Oppian has chosen to detail both a human art and a vast realm inhabited by innumerable creatures. He thus sets himself in the tradition of didactic poets like Aratus and Dionysius the Periegete, whose poems – on the sky and its constellations and weather-signs, and on the entire inhabited world – are likewise informed by the immensity of the natural phenomena they set out to depict, and by the limitations therefore imposed on their ability to know or recount every detail. In the Phaenomena, for instance, the size, inaccessibility, and ever-changing nature of the sky impose limits on mortal knowledge, and so on the scope of the poem. Aratus marks out the boundaries of his poetry by declaring himself uncomfortable discussing 

As Schiesaro :  observes of Virgil’s Georgics, ‘[d]idactic poetry fashions its primary goal as that of imparting knowledge, metaphorical or practical, to an internal addressee and by extension to the larger world of interested readers. The nature and boundaries of knowledge naturally represent a significant theoretical concern of the didactic poet and, by extension, the reader and the critic.’

. Mortal Incapacity



the movements of the wandering planets (Arat. Phaen. –), and we hear several times about the limitations of mankind’s visual and cognitive capacities. Nobody, we are told, could describe the constellation of the Kneeler precisely (Phaen. –); stars at large are so similar and numerous that they must be grouped as constellations rather than being named individually; even so, those stars below the Hare are too amorphous and indistinguishable even to be assigned a collective constellation (Phaen. –). It is just such epistemological issues – and above all the questions of immensity, visibility, fixity, and the limits of human perception – that Oppian addresses in his proem. At the start of the Halieutica the poet draws attention to both the colossal achievements and the ultimate limitations of mankind: while humans have sailed and measured the sea, they still know little of its lowest reaches. Men, he suggests, may look down at the water as they sail, but they are unable to perceive what lies in its unobserved or invisible depths (κατὰ δ’ ἔδρακον οὐκ ἐπίοπτα | βένθεα, .–). The adjective ἐπίοπτος is extremely rare, and before Oppian appears only in the Phaenomena, where Aratus remarks upon the invisibility of the south celestial pole in contrast to the north pole, which is fully visible to men: ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν οὐκ ἐπίοπτος, ὁ δ’ ἀντίος ἐκ βορέαο | ὑψόθεν ὠκεανοῖο (Arat. Phaen. –). Early on in his poem, in other words, Aratus outlines the constraints of human vision: only one pole is visible to men at any one time, and the sky is necessarily presented only from the standpoint of a native of the northern hemisphere. Oppian too draws attention in his proem to the frustratingly partial perspective of the (fisher)man who sails across, but cannot see more than a fraction of, the realm at which he gazes. In this he echoes not only Aratus’ initial statement about what may and may not be observed of the sky, but also his comments on the sheer magnitude of the sea itself: as the Aratean scholia explain, Aratus uses ‘Ocean’ at Phaen.  to signify the horizon. Both didactic poets, in other words, represent the sea as a vast and symbolic impediment to the observation of what lies beneath it. It will be Oppian’s monumental achievement in the remainder of his poem periodically to overcome these limitations, to offer his reader not only the fisherman’s partial perspective but what at times resembles the perspective of fish themselves. 



Nor, fittingly, is the name of their namer recorded. This passage, unusually, was criticised by Attalus of Rhodes but defended by Hipparchus; see Martin : – and : II –; Erren ; Pendergraft ; Kidd : –; Semanoff : –. See Kidd :  on Aratus; Bartley :  on Oppian.



Mapping the Sea

Oppian’s claim about mortal incapacity – τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο | θνητὸς ἐών (.–) – is also heavily reminiscent of the statement with which his didactic predecessor Dionysius concludes the catalogue of nations at the end of the Periegesis. Dionysius claims that while he has now spoken about the most prominent tribes, many more must remain beyond the remit of his poem: τόσσοι μὲν κατὰ γαῖαν ὑπέρτατοι ἄνδρες ἔασιν· | ἄλλοι δ’ ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα κατ’ ἠπείρους ἀλόωνται | μυρίοι, οὓς οὐκ ἄν τις ἀριφραδέως ἀγορεύσαι | θνητὸς ἐών· μοῦνοι δὲ θεοὶ ῥέα πάντα δύνανται (‘such are the most notable men on the earth. But countless others wander here and there throughout the land, and these no mortal could describe clearly; only the gods can do everything easily’, Dion. Perieg. –). The sentiment, and diction, looks to archaic epic precedents, but became an imperial Greek didactic topos; a similar statement appears in book  of ps.‑Manetho’s astronomical didactic Apotelesmatica, where the poet likewise emphasises the limitations of human endeavour: ἀλλὰ γὰρ οὔτις θνητὸς ἐὼν πάσας κε δύναιτο | πρήξιας ἢ τέχνας εἰπεῖν, ὅσσας μερόπεσσιν | ἀστέρες ἐν σφετέροισιν ἐμοιρήσαντο δρόμοισιν (‘but no mortal would be able to speak of all the affairs or crafts that the stars in their courses have assigned to men’, ps.-Man. Ap. .–). The movements and configurations of the stars are ‘countless and ineffable’ (ἄσπετ’ ἀπείριτά τ’), and nobody could comprehend, let alone relate, them all (πάντα μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἄν τις ἑῷ φράσσαιτ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ, | οὐδ’ ἐνέποι); ps.-Manetho will therefore declare only such material as has been selected by the gods. Ps.-Oppian in turn recasts this allusive interplay in the proem to Cyn. , where he turns from zoology to the myriad types of hunting: τίς δ’ ἂν πάντ’ ἐσίδοι; τίς δ’ ἂν τόσον ὠπήσαιτο | θνητὸς ἐών; μοῦνοι δὲ θεοὶ ῥέα πάνθ’ ὁρόωσιν (‘Who could look at them







θνητὸς ἐών: Il. . (Achilles’ horse), . (Achilles himself ); the former is parodied by Matro of Pitane fr.. Olson–Sens, on which see Olson and Sens : , . A contrast between divine and mortal ability is drawn at Od. .– (moly) and . (divine knowledge). Cf. Ibyc. .– PMG, similarly contrasting mortal and divine (in)capacity to recount information in full, on which see Lightfoot : ; Wilkinson : –. Khan : – finds in Dionysius’ language an echo of Cleanthes fr. .; contrast Magnelli :  n. . Cf. Homeric expressions of narratorial incapacity at Il. ., .–; Od. .–, .–, .–, .–, .; see de Jong : –. Although the two poets were evidently near-contemporaries, neither the Periegesis nor the poem comprising books , , and  of the Apotelesmatica may be dated with precision: the Periegesis, as the acrostic at – implies, was composed under Hadrian (see esp. Jacob ; Amato ); ps.Manetho’s description of his horoscope at Ap. .–, on the other hand, dates the poet’s birth to  , for which see Garnett ; Neugebauer and van Hoesen : . Ps.-Man. Ap. .–; cf. also Ap. .–, .–, .–.

. Mortal Incapacity



all? Which mortal could see so much? Only the gods see everything easily’, ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–). Each of these imperial Greek didactic poets represents the lack of comprehensiveness in their poetry not as a lack of personal experience or expertise but as a distinction between mortal and immortal capacity, a function of the sheer enormity of their subject-matter. This is a poetic topos rooted in the Homeric narrator’s address to the Muses at the start of the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships, where the poet appeals for information to the Muses, ‘who are goddesses and know all things’, declaring himself unable to name the multitude of Greeks at Troy without their aid, even had he ten tongues and mouths, an unbreakable tongue, and a heart of bronze (Hom. Il. .–). The influence on later Greek didactic of the Homeric Muse-invocation and Catalogue of Ships is immense. In the first place the Iliadic scene functions as a Homeric archetype for the transmission of a substantial quantity of non-narrative information in hexameter form, and for the authorising strategies invoked by a firstperson narrator who has not himself witnessed the phenomena he details, but who reflects on his own authorial role in shaping and mediating this information. Oppian’s emphasis on mortal incapacity – τὰ δ’ οὔ κέ τις ἐξονομήναι (.), τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο (.) – thus recalls both thematically and verbally the Homeric claim not to be able to speak of or name the multitude of Greeks (πληθὺν δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, Il. .) without the aid of the Muses. The Homeric claim that men rely on rumour rather than sight, unlike the divinities who know and have been present at all things (ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, | ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, Il. .–) is in turn echoed by Oppian’s insistence that while the gods know things clearly, humans can judge the world only by their own limited mental faculties (θεοὶ σάφα τεκμαίρονται, | ἡμεῖς δ’ ἀνδρομέοισι νοήμασι μέτρα φέροιμεν, .–). As the poet emphasises, ἄνερες ἴσασίν τε καὶ ἔδρακον ἀμφιτρίτην only to a limited extent (.–), so that many things remain obscure, invisible (ἀείδελα, .), unseen, and imperfectly known. 



The Catalogue was much imitated and discussed in antiquity, presumably above all in Apollodorus’ commentary. See Cribiore : – for the popularity of the Catalogue of Ships in ancient educational contexts; cf. also Ford : –; Cavavero : –. The use of the topos in Latin literature (see esp. Enn. Ann. – Skutsch; Verg. Georg. .–; Lucr. ap. Serv. Georg. .) is well traced in Hinds : –; see also Thomas : –, who distinguishes helpfully between ‘unwillingness’ and ‘incapacity’. On catalogue as ‘an idealization of the epic genre’s claims to historical truth and objectivity’, see Sammons : , with further bibliography.



Mapping the Sea

Oppian’s proem introduces a catalogue of marine habitats, and in doing so looks above all to the Catalogue of Ships (Hom. Il. .–) as a privileged model for the representation of a compact hexameter geographical catalogue; in representing countless ‘tribes’ of hostile fish traversing the sea as if in martial formation, moreover, the poem’s opening lines evoke the immense military forces that assemble in Iliad . Oppian’s claim to describe ἔθνεά τοι πόντοιο πολυσπερέας τε φάλαγγας (.) thus aligns the ἔθνεα of fish with the assembling Greek troops of Iliad , themselves compared by Homer to massed ἔθνεα of animals, while the πολυσπερής (widely scattered) configuration of these sea-creatures in turn recalls the diversity of the allied Trojan forces that Iris instructs Hector to mobilise in response to the multitude of Greeks: ἄλλη δ’ ἄλλων γλῶσσα πολυσπερέων ἀνθρώπων (‘one tongue differs from another among widely scattered humans’, Il. .). We are dealing here with a marine world of topographical and ethnic diversity no less impressive than that of the humans detailed in Iliad . This diversity is emphasised both in the claims of immensity and mortal incapacity articulated in the proem and in the lengthy catalogue of species that follows. The catalogue divides different species of fish according to the region they inhabit: the sea-shore, the mud and shallows, beaches, rivers, or estuaries, the sand, rocks, cliffs, bays, or open sea. The minimal elaboration of much of this catalogue represents a marked stylistic contrast to the remainder of the poem, which tends rather towards intricate vignettes and lengthy similes. The opening stretch of the Halieutica momentarily represents the work instead as catalogue poetry, and echoes the organising principles and epistemological claims of Iliad , where a daunting mass of soldiers, too numerous for the mortal poet to be capable of detailing, is likewise divided and described according to geographical region. The ‘second proem’ of the Iliad, moreover, established an important precedent for later Greek didactic poets not only in the poet’s proclaimed reliance on the Muses to supply information about an unimaginably vast topic beyond the scope of human capability, but also in its emphasis on    

As indeed does Dionysius’ Periegesis, whose relationship with the Catalogue of Ships is discussed by Lightfoot , : – and passim; Hunter c: ; Jacob : –. For the quasi-martial formation of shoals of fish see e.g. .–, and Chapter . Il. ., , , , ; see further Chapter . πολυσπερής is used by Homer only of human beings scattered across the earth: Hom. Il. ., Od. .. In his transference of the adjective to the marine sphere Oppian is perhaps also indebted to Hesiod’s portrayal of the widely scattered daughters of Ocean tending to both land and sea (Hes. Theog. ); see also Emp. fr. , discussed in Chapter . Cf. Bartley : .

. Mortal Incapacity



the necessarily partial and selective nature of that narrative enterprise: even with the help of the Muses, the Homeric narrator will go on to speak only of the Greek leaders, not the πληθύς of Il. .. As Andrew Ford observes, ‘[t]he appearance of the Muses in the Iliad, book  . . . is not simply a scene of instruction but also one of selection: it is the point at which both the immense Greek host and the ineffable oral tradition must be cut down to manageable, significant figures’. Greek didactic poets likewise draw attention to the relationship between the vast scope of their subject-matter and the necessarily bounded nature of their individual poetic projects, implying that their expertise lies primarily in sifting through the mass of data and choosing only the most salient features to convey to the reader. Aratus’ cosmos, for instance, may be portrayed as vast and inaccessible, but he also implies that it is unnecessary to know or tell all things: the naming of individual stars is superfluous when the naming of constellations will suffice, nor need the poet list all the details that pertain to his topic (thus Arat. Phaen. –: τί τοι λέγω ὅσσα πέλονται | σήματ’ ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπους;). Later didactic poems make much of this insight. The self-contained books , , and  of ps.-Manetho’s Apotelesmatica return frequently to the vastness of the poet’s subject and to the impossibility of providing a comprehensive account of all the information to be gleaned from the stars. Analogous claims about poetic selectivity are employed by ps.Oppian in the Cynegetica, where judicious discrimination is presented as central to the didactic poet’s project of sifting and determining the material to be relayed. So too the very brevity of Dionysius’ Periegesis throws the spotlight onto the poet’s process of selectivity and prioritisation. Humans are here said to have arbitrarily divided vast natural features in accordance  





Ford : . See Hunter b: : ‘“Didactic poetry” does not have to be comprehensive to be “didactic”. It gives us examples, exemplary signs, to guide us as we move beyond the confines of the poem’; cf. Hunter . Ps.-Manetho expects the reader to apply the principles outlined in the poem to new contexts: the poet’s task is not to cover every aspect of his proposed subject, a feat impossible for a mere mortal, but rather to provide sufficient information for the careful reader to draw their own inferences about comparable phenomena (see esp. ps.-Man. Ap. .–). For discussion of the implied reader and/ or addressee in Greek and Latin didactic poetry, see esp. Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay ; Volk . Ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–; .–. This is a principle that ps.-Oppian elevates to a proclamation of generic dominance in the recusatio that opens the Cynegetica (.–), a dialogue that dramatises the tension between authorial selectivity and universalism. See Costanza ; Bartley : –; Schmitt : –; Koster : ; Asper : –; Paschalis : –; Whitby : –; Goldhill : –.



Mapping the Sea

with their own immediate, but necessarily limited, purview; the poet, on the other hand, seeks to offer not an exhaustive catalogue of small-scale details, but rather a global overview, covering only the most important features of a given area, and at times encompassing continents, oceans, and islands at a single glance. Oppian’s relationship with Dionysius the Periegete is instructive. Both didactic poems are saturated with an awareness of the immensity of their subject-matter, which they repeatedly describe as ἀπειρέσιος: boundless, infinite, vast, or uncountable. Dionysius is concerned primarily with innumerable rivers and islands, vast bodies of land and sea, and the countless men that inhabit these regions, Oppian with the boundless sea and the multitudes of fish within it. While the latter is less constrained than Dionysius by the circumscribed scope of his poetry, both poets represent the enormity of their subject-matter as an impediment to their own inability to describe it fully (see esp. Hal. .: ἀπειρεσίη γὰρ ἀμετροβαθής τε θάλασσα). While Dionysius, for instance, declares himself perfectly able to speak of the more significant islands in the ocean, he also declares that there are countless (ἀπειρέσιαι, ; ἀπείριτοι, Perieg. ) islands that he would not find it easy to name (Perieg. ). The poet’s alleged inability to describe these smaller islands indicates the unimaginably vast nature of his subject-matter, but also foregrounds the process of the compilation and dissemination of knowledge. The gathering of information, as Dionysius seems to imply at , is hampered not only by the sheer quantity of islands, but also by the fact that many of these smaller 







Dionysius describes the human division of the earth into three continents, despite its structural unity (Perieg. –), and speaks of the many names that mortals have given to the Ocean (Perieg. –). Thus Dion. Perieg. – (drawing on Hes. Theog. –, a parallel noted already by Eustathius; see Hunter c: –), . See Jacob : –; Lightfoot : –, with further bibliography. ἀπειρέσιος, ἀπείριτος etc. are used in the Periegesis both of geographical features (Dion. Perieg. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ) and their inhabitants (Perieg. , ); similarly in the Halieutica both of the sea (Hal. ., ., .) and the fish to be found within it (Hal. .; ., ; ., , , ). See esp. Lightfoot : –, –; Jacob : , –. Cf. books , , and  of ps.-Manetho’s Apotelesmatica, where ἀπειρέσιος and ἀπείριτος are used of the infinite nature of the stars and heavens at Ap. ., ., ., .; suggestively, the word is not used in this way in the remainder of the collection. Ps.-Oppian’s Cynegetica uses such language more frequently of impressively powerful animals. Cf. also μυρίος at Perieg. , ; Ap. .; Hal. ., ., .; Cyn. ., ., ., ., .. This language looks back ultimately to Homeric and Hesiodic descriptions of the boundless earth and sea: see e.g. Hom. Il. ., ., ., ., .; Od. ., ., ., ., ., ., ., .; Hes. Theog. , , , ; Op. , . See esp. Lightfoot : –,  on the tension in the Periegesis between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ lists, ‘orderly control’ and ‘sketchiness’.

. Mortal Incapacity



islands have steep cliffs and are unsuitable for naval exploration. Knowledge is here necessarily shaped by the environment of the observer. So too in the Halieutica it is largely at the boundaries of the sea – near the shore or the surface, where fish approach the sphere of human activity and knowledge – that men are able to examine the sea and mark out its attendant lifeforms; the formless mass of the open sea, by contrast, is unknown and ἀμέτρητος (immeasurable, .). Oppian’s comments on mortal incapacity, moreover, look to both the beginning and the end of the Periegesis, yet reinscribe doubt into both of Dionysius’ claims about mortal knowledge. In the first place Oppian’s statement that μυρία μὲν δὴ φῦλα καὶ ἄκριτα βένθεσι πόντου | ἐμφέρεται πλώοντα· τὰ δ’ οὔ κέ τις ἐξονομήναι | ἀτρεκέως (‘countless and indistinguishable are the tribes that swim in the depths of the sea, and nobody could name them accurately’, .–) recalls the opening lines of the Periegesis, where Dionysius promises to treat the ἀνδρῶν ἄκριτα φῦλα (‘countless tribes of men’) by starting with the βαθύρροος (‘deep-flowing’) Ocean (Dion. Perieg. –). Yet the opening verses of the Periegesis may gesture towards the enormity of the world, but they do not suggest that the poet will be unable to encompass this kind of scale in his poem. Instead Dionysius emphasises his selectiveness, his mastery of the topic at hand, and the ease with which he is able to cover his material (ῥέα, ῥεῖα, ῥηιδίως, Perieg. , , ), a claim that in turn informs the addressee’s projected ability to grasp the topic easily (ῥέα, Perieg. ). Dionysius’ ‘easy’ distillation of the whole world into succinct poetic form proclaims his alleged control of this factual material, poetic medium, and pedagogical enterprise. At the end of the Periegesis, ease in all matters is itself shown to be a feature of divine power (Dion. Perieg. –). The tension between enormity and selectivity is presented by Dionysius as a question of divine beneficence: the world may be vast, deep, and immeasurable, but the gods have laid its foundations, established a sense of fixity, revealed methods for its navigation, and divided it up into manageable parts. The gods dwarf mortals in their ability to do all things easily, but they have also chosen to use this capacity for the benefit of humankind, and have ‘made known the deep path of the immeasurable sea’ (βαθὺν οἶμον ἔδειξαν   

Cf. also Parmenides  B. DK; see Magnelli b: . See Hunter c: –; Lightfoot : –, –. Global diversity is itself shown to be part of the divine plan, for mighty Zeus is said to have contrived the earth’s polychromic variety (Dion. Perieg. -). Cf. Hunter c: ; Lightfoot : –.



Mapping the Sea

ἀμετρήτοιο θαλάσσης, Perieg. ). For Oppian, on the other hand, the sea’s immeasurable vastness (ἀπειρεσίη γὰρ ἀμετροβαθής τε θάλασσα, .) prevents mortals knowing more than a fraction of it. His proem moves straight from mortal incapacity to human insignificance: ‘but since the sea is vast and immeasurably deep, many things remain hidden, and no mortal could speak of these unseen things: for the mind and strength of humans is meagre’ (τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο | θνητὸς ἐών· ὀλίγος δὲ νόος μερόπεσσι καὶ ἀλκή, .–), a claim that inverts Dionysius’ move from mortal incapacity to divine ease (‘these [countless lesser-known tribes] no mortal could describe clearly; only the gods can do everything easily [οὓς οὐκ ἄν τις ἀριφραδέως ἀγορεύσαι | θνητὸς ἐών· μοῦνοι δὲ θεοὶ ῥέα πάντα δύνανται]. For they marked off the first foundations and made known the deep path of the immeasurable sea, they assigned all steadfast things in life, distinguished the stars . . .’, Perieg. –). Oppian opens his poem by emphasising not ability but inability, drawing attention to the epistemological impossibility of his task; Dionysius, on the other hand, opens his poem with an assurance of personal capacity, focuses throughout on the ‘ease’ with which he completes his project, and waits until the very end of his poem to address the gap between divine and human knowledge, which even there is mitigated by the beneficent actions of the gods. Dionysius builds on archaic Greek precedents in order to imply that it is the poet’s proximity to the divine that allows him to present a synoptic overview rather than a merely local perspective. The Muses provide him with information (Dion. Perieg. , ), direct his route, measure the world, and conduct him helpfully around the world (Perieg. , –). These proclamations of divine aid stand in further contrast to the claims advanced in the first book of the Halieutica. While Oppian, as we have seen, prays to the sea-gods to support his project (.–), he never claims to have received privileged information from the gods or Muses, and his prayer is immediately followed by the comment that mortals, unlike the gods, are unable fully to understand this realm. Rather than focusing on the information and inspiration provided by the Muses, Oppian instead places emphasis on what cannot be known, foregrounding from the outset mankind’s difficulty in observing this realm and its inhabitants, noting the firm limit placed on mortal exploration of its depths, and highlighting the



The poem ends not only with a hymnic envoi to the Ocean and other natural features, but also with an assured claim that the poet has now covered both land and sea: ἤδη γὰρ πάσης μὲν ἐπέδραμον οἶδμα θαλάσσης (‘I have now run through the swell of every sea’, Dion. Perieg. ).

. Toil and Ease



fact that he is left to understand the world with merely mortal understanding, for all his implied poetic proximity to the divine.

.

Toil and Ease

The themes of ease, difficulty, knowledge, and concealment have a long didactic heritage, and in addressing these Oppian rewrites not only Dionysius, but also those earlier didactic poets – Hesiod, Aratus, and Nicander – with whom Dionysius himself engages. The claim at the end of the Periegesis that the gods have marked out the stars and established all steadfast things in life (αὐτοὶ δ’ ἔμπεδα πάντα βίῳ διετεκμήραντο, | ἄστρα διακρίναντες, Dion. Perieg. –) has long been recognised as offering a more positive, quasi-Aratean spin on Hesiod’s reminder to Perses of the necessity to work the work that the gods have assigned to mankind – ἐργάζευ, νήπιε Πέρση, | ἔργα τά τ’ ἀνθρώποισι θεοὶ διετεκμήραντο (Hes. Op. –); on Dionysius’ account the gods have bestowed on mankind not work, but the visible signs and certainties by which to thrive. Oppian, on the other hand, puts work firmly back into the equation. His emphasis that much of the sea remains hidden (κέκρυπται, .), and is known only to the gods, draws from both Hesiod and Aratus, as we shall see. The former claims that the gods have necessitated hard work by hiding the means of life from men: κρύψαντες γὰρ ἔχουσι θεοὶ βίον ἀνθρώποισιν. ῥηιδίως γάρ κεν καὶ ἐπ’ ἤματι ἐργάσσαιο, ὥστε σε κεἰς ἐνιαυτὸν ἔχειν καὶ ἀεργὸν ἐόντα· αἶψά κε πηδάλιον μὲν ὑπὲρ καπνοῦ καταθεῖο

(Hes. Op. –)

For the gods keep the means of life concealed from mankind, otherwise you would easily be able to work enough in just a day so as to go for even a year without working, and you would quickly hang up the rudder above the smoke . . .

Hesiod establishes an opposition between ease and toil, the latter the fate of all right-thinking men (cf. Hes. Op. –). If life were easy, on the other hand, no man would set out to sea, and one could simply put one’s maritime equipment aside. The difficulty of life at sea is thus represented as a result of the divine concealment of the ways of the 



For Dionysius’ use of both Hesiod and Aratus in these lines, see Magnelli ; Greaves : –, also noting the parallel with the end of ps.-Manetho’s Apotelesmatica (.); Lightfoot : . Cf. also Hes. Op.  (ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς ἔκρυψε).



Mapping the Sea

world from mankind, and is associated with the need for industry rather than idleness. We have already seen that Oppian draws on Hesiodic precepts in his cautionary tale of the ἀεργότατος day-sleeper (.), a species whose fate occasions his denunciation of indolence (ἀεργίη, .) and insistence that we should reject the appealing but morally dangerous mode of life dominated by dissolute idleness. So too in the proem Oppian represents the life of the fisherman, who labours amidst instability and uncertainty (.–), as both harder and superior to the suspiciously easy life of the hunter and fowler. Toil, for Oppian, is the eminently correct, if unenviable, choice. The syncrisis that dominates the opening stretches of the Halieutica (.–) is structured around a contrast between the alleged ease of hunting and fowling and the difficulty of fishing. While the fisherman’s life is hard and unpredictable, the hunter’s is easy: the hounds take on the hard job of tracking his prey to its lair (.–), and their master merely enjoys the temperate climate conferred by a shady den; seasonal fruits abound for him to eat (.–), and even the cave in which he shelters is αὐτόροφος (lit. ‘self-roofed’, .), obviating the need for human effort. In contrast to the emphasis often placed by ancient authors on the toil and danger of (terrestrial) hunting, especially in comparison with the alleged ease of fishing, we hear instead that man and beast fight ‘securely’ or ‘safely’ (ἀσφαλέως, .) on dry land, and that dogs guide and direct their masters (σημαίνουσι καὶ ἰθύνουσιν) towards the lairs of wild beasts (.–), accompanying the huntsmen as ἀρηγόνες (.), an unusual epic term that casts these dogs in the role of divine ‘helpers’ bringing aid to mortals. The quarry of the fowler is similarly easy and conspicuous (ῥηιδίη καὶ τοῖσι πέλει καὶ ὑπόψιος ἄγρη, .), since these creatures all but fall into the net of their own accord (.–). As the collocation of ῥηίδιος and ὑπόψιος suggests, this contrast between ease and toil is linked in turn to a distinction between visibility and invisibility. The fisherman cannot see into the sea on which he sails, cannot track his prey, is confronted by monsters that are δυσδερκέα – both hard to discern and horrifying to look at (.) – and is battered by the elements and forced to rely on feeble defences. The hunter, on the other hand, not only shelters happily in a bucolic idyll, but is able to watch his prey openly when he encounters it (ὁράᾳ τε καὶ ἀντιόωντα δοκεύει |   

See Rebuffat : – on the rhetorical exercise of syncrisis. See e.g. Plut. De sollert. anim. f–b; ps.-Man. Ap. ., . Hom. Il. ., ., of Hera and Athena.

. Toil and Ease



ἀμφαδίην, .–). Ps.-Oppian, in his representation of mortal incapacity, will later make a virtue of Oppian’s representation of hunting as a realm of ease, delight, and visibility (ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–), referring not to concealment, difficulty, and the divine or cosmic immensity of his chosen sphere, but rather to the magisterial power of human beings in devising so many types of hunting, to his own autoptic role in observing these creatures, and to the allure of the sport itself. For Oppian, on the other hand, the focus is not on what can be known and seen, but on what cannot. Oppian here signals his adaptation of Nicander, who places ease and the tension between concealment and visibility at the centre of the proem to the Theriaca. That poem opens with the word ῥεῖα, subsuming Hesiod’s representation of the ‘ease’ with which Zeus raises or destroys mortals at will (Hes. Op. –) into a self-assured proclamation of authorial ability to cover his chosen topic and instruct his addressee with ease (cf. also Nic. Alex. ). The ease with which the poet proclaims that he will transmit his knowledge in the Theriaca is mirrored by the ease with which Hermesianax will allegedly be able to chase snakes and other creatures from the place in which he decides to sleep (ῥηιδίως, Ther. ), and contrasts with the hard work undertaken by the πολύεργος (Ther. ) rustic victim of a snake bite who will, it is claimed, be impressed by Hermesianax’s learning. The proem makes much of the contrast between visibility and concealment, which Nicander dramatises in the mythical account of Orion, stung by a scorpion in retribution for his attempted violation of Artemis. In this proem the dazzling sign of the catasterised hunter (τοῦ δὲ τέρας περίσημον ὑπ’ ἀστέρας ἀπλανὲς αὔτως | οἷα κυνηλατέοντος ἀείδελον ἐστήρικται, Ther. –) sets up a contrast between the stars – characterised by fixity (ἐστήρικται, ἀπλανές), size and notoriety, semiotic power and visibility (περίσημον, ἀείδελον), and broadcasting their location for all to see – and the menacing invisibility of the unforeseen scorpion, which lies in ambush under a little rock (σκορπίος ἀπροϊδὴς ὀλίγῳ ὑπὸ λᾶι λοχήσας, Ther. ). That contrast is in turn mapped onto Nicander’s advertisement of his affiliation with, and departure from, the poetic tradition and subjectmatter represented by Aratus. Whereas in the Phaenomena the Scorpion was catasterised along with Orion, and resides, enormous (Arat. Phaen.   

On ease in Nicander see esp. Clauss ; Jacques ; Overduin : –. For the contrast between visibility and invisibility see also Hes. Op. . For the myth of Orion see Arat. Phaen. –; on the relationship between Nicander and Aratus here see Effe ; Magnelli a: -.



Mapping the Sea

–, –), blazing out in the heavens (Phaen. –), and functioning as a σῆμα for mankind (Phaen. –), in Nicander’s version the scorpion is emphatically not catasterised and remains a small, scuttling creature that hides from view in dark places and whose whereabouts cannot be pinpointed with precision – the very ἀπροϊδής (Ther. , ) subject-matter that his poem has promised to reveal. For Oppian too the hunter is associated with visibility and contrasted with a concern with moving creatures that lurk unseen beneath the surface – not, in the Halieutica, a scorpion lying in wait under a rock (or even, as for Aratus, enclosed in the centre of the very earth itself, Phaen. ), but the fish that swim unseen below the surface of the sea. In drawing attention to the invisibility of fish, moreover, Oppian reworks Nicander’s unusual epic vocabulary. Nicander’s description of the catasterised Orion as ἀείδελος – dazzlingly bright, and thus impossible to look at – draws from, but inverts, the sense in which this rare adjective was used in archaic Greek epic. Up to Oppian’s time the word is attested only in Nicander (Ther. ), Oppian (x), and in a fragment of Hesiod quoted by grammarians in their discussion of the word (Hes. fr.  M-W). Little of the Hesiodic context is transmitted, but the sense is unambiguously ‘invisible’, so that Nicander’s adaptation of the adjective to mean ‘too bright to look at’ itself plays out the contrast between the seen and the unseen around which his proem is structured. Oppian pays homage to the Theriaca by twice deploying the adjective in his proem to represent the contrast between the conspicuous and the hidden, hunter and scuttling prey. Yet he also rejects the Nicandrian poetics of ease and (at least here) visibility by returning programmatically to invisibility and hiddenness. This is a realm that is ‘invisible’ in the Hesiodic sense rather than ‘dazzling’. Oppian thus represents the fisherman’s profound difficulty, in contrast to the hunter’s easy task, in seeking out his prey: οὐ μέν τις σκυλάκων ἁλίην ὁδὸν ἡγεμονεύει | ἰχθυβόλοις· ἴχνη γὰρ ἀείδελα νηχομένοισιν (‘no dog leads fishermen’s way over the marine path, for the trails of swimming creatures are invisible’, .–); fishermen, moreover, can neither see nor anticipate where the fish is in order to approach and intercept it, for fish travel by many different paths (.–). The poet’s discussion of mortal incapacity is likewise framed in Nicandrian terms: πολλὰ δ’ (ἀπειρεσίη γὰρ ἀμετροβαθής τε θάλασσα) | κέκρυπται, τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο | θνητὸς ἐών (‘but since the sea is vast and 

See Overduin : –.

. Toil and Ease



immeasurably deep, many things remain hidden, and no mortal could speak of these unseen things’, .–). In his depiction of the easy life of the hunter, Oppian draws heavily from the representation of the relaxed life of the addressee in the proem to the Theriaca, echoing Nicander in offering ‘a rich palette of contrasts’ between heat and shade, the changing seasons, parching heat and verdant rivers, toil and sleep, and the varied environments in which a man may shelter and sleep (Hal. .–; Nic. Ther. –). Hermesianax is imagined sleeping peacefully in a spot ‘where the grass blooms green as it begins to sprout in the shady riverside meadows’ (Ther. –), terrain mirrored by Oppian’s own representation of the hunter snoozing ‘in the low grass that grows beside green-blooming rivers’ (Hal. .–). Nicander promises Hermesianax, moreover, that his information will allow him to chase reptiles out of their lairs and sleep outdoors in a range of environments normally pullulating with snakes (Ther. –). It is relatively rare for Nicander to suggest in the Theriaca that the addressee should actively pursue snakes, rather than seeking to escape them. The proem thus functions as a kind of ‘hunt’ in which snakes are flushed out of their lairs, a fitting parallel to the hunter’s pursuit of the boar and bear from their lairs in the Halieutica, and one heightened by Oppian’s use of rare Homeric words also applied by Nicander to the creatures hunted down in his poems. The description of hunting in the Halieutica further mirrors the proem of the Theriaca in offering an ostensibly jaunty description of a quasi-bucolic locus amoenus that turns out on closer inspection to conceal monstrous beasts lurking in the undergrowth. For if in the remainder of the Theriaca the possibility of ridding the countryside of ‘all its snakes’ is shown to be a hopelessly naïve illusion, then the hunter’s terrestrial environment in the Halieutica can likewise be read as peaceful only if one accepts at face value its tongue-in-cheek suppression of the ferocious nature of the boar-hunts it evokes. Oppian’s description of the hunt draws on the Homeric depiction of Odysseus’ boar-hunt and the hunting of the Calydonian boar, but the later poet’s scene of ease and pleasure provides a   

On Nicander’s proem see Overduin :, : . For the pursuit of snakes see also Nic. Ther. –, –. On this ‘cynegetic’ aspect of the proem cf. Overduin : . The unusual Homeric term κνώδαλον, applied by Oppian to the boar and bear at ., is a Nicandrian favourite, and is used in the Theriaca, for instance, of the copulating snakes to be captured and used by the addressee (Ther. ; cf. , ; Alex. , ). So too Oppian’s use of the Homeric hapax χλούνης, an epithet used unusually by both Oppian and Nicander as a substantive, looks to the boar-hunt mentioned in Nicander’s Georgica (fr. . Gow–Schofield); see Section ., ‘Scholiastic Debates’.



Mapping the Sea

jarring contrast with these narratives of mortal danger. Oppian could easily have represented the hunting of deer or other less dangerous prey in the proem; the poet’s choice instead to single out bears and boars suggests an ironic nod towards the potentially fatal nature of this bucolic enterprise even as it is ostensibly disavowed. Nicander’s contrast between conspicuous stars and deadly lurking creatures is thus reframed by Oppian in his contrast between the hunting of (visible) terrestrial and (invisible) marine animals. Yet while Oppian gestures pointedly towards Nicander’s emphasis on invisibility, he also rejects the promise of ease – ostentatiously applied by Nicander to the addressee’s easy mastery of poisonous creatures – as the province not of his hidden fish but of the all-too-visible alternative pursuits of hunting and fowling. Toil rather than ease is for Oppian the fisherman’s lot. The later poet also turns into a rhetorical set-piece the tension implicit in the Theriaca between the ease and simplicity of rustic life outlined in the proem, where one can sleep peacefully on a grassy bank as soon as one has chased away its resident serpents, and the implied horror of the hostile, unpredictable environment that the poem itself will detail, in which unseen and unanticipated creatures lurk on every side. Oppian’s proem creates a dramatic syncrisis out of the tacit contrast and irony that underlies Nicander’s depiction of his own subject-matter as simultaneously hidden, fatal, and easy to master. This too has an important didactic function. Nicander’s claim that he will easily treat, and pass on his knowledge about, the un(fore)seen things that slither through hedgerows and scuttle under rocks is an advertisement of didactic mastery: the poet will effortlessly instruct the reader how to render unthreatening even the most hostile and difficult of beasts. Aratus, it is implied, may start out with bright and conspicuous constellations, but Nicander’s project is more powerful yet, for he renders even the invisible 



Boars were one of the deadliest animals to hunt, in the Homeric epics as in real life, and were rarely pursued by a solitary hunter, but rather by large groups of men and their hounds (see Hom. Il. .–, .–, .–, .–; Od. .–. Xen. Cyn. . states that a large number of men is necessary when hunting boars). Meleager had to gather a team of hunters and hounds ‘from many cities’, since the boar was ‘so big that it could not be slain by a small number of men, and had already put many men on the funeral pyre’ (Il. .–); the boar devastates its environment, uprooting trees and goring men, and even its carcass precipitates a destructive war. So too the ‘fiery-eyed’ boar slain by Odysseus is approached by a large group of men, and this hunt ends in the hero’s being wounded and scarred for life (Od. .–, ). See Overduin  for this aspect of the Theriaca’s proem, and the manner in which the apparently pleasant rusticity of the proem is subverted by the dangers depicted in the remainder of the Theriaca. As Overduin puts it, ‘while a Theocritean herdsman can find rest and peacefulness in the temporary retreat of a locus amoenus, Nicander’s countrymen can only try to rest with one eye open’ ().

. Interpreting Signs



visible. Oppian too rejects the appeal of the comfortable, visible realm of hunting and fowling; both poet and fisherman instead labour amidst invisibility and uncertainty. As with Nicander, the pay-off stands in proportion to the difficulty of the endeavour: in the remainder of the Halieutica the poet will teach us how to make sense of this complex and concealed realm, which, thanks to his descriptions, we will ‘see’ with the mind’s eye, experiencing a frisson of danger at its terrors even as we glimpse them from dry land (cf. .–). It is precisely the unpredictability, immensity, and invisibility of this realm that necessitates the poet’s illumination of it, highlighting his marvellous capacity to make visible what would otherwise remain dark and mysterious. The catalogue of different marine environments that follows the proem’s claim of mortal limitation thus provides the reader with a metaphorical map by which to make sense of the unpredictable and often featureless sea. This section of the poem betrays little of the uncertainty suggested by the proem immediately before it, and indeed begins from a position of certainty, moving gradually outwards from those creatures that live by the coastlines to those that dwell in the open seas far from the shores. The catalogue is at first densely packed and minimally elaborated, and advertises the poet’s role in transmitting authoritative information in the privileged tradition of hexameter catalogue poetry. By the end of this list the sea will no longer be entirely invisible and unknown to the reader, its resident φῦλα no longer ἄκριτα (.), for the poet will have shown us, as it were, the city-states amongst fish, the distinct (κεκριμένοι) communities of the sea-roaming race (αἵδε μὲν ὥστε πόληες ἐν ἰχθύσιν, οἵδε θ’ ὅμιλοι | κεκριμένοι γεγάασιν ἁλιπλάγκτοιο γενέθλης, .–).

.

Interpreting Signs

By drawing attention to the dynamics of toil, visibility, concealment, and revelation, the opening stretches of the Halieutica position the poem within a heavily self-reflexive didactic tradition. Here, as we have seen, the poet looks not only to Nicander but to the description of mortal incapacity and divine action at the end of Dionysius’ Periegesis (–). This is a passage of the Periegesis that signals its debt to the ‘Hymn to Zeus’ that opens Aratus’ Phaenomena, especially in its emphasis on divine benevolence, fixity, the marking-out of constellations, and Zeus’ helpful  

Cf. Chapter , on similes and the visible. See esp. ., – (shores); . (depths); .– (open seas far from the shores).



Mapping the Sea

role in connecting the stars with the workings of the earth. In his proem Oppian likewise recasts Aratus’ meditation on the knowledge bestowed by Zeus, yet he draws not from the optimistic first proem of the Phaenomena, which stresses Zeus’ visible signs and their relationship to terrestrial or agricultural certainty (Arat. Phaen. –), but from the poem’s much more ambivalent second proem, which depicts not only divine benevolence but also the uncertainty that besets mankind, especially the man who waits uncertainly for storms to arrive at sea: πάντα γὰρ οὔπω ἐκ Διὸς ἄνθρωποι γινώσκομεν, ἀλλ’ ἔτι πολλὰ κέκρυπται, τῶν αἴ κε θέλῃ καὶ ἐσαυτίκα δώσει Ζεύς· ὁ γὰρ οὖν γενεὴν ἀνδρῶν ἀναφανδὸν ὀφέλλει πάντοθεν εἰδόμενος, πάντη δ’ ὅ γε σήματα φαίνων. (Arat. Phaen. –)

For we men do not yet know everything from Zeus, but many things are still hidden, of which Zeus will soon also give signs if he wants; for he benefits the race of men openly, showing himself on every side and giving signs everywhere.

The proem to the Halieutica is also dominated by concealment and uncertainty: πολλὰ δ’ (ἀπειρεσίη γὰρ ἀμετροβαθής τε θάλασσα) κέκρυπται, τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο θνητὸς ἐών· ὀλίγος δὲ νόος μερόπεσσι καὶ ἀλκή. (.–)

But – since the sea is vast and immeasurably deep – many things are hidden, and no mortal could speak of these unseen things: for the mind and strength of mankind is meagre.

Humans, we are told, are able to observe the sea only up to a depth of  fathoms, leaving us in the Aratean position of possessing some knowledge, but only a fraction of what the gods know. In contrast to Aratus’ more optimistic predictions, however, Zeus is not shown to have revealed any knowledge of this realm to mankind, nor is there any indication that he is about to do so. Oppian illustrates man’s ultimate ignorance by raising, but leaving open, the question of whether the sea’s population matches or exceeds that of the earth (.–). The poet does not hazard a guess, but offers his ensuing catalogue (.ff.) as a tacit attempt at answering the question of the relative populations of land and sea, presenting these species as a kind of marine counterpart to the 

Cf. Arat. Phaen. –, –; see Magnelli ; Lightfoot : –.

. Interpreting Signs



terrestrial catalogues of both Homer and Dionysius the Periegete. No gods or Muses will step in to aid the poet at this point, however, and Oppian’s open seas remain uncharted territories, the Ποσειδάωνος ἀτέκμαρτοι περιωπαί (boundless or featureless vistas of Poseidon, .). Yet if Poseidon is in charge of this realm, he seems to have shared remarkably little knowledge of it with humankind: the poet has just prayed to the gods to be gracious and to aid his endeavour (.–), yet his prayer to Poseidon and Thalassa and the sea-gods to allow him to tell of their ‘flocks and the tribes nurtured in the sea’, ὑμετέρας ἀγέλας καὶ ἁλίτροφα φῦλα | εἰπέμεν αἰνήσαιτε (.–) aids him not at all in determining in the very next lines either the μυρία μὲν δὴ φῦλα καὶ ἄκριτα (.) that swim in the depths of the sea and elude the knowledge of man, or whether the sea has indeed produced as its offspring more ἀγέλας (.) than the land. There was no need, of course, for Oppian to raise and then fail to answer the question of whether the land or sea contains more species. Rather, the issue serves to exemplify the poem’s didactic mode early on, instantiating the claims in the proem about the limitations of mortal endeavour. This is not, we are to understand, a work that simply offers up the technical knowledge of an expert in fishing; rather, it is one that asks questions about the nature and provenance of knowledge itself. The fishermen of the proem have a particular fixation with weathersigns, ever scanning for clouds and winds and advancing squalls (.–), a necessity in an unpredictable environment amidst ordeals that are ἀτέκμαρτοι (., ; cf. ) – treacherous, uncertain, limitless, and devoid of stable signs. Both here and in the claim that only the gods can evaluate the marine world with certainty (θεοὶ σάφα τεκμαίρονται, .) Oppian draws on the language used by Aratus to describe the process of observing and interpreting signs. The verb τεκμαίρομαι is used throughout the Phaenomena of human observation of constellations and weather-signs; the poem concludes with the word τεκμήραιο (Phaen. ), reminding the reader of the efficacy of Aratus’ precepts in establishing stability, certainty, and order in a complex and ever-changing world. This process of interpretation marks the relationship between humans and gods in the Phaenomena, and draws attention to the inferences that humans are able to make on the basis of divine signs. As we have seen, Oppian adopts this 

See Arat. Phaen. , , , , , , , , , , . The verb is archaic in origin, but its sense of evaluation or inference based on signs is post-Homeric, and is elevated by Aratus to a central concern of the Phaenomena. On Aratus’ interest in signs and inference see Volk , esp. –.



Mapping the Sea

Aratean language in his proem in order to emphasise the lack of clarity and certainty at sea and the gulf between mortal and divine knowledge. In the remainder of the Halieutica, however, Oppian represents a more epistemologically optimistic viewpoint, using this same discourse of signs and observations to detail the actions of those mortals who work hard to observe the ways of the sea and its inhabitants. In comparison to deities, human beings may be limited in their physical and mental faculties, yet thanks to the gods they are also able to observe the ways of the sea and to fish: καὶ τάδε τις πόντοιο νοήματα καὶ τέλος ἄγρης | πληθύν θ’ ὑγροπόρων θεὸς ὤπασε τεκμήρασθαι | ἀνδράσιν (‘these marine contrivances, and the practice of catching fish, and the power to observe the multitude of fish that swim through the sea, some god has granted to men’, .–). Oppian’s gods, like those of Aratus, both reveal and conceal. The knowledge about the habitats and mating patterns of fish detailed in the first book is presented at the start of the second as a form of divine provision for mankind (.–). This comment is justified not by the poet’s allegedly privileged knowledge about the gods, but rather as an inference based on man’s inability to achieve anything whatsoever without divine aid (.–); indeed, the poet offers no suggestion even as to the identity of that god. The gods are simultaneously portrayed as cruel masters and as benevolent culture-bringers (.–), a state that recalls Hesiod’s vision of the ambivalence of Zeus in the proem to the Works and Days (Hes. Op. –), as well as the division of immortal jurisdiction over the crafts in the Theogony at large. As at Hal. .–, moreover, the intermediate position of humankind is encapsulated by another of the poet’s εἴτε . . . εἴτε formulations expressing aporia in the face of alternative possibilities. While the ability to fish and to observe the sea is portrayed as a divine gift, the statement is qualified by the poet’s professed ignorance even as to the identity of the god who created the sea and bestowed this gift (.–). Uncertainty is here written into the human condition. This ambivalent position of humankind is fundamental to the poem’s wider didactic stance: while we may think ourselves supremely intelligent and far superior to the fish we catch, we are also as much like them as we are like the gods; what is more, the latter have more power over us than we do  

τεκμαίρομαι and cognates are used by Oppian of the interpretative actions of fisherman and sailors at ., ., ., ., .. See .– (population of land vs sea); .– (human or divine invention of ships); .– (immanence or Olympian status of Zeus); .– (identity of the sea-god); Eros: .– (genealogy of Eros); .– (genesis of humankind).

. Interpreting Signs



over animals (.–). Men cannot simply rely on an innate cosmic supremacy and ability to dominate other species, but must heed the poet’s urgent exhortations in order to align themselves with the ways of gods rather than fish. The first species treated at length in the Halieutica is the πομπίλος or pilotfish (.–), a creature much revered in antiquity for its habit of gathering around ships and ‘escorting’ vessels on their voyages. Both here and in the subsequent narrative of the remora (.–), the reader’s perspective is implicitly aligned with that of the sailor who traverses this sphere and briefly encounters the marvellous sea-creatures that inhabit the wide seas unfamiliar to most men. For the first time since the proem the focus returns to the interaction between man and fish; now, however, we encounter not terrifying monsters but benevolent fish, man’s ‘fellow companions’ or ‘fellow sailors’ (ὁμόστολοι, .; ὁμοπλωτῆρες, .). Fond companions as they are, the pilot-fish flee en masse as soon as they catch sight of land: σῆμα τόδε πλωτῆρσιν ἐτήτυμον ἐγγύθι γαίης ἔμμεναι, εὖτε λιπόντας ὁμοπλωτῆρας ἴδωνται. πομπίλε, ναυτιλίῃσι τετιμένε, σοὶ δέ τις ἀνὴρ εὐκραεῖς ἀνέμων τεκμαίρεται ἐλθέμεν αὔρας· εὔδια γὰρ στέλλῃ τε καὶ εὔδια σήματα φαίνεις. (.–)

This is a sure sign to sailors that they are near land, when they see their fellow travellers leave. O pilot-fish, valued by sailors, by you a man infers that the gentle breezes of the wind are coming, for you set out in fair weather and you broadcast the signs of fine weather.

These are creatures whose high value to humans lies in their ability to navigate the waters and to indicate the successful end of sailors’ voyage across this treacherous realm. The apostrophe πομπίλε (.) advertises Oppian’s dialogue with alternative hexameter traditions: according to Athenaeus, both Erinna and Apollonius of Rhodes composed verses apostrophising the pilot-fish. In her verses Erinna bids the fish accompany what is usually assumed to be Baucis’ voyage on the occasion of her marriage: πομπίλε, ναύτῃσιν πέμπων πλόον εὔπλοον, ἰχθύ, | πομπεύσαις πρύμναθεν ἐμὰν ἁδεῖαν ἑταίραν (‘pilot-fish, you who send sailors a successful voyage, may you escort my sweet friend from the stern’). Apollonius, on  

Cf. Effe : ; see further Chapter , esp. Section ., ‘Humanity and Inhumanity’. Athen. .d = SH [] = fr.  Neri. Athenaeus hesitates over the attribution, but in recent years convincing arguments for thematic coherence with the rest of the Distaff have been advanced: see



Mapping the Sea

the other hand, is said to have related in his Foundation of Naucratis that a ferryman called Pompilus was metamorphosed into a pilot-fish by Apollo while attempting to rescue the nymph pursued by the lustful god. The distraught nymph Ocyroe implored Pompilus to help her escape by conducting her over the strait to safety: Πομπίλε, δυσκελάδου δεδαὼς θοὰ βένθεα πόντου, | σῷζέ με (‘Pompilus, you who know the swift depths of the dangerously roaring sea, save me!’). Oppian’s πομπίλε, ναυτιλίῃσι . . . picks up on Erinna’s πομπίλε, ναύτῃσιν, while his comment that the pilot-fish are motivated by their overwhelming ἔρως for ships (.) adapts, but transfers from the human to the maritime realm, the strong erotic connotations that typify this notorious ζῷον ἐρωτικόν in ancient accounts. Yet while the poet gestures towards the tropes of earlier literary pilot-fish, he also disavows the mythical and erotic qualities of those other hexameter traditions in favour of a didactic fish that truly is a fish rather than a metamorphosed human. No narratives of destructive eros, metamorphosis, death, and marriage here, for his emphasis lies firmly with the pilot-fish, which now incorporates, but exceeds, the knowledge attributed to it in Apollonius’ account of the expert human helmsman: this is a fish that not only navigates through the water with ease, but is able to recognise both the presence of land and the advent of fair weather before human beings can discern either. The fish is further inscribed into the didactic tradition by its remarkable Aratean resonances: it acts as a true sign (σῆμα . . . ἐτήτυμον, .) of land, and one that shows forth the signs of good weather (εὔδια σήματα φαίνεις, .) and gentle breezes, allowing sailors to infer (τεκμαίρεται, .) the advent of favourable meteorological conditions. Each of these claims is a prominent Aratean theme. Oppian draws from the proem to the portion of the Phaenomena orientated towards weather-signs and maritime knowledge, where the sailor is exhorted to learn the signs (σήματα) that signal storm-winds and other inclement weather (Arat. Phaen. –). Zeus, we are told, reveals and conceals these signs at will, and although he

 



Rauk ; Gutzwiller : ; Neri : –; Levianouk : –, drawing attention to other maritime marital imagery. Athen. .f = A.R. fr. .– Powell; cf. Aelian NA .. Oppian also makes much of the creature’s name, echoing Erinna’s threefold repetition of πομπίλε, πέμπων, πομπεύσαις with his πομπίλος, πομπῇ, πομπῆες (., , ); for his observation that pilot-fish gambol at the stern (πρυμναῖα χαλινά, .) cf. Erinna’s πρύμναθεν. Athen. .e–f, reporting that the pilot-fish was born alongside Aphrodite from Ouranos’ blood. According to Athenaeus, Nicander (fr.  Gow–Schofield) represents the fish as a guide to lovestruck sailors in particular. For Oppian’s representation of the fish’s passion for ships cf. Ael. NA ., who has his pilot-fish swim up to ships ὥσπερ . . . ἐρωμένας.

. Interpreting Signs



displays his signs everywhere (πάντη δ’ ὅ γε σήματα φαίνων, Phaen. ), he has also hidden much, for the sea and its weather systems are changeable and hard to discern, unlike the clearer signs of the more stable and brilliant constellations (Phaen. ). The sensible man, however, will pay attention to these signs and be able to foretell a storm or detect that fine weather is coming (εὔδια τεκμήραιο, Phaen. ). The last section of the Phaenomena advises that the behaviour of certain animals be monitored closely, since they function as σήματα that foretell particular kinds of weather conditions. Oppian’s pilot-fish now becomes the ultimate Aratean signifier, supplementing the earlier poet’s account by offering signs that guide humankind through a world of often mystifying instability and concealment. This pilot-fish navigates knowledgeably between shore and land, and divines fair weather far better than human beings seem to manage. The fish is not, as for earlier poets, a human punished for its erotic meddling or lauded for its role in human love affairs, but a creature valued for its knowledge and aid in understanding the unpredictable, featureless environment of the open sea. The tension raised in the proem between the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown, recurs in the poem’s second substantial vignette, which depicts the remora, a fish that clings so firmly with its mouth to the keel of a moving ship that the vessel is immobilised in full flight. The creature encapsulates the unseen powers of the sea, again represented in heavily visual terms: ναῦται δὲ τρομέουσιν, ἀείδελα δεσμὰ θαλάσσης | δερκόμενοι καὶ θάμβος ἴσον λεύσσοντες ὀνείρῳ (‘sailors tremble when they see the invisible bonds of the sea and look at this dreamlike marvel’, .–); its oneiric qualities recall the depiction in the proem of the fisherman’s unpredictable ventures at sea (.). The contrast between the unseen mystery of the scene and the zoological precision with which the poet describes the fish (colour, length, shape, anatomy, .–), however, advertises his ability to reveal at least some of those hidden mysteries. For while we hear in the proem that no mortal is able to speak of the sea’s unseen workings (τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο, .), in the catalogue itself the poet will indeed lay out the nature of these ἀείδελα δεσμὰ θαλάσσης, .. Indeed, Oppian seizes the opportunity to explore the epistemological issues raised by the fish’s extraordinary power. Before



For the signs given by various animals see esp. Arat. Phaen. –, –, –, –; for the (rarer) indication of good weather note e.g. the observation that the belated mating of livestock indicates a mild year to come (εὔδιον φαίνουσι . . . ἐνιαυτόν, Phaen. ).



Mapping the Sea

describing the scene and its effect on the sailors, he pauses emphatically to imagine the response of a sceptical listener: θαῦμα δ’ ὀλισθηρῆς ἐχενηίδος ἐφράσσαντο ναυτίλοι· οὐ μὲν δή τις ἐνὶ φρεσὶ πιστώσαιτο εἰσαΐων· αἰεὶ γὰρ ἀπειρήτων νόος ἀνδρῶν δύσμαχος, οὐδ’ ἐθέλουσι καὶ ἀτρεκέεσσι πιθέσθαι. (.–)

Sailors have reported the marvel of the slippery remora, but someone who heard it would not believe it in his heart, for it is always hard to fight with the minds of inexperienced men, and they do not want to believe even things that are accurate.

Oppian reflects here on the difference between autopsy and secondhand accounts and presents his readers with a paradigm of incredulity that cautions against disbelief. The reader is discouraged from acting like the naïve layman against whom the poet marshals his weapons of truth, and is drawn instead into a pedagogical relationship of trust with the narrator and the experts upon whose reports he draws. While the poem’s addressee Marcus Aurelius is never characterised as foolish or recalcitrant, a hypothetical alternative recipient of (the poet’s) marine lore is here imagined struggling against the truths of the sea. Yet this anonymous τις is represented less as morally or intellectually inadequate than as ‘inexperienced’, so that the comment not only underscores the poet’s claim to truth but reflects above all on the process of gathering and disseminating knowledge, and the methods by which men are encouraged to understand the peculiarities of a world of which they have little direct experience. The Halieutica abounds with θαύματα or marvels, and the poet here gestures towards the traditions of paradoxography, a mode of writing that raises analogous questions about information, authority, and credibility. The poet draws attention not only to the surprising power of fish to provide signs for humankind, but also to the necessity of decoding those signs correctly and of acceding to the poet’s guidance through this strangest of realms. The proem of the Halieutica thus evokes a rich didactic tradition that readily acknowledges the partial and selective nature of the poet’s information and reflects on what can and cannot be treated in such poetry, portraying these issues as representative of the poet’s art more widely. Like  

As Conte :  remarks of Lucretius, ‘[t]he relation between teacher-bard and addresseedisciple is not a tranquil agreement but a tense wager that might also fail’. θαύματα: . (remora), . (sea-monsters), . (dolphin), . (dogfish), . (octopus), . (sargue).

. Interpreting Signs



Homer, Hesiod, Aratus, ps.‑Manetho, and especially Dionysius the Periegete, Oppian’s proem points to the discrepancy between the ‘infinite’ nature of his subject-matter and the heavily bounded nature of mortal understanding; this too is a didactic poem structured around a tension between selectivity and the drive to catalogue and incorporate. Yet Oppian also rejects the ‘rhetoric of ease’ adopted by both Nicander and Dionysius, favouring instead a more aporetic, questioning mode that places weight on the challenges that arise from the project of enquiring into and illuminating a fundamentally dark and impenetrable realm. The central claim of Oppian’s proem is that mankind can never fully understand, or plumb the depths of, the sea, but that πολλὰ δ’ (ἀπειρεσίη γὰρ ἀμετροβαθής τε θάλασσα) | κέκρυπται, τά κεν οὔ τις ἀείδελα μυθήσαιτο | θνητὸς ἐών (‘many things are hidden – since the sea is vast and immeasurably deep – and of these invisible things nobody who is mortal could speak’, .–). In these extraordinarily dense and allusive lines the poet signals his relationship not to prose traditions but to his illustrious didactic predecessors and their epistemological claims: Dionysian (and Homeric) immensity and mortal incapacity; Nicandrian invisibility; Hesiodic and Aratean divine concealment from mankind. Oppian interlaces and reframes these didactic debates, however, by laying weight on toil, concealment, and invisibility, and on mortal incapacity over ease, visibility, revelation, and tractability. Oppian’s sea is a site of sublimity and scale, his pronouncement a claim that his poem will outline the farthest epistemological reaches available to mankind. What is more, this stance itself has a vital didactic function, for Oppian aims throughout to shake any complacent sense of innate human superiority and automatic proximity to the divine, encouraging his readers instead to recognise the intermediate position of humankind, and so the need for the poet’s precepts and guidance. Examining the infinite majesty of the sea forces us to contemplate our place in the cosmos at large: cast adrift, compelled to work, and faced with a constant reminder of the limitations as well as the capabilities of humankind, we are shown that we cannot afford to ignore the signs offered even by fish.



Hunter c: , of Dionysius the Periegete.

 

Morality at Sea

 

Guile

Part I of this book has explored the status of didactic poetry in the ancient world, arguing in Chapter  that generic conceptions of the close relationship between heroic and didactic epic represent less a definitional problem than a sphere of opportunity for ancient didactic poets, who often signal their affiliation to, and adaptation of, heroic as well as didactic traditions. Important too is the range of contexts in which both the ethical and the ‘technical’ content of the Homeric epics was taken seriously in the ancient world. Much of this book traces the permutations of these claims as they are refracted in the Halieutica. In Chapter , for instance, we saw that Oppian draws not only from didactic epic traditions but also from the address to the Muses and the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad  in order to foreground epistemological questions about the relationship between divine and mortal knowledge, immensity, and incapacity in his proem. Homeric approaches to the relationship between human and non-human animals will in turn be examined in Part III. As Chapter  has shown, moreover, Oppian emphasises the simultaneously sweet or pleasant and educational effects of his verse; these may be seen not as opposed but as intimately related facets of the poem. The work’s most ‘poetic’ elements, in other words, are often its most didactically potent, and the moral structure of Oppian’s marine world turns out to be deeply rooted in the traditions of hexameter epic. The next three chapters – together constituting Part II of this book – examine the core components of this moral framework, scrutinising the models of transgression and punishment that underpin the poet’s portrayal of sea-creatures and their manifold flaws. Oppian’s exploration of marine life centres primarily on a series of characteristic failings: fish are typified in the poem by their propensity for hostility and injustice (book ), greed (book ), and lust (book ). Incapable of restraining their baser urges, they devour one another or take the fisherman’s bait, in each case doomed by their own fatal appetites. Fishing, and especially the use of bait to entice 



Guile

fish, is therefore presented not simply as a technical matter of knowledge about the equipment appropriate to each species, but as a complex moral battleground that delineates the character of both fisherman and fish. Chapter  examines the role of the fisherman in these struggles, focusing on the deceptive guile used to catch a range of sea-creatures; Chapters  and  turn to the all-consuming desires of fish for food and sex respectively. Here too the poem’s epic intertexts take centre stage, for Oppian offers his readers a new and often wittily marine take on a range of longestablished cultural topoi. In its fascination with wiles, trickery, sea-faring, and the punishment of rash or immoral behaviour, for instance, the Halieutica looks insistently towards the Odyssey, which stands as a counterpart to the poem’s (often Iliadic) representation of quasi-military hostility, discussed further in Part III. The poet further exploits and inverts a range of traditional epic motifs, including the association between the slaughter of humans and that of animals, as well as debates about the ethics of deception and the fall of Troy.

.

Odyssean Guile

The qualities required of the ideal fisherman – steadfast patience even in apparent adversity, a propensity for cunning and deception, and an intimate knowledge of the sea – are represented in the Halieutica as archetypally Odyssean attributes. Book  marks the poem’s shift from zoology to fishing, and the topic is introduced with a description of the characteristics necessary for the successful pursuit of sea-creatures. The fisherman, we hear, should be swift, strong, and lithe, prepared to leap into the sea and to remain in the water labouring at the kinds of deeds οἷς ἐνὶ πόντῳ | ἄνδρες ἀεθλεύουσι ταλάφρονα θυμὸν ἔχοντες (‘at which men toil away in the sea with steadfast heart’, .–). The description is unmistakably Odyssean: the adjective ταλάφρων is a variant of ταλασίφρων, an epithet applied by Homer almost exclusively to ‘steadfast’ Odysseus. The patient ‘toiling’ of the fisherman (ἀεθλεύουσι) thus echoes Helen’s claim to Telemachus that the toils of Odysseus (once more ‘steadfast’) are too numerous for her to recount (ὅσσοι Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονός εἰσιν ἄεθλοι, 

Hom. Od. ., ., ., , ., ., , , , .; Il. .; cf. Hes. Theog. . The relationship of this last passage to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women is immaterial here; the crucial point is that the epithet is associated above all with Odysseus. The only instance in the Homeric epics when the adjective is not used to refer to Odysseus is Il. ., where it is used of a hypothetical observer.

. Odyssean Guile



Hom. Od. .), as well as the continuing ἄεθλοι that the proem declares the hero to have suffered on his return to Ithaca (Od. .). The Odyssean qualities of the fisherman’s world have already been presaged by an unusually direct reference to the hero, who is explicitly and programmatically associated with the sea and its fearsome inhabitants. In his discussion of venomous fish in book , Oppian refers to the stingray barb given by Circe to Telegonus, her son by Odysseus; the youth used this poisonous barb to tip the spear with which he inadvertently killed his father while rustling his flocks on Ithaca. Telegonus is thus said to have inflicted a marine death (ἅλιον μόρον, .) on his father, a description that in effect offers a gloss on Teiresias’ prophecy in the Odyssey that an exceptionally gentle θάνατος . . . ἐξ ἁλός (‘death from [or, alternatively, far away from] the sea’, Hom. Od. .~.) would come to the longsuffering hero when he had been worn out by sleek old age. As many a Homeric commentator has objected, death by poisoned spear is hardly a gentle (ἀβληχρός) demise, and when introducing the subject of toxic fish, Oppian has already archly observed that the δάκος (bite or sting) of poisonous sea-creatures is οὐ μὴν θὴν ἀβληχρόν (‘truly far from gentle’, .). As often in this poem, the sea is represented as a harsh and deadly environment, its residents a constant threat to the unwary humans who cross their path, however heroic they may be. If not gentle, however, this is at least a death that rapidly overcomes the aged (γεραρῷ, .) Odysseus in the Halieutica, in this respect realising Teiresias’ claim that he will be killed when he has been worn out by sleek old age (γῆρᾳ, Od. .~.). Oppian notes that Telegonus arrives on Ithaca but does not understand (οὐ μάθε, .) his location, that he is stealing his own father’s flocks, or that he has found the very relative he was seeking. The consequences of his ignorance are deadly: ἔνθα τὸν αἰολόμητιν Ὀδυσσέα, μυρία πόντου | ἄλγεα μετρήσαντα πολυκμήτοισιν ἀέθλοις, | τρυγὼν ἀλγινόεσσα μιῇ  



Esp. Odysseus’ slaughter of the suitors as his final ἄεθλος (Hom. Od. .), on which see Nagler : , –. Oppian’s version accords with what we know of Eugammon’s Telegony; cf. also Lycoph. Alex. –; Nic. Ther. -; Parth. Amat. narr. .; Apollod. Epit. .; Hyg. Fab. . The tale was told in Sophocles’ Odysseus Acanthoplex; Aeschylus’ Psychagogoi offered an alternative account in which Odysseus was killed by the barb of a sea-creature (almost certainly the sting-ray) contained in the excrement that fell from a heron flying overhead. See West : –; Burgess ; Rebuffat : . Hom. Od. .– (and cf. Od. .–): θάνατος δέ τοι ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷ | ἀβληχρὸς μάλα τοῖος ἐλεύσεται, ὅς κέ σε πέφνῃ | γήρᾳ ὕπο λιπαρῷ ἀρημένον. See Heubeck : , with further bibliography.



Guile

κατενήρατο ῥιπῇ (‘there the excruciating sting-ray slew with a single blow wily Odysseus, who had passed through countless afflictions of the sea in his laborious ordeals’, .–). The poet’s implication that the killer is the (lifeless) sting-ray, rather than Telegonus, turns the fish into Odysseus’ most deadly adversary yet, and the hero himself into a prototype for the fishermen of the Halieutica, sailing across the ocean and engaging in a lifeand-death struggle with the creatures of the sea. Even this wiliest of Homeric heroes turns out to have been felled by a poisonous sea-creature, a statement whose metapoetic force is all the more striking in that these lines tell first of the cunning Odysseus and his myriad trials at sea, and only at the end reveal the ease with which he was slain by a creature of that realm. The epic adjective πολύκμητος – used by Homer exclusively in a passive sense, of iron and other laboriously wrought objects – is now applied to the wearying nature of the toils themselves: in applying a πολυcompound to Odysseus’ own tribulations, and in using Circe’s conventional epithet πολυφάρμακος to signal her role as his poisoner, Oppian draws attention to the abrupt end of Odysseus’ versatility, resourcefulness, and endurance, typically indicated in the Odyssey by precisely such compounds, applying these epithets instead to his adversaries and sufferings. The scene also advertises its close relationship to Nicander and Dionysius the Periegete, important didactic forebears who likewise draw attention to the complex relationship between heroic epic – in each case centred on the figure of Odysseus – and the technicalities of their own didactic subject-matter. We saw in Chapter  that the proem of the Halieutica looks to Dionysius’ second-century geographical poem in marking out the boundaries of mortal expertise; here, in the poem’s only explicit reference to Odysseus, Oppian again points the reader to the Periegesis, and to the limitations of human knowledge, for the representation of Odysseus as αἰολόμητις (Hal. .) picks up on the only explicit reference to that hero in the Periegesis. Dionysius had described the Libyan city of Leptis Magna in relation to Homeric geography, engaging in the scholarly practice of

 



.; cf. Hom. Od. .; Hes. fr. . M-W. On the use of πολυ- compounds in the Homeric epics, and of Odysseus in particular, see e.g. Stanford . As ever, it is hard to determine whether the use of πολύκμητος to mean ‘laborious’ or ‘tiring’ was an Oppianic innovation, although Quintus’ application of the epithet to hardworking fishermen in his swordfish simile (Q.S. .), one of the passages of the Posthomerica most indebted to the Halieutica, suggests that it may well have been. For all that the poem is replete with echoes of Odyssean travel; see Lightfoot : –, and passim.

. Odyssean Guile



mapping the peregrinations of Odysseus onto their contemporary equivalents: τάων ἀμφοτέρων μεσάτη πόλις ἐστήρικται, ἥν ῥά τε κικλήσκουσι Νέαν πόλιν· ἧς ὑπὲρ αἶαν Λωτοφάγοι ναίουσι, φιλόξεινοι γεγαῶτες· ἔνθα ποτ’ αἰολόμητις ἀλώμενος ἦλθεν Ὀδυσσεύς.

(Dion. Perieg. –)

A city is situated between the two [Syrtes gulfs], which they call Neapolis, and beyond whose lands the hospitable Lotus-Eaters dwell, where wily Odysseus once came wandering.

Oppian’s description of Telegonus’ arrival on Ithaca – his ignorance of his whereabouts nicely highlighted by the poet’s periphrastic refusal to name the island outright (.–) – situates Odysseus’ death in unusually precise spatial terms. Telegonus, we are told, arrives on the island, ἔνθα τὸν αἰολόμητιν Ὀδυσσέα . . . (‘where [the sting-ray slew] wily Odysseus’, .). Not only is the epithet αἰολόμητις exceptionally rare, appearing only twice in extant Greek literature before the second century , but the adjective is applied to Odysseus only in the Periegesis and Halieutica, and these are the only explicit references to Odysseus in either poem. In doing so, moreover, both poets draw attention to the convergence between heroic epic and didactic poetry. Oppian’s emphasis on Telegonus’ ignorance is in this light significant: if, we may infer, Telegonus had known enough (Dionysian) geography to be able to identify his surroundings, wily Odysseus might have remained safe from harm. πολυφάρμακος Circe, on the other hand, seems to have all too much knowledge of poisonous creatures, an observation that in turn casts light on the unusual density of Nicandrian parallels in this episode. Towards the end of the Theriaca, Nicander treats briefly of venomous sea-creatures, primarily the moray eel, weever fish, and sting-ray (three species also discussed in the Halieutica), and the risks these pose to the labours of fishermen. In assessing the sting-ray, both poets move from an account of the creature’s venomous qualities to its destructive effect on a fully flourishing tree, before concluding with the tale of Odysseus’ death.   



On which see Chapter , esp. Section ., ‘Locating Myth’. Hes. Theog. ; Aesch. Supp. ; cf. also αἰολομήτης in Hes. fr. (a). M-W). And indeed enough Homeric geography to recognise that this αἰγίβοτος (‘goat-grazed’, .) island could be none other than Ithaca (the adjective is rare, and is used by Homer exclusively of Ithaca: Hom. Od. ., .). Hal. .–; Nic. Ther. –.



Guile

Nicander’s account of the mishap is more baldly told. In true Nicandrian style, no mention is made of Telegonus or of the details of the encounter, although the audience would of course be expected to recognise the allusion. In Oppian’s version, on the other hand, the generic force of the story is powerful: a humble fish triumphs over the great epic warrior, and the bastard son slays his Homeric father. These are the traditions of heroic epic seen through a distinctly fishy lens. Nicandrian vocabulary pervades Oppian’s description of the poisonous sting-ray and its role in Odysseus’ demise. Telegonus, for instance, is said to have ‘inflicted an evil fate’, κακὴν ἐνεμάξατο κῆρα (.), on his father by wounding him with the lethal κέντρον (.). The unusual verb ἐμμάσσομαι recalls Nicander’s description of the deadly κέντρον of a poisonous Egyptian moth: αὐτὰρ ὁ κέντρον | αὐχένι τ’ ἀκροτάτῳ κεφαλῇ τ’ ἐνεμάξατο φωτός, | ῥεῖα δέ κεν θανάτοιο καὶ αὐτίκα μοῖραν ἐφείη (‘it implants its sting at the top of a man’s neck and head, and straight away it can easily bring on the doom of death’, Nic. Ther. –). The compound verb κατεναίρομαι, used by Oppian of Odysseus’ precipitous death (.), is also employed by Nicander of the dreadful poison pharicum, which, like the single lethal blow of the toxic sting-ray, ‘easily kills a strong man in a single day’. 



 



Nic. Ther. –: λόγος γε μὲν ὥς ποτ’ Ὀδυσσεύς | ἔφθιτο λευγαλέοιο τυπεὶς ἁλίου ὑπὸ κέντρου (‘indeed the story tells how once upon a time Odysseus died when he was stung by the destructive barb from the sea’). ‘Heroic epic’ here encompassing both the Homeric epics and the Epic Cycle, especially the Telegony ascribed to Eugammon of Cyrene. On creative misprision and the ‘family romance’, see Bloom ; Ricks . As Hunter a:  notes, ‘[t]he passing-on of wisdom and “heroic” values from father to son within the epic, most famously staged in the relations of Odysseus and Telemachus in the Odyssey, acts as a figure for the values which the epic itself transmits to successive generations and the cultural significance which it bears’. That Telegonus is Odysseus’ bastard son underscores the Halieutica’s portrayal of the oblique relationship between didactic and heroic epic, Telegonus and Telemachus. That this son, in Oppian’s version, reprises the motifs of the Odyssey itself – arriving on a strange island and stealing the inhabitants’ flocks, not recognising the land of Ithaca or the true identity of Odysseus (on which cf. Rebuffat : ) – adds further force to the close but complex relationship between father and (bastard) son, Homeric and (didactic) epic. Cf. Bartley : –. Cf. Ther. , of the bee’s sting. As Overduin :  observes, the simple verb μάσσω is usually used of kneading dough. The unusual nature of Nicander’s application of the compound to a venomous sting, here imitated closely by Oppian, suggests deliberate allusion. Nic. Alex. –: ἐν δὲ μονήρει | ῥηδίως ἀκτῖνι βαρὺν κατεναίρεται ἄνδρα, to which compare Hal. .. Cf. also Hom. Od. .. Oppian’s κατενήρατο has the same inflection and sedes as the Homeric parallel, in which Odysseus, far from being slain ignominiously by his own son, describes the bloody exploits of another hero’s son: the deeds of Neoptolemus as reported to the shade of Achilles; cf. Bartley : . The parallel highlights the altered relationship of father and son and the programmatic reversal of Odysseus’ fortunes in both metapoetic and heroic terms.

. Odyssean Guile



Oppian’s arresting description of the sting-ray disgorging or belching out its deadly poison into trees and living creatures (ἀίδηλον | ἄτην . . . ἐρεύγεται, .–) evokes Nicander’s use of the verb in this sense in the Theriaca, where we hear firstly of a viper’s fangs injecting its victim with poison (ἰὸν ἐρευγόμενοι, there also described as ἄτη), and secondly, in another para-Homeric narrative about a Trojan warrior’s death by venomous creature, that a blood-letting snake βαρὺν ἤρυγεν ἰόν. The fact that the sting-ray, unlike the Nicandrian snakes, does not literally spit its poison from its mouth serves to heighten the sense of a distinctively serpentine cast to this poisonous sea-creature. Telegonus is also said to have fitted the sting-ray’s poisonous barb to his long-hilted hunting-spear (αἰγανέῃ δολιχήρεϊ κωπηέσσῃ, .); the adjective δολιχήρης is a rare lengthened variant of δολιχός that previously occurs only in Nicander’s description of a viper’s long fangs (Nic. Ther. ), which, like the stingray’s barb (.), disgorge poison into their victim (ἐνερεύγεται ἰόν, Ther. ). Nicander’s viper, itself as thick as a hunting-spear (αἰγανέη, Ther. ; cf. Hal. .), also fastens death on its victims with its long poisonous fangs: ἄιδα προσμάξηται (Ther. ), for which compare ἐνεμάξατο κῆρα (Hal. .). Oppian’s description of the ease with which Odysseus, for all his strength and cunning, was slain by a mere fish offers up an acutely subversive assimilation of heroic to didactic epic. The repeated points of contact with Nicander’s account of lethal creatures and the remedies for their toxins foreground the tangible value of the knowledge propounded in didactic verse and direct the reader towards precisely the kinds of antidotes through which this death might have been averted. If, as we saw above, Telegonus might have avoided inadvertent patricide had he known more geography of the kind propounded by Dionysius the Periegete, then Odysseus too might have avoided death had he known more about venomous creatures and their antidotes, courtesy of Nicander. The Theriaca, after all, goes on to provide a ready, if convoluted, cure for just such a poison, as well as a variety of hasty stopgaps for the painfully afflicted (Nic. Ther. –). In Oppian’s allusively didactic tale of Odysseus’ demise, the primacy of heroic epic is replaced by the value of specific technical   

Nic. Ther. , ; , this last referring to the snake whose spine Helen crushed on her return from Troy after it killed Menelaus’ helmsman Canobus in Egypt. The verb ἐρεύγομαι appears nowhere else in the Halieutica. The passage has a particular contextual relevance to Oppian, moreover: the antidote to this poison is obtained from plants native to his homeland of Cilicia (Nic. Alex. –), while pharicum is introduced after a discussion of the medicinal qualities of sea-creatures (Alex. –).



Guile

knowledge, represented by πολυφάρμακος Circe (.) and her deadly pharmacological lore. This, we are to infer, is a poetic mode in which heroic exploits are dwarfed by practical and academic wisdom. The image of Odysseus toiling through endless marine ordeals before his last fatal encounter with a fish adds a sense of urgency to the depiction of the fishermen who labour so patiently against their marine adversaries. Nor is patience the only Odyssean quality required by the profession. Immediately after the depiction of the ‘steadfast’ fisherman’s marine labours, the poet foregrounds the need to outwit sea-creatures with cunning: ψυχὴν δ’ ἀσπαλιεὺς πολυπαίπαλος ἠδὲ νοήμων εἴη· ἐπεὶ μάλα πολλὰ καὶ αἰόλα μηχανόωνται ἰχθύες ἐγκύρσαντες ἀνωιστοισι δόλοισι. (.–)

The fisherman should be exceedingly crafty in character, and intelligent; for fish devise very many and multifarious stratagems when they meet with unexpected traps.

Odyssean reminiscences colour this picture of the shrewd guile required of the fisherman, who must be both πολυπαίπαλος (exceedingly crafty) and νοήμων (intelligent). The former is an Odyssean hapax exceptionally rare in later Greek, while the latter is repeatedly employed in the Odyssey, along with its cognate antonym ἀνοήμων, especially when Athena underscores Telemachus’ similarity to his wily father and superiority over the ‘foolish’ suitors who will perish at the hands of the hero and his son. The devious cunning of those fish that scheme against the fishermen, by contrast, links the creatures’ wiles to the wicked contrivances of Penelope’s suitors, and looks to the frequency with which the verb μηχανάομαι – used





πολυπαίπαλος is securely attested before Oppian only at Hom. Od. ., where Eumaeus uses it to characterise the deceptive, seafaring Phoenicians. The adjective is glossed by Hesychius as πεποικιλμένος, and is there said to have been applied in that sense to αἰθήρ (= SH , of uncertain date and attribution); Oppian, on the other hand, uses the word in its Odyssean sense. νοήμων is found in early Greek at Od. ., ., .; both Odysseus and – a facet of his likeness to his father – Telemachus are οὐδὲ . . . ἀνοήμων (Hom. Od. ., ; .). Noemon is one of several Lycians killed by Odysseus at Il. ., while Noemon son of Phronius provides Telemachus with his ship at Od. .–; cf. .–. As Austin :  observes, this Noemon first appears just after the adjective νοήμων (both with and without the privative alpha) has been employed three times (Od. ., , ), and functions to realise Telemachus’ and Athena’s plan in contravention of the suitors’ schemes, so that ‘Intelligence son of Mind’ may here be read as ‘barely more than an epithet hypostasized for the nonce, as foil perhaps to the suitor Antinoos’.

. Odyssean Guile



only here in the Halieutica – refers in the Odyssey to the evil stratagems devised by the suitors against Odysseus and Telemachus. The poet’s emphasis on the cunning stratagems of fishermen in book  recalls the promise made at the start of the epic that the work will treat not just fish but also ἁλίης τε πολύτροπα δήνεα τέχνης | κερδαλέης (‘the versatile contrivances of the crafty art of fishing’, .–). The depiction of fishing as a τέχνη characterised by wiliness and resourceful schemes characterises the profession as Odyssean from the outset, an effect heightened by the use of the adjective πολύτροπος, an epithet famously applied to the hero at Hom. Od. . and . and applicable here, as Bartley observes, in both its Homeric senses of ‘travelling widely’ and ‘of versatile mind’. Oppian, like other imperial Greek epic poets, frequently concatenates a range of Homeric reference points in a single phrase, and both πολύτροπα δήνεα τέχνης (.) and παναίολα δήνεα τέχνης (.) also replicate the verse pattern of Od. ., where Hermes recounts to Odysseus the destructive designs of Circe: πάντα δέ τοι ἐρέω ὀλοφώϊα δήνεα Κίρκης. Much like Odysseus, the fisherman must constantly keep his wits about him, for these are deceptive adversaries. Even the characterisation of fishing as κερδαλέος (crafty) evokes the hero’s proclivity for trickery. Indeed, the Halieutica makes much of the Homeric vocabulary of wile, craft, and deception, an Odyssean obsession well exemplified in Athena’s delighted assessment of Odysseus’ cunning on his return to Ithaca: κερδαλέος κ’ εἴη καὶ ἐπίκλοπος, ὅς σε παρέλθοι ἐν πάντεσσι δόλοισι, καὶ εἰ θεὸς ἀντιάσειε. σχέτλιε, ποικιλομῆτα, δόλων ἄατ’, οὐκ ἄρ’ ἔμελλες, οὐδ’ ἐν σῇ περ ἐὼν γαίῃ, λήξειν ἀπατάων μύθων τε κλοπίων, οἵ τοι πεδόθεν φίλοι εἰσίν. ἀλλ’ ἄγε μηκέτι ταῦτα λεγώμεθα, εἰδότες ἄμφω κέρδε’, ἐπεὶ σὺ μέν ἐσσι βροτῶν ὄχ’ ἄριστος ἁπάντων βουλῇ καὶ μύθοισιν, ἐγὼ δ’ ἐν πᾶσι θεοῖσι μήτι τε κλέομαι καὶ κέρδεσιν·

(Hom. Od. .–)



  

The verb is used of the suitors’ dastardly contrivances at Hom. Od. ., ; .; ., ; ., ; .; ., , ; .; cf. ., of the wicked maidservants. Only at Od. . does the verb refer not to the suitors or their associates but to mortals in general. Bartley : ; on its use in the Odyssey see e.g. Pucci , esp. –; Clay  []: –. For the phrasing, cf. also A.R. Arg. .. For this kind of blending in the similes of the Halieutica, see Chapters  and . As well as Hom. Od. .–, κερδαλέος is applied to Odysseus’ speech at Od. .; cf. Odysseus’ familiarity with κέρδεα at Il. . and Od. .–, where the disguised Odysseus deviously informs Penelope that Odysseus himself is said to excel all other mortals in his knowledge of κέρδεα.



Guile He would have to be crafty and cunning to outwit you in all your trickery, even if it were a god who encountered you. Stubborn one, intricate in wiles, insatiable in trickery; even in your own land it seems you were not planning to cease from deception and fraudulent tales, which you love from the bottom of your heart. But come, let us no longer talk of these things; we both know cunning ways, since you are by far the best of all mortals in counsel and in speech, while I am famed among all the gods for cunning intelligence and wiles.

Athena, who has herself deceived Odysseus by appearing as a shepherd boy (Od. .–), here responds to Odysseus’ first Cretan lie (Od. .–). The mutual deception effected by the hero and his divine patron encapsulates the deceptive ethics of the Odyssey; so too in the Halieutica it is wily intelligence, trickery, and cunning (δόλος, μῆτις, ἀπάτη, κέρδεα, κερδαλέος, ποικιλομήτης, ἐπίκλοπος, κλόπιος) that typify the act of fishing. Book  – the first book to treat fishing itself – opens by praising Hermes κλυτόβουλος (‘famous for contrivances’, .); this tutelary deity of fishing is said to possess the κέρδιστον . . . νόημα (‘craftiest mind’, .) and to have invented and revealed the βουλὰς δὲ περισσονόων ἁλιήων (‘strategies of pre-eminently astute fishermen’, .). Hermes’ introduction of fishing to the mortal sphere is described as ‘weaving death for fish’ (ἐπ’ ἰχθύσι κῆρας ὑφαίνων, .), a formulation that evokes the Odyssean use of this verb as both structural metaphor and deceptive reality: Odysseus, Athena, the suitors and others are all said to ‘weave’ (ὑφαίνειν) μῆτις or δόλος for their enemies, while Penelope’s literal weaving is depicted as a δόλος effected while she contrives ‘death and black doom’ (φραζομένη θάνατον καὶ κῆρα μέλαιναν, Od. .–) for the suitors. The phrase, moreover, unites both Iliadic and Odyssean associations, for it refers not only to the kind of crafty guile woven throughout the Odyssey, but also to the scene at the end of the Iliad in which that other messenger god, Iris, plunges into the sea like a lead weight cast down by a fisherman, ‘bringing death to ravening 

 

Hermes and his great-grandson Odysseus are aligned as cunning tricksters even in the Odyssey (especially through Autolycus, Hom. Od. .–), while in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes the god takes on epithets typically used by Homer of Odysseus, including πολύτροπος (Hymn. Hom. Merc. , ), πολύμητις (), ποικιλομήτης (, ) and κερδαλέος (, , ). For the association of Hermes and Odysseus see e.g. Pucci : –; Pratt : –; Vergados : –. Oppian’s assertion of Hermes’ pre-eminent cunning might even be read as a rewriting of Athena’s own claim to pre-eminence in the patronage of crafty intelligence in Odyssey . Hom. Od. ., ; .; .; ., . Cf. Penelope at Hom. Od. .: οἱ δὲ γάμον σπεύδουσιν· ἐγὼ δὲ δόλους τολυπεύω (‘[The suitors] urge on [my] marriage; I wind a skein of wiles’). Penelope’s weaving is called a δόλος at Od. ., ; ., . See esp. Felson-Rubin : –; Clayton .

. Odyssean Guile



fish’ (ὠμηστῇσιν ἐπ’ ἰχθύσι κῆρα φέρουσα, Il. .). Oppian’s vision of fishing thus neatly blends a famous Iliadic fishing simile and archetypally Odyssean guile. Oppian’s emphasis on the δόλος (.) that underpins the fisherman’s art thus draws from the Homeric mode of guileful heroism represented above all by Odysseus. Yet the term δόλος may be used to refer not only to trickery, craft, treachery, or cunning at large, but more specifically to the bait employed to catch fish, as when Scylla is said to snatch Odysseus’ men like an angler catching fish by throwing food into the sea as bait (δόλος, Hom. Od. .). Oppian plays on the interdependence of these meanings throughout the Halieutica, referring both to the δόλοι or tricks employed by fish in order to entrap and outwit other species (the main subject of book ), but also to δόλοι as the baited snares, traps, tricks, or contrivances used by fishermen to deceive and capture their prey (books –). The terms, of course, are far from discrete, and it is often hard to determine whether fish are said on a given occasion to be captured by δόλος in the sense of snare, bait, guile, or trickery. The fluidity of the term reveals the degree to which deception lies at the heart of Oppian’s representation of fishing, as Detienne and Vernant have well outlined in their analysis of the semantic field of μῆτις, or cunning intelligence, in Greek thought. The fish is tricked by the fisherman into taking the bait or entering the snare (δόλος), and is thus, in a sense, outwitted. Yet it is not just fishermen who display the cunning versatility of an Odysseus; rather, just as the hero and goddess vie to deceive one another, and Odysseus and Telemachus struggle to evade and surpass the suitors’ guileful stratagems, so fish strive to trick one another throughout the poem, and to deceive even the deceptive fisherman. Book  focuses on the methods by which fish outwit or ensnare one another, and book , before turning to paradigms of successful fishing, first examines the fish that habitually evade the fisherman’s net or hook (.–):

 





Homer is the only author to use the phrase prior to Oppian; cf. also Hal. .. Athena refers to the hero’s love of δόλοι twice in successive lines when sketching out his character (Hom. Od. .–), while in both Homeric epics Odysseus’ use of δόλοι distinguishes his brand of heroism from that of his contemporaries. See esp. Il. ., Od. .–, ., .–. Cf. Odysseus’ use of δόλος at Il. ., Od. .; ., ; .. Helen characterises the hero as a trickster at Il. .; cf. Agamemnon at Il. .. Guile of fish: ., , , , , , ; deceitful snare or guile of fisherman: ., , , , , , , , , , , ; ., , ,, , , , , , , , ; ., , . Detienne and Vernant , esp. –.



Guile ἰχθύσι δ’ οὐκ ἄρα μοῦνον ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισι νόημα πυκνὸν ἔην καὶ μῆτις ἐπίκλοπος, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοὺς πολλάκις ἐξαπάτησαν ἐπίφρονας ἀγρευτῆρας καὶ φύγον ἀγκίστρων τε βίας λαγόνας τε πανάγρων ἤδη ἐνισχόμενοι, παρὰ δὲ φρένας ἔδραμον ἀνδρῶν βουλῇ νικήσαντες, ἄχος δ’ ἁλιεῦσι γένοντο. (.–)

Fish not only use their crafty intelligence and wily cunning against one another, but often deceive even the astute fishermen themselves, and escape from the force of hooks and the hollows of trawling-nets when they have already been caught, and they outrun the wits of men and defeat them in stratagems, and become a grievance to the fishermen.

A catalogue of these species follows. No sharp distinction is drawn here between the guile employed by human being and fish: if, for instance, the former is said to possess a νόημα | ποικίλον (.–), then this is matched by the fish’s own νόημα | πυκνόν (.–). Both fish and fisherman are ἐπίφρων (astute); both octopus and fisherman use ἀπάτη (deception) in order to outwit their prey; the μῆτις (cunning) of the fisherman is mirrored by that of the fish; and both are said to be ἐπίκλοπος (wily, treacherous) or even πανεπίκλοπος (wholly treacherous). The proem to book  claims that the gods have bestowed upon men the possession of profitable crafts, and have implanted in them all wisdom (κεῖνοι καὶ τέχνας πολυκερδέας ἀνθρώποισι | δῶκαν ἔχειν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐπιφροσύνην ἐνέηκαν, .–), including the ability to catch fish. Then, however, we are told of the similar ‘gifts’ given to fish: καὶ μέν τις μνιαροῖσιν ἐπὶ πλαταμῶσι νοήσας | καρκίνον αἰνήσει καὶ ἀγάσσεται εἵνεκα τέχνης | κερδαλέης· καὶ τῷ γὰρ ἐπιφροσύνην πόρε δαίμων | ὄστρεα φέρβεσθαι (‘and he who observes a crab on the flat mossy stones will praise and admire it for its crafty art; for on [crabs] too a deity has bestowed the wisdom to feed on oysters’, .–). This is a formulation that in turn looks back to the description of ἁλίης τε πολύτροπα δήνεα τέχνης | κερδαλέης (‘the versatile contrivances of the crafty art of fishing’, .–) exhibited by mankind in 

ἐπίφρων: . (fish); . (fisherman), a quality also said to typify Odysseus at Hom. Od. ., .. ἀπάτη: . (octopus); .,  (fisherman); cf. Odysseus at Od. .. μῆτις: ., , , ; ., . (fish); . (fisherman); cf. Odysseus at Il. ., , ; .; Od. .; .; ., ; .; .. ἐπίκλοπος: ,, . (fish); . (fisherman); cf. Odysseus at ., .; the fisherman is πανεπίκλοπος (an Oppianic neologism) at ., ..

. Monstrous Tricks



the proem. The poet repeatedly juxtaposes the ‘craft’ (in both senses) possessed by both man and beast. Sea-creatures are shown to be adept practitioners of the art of capturing fish, deceptively luring in other species in a version of the fisherman’s own techniques, an idea that is all but literalised by the βάτραχος or angler-fish (.–), which uses μῆτις to entice other fish by using its own flesh as bait (δόλος). Unlike Aelian, who finds weel-fishing the most deceptive and treacherous form of capture, and so the type of fishing least fitting to free men, Oppian delights in the processes of deception and counter-deception central to the process of fishing, and in which both human and animal partake.

. Monstrous Tricks Not all fish are clever, however, and the poet remarks that, just as among humans, some creatures are crafty and some stupid (.–). The account of fish in book  is structured around a broad opposition between the species that use cunning and those that use violence: ὅσσοις δ’ οὔτε βίην θεὸς ὤπασεν οὔτε τι κέντρον φύεται ἐκ μελέων, τοῖς δ’ ἐκ φρενὸς ὅπλον ἔφυσε βουλὴν κερδαλέην, πολυμήχανον, οἵ τε δόλοισι πολλάκι καὶ κρατερὸν καὶ ὑπέρτερον ὤλεσαν ἰχθύν. (.–)

But to those [fish] which the god has granted neither strength nor any kind of sting growing from their body, he has given a weapon that grows from the mind, namely cunning, ingenious scheming, and through trickery [these fish] often destroy even a powerful and stronger fish.

The opposition between body and mind – between strength or violence (βίη) and crafty schemes – is here drawn in starkly anatomical terms. The poet’s emphasis that survival is conditioned by the modes of differentiation between species (see esp. .–), looks in part to the μῦθος told by Plato’s Protagoras about the distribution of faculties between human and nonhuman animals (Pl. Prt. d–a). Yet the weaker fishes’ use of trickery and crafty counsel, accorded the paradigmatic Odyssean epithet   

Craftiness (κέρδεα and the cognate adjective κερδαλέος) is practised by fish at ., , , , ; ., and by fishermen at . and .. Cf. Detienne and Vernant : –. Ael. NA ..– [.]: ἡ δὲ κυρτεία δολερωτάτη θήρα καὶ ἐπιβουλοτάτη δεινῶς ἐστι, καὶ ἐλευθέροις πρέπειν δοκεῖ ἥκιστα. On Oppian and Aelian see Chapter .



Guile

πολυμήχανος (resourceful or inventive), also aligns these guileful creatures with an unmistakeably Odyssean approach to the struggle for power, and sets them against those fish that triumph through physical strength alone. The contrast draws on the long-observed Homeric opposition between, on the one hand, violence or physical prowess (βίη) and, on the other, trickery (δόλος) and adaptable skill or cunning (μῆτις). This is a contrast emphasised in both Homeric epics, and associated above all with the contrast between the divergent modes of heroism embodied by Odysseus and Achilles. The use of guile does not itself preclude violent physical force – far from it, as may be observed from the blinding of Polyphemus, the slaughter of the suitors, or the use of the Trojan Horse to sack Troy – but it is a mode of fighting that relies as much on the intellect as it does brute strength. This too is the thrust of Oppian’s contrast in the proem between the art of hunting – where one observes and confronts one’s prey openly (ἀμφαδίην, .) – and the art of fishing, which relies on crafty trickery to prevail in this unseen and baffling realm, for all that physical force is at times employed as well. As we have seen, the notion of a fatal δόλος concealed by an innocuous façade lies at the heart of fishermen’s use of bait. The poet makes much, for instance, of the impetuosity of the swordfish (.ff.), a swift and powerful species that may be caught using a number of methods that capitalise on its foolish haste. In one of these the fisherman’s hook is simply left in full view, for the impetuous swordfish rushes headlong at the 



See Hom. Il. .; .; .; ., ; .; .; Od. .; .; ., , , ; ., , , , ; .; .; .; .; ., . Homer uses the adjective exclusively of Odysseus. Thus e.g. Patroclus’ funeral games, where Antilochus defeats Menelaus in the chariot race despite his inferior horses (Hom. Il. .–): see esp. Nestor’s words at Il. .– and Menelaus’ at Il. .–. Nestor recalls the Arcadian Lycurgus’ dispatch of Areithous ‘by guile and not at all by strength’ (Il. .: δόλῳ, οὔ τι κράτεί γε); cf. Detienne and Vernant : –. The Odyssey asks whether Odysseus will kill the suitors by guile or openly (ἠὲ δόλῳ ἢ ἀμφαδόν, Od. ., .); Odysseus takes his crafty vengeance on the suitors because of their violent physicality and aggression (Od. ., ., ., ., .; the irony, of course, is that, for all their aggression, the suitors do not possess the βίη to string Odysseus’ bow: see Od. ., –). Odysseus’ use of cunning is exhibited in his encounter with Polyphemus in his ‘deceitful’ (δόλιος, Od. .) omissions and lies (Od. .–, –, ), in the nexus of Οὖτις, οὔ τις, μή τις, and μῆτις puns that pervades the book (see esp. Od. .–), and in Odysseus’ delight at his own μῆτις (Od. .–), on which see e.g. Podlecki : –; Schein : –; Austin : –; Peradotto : –. The Cyclopes contrast the use of δόλος and βίη as strategies for assault at Od. ., ); the hero’s guile is revealed in Polyphemus’ inability to communicate this fact. Odysseus later refers to this opposition as a paradigm for future conduct: (Od. .–; .–); see e.g. de Jong : ad .–; Nagy : –. Achilles’ pre-eminence in βίη is emphasised e.g. at Il. .. The contrast was of course extensively explored by later authors: see e.g. Soph. Phil. –.

. Monstrous Tricks



dangling bait and fails to notice the δόλος (.) lurking below. In a more elaborate technique practised in the western Mediterranean, fishermen fashion boats that look like swordfish in order to trick these creatures into thinking the boat one of their own: κεῖθι γὰρ ἔκπαγλοί τε καὶ ἰχθύσιν οὐδὲν ὁμοῖοι ἄπλατοι ξιφίαι μεγακήτεες ἐννεμέθονται. οἱ δ’ ἀκάτους αὐτοῖσιν ἐισκομένας ξιφίῃσι καὶ δέμας ἰχθυόεν καὶ φάσγανα τεκτήναντες ἀντίον ἰθύνουσι· ὁ δ’ οὐκ ἀναδύεται ἄγρην ἐλπόμενος μὴ νῆας ἐυσέλμους ὁράασθαι, ἀλλ’ ἑτάρους ξιφίας, ξυνὸν γένος, ὄφρα μιν ἄνδρες πάντῃ κυκλώσωνται· ὁ δ’ ἐφράσαθ’ ὕστερον ἄτην αἰχμῇ τριγλώχινι πεπαρμένος, οὐδέ οἱ ἀλκὴ φεύγειν ἱεμένῳ περ, ἀναγκαίη δὲ δαμῆναι. . . . ὡς δ’ ὅτε δυσμενέεσσι δόλον τεύχοντες ἄρηος, ἱέμενοι πύργων τε καὶ ἄστεος ἔνδον ἱκέσθαι, ἔντεα συλήσαντες ἀρηιφάτων ἀπὸ νεκρῶν αὐτοὶ θωρήξαντο καὶ ἔδραμον ἄγχι πυλάων· οἱ δ’ ὥστε σφετέροισιν ἐπειγομένοις πολιήταις ἀγκλίνουσι θύρετρα καὶ οὐ γήθησαν ἑταίροις· ὣς ἄρα καὶ ξιφίην ἴκελον δέμας ἤπαφε νηῶν.

ð545Þ

ð550Þ

ð560Þ

ð565Þ

(.–, –)

For in that region [sc. around the Tyrrhenian Sea, Marseilles and Gaul] there live monstrous, unapproachable swordfish, ferocious, and quite unlike [ordinary] fish. The fishermen build boats that resemble swordfish themselves, with fishlike form and swords, and they steer these to meet [the fish]. The swordfish does not pull back from the hunt, assuming that it is not looking at well-benched ships but at fellow swordfish, the same breed as itself, until men surround it on every side. Too late it realises its delusion [ἄτη], once it has been pierced by a three-pronged spear, and it does not have the strength to escape, for all its efforts, but is forcibly overpowered . . . Just as when those who are eager to enter within [their opponents’] walls and city prepare a martial trap [δόλος] against their enemies by arming themselves with armour they have stripped from the corpses of those killed in war, and then running up to the gates, and the others open the doors as if for their own hurrying citizens, but have no joy of their companions; so too the kindred form of the ships deceives the swordfish.

Fish are connected to the martial sphere throughout the Halieutica. Yet the swordfish or ξιφίας – as in English, the Greek nomenclature refers to the ξίφος, or sword, that the creature’s bill was thought to resemble – is a species that pushes this analogy to its limit, encapsulating in its anatomy



Guile

the image of the armed warrior. It is this association on which the poet’s extended war simile is based. The description is replete with the language of epic weaponry: the fish is equipped with a ‘weapon’ or ‘sword’, a ξίφος, ὅπλον, ἄορ, or φάσγανον that is ἀκαχμένος and ὄβριμος (sharp, strong), λάβρος (violent, .), hard as adamant, and utterly impossible to withstand (.–). The only recourse for the fisherman, therefore, is to outwit the beast with craft. The swordfish resembles a fierce warrior in temperament as well as anatomy: it is ἄλκιμος (brave or strong, .), at least until it is captured, as well as ἔκπαγλος (marvellous, but also terrible, excessive, violent, .). The latter is an epithet associated in the Iliad with Achilles, whom both Agamemnon and Iris address as πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ’ ἀνδρῶν (‘most terrible of all men’), and the adjective is also used by Demodocus to depict Achilles and Odysseus quarrelling ἐκπάγλοισ’ ἐπέεσσιν (‘with vehement words’, Hom. Od. .). Not only does the struggle between the impetuous swordfish and crafty fisherman suggest the kind of opposition one might expect between the violent Achilles and the guileful Odysseus, but we shall see in a moment that the ancient interpretation of the bard’s song as treating the argument between the heroes over the deployment of guile or force in order to capture Troy resonates strongly with Oppian’s swordfish scene. Just as all three of Demodocus’ songs at the court of Alcinous explore the polarity between guile and force, so the methods used by the fishermen to capture swordfish – the bait and hook as well as the ruse with the ships – foreground the contrast between the fish’s violent, blustering force and the fisherman’s crafty δόλος. While the ingenious fishermen outwit their prey with ease, the swordfish is characterised as strong but stupid: its sword may be an exceptionally powerful weapon (κρατερώτατον δῶρον, .; ὑπέρβιον ὅπλον, .), but the foolish creature has no ‘weapon’ in its     

The species is indeed introduced as φερώνυμος (appropriately named, .); cf. also .–. ξίφος: .; ὅπλον: ., ., .; ἄορ: ., ., .; φάσγανον: ., .; .. The adjective is elsewhere used by Oppian to mean excessive, as well as its post-Homeric sense of marvellous, for which see e.g. .; ., . Hom. Il. ., .; cf. ., ., although note also the sarcasm of Achilles at Il. .. The brevity of the Homeric account (Hom. Od. .–) generated puzzled debate since the Hellenistic period, but it seems to have been interpreted as a reference to an argument between the two heroes as to whether Troy should be taken by intelligence or bravery, trickery or physical strength. See Σ HQV Od. ., Σ BE Od. .; cf. Athen. .e–f. No clear consensus has emerged about whether the theme of Achilles’ and Odysseus’ confrontation was treated in an ancient epic tradition beyond the Odyssey. See Maehler :  n. ; Ru¨ter : –; Nagy : –; Clay  []: –, –; Finkelberg ; Taplin ; Goldhill : ; Olson , : . Marg : –; Edwards : ff.

. Monstrous Tricks



mind like the one in its jaws (οὐδέ οἱ ὅπλον ἐνὶ φρεσίν, οἷον ἄρηρεν | ἐκ γενύων, .–). Even when it is captured in a net, the swordfish fails to realise that it can simply tear its way out with its sword, and so it remains there until it is dragged onto dry land to be killed. This unfortunate demise is portrayed as death by stupidity: καὶ μὲν δὴ σκολιῇσιν ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσι λίνοιο | κυκλωθεὶς ξιφίης μέγα νήπιος ἀφροσύνῃσιν | ὄλλυται (‘and when it is encircled in the curved enclosure of the net the very stupid swordfish perishes through its folly’ .–). Intelligence, we infer, will always outweigh force, speed, and power when these are unaccompanied by brains. As the martial fish par excellence, the swordfish is associated in the poem with Ares, god of war. Not only have φάσγανα and armour been described by Oppian as the δῶρα δ᾽ Ἄρηος (gifts of Ares, .–), but the swordfish is described as θοῦρος (violent or furious, .), an epithet used primarily of Ares in the Iliad and associated in the Halieutica only with that god (.) and with swordfish. The notion that fishermen fashion a trap for the fish like men δυσμενέεσσι δόλον τεύχοντες ἄρηος (‘preparing a trap of war [lit.: ‘of Ares’] for their enemies’, .) thus picks up both verbally and thematically on Demodocus’ song about Ares and Aphrodite (Hom. Od. .–), in which the angry Hephaestus ‘prepared a trap for Ares’ (τεῦξε δόλον κεχολωμένος Ἄρει, Od. .). Like Ares, the swordfish remains entirely oblivious to the trap that encircles it in front of its very eyes (πάντῃ κυκλώσωνται, Hal. .; κύκλῳ ἁπάντῃ, Od. .), recognising its entrapment only too late. Vehement haste is again defeated by considered, ingenious craft. Oppian likens the fishermen’s naval ruse to a deceptive military stratagem in which assailants trick their way into a city by rushing towards the gates in armour stripped from enemy corpses. Ancient historians and military tacticians provide examples of the use of such schemes in battle, but these parallels are surprisingly rare, and none is a precise fit for the stratagem recounted here. Indeed, the very imprecision of Oppian’s

 

 

See Hom. Il. ., , , , , ; ., ; .; .. In his astrological didactic, Dorotheus of Sidon uses Θοῦρος (‘the Raging One’) to denote the planet Mars. Or ‘prepared a trap, angry at Ares’. Hephaestus fashions a snare (δόλος: ., , ) of craftily contrived (δόλοεις, .) bonds in which to entrap the adulterous couple; the moral drawn by the divine onlookers is that slow craft will eventually defeat even impressive speed (.–). Bartley :  notes the linguistic parallel between the passages but sees no connection in theme. For which cf. Hom. Od. .–. Frontinus lists a range of deceptive strategies employed under siege conditions: see esp. Front. Strat. .. (Arcadians besieging a Messenian stronghold by dressing up as their allies; cf. Paus. ..–);



Guile

language gestures less towards historical veracity than towards the realm of heroic epic. Nor were the two necessarily distinct in ancient eyes, for Pausanias claims that Homer himself provided the inspiration for one of the closest historical parallels to the swordfish trick, namely the method by which third-century Messenian forces tricked their way into Elis by using Spartan shields to deceive Laconian partisans into admitting them before the genuine reinforcements arrived: While [the Spartans] were being organised in squadrons and distributed in companies, a thousand select Messenian troops arrived hurriedly at Elis with Laconian emblems on their shields. Seeing their shields, all the Laconising party in Elis thought their supporters had arrived and received them into the fortress. But when they had obtained admission in this way, the Messenians drove out the supporters of the Lacedaemonians and made over the city to their own partisans. The trick is Homer’s, but the Messenians plainly imitated it opportunely, for Homer represents Patroclus in the Iliad clad in the arms of Achilles, and says that the barbarians were filled with the belief that it was Achilles attacking them, and that their front ranks were thrown into confusion. (Paus. ..–)

While we need not take too seriously the claim that Homer genuinely inspired later Greek military tactics, Pausanias’ reading suggests that a literarily minded second-century reader might well have been alert to the Homeric resonances of such a scheme. As Pausanias suggests of the Messenian ploy, the trick described in the Halieutica – in which besieging soldiers don armour stripped from their enemies’ corpses in order to deceive the town’s citizens into opening the gates – recalls, in broad terms, a number of practices described of the Trojan War. These include the widespread Homeric practice of stripping fallen corpses of their armour, as when Hector, having stripped Achilles’ armour from the dead Patroclus,



Front. Strat. .. (the Aetolian general Timarchus gains admittance to a harbour by wearing the cloak and helmet of the general he has just killed). Hannibal is said to have captured Italian cities by sending an advance party of his own men wearing Roman dress and speaking Latin (Front. Strat. ..; a similar ruse is frustrated at Liv. ..–; cf. the claim that Hannibal dressed up in wigs and costumes in order to avoid assassination by the Gauls: Liv. ..; Polyb. .). Front. Strat. .. speaks of Theban soldiers disguising themselves as women in order to gain access (cf. Polyaen. Strat. .., ..; Plut. Pel. .–); in Xen. Hell. .. Spartans fool Argives into thinking that they are fighting Sicyonians by using their shields, although this does not grant them access to a particular location. Oppian describes the fishermen’s boat as εὔσελμος, a Homeric adjective used in this poem only when fishermen use well-benched ships to engage in a kind of ‘war’ with a mighty adversary (., .), in the first case monstrous (μεγακήτεες, .) swordfish, and in the second an enormous κῆτος.

. Monstrous Tricks



dons it and momentarily rouses the Trojan troops with his vigour (Il. .–), or the scene in which the Trojans mistake Patroclus for Achilles, whose armour he has borrowed (Il. .–). Intriguingly, the ploy is also reminiscent of Aeneas’ account of the sack of Troy in the second book of the Aeneid: after the Greeks have breached the citadel with the Horse, the Trojan forces don Greek armour at the suggestion of their Phrygian ally Coroebus, a move inspired by a fortuitous encounter with Androgeos, who mistakes the band for fellow Greeks. Equipped with the Greek armour they have stripped from their opponents, Coroebus and his companions use their wily tactics to engage in a nocturnal killing spree as Troy is sacked. Once more the ethics of deception are set centre stage. These associations with the Trojan War are suggestive, for if Oppian’s simile echoes Homeric and Virgilian scenes of mistaken identity in which the dead are stripped of their armour, then in broader terms the fishermen’s ruse is reminiscent not only of a warrior equipped with enemy armour (the ‘sword’ with which the fishermen’s ship is deceptively fitted) but of the Trojan Horse itself. In each case innocuous-looking theriomorphic wooden vessels filled with hostile men – whether Greeks or fishermen – are initially welcomed and permitted privileged access to the enemy, an oversight that allows these forces to wreak destruction from within. Oppian’s simile heightens this thematic association by placing 





This may, but need not necessarily, imply that Oppian drew his inspiration directly from Virgil (although see Iglesias Zoido b for the argument that the structure of the Halieutica is influenced by the Georgics). Greek translations of the Aeneid were available in the imperial period, however: see Dickey : –, : – on papyri of the Aeneid containing Greek translations, glossaries, diacritics, and other forms of notation; as Dickey points out, the first few books of the Aeneid are disproportionately well represented in the surviving papyri. Pausanias records that the death of Coroebus was recounted by Lesches in the Little Iliad (fr.  West; Paus. ..–); this must have been relatively well known if we are to make sense of Pausanias’ observation that ὁ πλείων λόγος (‘the majority account’) made Neoptolemus, rather than Lesches’ Diomedes, responsible for the death of Coroebus. The issue of imperial Greek knowledge of Latin literature, however, is coming under renewed scrutiny, not least in the Greek novels. The enterprise at first succeeds, but ends in disaster when the band is attacked by both Trojans and Greeks. Coroebus’ speech explicitly draws attention to the issue of military deception: mutemus clipeos Danaumque insignia nobis | aptemus. dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat? (‘Let us change shields and adopt Greek emblems. Deceit or courage: who will question it in war?’ Verg. Aen. .–). His strategem is represented as a counterpart to the dolus employed by the Greeks with the Trojan Horse: not only are Greeks sent scuttling back into the Horse in terror when confronted by the band of Trojans in disguise (Aen. .–), but the term dolus is employed by Coroebus in his suggestion that the Trojans take up Greek shields (Aen. .), and in Aeneas’ account of the sack of Troy, where it is used repeatedly of the guile exhibited by Sinon and the Greeks in their deployment of the Trojan Horse: Aen. ., , , , , . See esp. Horsfall : –, with further bibliography. Cf. Bartley : .



Guile

emphasis on the martial sphere, the use of deceptive tactics in battle, and the change of fortunes experienced by the citizens who fling open their city’s gates in short-lived welcome. The parallel between the capture of swordfish and the capture of Troy is enriched, I suggest, by a nexus of traditional associations triggered by the Trojan Horse and the fall of Troy. In the first place, the analogy between the fishermen’s modified vessels and the Wooden Horse activates a longstanding association in Greek thought between the Trojan Horse and a ship. As vehicles for long-distance transport, ships had long been seen to play a role analogous to that of horses in the terrestrial sphere, as Penelope implies in the Odyssey when she refers to ships as the ‘horses of the sea’ (Hom. Od. .). The similarity in function between the Trojan Horse and a ship – each a large, hollow wooden structure built with the aim of transporting a band of men – in turn generated ancient rationalising hypotheses that the Trojan Horse was itself in origin a ship, while imperial Greek epic poets make much of the association in structure and function between the Horse and a ship. Both Quintus of Smyrna and Triphiodorus use naval terminology to depict the process of hauling the Horse into Troy, and both draw from Apollonius’ depiction of the Argo in their portrayal of the construction and ‘launching’ of the Horse. Oppian’s didactic epic offers a new marine slant on the military concerns of the Trojan War, and here the reception of the Halieutica in the 

 



Cf. Anderson : –, who argues that the Trojan Horse may be seen, perhaps already in the epic cycle, ‘as a kind of ship in disguise’ (). Drawing broad parallels between the Horse and Paris’ ships in terms of design, material, function, dimensions, and capacity, Anderson notes the nautical flavour of the language used by Apollodorus and Proclus for embarkation into the Horse, as well as further narrative parallels in the construction process of each. In the Odyssey both ships and Horse play a key role in the deceptive Achaean stratagem outlined in Demodocus’ account of the capture of Troy, for the majority of the Greeks make as if to sail away on their ships in order to heighten the likelihood that the Horse will transport the remainder of the Achaeans in the opposite direction, into Troy itself (Od. .–). E.g. Euphor. fr.  van Groningen; see further Dubielzig : . Triphiodorus opens his account of the construction of the Horse by observing that its timber was drawn from Mount Ida, the same source used for Paris’ ships (Triph. –); the hollow ‘belly’ of the Horse is compared to the size of a ship, and the construction of the two is linked by the figure of the carpenter (Triph. –). Triphiodorus’ conception of the Horse as a ὁλκάς or cargo vessel (Triph. ) rests not only on its vehicular capacity but on the association of the towing or dragging of a ship with the hauling of the Horse into Troy; see Paschalis : –; Miguélez Cavero : . Cf. also Eur. Tro. –; Verg. Aen. .–, with Clausen : ; Austin : –. See esp. Q.S. .–; Triph. , ; they draw in particular from the launching scene at A.R. Arg. .–. On Apollonius see Campbell : –; Paschalis : –; Vian : –; Miguélez Cavero : . Nestor himself explicitly compares embarkation into the Horse to embarkation onto the Argo at Q.S. .–, using the verb καταβαίνω for each.

. Monstrous Tricks



third-century epic poetry of Quintus of Smyrna and Triphiodorus may shed light on Oppian’s connection between the capture of fish and the fall of Troy. In the first place, an association between hollow ships, the cavernous Horse, and a large sea-creature or κῆτος is well encapsulated in the semantic field of κητώεις and μεγακήτης, adjectives used by Quintus of Smyrna to characterise the Trojan Horse as a monstrous, yawning, or capacious vessel. Quintus here seems to pick up on Oppian’s vision of a ship laden with hostile men and deceptively disguised as a μεγακήτης swordfish (.) in a manner that resembles the Trojan Horse. Both draw on mythical associations between sea-creatures and the fall of Troy, and by associating the Horse with a monstrous sea-creature or κῆτος, Quintus implicitly aligns the two greatest threats to Troy in mythical history, as a result of which the city was twice razed. The most recent of these is the μεγακήτης (Q.S. .) Horse that leads to the current sack of Troy, while the first is the mighty sea-monster – or μέγα κῆτος (Q.S. .) – sent by Poseidon against the Trojans in punishment for Laomedon’s duplicity. This is a monster familiar from Homer’s reference to the stronghold of Heracles at Il. .–, and the dispatch of this μέγα κῆτος is described by Quintus as the culminating example of the feats of Heracles engraved on Eurypylus’ shield (Q.S. .–). It was, of course, precisely the destruction of the κῆτος that had precipitated the earlier sack of Troy by Heracles (along with Telamon, Peleus, and others), when Laomedon reneged on the reward he had promised for the monster’s dispatch. 





κητώεις: Q.S. .; μεγακήτης: Q.S. .. As Richardson :  observes of μεγακήτης at Hom. Il. ., ‘the influence of κῆτος is surely felt’ even in contexts where we understand the adjective to mean, for instance, ‘capacious’. κητώεις is applied twice by Homer to Sparta (Il. .; Od. .), and was variously explained by scholiasts and lexicographers as ‘large’, ‘hollow’ (whether in the sense of low-lying and surrounded by mountains, or full of ravines), or ‘full of sea-monsters’ (either in the surrounding sea, or washed up on land). Strab. .. records the suggestion that κητώεσσαν could be interpreted to mean ‘large’ rather than (or by extension of ) ‘full of seamonsters’ (or ‘ravines’). Aelian (NA .), on the other hand, clearly understands the epithet to mean ‘full of sea-monsters’, for which cf. Marcellus of Side (fr. . Heitsch); both authors evidently here advertise the piscatorial nature of their works. μεγακήτης is used by Homer of the sea, of ships, and of a predatory dolphin (Hom. Od. ., Il. .; Il. ., ; Il. .); Oppian combines each of these Homeric senses by applying the epithet to a region of the sea full of large sea-creatures that a boat may be made to resemble. Apollonius of Rhodes had similarly captured the adjective’s three Homeric referents when describing the fear of shepherds who mistake the Argo and the pursuing Colchian boats for seamonsters emerging from the πόντου μεγακήτεος (A.R. Arg. .). That both Apollonius and Oppian are referring to a ship mistaken for a sea-creature is surely no coincidence, especially when the latter further exploits this parallel in his portrayal of rustic responses to an enormous κῆτος or sea-monster hauled out of the sea – and repeatedly assimilated to a ship - in the final book of the poem, on which see Chapter . The two threats to Troy are implicitly aligned by Poseidon at Hom. Il. .–.



Guile

Quintus not only aligns the Trojan Horse with Poseidon’s κῆτος but, in alluding to both events, draws suggestively from the Oppianic account of the monstrous κῆτος defeated in the final book of the Halieutica (.–). When this savage beast is finally killed by fishermen, a crowd of onlookers gathers to marvel at its tail and head and πολυχανδέα νηδύν (‘capacious belly’, Hal. .), a formulation whose novelty lies in the fact that Oppian is the first author known to apply the adjective πολυχανδής to an animate being. Quintus echoes this phrase (in the same sedes) at the start of the Posthomerica when he describes Achilles and Ajax entering battle for the first time in the poem, the pair slaughtering men like ravening lions filling their πολυχανδέα νηδύν (‘capacious belly’, Q.S. .) with the blood and innards of sheep. Significantly, Ajax has at this point urged Achilles into battle by recalling the earlier destruction of Troy, observing that their fathers Telamon and Peleus had aided Heracles in laying waste to Laomedon’s city, appealing to Achilles not to disgrace this memory, and promising that this sack of Troy will echo that of their fathers (Q.S. .–). In applying to Ajax and Achilles the terms used of the κῆτος killed at the end of the Halieutica, Quintus evokes the mythical κῆτος killed by Heracles, the very beast whose slaughter had precipitated the destruction to which the heroes themselves allude; the κῆτος and the current Greek military onslaught together represent the twofold destruction of Troy. Quintus, moreover, not only refers to the Trojan Horse as both κητώεις (Q.S. .) and μεγακήτης (Q.S. .), but also twice speaks of the structure as πολυχανδής, an adjective that, as we have seen, looks to Oppian’s own fearsome κῆτος. Both Quintus and Triphiodorus 

 





The adjective is used by Theocritus (Id. .) of a water-pitcher and by Nicander (Ther. ) of a mortar, and is found in an Orphic fragment (OF .) describing the egg out of which Phanes emerged; after Oppian it appears with some frequency in later Greek epic, and is a particular favourite of Nonnus’. The heroes’ action is pivotal at this moment, for they resume their quest to annihilate Troy at the very point when the Greek ships would otherwise have been burned by the Trojans (Q.S. .–). Cf. Borthwick :  n. , who notes in passing that Quintus’ depiction of the Horse in Posthomerica  ‘suggests the belly of a sea-monster’ and Oppian’s κῆτος in particular. Quintus, it should be noted, also uses the adjective πολυχανδής to refer more conventionally to inanimate vessels, including a goblet, chest, and bowl. Firstly when Nestor exhorts the Greeks to enter the capacious Horse (Q.S. .–), and secondly in the ‘Binnenproömium’ of .–, in which the poet speaks in quasi-autobiographical voice and asks the Muses – in the primary narrator’s sole address to these figures – to recount clearly and individually the names of the heroes who entered the capacious Horse (Q.S. .–). For wider discussion of this proem, see Bär ; Maciver : –. Cassandra demands that the δέμας πολυχανδέος ἵππου (‘body of the capacious horse’, Triph. ) be destroyed for concealing crafty beings (δολόεντα σώματα, Triph. ), a threat soon realised

. Monstrous Tricks



use this adjective twice each of the Trojan Horse, a parallel that suggests a wider association, perhaps inspired by Oppian, between a πολυχανδής seamonster and the Horse. These pivotal moments – when Quintus addresses the Muses, when, in Triphiodorus, the trick is almost revealed, and when it culminates in the sacking of Troy – mark not only the adjective’s close association with the Horse, but also its metapoetic encapsulation of the ‘capacious’ or expansive tradition of narratives told about the sack of Troy. All three imperial Greek epic poets thus activate a multifaceted association between the Trojan Horse and a monstrous sea-creature. Quintus and Triphiodorus use the unusual adjective πολυχανδής – strikingly applied by Oppian to the belly of a vast sea-monster – to refer to the Horse at pivotal narrative junctures; Quintus not only uses the adjectives κητώεις and μεγακήτης to characterise the Horse itself, but also implicitly aligns the Trojan Horse with the κῆτος sent by Poseidon against Troy; Oppian depicts monstrous (μεγακήτεες) swordfish being tricked by fishermen who use Horse-like ruses to dupe the fish into allowing them into their midst, acts that are explicitly compared to a deceptive martial stratagem for gaining entry to a city, and that themselves capitalise on the wider associations between the Trojan Horse and a ship. Oppian maximises not only the association of fishing with Odyssean δόλος, but also the marine potential of the sack of Troy itself. We witness here the workings of a highly allusive later Greek epic tradition that invests Homeric themes with new force, that engages closely in both verbal and thematic dialogue with other imperial Greek epics, and that delights in shifts of register and scale, whether from epic to epyllion, or from the sack of Troy to the capture of fish. Oppian’s interest in scale and capacious epic sea-monsters will be explored further in Chapter , but it



when the Greeks emerge from the Horse like bees pouring out of a capacious (πολυχανδής) hive inside an oak tree and stinging passers-by (Triph. -). It is likely, but by no means certain, that Triphiodorus’ epyllion was composed after Quintus’ Posthomerica; see Miguélez Cavero : –, with further bibliography. Both Campbell :  (apropos of Quintus) and Gerlaud :  (of Triphiodorus) state that the application of the adjective πολυχανδής to the Horse was probably traditional (Miguélez Cavero :  remains non-committal), but there is little evidence to support this assumption beyond its use of the Horse by both authors; it may be simply that Triphiodorus (for instance) draws from Quintus, and that both have been influenced by Oppian. Quintus’ use of the Oppianic phrase πολυχανδέα νηδύν (Q.S. .) at the start of the Posthomerica suggests that the adjective was seen to carry a specifically Oppianic resonance, but it is of course also possible that Oppian innovatively applied to large sea-creatures (both the μεγακήτης swordfish and the κῆτος of book ) images and vocabulary traditionally used of the Trojan Horse. See also Chapter  for the capacious epic allusivity of Oppian’s πολυχανδής whale, itself repeatedly compared to a ship.



Guile

is important to note here that, as a didactic poet, Oppian goes further than his narrative epic successors in his adaptation of epic motifs by inverting the military focus of the Homeric epics, and by exploiting the literal potential of the metaphorical marine associations evoked in earlier depictions of the Trojan War. The remainder of this chapter considers these claims in greater depth.

. Netting Fish The association explored above between fishing and a military siege is further exploited in Oppian’s final account of the swordfish, where fish are netted and hauled onto the beach (.–). Each method of catching these creatures – using a baited hook, tricking them with disguised boats, and capturing them in a net – pits (the fish’s) foolishness and haste against (mankind’s) intellect and capacity for deception. Swordfish are captured in a net, hauled onto shore, and speared on the beach; the ‘cowardly’ fish is needlessly afraid of the net and fails to realise that it could simply tear its way out with its bill. Oppian’s account is itself adapted by Quintus of Smyrna in his simile of Deiphobus slaughtering Greeks in the River Xanthus like a fisherman spearing a bulging net of swordfish that has been pulled onto the shore, an adaptation that perhaps acknowledges the Trojan connotations of Oppian’s swordfish. The depiction of swordfish in the Halieutica introduces a wider discussion of net-fishing as a means of catching other species (.–). Tellingly, both Oppian and Aelian draw parallels between netting fish and capturing a city or military camp. The primary point of comparison is the sheer quantity of fish that can be captured in one sitting, in contrast to the single fish typically caught with a hook. Aelian observes that ‘there are said to be four different methods of catching fish: with a net, with a pole, with a basket and also with a hook. Net-fishing is lucrative, and is similar to the capture of a camp and the taking of prisoners.’ He later reiterates the point when discussing the practice of tuna-fishing. Like Oppian’s foolish swordfish, Aelian’s tuna prove cowardly once netted: they are 



Q.S. .–. The influence of Oppian’s description of swordfish-fishing on this simile has long been noted, and this is one of a handful of passages whose debt to the Halieutica has been used to date Quintus’ poem: see e.g. Vian : –; James and Lee : ; James : xix, ; for thematic discussion of Quintus’ simile see Kneebone : –. Ael. NA .: ἐνύδρου δὲ θήρας διαφοραὶ τέτταρες, φασί, δικτυεία καὶ κόντωσις καὶ κυρτεία καὶ ἀγκιστρεία προσέτι. καὶ ἡ μὲν δικτυεία πλουτοφόρος, καὶ ἔοικεν ἁλισκομένῳ στρατοπέδῳ καὶ αἱρουμένοις αἰχμαλώτοις τισί . . .

. Netting Fish



‘sluggish and incapable of doing any deed that requires daring, and they remain huddled and immobile; the rowers then capture the population of fish, as a poet might say, like that of a conquered city [ὡς ἁλούσης πόλεως]’. Aelian’s homage to – and differentiation of his own prose from – the metaphors emblematic of poetic discourse presumably itself alludes to Oppian’s account of tuna-fishing, for, on the poet’s telling, a tuna-scout spies a shoal from his vantage point, whereupon nets are set up ‘like a city’, and the tuna’s entry into the nets is compared to the progression of different ‘ranks’ of men ever farther inside the city (.–). The analogy builds on a well-established comparison between the capture of Troy and the capture of animals in a net. Sarpedon uses the metaphor of a fishing-net in the Iliad when he warns Hector not to let the Trojans be caught by the men who will shortly sack the city: μή πως ὡς ἀψῖσι λίνου ἁλόντε πανάγρου | ἀνδράσι δυσμενέεσσιν ἕλωρ καὶ κύρμα γένησθε· | οἳ δὲ τάχ’ ἐκπέρσουσ’ εὖ ναιομένην πόλιν ὑμήν, (‘Do not, as if captured in the meshes of an all-enclosing net, become prey and spoil to enemy men who will soon sack your well-populated city’, Hom. Il. .–). The easy slippage in meaning between λίνον (flax or flaxen line) as the thread of destiny spun by the Fates and as a fishing-line or fishing-net facilitates the metaphor, and its later proliferation in Greek tragedy offers subtle permutations of the Homeric image as the ‘net’ of death or ruin. The anapaestic prelude to the first stasimon of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, for instance, elaborates on this vision of the fall of Troy, rendering Sarpedon’s fear a grim reality and subsuming it into the nexus of net imagery that pervades the Oresteia: ὦ Ζεῦ βασιλεῦ καὶ Νὺξ φιλία μεγάλων κόσμων κτεάτειρα, 







Ael. NA .: νωθεῖς δὲ ἄρα ὄντες οἱ θύννοι καὶ ἔργον τι τόλμης ἐχόμενον ἀδυνατοῦντες δρᾶσαι, πεπιεσμένοι μένουσί τε καὶ ἀτρεμοῦσιν· οἱ δὲ ἐρέται, ὡς ἁλούσης πόλεως, αἱροῦσιν ἰχθύων ποιητὴς ἂν εἴποι δῆμον. Tuna and swordfish are often discussed together in ancient piscatorial accounts (see e.g. NA .). .–: the net is set up in the waves like a city (ὥστε πόλις), with gates, gatekeepers, and inner courtyards, while the tuna enter ‘in rows’ (ἐπὶ στίχας), like ranks (φάλαγγες) of men grouped according to age. The problematic ἁλόντε, with its metrical oddity and puzzling use of the dual, need not concern us here. The ‘all-catching net’ could also refer to a hunting-net, but seems to have been interpreted as piscatorial by ancient readers: thus e.g. Σ bT Il. .b; Plut. De sollert. anim. f; at Athen. .b–c the passage is adduced as evidence that Homeric heroes ate fish. Homeric λίνον as thread of destiny: Hom. Il. ., ; Od. .; as fishing-line: Il. .; as net: Il. .. Oppian uses the word of both fishing-line and net, as well as referring to the γάγγαμον, ἀμφίβληστρον, and πάναγρον as sub-divisions of the δίκτυα used in fishing (.–).



Guile ἥτ’ ἐπὶ Τροίας πύργοις ἔβαλες στεγανὸν δίκτυον, ὡς μήτε μέγαν μήτ’ οὖν νεαρῶν τιν’ ὑπερτελέσαι μέγα δουλείας γάγγαμον ἄτης παναλώτου·

(Aesch. Ag. –)

O Zeus the king and friendly Night, winner of great glories, you who cast over the walls of Troy an enclosing net (στεγανὸν δίκτυον), so that neither the fully grown nor any of the young could leap out of the great fishing-net (γάγγαμον) of slavery [cast by] all-catching ruin.

The metaphor suggests the defeat of multiple Trojans at once, as well as the dehumanisation or bestialisation of those taken prisoner by the Greeks; the motif takes on a sinister force as the theme of duplicitous entrapment is recast in murderous guise over the course of Aeschylus’ trilogy. This association between nets, the capture of animals, and the fall of Troy was further exploited by imperial Greek epic poets. In Quintus’ Posthomerica the ruse of the Trojan Horse is itself inspired by Calchas’ observation of a hawk that abandons brute force and catches a dove through trickery; the arguments that ensue between the Greek heroes about the relative merits of force and trickery look not only to Homeric debates of the kind outlined earlier in this chapter, but also back to the fierce disagreement between Ajax and Odysseus over the arms of Achilles in Posthomerica . There Odysseus defends himself against Ajax’s accusations of cowardice and guile by privileging human intelligence and skill: it is these qualities, he argues, that enable men not only to achieve 





Lloyd-Jones : – argues that the image draws from Babrius  ( Perry); Oppian’s version of this fable is discussed further below. In support of Lloyd-Jones’ argument that νεαρῶν (Aesch. Ag. ) could refer as much to fish as to game, νεαρός is indeed used by Oppian of young fish at Hal. .; νέος also recurs in this sense throughout the poem. On these nets see Fraenkel : II. –; Lloyd-Jones : –; on the metaphor in the trilogy more widely, Lebeck : –. See esp. Clytemnestra’s boast: ἄπειρον ἀμφίβληστρον, ὥσπερ ἰχθύων, | περιστιχίζω, πλοῦτον εἵματος κακόν (‘I threw around [Agamemnon] an inextricable net, like a fishing-net, an evil wealth of clothing’, Aesch. Ag. –). On ἀμφίβληστρον see Fraenkel : III. –; cf. Cho. ; Clytemnestra draws on the image at Ag. . Cassandra characterises Clytemnestra as a δίκτυον Ἅιδου (‘net of Hades’, Ag. ) or ἄρκυς (hunting-net, Ag. ); for the former, compare the ἀπέραντον δίκτυον ἄτης (‘inescapable net of ruin’) described by Hermes at [Aesch.] PV ; cf. also Aesch. Pers. . The image of hunt and hunting-net (ἄρκυς) pervades the trilogy: see e.g. Cho. –; Eum. . Q.S. .–: after waiting in vain for a dove to emerge from the hole in a rock into which it has fled, the hawk conceals itself in a bush and tricks its prey into thinking it gone. As Calchas argues, ‘Therefore let us now no longer try to sack the city of Troy by force (βίῃ), but see what trickery and cunning (δόλος καὶ μῆτις) may accomplish.’ (Q.S. .–).

. Netting Fish



military victories but to overcome fierce animals in the hunt and to domesticate wild beasts, amongst other technological developments (Q.S. .–). The ability of human beings to tame or kill animals by means of intelligence is thereby elevated to both an Odyssean world-view and a paradigmatic heroic code that leads to the fall of Troy, and the parallels between hunting and warfare are in turn brought out by the juxtaposition of these scenes on the shield over which Ajax and Odysseus contend. When the stratagem of the Trojan Horse is advocated by Odysseus in the Posthomerica, Quintus’ Neoptolemus argues forcefully against the idea on the basis that strength, not trickery, is the making of a true hero (Q.S. .–). The pathos invoked in his argument that the Trojans are being unfairly tricked later resurfaces in the poet’s representation of the city’s doomed inhabitants as suffering animals. When Troy is conquered, the conflagration that sweeps through the city and incinerates its inhabitants is compared to a forest fire that tortures wild beasts trapped on a mountain. Not only are the Trojans tormented like wretched animals, but none of the gods will intervene to save them, ‘for the Fates had encircled them from every side with the great nets [λίνα] from which a mortal can never escape’. Quintus here recapitulates the net metaphor used of the fall of Troy by both Homer and Aeschylus, arousing pity for the doomed Trojans. The representation of these men as trapped animals builds on the manner in which, as the Posthomerica reaches its climax, the horrors of war seem to blur the line between human and non-human animal; Quintus exploits the resonances of the net metaphor at the very moment when these suffering humans appear most like animals. In his representation of foolish swordfish, and in his portrayal of doomed fish at large,  



 

Q.S. .–; see Maciver : –. It is, of course, δολομήτης (Q.S. .) Odysseus whose case is deemed superior by the Trojan judges (Q.S. .–); see Bär : –. This pathos is heightened by the fact that they would have been saved from ruin had Athena not hideously blinded Laocoon (Q.S. .–); conversely, the Trojan torture of Sinon, the emphasis on feasting (for all that this is controlled by the Keres), and the inclusion of Menelaus’ claim that the Trojans were the first to violate their oaths and disregard the gods (Q.S. .–) lessen the reader’s sympathy. Q.S. .–, a simile that builds on the observation that the Greek deforestation of Mount Ida in order to build the Horse has rendered the denuded valleys newly inhospitable to animals (Q.S. .–). Q.S. .–: περὶ γὰρ λίνα πάντοθε Μοῖραι | μακρὰ περιστήσαντο τά περ βροτὸς οὔ ποτ’ ἄλυξε. Quintus’ depiction of the fall of Troy erodes the putative contrast between human and non-human animals not only through the astonishing density of animal similes, omens, and metamorphoses in books  and , but also in the scenes of visceral butchery and consumption that represent humans as both predators and foodstuff, and in the literal incursion of the animal world into the city of Troy.



Guile

Oppian offers us a similar technique in reverse, drawing both from the animal motifs characteristic of heroic epic (and discussed further in Chapters –) and from the specific association of net-fishing with the fall of Troy. Triphiodorus takes this connection yet further when he intertwines the net imagery associated respectively with the fall of Troy in the Iliad and with the slaughter of Penelope’s suitors in the Odyssey. In this he blends both Homeric and Oppianic associations between the capture of fish and the dispatch of foolish transgressors, bookending his account of Troy’s destruction with two similes in which beasts or fish are netted, and drawing heavily from Oppian and ps.-Oppian in the process. In the first of these similes Sinon plots destruction for Troy like a hunter waiting for animals to fall into a netted ambush (Triph. –). The ‘capturing’ themes of the Halieutica and the Sack of Troy here converge, and this simile borrows from the Halieutica (and Cynegetica) in both vocabulary and topic: it is redolent of Oppian’s accounts of fish captured in baskets and nets, and especially of the capture of ἄδμωες, fish caught in a wicker trap into which smaller species have been enticed as bait. Triphiodorus’ 



See Gerlaud : – and  n. , –; Miguélez Cavero : – and –, . As Miguélez Cavero :  observes, the circular shape of the nets described by Triphiodorus owes more to fishing (and to Oppian) than it does to hunting; for λίνον περικυκλώσαντες (Triph. ) cf. Oppian’s description of fishermen encircling a seal in nets (λίνοις περικυκλώσωνται, Hal. .). In addition to the use of hunting vocabulary found prevalently in Oppian and ps.Oppian, but also in other ancient authors (thus e.g. στάλιξ, Triph. ), which presumably points more to a shared topic than to any specific allusion, note the extensive description of hunting with nets by both authors (Hal. .–, – and passim; ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–; .– and passim), and see e.g. Cyn. .–; .– for details on the setting of nets on stakes, the latter also including a description of scouts hiding under branches; for further references see e.g. Mair : xl–xlvi, – ad ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–; Miguélez Cavero : . For the apparent neologism ὀριπλανής (Triph. ) compare ps.-Oppian’s use of ὀρίπλαγκτος of a lionness (Cyn. ., for which cf. Ar. Thesm. , of Night), and for the phrase θηρσὶν ὀριπλανέεσσι cf. ps.-Oppian’s θηρσὶν ὀρειαύλοις (‘mountain-dwelling wild beasts’, Cyn. ., in the same sedes as Triphiodorus, and in turn drawn from Hal. .). The concealment of the scout ὑπὸ πτόρθοισι (Triph. ) reflects Oppian’s description of the assembly of a trap for cuttlefish (in which a basket is hidden ὑπὸ πτόρθοισι, Hal. .), while the comparison of Sinon to a θηροσκόπος ἀνήρ (Triph. ) parallels and inverts the scouting activities of the θυννοσκόπος described by Oppian at .–, who informs his comrades and then watches tuna processing into the nets like phalanxes of men into a city. So too Triphiodorus’ depiction of the huntsmen setting up a λόχον πολυωπόν (), in Sinon’s case an analogue for his role in preparing the Trojan Horse stratagem, builds on the traditional representation of the Horse as a λόχος or ambush, but also on the use of the term to denote the traps, nets, or baskets in which fish and other animals are caught. For the former see e.g. Hom. Od. ., ., .; Eur. Tro. ; for the latter, Hal. .; ., , ; ., , ; ps.-Opp. Cyn. .; ., ,  (and cf. e.g. Ael. NA . on the anthias, there strongly assimilated to the human victim of an ambush). The species is unidentified: it is mentioned only here, and is questionably glossed by the scholia as a kind of flatfish. The ἄδμωες enter the basket in the expectation of an abundant feast, but, as in Babrius’ fable of the large and small fish, the little species are able to escape through the trap’s meshes, leaving the larger ἄδμωες trapped (Hal. .–); see Babrius  ( Perry), discussed

. Netting Fish



second simile depicts the fall of Troy itself: ἀλλ’ οἱ μὲν δέδμηντο λίνῳ θανάτοιο πανάγρῳ, | ἰχθύες ὡς ἁλίῃσιν ἐπὶ ψαμάθοισι χυθέντες (‘but [the Trojans] were overpowered by the all-capturing net of death, like fish poured out on the sand of the sea’, Triph. –). The piscine focus of this representation of the slaughtered Trojans has already been foreshadowed by his use in the first simile of the rare word πολυωπός (Triph. ), a Homeric hapax memorably employed in the Odyssean simile in which the heaps of slaughtered suitors are compared to a net full of fish: τοὺς δὲ ἴδεν μάλα πάντας ἐν αἵματι καὶ κονίῃσι πεπτεῶτας πολλούς, ὥς τ’ ἰχθύας, οὕς θ’ ἁλιῆες κοῖλον ἐς αἰγιαλὸν πολιῆς ἔκτοσθε θαλάσσης δικτύῳ ἐξέρυσαν πολυωπῷ· οἱ δέ τε πάντες κύμαθ’ ἁλὸς ποθέοντες ἐπὶ ψαμάθοισι κέχυνται· τῶν μέν τ’ ἠέλιος φαέθων ἐξείλετο θυμόν· ὣς τότ’ ἄρα μνηστῆρες ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισι κέχυντο.

ð385Þ

(Hom. Od. .–)

He saw them all, the many that had fallen in the blood and the dust, like fish that fishermen have drawn out of the grey sea onto the curved beach in a meshed net; and they all lie heaped on the sand, longing for the waves of the sea, and the shining sun takes away their heart. So the suitors now lay heaped on one another.

Triphiodorus here follows Oppian in blending the moral structures of the two Homeric epics: his fish are – like the Trojans – tricked and netted en masse, but they also – like the suitors – die as a result of their own greedy, heedless stupidity. Transgression and punishment, perverted feasting and concomitant slaughter, unite the concerns of the Halieutica and the Sack of Troy. Oppian himself pointedly uses the adjective πολυωπός to describe the foolish mackerel that yearn to join their comrades in the net: σκόμβροι μὲν λεύσσοντες ἐν ἕρκεϊ πεπτηῶτας | ἄλλους ἠράσσαντο λίνου πολυωπόν ὄλεθρον | ἐσδῦναι (‘when the mackerel see the others cowering in the enclosed space, they long to enter the meshed destruction of the net’,



above. The unusual verb ὑπεκδύομαι, used by Babrius of the smaller fish that slip out through the meshes of the net (ὑπεξέδυνε δικτύου πολυτρήτου, .) is also used by Oppian of ἄδμωες (.; cf. ὑπέκδυσις, .), and of swordfish (.) and mackerel (.), all of which attempt to escape but find themselves inextricably trapped in the net. Not only does Triphiodorus’ language evoke the fatal deception used to entrap the ἄδμωες, but Oppian himself compares the capture of ἄδμωες in the λόχος to the deception practised by a hunter on the mountains who prepares an ambush for wild beasts, using a κρυπτὸς δόλος to entice and capture a leopard. λόχος: Hal. .~Triph. ; πήματα: Hal. .~Triph. ; ὄλεθρος: Hal. .~Triph. ; κρυπτὸς δόλος: Hal. .~Triph. ; for this last cf. also Hal. .. See Gerlaud  xxx and Miguélez-Cavero : .



Guile

.–). The poet here represents the fish as doomed by their own stupidity (ἀφροσύνη, .; cf. .), much like the suitors of Penelope, themselves doomed by their transgressive behaviour and lack of insight (ἀφροσύνη: Hom. Od. ., .). The mackerel witness their comrades cowering (λεύσσοντες . . . πεπτηῶτας, Hal. .) in the meshed nets just as Odysseus observes the fallen suitors (ἴδεν . . . πεπτεῶτας, Od. .-) heaped up like fish in a meshed net; the stupidity of the mackerel, however, prevents them from drawing the appropriate lesson from this scene, and they are soon slaughtered in their multitudes (.). We shall return in the next chapter to further parallels between fish and the suitors slaughtered by Odysseus, who are aligned both in their appetitive desires and in the punishment at last meted out to them. Oppian, moreover, refracts these heroic epic traditions by exploiting the deadly connotations of this net imagery – common, as we have seen, to both epic and tragic representations of slaughter and destruction – and emphasising its metaphorical value even as he marks its literal deployment. In the mackerel-fishing vignette yet more fish try to enter the ἄρκυν ὀλέθρου (‘net of destruction’, .; cf. ., of the bass) as the fishermen haul it out of the water; so too the greedy ἄδμωες find that ἀντὶ δὲ φορβῆς | πότμον ἐφωρμήσαντο καὶ ἄιδος ἕρκος ἄφυκτον (‘instead of food they rush upon their doom and the inescapable net of Hades’, .–). Oppian’s parrot-wrasse meet with a similar fate, speeding headlong into the ἄιδος ἕρκος | πλεκτὸν (‘plaited net of Hades’, .) and vying with one another like runners in a race: ‘such great desire leads [the wrasse] too into the house of Hades, to leap into the recesses of an ambush from which there is no homecoming (ἀνοστήτοιο λόχοιο)’. Oppian twice uses the striking phrase ἀνοστήτοιο λόχοιο (.; .), uniting the mackerel and the parrot-wrasse that each spring eagerly into the net or basket that represents their doom. Not only does the poet here evoke the Odyssean notions of deception, homecoming, and mass slaughter that pervade his representation of fishing, but by referring to the fisherman’s trap as the ‘net of Hades’ or ‘net of destruction’, the poet activates and reliteralises a powerful metaphor that encapsulates a moral paradigm of delusion, deception, transgression, and punishment associated with both the fall of Troy and the death of the suitors in the Odyssey.   

Oppian here exploiting the homographic potential of the verbs πτήσσω and πίπτω. .–: τόσσος ἔρως καὶ τοῖσιν ἐς ἄιδος ἡγεμονεύει | ἐσθορέειν κευθμῶνας ἀνοστήτοιο λόχοιο. The adjective ἀνόστητος is rare, and is previously attested only in an adespotic tragic fragment (Fb TrGF, possibly from the Pirithous of Euripides or Critias), and a funerary epigram by Antipater of Sidon (A.P. .), there too referring to Hades.

. Netting Fish



The collocation of fatal desire, the net of destruction or of Hades, and the ambush from which there is no homecoming likewise brings to mind the sinister connotations of the net imagery that pervades Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. This is a play also characterised by a lethal and deceptive ambush, a thwarted νόστος and a destructive ‘net of Hades’ through which rash behaviour is exploited and punished. The Oppianic formulations ἄιδος ἕρκος and ἄρκυς ὀλέθρου are reminiscent of Cassandra’s representation of Clytemnestra as a lethal and deceptive net (ἄρκυς; δίκτυόν . . . Ἅιδου), as well as Aegisthus’ boast that he has witnessed Agamemnon caught in the nets of Justice (τῆς Δίκης ἐν ἕρκεσιν). These images gain force from the play’s wider representation of both Agamemnon and the Trojans as fish or other animals caught in a net, as in the chorus’ description of the inescapable ‘net’ that falls over the whole of Troy (Aesch. Ag. –); Clytemnestra too presents her capture of Agamemnon in a net like that used for fish (Ag. ), and speaks metaphorically of her entrapment of her husband in tall nets of ruin (Ag. –); she even compares him to a δίκτυον full of holes (Ag. ). In its focus on transgression and retribution, guileful entrapment, and the slaughter of animals, the sinister pathos of Aeschylus’ tragic net imagery resonates through Oppian’s representation of the fish whose fates hang over their unwitting heads. The fisherman’s actions may be more shrewd than those of his victims, but, as with Clytemnestra – cast in the Agamemnon as a devious, exploitative fisherman – duplicitous guile is not always morally commendable, and the reader’s sympathy does not automatically lie with the fishermen. Mackerel leaping delightedly into the net, for instance,  

 



ἔρως: ., ., and cf. .; ἄιδος ἕρκος: ., .; ἄρκυν ὀλέθρου, ., .; ἀνοστήτοιο λόχοιο: ., .. Aesch. Ag. –: ἦ δίκτυόν τί γ’ Ἅιδου· | ἀλλ’ ἄρκυς ἡ ξύνευνος, ἡ ξυναιτία | φόνου (‘Indeed, she is some net of Hades [δίκτυόν . . . Ἅιδου]. But more, she is a net [ἄρκυς] that is a bedfellow, an accomplice in murder’). Clytemnestra is also represented as a bulwark (ἕρκος) of the Apian land at Ag. . Aesch. Ag. ; cf. the ἀπέραντον δίκτυον ἄτης (‘inescapable net of ruin’) described by Hermes at [Aesch.] PV . Referring to the rumours circulating about his death. Agamemnon’s opening address comments prematurely on his own safe return (νόστος, Aesch. Ag. ), comparing the Greek forces to a wild beast (Ag. ) and bloodthirsty lion (Ag. –), and claiming to have encircled the city of Troy with cruel πάγαι (nets or traps, Ag. ). The king’s misguided contrast between his own safe homecoming and the entrapment of the bestialised Trojans is a counterpart to Clytemnestra’s earlier warning, thinly veiled as a prayer, that greed and ἔρως may yet turn the Greek victors into victims and endanger their return home (Ag. –). Clytemnestra is represented as recklessly exploiting the resources of the sea: at Aesch. Ag. ff. she urges Agamemnon to tread the purple: ἔστιν θάλασσα, τίς δέ νιν κατασβέσει; (‘The sea exists, and who will dry it up?’).



Guile

are compared to inexperienced children who burn their hands out of a naïve fascination with fire; like these unwary innocents, the mackerel are soon in for a surprise, for they are strangled by the meshes of the net or are hauled out to die (.–). The guilelessness of fish may be represented not only as rash idiocy, in other words, but as foolish or innocent trust; the use of deception reflects as much on the ethics of the fisherman as on the fish, as we shall observe throughout this book. Both the debates over the capture of Troy and the net imagery of the Agamemnon remind us that the δόλος that underpins the fisherman’s use of bait, weels, and other lures is available to be read either as consummate intelligence, a fitting punishment for rash desire, or else as manipulative entrapment. If fishing is represented in the Halieutica as an archetypally Odyssean art, remarkable for its shimmering intelligence and shifting battlefield of wiles, then it is nevertheless open to the same potential criticisms as Odysseus’ own underhand tricks and penchant for manipulating even those who trust him. These are debates with a long and lively history in the ancient world, and Oppian offers a fresh didactic perspective on them by making much of the potential not only for the inversion of the epic representation of heroic warriors as captured animals, or of the Trojan Horse as a ship, but also for the overlap between real and metaphorical nets. By interweaving the literary and the literal, Oppian lays claim to the moral codes of transgression and punishment that underpin both epic and tragic realms, demonstrating that fish have an exemplary power that extends well beyond their status as food.

 

Greed

. Greedy Bellies Several of the themes that have emerged in the exploration of guile and trickery in Chapter  – Oppian’s emphasis on the Odyssean qualities of fishing, as well as a fascination with short-sighted or impulsive behaviour and its evil consequences – take on particular force in the third book of the Halieutica, which turns from cunning to greed, and from fish to fishing. Fish, we are told, are inescapably σιφλός – deficient, lazy, gluttonous, blindly self-destructive – and the fisherman’s use of bait turns the creatures’ own appetites against them, exploiting their precipitous passions: βαιοὺς δ’ ἐπὶ μείζοσιν ὁπλίζοιο. δείπνοις γὰρ μαργῶντες ἐπισπεύδουσιν ὄλεθρον· ἦ γὰρ ἀεὶ πλωτῶν σιφλὸν γένος ὑγρὰ θεόντων. (.–)

You should employ small [fish as bait] for the larger. For in their ravening greed for the meal they hasten their death; truly the swimming race that rushes through the water is ever gluttonous.

Oppian represents fishing as an act of retribution, these creatures’ deaths an inevitable consequence of their own voracious feasting. Book  returns repeatedly to impulsive and unrestrained greed, a recklessness that colours even the fishes’ movement as they ‘rush’ (θεόντων, .) through the sea. The fisherman’s actions, by contrast, reimpose order and control, functioning as a manifestation of a more rational consideration of the relationship between action and consequence. Book  opens with a mythical paradigm of punishment ostensibly introduced in praise of Hermes, tutelary deity of both fishermen and Cilicians. Hermes’ son Pan is said to have



The broad semantic field of σιφλός is important, as Gow :  observes.





Greed

used a banquet of fish in order to trick Typhon into venturing onto the shore, where the monster is defeated by Zeus in a shower of lightning: κεῖνος γὰρ δείπνοισιν ἐπ’ ἰχθυβόλοιο δολώσας σμερδαλέον Τυφῶνα παρήπαφεν ἔκ τε βερέθρου δύμεναι εὐρωποῖο καὶ εἰς ἁλὸς ἐλθέμεν ἀκτήν· ἔνθα μιν ὀξεῖαι στεροπαὶ ῥιπαί τε κεραυνῶν ζαφλεγέες πρήνιξαν· (.–)

For [Pan] tricked terrible Typhon with a meal of caught fish, and deceived him into emerging from his broad pit and coming to the shore of the sea. And there the piercing lightning and fiery blasts of thunderbolts dashed him to the ground . . .

The detail of the fishy meal is unusual, and exemplifies the poet’s message about the inevitable punishment of greed, chiming ominously with the fisherman’s practice of using smaller fish as ‘meals’ with which to tempt larger species. The fisherman’s restoration of order is aligned, by implication, with that of Zeus, just as in book  the capture of a vast and terrifying sea-monster is aligned with the god’s defeat of Typhon. After describing the appropriate physique, season, and equipment for fishing (.–), the poet turns to the types of fish that should be used to tempt each species (.–). A bare list of fish-names turns swiftly into a condemnation of greed: ἄλλῳ δ’ ἀλλοίην γενεὴν ἐπιτεχνάζοιο, κρέσσονι χειροτέρην· ἐπεὶ ἦ μάλα πάντες ἔασιν ἀλλήλοις φορβή τε φίλη καὶ λίχνος ὄλεθρος. ὣς οὐδὲν λιμοῖο κακώτερον οὐδὲ βαρείης γαστέρος, ἣ κρατέει μὲν ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἀπηνὴς καὶ χαλεπὴ δέσποινα συνέστιος οὔποτε δασμῶν ληθομένη, πολλοὺς δὲ παρασφήλασα νόοιο εἰς ἄτην ἐνέηκε καὶ αἴσχεσιν ἐγκατέδησε. γαστὴρ δὲ θήρεσσι καὶ ἑρπυστῆρσιν ἀνάσσει ἠερίῃς τ’ ἀγέλῃσι, τὸ δὲ πλέον ἐν νεπόδεσσι κάρτος ἔχει· κείνοις γὰρ ἀεὶ μόρος ἔπλετο γαστήρ. (.–)

You should manipulate one species against another, the weaker [as bait] for the stronger; for they are all welcome fodder to one another, a gluttonous destruction. So it is that nothing is worse than hunger and the burdensome belly, which rules cruelly over 

See further Chapter .

. Greedy Bellies



humankind and is a severe mistress to live with, never forgetting what it is due; it robs many of their wits and throws them into ruin and binds them tightly to disgrace. The belly rules too over wild beasts and reptiles and the flocks in the air, but it has more power over sea-creatures: for them the belly continually becomes their demise.

The ὄλεθρος of . represents both the death that the larger fish intends for the smaller, and also the fitting destruction that this fish will itself suffer as a result; compare the greed that hastens their own ὄλεθρος at .. The violent juxtaposition in the phrase φορβή τε φίλη καὶ λίχνος ὄλεθρος – pleasant fodder and gluttonous death – marks the leap from the perspective of the fish to that of the fisherman, from appealing food to deadly bait. The poet revels in the image of fish feasting greedily on what will be their final meal, sealing their fate through their urgent desire for food; as often, he juxtaposes the fish’s inability to see beyond its next meal with the fisherman’s awareness of the longer-term consequences of one’s actions. The γαστήρ – the belly, or hypostasised hunger and greed – is a cruel companion or mistress, a tyrant who rules not just animals but even men, robbing them of their wits and leading them into ruin, shame, and destruction. Oppian’s depiction of the belly as a χαλεπὴ δέσποινα (.) builds on the Greek tendency to personify abstract qualities and to depict moral vices as cruel masters or mistresses, while the censure of gluttony looks to philosophical traditions that examine the destructive influence of the appetites and emphasise the need for restraint and selfcontrol. In particular, the poet evokes Socratic disquisitions on the tyranny of the passions and the troubled relationship between body and soul, appetite and reason. Important precedents include the discussion in Plato’s Phaedrus of the tyranny of excessive desire for pleasure, including drunkenness and γαστριμαργία or gluttony (Pl. Phdr. a–b); the consideration of ἐγκράτεια or self-control in Xenophon’s Memorabilia .–, where Socrates meditates on ways to train the body in order to avoid ‘slavery to the belly, sleepiness and lustfulness’ (..); and the debate in 

Compare esp. the language of freedom and slavery in the discussion between Socrates and Critobulus in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, where idleness and moral weakness are depicted as masters. Gambling and other tendencies may seem appealing at first, but subsequently turn out to be deeply destructive ‘deceptive mistresses’ (ἀπατηλαί . . . δέσποιναι, Xen. Oec. .). Men who cannot control their desires are said to be enslaved by these cruel masters, some by gluttony (λιχνεία) and others by (e.g.) sexual desire or drunkenness (δοῦλοι γάρ εἰσι καὶ οὗτοι, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, καὶ πάνυ γε χαλεπῶν δεσποτῶν, οἱ μὲν λιχνειῶν, οἱ δὲ λαγνειῶν, οἱ δὲ οἰνοφλυγιῶν, Xen. Oec. .).



Greed

Plato’s Phaedo about the distinction between body and soul (Pl. Phd. a). In this last Socrates discourses to Cebes on the ability of the true philosopher’s soul to free itself from the shackles of bodily desires and so make its way towards the divine. The souls of men who have indulged in corporeal vices like gluttony or a love of drinking (γαστριμαργία and φιλοποσία, Pl. Phd. e–a) will not be set free, but will eventually transmigrate into the bodies of donkeys or other unrestrained wild animals. Only the souls of philosophers, Socrates claims, will avoid eventual imprisonment in the bodies of animals, and will instead pass into the divine, avoiding bondage to bodily pleasure and pain altogether. The Halieutica builds on the Phaedo in its representation of human and non-human animals bound together in a hierarchy of greed and bodily subservience, and the poet cements this association verbally with his use of ἐγκαταδέω, a verb used previously only in the Phaedo. Oppian describes the belly that binds men tightly to shame or disgrace (αἴσχεσιν ἐγκατέδησε, .), picking up on Socrates’ claim that the soul is fastened or welded (ἐγκαταδεῖν) to the body thanks to its acquiescence to bodily desires, but that the soul of the philosopher will choose instead to follow the dictates of reason. These Platonic concerns remained influential in the imperial period: Dio Chrysostom’s final discourse (Or. ), for instance, focuses on the moral freedom of the philosopher who leads a life unfettered by worldly constraints and vices. The speech refers repeatedly to the invisible bonds (δέσμα, Or. .–) by which men allow themselves to be bound not just by the neck but also by the stomach (γαστήρ) and other parts of the body (Or. .); Dio imagines the process as a kind of willing slavery effected by a δέσποινα χαλεπή (Or. ., ) whose superficial appeal disguises the oppressive servitude she imposes. Two aspects of this 

 



Cf. esp. the proposition in Plato’s Timaeus that the human propensity for γαστριμαργία and excessive consumption would render men incapable of philosophy or culture, and of heeding the most ‘divine’ parts within us, were it not forestalled by the gods’ careful arrangement of the human digestive tract (Pl. Ti. e–a). Or into human bodies, in the case of just and moderate but non-philosophical men. Socrates observes that the philosopher’s soul, unlike that of most men, would not think, ‘while [philosophy] is setting [the soul] free, that it should of its own accord surrender itself for the pleasures and pains to bind it firmly back in again [to the body]’ (λυούσης δὲ ἐκείνης, αὐτὴν παραδιδόναι ταῖς ἡδοναῖς καὶ λύπαις ἑαυτὴν πάλιν αὖ ἐγκαταδεῖν, Pl. Phd. a). As often, Dio seems to have been influenced by both Plato and Xenophon; for his admiration for the latter see e.g. Dio Chrys. Or. .–. Compare Or. , in which the universe is imagined as a kind of prison (δεσμωτήριον, Or. .; cf. Pl. Phd. b) in which men are said by a philosopher to have been bound by interlocking chains of bodily pleasure and pain; these can be ‘filed away’ by the application of λόγος or reason. The theme of gluttony and vice recurs when Dio offers a competing

. Greedy Bellies



philosophical tradition are particularly important for our interpretation of the Halieutica. The first is the emphasis on the need for rationality and philosophical restraint in order to escape the ‘tyranny’ of bodily desires; the second is the notion that gluttony and the demands of the belly constitute that aspect of the human condition that most firmly ties humans to animals and separates us from the divine. Oppian’s emphasis on the γαστήρ also builds on the terrible power of that organ in the Odyssey. The stomach acts as a prime motivating force throughout the epic, and is explicitly discussed on a number of occasions, as when the shipwrecked Odysseus enters Alcinous’ palace on Scheria and pleads with the king to let him eat before telling his tale: ἀλλ’ ἐμὲ μὲν δορπῆσαι ἐάσατε κηδόμενόν περ· οὐ γάρ τι στυγερῇ ἐπὶ γαστέρι κύντερον ἄλλο ἔπλετο, ἥ τ’ ἐκέλευσεν ἕο μνήσασθαι ἀνάγκῃ καὶ μάλα τειρόμενον καὶ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ πένθος ἔχοντα, ὡς καὶ ἐγὼ πένθος μὲν ἔχω φρεσίν, ἡ δὲ μάλ’ αἰεὶ ἐσθέμεναι κέλεται καὶ πινέμεν, ἐκ δέ με πάντων ληθάνει, ὅσσ’ ἔπαθον, καὶ ἐνιπλησθῆναι ἀνώγει. (Hom. Od. .–)

‘But let me eat dinner, even though I am troubled. For nothing is more shameless [lit. ‘doglike’] than the hateful belly, which demands forcibly that it be remembered even by someone in great distress who has grief in his heart. I too have grief in my heart, and yet [the belly] constantly commands me to eat and drink, and makes me forget everything I have suffered, and demands that it be filled up.’

The tyranny of the near-personified stomach (ἐκέλευσεν, κέλεται, ἀνώγει), its bestial(ising) quality (κύντερον), the continual nature of its demands (μάλ’ αἰεί), and the opposition between the physical immediacy of the belly



account by a rustic (Or. .ff.) that the universe is instead a house, and life a symposium at which men can either indulge their quasi-bestial greed, gorging themselves, gambling and drinking the pleasure poured out by the cup-bearer ἀκράτεια (intemperance), or can exercise restraint, drinking the smaller draughts of pleasure offered by νοῦς (reason) and drunk from the bowl of σωφροσύνη (self-control). Or.  is modelled in part on Plato’s Phaedo (on which see Moles ; Trapp : –); Philostratus claims that Plato’s Phaedo was one of the two texts that Dio took with him when he lived among the Getae (Philostr. VS ). Odysseus’ presence in the palace has already been determined by his stomach: the hero had approached Nausicaa like a ravening lion whose ‘stomach commands it’ (κέλεται δέ ἑ γαστήρ, Hom. Od. .) to hunt for sheep. As critics have noted, the gastric motivations of this lion simile rewrite the Iliadic lion simile in which Sarpedon attacks the Greek ramparts like a ravening lion whose bold ‘heart commands it’ (κέλεται δέ ἑ θυμός, Il. .) to hunt for sheep. While both lions are driven by hunger, the bold Iliadic θυμός is replaced in the Odyssey by the bodily drive of the γαστήρ. See esp. Pucci : –; Svenbro : –; Vernant : –; Bakker : –.



Greed

and the deferred concerns of the mind (μνήσασθαι, φρεσί, φρεσίν, ληθάνει) combine to create of the γαστήρ a malign force whose influence pervades not only this epic but the wider Greek tradition. In the Odyssey the concerns of the belly reduce human and non-human animals to their lowest common denominator: the need for food. The γαστήρ motivates the hero not only on Scheria but also on Ithaca, where Odysseus rails against the stomach and its baneful effects on mankind, remarking that ‘men have evil troubles because of their accursed belly’, and that ‘there is no way to hide a ravening belly, an accursed thing that brings men many evils’ and encourages them to set out to sea. In this sense the Halieutica too details not only the greed of fish, but also the marine adventures inspired by mankind’s own alimentary drive, namely the need to catch fish. Oppian’s representation of the gluttony of fish is pervaded by a quasiOdyssean consciousness of the perils of the belly’s shameless, irrepressible demand for food. Fish are dominated by their greed, which leads swiftly to their downfall at the fisherman’s hands. The stomach truly is a cruel mistress. When fish take the bait, moreover, this is frequently presented as a perverted ‘feast’, the fish guzzling like banqueters blithely unaware of the fatal consequences of their meal. The poet looks here to the reckless feasting of both Penelope’s suitors and Odysseus’ companions. The disguised Odysseus may be tormented by the suitors for his allegedly gastric motivations, but the warnings of this ‘beggar’ about the belly’s demands apply as much to the suitors as to himself. The illicit consumption of









Irus eats and drinks continually (μετὰ δ’ ἔπρεπε γαστέρι μάργῃ | ἀζηχὲς φαγέμεν καὶ πιέμεν, Hom. Od. .–); Melanthius accuses Odysseus of being a greedy, troublesome beggar who hangs around feasts and would prefer ‘to feed his insatiable belly’ (βόσκειν ἣν γαστέρ’ ἄναλτον, Od. .) than to do any real work, a taunt echoed by Eurymachus at .–; cf. Eumaeus’ promise at Od. .–. Hom. Od. .–: ἕνεκ’ οὐλομένης γαστρὸς κακὰ κήδε’ ἔχουσιν | ἀνέρες; Od. .–: γαστέρα δ’ οὔ πως ἔστιν ἀποκρύψαι μεμαυῖαν, | οὐλομένην, ἣ πολλὰ κάκ’ ἀνθρώποισι δίδωσι· | τῆς ἕνεκεν καὶ νῆες ἐΰζυγοι ὁπλίζονται | πόντον ἐπ’ ἀτρύγετον κακὰ δυσμενέεσσι φέρουσαι. This last implies too that the γαστήρ inspires not only evils and base piracy, but also martial adventure and perhaps the kind of maritime heroism that Odysseus himself embodies. Compare the Homeric heroes forced by their bellies to catch fish (Hom. Od. .–, .–), as well as the contrast drawn by Oppian between a fish’s desire to eat and the human desire to eat those very fish, the belly implicitly motivating both acts (thus Hal. .–). See e.g. Hom. Od. .–; Od. .–, where Odysseus and Irus or Arnaeus fight for the prize of goat γαστέρες and future meals, the γαστήρ here functioning as both motivating impulse and reward; the successive victories over the beggar and the suitors are linked by the κληδών at Od. .–, and by the suitors’ surprise at Odysseus’ appearance at Od. .–, both to be paralleled at Od. .–.

. Greedy Bellies



Helios’ cattle by Odysseus’ companions in turn operates as an analogue for the suitors’ consumption of the hero’s resources on Ithaca: both groups are castigated as νήπιοι and are said to have perished thanks to their own ἀτασθαλίη. Central to each half of the epic, therefore, is the punishment of transgressive or perverted feasting, and from the opening lines we are reminded of the fatal consequences of eating what is not one’s own to consume. The Odyssey was available to be read, in other words, as a work valorising self-control in the face of hunger and adversity – Odysseus has manifestly learned, for instance, not only from his reckless boasts but from his ill-advised consumption of food in the cave of the Cyclops – while punishing its opposite. The different species of fish treated in Hal.  encapsulate important permutations of these themes, in which the poet layers Odyssean reminiscences with other models of feasting and consumption. Three of the species detailed in this book – the black sea bream, grey mullet, and anthias – will serve to illustrate, respectively, the paradigms of reckless greed and indolence, of self-restraint, and of conviviality and patronage that are presented in the Halieutica.









Thus e.g. Hom. Od. .–. At Od. . Odysseus calls his companions νήπιοι for failing to obey his instruction to leave immediately after sacking the city of the Cicones; the suitors are castigated as νήπιοι by the narrator at Od. . for failing to realise that their own destruction is imminent after Odysseus kills Antinous; cf. Medon at Od. .. At e.g. Od. ., ., ., ., the suitors’ ἀτασθαλίη is said to have brought about their destruction. Odysseus’ companions are unable to fulfil the usual sacrificial rituals on Thrinacia, but consume the forbidden cattle all the same; their meat crawls and bellows on the spits, yet they eat for a further six days before they die (Hom. Od. .–, –). The suitors too devour the absent ruler’s resources (including his cattle: see Od. .–), and are likewise confronted with a hideous omen as they eat (Od. .–); the blood that defiles their meat is echoed by Theoclymenus’ vision of the suitors’ blood spattering the palace. As Bakker : – observes, the proem places disproportionate emphasis on the consumption of Helios’ cattle, which is presented as the sole cause of the companions’ deaths (Hom. Od. .-), although it is not the shipwreck on leaving Thrinacia but the encounter with the Laestrygonians that causes catastrophic losses to Odysseus’ crew, destroying eleven of his twelve ships. (Od. .–; see . for the number of ships). The γαστήρ explicitly causes the companions to ignore their oath to Odysseus (Od. .–); Eurylochus opts for death by drowning rather than death by hunger, which he deems the worst of all deaths (Od. .–, –). Odysseus exercises restraint both on his adventures and on Ithaca, restraining himself from killing Irus (Hom. Od. .–) and the maidservants (Od. .–). Heraclitus the Allegorist devotes chapter  of his Homeric Problems to the claim that Odysseus represents a model of virtuous restraint in the face of every vice, rejecting pleasure (the Lotus Eaters), shamelessness, audacity, and greed (Scylla), lavish profligacy and insatiable drinking (Charybdis), and other vices. Some of these interpretations are more firmly rooted in the Homeric text than others, but Heraclitus’ explanation of the episode on Thrinacia makes the cattle, not implausibly, a model for his self-control (ἐγκράτεια) over the belly (γαστήρ), .). On Heraclitus see Russell and Konstan ; it is unfortunate that Heraclitus’ comments on most of Odysseus’ time on Ithaca do not survive.



Greed

.

Youthful Indolence

Let us start with the black sea bream. The fisherman baits a disguised wicker fish-trap with food, and once the bream have overcome their initial reluctance they are soon enticed inside: ἔνθα δ’ ἔπειτα κυρτεὺς μὲν κείνοισιν ἀεὶ νεοτερπέα φορβὴν ἐντίθεται· τοὺς δ’ αἶψα δυσώνυμος ἐντὸς ἀγείρει γαστήρ, ἄλλον δ’ ἄλλος ἄγει σύνδορπον ἑταῖρον. ἤδη δ’ ἀτρομέοντες ἀολλέες ἔνδοθι κύρτου ἀγρόμενοι πρόπαν ἦμαρ ἐνήμενοι, ὥστε μέλαθρον κτησάμενοι, μίμνουσι, κακὴν δ’ εὕραντο καλιήν. ὡς δ’ ὁπότ’ ὀρφανικοῖο μετ’ ἠιθέοιο μέλαθρον οὔτι σαοφροσύνῃσι μεμηλότες ἥλικες ἄλλοι κλητοί τ’ αὐτόμολοί τε πανήμεροι ἠγερέθονται, κτῆσιν ἀεὶ κείροντες ἀσημάντοιο δόμοιο, οἷα νέους ἀνίησι χαλίφρονας ἄκριτος ἥβη, ἐκ δὲ κακοφροσύνης ἰκέλην εὕραντο τελευτήν· ὣς τοῖς ἀγρομένοισι παρασχεδὸν ἵσταται ἄτη. ἡνίκα γὰρ πολλοί τε καὶ εὐλιπέες τελέθωσι, δὴ τότ’ ἀνὴρ κύρτοιο περὶ στόμα πῶμα καλύπτει εὖ ἀραρός· τοὺς δ’ ἔνδον ἐν ἕρκεϊ πεπτηῶτας ὑστάτιον κνώσσοντας ἀνείρυσεν· ὀψὲ δ’ ὄλεθρον φρασσάμενοι σπαίρουσι καὶ ἐκδῦναι μεμάασι, νήπιοι, οὐδ’ ἔτι κύρτον ὁμῶς εὔοικον ἔχουσιν. (.–)

And after that the weel-fisher continually places new and pleasing food inside it for them; and immediately evil-omened gluttony gathers them inside. And one brings another as a fellow dining companion. Now unafraid, they gather together in throngs, sitting inside the weel all day long as if they had obtained a house, and there they remain, but the nest they have found is an evil one. As when in the house of a fatherless youth others of the same age – who pay no heed to self-control – gather all day long, some invited and some of their own accord, and they continually devour the possession of the masterless home, the kind of behaviour to which reckless youth urges slack-minded young men, but from their evil designs they meet a similar end; so ruin stands close at hand for [the fish that] have gathered. For when they become numerous and well fattened, then the man covers the opening of the weel with a well-fitting lid, and draws up those that huddle inside the enclosure, sleeping their last. And realising their ruin too late, they pant and struggle to escape: fools, who no longer find the weel such a comfortable home.

The indolent bream, figured as adolescents, do not stop to consider the consequences of their behaviour: their χαλιφροσύνη (slack-mindedness,

. Youthful Indolence



.) and lack of σαοφροσύνη (self-control, .) becomes a more sinister imprudence, a κακοφροσύνη (foolish or wicked thinking, .) that seals their imminent doom. The scene is Odyssean in both vocabulary and theme: in its emphasis on the δυσώνυμος . . . γαστήρ that brings about great misfortune, in the notion of dining in abundance ‘all day long’ (πρόπαν ἦμαρ), and above all in its vision of greedy, undisciplined interlopers who are lulled into a false sense of security before their fates are sealed en masse. The pattern of transgression and punishment is firmly framed, so that the capture of these fish effectively builds on the evil end suggested in the simile in which young men gather in the house of an unmarried friend and lay waste to its possessions in its master’s absence (κτῆσιν ἀεὶ κείροντες ἀσημάντοιο δόμοιο, .), an image that of course recalls the suitors remaining ‘continually’ in the house and ravaging the absent Odysseus’ possessions (κτήματα κείροντες). In the Odyssey this formulation looks to the eventual punishment of the suitors for their folly: compare especially Hom. Od. .–, where the suitors are excoriated as νήπιοι (cf. Hal. .) for consuming Odysseus’ possessions without realising that he will eventually exact his revenge, and Od. .–, where the slaughter of the suitors is described as a result of their ἀφροσύνη in ‘consuming the possessions’ of a man they thought would not return. So too these bream will be ‘punished’, and the implication at . that the youths of the simile will an end appropriate to their wickedness collapses together the fates of suitors, bream, and adolescents. Even the representation of the sea bream ‘huddling’ or ‘fallen’ (πεπτηῶτας) in the weel as it is hauled up replays the famous simile in which the ‘fallen’ (πεπτεῶτας) suitors are compared to throngs of fish that have been hauled out of the sea in a net. The extended simile heightens the anthropomorphism that pervades the vignette as a whole: the greedy bream earlier bring their ‘fellow diners’ and ‘sit’ in the weel as if they had obtained a μέλαθρον, and they are introduced from the outset as a species that the fishermen is able to trick with food and ‘feasts’ (εἰλαπίνῃσι). The moral status of the εἰλαπίνη is an issue raised at the very start of the Odyssey, where Athena interrogates

   



See Hom. Od. ., ; ., ; .; .; Il. .. See Fajen : –, however, for discussion of the variant πᾶν ἦμαρ at Hal. .. Bartley : – is oddly tentative, and looks rather to verbal parallels with other texts. See esp. Hom. Od. .–, ., .–, .; cf. Od. .–, .–, where they devour his livelihood. Hom. Od. .–; the Oppianic scholia gloss πεπτηῶτας as (amongst other possibilities) πεσόντας. The Odyssean fish simile is also recalled in the poet’s representation of mackerel caught in the net (.–), discussed in Chapter . .–: ἄλλους δ’ αὖ βρώμῃσι καὶ εἰλαπίνῃσι δολώσας | ἄγρην πιανέεις.



Greed

Telemachus on the nature of the suitors’ feasting, asking what meal or gathering – τίς δαίς, τίς δὲ ὅμιλος – this is, whether it is perhaps a weddingfeast or a banquet (εἰλαπίνη) given by a single man (Hom. Od. .–). Importantly, it is not an ἔρανος or shared participatory meal, and these men feast arrogantly and outrageously; the verb εἰλαπινάζω is used in the Odyssey only of the suitors’ presumptive, abandoned revelry. The act of feasting is thus presented as a moral issue that marks the suitors’ perversion of the heroic model of the shared sacrificial meal: they do not engage in ritualised communal feasting as a reward for their contribution to the wider good, but instead recklessly exploit the resources of a single man. So too the Halieutica represents the rash, violent, and exploitative consumption that motivates fish as a perversion of a more civilised banquet. Athena exclaims that a sensible man would be horrified at seeing such αἴσχεα (Od. .); compare Oppian’s earlier comment that the belly binds men to shameful deeds’ (αἴσχεσιν ἐγκατέδησε, .). The Halieutica, moreover, picks up on the Odyssean representation of the suitors’ death at their feast as a fitting punishment for those who are driven by insatiable consumption, and as itself a kind of gruesome ‘meal’ (Od. .–, .–). Here and elsewhere Oppian elevates this macabre symmetry into an all-pervasive irony, and the symbolic finality of these last moments is drawn out in full. Not only will the fish that are bent on consumption find in the baited hook a final feast, and those that delight in indolence sleep their last inside the weel, but those that delight in the ‘marriage bed’ will find their satisfaction in the ‘bed of Hades’, and those that grow fat on easy food will themselves in time fatten others. The black sea bream, urged into the weel by the demands of their γαστήρ (.), will find themselves trapped in the cavernous γαστήρ (hollow or bulge, .) of that very same vessel. The principle of a fitting retribution for one’s behaviour could not be more clearly outlined. Yet there is a further force to Oppian’s representation of the sea bream as νήπιοι, for these fish are cast as misguided adolescents rather than fully grown men. Their castigation as νήπιοι (.) therefore takes on a double sense. The semantic field of νήπιος and cognates encompasses both ‘child’ and ‘fool,’ and the word is employed in the Halieutica five times in each sense. Yet these are by no means fully separate categories, and the impact    

 Hom. Od. .; ., . See esp. Saïd ; Saïd : –. See de Jong : , , ,  on the ‘disturbed meal’ motif. See esp. .; .: αὐτοὶ πιανθέντες ἐοικότα πιαίνουσιν. Children: ., ; .; ., . Fools: ., , ; ., .

. Youthful Indolence



of the word νήπιος derives precisely from this fluidity. As John Heath puts it, ‘νήπιος and its compounds can simply denote the young (“child, infant, offspring”) . . . but these words are also often used to characterize an adult acting in a childish, thoughtless, or improvident fashion – “fool” is the common translation, although the difference between “foolish” and “childish” can be difficult to distinguish’. The foolish bream are figured not as adults but as adolescents who never stop to consider the consequences of their actions, and Oppian repeatedly compares fish to vulnerable infants, foolish children, or wayward adolescents: dentex, for instance, rejoice even whilst hooked, like children delighting in sports (.), while mackerel enticed into the fisherman’s net are compared to infants putting their hand into a flame out of foolishness or childishness (.–). Grouped together as deficient in λόγος and incapable of real engagement in adult society, the child, the fool, and the animal all represent the imperfectly socialised or intellectually deficient. So too ancient philosophers frequently align the capabilities of children and animals, and the model of human childhood underpins a number of ancient theories about the degree of similarity between humans and animals. The comparison of fish to children lends a pathos to their capture, as when the impulses of mackerel are likened to the innocent delight felt by inexperienced (ἀπείρητοι, .) children; compare the νήπια τέκνα of the Homeric epics, those vulnerable infants that function as paradigms of helplessness in the midst of war. Yet this innocence is tinged with a more sinister edge, for Oppian shows us not children but fish that act like children; as in the Homeric epics, although the νήπιον τέκνον is usually an object of pity, when other figures are described as a νήπιος this is a proleptic marker, a sign that the character has erred and is about to die.  



 

Heath : . Cf. modern Greek μωρό, ‘baby’. The perceived etymology of the word νήπιος frequently marks the νήπιος as a social outlier, a figure who cannot speak or who is disconnected from the structuring bonds of society. Hesychius glosses the derivative νηπύτιον with ἄφωνον (cf. the Latin infans, lit. ‘unable to speak’), from νη- + ἠπύω; contrast Frisk : II., III.; Chantraine : ; Beekes : –, esp. . Edmunds : –, following Lacroix , derives the word from the negation of ἤπιος as ‘lacking a connection’, ‘deficient in social cohesion’. Arist. HA a–b declares the soul of a young child similar to that of a wild beast. Cic. Fin. . reports Epicurus’ theory that children and animals alike are specula naturae. The comparison between the two was also central to Stoic theories about language, logos, and cognition: Diogenes of Babylon, for instance, held that children were little different from irrational animals until the age of fourteen, for which see Diog. Laert. . (SVF , Diogenes of Babylon, fr. ). E.g. Hom. Il. ., ; .; ., , ; .; .; .; .; .; Od. .; .; .. See esp. Edmunds : –, noting that of the thirty-eight occasions on which the word is applied to adults, twenty-seven result in that figure’s death. νήπιος, moreover, is a rare example of a



Greed

νήπιοι in the Homeric epics act in a deluded fashion or fail to exhibit the behaviour appropriate to a rational adult, inviting punishment through their own incorrigible foolishness: Nastes carries gold into battle like a girl, Patroclus begs to borrow Achilles’ arms, Odysseus’ companions eat the cattle of Helios, and Penelope’s suitors revel in their complacent hubris. To act like a νήπιος is to overlook the consequences of one’s actions, and to consign oneself to an early death: the word is applied ‘to adults who are unintelligent or unknowing, who put their trust in the wrong things or are deceived’, to ‘those who do not understand battle and its design, or the gods and their design’, and to those who, like children, have not learned the ways of war. In depicting a series of νήπιοι who err and are punished, Oppian provides a version of the model of transgression and retribution familiar from the Homeric epics. Fish like the sea bream (.), melanurus (.), swordfish (.), and tuna (.) are overcome by their greedy desires and remain blind to the consequences of their actions; they act like νήπιοι and seal their own fates. Fishing serves to remind us of the inevitable consequences of reckless or irrational impulses. Yet Oppian’s analogies with children also signal an important difference between man and beast: whereas a child soon learns not to put its hand in the fire, and a youth, it is hoped, will eventually grow up and join the world of the rational, socialised adult, these fish will not – or rather, cannot – learn from their mistakes. Their error is their death. The obtuseness of the νήπιοι in this poem in part encourages the reader to enter into a sort of complicity with the poet in despairing (and taking advantage) of these recalcitrant fish. Phillip Mitsis, arguing that in De rerum natura Lucretius casts Memmius as a foolish child in need of instruction, has similarly outlined Lucretius’ strategy of ‘using and abusing the addressee as a népios,’ a move that, as he sees it, allows the audience to collude with the poet over the addressee’s stupidity. Oppian at times engages in a similar enterprise, as when melanurus fish are addressed as fools who do not realise the superior intellect of the men who capture them (νήπιοι, οὐδ’ ἐδάησαν ὅσον πινυτώτεροι ἄνδρες, | οἳ κείνους καὶ πάμπαν ἀλευομένους ἕλον ἄγρῃ, .–). A contrast is set up between the foolish fish (νήπιοι) and their human captors, who are endowed with an

  

Homeric term of rebuke employed both in character speech and by the primary narrator; see e.g. Griffin ; de Jong a: . Hom. Il. .; . (and cf. .); Od. .; . (and cf. .; .), etc. Ingalls : , and elaborated at –; Vermeule : ; cf. Ulf : - on childishness. Mitsis : , and referring at  to the reader ‘winking with the poet behind the back of the fool’.

. Youthful Indolence



antithetical wisdom and intelligence (πινυτή); the reader is naturally implicated in this human intelligence. It is therefore important to look to the νήπιοι not just of martial epic but of the wider didactic tradition. While the Homeric νήπιος is a character often doomed to certain death, the Hesiodic νήπιος, for all his foolishness and obstinacy, is singled out as the recipient of the poet’s precepts; the very fact that the poet addresses himself to this νήπιος implies a certain recognition of the addressee’s capacity to absorb the poet’s exhortations and to change his behaviour accordingly. The νήπιος addressed in a didactic poem thus stands at the centre of that text’s structural model of education and progress, with education and the acquisition of knowledge representing the focal point of the didactic enterprise as a whole. This is a model of instruction and improvement in which the νήπιος (whether fool or child) becomes a symbol of the potential to learn, hinting at a more dynamic element to the relationship between poet, reader, and addressee. This is a relationship that ‘calls our attention to the process of instruction’, and to the poet’s power to effect a change in his audience or addressee. When in the Works and Days Hesiod casts Perses as the fool who ought to listen to his brother’s advice, ἐργάζευ, νήπιε Πέρση, | ἔργα τά τ’ ἀνθρώποισι θεοὶ διετεκμήραντο (Op. –), and declares that he will show him how to better himself, σοὶ δ’ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση (Op. ), this stubborn addressee becomes the focus for the didactic process foregrounded through the poem. As Don Fowler has argued, didactic poetry is often structured around the ‘plot’ of the acquisition of knowledge, which is in essence a dynamic process. The reader is called upon to imagine the position of the 

  



Although the poem offers numerous examples of cunning fish eluding or capturing one another (and occasionally defeating even the fisherman), we are also regularly confronted with incorrigible stupidity on the part of these fish. The idiotic swordfish, for instance, is said to perish through its own folly: μέγα νήπιος ἀφροσύνῃσιν | ὄλλυται, .–. Although the dim-witted creature never seems to learn, we as readers can hardly fail to engage with the poet’s warnings about the dangers of rash stupidity, particularly in contrast with the rhetoric of the fisherman’s intellectual superiority over the swordfish (see e.g. .–). Cf. Effe : . Cf. Hes. Op. : παθὼν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω, or Menelaus’ threat at Hom. Il. .. See esp. the parallels collected in West : . Mitsis : . Cf. Toohey : : ‘[i]t is the implied presence of the student, our addressee, which turns the merely informative into the instructive’; Conte : xxi: ‘[b]y its very nature, the didactic structure requires and valorizes the function of the addressee’. See, in general, the collection of Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay . Fowler . As Kromer :  puts it, ‘[u]nlike encomiastic poetry, which focuses on the attainment of a particular goal, didactic poetry emphasizes the process through which it is reached’. Mitsis  is refined by Schiesaro ; cf. also Fowler ; Gale ; contrast Keen ;



Greed

addressee as part of an ongoing pedagogical relationship between poet, addressee, and implied reader. This is a reading of didactic poetry that privileges movement, change, development - not just knowledge, but the process of learning. We, as human beings, have the ability to learn from the mistakes of these fish in a way that the fish themselves cannot.

. Deliberation In a sea otherwise awash with complacent greed, the κεστρεύς or grey mullet stands out for its virtue and restraint. This vegetarian fish, one of the few creatures not to act on immediate impulse, is portrayed as the most righteous species of the sea (δικαιότατον γένος ἅλμης, .), a creature that nurtures the most gentle and just mind (πρηΰτατόν τε δικαιότατόν τε νόημα, .), and that embodies the principles of justice, restraint, and concord that other fish patently lack. This status is imagined to stem not from any anatomical peculiarity but from its deliberate decision to remain undefiled by blood. The consumption of living flesh is a prospect ‘abjured’ (ἀπώμοτον, .) by the grey mullet, a pure race that does no harm (αἵματος ἄχραντοι καὶ ἀκηδέες, ἁγνὰ γένεθλα, .). So remarkable is this behaviour that the flesh of its offspring is considered taboo by other fish, the only occasion on which Δίκη or Justice is said to enter the marine world (.–). Popular conceptions of the grey mullet accord it a similarly restrained character. Fabled for having empty intestines when caught, the mullet supposedly chose to starve rather than feed on flesh; the proverb κεστρεὺς νηστεύει – ‘the mullet goes hungry’ – was used of those who behaved honestly, as well as for the fasting or unfed. Yet even the judicious grey mullet eventually falls victim to its stomach, for all that it is no glutton (καὶ οὐ λίχνον περ ἐόντα, .). The mullet is attracted by the scent of mint in a rudimentary mint-cake, and the account of its capture is interrupted by an extended aetiology of that herb (.–). Importantly, the myth of mint operates as yet another paradigm of transgression and punishment, for Minthe’s destruction





Clay : . For the alleged development of Hesiod’s Perses as addressee, see Clay ; Konstan : ; Clay :  argues against e.g. West : –, if perhaps overstating the linearity of this ‘progress’. On the pedagogical relationship between poet and addressee in didactic poetry, see Fakas b: –, who conceives of the Phaenomena and the Works and Days as ‘Unterweisungsdramen’; cf. Semanoff : –. Athen. .c–b; for the proverb, Zenob. .. Libanius, for instance, cautions Clement against becoming too much of a self-sacrificing νῆστις κεστρεύς in his honest reluctance to profit from others (Lib. Ep. ).

. Deliberation



(.) or metamorphosis (.) at the hands of Demeter is represented as the direct result of her own arrogance, jealousy, and delusion (ἄτη, .). Oppian’s description of the mint-cake, moreover, heightens the close relationship between fish-bait and mythical paradigm and marks a further fusion of the literal and the literary, for in describing the cake as a mixture of mint and flour, the poet refers metonymically to the latter as ‘Demeter’ (.), strikingly uniting in the fisherman’s bait the tale’s two protagonists, Minthe (the metamorphosed transgressor) and Demeter (the goddess who punished the transgression). If the myth of Minthe represents a paradigm of transgression and punishment, then the mullet’s own transgression is to consume the physical embodiment of the very paradigm that it ought instead to heed. Oppian revels once more in the mixing of registers, shuttling rapidly between the mythical and the technical, and exploiting the trope of metonymy in order to make a humble fish devour the vengeful Demeter. Oppian’s account of the grey mullet occupies more than forty lines (.–), for most of which the fish deliberates at length as to whether the cake is a trap or innocuous food, a level of awareness that already marks it out as more reflective than most other fish in this poem. The mullet, it seems, is a fish that ‘thinks’, and this process is dramatised by two extended similes in which humans make up their minds: the first a wayfarer deliberating at a crossroads, and the second a young girl (κούρη) tempted by a forbidden delicacy in her mother’s absence, but afraid of the repercussions from her mother. The image of the man who stands pondering his options at a crossroads, and whose mind fluctuates ‘like a wave’ before he at last makes up his mind (νόος δέ οἱ ἠύτε κῦμα | εἱλεῖται, μάλα δ᾿ ὀψὲ μιῆς ὠρέξατο βουλῆς, .–), offers a distinctively marine take on famous moments of (in)decision. The scene at one level replays Apollonius’ representation of the anxious and love-sick Medea (herself, of course, another indecisive κούρη wavering as she contemplates flouting parental control) as her mind flutters and creeps after the retreating Jason like a dream (νόος δέ οἱ ἠύτ’ ὄνειρος | ἑρπύζων πεπότητο, A.R. Arg. .–), while the decision of this stranger (ξεῖνος, .) at last to take 



The impression of a highly literary form of bait is heightened not only by Oppian’s epic register, but by the description of the bait as a mixture of flour and γάλακτος | πηκτοῖσιν δώροισιν (‘gifts of curdled milk’, .–), a periphrastic formulation whose poeticism is augmented by adjectival enallage, a favourite Oppianic trope that itself blurs the boundaries between different domains. See e.g. Bers : : ‘enallage bridges the figurative and the prosaic. The effect is paradoxical.’ Importantly, other authors ascribe the metamorphosis to Persephone rather than Demeter: see Strab. ..; Σ. Nic. Alex. ; Ov. Met..; Phot. μ .



Greed

one route rather than the other (μάλα δ’ ὀψέ . . .) looks to the eventual resolution of Homeric scenes of hesitation more widely (ὀψὲ δὲ δή . . .). We shall return in the next chapter to Apollonius’ love-struck Medea (Section ., ‘The “Spells” of Desire’), but it is worth noting that Oppian’s dramatisation of the stranger’s indecision also looks thematically to an important philosophical set piece: Prodicus’ parable of Heracles standing at the crossroads as he decides upon the path of his life, weighing up Ἀρετή and Κακία, the hard route of virtuous moderation or the easy, deceptive pleasures of the flesh. The τρίοδος here represents an exhortation to reflect upon one’s way of life, a difficult decision between two alternatives with vastly different consequences, and the parallel suggests the difficult psychological process of choosing between a life governed by moderation and restraint and that ruled by an animalistic drive towards immediate gratification. It is telling, in this light, that the second extended simile in this vignette – the girl deliberating over whether or not to pinch a cake in her mother’s absence – should feature a child whose immaturity is triply reiterated (νηπίαχος κούρη πάις, .). As with the black sea bream gathering like teenagers in a ‘masterless’ house, and indeed the transgressions of the κόρη Minthe, whose youthful arrogance is quashed mercilessly by her rival’s mother, the simile focuses on the problematic absence of the kind of rational self-control represented by a far-sighted, authoritative adult. We have already noted the parallels drawn by ancient philosophers between children and animals, as well as the didactic poet’s implicit emphasis that human beings, unlike fish, have the capacity to develop and train their own rational capabilities. So too Xenophon’s Prodicus observes at the very start of his parable that Heracles faced his choice during the transitional period of adolescence, a time in which youths ‘become their own masters’. Again and again the Halieutica returns to the theme of (self-)mastery and control, whether that force be the χαλεπὴ δέσποινα – the imperious stomach that dictates the actions of fish – or the fisherman’s swift retributive action. 





ὀψὲ δὲ δή:
 in Homer, as for instance at Od. ., when the desperate Odysseus’ supplication of Arete is at last determined by Echeneus’ speech in favour of this mysterious ‘stranger’ (ξεῖνος, Od. ., , ). Xen. Mem. ..–; cf. Hes. Op. –. See Galinsky : –; Fitzgerald and White :  n. ; Gera : . The parable was a popular Stoic and Cynic image; see also Zen .; cf. Halliwell :  on Thgn. . The fact that Oppian’s stranger stands ἐν τριόδοισι πολυτρίπτοισι (.) perhaps alludes to the idea that this is a well-known philosophical crossroads that has many a time been ‘trodden’. Xen. Mem. ..: ἐν ᾗ οἱ νέοι ἤδη αὐτοκράτορες γιγνόμενοι.

. Conviviality and Patronage



The education of Heracles at the hands of Virtue thus serves as a model for the education of Oppian’s readers: we, like Heracles, are cautioned against lust, greed, and indolence, and urged instead towards justice, restraint, and moderation – or, as Xenophon’s Ἀρετή puts it, to subordinate the body to the mind (Xen. Mem. ..). Unlike the human figures to which it is assimilated, however, the unfortunate mullet seems to lack the capacity to appreciate the long-term implications of its choice. While it appears to have momentary insight into the potential dangers of the situation (.), and even at the end of the process takes steps to ensure that it does not unwittingly consume living flesh, part of the message is that even this most gentle and deliberative creature is unable to escape the fate of all fish. We readers are in a more fortunate position, and the outcome of the mullet’s decision functions as a clear warning, for its lengthy vacillations stand in sharp contrast to the speed with which it is killed as soon as it takes the bait, and is dragged up to die on the reviled earth (.–). The final outcome is no more lenient for the just, peaceful, and reflective grey mullet than for any of Oppian’s gluttonous and carnivorous species. The κεστρεύς has been unable to identify the right path, and its punishment is administered accordingly.

. Conviviality and Patronage My final example of doomed consumption is that of the anthias, a species that, unlike the grey mullet, is introduced as gluttonous in the extreme: πάντῃ δὲ πλάζονται, ὅπῃ γένυς, ἔνθα κελεύει γαστὴρ καὶ λαίμαργος ἔρως ἀκόρητος ἐδωδῆς· ἔξοχα γὰρ παρὰ πάντας ἀδηφάγος οἶστρος ἐλαύνει κείνους (.–)

[Anthias] roam all over as dictated by their jaws, their belly and their gluttonous, insatiable desire for food; for a greedy mania drives them beyond all other fish . . .

The characterisation of this species as λαίμαργος and ἀδηφάγος aligns it with the depiction of the day-sleeper (see esp. .), the greedy fish that eats itself to death, as we have seen, in a vivid illustration of the fatal consequences of losing control of one’s ‘shameless’ γαστήρ (.), reminding the reader not to give too much slack to one’s belly or over-indulge in



Greed

delicacies at dinner. The anthias is the first fish whose capture is detailed at length in book , and the crafty Cilician method of catching these fish is a startling tale of hospitality and betrayal. A fisherman makes his way to the rocks frequented by anthias, day after day offering perch or crow-fish as preliminary guest-gifts (ξεινήια, .) of food: αὐτὰρ ὅ γ’ ἁρπάγδην κεχαρημένος εἰλαπινάζει δαῖτα φίλην, σαίνει τε δολόφρονα θηρητῆρα. ð220Þ ὡς δὲ φιλοξείνοιο μετ’ ἀνέρος οἰκία κέλσῃ κλεινὸς ἀνὴρ ἢ χειρὸς ἐν ἔργμασιν ἠὲ νόοιο, ἀσπασίως δ’ ὅ μιν εἶδεν ἐφέστιον, εὖ δέ ἑ δώροις, εὖ δέ μιν εἰλαπίναις τε φιλοφροσύναις τ’ ἀγαπάζει παντοίαις· ἄμφω δὲ γεγηθότες ἀμφὶ τραπέζῃ ð225Þ τέρπονται κρητῆρος ἀμοιβαίοις δεπάεσσιν· ὣς ὁ μὲν ἀσπαλιεὺς κεχαρημένος ἐλπωρῇσι μειδιάᾳ, δείπνοις δὲ νέοις ἐπιτέρπεται ἰχθύς. (.–)

The fish is delighted and feasts greedily on the pleasant meal, fawning on the crafty-minded hunter, as when a man famous for deeds of the hand or mind lands at the house of a hospitable man, and the other is glad to see him in his home, and receives him hospitably with banquets and all kind of friendly affection; and both rejoice at the table and take pleasure in the cups mixed for each in turn. So the fisherman smiles, delighted by his hopes, while the fish takes its pleasure in fresh banquets.

As the fisherman returns daily, each time bringing food, ever more anthias gather, as if by invitation (ἅτε κλητῆρος ἄγοντος, .). The fish become increasingly placid, like sheep reluctant to leave the shelter provided by their shepherd (.–); they regard the fishermen like children frolicking around their nurse (τιθήνη, .), accepting his food like joyous nestlings opening their beaks when the mother swallow brings them food, the house of their host resounding with chirping (.–). Eventually the fish start to obey the fisherman’s every whim, speeding wherever he points and obeying him ‘like a master’ (ἄναξ, .), or like 

The fate of the day-sleeper, as we saw in Chapter , is explicitly represented as a reminder to human beings of the consequences of foolish gluttony and the pain that accompanies greed (κλῦτε, γοναὶ μερόπων, οἷον τέλος ἀφραδίῃσι | λαιμάργοις, ὅσον ἄλγος ἀδηφαγίῃσιν ὀπηδεῖ, .–); many men are said to slacken the reins and give all rope to their bellies, so one must be careful not to overindulge at dinner (.–). The day-sleeper’s greed is illustrated by the detail that if it be captured and fed by hand, it will carry on taking food until it is piled up to the very limits of its gluttonous mouth (.–), a fascinating detail that draws attention to human manipulation of these animals’ greed and attendant docility.

. Conviviality and Patronage



young wrestlers obeying their coach (ἐπίσκοπος, .). Eventually the cunning fisherman selects any fish he likes, distracts the others, and hauls his chosen victim up on a hook, the wretched fish rejoicing now in its last banquet (δύσμορον, ὑστατίοισι κεχαρμένον ἐν δείπνοισι, .). What makes this tale so arresting is its perversion of the ideals of hospitality and pleasure. What looks at first like a relationship of friendship and parity – a famous man entertained by a lavish host, each man taking pleasure in the other’s presence and conviviality, and enjoying a reciprocal (ἀμοιβαῖος, .) delight in the feast – is soon revealed to be an ‘exchange’ conducted under false pretences, for while the fish’s pleasure is immediate, the fisherman’s pleasure rests only in the catch to come, and this ‘host’ will eventually slaughter his guest. The tale is structured around an asymmetry that becomes ever more apparent as the relationship shades into mastery and subservience, the anthias turning from a κλεινὸς ἀνήρ (.) to an infant, a beast, a slave. The narrative once more exploits the paradigms of successful and unsuccessful hospitality that structure the Odyssey. The guzzling anthias, revelling in its pleasant feast and fawning on the crafty fisherman (εἰλαπινάζει | δαῖτα φίλην, σαίνει τε δολόφρονα θηρητῆρα, .–), recalls the immoderate feasting of the suitors who slaughter Odysseus’ cattle, sheep, and goats, drink his wine, and revel (εἰλαπινάζουσιν, Hom. Od. . = .) with abandon; the fisherman, on the other hand, mirrors the crafty hero who misleads the suitors as they feast (τοῖς δὲ δολοφρονέων μετέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς, Od. . = .). Even the ξεινήια (.) offered by the fisherman evoke the distorted flavour of the Odyssean banquet, with its recurrent theme of perverted, deceptive, or violent ‘guest-gifts’. The ethics of hospitality lie at the heart of the Odyssey, and as Peisistratus observes to Telemachus, a guest will remember for all his days the man who has hosted him (ἀνδρὸς ξεινοδόκου, Od. .) and offered him friendship. This is a claim recalled in the image of swallows that nest in the house of a human host (δῶμα . . . ἀνδρὸς ξεινοδόκοιο, .–). The swallow simile purports to represent a scene of maternal care and symbiotic joy: the human provides shelter, and the birds fill it with food, tenderness, and 



Hom. Od. .: Polyphemus’ ξεινήϊον to Odysseus will be to eat him last (for which cf. Od. ., , ; at Od. .,  Odysseus’ own greed for a guest-gift from Polyphemus is said to have precipitated his misadventure with the Cyclops); Ctesippus hurls an ox-hoof at Odysseus as a ‘guestgift’ (Od. .); an equally ironic, reciprocal ξεινήϊον is later bestowed by Philoetius in the form of Ctesippus’ death (Od. .). Cf. also Menelaus’ response at Od. .– (esp. .), on guest-friendship, etiquette, and gifts.



Greed

delighted song. Yet an uneasy tension connects it to the earlier simile in which a guest dines delightedly at the house of his host (φιλοξείνοιο μετ’ ἀνέρος οἰκία, .), for now the fish is no famous guest dining at the table of a hospitable host, but rather a parasite living in the eaves of a human house. What at first seemed like reciprocity has now become an insurmountable hierarchy, and we know all too well that death looms close as the ‘mother’ fisherman becomes mother no more. The vulnerability of the nestlings suggests a degree of dependence that bodes ill for the fish, an awareness compounded by the simile’s likeness to the scene in book  in which young dolphins are depicted as swallow chicks devoured by a serpent as their mother looks helplessly on (.–). The comparison in the following lines of anthias circling joyfully around their θρεπτήρ (.) as if moving in a dancing circle (χοροιτύπον ὥστ’ ἀνὰ κύκλον, .) may in turn look to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, in which crafty Hermes catches sight of the tortoise that he will shortly kill to create his lyre. Feigning friendship, the young god greets the creature happily, recognising it as a source of potential profit, and addresses it, proleptically but deceptively, as a sympotic companion who will be associated with the dancing at feasts (χαῖρε φυὴν ἐρόεσσα χοροιτύπε δαιτὸς ἑταίρη, Hymn. Hom. Merc. ). Here too the appealing image of companionship, banqueting, and dancing turns out to be a mere mirage, for the animal is being manipulated and will shortly be killed, its empty shell turned into an instrument played for the pleasure of others. The apparently reciprocal arrangement suggested by Hermes will be violent, deceptive, and asymmetrical in the extreme – a fitting trick for the patron deity of fishing. We watch, then, as the anthias happily subjects itself to a form of voluntary slavery and starts to fawn (σαίνει, .) around the fisherman that it regards as its master (.). The greedy, unearned consumption of another man’s food represents a form of asymmetry that will be rectified only when the fattened fish becomes a fitting meal in its own right – αὐτοὶ πιανθέντες ἐοικότα πιαίνουσιν (.), one of the few moments at which the text hints slyly that these creatures will one day be eaten in turn. In sketching out these dynamics, the poet deftly intertwines Homeric and contemporary models of dining. The anthias is represented as a ‘banqueter’ feasting without measure, and the asymmetry of the scene is emphasised by the language of δῶρα or gifts (., , ), discourse that seeps even into the second method of catching an anthias, where the creature accepts its ‘banquet’ (δαῖτα, .) of bait and rushes greedily, mouth agape, after the ‘gift that is no gift’ (αὐτὰρ ὁ λάβρως | δῶρα χανὼν δύσδωρα μετέδραμεν, .–). At stake here are the dynamics of

. Conviviality and Patronage



patronage, parasitism, and hospitality, and above all a fear that gastronomic dependence leads to a concomitant servility or loss of liberty – not to genuine friendship but to obsequiousness, flattery, and parasitism. Both the act of fishing and the ‘bestial’ self-interest of animals are rich symbols in ancient thought for the interplay between abundance, greed, and power. Parasites, for instance, are often figured in Greek comedy as animals driven by their own gluttonous urges, while Athenaeus’ diners reel off comic quotations that reveal that even the proverbially starving mullet (κεστρεὺς νηστεύει) could be used to denote not the virtuous do-gooder but a hungry man, and in particular a parasite frustrated by his lack of dinner. Plutarch’s How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend returns to animal comparisons in order to characterise both parasite and flatterer, while Aelian addresses the parallels between ‘parasitic’ fish – namely those that partake of another fish’s meal – and comic parasites or flatterers. The parasite is a man proverbially reduced to a condition of subservience both to his patron and to his belly’s demands, and it is telling that Oppian’s account of the ‘feasting’ anthias should be preceded directly by his claim that nothing is more evil than the belly, the hypostatised γαστήρ figured here as a demanding δέσποινα (.), a mistress or tyrant who dictates to man and beast alike. As Martial puts it, liber non potes et gulosus esse. Oppian’s representation of banqueting in this respect speaks not only to long-standing Greek ideas about the bestiality of the belly, but to an 









Paradigms of feasting in the Odyssey were themselves influential on later sympotic culture, and on comic notions of gluttony and parasitism. Oppian’s image of anthias driven by their insatiable bellies to ‘wander’ in search of food echoes Greek stereotypes about gluttony and parasitism, including Old Comic representations of Odysseus as a glutton driven to undertake a kind of ‘gastronomic tour’ of the world as he is tempted into misadventure by the lure of gastronomic delicacies. The discussion of greed at the start of the tenth book of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae, for instance, represents the Homeric Odysseus as πολυφάγος καὶ λαίμαργος, a figure characterised by γαστριμαργία. See Athen. .b–c. On this representation of Odysseus see Stanford : –; Phillips ; Montiglio : –. Od. . and .– in particular were taken to signify Odysseus’ remarkable gluttony. On the reception of Odysseus’ ‘Golden Verses’ (Od. .–) see e.g. Hunter : –. Athen. .d; cf. Athen. .f; Phot. κ ; Hesch. κ ; Suda κ  Adler; Zen. .; Diogenian. .. Cf Arist. HA b. On parasites as animals more widely, see e.g. Nesselrath : . Plutarch describes a parasite as crab-like (‘his body is all belly; eyes that look all ways; a beast that travels on its teeth, De ad. et am. b); compares the flatterer to a gadfly by the ear of a cow, or the tick by that of a dog (e); represents the flatterer as behaving with an adaptability like that of an ape, cuttlefish, or chameleon (b, f, d); and observes that the flatterer encourages docility in his victim, winning his confidence as if he were a skittish animal (e, b; cf. b). Aelian ends, characteristically, by drawing a distinction between zoological and social parasitism insofar as animals, unlike humans, remain unfamiliar with the vice of flattery (κολακεύειν, Ael. NA .). Lucian’s Lexiphanes also represents a parasite as a queer sort of fish (Luc. Lexiph. ). Mart. Epig. ...



Greed

imperial anxiety about status, dependence, and disparities in power. Fishing is a potent metaphor for these relationships because it strips bare the marked hierarchies that underlie a range of social interactions that purport to be reciprocal or mutually beneficial ‘friendships’. So Lucian’s On Salaried Posts in Great Houses criticises an asymmetrical patronage system that fosters a kind of ‘slavery’ (δουλεία) that masquerades as friendship (φιλία). When the philosopher Timocles shows signs of being tempted by the prospect of becoming the ‘friend’ of noble Romans who will feed him elaborate dinners, apparently without his having to contribute in return, he is described as ‘gaping’ at the prospect, holding his mouth wide for the ‘bait’; Lucian dwells cruelly on the image, imagining Timocles ‘hooked’ and dragged around forcibly by his patron, and advising him at the very least to inspect the net or hook before swallowing the bait. So too Lucian’s Timon has the personified Wealth compare will-hunters – their mouths greedily agape for the riches bequeathed at a man’s death – to the nestlings of a swallow waiting, open-mouthed, for their mother, and then, on being disappointed by the will of the deceased, to fishermen whose fish has swallowed the food but has not been landed as a catch. Oppian again exploits and inverts wider cultural associations to devastating effect, for his greedy fish are represented in terms uncomfortably close to the starkly asymmetrical dynamics that underpin satirical accounts of contemporary social relations. As Oppian’s meditation on the γαστήρ makes clear (.–), human beings are only slightly less susceptible than fish to becoming enslaved by their own baser impulses. The stomach’s demands are repeatedly shown to be antithetical to wisdom, freedom, and self-control, leaving fish quivering on the hook, preventing human beings from reaching their true potential, and representing a destructive animalistic drive that leads only to disaster. In portraying the use of bait as a form of punishment for gluttony, the Halieutica weaves together epic, philosophical, and satirical reflections on the perils of greed. Control over such impulses is shown to distinguish adults from children, the wise from the foolish, and humans from animals; it is, I have suggested, the lesson that Oppian counsels his readers to take above all from these fish. 



Luc. Merc. cond. . Lucian also pushes the fishing metaphor to the full in the Fisherman, where the metaphor exposes the mercenary pretences of the resuscitated ancient philosophers, charlatans who take Parrhesiades’ bait and are hooked, their motivations exposed as a base greed for gold and figs (for which see esp. Luc. Pisc. ). Luc. Tim. –; cf. Tox. , on flatterers.

 

Lust

The fourth book of the Halieutica turns from greed to lust as a method of catching fish, and opens with an extensive ‘hymn’ to Eros: ἄλλους δ’ ἀγρευτῆρσιν ὑπήγαγε ληiδα θήρης ὑγρὸς ἔρως· ὀλοῶν δὲ γάμων, ὀλοῆς δ’ ἀφροδίτης ἠντίασαν σπεύδοντες ἑὴν φιλοτήσιον ἄτην. ἀλλὰ σύ μοι, κάρτιστε πολισσούχων βασιλήων, αὐτός τ’ Ἀντωνῖνε, καὶ υἱέος ἠγάθεον κῆρ, πρόφρονες εἰσαΐοιτε καὶ εἰναλίῃσι γάνυσθε τερπωλῇς, οἵῃσιν ἐμὸν νόον ἠπιόδωροι Μοῦσαι κοσμήσαντο καὶ ἐξέστεψαν ἀοιδῆς δώρῳ θεσπεσίῳ καί μοι πόρον ὑμετέροισι κίρνασθαι γλυκὺ νᾶμα καὶ οὔασι καὶ πραπίδεσσι. Σχέτλι’ Ἔρως, δολομῆτα, θεῶν κάλλιστε μὲν ὄσσοις εἰσιδέειν, ἄλγιστε δ’ ὅτε κραδίην ὀροθύνεις ἐμπίπτων ἀδόκητος, ὑπὸ φρένα δ’ ὥστε θύελλα μίσγεαι, ἀσθμαίνεις δὲ πυρὸς δριμεῖαν ὁμοκλήν παφλάζων ὀδύνῃσι καὶ ἀκρήτοισιν ἀνίαις· δάκρυ δέ τοι προβαλεῖν λαρὸν γάνος ἠδ’ ἐσακοῦσαι βυσσόθεν οἰμωγὴν σπλάχνοις θ’ ὕπο θερμὸν ἔρευθος φοινίξαι χρωτός τε παράτροπον ἄνθος ἀμέρσαι ὄσσε τε κοιλῆναι παρά τε φρένα πᾶσαν ἀεῖραι μαινομένην· πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ ἐς μόρον ἐξεκύλισας, ὅσσοις χειμέριός τε καὶ ἄγριος ἀντεβόλησας λύσσαν ἄγων· τοίαις γὰρ ἀγάλλεαι εἰλαπίνῃσιν. εἴτ’ οὖν ἐν μακάρεσσι παλαίτατός ἐσσi γενέθλῃ, ἐκ Χάεος δ’ ἀνέτειλας ἀμειδέος, ὀξέι πυρσῷ λαμπόμενος, πρῶτος δὲ γάμων ἐζεύξαο θεσμούς, πρῶτος δ’ εὐναίοις ἀρότοις ἐπεθήκαο τέκμωρ, εἴτε σε καὶ πτερύγεσσιν ἀειρόμενον θεὸν ὄρνιν τίκτε Πάφου μεδέουσα πολυφράδμων Ἀφροδίτη. εὐμενέοις, πρηὺς δὲ καὶ εὔδιος ἄμμιν ἱκάνοις μέτρον ἄγων· οὐ γάρ τις ἀναίνεται ἔργον ἔρωτος. πάντῃ μὲν κρατέεις, πάντῃ δέ σε καὶ ποθέουσι 

ð5Þ

ð10Þ

ð15Þ

ð20Þ

ð25Þ

ð30Þ



Lust καὶ μέγα πεφρίκασιν· ὁ δ’ ὄλβιος, ὅστις ἔρωτα εὐκραῆ κομέει τε καὶ ἐν στέρνοισι φυλάσσει. σοὶ δ’ οὔτ’ οὐρανίης γενεῆς ἅλις οὔτε τι φύτλης ἀνδρομέης· οὐ θῆρας ἀναίνεαι οὐδ’ ὅσα βόσκει ἀὴρ ἀτρυγέτη νεάτης δ’ ὑπὸ κεύθεσι λίμνης δύνεις, ὁπλίζεις δὲ καὶ ἐν νεπόδεσσι κελαινοὺς ἀτράκτους, ὡς μή τι τεῆς ἀδίδακτον ἀνάγκης λείπηται, μηδ’ ὅστις ὑπόβρυχα νήχεται ἰχθύς.

ð35Þ

(.–)

Tender love entices other fish to become hunting spoils for the fishermen, and fatal are the unions and fatal the lust of which they partake, striving after their own amorous ruin. But, most powerful of the kings who protect cities, both you yourself, Antoninus, and your son of hallowed heart, listen graciously and delight in the kinds of marine pleasures with which the bountiful Muses have adorned my mind and crowned me with the divine-sounding gift of song and given me a sweet stream to mix up for your ears and your mind. Cruel, crafty-minded Eros, you are the most beautiful of the gods to look at with the eyes, but the most painful when you afflict the heart in an unexpected attack, and come into the mind like a hurricane, and breathe out the fierce onslaught of fire, blustering with pains and intemperate sorrows. For you it is deliciously refreshing to induce tears, to hear lamentations from the depths of the heart, to arouse a burning redness in the marrow, to strip and distort the bloom of the skin, to make the eyes hollow and to unhinge the whole mind into madness. And you hurtle many headlong to their doom, all those whom you encounter when you are wild and stormy, bringing madness with you. For in these kinds of celebrations you exult. So whether you are the eldest of the gods by birth, and arose from unsmiling Chaos, shining with fierce torch, and were the first to establish the conjoining ordinances of marriage, and the first to impose the aim of conjugal procreation, or whether in fact shrewd Aphrodite who rules Paphos bore you, an avian god soaring aloft on wings, be benevolent, and come mild and calm upon us, bringing due measure with you. For nobody rejects the work of Love. You rule everywhere, and everywhere they both yearn for you and shudder violently at you. And blessed is he who nurtures and preserves in his chest a temperate love. But for you neither the heavenly race nor the tribe of men is enough, and you spurn neither wild beasts nor those that the barren air nourishes, and you plunge down into the deepest nooks of the sea, and arm yourself with dreadful arrows even against sea-creatures, so that nothing may remain unschooled in your compulsive power, not even the fish that swims underwater.

. Poetic Streams



. Poetic Streams Images of fluidity saturate this proem, which dramatises the transposition of Eros or desire to the sea. In a richly multisensory constellation of images, the Muses are said to have ‘crowned’ the poet with the gift of song, providing him with a sweet stream (γλυκὺ νᾶμα) to blend (κίρνασθαι) for his imperial addressees (.). The verb κίρνασθαι connotes the mixing of wine with water, depicting the poem as a drink to be consumed by the emperor, and exploiting the aquatic connection between its marine subject-matter (εἰνάλιος, .) and the potable nature of the poetic drink. The adjective γλυκύς in turn suggests both the aesthetic appeal of this ‘sweet’ or delightful verse and an implied thematic contrast between brine and fresh water. The mixing metaphor thus advertises the skilful nature of the poet’s didactic role in transforming the raw materials of the salty sea into a palatable literary draught that benefits both ears and mind (οὔασι καὶ πραπίδεσσι, .), imparting knowledge and pleasure to the audience in an expertly judged blend. The metaphor of ‘mixing’, I suggest, amounts to a manifesto for the poet’s didactic enterprise, drawing on ancient critical debates about the proper ‘educative’ or ‘entertaining’ function of poetry; it also sets out the poet’s wider literary and ethical agenda of the ‘blend’ or well-judged mean. Both wine and water were potent poetological symbols by Oppian’s day, and the blending of the two encapsulates the poet’s programmatic mingling of diverse literary sources and styles into the ‘stream’ of allusions that runs through this proem. It is, for instance, significant that the Muses who provide the poet with his literary stream should be characterised as ἠπιόδωροι (gentle gift-givers), a Homeric hapax used of Hecuba (Hom. Il. .) when she offers Hector ‘honey-sweet’ wine, claiming that wine greatly increases a weary man’s strength (ἀνδρὶ δὲ κεκμηῶτι μένος μέγα οἶνος ἀέξει, Il. .). Hector rejects his mother’s offer on the grounds that drinking wine would, on the contrary, compromise his strength (Il. .–). That decision was discussed extensively



Hor. Ars P. –: omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, | lectorem delectando pariterque monendo (‘he wins every hand who has blended the useful and the sweet, delighting and instructing the reader at the same time’); Lucr. .– (esp. .–) and .– famously likens his didactic poetry to the wormwood administered in a honeyed cup by doctors to their young patients. The two poems share several conventional topoi of poetic inspiration: Lucretius seeks out and drinks from freshwater springs and, as in Hal. , is crowned by the Muses; cf. James . See also Phld. De poem.  cols. –, ,  Mangoni, where critics including Heraclides of Pontus and Neoptolemus of Parium are said to have advanced similar views on the necessity of mixing education and entertainment; see further Chapter . For the metapoetic use of κιρνάω, cf. Pind. Isthm. ., where the poet ‘mixes’ an appropriate boast in song; Pind. Isthm. .–, where a second kratēr of the Muses’ songs is ‘mixed’, as at a symposium.



Lust

in the Homeric scholia and was treated in later Greek sympotic discourse as a paradigmatic clash between advocates for the consumption of, and abstention from, wine more broadly. The wider poetic symbolism of wine- and waterdrinking in later Greek poetry is clearly at issue here, and the poet may invoke the ἠπιόδωροι Muses with a view both to the Stesichorean use of the epithet of the destruction wrought by Aphrodite, and in connection with the heady ‘inspiration’ associated with wine, a source to be tempered and rendered palatable by his own admixture of educative precepts and balanced poetic sensibilities (thus e.g. νόος, .). The metaphor points to ongoing debates about the appropriate style and content of poetry, and the claim to ‘blend’ a delicious poetic draught indicates that the poet will mediate between the extremes of different literary or aesthetic affiliations, between roiling seas and pleasant drinks, water and wine, Homeric epic and other literary streams. Nor is this purely a stylistic or poetological claim. Indeed, the literary and the ethical claims of the Halieutica may be seen as two sides of the same coin: the concept of the judicious blend or well-judged mean encapsulates both the aesthetic and the educational qualities of the poem. The image of drinking, and the careful combination of water and wine, modulates gradually over the course of the proem into a metaphor of temperance and the moderation of dangerous passions, a value-system drawn in part from the sympotic world. Eros, we are told, is a dangerous force, and the god takes a sinister pleasure in drinking the ‘sweet 





See e.g. the discussion of Homeric dining practice in Athen. .b–c, where the Iliadic encounter is elevated, or perhaps distorted, into an opposition not only between wine-consumption and abstention, but also revelry or cheer (θυμηδία) and serious action, and where Hecuba is (unjustly) alleged to have praised wine intently or unceasingly (ἀπερισπάστως), expecting Hector to remain drinking in the palace all day. The diners argue that Homer also recognised the usefulness of wine and the importance of moderate consumption (see esp. Hom. Od. .ff.), and that the Homeric texts offer implicit evidence for an awareness of the conventional ratios by which water and wine were mixed. Stesich. fr.  PMG (= fr.  PMGF = Σ Eur. Or. ): when Tyndareus forgot to honour ἠπιόδωρος Aphrodite, though sacrificing to all the other gods, the goddess cursed his daughters with destructive promiscuity, an act that led to the Trojan War, amongst other calamities. A similar account is found in Hes. fr.  M-W, as the Euripidean scholiast observes. Oppian’s redeployment of the epithet offers a reminder of the dangerous power of Aphrodite, whose fatal effects are foregrounded in the metonymic reference that opens the book: ὀλοῆς τ’ Ἀφροδίτης | ἠντίασαν (.–). On metapoetic fluidity and the drinking of water and wine see Crowther , esp. ; Kambylis : –; Asper : –: Nu¨nlist : –; Koning : –; Worman : –, with further bibliography. The concerns raised by Knox  and others about the literary origins of these metaphors and their (un)familiarity in the Hellenistic period need not concern us here; a contrast between wine and water as poetic symbols was evidently familiar by the early imperial period: see e.g. Hor. Epist. .; Antip. Thess. GP (= AP .), GP (= AP .).

. Poetic Streams



refreshment’ of the tears shed by lovers as they struggle with their desires (δάκρυ δέ τοι προβαλεῖν λαρὸν γάνος, .), inspiring unalleviated or ‘unmixed’ (ἄκρητος, .) distress when he falls upon his victims unawares. When adeptly managed and ‘well mixed’ (εὐκραής, .), on the other hand, desire can prove beneficial to the lover, but only when the god is gentle, ushering in moderation (μέτρον ἄγων, .) rather than excess, will ἔρως prove a boon rather than a baneful, frenzied madness. The balance between order and chaos, central to the conceptual realm of the symposium, with its emphasis on the appropriate ratios of wine and water, excess and restraint, is reflected here in the poet’s depiction of eros and its effects, and well encapsulated in the metaphor of the mixing and consumption of wine. Two Plutarchan treatises shed further light on these ideas. Plutarch’s How to Study Poetry opens by drawing an extended analogy between reading poetry and ‘the pleasures of food and drink’, arguing that ‘by making use in moderation of that which is pleasurable, as if it were a delicacy’ (ὥσπερ ὄψῳ χρωμένους μετρίως τῷ τέρποντι, Plut. De aud. poet. f ), youths may be encouraged to identify and gravitate towards the beneficial elements in the literature they read. Poetry is therefore not to be dismissed as entirely misleading or false, but rather enjoyed for its potential to mix the pleasurable with the morally educational, the mythical with the philosophical. In illustrating this claim, Plutarch takes as his cue the exemplum of Lycurgus and Dionysus adduced by Diomedes in Iliad , arguing that Lycurgus was foolish to adopt the path of extirpatory excess, uprooting Dionysus’ vines rather than ‘bringing the water-source closer’ and tempering the god’s excesses, a course of viticultural moderation akin to the blending of wine and water extolled by Plato at Laws .d. Mixing wine with water, Plutarch observes, ‘removes the deleterious element, without at the same time removing what is beneficial’ (ἀφαιρεῖ 

 

For the importance of moderation in the symposium, where the ideal guest consumes neither too much nor too little, see e.g. Thgn. –, – (esp. μέτρον: , ), and, closer to Oppian’s own time, Dio Chrys. Or. .–-. Euenus fr.  West (= AP .) claims that the Βάκχου μέτρον ἄριστον (‘best measure of Dionysus’) is that which is neither too large nor too small; he sets out the appropriate ratio of wine to water and outlines the dire consequences of straying towards either extreme. See e.g. Stob. Flor. ., Clem. Al. Strom. .., Artem. On. ., [Arist.] Prob. .. For Eros, the need for moderation, and the application of sympotic imagery to the emotions, see Eur. Hipp. –. Plut. De aud. poet. e–f; cf. b–c. Hom. Il. .–, where Dionysus flees beneath the sea to escape Lycurgus, taking sanctuary with Thetis. Plutarch evidently draws on allegorical interpretations in which the Homeric episode was taken to signify the necessity of mixing wine (Dionysus) with water (Thetis); see Hunter b: – and Hunter and Russell : –. For discussion of Plutarch’s engagement with Plato in this passage and the treatise more broadly, see Hunter and Russell ; Xenophontos : –.



Lust

γὰρ ἡ κρᾶσις τοῦ οἴνου τὸ βλάπτον, οὐ συναναιροῦσα τὸ χρήσιμον, De aud. poet. e). The exemplum is offered as an analogy for the mixing of poetry and philosophy; the ‘poetic vine of the Muses’ is not to be uprooted but moderated, its more luxuriant excesses tamed. Where the sweet (γλυκύς) appeal of poetic language offers more than fruitless vacuity, there one should introduce philosophy and mix it in with the poetry, (ἐνταῦθα φιλοσοφίαν εἰσάγωμεν καὶ καταμιγνύωμεν, De aud. poet. f ), since the admixture of mythical elements and the aesthetic appeal of poetry renders the beneficial philosophical elements more appealing to its youthful audience. Plutarch’s image of judiciously restraining the Muses’ ‘poetic vine’ (τὴν ποιητικὴν ἡμερίδα τῶν Μουσῶν, De aud. poet. e) and tempering wine with water advocates a course of moderation rather than extremity, here articulated in literary terms as a defence of poetry’s utility as a didactic tool. Both the metaphor of wine-mixing and the view of poetry as, at its best, a delightful yet educative ‘mixture’ of the philosophical and the aesthetically appealing share much with Oppian’s claim to mix a sweet stream for the ears and mind of his audience. Importantly, Plutarch accords the same analogy an ethical dimension in his treatise On Moral Virtue, which examines the relationship between the rational and irrational elements of the soul. On Plutarch’s account, the emotional or irrational element in human beings should not, and indeed cannot, be eradicated completely, but should instead be governed and tempered by reason. The task of reason (τοῦ λόγου τὸ ἔργον), therefore, is not wholesale destruction in the mode of Lycurgus, an act that strips out the beneficial elements of passion (πάθος) along with the baneful; instead, the reader is encouraged to pursue a moderate course akin to the mixing of wine with water. As we shall see in Section ., the reuse of this analogy in On Moral Virtue to illustrate the relationship between the rational and irrational aspects of human nature resonates strongly with the ethical outlook of the Halieutica, particularly in light of Plutarch’s comments in the same text on the 



The analogy was not uncommon (cf. n.  above), and Athen. .b–c also compares the mixture of wisdom and pleasure in the guests’ conversation to the mixing of drinks. This analogy is itself offered while the diners are literally mixing up and drinking wine; see further Section . on the slippage between literal and metaphorical registers in both Athenaeus and Oppian. Plut. De virt. mor. c–d: οὔτε γὰρ οἶνον οἱ φοβούμενοι τὸ μεθύειν ἐκχέουσιν οὔτε πάθος οἱ δεδιότες τὸ ταρακτικὸν ἀναιροῦσιν ἀλλὰ κεραννύουσι (‘for neither do those who fear drunkenness pour away their wine, nor do those who fear emotion eradicate the disturbing element, but instead they mix [i.e. dilute or regulate] it’). Cf. also Plut. De vit. pud. b, where emotional extremes are to be avoided in favour of a harmonious, tempered blend (σύγκρασις), here between undue severity and an excess of embarrassed compliancy.

. Poetic Streams



relationship between reason and emotion in animals. Plutarch therefore uses the metaphor of mixing water with wine to advocate both a literary and an ethical ‘middle way’, identifying the mixture of aesthetic and educational aims as distinctive to the most valuable kind of poetry, and using the motif of temperance to characterise the application of reason and moderation to the passions, a model that he deems far more profitable than any attempt to eradicate emotion in its entirety. Both claims are important for understanding Oppian’s poem. The characterisation of the Halieutica as a γλυκὺ νᾶμα (‘sweet stream’, .) is not merely a poetic variant for ‘drink’. Chapter  (Section ., ‘Literary Sweetness’) has already observed that this proem exhibits each of the features of γλυκύτης or stylistic sweetness outlined by Oppian’s contemporary Hermogenes, a quality said to be conferred by the inclusion of mythical elements (and exemplified by the account of Eros’ birth given at Plato Symp. b–c), the description of sensory pleasures such as taste, praise of one’s audience and their family, the ascription of human qualities to animals, and any discussion of matters erotic. Whether or not we wish to pinpoint a specific stylistic γλυκύτης at work here, the poet’s claim to ‘mix a sweet stream’ for the emperor presents itself as a summation of his own literary practice, and chimes suggestively with Greek literary-critical modes of analysis. If the aesthetic qualities of this ‘sweet’ proem accord with Hermogenes’ conception of stylistic ‘sweetness’, then the νᾶμα too is an important ancient critical metaphor that recalls the literary ‘sources’ or ‘springs’ from which authors were thought to draw their inspiration. The word is notably Platonic, and nods in particular to Socrates’ reflection on issues of authorship, allusion, and the adaptation of traditional poetic imagery in his discussion of desire in the Phaedrus, a text whose significance for imperial Greek views on eros is immense. The metaphor is used by Socrates in the Phaedrus to gesture towards long-established literary traditions of portraying the torments of love: with a dose of Socratic irony, the philosopher claims that all his conceptions about eros must have been drawn from ‘Sappho, Anacreon, or some prose author’ (Phdr. c), for he cannot imagine that these ideas can have originated in

  

Plutarch’s main adversaries on this front are the Stoics. Despite e.g. the use of Βακχίου . . . νάματος to denote wine at Ar. Eccl. , or νᾶμα Νυμφῶν for water at Men. Dys. , in both cases parodying elevated poetic diction. On the second-century popularity of the Phaedrus see Trapp . The dialogue was much admired by Hermogenes for its stylistic sweetness (see Hermog. Id. .), particularly in the description of the locus amoenus.



Lust

his own mind; the explanation must be that he has been filled up through his ears ‘from the streams [νάματα] of other people, like a vessel’. Socrates’ emphasis on erotic suffering and madness owes much to the discourse of eros prominent in Greek lyric poetry, as was recognised even by Oppian’s day; the proem of Hal.  in turn owes much to the depiction of desire in archaic Greek lyric and in Plato, not least the Symposium and Phaedrus. Not only does Oppian represent his own νᾶμα streaming into his audience’s ears (.), itself a markedly Platonic image, but the poet draws from the Phaedrus in his representation of eros’ powerfully destructive force; the bodily influx or assault made by desire and ushered in by striking beauty perceived with the eyes; the depiction of a soaring, feathered Eros; the discussion of the god’s genealogy; the inclusion of a kind of ‘mythical hymn’ to Eros; the question of whether eros brings about good or evil; and especially the itemisation of the symptoms induced in the love-struck victim, including feverish heat and madness. In the Phaedrus too fluidity becomes a central metaphor, connecting the dialogue’s famous setting (the pellucid stream of the Ilissus and the spring of the Nymphs), the ‘flow’ of ideas from the lyric poets to Socrates, the streaming of beauty or desire into the soul via the eyes, and the ‘draught’ of inspiration drawn from Zeus and ‘poured’ over the loved one. As is now well understood, these images themselves influenced ancient critical appreciation of Platonic style and the metaphors used to characterise it. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, for instance, adopts Plato’s own discourse of fluidity in identifying the key features of Platonic style, comparing the philosopher’s admirable use of the plain style to ‘the most 



 



Pl. Phdr. c–d: οἶμαι ἐξ ἀλλοτρίων ποθὲν ναμάτων διὰ τῆς ἀκοῆς πεπληρῶσθαί με δίκην ἀγγείου. For ‘streams’ of words, see also Pl. Ti. e: τὸ δὲ λόγων νᾶμα ἔξω ῥέον καὶ ὑπηρετοῦν φρονήσει κάλλιστον καὶ ἄριστον πάντων ναμάτων (‘the stream of speech that flows out [of the body] and ministers to the intelligence is the most beautiful and best of all streams’). See Max. Tyr, Or. ., who adduces parallels between Sappho’s verse and various Platonic dialogues on eros, including the Phaedrus; see also Trapp : . On the use of lyric poetry in the Phaedrus see Pender a, b, Cairns , with further bibliography. E.g. Pl. Phdr. c–d, d; Resp. a, etc. See Worman : – on Plato’s depiction of poetic or musical ‘streams’ entering into the body through the ears rather than the mouth. Eros, beauty, and vision: Pl. Phdr. a–a; wings and feathers: d–e, d–e, a– b; the lover’s feverish heat and madness: a–c; a–b (and elsewhere); Eros’ genealogy and relationship to the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ effects of desire: d–d; the ‘mythical hymn to Eros’ is characterised as such at b–c. Socrates’ two speeches are, in a sense, negative and positive accounts of the god’s influence. Important too is the comparison between the appetitive faculties of human beings and the impulsive behaviour of animals in the charioteer image of the Phaedrus (a–e); the metaphor of the unruly horse that wrenches the bit is used to describe the relationship between gods and men at Hal. .–. Ilissus and spring of the Nymphs: Pl. Phdr. b, b, b; ‘flow’ of texts and ideas: c–d; streaming of beauty or desire into the soul: c, c–d; ‘draught’ of inspiration: a–b.

. Poetic Streams



pellucid of streams’ (ὥσπερ τὰ διαφανέστατα τῶν ναμάτων, Dion. Hal. Dem. .) in an account characterised by metaphors of aesthetic delight themselves heavily indebted to the Phaedran locus amoenus. Dionysius later scathingly enquires ποῦ τὸ Πλατωνικὸν νᾶμα τὸ πλούσιον καὶ τὰς μεγάλας κατασκευὰς καχλάζον; (‘Where is the rich Platonic stream that gurgles out grand artistic compositions?’, Dion. Hal. Dem. .). If ancient literary production – and Platonic writing in particular – could be envisaged as a νᾶμα, then Oppian’s proem advertises its Platonic, and perhaps specifically Phaedran, resonances from the outset. The metaphor of literary discourse as a flowing νᾶμα was further elaborated by ancient critics to emphasise the confluence of different literary texts or traditions in what amounts to a manifesto of post-classical creative mimesis imbued with a distinctly Platonic tinge. Longinus reworks the metaphor in analysing the sublimity produced by later authors’ mimetic engagement with their predecessors, chief amongst which was Plato’s use of Homer: ἀπὸ τοῦ Ὁμηρικοῦ κείνου νάματος εἰς αὑτὸν μυρίας ὅσας παρατροπὰς ἀποχετευσάμενος (‘from that Homeric stream [Plato] channelled off for himself countless tributaries’, Longin. .). Read in this light, Oppian’s representation of his own role in blending a literary νᾶμα becomes a powerful claim for his creative mimetic or allusive engagement with earlier authors, as well as for the place of the Platonic dialogues in his own discussion of eros. The poet’s adaptation and mingling of earlier poetic and philosophical traditions in book  finds analogues articulated not only in Socrates’ explicit advertisement of his adaptation of lyric traditions in the Phaedrus, but also in wider ancient critical conceptions of the citation and stylistic mimesis of earlier texts by Plato and other authors.

 





The same claims are recapitulated almost verbatim at Dion. Hal. Pomp. .. See Hunter a: –, esp. –; Trapp : ; Worman : –. At Dion. Hal. Comp. . words composed in the ‘smooth’ style are said to move along like flowing streams (ὥσπερ τὰ ῥέοντα νάματα). See Russell : ; cf. also Heracl. Quaest. Hom. ., where Plato is said to have drawn off water ἐκ πηγῆς τῶν Ὁμηρικῶν ἐπῶν. As Russell  points out, Longinus’ image of the diversion of streams into a new channel is itself drawn from Pl. Resp. .d, on which see further Hunter a: ; Longin. . also refers to the λόγων νᾶμα produced by orators. Especially in light of the Platonic heritage of much ancient critical discussion of literary mimesis. On the latter see Hunter b: –; on the politics of creative mimesis in Greek literature of the Roman imperial period, see Whitmarsh : –, esp. –, on Longinus and Plato; cf. also Ní Mheallaigh a: –, on Lucian. Porter : – demonstrates that the mimesis of earlier literary models underpins Longinus’ treatise as a whole. For Longinus and Oppian, see also Section ., ‘Post-Homeric Traditions’.



Lust

The metaphor of ‘mixing’ a νᾶμα for one’s audience has important implications for the poetic programme of the Halieutica. In the first place, it advertises the diversity of influences at work in the poem and the poet’s own role in selecting, combining, and repurposing these models. Another ancient version of such a claim survives in the section of the epitome of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ On Imitation that explores the process of literary mimesis practised by those writers who selectively emulate the finer features of earlier literature, a form of creative imitation that involves the author, ‘as it were, collecting a single current from many streams (ἐκ πολλῶν ναμάτων) and channelling this into his soul’. Dionysius goes on to illustrate this claim with the well-known example of the painter Zeuxis, who fashioned a composite portrait of Helen out of the finest features isolated and reproduced from the multiple live models before him. This process of selection and recombination, I suggest, is not far removed either from the later Greek didactic poet’s role in drawing from and mingling technical prose treatises with the traditions of epic poetry (see Chapter ), or from the intricate dynamics of literary allusion that operate throughout the Halieutica. The ideal of the well-judged ‘blend’ functions on multiple levels in this proem. Not only does the stylistic analysis offered by ancient literary critics frequently privilege the model of ‘mixing’ as a welcome mid-point between the excesses of divergent aesthetic styles, but several ancient critics also posit an association between such ‘mixtures’ at the level of style, content, and authorial intention. Compare, for instance, the blend of diverse literary attributes discussed by Dionysius in On Literary Composition , where he outlines the σύνθεσις εὔκρατος or ‘well-blended’ type of literary composition best exemplified by Homer (the source from which all other literary waters are said to flow), but also to be found in those authors who have most successfully ‘mixed their writings’ (κεράσαντας τοὺς 





Dion. Hal. De imit. fr. . U-R (= p.  Aujac): καθά περ ἐκ πολλῶν ναμάτων ἕν τι συγκομίσας ῥεῦμα τοῦτ’ εἰς τὴν ψυχὴν μετοχετεύσῃ, offered as the literary analogue to the parable of the ugly farmer who engenders beautiful children thanks to the aesthetic influence of the art at which his wife gazes. After discussing Platonic metaphors of fluidity, Longinus . criticises Plato’s sporadic excesses of style, especially his ἄκρατος, (‘intemperate’, lit. ‘unmixed’) use of metaphor, claiming that Plato was at times himself ‘far from sober’ and was, as it were, possessed by Dionysus when writing. Longinus takes as his example the Platonic metaphor of mixing wine and the contrast between the excesses of ‘mad’ Dionysiac wine and the tempering effects of water, there applied to the city (Pl. Leg. .c); the connection drawn by the critic between aesthetic moderation and the mixing of wine has important implications for Oppian’s claims at the start of Hal. . The Platonic metaphor, as we have seen, is also cited by Plutarch. Hom. Il. .–, quoted at Dion. Hal. Comp. .–.

. Emotional Storms



λόγους). Dionysius praises this compositional mode for its judicious selection of the finest stylistic qualities from each of the extremes, comparing the principle of the literary mean (μεσότης) to Aristotelian and Peripatetic tenets about moderation, particularly the philosophical conception of virtue as a mean between two extremes. We have already observed that Oppian’s own emphasis on moderation and the well-judged mean occupies a central place in the poem’s ethical scheme; this perceived parallelism between literary form and philosophical content is therefore especially important. In Demosthenes .–, Dionysius associates the orator’s mixed compositional style with his intention to offer both instruction and entertainment to different members of his audience, some of whom want to be beguiled and amused, while others are looking for specific instruction and benefit (οἳ μὲν ἀπάτης ὀρέγονται καὶ ψυχαγωγίας, οἳ δὲ διδαχῆς, ὧν ἐπιζητοῦσι, καὶ ὠφελείας, Dion. Hal. Dem. .–). So too Oppian’s declaration that he will ‘mix a sweet stream for both the ears and intellect’ of his audience (κίρνασθαι γλυκὺ νᾶμα καὶ οὔασι καὶ πραπίδεσσι, .) suggests a claim on the didactic poet’s part to bring together aesthetic, pedagogical, literary, and ethical blends in an expertly crafted amalgam.

. Emotional Storms This chapter has argued so far that the poet’s claim in book  to ‘mix up a sweet stream’ for his audience functions as a provocation to attend to the range of different sources, styles, and didactic or aesthetic features to be discerned in this proem, and in the Halieutica more widely. This is poetry that aims both to instruct and to delight, and that mingles natural history with (for instance) Homeric epic, lyric poetry, and Platonic philosophy. Yet it is also verse that revels in the rapid, disorientating transition between these registers, slipping between fish and philosophy, the literary and the literal, by reapplying to the natural world a host of traditional metaphors and 



Dion. Hal. Comp. .; successful practitioners include Demosthenes, Plato, and Aristotle. Dionysius refers to the combination of ‘austere’ and ‘smooth’ compositional types; see de Jonge : –. The association between form and content – namely a ‘mixed’ literary style and the advocacy of moderation in an ethical sense – recurs in the anonymous late-antique Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, where Plato is said to adapt his style to his content, using the ‘blended’ style in ethical dialogues about virtue, since both the blended style and philosophical virtue should properly be regarded as means: τῷ δὲ κατὰ κρᾶσιν μικτῷ κέχρηται ἐν τοῖς ἠθικοῖς διαλόγοις, ἐπειδὴ περὶ ἀρετῆς διαλέγεται ἐν αὐτοῖς, αἱ ἀρεταὶ δὲ μεσότητές εἰσιν· κυρίως δὲ μέσος ἐστὶν ὁ κατὰ κρᾶσιν μικτὸς χαρακτήρ (Anon. Prol. .–). See Hunter a: .



Lust

topoi inspired by the natural world itself. Take the characterisation of the poem as γλυκύς (.). We have already noted that the adjective connotes both the stylistically sweet or poetically pleasing, and the image of a sweet drink, whether honeyed wine or fresh water. The latter offers a pointed contrast to the poem’s marine or ‘briny’ subject-matter (εἰνάλιος .), so that the poet exploits the juxtaposition of the literal and the literary, poetic ‘sweetness’ and topical ‘brine.’ While metaphors of fluidity are a familiar feature of ancient literary criticism, the slippage between ‘real’ and metaphorical food and drink is also a familiar feature of sympotic and gastronomic literature. Compare the Deipnosophistae of Oppian’s near-contemporary Athenaeus, which repeatedly draws parallels between the consumption of literature and of food, the texts discussed by the diners and the dishes eaten at dinner. A similar contrast between the sweet or bitter nature of words and of fish is suggested by the consumption and discussion of dried and salted seafish, after which the Cynic Cynulcus requests some water to drink, claiming that such ‘salty’ conversations must be washed away with a sweet drink: δεῖν λέγων ἁλμυροὺς λόγους γλυκέσιν ἀποκλύζεσθαι νάμασι. Cynulcus here humorously adapts Socrates’ statement in the Phaedrus that the philosopher must wash away the bitter or briny discussion of excessive love with a more palatable discussion of the issue at hand, literalising the Platonic metaphor and moving playfully between the actual consumption of fish and the metaphorical ‘consumption’ of words, the salty (or unpleasant) and the sweet (or pleasurable) victuals and conversation. Oppian too wittily recontextualises Platonic imagery in order to slip between the ‘real’ and metaphorical domains. The subject of the proem’s opening clause – ὑγρὸς ἔρως – signals the poet’s delight in the reanimation of conventional topoi and his reapplication of philosophical discourse in his exploration of desire at sea. In its sense of ‘wet’ or ‘moist’, the word ὑγρός is frequently used in the Halieutica to describe the watery environment of fish. Book , we understand, is to examine sexual desire and its     



Cf. Pind. Parth.  fr. b.–, who contrasts unpalatable brine with sweet nectar, on the poetological significance of which see Nu¨nlist : . Se e.g. Romeri  and, more widely, Jeanneret . Compare n.  above, on the metaphor of ‘mixing’ wisdom and pleasure offered in Athenaeus just as the deipnosophists mix up their wine. Athen. .e–f; cf. Oppian’s γλυκὺ νᾶμα. Pl. Phdr. d: ἐπιθυμῶ ποτίμῳ λόγῳ οἷον ἁλμυρὰν ἀκοὴν ἀποκλύσασθαι. The metaphor of consuming words is developed when Ulpian, enraged at the Cynic’s use of the Latin term for decocted water, retorts sharply that he is unable to ‘digest’ Cynulcus’ words (πέττειν ὑμῶν τοὺς λόγους οὐ δυνάμενος, Athen. .f ), crammed as they are with barbarisms. E.g. the sea itself (.; .), the objects over which it washes (surfaces of rocks, .; fisherman’s net, .; seaweed, .), or the fluids emitted by various fish (., ; .).

. Emotional Storms



fatal consequences for sea-creatures, so that ὑγρὸς ἔρως (‘aquatic desire’) represents an Eros transposed to the sea in much the same way that the fishermen’s battle with the whale in book  is described, amidst a flurry of martial similes, as ὑγρὸς ἄρης (‘aquatic warfare’, .), or Ares at sea. Yet the adjective is also uniquely appropriate to the workings of Eros. Not only had it gained currency in Hellenistic epigram as a characteristic of the languid erotic gaze, but in the sense of ‘supple’, ‘pliant’, or ‘tender’, ὑγρός is the word memorably used by Agathon to represent Eros’ bodily form in Plato’s Symposium. In explicit disagreement with Phaedrus’ claim that Eros should be regarded as the eldest of the gods, a primordial deity of the kind depicted in Hesiod’s Theogony, Agathon maintains that Eros is not only κάλλιστος and νεώτατος, but also soft or tender (ἁπαλός). The softness of this deity’s chosen environment – the characters and souls of gods and men – is, we are told, a fitting reflection of the nature of Eros himself (Pl. Symp. e–a). A tender bed for a tender god. Agathon develops this argument by proclaiming the god’s evident pliancy: νεώτατος μὲν δή ἐστι καὶ ἁπαλώτατος, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ὑγρὸς τὸ εἶδος (‘so he is the youngest and the softest, and in addition he is supple [ὑγρός] in form’). In referring to ὑγρὸς ἔρως as the erotic force at work in the marine world, Oppian not only literalises the Platonic image, but also reworks Agathon’s argument that the god’s qualities mirror his environment, for what could be a more fitting environment for ὑγρὸς ἔρως than the fluid water itself?



 





E.g. Leon. Tarent. AP ..; Antip. Sid. AP .. (both referring to Anacreon); Anacreont..; Posidipp. . AB; similarly in playfully allusive imperial texts, e.g. Luc. Imag. .; Philostr. Ep. , which glides between the fluidity of wine, water, and the beloved’s eyes. The Homeric Hymn to Pan also details Hermes’ intense longing (πόθος ὑγρός, Hymn. Hom. Pan. ) for Dryope. Pl. Symp. a; cf. Hal. ., .–. Building on the Homeric claim that Ate is delicate of foot, since she walks not on the ground but on the heads of men (Hom. Il. .–). Agathon’s speech is reworked in Philostr. Ep. , which takes as its cue Agathon’s suggestion in Pl. Symp. b that Eros is drawn to flowers: ‘roses really are the plants of Eros, for they are young, as he is, and pliant, as is Eros himself (καὶ ὑγρά, ὡς αὐτὸς ὁ Ἔρως . . .)’. Pl. Symp. a, arguing that if Eros were hard and unyielding he would never be able to wrap himself undetected around people’s souls. Eros’ ‘good proportions and pliancy of form’ (ὑγρᾶς ἰδέας) are also said to be manifested in his elegance (Pl. Symp. a). Oppian returns to the idea when he likens amorous grey mullets, lusting after a female fish trailed in the water, to love-struck youths following in the wake of a beautiful woman. So too one would see the ‘pliant throng’ (ὑγρὸν ὅμιλον) of mullets jostling in a frenzy (.). The throng is ὑγρός in every sense: aquatic, of course, yet also wildly enamoured of the beautiful female before them, overwhelmed by their own ardent passions, and all too ready to follow her around with longing gaze (the visual aspect of both the mullets’ and the youths’ erotic encounter is emphasised at .– and –).



Lust

As often, Oppian exploits the potential that arises in didactic epic for juxtaposing the abstract or literary and the literal or practical, the adjective ὑγρός here spanning both realms. Eros’ affinity for the ocean, however, rests on more than just his ὑγρός form, for it is precisely the god’s powerfully unpredictable, storm-like qualities that render him so akin to the dangerous sea. Oppian’s proem thus goes even further in its reassessment of the visions of Eros in Plato’s Symposium. Like Agathon, Oppian makes Eros a διδάσκαλος (Pl. Symp. a; compare the claim at Hal. .– that nothing, not even a fish, is to remain unschooled, ἀδίδακτος, in Eros’ powers), and the lesson that the poem’s readers are to learn is that uncontrolled eros proves fatal to the creatures whose judgement it overpowers. Little mention is made in the proem of Eros’ indispensable generative power (contrast Pl. Symp. a); instead, this god is a purveyor of irrational frenzy, cries of pain, and maddening elemental onslaughts. Like the Socrates of Plato’s Symposium, Oppian offers a necessary corrective to Agathon’s vision of a gentle and virtuous deity who invariably inspires such virtues in others. Oppian, however, remains committed to a duality of the kind outlined by Pausanias in the Symposium: Eros has the capacity to bring about either good or ill, depending on the nature of the encounter. ‘Every action in and of itself is neither good nor bad. For example, none of the things we are doing now, drinking or singing, or talking, is in itself good or bad, but each becomes so according to how it is done. If done beautifully and correctly, it becomes good; if incorrectly, bad. Thus not all loving and Eros are good nor worthy of an encomium, but only the Eros that turns us towards loving well’ (Pl. Symp. e–a). While Pausanias famously distinguishes between Ouranian and Pandemian love, a noble pederastic desire and an indiscriminate carnal lust associated respectively with an elder, motherless, and a younger, maternally generated Aphrodite and Eros, Oppian relates the same kind of genealogical enquiry to an implicit distinction between the destructive or tempestuous, and the measured or controllable forms of eros:  

 

Cf. Mel. .– GP (= AP .), where Eros’ descent from Θάλασσα (here his grandmother via Aphrodite) playfully explains his fierce and stormy characteristics, for ‘he loves rage like the waves’. Although legitimate procreation is mentioned at .–, it is little discussed in the remainder of the book, and is instead the province primarily of book , which deals with mating customs. See e.g. .–, although even here the poet moves on to the horrors of labour pains, rape, and savage erotic competition. As noted above, the association between Eros and drinking recurs also in sympotic literature; Oppian’s choice of the wine-mixing analogy for a book about desire can be no coincidence. Pl. Symp. c–a.

. Emotional Storms



εἴτ’ οὖν ἐν μακάρεσσι παλαίτατός ἐσσi γενέθλῃ, ἐκ Χάεος δ’ ἀνέτειλας ἀμειδέος, ὀξέϊ πυρσῷ λαμπόμενος, πρῶτος δὲ γάμων ἐζεύξαο θεσμούς, πρῶτος δ’ εὐναίοις ἀρότοις ἐπεθήκαο τέκμωρ, εἴτε σε καὶ πτερύγεσσιν ἀειρόμενον θεὸν ὄρνιν τίκτε Πάφου μεδέουσα πολυφράδμων Ἀφροδίτη. εὐμενέοις, πρηΰς τε καὶ εὔδιος ἄμμιν ἱκάνοις μέτρον ἄγων· οὐ γάρ τις ἀναίνεται ἔργον ἔρωτος. πάντῃ μὲν κρατέεις, πάντῃ δέ σε καὶ ποθέουσι καὶ μέγα πεφρίκασιν· ὁ δ’ ὄλβιος, ὅστις ἔρωτα εὐκραῆ κομέει τε καὶ ἐν στέρνοισι φυλάσσει. (.–)

So whether you are the eldest of the gods by birth, and arose from unsmiling Chaos, shining with fierce fire, and were the first to establish the conjoining ordinances of marriage, and the first to impose the aim of conjugal procreation, or whether in fact shrewd Aphrodite who rules over Paphos bore you, an avian god soaring aloft on wings, be benevolent, and come mild and calm upon us, bringing due measure with you. For nobody rejects the work of Love. You rule everywhere, and everywhere they both yearn for you and shudder violently at you. And blessed is he who nurtures and preserves in his chest a temperate love.

The simultaneous longing and fear inspired by the god (.–) reflects the duality of his power. While the remainder of book  points to an ἔρως that brings only pain and death to the unfortunate fish, the poet hints here at the possibility of a moderate, productive, and well-controlled desire that can be pleasant and even beneficial. Oppian’s view of Eros here seems to approach that of the Platonic Eryximachus, who emphasises the regulation of opposing forces in the promotion of an ordered and harmonious whole. This is a world-view that not only creates a vital role for eros as a cosmic force affecting animals as well as human beings (Symp. a), but that also privileges the role of individual expertise in banishing intemperance and cultivating a well-ordered and moderate (κόσμιος) variety of Eros that 

κόσμιος: Pl. Symp. d, a, c. Eryximachus observes that expertise is required when applying his quasi-technical principles to mankind at large, reiterating the claim ὅτι τοῖς μὲν κοσμίοις τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ ὡς ἂν κοσμιώτεροι γίγνοιντο οἱ μήπω ὄντες, δεῖ χαρίζεσθαι καὶ φυλάττειν τὸν τούτων ἔρωτα, καὶ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ καλός, ὁ οὐράνιος, ὁ τῆς Οὐρανίας μούσης Ἔρως (that well-ordered men, and those on their way towards being such, must nurture the fine, heavenly Eros that comes from the ‘Ouranian’ Muse, Symp. d). Compare not only Oppian’s statement that the happy man nurtures (φυλάσσει) a moderate ἔρως, but also his declaration at .– that the bountiful Muses have ‘ordered’ his mind (ἐμὸν νόον ἠπιόδωροι | Μοῦσαι κοσμήσαντο) with the marine knowledge that he is to relate in this book; crucial to Oppian’s claim is the double sense in which κοσμέω can imply both ordered rationality and aesthetic appeal.



Lust

proves productive rather than destructive. For Oppian, as we have seen, productive ἔρως is that which is moderate and measured and selfcontrolled (μέτρον ἄγων), whereas destructive ἔρως is wild and frenzied, ushering in precipitous ruin (λύσσαν ἄγων). The distinction between the two is heightened by the verbal parallelism in the poet’s descriptions of the deity in benign (εὐμενέοις, πρηὺς τε καὶ εὔδιος ἄμμιν ἱκάνοις | μέτρον ἄγων, .–) and in gleefully malign modes (πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ ἐς μόρον ἐξεκύλισας, | ὅσσοις χειμέριός τε καὶ ἄγριος ἀντεβόλησας | λύσσαν ἄγων, .–). The moderation of ἔρως, we infer, entails the pacification of elemental natural forces (χειμέριος–εὔδιος) and the taming of bestial impulses (ἄγριος–πρηύς). While these metaphors are drawn from the natural world to which the remainder of the book is devoted, the poet’s point is that both ends of this spectrum are also experienced by human beings; the proem offers its readers a sharp reminder that men as well as beasts are subject to wild and elemental urges that require careful regulation. Eryximachus’ analogy between dietetics and the control of ‘pandemian’ eros (Pl. Symp. e) is also pertinent, for Oppian implies that the regulation of desire is not unlike that of food consumption, in that excess – of the kind displayed by animals, and to which human beings are also frequently prone – proves catastrophic, and must be countered by judicious moderation. The poet’s choice of greed and lust as the respective organising principles of books  and  illustrates the destructive potential of the passions to overwhelm the more rational faculties, in humans as in fish. As we are reminded by the greedy day-sleeper, a species that knows no moderation or satiety when it comes to food (οὐ γὰρ ἐδωδῆς | ἢ κόρον ἠέ τι μέτρον ἐπίσταται, .–), it is imperative that humans too maintain a moderate approach to their consumption of food ([τις] ἔχοι δέ τι μέτρον ἐδωδῆς, .). The philosophical overtones in the proem to book  assume a similarly protreptic function, reminding the reader that much





This is not to say that Plato does not also lambast Pausanias, Eryximachus, and Agathon for their sophistic rhetoric, self-importance, and faulty logic, or that later authors took every word in the dialogue seriously. Nevertheless, it is clear that many of the dialogue’s speeches played a vital role in shaping the Greek traditions of thought about Eros on which Oppian builds. The presence (or even parody) of both Hippocratic and Empedoclean thought is also evident throughout Eryximachus’ speech; to this cosmic vision of Eros as the harmonious relationship between different elements, compare Hal. .–, esp. on the φιλότης with which Zeus has bound air, water, earth, and sky together. Cf. the parallel drawn in the Phaedrus between excessive desire for food and carnal desire for the beautiful beloved (Pl. Phdr. a–c).

. Emotional Storms



the same moral failings are characteristic of both humans and animals, and that it is precisely in moments of greed, lust, sloth, and hostility – in desire as in war – that human behaviour most closely approaches the realm of the bestial. It is only, we infer, through the exercise of restraint and moderation, the privileging of the rational over the appetitive faculties, that we humans can distinguish ourselves from the beasts we so easily catch. The poet’s use of elemental imagery further stresses the connections between humans and fish by activating long-standing associations between the forces of nature and the turbulence wrought by desire. Oppian’s savage, stormy Eros (χειμέριός τε καὶ ἄγριος, .) enters the body like a hurricane (ὥστε θύελλα, .), causes the victim to bluster or seethe with pain (παφλάζων ὀδύνῃσι, .), and wrings cries of pain from the very depths of their being (βυσσόθεν, .); it creates of the body an unruly and tempestuous environment much like the sea itself. Associations between intense passion and the chaotic forces of storm and sea are conventional in Greek thought, and lyric poetry, tragedy, and amatory epigrams are all replete with erotic storms of the kind exemplified by Meleager’s epigram on the beleaguered lover: κῦμα τὸ πικρὸν Ἔρωτος ἀκοίμητοί τε πνέοντες | ζῆλοι καὶ κώμων χειμέριον πέλαγος, | ποῖ φέρομαι; πάντῃ δὲ φρενῶν οἴακες ἀφεῖνται (‘O bitter wave of love and restlessly gusting jealousy and stormy sea of revelry, where am I being borne along? The rudder of my mind is loosed in every direction’). Oppian reanimates this discourse of elemental fury by juxtaposing a now-conventional literary and philosophical trope with the realities of just such an unpredictable, storm-tossed marine world. The metaphors that trace the onset, and moderation, of erotic passion in this proem thus redeploy vocabulary used in the remainder of the poem to describe the chaotic ocean and its fierce inhabitants. Storms, turbulent depths, and savage hurricanes are experienced by both lovers and sea-creatures; here too the experiences of the suffering human subject are assimilated to the vicissitudes of life at sea. 



Mel.  GP (= AP .), –. For lyric storm-winds of desire, see esp. Sapph.  V and Ibyc.  PMG. The image of a ‘sea of troubles’, particularly prominent in tragedy, is also important, as is the ‘ship of state’ metaphor. The ‘lover at sea’ is a trope especially prominent in Hellenistic epigram: see e.g. Mel.  GP (= AP .), where Aphrodite acts as the soul’s captain and Eros its helmsman, and Desire stirs up a storm with heavy breaths (χειμαίνει δὲ βαρὺς πνεύσας Πόθος, ). In Anon.  GP (= AP .), the moods of the beloved mimic the uncertainties of a storm at sea, with the beleaguered lover like a man shipwrecked, whirled around, and sent off course by a mighty storm. θύελλα: .~. (sea urchins enduring a storm at sea); χειμέριος: .~. (sea seething in a storm); for the δριμεῖαν ὁμοκλήν of Eros (.), compare the χειμερίην . . . ὁμοκλήν of winter, .; βυσσόθεν: .~. (dolphin rising from the depths of the sea; cf. the βυσσός of the sea: .; ., , , ); εὔδιος: . ~., , ; εὐκραής: .~., ; .; .; ἄγριος: .~.; ., , ; ..



Lust

Oppian’s emphasis on moderation and his extensive use of elemental imagery speak to wider contemporary philosophical debates about passion and reason. Plutarch’s broadly Platonic and Aristotelian treatise On Moral Virtue, for instance, draws an extended analogy between the man who gives free rein to, or is otherwise overcome by, his passions, and a ship blown about by gusts of wind, its ‘cables’ of good judgement severed or its helmsman shipwrecked, an image that Plutarch opposes to the ‘windless calm’ exhibited by the man whose blasts of desire have been subdued and whose self-restraint is visible even in his countenance. Oppian too values the calm and gentle, moderation-inducing desire (πρηὺς τε καὶ εὔδιος, | μέτρον ἄγων .–) over the wild and stormy eros that brings frenzy in its wake (χειμέριός τε καὶ ἄγριος, λύσσαν ἄγων, .–). The poet’s model is not the extirpation of all passion in the Stoic vein, but rather its moderation, a development of what Aristotle and the Peripatetics call μετριοπάθεια, and which Plutarch strongly advocates both here and in his oeuvre more widely. This is not to suggest that Oppian need be responding specifically to Plutarch’s On Moral Virtue, but rather that the two authors together point to a kind of imperial zeitgeist characterised by an eclectic, and at times relatively dilute, philosophical outlook broadly inspired by Platonic and Aristotelian ideas about virtue, moderation, rationality, and the emotions, and in which animals feature prominently as a counterpart to human behaviour. 



 

Plut. De virt. mor. a–e, illustrating these images with nautical metaphors drawn from tragedy. For the centrality of this dialogue to Plutarch’s wider ethical programme, see Duff : –. The metaphor had a long philosophical heritage: in his discussion of the ‘windless calm’ of temperance, Plutarch cites Hom. Od. .– (= Od. .–), the same lines that lie behind Agathon’s recitation in the Symposium of (what are presumably) his own verses on the beneficial Eros who bestows εἰρήνην μὲν ἐν ἀνθρώποις, πελάγει δὲ γαλήνην | νηνεμίαν, ἀνέμων κοίτην ὕπνον τ᾿ ἐνὶ κήδει (‘peace among men, a waveless calm at sea, rest from winds, and sleep in pain’, Pl. Symp. c). The association of serene weather with emotional calm and gusty squalls with emotional turmoil was conventional by the second century . Compare Plutarch’s description of the serene soul of the temperate man, equipped with a wonderful gentleness (πραότητι θαυμαστῇ κεκοσμημένον, Plut. De virt. mor. d). For πραότης (for which cf. Hal. .) as a virtue lauded in statesmen in Plutarch’s Lives as well as in On Moral Virtue, see Duff : –. On μετριοπάθεια in ancient philosophical thought, see e.g. Sorabji : –. Plutarch subscribes to the Platonic and Aristotelian notion that the soul is composed of rational and irrational parts, arguing that virtue consists in the control of the emotions by reason, and advocating the pursuit of the mean between emotional extremes. Important here is Plutarch’s implication that animals represent a more pronounced version of the struggle in humans between the rational and the irrational components (just as youths have a more pronounced irrational element than do older men, Plut. De virt. mor. f–a); cf. Chapter . The Halieutica exhibits little more sympathy than does Plutarch for the Stoic view that animals do not participate in the rational, and that emotions should be eradicated in their entirety.

. Emotional Storms



In the Halieutica, humans and animals are shown to be prone to much the same emotional excesses, and the proem to book  draws implicit analogies between the two not only in their weathering of literal or erotic storms, but with the familiar adage that Eros governs all beings, including men, gods, and the creatures of earth, air, and sea (.–). This is a topos familiar, for instance, from the opening verses of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (.–) or from Euripides’ Hippolytus, where Eros is both the subjugator of all beings (Eur. Hipp. –), and also a powerfully destructive force who must be welcomed in moderate, harmonious form if he is not to cause ruin in those he assaults (Hipp. –). Oppian offers a new angle of approach by singling out and developing the impact on the marine sphere noted in passing by earlier poets. This claim underscores, and functions as the point of transition between, the proem and the remainder of the book, for while the proem details the powerful and destructive effect of eros upon men, the remainder of book  explores its even more deadly effect upon fish. The λύσσα provoked in humans by wild, immoderate eros (.) thus mirrors the rabid frenzies of violence, lust, or greed experienced by virtually all seacreatures. The analogy between the two spheres, latent throughout the proem, is rendered explicit in the vignette of the merle-wrasse, whose polygamous habits make it the species most sorely afflicted by painful eros and by that cruel spirit (βαρύφρονι δαίμονι, .), jealousy. When a fisherman dangles a small prawn in the vicinity of the merle’s ‘bridal chambers’ (θαλάμων, .), the merle-wrasse thinks that the prawn has ventured inside its ‘house’ with malign designs on its numerous beds and wives (καρῖδα δόμων ἔντοσθεν ἱκάνειν | ἐλπόμενος λεχέεσσιν ἀνάρσιον ἠδ’ ἀλόχοισιν, .–); overcome by jealous rage, it snatches impetuously at both prawn and hook. The anthropomorphic language of the passage sets humans and fish in parallel, and includes an explicit comparison between the wrasse and polygamous human tribes in Bactria and Assyria, whose erotic practices likewise lead to jealousy and aggression (.–). The moral, and the parallel, is set out with clarity: ὣς οὐδὲν ζήλοιο κακώτερον ἀνδράσιν ἄλγος ἐντρέφεται, πολλοὺς δὲ γόους, πολλὰς δὲ τίθησιν οἰμωγάς· λύσσης γὰρ ἀναιδέος ἐστὶν ἑταῖρος, λύσσῃ δ’ ἀσπασίως ἐπιμίσγεται, ἐς δὲ βαρεῖαν  

Cf. Eur. Hipp. –; Soph. fr. ; Men. Rhet. .. See also Ach. Tat. .–; Long. ., and Section ., ‘Imperial Animals’. See ., ; ., ; .; .; ., .



Lust ἄτην ἐξεχόρευσε, τέλος δέ οἱ ἔπλετ’ ὄλεθρος. ὃς καὶ τὸν δύστηνον ὑπήγαγε κόσσυφον ἄτῃ δμηθῆναι, χαλεπῆς δὲ γάμων ἤντησεν ἀμοιβῆς. (.–)

Thus no pain worse than jealousy is engendered among men, and it causes much weeping and much wailing, for it is the companion of shameless frenzy; and it gladly associates with frenzy and cavorts into a dreadful delusion that ends in destruction. And [jealousy] also leads the unfortunate wrasse to be overcome by ruin, and [the fish] meets with a harsh recompense for its marriages.

Emotional and physical excess, exemplified by men and fish who harbour a surfeit of sexual partners, once more proves fatal. As the fisherman exclaims with taunts (.) over the captured wrasse, the creature manifestly deserves its death: οὐ γάρ τοι μία κύπρις ἐφήνδανεν οὐδὲ μί’ εὐνή, | ἀλλὰ μάλ’ ἐν τόσσῃσιν ἀγάλλεο μοῦνος ἀκοίτης | εὐναῖς (‘“For one love did not satisfy you, nor one bed, but instead you, a single husband, exulted in so many beds”’, .–). The nature, and the consequences, of erotic desire now look little different for humans than for animals, and the similarity is heightened by the poet’s continual movement between the two in the anthropomorphic language, similes, and overt parallels with which the account brims. Oppian connects the worlds of fish and men by suggesting that each is prone to jealousy and lust; the poet highlights the need for restraint and moderation in reining in the more ‘bestial’ instincts associated with an excessive, destructive form of eros. Familiar erotic (and ethnographic) tropes take on a new force, and the fisherman himself turns advocate of moderation and punisher of transgressors. The fisherman’s stern power over the unfortunate fish gestures, moreover, towards a wider cultural association between eros and the act of fishing: Eros could be figured in ancient thought as a fisherman as well as a hunter or bird-catcher, and the fisherman acts in book  like an agent of Eros, arousing desire in fish and delighting in their destruction much as the god himself revels in the pain, frenzy, and destruction he causes humankind (τοίαις γὰρ ἀγάλλεαι εἰλαπίνῃσιν, .).  

On which see further Chapter . The proem’s metaphors of Eros ‘feasting’ on human suffering (εἰλαπίνη, .; λαρὸν γάνος, .) also heighten the parallelism between deity and fisherman; the image of Eros descending into the waves and shooting his arrows at fish (ὁπλίζεις δὲ καὶ ἐν νεπόδεσσι κελαινοὺς | ἀτράκτους, .–) is mirrored later in the book when the fisherman is instructed to fashion a shaft and lower it into the water to catch squid: .–: τευθίσι δ’ ἄτρακτόν τις ἀνὴρ ἐπιμηχανόῳτο, | ἐντύνων κλωστῆρι πανείκελον (‘and a man should contrive against squid by preparing a shaft exactly like a spindle’). Likewise, the torch or πυρσός associated with Eros at . is echoed by the πυρσός (.) that fishermen use to attract fish at night. The widespread ancient conceit of Eros as a fisherman, and the

. Erotic Echoes



. Erotic Echoes Oppian thus co-opts a series of long-established traditions that look to ἔρως as a force that affects both humans and animals alike, and that lay weight on the duality of Eros as a god equally capable of either a positive or a negative impact. The poet’s allusive emphasis on the double genealogy of the god, his metaphors of amatory torment, and his nods to canonical literary and philosophical discussions of eros all create of this proem a kind of literary bricolage, an eerily familiar disquisition on the nature of love. Many of the tropes introduced by Oppian, for instance, are themselves cited as examples in Menander Rhetor’s advice on delivering an epithalamium: Menander suggests that the would-be rhetor include in the speech a thematic section on the god of marriage and on Eros, detailing the creation of both ‘after the dispersal of Chaos’; a panegyric on the function of marriage and desire as structuring cosmic principles; and narratives about desire and marriage among fish and other creatures, a reminder that no sphere is devoid of the erotic impulse. Oppian’s application of these topics to fish, however, accords his discussion a strikingly novel perspective, and recentres the traditional connections between Eros and the forces of the natural world. The very familiarity of the poet’s erotic bricolage therefore becomes central to his message: the subtle wit and philosophical thrust of this proem lies in its adaptation of well-known tropes to celebrate not human desire but the world of fish, and in the implication that the reader should attend with great care to the parallels between human and bestial eros. Book , I have suggested, opens by drawing attention to its dense literary texture, programmatically advertising the poet’s ‘blend’ of styles and sources in the wine-mixing metaphor of .. The allusive nature of the proem both depicts and stages a melange of literary traditions and erotic tropes, and the poet’s ‘hymn’ to Eros is introduced with the address σχέτλι’ Ἔρως (.), an invocation that is itself replete with echoes of Theognis, Simonides, and Apollonius. The phrase in the first place recalls what survives as the opening of the second book of Theognis’ elegiac collection:



related conception of the lover as hunter, fisherman, or fowler (or, conversely, hunted animal) is familiar from erotic epigram in particular, and is paralleled in the visual sphere in Roman-era mosaics of erotes fishing. See e.g. Diosc. AP .; Lycoph. Alex. ; Strat. AP .. Examples are collected in Murgatroyd . In such contexts the metaphor of fishing again points in particular to the power disparities between lover and beloved. See esp. Men. Rhet. ..–..



Lust Σχέτλι’ Ἔρως, μανίαι σε τιθηνήσαντο λαβοῦσαι· ἐκ σέθεν ὤλετο μὲν Ἰλίου ἀκρόπολις, ὤλετο δ’ Αἰγείδης Θησεὺς μέγας, ὤλετο δ’ Αἴας ἐσθλὸς Ὀιλιάδης σῆισιν ἀτασθαλίαις.

(Thgn. –)

Cruel Eros, the spirits of Madness took you up and nursed you. Because of you the acropolis of Troy was destroyed, and Aegeus’ son, mighty Theseus, was destroyed as well, and noble Ajax, Oileus’ son, was destroyed through your acts of recklessness.

Oppian recalls the Theognidean sentiment not only in his association of ‘cruel eros’ with the destruction of multiple men (thus e.g. .–), but also in the anaphora of ὀλοός at the start of the proem (ὀλοῶν δὲ γάμων, ὀλοῆς δ’ Ἀφροδίτης | ἠντίασαν σπεύδοντες ἑὴν φιλοτήσιον ἄτην, .–), a verbal pattern that nods to the thrice-repeated Theognidean ὤλετο. The parallel is heightened by the later poet’s metonymic reference to desire or mating as ‘Aphrodite’, the goddess associated closely with the outbreak of the Trojan War, a conflict here instigated by Theognis’ Eros. The destructive potential of these erotic deities is thus set centre stage. The Theognidean reference to the destruction of the city of Troy also casts a more sinister light on the next line of the Halieutica, which addresses Marcus Aurelius as κάρτιστε πολισσούχων βασιλήων (‘most powerful of the kings who protect cities’, .). The emperor, we infer, would do well to heed the warnings that Greek literary history has to offer. Oppian’s address to σχέτλι’ Ἔρως, δολομῆτα, (‘cruel, crafty Eros’, .) and his discussion of the god’s disputed genealogy contains a further lyric echo, this time of the fragment of Simonides known from a scholion to Apollonius’ Argonautica: Ἀπολλώνιος μὲν Ἀφροδίτης τὸν Ἔρωτα γενεαλογεῖ . . . Σιμωνίδης δὲ Ἀφροδίτης καὶ Ἄρεως· ‘σχέτλιε παῖ δολόμηδες Ἀφροδίτας, | τὸν Ἄρῃ †δολομηχάνῳ† τέκεν.’ (Σ A.R. Arg. . =  PMGF) Apollonius makes Eros the child of Aphrodite . . . and Simonides of Aphrodite and Ares: ‘Cruel and crafty child of Aphrodite, whom she bore to guile-contriving Ares.’

Other references suggest that this verse was well known in antiquity. The citation is included in the scholiast’s list of different genealogies ascribed to  

The epithet πολι(σσ)οῦχος is widely applied to gods; the implication is perhaps that the emperor is to be regarded as a more stable, beneficial patron figure than the fickle and destructive Eros. Σ Theoc. Id. .–; cf. Serv. Aen. ..

. Erotic Echoes



Eros in ancient literature, and lyric poets are said to have placed particular weight on alternative accounts of the god’s divergent origins. Oppian, then, evokes the Simonidean claim only to refuse to commit to its validity, for he leaves the issue of Aphrodite’s consort unaddressed, and even her maternal role at large unresolved (εἴτε . . . εἴτε). The poet focuses instead on a wider thematic contrast between a primordial Eros born out of Chaos – what we might call the Hesiodic tradition – and a winged Eros descended from Cyprian Aphrodite. The distinction is heightened by the unusual description of Chaos as ἀμειδής (‘unsmiling’, .), here standing in implicit contrast with Aphrodite, the goddess traditionally represented as φιλομμειδής. Oppian seems interested less in advancing a specific genealogical claim than in evoking Eros’ paradoxes and multiplicities, and in gesturing towards the overdetermined nature of the god’s literary heritage. The intertextual polysemy of the poet’s address to σχέτλι’ Ἔρως functions much like the multiple accounts of the god’s parentage: plurality is precisely the point here, for this proliferating allusivity captures something of the god’s alleged multiformity. This, after all, is a god strongly associated with duality in the Greek imagination, where ἔρως is 

 



Hephaestus, Ares, and Ouranos are all early attested suggestions for Aphrodite’s partner, while even Sappho, who advanced the first extant claim that Eros was the son of Aphrodite, calls him variously the child of Ouranos and Aphrodite and of Ouranos and Gaia, an ‘inconsistency’ later noted by Pausanias (..). Hephaestus and Aphrodite: Ibyc.  PMG; Ares and Aphrodite: Simon.  PMG; Ouranos and Aphrodite: Sapph.  V. Other authors dispense with Aphrodite altogether, making Eros the child of Iris and Zephyrus (Alc.  V) or of Poros and Penia (Diotima in Pl. Symp. b–c). In Orphic accounts Eros (or Phanes) was born from the cosmic primordial egg, a genealogy memorably parodied at Ar. Av. –. Oppian’s representation of Eros as a bird at . may draw in part from Orphic traditions, but the god is nevertheless here represented as the child of Aphrodite, and the god’s ‘wings’ are frequently represented in non-Orphic texts from the Hellenistic period onwards. For Oppian’s declaration of aporia in the face of theological speculation, see Chapter . Hesiod does not in fact make Eros the child of Chaos, but relates that Eros arose after Chaos (ἔπειτα, Hes. Theog. ); Acusilaus likewise reports that after Chaos came Eros (μετὰ τό Χάος, Pl. Symp. b), while it is Erebus, Nux, and the rest who emerge ἐκ Χάεος on the Hesiodic account (Hes. Theog. ). Hesiod’s claim is thus accurately represented as a temporal, rather than a genealogical, connection in Pl. Symp. b. However, the same scholion to Apollonius of Rhodes reports that ὁ δὲ Ἡσίοδος ἐκ Χάους λέγει τὸν Ἔρωτα (Σ A.R. Arg. .), which suggests that the Hesiodic association between Chaos and Eros as primordial cosmic forces was readily assimilated into debates about the god’s parentage. Even in Hesiod’s Theogony, of course, Eros is both a cosmic primordial force (albeit a physically attractive one: κάλλιστος, Hes. Theog. ; cf. Hal. .) and the companion of Aphrodite at her birth (Hes. Theog. ). Although we might read the claim at . that for Eros, even the οὐρανίης γενεῆς (‘heavenly race,’ i.e. the gods) will not suffice, and that the god takes it upon himself to rule over animals as well, as a sly reference to the god’s alleged ‘Ouranian descent’. οὐράνιος is not Oppian’s customary mode of designating the sky, and the adjective appears only here; note the reference at ., furthermore, to the gods as Οὐρανίδαι or ‘children of Ouranos’. On the significance of ‘Ouranian Eros’, see further below.



Lust

both physical urge and abstracted deity, both winged infant and primordial cosmic force, both destructive and progenerative influence. This is an allpervasive doubleness – of genealogy, influence, and bodily form – well encapsulated in the Hymn to Eros by Antagoras of Rhodes. For all his professed genealogical uncertainty, Oppian also offers a more concrete account of the god’s domain: εἴτ’ οὖν ἐν μακάρεσσι παλαίτατός ἐσσι γενέθλῃ, ἐκ Χάεος δ’ ἀνέτειλας ἀμειδέος ὀξέι πυρσῷ λαμπόμενος, πρῶτος δὲ γάμων ἐζεύξαο θεσμούς, πρῶτος δ’ εὐναίοις ἀρότοις ἐπεθήκαο τέκμωρ, εἴτε σε καὶ πτερύγεσσιν ἀειρόμενον θεὸν ὄρνιν τίκτε Πάφου μεδέουσα πολυφράδμων Ἀφροδίτη. εὐμενέοις . . . (.–)

Whether you are indeed the eldest of the gods by birth, and arose from unsmiling Chaos, shining with fierce fire, and were the first to conjoin [people in] the ordinances of marriage, and the first to impose the goal [or ‘pledge’] of conjugal procreation; or whether shrewd Aphrodite who rules over Paphos bore you, an avian god soaring aloft on wings, be benevolent . . .

The innovations introduced by the motherless, primordial Eros dramatise the emergence of order and civilisation out of chaos, a process broadly analogous to the structural progress of Hesiod’s Theogony, from which this genealogy is itself drawn. The legalistic quality of the language is striking: ζεύγνυμι, θεσμοί, ἐπιτίθημι, and τέκμωρ all convey the legally binding nature of the conjugal contract, while the agricultural metaphor of procreation (ἄροτος) echoes the formula used in Athenian marriage contracts to refer to the production of legitimate offspring. Both the ‘ploughing’ of 





Eros’ paradoxical nature is highlighted by Socrates in Xen. Symp. ., who notes his status as a simultaneously cosmic and internal psychic force. See also Men. Rhet. ..–, who cites the profession of uncertainty as to whether Eros was born from Chaos or Aphrodite as a paradigmatic ‘aporetic’ hymnic topos; Long. .–; Metiochus and Parthenope in Stephens and Winkler : –, –. Paus. .. points to the proliferation of genealogies for Eros, while aporia in the face of many options is voiced in Theoc. Id. .–. Mel.  GP (= AP .) playfully turns this plurality into a comment on the god’s troublesome nature: none will claim him as their son. Antag. fr.  Powell: ‘My heart is in doubt, for your birth is in dispute. Am I to call you the first of the eternal gods, Eros, those whom Erebus and Queen Night bred in ancient times as their children under the waves of broad ocean? Or am I to call you the son of nimble-witted Cypris (Κύπριδος υἷα περίφρονος; cf. Hal. .) or of Earth or of the Winds? You are of such a kind as to wander about devising both ill and good for men. Even your body is double in nature.’ See Cuypers : – on this hymn and its relationship to Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium. Thus e.g. Men. Dys. , Sam. , Mis. , Pk. ; Plut. Conj. praec. b; Luc. Tim. ; Charit. ..; Aristaen. ...

. Erotic Echoes



fields and the ‘yoking’ of animals – the latter implied by ζεύγνυμι, that ubiquitous marital metaphor – foreground the taming of nature and the imposition of order on uncontrolled wilderness. Eros is represented as a civilising force, a ‘tamer’ of individuals just as he is a ruler of gods and men. Like Eros, moreover, fire can prove either a destructive or a constructive force, and the god’s dazzling blaze represents not only the elemental primordial world but also the fires of ardent desire, suggesting that this blaze too will be tamed over time, transformed into an illuminating (bridal?) torch. The second ‘wing’ of Simmias of Rhodes’ technopaignion on Eros outlines a similar narrative of cultural progress: the primordial Eros associated with Chaos differentiates himself from the winged child of Aphrodite and Ares, outlining the ‘gentle-minded’ process by which he took power over earth, sea, and sky and laid down ordinances for the gods. Here too Eros’ introduction of laws is represented as a function of his association with Chaos rather than Aphrodite, who is implicitly aligned not with rules and ordinances but with a more disruptive or coercive erotic drive. A similar line of argument recurs in the pseudo-Lucianic Amores, which recounts a heated debate over the relative merits of men and women as sexual partners. The Athenian Callicratidas puts the case for male-only love (ps.-Luc. Am. –): Eros is again declared a twofold god, insofar as the inferior Eros is painted as an impish instigator of ephemeral and undisciplined lust, while ‘Ouranian Eros’ is a primordial ancestor, ‘a dispenser of temperate passions who breathes gently into the mind of each individual. If we find this god gracious, we welcome a pleasure mixed with virtue’ (Am. ). Praise is lavished upon this Eros: ‘You gave shape to everything out of dark and diffuse shapelessness,’ banishing the chaos that had previously enveloped the universe, and ‘spreading shining light over the dark night’. The speech develops the contrast outlined by Plato’s  

  



Both metaphors were common in Greek conceptions of marriage: see e.g. Calame  []: –; duBois : –. For πυρσοί as the ‘fires’ of love see e.g. Theoc. Id. .; Parth. fr. . Lightfoot (= SH ); Strat. AP .; Orph. Arg. . Musaeus refers to the πυρσὸς ἐρώτων (Musae. ) kindled in Leander, and elevates the lamp into the dominant erotic metaphor of Hero and Leander, capitalising on the association of fire and torches with desire in erotic epigram: see e.g. Mel. AP ., ; ., , , . Simm. fr. .– Powell (= AP .). On which see Jope ; Goldhill : –; Fleury . In the first speech, Charicles, the proponent of love for women, associates Aphrodite with nature (φύσις), procreative sexual union, and the generative maternal force that animates the cosmos (ps.Luc. Am. ). Ps.-Luc. Am. .–, –. Callicratidas’ argument receives the backing of the narrator Lycinus, who awards him victory in the debate, and of Theomnestus, for whose benefit the story is narrated.



Lust

Pausanias between Ouranian and Pandemian Aphrodite or Eros, yet the Athenian also elaborates on Eros’ nature by discussing his role in human evolution and the gradual differentiation of human from animal (Am. –). Importantly, both Callicratidas and his opponent Charicles frame their discussions in terms of the relationship between human and nonhuman: Charicles lauds the originary maternal role of φύσις or nature (Am. ), while the Athenian instead privileges τέχνη (culture, art, or craftsmanship, Am. ). Narratives such as these will be explored further in Chapter , which sets the poet’s interest in eros and the exploits of animals in their imperial Greek contexts, and considers the widespread second sophistic interest in the relationship between nature and culture, animals and humans. The pseudo-Lucianic dialogue is relevant to my reading of the Halieutica in several ways. In the first place, the association between a temperate Eros, models of cultural progress, and the distinction between humans and animals is also central to the didactic programme of the Halieutica; it points more widely to a continued Greek fascination with the relevance of Platonic traditions to erotic narratives of the imperial period. Like Callicratidas, and unlike the model of ‘pure’ or untouched nature favoured by his opponent Charicles, moreover, Oppian emphasises narratives of emergent human civilisation: book  of the Halieutica opens with the τέχναι bestowed by the gods on mankind, and closes with an account of human development from an early, quasi-bestial state to a society characterised by peace, justice, and prosperity. The poet’s discussion of Eros in book  articulates a similar, if briefer, conceptual scheme, representing marriage and procreation – in turn figured through agriculture and the domestication of wild beasts – as products of the civilisation engendered by 





Pl. Symp. d–d. Unlike Pausanias, however, Callicratidas stresses the superiority of the male over the female by referring only to Eros, not to Aphrodite, except when effecting the transition from Charicles’ speech to his own (Ps.-Luc. Am. .). Representing Eros as a cosmic δημιουργός (ps.-Luc. Am. .), Callicratidas describes human evolution from an untutored (ἀμαθής, Am. .) state through the invention of τέχναι like agriculture, weaving, and house-building. Whereas for Charicles history represents a decline into luxury and the perversion of nature, for Callicratidas it brings gradual evolution towards the distinctively, perfectly human. His argument that animals are irrational, unsophisticated, and philosophically unenlightened (and so do not engage in same-sex relations) is formulated to counter Charicles’ argument that animals represent the ‘natural’ and pure; for the popularity of both kinds of arguments in the imperial period see Chapter . Callicratidas’ narrative also fills out Agathon’s claim at Pl. Symp. a–b that Eros not only created all beings but introduced technical craftsmanship to gods and men; it is indebted to the ‘great speech’ of Plato’s Protagoras, a debt perhaps signalled at ps.-Luc. Am. .. .–, discussed further in Chapter .

. Erotic Echoes



Ouranian Eros. In this respect both the Halieutica and the ps.-Lucianic Amores draw on Greek models of cultural progress in which Hesiod and Plato loom large, and both employ an evolutionary account in order to suggest that humans are able distinguish themselves from non-human animals in part through their control and moderation of their own wilder passions and impulses – their choice, as it were, of the ‘correct’ kind of Eros. It is this lesson – that desire must be carefully monitored if it is not to prove detrimental – that the remainder of Hal.  will illustrate. In view of this ‘twofold’ eros it is significant that Oppian should open the technical portion of book  with the vignette of the parrot-wrasse, a species whose remarkable φιλότης (., ) initially promises a constructive rather than a destructive paradigm of love. The poet starts by emphasising the fish’s community-orientated protective spirit (ἀλεξητῆρι δὲ θυμῷ, .): parrot-wrasse are well known for their compassionate desire to help one another. Thanks to their mutual affection and strong protective urge (.) they are frequently able to rescue one another from imminent doom, cutting through the fisherman’s line with their teeth and letting their imperilled comrade (ἑταῖρον, .; cf. .) off the hook, or extracting a captured fish from the basket by dragging it out by the tail, like men helping one another up a hillside in the dark (.–). We appear to witness here a positive, beneficial form of love. Almost immediately, however, the poet presents us with a second scenario in which this co-operative spirit mutates into frantic, fatal ἔρως (.; cf. .). This is initiated when the fisherman trails a female on a hook and the wrasse flock incontinently after her: we witness the ease with which φιλότης can slide from friendship to sex, from deliverance to death. The wrasse’s amorous inclinations have already been introduced at ., and now we witness the furious speed with which these creatures are overcome by their rash desires: οἱ δ’ ὁρόωντες ἀολλέες εὐθὺς ἵενται | κραιπνὸν ἐπειγόμενοι βαλιοὶ σκάροι (‘on seeing [the female] the dappled wrasse immediately rush over in a mass, speeding eagerly’, .–), compelled by frenzied, woman-mad lust (οἴστρῳ θηλυμανεῖ βεβιημένοι, .). Soon enough their haste proves fatal: εὖτε γὰρ ἀγρομένους τε καὶ ἄσχετα μαιμώωντας | θηλείης ἐπὶ λύσσαν ἴδῃ νόος ἀσπαλιῆος (‘for when 

At . φιλότης refers to the affection that allows the fish to save their companions, while at . it signifies the passionate desire that ushers in their death; in the introduction at . its use is (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous. This slippage is evident already in the Homeric epics: contrast e.g. Hom. Il. . and . (where φιλότης represents the lust-fuelled intercourse between Paris and Helen) with Il. . (where φιλότης represents the brief promise of friendship between Greeks and Trojans).



Lust

the mind of the fisherman perceives them thronging and raging ungovernably in their frenzy for the female’, .–), he drags her into the weel. The emphasis on haste, impatience, and frenzy is striking: such a powerful goad urges them on (τοῖοι γὰρ ἐπισπέρχουσι μύωπες, .) that the fish rush to outstrip one another (παραφθαδόν, .) as they pour into the weel, racing after the female like competing athletes (.–). The νόος ἀσπαλιῆος of . is thus not simply a neutral periphrastic formulation, but a pointed comment on the contrast between the fisherman’s calculating rationality and the fish’s frantic lust. Unlike the wily fishermen, who procure their ‘desired’ (ἐφίμερον, .) haul by using crafty intelligence, these fish are prey to the wrong sorts of emotional impulses, and therefore deserve their fate, which they are said to have brought on themselves (αὐτόμολοι, .) by means of their own precipitous actions. In an alternative method for their capture, a live female is placed inside a weel: the wrasse are ‘enchanted’ by passion and gather inside. The demise of the wrasse is compared to that of birds led into a snare hidden in a thicket (θάμνοισι, .), a scene that replays the death of the fifty slavewomen hanged by Telemachus for sleeping with the suitors, and who die ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἢ κίχλαι τανυσίπτεροι ἠὲ πέλειαι | ἕρκει ἐνιπλήξωσι, τό θ’ ἑστήκῃ ἐνὶ θάμνῳ, | αὖλιν ἐσιέμεναι, στυγερὸς δ’ ὑπεδέξατο κοῖτος (‘as when long-winged thrushes or doves fall into an enclosure that stands in a thicket, and enter the confined space, and a hateful bed receives them’, Hom. Od. .–). So too the wrasse στυγερὴν δὲ πόθων εὕραντο τελευτήν (‘find a hateful end to their desires’, .). The evocation of the Odyssean slave-women implies that the wrasse have brought this unseemly fate upon themselves by their own lustful behaviour, and the poet redoubles the ethical message of the Odyssean simile by emphasising the role of lust even for the birds, who are on Oppian’s account attracted by the call of the female. Drawn in by their passions, the wrasse enter the narrow space of the weel, an ἀνέκβατον ἕρκος (‘inescapable enclosure’, .), a sense of 



Cf. the parallel formulation at ., where the fisherman’s intelligence is said to outwit the sargues, turning their ἔρως into death; the formula is otherwise uncommon in the poem. κύντατα at . perhaps indicates the specifically bestial, as well as the destructive, quality, of their behaviour. Cf. the emphasis on the fisherman’s intelligence in contrast to the fish’s emotion at .–. Their death is also billed as retribution for their more general insolence towards Penelope and Telemachus, but their association with the suitors is heavily emphasised (e.g. Hom. Od. .–, ). The word αὖλις (Od. .) is often translated ‘roosting-place’, but is used only here and at Il. ., of the bounded Trojan encampment; here it looks back to the slave-women’s confinement in the αὐλή; later authors use the word of a pen for cattle and sheep (e.g. Hymn. Hom. Merc. .), and Oppian uses the word of the sargues’ enclosed hideaway at .. This sense of enclosure is also paramount for the wrasse.

. Erotic Echoes



constraint that recalls the manner in which Telemachus and his helpers lead the slave-women out of the hall to a narrow space μεσσηγύς τε θόλου καὶ ἀμύμονος ἕρκεος αὐλῆς, | εἴλεον ἐν στείνει, ὅθεν οὔ πως ἦεν ἀλύξαι (‘between the round-house and the perfect enclosure of the courtyard, and they penned them into a confined space from which it was not possible to escape’, Hom. Od. .–). Oppian’s bird simile, moreover, gestures towards the death not only of the slave-women but also of the suitors: the birds are ‘led astray’ (παραπλαγχθέντες, .) by the bird (for which cf. Hom. Od. ., of Athena deceiving the suitors), and die at the hands of the bird-catcher who ‘plants a deceptive doom’ for them (μόρον δολόεντα φυτεύων, .), a phrase that echoes the evils that Odysseus and Telemachus ‘plant’ for the suitors. The death of the wrasse is therefore presented as a piscine dramatisation of the destructive influence wrought by the pernicious, frenzy-inducing Eros in the proem to book . It is telling that the tale of the parrot-wrasse should be introduced immediately after the poet’s statement in the proem that Eros descends even into the sea to shoot his darts: νεάτης δ’ ὑπὸ κεύθεσι λίμνης δύνεις, ὁπλίζεις δὲ καὶ ἐν νεπόδεσσι κελαινοὺς ἀτράκτους, ὡς μή τι τεῆς ἀδίδακτον ἀνάγκης λείπηται, μηδ’ ὅστις ὑπόβρυχα νήχεται ἰχθύς. οἵην μὲν φιλότητα μετ’ ἀλλήλοισι ῥύονται καὶ πόθον ὀξυβελῆ στικτοὶ σκάροι . . . (.–)

. . . and you [Eros] plunge down into the deepest nooks of the sea, and arm yourself with dreadful arrows even against seacreatures, so that nothing may remain unschooled in your compulsive power, not even the fish that swims underwater. Such mutual affection and acute desire do the dappled parrot-wrasse cherish . . .

The juxtaposition is loaded. ὀξυβελής (‘sharp-pointed’, .) is a Homeric hapax used of Pandarus’ fateful arrow at Il. ., and its application to πόθος (‘desire’) picks up the image of Eros shooting his arrows underwater, implying that the parrot-wrasse too has been ‘struck’ by the arrow of Eros. In this context the description of the fish as στικτός – ‘spotted’, but literally ‘pricked’ or ‘tattooed’ (pierced by a sharp point, fr. στίζω) – encourages us to imagine that this species has been literally branded by the arrows of Eros: these wrasse have little chance of overriding their fierce 

φυτεύω is used in this sense of the suitors at Hom. Od. .; .; .; ., , , for which cf. Bartley : .



Lust

erotic impulses, written as they are into the creatures’ very physiology. The fishermen have only to dangle a female wrasse in the water for their deepseated ἔρως (., ) to take full effect. Oppian thus opens the ‘technical’ portion of book  by detailing the two kinds of love exemplified by the parrot-wrasse, and by highlighting the correspondingly different outcomes for the fish in each case. We witness first the positive, collaborative affection that allows parrot-wrasse to cooperate with one another and escape the κύρτος (.), and then the rash and frenzied lust that drives them to compete with one another as to which can leap first, and fatally, into the κύρτος (.). The distinction corresponds to that drawn in the proem between the positive and negative models of ἔρως, and to the traditional emphasis on the deity’s twofold nature. Yet if fish are by their nature destined to succumb to the fisherman’s bait, then once again humans have a choice to make, for we have the unusual ability to moderate our passions and govern our impulses with rationality and self-control. One of the fundamental challenges that this poem poses to its readers is that of choosing the right eros and ensuring that we do indeed differentiate ourselves from the fish whose deaths we so easily cause.

. The ‘Spells’ of Desire Oppian’s invocation of Σχέτλι’ Ἔρως (.) echoes both Theognis and Simonides, as we have seen, yet it looks also to Apollonius’ invocation of Eros in the fourth book of the Argonautica: Σχέτλι’ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν, ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ’ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε, ἄλγεά τ’ ἄλλ’ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν. δυσμενέων ἐπὶ παισὶ κορύσσεο, δαῖμον, ἀερθείς οἷος Μηδείῃ στυγερὴν φρεσὶν ἔμβαλες ἄτην.

(A.R. Arg. .–)

Cruel Love, great affliction, great abomination for humans, from you come deadly quarrels and lamentations and groans, and countless other pains besides these churn around. Crest up against the children of my enemies, divine spirit, just as you were when you cast hateful madness [or ‘ruin’] into Medea’s mind.

Apollonius’ invocation to Eros, issued just before Apsyrtus is lured to his death, takes on what Richard Hunter has called a ‘proemial’ function, effecting the poet’s transition to the description of the death (ὄλεθρος,

. The ‘Spells’ of Desire



Arg. .) that the god will shortly inspire. The proemial address to Eros in Hal.  also prepares the way for the guileful desire-induced destruction to follow, beginning, as we have seen, with the death of the parrot-wrasse, whose doom is introduced as a result of their irrepressible amorous inclinations: τὸ δέ σφισι μήσατ’ ὄλεθρον | δειλαίοις, ὀλοοῦ δὲ καὶ ἀλγινόεντος ἔρωτος | ἠντίασαν (‘this [propensity for love] contrives death for the wretched creatures, and they encounter a destructive and painful eros’, .–). The fate of the wrasse recalls Apollonius’ description of Eros stirring up ἄλγεα (Arg. .~ἀλγινόεις, Hal. .) and ushering in Apsyrtus’ ὄλεθρος (Arg. .~Hal. .), while the fish’s encounter with ὀλοός . . . ἔρως (Hal. .) picks up not only οὐλόμεναι at Arg. ., but also the οὖλος ἔρως (‘destructive love’) experienced by first Medea and then Jason at Arg. . and . Like his epic predecessor, Oppian stresses the painful destruction effected by love: the metaphorical language of storms and squalls in Apollonius’ address finds its counterpart in Oppian’s depiction of the erotic storms stirred up by the god, while the ἄτη (ruin or delusion) with which Medea’s mind is filled is echoed by the ἄτη (destruction) wrought upon fish by desire at . and throughout the book. Oppian shares with Apollonius an interest not only in the representation of Eros, detailing the now-conventional attributes of this crafty, mischief-making god and his powerfully destructive effect on his victims, but also in the relationship between the conception of Eros as a personified deity and an internalised emotion. In the Argonautica this is most evident when Medea is struck by the god’s arrow in book : as the scene progresses we observe the shift in focus from the actions of a deity (Ἔρως, Arg. .) to the internal emotion of desire (ἔρως, Arg. .); compare Oppian’s movement in book  from an Eros who shoots arrows at fish to those fish’s own lustful impulses. Parallels between the poems are heightened by both  





Hunter : . Oppian’s description of Aphrodite at . as πολυφράδμων (as a variant of πολυφραδής) is perhaps also influenced by A.R. Arg. .; this epithet was taken up in later epic descriptions of Aphrodite: see Triph. , Nonn. Dion. ., with Shorrock : ; Maciver : –. As Hunter : – has noted, the imagery of marine storms and squalls implicit in τετρήχασιν and κορύσσεο (A.R. Arg. .–) recalls the actual sea-voyage undertaken by Medea; see Section . for Oppian’s delight in the juxtaposition of literal and emotional storms. See esp. Arg. .–, including the depiction of Eros as an impish trickster (for which cf. also Arg. .–) equipped with a bow and arrow, and especially the focus on the symptoms of lovesickness, including madness and a burning redness (~Hal. .–), expressed most memorably in Apollonius’ fire simile (~Hal. .). That both Apollonius and Oppian also draw from lyric traditions, however, makes it hard to pinpoint specific allusions in the symptoms of lovesickness detailed in the Hal.



Lust

poets’ reapplication of the Iliadic description of Pandarus’ arrow to characterise Eros’ darts, and by the echo of Apollonius’ comparison of Eros to a gadfly in Oppian’s description of the parrot-wrasse’s erotic desires as a goad or gadfly (both οἶστρος and μύωψ, as in Apollonius) spurring the fish on towards their doom. Immediately before his invocation of Eros, Apollonius depicts Medea’s deceptive behaviour and use of magic to lure Apsyrtus to his death. We watch the Colchian sprinkle onto the breeze enchanting drugs so powerful that they would entice a wild animal down from a steep mountain even some distance away (θελκτήρια φάρμακ’ ἔπασσεν | αἰθέρι καὶ πνοιῇσι, τά κεν καὶ ἄπωθεν ἐόντα | ἄγριον ἠλιβάτοιο κατ’ οὔρεος ἤγαγε θῆρα, A.R. Arg. .–). In Oppian’s poem we witness the effect on animals of precisely this kind of guileful ‘enchantment’, for the bait trailed by fishermen frequently appears to exercise a near-magical effect on the fish it entices. When, for instance, a fisherman puts a live female parrot-wrasse into a weel, the wrasse ‘gather around, enchanted by the amorous aroma of eros’ (οἱ δ’ ὑπ’ ἔρωτος | αὔρῃ θελγόμενοι φιλοτησίῃ ἀμφαγέρονται, .–). The capture of grey mullets, introduced as yet another paradigm of the ἄτη wrought by ἔρως (.), heightens this impression of erotic bewitchment: ὧδε γὰρ εἰσορόωντες ἀπείρονες ἀμφαγέρονται. ð130Þ κάλλεϊ δ’ ἐκπάγλως βεβιημένοι οὐκ ἐθέλουσι λείπεσθαι, πάντῃ δὲ πόθων ἴυγγες ἄγουσι θαλπομένους, εἰ καί σφιν ἀνάρσιον ἡγεμονεύοις χέρσον ὑπεξερύων θῆλυν δόλον· οἱ δ’ ἐφέπονται ἀθρόοι οὔτε δόλων μεμνημένοι οὔθ’ ἁλιήων· ð135Þ ἀλλ’ ὥστ’ ἠίθεοι περικαλλέος ὄμμα γυναικὸς φρασσάμενοι πρῶτον μὲν ἀποσταδὸν αὐγάζονται εἶδος ἀγαιόμενοι πολυήρατον, ἄγχι δ’ ἔπειτα ἤλυθον, ἐκ δ’ ἐλάθοντο καὶ οὐκέτι κεῖνα κέλευθα ἔρχονται τὰ πάροιθεν, ἐφεσπόμενοι δὲ γάνυνται ð140Þ θελγόμενοι λιαρῇσιν ὑπὸ ῥιπῇς ἀφροδίτης· ὣς κείνων οἰστρηδὸν ἐπόψεαι ὑγρὸν ὅμιλον εἰλομένων· τάχα δέ σφιν ἀπεχθέες ἦλθον ἔρωτες· αἶψα γὰρ ἀμφίβληστρον ἀνὴρ εὐεργὲς ἀείρας  

Arg. .–~Hal. ., discussed in Section .. οἶστρος (Arg. .~Hal. ., ); μύωψ (Arg. .~Hal. .). The simile is in origin Homeric (Od. .–), but Oppian mirrors its application by Apollonius to the erotic sphere. Note also the grief of the love-struck Heracles at Arg. .–, for which cf. Hal. .–; both similes emphasise bovine bellowing and a stampede over varied terrain. On Apollonius and later Greek epic, see James .

. The ‘Spells’ of Desire



κόλπον ἐπιπροέηκε καὶ ἄσπετον ἔσπασε θήρην ῥηιδίως ἁψῖσι περίσχετον ἀμφικαλύψας.

ð145Þ

(.–)

And so innumerable [mullets] gather around when they see [the female]. Utterly compelled by her beauty, they do not want to be left behind, and the spells of desire lead them, aflame, in every direction, even if you were to draw the female trap out of the water and bring them to the hostile dry land. And they follow in a throng and are mindful of neither traps nor fishermen. But just like unmarried youths who notice the appearance of an extremely beautiful woman and first gaze at her from a distance, marvelling at her gorgeous form, and then draw near and forget other things entirely, and no longer tread those former paths, but delight in following her, beguiled by the balmy force of passion; so too you will see the tender throng of mullets swarming in a frenzy. But soon desire turns hateful for them. For swiftly the man lifts up the wellmade casting-net and sends its folds forth, drawing in a tremendous haul and easily enveloping them in the compass of its meshes.

The effects of the encounter are impressive: the infatuated mullets are overcome by the ‘spells of desire’ that lead them to follow the female wherever she goes: πάντῃ δὲ πόθων ἴυγγες ἄγουσι | θαλπομένους (.–). The fish are depicted as if they were the victims of the popular Greek erotic charm known as the ἀγωγή spell, which aimed to ‘lead’ the desired party away from their house and induce them to gravitate instead towards another party, usually the practitioner of the spell. The claim that these fish would follow the female even if she were dragged onto dry land illustrates the strength of the erotic ‘enchantment’ at work; ἀγωγή spells were indeed closely associated with Aphrodite and Eros. In addition to their enduring popularity in the imperial period, to which numerous Greek magical papyri attest, such spells loom large in the Greek literary landscape, and especially in Hellenistic poetry. As we have seen, the poet’s emphasis on luring animals away from their natural habitat mirrors the magic used by Medea immediately before the poet’s invocation to Eros in Argonautica , where we hear that even wild beasts would be ‘drawn down’  

Faraone : – helpfully discusses this practice. Faraone : –. See e.g. PGM IV.–, a hexametric fourth-century  ἀγωγή spell that includes echoes of formulaic Homeric language, bids Aphrodite attract a female by goading her into a frenzy (οἴστρῳ ἐλαυνομένην, IV.–; cf. οἰστρηδόν, Hal. .), and offers an effusive ‘hymn’ to the goddess. Love charms were often composed in dactylic hexameters; connections between Greek magical texts and epic verse are explored in e.g. Faraone and Obbink ; Pachoumi .



Lust

from the mountains by her drugs. The ‘genre’ of the ἀγωγή spell is in each case flagged up (ἤγαγε, Arg. .; ἄγουσι, Hal. .), while both poets align the responses of humans and animals to this powerful enchantment. Oppian, moreover, refers to the bewitching effect of a female not only on fish but also on young men, who find themselves θελγόμενοι λιαρῇσιν ὑπὸ ῥιπῇς ἀφροδίτης (.), suddenly intent only on their beloved. The poet foregrounds the similarity between love-struck humans and animals by aligning the mechanisms by which desire takes hold: for both mullet and man it is specifically the ‘beauty’ of the female that initiates the onlookers’ passionate response, however we might normally imagine the process by which fish fall in love. The correspondence between human and animal erotic attraction is significant, for the ἴυγγες (‘spells’, .) that lead the mullets bring to mind not simply enchantment at large, but more specifically the spell in which a wryneck or ἴυγξ (a species of bird held to be notably lascivious) was bound to a revolving wheel. Pindar relates that the charm was first introduced to mankind by Aphrodite, who taught it to Jason so that he could seduce Medea and induce her to abandon her familial obligations (Pyth. .-); the ἴυγξ is there depicted as a mad – or maddening – bird (μαινάδ᾿ ὄρνιν, Pyth. .). The association of the ἴυγξ spell with both Aphrodite and Medea is suggestive in light of the relationship I have posited between the ‘enchantments’ of love in the Halieutica and Medea’s sorcery in the Argonautica, but it is equally important that this spell was thought to operate on the basis of an analogy between human and animal emotion: the underlying aim of the practice was to transfer the erotic mania of the bird to the recipient of the spell, who would, it was hoped, take on the animal’s characteristically delirious sexual behaviour. In alluding to such practice in his account of the fish and men ‘spell-bound’ by desire, Oppian exploits precisely the perceived permeability between human and animal behaviour that underpins sympathetic magic of the kind based on what Faraone and Obbink have called the principle of ‘persuasive analogy’.     

Cf. Hunter : . See esp. Faraone : –; Theoc. Id. . represents a ἴυγξ spell in action. It is tempting to speculate that Pindar’s description of Aphrodite as πότνια δ’ ὀξυτάτων βελέων (Pyth. .) may also have influenced Oppian’s description of πόθον ὀξυβελῆ at .. A sense of permeability heightened by the tale that Iunx was originally a nymph who was turned into a bird after being pursued by Zeus: Σ Phot. ι .; Σ Pind. Nem. .. Faraone and Obbink : ; cf. Faraone : ; the term is drawn from the work of the anthropologist S. J. Timbiah.

. The ‘Spells’ of Desire



The affinity between species cuts both ways, moreover, and the poet represents not only the surprisingly human-like ways in which fish are affected by desire (thus the emphasis on the visual aspects of the erotic encounter), but also the irrational, almost animal-like qualities of the intense erotic desire experienced by humans. As soon as they have been struck by the appearance of a female, the youths of the simile surrender their more rational faculties, losing sight of other concerns and abandoning the paths they used to tread in order to trail endlessly after their beloved. Oppian’s simile once again focuses not on grown men but on ἠίθεοι (.); the similarity, in other words, is most apparent in those humans who have not yet learned to restrain their powerful emotional impulses. The account of the grey mullet – and indeed the representation of fishing more generally – thus offers a paradigm that encapsulates both the similarities and the differences between man and beast. The mullets behave much like love-struck humans, yet they are themselves unwittingly manipulated by the more sophisticated rational designs of the fisherman, who presumably plans to sell or eat these agonised lovers, and the final lines of the vignette are marked by the urgency with which the gulf between man and beast is once again re-established (τάχα, .; αἶψα, .; ῥηιδίως, .). So too this gulf between the manipulator and their ‘victim’ is the premise of (erotic) magic, which is in part an exercise in power relations, establishing dominance over a previously indifferent potential lover, for instance, or bringing the oblivious and unwary suddenly under one’s sway. Medea’s spells are not the only charms at work in this scene, moreover, for Oppian’s emphasis on erotic deception is compounded by his evocation of the archetypal epic scene of manipulative sexual enchantment, namely Hera’s seduction of Zeus in Iliad . The description of the love-struck youths as θελγόμενοι λιαρῇσιν ὑπὸ ῥιπῇς ἀφροδίτης (.) thus recalls the ‘balmy’ (λιαρός) sleep that Hera plans to cast over Zeus in order to deceive his ‘cunning mind’ after she has slept with him. Like these youths, Zeus is enchanted by the force of Aphrodite, here both literally and metonymically: the god’s desire for sex is aroused by, and works in tandem with, the mysterious enchantments (θελκτήρια, Hom. Il. .) on Aphrodite’s   

So too in the Medea narrative the princess abandons her prior familial responsibilities in order to follow Jason at any cost. See Chapter  for Oppian’s interest in the parallels between children and animals. Hera first plans to beautify herself and see εἴ πως ἱμείραιτο παραδραθέειν φιλότητι | ᾗ χροιῇ, τῷ δ’ ὕπνον ἀπήμονά τε λιαρόν τε | χεύῃ ἐπὶ βλεφάροισιν ἰδὲ φρεσὶ πευκαλίμῃσι (‘if in any way [Zeus] might desire to lie beside her body in love, and she shed a warm and gentle sleep over his eyelids and his cunning mind’, Hom. Il. .–).



Lust

embroidered cestus. The element of deceit is paramount: Zeus only later identifies the encounter as a δόλος (Hom. Il. .) designed to divert his attention and facilitate the slaughter of the Trojans; Oppian’s fishermen likewise use an erotic trap – at . the female mullet is depicted as a θῆλυς δόλος – in order to entice the unsuspecting fish, who are so caught up in their desires that they fail to heed the δόλος (‘bait’ or ‘trick’, .) that will usher in their destruction. Indeed, the vignette is introduced in just such terms, for the mullets – much like Zeus – are said to be overcome by both ἔρως and the trickery of a female: τοίην δ’ αὖ κεφάλοισιν ἔρως περιβάλλεται ἄτην· | καὶ γὰρ τοὺς θήλεια παρήπαφεν ἐν ῥοθίοισιν | ἑλκομένη (‘desire, moreover, casts a similar fate [to that of the parrot-wrasse] on grey mullets, for a female deceives them too, when she is dragged through the waves’, .–). The female at first seems to take on an actively deceptive role, and it only with ἑλκομένη that we reinterpret this female trickery as the use of inert bait. The verb παραπαφίσκω aligns this female trickery with Hera’s (also archetypally ‘female’) deception in the Διὸς Ἀπάτη, well summarised by Hypnos to Poseidon, for whose benefit the episode has been crafted: Ἥρη δ’ ἐν φιλότητι παρήπαφεν εὐνηθῆναι (‘Hera tricked [Zeus] into sleeping beside her in love’, Hom. Il. .). The erotic ambience of the mullets’ capture includes the very moment of their imprisonment, for the enticingly ‘feminine’ quality of the trap takes on a final macabre twist in the description of the undulating billow of the casting-net as a κόλπος (.) that ‘enfolds’ (ἀμφικαλύψας, .) the fish in its deadly meshes. The description absorbs something of the seductive charge not only of the female fish but also of the Διὸς Ἀπάτη itself, for on Aphrodite’s explicit instruction the cestus was placed in Hera’s κόλπος (‘bosom’, Hom. Il. ., ), whence its bewitching powers emanated. Aphrodite’s mysterious cestus was a subject of immense fascination for later Greek epic poets, and Oppian’s metaphors of 



 

Cf. the deception practised by Hera in the description of Ate recounted by Agamemnon: ἀλλ’ ἄρα καὶ τὸν | Ἥρη θῆλυς ἐοῦσα δολοφροσύνῃς ἀπάτησεν (‘But Hera, though she was a woman, deceived even [Zeus] in her craftiness’, Hom. Il. .–), referring to the episode in which Hera, having extracted a promise from Zeus, switched the dates on which Eurystheus and Heracles were born. The verb appears only here in the Iliad. Cf. the other use of the verb in Hal. , of the fishermen (immediately after the grey mullet episode) who ‘trick’ cuttlefish (παρήπαφον, .) by enticing them into a basket during mating season: in their desire for sex (εὐνῆς, .; cf. e.g. Il. .) the cuttlefish rush inside, but find both their desire and their life quenched (.–). For discussion of the net metaphor more widely, including the ἀμφίβληστρον in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (for which cf. .), see Chapter . See e.g. ps.-Opp. Cyn. .; Colluth. –. Nonnus refers over forty times to the κεστός in the Dionysiaca, portraying it as the weapon with which Aphrodite conquers her adversaries, and

. The ‘Spells’ of Desire



erotic enchantment expand upon the magical qualities of what might be regarded as the first love charm in Greek literature. The depiction of the net that ‘envelops’ or ‘enfolds’ (ἀμφικαλύψας, .) its victims in turn exploits the Iliadic use of the verb to depict both the powerful effect of lust on Zeus’ rational faculties: ὡς δ’ ἴδεν, ὥς μιν ἔρως πυκινὰς φρένας ἀμφεκάλυψεν (‘as soon as he saw [Hera], desire enveloped his shrewd mind’ Il. .), and also the golden cloud in which Zeus envelops the pair as they make love (τοῖόν τοι ἐγὼ νέφος ἀμφικαλύψω | χρύσεον, Il. .). Both the bT scholia and Eustathius suggest that the Iliadic use of the verb ἀμφεκάλυψεν draws from the image of a hunting-net; Oppian now reliteralises that motif. Here too the shroud mirrors the paralysing effect of the desire that overwhelms the unfortunate mullets, while ἔρως is likewise introduced from the start as the agent of these creatures’ doom (.: κεφάλοισιν ἔρως περιβάλλεται ἄτην). Oppian’s marine recasting of Iliad  is not perhaps as startling as it might at first seem when one considers Hera’s mendacious claim to both Aphrodite and Zeus that she requires the cestus, and is travelling along an unusual route, because she plans to bring ‘love and desire’ (φιλότητα καὶ ἵμερον, Il. .) to Tethys and Oceanus. The mutual hostility of these metonymic marine deities, as Hera reiterates to Zeus, has led the couple to refrain from sex and from the marriage bed (εὐνῆς καὶ φιλότητος, Il. ., ), and Hera promises that she will bring the pair back to bed, to be united in love-making (εἰς εὐνὴν ἀνέσαιμι ὁμωθῆναι φιλότητι, Il. .). The journey, however, is never realised in the Iliad, for it was only ever proffered as a pretext for the seduction of Zeus. Oppian, on the other hand, presents us with a sea in which φιλότης and ἵμερος have not

 

   



replaying the Διὸς Ἀπάτη in books – (Hera borrows Aphrodite’s cestus in order to seduce Zeus) and in book , where she borrows that of Apate (indeed, at Nonn. Dion. .– the two κεστοί are explicitly compared). On Aphrodite’s cestus and Greek love magic see Faraone : –; Breitenberger : –. A phrase that itself reworks the encounter between Paris and Helen in Iliad , where Paris likewise exclaims, on seeing Helen, that οὐ γάρ πώ ποτέ μ’ ὧδέ γ’ ἔρως φρένας ἀμφεκάλυψεν (‘never before has such desire enveloped my mind’, Il. .), after which the pair retire to bed. The two scenes are evidently conceived as a doublet, and Zeus echoes, almost word for word, Paris’ proclamations of intense erotic desire: Hom. Il. .~.; .~.. Cf. also Hom. Il. ., where Hypnos speaks of having enveloped Zeus with soft sleep: αὐτῷ ἐγὼ μαλακὸν περὶ κῶμα κάλυψα. Σ bT Il. .; Eust. in Il. ..–; ..–. Cf. the representation of the cestus itself (Hom. Il. .). Tethys is not used as a metonym for the sea by Homer, but the association was clearly in play at least by the Hellenistic period: see e.g. Lycoph. Alex. ,  (and, in ‘reverse metonymy’, ), on which see Hunter b: –. The possibility of the quest’s completion is perhaps playfully evoked at Q.S. .–, where Hypnos encounters Hera on her return from Tethys; we are not told why she had visited, but the goddess greets Hypnos with delight, remembering his aid in the Διὸς Ἀπάτη episode.



Lust

only returned but now run rife: φιλότης is a watchword for the passions of fish in this book (., , , , ), while the poet makes much of the libidinous fish whose ἵμερος . . . εὐνῆς (‘desire for mating’ [lit: for the marriage bed], .) drives them to travel across ‘Oceanus’. Hera’s original mission, we infer, has in the Halieutica finally been successful. Homeric and Apollonian influences combine to present Oppian’s lovestruck fish as victims of irresistible desire, their subjugation the inevitable result of their unrestrained lust. The juxtaposition of these narratives of capture with the ‘hymn to Eros’ at the start of Hal. . turns fish into vivid illustrations of the familiar ancient claim that Eros affects the creatures of land, air, and sea as well as human beings. The poet looks to the parallels between these spheres, weaving together a range of erotic subtexts in order to emphasise the importance of choosing the ‘right’ kind of eros, and the necessity of moderating one’s urgent, destructive desires. This literary or philosophical emphasis on the different forms of eros is thus connected to a ethical imperative encapsulated by the opening account of the twofold fate of the parrot-wrasse, as well as the destruction that lies in wait for those species that give into untempered lust. Here too the images of fluidity, judicious ‘mixing’, and sweet streams that saturate the proem to Hal.  have both a moral and a literary import, articulating the poet’s role in mingling earlier texts and traditions, in blending instruction and pleasure, and in advocating the path of moderation and temperance in all passions. The three chapters in this section have focused on the moral failings of fish, the intelligence of the fisherman, and the lessons that the readers of the Halieutica are to draw from this text. The poet urges his readers to attend ever to a path of moderation, avoiding the extremes of hostility, greed, and lust that prove fatal to fish. It is in our urgent desires for food and for sex that we humans are at our most bestial. The poem draws attention to the foresight and self-control necessary to curb these emotions, looking to long-established literary and cultural models from the epic, philosophical, and sympotic traditions. Oppian draws from the representation of greed and guile in the Odyssey, and from its fundamental principles of transgression and punishment; yet the poem also looks beyond this, for example to Platonic discussions of Eros in particular and of bodily appetites at large. Oppian’s representation of his poetic composition as a mixture or synthesis, I have suggested, articulates both an ethical and an aesthetic middle ground, emphasising the need for moderation or temperance, and at the same time framing this poetry as a 

Tuna also migrate across ‘Oceanus’ at ., where their springtime lust is once more stressed.

. The ‘Spells’ of Desire



mingling of multiple literary sources into a delightful ‘stream’ that proves both pleasing and pedagogically powerful. The poet’s marine focus allows him continually to reanimate a range of familiar tropes by inverting their focus. The influence of Eros over both man and beast, the banqueting parasite as greedy animal or open-mouthed fish, the death of Odysseus after his years of toil, the fall of Troy as the capture of huddling animals: this poem demonstrates that even familiar images gain force when one starts not with the human but the animal. So too the Halieutica slyly reliteralises traditional metaphors that draw from the natural world, including the tempests of desire, the ‘net’ of destiny, and ‘wet’ or tender Eros. Didactic epic once more offers an appealingly oblique perspective on the concerns that pervade other literary traditions, and the choice of marine animals allows Oppian to invert, adapt, and provide a fresh perspective on even well-worn images.

 

Humans and Animals

 

Epic Similes

Analogy, this book argues, is the master trope of the Halieutica. The world of fish is illuminated through continual reference to other forms of life, both human and animal, and the poem demands that each be understood and evaluated against the other. Similes, metaphors, and comparisons pervade and structure the work, and the poet’s anthropomorphic language brings fish into the domain of the human, and vice versa. Metaphor and simile are figures constituted by subtle combinations of similarity and difference, however, and Part III of this book explores the ways in which the poem challenges its readers to determine the precise nature of the relationships it illustrates. Extended similes of course enjoy a privileged role in epic discourse, and Oppian frequently defines his didactic epic both through and against Homeric analogical practice, capitalising on the archaic poet’s interest in the similarities between human and animal life. Chapter  examines the extended similes of the Halieutica, focusing on the representation of fish in ‘battle’ as a mode of engagement with Iliadic narratives of war, as well as with wider questions about violence and power; Chapter  builds on this analysis to explore the manner in which the didactic poet draws on Homeric representations of the close relationship between human and non-human animals; Chapter  sets these debates in their contemporary contexts by exploring the poet’s radical blurring of the human–animal boundary.

. Marine Warfare The similes of the Halieutica have long been admired as the poem’s most striking feature: in addition to numerous metaphors and brief comparisons, the poem contains over  extended similes that span a breathtaking array of topics. Marking a departure from the precedents set by 

James :  calculates that  per cent of (for instance) the poem’s second and fourth books is taken up by similes, and that a higher proportion of this poem is devoted to similes than that in the





Epic Similes

earlier Greek didactic poems, these similes often function as sites of allusive literary engagement, and are rooted in a thoughtful and sophisticated engagement with Homeric practice. Some are novel in theme, while others draw directly from well-known Homeric images, as when the poet compares shoals of migrating fish to clamorous cranes escaping the weather and the pygmies of North Africa (.–), a transplantation of the Iliadic simile in which Trojan forces are compared to cranes that escape the winter by migrating to the Ocean, battling pygmies en route (Il. .–). Yet while Homer’s cranes fly southwards in the autumn, Oppian’s migrate northwards in the spring, and while Homer’s Trojans and cranes are clamorous and disorderly, Oppian’s cranes may be loud-voiced, but they move in an ordered, quasi-military formation. The later poem draws from the observed behaviour of cranes (including Aristotle’s analysis of the migratory patterns of cranes and fish, HA a), but also programmatically inverts the Homeric direction of travel. As Alan James observes, this is surely a deliberate alteration; the simile could easily have been applied, as in Homer, to the tuna’s autumnal journey southwards, which is detailed immediately afterwards. The reversal of the crane’s migratory movement suggests a new direction of travel for this poem; it is a statement of both affiliation and independence. Oppian’s distance from Homer is also proclaimed via a subtle change of perspective: the poet’s emphasis lies no longer on the noise, disorder, and aggression of the birds, but on the banding together of a large and diverse group on a common mission. This is a Homeric journey now heavily infused with Argonautic echoes, and the poet blends Homeric and Apollonian reference points to create a richly layered marine epic that assimilates the full epic tradition.

    

Iliad, Odyssey, or Argonautica. James :  observes that earlier Greek didactic poets ‘made only very scanty use of the extended simile, doubtless maintaining a feeling that this marked a significant stylistic difference between didactic and heroic epic’. Cf. Rebuffat : –: ‘in Oppiano la similitudine ha, per quantità e per qualità, un’importanza incomparabilmente maggiore che negli altri poeti didascalici . . . le similitudini, più di ogni altra peculiarità, collocano gli Halieutica in un posto particolare nella poesia didascalica greca’; Rebuffat : – details the formal characteristics of Oppian’s similes; Bartley  and  analyses the allusive vocabulary of similes and digressions in the Halieutica. Analysis of the poem’s similes, however, has rarely extended beyond brief summary of themes and linguistic echoes. See e.g. James ; James : ; Bartley :  and passim; Whitby ; Whitby : –. Cf. Mair : ; James : . The cranes fly κατὰ στίχας (.), echoing the φάλαγγες formed by the fish (.). James , . See esp. .–: not only do these fish retrace the route of the Argonauts from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and back, but their return journey is figured as a νόστος (.; cf. .), the Sea of Marmara is represented as the ‘Bebrycian Sea’ (.), and emphasis is laid on the process of

. Marine Warfare



The theme of reversal proves central to the poem, and is encapsulated by the frequency with which Oppian inverts the focus of the similes of the Iliad and Odyssey, using a Homeric tenor as a didactic vehicle, and vice versa. Whereas Homeric similes compare martial activity to features of the natural world, with warriors in the Iliad compared to animals, storms, and crashing waves, Oppian reverses these Homeric images by depicting his fish as soldiers and his storms as military onslaughts. The Halieutica thus opens by promising to outline the πολυσπερέας . . . φάλαγγας (‘widely scattered battle-ranks’, .) of all kinds of sea-creatures. The military flavour of this language is striking, and anticipates the manner in which the dietary habits of fish are represented throughout the poem not as simple zoological fact but as a form of marine warfare. Fish form ‘armies’ and compete as ‘warriors’; they are equipped with natural ‘weapons’ of teeth and spikes and stings that they array against one another with resolute ferocity. The poem’s similes make much of this innate bellicosity. Picking up on the φάλαγγες described in the opening verses, the shoaling patterns of fish are compared to a variety of military formations: dentex travel (or ‘march’) in separate groups like bands of soldiers (συνόδοντες ἴσοι στείχουσι λόχοισι | κεκριμένοι, .–); bonitos attack a dolphin ‘like an immense army under orders’ (ἠύθ’ ὑπ’ ἀγγελίης στρατὸς ἄσπετος, .), ‘like armed warriors rushing against the towering mass of their enemies’ (ὥστ’ ἐπὶ πύργον | δυσμενέων θύνοντες ἀρήιοι ἀσπιστῆρες, .–), and in martial battle-lines (πολέμοιο . . . φάλαγγες, .); fishermen set out nets ‘like a city’ (ὥστε πόλις, .) with gates and guards, into which tuna fish rush ‘in formation, like battle-lines of men entering tribe by tribe’ (οἱ δὲ θοῶς σεύονται ἐπὶ στίχας, ὥστε φάλαγγες | ἀνδρῶν ἐρχομένων καταφυλαδόν, .–). Fishermen too tussle with their adversaries in a marine ‘battle’ complete with weapons, wounds, victims, and victors. The image builds on a long



 

gathering from disparate quarters for a lengthy marine journey (Hal. .; δολιχὸν πόρον Ἀμφιτρίτης~A.R. Arg. .: δολιχῆς . . . πόρους ἁλός). The poet has already referred to fish as the ὅμιλοι | . . . ἁλιπλάγκτοιο γενέθλης (‘communities of the sea-wandering race’, .–), a description that picks up on the Bebrycian king Amycus’ characterisation of the Argonauts as ἁλίπλαγκτοι (Arg. .). So Σ Hal. .: φάλαγγες κυρίως ἐπὶ τῶν ὁπλιτῶν. The poet develops the analogy between animals and (Iliadic) warriors implicit already in the poem’s opening word, on which see Chapter ; on πολυσπερής cf. Section .. See esp. .–, –. Oppian’s description of tuna entering the ‘city’ καταφυλαδόν itself picks up on a Homeric hapax used in the Catalogue of Ships (Hom. Il. .; the adverb is otherwise found only in this line of the Halieutica and in ancient discussions of the Homeric verse), and perhaps echoes Nestor’s advice to Agamemnon to separate the Greek tribes κατὰ φῦλα κατὰ φρήτρας, ‘by tribe and by clan’, Il. .).



Epic Similes

tradition in which hunting (although less commonly fishing) was routinely regarded as analogous to warfare. The martial qualities of fishing are at their most striking in the Halieutica when fisherman and fish engage in a contest of strength and endurance, or when the process is particularly bloody and brutal. One of the most warlike fishing scenes in the poem is the climactic encounter with a sea-monster in the final book (.–). This protracted conflict is compared to a range of military activities, including soldiers attacking and burning an enemy city when its guards are asleep (.–), a herald returning from painful war to announce victory (.–), and victors in a naval battle towing conquered ships to shore (.–). The monster’s tusks are compared to the barbs of javelins (.–), the fishermen carry implements ‘as if for war’ (ὥστ’ ἐς ἄρηα, .), and ‘unquenchable marine warfare’ stirs them up (τοὺς δ’ ὑγρὸς ἄρης ἄσβεστος ὀρίνει, .) as they smite the fish with their weapons. The narrative evokes the intensity of the battlefield, and deploys a number of Iliadic battle terms: ‘you would say you were watching men toil in war, such courage rises up in their hearts, and such is the melee and their desire for combat’ (φαίης κεν ἐνυάλιον πόνον ἀνδρῶν | δέρκεσθαι· τοίη γὰρ ἐνὶ φρεσὶν ἵσταται ἀλκή, | τόσσος δὲ φλοῖσβός τε καὶ ἵμερος ἰωχμοῖο, .–), with φλοῖσβος at . aligning the roaring surge of both battle and sea. The notion that the sea has become a transposed battleground is developed in a simile that compares the fight with the creature to an actual naval battle εἰνάλιος . . . ἄρης (.), and in the ὑγρὸς ἄρης of ., and is heightened by the description of a boat as a ἐύζυγον ἅρμα θαλάσσης (‘well-benched marine chariot’, .) and ships as ὄχοι ἁλός (‘chariots of the sea’, .). Oppian offers a newly marine perspective on the military concerns of heroic Greek epic. The transformation of epic vehicles into didactic ‘reality’, and vice versa, highlights the close but inverted relationship between narrative and didactic epic. This is a pattern common to many didactic poems: Virgil’s description of a man irrigating his fields in the first book of the Georgics, for instance, adapts the Iliadic simile in which Achilles battles with the Scamander like a man opening up irrigation channels and attempting to control a powerful jet of water. The relationship between Homeric similes and the technical subject-matter of didactic poetry was evidently 



Greek youths were often taught to hunt as a form of training for war, and the similarities between hunting and battle are emphasised in a wide range of Greek literary and visual representations. See e.g. Pl. Leg. b; Xen. Cyn. ., .–; Cyr. ..–, ..–; Barringer : –. Verg. G. .–; Hom. Il. .–. See esp. Thomas : –, who notes that the allusion ‘serves . . . to present agrarian man’s activity as a warfare waged against the forces of nature’.

. Marine Warfare



recognised in Oppian’s day, as may be inferred from a discussion in Dio Chrysostom’s Second Kingship Oration. Alexander the Great and his father Philip debate the relative merits of Homer and Hesiod, martial and didactic epic. In response to Philip’s laudatory citation of verses on ploughing and harvesting from the Works and Days, Alexander claims to prefer Homer’s verses on agriculture (τὰ παρ’ ῾Ομήρῳ γεωργικά, Dio Chrys. Or. .). His puzzled father assumes that he means the depiction of agricultural scenes on the shield of Achilles, but the young Alexander talks instead of the simile in which Greeks and Trojans fight like two lines of reapers facing one another as they work their way across a field (Hom. Il. .–). The range of subjects treated in Homeric similes facilitates direct comparison between heroic and didactic epics (and, as we saw in Chapter , surely contributed to ancient claims about the didactic efficacy of the Homeric epics themselves). At stake here is not just the perceived ‘utility’ of the Homeric epics, but their close relationship to the technical matter treated in didactic poetry. One of the first extended comparisons in the Halieutica depicts the long-awaited advent of spring at sea, a delight to its denizens after the trials of a harsh and stormy winter: ἀλλ’ ὁπότ’ ἀνθεμόεσσαι ἐπὶ χθονὸς εἴαρος ὧραι πορφύρεον γελάσωσιν, ἀναπνεύσῃ δὲ θάλασσα χείματος εὐδιόωσα, γαληναίη τε γένηται ἤπια κυμαίνουσα, τότ’ ἰχθύες ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος πανσυδίῃ φοιτῶσι γεγηθότες ἐγγύθι γαίης. ὡς δὲ πολυρραίσταο νέφος πολέμοιο φυγοῦσα ὀλβίη ἀθανάτοισι φίλη πόλις, ἥν ῥά τε δηρὸν δυσμενέων πάγχαλκος ἐπεπλήμμυρε θύελλα, ὀψὲ δ’ ἀπαλύξασα καὶ ἀμπνεύσασα μόθοιο ἀσπασίως γάνυταί τε καὶ εἰρήνης καμάτοισι τέρπεται ἁρπαλέοισι καὶ εὔδιος εἰλαπινάζει ἀνδρῶν τε πλήθουσα χοροιτυπίης τε γυναικῶν· ὣς οἱ λευγαλέους τε πόνους καὶ φρῖκα θαλάσσης ἀσπασίως προφυγόντες, ὑπεὶρ ἅλα καγχαλόωντες θρώσκουσ’ ἀίσσουσι χοροιτυπέουσιν ὁμοῖοι.

ð460Þ

ð465Þ

ð470Þ

(.–)

But when the blossoming season of spring beams rosily over the earth, and the sea in fair weather recovers from winter, and the water turns calm and billows gently, then in droves from all around On these dynamics in Latin didactic poetry see Schindler : –; Lausberg : –; Wondrich : –; Gale : .



Epic Similes fish roam happily near to land. As when a prosperous city, cherished by the immortals, escapes the cloud of immensely destructive war, when for a long time the solid bronze storm of enemy troops has flooded over it, and it finally enjoys respite and leaves off delightedly from the din of battle, and rejoices and takes pleasure in the charming toils of peace, and revels in the calm, full of the dancing of men and women; so fish, once they have escaped gleefully from miserable suffering and choppy waters, leap elatedly over the sea, darting like dancers.

Winter storms are figured as a siege from which fish, the city’s inhabitants, rejoice to be freed. Thematically the simile not only echoes the depiction of the city at peace and the city at war on the shield of Achilles (Hom. Il. .–), but also inverts those paradigmatic Iliadic similes in which warriors, especially those on the attack, stream like a rough or stormy sea. Oppian takes this further, however, by collapsing the gap between tenor and vehicle and depicting the war within the simile as itself a metaphorical storm that mirrors the χεῖμα (‘winter’ or ‘storm’, .) to which it is compared. We are presented with a ‘cloud of war’ (νέφος πολέμοιο, .) and a solid bronze ‘storm’ (θύελλα, .) of warriors, both Iliadic martial metaphors that invert the simile’s point of reference from storm to war and back to storm once more. The menacing storm of enemies, moreover, ‘floods over’ (ἐπεπλήμμυρε, .) the city much like the wintry seas it describes, while the calm (εὔδιος, .) city at peace mirrors the calm sea (θάλασσα . . . εὐδιόωσα, .–) that it likewise represents. The same vocabulary is used of both tenor and vehicle, connecting the exultant fish with the city’s joyful inhabitants. Oppian, in other words, both echoes and reverses Homeric practice, likening real-life storms and clouds to war while at the same time reincorporating the Iliadic war-asstorm metaphor within the simile itself. As often in the Halieutica, we are presented with an allusive and elusive interplay between the literal and the literary, and between heroic and didactic epic.  

  

Cf. Bartley : . Thus e.g. Hom. Il. .–, –, –; .–; .–; .–; .–, –; .–; .–; .– (of stormy waves crashing onto a ship, but especially relevant in that it depicts Trojans besieging the Greek ramparts); .–. πολέμοιο νέφος: Hom. Il. .; θύελλα: Il. . (Trojans raging like a storm-cloud). See Rebuffat : ; Bartley : –; Hopkinson : . For which cf. Philostr. Imag. .., where ἐπιπλημμυρεῖν is used of water overflowing into the sea. ἀναπνεύσῃ (.)~ἀμπνεύσασα (.); εὐδιόωσα (.)~εὔδιος (.); φυγοῦσα (.) ~προφυγόντες (.); ἀσπασίως (.)~ἀσπασίως (.); χοροιτυπίης (.) ~χοροιτυπέουσιν (.). Cf. Hopkinson : .

. Marine Warfare



Oppian, I suggest, responds in particular to the techniques of simile composition that were praised in contemporary criticism of the Homeric epics. He builds not just on Iliadic images of wars and stormy seas, but on a number of Homeric features singled out by ancient critics, especially the close linguistic relationship between tenor and vehicle, and the interplay between metaphors and similes in adjacent sections of the narrative. Several of these techniques are discussed in the analysis of Homeric similes preserved in the bT scholia and traditionally assigned to the first book of Porphyry’s Homeric Questions on the Iliad. Porphyry comments, for instance, on similes in which Homer uses cognate vocabulary for both tenor and vehicle, as when ὠδίνουσαν (Hom. Il. .) is employed of the woman in labour to whom the wounded Agamemnon is compared, and ὀδύναι of Agamemnon himself in the antapodosis (Il. .). Oppian takes this technique even further in his sea-as-city simile, using pairs of cognate words four times to link tenor and vehicle in this passage, and compounding this by using the image of ‘dancers’ in both the extended simile (χοροιτυπίης, .) and a brief comparison at the end of the antapodosis (χοροιτυπέουσιν ὁμοῖοι, .). Porphyry also makes much of the interplay between related similes, comparisons, and metaphors used in close proximity to one another: θαυμαστὸν δὲ αὐτῷ κἀκεῖνο· ἐκ μεταφορᾶς γάρ τι τολμηρότερον φθεγξάμενος οἰκείαν ἐπάγει παραβολήν, κρατύνων αὐτὴν ὡς εὔλογον ἔσχε τὴν τόλμαν (‘and this too is admirable in [Homer]: when he has articulated something very boldly using a metaphor, he also introduces [or ‘explains it using’] a related simile, confirming that its boldness was appropriate’). The examples given include a description of battle-ranks that bristle or shudder (στίχες . . . πεφρικυῖαι, Hom. Il. .–) with weapons, following which the army is likened in a simile to the ripple or shudder (φρίξ Il. .) created when the wind suddenly passes across the sea. An even more complex (ἔτι ποικιλώτερον) example is that of the cranes to which the Trojans are compared at the start of Iliad : Porphyry observes that the poet starts with a metaphor (the κλαγγή or screaming of the Trojans, Il. .), then adds not only a related ὁμοίωσις or brief comparison (ὄρνιθες ὥς, Il. .), but also a παραβολή or extended simile 

 

Although Porphyry was writing in the third century , much of his material is known to derive from earlier works, not least Aristotle’s Homeric Problems; as often with the bT scholia, it can be hard to disentangle and date different strands of material. Porph. Quaest. Hom. I .–. Sodano. Porph. Quaest. Hom. I .–. Sodano. On Porphyry’s use of the verb ἐπάγει see MacPhail : .



Epic Similes

(ἠύτε περ κλαγγὴ γεράνων πέλει οὐρανόθι πρό . . ., Il. .–) itself consonant with both the metaphor and the comparison. Oppian delights in creating a similar interplay between related metaphors and similes in adjacent lines: his extended similes on martial themes, for instance, frequently echo the metaphors of warring fish in the surrounding narrative. Porphyry later returns to this ‘transference’ between metaphors and similes, noting that Homer again uses a ‘daring’ metaphor in referring to the νέφος . . . πεζῶν (‘cloud of infantry’, Il. .) hovering around the two Aiantes, and that the poet follows this with a simile confirming that this daring was ‘suitable’ or ‘eloquent’ by responding to and expanding upon the language of the metaphor. In Iliad , that is, the φάλαγγες that surround the Aiantes are first figured as a metaphorical νέφος . . . πεζῶν (Il. .), and are then compared in an extended simile to a stormy νέφος being watched by a goatherd as it is driven over the sea by the west wind (Il. .–). The critic further observes that the vocabulary of kinesis and density used of the cloud in the simile mirrors the qualities of the tenor itself, namely a close-packed army on the move, as these are portrayed both here and elsewhere in the Iliad. Oppian, as we have seen, inverts and expands on precisely this Homeric trope when he uses the ‘bold’ metaphor of the νέφος πολέμοιο in the middle of a simile that itself compares a stormy sea to a ‘storm’ of warriors, transferring the language of elemental violence between the domains of meteorology and warfare. Porphyry also points to verses in which a Homeric vehicle is depicted using vocabulary or imagery that echoes, or is echoed by, language elsewhere associated with the tenor, sometimes even in distant parts of the narrative. One version of this association is the kind of linguistic ‘transference’ that takes place between simile and narrative when the vehicle is described using language that belongs more naturally to the tenor, or vice versa. Porphyry’s examples include the use of ἔθνη to refer successively to both bees and men (Hom. Il. ., .), where σμήνη would more usually be used of the former, and the use of κορύσσεται (‘crest’, literally  

 

Porph. Quaest. Hom. I .–. Sodano. Porph. Quaest. Hom. I .–. Sodano: ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν Αἰάντων καὶ τολμήσας ‘νέφος’ εἶπε καὶ κατὰ μεταφορὰν ’πεζῶν’, καὶ ὡς εὔλογον τὴν τόλμαν τῇ παραβολῇ ἐπιστώσατο καὶ τὰς φωνὰς ἤμειψεν, ἐπειπὼν τὸ παραβληθὲν τῷ παραβαλλομένῳ. Homer too offers a brief comparison within the simile when he states that the storm-cloud is ‘blacker than pitch’ (μελάντερον ἠύτε πίσσα, Il. .). Porphyry states that the poet frequently transposes to the similes language that belongs to the action, and transposes to the action that which belongs to the similes (τάς τε γὰρ οἰκείως τιθεμένας φωνὰς ἐπὶ τῶν πραγμάτων πολλάκις εἰς τὰς παραβολὰς μετατίθησι καὶ τὰς ἐπὶ τῶν παραβολῶν εἰς τὰ πράγματα, Porph. Quaest. Hom. I .– Sodano).

. Marine Warfare



‘make crested like a helmet’, Il. .) of the waves to which the Greek army is compared as they march in glittering armour. Not only does Oppian frequently employ such transference, but he specifically exploits the simultaneously military and marine associations of verbs like κορύσσω. In the first and last books of the poem the poet applies the word four times to sea-monsters, noting in the first book that many of these creatures inhabit the broad pathways of the open water and are ‘armed always with a destructive fury’, αἰεὶ δ’ ὀλοῇ κεκορυθμένα λύσσῃ (.). The verb subtly assimilates the defensive ‘armour’ of the sea-monsters with the waters of the deep sea, an association compounded in the next line by the implication that the water is indeed the beasts’ safeguard, and that the only κήτεα to approach the shores are those whose weight the beaches and sea-water can bear (.–). A similar association is made of a κῆτος again at ., while at . and . the verb κορύσσει is twice used to describe a scene in which water has been literally weaponised, foul bilge-water being poured into the sea-monster’s wounds in order to heighten the creature’s pain. Elsewhere the poet exploits still further the literal and metaphorical associations of this language. A writhing eel, impaled on the prickly spines of a crayfish, is compared to a leopard penned in by a bestiarius during a fight; the man goads the leopard and waits for the enraged beast to impale itself on his spear: ἡ δὲ καὶ εἰσορόωσα γένυν θηκτοῖο σιδήρου | ἄγρια κυμαίνουσα κορύσσεται, ἐν δ’ ἄρα λαιμῷ | ἠυτε δουροδόκῃ χαλκήλατον ἔσπασεν αἰχμήν (‘looking at the whetted blade of the iron, [the leopard] seethes savagely, rears up, and draws the spear-point of beaten bronze within its throat like a spear-case’, .–). The verb κορύσσεται, used of the rearing leopard, unites tenor and vehicle by activating both the marine and militaristic associations of the scene. The juxtaposition of κυμαίνουσα and κορύσσεται, both typically used of swelling waves, recalls the aquatic nature of the creature to which the ‘swelling’ leopard corresponds, namely an undulating eel. The episode turns on the eel’s slippery texture, and the creature has already been said to glide through an octopus’ grasp ‘like water’ (οἷά περ ὕδωρ, .), while the sweaty wrestlers to which the rippling eel and octopus are compared are likewise near-aquatic in their movements, their hands rolling like waves (κυμαίνονται, .) as they tussle. Yet the verb also retains its association in the simile with armour and weaponry: not only is it the sight of a weapon that causes the creature 

Oppian’s use of anthropomorphic vocabulary to describe fish, discussed further in Chapter , represents another form of transference of the kind analysed by Porphyry.



Epic Similes

to rear up in the first place, but the leopard becomes virtually an extension of that armour when it angrily ‘sheathes’ the spear in its throat ‘like a spearstand’. The brief comparison within the simile cements the animal’s connection with both weapons and water: as it rears up (κορύσσεται), the leopard resembles in different ways both a slippery sea-creature and a receptacle for armour. Here and elsewhere, Oppian thus exploits and develops the features that Porphyry admires in Homeric similes: the interplay between simile and narrative, and between related similes, metaphors, and comparisons, and the transference of language between tenor and vehicle.

. Homeric Readings Oppian, moreover, frequently offers a close and careful reading of the dynamics of Homeric similes, as may be illustrated from a cluster of similes used to depict a dolphin in book . Hot on the heels of several Homeric allusions earlier in book  – including the depiction of Odysseus’ death, the comparison of rainbow-wrasse swarming around a diver to flies plaguing reapers, and the comparison of the ‘gadfly’ from which tuna and swordfish suffer to the pests that afflict cattle – the poet turns to the dolphin’s merciless pursuit of its prey. Terrified fish fill the sea’s nooks and cram its harbours as they flee from the powerful predator (.–), a scene that is modelled on the Iliadic simile in which the furious Achilles pursues cowering Trojans like a ravening dolphin cramming the nooks of a harbour with fleeing fish at Hom. Il. .–. Yet the following lines tacitly correct this Homeric portrait: it turns out that not all fish cower in terror, for the bonito (ἀμία) alone dares to take the dolphin on. When they perceive that a lone dolphin has strayed from its pod, bonitos mass together and tear at its flesh. The conflict stands in contrast to the dolphins’ former terrorisation of trembling fish, and the bonitos’ assault is compared to the onslaught of a mighty army:



 

The verb ἔσπασεν, moreover, evokes both the violent snatching associated with savage beasts and the action of drawing a weapon from its sheath. σπάω is used in this poem, for instance, of a fox snatching at its prey with its jaws (.), and of fish and men seizing their prey (thus e.g. ., , ); for its military sense cf. Hom. Il. .: ἐκ δ’ ἄρα σύριγγος πατρώϊον ἐσπάσατ’ ἔγχος (‘then [Achilles] pulled his father’s spear from its spear-case’). .–; .– (cf. Hom. Il. .–); .– (cf. Hom. Od. .–). See also James . Mair : .

. Homeric Readings



αἱ δ’ ἀθρόαι ἄλλοθεν ἄλλαι, ἠύθ’ ὑπ’ ἀγγελίης στρατὸς ἄσπετος, εἰς ἕν’ ἰοῦσαι στέλλονται ποτὶ μῶλον ἀθαμβέες, ὥστ’ ἐπὶ πύργον δυσμενέων θύνοντες ἀρήιοι ἀσπιστῆρες. δελφὶς δ’ ἠυγένειος ὑπαντιόωντος ὁμίλου πρῶτα μὲν οὐκ ἀλέγει, μετὰ δ’ ἔσσυται, ἄλλοτε ἄλλην ἁρπάγδην ἐρύων, μενοεικέα δαῖτα κιχήσας. ἀλλ’ ὅτε μιν πολέμοιο περιστέψωσι φάλαγγες πάντοθεν, ἀμφὶ δέ μιν στῖφος μέγα κυκλώσωνται, δὴ τότε οἱ καὶ μόχθος ὑπὸ φρένα δύεται ἤδη· ἔγνω δ’ αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον ἀπειρεσίοις ἔνι μοῦνος ἑρχθεὶς δυσμενέεσσι· πόνος δ’ ἀναφαίνεται ἀλκῆς.

ð565Þ

ð570Þ

(.–)

Crowding together from this side and that, like an immense army under orders, [the bonitos] assemble as a unit and set out fearlessly for the conflict, like armed warriors rushing against the towering mass of their enemies. And at first the strong-jawed dolphin pays no heed to the throng that comes towards it, and it rushes among them, tearing violently at one and then another, obtaining an abundant feast. But once the battle-lines surround it on every side, and a massive host encircles it, only then does distress enter its mind, and it recognises its precipitous death, hemmed in alone amongst countless enemies, and the toil of battle shows forth.

In both similes and technical discourse, Oppian has reversed the tenor and vehicle of the Homeric narrative: the Iliadic dolphin simile has become a real-life dolphin, which is itself compared to a human battle scene. Iliadic martial vocabulary pervades the scene, from the characterisation of the struggle as a μῶλος and πόνος to the warriors as ἀρήιοι ἀσπιστῆρες (the latter a variant of the Homeric ἀσπιστής), the enemy forces as δυσμενέες, the massed forces as a πύργος or arrayed φάλαγγες, and the dolphin’s demise as an αἰπὺς ὄλεθρος. Even the dolphin’s abundant meal (μενοεικέα δαῖτα) of bonitos takes on the characteristics of a Homeric feast. What is more, the dolphin’s sudden recognition of its precipitous demise (αἰπὺς ὄλεθρος) is followed by the emergence (ἀναφαίνεται) of the conflict itself; compare the Iliadic simile in which Agamemnon attacks the amassed Trojans just as a lion advances upon a herd of cattle, which stampede in terror, while for a single creature ‘precipitous 



Oppian’s ἐπὶ πύργον | δυσμενέων (.–) may also recall the moment in the epipolesis in Iliad  when, on the very cusp of battle, Agamemnon reaches Mnestheus and Odysseus and their warriors, who had not observed that the φάλαγγες (Hom. Il. .) of Greeks and Trojans were now moving, but were still waiting for warfare to break out in earnest between the forces, and for the πύργος Ἀχαιῶν (Il. .; cf. ) to advance against the Trojans and so initiate the fighting. Cf. Hom. Il. ., –.



Epic Similes

death emerges’ (ἀναφαίνεται αἰπὺς ὄλεθρος, Hom. Il. .). Just before this episode Oppian had observed that, as lions are ἄνακτες amongst carnivorous beasts (.), so dolphins are rulers amongst fish (τόσσον καὶ δελφῖνες ἐν ἰχθύσιν ἡγεμονῆες, .); now he compounds that equivalence by having his dolphin take over a Homeric lion simile. As it feeds on the bonitos, the dolphin is characterised as ἠυγένειος (.), an epithet applied by Homer solely to lions; the transference of this term to a dolphin not only marks the poet’s intervention in another point of Homeric linguistic interpretation, but reinforces the connection between these regal predators. Oppian alters the dynamics of the Homeric lion simile, however, by representing not a helpless, stampeding herd attached by a predator, but rather a powerful leader (ὑπέρβιον ἡγητῆρα, .) itself attacked by a throng of apparently less threatening creatures. The bonitos’ bodily weakness had been stressed at the start of the episode (.–); yet now it is not the lone ‘king’ but the jostling throng that has the upper hand. The force of the comparison rests less on the principle of powerful predator and herd of prey (as the dolphin itself seems at first to have assumed, .–) than on the dolphin’s sudden awakening to its mortal danger, which recalls the imminent death of the cow singled out by the Iliadic lion (Il. .). If similes are themselves a trope constituted by the interplay between likeness and unlikeness, then so too is the complex, shifting relationship between text and hypotext. Throughout the episode, the poet’s martial similes and Homeric language bleed steadily into the surrounding narrative. The comparison of bonitos to a vast army and to armed warriors, introduced respectively by ἠύτε (.) and ὥστε (.), cedes swiftly to metaphors of war, so that bonitos are described as the dolphin’s ‘enemies’ (.) and as πολέμοιο . . . φάλαγγες (.) even outside the bounds of the simile. As the struggle grows more intense, metaphors and similes pile up: the dolphin’s heart ‘burns in pain’ (φλεγέθει δέ οἱ ἦτορ ἀνίῃ, .), and within two lines the anguished, rushing beast is compared to both a diver (κυβιστητήρ, .) and a furious storm or whirlwind (λαῖλαψ, .). Both   



Cf. also Hom. Il. ., where Ajax speaks to Menelaus about his fear of their impending deaths in the fray. Hom. Il. ., ., .; Od. .. As Giangrande : – has suggested, the epithet ἠυγένειος presumably here means ‘with powerful jaws’ rather than ‘noble’ (= εὐγενής) or ‘well-maned’, and seems to constitute yet another example of the poet’s intervention in a long-running debate over Homeric vocabulary. On the ‘obliquity of analogy’ see Feeney : , ; Kennedy , esp. .

. Homeric Readings



images have a Homeric flavour, for all their brevity: the λαῖλαψ is a favoured Iliadic image for the tumult of fighting, as are winds and storms more widely, while the comparison of the wounded dolphin to a diver recalls Patroclus’ description of the dying Cebriones tumbling to the earth like a κυβιστητήρ (Hom. Il. .–). Immediately after the diving simile, the dolphin plunges to the depths and then back to the surface in a vain attempt to shake off its attackers, but is continually pursued by the ravening bonitos (.–). The poet thus nicely literalises – and disproves – Patroclus’ jibe that Cebriones’ apparent somersaulting skills would prove more useful if he were on a boat on the fishy sea (πόντῳ ἐν ἰχθυόεντι, Hom. Il. .), diving for sea-squirts. When we witness this kind of slaughter transposed to the fishy sea, it seems that the diving dolphin remains just as helpless as the ‘diving’ Cebriones. The rapid succession of metaphors and similes conveys not only the overwhelming intensity of the conflict, but also its fluctuating power dynamics. The sequence of similes is disorientating, for no sooner has the dolphin been compared to a diver and a whirlwind than the frame of reference changes again, this time in an analogy that itself dramatises the interpretative difficulty of decoding this whirling, confusing mass: ‘you would say that a new monster had been produced by Poseidon, a mixture between dolphins and bonitos’ (φαίης κε νέον τέρας Ἐννοσιγαίῳ | τίκτεσθαι δελφῖσι μεμιγμένον ἠδ’ ἀμίῃσιν, .–). The scene is so hard to process that the very boundaries between these creatures appear to break down and blur into a new monstrous hybrid. Nor is the reader allowed time to assimilate this image, for the next line brings yet another simile, capitalising on this image of sinister symbiosis and the dissolution of bodily boundaries: bonitos feast on the dolphin’s flesh like leeches applied by a doctor to a man’s swollen wound (.–). The leech simile depicts a patient being cured by a skilled physician, one of several elaborate medical similes in the poem. The gap between simile and narrative at first seems striking: unlike the beneficial leeches, the 





The λαῖλαψ is the subject of brief comparisons at Hom. Il. . and . (cf. also ., of Ares), and of the more extended similes at Il. .–; .–; .–, –; .–. At Il. .– and –-, Hector is twice in swift succession compared to different storm-winds; see further Purves b. Itself drawing from the narrator’s diver comparison at Hom. Il. .. The collocation of diver and winds is also Homeric: immediately after this simile the fighting between Greeks and Trojans is compared to Eurus and Notus roaring through the valleys and shaking the trees of the forest (Il. .–). Cf. .–; .–. The poet thus extends the incorporative power of his didactic poetry (on which see Section ., on Nicander and Dionysius) even to the medical sphere.



Epic Similes

ravenous bonitos seem to have a solely baneful influence on the dolphin’s health. Yet the simile turns out to have an anticipatory truth after all, for it not only characterises the bonitos’ furious attack but also prepares the way for a second striking reversal in the narrative, when the dolphin suddenly recovers. Shortly after the leech simile, we hear that if the bonitos allow the dolphin to catch its breath, the rejuvenated beast attacks them with full force, turning the tables and bringing a chilling doom to the bonitos (κρυερὴ δ’ ἀμίαις ἀναφαίνεται ἄτη, .). The dolphin now comes at them like a blustering hurricane (εἰδόμενος πρηστῆρι δυσηχέι, .), an image that echoes the creature’s earlier comparison to a whirlwind, this time motivated not by agony but by rage. The furious dolphin, seeking requital for the outrage it suffered from the bonitos (παθὼν δ’ ἀπετίσατο λώβην, .), reddens the water with their blood and causes them to flee desperately from the pursuing beast. The scene recalls not only the vehicle but now also the tenor of the Iliadic dolphin simile, in which the furious Achilles bloodies the waters of the Scamander in his quest for vengeance (Il. .–). The powerful dolphin is at last reinstated as the ruler (ἡγητήρ, .) of the sea, and the scene has come full circle. The leech simile, then, has an important anticipatory function within the wider narrative, for while the point of comparison initially seemed to be restricted to the action of bloodsucking beasts, the medicinal function of the leeches in fact foreshadows the dolphin’s sudden recovery. Striking too is the level of detail in the simile: bulging and arching as they suck the blood, the sated leeches roll back from the man’s skin ‘as if drunk’ (μεθύουσιν ὁμοῖα, .). The simile within a simile renders explicit the earlier metaphorical representation of the man’s blood as a heady, unmixed drink like wine: the leeches drink the αἱμοβαρῆ ζωρὸν ποτόν (.) until they fall down drunk. The neologism αἱμοβαρής is formed by analogy with Homeric οἰνοβαρής, framing the scene as oenocentric even before we reach the drunkards. The comparison also mirrors the action of the larger simile, insofar as both are based on the principle of consumption to the point of satiety: bonitos eat dolphin flesh, leeches suck human blood, and humans drink wine until all reel back, replete. The inebriating quality of these images mirrors the dizzying whirl of similes at play. The poet leaves us with a puzzling comparison to ponder. In the culminating episode of the encounter, bonitos and dolphin are compared to jackals that fall upon a stag and tear it apart, the stag leaping in agony over the mountain peaks, and the jackals laughing over their now-dead 

Cf. James : –.

. Homeric Readings



prey (.–). The image replays the Iliadic simile in which Trojans assail the wounded Odysseus like jackals feasting upon a wounded stag before being scattered by a lion (Hom. Il. .–), an echo reinforced by the parallelism in terms of landscape, hunters, flesh-eating predators, and warm gushing wound. The Oppianic and Iliadic jackal comparisons both revolve around the conflict between a single larger animal and a crowd of smaller beasts, a dynamic also central to the earlier phases of the conflict, where the poet had evoked, and reversed, another predation simile from Iliad . With the jackals, however, the difference between Homer and Oppian becomes marked, since the jackal comparison is uniquely inappropriate to this stage in the dolphin narrative: the dolphin is not being eaten but is itself devouring bonitos. In this sense the Homeric simile of lion and cattle would have been more appropriate, this being a narrative in which a powerful predator wreaks havoc on a crowd of weaker beings; the jackal and stag simile, on the other hand, would have been more pertinent to that earlier stage in proceedings, where a crowd of bold, aggressive, and relentless creatures devours a larger beast. The Homeric jackal simile, moreover, had involved three species: a crowd of jackals, a wounded stag, and a predatory lion. When the Homeric jackals start off by feasting on the stag, a δαίμων dramatically intervenes by sending a lion that scatters them. In the Oppianic account, however, the jackals simply tear the stag apart, and the poet has dispensed with the lion altogether, resulting in a scenario that oddly fails to reflect this final stage in the narrative, in which the dolphin, previously near death, finally regains the upper hand. While the Homeric stag, jackal, and lion simile reveals the established hierarchies that structure the natural order (these scavengers 





Oppian’s ξύλοχος (.) recalls Homer’s shady νέμος (Il. .); the mountains in which the attack takes place (.) recall the mountains of Il. .; the description of the jackals as ὠμησταί (.) evokes Homer’s description of the creatures as ὠμοφάγοι (Il. .); Oppian’s depiction of the stag’s wounds and warm flowing blood (.–) recalls the wounded stag’s warm blood flowing at Il. .. Even the statement that the jackals, unlike the bonitos, pay no penalty for their savagery, can be read as a comment on the god-sent lion that scatters the jackals at Il. .–. Oppian’s stag has presumably also been wounded, hence the presence of the hunters, as well as the reference to the newly shed blood at ., although this remains implicit. Cf. Bartley : –. Hom. Il. .–, in which Agamemnon kills Trojans like a lion attacking stampeding cattle. That simile too had involved a reversal of Homeric power dynamics, insofar as the predatory dolphin is attacked by a crowd of weak-bodied bonitos, an unexpected reframing of the Iliadic simile in which cattle fall victim to a predatory lion, and one that appears to reflect the dolphin’s own surprise at this turn of events. The poet’s emphasis on the daring and tenacity of the bonitos in attacking the dolphin (.–, .–, .–) matches the boldness and tenacity of the jackals in pursuing the stag (., .–), as the poet all but points out at .–.



Epic Similes

may be more powerful than stags, but they are weaker than lions, while even the lion is a mere pawn of the gods), the jackal–stag and dolphin– bonito parallel evokes but leaves hanging the possibility that the tables will be turned once more on the jackals, as in the Homeric exemplum. Oppian’s comparison draws attention, that is, to the fluctuations of power between the dolphin and bonitos. This dissonance prompts the poet to comment explicitly on the gap between narrative and analogy: ἀλλ’ ἤτοι θῶες μὲν ἀναιδέες οὔτιν’ ἔτισαν | ποινήν, ἐκ δ’ ἐγέλασσαν ἀποφθιμένοις ἐλάφοισι·| θαρσαλέαι δ’ ἀμίαι τάχα κύντερα δηρίσαντο (‘but the shameless jackals pay no penalty, and laugh aloud over the dead stag; the audacious bonitos, however, soon have a more horrible fight’, .–). In part the mismatch is temporal: the analogy refers to an earlier stage in the narrative, and by its very inapplicability draws attention to the change in circumstance that has since taken place. The jackal simile of Iliad  is itself structured by a temporal complexity that results from its aim of describing two scenes in one, encompassing both the jackals that attack a wounded deer (referring to the preceding narrative in which the Trojans circle menacingly around Odysseus) and also the lion that arrives to scatter the jackals (referring to the subsequent narrative, in which Ajax will arrive to scatter the Trojans). The simile is thus both retrospective and anticipatory, much like the Oppianic simile of medicinal leeches; we here witness the manner in which Homeric similes serve in subtle ways to advance the narrative plot. Analogies are necessarily constituted by an interplay between likeness and unlikeness. The bonitos and jackals are united by their characteristics as scavengers, but are separated by their fates, insofar as the wounded stag makes for a markedly less threatening meal than the wounded but still deadly dolphin. Most interesting here is the poet’s evident interest in drawing attention to the points of divergence as well as convergence in the analogy. In this respect Oppian follows the precedent set by Apollonius of Rhodes in the notorious simile in which Jason calls to his companions like a lion roaring through a forest as it seeks its mate: the cattle and   



The poet here perhaps also plays on the idea of a θώς that remains unpunished (ἀθῷος), a notion of negation carried through from the alpha privative to the negative comparison itself. See Moulton :  n.  on the ‘problematic’ role of the lion in this simile. In the Oppianic scene the boundary between simile and other forms of comparison is also blurred: the poet’s reference to hunters foregrounds the perspective of an external observer making sense of the scene, but while the comparison opens with indirect speech, the accusatives and infinitives of .– soon cede to the narrator’s own summary of the scene. Much discussed in twentieth-century scholarship: see e.g. Silk : ; Minchin : –, ; Primavesi ; Taplin : –; Nannini : –; Wofford .

. Homeric Readings



herdsmen of the simile are said to be terrified by the sound, yet to Jason’s friends the voice of their companion is not terrifying but welcome. The attention drawn in both the Argonautica and Halieutica to the merely partial correspondence between tenor and vehicle functions as a commentary on the nature, and limitations, of epic similes at large. The play between divergence and convergence operates at the literary level as well as in similes themselves: Oppian’s practice of diverging from Homer signals his convergence with Alexandrian practice. Oppian, however, goes further than Apollonius by disclosing and highlighting the inconcinnities within Homer’s own simile. The lion scatters the jackals so that it can devour the stag itself, whereas Ajax scatters the Trojans in defence of Odysseus, leaving the hero alive and well. The Iliadic A and bT scholia comment on the simile’s lack of total correspondence, and emphasise that Odysseus is not to be thought of as deer-like in character, for the parallel has been suggested by his wound rather than his cowardice; the stag’s death is thus a form of amplification designed to heighten the impression of the danger in which he lies. Unlike the stag, in other words, Odysseus does not die; nor, correspondingly, does the Oppianic dolphin, and the narrator’s explicit comment on the matter (‘but the shameless jackals pay no penalty . . . the audacious bonitos, however . . .’, .–) becomes a reflexive annotation commenting on the Homeric prototype. As with Apollonius, Oppian’s comment may be seen as a product of – and a response to – the ancient scholarly interest in identifying and delimiting the points of correspondence in Homeric similes. Yet the didactic poet’s vast array of similes avoids imposing any unified compositional model on his similes, any implication that similes ‘ought’ to be constructed, for instance, on the principle of either single or multiple correspondence. This is not a blueprint for the epic simile, and Oppian seeks to explore, not to pin down, the wide range of analogies available to him. The poet’s often dazzlingly inventive similes are thus composed along the full breadth of what Jonathan Ready has, apropos of the Homeric epics, termed a ‘spectrum of comparison’ structured by different degrees of  



A.R. Arg. .–, on which see esp. Goldhill : –; Hunter : . Σ AbT Il. .a: οὐ δειλὸς ὁ Ὀδυσσεύς, ὅτι ἐλάφῳ εἴκασται· οὐ γὰρ ἰσχύος δηλωτικὸν τὸ τῆς παραβολῆς, ἀλλὰ τῶν ὁμοίων παθημάτων. θανούσῃ δὲ αὐτὸν ἐλάφῳ εἰκάζει, ἵνα αὐξήσῃ τὸν κίνδυνον. Cf. Σ T Il. .b, noting that the detail of the lion eating the deer is an elaboration of the simile and does not correspond to any feature of the main narrative (αὕτη ἡ ἐπεξεργασία τῆς παραβολῆς οὐ πρὸς τὸ προκείμενον).



Epic Similes

similarity between tenor and vehicle. If the analogy between doomed bonitos and scavenging jackals is said to be constituted more by difference than by similarity, then its antithesis is perhaps the poet’s comparison of a turtle to a tortoise: a turtle is turned onto its back and wriggles helplessly, much to the fisherman’s mirth, just as a tortoise is turned onto its back and wriggles helplessly, much to a young boy’s mirth (.–). As Richard Buxton observes of Homeric similes, ‘[t]he more closely the simile approximates to the main action . . . the more the world of the simile and that of the action threaten to collapse into one another’. Oppian’s emphasis on mirth represents the comparison of turtle and tortoise as joyously absurd, but there are also serious implications to the parallelism, suggesting a profound connection between these beasts. The next two chapters will return to the significance of Oppian’s interest in ‘collapsing’ tenor into vehicle. The Homeric scholiasts’ approbation is not limited solely to comparisons that exhibit a marked consonance between narrative and simile, however, and at times they identify dissonances as constitutive of meaning, assigning extraneous details a positive didactic, poetic, thematic, or ethical function. A notable case of Homeric disjunction, for instance, is the simile in which Hector, fighting furiously and charging at the amassed Greeks, is compared to a boar or lion penned in by hunters and slain by its own courageous refusal to flee (Il. .–). As Carroll Moulton puts it, ‘Hector is on the offensive, and yet the elaborate simile pictures a wild beast on the defensive.’ The exegetical scholia observe that the simile is based on a single point of correspondence, namely Hector’s being hemmed in by the Trojans, and that the death of the boar and the hunters hurling javelins are to be seen as a form of ‘poetic ornamentation’ (ποιητικὸς κόσμος). In this instance the dissonant material is explained in aesthetic terms.



 

  

Ready , esp. ch. . Ready distinguishes ‘simile’ (in his sense) from ‘comparison’ and other forms of likeness according to the perceived level of similarity between tenor and vehicle (for which see –). Buxton : . See e.g. the exegetical scholia on Il. .–, in which the noise of the Trojan horses’ hooves is compared to the lashing rain sent down by Zeus to punish immoral men by swelling the rivers into a flood that tears through the landscape (on which see esp. Σ bT Il. ., a, b). See further Heath : –; Nu¨nlist : ; Richardson : –. The simile is also adapted by Oppian in his depiction of the eel as penned-in leopard (.–). Moulton : , in a sensitive discussion of the simile at –. Σ T Il. .–a; cf. Σ b Il. .–a.

. Homeric Readings



As Malcolm Heath observes, however, we should be wary of assuming that the ancient critical language of poetic ornamentation need be derogatory or dismissive, as it tends to be in modern discussions of ‘poetic ornament’. This is not only because the scholiasts express aesthetic approval of similes with a wide spectrum of similarity between tenor and vehicle, but because poetic ornamentation was itself a core principle of literary composition. As Quintilian observes, some similes ‘ornament’ a speech, making it sublime, attractive, or striking; in these instances, ‘the more remote the simile is from the subject to which it is applied, the greater the novelty it produces and the more unexpected it is’. At least some ancient critics therefore argued that it is precisely in the distance between tenor and vehicle that the poet’s art resides. Similes are part of what make Oppian’s didactic verse essentially ‘epic’ or ‘poetic’ and distinguish it from the technical prose from which its facts are drawn. It is often in the subtle workings of these similes that the poet’s artistry – and, I have argued, his didactic agenda – are most evident. Oppian’s deep interest in the dynamics of the Homeric simile, and in the degree of consonance between tenor and vehicle, was identified already by Eustathius. One illuminating comment is prompted by Hom. Il. .–, a simile in which the Greeks and Trojans clash with an almighty din: not so great is the noise of the waves crashing onto the shore under the force of the wind, not so great the roar of fire consuming a forest, not so great the wind roaring through the trees, as was the shouting of Greeks and Trojans in combat. The use of negative correlatives is striking, and, as Mark Edwards observes, the simile represents one of ‘two major examples in the Il. of the use of a negative to produce an intensifying effect, turning the simile into a kind of priamel’. Partway through his lengthy analysis of this simile, Eustathius observes, with tantalising concision, that εἰσὶ δὲ τοιαῦται παραβολαὶ καὶ παρὰ τῷ γλυκυτάτῳ Ὀππιανῷ. Although the critic offers no further details, we may compare both the proem to Hal. , in which terrestrial animals are compared to – and found less terrifying than – their marine equivalents, and, more directly, the simile in book  in which sargues fawn delightedly around goats – ‘not so greatly’ do kids greet their mothers when they return from pasture (.–). Although not couched as a simile, the proem to book  draws its inspiration in part from the second ‘negative simile’ of the Iliad, which  

 Heath : –; cf. Nu¨nlist : –. Quint. Inst. ...  Edwards : . Eust. in Il. ..–; cf. Rebuffat :  n. .



Epic Similes

opens a speech uttered by Menelaus at a moment of great dramatic tension in the Iliad. In drawing attention to the gulf between tenor and vehicle, the motif proclaims the inadequacy of a conventional epic simile to convey the intensity of the situation at hand. Standing in defiant defence of Patroclus’ corpse, Menelaus observes that the ferocity of neither leopard, lion, nor boar is as great as the mind of his assailant Euphorbus and his brother; nevertheless he will slay him, just as he previously slew his brother. So too Oppian observes that terrestrial monsters are terrifying, but that their aquatic counterparts are more terrifying yet; nevertheless, these too will be defeated in battle, for man devises death for all such wild beasts, despite their impressive strength (.–). The examples of terrifying terrestrial beasts include the leopard, lion, and boar – precisely those named by Menelaus. The implication here is that the whale shortly to be described will meet the same fate as all the other fish slain in this poem, just as Euphorbus’ fate will echo that of Hyperenor before him. Oppian subtly reinterprets Menelaus’ speech as a reflection not on the conflict between Greek and Trojan warrior, but on the μένος (Hom. Il. .) of wild beasts pitted against the intellect of man (φρονέουσιν, Il. .); in each case it is man’s intellect that wins out. Both poets, moreover, use this negative formulation to draw attention to the difference in intensity between two phenomena that are elsewhere compared directly: Homer’s ‘negative similes’ echo the comparisons drawn in the remainder of the epic between battle and waves, fire, or wind, between men and wild animals; Oppian’s similes elsewhere compare seacreatures to tortoises, lions, and bears, or to flocks returning from pasture. In these ‘negative comparisons’, however, attention is turned to the differentiation between tenor and vehicle. In the case of book  the simultaneous likeness (in both nomenclature and strength) and unlikeness (in deadliness) between marine and terrestrial monsters proclaims the sheer magnitude of the poet’s subject-matter, namely κήτεα, and looks forward to the protracted dispatch of a terrifying sea-monster. The proem’s claim that the sea mirrors but surpasses the terrors of the land will thus be underscored by the frightened onlooker who prays to Gaia and Thalassa at the sight of the sea-monster’s carcass (.–). As Chapter  will argue, this sea-monster is portrayed as the consummate threat to humankind, a hybrid beast whose dispatch is marked by an almost provocatively  

Hom. Il. .–; see Ready : –. So too the proem is framed as an address to the emperor and gods, just as Menelaus’ speech is addressed to Zeus and Euphorbus.

. Homeric Readings



hyperbolic epic intertextuality; the negative analogies in the proem emphasise the truly magnificent scale of the conflict to come, as well as its epic resonances. Oppian’s other ‘negative simile’ offers a different, and less hyperbolic, reflection on the gap between different species, but one that also comments on the intellectual gulf between fisherman and fish, as well as the relationship between land and sea. Sargues or white sea bream entertain such an ardent love for goats that they gambol delightedly around the hooves of herds that have been brought down to the sea. Not so excitedly do kids greet their mothers when they return from pasture to the herdsman’s roofed σταθμός (.–). As the poet exclaims, ἦ σέβας οὐκ ἐπίελπτον ὁμόφρονα φῦλα τεκέσθαι | ἀλλήλοις ὀρέων τε πάγους χαροπήν τε θάλασσαν (‘truly it is an unanticipated wonder that like-minded species should be produced by both the mountain crags and the flashing sea’, .–). The insistence that the ὁμοφροσύνη or unity of mind between sargues and goats should exceed even that of kids and their mothers, creatures that actually belong to the same φῦλον, represents an attempt to convey the sheer astonishment experienced by the nearby goatherd who observes each scene (.–, .), the disjunction here offering startled commentary on the unexpected nature of the spectacle. The fact that the poet draws attention to the gap between tenor and vehicle encourages the reader to reflect on the oddity of this encounter: this is not a familiar pastoral scene of affection between young animals and their parents, but rather the fervent desire of a fish enamoured of a goat. There is a marked asymmetry to the scene: not only is the goats’ emotional response characterised by tolerance rather than reciprocal passion (.–), but the two species are unlikely ever to inhabit the same environment for more than a fleeting moment, and the sargues’ despair at the goats’ inevitable departure from the shallows is couched as a profound desolation akin to heartbreak (.–). Worse still, their passion is manipulated ruthlessly by the fisherman who dresses up as a goat in order to deceive and catch them, turning desire into death by baiting a hook with goat-flesh: σαργὲ τάλαν· τάχα γάρ σε κακὸν πόθον αἰπολίοισι | φημὶ συνοίσεσθαι (‘Poor sargue! For soon, I declare, a destructive yearning will bring you into contact with the herds of goats’, .–). The sargue mistakenly thinks itself part of the caprine world it so craves, but the delusion proves deadly: δύσμοροι, ὡς ὀλοοῖο τάχ’ ἀντιόωσιν ἑταίρου, | οὐ φρεσὶν αἰγείῃσιν ἀρηρότος (‘ill-fated creatures, 

See Lytle  for possible cultic resonances in this episode.



Epic Similes

how fatal they soon find their friend, who does not have a goat’s mind’, .–). The negative formulation of the pastoral simile prepares the ground for the fish’s ‘error’ by drawing attention to the gap between tenor and vehicle, between the bizarre world of goat-loving fish and a genuine pastoral environment. Important too is the difference of intensity to which the simile points, for it is the fish’s very excess of emotion that will ultimately prove fatal. The simile, moreover, is matched by a second pastoral simile, this time represented in positive terms: when the fisherman places a weel in the sea, the male sargue ushers its numerous mates into the basket before itself entering, just as a herdsman drives his flocks from the pasture into the σταθμός, counts them up, and enters along with his sheep (.–). The parallelism between the two similes is crucial: in each the herdsman brings his flocks back from the fields to the σταθμός, a place of safety and joy. Yet the gap that the poet notes in the first simile prompts the reader to consider the second more closely: for while the foolish sargue thinks itself a protective shepherd safeguarding his flock, we soon perceive the horrible irony of the simile, for the fish is in fact solicitously ushering its mates to their deaths. Just as Menelaus’ negative comparison of Euphorbus to a lion is ironically followed by the narrator’s comparison of Menelaus’ slaughter of Euphorbus to the spectacle of a lion furiously devouring a heifer limb from limb (Hom. Il. .–), so Oppian’s use of the ‘negative’ pastoral simile is followed by a simile that uses a closely related vehicle – the flock brought back to the herdsman’s steading – to describe not joy but death. The fish blithely fails to anticipate its fate as it is trapped, and the gap between simile and reality draws the reader’s attention to the divergent perspectives of fisherman and fish, only one of whom realises the true import of the scene. In believing itself to have assumed the protective role of the herdsman, the sargue has once more radically misinterpreted the pastoral code. Both here and in the episode of the dolphin and bonito, the very inappropriateness of these similes draws attention to the fish’s mistaken interpretation of its fortunes at that moment: the dolphin at first thinks itself dominant; the bonitos later think their victim doomed; the sargue thinks itself a protector. Such foolishness is shown to be typical of these 

The parallelism between these similes is heighted by the fluidity of Greek terminology for sheep and goats: the herdsman in the second simile is introduced at . as μηλονόμος τις ἀνήρ, i.e. a man who tends either sheep or goats, and the precise identity of the animals is not clear until the following line.

. Similes in Context



creatures, and we have already seen how much of the poem revolves around the ironies that play out as a fish’s behaviour is manipulated by the far-sighted fisherman. That the poet calls attention to the gap between tenor and vehicle cues the reader to look more closely at these ironies and reversals; this formal experimentation with the boundaries of simile itself turns out to be intimately connected with the poem’s wider thematic concerns. The similes of the Halieutica, in other words, reflect not just implicitly but also explicitly on the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between fish and other creatures (including human beings), and on the sudden reversals of power that structure a world in which fish eat and are eaten in turn. Several further inferences may be drawn from the examples we have considered so far. The Halieutica exhibits a self-consciousness about the process of creating meaning through analogy, and about the relationship between (didactic) text and (epic) hypotext. Oppian’s similes draw on ancient critical discussions of Homeric practice, yet these similes are never reducible simply to ostentatious displays of erudition, and the poet is more interested in exploring the provocative potential of analogy as a cognitive mode than in forcing his similes to conform to a single critical idea of how this trope ‘ought’ to function. As we have seen throughout this book, Oppian’s similes often underpin the poem’s didactic aims, and the close and complex relationship between different similes points to the necessity of reading these similes not in strict isolation – as has been the tendency in scholarship on the poem – but within their wider narrative contexts. Many similes, for instance, foreshadow or advance the plot, or gain new resonance when read against one another, while at times their sheer density draws attention to the difficult process of making sense of a baffling, everchanging environment characterised above all by instability and conflict. This is a poem that raises important questions about the nature and implications of analogy as a method of understanding the world.

. Similes in Context One of the densest sequences of similes in the Halieutica is prompted by the narrative of mutual enmity between the octopus, eel, and spiny crayfish, species that are ‘hostile and inimical beyond all other sea-creatures’, and the only fish to be ‘avengers and murderers of one another’. 

.–: οἵδε μὲν ἀντίβιοι καὶ ἀνάρσιοι ἔξοχ’ ἔασιν | εἰναλίων· μοῦνοι δὲ μετ’ ἰχθύσιν αἰολοφύλοις | ποινητῆρες ἔασι καὶ ἀλλήλων ὀλετῆρες; cf. also .–.



Epic Similes

By the imperial period this tripartite conflict was a popular literary and artistic theme, recounted, as we have seen, by Aristotle, Plutarch, Aelian, and others, and familiar from mosaics and wall-paintings across the Roman empire. The basic plot is simple: the slippery moray eel devours the octopus; the eel is impaled on the back of the prickly crayfish; the octopus strangles and consumes the crayfish. Each eats and is in turn eaten, in what Aristotle terms a περιπέτεια or dramatic reversal of fortune (HA b). The divergent yet complementary qualities of the three protagonists together encapsulate the diversity of life at sea. A number of prose treatises preserve relatively brief, plain accounts of the conflict. Aristotle’s version is typically succinct: Octopuses overpower crayfish, so that crayfish die of fear if they so much as perceive them in the vicinity in the same net; but crayfish [overpower] eels, which do not slip away from them because of their rough surface; and eels eat octopuses, which are not able to engage with them because of their smoothness. (Arist. HA b–)

The contrast with the expanded narrative in the Halieutica is telling. The poet devotes nearly  lines, or around a quarter of book , to the account, which is presented as a minutely drawn conflict featuring an often disorientating sequence of metaphors and extended similes, including men in battles and sporting contests, animals in combat, children enslaved, a thief ambushing a banqueter, and even a boasting eel (.–). Alan James has called it ‘Oppian’s great battle-piece’. The episode represents a densely concentrated version of the poet’s narrative techniques – and especially his use of similes – elsewhere in the poem, and the tale takes on a paradigmatic value in dramatising the sea’s cycles of unceasing hostility. The extraordinary proliferation of figurative imagery in the episode is worth sketching out in full. Firstly the eel attacks the octopus, whose tentacles, represented as ‘tangling straps’ or whirling ‘nooses’, find no purchase on the eel’s gliding form, allowing it to slip through the octopus’ grasp ‘like water’. The pair fight like men wrestling, sweat pouring and arms waving as they elude one another with cunning ploys. Eventually the 



Arist. HA b–; Antig. Mir. ; Plut. De sollert. anim. a; Plin. NH .; Ael. NA .. The motif figures prominently on mosaics from Pompeii, Palestrina, Aquileia, Porto Torres, and Oudna, amongst others. See Meyboom , : , –; Dunbabin : ; Gullini : , figs. a–b; Aurigemma  figs. –; Keller : ; De Puma ; Blanchard-Lemée et al. : –.  On which cf. Plut. De sollert. anim. a–. James : .

. Similes in Context



eel pins the octopus down, the half-eaten creature writhing in its mouth like a snake dragged out of its lair by a stag, part of the snake coiling around the deer, and the rest chomped in its jaws. The octopus tries adapting its colour to the rock, but to no avail; the reader is to imagine (κε φαίης) that the pitiless eel is mocking it with a brief but powerful speech delivered in the manner of a vaunting Homeric hero, complete with rhetorical questions and a boast that it will indeed vanquish its enemy. As it is dragged away, the octopus clings to the rock like a mother dragged away when her child, still clutching her neck, is seized as a war captive by enemy troops. Next the prickly crayfish attacks the eel, extending its antennae and ‘challenging the eel to battle’ like a chieftain challenging his enemies to single combat. The eel rebounds from the crayfish as if from an unyielding rock, while the crayfish seizes the beast as if with forceps; finally the eel impales itself on the crayfish’s back out of fury, like a leopard that leaps onto the bestiarius’ spear, taking the weapon in its throat like a spear-rack. The combat is compared to a hostile encounter between a snake and a hedgehog, the snake failing to penetrate the flesh behind the hedgehog’s spines when the latter rolls around like a boulder, wounding the snake with its ‘weapons’. The snake is impaled on the hedgehog’s back, held as if by bolts, and either the hedgehog dies from the pressure, or it escapes, still bearing the corpse of the snake on its spines. Finally the crayfish is attacked by the octopus, which strangles it with the ‘bonds’ or ‘nooses’ of its feet and feasts upon it like a child suckling at its nurse’s breast. The octopus strips the crayfish’s flesh like a man lurking in a street at night and waiting for an inebriated banqueter to pass by in drunken revelry, at which point the lawless thief attacks him from behind and strangles him, stealing his clothes and belongings. The concentration of similes, comparisons, and metaphors is astonishing, as is the elaborate development of these images. A full twenty-seven lines is devoted, for instance, to the combat between hedgehog and snake to which the struggle between crayfish and eel is compared (.–). These similes and comparisons often contain a wealth of additional details, such as the banqueter’s drunken song, or the hedgehog’s fate after the snake is impaled, and they impart a vivid immediacy to the narrative; this is in turn complemented by the eel’s prosopopoeia, where the reader is implicated in the creature’s ‘speech’ by the κε φαίης motif. Also typical is the close relationship between metaphor, extended simile, comparison, 

See esp. Nu¨nlist : – (with further bibliography at  n. ) on ancient critical perceptions of the creation of enargeia through the inclusion of details in a narrative and the lessening of the



Epic Similes

and analogy, including the introduction of brief comparisons even within the other analogies or similes: the leopard as spear-stand, for instance, or the hedgehog as boulder. These comparisons often concisely evoke the texture of each creature: the sturdy crayfish is like an impenetrable rock, its counterpart hedgehog like a rolling boulder, the eel is like water, the hedgehog’s spines pin the snake in place like dowels, the crayfish grasps the eel as if with bronze tongs, the octopus’ tentacles are whips or nooses or cords or chains. Unlike the extended similes, these comparisons are relatively straightforward in their point of analogy, and relate primarily to the anatomical peculiarities of the species under consideration. They are the kinds of comparisons that might occur to a casual observer of the scene, bringing each creature’s appearance before the reader’s eyes with a vividness that the poet rarely deems necessary elsewhere. We are shown with remarkable clarity the different textures and anatomical idiosyncrasies of each species – precisely the qualities that allow the one to catch the other. The juxtaposition of related metaphors and similes, and the transference of language between simile and narrative, are both (as we have seen) features of Homeric composition praised by ancient critics. The practice of incorporating metaphors and analogical language within extended similes is also Homeric: in Iliad , for instance, the Greek army is compared to bees flying out from a stone and hovering beneath springtime flowers βοτρυδόν (in clusters, lit. ‘like bunches of grapes’, Hom. Il. .). This is an evocative metaphor that Oppian uses elsewhere, and whose analogical function in the Homeric bee simile is discussed by Porphyry and other ancient critics. Homeric too is the concatenation of similes. The densest cluster of similes in the Homeric epics is the sequence that depicts the marshalling Greek army (Il. .–). This remarkable narrative, which immediately precedes the narrator’s address to the Muses at the start of the Catalogue of Ships, includes seven similes in under thirty lines: the army’s dazzling armour gleams like a forest fire (Il. .–); warriors pour onto



distance between narrative and audience. The φαίης κε motif is Iliadic in origin: see Hom. Il. .– (silent army); . (untired warriors); . (sun and moon). The audience implied in the Homeric narrative by the use of the second person marks the point at which heroic epic perhaps comes closest to the kind of explicit poet–addressee relationship central to didactic epic. The formulation is also used in character speeches at Hom. Il. ., ; Od. .; secondperson optatives are voiced by the primary narrator at Il. . (ἴδοις), Il. . (γνοίης). See de Jong a: –; Richardson : –. The construction is used at Hal. .; ., , , ; .; ., , , ., ; cf. .; it is rarely found in didactic poets before Oppian, although cf. Arat. Phaen. . See further Section .. Porph. Quaest. Hom. I  Sodano, in explicit disagreement with Zenodotus’ interpretation of the image. At . Oppian refers to fish producing eggs βοτρυδόν (there also echoing an Aristotelian formulation; cf. Mair : ).

. Similes in Context



the plain like birds settling in a meadow (Il. .–); the warriors take their position in the Scamandrian meadows like leaves and flowers blooming in season (Il. .); the Greeks throng like insects around pails of milk in a farmstead (Il. .–); the Greek leaders separate the soldiers like goatherds separating their flocks (Il. .–); Agamemnon seems to have a head like Zeus, girth like Ares, a chest like Poseidon (Il. .–); he stands among the warriors like a bull conspicuous amongst cows in a field (Il. .–). The position of this string of similes immediately before the Homeric narrator’s address to the Muses (Hom. Il. .–) draws attention to the programmatic technical artistry at work in this stretch of the poem, and to the relationship between this narrative sequence and the Muse-invocation’s focus on the aesthetic problem of representation and poetic endeavour at large. This is crystallised by the poet’s attempt to capture verbally features that might be perceived synoptically by a (divine) onlooker, but that can be neither comprehended nor expressed comprehensively by the poet himself. The concatenation of similes invites reflection on the project of transposing (a mental image of ) a dynamic and visually impressive spectacle into words. The proliferation of similes for the army, each by necessity only a partial and provisional likeness, draws attention to the immensity of the assembling host, but also to the role of similes themselves in conveying key features of the scene. The dense sequence of similes is necessitated both by the inevitable incompleteness of each parallel (hence the rapid succession of different images) and by their unique ability to communicate something of the elusive graphic quality of the image. Ancient critics often conceive of the simile as a trope that transports mental phenomena into the realm of the visible by bringing these phenomena before the reader’s eyes (ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγειν) with a kind of graphic immediacy. The association between similes and the visual is especially important given Oppian’s depiction of the sea as a dark, unseen sphere 



 

On this sequence see Moulton : –, who notes that ‘successive simile construction is fairly common in the Iliad; about  of the approximately  similes are of this type’, and that ‘exactly one half of the comparisons in the Iliad occur within ten verses of another simile’ ( n. ). See Ford : –, esp. –, and Purves a: –, on these verses’ confrontation of the aesthetic problem of representation, ‘the gap between the powers of sight and speech’ (Ford : ), and Homer’s project of ‘translating the Muses’ vision into words’ (Purves a: ). On the visual dimension of the similes in Iliad , see Tsagalis : –, –. Thus e.g. Anon. ii. De poet. trop. ..– Spengel: παραβολὴ δέ ἐστι λόγος δι’ ὁμοίων καὶ γινωσκομένων εἰς ὄψιν ἄγειν πειρώμενος τὸ νοούμενον (‘a simile is speech that attempts to bring before the eyes, by means of similar and familiar things, that which is perceived in the mind’). The exegetical scholia also analyse similes in terms of their visual quality: thus e.g. Σ bT Il. .c, .b; cf. Quint. Inst. ...



Epic Similes

whose inhabitants it is the poet’s role to illuminate. Simile is thus a powerful didactic tool for the poet’s project of rendering the invisible visible, bringing before the audience’s eyes phenomena they have, for the most part, never seen. As we saw in Chapter , the proem of the Halieutica adapts the Iliadic address to the Muses in order to draw attention both to the murky obscurity of the sea and to the challenges of representing its vibrant, overpopulated immensity – the sheer number, complexity, and peculiarity of the fish that inhabit it. These fish, in other words, function as a counterpart to the Greek host in Iliad  not only in their martial hostility but in their challenge to the poet’s ability to convey the full intensity of their number, variety, and jostling dynamism. The poet employs dense strings of similes above all in those scenes that dramatise these qualities of immensity and dynamism: in the diverse and perpetually shifting conflict between octopus, eel, and crayfish in book , and in the pursuit of an enormous sea-monster in book . In both cases the superabundance of similes foregrounds, and rises to, the challenge of representing verbally the intricacies of multisensory phenomena that, as with the marshalling Greek army, revolve around continual movement or overwhelming vastness. The octopus, eel, and crayfish narrative is dominated by sequences of extended similes that relate thematically to analogies that recur elsewhere in the poem – scenes of hunting, sports, warfare, the behaviour of children, or the predations of terrestrial animals – in a pattern that mirrors the networks of related similes that so interested ancient Homeric critics. Oppian’s similes themselves showcase a spectrum of engagement with the Iliad and Odyssey. Some are based on specific Homeric images: the representation of a hedgehog as a boulder rolling along until it falls on a snake (.–), for instance, echoes the famous Iliadic simile in which Hector rushes up to the Achaean battalions like a boulder rolling down a hill until it comes to a halt on flat ground (Il. .–). Other similes in this sequence are composite in origin, while a few are only loosely Homeric 





See Nu¨nlist : – for analysis of the ancient critical interest in discussing different similes applied to the same character, sequences of similes in close textual juxtaposition, and similes with similar vehicles. The thematic association is underscored by verbal echoes and the use of a much-discussed Homeric hapax from that simile (ὀλοοίτροχος . . . κυλινδόμενος, Hal. .–~ὀλοοίτροχος, Hom. Il. ., κυλίνδεται, Il. .). The martial quality of the echo is heightened by the portrayal of the hedgehog’s spines as weapons at .–. The depiction of the eel as a leopard penned in by a bestiarius blends contemporary spectacle with Homeric hunting similes such as that in which Hector is compared to a boar or lion penned in by hunters and slain by its own courageous refusal to flee (Hom. Il. .–), or when Agenor’s desire

. Similes in Context



in flavour. Many of the scene’s other formal features – including the juxtaposition of multiple similes and comparisons, and the inclusion of metaphors and brief comparisons within extended similes, as well as the κε φαίης motif and the themes or vocabulary of certain similes – find their counterparts too in the Homeric epics. Yet Oppian combines this homage to Homeric practice with an innovative whirl of similes, comparisons, and figurative language that is often strikingly novel, dramatic, and on occasion disquieting. In representing the fluctuations of power at sea, moreover, the poet again exploits the subtle dynamics of Homeric similes. The octopus, for instance, is dragged from its hiding place by an eel, clinging fast to the rock with its suckers and refusing to relinquish its hold. The description builds on the simile at the end of Odyssey  in which the shipwrecked Odysseus clings desperately to a rock, the skin stripped off his hands like the pebbles that cling to an octopus’ suckers as it is pulled out of its den. Oppian goes on to compare the wretched octopus to a woman hauled off into slavery when her city is sacked, a simile that in turn recalls the scene on Scheria in which Odysseus, listening to Demodocus’ account of the sack of Troy, weeps like a woman whose city is sacked. Odysseus is of course a figure well suited to the versatile cunning of the octopus. Much like the shipwrecked and destitute hero as he arrives on Scheria, however, the Oppianic octopus is now at the nadir of its fortunes, hauled away from its rock only as a prelude to being devoured. Both Homeric similes, moreover, foreground the notion of reversal. As the Homeric scholiast well observes, the Odyssean octopus simile inverts the expected point of comparison between









to fight is compared to that of a leopard who faces down a hunter without terror, fighting on even when struck with a spear (Il. .–); for the latter cf. Bartley : . The crayfish, for instance, goads the eel like the champion of an army challenging another leader to combat (.–). As Bartley :  notes, this simile ‘owes much to battles depicted in the Iliad’, but the debt is generic rather than specific, and the poet’s language draws from a range of Iliadic speeches. Here too thematic association is matched by close verbal echoes: ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε πουλύποδος θαλάμης ἐξελκομένοιο | πρὸς κοτυληδονόφιν πυκιναὶ λάιγγες ἔχονται (Hom. Od. .–)~ὣς καὶ πουλύποδος δειλὸν δέμας ἑλκομένοιο (Hal. .; cf. ., where its κοτλυηδόνες cling to the rock), the verbal parallelism of ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε πουλύποδος . . . (Od.) and ὣς καί πουλύποδος . . . (Hal.) signalling the adaptation of the octopus from vehicle to tenor. The woman is dragged away as one of the spear-prizes (δορυκτήτων, Hal. .) taken when her city is sacked in war as she wails in lamentation (κωκυτῷ, Hal. .), her child clinging to her. So too in the Odyssey, as the woman wails (κωκύει, Hom. Od. .) and clings to her fallen husband, she is struck by the enemies’ spears (κόπτοντες δούρεσσι, Od. .) and hauled off into slavery. On Odysseus and the octopus see Detienne and Vernant ; Nagy : –. Oppian’s emphasis on the Odyssean quality of cunning, adaptable guile is discussed in Chapter .



Epic Similes

hero and sea-creature, while the simile of Odyssey  represents the victorious hero reflecting on the Trojan War from the perspective not of the victor but the victim. The theme of reversal is itself central to the octopus, eel, and crayfish episode, as well as to the poem as a whole: victor becomes victim in a heartbeat, and the reader’s sympathy lies as much with the fish as the fishermen who catch them. The thematics of reversal are here played out in full: not only are tenor and vehicle inverted in the poet’s adaptation of the octopus simile, but the dual role of the octopus as both victim and victor in the cycle picks up the dynamics of the simile in which the victorious Odysseus is compared to a victim of war. The marine world, like the world of war, is a sphere of aggression, flux, and ever-shifting power relations, and the octopus’ fluctuating fortunes encapsulate the change that characterises the episode as a whole. This is a creature whose guile bookends the episode, which culminates with the octopus’ stealthy victory over the crayfish (.–), and which is prefaced by a discussion of its craft in gnawing its own feet and adapting its colour to its environment (.–). This ability was much discussed in antiquity. As the poet remarks, ‘I presume that nobody is ignorant of the craft of octopuses, which make themselves resemble the rocks that they clasp and embrace with their coils’ (.–). The octopus was an ancient paradigm for the ability to adapt to one’s surroundings, a model for the adroit flexibility of poets, politicians, and sophists, amongst others. For Detienne and Vernant, the octopus becomes the very incarnation of ancient ideas about μῆτις or cunning intelligence, its agile form and ability to change colour rendering it a master of elusive trickery: ‘in the infinite suppleness of its tentacles, the octopus . . . symbolises the unseizability that comes from polymorphy’. Their octopus is not only adaptable but unvanquished. 



  



Σ V Od. .: ἐναντίως δὲ προβέβληνται. The simile does not, as one might assume, compare Odysseus’ tenacity to that of the octopus as they cling to their respective rocks; rather, Odysseus’ flesh is compared to the pebbles, and the rock to the octopus’ flesh, so that the hero’s skin is stripped off and clings to the rock just as pebbles are stripped away and cling to the octopus’ suckers. Cf. Heubeck, West, and Hainsworth : ; Primavesi : -; LeVen : . See e.g. Rutherford : ; Goldhill : -; Pucci : –; Rohdich ; Taplin : –; Halliwell : –; Alden : . On reverse similes in the Odyssey at large, see Foley ; Moulton : –; on Homeric victim similes see Porter . Oppian will once more adapt this simile, here too exploiting the notion of victor turned victim, in his depiction of immoral dolphin-hunting in book , discussed further in Chapter . The octopus’ crafty victory over the crayfish completes the vignette as a whole (.). Thgn. –; Pind. fr.  SM; Soph. fr.  Radt (ap. Athen. .c;) Eupolis fr.  (ap. Athen. .c); Clearch. fr.  Wehrli (ap. Athen. .a); Luc. De salt. . See e.g. Walker : ; Gentili : ; Neer : , , . Detienne and Vernant : .

. Victors and Victims



Yet the first scene in this conflict is not one of versatile trickery and triumph, but instead portrays the octopus’ failure to elude the eel, hence its ignominious removal from the rock. Taunting the hapless octopus, the moray is figured as a vaunting epic hero delivering a speech of mockery; it addresses its doomed victim as δολομῆτα (.) with a cruel sarcasm that bites deep and reminds us how far removed this skulking octopus is from the incarnation of cunning outlined by Detienne and Vernant and revered by Theognis and others. The eel’s speech thus functions as a witty and playful riposte to Greek culture’s near-proverbial veneration of the octopus’ intelligent versatility. Each simile or scene in this cycle, however, demands to be set within its wider narrative sequence: the eel’s speech showcases not just the octopus’ lowest ebb but also the eel’s own proud hostility, a trait that will shortly lead to its death as it responds angrily to the crayfish’s ‘challenge’. Oppian’s point is not that one crafty creature is capable of predominating, but rather that no single species can remain victor for long in this sphere of continual flux. The poet’s interest in the fluctuations that structure the marine world has important implications for his view of (human) power relations at large, as Chapter  will explore. As we saw with the dolphin and bonito, moreover, it is also a model of narrative dynamism that emphasises the complex relationship of likeness and unlikeness that operates between associated images both within and beyond the Halieutica. While Oppian’s adaptation of Homeric similes draws attention to the subtle, shifting relationship between didactic and heroic epic modes, the sequences and patterns of analogies that span the poem also shape the poet’s own narrative and create important thematic links between the different sections of this predominantly episodic poem.

. Victors and Victims This chapter opened by observing that many of the poem’s similes and metaphors revolve around martial themes, and that they draw in particular from Iliadic battle scenes. We have already witnessed Oppian’s fascination  

.–, discussed further in Section .. The sequence demonstrates that the very characteristics that allow one species to conquer another also render it vulnerable to a third: the eel’s ferocity and acute perception, for instance, allow it to devour the octopus, but also make it unable to resist the crayfish’s challenge when the latter extends its feelers. The eel’s ἀγηνορίη thus treads the line between fighting spirit and excessive pride. The use of αὐτο- compounds (., ), later to make such an impression on Nonnus, emphasise the destructive role played by the eel’s own character traits, while the observation that the crayfish devours the μύραιναν ἀπηνέα (.) offers a marked contrast to the earlier depiction of the μύραιναν ἀπηνέα (.) gloating boastfully over the hapless octopus.



Epic Similes

with the intricate dynamics of Homeric similes, and noted how often his clusters of similes and metaphors operate in dialogue with one another. My final example builds on these observations in order to illustrate the ways in which the poet’s adaptation of Homeric battle scenes takes on at times a powerful ethical force. If a key function of similes and metaphors is to illuminate the unfamiliar by means of the familiar, imbuing a new subject with a cluster of ready associations and a sense of emotional engagement, then Oppian charges his scenes of fishing with a martial atmosphere that often distils much of the pathos and complexity of (for instance) Iliadic battle narratives into a single compact image of marine ‘warfare’. It is important in the first place to note that, for all its (intermittent) valorisation of bloodshed both in the fisherman’s catch and in images of military victory, the Halieutica offers no heroised portrayal of warfare. Indeed, the poem focuses less on spoils and glory than on the devastating brutality and losses engendered by combat. One of the most pitiful scenes in the poem depicts, in strongly martial terms, Thracian fishermen killing young tuna by smashing at them with barbed logs, a method that the poet condemns as ‘painful and joyless hunting under the bloody law of battle and the savage fate of death’. The Thracian slaughter of these fish is brutal: οἱ δὲ θοῶς ἀνέρυσσαν ἐληλαμένας περὶ χαλκῷ παλλομένας ἐλεεινὰ σιδηρείῃς ὀδύνῃσι. τὰς δέ τις εἰσορόων καί κε θρασυκάρδιος ἀνὴρ οἰκτείραι θήρης τε δυσαγρέος ἠδὲ μόροιο· ð550Þ τῆς μὲν γὰρ λαγόνεσσιν ἐλήλατο δουρὸς ἀκωκή, τῆς δὲ κάρη ξυνέπειρε θοὸν βέλος, ἡ δ’ ὑπὲρ οὐρὴν οὔτασται, νηδὺν δ’ ἑτέρης, ἄλλης δ’ ἕλε νῶτα δριμὺς ἄρης, ἄλλη δὲ μέσον κενεῶνα πέπαρται. ὡς δ’ ὁπότε κρινθέντος ἐνυαλίοιο κυδοιμοῦ ð555Þ δουριφάτους κονίης τε καὶ αἵματος ἐξανελόντες εὐνὴν ἐς πυρόεσσαν ἑοὶ στέλλουσιν ἑταῖροι μυρόμενοι· τὰ δὲ πολλὰ καὶ αἰόλα σώμασι νεκρῶν ἕλκεα παντοῖαί τε βολαὶ τελέθουσιν ἄρηος· ὣς καὶ πηλαμύδεσσιν ἐπιπρέπει ἕλκεα πάντῃ, ð560Þ εἴδωλον πολέμοιο, φίλον γε μὲν ἀσπαλιεῦσιν. (.–)

And [the fishermen] swiftly drag [the young tuna] up, impaled on the bronze and writhing wretchedly from the pain of the iron. 

.–: θήρην ἀργαλέην καὶ ἀτερπέα, δηιοτῆτος | θεσμὸν ὑφ’ αἱματόεντα καὶ ἄγριον αἶσαν ὀλέθρου.

. Victors and Victims



Looking at them, even a hard-hearted man would pity them for this hunt with its horrible capture and death. A spear-point has struck the side of one; a swift missile has pierced right through the head of another; one is wounded above the tail; another in the belly; and fierce war has struck another in the back; while another is skewered in the middle of the flank. As when the uproar of battle has been decided, and their grieving companions take those who have been slain out of the dust and blood and prepare them for the fiery bed, and there are many different gashes and all kinds of martial wounds on the bodies of the dead, so too wounds are visible everywhere on the young tuna, an image of war, but pleasing to the fishermen.

War is here depicted at its most merciless and destructive. Iliadic vocabulary pervades the description of slaughter, trauma, and the bronze spears that penetrate belly and flank, while the claim that this method operates under the ‘bloody law of battle’ (δηιοτῆτος | θεσμὸν ὑφ’ αἱματόεντα) sets a savage tone from the start, recalling the Homeric use of δηιοτής (battle, or the strife of battle) to emphasise the hateful hostility of war. The fisherman’s implements (χαλκός, δουρὸς ἀκωκή, θοὸν βέλος), are virtually indistinguishable from martial weapons; indeed, their barbed log draws the poet’s ire as a brutal bludgeon to use against juvenile fish that cower in the mud as they are impaled (.–). A more humane method of catching pelamyds, which involves catching them in nets at night, is described immediately after this (.–), and throws the barbarity of the Thracians into sharp relief. The violence of the earlier scene is accentuated by the presence of a hypothetical onlooker pained by the cruelty of the spectacle: τὰς δέ τις εἰσορόων καί κε θρασυκάρδιος ἀνὴρ | οἰκτείραι θήρης τε δυσαγρέος ἠδὲ μόροιο (‘looking at [the fish], even a hard-hearted man would pity them for this hunt with its horrible capture and death’, .–). This θρασυκάρδιος spectator finds his way into the narrative from the chaos of battle in Iliad , where conflict rages fiercely between Greeks and Trojans as the Cretan commanders Idomeneus and Meriones fight by the ships: μάλα κεν θρασυκάρδιος εἴη | ὃς τότε γηθήσειεν ἰδὼν πόνον οὐδ’ ἀκάχοιτο (‘he would be very hard-hearted who rejoiced at the sight of that struggle and did not feel grief’, Hom. Il. .–). The Iliadic scene is likewise characterised by strife, confusion, and destruction. The battle that breaks out is compared to a great cloud of dust whipped up by the winds, and the conflict quivers with deadly weapons: ἔφριξεν δὲ μάχη φθισίμβροτος 

Cf. e.g. the Iliadic representation of warriors objecting to, or embroiled in, ‘horrible hostility’ (ἐν αἰνῇ δηιοτῆτι, Hom. Il. ., ., ., ., ., ., .; cf. αἰνῆς δηιοτῆτος: Il. ., ., .).



Epic Similes

ἐγχείῃσι | μακρῇς, ἃς εἶχον ταμεσίχροας (‘man-destroying battle bristled with the long flesh-rending spears that they held’, Il. .–). So too Oppian emphasises the destruction wrought by spears and the dust in which the fallen men lie (.). Yet the slaughter of tuna fish is subtly characterised as a scene bloodier still, for while a hard-hearted man might, if he were very hard-hearted, watch the Iliadic battle and not feel grief, even that man would find himself pitying the tuna. As Richard Janko notes, the Homeric introduction of a hypothetical observer at Il. .– both ‘deepens our impression of the violence’ and mirrors the role of the gods as the ultimate spectators – and instigators – of this suffering, for the figure functions as a springboard for the transition to the perspective of the divine onlookers Zeus and Poseidon (Il. .–). From the start of Iliad  the gods have been identified as the true agents behind the action, with Poseidon urging on the Greek army in response to Zeus’ support for the Trojans. At one level the Thracians in the Oppianic vignette act much like these gods, stirring up suffering for the fish whose lives they destroy from on high, and at . rejoicing in the outcome of this quasiwar, apparently unmoved by its brutality; as often, the fisherman seems like a powerful deity as he manipulates the fish towards their doom. Yet the next scene depicts an alternative method of catching these fish, and here we are shown the true power of the gods to influence mortal activities. For in this episode the (non-Thracian, and far more morally upright) fisherman is urged to ‘offer many prayers to the gods of hunting’ (.–), and it is only ‘if none of the sea-wandering gods is angry (νεμεσήσῃ) with the fishermen’ (.) that the tuna will stay in the net rather than leaping out to their freedom. The intervention of the gods in the fisherman’s activity, and their punitive intervention when enraged, recalls the anger and intervention of the Homeric gods: Poseidon’s intervention in Iliad  had been motivated by his furious indignation (ἐνεμέσσα, Il. .; cf. .) with his brother for favouring the Trojan side. The spectre of divine wrath reveals that the fisherman’s apparently god-like status is merely illusory when compared to the power of the actual deities on whom his catch depends. The right-thinking fisherman knows how far he depends on the gods; the blithely brutal Thracians do not. Rarely are different fishing methods associated with a particular ethnicity in the Halieutica. Apart from Oppian’s compatriot Cilicians, it is  

Janko : . Cilicians catch anthias in a crafty method (.–); fishermen including Italians, Sicilians, Celts, and Massilians catch enormous swordfish (.–); a similar succession of tribes catch tuna as they migrate across the Mediterranean (.–). Yet none of these (apart from the inhabitants of Oppian’s native Cilicia) is distinguished from any other by either character or fishing method. At

. Victors and Victims



primarily the Thracians who are singled out in the poem for their unique fishing methods, and on both occasions these practices are billed as abhorrent: not only do the Thracians massacre tuna in book , but in book , together with the inhabitants of Byzantium, they participate in the sacrilegious (ἀπότροπος, .) hunting of dolphins, an act that in the eyes of the gods causes the same pollution as human murder (.–). From beginning to end, Thracians are shown to be callous and violent (Θρήικες ὑβρισταί, .; Θρήικες . . . ἀπηνέες, .), caring little for codes of honour and kinship or for divine strictures. Cruel, wicked, and sinful (ἦ μέγ’ ἀταρτηροὶ καὶ ἀτάσθαλοι, .; ἀνάρσιοι, ἦ μέγ’ ἀλιτροί, .), they are men who would slaughter their own families without a second thought (.–). While Thracians are not denigrated in the Iliad as they are in the Halieutica (indeed, they are important Trojan allies), the first half of Iliad  could be characterised as the most Thracian stretch of the epic as a whole. The book opens with an account of Zeus and Poseidon’s opposed positions, as Zeus gazes over at the land of the Thracians (Il. .), while Poseidon gazes down on Troy from the Thracian island of Samothrace (Il. .–). The description of the Thracian and Scythian tribes in these opening verses (Il. .–) constitutes what has long been seen as a form of Thracian (proto-) ethnography, and Strabo records a lively tradition in which ancient critics use this passage to emphasise or cast doubt upon Homer’s ethnographic and geographical expertise, not least for his unexpected location of the(se) Mysians in Thrace. As a result of Zeus’ apparent interest in Thrace rather than Troy, Poseidon’s influence prevails, and Idomeneus and Meriones lead a counter-charge against the Trojans in which they are compared to Ares and Phobos leaving their home in Thrace (ἐκ Θρῄκης, Il. .) to aid one of two warring Thessalian tribes (Il. .–). For the only time in the Iliad, Ares is shown to reside in Thrace, an area with which he had traditional associations. There is, I suggest, more than a hint of the link between Ares and Thrace in Oppian’s marked use of the metonym ἄρης twice in just six lines (the

    

. dolphins aid Euboean fishermen, a positive counterpart to the wicked behaviour of the Thracians and Byzantines. At . Byzantines are also named, but at . it is Thracians who seem to carry out the cruel hunt. This is a passage to which Oppian elsewhere alludes: see Section .. Perhaps even the first extant example of Western ethnography: see Haubold . Strab. ..–, referring to Posidonius, Eratosthenes, Apollodorus, Ephorus, and others. For which cf. e.g. Hom. Od. .; Soph. Ant. , OT .



Epic Similes

only time in the poem that it is used twice in succession): at . δριμὺς ἄρης is represented as the (metonymic) slayer of the fish dispatched by the Thracian fishermen, while at . the deadly wounds in the simile are βολαὶ . . . ἄρηος. Ares, then, becomes the agent or presiding deity of the Thracians’ merciless destruction of fish. The unfortunate tuna, moreover, are victims of δριμὺς ἄρης (‘sharp/fierce war’ .) in both a literal and a metaphorical sense: this is grim and unrelenting warfare, here replaying the Homeric language of ferocious battle (cf. δριμεῖα μάχη, Il. .), but it is also an attack that literally transfixes its victims with sharp or piercing spears. The association between Ares and Thrace is not exclusively Homeric, but the Iliadic context has a further relevance here. In the simile Ares and Phobos do not allow the battle between the Thessalians to be waged equally, but instead grant glory only to one of the two sides (Il. .–). In a zero-sum game such as warfare or hunting, one side’s victory is the other’s defeat. So too the Thracian fishermen rejoice in their victory as they gaze at the quasi-martial spectacle of the mutilated fish: ὣς καὶ πηλαμύδεσσιν ἐπιπρέπει ἕλκεα πάντῃ, | εἴδωλον πολέμοιο, φίλον γε μὲν ἀσπαλιεῦσιν (.–). It is the brutal one-sidedness of this conflict to which Oppian objects, for this is no fair contest between fisherman and fish: the young and defenceless tuna fish huddle in terror rather than fighting back, and it is less a battle than a massacre. Although the conversation between Idomeneus and Meriones in Iliad  had focused on courage and glory in war, it is not martial triumph but destruction, terror, and human suffering that the Homeric narrator emphasises in his depiction of the ensuing conflict, depicting μάχη φθισίμβροτος, fleshrending spears, a blinding confusion of arms, and an observer moved to grief by the intensity of the scene (Il. .–). In Oppian’s era this section of Iliad  was regarded, at least in certain quarters, as the most powerful passage of Homer’s oeuvre, for in the Certamen – and likewise in Philostratus’ and Themistius’ later, abbreviated, versions of the contest – these are precisely the verses chosen by Homer to exemplify his finest work (τὸ κάλλιστον ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων ποιημάτων, Cert.  West), the ultimate passage with which to settle the dispute with Hesiod at Chalcis. In the contest, the poet’s recitation of Il.  

Cf. also the Thracians ‘waging war’ against dolphins (ἐπεντύνουσιν ἄρηα, .). The extant version of the text seems to be Antonine, or perhaps late Hadrianic, in date (on which see West :  n. ), although it clearly inherits much from earlier versions of the contest that can probably be traced back, in some form, at least to the classical period (see esp. Bassino ; Koning : , , both with further bibliography; Uden  sets the text in its imperial

. Victors and Victims



.– and – culminates with the introduction of the θρασυκάρδιος observer, with whose grief the competition is drawn to an end, leading to Homer’s once more being acclaimed the victor by the Greek audience, if not by the king (Cert.  West). These were the verses taken to represent Iliadic warfare at its most deadly and thrilling; indeed, much of the implied contrast between the two poets – and, of course, Panedes’ explicit reason for favouring Hesiod over Homer – stems from their respective characterisation as the poet of peace and the poet of war. Yet Homer’s is no unthinking glorification of war, but rather an evocation of its grimly enticing terror: the first sequence of lines depicts the Aiantes and their troops in battle, a bristling hedge of weapons, while the second combines the terror of their arms with the human cost of battle. Oppian, I suggest, exploits in his account of Thracian fishing the power and brutality of this paradigmatically Homeric battle scene, capitalising on the Iliad’s own tendency to dwell on the terror as well as the glory of war. The horrifying implement with which the Thracians slaughter the tuna – a bulky log with πολλαὶ δὲ σιδήρου | αἰχμαὶ τριγλώχινες ἐπασσύτεραι (‘many closely packed three-pronged barbs of iron’ .–) – mirrors not only the closely packed battle-ranks (ἐπασσύτεραι . . . φάλαγγες, Hom. Il. .) of Homeric forces at large, but also the forest of arms in the battle scenes of Iliad .– and –, in which the Greek army stands in closely packed rows, overlapping spear to spear, shield to shield, and arrayed with impressive density (ὡς πυκνοὶ ἐφέστασαν ἀλλήλοισιν, Il. .). Yet nowhere in the Thracian fishing passage do we marvel at the gleaming brilliance of Homeric weaponry, for it is not the allure but the terror of war on which the didactic poet focuses. The scene instead dwells on the manner in which the multitude of lances facilitates the mutilation of numerous fish simultaneously: ‘a spear-point has struck the side of one; a swift missile has pierced right through the head of another; one is wounded above the tail; another in the belly; and fierce war has struck another in the back; while another is skewered in the middle of the flank’ (.–). Weapons penetrate their targets at diffuse angles, and the catalogue of wounds lends the passage a gory specificity that echoes Homeric accounts in which warriors’ weapons pierce their victims in a multitude of precisely recorded anatomical locations. Where Oppian



context). The versions of the contest at Philostr. Her. . and Them.Or. . also include a recitation from this section of Iliad , although in each case the recitation is merely paraphrased. In the combat in Iliad , for instance, successive warriors are wounded: behind the ear; in the chest; in the throat, severing head from neck; in the belly; the throat; the belly; the liver below the



Epic Similes

differs from Homer is that even such widespread slaughter seems to bring joy but no glory, and redounds little to the credit of the victors, for this combat is profoundly unequal, and relies not on skill but on brute force to mutilate quivering, timid young fish. We have seen, then, that in alluding to the combat of Iliad , Oppian selects a scene of devastating combat that epitomises the magisterial battle narratives of Homeric poetry at large. This is a section of the Iliad with markedly Thracian overtones: Poseidon and Zeus gaze in opposite directions between Troy and the Thracian lands, a spectacle encapsulated for the reader by the Thracian ‘ethnography’ at the start of the book, and Ares is said here to reside in Thrace, an association that Oppian exploits in his use of the metonym ἄρης and emphasis on the one-sided nature of the ‘battle’. The introduction of a grieving observer in both passages externalises the scene and intensifies the impression of brutal violence, yet also mirrors on the mortal plane the actions of the potentially punitive gods who observe from on high, a form of divine intervention seen in Oppian’s next vignette but that remains pointedly absent from the depiction of the wicked and impious Thracians. The poet’s emphasis on the densely packed weapons and quasi-martial slaughter, as well as his gory anatomical precision about the indiscriminate destruction carried out by the Thracians, echoes Homeric battle narratives of the kind prominent (for instance) in Iliad , where the suffering engendered by war marks the intensity of the struggle. This section of the Halieutica is not, of course, an exclusive distillation of the politics of Iliad ; rather, the poet weaves together a patchwork of wider Homeric reminiscences. This brutal central battle of the Iliad, which bristles with weapons, and where even an imaginary θρασυκάρδιος observer feels pity for the participants, functions as a shorthand for the martial concerns of Homeric epic tout court, a model exemplified by its selection in the Certamen as Homer’s most representative verses. We witness triumph and bravery, but also prolonged and exhausting slaughter with little hope of imminent resolution. A similar combination of specific and generic martial allusions structures the war simile that ends the



midriff; the heart; the belly; the shoulder; the arm; the neck and back; midway between the genitals and navel; the temple; the chest; the hand; the forehead; the buttock, piercing through to the bladder; beneath the jaw under the ear. Idomeneus and Meriones themselves draw attention to this anatomical fixation by discussing the status of a wound in the neck or back as opposed to the chest or belly (Hom. Il. .–). The barbed log ‘dashes against the feeble pelamyds as they cower in the mud’ (ἀμενηναῖς | πηλαμύσι προὔτυψεν ἐν ἰλύσι πεπτηυίαις, .–).

. Victors and Victims



account of Thracian fishing. This comparison expands on the martial language that pervades the episode: the figurative ‘warfare’ of . and ., and the description of the fishes’ wounds as an εἴδωλον πολέμοιο (.). The simile focuses on the aftermath of battle, where mutilated corpses are readied for the funeral pyre by their grieving comrades, and evokes the general patterns of violence, mourning, and purification that structure the Iliadic world. This focus on removing the dead from the dust and blood (.) looks firstly to the rescue and purification of the mutilated bodies of Sarpedon and Patroclus after they fall in Iliad , victims of a spectacularly brutal day of fighting that spans books –, and secondly to the desecration, retrieval, and burning of Hector’s corpse at the end of the Iliad. Oppian’s description of the dead as δουριφάτους (‘slain by the spear’, .) is revealing. As Bartley notes, δουρίφατος is attested only here in extant Greek, and is presumably a coinage inspired in part by the description of Briseis as δουρικτητής (‘captured by the spear’) at Il. ., and in part by the description of the battle-slain as φῶτας ἀρηιφάτους (Il. .; .). The contexts of both are apposite: in the former Achilles reflects on the much-lamented loss of a beloved companion, while in the latter both Patroclus and Hector desire to preserve and purify the corpse of a loved one slain in battle. Both Homeric terms are elsewhere used by Oppian in related martial similes. As Alan James has demonstrated in his study of Oppianic neologisms, compound linguistic formations like δουρίφατος are typical of the poet’s tendency to coin new words by recombining pre-existing Homeric lexical units. The practice mirrors on a linguistic level the poet’s wider reworking of the Homeric epics: it is a model that innovates while paying homage to tradition, but that is never so 





The emphasis on blood and dust looks above all to Iliad : when Sarpedon is struck by Patroclus he clutches at the ‘bloodied dust’ (Hom. Il. .) and is covered ‘by weapons and blood and dust’ (Il. .) until Apollo is told to purify his body for burial by his loved ones (Il. .–). The scene prefigures the slaughter of Patroclus later in the book (see e.g. Janko : ); at Il. .– Patroclus’ helmet rolls in the blood and dust (Il. .) in the lead-up to his death. Like the tuna, Sarpedon is pierced by a bronze spear in the belly (Il. .) and midriff, while Patroclus is transfixed through the flank: when Hector sees that Patroclus ‘was wounded by the sharp bronze’ (Il. .), he in turn ‘struck him with the spear in the bottom of the flank, and drove the bronze right through’ (Il. .–). The desecration, retrieval, and burning of Hector’s corpse in books  and  is itself interrupted by the ministration to Patroclus’ corpse in book . The dust of Oppian’s simile recalls Hector’s corpse being dragged mercilessly through the dust (see esp. Hom. Il. .–; .–; .–), while the density of the wounds evokes Hector’s multiple wounds after the Achaeans have stabbed their spears into his corpse (Il. .–; .–).   Bartley : . ., ., on which see below. James .



Epic Similes

ostentatiously recherché that it becomes incomprehensible to the unwary reader. A compound like this may (as far as we can tell) be a neologism, but it is one that is based on clear Homeric precedent and does not require glosses and scholia in order to be understood. The term δουρίφατος may also have been prompted by the kind of precedent set by tragic neologisms that likewise emphasise the destruction engendered by war: Euripidean δοριπετής (‘felled by the spear’), Aeschylean δορίτμητος (‘penetrated by the spear’), and δοριλύμαντος (‘destroyed by the spear’) all refer to devastating losses incurred during the Trojan War. Oppian, that is, may draw not just from the Homeric epics, but from tragedians’ interest in the Trojan War and its aftermath as a stimulus to reflect on the losses and suffering caused by military conflict. The Halieutica returns repeatedly to the horrors of war, and the simile of burying the war dead must be read in conjunction with the other similes in which the poem reflects on loss and mourning in battle. The terms δορύκτητος and ἀρηίφατος, in origin Homeric, thus recur in other Oppianic similes that highlight the cost of battle. An octopus is dragged from a rock, for instance, ‘as when a city is sacked by the hands of the enemy, and women and children are dragged away as spear-captives’; the swordfish tricked by the decked-out boats of fishermen are compared to a city besieged and captured when enemies ‘strip the armour from the corpses of those who have fallen in battle, arm themselves with it, and rush up to the gates’, deceiving the unfortunate inhabitants into admitting them. The related neologism ἀρτίφατος (‘recently slain’, .) compares desolate dogfish to parents carrying the corpse of their only son, recently slain and bitterly lamented, so distraught that they wish to die together with the corpse they mourn (.–), a simile that draws from scenes of lamentation for Patroclus and Hector at the end of the Iliad. Oppian’s military images heighten the reader’s sense of pathos by compressing echoes of an extended Homeric narrative into a single, dense simile: just as the tuna simile gestures towards the scenes of slaughter, 

  

δοριπετής: Eur. Andr. , Tro. , Cyc. ; δορίτμητος: Aesch. Cho.  (Orestes’ wish that his father had died and been buried at Troy); δοριλύμαντος: Aesch. fr. . Radt (from the Myrmidons). δορίκτητος is likewise adopted by Eur. Andr. , Hec. . .–: ὡς δ’ ὅτε περθομένης δηιων ὑπὸ χερσὶ πόληος, | ἑλκομένων παίδων τε δορυκτήτων τε γυναικῶν. .–: ἔντεα συλήσαντες ἀρηιφάτων ἀπὸ νεκρῶν | αὐτοὶ θωρήξαντο καὶ ἔδραμον ἄγχι πυλάων. The poet draws especially from the simile in which Achilles mourns for the former like a father mourning as he buries his son (Hom. Il. .–), and from the grief expressed by Priam and Hecuba for their son. See also Bartley : –.

. Victors and Victims



lamentation, and purification that occupy the entire second half of the Iliad, so the swordfish simile combines both the symbolic donning of another man’s armour and the guileful entry into, and implied sack of, a city analogous to Troy. The poet’s interest in using similes to epitomise and compress Homeric narratives bespeaks an interest in generic experimentation of the type that also typifies the quasi-Homeric epyllia of Triphiodorus and Colluthus. The tuna really do represent an εἴδωλον πολέμοιο (.), a snapshot or simulacrum of war that distils central Homeric concerns into a single vignette. In its comparison of lacerated fish to corpses prepared by their erstwhile companions for the funeral pyre, the tuna simile is notable not only for its strong martial epic elements but also for its inclusion of (at one level) superfluous details. These fish, after all, will be hauled out of the water only to be eaten, and no lamentation, rescue, purification, or funeral pyre can possibly await them. Strictly speaking, the Vergleichspunkt is simply the range of wounds on the victim’s body. The elaboration, however, highlights the martial qualities of the encounter and elevates these fish to the status of miniature warriors; it also marks the ethical distinction between the callous Thracians and even the most furious of warriors in the Iliad. For in contrast to the unrelenting savagery of the Thracian fishermen, the Homeric epic will end with Achilles finally taking pity and granting Priam a twelve-day truce in which Hector can be mourned and buried (Il. .–). These poor fish can hope for no such end. The Thracians will countenance no pity, and their behaviour reaches its sacrilegious peak when in book  they exploit the maternal affections of dolphins, a species allegedly protected by the gods. The Thracian capture of tuna and dolphins in successive books forms a diptych of cruelty, and their hunting is denounced on both occasions. The parallel between the scenes pertains even to the poet’s adaptation of Homeric precedents, for we again witness the poet’s experimentation with the compression and manipulation of scale, and his interest in the perspectives   

 

As discussed in Section .. As well, of course, as the abbreviated Hellenistic hexametrical narratives of Callimachus, Moschus, and others; on Hellenistic and imperial epyllion see Baumbach and Bär . Ps.-Oppian renders this parallel even more explicit by recasting Oppian’s Thracian dolphin episode in the guise of cruel hunters killing a nanny goat and her kids, the latter pleading pitiably with the hunter to think of his own aged parent (Cyn. .–) in a scene modelled on Priam’s supplication of Achilles and entreaty to think of his father in Iliad ; as with the Thracians, these hunters pay scant attention, killing both generations of goat without mercy. See further Section .. δυστερπέος ἄγρης, .; θήρην ἀργαλέην καὶ ἀτερπέα, .; θήρης . . . δυσαγρέος, ..



Epic Similes

of victims as well as victors. In book  the Thracians’ lack of compassion for the dolphin – οὔτ’ οἰκτείρουσιν ἀτυζομένην ὁρόωντες | οὔτε νόον γνάμπτουσι σιδήρεον (‘they do not feel pity when they see the distraught [dolphin], nor do they bend their iron will’, .–) – throws into sharp relief the pity felt by the θρασυκάρδιος yet sympathetic observer of their earlier slaughter of young tuna fish. In book  Oppian reworks the Iliadic observer of Iliad  to heighten the gap between the joy of the protagonists and the sorrow of the observer; in book  the hypothetical observer is so moved by the Thracian slaughter that they not only imagine the dolphin’s horrified words to her offspring, but even reconceive of the scene as a martial encounter of the most pitiful kind: ‘you would say that you were watching a mother grieve as her city is sacked by the enemy and her children dragged off as booty under the compulsion of the spear’. The martial metaphors of the dolphin’s impassioned speech (ἀνάρσιοι, ἐφοπλίζουσι, ἄρηα, σπονδάς, .–) echo the simile in foregrounding the terrible human cost of war even as the second-person address draws the reader into the role of spectator, urging us towards compassion rather than cruelty. Like the earlier octopus simile, the comparison with the sack of a city looks to Odysseus’ response to the final song of Demodocus, where the hero weeps like a woman enslaved and led into slavery as she laments over her husband who died protecting his city and children. As soon as the dolphin is captured, the poet reinforces this association with the sack of Troy by comparing the death of these dolphins to a snake’s slaughter of a swallow and her chicks (.–). The simile replays the omen of snake and sparrows at Iliad .–, but the poet now heightens the pathos of the Homeric scene by emphasising its violence and making explicit the Iliadic implication that the mother is so consumed by grief at the loss of her chicks that she allows herself to be devoured. The two analogies used of the dolphin’s capture thus encapsulate the fall of the city as it is envisaged both before and after the Trojan War: in the omen at Aulis and in Demodocus’ account of the sack of Troy. In both cases the poet focuses  



.–: φαίης κεν ὀδυρομένην ὁράασθαι | μητέρα περθομένης πόλιος περὶ δυσμενέεσσι | παίδων θ’ ἑλκομένων ὑπὸ ληίδα δουρὸς ἀνάγκῃ. Hom. Od. .–. Both similes represent a mother grieving inconsolably when parted from a loved one as enemy forces sack a city and enslave its occupants using the force of the spear (for ὑπὸ ληίδα δουρὸς ἀνάγκῃ at . cf. κόπτοντες δούρεσσι, Od. .). The dolphin circles around her child in grief, watching it gasp its last breaths (ὕστατα φυσιόων, .) and refusing to part from it until she comes into the hands of the enemy; so too the woman, watching her husband gasping and dying, throws herself around him, lamenting loudly (ἡ μὲν τὸν θνῄσκοντα καὶ ἀσπαίροντα ἰδοῦσα | ἀμφ’ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγα κωκύει, Od. .–). As noted by both Mair :  and Bartley : .

. Victors and Victims



on loss and devastation – no delight here in the long-awaited culmination of the war or the spoils to be won from the city. In adapting both an omen and a précised bardic tale, Oppian draws attention to Homer’s own techniques of epitomisation, alluding to two scenes compressed and narrated obliquely even in the Homeric narratives themselves. It is not only the complexities of the extended simile that Oppian exploits in his poem, but also those of Homeric narration at large. We saw earlier in this chapter that Oppian had used a related citysacking simile to depict the octopus dragged from its rock by an eel (.–), and that the Odyssean model for that simile represents a jarring ‘reversal’ of anticipated power dynamics, insofar as Demodocus’ tale of the sack of Troy prompts the victorious hero, and indeed the readers of the Odyssey, to reflect on the Trojan War from the perspective not of the victor but the victim. Yet whereas in book  this unexpected reversal was used of the octopus in order to illustrate the fluctuations of power at sea (where each fish eats and is eaten), in this final book we are encouraged to transfer our sympathies from our fellow humans to the fish they hunt down. The poem’s anthropomorphic similes force us to dwell on the similarities between humans and their prey, a process that becomes all the more disquieting when those similes use the analogy of human suffering to portray the emotional torment of fish, or when the same similes are used of the predations of both humans and animals. Like most didactic epics, the Halieutica is composed of discrete units rather than a plot-driven narrative, yet the poem’s apparently self-contained episodes operate time and again in implicit dialogue with one another. In both its moral structure and its extended similes, the poem urges the reader to attend to the similarities between fish and men, and to reflect above all on the brutality of combat. What, the poet asks, is the difference between the ‘unjust’ bloodshed in which one species of fish devours another and the hunting methods employed by human beings? The representation of brutal Thracian fishing methods forces the reader to ponder the point at which fishing becomes less a demonstration of superior human intelligence than a savage lust for slaughter.

 

On these dynamics of compression and elaboration see Hunter b. On this kind of ‘Medalliondichtung’, ‘Blockbildung’, or ‘Perikopenbildung’, see esp. Hu¨bner b: , with bibliography at n. , and Hu¨bner : I. –, here addressing Manilius and the astrological tradition, but applicable to didactic poetry at large. On narrative structure within didactic poetry see Fowler .

 

Analogical Animals

The next two chapters expand on the issues raised in Chapter : Oppian’s detailed engagement with the similes and metaphors of the Homeric epics, as well as his evident familiarity with ancient literary-critical debates about these practices; the close thematic connection between sequences and clusters of images in the Halieutica; the perceived degree of similarity between humans and other animals; and the ethical dimensions of that relationship, including the desire for bloodshed. This chapter focuses on the poet’s reflective engagement with the representation of animals in the Homeric epics, while Chapter  explores the ways in which the poet speaks also to a contemporary imperial Greek interest in the status of (non-human) animals.

.

Scholiastic Debates

The opening lines of the Halieutica advertise from the outset the poem’s martial treatment of fish and its affiliation with Homeric representations of the relationship between humans and animals: Ἔθνεά τοι πόντοιο πολυσπερέας τε φάλαγγας παντοίων νεπόδων, πλωτὸν γένος Ἀμφιτρίτης, ἐξερέω, γαίης ὕπατον κράτος, Ἀντωνῖνε· (.–)

The tribes of the sea and the widely scattered brigades of all kinds of sea-creatures, Amphitrite’s swimming clan, I will describe to you, Antoninus, supreme power on earth.

First words matter in the ancient literary tradition, and ἔθνεα (‘tribes’, ‘peoples’, or ‘nations’) is an arrestingly anthropomorphic term with which to introduce the poem’s subject-matter. Why, we may ask, should the poet employ markedly human vocabulary for shoals or species of fish; or, as the scholiast puts it, διὰ τί εἶπεν ἔθνεα, καὶ οὐκ εἶπε πλήθη ἢ φῦλα; 

. Scholiastic Debates



(Σ Hal. .)? The answer surely lies in the scholiast’s astute observation that Oppian here looks to the well-known Iliadic simile in which the Greek forces marching to the assembly are compared to hordes or tribes of thronging bees that emerge from a hollow rock (ἠύτε ἔθνεα εἶσι μελισσάων ἁδινάων, Hom. Il. .). The exegetical scholia to the Iliad regard this as the first παραβολή or extended simile in Homer, and remark that the poet has chosen the word ἔθνεα primarily for its applicability to the Greek forces rather than to the bees, insofar as the ‘proper’ collective noun for those insects ought to be σμήνεα (‘swarms’). Homer’s application of the term ἔθνεα to bees draws attention not to their entomological status, in other words, but to their correspondence with the ἔθνεα πολλά (Il. .) of the assembled Greeks as these march from the sea-front to the agora ἰλαδόν (‘in companies’, Il. .). The Homeric scholia also observe that the bees and warriors are aligned by the fact that the former, like the latter, are ‘armed’ (with stings), are obedient to their superiors, and sally out for a specific task, unlike the cranes to which the clamorous, disorderly Trojans are compared at Il. .–. The scholiasts thus single out the anthropomorphic quality of ἔθνεα, which they take to unite tenor and vehicle, and find in the simile a prompt to reflect on the level of correspondence between simile and narrative, as well as the degree to which these creatures possess inherently martial qualities at large. They take the analogy to reside not only in both parties’ thronging movement – the ἔθνεα of bees mirroring the ἔθνεα πολλά of Greek warriors as they process to the assembly ἰλαδόν (‘in troops’ or ‘companies’ Il. .) – but also in the wider correspondence between the ‘weapons’ (or stings) of bees and armed warriors. The scholiasts thus elaborate on the implicit as well as the explicit points of comparison between tenor and vehicle, human and animal. Oppian’s choice of ἔθνεα as the opening word of the Halieutica showcases not only the poem’s powerfully anthropomorphic vantage point – anticipating the ways in which animals will be compared to human beings throughout the poem – but also its close relationship to the first extended  



Σ AbT Il. .a: πρὸς τοὺς εἰκαζομένους Ἕλληνας, ἐπεὶ σμήνεα ἔδει. πρώτη δὲ αὕτη παραβολὴ τῷ ποιητῇ. Homer later compares the ἔθνεα πολλά (Il. .) of Greeks to birds (ὀρνίθων πετεηνῶν ἔθνεα πολλά, Il. .) and insects (μυιάων ἁδινάων ἔθνεα πολλά, Il. .); cf. Bartley : . In light of Oppian’s φάλαγγας at . it is worth observing that the Homeric scholia claim that the Iliadic comparison of warriors to bees well befits the onwards movement φαλαγγηδόν (Σ AbT Il. .a). Σ AbT Il. .a, discussing the fit between bees and warriors: ἡ μὲν οὖν φαλαγγηδὸν γινομένη πρόοδος εὖ ἔχει· ὡπλισμέναι τε κέντροις εἰσίν . . .



Analogical Animals

simile of the Iliad. This stands as a programmatic proclamation in a didactic epic that will be dominated by extended, quasi-Homeric similes. By opening in this way, Oppian astutely capitalises upon the anthropomorphic qualities of Homeric animal similes, writing himself into a tradition, here presented as stretching back to the Iliad, of eliding the terminological boundaries between man and beast. It is telling, too, that the exegetical scholia to the Iliad interpret this ‘first Homeric simile’ as emblematic of the poet’s art more widely, claiming that bees are appropriate symbols for poetry because of their combination of industry with sweetness. The didactic poet’s evocation of this Homeric simile constitutes a fitting introduction to a poem that will itself mingle industry with pleasure. The Homeric commentary advertised in the first line of the Halieutica is developed further in the second. While the poem’s opening word gestures towards the animal similes of the Iliad, the next line scrutinises a muchdebated Odyssean hapax legomenon by characterising sea-creatures as νέποδες (.). This is the term notoriously used by Menelaus to describe Proteus’ entourage of seals (φῶκαι), characterised at Hom. Od. . as νέποδες καλῆς ἁλοσύδνης (‘the offspring [?] of beautiful Halosydne’). The meaning of the word was disputed in antiquity, and from the Hellenistic period onwards was variously interpreted to mean ‘offspring’ or ‘descendants’, ‘footless ones’, and ‘foot-swimming [i.e. web-footed] ones’, and thus by extension ‘fish’ or ‘sea-creatures’ at large. Both grammarians and poets contributed to the debate, which evidently remained a topic of controversy in the second century : νέποδες· Ἀπίων ἄποδες. ἢ νηξίποδες ἢ ἀπόγονοι. τὸ μὲν οὖν ἄποδες ψεῦδος· ἔχουσι γὰρ πόδας αἱ φῶκαι· τὸ δὲ ἀπόγονοι παράκουσμα τῶν νεωτέρων ποιητῶν. (Apoll. Soph. .– Bekker) νέποδες: Apion [defines this as] footless. Alternatively foot-swimming or descendants. But [the meaning] footless is false, for seals do have feet. [The meaning] descendants is a misunderstanding on the part of later poets.

Apollonius’ reference to ‘later poets’ presumably denotes those Hellenistic poets – including Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius of  

Σ AbT Il. .a. Bees were widely associated with poetic practice in ancient thought, and the title ‘honeycomb’ is attested of ancient poetic collections. Thus e.g. Σ Od. .c–e; Apoll. Soph. .– Bekker; Hsch. ν –; Suda ν – Adler; EM .– Kallierges; Eust. in Od. ..–. The word is glossed as ‘footless’ by Σ Hal. .: νεπόδων· ἰχθύων, ἐστερημένα ποδῶν.

. Scholiastic Debates



Rhodes – who had intervened in the debate by using the word νέποδες in the sense of ‘offspring’ or ‘descendants’. The sense ‘foot-swimming’, and thus ‘fish’ or ‘sea-creature’, on the other hand, is found in Nicander and in a late Hellenistic or early imperial epigram in the Greek Anthology on hunting, fowling, and fishing. It is this meaning that Oppian adopts, using the word νέποδες a full twenty-three times as a term for sea-creatures in the Halieutica. The poet’s choice to refer to his subjects as νέποδες in line  stands as a programmatic claim of continuity with Odyssean subjectmatter, as well as a promise that the poem will not be restricted to fish in a narrow sense, but will also encompass large sea-creatures, including seals. Indeed, later in book  seals will be shown leaving the sea to sleep on the shore in precisely the manner of Proteus’ seals (.–). Yet in promising to detail the φάλαγγας | παντοίων νεπόδων, πλωτὸν γένος Ἀμφιτρίτης (.–), these opening lines also sketch out a learned Homeric debate, both encapsulating and mediating between the rival interpretations of νέποδες as ‘sea-creatures/foot-swimmers’ and ‘descendants’ by describing his subjects as both swimming sea-creatures and kin or offspring (of Amphitrite). These lines, moreover, all but offer a gloss on the Homeric account of seals as the ‘offspring of beautiful Halosydne’ that emerge from the grey sea and sleep in throngs around the Old Man of the Sea (ἀμφὶ δέ μιν φῶκαι νέποδες καλῆς ἁλοσύδνης | ἁθρόαι εὕδουσιν, πολιῆς ἁλὸς ἐξαναδῦσαι, Od. .–). The Homeric reference to Halosydne was also obscure and disputed in antiquity: some readers interpreted it as a descriptive epithet of Amphitrite, or as a word for the sea itself, others as denoting those who dwell in the sea, especially Nereids. Oppian offers his own interpretation by specifying that his sea-creatures are indeed the brood of Amphitrite 



  

Cleon SH .; Theocritus Id. .; Callim. Aet. ., ., Ia. . Pf.; A.R. Arg. ., although Callim. fr.  Pf. may also suggest the sense ‘sea-creature’, perhaps suggesting that the outlines of the debate were tangible even in the third century  (see e.g. Wackernagel – : II.; Frisk : II. s.v. νέποδες). Nic. Alex.  and ; Satyr. AP .., of uncertain date: see Page : –; Massimilla : . Oppian’s use of the word in the sense of ‘fish’ may represent the influence of Nicander; for Oppian’s combination of Homeric scholiastic debates and Nicandrian language elsewhere, see Chapter , on the death of Odysseus, as well as the use of χλούνης as a substantive at . (discussed below), where Oppian follows the precedent set by the boar-hunt in Nicander’s Georgica (Nic. fr. . Gow–Schofield). Oppian’s frequent use of the word seems to have influenced later Greek poets, including ps.Oppian, Gregory of Nazianzus, Nonnus, and Paul the Silentiary. ἰχθύες is also used in this capacious sense throughout the poem; the Suda glosses νέποδες as οἱ ἰχθύες (ν  Adler). Cf. Hom. Il. ., of Thetis. See e.g. Σ Od. .; Apoll. Soph. .– Bekker; Eust. in Od. ..–. A.R. Arg. . uses it as an epithet of the Nereids, and perhaps points to such



Analogical Animals

(πλωτὸν γένος Ἀμφιτρίτης, .). The combination of three Homeric allusions or glosses in these lines is therefore loaded: while the first line of the Halieutica looks towards the first extended simile of the Iliad, and to the Homeric representation of a close analogical relationship between humans and animals, especially in warfare, the second line evokes the specifically marine subject-matter of the Odyssey and offers an allusive gloss on the seals of Od. ., both naming the sea-goddess in question and also gesturing carefully towards the opposing interpretations of νέποδες as ‘sea-creatures’ and ‘offspring’. The poet here succinctly outlines and settles these interpretations in favour of the programmatic meaning ‘fish’, presenting his poem as following in the marine footsteps of both the Odyssey and its scholarly interpreters. The scope of these exegetical debates is expanded in the syncrisis of hunting, fishing, and fowling that follows. This proem, as we saw in Chapter , contrasts the baffling uncertainties of fishing with the almost luxurious ease of hunting and fowling: boars, bears, and birds are represented as the eminently visible – and thus ‘easy’ – counterparts of the inscrutable fish sought with difficulty by the fisherman. These scenes also draw from Homeric precedents: the bird-catching looks to Telemachus’ hanging of the slave-women, while the hunting narrative reconfigures the two great boar-hunts of the Homeric epics: Meleager’s dispatch of the Calydonian boar, and the young Odysseus’ boar-hunt on Mount Parnassus. The first species to be named in this account – and thus the first animal to be mentioned in the Halieutica as a whole – is the χλούνης, which Oppian employs as a substantive denoting the wild boar (.). The word is not just a Homeric hapax, but one of the most contested zoological details in the Homeric epics at large. Phoenix uses χλούνης in the Iliad as an epithet of the furious, white-tusked Calydonian boar sent by Artemis against Meleager, but its meaning was unknown even in antiquity, so that interpretations ranged from ‘foaming’ or ‘slobbering’, to ‘castrated’, ‘solitary’, ‘fierce’, or ‘strong’, ‘chopping down plants’, or ‘living or sleeping in the greenery’; in later authors the word was (infrequently) employed with the sense ‘effeminate’, ‘eunuch’, ‘thief’ or ‘clothes-snatcher’. The

  

debates by questioning which name the Nereids are to use for the sea-deity (for which cf. also Hal. .–). Hom. Od. .–; Il. .–; Od. .–. For boars, bears, and battles cf. Heracles’ terrifying belt in Od. .–. Hom. Il. .: ὦρσεν ἔπι χλούνην σῦν ἄγριον ἀργιόδοντα. See esp. Σ AbT Il. .; Eust. in Il. .–. See Chantraine :  s.v. χλούνης. Bartley :  is garbled. The word is applied to wild boars at [Hes.] Sc. ,  and Callim. Dian. ,

. Animal Paradigms



Homeric passage prompted fevered linguistic and zoological analysis, and even explanatory textual emendation. The role of the χλούνης as the first species to be mentioned in the poem – albeit in a variety of recusatio – represents a claim that the work will tackle a field of endeavour even more heroic and terrifying than the hunting scenes of the Homeric epics; it also marks the poet’s next authoritative intervention in a heated debate about Homeric animals. For here too Oppian offers an allusive gloss on this contested Homeric epithet, this time in quasi-etymological mode. At the end of the scene the hunter is imagined sleeping happily in the greenery after his toils: παρὰ δὲ χλόαι εἰσὶ ῥεέθροις | ποῖαί τε χθαμαλαί, μαλακὴ κλίσις ὕπνον ἑλέσθαι | εὔδιον ἐκ καμάτοιο (‘and beside the streams there is greenery and low grass, a soft bed for taking one’s sleep in fine weather after one’s exertion’, .–). As well as playing into the dynamics of ease discussed in Chapter  (Section ., ‘Toil and Ease’), the image neatly replays the interpretation of the Homeric epithet as ‘he who sleeps in the greenery’ (τῇ χλόῃ), one of the definitions of the word recorded by the Iliadic scholia, Eustathius, and the Byzantine lexica, and the sole explanation provided by Apollonius the Sophist. Oppian, then, adopts much-debated Homeric terminology that refers both to specific animals (νέποδες, χλούνης) and to the quasi-human frameworks (ἔθνεα) that structure those animals’ lives. Both are topics central to the Halieutica, insofar as the poem interweaves zoological specificity with an emphasis on the close, analogical relationship between human and animal life.

. Animal Paradigms Ancient discussions about Homer’s alleged zoological expertise often extrapolate broadly from his animal similes and omens. The pseudo-





and to human beings (in the sense of either ‘clothes-snatcher’ or ‘eunuch’) by e.g. Aesch. fr.  Radt; Alex. Aet. fr. . Lightfoot (= fr. . Powell). Arist. HA a–b cites the Homeric passage but substitutes the verb and conflates the Iliadic boar with Hom. Od. .–; this may suggest that editors had already intervened in the text to ‘settle’ the debate (for which see Mayhew : ); the same sequence of lines is allegedly quoted by Strabo (Eust. in Il. .). The citation of Aristotle at Plut. Quaest. nat. d indicates zoological debate over the χλούνης (here suggesting that the boar has only one testicle; cf. Arist. HA a–b, that castrated boars were fiercer). Philostr. Imag. . may play on this controversy: the hunters in the painting ‘claim’ that they are hunting a χλούνης, but they do not know the real nature of their quarry. The joke allegedly turns on the fact that they hunt not a boar but an attractive youth, but the painting also replays the Calydonian boar hunt of Iliad , so that both the uncertainty about the quarry and the confusion between art and reality mirrors the uncertainty in critical debates over the Homeric χλούνης. See Elsner : . Apoll. Soph. . Bekker: χλούνην χλοεύνην. τοὺς ἐν τῇ χλόῃ εὐναζομένους; cf. Σ. Hal. .: [χλούνην·] τὸν χοῖρον ἐν τῇ χλόῃ εὐναζόμενον.



Analogical Animals

Plutarchan treatise On the Life and Poetry of Homer, for instance, comments on the frequency and diversity of Homer’s animal similes, which the author categorises by subject and interprets as evidence of Homeric knowledge about the salient characteristics of each species: Nor did [Homer] omit comparisons about sea-creatures, [describing] the persistence of the octopus and the difficulty in prying it from the rocks, ‘as when an octopus dragged from its lair [θαλάμης] . . .’, and the authority and supremacy of the dolphin over others: ‘as other fish by the monstrous [μεγακήτεος] dolphin . . .’ (Ps.-Plut. De Hom. II – Kindstrand)

Oppian not only adapts both similes in his accounts of the octopus and dolphin, but on both occasions includes further Homeric allusions and extended similes in order to emphasise the tenacity of the former and the supremacy of the latter. Indeed, he adopts Homeric marine vocabulary throughout the poem, drawing from the first line of each simile, for instance, the words θαλάμη (‘den’, ‘nook’) and μεγακήτης (‘monstrous’, ‘capacious’). These terms inform both the ‘epic’ and the ‘zoological’ strands of the poet’s diction, for while μεγακήτης signals a kind of epic grandiosity, gesturing towards the imaginative, almost mythical monstrosity of the sea, θαλάμη looks instead to marine zoological practicality. The word μεγακήτης (‘monstrous’) was employed only rarely by later authors, and clearly retained markedly epic overtones. Oppian is the first extant author to apply the epithet not to the sea – in the word’s Odyssean sense – but to mighty sea-creatures like the Iliadic dolphin, here perhaps a claim that the didactic poet follows in Homer’s zoological as well as epic footsteps. The Homeric hapax θαλάμη, on the other hand, was later used by biologists, poets, and paradoxographers to refer to the lairs of octopuses and other sea-creatures, as distinct from the lairs or dens inhabited by birds or deer or lions. Oppian uses the word most pointedly  

 

 

See e.g. Ps.-Plut. De Hom. II – Kindstrand. οὐκ ἀπέλιπε δὲ οὐδὲ τὰς τῶν θαλασσίων ζῴων ὁμοιότητας, πολύποδος μὲν τὸ παράμονον καὶ δυσαπόσπαστον τῶν πετρῶν ‘ὡς δ’ ὅτε πουλύποδος θαλάμης ἐξελκομένοιο’, δελφῖνος δὲ τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν καὶ κρατιστεῦον τῶν ἄλλων ‘ὡς δ’ ὑπὸ δελφῖνος μεγακήτεος ἰχθύες ἄλλοι’. On which see Section .. θαλάμη: Hom. Od. .; Hal. ., , ; ., ; ., ; .. μεγακήτης: Il. ., and used elsewhere by Homer of ships (Il. .; ., ) and of the sea (Od. .); used of large fish at Hal. .; ., . μεγακήτης: Thgn. ; A.R. Arg. .; Dion. Perieg.  (cf. also πολυκήτης, Theoc. Id. .). See Od. . for its application to the sea; see further Chapter . θαλάμη is used of the lairs of octopuses in Hymn. Hom. Ap. ., of the dens of sea-creatures by Aristotle (e.g. HA b–), of octopuses in the paradoxographical collection of Antigonus of Carystus (Mir. .), and of the giant sea-perch (ὀρφώς) in a fragment of the didactic poem on fishing by the Hellenistic poet Numenius of Heraclea (SH  = Athen. .b). It may be more

. Animal Paradigms



in his allusive description of the octopus lurking in its lair and gnawing on its foot (.), a scene that marks not only the assimilation of Homeric and Hesiodic octopodean poetics, but also the poem’s position at the intersection between literary and biological traditions of discussing the habits of sea-creatures. The complex relationship between the biological specificity and the ‘epic’ resonances of Homeric diction is of paramount importance for Oppian’s didactic poetry; if only more survived of, for instance, Numenius’ didactic poem on fish, we might be able to fill in even more of this poetic heritage. An extended sequence of animal paradigms in the first book of the Halieutica renders the poet’s Homeric models all but explicit. After discussing the parental affection exhibited by dolphins and seals, the poet proclaims that love of one’s offspring is not, after all, an exclusively human trait: O gods, not solely among human beings are children greatly cherished, more precious than life or livelihood, but also among birds and cruel beasts and flesh-eating fish [ἰχθύσι τ’ ὠμηστῇσιν] there springs up an irresistible, instinctive, fierce love for their offspring. And for their children they are determined – readily, not reluctantly – to die and to suffer any miserable distress. The hunter in the mountains has before now observed a lion standing over its cubs and roaring, fighting to protect its offspring; it pays no attention to the shower of flying stones, nor to the hunting spear, but, as before, fearlessly retains both courage and strength, though it is struck and lacerated by all kinds of blows from missiles. And it does not shrink back until it dies, but stands half-dead over its offspring, and is concerned not so much with its own fate as not to see its children trapped by hunters in a natural shelter for wild beasts. And before now a shepherd, on approaching the puppy-rearing den of a bitch who has just given birth, has – even if he was previously her companion – recoiled in terror before the barking fury of the mother, so fiercely does she protect her children; nor does she know any respect [αἰδώς], but is terrifying for anybody to approach. So too in grief when calves are dragged away do their mothers lament around them like wailing women, and fill even the herdsmen themselves with compassion. And a man has heard at daybreak the bearded vulture’s fervent wailing for its offspring, or that of the warbling nightingale, or has come across springtime swallows lamenting their offspring, which cruel men or snakes have carried off from their nest. (.–)



than mere coincidence that at Hal..– Oppian likewise refers to the θαλάμαι inhabited by the giant sea-perch (ὀρφώς) and other fish, this being the only appearance of that species in the Halieutica. On the Hesiodic qualities of the octopus see Section ., ‘Hesiodic Lessons’.



Analogical Animals

Each of these examples is drawn from a well-known Homeric simile or omen: Ajax defends the body of Patroclus like a lion defending its young on being discovered by hunters (Il. .–); Achilles grieves over Patroclus like a lion whose cubs have been stolen (Il. .–); Odysseus’ heart growls like a bitch guarding her pups (Od. .–); Menelaus bestrides Patroclus’ body like a cow lowing over her calf (Il. .–); at their reunion Odysseus and Telemachus wail like bearded vultures whose chicks have been snatched by men (Od. .–); Penelope mournfully vacillates like the nightingale lamenting her dead child (Od. .–); in the omen at Aulis a sparrow mourns for the chicks snatched from the nest by a snake (Il. .–). The animal kingdom is here viewed first and foremost through the Homeric epics. In using these models, the poet mirrors the widespread contemporary practice of excerpting thematically related passages from the Iliad and Odyssey in order to bolster one’s argument, and of treating Homer as an authority on issues ranging from astronomy to geography, medicine, and zoology. Plutarch’s treatise on affection for offspring, for instance, is likewise larded with Homeric examples introduced in order to illustrate the protective parental affection or φιλοστοργία displayed by animals. The paradigms of parental love presented by Oppian focus less on animal affection, however, than on the protective urges necessitated by these animals’ uncompromisingly savage environment. The poet opens with two scenes that illustrate parental aggression (the lion and bitch), introducing this as an intense love that predominates even among οἰωνοῖσιν ἀμειλίκτοισί τε θηρσὶν | ἰχθύσι τ’ ὠμηστῇσιν (‘birds, cruel beasts, and flesh-eating fish’, .–). The epithet ὠμηστής paints these savage species as the kinds of scavengers that elsewhere devour the corpses of Homeric heroes – carrion-consuming beasts that are usually invoked as the very antithesis of familial devotion, insofar as they prevent the bodies of the fallen from being returned to their loved ones. This is the fate envisaged in Odysseus’ threat to the dying Socus that his body will be devoured by flesh-eating birds rather than being buried by his parents, and in 



This last a sparrow not a swallow, but is recast as a swallow simile at .–. The Homeric character of these paradigms is noted by Mair : –; Bartley : –. On the Homeric similes see e.g. Mills ; Clarke ; Rose ; Anhalt –, all with further bibliography. Plut. De am. prol. c–f: as well as detailing other examples of parental devotion in the natural world, Plutarch quotes the Homeric verses on the lion (Il. .–) and bitch (Od. .–) to which Oppian alludes, and adds Achilles’ depiction of himself as a mother bird bringing sustenance to her nestlings (Il. .). Plutarch, unlike Oppian, points explicitly to the Homeric provenance of these quotations.

. Animal Paradigms



Hector’s plea to Achilles not to let dogs devour him but to allow his body to be bought by his parents and buried. By identifying these carnivores with distraught or devoted animal parents, Oppian unites the two key reference points of the Homeric animal kingdom: flesh-eating scavengers, and the animals of the omens or similes whose behaviour mirrors that of mankind. Wild animals are thus presented as complex creatures both like and unlike ourselves. This is a tension that also emerges in the Iliad, for instance, when a comparison between men and wild animals is juxtaposed with a reference to an actual carnivorous animal: Achilles calls Hector a ‘dog’, then threatens to leave his body for the actual dogs; Odysseus boasts that Socus will soon be devoured by flesh-eating birds, then is himself compared to a wounded stag around which ὠμοφάγοι jackals crowd. Oppian, however, makes this tension central to his entire poetic scheme: his animal world is organised around both affection and hostility, similarity and dissimilarity. Yet whereas the bitch of Hom. Od. .– had growled aggressively at an ‘unknown’ man, the Oppianic bitch threatens to attack even the shepherd who was once her companion (εἰ καὶ πάρος ἦεν ἑταῖρος, .). The change signals the poet’s interest in the manner in which dogs – a species that notoriously patrols the boundary between the tame and the wild, loyal pet and ravening carnivore – embody a particularly pronounced version of the combination of ferocity and devotion that is shown to characterise animal life at large. Compare Priam’s horrifying vision that the ὠμησταί dogs he himself has reared will eventually tear at his flesh and lap at his blood before lying down in their master’s doorway (Il. .–). Oppian’s comment that the dog is devoid of αἰδώς (., ‘deference to one’s superiors’, but also reverence, restraint, and shame) draws from a long association in Greek thought between dogs and αἰδώς: the Homeric scholiasts consistently gloss the Homeric insult ‘dog’ with the vocabulary of ἀναίδεια. As Cristiana Franco observes, ‘the dog symbolized a lack of restraint [in Greek culture] precisely because it was the only animal required to have it: only dogs were expected to stay true to a pact [with humans], to show their gratitude, to know how to distinguish friend from stranger and treat one differently from the other – in sum, to     

Hom. Il. .–; .–.  Hom. Il. .–; .–, –; on this simile see Chapter . Cf. Bartley : . See e.g. Redfield : –; Goldhill , : , Franco . See Segal : . Thus e.g. Σ bT Il. .b–c, .–, .c, Σ Il. .a–d; cf. Graver : –; Franco : .



Analogical Animals

have that sense of aidōs that consists of knowing how to stay in one’s proper place in all circumstances’. Yet Oppian also capitalises on the Homeric epics’ own exploitation of the close correspondence between the affective worlds of human and nonhuman animals: Oppian’s use of μητέρες to refer to the cows at . itself echoes the observation made by the A and bT scholia that the Homeric use of μήτηρ (‘mother’) rather than βοῦς (‘cow’) in the bovine simile applied to Menelaus’ protection of Patroclus’ corpse in Iliad  focuses attention above all on the theme of parental devotion. The implicitly anthropomorphic quality of the Homeric μήτηρ is further drawn out by Oppian’s unusually explicit statement that, when their calves are dragged off, the distressed mothers grieve in a manner ‘not unlike the wailing of women’ (οἷον δ’ ἑλκομένας περὶ πόρτιας ἀσχαλόωσαι | μητέρες οὐκ ἀπάτερθε γυναικείων στενάχουσι | κωκυτῶν, .–). As we shall see, Oppian frequently exploits the Homeric application to animals of vocabulary and emotions drawn from the human realm. The poet, moreover, reworks the Iliadic simile to refer not simply to a cow lowing over her first-born calf (Il. .–), but to the grief of distressed mothers whose calves are ‘dragged away’ (ἑλκομένας) by herdsmen, a sight so piteous that even the perpetrators themselves are moved. The verb συναλγύνουσι (.), indicating that the herdsmen feel sympathy for the cows, appears to be an Oppianic neologism comparable to tragic συναλγέω; it expands on the narrator’s observation that the cows themselves lament much like human women. The grieving cows here seem most akin to the humans whose emotions they share (συν‑) precisely at the moment when those humans are acting most cruelly; the herdsmen may feel some compunction, but they remove the calves all the same. In his paradigms of parental love, Oppian pays particular attention to the cruelty of humans. He does not, for instance, include Achilles’ famous 



  

Franco : ; cf. : ‘if the dog is able to turn into a typical figure for a loss of aidōs, in every sense of the concept, this is because it is perceived as a subject that, since it lives in society, should possess restraint’. See also Franco :  on the trope of the angry bitch defending her puppies. Hom. Il. .–: ἀμφὶ δ’ ἄρ’ αὐτῷ βαῖν’ ὥς τις περὶ πόρτακι μήτηρ | πρωτοτόκος κινυρὴ οὐ πρὶν εἰδυῖα τόκοιο, on which see Σ bT Il. .b: εὖ δὲ ἀντὶ τοῦ βοῦς τὸ μήτηρ ἔλαβε, τὸ φιλοστοργότατον τῆς φύσεως ὄνομα; cf. Σ A Il. .a. The unusual nature of the poet’s explicit comment on this analogy is noted briefly by Bartley : , who comments that ‘Oppian very strongly emphasises the pathos of the mourning cows’. Cf. Bartley : . Compare the prevalent ancient view that in their altruistic concern for their offspring animals are closer to nature, and to virtue, than are human beings, who are often motivated by baser instincts. See e.g. Plut. De am. prol. a–b; De sollert. anim. a–b; this argument is discussed further in Chapter .

. Animal Paradigms



example of the self-sacrificing mother bird bringing morsels to her nestlings (Il. .–), for all that this seems more appropriate to the parental behaviour of fish discussed by the poet, none of which grieves over its offspring. Instead, all three lamenting birds are united by the claim that ‘either cruel men or snakes’ have pillaged the chicks from their nests (τά τέ σφισι ληίσσαντο | ἐξ εὐνῆς ἢ φῶτες ἀπηνέες ἠὲ δράκοντες, .–), a formulation that expands the Homeric role of human predation to encompass – if only potentially – the theft of all three species, and aligns the actions of man and serpent in a peculiarly sinister fashion. In the Odyssean φήνη simile, moreover, the chick-stealing men had been qualified only as ἀγρόται (‘rustics’ or ‘hunters’, Od. .), whereas the didactic poet now makes the evaluative claim that these are ἀπηνέες (cruel, pitiless) men, an adjective used in the Homeric epics to denote stubbornness or cruelty, as when Patroclus claims that Achilles is so ruthless in his fury, and his mind so pitiless (ἀπηνής), that he seems not to be sprung from human stock, but to have been born from the sea and the rocks (Il. .–). Whereas carnivorous beasts are here distinguished by their family values, humans are characterised by their pitiless impulse to steal and to slaughter, and to snatch away prey for their own consumption. This is precisely the kind of violence that underpins the practice of fishing. In his image of the protective lion, Oppian highlights the aggressive role of the hunters by blending two lion similes from Iliad  and , depicting both the creature’s defensive stance and its fear that the men will steal its cubs. Departing from both Iliadic models, however, the poet represents the scene as a fierce conflict between lion and hunters: the beast ‘fights’ (μαρνάμενον, .), withstands a volley of missiles, holds its ground with fearless courage and strength (ἀλλ’ αὔτως ἄτρεστον ἔχει θάρσος τε μένος τε, .), and refuses to back down until it dies. The lion’s steadfastness in combat brings it even closer to the defensive stance of Ajax than the Homeric lion on which it is primarily modelled, for neither Homeric lion had engaged directly with the hunters. As Bartley notes, the lion’s combination of θάρσος and μένος echoes the qualities of a Homeric warrior (cf. Hom. Il. ., of Diomedes’ valour in battle), while the image of the animal’s ‘untrembling’ (ἄτρεστον) endurance and courage (θάρσος) in battle replays the anguished moment in Sophocles’ Ajax in  

ἀπηνής is a strongly evaluative term, and is only used in character speech in Homer. In the Iliadic similes the hunters had either simply ‘encountered’ the lion or had stolen its cubs in its absence. The simile also offers a fitting counterpart to the cowed lion to which Menelaus is compared when he is reluctantly forced to abandon Patroclus’ body (Il. .–) immediately before this.



Analogical Animals

which the horrified hero reflects upon his own confusion between humans and animals: ὁρᾷς τὸν θρασύν, τὸν εὐκάρδιον, | τὸν ἐν δαΐοις ἄτρεστον μάχας, | ἐν ἀφόβοις με θηρσὶ δεινὸν χέρας; (‘Do you see me, the bold, the stout-hearted, the man who never shirks in battle with enemies, terrible in strength against unfrightening [or fearless] wild beasts?’). Ajax’s language, and actions, bring into collision the worlds of ferocious warfare and pitiable livestock, blurring the line between epic valour and tragic hubris. Oppian’s vignette not only imbues the lion with more prominently martial qualities than its original Homeric incarnation(s), but, by mingling the behaviour of the Homeric and Sophoclean Ajaxes, it also reflects on the analogy between humans and animals, hunting and war, and the loss of civilised values that slaughter so often provokes. Oppian here portrays a world in which humans and animals can scarcely be differentiated from one another by either their violent impulses or their familial devotion. Drawing from Homeric similes and omens that represent animals as analogues for human behaviour, the poet not only exploits the anthropomorphic quality of the Homeric representation of animals, but also blurs the line between human savagery and animal instinct. Are the actions of a ‘cruel’ human so different from those of a snake when each snatches a bird’s chicks from its nest? The representation of a cow’s nearhuman suffering as men seize her calves inverts the expected moral hierarchy of man and animal, while the reapplication of Homeric lion similes to a display of near-martial valour in combat collapses the fields of warfare and hunting, human and animal. In each of these practices Oppian capitalises upon Iliadic precedents. It has long been observed that the slaughter and bloodlust of battle brings Homeric warriors ever closer to the violent carnivores to which they are compared. In one of the epic’s more detailed animal predation similes, the Myrmidons prepare for battle like ravening wolves: Μυρμιδόνας δ’ ἄρ’ ἐποιχόμενος θώρηξεν Ἀχιλλεὺς πάντας ἀνὰ κλισίας σὺν τεύχεσιν· οἳ δὲ λύκοι ὣς ὠμοφάγοι, τοῖσίν τε περὶ φρεσὶν ἄσπετος ἀλκή, οἵ τ’ ἔλαφον κεραὸν μέγαν οὔρεσι δῃώσαντες δάπτουσιν· πᾶσιν δὲ παρήϊον αἵματι φοινόν· καί τ’ ἀγεληδὸν ἴασιν ἀπὸ κρήνης μελανύδρου λάψοντες γλώσσῃσιν ἀραιῇσιν μέλαν ὕδωρ  

Soph. Aj. –; Bartley : –. See esp. Clarke ; Lonsdale ; and, for an ethological approach to the Iliad, Gottschall . On Homeric (animal) similes more generally, see Coffey ; Moulton ; Edwards : –; for a list of similes categorised by subject see Scott : –.

. Animal Paradigms



ἄκρον ἐρευγόμενοι φόνον αἵματος· ἐν δέ τε θυμὸς στήθεσιν ἄτρομός ἐστι, περιστένεται δέ τε γαστήρ· τοῖοι Μυρμιδόνων ἡγήτορες ἠδὲ μέδοντες ἀμφ’ ἀγαθὸν θεράποντα ποδώκεος Αἰακίδαο ῥώοντ’·

(Hom. Il. .–)

And Achilles visited the Myrmidons in the huts and fortified them all with armour, and they, like flesh-devouring wolves in whose minds is unceasing fighting force, and who devour a great horned stag they have slain in the mountains, the jaws of all reddened with gore, and in a pack go to gulp with their narrow tongues the surface of the black water from a dark spring, belching up blood and gore, the spirit in their chests unflinching, their belly jammed – so the leaders and rulers of the Myrmidons rushed around the noble attendant of the swift-footed descendant of Aeacus.

The simile has often puzzled critics in that it ‘does not present an action that “represents” the narrative event of mustering’; the description of the thirsty, satiated wolves thus provoked Leaf’s ire as ‘quite unsuited to its place’. In On Style, however, Demetrius twice praises this simile for its evocative depiction of the thirsty wolves lapping at the water, which he takes to confer μεγαλοπρέπεια (Eloc. ) and ἐνάργεια (Eloc. ). How, then, are we to understand these wolves? The simile has a strong anticipatory role: the ἀλκή of the wolves explains the Myrmidons’ frenetic activity both here and in the ensuing narrative; the warriors’ fighting spirit is stirred up repeatedly as they prepare to enter battle, and just before they fall upon the Trojans, Patroclus urges the Myrmidons to think of their impetuous battle-spirit (μνήσασθε δὲ θούριδος ἀλκῆς, Hom. Il. .). So too the slaughter wrought by the animals (δῃώσαντες) anticipates that wrought by the troops in battle (e.g. at Il. .). Warriors in battle are continually compared to predators and their prey, so that at Il. .– the Achaeans slaughter Trojans like wolves snatching defenceless lambs and kids from the flock, a simile that picks up on the earlier wolf simile in which this very action was ‘prepared’. Yet this ‘long-tail’d comparison’ also presents wolves as analogues for the warriors in a provocatively elusive fashion. The verb that specifies the Myrmidons’ action is delayed by a full ten lines until well after the simile   

Nimis : ; Leaf : II –, condemning vv.– as an interpolation. See also Hofmeister : –; Neal , esp. . The parallelism between the two wolf similes is noted e.g. by Scott : . To echo Joseph Addison’s translation (and defence) of the Homeric ‘comparaisons à longue queue’ criticised by Perrault.



Analogical Animals

(οἳ δὲ λύκοι ὣς | ὠμοφάγοι . . . ῥώοντ’), thwarting the audience’s attempt to identify a precise point of comparison as the simile unfolds. Wolves and warriors are compared not so much in a specific action at a specific moment, but as beings aligned by their wider cognitive states, including their pack mentality, proclivity for violent aggression, and visceral ferocity as they oscillate through hunger, fury, and satiety. The suggestion made by some critics that the wolves’ gory feast replaces the standard narrative of the warriors’ pre-battle meal reveals just how hard it is to draw the line between the two: the wolves are not simply compared to men; they are in a sense standing in for these men, substituting their meal for the human rituals as the narrative unfolds. The wolves’ belching of blood and gore functions as a savage counterpart to the vigorous debates between heroes about the proper relationship between eating, drinking, and fighting (for which see esp. Hom. Il. .–). Yet it also draws attention to the consumption of raw flesh as what might be deemed the ultimate act that separates predatory carnivores from fierce warriors. The Myrmidons may be comparable to ὠμοφάγοι wolves in many respects, but the one lusts only to shed blood, the other to consume it. Even this boundary is challenged, however, by the warrior’s grim fixation on the notion of tearing his enemies’ flesh. The verb (δια)δάπτω, for instance, used here of the wolves devouring the stag, is employed by Homer of both flesh-devouring predators and fleshdevouring spears. In that sense the birds and fish simply finish off the slaughter that the warriors themselves have started. This animalistic savagery reaches its most horrifying pitch in the Iliad as Achilles’ homicidal ferocity mounts in his lust for vengeance. When the dying Hector implores Achilles to return his body to his kin rather than letting it be consumed by dogs (Hom. Il. .–), the hero flatly refuses to be held to human values, addressing Hector as a dog (κύον, Il.





Nimis : –, ; Janko : ; cf. Scott :  n. . For Nimis ‘the [wolves’] meal thus fills the gap left by the omission of a narrated meal; and although from an interpretive standpoint, one can certainly say that the wolf simile does more than get the text from point A to point C, in terms of the poetics of the narrative, this is precisely its role. If one were to represent the Homeric text graphically . . . the wolf simile is actually a substitution for a point on the line corresponding to the narration of a preparatory meal’ (). Whether or not one subscribes to this argument, it is clear that the text challenges any firm division between tenor and vehicle, wolf and warrior. Predators: Hom. Il. ., .; spears: Il. ., . (itself juxtaposed with the predations of dogs and birds), .. The only other usage is Il. ., which unites the ‘consumption’ wrought on Hector’s corpse by the funeral pyre and by dogs.

. Animal Paradigms



.) and rejecting his appeal to the laws of supplication, familial ties, and material recompense. Achilles not only threatens to consign his corpse to the dogs and other scavengers (Il. .–, ), but utters a chilling fantasy of revenge: αἲ γάρ πως αὐτόν με μένος καὶ θυμὸς ἀνήη | ὤμ’ ἀποταμνόμενον κρέα ἔδμεναι (‘If only somehow my ferocity and spirit would drive me to hack off and myself devour your flesh raw’, Il. .–). The claim is carefully expressed as a wish (‘would that the laws of human engagement did not hold me back’) rather than a concrete plan, but it nevertheless raises the horrifying possibility that this final boundary between civilised human and predatory beast might soon be crossed. If the simile of the lion bent on avenging the loss of its cubs at Il. .– dramatises Achilles’ quest for vengeance after the death of Patroclus, then, as Apollo observes, the merciless Achilles later indeed seems like a lion bent on slaughter, possessing neither pity nor αἰδώς (‘respect’, ‘shame’, or ‘reverence’, Il. .–) – that crucial value that distinguishes human society from that of wild beasts. Hecuba too draws attention to Achilles’ apparent loss of humanity when she characterises the hero as ὠμηστὴς καὶ ἄπιστος (‘savage and untrustworthy’, (Hom. Il. .). The word ὠμηστής is elsewhere applied only to ravening birds, dogs, and fish; the implication is that Achilles is ἄπιστος insofar as he cannot be relied on to abide by the rules of common human decency. Achilles represents but an extreme form of the savagery latent in all warriors and implicit in the poet’s animal similes. Yet as the poem’s atrocities mount, this ‘animality’ spreads outwards from the warriors who lust for battle, and Hecuba herself shockingly echoes Achilles’ own omophagic fantasies, wishing that she could plant her teeth in his liver and devour it raw in revenge for his treatment of her son (Il. .–). Oppian, in other words, builds in his poem on a pervasive Homeric interest in the parallelism between human and animal savagery, and between hunting and warfare, as well as a fascination with the multiple subtle ways in which humans and animal behaviour may be aligned through open-ended simile.

   

On the representation of dogs in this scene see esp. Faust . Cf. Richardson : . See also Zeus’ assessment of Hera’s desire to eat the Trojans raw (Hom. Il. .–). On the significance of αἰδώς as the value that differentiates men from animals see Cairns : –; von Erffa : ; Redfield : . Hom. Il. .; .; ..



Analogical Animals

. Animal Omens Animal omens, like animal similes, are predicated on a strong analogical relationship between humans and animals; both were taken by ancient readers to signify Homer’s natural-historical knowledge and interest in the parallels between human and animal life. Homeric omens frequently function as a divinely orientated counterpart to the poet’s similes, yet they also reflect more explicitly on their own semiotic power, posing a challenge to both characters and audience to scrutinise the relationship between animals and the humans whose behaviour they mirror. At Il. .–, for instance, the Trojans are on the verge of storming the Greek wall when a soaring eagle appears to their left, carrying a blood-red snake in its talons; when the snake strikes at the bird, the eagle drops it amongst the Trojans and flies off in pain. The scene is interpreted by Polydamas as a sign from Zeus: just as the eagle fails to complete its objective, so the Trojans will only at first be successful (ὣς ἡμεῖς, Il. .). Hector, however, rejects its significance, claiming to pay no heed to animal behaviour: ‘You exhort me to put my trust in birds that spread their wings, but for these I care nothing, and I have no interest when they go by either on the right towards dawn and the sun, or on the left towards the misty gloom’ (Il. .–). The hero claims to favour Zeus’ earlier thunderclap rather than the signs given by birds. His words contest the status of these animals, yet ultimately underscore their power to signify: Hector, we infer, is wrong to dismiss the portent, for he will end up not only badly wounded (Hom. Il. .–) but eventually dead as a result of this decision. As well as dismissing the eagle, the hero mockingly elevates his own ideals to the status of an animal omen: εἷς οἰωνὸς ἄριστος ἀμύνεσθαι περὶ πάτρης (‘[only] one ‘omen’ is best: to defend one’s fatherland’, Il. .), rejecting Polydamas’ caution as cowardice. Hector draws attention to the semiotic instability of the οἰωνός at large: birds fly endlessly back and forth, and it is not always clear to the man on the ground when an ὄρνις or οἰωνός is a divine portent and when it is simply a bird (thus even 

 

On the relationship between Homeric similes and omens see e.g. Lonsdale : –; Austin : : ‘Omens, as another kind of analogical thinking, are like similes, but similes that are the property of the characters in the poem rather than of the poet.’ See Hom. Il. .–; .–. In that breaching the walls will lead to the death of Patroclus, and thus the return of Achilles to the fray. Cf. Hom. Il. .–, where Hector disregards another bird omen. On the link between Hector’s decision and his death see Redfield : –; Taplin : –.

. Animal Omens



Polydamas, Il. .–). If οἰωνοί are both birds and omens, namely birds with a particular significance for the human realm, then Hector attempts paradoxically to divest the οἰωνός or omen of its ornithological basis and to reappropriate omens as the province of human decision alone. Hector’s ‘omen’ is simply another word for his patriotism. Yet this blithely anthropocentric perspective is shown to be fatal: Zeus may appear to favour the Trojans (Il. .–), but the animals tell the real story. Omens thus demand that the epic’s internal and external audience pay close attention to the behaviour of animals and the potential relevance of that behaviour to the humans whose actions they mirror. This is a parallelism expressed by Homer in linguistic as well as thematic terms. In the omen of Iliad  the eagle is struck ‘on the chest next to the neck’ (κατὰ στῆθος παρὰ δειρήν), terminology that reflects the anatomy of a human wounded in war, while its pain (ἀλγήσας ὀδύνῃσι) and anguished wailing (κλάγξας) echo human suffering on the battlefield. So too the snake’s fighting force, and the observation that it has not yet forgotten its battle-lust (οὔπω λήθετο χάρμης, Il. .), mirrors that of humans in combat, and finds a near-immediate counterpart when Sarpedon rallies and does not forget his battle-fervour (οὐ λήθετο χάρμης, Il. .) as he breaches the Achaean wall. This linguistic overlap parallels the patterns of Homeric animal similes, and is emphasised even more strongly when Polydamas elaborates on the omen to Hector, noting that the eagle dropped the snake before it was able to reach its own home (πάρος φίλα οἰκί’ ἱκέσθαι, Il. .) and offer the food to its children (δόμεναι τεκέεσσιν ἑοῖσιν, Il. .). The thematic significance of caring for one’s family, a central Trojan concern, is foregrounded by the choice of vocabulary that pertains equally to the human sphere: these are not ‘chicks’ or







Cf. Eurymachus at Hom. Od. .–, although he is wrong to discount Halitherses’ prophecy. At Hom. Il. . it is unclear whether the omen was indeed sent by Zeus, or was simply perceived as such by the terrified mass; in contrast to the thunderclap at Il. .–, we do not see Zeus in action and are offered no narratorial evaluation of the portent; see Struck : – on this kind of interpretive leeway. All are terms used of human beings elsewhere in the poem. κλάζω is used of the cries of both birds (Hom. Il. .; .) and human beings (Il. .; .; ., ; .; .; .), and becomes the focal point of comparison when the ‘screaming’ of the Greek youths is compared to that of starlings or jackdaws (κεκλήγοντες, Il. ., ); see Ready : –. χάρμη also links humans and animals in similes: Hector overcomes Patroclus like a lion overpowering a boar in combat (χάρμῃ, Hom. Il. .); Poseidon encourages the Greek troops by claiming that the Trojans are like deer scattering before wolves and leopards, with no χάρμῃ within them (Il. .).



Analogical Animals

‘nestlings’ but ‘children’, not a ‘nest’ but a ‘house’. Homeric animals, in other words, are represented with language that mirrors the anatomy, habitat, familial structures, and psychology of human beings. Not all animal omens are presented, of course, as explicit mirrors of human behaviour, and some animals appear only to signal divine favour at large; such, for instance, is the eagle that flies past at Hom. Il. .–. Crucially, however, even ‘non-analogical omens’ were sometimes interpreted analogically by Hellenistic and imperial commentators interested in underscoring Homer’s zoological expertise and in connecting an animal’s known characteristics with its perceived thematic significance. Take the ἐρωδιός or night-heron sent by Athena as a sign during the Doloneia (Il. .). This is a bird that appears, favourably, on the right; the species is mentioned only here in Homer, and it is heard, rather than seen, by Odysseus and Diomedes during their night-time excursion. Discussions preserved in the A, b, and T scholia and in Porphyry’s Homeric Questions address the creature’s suitability as an emissary of Athena: Porphyry records that Alexander of Myndus in his (probably first-century ) On Animals questioned why the goddess sent a heron rather than an owl, the latter being, as Porphyry notes, not only Athena’s own bird but nocturnal to boot. The ‘solution’ in both cases blends expert zoological lore with an emphasis on the parallelism between man and animal: the heron, unlike the owl, is said to be a bird that loves marshes, that being the heroes’ environment at the time; its activity during both day and night, on dry land and in the water, mirrors the similarly ‘amphibious’ industry of the heroes; it is a bird that screeches when it is successful in catching prey, boding well for the Greeks; it weeps blood and dies for the sake of love (i.e. after mating), as will the Trojans for Helen; it is also a bird known for its nocturnal, clandestine, and plundering behaviour, and is thus fitting for a secret night-raid. The characteristics of three different species of heron are further discussed in relation to these habits, and a wide range of authorities 

 

οἰκίον, like εὐνή, is used for the dwelling-place of both animals (cf. Hom. Il. ., ., of wasps and/or bees) and humans (Il. ., ., ., ., ., .). Cf. e.g. δόμος (Il. . and Od. ., of sheep; Il. ., of wasps and bees). In all cases the animal simile or omen reflects on the connection between human and animal spheres. Cf. Hainsworth : , ad Il. .– on Polydamas’ ‘sentimentality’ here. On analogical and non-analogical omens in Homer see Ready : . Porph. Quaest. Hom. Κ  MacPhail; cf. also Ω –; the same question is more briefly posed in a scholion ascribed to Didymus (Σ A Il. .a). For Alexander’s ornithological readings of Homer cf. e.g. Athen. .c (= fr. I  Wellmann), on Homer’s mention of (σ)κῶπες or horned owls (Od. .), another evident attempt to synthesise the Homeric epics with zoological lore.

. Animal Terminology



cited on the topic. It is clear, in other words, that not only were Homeric animals widely and carefully debated, but that considerable energy was expended in underscoring Homer’s purported zoological accuracy and the relationship of this knowledge to the epic’s wider thematic concerns, an association that was frequently achieved by emphasising the close parallels between the behaviour of animals and human beings.

.

Animal Terminology

Linguistic parallels are also of central importance to Homeric animal similes. We have already noted that the first word of the Halieutica evokes the ἔθνεα of Iliadic bees in what the scholia identify as the first παραβολή in Homer; so too all three Iliadic bee or wasp similes draw attention not to the differences but to the similarities between humans and insects. There are no references in Homer to their ‘swarms’, ‘stings’, or ‘buzzing’; rather, we hear of ‘tribes’ of individuals that throng or cluster together, ‘stand fast’ against their human opponents, and ‘defend their children’ with ‘courageous hearts’, a description that is picked up by the description of the Myrmidons ‘streaming out of their ships like these [wasps] in heart and spirit’. The same is true of most Homeric animal similes. That wasps should possess a courageous θυμός may at first seem surprising, but Homeric animals are regularly endowed with a θυμός, κῆρ, κραδίη, ἦτορ, νόος, φρένες, and other organs also possessed by human beings. As John Heath puts it, ‘Homer was not particularly concerned with separating  

 



Didymus Σ A Il. .a explicitly cites Aristotle’s History of Animals; Porphyry leaves the zoological discussion unattributed, but is clearly indebted to Aristotle. ἁδινός, Hom. Il. .; ἅλις, Il. ., all terms also used of human beings (e.g. at Il. .). The three similes are Il. .– (Greek forces compared to swarms of bees); Il. .– (Greeks compared by Asius to wasps or bees defending their hive from destructive men); Il. .– (Myrmidons like angry wasps provoked by boys). μένοντες, Hom. Il. .; cf. e.g. ., ., of steadfast human combat; ἀμύνονται περὶ τέκνων, Il. .; ἀμύνει οἷσι τέκεσσι, Il. .; ἄλκιμον ἦτορ ἔχοντες, Il. .. τῶν τότε Μυρμιδόνες κραδίην καὶ θυμὸν ἔχοντες | ἐκ νηῶν ἐχέοντο, Hom. Il. .–), ἐχέοντο itself mirroring ἐξεχέοντο, of the wasps, Il. .. The parallel may be heightened by the ancient notion that the Myrmidons were themselves formerly ants. See Hes. fr.  M-W = Σ Pind. Nem. .; cf. Ov. Met. .–. See e.g. Lonsdale : –; Pelliccia : , – and n. ; Clarke : –; Lilja ; Schnapp-Gourbeillon ; Heath : –, with further bibliography. Discussion has focused in particular on Eumaeus’ sacrifice of a boar at Hom. Od. ., and the potential implication that Homeric animals are endowed with a ψυχή. Oppian likewise uses ψυχή only once of a fish (and twice of a human being), at ., when an octopus strangles a crayfish (for which cf. ., where an ox-ray strangles a man, and he too breathes out his ψυχή). Fish are evidently believed to ‘breathe’ in the Halieutica: see e.g. .– (crabs), . (swordfish), . (crayfish), and esp. .– (sea-creatures at large).



Analogical Animals

humans from non-humans in terms of their biological or metaphysical construction’; ‘this is not to suggest that humans in the epics are thought to be exactly like other animals, just that the poet does not distinguish their psychological constitutions’. I would press this argument yet further: Homer is here concerned not to distinguish the two in his similes. Homer’s anthropomorphic language extends to these animals’ habitat: wasps and bees occupy not a ‘hive’ or a ‘nest’ but a ‘house’ that they refuse to abandon. Greek boasts many specialised terms for the habitat, as well as the assemblage, of bees and wasps: σφηκιά, ἀνθρήνιον, δελλίθιον, and τενθρήνιον are used to designate a wasps’ nest; σμῆνος and σίμβλος a beehive; σμῆνος and ἑσμός a swarm. None of these, however, is employed by Homer, who instead uses ἔθνεα (‘tribe’) and οἰκίον or δόμος (‘house’) in all three bee or wasp similes. While many of these alternative terms, especially those based on the name of a particular species, will have been post-Homeric inventions, the fact that σμῆνος and σίμβλος are both used by Hesiod suggests that the selection of more anthropomorphic terms on the part of the Homeric poet was a deliberate choice, not a wider terminological absence or a sense that these words were ‘unepic’. A similarly conscious humanisation is suggested by the term εὐνή, which in Homer denotes an animal lair as well as (more commonly) a human bed, and, by metonymic extension, sex or marriage at large. Animal dens or lairs feature in a number of extended similes: a lion enters the lair of a doe and devours its fawns, a hound eats a fawn that rushes from its lair, and a doe mistakenly houses her fawns in the lair of a lion. Yet this frequency does not mean that the word εὐνή simply ‘loses’ its human connotations once it is applied to the animal kingdom. Indeed, in the Odyssey – a poem deeply invested in the symbolic value of the bed – the relationship between human and animal ‘beds’ is exploited to powerful effect. Menelaus uses an extended simile that reflects on the imminent demise of Penelope’s suitors: although they were weaklings, they wanted to sleep in the bed of a strong-minded man (ἦ μάλα δὴ κρατερόφρονος ἀνδρὸς ἐν εὐνῇ | ἤθελον εὐνηθῆναι, Hom. Od. .– = .–), and will suffer a fate like the deer who puts her newborn fawns to sleep in a     

Heath : , , looking instead to speech as the primary marker of difference between humans and animals in the Homeric epics.  οἰκίον, Hom. Il. ., .; δόμος, Il. .. ἔθνεα, Hom. Il. .. Hes. Theog. –, drawing an analogy between women and drones. Hom. Il. .; .; .; Od. . = .; cf. pigs bedding down in their pigsties in the main narrative at Od. .. See e.g. Zeitlin .

. Animal Terminology



thicket inhabited by a powerful lion. When the lion returns to its lair (εὐνή, Od. . = .), it unleashes an unseemly doom upon the fawns; so too will Odysseus unleash an unseemly doom upon his wife’s suitors. The symmetry between human and animal intruders is reinforced not only by the repetition of the ἀεικέα πότμον (‘unseemly doom’, Od. ., , etc.), but by the use of the word εὐνή to associate the lair of the ‘powerful’ lion with the marriage bed of ‘powerful-minded’ Odysseus. The polysemy of the term εὐνή also generates pathos in the deceased Anticleia’s account that in his grief Laertes refuses to go into the πόλις, holing up in his vineyard plot, where he has no bed (εὐναί), bedsteads, bedding, or blankets (Hom. Od. .–); as the seasons change, he lies on the χθαμαλαὶ . . . εὐναί formed by leaves that have fallen on the ground (Od. .). Laertes, in other words, both does and does not have his εὐναί: he may have a leafy ‘bed’ on which he can lie outside like a wild beast in its den, but he does not have bedding and mattresses, the accoutrements of civilised life. The old man’s pitiful state is brought out through his rejection of the πόλις and its associated comforts in favour of a life of unrefined animality, nights spent in a ‘den’, not a ‘bed’. For both Odysseus and his father, the contested status of the εὐνή traces the descent of Odysseus’ household; the father’s actions even mirror his son’s earlier privations, for at Od. . the shipwrecked Odysseus had likewise fashioned a makeshift εὐνή out of fallen leaves on Scheria. The fine line between ‘civilised’ humans and an uncivilised quasi-bestial life plays out the themes of the Odyssey’s wider narrative, and allows different εὐναί to be contrasted with the emblematic stability of Odysseus’ own marriage bed. The examples of the bees, wasps, and lion’s den show that the lexical overlap between humans and animals in terms of habitat, anatomy, and psychology takes on a particular force not only in omens but in extended similes, where verbal parallelism also underpins a wider  





Hom. Od. .– = .–: ὁ δ’ ἔπειτα ἑὴν εἰσήλυθεν εὐνήν, | ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ἀεικέα πότμον ἐφῆκεν, | ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς κείνοισιν ἀεικέα πότμον ἐφήσει. κρατερόφρονος ἀνδρός is picked up by κρατεροῖο λέοντος. Another parallel between the ‘predators’ is activated by κρατερόφρων, applied here to Odysseus, and at Hom. Il. . to a beast moving through the wooded mountains; cf. the thicket and mountains inhabited by the animals of the Odyssean simile. When autumn arrives, πάντῃ οἱ κατὰ γουνὸν ἀλῳῆς οἰνοπέδοιο | φύλλων κεκλιμένων χθαμαλαὶ βεβλήαται εὐναί (‘all over the slope of his vineyard plot is strewn his low-lying bed [or ‘den’] of fallen leaves’, Hom. Od. .–). Cf. the spiders’ webs that Odysseus’ εὐνή is imagined to have acquired through neglect (Hom. Od. .–). A symmetry between human and animal ‘beds’ is picked up by Oppian in the proem, where grass provides a ‘soft bed’ on which the hunter sleeps (.), a counterpart to the boar’s own εὐνή (.).



Analogical Animals

relationship between the two realms. My final example is the memorable Iliadic simile in which Paris and, later, Hector rush like a horse that breaks free of its constraints and gallops off to its former grazing ground: ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις στατὸς ἵππος ἀκοστήσας ἐπὶ φάτνῃ δεσμὸν ἀπορρήξας θείῃ πεδίοιο κροαίνων εἰωθὼς λούεσθαι ἐϋρρεῖος ποταμοῖο κυδιόων· ὑψοῦ δὲ κάρη ἔχει, ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται ὤμοις ἀΐσσονται· ὃ δ’ ἀγλαΐηφι πεποιθὼς ῥίμφά ἑ γοῦνα φέρει μετά τ’ ἤθεα καὶ νομὸν ἵππων·

(Hom. Il. .– = .–)

And just as some stabled horse, sated at the manger, breaks free of its bond and runs stamping over the plain, since it is accustomed to bathe in a fair-flowing river, and it exults, and holds its head high, and its mane streams over its shoulders, and as it glories in its splendour its knees bring it swiftly to the haunts and pastures of horses.

As ps.-Plutarch observes, the simile revolves around the horse’s impetuous movement, presented here as an analogue for that of both Paris and Hector. Speed is a feature common to both heroes and horses in the Iliad, and is reflected in the verbal parallels between the two spheres: if Achilles is ὠκύς, πόδας ὠκύς, and ποδαρκής, then horses too are ὠκύς, ποδώκης, and ὠκύπους. The horse’s knowledge of its environment mirrors that of the Trojan heroes, while each of the anatomical features singled out in the simile – swift knees, a head held high, and ‘hair’ that streams over the shoulders – is applicable equally to human and horse. Homer enforces no linguistic distinction between human and equine ‘hair’ (χαίτη). Across the Iliad, χαίτη is used in roughly equal measure of divine or human hair and of horse’s manes; the κομόωντες Achaeans find their  





Ps.-Plut. De Hom. II  Kindstrand. ὠκύς: e.g. Hom. Il. .; .; ., , ; ποδώκης: Il. ., ., .; ὠκύπους: e.g. Il. .; ., , etc. Cf. Il. .–, where the earth resounds under the feet of both men and horses (ποδῶν αὐτῶν τε καὶ ἵππων), a description framed by two similes comparing men to animals. This is not to say that no Homeric vocabulary differentiates human and horse: the epithet μῶνυξ (with an uncloven hoof ), for instance, is applicable only to the latter, yet even here the simple form ὄνυξ, used of a horse’s hoof by later authors, is used by Homer only of the talons of birds. See esp. Griffith . Cf. Hom. Il. .–, on the Trojan horses’ knowledge of their environment and how to traverse it swiftly (κραιπνά). So too Paris ‘rushes through the city, trusting in his swift feet’ (Il. .), and his swift feet carry him onwards (Il. .). The anatomical parallel is emphasised strongly when Hector moves his knees and feet (Il. .) rapidly as he runs. To the horse’s streaming mane (ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται . . .) compare the streaming hair of the dead Hector at Il. . (ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται . . .). Horses: Hom. Il. .; .; ., ; .; ., , ; men and gods: Il. .; .; .; .; .; .. The three occurrences in the Odyssey all refer to humans.

. Animal Terminology



counterparts in the flowing manes of Zeus and Poseidon’s horses (Hom. Il. ., .), while τρίχες is used to designate the hair of humans as well as horses and other animals. At times this equivalence itself aligns the two realms, as when Poseidon disguises himself as a κυανοχαίτης stallion (Il. .); the epithet is otherwise used by Homer only of Poseidon, and here signals the idea that the dark-haired god is masquerading as a darkmaned stallion. Sometimes the lexical overlap reflects a wider visual parallelism: as Mark Griffith has observed, the analogy between human and horse hair is highlighted when heroes cover their own heads with a helmet embellished with a horse-hair crest. The more ‘bestial’ term λοφιή, on the other hand, which refers to a coarse bristle, is used by later authors of a horse’s mane, but in Homer refers only to a boar. Horses’ hair was evidently deemed closer to that of a human than that of a boar. The Iliadic simile places weight on the horse’s intense emotion, especially its pride and exultation. This seems to have intrigued the exegetical commentators, who connect the horse’s pride with its appearance, noting that the description is well applied to a καλλωπιστής, someone who pays excessive attention to their appearance; they therefore associate the horse’s behaviour with Paris’ wider character traits by using the very term they had earlier employed of the hero admiring his armour in his bedroom. The scholiasts even take the horse’s fine mane to be the cause of its pride, and pinpoint the possession of beautiful ‘hair’ as a key point of correspondence between hero and horse. They draw attention, in other words, to the 

 

   

τρίχες: of horses, Hom. Il. ., .; of humans, Il. ., .; of lambs and boars, Il. ., .. The epithet καλλίθριξ is only used by Homer of horses. Griffith : – well analyses the ancient obsession with horses’ manes as an analogue for human luxury, desirability, and personal grooming. The epithet is also used of a horse at [Hes.] Sc. , presumably influenced by this passage. Griffith : . λόφος or ‘crest’ refers to the back of the neck in humans (Hom. Il. .) and horses (Il. .), as well as the horse-hair crest affixed to the warrior’s helmet. The golden manes of Zeus and Poseidon’s horses are called ἔθειραι (Il. ., .), a term that refers elsewhere in Homer to the plumed helmet (Il. ., .), and in post-Homeric Greek to divine or human hair. Hom. Od. .. For λοφιά of a horse, see e.g. Arist. PA a–. Esp. with ὃ δ’ ἀγλαΐηφι πεποιθὼς and κυδιόων, Il. .–; cf. κυδιόων at. Hom. Il. .. Σ bT Il. .: πρεπόντως δὲ τοῦτο ἐπὶ τοῦ καλλωπιστοῦ. ὡσαύτως καὶ τὸ ‘ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται | ὤμοις ἀίσσονται’; for the application to Paris see Σ bT Il. .. Σ AbT Il. .: [ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται:] δοκεῖ ἡ κόμη μεγαλοπρεπείας αἰτία εἶναι τοῖς ἵπποις. [Σ bT] καὶ Πάρις δὲ εὔκομος. For Paris’ (excessively) lovely hair, cf. Hom. Il. ., .. The scholia elsewhere regard Paris’ delicate hair as emblematic of his lack of heroism; see e.g. Σ AT Il. .. This emphasis on the vanity and beauty of both Paris and the horse may underlie the Alexandrian objection to the simile’s reapplication to Hector in book , where the horse’s rapidity, but not its apparent vanity, finds a parallel in the speeding hero. Zenodotus excised Il. .–, while Aristarchus athetised Il. .–, deeming the simile better suited to Paris’ comportment



Analogical Animals

linguistic association between the hero’s and horse’s ‘hair’, and from this they extrapolate to the perceived behavioural similarities between human and animal not only at this moment but at large. The bT scholiasts explain the implicit context of the vehicle by clarifying that the horse has been dragged away from its herd and stalled at the manger, and thus yearns for its accustomed way of life; they go on to defend Homer’s zoological accuracy by noting that horses are a notoriously bath-loving species, and that they seek out rivers because they like turbulent water. The simile, while controversial in its reapplication to Hector, was popular, and was imitated closely by Apollonius, Ennius, and Virgil. Yet each of these later poets downplays (what they presumably took to be) the ‘objectionably’ anthropomorphic qualities of the Homeric simile, including the stallion’s conscious choice of environment in seeking out its former bathing-place and favourite haunts. Ennius, for instance, removes all reference to the horse’s familiarity with its environment; Apollonius dispenses with that environment altogether; Virgil, otherwise far more faithful to the Homeric details, reinterprets the Homeric ἵππων as feminine in order to transform the horse’s quest into an amorous impulse, so that this horse ‘makes for the pastures and herds of mares’ (pastus armentaque tendit equarum, Aen. .) rather than returning to its own favoured grazing-grounds. The ‘humanised’ representation of the horse is also raised by Eustathius in his analysis of its desire to seek out its favoured bathing-places. The Byzantine critic observes that the description of its being accustomed (εἰωθώς, Hom. Il. .) to bathe in the river and galloping off to the haunts and pasture of horses (μετά τ’ ἤθεα καὶ νομὸν ἵππων, Il. .) is

 

 

than to Hector’s recovery from his wounds (although note Σ T Il. .–a, on Hector’s beautiful appearance at Il. .). Σ bT Il. .a. Σ bT Il. .; cf. Arist. HA a–; Eust. in Il. ..– also cites Aristotle. The equine connotations of the hapax ἀκοστήσας are also discussed by the A and bT scholia, which claim that the word means not just ‘sated’ but specifically ‘fed on barley’ (ἀκοστή). A.R. Arg. .–; Enn. Ann. – Skutsch; Verg. Aen. .–. Armstrong : – notes that Ennius ‘diplomatically avoided the extension of κῦδος to a horse by concretizing its feeling of personal glory in the physical description celso pectore (lit. with chest held high), something one can easily picture of a proud stallion’. Apollonius retains κυδιόων of his ‘warlike’ (ἀρήιος) horse, but excises the mane in favour of pricked-up ears, and removes the details about the customary bathing place and favoured haunts; Virgil retains most of the Homeric details but adds the implication about the horse’s amorous propensity; as Graziosi and Haubold :  observe, he also tones down the Homeric language of ‘bathing’ in favour of terminology more conventionally used of animals. See Schlunk : –, Schmitt-Neuerburg : –, and Armstrong : – on Ennius and Virgil’s adaptations as a response to Hellenistic criticisms of the Homeric passage.

. Animal Terminology



anthropomorphic, insofar as such terms are ‘properly’ or ‘ordinarily’ used of humans, but are here catachrestically transferred to animals: τὸ δὲ εἰωθώς κυρίως μὲν ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπων, ὡς καὶ τὸ ἔθος καὶ τὸ ἦθος, καταχρηστικῶς δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ ἀλόγων. For all that the verb ἔθω is applied by Homer as frequently to animals as to humans, and that ἤθεα refers to the haunts of animals elsewhere in Homer, Eustathius perceives the notion of horses’ ‘customary’ behaviour and favoured haunts to be markedly anthropomorphic. Each of these comments will be relevant to my reading of Oppian, who in the opening book of the Halieutica twice evokes this Homeric simile in his insistence that fish too have their favoured haunts in the sea. After a lengthy proem, the opening lines of the technical body of the poem introduce a catalogue of fish and their habitats, observing that ἰχθύσι μὲν γενεή τε καὶ ἤθεα καὶ πόρος ἅλμης | κέκριται, οὐδέ τι πᾶσι νομαὶ νεπόδεσσιν ὁμοῖαι (‘fish differ in their breed and favourite places and path through the sea, and not all sea-creatures have the same grazing ground’, .–). The poet’s diction is markedly Homeric. The opening lines of the poem have already drawn attention to the Odyssean heritage of the term νέποδες (sea-creatures), while the phrase πόρος ἅλμης (‘path of the sea’), which picks up on ἁλὸς πόρου at ., not only adopts the wider Homeric notion of the ‘roads’ criss-crossing the sea, but looks specifically to Odysseus’ characterisation of his wanderings over the πόρους ἁλός (Hom. Od. .). In referring to the ἤθεα and νομαί of fish, Oppian takes up the Iliadic notion that the horse seeks out its favoured aquatic environment, and that it knows its species’ particular ‘haunts and grazing ground’ (ἤθεα καὶ νομόν, Hom. Il. . = .). The opening lines of this ‘didactic’ portion of the poem therefore assert that while the sea may seem disorientating to the humans who, like Odysseus, wander its surface and suffer

    



Eust. in Il. ..–. Cf. Graziosi and Haubold : : ‘horses do not usually “have baths”: the verb λούω is used of people washing horses; cf. [Il.] .)’. Cf. Hom. Il. .,  (horses); . (a boar). For ἤθεα cf. Hom. Od. ., of pigs; contrast Hes. Theog. , of gods, and e.g. Op. , , , of men. On which see e.g. Beaulieu : – (with a religious inflection). A phrase of particular interest to the poet in that Odysseus there reflects on his men being devoured by Scylla like fish caught with a rod by a fisherman (Hom. Od. .–). For πόρος ἁλός or πόρος ἅλμης see Hal. ., , , , ; .; ., , ; .. The poet here substituting νομή for cognate νομός, for which cf. Σ D Il. ., glossing Homeric νομόν as τὴν νομήν. διὰ τὸ νέμεσθαι.



Analogical Animals

its terrors, to the fish who dwell in it this is a much-loved environment with carefully distinguishable regions specific to each species, the details of which the poet will now relate. Oppian assimilates the Iliadic simile’s pronounced interest in the habits and habitats of different animals with the Odyssean notion of wandering far and wide over the sea; he also picks up on the scholiastic defence of Homer’s knowledge of animal habits, especially that species’ notorious love of water. Oppian’s second adaptation of the Iliadic stallion simile replays these same themes, but now adds a striking emphasis on the close parallels between man and beast, and the emotional importance of location. In his catalogue of the habitats of sea-creatures, the poet notes the tenacious attachment of the lobster (ἀστακός) to its lair: ἀστακὸς αὖ πέρι δή τι καὶ οὐ φατὸν οἷον ἔρωτα οἰκείης θαλάμης κεύθει φρεσίν, οὐδέ ποτ’ αὐτῆς λείπεθ’ ἑκών, ἀλλ’ εἴ μιν ἀναγκαίῃ τις ἐρύσσας ð265Þ τῆλε φέρων ἑτέρωσε πάλιν πόντονδε μεθείη, αὐτὰρ ὅ γ’ οὐ μετὰ δηρὸν ἑὴν νόστησε χαράδρην σπεύδων, οὐδ’ ἐθέλει ξεῖνον μυχὸν ἄλλον ἱκέσθαι οὐδ’ ἑτέρης πέτρης ἐπιβάλλεται, ἀλλὰ διώκει καὶ δόμον ὃν κατέλειπε καὶ ἤθεα καὶ νομὸν ἅλμης ð270Þ κείνης ἥ μιν ἔφερβε καὶ οὐκ ἤχθηρε θάλασσαν, τῆς μιν ἀπεξείνωσαν ἁλίστονοι ἀγρευτῆρες. ὣς ἄρα καὶ πλωτοῖσιν ἑὸς δόμος ἠδὲ θάλασσα πατρῴη καὶ χῶρος ἐφέστιος, ἔνθα γένοντο, στάζει ἐνὶ κραδίῃ γλυκερὸν γάνος, οὐδ’ ἄρα μούνοις ð275Þ πατρὶς ἐφημερίοισι πέλει γλυκερώτατον ἄλλων· οὐδ’ ἀλεγεινότερον καὶ κύντερον, ὅς κεν ἀνάγκῃ φυξίπολιν πάτρης τελέσῃ βίον ἀλγινόεντα, ξεῖνος ἐν ἀλλοδαποῖσιν ἀτιμίης ζυγὸν ἕλκων. (.–)

The lobster, moreover, holds in its heart an exceptional and indescribably strong love for its own private den, which it never willingly leaves; indeed, if someone drags it away by force, carrying it off to some distant place and setting it loose again in the sea, then before long it returns home, hurrying along to its own crevice. And it is not willing to find itself some other unfamiliar nook or to devote itself to another rock, but instead seeks out the house it left behind, and its familiar haunts and grazing-grounds in the sea that used to feed it, and it does not hate the sea from which it was banished by the 

These being the context not only of the Odyssean πόροι ἁλός but also the proem of the Halieutica, especially in the lines immediately preceding this catalogue (.–).

. Animal Terminology



fishermen who toil on the ocean. So even sea-creatures find that their own home and ancestral sea and the space of their hearth where they were born drips sweet joy into their heart, and it is not just to mortal men that one’s homeland is the most pleasing thing of all. Nor is anything more painful or more horrible than when someone is forced to live out a distressing life as an exile from their homeland, a stranger among foreigners, bearing the yoke of disgrace.

The vignette not only implies but glories in the lobster’s similarity to mankind: this is no indiscriminate scuttling towards any dark sea-bed recess, but a specific longing to return to the ‘home’ (δόμος, .; cf. .) from which the creature has been driven. The journey is purposeful, a ‘homecoming’ (νόστησε, .), and in part recasts Odysseus’ own journey (see esp. Hom. Od. .–). The vignette is loaded with language pertaining to the human sphere, and the poet makes this parallel explicit when he moves from speaking about the lobster (.) to generalising about fish (.) and then humans (.). As in the Homeric epics, the poet’s terminology for animal anatomy (φρένες, .; κραδίη, .), emotion (ἔρως, .; ἐχθαίρω, .; γλυκερὸν γάνος, .), and habitat (ἑὸς δόμος ἠδὲ θάλασσα | πατρῴη καὶ χῶρος ἐφέστιος, .–) echoes that of the human sphere. As a reading of the Iliadic stallion simile, moreover, the passage represents the lobster’s journey as equivalent to the horse’s joyous return to its customary haunts, and in essence expands on the bT scholiasts’ explanatory reconstruction of the process by which the stallion had been removed from its preferred environment and confined to a stall in the first place. The increased emphasis on patriotic attachment to one’s fatherland is particularly appropriate to both Paris and Hector, who each rejoin the battle with the stallion simile and fight for their homeland with renewed vigour after a lengthy narrative interlude. The notion of homelands is important here. The ‘exile’ of the lobster, effected by the fisherman (note esp. the force of ἀπεξείνωσαν, .) is set in parallel to that of a man banished from his fatherland (the estrangement enforced in each case: ἀναγκαίῃ, ; ἀνάγκῃ, ), while even the indeterminate nature of the exiled ὅς at  (we remain initially uncertain whether this is a man or a lobster) blurs the distinction between the two. The passage inspired not only the author of the Cynegetica, who recasts this lobster in the guise of an antelope, but also the poem’s Byzantine readers. The Oppianic scholiasts seize on these statements about exile and the 

Ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–. This form of imitative transposition is typical of the Cynegetica, and the passage corresponds both thematically and linguistically to Oppian’s depiction of the lobster.



Analogical Animals

lobster’s delighted return in order to fill in (presumably fantastical) details of the poet’s biography, repeatedly asserting that Oppian ‘hints’ or ‘alludes’ here to his father’s exile; the biographers flesh the tale out further, claiming that the poet accompanied his father into miserable exile on the island of Melite, where he composed his verse, which so delighted the emperor when he heard it that he allowed the pair to return to their homeland. While it would be at best wistful to read genuine biographical detail into this episode, it does illustrate the strikingly ‘human’ environment of Oppian’s fish. The image of a joyous return to the fatherland recurs in several similes, and the seal, octopus, and cuttlefish are all figured in such terms in similes. In this poem, fish no less than men occupy δόμοι to which they experience a strong sense of allegiance and rootedness (migratory patterns notwithstanding), and the poem insists that the indistinguishable nature of this body of water to mortal eyes should not obscure the differences that characterise the sea to its inhabitants.

. Catachresis The association between Oppianic and Iliadic ἔθνεα of animals was noted already by Eustathius in his magisterial Iliadic commentary. Building presumably on interpretative traditions of the kind preserved in the Homeric scholia, the critic labels as ‘catachrestic’ the Iliadic use of ἔθνεα to describe swarms of bees, insofar as the word ἔθνος, he says, ought properly to be applied to human beings, like ἔθος, from which he takes it to derive. When discussing the related simile in which Greek forces are compared to ἔθνεα of birds at Hom. Il. ., Eustathius recapitulates and expands on his earlier comments, citing as parallels for this kind of catachresis not only the Homeric similes of bees (Il. .) and flies (Il. .), but also Oppian’s ἔθνεα of fish: τὸ δὲ ἔθνεα καταχρηστικῶς καὶ νῦν λέγεται, ὡς προγέγραπται, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ μελισσῶν καὶ μυιῶν καὶ ἐπὶ ἰχθύων δὲ παρὰ τῷ Ὀππιανῷ.  

  

αἰνιγματωδῶς λέγων (Σ Hal. .), αἰνίττεσθαι, ὑπαινιττόμενος (Σ Hal. .), ὑπαινίττεσθαι (Σ Hal. .). See Σ Hal. ., , , . Cf. Σ Hal. ., where the poet is imagined to address his hints to the emperor. As Mair : xiii–xvi notes, there is some confusion as to which Melite is meant: Vita A Westermann refers to the Melite in the Adriatic (modern Mljet); Vita B Westermann refers to the Italian Melite (modern Malta). Seal: .–; cuttlefish: .–; octopus: .–. Eust. in Il. .: ἔθνεα [δὲ] μελισσῶν καταχρηστικῶς λέγει· κυρίως γὰρ ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπων τίθεται ἡ λέξις, ἐφ’ ὧν καὶ τὸ ἔθος κυριολεκτεῖται, ἀφ’ οὗ καὶ τὸ ἔθνος παράγεται. Eust. in Il. ..–, again stressing the etymological link with ἔθος, a term usually applied to humans: ἔθνος μὲν γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἔθους· ἔθος δὲ ἐπὶ ἀλόγων οὐκ εἴωθε λέγεσθαι.

. Catachresis



Ancient critics refer to catachresis as a trope in the ancient sense of a transference of words or meaning, an utterance that ‘deviates’ from standard usage. Typical are the comments offered by the first-century  grammarian Trypho, who defines it as a transference of terms on analogical grounds, especially where no other ‘proper’ term is said to exist for a given entity: κατάχρησίς ἐστι λέξις μετενηνεγμένη ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου κατονομασθέντος κυρίως τε καὶ ἐτύμως ἐφ’ ἕτερον ἀκατονόμαστον κατὰ τὸ οἰκεῖον, οἷον γόνυ καλάμου, καὶ ὀφθαλμὸς ἀμπέλου, καὶ χεῖλος κεραμίου καὶ τράχηλος ὄρους· κυρίως γὰρ ταῦτα ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπου λέγονται . . . (Tryph. De trop. ..– Spengel) Catachresis is the transference of an utterance from its original, proper, and true/etymological meaning to something else that does not properly have a name, such as the ‘knee’ [= joint] of a reed, the ‘eye’ [= bud] of a vine, the ‘lip’ [= rim] of a vessel, or the ‘neck’ [= crest? ridge?] of a hill. For these [terms] are properly used of a human being . . .

English is replete with comparable cases: we refer to the lip of a jug, the leg of a chair, the foot of a mountain, the hand of a clock, the mouth of a river, and so on. Ancient grammarians also adduce examples of more specifically etymological imprecision: the application of the word πυξίς or box, which ‘properly’ refers only to containers made of box-wood (πύξος), to vessels made from bronze or other varieties of wood, or the use of γαλεάγρα (a cage, lit. ‘weasel-trap’) to refer to an enclosure for bears and lions. In such cases it is often claimed that no etymologically correct 







Thus e.g. Tryph. De trop. ..- Spengel: τρόπος δέ ἐστι λόγος κατὰ παρατροπὴν τοῦ κυρίου λεγόμενος; cf. Quint. Inst. .., who notes the disagreements of ancient grammarians about what constitutes a ‘trope’. ‘Deviation’ from standard usage is itself signalled by the derivation of the term from τρέπω, as Trypho implies with παρατροπή; cf. also Quint. Inst. ..–. Cf. e.g. ps.-Plut. De Hom. II – Kindstrand; Tryph. ii De trop.  West (an anonymous treatise formerly attributed to Gregory of Corinth, on which see West ; Anon ii. De poet. trop. ..– Spengel; Cocond. .– Walz; Choer...–. Spengel. The same clusters of examples recur across ancient grammarians’ discussions of the trope, and in the Homeric scholia and Byzantine lexica. Further examples include the ‘neck’ of a jar, ‘belly’ [= hull] of a ship, and ‘tongue’ of a sandal (τράχηλος κεραμίου, γαστὴρ νηὸς καὶ γλῶσσα ὑποδήματος). Other examples include the use of ἀνδριάς to denote a statue of a woman, and trierarch of the commander of a quinquereme; see Tryph. De tropis ..–.. The example of the weaselcage is added by Cocond. .– Walz. These and other examples recur in most ancient discussions of the trope: see e.g. Tryph. ii De tropis  West, who adds the example of Hebe ‘winepouring nectar’ (νέκταρ ἐῳνοχόει) for the gods at Hom. Il. .; Σ Dion. Thrax ...– Hilgard; Cocond. .– Walz; Choer. . .–. Spengel. Cf. Quint. Inst. ..–, ..–, ...



Analogical Animals

term was available, so that a kind of lexical poverty necessitated the transference of a term drawn from an analogous or adjacent semantic field. Catachresis is distinguished by Trypho and other ancient theoreticians from the closely related trope of metaphor insofar as the latter is said to replace an existing term with another drawn from a different semantic realm; catachresis, on the other hand, ‘borrows’ a term where none previously exists. We possess no other word, for instance, to describe the supports on which the seat of a chair rests: the term ‘leg’ was initially suggested by a perceived analogy with human anatomy, and was then adopted more widely. In practice, of course, the issue is complicated not only by the complex relationship between what we might call the ‘anthropomorphic’ and ‘etymological’ modes of catachresis discussed by grammarians, but also by the issue of semantic drift, particularly the difficulty of attempting to determine what is a literal and what a catachrestic use of a given word in an continually evolving language. As the philosopher Max Black observes, ‘[c]atachresis is the putting of new senses into old words. But if a catachresis serves a genuine need, the new sense introduced will quickly become part of the literal sense. “Orange” may originally have been applied to the colour by catachresis; but the word is now applied to the colour just as “properly” (and unmetaphorically) as to the fruit.’ Catachresis, then, involves not a substitution of one word or concept for another in the metaphorical mode, but an extension of that word’s meaning to a new realm. It is clear from ancient scholiastic discussions of catachrestic language, however, that in many cases near-synonyms would indeed have been available to an author, should they have wanted to employ them. A number of ancient critics thus discuss the poetic use 





  

Tryph. De trop. ..– Spengel: διαφέρει δὲ μεταφορὰ καὶ κατάχρησις, ὅτι ἡ μὲν μεταφορὰ ἀπὸ κατωνομασμένου ἐπὶ κατωνομασμένον γίνεται, ἡ δὲ κατάχρησις ἀπὸ κατονομαζομένου ἐπὶ ἀκατονόμαστον, ὅθεν καὶ κατάχρησις λέγεται. Lausberg :  designates the latter a ‘metonymical-synecdochic catachresis’ (§), i.e. a subspecies of metonymy or synecdoche rather than metaphor, and distinguishes it (at least in part) from the other variety of catachresis discussed by Trypho (the ‘eye’ of the vine, and so forth), which he terms ‘necessary metaphor’ or ‘(metaphorical) catachresis’ (§; p. ). The two kinds of catachresis are not explicitly distinguished by ancient grammarians. The scholiasts’ obsession with etymological propriety is perhaps explicable as the easiest way to determine (however speciously) what is to be deemed a ‘literal’ and what a ‘catachrestic’ use of a term. Black : –. Hence the efforts made by scholiasts and grammarians subsequently to distinguish between the ‘original’ and ‘catachrestic’ uses of a given word. Cf. Rutherford : –, there rather more robustly formulated.

. Catachresis



of catachresis for effect even in cases where it was not strictly necessary. Quintilian stresses the fundamental role of catachresis (abusio in Latin) in lending words where no term was previously available (a function that for him distinguishes catachresis formally from metaphor); but he also observes that poets tend to use closely related words catachrestically even for entities that already have a ‘proper’ term, a feature that he takes to distinguish poetry from prose. The extension from linguistic necessity to poeticism is echoed by Cicero’s comments in De oratore on the use of metaphor, ‘which sprang from necessity due to the pressure of poverty and deficiency, but which has been subsequently made popular by its agreeable and entertaining quality’. While in certain quarters catachresis must have been regarded as a jarring misapplication of language, even an error or malapropism, a more positive, inventive role for the trope was also articulated. Trypho, for instance, includes catachresis among the fourteen core ‘poetic’ tropes, a list that also includes metaphor, allegory, metalepsis, and metonymy. The categorisation of these tropes as distinctively ‘poetic’ reflects the widespread ancient (and modern) belief that poetic diction at large constitutes a straining, distortion, or reorientation of standard modes of expression. A new usage that might appear from a prosaic perspective to be a terminological misapplication violating established linguistic and conceptual 





 

Quint. Inst. ..–. Cicero observes that Aristotle subsumes catachresis and other kinds of transference into the category of metaphor; the notion of catachresis is usually presumed to be a post-Aristotelian distinction, although the verb is used in this sense at Arist. Cael. .b, and Cicero himself associates metaphor and catachresis as the transference of words on an analogical basis either because there is no ‘proper’ word for this term or in order to produce a pleasing literary effect (Cic. Orat. .–). Cic. De orat. .: quem necessitas genuit inopia coacta et angustiis, post autem delectatio iucunditasque celebravit. The close relationship between catachresis and metaphor is noted by many ancient grammarians, and the terms are frequently cited or discussed in tandem. See esp. Cic. Orat. .–, on the ‘middle style’ embodied by Demetrius of Phalerum. Thus e.g. Rhet. Her. ., where κατάχρησις or abusio is defined as a misuse of language by the inexact application of a similar or related word in place of the precise and proper one; the examples provided appear to juxtapose ‘inappropriately’ the abstract or conceptual with the concrete or physical (‘short powers’, ‘long wisdom’, ‘mighty speech’). Catachresis is here taken to differ from metaphor (discussed at Rhet. Her. .) only insofar as in metaphor a fundamental similarity between realms (rather than a mere proximity of concepts) is said to justify the transference. Metaphor is said to create a vivid effect, and to be especially effective when used with restraint rather than precipitously; the latter, it is implied, does violence to language by associating dissimilar entities. Galen, for instance, is suspicious of the potential for confusion created by both metaphor and catachresis, preferring clarity at all times: see e.g. Gal. Diff. puls. ., where doctors’ descriptions of a ‘full pulse’ are deemed anatomically misleading. Tryph. De trop. ..– Spengel. Cf. also Dion. Thrax ap. Sext. Emp. Adv. math. . On ποιητικοὶ τρόποι more widely see Schenkeveld : –.



Analogical Animals

categories – κατάχρησις or καταχράομαι in the sense of ‘abuse’ or ‘misuse’ – becomes from another perspective a virtue, a sign of the inventive, figurative language of poetry, a medium that notoriously revels in the blurring of semantic realms. The notion of catachresis points in the first place to the widespread critical or scholiastic drive to taxonomise, to distinguish (allegedly) literal and catachrestic usages of particular words, and to police which words were ‘properly’ applicable (for instance) to human beings rather than to objects, plants, or animals. This is an enterprise based on a robust conviction about the proper domains of particular lexemes. Equally important, however, is the tendency not only of the spoken language at large, but also of poetic discourse in particular, to blur those boundaries and to conflate semantic realms, generating new meaning through an ongoing process of semantic transference. Catachresis, in other words, plays a pivotal role in augmenting and developing the vocabulary associated with a given sphere, a function vital to our investigation of the terminology newly or conventionally applied to animals at large, and to fish in particular. At its core, the practice bespeaks a fundamentally analogical method of making sense of the world, a tendency well analysed in recent decades by theories of cognitive metaphor that emphasise the manner in which one conceptual domain is regularly understood by means of reference to another, more familiar, domain. Trypho’s first variety of catachresis, which singles out vocabulary drawn from the human anatomical realm (the ‘knee’ of a reed, ‘belly’ of a ship, or ‘tongue’ of a sandal) describes a kind of default anthropocentrism, a projection of human selfhood onto the 







Cf. Quint. Inst. ..: features that would be considered ‘faults’ or misuses of language are given new names and deemed virtues when used by poets. Plut. De aud. poet. c–b emphasises the need to recognise the linguistic distortions of poets, who tend towards polysemy and the use of words in different senses at different times, especially in metonymy and catachresis; see Hunter and Russell : –. Cf. Plut. De glor. Ath. f, where catachresis is a feature of Pindar’s misguided youthful lyricism. As with much ancient criticism, it is clear that grammarians and scholiasts were not constructing a blueprint to which later authors adhered, but were attempting to identify and categorise preexisting literary features. They were, for the most part, descriptive rather than prescriptive in their approach; cf. West : . The aims of Quintilian and Cicero are of course different from those of e.g. Trypho. In practice, that is, the ancient linguistic landscape adhered no more than the modern to hard and fast rules about correct semantic value, and the distinctions drawn by scholiasts between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ linguistic usage at times seem very arbitrary indeed. Lakoff and Johnson , ; Fauconnier and Turner ; Minchin :  on cognitive metaphor and ‘lexical gaps’, here drawing from Goatly . Compare ancient critical claims that one function of similes was to ‘make the invisible visible’ (discussed in Chapter ); cf. Aristotle’s discussion of the cognitive value of metaphor.

. Catachresis



wider world. If we conceive of catachresis as a method through which the unknown may be understood through its relationship to a more familiar domain, then the human realm, with its rich lexical stock of terms denoting not only appearance and anatomy, but also behaviour and social practices, is not only the most familiar, but also the most nuanced and abundant source of terms and concepts for this kind of transference. These, I suggest, are the dynamics of the Halieutica, whose anthropocentric language employs a kind of catachrestic transference in order to explain the world of sea-creatures by emphasising their relationship to human habits, and so to expand the level of social and emotional complexity conventionally attributed to this most baffling of domains. In adopting the term catachresis I wish firstly to preserve the sense that such language – at times jarringly, at times apparently naturally – collapses the distance between supposedly separate domains by transferring a term from the one to the other; and secondly to note the cognitive value of this kind of transference as a process that fills in lexical gaps and exploits nuanced concepts and vocabulary in one realm to make sense of another, less well trodden, domain. Nor are the ancient etymological and anthropomorphic varieties of catachresis fully separable. Because of the flexible nature of so much ancient etymological argument, ancient critical use of the term ‘catachrestic’ even in its more limited etymological sense points not only to the poetic tendency to merge the worlds of human and animal, but also to those critics’ own preconceptions about the relationship, and boundaries, between humans and animals. The statement that a particular term is catachrestic is thus often a claim that human and non-human animals are separated by particular cognitive or social patterns that ought ‘strictly’ to be applied only to the former. Compare Aëtius’ comments, preserved in an epitome by ps.-Plutarch, on the philosophical claim that speech (φωνή) is the distinctive property of mankind: λέγεται δὲ καὶ καταχρηστικῶς ἐπὶ τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων φωνὴ καὶ τῶν ἀψύχων ὡς 



Cf. Lausberg : : ‘The active, catachresis-creating part of the lexicon is the area of closest interest for humans: the social realities of family and working life . . . The categories of this central area of interest are transferred to the more distant spheres of description which are developed from it: the term “God the Father”, for example, is a catachresis from family life . . . The original propriemeaning of a word and its catachrestic meaning for the most part continue to exist alongside one another, as common linguistic meanings.’ Cf. the preconceptions that underlie Eustathius’ comment on the ‘catachrestic’ notion that the Iliadic stallion was accustomed (εἰωθώς, Hom. Il. .) to bathe in the river (Eust. in Il. ..–), or his comments about the etymological applicability of ἔθνος and ἔθος to animals (Eust. in Il. ..–).



Analogical Animals

χρεμετισμοὶ καὶ ψόφοι. κυρίως δὲ φωνὴ ἔναρθρός ἐστιν, ἔστι γὰρ φωτίζουσα τὸ νοούμενον (‘“voice” is used catachrestically also in the case of animals and inanimate beings to denote whinnying and mere noise. But voice is properly articulate, for it makes known that which is perceived by the mind’). The assertion that the term φωνή is catachrestic when applied to non-humans may purport to be an etymological argument, but that is here a façade for a deeper conviction about the noetic properties of animals, in this case predicated on the belief that articulate speech marks the key distinction between human and animal life. It is important to recognise how many of these issues are located in the Homeric epics by ancient commentators. In his study of the critical signs of the Iliad and Odyssey, the Augustan critic Aristonicus is said to have recorded occasions on which Aristarchus used a marginal diple to draw attention to instances of Homeric catachresis. Several of these examples involve the vocabulary deemed suitable for animals. Here too it is clear that ancient grammarians often deemed a term properly or literally applicable to an animal only if it did not violate real or imagined etymological principles, a critical endeavour that looks to etymology as a purportedly stable benchmark by which to judge a more fluid Homeric usage. At work here is an evident interest in patrolling the degree to which human and animal terminology was indeed interchangeable, both in the Homeric lexicon and according to more strictly ‘logical’ or etymological principles. Aristarchus scrutinises Homeric anatomical terminology, for instance, when Odysseus shoots a stag on Aeaea: τὸν δ᾿ ἐγὼ ἐκβαίνοντα κατ᾿ ἄκνηστιν μέσα νῶτα | πλῆξα (‘as [the stag] stepped out I struck it on the spine in the middle of the back’, Hom. Od. .–). Aristarchus, we are told, added a diple noting that it is catachrestic to speak of the ἄκνηστις (spine, lit. ‘unscratchable part’) of animals, insofar as a quadruped, unlike a human being, has many ‘unscratchable’ parts, including the lower back and the neck. So too it is catachrestic to refer to ‘despoiling/killing’ wild animals (θῆρας ἐναίρειν, Hom. Il. .), insofar as animals do not wear a suit of armour that can be stripped away, ἐναίρειν being taken here to signify literally the stripping of the armour or ἔναρα. On both occasions   

Ps.-Plut. Plac. c– (= Aët. Plac. .– Diels). The emphasis here is on the ‘illuminating’ qualities of speech, with an association suggested between φωτίζω and φωνή. Σ HQ Od. .: καταχρηστικῶς φησιν ὁ Ἀρίσταρχος ἐπὶ τῶν θηρίων εἶναι τὴν ἄκνηστιν. οὐ γὰρ αὐτὴν μόνην ἀδυνατοῦσι κνήσασθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ὀσφῦν καὶ τὸν τράχηλον. Σ AGe Il. .a: ὅτι ἐναίρειν καταχρηστικῶς· θῆρες γὰρ οὐκ ἔχουσι παντευχίαν ὥστε σκυλευθῆναι; cf. Σ T Il. .a: σημειοῦνται δέ τινες ὅτι ἔναρα ἐπὶ ἀλόγων ζῴων οὐκ ἔστιν. Apoll. Soph. .– Bekker draws attention to both the literal and catachrestic senses of the verb.

. Catachresis



etymological precision is used to draw attention to a perceived gulf – between human and animal torsos, warfare and hunting – that the Homeric texts are said to have elided. Aristonicus, moreover, reports that Aristarchus added a diple to Il. ., where Aeneas declares that Boreas, disguised in the form of a dark-maned stallion, mated with the mares of Erichthonius (τάων καὶ Βορέης ἠράσσατο βοσκομενάων | ἵππῳ δ’ εἰσάμενος παρελέξατο κυανοχαίτῃ, Il. .–). The verb παραλέχομαι, elsewhere used by Homer only of gods or mortals sleeping together, is said to be catachrestic, for a horse does not literally ‘lie with’ a mare, but rather ‘mounts’ her (ἵππος γὰρ οὐ παρακοιμᾶται ἀλλ’ ἐπιβαίνει, Σ A Il. .a). It is crucial to note, however, that for Aristarchus catachresis was a recognisable feature of Homeric style rather than a logical ‘problem’ to be emended away, for the critic here defends the reading παρελέξατο κυανοχαίτῃ against the variant ἐμίγη φιλότητι καὶ εὐνῇ, which appears to have been an earlier emendation designed to avoid this alleged problem. Catachresis, then, may be a trope in which strictly literal propriety is violated, but it was also recognised as a hallmark of Homeric composition at large, and of the Homeric representation of animals in particular. The question of how far Homer might have taken the notion of human–equine equivalence is tested by the interpretative problems surrounding Hom. Il. ., where Hector urges his horses to action by apparently reminding them of the many occasions on which Andromache cared for them by feeding them grain and mixing them wine. The scholiasts object vehemently to this image, and the line was athetised by both Aristophanes and Aristarchus, the latter claiming that it would be ‘utterly ridiculous’ to suggest that horses drank wine; deletion of the 

 

Σ A Il. .a: τινὲς δὲ γράφουσιν ‘ἵππῳ δ’ εἰσάμενος ἐμίγη φιλότητι καὶ εὐνῇ’; cf. Σ T Il. .c. It is, however, possible, that the emendation is unrelated to the catachresis observed by Aristarchus, or indeed is no conjecture at all but simply a manuscript variant, for all that Aristonicus reports them together. West :  suggests that Zenodotus may be responsible for the emendation, on the grounds that ‘it would be in keeping with the zoological awareness attributed to Zenodotus in a few other passages’; the suggestion is attractive, although there is little evidence to support it, and it is only one of two Iliadic conjectures that West thinks plausibly attributable to Zenodotus. See also Σ T Il. .b for what would seem the more obvious argument, namely that this is not actually a horse but a god in disguise: [παρελέξατο] καταχρηστικῶς ἀντὶ τοῦ ἐπεβήσατο. ἢ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν τοῦ θεοῦ ὑπήντησεν. Hom. Il. .: οἶνόν τ’ ἐγκεράσασα πιεῖν, ὅτε θυμὸς ἀνώγοι. Σ A Il. .a γελοιότατος ἐπὶ ἵππων ὁ στίχος, ὅτι οἶνον ἵπποι οὐ πίνουσι. Delebecque :  claims that the horses drink wine mixed not with water (as one would normally interpret ἐγκεράσασα) but with grain, and that the θυμός that desires this wine is not that of the horse but that of Andromache; the suggestion is adopted by Kirk : –, but rejected by West :



Analogical Animals

line, however, results in the equally problematic implication that Andromache mixes up grain not only for the horses but also for her husband. The verse has troubled modern commentators no less than ancient, but these debates suggest at the very least that the Homeric boundary between human and animal behaviour was carefully policed by ancient critics. So too was Homeric vocabulary in spheres well beyond the narrowly scholiastic: Athenaeus’ discussion of heroic dining practice at the start of the Deipnosophistae, for instance, includes the observation that δαίς is used by Homer only of human banquets rather than those of wild animals, a claim that motivates the speaker’s rejection of Zenodotus’ text of Hom. Il. ., which had apparently made the heroes’ corpses a ‘feast’ for birds (οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα), rather than prey to ‘all birds’ (οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Athen. .e-f ). Time and again the ancient interpretative debates demand that the reader judge precisely how far the Homeric world-view should be taken to align human and non-human animals.

. Land and Sea Oppian both incorporates and builds on Homeric representations of the close relationship between human and non-human animals. The Iliadic stallion simile, for instance, refers to the horse’s ‘hair’ streaming around its ‘shoulders’ (ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται | ὤμοις ἀΐσσονται, Hom. Il. .– = .–). Geoffrey Kirk deems this ‘an awkward expression, due no doubt to lack of special vocabulary for this sort of detail’, but we might treat it instead as a form of catachresis or transference that seeks to associate the human and animal realms on a lexical as well as a thematic level. Oppian follows a number of post-Homeric authors – and poets in particular – by expanding the range of such transference: in the Halieutica, for instance, χαίτη is used to designate not only a horse-hair fishing-line (., ), but also a hedgehog’s spines (.), and the foliage of an olive tree (.); χαιτήεις is also used of a bear (.). Hair, leaves, manes, quills, and fur are united by what was evidently seen as their analogous function, an idea implicit already in the Homeric application of the term to both humans and horses, but now expanded to encompass a wide range of animate and inanimate beings.



 as ‘frankly preposterous’. Col. Rust. . discusses the medicinal use of wine to promote equine well-being. Kirk : , ad Hom. Il. .–.

. Land and Sea



Eustathius too draws attention to the wide semantic range of χαίτη, quoting Oppian’s verses on the bear (although without citing the poet by name) in order to emphasise the variety of animals to which χαίτη could be applied; in his view, such usage is still literal because it involves no violation of what he takes to be the word’s proper etymological root of rippling motion. There are traces here of a familiar tendency to reach for (folk) etymology as a guide to semantic association, but Eustathius evidently conceives of this linguistic association between humans and animals as more than merely etymological in scope, for apropos of Il. . he argues that the ‘long-haired’ Achaeans grew their hair long in order to make themselves more fearsome in battle, observing that a lion with a mane (χαίτη) is more frightening than a lion without one. Greek zoological language frequently underscores the analogical connections between different forms of life: πτέρυγες, for instance, can designate both the wings of birds and the fins of fish. Fish in particular are often named after more familiar terrestrial or avian species: the standard ancient name for the ox-ray, for instance, is βοῦς (cow), the fishing-frog is βάτραχος (frog), the sea-urchin ἐχῖνος (hedgehog), the flying gurnard χελιδών (swallow), the male merle-wrase κόσσυφος (blackbird), the female merle-wrasse κίχλη (thrush), and so forth. Sometimes these names are based on anatomical or behavioural similarities – the sea-urchin, for instance, is equipped with spines like a hedgehog – but at other times it is hard to pinpoint any clear likeness. These systems of nomenclature are both symptom and cause of a wider Greek tendency towards an analogical conception of the natural world. Athenaeus, for instance, reports Polybius’ claim that tuna fish may be considered a kind of sea-pig thanks to their diet of acorns: ‘Polybius of Megalopolis, discussing the Lusitanian region of Iberia in the thirty-fourth book of his Histories, says that there are acornbearing trees growing in the depths of the sea there, and that tuna fish grow fat from eating their fruit. For this reason one would not be mistaken in saying that tuna fish are marine pigs.’ Polybius here assigns a 

 

Eust. in Il. ..–; cf. ..–. In Eustathius’ view, such usage is ‘literal’ (κυριολεκτεῖται) in that on his reading the word χαίτη derives from the motion of the hair rather than its uniquely human applicability: γίνεται δὲ χαίτη παρὰ τὸ χῶ καὶ τὸ ἀΐττω· χεῖται γὰρ ἀΐσσουσα ὧδε καὶ ἐκεῖ καὶ μάλιστα τοῖς δρομιχαίταις κατὰ τὸ «ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται ὤμοις ἀΐσσονται» (Eust. in Il. ..–). Eust. in Il. ..–.. Athen. .d: Πολύβιος δ’ ὁ Μεγαλοπολίτης ἐν τετάρτῃ καὶ τριακοστῇ τῶν ἱστοριῶν περὶ τῆς ἐν Ἰβηρίᾳ Λυσιτανίας χώρας διαλεγόμενός φησιν ὅτι βάλανοί εἰσι κατὰ βάθος ἐν τῇ αὐτόθι θαλάττῃ πεφυτευμέναι, ὧν τὸν καρπὸν σιτουμένους τοὺς θύννους πιαίνεσθαι. διόπερ οὐκ ἂν ἁμάρτοι τις λέγων ὗς εἶναι θαλαττίους τοὺς θύννους. All three manuscripts contain the additional statement,



Analogical Animals

terrestrial name, however playfully, to a marine species on the basis of their purported behavioural equivalence. The underwater ‘acorn’ that underpins this sense of equivalence is presumably itself a product of the same kind of drive towards analogical nomenclature. Linguistic synonymity is impelled by a perceived parallelism in dietary habit based on the pig’s key characteristic, namely the consumption of acorns. Oppian likewise claims that pigs and red mullets have ‘similar habits’ (εἴκελα . . . ἤθεα): both love mud and malodorous food, and so occupy an analogous position of (unwelcome) distinction as the filthiest animals of the land and sea respectively (.–). These systems of nomenclature create associations between otherwise disparate zoological groups, as had evidently long been recognised in Greek thought. Athenaeus, for instance, refers to an ‘extremely old’ (ἀρχαιότατος) type of γρῖφος or riddle: ‘what single thing is located in the sky and on land and in the sea?’ The answer exploits the principle of ὁμωνυμία or verbal identity, for the solution is that the bear, snake, eagle, and dog may all be found in the sky (as constellations), on land (as terrestrial animals), and in the sea (referring respectively to a crab, eel, eagle-ray, and dogfish). Names are clearly a topic of great interest for Oppian, and numerous fish are said to be φερώνυμος or ἐπώνυμος – to have appropriate or meaningful names, or to be named after their appearance or behaviour: thus, for instance, the swordfish (.), the electric ray or νάρκη (., .), the κορακῖνος, which is raven-black, .), or the ‘Adonis’ fish, also known as the ἐξώκοιτος or ‘sleeper-out-of-water’, .–); others are named on allegedly etymological grounds, such as the τρίγλη or red mullet, said to be named after its triple parturition (.). Oppian turns this impression of zoological affinity into the poem’s driving force. Sometimes explicit parallels are drawn between marine and terrestrial beasts of the same name, as when the poet discusses the scolopendra, an unidentified species of poisonous sea-creature that takes its name from the terrestrial millipede: τοῖον καὶ σκολόπενδρα, δυσώνυμον ἑρπετὸν ἅλμης, | ἶσον ἐπιχθονίῳ δέμας ἑρπετῷ, ἀλλὰ τό γ’ ἄτην |





athetised by Kaibel as an explanatory gloss: εἰσὶν γὰρ οἱ θύννοι οἷον ὕες, ἀπὸ τῶν βαλάνων αὐξανόμενοι (‘for the tuna are like pigs, growing large from acorns’). Athen. .b: ‘τί ταὐτὸν ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς καὶ ἐν θαλάττῃ;’ τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν ὁμωνυμία· καὶ γὰρ ἄρκτος καὶ ὄφις καὶ αἰετὸς καὶ κύων ἐστὶν ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐν γῇ καὶ ἐν θαλάσσῃ. The riddle is indeed ἀρχαιότατος, for it is also parodied at Ar. Vesp. –. So named because the fish loves both land and sea, just as Adonis loved both Aphrodite above the earth, and Persephone below (on which cf. Ael. NA .).

. Land and Sea



κύντερον (‘just such [a venomous beast] is the hateful [lit. ‘hatefully named’] worm of the brine, similar in body to the terrestrial worm, but more horrible in its affliction’, .–). The description of the creature as δυσώνυμος signals its linguistic as well as its anatomical association with the much-loathed venomous millipede. That the marine scolopendra should be deemed more dangerous than its terrestrial counterpart is also typical of Oppian’s scheme. The syncrisis between hunting, fowling, and fishing in book  argues that fishing is by far the most dangerous and uncertain of the three activities (.–), for instance, while the proem of the final book claims that mighty sea-creatures are even more horrible than the beasts of the earth: κήτεα δ’ ὅσσα πέλωρα Ποσειδάωνος ἐναύλοις ἐντρέφεται, τὰ μὲν οὔτι χερείονά φημι θάλασσαν τίκτειν ὠμοφάγων τεκέων χθονός, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀλκὴν καὶ μέγεθος προβέβηκεν ἀναιδέα δείματα πόντου. ἔστιν ἐν ἠπείρῳ χελύων γένος, οὐδέ τιν’ ἀλκὴν οὐδ’ ἄτην ἴσασι· θαλασσαίῃ δὲ χελώνῃ οὐ μάλα θαρσαλέος τις ἐν οἴδμασιν ἀντιβολήσει. εἰσὶ δ’ ἐνὶ τραφερῇ λάβροι κύνες, ἀλλὰ κύνεσσιν εἰναλίοις οὔ κέν τις ἀναιδείην ἐρίσειε. πορδαλίων γαίης ὀλοὸν δάκος, ἀλλὰ θαλάσσης αἰνότεραι. χέρσον μὲν ἐπιστείχουσιν ὕαιναι, πολλὸν δ’ ἐν ῥοθίοις κρυερώτεραι. οἱ μὲν ἔασι κριοὶ μηλονόμων τιθασὸν βοτόν, οὐ δὲ θαλάσσης κριοῖς μειλιχίοισι συνοίσεται, ὅς κε πελάσσῃ. τίς δὲ τόσον χλούνης φορέει σθένος, ὅσσον ἄαπτοι λάμναι; τίς δὲ λέοντος ἐνὶ φρεσὶν αἴθεται ἀλκή, ὅσση ῥιγεδανῇσιν ἀνισώσαιτο ζυγαίναις; φώκην δὲ βλοσυρὴν καὶ ἐπὶ χθονὶ χαιτήεσσαι ἄρκτοι πεφρίκασι καὶ ἐς μόθον ἀντιόωσαι δάμνανται· τοίοισι μέλει θήρεσσι θάλασσα.

ð25Þ

ð30Þ

ð35Þ

ð40Þ

(.–)

But as for those sea-monsters that are bred in the haunts of Poseidon, I declare that the sea breeds creatures in no way inferior to the carnivorous offspring of the earth, but the ruthless terrors of the sea are superior in both strength and size. On dry land there lives the breed of tortoise that knows no strength or evil, but one would not encounter the marine tortoise [= turtle] in the waves with much confidence. There are fierce dogs on dry land, but these would not contend with the sea-dogs [= tope shark] in shamelessness. The bite of the terrestrial leopard is dangerous, but that of the sea-leopards more terrible. Hyenas walk on dry land,



Analogical Animals but far more chilling are those in the waves. The rams of shepherds are tame creatures, but he who approaches the rams of the sea [= killer whales] would not find them gentle to encounter. Which wild boar has the strength of the untouchable porbeagle shark? What force blazing in the heart of a lion could equal that of the horrifying hammer-head shark? Even on land shaggy bears shudder before the fearful monk-seal, and are defeated when they meet them in combat. Such are the wild beasts that belong to the sea.

The equivalence between these marine and terrestrial species is based on principles that range, tacitly, from anatomical similarity (the tortoise and turtle, a pair also associated in name), to linguistic identity (κύων, πόρδαλις, κριός), an alleged equivalence in might and ferocity (lion and hammerhead shark), and direct physical confrontation (bear and monk-seal). These sea-creatures may be more terrifying than their terrestrial counterparts, but they are nevertheless best understood when viewed in relation to them. So too in book  we hear that dolphins rule over fish, just as eagles do birds, lions beasts, and snakes reptiles (.–); as we have seen, Oppian also compares an eel impaled on the back of a spiny crayfish to a snake impaled on the spines of a hedgehog (.–). The analogy functions much like an extended simile; the scholia identify it as a παραβολή, and the comparison features an antapodosis in the manner of a simile (.). The parallel between hedgehog and spiny crayfish, and between snake and moray eel, points to the similarity in shape and texture between both pairs. This recurrent parallelism may in part reflect a fondness for the rhetorical exercise of syncrisis familiar from the extant imperial progymnasmata. Yet it is also a cognitive issue: the ram and dog are species more familiar than their aquatic counterparts (the shark and dogfish), so that it makes sense to describe the latter in light of the former. Metaphors and similes have long been understood to work in this way: the poet’s figurative language frequently has an explanatory as well as a virtuosic function. While a reader may not have witnessed a moulting crab lying motionless on the sand and only gradually able to eat, they can picture it much more clearly once the poet has compared their state to that  

 

Σ Hal. .. Cf. McCall : , vii: ‘there was no true concept in ancient literary criticism of simile as a rhetorical figure separate from other forms of comparison or illustration’. Similes and comparisons involving other animals are second in frequency only to anthropomorphic similes in the Hal., and fish are often said to eat one another, or to be caught by fishermen, just as land animals devour one another, or as hunters and fowlers catch their prey. Cf. .–, where eels are said to be comparable in form to snakes. On which see Rebuffat : –.

. Land and Sea



of a patient slowly convalescing from a serious illness and being weaned onto solid food by a doctor (.–). Yet Oppian’s association between species is also based on his wider conviction that a fundamental interconnectedness structures the cosmos at large. The poem, as we have seen, is conceived in a heavily analogical mode: its similes, metaphors, analogies, and syncriseis – figures closely associated in Greek thought – all point to the pervasive associations between land and sea, one species and another. We have already seen that the proem to book  posits the near-equivalence of tortoise and turtle, and that the poet later compares the two in a simile. The provocative overcongruence of the simile of wriggling tortoise and turtle seems almost to collapse tenor into vehicle, so that the comparison functions not, as in other extended similes, to render the unfamiliar familiar or to aid the reader’s comprehension of the scene, but rather to stress the connection between marine and terrestrial worlds: the turtle truly is ‘the [tortoise’s] kindred beast of the sea’ (κείνης ὁμόφυλον ἁλὸς δάκος, .). The poet elsewhere uses ὁμόφυλος of creatures that belong to the same species (., .); we are struck here by the profound kinship between these beasts. The interconnected cosmos is explicitly discussed in book , where the poet treats ‘amphibious’ (.) creatures that straddle different habitats. The dolphin, eel, turtle, whale, and seal all make forays from the water onto the shore (.–); gulls, kingfishers, and other birds dip from the air into the water (.–); certain fish leap into the air from the sea (.–). When the reader is told that one might mistake flying squid for birds, and that flying fish graze the water and seem to fly and swim simultaneously, the very names of these fish – χελιδών (flying gurnard, lit. ‘swallow’), and ἴρηξ (a flying fish, lit. ‘hawk’) – echo this apparent confusion, compounding the reader’s sense of the permeability between land, sea, and sky. These ‘amphibious’ species are in turn represented as the tangible manifestation of a divinely governed interconnection that animates the cosmos at large: Ζεῦ μάκαρ, ἐς δὲ σὲ πάντα καὶ ἐκ σέθεν ἐρρίζωνται, εἴτ’ οὖν αἰθέρος οἶκον ὑπέρτατον εἴτ’ ἄρα πάντῃ ναιετάεις· θνητῷ γὰρ ἀμήχανον ἐξονομῆναι. οἵῃ σὺν φιλότητι διακρίνας ἐκέδασσας αἰθέρα τ’ αἰγλήεντα καὶ ἠέρα καὶ χυτὸν ὕδωρ καὶ χθόνα παμμήτειραν, ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων δὲ ἕκαστα, πάντα δ’ ἐν ἀλλήλοισιν ὁμοφροσύνης ὑπὸ δεσμῷ ἀρρήκτῳ συνέδησας, ἀναγκαίῃ δ’ ἐπέρεισας ἀστεμφῆ πάγκοινον ὑπὸ ζυγόν· οὔτε γὰρ αἰθὴρ ἠέρος οὔτ’ ἀὴρ ἄτερ ὕδατος, οὐδὲ μὲν ὕδωρ

ð410Þ

ð415Þ



Analogical Animals γαίης νόσφι τέτυκται, ἐν ἀλλήλοις δὲ φύονται, πάντα δ’ ὁδὸν μίαν εἶσι, μίαν δ’ ἀνελίσσετ’ ἀμοιβήν. ð420Þ (.–)

Blessed Zeus, everything is rooted in you and comes from you, whether you live in the loftiest dwelling of the sky, or are instead everywhere, for this is impossible for mortals to declare. With such love you have distinguished and separated out the radiant sky and the lower air and the flowing water and the bountiful earth from one another, and yet bound everything to one another in an unbreakable bond of compatibility, and placed it forcibly under a common immoveable yoke. For neither is there sky without air nor air without water, nor does water exist without earth, but they exist naturally in one another, and they all have a single path and revolve in a single exchange.

The sentiments are strikingly Empedoclean. Central here is the philosopher’s claim that the world is composed of four different elements or ‘roots’ (ῥιζώματα; cf. ἐρρίζωνται, Hal. .), namely fire, earth, water, and air; these are in turn associated, opaquely, with four divinities, including Zeus (B). According to Empedocles, these elements engage in a complex interplay of unity and plurality governed by the opposing forces of Φιλότης and Νεῖκος (Love and Strife), which hold sway in continual alternation, joining and separating the roots in turn: δίπλ’ ἐρέω· τοτὲ μὲν γὰρ ἓν ηὐξήθη μόνον εἶναι ἐκ πλεόνων, τοτὲ δ’ αὖ διέφυ πλέον’ ἐξ ἑνὸς εἶναι. δοιὴ δὲ θνητῶν γένεσις, δοιὴ δ’ ἀπόλειψις· τὴν μὲν γὰρ πάντων σύνοδος τίκτει τ’ ὀλέκει τε, ἡ δὲ πάλιν διαφυομένων θρεφθεῖσα διέπτη. ð5Þ καὶ ταῦτ’ ἀλλάσσοντα διαμπερὲς οὐδαμὰ λήγει, ἄλλοτε μὲν Φιλότητι συνερχόμεν’ εἰς ἓν ἅπαντα, ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖ δίχ’ ἕκαστα φορεύμενα Νείκεος ἔχθει.

ἠδὲ πάλιν διαφύντος ἑνὸς πλέον’ ἐκτελέθουσι, ð10Þ τῆι μὲν γίγνονταί τε καὶ οὔ σφισιν ἔμπεδος αἰών· ἧι δὲ διαλλάσσοντα διαμπερὲς οὐδαμὰ λήγει, ταύτηι δ’ αἰὲν ἔασιν ἀκίνητοι κατὰ κύκλον. (Emp. B.–)

A twofold tale I shall tell: at one time [the roots] grew to be one alone out of many, at another again they grew apart to be many out of one. Double is the birth of mortal things, and double their failing; for the one is brought to birth and destroyed by the 

The Empedoclean quality of this passage is suggested in passing by Bartley : –; Sider : , but the parallels have not been explored.

. Land and Sea



coming together of all things, the other is nurtured and flies apart as they grow apart again. And these things never cease their continual interchange, now through Love [Φιλότης] all coming together into one, now again each carried apart by the hatred [ἔχθος] of Strife. So insofar as they have learned to grow one from many, and again as the one grows apart grow many, thus far do they come into being and have no stable life; but insofar as they never cease their continual interchange, thus far they exist always changeless in the cycle.

Several aspects of this doctrine underpin Oppian’s world-view, including the cycle of constant change and the φιλότης (Hal. .) with which Zeus has both separated and connected the world’s constituent elements by combining the four elements (αἰθήρ, ἀήρ, ὕδωρ, and γαῖα or χθών). Empedocles’ interplay of unity and plurality is picked up by Oppian’s depiction of the many elements that combine into one, πάντα δ’ ὁδὸν μίαν εἶσι, μίαν δ’ ἀνελίσσετ’ ἀμοιβήν (Hal. .): the first clause echoes Empedocles’ πάντων σύνοδος (B.), while ἀνελίσσετ’ suggests continual, cyclical movement (cf. B.), and ἀμοιβήν both the notion of change and the balancing of equal but opposite forces. Empedocles connects these forces with the life-cycles of animals, as well as the originary process of zoogony; so too Oppian’s meditation on elemental exchange is framed by discussion of the amphibious animals that illustrate this very process. Indeed, throughout the Halieutica the poet connects cosmic forces with their concrete manifestation in specific zoological phenomena. Oppian’s poem is itself structured around the ‘Empedoclean’ principles of love (book ) and strife (book ), as well as birth (book ) and destruction (books –). The proem announces that it will address the mating and generation (γενέθλας) of fish, and βίον ἰχθυόεντα καὶ ἔχθεα καὶ φιλότητας (‘fishy life and enmities and loves’, Hal. .–), a formulation that echoes Empedocles’ emphasis on the opposing forces of ἔχθος and φιλότης, the role of birth and death at the start of B, and the description in the Strasbourg Papyrus of the generation of animals. Empedocles was renowned in antiquity for his Homeric poeticism and his bold use of metaphor and extended simile. His analogies are

  



Trans. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. Oppian makes no mention of fire (perhaps unsurprisingly, given his focus on marine life), but in B Empedocles likewise presents the collocation of γαῖα, πόντος, αἰθήρ, and ἀήρ. See Emp. a (ii) – M-P, esp. γενέθλης at  and . On Oppian’s account fish are motivated primarily by love and strife, while the process of fishing also neatly combines desire (whether for food or for sex) and death. Diog. Laert. .; cf. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield : .



Analogical Animals

complex and inventive; they are, as Plutarch notes, no mere ornament, but are crucial to his illustration of particular phenomena, not least in mirroring the association between different parts of the universe. As Guthrie observes, ‘The poetic effect [of Empedocles’ similes and metaphors] is only heightened when we know that such phrases can be an imaginative expression of what was to Empedocles a fact, the unity of all living organisms. For him it is more than metaphor when he speaks of the ear as growing a sprout of flesh, of olives bearing eggs, of the sea as the sweat of the earth, of arms as branches.’ The same investment in analogy as a didactic tool is characteristic of Oppian, whose similes, metaphors, and comparisons between marine and terrestrial animals, or between humans and fish, underpin his didactic programme and illustrate his wider conviction that these spheres are fundamentally interconnected. According to Empedocles, mankind perceives by the attraction of similars, comprehending like through like: light colours are seen with the fire in the eye, dark colours with the eye’s water, and so forth. Knowledge and thought work by the same principle, and we can understand only so much as is cognate with our own nature. This perhaps captures something of the force of Oppian’s similes: we can best understand the mysteries of the sea by analogy with the familiar, and by relating these creatures to our own selves. For Empedocles, there is a literal identity of nature between man and animal; for Oppian, this identity operates at a level of perceived similarity of behaviour and form. Oppian thus looks to Empedocles in the ‘hymn to Zeus’ in Hal. , with its cosmic change and stability, unity and plurality, connection and separation, and also in his wider fascination with the forces of love and hostility, the points of connection between all living beings, and the utility of simile and analogy as tools for understanding the ‘bonds’ between different parts of the world. This influence is reflected at a verbal as well as a thematic level. The philosopher’s Homeric diction and boldly metaphorical hexameters offer a parallel for Oppian’s own poetic practice, especially in the preponderance of complex extended similes, a feature otherwise highly unusual amongst didactic poets. Not only do the opening lines of 

 

Plut. Quaest. conv. e; cf. Millerd : ; O’Brien : ; Guthrie : –. Empedocles’ analogies include the image of the eye as a lantern, the respiratory system as a clepsydra, and the figurative ‘painter’ who mixes together the elements (B, , ).  Guthrie : .. See esp. Theophr. Sens.  (= A DK). Insofar as Oppian subscribes neither to a materialist conception of elemental (re-)composition nor to the transmigration of souls, but nevertheless depicts a close relationship between humans and animals.

. Land and Sea



the proem look to Empedoclean love and strife amongst fish, but the poet proclaims that he will detail the πολυσπερέας . . . φάλαγγας | παντοίων νεπόδων (Hal. .–), a claim that adopts – and renders even more explicitly militaristic – Empedocles’ earlier transference of the archaic epic term πολυσπερής from (amongst others) Iliadic warriors (Hom. Il. .) to the world of fish: φῦλον ἄμουσον ἄγουσα πολυσπερέων καμασήνων (‘leading the songless tribe of widely scattered fish’, B). Another powerfully Empedoclean life-form is found in Oppian’s hedgehog, whose conflict with a snake is introduced as the terrestrial counterpart of that between the crayfish and eel. The snake attempts to pierce the hedgehog’s flesh, but it is unable to penetrate the ‘rough hair’ (λάχνη δυσπαίπαλος, .) of the hedgehog’s flesh: αὐτὰρ ὁ κυκλοτερὴς ὁλοοίτροχος αἰόλα γυῖα δινεύων, πυκινῇσι κυλινδόμενος στροφάλιγξιν ἐμπίπτει σπείρῃσι καὶ οὐτάζει βελέεσσι χαίτης ὀξυκόμοισιν (.–)

But the circular boulder [= hedgehog] whirls its shifting limbs, rolling in constant rotations, and falls on [the snake’s] coils and wounds it with the sharp spiky weapons of its hair.

In his description of the hedgehog’s spines, Oppian draws from Empedocles’ statement that different creatures are equipped with different weapons, including horns and stings, αὐτὰρ ἐχίνοις | ὀξυβελεῖς χαῖται νώτοις ἐπιπεφρίκασι (‘but hedgehogs have sharp-pointed hairs bristling on their backs’, B). In describing the fight between two species equipped with very different modes of defence, the poet aptly evokes the spiky texture of Empedocles’ hedgehog, asserting the value of textural dissimilarity as the means of success in combat. Oppian draws out yet further the Homeric and militaristic resonances of the philosopher’s choice of the unusual adjective ὀξυβελής, the Homeric hapax used of Pandarus’ arrow at Hom. Il. .. The later poet not only emphasises the Iliadic qualities of the hedgehog’s likeness to a rolling boulder (ὀλοοίτροχος) of the kind to which Hector is compared as he collides with the Greek forces (Il. .–, discussed in Chapter , p. ), but renders even more explicit the Empedoclean hedgehog’s metaphorical ‘weapons’ (οὐτάζει βελέεσσι). Oppian, moreover, builds on his earlier depiction of the sea-urchin or



Cf. also Hal. .: φῦλα πολυσπερέων συνοδόντων.



Analogical Animals

ἐχῖνος as ὀξύκομος (‘equipped with sharp spines’, lit. ‘sharp hair’, .), a phrase praised by the scholiast for its wit and γλυκύτης in representing the urchin as if its spines were flowing hair. Here the later poet adds a further dimension to Empedocles’ emphasis on the close relationship between different animals, for he not only adapts Empedocles’ representation of spines as ‘hair’, but also applies it to the ‘marine’ hedgehog or sea-urchin (ἐχῖνος). Extraordinarily, moreover, Oppian’s hedgehog becomes a very archetype of Empedoclean cyclical motion: the hedgehog’s continual rolling (κυκλοτερής, δινεύων, πυκινῇσι κυλινδόμενος στροφάλιγξιν) may be compared to the Strasbourg Papyrus of Empedocles, where under Hate (ἐν δ᾽ Ἔχθηρι, a (i)  M-P) animals and fish and other beings ‘never cease from continuously shooting in all directions in constant whirls’ ([π]υκνῇσιν δίνῃσ[ιν, a (ii)  M-P), and where all things move continually ‘in a circle’ (κύκλῳ, a (ii)  M-P) as part of the wider cosmic δίνη and στροφάλιγξ (a (ii)  M-P) of Love and Strife. The Empedoclean qualities of Oppian’s poetic diction – his use of extended analogy (the hedgehog as parallel for the crayfish), striking metaphor (the hedgehog as boulder), and Homeric language (the bristles as ‘weapons’, the boulder that recalls the simile used of Hector) – now mirror the Empedoclean themes of his subject-matter, including the defensive mechanisms of animals, the relationship between living beings and between terrestrial and aquatic phenomena, and the depiction of continual cyclical movement itself governed by fierce hostility. Taken as a whole, moreover, the episode in which the hedgehog is introduced – the conflict between octopus, eel, and crayfish discussed in Chapter  – represents a broad application of Empedocles’ theories to the animal kingdom, a vision of a cyclical process characterised by stability through change, and governed throughout by hostility. These are beasts embroiled in never-ending combat and destruction, yet the episode is constituted as a whole by a perfect, recurrent cycle of change. No creature remains victor for long, and the fortunes of each species rise and

 



Emp. P. Strasb. gr. Inv. –, trans. Martin and Primavesi , modified. The episode is important for Oppian partly because of the extremity of these creatures’ hostility, and partly because the very dissimilarity of form between the three species – the octopus’ whirling limbs, the eel’s slippery texture, and the crayfish’s prickly spines – allows each to consume the other. Cf. Plut. De sollert. anim. a, where nature is said to have created this ‘cycle’ and ‘rotation’ of mutual pursuit and flight (τὸν κύκλον τοῦτον καὶ τὴν περίοδον ταῖς κατ᾿ ἀλλήλων διώξεσι καὶ φυγαῖς) amongst the octopus, eel, and crayfish, although there as a stimulus for adaptable intelligence.

. Land and Sea



fall as each devours and is devoured in turn. Empedocles associates cosmic cyclicality with the life-cycles of humans and other animals (B.), all of which are characterised by unity and plurality, stability and change. Although an individual’s life-span may not be steadfast or long-lasting (B.), when viewed as a whole this pattern of unceasing change nevertheless takes on a kind of eternal stability through the cyclicality of its form (B.–). As Jonathan Barnes puts it, ‘there is local change but global stability; the local changes occur in accordance with unalterable global laws’. For both Empedocles and Oppian, even a sharp-haired ἐχῖνος can illustrate the inescapable bonds that structure the universe, as well as the application of cosmic forces to everyday life. The Halieutica here refracts through an Empedoclean lens the fundamental connections between human and non-human animals that are, as we have seen, inchoate already in the Homeric epics. The wider implications of these far-reaching analogies or bonds between beings will now be explored further in the next chapter. 



Oppian’s emphasis on their mutual destruction (ἀμοιβαίοισι φόνοισιν) recalls the revolution of the cosmic elements brought together in continual change (μίαν δ’ ἀνελίσσετ’ ἀμοιβήν, .), and finds its fishy antithesis in the paradigmatic first vignette of book  (a book devoted not to strife but to love), in which parrot-wrasse help one another ‘in mutual love’ (οἵ γ’ ἀλλήλοισιν ἀμοιβαίῃ φιλότητι | ἀλκτῆρες γεγάασι, .–). If the helpful parrot-wrasse represent the influence of φιλότης, then the octopus, eel, and crayfish are characterised by both hatred (ἔχθος, .) and mutual difference; compare Empedocles’ statement in B.– that the ἐχθρά are those things that are most dissimilar to one another in origin or birth, composition, and form, phenomena that are then governed by Strife; see Pierris : . Barnes :  (and cf. ). This would be an apt characterisation of the combat between octopus, eel, and crayfish, where the successive but short-lived ascendancy of each perpetuates the stable tripartite cycle. The diversity, cyclicality, hostility, and flux encapsulated in this episode emblematise both the poet’s reception of Empedoclean philosophical thought and the hostility that dominates life at sea.

 

Humans and Other Animals

. Anthropomorphism Chapter  has argued that the close relationship between human and nonhuman animals in the Halieutica is modelled in part on the linguistic and thematic similarities that associate human and animal anatomy, behaviour, psychology, and habitat in the Homeric epics. We have seen that close attention to the relationship between the two domains is a feature of Homeric poetry discussed extensively by ancient critics, and to which the Halieutica draws attention with its very first word. Yet Oppian, I now show, goes further even than Homer in blurring the boundaries between the two realms; this chapter embeds this aspect of the poem in its contemporary cultural contexts, arguing that it speaks to a wider imperial Greek fascination with the relationship between human and non-human animals, above all in the ethical and erotic spheres. The Halieutica opens by promising to treat all kinds of sea-creatures, describing their watery marriages and watery births, their fishy lives, their enmities and friendships and stratagems (διερούς τε γάμους διεράς τε γενέθλας | καὶ βίον ἰχθυόεντα καὶ ἔχθεα καὶ φιλότητας | καὶ βουλάς, .–). The anthropomorphic force of these opening lines is impressive. Fish are said to have not only enmities, friendships, and martial formations, but even marital relationships (γάμους), a term never applied to animals in the Homeric epics. Oppian’s language both builds on and exceeds the kind of Homeric practice discussed in the last chapter. We have already noted that in the Homeric epics the word εὐνή may be used of 



The consonance between human and animal is even reflected syntactically: the poet does not specify whether the βουλάς (‘stratagems’) of . belong to fish or to the fishermen introduced in that line, a quandary that has exercised many an editor. The un-Homeric quality of διερούς τε γάμους is mirrored by the un-Homeric usage of διερός to mean ‘wet’ rather than ‘nimble’; contrast e.g. Hes. Op.  with Hom. Od. . and .. Cf. Bartley : .



. Anthropomorphism



the den or lair of an animal as well as a human bed. In markedly Homeric sections of the Halieutica, Oppian likewise speaks of animal εὐναί in the sense of ‘lairs’. Yet in the remainder of the poem εὐνή refers primarily to the ‘marriage bed’ or ‘sexual partnership’ of fish, a meaning of the word that Homer restricts to the human or divine realm. Oppian repeatedly uses the words εὐνή, λέχος, and γάμος to refer to mating or sexual partnership amongst fish, language that marks the poet’s distance not only from Homer but also from zoological prose treatises. Aristotle, for instance, does not use γάμος or γαμέω in his naturalhistorical works, referring instead to ‘copulation’, for which he uses words like ὀχεία, συνδυασμός, σύνοδος, συνουσία, πλησιασμός and cognate verbs, as well as (for instance) μείγνυμι and συνέρχομαι. Aelian too favours μείγνυμι, ἀναβαίνω, ἐπιθόρνυμαι, ὁμιλέω and cognates when speaking of animal intercourse. Oppian never uses these terms of fish, but refers more than twenty times to γάμοι (‘marriages’ or ‘unions’) between fish, most prominently in the proems of several books (., ., .). Unlike words for the mechanical process of copulation or intercourse, the word γάμος refers not simply to a physical act, but also to a social phenomenon, and at times an emotional attachment as well. The term is generally used by ancient authors to refer to human relationships, unlike (for instance) ὀχεία, which is used primarily of animals. On those infrequent occasions on which γάμος is used of animals, it generally suggests a deliberate analogy between human and animal relationships. When Socrates lays out his thesis on eugenics in Republic , for instance, he uses the analogy of hunting dogs and pedigree birds to illustrate his proposed principles for human relationships, referring to ‘marriage and procreation’ (γάμος and παιδοποιία) in both spheres. Socrates here posits an analogy between human and animal erotic relationships that picks up  



 



εὐνή as den: ., , , , namely twice in the Homeric hunting and fowling scenes of the proem, and twice in the paradigms of animal love drawn from Homeric models. εὐνή as union or marriage bed: ., , , , , , ; ., , , , , . When the sargue foolishly drives its ‘brides’ into the fisherman’s weel, the poet ironically refers to this θάλαμος as an inescapable ‘bed of Hades’ (ἀνέκβατον ἄιδος εὐνήν, .). The absence of some terms must be a function of the anatomical peculiarities of fish, which do not usually ‘mount’ or ‘cover’ their mates, but verbs like ὀχεύω are used of sea-creatures by Aristotle, Athenaeus, and others, indicating that more pragmatic vocabulary was certainly available to Oppian. An exception is the use of ὁμιλέω to refer to animal intercourse at .. ὀχεία and ὀχεύω are usually used by ancient authors to denote animal as opposed to human intercourse; this is a tendency not contradicted but exemplified by the unusual use of the verb in Plato’s Republic to describe the irrational, impulse-driven humans who behave like animals, grazing and copulating and attacking one another ‘like cattle’ (Pl. Resp. .a–b). Pl. Resp. .a (animals), .d (humans); cf. also .e, .e, a.



Humans and Other Animals

on his discussion of the ‘bestial’ qualities of human beings elsewhere in the Republic and stresses the functional procreative role of sexual union. In using such language, Oppian advertises his treatment of fish as deliberately ‘human’ in character. Yet γάμος is used of a wide variety of sexual partnerships in this poem, ranging from relationships that look almost human to models of mating that seem alien indeed. This imposes a provocatively human framework on the comportment of fish at large, a kind of catachresis that suggests that all animal reproductive behaviour may be understood by analogy with human sexual practice, or perhaps vice versa. This in part reflects the wide range of human relationships also covered by the terms γάμος and γαμέω, which were used in Greek from the archaic period onwards to signify ‘marriage’ in a strict sense (the primary sense of the word), but also the taking of a consort without a legal ceremony, as well as sexual intercourse more widely, including prostitution. In the narrower sense of ‘sexual intercourse’, therefore, there is considerable potential for overlap between human and animal union, so that the extent of the gulf detected between human and animal γάμος must depend partly on whether that word is assumed to imply ‘marriage’ in a ritualised, legal sense, or simply ‘sexual congress’. This is a lexical flexibility that Oppian exploits throughout the poem. The sexual proclivities of fish are discussed in the second half of book , which details the mating habits of diverse sea-creatures, and in book , where fish are caught by exploiting their sexual desires. The poet introduces the topic of mating by discussing spring, the season in which the goad of ἀφροδίτη (desire or Aphrodite), γάμοι (unions or marriages), and mutual φιλότητες (intercourse or love) overcome the inhabitants of the earth and air and sea alike (.–). This language moves well away from the strictly biological in tone, and seeks to align not only terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial species, but also the experiences of human and nonhuman animals; each of these terms mediates between instinctive physical desire and a more socialised vision of erotic partnership. Labour pains are said to afflict both humans and animals, and the Fates ‘have not granted an easy birth even to fish, nor is it only females on earth who suffer, but the birth goddesses [Εἰλείθυιαι] are everywhere oppressive’. (.–) Fish as well as human beings come under the jurisdiction of Eros, Aphrodite, 



Thus e.g. the ‘marriages’ of Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Cassandra, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, amongst others. For illegitimate sex see e.g. Callim. Del. . The same is true of λέχος and εὐνή, both metonymic extensions of the ‘bed’ itself, whether marital or otherwise; see e.g. Hom. Il. .. Cf. the ‘hymn to Eros’ that opens book .

. Anthropomorphism



the Moirae, and Eileithyiae; we are again confronted with the recurrent idea that the realm of desire and reproduction marks the point at which human behaviour converges most conspicuously with that of other animals. The Halieutica encourages its readers to reflect on the connections between different realms of experience, and to consider not only the inadvisability but the impossibility of viewing animals, and fish in particular, in isolation from other forms of life. Human and non-human animals are continually shown to behave in fundamentally similar ways. It is indeed (tellingly) difficult to determine how far Greek terms that typically characterise the human sphere should be categorised – or, as often, criticised or dismissed – as ‘anthropomorphic’ or purely ‘metaphorical’ when they are applied to non-human species. This is a topic that has already surfaced in my discussion of ancient exegesis of the Homeric epics, but it also lies at the centre of debates about the role of anthropomorphism in contemporary critical theory and science. A crucial issue is that, just as metaphor and catachresis presuppose a prior distinction between different domains in order for a corresponding ‘transference’ temporarily to associate those realms, so the notion of a ‘projected’ or ‘illusory’ anthropomorphism presupposes a self-evident distinction between human and nonhuman animals. That distinction, however, has been assailed from a range of directions in recent decades. Anthropologists, environmental philosophers, and posthuman critical theorists, for instance, have aimed to decentre entrenched notions about the human subject by looking to insights derived from the study of indigenous peoples. Many theorists emphasise that the very conception of anthropomorphism as a fallacious attribution of uniquely human traits to non-human animals is predicated upon a clear distinction between these two domains – founded on principles of anthropocentrism, theologically orientated human exceptionalism, and nature–culture dualism – that should be recognised as the product of a specifically Western intellectual heritage. The findings of evolutionary anthropologists have in turn prompted widespread cultural redefinition of the human, and it is no coincidence that controversies about anthropomorphism are often at their most intense in primate studies, where the close phylogenetic links between human and non-human primates raise important questions about the most appropriate framework for characterising that relationship. 

See e.g. Asquith , ; Haraway , .



Humans and Other Animals

In the biological sciences, a long-dominant disciplinary rejection of anthropomorphic concepts and language has come under increased scrutiny in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century, behaviourists maintained that animal behaviour ought to be explained as far as possible without recourse to subjective mental states, and was to be analysed instead as observable stimulus-and-response mechanisms; the attribution of human mental characteristics to non-human animals was regarded as a fallacy to be avoided at all costs. On this reading, anthropomorphism represents a mistaken overestimation of mental complexity in non-human animals. The ethologist Frans de Waal well characterises this position as ‘cognitive parsimony’, a stance encapsulated by Morgan’s Canon, which states that ‘in no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower on the psychological scale’. The fear of overestimating the mental similarities between humans and nonhumans has come under pressure from more recent scientific paradigms, however, and has been variously characterised as ‘antianthropomorphism’ (Keeley) and ‘anthropodenial’ (de Waal), the latter defined as ‘a blindness to the human-like characteristics of animals, or the animal-like characteristics of ourselves’. Cognitive ethologists have sought instead to extend to non-human animals the kinds of models developed in the cognitive sciences to analyse human mental processes, and so to attribute to other animals in a scientifically robust manner the explanatory mental states normally associated with human beings. Scientists continue to debate how far it is advisable, or even possible, to avoid anthropomorphism when recording or analysing non-human animal behaviour, and conversely, whether it might even prove productive to use ‘human’ models to attribute intentionality or complex mental processes to non-humans. Together these arguments have triggered a widespread reassessment of both the discourse of anthropomorphism and the close relationship between human and nonhuman animals in the contemporary world. The issue of anthropomorphism lies at the heart of the Halieutica. We have seen that the poet’s attribution of ‘human’ models to fish is not simply a decorative or entertaining poeticism, but a powerful assertion of the fundamental connections between humans and other animals. This is   

De Waal : , with important caveats at – n. . Keeley : ; de Waal : ; cf. Fisher ; Sober . Exploring, for instance, the question of play amongst birds, or rape amongst insects; see Keeley : –, with further bibliography.

. Anthropomorphism



not to say that no distinction is drawn between different forms of life, but rather that Oppian prompts his readers to reflect actively on what separates or aligns them. Part II of this book has explored the poet’s association between the behaviour of fish and men in terms of guile, greed, and sexual desire, while Chapter  examined epic precedents for the poem’s analogical representation of the human–animal relationship; this chapter builds on those discussions by focusing on what might at first seem like a distinctively human social practice, namely marriage, and by seeking to determine the ways in which the poet probes the boundaries between human and non-human animals. Anthropomorphism is a useful term, and one with a long history, but as a critical category it only partly encapsulates the dynamics of the Halieutica. This is true in (at least) two senses: firstly in the strictly etymological sense that the recurrent parallelism identified by the poet between humans and fish is related less to appearance or anatomy (μορφή) than to the emotional, social, and cognitive qualities of these beings, so that anthropopathism might be deemed a more appropriate label; indeed, part of the delight of this poem is that it reveals the similarities between beings that initially look very different indeed. Secondly, and more widely, the poem addresses a version of the ongoing debates about anthropomorphism identified above, in that it questions whether (what we presume to be) ‘human-like’ behaviour is indeed distinctively, or even primarily, human. The poem thus issues a challenge to what it presents as the reader’s default (anthropocentric) assumption that, for instance, attachment to one’s sexual partner, native land, or offspring, pride in one’s domestic arrangements, distress at the betrayal of a social contract, or sustained, lifelong friendships and the willingness to help comrades in distress are exclusively human traits. The Halieutica can in this respect – although by no means in all respects – be read as a posthuman exploration of the marine world, for all its fixation with the human. As we shall see, moreover, the poem also questions the degree to which we can ever fully escape the need, or desire, to impose human cognitive structures on the world around us. Oppian effects these shifts in perspective, these challenges to the reader’s preconceptions, in part through his choice of vocabulary, as we saw in Chapter . The poet’s language is determinedly, provocatively catachrestic insofar as it attributes to fish motivations and social structures that force us to reconsider the complex capabilities of these creatures, and to contemplate the degree to which less ‘anthropomorphic’ vocabulary represents only a misleadingly restricted range of emotional states – a form, as it were, of cognitive parsimony. Analysing the supposedly human language of



Humans and Other Animals

‘marriage’ will allow us to trace some of these issues. In the Halieutica the word γάμος usually refers to the act of mating. Sometimes the term does not appear to imply any strong romantic commitment on the part of the fish: the γάμος of the octopus is said to be deadly (., ), for instance, while that of the fry is unknown, since they emanate mysteriously from the churning sea after heavy rain (.). When Oppian observes that dolphins prepare for their γάμος in the same way as humans and ‘have genitals identical to those of men’, it is clear from the subsequent description of the male’s penis that the claim refers only to the sexual act, for all that dolphins elsewhere display emotional responses very similar to those of human beings. Yet the poet also repeatedly aligns the affective worlds of humans and fish, offering both positive and negative erotic paradigms that range from loving ‘marriages’ and familial devotion to physical attraction, polygamy, jealousy, and rape. Our first glimpse of the mating habits of fish suggests that these are frenzied and instinctive, a process to be differentiated from both the anatomical arrangement and the conventional gender roles of human relationships. In the springtime, for instance, female fish gather in shoals to pursue the males, overcome by an ungovernable impulse to chase after and consume the milt that the males discharge as they rub their bellies against one another. It is ‘through this sort of union’ (τοίῳ δὲ γάμῳ, .), we hear, that the females are filled with seed. This is a practice that apparently bespeaks a substantial gap between human and non-human animals. Yet the poet goes on to observe that the sexual habits of other species of fish are indeed little different from those of humankind, and that these often seek out a more recognisably ‘conjugal’ union. Fish are represented as suitors, husbands, and wives equipped not only with marriage beds and bridal chambers, but with the emotional dispositions to match: πλεῖστος μὲν νόμος οὗτος ἐν ἰχθύσιν· οἱ δὲ καὶ εὐνὰς καὶ θαλάμους ἀλόχους τε διακριδὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσι ζευξάμενοι· πολλὴ γὰρ ἐν ἰχθύσιν ἔστ’ Ἀφροδίτη Οἶστρός τε Ζῆλός τε, βαρὺς θεός, ὅσσα τε τίκτει ð500Þ θερμὸς Ἔρως, ὅτε λάβρον ἐνὶ φρεσὶ κῶμον ὀρίνει. πολλοὶ δ’ ἀλλήλοισι διασταδὸν εἵνεκεν εὐνῆς μάρνανται, μνηστῆρσιν ἐοικότες, οἳ περὶ νύμφην πολλοὶ ἀγειρόμενοι καὶ ὁμοίιοι ἀντιφέρονται ὄλβῳ τ’ ἀγλαΐῃ τε· τὰ δ’ ἰχθύσιν οὐ παρέασιν, ð505Þ 

.–: δελφῖνες δ’ ἄνδρεσσιν ὁμῶς γάμον ἐντύνονται | μήδεά τ’ ἀνδρομέοισι πανείκελα καρτύνονται.

. Anthropomorphism



ἀλλ’ ἀλκὴ γένυές τε καὶ ἔνδοθι κάρχαρον ἕρκος. τοῖσιν ἀεθλεύουσι καὶ ἐς γάμον ὁπλίζονται, τοῖσιν ὅ κε προβάληται, ὁμοῦ γάμον εὕρατο νίκῃ. (.–)

This [sc. eating the milt discharged by the males] is the most widespread custom amongst fish. But others have their own distinct and separate beds and bridal chambers and wives as partners. For Aphrodite is powerful amongst fish, as is Desire, and Jealousy, a severe deity, and all the things that ardent Eros engenders when he provokes turbulent revelry in the mind. And many [fish] fight individually against one another over a bedfellow, like suitors of the same status who gather in large numbers around a bride and compete in wealth and splendour. Fish do not possess these qualities, but they have strength and jaws and a jagged row of teeth inside, and with these they compete and arm themselves for the γάμος, and the one who excels in these wins the γάμος along with the victory.

The parallels with human practice lie less in the mechanisms of copulation than in the fishes’ emotional response (possessiveness, passion, and jealousy) to the objects of their desire, in the exclusivity and implied longevity of the partnership, the turbulent disorder associated with the domain of Eros, and the fierce competition between would-be partners for the attentions of a female. The poet marks out the differences between these spheres – the fish do not compete in wealth but in physical prowess – but nevertheless articulates a powerful sense of the continuity between human and non-human animals. The references to γάμος in the final two lines of the passage are also important. While the reader may have read the earlier description of the union (γάμος, .) between milt-gobbling fish as a relatively impersonal mode of intercourse, the heavily anthropomorphic language of the intervening lines, and in particular the simile of suitors competing for a woman’s hand in marriage, now reinvests that γάμος with its full anthropomorphic force – it does indeed seem that fish engage in a kind of marriage as well as an act of intercourse. When at . we return to a γάμος that otherwise might be read simply as ‘mating’, the reader would now be hard pressed to regard it as a neutral term for ‘sexual intercourse’ devoid of any marital quality. The poet prompts us to reconsider the degree to which even the aggressive mating of fish must be understood against human erotic practice. Nor are the erotic practices of mankind idealised by comparison. Female turtles are said to loathe and fear their mating greatly (αἱ δὲ μέγα τρομέουσι καὶ ἐχθαίρουσι χελῶναι | ὃν γάμον, .–): the males have a bony and unyielding shaft that causes the females such pain that they try to avoid the jagged union (αἱ μὲν ἀλευόμεναι τρηχὺν γάμον, .). The



Humans and Other Animals

males lust after them all the same, and the pair fight (μάρνανται, .) and tear at one another viciously with their teeth, ‘until the male conquers the female by force and binds her in coercive intercourse like a captive, a prize of war’. The comparison to prisoners of war now shatters any illusions that the reader might have harboured that human beings are necessarily more civilised than animals, or that human partnerships are automatically to be distinguished from the acquisitive, aggressive, or brutally enforced mating practices of animals.

. Imperial Animals Oppian’s interest in animal union in turn speaks to a wider imperial Greek fascination with the erotic practices of animals, particularly as a testingground for the relationship between nature and culture, humans and nonhumans. So, for instance, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, a text roughly contemporary with the Halieutica, presents itself as a pastoral investigation into the relationship between nature, culture, education, and (particularly sexual) convention. The young protagonists are attuned to seasonal cycles and look continually to the natural world for guidance, but fail to master the art of sexual congress even with animal paradigms to imitate. Their naïve and ‘natural’ attempts to understand and demonstrate their burgeoning passion, moreover, are continually refracted through elite cultural and literary models, while even allegedly non-human phenomena like woodpigeons and reeds are shown to originate in the human domain. Longus’ emphasis on erotic pedagogy, as Froma Zeitlin has noted, ‘inscribes human sexuality in the social sphere’ and reveals the cultural rootedness of ‘natural’ processes; in watching the much-vaunted natural be taught, Longus’ readers confront the relationship between νόμος and φύσις, questioning whether ‘conventions [are] rooted in nature, or (quite the reverse) is “nature” in our perceptions of it sheerly convention?’

 



.–: εἰσόκεν ἀλκῇ | νικήσας ζεύξῃ μιν ἀναγκαίῃ φιλότητι, | ἠύτε ληιδίην, πολέμου γέρας. So too the protagonists’ herds of sheep and goats respond to human music (see e.g. Long. ., , ; ., , , ; .). The metamorphoses of Phatta and Syrinx are recounted as part of the sequence of inset myths detailing Pan’s erotic liaisons (Long. ., .). For Longus the countryside is both a space of innocence distanced from the corrupting city, and also a sphere of lawless predation and violence. Zeitlin : , . Cf. Winkler : ; Teske ; Whitmarsh : ; Morgan  ad loc.; Bowie : –.

. Imperial Animals



Like Longus, Oppian questions the very idea of the instinctive wild, showing that not even fish can be divorced from human models of sexuality, culture, and learning. If Eros is portrayed as the instigator of Longus’ narrative investigations into the degree to which sexuality has to be taught, then in the Halieutica he becomes a teacher even of fish: ‘you plunge down into the deepest nooks of the sea, and arm yourself with dreadful arrows even against sea-creatures, so that nothing may remain unschooled (ἀδίδακτος) in your compulsive power, not even the fish that swims underwater’ (.–). The notion that no creature is ἀδίδακτος is important: the poet may depict the ‘instinctive’ parental love or defence mechanism of fish as αὐτοδίδακτος (., .), but that is heavily freighted language in a didactic poem in which even the allegedly innate is framed in terms of pedagogy. Longus has his young herdsman Daphnis, on rejecting the overtures of the ‘natural’ pederast Gnathon, imply that humans should take their (sexual) cues from the behaviour of sheep and goats and other animals. As Longus’ novel suggests, the sexual habits of animals were discussed incessantly in the imperial period; one version of this debate centred on the alleged capacity of animals to represent an untouched nature that sheds light, by contrast, on human civilisation and/or degeneration, and that underpins their role as potential paradigms for human sexual mores. Natural virtue of this kind is repeatedly discussed in Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals (NA), a seventeen-book treatise composed only a few decades after the Halieutica, and with which it shares a substantial body of natural-historical material about fish. Both the common features and the differences between the two works’ views on animals are instructive. In the first place, despite his prominent coverage of sea-creatures, Aelian is far less interested than Oppian in exploring the sea as a real or conceptual space, and the miscellaneous character of the NA precludes any coherent vision of different species interacting within their ‘natural’  

 

 For Eros’ narrative ‘plotting’, see esp. Longus .. On which topos see Section .. Whereas Phemius’ claim to be αὐτοδίδακτος (Hom. Od. .) refers to the relationship between human expertise and divine inspiration, post-Homeric usage of the term tends towards an opposition between νόμος and φύσις; see Luschnat ; Assaël . Achilles Tatius’ Clinias uses it to describe what can(not) be taught in the domain of Eros: αὐτοδίδακτος γάρ ἐστιν ὁ θεὸς σοφιστής (Ach. Tat. ..), there drawing on Eur. fr. TrGF and associated traditions. Long. . (and cf. .); Goldhill : – discusses the novel in relation to imperial Greek arguments from nature. Aelian’s treatise on animals contains, on a relatively conservative reckoning, some ninety chapters that overlap with material in the Halieutica. The relationship between the two has been much debated, but it is evident that they consulted at least some of the same sources, and it seems highly likely that Aelian at times drew directly from Oppian. See esp. Keydell ; Benedetti .



Humans and Other Animals

habitats; the treatise never seeks to offer synoptic, comprehensive coverage of a particular environment or set of species, and, unlike the Halieutica, it frequently discusses the human use of animals in domestic, medical, and religious contexts. Yet a vital tenet of the NA is the conviction that animals offer important insights into a life lived ‘according to nature’, without recourse to arbitrary human laws or the degradation engendered by human culture. The gap between animals and humans is thus frequently characterised by Aelian as a contrast between nature and nurture: animals are said to have acquired their skills and virtues thanks to φύσις (nature or instinct) rather than τέχνη (skill, craft, learning), or to have been ‘taught’ certain traits by nature; men, on the other hand, are dependent on learned behaviour. For Aelian, moreover, humans are rational and animals irrational, a view that reflects a consensus articulated by a number of influential ancient philosophers, not least the Stoics. Like Oppian, Aelian opens by drawing attention to the parallelism between humans and animals. Yet Aelian’s treatise begins from the premise that there is an intellectual gulf or contrast between humans and animals (ἄνθρωπον μέν . . . τὸ δὲ καὶ τοῖς ἀλόγοις . . ., NA Praef. , ), despite their possession of similar virtues. While it is granted that animals are able to share in (μετεῖναι) certain kinds of excellence, these qualities are characterised as – if not distinctively, then at least in the first instance – human (ἀνθρώπινος). Human excellence, moreover, is attributed to the possession of both speech and the capacity for reason (λόγος, λογισμός), in implicit contrast with the deficiency of both in animals, which are labelled ἄλογα (dumb or irrational beasts). Aelian’s information, vocabulary, and world-view look to a range of sources, but are influenced in particular by Stoic arguments that deny reason to animals and privilege λόγος as the operative cosmic principle in which mankind, crucially, shares. Oppian, as we have seen, retains no

  



See e.g. Kindstrand : ; Zucker : –.  See esp. Ael. NA ..–, ..; ..–; ..–; .; .. See esp. Sorabji . Aelian at times attributes to animals a kind of forethought, communicative ability, or capacity to understand; he reiterates that animals are devoid of the λόγος and λογισμός possessed by mankind (Ael. NA .; .), but suggests that they possess, if not reason, then at least some variety of intelligence or understanding (σύνεσις, σοφία). At NA . Aelian comes close to attributing reason to animals, and to arguing that even Stoics had to admit that animals were not devoid of reasoning capacity (λογισμός), an admission extracted from the reluctant Cleanthes on observing ants ‘ransoming’ their dead. Aelian’s complex relationship to Stoicism is discussed by Hu¨bner a; Kindstrand ; García Valdés ; Smith : –.

. Imperial Animals



such conviction about the sharp distinction either between human and animal intelligence or between nature and culture. Aelian declares in his preface that animals’ lack of λόγος does not signify that they are devoid of all positive qualities; in fact they frequently operate as paradigms of love, courage, self-control, and other virtues. His epilogue reiterates the wisdom, shrewdness, justice, temperance, courage, affection, and piety of animals, claiming that even irrational beasts (ἄλογα ζῷα) possess εὐσέβεια (reverence or piety), unlike men, who are characterised by ἀσέβεια (Ael. NA Epil. –). While Aelian also discusses the negative characteristics exhibited by some species, a contrast between animal virtue and human depravity remains central to the NA: the natural world embodies a moral standard that humans frequently fail to attain. This is well exemplified by the so-called Etna fish, a species briefly mentioned by Oppian (.) and discussed at NA .. As both authors emphasise, this is a creature that mates for life, and for Aelian the contrast between the σώφρων fish and ἀκόλαστος human could not be more sharply drawn. Unlike men, we are told, this fish has no need of covenants or dowries as incentives for fidelity, nor need it be threatened with the fear of legal retribution or proscriptions of the kind laid down by Solon. In the NA animals offer a window onto natural virtue, an ideal to which men can only aspire through mimesis and punitive legislation. Aelian – like Oppian – insistently juxtaposes paradigms of human and animal sexual mores; yet unlike the poet he also draws firm boundaries between the two, often to the detriment of humanity. The Halieutica too holds that animals are capable of behaving virtuously, but in general avoids any explicit reference to a pure or untouched nature against which mankind’s degradation may be judged. This is not because humans are deemed inherently superior to animals, but precisely because the two are so alike: not only are humans and animals said until recently to have led remarkably similar lifestyles (.–), but they are shown to be prone to much the same emotional range, exhibiting hostility, lust, greed, and jealousy, but also affection, selflessness, and intelligence.   



Ael. NA epil. –: σοφίαν καὶ ἀγχίνοιαν καὶ δικαιοσύνην καὶ σωφροσύνην καὶ ἀνδρείαν καὶ στοργὴν καὶ εὐσέβειαν. See e.g. Ael. NA ., .–. Ael. NA ..–: καὶ οὐ δεῖται συμβολαίων ἐς πίστιν, οὐ προικός, οὐδὲ μὴν δέδοικε κακώσεως δίκην ὁ αἰτναῖος, οὐδὲ αἰδεῖται Σόλωνα; cf. NA ., ., and esp. ., where the ‘laws of nature’ are shown to be far superior to those introduced by even the most famous law-makers. φύσις is used only once in the poem (.), and refers not to ‘nature’ but to the nature of dolphin anatomy.



Humans and Other Animals

Linguistically, Aelian both evokes and steps back from the kind of thoroughgoing assimilation of human and animal erotic practice that we find in Oppian. He refers to the Etna fish’s marriage bed or λέχος as a metonym for sexual partnership, yet at the same time differentiates the two spheres, noting that ἐπὰν τῇ ἑαυτοῦ συννόμῳ οἱονεὶ γαμετῇ τινι συνδυασθεὶς κληρώσηται τὸ λέχος, ἄλλης οὐχ ἅπτεται (‘once [the Etna fish] has paired with its mate, as if with a wife, and possesses a marriage bed, it does not touch another female’, Ael. NA .). The female fish is here not actually a wife, but is treated by the male οἱονεί (‘as if’) she were one; she is instead described as a ‘female’ and a σύννομος, literally one who ‘feeds together with’ the male, a term that is used in Greek primarily of animals rather than human beings. Even their mating is described as a ‘copulation’ or ‘pairing’ (συνδυασθείς) rather than any more anthropomorphic variety of intercourse. This tendency is even more pronounced in the case of the merle-wrasse, a fish known for its ‘polygamy’, insofar as one male takes multiple female partners. Oppian’s account is one of the most insistently anthropomorphic sections of the poem: we hear of the wrasse’s ‘bed’, ‘bedchamber’, and ‘marriage’ (εὐνή, λέκτρον, θάλαμος, γάμος); the female is described as a δάμαρ, ἄλοχος, γυνή, and νύμφη (wife); the male is a πόσις, νυμφίος, and ἀκοίτης (husband). The females are ‘like newly married brides’ (ἀλίγκιαι ἀρτιγάμοισι | νύμφαις, Hal. .–), the male is compared to a mother anxiously awaiting her daughter’s first child, and the species as a whole is compared to polygamous human tribes in Bactria and Assyria. The triumphant fisherman ends by mocking the captured fish for its ‘marriage’ in language that is just as heavily anthropomorphic as that used by the poet, if crueller in tone. Aelian also alludes to the quasi-human qualities of the merle-wrasse’s erotic partnerships, yet seems to balk at describing the fish in such strongly anthropomorphic terms. Instead he aligns the fish with human behaviour only by means of simile or analogy: the male ‘gives over its nooks, as if they were women’s chambers, to its brides’ (τῶν ὀπῶν οἱονεὶ θαλάμων νύμφαις ἀφίστανται), acts ‘perhaps in the manner of a husband’ (οἷα δήπου γαμέτης), and ‘seems’ (ἔοικε), but is not definitively said, to be motivated in its actions by love. Aelian declares that he ‘might say’ (φαίην ἄν) that the fish’s behaviour was like that of effeminate barbarians (Ael. NA .), and qualifies his comparison of the polygamous fish to eastern tribes – a parallel  

Aelian may suggest that the fish becomes a σύννομος in both senses of that word, both a quasi-legal wife (νόμος as law) and an animal that feeds alongside its partner (νομός as food or grazing ground). Ael. NA .–; Hal. .–.

. Imperial Animals



drawn also by Oppian – by claiming that he has, so to speak, made a serious point in a playful manner, (ὡς ἂν εἴποις σὺν παιδιᾷ σπουδάσας). Nor does he extend the analogy into a thoroughgoing assimilation of human and animal polygamy, jealousy, and aggression of the kind prominent in Hal. .–. The expressions φαίην ἄν and ὡς ἂν εἴποις simultaneously align humans and animals and yet insist on the distance between them. This is a repeated motif in Aelian’s treatise: a dolphin eaten by predatory gnawing fish ‘offers dinner, so to speak, to its uninvited guests’ (δαιτυμόνας, ὡς ἂν εἴποις, ἀκλήτους ἑστιάσας, Ael. NA .); chirruping cicadas are, one might say, hardworking chorus members (φιλόπονοί τινες ὡς ἂν εἴποις χορευταί, NA .); a prawn ‘dances in triumph, to so speak’ (ὡς ἂν εἴποις καταχορεύουσα, NA .). In each case Aelian draws a parallel between humans and animals, but draws attention to the trope by emphasising its purely fictive status, likening the two realms but also reasserting the distinction that more metaphorical or anthropomorphic language seeks to elide. Oppian’s use of the φαίης κε(ν) motif, on the other hand, is reserved primarily for assumptions that are wholly inaccurate: that pilotfish are attached to a ship by chains, for instance, or that a fish actually speaks. As we have seen on numerous occasions, the poet is perfectly willing elsewhere to represent fish using vocabulary drawn from ‘human’ fields such as dancing, banqueting, war, or marriage without explicitly marking the fictive status of that imagery. We witness, then, a fascination in both texts with apparently anthropomorphic animal behaviour, yet also a more radical convergence between human and non-human in the Halieutica than in the NA. When Aelian does follow Oppian in venturing into more strongly anthropomorphic territory, referring to female merle-wrasse as the νύμφαι (‘brides’) of the male, for instance, he immediately comments on the troublingly human quality of such discourse: εἰ δὲ λαμυρώτερον ταῦτα τῇ καταχρήσει τῶν ὀνομάτων εἴρηται, δίδωσιν ἡμῖν τὰ ἐκ τῆς φύσεως πραττόμενα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων ἐξουσίαν (‘but even if these things are said too flagrantly, by means of transference [κατάχρησις], the fact that these actions are rooted





Expressions like ὡς ἂν εἴποις or ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις are used over forty times in the treatise, usually of anthropomorphic animal behaviour; at Ael. NA ., ., ., ., . φαίη τις ἄν, φαίης ἄν, or φαίην ἄν indicate a strongly anthropomorphic interpretation of animal behaviour: fish as lovers, horses and their riders glorying in their finery, animals rejoicing with song; fish moving in military formation, etc. See Section ., ‘Talking Animals’.



Humans and Other Animals

in nature gives me licence to indulge in this kind [of language]’, Ael. NA .). Whether or not one accepts Kayser’s emendation καταχρήσει for the transmitted κράσει, Aelian evidently advertises his anxiety about the application to fish of terms drawn primarily from human relationships. His view of the gap between the two domains dictates that this kind of language must be seen as playful or tongue-in-cheek, deliberately jarring or catachrestic rather than neutral, self-evident, or accurate. Elsewhere Aelian tends to avoid what might be thought excessively anthropomorphic language, referring to animals as νύμφαι only in similes or comparisons, whether comparing them explicitly to human relationships or saying that they behave, or are in some way perceived by their mate, ‘like’ a bride (ὡς or ὥσπερ). For Aelian, marital terminology belongs firmly to the human domain, and the NA strives to reassert the gulf between humans and animals even as it aligns these realms by means of simile or analogy. The Halieutica, on the other hand, blurs any neat distinction between the practices or capabilities of humans and animals, unapologetically rendering fish in quasi-human terms. Oppian, for instance, uses Aelian’s favoured term σύννομος only once in the poem, in a list of near-synonyms – including δάμαρ and ἄλοχος – for the merle-wrasse’s female partner (.), and instead tends to refer to a fish’s female partner using the more poetic, anthropomorphic ἄλοχος (a term never used by Aelian), especially when that fish acts solicitously towards its mate or competes for a female’s partnership. The poet’s description of a fish as a νύμφη or ἄλοχος is a claim that this behaviour bespeaks a level of emotional investment and formalised commitment to the relationship that we would (rightly or wrongly) associate







I adopt Kayser’s conjecture καταχρήσει (also printed by Hercher  and Scholfield ; cf. Wilson : , who deems καταχρήσει here ‘essential’); κράσει is the transmitted reading, favoured by García Valdés, Llera Fueyo, and Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén , and defended by Giangrande :  (contra Wilson) ‘because it denotes the mixture of words pertaining to seriousness and jocular licentiousness which Aelian is employing in the passage’. It is not immediately clear to me, however, that the reference to the fish’s mates as νύμφαι is as pointedly ‘jocular’ as (e.g.) the comparison between fish and Persians. On either reading, however, Aelian must be referring to the acceptability or otherwise of anthropomorphic discourse. Animals behave ‘as if like’ a νύμφη or νυμφίος at Ael. NA ., ; .; ., ; .; .; .. The only other exception is the courtship between the viper and moray eel (NA ., .; cf. .), where the anthropomorphic language may reflect other accounts of this popular tale (discussed further below). ἄλοχος: ., , , , , , , ; cf. ., . Oppian uses πόσις when stressing the male’s role as the female’s protector (., ), and ἀκοίτης when discussing the male’s close or fiercely contended relationship with its partners (., , ); none of these terms is used by Aelian.

. Imperial Animals



typically with human beings. For Oppian, this terminology allows the reader to make sense of the animal’s behaviour, and is applicable in this context because of the fish’s considerate, protective behaviour in ushering its partner carefully towards (what it assumes to be) safety. He thus routinely applies human language – including the language of marriage – directly to fish, without resorting to the distancing mechanisms of simile or analogy. This distinction is illustrated by the two authors’ closely related treatments of the erotic impulses of the grey mullet (κέφαλος). Oppian, as we saw in Chapter  (pp. –), represents male mullets madly in love with a well-formed female, ‘enchanted’ by her appearance and compelled to follow her around, overcome by her beauty (κάλλεϊ δ’ ἐκπάγλως βεβιημένοι, .). The fish are compared in an extended simile to lovestruck youths trailing after a gorgeous woman, and both fish and youths are ‘enchanted’ (.–, ) by the beauty of the female. No distinction is drawn between the processes of desire in humans and in fish, and the latter is not denigrated as a raw sexual instinct of the kind possessed by animals rather than humans; instead we witness the operation of ‘Aphrodite’ and ‘Eros’ (., , ) across both spheres. Aelian too briefly likens the fish to love-struck youths (Ael. NA .), but he shies away from the language of enchanting beauty prominent in the Oppianic vignette. His are fish driven primarily by the urge for sexual intercourse (κατὰ μίξιν οἰστρούμενοι, NA .), and, in what might be read as a tacit correction of the account given in the Halieutica, Aelian is keen to stress the essential difference between this raw animal instinct and a more aestheticised human desire: ‘when one of [the mullets] is madly in love, it will not leave [the female], enslaved not by her beauty, by Zeus, but by desire for intercourse’. Some of the divergence between the two authors’ viewpoints may be attributed to Aelian’s commitment, at least in part, to a Stoic model in which animals are contrasted with humankind both in their lack of rationality and in their proximity to nature; it must also reflect a     

For all that νύμφη was also a zoological term, both for a marine crustacean recorded by Speusippus (Athen. .b), and for bees and wasps in the pupal stage (Arist. HA b, a–). Fish are described as a νύμφη or νυμφίος (outside similes) at Hal. .; ., , , . Aelian specifies that not all mullets behave like this, and that he is referring to the kind named after their sharp snouts (Ael. NA .). Oppian, on the other hand, refers explicitly to grey mullets. Although he does, like Oppian, stress that the female must be fully fleshed and attractive, so that the males will be enticed by her appearance. Ael. NA .: ὅστις δὲ αὐτῶν ἐστι δύσερως, οὐκ ἀπαλλάττεται, οὐ τῇ ὥρᾳ, μὰ Δία, ἀλλὰ τῷ τῆς μίξεως πόθῳ δεδουλωμένος.



Humans and Other Animals

broader distinction between the conventions of poetry and prose, insofar as poetry tends to blur semantic realms and to use tropes and figurative language much more readily than does prose. Yet neither philosophical nor generic affiliation will fully explain this contrast: each author chooses to write in a particular genre and to convey a particular ethical outlook, as Aelian himself emphasises in the epilogue to the NA, and neither text is elsewhere slavishly adherent to generic norms. Aelian’s anxiety about ‘overly’ anthropomorphic discourse is thus important both for the attention that it devotes to the close relationship between human and nonhuman animals and for the contrast it offers to the radical blurring of roles that typifies Oppian’s didactic poetry. Equally telling are the uses to which paradigms of animal ‘marriage’ are put in imperial Greek texts. Plutarch’s On Affection for Offspring opens by addressing the philosophical predilection for citing animal behaviour as an allegedly neutral witness to the natural, particularly in the sexual sphere. Plutarch explicitly compares human and animal relationships, exhorting us to ‘witness how much conformity to nature exists in animals when it comes to their unions (γάμους)’, and advancing the now-familiar argument that animals offer a window onto the purity of nature and adhere instinctively to the kinds of committed and temperate sexual relations that need to be enforced by law amongst human beings. The term γάμος discloses the sharply anthropocentric perspective from which the argument is advanced: this is a view of animal behaviour whose primary reference point is humankind. Similar appeals to the natural are made not only by Longus’ Daphnis, but in the ps.-Lucianic Amores, where paradigms of heterosexual coupling amongst animals are exploited rhetorically by one speaker to argue for the ‘unnatural’ status of same-sex relations, and by the other to refute this position on the grounds that culture is superior to nature, and reflective human choice to base animal urges. Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Cleitophon presses yet further the connections between human and non-human sexual practices. The παράδεισος or enclosed garden owned by the protagonist’s father Hippias functions as both a celebration of the fecundity of nature and a model for the intersection of natural and cultural forces. In this heavily sexualised    

Plut. De am. prol. b–c. Plut. De am. prol. e: ὅρα περὶ τοὺς γάμους ὅσον ἐστὶν ἐν τοῖς ζῴοις τὸ κατὰ φύσιν. Ps.-Luc. Am. , ; cf. Strat. AP .. Ach. Tat. .–; cf. Long. .–, .– (esp. ..). On the gardens of Philetas and Dionysophanes in Longus, see Zeitlin ; for Achilles see Mignogna ; Hindermann . Leucippe is repeatedly associated with the beauty of the natural world, and the garden builds on the

. Imperial Animals



environment, wild and domesticated birds mingle in a demarcated space in which nature is cultivated and tamed, plants intertwine in intimate embraces, and a peacock attracts its mate with elaborate courtship rituals – natural processes that both mirror and facilitate the progress of the human seduction playing out in the same space (Ach. Tat. .–). The spectacle of the strutting peacock prompts Cleitophon to discourse on the forces of erotic attraction in the natural world, presenting the marvellous ‘desire’ between the magnet and iron, date palms, the river Alpheus and spring Arethusa, and the viper and moray eel. As critics have observed, each is presented as a paradigm of heterosexual coupling between a lover and his beloved (ἐραστής, ἐρωμένη), or a bridegroom and his bride (νύμφιος, νύμφη), while the last three unions are all described as a ‘marriage’ (γάμος). As in the Halieutica, the prevalence of marital vocabulary is arresting, and aligns human behaviour and anatomy with that of animals and plants: the date palm, for instance, seems to possess both a heart and a soul (καρδία, ψυχή, Ach. Tat. ..), pines for its beloved, and is only revived by physical intimacy. The tale of the viper and moray was especially popular in the imperial period. The exemplum is discussed not only by Achilles Tatius and Oppian, who refers explicitly to the tale’s familiarity (.), but by Aelian, Athenaeus, ps.‑Oppian, and Nonnus, amongst others, always in a manner that suggests that this must have been a well-known paradigm of animal ‘love’. Achilles, moreover, offers us a tantalising glimpse of the rhetorical use to which such animal tales must have been put, for Cleitophon recounts these paradigms as part of his strategy to seduce Leucippe, who responds eagerly to these ‘erotic’ stories. Achilles may have drawn these examples from an epithalamium or marriage-speech, and Menander Rhetor specifically recommends that the ideal epithalamium include





 

aestheticised depiction of nature, landscape, and sexuality in the ecphrasis of Europa with which the novel begins. The grafting of date-palms is a ‘marriage of plants’ (γάμος φυτῶν, Ach. Tat. ..); the mingling of Alpheus and Arethusa a ‘transmarine marriage of waters’ (γάμος . . . ὑδάτων διαπόντιος, Ach. Tat. ..); the viper and moray ‘desire to unite in marriage with one another’ (εἰς τὸν γάμον ἐθέλωσιν ἀλλήλοις συνελθεῖν, Ach. Tat. ..). See e.g. Morales : ; Miguélez Cavero . Hal. .–; cf. Matro frr. – Olson-Sens; Arist. HA b; Nic. Ther. –, Plin. NH ., .; Sostr. ap. Athen. .e; Ael. NA ., ., .; ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–; Nonn. Dion. .–. The brevity of the references in ps.‑Oppian and Nonnus expect prior familiarity with the tale. Aelian’s version of the tale is more anthropomorphic than is his wont, perhaps indicating the influence of this particular tradition. Ach. Tat. .., ... Laplace : –; on the use of animal paradigms in rhetorical speeches see Borgognoni .



Humans and Other Animals

narratives about desire and marriage (γάμος) amongst fish and other animals; Filippomaria Pontani has even argued that Menander looks specifically to the Halieutica with this injunction. Oppian may have expected his readers to read the poem with just such strategies in mind, if not for effecting their own amorous seductions, then at least for thinking seriously about the interplay between human and animal sexual mores. The concept of an animal γάμος also reflects a wider contemporary fascination with the (far from isomorphic) relationship between sex and marriage, physical desire and social legitimation of the sexual act. The term γάμος, as we have seen, encompasses both sexual intercourse and a more formalised, exclusive, and socially sanctioned relationship; this creates, in effect, a lexical grey area in which authors are able to reflect on the conformity or tension between the (supposedly) natural and cultural, private and public. Oppian thus uses marital terminology to depict both the act of sexual congress and a more committed, quasi-marital relationship amongst animals. So too the Greek novels explore, in different ways, the relationship and conflict between marriage and chastity, fidelity, attraction, and sexual violence. Musaeus’ Hero and Leander, a later epyllion much influenced by novelistic conventions, in turn explores a passionate but forbidden relationship figured as a ‘marriage that was no marriage’. The relationship between Hero and Leander is a ‘nocturnal marriage’ never seen by the light of day, since a legitimate wedding is impossible without parental consent. The lovers pledge to unite in secret marriage, but theirs is a paradoxical union devoid of legitimising social rites: ἦν γάμος, ἀλλ’ ἀχόρευτος· ἔην λέχος, ἀλλ’ ἄτερ ὕμνων (‘it was a marriage, but without a dance; it was a marriage bed, but without songs’, Mus. ). In Achilles’ novel γάμος usually refers to an exclusive and binding agreement between two parties. Yet Cleitophon’s unconsummated ‘marriage’ to Melite in book  submits that term to serious lexical interrogation: at one level the couple is indeed married, but theirs is a wedding in name alone, for the sexual act itself has been deferred. Melite therefore regards theirs as a ‘hollow marriage’ (κενογάμιον, Ach. Tat. ..), and    

Pontani ; Men. Rhet. ..–.. See esp. Mus. , , , –, ,  for further permutations of this theme. Thus e.g. Ach. Tat. .. Both Oppian and Achilles also explore the association between marriage and death, a ‘marriage to Hades’ (see e.g. Ach. Tat. .; ., ; .; cf. esp. Hal. .–, ). Ach. Tat. .: καὶ ὄνομα μὲν ἦν τῷ δείπνῳ γάμοι, τὸ δὲ ἔργον συνέκειτο ταμιεύεσθαι. In the dialogue between Satyrus and Cleitophon, the whole city is said to know of the marriage (ὅλη γὰρ ἡ πόλις οὐκ οἶδε τὸν γάμον;), yet Cleitophon maintains that, despite this, he has not actually ‘married’ her (ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔγημα, Ach. Tat. .), since they may have slept together, but they have not had sex.

. Blurring Boundaries



after the ceremony repeatedly presses the reluctant Cleitophon for the γάμος that is her due. Central to these dynamics is the slippage between γάμος as sexual act and γάμος as formalised legal partnership, a topic invested with a new urgency in the novel following the reappearance not only of Leucippe but also of Melite’s husband, who indicts Cleitophon for adultery. The recurrent fixation with marriage that can be traced in authors such as Oppian and Achilles suggests that this is an era in which changing gender roles and attitudes towards nature, culture, and sexuality place the rhetoric of ‘marriage’ under increasing pressure.

. Blurring Boundaries Imperial Greek interest in the close relationship between humans and animals is at its most provocative in the pervasive contemporary fascination with unusual encounters that represent a radical dissolution of the human– animal boundary. Chief amongst these are metamorphosis, animal speech, and erotic relations between humans and animals. Oppian explores the interplay of all three in his representation of the dolphin, the species that embodies the zone of closest contact between humans and fish. Dolphins operate as the ultimate boundary-crossers in this poem: they come as close to human morals, behaviour, and intelligence as an animal can get, and it is therefore taboo to hunt them, for the gods take the slaughter of dolphins as seriously as the slaughter of human beings. In the first book dolphins are said to be in origin metamorphosed humans: οἱ δ’ ἤτοι πάντες μέν, ὅσοι ναίουσι θάλασσαν ζωοτόκοι, φιλέουσι καὶ ἀμφιέπουσι γενέθλην, δελφίνων δ’ οὔπω τι θεώτερον ἄλλο τέτυκται· ὡς ἐτεὸν καὶ φῶτες ἔσαν πάρος ἠδὲ πόληας ναῖον ὁμοῦ μερόπεσσι, Διωνύσοιο δὲ βουλῇ πόντον ὑπημείψαντο καὶ ἰχθύας ἀμφεβάλοντο 

 

Melite repeatedly begs Cleitophon to sleep with her: περιβαλοῦσα οὖν με κατεφίλει καὶ ἀπῄτει τὸν γάμον (‘she embraced me and kissed me and demanded the [consummation of the?] marriage’, Ach. Tat. .). Crucial here is the question of whether Melite’s demand for the γάμος is simply a euphemism for sexual intercourse at large (i.e. whether any sexual act could be called a γάμος, much like the γάμος or mating of an octopus), or whether their partnership will only take on the (permanent) status of a γάμος once it has been consummated, that initial act of sexual congress representing – once and once only – the final step in the couple’s public pledge of unity. For the legal status of which see Schwartz –: . .–. I take the concept of ‘boundary-crossing’ from Mary Douglas’ work on taboo: see e.g. Douglas .



Humans and Other Animals γυίοις. ἀλλ’ ἄρα θυμὸς ἐναίσιμος εἰσέτι φωτῶν ῥύεται ἀνδρομέην ἠμὲν φρόνιν ἠδὲ καὶ ἔργα. (.–)

While all the viviparous creatures that live in the sea love and take care of their offspring, there is no other creature more divine than the dolphin. Indeed they were formerly human and used to live together with men in cities, but thanks to Dionysus’ schemes they moved to the sea and took on the bodies of fish. But their righteous human heart still retains human wisdom and deeds.

The account is familiar from the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus and other texts, but Oppian now uses it to explain these creatures’ behaviour at large. This, we understand, is why dolphins are the ‘lords’ of the sea. The emotional affinity between dolphins and men is reflected in what we would regard as dolphins’ mammalian status, namely their viviparous breeding practices, reproductive anatomy, and devotion to their offspring. Dolphins, for instance, are said to have breasts and milk ‘like those of women’ (.–), to mate ‘like humans’, and to have human-like penises (.–); anatomical similarity is presented as an external manifestation of a more fundamental moral and mental kinship. Dolphins display exemplary compassion and kindness, impressive love of their offspring, and pronounced friendliness to both humans and gods; their ὁμοφροσύνη with mankind is key to their privileged position within the Halieutica. The relationship between humans and dolphins thus evokes the tantalising potential for overriding species boundaries, and towards the end of the Halieutica we are presented with both positive and negative versions of that relationship. We hear firstly about the friendship, love, and cooperation between humans and dolphins. Examples include dolphins that help fishermen with their catch; the rescue of Arion; the love between a dolphin and a pipe-playing Libyan boy; and the close relationship between a dolphin and a youth on an Aeolian island (.–); these positive examples are followed by the wicked and irreligious slaughter of a family of dolphins by Thracians and Byzantines (.–), a scene in which the horrified dolphin, pursued by its former ‘allies’, is imagined breaking into a speech of outrage. We shall examine these episodes more closely in a moment, but it is worth first contextualising these concerns. 

Service to Poseidon: .–; love for offspring: .–, –; ὁμοφροσύνη with humans: e.g. .–; .–; .–. The kinship between humans and dolphins was a theme much discussed in the ancient world: see e.g. Plin. NH .–; Hdt. .–; Plut. Conv. sept. sap. e– f; De sollert. anim. b–f; Ael. NA ., .; Arist. HA .a–; Paus. ... See also Kolde : –; Stevens ; Mastrorosa .

. Blurring Boundaries



A similar interest in metamorphosis, interspecies encounters, and animal communication is explored in a number of contemporary texts, including Plutarch’s Gryllus and the pseudo-Lucianic Onos, as well as Aelian’s treatise on animals. In Plutarch’s dialogue, Gryllus or ‘Grunter’, a human metamorphosed into a pig by Circe, enters into a lengthy argument with Odysseus, begging (to Odysseus’ surprise) not to be returned to his original form, and claiming that the life of a pig is superior in every respect to that of humankind. Animals are once more said to possess natural virtue, in that they are not enticed by artifice, luxury, or ‘unnatural’ acts like same-sex relationships and interspecies lust. Yet this familiar argument is now playfully undercut by the fact that it is advanced by a talking, formerly human pig who employs overtly sophistic arguments in order to proclaim the superiority of nature over culture. The speech thus offers a cultured human perspective even as it purports to represent the purely natural cognitive functions of animals. Here too the issue of animal marriage is raised. Gryllus describes humans lusting after goats, pigs, horses, and other animals; it is from these sorts of unions (ἐκ γὰρ τῶν τοιούτων γάμων), he claims, that hybrid beasts like minotaurs, aegipans, sphinxes, and centaurs have sprung up. The idea of an animal γάμος takes on a heavily ironic quality, for this is not a union of animals, but a union with animals, a transgressive coupling far removed from the ‘natural’ animal γάμος that Gryllus had evoked in his earlier claim that sows do not use unguents and perfumes to entice their mates, but are instead attracted into these unions (γάμους) by shared affection. Unlike animals, humans impose their lawless, violent, and intemperate desires on others for the sake of their pleasure alone. No mention is made here of the role of the gods or of theriomorphic divinities in creating hybrid beasts; instead, the composite creatures that populate Greek myth (and, in effect, map out the human–animal boundary) are ironically represented as symbols of humans’ libidinous inability to recognise the very boundaries that they are so keen to erect by denying reason to beasts.



 

Gryllus’ sophistry is advertised at Plut. Brut. anim. f, b. On humans and animals in the dialogue see Newmyer : ; Li Causi –: ; Konstan –. On Plutarch’s attitude towards animals more widely see Newmyer .  Plut. Brut. anim. a. Plut. Brut. anim. c. E.g. the tradition that Poseidon had caused Pasiphaë to lust after the bull; that Aega was a goat, or was associated with goats; that the sphinx was born of hybrid theriomorphic deities such as Echidna, Chimaera, Orthrus, or Typhon; that centaurs were created from Ixion’s desire not for a horse but for Hera.



Humans and Other Animals

The pseudo-Lucianic Onos, which portrays the narrator Lucius’ transformation into an ass and back, offers an even more sustained exploration of the points of contact between human and non-human animals. ‘Contact’ is perhaps too weak a term, for models of hybridity proliferate in this novel: the primary driver is Lucius’ metamorphosis, itself motivated by his desire to explore the mechanics of the hybrid human–animal form, but we witness numerous variations on this kind of hybridity, as when bandits threaten to sew a live human inside the corpse of an ass (creepily literalising the concept of a human trapped inside a donkey’s body); sexual intercourse between humans and animals is also evoked in both word and deed. Characters exhibit a recurrent interest in testing the line that separates humans and animals, yet this interest is shown to shade all too easily into the manipulation and mistreatment of both animals and less fortunate humans. By the end of the novel, the ass – narrator – is forced to entertain large crowds who gather to witness (a phenomenon that they believe to be) a donkey acting just like a human: wrestling, dancing, reclining on a couch, drinking wine, eating human delicacies, and responding to human speech. As in the Gryllus, humans frequently behave poorly in this novel, lying, stealing, perpetrating acts of violence, and engaging in sexually deviant activity, as well as forcing animals to commit ‘unnatural’ acts for their own gain. The boundaries between humans and animals are elided not only by the metamorphosis itself but by the quasi-bestial behaviour of human beings; indeed, as we shall see of the Halieutica, the two themes are often provocatively juxtaposed. The Onos both toys with and rejects the prospect of a γάμος between humans and animals, yet the sarcastic employment of the term by deviant human beings serves to underscore the very bestiality that it purports to undercut. Once Lucius has been metamorphosed and put to work, an unpleasant slave-boy sells off his master’s wood and pretends that the donkey has shaken off its load, claiming that the animal constantly runs 





See esp. ps.-Luc. Onos : ἠβουλόμην γὰρ πείρᾳ μαθεῖν εἰ μεταμορφωθεὶς ἐκ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ὄρνις ἔσομαι (‘for I wanted to learn by experience whether, when I was metamorphosed from human form, I would be a bird in my soul as well’); bandits: Onos ; sexual intercourse is discussed below, and further compared by the narrator to Pasiphaë’s union with the bull (Onos ; cf. Plut. Brut. anim. a); for hybrid offspring cf. Philebus’ prospective brood of ‘foals’ (Onos ). As pack animals exploited for labour, donkeys frequently stand in for slaves, foreigners, and other subordinated human beings in ancient texts; see esp. Bradley ; Hall . Humans too are bestialised throughout the novel: at the start of the narrative the slave-girl Palaestra jokes, or perhaps threatens, that she will dismember and cook the lustful narrator (at this stage still fully human) as if he were an animal (ps.-Luc. Onos ). Ps.-Luc. Onos –.

. Blurring Boundaries



after attractive humans, ‘like some human man in love who makes a move on his female beloved, and bites them in a semblance of a kiss and forces them into intercourse’. The donkey, it is claimed, ‘knocked one woman onto the road and wanted to couple with her (γαμεῖν ἐβούλετο), until people came running up from all sides to protect the woman from being torn apart by this handsome lover’. The use of the verb γαμέω, like the comparison of the donkey to a καλὸς ἐραστής, is mockingly anthropomorphic, suggesting that this beast has misinterpreted its place in the natural order, foolishly thinking itself human when this γάμος would put the woman’s very life at risk. The encounter represents a distorted form of the quasi-human models used by Oppian, Aelian, and Achilles Tatius, but the donkey’s quasi-human behaviour is now painted as not only risible but transgressive and horrifying; the implication that the donkey mistakenly thinks itself human is echoed when the master responds by referring to the creature’s ‘human desires’ (ἔρωτας ἀνθρωπίνους, ps.-Luc. Onos ). Yet the apparent gulf between the libidinous donkey and its innocent human victim is also exposed as a manipulative fiction. Not only is Lucius not a ‘true’ donkey, but the slave-boy has invented the story, preying upon his audiences’ fears about hyperbolic bestial sexuality. It is the human, not the animal, who is repeatedly described as foul or impure (ἀκάθαρτος, ps.Luc. Onos , , ), and whose corrupt desires play out in this tale. This is a recurrent pattern in the novel: when the slave-boy’s household falls into disarray, Lucius is sold off to the elderly cinaedus Philebus, who refers to the donkey as a ‘handsome slave’ (Onos ). His fellow cinaedi delightedly think that he has purchased a human slave; on realising that this ‘slave’ is actually an ass, they mock Philebus using marital terminology. The vision of the ass as a νυμφίος and the union as a γάμος reflects less on the purportedly irrepressible lusts of animals than on the deviant sexual practices undertaken by morally corrupt human beings. Towards the end of the novel, moreover, we witness just such an erotic encounter between a woman and a donkey. Far from showcasing the beast’s    

Ps.-Luc. Onos : ὡς εἴ τις ἐρᾷ ἄνθρωπος ἄρρην ἐπὶ ἐρωμένῃ γυναικὶ κινούμενος, καὶ δάκνει ἐν φιλήματος σχήματι καὶ πλησιάζειν βιάζεται. Ps.-Luc, Onos : τὴν δὲ γυναῖκα ἐς τὴν ὁδὸν ἀνατρέψας γαμεῖν ἐβούλετο, ἕως ἄλλος ἄλλοθεν ἐκδραμόντες ἤμυναν τῇ γυναικὶ ἐς τὸ μὴ διασπασθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ καλοῦ τούτου ἐραστοῦ. Ps.-Luc. Onos , where both the pun on ὄναιο/ὄνος and the emphasis on the foals reinforce the flagrantly, absurdly transgressive qualities of the union. Lucius is horrified by the encounter and reveals the priests’ licentious perversions (ἀσέλγεια, ps.Luc. Onos ).



Humans and Other Animals

inappropriate lust, however, the encounter is initiated and enforced not by the latter but the former, in an even more salacious version of the slaveboy’s erotic fabrications. While Lucius is terrified that this woman will be unable to accommodate him and will be ‘torn apart’ by the sexual act (a fear that now replays the slave-boy’s speech from the donkey’s perspective), it is she who refuses to let him withdraw once he has entered her, and who is ‘never sated with the pleasure of intercourse’. What is more, although it had been the donkey’s quasi-human behaviour that had aroused her interest in the first place (Onos ), it is the bestial form that she turns out to desire, for when Lucius finally visits her after reassuming his human identity, expecting that she will think him even more handsome (καλλίων, Onos ; cf. ), the disgruntled would-be ass-lover cuts him off entirely, claiming that he has been metamorphosed from a ‘handsome and useful animal into a monkey’, a slur that wryly implies that a form of animality is in fact inherent in all human beings. The novel thus both explores and pokes fun at the human desire to collapse the boundaries between humans and non-humans. Each of these texts dramatises the allure, but also the impossibility, of being able to see the world from an animal’s perspective, and of understanding their thoughts and desires; we glimpse the evident popularity in the imperial period of spectacles in which animals are seen to behave much like humans – a phenomenon that is discussed, for instance, by Aelian, but that is not altogether unfamiliar in our age of viral internet animal videos. Yet we also witness a zero-sum quality to many of these encounters: each author’s emphasis on the notably human qualities of animals is juxtaposed with the concomitant ‘inhumanity’ of human beings. Animals often seem at their most human when humans behave at their worst, a feature that we will witness again in the Halieutica. We have already noted that three key features connect the animals portrayed in (for instance) the Gryllus and Onos with the representation of dolphins in the Halieutica. The first is the recurrence of metamorphosis as a form of commentary on the close relationship between human and non-human animals; the second an interest in erotic encounters between humans and animals; the third the prospect of animal speech. Let us now turn to the second and third of these features.  

Ps.-Luc. Onos , where διασπασθείη looks back to the slave-boy’s διασπασθῆναι, and the woman’s kisses (φιλήματα) recall those attributed earlier to the donkey (Onos ). Ps.-Luc. Onos : σὺ δέ μοι ἐλήλυθας ἐξ ἐκείνου τοῦ καλοῦ καὶ χρησίμου ζῴου ἐς πίθηκον μεταμορφωθείς.

. Blurring Boundaries



The encounters between dolphins and humans in the final book of the Halieutica escalate from friendly co-operation to helpful rescue to affectionate or erotic companionship, before culminating in hateful destruction (.–). In the penultimate example – that of the close relationship between a youth and a dolphin on an Aeolian island – the encounter is represented as a marvellous vision of companionship that draws a crowd of spectators daily (.–). We know from the large number of ancient narratives preserved about the alleged love or friendship between humans and dolphins that such tales were enormously popular. In Oppian’s version the dolphin spends all its time with the boy, and when the latter calls it by name, it rushes up to the boat, they caress and the youth mounts the dolphin and speeds over the waves, much to the delight of the onlookers. The bond between human and animal is profound. In both this example and that of the Libyan boy reported by Oppian, the dolphin’s emotions are unambiguously sexual: the creature feels ardent desire (θερμὸν ἔρωτα, .; ἐράσσατο, ., ) for a human being. The youth’s feelings, however, are less clearly defined: the briefer first narrative is related solely from the perspective of the dolphin, while the second represents the boy embracing his companion with friendly affection (φιλοφροσύνῃσιν ἑταῖρον ἀμφαγαπαζόμενος, .–), language that suggests an affectionate rather than an erotic emotion on the human’s part. The narrative flirts with, but stops short of, representing their companionship as explicitly, physically sexual, and the erotic boundary between human and non-human holds firm. What is more, for all the Aeolian youth’s close companionship with the dolphin, a clear hierarchy is at work: the human gives orders, and the animal gladly obeys. The analogies used are those of human and pet, master and slave (.–); the truly remarkable fact is just how much the love-struck dolphin will do for this youth. The poet shies away from a total assimilation of the dolphin to human behaviour, and after the youth’s death the episode ends with the dolphin’s saddened withdrawal from the human sphere. The potential for union and unity across species boundaries remains close but unfulfilled. Importantly, moreover, Oppian also scrutinises the degree to which such an encounter is necessarily focalised by a human being – the observer  

See esp. Williams  for the wider context of ancient erotic narratives about animals. Cf. also φιλότης, .; φιλίη, .. On both occasions the tale is introduced as ‘the love of a youth’ (κούρου πόθον, .; ἠιθέοιο πόθους, .). This is naturally taken as an objective genitive, suggesting that the dolphin is the (only?) active party, but the phrasing perhaps leaves a certain ambiguity, gesturing towards the potential for its secondary interpretation as a subjective genitive, hence the periphrastic phrasing and lack of explicit subject in each case.



Humans and Other Animals

or reader – who projects onto this scene an inescapably anthropocentric perspective. Much is made of the crowd of townsfolk and visitors that gathers to watch the spectacle; here we are not far from the audiences in the Onos who assemble in delight as a donkey is made to seem human. Strikingly, moreover, just when the dolphin’s behaviour appears at its most human – during the height of both desire and grief – the claim is introduced not from the perspective of the dolphin, but from that of the putative spectator: φαίης κέ μιν ἱμείροντα | κύσσαι καὶ στέρνοισι περιπτύξαι μενεαίνειν | ἠίθεον· τοίῃ γὰρ ὀπάονι νήχετο ῥιπῇ (‘you would say that in its desire [the dolphin] wanted to kiss the youth and embrace his chest, with such companionable movement did it swim [next to him]’, .–); once the youth dies, then again φαίης κεν ἐτήτυμον ὄσσαν ἀκούειν | μυρομένου· τοῖόν μιν ἀμήχανον ἄμπεχε πένθος (‘you would say that you heard the genuine voice of a mourner, such was the overwhelming grief that came over [the dolphin]’, .–). We are shown the permeability of the boundary between human and animal, but also the realisation that the possibility of its total dissolution is a mere flight of human fancy, an overinterpretation on the part of the onlooker. The dolphin is ultimately restricted by its piscine anatomy, for it can neither wrap its arms around the youth nor utter words of lamentation; like the slave-boy’s donkey narrative in the Onos, animals are restricted to the mere semblance of a kiss. The narrative of the Aeolian dolphin and youth thus places the reader in the role of a marvelling spectator attempting to make sense of the strangely human-seeming scene in front of them. The φαίης κε formulation, here employed twice of the dolphin’s quasi-human desire and grief (., ), is a motif adapted originally from the Iliad, and its use in the dolphin episode looks especially to Hom. Il. .–, where the Greek forces move so silently that you would say that they did not have a voice in their chest. In applying this phrase to the ‘lamenting’ dolphin, however, Oppian represents not the imagined speechlessness of human beings who can in reality speak, but the imagined voice of an animal that is in reality speechless. We have already noted that the capacity for articulate speech (λόγος) – in turn closely related to rationality – was the feature most frequently understood by ancient thinkers to distinguish humans from animals; fish, moreover, were proverbially voiceless, as Oppian all but acknowledges at .–. 

On animals and speech see esp. Heath ; Bettini ; Sorabji : –; Fögen , . The proverbial voicelessness of fish is encapsulated by the epithet ἔλλοψ, ‘mute’, which was used by Oppian’s time as a substantive meaning ‘voiceless ones’, i.e. fish in general. See e.g. Athen. .b–c;

. Talking Animals



The paradoxical nature of this scene of voiced lamentation, and the interpretative role of the observer, is thus set centre stage, and the poet capitalises on the image shortly afterwards by placing an imagined speech directly in the mouth of another distraught dolphin, again introduced a few lines earlier with φαίης κεν (.). Before examining this scene in detail it is worth pausing to think about the implications of such speech.

. Talking Animals As Aelian observes in the NA, the locus classicus for animal speech in poetry is the prophecy uttered by Achilles’ horse Xanthus at Hom. Il. .–. That episode in part marks the degree to which horses are regularly invested in the Iliad with near-human capabilities and significance: they are given names and genealogies, are manipulated or inspired by the gods in the manner of heroes, and operate in a close, reciprocal relationship with their charioteers, who frequently speak to them and receive an immediate (if non-verbal) response. Achilles’ mixed divine and mortal team of horses becomes emblematic of the hero’s own mixed lineage and imminent death, as well as the demise of Patroclus; the horses grieve deeply at the latter’s death, weeping, bowing their heads, and dirtying their manes like humans in mourning. Yet even in the Homeric epics animals cannot conventionally speak, and Xanthus is presented as the aberrant exception that proves the rule: he is an immortal rather than a normal horse, is only temporarily granted a voice by Hera, and at the end of the prophecy his vocal powers are stopped once more by the Erinyes. Even if Oppian’s sea-creatures live apparently near-human lives in most respects,







 

Hsch. ε ; Σ Hal. . glosses ἔλλοπας as ἰχθύας· ἔλλοπες οἱ ὀπὸς καὶ φωνῆς ἐλλειπόμενοι· ἄφωνοι γὰρ οἱ ἰχθύες, καὶ ἄναυδοι. Cf. Hal. ., . See Thompson : –; Olson and Sens : –; Carney . Ael. NA ., contrasting the ‘pardonable’ action of Homer in representing a talking horse – for that is the domain of poetry – with the wild exaggerations made by Egyptians about a talking lamb. (Ὁμήρῳ μὲν οὖν φωνὴν Ξάνθῳ τῷ ἵππῳ δόντι συγγνώμην νέμειν ἄξιον, ποιητὴς γάρ); cf. also NA .. See esp. the intervention of the gods at Hom. Il. .–. Hector addresses his horses by name and refers to their long-standing relationship (Il. .–); Antilochus threatens his horses with the shame of being beaten by a female (Il. .–); cf. also Il. .; .–. See esp. Hom. Il. .–; Il. .– (the death of Achilles’ trace-horse Pedasus), where Sarpedon’s spearcast, meant for Patroclus, anticipates the latter’s own death; see Janko  ; Wilson : ; Heath : . Greek horses may even be ranked much like warriors; see Il. .–. Hom. Il. .–, where Zeus puts μένος into their heart and knees, as with humans; cf. Il. .–. See Nicolay : –; Heath : –.



Humans and Other Animals

then here too the capacity for speech marks the one insuperable gulf between human and non-human animals; this is a boundary observed by epic poets as well as classical philosophers. Animal speech, however, is capable of pointing in two different generic directions. It can – as in the case of Xanthus’ prophecy about Achilles’ death – mark a moment of profound significance and near-religious solemnity, a Golden Age narrative, or an event so monumental that it appears to transcend the distinctions that ordinarily structure the world. Yet it can also – as in comedy and satire – be used to express absurd incongruity, a striking juxtaposition between two different realms or registers, and a scene whose very impossibility renders it humorous or parodic. Two seacreatures are given speeches in the Halieutica – a boasting eel and a horrified dolphin – and both are presented as the reader’s imaginative reinterpretation of the scene (φαίης κε). Each, I suggest, evokes different permutations of the ‘talking animal’ theme. In the first an eel extracts an octopus from its hiding place and gloats over its imminent demise: ἔνθα μιν οἰκτείρειας ἀκοσμοτάτοιο μόροιο, ὡς ὁ μὲν ἐν πέτρῃσιν ὑφέζεται, ἡ δέ οἱ ἄγχι ἠύτ’ ἐπεγγελόωσα παρίσταται· ὧδέ κε φαίης μυθεῖσθαι μύραιναν ἀπηνέα κερτομέουσαν· τί πτώσσεις, δολομῆτα; τίν’ ἔλπεαι ἠπεροπεύειν; ἦ τάχα καὶ πέτρης πειρήσομαι, εἴ σε καὶ εἴσω δέξηται σπιλὰς ἥδε καὶ ἠμύσασα καλύψῃ. (.–)

Then you would pity [the octopus] for its highly indecorous fate as it lurks among the rocks and [the eel] stands nearby, as if exulting. You would say that the cruel moray eel spoke and taunted it thus: ‘Why are you cowering, wily one? Who do you think you are fooling? In a moment I’ll attack the very stone, even if this rock admits you inside it and buckles and covers you over.’

The eel is figured in the manner of a flyting Homeric warrior; more than anywhere else in the poem, its speech confronts the reader with a provocatively excessive model of anthropomorphism. The poet builds on the traditions of epic parody, a genre that likewise examines, from a different perspective, the relationship, or gap, between human – and specifically Homeric – values and those of fish. Fish are frequently associated with the humorous juxtaposition of high and low registers, and both Attic comedy 

On talking animals in comedy and satire see Heath : ; Wilkins : ; Hawkins , with further bibliography.

. Talking Animals



and epic parody are replete with the comic anthropomorphisation of seacreatures, most notably in Archippus’ Fishes, as well as discussions of fishy delicacies couched in absurdly heroic or reverential terms. The fourth-century  Attic Dinner Party by Matro of Pitane, for instance, details the lavish courses of a fishy banquet with a cento-like reassemblage of Homeric verses; the dishes stand in ludicrous contrast to the grandiose epic language with which they are introduced. Here too (human) speech and (animal) speechlessness are fused when a roast cuttlefish is greeted with quasi-epic fanfare: ‘in came the daughter of Nereus, silver-footed Thetis, the cuttlefish with lovely strands, a terrible speaking goddess (δεινὴ θεὸς αὐδήεσσα)’. As Olson and Sens note, the joke lies partly in the traditional association between Thetis and cuttlefish, and the revelation that this ‘Nereid’ is in fact the next course of cooked fish, but also in the paradox of the noise made by a sizzling fish, a creature temporarily figured, despite its voicelessness, as a ‘speaking’ goddess like Circe or Calypso. Matro also depicts both an impressive moray eel, carried in like a nubile woman decked out in all her finery, and ‘a white-armed goddess fish, the conger eel’, who claims to be the consort of Zeus, and who is so large that ‘not even two athletic men such as Astyanax and Antenor could have lifted her easily onto a wagon from the ground’. Here too the humour is generated by the gulf between the allusive verbal solemnity of such phrases, with their high-flown Homeric associations, and the bathos of culinary reality, as the reader perceives that what had been introduced as a goddess is in fact a stewed eel. Both conger and moray eels were prized as a delicacy in the ancient world, and play a prominent role in ancient gastronomic and comic texts, as well as in condemnations of gluttony, excess, and luxury. Archestratus, in his Life of Luxury, declares that ‘all in all I think that the eel rules over 

     

The play imagines a society of fish with quasi-human structures and regulations, on which see Rothwell : –; see esp. Archipp. frr. –, , , featuring puns on fish names; cf. also the anthropomorphic quality of the Comoedia Dukiana, which may also belong to Archippus’ Fishes. Antiphanes’ Philothebaios includes a lengthy mock-heroic description of a cooked eel (fr. ).  See Davidson , esp. –. On which see esp. Olson and Sens ; Degani . Matr. fr. .– Olson-Sens: ἦλθε δὲ Νηρῆος θυγάτηρ, Θέτις ἀργυρόπεζα, | σηπίη εὐπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεὸς αὐδήεσσα; see further Wöhrle : –; Telò : –. Olson and Sens : . Matr. fr. .–, – Olson-Sens. See e.g. Degani : –, who at  also highlights Matro’s interest in transposing Homeric military language to the dinner table. On the constituent features of ancient parody see e.g. Lelièvre ; Rose . See e.g. Davidson : : ‘Towering effortlessly above all challengers, the undisputed master of the fishmonger’s stall was the eel’ (cf. –); Wilkins : .



Humans and Other Animals

everything else at the feast and leads the way in pleasure’. Morays in particular were expensive and much valued not only in Attica but in Rome, where dedicated vivaria were built for them, part of the wider Roman frenzy for artificial fish-ponds. The orator Lucius Licinius Crassus, for instance, is reported by Plutarch, Aelian, Porphyry, Macrobius, and others to have owned a fish-pond containing a moray eel which he decked out with earrings and bejewelled necklaces ‘as if it were a beautiful maiden’. This moray was said to recognise Crassus’ voice and eat whatever he fed it; after its death he was alleged to have mourned for it and given it burial, for which he was reportedly much mocked. The idea of adorning an eel with earrings and necklaces encapsulates the absurdity of this projected anthropomorphism, particularly given that the elongated bodies of moray eels have no differentiated ‘ears’ or ‘neck’ on which to hang such jewellery. The contrast between human fantasy and anatomical reality could not be more starkly drawn. Fish are funny in part because it is so hard to imagine a fish experiencing emotion. Their body language is minimal and, to us, baffling, and they appear further removed than most other animals from the forces that motivate our own lives. It is hard to know what a mullet or bream, let alone a moray, might be thinking at a given moment. Unlike terrestrial species, moreover, fish come into human purview primarily once they are dead, at which point they are often slimy and noisome, their mouths agape in a grimace whose hostility seems ludicrously harmless now that they have been removed from their natural element. At least part of the mordant humour generated by eels may therefore be located in the contrast between their status as extravagant prestige items and the oddity of their slippery forms and moronically gaping expressions. Something of this cultural fascination with the moray eel must lurk behind Oppian’s choice of protagonist for this mock-heroic speech, yet an important distinction remains, for the fish of the Halieutica are not   



Archestr. fr. .– Brandt: ὅλως δ’ οἶμαι βασιλεύει πάντων τῶν περὶ δαῖτα καὶ ἡδονῇ ἡγεμονεύει ἔγχελυς. See also fr.  (on moray eels) and  and  (on conger eels). See e.g. Col. Rust. ..–. Marzano : –. Ael. NA .: οἷα δήπου ὡραία κόρη; cf. Plut. De sollert. anim. a; Plin. NH . (attributing the grief to Hortensius, and the adornment to Drusus’ wife Antonia); Porph. Abst. .; Macrob. Sat. ..– (where Crassus is said to have grieved for the moray ‘like a daughter’). The relationship between phenotype and perceived characteristics is important: not only do morays tend to keep their jaws open while in the water, lending them a formidable appearance discussed by divers even today, but they are unusual in being equipped with highly mobile pharyngeal jaws (i.e. possessing, in addition to their oral jaws, a second set of jaws further down their throat). The moray’s menacing gape must have contributed substantially to its ancient reputation.

. Talking Animals



presented as prestige items or gastronomic delicacies. They are instead always living, remain in their natural habitat until captured by the fisherman, and once they have been removed from the sea we glimpse nothing more of their fortunes. In contrast to the fish discussed in the comedies and gastronomic texts preserved by Athenaeus, Oppian nowhere indicates which might be the most tender, tasty, or valuable species. The poet aims instead to delineate the communities, temperaments, and motivations of these creatures, and his poem treats fish not just as prey (books –), but also as creatures whose habits and behaviour repay further study in their own right (books –). Thus while Matro gives us the chef or dinner guest’s attempt to conceive of an eel’s culinary garnish as a goddess’ girdle, Oppian instead asks us to put ourselves in the position of a ravening moray thrilled to have penetrated the octopus’ notorious disguise. This didactic epic operates on two levels at once: it is gleefully playful, pushing anthropomorphism to its limit, but it also stimulates the reader to consider the similarities (and dissimilarities) between these creatures and our own concerns, raising important questions about violence, retribution, and power relations at sea, as we saw in Chapter . The challenge to which the Halieutica rises is to invest the most unlikely of beasts with the most ‘human’ of thoughts, and in so doing to question the validity of that very distinction. The speech of the dolphin represents an even more striking challenge to the categories of human and animal, for it takes place during an encounter in which humans are at their most wicked and irreligious. The episode focuses on Thracians and Byzantines who contravene the divine injunctions by hunting dolphins (.–), violent and cruel behaviour that the poet explicitly contrasts with the paradigms of companionship, friendliness, and co-operation between humans and dolphins detailed immediately before this episode (for the contrast see .–). The hunters start by capturing one of a dolphin’s two young calves, which at first responds delightedly to the sight of these humans, mistakenly believing them kindly comrades (ἐνηέας . . . ἑταίρους, .), a phrase that contrasts pointedly with the actual kindness (ἐνηείη, .) exhibited earlier by dolphins. With one young dolphin already wounded, the distraught mother urges the other calf to swim to safety:



The one exception is the description of the murex at the end of the poem (.), on which see below.



Humans and Other Animals φεῦγε, τέκος· μέροπες γὰρ ἀνάρσιοι, οὐκέθ’ ἑταῖροι ἡμῖν, ἀλλὰ σίδηρον ἐφοπλίζουσι καὶ ἄγρην· ἤδη καὶ δελφῖσιν ἐπεντύνουσιν ἄρηα σπονδάς τ’ ἀθανάτων καὶ ὁμοφροσύνην ἀλιτόντες ἡμετέρην, τὴν πρόσθεν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοις ἐθέμεσθα. (.–)

‘Flee, child! Humans are enemies and are no longer our comrades, but instead assault us with iron weapons and hunting. Now they wage war even against dolphins, sinning against the divine truce and the unity of mind that we previously had with one another.’

As with the encounter between the eel and octopus, the scene is figured in martial terms, but this time it is the victim, not the victor, who is given a voice. Enrico Rebuffat must be right to detect in such speeches the hallmark of the rhetorical practices popular in this era; this kind of prosopopoeia or speech in character filters prominently into imperial Greek epic poetry, and is preserved in numerous progymnasmata of the period. So too the speeches of desperate goats and a maternal donkey in ps.-Oppian’s Cynegetica respond and correspond to those of Oppian’s eel and dolphin; the later poet invests these animal speeches with even more exaggerated literary allusivity and rhetorical force. Yet there is also more than mere rhetoric at work in this scene. In the first place, the dolphinhunt is one of the poem’s most troubling encounters: human brutality is juxtaposed with a pronounced animal ‘humanity’ that is manifested in a series of anthropomorphic similes and comparisons and culminates in this impassioned speech. As we saw of the Onos, it is not animals but humans who are here revealed to be manipulative, cruel, and immoral. This pitch of human depravity prompts not only the dolphin’s loving self-sacrifice, but also the ‘speech’ itself; imputing speech to the animal rather than the human participant thematises the moral inversion that underpins the episode as a whole. Oppian thus toys with the possibility that the dolphin might now transcend the final (linguistic) barrier that separates human from non



Σ Hal. .: ἠθοποιΐα, προσωποποιΐα. The role of rhetorical set pieces in the Halieutica – and, even more prominently, the Cynegetica – highlights the close relationship between poetry and sophistic culture in this period; see esp. Rebuffat : –. Ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–, .–. Oppian’s eel and ps.-Oppian’s donkey showcase the brutality of the animal kingdom; Oppian’s dolphin and ps.-Oppian’s goats dramatise the impiety of humankind and the compassion exhibited by animals; the later poet heightens the incongruity of these animal speeches. Rebuffat : – emphasises the artificiality of ps.-Oppian’s talking animals; Payne : – offers a more sympathetic approach. For brief remarks on such speeches in the Halieutica, see Rebuffat : ; Hutchinson : .

. Talking Animals



human life, becoming in its combination of articulate language and moral propriety even more ‘human’ than the humans by whom it is slain. Yet the dolphin does not – indeed cannot – actually utter this speech. The poet draws explicit attention to the paradox of a mute sea-creature speaking: τοῖα καὶ ἄφθογγός περ ὅμως τεκέεσσιν ἑοῖσι | μυθεῖται (‘such things, although [the dolphin] is voiceless, she says to her offspring nevertheless’, .–). This is an intriguing expression that raises two important, and related, issues: human perception and animal communication. The first has been touched upon already in the φαίης κε formulation that introduces both the eel’s speech and the Aeolian dolphin’s kisses and lamentation for its beloved comrade. Yet whereas the dolphin’s lamentation and the eel’s words had been introduced as purely hypothetical by the explicit appeal to the reader’s imagination: ὧδέ κε φαίης | μυθεῖσθαι μύραιναν ἀπηνέα κερτομέουσαν (‘you would say that the cruel eel spoke thus in mockery . . .’, .–), the dolphin utters an impassioned five-line speech (.–) that is only subsequently revealed to be a purely interpretative fiction. The hypothetical nature of the speech is retrospectively recognised to rest on the φαίης κεν of ., but the reader may well have taken that formula to introduce only the comparison of the dolphin to a mother whose city is sacked (.–), given that after this comparison ends the narrative moves out of the indirect statement governed by φαίης κεν and into an apparently unmediated description of the dolphin’s actions (.ff.). The reader, that is, first listens to the dolphin’s speech and is only subsequently reminded that it could not have taken place after all. This is a paradox brought to the fore by the poet’s comment that the dolphin is ἄφθογγός but nevertheless ‘speaks’ (μυθεῖται); the comment necessitates a retrospective reconfiguration of the dolphin’s capabilities. The advertisement of the purely fictional status of the dolphin’s speech raises questions about the earlier parallel between the dolphin and a mother whose city is sacked, implying that this too might be deemed a kind of interpretative fiction. In epic verse φαίης κε frequently introduces an image that might have been – and indeed, elsewhere is – couched as the narrator’s own simile. The addressee’s vision of the dolphin as a mother whose city is sacked and her children dragged off thus corresponds closely to the simile in which the eel drags off the octopus like a mother whose city 

Thus e.g. at .– you would say that pilot-fish swarming around a ship were riveted by chains, an analogy used elsewhere as both a simile and metaphor (.; ., –). Cf. Hunter : , of A.R. Arg. .–, where one might mistake the fleet of ships for a flock of birds clamouring over the sea: ‘The poet offers us, as it were, a simile in the making’; cf. Byre . Oppian perhaps presents a version of this Apollonian conceit at .–.



Humans and Other Animals

is sacked and her child dragged off. The reader is impelled to reflect on their own act of interpretation in ventriloquising human speech and emotions through an explicitly voiceless fish; by extension, however, the same question could be raised of the analogies used by the narrator throughout the poem. How far do these represent genuine piscine behaviour, and how far do they simply recast in human terms phenomena experienced very differently by the fish themselves? Can the problem of human perception ever be obviated, and can one ever truly ‘know’ the emotions of an animal? The lure of understanding an animal’s thoughts, and the statement that the ‘voiceless’ dolphin in some sense speaks to her children, raises the wider issue of animal communication. This is a phenomenon that had long exercised ancient theorists, especially those philosophers and natural historians who sought to distinguish between articulate human speech and inarticulate vocal utterances or non-verbal communication between animals. Birds are often a locus for questions about articulate speech and imitative sound, but the issue of communication surfaces too with intelligent and responsive mammals such as the dolphin. Oppian observes that the Aeolian dolphin responds to its own name, while Pliny reports that dolphins respond to certain names more readily than others, and utter moans much like those of humans. The Halieutica elsewhere explores the issue of non-verbal communication with the tiny guide-fish that directs a whale through the waters by communicating with its tail: τανύει δὲ παρασχεδὸν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν | οὐρήν, ἥ οἱ ἕκαστα πιφαύσκεται, (‘near [the whale’s] eyes [the guide-fish] extends its tail, which declares/shows everything to it’, .–). The fine line between verbal and non-verbal communication expressed by πιφαύσκεται is developed in the following lines: αὐδήεσσα δ’ ὅπως ἐνδείκνυται οὐρὴ | πάντα μάλ’ ἀτρεκέως (‘as if it were speaking, the tail [of the guide-fish] points out everything with total precision’, .–). The speech of the dolphin at one level simply extends the poet’s analogy between verbal and non-verbal communication; the difference, however, is that it momentarily appears to be reality rather than analogy. Aelian’s version of this dolphin episode again offers an instructive contrast. While both authors offer the same broad account of the hunt, 



.–. The parallelism between the two looks deliberate: the introduction of a third party (namely the child) in the eel simile does not correspond strongly to any parallel figure in the encounter between eel and octopus, and looks instead to dolphin’s refusal to leave its offspring in book .  See esp. Fögen , with further bibliography. Hal. .–; Plin. NH ..

. Humanity and Inhumanity



Aelian does not accord his dolphins speech or use martial, moral, or religious language of the kind that characterises the episode in the Halieutica. Instead he makes much of the mother’s puffs and snorts as a mode of non-verbal communication: καὶ φυσᾷ φυσήματι ἀσήμῳ μέν, ᾗ δύναται, σύνθημα δὲ τῆς φυγῆς ἐνδιδοῦσα σωτήριον (‘and she blows with an inarticulate [or unintelligible, ἄσημος] blowing as best she can, giving the rescuing signal to flee’), as ever drawing a sharper distinction than Oppian between verbal and non-verbal communication, human and animal capabilities. For Aelian it would be unthinkable for animals to possess λόγος; instead he places emphasis on φύσις (nature or instinct), declaring that dophins are driven to rescue their offspring ἀπορρήτῳ φύσει (‘by a mysterious instinct’). As throughout the NA, the boundary between man and beast holds fast: Aelian’s dolphin exhibits a marvellous protective instinct and a natural virtue that far exceeds that of human beings, but its incapacity for any more sophisticated mode of communication necessitates that it simply bite and lash its young with its tail; its sounds are inarticulate puffings, and it cannot be imagined to ‘speak’.

.

Humanity and Inhumanity

Oppian, then, is satisfied with neither the argument that animals are necessarily irrational and brutish (lacking mankind’s superior τέχνη) nor that they are necessarily naturally purer and more virtuous than human beings (cleaving closely to φύσις); instead, his animals exhibit a similarity to humans that puts continual pressure on the alleged points of separation between the two. While much of the poem sets the intelligence and foresight of humankind against the foolish and short-sighted urges of fish, the latter part of the Halieutica moves away from the moral failings of hostility, greed, and lust that characterise fish in the central portion of the poem, and looks instead to a less clearly delineated relationship between hunter and hunted. The Thracian slaughter of dolphins thus takes its place within a pattern of escalating brutality exhibited by humans as the poem moves towards its conclusion. A sequence of particularly (and often increasingly) savage methods of fishing stretches from the latter stages of book  to the end of book . Chapter  (Section ., ‘Victors and Victims’) has already examined one of  

Ael. NA ..– (= . Hercher). Ael. NA ... Aelian also opens his account of the dolphin by noting that dolphins exceed even humans in the extent and duration of their grief when their offspring pass away.



Humans and Other Animals

the episodes in this sequence, in which Thracians smash at juvenile tuna with a barbed log. As we have seen, the poet condemns this for its brutality: his respect for the art of fishing is commanded not by displays of savage force, but by skill, subtlety, and the occasions on which fish and fisherman engage in a battle of wits. While in much of books – the fishermen’s victories are represented as a triumph of rationality over base animal instinct, here the poet begins to hint at man’s potential to overstep these boundaries in a savage and exploitative fashion. The cruelty of the Thracians in book  is mirrored by the cruelty of Thracians and Byzantines in book : with both callousness and a sacrilegious disregard for divine precepts, these tribes hunt down dolphins by exploiting their powerful parental affection, noted already in book . The poet seems to call into question the ethics of violence and of fishing itself: no longer a divinely bestowed right that parades human superiority over the animal kingdom and punishes fish for their rashness, it becomes instead a testing-ground for human morals and for the point at which crafty deception slides into wanton and self-interested cruelty. Book  culminates with a hideous mode of fishing in which fishermen ‘pollute the sea’ (ἐξεμίηνε θάλασσαν, .) with poison. The poet describes with palpable horror how the poisoned fish writhe and leap in agony, panting as they perish. Panting, we are told, is how fish wretchedly lament: τό τ’ ἰχθύσιν ἔπλετο δειλὴ | οἰμωγή (.–). The uncaring (ἀκηδέες, .) fishermen take pleasure in their suffering, gathering an immense crowd of corpses with glee (.–), an unsettling extension of the fisherman’s joy at his catch in other episodes. As with the tuna fish, martial metaphors and similes underline the devastating cost of this conflict. The fish perish like the inhabitants of a city whose enemies wage war in the hope of razing their city, poisoning their water supply and starving them into a hateful and unseemly doom (στυγερὸν καὶ ἀεικέα πότμον, .). The poet objects to the scale of the slaughter and to its indiscriminate nature, with corpse after corpse piling up, to the fisherman’s delight. This mode of fishing – like this mode of sacking a city – is less a military triumph than an indication of the depths of human barbarity, a scheme carried out by the kinds of men who ‘never stop devising evil’ (.-). If the final lines of book  present the poisoned sea as an emblem of human atrocity, then the start of the next book appears at first to adopt a different tone, celebrating the colossal achievements of mankind; on closer inspection, however, this praise represents a less comfortable assessment of

. Humanity and Inhumanity



the position of men between animals and gods. The proem to this final book lauds the power of mankind: ἔνθεν ἔπειτ’ ἀίων τεκμαίρεο, κοίρανε γαίης, ὡς οὐδὲν μερόπεσσιν ἀμήχανον οὔτ ἐνὶ γαίῃ μητρὶ καμεῖν, οὐ κόλπον ἀν’ εὐρώεντα θαλάσσης· ἀλλά τις ἀτρεκέως ἰκέλην μακάρεσσι γενέθλην ἀνθρώπους ἀνέφυσε, χερείονα δ’ ὤπασεν ἀλκήν . . . (.–)

And next listen and observe, ruler of the earth, that nothing is impossible for mortal men to accomplish, either on mother earth or over the dank hollow of the sea. Rather, someone surely created men as a race like the blessed gods, although he granted them inferior strength . . .

Men are portrayed as vastly superior to the beasts they hunt; only the gods are stronger (.–), and when men go fishing they become like gods controlling fish from on high. Endowed with an intelligence far greater than that of their prey, they entrap them by taking advantage of the foolish urgency of their passions; Oppian’s fish are often unable even to comprehend the extent of the fisherman’s power. Man is thus the ἡμερίων ἄμαχον γένος (‘invincible race of mortals’, .) that conquers and slays even the mightiest of sea-monsters. Yet the scenes of slaughter at the end of the previous book showcase not intelligence and power, but cruelty and mass destruction; whereas a bountiful catch is usually celebrated in the poem, these scenes of slaughter seem less heroic than hubristic. The power that men exercise over fish in this proem is itself paralleled, and qualified, by that exercised elsewhere by the gods over men. For if the proem to book  casts humans as mighty conquerors of monstrous creatures (.–), then the proem to book  offers a salutary reminder that men are indeed far from supreme: τί γὰρ μερόπεσσιν ἀνυστὸν νόσφι θεῶν; οὐδ’ ὅσσον ὑπ’ ἐκ ποδὸς ἴχνος ἀεῖραι, οὐδ’ ὅσον ἀμπετάσαι βλεφάρων περιφαέα κύκλα· (.–)

For what are mortals able to accomplish without the gods? They could not so much as lift up their foot or open the shining balls of their eyes.

The proem goes on to liken fruitless human resistance to divine control over a stubborn colt that attempts to shake off the bit: the gods’ power over 

For which see e.g. .–.



Humans and Other Animals

human behaviour is explicitly likened to that of men over the animals they control (.–). The analogy of a horse and its rider is an image elsewhere used of the ease with which humans control or capture fish (.–; .–, –). If men control the ‘reins’, as it were, of the fish over which they preside, then in the proem to book  the tables are turned; here it is gods who control the ‘reins’ of mortal endeavour. Man is to fish as god is to man. Human beings thus occupy an intermediate position in the cosmic hierarchy: their rationality, foresight, and power sets them above fish, but pales in comparison to the divine. This ambivalence is itself encapsulated in Oppian’s depiction of men as ἡμέριοι (literally ‘ephemeral creatures’). This is a term used twice of humans in the Halieutica: at the end of book  they are presented as the ἡμερίων δειλὸν γένος, the ‘miserable race of mortals’ (.) whose destructive instinct prompts the gods to take pity and intervene in mortal affairs, while in the proem to book  they are the ἡμερίων ἄμαχον γένος, an ‘invincible race of mortals’ (.). The former phrase juxtaposes wretched, savage, and selfdestructive man with the merciful gods, while the latter emphasises the superiority of men over the beasts they hunt. Violence, however, remains central to both. Even at their most invincible, humans are as ephemeral from a divine point of view as are fish to mankind. These are the poles around which Oppian’s conception of the human condition is based. While the proem to book  ostensibly celebrates mankind’s power, the contrast with both the beginning and end of book  – which highlight, respectively, the impotence of man in comparison to the divine, and the pitiable injustice and savagery of humankind at its lowest ebb – combines with the ever-increasing cruelty of fishermen at the end of book  to undercut this jubilant praise. It is with a lingering ambivalence that we move on from the proem to the epic struggle with the κῆτος that occupies much of the final book. This episode emblematises an impressive human victory over even the mightiest of sea-creatures, yet not only is the creature’s pain drawn so vividly that the victory seems to tread a nowfamiliar line between the triumphant and saddening, but the reader feels some sympathy for the rustic who shudders in terror at man’s daring in tackling such monstrous foes (.–). His frightened prayer reiterates the deep unease expressed in the proem to book  about the dangers of the sea, an impression that mankind can never truly master this most enormous and hostile of elements. 

Cf. Effe : , .

. Humanity and Inhumanity



That proem, moreover, had drawn attention to the terrifying κήτεα or sea-monsters that lurk in the depths of the sea: πρὸς δ’ ἔτι καὶ βλοσυρῆς δυσδερκέα δείματα λίμνης | κήτεα πεφρίκασι, τά τέ σφισιν ἀντιόωσιν, | εὖτ’ ἂν ὑποβρυχίης ἄδυτον περόωσι θαλάσσης (‘as well as [the elements], they tremble too at the terrors of the fearsome sea, dreadful to look at: the sea-monsters they meet when they pass into the inner sanctuary of the deep sea’, .–). The fisherman’s traversal of the depths is framed as a near-transgressive penetration into a forbidden or sanctified space, an uneasy prequel to the hubristic activities of the fishermen as the poem reaches its climax. The hard-fought victory of the fishermen over the mighty whale or sea-monster in book  prompts those who witness it from the shore – and by extension also the reader – to return to the notion that man risks straying beyond his due limits in pitching himself against the sea and its deadly inhabitants. The corpse of the whale strikes fear into the crowd of onlookers: τοῦ μέν τις φθιμένοιο καὶ ἐν χθονὶ πεπταμένοιο | εἰσέτι δειμαίνει πελάσαι δυσδερκέι νεκρῷ (‘even when it is dead and spread out on the ground, one is still afraid to approach its corpse, horrible to look at’, .–). The recurrence of (what looks to be) the Oppianic coinage δυσδερκής paints this κῆτος as an instantiation of the horrors adumbrated in the proem (δυσδερκέα δείματα, .). When the adjective reappears a third time (.), it creates of the struggle against the sea-monster both an intimation of man’s extraordinary achievements, and a reminder that men at times risk straying well beyond their bounds. After briefly treating the murex, the final vignette of the poem depicts the dangerous task of sponge-cutters who venture into the very bowels of the sea. The sponge-cutters εὐχόμενοι μακάρεσσιν ἁλὸς μεδέουσι βαθείης | ἀρῶνται κήτειον ἀλεξῆσαί σφισι πῆμα | μηδέ τιν’ ἀντιάσαι λώβην ἁλός (‘pray to the blessed gods who rule over the deep sea and ask that they ward off the evil of sea-monsters from them, and that they not meet with some disaster at sea’, .–). Yet the diver’s descent to the depths is issued almost as a challenge to the sea, and the act of diving is twice described in agonistic terms: the sponge-cutter prepares for his descent like a man preparing himself for a musical competition (.–), and is encouraged to leap into the water like a man at the starting-post of a foot-race (.–). 

The account of the πορφύραι or murex looks initially out of place in book  (insofar as their gluttony ought to place them in book ), but the episode allows the poet to end with a reminder of man’s avaricious nature, as indicated by the uncharacteristic detail that murex are harvested for their precious dye (.): the murex was by this time a byword for human extravagance and the ruthless exploitation of marine resources. For a calculation of the number of sea-snails required to dye cloth see Heller : .



Humans and Other Animals

The Halieutica thus culminates with the diver’s dramatic failure in this ‘competition’ with the sea: πολλάκι δ’ ἐχθίστης τε τυχὼν καὶ ἀπηνέος ἄγρης | ἅλμενος ἐς πόντοιο βαθὺν πόρον οὐκέτ’ ἀνέσχε, | δύσμορος, ἀντιάσας δυσδερκέι θηρὶ πελώρῳ (‘often when [the sponge-cutter] has leaped into the deep path of the sea and obtained his most loathsome and unpleasant quarry, he rises up no more, ill-fated man, for he has encountered a monstrous beast, hideous to look at’, .–). In this final reckoning the gods have not after all intervened on the fisherman’s behalf, and the vignette ends with his companions’ grief. At work here is a sobering inversion of the earlier whale-hunt in which a terrifying (δυσδερκής) sea-monster is slain by fishermen after a lengthy struggle. There the wounded κῆτος is affixed to a rope and attempts to swim away before being tugged back and forth by the buoys to which it finds itself attached; here the poem’s last lines turn the tables on mankind by depicting an even more macabre tug-of war between fisherman and fish. In this final scene it is not the sea-creature but the diver’s body that is dragged between surface and depths, wrenched apart by the conflict between the δυσδερκής seamonster and the companions on the ship (.–). Lamenting, the man’s former associates leave the water and return to dry land (.–), the triumph of the sea complete. The three chapters in this section have developed my argument that the Halieutica at its core explores the manifold connections between fish, humans, and other animals. These associations, I have shown, are articulated most explicitly in the poem’s similes and analogies, which often play an important cognitive role in bringing invisible, or unfamiliar, phenomena into the realm of the visible, illuminating the dark and mysterious sea and revealing it to be both strange and yet remarkably familiar. The poem’s extended similes often form dense or surprising sequences, or build on other metaphors and comparisons, drawing attention both to the nature of analogy, and to the dynamics of change, reversal, and instability that characterise life at sea. Many of these similes and metaphors are martial in theme: both hostile fish and the act of fishing are compared to warriors or acts of war, a tendency that not only inverts Homeric parallels between violent humans and predatory animals, but also looks to the attention paid in the Homeric epics to victims as well as victors, and to the terrible cost of war. Oppian’s poetry bespeaks a sophisticated engagement both with the Iliad and Odyssey and with ancient reading practices and debates about 

Cf. Hopkinson : .

. Humanity and Inhumanity



those poems. The Halieutica’s opening lines signal its intervention in ancient critical discussions about the Homeric representation of animal species, and the relationship between human and non-human communities. Oppian builds both lexically and thematically on the sustained Homeric interest in the close emotional, physical, and behavioural parallels between human and animal life. This, I have suggested, is evident not only in the Halieutica’s extended similes, but in the poet’s repeated application of ‘human’ terminology to animals, a tendency itself rooted in Homeric practice and identified by ancient critics as a form of catachresis or transference. Oppian draws, moreover, from a wider tendency towards analogical thought in the ancient world, particularly in the zoological realm, and from Empedoclean interest in the interconnected nature of all forms of life, there too expressed through metaphor, catachresis, and simile. Oppian’s catachrestic vocabulary seeks to develop new and subtler ways of understanding animal life, showcasing the ubiquitous points of connection between human and non-human animals. Such language, however, moves beyond the distancing mechanisms encoded within simile and analogy – tropes that insist on difference as well as similarity – to indicate a fundamental consonance between these domains. If the critical vocabulary that identifies metaphor, catachresis, and anthropomorphism is predicated on the prior assumption of a clear distinction between two realms (namely human and animal life), then it is this very assumption that Oppian’s poetry, like that that identifies Homer and Empedocles, seeks to challenge. How different really are the lives of humans and fish? The portrayal of animal γάμος in the Halieutica offers one way into these issues, I have argued, and Oppian’s exploration of the degree to which all animal behaviour can be related to that of human beings, particularly when it comes to the sexual sphere, marks his place in an imperial culture swept by debates about nature, culture, virtue, marriage, and sexuality. This contemporary fascination with the erotic practices of animals, evident in the novels, dialogues, and zoological treatises of the era, signals the degree to which the examination of animal habits is essentially a reflection on the condition of humanity at large. Oppian’s interest in the porous boundaries between human and non-human animals – manifested, for instance, in tales of metamorphosis, animal speech, and interspecies erotic encounters – tests and challenges overly simple narratives about nature, culture, and ‘humanity’, and at the same time raises difficult questions about our own investment in those very models. There is something deeply seductive, the poem suggests, about the notion of animals that appear to behave ‘just like us’.

 

The World Is a Sea

 

Locating Monsters

The final book of the Halieutica is devoted primarily to κήτεα or large seacreatures: dolphins, seals, dogfish, and other sizeable species. The core of the book relates the dramatic process of hunting and killing a vast and terrifying sea-monster, a beast that lies somewhere between a shark and a whale in form. This is a hunt of epic proportions: the account occupies the first half of the book (.–), incorporates over a dozen extended similes and a barrage of metaphors and comparisons, and culminates in crowd of gawping onlookers, one of whom utters a terrified prayer at the sight of the creature’s grim corpse. No other episode in the Halieutica is related at such length. At the height of the hunt the whale thrashes furiously on an oversized hook, churning the sea with its panting breaths (.–). This chapter builds outwards from an analysis of this moment, arguing that the episode confronts the reader with a vision of poetic allusivity in its most magisterial, incorporative guise. The scene, I show, draws attention to the scale, truth status, and power of epic poetry itself. The monstrous κῆτος represents a provocatively overpopulated palimpsest of myths, threats, and jostling epic intertexts – a composite foe that incorporates elements of Typhon and the Titans, Polyphemus, Charybdis, the Clashing Rocks, and the κήτεα of the wider poetic tradition. Yet even as it assimilates the greatest moments of the epic canon, the narrative also interrogates these myths, texts, and reading practices, reflecting critically on the long-debated relationship between epic poetry and the ‘facts’ that it filters through its mythicising hexametric lens. Didactic epic has a particular stake in these debates, and Oppian’s κῆτος proves a potent symbol for the intersection of rational and mythological traditions. This is 

The sea-monster’s appearance is not detailed until it has died and been dragged onto shore, where its sharp, three-tiered teeth, spiky backbone, and vast size are described (.–); before this we hear chiefly of its size, hunger, and ferocity. For the sake of concision, this chapter refers to the κῆτος as a whale and the episode as a whale-hunt.





Locating Monsters

a creature that can be figured both as a specific marine species and as a monstrous spectre: at one level it is simply a very big fish that is caught using methods like those used for other species, yet at the same time it functions as a terrifying sea-monster, a fabulous composite of the deadliest threats in the epic tradition. The poet constructs a layered narrative that makes both readings available simultaneously, presenting didactic poetry as a form of verse with a close relationship to the awe-inspiring power of heroic epic, yet one that retains a superior claim to offer its readers precision, truth, and relevance to the contemporary world.

.

Hesiodic Monsters

The whale-hunt is presented as a tale of large-scale conflict with a deadly and monstrous foe. In this the narrative looks above all to Hesiod’s Theogony in its exploration of the relationship between gods, mortals, and monsters, the forces of chaos and order. The hunting of sea-monsters is presented from the start of book  as an emblem of man’s paramount position in the universe; in contrast to book , which, as we have seen, opens by stressing human powerlessness in the face of the gods, this final book dwells on human capacity and proximity to the divine: ἔνθεν ἔπειτ’ ἀίων τεκμαίρεο, κοίρανε γαίης, ὡς οὐδὲν μερόπεσσιν ἀμήχανον οὔτ ἐνὶ γαίῃ μητρὶ καμεῖν, οὐ κόλπον ἀν’ εὐρώεντα θαλάσσης· ἀλλά τις ἀτρεκέως ἰκέλην μακάρεσσι γενέθλην ἀνθρώπους ἀνέφυσε, χερείονα δ’ ὤπασεν ἀλκήν, εἴτ’ οὖν Ἰαπετοῖο γόνος, πολυμῆτα Προμηθεύς, ἀντωπὸν μακάρεσσι κάμεν γένος ὕδατι γαῖαν ξυνώσας, κραδίην δὲ θεῶν ἔχρισεν ἀλοιφῇ, εἴτ’ ἄρα καὶ λύθροιο θεορρύτου ἐκγενόμεσθα Τιτήνων· οὐ γάρ τι πέλει καθυπέρτερον ἀνδρῶν νόσφι θεῶν· μούνοισι δ’ ὑπείξομεν ἀθανάτοισιν. (.–)

And next listen and observe, ruler of the earth, that nothing is impossible for mortal men to accomplish, either on mother earth or over the dank hollow of the sea. Rather, someone surely created men as a race like the blessed gods, although he granted them inferior strength, whether this was indeed the son of Iapetus, Prometheus of many wiles, who produced a race like the blessed gods by mixing earth with water and smearing their heart with the salve of the gods, 

For which cf. Pl. Prt. d–a.

. Hesiodic Monsters



or whether we are born rather from the divine gore that flowed from the Titans. For nothing is superior to mankind apart from the gods, and we shall submit only to the immortals.

The claim that humans are powerful, quasi-divine beings is substantiated by a catalogue of the savage beasts, both terrestrial and marine, that men habitually hunt and defeat (.–); the list culminates with the monstrous κήτεα to which the poet will shortly turn. This proem imparts a markedly Hesiodic – and indeed specifically Theogonic – flavour to the narrative by foregrounding the themes of anthropogony, the relationship between gods and men, the establishment of a cosmic hierarchy, and references to wily Prometheus and to Zeus’s victory over the Titans. The passage stands as a counterpart to the proem of book  not only in their shared thematic focus – mankind’s abilities as a function of our wider relationship to the divine – but also in situating the poem within a broadly Hesiodic world-view. The proem of book  had outlined, in quasiTheogonic terms, the different gifts and professions that each of the gods bestowed on mankind, while the ensuing piscine narrative had also expressed the distinction between man and beast in strongly Hesiodic terms, claiming that ἰχθύσι δ’ οὔτε δίκη μεταρίθμιος οὔτε τις αἰδώς, | οὐ φιλότης (‘among fish there is to be found neither justice nor any respect, nor affection’, Hal. .–), a sentiment that replays the pronouncement in the Works and Days that fish and other animals live in a realm devoid of justice, doomed continually to eat one another, since Zeus has bestowed δίκη on mankind alone (Hes. Op. –). In book  the precise nature of human cosmic superiority is left open, but the implication seems to be that justice, restraint, and intelligence – the key concerns of book  – are now less significant than sheer physical prowess. The primacy of physical power is reiterated throughout this proem and in the whale-hunt as a whole. Against this Hesiodic backdrop, Oppian’s description at . of the κόλπος (‘cavity’, ‘gulf’, ‘hollow’) of the sea as εὐρώεις (‘dank’, ‘gloomy’) is telling. Although κόλπος is used of the sea by poets from Homer onwards, its qualification as ‘dank’ lends the sea’s cavity a more sinister edge. In archaic Greek epic εὐρώεις is employed solely of the underworld,



The scholiast argues that man is thus called βροτός (mortal) because of his genesis from the βρότος (gore) of the Titans; for this genealogy compare the explanation offered by Charidemus at Dio Chrys. Or. . and rejected at Or. ., and the material assembled in OF  Bernabé. According to Σ Pind. Ol. .c, Pherenicus claimed that the Hyperboreans were born from the blood of the Titans; other ancient sources portray humans arising from the blood of the Giants; see Edmonds : –.



Locating Monsters

and in the Theogony the adjective is used three times in relatively swift succession, in each case of Zeus’s punitive imprisonment of the Titans in dank Tartarus, that horrible subterranean pit. Oppian’s use of the adjective imbues his sea with the quality of a murky pit or underground world out of which terrifying, quasi-titanic monsters might emerge at any time, an impression heightened by the catalogue of vast sea-monsters (κήτεα . . . πέλωρα, .) said to have been reared in the water (.–). In contrast to ‘mother earth’, and to the familiar, if daunting, creatures that patrol the land, the sea is presented as a gloomy cavity full of the terrifying and even more monstrous marine counterparts of savage terrestrial beasts. Like the Titans, Typhoeus was also imprisoned by Zeus under the earth in Tartarus (Theog. ); indeed, on Hesiod’s account Tartarus in his personified form was Typhoeus’ father (Theog. ). This Theogonic backdrop, and the sense of the sea’s depths as quasi-Tartarean, becomes all the more insistent when, at the height of the whale-hunt, the injured creature’s heaving breaths as it thrashes in the depths are compared to the fierce panting of Typhon under Mount Etna (.–). At this stage the whale’s guiding pilot-fish has been captured, and the whale has swallowed the oversized bait. Impaled on a large hook, the creature pants and flails in agony, causing the water around it to seethe: πολλὴν δ’ αἱματόεσσαν ὑπεὶρ ἁλὸς ἔπτυσεν ἄχνην παφλάζων ὀδύνῃσιν, ὑποβρύχιον δὲ μέμυκε μαινομένου φύσημα, περιστένεται δέ οἱ ὕδωρ ἀμβολάδην· φαίης κεν ὑπ’ οἴδμασι πᾶσαν ἀυτμὴν ð210Þ κευθομένην Βορέαο δυσαέος αὐλίζεσθαι· τόσσον ἀνασθμαίνει λάβρον μένος, ἀμφὶ δὲ πυκναὶ δίναις οἰδαλέῃσιν ἑλισσόμεναι στροφάλιγγες οἴδματα κοιλαίνουσι διισταμένοιο πόροιο. οἷον δ’ Ἰονίοιο παρὰ στόμα καὶ κελάδοντος ð215Þ Τυρσηνοῦ πόντοιο μέση πορθμοῖο διαρρὼξ εἰλεῖται λάβροισιν ὑπ’ ἄσθμασι Τυφάωνος ξαινομένη· δειναὶ δὲ τιταινόμεναι στροφάλιγγες κῦμα θοὸν γνάμπτουσι, περιστρέφεται δὲ κελαινὴ ἑλκομένη δίνῃσι παλιρροίβδοισι Χάρυβδις· ð220Þ ὣς τότε κητείοισιν ὑπ’ ἄσθμασι χῶρος ἁπάντῃ ξαινόμενος βέμβικας ἑλίσσεται ἀμφιτρίτης. (.–)



Underworld: Hom. Il. .; Od. ., ., .; Hes. Op. . Tartarus: Hes. Theog. , , . Cf. Bartley : , although, despite Bartley’s strange claim, the other two occurrences of the adjective in the Halieutica (in both cases applied to mud or slime: Hal. ., .) must also mean ‘dank’, ‘slimy’, or ‘mouldy’ rather than ‘vast’.

. Hesiodic Monsters



[The whale] spews out copious bloody foam over the sea as it seethes in pain; its heaving breath booms under the surface as it rages, and the water roars as it bubbles up around it. It gasps with such blustering force that you’d have thought that all the blasts of savage-blowing Boreas lodged hidden under the waves, and all around constant eddies swirl in swollen whirls, hollowing a vortex out of the waves as the sea parts. Just as by the mouth of the Ionian and resounding Tyrrhenian Sea the fissure at the midpoint of the strait whirls around, thrashed by the blustering panting of Typhon; and terrible eddies stretch out and bend the swift surge, and murky Charybdis spins around, dragged along by gulped-back whirlpools – so too that region of the sea whirls around in a spin, thrashed all over by the sea-monster’s panting.

The whale’s threat to human endeavour has already been outlined by the poet at .–, where κήτεα are said to endanger the ships that travel in the waters where the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas converge. Typhon, panting in his imprisonment by Zeus under Mount Etna, has long been conquered and subdued; so too, we assume, the whale will be put in its rightful cosmic place, no longer to threaten man’s maritime interests. In its depiction of the now (largely) subdued Typhon, the comparison builds on Oppian’s earlier depiction of the subjugation of Typhon, introduced in the proem to book  in an invocation of Hermes: Πανὶ δὲ Κωρυκίῳ βυθίην παρακάτθεο τέχνην, παιδὶ τεῷ, τὸν φασι Διὸς ῥυτῆρα γενέσθαι, Ζηνὸς μὲν ῥυτῆρα, Τυφαόνιον δ’ ὀλετῆρα. κεῖνος γὰρ δείπνοισιν ὑπ’ ἰχθυβόλοιο δολώσας σμερδαλέον Τυφῶνα παρήπαφεν ἔκ τε βερέθρου δύμεναι εὐρωποῖο καὶ εἰς ἁλὸς ἐλθέμεν ἀκτήν· ἔνθα μιν ὀξεῖαι στεροπαὶ ῥιπαί τε κεραυνῶν ζαφλεγέες πρήνιξαν· ὁ δ’ αἰθόμενος πυρὸς ὄμβροις κρᾶθ’ ἑκατὸν πέτρῃσι περιστυφελίζετο πάντῃ ξαινόμενος· ξανθαὶ δὲ παρ’ ἠιόνεσσιν ἔτ’ ὄχθαι λύθρῳ ἐρευθιόωσι Τυφαονίων ἀλαλητῶν.

ð15Þ

ð20Þ

ð25Þ

(.–)

And you [Hermes] entrusted the deep-sea art [sc. of fishing] to Corycian Pan, your son, who they say is the saviour of Zeus: the saviour of Zeus, but the destroyer of Typhon. For he tricked terrible Typhon with a meal of caught fish, and deceived him into emerging from his broad pit and coming to the shore of the sea. And there the dazzling lightning and the fiery blasts of thunderbolts dashed him to the ground; and as he blazed in the rain of fire he struck the rocks with his hundred heads, thrashed all over. And even now the pale banks by the sea-shore are red from the gore of the battle with Typhon.

Every detail of the battle will look to a parallel between Typhon and the whale. Like the whale, Typhon is tricked by a fisherman – in this case Pan, keeper of the



Locating Monsters

piscatorial arts – with a deceptive meal in order to induce him to emerge from the depths. At this point both creatures are blasted by Zeus’s lightning: the one literally, and the other figuratively. For after the whale has emerged from the sea’s depths, the fishermen pour bilge-water onto its wounds, aggravating them like water inflaming the blaze of a ship struck by Zeus’ lightning: ἐν δέ οἱ ὠτειλῇσιν ἀφυσσόμενοι ῥόον ἄντλου πευκεδανὸν στάζουσ’· ἡ δ’ ἕλκεσι μίσγεται ἃλμη ἠύτε πῦρ καὶ θηρὶ θοώτερον ἧψεν ὄλεθρον. ὡς δὲ Διὸς μάστιγι βάλῃ τρόπιν αἰθέριον πῦρ πόντον ἀμειβομένην, νέμεται δέ μιν αἰθαλόεσσα ῥιπή, τὴν δ’ ἔτι μᾶλλον ἐποτρύνουσα κορύσσει μισγομένη δίοισιν ὁμοῦ πυρσοῖσι θάλασσα· ὣς κείνου χαλεπάς τε βολὰς ὀδύνας τε κορύσσει ἄντλου πυθομένοιο δυσαέος ἄγριον ὕδωρ.

ð280Þ

ð285Þ

(.–)

[The fishermen] draw up a piercing stream of bilge-water and trickle it into the whale’s wounds; and the brine mingles with its sores like fire and kindles a swifter destruction for the beast. Just as ethereal fire strikes a ship’s keel with the lash of Zeus while it travels the sea, and the blazing onrush consumes the ship, and when the sea mingles together with the heavenly firebrands it stirs the fire up and heightens it even further; so the fierce water from the festering, awful-smelling bilge heightens the whale’s terrible wounds and pains.

The image of the ‘lashing’ thunderbolt sets the fishermen’s battle with the whale in parallel with Zeus’ conquest of Typhon in book , underscoring both the whale’s monstrous nature and man’s quasi-divine superiority over the beast(s) they eventually subdue. The combination of fire and water, central to the lightning simile (.–), echoes the ‘showers of fire’ to which Zeus subjects Typhon at .. The thrashing of Typhon (ξαινόμενος, .) under Zeus’ assault is echoed by Oppian’s repetition of ξαινομένη at . and ξαινόμενος at ., now applied to the water thrashed about by Typhon in the simile and by the wounded whale (again picked up at .), the participle prominently positioned in each case at the start of the line. Even Oppian’s aetiological note that the coast by the   



For which compare the language of feasting used of the whale’s bait at .–, . Cf. Hom. Il. .–, where the earth groans beneath the marching Greek army as when Zeus uses his thunderbolt to lash the earth (γαῖαν ἱμάσσῃ, Il. .) around Typhoeus’ resting-place. This elemental confluence features heavily in Nonnus’ account of the battle between Zeus and Typhon at the start of the Dionysiaca, where Typhon fails to realise that his streams of water will only inflame Zeus’ lightning. See esp. Nonn. Dion. .–, –; Vian : –. The only occurrences of the verb in the Halieutica.

. Hesiodic Monsters



Corycian cave is still stained red by the gore (λύθρον) from Typhon’s wounds (.–) finds its counterpart in the poet’s claim that the sea is defiled by the gore (λύθρον) that pours from the whale’s deadly wounds (κῦμα δ’ ἅπαν λύθροιο φορύσσεται ἐκχυμένοιο | ὠτειλαῖς ὀλοῇσι, .–), an image in turn elaborated in the simile that compares the bloody sea to water ruddied (ἐρυθαίνεται, .; cf. ἐρευθιόωσι, .) when red earth is carried along by a rushing river. Oppian’s whale-hunt becomes a cosmic battle into which the very elements seem drawn. Most methods of fishing in the Halieutica revolve around bait and trickery, and are notable for the ease with which fish are customarily caught. Both Zeus’s defeat of Typhon and the destruction of the whale involve a degree of trickery – each creature is lured out of its lair by a form of bait – but these victories rest primarily on brute force, violent power, and a process of attrition through which the monster is gradually worn down. Oppian’s representation of Zeus’ elemental, hard-fought battle against a monstrous adversary looks primarily to the Hesiodic Titanomachy and Typhonomachy, where Zeus destroys his last mighty adversaries in the final power struggles of the Theogony. In the course of his fight with the Titans, Zeus hurls thunder, lightning, and flame at his enemies, creating an immense conflagration; the earth boils (ἔζεε, Theog. ), along with the sea, and the battle creates an enormous din. The winds stir up even more thunder, lightning, and dust, and the desire of Zeus’s allies for battle is insatiable. Hot on the heels of Zeus’s victory over the Titans comes the birth of Typhoeus, whom Zeus again fights in a powerful contest drawn in raw, elemental terms, in essence a doublet for the Titanomachy, to which it is also temporally linked (Theog. ). In this too the earth boils up (ἔζεε, Theog. ), along with the sky and sea; great waves rush around the shores as the sea is filled with fiery heat, as well as thunderbolts, lightning, fire, hurricanes, and winds. Zeus scourges Typhoeus with thunder and lightning; the din of the fight is inextinguishable (ἄσβεστος, Theog. ) and the battle-strife terrible. The earth is burned by a final blast when Typhoeus is struck, and from the monster arise evil storm-winds that blow unpredictably over the sea and cause destruction for sailors. In the fishermen’s battle with the whale, the sea likewise boils as the monster fights (ζέει, .), and the waves swirl, crash, and seethe, the sea stirred up as if it contained all of Boreas’ powerful winds (.–).    

Cf. the Titans’ gore (λύθρον, .), said (perhaps) to have engendered the human race. Theog. –, esp. ff.; –. See e.g. West : ; Clay : ; Blaise : ; Clay : –. For the dangers of which see Hes. Op. –.



Locating Monsters

The fishermen’s incendiary actions are compared to those of Zeus lashing out and creating a powerful conflagration as the lightning mixes with the sea, while Oppian’s description of the blazing blast (αἰθαλόεσσα | ῥιπή, .–) as it hits the ship picks up on the Theogonic formula αἰθαλόεντα κεραυνόν, used four times of Zeus’s thunderbolt (Hes. Theog. , , , ), the last two instances referring to Zeus’s battle with the Titans and Typhoeus respectively, and the first two to the weapons by which Zeus effects his rule. As in the Theogony, in the Halieutica both the whale (.–) and the fishermen (.–, ) make an enormous din as they fight, the latter roused by their inextinguishable (ἄσβεστος, .) desire for battle. The whale’s anguished efforts are repeatedly drawn in monstrous terms, and the effects of its exertions are explicitly compared to those of Typhon. Even the terrible eddies that distort the sea as they strain or stretch out – δειναὶ δὲ τιταινόμεναι στροφάλιγγες (.) – evoke the Hesiodic etymology famously provided for the Titans who strained (τιταίνοντας) to do a mighty deed in their wickedness, a deed for which they will be punished (Hes. Theog. –). After its furious panting, the whale drives the fishermen’s ship back like a hostile wind that drives the sea against a ship’s prow (.–), no idle threat given the danger that these creatures are elsewhere said to pose to ships (.–, –). The observer who marvels at the whale’s corpse characterises it as a horrible counterpart to the storm-winds and other elemental terrors with which sailors are habitually plagued. His speech calls to mind Hesiod’s emphasis on the destructive storm-winds that emanate from Typhoeus, raging gales that endanger ships and sailors at sea (Hes. Theog. –). As if in response to this danger, Oppian’s rustic, looking in fear at the whale’s carcass, prays that he need never travel over the waves in a skimpy boat, anxiously scanning the horizon for winds and clouds, at the mercy not only of the sea itself but of the storm-winds and dreadful beasts like the one at which he gazes (.–). The whale is envisaged by this onlooker as another peril to be faced on top of the deadly storm-winds that afflict sailors – dangers akin to the  



Cf. Bartley : . ῥιπή is used by Hesiod to describe the mighty divine onrush in the Titanomachy and Typhonomachy (Hes. Theog. , ). The whale’s characterisation as a πέλωρ (., ), and as πέλωρος (., ) or πελώριος (., referring to κήτεα more broadly) assimilates it to Typhoeus and other deadly monsters, including Polyphemus (see below). πέλωρ and its cognates are used of Typhoeus in the Theogony (Hes. Theog. , ), for instance, and of Polyphemus in the Odyssey (Hom. Od. ., , , ), while at Hal. . the whale is described as a τέρας, for which cf. the depiction of Typhon at [Aesch.] PV –. Cf. Oppian’s evocation of the Odyssean etymological pun on Charybdis’ name at Hal. ..

. Homeric Monsters



unpredictable gales that arose from Hesiod’s Typhoeus to plague seafarers (ἄελλαι, Hal. .; cf. Hes. Theog. ). The whale, like Typhoeus, functions as a manifestation of the primal forces of nature in their most chaotic and deadly guise, while the rustic’s averral that he would rather not put to sea at all playfully reworks Hesiod’s own expressions of suspicion towards the malevolent winds at sea, and especially his claim in the nautilia never to have sailed over the open sea, and only once to have set sail in a ship (Op. –). Zeus’ eventual victory over Typhoeus in the Theogony marks not simply the triumph of order and structure over chaos and monstrosity, but also a continued threat to human safety in the form of the winds that arise from the monster. As Jenny Strauss Clay puts it, ‘[f]or mankind, destined by the gods to cultivate the earth and to sail the seas to gain his livelihood, Zeus’s triumph over his last enemy brings about a new and inescapable evil, only adding to the fragility and misery of the human condition’. Even after the ostensible culmination of the whale-hunt, the horrifying corpse of Oppian’s sea-monster serves as another reminder to the startled onlooker – and, by extension, the reader – of the fragility of human existence and the terrors of life at sea.

. Homeric Monsters Oppian’s narrative of large-scale conflict at sea, moreover, necessarily looks also to the Homeric epics; his portrayal of the whale as a mighty epic threat not only reconfigures the monsters of both the Iliad and Odyssey, but also explores their long reception history. At the start of the hunt κήτεα are introduced as savage, ravening beasts the size of twenty-oared ships (νήεσσιν ἐεικοσόροισιν ὁμοῖα, .). The comparison evokes the olive-wood staff of Polyphemus in the Odyssey, as large as the mast of a twenty-oared ship (Hom. Od. .–), and shortly to be used to blind the Cyclops. The intimation of an impending quasi-Cyclopean confrontation is soon fleshed out in the Halieutica when the whale takes the bait and is caught, pulling hopelessly against the buoyed rope on which it is hooked: αὐτὰρ ὅ γ’ ἀσχαλόων μυχίην πάλιν ἵεται ἅλμην, πολλὰς δὲ στροφάλιγγας ἑλίσσεται, ἄλλοτ’ ἀνάγκῃ, ἄλλοθ’ ἑκών, ἕλκων τε καὶ ἑλκόμενος παλίνορσος. ὡς δ’ ὅτε δουροτόμοι ξυνὸν πόνον ἀθλεύουσι πρίονος ἐγκονέοντες, ὅτε τρόπιν ἠέ τιν’ ἄλλην 

ð195Þ

Clay : –; cf. Blaise : –. The whale’s death does not, of course, create new evils for mankind, but stands rather as a symbol of these threats.



Locating Monsters χρειὼ πλωτήρεσσιν ἐπισπεύδουσι τελέσσαι· ἄμφω δὲ τρηχεῖαν ἐρειδομένοιο σιδήρου ἀλκὴν αὖ ἐρύουσι καὶ οὔποτε ταρσὸς ὀδόντων τέτραπται μίαν οἶμον, ἐπειγόμενος δ’ ἑκάτερθε κλάζει τε πρίει τε καὶ ἔμπαλιν ἕλκεται αἰεί· τοῖον καὶ ῥινοῖσι πέλει καὶ θηρὶ δαφοινῷ νεῖκος ἀνελκομένῳ τε βιαζομένοις θ’ ἑτέρωθε.

ð200Þ

ð205Þ

(.–)

But the whale rushes back in distress to the innermost part of the sea, twisting and turning repeatedly, moving in one direction by necessity and in the other by choice, dragging [the rope] and being dragged back again. As when wood-cutters labour on the shared task of sawing industriously, as they hasten to finish a ship’s keel or some other necessity for sailors; and both men in turn draw back the jagged force of the iron as it is pressed down, and the row of teeth never moves in one single direction, but is pressed hard on each side, and it shrieks and saws and is continually drawn back again – such is the contest between the hides and the murderous beast as it is dragged upwards and they are forced in the other direction.

As Mair observes, the image echoes the famous ship-building simile used as Odysseus and his men blind Polyphemus with his own stake (Hom. Od. .–). In each case the struggle against a mighty beast is illustrated with an analogy that describes the pursuit of a shared task undertaken by a team of ship-builders, and that focuses on the balance between two parties engaged in a constant back-and-forth movement (in the Halieutica, those sawing; in the Odyssey, those using the thong to rotate the drill) set against a pressure applied from above (ἐρειδομένοιο, Hal. .; ἐρεισθείς, Od. .). Further Cyclopean echoes are generated when Oppian’s whale is twice described as ‘drunk’ with pain (ἐκ τ’ ὀδυνάων | θὴρ ὀλοὸς μεθύῃ, .–); on the second occasion the creature even nods at the fulfilment of its fatal end, [as if] heavy with wine (νευστάζων ὀλοοῖο μόρου τέλος οἰνοβαρείων, .), an image that recalls the manner in which Polyphemus’ neck droops as he falls back in his cave, heavy with wine (οἰνοβαρείων, Od. .–), before being blinded by Odysseus. The whale’s ‘drunkenness’ is introduced as a metaphor rather than a simile, assimilating its state further to that of the doomed Cyclops: the creature can no more avoid its plight than could the drunken Polyphemus. Even the agonising effects of Odysseus’ burning stake are paralleled in the fishermen’s protracted struggle with the whale, for the hunt is repeatedly illustrated using images of fire. As soon as the fishermen have captured the guide-fish that steers the whale they move on to the business of capturing the ‘unguarded’ whale, a process compared to a band of men

. Homeric Monsters



sneaking into an enemy city in order to set it on fire. On finding the guards asleep, the soldiers hasten on without fear, ‘carrying the weapon of fire, the bane of the city: the fire-brand, destroyer of well-built halls’ (πυρὸς βέλος, ἄστεος ἄτην, | δαλὸν ἐυδμήτων μεγάρων ῥαιστῆρα φέροντες, .–). The conceit that the whale is set on fire is developed in the description of its anguish: once hooked, the creature dives and groans in burning pain (φλογέῃσιν . . . ὀδύνῃσι, .); the whale struggles as the fishermen pour bilge-water into its wounds, inflaming further ‘fiery’ agony in the beast, an image intensified by the simile that compares the whale’s wounds to a ship struck by fiery lightning (.–). Cyclopean reminiscences thus proliferate over the course of the episode, from the whale’s monstrous size to the ship-building analogy that depicts the creature’s tussle with the fishermen, as well as the fiery pain that the fishermen inflict on the beast in its quasi-drunken agony. Just as fishermen are often cast in the poem in recognisably Odyssean light – particularly in their wily propensity for trickery and their perilous wanderings across the sea – so their mighty opponent is assimilated to one of Odysseus’ most memorable foes. The conflict with the whale also evokes the marine trials that the Homeric hero endures in the middle of the Odyssey, especially his two encounters with Scylla and Charybdis in book  and the two shipwrecks to which he is subjected. In this respect the simile in which the whale’s wounds are inflamed like a ship struck by Zeus’ lightning may also look to the lightning with which Zeus strikes Odysseus’ ship after it leaves Thrinacia; this is the climactic point of the storm that kills Odysseus’ companions, shatters his ship, and drives him back to Charybdis on the ship’s splintered fragments. Both here and in Odysseus’ second shipwreck Homer dramatises the elemental, terrifying force of wind and water, highlighting the fragility of life at sea. The second episode makes much of the power of wind and sea, whose force is felt in the waves that strike Odysseus’ raft (Hom. Od. .–) and in the dashing roar with which

  

When Odysseus’ ship is struck by Zeus’ lightning on leaving the island of Helios in Odyssey , and when his raft is wrecked by Poseidon on the shores of Scheria in Odyssey . Hom. Od. .–, esp. –, on which cf. Bartley : ; the lightning-strike is mentioned beforehand by both Calypso and Zeus at Od. .– and .–. Odysseus’ two shipwrecks are thematically linked in the Homeric narrative: in each the mast is snapped and Odysseus clings to the timbers that remain. Calypso associates Odysseus’ marine voyages to and from Ogygia at Hom. Od. .–; the hero also mistakenly assumes that the storm sent by Poseidon is another of the tribulations sent by Zeus (Od. .–), and that his earlier premonitions will be fulfilled.



Locating Monsters

the sea breaks on the land, coating its surroundings with foam and threatening those who attempt to come ashore (Od. .–, –). This combination of foam and roaring water, vividly evoking the raw power of the sea, also characterises Oppian’s depiction of the foaming whale, whose panting makes the surrounding water roar and seethe dramatically, and whose thrashing is like the wind that makes the waves roll threateningly against a ship’s prow. In this context it is significant that Odysseus’ speech as he catches sight of land should pinpoint his location as the deep water close to the shore (ἀγχιβαθὴς δὲ θάλασσα, Hom. Od. .), for this is an unusual description that also marks the location of Oppian’s whale-hunt: κήτεα, we are told in the Halieutica, may be caught precisely here, when they ‘wander’ out of the open sea and enter the deep water close to the shore (πολλάκι δὲ πλαγχθέντα καὶ ᾐόνος ἐγγὺς ἱκάνει | ἀγχιβαθοῦς, ὅτε κέν τις ἐπί σφίσιν ὁπλίζοιτο, Hal. .–). The term ἀγχιβαθής, a Homeric hapax, is used only here in the Halieutica, and creates a parallelism between the shipwrecked Odysseus and the terrifying whale-hunt. In the Halieutica the frightened observer of the sea-monster’s corpse prays that he may be spared the combined maritime evils of stormwind, shipwreck, and sea-monster (Hal. .–). In addition to the Hesiodic models discussed above, the speech recalls Odysseus’ fears about the dangers of crossing the sea on a tiny raft (Od. .–), his despair at the prospect of a death at sea (likewise contrasted with the comparative delights of dry land, Od. .–), and especially his despondent speech on catching sight of the unwelcoming shores of Scheria (Od. .–). In this speech Odysseus voices his fear that a great wave will dash him against the rocks, that a storm-wind will snatch him up and drown him, or that some deity will send a huge sea-monster (κῆτος . . . μέγα, Od. .) out of the sea to devour him, a beast of the kind that glorious Amphitrite breeds copiously. Oppian, we infer, has depicted a monster of exactly the kind that threatens Odysseus’ sojourn in the inhospitable waters. 

 

Also of relevance is the simile in which Odysseus is tossed like a thistle blown about by Boreas (Hom. Od. .–). As the whale fights the inflated hides (ἀσκοί) to which it is fastened, its breath is compared to the containment of Boreas’ powerful winds under the waves (.–). The image of the whale dragged unwillingly through the sea here echoes the wind-filled ἀσκός given by Aeolus to Odysseus (Od. .–) and opened by his foolish companions, an act that propels them reluctantly across the sea to Aeolia. Like Odysseus, Oppian’s whale has wandered (πλαγχθέντα) from its course. This Homeric scene also marks the hero’s assimilation to the marine world in the octopus simile of Hom. Od. .–. Hom. Od. .: οἷά τε πολλὰ τρέφει κλυτὸς Ἀμφιτρίτη; cf. Hal. .–, and the representation of the whale as the ἀλγεινὸν . . . τέρας Ἀμφιτρίτης (.) and the βλοσυρὸν δάκος Ἀμφιτρίτης (.).

. Homeric Monsters



Further Homeric episodes, and κήτεα, are evoked by the description of the wounded whale: πολλὴν δ’ αἱματόεσσαν ὑπεὶρ ἁλὸς ἔπτυσεν ἄχνην παφλάζων ὀδύνῃσιν, ὑποβρύχιον δὲ μέμυκε μαινομένου φύσημα, περιστένεται δέ οἱ ὕδωρ ἀμβολάδην· φαίης κεν ὑπ’ οἴδμασι πᾶσαν ἀυτμὴν κευθομένην Βορέαο δυσαέος αὐλίζεσθαι· τόσσον ἀνασθμαίνει λάβρον μένος, ἀμφὶ δὲ πυκναὶ δίναις οἰδαλέῃσιν ἑλισσόμεναι στροφάλιγγες οἴδματα κοιλαίνουσι διισταμένοιο πόροιο. οἷον δ’ Ἰονίοιο παρὰ στόμα καὶ κελάδοντος Τυρσηνοῦ πόντοιο μέση πορθμοῖο διαρρὼξ εἰλεῖται λάβροισιν ὑπ’ ἄσθμασι Τυφάωνος ξαινομένη· δειναὶ δὲ τιταινόμεναι στροφάλιγγες κῦμα θοὸν γνάμπτουσι, περιστρέφεται δὲ κελαινὴ ἑλκομένη δίνῃσι παλιρροίβδοισι Χάρυβδις· ὣς τότε κητείοισιν ὑπ’ ἄσθμασι χῶρος ἁπάντῃ ξαινόμενος βέμβικας ἑλίσσεται ἀμφιτρίτης.

ð210Þ

ð215Þ

ð220Þ

(.–)

[The whale] spews out copious bloody foam over the sea as it seethes in pain; its heaving breath booms under the surface as it rages, and the water roars as it bubbles up around. It gasps with such blustering force that you’d have thought all the blasts of savage-blowing Boreas lodged hidden under the waves, and all around constant eddies swirl in swollen whirls, hollowing a vortex out of the waves as the sea parts. Just as by the mouth of the Ionian and the resounding Tyrrhenian Seas the fissure at the midpoint of the strait whirls around, thrashed by the blustering panting of Typhon; and terrible eddies stretch out and bend the swift surge, and murky Charybdis spins around, dragged along by gulped-back whirlpools – so too that region of the sea whirls around in a spin, thrashed all over by the sea-monster’s panting.

The description of the panting whale recalls another Homeric scene in which Poseidon intervenes in the narrative plot – and again returns to his palace at Aegae (for which cf. Hom. Od. .–) – this time the opening of Iliad , a passage much admired in antiquity. The sea-creature’s frenetic activity and emergence from its underwater lair, especially in conjunction with the parting of the sea (διισταμένοιο: Hal. .; διίστατο: Il. .), alludes to the scene in which Poseidon returns to his submarine palace and drives his chariot across the sea to the Greek ships: 

The image is praised by Longinus for its sublimity (.), and is reworked at Mosch. Eur. –, where κήτεα emerge from the sea and frolic joyfully around Zeus and Poseidon.



Locating Monsters ἔνθ’ ἐλθὼν ὑπ’ ὄχεσφι τιτύσκετο χαλκόποδ’ ἵππω ὠκυπέτα χρυσέῃσιν ἐθείρῃσιν κομόωντε, χρυσὸν δ’ αὐτὸς ἔδυνε περὶ χροΐ, γέντο δ’ ἱμάσθλην χρυσείην εὔτυκτον, ἑοῦ δ’ ἐπεβήσετο δίφρου, βῆ δ’ ἐλάαν ἐπὶ κύματ’· ἄταλλε δὲ κήτε’ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ πάντοθεν ἐκ κευθμῶν, οὐδ’ ἠγνοίησεν ἄνακτα· γηθοσύνῃ δὲ θάλασσα διίστατο· τοὶ δὲ πέτοντο ῥίμφα μάλ’, οὐδ’ ὑπένερθε διαίνετο χάλκεος ἄξων·

(Hom. Il. .–)

ð25Þ

ð30Þ

Poseidon went [to his palace] and harnessed two bronze-hooved horses under his chariot, swift-flying horses with long golden manes, and he clothed his body in gold, and took hold of the well-wrought golden whip, and he mounted his chariot and set out to drive over the waves. And sea-monsters capered beneath him on every side, [coming out] from their hiding-places, for they recognised their master, and the sea parted in joy. The horses flew with great speed, and the bronze axle was not wetted beneath.

There is, however, a pointed dissonance between these two images of swimming sea-monsters. In the Homeric scene κήτεα emerge from their lairs and gambol around Poseidon in recognition of their master, and the sea parts before the deity in delight. In the Halieutica, by contrast, the sea parts not in delight but as a result of the creature’s anguished writhing. The whale’s panting and foaming as it reaches the bottom of the sea has just been likened by Oppian to the bloodied foam of an exhausted horse, sweating, panting, and grinding its teeth as it rests at the end of a hard race (Hal. .–). Poseidon’s horses, by contrast, are swift-footed, goldenmaned, and bronze-hooved; they appear entirely untroubled by their swift marine journey, and when they reach their destination and rest in the underwater cave they are tethered with golden shackles and given ambrosia on which to graze (Hom. Il. .–). Unlike the delighted activities of the Homeric horses, sea-monsters, and sea, the whale’s anguished submarine activities in the Halieutica mark only its imminent death. The contrast between the poems also marks a change in scale: where in the Iliad Poseidon courses effortlessly over the sea, the fawning κήτεα seeming like mere playthings frisking in the wake of the mighty god, Oppian’s seamonster, here witnessed from all too mortal a perspective, becomes an almost unimaginably vast and terrifying beast, the focus of an epic struggle of colossal scope. There is, moreover, a set of Odyssean associations explicitly at work in this passage. Oppian draws a direct comparison between the activity of the whale and that of Charybdis, whom Odysseus encounters not just once

. Post-Homeric Traditions



but twice in Odyssey . In the seas of the simile δειναὶ δὲ τιταινόμεναι στροφάλιγγες | κῦμα θοὸν γνάμπτουσι, περιστρέφεται δὲ κελαινὴ | ἑλκομένη δίνῃσι παλιρροίβδοισι Χάρυβδις (‘terrible eddies stretch out and bend the swift surge, and dark Charybdis spins around, dragged along by gulped-back whirlpools’, Hal. .–). The juxtaposition of παλιρροίβδοισι with Χάρυβδις (.) echoes the depiction of Charybdis in the Odyssey, and especially the passage in which Charybdis is first introduced (Hom. Od. .–), where the Homeric juxtaposition of Χάρυβδις ἀναρροιβδεῖ (Od. .) and Circe’s triple repetition of the verb (ἀνα-) ῥοιβδέω suggests an etymological pun on Charybdis’ own name; the verb recurs on the two subsequent occasions on which Odysseus encounters her. Oppian’s παλιρροίβδοισι Χάρυβδις echoes this implied etymology, capitalising, as with the Hesiodic Titans, on the relationship between name and identity prominent already in archaic Greek epic.

. Post-Homeric Traditions By the second century , however, the adventures detailed in the archaic Greek epics had themselves acquired a long history of commentary and allusion: to evoke Charybdis or Typhon, for instance, is no longer to refer to Homer or Hesiod alone, but to look to a rich, polyphonic tradition in which these myths were discussed and developed in multiple directions. Drawing together the κῆτος and Charybdis in a kind of double-glazed window allusion, Oppian’s characterisation of the whale also looks to Dionysius the Periegete’s account of the ravening κήτεα that abound in the seas around Taprobane (modern Sri Lanka) – a description itself inspired by the successive depictions of Charybdis in Homer, Apollonius, and Lycophron, amongst others: ἀμφὶ δὲ πάντη κήτεα θῖνες ἔχουσιν, Ἐρυθραίου βοτὰ πόντου, οὔρεσιν ἠλιβάτοισιν ἐοικότα· τῶν δ’ ὑπὲρ ἄκρων 



παλιρροίβδοισι is recorded as a varia lectio in Γ, and is printed by Schneider, Lehrs, Mair, and Fajen (cf. παλιρροίβδῃσι, transmitted in ε, θ, κ, F); παλιρροίζοισι or παλιρροίζῃσι is transmitted in the majority of MSS. παλίρροιβδος suggests eddies being sucked back by Charybdis (perhaps also with a rushing noise, the post-Homeric sense of ῥοιβδέω); παλίρροιζος would emphasise the noise. The manuscript evidence is inconclusive, the adjectives cognate and their meanings very similar; as James : – notes, the parallel with the Homeric descriptions of Charybdis makes παλίρροιβδος attractive. Apollonius of Rhodes, however, uses both ῥοίζει (A.R. Arg. .) and ῥοίζῳ (Arg. .) of the snake’s hissing as it guards the golden fleece, a passage that Oppian perhaps reworks in this simile. ἀνερροίβδησε: Hom. Od. ., . The variant spelling ἀναρρυβδέω makes an etymological inference in the phrase Χάρυβδις ἀναρρυβδεῖ all but inevitable.



Locating Monsters τέτρηχεν νώτων περιμήκετος ὁλκὸς ἀκάνθης. δυσμενέων τοι παῖδες, ἑλισσόμενοι κατὰ πόντον, κείνοις ἀντιάσειαν ἀλώμενοι· οὐ γὰρ ἐρωὴ λυγροῖς ἐν στομάτεσσιν, ἐπεὶ μέγα χάσμα τέτυκται· πολλάκι δ’ ἂν καὶ νῆα σὺν αὐτοῖς ἀνδράσι νηὸς κεῖνα καταβρόξειε τεράατα· τοῖς γὰρ ἀλιτροῖς εἰν ἁλὶ καὶ γαίῃ κακὰ μυρία θήκατο δαίμων.

(Dion. Perieg. –)

And the shores [of Taprobane] all around contain whales, the beasts of the Red Sea, like steep mountains: above their high back bristles the towering track of their backbone. May the children of your enemies meet them as they wander in their travels over the sea! For there is no escape from their ruinous jaws once they open into a yawning chasm. And often those monsters will swallow up both ships and their men along with them: for the deity sends countless evils against sinners on both land and sea.

Oppian adapts from Dionysius not only elements of the whale’s fearsome physical appearance, especially its mighty bulk and jagged spine – which, in the Periegesis as in the Halieutica, prompt both a fervent wish and a rhetorical meditation on the danger of such monsters to humankind – but also a sense of these creatures’ elevation to symbols of mankind’s wider position within the cosmos at large. Oppian, however, is concerned less with the punishment of sinful men by the gods than with the whale-hunt as a manifestation of mankind’s victory over the primal and chaotic dangers of the sea, a notion set out implicitly in the analogy with Zeus’s victory over Typhon, and explicitly in the meditation on human beings in the proem to this book. Whereas for Dionysius these man-eating sea-monsters become fearsome agents of divine justice, Oppian makes of their slaughter an emblem of the restitution of cosmic order. Dionysius’ κήτεα are particularly important to Oppian as a model of incorporative epic intertextuality. As Jane Lightfoot has observed, Dionysius’ representation of sea-monsters ‘swallowing’ (καταβρόξειε, Perieg. ) ships and men in their gaping maw gestures self-consciously – and 



Oppian describes the sea-monster’s physical appearance and imagines an onlooker’s prayer at .–; see esp. .–, on the jagged spine, and ., on its being weighed down by its enormous (ἠλιβάτοις; cf. Perieg. ) limbs. Crucial too is Dionysius’ interest in the relationship between myth and landscape, and between agents and their physical environment. Oppian’s whale simile likewise explores the relationship between a κῆτος, the putative Charybdis, and the impact of both real and imagined creatures on a specific region (χῶρος, .), identified in the simile with unusual geographical precision; see further below.

. Post-Homeric Traditions



indeed almost overtly, given the use of the optative – towards the gulping action of Charybdis in Homer (ἀναβρόξειε, Od. .), as well as Apollonius (ἀναβρόξασα, Arg. .) and Lycophron (καταβρόξῃ, Alex. ). Oppian’s comparison of the effects of the panting κῆτος to those of Charybdis thus capitalises on Dionysius’ conflation of those two marine threats in his representation of the κήτεα of Taprobane. Throughout the episode Oppian draws from later authors who themselves engage with the rich and ever-evolving epic tradition that builds upon archaic Greek epic precedents, and a dense post-Homeric intertextuality pervades his narrative. The relatively unusual noun στροφάλιγξ (‘eddy’, ‘whirl’, from the root στρέφω), for instance, is used five times in the whale-hunt at large, and twice alone within the depiction of the water churned up by the thrashing whale. These στροφάλιγγες pick up in part on the celestial στροφάλιγγες (Dion. Perieg. ) above Taprobane, where the Tropic of Cancer circles above the island and its sea-monsters; the importance of this eddying motion is highlighted by Oppian’s use of the word twice in swift succession when comparing the whale’s actions to those of Charybdis (., ). Yet in applying the word to the eddies of water churned up by a monster, the poet also neatly combines the two occurrences of the word in Apollonius’ Argonautica, where it is used both of swirling water and of the effects of a monster soon to be slain. The Halieutica interweaves multiple traditions to make of the whale a space of resonant epic intersections. The influence of Apollonius may be traced more widely through this marine quest, and in his evocation of the colossal force of the sea, Oppian’s depiction of the whale-hunt looks to Apollonius’ description of the Clashing Rocks or Symplegades, which are navigated on the Argo’s outward journey in Argonautica , and introduced at the start of the poem as virtually metonymic for the mission (and its itinerary) as a whole (A.R. Arg. .–). Apollonius’ depiction of the Symplegades itself draws from Homer’s depiction of the Planctae, Scylla, and Charybdis in Odyssey . Phineus’ description of the Symplegades in book  focuses on the force of the seething water and the cresting waves, as well as the roaring of the   





Lightfoot : –. Hal. ., , , , . No earlier author uses the word with such frequency. See Dion. Perieg. , , of the revolution of sun and stars, here following Aratus. The Argonautica is the first extant text to use the plural; for στροφάλιγγες ἀπείριτοι εἱλίσσονται (A.R. Arg. .) cf. πυκναὶ . . . ἑλισσόμεναι στροφάλιγγες (Hal. .–). Firstly in the simile where swirling water creates a shimmering sunbeam, an image applied to Medea’s palpitating heart (A.R. Arg. .), and secondly of eddying smoke, a simile applied to the rolling coils of the dragon that guards the golden fleece (Arg. .). See e.g. Knight : –; Kyriakou : –.



Locating Monsters

water as it crashes against the shore (see esp. Arg. .–), while the detailed description of the Argo’s actual passage through the rocks (Arg. .–) evokes the furious power of the place, with its thudding rocks, booming water, whirling currents, and surging foam: ταὶ δ’ ἄμυδις πάλιν ἀντίαι ἀλλήλῃσιν ἄμφω ὁμοῦ ξυνιοῦσαι ἐπέκτυπον· ὦρτο δὲ πολλή ð565Þ ἅλμη ἀναβρασθεῖσα, νέφος ὥς· αὖε δὲ πόντος σμερδαλέον, πάντη δὲ περὶ μέγας ἔβρεμεν αἰθήρ· κοῖλαι δὲ σπήλυγγες ὑπὸ σπιλάδας τρηχείας κλυζούσης ἁλὸς ἔνδον ἐβόμβεον, ὑψόθι δ’ ὄχθης λευκὴ καχλάζοντος ἀνέπτυε κύματος ἄχνη· ð570Þ νῆα δ’ ἔπειτα πέριξ εἴλει ῥόος· (A.R. Arg. .–)

And the two rocks crashed as they came back together again. A mass of spray was dashed up and leapt like a cloud, and the sea roared terribly, and all around the huge sky resounded. The hollow caves beneath the jagged rocks boomed as the sea surged within, while the white foam from the crashing wave spluttered out high above the cliff; then the current whirled the ship around.

In his depiction of the whale’s anguished throes, Oppian too focuses on the roaring, bubbling, and seething of the water as it rages, and on the whirling eddies of water, forced around as if by the swirling currents in the strait (.–). The water that bubbles up around the creature is said to roar (περιστένεται, Hal. .), but we might equally think of its being compressed as if by a narrow strait (= στενός), an implication underscored by the poet’s depiction of the thundering fury of the straits where two seas meet. Like the Symplegades, the whale spews out foam over its surroundings (ἀνέπτυε . . . ἄχνη, A.R. Arg. .; ἔπτυσεν ἄχνην, Hal. .); more widely, much of the language used of the creature’s seething force is vocabulary associated in the epic tradition with the ferocious power of the sea (ἄχνην, ἔπτυσεν, παφλάζων, μαινομένου, φύσημα, λάβρος, and so forth), an association developed by the similes and metaphors of winds, waves, storms, and currents that pervade the whale-hunt. We shall return in Section . to the significance of the poet’s depiction of the submerged creature using language that evokes winds, storms, and forces of nature; for now it is important simply to note that the dynamism of this elemental

 

For this use of the verb cf. Hal. .. See. esp. the language used of storms, raging winds, and boiling waters at e.g. Hom. Il. ., ., .; Hes. Op. –, on the impact of Boreas on land and sea.

. Post-Homeric Traditions



language prepares the way for the poet’s explicit comparison of the whale’s thrashing to the winds of Boreas and to the impact of the gasping Typhon on the nearby straits. In Apollonius the Argo tries to race through the rocks as the Symplegades open up again, but a towering wave repels the ship and threatens to overwhelm it (Arg. .-). Despite their efforts to row, the Argonauts are unable to move forward, and strain against the might of the water as it rolls against the ship, before being rocked by another wave and held at the mercy of the current: ὅσσον δ’ ὑποείκαθε νηῦς ἐρέτῃσιν, δὶς τόσον ἂψ ἀπόρουσεν, ἐπεγνάμπτοντο δὲ κῶπαι ἠύτε καμπύλα τόξα, βιαζομένων ἡρώων. ἔνθεν δ’ αὐτίκ’ ἔπειτα καταρρεπὲς ἔσσυτο κῦμα, ἡ δ’ ἄφαρ ὥστε κύλινδρος ἐπέτρεχε κύματι λάβρῳ προπροκαταΐγδην κοίλης ἁλός. ἐν δ’ ἄρα μέσσαις Πληγάσι δινήεις εἷλεν ῥόος· αἱ δ’ ἑκάτερθεν σειόμεναι βρόμεον, πεπέδητο δὲ νήια δοῦρα·

ð590Þ

ð595Þ

(A.R. Arg. .–)

But however far the ship yielded to the rowers, it shot back again twice as far, and the oars bent back like curved bows as the heroes exerted themselves. Then a wave suddenly rushed at them from the other direction, and straight away the ship ran over the furious wave, rushing impetuously over the hollow sea like a rolling stone. Then the whirling current held [the ship] at the midpoint of the Clashing Rocks; they heaved and roared on each side, and the ship’s timbers were held fast.

Only Athena’s intervention saves the Argo from destruction. So too, as Oppian’s whale fights furiously on, it can no longer fend off the fishermen’s ship with its jaws, but lashes the water instead with its tail, driving the ship backwards despite its rowers’ best efforts: πτερύγων δ’ ὑπεραχθέι ῥιπῇ ἄκρῃ τ’ ἀλκαίῃ βύθιον διὰ κῦμα λαχαίνων ἔμπαλιν ἐς πρύμνας ὠθεῖ νέας, ἔργα δ’ ἐρετμῶν ἀνδρῶν τ’ ἠνορέην γνάμπτει πάλιν, ἠύτ’ ἀήτης ἀντίβιος πρώρῃσιν ἐναντία κῦμα κυλίνδων.

(Hal. .–)

But with a weighty blow from its fins and the end of its tail [the whale] ploughs up the waves of the deep and thrusts the ship back in the other direction, and it bends back the oars’ work and the men’s prowess, just like a hostile wind rolling a wave against the prow.

Numerous parallels underscore the association between Apollonius’ Symplegades and Oppian’s whale, both as the beast drives back the



Locating Monsters

fishermen’s ship and as it is compared to the eddying seas in the Straits of Messina. In the whale simile, as with Apollonius’ Symplegades, two powerful currents meet at the midpoint of the strait, hollowing out the sea in violently swelling waves and creating a whirling, dangerous current. In their combat with both the whale and the Symplegades, the sailors’ oars are ‘bent’ by the sheer power of the onrush, which renders their efforts useless and threatens to pitch the men headlong into the water; even the motion of the Argo ‘rolling’ over the waves echoes the wave rolling over the prow in the Halieutica. The sea-monster, like the Symplegades, becomes a symbol of the ocean’s danger, an unpredictable threat to sailors and a treacherous point of contact between marine and terrestrial forces. Central here is the powerful collision between land and sea, and Oppian’s description evokes not only the Symplegades of Apollonius’ Argonautica, but also the Symplegades and the coastline of the Black Sea depicted by Euripides in Iphigenia among the Taurians. This is a play that gravitates insistently towards the sea and its coastline; in the words of Edith Hall, ‘[i]f works of literature were classified less by their ostensible genre than by their subject-matter and the atmosphere they conjure, then IT would belong with other great fantasias on the theme of the sea – the Odyssey, The Ancient Mariner, or Moby-Dick’. Euripides’ representation of the Black Sea in the IT is orientated almost obsessively around the Symplegades: although hardly close to the Tauric Chersonese in geographical terms, the Symplegades nevertheless dominate the play’s imagined landscape, standing metonymically for the Black Sea as a whole, for the passage between Greek and non-Greek lands, and for the notion of sea-



 

To list only the direct verbal parallels between these passages: ἐπεγνάμπτοντο (A.R. Arg. .) ~γνάμπτει (Hal. .); κύλινδρος (Arg. .)~κυλίνδων (Hal. .); λάβρῳ (Arg. .) ~λάβρον, λάβροισιν (Hal. ., ); κοίλης (Arg. .)~κοιλαίνουσι (Hal. .); μέσσαις (Arg. .)~μέση (Hal. .); δινήεις (Arg. .)~δίναις (Hal. .). The whale is compared to a wind rolling the waves against a ship’s πρῴρη (prow or foreparts, Hal. .); πρῴρη is a hapax legomenon in both Homer (Od. .: Odysseus stands on the prow as his ship sails through the strait between Scylla and Charybdis) and Apollonius (A.R. Arg. .: Euphemus stands on the prow as the Argo prepares to sail through the Symplegades), both passages to which Oppian alludes in the whale-hunt. As Lange :  (with n. ) observes, Euripides’ IT is itself broadly modelled on the voyage and plot of the Argonautic myth. Hall : ; cf. Barlow : –; Kowalzig : : ‘[m]aritime language pervades the play throughout; there are many seemingly gratuitous references to the sea and the shore, which keep reestablishing the maritime setting whenever the action drifts away from the shore: the story is quickly refocused, as if to remind the audience that the sea is always close. The sea, how to travel it, how to control it, and how to use it to one’s advantage is without a question a central theme of the play.’

. Post-Homeric Traditions



travel at large. Here too the marine world is portrayed with deep ambivalence, as a place of both possibility and peril. Nowhere is this sense of the play’s maritime interests and coastal setting brought out more emphatically than in the first episode (Eur. IT –), in which a Taurian cowherd describes to Iphigenia the surprising arrival of two strangers – Orestes and Pylades, as it turns out – who have taken shelter in a coastal cave used by local fishermen. Orestes, mistaking the lowing of cattle for the cries of the Furies, slaughters the cows as they stand in the water, until finally he falls into the foam and is overpowered by the Taurians. The episode stages not only a symbolic confrontation between land and sea, locals and strangers, but also a literal, and littoral, fight between the two. The two worlds come into collision from the start of the episode, when Iphigenia quite reasonably asks the messenger καὶ τίς θαλάσσης βουκόλοις κοινωνία; (‘And what have cowherds to do with the sea?’, IT ). The herdsman is typically prolix: ἐπεὶ τὸν ἐκρέοντα διὰ Συμπληγάδων βοῦς ὑλοφορβοὺς πόντον εἰσεβάλλομεν, ἦν τις διαρρὼξ κυμάτων πολλῶι σάλωι κοιλωπὸς ἀγμός, πορφυρευτικαὶ στέγαι . . . (Eur. IT –)

When we were driving our woodland-grazing cattle into the sea that flows out through the Symplegades, there was a hollow crag, split apart by the repeated beating of the waves, a shelter for purple-fishers . . .

The herdsman’s narrative foregrounds the convergence of land and sea: the ‘woodland-grazing’ cows are driven into, and verbally juxtaposed with, the sea, while the murex-fishermen represent a marine counterpart to the terrestrial herdsmen, the murex shells later providing the herdsmen with makeshift battle-trumpets for their coastal ‘warfare’. The Symplegades too represent the meeting-point of solid rock and flowing current, while the fishermen’s cave, another zone of contact between land and sea, inverts the idea of the sea straitened by rocks, for the cave has been worn out of the cliff by the force of the sea as it beats against the rock.  



Eur. IT –, , , , , , , –, . See Cropp  ad –; Kowalzig : –; Buxton ; Wright : –; Hall : . Cf. Wright : –; Hall : : ‘[t]he sea is a thing of danger and fear in IT – it means storms and shipwrecks, clashing rocks and death. But it also washes mud from cattle and pollution from murderers and statues.’ The unexpected answer is that they were washing their cows.



Locating Monsters

Of particular relevance for our purposes is Euripides’ description of the cliff as διαρρώξ: the rock has been split apart and hollowed out by the waves’ constant movement. The word is extremely rare, and appears only here and in the Halieutica, where it is used of craggy rocks in which fish themselves take shelter, and in the simile comparing the whale’s actions to the waters around the Straits of Messina. διαρρώξ there denotes the point of cleavage between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas, where the two currents meet and swirl at the midpoint of the strait (Hal. .). The thematic parallels between the two passages are striking. Oppian’s depiction of the Straits of Messina – the treacherous point at which two seas converge – echoes Euripides’ emphasis upon straits in this play, especially his depiction of the Thracian Bosporus in the first stasimon, just after Iphigenia’s encounter with the herdsman. There the chorus open their speculation about the strangers’ voyage to Tauris by rehearsing Io’s journey from Europe to Asia: κυάνεαι κυάνεαι σύνοδοι θαλάσσας (‘dark, dark confluences of the seas’, Eur. IT ) they sing, pointing to the Bosporus as the symbolic location at which the Propontis and Black Sea converge, and evoking the Symplegades (‘Cyanean Rocks’) as guardians of this passageway, an image picked up at IT . Thematic parallels also unite the messenger’s account of the confrontation in the first episode of IT with Oppian’s depiction of the whale-hunt. In broad terms, as critics have long observed, the tragic messenger-speech constitutes the point at which the narrative mode of tragedy most closely resembles that of epic, and here the herdsman’s elevated vocabulary, elaborate scene-setting, use of reported speech, and depiction of the ‘battle’ lend his speech a notably epic quality. This is well exemplified at Eur, IT –, where Orestes is said to draw his sword, leaping into the fray like a lion, slashing at the ribs and flanks of the cows, and turning the sea red with blood, at which point the herdsmen arm themselves for battle and assemble the locals. Lion simile, martial theme, and epic diction give the  



Cf. Bartley : . The other occurrence is Hal. .; only at . is the word used as a substantive. διαρρωγή is used of a bandage once in the Hippocratic corpus (Hippoc. Art. ). Straits dominate the geography of this play: in addition to the repeated references to the Symplegades and Thracian Bosporus, the play opens with a description of Iphigenia’s supposed sacrifice by the swirling eddies of Euripus (see esp. Eur. IT –), another strait linked to the Bosporus by its fierce current and the description of the sea as dark blue (κυανέαν ἅλα, IT ). See Barrett : –; Scodel : : ‘[m]essenger speeches allow epic scale and actions impossible within the narrow dramatic space’; Cropp : : ‘[r]eport-speeches are epic in both verbal and narrative style, focusing on details of scene and action to achieve almost cinematic effects, and featuring reported speech’. As far as may be inferred from Philodemus’ polemic, Aristotle perhaps advanced a similar argument: Phld. De poem.  cols. – Mangoni [= Arist. Fa Janko], with Janko : –, .

. Post-Homeric Traditions



scene a distinctly Homeric flavour. The conceit of a quasi-epic sea-battle with an animal lies at the heart of Oppian’s whale-hunt, and Euripides’ description of the herdsmen arming themselves for ‘battle’ with the strangers (IT –: note esp. ἐξωπλίζετο and μάχεσθαι) finds its parallel in Oppian’s fixation on the martial aspects of the fishermen’s equipment; we have already seen that the whale-hunt as a whole is cast in strongly military terms, and is permeated by similes and metaphors of war. Both authors thus represent the fight as a decidedly marine battle: so too the Euripidean combat takes place on the coast, the herdsmen use murex shells as makeshift war-trumpets, and Orestes perceives his attackers approaching like a ‘wave’ (κλύδων, IT ). Even the herdsman’s observation in IT that Orestes slashes at the cattle such that the sea ‘blooms red with blood’ (ὥσθ’ αἱματηρὸν πέλαγος ἐξανθεῖν ἁλός, IT ) is paralleled by Oppian’s description of the sea being stained red with blood during the fishermen’s protracted fight with the whale (Hal. ., –). Both Euripides and Oppian juxtapose martial themes, mythical subjectmatter, and elevated language with an anonymous social outsider who is naïve, fearful, and inescapably rustic, lending the scene an atmosphere of incongruity and gentle humour. In each case this incongruity is heightened by the poets’ transposition of a quasi-epic ‘battle’ to a marine setting: in Oppian’s case fishermen wage ‘war’ in the water with a giant sea-monster, while Euripides stages a coastal fight between heroes and herdsmen, complete with pebbles used as weapons, murex shells as trumpets, cattle slaughtered in error, timorous locals, and a half-mad ‘hero’ covered in seafoam. The whale-hunt not only stages a clash between land and sea, but also reflects in a sustained manner on the power of that sea, raising the whale – as the terrified observer suggests – to the status of a frightening emblem of the power and ferocity of that most unpredictable of regions. Like the messenger-scene in IT, Oppian’s whale-hunt is witnessed and commented upon by astonished, ignorant, or fearful rustics who happen upon the scene as they go about their daily pastoral life. In Euripides’ play, not only do herdsmen stumble upon Orestes and Pylades as they escort their cows to the sea-shore, but one of the anonymous herdsmen initially mistakes the pair for gods, while another superstitiously prays to the seagods and tentatively identifies the newcomers with deities associated with 

 

On the epic qualities of the first messenger-scene in IT see Cropp : –, ad –, – and passim; Kyriakou  ad b–; Lange : . The Euripidean scene is of course also deeply indebted to tragic models, including Sophocles’ Ajax. See esp. .–, –. Note esp. the war similes of .–, –, –, – (and cf. .–, –).



Locating Monsters

the sea and seafaring. This prayer is reported by the herdsman in direct speech and is said to have been mocked by a bolder cowherd for its timorous naivety. Herdsmen appear with astonishing frequency as onlookers – and, by extension, messenger figures – in Greek tragedy. The herdsman is in many ways the dramatic eyewitness par excellence, gazing down at the surrounding landscape with an acute eye for the unusual: their long hours outside, and especially on hilltops, make these the perfect figures plausibly to observe, and so report on, new developments in Greek tragedies, much as joggers proverbially discover corpses in television murder mysteries. Yet herdsmen also represent the possibility of focalising events anew, offering the reader a reminder of the strangeness of the scene, and of its magnitude or novelty; theirs is a liminality of both physical location and (social and intellectual) status. In the Halieutica pastoral figures gather to marvel at the scene as the noise from the whale-hunt rings out: τῶν μέν τις καὶ τῆλε δυσηχέα δοῦπον ἀκούσας αἰπόλος ἢ βαθύμαλλον ἐν ἄγκεσι πῶυ κομίζων ἢ δρυτόμος πεύκης ὀλετὴρ ἢ θῆρας ἐναίρων θαμβήσας πόντου τε καὶ ᾐόνος ἐγγὺς ἱκάνει, στὰς δὲ κατὰ προβλῆτος ὑπερφίαλον πόνον ἀνδρῶν φυλόπιδος βυθίης θηήσατο καὶ τέλος ἄγρης ἐκπάγλου· τοὺς δ’ ὑγρὸς ἄρης ἄσβεστος ὀρίνει. (.–)

And far off, some goatherd hears their dreadful-sounding din, or one who tends his thick-fleeced flock in the valleys, or a woodcutter, destroyer of pines, or one who slays wild beasts, and in astonishment he draws near to the sea and shore, and, standing on a promontory, gazes at the tremendous labour of the men in their deep-sea battle and at the outcome of the marvellous hunt; and all the while inextinguishable marine bellicosity urges the fishermen on. 







Eur. IT –. The cowherd prays to Palaemon as son of the sea-goddess Leucothea and protector of ships, and associates Orestes and Pylades with both the Dioscuri (as patrons of seafaring and navigation) and the family of Nereus. Herdsmen appear as (probably) tragic messengers in Aeschylus’ Glaucus Pontius; Sophocles’ Poimenes; Euripides’ Theseus, IT, and Bacchae; and in the ps.‑Euripidean Rhesus. Herdsmen play crucial roles in other tragedies, including Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and the many fragmentary tragedies in which herdsmen rescue exposed infants later to be reunited with their families. On herdsmen-messengers in Greek drama and in Eur. IT, see Gutzwiller : –, esp. – on IT; Coo : –. For the messenger as observer or eyewitness, see de Jong : –, and cf.  for the (implicitly) elevated perspective of the herdsmen in IT. In his discussion of the runner who delivered the news about Marathon, Plutarch comments on the generic quality of the herdsman-reporter, here singled out for his peripheral, distanced perspective (Plut. De glor. Ath. d). Cf. de Jong b: , of the Iliad; Gutzwiller : , of the herdsman in pre-Hellenistic Greek thought; Halperin : .

. Post-Homeric Traditions



These onlookers, marvelling at the coastal scene from afar, serve both to remind the reader of the sheer scale of the fight with the sea-monster, and to foreground the contrast between land and sea. The goatherd, shepherd, and hunter are all pastoral figures broadly analogous to the fisherman – they are concerned with the capture or husbandry of animals – while the woodcutter too imposes his mark upon nature. Yet the poet also draws a sharp distinction between the fishermen and these more landward types. This is a contrast that features prominently in the opening verses of the Halieutica, where the dangers of fishing are set against the easy delights of hunting and bird-catching; in both episodes the fisherman is said to engage in a terrifying endeavour of a totally different scale to that of his terrestrial counterparts. There is, moreover, a generic self-consciousness about this list of pastoral onlookers who observe the hunt from afar: these are anonymous figures distinguished only in the broadest terms by their professions, and they are introduced as a hypothetical list (ἢ . . . ἢ . . . ἤ): in some sense, we infer, it hardly matters which profession they practise, or who exactly might have been on the scene; the point is rather that they are uncomprehending witnesses of an unfamiliar event at whose startling scale and ferocity they can only marvel. The scene dramatises the distance between land and sea, drawing attention to the hunt as an emblem of an alien marine world, and flagging up the generic force of that contrast by refusing to give these pastoral figures concrete force. Oppian in part offers a humorous rescaling of the magnitude of the conflict. In the first place he transfers to the unwitting herdsman the discourse of an epic quest, foregrounding the juxtaposition between mighty battle and marvelling rustics. The adjective βαθύμαλλος (.), used by the poet of the herdsman’s flock, is attested, outside ancient lexica and commentaries, only of the golden fleece sought by Jason. Oppian not only transfers the qualities of the fleece to the marvelling herdsman’s flock, but also wittily recasts the moment in Apollonius’ Argonautica in which rustic shepherds, seeing a ship for the first time, leave their flocks behind in fear of the Argo, which they mistake for a beast emerging from the sea that teems with sea-monsters (πόντου μεγακήτεος, A.R. Arg. .). Oppian here reverses that process, representing shepherds leaving

 

.–, esp. .–, where fishermen shudder when they encounter terrifying κήτεα. For parallels between the proem and this section of the whale-hunt cf. Rebuffat : . Pind. Pyth. ., encapsulating the quest as a whole; App. Mith. , part of a rationalising explanation for Aeetes’ supposedly ‘golden’ fleece (cf. Strab. .).



Locating Monsters

their flocks in astonishment at the sight of a sea-monster that is itself repeatedly compared to a ship. We return to the perspective of the marvelling rustic when the whale is finally killed and brought onto the beach. The monster’s vast corpse is horrifying yet also compelling, its very teeth liable to induce shuddering in an observer even after its death. Once the bystanders have slowly plucked up courage, a crowd gathers to gaze in wonder and terror at the beast’s fearsome carcass, each figure marvelling at a different feature (οἱ μὲν, ἄλλοι δ’, ὁ δ’, ἄλλοι δ’, ἕτεροι . . .): its terrifying rows of fangs, its battle wounds, its sharp backbone full of awful spikes, its tail, its cavernous belly, and its immense head (.–). We experience the scene through the wonder of the assembled company until finally one of the less urbane spectators bursts into a tremulous prayer to the earth, sea, and Poseidon, terrified even by the prospect of seafaring after witnessing such a sight. As the rustic exclaims, if these are the sorts of monsters reared by this terrifying element, then the sea must be a powerful deity to be worshipped and placated only from a safe distance, and preferably on dry land (.–). Fear of the whale becomes fear of the sea at large. The crowd’s awe and the landlubber’s horrified attitude towards the sea draw attention to, but also contrast with, the epic monstrosity of the κῆτος and its prolonged, quasicosmic battle. The clash between naïve or superstitious terror and the literary sophistication with which this rustic episode is framed looks to the kinds of educated narrative games at play in texts like Longus’ pastoral novel, but it also reflects the position of the poem’s readers, who indeed ‘experience’ the terrors of the sea from the safety of dry land. The rustic’s speech is an example of a recognised category of rhetorical discourse, namely ‘ethical’ prosopopoeia: a speech by an imagined figure designed to delineate character (rather than to arouse emotion). Indeed, it is very close to the model proposed by the theorists Hermogenes and Aphthonius. According to Hermogenes, ‘ethical [kinds of prosopopoeia] 



Sea-monsters are similar in size to twenty-oared ships (.); the κῆτος is directed like a ship being steered at the helm (.); when its guide perishes it is a ship without a helmsman (.); the rope on its bait is as thick as the forestay of a ship (.); the tussle with the whale is like woodcutters sawing a keel or some other maritime necessity (.–); the whale is towed like a ship captured in a naval battle (.–); it is dragged onto shore like a merchant ship beached for the winter (.–). .–. Like the three cowherds detailed by Euripides in the opening section of the messengerspeech, Oppian’s rustic figure is introduced as an anonymous τις (Hal. .; cf. Eur. IT , , ). On τις speeches more widely, see de Jong b, esp. – on Homeric τις speeches comprising prayers offered up before battle; de Jong, however, distinguishes more sharply between τις speeches occurring in the narrator-text (as at Hal. ) and in character-text (Eur. IT).

. Post-Homeric Traditions



are those in which character is dominant throughout, such as what words a farmer might utter when he first saw a ship’; similarly, Aphthonius states that ‘ethical [kinds of prosopopoeia] are those that introduce only character, such as what words a man from inland might utter when he first saw the sea’. Oppian thus offers not simply an assimilation but a rhetorical, tongue-in-cheek reversal of the concerns of terrestrial epic: unlike their centrality to the Argonautica, ‘fleecy’ flocks are of no consequence in this poem when compared to the might of a sea-monster; these astonished witnesses marvel not at a ship, which they take for a sea-monster, but at a sea-monster that has been compared to a mighty ship. Oppian not only marks the fascination of imperial Greek epic with the concerns of contemporary rhetoric, but again reflects on the relationship between land and sea, heroic and didactic epic. Oppian’s astonished pastoral figures, looking down at the marine conflict from a nearby clifftop (.–), offer a sudden shift in perspective within this dramatic battle scene. We have already witnessed the fishermen’s struggle to haul the whale from its hidden depths to the surface of the sea, where the conflict with the ships takes place; now the narrative shifts momentarily to a third spatial plane, namely the heightened perspective of the rustic spectators who gaze down at the scene from above. Rapid transition between different levels of elevation is a feature that Longinus identifies as constitutive of sublimity, and that was seen also to typify the Homeric epics; Oppian’s uncomprehending rustics stand in, perhaps humorously, but with a very real impact on our impression of the scene, for the elevated perspective of the Homeric gods. For Longinus, sublimity is also to be located (amongst other places) in the immensity, force, and scale of the Homeric representation of storms and shipwrecks, the Cyclops, and the Aloadae piling Pelion on top of Ossa, as well as in natural phenomena such as the ocean (which itself becomes a metaphor for sublimity); these, as we have seen, are the intertexts at the heart of Oppian’s whale narrative. Central to Longinus’ scheme, moreover, is 

 

Hermog. Prog.  ( Rabe): ἠθικαὶ μέν, ἐν αἷς ἐπικρατεῖ διόλου τὸ ἦθος, οἷον τίνας ἂν εἴποι λόγους γεωργὸς πρῶτον ἰδὼν ναῦν. Aphth. Prog.  ( Rabe): ἠθικαὶ δὲ αἱ μόνον ἦθος εἰσφέρουσαι, οἷον τίνας ἂν εἴποι λόγους ἠπειρώτης ἀνὴρ πρῶτον θεασάμενος θάλασσαν. See esp. Rebuffat : –; Agosti . See esp. Porter : –, on the Homeric epics. See esp. Longin. , ., . Oppian does not allude to the Gigantomachy, but to the Titanomachy and Typhonomachy; these were, however, very closely associated by Oppian’s time, and signify similar kinds of cosmic disruption. At . Longinus singles out for praise as a scene of exceptional sublimity (surpassing even the Iliadic Theomachy) the representation in Iliad  of the sea parting and the κήτεα gambolling for joy around Poseidon as he travels effortlessly across the ocean.



Locating Monsters

the grandeur and sublimity of nature, including the cosmos itself, immense empty spaces like the open sea, and not only heights, but also abysses, chasms, and depths, including both Tartarus and Etna. As Jim Porter has well illustrated, for Longinus sublimity is born not simply from grandiosity or vast heights, but from a sense of transcendence or transition between different spatial planes, and above all from a sudden awareness of scale generated through a change or contrast in perspective. As Porter puts it, The point is not simply that extreme depths can be as sublime as extreme heights, or that sublimity is a truly bipolar event (which it is). It is that in the tradition that Longinus represents, sublimity is a matter of relationship and perspective, not an absolute. No property is in and of itself ‘sublime’: it must be made to seem so through a contrasting view, or rather through an irreconcilable clash of available views. Thus, a height can be measured from above or from below, which leads to perceptual predicaments of various kinds.

This insight is of significance also to the earlier stage in Oppian’s whale narrative, where the notion of sublimity and immensity of scale is crystallised by the poet’s representation of a mighty creature being hauled up from the depths of the sea to a higher plane (to the surface, and thence to dry land) to which it does not belong and into which it erupts with magnificent force. As we have seen, the sea is implicitly represented by the poet as a dank Tartarean pit out of whose depths quasi-titanic monsters threaten to emerge, an image in turn compounded by the comparison of the submerged whale’s panting to the violent breaths of Typhoeus, trapped under Mount Etna. Here we may compare Longinus’ interest in the famous scene in the Iliadic Theomachy in which the terrifying force of the Homeric gods threatens to rupture the earth, with Zeus thundering from on high and Poseidon shaking the earth so violently that it threatens to burst open and reveal the dank or mouldering dead to both gods and men. As Porter observes, ‘It is the contrasting levels (above and below), the threat of a sudden intrusion of one into the other, the epiphanic exposure, and the sheer cosmic scale of the event that render this scene sublime in the eyes of Longinus and his peers.’ Longinus also represents the erupting craters of Mount Etna as a powerful model for the sublimity of both nature and thought; his fascination with moments of disruption and rupture converges here with Oppian’s representation of a vast ocean  

  Porter : . Hom. Il. .–; Longin. .–. Porter : . Longin. ; see e.g. Porter : – on sublimity, Etna, and rupture, and – on nature as a sublime object.

. Post-Homeric Traditions



out of whose immeasurable depths rise monstrous beasts, including a creature whose submerged breaths are akin to the Etnean blasts of Typhon himself. This chapter has argued so far that the whale-hunt in Hal.  is replete with literary echoes of a provocatively wide range of epic monsters and marine threats. Oppian confronts the reader with an overdetermined excess of monstrous threats and mythical analogues: the whale is linked in turn to Typhon, Polyphemus, Charybdis, and the Clashing Rocks, as well as the dangerous seas, straits, and sea-monsters of the wider epic tradition. Nor is this mere literary ornamentation. The reference to Typhon is a potent symbol that paints fishing as the ultimate imposition of order on the chaotic forces of the monstrous, and the whale is an emblem for the terrifying power of the sea at large: it poses a deadly threat to the ships that travel to the Mediterranean, and its very appearance strikes dread into the onlooker, who fears ever to set sail after seeing it. Zeus’ battle with Typhon operates as an instantiation of the cosmic Hesiodic themes outlined in the proem to this final book, including the analogy between human beings and the gods, and the struggle to assert control by vanquishing vast and savage beasts. Yet the poet also pushes almost to breaking point the range of monstrous adversaries to which this creature is compared: not only do Hesiodic parallels align the κῆτος with Typhoeus and the Titans, but the narrative is replete with allusions to the Homeric epics, and especially to the adventures of Odysseus, including the encounter with Polyphemus and the two shipwrecks that the hero endures, a parallel underscored when the poet explicitly compares the swirling waters around the whale to those stirred up by Charybdis. What makes Oppian’s depiction so densely allusive, moreover, is that these multiple Homeric and Hesiodic reference points are interwoven with a range of textual models, including the poems of Apollonius and Dionysius, that are themselves saturated with references to this long epic heritage. This intertextual richness constitutes a response to the challenge of poetic representation itself: how is an author to conjure up the ultimate marine threat, a creature of almost unimaginable monstrosity, and one whose capture will encapsulate mankind’s ability to conquer even the most savage of beasts? The poet tackles this by fashioning a nebulous spectre that absorbs into itself the monstrous epic threats of the Greek mythological tradition. Crucial here is the initially indeterminate nature of the whale’s physical appearance: only after its death, when its corpse is hauled onto the beach, do we – or indeed the fishermen – perceive its monstrous physical appearance in full; before that, its size and ferocity are to be



Locating Monsters

discerned primarily by its tangible effects on the sea around it. The beast thus functions as a kind of blank canvas on which to superimpose other horrifying adversaries, and its quasi-cosmic status is signalled in part through sheer allusive density and a sublimity of scope and scale. More than that, I suggest, the creature becomes a meditation on the nature of the epic tradition itself, and on the contested relationship between mythological narratives and their relationship to the contemporary world; it is to this aspect of the scene that the remainder of this chapter will turn.

. Locating Myth One of the central aims of Hellenistic and later scholarship was to explore the viability of locating myth in real space; this is a concern reflected in Oppian’s poetics. The simile describing the creature’s thrashing is unusual in that it focuses not on the whale itself but on its effects on the surrounding region: its agonised breaths are so powerful that the sea is churned and whirled like the waters at the midpoint of the strait around Typhon and Charybdis. The simile associates these two mythical threats by virtue of their combined physical impact on the same location, namely the meeting-point of the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas, which is to say the Straits of Messina, the narrow stretch of water between south-western Italy and north-eastern Sicily. This was a region legendarily occupied in the ancient imagination by a multitude of deadly monsters, including Typhon, Scylla, and Charybdis. Just as the whale-hunt uses a superabundance of epic intertexts to configure this beast, so the locale suggests a piling-up of mythical traditions and monstrous adversaries. Adding to this sense of overpopulated mythical density, Circe’s description of the region near Charybdis in Odyssey  – not of course specified as the seas around Sicily, but as two cliffs along Odysseus’ route – pinpoints this as the site of intersection between two mortal dangers, and two epic traditions. For while Scylla and Charybdis are said to patrol one of the possible routes that Odysseus might take, the other is said to lead past the Planctae or Wandering Rocks, and famously marks the site of the Argo’s own prior journey. Circe foregrounds this convergence of epic itineraries when, despite her promise at Hom. Od. .–, she does not dictate Odysseus’ route in its entirety but instead outlines the two alternative paths and the need for Odysseus to 

The Planctae, Scylla, and Charybdis are again mentioned in the same breath when Odysseus recounts his adventures at Hom. Od. .–.

. Locating Myth



decide what kind of voyage he is to undertake (Od. .–). We are confronted here with a branching of epic traditions and of potential journeys. Circe’s first route will take Odysseus past the Planctae (Hom. Od. .–), a voyage hitherto completed successfully only by the Argo, while the second will take him between another set of cliffs, this time those of Scylla and Charybdis (Od. .–). The spatial relationship between the two sets of cliffs is hazy in the Odyssey, but they are evidently constructed as doublets of one another, as are the voyages of Odysseus and Jason here and in Apollonius’ Argonautica. In the Argonautica the Planctae are now situated within sight, and striking distance, of Scylla and Charybdis: the Argo is said to pass by the monstrous pair, and the Nereids are asked to guide the ship through the Planctae and ensure that it does not fall prey to either Scylla or Charybdis. Although the precise disposition of Apollonius’ Planctae remains nebulous, and scholars have disagreed as to whether they are to be located between Scylla and Charybdis or along an alternative route in the vicinity, the Planctae are evidently depicted in the Argonautica as lying near ‘Ausonian’ Scylla and Charybdis, here situated, as was by now traditional, around Sicily, and indeed presumably (if implicitly) in the Straits of Messina: τῇ μὲν γὰρ Σκύλλης λισσὴ προυφαίνετο πέτρη, τῇ δ’ ἄμοτον βοάασκεν ἀναβλύζουσα Χάρυβδις· ἄλλοθι δὲ Πλαγκταὶ μεγάλῳ ὑπὸ κύματι πέτραι ῥόχθεον· (A.R. Arg. .–)





Cf. e.g. Knight : ; Nishimura-Jensen : –; Kyriakou : –; more broadly, Hunter a: . On the relationship between the Odyssey and this earlier Argonautica, see West , esp. –, with further bibliography at n. ; on the relationship between the itineraries presented in the Odyssey and Argonautica see e.g. Knight : –, esp. –; Sistakou : –, –; Clare , esp. –. Vian : . The epic layering is compounded in the Argonautica by the doubling of Symplegades (A.R. Arg. ) and Planctae (Arg. ), and especially by Hera’s apparent reference at Arg. .– to her prior aid in helping the ship safely through the Planctae (rather than the Symplegades; the poet otherwise distinguishes carefully between the two). See Hunter :  n. ; Vian : –; Green : . See A.R. Arg. .–, –, –. At . Apollonius calls Scylla ‘Ausonian’, but the precise topography of this passage remains surprisingly vague, particularly in contrast to the specificity about Pontic geography earlier in the poem. The spatial relationship of the Planctae to Scylla and Charybdis is unclear: Livrea  ad . holds that these are two separate routes, while Vian : – and Bollack : – infer that the Planctae lie between Scylla and Charybdis; cf. Knight : ; Thalmann :  n. . Apollonius’ Planctae are sometimes identified with the chain of Lipari islands just beyond the Straits of Messina, where Hephaestus’ forge was said to have been located.



Locating Monsters For on one side there appeared the smooth rock of Scylla, while on the other Charybdis was roaring ceaselessly as she spouted forth, and in another part the Wandering Rocks were booming under the mighty swell.

As scholars have noted, Apollonius’ lack of geographical precision within this Odyssean section of the journey seems deliberately obfuscatory, and serves to heighten the quasi-Homeric flavour of the itinerary, particularly in contrast to the specificity with which the Argo’s outward voyage through the Black Sea had been detailed. That the nearby Planctae could be claimed to occupy the Straits of Messina, however, is confirmed by a scholion to the Argonautica, which observes that the Sicilian historians Timaeus and Pisistratus of Lipari are said to have located the Planctae in the strait itself. Two points are important here. The first is that ancient historians evidently sought to map the Planctae onto their ‘real-life’ geographical counterparts, and the second is that Oppian centres his simile on a densely populated mythical strait that represents the highly charged layering not only of nautical perils but also of heroic journeys. The site is a locus of epic intersections foregrounded in both the Odyssey and the Argonautica, and it suggests the ever-present spectre of alternative epic quests. Oppian’s addition of Boreas adds another dimension to the narrative. The poet has elsewhere shown himself a sensitive reader of Plato, retooling Platonic philosophy for a new and distinctively marine setting, and here he looks once more to the Phaedrus. That dialogue too foregrounds debates about the location of myths in the contemporary landscape, interrogating the truth status and utility of mythical narratives at large. The discussion between Socrates and Phaedrus is prompted by their physical setting by the plane trees beside the River Ilissus, near the spot where Boreas is said to have abducted Oreithyia. On being asked by Phaedrus whether he thinks that tale true, Socrates not only rejects rationalising approaches to myth, but looks to Typhon as a useful model for the philosopher’s project of selfknowledge: Socrates: If I were not convinced, as the intellectuals are not, then I should not be out of the ordinary; I would give a rational explanation that a blast of Boreas, the north wind, pushed her off the neighbouring rocks as she was playing with Pharmacea, and that when she had died in this manner she was   

See e.g. Knight : ; Vian :  and  n. . Σ A.R. Arg. .– (= FrGH  F, with F); see Pearson . Cf. Strab. .; .. See esp. Section ., ‘Poetic Streams’.

. Locating Myth



said to have been carried off by Boreas. But I, Phaedrus, think that such explanations are very pretty in general, but are the inventions of a very clever and laborious and not altogether enviable man, for no other reason than because after this he must explain the forms of the Centaurs, and then that of the Chimaera, and there presses in upon him a whole crowd of such creatures, Gorgons and Pegasuses, and multitudes of strange, inconceivable, portentous natures. If anyone disbelieves in these, and with a rustic sort of wisdom undertakes to explain each in accordance with probability, he will need a great deal of leisure. But I have no leisure for them at all; and the reason, my friend, is this: I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself; so it seems to me ridiculous, when I do not yet know that, to investigate irrelevant things. And so I dismiss these matters and, accepting the customary belief about them, as I was saying just now, I investigate not these things, but myself, to know whether I am a monster more complicated and more furious than Typhon or a gentler and simpler creature, to whom a divine and quiet lot is given by nature. (Pl. Phdr. c– a)

Socrates acknowledges, but refuses to accede to, aggressively rationalising claims of the type typified for us by the likes of Palaephatus – in this case the suggestion that a gust of wind must have blown the young woman off a cliff, and that the mishap was later fancifully explained as Boreas’ abduction of the girl. This (allegedly) overly clever and sceptical account – portrayed by Socrates as symptomatic of a wider mistrust of the veracity of the ancient mythical corpus – is presented as a rash rejection of the overall utility of myth as a prompt for reflection on the nature and role of humankind, including oneself. The philosopher’s position represents a recognition of the communicative potential, and didactic utility, of myth, not least in providing a helpful stock of analogies, for all that he acknowledges that such tales do not necessarily meet more coldly rational standards of plausibility and veracity. As Greta Hawes puts it, on Socrates’ reading, ‘fictionality is not antithetical to truth’.





Yunis : : Socrates ‘understands the self-knowledge in question as knowledge not about himself qua unique individual, but about himself qua human being, hence applicable to all human beings’. Hawes : . Cf. Yunis : : ‘[Socrates] mentions the mythical monster Typho in a manner that suggests the usefulness of myth for the project of self-knowledge. Plato’s extensive use of his own, non-traditional, myths, in the Phaedrus and elsewhere, indicates that he was fully cognizant of the power of myth to communicate, and that he sought to use that power for his own purposes. By warning [Phaedrus] away from analyzing myth and reducing it to what is ‘probable’ (τὸ εἰκός), S. encourages Ph., and the reader, to maintain an openness to myth and its imaginative power that he will exploit in his palinode.’ See also Hunter a: –; Brisson :  and Brisson : .



Locating Monsters

So too Oppian creates a space in which rational and mythological explanations are set side by side, and in which both the imaginative quality and the heuristic value of mythical analogy is fully recognised. This, after all, is didactic epic, a genre that seeks to mediate between the sober, rationalising impulses of the technical treatise and the mythical, at times almost cosmic enormity – and very different truth status – of epic. Boreas, Typhon, and Charybdis are a particularly suggestive group for the poet insofar as each may be taken to represent not only a mythological figure, but also the mythical cause adduced as the origin of a specific geophysical phenomenon: the north wind, tectonic activity or storm-winds, a marine gulf or whirlpool. As such, each was the subject of repeated ancient attempts to reconcile mythical and scientific explanatory schemes. These mythical figures become analogues for the whale in representing primarily unseen forces whose physical impact reverberates through the surrounding landscape. Like them, the whale is submerged and cannot be seen, leaving the fishermen (and by implication the reader or imagined observer of the scene) to deduce the ultimate cause of these churning, turbulent waters. If the hidden winds of Boreas may be read as an alternative mythical explanation or analogue for the waters churned up by the anguished whale – and one, as we have seen, whose indeterminate status between mythology and meteorology had already been debated by Plato’s Socrates and Phaedrus – so too in his description of the Sicilian waters Oppian gestures towards the coexistence of alternative explanatory schemes. In the first place, the observation that Charybdis is to be located at the meeting-point of the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas (.–) mirrors the ancient rationalising claim that it was precisely this tidal flow that constituted the ‘reality’ of the Homeric Charybdis. Strabo preserves the most extensive version of this debate: περὶ δὲ τῶν τοῦ ὠκεανοῦ παθῶν εἴρηται μὲν ἐν μύθου σχήματι· καὶ γὰρ τούτου στοχάζεσθαι δεῖ τὸν ποιητήν. ἀπὸ γὰρ τῶν ἀμπώτεων καὶ τῶν πλημμυρίδων ἡ Χάρυβδις αὐτῷ μεμύθευται, οὐδ’ αὐτὴ παντάπασιν Ὁμήρου πλάσμα οὖσα, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ τῶν ἱστορουμένων περὶ τὸν Σικελικὸν πορθμὸν διεσκευασμένη. (Strab. ..) What Homer says about the behaviour of Oceanus is set forth in the guise of a myth (for this too is a thing the poet must aim at); for he borrowed the myth of Charybdis from the ebb and flow of the tides; though even Charybdis herself is not wholly an invention of Homer, for she was dressed up by him in accordance with what had been told him about the Strait of Sicily.  

Σ Hal. . glosses Τυφάωνος with ἀνέμου. Only the very top of the whale’s neck and backbone have so far been observed by the fishermen (.–), for it has not yet resurfaced after diving to the bottom of the sea (.–).

. Locating Myth



Other ancient accounts advance similar claims, as well as related explanations that ‘Charybdis’ was simply the name of the strait itself, a tradition evidently established already by Thucydides’ time. In this light Oppian’s description of the spot as the point at which two tidal systems collide begins to look loaded, and is compounded by the manner in which the precise relationship between the monster and the currents, and thus the nature and agency of Charybdis herself, is left open to interpretation. The poet states that at this juncture of the two seas περιστρέφεται δὲ κελαινὴ | ἑλκομένη δίνῃσι παλιρροίβδοισι Χάρυβδις (‘dim Charybdis spins around, dragged along by gulped-back whirlpools’, .–), a claim that implies, but, crucially, does not insist, that Charybdis is the cause of the disruption. On a sceptical reading, περιστρέφεται and ἑλκομένη could thus be construed not as middle but as passive in voice, raising a series of interpretative questions: Is Charybdis herself creating the whirlpool, or is she being whirled around by the tide? Are these eddies ‘gulped back’ by the monster, or are they simply ‘roaring’? Is she drawing them along or being dragged? Even the threatening but highly impersonal description of Charybdis only as ‘dark’ or ‘murky’ seems to perpetuate this ambiguity, capitalising on the Homeric representation of Charybdis as deadly, divine, and terrible, but unlike Scylla, of indeterminate physical appearance. Oppian even transfers the darkness of the water sucked down in Homer (μέλαν ὕδωρ, Hom. Od. .) to Charybdis herself, heightening the sense of confluence between Charybdis and the tide. Oppian’s depiction of Charybdis also draws from Lycophron’s Alexandra, and particularly from Cassandra’s account of the perilous sea-voyages of Ajax and Odysseus. The dangerous swirling waters of the whale simile (περιστρέφεται δὲ κελαινὴ | ἑλκομένη δίνῃσι παλιρροίβδοισι Χάρυβδις; ‘terrible eddies stretch out and bend the swift surge, and dark Charybdis spins around, dragged along by gulped-back whirlpools’, .–), for instance, look to Lycophron’s description of the tide by the Euboean coast. How many Greek corpses and shipwrecks, the prophetess exclaims, will these rocks witness as a result of Ajax’s outrage, ὅσων δὲ φλοίσβων ῥαχίας







Strabo cites Posidonius (fr.  Th. =  E.-K.) in support of the claim that Charybdis is drawn from the ebb and flow of the tides; for Charybdis as marine gulf or strait see Thuc. ..; Σ HQ Od. .; Σ Hal. .. Charybdis is ὀλοή (Hom. Od. ., ), δῖα (Od. ., ), and δεινή (Od. ., , .); cf. Od. .–: ἡ δέ τοι οὐ θνητή, ἀλλ’ ἀθάνατον κακόν ἐστι, | δεινόν τ’ ἀργαλέον τε καὶ ἄγριον οὐδὲ μαχητόν. The image of Charybdis as a whirlpool is not itself Homeric: in the Odyssey Charybdis churns up, sucks down, and spits out the water, but does not necessarily whirl it around in a circular motion.



Locating Monsters

ἀνεκβάτου | δίναις παλιρροίοισιν ἕλκοντος σάλου, (‘and how much roaring of the inescapable flood-tide, as the swell drags [the corpses and broken ships] out again with back-swirling eddies’, Lycoph. Alex. –). The association between Charybdis and flood-tide can be no coincidence. Oppian’s emphasis on the straits, moreover, looks to Cassandra’s account not of Ajax but Odysseus. That narrative of the hero’s journey opens by referring to the deaths of those who have wandered around the Gulf of Syrtis, Libya, and the narrow concourse of the Tyrrhenian strait (στενήν τε πορθμοῦ συνδρομὴν Τυρσηνικοῦ, Alex. ). This now-traditional emphasis on the location of Scylla and Charybdis in the Straits of Messina is followed by a number of events not mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey, the first of which is Odysseus’ alleged sojourn on the volcanic island on which Typhon was imprisoned (Alex. –). Oppian’s juxtaposition of Typhon and Charybdis in the whale simile – here of course a function of the association of both with Sicily – echoes Lycophron’s association of the two with the narrative of Odysseus’ wanderings, which in the Alexandra are accorded a much more strongly Italian and Sicilian setting than anything found in the Homeric narrative. The Hellenistic poet’s sustained fascination with the precise location of Odysseus’ travels, and so 







Cf. James : . The Greeks are assimilated by Cassandra to tuna smashed in a frying pan (Lycoph. Alex. –), a blurring of man and animal typical of Lycophron’s elliptical style, and a feature of the poem that may itself have influenced Oppian. On this tendency in Lycophron see esp. McNelis and Sens : –, –; typical too is Lycophron’s interest in turning earlier epic or tragic similes into metaphors: the tuna metaphor is indebted to Aesch. Pers. , where shipwrecked Persians are struck by the Greeks like a haul of tuna or other fish. See Durbec ; Hornblower  ad loc.; for men compared to the cooking of fish cf. Alex. , where Odysseus’ men are described as mullets, a recasting of Hom. Od. .. Cf. Fusillo, Hurst, and Paduano : . Cassandra’s narrative sets up a parallel between the νόστος and shipwreck of Ajax and that of Odysseus, described later in the poem (Lycoph. Alex. –); see Hornblower  ad Alex. , , ; Ajax’s watery fate is recounted by Menelaus at Hom. Od. .–. See also Lycoph. Alex. , of Odysseus’ shipwreck on Scheria, where he is whirled by the winds and barely saved from the deadly back-swirl (ἐκ παλιρροίας κακῆς) of the tide by the veil of Ino/Leucothea. Straits of Messina: Thuc. ..; Eur. Med. – locates Scylla (and thus Charybdis) on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The island of Typhon is allusively identified with Ischia, off the bay of Naples. Like Pindar, the author of Prometheus Bound, and Lycophron, Oppian associates Typhon with both Cilicia and Italy. See Pind. Pyth. .– (Cilicia and Southern Italy, spanning both Sicily and the Naples region, i.e. both Etna and Vesuvius; for the latter see Pyth. .); [Aesch.] PV – (Cilicia and Sicily); Lycoph. Alex. – (Pithecussae, i.e. Ischia),  (Cilicia); Hal. .– (Cilicia) and .– (Sicily). Crucial here is the Homeric reference to Typhon’s couch as located in the land of the Arimoi (Hom. Il. .–); see Strab. . for ancient identification of the Arimoi in Cilicia, Pithecussae, and assorted locales. Hornblower :  notes that ‘[t]he Alexandra is marked by a gathering preoccupation with the western Mediterranean’ beginning with the representation of Scylla in the Straits of Messina (Lycoph. Alex. –) and culminating in the prophecy of Rome’s dominion over land and sea (Alex. –; cf. –).

. Locating Myth



with the implied relationship between the mythical past and the contemporary world, is a concern also central to Oppian. Lycophron’s depiction of the travels of Odysseus, and especially his representation of Charybdis herself, also foreshadows elements brought to the fore in Oppian’s account of the waters churned up by the heaving whale: βύκτας δ’ ἐν ἀσκῷ συγκατακλείσας βοὸς παλινστροβήτοις πημοναῖς ἀλώμενος, κεραυνίῃ μάστιγι συμφλεχθήσεται καύηξ, ἐρινοῦ προσκαθήμενος κλάδῳ, ὡς μὴ καταβρόξῃ νιν ἐν ῥόχθοις κλύδων, Χάρυβδιν ἐκφυσῶσαν ἑλκύσας βυθῷ. (Lycoph. Alex. –)

And although [Odysseus] encloses the winds in an ox-hide bag, he is forced to wander by woes that whirl him backwards; he will be engulfed in flame by the whip of a thunderbolt, a sea-swallow, perched on the branch of a wild fig-tree so that the roaring waves should not gulp him down, as they suck spouting Charybdis towards the deep.

The furious gulping and roaring of the waves, the terrible force whirling Odysseus backwards (παλινστρόβητος), the exhalation or spouting of Charybdis, and above all the unusual detail that Charybdis is herself dragged along by the movement of the waves (ἑλκύσας, Lycoph. Alex. ; cf. ἑλκομένη, Hal. .) are all elements paralleled in the later poet’s account of the heaving waters spun around by the whale. As Hornblower notes of Lycophron, ‘the tr[anslation] is straightforward, but the thought is not easy: the wave or κλύδων of  is imagined as pulling or sucking the whirlpool (‘snorting Charybdis’, ἐκφυσῶσαν intr.) down into the deep water. One would have expected the whirlpool to do the sucking.’ Lycophron’s description of this whirling, vertiginous space is itself highly allusive, combining compressed references to Homeric elements such as the wild fig-tree and the shipwreck with untraditional images like that of the καύηξ or sea-swallow. Oppian echoes Lycophron’s densely allusive poetic texture, including his layering of different hypotexts and spheres of reference, and his effacement of the boundaries between humans and animals (Odysseus as ‘sea-swallow’), and partakes in a   

See esp. .–; the φύσημα of the whale (.) also echoes the snorting or spouting of Lycophron’s Charybdis (ἐκφυσῶσαν, Lycoph. Alex. ). Hornblower : . The metaphor or cipher here replacing and responding to the Homeric bat simile of Hom. Od. ..



Locating Monsters

similarly nuanced engagement with ancient scholarly debates about the Homeric epics, including the alleged location of Odysseus’ journey around Sicily. Oppian shows himself once more heir to Hellenistic traditions of erudite post-Homeric poetry, although without favouring quite such obfuscatory linguistic ploys. Yet the Halieutica also differentiates itself by occupying a delicate middle ground that evokes, but at the same time advances a distinctively didactic take on, these still-live Hellenistic and imperial debates about myth, truth, and the status of poetry. We have already noted that Strabo sees in the Homeric representation of Charybdis evidence of that poet’s alleged knowledge of Sicilian reality, and in particular the ebb and flow of the tides. This is a claim that looks to Hellenistic and imperial debates about the degree to which Odysseus’ wanderings – and, by extension, epic narratives more generally – can be located against contemporary geography. Strabo goes on to suggest that the Homeric claim that Charybdis sucks in and expels the water three times a day should be recognised as poetic hyperbole (insofar as the ‘real’ tide comes in only twice), deliberately exaggerated by the poet in order to heighten the terrifying power of Circe’s words, but still allowing him to ‘hint’ (ὑπαινίττεται) at the truth. For Strabo, this cuts to the heart of how poetry operates: Homer’s myths may not faithfully represent every detail of contemporary geophysical reality, but nor is the baby to be cast out with the tidal bathwater, for this is poetry constituted through a careful combination of the mythical and the factual, encoding a version of reality within an elaborate poetic carapace, and hinting ever at its presence. Strabo here defends Homeric poetry from those Hellenistic critics (and Eratosthenes above all) who had alleged that Homeric poetry was irremediably vague and inaccurate, and that it aimed at hyperbolic entertainment rather than truth. Strabo also records and approves of Polybius’ insistence that the wanderings of Odysseus should not be regarded as wholly fictional or false. According to Polybius – and indeed Strabo too, although the latter is also 

 

McNelis and Sens : : ‘Lycophron’s Alexandra, at its core, takes up a question that runs through Greek literature from its inception: what is the relationship between poetic artifice and the truth?’ The problems and inconsistencies in the Strabonic scheme are highlighted by Kim : –. According to Strab. .., Eratosthenes hypothesised that Homer might initially have planned a more geographically specific narrative of Odysseus’ wanderings, but soon abandoned all aspiration to be precise and factually accurate in his poetry, ‘partly because of his lack of accurate information, and partly because he had even preferred not to be accurate but rather to develop each incident in the direction of the more awe-inspiring and the more marvellous’ [τὰ μὲν οὐκ ἀκριβῶς πεπυσμένον, τὰ δὲ οὐδὲ προελόμενον οὕτως, ἀλλ᾿ ἐπὶ τὸ δεινότερον καὶ τὸ τερατωδέστερον ἕκαστα ἐξάγειν].

. Locating Myth



committed to the claim that Homer located many of Odysseus’ adventures in the outer Ocean – Homer may be shown to have situated Odysseus’ adventures specifically in and around Sicily, and Strabo goes on to record Polybius’ disagreement with Eratosthenes’ now-famous dictum that ‘you will find where Odysseus wandered when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of the winds’. Polybius’ interpretation of Odysseus’ wanderings seems to have been based around the construction of a series of parallels between Homeric myth (Aeolus, Scylla, Charybdis, and so forth) and Sicilian reality: Aeolus, for instance, is explained as a man expert at navigating the treacherous currents of the Straits of Messina, a figure therefore known as the ‘lord of the winds’; in creating his mythical Aeolus, Homer deliberately overlaid this historical core with a patina of myth. For Strabo and Polybius, Homeric narratives about Odysseus can be shown to have a precise, if implicit, geographical setting (namely Sicily), a confirmation that argues that we should be wary also of dismissing as mere fictions the mythical figures that populate those narratives. Rather, it is claimed, Homer continually adds mythical ornament onto a factual basis. This is not, as in certain rationalising explanations, a claim that the more poetic or mythological account is a gross misunderstanding of the real facts, but rather a claim that the Homeric epics quite deliberately offer a heightened epic world-view that builds upon and augments that reality: Polybius is right in placing [Odysseus’] wanderings in the neighbourhood of Sicily and Italy; and the words of the poet are confirmed by the geographical terms of those regions . . . The same question may be asked regarding Homer’s stories of the Sirenussae, the Strait, Scylla, Charybdis, and Aeolus, stories which we should neither scrutinise rigorously, nor set aside as baseless and as without local setting, having no claim to truthfulness



 

Strab. ..: οὐκ ἐπαινεῖ δὲ οὐδὲ τὴν τοιαύτην τοῦ Ἐρατοσθένους ἀπόφασιν, διότι φησὶ τότ’ ἂν εὑρεῖν τινα ποῦ Ὀδυσσεὺς πεπλάνηται, ὅταν εὕρῃ τὸν σκυτέα τὸν συρράψαντα τὸν τῶν ἀνέμων ἀσκόν. According to Strabo, Eratosthenes claimed that while Hesiod had learned that Odysseus’ wanderings took place around Italy and Sicily, Homer had not, and moreover had deliberately refused to locate Odysseus’ wanderings with reference to any kind of geographical reality (Strabo ..). On Strabo’s relationship to Homer and his Alexandrian critics, see e.g. Schenkeveld ; Romm : –; Biraschi ; Kim : –, with further bibliography. On Strabo’s relation to Polybius see e.g. Dueck : –. Cf. Palaeph. , where Aeolus is explained as an astronomer; Diod. Sic. .., where he is a meteorologist; cf. Heracl. Quaest. Hom. ., of Odysseus’ meteorological knowledge. On Polybius and Homer see Vercruysse : –; on mythological rationalisation see Hawes .



Locating Monsters or to utility as history [ἅπερ οὔτ᾿ ἀκριβῶς ἐξετάζειν δεῖ οὔτ᾿ ἄρριζα καὶ ἀνέστια ἐᾶν, ἀληθείας μηδὲν προσαπτόμενα μηδ᾿ ὠφελείας ἱστορικῆς.] (Strab. ..)

We can, I think, detect a similar middle ground in Oppian, who creates a space for both rational and mythological interpretations of the whale’s actions, reasserting the value, and the underlying truth, of the magnifying epic lens. Not only is Oppian’s Charybdis explicitly located in the Straits of Messina, but we have seen that the poet offers us alternative visions – or perhaps even explanations – of this aquatic phenomenon as both whirling monster and the convergence of two tidal systems. Crucially, moreover, we can even interpret the whale itself as a humorous inversion of precisely such rational Homeric exegesis, for in the simile the thrashing motion of an enormous sea-creature is ‘dressed up’ by the poet as the action of Charybdis or other mythical figures, while the φαίης κεν of . itself evokes the interpretative process of an onlooker struggling to make sense of the unseen beast as it moves through the water. Oppian offers us a dramatisation of the manner in which myth is said to be generated, as a cosmic or fantastical augmentation of a real-life phenomenon. This, however, is not heroic but didactic epic, and rather than focus on Boreas, Typhon, or Charybdis as the subject of his narrative, Oppian’s interest lies rather with the oversized fish, representing Charybdis not as tenor but as vehicle, as a grandiose mythical analogue for the creature’s violent gulps. The poet thus arrogates to himself both the majesty of epic and the truth status of the ‘reality’ that such poetry allegedly encodes. One further Polybian claim about the location of Odysseus’ adventures is of relevance to my reading of the whale. According to Strabo, on Polybius’ account Homer was right to observe that the Straits of Messina, the alleged location of the Homeric Scylla and Charybdis, would have been home to large sea-creatures (dolphins, dogfish, and other kinds of κῆτος) of the sort that Scylla is said by Circe to eat (Hom. Od. .–). Sicily was well known in antiquity for its rich supply of tuna, as Oppian himself records (.–), and Polybius infers that large sea-creatures would naturally collect in the strait, feeding on the abundant tuna to be found there (Strabo ..). This in turn allows Polybius to explain the Homeric Scylla as a figure rooted in the poet’s knowledge about Sicilian fishing customs:  

Cf. e.g. Archest. frr. .–, .– Olson-Sens. Walbank : – and Hopman :  n.  are surely right to reject the assumption of e.g. Pédech :  and Romm :  that Polybius constructs an analogy between Scylla

. Locating Myth



After making this statement Polybius goes on to describe the hunting of the galeotae [a variety of minor κῆτος like the swordfish or dogfish] that takes place off the Scyllaean Rock: one man on the look-out acts for all the fishermen, who lie in wait in many two-oared skiffs, two men in each skiff, one rowing and the other standing in the bow with his spear poised in hand. And when the man on the look-out signals the appearance of the γαλεώτης (the creature swims along with a third of its body out of the water), and when the skiff draws near it, the man in the bow strikes the fish at close range, and then withdraws the spear-shaft, leaving the spear-head in the body of the fish; for the spear-head is barbed and loosely attached to the spear-shaft on purpose, and has a long line fastened to it. They pay out this line to the wounded fish until it becomes tired out by its struggles and its attempts at escape; then they tow it to the shore, or take it aboard the skiff —unless it be of enormous size . . . So, from such matters as these, Polybius concludes, one may conjecture that the wanderings of Odysseus took place in the neighbourhood of Sicily according to Homer, inasmuch as Homer attributed to Scylla that sort of fish-hunting which is most characteristic of Scyllaeum; and also from Homer’s statements in regard to Charybdis, which correspond to the behaviour of the waters of the Strait. (Strab. ..)

The practice bears a striking resemblance to Oppian’s account of the whale-hunt. At .–, at the end of the scene, Oppian notes that smaller κήτεα are caught by a scaled-down version of precisely the same method, using smaller lines and smaller barbs. The precise identity of the γαλεώτης is unclear, but it is said by Strabo or Polybius to be a κητώδης of some kind, akin to the swordfish or dogfish; other kinds of dogfish are also classified by Oppian as κήτεα, while at .– Oppian observes that in the straits around Sicily, amongst other places, monstrous (μεγακήτεες) and terrible swordfish are to be found, quite unlike the kinds of swordfish found elsewhere. Polybius’ γαλεώτης swims with a third of its back out of the water; so too Oppian discusses the proportion of the different kinds of κῆτος that rises out of the water, including the more buoyant properties of



and the swordfish, rather than the Sicilian fishermen who hunt them. The Odyssean simile casting Scylla as a fisherman (Hom. Od. .–) suggests a parallel with the latter rather than the former; as Hopman :  notes, both Scylla and the Sicilian fishermen (unlike the tuna-hunting swordfish) keep watch for their prey from above before darting down and dragging their prey back. Strabo’s inclusion of Polybius’ explanation that the γαλεώτης is an alternative name for the κύων (dogfish) or swordfish (τοὺς γαλεώτας, οὓς καὶ ξιφίας λέγεσθαι καὶ κύνας φησί) is presumably introduced in order to heighten that parallel: both Scylla and the Sicilian fishermen hunt for the same prey, namely swordfish or dogfish (Od. .). The mediation between these explanations by Kim :  n.  is unnecessary. See Strab. ..; the creature is presumably some kind of γαλεός (for which see .–, and cf. Oppian’s account of κήτεα, including certain kinds of dogfish, at .–, .–.



Locating Monsters

the smaller kinds of κῆτος in comparison to the vast creature detailed in the whale-hunt (.–). Importantly, moreover, the method of catching this fish is itself similar: in both cases the creature is worn out by being dragged by the fishermen on the end of a line until the beast is exhausted and can be towed to shore. Polybius claims that a characteristically Sicilian method of capturing this smaller variety of κῆτος constitutes the ‘real’ or factual core of the Homeric depiction of Scylla, undergirding the poet’s implicit location of these adventures in the Straits of Messina, and that the Homeric depiction of Charybdis is based on the ebb and flow of the tide in that area. Oppian, however, inverts precisely this process. On his account, when a huge κῆτος is caught by fishermen using similar methods, its agonised thrashing on the end of a rope may be understood, in epic terms, as analogous to the movement of Charybdis in the Straits of Messina, an association well set off by his claim to both geographical precision and knowledge of local currents. Not even an Eratosthenes could level at Oppian the kinds of criticism – of geographical ignorance and factual inaccuracy – to which Homer had been subjected. We have seen, then, that Oppian’s whale-hunt is saturated with an abundance of mythical prototypes that are proffered as analogues for the conflict with this monstrous beast. This proliferation in part constitutes a claim to the generic magnitude and incorporative capacity of epic poetry at large: book  is organised around the principle of κήτεα or creatures of formidable size, and this narrative details at remarkable length the ‘battle’ with a vast and capacious monster whose capture represents perhaps the ultimate human achievement. Oppian toys here with ideas of the sublime: with terrifying grandiosity, sudden shifts in scale, and with Cyclopes, Titans, furious storms, and powerful cosmic battles. In doing so he creates of this πολυχανδής (.) monster a capacious repository for the entire Greek epic tradition. This is at one level a function of Oppian’s status as a later Greek poet – these are tales, and myths, that had by his time accrued a rich history of representation and commentary. We are no longer dealing simply with the archaic Greek epic canon, but with a multiple, overlapping, centrifugal assemblage of myths, texts, and interpretative practices. This is a sophisticated literary culture immersed not only in earlier poetry (and the Homeric and Hesiodic epics in particular) but also in strategies for reading those texts, in reading practices like allegoresis and rationalisation, as well as debates about the factual accuracy, geographical precision, and deceptive 

On epic poetry and the πολυχανδής sea-monster see Chapter .

. Locating Myth



potential of poetry at large. As a didactic epic poem, however, the Halieutica lays claim to both factual accuracy and the awe-inspiring grandiosity of epic. The poet in part follows Plato, Polybius, and Strabo in advocating for the utility of myth at large and of epic poetry in particular, but he also goes further by inverting those discussions and offering his readers two alternative interpretations at once. This κῆτος functions, in other words, as both a ‘real’ (albeit terrifying) fish and a monstrous mythical prototype, a model for the cohabitation of myth and science, factual plausibility as well as cosmic scope. This, I have suggested, is the claim to truth and majesty articulated by didactic poetry, a genre that positions itself between verse and prose, epic poetry and the technical treatise.

 

An Empire of Fish

.

Politics and Power

The Halieutica proclaims itself the product of a distinctively imperial age. The poem opens by invoking not the gods or Muses but Marcus Aurelius (.), who is addressed and praised, sometimes together with his son Commodus, in every book. The emperor is represented as a figure of near-divine status, a glorious leader for whom all mortal actions are carried out (.), whose power over the natural world is so great that even fish delight at being caught by him (.), and who has ushered in the just and peaceful conditions under which the poem has been composed (.). Oppian’s laudatory language underscores the majesty of the all-powerful and divinely favoured emperor. This divine favour seems far-reaching indeed: Marcus is frequently invoked or addressed in association with the gods, and the poet at times switches unexpectedly between the two, leaving the reader momentarily uncertain as to the identity of the (divine or human) βασιλεύς being invoked (., .). The geographical extent of the Roman empire is implicitly outlined at the end of book , and at the start of the next book the emperor is urged to pay attention to the Halieutica and its lessons. This, however, is presented less as a means of catching particular fish than as a function of imperial

   

.–, –; .–, –; .–; .–; .–, –. Commodus is neither addressed directly nor depicted independently of his father. E.g. γαίης ὕπατον κράτος (.), ὄρχαμε γαίης (.), μάκαρ σκηπτοῦχε (.), κάρτιστε πολισσούχων βασιλήων (.), κοίρανε γαίης (.), and σκηπτοῦχε διοτρεφές (.). See .–; .–, –; .–; .–; .. Marcus Aurelius is described as μάκαρ (., .) θεσπέσιος (.) and his son as ἠγάθεος (.); their εὐσεβία is evoked at .. Cf. Klotz : –. On ἱλήκοις and ἱλήκοι, see Fajen : –. On the use of βασιλεύς and cognates of Roman emperors (., ; .), see Mason : –. On the politics of imperial cult see e.g. Price , esp. –; Harland ; Bowersock . Dio Chrysostom’s Kingship Orations set out the close relationship between the ideal ruler and Zeus, whose model of kingship the ruler is advised to follow: see esp. Dio. Chrys. Or. .–, .–, .–. Cf. Moles .



. Politics and Power



power. Knowledge of the sea’s inhabitants marks the symbolic extent of Marcus’ dominion over even the marine realm: νῦν δ’ ἄγε μοι, σκηπτοῦχε, παναίολα δήνεα τέχνης ἰχθυβόλου φράζοιο καὶ ἀγρευτῆρας ἀέθλους θεσμόν τ’ εἰναλιών ξυμβάλλεο, τέρπεο δ’ οἴμῃ ἡμετέρῃ· σοῖς μὲν γὰρ ὑπὸ σκήπτροισι θάλασσα εἰλεῖται καὶ φῦλα Ποσειδάωνος ἐναύλων, ἔργα δέ τοι ξύμπαντα μετ’ ἀνδράσι πορσύνονται, σοὶ δ’ ἐμὲ τερπωλήν τε καὶ ὑμνητῆρ’ ἀνέηκαν δαίμονες ἐν Κιλίκεσσιν ὑφ’ Ἑρμαίοις ἀδύτοισιν. (.–)

Now come, sceptre-bearer, observe the cunning devices of the fisherman’s art and the labours of fishing, and understand the law of the sea and take delight in my song. For under your sceptre rolls the sea and the tribes of the haunts of Poseidon, and for you all deeds are done among men; for you the deities have established me as a joy and poet among the Cilicians beside the shrines of Hermes.

The poet represents himself as Marcus’ ὑμνητήρ (poet, singer, or eulogist), representing the emperor as both beneficiary and reference point for all mortal activity. The proem’s focus lies not with the gods but the emperor, for whose benefit even the deities direct their energies (.–), and who now rules the sphere traditionally associated with Poseidon (.). The remainder of the poem, however, raises troubling questions about the nature of these fishy subjects. As the Halieutica shows, the sea over which the emperor rules is vast, varied, and teeming with life. Different ἔθνεα of fish are assigned, like those of men, to specific regions of the sea, forming a differentiated marine ethnography that is frequently aligned with human patterns of habitation. Fish, no less than men, have ‘homelands’ (.) to which they exhibit a fervent allegiance, and the poet sums up the topographical catalogue of species in book  by declaring that αἵδε μὲν ὥστε πόληες ἐν ἰχθύσιν, οἵδε θ’ ὅμιλοι | κεκριμένοι γεγάασιν ἁλιπλάγκτοιο γενέθλης (‘these, as it were, are the cities among fish, these the different communities of the sea-roaming race’, .–). Far from swimming randomly through the ocean, fish live in communities like men, and



Oppian updates for a new imperial age the sphragis that concludes Nicander’s Alexipharmaca (Alex. –), yet while Nicander’s relationship with Protagoras is one of friendship, Oppian’s is a relationship on an altogether different scale, for his addressee rules the very realm that his poem describes.



An Empire of Fish

are assimilated even to the model of the πόλις, paradigm of civilised human life. With its πόληες and ἔθνεα, the sea ruled by Marcus Aurelius functions as an analogue to the terrestrial empire: it is a space composed of a multitude of fishy ‘tribes’ aligned with human patterns of behaviour, territorially located in specific regions, and differentiated from one other in important ways. Yet at the heart of the Halieutica there lies a tension between the apparent unity of the sea – qua continuous body of water, generic realm of Poseidon, or territory of the emperor – and the chaotic fortunes of its ceaselessly hostile fish. We emerge with a sense of the sea’s cohesion as a region only when the poet refers to it as the domain of particular figures, whether regal dolphins or the gods of the sea. These, however, are rulers only in the vaguest sense: Poseidon and the other sea-deities play a limited, and often metonymic, role in the poem, and the sea seems stubbornly devoid of stable authority and law. As we saw earlier (Section ., ‘Homeric Readings’), the dolphin is the only creature to emerge triumphant from this continual struggle for power, and the savagery of Oppian’s sea is ubiquitous and exhausting. Just as lions rule the beasts, eagles the birds, and snakes the reptiles, so dolphins rule over fish: they are the ἄνακτες, βασιλῆες, ἡγεμονῆες, and ἡγητῆρες of the sea. Yet despite the poet’s emphasis elsewhere on their civilised, near-human behaviour, theirs is a bloody, brutal reign: when dolphins go search of food, the other fish flee in terror (.–). Worse yet, the dolphin in turn falls victim to predatory bonitos (ἀμίαι), at least until these are themselves devoured (.–). In this realm of aggression and bloodshed, even the mightiest ruler stands in continual danger of being overthrown. At stake here is the very structure of authority at sea, which proves chaotic and violent even for the (temporary) victor. The marine world of the Halieutica thus emerges as a disordered and chaotic sphere that both reflects and inverts the terrestrial empire of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, the poem’s addressees. If the Roman empire can be conceptualised as a conglomeration of disparate peoples collected under the broadly unifying force of imperial authority, then Oppian’s sea in part mirrors this model, yet manifestly lacks the unity and concord of an empire governed by a prudent ruler. Instead the poem pulses with an anxiety about    

The idea of a πόλις of fish is then developed in the extended simile of .–, in which fish exult in the advent of spring like citizens celebrating the coming of peace to a besieged city. See .–. ἄνακτες: .; βασιλῆες: ., .; ἡγεμονῆες: .; ἡγητῆρες: ., ; .; see also . and esp. .–, on the offspring of the ἰχθυνόμων βασιλήων | δελφίνων. As we saw in Chapter , the poet highlights the dolphin’s rapid transition from victor to victim and back, noting that this species too has its enemies, despite its power and status (.). See e.g. Lintott :  on Roman conceptions of empire as the union of disparate peoples.

. Poetic Justice



issues of power and powerlessness. Immoral and violent, the sea is characterised by the piecemeal hostilities of irremediably carnivorous creatures. Fish are deadly enemies to one another, and there is no δίκη, αἰδώς, or φιλότης to be found amongst them (.–). Only the ‘just’ and vegetarian grey mullet stands apart from these ceaseless cycles of marine violence (.–).

. Poetic Justice In contrast to the hostility and chaos of life at sea, Oppian’s vision of the Roman empire under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus is at first sight presented in entirely contrary terms: as just, peaceful, and flourishing. This connection, and opposition, between the savage sea and the peaceful Roman empire is set out explicitly at the end of book : οὐ μέν μοι τόδε θαῦμα Δίκην ἀπάτερθε θαλάσσης ναιετάειν· οὐ γάρ τι πάλαι πρέσβειρα θεάων οὐδὲ μετὰ θνητοῖσιν ἔχε θρόνον, ἀλλὰ κυδοιμοὶ δυσκέλαδοι καὶ θοῦρος Ἄρης φθισήνορος ἄτης μαῖά τ’ ἐρικλαύστων πολέμων Ἔρις ἀλγεσίδωρος ἔφλεγον ἡμερίων δειλὸν γένος. οὐδέ τι θηρῶν κεκριμένοι πολέες μερόπων ἔσαν, ἀλλὰ λεόντων αἰνότεροι πύργους τ’ εὐτείχεας ἠδὲ μέλαθρα νηούς τ’ ἀθανάτων εὐώδεας αἵματι φωτῶν καπνῷ τ’ αἰθαλόεντι κατείνυον Ἡφαίστοιο, εἰσόκε ῥαιομένην γενεὴν ᾤκτειρε Κρονίων, ὑμῖν δ’ Αἰνεάδῃσιν ἐπέτραπε γαῖαν ἀνάψας. ἀλλ’ ἔτι καὶ προτέροισιν ἐν Αὐσονίων βασιλεῦσι θῦνεν Ἄρης Κελτούς τε καὶ αὐχήεντας Ἴβηρας θωρήσσων Λιβύης τε πολὺν πόρον ἔργα τε Ῥήνου Ἴστρον τ’ Εὐφρήτην τε· τί μοι τάδε δούρατος ἔργα μεμνῆσθαι; νῦν γάρ σε, Δίκη θρέπτειρα πολήων, γινώσκω μερόπεσσι συνέστιον ἠδὲ σύνοικον, ἐξ οὗ μοι κραίνουσι μέγαν θρόνον ἐμβεβαῶτες ἄμφω θεσπέσιός τε πατὴρ καὶ φαίδιμος ὄρπηξ·

ð665Þ

ð670Þ

ð675Þ

ð680Þ

(.–)

But it is no surprise to me that Dike [Justice] should dwell far away from the sea. For not that long ago the venerable goddess had no throne among mortals either; instead, the shrieking din of battle and furious Ares of man-slaying destruction and Eris the nurse of tearful wars, who brings pain, were burning up the wretched race of ephemeral men. Nor were many men any different from wild beasts, but, more terrible than lions, they clothed the well-walled towers and the halls and the sweet-smelling temples of the gods with the blood of men and the sooty smoke of Hephaestus – until



An Empire of Fish the son of Cronos took pity on the broken race, entrusting and conferring the earth upon you sons of Aeneas. But even then Ares still rushed among the earlier kings of the Ausonians, arming the Celts and the braggart Iberians and the great tract of Libya and the lands of the Rhine and the Ister and the Euphrates. But why should I mention these works of war? I know that at the current time, Justice, nourisher of cities, you share the hearth and the home of men – ever since they took governance, when the two of them mounted the great throne: the divinely ordained father and his radiant scion.

For Oppian, the absence of (the personified) Δίκη emerges as the norm rather than the exception in the world, and it is her presence among mortals, rather than her absence among fish, that requires explanation. Humans too, we are told, were formerly savage, bestial, and destructive; now, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, Δίκη finally flourishes among men. Summarised rather dismissively by Peter Toohey as a ‘curious’ and ‘cursory’ parallel between the absence of justice at sea and its presence on earth, the passage has received surprisingly little critical attention. The narrative, however, is of immense significance for the poem. As this chapter argues, it locates the Halieutica within a culturally central and instantly recognisable didactic tradition; it engages critically with second-century ideologies of empire; and it functions as a cornerstone of the poem’s moral edifice, reminding the reader how and why Oppian’s precepts about animals are urgent and relevant to humankind. Formally, this passage combines the ‘culture narrative’ that came to prominence in the sophistic literature of fifth-century Athens – detailing the emergence of humanity from a state of bestial nature via a series of social and legalistic compacts – with notably Hesiodic echoes, to which I turn first. The centrality of δίκη to Hesiod’s Works and Days, and especially to the first half of that poem, can hardly be overstated. In 



 

Toohey : ; contrast Iglesias Zoido . Bartley : – offers little discussion of the narrative, stressing its imitative qualities and stating that ‘the link with a famous model passage . . . limits the scope for innovative expression’ (), a reading that underestimates the passage’s significance. For simplicity I refer to Hal. .– as Oppian’s ‘Dike narrative’. The extent to which narrative elements are to be identified in didactic poetry has been much debated; for the categories of discourse and narrative see Benveniste ; Genette ; on didactic see Fakas b: ; Fowler : ; Volk :  n. , following de Jong a; Laird ; Gale ; Bartley : –. See esp. Cole . Most :  characterises the Works and Days as a poem ‘obsessively concerned with Δίκη’; cf. Claus : : in this poem ‘all classes of beings are defined by their relationship to δίκη’. Cf.

. Poetic Justice



the Hesiodic myth of the races, to which this passage directs the reader, justice characterises the race of heroes, while its absence is one of the hallmarks of the wicked iron race; Zeus, we hear, ever rewards the just and punishes the unjust. This too is the principle by which Oppian structures his own narrative, in overt homage to the Works and Days: reverence for δίκη distinguishes man from beast, Roman from nonRoman, and past from present. Oppian’s Dike narrative may even be read as an elaboration of Works and Days –, a description of the very process by which Zeus bestowed justice upon mankind alone and thus distinguished man from beast. Oppian’s account reworks the Works and Days not only in content – the absence of justice among fish, the paramount importance of justice among men, and a ‘history’ of mankind in which the actions of a savage, irreverent, and self-destructive γένος occasion the intervention of Zeus – but also in tone, vocabulary, and emphasis on the personified figures of Eris and Dike. The poet’s depiction of the current age of justice on earth approximates in broad terms to the peace and leisure of Hesiod’s χρύσεον γένος, and represents a wholesale inversion of the lawless violence of both the bronze race and the iron race that Hesiod associates with his own era. Conversely, both Oppian’s primitive and hostile γένος of men (.; cf. .) and his savage fish are aligned with Hesiod’s iron race, that fifth and most degenerate γένος.

   

 



Havelock :  on the ‘concentrate of Dikē’ in the poem; Pucci , esp. –; Kirby : –. Beall :  claims that ‘to Hesiod dikê is nothing less than the set of guiding principles of behavior by which rational, civilized human beings order their lives’; see also Dickie , with bibliography; Nelson : –. For δίκη and ὕβρις as a structuring polarity in the Works and Days see Vernant  and . For δίκη in the restricted sense of legal proces see Gagarin . The comparative δικαιότερον at Hes. Op.  also distinguishes the race of heroes from the bronze race. Hesiod also urges Perses to ‘listen to justice’ (Hes. Op. , ). See .–, discussed in Chapter . Oppian’s description of Eris as ἀλγεσίδωρος (.; see also Sapph. fr.  V) might even be read as a gloss on Hesiod’s account of the two Erides (Hes. Op. –): this is to be a narrative of progress from a society devoted solely to the war-loving and malevolent Eris to one in which Dike reigns triumphant. Metallic terms, however, are nowhere employed in Oppian’s account. The harmony between Marcus Aurelius and his son in their joint reign (emphasised by the dual: ἄμφω, .) contrasts with Hesiod’s dire predictions of familial strife within the iron race (Hes. Op. –); Dike’s status as nurturer of cities (θρέπτειρα πολήων, .) likewise contrasts with the children of the iron race, who fail to repay their parents their θρεπτήρια (Op. ) and with the men of the iron race, whose justice lies in their hands and who sack one another’s cities (Op. ). The ill-sounding (δυσκέλαδος, .) battle-din that characterises Oppian’s pre-Roman society evokes the ζῆλος . . . δυσκέλαδος (Hes. Op. –) of Hesiod’s iron race; his violent fish, bereft of δίκη and αἰδώς (.), mirror the future of the iron race, for whom δίκη δ’ ἐν χερσί· καὶ αἰδὼς | οὐκ ἔσται (Op. –). sterud : – argues for a close connection between Hesiod’s lawless



An Empire of Fish

Oppian’s portrayal of imperial peace, justice, and prosperity, moreover, draws not only on the myth of the races but on the portrayal of the just and flouring city in the Works and Days. The personification of Δίκη on her throne further evokes Hesiod’s depiction of Δίκη sitting down beside Zeus to discern and punish crooked judgements, while the prayer that Zeus and the gods keep Marcus Aurelius and Commodus on the straight and narrow (ἰθύνοιτε, .) recalls Hesiod’s frequent association of the ‘straight’ judgement with Zeus, δίκη, the wise king and the prosperous city. What is more, Oppian’s depiction of the close relationship between Zeus, rulers, just government, and poetic production looks back to Hesiod’s description of kings and singers in the Theogony. It is thus striking that Oppian’s association of Zeus with the imperial rulers (βασιλῆες), and his depiction of his own poetic success as dependent on the opportunities afforded by the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, should be followed at the start of the next book by the poet’s emphasis on his close relationship with the sceptre-bearing emperor, the pleasure that his poetry is to bring the βασιλεύς, and his position as divinely authorised τερπωλή and ὑμνητήρ for the emperor, whom he is to delight with his song (.–).





 



 

beasts, the degenerate iron race, and the poet’s exhortation to justice. On Hesiodic δίκη, νέμεσις, and αἰδώς, see e.g. Gatz : –; McKay ; Claus ; Cairns : –. Cf. the prominent role played by ζῆλος amongst fish in the Halieutica: .–, .–. Hes. Op. –. The success of the just city contrasts with the injustice perpetrated at Op. –, where Justice is dragged off, weeping, by the crooked-dealing men, and Op. –, which details the punishments ordained by Zeus for the citizens when a man behaves unjustly. Cf. Bartley : . Hal. .–; Hes. Op. . Hesiod claims that the personified Peace is present on earth for just citizens, acting as the nurse of youths, and contrasting with the horrors of war (Op. –). Cf. Oppian’s emphasis on the presence of Δίκη on earth, her status as the θρέπτειρα πολήων (.), and the rejection of the discourse of war in favour of peace and justice, introduced at .– in contrast to prior warfare. The qualification εἴ τις ἀμοιβὴ | εὐσεβίης (.–) reflects Hesiodic claims about recompense for just and unjust behaviour. Cf. Hesiod’s statement that straight judgments originate from Zeus (Op. –), entreaty to Zeus (Op. –) and to the kings (Op. –), portrayal of the just king (Theog. –), the unjust city (Op. –, esp. ), and the just and prospering city (Op. –, esp.  and ). Hes. Theog. –. On kings, poets, and Muses in the Theogony see Roth , focusing on δίκη; Duban ; Gagarin ; Stoddard ; for the argument that Hesiod’s praise of the βασιλῆες in the Theogony relates to the poem’s actual performance before kings see van Groningen : ; West : , ; Blößner . The word is used of Marcus Aurelius at ., ., and esp. .. The argument that the Hesiodic βασιλεύς should be restricted to the narrower sense of judge or magistrate is of little concern here. Oppian’s description of his fortune in living under such prosperous conditions may be read as an expansion of Hesiod’s plea that neither he nor his son should have to live in a time or place of injustice: Hesiod’s hope that Zeus would not countenance such a grim prospect (Hes. Op. ) is a

. Poetic Justice



All in all, there can be no mistaking the Hesiodic nature of Oppian’s narrative. Yet the poet’s emphasis on the absence or presence of the personified Dike in the mortal sphere also recalls that passage of the Phaenomena in which Aratus relates the degenerating metallic ages of mankind and the (now) catasterised Παρθένος/Δίκη, said to have fled the earth in disgust at the destructive χαλκείη γενεή (Arat. Phaen. –). Aratus’ myth of Dike itself draws, as critics have explored, on Hesiod’s Works and Days (and, to a lesser extent, Theogony), while Aratus’ reworking of Hesiodic material in the Phaenomena in turn exercised a profound influence on subsequent (didactic) literature, both Greek and Latin. In particular, the close association suggested by Oppian between the presence of the personified Dike among mortals and a period of widespread prosperity on earth echoes Aratus’ famous description of the golden race, itself a conflation of the Hesiodic depiction of the golden race and extended praise of justice. Oppian’s emphasis on the current era of justice, the well-governed city, and the promotion of peace and productivity in this sense recalls the Aratean as much as the Hesiodic vision of the ideal mortal condition. Oppian’s tripartite schema – the initial bestiality of mankind, followed by Roman rule, itself still characterised by war, and finally the just and peaceful Antonine era – is based on a strong opposition between the first and the last phases of the three (characterised, respectively, by bloodshed and peace) and further parallels the Aratean account: in the Phaenomena the justice of the golden γένος is marked out primarily in contrast to the violence of the bronze γενεή, which is also the focus of Dike’s address to Aratus’ transitional silver γένος. On a verbal level, even the κυδοιμοί (‘noises or uproar of battle’, .) typical of Oppian’s first γένος mirror

 



view of divine providence that Oppian bears out when his Zeus takes pity on the broken race of selfdestructive mortals (.). Cf. Effe :  n.  and Bartley : –. Fakas b: : ‘Der Zeitaltermythos der Erga wird also von Arat als Gerechtigkeitsmythos gedeutet, dessen Einzelabschnitte manche in Hesiods Dike-Paränese skizzierten Situationen widerspiegeln.’ For Aratus’ emphasis on the personified Dike see Fakas b: ; for his conflation of the golden race and the praise of Dike in the Works and Days see Solmsen : –; Fakas b: –. On poetry, politics, and just government in Aratus see e.g. Schiesaro ; Hunter : –. On Aratus’ Dike narrative in later Greek and Latin literature see e.g. Maass ; Martin ; Kidd : ; Landolfi ; Hu¨bner : –; Gee : . See e.g. Schwabl : –; cf. Schiesaro : : ‘Aratus chooses to portray the opposition between the good and the bad race almost exclusively in terms of justice and war . . . What is constantly stressed is a clearcut opposition between justice and injustice, peace and war, tranquility and violence.’ On later tendencies to elide the intervening races in Hesiod’s narrative, see Most .



An Empire of Fish

the unfamiliarity with κυδοιμός exhibited by Aratus’ golden γένος (Phaen. ). Like the appeal to Zeus in the proem of the Phaenomena, Aratus’ narrative of Dike’s departure from earth foregrounds the Hesiodic legacy of the Phaenomena and draws attention to the complexity of the relationship between past and present, humans and the divine. In recasting both Hesiodic and Aratean narratives of human history, Oppian situates his poetry within a tradition that Kromer has termed ‘[t]he didactic view of history’.

. Imperial History Oppian, however, embeds these Hesiodic and Aratean references within a determinedly ‘new’ imperial setting. Whereas Hesiod’s myth of the races had provided a pattern of decline that culminates in the poet’s horror at the current iron race (from which, as we have seen, δίκη will be absent), and while Aratus too had represented the progressive degeneration of mankind (see esp. Dike’s words at Phaen. –), Oppian’s history reverses this topos in order to end with the presence, rather than the absence, of justice, peace, and prosperity. This powerful reshaping of poetic precedent suggests the admixture of other elements beside traditional didactic epic, and it is clear that Oppian is also refracting a long tradition of Roman providentialist propaganda. Golden-age symbolism had long been part of the imperial encomiastic repertoire, and is familiar, for instance, from Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, in which the return of Justice (iam redit et Virgo, Ecl. .) similarly stands as a symbol for, and product of, a new golden age. Similar ideas are found in many Roman writers, including Horace, Calpurnius Siculus, Seneca, and others. By the second century it had become a cliché of imperial encomium, but still by no means eviscerated: Commodus, crucially, seems to have required the senate to speak of his own reign in these terms, according to Cassius Dio, who was    

Kromer : . Although in the Hesiodic account the race of heroes notoriously complicates any narrative of straightforward degeneration; see Walcot ; Querbach ; Most . Following the (Aratean) departure of Iustitia from the earth, for which cf. Verg. Georg. .– and Ov. Fast. .–; Astraea at Ov. Met. .–. See e.g. Verg. Aen. .–; Hor. Carm. .; Calp. Ecl. .– (return of Themis), .–; Sen. Apocol. ; Einsied. Ecl. .– (return of Astraea); Consol. ad Liv. –; Stat. Silv. .. –; Auson. Ep. .–. Johnston :  refers to the topos of the golden age as ‘the hallmark of the reign of Augustus’; Lovejoy and Boas :  speak of the ‘attenuated metaphor of the return of the Golden Age’; cf. Reckford : , . Barker , Galinsky :  and van Noorden  emphasise the myth’s subtle malleability.

. Imperial History



himself a senator at the time (Cass. Dio ..). This, coupled with Dio’s ironic statement that the death of Marcus marked a passing of the golden age (Cass. Dio ..), suggests that such discourse was in Oppian’s time a live issue, but also that it had become potentially problematic as a consequence of its overuse. The Halieutica projects, by way of contrast with the sea, a vague and idealised vision of a peaceful and flourishing Antonine empire of the sort portrayed by Cassius Dio, and later by Edward Gibbon. Like Gibbon, Oppian focuses on the peace, justice, and concord of the Antonine regime. It is not the might of the emperors, however, nor even the vast extent of their empire, but rather the absence of military activity (δούρατος ἔργα, .) that forms the focus of his narrative. For Oppian’s predecessor Dionysius the Periegete, on the other hand, it was precisely the opulence and magnificence of Rome that had prompted his eulogy on that city, while the ‘Ausonian king’ Trajan is mentioned in the Periegesis only to lay weight upon his military victory over the Parthians. Oppian, by contrast, focuses his panegyric not on military might or the wealth and power of Rome but on the peace and concord of the current regime. Building on the image of unity between father and son, he posits a direct temporal connection (ἐξ οὗ, .) between the emperors’ rule and the presence of Δίκη on earth; the harmony of the current reign is such that the θρόνος of Dike at . finds its complement in the θρόνος of Marcus and Commodus at .. Juan Carlos Iglesias Zoido is, I think, right to link Oppian’s Dike narrative with discussions of the importance of political concord and ὁμόνοια in contemporary imperial literature. Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, and Aelius Aristides, for instance, appeal to the values of ὁμόνοια, φιλία, and εὐταξία as cornerstones of the civic politics of the empire. These are 

 





Gibbon : I.; cf. Mommsen : I.. Gibbon : I. employs a metallic metaphor: ‘[t]he golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by an age of iron’, in this presumably influenced by Dio, for whom the death of Marcus Aurelius had marked the end of a golden realm, although here looking on to the ‘rusty’ iron days of Commodus rather than back to the Flavians. On justice, peace, and the role of the ruler see Ryberg : . Dion. Perieg. –; –; cf. the subjugation of the Nasamones at –. Even here, however, territorial expansion is not at issue, but rather the maintenance of justice and the alignment of Roman imperial rule with the dictates of Zeus; see Lightfoot : . Iglesias Zoido : –, briefly remarking on the speeches of Dio Chrysostom and the Rhodian Oration of Aelius Aristides. See further Salmeri : , who emphasises that ‘the main burden of Dio’s political speeches . . . remained the appeal for concord and internal stability’. On concord in Greek and Roman literature see Cairns : –. See Sheppard –.



An Empire of Fish

the qualities that the poet praises in his account of the current Roman empire, that stand at the heart of a well-ordered and successful community, and that are so clearly deficient in Oppian’s fish. Compare the Roman Oration of Aelius Aristides, which similarly idealises the peace and justice of the empire under the reign of Antoninus Pius. Aristides too presents his eulogy as an explicit reversal and ‘correction’ of Hesiod’s myth of the races: the emperor’s reign has prompted the return of Δίκη and Αἰδώς to the mortal sphere, and the old and miserable σιδήρεον γένος has given way to a new period of imperially conferred prosperity (Ael. Arist. Or. .K). Both Aristides and Oppian rewrite Hesiod in order to offer strikingly similar narratives, panegyrics in which the Antonine empire becomes the τέλος of an inverted myth of the races. Even the pity felt by Oppian’s Zeus for the broken, pre-Roman generation (ῥαιομένην γενεὴν ᾤκτειρε Κρονίων, .) parallels that which Aristides’ Hesiod is imagined to feel for the doomed, pre-Antonine σιδήρεον γένος. The presence of justice among men, however, is attributed by Oppian not to the decisive intervention of Zeus in mortal affairs but to the impact of the current Antonine regime, allowing him to stress the morality and justice of the emperors themselves. After all, even under the earlier ‘Ausonian kings’, long after the intervention of Zeus, mankind had still lived a life devoted to warfare (.–). As with so many later adaptations of the Hesiodic myth, the differentiation now takes on a primarily temporal significance: the poet is witness to a golden age, not a golden race. It could hardly be claimed that the Romans as a whole were a peaceful race, and indeed this would be unsuited to Oppian’s purpose: his is a temporally specific panegyric. Now and only now, under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, has peace been established across the empire. The passage leaves us, however, with no sense that Oppian offers a full history of the fortunes of mankind from past to present. For one thing, there is a selectivity and lack of specificity to his Dike narrative: the vague οὐ γάρ τι πάλαι (.) gives no indication of the time at which this warlike γένος first emerged, how long it lasted, or even the (different?) conditions under which men lived in the more distant past. If Dike is indeed πρέσβειρα θεάων (.) – a title that carries associations not simply of venerability but also of antiquity – then are we to assume another, prior γένος for whom Dike played a greater part? Indeed, what happened to the ῥαιομένη γενεή (.) itself: do we infer that it died out, that it generated the Romans, or that it was incorporated somehow under Roman control? Were the descendants of Aeneas themselves part of this γενεή?

. Imperial History



For all the story’s vague account of the prior history of mankind, however, Oppian is highly specific about the current temporal and geographical span of this period of justice. The poet’s lack of clarity about the prior age(s) indicates that such questions are largely irrelevant to his schema: the crucial distinction resides instead in the difference between Roman and pre-Roman society. We emerge, then, with a temporal account in which the intervening generations of Hesiod’s five-part scheme are elided to create a dichotomy between past and present, or at best a tripartite distinction between (a) the lawless pre-Roman society, (b) the descendants of Aeneas who controlled the earth but continued to wage war, and (c) the current period of justice and power under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Yet even this is too sharp a division, for Oppian speaks of Zeus bestowing the earth upon ὑμῖν . . . Αἰνεάδῃσιν (.), a statement that highlights the identification of (b) and (c) in our scheme above: Marcus and Commodus too belong to the ‘descendants of Aeneas’. We are left with an impression simultaneously of the current emperors’ unprecedented virtue, and of their continuity with the previous emperors. As Cassius Dio implies of Commodus, the reapplication of familiar golden-age symbolism always carries the potential to invite scrutiny of its applicability, an assessment of the degree of continuity or rupture with the previous regime. Cassius Dio himself exploits this Janus-faced potential for the imperial (metallic) narrative to be seen as a pattern either of progress or of decline at the point of transition from one emperor to the next (Cass. Dio ..; ..). For us this question takes on a particular force in that, on Oppian’s account, the current age of peace and justice is to be associated not just (as for Gibbon) with the Antonine dynasty at large, or with Marcus Aurelius in particular, but with the joint rule of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. This specification delimits the peace described by the poet to the period between  and, at the latest,   (or to a timespan narrower yet if we assume, given the poet’s tendency to address Marcus Aurelius in preference to Commodus, that the Halieutica was probably composed some time before the death of Marcus Aurelius in early ). Oppian, then, is writing at the crucial point of transition between emperors. The poet claims that the very moment of the poem’s composition coincides with a period of unparalleled peace and justice; contrast Oppian’s catalogue of the wars waged by the current emperors’ 

For an extended eulogy of joint imperial rule (here that of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus) as a symbol of universal harmony, cf. Aelius Aristides’ Panegyric in Cyzicus, Or. K (=D), esp. ff.



An Empire of Fish

predecessors: ἀλλ’ ἔτι καὶ προτέροισιν ἐν Αὐσονίων βασιλεῦσι | θῦνεν Ἄρης, Κελτούς τε καὶ αὐχήεντας Ἴβηρας | θωρήσσων Λιβύης τε πολὺν πόρον ἔργα τε Ῥήνου | Ἴστρον τ’ Εὐφρήτην τε (‘But even then Ares still rushed among the earlier kings of the Ausonians, arming the Celts and the braggart Iberians and the great tract of Libya and the Rhine and the Ister and Euphrates’, .–). This is a list that effectively outlines the extent of the Roman empire: Iberians and Celts in the west, the Rhine and Danube in the north, the Euphrates in the east, and Libya in the south. In part this must reflect a now-standard conception of these regions, and of their rivers in particular, as the ‘natural’ frontiers of the Roman empire, the symbolic valence of which had been central to notions of territorial expansion since the time of Augustus. In listing these far-flung and ideologically loaded frontiers, Oppian effectively underscores the sheer magnitude of the emperor’s dominion, as well as the aquatic nature of the empire’s boundaries. Yet the list also alludes in concrete terms to the acquisition and subjugation of these territories into a geographically vast and ever-expanding empire. Oppian’s implication is that now, in contrast to the bellicosity of previous emperors, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus have subdued these races, or at least put an end to military activity on the frontiers, so that the empire may finally enjoy the fruits of peace. Oddly, however, this image of implied concord at the borders of the empire contrasts with our picture of the actual frontier situation at this time. Given the constant troubles in these regions, and particularly the difficulties presented by the ongoing  



Cf. Iglesias Zoido :  and Bartley : . Thus e.g. Joseph. BJ . (and cf. BJ ., ). See Millar : – and Bowie :  on the standard conceptual boundaries of the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates as ‘les trois grands fleuves-frontières de l’empire’. On the Augustan roots of this view, see e.g. Res Gest. .–, ; Tac. Ann. .. On the Euphrates the war with the Armenians, Parthians, and Medes that had broken out in – was brought to an end in early , but the population of the empire was decimated by the virulent plague brought back by the returning armies. Troubles in the region of the Danube reached critical condition, and  to  was spent in near-continual warfare with the Quadi, Marcomanni, Iazyges, and other tribes of the central Danube. Moorish inroads into Spain and disturbances in Britain were matched by chronic unrest in the east, which culminated in the insurrection of the eastern governor Avidius Cassius, who proclaimed himself emperor in . By late , these troubles and those on the Danube briefly appeared to have been quashed, and triumphs de Germanis and de Sarmatis were celebrated by Marcus and Commodus in November and December of that year. Commodus was granted the title of imperator in November , received the tribunician power at the beginning of , and later in the year acceded as co-regent with a status all but equal to that of his father. During this time coins were issued bearing the motif pax aeterna. This proved but a brief respite, however, and in  matters on the Danube deteriorated again with the barbarian invasion of Pannonia; these insurgences were eventually subdued, but the victorious titles Germanicus and Sarmaticus no longer appear on the coinage after this fleeting

. Imperial History



Marcomannic Wars, it is at best an exaggeration to contrast the wars waged προτέροισιν ἐν Αὐσονίων βασιλεῦσι (.) with the justice ushered in by the joint rule of Marcus and Commodus. We are faced, then, with an interpretative difficulty: is Oppian simply lavishing blandishments on the emperors? In this case, why mention the Iberians, Danube, or Euphrates by name at all, given the profoundly unsettling associations carried by these turbulent regions? I submit that Oppian’s praise of the current policy of peace and justice in contrast to previous wars may be read less as an accurate record of politics in these years than as a directive towards concord and an oblique comment upon Antonine frontier policy. On this reading, Oppian’s Dike narrative chimes fully with the poet’s focus throughout the poem on harmony in contrast to hostility. Here, as elsewhere in the Halieutica, Oppian lauds peace and justice above all other virtues, as we saw with his eulogy of the grey mullet; even the glories of a vast empire, we infer, should not be gained at the cost of destructive war. The devastating effects of war resound through the Halieutica, as Chapters  and  have shown, and Oppian’s martial similes place continual emphasis on the negative effects of warfare upon individuals: families torn apart, the grieving of the bereaved, and the bloodshed and loss engendered by combat. In the Dike narrative, as in these similes, the human world of strife and hostility is shown to be little different from that of wild beasts, bringing with it only pain and destruction. Oppian’s Dike narrative is thus no merely politically expedient eulogy of Antonine rule, but a warning about the dangers of pursuing a policy of ruthless imperial expansion and continual warfare. In pointing to the dangers of quasi-bestial violence, the poem draws attention to the necessity for moral, rational, just, and peaceful action. If Marcus himself compares his military victories to the power struggles of the natural world – the



 

celebration of success, and the campaigns on the Danube were left incomplete when Commodus sought peace after the death of Marcus Aurelius in March . See e.g. Birley : –; Garzetti : –; Birley : –; on the Parthian War, see e.g. Edwell : –; on the Marcomannic Wars, Oliva : –; Mócsy : -; Birley , esp. – with bibliography. For the triumph, see esp. SHA Marc. .; CIL VI  (and cf. ). Iglesias Zoido :  (and cf. Fajen : viii) argues on these grounds that the Halieutica must have been composed and presented to the emperor within the brief period of peace between Commodus’ accession in early  (or perhaps, as was subsequently retrojected, late ) and the resurgence of troubles on the Danube later that year. This would, however, leave us with a worryingly narrow time frame for the composition of a sophisticated ,-verse epic. A directive that would carry a powerful moral weight even had the poem been presented during those brief months of peace. See e.g. .–, .–, .–.



An Empire of Fish

imperial subjugation of barbarian peoples, he suggests at Meditations ., is analogous to the spider that catches a fly, or a man who catches a fish in a net, again drawing attention to the relative and transitory nature of power itself – then Oppian both inverts and interrogates this analogy. By foregrounding the relationship between imperial and animal warfare, Oppian creates of the marine world both a reassuring contrast to the glories of Roman rule and also a salutary warning for those who cease to lead a reflective and civilised life and risk returning to a bestial state. The most arresting implication of this temporal narrative is the degree of similarity that it posits between human and non-human animals, and thus the potential that human beings might at any point return to this state of brutality. Whereas the myth of the races is presented by Hesiod as an explanation of how gods and humans came from the same source and, as West puts it, ‘started on the same terms’ (ὡς ὁμόθεν γεγάασι θεοὶ θνητοί τ’ ἄνθρωποι, Hes. Op. ) before their progressive alienation from the divine, Oppian here shows rather how animals and humans started on the same terms. The men of yore who engaged in war were no different, we hear, from wild beasts: οὐδέ τι θηρῶν | κεκριμένοι πολέες μερόπων ἔσαν (.–); they were indeed λεόντων | αἰνότεροι (‘more terrible than lions’, .–), an implicit allusion to a quasi-Homeric life of continual violence. As we saw with Oppian’s depiction of gluttony and lust, the reason that men must rein in their baser instincts is so that they do not return to this kind of animalistic existence. The poet’s depiction of savage fish corresponds, at least in part, to the hostility and injustice of the preRoman peoples, and to the warfare deemed characteristic of Roman rule before the advent of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Just and peaceful civilisation, then, is not a default state either for humans at large or for Romans in particular, and Oppian’s narrative relocates the fundamental distinction from the sphere of an insurmountable physiological divide (that of man versus beast) to one of culture and human mores (civilised versus non-civilised; those who wage war and those who seek justice and peace). The message of the poem is that one has to select and strive after a restrained and peaceful way of life. In presenting Marcus Aurelius and Commodus with a Hesiodic narrative that advocates peace, rationality, and justice over warfare and imperial expansion, Oppian adopts a role akin to that of the σύμβουλος, the philosophical advisor steeped in centuries of Greek wisdom who counsels the Roman emperor on his course of action. This, I suggest, is neither an 

Marcus also draws comparisons with the natural world at Med. ., ., .., ...

. Imperial History



attack on Roman power nor an unqualified eulogy of Antonine rule, but rather a symbouletic relationship in which the didactic poet represents himself in the guise of a moral or philosophical guide, a Hesiodic role now updated for a new imperial system. Power and might, we hear, are meaningless without moderation and the judicious application of that power. This is a message that the poet succinctly conveys in his discussion of the ἡγητήρ (guide or pilot-fish), the tiny but knowledgeable fish that guides the powerful whale and carefully directs its course through the sea: ὣς οὔτ’ ἠνορέης οὔτ’ εἴδεος ἔπλετ’ ὄνειαρ τόσσον, ὅσον πραπίδων· ἀλκὴ δ’ ἀνεμώλιος ἄφρων, καί τε μέγα βριάοντα κατέσβεσεν ἠδ’ ἐσάωσε βαιὸς ἀνὴρ εὔμητις· ἐπεὶ καὶ κῆτος ἄαπτον ἀπλάτων μελέων ὀλίγον προτιβάλλεται ἰχθύν. (.–)

So neither strength nor physique is of as much use as is the mind; and strength without sense is futile. A humble man of good counsel extinguishes or saves a strong and great man; for even the invincible whale with its unapproachable limbs takes as its associate a tiny fish.

Without its guide, the whale is duly captured and killed (.–). As has been noted of other Second Sophistic texts, this model of the cultured, judicious advisor is above all a Greek trope that self-consciously refashions the relationship between Greek wisdom and Roman imperial power in order to construct a privileged space for Hellenic culture; it is surely no coincidence that this is a poem addressed to that most philosophical and hellenophilic of emperors, Marcus Aurelius, himself known for his (largely) productive relationship with the mentors and advisors inclined to caution him about the dangers of tyrannical rule. The poet here raises and re-energises the fraught question of the limitations of Roman rule, and of the ‘natural’ boundaries of imperial ambition. His emphasis in the Dike narrative on the tumultuous borders of the Roman empire, and throughout the poem on the hostile and chaotic marine world, seems to test the degree of literalism with which the trope of imperial control can be interpreted. If, as we have seen, it was customary to speak of an empire bounded by Oceanus or the great rivers, then Oppian creates of the sea the ultimate foil for the Roman empire. As the poem unfolds, the sea is figured as a realm that may lie geographically or rhetorically within, but that is also morally and epistemologically well  

The fish’s very name, ἡγητήρ, signals this close relationship, connoting both guiding and ruling. See e.g. Marcus’ prominent acknowledgement of his debt to Fronto in this regard, Med. ..



An Empire of Fish

beyond, the ordering force of imperial control. Marcus Aurelius is said at the start of book  to rule over the sea (.–), but this is a marine world whose farthest reaches and more reclusive inhabitants are barely known to humankind (.–), and whose ‘tribes’ are extraordinarily rebellious and corrupt. The sea had long been perceived as the ultimate boundary and testingpoint for rulers’ ambitions, as Arrian implies of Alexander, and Augustan reflections on the ideologies of empire, while promoting or debating world conquest, territorial expansion, and imperium sine fine, frequently conceptualise the Ocean as the limit-case of both rational ambition and imperial rule. During the second century, the nature and limitations of imperial control were again placed under intense scrutiny. The ideology of a limitless empire was by now a familiar encomiastic topos; in his Roman Oration Aelius Aristides dwells at length and in hyperbolic terms upon the excellence and unbounded magnitude of the Roman empire. Yet hyperbole rarely sits readily with practicality, and just as Augustus (for all his assertions of magnificent imperial expansion) advised Tiberius, in the document read out after his funeral, to keep the empire confined within its existing limits, so too the emperors of the second century  were notoriously concerned with the question of whether or not to expand the empire beyond its current limits, especially given the degree of strife that continually ran rife at the boundaries of the empire. Marcus Aurelius had apparently intended to annex two further provinces north of the Danube – indeed, only his death prevented this expansion; Commodus had initially also planned to extend the boundaries of the empire ‘as far as Oceanus’, yet he soon abandoned this project, along with his father’s senatorial advisers, a decision that was widely criticised at the time. The Halieutica engages with precisely this kind of aspiration. Even if it is clear that the boundaries of the Roman empire in fact lay far removed from Oceanus, the legendary body of water said to encircle the 

   

Arr. Anab. ..–, on which see esp. Bosworth : –. See e.g. Augustus’ claim, imperio nostro fines auxi (Res Gest. ; cf. Verg. Aen. .; Hor. Carm. .), or the figures of Oceanus and Oikoumene on the famous Gemma Augustea; see Zanker : –. The issue of territorial expansion had been raised (and acted upon) long before this: see e.g. the claim attributed by Livy to Tiberius Gracchus: [L. Scipio] imperium populi Romani propagaverit in ultimos terrarum fines, Liv. .., or Pompey’s desire to march on to the Red Sea ὡς τῷ περιϊόντι τὴν οἰκουμένην πανταχόθεν Ὠκεανῷ προσμίξειε νικῶν (Plut. Pomp. .). See further Nicolet ; Brunt . Tac. Ann. .: addideratque consilium imperii intra terminos coercendi; cf. Dio ... Aristides, in the section of the Roman Oration that precedes the Hesiodic passage discussed above, refers to the ‘dance’ of Ares on the rivers at the frontiers of the empire (Ael. Arist. Or. .). HA Marc. ., .. See e.g. Birley : –; Birley : –; Millar : . Cf. ps.-Opp. Cyn. , addressed to Caracalla: ἀλλὰ σύ γ’, ἀντολίηθεν ἐπ’ Ὠκεανὸν βασιλεύων.

. Empires of Knowledge



world, what of the claims advanced by Augustus and his successors that imperial peace – and, by extension, Roman dominion more broadly – had been established terra marique? The question of whether or not the emperor rules over the sea becomes, for Oppian, a question of the very limits of empire. We have already seen that the Halieutica illustrates the close connections between the behaviour of animals and men, urging the reader not to give way to the lust, hostility, and greed that prove fatal to fish. Here, in Oppian’s Dike narrative, we are shown the potentially vast political ramifications of that message. Physical might, as the poem’s hostile marine ‘empire’ amply reveals, can be destructive indeed when it is not accompanied by rationality, restraint, and a consciousness of the limitations of both human and imperial power. These Roman emperors, the poet implies, must examine the sea not only to bask in the glory of their power, but also to appreciate the savage and unruly nature of the sea over which they claim to rule.

. Empires of Knowledge Oppian implies that the very possibility of accumulating marine knowledge is intimately bound up with the conditions of empire. Recent decades have witnessed increasing scrutiny of the complex relationship between imperial rule, both ancient and modern, and the forms of knowledge engendered by those empires. Reassessment of this relationship has emerged from, and informed, arguments that ‘knowledge’ is neither neutral nor separable from its social and political context, and that the gathering, ordering, and dissemination of information is by necessity socially contingent and culturally loaded. The processes of knowledge production are intimately bound up with relations of power in spheres far beyond the narrowly political. The Halieutica represents the poet in close association with the emperor, and the emperor in close association with the information presented in the poem. Oppian implies that it is imperial patronage, along with the conditions of peace and prosperity ushered in by the current regime, that has enabled him to compose the poem. Thanks to the reign of Marcus and Commodus, Δίκη now occupies the hearths and homes of 

Compare Manilius’ assertion that only now, under the peaceful conditions established by the emperor, is there adequate opportunity for the composition of his astronomical poetry (Manil. Astron. .–).



An Empire of Fish

mortals, opening up a ‘sweet haven’ (γλυκὺς ὅρμος, .) for the poet. The word ὅρμος here suggests both ‘haven’ and ‘harbour’, a tranquil metaphorical refuge for the poet, yet also the literal starting-point for marine information-gathering expeditions. The Roman empire is shown to have facilitated both the gathering of knowledge and its promulgation and enjoyment. Imperial power, and especially the just and peaceful state of Antonine rule, is figured as the means through which knowledge is acquired and poetic production supported. The traditions of didactic poetry lend themselves readily to such associations. Compare Marcellus of Side’s forty-book medical didactic poem, alleged in his epitaph to have been acquired by Hadrian and Antoninus Pius for their imperial libraries in Rome. The implied exchange of prestige and information between Marcellus’ hometown in Pamphylia, along the coast from Oppian’s native Cilicia, and the well-built (ἐυκτίμενος, ) city of Rome calls attention to the dynamics of (Greek) knowledge and (Roman) power, and to the ease with which his ‘eloquent’ () hexameter didactic poetry, and the information it conveys, could be assimilated to a new network of imperially sanctioned knowledge. While for Marcellus all roads lead to cosmopolitan Rome, ps.-Oppian promotes a more universal didactic agenda: his poem on hunting opens by placing Caracalla at the heart of his poetry and the world at large, effectively presenting the emperor as κοσμοκράτωρ. The poet’s eulogy conforms 





Cf. the first book of ps.-Manetho’s Apotelesmatica, which opens by describing the centrality of the knowledge imparted by this poetry and declaring the poet’s verse a gift ‘worthy of [Ptolemy’s] royal power’ (ἄξιά σοι τάδε δῶρα φέρω βασιληίδος ἀρχῆς, ps.-Man. Ap. .). Despite purporting to address Ptolemy II Philadelphus, this book of the Apotelesmatica was probably composed in the third century . As the astrological traditions suggest, this is in origin a Hellenistic topos in which a ruler is imagined to benefit from the guidance of a wise advisor; compare, for instance, the address to Ptolemy in the introductory letter to the Sortes Astrampsychi. So too (what purports to be) Thessalus of Tralles’ medicinal work On the Virtues of Plants opens with a pseudepigraphical letter addressed to Claudius or Nero, again combining claims to archived knowledge, geographical travel, and imperial power; on these tropes see e.g. Ní Mheallaigh b. Anon. AP .. Bowie :  suggests that the epigram might have been composed by Marcellus himself; cf. the hexameter dedicatory epigram inscribed on two stelae in the Triopion on the Via Appia (IG . = IGUR .). Cf. Wilamowitz b; Peek , esp. ; Overduin , with further bibliography. Marcellus’ epitaph focuses on the fame and glory attained by the poet thanks to his εὐεπίη (), and he is represented as περικλυτός and κύδιστος (–). His extensive poem is to bring him κῦδος for generations to come (–). Marcellus, unlike Oppian, is said to have been a doctor (i.e. a practical expert in his chosen field) as well as a poet. See Kneebone : –; Overduin . Ps.-Opp. Cyn. .–. See Agosta : –; Opelt ; Schmitt  ad loc.; Kádár . The author of the Cynegetica comes from Apamea-on-the-Orontes, a Syrian city with close ties to the Severan dynasty and that benefitted from the patronage of the Roman emperors during the second and third centuries.

. Empires of Knowledge



in broad terms to the paradigm of the βασιλικòς λόγος set out in the rhetorical traditions preserved, for instance, by Menander Rhetor, but it also accords with Severan propaganda and the iconography of imperial cult. The proem of the Cynegetica paints Caracalla as ruler not only of the vast Roman empire but of the forces of nature themselves; the poet’s immediate transition to his discussion of hunting (see esp. τοιγάρ, ps.Opp. Cyn. .) mirrors the third book of the Halieutica in positing an intimate association between rule over the world and the control of information about that world. The proem to Hal.  likewise represents the poem less as a testament to personal erudition than as a gift, joy, and homage to the emperor. This is a poem whose production would have been unthinkable, or so its rhetoric goes, beyond such a system of imperial power. While the end of book  implicitly underscores the magnitude of the Roman empire (.–), in the proem to book  it appears that the sea too has been subsumed into this empire. For in contrast to the hostility and alterity of the sea emphasised elsewhere in the poem, the sea is now portrayed as part of the emperor’s vast realm, and therefore of particular interest to the ruler: σοῖς μὲν γὰρ ὑπὸ σκήπτροισι θάλασσα | εἰλεῖται καὶ φῦλα Ποσειδάωνος ἐναύλων (‘for under your sceptre rolls the sea and the tribes of Poseidon’s realm’, .–). Oppian not only aligns but causally connects the Halieutica with Marcus’ empire (hence the γάρ of .): the emperor is encouraged to delight in and learn from the poem not only because of the pleasure and benefit it will afford him, but because of the relevance of its marine subject-matter to the emperor’s own domain. The work is of significance to its addressee because the sea may be seen to fall within his realm, while the poem’s very production is a possibility afforded only by the might, extent, and ordered prosperity of his empire. The Halieutica, then, exemplifies that heightened preoccupation with the acquisition and organisation of knowledge that is to be discerned in the works of so many Greek and Roman authors of the imperial period, and that has been well explored with regard to Greek and Latin prose texts. This is a poem born of a profound fascination with the accumulation and systematisation of knowledge, and its project, to map out the patterns of the baffling sea, goes to the heart of a powerful perceived correlation 



The universalising imagery that characterises the proem to the Cynegetica may also signal a Severan rhetoric of the kind that underlies the Constitutio Antoniniana and the dynamics of an imperial dynasty whose heritage was global and no longer rooted primarily in Rome. For this approach to Roman imperial culture see e.g. Wallace-Hadrill ; Barton ; Purcell ; Nicolet ; Romm ; Clarke a and b; Murphy .



An Empire of Fish

between the magnitude and expansion of the Roman empire and the expansion of the boundaries of knowledge. The presentation of the poet’s learning as a gift and homage to the emperor marks the political link between control of the world and the control of information about that world. Its depths may remain unexplored, but the sea is here brought ever further into the domain of the charted, the traversed, and the catalogued. Drawing from zoological and piscatorial treatises that span, or were themselves compiled from works that span, many centuries of accumulated Greek fish-lore, Oppian’s poetry testifies to the increased availability and perceived value of information about the sea. This is a culture in which the traditions of (Greek) knowledge are now enshrined and supported by a Roman imperial system of patronage and power. Oppian, however, presents us with a marine world that highlights both the extraordinary achievements and the limitations of human exploration, a duality that structures much of the poem. Chapter  has shown that the sea is in fact far from ‘subjugated’, or even known. This impression of human limitation is in turn dramatised on the imperial stage, for while the emperor may display his power by fishing for deliberately fattened fish in an imperial fish-preserve, this is shown to be a far cry from the genuine efforts of those fishermen who battle with sea-creatures on the open sea (.–). Even as Oppian introduces the image of the emperor at sea in book , he highlights the ease, leisure, and pleasure of this heavily sanitised form of fishing: abundant fish are fed by attendants in a sheltered precinct to form a troop ready and waiting to be caught by the emperor (ἑτοιμότατον χορὸν ἄγρης | σοί, .–) and his son. Marcus is guided and rowed through the waters by a team of youths, while the fish themselves delight at being caught by such an illustrious fisherman: αὐτίκα γὰρ χειρὸς μὲν ἐύπλοκον εἰς ἅλα πέμπεις ὁρμιήν, ὁ δὲ ῥίμφα γένυν κατεδέξατο χαλκοῦ ἰχθὺς ἀντιάσας, τάχα δ’ ἕλκεται ἐκ βασιλῆος οὐκ ἀέκων· σέο δ’ ἦτορ ἰαίνεται, ὄρχαμε γαίης· (.–)

For immediately you hurl the well-woven fishing-line from your hand into the sea, and swiftly the fish comes to meet it and welcomes the bronze hook, and is quickly dragged up by the emperor, quite willing, and your heart is delighted, leader of the earth. 

On which see Section ., ‘Humanity and Inhumanity’.

. Empires of Knowledge



The notion that a fish might discern and respond to social distinctions between humans signals its status as a conceit designed to flatter the emperor. There is a sly humour in the poet’s adumbration of the limitations of the consonance between humans and animals: the addressee may be flattered, but we know full well that a fish’s response is unlikely to reflect that of a delighted human on encountering the ὄρχαμος γαίης. The representation of Marcus Aurelius as leader of the earth may in turn be read either as a supremely flattering reflection of his majesty, or as a pointed comment that the emperor may rule the earth, but that the sea is quite another matter. Here too the proem reflects on the limitations of power, as well as the nature of the analogy between man and beast, raising the possibility that the sea might indeed be a sphere beyond the emperor’s control, its marine subjects blithely unaware of his alleged dominion over its depths. It may even be such a reading that gave rise to the Byzantine biographers’ claim that when the citizens of Anazarbus were required to meet the emperor, Oppian’s father, who allegedly lived a philosophical life and looked down on κενοδοξία or vanity, paid no heed to the encounter, which so angered the emperor that he banished both father and son; only on Oppian’s composition of the Halieutica was the pair said to have been reinstated. The philosopher’s refusal to distinguish between different kinds of human mirrors the behaviour of animals blind to such social conventions. The image also forces us to reflect on the difference between the dangerous, unpredictable fishing that dominates the open sea and that enjoyed in a tame and sheltered environment in which fish are reared solely with the emperor’s pleasure in mind. This kind of fishing, it is suggested, is geared almost exclusively towards effortless gratification: compare the representation of terrestrial hunting in the proem as a too-easy sport characterised by τερπωλή more than hard work (.). The juxtaposition between imperial and other forms of fishing is startling. What does it mean, the poet asks, for an emperor to be said to rule peaceably over both land and sea (terra marique) when that sea itself is barely known, when the emperor merely pretends to conquer its inhabitants (who have in reality been raised and fattened up by an imperial staff ), and when his unruly marine subjects are characterised by greed, hostility, and immorality? The rhetoric of the Halieutica mediates between a powerful vision of imperial universalism  

For parallels between this passage and Juv. Sat. , see Uden : –. Vit. Opp. A – Westermann: ἐπειδὴ δὲ πάντας τοὺς πολιτευομένους ἀπαντᾶν ἔδει τῷ βασιλεῖ, ἀμελήσαντα τῆς ἀπαντήσεως Ἀγησίλαον, ὡς δὴ φιλοσόφως ζῶντα καὶ κενοδοξίας καταφρονοῦντα, χαλεπήνας ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐξώρισεν εἰς Μελίτην νῆσον τοῦ Ἀδρίου.



An Empire of Fish

and an awareness of the limitations imposed on human knowledge and power by this most baffling of realms. As with the κῆτος that acts as both epic sea-monster and very large fish, didactic epic casts one eye towards reality and the other towards a fictionalised poetic world; the Halieutica reflects continually on its capacity to offer both readings to the reader at once. Oppian, as we have seen, depicts a chaotic and disordered marine world that is often revealed to be startlingly similar to that of mankind. The sea is populated by heterogeneous and often hostile tribes (ἔθνεα, .) of fish that each have their own ‘homeland’ (.–), that differ from one another in crucial ways, and that band together in ways that explicitly resemble the ‘cities’ of men (.). At the heart of the poem lies a vision of the fundamental congruity between human and non-human animals, an awareness of the potentially bestial nature of mankind, and of the human proclivity for brutality, lust, greed, laziness, and injustice. Fishermen may seem vastly superior to the fish they catch, but the behaviour of men is not always sharply differentiated from that of wild animals. The implicit dangers of imperial expansionism, and the brutal wars waged by prior rulers, both of which are foregrounded in Oppian’s Dike narrative, chime troublingly with the ‘battles’ for supremacy waged ceaselessly by seacreatures, as well as the poet’s emphasis on the terrible cost of war. Book  represents marine species locked into an ongoing battle for domination: the stronger preys continually upon the weaker, and the poet’s treatment of sea-creatures in book  both opens (.–) and closes (.–) with an explicit comment on the absence of justice (δίκη) from the marine world. At the end of book , however, it emerges that until recently humans too were bloodthirsty and unjust, and that only with the current Roman regime have men been able to differentiate themselves from the kind of destructive aggression characteristic of the animal kingdom (.–). Oppian’s underlying vision is therefore predicated not on an inherent distinction between man and beast, but on a distinction wrought primarily by the efforts made by humans to better themselves and to foster justice rather than war, moderation, and self-control rather than lust, aggression, and greed. The Dike narrative joins forces with the poem’s similes, metaphors, and analogies to counter any complacent assumption that humans – even Romans – are necessarily superior in nature to the fish they catch. The reader is instead encouraged to pay attention to the poet’s cautionary tales and to guard against the moral flaws that characterise the animal kingdom and threaten to elide the distinction between man and

. Empires of Knowledge



beast. This, rather than any first-hand technical expertise about bait or habitat, is what the poet offers his readers. The Halieutica, then, is an imperial poem in more ways than one. It is addressed to the Roman emperor(s), and reflects both explicitly and provocatively on the nature of imperial rule and the relationship of the marine world to the contemporary Roman empire. In filtering longstanding Greek didactic, zoological, and philosophical traditions for a Roman audience, moreover, it offers nuanced assessment of the relationship between Greek knowledge and Roman power. Authority, power, and (self-)control lie at the heart of the poem’s representation of both the violent power struggles amongst fish and the act of fishing itself. We witness the concerns of a distinctively imperial culture refracted in the references to dolphins ruling over the sea, the tribes of fish continually at war with one another, and the dynamics of patronage and banqueting at work in the anthias vignette. The poet’s fascination with the ‘human’ qualities of animals speaks to a widespread contemporary concern with nature, culture, and humanity that plays out across the Roman imperial period. Oppian, however, offers a distinctively poetic take on these issues: in addressing the relationship between human and non-human animals, he builds on earlier hexameter traditions, so that his extraordinary metaphors, similes, and anthropomorphic discourse function as sites of engagement with prior literary traditions, and at the same time as cognitive aids that illustrate that very relationship. The poet’s engagement with literarycritical, rhetorical, and exegetical traditions reveals his immersion in a range of ancient interpretative debates; this is poetry that scrutinises both its own literary heritage and the relationship between literary theory and practice. The Halieutica gives new life to these debates, however, by taking as its focus a rich and barely mapped sphere that lies both within and beyond human control, demonstrating that even this most unlikely of subjects – fish – offers new and compelling perspectives on long-debated questions, requiring its readers to reflect on the permeability of the boundaries between humans and other animals, and on the patterns of transgression and punishment that punctuate the chaos of life at sea.

Bibliography

Adams, J. N. . Pelagonius and Latin Veterinary Terminology in the Roman Empire. Leiden: Brill. Adrados, F. R. . History of the Graeco-Latin Fable.  vols, trans. L. Ray. Leiden: Brill. Agosta, G. . ‘Due note testuali al proemio dei Cynegetica (I , –)’, Eikasmos : –. . Ricerche sui Cynegetica di Oppiano. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Agosti, G. . ‘L’etopea nella poesia greca tardoantica’, in E. Amato and J. Schamp eds. ἨΘΟΠΟΙΙΑ. La représentation de caractères entre fiction scolaire et réalité vivante à l’époque impériale et tardive. Salerno: Helios: –. . ‘Oppianus of Anazarbos in Kilikia (– )’, in P. T. Keyser and G. L. Irby-Massie eds. The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists. The Greek Tradition and Its Many Heirs. New York: Routledge: –. Albertsen, L. L. . Das Lehrgedicht. Eine Geschichte der antikisierenden Sachepik in der neueren deutschen Literatur. Aarhus: Akademisk Boghandel. . ‘Lehrgedicht’, Zeitschrift fu¨r deutsche Sprache : –. . ‘Das Lehrgedicht und die deutsche Aufklärung’, Orbis Litterarum : –. Alden, M. . Para-Narratives in the Odyssey. Stories in the Frame. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Amarasinghe, U. . Dryden and Pope in the Early Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Amato, E. . Review of Rebuffat . Plekos : –. . Dionisio di Alessandria: Descrizione della Terra Abitata. Milan: Bompiani. Anderson, G. . The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman World. London and New York: Routledge. Anderson, M. J. . The Fall of Troy in Early Greek Poetry and Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Andreae, B. . Antike Bildmosaiken. Mainz: von Zabern. Anhalt, A. K. –. ‘A matter of perspective: Penelope and the nightingale in Odyssey .–’, CJ : –. Armstrong, R. H. . ‘Classical translations of the Classics: the dynamics of literary tradition in retranslating epic poetry’, in A. Lianeri and V. Zajko eds. 

Bibliography



Translation and the Classic: Identity as Change in the History of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Arnott, W. G. . ‘Aristotle on comedy?’, CR : –. . ‘A lesson from the Frogs’, G&R : –. Asmis, E. . ‘The poetic theory of the Stoic “Aristo”’, Apeiron : –. . ‘Neoptolemus and the classification of Poetry’, CP : –. . ‘Philodemus on censorship, moral utility, and formalism in poetry’, in D. Obbink ed. Philodemus and Poetry: Poetic Theory and Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus, and Horace. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. . ‘Myth and philosophy in Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus’, GRBS : –. Asquith, P. J. . ‘The inevitability and utility of anthropomorphism in description of primate behaviour’, in R. Harré and V. Reynolds eds. The Meaning of Primate Signals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. . ‘Anthropomorphism and the Japanese and Western traditions in primatology’, in J. G. Else and P. C. Lee eds. Primate Ontogeny, Cognition and Social Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Asper, M. . Onomata allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos. Stuttgart: Steiner. Assaël, J. . ‘Phémios “autodidaktos”’, RPh : –. Atherton, C. . ‘Introduction’, in C. Atherton, J. Roy, A. H. Sommerstein and F. de Martino eds. Form and Content in Didactic Poetry. Nottingham Classical Literature Studies . Bari: Levante Editori. Aurigemma, S. . L’Italia in Africa: Tripolitania. Vol I. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato. Ausfeld, A. . De Oppiano et scriptis sub eius nomine traditis. Gotha: Engelhard-Reyher. Austin, N. . ‘Name magic in the Odyssey’, California Studies in Classical Antiquity : –. . Archery at the Dark of the Moon: Poetic Problems in Homer’s Odyssey. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Austin, R. G. . P. Vergili Maronis, Aeneidos Liber Secundus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bader, F. . La langue des dieux, ou l’hermétisme des poètes indo-européens. Pisa: Giardini. Bagordo, A. . ‘Zum anósteos bei Hesiod (Erga ): Griechische Zoologie, indogermanische Dichtersprache oder etwas anderes?’, Glotta : –. Bär, S. . ‘Quintus Smyrnaeus und die Tradition des epischen Musenanrufs’, in Baumbach and Bär eds.: –. . ‘Quintus of Smyrna and the Second Sophistic’, HSCP : –. Baker, C. . Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters –. New York: Scribner. Bakker, E. J. . The Meaning of Meat and the Structure of the Odyssey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barker, D. . ‘“The golden age is proclaimed”? The Carmen Saeculare and the renascence of the golden race’, CQ : –.



Bibliography

Barlow, S. A. . The Imagery of Euripides. A Study in the Dramatic Use of Pictorial Language. London: Methuen. Barnes, J. . The Presocratic Philosophers. London: Routledge. . ‘Editor’s notes’, Phronesis : –. Barrett, J. . Staged Narrative. Poetics and the Messenger in Greek Tragedy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Barringer, J. M. . The Hunt in Ancient Greece. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Bartley, A. N. . Stories from the Mountains, Stories from the Sea: The Digressions and Similes of Oppian’s Halieutica and the Cynegetica. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. . ‘What’s fishing like? The rhetoric of similes in Oppian’s Halieutica’, Classics Ireland : –. Barton, T. S. . Power and Knowledge. Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman Empire. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Bassino, P. . The ‘Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi’. A Commentary. Berlin: De Gruyter. Baumann, W. . Quaestiones de animalium historia Aelianeae et Oppianeae. Marburg: Koch. Baumbach, M. and Bär, S. eds. . Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception. Leiden: Brill. Beall, E. F. . ‘Notes on Hesiod’s Works and Days, –’, AJP : –. . ‘Hesiod’s treatise on justice: Works and Days –’, CJ : –. Beaulieu, M.-C. . The Sea in the Greek Imagination. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Beekes, R. S. P. . The Development of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Greek. Paris: Mouton. Bekker-Nielsen, T. . ‘Fish in the ancient economy’, in K. Ascani, V. Gabrielsen, K. Kvist, and A. H. Rasmussen eds. Ancient History Matters. Studies Presented to Jens Erik Skydsgaard on His Seventieth Birthday. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider: –. . ‘The technology and productivity of ancient sea-fishing’, in id. ed. Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press: –. Benedetti, F. –. ‘De Eustathii Grammatici studiis Oppianeis’, AFLPer : –. . Studi su Oppiano. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Benveniste, E. . Problems in General Linguistics Vol. , trans. E. Meek. Coral Gables: University of Miami Press. Bers, V. . Enallage and Greek Style. Leiden: Brill. Bettini, M. . Voci: Antropologia sonora del mondo antico. Turin: Einaudi. Bianchi, E., Brill, S., and Holmes, B. eds. . Antiquities Beyond Humanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bing, P. . The Well-Read Muse. Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Bibliography



. ‘Aratus and his audiences’, in Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay eds.: –. Biraschi, A. M. . ‘Strabo and Homer: a chapter in cultural history’, in D. Dueck, H. Lindsay, and S. Pothecary eds. Strabo’s Cultural Geography. The Making of a Kolossourgia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Birley, A. R. . Marcus Aurelius. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. . ‘Roman frontiers and Roman frontier policy: some reflections on Roman imperialism’, Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland : –. . ‘Hadrian to the Antonines’, in A. K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and D. Rathbone eds. The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. XI: The High Empire  –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Black, M. . ‘Metaphor’, in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society : –. Blaisdell, H. F. . The Philosophical Fisherman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Bloom, H. . The Anxiety of Influence. A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press. Blaise, F. . ‘L’épisode de Typhée dans la Théogonie d’Hésiode (v. –): la stabilisation du monde’, REG : –. Blanchard-Lemée, M. et al. . Mosaics of Roman Africa: Floor Mosaics from Tunisia. London: British Museum Press. Blößner, N. . ‘Hesiod und die “Könige”. Zu Theogonie –’, Mnemosyne : –. Blundell, M. W. . Helping Friends and Harming Enemies. A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bollack, J. . ‘Note sur l’épisode des Planctes’, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales : –. Bona Quaglia, L. . Gli Erga di Esiodo. Turin: Giappichelli. Borgognoni, R. . ‘Animali al servizio della retorica: a proposito della philia tra vipere e tra scorpioni in Temistio (Or. .BC)’, Prometheus : –. Borthwick, E. K. . ‘Trojan leap and Pyrrhic dance in Euripides’ Andromache –’, JHS : –. Boshnakov, K. . Pseudo-Skymnos (Semos von Delos?). Stuttgart: Steiner. Bosworth, A. B. . From Arrian to Alexander. Studies in Historical Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bowersock, G. W. . Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . ‘Greek intellectuals and the imperial cult in the second century ’, in W. den Boer ed. Le culte des souverains dans l’Empire romain. Geneva: Fondation Hardt: –. . ‘The hexameter poems ascribed to Oppian’, in P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox eds. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Vol. I: Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Bowie, E. L. . ‘Poetry and poets in Asia and Achaia’, in S. Walker and A. Cameron eds. The Greek Renaissance in the Roman Empire. Papers from the Tenth British Museum Classical Colloquium. London: Institute of Classical Studies: –.



Bibliography

. ‘Greek poetry in the Antonine age’, in D. A. Russell ed. Antonine Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press: –. . ‘Denys d’Alexandrie: un poète grec dans l’empire romain’, REA : –. . Longus: Daphnis and Chloe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boys-Stones, G. R. and Haubold, J. H. eds. . Plato and Hesiod. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Boyle, A. J. . ‘Introduction’, in ‘Virgil’s Georgics’ (Ramus Special Issue), Ramus : –. Bradley, K. . ‘Animalizing the slave: the truth of fiction’, JRS : –. Breitenberger, B. . Aphrodite and Eros. The Development of Erotic Mythology in Early Greek Poetry and Cult. New York and London: Routledge. Brink, C. O. . Horace on Poetry. The Ars Poetica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brioso Sánchez, M. . ‘La épica didáctica helenístico-imperial’, in J. A. López Férez ed. La épica griega y su influencia en la literatura española (aspectos literarios, sociales y educativos). Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas: –. Brisson, L.  []. Plato the Myth Maker, trans. G. Naddaf. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  []. How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology, trans. C. Tihanyi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Broich, U. . ‘Das Lehrgedicht als Teil der epischen Tradition des englischen Klassizismus’, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift N.S. : –. Browne, T. . Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenets and Commonly Presumed Truths. London: Printed by T. H. for Edward Dod. Brunt, P. A. . Review of Meyer, Die Außenpolitik des Augustus, JRS : –. Budelmann, F. . ‘Classical commentary in Byzantium: John Tzetzes on ancient Greek literature’, in R. K. Gibson and C. S. Kraus eds. The Classical Commentary. Histories, Practices, Theory. Leiden: Brill: –. Burgess, J. S. . ‘The death of Odysseus in the Odyssey and the Telegony’, Philologia Antiqua : –. Burkert, W. . Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, trans. J. Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bu¨rner, G. . Oppian und sein Lehrgedicht vom Fischfang. Bamberg: Nagengast. Bussemaker, U. C. . Scholia in Theocritum, Nicandrum et Oppianum. Paris: Didot. Buxton, R. . ‘Iphigénie au bord de la mer’, Pallas : –. . ‘Similes and other likenesses’, in R. Fowler ed. The Cambridge Companion to Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Byre, C. S. . ‘The narrator’s addresses to the narratee in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica’, TAPA : –. Cairns, D. L. . AIDŌS. The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bibliography



. ‘The imagery of Erôs in Plato’s Phaedrus’, in E. Sanders, C. Thumiger, C. Carey, and N. Lowe eds. Erôs in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Cairns, F. . Virgil’s Augustan Epic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Calame, C.  []. Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece. Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Functions, trans. D. Collins and J. Orion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Calder, W. . ‘Wilamowitz’ bimillenary essay on Vergil’, Vergilius : –. Cameron, A. . Callimachus and His Critics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Campanile, E. . ‘ἀνόστεος ὃν πόδα τένδει’, in A. Etter ed. o-o-pe-ro-si. Festschrift fu¨r Ernst Risch zum . Geburtstag. Berlin: De Gruyter: –. Campbell, M. . A Commentary on Quintus Smyrnaeus Posthomerica XII. Leiden: Brill. Canevaro, L. G. . Hesiod’s Works and Days: How to Teach Self-Sufficiency. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cariou, M. . ‘Eustathe de Thessalonique lecteur des Halieutiques’, RPh : –. Carney, T. F. . ‘The “helops”: a case-study of the transmission of a piece of scientific knowledge by the scholarship of antiquity’, Phoenix : –. Cavavero, A. . ‘The envied muse: Plato versus Homer’, in E. Spentzou and D. Fowler eds. Cultivating the Muse. Struggles for Power and Inspiration in Classical Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Cazzaniga, I. . ‘Per Nicandro Colofonio la Titanomachia fu opera autentica di Esiodo?’, RIL : –. Chandler, J. . ‘The Pope controversy: Romantic poetics and the English canon’, Critical Inquiry : –. Chantraine, P. . Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots Vol. I: Α–Δ. Paris: Klincksieck. . Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots Vol. III: Λ–Π. Paris: Klincksieck. Chesi, G. and Spiegel, F. . Classical Literature and Posthumanism. London: Bloomsbury. Clare, R. J. . The Path of the Argo: Language, Imagery and Narrative in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke, K. a. Between Geography and History. Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman World. Oxford: Clarendon Press. b. ‘Universal perspectives in historiography’, in C. S. Kraus ed. The Limits of Historiography. Leiden: Brill: –. Clarke, M. . ‘Between lions and men: images of the hero in the Iliad’, GRBS : –. Claus, D. B. . ‘Defining moral terms in Works and Days’, TAPA : –. Clausen, W. . Virgil’s Aeneid: Decorum, Allusion and Ideology. Munich and Leipzig: Saur.



Bibliography

Clauss, J. J. . ‘Theriaca: Nicander’s Poem of the Earth’, SIFC : –. Clay, D. . Lucretius and Epicurus. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. . ‘The world of Hesiod’, Ramus : –. Clay, J. S. . ‘The education of Perses: from “mega nepios” to “dion genos” and back’, in Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay eds.: –.  []. The Wrath of Athena. Gods and Men in the Odyssey. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. . Hesiod’s Cosmos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clayton, B. . A Penelopean Poetics. Reweaving the Feminine in Homer’s Odyssey. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Coffey, M. . ‘The function of the Homeric simile’, AJP : –. Cohen, R. . ‘Innovation and variation: literary change and georgic poetry’, Neohelicon : –. Cole, T. . Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Colonna, A. . ‘Il commento di Giovanni Tzetzes agli ‘Halieutica’ di Oppiano’, in Lanx Satura. Nicolao Terzaghi oblata. Miscellanea philologica. Genova: Istituto di filologia classica e medievale: –. . ‘De Oppiani Vita antiquissima’, BollClass : –. Conte, G. B. . ‘Proems in the middle’, in F. M. Dunn and T. Cole eds. Beginnings in Classical Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. . Genres and Readers. Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny’s Encyclopedia. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Coo, L. M.-L. . ‘The speech of Onetor (Ovid Met. .–) and its tragic model (Euripides I.T. –)’, SIFC : –. Corcoran, T. H. . ‘Fish treatises in the early Roman empire’, CJ : –. Costanza, S. . ‘Motivi callimachei nel proemio dei Cynegetica di Oppiano d’Apamea’, in Studi di filologia classica in onore di Giusto Monaco, I. Letteratura greca. Palermo: Università di Palermo, Facoltà di lettere e filosofia: –. Couch, H. N. . ‘Fishing in Homer’, CJ : –. Coulter, J. A. . The Literary Microcosm. Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists. Leiden: Brill. Cox, A. . ‘Didactic poetry’, in J. Higginbotham ed. Greek and Latin Literature: A Comparative Study. London: Methuen: –. Cribiore, R. . Gymnastics of the Mind. Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Croiset, M. . ‘Période romaine’, in A. Croiset and M. Croiset eds. Histoire de la littérature grecque. Tome V. Paris: Fontemoing: –. Cropp, M. J. . Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Crowther, N. B. . ‘Water and wine as symbols of inspiration’, Mnemosyne : –. Cuypers, M. . ‘Prince and principle: the philosophy of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, and G.C. Wakker eds. Callimachus II. Hellenistica Groningana . Leuven: Peeters: –.

Bibliography



Dalzell, A. . The Criticism of Didactic Poetry: Essays on Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Davidson, J. . Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. London: HarperCollins. Degani, E. . ‘Problems in Greek gastronomic poetry. On Matro’s Attikon deipnon’, in J. Wilkins, D. Harvey, and M. Dobson eds. Food in Antiquity. Exeter: University of Exeter Press: –. De Jong, I. J. F. . Narrative in Drama. The Art of the Euripidean MessengerSpeech. Leiden: Brill. a. Narrators and Focalizers. The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad. Amsterdam: Gru¨ner. b. ‘The voice of anonymity: tis-speeches in the Iliad’, Eranos : –. . Narrative in Drama. The Art of the Euripidean Messenger-Speech. Leiden: Brill. . A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Jonge, C. C. . Between Grammar and Rhetoric. Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Language, Linguistics, and Literature. Leiden: Brill. Delebecque, É. . Le cheval dans l’Iliade, suivi d’un lexique du cheval chez Homère et d’un essai sur le cheval préhomérique. Paris: Klincksieck. Delorme, D. and Roux, C. . Guide illustré de la faune aquatique dans l’art grec. Juan-les-Pins: APDCA. De Puma, R. D. . ‘The octopus-eel-lobster motif on Hellenistic and Roman fish mosaics’, AJA :–. De Selincourt, E., ed. . The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: The Middle Years. Part I. –. Revised by Mary Moorman. Oxford: Clarendon Press. De Waal, F. B. M. . ‘Anthropomorphism and anthropodenial: consistency in our thinking about humans and other animals’, Philosophical Topics : –. Detienne, M., and Vernant, J.-P. . The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Diaper, W, and Jones, J. . Oppian’s Halieuticks. Of the Nature of Fishes and Fishing of the Ancients. Oxford: Printed at the Theater. Dickey, E. . The Colloquia of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana. Volume : Colloquia Monacensia-Einsidlensia, Leidense-Stephani, and Stephani. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . ‘Teaching Latin to Greek speakers in antiquity’, in E. P. Archibald, W. Brockliss and J. Gnoza eds. Learning Latin and Greek from Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Dickie, M. W. . ‘On the meaning of ἐφήμερος’, Illinois Classical Studies : –. . ‘Dike as a moral term in Homer and Hesiod’, CP : –. Dierauer, U. . Tier und Mensch im Denken der Antike. Studien zur Tierpsychologie, Anthropologie, und Ethik. Amsterdam: Gru¨ner.



Bibliography

Doody, A. . ‘Virgil the farmer? Critiques of the Georgics in Columella and Pliny’, CP : –. . ‘Authority and authorship in the Medicina Plinii’, in L. Taub and A. Doody eds. Authorial Voices in Greco-Roman Technical Writing. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier: –. Dougherty, C. . The Raft of Odysseus. The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer’s Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Douglas, M. . Purity and Danger. An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London and New York: Ark. Duban, J. M. . ‘Poets and kings in the Theogony invocation’, QUCC : –. Dubielzig, U. . Triphiodor, Die Einnahme Ilions, Tu¨bingen: Narr. DuBois, P. . Sowing the Body. Psychoanalysis and Ancient Representations of Women. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dueck, D. . Strabo of Amasia. A Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome. London and New York: Routledge. Duff, D. . ‘Antididacticism as a contested principle in Romantic aesthetics’, Eighteenth-Century Life : –. . Romanticism and the Uses of Genre. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duff, T. . Plutarch’s Lives. Exploring Vice and Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dunbabin, K. M. D. . Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Durand, J.-L. . ‘Ritual as instrumentality’, in Detienne and Vernant eds.: –. Durbec, Y. . ‘Ajax et le naufrage de la flotte grecque: l’Alexandra de Lycophron, v.-’, La Parola del Passato  (): –. Dyck, A. R. . ‘Did Eustathius compose a commentary on Oppian’s Halieutica?’, CP : –. Edmonds, R. G. III . Redefining Ancient Orphism. A Study in Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edmunds, S. T. . Homeric νήπιος. New York: Garland. Edwards, A. T. . Achilles in the Odyssey. Meisenheim: Hain. Edwards, G. P. . The Language of Hesiod in its Traditional Context. Oxford: Blackwell. Edwards, M. W. . Homer. Poet of the Iliad. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. . The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume V: Books –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwell, P. M. . Between Rome and Persia. The Middle Euphrates, Mesopotamia and Palmyra under Roman Control. London and New York: Routledge. Effe, B. . ‘Zum Eingang von Nikanders Theriaka’, Hermes : –. . Dichtung und Lehre. Untersuchungen zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts. Munich: Beck. . ‘Typologie und literarhistorischer Kontext: Zur Gattungsgeschichte des griechischen Lehrgedichts’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –.

Bibliography



Else, G. F. . Aristotle’s Poetics: The Argument. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elsner, J. . Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erffa, C. E. von . ‘Aidos’ und verwandte Begriffe in ihrer Entwicklung von Homer bis Demokrit. Mainz: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Erren, M. . ‘ΑΣΤΕΡΕΣ ΑΝΩΝΥΜΟΙ (Zu Arat –)’, Hermes : –. . Die Phainomena des Aratos von Soloi. Untersuchungen zum Sach- und Sinnverständnis. Wiesbaden: Steiner. . ‘Die Anredestruktur im archaischen Lehrgedicht’, in W. Kullmann and M. Reichel eds. Der Übergang von der Mu¨ndlichkeit zur Literatur bei den Griechen. Tu¨bingen: Narr: –. Evelyn-White, H. G. . Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fabian, B. . ‘Das Lehrgedicht als Problem der Poetik’, in H. R. Jauss ed. Die nicht mehr schönen Ku¨nste. Grenzphänomene des Ästhetischen. Munich: Fink: –. Fajen, F. . Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Halieutika des Oppian. Meisenheim: Hain. . ‘Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der Halieutika des Oppian’, Hermes : –. . Noten zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung der Halieutika des Oppian. Stuttgart: Steiner. . Oppianus Halieutica. Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner. Fakas, C. a. ‘Arat und Aristoteles’ Kritik am Lehrgedicht’, Hermes : –. b. Der hellenistische Hesiod. Arats Phainomena und die Tradition der antiken Lehrepik. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Faraone, C. . Ancient Greek Love Magic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Faraone, C. and Obbink, D. . The Getty Hexameters: Poetry, Magic, and Mystery in Ancient Selinous. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Faraggiana di Sarzana, C. . ‘Le commentaire à Hésiode et la paideia encyclopédique de Proclus’, in J. Pépin and H. D. Saffrey eds. Proclus lecteur et interprète des anciens. Paris: Éditions du CNRS: –. Farrell, J. . Vergil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic. The Art of Allusion in Literary History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . ‘Classical genre in theory and practice’, New Literary History : –. Fauconnier, G. and Turner, M. . The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books. Faust, M. . ‘Die ku¨nstlerische Verwendung von κύων “Hund” in den homerischen Epen’, Glotta : –. Feeney, D. C. . ‘“Shall I compare thee . . .?” Catullus b and the limits of analogy’, in T. Woodman and J. Powell eds. Author and Audience in Latin Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –.



Bibliography

Felson-Rubin, N. . Regarding Penelope. From Character to Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fenno, J. . ‘“A great wave against the stream”: water imagery in Iliadic battle scenes’, AJP : –. Finkelberg, M. . ‘The first song of Demodocus’, Mnemosyne : –. Fisher, J. A. . ‘The myth of anthropomorphism’, in M. Bekoff and D. Jamieson eds. Readings in Animal Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: –. Fitzgerald, J. T. and White, L. M. . The Tabula of Cebes. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Fleury, P. . ‘Éroticos: un dialogue (amoureux) entre Platon et la seconde sophistique?’, REG : –. Fögen, T. . ‘Antike Zeugnisse zu Kommunikationsformen von Tieren’, Antike und Abendland : –. . ‘Animal communication’, in G. Campbell ed. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Fögen, T. and Thomas, E. eds. . Interactions between Animals and Humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Berlin: De Gruyter. Foley, H. . ‘“Reverse similes” and sex roles in the Odyssey’, Arethusa : –. Ford, A. , Homer: The Poetry of the Past. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. . The Origins of Criticism. Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fortenbaugh, W. W. . Review of Janko , CP : –. Fowler, D. . ‘The didactic plot’, in M. Depew and D. Obbink eds. Matrices of Genre. Authors, Canons, and Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: –. Franco, C. . Shameless. The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece, trans. M. Fox. Oakland: University of California Press. Fraenkel, E. . Aeschylus, Agamemnon. Vols I-III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Frisk, H. . Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg: Winter. Fusillo, M., Hurst, A., and Paduano, G. . Licofrone, Alessandra. Milan: Guerini. Gagarin, M. . ‘Dikē in the Works and Days’, CP : –. . ‘The poetry of justice: Hesiod and the origins of Greek law’, Ramus : –. Gale, M. . Myth and Poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . Virgil on the Nature of Things. The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ed. . Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry. Genre, Tradition and Individuality. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. . ‘Avia Pieridum loca: tradition and innovation in Lucretius’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –. Galinsky, G. K. . The Herakles Theme. The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell.

Bibliography



. ‘Some aspects of Ovid’s golden age’, GB : –. García Valdés, M. . ‘Ciencia y moral: Eliano desde Aristóteles y a la luz del estoicismo y la “zoofilia” moderna’, Emerita : –. García Valdés, M., Llera Fueyo, L., and Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén, L. eds. . Aelianus, De natura animalium. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. Garnett, R. . ‘On the date of the Ἀποτελεσματικά of Manetho’, JPh : –. Garzetti, A. . From Tiberius to the Antonines. A History of the Roman Empire  –, trans. J. R. Foster. London: Methuen. Gatz, B. . Weltalter, goldene Zeit und sinnverwandte Vorstellungen. Hildesheim: Olms. Gee, E. . Ovid, Aratus and Augustus. Astronomy in Ovid’s Fasti. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Genette, G. . Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method, trans. J. Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gentili, B. . Poetry and its Public in Ancient Greece: From Homer to the Fifth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gera, D. L. . ‘Lucian’s choice: Somnium –’, in D. Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling eds. Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Oxford: Clarendon Press: –. Gerlaud, B. . Triphiodore. La Prise D’Ilion. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Giangrande, G. . ‘On the Halieutica of Oppian’, Eranos : –. . Review of García Valdés, Llera Fueyo, and Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén eds., Emerita : –. Gibbon, E. . The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. London: Methuen. Gilhus, I. S. . Animals, Gods and Humans. Changing Attitudes to Animals in Greek, Roman and Early Christian Ideas, London and New York: Routledge. Glaisyer, N., and Pennell, S. eds. . Didactic Literature in England –. Expertise Constructed. Aldershot: Ashgate. Glei, R. F. . ‘Lehrgedicht’, in Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, ed. H. Cancik and H. Schneider. Stuttgart: Brill: –. Goatly, A. . The Language of Metaphors. London: Routledge. Goethe, J. W. . Goethes Werke Band IX. Stuttgart and Tu¨bingen: Cotta’sche Buchhandlung. Goldhill, S. . ‘Reading differences: juxtaposition and the Odyssey’, Ramus : –. . The Poet’s Voice. Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . Foucault’s Virginity: Ancient Erotic Fiction and the History of Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . ‘Artemis and cultural identity in Empire culture: how to think about polytheism, now?’, in D. Konstan and S. Saïd eds. Greeks and Greekness. Viewing the Greek Past under the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society: -.



Bibliography

Gosse, E. . ‘Didactic poetry’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica. Eleventh Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Gottschall, J. . ‘Homer’s human animal: ritual combat in the Iliad’, Philosophy and Literature : –. Gould, J. B. . ‘The Stoic conception of fate’, JHI : –. Gow, A. S. F. . ‘On the Halieutica of Oppian’, CQ : –. Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L. . The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams. Volume II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gow, A. S. F. and Scholfield, A. F.  []. Nicander. The Poems and Poetical Fragments. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Grant, R. . ‘One hundred fifty-three large fish (John :)’, The Harvard Theological Review : –. Graver, M. R. . ‘Dog-Helen and Homeric insult’, CA : –. Graziosi, B. and Haubold, J. eds. . Homer, Iliad VI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greaves, D. D. . ‘Dionysius Periegetes and the Hellenistic Poetic and Geographical Traditions’, PhD Diss., Stanford University. Green, P. . ‘“These fragments have I shored against my ruins”: Apollonios Rhodios and the social revalidation of myth for a new age’, in P. Cartledge, P. Garnsey, and E. Gruen eds. Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press: –. Griffin, J. . ‘Homeric words and speakers’, JHS : –. Griffith, M. . ‘Personality in Hesiod’, ClAnt : –. . ‘Horsepower and donkeywork. Equids and the ancient Greek imagination’, CP : –, –. Groningen, B. A. van.  La composition littéraire archaïque grecque. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij. Gruber, G. M. . ‘Medium and Message in Lucretius’ “Honey” Analogy’, PhD Diss., University of Iowa. Gullini, G. . I mosaici di Palestrina. Rome: Archeologia Classica. Guthrie, W. K. C. . A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume II: The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gutzwiller, K. J. . Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. . ‘The Nautilus, the Halcyon, and Selenaia: Callimachus’ “Epigram”  Pf. =  G.-P.’, CA : –. . ‘Literary criticism’, in J. J. Clauss and M. Cuypers eds. A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell: –. Hagedorn, D. . Zur Ideenlehre des Hermogenes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hainsworth, J. B. . The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume III: Books –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography



Hall, E. M. . ‘The geography of Euripides’ Iphigeneia among the Taurians’, AJP : –. . ‘The ass with double vision: politicising an ancient Greek novel’, in D. Margolies and M. Joannou eds. Heart of a Heartless World: Essays in Cultural Resistance in Honour of Margot Heinemann. London and Boulder: Pluto Press: –. . Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris. A Cultural History of Euripides’ Black Sea Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halliwell, S. . Aristotle’s Poetics. London: Duckworth. . The Aesthetics of Mimesis. Ancient Texts and Modern Problems. Princeton: Princeton University Press. . Between Ecstasy and Truth: Interpretations of Greek Poetics from Homer to Longinus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halperin, D. M. . Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Hamblenne, P. . ‘La légende d’Oppien’, AC : –. Haraway, D. . Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Science. New York and London: Routledge. . Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York and London: Routledge. Harland, P. A. . ‘Imperial cults within local cultural life: associations in Roman Asia’, Ancient History Bulletin : –. Haskell, Y. . ‘Work or play? Latin “recreational” georgic poetry of the Italian Renaissance’, Humanistica Lovaniensia: Journal of Neo-Latin Studies : –. . Loyola’s Bees. Ideology and Industry in Jesuit Latin Didactic Poetry. Oxford: British Academy and Oxford University Press. Haskell, Y. and Hardie, P. eds. . Poets and Teachers: Latin Didactic Poetry and the Didactic Authority of the Latin Poet from the Renaissance to the Present. Bari: Levante Editori. Haskins, C. E. . ‘On Homeric fishing-tackle’, Journal of Philology : –. Hathaway, B. . The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Haubold, J. H. . ‘Shepherd, farmer, poet, sophist: Hesiod on his own reception’, in G. R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold eds. Plato and Hesiod. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. . ‘Ethnography in the Iliad’, in M. Skempis and I. Ziogas eds. Geography, Topography, Landscape. Configurations of Space in Greek and Roman Epic. Berlin: De Gruyter: –. Havelock, E. A. . The Greek Concept of Justice. From its Shadow in Homer to its Substance in Plato. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hawes, G. . Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.



Bibliography

Hawkins, T. . ‘Eloquent alogia: animal narrators in ancient Greek literature’, Humanities : –. Haye, T. . Das lateinische Lehrgedicht im Mittelalter. Analyse einer Gattung. Leiden: Brill. Heath, J. . ‘The legacy of Peleus: death and divine gifts in the Iliad’, Hermes : –. . ‘Telemachus ΠΕΠΝΥΜΕΝΟΣ: growing into an epithet’, Mnemosyne : –. . The Talking Greeks. Speech, Animals, and the Other in Homer, Aeschylus, and Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heath, M. . ‘Hesiod’s didactic poetry’, CQ : –. . Unity in Greek Poetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . ‘Do heroes eat fish? Athenaeus on the Homeric lifestyle’, in D. Braund and J. Wilkins eds. Athenaeus and His World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire. Exeter: University of Exeter Press: –. . Menander. A Rhetor in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heller, J. . Sea Snails. A Natural History. Cham, Heidelberg, New York: Springer. Hercher, R. . Claudii Aeliani De natura animalium libri XVII. Leipzig: Teubner. Heubeck, A. and Hoekstra, A. . A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey: Books IX–XVI. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heubeck, A., West, S., and Hainsworth, J. B. . A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey: Books I–VIII. Vol. . Oxford: Clarendon Press. Higham, T. F. . ‘Nature note: autophagy in octopods. Hesiod vindicated’, CR : –. Hindermann, J. . ‘Eros und Wissensvermittlung im Garten’, Gymnasium : –. Hinds, S. . Allusion and Intertext. Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . ‘Essential epic: genre and gender from Macer to Statius’, in M. Depew and D. Obbink eds. Matrices of Genre. Authors, Canons, and Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: –. Hofinger, M. . Études sur le vocabulaire du grec archaïque. Leiden: Brill. Hofmeister, T. P. . ‘“Rest in violence”: composition and characterization in Iliad .–’, CA : –. Hollis, A. S. . Callimachus Hecale. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hopkinson, N. . A Hellenistic Anthology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . Greek Poetry of the Imperial Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hopman, M. G. . Scylla. Myth, Metaphor, Paradox. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hornblower, S. . Lykophron: Alexandra. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography



. Lykophron’s Alexandra, Rome, and the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horsfall, N. . Virgil, Aeneid . A Commentary. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Horster, M. and Reitz, C. eds. . Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: Steiner. Hu¨bner, W. a. ‘Der Mensch in Aelians Tiergeschichten’, Antike und Abendland : –. b. ‘Manilius als Astrologe und Dichter’, ANRW II..: –. . ‘Die Rezeption der Phainomena Arats in der lateinischen Literatur’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –. . Manilius, Astronomica Buch V.  vols. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hunter, R. L. . A Study of Daphnis and Chloe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . ‘Written in the stars: poetry and philosophy in the Phaenomena of Aratus’, Arachnion : –. a. ‘The Argonautica of Apollonius and epic tradition’, in M. Fantuzzi and R. Hunter eds. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. b. ‘Epic in a minor key’, in M. Fantuzzi and R. Hunter eds. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. c. ‘The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry’, REA : –. a. ‘The Prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (“Pseudo-Scymnus”)’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker eds. Beyond The Canon. Hellenistica Groningana . Leuven: Peeters: –. b. The Shadow of Callimachus. Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. a. ‘Hesiod’s style: towards an ancient analysis’, in F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and C. Tsagalis eds. Brill’s Companion to Hesiod. Leiden: Brill: –. b. Critical Moments in Classical Literature. Studies in the Ancient View of Literature and its Uses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . ‘Plato’s Ion and the origins of scholarship’, in S. Matthaios, F. Montanari, and A. Rengakos eds. Ancient Scholarship and Grammar. Berlin: De Gruyter: –. a. Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature. The Silent Stream. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. b. ‘The songs of Demodocus: compression and extension in Greek narrative poetry’, in Baumbach and Bär eds.: –. . Hesiodic Voices. Studies in the Ancient Reception of Hesiod’s Works and Days. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



Bibliography

. Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . The Measure of Homer. The Ancient Reception of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hunter, R. L. and Russell, D. . Plutarch ‘How to Study Poetry’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutchinson, G. O. . Hellenistic Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . ‘Read the instructions: didactic poetry and didactic prose’, CQ : –. Iglesias Zoido, J. C. . ‘El tratamiento del tema de las “edades del mundo” en el libro II de las Haliéuticas de Opiano de Cilicia’, Emerita : –. a. ‘Estructura y elementos estructuradores en las Haliéuticas de Opiano de Cilicia’, Anuario de estudios filológicos : –. b. ‘Opiano y Virgilio: La influencia de las Geórgicas sobre la estructura de las Haliéuticas’, Emerita : –. . ‘Las Haliéuticas de Opiano como instrucción: el problema del contenido en la poesía didáctica grecolatina de época imperial’, Euphrosyne : –. Ingalls, W. B. . ‘Attitudes towards children in the Iliad’, EDMC (CV)  (n.s. ): –. Ingram, R. . ‘Seventeenth-century didactic readers, their literature, and ours’, in Glaisyer and Pennell eds.: –. Jackson, S. . ‘Callimachus, Istrus and two mortals’ deaths’, QUCC : –. Jacques, J.-M. . Nicandre, Œuvres. Tome II: Les Thériaques. Fragments iologiques antérieurs à Nicandre. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. . Nicandre, Œuvres. Tome III: Les Alexipharmaques. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Jacob, C. . ‘L’œil et la mémoire: sur la Périégèse de la terre habitée de Denys’, in Jacob, C. and Lestringant, F. eds., Arts et Légendes d’Espaces: Figures du Voyage et Rhétoriques du Monde. Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure: –. . La description de la terre habitée de Denys d’Alexandrie ou la leçon de géographie. Paris: Albin Michel. . ‘Θεὸς Ἑρμῆς ἐπὶ Ἁδριανοῦ: La mise en scène du pouvoir impérial dans la Description de la terre habitée de Denys d’Alexandrie’, Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz : –. Jacobs, F. . Aeliani De natura animalium libri XVII. Jena: Frommann. Jacoby, F. . Apollodors Chronik. Eine Sammlung der Fragmente. Berlin: Weidmann. Jäger, H.-W. . ‘Zur Poetik der Lehrdichtung in Deutschland. In kritischen Zusätzen zu L. L. Albertsens Buch Das Lehrgedicht’, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fu¨r Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte : –. James, A. W. . ‘The honey on the cup in Oppian and others’, PCPhS : –. . ‘Some examples of imitation in the similes of later Greek epic’, Antichthon : –.

Bibliography



. Studies in the Language of Oppian of Cilicia. An Analysis of the New Formations in the Halieutica. Amsterdam: Hakkert. . Quintus of Smyrna: The Trojan Epic. Posthomerica. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. James, A. W. and Lee, K. . A Commentary on Quintus of Smyrna Posthomerica V. Leiden: Brill. Janko, R. . Aristotle On Comedy. Towards a Reconstruction of Poetics II. London: Duckworth. . Aristotle, Poetics I, with the Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II, and the Fragments of the On Poets. Indianapolis: Hackett. . The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume IV: Books –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . Philodemus ‘On Poems’ Books –, with the fragments of Aristotle, ‘On Poets’. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jeanneret, M. . A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance, trans. J. Whitely and E. Hughes. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Jenkyns, R. . ‘Response to R. Cockcroft, ‘The didactic poetry of Erasmus Darwin’, in C. Atherton ed. Form and Content in Didactic Poetry. Bari: Levante Editori: –. Jensen, C. . Philodemus Über die Gedichte, fu¨nftes Buch. Berlin: Weidmann. . ‘Herakleides von Pontos bei Philodem und Horaz’, SPAW: –. Jensen, R. M. . Understanding Early Christian Art. London and New York: Routledge. Johnston, P. A. . Vergil’s Agricultural Golden Age. A Study of the Georgics. Leiden: Brill. Jope, J. . ‘Interpretation and authenticity of the Lucianic Erotes’, Helios : –. Jouanna, J. . ‘Le paysan, la jeune fille et le sans-os (Hésiode, Travaux, vv. , , –)’, in Mélanges Édouard Delebecque. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence: –. Kádár, Z. . ‘Julia Domna comme Assyrié Kythereia et Sélené’, Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis : –. Kaibel, G. . ‘Zu Athenaeus’, Hermes : –. . ‘Aratea’, Hermes : –. Käßer, C. . ‘The poet and the “polis”. The Aetia as didactic poem’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –. Kambylis, A. . Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik. Untersuchungen zu Hesiodos, Kallimachos, Properz und Ennius. Heidelberg: Winter. Keaney, J. J. and Lamberton, R. eds. . [Plutarch] Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Keeley, B. L. . ‘Anthropomorphism, primatomorphism, mammalomorphism: understanding cross-species comparisons’, Biology and Philosophy : –. Keen, R. . ‘Lucretius and his reader’, Apeiron : –. Keller, O. . Die Antike Tierwelt Vol. II. Leipzig: Engelmann.



Bibliography

Kennedy, D. F. . ‘“Cf.”: analogies, relationships and Catullus ’, in S. M. Braund and R. Mayer eds. Amor: Roma – Love and Latin Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society: –. . ‘Sums in verse or a mathematical aesthetic?’, in S. J. Green and K. Volk eds. Forgotten Stars. Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Kenney, E. J. . ‘Doctus Lucretius’, Mnemosyne : –. . ‘The typology of didactic’, CR : –. . Review of Volk , BMCR ... Keydell, R. . ‘Oppians Gedicht von der Fischerei und Aelians Tiergeschichte’, Hermes : –. . ‘Oppianos ()’, RE XVIII.: –. Khan, Y. . ‘Denys lecteur des Phénomènes d’Aratos’, REA : –. Kidd, D. . Aratus, Phaenomena. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kim, L. . ‘The portrait of Homer in Strabo’s Geography’, CP : –. . Homer Between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kindstrand, J. F. . ‘Homer in den Tiergeschichten des Ailianos’, Hermes : –. . ‘Claudius Aelianus und sein Werk’, ANRW II..: –. Kindt, J. . ‘Delphic oracle stories and the beginning of historiography: Herodotus’ Croesus Logos’, CP : –. Kirby, J. T. . ‘Rhetoric and poetics in Hesiod’, Ramus : –. Kirk, G. S. The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume II: Books –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kirk, G. S., Raven, M., and Schofield, M. eds. . The Presocratic Philosophers. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kirsch, W. . ‘Probleme der Gattungsentwicklung am Beispiel des Epos’, Philologus : –. Klein, R. . ‘Zur Datierung der Romrede des Aelius Aristides’, Historia : –. Klotz, F. . ‘The Self-Presentation of Philosophers, Sophists and Poets in Literature of the Second Sophistic’, PhD Diss., University of Oxford. Knaack, G. . ‘Dionysios’, RE V.: –. Kneebone, E. . ‘Fish in battle? Quintus of Smyrna and the Halieutica of Oppian’, in M. Baumbach and S. Bär eds. Quintus Smyrnaeus: Transforming Homer in Second Sophistic Epic’. Berlin: De Gruyter. . ‘The limits of enquiry in imperial Greek didactic poetry’, in J. König and G. Woolf eds Authority and Expertise in Ancient Scientific Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Knight, V. H. . The Renewal of Epic. Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius. Leiden: Brill. Knox, P. E. . ‘Wine, water, and Callimachean polemics’, HSCP : –. Knudsen, R. A. . Homeric Speech and the Origins of Rhetoric. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bibliography



Kolde, A. . ‘La tragédie des dauphins (Oppien, Halieutiques , –)’, in C. Cusset ed. Musa docta. Recherches sur la poésie scientifique dans l’Antiquité. Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne: –. König, J. and Whitmarsh, T. . Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koning, H. H. . Hesiod: The Other Poet. Ancient Reception of a Cultural Icon. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Konstan, D. . ‘Foreword: to the reader’, in Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay eds.: –. –. ‘A pig convicts itself of unreason: the implicit argument of Plutarch’s Gryllus’, Hypoboreus –: –. Korhonen, T. . ‘On human–animal relationships in Aelian’s Natura Animalium’, Arctos : –. Korenjak, M. . Die Welt-Rundreise eines anonymen griechischen Autors (‘pseudo-Skymnos’). Hildesheim: Olms. Koster, S. . Antike Epostheorien. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Kowalzig, B. . ‘Transcultural chorality: Iphigenia in Tauris and Athenian imperial economics in a polytheistic world’, in R. Gagné and M. G. Hopman eds. Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Kroll, W. . ‘Lehrgedicht’, RE XII.: –. Kromer, G. . ‘The didactic tradition in Vergil’s Georgics’, Ramus : –. Kruschwitz, P., and Schumacher, M. . Das vorklassische Lehrgedicht der Römer. Heidelberg: Winter. Kunisch, N. . Griechische Fischteller: Natur und Bild. Berlin: Mann. Kyriakou, P. . Homeric hapax legomena in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Stuttgart: Steiner. . A Commentary on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. Berlin: De Gruyter. Lacroix, M. . ‘Ἤπιος, νήπιος’, in Mélanges offerts à A. M. Desrousseaux par ses amis et ses élèves. Paris: Hachette: –. La Penna, A. . ‘La disputa sul primato della caccia o della pesca nell’antichità: a proposito degli Halieutica pseudo-ovidiani’, Philologus : –. Laird, A. . ‘Politian’s Ambra and reading epic didactically’, in M. Gale ed. Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry. Genre, Tradition and Individuality. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales: –. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. . Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. . Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lamberton, R. . Homer The Theologian. Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lamberton, R., and Keaney, J. J. eds. . Homer’s Ancient Readers. The Hermeneutics of Greek Epic’s Earliest Exegetes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.



Bibliography

Landolfi, L. . Il Volo di Dike (da Arato a Giovenale). Bologna: Pàtron. Lange, K. . Euripides und Homer. Untersuchungen zur Homernachwirkung in Elektra, Iphigenie im Taurerland, Helena, Orestes und Kyklops. Stuttgart: Steiner. Laplace, M. . Le roman d’Achille Tatios: ‘Discours panégyrique’ et imaginaire romanesque, Bern and Oxford: Lang. Latacz, J. . Review of James , Gnomon : –. Lausberg, H.  []. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. A Foundation for Literary Study, trans. M. T. Bliss, A. Jansen, and D. E. Leiden: Brill. Lausberg, M. . ‘Epos und Lehrgedicht. Ein Gattungsvergleich am Beispiel von Lucans Schlangenkatalog’, WJA : –. Leaf, W.  []. The Iliad Vol. II. Books XIII–XXIV. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Lebeck, A. . The Oresteia: A Study in Language and Structure. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Leedy, P. F. . ‘Genres criticism and the significance of Warton’s essay on Pope’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology : –. Lefèvre-Novaro, D. . ‘Les sacrifices de poissons dans les sanctuaires grecs de l’Âge du Fer’, Kernos : –. Lehoux, D. . ‘Myth and explanation in Manilius’, in S. J. Green and K. Volk eds. Forgotten Stars. Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Lehrs, F. S. . ‘Nicander, Oppianus, Marcellus Sideta de piscibus, Poeta de herbis’, in F. S. Lehrs and F. Du¨bner eds. Poetae bucolici et didactici. Paris: Didot. Lenaghan, L. . ‘Lucretius .–’, TAPA : –. Lennox, J. G. . ‘Aristotle on the biological roots of virtue: the natural history of natural virtue’, in J. Maienschein and M. Ruse eds. Biology and the Foundation of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Lesky, A. –. Geschichte der griechischen Literatur. Berlin: Francke. Leunissen, M. . ‘Aristotle on natural character and its implications for moral development’, Journal of the History of Philosophy : –. LeVen, P. A. . The Many-Headed Muse. Tradition and Innovation in Late Classical Greek Lyric Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leverenz, L. M. . ‘The Scholia on Oppian’s Halieutica from the Z Family of Manuscripts’. PhD Diss., University of Iowa. Lelièvre, F. . ‘The basis of ancient parody’, G&R : –. Levianouk, O. . ‘Lament and Hymenaios in Erinna’s Distaff’, in A. Suter ed. Lament: Studies in the Mediterranean and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Lewis, A.-M. . ‘The popularity of the Phaenomena of Aratus: a reevaluation’, in C. Deroux ed. Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History VI. Brussels: –. Lhermitte, J.-F. . ‘L’animal vertueux dans la philosophie antique à l’époque impériale. Paris: Classiques Garnier.

Bibliography



Li Causi, P. –. ‘Strange animals: extremely interspecific hybridization (and anthropopoiesis) in Plutarch’, Ploutarchos n.s. : –. Lightfoot, J. L. . ‘Catalogue technique in Dionysius Periegetes’, in Carvounis and Hunter eds.: –. . Dionysius Periegetes. Description of the Known World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lilja, S. . ‘Theriophily in Homer’, Arctos : –. Lilly, M. L. . The Georgic: A Contribution to the Study of the Vergilian Type of Didactic Poetry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lindberg, G. . Studies in Hermogenes and Eustathios. The Theory of Ideas and its Application in the Commentaries of Eustathios on the Epics of Homer. Lund: Lindell. Lintott, A. . ‘What was the “imperium romanum”?’, G&R : –. Livrea, E. . Apollonii Rhodii Argonauticon liber IV. Florence: La Nuova Italia. Lloyd-Jones, H. . ‘Agamemnonea’, HSCP : –. Lohmeyer, T. . De vocabulis in Oppiani Halieuticis aut peculiariter usurpatis aut primum exstantibus. Berlin: Kessinger. Lonsdale, S. H. . Creatures of Speech. Lion, Herding, and Hunting Similes in the Iliad. Stuttgart: Teubner. Lovejoy, A. O., and Boas, G. . Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity. New York: Octagon. Lowrie, M. . Review of Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay eds. . BMCR ... Ludwig, W. . ‘Die Phainomena Arats als hellenistische Dichtung’, Hermes : –. . ‘Neulateinische Lehrgedichte und Vergils Georgica’, in W. Ludwig ed. Litterae Neolatinae. Schriften zur neulateinischen Literatur. Munich: Fink: –. Luschnat, O. . ‘Autodidaktos. Eine Begriffsgeschichte’, Theologia Viatorum : –. Lytle, E. . ‘The strange love of the fish and the goat: regional contexts and Rough Cilician religion in Oppian’s Halieutica .–’, TAPA : –. Maass, E. . Aratea. Berlin: Weidmann. MacDonald, A. A. . ‘Introduction’, in Harder, MacDonald, and Reinink eds: vii–x. Maciver, C. A. . Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica. Engaging Homer in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston: Brill. . ‘Nonnus and imperial Greek poetry’, in D. Accorinti ed. Brill’s Companion to Nonnus of Panopolis. Leiden: Brill: –. MacPhail, J. A. . Porphyry’s Homeric Questions on the Iliad. Berlin: De Gruyter. Maehler, H. . Die Auffassung des Dichterberufs im fru¨hen Griechentum bis zur Zeit Pindars. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Magnelli, E. . ‘Esiodo “epico” ed Esiodo didattico: il doppio epilogo di Dionisio Periegeta’, ARF : –.



Bibliography

a. ‘Nicander’s chronology: a literary approach’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker eds. Beyond The Canon. Hellenistica Groningana . Leuven: Peeters: –. b. ‘Altre fonti e imitazioni del poema di Dionisio Periegeta’, SIFC : –. . ‘Nicander’, in J. J. Clauss and M. Cuypers eds. A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Malden: Blackwell: –. Mair, A. W. . Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mangoni, C. . Filodemo: Il quinto libro della Poetica. Naples: Bibliopolis. Marcotte, D. . Géographes grecs. Tome I. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Marg, W. . ‘Das erste Lied des Demodokos’, in Navicula Chiloniensis. Studia philologica Felici Jacoby . . . oblata: –. Leiden: Brill. Martin, A. and Primavesi, O. . L’Empédocle de Strasbourg (P. Strasb. gr. Inv. –). Berlin: De Gruyter. Martin, J. . Arati Phaenomena. Florence: La Nuova Italia. . Histoire du texte des Phénomènes d’Aratos. Paris: Klincksieck. . Aratos. Phénomènes.  vols. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Martin, R. P. . ‘Hesiod’s metanastic poetics’, Ramus : –. . ‘Hesiod and the didactic double’, Synthesis : –. Martin, T.-H. . Études sur la vie et les oeuvres d’Oppien de Cilicie. Paris: Dupont. Marzano, A. . Harvesting the Sea. The Exploitation of Marine Resources in the Roman Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marzillo, P. . Der Kommentar des Proklos zu Hesiods Werken und Tagen. Tu¨bingen: Narr. Mason, H. J. . Greek Terms for Roman Institutions. A Lexicon and Analysis. Toronto: Hakkert. Massimilla, G. . ‘The ἀπὸ κοινοῦ construction of prepositions as a feature of the epigrammatic style’, in E. Sistakou and A. Rengakos eds. Dialect, Diction, and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter: –. Mastrorosa, I. G. . ‘Storie di delfini sulle coste africane. Mirabilia o conoscenze zoologiche?’ L’Africa Romana : –. Mayhew, R. . ‘Aristotle’s biology and his lost Homeric Puzzles’, CQ : –. . Aristotle’s Lost Homeric Problems: Textual Studies. Oxford. Mazal, O. . ‘Eine neue Rezension der Biographie Oppians’, WS : –. McCall, M. H. . Ancient Rhetorical Theories of Simile and Comparison. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McKay, K. J. . ‘Ambivalent ΑΙΔΩΣ in Hesiod’, AJP : –, . McNelis, C. and Sens, A. . The Alexandra of Lycophron. A Literary Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merkelbach, R. and West, M. L. . Fragmenta Hesiodea. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bibliography



Meyboom, P. G. P. . ‘I mosaici pompeiani con figure di pesci’, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome : –. . The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina. Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy. Leiden: Brill. Mierow, H. E. . ‘Hesiod’s polyp’, AJP : –. Mignogna, E. . ‘Roman und “Paradoxon”: Die Metamorphosen der Metapher in Achilleus Tatios’ Leukippe und Kleitophon.’ Groningen Colloquia on the Novel : –. Miguélez Cavero, L. . Greek Poems in Context. Greek Poetry in the Egyptian Thebaid –  . Berlin: De Gruyter. . ‘Rhetorical displays of knowledge in Leucippe and Clitophon: animal talk’, Prometheus : –. . Triphiodorus, The Sack of Troy. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Millar, F. . Rome, the Greek World, and the East. Vol. : Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press. Miller, J. F. . ‘Disclaiming divine inspiration: a programmatic pattern’, WS : –. Millerd, C. E. . On The Interpretation of Empedocles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mills, S. . ‘Achilles, Patroclus and parental care in some Homeric similes’, G&R : –. Minchin, E. . Homer and the Resources of Memory: Some Applications of Cognitive Theory to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitsis, P. . ‘Committing philosophy on the reader: didactic coercion and reader autonomy in De Rerum Natura’, in Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay eds.: –. Mócsy, A. . Pannonia and Upper Moesia. A History of the Middle Danube Provinces of the Roman Empire. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Moles, J. . ‘The Kingship Orations of Dio Chrysostom’, PLLS : –. . ‘The Dionian Charidemus’, in S. Swain ed. Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Mommsen, T. . The Provinces of the Roman Empire. From Caesar to Diocletian, trans. W. P. Dickson. London: Bentley. Montiglio, S. . From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Morales, H. L. . ‘The taming of the view: natural curiosities in Leukippe and Kleitophon’, Groningen Colloquia on the Novel : –. Morgan, J. R. . ‘Make-believe and make believe: the fictionality of the Greek novels’, in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman eds. Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World. Exeter: University of Exeter Press: –. . Longus: Daphnis and Chloe. Oxford: Aris & Phillips. Mossop, D. J. . Pure Poetry. Studies in French Poetic Theory and Practice  to . Oxford: Clarendon Press.



Bibliography

Most, G. W. . ‘Hesiod and the textualization of personal temporality’, in G. Arrighetti and F. Montanari eds. La componente autobiografica nella poesia greca e latina fra realtà e artificio letterario. Pisa: Giardini: –. . ‘Hesiod’s myth of the five (or three or four) races’, PCPhS : –. . ‘The poetics of early Greek philosophy’, in A. A. Long ed. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Moulton, C. . Similes in the Homeric Poems. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Munno, G. . ‘Note su le biografie oppianee’, Boll. Filol. Class. : –. . ‘Alcuni caratteri della lingua di Oppiano’, RIGI : –. . ‘La ‘Pesca’ di Oppiano. Analisi ed appunti’, RFIC : –. Murgatroyd, P. . ‘Amatory hunting, fishing and fowling’, Latomus : –. Murphy, T. . Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murray, P. . ‘The Muses and their arts’, in P. Murray and P. Wilson eds. Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Mylona, D. . Fish-Eating in Greece from the Fifth Century  to the Seventh Century  : A Story of Impoverished Fishermen or Luxurious Fish Banquets? Oxford: Archaeopress. Nagler, M. N. . ‘Odysseus: the proem and the problem’, CA : –. Nagy, G. . The Best of the Achaeans. Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. . ‘Theognis and Megara. A poet’s vision of his city’, in T. J. Figueira and G. Nagy eds. Theognis of Megara. Poetry and the Polis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press: –. . Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Nannini, S. . Analogia e polarità in similitudine. Paragoni iliadici e odissiaci a confronto. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Napolitano, F. . ‘Esegesi bizantina degli Halieutica di Oppiano’, Rendiconti della Accademia di Archeologia Lettere e Belle Arti : –. Neal, T. . ‘Blood and hunger in the Iliad’, CP : –. Neer, R. T. . Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy, ca. –  . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, S. . ‘The drama of Hesiod’s farm’, CP : –. . God and the Land. The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neri, C. . Erinna. Testimonianze e frammenti. Bologna: Pàtron Editore. Nesselrath, H.-G. . Lukians Parasitendialog. Berlin: De Gruyter. Neugebauer, O., and H. B. van Hoesen. . Greek Horoscopes. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Newman, J. H. . ‘Poetry, with reference to Aristotle’s Poetics’, in Essays: Critical and Historical, Vol. I. London: Pickering: –.

Bibliography



Newmyer, S. T. . ‘Speaking of beasts: the Stoics and Plutarch on animal reason and the modern case against animals’, QUCC : –. . Animals, Rights and Reason in Plutarch and Modern Ethics. New York: Routledge. . ‘Human–animal interactions in Plutarch as commentary on human moral failings’, in Fögen and Thomas eds.: –. Nicolay, E. . ‘Homère et l’âme des bêtes’, in F. Niewöhner and J.-L. Sebon eds. Die Seele der Tiere, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: –. Nicolet, C. . Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ní Mheallaigh, K. a. Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and Hyperreality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. b. ‘Reading the fraudulent text: Thessalus of Tralles and the book of Nechepso’, in J. Martínez ed. Fakes and Forgers of Classical Literature. Leiden: Brill: –. Nimis, S. A. . Narrative Semiotics in the Epic Tradition: The Simile. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Nishimura-Jensen, J. . ‘Unstable geographies: the moving landscape in Apollonius’ Argonautica and Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos’, TAPA : –. Nu¨nlist, R. . Poetologische Bildersprache in der fru¨hgriechischen Dichtung. Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner. . The Ancient Critic at Work. Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nutton, V. . ‘Murders and miracles: lay attitudes towards medicine in classical antiquity’, in R. Porter ed. Patients and Practitioners. Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-Industrial Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Obbink, D. . ‘The addressees of Empedocles’, in Schiesaro, Mitsis, and Clay eds.: –. . ‘Prose on star-signs quoting Homer, Hesiod, and others’, in N. Gonis, D. Obbink, and P. J. Parsons eds. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Vol. LXVIII. London: British Academy: –. O’Brien, D. . Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oliva, P. . Pannonia and the Onset of Crisis in the Roman Empire, trans. I. Urwin. Prague: Československé akademie věd. Olson, S. D. . ‘Odyssey : Guile, force and the subversive poetics of desire’, Arethusa : –. . Blood and Iron. Stories and Storytelling in Homer’s Odyssey. Leiden: Brill. Olson, S. D., and Sens, A. . Matro of Pitane and the Tradition of Epic Parody in the Fourth Century  . Atlanta: Scholars Press. . Archestratos of Gela. Greek Culture and Cuisine in the Fourth Century BCE. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Opelt, I. . ‘Zum Kaiserkult in der griechischen Dichtung’, RhM : –.



Bibliography

sterud, S. . ‘The individuality of Hesiod’, Hermes : –. Overduin, F. . ‘The anti-bucolic world of Nicander’s Theriaca’, CQ : –. . Nicander of Colophon’s Theriaca. A Literary Commentary. Leiden: Brill. . ‘The didactic aesthetics of Marcellus’ De piscibus (GDRK )’, AJP : –. Pachoumi, E. . The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri. Tu¨bingen: Mohr Siebeck. Page, D. L. . Further Greek Epigrams: Epigrams Before   from the Greek Anthology and Other Sources, Not Included in ‘Hellenistic Epigrams’ or ‘The Garland of Philip’. Revised and Prepared for Publication by R. D. Dawe and J. Diggle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parente, M. I. . ‘Una poetica di incerto autore in Filodemo’, in Filologia e forme letterarie. Studi offerti a Francesco Della Corte. Vol. . Urbino: Università degli studi di Urbino: –. Paschalis, M. . ‘Generic affiliations in Roman and Greek Cynegetica’, in Κτερίσματα: φιλολογικά μελετήματα αφιερωμένα στον Ιω. Καμπίτση (– ), Herakleion: Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης: –. . ‘Pandora and the wooden horse: a reading of Triphiodorus’ Ἅλωσις Ἰλίου’, in id. ed. Roman and Greek Imperial Epic. Herakleion: Crete University Press: –. Patey, D. L. . ‘The eighteenth century invents the canon’, Modern Language Studies : –. Patillon, M. . Hermogène. L’art rhétorique. Paris: L’Âge d’Homme. Payne, M. . The Animal Part. Human and Other Animals in the Poetic Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pearson, L. . ‘Myth and archaeologia in Italy and Sicily: Timaeus and his predecessors’, YCS : –. Pédech, P. . La méthode historique de Polybe. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Peek, W. . ‘Zu den Gedichten des Marcellus von Side auf Regilla und das Triopion des Herodes Atticus’, ZPE : –. Pelliccia, H. . Mind, Body, and Speech in Homer and Pindar. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Pender, E. E. a. ‘Sappho and Anacreon in Plato’s Phaedrus’, Leeds International Classical Studies : –. b. ‘Poetic allusion in Plato’s Timaeus and Phaedrus’, Göttinger Forum fu¨r Altertumswissenschaft : –. Pendergraft, M. L. M. . ‘Aratus as a Poetic Craftsman’, PhD Diss., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. . ‘On the nature of the constellations: Aratus, Ph. -’, Eranos : –. Peradotto, J. . Man in the Middle Voice. Name and Narration in the Odyssey. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Perkell, C. G. . The Poet’s Truth. A Study of the Poet in Virgil’s Georgics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bibliography



Pfeiffer, R. . History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Phillips, E. D. . ‘The Comic Odysseus’, G&R : –. Phillips, J. H. . ‘The boneless one in Hesiod’, Philologus : –. Pierris, A. L. ., ‘Ὅμοιον ὁμοίῳ and δίνη: nature and function of love and strife in the Empedoclean system’, in id. ed. The Empedoclean κόσμος: Structure, Process, and the Question of Cyclicality. Patras: Institute for Philosophical Research: –. Platt, A. . ‘Miscellanea’, CQ : –. Podlecki, A. J. . ‘Guest-gifts and nobodies in Odyssey ’, Phoenix : –. Pöhlmann, E. . ‘Charakteristika des römischen Lehrgedichts’, ANRW .: –. Pontani, F. . ‘Simonide e Amore (a proposito di PMG )’, Eikasmos : –. Porter, D. H. . ‘Violent juxtaposition in the similes of the Iliad’, CJ : –. Porter, H. N. . ‘Hesiod and Aratus’, TAPA : –. Porter, J. I. . ‘Hermeneutic lines and circles: Aristarchus and Crates on the exegesis of Homer’, in Lamberton and Keaney eds.: –. . The Sublime in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pratt, L. H. . Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar. Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Price, S. R. F. . Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Primavesi, O. . ‘Der Held im Gleichnis: Zehn Ansichten der Odyssee’, in M. Hose ed. Große Texte alter Kulturen: Literarische Reise von Gizeh nach Rom. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: –. Pucci, P. . Hesiod and the Language of Poetry. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. . ‘The proem of the Odyssey’, Arethusa : –. . Odysseus Polytropos. Intertextual Readings in the Odyssey and the Iliad. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Purcell, N. . ‘Maps, lists, money, order and power’, JRS : –. Purves, A. C. a. Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. b. ‘Wind and time in Homeric epic’, TAPA : –. Querbach, C. W. . ‘Hesiod’s myth of the four races’, CJ : –. Rabe, H. . Hermogenis Opera. Leipzig: Teubner. Radcliffe, W. . Fishing from the Earliest Times. London: Murray. Rauk, J. . ‘Erinna’s Distaff and Sappho fr. ’, GRBS : –. Ready, J. L. . Character, Narrator, and Simile in the Iliad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . ‘Omens and messages in the Iliad and Odyssey: a study in transmission’, in R. Scodel ed. Between Orality and Literacy: Communication and Adaptation in Antiquity. Leiden: Brill: –.



Bibliography

Rebuffat, E. . ‘Il proemio al terzo libro degli Halieutica e la biografia di Oppiano’, Studi Classici e Orientali : –. . ΠΟΙΗΤΗΣ ΕΠΕΩΝ: Tecniche di composizione poetica negli Halieutica di Oppiano. Florence: Olschki. Reckford, K. . ‘Some appearances of the Golden Age’, CJ : –. Redfield, J. M. . Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Reese, D. S. . ‘Fish: evidence from specimens, mosaics, wall paintings and Roman authors’, in W. F. Jashemski and F. G. Meyer eds., The Natural History of Pompeii. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Reitz, C. . ‘Dichtung und Wissenschaft’, in M. Horster and C. Reitz eds. Antike Fachschriftsteller: Literarischer Diskurs und sozialer Kontext. Stuttgart: Steiner: –. . ‘Horaz’ Literaturbriefe und die Lehrdichtung’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –. Renehan, R. . ‘Progress in Hesiod [Review of West ()]’, CP : –. Richardson, N. . The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume VI: Books –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richardson, J. S. . ‘Imperium romanum: empire and the language of power’, JRS : –. Richardson, S. . The Homeric Narrator. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Richmond, J. . Chapters on Greek Fish-Lore. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Ricks, C. . ‘Allusion: the poet as heir’, in R. F. Brissenden and J. C. Eade eds. Studies in the Eighteenth Century III. Toronto: University of Toronto Press: –. Riffaterre, M. . Semiotics of Poetry. London: Methuen. Robert, L. . ‘Deux poètes grecs à l’époque impériale’, in Στήλη: τόμος εις μνήμην Νικολάου Κοντολέοντος. Athens: Σωματείο οι φίλοι του Νικόλοαυ Κοντολέοντος: –. Robin, D. M. . ‘The manuscript tradition of Oppian’s Halieutica’, BollClass : –. Roellenbleck, G. . Das epische Lehrgedicht Italiens im fu¨nfzehnten und sechzehnten Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Literaturgeschichte des Humanismus und der Renaissance. Munich: Fink. Rohdich, H. . ‘Ein Gleichnis der Odyssee’, Antike und Abendland : –. Romeri, L. . ‘The λογόδειπνον: Athenaeus between banquet and antibanquet’, in D. Braund and J. Wilkins eds. Athenaeus and his World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire. Exeter: University of Exeter Press: –. Romm, J. S. . The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rose, G. P. . ‘Odysseus’ barking heart’, TAPA : –. Rose, M. A. . Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography



Rosen, R. M. . ‘Poetry and sailing in Hesiod’s Works and Days’, CA : –. . ‘Aristophanes’ Frogs and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod’, TAPA : –. Ross, T. . ‘“Pure poetry”: cultural capital and the rejection of Classicism’, Modern Language Quarterly : –. Roth, C. P. . ‘The kings and the Muses in Hesiod’s Theogony’, TAPA : –. Rothwell, K. S. . Nature, Culture, and the Origins of Greek Comedy. A Study of Animal Choruses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rudolph, F. . ‘De fontibus quibus Aelianus in Varia Historia componenda usus sit’, Leipziger Studien zur classischen Philologie : –. Russell, D. A. . Longinus, ‘On the Sublime’. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . Criticism in Antiquity. London: Duckworth. . ed. Antonine Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Russell, D. A. and Konstan, D. . Heraclitus: Homeric Problems. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Ru¨ter, K. . Odysseeinterpretationen: Untersuchungen zum ersten Buch und zur Phaiakis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Rutherford, I. . Canons of Style in the Antonine Age. Idea-Theory in its Literary Context. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rutherford, R. B. . ‘The philosophy of the Odyssey’, in L. Doherty ed. Homer’s Odyssey: Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Rutherford, W. G. . A Chapter in the History of Annotation (Scholia Aristophanica Vol. III). London: Macmillan. Ruys, J. F., ed. . What Nature Does Not Teach. Didactic Literature in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods. Turnhout: Brepols. Ryberg, I. S. . ‘Vergil’s golden age’, TAPA : –. Saïd, S. . ‘Les crimes des prétendants, la maison d’Ulysse et les festins de l’Odyssée’, in S. Saïd, F. Desbordes, J. Bouffartigue, and A. Moreau eds. Études de littérature ancienne. Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure: –. . Homer and the Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sale, W. . ‘The popularity of Aratus’, CJ : –. Salmeri, G. . ‘Dio, Rome, and the civic life of Asia Minor’, in S. Swain ed. Dio Chrysostom. Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Sammons, B. . The Art and Rhetoric of the Homeric Catalogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scaliger, J. C. . Poetices libri septem. Lyons: Vincentius. Schade, G. . Lykophrons ‘Odyssee’, Alexandra –. Berlin: de Gruyter. Schein, S. . ‘Odysseus and Polyphemus in the Odyssey’, GRBS : –. Schenkeveld, D. M. . ‘Strabo on Homer’, Mnemosyne : –. . Review of Janko , Gnomon : –.



Bibliography

. ‘Figures and tropes. A border-case between grammar and rhetoric’, in Gert Ueding ed. Rhetorik zwischen den Wissenschaften. Geschichte, System, Praxis als Probleme des ‘Historischen Wörterbuchs der Rhetorik’. Tu¨bingen: Niemeyer: –. . ‘Prose usages of Ἀκούειν “to read”’, CQ : –. Schiesaro, A. . ‘Il destinatario discreto. Funzioni didascaliche e progetto culturale nelle Georgiche’, MD : –. . ‘Aratus’ myth of Dike’, MD : –. . ‘The boundaries of knowledge in Virgil’s Georgics’, in T. Habinek and A. Schiesaro eds. The Roman Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Schiesaro, A, Mitsis, P., and Clay, J. S. eds. . Mega nepios: il destinatario nell’epos didascalico. (MD ). Pisa: Giardini. Schindler, C. . Untersuchungen zu den Gleichnissen im römischen Lehrgedicht: Lucrez, Vergil, Manilius. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. . ‘Vom Kochrezept zu den Sternen: Aspekte der Gattungsgenese und Gattungsentwicklung im römischen Lehrgedicht’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –. Schlunk, R. R. . The Homeric Scholia and the Aeneid. A Study of the Influence of Ancient Homeric Literary Criticism on Vergil. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Schmidt, A.-M. . La poésie scientifique en France au seizième siècle. Paris: Albin Michel. Schmitt, W. . ‘Kommentar zum ersten Buch von Pseudo-Oppians Kynegetika’, PhD Diss., Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität zu Mu¨nster. Schmitt-Neuerburg, T. . Vergils Äneis und die antike Homerexegese. Untersuchungen zum Einfluß ethischer und kritischer Homerrezeption auf imitatio und aemulatio Vergils. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. Schnapp-Gourbeillon, A.  Lions, héros, masques: les représentations de l’animal chez Homère. Paris: Maspero. Schneider, J. G. . Oppiani poetae Cilicis De venatione libri IV et De piscatione libri V etc. Strasbourg: König. . Oppiani Cynegetica et Halieutica. Leipzig: Weigel. Scholfield, A. F. . Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, Vol. I. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schöner, R. . ‘De Claudio Aeliano’. Diss., Breslau. Schrijvers, P. . Review of Effe , Mnemosyne : –. Schuler, R. M. . English Magical and Scientific Poems to : An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland. Schuler, R. M., and Fitch, J. G. . ‘Theory and context of the didactic poem: some classical, mediaeval, and later continuities’, Florilegium : –. Schu¨tze, R. K. . ‘Beiträge zum Verständnis der Phainomena Arats’, PhD Diss., Universität Leipzig. Schwabl, H. . ‘Zur Mimesis bei Arat’, in R. Hanslik, A. Lesky, and H. Schwabl eds. Antidosis. Festschrift fu¨r Walther Kraus zum . Geburtstag. Vienna, Cologne, and Graz: Böhlaus: –.

Bibliography



Schwartz, S. –. ‘Clitophon the moichos: Achilles Tatius and the trial scene in the Greek novel’, Ancient Narrative : –. Scodel, R. . ‘Tragedy and epic’, in R. Bushnell ed. A Companion to Tragedy. Malden: Blackwell: –. Scott, W. C. . The Oral Nature of the Homeric Simile. Leiden: Brill. . The Artistry of the Homeric Simile. Lebanon: University Press of New England. Segal, C. . The Theme of the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad. Leiden: Brill. Semanoff, M. . ‘Pedagogical Poetry: Teachers and Students in Didactic Verse’, PhD Diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison. . ‘Undermining authority: pedagogy in Aratus’ Phaenomena’, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, and G. C. Wakker eds. Beyond The Canon. Hellenistica Groningana . Leuven: Peeters: –. Sharrock, A. . ‘Those who can, teach: Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and contemporary instructional writing’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –. Sheppard, A. D. R. . Studies on the th and th Essays of Proclus’ Commentary on the Republic. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. –. ‘Homonoia in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire’, Ancient Society .: –. Shewan, A. . ‘Fishing with a rod in Homer’, CP : –. Shorrock, R. . The Challenge of Epic. Allusive Engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. Leiden: Brill. Sider, D. . ‘Didactic poetry: the Hellenistic invention of a pre-existing genre’, in R. Hunter, A. Rengakos, and E. Sistakou eds. Hellenistic Studies at a Crossroads: Exploring Texts, Contexts and Metatexts. Berlin: De Gruyter: –. Siegrist, C. . Das Lehrgedicht der Aufklärung. Stuttgart: Metzler. Silk, M. S. . Interaction in Poetic Imagery. With Special Reference to Early Greek Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Silva Sánchez, T. . ‘El hexámetro de Opiano de Anazarbo y Opiano de Apamea’, PhD Diss., Universidad de Cádiz. Siskin, C. . The Work of Writing. Literature and Social Change in Britain, –. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sistakou, E. . The Aesthetics of Darkness. A Study of Hellenistic Romanticism in Apollonius, Lycophron and Nicander. Leuven: Peeters. Smith, S. D. . Man and Animal in Severan Rome. The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sober, E. . ‘Comparative psychology meets evolutionary biology: Morgan’s Canon and cladistics parsimony’, in L. Daston and G. Mitman eds. Thinking with Animals. New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism. New York: Columbia University Press: –. Solmsen, F. . ‘Aratus on the maiden and the Golden Age’, Hermes : –. Sorabji, R. . Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate. London: Duckworth.



Bibliography

. Emotion and Peace of Mind. From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sowinski, B. . Lehrhafte Dichtung des Mittelalters. Stuttgart: Metzler. Spatafora, G. , ‘Riflessioni sull’arte poetica di Nicandro’, GIF : –. . Nicandro, Theriaká e Alexiphármaka. Rome: Carocci. Spiegelman, W. . The Didactic Muse: Scenes of Instruction in Contemporary American Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Staden, H. von. . ‘Author and authority: Celsus and the construction of a scientific self’, in M. E. Vázquez Buján ed. Tradición e innovación de la medicina latina de la antigu¨edad y de la Alta Edad Media. Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela: –. . ‘Gattung und Gedächtnis: Galen u¨ber Wahrheit und Lehrdichtung’, in W. Kullmann, J. Althoff, and M. Asper eds. Gattungen wissenschaftlicher Literatur in der Antike. Tu¨bingen: Narr: –. Stanford, W. B. . ‘Homer’s use of personal πολυ- compounds’, CP : –. . The Ulysses Theme: A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero. Second Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Steiner, D. . ‘Nautical matters: Hesiod’s Nautilia and Ibycus fragment  PMG’, CP : –. Steiner, G. . Anthropocentrism and its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburgh Press. Steiner, U. . Poetische Theodizee. Philosophie und Poesie in der lehrhaften Dichtung im achtzehnten Jahrhundert. Munich: Fink. Steinmetz, P. . ‘Gattungen und Epochen der griechischen Literatur in der Sicht Quintilians’, Hermes : –. Stephens, S. A. and Winkler, J. J. eds. . Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stevens, B. . ‘Pliny and the dolphin – or, a story about storytelling’, Arethusa : –. Stoddard, K. B. . ‘The programmatic message of the “kings and singers” passage: Hesiod, Theogony –’, TAPA : –. Stone, A. F. . ‘On Hermogenes’ features of style and other factors affecting style in the panegyrics of Eustathios of Thessaloniki’, Rhetorica : –. Struck, P. T. . ‘The ordeal of the divine sign: divination and manliness in archaic and classical Greece’, in R. R. Rosen and I. Sluiter eds. Andreia. Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity. Leiden and Boston: Brill: –. Svenbro, J. . La parole et le marbre. Aux origines de la poétique grecque. Lund: Klassika Institutionen. Swain, S. . Hellenism and Empire. Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World  –. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bibliography



Taplin, O. . ‘The earliest quotation of the Iliad’, in E. Craik ed. Owls to Athens: Essays on Classical Subjects for Sir Kenneth Dover. Oxford: Clarendon Press: –. . Homeric Soundings: The Shaping of the Iliad. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . ‘Some assimilations of the Homeric simile in later twentieth-century poetry’, in B. Graziosi and E. Greenwood eds. Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between World Literature and the Western Canon. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Telò, M. . ‘Tastes of Homer. Matro’s gastroaesthetic tour through epic’, in K. C. Rudolph ed. Taste and the Ancient Senses. New York and London: Routledge: –. Teske, D. . Der Roman des Longos als Werk der Kunst. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Physis und Techne in ‘Daphnis und Chloe’. Mu¨nster: Aschendorff. Thalmann, W. G. . Apollonius of Rhodes and the Spaces of Hellenism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Theodoropoulou, T. , ‘The sea in the temple? Shells, fish and corals from the sanctuary of the ancient town of Kythnos and other marine stories of cult’, in G. Ekroth and J. Wallensten eds. Bones, Behaviour and Belief: The Zooarchaeological Evidence as a Source for Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece and Beyond. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen: –. Thomas, R. F. . ‘Virgil’s Georgics and the art of reference’, HSCP : –. . Virgil Georgics Books I–II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, D’A. W. . A Glossary of Greek Fishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, G. R., ed. . Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews. New York: Library of America. Too, Y. L. . The Pedagogical Contract. The Economies of Teaching and Learning in the Ancient World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Toohey, P. . Epic Lessons: An Introduction to Ancient Didactic Poetry. New York and London: Routledge. . Melancholy, Love, and Time: Boundaries of the Self in Ancient Literature. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Tor, S. . Mortal and Divine in Early Greek Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Touwaide, A. . ‘Nicandre, de la science à la poésie. Contribution à l’exégèse de la poésie médicale grecque’, Aevum : –. Trapp, J. . Prælectiones poeticæ: in schola naturalis philosophiæ Oxon. habitæ. Vol. . Oxford: Lintott. . Lectures on Poetry Read in the Schools of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. London: Hitch & Davis. Trapp, M. B. . ‘Plato’s Phaedrus in second-century Greek literature’, in D. A. Russell ed. Antonine Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press: –.



Bibliography

. ‘Plato in Dio’, in S. Swain ed. Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Trendall, A. D. and McPhee, I. . Greek Red-Figured Fish-Plates. Basel: Vereinigung der Freunde antiker Kunst. . ‘Addenda to Greek red-figured fish-plates’, Antike Kunst : –. Troxler, H. . Sprache und Wortschatz Hesiods. Zurich: Juris Verlag. Tsagalis, C. . From Listeners to Viewers. Space in the Iliad. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. Tsavari, I. O. . Histoire du texte de la Description de la Terre de Denys le Périégète. Ioannina: University of Ioannina. Tucker, H. F. . Epic: Britain’s Heroic Muse –. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Uden, J. . ‘The Contest of Homer and Hesiod and the ambitions of Hadrian’, JHS : –. . ‘The Invisibility of Juvenal’, PhD Diss., Columbia University. Ulf, C. . Die homerische Gesellschaft. Materialen zur analytischen Beschreibung und historischen Lokalisierung. Munich: Beck. Van den Berg, B. . ‘Homer and the good ruler in the “Age of Rhetoric”: Eustathios of Thessalonike on excellent oratory’, in J. Klooster and B. van den Berg eds. Homer and the Good Ruler in Antiquity and Beyond. Leiden: Brill: –. Van Noorden, H. . Playing Hesiod. The ‘Myth of the Races’ in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vercruysse, M. . ‘Polybe et les épopées homériques’, Anc. Soc. : –. Verdenius, W. J. . ‘Aufbau und Absicht der Erga’, in Hésiode et son influence, ed. K. von Fritz et al. Geneva: Fondation Hardt: –. . ‘Homer, the educator of the Greeks’, Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Afdeling Letterkunde : –. Vergados, A. . The Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Berlin: De Gruyter. Vermeule, E. . Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Vernant, J.-P. . ‘Le mythe hésiodique des races. Essai d’analyse structurale’, RHR :–. . ‘Le mythe hésiodique des races. Sur un essai de mise au point’, RPh : –. . ‘At man’s table: Hesiod’s foundation myth of sacrifice’, in Detienne and Vernant eds.: –. Vian, F. . ‘Les comparaisons de Quintus de Smyrne’, RPh : –, –. . Nonnos de Panopolis. Les Dionysiaques. Tome I, Chants I–II. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. . Apollonios de Rhodes, Argonautiques, Tome III, Chant IV. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. . ‘Nonno ed Omero’, Κοινωνία : –.

Bibliography



. ‘Echoes and imitations of Apollonius Rhodius in late Greek epic’, in T. D. Papanghelis and A. Rengakos eds. Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius. Second, Revised Edition. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Volk, K. . The Poetics of Latin Didactic: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius. Oxford: Oxford University Press. a. ‘Aetna oder Wie man ein Lehrgedicht schreibt’, in N. Holzberg ed. Die Appendix Vergiliana. Pseudepigraphen im literarischen Kontext. Tu¨bingen: Narr: –. b. ‘Lehrgedicht oder “Naturgedicht”? Naturwissenschaft und Naturphilosophie in der Lehrdichtung von Hesiod bis zur Aetna’, in Horster and Reitz eds.: –. . Manilius and his Intellectual Background. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . ‘Aratus’, in J. J. Clauss and M. Cuypers eds. A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell: –. Wackernagel, J. –. Vorlesungen u¨ber Syntax. Basel: Birkhäuser. Wærn, I. . ΓΗΣ ΟΣΤΕΑ. The Kenning in Pre-Christian Greek Poetry. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Walbank, F. W. . ‘Polybius and the Sicilian Straits’, Kokalos : –. Walcot, P. . ‘The composition of the Works and Days’, REG : –. Walker, J. . Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wallace-Hadrill, A. . ‘Mutatio morum: the idea of a cultural revolution’, in T. Habinek and A. Schiesaro eds. The Roman Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. Walton, I.  [–]. The Compleat Angler, ed. J. Bevan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warton, J. . An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope. London: Cooper. . An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope. Volume the Second. London: Dodsley. Waszink, J. H. . Biene und Honig als Symbol des Dichters und der Dichtung in der griechisch-römischen Antike. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Watkins, C.  ‘ἈΝΟΣΤΕΟΣ ὉΝ ΠΟΔΑ ΤΕΝΔΕΙ’, in Étrennes de septantaine. Travaux de linguistique et de grammaire comparée offerts à Michel Lejeune. Paris: Klincksieck: –. Wellmann, M. . ‘Alexander von Myndos’, Hermes : –. . ‘Leonidas von Byzanz und Demostratos’, Hermes : –. . ‘Pamphilos’, Hermes : –. Wendel, C. . ‘Tzetzes, Johannes’, in RE VII A.: –. West, M. L. . ‘On Nicander, Oppian, and Quintus of Smyrna’, CQ : –. . ‘Tryphon De Tropis’, CQ, : –. . Hesiod, Theogony. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . ‘The Contest of Homer and Hesiod’, CQ : –. . Hesiod, Works and Days. Oxford: Clarendon Press.



Bibliography

. Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad. Munich and Leipzig: Saur. . ‘Odyssey and Argonautica’, CQ : –. . The Epic Cycle. A Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics. Oxford. Whitby, M. . ‘From Moschus to Nonnus: the evolution of the Nonnian style’, in N. Hopkinson ed. Studies in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society: –. . ‘The Cynegetica attributed to Oppian’, in S. Swain, S. Harrison, and J. Elsner eds. Severan Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: –. White, H. . Studies in Late Greek Epic Poetry. Amsterdam: Gieben. . ‘Notes on Oppian’s Halieutica’, AC : –. Whitmarsh, T. . Greek Literature and the Roman Empire. The Politics of Imitation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . ‘Quickening the Classics: the politics of prose in Roman Greece’, in J. I. Porter ed. Classical Pasts. The Classical Traditions of Greece and Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press: –. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U. von. . Die griechische und lateinische Literatur und Sprache. (Die Kultur der Gegenwart, Teil I, Abteilung VIII). Leipzig: Teubner. . Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos. Berlin: Weidmann. a. Hesiodos Erga Berlin. b. ‘Marcellus von Side’, SPA: –. Wilkins, J. . ‘Comic cuisine: food and eating in the comic polis’, in G. W. Dobrov ed. The City as Comedy: Society and Representation in Athenian Drama. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press: –. . The Boastful Chef. The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilkinson, C. L. . The Lyric of Ibycus. Berlin: De Gruyter. Williams, C. A. . ‘When a dolphin loves a boy: some Greco-Roman and Native American love stories’, CA : –. Wilson, A. M. . ‘The prologue to Manilius ’, PLLS : –. Wilson, J. R. . ‘The wedding gifts of Peleus’, Phoenix .: –. . ‘Odyssey and Argonautica’, CQ : –. Wilson, N. G. . Review of García Valdés, Llera Fueyo, and RodríguezNoriega Guillén eds., ExClass : –. Winkler, J. J. . The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece. New York: Routledge. Wissman, J. . ‘Athena’s “unreasonable advice”: the education of Telemachus in ancient interpretations of Homer’, GRBS : –. Wofford, S. L. . The Choice of Achilles: The Ideology of Figure in the Epic. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wöhrle, G. . ‘Carmina divini pectoris oder prodesse und delectare bei Lukrez und Empedokles’, WS : –. . ‘War Parmenides ein schlechter Dichter? Oder: Zur Form der Wissensvermittlung in der fru¨hgriechischen Philosophie’, in W. Kullmann and

Bibliography



J. Althoff eds. Vermittlung und Tradierung von Wissen in der griechischen Kultur. Tu¨bingen: Narr: –. . ‘Bemerkungen zur lehrhaften Dichtung zwischen Empedokles und Arat’, in W. Kullmann, J. Althoff, and M. Asper eds. Gattungen wissenschaftlicher Literatur in der Antike. Tu¨bingen: Narr: –. Wondrich, F. D. B. . ‘On the Borders of Poetry: Genre and the European Didactic Poem from Antiquity to the Renaissance’, PhD Diss., New York University. Woolf, V. . The Moment and Other Essays. London: Hogarth Press. Wooten, C. W. . Hermogenes’ On Types of Style. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press. Worman, N. . Landscape and the Spaces of Metaphor in Ancient Literary Theory and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, M. . Euripides’ Escape-Tragedies. A Study of Helen, Andromeda and Iphigenia among the Taurians. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Xenophontos, S. . Ethical Education in Plutarch. Moralising Agents and Contexts. Berlin: De Gruyter. Ypsilanti, M. . ‘Apotelesmatica . () –: sources and models’, RhM : –. Yunis, H. . Plato, Phaedrus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zanker, P. . The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Zeitlin, F. I. . ‘The poetics of Eros: nature, art and imitation in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe’, in D. M. Halperin, J. J. Winkler, and F. I. Zeitlin eds. Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Princeton: Princeton University Press: –. . ‘Gardens of desire in Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe: nature, art, and imitation’, in J. Tatum ed. The Search for the Ancient Novel. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press: –. . ‘Figuring fidelity in Homer’s Odyssey’, in B. Cohen ed. The Distaff Side. Representing the Female in Homer’s Odyssey. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press: –. Zetzel, J. E. G. . ‘Re-creating the canon: Augustan poetry and the Alexandrian past’, Critical Inquiry : –. Zucker, A. . ‘Élien et la magie naturelle des animaux’, in A. Moreau and J.-C. Turpin eds. La magie. Tome II: la magie dans l’antiquité grecque tardive. Les mythes. Montpellier: Publications de la Recherche – Université de Montpellier III: –. Zumbo, A. . ‘Ateneo , b–c e il “canone” degli autori alieutici’, in P. Radici Colace and A. Zumbo eds. Letteratura scientifica e tecnica greca e latina. Atti del Seminario Internazionale di Studi Letteratura scientifica e tecnica greca e latina. (Messina, – ottobre ). Messina: EDAS: –.

Subject Index

Achilles, , , –, , –, , , , , –, –, , – Achilles Tatius, – addressee, –, –, , –, , , –, , –, –, , . See also Marcus Aurelius, Commodus Aelian, , –, , –, , , –, , – Aelius Aristides, –,  Aeschylus, –, –,  amphibian, ,  Amphitrite, ,  analogy, , , , , , , , –, –, , , , –, , , , , , , ,  animal speech, , , , –, , , – anthias, – anthropocentrism, –, , , , , – anthropomorphism, , , –, –, , –, , –, –, , –, –, –, , –,  anthropopathism,  Aphthonius, – Apollonius of Rhodes, –, –, , , –, , –, , –, , – Apollonius the Sophist, ,  Aratus, –, , , , –, , –, –, – Archestratus, ,  Archippus,  Aristarchus, , – Aristotle, , –, , –, , , , ,  Athenaeus, –, –, , , , , –,  bait, , , , , –, –, , , , , , 

biological sciences, –, ,  boar, –, –,  bonito. See dolphin, conflict with Boreas, , –, – catachresis, , –, –, , ,  catalogue, , , –, –, , , –, ,  Charybdis, , –, –, – children, –, –, , –, ,  Cicero, ,  Circe, –, –, ,  Colluthus,  Commodus, , , . See also Marcus Aurelius comprehensiveness, , , , , –,  Contest of Homer and Hesiod, – crayfish. See octopus, conflict with day-sleeper, –, , ,  Demodocus, songs of, –, , – didactic plot, –,  didactic poetry criticism of, , , , –, – form and content in, , – and heroic epic, –, , –, –, , , –, – purpose of, –, –, –, –,  in Roman empire, , –, – Dio Cassius, –,  Dio Chrysostom, , ,  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, – Dionysius the Periegete, , –, , –, , , –, –,  dog, , –, , , , , –, –, – dogfish, , , , – dolphin, , –, , , , ,  conflict with bonito, –, , , 



Subject Index similarity to humans, , , –, –, – slaughter of, , –, , – ease, , –,  eel, –, . See also octopus, conflict with Empedocles, –,  n., –,  Ennius,  epistemology, , –, –, – epyllion, , ,  Eratosthenes, –, – Erinna, – eros, , , , –, –, , ,  Etna fish, – etymology, , –, –, –, ,  Euripides, , , – Eustathius, , , , , , –, ,  fish in ancient society, –, , , – names of, , – fishing ancient literature on, – attitudes towards, –,  martial qualities of. See warfare Oppian’s expertise in, – as symbol, –, , ,  fluidity as metaphor, – fowling, , , ,  gastronomic literature, –, –, , – gods, , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , ,  divine knowledge, , –, – greed, , –, , ,  grey mullet, , , –, , –, ,  guile, –, –, , ,  hedgehog, –, , –, , – Heraclitus, Homeric Questions, ,  herdsman, , , , – Hermes, , ,  Hermogenes, –, ,  Hesiod, –, , –, , , –, , –, , , , –, , , –, , –, , –, –,  Homer, –, , , –, , –, , , , , , , , –, –, , , –, –, ,



–, , , –, , . See also Achilles, Demodocus, Odysseus, Polyphemus, suitors of Penelope. ancient criticism of, , , , , –, –, , –, , –, , , , – animals in, , –, –, – similes in, –, , –, , –, –, – as technical expert, , –, –, , – Homeric Hymn to Hermes,  horse, –, –, , ,  hospitality, – humour, , –, ,  hunting, , , , , , , , –, , –, , , –, –, , ,  idleness, –, ,  imperial literature, –, , , –, , , –, , , , – jealousy, , –,  justice, –, –, , , , , –,  kenning, – lobster, , – Longinus, , – Longus, –,  Lucian,  Lucretius, –,  Lycophron, , – mackerel, –,  magic, – Marcellus of Side, ,  Marcus Aurelius, , , , , , , , , –, – as fisherman, , , –, – marriage, , , –, –, –, –, – polygamy, ,  marvels, –, –, –, – Matro of Pitane, ,  Menander Rhetor, , –,  merle-wrasse, –, – metamorphosis, , , – metaphor, , , , , , , , –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, –, ,  cognitive metaphor,  literalisation of, –, –, , –



Subject Index

mint, – mixing as metaphor, –,  moderation, , , –, –, , ,  moray. See eel murex,  n. Musaeus,  Muses, –, , , –, , –, , –, . See also gods myth, , , , , , –, –, , ,  geographical location of, –, – rationalisation of, , , –, ,  neologism, , , , –,  net, , –, ,  as metaphor, , –,  Nicander, –, –, , , –, , –, ,  n. Nonnus, ,  Numenius, –,  octopus, –, , –, , , –, , ,  n. conflict with moray eel and crayfish, , , , , –, , –, , – Odysseus, , , , –, , –, , , –, ,  n., , , –, , , , –, –, , , –, – companions of, , , –,  location of travels, , – omens, , , , , – Oppian biographies of, , ,  Oppian, Halieutica didactic aims of, , , –, ,  reception of, –, , –, –, , ,  scholia to, , , , , , , – Palaephatus,  paradoxography, ,  parasite, –,  parody, – parrot-wrasse, , –,  patronage, –, – pelamyd. See tuna Philodemus, – pilot-fish, –, ,  Plato, , , , –, –, –, , , , –

pleasure, , –, –, –, , , –, –, , , , , – Plutarch, , , , , –, –, , , –,  poison, –,  Polybius, , – Polyphemus, , , –,  Porphyry, Homeric Questions, –, ,  Poseidon, , –, , –, , –, , , – posthumanism, , ,  Prodicus,  Prometheus,  ps.-Aristides, On Plain Discourse, – ps.-Lucian, Amores, –,  ps.-Lucian, Onos, –, ,  ps.-Manetho, , ,  n. ps.-Oppian, , , , , –, , , , , , , – ps.-Plutarch, On Homer, , , ,  Quintilian, , ,  Quintus of Smyrna, , – rationality, –, , , –, , , , , , , , , , ,  red mullet,  remora, – rhetoric, , –, , , , –, , –,  Roman empire, –, , –, –. See also imperial literature sargue, , – Scylla, , , –, – sea-bream, – seal, –, – sea-monster. See whale sexual desire, , , –, ,  between humans and animals, – simile, , , , –, , , –, –, , , –, –, , , , –, . See also Homer, similes in Simmias of Rhodes,  Simonides,  Sophocles, – sponge-diver, – Stesichorus, ,  sting-ray, – Stoics, –, , , , , ,  storms, , , –, , –, , , –, –, –, –, , ,  Strabo, , –, , , –

Subject Index Straits of Messina, , – sublimity, –,  suitors of Penelope, , –, –, –, , –, – sweetness, , , –, –, , , –, ,  swordfish, –, , , , –, ,  sympotic literature, –, ,  syncrisis, , , , – Telegonus, – Theognis, –,  Thracians, –, –, , , – tide, , –,  Titans, –, –, , – toil, , , –, ,  tortoise, , , – trickery. See guile Triphiodorus, , –, –,  Trojan Horse, , –, – Troy, capture of, , –, , , , – Trypho, On Tropes, – tuna, , –, , –, –, , ,  turtle, , –,  Typhon, , –, , –, –,  victim, –, – violence of fish, –, , , –, –, –, , , 



of humans, , , , –, –, , –, –,  Virgil, , , , , ,  vision, –, , –, , ,  vivaria,  warfare, –, –, , –, , , –, , –, , , , , , –, – whale, , , –, , , , , , –, –,  white sea-bream. See sargue Xenophon, Cynegeticus, – Zeus, , , –, –, , –, –, –, –, –, , , , –, – γάμος, –, –, –, – γαστήρ, –, –,  γλυκύτης, –, , ,  δόλος, –, –, ,  ἔθνεα, , –, , , –,  εὐνή, , –, –, , –,  ἡμέριοι,  κῆτος. See whale λόγος, , , –, ,  νέποδες, –,  νήπιος, , , – ὑγρός, – φαίης κε, , , , –, ,  χαίτη, , – χλούνης,  n., –

Index Locorum

Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon .–: – Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals .–: – .: – Aeschylus, Agamemnon –: –,  Apollonius, Argonautica .–: – .–: – .–: – Aratus, Phaenomena –:  –: – –: , – Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae .b–c: –, – Dionysius, Periegesis –:  –: – –: – –: , – Empedocles B: – B:  Euripides, Iphigeneia among the Taurians –: – Hermogenes, On Types of Style .: – Hesiod Theogony –:  –: , – Works and Days –: – –: – –: –, , 

–: – –: ,  Homer Iliad .–: , , –, –,  .–: – .–: – .–: , –,  .–:  .– (= .–): –,  .–: –,  .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–:  .–: – .–: –, ,  .–: –,  Odyssey .: – .–: – .–: –,  .–: – .–: – .–:  .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: –,  Lycophron, Alexandra –: – –: –



Index Locorum Nicander, Theriaca –: , , – –: – Oppian, Halieutica .–: –, –, , , , , –, –,  .–: –, –, , –, ,  .–: , , –, – .–: –, –, – .–:  .–: – .–: – .–: , – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–:  .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: , , –,  .–: –, ,  .–: – .–: – .–: –, – .–: –, –, – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: , ,  .–: – .–: – .–: –, –, ,  .–: , –, – .–: –, – .–: – .–:  .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: –

.–: – .–: – .–: –, –, – .–: –, – .–: , – .–: –,  .–: –, – .–: , – .–: – .–: –, –, –, – .–: ,  .–: – .–: –, –, – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: , –, – .–: ,  .–: – .–: –, – .–: – ps.-Oppian, Cynegetica .–: –,  Plato Phaedrus c–a: – c–d: –,  Symposium a–e: –, , – b–c: ,  Strabo ..:  ..–: – ..:  Theognis –: – Triphiodorus, Sack of Troy –:  –: 

