The Scroll and the Marble - Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry

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Contents
List of Figures ix List of Abbreviations

xi

Introduction 1

pa rt 1 . Reader and Voice in Callimachus and Hellenistic Poetry chapter 1. The Unruly Tongue: Philitas of Cos as Scholar and Poet 11 chapter 2. Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo 33 chapter 3. Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter

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chapter 4. Reconstructing Berenike’s Lock 65

pa rt 2 . Epigram and Its Audiences chapter 5. Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus

85

chapter 6. Text or Performance / Text and Performance: Alan Cameron’s Callimachus and His Critics 106 chapter 7. The Un-Read Muse? Inscribed Epigram and Its Readers in Antiquity 116 chapter 8. Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street: The Odyssey in Inscribed and Literary Epigram 147

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Contents

pa rt 3 . Inscription and Bookroll in Posidippus chapter 9. Reimagining Posidippus 177 chapter 10. Between Literature and the Monuments chapter 11. Posidippus’ Iamatika

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chapter 12. Posidippus and the Admiral: Kallikrates of Samos in the Epigrams of the Milan Posidippus Papyrus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309) 234 chapter 13. The Politics and Poetics of Geography in the Milan Posidippus Section One, on Stones 1–20 AB Bibliography

273

Index of Ancient Passages Cited Subject Index

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293

253

List of Figures


Fig. 1. R. Pfeiffer, Callimachus, vol. 1. Oxford: 1949, 114–15

76–77

Fig. 2. Jimmy Stewart as Jefferson Smith, at the Lincoln Memorial, in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

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Fig. 3. Youth reading stele. Tondo of Attic red-figure kylix, Ancona Painter, 500–480 b.c. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum 16.2 no. 62

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Fig. 4. Pensive Athena, votive relief from the Acropolis, Athens, ca. 470–450 b.c.

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Fig. 5. J. H. W. Tischbein, Goethe in the Campagna, 1786–87, Frankfurt a. M., Städelsches Kunstinstitut

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Abbreviations


AB ⫽ C. Austin and G. Bastianini. Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia. Milan, 2002. AP ⫽ Anthologia Palatina. BG ⫽ G. Bastianini and C. Gallazzi. Papiri dell’ Università degli Studi di Milano. Vol. VIII, Posidippo di Pella: Epigrammi (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309). Milan, 2001. Bernand ⫽ E. Bernand. Inscriptions métriques de l’Égypte gréco-romaine. Paris, 1969. CEG ⫽ P. A. Hansen. Carmina Epigraphica Graeca. 2 vols. Berlin, 1983–89. CGFP ⫽ C. Austin. Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris Reperta. Berlin, 1973. Clairmont ⫽ C. W. Clairmont. Gravestone and Epigram. Mainz, 1970. Durrbach, Choix ⫽ F. Durrbach. Choix d’inscriptions de Délos. Paris, 1921–22. FGE ⫽ D. L. Page, ed. Further Greek Epigrams. Cambridge, 1981. FH ⫽ P. Friedländer and H. B. Hoffleit. Epigrammata: Greek Inscriptions in Verse from the Beginnings to the Persian Wars. Berkeley, 1948. GG ⫽ W. Peek. Griechische Grabgedichte. Darmstadt, 1960. GLP ⫽ D. L. Page. Greek Literary Papyri. Cambridge, MA, 1962.

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Abbreviations

GP ⫽ A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page. The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams. Cambridge, 1965. GV ⫽ W. Peek. Griechische Vers-Inschriften. Vol. I, Grab-Epigramme. Berlin, 1955. ID ⫽ F. Durrbach. Inscriptions de Délos. Paris, 1926–29. IG ⫽ Inscriptiones Graecae. Vol. 1ff. Berlin, 1873–. Kaibel ⫽ G. Kaibel. Epigrammata Graeca ex Lapidibus Conlecta. Berlin, 1878. LIMC ⫽ Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Zurich, 1981–. L-P ⫽ E. Lobel and D. Page. Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta. Oxford, 1955. MS ⫽ R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber. Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten. 5 vols. Stuttgart, 1998–2004. Nilsson, GGR ⫽ M. P. Nilsson. Geschichte der griechischen Religion. 2 vols. Munich, 1967. OGIS ⫽ W. Dittenberger. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1903–5. Pack ⫽ R. Pack. The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Graeco-Roman Egypt. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor, 1965. PCG ⫽ R. Kassel and C. Austin. Poetae Comici Graeci. Berlin, 1983–. Pf. ⫽ R. Pfeiffer. Callimachus. 2 vols. Oxford, 1949–53. PGR ⫽ A. Giannini. Paradoxographorum Graecorum reliquiae. Milan, 1966. PMG ⫽ D. L. Page. Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford, 1962. Powell ⫽ J. U. Powell. Collectanea Alexandrina. Oxford, 1925. SB ⫽ F. Preisigke, et al. (ed.). Sammelbuch griechisches Urkunden aus Ägypten. 1915–. SEG ⫽ Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Vol. 1ff., Leiden/ Amsterdam, etc. 1923–. SH ⫽ H. Lloyd-Jones and P. Parsons. Supplementum Hellenisticum. Berlin, 1983. Snell-Maehler ⫽ B. Snell and H. Maehler. Pindari carmina cum fragmentis. 2 vol. Leipzig, 1987–89.

Introduction


D

ionysius of Halicarnassus recounts an anecdote that he describes as well known to all those who are fond of learning. It tells of how, following the death of Plato, the philosopher’s writing tablets were found. On them, it was discovered, he had jotted down the first sentence of his Republic in numerous versions, each time adjusting the word order in a different way (πα
σι γρ δ που τοι
ς φιλολγοις γνριµα τ περ τη
ς φιλοπονας τνδρς στοροµενα τ τε λλα κα δ κα τ περ τν δλτον, !ν τελευτ σαντος α"του
λγουσιν ε#ρεθη
ναι ποικλως µετακειµνην τν ρχν τη
ς Πολιτεας (χουσαν τ νδε Κατβην χθ+ς ε,ς Πειραια
µετ Γλακωνος του
/Αρστωνος, Dionys. Hal. De comp. 25, p. 208 Reiske: cf. Diog. Laert. 3.37; Quint. 8.6.64). Dionysius goes on to describe Plato’s φιλοπονα, that is, his painstaking, even fussy manner with his text’s composition; and he does so wittily, in terms taken from hairstyling: The philosopher is pictured as the writerly equivalent of some elderly dandy standing before a mirror, primping and making sure that each last strand of hair is perfectly in place, for even when he turned eighty, “Plato never stopped combing his dialogues, dressing them out and braiding them in every conceivable way” (Πλτων το1ς 2αυτου
διαλγους κτενζων κα βοστρυχζων κα πντα τρπον ναπλκων ο" διλειπεν 4γδο κοντα γεγον5ς). Of course, this passage dwells on the moment of composition, the process whereby the writer creates his text. But at the same time, it implies a manner of reading—initially that of the author himself as the first link in his own reception. Here the reader carefully scans what stands before him on the page (or, as in this case, lies etched in the wax of a writing tablet),

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The Scroll and the Marble

mulls over every clause, weighs each word on the tongue to measure its impact in relation to every other. This anecdote presumes a particularly intense engagement with a text, one that transpires not in the context of oral performance, as one might have expected given Socrates’ emphasis on the primacy of the spoken word in Plato’s Phaedrus, but, rather, through a written medium. That medium facilitates not only the play of permutation in the act of composition but also a multifaceted, reflective, and unhurried encounter with the text in the act of reading. Here the reader may pause over a given sentence, look back to another, juxtapose it with one elsewhere in the text, and reread them all if so inclined. Precisely such a scene of readerly reception is dramatized in Plato’s Phaedrus when Socrates requests multiple re-readings of the start of Lysias’ speech (262d–e, 263e– 264a), each followed by a nuanced interpretation. Contrast a work’s reception in performance (as with a play at a theater, an epic or choral lyric at a festival), which unfolds serially in time and so offers far less scope for exacting, word-by-word contemplation. In the Hellenistic age, poets writing for the social elite became concerned as never before with the act of reading itself and with the impact of the written word, as artifact and medium, on the reception of their work (see, e.g., Meyer 2005). Their texts—inasmuch as they translate onto the written page traditional poetic genres earlier experienced mainly as part of large civic occasions, such as religious festivals (thus epic, choral lyric, tragedy, and comedy), or at smaller private occasions, such as symposia (the home of such genres as lyric monody and elegy)—invite readers to ponder their experience of a given poem and to ask how it differs from performance-oriented reception. The essays gathered together in this volume take up that invitation and focus largely on the question, What is entailed in the act of reading? More specifically, in what ways do the texts themselves reflect a new awareness of their written form and, indeed, of the diverse types of written media available to authors? How do the poets construct their readership in relation to each of these media? Do the texts envision various sorts of readers, accommodate different modes of readerly experience? Though numerous kinds of material object could serve as the vehicle of poetic communication (e.g., writing tablets, or deltoi, as in the earlier example of Plato; papyrus letters containing just one or two poems; wooden tablets, or pinakes), this book’s title draws attention to two in particular, the chief media in which the writtenness of poetry was experienced at this time: the papyrus scroll and inscriptions in stone. Two poets of the third century b.c. may be seen as representing, respectively, these two media and are at

Introduction

3

the same time the clearest embodiments of the new aesthetic of reception by means of reading. I am referring to Callimachus of Cyrene and Posidippus of Pella. These authors, while not necessarily of equal quality, form the twin poles that frame this collection of essays: Callimachus, famously working in and drawing inspiration from the Library of Alexandria, is a poet of exquisite polish and erudition; Posidippus, besides being the author of purely literary epigrams, is the first poet expressly referred to—and publicly honored—as a writer of inscribed verse, or 6πιγραµµατοποις (though as we now see from the Milan papyrus, he also conceived of his epigrams as destined for collection in the scroll). Both were favorites of the Ptolemaic court. The title The Scroll and the Marble plays on and pays homage to J. Svenbro’s La parole et le marbre (1976), a work dealing with the development from oral to written poetic production in archaic and classical Greece. While that book has to do mainly with composition and performance, mine throws the spotlight on reading and reception. In its focus on Hellenistic poetry (rather than that of the Archaic period, which is Svenbro’s concern), my book explores an era for which the text as material object—the scroll and the marble, as well as other potential media—assumed a new level of importance. The thirteen essays in this volume, written over the course of some fifteen years, largely recur to and persistently circle such questions as those enumerated earlier in this introduction. The book is divided into three parts. The first, “Reader and Voice in Callimachus and Hellenistic Poetry,” begins with a study of Philitas of Cos, a seminal figure at the dawn of the Hellenistic age and an important influence on Callimachus and other poets of the next generation. Philitas is the first author described as being simultaneously a poet and a critic, and this essay examines his famous lexicographical work, Ataktoi Glossai, or Disorderly Words. That work’s learned interest in and playful approach to rare words are consistent with what we can see in the (meager) fragments of Philitas’ poetry and also point ahead to the bookish delight that the scholar-poets who succeeded him displayed for lexicographical rarities. The following three essays deal with poems by Callimachus. The first, “Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo,” examines the theme of how the poet constructs multiple audiences. Indeed, we find here a hierarchy of audiences in which the community of readers is figured as a cultic community present at Apollo’s rite. This rite, including a choral performance of Apollo’s paean, is represented mimetically within the hymn, in such a way that the text itself comes to embody the god’s epiphany. Readers must then decide whether their experience of the poem is so involving and

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vivid that they ultimately lose their sense of detachment from the text and actually see the god (thus counting among the elect, or 6σθλο, in the poem’s hierarchical terminology) or whether their engagement is of a less intense variety (thus placing them among the poorer celebrants, or λιτο). The next essay, on Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, again suggests different possible readerships, including an emphatically bookish one, eager to play literary detective and to uncover recondite allusions to the hymn’s archaic model. Finally, part 1 ends with a study of a modern counterpart to such literary detective work, namely attempts to reconstruct Callimachus’ Lock of Berenike from its meager remains in the papyri. In this undertaking even prudent scholars have thrown aside their customary reserve in the face of a fragmentary text and, spurred by the existence of Catullus’ seemingly faithful translation, have succumbed to the lure of the empty space, that is, the urge to fill in the gaps. Here one sees with particular clarity how such literary activity arises from a reader’s encounter with the text as object, in this case a patchwork of multiple, lacunose papyri, whose transcribed remains can be physically juxtaposed to the Latin translation. To be sure, that readerly urge to fill in the gap here results from an accident of preservation, but it also points toward a possibility discussed in the next section of my book, to wit, that this same impulse can be deliberately triggered by a poet for aesthetic ends. Part 2, “Epigram and Its Audiences,” focuses on the only ancient Greek poetic genre that, from its inception, was experienced in writing (rather than aurally) and that expressly calls attention to the act of reading and to the relationship between reader and text. Epigrams were originally short poems inscribed on objects of various kinds: they could appear as epitaphs on tombstones, as dedications on votive objects, and as honorific inscriptions on political or personal monuments. While such poems continued to be inscribed throughout antiquity, they became popular in the early Hellenistic era as pure “literature,” written for the scroll, and were favored by the leading poets of the day. In addition, poems originally composed for inscription were also now collected for inclusion in epigram books. The impact of that migration from monument to scroll on the reader’s experience of the poem is the subject of the first essay of part 2, “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” where I trace how, even in the scroll, the genre retained its traditional deixis, that is, its reference to a monument or geographical location and (in the case of sepulchral epigrams) to the corpse interred beneath it. In its new setting, however, such deixis no longer pointed to anything real, whether actual artifact or landscape. The resulting shortfall or gap was, however, seized on by the poets

Introduction

5

of the age and put to productive use, for with it they could stimulate the reader to a particularly lively interaction with the text, an Ergänzungsspiel, or imaginative game of supplementation. The urge to fill in the gap is here the productive counterpart to that potentially dangerous inclination we saw earlier in the example of modern scholars’ attempts to fill in the lacunae of the fragmentary text of Callimachus’ Lock of Berenike. The following essay, “Text or Performance/Text and Performance,” is a polemical reaction to Alan Cameron’s Callimachus and His Critics, in which he argues for the persistence and ongoing primacy of traditional poetic performance in the Hellenistic era and against any significant development toward a more self-consciously literate type of verse and toward its reception within a culture of reading. In my essay, I suggest that while many of the texts by elite Hellenistic poets can accommodate performance and were possibly performed, what evidence we have points, rather, to an audience that, although possibly just a small part of the larger poetry-consuming public, demonstrably engaged with the text through its visual manifestation on the page. After this comes an essay, “The Un-Read Muse? Inscribed Epigram and Its Readers in Antiquity,” that explores the odd disconnect between how inscribed epigrams pervasively envision scenes of encounter between passersby and monuments and how sources outside of epigram nevertheless suggest that it was actually rare for people to stop and read them. Those who did so were exceptional persons—among them the Hellenistic poets who absorbed the conventions of the inscribed genre, removed it from its functional setting, and transformed it into literature. Their literary epigrams may in turn have spurred new interest in the inscribed variety. The final essay of part 2, “Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street: The Odyssey in Inscribed and Literary Epigram,” examines how the authors of inscribed epigrams tried, by keeping the poetry simple, both to address the uncertainty of finding readers willing to pause and contemplate a monument and to accommodate those who might just cast a glance at their chiseled texts in passing. If and when they incorporated literary allusions, these tended to play on the best-known parts from the most famous works of literature. In particular, my essay examines allusions to the Odyssey in inscribed epigram, comparing them with those found in their literary counterparts of the Hellenistic era. The poems reveal a wide range of readerly expectation, from the most basic and clear-cut to the most sophisticated and challenging. Not surprisingly, because its medium allows for a more leisurely and sustained encounter with the text, the allusive artistry of literary epigram puts far greater demands on its readers

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The Scroll and the Marble

than that of inscribed epigram. That becomes especially apparent in the epigram of Callimachus with which the essay ends, which figures allusion as a kind of larceny and makes discovering the allusion a sort of cat-andmouse game of detection. Part 3, “Inscription and Bookroll in Posidippus,” steps back from the literary sophistication of Callimachus to explore the work of Posidippus, the one poet of the third century b.c. known certainly to have written for inscription as well as for the scroll. The first essay of this section, “Reimagining Posidippus,” suggests that the image Posidippus projects of himself in his so-called seal poem (SH 705 ⫽ AB 118) pointedly embraces and melds together both media in which he worked, showing that he conceived of himself as operating on two tracks within the single genre of epigram. That self-image is borne out both by the evidence for his work on monuments and by the new Milan Posidippus papyrus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309). The second essay, “Between Literature and the Monuments,” begins from an examination of Posidippus’ poem on the dedication of the statue of Zeus Soter atop the Pharos Lighthouse by Sostratus of Cnidus and goes on to explore how the aesthetic impact of epigram on a monument differs from that of epigram on a scroll. The themes of this essay hark back to the essays in part 2, where “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” likewise looks at what happens when epigram migrates between media. The next three essays focus on different sections of the Milan papyrus. The first concerns the Iamatika, the section on miraculous cures, possibly written at the behest of a prominent Ptolemaic courtier, the doctor Medeios of Olynthos. It attempts to show how Posidippus drew for these poems on a previously unmined epigraphic genre, the miracle tales assembled for collective inscription by temple authorities at such shrines as the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus. Though he makes knowing use of the epigraphic genre here, Posidippus deliberately sets it at a remove from its functional context, thereby opening it to a wider range of meanings, including ironic ones. The topic of the next essay is Posidippus’ poems for another eminent Ptolemaic courtier, the admiral Kallikrates of Samos. Posidippus wrote an epigram to accompany a statue commemorating the admiral’s victory in the chariot race at Pytho and also wrote a whole series of epigrams celebrating Kallikrates’ foundation of the shrine of his divinized sovereign, Arsinoe/Aphrodite at Cape Zephyrium outside Alexandria. Through these epigrams, Posidippus lent the aid of his art to Kallikrates’ policy of bridging the cultures of old Greece and his adoptive country of Egypt. A final essay looks at the first section of the Milan Posidippus papyrus, the λιθικ, an artfully organized series of twenty poems

Introduction

7

about an array of remarkable stones (notably precious gems, but also a magnet, a huge boulder, etc.). Frequently dwelling on their exotic origins and how they came, through the skill of expert craftsmen, into the hands of (Ptolemaic) Greeks as jewelry, Posidippus describes the stones in this section in such a way as to collectively embody, in their geographic scope, a map of the world that Alexander the Great had conquered. It was the world that the Ptolemies aspired to control as the true heirs to his power, and the poems of this section jointly express that ambition. Thus this last essay returns us to that other aspect of Posidippus’ endeavor as a poet of literary epigram, one keenly aware of the aesthetic potential not just of the marble but of the scroll. In the essays here reissued, I have taken the opportunity to update bibliography, revise certain sections where my thinking has changed, delete some material that seemed repetitive in the framework of a collection, and make additions when these seemed appropriate. By way of supplement to the previously published work, the volume includes two new contributions (“Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street” and “Reimagining Posidippus”), which extend its themes and reflect my most current ideas. Together, I hope that these essays will continue to stimulate the thinking of students and scholars of ancient literature and of Hellenistic poetry in particular.

chapter 1

The Unruly Tongue PHILITAS OF COS AS SCHOLAR AND POET




P

hilitas of Cos stands as a gray eminence at the start of Alexandrian scholarship and literature.1 Described as “simultaneously a poet and a critic” (Strabo 14.2.19.657c), he was picked by Ptolemy I Soter to be tutor to his son Philadelphus and is said to have taught Zenodotus of Ephesus, first librarian of the Library of Alexandria (Suda s.v. “Philitas”). His comments on epic vocabulary in his pioneering lexical study, Ataktoi Glossai, caused Aristarchus, the great Homeric scholar and Alexandrian librarian, who lived more than a century later, to write a work entitled Against Philitas (schol. A ad Il. 1.524). As to his verse, its artistry was celebrated in programmatic poems by Callimachus (Aetia 1.9–10, with the Florentine Scholia) and Theocritus (7.39–41), eminent poets of the next generation working in Alexandria; and Roman poets cite him as an authoritative

This is an updated version of an article that appeared in CP 98 (2003) 330–48. © 2003 by The University of Chicago. I wish to thank Professors Richard Hunter and J. Lee for their insightful and stimulating comments while I was writing this essay. 1. I cite Philitas’ poetry according to the editions of Powell (1925), Sbardella (2000), and Spanoudakis (2002); his scholarly work, the Ataktoi Glossai, according to the editions of Kuchenmüller (1928), Dettori (2000a) and Spanoudakis (2002). I am persuaded by C. W. Müller (1990) that our earliest sources (including Propertius) speak mainly for the name having been spelled “Philitas” and that “Philetas” is the result of later etacism. Cf. also Sbardella 2000: 3–7; Spanoudakis 2002: 19–23. To Müller’s evidence, add now Posidippus’ epigram on the statue of Philitas in the new Milan papyrus (col. 10.16–25 BG ⫽ 63 AB), cited and discussed shortly in text.

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model for elegy (Propertius 3.1.1–6, 3.51–52, 9.43–44; Ovid Ars am. 3.329–48; Ovid Rem. am. 759–60; Statius Silv. 1.2.252). As all this suggests, Philitas’ activity and impact loom large—in the work of others. Regrettably, he says very little to us in his own voice, since his oeuvre has mostly vanished, surviving only in brief citations and fragments. I want to turn to these, however, so as to explore in what sense Philitas may in his age have served as a model of a poeta doctus. In one of his surviving poems (10, p. 92 Powell ⫽ 12 Sbardella ⫽ 25 Spanoudakis), a female speaker discriminates between ignorant rustics and those versed in song; the latter stand out by virtue of their laborious, hard-won knowledge: “No benighted rustic from the mountains / will take me . . . toting his mattock, / but only an expert in song’s ordered verses, who through much toil / knows the way of every kind of tale.” Here poetry is considered the product of toil, of diligent skill and learning as much as of inspiration.2 This attitude toward poetry was embraced by subsequent poets in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Philitas’ erudition gave rise to an entirely new comic type: the spindlethin professor so engrossed in study that he quite forgets to eat and drink, being himself rather consumed by his researches until he becomes a feeble shadow of a man.3 This new comic type seems to have appeared specifically in response to the personality and interests of Philitas, whose particular obsession was with words. Already his younger contemporary, the elegist Hermesianax, describes how there was a statue of him set up by the people of Cos, in which he was portrayed as “frail with all the glosses, all the forms of speech” (περ πντα Φιλταν / 8 µατα κα πα
σαν τρυµενον 4 λαλι ν, fr. 7.77–78, p. 100 Powell). A similar picture emerges in one of the newly published epigrams of Posidippus, a near contemporary (col. X.16–25 BG ⫽ 63 AB). The poem depicts another statue of Philitas, commissioned from the sculptor Hekataios by none other than Ptolemy Philadelphus and perhaps intended for display in Alexandria—a devoted pupil’s tribute to his distinguished tutor.5 2. For the varying interpretations of this fragment and its female voice, cf. Bing 1986; Dettori 1999; the commentaries of Sbardella (2000) and Spanoudakis (2002). 3. As Yeats might have said, “a tattered coat upon a stick” (Sailing to Byzantium, v. 10). 4. The latter term, λαλη, later came to mean “dialect”; cf. Cairns 1979: 220. 5. The fact that the monarch is called “both god and king” (θ εου
θ/ 9µα κα βασιλ具η
典ος, v. 9) demonstrates that Ptolemy Philadelphus is meant. For when the cult of the Theoi Adelphoi was established in 272/1, he became the first of his line to receive divine honors while still alive. The founding of that cult thus constitutes the terminus post quem of our poem, and the dedication of the statue must be seen as Philadelphus’ tribute to his distinguished tutor Philitas. It is uncertain whether Philitas was still alive when this epigram was written

The Unruly Tongue

13

τνδε Φιλται χ [αλ]κ ν [:]σ ο ν κα τ πν具θ典’ {α} ;Εκ [α]τ αι
ος ]κ [ρ]ι β ς κρους [(πλ]α σ ε ν ε,ς =νυχας κα µε]γ θει κα [ σα]ρ κ  τν νθρωπιστ διξας γνµο]ν’, φ’ ?ρων δ’ ο"δ +ν (µειξ’{ε} ,δης,  λλ τν κροµριµνον @λ [ηι κ]α τεµξατο τχνηι πρ] σβυν, ληθεης 4ρ θν [(χων] κ αννα α"δ σ]οντι δ/ (οικεν, @σωι πο ι κ  λ λεται Aθει, (µψυχ]ο ς, καπερ χλκεος 65ν C γρωνD
δε θ εου 6κ Πτολε]µ αου δ/ E
θ/ 9µα κα βασιλ具η
典ος γκειµ]α ι Μουσ{ι}ων εGνεκα Κω
ιος ν ρ.

[Hekataios made this bronze like Philitas in every way, accurate down to the tips of his toes in size and frame alike describing this investigator [?] on a human scale. He included nothing from the physique of heroes. No, with the straightedge of truth, and all his skill he cast the old man full of cares. He seems like he’s discoursing—how fully his features are elaborated!— alive, though of bronze, this old man. “I stand here dedicated by Ptolemy, god and king at once, for the sake of the Muses, the Coan man.”] As in Hermesianax’ image of the scholar “frail with all the glosses,” Posidippus’ statue portrays this “investigator” (γνµο]ν/, v. 4) on a human scale, as an emphatically old man (πρ] σβυν, v. 6; γρων, v. 8). He is, moreover, “extremely anxious,” “full of cares” (κροµριµνον, v. 5). The adjective is otherwise unattested but aptly describes the absentminded intellectual, engrossed in thought. According to the Hellenistic epigrammatist Dionysius (1.3 GP ⫽ AP 7.78.3), another well-known personage, the scholar-poet Eratosthenes, died κρα µεριµν σας. In our poem, words in κρο- describing the sculptor’s painstaking realism—]κ [ρ]ι β ς κρους [(πλ]α σ ε ν ε,ς =νυχας (v. 2)—suggest an affinity with the κροµριµνον . . . πρ] σβυν (vv. 5–6). Likewise the artist’s deployment of all his skill (@λ [ηι κ]α τεµξατο τχ νηι, v. 5) in the accomplishment of his he is generally thought to have been born ca. 340. In any case, he is represented as an old man (πρ]σβυν, v. 5; C γρων, v. 8), so if he was dead, it may be that the image of him in his last years was still vivid. For recent discussion of this epigram, cf. Angiò 2002; Bernsdorff 2002: esp. 19–26; Hardie 2003; Scodel 2003. I adopt Scodel’s supplement at the start of v. 10. Sens (2005: 209–16), Prioux (2007b: 19–74), Männlein-Robert (2007: 60–66).

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The Scroll and the Marble

task seems appropriate to the creation of an image of the meticulous scholar-poet.6 Finally, Philitas is not idealized in any way. On the contrary, he cuts a wholly unheroic figure—a point Posidippus drives home with the striking formulation in verse 4 that the sculptor “blended in nothing from the form of heroes” (φ/ ?ρων δ/ ο"δ +ν (µειξ/{ε} ,δης), a metaphor doubtless evoking the metallurgical act of making a compound.7 There is in Philitas no alloy of heroism.8 This picture of Philitas is embellished in stories preserved for us in various sources. Aelian, for instance, relates the following (Varia Historia 9.14): They say that Philitas grew extremely thin. Thus as the slightest thing could easily send him sprawling, he put lead weights in his soles, so as not to be blown over if there happened to be a stiff wind. And in Athenaeus we learn of the tragicomic denouement when one of the characters humorously admonishes the host of the great banquet at which the work is set (9.401d–e): Ulpian, you always refuse to take your share of food until you’ve learned whether the word for that dish is ancient. Like Philitas of Cos, therefore, . . . you risk withering away some day. For he became utterly emaciated through these studies and died, as the epigram in front of his memorial makes clear: “Stranger, I am Philitas. The deceiving word caused my death, and the evening’s thoughts extended deep into the night.” 6. Signs in the poem point to Philitas being seen here as both scholar and poet. For instance, we might compare α"δ σ]οντι δ/ (οικεν in v. 7 with Asclepiades’ α"δσοντι δ/ (οικεν (43.3 GP ⫽ Anth. Plan. (A) 120.3), where, as in most instances, the verb is used of spoken utterance, not song, suggesting that Philitas’ statue represents him less in his function as poet than as scholar. In Posidippus’ phrase Μουσ{ι}ων εGνεκα (v. 10), on the other hand, the Muses may stand both for poetic and scholarly accomplishment, “esp. liberal arts” (LSJ s.v. Μου
σα), while the final words of the poem, describing Philitas as Κω
ιος ν ρ, implicitly recall Simonides’ description of Homer as Χι
ος ν ρ (fr. 8 dub. West, IE2) and suggest a comparison of poets. 7. The epigram is suffused with both metaphorical and literal terms that have strong artisanal resonance: [(πλ]α σ ε ν (v. 2), διξας (v. 3), κ]α τεµξατο (v. 5), 4ρ θν [(χων] κ αννα (v. 6), ποι κ  λ λεται (v. 7). 8. Perhaps, as Calderón Dorda (1990) first suggested in reference to the biographical tradition, the physical characterization hints at the poetic qualities that made Philitas’ verse appeal to Callimachus and Theocritus, i.e., a “Callimachean slenderness.” Building on this, cf. Sens 2002: 5; Sens 2005; Bernsdorff 2002: 19–26; Prioux 2007b: 51–56.

The Unruly Tongue

15

As Alan Cameron has recently noted, “thin-jokes” were a staple of ancient comedy, the counterpart to our modern-day “fat-jokes.”9 Yet the emaciated professor is something new. It is as yet unknown to Theophrastus’ Characters. Nor is it the brainchild of Attic comedy.10 Rather, it seems to emerge in elegy and epigram—a genre for whose learned practitioners Philitas was an important model.11 Philitas was evidently famous already within his lifetime for his research on words. But what was the nature of these lexical researches, and in what way did they figure in his poetry and in that of the scholar-poets who succeeded him? Much work on the erudite poets of Alexandria has focused on their reception and creative reuse of the epic tradition, in particular of Homer. That is not surprising given the wealth of Hellenistic hexameter and elegiac poetry, where we can trace how these poets mined early epic for the rare and atypical.12 It is tempting to suppose that Philitas did the same, devoting his lexical interests mainly to Homer. After all, in a comic fragment of Strato (Kassel-Austin PCG VII fr. 1), a contemporary of Philitas, a master of the house sputters in exasperation as he describes being driven to distraction because the cook he hired for a party possessed the peculiar and hilarious tick of speaking almost exclusively in Homerisms: “one would have had to use the books of Philitas and look up every word to check its meaning” ((δει / τ του
Φιλιτα
λαµβνοντα βυβλα / σκοπει
ν Iκαστον τ δναται τω
ν 8ηµτων.). The assumption here is that “the books of Philitas” dealt with Homeric vocabulary (but cf. my appendix to the present essay). 9. Cameron 1995: 490, 493 with n. 25. 10. Contra Cameron 1995: 488–91 (app. B, “Thin Gentlemen”). Characteristically, Cameron seizes on precisely the genre in which Philitas is not depicted as emaciated and asserts that it must be the source of that image. We have it in the elegy by Philitas’ younger contemporary Hermesianax; it is implied in the new Posidippus epigram on the statue of Philitas; thereafter it is much elaborated in the stories of Aelian and Athenaeus (with its epigram, which might well—as Cameron suggests—be contemporary with Philitas). The one place it is absent is in Strato’s comic fragment, where Philitas is merely the scholar—there is nothing about his being thin. See the appendix to the present essay. For a critique of Cameron’s general approach, cf. Bing 2000 ⫽ chap. 6 below. 11. The figure of the scholar here becomes the mundane counterpart to that more celebrated image of the singer as the Muses’ devotee, whose preoccupation is not scholarship but song; he, too, is so absorbed that he shrivels away and dies, ultimately becoming the cicada, who needs no food and spends the livelong day in song—an image first elaborated in Plato’s Phaedrus (259b–d), then powerfully revived in Callimachus’ prologue to the Aetia (fr. 1.32–35). 12. The bibliography is enormous. I would cite the pioneering works of von Jan (1893) and Kuiper (1896–98) and, thereafter, Herter 1929 and the collected essays of Giangrande (1980). More recently, see especially Hunter 1996, the studies of Rengakos (1992, 1993, 1994a, 1994b), and Bonanno 1995.

16

The Scroll and the Marble

We recall as well that Aristarchus, the great Homeric scholar, wrote the work Against Philitas. Yet the surviving fragments of Philitas’ researches, and some of his verse, point in another direction, toward a different area of intense learned and poetic interest: namely, exotic diction and local customs. This is where I believe he had his greatest impact on subsequent poetry. From what we can tell from citations of his famous lexical work, the Ataktoi Glossai, Philitas often took Homer as his starting point. But let us have a look at some examples to see where he went from there. Our first is the word µαλλα, which probably refers to Homer’s µαλλοδετ ρ at Iliad 18.553. That term is a Homeric hapax legomenon,13 one of five treated by Philitas out of a total of twenty-five surviving glosses (i.e., 1/5). I am of course assuming that he chose to treat these words because they were Homeric hapaxes, though none of the citations makes explicit reference to Homer. Nevertheless it is a reasonable assumption since Homeric language overall was privileged, and such words in particular provoked perennial discussion and so, for all their rarity, were culturally marked.14 The word µαλλοδετ ρ occurs in the description of that part of Achilles’ shield on which there is a royal precinct with reapers harvesting the grain (Il. 18.552–57). δργµατα δ/ λλα µετ/ =γµον 6π τριµα ππτον (ραζε λλα δ/ µαλλοδετη
ρες 6ν 6λλεδανοι
σιν δοντο. τρει
ς δ/ ρ/ µαλλοδετη
ρες 6φστασανD α"τρ =πισθε παι
δες δραγµεοντες, 6ν γκαλδεσσι φροντες, σπερχ+ς πρεχονD βασιλε1ς δ/ 6ν τοι
σι σιωπJη
σκη
πτρον (χων 2στ κει 6π/ =γµου γηθσυνος κη
ρ.

[Some sheaves fell to the earth in a row, one after another, some the amallodeteres bound with cords. Three amallodeteres attended to the job, and behind them children gathered the sheaves, and carried them in their arms, and quickly brought them over. And silent beside them the king along the swath stood holding his scepter, rejoicing at heart.] Broken into its constituent parts, µαλλο-δετη
ρες means “those who bind the amalla.” This substantivized “binding” is immediately repeated, and so 13. Strictly a dis legomenon: it comes up twice in as many lines. 14. For Homeric hapax legomena, cf. Kumpf 1984. For their reuse in Hellenistic poetry, see, e.g., Rengakos 1992, 1993, 1994a, 1994b; Kyriakou 1995.

The Unruly Tongue

17

explained, in the verb δοντο and its object δργµατα: “those who bind the amalla” tie sheaves together. The resulting bundle, then, is the amalla. Here we have a case of instant exegesis—a nice example of the interpretive maxim, often linked with Aristarchus, that Homer is his own best interpreter, or, in Greek, KΟµηρον 6ξ ;Οµ ρου σαφηνζειν (literally, “explaining Homer through Homer”).15 In the world of the shield—a synoptic, pars pro toto world, where homely scenes are crammed with universalizing meaning—no further explanation is required. We need know nothing more about the amalla. Yet Philitas commented on the word,16 as we hear in the following citation in Hesychius (s.v. ⫽ 46 Kuchenmüller ⫽ 18 Dettori ⫽ 46 Spanoudakis): µαλλαD δργµατα, δσµαι τω
ν σταχων . . .M γκλη, δργµατα ρN, Oς φησι PΙστρος, Φιλ τας δ+ στορει
6κ σN.

[Amalla. Sheaves, bundles of grain . . . a bunch; one hundred sheaves, according to Istros, but Philitas says it consists of two hundred.] Now where would Philitas have come by such a fact? Not in Homer, that’s for sure. Kuchenmüller’s hunch was that he’d asked the farmers themselves, presumably on Cos (“haec ab ipsis rusticis quaesivit Philetas”). One may balk, of course, at picturing the scholar—especially the Philitas of biographical lore—exiting his study, blundering down the road to a local farm (flattened several times, no doubt, by nasty gusts; he’d left his weights at home) to ask the farmers (whom no one could have mistaken, for they looked beyond all like farmers), “Just how many sheaves make up an amalla?”17 But stripped of the biographical caricature, the basic supposition that he learned from a source with firsthand knowledge is not farfetched. Perhaps it was a farmer, perhaps a treatise on farming, such as those mentioned in Plato’s Minos (316e: “farm manuals,” τ γεωργικ συγγρµµατα). In any case, what the gloss of Philitas is clearly not is an 15. Pfeiffer (1968: 225–27) demonstrates that the attribution to Aristarchus is false (it comes from Porphyry) but that it is in keeping with his practice. 16. It was later taken up by Callimachus in the Aetia (fr. 186.27: Hyperboreans). 17. Intriguing but ultimately speculative links have been found between Philitas and the early history of bucolic, on the basis of the character of the old cowherd Philetas in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2.3), a singer and player of the syrinx. On this basis, it has been suggested, moreover, that the figure of Lycidas in Theocritus’ Idyll 7 is either Philitas or a character from one of his poems. Cf. Reitzenstein 1893; Cairns 1979: 25–27; Hunter 1983: 76–83; Bowie 1985; Cameron 1995: 418–20.

18

The Scroll and the Marble

attempt at “explaining Homer through Homer” (KΟµηρον 6ξ ;Οµ ρου σαφηνζειν).18 It is not intended, I think, to explain Homer at all. Rather, here, as elsewhere, Philitas reveals an interest in rustic life for its own sake. The Homeric word is merely the cue. What appeals to him is the specialized knowledge, the figure two hundred, which tells us something about actual farming, not about the remote heroic world of epic. Our next example likewise takes its cue from Homer but suggests, too, that Homer—far from being just a springboard—is a crucial foil against which the scholar sets his gloss. The word in question is πλλα, another hapax legomenon, whose one appearance in Homer comes at Iliad 16.642. There it clearly means “milk pail” and is part of a rustic simile in which soldiers swarming over the dead Sarpedon are likened to flies “whirring through a sheepfold, about the pails [πλλας] overflowing with milk [περιγλαγας].” Here is how the word is glossed by Philitas (Athen. 9.495e ⫽ 33 Kuchenmüller ⫽ 5 Dettori ⫽ 33 Spanoudakis): Κλεταρχος 6ν ται
ς Γλσσαις πελλητη
ρα µ+ν καλει
ν Θεσσαλο1ς κα Α,ολει
ς τν µολγα, πλλαν δ+ τ ποτ ριονD Φιλ τας δ/ 6ν /Ατκτοις τν κλικα Βοιωτος.

[Cleitarchus [of Aegina, first century b.c.] in his Glosses says the Thessalians and Aeolians call a milk pail pellêtêr, but a drinking cup pella. Philitas in his Ataktoi says a wine cup (kylix) is call pella by the Boeotians.] Now milk and wine are virtual opposites in the Greek imagination. And the shallow, broadly flaring kylix, a wine cup, could scarcely be more different from a milk pail. Yet πλλα can be used to signify either. What strikes us are the widely (and wildly) divergent meanings of a single word—homonyms but in jarring antithesis. Add to that Philitas’ concern with local usage (in this case, Boeotia’s): on the one hand, there is the culturally authoritative Homeric meaning; on the other, the regional peculiarity. Significantly, Philitas appears to present the Boeotian meaning for its own sake, not to illustrate that of the Homeric hapax. Was he interested in the lack of uniformity, in semantic dissonance itself?19 18. As I argued earlier, Homer did that sufficiently himself in the very same verse. 19. A comparable interest in homonyms, though of a less jarring kind, occurs in Philitas’ gloss of another Homeric hapax: :σθµιον. This word appears at Od. 18.300 as one of the gifts the suitors give to Penelope; it is usually taken to mean necklace. Though the text is corrupt, it appears that Philitas explains the way in which :σθµιον means both “neck” and “necklace” by analogy with στφανος, which can signify both “the top of the head” and “crown”: Φιλ τας δ φησι 具:σθµιονD典 στφανος. Aγουν Cµωνυµα µφοτρωθι ο
ον τη
ς κεφαλη
ς κα του


The Unruly Tongue

19

I should emphasize that that would be quite contrary to the practice of the anonymous gloss writers, the Glossographoi, in the Homeric scholia. While they too occasionally fix on a dialect usage, they do so in order to suggest that this is what Homer meant by a certain term in a given passage under discussion.20 To be sure, the citations of Philitas provide us no context; we cannot tell what he intended by noting that a Homeric hapax was used in a certain way in a regional dialect. Yet nothing suggests it was meant to illustrate the sense in Homer (can one even argue that πλλα can be glossed as “wine cup” in the Iliadic simile?).21 On the contrary, what leaps out at the reader of the gloss when set against the Homeric use is its irreducible difference—an opposition so neat as to suggest a deliberate strategy and interest in semantic dissonance. Another example reinforces that impression and adds a new dimension. It is a further Homeric hapax, the word κρ ιον,22 which occurs at Iliad 9.206 in the sense of “butcher block” or “tray for cutting meat.” There it is described as κρει
ον µγα, a great butcher block, big enough to hold a sheep’s chine and used by Patroclus and Achilles in preparing the meal for the embassy of Greeks. Here is what Philitas says about it (Athen. 14.645d ⫽ 37 Kuchenmüller ⫽ 9 Dettori ⫽ 37 Spanoudakis): κρ ιον πλακου
ς ρτος, Tν /Αργει
οι παρ τη
ς νµφης πρς τν νυµφον φρουσιν. 4πτα
ται δ/ 6ν νθραξιν, κα καλου
νται 6π/ α"τν ο φλοι, παρατθεται δ+ µετ µλιτος. Oς φησιν Φιλτας 6ν /Ατκτοις.

[Krêion is a flat cake or loaf that the Argives bring from the bride to the groom. It is baked on charcoal, and the friends are invited to partake of it, served with honey. So says Philitas in the Ataktoi.] Again the meaning is strikingly anomalous and local in origin. But this time Philitas reveals his interest not just in regional words but in customs. 具περ α"τJη
κσµου κα του
τραχ λου κα του
典 περ α"τMω
κσµου. (Athen. 15.677 ⫽ 41

Kuchenmüller ⫽ 13 Dettori ⫽ 41 Spanoudakis; emended by Kuchenmüller). The word was also glossed by Simias of Rhodes; cf. Fränkel 1915: 113. 20. For their approach generally and deployment of dialectal evidence, cf. Dyck 1987: esp. 123. Dyck writes: “The basic flaw . . . is their habit of tailoring their definitions of Homeric words to . . . a handful of passages: they seldom undertook the laborious task of . . . attempting to do justice to the totality of evidence,” and “the Γλωσσογρφοι may have used . . . an awareness of dialectal variations as license to posit wild semantic shifts [in Homer]” (126). 21. See Dettori 2000b: esp. 186. 22. This is the Doric form of Homer’s κρει
ον. The latter is cited in the Etymologicum Magnum in the same sense that Philitas assigns it: κρει
ονD C δ+ Πτολµαρχος τν 6κ στατος πλακου
ντα. Athenaeus’ reading, κρ ιον, would seem to be thrown into doubt by Hesychius’ κηρονD τ τω
ν µελισσω
νD κα ε,
δος πλακου
ντος but he also has κρ ιαD τ ζMδια, defined by LSJ as “cakes in shape of animals.” For detailed discussion, see Kuchenmüller 1928: ad loc.

20

The Scroll and the Marble

Among other things, that custom may serve here to highlight the difference from the Homeric context. For while Homer describes the manly preparation of meat for the feast of heroic friends in a council of war,23 Philitas recounts how the Argive bride bakes cakes for her groom and his friends, to be served with sweet honey. The single word thus carries connotations of both marriage and butchery, love and war.24 Our final instance, the word κπελλον, again drives home the impression of deliberate dissonance—the more so as, far from being a hapax, this word is fairly frequent in Homer, appearing five times in both the Iliad and Odyssey, invariably with the meaning “goblet” and often coupled with the stately epithet “golden”—a cup fit for heroes, in other words.25 The following, however, is what we find in the Ataktoi Glossai (Athen. 11.483a ⫽ 38 Kuchenmüller ⫽ 10 Dettori ⫽ 38 Spanoudakis): Φιλ τας δ+ Συρακοσους κπελλα καλει
ν τ τη
ς µζης κα τω
ν ρτων 6π τη
ς τραπζης καταλεµµατα.

[Philitas says the Syracusans call the crumbs of barley cake and bread left on the table kupella.] The referent has shifted from goblets made of gold to humble bread crumbs, the debris left over from a meal. The dissonance could not be more striking, verging almost on the paradoxical. It is as though Philitas had wanted to see how dissimilar a usage he could find, how far one could depart from the culturally authoritative norm; and here, too, his source is local, this time Syracusan. The effect resembles that of the Homeric simile: for like the simile that reveals a life apart, beyond the sphere of heroic action, the gloss throws open a door, exposing the epic term to a strange, incongruous local meaning and so disclosing an unexpected world. But the gloss does something more radical, too, perhaps: unlike the simile, which subordinates its world to that of heroic narrative both formally and in the hierarchy of
φλοι 23. N.b. the emphasis on friendship in Achilles’ welcome (9.197–98): χαρετονD V
τι µλα χρε, / οG µοι σκυζοµνMω περ /Αχαιω νδρες κνετονD V
ν φλτατο 6στον. 24. Homer acknowledges and exploits the poignancy of this antithesis in critical moments, such as when Hector awaits Achilles in Il. 22.126–28 and says in resignation, ο" µν πως νυ
ν 6στιν π δρυς ο"δ π πτρης / τMω
4αριζµεναι, 9 τε παρθνος Vθες τε, / παρθνος Vθες τ/ 4αρζετον λλ λοιιν. Spanoudakis (2002: 362) interestingly observes, “Coans considered themselves as deriving their origin from the Argolid and it is an Argive custom that P. describes here.” 25. Thereafter it is a rarity, appearing only in poetry and mostly much later. It does come up once each in Antimachus fr. 22.2, Ap. Rhod. 2.1271, and Lycoph. Alex. 1104—in the former two with its Homeric epithet “golden.”

The Unruly Tongue

21

epic values, the gloss reconfigures that relationship by shifting the balance. It takes for its text not merely Homer but the totality of the language.26 The Iliad and Odyssey thus appear within the larger textual/linguistic matrix, a touchstone still, no doubt, but no longer the alpha and omega. Instead the gloss is part, now, of a complex, often surprising web of discourse.27 I believe that this preoccupation with anomalous usage helps illuminate why Philitas called his glosses ataktoi, something no other glossary is called.28 The title is often translated Miscellaneous Glosses; that is, the words are interpreted as being τακτοι, without order, in relation to each other and as a group. Hence, most influentially, Rudolf Pfeiffer supposed that the book was “not systematically arranged like the later collections made by grammarians” and that “we may compare the name Miscellanea given by the poet Politian to his various learned writings put together without proper arrangement.”29 But our examination suggests that one could also take it to refer to words that are “disorderly” in themselves individually. Put somewhat differently, that semantic deviation or dissonance of the single word, which Philitas evidently found appealing, might be characterized as a kind of unruliness, hence Ataktoi Glossai might be translated Disorderly Words, or—since glossa can also mean “tongue”—even Unruly Tongues.30 It is—I should stress—inherently plausible and likely that this student and lover of words, Philitas, would have been alive to such a playful potential connotation in the title of his work—even if on some level it referred to its organization as a miscellany. 26. In this, we see how Philitas anticipates and influences Callimachus. Cf. Hollis’ description of that poet’s catholic interest in language (1990: 11–14), as well as Selden 1998: esp. 374: “Linguistic hybridization is the single most prominent characteristic of Callimachus’ style . . . His texts are essentially constructions, vocabular mosaics assembled out of disjoint verbal tesserae: anomalous and eccentric glosses, incompatible morphologic features, freak syntactical constructions which have been culled from every dialect and genre, from poetry as well as prose, from substandard speech and scientific treatises alike, from every stage of the language’s historical development.” 27. The repositioning of the Homeric text within the larger discourse may recall the concept of “intertextuality” as lucidly framed by Don Fowler (1997: here 16). He sees “the inherently multiple nature of intertextual reference,” where “the notion of a hierarchy of reference itself becomes questionable.” I believe that Philitas retains the hierarchy in somewhat diluted form, even while questioning it. 28. As Kuchenmüller (1928: 114) states, “Nimirum ‘Glossae’ extabant permultae, PΑτακτοι γλω
σσαι praeter Philetam nullae.” For an overview of the many attempts to interpret the title, cf. Dettori 2000a: 21–22 n. 54; cf. also 27: “Il significato di τακτοι γλω
σσαι rimane, a mio parere, alquanto misterioso.” See also Spanoudakis 2002: 384–86. 29. Pfeiffer 1968: 90. 30. Selden (1998: 377) draws attention to the somewhat later Stoic interest in linguistic phenomena that “exploit a single signifier to designate several different signifieds, an effect of semantic ambiguity which Chrysippus called amphibolia.”

22

The Scroll and the Marble

A measure of support for this “unruly” suggestion may come from the evidence that Simonides wrote a work entitled Ataktoi Logoi (PMG 653) containing speeches or stories that are ataktoi. We hear of it in a remark by Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle. In his Metaphysics (N 3.1091a5), Aristotle says: πντα δ ταυ
τα λογα, κα µχεται α"τ 2αυτοι
ς κα τοι
ς ε"λγοις, κα (οικεν 6ν α"τοι
ς ε,
ναι C Σιµωνδου µακρς λγος. γγνεται γρ C µακρς λγος Oσπερ C τω
ν δολων @ταν µηθ+ν #γι+ς λγωσιν.

[All this is absurd, and conflicts both with itself and with what is probable, and it seems to be an instance of Simonides’ “long story” [µακρς λγος], for the “long story” comes about, like those that slaves tell, when people have nothing sound to say.] Pseudo-Alexander comments on this as follows (Comm. in Arist. Graeca 1.818.4–8 Hayduck): C Σιµωνδης 6ν τοι
ς λγοις, οWς /Ατκτους 6πιγρφει, µιµει
ται κα λγει οWς ε,κς 6στι λγους λγειν δολους 6πταικτας πρς δεσπτας 6ξετζοντας α"το1ς τνος Iνεκα ταυ
τα 6πτακασι; κα ποιει
α"το1ς πολογουµνους λγειν πνυ µακρ κα πολλ, ο"δ+ν δ+ #γι+ς X πιθανν, λλ πα
ν τ 6πιφερµενον 6ναντον τMω
προφρασθντιD τοιου
τον γρ Eς ε,κς τ βρβαρον κα παιδεας µοιρον.

[Simonides, in the stories that he entitles Ataktoi, imitates and recounts the stories that slaves are apt to tell when they have bungled something and their masters are grilling them as to why: he has them make long prattling excuses that have nothing sound or convincing about them; rather, all their conclusions contradict what they’d previously asserted. Such speech, as it seems, is typical of a barbarian and one without education.] David Campbell translates Ataktoi Logoi as “Miscellaneous Stories.”31 But the descriptions in Aristotle and Alexander suggest, rather, that the title refers to the “disorderly” speech of the slave or barbarian, speech in “disarray” with regard to both its form and its content. Thus the logos is ataktos not in relation to other logoi, and so “miscellaneous,” but in and of itself (i.e., within its own constituent parts), and hence “disorderly.” 31. Campbell 1991: 507, on Simonides 653.

The Unruly Tongue

23

A still stronger piece of evidence for taking Ataktoi Glossai as unruly or disorderly tongues comes from the second-century b.c. poet Nicander. In his Theriaca (756–58), Nicander tells us that τακτα are the result of the bite of a venomous spider (φαλγγιον). του
µ+ν @µως (µµοχθον ε περ δχµα χονται φλκταιναι, κραδη δ+ παραπλζουσα µµηνε, γλω
σσα δ/ τακτα λληκε, παρστραπται δ+ κα =σσε.

[But for all their size around the troublesome bite of one [sc., the venomous spider phalangion] blisters always rise, and the mind wanders and is crazed; the tongue [glossa] shrieks disordered words [atakta] and the eyes squint.] (trans. Gow) Inasmuch as the collocation of glossa and atakta appears nowhere else in Greek literature, I feel certain that Nicander was playfully alluding here to the title of Philitas’ Ataktoi Glossai. Mad departures from familiar speech— that might be an apt, if comically exaggerated, way of describing a central facet of Philitas’ Disorderly Words or Unruly Tongues. Did the spider bite Philitas? In proposing that the work’s title was Unruly Tongues, we may wish to revisit Kuchenmüller’s controversial suggestion about the identity of Battis (or Bittis), the putative beloved of Philitas. This Battis is mentioned in the Leontion, an elegy in three books by Philitas’ younger contemporary and acquaintance Hermesianax of Colophon.32 Can she corroborate the name Unruly Tongues? Perhaps. The elegy recounted tales of famous loves, from the poetic tradition and elsewhere. In the long fragment that survives from book 3 (fr. 7, pp. 98–105 Powell), Hermesianax describes the loves of his poetic predecessors in chronological order and generic pairings from Orpheus to Philitas. However one may judge this poem in other respects, it displays an appealing zaniness in its catalog of poets’ loves. Elsewhere I have argued that this was an ironizing response to the burgeoning interest in poets’ lives among biographers,33 and I think any interpretation that does not acknowledge the elegy’s antic humor fails to do it justice. Here, for instance, we find Homer madly in love with Penelope, leaving his native land so as to be close to her in Ithaca (7.29–34); we find Anacreon vying with the far earlier Alcaeus for the love of Sappho (7.47–56)—“I think Hermesianax 32. See the discussion of this poem in Bing 1993a. 33. Bing 1993a.

24

The Scroll and the Marble

was joking about this love affair,” Athenaeus comments as he cites the verses (13.599c–d); most preposterously, we find Hesiod courting a girl named Ehoie and obsessively invoking her name at the start of each section in his catalog poetry—a droll conceit on the epic phrase X οGη with which each heroine in Hesiod’s Ehoiai, or Catalog of Women, was introduced. It was against the backdrop of such comic flights of fancy that Kuchenmüller made his suggestion about Philitas’ beloved Battis, who appears in the following verses of the poem (7.75–78): Ο,
σθα δ+ κα τν οιδν, Tν Ε"ρυπλου πολιη
ται ΚMω
οι χλκειον στη
σαν #π πλατνMω Βιττδα µολπζοντα θο ν, περ πντα Φιλταν 8 µατα κα πα
σαν τρυµενον λαλι ν.

[And you know that singer whom the Koan citizens of Eurypylos raised in bronze beneath the plane tree, Philitas, singing of nimble Bittis, when he was weak with all the glosses, all the forms of speech.] As we can see, the Greek text transmits the name Bittis. Ovid, however, twice refers to her in company with Philitas as “Battis” (Tr. 1.6.1–3; Pont. 3.1.57–58), the only further references to her in all of ancient literature. With this as his cue, and noting the equivalence of βαττολογα and πολυλογα, Kuchenmüller argued that names in the βαττ- stem signified loquaciousness and that Battis consequently meant “chatterbox,” like Horace’s Lalage.34 But more, he cleverly proposed that seen thus, Battis was nothing other than the humorous personification of Philitas’ scholarly passion, the gloss:35 “Battis—sic enim corrigendum ex Ovidio—nihil aliud significat quam γλω
σσα, quae quantum cordi fuerit Coo, nemo nescit.”36 While Kuchenmüller’s proposal initially met with acclaim, in recent years the tide has turned against it.37 Peter Knox, for instance, dismisses it disdainfully: “Kuchenmüller supposed that Hermesianax was making a joke and that there was no poem about Bittis. His highly implausible hypothesis to explain these lines has won few supporters, but deserves none.”38 Of course, this is nothing but assertion. Knox is wedded to the notion that 34. Kuchenmüller 1928: 27 n. 5. 35. Cf. Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, act 2, scene 1, where Benedik refers to Beatrice as “my lady Tongue.” 36. Kuchenmüller 1928: 27. 37. For the state of the question, cf. Sbardella 2000: 53–60; Spanoudakis 2002: 29–34. 38. P. E. Knox 1993: 66 n. 25.

The Unruly Tongue

25

Ovid, whose elegy is addressed to his wife, cites Philitas’ love of Battis, as he does that of Antimachus for Lyde in the line before, because she was his wife.39 On this view, Ovid is “referring to earlier works in that genre,” that is, elegies addressed to wives.40 It is unthinkable for Knox, therefore, that Battis should be merely a figure for Philitas’ scholarly obsession. Another scholar, Joachim Latacz, attacks Kuchenmüller’s proposal in a more sustained analysis.41 Without going into the details, his conclusion is that the Leontion celebrates Love’s ineluctable power and that the catalog of poets’ loves serves to “justify, exalt, and even consecrate” (ein Katalog . . . der . . . rechtfertigen, erhöhen, ja konsekrieren soll) the author’s own existence as love poet. No doubt he had to invent loves for those who had none by tradition—and Latacz acknowledges that he did so lightheartedly for Hesiod and Homer. But for Philitas, the author’s contemporary and acquaintance, that would have been “neither necessary nor appropriate” (weder nötig noch angebracht).42 Make no mistake, Latacz is referring to what would have been socially, not poetically, appropriate. But propriety itself is surely an inappropriate criterion, since it is just too solemn for such a poet as Hermesianax, whose work abounds in cockeyed humor. The critiques of Knox and Latacz are suspect a limine and ultimately do not carry conviction since they do not do justice to the poem’s essential wit. Kuchenmüller, I suspect, was right. But perhaps we can improve on him. It appears he thought that Battis’ name played only on the concept γλω
σσα, without its qualifier τακτος; consequently he looked to its linguistic root solely for the notion of chattiness. But the name Battis is better explained, like its masculine counterpart Battos, from the stem meaning “stutter” (as in βατταρζω and βταλος).43 That sense accords far better with the “disorderly words” of Philitas’ title. A stammer, after all, is the ataktos glossa, the “unruly tongue” par excellence. If, as Peter Knox suggests, the adjective θο ν, with which Hermesianax describes Battis, means “volatile” (i.e., fickle), that, too, would fit the linguistic instability that we have seen appealed to Philitas.44 39. Knox even claims (ibid., 66) that Leontion is Hermesianax’ wife, though with no more evidence than there was for Battis. 40. Knox 1993: 66–67. 41. Latacz 1985. 42. Quotations from Latacz 1985: 90 and 91, respectively. 43. Cf. Masson 1976. 44. P. E. Knox 1993: 66. LSJ does not go this far. But cf. Knox’ commonsense remarks about the meaning of θο ν (email message to author, 28 January 2000): “Speed in a woman is not an attribute otherwise admired by poets, speed suggests running in general and running away in particular, and in love poetry a woman who runs away is typically represented as

26

The Scroll and the Marble

Anomolous meanings, words from the margins, and exotic customs stand at the heart of Philitas’ glosses.45 I have examined these—one-sidedly perhaps—against the normative language of Homer. But I should stress that Philitas’ aim was not simply to blaze new trails for poetry. There was something more at stake. At a time when there was growing pressure toward linguistic conformity through the spread of Koine Greek as the language of political administration46—a pressure to which people were more susceptible as they were pulled away from previously insular linguistic communities by the centrifugal forces of the age—a sense arose that dialect was a precious marker of identity that might be lost, should be studied, needed preservation.47 Against a trend to uniformity, “unruly tongues” might prove a potent antidote. One gets an inkling of their power when, in the very different context of his “Acontius and Cydippe,” Callimachus says: “Erudition is bad in one who can’t keep his tongue—his gloss!—in line. Truly, he’s like a child with a knife” (
V πολυιδρεη χαλεπν κακν, @στις καρτει
/ γλσσηςD Eς 6τεν παι
ς @δε µαυ
λιν (χει, fr. 75.8–9 Pf.).48 I want to close with a glance at the poetry of Philitas. Unfortunately, none of the twenty-five surviving words from the Ataktoi Glossai appears in the paltry remains of Philitas’ poetry, itself not more than fifty verses, some of them partial. Yet I believe we can get a taste of how his scholarly interests found expression in his poetry from the following example (Philitas fr. 16 Powell, Coll. Alex. 93 ⫽ 18 Sbardella ⫽ 20 Spanoudakis): γηρσαιτο δ+ νεβρς π ζων 4λσασα 4ξεης κκτου τµµα φυλαξαµνηD

[The deer can sing when it has lost its life if it avoids the prick of the sharp “kaktos.”] This enigmatic couplet is cited and explained by the late third-century b.c. paradoxographer Antigonus of Carystus with reference to the wondrous fickle . . . hence ‘volatile.’” Sbardella (2000: 56–59) summarizes attempts to explain this term and endorses Alfonsi’s (1943: 160–68, esp. 163) proposal that θο ν should be taken adverbially with µολπζοντα, “singing quickly” (i.e., “briefly”), on the model of its adverbial use at Od. 8.38. The reference is to the deliberate brevity of Philitas’ poems. 45. In Kuchenmüller (1928), the index lists words from eight dialects (Aeolic, Argive, Boeotian, Cyrenaean, Lesbic, Megarian, Sicyonian, Syracusan), as well as several rustic words. 46. Cf. the useful discussion by Horrocks (1997). 47. Cf. Hunter 1996: 31–45, esp. 32: “In the face of the advance of the koine, third century inscriptions reveal an impressive survival of both weak and strong Doric forms across wide geographic areas; linguistic difference was a living issue for Theocritus’ ancient readers.” 48. Note that the word for knife, µαυ
λις, is glossed by Eustathius as an Aeolic term (cf. Pfeiffer 1932: ad loc.).

The Unruly Tongue

27

properties of the “kaktos,” a thistle—or artichoke-like plant—that Theophrastus (Hist. Pl. 6.4.10; cf. Athen. 2.83) had said grows only in Sicily (Antig. Car. Mir. 8 ⫽ 34.40 Giannini 1966).
ττον δ+ τοτου θαυµαστν, καθωµιληµνον δ+ µα Ο"χ ?
λλον τ περ τν 6ν τJη
ΣικελYα κανθαν τν καλουµνην κκτονD ε,ς !ν @ταν (λαφος 6µβJη
κα τραυµατισθJη
, τ 4στα
φωνα κα χρηστα πρς α"λο1ς :σχει. @θεν κα C Φιλητα
ς 6ξηγ σατο περ α"τη
ς ε:παςD [No less marvelous than this, indeed proverbial, is the thorny plant from Sicily called the “kaktos.” When a deer steps on it and is pricked, its bones remain soundless and unusable for flutes. For that reason Philitas spoke of it.] No doubt the “kaktos” pricked Philitas’ interest in recherché words. It was not just that the plant was exotic and exclusively Sicilian, as Theophrastus had pointed out; the word itself confirms its regional pedigree in its earliest appearances. They occur in the poet Epicharmus, a Sicilian (frs. 159, 160, 161), and thereafter in his countryman Theocritus (10.4). We recall from the earlier example of kupella that Philitas was curious about Sicilian vocabulary. Beyond this we note that while the tradition of the “kaktos” prick apparently belongs to Sicilian lore, the flute made from deer bone was (according to Athen. 4.80) a Theban invention. Do we glimpse here Philitas’ interest not just in obscure traditions but in the changes wrought on them as they shift from one locality to another—that is, in the different meanings that accrue to them in different places, just as with the unruly words examined before? Philitas’ scholarly and poetic interests doubtless shaped the tastes of his pupil Ptolemy II Philadelphus. We now know that he honored his tutor’s memory with a bronze statue. But this king left a far greater monument to his mentor by championing the rapid growth of the great Library of Alexandria. It was a scholarly tool such as his learned teacher could only have dreamt of. But for the scholar-poets of the next generation, who admired Philitas and followed his example, it was the means to build on his model—Callimachus with his fascination for exotic lore and recherché words, Theocritus in his foregrounding of rural customs and language, Apollonius in his epic that teems with learned details from periegetic and ethnographic sources. It was also the instrument that facilitated the emergence of a privileged circle of learned readers—a tiny elite, to be sure, within a broader audience of diverse educational background, yet one best

28

The Scroll and the Marble

able to appreciate the polish, erudition, and, indeed, unruliness of the new poetry.49

Appendix: What Does Strato’s Phoinikides Tell Us about Philitas? We are fortunate to have a contemporary reference to Philitas’ Ataktoi Glossai in New Comedy. It comes in a scene from the Phoinikides by Strato (ca. 300 b.c.), known to us from Athenaeus (9.382c–383b) as well as from a late third-century b.c. papyrus from the Fayum (CGFP 219 ⫽ GLP 57, pp. 260–69). In it a master of the house describes his confrontation with a cook who speaks almost exclusively in Homerisms. Since the nature of the cook’s epic vocabulary directly affects how we interpret the reference to Philitas, I print the entire passage here.50 σφγγ/ ρρεν/, ο" µγειρον, ε,ς τν ο,καν ε:ληφ/D Zπλω
ς γρ ο"δ+ Iν, µ το1ς θεος,
ν [ν λγηι συνηµιD καιν 8 µατα E πεπορισµνος πρεστινD Eς ε,ση
λθε γρ, ε"θς µ/ 6πηρτησε προσβλψας µγαD “πσους κκληκας µροπας 6π δει
πνον; λγε.” “6γ5 κκληκα Μροπας 6π δει
πνον; χολα
ις. το1ς δ+ Μροπας τοτους µε γινσκειν δοκει
ς;” “ο"δ/ ρα παρσται δαιτυµ5ν ο"θες @λως;” \ξει Φιλι
νος, Μοσχων, Νικ ρατος, C δει
ν/, C δει
ναD” κατ/ =νοµ/ 6πεπορευµηνD

5

8 11 13

49. See Morgan 1998: esp. 94–95, on the great range of literate attainment: “One’s impression on reading Quintilian, and even more on reading other elite writers, is that they recommend virtually the whole of Greek and Latin literature . . . We know of some litterati whose learning was as wide as these accounts suggest, but it beggars belief that most pupils learnt anything like as much as this. When we look at the papyri we shall see that below the elite, the evidence is that most people did not read a fraction of it.” Cf. also Morgan’s concept of “elite litterati” (109–10): “literate education in provincial Egypt is quite different from its counterpart among elite litterati at Rome or Alexandria or Athens, despite the fact that it looks superficially similar. Some litterati knew, or claimed to know whole works, and even whole authors, by heart, and they had learnt the critical appreciation of literature along with the texts themselves. In the papyri there is no direct evidence of the reading of whole books, except very occasionally in summary.” Hellenistic poets were aware of this range of audiences and figured them in their poetry. Cf. Bing 1993b ⫽ next chapter; 1994. 50. The text reproduced here is that of Kassel-Austin PCG VII fr. 1. I am indebted to Page’s translation (GLP 57) for many particulars.

The Unruly Tongue

29

ο"κ V
ν 6ν α"τοι
ς ο"δ+ ε
ς µοι ∆αιτυµν. C δ/ Vγανκτησ/ Oσπερ Vδικηµνος @τι ο" κκληκα ∆αιτυµναD καινν σφδρα. “ο"δ/ ρα θεις 8ηξχθον/;” “ο_κ,” (φην, “6γ.” “βου
ν ε"ρυµτωπον;” “ο" θω βου
ν, θλιε.”
“µη
λα θυσιζεις ρα;” “µ ∆/ 6γ5 µ+ν ο_D” “τ µη
λα πρβαταD” “µη
λα πρβατ/; ο"κ ο,
δ/.” (φην, “µγειρε, τοτων ο"θν, ο"δ+ βολοµαιD γροικτερς ε,µ/, Oσθ/ Zπλω
ς µοι διαλγου.” “τς ο"λοχτας φρε δευ
ρο.” “του
το δ/ 6στ τ;”
ν, ππληκτε, περιπλοκς λγεις;” “κριθα.” “τ ο" “πηγς πρεστι;” “πηγς; ο"χ λαικσει, 6ρει
ς σαφστερν θ/ T βολει µοι λγειν;” “τσθαλς γ/ ε,
, πρσβυ,” φησν. “9λα φρεD του
τ/ (σθ/ C πηγς, του
το δει
ξον.” χρνιβον παρη
νD (θυεν, (λεγεν Iτερα µυρα τοιαυ
θ/ ` µ τν Γη
ν ο"δ+ ε
ς συνη
κεν ν, µστυλλα, µορας, δπτυχ/, 4βελοςD Oστ/ (δει τ του
Φιλιτα
λαµβνοντα βυβλα σκοπει
ν Iκαστον τ δναται τω
ν 8ηµτων. λλ/ κτευον α"τν Aδη µεταβαλ5ν νθρωπνως λαλει
ν τι. τν δ/ ο"κ ν ποτε (πεισεν ? Πειθ5 παραστα
σ/ α"τθι. κα µοι δοκει
8αψωιδοτοιοτου τινς δου
λος γεγον5ς 6κ παιδς Zλιτ ριος
ε, τ/ ναπεπλη
σθαι τω
ν ;Οµ ρου 8ηµτων.

15 17

21 23 25 34 35

40

45

50

[It’s a male sphinx, not a cook, that I’ve taken into my house; by the gods, I simply cannot grasp a thing he says. He’s come laden with newfangled words; for as soon as he came in, he looked at me and loudly asked, “How great a multitude of articulates have you asked to supper, say?”—“Me?! Ask Articulates to supper? You’re crazy! Do you think I know these Articulates?”—“Then shall there be no rationer at all?”— “Philinos is coming, Moschion, Nikeratos, this guy and that,” I ran through the names: there was not a single Rationer that I could see. He got annoyed, as if he’d been insulted that I hadn’t asked a Rationer. Very strange, believe me. “Then are you sacrificing no earth-breaker?”— “Not me,” I said.—“A broad-browed ox?”—“I’m not sacrificing oxen, ass!”—“Ewes shall be sacrificed, then?”—“Me?! By Zeus, no way!”— “Ewes are sheep.”—“Ewes sheep? Cook,” said I, “I don’t know, and I

30

The Scroll and the Marble

don’t want to know, anything about it. I’m just too countrified, so talk to me in plain language.”—“Bring hither the sacrificial groats.”—“And what are they?”—“The barley.”—“Then why say it so complicatedly, you cripple?”—“Is brine on hand?”—“Brine? Why don’t you suck my cock,51 and say what you want to say more plainly?”—“You are rash in word, aged sir,” he replied. “Bring me the salt—that is brine; show me where it lies.” The lustral basin was ready. He sacrificed, spoke another thousand words such as no one, by Earth, could understand: dicings, lots, double-folds, spits—till one would have had to use the books of Philitas and look up every word to check its meaning. Changing my tone, I begged him to say something like a human being. But Persuasion herself, if she had been right there, could not have persuaded him. I think the rogue had been the slave of some rhapsode-type from childhood and so was stuffed with Homer’s words.] To be sure, this cook is “stuffed with Homer’s words” and performs his culinary rites as though he had stepped off the scroll of a heroic epic.52 But in reality one needs little more than a rudimentary knowledge of Homer to appreciate the scene, for the epicisms of this cook are mostly far from rare.53 Indeed, even schoolchildren were expected to know these words: the third century b.c. papyrus that preserves our fragment was a schoolmaster’s book with texts for use in schools.54 We may confirm this by looking a bit closer at the cook’s vocabulary. 51. For the translation of this verb, cf. Jocelyn 1980. 52. The idea of a “Homeric” cook is actually a thoroughgoing anachronism. There is no professional specialist for cooking in the epics of Homer; the heroes do it themselves. The one instance that may point in the direction of professional specialization is the reference to heralds cooking in the shield of Achilles (Il. 18.558–59). According to the fourth-century atthidographer Kleidemos, this had long been the herald’s role (FGrH 323 F 5a). Cf., generally, Berthiaume 1982: 6–7. 53. With unwitting perception, the master speculates that his cook grew up as the slave of some rhapsode type (vv. 48–49), i.e., in the service of a not creative but merely reproductive bard. This is someone who serves up the familiar, not the uncommon. 54. In their editio princeps, Guérard and Jouguet (1938) argued that the scroll was a manual for schoolchildren. More recently, however, it has been seen as a schoolmaster’s text, from which the schoolmaster could draw for classroom use (cf. Cribiore 1996: 269, no. 379, with pp. 121–28). Besides our fragment, the papyrus contains a syllabary illustrating vowel usage with various consonants; lists of numbers, gods, rivers; brief excerpts from tragedy, epic (Odyssey), epigram; three scenes from New Comedy, all involving a cook; and finally a mathematical section. Parsons (1977: 5) speculates that a papyrus containing a text of a very different quality, Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices, was “the private preparation of a Fayumic schoolmaster,” but if he is suggesting that that poem was used in schools, it must have been for another level and quality of student altogether.

The Unruly Tongue

31

The word µρπες (“articulate people,” v. 6), though not appearing as a substantive in early epic (cf. first Aeschylus Cho. 1018) is common in both Homer and Hesiod as an epithet of “men” (e.g., Il. 1.250, 2.285; Od. 20.49; Hes. Op. 109). Likewise, δαιτµων, “rationer, banqueter” (v. 11), is well attested in the Odyssey as well as classical prose (e.g., Od. 4.621, 22.12; Hdt. 1.73; Plato Resp. 345c). The “earth-breaker,” 8ηξχθων (v. 19), is absent from earlier poetry; yet the meaning of the compound is sufficiently clear that we know that some large farm animal is intended. “Broad-browed oxen” (v. 20) are familiar figures from epic (cf., e.g., Il. 20.495; Od. 11.289; Hes. Theog. 291), as are “sheep” (v. 21; cf., e.g., Il. 18.524; Od. 9.45). And anyone acquainted with Homeric descriptions of sacrifice will recall the “barley groats,” ο"λοχται (v. 34; cf. Il. 1.449 etc.). The one truly obscure word is πηγς, “brine,” that is, salt derived from the sea (v. 36). Hereafter, however, we are back on familiar ground with the cook’s description of the master as “rash,” τσθαλος (v. 38; cf. Od. 4.693 etc.), as well as with the description of the sacrifice, with its “dicings,” µστυλλα (per Page ad loc., “plural of µστυλλον, as if that were a neuter noun: in fact the cook had used µστυλλον as 1st pers. sing. imperf. of the verb µιστλλω”); “lots,” µορας (Il. 8.470 etc.); “double-folds,” δπτυχα (Il. 1.461 etc.); and “spits,” 4βελος (Il. 1.465 etc.). Thus the schoolchildren to whom this excerpt might have been assigned would not have been overly taxed. On the contrary, they were probably meant to chuckle at the doltish master who, in blissful naïveté, reveals to the better instructed audience his own ignorance of epic idiom, which, ironically, he describes as “newfangled” (καινν, v. 3). Κοινν, “common,” would describe it better (though its use by a cook is novel indeed—and amusing). The quality of audience appreciation assumed by the poet is very telling. How different it is from that on which Aristophanes could count in his plays, where the humor required a high level of literary awareness (think only of the extended parodies of contemporary and earlier authors)! In our scene, by contrast, there are no irksome allusions to be dealt with; a schoolboy’s grasp of epic is to generate the happy smile of superior knowledge. The reference to the glossary of Philitas should not mislead us. When Strato’s distressed employer is nearly driven to consult this learned work, we cannot imagine that many spectators would have laughed because they had used it themselves. The overwhelming majority would probably only have heard of it, finding it exotic and, in this context, funny, an extravagant remedy for something so commonplace: for the thought of consulting it comes just when the cook’s preliminary arrangements culminate—not in an

32

The Scroll and the Marble

action puzzling to a minimally cultured Greek, but in a conventional Homeric sacrifice (vv. 40–42) such as virtually anyone would know from numerous instances in the Iliad or Odyssey, a “typical scene,” as Homerists would call it (cf., e.g., Il. 1.458–68, 2.421–31; Od. 3.454–63). Thus, while Strato’s fragment does indeed testify to the notoriety of Philitas’ Ataktoi Glossai, it is hardly grounds for imagining that it was “eine Art lexikalischer Bestseller,” as J. Latacz proposed.55 Certainly it suggests that Homeric words comprised some part of the Ataktoi Glossai, that the public may even have pigeonholed the book on the basis of this particular aspect. But it mainly suggests that a patina of difference from everyday usage allowed Homeric diction to stand, corporately, for language that needed to be explained. Thus, to the question in the title of this appendix—what does Strato’s Phoinikides tell us about Philitas?—we must sadly answer, Not a great deal.

55. Latacz 1985: 78. To be fair, he included the qualification “wenn wir der Komödie trauen dürfen.”

chapter 2

Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo


T

oward the end of the Delian section of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, as the climactic event in his description of the great Ionian festival, the blind singer of Chios presents what he calls “a great wonder, whose fame shall never perish” (µγα θαυ
µα, @ου κλος ο_ποτ/ 4λει
ται, v. 156). This “wonder” is the chorus of Delian maidens, who sing hymns to Apollo, Leto, and Artemis, followed by songs about “men and women of old.” What is truly wondrous about their performance, however, is their ability “to mimic the voices and sounds of all men. Each man,” claims the poet, “would say that he himself is speaking. So closely fitted [i.e., in its verisimilitude] is their beautiful song” (πντων δ/ νθρπων φωνς κα κρεµβαλιαστ1ν / µιµει
σθ/ :σασινD φαη δ κεν α"τς Iκαστος / φθγγεσθ/D οaτω σφιν καλ συνρηρεν οιδ , vv. 162–64).1 The Deliades’ simulation is certainly an awe-inspiring feat. How, one might ask, could an individual listener find his voice reflected in the collective voice of the chorus—moreover, a speaking voice in that of a singing voice? Further, how could a multitude of listeners each think that he was speaking when the chorus sang its song? The relationship between these voices—individual’s and chorus’, spectators’ and performer’s—was, I think, to intrigue Callimachus some two This is an updated version of an article that appeared in TAPA 123 (1993) 181–98. © 1993. The American Philological Association. 1. The difficulties that these verses present to interpretation are notorious. See my appendix to the present essay for a discussion.

33

34

The Scroll and the Marble

and a half centuries later.2 The Hellenistic poet certainly recurred to this Homeric hymn with remarkable insistence, mining it as a source.3 And the multiplication of voice, with its concomitant effects on the listener—that µγα θαυ
µα, which brought the Deliades undying fame—is as striking a component of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo as it was in its archaic counterpart. Callimachus seems to have taken the traditional monologic speech of hexameter hymn and invested it here with a veritable chorus of voices. In his hands it becomes a nexus of overlapping identities (cf. Winkler 1985: 203), whose components cannot easily be disentangled or even held distinct. Perhaps that µγα θαυ
µα of the Deliades challenged the poet to produce one of his own, a contemporary equivalent that might likewise secure him undying fame. With his six hymns, Callimachus was apparently the first poet to make extensive use of the Homeric hymns and to revive them as a genre. He did so, I think, because, first of all, they suited his aesthetic program: they were pleasing in their limited size and lack of epic bombast, yet they could be viewed as genuinely “Homeric.”4 Their use as a model would permit Callimachus to turn the Homeric tradition to productive use without trying to rival it, for here he would find those aspects that were less known, atypical, unfaded. Hans Herter has aptly called this the desire to be, “in the footsteps of Homer, as un-Homeric as possible” (1929: 50 ⫽ 1975: 371). What is more, Callimachus conspicuously uncoupled the genre from its original task and, in so doing, made what I consider a programmatic gesture. For whereas the evidence, both internal and external, suggests that such hymns previously functioned as prooimia (or preludes) to epic recitation and were unthinkable apart from epic performance (signaling in fact that this would shortly begin),5 the Hellenistic poet—counter to those expectations—simply dropped the epic sequel as inconsistent with his aesthetic goals and made the hymn stand on its own, a selfcontained and independent genre—“as un-Homeric as possible,” though still “in the footsteps of Homer.” Second, and even more important for the question of voice, these hymns provided the only “Homeric” model 2. For the date of the Homeric hymn, cf. Burkert 1979: 59–62; on that of Callimachus’ hymn, cf. Williams 1978: 2, 36 ad v. 26. 3. For its influence on, e.g., Callimachus’ hymns to Artemis and Delos, cf. Bing 1988: chap. 3 passim; Bing and Uhrmeister 1994. 4. Thucydides (3.102) and Pindar (Pae. 7b ⫽ fr. 52h Snell-Maehler) considered the Homeric Hymn to Apollo to be genuinely Homeric (cf. Bing 1988: 104–5), and similar hymns were evidently part of the rhapsodic tradition of the Homeridai, who—as their name suggests— situated themselves squarely in the Homeric tradition as if they were his heirs. 5. On the Homeric hymns as prooimia, cf. Richardson 1974: 3–4; Janko 1981.

Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo

35

that permitted the unmediated involvement of the poet’s persona apart from the formulaic first person of the opening and closing of the poem (cf. the blind singer of Chios, h.Ap. 165ff. and Hesiod in his hymn to the Muses at the start of the Theogony). The possibilities of first-person voice in the hexameter hymn were clearly congenial to Callimachus; and his Hymn to Apollo puts them to breathtaking, if deliberately provocative, use.6 The scene in this hymn is a temple precinct of Apollo; the occasion, a religious festival. But questions at once assail us. Which of the many festivals of Apollo are we to imagine? And where in the world is this temple set? For the time being, we are simply left in the dark. The poem begins as follows: Ο
ον C τπλλωνος 6σεσατο δφνινος @ρπηξ, ο
α δ/ @λον τ µλαθρονD 2κς 2κς @στις λιτρς. κα δ που τ θρετρα καλMω
ποδ Φοι
βος ρσσειD ο"χ CρYας; 6πνευσεν C ∆ λιος ?δ τι φοι
νιξ 6ξαπνης, C δ+ κκνος 6ν Vρι καλν εδει α"το νυ
ν κατοχη
ες νακλνασθε πυλων, α"τα δ+ κληι
δεςD C γρ θες ο"κτι µακρ νD ο δ+ νοι µολπ ν τε κα 6ς χορν 6ντνασθε.

5

[How Apollo’s laurel branch is shaking how the whole house is. Away, away, you who are impious. Phoebus must now be kicking the doors with his beautiful foot. What! Don’t you see? All of a sudden the Delian palm tree’s nodding in joy, in the air the swan’s singing sweetly. Fly apart yourselves, you bars of the gates, you bolts as well. The god is no longer far. Begin your singing and dancing, boys.] We are plunged medias in res, into an atmosphere of breathless anticipation. No device of third-person narration distances us from the event. There is a documentary (“you are there”) perspective: A speaker exclaims at the signs of the imminent arrival of the god and issues orders to those who are present. The breathlessness of his excitement is conveyed by the massed h sounds in the first two lines (hoion ho . . . horpex; hoia d’ holon; hekas hekas hostis). Paradoxically, the Hellenistic shift toward reading and away from “live” performance as the primary means of encountering literature 6. On first-person role playing in Greek poetry generally, cf. the pioneering discussion of Dover (1964: 206–12).

36

The Scroll and the Marble

actually heightens the vividness of the experience. For even as this age put unparalleled emphasis on the written aspect of the text (Bing 1988: chap. 1), it simultaneously maintained an appreciative ear for the play of sounds on the page. Consequently, active readers (as opposed to those merely listening) would themselves experience the very symptoms of breathlessness as, to a greater or lesser extent, they reproduced (and relished) those sounds in the act of reading.7 We see, then, how, right from the start, the audience is unwittingly drawn out of its detached sense of self and into the scene and how the speaker’s voice insinuates itself—physiologically!—into that of the reader. This process, an unobtrusive penetration of the barriers between voices, is all the more astonishing for emanating from an inanimate object, the papyrus scroll containing the hymn.8 Miraculous signs abound. The laurel shakes; the palm tree nods; the doors are rattling. The urgent question ο"χ CρYας; (What! Don’t you see?) is obviously addressed to an unspecified bystander, a fellow celebrant in the ritual (and one who, by his very presence, is clearly not λιτρς, “impious”; cf. v. 2). But a reader might well do a double take at this question, glancing uneasily over his shoulder as though to ask, “Who, me?” For the style of the hymn clearly coaxes the reader into the role of one of the worshipers, into identifying with the ritual community (Koster 1983: 19; Albert 1988: 66 n. 189). But though the intensity of the voice is almost palpable and though details of the scene seem to spring to life before our eyes—due, in part, to the extraordinary accumulation of definite articles in this section of the hymn (a conventional sign that something is actually present)9—we nonetheless observe that the wondrous happenings are notably generic.10 The laurel, the palm, the swan, the shaking of the temple and eerie rattling of the doors, the bolts and bars that are to spring open by themselves at the god’s approach—all these are traditional features of temple lore, miracle stories that will make the scene seem familiar, while excluding no one with all-too-specific details. And who is the speaker? In7. I do not mean to return to the old view that silent reading did not exist in antiquity. It clearly did, as Bernard M. W. Knox showed (1968). It is just as clear, however, that reading out loud (whether to oneself or to others) remained entirely normal, even though the poets of the Hellenistic age stressed the purely visual aspects of the text as never before and elevated the book to the status of “literary theme.” On the general impact of reading aloud in Greek culture, cf. Svenbro 1993. 8. I will show later in this discussion how another voice, too, that of the chorus, insinuates itself into that of the reader. 9. Cf. Svensson 1937: 60–63 with Williams 1978: ad vv. 7, 28, 32. For this and other means of conveying the vividness of the experience, cf. Harder 1992: 389. 10. Seeck (1975: 201ff.) draws a similar contrast between intensely realistic details and what is generic in Theocritus’ Idyll 7.

Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo

37

dications are remarkably vague. Nevertheless, the imperatives in lines 2, 6, and 8 suggest, I think, a person in a position of authority. Perhaps, as in hymns 5 and 6, we are meant to think of someone officiating: a master of ceremonies or priest perhaps.11 With the following lines, the speaker introduces a new and important distinction within the ritual community. Eπλλων ο" παντ φαενεται, λλ/ @τις 6σθλςD
τος, Tς ο"κ :δε, λιτς 6κει
νος. @ς µιν :δJη, µγας ο#
4ψµεθ/, b ;Εκεργε, κα 6σσµεθ/ ο_ποτε λιτο.

10

[Apollo doesn’t appear to all, but only the noble [@τις 6σθλς]; he who sees him is great, he who hasn’t seen, poor. O god who works from afar, we will see you and we will never be poor.] As we recall, the impious had already been warned to keep away (v. 2). But even among those remaining (i.e., even among the pious), not all will see Apollo. Those so favored are the elite.12 And the prospect of such favor raises the speaker’s feelings to such a pitch that it prompts, at verse 11, his
;Εκεργε) as well as the first instance of first direct address of the god (b first-person speech. Significantly, perhaps, it is first-person plural. Who is the speaker including thereby? Surely, after the startling ο"χ CρYας; (What! Don’t you see?) of verse 4, we are justified in suspecting that this is not just the conventional poetic plural: we may be meant; Apollo may appear to us. The speaker’s attention now swings back to the chorus of youths. With Apollo at hand, he says, they must not keep silent. And evidently, the youths comply, for the speaker exclaims, “Well done, boys, since the lyre is no longer still” (Vγασµην το1ς παι
δας, 6πε χλυς ο"κτ/ εργς, v. 16). With music in the air, the worshipers are commanded ε"φηµει
τε (v. 17), the traditional order for reverent silence during the ritual, here during the 11. Cf. Koster 1983: 18ff. I. Petrovic (2007: 134–36) revives the suggestion of Cairns (1979: 121–26) that the speaker is the chorus leader. The speaker’s orders to the group of celebrants as a whole, however, far exceed what one would expect of someone in that position. 12. Unlike the 6σθλς who sees the god and so becomes “great” (µγας), a worshiper who does not see Apollo will be “poor” (λιτς)—a term denoting C πνης κα δηµτης, according to the Etymologicum Magnum, i.e., here precisely a commoner among the celebrants, as opposed to one of the elect to whom the god will appear. Being thus “poor,” one may not have the distinction within the group of an 6σθλς, but that is a far cry from being “impious” (λιτρς). The λιτο can evidently not be equated with the λιτρο, who were banished from the scene altogether in v. 2.

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The Scroll and the Marble

performance of the paean, Apollo’s song.13 But at this point, we notice a telling detail, one whose full significance has not been grasped: even the sea, notes the speaker, maintains such silence when singers celebrate Apollo’s implements, the lyre and the bow (ε"φηµει
κα πντος, @τε κλεουσιν οιδο / X κθαριν X τξα, Λυκωρος (ντεα Φοβου, vv. 18–19). In his commentary on these lines, Frederick Williams correctly points to the long-standing belief that “the natural world observes ritual silence at the god’s epiphany” (1978: ad 18). And that is indeed what was traditionally thought to occur. But Williams misses the crucial point. For here the sea observes silence not for an epiphany in any conventional sense but for songs, for songs about the god: that is, the evocation of the god in song is sufficient to produce the effects normally associated with epiphany; or differently, the song itself apparently realizes that epiphany. The implications of such a view for the interpretation of this hymn are substantial. It explains, I think, the vivid dramatic pose. For the choice of that pose accentuates the sense that the literary work is itself the sacrament, the hymn itself an epiphany in the process of being accomplished.14 Consequently, the ritual community will actually embrace the community of readers, and these—or at least the 6σθλο (the noble)—may indeed be able to experience not just a vivid representation, but the epiphany itself. Will we be among them? The blurring of the lines between the audience in the poem and that outside it, then, is not mere play (though it’s certainly that as well). We hear now how the speaker commands the chorus to being their song. “Sing Hie hie,” he tells them (  φθγγεσθε, v. 25), the ritual cry that served as the paean’s refrain.15 Such exhortations commonly signal the start of a cult song.16 Our expectations, therefore, are primed. Yet with 13. That the “song for Apollo,” which the worshipers are to listen to in silence (ε"φηµει
τ/ οντες 6π/ /Απλλωνος οιδJη
), will indeed be a paean is first suggested by the mythical comparison of Thetis in vv. 20–21, who stills her lament for Achilles Cππθ/  παιη
ον  παιη
ον κοσJη, and is confirmed in v. 25 when the speaker calls for precisely this genre’s ritual cry,   φθγγεσθε. 14. Depew (1992: 328–29) perceptively discusses Callimachus’ simulation of performative context in his Iambi as a function of their “essential textuality” (329). See also Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 155: “this hymn is itself a manifestation of the god . . . The reception of the poem is itself the presence (τ 6πιδηµει
ν) of the god.” 15. This may, of course, also be addressed to the celebrants at large. It would thus be an exhortation to join in the refrain of a paean that—one must presume—is already in progress or just beginning. The paean as a genre displays fair flexibility in its use of voice: though mainly sung by choruses (male or female), it could also be performed solo, and the refrain could be joined by members of the ritual community. Cf. Käppel 1992: 80–81. 16. Cf. Nisbet and Hubbard 1970: ad Hor. C.1.21.1. Cf. also Hopkinson 1984: ad H. Dem. 1: “The opening hortatory imperative to choir or participants is standard in cult-hymns.”

Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo

39

these words, the stage is set for a new ambiguity of voice. There can be no doubt that a choral song occurs in the subsequent course of the hymn,17 that it probably begins soon after the speaker’s command, and that it is evidently still in progress over seventy lines later at verse 97, when the speaker says that he hears the refrain (  παιη
ον κοοµεν). But in between these two more or less fixed points—that is, between the injunction to sing in verse 25 and the reference to hearing the song at verse 97—all is uncertainty. There are no introductory or closing formulae to set off reported speech; there is nothing comparable to quotation marks that could help us distinguish the voices.18 Still, there is clearly a shift away from the poem’s vivid mimetic frame to a more conventional hymnic narrative, and that may well be due to the chorus’ song. Concerning the precise location of this shift, however, there are conflicting signals. Verses 28–29 seem to suggest that the song is already in progress, since we hear that Apollo will honor the chorus because it is singing (n.b. the tense) in a pleasing fashion: τν χορν Eπλλων, @ τι ο κατ θυµν εδει, / τιµ σει. With regard to content, however, the shift to the song would seem to occur at line 32, where the god’s appearance becomes the theme. Some critics have accordingly settled on this as the start of “the hymn proper.”19 Stylistically, however, the section is still of a piece with that preceding it. There is still, as there had been from the start, that extraordinary accumulation of definite articles—as we recall, a conventional sign, not characteristic of hymnic style, for something actually present before one’s eyes. Perhaps, therefore, we are still in the mimetic frame, 17. It had already been anticipated in v. 8 (ο δ+ νοι µολπ ν τε κα 6ς χορν 6ντνασθε) and vv. 12–13 (µ τε σιωπηλν κθαριν µ τ/ ψοφον :χνος / του
Φοβου το1ς παι
δας (χειν 6πιδηµ σαντος). By v. 16, as we have seen, the instrumental accompaniment, at least, has begun (Vγασµην το1ς παι
δας, 6πε χλυς ο"κτ/ εργς). A sequence of events is thus dramatized, which moves from inactivity to action on the part of the chorus of youths—n.b. that they are praised at v. 16 because the lyre is no longer inactive (ο"κτ/ εργς). This makes very unlikely Cairns’ assertion (1979: 121) that hymn 2 as a whole “is a choric hymn imagined by Callimachus as sung at the Karneia by a chorus of boys or young men” and that these are instances of “choric self-address and self-fulfilling injunction.” 18. On this Hellenistic affectation, cf. Bing 1988: 76 n. 42; McLennan 1977: ad v. 7 and app. II, “Direct Speech in the Hymns of Callimachus” (pp. 146–47). 19. Thus Williams (1978: 3 and ad vv. 32–96). Similarly, e.g., Wilamowitz (1924: II 78, 83, 85) and Erbse (1955: 422 ⫽ Skiadas 1975: 291). Somewhat more differentiated is the view of Albert (1988: 68–70): he, too, sees the start of the “eigentlicher Hymnus” (70) at v. 32 but would place a shift in speaker at v. 17, taking vv. 1–16 as the words of the chorus leader, vv. 17–31 as the “Vorgesang” of the chorus itself, and vv. 32ff. as its hymn. Harder (1992: 391) thinks that the voice in vv. 32ff. might be either the speaker’s or the chorus’ but that “in both cases . . . it is suggested by 30f. that the contents of the narrative/descriptive part are taken from a large range of existing songs and stories.”

40

The Scroll and the Marble

with the description referring to a cult statue, as argued by Williams (1978: ad 32). Other critics have placed the shift at line 47, the start of a section concerned with Apollo’s various functions in the country and in the city (e.g., Wifstrand 1933: 25n; Svensson 1937: 61). Here, the incidence of the definite article drops precipitously until the clear return of the ritual frame near the end of the poem.20 Other scholars, such as Malten (1911: 45) and Cahen in his Budé edition (19493: 221), have located the shift at still other places. And it may be that this confusion of critical voices reflects a deliberate ambiguity. We cannot find the seam; perhaps we were never meant to.21 We must still determine, however, how to construe the voicing of the verses falling roughly between the command to the chorus at verse 25 and the return to the frame at verse 97. Are they (1) the text of the chorus’ song, (2) the speaker’s perception of that song, or (3) simply the discourse of the speaker independent of the chorus?22 This last possibility is in any case unlikely. For if, as already argued, verses 28–29 suggest that the chorus is already singing, the next verses (30–31) invite—though they do not compel—us to view what follows as a reflection of that song, for they promise the chorus’ continued celebration of Phoebus, who (we are told) is a bounteous theme. And since the subsequent sections of the hymn actually go on to celebrate diverse aspects of the god, it appears that this promise is fulfilled.23 Further, the presence of the refrain   Καρνει
ε πολλλιτε at verse 80—not filtered through an external source, but simply 20. From vv. 47–104, Wifstrand (1933) calculates three instances in fifty-eight lines. In the fifty-five lines of vv. 1–46 and 105–13, by contrast, he finds no fewer than thirty-three. Cf. Williams 1978: ad v. 7. 21. In connection with the indeterminate nature of the voice, cf. Roland Barthes’ description (1974: 41) of the “plural text”: “The more indeterminate the origin of the statement, the more plural the text. In modern texts, the voices are so treated that any reference is possible: the discourse, or better, the language, speaks: nothing more. By contrast, in the classic text the majority of utterances are assigned an origin, we can identify their parentage, who is speaking . . . ; however, it may happen that in the classic text, always haunted by the appropriation of speech, the voice gets lost, as though it had leaked out through a hole in the discourse.” 22. Wilamowitz (1924: II 78) pinpoints the problem: “Man kann nicht anders denken, als dass es das Lied auf Apollon ist, das die Knaben 17 anstimmen wollten. Aber das scheint nicht möglich, denn in diesem Hymnus spricht ja der Dichter aus eigener Person. Da sitzt die Schwierigkeit.” 23. Here again, however, there is ambiguity. For the interrogative pronoun τς in the question τς [ν ο" 8α Φοι
βον εδοι; (31), which follows immediately upon the promise of the chorus’ continued celebration of Phoebus in 30–31, may refer either to the chorus (the subject of the previous verse: ο"δ/ C χορς τν Φοι
βον 6φ/ dν µνον V
µαρ εσει) or to a given poet, such as—presumably—the speaker of our hymn. In other words, the subsequent sections may be viewed as instantiating either the ease with which the chorus can celebrate the god or that with which an individual may do so.

Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo

41

integrated into the narrative (as indeed it would be in a paean)—clearly suggests a link in this part of the poem between the spoken hexameter discourse of the hymn and the chorus’ song ( pace Erbse). Of the other two possibilities, one must say of the first that if this is the text of the chorus’ song, it is in any case at one remove from its source. For it is translated out of the singing meters conventionally used for the choral paean and into an individual’s spoken verse—the form already identified in this poem with the voice of the speaker. Consequently, the simplest solution is the second: namely, that we have before us the speaker’s perception of the choral song.24 The melody will, of course, have been lost. But that loss enables the speaker to adopt the choral voice and fit it to his own—and not only to his own. That extended ritual community—each individual, wherever he may be in the inevitable “diaspora” of readership—can, in the private enactment of the poem through reading, experience the same.25 “Each man,” to quote the Homeric hymn, “might say that he himself is speaking. So closely fitted is their beautiful song” (vv. 163–64). May we suggest that this “fitting” of the choral voice to that of others in Callimachus specifically reflects his interpretation of the verb συνρηρεν, “closely fitted,” in the phrase οaτω σφιν καλ συνρηρεν οιδ at verse 164 of the Homeric hymn?26 The “great wonder” of the Delian maidens is perhaps the more wondrous here for no longer being limited to those actually present at the performance on Delos. Perhaps Callimachus has capped his model by exploiting the unparalleled possibilities of dissemination inherent in the written text as opposed to traditional “live” performance. 24. Thus already Wilamowitz (1924: II 79), followed by Erbse (1955: 422 ⫽ Skiadas 1975: 291). A similar interpretation is proposed by Hurst (1994). 25. Speaking the poem out loud or to themselves, readers will tend to identify their voices to some extent with those within the text. Compared with earlier times, of course, the relatively greater prominence of silent, more purely visual reading in the Hellenistic period offered readers greater latitude in deciding their degree of involvement with a text. For in their silence, they might initially approach a text quite casually and noncommittally, just trying its perspective on for size, while actually still withholding identification. In the more oral cultures of archaic and classical periods, by contrast, one may well speak, with Jesper Svenbro, of the reading voice having “to submit to the written word” and of “a reader dispossessed of his own voice,” a reader who “in these circumstances . . . has but one means of resistance: he can refuse to read” (1993: 47). 26. Another striking instance of Callimachus’ elaboration of a brief (and difficult) passage from a Homeric hymn into a major element in one of his own occurs in his Hymn to Demeter. Here Callimachus takes a passing reference to a woodcutter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (v. 229) and expands it into the story of the impious woodcutter Erysichthon. For a detailed analysis of this elaboration, see the essay “Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter” in the present volume.

42

The Scroll and the Marble

It is the written form of the hymn that blurs the line between the voices in the poem and those of its audience. And it may be worth stressing here that it is also the written aspect of the poem that, as I am sure Callimachus was aware, occasions many of the ambiguities of voice with which we have been dealing thus far. For if we were actually present as spectators at a ritual celebration, it would be clear who was speaking. We would have no doubt as to whether a chorus was singing or an individual reciting. We would see to whom the question ο"χ CρYας; was addressed, just as we would be able to situate the speaking voices within a specific setting. We would know what tie—if any—bound us to the ritual community, that is, whether we were passionately involved or adopting the attitude “wait and see.” Translate that ritual celebration onto the roll, however, and distinctions of voice (as well as those of setting and audience composition) are for the most part erased.27 This is an experience not unlike what Hellenistic scholars, Callimachus among them, must have had when they dealt with the occasional poetry of archaic and classical times. For this poetry arrived in the Hellenistic era largely in written form, severed from its original Sitz im Leben in performance and stripped of its musical and choreographic dimension (cf. Herington 1985: 42–45). Not surprisingly, there was little clarity among these scholars about the manner in which such poems would originally have been performed.28 Could it be that this scholarly encounter with works in which the source of voice was not easy to pin down piqued Callimachus’ interest in developing such indeterminacy for aesthetic effect?29 27. This will be the case unless, of course, one supplements the text descriptively as in reported speech (e.g., “standing next to the temple, where the chorus was dancing, I heard them sing the following . . .”) and so fills out those elements that in performance would be self-evident to the viewer. 28. Herington 1985: 27–28 with n. 68. The recent controversy about whether the epinicians of Pindar and Bacchylides were choral or solo is just a modern instance of the problem caused by the unadapted translation of “performative” poetry onto the page. For arguments advocating solo epinician, cf. Lefkowitz 1985: 33–64; Lefkowitz 1988; Heath 1988; Lefkowitz and Heath 1991. For arguments advocating choral epinician, cf. Carey 1989: 545–66; 1991: 192–200; Burnett 1989: 283–94; Bremer 1990: 41–58. 29. Hunter and Fuhrer (2002: 156) suggest something quite similar, though in connection with another model for Callimachus’ hymn, Pythian 5—the Pindaric ode at the heart of the arguments about solo versus choral performance mentioned in the previous note: “It is . . . not improbable that it was precisely the ambiguous identity of the singers of Pythian 5, a matter discussed in antiquity as well as (endlessly) by modern scholars, from which Callimachus developed the apparently shifting location of the ‘speaking voice’ in his Hymn to Apollo. As so often, he goes one step beyond his models. His reworking highlights by exaggeration the problems that arise when a performative text, such as Pythian 5, is read away from performance; it is the read and written text that offers the limit case of the text as script.”

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Moving on in our examination of the hymn, we must now contend with the addition of one final layer of voice. In the section of the poem immediately preceding the return to the ritual frame, the focus shifts from Apollo’s role in the foundation of cities generally (vv. 55–64) to his particular connection with the city of Cyrene. And this connection is expressed in a startlingly intimate and partisan way. Φοι
βος κα βαθγειον 6µν πλιν (φρασε ΒττMω κα Λιβην 6σιντι κραξ ?γ σατο λαMω
δεξις ο,κιστη
ρι, κα eµοσε τεχεα δσειν ?µετροις βασιλευ
σινD ε δ/ ε_ορκος /Απλλων. eπολλον, πολλο σε Βοηδρµιον καλουσι, πολλο δ+ Κλριον, πντη δ τοι ο_νοµα πουλD α"τρ 6γ5 Καρνει
ονD 6µο πατριον οaτω.

65

70

[It was Phoebus, too, who told Battus of my fertile city, and, as a raven, he led the people when they journeyed to Libya, a favorable sign for the founder, and he swore he’d give walls to our kings; and Apollo always keeps his word. Oh Apollo, many men call you Boedromios, many men Klarios; in every place you have many names. But I call you Karneios, since that is the way of my ancestors.] After the striking lack of personal and geographical detail in the opening sections of the hymn, we are now confronted with two important particulars. First of all, it would seem that we may now plausibly locate the dramatic setting of the hymn in Cyrene.30 Secondly, the speaker is suddenly revealed as being from Cyrene. But whose voice is it? Students of Greek lyric will point out that the use of the first-person singular in no way precludes it from being the collective voice of the chorus (which, we recall, is just in the midst of its performance). Another possibility will of course be the speaker. But the speaker’s identity itself acquires an added twist with 30. A passing reference at v. 15 to walls on ancient foundations visible at the site of the ritual (τ τει
χος 6π/ ρχαοισι θεµθλοις) had already suggested that the location was a city. Now the specific reference to Apollo’s promise of walls to the Cyrenaean kings (eµοσε τεχεα δσειν / ?µετροις βασιλευ
σιν, vv. 67–68), as well as the Cyrenaean focus of the entire section (vv. 65–96), strongly suggest that location. The god’s role here in construction is productively analyzed by Calame (1993: esp. the section “New Semantic Directions”). Calame sees this theme as a leitmotif of the narrative section of the hymn, which proceeds from the “unconstructed space” of “precivilized nomadic life” in the Admetus episode (vv. 47–54); to the Delian Keraton, “the first civilized structure on a virgin territory” (vv. 55–64); to the construction of the city of Cyrene itself (vv. 65ff.).

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the information about Cyrene. For Callimachus was from Cyrene (Ep. 21 Pf. ⫽ 29 GP), and what is more, he was a descendant of Battus, the city’s founder mentioned at the start of the passage just quoted (Ep. 35 Pf. ⫽ 30 GP).31 Since this whole Cyrenaean section (vv. 65–96) also concludes with the statement that the descendants of Battus honor no god more than Apollo (ο"δ+ µ+ν α"το / Βαττιδαι Φοβοιο πλον θεν λλον (τισαν, vv. 95–96), we may wonder—as a third-century b.c. audience certainly would have—whether these references are deliberately meant to tantalize, whether they are in fact biographical clues.32 Though the hymn stubbornly resists an answer, we are impelled to ask what the relationship is between the first-person voice and the poet? To what extent, if at all, has Callimachus been speaking all this time? And if there are now hints of an identification of sorts, of a retreat into the pose of “author,” what then are we who had been coaxed into adopting the role of celebrants—in part because there had previously been no local or personal detail to exclude us? Perhaps we are readers. But then, without preparation or explanation, comes the ending. C Φθνος /Απλλωνος 6π/ ο_ατα λθριος ε,
πενD ο"κ γαµαι τν οιδν Tς ο"δ/ @σα πντος εδει.
δ τ/ (ειπενD τν Φθνον Eπλλων ποδ τ/ Aλασεν E /Ασσυρου ποταµοι
ο µγας 8ος, λλ τ πολλ λµατα γη
ς κα πολλν 6φ/ aδατι συρφετν Iλκει. ∆ηοι
δ/ ο"κ π παντς aδωρ φορουσι µλισσαι, λλ/ \τις καθαρ τε κα χραντος νρπει πδακος 6ξ ερη
ς 4λγη λιβς κρον ωτον. χαι
ρε, ναξD C δ+ Μω
µος, Gν/ C Φθνος, (νθα νοιτο.

105

110

[Envy speaks furtively into Apollo’s ear: “I don’t like that poet who does not even sing as much as the sea.” Apollo drives Envy away with a kick and speaks as follows: 31. The “labilità” between the voices of speaker, chorus, and poet has been well described by Falivene (1990: esp. 116–17). Cf. also Calame 1993. 32. In this light, it is possible to read the reference to “our kings” (?µετροις βασιλευ
σιν) at v. 68 as meaning “the kings of our family” (thus Williams 1978: ad loc.). The “lives” of the Greek poets became, in this period, the subject matter not only of scholarly biography but of poetry as well. For a discussion of some of this material, see Bing 1993a. Cf. also, e.g., Callimachus fr. 64, Pf. on the tomb of Simonides; Sotades 15 (p. 243 Powell) on the deaths of great poets; Hermesianax on the beloveds of great poets (p. 98 Powell), Euphorion Hesiod frs. 22, 22b (p. 34 Powell); and the great wealth of biographical material in the epigrams collected by Gabathuler (1937). On “Dichterbiographie” as literary theme in Roman poetry, see Krasser (1995).

Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo

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“Great is the stream of the Assyrian river, but much sludge of the earth and much rubbish it drags along on its waters. The bees don’t bring water to Deo from everywhere, but that which gurgles up pure and unsullied from the sacred spring, the tiny spray, the finest blossom. Fairwell, lord. And may Blame go to the same place as Envy.”] It appears that an epiphany has occurred before us after all. And what does Apollo do when he appears? He takes, to our surprise, a stand on poetry. Responding to Envy’s complaint that the hymn isn’t long enough, he counters first with a vigorous kick, then with a pair of metaphors that illustrate the Callimachean ideal of the diminutive art work: though perhaps lacking in size, it avoids the usual trash associated with longer forms, such as epic (Homer excluded, of course). For Callimachean poetry is not just small, it is pure.33 In this epiphany, the play of voice that has spanned the poem seems to crystallize, even as the cultic and purely literary aspects merge. True to the speaker’s fervent certainty at the start (v. 11), we have seen Apollo and proven ourselves 6σθλο. Or some of us have, at least. For each reader must appraise his own experience of the poem and decide whether he may now answer yes to the question ο"χ CρYας; The verbs ε,
πεν (v. 105), Aλασεν and (ειπεν (v. 107) permit us either response. If the poem’s agitated “you are there” immediacy appeals to us, if the speaker’s breathless excitement at Apollo’s imminent arrival has swept us along, we may construe the forms as “instantaneous” aorists: the speaker is describing what has just that moment taken place before his eyes34 and, within the hymn’s dramatic frame, what has taken place before our own as well. We see the god. Alternatively, if our imaginative involvement does not go that far, we construe them, with greater detachment, as “historical” aorists.35 The text studiously avoids 33. Asper (1997: 109–25) usefully surveys the varying interpretations of the metaphors in the hymn’s final section. 34. As, for example, in the aorists of 6σεσατο (v. 1), 6πνευσεν (v. 4), and Vγασµην (v. 16). Thus Williams (1978; ad ε,
πεν, v. 105), following Erbse (1955: 423 ⫽ 1975: 293). 35. Thus Wilamowitz (1924: II 86), Koster (1983: 17–18), and Albert (1988: 72 n. 211). In the same direction, Richard Hunter acknowledges that the hymn seeks “to ‘envision’ narrative through a powerful mode of enargeia,” but to the question ο"χ CρYας; he feels “we are compelled to answer ‘well, no’” (1992b: 12–13). A decade later, Hunter and Fuhrer (2002: 155) seem to envision readers far more actively implicated in the hymn’s epiphany: “As this hymn is itself a manifestation of the god, it demands our active response of praise; it cannot simply be received as a narrative. The reception of the poem is itself the presence (τ 6πιδηµει
ν) of the god. We must respond. This Callimachus has ensured by the ‘mimetic’ mode in which he has constructed his poem; our response is choreographed by the response

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privileging the one or the other reading.36 That “poetics of exclusion” as Karen Bassi (1989) has called it, which is applied with such force when the speaker bars the impious as Apollo expels Envy, turns out, in our case at least, to be self-selecting. Whether we see the god or not depends on us.37 And if we do see the god, do we then belong to a religious or a literary elite? Our dual role as celebrants and readers and that of the speaker as cultic supervisor and author arise from this uncertainty. For, as we saw, the evocation of the god in song was sufficient to produce the effects normally associated with epiphany; the religious encounter has been identified with the literary encounter. But that would be only natural at a time when the written word assumed primacy in the experience of verse. With performance no longer a given, the performative setting, as well as all its attendant voices, could be collapsed into the confines of a microcosm: the bookroll.38 Perhaps the sound, at once perplexing and alluring, of so many previously discrete voices condensed within that space prompted the skillful polyphonal play that we have seen in Callimachus. And it may be, as I have suggested, that the seeds of such play were discovered by the poet in the scholar’s encounter with earlier poems as written texts, remote from their original site in performance. I think we may assume that such deft use of narrative pluralism and equivocation would have been appreciated in Callimachus’ working environment, that is, among those in or near the ruling circles of the Ptolemaic court. Here, too, communicative acts must have been closely scrutinized as of the choir.” This interpretation, however, in which readers are virtually compelled to react to the god’s epiphany—“it demands our active response”; “it cannot simply be received as a narrative”; “We must respond”—seems to underestimate the dynamics of readerly involvement, which can range from the detached to the actively engaged (and all gradations in between). Indeed, Hunter’s response in 1992 vis-à-vis that of 2002 nicely defines the responsive parameters. 36. Likewise, although for the first time in the hymn there are conventional formulae introducing direct speech in the here and now (vv. 105, 107; the formula introducing the speech at v. 102 is different inasmuch as it is part of an aition dealing with an event in the distant past: Apollo’s slaughter of the Python dragon), all indication of space is conspicuously absent. Envy (as so often) appears out of nowhere, as does Apollo. Nor do we know precisely where to imagine them in relation to the speaker or other celebrants. On both counts, however, I think that this lack of certainty can be taken as contributing to the mystery and force of the apparition. 37. Callimachus plays with the possibilities of varying degrees of readerly involvement elsewhere in his works as well. For a discussion of this topic, see “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” in the present volume. 38. Similarly Hunter and Fuhrer (2002: 157): “When reading becomes a, if not the, standard mode of reception, poets must accommodate a potentially very wide plurality of sites of reception. There is no longer a performative context which allows ‘the unspoken’ to be understood by a collective audience. Ritual is thus inscribed within the text.”

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to the identity, reliability, and self-awareness of the narrative voice. And the Ptolemies themselves, we may recall, adopted a plural stance in using two quite distinct voices to address their subjects: on the one hand, that of traditional Egyptian pharaohs in dealing with the native majority; among compatriots, on the other hand, that of Hellenic monarchs for whom the language of sovereign authority was impeccably Greek. In this century, scholars have debated the relationship of these voices with a passion.39

Appendix: The Song of the Delian Maidens I have translated verses 162–64 of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as follows: “They know how to mimic the voices and sounds of all men. Each man would say that he himself is speaking. So closely fitted [i.e., in its verisimilitude] is their beautiful song” (πντων δ/ νθρπων φωνς κα κρεµβαλιαστ1ν / µιµει
σθ/ :σασινD φαη δ κεν α"τς Iκαστος / φθγγεσθ/D οaτω σφιν καλ συνρηρεν οιδ ). It will be clear from this translation that I take the accomplishment of the Deliades not to be merely “that of singing in dialect,” as Allen, Halliday, and Sikes thought (1936: ad v. 163). Their view has been accepted by many recent critics (cf. Martino 1981: 41; West 1988: ad Od. 4.279; Miller 1986: 59–60 with n. 147; Gentili 1988: 51). Though φων could have this meaning by the time of Aeschylus, earlier instances are dubious at best (cf. Garvie 1986: ad 563–64; Hutchinson 1985: ad 170). The linguistic milieu is, in fact, quite limited. The festival is explicitly Ionian (v. 147); so, too, are the individual listeners who, upon hearing the chorus, would say that they themselves were speaking. Their dialect, therefore, is, broadly speaking, identical—that is to say, Ionic. And similarly, the claim to imitate πντων δ/ νθρπων φωνς, though ostensibly sweeping, will come from an Ionian perspective and apply to Ionians—we, too, speak of the “World Champion” Toronto Blue Jays, though fully aware that this excludes the Yokahama Giants (not to mention the Havana All-Stars). This is opposed to Thalmann (1984: 208 n. 107), who entertains the possibility that “lines 162–64 . . . imply an international gathering on Delos,” and Clay (1989: 50 n. 102), who asserts that “the festival described in the poem is a Panhellenic institution.” Conversely, Gentili 39. Cf. Bagnall 1988: 21–27 with bibliography; Zanker 1989: 83–103 (on this topic, esp. 91–99). Recent interpretations have been increasingly receptive to hearing the Egyptian as well as the Greek voice in Hellenistic poetry: cf. Selden 1998: esp. 309–404, on Egyptian undercurrents in the Hymn to Apollo; Stephens 2003; Schroeder 2009; “Posidippus and the Admiral” in the present volume.

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imagines the Deliades’ song “as an imitation ‘of the unintelligible tongues of men’—that is, as an artistic re-creation of the voices and dialects of others before a foreign public, the assembly of Ionians.” But if that was so, how would members of an Ionian audience think that they themselves were speaking? Did they all suddenly believe they had become fluent in unfamiliar languages or dialects? Is it, therefore, merely a question of the Deliades mastering various shades of Ionic dialect, so that each member of the audience would recognize his local patois? What, one might ask, would be so wondrous about that? In order not simply to rationalize the “great wonder” in this way, trivializing it, I think we must accept some sort of prodigy like that described in the fourth book of the Odyssey (278f.; cf. West 1988: ad loc.). There, at a banquet for Telemachus, Menelaus tells how, in an effort to make the Greeks betray themselves, Helen called to the men within the Trojan horse by name, treacherously tempting each one of them by mimicking the voices of their various wives: 6κ δ/ 4νοµακλ δην ∆αναω
ν 4νµαζες ρστους, / πντων /Αργεων φωνν :σκουσ/ λχοισιν. Typically, the ancient commentaries (or scholia) react incredulously: “How did she know them all so as to be able to imitate their voices? The imitation of the voices is utterly ridiculous and impossible. And how could the men believe that their wives were there?” (πθεν γρ @λας A J δει, Gνα κα τς φωνς α"τω
ν µιµ σεται; πνυ δ+ γελοι
ος ? τω
ν φωνω
ν µµησις κα δνατος. πω
ς δ/ [ν 6πστευον, @τι πρεισιν α"τω
ν α γυναι
κες;). Yet it is precisely characteristic of the miraculous that it strains belief. And so it is with the Homeric hymn; we should not dilute the µγα θαυ
µα just to make it more easily believable. Incidentally, the meaning of the hapax κρεµβαλιαστν is obscure. The κρµβαλα are castanets (cf. Athen. 3.2, 2.137.7; PMG 955), and κρεµβαλζω describes making a clacking sound with castanets. Accordingly, LSJ (s.v.) renders κρεµβαλιαστν as “rattling with castanets, to give the time in dancing.” But this makes little sense with what immediately follows: φαη δ κεν α"τς Iκαστος / φθγγεσθ/. It is worth noting that κρταλον (from κρταλα, “castanets”) and related terms could be used metaphorically of persons in the sense of “rattler” or “chatterer” (Seaford 1984: ad 104). And it may be that κρεµβαλιαστν can bear a metaphorical interpretation as well, in which case it will mean “chatter” (I very much doubt M. Lefkowitz’ suggestion that it could mean “humming an accompaniment” [1985: 49]). The variant reading βαµβαλιαστν, likewise a hapax, would amount to much the same thing, as it comes from βαµβανω, meaning to chatter with the teeth (Il. 10.375) or simply to stammer (Bion 9.9 Gow). (On abstract nouns in -τς, cf. Kühner and Blass 1890–92, II 272 no. 28.)

chapter 3

Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter


T

he Hellenistic era saw revived interest in the Homeric hymns, and among these the Homeric Hymn to Demeter is no exception.1 One need look no further than book 4 of Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica to see that this hymn was not just available to the poets of the age; it was carefully read and appreciated.2 Yet its impact on Callimachus is less easy to trace. Was this poet, likewise, a careful reader of the hymn? And does his work reveal comparable influence? Though various Hellenistic authors composed hymns to Demeter, Callimachus is the only one in this period from whom we have a hexameter hymn, that is, one directly in the tradition of the Homeric hymns. In light of Callimachus’ learned, ubiquitous allusions to Homeric hymns elsewhere in his own, one might anticipate that his Hymn to Demeter would make especially heavy use of its Homeric precursor. But this is not the This is an updated version of the essay that appeared in Syllecta Classica 6 (1995) 29–42. © The University of Iowa, 1996. My thanks to James Clauss and Mary Depew for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay and also to my colleague Garth Tissol for a careful reading and good suggestions. 1. Cf. Richardson 1974: 68: “The influence of the Hymn, certain or probable, may be detected or suspected in many places in Greek literature. But its popularity was clearly greatest in the Hellenistic period.” For the hymn’s influence in modern times, cf. Foley 1994: 153–69. 2. As numerous scholars have noted, Apollonius makes detailed and extensive use of the Demophoon episode: this is his model for the narrative of Thetis’ vain attempt (at 4.868ff.) to render Achilles immortal by bathing him nightly in flames. Cf., e.g., Livrea 1973: ad v. 868.

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case. It is telling that Hopkinson (in his commentary on the hymn), though occasionally pointing to the Homeric hymn in individual notes, omits it entirely from both his “Index of Subjects” and his “Index of Passages Discussed.” 3 The same has been true of other scholars,4 though two have begun to redress the matter in recent essays.5 Echoes of the archaic hymn are in fact audible, assuming one listens carefully. For these echoes are not always distinct or obvious. Almost no diction is adopted intact, or when it is, there are differences in application. The same holds true for content and voice, which appear transformed in Callimachus’ treatment—though not, I should stress, beyond recognition. For one recent critic, the tale of Persephone’s rape as told in Callimachus illustrates “a fundamental point about Alexandrian poetry, viz. its cultivation of obliquity for its own sake.”6 This point may be applied more generally to how the Hellenistic poet sets himself in relation to his archaic predecessor. That relationship is certainly oblique. But whether he cultivates that obliquity “for its own sake” remains an open question, and one we must ask. In what follows, I will attempt to trace the influence of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter on Callimachus and show that its echoes form a useful counterpoint in reading his hymn. While that counterpoint may not lead to a comprehensive view of the poem, I hope that it will at least illuminate important aspects. We will see that the Hellenistic poet’s deployment of this model entails deliberate distancing. I will examine that distancing in two steps: (1) in connection with diction and content;7 (2) with respect to voice. In a third and final section, I will try to ask whether this twofold distancing tells us something about the meaning of the poem. I must say from the start, however, that we will be left with far more questions than answers. 3. Hopkinson 1984. 4. Fantuzzi (1993), while (rightly) arguing the importance of religious choral lyric as a model, actually precludes any influence whatsoever from the Homeric hymns on Callimachus’ hymns 5 and 6 (“‘inni’ solo di nome”): “è certo che l’innodia esametrica ‘omerica’ non rappresentava in nessun modo un modello, né per i contenuti e la morfologia complessiva, né per i singoli elementi strutturali” (932). Bulloch (1977: esp. 99–101) does indeed set hymn 6 against the structural backdrop of a Homeric hymn, but it is that to Dionysus (no. 7), not Demeter. 5. Hunter 1992b: esp. 9–11; Haslam 1993: 119 n. 14. 6. This “fundamental point” is slyly tucked away in a footnote by Hinds (1987: 151 n. 11). 7. Several of the instances discussed in section I were detected by Hunter (1992b) and Haslam (1993).

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I. Eluding—and Alluding to—a Literary Paradigm The most immediately striking echoes of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter come where Callimachus tells the same story as the archaic poem: namely, Demeter’s desperate search for Kore. In the Homeric hymn, we hear— twice—that, in her grief, Demeter refuses to eat, drink, or wash: ο"δ ποτ/ µβροσης κα νκταρος ?δυπτοιο / πσσατ/ κηχεµνη, ο"δ+ χρα βλλετο λουτροι
ς (“neither did she touch ambrosia and sweet-tasting nectar in her grief, nor did she bathe her skin,” vv. 49–50); λλ/ γλαστος παστος 6δητος Vδ+ ποτη
τος / ?
στο (“but never laughing, touching neither food nor drink, she sat,” vv. 200–201). In Callimachus, this likewise appears twice: ο" πες ο_τ/ ρ/ (δες τη
νον χρνον ο"δ+ λοσσα (“you neither drank nor did you eat during that time nor did you wash,” v. 12); 6καθσσαο . . . / α"σταλα ποτς τε κα ο" φγες ο"δ+ λοσσα (“you sat . . . parched without drink, and you neither ate nor did you wash,” vv. 15–16). As close as these passages are, Callimachus typically varies every word: for the Homeric hymn’s ο"δ+ . . . πσσατ/ and παστος, he substitutes ο" πες ο_τ/ ρ/ (δες and ποτς τε κα ο" φγες; for ο"δ+ χρα βλλετο λουτροι
ς, he compresses to ο"δ+ λοσσα. The Homeric hymn is consistent in mentioning Demeter’s abstinence from food before that from drink; in Callimachus, it is the reverse: he is consistent in mentioning her abstinence from drink before that from food. In both hymns, moreover, fasting appears in parallel contexts: first in connection with Demeter’s desperate search (Hom. Hymn vv. 49–50 ⬃ Callim. v. 12), then when she is seated (Hom. Hymn vv. 200–201 ⬃ Callim. vv. 15–16).8 Incidentally, Callimachus does adopt one word from the hymn’s description of fasting, but he characteristically dislodges it from its original context. At verse 200 of the Homeric hymn, the goddess herself is παστος 6δητος Vδ+ ποτη
τος; in Callimachus, it is her fasting worshipers who are παστοι (v. 6).9 Where the themes of the poems diverge, such transposition will be a fortiori more likely. This is the case in the myth of Erysichthon, which the 8. Callimachus combines this with a separate incident from the archaic poem, namely, sitting by a well. In the archaic poem, it is the Parthenion (Hom. Hymn vv. 98–99: Iζετο . . . / ΠαρθενMω φρατι); in Callimachus, the Callichoron (v. 15: 6π ΚαλλιχρMω χαµδις 6καθσσαο φρητ; cf. also fr. 611). This latter well is also mentioned in the Homeric hymn (v. 272), in connection with the site of Demeter’s future temple. Is Callimachus correcting his archaic predecessor? 9. The celebrants’ behavior, of course, itself echoes that of the goddess and so is a model within the poem for the sort of imitation, with its inevitable dislocations and transformations, that characterizes the relationship between Callimachus and his literary predecessors.

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speaker now tells. In the Homeric hymn, for instance, the goddess briefly reveals her divinity on entering the house of Celeus: µελθρου / κυ
ρε κρη (“her head reached the roof,” vv. 188–189). In Callimachus, this same verb is used of Demeter’s sacred tree: µγα δνδρεον α,θρι κυ
ρον (“a great tree reaching to the sky,” v. 37). Note the deliberate variation in the use of the participle and the different (and unusual) case of the object.10 When, somewhat later in the hymn, Callimachus presents the epiphany of the goddess herself, he tops the Homeric hymn by having her head reach Olympus (:θµατα µ+ν χρσω, κεφαλ δ ο 9ψατ/ /Ολµπω, “her feet touched the ground, but her head reached Olympus,” v. 58, as opposed to the Homeric hymn’s ? δ/ ρ/ 6π/ ο"δν (βη ποσ κα 8α µελθρου / κυ
ρε κρη, “she stepped on the threshold with her feet, and her head reached the roof,” vv. 188–89). In either case, the epiphany inspires fear (τν δ/ α,δς τε σβας τε ,δ+ χλωρν δος ε
λεν, “awe, wonder, and pale fear seized her,” Hom. Hymn 2.190 ⬃ ο µ+ν ρ/ ?µιθνη
τες, 6πε τν πτνιαν ε,
δον, / 6ξαπνας προυσαν, “they, half dead when they saw the goddess, rushed away,” Callim. vv. 59–60). The goddess’ tree is—like Kore in the Homeric hymn—an object of assault,11 for Erysichthon, his heart set on timber for a banquet hall, “rushes” into the sacred grove (σεατ/, Callim. v. 33; cf. Hades in Hom. Hymn v. 17, =ρουσεν), with the object of despoiling it.12 He sinks his axe into the tree. The tree cries out (κακν µλος :αχεν λλαις, “she screamed a sad song to the others,” Callim. v. 39), just as Kore did at her rape (,χησε δ/ ρ/ =ρθια φωνJη
, “she screamed with piercing voice,” Hom. Hymn v. 20).13 In either case, Demeter hears the cry of distress ( Y σθετο ∆αµτηρ @τι ο ξλον ερν λγει, “Demeter heard that her sacred tree was in pain,” Callim. v. 40 ⬃ =π/ κουσα δι/ α,θρος τρυγτοιο / Oς τε βιαζοµνης, “I heard her voice through the barren air, as though she were suffering violence,” Hom. Hymn vv. 67–68; cf. v. 39); and in either case, she reacts with anger (ε,
πε δ+ χωσαµνα, Callim. v. 41 ⬃ χωσαµνη, Hom. Hymn v. 91). 10. Bulloch (1977: 116–17) notes, “in other authors the genitive case would have been used: Callimachus is in fact extending the Homeric µελθρου / κυ
ρε κρη (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 188f., Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 173f.), refining the common construction into a much rarer usage.” 11. Note that Kore is compared with plants (καλυκπιδι κορJη, v. 8; γλυκερν θλος, v. 66). The similarity in situation is observed also by G. Baudy (1991: 25–26), though without detailed thematic or structural analysis. 12. The inviolate grove, with its burgeoning fruit trees (vv. 27–28), bubbling spring (vv. 28–29), and frolicking nymphs (v. 38), is, of course, a standard emblem of virginity. 13. It is noteworthy that tree nymphs also make an appearance—a suggestively brief one—in the Homeric hymn: the γλακαρποι 6λαι
αι of v. 23 (cf. Richardson 1974). These nymphs, however, are endowed not with voice (as in Callimachus) but with hearing, though it is deficient. They fail to hear Kore’s cry when she is raped.

Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter

53

Thereafter, as in the Homeric hymn, Demeter impersonates a nurturing older female (Callim. vv. 42ff. ⬃ Hom. Hymn vv. 101ff.), and in both hymns, her first word in this guise is τκνον, “child” (Callim. v. 46 ⬃ τκνα, Hom. Hymn v. 119). And just as she addresses Erysichthon, the king’s son, as τκνον πολθεστε τοκευ
σι (“child much prayed for by your parents,” Callim. v. 47), so, with similar paronomasia, she addresses the royal daughters of Celeus: [θεο] δοι
εν . . . τκνα τεκσθαι / Eς 6θλουσι τοκη
ες (“may the gods give you children to bear, as parents wish for,” Hom. Hymn vv. 136–37).14 It is striking, too, that in either poem, the goddess’ addressee is the subject of an extended epic-style simile (Hom. Hymn vv. 174–78 ⬃ Callim. vv. 50–52), a feature that, as I have noted elsewhere, almost never occurs in the Homeric hymns (that in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter is the longest example) and is rare in the hymns of Callimachus.15 Finally, the goddess expresses her wrath in either poem by inflicting λιµς (“hunger,” Callim. v. 66 ⬃ Hom. Hymn v. 311)—though in markedly different ways. These examples will, I hope, suffice to show that Callimachus knew the Homeric hymn and drew on it—more than is generally admitted. But the very fact that it frequently lurks in the background makes Callimachus’ relatively sparing use of it all the more striking. It suggests a deliberate distancing. Indeed, Callimachus expressly rejects the subject matter of the Homeric hymn (µ µ ταυ
τα λγωµες ` δκρυον γαγε ∆ηοι
, “Don’t, don’t let us tell those things that brought tears to Deo,” v. 17), abandons its Attic/Eleusinian locale in favor of one equally meaningful to the goddess (θε δ/ 6πεµανετο χρMω / @σσον /Ελευσι
νι, “the goddess was wild about the place, as much as about Eleusis,” vv. 29–30), and pointedly coats its epic diction in a literary Doric veneer. As though to stress the gap between how much he knows and could refer to and how little he chooses to, Callimachus’ most striking allusion to a Homeric hymn to Demeter is the extended, verbatim quotation from the last verse of the recondite and tiny Homeric hymn 13, to Demeter (χαι
ρε, θε, κα τ νδε σου πλιν, “Hail, goddess, and keep this city safe,” Hom. Hymn 13.3 ⫽ χαι
ρε, θε, κα τνδε σω πλιν, Callim. v. 134). Let us look at one last possible allusion, which may serve to point up just how radically Callimachus sets himself off from the Homeric hymn— even if he allows us to trace the root of his departure to that self-same hymn. I am referring to his very different choice of myth, namely, that of 14. Of course, the hapax πολθεστε is closer yet in form and meaning to Metaneira’s statement that her son Demophoon is πολυεχετος (Hom. Hymn v. 165, likewise a hapax) and πολυρητος (Hom. Hymn v. 220). 15. Cf. Bing 1988: 123–24. On Callimachus’ simile, cf. my discussion in the following section of this essay.

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Erysichthon.16 Scholars have often debated whether Callimachus was the first to specify that Erysichthon’s crime was cutting wood from the goddess’ grove. What seems clear, in any case, is that prior attestation is dubious and that this version of the myth is quite recherché.17 One expects no less from Callimachus. But near the middle of the Homeric hymn is a baffling passage that has defied precise understanding. It is verses 227–30, where Demeter agrees to take care of the infant Demophoon. θρψω, κο_ µιν (ολπα κακοφραδJησι τιθ νης ο_τ/ ρ/ 6πηλυση δηλ σεται ο_θ/ #ποταµννD ο,
δα γρ νττοµον µγα φρτερον #λοτµοιο, ο,
δα δ/ 6πηλυσης πολυπ µονος 6σθλν 6ρυσµν.

230

[I will nurse him. And not due to his nurse’s foolishness, I think, will an attack or a cutter [?] do harm to him. For I know an antidote far stronger than the woodcutter; I know a good shield for a painful attack.] While a critical consensus has developed that #ποταµνν, νττοµον, and #λοτµοιο “all refer to the same thing, namely the cutting of herbs for magical purposes,”18 there is much that is still unclear.19 In particular, critics have suggested that #λοτµος must mean the same as 8ιζοτµος, that is, one who cuts herbs for magic or medicinal uses. But #λοτµος never appears in this sense. From Homer on down, whether as adjective or noun or in the verbal form #λοτοµει
ν, it refers to cutting wood. The term remains a ζ τηµα, then. I suspect that the same held true in Hellenistic times.20 Could it be that this baffling “woodcutter” here intrigued Callimachus, pricked his fancy, gave him a nudge in shaping the myth? If so, what a distance he put between himself and his source! While the core myth of the Homeric hymn is expressly excluded by Callimachus, that peculiar “woodcutter”—who receives the merest mention in the archaic 16. On this myth in Callimachus and Ovid and also on the comparable tale of Paraibios’ father in Ap. Rh. 2.468–90, see J. Murray 2004. 17. On this debate, cf. C. W. Müller 1987: 65–76. 18. Thus Richardson (1974: ad v. 228). 19. The word #ποταµνν, for instance, is unique; no entirely plausible explanation for it has been found. As Richardson points out, the context does not suggest a specific plant. And a neuter participle in the sense of “cutting” does not accord with Homeric usage. Richardson concludes, “The form of the word remains unexplained” (ibid.). 20. Of course, one cannot rule out the possibility that these were popular terms, current in colloquial usage, and that anyone on the street would have known at once what they meant.

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poem, only to be dismissed as a threat to Demophoon by the goddess— looms up as the central figure of the myth in Callimachus.

II. The Feminized Voice By far the most striking departure Callimachus makes from the Homeric hymn is the voice he chooses to speak in. It is that of a woman—one present at a religious festival whose events unfold and engage us imaginatively with their vivid immediacy as the poem proceeds.21 The festival can in all probability be identified as the exclusively female Thesmophoria; and the time can be pinpointed at the transition between the second day—a day of fasting, the νηστεα—and the final day, the καλλιγνεια, with its hope for fertility.22 At the close of a long day in which they have had neither food nor drink (vv. 6–7), the celebrants look impatiently (v. 7) toward the coming of the goddess’ κλαθος (“basket,” vv. 1–2). This actually arrives in the course of the poem, carried on a four-horse chariot and signaling the reestablishment of fruitful and normal life.23 The speaker’s gender is established with certainty at verse 124, where she says, “we walk through the town without µπυκες,” the headbands typically worn by women (νµπυκες στυ πατευ
µες). A sense of strong collective gender identity is conveyed by the fact that the speaker characteristically says “we” (i.e., uses the first-person plural)24 and addresses only women.25 21. As Wilamowitz (1924: II 25) says, Callimachus “erreicht einen Grad von 6νργεια, wie es sonst kaum möglich war, denn es wird uns nicht erzählt, was die gläubige Menge tut und sagt und empfindet, sondern alles spricht uns unmittelbar an.” 22. Cf. Hopkinson 1984: 35–36; C. W. Müller 1987: 85–88. Both scholars point out how those aspects singled out in vv. 18–21 as appropriate themes virtually define Demeter as Thesmophoros (especially v. 18, τθµια δω
κε ⫽ Θεσµοφρος). Müller is especially good on the assimilation to the Thesmophoria of details from mystery ritual. 23. Cf. Albert 1988: 63–66, esp. 65–66, for an analysis of the “Szenerieveränderung” (to use Albert’s term) portrayed in the poem. 24. Cf. vv. 6, 17, 121, 124, 125, 127; first-person singular only in the prayers at vv. 116–17 and 138. Falivene (1990: 103–28, here 122–24), likewise notes the speaker’s identification with the group, without, however, dealing with the implications of its gender. Henrichs (1993: 131) would distinguish the first-person singular at vv. 116–17 as “the voice of the poet,” which allegedly “draws attention to itself . . . at this juncture, while acting as an intermediary between the imaginary ritual occasion and the mythical past.” But nothing in the sentiment of the prayer suggests “the poet” rather than a participant in the ritual. A more likely candidate for the “poet’s” voice is the first-person singular in the last line of the poem (Gλαθ µοι, v. 138), where the weight of generic convention allows for—though it does not enforce—that possibility. We should note, however, that even here poetic self-reference is not explicit, as it is at the close of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (πρφρονες ντ/ b M δη
ς βοτον θυµ ρε/ 4πζειν, v. 494), of other Homeric hymns, or even of Callimachus’ hymns (1.92ff., 2.106ff., 3.268). 25. Cf. vv. 1, 5, 10–16 (Demeter), 83, 116–17 (Demeter), 118, 128–33, 134–38 (Demeter).

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Callimachus seems to have taken pains to characterize this woman’s voice with a subtle but unmistakably female accent, that is to say, to feminize it.26 Its specifically feminine inflection is worth listening for in a few instances, since it has not been noticed until now.27 Let us consider it first in two passages containing similes. Since similes characteristically link remote mythical happenings with the familiar conceptual world of the audience to make them more vivid, they may tell us something about the “horizon of expectations” shared by the speaker and her listeners in the poem. At verses 50–52, to illustrate just how savagely Erysichthon glared at Demeter, the speaker uses a simile in which the youth is gendered female: he is compared to a lioness who has just given birth (τν δ/ ρ/ #ποβλψας χαλεπτερον V+ κυναγν / eρεσιν 6ν Τµαροισιν #ποβλπει νδρα λαινα / bµοτκος, τα
ς φαντ πλειν βλοσυρτατον =µµα, “glaring at her more fiercely than a lioness with newborn cubs glares at a hunter in the mountains of Tmaros, whose look they say is the most terrible of all”). Many scholars have noted how closely the simile resembles one in Euripides’ Medea where the heroine’s look is likewise compared with that of a mother lion (κατοι τοκδος δργµα λεανης / ποταυρου
ται δµωσν, @ταν τις / µυ
θον προφρων πλας CρµηθJη
, “she glares at her servants with the look of a lioness who has just given birth, whenever one comes near her with a message,” vv. 187–89). None, however, has remarked on how the choice of gender—a lioness rather than a lion—helps delineate the character of speaker and audience in both passages. It can be no coincidence that in both the tragedy and the hymn, the speaker is a woman addressing herself to an audience of women. I propose that the Hellenistic poet’s choice of a lioness to describe Erysichthon—a choice even more striking than in Euripides for its crossing of genders—is a deliberate touch of ethopoeia: it suggests that his 26. The feminized voice in Callimachus has recently been examined by Gutzwiller (1992a: esp. 373–78) regarding Berenike’s Lock. While I find her approach very helpful, the question of the lock’s gender in that poem is problematic. For a strong case contra Gutzwiller in favor of the lock’s masculinity, cf. Koenen 1993: especially 94–95 with n. 164. Though feminine characterization in our hymn is not flamboyant or obvious, it will become clear that I find the speaking voice less “nebulous and uncharacterized” than is supposed by Hopkinson (1984) or Wilamowitz (1924: II 24–25). On the appropriation of the feminine voice to male discourse, cf. Halperin 1990: 113–51, esp. 142ff.; Skinner 1993. 27. One might be tempted to construe the oft-remarked folksiness and naïveté of the voice (cf., e.g., C. W. Müller 1987: 25 n. 64, 30) as a function of gender. But while these qualities are not incompatible with a woman’s voice and indeed help characterize a kind of woman’s voice here in the hymn, they could equally well be found in a man. We must therefore look elsewhere for evidence of the specifically feminine.

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speaker knows, as a woman, that a mother lion’s fierceness in protecting her newborn cubs will strike a chord of recognition in her female audience.28 In other words, within the context of the all-female festival, the poet naturally enough portrays her as speaking woman to woman.29 A female sensibility also emerges, I think, in the briefer similes of verse 91. Here Erysichthon is said to be melting away “like snow on Mimas, like a doll in the sun” (Eς δ+ Μµαντι χιν, Eς ελMω (νι πλαγγν). The first part of the comparison has Homeric precedent (Od. 19.205–8), but the second is strikingly un-Homeric. Does the reference to a child’s wax doll reflect a peculiarly female perspective? One cannot be sure. Still it is highly suggestive that precisely these two comparisons are likewise used by a woman to a female audience in the second poem of Theocritus: “I went all colder than snow,” says Simaitha addressing the “lady” moon (v. 106), and “my shapely body froze like a doll” (δαγς, v. 110). The two passages may in fact play off each other deliberately, since, as Gow notes (ad v. 110), they reverse each other: the frozen snow and doll in Theocritus are portrayed as melting in Callimachus.30 In either case, the comparisons seem the appropriate expression of a woman speaking in a feminine setting. Moving beyond similes, there is striking evidence that a woman’s outlook colors the telling of the myth when, at verse 83, the speaker unexpectedly breaks into the narrative with an apostrophe. Turning directly to Erysichthon’s mother to commiserate with her plight at having to make excuses for her son’s absence from normal social life, the speaker exclaims, “Wretched mother, what lies did you not tell for love of your child?” (δειλαα φιλτεκνε, τ δ/ ο"κ 6ψεσαο, µα
τερ;). This is the only 28. The choice of the lion’s gender appears all the more deliberate when we note that in Homer—Callimachus’ chief paradigm for hexameter diction—lions are always male (the feminine λαινα first occurs in tragedy and Herodotus). Thus at Il. 17.133–36, a simile adduced by Hopkinson (1984: ad vv. 50–52) as one model for Callimachus, Aias is likened to a male lion defending its young. For sexual inversion in Homeric similes, cf. Foley 1978. 29. If the feminine aspect of Callimachus’ simile is illuminated by reference to its model in the Medea, its novelty in a hymnic framework may be brought out by contrast with its counterpart in the Homeric hymn. As previously noted, one of the very rare instances of an extended simile in the Homeric hymns—the longest there is—occurs at Homeric Hymn to Demeter vv. 174–78, and it comes in a context strikingly parallel to that in Callimachus. The Iliadic pedigree of that simile (Il. 15.263ff.) is carefully analyzed by Richardson in his commentary (1974: ad vv. 170–78; cf. also p. 32 of his introduction): its voicing and style are studiously epic. If Callimachus is indeed recalling that simile in his overall context even as he draws on the very different model of Euripides, that recollection serves to highlight the transformation undergone by the traditional hymnic narrative voice. 30. Cf. Deubner’s (1921: 376–78) suggestion that Theocritus II was the inspiration and model for Callimachus’ “mimetic” hymns 2, 5, and 6: “Ein Stilprinzip hellenistischer Dichtkunst.”

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such interruption in the myth. And its motivation clearly lies in the fellow feeling of one woman for another. The compassionate apostrophe recalls another earlier in the poem that was likewise addressed to a mother distraught because of her child. I refer to the sympathetic questions posed to Demeter about her search for Kore in verses 10–16, leading to the emotion-charged words µ µ ταυ
τα λγωµες ` δκρυον γαγε ∆ηοι
(“Don’t, don’t let us tell those things that brought tears to Deo,” v. 17).31 In retrospect, it seems likely that, here too, the poet invites us to understand the apostrophe and the emotional coloring of the passage as prompted by female fellow feeling.32 Worthy of mention in this context is also the metonymous description of Erysichthon’s nurse at verse 95 as “the breast that nursed him” (χb µαστς τν (πωνε). D. Fowler has suggested that “the phrase represents Erysichthon’s point of view”: “As a child he saw the Nurse as a breast, but now too we catch him looking at her in his hunger in the same way.”33 This can scarcely be correct, since it detaches the breast from its verb. In verses 94–95, we hear that Erysichthon’s mother wept and that his two sisters and the breast that nursed him and the many tens of slave girls all “groaned heavily”: κλαι
ε µ+ν Z µτηρ, βαρ1 δ/ (στενον α δ/ δελφεα / χb µαστς τν (πωνε κα α δκα πολλκι δω
λαι. As far as the nurse is concerned, clearly these groans come from her point of view, perhaps with specific reference to her breast. For if we allow τν (πωνε its imperfective force (“the breast that was nursing him”), rather than taking it with Hopkinson as “the loose ‘epic’ use of the imperfect” (ad v. 95), we might picture the poor nurse pressed back into service by her ravenous nursling—reason enough for her to groan or, rather, for Callimachus to present the sympathetic female speaker and her listeners imagining her groans. Verses 94–95 remind us, moreover, that—apart from Erysichthon’s father, Triopas—the audience lamenting the youth’s calamity within the narrative is an exclusively female group. In its range of status and age, it corresponds (deliberately, no doubt) to the audience within the ritual

31. Cf. Hopkinson 1984: 95–96 for “the excited, emphatic repetition of the negative,” whose “tone is generally semi-colloquial.” 32. A woman’s sympathy for a mother perhaps also motivates the speaker’s use of the compassionate term δελαιος to describe Erysichthon at v. 93 (δειλαMω 8ινς τε κα 4στα µω
νον (λειφθεν). We should note, too, that when the speaker strangely refers to Erysichthon as C παι
ς (v. 56) just at the moment when he is portrayed at his most savage, she is mimicking the maternal τκνον with which the goddess addressed him in vv. 46–47. 33. Fowler 1990: esp. 43.

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frame, the group of female celebrants listening to the sorry tale (cf. vv. 3–6 and especially vv. 128–33).34

III. Whose Voice Is It Anyway? Speaker, Reader, and Poet Only in this Callimachean hymn is the speaker certainly female. By an act of narrative transvestism, the (male) poet impersonates a woman—one apparently in a privileged position, since she instructs the women when to utter the ritual cry (vv. 1–2); is apparently the first to see the evening star, signaling the goddess’ imminent arrival (v. 7); forbids the uninitiated to look on the goddess’ κλαθος (v. 3) and tells them they may follow only as far as the prytaneion (v. 128). As for initiates, only those under sixty—she says—may witness the mysteries (vv. 129–30); pregnant or disabled women should follow as far as they can (vv. 130–32). But impersonation is not restricted to Callimachus—as Wilamowitz saw when he asked, “Who is giving [these instructions]? . . . Who is narrating?” To realize the poet’s boldness and art, he continued, “no more is necessary than to recite the poem in a sufficiently lively manner to oneself or to others.”35 For each reader is invited to play the role, to imagine him or herself in the part of this woman present at the ceremony. To be sure, the degree of imaginative involvement depends on the attitude of the readers, on their relative willingness or reluctance to commit themselves to the part. As the previous sections of this essay have shown, the poem itself pulls readers in two directions, allowing them to adopt divergent roles. A learned, sophisticated reader may play the part of literary detective, uncovering traces of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter and appreciating the remarkable transformations that that model undergoes in this work. Allusion of this kind is not intended for the audience in the poem. Nor is it part of the consciousness of the narrating 34. I wonder whether we may also hear a specifically female quality of voice in the prayer at the end of the hymn (φρβε βας, φρε µα
λα, φρε στχυν, ο,
σε θερισµν, v. 136). Hopkinson 1984 ad loc. has noted that “the line bears a marked resemblance to the corrupt Sappho fr. 104 (PΕσπερε πντα φρων =σα φανολις 6σκδασ/ Α_ως / †φρεις =ιν, φρεις α,
γα, φρεις πυ† µτερι παι
δα), a hymenaeal fragment that Page (1955: 121 n. 1) suggested might be “spoken by girls, or by some other party which sympathized with the bride.” It may be, then, that Callimachus wanted to recall a genuine woman’s voice in this passage. N.b. that Hopkinson also considers a lyric source, such as Sappho fr. 104, for the anaphora of Hesperus in vv. 7–8 (cf. Catullus 62.1). 35. Wilamowitz 1925: 248 (“wer gibt ihn [sc., den Befehl]? . . . Wer erzählt?”), 249 (“Nichts ist weiter dazu notwendig, als dass man sich oder anderen das Gedicht mit der entsprechenden Lebhaftigkeit vorliest”).

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persona, authoritative though she is in her context. Rather, it is a pastime strictly between poet and reader, injecting ironic distance between their perspective and that of the characters in the poem.36 Yet even those who maintain a posture of detachment toward the text, who withhold identification with the speaking role, function almost as observers at the festival: the ritual community embraces the community of readers.37 The poet draws us into joining the celebration in our mind’s eye through the striking 6νργεια conveyed by the feminized voice of the speaker. And the hymn itself helps ease us into the part, since role playing is prefigured in the poem and suggests our own. Demeter impersonates “Nikippe, whom the city appointed as her public priestess” (ΝικππYα, τν ο πλις ρτειραν / δαµοσαν (στασαν, 6εσατο, v. 42–43). She thus provides the model for the poet’s comparable guise: the woman directing the goddess’ festival. Demeter abstains from food and drink, thus serving as paradigm for the fasting worshipers: these identify with and enact her ordeal. Our own assimilation to the role of onlooker, then, simply implements a model offered in the hymn—one more impersonation in a series. So long as we don’t refuse to read, we implicate ourselves in the proceedings; we play the part of witness to the secret female rite. For us to do so will mean diverse things depending on who we are—one thing if we happen to be women, something different altogether if we happen to be men. Let us pause for a moment to consider if the former possibility is likely. Might the feminine perspective of the hymn be conceived with a female audience in mind?38 Gutzwiller has recently argued that we 36. For a good discussion of this “double perspective,” likewise between male poet and female narrator, cf. Segal 1984. Many scholars would see the same sort of dissonance between the speaker’s stated purpose in telling the tale of Erysichthon (“so that one may avoid transgression,” Gνα κα τις #περβασας ληται, v. 22), and what they perceive to be a burlesque undercutting of that purpose in the actual narrative. Thus, e.g., Depew (1993: 72) claims that it is not “in any way part of Callimachus’ intentions to make a moral point or, for that matter, to praise Demeter,” that “[w]hat was announced as an introductory exemplum has turned out to be a comedic portrayal of a bourgeois family and its socially embarrassing son.” 37. Interestingly, as Falivene notes (1990: 127 with n. 75), explicit poetic self-reference— indeed, the very notion of “song,” together with its terminology—are completely absent from hymns 5 and 6 (6πιφθγξασθε in v. 1 is not a chorus’ periodically recurring refrain in song but a “ritual cry” of the participants responding to an actual event at the scene: the basket’s return). Does that absence—because it removes any special qualification needed for the part—enhance the possibility of readerly identification with the role of the speaker or of the celebrants (the latter since it erases a potential difference between the experience of the community of readers and that of the ritual community in the poem)? 38. I set aside such views as that of Laronde (1987: 365), who believes that the poem was intended for performance at the festival it describes and that geographical allusions show that

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must see another poem of Callimachus, the Lock of Berenike, “as reflecting above all the concerns of the queen” and that her court was at pains to create “a public image of her royal marriage that had a special appeal to feminine tastes.”39 A comparable approach to the Hymn to Demeter, taking into account the interests of the queen and her circle, might be plausible—especially if there were greater certainty that the Ptolemaic queens celebrated by Callimachus were assimilated to the goddess Demeter in cult.40 A hymn to this goddess would, in that case, have obvious attraction for the court. Yet on balance we must reject such a view, since evidence for the queens’ assimilation to Demeter is slim—especially when compared with the wealth of material connecting Ptolemaic queens with Aphrodite, as in the Lock of Berenike.41 Problematical, too, is that the hymn (unlike the Lock of Berenike) makes no reference whatsoever to a royal personage or context: one would have to read that between the lines. Finally, a link to the Ptolemaic court begs the question of the poem’s date, which is quite uncertain but which many scholars would place relatively early in Callimachus’ career, before he had even come to Alexandria.42 In the absence, then, of clear pointers suggesting that Callimachus intended his hymn for the sort of female audience previously considered, I think we must assume that the majority of its this may be localized in Cyrene: “nous avons là un hymne que les femmes de Cyrène pouvaient chanter lors des Thesmophories.” Against such interpretations and for an understanding of the hymn as a generalized literary evocation of a festival of Demeter, see, among many others, Hopkinson 1984: 35–37. As the excavator of the sanctuary of Demeter at Cyrene has trenchantly put it, all efforts to pin down a specific site and festival for the hymn “are vitiated by the fact that the few topographical features actually named in connection with the hypothetical setting are duplicated in practically any Hellenistic Greek city and thus are empty of any significance except as poetical images.” He adds, “It must be stressed that Callimachus was . . . not [composing] the Blue Guide,” (White 1984: 48). Even A. Cameron, who resuscitates E. Cahen’s notion of performance at festivals “outside the formal framework of the festival itself” (Cahen 1929: 281), seems to acknowledge that the lack of geographic specificity in this hymn speaks against performance at a particular site (cf. Cameron 1995: 64 n. 258). A more sustained argument for the possible performance of Callimachus’ hymns is made by I. Petrovic (2007: 114–81, esp. 132–34 for Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter), but though she thinks that there is no basis for thinking that the hymns were not performed, she admits that she cannot prove that they were: “Diese Frage betrachte ich als unlösbar” (137). 39. Gutzwiller 1992a: 361. 40. For Arsinoe II commemorated in Alexandrian street names as Eleusinia and Karpophoros, cf. Fraser (1972: I 35, 237–38); Longega 1968: 106 n. 168. For her assimilation to Isis—already identified with Demeter by Herodotus (2.59)—cf. Fraser 1972: I 239–43. Callimachus portrays the queen’s deceased sister Philotera as associated in cult with Demeter of Enna in the Apotheosis of Arsinoe (fr. 228.43–45 Pf.). For the assimilation of Berenike II to this goddess, cf. Pantos 1987. For an overview of Demeter’s association with Ptolemaic queens, cf. Tondriau 1948. 41. For a review of the evidence, cf. Gutzwiller 1992a: 363–67. 42. The dating is reviewed by Bulloch (1985a: 38–42).

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readers would have been male.43 In that case, the reader’s implication in the role of witness to a rite where only women are allowed acquires a different, somewhat transgressive flavor. But what are we to make of it? And how would it play? Would the experience have been unsettling, exciting, transforming? In this connection, it is worth recalling a legend linked to the celebration of the Thesmophoria in Callimachus’ hometown, Cyrene. In a fragment of Aelian (fr. 44 Hercher), we learn that the city’s founder, Battus— an ancestor of Callimachus, as the poet proudly mentions on several occasions—“longed to experience the mysteries of Demeter Thesmophoros and used force to do so, exulting with lewd eyes” (Βττος C Κυρ νην κτσας τη
ς Θεσµοφρου τ µυστ ρια 6γλχετο µαθει
ν, κα προση
γε βαν λχνοις 4φθαλµοι
ς χαριζµενος; cf. also Suda s.v. “Thesmophoros”). The priestesses tried to dissuade him, but Battus was unrelenting (α ρειαι 6πειρω
ντο α"τν πρανειν κα ντχειν τη
ς Cρµη
ς. βιαως δ+ κα τγκτως διακειµνου . . .). He did not escape without a grisly punishment, however: for the sacrificial priestesses (σφκτριαι), swords drawn and hands and faces smeared with sacrificial blood, fell on Battus at a prearranged signal and
ται, καταπλας emasculated him (κα α:ρουσαι τ ξφη γυµν κα α# (χουσαι του
αGµατος τς χει
ρας κα τ πρσωπα µντοι (V
σαν δ+ 6κ τω
ν ερεων χρισµεναι), θραι #φ/ 2ν συνθ µατι 6π τν Βττον JV
ξαν, Gνα α"τν φλωνται του
(τι ε,
ναι νδρα; cf. also Suda s.v. σφκτριαι).44 With a story like this in one’s family background, it is no light thing to impersonate a woman at the Thesmophoria! Assuming for a moment that the legend does in fact antedate Callimachus, the question of how to interpret the speaking voice in his poem becomes even more urgent. I should stress that nothing suggests a prurient interest. The speaker does not observe the scene “with lewd eyes” (λχνοις 4φθαλµοι
ς) like Battus, nor does the text encourage us to do so. This is “playing the other” with a difference: not like the travesty of comic male interlopers in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousai, where the (male) theater audience plays “voyeur” with ironic distance; nor like the horror of watching Pentheus clothe himself as a woman to observe maenadic rites in the Bacchae.45 Callimachus implicates his readers in the dramatic situation in a more affirming, partisan way. But to what end? 43. Male literacy was still preponderant over female in Hellenistic times, even among upper classes, though not to the same degree as before. Cf. Harris 1989: 136–37, 139–46. 44. For the legend, cf. Burkert 1985: 244. It is adduced in connection with Callimachus by C. W. Müller (1987: 87–88), who, however, interprets it as a parallel for Erysichthon’s transgression and punishment and for the distinction at the Cyrenean Thesmophoria between initiates and uninitiated, rather than as a potential model for the poet’s impersonation of the female voice in the hymn. 45. Cf. Zeitlin 1990.

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Müller has argued—persuasively, in my view—that the myth in Callimachus’ hymn is a “narrative metaphor,” embodying the programmatic oppositions found in his Aetia prologue and Hymn to Apollo.46 In both of these, as Müller stresses, Demeter occupies a special place. She appears in the former as =µπνια θεσµοφρος (“bountiful lawgiver”), with the elegiac Demeter by the Coan Philitas hailed by Callimachus as a positive model (fr. 1.10 Pf.).47 In the programmatic language of the Hymn to Apollo, the long and filthy Euphrates is opposed to the pure droplets carried by µλισσαι, “bees,” to Demeter from a sacred spring (Hymn to Apollo vv. 110–12). To identify with the role of a devotee of Demeter is thus, in Callimachean terms, to be aligned with a particular literary stance. To identify, further, with an exclusive group—as in our hymn—is typical of that stance. Callimachus’ art is not one of heroic isolation—despite the injunction “not to drive his chariot in the same tracks as others” (fr. 1.26–27). His milieu is the group. “We sing,” he says in the Aetia prologue, “among those who love the shrill voice of the cicada” (vv. 29–30). That elite, charmed circle of insiders belongs to his self-definition.48 The group is where the hymn begins. Rather than invoke the goddess’ name and titles at the very start, as normally in Homeric hymns and as in verse 1 of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (∆ µητρ/ Vκοµον σεµνν θεν ρχοµ/ εδειν, “Demeter of the lovely hair, the awesome goddess, I start to sing”), Callimachus waits until verse 2 (∆µατερ, µγα χαι
ρε, πολυτρφε πουλυµδιµνε, “Demeter, all hail, who nurture many, who bring many bushels”). Before that invocation—in deliberate and pointed contrast to the Homeric hymn—he interposes the group (τω
καλθω κατιντος 6πιφθγξασθε, γυναι
κεςD “as the basket returns, cry out, women,” v. 1).49 And, in 46. There is, on the one hand, Erysichthon, rash and murderous, his actions conspicuously portrayed in language evoking martial epic (cf. Hopkinson 1984: 6–7), the genre Callimachus eschewed (Aetia fr. 1.3–5). Vast quantities of food and wine flow down his gullet “as though into the depths of the sea” (τ δ/ 6ς βυθν ο
α θαλσσας, v. 89). Recall how, in the Hymn to Apollo, Envy condemns the poet who does not sing a song big as the sea (Tς ο"δ/ @σα πντος εδει, v. 106). Yet Erysichthon still wants more. Even the filthy garbage thrown out from the feast ((κβολα λµατα δαιτς, v. 115) is meet for his indiscriminate maw (cf. the λµατα γη
ς carried along by the Assyrian stream in Hymn to Apollo v. 109). On the other hand, there is the exclusive circle of Demeter’s devotees, untouched by impurity, restrained in their appetites. 47. For the influence of Philitas in Callimachus’ hymn, see Heyworth 2004: 146–53. 48. In the Hymn to Apollo, the cultic community again coincides with the community of readers. See, in the present volume, “Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo.” 49. The address to the group, rather than the deity, is also observed by Fantuzzi (1993: 933). Contra Fantuzzi, however, that address does not just replace the naming of Demeter. Her name is still there; still holds its position at verse start (v. 2); still leads off an utterance. Callimachus thus pointedly recalls standard hymnic invocation precisely so as to stress its displacement through the address to the group. The pointedness of this shift becomes clear when we contrast other poems in which a group is ordered to celebrate the deity but in

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distinction to the archaic hymn, it is in the framework of this privileged group—with whom (more than in any other of Callimachus’ hymns) the speaker conspicuously identifies by her recurrent use of the first-person plural—that the experience of the transcendent occurs. The facts that the group’s exclusivity is here defined largely by gender and that readers are invited to play a woman’s part introduce an element different from the usual play of insider/outsider. But what does it mean? Is the female circle just another way for Callimachus to say “my crowd”? Is it the semantic equivalent of the literary elite of the Aetia prologue? Or does the play of gender signify? That play would be the more emphatic if we assume, as seems plausible, that the six hymns were set out in their present order by Callimachus himself.50 For if we read them in sequence, the setting shifts from the predominantly male symposium at the start (παρ σπονδJη
σιν, Hymn to Zeus v. 1) to the exclusively female festival at the close. It is important to note that the gender contrast framing the hymns is not just thematic (male deity vs. female deity), as Hopkinson seems to suggest.51 Rather, it involves the reader in a shift in sensibility, as he responds imaginatively to the shift from a “masculine” to a “feminine” setting. Do readers who adopt the female vision here, then, participate in an aesthetic experience that sets them apart from the established (more masculine?) aesthetic norm?52 Does this experience, exceptional and exclusive as it is, reflect the otherness to which Callimachus aspired in his poetic program?

which the deity’s name still comes first in the poem. Cf., e.g., the Eritrean Paean (p. 136 Powell): [Παια
να κλυτ]µητιν εσατε / [κου
ροι Λατοδαν KΕκ]ατον; Epidaurian Paean of Isyllus (p. 133 Powell): ,+ Παια
να θεν εσατε λαο, / ζαθας 6ννατα[ι] τα
σδ/ /Επιδαρου; the Paean of Macedonius (p. 138 Powell): ∆ λιον ε"φαρτρα[ν 2κατηβλον] ε_φρονι θυµMω
/ ε"φηµ[ει
τε, φροντες, , ,, g ,+ Παιν,] / κτη
ρ[α] κλδον 6ν παλ[µαις, ∆ις] [γλ]αν (ρνος / κου
ροι /Αθη[ναων, , ,, g ,+ Παιν. 50. Hopkinson 1984: 13; Hunter and Fuhrer 2002; Depew 2004. 51. Hopkinson 1984: 13. 52. This is the sort of experience that Skinner (1993: 136–38) posits for the male reception of a genuine woman’s voice, such as Sappho’s: “[A]llusion to Sappho became an obvious tactic for projecting metaphoric ‘difference’ upon one of two antithetical male-structured categories. . . . Yet the Sapphic texts still stayed in play as a locus of real differentiation. . . . There is a dash of actual female subjectivity even in Diotima. . . . Plato’s audience would have obtained its artistic impressions of female homoeroticism chiefly from the poetry of Sappho.” Since, as we have seen, Callimachus feminizes his narrating persona in part by alluding to the representation of female speech in male poets, such as Euripides and Theocritus (cf. the similes discussed early in this essay), it appears that his feminine characterization has already passed through a masculine filter. Is it thereby closer to that essentially male construction of the feminine, in which “‘woman’ . . . turns out to be a trope,” a figure of “male speech,” as Halperin (1990: 150–51) has argued?

chapter 4

Reconstructing Berenike’s Lock


I

n his Miscellanea (LXVIII and LXIX) of 1489, Angelo Poliziano, the first modern scholar to assemble fragments of Callimachus’ Lock of Berenike, remarked on the extraordinary elegance with which Catullus translated this poem. Still, he deplored corruptions introduced by ignorant scribes,1 and drew attention to two in particular 2 for which he proposed readings that had one thing in common: they presumed that Catullus had adopted the Greek form of a proper name in his translation.3 In the first instance, the lock—severed from its queen by an iron blade—calls down a curse upon a certain ironworking people (66.48). According to Poliziano, some read “Iuppiter, ut Telorum omne genus pereat,” while the “vulgatissimi codices” read celitum (sc., caelitum)—neither of which produces good sense in the context. For his part, Poliziano adduced a quote from the Callimachean original, which he had found preserved in the scholia to Apollonius Rhodius 2.375: Xαλβων Eς πλοιτο γνος . . . “In the light of this evidence,” he argued, “who could doubt that Catullus’ verse must read Iuppiter, ut Chalybon omne genus pereat, and that Chalybon

This is an updated version of an article that appeared in Collecting Fragments, ed. G. W. Most, 78–94. Aporematal. Göttingen. © 1997. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. My heartfelt thanks to Prof. Garth Tissol of Emory University for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. 1. “Elegiam Callimachi de crinibus Berenices inter sidera receptis mira elegantia vertit in latinam linguam, nobilis poeta Catullus . . . pleraque sint in ea corrupta, mendosaque, et temere scripta librariorum inscitia.” 2. Cf. the excellent discussion of these two passages in Grafton 1983: 169–72. 3. Cf. Grafton 1983: 33.

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is rendered with the Greek form?” 4 To be sure, a few scholars have argued for the Latin genitive plural Chalybum, deciding they can live with the unusual hiatus that results.5 But on the whole, Chalybon has been accepted and is now the most commonly printed text.6 In the second instance, Poliziano claimed that he was “taking a stand with both feet (as they say) against the perverse boldness of the ignorant.” His indignation was aimed at a suggestion made a few years earlier (in 1485) by Parthenius concerning the poem’s very last word, which names the constellation Orion. The transmitted text has Oarion, the uncontracted form of the name in the Greek, which probably baffled Parthenius because it is not otherwise known in Latin. The standard spelling of Orion did not fill out the end of the pentameter. Hence Parthenius—thinking of the Latin epithet for Orion, ensifer (or ensiger), “sword-bearer”—proposed Aorion. This unattested name he derived from the Greek ορ: “Τ ορ enim significat ensem: inde Aorion, quasi ensifer.” Against this ingenious but perverse coinage, Poliziano argued, “Callimachi eiusdem autoritate,” that we must retain Oarion, since it belongs to Callimachus’ own usage (Hymn to Artemis v. 265; cf. also Nicander Ther. 15; Pindar Isthm. 3.67). By thus defending the transmitted text of Catullus, Poliziano suggests what in all likelihood stood in the Greek. Implicit in both of Poliziano’s readings is an assumption that Catullus’ translation hews very close to its source—so close, indeed, that he adopts the Greek forms of proper names, notwithstanding that these do not appear elsewhere in Latin. In the case of the Chalybes, moreover, the fact that they stand at precisely the same metrical position as in Callimachus makes the proposed reading all the more convincing. The Renaissance scholar is the first in a long line to suggest that Catullus translated his model with exceptional fidelity: the translator’s precision is assumed. Poliziano’s lead in this respect was to have enormous influence. Indeed, his brief observations would to a large extent mold critical perception of Catullus’ poem vis-à-vis Callimachus ever after. Still, there are those who have taken a different stand. Rather than highlighting the accuracy of the rendering, they draw attention to the incongruities between the 4. “Ex quo versiculum sic illum legendum quis dubitet? Iuppiter ut Chalybon omne genus pereat, ut sit Chalybon graece dictum.” 5. E.g., Kroll 1968: ad loc. 6. Poliziano was apparently quite proud of his suggestion and wanted to make sure that he (rather than Pico della Mirandola, who had been spreading it around) would get credit for it: “Sed hanc scio nostram observationem iam pridem esse pervulgatam, quam tamen a nobis ortam, vel ille ipse scit, qui vulgavit, libenterque etiam fatetur vir doctissimus undecumque Picus.”

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Greek and Latin, even insisting on the Roman poet’s extreme unreliability as a guide to the Greek. These opposing tendencies have acquired substance and become more pronounced as fragments of Callimachus’ poem—and information about its context in his work—have come to light in papyri since the 1920s.7 Whichever view critics adopt, it shapes their treatment of either poem: whether for similarity or contrast, each text is used to elucidate the other. Not surprisingly, however, it is upon the fragmentary Greek that assumptions about the relative accuracy of the translation have more profoundly left their mark—especially on the constitution of its text. The presence of the Latin translation definitely alters our handling of the fragments, adding an interesting twist to the usual problems we confront in grappling with a fragmentary text. Typically, fragments of ancient works involve questions of reconstruction, of reconstituting the whole.8 How, for instance, do we construe an indistinct letter; what weight do we assign marginalia in so doing? How should we supplement lacunose verses and, on a larger scale, imagine what filled the gaps between fragments? In pursuing such questions, we respond to the challenge of the empty space, at once daunting as an image of loss inflicted by time and beguiling in the scope for play it offers the intellect— earnest play, to be sure, since it also holds out the prospect of restoring a text to its pristine state, even if such an outcome is rare. To take up the challenge is perhaps to become an “artificer of fact,” as Herbert Youtie described the papyrologist9—a tempting prospect, which has turned the head of many a textual critic. Normally, of course, we limit our play of intellect with the rigorous checks and constraints of scholarly method: all proposals must be met with caution and a critical eye, for no one dealing with a dead language can hope to acquire the cultural/linguistic competence that native speakers enjoy as their birthright. Whether the challenge of the empty space makes us cautious or bold determines to some extent which of the 7. These are PSI 1092, edited by Vitelli (1929), which contains twenty verses from the middle of the poem; the so-called Milan ∆ιηγ σεις, edited by Norsa and Vitelli (1934), which cites the previously unknown first verse as the final lemma before the subscriptio of the fourth book of the Aetia; and finally P. Oxy. 2258, edited by Lobel (1952), which Pfeiffer had included in his edition as P. Oxy. ined. C (cf. also the addenda in Pf. II 114–16): this contained fragments of the same verses as PSI 1092 but also some from an additional twenty verses later in the poem. 8. In this respect, they differ fundamentally from that sense of fragment found in some modern literature (e.g., that of Samuel Beckett), whose whole tendency is toward a nonexistence that precludes reconstitution. Cf. Strauss 1995. In ancient literature, we find deliberate use of fragmentary contexts as a spur to the imagination and to supplementation. See “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” in the present volume. 9. Youtie 1963 (⫽ 1973).

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opposing critical tendencies outlined in the previous paragraph we incline to. Still, in the case of the Lock of Berenike, the scales are definitely tipped toward more liberal supplementation. And the reason is that, ever since Poliziano, scholars have favored the view that we possess an accurate guide to the missing Greek: the translation of Catullus. Critics could of course invoke Catullus himself to justify this view. For the poet seems to arouse an expectation of fidelity when, in the Lock of Berenice’s accompanying epistle to Hortalus (poem 65), he describes himself as incapable of creative work due to his grief at his brother’s death (nec potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus / mens animi, vv. 3–4) but willing to send Hortalus expressa . . . carmina Battiadae, “verses of Callimachus translated” (v. 16). The term for translation here, exprimere, “originally [meant] ‘to take the impression of a seal,’ [but] comes increasingly to be used of literal translation, often with verbum de (or e) verbo added.”10 As such we must distinguish it from vertere, which signifies a far freer rendering. It is not surprising, then, that long before the papyri appeared to provide some measure of corroboration, there were many who championed Catullus’ accuracy. In this essay, I want to consider some of those who did and look at how that position affected the way they treat the fragmentary Greek.11 I will begin with the centuries immediately following Poliziano and lead up to the work of Rudolf Pfeiffer, preeminent scholar of Callimachus in our own time and exemplary editor of fragments. From the very start, these champions of accuracy spared no toil in trying to alter the few fragments of the Greek preserved in citations so that it would conform better to the Latin. What is striking about their attempts is that not one has proved correct in the light of subsequent discoveries. The assumption of fidelity became an almost irresistible spur to conjecture. Certainly it inspired Muret, in his 1558 edition of Catullus, to emend and supplement the verse about the Chalybes (v. 48). His emendation has a brilliance and seeming necessity, which made it extremely popular among later scholars. Accepting Poliziano’s Chalybon, Muret read the Latin as follows: Iuppiter, ut Chalybon omne genus pereat. It only required a small change to bring the Greek into almost perfect alignment with the Latin. Where the transmitted text read Xαλβων Eς πλοιτο γνος, Muret suggested Eς Xαλβων πα
ν πλοιτο γνος. Omne now had an analogue in πα
ν. And even the conjunction ut stood revealed as corresponding precisely to the 10. Wormell 1966: 198. Cf. also Fordyce 1961: ad 65.16; J. Reid 1885: ad 2.77. The connotation “literal translation” is called into doubt by Warden (2006: 98–100). 11. In these considerations, I have been greatly helped by Marinone’s collection of the evidence (1984).

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deployment of Eς in the newly improved original. Genus, of course, was already perfectly matched with γνος. All that was missing now was Jupiter, and he was supplied with the etymologically identical Zευ
πτερ so as to produce the convincing pentameter Zευ
πτερ, Eς Xαλβων πα
ν πλοιτο γνος. Muret’s conjecture presumes that, as in the case of the Chalybes, Catullus sought to reproduce exactly the sense, the essential form, and even the metrical position of the putative Zευ
πτερ. Of course, Muret could have no inkling that the papyri would show that nothing in Callimachus’ text corresponds to this oath to Jupiter.12 That, as it turns out, was Catullus’ innovation, a note of mock solemnity in a distinctly Roman key.13 The quotation in the scholia to Apollonius concerning the Chalybes does not end with this verse. It extends to the next one, and they together read as follows: Xαλβων Eς πλοιτο γνος / γειθεν ντλλοντα, κακν φυτν, οG µιν (φηναν (“may the whole race of the Chalybes perish, / who uncovered it, rising from the earth, an evil flower”). Even without further context, scholars noted that in Callimachus the lock’s malediction concerns only the Chalybes, who are seen not just as workers of iron but as the discoverers of the art. In Catullus, these functions are split between the Chalybes and an anonymous πρω
τος ε#ρετ ς: Iuppiter, ut Chalybon omne genus pereat / et qui principio sub terra quaerere venas / institit ac ferri stringere duritiem (“Jupiter, may the whole race of the Chalybes perish, / and he who first began to look for veins under ground, / and to forge hard iron.”).14 This incongruity nettled the champions of accuracy. To get rid of it, Joseph Scaliger, for instance, who in 1562 had retranslated the whole of Catullus’ Lock of Berenice into Greek as a present for Muret,15 proposed in his 1577 edition of Catullus (75) that the Roman poet had read not the masculine participle ντλλοντα, whose antecedent we now know is σδηρος two verses earlier, but, rather, ντλλον τε, the neuter participle modifying κακν φυτν. The transmitted text, γειθεν ντλλοντα, 12. The beginning of the pentameter in Callimachus turned out to have the verb from the temporal clause in the previous line: τ πλκαµοι 8ξωµεν, @τ/ ο_ρεα τοι
α σιδ [ρMω / ε:κουσιν; Xαλβων Eς πλοιτο γνος. 13. Thus Wormell 1966: 198. 14. Cf. Pfeiffer 1932 ⫽ Skiadas 1975: 100–52, here 115: “Kallimachos unterscheidet sich von allen andern, indem er ein ganz bestimmtes Volk nennt: die Chalyber, die als erste das Eisenerz ans Licht brachten und es zu schmieden lehrten. Catull hat das nicht einfach übersetzt, sondern er ‘kontaminiert’ sein Vorbild mit jenem allgemeinen, bei den Römern besonders beliebten Topos: πλοιθ/ @στις πρω
τος usw. ( pereat, qui primus . . .); so kommt er dazu (nach Kallimachos), die Chalyber zu verwünschen ‘und den, der nach Eisenerz gegraben und es dann gehärtet hat.’ Die Chalyber sind also bei ihm einfach σιδηροτκτονες, als die sie seit Aeschylus gelten . . . , aber sie sind nicht die ersten.” 15. The text may be found in Scaliger 1864: 214–17.

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κακν φυτν, οG µιν (φηναν, thus became γειθεν ντλλον τε κακν φυτν οG µιν (φηναν, and the lock’s ire was therewith aimed at not just one

but two targets, as in Catullus—that is, not only at the Chalybes but at “those who discovered iron, that evil flower [κακν φυτν] rising out of the earth.” A hundred years later, this emendation was refined by A. Riese.16 He proposed ντλλον τε κακν φυτν, οj πρν (φηναν ([“may . . . the Chalybes perish,] and those who previously uncovered the evil flower rising from the earth”), somewhat unnecessarily assuring that the temporal relationship between the Chalybes and these putative discoverers of iron would be clear—but perhaps he thought Catullus intended Klangspiel between πρν and “qui principio.” Interestingly, he comments that both poets “sehen in ihnen [sc., the Chalybes] nur erst Bearbeiter des Eisens und knüpfen mit et (τε) zu gleicher Verwünschung dann die ungenannten Entdecker des Eisens und seiner Bearbeitung an. Andernfalls hätte Catull ungenau übersetzt.” Finally, in his commentary on Catullus of 1885, E. Baehrens pressed the Greek into yet greater conformity with the Latin by “restoring” a singular discoverer of iron, corresponding to Catullus’ qui principio . . . institit: γειθεν ντλλον τε κακν φυτν, @ς σφιν (φηνεν ([“may . . . the Chalybes perish,] and he who uncovered it, an evil flower rising from the earth”). The publication of PSI 1092, however, took the wind out of the sails of these industrious correctors. For the papyrus confirmed the transmitted text in no uncertain terms. Catullus once again stood revealed as translating more freely than some had suspected. We do not know why he introduced an anonymous discoverer of iron and of ironworking in addition to the Chalybes. It was surely not, as Wendell Clausen supposed, because he “was simply unable to render Callimachus’ Greek in any way that would be intelligible in Latin” (1970: 89). As Pfeiffer put it, “[Es] bleibt sein Geheimnis” (in Skiadas 1975: 115). This corroboration of the tradition in the papyrus prompted Pfeiffer to issue a stern warning about our understanding of the one text in relation to the other: “Den Catulltext gewaltsam in Einklang mit dem Original bringen zu wollen, davor warnen die Differenzen” (in Skiadas 1975: 115). But despite this warning and his many acute observations detailing the “Differenzen,” Pfeiffer has been by far the most forceful advocate of Catullus’ accuracy in this century. This is how he characterizes the translation: 16. Riese 1881.

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Der Eindruck, den das zunächst in die Augen springende enge SichAnschmiegen an die Vorlage macht, lässt sich vielleicht am besten lateinisch bzw. ciceronisch wiedergeben: Catullus convertit non ut poeta, sed ut interpres, und zwar horazisch ergänzt, ut fidus interpres. Wie Catull sein exprimere der carmina Battiadae (c. 65, 16) gemeint habe, darüber konnte man früher im Zweifel sein: die 20 neuen Verse zeigen, dass er nicht nur Vers für Ver seinem Original folgte, sondern das Verhältnis von Satz- und Versschluss und das Zusammenfallen von Satzteilen und Versgliedern zu wahren suchte. Ja er ließ zur besonderen Markierung den Eigennamen ihren Platz innerhalb des Verses, mitunter sogar anderen Einzelworten. (in Skiadas 1975: 135) But while the famous statements of Cicero (Opt. Gen. 14) and Horace (Ars Poetica 133–34) condemn overly literal, word-for-word translation, Pfeiffer argues that such fidelity was essential to Catullus’ aim, which was to achieve nothing less than perfection (“Vervollkommnung”) of a technical sort. Es ist ein leidenschaftliches Ringen um jene Meisterschaft der Form, die sich die großen Hellenisten erworben hatten: etwas grundsätzlich anderes, als was die früheren römischen Dichtergenerationen von Livius Andronicus über Ennius und Plautus zu Terenz erstrebt hatten. (in Skiadas 1975: 142) Thus, though he dutifully acknowledges subtle differences in the Latin and condemns the excesses of earlier defenders of Catullan accuracy, Pfeiffer believes in a fidus interpres. His confidence in Catullus’ faithfulness to the Greek may, however, have made him liable to attempt reconstructions that are similar in principle—if subtler in practice—to those undertaken by his predecessors. To take a minor example, in the first line of PSI 1092, Pfeiffer was looking for something that would correspond to verse 44 in Catullus: progenies Thiae clara supervehitur ([“that mountain—sc., Athos—which] the shining son of Thia goes by”). In the papyrus, he found traces at the end of the line consistent with the reconstruction of the verb: #περ]φ[ρ]ε τ[αι .17 For progenies Thiae, however, he adduced a striking analogue in a previously unnoticed gloss in the Suda (Y 308 Adler): Θεας µνµωνD C Βορας C νεµοςD µνµων δ+ C πγονοςD Eς γρ ;Ησιδος [Th. 379] λγει, τη
ς 17. These were modestly confirmed in the corresponding line of P. Oxy. 2258: ]π ερ φ [.

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Θεας πγονοι ο νεµοι (“Θεας µνµων: The wind, Boreas. µνµων

means descendant. For as Hesiod says [Th. 379], the winds are descendants of Thia”). Pfeiffer realized that, in conformity with Hecker’s law, all such anonymous citations in the Suda derive from the Hekale.18 He argued, therefore, that Callimachus here quoted himself. Most strikingly, he deduced from the text of Catullus—“der gerade die Eigennamen möglichst an ihrem originalen Platze lässt” (in Skiadas 1975: 110)—that the Greek poet reversed his own word order. Pfeiffer assures us that “die ganz schwachen Spuren widersprechen, wie mir Vitelli versichert, nicht, der erste Buchstabe nach der Lücke war sogar mit Wahrscheinlichkeit ein α.”19 But in his final edition, after having examined the papyrus himself, Pfeiffer no longer recorded a trace of that α, but only of the following two letters: µω. I must confess that in examining the photographs, I was unable to see even these. Was Pfeiffer perhaps unduly swayed by his belief in Catullus’ desire to retain proper names in their original position (cf. the Chalybes)? The papyrus grants us no certainty. But the fact that Catullus changes the location of names in the Coma almost as often as he keeps it should at the very least make us cautious in our assumptions.20 In this last instance, the assumption of fidelity concerned the position of proper names. There is a comparable conviction underlying the treatment of longer sections too, however: namely, that Catullus sought to match his original line for line. Let us examine its consequences for Pfeiffer and others before him in their treatment of the second extended passage (besides the one about the Chalybes) preserved in an ancient source. The lines, quoted in Schol. Arat. 146, correspond to those starting at verse 7 in Catullus. †η µε Κνων (βλεψεν 6ν Vρι τν Βερενκης βστρυχον Tν κενη πα
σιν (θηκε θεοι
ς [Konon saw me in the sky, Berenike’s lock, whom she dedicated to all the gods] 18. Pfeiffer locates it in his edition among the fragments of the Hekale as fr. 338. And it is taken up in Hollis 1990: fr. 87. 19. Thus in 1932 Pfeiffer printed [µν] µ ω [ν Θεης. 20. Catullus does not retain the position of the name with Conon or Berenice in vv. 7–8, Medi in v. 46 (but note the play with per medium in the same position), or Arsinoe in v. 54 (though he did with Locridos). He substitutes the name Ariadne for νµφη Μινως at vv. 59– 60 (“a deliberate simplification,” argues Wormell [1966: 197]) and leaves out Berenice in v. 62. The location of the deity’s name in Callimachus v. 71 was surely different from that in the Latin text.

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Even more than in the case of the verses about the Chalybes, modern scholars have shamelessly tampered with this couplet. The reason lies in the character of Catullus’ rendering. idem me ille Conon caelesti in lumine vidit e Bereniceo vertice caesariem fulgentem clare, quam multis illa dearum levia protendens bracchia pollicita est. [that same Conon saw me among the lights of heaven, the lock from Berenice’s head, shining brightly, whom she vowed to many of the goddesses, stretching out her delicate arms.] Elements of Callimachus’ text are spread over two couplets in Catullus (multis . . . dearum corresponding to πα
σιν . . . θεοι
ς, pollicita est seemingly to (θηκε), while others do not appear in Callimachus at all (fulgentem clare and levia protendens bracchia). The response of some nineteenth-century critics was to assume—of all things!—compression: two Callimachean couplets had mistakenly been merged into one by the scholia. This, it seemed, would explain the discrepancy between pollicita est and (θηκε, which properly refer to different ritual moments (vow and dedication, respectively): Callimachus’ missing vow had presumably been squeezed out by the careless scholia. In discussing this fragment, Otto Schneider, the author of the standard edition of Callimachus’ fragments prior to Pfeiffer’s,21 made the interesting argument that it was unlikely that Catullus would deviate from his source so close to the poem’s start, for it was here that translators tended to be most accurate.22 His remedy was to “restore” the couplet to its original four verses, corresponding to those in Catullus. This he accomplished (1) by arguing that the transmitted pentameter was a distortion of what had actually been the second hexameter, reconfiguring it as such; and (2) by adding two entirely new pentameters of his own composition. This is what he proposed:

21. Schneider 1873. The couplet is fr. 34 in his edition. 22. Ibid., 147–48: “Tantum autem abest, ut in carminis initio, ubi qui convertunt accuratissimi esse solent, Catullum censeam quidpiam dixisse a Callimacheis vel plane diversum vel certe minus accurate eis respondens, ut totum hic se ad Callimachum accommodasse eum existimem.”

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ε,
δε,23 Κνων µ/ (βλεψεν 6ν Vρι τν Βερενκης φαινµενον λαµπρω
ς δ µλ/ π/ ο"ρανθεν βστρυχον, @ν τ/ ρ/ 6κενη 9πασιν θ κε θεοι
σιν ε"χοµνη Zπαλ ν χει
ρ/ νατεινοµνη τη
µος @τ/ . . .24

[scanned [them—sc., the astronomical phenomena of the previous six verses in Catullus], but Konon saw me in the sky, Berenike’s / lock shining ever so brightly from the heavens, whom she dedicated to all the gods, / vowing with her delicate arm upstretched, at that time when . . .] Wilamowitz inveighed against the “Misshandlungen Schneiders” here, with their “arge Verstöße gegen Kallimachos’ Verskunst.”25 And half a century later, Pfeiffer lamented that “Schneiders fatale Entstellungen dieses Distichons werden, trotzdem seit Jahrzehnten durch E. Maaß die Überlieferung der Aratscholien eindeutig feststeht . . . , immer wieder abgedruct” (in Skiadas 1975: 102 n. 9). While not indulging in comparable reconstructive fantasies, Pfeiffer nonetheless revealed a similar trust in Catullus’ fidelity. Convinced that the poet strove to render Callimachus line for line (“Vers für Vers”),26 he explained the discrepancies between the two versions by assuming—like Schneider—the existence of a second couplet. But unlike Schneider’s, his merely followed the one we have, which he had no doubt was intact. Pfeiffer concluded: “man [wird] an dem völlig einwandfreien kallimacheischen 23. Schneider argued (ibid., 148) that this verb referred to all the astronomical phenomena of the previous six verses in Catullus and corresponded to the Latin dispexit in v. 1. Though it was only with the publication of the Milan ∆ιηγ σεις in 1934 that Callimachus’ first verse came to light and, with it, the knowledge that he had included in it a verb of seeing (,δει
ν), Schneider’s argument that Catullus shifted the verb six verses ahead seems strangely at odds with his contention that translators are most accurate at the start of a poem. 24. Ellis (1878: 335) proposed something similar, though without composing new verses. He cites vv. 7–10 of Catullus, “unde Scholiasten credo fragmenta in unum congessisse quattuor versuum. Scripserat Callimachus hoc modo (1) ΤJη
δε Κνων µ/ (βλεψεν 6ν Vρι τν Βερενκης (2) Βστρυχον (3) @ν τ/ ρα κενη (4) πα
σιν (θηκε θεοι
ς Nam post Βστρυχον exciderunt nonnulla quae Catullianis istis Caelesti numine Fulgentem clare (8, 9) responderent.” 25. Wilamowitz 1879. Cf., e.g., the violation of Naeke’s Law in the second hexameter. 26. At Skiadas 1975: 135, we hear Pfeiffer argue that Catullus “Vers für Vers seinem Original folgte.” Cf. also 102.

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Distichon. . . . nicht ändern, sondern annehmen, dass noch ein weiteres Distichon dazugehörte und diese 4 Verse den 4 catullischen entsprachen.”27 Pfeiffer’s assumption of line-for-line translation is innocuous enough when applied to this couplet. But its consequences are greatly magnified elsewhere. I want to draw attention to one example in particular, which occurs where few would expect it and of which fewer yet are actively aware—despite the fact that it gives that assumption its most vivid expression. I mean the extraordinary layout of the poem in Pfeiffer’s edition (fr. 110), with Greek and Latin texts carefully disposed on facing pages and—especially significant— with corresponding numeration (see pp. 76–77). Pfeiffer had matched Callimachus to Catullus in this way in his ΒΕΡEΝΙΚΗΣ ΠΛΟΚΑΜΟΣ of 1932 (⫽ Skiadas 1975: 106–9)—though less ostentatiously, for he printed only those twenty lines of Latin that correspond to the Greek of PSI 1092.28 The decision to set the whole of Catullus’ poem against the fragments of the Greek (each with its own critical apparatus)29 for his 1949 edition is more radical, a striking act of interpretation, since it leads the reader to expect a precise linear counterpart to the parallel poem across the page, even for sections where not a shred of the original survives.30 That expectation is reinforced by the titles at the top of each page. On either side, Latin as well as Greek, they read “Aetia IV, Fr. 110” and, more remarkably still, include even verse numbers, so that on page 115 (for example) the Latin is labeled “Aetia IV, Fr. 11033–50,” while over the lacunose Greek on the left-hand page we see “Aetia IV, Fr. 11040–50.” In other words, Pfeiffer’s edition treats verses 33–39 of Catullus 66 as though they actually are “Aetia IV, Fr. 11033–39,” though those verses are nowhere to be found in the Greek. 27. In Skiadas 1975: 104. In his remarkable reconstruction of the poem in Greek, Barber (1936: 349) gives a good approximation of how the two couplets might have looked:
µε Κνων (βλεψεν 6ν Vρι τν Βερενκης V βστρυχον Tν κενη πα
σιν (θηκε θεοι
ς λαµπρν παµφανωνταD τ γρ πολλαι
σιν #πστη δαµοσι τω
λιπαρω
χει
ρε προτεινοµνη 28. He did, however, adopt matching numeration, implying that precisely forty-three verses preceded the fragment in PSI, exactly as in Catullus. Cf. his treatment of P. Oxy. 1793, discussed later in this essay. 29. There is a continuous dialogue between the poems in their respective apparatuses. Cf., e.g., ad fr. 110.69 (“suppl. L. ad Catull.”); ad Catull. 66.77 (“desideratur vox quae voci γυναικεων correspondeat”). 30. Perhaps the way had been prepared for this decision by Barber’s translation of Catullus into Greek (1936), which likewise sets the two texts opposite each other. But while that layout is entirely proper in the context of an academic “translation,” which proclaims its cleverness through the comparison and freely admits its “temerity in fathering on Callimachus some sixty lines” (345), it is another matter entirely in an edition that openly acknowledges none of its presuppositions.

Fig. 1. R. Pfeiffer, Callimachus, vol. 1. Oxford: 1949, 114–15

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The layout reflects just how tenaciously and with ever-growing assurance Pfeiffer held to his belief in Catullus’ line-for-line fidelity—despite the fact that it had previously led him badly astray, as he realized by 1949. For that belief is already there in his earlier edition, Callimachi Fragmenta nuper reperta (Bonn, 1923), where it colored his treatment of P. Oxy. 1793, columns i–iii (there fr. 60, pp. 93–94 ⫽ now frs. 385–87 Pf.).31 In the third of these badly tattered columns (fr. 387.2 Pf.) were found the words πρν  σ τ [ρι τ]Mω
Βερενκης, previously known from a quotation in the scholia to Aratus (Achill. Isag. exc. c. 14, p. 41, 22 Maass, Comm. in Arat.). A. F. Naeke had linked them to Catullus’ Lock of Berenice verses 80–82: “non prius . . . quam . . . mihi” (Callimachi Hecale [Bonn, 1845], 162), and many subsequent scholars followed him in attributing them to the Callimachean original. Consequently in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri vol. XV (London, 1922), A. S. Hunt very tentatively proposed that P. Oxy. 1793, column iii, might contain the final part of Callimachus’ Lock of Berenike. In his edition of the following year, Pfeiffer developed this proposal, and he did so—it is well to recall—before the appearance of any of the major papyri (the first three columns of P. Oxy. 1793 contain only meager bits of nine lines). Thus his conception, which is remarkably comprehensive, was still formed mainly on the basis of the old citations and, of course, Catullus. He argued that if the beginning of column iii corresponds approximately to verse 81 and if we calculate that each column contained about twenty-seven verses, then column i could have held verses 1–26; column ii, verses 27–54. Consequently we must reckon with one column missing before column iii. Following from this calculation, he even proposed supplements for the exiguous scraps in each column, based on their imagined counterparts in Catullus. Thus in column i, ] . . . ξυ
ν (fr. 385.1 Pf.) became [\λιον 4]ξν,32 corresponding to rapidi solis in Catullus verse 3; in column ii, ναξ.[. . .] (fr. 386.1 Pf.) suggested νξιον on the model of regium at Catullus verse 27; in column iii, ..[. . . .]n. .[.]µεναι produced [κλπον νηκ]µεναι33 to match nudantes reiecta veste papillas at Catullus verse 81. As Pfeiffer says in his ΒΕΡEΝΙΚΗΣ ΠΛΟΚΑΜΟΣ (Skiadas 1975: 102), “die Voraussetzung dieser etwas waghalsigen Rechnung war für mich, dass Catull möglichst Vers für Vers seinem Original folgte.” With the publication of PSI 1092 six years later in 1929, his judgment seemed to be confirmed. But by 1949, he 31. Cols. iv–v may, or may not, come from another poem. Cols. vi–x contain the Victory of Sosibios (fr. 384 Pf.). 32. Pfeiffer simply ignored the papyrus’ clear circumflex in Û. 33. This did violence to the reading in the papyrus, as Pfeiffer himself admitted in 1949. Cf. the next footnote.

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had seen that his “waghalsige Rechnung” had been just that. It could not be right, and he recanted in a note on fragment 387. Propter haec verba [sc., πρν  σ τ[ρι τ]Mω
Βερενκης and its alleged correspondance with “non prius . . . quam mihi”] Hunt, etsi valde dubitanter, coniecit in hac col. iii finem Comae scriptum fuisse posse; deinde nimis audacter e Catullo nonnulla suppl. Pf.1 in col. i–iii (nunc fr. 385–7). Haec omnia falsa esse existimo; columnas 21 versuum fuisse, non 27, ut computaveram, e fr. 384 satis certum est.34 In the light of this chastening experience, it is remarkable that Pfeiffer remained so sure of his fidus interpres. Indeed, as the layout of texts in his 1949 edition attests, his certainty had, if anything, grown stronger. Pfeiffer’s treatment of P. Oxy. 1793 brings us back to a more general point about fragments and the special implications of dealing with one from a text that seems to survive in translation. Precisely because it is a fragment—and a highly fragmentary one at that—P. Oxy. 1793 elicits an urge to make it whole. That urge is something we observed already with fragments preserved in quotations. But in the case of a tattered papyrus, it is, if anything, heightened. The visibly frayed edges and missing parts beyond provide space for the imagination, challenging editors’ ingenuity and historical mastery of the language, their ability to see the forest even in a few broken twigs. Scholars often compare the challenge and attendant pleasures of working on such fragments with that of doing jigsaw puzzles or crosswords. As we have noted, of course, the urge to make whole is normally tempered by caution born of sheer ignorance about what—beyond a certain point—might have stood in the gap. Such caution is reinforced by rules we recognize as prudent and agree to abide by, for instance, Youtie’s Law: iuxta lacunam ne mutaveris. In the case of the Lock of Berenike, however, there is an added temptation to conjecture, to venture into the empty 34. Of his proposed supplements, only one is even referred to in his 1949 edition; cf. ad fr. 387.1: “quae olim supplevi (ad Cat. 66.81, v. supra fr. 110) in litterarum et accentuum vestigia quadrare non videntur (κλπον νηκ]µεναι).” His proposals did have consequences, however: Barber (1936), working closely from Pfeiffer’s 1923 edition and 1932 article, attempted to incorporate κλπον νηκµεναι (v. 80) and the other two supplements mentioned here into his “translation” of Catullus (i.e., \λιον 4ξν [cf. his n. ad vv. 3–4] and νξιον, v. 27). Recently Hollis (1922) has revived the idea that P. Oxy. 1793 does figure in Catullus’ translation, arguing that col. iii through the beginning of col. vi (perhaps also the earlier columns) could have come from an elegy celebrating the wedding of Berenike, upon which Catullus drew for his vv. 79–88, which are absent from the papyrus containing the latter part of the Lock of Berenike. In other words, he would like to see those verses of Catullus as an instance of contaminatio. For these verses, cf. the discussion following in text.

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spaces beyond the text, since we seem to have a template, like the picture on a jigsaw-puzzle box, to guide our steps. Catullus’ translation appears (and had appeared to many ever since the Renaissance) to be just that. We are faced with a text, then, that excites our imagination, as fragments often do, while simultaneously disarming the vigilance that fragments always require. Under these circumstances, three badly mutilated columns yield up a whole poem in outline and even concrete details—though they turn out to be a mirage. I want to close by discussing one last instance of Pfeiffer’s belief in his fidus interpres that has become a well-known ζ τηµα in Callimachean scholarship; no discussion of the issues would be adequate without some mention of it. I am referring to the notorious problem that nothing in P. Oxy. 2258 corresponds to ten lines of Catullus (vv. 79–88) containing a digression about a marriage rite. Complicating the picture, the papyrus adds two verses (vv. 94a–b Pf.) that come after that corresponding to the final verse in Catullus and that appear to contain a farewell to Arsinoe Philadelphus, “mother” of the royal couple (cf. Pf. II 116 ad fr. 110.94a), and perhaps to the king and queen as well (cf. Marinone 1984: 67). For Pfeiffer, assuming the translator’s faithfulness to his original, there was little doubt about the ultimate source of the ten Catullan lines missing from the Greek. In his commentary on verses 79–88, he states “hunc ‘ritum nuptialem’ . . . Catullum de suo addidisse veri dissimillimum est.” Instead, he proposes that Callimachus published two versions of the Lock (ibid.).35 On this view, the poem was originally composed for a specific occasion, that is, to celebrate the catasterism of the lock dedicated by Queen Berenike on the successful return from war of her husband Ptolemy Eurgetes in September 245 b.c.36 This is the version preserved in the Oxyrhynchus papyrus, where the Lock appears together with another occasional poem, the Victory of Sosibios. The second version was that which Callimachus revised for inclusion in the Aetia, where, according to the Milan ∆ιηγ σεις, it came as the final poem of book 4. In this setting, Callimachus could dispense with the additional lines of farewell, since the epilogue, which closes the book, mentions the queen in a reverential context (fr. 112.2 Pf.) and prays for the well-being of the whole royal house (fr. 112.8 Pf.).37 According to the thesis followed by 35. For an excellent summary and evaluation of the thesis, cf. Eichgrün 1961: 55–59. 36. On the date, cf. Koenen 1993: 90 with n. 151. 37. Thus Eichgrün 1961: 59. However, Cameron (1995: 154–62) rightly cautions that the epilogue is not mentioned in the Milan ∆ιηγ σεις, and he even proposes that it is mistakenly placed before the subscriptio “Aetia Bk IV” in P. Oxy. 1011. In that case, he argues, it could be unrelated to an edition of Aetia 4, serving, rather, as prologue to the Iambi or as the

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Pfeiffer, then, it was this final version from the Aetia on which Catullus based his translation and that he faithfully followed. We see that the assumption of verse-for-verse translation by Catullus has momentous consequences. Together with the conflicting evidence offered by P. Oxy. 2258 and the Milan ∆ιηγ σεις as to the context in which the poem was published, it serves as one of the major props for the thesis that there were two versions of the poem and that the second was specially revised so as to crown the last book of Callimachus’ most important work. It is possible, however, to construe the evidence in other ways. Lobel drew a very different conclusion from Pfeiffer when he published P. Oxy. 2258: “Some fresh light is thrown by the new part of the Βερενκης πλκαµος on the relation of Catullus’ translation to the original. I should judge that it is now evident that it is impossible to depend on the Latin, which too often . . . recedes far from the Greek” (1952: 70). Such skepticism about the faithfulness of the translation is shared by other scholars as well, who have shed welcome light on the differences between the Latin and the Greek.38 In particular, no one has been able to explain why Callimachus would have wanted to add ten verses about the aition of a nuptial rite—“easily separable and . . . gladly to be dispensed with” (Lobel 1952: 98)—when the poem’s aition is clearly the creation of a new constellation. As Stephanie West puts it, “I cannot see that this . . . does much credit to his judgement.”39 In fact, several scholars have argued that these lines, like the other less extensive changes in the poem, are Catullus’ addition.40 The diction closely resembles that found elsewhere in Catullus (though it is hardly surprising that he would have translated the original into his own poetic idiom). And the themes of adultery and fidelity, separation and harmonious unity, are crucial in the rest of his work.41 In this connection, Hutchinson does well to remind us that “the mixture of close translation and independent insertion,” such as one might presume here in Catullus, has good precedent in original epilogue to Aetia 1–2, in which a future project, the Iambi, is announced. If we accept Cameron’s arguments, the epilogue (fr. 112) would no longer explain Catullus’ omission of the last two verses of the Lock of Berenike (vv. 94a–b). 38. Cf., e.g., Putnam 1960; West 1985b; Hutchinson 1988: 322–24; Warden (2006). 39. West 1985b: 65 n. 24. According to Hutchinson (1988: 323 n. 91), “the disputed lines destroy an elegant connection, and make the queen’s offering a strange appendage, the final wish an abrupt resumption.” Cf. also Warden (2006: 132–34). 40. This was first proposed by F. Della Corte (1951: 33) and elaborated by Putnam (1960) and Hutchinson (1988). 41. This argument cuts both ways, however, as Marinone rightly warns us (1984: 61–62). For Catullus might have found Callimachus’ poem appealing precisely because it contained themes that matched his own concerns.

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Roman literature—for instance, in the Aratea of Germanicus or in Plautus (1988: 323 n. 91). Indeed, poem 51 of Catullus, his translation of Sappho 31 (Lobel-Page), is a shining example. The latest variant on this approach is that of A. S. Hollis (1992), who defends the Callimachean pedigree of the verses but shifts responsibility for their awkwardness in this setting onto Catullus by proposing that the Latin poet translated them from a different elegy on Berenike (which he finds in frs. 385–88 Pf.). We would thus have an instance of contaminatio—a fascinating possibility, though “highly speculative,” as Hollis himself forthrightly admits (1988: 28). His admission is one that, if we are to be similarly forthright, we must extend to all attempts to explain the absence of these verses from Callimachus. What, then, may we conclude? Because of its astonishing accuracy in many places, Catullus’ translation seems to offer a reliable guide to Callimachus’ poem both as a whole and in particulars. Yet we have seen that reconstructions based on its authority have repeatedly proven badly mistaken. Such a claim as Wormell’s (1966: 197) that the “Greek prototype and Latin version are so close that each can be used as a check on the textual tradition of the other” must be treated with utmost caution. We find, in fact, that any reconstruction of the Greek on the basis of Catullus is likely to be wrong.42 For the appearance of reliability may be illusory, adding notso-subtle bias to our dealings with the Greek. This can make us less wary, more apt to succumb to the lure of the empty space—and so to conjecture. Since the Catullan whole may not always reflect the Callimachean parts, the existence of the translation may thus actually heighten the dangers that normally attend the interpretation of fragments. That possibility looms even larger when we recall that, despite the self-characterization as expressa . . . carmina Battiadae, this is verse translation, composed by a major poet in his own right, whose aims will not always have been the same as those of his model. That is something the meticulous Pfeiffer was perhaps not always ready to admit but of which we must constantly remind ourselves, verse for verse and word for word, in interpreting the fragmentary Greek.

42. Conversely, emendations of the Latin from Callimachus stand a slightly better chance of hitting the mark. Certainly Poliziano’s Chalybon was right on target. But such a clear instance is exceptional. Perhaps another is Lobel’s correction of Catullus v. 78, “milia multa bibi,” to “vilia multa bibi” on the basis of Callimachus vv. 77–78: πολλ ππωκα / λιτ. Milia has, however, found its defenders; cf. Putnam 1960: 88; Warden 2006: 115 n. 74.

chapter 5

Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus
In memoriam Thomas G. McKeen

I

n one of the “Marvelous Things Heard” by pseudo-Aristotle (Mirab. auscult. 131), we learn of the following very dramatic incident: the Athenians are in the process of building the shrine of Demeter at Eleusis when, all at once, they make an exciting and mysterious discovery. Something has been brought to light, closed in among the rocks. It is a stele—but a most unusual one, made of bronze. This immediately suggests an artifact of great antiquity, perhaps from the Heroic Age. The stele, moreover, is inscribed with an epigram, in the original sense of the word—that is, with a metrical inscription. Its text reads as follows: ∆ηιπης τδε ση
µα, “This is the tomb of Deiope.” The question arises as to the identity of this Deiope. Some argue that it is most likely the wife of the legendary singer Musaios; others, however, claim that it must be the mother of Triptolemos.1 This thrilling tale offers us a clear illustration of how epigrams were

This is an updated version of an article that appeared in A&A 41 (1995) 115–31, © 1995 de Gruyter. Earlier versions of this essay were delivered as talks at the Universities of Tübingen, Cambridge, London, and Heidelberg. I gratefully acknowledge the criticism and suggestions of Profs. R. Kannicht, E. A. Schmidt, G. W. Most, and Drs. H. Krasser, E. Krummen, K.-H. Stanzel, R. L. Hunter, N. Hopkinson, and Peter Allen Hansen. 1. φασν ο,κοδοµοντων /Αθηναων τ τη
ς ∆ µητρος ερν τη
ς 6ν /Ελευσι
νι περιεχοµνην
ς 6πεγγραπτοD ∆ηιπης τδε ση
µα. !ν ο µ+ν λγουσι στ λην πτραις ε#ρεθη
ναι χαλκη
ν, 6φ/ ? Μουσαου γυναι
κα, τιν+ς δ+ Τριπτολµου µητρα γενσθαι.

85

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The Scroll and the Marble

originally tied to a particular location. Inscriptions generally refer to specific objects or monuments in a given place, where people set them up at a given historical moment, and for a certain purpose. Further, since such inscriptions are usually public, we may assume that they belong to the conceptual framework of their given community, share its assumptions and traditions, and may be readily understood by its members. The stele of Deiope, by contrast—inasmuch as it is buried amid the rocks—has apparently been dislodged from its intended place. More important, people evidently no longer know who Deiope is. This prompts them to speculate: assuming that the tomb was not originally here, but somewhere else (they might say to themselves), it was still probably linked with Eleusis; and since its bronze material suggests great age, Deiope probably belongs to the mythical prehistory of the site. In other words, the readers sift through the clues they find in the inscription and fill these out with elements of their own knowledge, so as to form a plausible whole. This activity might be called a process of supplementation. In Hellenistic times, as epigram became increasingly “literary,” that process underwent a shift. No doubt the epigram retained most conventions of votive and sepulchral inscription, including that extraordinary concision that, as we shall see, became ever more expressive. But while the epitaph of Deiope belongs to a monument whose lack of context was accidental, Hellenistic epigram was often deliberately severed from its object or monument and set in the as-yet-uncharted landscape of the book. Here, poets came to exploit and play with this process of supplementation in a deliberate and artful way. Indeed, it became a favored and self-conscious device. As such, I would like to call it Ergänzungsspiel.2 Before examining this development, I would like to consider how it might have come about. In what circumstances would readers have experienced the aesthetic appeal and poetic possibilities of an epigram thus detached from its pragmatic context? If we had any certainty at all that inscriptional epigrams were transcribed early on and available in collections, we would have a plausible source for such an experience. Scholars have spilled endless quantities of ink arguing the early existence of epigram books,3 es2. I have opted for this term rather than Ingarden’s conceptually related “concretization” (1973: 50–63 and passim) because the latter omits that self-conscious manipulation of and (above all) play with supplementation that is crucial both to creation and reception of many epigrams in the Hellenistic period. Unfortunately, I could not find a comparably pithy term in English to convey both this playfulness and the endeavor to make a thing whole ( ganz). 3. Reitzenstein (1893: 115), for instance, weighs the possibility of such a collection in the second half of the fifth century, within his whole discussion of book epigram and epigram collections (104–20). Cf. further L. Weber 1917: esp. 540 n. 1; Geffcken 1918; Beckby 1957: 68; Sider 2007; A. Petrovic 2007b.

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pecially a sylloge Simonidea.4 But beguiling as the thought of such early collections is, there is no hard evidence that they existed before the end of the fourth century, that is, before the start of the Hellenistic age. It is only for this period that sources start to mention such figures as Philochoros, who collected inscribed epigrams (Suda s.v. “Philochoros” F 441 A d1 ⫽ FGrHist 328 T 1), or—somewhat later, at the transition from the third to the second century—the periegete Polemon of Ilion, who traveled through the Greek cities transcribing inscriptions so as to write his book Περ τω
ν κατ πλεις 6πιγραµµτων (Athen. 10.442e).5 Perhaps a more productive line of inquiry will emerge from the following question: how do authors of the fifth and fourth century quote inscribed epigrams?6 For the fifth century, we can look to the numerous examples from Herodotus and Thucydides. Herodotus 4.88, which concerns the bridging of the Bosporus, is a good example.7 ∆αρει
ος δ+ µετ ταυ
τα ?σθες τJη
σχεδJη τν ρχιτκτονα α"τη
ς Μαν
ν δ Μανδροκλης δροκλα τν Σµιον 6δωρ σατο πα
σι δκα. π/ E παρχ ν, ζMω
α γραψµενος πα
σαν τν ζευ
ξιν του
Βοσπρου κα βασιλα τε ∆αρει
ον 6ν προεδρJη κατ µενον κα τν στρατν α"του
διαβανοντα, ταυ
τα γραψµενος νθηκε 6ς τ KΗραιον, 6πιγρψας τδεD Βσπορον ,χθυεντα γεφυρσας νθηκε Μανδροκλης KΗρJη µνηµσυνον σχεδης, α#τMω
µ+ν στφανον περιθες, Σαµοισι δ+ κυ
δος, ∆αρεου βασιλος 6κτελσας κατ νου
ν. 4. Cf., e.g., Gentili 1968: 41–42. But cf. the welcome skepticism of Page (1981: 120–23, 207–10), who concludes, “there is no evidence that any particular author’s epigrams were collected and published before the Hellenistic period; and Simonides is no exception to the rule” (120). 5. Cf. Deichgräber 1952: 1314. 6. The examples are conveniently collected in Preger 1891 and are here preceded by Preger’s bracketed numbers. For the fifth century, see [109] Hdt. 4.88.2 ⫽ AP 6.341; [79] Hdt. 5.59 ⫽ AP 6.6; [80] Hdt. 5.60 ⫽ AP 6.7 ⫹ 8; [72] Hdt. 5.77.2 ⫽ AP 6.343; [20] Hdt. 7.228 ⫽ AP 7.677; [21] Hdt. 7.228 ⫽ Lycurg. In Leocr. 109 ⫽ AP 7.249; [200] Hdt. 7.228 ⫽ AP 7.248; [84] Thuc. 1.132 ⫽ Demosth. In Neaeram 97 ⫽ AP 6.197; [71] Thuc. 6.54; [31] Thuc. 6.59 ⫽ Aristot. Rhet. 1.9.1367b. For the fourth century, see [233] Plato Phdr. 264c ⫽ AP 7.153; [208] Plato Charm. 165a; [197] Plato Hipparch. 228d; [144] Aristot. Rhet. 1.7.1365a (cf. 1.9.1367b); [209] Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1.8.14.1099a27 ⫽ Eth. Eud. A1.1214a5 ⫽ Thgn. 255– 56; [249] Aristot. fr. 565 R; [19] Aristot. fr. 565 R ⫽ AP 7.54; [74] Aristot. De Ath. rep. 7; [17] [Aristot.] Mirab. auscult. 131 ⫽ 843b3; [66] [Aristot.] Mirab. auscult. 58 (59); [95] [Aristot.] Mirab. auscult. 133; [153] Aeschin. 3.184; [154] Aeschin. 3.187; [271] Demosth. De cor. 18.289; [99] ps.-Demosth.7.39 (prob. 3rd cent.) ⫽ AP 9.786; [199] Lycurg. In Leocr. 109; [68] Theopompos FGrH II 115 fr. 285; [73] Philochoros ⫽ Anon. 102 FGE p. 406ff. For a recent survey of many of these inscriptions, see A. Petrovic 2007a. 7. On this and other inscriptions in Herodotus, cf. West 1985a: esp. 282–83.

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[Dareios was pleased with the pontoon and gave the builder Mandrokles a tenfold gift. From this, as an offering of firstfruits, Mandrokles commissioned a painting, in which the bridging of the Bosporus was shown. King Dareios is seen sitting on a seat of honor, while his army makes its way across. He dedicated the painting in the temple of Hera and wrote on it the following inscription: Mandrokles, who bridged the fishy Bosporus, dedicated to Hera a commemoration of his pontoon. For himself he won a crown, for the Samians glory, since he finished the task as King Dareios wished.] What is typical here, both for Herodotus and Thucydides, is the attempt to construct a context for the inscription. This allows us to experience it almost as though we were there: historical background is provided; the temple of Hera (apparently in Samos) is mentioned as the site of the dedication; the painting to which the inscription belongs is described in detail. It is striking that the epigram itself, however, gives no hint as to what the µνηµσυνον of verse 2 is. That is, there is no mention of a picture, let alone details of the army’s crossing or where the king is sitting, for “any viewer would see that immediately, picture and text form an indivisible unity.”8 Herodotus enables us to experience that unity. The situation is quite different when we look at how, in the fourth century, Plato and Aristotle quote inscriptional epigrams. Let us take as an example Plato’s quotation of the Midas epigram in the Phaedrus (264c). Here Socrates faults the speech of Lysias, which Phaedrus had just read him with great enthusiasm, because of its arbitrary construction. Σκψαι τονυν τν του
2ταρου σου λγον, . . . κα ε#ρ σεις του
6πιγρµµατος ο"δ+ν διαφροντα, T ΜδYα τMω
Φρυγ φασν τινες 6πιγεγρφθαι . . . Xαλκη
παρθνος ε,µ, Μδα δ/ 6π σ µατι κει
µαι. =φρ/ [ν aδωρ τε νJη κα δνδρεα µακρ τεθ λJη, α"του
τJη
δε µνουσα πολυκλατου 6π τµβου, γγελω παριου
σι Μδας @τι τJη
δε τθαπται. @τι δ/ ο"δ+ν διαφρει α"του
πρω
τον X aστατν τι λγεσθαι, 6ννοει
ς που, Eς 6γMω
µαι. 8. “. . . das sieht jeder Beschauer sofort. . . . Bild und Spruch stellen also eine untrennbare Einheit dar” (Geffcken 1918: 99 with n. 4).

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Look at the speech of your friend, . . . and you will find that it is no different from that epigram that some say was written for the Phrygian Midas . . . I am a bronze maiden, and I lie on the tomb of Midas; so long as water runs and tall trees put out leaves, not moving from this spot, atop the much lamented grave, I shall declare to those who pass that Midas is buried here. You see, I imagine, that it makes no difference whether any verse of it is spoken first or last.] The fact that Socrates tells us that “some say” (φασν τινες) that this epigram was written for the Phrygian Midas suggests that the poem was circulating freely—whether orally or in writing—detached from its site and monument.9 Now if we focus purely on this epigram, without taking account of Socrates’ intent in citing it, and if we try to picture what it refers to, we step into a void. The repeated deictic pronouns (α"του
τJη
δε, v. 3; τJη
δε, v. 4) have no point of reference. Where are we to imagine this tomb?10 Plato’s text does not give us the means to decide. Of course, this did not stop Leo Weber (1917: 538), in an oft-cited essay, from conjuring up a detailed image of the tomb’s immediate environment as a rustic idyll. “The epigram is referring not just to any old trees and streams,” he says, “but to those that adorn the area around the tomb, and protect it; trees nourished by the water of a nearby spring. Should it ever dry up and grow parched, the tomb itself would be left to fall into ruin.”11 Even if we cannot share this fantasy—for nature’s persistence, as described in the poem (“as long as water runs and tall trees put out leaves”), is a topos, its reference not concrete—Weber’s impulse to deal seriously with the hints that the poem gives and to supply the missing information is right on the mark. 9. If Simonides (PMG 581) refers directly to the Midas epigram, we would have to imagine the poem’s free circulation at a much earlier date. That is not unlikely in the case of individual metrical inscriptions, especially if they were linked with particularly famous figures (Simonides connects the poem with Kleoboulos of Lindos, one of the Seven Sages). For a detailed discussion of the Midas epigram and related problems, cf. Markwald 1986: 34–83. 10. The ps.-Herodotean Life of Homer (5.24) evidently locates the tomb in Ionian Kyme and says that it is still there (τ 6πγραµµα τδε τ (τι κα νυ
ν 6π τη
ς στ λης του
µν µατος . . . 6πιγγραπται). Dio Chrysostom, however, reports that he searched for the tomb and was un
παρθνε, του able to find it (37 p. 120 R ⫽ vol. II p. 304 Dind.): λλ/, b
µ+ν ποιητου
κοοµεν, σ+ δ+ ζητου
ντες ο"χ εaροµεν ο"δ+ τ ση
µα του
Μδου. 11. “Nicht beliebige Bäume und Gewässer meint das Epigramm . . . sondern die Bäume, die um das Grabmal zum Schmuck und Schutze herumstehen und von dem Wasser einer nahen Quelle getränkt werden. Ihr Versiegen und Verdorren würde auch das Grabmal selbst der Zerstörung preisgeben.”

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How, then, are we to imagine the χαλκη
παρθνος who lies on the tomb? Could she be a Siren, a Sphinx, or even a death-bringing Ker? All three suggestions have been made in modern discussions of the poem,12 and all are within the bounds of ancient tomb iconography. Each of these mythic figures may be described as παρθνος. The kind of citation that we find in Plato opens the door to experiencing epigram in a manner quite different from an actual encounter with an inscribed monument or even from the mediated encounter we had in Herodotus. As quoted here out of context, its effect on us is altered. Its concision—that traditional marker of the genre—acquires a wholly different force: it virtually demands that we act, that we use our heads to supply what is missing. And if we are willing to do this, we may just find that the action is pleasurable. We may, in other words, sense the potential appeal if an epigram were to incite us to such a process deliberately. Plato was, of course, not primarily (if at all) interested in offering us such an experience. Socrates’ use of the quote aims in another direction, and there is nothing to suggest that Phaedrus pondered how to fill out the details that the epigram evokes. It seems important to me, therefore, that we the readers do not experience the poem (as Phaedrus does) while engaged in a dialogue—that is, that we do not experience it orally, in circumstances in which we could easily be distracted, but, rather, that the text is fixed on the page (or better, the scroll), where we can imagine it undisturbed and (if we are so inclined) reflect on it. The epigram fully reveals the aesthetic potential of its dislocation only when it is fixed in writing (and that need not be in a collection; quotations suffice): only then is it likely to prompt one to consider what it would be like if one were to sever an epigram from its setting deliberately and so spark the process of supplementation. To the extent that this process came to be exploited regularly and self-consciously in the ever more literary epigram of the Hellenistic age, I call it Ergänzungsspiel.13 12. For an overview, cf. Markwald 1986: 79–80 n. 113. 13. The concept would have had some currency at the start of this era. “Demetrius” (De eloc. 222), in describing the “Plain Style” in rhetoric, tells us that Theophrastus says: “One should not elaborate everything in detail but should leave some things for the hearer to comprehend and infer on his own. For when he understands what you have ommitted, he becomes not just your hearer but your witness, and a friendlier one at the same time. For he thinks himself intelligent due to you, who have given him the possibility to show his intelligence. To spell out everything, as though to a fool, is like despising your hearer” (ο" πντα 6π/ κριβεας δει
µακρηγορει
ν, λλ/ (νια καταλεπειν κα τMω
κροατJη
συνιναι κα λογζεσθαι 6ξ α#του
D συνιες γρ τ 6λλειφθ+ν #π σου
ο"κ κροατς µνον λλ κα µρτυς σου γνεται κα 9µα ε"µενστεροςD συνετς γρ 2αυτMω
δοκει
δι σ+, τν φορµν α"τMω
παρεσχηκτα του
συνιναιD τ δ+ πντα Eς νο τMω λγειν καταγινσκοντι (οικεν του
κροατου
). What is interesting for our purposes is that this strategy from rhetoric came to be applied in poetry, precisely in the imaginative space opened up for the reader by epigram’s shift from monument to scroll.

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91

Let us now take a look at Ergänzungsspiel in a few Hellenistic examples, specifically in several epigrams by Callimachus. I want to stress from the start, however, that I am not proposing a general strategy for interpreting Hellenistic epigram: though Ergänzungsspiel is common, Hellenistic poets have many bows in their quiver. Let us start with a simple and inconspicuous distichon, which largely retains the traditional form of a votive inscription. It is Callimachus’ epigram 33 Pf. (⫽ 21 GP ⫽ AP 6.347). PΑρτεµι, τν τδ/ γαλµα Φιληρατς εGσατο τJη
δεD λλ σ1 µ+ν δξαι, πτνια, τν δ+ σου.

[Artemis, for you Phileratis here set up this offering. Accept it, lady, and keep her safe.] This poem is so straightforward, so modest and plain, that it initially makes us unsure of our critical faculties. Why do we even dignify it with our attention? Would we do so if it had not come down to us under the name of the great Callimachus? The feeling is like that which one sometimes has in museums when one drifts by a painting without giving it a thought (for it is not particularly striking), then suddenly notices out of the corner of one’s eye that it is labeled “Rembrandt,” whereupon one snaps to attention, examines it with care and interest, and might go so far as to call it a masterpiece. On honest reflection, however, it is hard to shake the feeling that one has been a victim of—indeed, perhaps has helped perpetuate—a swindle. Returning now to our epigram, we find that it is conventional to a degree one would not normally expect in Callimachus. The whole opening phrase right up through the caesura ( PΑρτεµι, τν τδ/ γαλµα) corresponds word for word to an old dedicatory formula, which we know from inscriptional evidence.14 The structure, too, is conventional. As Friedländer and Hoffleit put it, “in the dedicatory epigram it is not rare to find a break between the objective formula of dedication in the hexameter and a prayer directly addressed to the god in the pentameter” (p. 66 FH).15 How, one wonders, can we distinguish the poem from any inscribed dedication that might be found in a public setting? What sets it apart as Callimachean? The work of an epigram—of votive or sepulchral type, at least—is to 14. Cf. CEG I 413 ⫽ 110 FH: PΑρτεµι, σο τδ/ γαλµα Τελεστοδ[κη µ/ νθηκεν] / /Ασφαλο µ τηρ, Θερσλεω θυγτηρ. Cf. also CEG I 407 ⫽ 125 FH: /Αρτµιδος τδ/ γαλµ[α]D νθεκε{ν} δ µ/ Ε[_]πολις α"τε
ι / α"τς κα παι
δες ε"χσµενος δεκτεν. 15. The request, δξαι, is likewise conventional (cf. CEG I 345: τ1 δ δ ξαι, Φοι
βη PΑπολον; CEG I 367, 418), as is the plea σου (cf. CEG I 275.4).

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make a passerby pause and, however briefly, connect.16 It seeks to engage and involve a reader’s thoughts—which, after all, have their own preoccupations and agenda—and to elicit a response ranging anywhere from pity or sympathetic witness to approbation or mere acknowledgment. We find the process expressed with rare explicitness in a sixth-century b.c. Attic verse inscription on the marble base of a grave stele (CEG I 28 ⫽ 83 FH ⫽ GV 1225), which virtually accosts the distracted passerby.17 νθροπε hστεχε[ι]ς : καθ/οδ | ν : φρασν : λα µενοινο
ν, στε
θι | κα ο:κτιρον : σε
µα Θρσονος : ,δν.

[Man, as you stride along the road with your mind on other subjects, stop and weep to see the tomb of Thrason.] The involvement of the reader in Callimachus’ poem looks very different. Everything is indirection. A woman dedicates an γαλµα to Artemis, beseeches the goddess to accept it, and asks for protection on her own behalf. There is no appeal for our attention. The goddess Artemis is the addressee; the reader is ignored. At first sight, there is little that prompts us to participate in this ostensibly closed and straightforward dialogue (inasmuch as we take the trouble to read the poem at all, we appear to remain eavesdroppers—and unacknowledged ones at that). And this may explain why scholars have for the most part passed this couplet by in silence. “Passing by” is here no idle metaphor. Our experience as readers is not so very different from that of the wayfarer going past an inscription. To be sure, the mere fact of our encounter with Callimachus’ poem already assumes a voluntary act, that is, that we have chosen to take up the book (or scroll) of poetry. And this signals a certain willingness on our part to listen to what the text is saying. Nevertheless, who is to say that we will choose to concentrate on this particular couplet?18 We may well be more or less receptive to the poem’s bid for our attention, understated as it is— no one would argue that it thrusts itself upon our consciousness. And the possibility of neglect is heightened by the very format of the “anthology” 16. On this topic, see the fine essay by G. B. Walsh (1991). 17. For a similar view of this epigram, cf. Peek 1960: 16; Walsh 1991: 80. 18. Fraser’s characterization of it—without elaboration—as a “charming couplet” (1972: II 329 n. 35) suggests a low-intensity experience of the poem, with light readerly involvement, yet evidently still mildly pleasurable: the reader is charmed. For the self-conscious accommodation of different levels of readerly involvement in Callimachus, see my essay on Impersonation of Voice, chap. 2 in the present volume. For a Hellenistic model of detached reading, cf. Nussbaum 1993: esp. 136–45.

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or “collection,” which I consider very likely for Callimachus19 and which invites us to dip in here or there, to pick and choose whatever happens to catch our eye, rather than read its parts with equal intensity throughout, as one might a single continuous work—though even then such concentration is an ideal that scarcely corresponds to the reality of reading. The picture of the wanderer striding along the road with his mind on other things, which we saw in the Attic inscription, is thus not a bad image for the reader of epigram. Only that, in the case of Callimachus’ couplet, no voice calls us to stand and pay attention. Yet the door to participation is left open, maybe more than a crack. First of all, as we already saw in the case of the Midas epigram, the couplet tantalizes with the specificity of its deictic pronouns (τδ/ . . . τJη
δε), which point to a concrete object and place. If this couplet was ever inscribed, then their “identity was clear to the worshipper” (p. 110 no. 114 FH). And I certainly wouldn’t exclude that possibility: it may well be that Callimachus composed epigrams now and again on commission. But even then, I think we must reckon with the likelihood that so powerful an exponent of book poetry as Callimachus would at the same time have contemplated his poem’s place in a book. Set in the scroll of Callimachus’ epigrams or in an anthology, the couplet becomes—self-consciously, I believe—“dislocated” or, better, “unmoored”; τδ/ and τJη
δε float free, a provocation to imaginative play. Where is this place? What was this γαλµα? Further, the private quality of the dialogue between woman and divinity is belied by the conventional third-person voice. This may or may not be Phileratis’ own, and it introduces the possibility of another perspective. Is it the poet’s, the stonecutter’s, or (of greatest consequence) our own, when we say the words out loud or in our minds?20 Callimachus knew full well how, 19. We cannot say for sure whether Callimachus collected his epigrams into a book. But given the poet’s well-known role in editing his Aetia and Iambi (cf. esp. Krevans 1984) and given the likelihood that his two sepulchral epigrams (21 Pf. and 35 Pf.) were intended to be read together—as one would in a collection—I think it probable that he did indeed put together such a book. Epigram collections of the early Hellenistic period are known to us from papyri. The most important is the third-century b.c. Milan Posidippus papyrus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309), containing ca. six hundred verses (112 poems, only two previously known) from a collection of this poet’s epigrams, arranged according to theme. For a thoroughgoing assessment of the papyrus as epigram book, see Gutzwiller 2005b. For other early Hellenistic epigram collections, cf. Pack no. 1593 ⫽ SH 961; the Elephantine Scholia ⫽ Pack nos. 1924, 1594, 1596. See, further, the still unpublished P. Vindob. G 40611 of the third century b.c., which contains the incipits of an extensive, multivolume epigram collection; cf. Harrauer 1981. On the arrangement of epigram collections generally, see Krevans 2007. 20. In connection with the indeterminate nature of the voice, cf. Roland Barthes’ (1974: 41) description of the “plural text”: “The more indeterminate the origin of the statement, the

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in the act of reading, a reader can be drawn into collaborating with the text: one might call this the “Acontius effect,” after that character’s manipulation of his beloved Cydippe when he tosses her an apple inscribed with the words “By Artemis, I will marry Acontius,” which she read out loud, thus unwittingly binding herself (Callim. fr. 67, Dieg. Z 1 with Pf. ad loc.).21 If we, then, speak these words on Phileratis’ behalf and lend our voices to her plea, will we not want to know more about her? Once we decide to construe the perspective as our own, won’t that prompt us to involve ourselves further through a desire to learn as much of the context as we can?22 In what circumstances, we might ask, would this woman offer an γαλµα to Artemis and plead for her protection? Arguably, she would do so on the occasion of impending childbirth (for Artemis’ special role in this regard, cf. Callim. Hymn 3.21ff.). If so, the final imperative σου will have the poignant sense of “save from death, keep alive” (death in childbirth was a sad fact of life, as a glance at the funerary inscriptions in Peek’s Griechische Vers-Inschriften reveals). And if this is indeed the situation, is it meaningful that Phileratis appears alone. No mention of parents. No mention of children. No mention of husband (contrast the inscription CEG I 413, cited in n. 14 in the present essay). Does Phileratis’ solitude in this poem suggest that the γαλµα she dedicates is nothing so costly as a statue (as assumed by almost everyone),23 that the term denotes some humbler item, as it so often does in genuine dedications?24 And what of her name? Though the female form is unique, the masculine is “conspicuously Rhodian.”25 Does this sugmore plural the text. In modern texts, the voices are so treated that any reference is possible: the discourse, or better, the language, speaks: nothing more. By contrast, in the classic text the majority of utterances are assigned an origin, we can identify their parentage, who is speaking . . . ; however, it may happen that in the classic text, always haunted by the appropriation of speech, the voice gets lost, as though it had leaked out through a hole in the discourse.” 21. In speaking of inscribed epigrams of the more oral culture of archaic and classical Greece and how they enlist the viewer in their own behalf, Svenbro goes so far as to describe the reader as “dispossessed of his own voice” and having “to submit to the written word,” adding, “in these circumstances, the reader has but one means of resistance: he can refuse to read” (1993: 47); cf., generally, Svenbro’s chap. 3, “The Reader and the Reading Voice,” and chap. 9, “The Inner Voice: On the Invention of Silent Reading.” On epigram’s appropriation of the reader’s voice, cf. also Day 1989: esp. 26–28; 2007: 29–47; Kurke 1993: esp. 144–46. 22. Compared with earlier times, the relatively greater prominence of silent, more purely visual reading in the Hellenistic period offered readers greater latitude in deciding their degree of involvement with a text. For in their silence, they might initially approach a text quite casually and noncommittally—just trying its perspective on for size, while actually still withholding identification. For silent reading as mainly a “postclassical” phenomenon, cf. Svenbro 1993: 167–68. 23. Cf. GP ad loc. 24. E.g., ceramics; cf. CEG I 289–92, 298, 334. 25. Fraser 1972: vol. 3, 826 n. 216. Cf. CEG II 690 from Rhodes (ca. 360–350).

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gest a Rhodian setting? Or, considering the rootless life of the Hellenistic diaspora, may we imagine this solitary woman in a foreign land (in Alexandria, perhaps), cut loose from her family? I have spun out a pathetic tale, which readers may or may not find plausible. But that is not paramount. The point is that the poem—with that expressive brevity that is the marker of the genre—invites such speculative play and that Ergänzungsspiel constitutes to a significant degree the aesthetic pleasure of reading the poem. It is here, if anywhere, that the specifically “Callimachean” quality of the piece is to be found. Those readers who do not indulge in such play (perhaps constructing tales more plausible than mine) are missing out on the fun.26 Now one could scarcely hope to find a passage in Callimachus where such a process of supplementation is referred to explicitly and that would allow us to say for sure that he made deliberate use of Ergänzungsspiel.27 But there is such a passage, I believe—one whose poetic significance has not yet been fully appreciated. It is fragment 57.1–2 Pf. (⫽ SH 264.1–2). α"τς 6πιφρσσαιτο, τµοι δ/ πο µη
κος οιδJη
D @σσα δ/ νειροµνMω φη
[σ]ε, τδ/ 6ξερωD

[[The reader] can imagine [this] for himself, and thus cut down the length of the song. But all that he answered to the questions, I will relate.] The verses are attributed with fair certainty to Callimachus’ epinikion for the Ptolemaic queen Berenike II, the Victoria Berenices. And they probably belong to the mythical portion of the poem, where Herakles returns to his humble host Molorchos after having killed the Nemean Lion. The speaker is evidently the poet himself, who addresses these words to his audience. The subject of α"τς 6πιφρσσαιτο is thus a “reader” or “listener,” as 26. Cf., similarly, Hunter 1992a: esp. 114: “Much of what I have to say will be speculative, but—like many of the best Greek epigrams—these poems are very clearly written as a provocation to speculation. Perhaps no literary genre makes such a direct appeal to the reader’s powers of intellectual reconstruction, to the need to interpret, as does that of epigram; the demand for concision makes ‘narrative silences’ an almost constitutive part of the genre. In these circumstances, the refusal to speculate amounts to no less than a refusal to read.” 27. Iser (1984: 176) cites a passage from Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1956: 79) as “early” evidence (eighteenth century!) that “Autor und Leser . . . in sich das Spiel der Phantasie [teilen].” The passage reads “. . . no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.” Sterne, however, may here be alluding to the ancient view of Theophrastus, cited in n. 13 above.

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Pfeiffer suggested.28 Therese Fuhrer, who recently dealt with this passage in her study on Callimachean epinician,29 argues persuasively that what this reader is supposed to fill in for himself is the hero’s well-known and stereotypical combat against the monstrous lion—a tale that the sophisticated poet naturally wanted to avoid treating in extenso.30 Fuhrer demonstrates that these verses belong to a type of transitional formula that may be found in Pindar: an Abbruchsformel—here in the form of a praeteritio in which the reader is invited to supply the omission. Indeed, she suggests that Callimachus may have been alluding to a specific case in Pythian 4.247–48, which likewise involves “the omission of an heroic combat (hero versus monstrous beast),” namely, Jason’s struggle with the hydra.31 The passage is worth recalling here. µακρ µοι νει
σθαι κατ/ µαξιτνD Oρα γρ συνπτει κα τινα ο,
µον :σαµι βραχνD

[It is too far for me to go along the carriageway: for time is pressing and I know a shortcut.] In discussing Callimachus’ interest in this type of formula, Fuhrer stresses the similarities between examples in his own verse and in that of his predecessors. But I would insist on a basic difference, which—to my mind—is given short shrift in Fuhrer’s account. In all earlier instances— and the passage from Pythian 4 is a good example—it is exclusively the poet who undertakes to shorten the poem. In fragment 57, by contrast, it is the reader, for the poet expressly invites him to imagine the rest for himself and thus abridge the poem. This invitation to the reader is, so far as I can see, unparalleled in earlier literature,32 and it remained so until 28. Pf. ad v. 1: α"τς sc. C ναγιγνσκων vel C κοων ipse excogitet quid aliud fecerint. 29. Fuhrer 1992: 71–75, 121–25. 30. Ibid., 72–75. 31. Ibid., 74. For such formulas generally, cf. Braswell 1988; ad vv. 247–48; Thummer 1968: 122–25; in rhetoric, cf. Krischer 1977. 32. This is the case, even though Fuhrer shows (1992: 123 n. 457) that already Pindar “mit dem Wissen des Publikums rechnet” when he interrupts a myth. To be sure, Fuhrer says that “Callimachus, by means of this device [sc., Abbruchsformel], challenges the reader to draw on his own erudition and knowledge of mythology to understand the poet’s learned and witty allusion,” but she clearly means “challenge” here quite generally, not as an explicit invitation (cf. Fuhrer 1988: quote on 66). In the Augustan period, cf. Ovid Amores 1.5.23–25: singula quid referam? nil non laudabile vidi, / et nudam pressi corpus ad usque meum. / cetera quis nescit? Asking “Who doesn’t know the rest?” is like saying “You, the readers, know the rest, so I don’t need to go into details.”

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the time of Augustus. Indeed, the first really comparable instances appear in Lucian.33 The explicit call to supply what is missing here in fragment 57 is confirmation of the strongest sort that Callimachus knowingly and deliberately used Ergänzungsspiel in his epigrams. To be sure, the invitation to play is never so direct as it is in this fragment. Yet we do quite often find Ergänzungsspiel enacted in the epigrams; that is, we can observe characters in the poems themselves engaging in the game.34 This is the case, for instance, in a sepulchral epigram (58 Pf. ⫽ 50 GP ⫽ AP 7.277).35
ναυηγ; Λεντιχος 6νθδε νεκρν Τς, ξνος b
ε#ρεν 6π/ α,γιαλου
, χω
σε δ+ τMω
δε τφMω δακρσας 6πκηρον 2ν βονD ο"δ+ γρ α"τς \συχον, α,θυJη δ/
, σα θαλασσοπορει
. [Who are you, shipwrecked man? Leontichos found the corpse here on the beach and covered it with this tomb, weeping for his own doomed life. For his way is not peaceful either. Rather he roams the sea like the shearwater.] The scene is the seashore (6νθδε . . . 6π/ α,γιαλου
). And we find ourselves at a grave site (τMω
δε τφMω, v. 2). There is no further specification of place. A certain Leontichos has found a corpse on the beach and heaped a grave mound over it. We may assume that it was also he who commissioned the inscription. Who asks the question with which the poem begins? Since the rest of the poem retreats into the third person, it is difficult to say. It may be Leontichos, the author of the epigram, or, finally, we the readers. Initially, of course, it was Leontichos who asked this question as he happened on
ν ν σοι λγοιµι 33. Dial. Deor. 19 (11) 2, Selene to Aphrodite about Endymion: ο,
σθαD τ ο" τ µετ ταυ
τα; Cf. also Aristainetos 1.16.33ff.: τ δ/ λλα (ο,
δας γρ Cποι
α τ λοιπ) νει µοι
φιλτης, ο"δ+ν περιττου
ρα κατδηλον T βοκατ σαυτν, b
δεµενος λγου; 2.3.15–16:  λοµαι λγειν; πντως δ που, 6πε ταυ
τα γρφω συντµως 6κ τοτων συνιναι κα τ λεποντα δυναµνJη. The idea that a reader must imagine more than is present in the text occasionally appears in ancient works of literary theory. Ps.-Longinus, for instance, says that poetry partakes of the sublime “when a reader’s thought exceeds what is said” (πλει
ον του
λεγοµνου τ ναθεωροµενον, 7.3). Cf. also n. 13 above. Schmidt has collected further examples in “Σχη
µα Horatianum” (1990), particularly in the section “Wenig Worte—viel Sinn” (90–94). 34. Cf. the discussion of this phenomenon by Walsh (1991: esp. 98), who, however, is interested mainly in the “primary concern with information, and so with the way one acquires information. Problems look for solution; inference . . . structures feeling.” 35. On this poem, see also Bruss 2005: 156–59; Meyer 2005: 206–8.

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the corpse.36 This is clear from his reaction, when he sheds tears for his own life. In funerary epigram, tears generally flow for the dead. And after the two finite verbs of verse 2, which take νεκρν as object, we expect the participle δακρσας to do the same—an expectation perhaps heightened by the slight pause for the caesura after δακρσας 6πκηρον. It is surprising, then, that Leontichos grieves for his own life (2ν βον).37 The anonymous corpse, however, presents a blank to all who encounter it (it is thus an ideal object of Ergänzungsspiel), and Leontichos mourns his own lot because he sees in that blank a reflection of himself. Put somewhat differently, “Leontichos” is the answer that he finds to the question, “Who are you?”38 In effect, then, he writes the epitaph for himself. And yet he does not go that far. We saw how, in the dedication of Phileratis, readers could decide to what extent to involve themselves. And their willingness to do so depended on how they were inclined—their relative interest or indifference, alertness or inattention. So with Leontichos, the possible limits of Ergänzungsspiel come into view, inasmuch as his willingness to play may only go so far. Leontichos draws on his own life experience in order to fill out the meager traces he encounters in the corpse and so form a coherent picture. Yet Ergänzungsspiel in this instance cuts very close to the bone. If continued play means in effect constructing one’s own tombstone, then perhaps the stakes are just too high. And in fact, Leontichos stops before getting to that point. He avoids naming his country of origin, his father, his family, or other identifying traits; that is, he
ρε µ/, thus transforming most of the epigram 36. Following Agar, Gow and Page print ε# into the corpse’s reply—a pointless change, since the corpse does not answer the question (as surely it could). Construed thus, moreover, that question can only be taken as the reader’s. But surely the point is that it was originally Leontichos’ own and that because the identity of the corpse remains a blank, Leontichos can see in it a reflection of himself. 37. Cf. GV 1231 (⫽ GG 170), where the passerby is asked to mourn the death of a sixyear-old boy as though the loss were his own: µ τις δκρυτος παρτω τδε σα
µα νοιο, λλ/ 6π ο
τ πθος του
το νοµισσµενος ο,κτιστω πινυτν Νικοµ δεα Θεφρονος υν, οaνεκεν 2ξατης τρµα 6κρησε βου.

This epigram differs from that by Callimachus inasmuch as a sympathetic response here causes the passerby to grieve for another; in Callimachus it prompts him to grieve for himself. The basic psychological attitude is described with greater explicitness in the passage from the Iliad (19.301–2) where Patroklos is mourned: στενχοντο γυναι
κες, / Πτροκλον πρφασιν, σφω
ν δ/ α"τω
ν κ δε/ 2κστη. Cf. Edwards 1991: ad loc. 38. A reader might at first think that “Leontichos” is indeed the answer to the question “Τς;,” since the name is placed precisely where such answers usually come in dialogue epigrams. For such poems, cf., e.g., Leonidas 70 GP ⫽ AP 7.163; Callim. 34.2 Pf. ⫽ AP 6.351; GP ad Antipater 21. For inscriptional examples, cf. GV 1831ff.

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withholds (as though superstitiously) details that would truly make the commemoration serve as his own prospective epitaph and ensure that we, the readers, will be able to mourn his end.39 Instead, he moves on—restless like a seabird—before having identified himself further. Perhaps we would like to have known more about him—his compassionate gesture40 may well have piqued our interest. But it is hard to begrudge his evasion. For not everyone is always prepared to play the game to its bitter end—if at all. And we, too, will be moving on: even if we choose to linger over this particular poem, the shore upon which it is set—an archetypically liminal location—is not where we shall stay. Our community and our home, our occupations, family, and friends are all elsewhere. Precisely such a familial or community setting is, in my opinion, evoked in our next examples, two well-known epigrams of Callimachus. Here we return from Ergänzungsspiel played in the poem to that performed by the reader. One of the poems is that on the tomb of his father (21 Pf. ⫽ 29 GP ⫽ AP 7.525). KΟστις 6µν παρ ση
µα φρεις πδα, Καλλιµχου µε :σθι Κυρηναου παι
δ τε κα γεντην. ε,δεης δ/ µφω κενD C µν κοτε πατρδος @πλων
ρξεν, C δ/ Aεισεν κρσσονα βασκανης . . .41 V

[Whoever you are who bends your step past my tomb, know that I am both child and father of Callimachus the Cyrenaean. You are sure to know them both. The one led his country’s troops, the other sang songs beyond the reach of envy . . .] The second epigram is that for the poet’s own tomb (35 Pf. ⫽ 30 GP ⫽ AP 7.415).
µ+ν οιδν Βαττιδεω παρ ση
µα φρεις πδας ε"
ε,δτος, ε" δ/ ο:νMω καρια συγγελσαι. [You bend your step past the tomb of Battus’ son, well skilled in song, well able to raise a welcome laugh over wine.] 39. Nor does he seem to draw the obvious conclusion found in epitaphs of other ναυηγο (e.g., Leonidas 60 and 61 GP ⫽ AP 7.264, 266), i.e., to give up sailing altogether. 40. N.b. the respect for the dead man expressed by the very dignified form of address,
ναυηγ. The b
postpositum is highly poetic; cf. Pf. ad fr. 103.1; Mineur 1984, ad v. 118; ξνος b Allen, Halliday, and Sikes 1936, ad Hom. Hymn 3.14. For an instance in which the first ele
Μενλαε. ment is nominative pro vocativo, cf., e.g., Il. 4.189: φλος b 41. This is not the place to discuss the much debated problem of the final distichon (vv. 5–6). Cf. Livrea 1992, with bibliography.

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It has long been recognized that these two poems go together and supplement each other.42 For the actual tenant of the tomb remains unnamed in his respective epigram. Only when we compare the two does it emerge— “echt alexandrinisch,” as Gabathuler puts it43—that the first poem is for Battus, son of Callimachus of Cyrene, the second for Callimachus, son of Battus of Cyrene.44 The missing name is clearly an enticement to Ergänzungsspiel. Yet what, in this instance, are the rules of the game?45 Claude Meillier has observed that it is not unusual for the name of the deceased to be left out in an inscribed sepulchral epigram. When this is the case, one can generally find it inscribed extra metrum above the poem or below it.46 Literary epigram, however, does not use such extra metrum inscriptions: it did not go so far in adopting the conventions of its inscriptional counterpart. Nevertheless, Meillier’s observation that the name is to be found outside the poem itself may point us in the right direction. We must simply take it a little bit further. We know that ancient families often had family grave plots, where—just as today—the tombstones of various family members stood next to each other. A good example is a grave stele of the first half of the fourth century b.c. from the Piraeus (CEG II 512 ⫽ GV 1386 ⫽ Clairmont 74). The name and parentage of the deceased is inscribed extra metrum above an empty space, where a painting once stood: “Telemachos, son of Spoudokrates, from Phyla” (Τηλµαχος | Σπουδοκρτος | Φλυες). Below the vacant space comes the epigram itself. 42. For such epigram pairs on monuments, see Gutzwiller 1998: 229–31; Fantuzzi 2007; Fantuzzi 2008. For examples in literary epigram—including in the two poems under discussion here—see Kirstein 2002. 43. Gabathuler 1937: 56. 44. Thus Wilamowitz 1924: I 175 n. 2; Pf. ad Ep. 21.5–6. Reitzenstein (1893: 139 with n. 2) made the interesting suggestion that we view funerary epigrams that poets write for themselves as concluding poems for collections: e.g., the epigram of Nossis (11 GP ⫽ AP 7.718), that of Leonidas (93 GP ⫽ AP 7.715), and the three that Meleager wrote on himself (2–4 GP ⫽ AP 7.417–19). We encounter such an epigram in situ in the final poem of Propertius’ Monobiblos. Cf., further, Gabathuler 1937: 48–49, 56. 45. Walsh (1991: 94) writes: “[T]he riddle is solved by the younger Callimachus’ fame— everyone must know his patronym. Fame, more or less, is the point of the poem.” But if fame is the point, why are the poems so carefully harmonized, so as to supplement each other? Ferguson (1980: 141) aptly cites “the remark of Abraham Mendelssohn, son of the philosopher and father of the composer: ‘I used to be the son of my father, but now I am the father of my son.’” How many, one might ask in response to Walsh, would know the name of this son of a famous father and this father of a famous son? 46. Meillier 1979: 139. I would cite the following examples: CEG I 77, 89; CEG II 477, 512, 520, 524, 528 (?), 531–32, 564, 570–71, 585, 589 (“This is the sister of Smikythos”—the sister herself remains unnamed), 590, 594–96, 613, 670–71, 677–78, 684, 703 (?), 722, 724, 741.

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g τν ειµν στου σ/ ρετα
ς παρ πα
σι πολταις | κλεινν (παινον (χοντ/ νδρα ποθειντατον | παισ φλει τε γυναικ. — τφο δ/ 6π δεξι, µη
τερ, | κει
µαι ση
ς φιλας ο"κ πολειπµενος.

[O man that for your ever-remembered excellence won great praise from all the citizens and are sorely missed by your children and dear wife.—I lie, mother, on the right of your tomb and am not deprived of your love.] Interesting here that the deceased explicitly refers to his mother’s neighboring tomb—without, however, calling her by name. She appears simply as µη
τερ, just as the father of Callimachus in epigram 21 was simply called γεντης (v. 2). Fortunately, however, the tombstone of this very woman, the mother of Telemachos, has been found.47 Its inscription reads as follows (IG II/III ed. min., vol. 3.2 no. 7695): Mελτη Σπουδοκρτος γυν Φλυως

[Melite, wife of Spoudokrates, from Phyla] Thus we only learn the mother’s name from this second tomb. Here, to be sure, the names of the deceased are present on their own tombs. This was not the case in Callimachus: his omission of the same shows that he “is playing with the conventions of real-life sepulchral epigrams.”48 But Callimachus can reckon with the reader’s ability to see through his game and realize that the poems supplement each other. For the reader knows about such family grave plots and so possesses the information necessary to play the game. One of the pleasures of Ergänzungsspiel, in this instance, is that the reader must translate the context of such real-life family plots onto the very different landscape of the scroll: the Sitz im Leben becomes the Sitz im Buch.49 And if we do this, if we imagine the Callimachus family plot set on the papyrus, it follows with virtual certainty that his two epigrams (though separated in the tradition) were juxtaposed on the scroll. The only uncertainty is which came first, which second. The two epigrams do not, of course, refer to each other as overtly as in the sepulchral poem for Telemachos, where the deceased explicitly says, “I 47. Cf. Conze 1893–1922: no. 803, plate 150. On family grave plots, cf. Humphreys 1980; Garland 1982; Garland 1985: 106–7. 48. Köhnken 1973: 426. 49. For this “literary” landscape, cf. Bing 1988: 39–40.

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lie, mother, on the right of your tomb.” Nor are there the visual links that might obtain between tombs in a genuine family plot (common elements of style, matching decoration, placement on the plot). Instead, Callimachus devises a subtler way of expressing family relationship—namely, by having each poem’s opening words unmistakably echo the other’s: KΟστις 6µν παρ ση
µα φρεις πδα . . . (21.1) Βαττιδεω παρ ση
µα φρεις πδας . . . (35.1)

The repeated phrase παρ ση
µα φρεις πδα(ς) is utterly convincing as a traditional funerary formula—so convincing, in fact, that, until now, no one has noticed that the expression πδας φρειν is not attested before Callimachus50 and appears again only much later.51 Did Callimachus here coin his own conventional (i.e., familial) funerary idiom? And is that how he suggests the relationship, or family resemblance, that exists, on the one hand, between the poems and, on the other, between the deceased?52 Is the repeated phrase a signpost to help orient us in the landscape of the book, as we engage in Ergänzungsspiel? Before closing, I want to discuss one last epigram of Callimachus and thus deliberately extend the meaning of Ergänzungsspiel. It is epigram 22 Pf. (⫽ 36 GP ⫽ AP 7.518). /Αστακδην τν Κρη
τα τν α,πλον \ρπασε Νµφη 6ξ =ρεος, κα νυ
ν ερς /Αστακδης. ο"κτι ∆ικταJησιν #π δρυσν, ο"κτι ∆φνιν ποιµνες, /Αστακδην δ/ α,+ν εισµεθα. 50. It is formed on analogy with such phrases of journeying as πδας Iλκειν (Eur. Phoen. 302; Soph. Philoct. 291; Theocr. 7.21: Σιµιχδα, πYα
δ τ1 µεσαµριον πδας Iλκεις;) and πδα τιθναι (often in Euripides, e.g., Suppl. 171 with Collard 1975: ad loc. Cf. also πδας νωµα
ν in Homer (Il. 15.269, 22.24). N.b. that φρειν πδας inverts the common Homeric πδες φρον [sc., τνα] (Il. 6.514, 13.515, etc.). See, further, Meyer 2005: 178 n. 176. 51. Cf., from the second or first century b.c., GV 1990.5 ⫽ no. 38.5 Bernand: ξει
νε, σ1 δ/ Tς παρ τνδε φρ具ε典 ις πδας Vρµα χω
ρον. Cf. AP 8.188 (Gregory of Nazianzus, fourth century). Faraone refers to GV 2036.11 (Tς τν 6µν παρ τµβον γεις) but adds a nonexistent πδα after γεις and sets the poem in the fourth or third century b.c., rather than a.d. as it should be (1986: 55 n. 8). 52. The relationship between father and son, expressed by the identical phrase, corresponds to that in Ep. 21 between grandfather and grandson, expressed in their identical name. As Reitzenstein observed (1908: 85–86), the name Callimachus is here used in its etymological sense, “an able warrior.” The family resemblance can still be felt across generations in the fact that the grandfather was a “Callimachus” in a martial sense, the grandson in a literary sense (C µν . . . @πλων / V
ρξεν, C δ/ Aεισεν κρσσονα βασκανης, vv. 3–4). On isonumia, the reuse of a family name over several generations, cf. Svenbro 1993: chap. 4.

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[Astakides the Cretan, the goatherd, was abducted by a nymph from the mountain, so now it’s “sacred” Astakides. No longer beneath Diktaean oaks, no longer of Daphnis will we herdsmen sing, but evermore of Astakides.] The sophisticated Alexandrian poet presents himself here—no doubt, with a smile—in the guise of a lowly Diktaean herdsman.53 Wilamowitz summed up the situation as follows: “A herdsman has vanished on Mt. Dikte, φανς 6γνετο. The other herdsmen tell a tale, as they would today, that a Nereid got him. But back then a Nereid was no devil, and being transported to fairyland did not cost one one’s eternal bliss; it bestowed it. The herdsmen will now sing a ballad on the abduction of Astakides, and he will become a \ρως α,πολικς, as Daphnis was before him.”54 Gow and Page found the epigram “puzzling” and suspected that it was simply “a joke, though if so the point is . . . lost” (ad loc.). I believe that their suspicion was correct. But in order to get the joke, we must look for additional information beyond the poem itself (as with the two funerary epigrams treated earlier). Here, however, our search takes us beyond even the poem’s immediate vicinity on the scroll. It leads into the broader literary landscape of Hellenistic bucolic. Pfeiffer observed (ad loc.) that the repeated ο"κτι—at the start of verse 3 and after the bucolic diaeresis—recalls “anaphora bucolica.” This type of repetition is a fairly common feature in Theocritus. I doubt, however, that Callimachus merely intended a general stylistic reference. Rather, he had a certain eidyllion in mind. For “anaphora bucolica” is the specific and very distinctive mark of one particular Theocritean song: the Daphnis song in Theocritus 1 (vv. 64–142).55 Here it occurs twenty-two times in seventy-eight verses, over four times as often as in any other poem by Theocritus. Moreover, it appears in three of the first four verses of the song, thus constituting a kind of metrical signature. Given that the 53. Cf. Hymn Art. 170–82, where the poet adopts the guise of a simple farmer and where—as here—that guise actually has to do with literature, not farming. On this passage, cf. Bing 1988: 83–89. 54. “Ein Hirt ist im Diktäischen Gebirge verschwunden, φανς 6γνετο. Da erzählen sich die Hirten, was sie sich auch heute erzählen würden, eine Nereide hat ihn geholt. Aber damals war die Nereide kein Teufel, und die Entrückung ins Feenland kostete nicht die ewige Seligkeit, sondern verlieh sie. Die Hirten werden nun eine Ballade vom Raube des Astakides singen, er wird ein Aρως α,πολικς werden, wie es bisher Daphnis war” (Wilamowitz 1906: 176 n. 1). Cf. Conner 1988 for this topic generally, 165–66 on our poem. 55. Schmidt (1987: 93 with n. 65) has likewise pointed to the influence of Theocr. 1 for the “anaphora bucolica” of Ep. 22 but does so without seeing the consequences for our understanding of Callimachus’ poem.

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anaphora of ο"κτι in our epigram also occurs in connection with Daphnis (ο"κτι ∆φνιν . . . εισµεθα, vv. 3–4),56 that the speaker presents himself as a ποιµ ν (ποιµνες . . . εισµεθα, v. 4), like Thyrsis in Idyll 1 (vv. 7, 15), and that in both poems the song is performed under tree cover (#π δρυσν ⬃ #π τν πτελαν, Theocr. 1.21),57 it seems likely that Callimachus was directly alluding to—perhaps gently mocking—that song, as though to say, “Enough already with Daphnis! . . . Enough!”58 This tone of gentle mockery fits perfectly with that of the rest of the poem. The exaltation of the goatherd—“the lowest grade of herdsman,” according to Gow (ad Theocr. 1.86)—to heroic status is expressed with a witty turn: the nymph abducted Astakides, and now . . . The pause after κα νυ
ν at the caesura arouses our anticipation: “and now” what? The position of ερς immediately following is thus emphatic. Placed thus, it becomes the comic contrast to the α,πλος that Astakides was.59 Further, with the bucolic scene set in Crete (rather than Sicily, where the Daphnis legend is usually set) and with the speaker a Cretan herdsman, we would do well to look out for tricks. Though the speaker claims that herdsmen “will sing evermore of Astakides” (/Αστακδην δ/ α,+ν εισµεθα, v. 4), this previously unattested Astakides does not in fact appear in poetry ever again: Κρη
τες ε ψευ
σται. In the short space of this epigram, however, he is ubiquitous. The threefold repetition of his name60 (which incidentally means “son of a lobster”61), each time at an emphatic position,62 seems exaggerated—a case 56. For the anaphora in ο"κτι, compare Theocr. 1.116–17: βουκλος _µµιν 6γ5 ∆φνις ο"κτ/ ν/ aλαν, / ο"κετ/ ν δρυµς. Has Callimachus deliberately reversed Theocritus’ anaphora from bucolic diaeresis ⫹ verse start to verse start ⫹ bucolic diaeresis? 57. The setting of the Daphnis song π τν πτελαν in Theocr. 1 is right across from a
περ C θω place YZ
κος / τη
νος C ποιµενικς κα τα δρες (vv. 22–23). This sounds curiously like Callimachus’ setting (ποιµνες singing #π δρυσν). Did the poet of the epigram pointedly set his herdsmen’s song at a site that recalled the unused one just opposite in Theocritus? Such allusions as those considered here and in the previous note would—in the narrowness of their focus, the detail of their reference—virtually preclude detection and appreciation if experienced aurally (e.g., if one merely heard this epigram at a symposium). As stressed in connection with the Midas epigram in Plato’s Phaedrus, one needs the texts—and time to examine them—to get the most out of Ergänzungsspiel. 58. Callimachus seems to be contrasting the luckless love of Daphnis with Astakides’ successful consummation. Herdsmen will hereafter sing only of love fulfilled. 59. The term ερς is pointed, moreover, because it denotes what belongs to the god (something dedicated to the god), which human hands may no longer lay claim to. Astakides now belongs entirely to the nymph and is no longer fair game for human affections. 60. Might Callimachus here be alluding to another poem by Theocritus, namely, the Hylas? There a heroized victim of nympholepsy is likewise named three times (13.58–59), apparently as an aition of the triple cry in the Hylas cult (cf. Gow 1950: ad loc.). 61. Larson (1997) argues that Astakides is not a proper name but a humorously pseudonymous ethnic, based on Bithynian Astakos. 62. Verse start, verse end, and right before the caesura.

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of goatherd boosterism run riot. Surely it strikes a humorous note.63 In short, I believe that Callimachus was here poking fun at Theocritus not just for the “anaphora bucolica” of the Daphnis song but for what has been called “the most prominent single characteristic of Theokritos’ style,” his well-known taste for repetition.64 As already mentioned, this instance of Ergänzungsspiel looks rather different from that in our previous examples. There, the game was sparked by the fact that in the ever more literary epigrams of the Hellenistic period, the deixis of the old inscriptional poems lost its real point of reference. But the Hellenistic poets were able to turn this referential vacuum to advantage and give it appeal, by inviting their readers to supply the missing references themselves. Here, on the other hand, the references that must be supplied are not to some concrete object or place but, rather, to another work of literature. No doubt this is Ergänzungsspiel in an extended sense. But I would see in it a different manifestation of what is essentially the selfsame game. For its motive force is the same: a preference for the kind of text that Barthes has (perversely) termed “writerly,” that is, one that puts the reader to work (if of course he is so inclined), allowing him to be “no longer [just] a consumer, but a producer of the text.”65 This preference in fact represents a typical trait of Hellenistic poetry, for the authors of the age ask their readers to supply a great deal. They are expected to recognize and bring to the text an understanding not just of literary allusions (as argued earlier) but those to history, geography, medicine, religion, and so on. And this, too, can be considered a type of Ergänzungsspiel. The words of Wolfgang Iser could well describe the particular pleasure of Hellenistic poetry: “Reading becomes fun,” he says, “only then, when we play a productive role, and that means when texts give us the chance to use our abilities.”66

63. Threefold repetition of a name is entirely atypical of Callimachus. The poet generally avoids repetition of names by using patronymics or ethnics (cf., e.g., Ep. 2.1, 4; 6.1, 4; 10.1, 3; 27.3, 4). Cf. Lapp 1965: 25: “ad nomina propria sive vitanda sive varianda Callimachus saepissime ea circumscriptione utitur, cui nomen est antonomasiae.” 64. Cf. Dover 1971: xlv: “The most prominent single characteristic of Theokritos’ style is his repetition or partial repetition of words.” 65. Barthes 1974: 4. Barthes opposes to this the “readerly” text, which forms “the enormous mass of our literature” (5), wherein the reader is “plunged into a kind of idleness” (4) and in which reading is merely “the reactive complement of a writing which we endow with all the glamour of creation and anteriority” (10). “We call any readerly text a classic text,” (4). 66. “Das Lesen wird erst dort zum Vergnügen, wo unsere Produktivität ins Spiel kommt, und das heißt, wo Texte eine Chance bieten, unsere Vermögen zu betätigen” (Iser 1984: 176).

chapter 6

Text or Performance / Text and Performance ALAN CAMERON’S CALLIMACHUS AND HIS CRITICS




D

iscontinuity, change, innovation: these are the terms most scholars in this century have stressed—one-sidedly, perhaps—in characterizing Hellenistic poetry. Tradition (they argue), though mined, sifted, painstakingly studied and mastered, is deployed not for reproductive ends but in the service of something different and new.1 Alan Cameron now shifts the accent among these terms, placing it squarely on tradition: “Not only is there no evidence that third-century artists and writers thought of themselves as epigones living in a postclassical age. The real break came two centuries later” (27–28).2 Hellenistic poetry—on his view—was not so very different This is an updated version of the essay that appeared in La letteratura hellenistica: Problemi e prospettive di ricerca, ed. R. Pretagostini. Rome 2000. © 2000, Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon srl. 1. See especially Wilamowitz description (1924: I). For him, the “neue Dichtung” (148) is “Lesepoesie” (149), unclassical, learned, refined, and aimed at a “gebildeten Leserkreis” (151). Cf. the helpful discussion in Schwinge 1985: esp. 154–63. See also Pfeiffer’s comparable characterization of the poetry of this era (1968: 88): “the great old poetical forms . . . belonged to ages gone for ever . . . Poetry had to be rescued from the dangerous situation in which it lay, and the writing of poetry had to become a particularly serious work of discipline and wide knowledge, τχνη and σοφη. The new writers had to look back to the old masters . . . not to imitate them—this was regarded as impossible or at least as undesirable—but in order to be trained by them in their own new poetical technique.” In their wake, cf., e.g., Bulloch 1985b; Zanker 1987; Bing 1988; Goldhill 1991; Hunter 1996. 2. Cameron 1995. I cite Cameron from this book throughout unless otherwise noted.

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from what preceded it, even in archaic times. In tendency, then, Cameron’s work can be placed alongside G. Hutchinson’s—though to be fair to the latter, the continuity for which Cameron argues in poetic convention, practice, and reception is incomparably more radical.3 From this perspective, Cameron whips up a blizzard of polemic against almost any consensus one might care to name about Callimachus and Hellenistic poetry. This is not the place to take on the totality of Cameron’s diffuse and complicated argument. I mean, rather, to address just two aspects of it—(1) the kind of audience to which the chief poets of the age primarily addressed themselves and (2) the essential literariness of their works. In Callimachus and His Critics, Alan Cameron attacks the widespread notion that Hellenistic poets were confined to an ivory tower, writing only for an elite circle of readers, remote from the general public. In so doing, he stresses that traditional poetic venues such as musical contests, symposia, and religious festivals continued to flourish, indeed proliferated, in the Hellenistic age and that they were sponsored by the very kings who are supposed to have encouraged the depolitization and hence marginalization of song. There are instructive pages cataloging the “abundant evidence that lesser poets continued to perform their work publicly, and many passages in the major poets [that] imply that they did the same” (30). Yet he overstates his case against the bookish aspect of Hellenistic poetry, by denying altogether that some of it was indeed intended for a select circle of readers, who might well be described as denizens of an ivory tower. The lengths to which Cameron will go to deny the existence of such a group may be seen in his treatment of what he calls the “one well-known text which has often been cited as if it lent some support” (31) to the image of the ivory tower, that is, the famous fragment from the Silloi of Timon of Phlius (SH 786). πολλο µ+ν βσκονται 6ν Α,γπτMω πολυφλMω βιβλιακο χαρακι
ται περιτα δηριωντες Μουσων 6ν ταλρMω. 3. Hutchinson is balanced (to a fault) and far more circumspect: “Crude notions of literary history often leads to ideas of a poetry absolutely different from, or much the same as, the poetry of the classical era, and an obsession with the relationship. Swollen conceptions of the part played in this poetry by learning and still more by theories about literature lead in practice to narrow and dull conceptions of the poems” (1988: 1). Of Callimachus, he writes: “[T]he difficulty of reading him has often been grossly exaggerated . . . There is demonstrably far more to these works than the conduct of scholarly quizzes and polemics; we cannot reduce them to such a compass by conjuring up readers whose concern with erudition drives out all other interests and responses” (6–7).

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According to Cameron, these verses are normally understood as meaning, “Many bookish scribblers are fed in populous Egypt, forever squabbling in the birdcage of the Muses.” “The image has always been identified,” says Cameron—citing Luciano Canfora for the communis opinio—“as ‘rare birds, remote and precious creatures’4 kept in a zoo, cut off from real life” (31). He challenges this interpretation on three counts (none of which are new). First, βσκονται suggests that the birds were being raised to be eaten. Timon was thus thinking of a farm, not a zoo. Second, χαρακι
ται in verse 2 is likely to mean not “scribblers,” as some assume, but, rather, “those enclosed by a fence.” Cameron distances himself from “the monastic associations of its usual translation ‘cloisterlings.’” He says that χαρακι
ται “could suggest the fences of a farm as easily as the cages of a zoo” (32). Finally, he notes that τλαρος usually refers to an open basket, not a closed birdcage—though he admits in a footnote that Athenaeus, who cites the verses, elsewhere has τλαρος meaning birdcage and may have understood Timon’s usage in that way. Still, asserts Cameron, “in the context, it is surely a birdsnest” (32). Surely is one of Cameron’s favorite words. But despite its promise of certainty, readers will do well to construe it with caution: In Callimachus and His Critics, for surely always read “possibly.” Let us grant Cameron his “birdsnest,” however: it certainly is possible. Assuming, then, that the birds are squabbling in a nest, he argues that the initial verb, βσκονται, “surely evokes a nest full of young birds squawking incessantly in their rivalry for the scraps of food in the parent-bird’s beak” (32). Thus, he argues, “there is no suggestion of caged birds, of unworldly scholars shut away in a library”; the focus of the passage is, rather, on the contentious rivalry of the Alexandrian scholars. There can be no doubt that one of Timon’s points is the quarrelsomeness of the scholars in the Museum of Alexandria. But beyond that, what is gained by moving these creatures from a zoo to a farm and out of a cage into a nest? At best, it is like comparing free-range chickens with the coopbred variety. Both are captive, the freer ones still confined within fences; and that is the case even if we admit that χαρακι
ται in verse 2 does not convey the seclusion of a “cloisterling.” Cameron may be right that “the point is not the seclusion of these birds as oddities, but their value as delicacies for the table” (32). But whether “oddities” or “delicacies,” they are kept in a special place and fed, so as to make an exit for one purpose alone, 4. Canfora 1989: 37.

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and that is not for a life as a wandering songbird.5 Similarly the young in the nest is scarcely an image of worldliness. These birds are unfledged, confined to the nest, unable to nourish themselves, and so dependent on their parent bird. As such, the verses still lend potent support to the notion of the Museum of Alexandria as an ivory tower. Timon’s satirical picture of contentious scholars kept on a special farm or within the nurturing confines of a nest is of course an exaggeration. That is the nature of satire. Those working at the museum were not actually confined, and they plied their craft in a variety of settings. Yet it is clear that its poets, though perhaps occasionally creating works for a broader public, often wrote for an elite group of insiders. (Incidentally, that does not mean that their audience was all in one place: the ivory tower is not limited to a single location; its manifestations are scattered throughout the world, and there is communication between them.)6 A clear instance of this double aspect of the poet may be seen in Philikos of Corcyra. On the one hand, this figure might play a very public role as priest of Dionysus and march at the head of the technitai in the procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus; he might—as one of the tragic Pleias—compose works for the normally very public genre of drama. Yet he might also adopt a very different pose in his Hymn to Demeter (SH 677): καινογρφου συνθσεως τη
ς Φιλκου, γραµµατικο, δω
ρα φρω πρς #µα
ς (Men of letters, I bring you a gift of Philikos’ newly written composition). Cameron plays down the difference by simply excising all reference to writing from his translation (42): καινογρφου becomes “new-fangled” rather than “newly (or innovatively) written,” and γραµµατικο is rendered with the neutral “scholars.” But in conjunction with καινογρφου, with which the poet stresses the materiality of the text, the word γραµµατικο demands to be taken concretely as “readers,” “men of letters.” It is hard to imagine a poem of the archaic or classical period addressed to such a group (where would it have been found?). Considering the low estimates for literacy in Hellenistic times,7 an intended audience whose self-definition centered on this skill would have been a tiny elite indeed. 5. Cf. Cameron 1965. 6. Cameron himself (1995: 204) imagines the elder Nicander writing regional epic for public performance in competitions at sacred festivals, while at the same time suggesting that the Theriaca and Alexipharmaca might not have been appropriate to such contexts. They would not have been any more appropriate at symposia. On how Nicander envisioned the transmission of the Alexipharmaca, see n. 16 in the present essay. 7. Harris (1989: 116–46) surveys literacy in Hellenistic times and estimates that levels were probably not much higher than the 20 to 30 percent maximum he posits for the classical era.

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While Cameron is right to remind us of the public aspect and function of such poets as Philikos, he simply dismisses important evidence for poetry aimed at and experienced by a cultivated readership. The significance of acrostics is a good instance (37–38). Here we encounter a technique of argumentation that recurs often throughout Cameron’s book. I would call it the Cameron two-step: step 1, assert that a particular scholarly orthodoxy is untrue; step 2, claim that even if true, it is unimportant. Thus Cameron first of all asserts that there is nothing particularly Hellenistic about acrostics. Though in Greece we do not find them before the latter half of the fourth century, Cameron assures us that they are “pre-Hellenic (the earliest known are Babylonian)” (37). Second, even if they do appear fairly late in Greece, they are not important as a gauge of how the literature of the age was intended for reading. Even the striking acrostics in Aratus’ Phainomena, which include the important programmatic term λεπτ (vv. 783–87), are denigrated as “no more than purely external embellishments added to long poems for publication, telling us nothing about earlier performances” (38). Well, we have no knowledge at all of either prepublication performances or later ones, and if we presume they occured, we do so on faith. But we do have three epigrams by contemporaries of Aratus—Callimachus (AP 9.507 ⫽ 27 Pf. ⫽ 56 GP), Ptolemy Philadelphus (SH 712), and Leonidas of Tarentum (AP 9.25 ⫽ 101 GP)—that allude to the acrostic λεπτ (Bing 1994; Gutzwiller 2007: 102; Prioux 2007a). Thus the earliest reception of the poem for which we have any evidence at all—and it is very early indeed!—is a reception by reading. That reading, moreover, must have been remarkably attuned to the visual dimension of the text, since these readers noticed something that went unnoticed in all the voluminous scholia on Aratus. It may be that the Phainomena was performed publicly as well. But there is no reason to assume that it was not intended in the first instance for reading. Indeed, what evidence we have suggests it.8 The same can be said of the tragedian Chairemon, who embedded his name acrostically in a series of hexameters, probably from The Centaur, a 8. Cameron (1995: 45) argues that one factor particularly “to be borne in mind when we are considering visual effects,” such as acrostics, is that “many (especially older) people did not actually read in person” because of the physical strain. Here he invokes the example of Pliny the Elder, whose “slaves both read to him and wrote for him.” According to Cameron’s chronology, Callimachus wrote the Aetia prologue around 270, i.e., within a few years of the publication of Aratus’ Phainomena, and there (in his late forties) he was already lamenting that old age weighed on him like Sicily on Enceladus (fr. 1.33–36). Are we to imagine, then, that it was Callimachus’ slave who recognized Aratus’ acrostic as he recited the Phainomena to his master?

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play known for its mixture of “all meters” (Aristot. Poet. 1.1447b21, 24.1460a2). Aristotle, Chairemon’s contemporary, describes him as one of the ναγνωστικο (Rhet. 3.12.1413b8), that is, one who wrote to be read. Cameron and others object that there is epigraphic evidence that his plays were performed and that we must thus construe ναγνωστικο only as “better read than acted”; understood thus, the word would still allow that his plays were originally meant for the stage. But Cameron does not mention that the inscription (TrGF I 71 T5) and the one performance to which it refers (a production of Achilles, the Slayer of Thersites) are from the third century b.c., that is, well after Chairemon’s lifetime. The notions that it must have been performed within his lifetime as well, or that it was originally intended for performance (and that we must shape our understanding of Aristotle accordingly) are just inferences from that one testimonium concerning a single play. Why should we not presume instead that a play first meant for reading was eventually performed? The second part of Goethe’s Faust was certainly never meant to be staged, yet it has often been performed in this century. As to Chairemon, the evidence of his acrostic and the characterization by Aristotle shows—as in the case of Aratus—that reading figured in the author’s plans for the reception of his work and that from the earliest moment we can trace—and again, it is very early—that reception was expressly associated with reading. It is not that Cameron sees no role at all for reading in the reception of Hellenistic poetry. Rather, he sees it as distinctly secondary, even for the scholarly elite and still more so for others. Michael Grant’s assertion that by the third century, people “were reading much more than they were sitting and listening” (1982: 260) might—on Cameron’s view—be true of Callimachus and his colleagues at the museum, “if we judge by the thousands of manuscripts they catalogued.” “But of the educated public at large,” he continues, “it is much more nearly false” (44). Yet despite the proliferation of agonstic festivals and despite the ongoing importance of symposia as a place for reciting verse, on most days of the year in any given locality, if that “educated public at large” that Cameron invokes wanted a bit of poetry, it probably read it. Cameron himself points to a text that suggests this (though his intent is actually to show that poets were not just writing for an elite). I am referring to the third-century b.c. Lille papyrus of Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices (SH frs. 254–69). This, our earliest text of Callimachus, is remarkable for its interlinear commentary, which breaks into the poem at irregular intervals and—though written scarcely a generation after the poet’s death— offers the most elementary information on the preceding verses. “Here,”

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says Cameron (56), “is a concrete illustration of the sort of aids with which people of modest cultural attainments might tackle so difficult a poem—Egyptians who needed to be told that Berenice was not really the daughter of Philadelphus.” But while, as Cameron points out, the papyrus shows the reach of Callimachus’ poetry far beyond the ivory tower, it also shows that even “in the backwoods” of the Fayum, people with a quite humble level of education would nonetheless read an expressly occasional poem like the Victoria Berenices. For this papyrus does not lend itself to performance or even to reading out loud. Its very format, in which commentary interrupts the poem at odd intervals, in midsentence and even midclause (cf., e.g., lines 18ff. of the papyrus), militates against recitation. Of course, there were plenty of musical festivals in the Fayum,9 no dearth of symposia, and it is possible to imagine some connection for our papyrus. For instance, was its owner preparing to hear the epinician at a festival? Was he informing himself so as to be able to answer questions upon reciting it at a symposium? Had he been baffled by the poem’s oblique allusiveness when he’d heard it performed and so decided to study it after the fact? Any such scenario, which maintains the possibility that the poem was primarily encountered in performance, is conceivable (I suppose). But the fact remains that the Lille papyrus, our earliest text of Callimachus, proves only that the Victoria Berenices was read—and in all likelihood not read out loud. Just as Cameron attempts to undercut the idea of a Hellenistic book culture, so, too, he denies that poetry of earlier ages had a more oral, improvisational character. That, according to Cameron, is only to “romanticize the otherness” of archaic poetry (72). On the contrary, writing (he says) was as essential a feature of poetic composition in the archaic and classical periods as it was in the Hellenistic: “Even in the archaic period many symposiasts used written song-books” (84).10 The fact that archaic and classical poets do not refer to themselves as “writing” their songs— while that technology is so prominent and explicit a feature of the Hellenistic poet’s self-image—is deemed insignificant: since the earlier poets clearly did write, it doesn’t matter that they do not talk about it. We recognize here the old Cameron two-step: step 1, earlier poets employed writing every bit as much as their Hellenistic counterparts; step 2, if they describe the process of composition only within an oral framework, that is 9. Cf. Koenen 1977, which deals with a festival in the Arsinoite or Herakleopolitan nome. 10. One would love to know what evidence there is for this assertion!

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not important. John Herington might attempt to understand the Aristophanic scenes in which Euripides and Agathon are portrayed composing tragedies without recourse to writing by suggesting that in the archaic and classical periods writing was not essential but secondary, occurring only after the crucial phase of composition was over (1985: 46–47). But to Cameron, that distinction is meaningless: it may be, as Herington claims, that Euripides “did not take to his pen . . . until late in the composition,” but that says nothing about a supposed predominance of oral style or culture. “That is how Gibbon wrote; indeed,” says Cameron (87), “I write that way myself.” Besides comparing apples and oranges (ancient poetic composition in a traditional genre and modern scholarly prose), the juxtaposition of Euripides, Gibbon, and Cameron is simply breathtaking. Judging from the length and complexity of his book, it must have been a hectic week when Cameron finally put it all on paper. One can only hope that on the seventh day he rested! I want to turn finally to epigram, a genre that for many scholars has embodied pure “book-poetry” (76) but that for Cameron is a further instance of performance poetry tied to a certain social setting. In his view, epigram “was the poetic form par excellence of the Hellenistic symposium” (100). He thus revives R. Reitzenstein’s proposal (1893: 87–104) that poets could compose epigrams extempore at symposia, often reacting immediately to other such poems composed and performed by their drinking companions. In his chapter “The Symposium” (71–103), Cameron spreads before us a truly dazzling array of texts testifying to the continuing vitality of the symposium and to its importance in Hellenistic times as a locus of poetry. Still, in all the rich catalog of sources describing performance at such gatherings, there is not one that explicitly mentions the recitation of an epigram in this period.11 For that reason, we still should be very cautious in assessing the frequent representation of sympotic situations in epigram.12 As with Callimachus’ hymns, we must ask to what extent the description of 11. Even the Elephantine papyrus (pp. 190–92 Powell), which Cameron hails as “one of the most interesting of all extant symposium texts” and “the clearest proof” that “singing [at the symposium] was not entirely a thing of the past” (1995: 74), does not actually constitute proof for sympotic performance of epigram in the Hellenistic era. Indeed, the final epigrammatic poem serves—as Powell himself noted (ad loc.)—“Scoliorum tanquam 6πλογος” and so is evidence of editorial arrangement for the scroll. 12. Cf. Gutzwiller 1998: 115–16: “The imitation of oral speech, no more guarantees that a sympotic epigram was recited than the imitation of written speech guarantees that an inscriptional epigram was inscribed. Reitzenstein’s fundamental mistake was to confuse the representation of a speech act with the speech act itself.” See, further, Bing and Bruss 2007: 12–14.

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an occasion may be a literary evocation, to what extent it points to the actual circumstances of performance. I would not rule out the symposium as one possible setting for poetic creation and performance. But it is scarcely sufficient to explain the range and quality of the epigrammatic corpus as we have it or the pointed responses of one epigram to another. There is a basic unlikelihood that the poets in question always happened to attend the same parties, and it is hard to believe that (without prior warning that such and such a theme would be on the evening’s program) they were able to produce extempore even preliminary versions of many of their finest epigrams. Reitzenstein (1893: 103–4 n. 1) and Cameron both adduce the model of Catullus 50 as “the best commentary” (88) on poetic creation and performance at symposia. Here each participant writes versiculos “now with this meter, now that / capping each other’s jokes and toasts” (vv. 4–6, trans. G. Lee). Concerning these verses, Cameron observes: “Typically (of course) symposiasts sang others’ poetry. But the poets themselves (whether Hellenistic or archaic) will naturally have jotted down ideas while still uncertain about the form or details of a poem taking shape in their minds—and also so as to have a record of their improvisations, in the hope of working them up into something more polished one day” (88). But does this really provide a valid parallel to the epigrams of the Hellenistic poets? What survives of the occasion Catullus describes is—significantly—not the versiculos but the brilliantly finished poem (n.b. poema in v. 16), which we have before us and which the poet says he wrote in the privacy of his home the night after (vv. 14–16). The finished poem is a plea for another meeting, “that I might be with you and talk” (ut tecum loquerer simulque ut essem, v. 13). The implied situation is that speaker and addressee are not together and that the poem is sent—like a letter—to communicate his desire. Elsewhere in Catullus (poem 14) we find an anthology of verse sent to the poet by the same Gaius Licinius Calvus who is the addressee in poem 50, evidently read in private and then sent back with a response. This situation may provide a useful model for understanding the allusive interplay of Hellenistic epigrams. Cameron is right (if a bit literalminded) to insist that “there is no ancient form of which it can be said with less plausibility that it was written for the book. The average book-roll contains 700 to 1000 lines, whereas some of the finest epigrams consist of only two to six lines” (77). “Callimachus,” he points out, “wrote epigrams throughout his life. . . . Did he publish new books every few years, or just one towards the end of his life? (78)” But that does not mean that epigram’s only, or chief, mode of publication was through performance at

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symposia, rather than in written form. I consider it likely that letters (or short scrolls?)13—in addition to presumably far rarer epigram books— served as a critical medium by which epigram was disseminated, thus permitting authors to react to and vary the epigrams of their contemporaries (as we know they loved to do) in works of their own.14 The letters of Archimedes (in Sicily) to Eratosthenes and Dositheus (in Alexandria) may serve as a model for the sort of lively cultural exchange that could occur between far-flung correspondents in the third century b.c. Significantly, in one such letter, Archimedes sent Eratosthenes his “cattle problem” in the form of an epigram (SH 201).15 In addition to this report about Archimedes’ poem sent in a letter, we possess an actual papyrus letter whose exclusive purpose was to convey to its recipient two epigrams. I am referring to the two anonymous funerary epigrams (SH 977) sent—possibly in the poet’s own hand—to Zenon, agent of Apollonius, chief financial administrator of Ptolemy Philadelphus. They celebrate Zenon’s hunting dog Tauron, who perished while trying to save his master from an attacking boar, and both were probably intended for inscription on his tomb. If such poems as these were circulating by letter, it is perfectly plausible that many others were as well—and not just epigrams.16 It might be an interesting point of departure for a future study to ask whether the later genre of epistolary poetry had a basis in actual practice.

13. Cf. Turner 1968: 140. 14. Cf. Ludwig 1968; Tarán 1979. 15. Eratosthenes’ dedicatory epigram for a mechanical device (mesolabon) solving the “Delian problem” of doubling a cube (35, p. 66 Powell) is likewise transmitted in a letter to King Ptolemy (Eutoc. comm. in Archim. sphaer. cyl. pp. 88.4–96.27 Heiberg-Stamatis). This letter has often been viewed as a late forgery, but both letter and epigram have recently been defended as authentic by Geus (2002: 195–205). According to the letter, Eratosthenes dedicated a stele with a representation of his device, an abbreviated version of his proof, a diagram, and thereafter his epigram inscribed on it (µετ/ α"τ δ+ 6πγραµµα). Eratosthenes says that he has written these things as well in the letter “so that you [sc., King Ptolemy] may have them as
ν σοι κα ταυ on the dedication” (#πογεγρφθω ο"
τα, Gνα (χJης κα Eς 6ν τMω
ναθ µατι, 96.13– 15). In other words, the letter provides ease of consultation and the possibility of repeated viewing, which the inscribed monument (and, a fortiori, oral performance) does not. 16. The proem to Nicander’s Alexipharmaca, for instance, is very suggestive of how poetic texts traveled in written form from place to place. Here the poet, in his native Clarus (near Colophon), assures his addressee, Protagoras, far off in Cyzicus, that “although a great space separates us, I can easily tell you the remedies for poison drinks” (ε, κα . . . δολιχς δ+ διπροθι χω
ρος 6ργει, / 8ει
 κ τοι ποσεσσιν λξια φαρµακοσσαις / α"δ σαιµ/, vv. 3–5). That ease of communication for Nicander is most likely produced by his ability to send the poem in written form to his addressee. The mode of dissemination evoked in the proem for this particular instance becomes paradigmatic for readers of the Alexipharmaca generally, wherever they happen to be.

chapter 7

The Un-Read Muse? INSCRIBED EPIGRAM AND ITS READERS IN ANTIQUITY




I

n Frank Capra’s 1939 political satire Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there is a scene that stages the act of reading an inscription and presents it in particularly vivid paradigmatic detail. The movie’s idealistic young hero, Jefferson Smith, memorably played by Jimmy Stewart, has become the surprise choice of the corrupt party bosses of his native Montana to replace the state’s junior senator, who has suddenly died in office; Smith, they hope, will be an easily manipulated stooge for the big-money interests of the state. But shortly after his arrival in Washington and presaging his later troublesome independence, this “callow, hayseed senator” manages to slip away from his handlers to see the sights of the nation’s capitol. Wide-eyed with awe, Smith travels past the White House and the Washington Monument and finally comes to the Lincoln Memorial. Here he pauses attentively before the seated statue of Abraham Lincoln, then turns to see the great inscription of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which towers above him, its monumental lettering with dark highlights easily legible to the movie audience. Beside him, he notices a little boy holding the hand of

This is a revised and updated version of an essay that appeared in Hellenistic Epigrams, ed. M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker, 39–66. Hellenistica Groningana 6. 2002. Louvain. © 2002 Peeters. Heartfelt thanks to Rip Cohen and Prof. Jongsook Lee—exceptional readers both—for their help and encouragement at critical points in the genesis of this essay.

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Fig. 2. Jimmy Stewart as Jefferson Smith, at the Lincoln Memorial, in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. (Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.)

an elderly man. The boy reads the inscription aloud to the frail old man, who listens with rapt attention, occasionally helping the boy with unfamiliar words. They are joined by a black man who doffs his hat and reads along as well. Smith watches them, as do we, the audience, looking over their shoulders to Lincoln’s words. It is hard to imagine more ideally focused or receptive readers of an inscribed text. In his autobiography, Capra relates how he took this scene directly from life, when he—among dozens of other tourists reading the engraved words—observed a little boy reading the Gettsyburg Address, as well as the Second Inaugural, to a very old man. “Never,” says Capra, “had Lincoln’s impassioned, moral indictment of slavery sounded so eloquent, so moving, so powerful as when that young boy read it to his grandfather. That scene must go into our film, I thought. We must make the film if only to hear a boy read Lincoln to his grandpa” (Capra 1972: 259–60). As Capra says, there were dozens of tourists reading the speeches carved on

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the walls. Countless visitors had done the same before, and countless have done so since. This helps explain why this moment in the film is apt to strike so resonant a chord in an American audience. What Capra experienced in encountering this inscribed text—what he allows us to experience, peering over the shoulder of his readers—is a thing many Americans would find familiar. In observing this act of reading the inscription in the movie, we in fact observe ourselves as readers of inscriptions—as a nation of inscription readers (though a few of us may be slightly more jaded than the readers in the film). For with these texts, the memorial constitutes itself as a national charter, embodying some of America’s understanding of itself and shaping its self-definition. In this it resembles that ur-charter of a nation, likewise carved in stone by the original “poet” for his people to read, to remember, and to live by: the Ten Commandments. Descriptions of people encountering inscribed monuments, pausing to read and reflect on them, are common and privileged in narrative—after antiquity. They recur steadily, from Dante’s Inferno, where readers (together with the narrator and his guide, Virgil) come face-to-face with the inscription on the gate of hell and participate in its exegesis (Inferno III vv. 1–18),1 up through modern times.2 But do they occur in ancient narrative as well? To judge by epigram, the genre actually or fictitiously inscribed on ancient monuments, one would certainly expect they would. For from earliest times, these poems insistently envision and dramatize that encounter between reader and monument. Again and again the texts call out to the 1. Like the narrator, we scan the verses of the famous epigram ending with the words “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” (v. 9) and participate in his perplexity as he tells his guide that for him the text is “duro” (v. 12)—presumably, “difficult to understand,” “tough to take,” as well as “cut in stone.” We hear the response of his teacher, Virgil, who is described as “persona accorta” (v. 13), meaning “agile,” “intelligent,” “attuned,” a reference both to his general wisdom and, more specifically, in this context, to his competence as a reader. Virgil’s answer confirms that characterization. He is indeed an attentive reader, echoing yet reshaping the words of the inscription: “abandon all distrust; all cowardice should perish here” (vv. 14–15). The scene thus describes not only the confrontation with the inscribed text but the process of its reception—a reception all the more problematic as it is adapted within the text to a distinctly unimplied reader, i.e., one who does not fulfill the prerequisite of being dead. But if unimplied, that reader is nonetheless ideal. For he brings that indispensable (if rare) quality of attentiveness: he lavishes care on his reading. Cf. also the fourteenth-century Le livre du cuer d’amours espris, by René d’ Anjou, where the heart goes about reading texts inscribed on walls, etc., including its own tombstone. Descriptions of people contemplating inscriptions seem to have enjoyed a particular vogue in fourteenth-century literature. 2. Among many instances, see, especially, Poussin’s influential painting Et in Arcadia Ego (with Panofsky 1955), or Cavafy’s poem “In the Month of Athyr.”

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ξει
ν/, b
παροδι
τα, Cδοιπρε, or the like—inviting him to stop reader—b and pay attention, acknowledge some achievement, utter a prayer, deliver some message. In this sense, they are meant to be interactive texts; they presuppose audience participation.3 One might reasonably expect, therefore, to find numerous depictions outside epigram (in ancient epic, drama, history, oratory, philosophy, the novel) of people pausing before inscriptions to read and ponder them—a kind of ecphrasis of the inscribed monument comparable to the sort so common across various genres, where characters stop to contemplate a work of art (Goldhill 1994). Such ecphrases of inscriptions would prove an interesting yardstick against which to measure the imagined encounter within the epigrams themselves.4 But they simply do not exist—not, that is, until late: the earliest appears to be from Nonnus in the fifth century a.d.5 Indeed, an examination of the evidence leaves one rather wondering, did anybody actually read inscribed epigram, and if so, who? Oddly, there is scant indication that anyone did. And here there is a poignant contradiction between the elaborate devices whereby the text tries to involve the reader and the surprising lack of reader response. For although much of epigram is constructed like a trap for a reader, it appears that very few people in antiquity ever stopped to take the bait. Those that did—as I suggest in this essay—were in all ways exceptional persons, at least up through the early Hellenistic period. An “ordinary” reader of inscriptions—the kind of “everyman” Frank Capra imagined at the Lincoln Memorial—did, I think, appear, linked with epigram’s development in the Hellenistic era into a genre composed or collected for the book. In that form, suddenly accessible to a wider audience, it came to be used even in schools. And with that institutional setting as its springboard, I suggest that book epigram 3. Cf. Svenbro 1993: 44: “Just as he foresees his own absence, the writer foresees the presence of his writing before the reader. The reading constitutes a meeting between the reader and the written marks of someone who is absent. The writer foresees that meeting, plans it carefully. He counts on the reader and the reading aloud that the reader will accomplish, for in a culture in which kléos has a fundamental part to play, what is written remains incomplete until such time as it is provided with a voice.” 4. In a sense, of course, any artwork is a “text,” and its viewer is a “reader.” Why limit oneself to inscriptions, then, in looking for an independent gauge for their readers’ response? Thus, e.g., Goldhill (1999) includes the “reading” of artworks when he poses the question in his title “Body/Politics: Is There a History of Reading?” But given the historical tension between oral and literate culture in ancient Greece and the fact that the technology of writing only gradually acquired authority and prestige in the course of the classical age, it is reasonable to operate with a narrower sense of these terms and focus here on the reader’s experience of inscribed epigram in particular. 5. See the close of this chapter for a detailed discussion of this ecphrasis.

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was in turn able to generate new interest and a different kind of readership for the inscribed variety. Prior to that, however, if there were a goddess of inscribed epigram—the Musa Lapidaria of Courtney’s 1995 title—one would be tempted to call her the Un-Read Muse. Even early on, of course, there were exceptions. For not all inscriptions are created equal. In every culture, different sorts of inscribed text elicit varying responses. Or from the reader’s perspective, one’s willingness to engage a text will vary according to its kind. These varying degrees of receptiveness to a text are, of course, operative in all reading, across the spectrum of literary genres from lyric poetry to legal contract, not just in epigram. And there are differences within genres as well. The inscriptions at the Lincoln Memorial are special cases inasmuch as many of those encountering them are familiar with the text from having read it elsewhere (very likely—and significantly—as a set text in school, a locus for the reading of epigram to which I will return toward the end of this essay): the culture thus bestows on them an exalted status.6 In antiquity, the Delphic maxims engraved on Apollo’s temple already in the sixth century b.c. enjoyed a comparable status and garnered similar attention.7 At the other end of the cultural hierarchy stands another exception: the humble graffito. Though commanding none of the prestige of the Delphic maxims, this sort of inscription sometimes manages to arouse readerly in6. Another instance is Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus,” engraved in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus originally wrote the poem—which contains the famous lines “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .”—in 1893 to aid fund-raising efforts for the statue’s pedestal. Thereafter, the poem languished in obscurity until Georgina Schuyler rediscovered it and led a campaign to bring it back to public notice. As a result, the poem was inscribed on a bronze tablet in 1903 and dedicated inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, from whence its impact has stretched far beyond Liberty Island (Moreno 2000: 173–75, s.v. “The New Colossus”). For Lazarus’ poem as school text, cf. the Public Broadcasting Service’s Web site “Learning Adventures in Citizenship: Raise a New Torch,” http://www.pbskids.org/bigapplehistory/activities/a_immigration/activity2/ index.html. 7. They functioned “as the god’s salutation to those entering, instead of Χαι
ρε,” as Plato
σα του has Kritias say at Charm. 164d: πρσρησις ο"
θεου
τω
ν ε,σιντων ντ του
Χαι
ρε (cf. also Protag. 343a–b). On their location, cf. Paus. X 24. On their impact, cf. Plato Charm. 164d, as well as the report that the Hipparchan herms were set up in competition: Gνα πρω
τον µ+ν τ 6ν ∆ελφοι
ς γρµµατα τ σοφ ταυ
τα µ θαυµζοιεν ο πολι
ται α"του
, τ τε “Γνω
θι
λλα τ τοιαυ σαυτν” κα τ “Μηδ+ν γαν” κα τ
τα, λλ τ ;Ιππρχου 8 µατα µα
λλον σοφ ?γοι
ντο (ps.-Plato Hipparch. 228e; discussion of the account later in the present essay). See, further, the comment made in Plutarch De E apud Delphos (385d) in the very presence of these inscriptions: @ρα δ+ κα ταυτ τ προγρµµατα, τ “γνω
θι σαυτν” κα τ “µηδ+ν γαν,” @σας ζητ σεις κεκνηκε φιλοσφους κα @σον λγων πλη
θος φ/ 2κστου καθπερ π σπρµατος ναπφυκεν. Indeed, the entire dialogue consists of an on-site discussion of the “E” inscribed at the temple.

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terest. Because it can be so low, so deliciously personal, unfettered by decorum, exploiting safe anonymity to indulge in virulent, often obscene ad hominem attack or to extol an object of desire, the graffito pricks our curiosity and incites us to answer. In ancient times, as now, graffiti were read. We know that because their readers not infrequently “talk back,” engraving their retorts close by.8 Precisely that kind of response is vividly portrayed in Aristophanes’ Wasps (vv. 97–99) when the household slave Xanthias, describing Philokleon’s passion for jury duty, says that “if he sees the name of Pyrilampes’ son written on a door as ∆η
µος καλς, he goes and writes next to it κηµς καλς [i.e., “beautiful voting funnel”] (Xν :δJη γ που γεγραµµνον / υν Πυριλµπους 6ν θρYα ∆η
µον καλν, / ,5ν παργραψε πλησον κηµς καλς). Such graffito repartee appears even among the very earliest Greek inscriptions, for example, in seventh-century b.c. (?) Thera, where we find on a single boulder a series of erotic graffiti in which each writer tries to cap the previous one(s) in praising a beloved.9 But while readers may have been receptive to certain kinds of inscription as a result of cultural conditioning or personal inclination, it appears they reacted to the great mass of such texts differently—or, better, indifferently. Writing of epitaph, George Walsh (1991: 94) comments that “a basic precondition [of the genre] is the reader’s indifference.” To be sure, Walsh considers that “most readers would acknowledge the epitaph’s information hastily and move on without thinking about it” (95). But I believe that a more radical indifference was at work and that it extended beyond epitaph to votive and honorific epigram as well. As Rosalind Thomas (1989: 35) has noted in connection with public stelae of the late fifth- and fourth-century Athens, “It is not clear that Athenians actually read inscriptions much.”10 One reason for readers’ indifference lies in the nature of the inscribed 8. As Hellenistic authors of book epigram responded to poems of their contemporaries or predecessors. 9. IG XII.3, 540; cf. also 536. See the discussion of B. Powell (1991: 171–80, esp. 174–76, 179–80). Cf. also the graffiti recently found by Merle Langdon near the coastal road to Sounion, which were inscribed by sixth-century b.c. herdsmen. Later, see the Greek graffito from the Domus Tiberiana on the Palatine, where the response to earlier graffiti is sweeping and witty: “Many have inscribed many things, I alone have written nothing” (πολλο πολλ 6πγραψαν / 6γ5 µνος ο_τι (γραψα). Cf. Castrén and Lilius 1970. A comparably generalized graffito answer is the elegiac couplet found at several locations in Pompeii in a variety of hands: admiror te paries non cecidisse ruinis / qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas (CIL IV 1904, 1906, 2461, 2487; cf. Franklin 1991: 82–83). For more graffito repartee at Pompeii, cf., e.g., CIL IV 2175 (hic ego puellas multas / futui), 2176 (Felix / bene futuis); Franklin 1991: 82–84, 88–89). 10. For the view that inscriptions were, on the contrary, widely read, see, most recently, the chapter entitled “Consultation” in Sickinger 1999: 160–87.

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monument: it is stuck in one place. The stele is a figure for immobility already in Homer, where it twice appears in that capacity in similes (of a warrior unable to move at Il. 13.437 and of the horses of Patroklos unwilling to move at 17.432–33). Rooted to the spot, it has to wait, relying on the uncertain prospect of a literate person (not just any viewer) first of all seeing and then taking the trouble to read it. To initiate communication is beyond its competence. Unlike a scroll, moreover, which can accompany a traveler wherever he goes, the monument has only a fleeting chance: the moment the viewer comes before it.11 Add to this the physical location of the inscription: epigrams of the archaic period were placed not at eye level on their monuments but low down. Classical epigrams tended to be placed higher (Clairmont: 7, 46). But a painting on the tondo of a red-figure cup by the Ancona Painter (fig. 3, p. 123, ca. 500–480 b.c.), which shows a youth stooping over so as to read a stele, leaves no doubt that inscriptions were not designed for ease of inspection.12 The famous marble relief of the mourning Athena (fig. 4, p. 124, ca. 460) from the Athenian Acropolis, which has sometimes—implausibly—been interpreted as depicting the goddess reading, gives a fair notion of how laborious that would be. That impression of difficulty is confirmed for the Hellenistic period in Herodas’ fourth mimiamb, which describes two women making an offering at a shrine of Asclepius and seeing the sights. When one, Kokkale, asks her friend Kynno who was the sculptor and dedicator of a particular statue, Kynno replies, “Don’t you see the letters on the base?” (ο"χ CρJη
ς κει
να / 6ν τJη
βσει τ γρµµατ/;). That is, Kokkale needed prompting to look below. The inscription was not immediately obvious.13 11. In an important article, Scodel (1992: 71) argues that “the wayfarer who cannot read need not find a literate helper to read it [sc., the inscribed monument] to him.” Rather, because its metrical form was an aid to memory, she claims, “inhabitants near an impressive tomb will surely have known the inscription by heart.” Scodel does not, however, cite any evidence for such communal familiarity. This is not to deny that a few exceptional epigrams, such as that by Simonides on the dead at Thermopylai, were remembered orally beyond their monuments. 12. Illustrated in Boardman 1989: no. 79. Svenbro (1993: 194–95) argues that the boy’s posture communicates that “he is ready to be ‘buggered.’ His position is that which, in iconography, suggests katapúgôn.” Reading a stele, then, exposes you to indignity. 13. And when, a few lines on, Kokkale in turn exclaims, “Kynno, don’t you see this statue of Batale, daughter of Myttes, what a gait it has?” (τν Βατλης γρ του
τον, ο"χ CρJη
ς, Κυννοι
, / @κως ββηκεν, νδριντα τη
ς Μττεω;), she not only echoes the words of her companion (ο"χ CρJη
ς κει
να ⬃ ο"χ CρJη
ς, Κυννοι
) but also mimics her act of reading—or, rather, since the names she mentions mean, respectively, “Fucked-up-her-ass” and “Cunt,” perhaps she is making them up, as if she was reading. Indeed, one may wonder whether Kokkale is illiterate and therefore had to ask her friend about the first statue. For another scene where a reader does not see an inscription and must have his attention drawn to it, cf. Glaukos 3 GP ⫽ AP 9.341 where the nymphs direct Pan to a couplet inscribed

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Fig. 3. Youth reading stele. Tondo of Attic red-figure kylix, Ancona Painter, 500–480 B.C. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum 16.2 no. 62 (© Copyright by Hessische Hausstiftung, Museum Schloss Fasanerie, Eichenzdell/Fulda [Germany].)

Indeed, on sculptural monuments or votive objects at least, it is safe to say that inscriptions were in general secondary features of the monument, not meant to strike viewers at first sight or excite their attention. A further obstacle might be weathering, the corrosive effect of which on a stele is acknowledged by no less an expert on engraved monuments than Simonides (PMG 581), the poet most renowned for his work in this for him on a tree by Daphnis. It is unclear whether the nymphs or the god himself then reads the inscription aloud (cf. GP ad v. 4); if the former, it may cause us to wonder again whether we are supposed to imagine the god as illiterate.

Fig. 4. Pensive Athena, votive relief from the Acropolis, Athens, ca. 470–450 B.C. (Courtesy of Scala/Art Resource, NY.)

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125

medium: “What man in his right mind would commend Kleoboulos, inhabitant of Lindos, who set the strength of a stele against ever-flowing rivers, the sprouting plants of spring, the flame of the sun, the golden moon, or the wash of the sea? All things are weaker than the gods. Stone is shattered even by mortal hands. This is the devising of a fool” (τς κεν α,ν σειε νωι πσυνος Λνδου ναταν Κλεβουλον, / εναοι
ς ποταµοι
ς νθεσ τ/ ε,αρινοι
ς / ελου τε φλογ χρυσας τε σελνας / κα θαλασσααισι δναισ/ ντα θντα µνος στλας; / 9παντα γρ 6στι θεω
ν \σσωD λθον δ+ / κα βρτεοι παλµαι θραοντιD µωρου
/ φωτς 9δε βουλ).14 Shifting from physical impediments to those of content, there is the very sentiment of epigram: it is thoroughly hacknied, its poetic expression largely formulaic. Even poems engraved at great cost on imposing civic or private monuments are apt to be numbingly conventional.15 Pervasive reference to epic diction and values notwithstanding, they share nothing of epic’s ability to divert and enchant. Consequently, and despite their pleas, a reader is likely to ignore them. Finally, there is the fact that a monument has no standing by which to stake its claim on the reader’s attention. A person may appeal to another by reference to common bonds—for example, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”—or to the mere fact of shared humanity. But a monument is inanimate, with no more voice than a dead man (conversely, for Theognis, a dead man is “mute as a stone” [Oστε λθος / φθογγος, vv. 568–69]). That deficiency is limned in an epigram by Aratus (AP 12.129 ⫽ 1 GP) where the speaker evokes the handsome youth Philokles of Argos, celebrated in καλς inscriptions from Corinth to Oropos (evidently he deserved his name, whether it means “beloved by fame” or “in love with renown”). /Αργει
ος Φιλοκλη
ς PΑργει καλς, αG τε Κορνθου στη
λαι κα Μεγαρων τα"τ βοω
σι τφοιD γγραπται κα µχρι λοετρω
ν /Αµφιαρου Eς καλς. λλ/ 4λγοις γρµµασι λειπµεθαD τMω
δ/ ο" γρ πτραι 6πιµρτυρες, λλ Πριηνες α"τς ,δν, 2τρου δ/ 6στ περισστερος. 2 τα"τ Brunck : ταυ
τα P 4 4λγοις Brunck : 4λγοι P

14. An instance of an epigram half worn away on its monument will concern us later in this essay. 15. This is apparent in the ease with which they may be categorized according to rhetorical type, as in W. Peek’s arrangement in his Inhaltsübersicht (1955: xix–xxii).

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The Scroll and the Marble

[Argive Philokles is gorgeous in Argos; Corinth’s columns declare the same, Megara’s tombstones too. As far as the Baths of Amphiaraos you can read that he’s gorgeous. But all we lack are a few letters. For it is not stones that attest to this fellow, but Prieneus, who saw for himself: he is superior to another.] Inscribed monuments conventionally “speak” (βοω
σι, v. 2) and “bear witness” (6πιµρτυρες, v. 5),16 but this epigram—by dropping the functional terms στη
λαι and τφοι (v. 2) and frankly calling these stones stones (πτραι, v. 5)—insists finally on the irreducible difference between inanimate object and sentient being and so compels readers to acknowledge that such expressions are merely metaphors (ο" γρ πτραι 6πιµρτυρες, λλ Πριηνες / α"τς ,δν, vv. 5–6). To be sure, the speaker depicts himself as a reader of such inscriptions—a person of the sort mentioned before, who in the course of traveling reads graffiti, prompted perhaps by their prurient appeal. Maybe we are even meant to imagine that the καλς inscriptions inspired him to see for himself what all the fuss over Philokles was about.17 Nevertheless, the speaker insists on the insufficiency of stone as a witness. For he has something better: though he may lack the engraved letters of the inscriptional medium (4λγοις γρµµασι λειπµεθα, v. 4), he has the physical presence of his beloved (hence deictic τMω
δ/ in v. 5), whose surpassing beauty he can attest to viva voce and as an eyewitness.18 16. For a discussion of “speaking objects,” see, e.g., Svenbro 1999, esp. the section entitled “The ‘I’ and the Voice” (46–50). 17. Do the καλς inscriptions in Aratus’ epigram imply that Philokles was once present for amorous encounters at the places mentioned: temples or stoas in Corinth, cemeteries in Megara, baths in Oropus? 18. Contrary to earlier critics, I propose that Prieneus is the speaker throughout the poem, not different from the first-person plural λειπµεθα in v. 4. Moreover, τMω
δ/ in v. 5 may refer to Philokles, the subject of the first four lines, rather than to a different and, in that case, strangely unnamed youth, as most critics would have it (for the deictic pronoun referring to the same subject, rather than a different one, cf. already the inscription on the Ischia Cup (CEG I 454): Νστορος ε[,µ]ι ε_ποτον ποτριον / hς δ/ [ν το
δε πεσι ποτερ[ο] . . . ). The point, then, is that Philokles is there in the presence of the speaker, who is able to assess his charms firsthand. On this view, too, Πριηνες (v. 5) acquires added point, whether as a proper name or an ethnic: for it suggests that this speaker takes Philokles’ fame beyond the coastal strip between Corinth and Oropos, extending it at least as far as Priene in Asia Minor. Of course, the epigram slyly plays with the fact that it says little more about the beloved than would a καλς inscription and conveys Prieneus’ testimony to us by means of another written medium, the papyrus (the statement in v. 5 that “it is not stones that attest” raises the question of just how Prieneus’ testimony is conveyed and suggests the advantage of papyrus in extending the poem’s reception far beyond Priene).

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127

A person’s authority thus clearly trumps the prerogative of a stone, and an inscription must rely on the uncertain prospect that a passerby will himself summon up the interest to stop and read. But will the reader do so? Will he make the effort? It is fashionable to think that he will. For example, Svenbro (1993: 47) confidently speaks of how the ancient reading of inscriptions “takes the form of an exercise of power over the voice of the reader”: the voice “has to submit to the written word,” becoming its “instrument” of communication and implying “a reader dispossessed of his own voice.” Mary Depew (1997: 239, 245), following Joseph W. Day (1989: 26–28; 1994; 2000), speaks of the inscription reader’s “(re-)activation” of the original act of dedicating the monument, claiming that the whole ritual occasion is brought “repeatedly to life in the here-and-now, whenever anyone reads the text.”19 Yet Svenbro’s and Depew’s “readers” display a willingness to engage the inscribed text, which scarcely exists in the ancient evidence. Leaving aside modern scholars’ attempts to imaginatively construct the experience of the reader, our sources bespeak, rather, a pervasive indifference. Paradoxically, an important aspect of this indifference may be seen already in Homer.20 This poet does not, of course, present us with inscriptions. But his account of grave monuments is revealing. At Iliad 7.67ff., for instance, when Hektor proposes that one of the Achaeans meet him in single combat and that the victor should return the other’s body to be buried, his proposal turns into an elaborate vaunt in which he imagines his adversary’s tomb and its reception by future generations. τν δ+ νκυν 6π νη
ας 6ϋσσλµους ποδσω, =φρα 2 ταρχσωσι κρη κοµωντες /Αχαιο, ση
µ τ ο χεωσιν 6π πλατει
;ΕλλησπντMω. κα ποτ τις ε:πJησι κα 4ψιγνων νθρπων νηq πολυκλ ϊδι πλων 6π ο:νοπα πντονD νδρς µ+ν τδε ση
µα πλαι κατατεθνηω
τος, @ν ποτ/ ριστεοντα κατκτανε φαδιµος KΕκτωρ. Oς ποτ τις 6ρειD τ δ/ 6µν κλος ο_ ποτ/ 4λει
ται.

85

90

19. The term “(re-)activation” occurs in Day 2000. Cf. also Kurke 1993: 146: “[in an athlete’s victory monument] the passerby’s reading aloud and gaze recreate the original announcement and crowning of the victor . . . perpetually regenerating his kudos.” See, further, Day 2007. 20. Some of the same points about characters’ indifference to actual tomb monuments in Homer are covered by Scodel (1992: 66).

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The Scroll and the Marble

[His corpse I will return among the well-benched ships so that the Achaeans with the flowing hair may duly bury him and pile up a tomb for him beside the broad Hellespont. And one day a man among those still to come will say as he sails by upon the wine-dark sea in his ship with many oars, “This is the tomb of a man who died long ago, one of the bravest, and glorious Hektor killed him.” Thus someone will say, and my fame will never perish.] The verses near the end of this passage, imagining the speech of the person passing by the tomb (“This is the tomb of a man who died long ago, / one of the bravest”), bear a close resemblance to the diction of inscribed sepulchral epigram,21 and that similarity extends to the concern with the response of future viewers. Like Hektor, the author of an ancient epigram conventionally projects the encounter with the monument into the here and now of a future reader:22 the commemorative text is perpetually present, available, and repeatable by potential viewers. One may doubt, of course, whether a tomb would truly continue to function as a memorial to the slayer (!) of its occupant, the more so as it does not offer the guidance of an inscription but is envisaged, rather, as being seen from ships at sea, a location that would, in any case, not have permitted close inspection.23 Nevertheless, it is typical of passages such as these that a character imagines the response of a future passerby, rather than describing an actual response at a present grave site.24 What would that actual response have looked like? The striking fact is that when a preexisting tomb appears in Homer, no one ever responds to it qua tomb. Rather, it serves merely as a landmark or focus of activity,25 such as the tomb of Aisyetes at Iliad 2.791–94, which is used as a lookout, or the tomb of Ilos, used both as a gathering place (Il. 10.415) and as somewhere to shoot from—Paris leans against the stele on the tomb so as to steady his aim and be able to hide (Il. 11.371–72, 379).26 21. The resemblance has been variously explained. Cf. Lumpp 1963; Raubitschek 1968: 5–7; Svenbro 1993: 53; Scodel 1992: 59; R. F. Thomas 1998: 205–7. 22. As Doris Meyer puts it (2005: 55) with reference to CEG I 162, “Auffällig ist . . . die explizite Ausrichtung des Denkmals auf die vom Erbauer oder Epigrammautor imaginierten Betrachter und Leser.” 23. For other Homeric tombs conceived as visible from afar at sea, cf. those of Elpenor (Od. 11.75–76) and Achilleus and Patroklos (Od. 24.80–84). See Pearce 1983: 110–15. 24. Cf. also the imagined tomb of Menelaus at Il. 4.169–81, which a Trojan will insult and jump upon, or the tomb of Achilleus and Patroklos in Od. 24.80–84. 25. These categories are from Sourvinou-Inwood 1995: 129, 132. 26. Cf. also Il. 11.166, 24.349.

The Un-Read Muse?

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Just how precarious the act of memorialization can be is best represented in a passage from book 23 (vv. 326ff.) that shares with the speech of the passerby imagined by Hektor in book 7 that epigrammatic phrase ση
µα πλαι κατατεθνηω
τος. Here Nestor instructs Antilochos about how to keep his chariot close to the turning point. ση
µα δ τοι 6ρω µλ/ ριφραδς, ο"δ σε λ σει.
ον @σον τ/ =ργυι/ #π+ρ α:ης Iστηκε ξλον α" X δρυς X πεκηςD τ µ+ν ο" καταπθεται =µβρMω, λα
ε δ+ του
2κτερθεν 6ρηρδαται δο λευκ5 6ν ξυνοχJη
σιν Cδου
, λει
ος δ/ ππδροµος µφς A τευ ση
µα βροτοι
ο πλαι κατατεθνηω
τος, X τ γε νσσα ττυκτο 6π προτρων νθρπων, κα νυ
ν τρµατ/ (θηκε ποδρκης δι
ος /Αχιλλες.

330

[I will show you a very clear marker [ση
µα], which you cannot fail to notice. There is a withered trunk rising about six feet over the ground, of oak or pine, which the rains have not rotted away, and two white stones are propped against it, one on either side, at the joining of the ways, and there is smooth running for horses on either side. It is either the grave marker [ση
µα] of someone who died long ago or was made to be a turning post in the time of earlier men, and now swift-footed brilliant Achilleus has set it as the racing goal.] The turning post, it seems, may have been the tomb of some unspecified person from long ago, no longer remembered. The tomb may have become simply part of the landscape. Now it has been marked out (σ µηνε, v. 358) by Achilleus as the point around which the charioteers will race, alienated from what may have been its original function. The uncertainty about what this marker was, its potential instability of meaning over time, is wonderfully conveyed by the semantic slippage between ση
µα (a landmark) in verse 326 and ση
µα (a gravemark) in verse 331. It turns out that this marker is not so “very clear,” µλ/ ριφραδς, as Nestor claimed in verse 326.27 27. Cf. Nagy 1990: 202–22, esp. 215–17 of his chapter “Sema and Noesis: The Hero’s Tomb and the ‘Reading’ of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod.” Nagy focuses more on the possibility that the monument may be a tomb than on Nestor’s uncertainty about whether or not it is one. For another heroic tomb whose identity is mistaken, cf. the steep hill near Troy that men call Batieia (Il. 2.811–15) but that the gods know as “the tomb of bounding Myrina.” The

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This is the pattern, then, in Homer: those who conceive or build sepulchral monuments envision future viewers to acknowledge and find them meaningful; existing monuments, however, are ignored or misconstrued. If I am correct in discerning this pattern, we may well ask: does a person discharge his duty to the dead in building a tomb or writing an epitaph when he conceives that it might be seen; that is, is the crucial gesture the act itself of imagining the monument’s reception—an act of consolation both for the dead man and the survivor—and not its actual reception in the future? I would argue that this is largely the case with inscribed monuments—and not just with tombs. The meaning lies in the perspective of those setting the monument in the present rather than in that of those who will see it in the future.28 Nestor’s ignorance about the tomb should not surprise us, then. Neglecting the dead has a long and glorious tradition.29 This perspective casts human name is explained by Epaphroditos (quoted in Herodian De prosodia 3.1.277.25) as coming from the path trampled by horses (πτος) at a turning post or the bramble (βτος). In any case, from a human perspective, it is viewed simply as a steep hill. It is only the gods who recognize it as the tomb of Myrine. For a later heroic tomb whose identity is mistaken, though still recognized as a tomb, cf. that of the Argonaut Idmon, which later generations take for that of Agamestor (Ap. Rh. 2.842–50). 28. In this, my position resembles that of Rosalind Thomas (1989: 49), who writes of public inscriptions of the late fifth and the fourth centuries b.c.: “They . . . had a significance quite independent of whether they were read much by most Athenians. For, more than documents, they were also stone memorials or symbols of the honour, treaty or decision that they recorded.” 29. Archilochus, for instance, writes: “No one once he’s dead is held in respect among the citizens, not even if he’s very famous. Instead, the living chase the favor of the living; the dead man’s always got it worst” (ο_τις α,δοι
ος µετ/ στω
ν ο"δ+ περφηµος θαν5ν / γνεταιD χριν δ+ µα
λλον του
ζοου
δικοµεν / 具ο典 ζοο, κκιστα δ/ α,ε τMω
θανντι γνεται, fr. 133 West). Semonides even suggests that “if we were sensible, we would not think about a dead man for more than a day” (του
µ+ν θανντος ο"κ [ν 6νθυµοµεθα, / ε: τι φρονοι
µεν, πλει
ον ?µρης µιη
ς, fr. 2), “for we have a long time to be dead, while we live a few miserable years in number” (πολλς γρ \µιν 6στ τεθνναι χρνος, / ζω
µεν δ/ ριθµω
ι παυ
ρα †κακω
ς (τεα, fr. 3). Cf. also Stesichorus (PMG 245), who says, “when a man dies, all the goodwill of men perishes” (θανντος νδρς πα
σα †πολι† ποτ/ νθρπων χρις); this is cited in Stobaeus under the rubric “the memory of most men fades quickly after death” (@τι τω
ν πλεστων µετ θνατον ? µν µη διαρρει
ταχως). Perhaps it was due to attitudes like these that, though a family typically underwent a period of mourning for thirty days following the funeral, the care for graves subsequently became part of an annual civic festival honoring the dead (cf. Burkert 1985: 194). How long would people have recalled the date (or season) of a loved one’s death or even their identity? The span of living memory is, in any case, notoriously short. Historians conventionally assume three to four generations, eighty years at most, before the last living witness to an event has died, as well as those who would have heard his testimony as adults. Even with the support of a written epitaph, the meager data provided on a tomb will not suffice to keep alive an image of the deceased with any detail. Regarding the span of living memory in traditional societies and the so-called floating gap that comes between it and accounts of mythic origins, see Assmann 1999: 48–52.

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a harsh light on the convention in ancient epigram of asking the readers to convey a message to a distant place.30 For instance, in an epitaph on a limestone block of the first half of the third century b.c. in Alexandria (GV 1353 ⫽ no. 30 Bernand), wayfarers are asked to bridge the distance between Egypt and the dead woman’s hometown of Herakleia to report her demise in childbirth. πτρην ;Ηρκλειαν, Cδοιπροι, Aν τις Gκηται, ε,πει
νD bδι
νες παι
δα Πολυκρτεος Aγαγον ε,ς /Αδην /ΑγαθκλεανD ο" γρ 6λαφρα Aντησαν τκνου πρς φος 6ρχοµνου.

[Travelers, if one of you should reach her native Herakleia, say that pangs of birth led off the daughter of Polykrates to Hades, Agathokleia. For they did not come upon her easy as her child approached the light.] Everything in this poem suggests movement. All verbs apart from the imperative “say” are verbs of motion: Gκηται, Aγαγον, Aντησαν, 6ρχοµνου (even the bδι
νες are on the move!). It is as though the epitaph tries to spur the desired movement through the suggestive power of its verbs. For of all those plural wayfarers (Cδοιπροι, v. 1), surely someone’s way will lead to Herakleia! But which Herakleia? Étienne Bernand comments (ad loc.) that “les villes du nom d’Héraclée sont si nombreuses qu’il n’est guère possible de savoir quelle est celle dont est originaire la défunte.” Despite the commonness of such requests, there is, to my knowledge, no instance in ancient literature in which the hoped-for communication is carried out, no narrative describing how a traveler, on reading such an epigram and arriving elsewhere, reports on his encounter with the text.31 It is instructive to compare a modern instance inspired by ancient epigram and recounting precisely such a scene. I am referring to Shelley’s
ξει
ν/, γγλλειν Λακεδαιµονοις . . . , cf. the literary ex30. In addition to the famous b amples in Asclepiades (31 GP ⫽ AP 7.500) and Callimachus (Ep. 12 Pf. ⫽ 43 GP ⫽ AP 7.521), with Dan Selden’s fine reading (1998: 314–15). 31. Richard Hunter suggests to me that one possible reading of Callimachus’ Ep. 2.1 (Pf.)—Ε,
π τις, ;Ηρκλειτε, τεν µρον—would be to take it as a report of what someone saw on a grave stele. And indeed, the phrasing in a first-century b.c. stele from Rhodes (GV 1625.1–2) seems (anachronistically) to provide a model from which Callimachus’ words could appear to have been quoted: Στ λη σο λξει τν 6µν µρον Vδ+ χαρακτ / γρµµατα. (N.b. that τεν µρον and 6µν µρον are in the same position.) But given Callimachus’ silence about his informant’s source and given the unlikelihood that this person would have chanced to stop before that very tombstone and read it, it seems more plausible to think that the model for how he came by the news is that provided in the poem itself: word of mouth.

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sonnet Ozymandias, whose “traveler from an antique land” describes a monument, reports the text engraved on it, and turns out to be as attentive a reader as those we met in the Lincoln Memorial. I met a traveler from an antique land / who said “two vast and trunkless legs of stone / stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, / half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown / and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command / tell that its sculptor well those passions read, / which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, / the hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed. / And on the pedestal these words appear: / ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / look on my works ye mighty, and despair.’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / the lone and level sands stretch far away.” This traveler has not merely stopped to read the text; he has thoroughly studied the monument and observed its physical setting, his careful and attentive examination clashing starkly with the monument’s general neglect and decay. To the modern sensibility (which we, as present-day scholars, share in a fortiori), the neglected monument itself deserves a careful reading. Evidently, too, he thinks this experience worth communicating to the poem’s speaker and so to us. Instead of telling us what it all means, he describes the various elements of the ensemble. Yet the terms of his description leave no doubt that he has pondered the whole and constructed a meaning, which points to the gap between power’s insolent aspiration and its futility in the face of time and human neglect. The absence of any comparable scene in ancient literature is sobering. In this light, how should we assess the common plea—as in the epitaph of Agathokleia—that the reader convey to others what he has seen? Is it just a topos, more conventional than “real”? Perhaps we can say so, if we are careful to add that “conventional” does not suggest “meaningless.” For here again it is pertinent to ask if what matters most from the standpoint of those setting up the inscription is the act itself of making the request—a gesture of respect toward the dead—and not whether anyone carries it out. After all, if a person went to the expense of purchasing a stone, composing or commissioning an epitaph in verse, and paying for its inscription, can we not assume he could resort to more practical—less painfully contingent—means to get its message to its hoped-for recipient? Epigram’s orientation toward an imagined encounter with a reader is already present in inscriptions of the archaic period and is a long-established custom by the time of the genre’s first great master, Simonides. Sim-

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ilarly, public inscriptions not uncommonly state that they are set up so that “anyone who wants may see them.”32 Yet it has often been noted that authors through the fifth and into the mid-fourth centuries rarely cite inscriptions (epigrams or other types) and that when they do, they often cite from hearsay, not from autopsy.33 There is thus a considerable lag between the expectations conventionally expressed in epigram concerning reader reception and our evidence that anyone actually fulfilled them.34 Granted that this is largely an argument from silence, yet that silence weighs heavier when we recall how low estimates are for literacy during this time and 32. Cf. R. Thomas 1989: 60–61 with n. 151. 33. For a balanced overview for the classical period, cf. Higbie 1999. R. Thomas (1989: 38) accounts for the dearth of reference by suggesting that “a written document may have an immensely important function even though it was seldom read.” Its function lies in its nonwritten aspect: “Public inscriptions were regarded as memorials as well as written documents. They therefore had a significance quite independent of whether they were read much by most Athenians. For, more than documents, they were also stone memorials or symbols of the honour, treaty or decision that they recorded—material objects which were a reminder and symbol of the decision they recorded, as well as documents with written contents” (ibid., 49). I agree that certain inscribed monuments may have held symbolic importance in their communities quite apart from whether they were read, but I doubt that most treaties ever attained that status. A telling example of what kind of monument might function as “symbol” (in Thomas’ sense) rather than as a document for reading occurs in Plato’s Critias (119c–120b, not cited by Thomas). There, the ten kings of Atlantis meet every fourth or fifth year at the shrine of Poseidon, beside a brass column inscribed by the island’s earliest kings with the laws of the land (γρµµατα #π τω
ν πρτων 6ν στ λJη γεγραµµνα 4ρειχαλκνJη, 119c–d). In Plato’s account, there is much activity in the presence of this monument: the kings, bringing a bull for sacrifice, slaughter it atop the column (κατ κορυφν α"τη
ς (σφαττον, 119e); they allow its blood to drench the letters of the inscription (κατ τω
ν γραµµτων, 119e); thereafter, they cleanse the column completely (περικαθ ραντες τν στ λην, 120a), pour libations, swear to give judgment according to the laws on the column and to punish any king who oversteps them. Sitting all night on the bare earth beside the column, the embers of their sacrifice grown cold, other fires in the sanctuary extinguished, they consult and give judgments. While the column is clearly the focus of the action, it is striking that that action does not include reading (the kings swear an oath inscribed on the column [119e–120b], but nothing suggests that they read it—it is the written record of an oral custom). The monument is the focus because it embodies the community’s charter, guaranteeing its continued stability. As such, it is the object of veneration. On this function of inscriptions and this passage in particular, cf. Steiner 1998: 68–70. 34. A telling instance of this lag appears in Herodotus’ account (8.22.1) of how Themistokles sought out places (plural!) where drinking water could be found at Artemesium and there inscribed a lengthy message in the rocks for the Ionians, urging them to not fight against their kin, the Athenians; i.e., he chose settings where he imagined they would pause and have the leisure to read (contrast the Homeric tomb viewers, who see the monument from afar as they sail past). While the authenticity of the inscribed message has been justly doubted (Macan 1908, ad loc., cited in West 1985a: 286 n. 34), the evidence that it was read is even slimmer and more dubious (Hdt. 8.85). In other words, here, too, the scene between reader and inscription exists more in the imagination of its author than in actual fact.

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how gradually interest in the written word took hold (Harris 1989, 1996). The sad truth behind the conventional expectation may exceptionally be revealed in an epigram on a stele of the third or second century b.c. from Rhodes (GV 1248.1–2). Here, rather than hail a passerby, the young deceased addresses neighboring tombs and stelae, bidding them to weep (!) and spread the report to all the rest: Vρα κα στη
λαι, δακρσατε κα µε θανντα / γγλλειν πα
σιν. Here the tombs themselves comprise a reliably steadfast circle of mourners, and the injunction to weep is no stranger than the image of gravestones passing the word from monument to monument up through the necropolis. Did the audience for other kinds of inscription resemble this one? When, in the mid-fourth century, Athenians began to be more “document-minded,” as Rosalind Thomas calls it (1989: 47), “a crop of epigrams starts appearing” in the orators.35 “Why,” asks Thomas, “were they not quoted before?” (86–87).36 Her answer is that “their citation must be seen against the increasing respect for written documents” at this time (86). Increasing respect is relative, however.37 Even the changes in attitude toward written documents in the fourth century did not erase the fundamental apathy of most readers toward their inscribed heritage. This becomes apparent in Socrates’ account (ps.-Plato Hipparch. 228d–229b) of the herms set up by Hipparchus, brother of the tyrant Hippias, between 520 and 514 b.c. According to Socrates, Hipparchus set up these herms at the midpoint between the city and every deme and inscribed them with elegiac couplets so as to educate the country folk. These are imagined as passing up and down the roads, just like the wayfarers envisioned in epigram, and pausing to read the inscriptions, which will inspire them to come to the city for further education and betterment (παριντες νω κα κτω κα ναγιγνσκοντες κα γευ
µα λαµβνοντες α"του
τη
ς σοφας φοιτMω
εν 6κ τω
ν γρω
ν κα 6π τ λοιπ παιδευθησµενοι). 35. Aeschin. 3.184 ⫽ FGE p. 257, 3.187 ⫽ FGE p. 420; Lycurg. In Leocr. 109 ⫽ FGE p. 230; Demosth. De cor. 18.289 ⫽ FGE p. 433; ps.-Demosth. 7.39 ⫽ AP 9.786 ⫽ FGE p. 374. 36. Thomas continues: “Apparently all kinds of material, most of it documentary, must now be brought forward and quoted in order to prove the virtue of the Athenian ancestors. There were certainly relevant . . . epigrams which Isocrates, Lysias or Andocides could have quoted. Yet they did not do so” (1989: 87). 37. Simon Goldhill (1999: 93–100) has recently drawn attention to Isocrates’ Panathenaicus as a crucial document in the history of reading. There (246–47), one of Isocrates’ pupils contrasts “those who read lazily” (τοι
ς 8αθµως ναγιγνσκουσιν) and those who go through a text with care and are able to comprehend the complexity and nuance of Isocrates’ speech.

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6στν δ+ δο τbπιγρµµατεD 6ν µ+ν τοι
ς [229α] 6π/ ριστερ του
;Ερµου
2κστου 6πιγγραπται λγων C ;Ερµη
ς @τι 6ν µσMω του
στεος κα του
δ µου Iστηκεν, 6ν δ+ τοι
ς 6π δεξι


ν µνη
µα τδ/ ;ΙππρχουD στει
χε δκαια φρονω
ν ποιηµτων κα λλα 6ν λλοις ;Ερµαι
ς πολλ κα φησν. (στι δ+ τω
καλ 6πιγεγραµµναD (στι δ+ δ κα του
το 6π τJη
ΣτειριακJη
CδMω
, 6ν ME λγει [229β] µνη
µα τδ/ ;ΙππρχουD µ φλον 6ξαπτα.


ν σ+ 6µο =ντα φλον ο" δ που τολµMην [ν 6ξαπατα
ν κα 6γ5 ο" 6κενMω τοιοτMω =ντι πιστει
ν. [The inscriptions are twofold: on the left side [229a] of each Hermes there is one in which the god says that he stands at the midpoint between city and township, while on the right side he says: The memorial of Hipparchus: walk with just intent. There are many other fine inscriptions from his poems on other figures of Hermes, and this one in particular, on the Steiria road, in which he says: [229b] The memorial of Hipparchus: deceive not a friend. I therefore should never dare, I am sure, to deceive you, who are my friend, or disobey the great Hipparchus.] (translation adapated from A. J. Taylor)

Socrates presents himself here as one who has paused along the road and carefully read the epigrams he cites (no doubt he ironically suggests he is like an agroikos come from the country to learn wisdom). An attentive reader, then, like the one described in Shelley, he applies his reading to the present circumstance. For as the dialogue is largely about those who seek profit by unjust means, the admonition to “walk with just intent” is apropos. And since those means potentially include even deceiving a friend, the second maxim is equally apt. As he says in conclusion, he would never deceive his friend or disobey the great Hipparchus. Judging by the number of demes, there must have been at least 150 of

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these herms scattered throughout Attica38—a display of power as grandiose for its scope as the statue of Ozymandias was for its colossal size. For Hipparchus devised a network of inscriptions that did not have to compete for the reader’s attention with the mass of monuments found in a marketplace, a necropolis, or a shrine; they were set, rather, in isolation at the midway point between the city and every deme, scarcely avoidable by a traveler, no matter what direction he might take. In other words, Hipparchus created a web of discourse from which it would be difficult for readers to escape. Yet no further source in ancient literature refers to these “many . . . fine inscriptions.”39 Were it not for the pseudo-Platonic text— and the extraordinary reader it envisions in Socrates—we would not even know of these two.40 But that is not surprising. It was laborious to read the inscription. Just how laborious, however, is something we do not grasp until we consider the appearance of the herm. The fragment of a Hipparchan herm—which no one would have thought to identify with the Hipparchan herms were it not for pseudo-Plato—was discovered at Koropi in the Attic Mesogaea (149 FH ⫽ CEG I 304). [6]ν µhσοι Κεφαλε
ς τε κα στεος γλας hερµες | [䡵 µνε
µα τδε hιπ(π)ρχοD䡵] [–˘˘–˘˘–]

[Half way between Kephale and the city [here stands] glorious Hermes. This is a monument of Hipparchus . . . ] The fragment is inscribed from top to bottom along the right-hand margin of the shaft, which is 1.28 meters long as it survives and of whose 38. Cf. Crome 1935–6: 306, who rightly stresses the herms’ function as milestones and their significance as an instrument of Peisistratid policy: “Aus ihrer Aufstellung dürfen wir schließen, dass die Peisistratiden, die großen Förderer der Kleinbauern, sich sehr um den Ausbau der attischen Wege bemüht und diese genau vermessen haben müssen. Auch der Zwölfgötteraltar des jüngeren Peisistratos . . . ist ein Monument dieser großartigen Tätigkeit der Tyrannen, die das Land ordnete und den Verkehr hob . . . Man hat ihn mit Recht als Zentralmeilenstein bezeichnet” (306–7). 39. We do find the following notice in Hesychius s.v. ;Ιππρχειος ;Ερµη
ς: ;Ιππρχειοι
ν (µελλον βελτους ;Ερµαι
, `ς νστησαν KΙππαρχος στ λας 6γγρψας ε,ς α"τς 6λεγει
α, 6ξ E ο ναγιγνσκοντες γνεσθαι. But the closing explanation of why Hipparchus set up the herms clearly reveals that the information is dependent on Plato. 40. Crome (1935–6: 307) argues, “sicher wurden mit der Verfluchung der Tyrannen auch die meisten Hermen als Denkmale des ermordeten Hipparch zerstört.” But any widespread destruction is contradicted by Socrates’ statement that “[t]here are many other fine inscriptions [(στι δ+ . . . κα λλα . . . πολλ κα καλ 6πιγεγραµµνα] from his poems on other figures of Hermes.”

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length the inscription takes up slightly more than a meter (Peek 1935). We may assume from the description in Plato that the pentameter was similarly inscribed down the margin to the left. It is one thing, though, to read this in Plato, quite another to stand before the stone itself and tilt one’s head now in one direction, now in another, so as to read the couplet.41 It is anything but “user-friendly.” Such an inscription cannot be scanned at a glance while walking. Even with perfect eyesight, one must stop, draw near, make an effort.42 Perhaps it takes a Socrates to do so. Other readers of inscriptions are singled out as in some way unusual. The periegete Polemon of Ilion from the transition from the third to the second century bore the nickname στηλοκπας, “stele glutton”: he was probably notorious for snooping about in shrines and cemeteries, gathering inscriptions. In the second century, Polybius, who puts a premium on eyewitness testimony, remarks on the well-known and apparently eccentric claim to fame of the historian Timaios (late fourth through early third century): his peculiar attention to written records and—as Polybius derisively says—his appearance of accuracy in dealing with them (λγω δ+ κατ τν 6ν . . . ται
ς ναγραφαι
ς 6πφασιν τη
ς κριβεας κα τν περ του
το τ µρος 6πιµλειαν—δοκω
, πντες γινσκοµεν, 12.10.4). Polybius mocks him as a man who “discovered inscriptions at the back of buildings and lists of proxenoi on temple door jambs” (κα µν C τς 4πισθοδµους στ λας κα τς 6ν ται
ς φλιαι
ς τω
ν νεω
ν προξενας 6ξευρηκ5ς Τµαις 6στιν, 12.11.2: cf. Stein 1931: 3; Walbank 1972: 82).43 We hear of the Egyptian prince Naneferkaptah in the Demotic Tale of Setne Khamwas (P. Cairo 30646, of Ptolemaic date), who “[had no] occupation on earth but walking on the desert of Memphis, reading the writings that were in the tombs of the Pharaohs and on the stelae of the scribes of the House of Life and the writings that were on [the other monuments, for his zeal] concerning writings was very great.” 44 A temple priest ridicules him for reading inscriptions: 41. Hansen observes (ad loc.) that the sides of the inscription are the reverse of those mentioned in Plato. Noting that there is more than one way to inscribe a herm, he sensibly remarks, ‘fortasse non omnes Hermae Hipparchi eandem dispositionem habuerunt.” 42. Such an act is made explicit in the third-century b.c. iambic epigram from Alexandria (no. 63.1–5 Bernand ⫽ GV 1620.1–5) where the reader is asked to drop to one knee so as to be able to read the inscription carefully (“with both eyes,” v. 5): C τµβος ο"κ σαµος, Z δ τοι πτρος / τν κατθανντα σηµανει
τς κα τνος / 6ς /Αδαν ββακενD λλ µοι σχσας / τ
φλ/, 6ν πδωι γνυ / κολαπτν θρει γρµµα διπτχοις κραις. On this epiνεκρα(γ)ωγν, b gram, see, further, Meyer 2005: 106. 43. Walbank (op. cit.) does note, however, that Polybius is elsewhere “quite ready to boast of his own discovery of an inscription left by Hannibal [3.33.17–8, 56.1–4] in the Temple of Hera on the Lacinian Promontory and to use the statistics which it contained.” 44. Trans. Lichtheim (1980: 128). The passage is referred to by Thompson (1992).

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These, he says, “are of no importance to anyone”; it is far better to read a book that “[the god] Thoth wrote with his own hand” and that this priest can show him. Just how exceptional it was to read an inscription and how starkly it departed from the more normal inattention is vividly conveyed in an anecdote told by Cicero concerning an inscribed sepulchral epigram in iambic trimeter (senariolos, “little senarii”) of the third century b.c. (Tusc. Disp. 5.23). ex eadem urbe humilem homunculum a pulvere et radio excitabo qui multis annis post fuit, Archimedum; cuius ego quaestor ignoratum ab Syracusanis, cum esse omnino negarent, saeptum undique et vestitum vepribus et dumetis indagavi sepulcrum; tenebam enim quosdam senariolos, quos in eius monumento esse inscriptos acceperam, qui declarabant in summo sepulcro sphaeram esse positam cum cylindro. Ego autem, cum omnia collustrarem oculis—est enim ad portas Agragantinas magna frequentia sepulcrorum—, animum adverti columellam non multum e dumis eminentem, in qua inerat sphaerae figura et cylindri. Atque ego statim Syracusanis—erant autem principes mecum—dixi me illud ipsum arbitrari esse quod quaererem. Immissi cum falcibus multi purgarunt et aperuerunt locum: quo cum patefactus esset aditus ad adversam basim accessimus; apparebat epigramma exesis posterioribus partibus versiculorum dimidiatis fere. Ita nobilissima Graeciae civitas, quondam vero etiam doctissima, sui civis unius acutissimi monumentum ignorasset, nisi ab homine Arpinate didicisset. [But from Dionysius’s own city of Syracuse I will summon up from the dust—where his measuring rod once traced its lines—an obscure little man who lived many years later, Archimedes. When I was questor in Sicily [in 75 b.c., 137 years after the death of Archimedes] I managed to track down his grave. The Syracusians knew nothing about it, and indeed denied that any such thing existed. But there it was, completely surrounded and hidden by bushes of brambles and thorns. I remembered having heard of some simple lines of verse which had been inscribed on his tomb, referring to a sphere and cylinder modeled in stone on top of the grave. And so I took a good look round all the numerous tombs that stand beside the Agrigentine Gate. Finally I noted a little column just visible above the scrub: it was surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder. I immediately said to the Syracusans, some of whose leading citizens were with me at the time, that I believed this

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was the very object I had been looking for. Men were sent in with sickles to clear the site, and when a path to the monument had been opened we walked right up to it. And the verses were still visible, though approximately the second half of each line had been worn away. So one of the most famous cities in the Greek world, and in former days a great centre of learning as well, would have remained in total ignorance of the tomb of the most brilliant citizen it had ever produced, had a man from Arpinum not come and pointed it out!] (trans. M. Grant, Penguin) It is hard to imagine indifference more perfect than that described here— though one should also consider Callimachus’ account of the tomb of Simonides in Akragas (Aet. fr. 64 Pf.), in which an epigram is likewise ignored and to which Cicero’s narrative forms a Sicilian pendant (Bing 1988: 67– 70). The scene of a necropolis so rank with “brambles and thorns” that scythes are needed to clear an approach is remarkable, especially considering that within sepulchral epigram itself, such overgrown tombs are imagined only for the likes of the misanthrope Timon or Hipponax.45 Thus, as in the case of the envisioned response of the reader, the conventional expectation within the genre does not conform to the reality outside it. Cicero himself is quite anomalous in wanting to view the tomb. From his magician-like conjuring of Archimedes out of dust (humilem homunculum a pulvere . . . excitabo), to his account of how the verses he had known of suddenly appear,46 to his exultation that he, this man from Arpinum, can teach the Syracusans about one of their own (n.b. the culminating flurry of superlatives—nobilissima, doctissima, acutissimi—whose sound is picked up in the closing didicisset), it is clear that Cicero thinks he’s something special— and he is! Only the fewest would ever have bothered. While Pierre Laurens 45. For Timon, cf. Zenodotus AP 7.315 ⫽ 3 GP (Τρηχεην κατ/ 6µευ
, ψαφαρ κνι, 8µνον 2λσσοις / πντοθεν X σκολιη
ς γρια κω
λα βτου, / Eς 6π/ 6µο µηδ/ =ρνις 6ν ε:αρι κου
φον 6ρεδοι / :χνος, “Brittle earth, may you encircle me all ’round with prickly box thorn or straggling limbs of twisted bramble, so that not so much as a bird in Spring will lightly perch on me”); cf. also Hegesippus AP 7.320 ⫽ 8 GP. The Timon epigrams are perceptively discussed by Fantuzzi (2000: 174–80; in Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004: 302–6). For Hipponax, cf. Alkaios of Messene AP 7.536 ⫽ 13 GP. See also the imagined tomb of a lena at Propertius 4.5.1 (terra tuum spinis obducat, lena, sepulcrum). 46. One would like to know how Cicero learned of the verses that were inscribed on the tomb. My hunch is that Archimedes wrote them while still alive and that they became part of his legend through oral tradition at an early stage. But the fact that Cicero does not quote the verses is suspicious. The tomb has never been found. Could it be that he has fabricated the whole scene and that—once again—it represents only how he envisions himself as a reader of inscriptions?

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(1989: 34) may cite this passage to celebrate the intellectual curiosity of “les chasseurs d’inscriptions,” what it actually conveys is the utter inattention of the Greeks to their monuments.47 It is against this backround of indifference that we must measure the claims of Svenbro, Day, and Depew (noted earlier in this chapter) when they attempt to reconstruct the reader’s experience of the inscribed text. Studying these texts today, we should be particularly wary of importing our readerly bias and scholarly values—unthinkable that others would not lavish the same care on these poems that we do!—into ancient circumstances. For we all run the risk of adopting the perspective of those who set up the inscriptions and envisioned its encounter with the reader. What is most striking in Cicero’s account is that, far from being “dispossessed” of his voice (as Svenbro suggests could happen), he never even quotes us the inscription. In one of the most detailed accounts of a reader coming faceto-face with an inscribed epigram, the poem itself is left a blank. Ultimately, the passage reads like a memorial more to Cicero than to Archimedes. For even when a person chooses to engage with an inscribed text, there may be disparate degrees of readerly involvement. Rarely, if ever, I would argue, will readers so immerse themselves in the text that they identify with the speaking voice and so “(re-)activate” the occasion at which the monument was set. To be sure, not all sites suffered neglect comparable with that of the Syracusan necropolis. Prominent shrines, such as Delphi, were rich and well tended. There were even guides (περιηγητα or 6ξηγητα) to draw visitors’ attention to particularly important inscriptions, some of which they may even have read aloud to them. That is not to say, however, that tourists showed interest. On the contrary, our most detailed source for such guided tours, Plutarch’s Why the Pythia No Longer Gives Oracles in Verse, merely reinforces our impression of readerly apathy. For although the characters in Plutarch’s dialogue display a voracious appetite for antiquarian detail, they draw the line at inscriptions. Indeed, Plutarch recounts their pique when the Delphic guides “persisted in their standard lecture although we asked them to cut short their set speeches and most of the epigrams [or simply inscriptions, including epigrams]”: /Επραινον ο περιηγητα τ συντεταγµνα µηδ+ν ?µω
ν φροντσαντες δεηθντων 6πιτεµει
ν τς 8 σεις κα τ πολλ τω
ν 6πιγραµµτων, (395a). Plutarch has his 47. It is perhaps with a mind toward the precariousness of commemoration through epitaphs and monuments that Thucydides has Pericles state the superiority of oral remembrance of the dead: the celebrated γραφος µν µη in each of us (Thuc. 2.43.2–3).

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visitors encounter and contemplate numerous statues and dedications, but not inscriptions.48 I want to suggest—no more, the evidence is slim—that attitudes toward inscribed epigram began to change in the course of the Hellenistic era and that this was due again to the interest of exceptional persons: poets, above all, who clearly stopped to read what stood on monuments, absorbed the conventions of the genre, and sensed its untapped potential as literature, but also scholars who began making collections of inscribed epigrams. Through them the genre acquired a parallel life in a new medium, the papyrus.49 There, suddenly, the encounter between reader and epigram was much easier, far likelier. For epigrams on scrolls—unlike their stationary archetypes—could move about, readily disseminated, becoming themselves the “wayfarers” (Cδοιπροι, παροδι
ται, etc.) that their readers had by necessity been before. Because of this newfound mobility, epigram begins to display for the first time a pervasive—indeed, exuberant—intertextuality: poets avidly respond to and vary each others’ book epigrams in a manner rarely seen between inscribed ones.50 The resultant interplay has been singled out as typical, in fact, and termed “the art of variation in the Hellenistic epigram” (Ludwig 1968; Tarán 1979). Easily transportable, epigrams even made their way into the schools. As is clear from the third-century b.c. Livre d’Écolier, children were assigned to read them. The epigrams of Callimachus, no less, came to be read in school (Athen. 15.669c ⫽ test. 41 Pf.). And thus an encounter of a sort (at least) 48. At lesser shrines, there might be no guide to point things out to the traveler; cf. the proem to Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, where, at a grove of the nymphs in the countryside of Lesbos, the narrator must make the effort to find one (ναζητησµενος 6ξηγητ ν, praef. 3). On guides generally, cf. Casson 1974: 264–67; Habicht 1985: 145–46; Jones 2001. 49. On this development, see “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” and “Between Literature and the Monuments” in the present volume. Cf. also Gutzwiller 1998: 47–114. 50. A telling instance of inscriptional intertextuality in the Hellenistic era may be seen in an epigram from Thermon, IG IX2 51 (first quarter of the third century b.c.), whose final two lines contain a sustained and marked allusion to an inscribed epigram of “Simonides,” possibly for the dead at Plataea (AP 7.251.3–4 ⫽ IX FGE p. 199). By what mechanism, we may ask, does one inscribed text refer to another? Had this allusion been found in a text of an earlier era, the answer would most likely be that the poem of “Simonides” was one of those rare inscribed epigrams that became part of the oral heritage, inspired by a particularly famous battle. Only such poems would have had sufficiently wide dissemination to motivate reference in subsequent inscriptions, and only such would have had a reasonable chance of being recognized by readers. (An author could, of course, have become acquainted with an inscribed epigram in situ, but then only few readers, if any, would recognize his allusion.) By the early third century b.c., however, an inscribed epigram could also have been disseminated in writing and become known to poets and readers elsewhere through that medium.

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between reader and monument was assured.51 Brought into the schools on papyrus, its modern medium, book epigram may now, in turn, have heightened the appeal of epigrams on monuments and made more readers willing to stop and contemplate inscriptions carved in stone. One senses a nascent taste for inscribed epigram in a scene from the Life of Aesop (78.1, first century a.d.).52 Here we read that Aesop’s master Xanthus “walked out with Aesop to the edge of the city, enjoying his company, and when he came to the cemetery, he took pleasure in reading the epitaphs” (Κα 6ξη
λθεν σ1ν τMω
Α,σπMω ε,ς τ προστιον, κα τJη
του
Α,σπου τερπµενος CµιλYα 6γνετο 6π τ µν µατα κα τ 6πιτφια ναγινσκων 6τρπετο). The narrative then describes how Aesop’s eye is

caught by a particular epitaph and—in a paradigmatic dramatization of the act of reading—the leisurely process of how he entertains its various possible meanings.53 What is amazing in this scene is to find a character who goes somewhere simply for the pleasure of reading inscriptions. Even more astonishing is that it is not the exceptional and brilliant Aesop who is described as enjoying them but, rather, his conventional master.54 With a 51. In their editio princeps, O. Guéraud and P. Jouguet (1938: XIV) argued that the scroll was a manual for schoolchildren. More recently, however, it has been seen as a text for a schoolmaster from which he could draw for classroom use (Cribiore 1996: 269 no. 379 and pp. 121–28). On the use of epigrams in schools, see Wißmann 2002; Rossi 2002: 163–85. 52. On the date of the Life, see Hopkins 1993: 11 n. 14. 53. At a slightly later date, there is perhaps evidence for a similar scene of a reader puzzling over epitaphs: in Photius’ summary of Antonius Diogenes’ Wonders beyond Thule (Bibliotheca 166, 111b), Alexander the Great is baffled by riddling inscriptions on grave vaults and ultimately finds there the cypress tablets on which the novel itself is written. 54. It is from roughly this period that we get a description like that in Ovid (Met. 11.427–29) when Alcyone tries to dissuade her husband Ceyx from going to sea by telling him of the wreckage she has seen on the shore and how she has “often read” the names on cenotaphs: “Aequora me terrent et ponti tristis imago: / et laceras nuper tabulas in litore vidi, / et saepe in tumulis sine corpore nomina legi.” I owe this reference to Philip Hardie. Riemer Faber draws my attention to Calpurnius Siculus, Ecl. 1.20–32, a detailed description of reading an oracular inscription, which in many ways anticipates the ecphrases of inscription reading in Nonnus, analyzed at the close of this chapter. In the latter part of the first century a.d., Pliny the Younger (Ep. 7.29) describes his reaction upon encountering an inscription “on the road to Tibur, less than a mile away from Rome,” which records how the senate honored Pallas, the freedman and financial secretary of the emperor Claudius: “This inscription more than anything makes me realize what a farce it is when [honors] can be thrown away on such dirt and filth, and that rascal could presume to accept and refuse them, all with a show of setting posterity an example of moderation.” Pliny’s reaction assumes that, however outrageous, the inscription will be read: it is an effective—and easily manipulated—medium for “setting posterity an example.” Somewhat later, in Xenophon of Ephesus’ Ephesian Tale (second century a.d.), the climactic recognition scene hinges on the reading of dedicatory inscriptions. And as in the Life of Aesop, the readers are no longer the exceptional persons that once would have likely stopped to read: Leukon and Rhode—slaves of the story’s hero and heroine—visit the temple of Helios in Rhodes, where their masters had once offered up a gold panoply and tablets con-

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reader like that, an “everyman” like Capra’s, perhaps we have moved a step closer to our scene at the Lincoln Memorial. This essay began from questions raised in the face of a striking contradiction: Encounters between readers and monuments are ubiquitously evoked in inscribed and literary epigram and indeed form one of the genre’s most salient features, suggesting that such encounters must have been common in everyday life; yet apart from in the epigrams themselves, we find scarcely any descriptions of readers pausing before inscribed monuments and contemplating their texts, no ecphrases of inscriptions corresponding to the numerous examples across a variety of genres that take as their subject works of art. In probing the roots of this contradiction, we traced a pervasive indifference toward inscribed texts—despite their blunt appeals to passersby—extending until the Hellenistic age. At that time, interest in such texts seems gradually to grow, due perhaps in some measure to the sudden popularity of literary epigrams, which even led to their adoption for use in schools. Even then, however, as mentioned near the start of this chapter, it was a long time before an ecphrasis of an inscribed monument would appear. When finally it did materialize, how was it presented? In closing, let us explore that question by briefly considering a passage from Nonnus’ Dionysiaka (12.29–115). In this passage, one of the
;Ωραι, who alone among her sisters still has no privilege yet proleptically is called “nursemaid of ripened fruit to come” (6σσοµνης δ+ τιθην τειραν 4πρης, v. 29) and “the grape-bearing Season” (σταφυληκµος KΩρη, v. 21), begs Helios to tell her, though grapes do not yet exist, on which of the Seasons Time will bestow the honor of growing taining a dedicatory epigram (1.12). Beside these, they make a new offering (5.10), honoring their masters with an inscribed pillar and listing themselves as donors (5.11–12). Shortly thereafter, their mistress Anthia arrives in Rhodes, goes to the temple, and dedicates a lock of her hair, together with an inscription, on behalf of her missing husband Habrocomes. Stopping at the temple again later the same day, the two servants are thunderstruck to find the new dedication. Upon reading it, they realize that Anthia must be nearby, and their reading precipitates the reunion of the pair. I should note a further scene of recognition in Xenophon’s Ephesian Tale, which involves reading inscriptions but at the same time describes what may have been common limits of readerly interest with regard to this kind of text. Not long after the servants set up their inscribed pillar, their master Habrocomes comes to the temple and, noticing their dedication and, above all, its inscription, starts to lament all he has lost. Just then Leukon and Rhode arrive, see him, and—as they do not yet recognize him—question him: “Why are you . . . lamenting beside offerings that have nothing to do with you? What concern of yours are these? And what do you have in common with the people named here?” (5.10). This leads to a joyous recognition. Interestingly, however, the servants assume that only a person with some connection to the dedicators would trouble to linger at a dedication and show sympathetic interest.

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this fruit (κα µακρων τνι του
το γρας µνηστεεται Α,ν; / να, λτοµαι, µ κρπτε, κασιγν των @τι µονη / πασων γραστος 6γ5 πλον, vv. 25– 27). With raised finger, Helios points her to the separately fastened tablets of Harmonia (κρβιας ;Αρµονης 2τερζυγας, v. 32) beside a wall just opposite (ντιπρMω παρ τοMχMω, v. 30).55 There she may read her destiny from pictures and from an inscribed prophetic text. Evidently the poem is interested in specifying a locus legendi in this way not just for its characters but for its readers as well, thus ensuring that we can visualize the act of reading in the passage that follows. The subsequent portrayal of the motions and attitude of inscription reading is remarkable, enacted by a reader who, far from being indifferent, is engrossed in the text, since she has a personal stake in its content. She dashes over to the inscription ((τρεχε, v. 41) and, though Helios had told her to look specifically at tablets 3 and 4 (12.37–40), she cannot keep her eyes from straying over the first two tablets (=µµατα δινεουσα, v. 42).56 When she finally runs over to the third tablet (τριττην @τε κρβιν 6πδραµεν, v. 64), she stands fixed to the spot, gaping (στηρζετο . . . παπτανουσα, vv. 65– 66) at the “letters of glowing color engraved with the craftsman’s red ochre” (γρµµατα φοινσσοντα, σοφJη
κεχαραγµνα µλτMω, v. 67).57 Restlessly, she passes over the text at a glance (κα τ µ+ν ε,ν 2ν πντα παρστιχεν στατος KΩρη, v. 90). Striking here is the play on στχος, “line of text,” in παρστιχεν, “pass over”; remarkable, too, is the vivid gesture of readerly impatience conveyed by the adjective στατος. At last she arrives at the part that concerns her (ε,σκε χω
ρον Gκανεν, @πJη . . . , v. 91); there she brings her feet to rest and reads (κει
θι χρνου θυγτηρ πδας ε_νασε, ταυ
τα δ/ νγνω, v. 96), finding her role confirmed as the special Season of the grape. The ecphrastic climax, however, comes when she sees on a neighboring wall (@πJη παρ γετονι τοχMω, v. 104) “a four-line oracle of inscribed hexameters” (χαρασ55. The term 2τερζυξ may mean either “yoked together” or “yoked singly” (LSJ s.v.). Given the context in Nonnus, however, where the Season runs from one tablet to another (cf. esp. v. 64), it appears more likely that each of the κρβεις are imagined as “separately fastened.” Considering their position παρ τοχMω (v. 30), could it be that the κρβεις were “fastened” to that wall? That might be supported by the later description of the tablets of Harmonia (41.360), where they are described as the “glorious oracles of the wall” (γλα θσφατα τοχου). Or were they, rather, secured on a stand or in a frame near the wall? By the Hellenistic era, the term κρβεις was used generally of inscribed pillars or tablets (LSJ s.v. II). For the controversy surrounding the meaning of the term earlier in connection with the inscriptions bearing the laws of Solon, see Sickinger 1999: 26–27. 56. The detailed description of their contents is clearly focalized through her eyes. 57. Φοινσσοντα may play on the alphabet’s Phoenician inventor, Cadmus (discussed shortly in text). Red epigraphic highlighting is stressed also in the ecphrasis at Nonnus 41.339–99, specifically at v. 363, where the oracle is “engraved on the tablet in ruddy ochre” (6ν πνακι . . . κεχαραγµνον ο:νοπι µλτMω).

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σοµνων 6πων τετρζυγος 4µφ , v. 107)—an epigram, in other words (vv.

110–13)—from which she learns which god is to be her particular patron. For while Zeus has given the laurel to Apollo, roses to Aphrodite, olives to Athena, and corn to Demeter, he has granted the vine to Dionysus (κα ?µερδας ∆ιονσMω, v. 113). At this, she bounds away in joy (τερποµνη δ/ Aιξε, v. 115), having finished reading the inscription. Significantly, a comparable scene of inscription reading occurs elsewhere in the Dionysiaka (41.339–99). This one likewise concerns the tablets of Harmonia.58 But here it is Aphrodite who reads, so as to learn—among other things—the fate of the city Beirut. The scene contains many of the same elements found in book 12. As Helios there guides the Season to the prophetic tablets by the wall (ντιπρMω παρ τοχMω / δκτυλον 4ρθσας 6πεδεκνυε, 12.30–31), so here Harmonia herself leads Aphrodite to the oracles of the wall (?γεµνευεν 6ς γλα θσφατα τοχου, 41.360). As the letters in the first instance were “glowing red, engraved with the craftsman’s red ochre” (γρµµατα φοινσσοντα, σοφJη
κεχαραγµνα µλτMω, 12.67), so here the oracle contains “red letters” (γρµµατι φοινικεντι, 41.352), “engraved in ruddy ochre” (κεχαραγµνον ο:νοπι µλτMω, 41.363). In either case, the motions of reading are the same, with the deity’s eye roving from one tablet to another (λλ/ @τε . . . (δρακεν KΩρη, / γετονα δρκετο κρβιν µοιβαδς, 12.52–55 ⬃ λλ/ @τε δαµων / . . . πνακος παρεµτρεεν ρχ ν, / δετερον 6σκοπαζεν, 41.368–70) and from wall to neighboring wall (@πJη παρ γετονι τοχMω, 12.104 ⫽ @πJη παρ γετονι τοχMω, 41.370); in each, a similar phrase describes how the reader comes upon the passage she needs (ε,σκε χω
ρον Gκανεν, @πJη . . . , 12.91 ⬃ ε,σκεν (δρακεν χω
ρον, @πJη . . . , 41.361). Both scenes culminate when the avid reader “finds” a particularly
ρε δ+ νµφη / θσφατα . . . ταυ gratifying prophecy (ε#
τα, 12.108–9 ⬃ τοι
ον
ρε πολστιχον, 41.388), quoted verbatim, after which she (πος σοφν ε# leaves the scene (τερποµνη δ/ Aιξε, 12.115 ⬃ ε,ς 2ν ο,
κον (βαινε παλνδροµος, 14.400). In brief, Nonnus, who is elsewhere at pains to evoke every traditional element of Homeric epic one could think of (from invocations of the Muse, to catalogs, epithets, similes, etc.), here creates something new: a novel “typical scene,” one more in keeping with his age—inscription reading as “typical scene.” That is no shock coming from Nonnus, who was “above all things a learned poet.”59 The fifth-century poet of Egyptian Panopolis may have retrojected an aspect of his scholarly concern with texts of all kinds—even 58. These are here consistently called πνακες rather than κρβεις, but at 12.69, πνακες are evidently used synonymously with κρβεις: 6ν πινκεσσιν νγνω. 59. Cameron 2000: 186.

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with the mechanics of inscription and the practice of writing—when, in book 4 of the Dionysiaka, he describes the invention of the alphabet by Cadmus, who “turned with a lathe the engraved mark of sounding silence” (γραπτν σιγ τοιο τπον τορνσατο σιγη
ς, v. 263), “carving the cuttings at an angle with back-faring hand” (χειρς 4πισθοπροιο χαργµατα λοξ χαρσσων, v. 268).60 Cadmus’ concern with writing is presented as the direct upshot of his upbringing in Egypt. For he had spent nine years there together with his father, Agenor. While there, he learned to write, “squeezing out the milk of the holy books, not to be divulged” (ζαθων ρρητον µελγµενος γλα ββλων, v. 267), and “while a boy in the temple full of stone images, he had come to know the inscriptions, cunningly wrought, carved deep into the wall” (λιθοξονοιο δ+ νηου
/ γλυπτ βαθυνοµνMω κεχαραγµνα δαδαλα τοχMω / κουρζων δεδηκε, vv. 273–75). In this light, the prominence of Harmonia’s inscribed tablets in the ecphrases detailed earlier, does not surprise us. After all, she was Cadmus’ bride, who sailed with him to Greece even as he brought with him the gift of writing (vv. 233–48). Indeed, the seeds of Harmonia’s link to the written text may have been sown—in allusively erotic terms—at the very moment that Cadmus invented his letters, “mingling consonant and vowel in a line of blended harmony” (συµφυος δ+ / Zρµονης στοιχηδν 6ς ζυγα σζυγα µξας vv. 261–62).61

60. The phrase χειρς 4πισθοπροιο evidently refers to the direction of the script from right to left. 61. I am grateful to Prof. R. Höschele for discussing these passages from Nonnus with me and for her stimulating suggestions.

chapter 8

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street THE ODYSSEY IN INSCRIBED AND LITERARY EPIGRAM




A

round 1980, in the hometown of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a large billboard raised prominently above State Street advertised the merits of Miller Lite. Lite beer was at that time a relatively new product—Miller had introduced it into the American market just a couple of years earlier, in 1977—and perhaps advertising strategies were not yet as relentlessly geared to a young, single, sports-oriented, pleasure-seeking audience as they are today. But even then, this particular billboard stood out as something unusual. Drawing on a painting of the year 1787 by J. H. W. Tischbein, it portrayed the German poet Goethe, age thirty-eight, reclining on some lowlying blocks from an ancient ruin in the landscape of Campania during his italienische Reise. He is elegantly clad in a flowing cream-colored cape, covering stylish knickerbockers, white hose, and black shoes; on his head, he sports a dapper broad-brimmed hat, which he wears at a rakish tilt. Altogether the painting encapsulates the image of the cosmopolitan dandy of the Enlightenment, drinking deep of the rich cultural elixir of the Italian countryside. What was novel in the Ann Arbor billboard, however, was that its artist waggishly altered the poet’s outstretched arm in the original

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Fig. 5. J. H. W. Tischbein, Goethe in the Campagna, 1786–87, Frankfurt a. M., Städelsches Kunstinstitut. (Courtesy of Städel Museum/ARTOTHEK.)

painting, raising it up and placing in its hand a mug of beer. Further, coming from the poet’s mouth were now the words “More Lite!” Billboards are characteristically among the more lowly instruments of American commerce: set on the busy highway and hawking their wares to the fleeting throng, they tend to keep their message simple and blunt. Here, however, one really wonders what the marketing department of Miller Breweries was thinking, since this one seems to expect something more of its target audience. In the first place, simply to recognize that this is Goethe entails a considerable degree of cultural literacy on the part of prospective viewers. And unless the onlooker can identify this figure, he will be unable to grasp a further and still more learned transaction. For the phrase “More Lite” is an allusion, playing on Goethe’s dying words, “Mehr Licht!”—an ambiguous utterance, which has itself provoked a raft of scholarly exegesis. Thus we find a most recondite literary allusion embedded in a strikingly humble public medium. In the field of Hellenistic poetry, learned allusion has of course been a

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staple of scholarly investigation for more than a century, especially as it is deployed by such elite authors as Aratus, Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, and Theocritus. Here it is viewed as one of the hallmarks of refined Hellenistic artistry. In this essay, I will try to add a new perspective to this topic by extending the scope of discussion to include allusion even in Gebrauchspoesie, or utilitarian verse—that is, in the anonymous verse inscriptions known as epigram that lined the broad, well-trodden streets and public spaces of Greek cities, even as billboards do in our own time. Specifically, I will probe the popular limits of allusion by examining epigraphic references to the Odyssey to see whether they are qualitatively different in inscribed epigram from those found in its literary counterpart. By so doing, I hope to delineate a spectrum of readership and readerly expectation concerning allusion, from the simplest to the most challenging. In this regard, the Ann Arbor ad may be helpful. For it raises a number of questions that can be fruitful for us in dealing with erudite allusion in Hellenistic poetry. First is that ever thorny question of authorial intent: What did the author want? Or in the case of our billboard, what purpose would an allusion to Goethe serve in the advertising campaign of Miller Breweries? Second, to what extent does context (here the very location of the billboard in a particular place) determine the character of the allusion we are likely to find? That is, does the physical setting of performance and reception matter in determining just how demanding an allusion will probably be (how broad the range of sources it draws on, how familiar or obscure the sources, how elaborately detailed its allusive play)? Finally, what does the allusion suggest about its implied audience? The answer to the first question is simple enough. What Miller intended by alluding to Goethe’s words and image is fairly certain: it aimed to sell beer. A more delicate matter is, how did it do so? Though I have no way of knowing whether the ad achieved its aim, it is reasonable to think that it sought to carve out a new segment of the market by arousing the interest of those who did not fit the traditional beer-drinking profile. It targeted a cultivated consumer, college educated, perhaps with advanced degrees and considerable earning power—a consumer, moreover, who might be concerned to watch his waistline and so to welcome a less-filling brew. Even if such a customer might not recognize the allusion to Goethe, he would still recognize the affluence and refinement of the figure demanding “More Lite!” and thus associate lite beer with such a drinker. Let us move on to our second question: To what extent does geographic setting determine the character of an allusion? Or differently, does the real-estate maxim also hold true for allusion: is it all “location,

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location, location”? Our billboard suggests that this is indeed a crucial factor. For can we imagine this ad placed anywhere but in a university town? Could the brewery have hoped to find a comprehending audience in another setting? In that regard, it was only shrewd marketing to locate the ad just over a block from the central campus, within easy walking distance, and close to bookstores and cafés. Pedestrian accessibility was certainly essential in view of the high proportion of students without cars. Thus, had it been placed even on the fringes of Ann Arbor (say, by the nearby interstate) the billboard would have lost much of its impact.1 Finally, as to the billboard’s implied audience, I already surmised that those who would appreciate the image and its allusion would likely belong or aspire to that cultivated, affluent, and upwardly mobile group that here largely coincides with the university’s forty thousand students, together with its faculty and staff. Yet I want to point to an undergraduate subgroup for whom a modicum of literary knowledge was obligatory. I mean the students of the Honors College, Michigan’s crème de la crème, who at this time were required to enroll in a full year’s course in the Great Books, which included Goethe in the second semester. Was the billboard conceived with these very students in mind (indeed, does its presence suggest that one of them had found a job with Miller Breweries)? For to them, as to the upper classes of ancient Greece and Rome, their literary education served as a badge of elite status. Such students might well recognize the allusion to Goethe and thus have the pleasure of finding their hard-won culture affirmed “out in the real world” (if only a block from campus). For a reader able to detect an allusion may feel the warm glow of belonging to a privileged club—the cognoscenti, who share a common cultural language—and the intensity of that feeling may increase in proportion to the difficulty of the allusion. Let us now turn to ancient verse inscription and its use of literary allusion. To begin with, it is worth emphasizing that allusion is not particularly common in inscribed epigram of any era. That may at first seem surprising. After all, its metrical form—predominantly hexameter and elegiac couplet—makes it a close relative of those grander, culturally more estimable 1. A further reason that Miller’s marketing department may have chosen Ann Arbor was that it was founded by Germans and retained some measure of German heritage. When I was a graduate student, there were still several German restaurants in town, numerous German names attached to leading businesses, and many antiquarian copies of (yes, you guessed it) Goethe available in the used bookstores. Among other things, then, the advertising agency may have taken that heritage into account (just as it might Hispanic or African American heritage in other parts of the country), in the belief that Goethe might still be a recognizable quantity and carry some weight with this population.

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genres of epic and elegy, from which it undoubtedly draws a good measure of its style. Thus one would expect inscribed epigram to be generically predisposed to allude to specific subjects or incidents from those kindred forms of verse and to do so in language pointedly recalling that used in those contexts. But this is not the case. The influence of epic on inscribed epigram is indeed pervasive right from the start, but as Friedländer and Hoffleit demonstrated quite clearly in their collection of Greek verse inscriptions of the archaic era,2 it normally manifests itself in nonspecific epicizing; that is, the diction does not attempt to evoke the details of particular epic scenes. Rather, it gives the inscriptions broadly heroic coloring, nothing more. In the words of Friedländer and Hoffleit, “the thorough epic style . . . shaped the conception of life” (1948: 30), giving “to the solemn moments of their lives a Homeric cast” (9); in this way, “men and action receive something of the dignity and strength of the epos” (13). Epigrams inscribed in such public settings as cemeteries, shrines, or civic gathering places during the archaic era aimed not to suggest comparisons with particular poetic models but to evoke a generic heroic tone,3 and that is in keeping with the often formulaic, thoroughly conventional character of sentiment expressed in inscribed epigram. Yet if we look for learned allusions in inscribed epigram of the archaic era, it is instructive to see where it occurs. One of our earliest verse inscriptions, that on the humble clay kotyle known as the Ischia Cup, from a cremation burial of the late eighth century b.c., contains what has been called “Europe’s first literary allusion” (CEG I 454).4 Νστορος : ( [ην τ]ι : ε_ποτ[ον]: ποτριον. | hς δ/ [ν το
δε πεσι : ποτερ[ο]: α"τκα κε
νον | hµερος hαιρσει : καλλιστε [φ]ν ο : /Αφροδτες. 1 ( [ην τ]ι Heubeck : ε [,µ]ι G. Buchner and C. F. Russo, Rend. Linc., 8th ser., 10 (1955): 226 n. 2

[Nestor had a drinking cup [or “I am Nestor’s drinking cup”] good to drink from, but whoever drinks from this one will at once be seized by desire for fair-crowned Aphrodite.] 2. Friedländer and Hoffleit 1948. 3. Irwin (2005: 63–81) stresses “the desire to heroicise the dead” (69) as a function of aristocratic self-representation in archaic funerary epigram. This constitutes “generic,” rather than specific, allusion. Cf. Pucci 1994: 24–27; Irwin 2005: 195–96. 4. B. Powell 1991: 167. The supplement in v. 1 is based on Heubeck 1979: 110–16.

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As is generally agreed, the verses—consisting of a somewhat flawed iambic line followed by two dactylic hexameters—pointedly and humorously refer to the cup of the hero Nestor described at Iliad 11.631–36.5 As the Iliadic
γ/ C passage notes that Nestor brought this cup from home (T ο:κοθεν V γεραις, v. 632), it may well be the same cup that appears in his household

and is offered to Athena at Odyssey 3.51–53. It could thus be viewed as this hero’s standard epic prop. A reader needs more than casual acquaintance with epic for this allusion to work. It does not suffice merely to know that the hero Nestor had a cup. The reader must recall that this cup was elaborately wrought, “studded with golden nails”; that “it had four handles, and on either side of each perched two golden doves, feeding, and there were double bases beneath it” (Il. 11.633–35); he must recall, further, that it was huge—“another man with great effort could lift it full from the table, / but Nestor, aged as he was, lifted without strain” (vv. 635–36). The reader must thus have the sort of mastery of the tradition that comes from repeated, attentive exposure.6 For the playful point of this allusion depends on his being able to set that epic description against the physical fact of the humble clay kotyle—decorated with modest geometric motifs and measuring a diminutive ten by fifteen centimeters—which he holds in his hands. Indeed, it helps if he knows that despite the wealth of incident in the books following the cup’s description in Iliad 11, the hero is still guzzling from it at the start of book 14—“the strength of the ancient hero’s elbow is surprising,” as Hainsworth wryly observes7—for this protracted bout of drinking wittily moti5. For a good discussion of the allusion in Nestor’s cup and its humor, cf. Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004: 286–87. 6. At this early date, such exposure is likely to have been oral and part of a still-fluid oral tradition. That is suggested by the fact that the Ischia Cup shows no verbal correspondence to the description of Nestor’s cup in Homer, referring, rather, to the content of the epic scene. Precise verbal allusion, by contrast, is more likely to arise in a context where fixed texts may be weighed against each other for comparison. That, as we shall see, is the case already a century or so later in Alcaeus’ adaptation of Hes. WD 582–88 in fr. 347 Lobel-Page (discussed in n. 12 in the present essay). There, verbal correspondence between alluding text and model stretches over fully seven verses. The striking span over which Alcaeus recurs to his model in relentless, specific detail may suggest that the poet was not striving to be subtle with his allusion: he wanted, rather, to ensure recognition of the antecedent passage by an audience relying on its memory in the fleeting circumstances of performance. Such an audience must in turn be distinguished from a different, more bookish one able to consult and juxtapose written texts so as to detect the most recondite and intricate allusions. This latter sort of audience, as well as the kind of poet who writes for it, belong to a different age, as we shall see near the end of this essay when discussing Callimachus’ allusion to the Odyssey in Ep. 43 Pf. For a nuanced discussion of the problem of allusion in a largely oral culture, see Irwin 2005: 22–26, 100–101, 114– 15, 118–19, 162–64, 194–96). For allusion in literary epigram, see Sens 2007. 7. Hainsworth 1993: 293 ad vv. 636–37.

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vates the epigram’s characterization of the vessel as ε_ποτ[ον] (v. 1).8 The tiny and humble kotyle, by contrast, works at once (α"τκα, v. 2)9 and—despite its very different size, material, and embellishment—has a power of its own, that of Aphrodite, which makes its drinker long for sex. Rather than fortify the hero, then, in the context of martial epic, it motivates the lover at a symposium. Authorial intent may be ultimately unknowable, particularly across so vast a chasm of time. Yet it is important to make informed, plausible conjecture about it within the historical context. In this instance, I suggest that the poet’s motive in deploying this allusion was arguably to exploit the knowledge of the elite group so that it may define itself. It does this through the opposition of its own sympotic values, with their focus on merriment and eros, to the values of epic, which favor grand heroic action. That opposition appears as well in contrasting the poetic genres of epic, on the one hand, and, on the other, those shorter forms at home in the symposium, such as skolia, lyric, or even an epigram incised on a cup.10 Indeed, the cup brilliantly solves a perennial problem of the epigrammatic genre, namely, of alluding to so expansive a narrative form as epic within the brief confines of epigram, by humorously figuring the difference in genre through the contrast between the huge heroic cup and the unassuming kotyle. It makes the difference part of its witty point.11 Significantly, this pointedly allusive text was not set out on a grave stele along the public highway or dedicated in a religious shrine with its thronging worshipers, nor did it belong on a civic monument in the busy marketplace. Rather, the modest clay vessel points to the context of the symposium, where the small and privileged circle of like-minded hetairoi gather 8. In the compound ε_ποτον, ε"
signals either the abundance of drink in the cup or (humorously with reference to Nestor’s strength and prodigious capacity for drink) the ease of drinking. Cf. LSJ s.v. VI. 9. The epigram is inscribed upside down and is thus legible when the cup rests on its rim. In other words, it communicates its message to the drinker either after he has emptied and laid down the cup (as a commentary on the effect of the drink he has just finished) or preliminary to drinking (in anticipation of its results). 10. The mix of iambic and hexameter lines may serve as a generic marker, signaling mock-epic, as in the Margites, which consisted of hexameters irregularly interspersed with iambics. Cf. Aristot. Poet. 4. 1148b24; Hephaest. Isag. 4 (p. 59.21 Consbruch); Hephaest. De poem. 3.4. 11. Cf. B. Powell 1991: 165–66: “The clay skyphos bears as much resemblance to the elaborate gold masterwork of Homer’s Nestor as its owner bears to the great Trojan fighter— except of course that both are heavy drinkers! Homer himself parodied epic exaggeration in his description of the cup (‘Anbody else could scarce have lifted it . . .’), speaking of the cup as he did the mighty stones upon the windy plain of Troy which ‘not two men could bear, such as men are today.’”

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to enjoy the pleasures of wine, verse, and eros. Indeed, the inscription evokes that setting and those very elements of sympotic activity, since— through the medium of poetry—it pictures what happens whenever someone drinks from the cup: he suddenly feels “in the mood.” The paradigmatic scene that the text envisions applies to anyone at the party—and thus the inscription defines its target audience, as well as those likely to appreciate its allusion, as coextensive with the sympotic group. That delineation of an implied audience is reinforced inasmuch as the cup is a functional object designed to be of use at the symposium for any member of the exclusive fellowship. This contrasts with the Homeric cup, which only the hero can handle with ease, and even more so with inscriptions on such public monuments as tombstones or dedications, which promiscuously address anyone at all, regardless of origins, who will take the trouble to read them. However surprising it is to find a detailed literary allusion in an inscription (particularly at so early a date), it is less surprising for having an incomparably smaller, more privileged and poetically knowledgeable target audience than that for an inscription on a public monument.12 That that audience was indeed privileged is demonstrated by the sepulchral context in which the cup was found. For it comes from a family plot containing notably opulent burials.13 These are “distinguished by a conspicuous quantity 12. Another instance within the context of the symposium is Alcaeus’ reworking of Hesiod WD 582–88 in fr. 347 L-P (also mentioned in n. 6 in the present essay). Concerning this fragment, Page (1955: 306) comments, “Nowhere else in Greek poetry, except in deliberate parodies, is so extensive and close a copy of one poet by another to be found.” As Rösler (1980: 256–64) plausibly argues, the point of the allusion lies in how Alcaeus’ applies Hesiod’s generalized advice about what to do in the heat of summer to the circumstances of his sympotic hetairoi. Hesiod, the didactic poet, describes an indefinite, recurrent situation concerning which he gives guidance—in the heat of summer, when cicadas sing, artichokes flower, women are lascivious, men weak, etc., then one may (potential optative, vv. 588–589) sit in the shade of a rock and drink a sober mix of three parts water to one of wine (v. 596). For Alcaeus, those same conditions (reiterated in terms remarkably close to Hesiod’s) justify an urgent, immediate appeal in the here and now of the sympotic group: “soak your lungs with wine, for the star is coming around” (τγγε πλεµονας ο:νωι, τ γρ στρον περιτλλεται, κτλ). Drink is imperative in Alcaeus’ world, for unlike in Hesiod’s, “everything is thirsty” (πντα δ+ δψαισ/, v. 2), not just Alcaeus’ companions. According to Rösler (1980: 263), “Alkaios konnte (dies eben beweist die Tatsache, daß er ein solches Gedicht faßte) davon ausgehen, daß die 2ται
ροι die Anspielung zu verstehen und seinen Text zu dem von ihm evozierten Text Hesiods in Beziehung zu setzen vermochten, daß sie den überraschenden Umstand, trotz der ihnen vertrauten Thematik diesmal nichts ‘Eigenes’ zu hören zu bekommen, sogleich bemerkten und die ‘Nachbildung’ als dichterische Leistung spezifischen Ranges zu würdigen wußten.” For the differing demands put on the audience with regard to recognizing allusion in Alcaeus visà-vis the Ischia Cup, cf. the reflections in n. 6 in the present essay; the intensified demands placed on readers of Hellenistic literary epigram are discussed later in this essay. 13. Ridgway 1992: 115–16.

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of precious metal” and “rich personal ornaments that denote membership of an upper class” (Ridgeway 1992: 115). The burial of the ten-year-old male from which we have Nestor’s kotyle further suggests the family interest in symposia, as it contains “no less than four kraters” (ibid., 116). As in the case of the Ann Arbor billboard, then, a learned allusion is at home in certain settings more than in others. It requires an environment where it is apt to find an appreciative audience. I will return later in this essay to the idea of the symposium as an arena congenial to allusive play. For now, it is worth noting that we may envision other inscriptional settings (in addition to the symposium) where allusion would be apt to find discerning readers. An epigram inscribed in a palace precinct can aspire to a different readership from one set in the agora. A poem addressed to a king may display a higher level of sophistication and polish from one aimed at a more general audience. Thus, in an epigram on the base of a bronze satyr statue in Pergamon dedicated by the statesman and admiral Dionysodorus, son of Deinokrates (MS 06/02/05), the implicit addressee is the Pergamene king Attalus I.14 As Parsons notes in characterizing the poem’s refinement and literary self-consciousness, “it would be difficult to find a more ‘Alexandrian’ epigram,” though it is located in Pergamon.15 For in it, the satyr of the statue, speaking in artful phalaecians and Doric dialect, says that he is “Pratinaean in theme” (τ δ+ λη
µµα Πρατνειον, v. 5). He is thus not simply the familiar follower of Dionysus, ubiquitous in art and myth, but a specific instance thereof from literature, the prototype of a satyr in a particular poetic genre. For in saying that he is “Pratinaean in theme,” the satyr alludes to the “inventor” of satyr play, Pratinas of Phlius. He thus comments on his own literary pedigree, doing so, moreover, in the dialect native to his place of poetic origin—a clear sign that his audience (or at least the king to whom he was dedicated) had an interest in and knowledge of literary history.16 14. The poem’s ostensible addressee is Dionysus. As the epigram is, however, dedicated both to the god and to Attalus and closes with a plea for both the god’s and the king’s favor, it is clear that it aims for the ear of the king. Unfortunately, the statue’s original location is unknown since, according to H. Müller in his editio princeps (1989: 500), the base was incorporated into a wall already in Hellenistic times. For this inscription, cf., further, Lebek 1990; Kassel 1990; Kerkhecker 1991; Parsons 1993: esp. 13–14; Lehnus 1996. A further instance of a prominent Attalid monument presenting a particularly artful epigram is that on Delos, celebrating that dynasty’s founder Philetaerus, for his victory over the Gauls (most likely in 275/4 b.c.). On this poem, IG XI 4, 1105 ⫽ Durrbach, Choix no. 31, see Bing and Bruss 2007: 8–11. 15. “Difficilmente si può trovare un epigramma più ‘alessandrino’” (Parsons 1993: 14). 16. One is tempted to take λη
µµα here in its scholarly sense of “lemma,” a heading or rubric of a comment in the scholia.

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Not all inscriptional allusions are equally learned. Do those that are less so belong to a different setting? Inscriptions may, of course, reflect the tastes and literary education of those who commission them (or of the poets they hire), regardless of their setting.17 But as with the Ischia Cup, poems inscribed in busy public settings often envision their target audience, foreseeing a reader who is a kind of everyman, an ordinary “wayfarer,” and addressing him as ξνος, παροδτης, Cδοιπρος, or the like.18 Given the overwhelmingly public character of most inscribed monuments, it is reasonable to assume their content was geared toward an implied audience approximating that generic passerby imagined in so many poems. What sort of poetic allusion, then, if any, may we expect in such in17. Thus CEG II 597, brought to my attention by Kathryn Gutzwiller, is a sepulchral poem of ca. 330–20 b.c. from Rhamnous, which incorporates a subtle Odyssean allusion. It commemorates Hieron, who went to Hades last of five brothers, “leaving his spirit far behind, subject to shining old age” (γ ραι #πλλιπαρω
ι θυµν ποπρολιπν, v. 4). The words at the start of this verse quote Teiresias’ prophecy that death will come to Odysseus when the hero is “worn out by shining old age” (γ ρYα aπο λιπαρMω
ρηµνον, Od. 11.136 ⫽ 23.283). Apart from our epigram, the combination γ ρYα aπο λιπαρMω
occurs only in these two passages in all Greek poetry. Hieron’s prosperous old age is thus evidently assimilated in a meaningful and gratifying way to that of Odysseus. Perhaps the reference to Hieron’s family, from which his brothers departed before him (οj γενεν (λιπον, v. 2), suggests a potential audience sufficiently educated and interested to appreciate the allusion. On family as a potential audience, see my discussion of GG 424 later in the present essay. Another instance worth mention is CEG I 40, an Attic grave stele from ca. 530–520, which relates how a certain Peisianax erected a sema for Damasistratos: τ γρ γρας 6στ θανντο[ς] (v. 2). The words may recall Il. 16.431–57, where Hera dissuades Zeus from saving Sarpedon, urging her husband instead to abandon him to death, to be buried by family with tomb and stele: τ γρ γρας 6στ θανντων (v. 457 ⫽ v. 675). To judge from Merkelbach and Stauber’s “Sachregister: Homer: Zitate, Variationen, Anspielungen” (MS vol. 5 VII p. 335), this Homeric phrase is quoted more often than any other in inscribed epigram. We may doubt, however, that these quotes—mostly in marginally competent poems—actually evoke the Iliadic scene. Indeed, even in Homer, the phrase is used of other funerary customs as well, such as lamenting the dead (Il. 23.9), cutting one’s hair and weeping (Od. 4.196–98), washing and laying out the body (Od. 24.189–90), and closing the eyes of the corpse (Od. 24.296). The phrase became proverbial in sepulchral contexts (Stobaeus cites it twice, in his sections Περ Πνθους and Περ Ταφη
ς). Can we then be sure that even the early CEG I 40 truly aims to compare the deceased specifically with Sarpedon and evoke the gods’ discussion—i.e., that it is pointedly allusive in any meaningful sense? Or was the Homeric phrase recalled here, rather, in a nonspecific fashion, as generally applicable in honoring the dead? It is important to point out that the index of Homeric “Zitate, Variationen, Anspielungen” in MS vol. 5 consists overwhelmingly of nonspecific epicizing, not intended to activate in the reader the recollection of specific Homeric scenes. 18. An interesting exception is the sepulchral epigram from Alexandria for Aline (GV 1312 ⫽ no. 34 Bernand). Despite its inauspicious setting along the road where (as it says) cowherds and shepherds drive their animals, the poem self-consciously resists the preponderance of potential passersby so as to speak only to a very special reader, one “reared in the Muses’ labors.” On this poem, see Bing 1998b: 133–35.

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scriptions? Those found on public monuments of both the classical and Hellenistic eras characteristically appear less specific, more limited in mining the implications of an antecedent passage, and, on the whole, more generic than that on the Ischia Cup or in literary epigram.19 In a secondcentury b.c. marble epitaph from Cos, for instance (GV 1729 ⫽ GG 207), of which I cite just the first four verses, a cherished slave is compared with Homer’s famous swineherd Eumaios.
θος [π]ρν µ+ν ;Οµ ρειο[ι γρα]φδες φιλ[οδσπο]τον V Ε"µαου χρυσαις (κλαγον 6ν σελσινD σευ
δ+ κα ε,ν /Αδαο σαφρονα µη
τιν εσει, PΙναχ/, εµνηστον γρµµα λαλευ
σα πτρη. . . . [Homer’s pen once cried aloud the faithful nature of Eumaios in golden papyrus columns, but, you, Inachos, even when you’re in Hades, the fluent stone, through its ever-remembering script, will sing your prudent counsel. . . .] Here it may be better to speak of reference rather than allusion, since there is nothing veiled about this eulogy: the epigram points explicitly to Homer and to his character Eumaios. In keeping with that straightforward mention is the fact that no direct knowledge of the Odyssey is actually required to appreciate the reference.20 The reader must only be familiar with 19. Allusion is rare even on prominently placed public monuments that would be easily accessible for repeated viewing. The epigram on the tyrant slayers’ monument in the Athenian agora is a good case in point (CEG I 430 ⫽ 150 FH ⫽ FGE pp. 186–89). It conforms entirely to the pattern of nonspecific epicizing demonstrated by Friedländer and Hoffleit with regard to verse inscriptions of the archaic era (discussed earlier in the present essay). The state
µγ/ /Αθηναοισι ment of the first verse, that “truly a great light dawned for the Athenians” (V φως γνεθ/) when Aristogeiton and Harmodius killed Hipparchus, is strikingly Homeric. The phrase φως γνεθ/ appears at Il. 15.669 (in a clearly unrelated context), and the metaphor of a hero’s bravery being a “light” to his people is likewise Iliadic. But although it is twice used of Patroklos (Il. 11.797, 16.39) and though one might be tempted to see a parallel between the pairs Harmodius and Aristogeiton, on the one hand, and, on the other, Achilleus and Patroklos, it is also used of Teucer (Il. 8.282) and Aias (Il. 6.6), and the metaphor becomes common thereafter (cf. LSJ s.v. φος II). Thus, while we can certainly speak of Homeric coloring, the epigram contains no pointed allusion to a particular Homeric passage or scene. 20. A comparably overt Iliadic reference appears already in the third epigram quoted by Aeschines (Against Ctesiphon 183–85) and Plutarch (Cimon 7.3–8.2 ⫽ “Simonides” 40 FGE pp. 255–59) as inscribed on the herms celebrating Athens’ victory over the Persian remnant at Eion in 475 b.c. The poem cites as a paradigm for this action the Athenian leader at Troy, Menestheus, “whom Homer once called the best marshaler of battle among the well-armed Danaans of those who came along” (@ν ποθ/ KΟµηρος (φη ∆αναω
ν πκα θωρηκτων / κοσµητη
ρα µχης (ξοχον =ντα µολει
ν, vv. 3–4; cf. Il. 2.552–54).

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the cast of leading characters and possess summary information about their part in the poem.21 Even if we dig a bit further for possible allusion, what we find is in much the same vein, if marginally subtler. For instance, in the context of the Odyssean comparison in which the servant Inachos is identified with Eumaios while his master is implicitly identified with Odysseus, the phrase σαφρονα µη
τιν (v. 3) suggests a possible contrast with πολµητις Odysseus. For Inachos has only one µη
τις, and that is a very prudent one. Odysseus’ standing epithet in Homer, πολµητις, occurs with such frequency (eighty-five times in the Odysssey alone, twenty-five times in the Iliad) and would be so broadly familiar that, once again, we may wonder how much direct knowledge of the Odyssey is required to appreciate the allusion.22 To make its points, then, the epigram demands of its audience only a rudimentary level of literary schooling—a level one might already attain in the primary phase of instruction. For poetry lay at the core of Greek education from the moment a student had mastered his letters (Plato Protag. 325e, 339a), and even “a minimal cultural package,” as Raffaella Cribiore has called it, contained “some Homer.”23 As is well known, papyri of Homer are ten times as numerous as those of the next most popular author, Euripides, with copies of the Iliad three times as frequent as those of the Odyssey. Over half the Iliad papyri cover the first six books. Similarly, in 21. The same is true of inscribed epitaphs that, e.g., compare a deceased wife with Penelope. Cf. discussion later in the present essay and, generally, GV p. 517ff. It is worth noting that, for whatever reason (and it would be interesting to speculate), such summary reference to paradigmatic Homeric characters does not appear in epigram before the fourth century (e.g., in CEG II 888.38–50, esp. 44–45). Cf. also the epitaph of the poet Philikos of Corcyra (SH 980 ⫽ GLP 106). Since Corcyra was equated with Scheria, the island of the Phaeacians, Philikos is said (vv. 5–9) “to have happily seen the festive old age of Alkinoos, a man who knew how to live,” “born of Alkinoos’ line . . . from Demodokos . . .” (translation adapted
µ+ν γη from Page: ε"
ρας ,δω
ν ε"στιον /Αλκινοιο / Φαηκος, ζειν νδρς 6πισταµνουD / /Αλκινου τι ς 6 5 ν 6ξ αGµατος 具 典 / ]ο ∆ η µοδκου. Thus Demodokos is seen as either Philikos’ ancestor or his model. On this poem, cf. Fantuzzi 2007a. 22. A more sophisticated allusion may be lurking behind κα ε,ν /Αδαο in v. 3. The phrase and its position is Homeric (at Od. 11.211, Odysseus complains that he cannot embrace his mother in Hades: “so that even in Hades’ with our arms embracing / we can both take the satisfaction of dismal mourning?” vv. 211–12). It also occurs at Theocr. 16.30, where the topic is likewise posthumous fame through song. Given the reference to Eumaios in Theocr. 16.54–55, there may be direct influence. Conference participants in Giessen wondered, further, whether µη
τιν εσει and εµνηστον (vv. 3–4) might cleverly recall the Iliad’s opening words, µη
νιν ειδε. 23. Cf. Cribiore 2001: 178–79: “Some Homer, a bit of Euripides, and some gnomic quotations from Isocrates formed the cultural package of students at the primary level.” Cf. also ibid., 194: “Starting from Homer is mandatory, since he was considered in antiquity the poet par excellence . . . and the teacher who inspired reverence from the early years of study.”

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school exercises preserved on papyrus, the first two books of the Iliad are the most popular.24 Though the Odyssey was not nearly as prevalent as a school text, it is interesting that the allusions to that poem that I have found in inscribed epigrams tend to favor the beginning of the epic. That is the case already in the classical era. The epigram CEG II 755 provides a good baseline. Dated by Hansen to between 400 and 350, it was inscribed on a column found in a well by the Asclepieion in Athens and dedicated to Asclepius. The names of the dedicators and the god appear extra metrum. The remainder consists of the following lone hexameter: δ[ει]ν παθ5ν κα πολλ | [,]δ5ν σωθες νθηκεν.

Concerning this verse, Hansen laconically remarks, “Ecce Ulixes Atheniensis” (1989: II ad v. 2). And he is doubtless right. “Suffered and saw a lot”: that, in a nutshell, is the hero of the Odyssey’s opening lines (πολλ δ/ C γ/ 6ν πντMω πθεν λγεα, 1.4; πολλω
ν δ/ νθρπων :δεν στεα, 1.3). When one adds the fact that the subject of either poem ultimately survived with the aid of a god, the equivalence is striking.25 Admittedly, this nutshell is a tiny one, even by the standards of epigram. Yet though it is reduced here to its barest minimum, the Odyssean prologue was clearly meant to be heard. And it can be, because the prologue was such a cultural commonplace that the mere use of πολλ with aorist forms of πσχω and Cρω suffice to evoke it. A comparable, though more elaborate, instance appears in a votive epigram of the Hellenistic era, dedicated to Pan and transmitted as a graffito on a piece of broken sandstone from Upper Egypt, probably during the reign (221–204) of Ptolemy IV Philopator and Arsinoe III (Householder and Prakken 1945 ⫽ FGE Anon. 150, pp. 462–65 ⫽ no. 164 Bernand). Π αν τδε ε"γρ Mω κα 6π[ηκ]|ω  ι , T ς δ ι σωισεν Τρωγο δ υτω
ν µε [6κ]| γη
ς, πολλ παθντα πνοις δισσοι
ς, Σ [µυρνο]|φρου θ/ ερα
ς Κ ο λοβω
ν τε π - - - σισα ς [δ+ (?) 6ν πε]|λγει πλαζο µ νους /Ε ρυθ ρ[Mω
],
ο"ρον νευσ µε|θη
κας 2λισσ[οµ]ναις 6ν πντωι, συρζων | λ ιγυροι
ς πνε µασιν 6γ δονκ[ων] µ χ ρ ι κ α  ε,[ς | λιµ]να Πτολε µ αδος Aγαγες α"τς σ αι
σι κ [υ|βε]ρν σας χε[ρ]σ ι [ν 6]παγροτ[]具τα典τα ι ς . 24. Cribiore 2001: 194. 25. Contrast the epigram GV 726, discussed in n. 40 in the present essay.

5

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The Scroll and the Marble

N[υ
ν, | φ]λε, /Αλεξνδ ρ ο υ [σ]ω
 ισον πλ ιν \ν πο [τε] | π ρω
το ς τε[υ
]ξ[ε]ν [6]π/ Α,γπτου, κλ ε ινο[ττην | π]ο λ ων, |
 [φ]λε [Πν] |, [δ]ια σω [θ]ες [α]" δ [σω] δ [+] τ σν κρτος, b πρς Πτολεµαι
[ον ?- - - | τ]ε /Αρσινοην . Ε "γρους [- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | βα]σιλεας | . . . . .

10

[This is for Pan, skillful in hunting, attentive to prayers, who saved me from the land of the Trogodytes, when I had suffered much during two labors, as I returned from the sacred land that produces myrrh, and from the Koloboi. You saved us as we wandered on the Red Sea, sending a fair wind to our ships as they were spun about on the sea, piping with shrill blasts from your reeds, until at last you brought us yourself into the harbor of Ptolemais, piloting us with your hands, most tenacious in the hunt. Now, dear Pan, save the city of Alexander, which formerly he first built in Egypt, most famous of cities, and I will proclaim your power, dear Pan, when I come safely to Ptolemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and Arsinoe. Skilled in the hunt. . . .] The graffito probably comes from the shrine of Pan at El Kanaïs near Redesîeh, a watering stop on the caravan route between Edfu (Apollinopolis) in Upper Egypt and the Red Sea. The shrine was originally built by the pharaoh Seti I to the god Amon Re, whom the Greeks identified with Pan of the Prosperous Journey, or Pan Euodos. The invocation of Pan as ε_αγρος (v. 1: cf. χε[ρ]σ ι [ν 6]π αγροτ[]具τα典τα ι ς, v. 8; Ε "γρους, v. 13) suggests that the god helped the dedicator in connection with a hunting expedition, one consisting of multiple ships (νευσ, v. 5). The geographical references of verses 2 and 3 situate the expedition along the southern coast of the Red Sea and beyond, as does the dedicator’s description of how the god guided his ships to safety at the southern Red Sea port of Ptolemais (v. 7). The latter reference also suggests that the object of the expedition was elephants, as Ptolemais is explicitly attested as being founded as a staging ground for elephant hunts (the multiple ships of v. 5 accord well with such game).26 Judging by the 26. It was called Ptolemais Epitheras (6π θ ρας) or, as Strabo describes it, πρς τJη
θ ρYα τω
ν 6λεφαντω (16.4; cf. Pliny NH 6.171). Mention of Ptolemais also provides a terminus post quem for the poem, as the city was founded (according to the hieroglyphic Pithom Stele of

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street 161

noninscriptional handwriting, the poem is a draft that the dedicator made on his way back north (to Alexandria?) following the perilous expedition, perhaps with the intention of having it later formally inscribed on costlier material. The poem paints this expedition as a voyage into the beyond, an exotic exploit among peoples whose very names carry a whiff of danger and adventure. The term Τρωγοδται (v. 2), though here apparently referring to actual tribes inhabiting the region southeast of Egypt, along the southern half of the Red Sea, is often used of “primitive” peoples on the margins of the known world. In manuscripts, the name was frequently altered to τρωγλοδυται, an etymologizing explanation of the fact that they are sometimes described as living in holes (τργλαι) or caves. Already in Herodotus (4.183) their speech resembles the squeaking of bats—cave dwellers par excellence—rather than any human language. Similarly creepy are the Koloboi, whose name means “the mutilated ones,” most likely a reference to their practice of male genital mutilation (Strabo 16.4.5, 13). Within this fantastical landscape, the storm-tossed dedicator appears as a latter-day Odysseus—though in a narrowly restricted sense: he is the epic hero strictly of the Odyssey prologue. By describing him as πολλ παθντα πνοις (v. 2), the epigram clearly recalls verse 4 of the Odyssey, πολλ δ/ C γ/ 6ν πντMω πθεν λγεα.27 Similarly, the phrase πελγει πλαζο µ  νους in verse 4 of the epigram echoes Tς µλα πολλ / πλγχθη verses 1–2 of the Odyssey.28 By recalling a passage that Greeks of even minimal education would have known and could easily recognize, here at a shrine of Pan on the very fringes of Greek society, our epigram offers its readers a chance to feel their Greekness, to identify with the best-known hero of their culture. I doubt that our dedicator was the only Greek voyager in these parts to 264) by Eumedes between 270 and 264 during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Philadelphus was keen on acquiring elephants for military use, and we know of other Red Sea ports founded during his reign for this purpose. The date of Ptolemais and the handwriting of the graffito make it just possible that the Ptolemy and Arsinoe to whom the narrator says he will proclaim the power of Pan are Philadelphus and Arsinoe II. It is more likely, though, that they are Ptolemy IV Philopator and Arsinoe III (221–204) and that the narrator’s plea to the god to “now save Alexandria” (v. 9) refers to unrest among both Greeks and native Egyptians, which increased markedly during their reign. 27. Indeed, πολλ παθντο is an Odyssean phrase (cf. Od. 7.224, 13.131), always applied to Odysseus. 28. Cf. also the standing phrase 6π πντον πλαζµενοι (e.g., Od. 3.106). Further afield, we may find a more learned allusion in v. 7 of the epigram, Aγαγες α"τς. The phrase occurs once in Homer (Od. 13.323), likewise with a mortal addressing a god (Odysseus to Athena) who led him to safety: Aγαγες α"τ .

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whom this comparison would have occurred.29 The narrator’s plea to the god to “now save Alexandria” (v. 9) may refer to contemporary unrest among native Egyptians, which increased markedly during the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator and which threatened the city.30 At such a time, a reminder of one’s Greek heritage may have been especially welcome. Our next poem comes from an early third-century b.c. white marble stele from Pherae in Thessaly (GG 424 ⫽ SEG 23 no. 434k).
ρα τφον παραµεβοµαι; | (ννεπε, λα Λαµπδος 
ε. | Να, ξνε, τα
ς Cσας ε,ς τκνα κα γονας. | λλ/ :θι µοι χαρων κα 6πεχεο | πολλ θεοι
σι | σ1ν τοια
ιδε λχωι ξυν µολει
ν µλαθρ[α]. [Am I passing the tomb of Lampis? Tell me, stone. Yes, stranger, she who was devoted to her children and her parents. But go in safety and fervently beg the gods that you may come to your shared house with such a wife.] This sepulchral poem for Lampis is framed as a dialogue between passerby and stele, a form that became popular and was subject to great elaboration in the Hellenistic period, particularly in literary epigram.31 What immediately catches our attention in this example is the striking exhortation to the stone in the opening line: (ννεπε, λα
ε.32 Can one fail to be charmed by this unexpected variation on the epic (ννεπε, Μου
σα, with its clear recollection of the first line of the Odyssey (cf. also Il. 2.761)?33 It is not simply the 29. It is worth noting that Odysseus was available as a model of suffering and exotic journies as early as Theognis, though while our epigram evokes the hero through the familiar phrases of the Odyssean prologue, Theognis makes the reference explicit (1123–24): µ µε κακω
ν µµνησκεD ππονθ τοι ο
α τ/ /Οδυσσες, / @ς τ/ /Αδεω µγα δω
µ/ Aλυθεν 6ξαναδς. 30. The aorist imperative—strengthened by νυ
ν—suggests impending danger to which the deity is asked to respond immediately. Cf. Od. 4.765 (Penelope praying to Athena on be
πτνι/, half of Telemachus): τω
ν νυ
ν µοι µνη
σαι, κα µοι φλον υ
α σωσον; Eur. IT 1082ff.: b \περ µ/ Α"λδος κατ πτυχς / δεινη
ς (σωσας 6κ πατροκτνου χερς, / σω
σν µε κα νυ
ν; Aristoph. Vesp. 393: [sc., addressed to the Athenian hero Lycus] 6λησον κα σω
σον νυν τν σαυτου
πλησιχωρον. If the aorist imperative refers to present danger, we may be justified in looking (as did Householder and Prakken, in their editio princeps) for historically attested threats to Alexandria as one factor in dating the epigram. 31. The earliest examples are by Anyte (A. Plan. 231 ⫽ 19 GP) and Phalaecus (AP 13.5 ⫽ 2 GP). The only earlier inscribed instance that survives intact is in a dedicatory inscription on a statue base in Halicarnassus from ca. 475 (CEG I 429). Cf. Kassel 1983; Rasch 1910. 32. CEG I 429 likewise begins with a remarkable exhortation: α"δ τεχν εσσα λθο, λγε τς τδ/ [γαλµα] | στη
σεν (cunningly wrought voice of the stone, say who set up this offering). 33. Perhaps there is some play here with the folk etymology relating λα
ος meaning “rock” with λας meaning the living, breathing people with their ability to speak—a play that goes back to Il. 24.611: λαο1ς δ+ λθους ποησε Κρονων (cf. Hes. fr. 234; Pindar Ol. 9.41–46).

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street 163

wording, however, that echoes Homer. The part here played by the stone is functionally equivalent to that of the goddess of song. The written text displaces the living voice of the Muse as repository of kleos. For in the sepulchral context, the stele is an agent of memory—and so a “memorial,” µν µη—every bit as much as is the Muse, Mnemosyne’s daughter. Similarly, the situation implicit at the start of the epic is also present in our epigram—the colloquy with an authoritative source: as the Homeric poem may be viewed as one long response to the poet’s initial request for knowledge, so the tale of Lampis’ dutiful existence may be seen as the stone’s response to a comparable opening request.34 In alluding to the Odyssey’s introductory appeal, then, the epigram implicitly suggests a genealogy of its own form; it traces the origins of “dialogue epigram” to the conversation between poet and Muse at the start of epic song. I believe that the clear allusion of (ννεπε, λα
ε to (ννεπε, Μου
σα fixes the basic level to which the poem is pitched: toward readers of modest educational attainment, who might be familiar with the best-known parts of the Odyssey, such as its prologue and famous opening line, yet not much more. The allusion is obvious enough, moreover, to be grasped by those readers quickly. For sepulchral monuments have only a fleeting chance to make their case, set as they normally are along busy streets and appealing to the wayfarer hurrying in or out of town on business. For an allusion to have an impact under such circumstances, it cannot demand too much. Yet the poem may contain other, more recondite allusions. In view of the clear Odyssean color of the first line, perhaps we may see in Lampis a subtly Penelopean shading. It is worth noting here that—as with Eumaios before—Penelope is certainly a model of virtue in inscribed epigram. Thus, in a second-century b.c. poem from Kleonai in the Peloponnese (GV 1735.1–4), we hear, “Homer praised above all the much-admired child of Ikarios, Penelope, in his writing tablets, but no one is powerful enough to sing your virtue and renown, [Nomonia], with a clear voice” (/Ικαρου µ+ν παι
δα πολυζ λωτον KΟµη[ρος] / A ιν[η]σ/ 6ν δλτοις (ξοχα ΠηνελπηνD / σν δ/  ρετν κα κυ
δος #πρτατον ο_τις 6πα[ρκω
ς] / ,σ[χει]
σαι π στο[µτων].). In a first-century b.c. epitaph from λιγυρω
ν Y Didyma (MS 01/19/43 v. 4), we learn of Gorgo, “who in Miletus was a Penelope among the Ionians” (τ  [ν] 6ν Μιλ τωι Πανελπαν /Ιδων).35 In that light, our epigram’s emphasis on marriage as a parternship of equals in 34. For (ννεπε used in inscribed epigram to question a monument, cf. MS 20/06/01 (sixth century a.d.), 01/12/02 v. 1. Cf. also AP 7.679.2. 35. Cf. AP 15.8.6; GV 727, 1736, 1737.

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verse 4 may be significant. Normally, a groom is described as taking a bride to his house.36 Here, they go there together (reading ξυν adverbially) or else to their shared house (reading ξυν adjectivally with µλαθρα).37 In either case, the emphatic placement of σ1ν or ξυν at the start of each half of the pentameter suggests that a real partnership is envisioned, like that enjoyed by Odysseus and Penelope.38 Further, despite its reference to children and parents, the epigram tactfully omits all mention of Lampis’ husband39—notwithstanding the fact that the stone addresses itself to a male passerby, exhorting him to pray that he share a house with such a wife. Does the idea of the missing husband evoke the absent Odysseus? Finally, the exhortation in verse 3 to pray earnestly to the gods (κα 6πεχεο πολλ θεοι
σι) recalls an Odyssean formula in the same metrical position, “and he prayed to all the gods” (κα 6πεχετο πα
σι θεοι
σι, Od. 14.423; cf. 21.203, 20.238), always occurring in connection with a prayer for Odysseus “to come home to his home” (νοστη
σαι . . . @νδε δµονδε; cf. µολει
ν µλαθρα in v. 4 of Lampis’ epitaph). Implicitly likened to Odysseus, then, the reader is urged to seek a bride who is similar to Penelopean Lampis. These latter allusions are, of course, not remotely as clear as (ννεπε, λα
ε. Yet if they are at all plausible, they suggest that the inscription could also speak to other readers with diverse levels of literary knowledge. Who would they be?40 It is important here to stress that one cannot confront 36. Headlam (Headlam and Knox 1922: ad Herodas 5.70) cites Il. 9.288; Hes. WD 695; Hes. Th. 410; etc. 37. Another possibility is that ξυν µλαθρα refers to Hades, the house shared by all. Cf. CEG II 593.4: κα τν . . . / κοινν Φερσεφνης πα
σιν (χεις θλαµον. To be sure, the desire of husband and wife to be together in death is not uncommon (cf. Lattimore 1962: 247–50), and Euripides’ Admetus even begs his dying wife to take him along with her to Hades (Alc. 382). But a prospective wish of traveling to Hades together with one’s wife (i.e., of dying at the same time), expressed (as here) on behalf of a passerby, is neither realistic nor a commonly voiced ideal. On balance, then, ξυν µλαθρα refers more likely to a house than to Hades. 38. The ideal of such harmony in marriage (Cµοφροσνη) is articulated by Odysseus himself in his wish for Nausikaa (Od. 6.180–85). 39. Was Lampis a widow? If that was the case, one might expect some reference to her pious regard for her husband or for his tomb, to match that mentioned with respect to parents and children. 40. This question comes up similarly and with particular urgency in a late epitaph (GV 627, second to third century a.d.) for a doctor from Thasos named Antiochus (the following discussion owes much to the stimulating comments of Regina Höschele). /Αντοχον Σωτηρα
ν Cρα
τε, Tς 6νθδε κει
µε, Tς πολλω
ν νδρω
ν ε:δον στεα κα νον (γν 具ω典ν, οaνεκα κα νοσων στυγερω
ν πολλο1ς 6σωσα, λλJη φαρµαχθες, Θασων δ µε δξατο γε
α.

The deceased doctor presents himself in first-person speech in terms of the Odyssey prologue. His medium, appropriately enough, is dactylic hexameter. Like the epic hero of Od. 1.3, he

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street 165

this question in the same way for an inscribed monument as for a text on a scroll; their modes of reception are too different. A scroll is portable; its reader may keep it with him, study it at his leisure repeatedly and under different circumstances, compare its text with those on other scrolls. Inscribed monuments, by contrast, are fixed in a single place, their connection to the reader precarious, dependent as it is on his presence and goodwill. Thus, when the epitaph of Lampis urges its reader, in verse 3 to “go in safety” (λλ/ :θι µοι χαρων), it does not reckon with return visits for further contemplation. To my knowledge, no ancient inscription envisions such a second chance: the etiquette requires “Farewell,” not “Au revoir.”41 Who, then, would be likely to grasp those more recondite allusions? Notwithstanding the fact that the epigram is explicitly addressed to an anonymous wayfarer (the ξνος of v. 2), the most likely answer seems to be the members of Lampis’ family. These were plausibly offered a papyrus copy of the poem for approval before it was set in stone.42 From that says, “I have seen the cities of many men and known their mind.” Thus far the Odyssean color could not be more obvious—as with (ννεπε, λα
ε in Lampis’ epitaph. The allusion becomes marginally more complex, though still readily comprehensible, in v. 3, where the doctor may be claiming to have outdone his epic model inasmuch as he has saved many people. Odysseus had been unable to do so (λλ/ ο"δ/ uς 2τρους 6ρρσατο, µενς περ, Od. 1.6). Indeed, his nickname Σωτ ρ, “preserver” (v. 1), confirms the doctor’s claim πολλο1ς 6σωσα (v. 3); Homer, by comparison, plays on the derivation of Odysseus’ name from 4δσσοµαι (Od. 1.60–62, etc.) and highlights his hero’s destructive aspect: Τροης ερν πτολεθρον (περσε (Od. 1.2). Though glorifying its subject through the comparison with Odysseus in vv. 2–3, the epigram’s relation to the Odyssey acquires greater complexity in v. 4, when it suddenly tilts toward self-mockery. This physician, it turns out, is no Odysseus after all. Not for him the happy nostos, for he failed to make it home, having been poisoned while still on his travels (λλJη φαρµαχθες, v. 4). Did the doctor mistake his own φρµακα? Was he a victim of foul play? The mystery is left unsolved. Here, too, however, there is a specifically Odyssean point. At Od. 1.261, Athena (as Mentes) says she first encountered Odysseus when he was on a journey gathering deadly poison to smear on his arrows (φρµακον νδροφνον διζ µενος). The real Odysseus is thus a master of φρµακα, able to withstand their effects (as in the Circe episode). Poor Antiochus was simply not as cunning as πολµητις Odysseus. In view of the epigram’s apparently self-deprecating wit, we are left wondering, who would have written this, and for whose delectation—the doctor himself as he lay dying, a poet commissioned for the task (perhaps imagining that family members wouldn’t get the reference), a family member (one of those mentioned in the prose inscription under the epigram, i.e., this Odyssean doctor’s loyal parents, son, and wife—described as σµβιος, despite his being frequently away)? Humor is not especially common in inscribed epitaphs, so one may well wonder at whom this allusion is aimed. 41. For the dynamic of the reader’s interaction with the inscribed text, cf. “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” and “The Un-Read Muse?” in the present volume. 42. Such a scenario seems likely in the case of a papyrus letter containing a pair of sepulchral epigrams to commemorate Tauron, the hunting dog of Zenon, agent of Apollonius, chief financial administrator of Ptolemy Philadelphus (SH 977).

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The Scroll and the Marble

source, repeated reading would be as easy as with any scroll. But even at the grave site, it is family members who might be expected to make regular visits and so have the chance to scrutinize the poem most thoroughly.43 In any case, whether dealing with that baseline audience to whom the more obvious allusion is pitched or with those apt to detect the subtler examples, the readers of the inscribed epigram look rather different and operate under starkly different conditions from those we generally imagine as consumers of literary texts and interpreters of their allusions. I want to illustrate that difference through an example of allusion in a literary epigram by Callimachus (43 Pf. ⫽ 13 GP ⫽ AP 12.134) and so bring us back to the symposium as a favored setting for allusive play. KΕλκος (χων C ξει
νος 6λνθανενD Eς νιηρν πνευ
µα δι στηθων (ε,
δες;) νηγγετο, τ τρτον ?νκ/ (πινε, τ δ+ 8δα φυλλοβολευ
ντα τbνδρς π στεφνων πντ’ 6γνοντο χαµαD e πτηται µγα δ τιD µ δαµονας ο"κ π 8υσµου
ε,κζω, φωρς δ/ :χνια φ5ρ (µαθον.

[We didn’t notice that the stranger has a wound. What a painful sigh he heaved through his breast (did you see?) when he drank his third cup, and the roses, shedding their petals, fell from the man’s garlands all onto the ground. He’s burned, and bad! I’m not just guessing, by the gods. A thief knows the tracks of a thief.] The poem is a self-conscious variation on one by Asclepiades (18 GP ⫽ AP 12.135), where a speaker illustrates the opening apophthegm that wine is the test of love (Ο,
νος (ρωτος (λεγχος, v. 1), by recalling a symposium in which frequent toasts (α πολλα . . . προπσεις, v. 2) revealed the symptoms of love in Nikagoras, despite his denials: “he cried, he hung his head, he looked downcast, his wreath would not stay on” (6δκρυσεν, 6νστασε, κατηφ+ς (βλεπε, ο"κ (µενε στφανος, vv. 3–4). Our epigram shapes this unelaborated recollection into a drama that unfolds before our eyes. The speaker becomes a character at the symposium, an intelligent, compassionate observer who—with a confidential ε,
δες; (v. 2)—invites us to imagine ourselves his drinking companions, pointing out to us a guest’s painful sigh 43. I suggested this explanation for the subtle Odyssean allusion in CEG II 597, discussed in n. 17 in the present essay. For continuing visits to family grave sites, cf. Garland 1985: 104–20; cf. also Venit 2002: 187–89.

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street 167

already at the third toast (as opposed to α πολλα . . . προπσεις in Asclepiades’ v. 2)44 and the rose petals from his wreath fallen to the ground— telltale signs of previously undetected erotic suffering (6λνθανεν, v. 1). With a witty closing apophthegm to match the one with which Asclepiades began,45 the speaker acknowledges that he speaks from experience (φωρς δ/ :χνια φ5ρ (µαθον, v. 6). The concluding proverb is attested in Aristotle: (γνω δ+ φρ τε φω
ρα, κα λκος λκον (Eth. Eud. 1235a9). To this, Callimachus significantly adds “tracks,” :χνια, a reference to the signs of erotic affliction detected by the speaker, but also—as Marco Fantuzzi astutely observes—a metapoetic comment: Callimachus knows well the :χνια of his model Asclepiades. But further, as poets of erotic verse, both authors know well and draw on the tradition of erotic literature that includes such physical signs. From this perspective, as Fantuzzi suggests, the phrase ο"κ π 8υσµου
in verse 5 seems to be used pointedly: the speaker’s conjecture is not musically out of step with the tradition.46 Inasmuch as the reader is addressed in the parenthetical ε,
δες; of verse 2 as a fellow observer, he is invited to join in the process of discovering the :χνια embedded in the scene. And indeed, there are further “tracks” in this poem, which to my knowledge no reader before now has noted. For our poet has modeled his dramatic situation on two Odyssean passages, Odyssey 8.93–95 and 8.532–35. There, at the feast of the Phaeacians, following the first and third song of Demodokos, Alkinoos observes Odysseus— whom he, too, refers to as C ξει
νος in each passage (8.101, 541), in the same metrical position as in our poem—suffering with sighs in the midst of libations (cf. 8.88–89): “There, shedding tears, he went unnoticed by all the others [6λνθανε, as in our poem], / but Alkinoos alone understood what he did and noticed, / since he was sitting next to him and heard him groaning heavily” ((νθ/ λλους µ+ν πντας 6λνθανε δκρυα λεβων, / /Αλκνοος δ µιν ο,
ος 6πεφρσατ/ Vδ/ 6νησεν / \µενος γχ/ α"του
, βαρ1 δ+ στενχοντος κουσεν—note how Callimachus elaborates βαρ1 στενχοντος into a “painful sigh he brought up out of his chest”). By recalling

44. Thus Giangrande (1968: 120–22). 45. Thus Ludwig (1968: 313). 46. Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004: 338–40 with n. 181. The word 8υθµς may denote any regularly recurring motion (e.g., in music) and, by extension, a recognizable pattern in human behavior (cf. Archilochus 128.7 West, Anacreon PMG 416.2), artifacts, or natural phenomena (cf. LSJ s.v.). Hence, ο"κ π 8υσµου
may mean that the speaker’s guess is “not out of line” (i.e., it fits the pattern). Gow and Page (GP ad loc.) suggest the translation “My conjecture is not out of step,” comparing such phrases as 6ν 8υθµMω
, “in step, rhythmically.”

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Alkinoos, Callimachus characterizes his speaker as an ideally knowing and sympathetic participant in the symposium, for the Phaeacian king came to be viewed as the paradigmatic sympotic host (as we see, e.g., in the sepulchral epigram for the third century b.c. Corcyrean poet Philikos, “who
µ+ν saw the festive old age of Alkinoos, a man who knew how to live” (ε" γη
ρας ,δ5ν ε"στιον /Αλκινοιο / Φαηκος, ζειν νδρς 6πισταµνου, SH 980.5–6).47 The allusion also underlines the very different circumstances between epic and epigram: while Alkinoos recognizes the marks of heroic suffering, our speaker detects those of erotic distress. Aristotle—it is interesting to note—cites this same Odyssean model in his Poetics (16.1455a) to illustrate a type of “recognition” (ναγνρισις) that he terms “recognition through memory” (ναγνρισις δι µν µης). There, it is Odysseus who, spurred by the text of Demodokos’ songs, tearfully remembers his own exploits and so precipitates his recognition (κα ? 6ν /Αλκνου πολγMω, κοων γρ του
κιθαριστου
κα µνησθες 6δκρυσεν, @θεν νεγνωρσθησαν). Was this Aristotelian passage lurking in Callimachus’ mind when he incorporated the reference to Odyssey 8 into his epigram, and could he have seen in it a commentary on allusion? I suspect he did. For the challenge of allusion in the reception of a poem might likewise be termed “recognition through memory”: for readers, as for Odysseus, a text may trigger the memory of an earlier—readerly—experience and so bring about a recognition. But to an extent that goes beyond what Aristotle suggests about the case of Odysseus, the reference here is oblique, condensed, and deliberately veiled. Indeed, allusive artistry is figured as a larcenous cat-andmouse game between poet and reader in which the former conceals the loot—that is his reference to poetic precursors—by cloaking it in a different context, while challenging us to play detective and find him out: φωρς δ/ :χνια φ5ρ (µαθον.48 Metapoetically speaking, Callimachus here made 47. Cf. also the late second-century b.c. inscribed epigram on Delos by Antisthenes of Paphos (ID 1553, with forthcoming discussion by Garulli) honoring Simalos of Salamis in Cyprus as a second Alkinoos: /Αλκινου µελθροισι προσ[εκ]ελα δµατα ναων, / Σµαλε, τα
ς φελου
ς δ[ει
γµα] φιλοξενας (vv. 1–2); Athen. 1.9a: “And Alkinoos, whose choice inclined to a luxurious life; he feasted the Phaeacians, who lived most luxuriously, and entertained the stranger Odysseus” (/Αλκνους δ+ C τν τρυφερν J?ρηµνος βον το1ς τρυφερωττους 2στιω
ν Φαακας κα τν /Οδυσσα ξενζων). It is worth noting as well that Alkinoos and his queen, Arete, had currency in third-century b.c. poetry as epic models of the Ptolemaic royal couple; cf. the comments on Theocr. Id. 17.38–39 in Hunter 2003b: 128–29. See also Fantuzzi 2006. 48. It is probably not coincidental that verbs of concealment abound in Callimachus’ model passage in Odyssey 8: Odysseus there draws a mantle over his head (µγα φα
ρος 2λ5ν . . . / κκ κεφαλη
ς ε:ρυσσε, vv. 84–85), hides his face (κλυψε δ+ καλ πρσωπα, v. 85; cf.

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street 169

off like a bandit, his “theft” from Homer undetected for so long— 6λνθανεν, he might have said—while we the readers appear momentarily clueless, unable to read the signs, even in a poem that is all about noticing (literary) tracks.49 In what kind of setting will readers have engaged in such a learned pastime? Definitely not as they glimpsed an inscribed monument in a busy street or bustling shrine. In such surroundings, they would not have been equal to the game’s demands, for their encounter with the text would be fleeting. People rarely went out with the aim of reading inscribed poems. As one such poem puts it, the everyman addressee “strides along the road with his mind on other things” (νθροπε hστεχε[ι]ς : καθ/οδ | ν : φρασν : λα µενοινõν, CEG I 28). If he succumbs to the epigram’s appeal and pauses to read, the stop is envisioned as incidental and brief. As we have seen, poems destined for public settings adapt their allusions to these difficult circumstances of reception and to a readership of modest education, by making them unmistakable. That is a far cry from the audience Callimachus requires for his cunning game of detection. It is no coincidence that he evokes an idealized image of a sympotic gathering—such as that proposed for the Ischia Cup— as the setting for his game. Yet for the reader to discover the layers of allusion (not just Asclepiades but the Odyssey, too), he must bring to the task an ingenuity and erudition beyond that assumed by the humble cup; he must have time; he must also have the patience to persist with repeated rereading and reflection and, yes, a thievishness to match that of the author. Even then, one can only say Thank goodness there is no statute of limitations on discovering allusions. Here, once more, the medium of communication and context of reception are crucial. The sine qua non of such allusive play is, to my mind, the epigram’s setting on a tablet or scroll. For there it can be carried around with ease, is available wherever and whenever its reader wishes, and may be set beside other texts, commentaries, glossaries, and so on. Against the backdrop of reading allusion in inscription, this sort of reception, with its literary detective work, turns out to be an elite pastime indeed. καλυψµενος γοασκεν, v. 92), wipes away the traces of his tears (δκρυ/ 4µορξµενος, v. 88), etc. For a helpful discussion of allusion as theft, cf. Hinds 1998: 22–25. As far as I know, this figure for allusion has yet to be investigated in Greek literature. 49. Here (with 6λνθανεν in v. 1‚ ε,
δες; in v. 2 and (µαθον in v. 6) and elsewhere in his epigrams, Callimachus is interested in the mental process that leads a speaker from ignorance to comprehension. (Cf., e.g., 30 Pf. ⫽ 12 GP ⫽ AP 12.71 (ο"κ (γνων, v. 2; (γνων, v. 5); 41 Pf. ⫽ 4 GP ⫽ AP 12.73 (ο"κ ο,
δ/, v. 1; ο,
δ/ @τι, v. 6); 15 Pf. ⫽ 40 GP ⫽ AP 7.522 (τς δ/ 6σσ; v. 1‚ ο_ σ/ [ν 6πγνων, / ε, µ . . . , vv. 1–2). Cf., generally, Walsh 1990: 1–21.

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By way of a coda, I want to return briefly to the symposium as a site conducive to allusive play. This setting and the poetry proper to it has bracketed my discussion of Odyssean allusion on inscribed monuments, providing—from within an elite domain where learned poetic reference was more common—a foil for the less-challenging verse set out in public spaces, along the broad, well-trodden street. Our trajectory, however, from Ischia Cup to Callimachean epigram has also encompassed divergent eras, separated by almost half a millennium, from early Greece to the third century b.c. Between them, the symposium had accrued new meaning. A defining feature of early sympotic verse had been its occasionality. The poem on the Ischia Cup bespoke its occasion with particular clarity, as it was inscribed on an object specially made for use at an actual symposium. Though enduring into the Hellenistic era as a vibrant social institution, the symposium had by then also become literature. As evoked in Callimachus, there is no necessary link to an actual occasion: the setting of his epigram is neither so specific as to be fixed to a particular historic moment (as, e.g., in the poetry of Alcaeus) nor so generic as to apply to any sympotic gathering at which it might be performed (as with the Theognidea). The idealized party in Callimachus is located, rather, in the space of the scroll and set to unfold in the act of reading. That, as we saw, was where one might best engage in that game of detection that the poem’s cunning speaker invited us to play. And there the symposium becomes something different. It becomes, I would argue, a figure for the diachronic community of readers—a community whose members count as their close companions the poet-readers of all eras, as well as their creations. This literary fellowship, in other words, cuts across time, so that even now, if we bring to it the requisite skills, we can join the privileged circle. Even in the present, those belonging to this hetaireia can, if they so wish, cross the threshold at any time and find the festivities in progress— simply by opening the book. The hetairoi are always there: their party is never-ending.50 A well-known epigram of Asclepiades (16 GP ⫽ AP 12.50) may provide a glimpse into that readerly party. 50. Cf. the Greek view of the afterlife as an eternal symposium, at least for the blessed (Plato Resp. 363c–d; Pindar fr. 129, the Tomb of the Diver at Paestum). Socrates looks for
ward to meeting Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod in the underworld (Apol. 41a): X α" /Ορφει
συγγενσθαι κα ΜουσαMω κα ;ΗσιδMω κα ;Οµ ρMω 6π πσMω ν τις δξαιτ/ [ν #µω
ν; 6γ5 µ+ν γρ πολλκις 6θλω τεθνναι ε, ταυ
τ/ 6στν ληθη
. 6πε (µοιγε κα α"τMω
θαυµαστ [ν ε:η ? διατριβ α"τθι . . . Cf. Cic. Sen. 83; Ael. VH 13.20.

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street 171

Πι
ν/, /Ασκληπιδη. τ τ δκρυα ταυ
τα; τ πσχεις; ο" σ+ µνον χαλεπ Κπρις 6λησατο, ο"δ/ 6π σο µονMω κατεθ ξατο τξα κα ,ο1ς πικρς PΕρως. τ ζω
ν 6ν σποδιJη
τθεσαι; πνωµεν Βκχου ζωρν πµαD δκτυλος ς.
πλι κοιµιστν λχνον ,δει
ν µνοµεν; V †πνοµενD ο" γρ (ρως† µετ τοι χρνον ο"κτι πουλν, σχτλιε, τν µακρν νκτ/ ναπαυσµεθα.

5

[Drink, Asclepiades. Why those tears? What’s wrong? You’re not the only one harsh Kypris dragged off. Did bitter Eros sharpen his arrows and his bows against you alone? Why sit in the ash if you’re alive? Let’s drink the pure potion of Bacchus. The dawn is finger thin. Shall we wait to see the lulling lamp again? We drink. There is no love. And it won’t be long now, poor guy, until we rest through the vast night.51] It has long been recognized that Asclepiades draws heavily here on earlier sympotic song. The poem signals as much to the reader by insisting— twice—that “Asclepiades” is not the only one to have been injured by Aphrodite and Eros (vv. 2–4); there have been others before. Readers should thus be on the lookout for (literary) precedents. They hear this, moreover, from a speaker who evidently knows the (poetic) subject of which he speaks. Who is he? This is a question to which I will return. Asclepiades’ chief model is clearly Alcaeus. The specifics of his debt have been analyzed most recently by Richard Hunter (2008), who focuses primarily on Alcaeus fragment 346 (Voigt). The archaic model, as Hunter plausibly suggests, is especially evident at the start of each of the epigram’s two quatrains, with their typically Alcaean calls to drink. But rather than follow Hunter’s view that fragment 346 does double duty as the source for both these echoes—the first a somewhat muted one (πνωµενD τ τ, fr. 346.1 ⬃ Πι
ν/, . . . τ τ, v. 1), the second conspicuous and far-reaching (πνωµενD τ τ λχν/ 4µµνοµεν; δκτυλος µρα, fr. 346.1 ⬃ πνωµεν
πλι κοιµιστν λχνον ,δει
ν Βκχου ζωρν πµαD δκτυλος ςD / V µνοµεν, vv. 5–6)—I would argue, rather, that the Hellenistic poet conflated two Alcaean models, with verse 1 actually alluding to fragment 38.1 51. Translation adapted from Bing and Cohen 1991: 133–34.

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(Voigt) (πω
νε[ . . . . . . . ] Μελνιππ/ µ/ (µοι . . . τ [φαι
ς] ⬃ Πι
ν/, /Ασκληπιδη. τ τ δκρυα ταυ
τα; τ πσχεις; v. 1).52 Seen thus, the formal correspondence is very close indeed: Both poets start from (1) an imperative call to drink, directed toward (2) a singular addressee, mentioned (3) by name in the vocative, and followed most likely by (4) a question introduced by τ.53 And just as Asclepiades justifies his appeal by reference to the inevitability of death (vv. 4, 7–8), so does Alcaeus in fragment 38 (vv. 2– 10)—something that is not the case, so far as we can tell, in fragment 346. As Hunter notes, the epigram shifts in verse 5 from “the private to the public, from the ‘anti-social’ self-absorption of the injured lover to the solidarity of the drinking group, marked by the switch to the first-person plural” (2008). It is here, in this second, more prominent echo (vv. 5–6 ⬃ fr. 346.1), that the voice of Alcaeus is most clearly to be heard. Indeed, the similarities are so great—with the plural exhortation to drink (πνωµεν ⬃ πνωµεν), the question of whether to wait for the lamps (τ τ λχν/
. . . λχνον ,δει
ν µνοµεν), the reference to the “finger’s 4µµνοµεν; ⬃ V breadth” of daylight (δκτυλος µρα ⬃ δκτυλος ς)54—that we seem to hear Alcaeus’ very words.55 Bearing that in mind, the speaker’s call for drink in response to the specifically amorous plight of “Asclepiades” may be viewed as likewise true to Alcaeus’ words: the archaic poet justified his demand for wine by calling it λαθικδεον: ο,
νον γρ Σεµλας κα ∆ος υ
ος λαθικδεον / νθρποισιν (δωκ/ (“for the son of Zeus and Semele gave wine to men to make them forget their worry,” fr. 346.3–4). Our speaker 52. The link to Alcaeus fr. 38 is highlighted most recently also by Guichard (2004: 262– 63). Cf. also Acosta-Hughes and Barbantani 2007: 454–55. 53. It is, of course, not certain that the letters τι[ represent the interrogative pronoun τ. This interpretation, which I adopt from the text of Page (1955: 300), is, however, very plausible. 54. Striking here is not just the metaphorical use of δκτυλος but the ellipse of the verb. In addition, Guichard (2004: 262) suggests that Asclepiades signals these echoes through dialectal coloring: “Llama la atención el que todos los dorismos [ς, v. 5‚ κοιµιστν, v. 6, µακρν, v. 8] se encuentren en partes del poema que hacen variaciones del texto de Alceo” (cf. also 266–67). 55. Of course, those words are also significantly altered throughout, generally with an eye toward intensifying the archaic model. For instance, Alcaeus’ demand to combine two parts wine to one of water ((γχεε κρναις (να κα δο, fr. 346.3–4)—already a strong mix!— becomes in Asclepiades a call to drink wine straight (ζωρν πµα, v. 5). Alcaeus urges his companions to start drinking already before the lamps have been lit and while there is still a trace of daylight (τ τ λχν/ 4µµνοµεν; δκτυλος µρα, fr. 346.1); in Asclepiades, the drinking has already stretched through the night, dawn has been sighted, and the speaker wonders
πλι if they should just keep drinking until the lamps are lit again (δκτυλος ς. / V κοιµιστν λχνον ,δει
ν µνοµεν; vv. 5–6). Despite extending their drinking bout right through the next day, µετ τοι χρνον ο"κτι πουλν, / σχτλιε, τν µακρν νκτ/ ναπαυσµεθα.

Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street 173

merely instantiates and “clarifies” the previously unnamed κ δεα; their nature is erotic.56 This leads us back to what Hunter (2008) terms “the vexed question of ‘Who speaks?’” Scholars have construed the unidentified speaker in various ways. Some consider that “Asclepiades” is here talking to himself; others that he soliloquizes in the first quatrain, while addressing his hetairoi in the second. A different approach is to take the speaker to be one of those drink mates, doing his best to console the lovelorn “Asclepiades.”57 I would like to propose a further possibility, one that develops with greater specificity the idea that the speaker is a fellow reveler at the symposium. Given how distinctly we heard Alcaeus’ words in this poem and how pervasive his presence and inspiration is throughout, could not the speaker be the archaic poet himself ? All poets, most especially those of the Hellenistic era, acknowledge in one way or another that their predecessors speak to them. Asclepiades, I suggest, has dramatized the encounter.58 He does so, moreover, in a typically involving way. Naming no name beside his own, he relies on his readers’ knowledge of literary history to detect the source of the speaker’s words. The setting in which one may hear Alcaeus speak to his Hellenistic counterpart is, of course, no ordinary symposium. It is, rather, that perpetual party that stands for the diachronic fellowship of those immersed in books.59 56. Hunter rightly stresses that “Asclepiades’ reading [of λαθικδεον] may of course have been a creative misreading,” as we are unable to know whether Alcaeus’ κ δεα were political or personal in nature (2008). 57. For the first possibility, cf., most recently, Guichard 2004: 262–63: “La invitación a beber es un estilema de la poesía simposiaca; la novedad de Asclepíades consiste en que se hace la invitación a sí mismo.” The second possibility is raised by Hunter (2008). The third and most common has been argued recently by Gutzwiller (1998: 148–49). 58. The device is comparable to those whereby poets seek to negotiate the gulf between present and past—for instance, Homer’s reincarnation as Ennius or Hipponax’ return from Hades to address the scholars of Alexandria (cf. Bing 1988: 62–72). Similar strategies crop up in the Renaissance, e.g., the dialogue staged by Petrarch in his Secretum between himself and St. Augustine or Petrarch’s letters to ancient authors in the Familiarium Rerum Libri. On the latter, see the insightful analysis of Hinds (2004). Note that Hipponax’ statement in Callimachus that he does not have much time before going (back) to Hades (κα γρ ο"δ/ α"τς / µγα σχολζωD δει
µε γρ µσον δινει
ν / φευ
φ]ευ
/Αχροντος, vv. 33–35) is comparable to “Alcaeus’” closing remark in the epigram that there is not much time any longer before we will sleep the sleep of death (µετ τοι χρνον ο"κτι πουλν, / σχτλιε, τν µακρν νκτ/ ναπαυσµεθα, vv. 7–8). 59. A far later, but remarkably comparable, instance appears in Machiavelli’s letter to Francesco Vettori, 10 December 1513, which dramatizes how the Renaissance present may commune with the classical past: When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and

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Here, for however long they attend the festivities, the normal linearity of time dissolves, and three distinct moments converge: the archaic past of the lyric poet, the Hellenistic present of the epigrammatist, and the future of Asclepiades’ readers. To the extent that we recognize the voice and feel ourselves addressed as fellow revelers in the exhortation of drink (v. 5) and in the poem’s first-person plurals (vv. 6–8), we may join the group. Those who do are among the passionate readers for whom an ancient poet’s words are as full of life as a contemporary’s. It is to such an audience and in that readerly environment—far from the broad, well-trodden street—that the allusive artistry of elite Hellenistic poetry is aimed.

palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely. (Translation from Atkinson and Sices 1996: 262–65)

Note here particularly how, with its evocation of food and table talk in the company of “the ancients,” this passage resembles quite closely that transtemporal symposium where (according to my interpretation) Alcaeus can address Asclepiades. I am grateful to my colleague Garth Tissol for bringing this passage to my attention.

chapter 9

Reimagining Posidippus


I

n 1992, an Italian bank, the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde (CARIPLO), made a generous donation to the Università degli Studi di Milano, allowing it to acquire a mummy pectoral that contained a hidden treasure. The pectoral was made of cartonnage, “a kind of . . . papier mâché built up of sheets of used papyrus”.1 In this instance, the cartonnage consisted of some documentary papyri and a substantial scroll, which turned out to hold remains of 112 epigrams, some six hundred verses divided into sixteen columns. The papyrologists Guido Bastianini and Claudio Gallazzi made the find public in a preliminary report in 1993. Here they established that two of the poems were previously known and attributed already in antiquity to the mid-third-century b.c. epigrammatist Posidippus of Pella.2 Moreover, as the scroll contained no further indications of authorship and as diction, meter, style, and range of historical reference in the remaining epigrams were largely in accord, they concluded that Posidippus was in all likelihood the author of the entire collection.3

1. Turner 1968: 24. 2. The two were the poem on the “snakestone,” cited by Tzetzes (Chil. 7.660 ⫽ 20 GP ⫽ II 39–III 7 BG ⫽ 15 AB), and the poem on a statue of Alexander the Great by the sculptor Lysippus, preserved in the Planudean anthology (APlan 119 ⫽ 18 GP ⫽ X 30–33 BG ⫽ 65 AB). 3. That is now the communis opinio, as one can see from the unanimity of the contributions in Gutzwiller 2005b. It is worth recalling, however, that some scholars have questioned the attribution in varying degrees: Lloyd-Jones (2003) believes that the Milan papyrus may have been part of a multiauthored collection (possibly the so-called Soros); Ferrari (2004) considers the epigrams of the papyrus to be mostly by Posidippus but thinks it included variations

177

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The Scroll and the Marble

This epigrammatist’s work had until then been known only through a fragmentary elegy of twenty-eight verses on his old age, which has been characterized as the sphragís, or “seal,” poem of Posidippus (SH 705 ⫽ 118 AB), and some twenty-five epigrams, mainly erotic and sympotic. There had been earlier indications that there was also a political side to his poetry, for several epigrams celebrated Ptolemaic monuments and cult. Significantly, these appeared only in poems preserved outside the Greek Anthology, from the Firmin-Didot papyrus,4 or in Athenaeus.5 Bastianini and Gallazzi now indicated that there were important new poems celebrating Ptolemaic royalty. Indeed, their sketch of the scroll’s contents promised something altogether different from the mainly erotic/ sympotic subject matter that had previously shaped our view of this poet. They described how the epigrams were organized on the scroll into at least nine sections according to topic, each with its own heading, the titles pointing to nothing resembling the erotic/sympotic subject matter known before. Some categories were familiar from those of the Greek Anthology, some bizarrely different. In sequence, the headings announced poems on “Stones” ([λιθι]κ ), “Bird Signs” (ο,ωνοσκοπικ), “Dedications” (ναθεµατικ), “Epitaphs” [6πιτµβια], “Statuary” (νδριαν το π οι ικ), “Equestrian Matters” (ππικ ), “Shipwrecks” (ναυαγικ), “Miraculous Cures” (,αµατικ), and a mysterious topic called “Tropoi” (τρποι). On the basis of the documentary papyri preserved in the cartonnage, as well as to judge by the hand, Bastianini and Gallazzi dated the scroll to the late third or early second century b.c. Since we know that Posidippus was active from about the 280s into the 240s, this meant that the papyrus was on individual poems by other authors; Schröder (2004) subjects the new poems to a harshly critical stylistic analysis and finds them unworthy “eines erstrangigen hellenistischen Epigrammatikers” (31), “einer allgemein anerkannten Koryphäe ihres Fachs” (32), “eines hochhellenistischen Meisterdichters” (42). To my mind, howeer, Schröder simply assumes the high quality of the previously known poems of the “old” Posidippus, rather than demonstrating it. One may well ask, should Posidippus be considered in the first rank of Hellenistic poets—on a level, say, with Theocritus or Callimachus—rather than as a highly successful second-stringer? In my view, it might be closer to the mark to say that Posidippus resembles Salieri to Callimachus’ Mozart—though Posidippus at his best is probably better than Mozart’s contemporary. 4. Weil 1879. The epigrams (11–12 GP ⫽ 115–16 AB) concern the dedication of the statue of Zeus Soter atop the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the establishment of the shrine of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis at Cape Zephyrium by the Ptolemaic admiral Kallikrates of Samos. On these poems, see my essay on “Posidippus and the Admiral,” ch. 12 in the present volume. 5. Athen. 7.318d ⫽ 13 GP ⫽ 119 AB, a further poem on the shrine of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis; cf. also the reference at 10.415a ⫽ 143 AB to an epigram on Aglais, who blew the trumpet for the Ptolemaiia in the first great procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus.

Reimagining Posidippus 179

produced not long after the poet’s own lifetime. This raised intriguing questions: Was the order of the poems artful or academic? If artful, might it derive ultimately from Posidippus himself; that is, was the poet simultaneously an editor, like his contemporary Callimachus? Ancient evidence already suggested that Posidippus engaged in such activity (see the discussion later in this essay on the celebrated case of Berisos). Did the Milan papyrus constitute a concrete instance? In any case, the wealth of new material evident even in this preliminary sketch justified its title, “Il poeta ritrovato.” The papyrologists, however, did not publish their findings in a scholarly journal. These appeared, rather, in the bank’s in-house publication, a glossy magazine with the reassuringly steadfast title Ca’ de Sass (House of Stone).6 This report included a tantalizing photograph of the papyrus, just too small to read (even with magnificiation), and reproduced four of the poems in full. That same year, Bastianini and Gallazzi brought out another publication, Posidippo Epigrammi: this slender, boxed volume intended as a gift for the bank’s investors, beautifully produced on heavy paper and with exquisite typesetting, contained a text and translation of twenty-five epigrams from the scroll, including the four already published.7 These publications caused an enormous stir among scholars of Hellenistic poetry, but also much frustration. First of all, they were hard to come by. Samizdat copies, or copies of copies, circulated, some hopelessly faded from repeated copying. This led to ludicrous, if touching, scenes of scholars huddled together at desks, bright lights trained on the washed-out letters of a much-thumbed duplicate, excitedly trying to decipher the letters of a photocopy.8 Far more seriously, however, the texts—even when easily legible—offered no scholarly apparatus or diacritical signs to indicate lacunae, uncertain readings, or even whether they were extracts from longer epigrams. Thus, from a scholarly standpoint, they were virtually unusable. That is how matters stood for about eight years. Then, in the autumn 6. Bastianini and Gallazzi 1993a: 34–39. 7. Bastianini and Gallazzi 1993b; cf. the closing words of the preface: “Questo prezioso libretto contiene una parte significativa di quegli epigrammi, stampati con la cura e la perfezione che un piccolo tesoro ritrovato richiede e che la tecnica raffinata del Polifilo ancora consente.” 8. As for me, it occurred to me that the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde might have a branch office in New York. A glance in the phone book confirmed that it did. Thus, during a visit to the city, I walked into the office and asked if they happened to have a spare copy of each of the preliminary publications. The friendly receptionist asked why I wanted them, and when I told her of my interest in Hellenistic poetry, she said that there were plenty in the storage room and asked how many I wanted.

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of 2001, the editio princeps finally appeared, a lavishly produced edition in two volumes, with introduction, diplomatic and critical texts on facing pages, and extensive commentary thereafter. The commentary, in particular, is a work of deep scholarship, which will doubtless provide the basis for all work on the papyrus for the foreseeable future. The editors, Bastianini and Gallazzi, acknowledge the far-reaching contribution of Colin Austin, who shed light on innumerable doubtful readings and proposed many persuasive reconstructions. Within a year of the appearance of the first edition, Austin and Bastianini produced an attractive editio minor, containing not just the new epigrams but all known works of Posidippus, including some that are doubtfully attributed. In this immensely useful book, with facing-page translations in Italian and English as well as a comprehensive index verborum and nominum, Posidippus suddenly emerged—if we take the uncertain attributions for genuine—as the single best-preserved poet of Hellenistic epigram. Faced with the sudden quadrupling of his oeuvre, it makes sense to step back for a moment and reevaluate our view of the poet or, better, reimagine him. Who was this Posidippus? This much is certain: his is no household name, even among classicists. No Latin poet ever declared his ambition to be the Roman Posidippus. No Latin poet ever even mentioned Posidippus, though a good case can be made that some read him and were influenced by what they read (Hutchinson 2002; R. F. Thomas 2004; Barchiesi 2005).9 What, then, do we know? “My family is from Pella,” he states in his sphragis, the elegy on old age (Πελλαι
ον γνος µν, SH 705.17 ⫽ 118.17 AB). That link with Pella, the royal seat of Macedon, which the poet proudly declares in this elegy, is confirmed by an inscription from Thermon of the year 263/2 (IG IX 12i, 17A.24 ⫽ test. 3 AB), listing those to whom the Aetolians granted proxeny. Among many others, they bestowed this honor “on Posidippus, the poet of epigram, from Pella” (Π  ο[σ]ε ι δ  ππωι τω
ι 6πιγραµµατοποιω
ι Πελλαωι). Strong identification with his Macedonian heritage, such as Posidippus displays here in his seal poem, also emerges in the new poems of the Milan papyrus as something he shares with his foremost patrons, the Ptolemies.10 As to Posidippus’ fur9. For his influence on Greek poets of the imperial age, see Magnelli 2005; Gronewald 2004. 10. Marco Fantuzzi (2005: 251–52) has productively explored the “remarkable emphasis” on the Ptolemies’ Macedonian ethnicity, especially in the ππικ: “the Ptolemies deliberately presented themselves not as ‘kings of Egypt,’ but as ‘Macedonians’ in the context of pan-Hellenic games from which non-Greeks were excluded. With this ethnic designation the Ptolemies may also have strengthened their persistent claim to be the real and legitimate successors of Alexander the Great.”

Reimagining Posidippus 181

ther designation in the inscription as 6πιγραµµατοποις, I will return to that shortly. Pella has added a further piece to the biographical puzzle in recent years, with a find suggesting that family tradition may have predisposed the poet toward initiation in the mysteries. That same seal poem of Posidippus ends with the following wish: “But in old age may I travel the mystic path to Rhadamanthys, longed for by my people and all the commuity, on my feet without a stick, sure of speech among the crowd, and leaving to my children my house and my wealth” (α"τρ 6γ5 / γ ραι µυστικν ο,
µον 6π ;Ραδµανθυν κοµην / δ µωι κα λαω
ι παντ ποθεινς 6ν, / σκπων 6ν ποσσ κα 4ρθοεπς ν/ @µιλον / κα λεπων τκνοις δω
µα κα =λβον 6µν, SH 705.24–28 ⫽ 118.24–28 AB). Excavations at a cemetery in the vicinity of Pella suggest that a recent ancestor either paved this “mystic path” for Posidippus or at least pointed it out to him. For a leaf-shaped lamella made of gold, discovered in a tomb there of the late fourth century b.c., contained the inscription ΦΕΡΣΕΦΟΝΗΙD ΠΟΣΕΙ∆ΙΠΠΟΣ ΜΥΣΤΗΣ ΕΥΣΕΒΗΣ (Attention Persephone: Posidippus the initiate is pious). As Matthew Dickie has argued, this is not the epigrammatist Posidippus, but a citizen of Pella from the generation of the grandfather of the poet and probably related: “If there was one member of the family who was an initiate in the mysteries, it becomes more likely that the epigrammatist was also an initiate.”11 In this light, it is striking that the first three sepulchral epigrams in the new papyrus may commemorate initiates in the mysteries (42–44 AB), the last one, significantly, from Pella (44 AB). It is for a girl called Niko. 6κ τκνω [ν νετ]ην δυοκαδεκα κα  []σ αν παρθνο[ν (κλαιο]ν Πλλ [α] κα Ε"ιδ [ες α,
τρς, 6π[ειδ Μοι
]ρα ∆ιωνσοιο θερ[πνην Νικ5 Β ασ [σαρικω
ν] Aγαγεν 6ξ 4ρων.

[The [youngest] of twelve children, a [lovely] maiden, [was wept by] Pella and her ecstatic friends three times, alas, [when Fate] brought down the servant of Dionysus Niko, from the [Bacchic] mountains.] 11. Dickie 1998. As Dickie says (74), “The name Posidippus is common enough, but the likelihood is that Pella will not have had many men called Posidippus who were also persons of substance, as the inhabitant of the grave evidently was, and who were unrelated to each other.” For the original publication of the lamella, cf. Lilibaki-Akamati 1989: 95–101. Cf. also Dickie 1995; Dickie 2005; Rossi 1996.

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The maiden Niko evidently died while participating in the Dionysiac mysteries. Destiny (Moira, the supplement in v. 3, looks plausible) had to bring her back from the mountains (Aγαγεν 6ξ 4ρων, v. 4), since—as Β ασ [σαρικω
ν] . . . 4ρων here indicates (BG ad loc.)—that was where the frenzied Dionysiac ritual took place. Youthful though she was (vv. 1–2), she probably died of exhaustion during the rites (Dignas 2004: 183 rightly compares the tale from Plutarch’s Mulierum Virtutes 13 underlining the potential dangers from fatigue for participants in maenadic rites). The threefold cry of ritual lament, α,
τρς, at the start of verse 3, with which her civic and religious community (and by implication, the epigram’s readers) bewail her, is balanced against the epigram’s closing phrase, 6ξ 4ρων. This is a pointed reversal of the ritual cry ε,ς =ρος ε,ς =ρος in the Bacchic rites, the well-known refrain of the maenads in Euripides’ Bacchae (116, 165).12 Thus, as the epitaph suggests, as the body is brought back from the mountain, the place of burial supplants the place of ecstasy, and the cry of grief supplants the frenzied Bacchic call. Besides his Pellaean origin, his family’s link to local mystery cult, and the poet’s interest in initiates of the mysteries from this vicinity, another crucial fact about Posidippus emerges in the inscription at Thermon. Otto Weinreich, the scholar who first drew attention to the importance of this text, shrewdly noted that the reference to Posidippus suggests that he was being honored specifically in his capacity as 6πιγραµµατοποις, that is, as poet of epigrams to be inscribed on monuments and honoring notable men of the Aetolian League.13 That 6πιγραµµατοποις refers to inscribed verse is likely, since at this early date, the term 6πγραµµα still carried its literal meaning, “inscription.” Even more decisively in favor of that word’s epigraphic connotation is its very use here in an inscription. /Επιγρφεσθαι is proper to—indeed, virtually a terminus technicus in—inscriptions. Consequently, this verb and its derivatives prompt medium-specific expectations in readers of an inscription. That is especially so at a time when the metaphorical meaning of 6πιγραµµα (i.e., poems that had the form, but not the context, of physical epigrams) was still new. The earliest probable use of 6πγραµµα in its 12. Thus also Dignas (2004: 182–83), who points to the epigram from Miletus (MS I 01/20/21) commemorating a priestess of Dionysus, who led her celebrants to the mountain
γε, v. 3). Cf. also Theocr. 26.2: τρει
ς θισως 6ς =ρος τρει
ς γαγον α"τα (#µα
ς κε,ς =ρος V 6οι
σαι. 13. Weinreich 1918: 439: “Die Vermutung liegt nahe, dass er solche [Epigramme] für den ätolischen Bund gedichtet hat—etwa Grab- oder Weihepigramme für hervorragende Männer des Bundes, Steinepigrame für historische Persönlichkeiten dieser Zeit.”

Reimagining Posidippus 183

broader, metaphorical sense of a short occasional poem is the title σµµεικτα 6πιγρµµατα (P. Petrie II 49a ⫽ SH 961) from around 250 b.c. (Puelma 1996). The use of 6πιγραµµατοποις in the inscription at Thermon (263/2 b.c.) is clearly earlier. What is more, it occurs at a provincial shrine—no Panhellenic sanctuary—where one would expect traditional terminology, rather than innovative usage. Coming so early, in Aetolia, and particularly in an inscription, 6πιγραµµατοποις would scarcely have meant anything other than a poet of epigrams to be inscribed on monuments.14 Why insist on this point? The inscriptional connotation of the term 6πιγραµµατοποις at Thermon deserves emphasis, I think, because it decisively shapes our image of Posidippus’ poetic enterprise, suggesting that he actively wrote epigrams for inscription, even as he also wrote them for the scroll. If this is right, he is a poet who worked on two different tracks, that is, in two different media, though in a single genre—the first such poet that we know of with certainty.15 As I shall show later in this essay and in subsequent essays in this book, he was keenly aware of the aesthetic potential of each form. In either case, he understood that the medium was key to the message. The bestowal of proxeny here indicates that an epigrammatist might achieve considerable status from such commissions—even though verse inscriptions were traditionally anonymous, their poets named only in exceptional cases. The presence of a Posidippus, together with a certain Asclepiades (possibly the contemporary epigrammatist and associate of our poet), on a proxeny list at Delphi in the mid-270s, (Fouilles de Delphes III 3 no. 192 ⫽ test. 2 AB), suggests that Posidippus may already have won considerable recognition for his inscribed poems a decade before the 14. That medium-specific connotation may be clarified by reference to a modern example. Consider the phrase “iron curtain.” Its original use was theatrical, designating the safety curtain that falls between stage and audience to prevent fires—a standard element of theater equipment since the eighteenth century (the OED cites the earliest use of the phrase in 1794). If a book on stagecraft referred to the “iron curtain” within, say, ten years of 1946, when Winston Churchill first used that term to describe the cold war divide between East and West, it would in all likelihood refer to the traditional fire-retardant barrier (still common in British theaters). Set in a theatrical handbook, the conventional theater-specific sense of “iron curtain” is a priori more likely to be operative than Churchill’s metaphorical usage, which at that time was still quite new. In the meantime, of course, the metaphor has completely displaced the original use of the term, so that most people are now unlikely even to recognize its theatrical roots. 15. An earlier poet, such as Simonides, certainly wrote epigram for inscription, but it is doubtful that he wrote book epigram as well or that he collected his own inscribed epigrams into a book. On the question of when a so-called sylloge Simonidea came into existence, cf. Page 1981: 122–23; Sider 2007. A later instance is Antipater of Sidon, from whom we have, in addition to his many literary epigrams, an inscribed example from Delos (Inscr. de Délos 2549 Roussel-Launey ⫽ 42 GP; cf. Peek 1957).

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honor at Thermon. The most sought-after poets of this sort might also grow rich, as the story of Hieron II and the poet Archimelus shows: the Sicilian tyrant paid this poet fifteen hundred bushels of wheat (one thousand medimnoi ) for an epigram celebrating his royal transport ship and even shipped the wheat to the poet in the Piraeus at his own expense (Athen. 5.209b ⫽ SH 202).16 Posidippus himself, in his elegy on old age, contemplates leaving to his children his house and his fortune (κα λεπων τκνοις δω
µα κα =λβον 6µν, 118.28 AB ⫽ SH 705.28). As the inscriptions from Thermon and Delphi suggest, a considerable part of that fortune likely came from inscriptional commissions. The poems of the Milan papyrus make it abundantly clear that, like Archimelus, Posidippus cultivated close ties to those with money and power, particularly the Ptolemies and their courtiers. The new epigrams are striking for their Ptolemaic orientation: the first section, on stones, closes with a prayer to Poseidon to preserve all of Ptolemy’s domains, “the islands, land, and shores” (20.5–6 AB). Four of six dedicatory epigrams celebrate Arsinoe II Philadelphus in various divine aspects. Ptolemy Philadelphus commissions one of the statues in the andriantopoiika (63 AB). Five of eighteen poems of the hippika celebrate equestrian victories of Ptolemaic queens. The earliest (87 AB) marks an Olympian victory with four-horse chariot by Berenike I (wife of Ptolemy I) and probably dates to the 280s, so constituting our earliest datable poem by Posidippus (Cameron 1995: 243–44). Others come from the years 248 and 247 and are for Berenike II, soon to be the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes (78, 79, 82 AB);17 these are the poet’s latest datable poems. By any measure, these poems evidence an amazing run of royal patronage over more than three decades. The section also celebrates a Pythian victory of the Ptolemaic admiral Kallikrates of Samos. Finally, the iamatika begin with a poem honoring a high Ptolemaic official, Medeios of Olynthos, son of Lampon. These poems come in addition to several known before, in praise of such courtiers as Sostratus of Cnidus, who dedicated the statue of Zeus Soter atop the Lighthouse of Alexandria (115 AB ⫽ 11 GP ⫽ P. Firmin-Didot), and the establishment of the temple of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis by Kallikrates of Samos (116 AB ⫽ 12 GP ⫽ P. Firmin-Didot; 119 AB ⫽ 13 GP ⫽ Athen. 7.318d). 16. C δ/ ;Ιρων κα /Αρχµηλον τν τω
ν 6πιγραµµτων ποιητν γρψαντα ε,ς τν ναυ
ν 6πγραµµα χιλοις πυρω
ν µεδµνοις, οWς κα παρπεµψεν ,δοις δαπαν µασιν ε,ς τν Πειραια
, 6τµησεν. 17. Thompson (2005: 274–79) suggests, however, that the Berenike of these poems was the true daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe I. This would date 78–79 and 82 AB prior to 252 b.c., since this Berenike left Egypt in that year to marry Antiochus II.

Reimagining Posidippus 185

While we do not know whether any of these poems or others among the new ones were written for inscription, it would be surprising if none was. That is especially so given how shrewdly the Ptolemies set monuments at conspicuous sites throughout the Greek world (Hintzen-Bohlen 1992) and given the implication of the term 6πιγραµµατοποις in connection with Posidippus at Thermon. What we can say more certainly regarding a link to inscription is that the new poems clearly show that Posidippus was conscious of epigraphic genres and exploited them in his poetry, in ways that his contemporaries do not. He goes beyond the common use of epigraphic conventions from sepulchral or dedicatory inscriptions. This is evident, for instance, in the section on cures, the iamatika.18 These poems clearly draw on the tradition of prose inscriptions set up by temple authorities on the basis of stories culled from individual votives at shrines of Asclepius and recounting the greatest miracles performed by the god. Set on the scroll, the sequence of seven epigrams appears to simulate the experience of a pilgrim wandering through the sanctuary and reading inscriptions.19 It is one of the peculiarities of Austin and Bastianini’s editio minor that it omits entirely and without explanation any poems from the epigraphic tradition that might potentially lay claim to Posidippan authorship—this, though it includes any number of dubious poems surviving on papyrus, attributed solely on the basis of suitable style and content, which it cautiously marks with an asterisk. Given what we know about the different fields in which Posidippus plied his trade, the omission of inscribed epigrams is an odd editorial choice.20 If only for the sake of experiment, so as to imagine the sort of poem Posidippus might compose for a monument, let us consider one such epigram, finely inscribed on a statue base from the sanctuary of Apollo at Thermon, the meeting place of the Aetolian League. The epigram contains, as we shall see, elements tailored specifically toward viewers reading the poem in this particular epigraphic setting. It commemorates the dedi18. For a fuller discussion, cf. “Posidippus’ Iamatika” in the present volume. Cf. also Zanetto 2002; Di Nino 2005. 19. Lelli argues for a similar reliance on “una tradizione epigrafica ‘d’uso’” as a particularly characteristic trait in other sections of the Milan papyrus, especially the oionoskopika (2004: 89–93, here 91). 20. Fernández-Galiano, by contrast, in his edition and commentary of Posidippus (1987: 28–30), made sure to include several inscribed poems previously suggested as being Posidippan by Peek (1953: 438) and other epigraphers. Fernández-Galiano is properly cautious about the attributions, justifying their inclusion because of “la posibilidad, si bien no la probabilidad” that they may be “auténticamente posidipeos” (1987: 30).

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cation by a certain Drakon of a bronze statue of his son, Skorpion, killed in an ambush near Teithron while on a cavalry mission to aid the Phocians. The incident has been plausibly linked to the Phocian liberation of nearby Elateia from Antigonid dominance in 285 b.c., a date that accords well with the lettering of the inscription. The epigram runs as follows (IG IX2 51 ⫽ 31 Fernández-Galiano): λσει 6νι χρυσωι σε βοαδροµοντα σ1ν Gππωι [Φ]ωκσι Τεθρωνος κτει
νεν #π στεφναις δ υσµενων κρυφθες φατος λχος, ξια πτρας,  ξ ι α δ/ Ο,νειδα
ν µησµενον προγνων. µναµσυνον δ+ πατρ µορφα
ς σθεν εGσατο τνδε χαλκν /Απλλωνος πρ τριπδεσσι ∆ρκων, @ς σε κα 6µ φθιµνοισιν 6ντ/ ε,ς φνγος νξει, Σ κορπωνD uς γαθω
ν ο"κ πλωλε ρετ.

5

[In a golden grove, as you came with cavalry to the rescue of the Phocians, beneath the brow of Teithron’s hill, without warning, a stealthy enemy ambush killed you, you who contrived things worthy of your fatherland, worthy of your forefathers, the sons of Oeneus. As a memorial, your father, Drakon, dedicated this statue of your form in bronze beside the tripods of Apollo, which will lead you, though dead, up into the light, Skorpion, since the excellence of the noble does not perish.] Any number of factors conspire to make plausible the attribution of this poem to Posidippus. First, it comes from Thermon, the site where he was granted proxeny in his function as 6πιγραµµατοποις, maker of inscribed epigrams. Second, its date fits perfectly with Posidippus’ career. Third, the statue’s dedicator, Drakon, is known to us: we find him named in the very same inscription in which Posidippus was honored, appearing as sponsor of a proxeny (though not of the poet’s; the proxeny list is twenty years later than the epigram for Drakon); he comes up, further, as “Drakon the hipparch” (ππαρχου
ντος ∆ρκοντος) in another inscription of the period (IG IX2 8, 13)—a position that fits nicely with his son’s role in leading the cavalry (σ1ν GππMω, v. 1) in our poem (Weinreich 1918). Setting, date, and cast of characters thus overlap in a most suggestive manner. Further, this is a good poem. It has a vividness and formal ambition well suited to Posidippus. Its style is generally consistent with that of his

Reimagining Posidippus

187

other epigrams. The meter shows nothing that would strike one as anomalous or un-Posidippan.21 Similarly, we find certain commonalities in diction. In verse 1, for instance, the separation of the adjective χρσειος from its noun by means of the preposition 6ν in the phrase λσει 6νι χρυσωι resembles that in 33.4 AB: χρυσεMω . . . 6ν θαλµMω (of the bedroom of Athena in the house of Zeus). In verse 2, the position in the pentameter of the verb κτει
νεν, describing a murderous ambush and combined with an indication of locale where the murder took place, is similar to that in 29.4 AB: κτει
ναν 6ν Α,ολδι. Finally, compare the phrase πατρ µορφα
ς σθεν εGσατο τνδε / χαλκν in verse 5 with Posidippus 18.3 GP (⫽ 65.3 AB): [sc. τν χαλκν] Tν κατ/ /Αλεξνδρου µορφα
ς (θευ. Formal aspects, too, are shaped with care. The epigram falls neatly into two parts, according to setting. The first four verses recall Skorpion’s death “in the golden grove beneath the brow of Teithron’s hills,” whereas the last four shift the scene to the memorial at Apollo’s shrine at Thermon µναµσυνον δ+ . . . /Απλλωνος πρ τριπδεσσι. The latter four verses, it should be noted, do not evoke the site with the geographic specificity of the poem’s first half. They don’t need to: that would have been immediately apparent from the statue’s physical location; the only further requirement was to draw viewers’ attention to the bronze effigy’s prestigious placement close to the tripods of the god. In the poem’s first one and a half lines, we focus exclusively on the noble Skorpion, the addressee, riding to the rescue oblivious of the danger that lurks out of sight, especially in so glorious a setting as a “golden grove” of Apollo22— the grand opening phrase λσει 6νι χρυσωι distracts us, the readers, as well. The verb κτει
νεν shatters the idyll in verse 2. But the poet meaningfully puts off its subject, first underlining the element of stealth through the addition of qualifiers, κρυφθες (concealed) and φατος (of which there had been no report). The careful deferral of λχος until near the end of verse 3 further mirrors the stealth of the ambush and gives φατος the added connotation “unspeakable”: the heinousness of the 21. Cf. Fernández-Galiano 1987: 58–63; Fantuzzi 2002. The breach of Meyer’s Second Law (according to which an iambic word rarely stands before masculine caesura) with πατρ in v. 5 is not uncommon in Posidippus (cf., e.g., 115.9 AB ⫽ 11.9 GP; 132.1 AB ⫽ 15.1 GP). In v. 7, the apparent breach of Naeke’s Law, avoiding word end after a spondaic fourth foot, is mitigated by the fact that the preposition is considered a single unit with its following noun. 22. Pausanias (10.33.12) describes a grove that may be plausibly identified with that in our poem. It lay between Teithron and Drymaea and was dedicated to Apollo by the Teithronians: “From Teithronion it is twenty stades to Drymaea. At the Cephisus, where this road joins the straight one from Amphikleia, the Teithronians have a grove and altars of Apollo. A temple has also been built there, but no cult statue.”

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deed stands in stark contrast to the radiant glory of the grove. Skorpion’s nobility is highlighted again by the emphatic and stylized repetition of the things he accomplished, worthy of his fatherland and worthy of his mythic forebears (ξια πτρας, / ξ ι α Ο,νειδα
ν), an instance of the “bucolic anaphora” especially favored by Theocritus in his pastoral poetry.23 The participle µησµενον in verse 4 certainly points to what Skorpion had contrived, but more poignantly, it may also refer to what he had intended. These verses do not, however, concern Skorpion alone: their emphasis on deeds worthy of the fatherland and of mythic forefathers serves implicitly to exhort those viewers most likely to see the statue at this regional shrine. Fellow Aetolians, who share that same fatherland, might count themselves descendants of Oineus and might well intend great deeds on behalf of their country. The epigram’s meaning, then, is carefully adapted to its physical milieu and keyed to a local audience. Finally, it is notable that the wording and sentiment of the last couplet deliberately echo the end of an epigram attributed to “Simonides” (AP 7.251.3–4 ⫽ pp. 199–200 IX FGE) that, according to Page (1981: 198), was “widely known” and referred to events that “were particularly famous.” Bergk plausibly identified the epigram as one of those mentioned by Pausanias (9.2.4; cf. Page 1981: 197–98) for the dead at Plataea: ο"δ+ τεθνα
σι θανντες, 6πε σφ/ /Αρετ καθπερθε / κυδανουσ/ νγει δµατος 6ξ /Αδεω. (“though they died, they are not dead, since Arete, by giving them glory, leads them up, from above, out of the house of Hades”). The allusion is cued by the presence of the verb νγω and the prominent role of ρετ —the final word of the poem from Thermon. In our poem, the memorial will lead up (νξει) into the light (ε,ς φνγος) one of the dead (6µ φθιµνοισιν);24 in “Simonides,” Arete leads up (νγει) out of Hades (6ξ /Αδεω) those who died (θανντες). In each case, “excellence” (ρετ ) allows them, in some sense, not to perish (ο"κ πλωλε ρετ ⬃ ο"δ+ τεθνα
σι θανντες). The epigram of “Simonides” was sufficiently famous as 23. On “bucolic anaphora,” see “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” in the present volume for my comments regarding Callimachus’ epigram on Astakides the goatherd in relation to Theocr. Id. 1. 24. The pronoun @ς probably refers to the bronze statue (τνδε / χαλκν, vv. 5–6). One might, however, consider whether Drakon could be the antecedent, in which case he will be leading him back from the dead by setting such memorials as this one and spreading his fame. This would be quite a claim for an Aetolian hipparch. But it could involve a play on the names of father and son, recalling traditions about the snake (∆ρκων) being untouched by death (cf. how it sloughs off its skin according to Ibycus [PMG 342] and Sophocles [TrGF IV F 362]) and its links with healing (cf. Asclepius). Both snake and scorpion are γη
ς παι
δες who can suddenly emerge from the earth and into the light.

Reimagining Posidippus 189

to have been copied in a second-century b.c. epitaph from Knossos as well (GV 1513, whose first couplet reads: ο"δ+ θαν5ν ρετα
ς =νυµ/ eλεσας, λλ σε φµα / κυδανουσ/ νγει δµατος 6ξ /Αδα). In our epigram, the figural embodiment of Skorpion’s excellence and fame, his effigy (together with the epigram itself ), replaces “Simonides’” /Αρετ and the Knossian φµα as the agent that ensures his presence in the upper world. The evocation of this Simonidean model in the Thermon epigram, implicitly comparing Skorpion to those who fell in a great battle of the past, suggests considerable sophistication on the part of the poet. While Posidippus is not the most allusive of Alexandrian authors, he was certainly capable of such an allusion as this (see generally my discussion of Posidippus 7 AB in the chapter of this volume on “The Politics and Poetics of Geography,” with its n. 17). Its presence here also hints at a level of learning on the part of his patron, Drakon, sufficient to appreciate his son’s assimilation to heroic models of the past. The fine quality of the inscription and costly material of the statue, coupled with Drakon’s high position as commander of cavalry, suggest that he had enough ambition to hire such a prominent poet as Posidippus. It will have been for such poems as this one—of substantial quality, commemorating important local events, and written for people of consequence—that Posidippus received the honor of proxeny from the Aetolians. I have thus far tried to form a picture of one aspect of Posidippus’ epigrammatic work, namely, that in the medium of inscription. The Thermon decree makes him the earliest poet (and one of the only ones) of whom we can certainly say that he wrote directly for monuments, and that coheres with the unusual awareness of the inscribed medium he displays elsewhere (e.g., in the iamatika). There may well be inscribed epigrams, such as that for Skorpion and his father, which we can plausibly ascribe to him. Given what we know, we should, in any case, not exclude inscriptional poems a limine, as Austin and Bastianini do, thus disregarding an entire important part of Posidippus’ attested activity as though it had never existed. Rather, we should keep our eyes peeled, stay continually on the lookout for, and carefully examine inscriptional poems that we could potentially attribute to our poet (if only as a check on the easier inclination to stick with what has come to us via manuscripts and papyri), remaining fully conscious of the uncertainties that attend such an undertaking. There is, however, another prominent aspect to this epigrammatist, for he is equally interested in the impact of the scroll. The formative importance of papyrus for the poet is memorably expressed in one of the “old” epigrams of Posidippus (6.3 GP ⫽ 137 AB), where the speaker describes

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his soul (vv. 3–4) as “having previously labored in the papyrus scrolls” (? δ+ πρν 6ν ββλοις πεπονηµνη). This toil among the books allows him not just to withstand Pothos but to reap other harvests while reproaching the grievous god. Though not as assertive in his erudition as Callimachus, the doctus poeta par excellence, Posidippus nonetheless shared many of the learnedly bookish interests of his contemporaries. An epigram quoted by Athenaeus likewise stresses the power of the papyrus. It is an epitaph for Doricha, the notorious hetaira of Naukratis in Egypt and mistress of Sappho’s brother Charaxus (Athen. 13.596c ⫽ 17 GP ⫽ 122 AB). In this poem, which I treat in detail in chapter 13 “The Politics and Poetics of Geography” in the present volume, we hear that “the bright resounding papyrus columns of Sappho’s / dear song abide and will yet abide” (ΣαπφMω
αι δ+ µνουσι φλης (τι κα µενουσιν / Mbδη
ς α λευκα φθεγγµεναι σελδες, vv. 5–6) and that they will preserve the name of Doricha “for as long as a ship sails out from the Nile across the salt sea” ((στ/ [ν :Jη Νελου ναυ
ς 6φ/ Zλς πελγη, v. 8), that is, through the ceaseless export of papyrus rolls going out into the world from Egypt. Posidippus, then, was keenly interested in books as a vehicle of literary dissemination. Through the medium of the scroll, even marginal figures of literary biography, such as Doricha, could survive in public consciousness. Ancient testimony further suggests that Posidippus was directly engaged in shaping his own works into collections, that is, he acted as poet and editor at once (just like Callimachus). This appears in the celebrated case of “Berisos,” where we see Posidippus embroiled in a scholarly dispute on Homeric interpretation.25 At Iliad 11.101, we hear that Agamemnon “went on to slay Isos and Antiphos” (α"τρ C βη
8/
/Ισν τε κα PΑντιφον 6ξεναρξων). Doubtless with sly humor, Posidippus interpreted the phrase βη
8/
/Ισν as referring to an otherwise unknown bastard son of Priam, “Berisos,” evidently reading the line as α"τρ C Β ρισον τε κα PΑντιφον 6ξενριξεν (“but he slew Berisos and Antiphos”). According to the (A) scholium on this line, Posidippus mentioned this Berisos in an epigram from a collection called “The Heap,” or Soros.26 That same scholium (⫽ SH 701 ⫽ 144 AB) tells us: “Zenodotus [the editor of Homer and first librarian of the Library of Alexandria] read the line without the rho (i.e., as βη

/Ισν), and Aristarchus says that this Berisos is not now to be found in the [collected] Epigrams of Posidippus, but that he did find it in the so-called Soros. 25. On Berisos, see Nagy 2004: 61–64. 26. Reitzenstein (1893: 96–102) and Cameron (1993: 369–76) believe that the Soros was a collection by multiple authors. Gutzwiller (2005b: 7 n. 19) rightly cautions, however, that the only poet known to have been included in this collection was Posidippus.

Reimagining Posidippus 191

He says it is likely that Posidippus deleted it on being criticized” (Zηνδοτος (ξω του
具ρ典 “βη

/Ισον.” µ 6µφρεσθαι δ φησιν C /Αρσταρχος νυ
ν 6ν τοι
ς Ποσειδππου 6πιγρµµασι τν “Β ρισον,” λλ/ 6ν τMω
λεγοµνMω ΣωρMω
ε#ρει
ν. ε_λογον δ φησιν 6ξελεγχµενον α"τν παλει
ψαι). Thus Aristarchus at least supposed that Posidippus took some flack for his reading and that he thus expunged the character—who was, in any case, a bastard (νθος) and spurious (Il. 11.102–3)—from a subsequent collection. Besides imputing to Posidippus an awareness of scholarly disputes, this passage suggests that Posidippus published his epigrams in at least two collections during his lifetime and that—like Callimachus—he was involved in shaping and editing the different editions. That, in turn, has implications for our assessment of the organization of the Milan papyrus. For it squares well with the artful arrangement of the poems that scholars have noted within individual sections of the papyrus,27 and even of the sections vis-à-vis each other.28 If the iamatika showed how Posidippus exploited his familiarity with epigraphic models to take epigram in new directions, other sections of the Milan papyrus demonstrate that he mined his deep knowledge of the literary tradition to the same purpose. The most surprising and innovative section in the papyrus—and one that forces us to reimagine Posidippus’ conception of epigram quite radically—is the oionoskopika.29 These are didactic poems in epigrammatic form, mainly on bird omens. They read like Aratus transformed into elegiac couplets. In fact, however, we can probably trace the source for these epigrams to an earlier epic, the lost Hesiodic Ornithomanteia, which interestingly was athetized by Apollonius of Rhodes (Paus. 9.31.4ff.). If these are not “untrodden paths” in the Callimachean manner, I don’t know what is. That is so despite the fact that Posidippus is mentioned together with Asclepiades in the Florentine Scholia to the Aetia 1.1 as one of the Telchines, that is, as one of Callimachus’ literary adversaries. Indeed, apart from his admiration for Antimachus’ Lyde (AP 12.168 ⫽ 9 GP ⫽ 140 AB), which Callimachus abhorred (fr. 398), Posidippus’ literary values seem quite compatible with those of his distinguished contemporary. That comes out in one of the new epigrams, commemorating a 27. See “The Politics and Poetics of Geography in the Milan Posidippus” and “Posidippus’ Iamatika” in the present volume. Cf., further, Fantuzzi 2004a; Baumbach and Trampedach 2004; Sens 2005. For doubts as to whether the arrangement reflects the hand of a poet or an editor, see Krevans 2005. 28. See especially Gutzwiller 2004, 2005a. 29. On this section, see, above all, Baumbach and Trampedach 2004; Sider 2005.

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The Scroll and the Marble

statue commissioned from the sculptor Hekataios by none other than Ptolemy Philadelphus and representing Philitas of Cos, one of Callimachus’ chief models (X 16–25 BG ⫽ 63 AB). The poem stresses how, with utmost skill and precision, the sculptor portrayed Philitas as an elderly figure, an anxious perfectionist, with no trace about him of the heroic. Alex Sens has shown persuasively how the literary and artistic ideals embodied here in Philitas, in his sculptural image, and in the epigram itself reflect the refined Hellenistic aesthetic that especially prized works of painstaking techne, exquisite craftsmanship, and polish and that abandoned the grand heroism of earlier traditions for art on a more human scale (Sens 2005; Prioux 2007: 19–74, who however also differentiates Posidippus and Callimachus aesthetics, cf. 77–130; see also my chapter 1, “The Unruly Tongue” in the present volume). What is there here that Callimachus would not admire? From the various sources about Posidippus’ activity, then, what emerges is an outline of a figure whose activities as epigrammatist—unlike that of any other Hellenistic poet we can trace—bridged the competing media of inscription and scroll. In the one, his work was set in stone, fixed in a single place, its meaning dependent partly on its physical location in the landscape of a given shrine, cemetery, or civic space and partly on the importance his patrons attached to that particular place. In the other, his epigrams functioned in the very different terrain of the book, which has different expressive potential and elicits from the reader a different response. The two media in which Posidippus found fame as an epigrammatist— the monument and the scroll—are nicely merged in a passage from his seal poem (SH 705 ⫽ 118 AB). Here the poet hopes to be honored with a statue of himself in his native Pella; that is, he yearns to see himself commemorated in a monument, like those for which he himself had written epigrams.30 He even imagines the particulars of the setting: his effigy is to stand in the crowded marketplace (λαοφρωι κεµενος ε,ν γορη
ι, v. 18). 30. Indeed, Posidippus hopes that Apollo will grant him a hero cult, like that which he had recently proclaimed for the iambic poet Archilochus on Paros. There, a certain Mnesiepes had sought the god’s sanction for the founding of an Archilocheion, an event to which Posidippus seems to refer specifically in his seal poem. For there, in bidding his readers to “give to the Parian nightingale a mournful / flood, shedding empty tears from the eyes and groaning in lamentation” (λλ/ 6π µ+ν Παρ 具 典ηι δς ηδνι λυγρν 6φ.[ / να
µα κατ γληνων δκρυα κειν χω[ν / κα στενχων, SH 705.18–20 ⫽ 118.18–20 AB)—that is, specifying precisely the sort of honor we would expect in hero cult—Posidippus wishes that Apollo will give an oracle about him, as he did concerning Archilochus, prescribing honors for him, like those for Archilochus (SH 705.11–17 ⫽ 118.11–17 AB). On the cult of Archilochus on Paros, see D. Clay 2004; Bing 1993a.

Reimagining Posidippus 193

The adjective λαοφρος, “people-bearing,” here has special meaning for a poet who wrote for inscription, for he could only hope for his poems to be read on busy thoroughfares, at crowded shrines, or, as here, in the marketplace. No isolated spot would suffice. Posidippus wants his statue set in the busiest, most central spot of his hometown—in Pellaean terms, Times Square and 42nd Street. That bespeaks the shrewd appraisal of one who knows from direct, considered experience just where a monument can achieve its maximum effect. But for the ambitious epigrammatist, this medium has obvious limitations. Like the monuments on which he worked, his would be fixed in a single place, at Pella. Further, inscribed verse traditionally remained anonymous—only in rare exceptions does a poem on stone reveal its author. Despite the recognition Posidippus achieved as an epigrammatist for monuments, his ambition here is clearly for more than what was associated with local commissions. Rather, seeking the fame that an epigrammatist might find solely through a book’s virtually unlimited potential for dissemination, he calls on the Muses to join him, “writing down the song in the golden columns of my tablets” (γραψµεναι δλτων 6ν χρυσαις σελσιν, v. 6), and hopes “that the Macedonians may do me honor, both those on the islands and the dwellers near the coast of all Asia” (=φρα µε τιµ σω[σι] Μακηδνες οG τ/ 6π ν[ σων / οG τ/ /Ασης πσης γ具ε典τονες Vινος, vv. 14–15). In keeping with this grandiose conception, he imagines the statue of himself bearing a most significant object: he will stand there “unwinding a book” (ββλον 2λσσων, v. 17).31 Thus we find that in reimagining Posidippus, we must ultimately see him as he imagined himself, that is, in a form that embodies both aspects of his work: that with regard to monuments and that involving the book. For as the elegy on old age, his seal poem, clearly shows, he wants it both ways. For himself he wants both the marble and the scroll.

31. Gutzwiller (2005a: 317–19) suggests that the seal poem might have been the final poem of the Milan papyrus and that the book Posidippus holds may embody that very collection. Cf also Gauly 2005. R. Höschele notes (in her 2007 dissertation) how the “Versteinerung” of that collection in the statue wittily reverses epigram’s development from inscribed monument to scroll: “Der Gesang Poseidipps und der Musen wird als schriftlich fixiert vorgestellt, das (damit identische?) Buch erscheint, zumindest in der Phantasie des Dichters, in Stein verewigt.”

c h a p t e r 10

Between Literature and the Monuments


Sostratus and the Lighthouse: Zeus Soter in Posidippus 11 GP (⫽ 115 AB)

I

n the summer of 1995, a team of underwater archaeologists, led by JeanYves Empereur (head of the Centre de recherches Alexandrines and director of research at the CNRS), made a spectacular find working in the waters beside Fort Qait Bey. There, just east of the fort and beyond the city’s eastern harbor, they discovered—together with a variety of sculptural remains—a number of massive architectural blocks that, because of their enormous size and location right next to where scholars generally place the ancient Pharos, seem very likely to have belonged to the great Lighthouse of Alexandria itself. For the first time, it seems that we may be able to recover something of this monument’s physical aspect from its material remains.1 With this renewed focus on the Pharos, it is time to take another look at an important literary source for this building: the epigram of Posidippus

This is an updated version of an article that appeared in Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, ed. M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, and G. C. Wakker, 21–43. Hellenistica Groningana 3. 1998. © 1998 Egbert Forsten Groningen. 1. For the excavations, see Empereur 1995a, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b, 1999, 2000), Empereur and Grimal (1997). Exciting underwater explorations of the royal quarter in the eastern harbor of Alexandria have been undertaken as well, cf. Goddio, etc. (1998, 2006).

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195

(P. Firmin-Didot ⫽ 11 GP ⫽ 115 AB).2 For the sake of convenience, I print the text as constituted by Austin and Bastianini.
να Πρωτευ ;Ελλ νων σωτη
ρα, Φρου σκοπν, b
, Σστρατος (στησεν ∆εξιφνους ΚνδιοςD ο" γρ 6ν Α,γπτMω σκοπα ο_ρεος ο
/ 6π ν σων λλ χαµα χηλ ναλοχος 6κτταται. του
χριν ε"θει
ν τε κα =ρθιον α,θρα τµνειν πργος @δ/ πλτων φανετ/ π σταδων Aµατι, παννχιος δ+ θοω
ς 6ν κµατι νατης =ψεται 6κ κορυφη
ς πυ
ρ µγα καιµενον, κα κεν 6π/ α"τ δρµοι Ταρου Κρας ο"δ/ [ν Zµρτοι σωτη
ρος, Πρωτευ
, Zηνς C τJη
δε πλων.

5

10

[Savior among Greeks, this watchman of Pharos, was set up, Lord Proteus, by Sostratus the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes. Since in Egypt there are no lookout points on mountains as on the islands and the breakwater lies low for anchorage, for that reason, sheer and steep, this tower appears to cleave the air across countless leagues by day, and all night long quickly the mariner on the wave will see the great fire blazing from its peak, and though he may run to the Bull’s Horn itself, he would not miss Zeus Soter, O Proteus, in sailing hither.] This poem carries great evidentiary weight in discussions of the lighthouse. For it is our earliest evidence altogether, probably contemporary with the building’s completion. Its author was a prominent poet of the age, acclaimed in many parts of the Greek world, including Egypt, which he evidently visited during the first half of the third century b.c., 2. The papyrus was found among the papers of two Macedonian brothers connected with the Serapaeum of Memphis in the mid-second century b.c., Ptolemaeus and Apollonius; it contains a variety of literary passages, a very personal selection, as it seems (cf. Thompson 1987; 1988: 259–61). Cameron (1993: 7 with n. 25) suggests that Posidippus’ Macedonian origin may have made him an appealing choice for the brothers. According to Thompson, our poem in particular—as well as the other epigram of Posidippus preserved in the papyrus (12 GP ⫽ 116 AB)—is “in the rude hand of the elder brother,” Ptolemaeus. This brother’s possible connections with Alexandria and with the Pharos are discussed later in the present essay.

196

The Scroll and the Marble

writing numerous poems in honor of Ptolemaic monuments, occasions, and cult.3 The text of the epigram as a whole has been studied and improved by many scholars.4 But I want to focus mainly on the first and last couplet, particularly on the meaning of σωτ ρ in verse 1 (and its echo in verse 10), which I believe has been misunderstood; it may have been so even in antiquity. The interpretation I propose has important consequences. It affects how we assess Sostratus of Cnidus, for it provides a new answer to the question of what precisely he did in connection with the Pharos and, consequently, what Posidippus commemorated in his epigram. My argument builds on two important points made by P. M. Fraser and buttressed by F. Chamoux (and indirectly by J. Scherer). The first concerns Sostratus of Cnidus and the nature of his involvement with the lighthouse, which is unclear. Many modern scholars view him as its architect.5 In doing so, they follow Pliny and Lucian.6 However, as Fraser puts it in a penetrating analysis of the “evidence” generally cited in support, “the claim [that Sostratus was architect] lacks any real substance.”7 For in fact, no one earlier than Pliny speaks of Sostratus in this capacity, and his information probably rests on a misunderstanding of a word such as (στησε in verse 2, 3. In addition to the previously known epigrams on the Pharos, the cult of ArsinoeAphrodite at Cape Zephyrion (12 GP ⫽ 116 AB; 13 GP ⫽ 119 AB), and the epithalamium of Arsinoe (P. Petrie II 49a ⫽ SH 961 ⫽ 114 AB, plausibly by Posidippus), see the numerous new epigrams of the Milan papyrus, on which, most recently, cf. Ambühl 2007. 4. For bibliography on our poem, cf. Chamoux 1975: 214 n. 2; Fraser 1972: I 17–20, 568 with nn. 129 and 132. More recently, see Austin 2002. 5. Thus e.g., Bernand (1966: 103–4; 1995, 50–53) and Préaux (1978: I 222). 6. The relevant passages are as follows: magnificatur et alia turris a rege facta in insula Pharo portum optinente, Alexandreae, quam constitisse DCCC talentis tradunt, magno animo, ne quid omittamus, Ptolemaei regis, quo in ea permiserat Sostrati Cnidii architecti structura ipsa nomen inscribi. (Pliny NH xxxvi 83) CρYα
ς τν Κνδιον 6κει
νον ρχιτκτονα, ο
ον 6ποησενD ο,κοδοµ σας γρ τν 6π τJη
ΦρMω πργον, µγιστον κα κλλιστον (ργων Zπντων, Eς πυρσεοιτο π/ α"του
τοι
ς ναυτιλλοµνοις 6π πολ1 τη
ς θαλττης κα µ καταφροιντο ε,ς τν Παραιτοναν,
σαν κα φυκτον, ε: τις 6µπσοι ε,ς τ IρµαταD ο,κοδοµ σας παγχλεπον, Oς φασιν, ο"
ν α"τ τ (ργον (νδοθεν µ+ν κατ τω ο"
ν λθων τ α#του
=νοµα (γραψεν, 6πιχρσας δ+ τιτνMω κα 6πικαλψας 6πγραψε το_νοµα του
ττε βασιλεοντος, ε,δς, @περ κα 6γνετο, πνυ 4λγου χρνου συνεκπεσοµενα µ+ν τMω
χρσµατι τ γρµµατα, (κφανησµενον δ, Σστρατος ∆εξιφνους Κνδιος θεοι
ς σωτη
ρσιν #π+ρ τω
ν πλοιζοµνων. οaτως ο"δ/ 6κει
νος 6ς τν ττε καιρν ο"δ+ τν α#του
βον τν 4λγον 2ρα, λλ/ ε,ς τν νυ
ν κα τν ε, χρι [ν 2στ κJη C πργος κα µνJη α"του
? τχνη.

(Lucian Hist. conscrib. 62) 7. Fraser 1972: I 19; for his discussion as a whole, see 19–20 with nn. 104 and 111.

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197

which can refer either to the act of building or to dedication.8 Scholars have noted, moreover, how odd it would be for the building’s architect, rather than the dedicant, to be named in its dedication9—something Pliny and Lucian implicitly recognize, since their stories seek to explain the presence of his name in the inscription (in one case attributing it to the king’s great magnanimity, in the other to Sostratus’ trickery). Strabo, our earliest source after Posidippus, visited Alexandria for an extended period starting in 24 b.c. and knew the Pharos firsthand. In contrast to Pliny, he makes no mention of Sostratus as architect of the lighthouse, saying, rather, that he dedicated it: του
τον δ/ (sc., τν πργον) νθηκε . . . τη
ς τω
ν πλοιζοµνων σωτηρας χριν, Oς φησιν ? 6πιγραφ (791.6). That is certainly more plausible. But while we must be grateful to Fraser for casting rightful doubt on Sostratus as architect, I would argue on the basis of Posidippus’ epigram that (contrary to Strabo) we should not even consider Sostratus the Pharos’ dedicant.10 The second point concerns the statue that crowned the Pharos. Ancient depictions (in coins, mosaics, etc.) clearly and repeatedly show a large male figure atop the lighthouse, and on the basis of the pictorial tradition, scholars have eagerly speculated about that figure’s identity. But the evidence is inconclusive.11 Again it was Fraser who first publicly insisted that Posidippus’ final couplet identifies the statue unequivocally. There, in describing the sailor trying to make it to harbor, the poet says, “he would not miss, in sailing hither, O Proteus, his target, Zeus Soter” (ο"δ/ [ν Zµρτοι / σωτη
ρος, Πρωτευ
, Zηνς C τJη
δε πλων , vv. 9–10, trans. Fraser). Earlier critics, perhaps blinded by the confusing images of the lighthouse and by Lucian’s report that it was dedicated θεοι
ς σωτη
ρσιν, muddled their trans8. Testimony sometimes taken as evidence of Sostratus’ architectural activity elsewhere is equally late and does not stand up to scrutiny, as Fraser clearly shows. 9. Fraser (1972: I 20 n. 116) aptly cites Wilamowitz (1924: I 154 n. 2): “Immer noch begegnet man der Torheit, Sostratus wäre Architekt gewesen, als ob er sich dann als Bauherr hätte nennen können.” 10. Moreover, I question—pace Wilamowitz (1924: I 154 n. 2)—whether Sostratus would have had the immense fortune required to build such a monument as the Pharos (eight hundred talents according to Pliny): “nicht gerade preiswert,” as G. Weber trenchantly comments (1993: 333 n. 2). Hölbl voices similar doubts (1994: 66). But implausible as it might at first seem that the king would allow a private citizen—even a prominent courtier and “friend of kings,” as Strabo calls Sostratus (791.6)—to take responsibility for a structure that would so utterly dominate his city’s skyline, Weber does well to remind us of the very conspicuous dedications of Ptolemaic φλοι (1993: 333–34). 11. The evidence is reviewed by Chamoux (1975: 219–220) and Fraser (1972: I 18 with n. 103).

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The Scroll and the Marble

lations.12 But Fraser (1972: I 19) recognized that the words ο"δ/ [ν Zµρτοι / σωτη
ρος . . . Zηνς must refer to the statue: “this is clearly what is implied by the poet’s phrase, ‘not fail to hit Zeus Soter’; . . . conversely if he was not referring to some specific representation of Zeus Soter, his reference to him is meaningless.” Around the time Fraser completed his manuscript, J. Scherer apparently proposed the same thing per litteras to F. Chamoux.13 And Chamoux himself added the appealing suggestion that the statue’s presence atop the Pharos is reflected in a propemptic fragment of Callimachus, invoking Zeus as “watchman of the harbor” (fr. 400 Pf.): ;Α ναυ
ς, ` τ µνον φγγος 6µν τ γλυκ1 τα
ς ζας / 9ρπαξας, ποτ τε Zανς κνευ
µαι λιµενοσκπω (Ship, that snatched away the only sweet light of my life, I entreat you by Zeus the watchman of the harbor). As a longtime resident of Alexandria, Callimachus would naturally have been thinking of that Zeus who, from atop the Pharos, was “watchman of the harbor” in his adoptive city: thus contends Chamoux.14 While scholars since Fraser and Chamoux have generally accepted 12. Especially egregious in this regard was Page (1962: 447), who simply ignored the explicit naming of Zeus in the last verse, translating σωτη
ρος . . . Zηνς as “the God of Safety,” with the explanatory note “The lighthouse was inscribed θεοι
ς σωτη
ρσιν.” It is well to note that no one before Lucian records this dedication θεοι
ς σωτη
ρσιν; Strabo says only τη
ς τω
ν πλοιζοµνων σωτηρας χριν, which accords well with the single savior god atop the monument, commemorated in Posidippus’ poem. I agree with Fraser’s suggestion that “the original dedication, ∆ι Σωτη
ρι, was erroneously altered in quotation or paraphrase to Θεοι
ς Σωτη
ρσι” (1972: I 19). By contrast, Bernand (1996) argues—again—for the authenticity of the plural dedication, with Poseidon as the second god. The weakness in his argument is that it starts from late evidence, rather than recognizing the unequivocal identification in our earliest source, the poem by Posidippus. 13. Chamoux 1975: 218–19. Commenting on the phrase ο"δ/ [ν Zµρτοι / σωτη
ρος . . . Zηνς, Chamoux writes: “On entend d’ordinaire que l’aide de ce dieu ne lui fera pas défaut. Mais traduire ainsi, écrivait J. Scherer, ‘c’est rendre d’une facon très approximative ο"κ [ν Zµρτοι. ;Αµαρτνειν, c’est manquer le but. Ce vers doit trouver son explication dans le monument lui-même . . . Le Phare portait à son sommet une statue de divinité . . . Poséidon serait bien à sa place ici, mais Zeus, père des Dioscoures, ne serait pas non plus déplacé. Et, ceci accepté, les deux derniers vers de l’épigramme sont d’une limpidité parfaite: le Zeus dont il s’agit n’est pas celui qui habite quelque part dans l’Olympe, mais très précisement le Zeus qui surmonte le Phare; il est σωτ ρ parce que, si on le manque (Zµαρτνειν), si on ne vogue pas droit sur lui, on fait inévitablement naufrage . . . Il faut donc entendre la phrase, comme le grec y invite, d’une facon concrète: ‘celui qui navigue dans ces parages ne saurait manquer (⫽ tomberait droit sur) Zeus Sauveur.’ Posedippos dit en style poétique exactement la même chose que Strabon dans son honnête prose: Oστ/ ε"στοχει
ν τη
ς ε,σβολη
ς του
λιµνος/ ” (letter of 3 April 1967). Scherer and (implicitly) Chamoux equate the function Posidippus gives the statue with that which Strabo attributes to the lighthouse. I believe that this discrepancy may be due to Strabo erroneously recalling the dedicatory inscription of the statue as applying to the building as a whole: hinc illae lacrimae. 14. Chamoux 1975: 221–22.

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199

σωτη
ρος . . . Zηνς in verse 10 as pointedly referring to the statue on the

Pharos, so identifying it as Zeus Soter,15 they have not taken the next logical step; that is, they have not gone back to verse 1 to revisit the poem’s beginning in the light of their new understanding. Consequently, ;Ελλ νων σωτη
ρα, Φρου σκοπν, κτλ. is typically taken to refer to the lighthouse in toto, as in the translations of Bernand (1995: 50), “Cette sauvegarde des Grecs . . . , c’est Sôstratos qui l’ a érigé,”16 or of Adam (1995: 27), “Pour le salut des Grecs, cette tour qui veille sur Pharos . . . fut élevée par Sostratus.”17 All such renderings have in common that they treat σωτη
ρ as meaning something different in verse 1 from in verse 10. Underlying their willingness to accept this difference is, I believe, the critics’ hope—perhaps unconscious—of reconciling Posidippus’ words with the evidence of later sources (Strabo, Pliny, Lucian) concerning the role of Sostratus of Cnidus. In translating so, however, they must ignore the plain sense of the words— not to speak of weakening the very carefully constructed frame of the poem, in which the invocation of Proteus and mention of a savior in the last line echo precisely these elements in the first. A crucial step toward reinterpreting the poem consists in taking σωτ ρ (v. 1) in its more usual sense, that is, as a strictly personal noun, meaning “savior.”18 In that sense, it is the epithet of many gods (as well as heroes and kings). But one god alone could be described—in the majestic words of the exordium—as the ;Ελλ νων σωτ ρ tout court. That god can be none other than Zeus, an identification that accords well with his presence in the poem’s last line (σωτη
ρος . . . Zηνς, v. 10) as the sailor’s goal when heading into port in Alexandria. ;Ελλ νων, then, is possessive genitive, so that Zeus is “among Greeks the [one known as] savior.” By contrast, if σωτ ρ referred to the lighthouse, ;Ελλ νων would have to be objective genitive (as in the translations cited earlier). But that is implausible, since the lighthouse helps all, not just Greeks. And Alexandria’s port certainly drew merchants from all corners of the Mediterranean and beyond.19 To be sure, if the epigram apostrophized Greeks, the possessive genitive 15. See, e.g., Bowman 1986: 206; Green 1990: 158; Bernand 1995: 53. 16. This rendering is almost the same as Chamoux’ (1975: 215). 17. In the same vein, cf. Dombart 1967: 81: “Proteus! Meergott! Für Griechen zur Rettung erbaute des Pharos / Warte Dexiphanes’ Sohn, Sostratus, Cnidusgeboren.” This is cited approvingly by Hesberg (1981: 69). 18. Cf. LSJ s.v. That it could, however, be used of a building is demonstrated by Eur. Med. 360: δµον X χθνα σωτη
ρα κακω
ν. 19. Cf. Fraser’s discussion, e.g., of trade with Carthage in the third century b.c. (1972: I 148–84, esp. 152–53).

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;Ελλ νων might seem superfluous: why tell Greeks that Zeus is the savior

god par excellence among Greeks? But it is perfectly apt when we recall
να Πρωτευ that the poem’s addressee is Egyptian: the sea god Proteus (b
, v. 1), known to Homer as “Egyptian Proteus,” Πρωτε1ς Α,γπτιος (Od. 4.385).20 According to pseudo-Callisthenes (1.32.1–3), Proteus was in fact worshiped as hero by the local Egyptians before the founding of Alexandria; Alexander the Great refurbished his shrine. And authors as early as Herodotus (2.112f.) and Euripides (Helen 4–5) view him as an Egyptian pharaoh. The savior god of the Greeks and the local Egyptian deity thus frame the first verse. The identification of σωτ ρ with Zeus also perfectly suits the following appositive phrase Φρου σκοπς, “watchman of Pharos.” For starting already in Homer, Zeus is regularly portrayed keeping watch from heights, such as Mt. Ida (e.g., Il. 8.397). Such a conception is thoroughly part of his image.21 Moreover, looking back from the end of the poem, σκοπς acquires an added sense: as the god is the target that guides the sailor into port at verses 9–10 (ο"δ/ [ν Zµρτοι / σωτη
ρος . . . Zηνς C τJη
δε πλων), so he becomes the “mark on which one fixes the eye” at verse 1 (LSJ s.v. σκοπς II). If, then, the ;Ελλ νων σωτ ρ of verse 1 should be identified as Zeus, the sentence as a whole (“Sostratus set up the savior of the Greeks, the watchman of Pharos,” ;Ελλ νων σωτη
ρα, Φρου σκοπν . . . / Σστρατος (στησεν) must surely refer to that same statue of Zeus Soter mentioned in verse 10. The expression σωτη
ρα . . . (στησεν is entirely appropriate to the dedication of a statue, for we find comparable usage in inscriptional evidence, as, for instance, when the city of Phocis dedicates statues of the Dioscuri to Poseidon in the fourth century b.c. (CEG II.807.2–3, on a marble statue base): ? πλις ε"ξαµνη τοσδ/ νθηκε θεω
ι / ?µιθους σωτη
ρας (“according to its vow, the city dedicated to the god these demigod saviors”). Note that the inscription does not explicitly call the statues statues: “the city dedicated saviors,” just as “Sostratus set up the savior.” In short, the opening couplet of the epigram tells us quite straightforwardly

20. Similarly, when addressing the Persian king Cyrus, Croesus speaks of Apollo as ;Ελλ νων θες (Hdt. 1.87.3). It is worth noting that there is also a tradition that denies Pro-

teus’ Egyptian origin and attempts to recoup him for the Greeks. Thus at the start of the Victoria Berenices (SH 254.5), Callimachus calls him Παλληνα µ[ντιν, “prophet of Pallene,” in the Chalcidice. 21. It is borne out also by the fragment of Callimachus (400 Pf.) adduced by Chamoux and cited earlier in this essay, in which Zeus is invoked as λιµενοσκπος: ποτ τε Zανς κνευ
µαι λιµενοσκπω.

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that Sostratus of Cnidus set up the statue of Zeus Soter atop the Pharos— the same one referred to at the end of the poem.22 It is this statue’s dedication, not that of the lighthouse altogether, that Posidippus commemorates with his epigram. How does this fit with what follows? After all, the middle section of the poem (vv. 3–8) clearly deals not with the statue but with the towering lighthouse as a whole. The answer lies in how we interpret γρ in line 3: ο" γρ 6ν Α,γπτMω σκοπα ο_ρεος . . . It should be taken as “anticipatory,” establishing why a great tower is needed for the statue of Zeus to stand on (cf. Denniston 1954: 68–72, esp. IV 2–3). The train of thought is as follows: Sostratus installed a lookout (sc., “watchman,” σκοπν, v. 1); since (γρ, v. 3) Egypt has no lookout places (σκοπα, v. 3), therefore (του
χριν, v. 5) this tower serves its purpose. In other words, because there are no mountainous heights for Zeus the watchman to watch from, this tower (πργος @δ/, v. 6) serves as a substitute. Nothing in the text, then, suggests that Sostratus dedicated the lighthouse itself (much less was its architect). Posidippus assigns him a more limited, if more plausible, role: he gave the statue with which the monument was crowned—an impressive enough donation when one considers its prominence in artistic representations.23 Still one wonders how Strabo and others after him came to associate Sostratus with the building as a whole? Any answer must of course remain speculative. But Chamoux (1975: 221) made an interesting observation that may point us toward an answer. Looking at Strabo’s statement concerning Sostratus’ dedication (του
τον δ/ [sc., τν πργον] νθηκε . . . τη
ς τω
ν πλοιζοµνων σωτηρας χριν, Oς φησιν ? 6πιγραφ , 791.6) and the inscription itself as reported by Lucian (Σστρατος ∆εξιφνους Κνδιος θεοι
ς σωτη
ρσιν #π+ρ τω
ν πλοιζοµνων), he suggested that both passages may depend on Posidippus, that is, that when Strabo speaks of the 6πιγραφ , he is referring to our poem: “Rien n’empêche de croire que la formule de Strabon et ultérieurement celle de Lucien résument tout simplement l’épigramme de Poseidippos, qui aurait servi de dédicace effective au monument . . . Le thème du salut, qui inspire le poème du premier vers, ;Ελλ νων σωτη
ρα, au dernier, Σωτη
ρος Zηνς, a pu suggérer à Lucien la formulation resserrée qu’il nous a transmise et qui correspond à la 22. One may note that Posidippus thus places Zeus at the beginning and at the end of his poem, precisely as suggested by his contemporaries Theocritus (17.1: 6κ ∆ις ρχµεσθα κα 6ς ∆α λ γετε Μοι
σαι) and Aratus (Phaen. 14: τMω
µιν ε πρω
τον τε κα aστατον λσκονται). 23. Cf. especially the Begram Vase and the mosaic from Qasr-el-Libya near Cyrene; cf. Fraser 1972: I 18 n. 103.

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paraphrase de Strabon.”24 I believe Chamoux was correct in proposing that these later authors depend on our poem. I think, however, that Strabo’s dependence extends well beyond what he suggested. For on reading Strabo, one is struck by a range of similarities with Posidippus’ epigram: in the function ascribed to the monument, the reasons given for why it is needed, as well as the whole train of thought, which is remarkably similar. Here is what Strabo says (791.6): του
τον δ/ [sc., τν πργον] νθηκε Σστρατος Κνδιος φλος τω
ν βασιλων, τη
ς τω
ν πλοιζοµνων σωτηρας χριν, Oς φησιν ? 6πιγραφ . λιµνου γρ ο_σης κα ταπεινη
ς τη
ς 2κατρωθεν παραλας, 6χοσης δ+ κα χοιρδας κα βρχη τιν, (δει σηµεου τινς #ψηλου
κα λαµπρου
τοι
ς π του
πελγους προσπλουσιν, Oστ/ ε"στοχει
ν τη
ς ε,σβολη
ς του
λιµνος.

[Sostratus the Cnidian, friend of kings, dedicated this tower for the safety of sailors, as the inscription says. Since it is without shelter and the shore is flat on either side, and there are reefs and shallows, some high and conspicuous marker was needed for those sailing in from the sea, so that they could locate the entrance to the harbor.] In the following comparison, I always start by quoting Posidippus. Both texts begin by naming Sostratus of Cnidus and reporting his dedication ((στησεν, v. 2 ⬃ νθηκε), which is linked with safety (σωτη
ρα, v. 1 ⬃ σωτηρας χριν). Thereafter we learn that the need for the dedication arises from the flatness of the coast around the harbor (ο" γρ 6ν Α,γπτMω σκοπα ο_ρεος ο
/ 6π ν σων / λλ χαµα χηλ ναλοχος 6κτταται, vv. 3– 4 ⬃ λιµνου γρ ο_σης κα ταπεινη
ς τη
ς 2κατρωθεν παραλας), whose entrance is perilous (6π/ α"τ δρµοι Ταρου κρας ⬃ 6χοσης δ+ κα χοιρδας κα βρχη τιν, v. 9). For this reason, a marker is necessary (του
χριν . . . / . . . πργος @δ/, vv. 5–6 ⬃ (δει σηµεου). Both texts stress the height of the marker (ε"θει
αν τε κα =ρθιον α,θρα τµνειν, v. 5 ⬃ #ψηλου
) and its radiance (πλτων φανετ/ π σταδων κτλ., v. 6 ⬃ λαµπρου
). Finally, both texts close by returning to the theme of safety: by means of this dedication, sailors may avoid the perils at the mouth of the harbor and 24. Chamoux justly casts doubt on the authenticity of the inscription in Lucian because of the very questionable story in which it is embedded (for the entire text, cf. n. 6 in the present essay): “l’anecdote qu’il ajoute à ce témoignage est si fantaisiste qu’elle le rend fort suspect: comme tant d’autres logoi qui encombrent les compilations rédigées à l’époque impériale, l’historiette relative à Sostratus a pu être forgée pour piquer la curiosité du public, et le texte de l’inscription reconstitué pour la circonstance” (1975: 220).

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reach safe haven (ο"δ/ [ν Zµρτοι / σωτη
ρος . . . Zηνς C τJη
δε πλων, vv. 9– 10 ⬃ Oστ/ ε"στοχει
ν τη
ς ε,σβολη
ς του
λιµνος). In brief, we may say of these texts as a whole what J. Scherer observed with respect to their conclusions: “Poseidippos dit en style poétique exactement la même chose que Strabon dans son honnête prose.”25 Our comparison certainly suggests that Strabo knew Posidippus’ poem. But should we follow Chamoux (1975: 221) in thinking that the epigram was actually inscribed on the Pharos?26 After all, Strabo might have been working from a transcription. Here one of the recent finds from the excavations by the harbor may shed a tantalizing, if perhaps evanescent, ray of light. For the divers recovered a fragmentary white marble block containing part of a Greek inscription with inlaid bronze letters (.45 m in height), such as is attested for the Pharos’ eastern face in a tenth-century Arabic source (Fraser 1972: I 18 n. 104).27 The letters Α Ρ Ι are legible. Could they come from the phrase Τ Ο Υ X Α Ρ Ι Ν at the start of Posidippus’ verse 5?28 To put it mildly, this is extremely uncertain. But one can imagine Strabo either glimpsing the poem up on the lighthouse as he sailed in or out of the harbor and construing it erroneously as referring to the building itself on which (in our imaginary scenario) it would have been inscribed, or mistakenly recalling the poem from such an occasion. Maybe, too, he was influenced by lore about the Pharos, which at that late date—some 250 years after the fact—may already have colored its history. If this scenario is at all plausible, it might explain how Sostratus was transformed into the sponsor of the lighthouse as a whole when, originally, as a careful reading of Posidippus demonstrates with fair certainty, he had been responsible only for the statue of Zeus Soter at its peak.

Inscribed Poems and Their Fictions In entertaining the possibility that Posidippus’ poem was originally inscribed, we come up against an awkward, nagging question. For like an itch that lingers, now forgotten, now acute, yet always just beyond our reach, 25. See the letter cited in Chamoux 1975: 218–19 (quoted in n.13 of this chapter). 26. So, too, Fraser (1972: I 568). 27. Together with the other recent underwater finds, the block is now exhibited in the archaeological park at Kom ed Dik. 28. I must say that the letters are followed by what might be the upper left-hand traces of a Σ. I think, however, that this reading is scarcely the certainty that Empereur seems to suggest in his preliminary report (1995a: 757). On the preceding line, just to the right of that possible Σ, is the lower part of what could be an Ο or similarly rounded letter.

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the possibility of inscription bedevils scholars who deal with funerary or dedicatory epigram preserved in literary sources (the Greek Anthology, citations in ancient authors, or—as here—papyri). Wilamowitz summed it up under the rubric “AUFSCHRIFT ODER NICHT.”29 For as is well known, epigram—though continuing to be used in inscriptions—gradually outgrew its chiseled origins, acquiring a parallel life as a γνος 6πιδεικτικν, where it might be composed strictly as literature.30 The result is a hermeneutic crux deriving from the fact that, in spite of its development away from inscription, epigram retained the generic conventions of its incised counterpart; that is, besides keeping its traditional meters, it continued to use deictic markers to refer to (now fictional) monuments or votive objects and their physical settings, and it continued to name the donors and deceased, their families, affiliations, cities of origin (again, no longer real). Consequently, it is often impossible to tell whether epigrams that come to us via literature were once actually inscribed or are quasi-inscriptional, merely adopting the pose. Aufschrift? . . . oder nicht? On paper they can look exactly alike.31 Rather than try to resolve this conundrum, I intend to dwell, in what follows, on one of its causes, epigram’s migration to papyrus, and on a consequence, the genre’s striking lability with regard to medium. Only then will I turn to a basic difference between inscribed and quasi-inscriptional poems, not, however, a formal one, such as various scholars have tried to establish, but, rather, one of reader response.32 29. This title stands blazoned in capitals, like an ancient inscription, to lead off the discussion of epigram in Wilamowitz 1924: I 119. 30. I trace this development in “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” in the present volume. 31. The terms used by Richard Thomas (1998) to make this distinction, “functional” versus “literary” epigram, may be misleading since they imply that inscribed epigrams may not be literature or literary and that “literary” epigram is without function. The terms “inscribed” and “quasi-inscriptional” are less problematic, at least for dealing with funerary and dedicatory epigram. I owe the latter term to Hutchinson (1988: 20–21). 32. Most recently, Köhnken (1993: 120–21 and passim) has tried to establish two tests for distinguishing inscribed from quasi-inscriptional poems of votive or sepulchral type. First, quasi-inscriptional poems include descriptions of physical context that would be selfevident and unnecessary if a reader was facing a genuine monument (“Überinformation”), while, conversely, poems originally inscribed but known only through literary sources may be identified through lack of contextual information (“Unvollständigkeit der Angaben”). Second, there is often an element of play with dedicatory and sepulchral convention, which serves no function other than an artistic one. While potentially useful, these tests do not have as broad an application as Köhnken assumes: lack of information need not indicate that a poem was originally inscribed. On the contrary, as I have argued in detail in my chapter on Ergänzungsspiel, chap. 5 in the present

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To begin, then, the problem voiced with epigrammatic pith in Wilamowitz’ alternatives arises not just because of a formal resemblance between inscribed and quasi-inscriptional poems but because of their shared locus on the scroll. So long as the two kinds of poem stand apart, respectively fixed upon stone or papyrus, there will be no confusion. Only as boundaries break down and poems can migrate from one medium into another are we faced with uncertainty. Such uncertainty is, I would argue, peculiarly Hellenistic. It was at this time that, like their quasi-inscriptional kin, inscribed epigrams began to appear in books. Plucked from the rich semantic field of their physical context (stripped even of such particulars of place as ancient authors cite in quoting inscriptions),33 they were planted instead on the arid, inexpressive plane of the papyrus, side by side with works that merely simulate inscription. Upon this common ground, the formal similarity of inscribed and quasi-inscriptional poems becomes a problem. The epigram of Posidippus is a case in point. It is, however, difficult to appraise, since our papyrus source—the selection of literary texts made by Ptolemaeus and Apollonius, Macedonian brothers connected with the Memphite Serapaeum in the mid-second century b.c. (cf. Thompson 1987: 106–7)—contains contextual clues that could point in either direction: Aufschrift oder nicht. Speaking for inscription is the plausible thesis that its scribe, Ptolemaeus, picked this poem for his selection to commemorate a personal experience (Thompson 1987, 1988). The basis for this proposal comes from another papyrus of the same archive (Urkunden der Ptolemäerzeit 78.28–39), likewise written by Ptolemaeus, in which he recounts a dream set in Alexandria. Meµην µε 6ν /Αλεξαν- | δρ Yα µε ε,
ναι 6πνω πργου µεγλου. Ε,
χον | πρσοπον καλν 具ε,
χον典 κα ο"κ Aθελον ο"θενε | δι
ξα µου τ πρσωπον δι τ καλν α"τν | ε,
ν[α]ι κα γραυ
具ς典 µοι παρε[[.]]κθητο κα =χλος π βορρα
µου | κα π /πηλιτης . . .

volume, such “Unvollständigkeit der Angaben” may be precisely one of those dedicatory and sepulchral conventions (cf. Köhnken’s test 2) playfully exploited for artistic purpose—a deliberate spur to the reader’s imagination. On the other hand, numerous inscribed epigrams contain superabundant information that cannot be explained with special reasons (cf., e.g., 781 Kaibel, concerning a heroon of Antigonus Gonatas). Incidentally, we find “Überinformation” used as a criterion to ascertain the literariness of an epigram already in Hesberg 1981: 100–105. 33. What Rosalind Thomas says of “modern collections” of epigram, applies as well to their incipient counterparts in the third century b.c.: “the inscription is usually isolated . . . from the surrounding material, thus the total impact of the memorial is lost” (1992: 63).

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[I thought I was in Alexandria, on top of a great tower. I had a beautiful face and did not want to show my face to anyone because of its beauty. And an old woman sat down next to me, and [there was] a crowd of people to the north and east of me . . .] The vividness of this dream caused U. Wilcken (1927: 362 ad 29), the editor of the papyrus, to suggest that Ptolemaeus could have visited Alexandria in his youth. And D. J. Thompson (1988: 261 n. 288) cautiously proposed that the “great tower” was “perhaps indeed the Pharos.” Is it going too far to observe that the dreamer’s location 6πνω is curiously like that of the statue of Zeus Soter on the Pharos? (Does the dreamer identify with the statue? That “beautiful face” he shrinks from showing is entirely apt for a divine visage.) Epigram and dream may thus be linked more closely than at first appears: both may have as their subject that statue of Zeus Soter on top of the Pharos. If Ptolemaeus recalled the epigram of Posidippus as a memento of a personal encounter with the monument—something he may have dreamed about long afterward—then it is as likely for him as for Strabo that he saw the poem in situ, inscribed on the lighthouse itself. Unlike Strabo, however, he would seem to have understood that it was about the dedication of that statue. Yet the matter is more complex: W. Peek (1953: 432) observed that the heading in the papyrus, Ποσειδππου 6πιγρµµατα, and the word λλο between our epigram and the next suggest that the poems were copied from an anthology.34 Both the label and the designation λλο are typical of collections, an editorial practice adopted here almost mechanically. The possibility that the poem was copied, not simply remembered, raises difficult questions: Did Ptolemaeus have to rely on an intermediary source as his memory receded with time? Did he, alternatively, never see the epigram inscribed at all and know it only from literature (thus perhaps supplementing a distant sighting of the Pharos)? Or might it never have been meant for inscription at all?35 34. Thompson (1987: 113) notes that such labeling “is reminiscent of a school-book copy” and, consequently, that the literary texts of the archive may represent those “typically taught at school.” In fact, we know that epigrams on Ptolemaic monuments were included in third-century b.c. schoolbooks, namely SH 978, 979; cf. Guéraud and Jouguet 1938: 20–26. But Thompson concludes that the selection is more plausibly explained as a personal one: “The inhabitants of Ptolemaic Memphis clearly had available a wide range of literature which included poetry and scientific and other learned works. This is not perhaps surprising in the second city of Egypt, and the wealth of Alexandria’s libraries was only two or three days distant by boat” (1987: 109). 35. The latter possibility is certainly not to be ruled out. In that case, Strabo’s reference to the Pharos’ 6πιγραφ would not depend on Posidippus, though his description of the

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The uncertainty underlying these questions points up not just how hard it is to distinguish inscribed epigram from quasi-inscriptional. It reminds us, too, how easily the genre glides between media, from stone to scroll or vice versa—“generic mobility” quite literally construed (Thomas 1998: 205). Starting in the Hellenistic age, this genre will not stay put. Epigram’s easy, two-way passage between media is a characteristic hallmark of the age. We observe it, for instance, in scholarly projects early in the Hellenistic period where, for the first time, epigrams on stone were systematically sought out, transcribed, and collected in books—for instance, in Philochorus’ /Επιγρµµατα /Αττικ or Polemon of Ilion’s Περ τω
ν κατ πλεις 6πιγραµµτων (cf. “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” chap. 5 in the present volume).36 Knowledge of such collections, where epigrams appeared at a remove from their inscribed setting, doubtless encouraged poets to mimic and adapt the form for purely literary aims or else to realize that there might be (literary) life for their epigrams after inscription. Inversely, poems destined for inscription might first be written and transmitted on papyrus. This was probably the case with two anonymous funerary epigrams (SH 977) sent by letter—perhaps in the hand of the poet himself—to Zenon, agent of Apollonius, chief financial administrator of Ptolemy Philadelphus, to commemorate Zenon’s hunting dog Tauron, who was fatally gored while protecting his master from an attacking boar.37 building, its setting, why it was needed, etc., would still arguably have been influenced by knowing the (“quasi-inscriptional”) epigram. 36. One gets a sense of how such projects shaped contemporary imaginings from a work like Euhemerus’ Sacred Record, the ;Ιερ /Αναγραφ , whose author claims to have visited a faroff island south of Arabia and seen there a large golden stele; its inscribed contents—a record of the deeds of Ouranos and Zeus, revealed as illustrious men, not gods at all—evidently formed the heart of the work. 37. I consider it likely that letters (or short scrolls; cf. Turner 1968: 140)—in addition to presumably far rarer epigram books—served as a critical medium by which much quasiinscriptional epigram was disseminated to poets (and other literati) in Egypt and abroad, thus permitting authors to react to and vary the epigrams of their contemporaries (as we know they loved to do) in works of their own (Ludwig 1968; Tarán 1979). The letters of Archimedes (in Sicily) to Eratosthenes and Dositheus (in Alexandria) may serve as a model for the sort of lively cultural exchange that could occur between far-flung correspondents in the third century b.c. Significantly, in one such letter, Archimedes sent Eratosthenes his “cattle problem” in the form of an epigram (SH 201). Such a scenario is on the whole more plausible than that proposed by Reitzenstein (1893: 87–104), that poets would compose epigrams extempore at symposia, often reacting immediately to other such poems composed and performed by their drinking companions— a thesis now revived by Cameron (1995: 71–103, esp. 79–84) and Puelma (1996: 126–27 with n. 15; cf. 130: “modisch gewordenen Improvisationsdichtung im fiktiven und erweiterten Epigrammstil”).

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The epigrams—one elegiac, the other iambic—are plausibly explained as doublets, both of which would have been inscribed on the tomb (a wellknown practice in genuine funerary epigram). Though the poems’ deixis evokes the physical presence of the grave site (@δ/ πυει τµβος, v. 1; τµβωι τω
ιδ/, v. 14; 6λαφρα
ι τα
ιδ/ . . . κνει, v. 24), the medium of the letter suggests distance, that is, that the epitaphs were sent to Zenon in the Fayum from elsewhere (Parsons and Lloyd-Jones, SH 977 [ad loc.] plausibly weigh Alexandria). In that case, how tenuous, how conventional the link between epigram and its physical object turns out to be: there is no need to imagine the epigrammatist ever having visited the site or encountered Tauron—except in Zenon’s description upon commissioning the poems. Even inscribed epigrams, then, may be conceived and composed remote from their setting and monument, and the physical context that plays a significant role in the experience of epigram in situ would here be initially filled in purely in the imaginations of poet and patron. It is a thin line between this situation and that of an epigram composed for the scroll from the start. On the other hand, even strictly quasi-inscriptional poems may secondarily become inscribed.38 That is the case with an epigram of Leonidas of Tarentum about three brothers who dedicate their hunting nets to Pan (AP 6.13 ⫽ 46 GP). The poem appears in a room of the Casa degli Epigrammi at Pompei, painted as a caption for a picture showing the dedicatory scene described in the poem (Dilthey 1876; Leach 1988: 219–22, 375–76).39 The poem is thus ostensibly reconnected with an object, the I would not rule out the symposium as one possible setting for poetic creation and performance. But it is scarcely sufficient to explain the range and quality of the epigrammatic corpus as we have it. Besides the basic unlikelihood that the poets in question always happened to attend the same parties, it is hard to believe that (without prior warning that such and such a theme would be on the evening’s program) they were able to produce extempore many of their finest epigrams. The model of Catullus 50, which Reitzenstein adduces (1893: 103–4 n. 1: cf. also Cameron 1995: 88; Puelma 1996: 127 n. 15), in which each participant writes versiculos . . . reddens mutua per iocum atque vinum (v. 6), is not a valid parallel. Cf. my discussion in “Text or Performance,” chap. 6 in the present volume. 38. The urge to impart tangible reality to a literary fiction is, of course, known from earliest times. The epigram on the Ischia Cup of the eighth century b.c. (CEG I 454), Νστορς ε [,µ]ι ε_ποτ[ον] ποτριον (assuming the second word is correctly restored), humorously portrays this tiny clay vessel (10 ⫻ 15 cm) as the huge, gold-decorated chalice of Nestor described in the Iliad (11.631–36), which only that great hero can lift with ease. Of course, in that instance a fictional object is made real and given an epigram. In the case I am about to discuss, a fictional epigram is inscribed on a real object. For more on the Ischia Cup, see my discussion in “Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street,” chap. 8 in the present volume. 39. The room contains five pictures in all, each coupled with epigrams (some from the Greek Anthology). Of these, three seem to contain dedicatory scenes.

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painting, which envisions a functional context for the dedication by giving concrete physical detail to the dedicants, the image of Pan, and their setting in a landscape. Still, this is clearly not an epigram set on its monument—though it certainly recalls that generic possibility. Rather, the painting simply illustrates the text.40 It is thus crucially different from, for example, the painting and epigram described by Herodotus (4.88) as dedicated by Mandrocles in the temple of Hera on Samos to commemorate his bridging of the Bosporus for the Persian king Darius.41 There, the painting is itself the dedication, appropriately set in a sacred shrine. At Pompei, it decorates a room—a reading room, most likely—in a private house, solely to signal its owner’s literary taste and cultural aspiration.42 A secondarily inscribed poem that more obviously attempts to mimic “genuine” inscribed epigram is the fragmentary metrical inscription on a Parian marble plaque displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Venice and dated by Guarducci, on the basis of the lettering, to the second century b.c. (1942: 29–30 with photo).43 That dating, however, was attacked and tartly corrected by W. Peek (1975: 26; see also Prioux 2002), who noted that the verses had long been recognized as Theocritus’ epigram 17 (Gow), on a statue of Anacreon, and that the inscription’s authenticity had already been questioned in the nineteenth century. Indeed, according to Peek, the plaque is too thin ever to have carried a statue; one need only glance at the photo to see that it cannot be ancient; the poem was copied onto stone in the Renaissance and is merely a jeu d’esprit (though given that it was first described by the sixteenth-century artist and forger Pirro Ligorio, I do not know why it could not be a deliberate counterfeit. Perhaps that would be too obvious?). I have argued elsewhere that this same epigram (as transmitted in the manuscripts) clearly signals to the reader its fictionality qua inscription both through its style and its content (Bing 1988). It is interesting, that, despite such signals, there remains an innate 40. In this it resembles the mythological panels of the “domus Musae” in Assisi, which illustrate epigrams incised in plaster outside the frames (Guarducci 1979; Leach 1988: 375–76). 41. On this epigram, see “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” in the present volume. 42. Cf. Leach 1988: 220: “the room is a chamber fitted out for the display of objets d’art. Such gallery rooms are often mentioned in descriptions of the furnishings of rich villas from the Republican period onward. Many were doubtless of imposing proportions, but this small room may be aptly explained by Cicero’s mention, in a letter to M. Fabius Gallus (Ad Fam. 7.23.1–3), of a little reading room he wanted to decorate with tabellae. In fact, both the location of the Casa degli Epigrammi room in a quiet corner at the back of the peristyle, and the nature of its subject matter are appropriate for a reading room.” 43. Cf. also the description in the museum guide (Tamaro 1953: 29).

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potential—a kind of genetic memory of inscription within the genre—that permits, perhaps invites, even clearly quasi-inscriptional specimens to be transferred “spielerisch auf einen Stein” (thus Peek). Given, then, that the boundaries between stone and scroll are quite permeable and that migration across them is easy, one might ask, does it really matter whether epigrams are inscribed or quasi-inscriptional? Many scholars play down the difference: “To a certain point the distinction is invalid,” says Richard Thomas, for instance (1998: 207).44 Beneath this widespread view is an all-too-exclusive focus on strictly formal aspects of the genre, on the basis of which, to be sure, it is hard to distinguish the two.45 But I would insist that the difference matters—indeed, is crucial—in one important respect: how we experience the poem, or (in literary critical terms) from the standpoint of reader response. Epigram for the scroll involves another horizon of expectation, elicits a different response, and has different expressive potential from epigram composed for the stone. In either case, context shapes our reading, whether book context or physical. But due to this genre’s peculiar history, the notion of context is intricate. To readers of sepulchral, votive, and honorific epigram, their daily experience of such poetry in cemeteries, temple precincts, marketplaces, and so on, links each instance—as it does no other genre’s—to one permanent manifestation in a single place.46 There it is set quite literally in stone—or wood, clay, metal, and so on. When, however, they encounter epigram on the scroll, its formal resemblance to the inscribed variety prompts readers to experience the poem’s context as at least partly a lack of context. The lack elicits a response, which is to use imagination to fill out the picture. In instances when an epigram migrates from one medium into another, the audience’s memory also plays a role: what it knows of contextual history will condition its response. 44. Cf. also Lausberg 1982: 97. 45. The presumption of formal identity underlies even Peek’s Griechische Vers-Inschriften (italics mine). Where it comes as a shock to the uninitiated to find a wide assortment of poems from the Greek Anthology. Though perhaps not as literal-minded as the inscriber of Theocritus’ epigram on Anacreon (already treated), Peek does something comparable, namely, placing quasi-inscriptional poems in an epigraphic context. For Peek sets inscribed and literarily transmitted epigrams side by side according to type, in consecutive numeration and without typographic distinction. Above all, that authorial anonymity that is so striking a feature of most inscribed epigram (especially funerary epigram) is imposed on the literary examples as though to simulate the style of inscription. It is only upon looking at the adnotatio critica that one finds that a given poem comes from the Greek Anthology and belongs to a particular author (cf. Peek 1955: XVI). 46. By contrast, occasional poetry’s existence between performances is not fixed in a unique location, and reperformance may occur in a variety of settings.

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An example from the Greek Anthology may illustrate these points (AP 6.138). πρν µ+ν Καλλιτλης µ/ δρσατο, τνδε δ/ 6κενου (κγονοι 6στ σανθ/, ο
ς χριν ντιδδου.

[Previously Kalliteles dedicated me, but this his descendants set up. Grant them favor in return.] This epigram belongs to a series ascribed to Anacreon (AP 6.134–45) and added to the dedicatory section of Meleager’s Garland, most likely from a scholarly collection, since the first nine are arranged alphabetically (Page 1981: 123–24). As transmitted, the poem’s frame of reference is strikingly unclear. To whom does the speaking voice (µε, v. 1) belong? The verb (δρσατο) points to a dedicatory object, but what was it—a statue, a column, a stele? Such questions multiply with τνδε in the next clause: was this another sort of object altogether or similar, and where are we to imagine it in relation to the speaking voice? Next, is there anything we can say about Kalliteles—apart from the fact that his (κγονοι considerately mention his earlier dedication?47 And what deity is being asked to give favor in return for τνδε? Engraved on its object, set in a certain place, such references would be unambiguous. Here on the page, they lose their definition. Such referential open-endedness encourages readers to interpret names, actions, and objects as typical rather than historically specific (cf. Gutzwiller 1998). I have argued elsewhere in this volume that in their quasi-inscriptional verse, Hellenistic poets recognized and eagerly exploited this open-endedness as a spur to imaginative play—Ergänzungsspiel. I argued that in doing so, they took advantage both of the genre’s traditional brevity and of the spare referential terrain of the scroll, which, if not quite semantically neutral, still leaves far more to the imagination than would the physical context of inscription. The lemma to our couplet provides a modest instance of imaginative supplementation encouraged by this setting. It consists of only three words—του
α"του
Cµοως—the last of which demonstrates that its author gave some thought as to which divinity might be addressed and looked for help to whatever sources were at hand. Naturally enough, he based his suggestion on the poem’s context. Since the previous poem was addressed 47. The name is quite common throughout the Greek world; cf. Fraser and Matthews 1987: I and II.

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to Apollo, its lemma describing it as νθηµα τω
ι /Απλλωνι . . . ,48 he suggests that Apollo was similarly (Cµοως) the addressee here—as though the dedications stood side by side in a precinct, rather than a text, and as though we readers were touring a shrine, not perusing a book.49 A poem’s place on the scroll, then, clearly contributes to the production of meaning, stimulating readerly play. Epigrams in books possess this potential, a potential not lost on their authors, who, starting in the third century b.c., also sometimes edited and ordered their work for collections.50 The previous part of the lemma—του
α"του
, “by the same” (i.e., Anacreon)—also reveals how placement on the scroll helps generate meaning. Authors of inscribed epigram traditionally remain anonymous, their identity subordinated to that of the person dedicating or honored by the monument.51 By contrast, epigrams in books tend to be tied to specific 48. AP 6.137: πρφρων, /Αργυρτοξε, δδου χριν Α,σχλου υω
ι / Ναυκρτει, ε"χωλς τσδ/ #ποδεξµενος. Perhaps the similarity of requests (δδου χριν ⬃ χριν ντιδδου) also suggested to the author of the lemma that the dedications belonged to the same god. 49. It appears that the poems in the section of the Milan Posidippus papyrus entitled iamatika were meant, within the confines of a book, to create the impression for the reader of touring a sanctuary of Asclepius. See “Posidippus’ Iamatika” in the present volume. 50. Puelma (1996: 126–27) contends that the complete absence of the term “epigram,” and of programmatic statements about the genre, among its authors until the first century a.d. suggest that poets did not consider it “vollwertige Kunstdichtung . . . , die in durchkomponierter Buchform der Öffentlichkeit . . . präsentiert werden sollten.” Rather, it was “eine zwang- und anspruchslose polymetrische Alltagspoesie, die Stoff einer mehr privatem Zweck dienenden Auswahlkollektion poetischer Parerga bot als für eine eigentliche kuntsgemäße Veröffentlichung.” Puelma finds confirmation in titles of early epigram collections, such as Παγνια or Κατ λεπτν, and in their principles of organization: “mechanischen Prinzipien einer Inventarisierung (wie thematische Gliederung, alphabetische Reihenfolge, Autorengliederung).” But given that the values expressed in such titles lie at the heart of the poetic program of the Hellenistic avant-garde, they can hardly suggest works unworthy of deliberate and artful publication, nor—given what we know about how Hellenistic poets edited and organized their works—can one assert that “thematic” (or even “alphabetic”) order is inconsistent with authorial intent (after all, Philitas, the author of Παγνια, also wrote PΑτακτοι Γλω
σσαι). Finally, the very earliest use of the term “epigram” in its broader meaning of short occasional poem (rather than inscription) contradicts the notion that such poetry was artistically too humble to publish in a collection. For that first instance occurs in the title σµµεικτα 6πιγρµµατα in a third-century b.c. papyrus (P. Petrie II 49a ⫽ SH 961) with epigrams by Posidippus and others and opening with a long dedicatory elegy that appears to be an epithalamion for Queen Arsinoe: evidently an epigram collection might be an appropriate gift for a royal wedding. This accords with the potentially high status of those who wrote epigram: e.g., Posidippus was granted proxeny by Thermon specifically in his capacity as 6πιγραµµατοποις, and Archimelus was paid one thousand medimnoi of wheat for celebrating the ship of Hieron II with an epigram (Athen. 5.209c–e). Why would such poets consider their epigrams unworthy of collection and artful publication? 51. Cf. Gutzwiller 1998: 47–48. The rare instances in which the poet is named begin in the fourth century. Cf. Hansen’s list in the note ad CEG II 888 ii; cf., further, Page 1981: 121 n. 2. All are dedicatory until the second century b.c.

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poets. Thus, inasmuch as our couplet is set in a group ascribed to Anacreon, readers are disposed to relate it to other poems του
α"του
, and they expect to find—indeed, will imagine—characteristics they associate with this particular poet, whether of style, content, poetic persona, or the like. It is no surprise, then, that various critics have supposed our couplet to embody that peculiarly Anacreontic virtue of “elegant simplicity”: its context on the scroll suggests it. More on this in a moment. In this instance, however, the play of imagination has been drastically curtailed by the discovery of the couplet inscribed in a single line on a marble herm near Daphni in Attica (IG I.381 ⫽ 107 FH ⫽ “Anacreon” IX FGE p. 140 ⫽ CEG I 313). πρµ µ+ν Καλλιτλες hιδρσατο D [䡵τνδε δ+ 6κν䡵]ο (γγονοι (στσα ν[䡵το hοι
ς χριν ντιδδο䡵].

[Previously Kalliteles made the dedication, but this one his descendants set up. Grant them favor in return.] We see at once how the focus narrows. Τνδε refers to the herm, and the closing imperative ντιδδο is thus addressed to Hermes, not Apollo. Με, which follows Καλλιτλης in the Greek Anthology, is absent from the inscription, so the speaking voice is impersonal. This initially seems to open the nature of Kalliteles’ dedication (Καλλιτλες hιδρσατο ) to a broader range of interpretation. But in fact, again, it limits it. For while µε implies the concurrent presence of two dedications, hιδρσατο ’s lack of object in the inscription suggests that Kalliteles once dedicated a herm, which his descendants have replaced; the earlier herm is no longer there.52 Epigraphic considerations push the date toward the second quarter of the fifth century—so we can definitely rule out Anacreon as author.53 And once we know the place in which the inscription stood, we can try to identify this particular Kalliteles by connecting him with comparably named individuals from the same region.54 We will do this because, as Gutzwiller points 52. Cf., e.g., FH ad loc., followed by FGE ad loc. K.-H. Stanzel suggests to me that the initial verb’s lack of object gives concrete expression to the absence of that earlier herm. While it is possible that the earlier dedication was not a herm (cf. Hansen’s comments ad CEG I 313), that is not likely. For the lack of a definite object, immediately followed by τνδε, “this one,” strongly suggests that the object of hιδρσατο was essentially the same. Indeed, on first reading, one could initially construe τνδε as the object of that verb—until readjusting the sense to take account of the subsequent verse. 53. Cf. Trypanis 1951: 33; FGE ad loc. 54. Cf., e.g., Beckby 1957: ad loc.: “Bekannt ist ein Bildhauer Kalliteles von Aigina, der um 460 blühte; er kommt also nicht in Frage, vielleicht ein Vorfahr.”

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out (1998:8), readers of inscribed epigram conventionally assume that the people named in it are real. In all, then, a modest distich becomes—in aesthetic terms—more modest still, reduced from a work of literature that could pass for “Anacreon” to a rather undistinguished piece of Gebrauchspoesie,55 with no pretension beyond its immediate pragmatic purpose. While Friedländer and Hoffleit suggest that it was the epigram’s “elegant simplicity” that “must have appealed to the collector,”56 there is, in fact, nothing in the diction to justify the characterization “elegant”—no individual word that is especially poetic or prosaic. Indeed, hιδρσατο ’s lack of object makes one stumble (perhaps the reason for µε in AP ). Simplicity, on the other hand, is there in spades.57 Far more, it is the fact of its inclusion in a collection and thereafter in the Greek Anthology—coupled with the forgetting of its origins— that first lends the couplet dignity and artistic worth, opening the way for a different experience of the poem. To sum up, a reader’s response to the genre is conditioned by context, though context of various kinds. First, for cases that stay fixed in their respective media, we make the distinction between seeing epigrams inscribed and seeing them on the scroll. For inscriptions, a “reading” comprises not just the text but its physical context: the kind of object on which it is engraved, its geographical setting, sociohistorical circumstances, and so on. On paper, by contrast, an epigram’s surroundings are pared to a minimum. The reader construes such textual landmarks as titles and headings, identifies authors (like “Anacreon” in the preceding example), or interprets a poem’s “setting” in relation to others on the page or within the collection. Yet the physical context of inscription remains an essential reference point even in quasi-inscriptional poems, only now the details are left to the reader’s imagining. A reader’s urge to engage his imagination in this way is strong, virtually a reflex, or habit of mind, based on deeply engrained expectations from daily experience of the genre in inscription. Put somewhat differently, the reader supplies those elements that he is used to seeing in life and that he was used to seeing even before 55. On the distinctions between literary and subliterary epigram, cf. the very important comments of Lausberg (1982: 96–97 with n. 4). 56. Friedländer and Hoffleit 1948: 104, echoed by Pfohl (1968: 159: “Darin [sc., in der AP] scheint unser Distichon wegen seiner ‘elegant simplicity’ einen Platz verdient zu haben”) and Lausberg (1982: 435). 57. In other words, the answer to Pfohl’s “große Frage . . . , warum die Inschrift über ihr Monument hinaus bekannt wurde” may be far more banal than the one he offered: “man denkt an eingängige Formulierungen mit ansprechendem Inhalt, an bedeutende Denkmäler” (1968: 157).

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he had learned how to read (the sight of inscribed monuments would, after all, have been familiar almost from the moment he grew conscious of the outside world). Thus, in concert with the genre’s traditional concision, the extent of the reader’s role in constructing meaning exceeds what is found in other genres. Turning now to epigrams that migrate between media, the couplet of “Anacreon” clearly shows that contextual history also makes a difference. If we know it was inscribed, and where, our reading changes.58 For we bring contextual data from one medium to bear on the other. Thus the genre consists not just of its formal aspects (the references to objects, settings, donors, etc., mentioned earlier). It is shaped as well by its function or “Sitz im Leben,” which alters our experience of the poem.59 To be sure, if unaware of its double status, we may still read an epigram as quasi-inscriptional.60 Yet 58. It is interesting, however, that the couplet’s context in the Greek Anthology still exerts residual influence on interpretation, as when Friedländer, Hoffleit, and others assert the couplet’s “elegant simplicity.” 59. On this important topic, cf. Jauss 1982: 103. Jauss’ comments on medieval genres and their “liberation” from function and movement toward “the autonomy of literature” in the Renaissance apply also to the development of epigram in the Hellenistic era: “the distinction between . . . functional constraint and ‘literariness’ has meaning in the Middle Ages only when it is understood as the process of gradual literarization of genres that originally are tied to cultic, religious and social functions.” For ancient genres, cf. Käppel’s discussion (1992: 17–21) of “Der ‘Sitz im Leben’ als gattungskonstituierende Komponente.” 60. Most readers of the Greek Anthology are probably oblivious to our couplet’s origin (since few, apart from specialists, will trouble to read the critical apparatus or notes): so long as they do not know of or recall its inscription, they retain the possibility of reading the poem as quasi-inscriptional. The less notable the monument, the more likely that is (readers are less likely to forget the fact of an epigram’s inscription when it belongs, e.g., to a famous building like the Pharos). Inscribed epigram, such as “Anacreon’s,” may thus acquire a second life entirely independent of its first, in which it functions to quite different effect. Further, I suspect that a poem might be conceived for the scroll as well as the stone, whether simultaneously or as an afterthought on the part of its author. Such ambidextrous epigrams are particularly likely in the Hellenistic period, when poets began shaping their work into collections. A good candidate among epigrams is Callimachus 33 Pf. (⫽ 21 GP), which— if ever inscribed—was probably on a very humble object that few of its readers on the scroll would have seen or known of. I discuss this poem in detail in “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” in the present volume. (The obvious nonepigrammatic model is Callimachus’ Aetia, where such evidently occasional, once-independent poems as the Coma Berenices enjoy a parallel life in the larger work to quite different effect.) But we must distinguish such a case, where an author contemplates two distinct media, aware that his readers’ experience in each will be different, from that of “Anacreon’s” couplet, meant—and meant only—for a single stone at a certain site. In the latter case, though the reader’s experience may also change with the medium, its literariness is not essential but extrinsic. One might compare the status of a “found” object in art, arrogated to new ends by someone unconnected with its prior function. Yet as in the case of “Anacreon’s” couplet, so long as we know its earlier function (i.e., so long as it is recognizably “found”), its origin shapes our response to its altered state.

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we can never read the couplet by “Anacreon” in the same way again once we recall its setting on the herm. And, after all, that simply ratifies the memorializing function of the monument: it wants us to remember it. Returning finally to the epigram of Posidippus, I would stress that while knowing of this (or any other) poem’s inscribed origin will influence our reading, it need not always have that narrowing effect on the sense that we found with “Anacreon’s” couplet. We cannot count on a neat distinction between indeterminacy of meaning on the scroll and fixity in stone. On the contrary, knowledge of the inscribed context may produce ambiguity. Earlier, I proposed two hypothetical scenarios in which Posidippus’ epigram might have been seen inscribed on the Pharos. In the first, I suggested that Strabo could have misconstrued Sostratus’ role in connection with the lighthouse if the epigram was inscribed on the tower rather than right beneath the statue of Zeus, where it would have been hard to see. In the second, I raised the possibility that the scribe Ptolemaeus may have identified in his dream with the statue of Zeus Soter atop the Pharos, a place he may actually have visited, and that he transcribed the poem because of that visit and, in particular, his interest in the statue. On this view, he would have understood correctly that the subject of the poem was the dedication of the statue. Perhaps neither imagined scenario is true. But if they are at all plausible, they reveal the interpretive pitfalls that may affect the intelligibility of an inscribed monument. An inscription’s physical context seems so stable and univocal. But at times, there is no clear unambiguous marker, like a statue of Zeus Soter, to guide us to a sure conclusion.

c h a p t e r 11

Posidippus’ Iamatika


T

he Milan papyrus confronts its modern readers with many surprises, among them—due to its singular subject matter—the short section entitled ,αµατικ. To help us get our bearings in the terrain of this extraordinary new text, I want, in this essay, to pose some rudimentary questions, such as the following: (1) What are the epigrams about? (2) Do they function as an ensemble? (3) Where should we seek their generic antecedents or models? and finally, (4) What kind of reader response do they elicit? To begin with the most basic, what are these epigrams about? The ,αµατικ comprise only seven poems, all four verses long except the first, which is eight,1 and all concerning cures, ,µατα. These cures are sudden and miraculous; they appear as testimony to the beneficent power of the healer god Asclepius.2 With the exception of iamatika 1 (95 AB), the This is an updated version of an article that appeared in Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309). ed. B. Acosta-Hughes, E. Kosmetatou and M. Baumbach, 276–91. Cambridge, MA 2004. © 2004 Center for Hellenic Studies. Trustees for Harvard University. For their penetrating—and therapeutic—critique of earlier drafts, I thank Profs. D. Bright, J. Lee, and C. Perkell. If this essay nonetheless remains uncured of all its defects, that is due entirely to the author’s pathological stubbornness. 1. In other words, it totals thirty-two verses, as does the following section, τρποι. The only section with fewer verses is that immediately preceding, the ναυαγικ with twenty-six (89–94 AB). Benjamin Acosta-Hughes points out (in conversation) that these short sections grouped together resemble Callimachus’ Iambi 2 and 3. 2. For suddenness as a characteristic of miraculous cures, see Weinreich (1909: 197–98).

217

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poems consistently invoke Asclepius3 or have to do with his cult.4 Indeed, even the doctor of poem 1, who discovered a cure for the bite of the Libyan asp, owes his success to having received “all the panacea of Asclepius’ sons” (95.5–6 AB).5 Proceeding to our second question, and in light of so unified a subject matter, we ask whether the poems comprise an artfully arranged set, that is, a deliberately planned sequence with marked beginning and end. Let us assume, as a working hypothesis, that they do. Given the section heading ,αµατικ, this is an inherently plausible hypothesis. The title, like that of almost all the other sections, calls attention to the process of editing and classification, in that it consists of the substantivized neuter plural with the denominative suffix -ικ, indicating a collection of things classed together, in this case things having to do with cures, ,µατα.6 Whether the editorial hand belonged to the poet himself or to a somewhat later compiler, we need not say. In any case, the hypothesis allows us to ask potentially useful questions about the ways in which the poems may work together to form a meaningful whole. What, for instance, can we say about the topics covered in the epigrams? Do they signify as a group? I believe they do. For the god is portrayed in the poems as curing an impressive range of illnesses. Taking the epigrams in order, we find—in addition to the snakebite of the first poem—cases of paralysis, epilepsy (the sacred disease), an infected wound made by a metal weapon, deafness, and blindness. It is striking that there is no overlap in these illnesses, that they are each quite different in kind. I think we may thus plausibly conclude that they were intended to be a representative assortment, to stand collectively for the entire spectrum of disease. That exemplarity squares well with another consideration, namely, the identity of the doctor who is the subject of the initial poem, Medeios of Olynthos, son of Lampon. It is highly probable that this doctor was the man of identical name and patronymic known to have held the prestigious 3. 96.1 AB: /Ασκληπι; 97.1 AB: /Ασκληπι; 98.3 AB: Παιν; 101.1 AB: /Α  σκληπι. 4. 99.3 AB: π/ ε"χωλων /Ασκληπιου
; 100.1 AB: τν \ συχον aπνον ,αειν (incubation). 5. His dedication is strictly speaking to Apollo. It is a statue portraying a wasted remnant of a man—the sort of patient he used to save through his discovery. Aristotle (History of Animals 8.607a) mentions a remedy for this snake’s bite—the so-called septic drug—without specifying its inventor: 6ξ ο#
=φεως ποιου
σι τ σηπτικν [sc., φρµακον], κα λλως νιτως. Other authors insist that the bite of the asp is incurable and fatal: cf. Ap. Rh. 4.1508ff.; Ael. NA 1.54, 9.15. The identity of this doctor, Medeios of Olynthos, is discussed shortly in the text. 6. Cf. Kühner and Blass 1890–2: II 294 no. 334.5. This is by far the earliest instance of the adjective ,αµατικς. The same appears to be the case for λιθικς (cf. Diodorus 7.1.1–3), ναθηµατικς (otherwise first in Polybius 27.18.2–3), and ναυαγικς.

Posidippus’ Iamatika 219

position of eponymous priest of Alexander and the Theoi Adelphoi at Alexandria in the year 259/8 b.c. and attested in the following year as overseeing the proceeds of the royal tax for medical services, τ ,ατρικν.7 He was, in other words, a VIP, a player in the upper reaches of Philadelphus’ court. The section thus opens in a distinctly Ptolemaic key. But more, considering the first poem’s markedly greater length (double that of any other in the section) and emphatic position, we may reasonably wonder whether the Ptolemaic note carries over into the remaining six poems and whether that representative assortment reflects the medical interests of this courtier and was perhaps even compiled in his honor.8 Further signs of unified design appear when we ask if the epigrams collectively evoke a particular social context. Again, we can answer in the affirmative; they clearly do. The context is that of sanctuaries of Asclepius, such as Epidaurus, the most famous, where pilgrims flocked from throughout the Greek world to seek the god’s aid in overcoming illness. In the shrine, they offered sacrifice and prayers and—most strikingly—underwent incubation in the hope that the god would appear to them in their sleep, either to cure outright or show them the road to health. Taken together, the epigrams echo the rhythms of life at precisely such a shrine: patients journey to the god;9 they sacrifice and pray;10 they experience the god’s power in the night11 and 7. I have presented the case for identification fully in Bing 2002a. Bastianini and Gallazzi (BG ad loc.) overlook the possibility. 8. Cf. my discussion of the ριστος ν ρ who is the subject of the section’s final poem (101.1 AB), at the end of the present essay. One may wonder why Posidippus is silent concerning Medeios’ political appointments. Though there can be no certainty, I can imagine a couple of scenarios: perhaps the poem comes from early in Medeios’ life and reflects his activities prior to his remarkable political rise, or perhaps it comes from late in his life, when he was thinking about how he wanted to be remembered. The imperfect tense of the verb referring to his therapeutic activity, 6σου, “[the ones] he used to save” (95.3 AB), would suit a time when he looked back on his medical career as something in the past. It brings to mind the epitaph of Aeschylus (Vita 25), which makes no mention of his poetry at all, saying of his life only that “the famous grove of Marathon could tell of his prowess and the thick-haired Mede learned it well.” 9. 96.1–2 AB: “Antichares came to you, Asclepius, with two canes, / dragging his step along the path” (πρς σ+ µ+ν /Αντιχρης, /Ασκληπι, σ1ν δυσ βκτροις / V
λθε δι/ τραπιτω
ν :χνος 6φελκµενος). 10. 96.3 AB: σο δ [+ θυη]π ολων; 99.3 AB: π/ ε"χωλων /Ασκληπιου
; 101.3 AB: α,τει
ται δ/ #γ具ει典αν. 11. 97.4 AB: δαι
µον, ποξσας eιχεο νυκτ µ ιη
ι, “divinity, you came and wiped away [the disease] in a single night”; 98.3–4 AB: Παιν, σ/ ε_[νοον ε,
δεν ν]δυνο ς , Eς 6π/ 4 νερωι / τν πολ1ν ,ηθ ε  [ς 6ξφυγ]εν κµατον, “when painless [he beheld you gracious], Paean. So after the dream / being cured [he escaped] his great toil”; 100.1 AB: ?νκ/ (δει Z νωνα τν \ συχον aπνον ,αειν, “When Zenon had to sleep that gentle sleep.” On Posidippus’ use of incubatory formulae, cf. Di Nino 2005: 60–63.

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make thank offerings;12 finally, they go back home again when they’re done.13 Still other meanings emerge from these poems if we view them as an ensemble. I would suggest that the section offers readers the impression, as they turn from poem to poem, of strolling through a shrine of Asclepius. It allows them to play the part of imaginary pilgrim or—in a more detached mode—uninvolved observer. In fact, as we shall presently learn, the official testimonials collected and inscribed by the authorities at Epidaurus themselves provide the model for such a reading of the iamatika: they repeatedly envision visitors to the shrine strolling about and perusing inscriptions.14 In this guise, Posidippus’ reader encounters diverse monuments—a crosssection typical of what a pilgrim might actually have seen at a healing shrine—and pauses to read about them, as the pilgrim might have done through inscriptions. There is the statue in 95 AB; the votive phiale of Coan Soses (97 AB); numerous testimonies recounting the wondrous cures of the god, such as those on the countless pinakes that filled the shrine (96, 98–100 AB); and, finally, a worshiper’s prayer (101 AB).15 The evocation of such a setting in these poems leads to our third question: to what genre do Posidippus’ ,αµατικ belong? What is their model? There are notably few epigrams about cures in the Greek Anthology, and the handful we possess are mostly late in date.16 Among inscribed epigrams, there is a comparable dearth.17 Those that we have, most datable in the fourth century b.c. and after, are strikingly reticent about anything miraculous in the cures. Take, for example, the hexameter epigram by the orator Aeschines that survives both in the Greek Anthology and as an inscription at Epidaurus and happens to be our earliest acrostic (CEG 776). [A,σχνης /Ατρο]µ του /Αθηναι
ος | [/Ασκληπιω
ι ]νθηκεν. θνητω
ν µ+ν τχναις ποροµενος ε,ς δ+ τ θει
ον 6λπδα πα
σαν (χων, προλιπ5ν ε_παιδας /Αθ νας, 12. 97.1–2 AB: ,ητ ρια σο νοσων, /Ασκληπι, Κω
ιος / δορει
ται Σωση
具ς典 ργυρην φιλην. 13. 99.3 AB: ο:καδ/ π 具ι典ει. See Di Nino 2005: 63–66. 14. The most explicit is IG IV2, 121.22, examined later in this essay, but cf. also IG IV2, 1 no. 121.33. 15. Though framed as a maxim, the epigram in fact functions as a prayer, though indirect, for good fortune and health. Cf. my discussion later in this essay. 16. Cf. AP 6.203 (Philip of Thessalonica), 6.330 (Aeschines), 9.46 (Antipater of Thessalonica), 9.298 (Antiphilos), 9. 511 (Anonymus). 17. Cf. CEG II 776 ⫽ AP 6.330 (Aeschines’ acrostic inscription from the first half of the fourth century cited in the following text), 808, 818; Kaibel 803–5; IG IV2, 1 no. 125 ⫽ Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: T 431. Except for the last, these references are from Rossi’s discussion of Theocr. Ep. 8 (2001: 197).

Posidippus’ Iamatika 221

,θην 6λθν, /Ασκληπι, πρς τ σν λσος, Iλκος (χων κεφαλη
ς 6νιασιον, 6ν τρισ µησν.

[Aeschines, son of Atrometus, from Athens dedicated [this] to Asclepius. Despairing of mortal skill and putting all hope in the divine, I left Athens of the fair youths and, coming to your grove, Asclepius, was cured in three months of a sore I’d had on my head for a year.] Here there is neither a spectacular illness (just a headsore) nor sudden miraculous cure. It takes three months for the sore to heal.18 A comparable reticence appears in other fourth-century inscriptions.19 None of them sound like what we find in Posidippus, where the sudden, miraculous cure, which may include paradox, is the rule. Interestingly, what the marvelous tales in Posidippus’ Iamatika most closely recall, by contrast, are the prose inscriptions set up by temple authorities in the second half of the fourth century b.c. at the sanctuary of Epidaurus (IG IV2, 1 nos. 121–24).20 Four large, carefully incised stelae survive,21 containing accounts of some sixty-six miraculous cures.22 They 18. Zanetto (2002: 74) strangely prints Stadtmüller’s νυξν in place of µησν, perhaps so as to make the cure appear more miraculous. 19. CEG II 808: [τν]δ / ,ατορας /Ασκλαπιο
ι Α,γιντ α ς | hυις µε hαγλλοι µνα
µ/ (θετο /Ανδρκριτος (Androcritus, the son of Hagillus of Aegina, dedicated me to Asclepius for his healing skill); 818: ντ/ γαθω
ν (ργων , /Α[σ]κλαπι, τσδ/ νθηκε | α#το
κα παδων δω
ρα τδ/ /Αντφιλος (In exchange for good works, Asclepius, Antiphilos dedicated these; / they are gifts for himself and his children). 20. Zanetto (2002), in an article unknown to me at the time I wrote this essay, reached similar conclusions about the Epidaurian prose inscriptions as Posidippus’ model. For treatments of these inscriptions, see, in addition to IG, Herzog 1931; Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: no. 423; LiDonnici 1995. For further inscriptions (not, however, including the aforementioned stelae) from Epidaurus and elsewhere, cf. Girone 1998. 21. Pausanias evidently saw these stelae (2.27.3), since his description is a close match: “In my day there are six left of the stone tablets standing in the enclosure, though there were more in antiquity. The names of men and women healed by Asclepius are engraved on them, with the diseases and how they were healed; the inscriptions are in Doric.” Cf. Tzifopoulos (1991: 19–20). 22. Though similar inscriptions also occur in the second century b.c. at the sanctuary of Lebena on the southern coast of Crete, they are not found elsewhere. Lynn LiDonnici has observed (1995: 42): “The preserved finds from the three known major mainland Asklepieia, Epidaurus, Corinth and Athens, present the appearance of a . . . regional style or preference for certain types of votives over others. Epidauros is best known for narrative inscriptions; Corinth lacks inscriptions but is rich in terra-cotta body-part votives, while Athens and Piraeus have many stone votive reliefs, without any text. Each of these types is poorly represented from the other sites. This may reflect the taste of the respective districts and the availability in each area of craftsmen and materials.”

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The Scroll and the Marble

are entitled not ,αµατικ but [/Ι]µατα του
/Απλλωνος κα του
/Ασκλαπιου
. You could just as well call them “Asclepius’ greatest hits”: they were evidently culled from the great mass of votive tablets ( pinakes) that filled the shrine and that were periodically cleared and buried by temple personnel so as to make room for more.23 We catch a glimpse of the transition from private votive to that official, collective text, as well as the addition of a notably miraculous element in the process, in the very first narrative on the stele, for here the private and relatively modest votive inscription is quoted within the text.24 [Kλ]ε5 πνθ/ (τη 6κησε. αaτα πντ/ 6νιαυτο1ς Aδη κυου
σα πο τν | [θε]ν κτις φκετο κα 6νεκθευδε 6ν τω
ι βτωιD Eς δ+ τχισ | [τα] 6ξη
λθε 6ξ α"του
κα 6κ του
αρου
6γνετο, κρον (τεκε, Tς ε" | [θ]1ς γενµενος α"τς π τα
ς κρνας 6λου
το κα 9µα τα
ι µατρ | [π]εριη
ρπε. τυχου
σα δ+ τοτων 6π τ νθεµα 6πεγρψατοD Ο" µγε | [θο]ς πνακος θαυµαστον, λλ τ θει
ον, πνθ/ (τη Eς 6κησε 6γ γασ | τρ Κλε5 βρος, (στε 6γκατεκοιµθη κα µιν (θηκε #γιη
.

[Cleo was with child for five years. After she had been pregnant for five years she came as a suppliant to the god and slept in the Abaton. As soon as she left it and got outside the temple precincts she bore a son who, immediately after birth, washed himself at the fountain and walked about with his mother. In return for this favor she inscribed on her offering: “Admirable is not the greatness of the tablet, but the divinity, in that Cleo carried the burden in her stomach for five years, until she slept in the Temple and he made her sound.”] (IG IV2, 1 no. 121.3–9).25

The only miraculous element in the quoted tablet is the five-year pregnancy. The framing narrative embellishes this nucleus with Kleo’s urgent 23. LiDonnici (1995: 66) suggests that “collection may have occurred every few years as the sanctuary became overloaded with votives” and that there may have been “several episodes of collection and arrangement of tales onto successively larger and probably less numerous stelai.” 24. The included votive seems to have been metrical (two hexameters and a pentameter): Ο" µγε[θο]ς πνακος θαυµαστον, λλ τ θει
ον, πνθ/ (τη Eς 6κησε 6γ γαστρ Κλε5 βρος, (στε 6γκατεκοιµθη κα µιν (θηκε #γιη
.

The inscription does its best, however, to mask the meter and assimilate it to the surrounding prose by breaking lines in midverse and midword (µγε | [θο]ς, γασ | τρ) and using scriptio plena (6κησε 6γ, (θηκε #γιη
). 25. Trans. Edelstein.

Posidippus’ Iamatika 223

departure from the temple and immediate birth. It has her deliver, moreover, a child of incredible maturity, who washes himself in the fountain as soon as he is born and is then able to walk around—and presumably home, as well—with his mother. The modest votive is thus transformed from a personal commemoration into a wonder tale celebrating the god’s miraculous benevolence—an aretalogy, in other words. We see here how the texts selected for preservation were exceptional and wondrous in character (or capable of being made so), able to fulfill an ongoing aretalogical function that set them apart from workaday commemorations of less spectacular illnesses. Four of Posidippus’ epigrams (96, 98–100 AB) share this aretalogical character, apparently not conforming to any other epigrammatic type (though cf. the discussion of 100 AB later in the present essay). I would suggest that inscriptions such as those at Epidaurus provided Posidippus with a model for these poems, particularly with regard to his content. In general, the maladies enumerated in those poems concerned with Asclepius find close parallels in the Epidaurian inscriptions, as do the character of the cures.26 Recent scholars have explored how the early Hellenistic poets display in their epigrams a keen awareness of their genre’s inscriptional roots and often play—as epigrammatists of later generations do not—on contemporary epigraphic topics and style.27 Posidippus was well positioned to indulge in such play, for in addition to being a master of the literary tradition—6ν ββλοις πεπονηµνη, as he describes his soul in a previously known epigram (AP 12.98.3 ⫽ 6.3 GP ⫽ AB 137.3)—he also knew his way around monuments, winning acclaim at particular shrines as 26. The lame man who approaches the god on two canes in 96 AB resembles a paralytic in the inscription ε,σελθ5ν | [ε,ς τ βατ]ον µετ δο βακτηρια
ν #γις 6ξη
λθε (IG IV2, 1 no. 123.123ff.). The epilepsy that plagued Coan Soses in 97 AB is likewise represented at Epidaurus (IG IV2, 1 no. 123.115). Numerous cases in the inscription record cures from weapons lodged and festering in the body. Posidippus’ Archytas, who “had kept the deadly bronze for six years / in his thigh . . . a festering wound” (98 AB), recalls the Epidaurian example of Euhippos, who “had had for six years the point of a spear in his jaw” (IG IV2, 1 no. 121.95 ⫽ Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: T 423, 12; cf. Zanetto 2002: 75–78; cf. also IG IV2, 1 no. 122.55 and 64 ⫽ Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: T 423, 30, 32). Interestingly, there don’t appear to be any cases of deafness among the Epidaurian iamata to compare with that of Asklas the Cretan in 99 AB. But cf. the late Epidaurian inscription of Cuttius the Gaul (IG IV2, 1, no. 440). Finally, blindness is a common ailment in the sanctuary of Asclepius (cf. IG IV2, 1 no. 121.33, 72, 120, 125; no. 122.7, 64; no. 123.129; cf. also AP 9.298). In iamatika 6 (100 AB), Posidippus gives it a paradoxical twist, however, by having the aged Zenon’s restored sight last for only two days before he dies. 27. See particularly Rossi (2001); Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004: 291–338), in the section “Funerary and Dedicatory Epigrams: Epigraphic Conventions and Epigrammatic Variations” of the chapter “The Epigram.”

224

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a poet of inscribed verse. An inscription at Thermon from 263/2 records that the Aetolian League granted him proxeny in his capacity as 6πιγραµµατοποις (IG IX 12; 17A.24 ⫽ test. 3 AB), and he also seems to appear in a proxeny list from the 270s at Delphi (Fouilles de Delphes III 3 no. 192 ⫽ test. 2 AB). As to the iamatika, we need not think exclusively of Epidaurus. I wonder whether Posidippus’ work in Egypt exposed him to the cult of Imouthes/Asclepius at Memphis, where, as Dorothy J. Thompson notes, “the prayers and expectations of the Egyptian stelae with tales of miracles the god performs are indeed similar in tone and content to contemporary Greek inscriptions from the shrine of the god Asklepios at Epidaurus” (1988: 210). Poems by Posidippus certainly made it to Memphis, as we know from the Firmin-Didot papyrus, so why not the poet himself? In the ,αµατικ, Posidippus used his familiarity with such settings to draw on an epigraphic model that scholars had not previously contemplated. Yet, in principle, it is a typically Hellenistic move: the poet here translates the subject matter of a prose genre into poetic form and shifts it from its inscriptional medium onto the scroll.28 28. In his Plutus, Aristophanes re-created the workings of such a shrine in comic verse and to hilarious effect. Comedy, however, does not evoke the inscribed tradition, while epigram insists on it through its generic history and retention of epigraphic conventions. Interestingly, among the Epidaurian inscriptions, we may find an epigraphic counterpart to the transferral of prose narrative into verse—in this instance, inscribed verse. On the first of the Epidaurian stelae (IG IV2, 1 no. 121.107 ⫽ Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: T 423, 15), there is a third-person account of the miraculous transformation of Hermodikos of Lampsakos from helpless paralytic into mighty muscleman, capable of superhuman feats. ;Ε ρµδικος Λαµψακηνς κρατς του
σµατος. του
τον 6γκαθε | δοντα ,σατο κα 6κελ σατο 6ξελθντα λθον 6νεγκει
ν ε,ς τ | ,αρν Cπσσον δναιτο µγιστονD C δ+ τµ πρ του
βτου κεµε | | νον Aνικε.

[Hermodikos of Lampsakos was paralyzed in body. This one, when he slept in the Temple, the god healed and ordered him upon coming out to bring to the Temple as large a stone as he could. The man brought the stone which now lies before the Abaton.] (trans. Edelstein) As the commentary in IG notes, this stone has been found: repertus est lapis proxime a templi latere orientali. Pondus computandum fecit Bl. C. 334 kg. Herzog (1931: 102) estimated the weight at 375 kilograms, that is, 1,045 pounds. An inscription postdating this narrative, apparently from the third century b.c.—litterae saec. III a. Chr. elegantes, as stated in the IG—translates it into first-person poetry (IG IV2, 1 no. 125 ⫽ Edelstein and Edelstein 1998: T 431 ⫽ Girone 1998: II.3, pp. 53–57). ;Eρµδικ[ος Λαµψακ]ηνς ση
ς ρετη
ς [παρδειγµ]/, /Ασκλητι, | τνδε ν[θηκα π]τρον ειρ | µενος, πα
σι[ν Cρα
ν] φανερν, | | =ψιν ση
ς τ χνη ςD πρν γρ | σς ε,ς χρας 6λθει
ν | σω
ν τε τκνων κει
µαι | νοσου aπο στυγερα
ς | (νπυος gν στη
θος χει | | ρω
ν τε κρατ ςD σ1 δ, | Παιν, πει
σς µε ρασθαι | τνδε, νοσον διγειν.

Posidippus’ Iamatika 225

This brings us to our final question, regarding reader response. How should a reader evaluate the miraculous cures in Posidippus’ epigrams, situated as they are at a remove from both their generic model (the prose inscription, already remote from its source in private votives) and its physical setting in a shrine?29 Do the poems endorse the cures or subvert them? In inquiring thus, we implicitly ask as well how Posidippus, an erudite and sophisticated reader, evaluated the cures he encountered on stone at such shrines as Epidaurus and how his literary reworking of such material reflects his response, as mediated for his readership. Indeed, it is well to bear in mind the multiple layers of interpretive mediation in play here: in experiencing the iamatika, an audience is reading Posidippus’ readings of the Epidaurian authorities’ readings of the personal votives. In any case, to contemplate the iamatika on the scroll is to have an altogether different experience from that of the stricken pilgrim encountering engraved iamata at a shrine, and the distance between these experiences may incline the poet’s readers toward a more detached perhaps even skeptical stance—an inclination no doubt even stronger for a modern scholar/reader, with the added distance of time and the attendant change in mentality.30 Leaving the epigrams aside for a moment, it is useful to recall that people in ancient times could be quite skeptical of what went on in healing sanctuaries. While the archaeological record leaves no doubt that such a sanctuary as Epidaurus enjoyed enormous popular esteem, particularly [Hermodikos of Lampsakos As an example of your power, Asclepius, I have put up this stone which I had lifted up, clear for all to see, a manifestation of your art. For before I came under the care of your hands and those of your children, I was stricken by a wretched illness, an abscess in my chest, my hands paralyzed. But you, Paean, by ordering me to lift up this rock made me live free from disease.] (translation after Edelstein)

It may be, of course, that the prose version was taken from an original verse inscription (damaged or worn over time) and hence reinscribed. Could it be, however, that the verse inscription is the secondary phenomenon and that such literary epigrams as Posidippus’ prompted, in their turn, demand for poetic versions? It is worth noting that the epigram heightens the miraculous element by specifying paralysis of the hands and an abscess in the chest—precisely those parts of the body with which Hermodikos presumably hefted the huge boulder— while the prose inscription leaves the ailment as the more general paralysis of the body, κρατς του
σµατος. 29. For epigram’s shift from monument to scroll and its impact on reader response, cf. “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” “Between Literature and the Monuments,” and “The Un-Read Muse?” in the present volume. See also Gutzwiller 1998: 47– 114; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004: 291–338. 30. Cf. the comments of Di Nino (2005: 75–76), which tend in a similar direction.

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from the mid-fourth century onward,31 nevertheless the cult did not elicit universal trust. There is the story that tells how Diogenes the Cynic once saw a woman prostrate herself before the god: “Wishing to free her [and those like her] of their superstition, . . . he dedicated to Asclepius a fierce ruffian who, whenever people prostrated themselves, would run up to them and beat them up” (βουλµενος α"τη
ς περιελει
ν τν δεισιδαιµοναν . . . τMω
/ΑσκληπιMω
νθηκε πλ κτην, Tς το1ς 6π στµα ππτοντας 6πιτρχων συντριβεν, Diog. Laert. 6.37–38). Now one might consider the skepticism of a Diogenes an extreme case, but we find similar sentiments voiced among the inscribed Epidaurian ,µατα themselves. One text in particular, IG IV2, 1 no. 121.22, placed near the start of the first stele and so perhaps intended programmatically, presents starkly conflicting assessments of the god’s miraculous cures. Perhaps it can also help us set interpretive parameters and can provide a baseline for evaluating possible reader response to Posidippus’ iamatika. /Ανρ το1ς τα
ς χηρς δακτλιους κρατει
ς (χων πλν | 2νς φκετο πο τν θεν κταςD θεωρω
ν δ+ το1ς 6ν τω
ι αρω
ι | πνακας πστει τοι
ς ,µασιν κα #ποδισυρε τ 6πιγρµµα | | [τ]α. 6γκαθεδων δ+ =ψιν ε,
δεD 6δκει #π τω
ι ναω
ι στραγαλζον | [τ]ος α"του
κα µλλοντος βλλειν τω
ι στραγλωι, 6πιφανντα | [τ]ν θεν 6φαλσθαι 6π τν χη
ρα κα 6κτει
να ο# το1ς δακτ具λ典 | λουςD Eς δ/ ποβαη, δοκει
ν συγκµψας τν χη
ρα καθ/ Iνα 6κτενειν | τω
ν δακτλωνD 6πε δ+ πντας 6ξευθναι, 6περωτη
ν νιν τν θεν, | | ε, (τι πιστησοι
τοι
ς 6πιγρµµασι τοι
ς 6π τω
µ πινκων τω
ν | κατ τ ε ρν, α"τς δ/ ο" φµεν. “@τι τονυν (µπροσθεν πστεις | α"το[ι
]ς ο"κ 6ου
σιν πστοις, τ λοιπν (στω τοι,” φµεν, “PΑπιστος | =ν [οµα].” Zµ ρας δ+ γενοµνας #γις 6ξη
λθε.

[A man whose fingers, with the exception of one, were paralyzed, came as a suppliant to the god. While looking at the tablets in the Temple he expressed incredulity regarding the cures and scoffed at the inscriptions. But in his sleep he saw a vision. It seemed to him that, as he was playing at dice below the temple and was about to cast the dice, the god appeared, sprang upon his hand, and stretched out his [the patient’s] fingers. When the god had stepped aside it seemed to him [the patient] that he [the patient] bent his hand and stretched out all his fingers one by one. When he had straightened them all, the god asked 31. Cf. Tomlinson 1983: 25; LiDonnici 1995: 10–11.

Posidippus’ Iamatika 227

him if he would still be incredulous of the inscriptions on the tablets in the Temple. He answered that he would not. “Since, then, formerly you were incredulous of the cures, though they were not incredible, for the future,” he said, “your name shall be “Incredulous.’” When day dawned he walked out sound.32] I believe that we have here one potential road map for interpreting the iamatika of Posidippus. For this is a text about how to read accounts of miraculous cures. In it, we are presented with two models of reader response, twin poles marking the endpoints along an axis of belief, the one skeptical, the other favoring credence. Of course, the narrative strongly endorses the latter: readers should believe wholeheartedly in the powers of the god. That conclusion should not surprise, given the document’s setting at the god’s chief shrine. On the other hand, it scarcely compels Posidippus’ readers, who operate under quite different circumstances, to discard whatever skepticism they may have had. Posidippus does not stage as a guide for his audience any comparable encounter with divinity (nor even provide them an authoritative voice or point of view), and so their experience must a fortiori remain open to both poles of interpretation set out on the Epidaurian stele and to all gradations in between. Consider the case of Soses of Cos in 97 AB. ,ητ ρια σο νοσων, /Ασκληπι, Κω
ιος δωρει
ται Σωση
具ς典 ργυρην φιλην, ο#
σ1 τν 6ξαετη
{α}κµατν 具θ典/ 9µα κα νσον {ε}ρ ν, δαι
µον, ποξσας eιχεο νυκτ µ ιη
ι.

[In payment to you for curing his sickness, Asclepius, Coan Soses dedicates a silver libation bowl, he whose six-year illness, together with the sacred disease, divinity, you came and wiped away in a single night.] Nothing in this epigram militates against our considering it a stock expression of popular piety. To be sure, a silver phiale is a particularly handsome gift, but ,ητ ρια (⫽ :ατρα), “thank offerings for cure,” are attested in numerous inscriptions at Epidaurus (cf. LSJ s.v. :ατρα). Similarly epilepsy, the sacred disease, is well known in the Epidaurian stelae (IG IV2, 1 no. 123.115). Six years is a conventional duration for an illness (IG IV2, 1 no. 32. Trans. Edelstein.

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121.95; Hippocr. Epid. 5.46; 98 AB). And the traditions of the god’s healing hand (which here “wipes away” the disease) and of his nocturnal appearance to the pilgrim are likewise quite common, as Weinreich has shown in detail.33 But Soses turns up again in a starkly different light after just five poems, in epigram 2 of the section entitled τρποι (103 AB).34 ο"δ/[{ε}] 6περωτ  σας µε νµ ου χριν ο_τε πθε具ν典 γη
ς ε,µ  παρασ τεχεις ο _ τ ε [τς ο]_ τε τνωνD λλ σ µ/ {ε} ?σ υ χ  [ως :δε κεµεν]ο ν, ε,µ δ/ 6γ5 παι
ς /Αλκαου Σωσ η
 ς Κ ω
 [ιος, Cµς, ποτ]ε, σου


[You didn’t even ask, for custom’s sake, what land I’m from; no, nor who I am, nor descended from whom. You just walk by. Come on, [look at] me [lying] peaceably. I’m the son of Alkaios, Soses of Cos, [alive once, same] as you.] Though he had appeared cured of both epilepsy and his unspecified sixyear illness in the third iamatikon (97 AB), poor Soses is envisioned here as having suffered a grave setback—the gravest: he is dead. Might the title τρποι refer among other things to such sharp “turns” of fortune as we see between these two poems (LSJ s.v. I)? In any case, it is hard, retrospectively, not to find humor in the earlier poem. For—despite his pious gratitude before—Soses has become a cranky old corpse. That silver phiale, precious as it was, did not ensure happiness. Now Soses makes no allusion to prior blessings, no reference to divinity at all. He just berates the passerby for his breach of decorum in not inquiring about his identity. The fourfold repetition of negatives in metrically emphatic positions— including verse start, bucolic diaeresis, and following the caesura of the pentameter—is a humorously over-the-top way of having Soses express his indignation. One thing is certain: Nothing about the way he lies in his tomb is “peaceable” (?σ υ χ  [ως . . . κεµεν]ο ν). On the contrary he makes darn sure that, willy-nilly, the passerby will hear his full provenence, patronymic included (which had been omitted from the first poem), especially as he had so rudely failed to ask about it. In light of this unex33. Weinreich (1909: 1–45, 76–79). 34. As Bastianini and Gallazzi note, the reconstruction of the second couplet is quite speculative (cf. BG ad XV 30–31 and following). I prefer their alternative supplement, Cµς, ποτ]ε, σου
rather than Cµς, φλ]ε, σου
, for v. 31, since it better suits the feisty speaking voice of the first couplet.

Posidippus’ Iamatika 229

pected reversal in fortune, the first poem—and with it, Soses—appear tinged with comic irony.35 An epigram that permits a comparably double reading is the sixth iamatikon (100 AB), about the elderly blind man Zenon. ?νκ/ (δει Z νωνα τν \ συχον aπνον ,αειν, πµπτον 6π/ ε,κοστω
 ι τυφλν 6ντα θρει, 4γδωκο ν τ α  τη ς #γι ς γνετ/ Vλιον δ+ δς µου
[νον βλψας τ]ν βαρ1ν ε,
δ/{ε} /Αδην.

[When Zenon had to sleep that gentle sleep, in blindness for the twenty-fifth summer, at age eighty he was cured. But glimpsing the sun only twice, he beheld oppressive Hades.] A pious reading (which can certainly be justified given the epigram’s location in the iamatika) might construe this poem as conventionally aretalogical. When Zenon, elderly though he was and blind for a quarter century already, sought divine help for his affliction through incubation (“When [he] had to sleep that gentle sleep,” v. 1), the god gladdened his final days by miraculously restoring his sight. If, according to the proverb, one should count no man happy until he dies, then surely (that pious reading suggests) Zenon may be accounted such. But the poem also allows a darker construction: on a purely formal level it could just as well be an epitaph. One would not have been surprised to find it in book 7 of the Greek Anthology.36 Indeed, I believe one could assign it to a well-known, presumably epideictic sepulchral type, the “paradox in death.” Unique among the poems of the iamatika, this one contains no mention of the healing god. That, of course, could be supplied from the context within the section. Thus it was obvious to read the first verse as referring to incubation. In itself, however, the phrase aπνον ,αειν in the first verse could just as well refer to death (as at GV 455, 1874.7; Anthologia Planudea 375: for death as a “sleep,” cf. LSJ s.v. aπνος); that is, when Zenon was going to die, his sight was suddenly restored—a bitter blessing, as it turned out. For with its pointed final words, ε,
δ/{ε} /Αδην, the epigram 35. Indeed, we may even find an explicit link to the earlier poem if, instead of Bastianini and Gallazzi’s νοµ ου χριν in v. 1, we read νσ ου χριν, i.e., “on account of [my unspecified] sickness.” The passerby is squeamish about stopping at the tomb due to that disease, which proved fatal: the god, it appears, had not definitively cured Soses. 36. I owe this observation to Richard Thomas.

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manifestly plays on the etymology of Hades as “invisible,” ιδ ς, the place where “nothing is seen” (cf., e.g., Plato Crat. 403a).37 Rather than enjoy the sightless sleep of death (aπνον ,αειν), Zenon now can see. But what does he behold? Nothing, forever—a grimly ironic, paradoxical demise.38 A further epigram that seems to invite double reading is that on Asklas of Crete (99 AB). C Κρς κωφς 65ν /Ασκλ [α
ς, µη]δ / ο
ος κοειν α,γιαλω
ν †οιος† µηδ/ νµων πταγον ε"θ1ς π/ ε"χωλων /Ασκληπιου
ο:καδ/ π 具ι典ει κα τ δι πλνθων 8 µατ/ κουσµενος.

[Asklas the Cretan, deaf and unable to hear either the [crash] of the surf or clatter of winds, suddenly because of his vows for Asclepius went home a man about to hear conversations even through brick walls.] How we interpret this poem depends on a linguistic nicety—a nuance of aspect—to which a hasty reader might turn a deaf ear. Until the final line, a pious interpretation seems perfectly appropriate. Asklas’ deafness is absolute; it cuts him off from even the loudest sounds of nature. Upon visiting the shrine, he makes vows to Asclepius, then heads back home. The start of verse 3, ε"θ1ς, leaves us primed for a sudden, miraculous cure in the manner of the Epidaurian inscriptions, and the beginning of verse 4 appears to confirm that expectation (κα τ δι πλνθων 8 µατ/). But the future participle κουσµενος, pointedly placed as the poem’s last word, creates a space for irony. For it suggests that Asklas left the shrine as yet unaware of what he had acquired there, “a man about to hear conversations even through brick walls.” That ignorance sets the pilgrim in a comic light. The verb of cognition moreover functions as a cue, inviting the reader, retrospectively, to hear humor in other elements of the poem. Asklas gained not simply the ability to hear but (as he presumably discovered not long after) the superhuman capacity to overhear conversations “even through brick walls.” No doubt δι πλνθων is miraculous; but it is also very funny, suggesting a range of domestic or public contexts in which his newfound talent might be used. There is comic potential, too, in his 37. Indeed, in an active sense, the adjective can also mean “blind” (cf. LSJ s.v.). 38. For a comparable “paradox in death,” cf., e.g., Dioskorides 33 GP ⫽ AP 7.76, where a mariner abandons seafaring for farming, only to be overtaken after death by the flooding Nile, which consigns him to the watery grave of a shipwrecked man (ναυηγν τφον, v. 6).

Posidippus’ Iamatika 231

ethnicity: Cretans famously prized reticence, so the prospect of indiscriminately hearing everyone’s conversation might seem more torment than blessing. Bastianini and Gallazzi may have been right when they commented that the poet describes this cure “con una sfumatura di sorriso” (BG ad loc.). Of course, it is important to recall that humor is not necessarily at odds with a pious reading. Greek religion embraces the comic in ways that startle modern sensibilities schooled in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The tales in the Epidaurian inscriptions, too, are at times distinctly—and no doubt deliberately—funny.39 Thus humor alone should not suffice to make Posidippus’ readers incredulous—unless that incredulity has the semantic range it has in the narrative of the skeptical visitor in the Epidaurian stele (previously cited), where the term could signify distinct things under different circumstances and where the name “Incredulous” in fact bespoke credence. I want to close with a look at the last of the iamatika (101 AB), an epigram once again susceptible to double reading but that perhaps illuminates a different point along the interpretive axis previously traced. =λβον  ρ ι σ τ ο ς  ν [ ρ], /Α  σκληπι, µτριον α,τει
—σο δ/ 4ργειν πολλ βουλοµνωι δναµις— α,τει
ται δ/ #γ具ει典ανD κη δοD ταυ
τα γρ ε,
ναι Vθων #ψηλ φανεται κρπολις.

[The noblest man, Asclepius, asks for moderate wealth— great is your power to bestow it when you wish— and he asks for health: remedies both. For these appear to be a towering citadel for human conduct.] Coming after the particular instances of divine cures in the previous poems, this epigram appears to confirm their value by generalizing the importance of health.40 With its idealized subject—the indefinite  ρ ι σ τ ο ς  ν [ ρ—and its impersonal, metaphor-rich summation (κη δοD ταυ
τα 39. Weinrich (1909: 89–90) makes the following comment about several of the Epidaurian miracles, e.g., a cure for baldness (IG IV2, 1 no. 121.122) and a cure for lice, in which the god sweeps away the vermin with a broom (IG IV2, 1 no. 122.45): “Bei diesen Wundern möge man bedenken, dass die Aretalogie nicht nur erbauen, sondern auch unterhalten will. Deshalb wird Humor und Komik nicht verschmäht.” 40. BG (ad loc.) cite numerous instances of the view that health (often coupled with wealth) is the most important of goods, such as PMG 890, the paean of Ariphron PMG 813, Simonides PMG 604, and Pindar Ol. 5.23.

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γρ ε,
ναι / Vθων #ψηλ φανεται κρπολις, vv. 3–4), the poem functions

as a gnomic conclusion drawn from the aforegoing tales. We have seen, however, that the outcome of divine therapy is not always expected or, indeed, happy. For Soses of Cos, to be healed of his epilepsy was doubtless a blessing (97 AB), but his epitaph a mere twenty verses—five poems—later in the τρποι (103 AB) exposes its ultimate futility. Miraculous cures have their limits, for as that poem’s fragmentary final words seem to suggest, Soses is only mortal (“same] as you,” Cµς, ποτ]ε, σου
). That is one condition the god cannot cure.41 Similarly, for elderly Zenon (100 AB), it appeared that the gift of sight arrived with unforeseen consequences. Take care, the poem seems to suggest, what you beg from the gods: they may grant it. The same could apply to the deaf man Asklas of Crete (99 AB), who leaves the shrine with more than he bargained for, the potentially disagreeable ability to hear “even through brick walls.” At issue here may be less skepticism or belief than how one thinks about wondrous cures. One potential response to the iamatika might be to suppose that they do not so much tempt one to disbelieve in the possibility of miracles as make one question their efficacy in creating human happiness, in fulfilling one’s desires: for miracles sometimes prove to be either inconvenient or useless for humans locked in the condition of mortality. As such, the cures represented in these poems become yet one more example of a far broader theme, to wit, the problematic nature of divine-human interaction. In this light, the final epigram invites a different, less staunchly affirmative reading. The poem emphasizes moderation. The key adjective in this respect, µτριον, in verse 1, is accentuated through its placement following the bucolic diaeresis, at the other end of the line from its noun. Exemplifying a human standard of measure, =λβον . . . µτριον contrasts in an essential way with the divinity’s expansive πολλ . . . δναµις of verse 2. Similarly, note the ontological opposition inherent in the juxtaposition  ρ ι σ το ς  ν [ ρ], /Α  σκληπι (v. 1). In light of this emphasis, one may plausibly take µτριον not just as modifying =λβον in verse 1 but as extending to #γ具ει典αν in verse 3.42 This possibility is all the more appealing given how closely the poem binds together =λβος and #γεια, classing them into the single category κη and subsuming them into the unitary image κρπολις.43 On this interpretation, the noblest person requests not only “moderate wealth” but 41. Asclepius notoriously tried to raise a mortal from the dead but was struck by Zeus’ lightning for his transgression; cf. Pindar Pyth. 3.55–58. 42. For µτριος two-termination, cf. LSJ s.v. Or could this be simply an anacoluthon? 43. In this way, the epigram actualizes the traditional concept of πλουθυγεια, which BG trace in their commentary (ad vv. 19–21).

Posidippus’ Iamatika 233

“moderate health.” That is, he does not rely on the prospect of a divine cure, which—even if he were so fortunate as to receive one—might lead to unforeseen and untoward consequences. Rather, he prays for what human methods can achieve, a more modest general fitness of body and mind that is a foundation for proper conduct. Of course, the only humanly wrought cure in the iamatika was that of Medeios, son of Lampon, in the first poem (discussed earlier in the present essay). It now appears that he was indeed an ριστος ν ρ, one of the foremost of the Ptolemaic ριστοι (Bing 2002a). Perhaps it is he that is meant here and implicitly exhorted to pray.44 I use the word “pray” advisedly here, for although this epigram is framed as a maxim, the invocation of Asclepius in verse 1 and parenthetical address to the god in verse 2 suggest that the poem is in fact an indirect prayer. Perhaps that indirection is meant to characterize the tact and moderation not just of the noble doctor Medeios, son of Lampon, but of the speaking voice itself. It tells us what an ριστος ν ρ should do but leaves unspoken the implication that such a pronouncement itself bespeaks an ριστος ν ρ—here obliquely requesting moderate wealth and health on its own behalf. Discreet yet authoritative, this anonymous voice may plausibly be identified as the poet’s. Ending the section, then, with a traditional form of poetic closure, a prayer, the poet pleads for something other than a miracle and more moderate—counsel that may be compatible with the Stoic orientation that some scholars have found in Posidippus (Gutzwiller 1998: 157–62). At the close of the iamatika, its readers must decide if that plea retrospectively colors their response to the wonders they encountered before.

44. If that is correct, then he, given the wondrous nature of his cure for snakebite, may have been less ready to pray for only “moderate health,” i.e., to take µτριον as modifying #γ具ει典αν as well as =λβον—for that reading subtly undercuts his achievement. Nothing compelled him to read it thus, however: #γ具ει典αν can just as well stand alone.

c h a p t e r 12

Posidippus and the Admiral KALLIKRATES OF SAMOS IN THE EPIGRAMS OF THE MILAN POSIDIPPUS PAPYRUS (P. MIL. VOGL. VIII 309)




T

he new epigrams of Posidippus, published as P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309, cast a sudden dazzling light on an array of important topics in Hellenistic studies, ranging from Ptolemaic patronage of the arts to the early form of the poetry book. Not least among the scroll’s attractions are previously unknown poems about Kallikrates of Samos and his famous foundation, the shrine of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis at Cape Zephyrion near Alexandria. These provide fresh insight into the interests of this prominent Ptolemaic courtier and so oblige us to consider anew some aspects of his career and objectives. That is what I propose to do in this essay. In light of both new evidence and old, Kallikrates will emerge as a figure who promoted a consistent agenda in his actions on behalf of his sovereigns, Ptolemy II and Arsinoe Philadelphus. An exponent of that “intercultural poetics” most recently described by Susan Stephens (2003), he sought to mediate between old Hellas and the sometimes strange new world of Ptolemaic Egypt, bridging the gap between the two, whether by bringing Greek tradition to bear on his Egyptian milieu or by spreading abroad his rulers’ novel cultural policies. To start, let us review what is known of his life: Kallikrates of Samos, This is an updated version of “Posidippus and the Admiral: Kallikrates of Samos in the Milan Epigrams,” pp. 243–66 © 2003 GRBS.

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235

the son of Boiskos, was a man of power and influence.1 “Supreme commander of the Ptolemaic navy,” or nauarch, for some twenty years from the 270s into the 250s b.c.,2 he belonged to the inner circle of the court and was described by Philadelphus himself as among his philoi (Welles 1934, no. 14.9). His achievements and faithful devotion to the crown were such that Ptolemy chose him to be the first eponymous priest of the dynastic cult of Alexander and the Theoi Adelphoi in 272/1 (P. Hibeh II 199.ii.12), a signal honor. At Olympia, Kallikrates made a lavish dedication to Zeus Olympios in honor of his king and queen, setting up statues of each atop a pair of ionic columns ten meters high (discussed later in the present essay). A new detail furnished by the Milan Posidippus is the information that Kallikrates was active also at another Panhellenic shrine, at Delphi, where (as we shall see) his colts won the chariot race. In consequence, Kallikrates made a grand statuary dedication to the Theoi Adelphoi (74 AB). Further dedications by him are recorded in Samos (a statue of one Tinnis, daughter of Dionysodoros, apparently to Hera, IG XII.6, 446) and possibly at Kourion in Cyprus (a stele to Apollo, Mitford 1971: 117–18 no. 58). In Egypt, he dedicated a sanctuary of Isis and Anubis on behalf of Ptolemy and Arsinoe at Canopus.3 Most famously, at some point shortly before or after Arsinoe’s death, he founded the shrine of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis at Cape Zephyrion between Alexandria and Canopus.4 This shrine is unique in being the only edifice of the third century b.c. commemorated in multiple epigrams by various leading Hellenistic poets.5 As we will see, the Milan Posidippus adds at least one more poem to the roster—I believe, however, that it in fact adds several. Both old and new epigrams show clearly that through this coastal shrine, Kallikrates sought 1. In the following, I rely on the compilation of sources in Mooren 1975: 58–60 no. 010. 2. Cf. Hauben 1970: 69. Kallikrates appears as νααρχος during Arsinoe’s lifetime (i.e., before 268) in a Samian dedication (OGIS I 29) and in his own foundation, on behalf of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, of a temple of Isis and Anubis at Canopus (SB I 429). In about 257 b.c., he was probably still nauarch, as he had his agent Zoilos write to Apollonios, Philadelphus’ chief financial officer, to collect a tax (τριηρρχηµα) for the upkeep of the navy (P. Mich. I 100). 3. SB I 429. The attention to Egyptian gods may also be reflected in the offering of a rhyton in the form of Bes at the shrine of Aphrodite-Zephyritis, described in an epigram by Hedylus (4 GP), discussed later in the present essay. 4. I am persuaded by the dating of Arsinoe’s death to 268 proposed by Grzybek (1990: 103–12), Hazzard (1987; 2000: 3), etc., rather than the previously held 270. See the discussion of their findings in Hauben 1992: esp. 160ff. 5. The previously known epigrams are Posidippus 116 AB ⫽ 12 GP ⫽ P. Firmin-Didot, and 119 AB ⫽ 13 GP ⫽ Athen. 7.318d; Callim. Ep. 14 GP ⫽ 5 Pf. ⫽ Athen. 7.318b; Hedylus 4 GP ⫽ Athen. 11.497d. Among the new poems of the Milan papyrus, cf. 39 AB and possibly 36 and 37, all of which I discuss later in the present essay. Cf. Hesberg 1981: 63.

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to identify the queen with the maritime Aphrodite, who held particular significance for sailors. As Louis Robert stressed, “we see a link” between the character of the cult and “the duties of the nauarch.” Through this foundation, “the queen became patron of the fleet and of the Ptolemaic maritime empire.”6 Finally, Kallikrates was himself the object of numerous honors. At Olous on Crete, he was acclaimed as “benefactor” and granted proxeny (I. Cret. I xxii 4.A.35–38). He was honored with statues by the nesiotai in Delos (Durrbach, Choix 25.1–2) and at Palai-Paphos and Kourion in Cyprus (Mitford 1961: 9 no. 18), as well as together with Ptolemy and Arsinoe—and on a strikingly equal footing—in his native Samos (OGIS I 29.3–4, with II p. 539). In all, our evidence depicts a man who—befitting the mobility implicit in the office of nauarch—glides easily between the old Greek world and the new and is at home in both. On the one hand, we find him linked with venerable Hellenic shrines, making offerings to traditional Greek deities, such as Zeus at Olympia, Hera at Samos, Apollo on Cyprus; yet at the same time, he serves in the very untraditionally Greek role of priest of his divinized, yet living, sovereigns in their dynastic cult. Again, on the one hand, Kallikrates aimed his newly founded cult of ArsinoeAphrodite Zephyritis at a mostly Greek constituency, for according to the testimony of an epigram by Posidippus (116 AB ⫽ 12 GP), it is Greek women and men who are its beneficiaries—the poem addresses them: /Aλλ/ 6π τν Zεφυρι
τιν κουσοµνην /Αφροδτην / ;Ελλ νων Zγνα βανετε θυγατρες, / οG θ/ Zλς 6ργται νδρες, “but come to that Aphrodite who will be called Zephyritis, chaste daughters of the Greeks and men who work the sea”; yet at the same time he founded a cult of the Egyptian deities Isis and Anubis at Canopus, whose priest is recorded as being the Egyptian Pasis.7 The important point is not that Kallikrates simply moved between these worlds but that he actively sought to bind them together, establishing links from one to the other, integrating his adoptive homeland into the cultural fabric of old Greece. I believe that the new epigrams help illustrate this point. The first I will examine commemorates Kallikrates’ victory at the Pythian Games in the chariot race for colts (74 AB). 6. Robert 1966: 201–2. 7. SB I 429. Following Fraser (1967: 40), Hauben (1970: 40 with n. 7) believes that Pasis “usurped the proprietary rights to this temple” at a later time.

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237

6ν ∆ελφοι
ς ? πω
λο ς @τ/ ντιθουσα τεθρπποις ξον具ι典 Θεσσαλικω
ι κου
φα συνεξπεσε νεµατι νικ σασα, πολ1ς ττε θρου
ς 6λατ ρω ν V
ν µφικτοσιν, Φοι
β/{ε}, 6ν γωνοθταιςD 8βδους δ+ βραχες χαµδις βλον, Eς δι κλ  ρου νκης ?νιχων ο,σοµνων στ φανονD \δε δ+ δεξισειρα χαµα ν ε σα[σ/ ]κ ερα ων 6[κ σ]τηθ ω  ν α"τ 8 β δ ον 6φειλκσα[το, ? δ ε ι ν  θ  λεια µετ/ ρσεσινD α δ/ 6βησ[αν φ θ  γ µ α τ[ι] π α ν δ µωι σ µµιγα µυριδ[ες κε[ν]η ι κ η ρυ
ξαι σ τ φανον µγανD 6ν θ ο ρ[βωι δ+ Κα λ [λικ]ρ  της δφνη具ν典 Aρατ/ νρ Σµ ι ο[ς, Θεο
ι σ ι δ / /Α
 ν ττ [γνω]ν  δ[ε]λφε{ι}οι
ς ε,κ5 6ναργα τω
9ρ[µα κα ?ν]ο χ ον χλκεον E δ/ (θετο.

5

10

[At Delphi this filly, when vying with the four-horse chariots, nimbly ran a dead heat against a Thessalian rig and won by a nose. Great then was the uproar of the drivers, Phoebus, in the presence of the amphictyonic judges. But they at once threw their rods onto the ground, so that by lot the charioteers should carry off the crown of victory. But she, the right-hand trace-horse, bent down in the pureness of her heart and lifted up the rod herself, a wondrous female among the males. The mingled throng then clamored with a single voice for the judges to proclaim the great crown hers. And amid noisy applause the Samian man Kallikrates carried off the laurel. But here he set as vivid image of those former contests a bronze chariot and charioteer for the Theoi Adelphoi.] With a vividness no doubt meant to match the ε,κ5ν 6ναργ ς dedicated by Kallikrates (vv. 13–14), the poem describes the high drama of the finish line at Delphi following this race. In bold strokes, it evokes the tumult of the crowd—the πολ1ς . . . θρου
ς 6λατ ρω ν (v. 3), the shout of the mingled throng (vv. 9–10), its noisy applause (6ν θ ο ρ[βωι, v. 11). In between, there is the powerful gesture of the judges in flinging down their rods, signaling (as was the norm in case of a dead heat) that the victory was to be decided by lot and so considered “sacred” (hiera), that is, left up to the

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god.8 Yet for all its dramatic immediacy, the epigram leaves no doubt that it is at a remove from the action. As Bastianini and Gallazzi recognized (BG ad XII 7), the opening words, 6ν ∆ελφοι
ς, show clearly that the dedication was not at Delphi, since a reference such as this would be superfluous in that setting. Further, the poem implies a temporal disjunction between the dedication of the statue and the victory in “those contests back then” (τω
 ν ττ/ [γνω]ν, v. 13). To be sure, ττε may in part be intended to speak to imagined viewers of future generations,9 but that does not prevent it from referring in the first instance to events already at a distance at the time of dedication. All this raises the question of how to
δ/ of verse 14. To what location does it interpret the demonstrative E refer? Where, if not at Delphi, did Kallikrates set up his elaborate bronze statuary group? To commemorate an agonistic triumph, victors commonly dedicated statues in their native cities.10 We may wonder, therefore, whether the designation of Kallikrates as νρ Σµ ι ο[ς in verse 12 hints at a location in Samos. That, however, is unlikely, since—as Hauben points out in another context—it would be “peculiar that a Samian would mention his ethnic in his own native city.”11 Not Delphi, not Samos: where then? While we cannot be certain, I believe that the evidence points toward Egypt. That is the inference I draw from the striking fact that the honorand of the dedication is not Kallikrates (though it doubtless does him honor, too) or even the god of Delphi—though he is the poem’s addressee, with Φοι
β/{ε} (v. 4)—but, rather, the Theoi Adelphoi. What have they to do with this victory? An answer may lie in how that victory is presented. I already noted how the epigram stressed the thronging multitudes, their noise, and the judges casting away their rods (8βδους . . . χαµδις βλον, v. 5). Juxtaposed to these in meaningful contrast is the silent solitary figure of the female colt, who, answering the judges’ gesture, bent down to draw to herself—and so claim—the rod (χαµα ν ε σα[σ/ . . . / . . . 8 β δ ο ν 6φειλκσα[το, vv. 7–8).12 Significantly, the colt’s deed derives ]κερα ων / 6[κ σ]τηθ  ω ν (vv. 7–8). It 8. Cf. Moretti 1953: 201. 9. Ebert 1972: ad no. 38.4. Cf. ibid., ad no. 26.1/2: “Die πτε historisch auswertende Interpretation von H.T. Wade-Gery ( JHS 53, 1933, 71ff.), der vielfach aus πτε schließt, dass jeweils zwischen dem im Epigramm angezeigten Ereignis und der Abfassung des Epigramms geraume Zeit verflossen sei, erscheint mir sehr fragwürdig.” 10. Cf. Ebert 1972: 11–12. 11. Hauben 1970: 37 n. 4, referring to OGIS I 29. 12. Both senses, “draw to oneself” and “claim for oneself,” are clearly in play here. Cf. LSJ s.v. 6φλκω III 2 and 5.

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is because she acts “out of the purity of her heart” that she is able to resolve the matter of the lots: for lots, by their very nature, involve divinity, nowhere more so than at Delphi, where we know there were lot oracles.13 To gain the favor of the Delphic god (the poem’s addressee), the competitor in the race must be a match for him in purity, a quality here evoked in Apollo’s byname Φοι
βος (v. 4).14 Where human judgment fails, the god’s will is decisive. Here it is expressed through the action of this untainted creature, which constitutes a sign whose validity is at once acknowledged by all.15 Up until this point, throughout this drama of decision, Kallikrates has remained discretely in the background, the text reserving any mention of him until near the end (v. 12).16 Indeed, the poet has been at pains to take the outcome out of the hands of Kallikrates and place it instead in the realm of the divine. Now, when he enters, it is as a modest νρ Σµι ο[ς (v. 12), without titles or patronymic. He appears, rather, in a role analogous to that of his colt (or rather, in retrospect, it appears that the colt was a standin for Kallikrates). He is likewise a solitary silent figure in the crowd (6ν θ ο ρ[βωι, v. 11). And as the colt drew up to herself the rod (8 β δ ο ν 6φειλκσα[το, v. 8), so he bore aloft the laurel (δφνη具ν典 Aρατ /, v. 12). The 13. Cf. Burkert 1985: 116. 14. Certainly the Hellenistic poets heard that meaning in the name. Cf. Cuypers’ comment on the use of the verb φοιβω in connection with the seer Phineus at Ap. Rh. 2.302: “περ . . . / πντJη φοιβ σαντες, ‘having cleansed (the old man’s skin) all around’—but also ‘Phoebused,’ appropriate treatment for a seer . . . There may be some truth lurking behind
ν λαµπρναντες, καθραντεςD φοι
βον γρ τ καθαρν, @θεν κα our scholiast’s φοιβ σαντες ο" Φοι
βος C /Απλλων, δι τ καθαρν” (1997: ad loc.). For this verb in a similar sense elsewhere in Hellenistic poetry, cf. Callim Hymn 5.11; Theocr. 17.134; Lyc. 6, 1166. 15. Bingen (2002) argues, differently, that βραχες in the phrase 8βδους δ+ βραχες χαµδις βλον (v. 5) does not mean that the judges threw their rods onto the ground “at once,” “in no time” (⫽ βραχεω
ς), as the original editors and Austin suppose, but that it means “too few”: “Trop peu de ceux-ci [sc., the judges] jetèrent à terre leur bâton pour que ce fût par tirage au sort que les cochers emportent la couronne de la victoire” (186). Though Bingen’s interpretation of βραχες is syntactically and lexically possible (cf. 4λγοι ⫽ “too few” at Thuc. 1.50.5 and Hdt. 6.109), its meaning in the context is implausible. For on his view, the dramatic core of the poem embodied in the extraordinary act of the colt, which is taken as a sign by all present, is in fact superfluous: a sufficient number of judges was sure enough of the outcome that no decision by lot was actually necessary. Once the tumult died down—we infer from Bingen’s argument—the ordinary human decision-making process would have arrived at the right conclusion. This, however, is to make the sign, together with the poet’s implication that the god was responsible for it, quite pointless. Bingen’s point may in any case be moot if we accept Janko’s plausible correction (2005) of βραχες to βραβες, i.e., “judges at the games.” 16. Ebert (1972: 79 ad 19.2), notes the “in hellenistischer Zeit aufkommenden Sitte, gerade in längeren Gedichten, wohl um eine gewisse Spannung zu erzeugen, die Namensnennung hinauszuzögern.”

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actions of colt and master are clearly analogous and imply that the god’s favor extended to Kallikrates. Perhaps in making his dedication to the Theoi Adelphoi, his patron deities and real-life benefactors, Kallikrates sought to acknowledge that, in a larger sense that reached beyond the present victory, he owed his success to higher powers. The message is, “Not mine, the glory, but theirs.”17 Bastianini and Gallazzi argued that the terminus post quem of our poem must be the year 270. They noted that the dynastic cult of the Theoi Adelphoi was founded in 272/1 (i.e., in the fourteenth year of Philadelphus’ reign as reckoned from his coregency with Soter in 285/4; cf. P. Hibeh II 199) and that the first Pythian Games thereafter fell in the year 270. Those, they argued, must be the first for which our poem could have been composed.18 Given, however, that by characterizing the games as τω
 ν ττ/ [γνω]ν (v. 13) the epigram may point to a certain lag between Kallikrates’ victory and his dedication, I would propose another possible date. The Pythian Games of 274 fell in August/September of that year (cf. BG ad XII 6), while the year in which the cult of the Theoi Adelphoi first appears in operation began either in March or May of 272.19 No doubt the decision to create the cult and to name Kallikrates its first official went back to the previous year. Thus Kallikrates’ eponymous priesthood commenced less than two years after those games, when their memory might still be fresh. In this light, I would suggest that the admiral’s striking decision to commemorate his victory with a dedication to the Theoi Adelphoi may have been related to these circumstances: At no other time would he have had so strong a motive or have made so potent an impression as during that year when he was first eponymous priest of this newly established cult. Plausibly, then, we may ascribe Kallikrates’ offering for the Theoi Adelphoi to the year 272/1. And where did he make it? What setting should we contemplate for the
δ/ (θετο? Fraser stressed that “unlike casual rulerpoem’s final words, E worship [the Ptolemaic dynastic cult] was centered on the capital of the kingdom, and cult-centres elsewhere were subordinate to this central administration.”20 Alexandria thus seems an obvious choice. But wherever 17. Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004: 392–93) aptly compare the epigram from Cyrene (SEG 17.817) in which Eupolemus dedicates “Victory,” to King Magas “as his rightful γρας” (392). In Posidippus’ epigram “Callicrates may well have wanted to make a similar point: victory both depended upon and ‘belonged to’ the Ptolemaic house.” (393). 18. BG ad XII 6: “270 dovrebbe dunque essere il terminus a quo per il fatto narrato e per la composizione dell’ epigramma stesso.” 19. It ran either from 15 March 272 to 4 March 271 or from 17 May 272 to 5 May 271. Cf. Hauben 1992: 161. 20. Fraser 1972: I 214.

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Kallikrates made his offering, clearly its goal was to link the new Ptolemaic cult to the luster of Apollo and the prestige of a victory at his Panhellenic shrine at Delphi. Not that this goal was unique or even novel: Greek city-states had long recognized the benefits that befell them when their citizens brought victory crowns back home from the games. But the hunger for prestige and the legitimation offered by such victories was particularly urgent among the ambitious Ptolemies, with their recently established kingdom and new-built capital. In his Victory of Sosibios (fr. 384 Pf. with II pp. 121, 125), Callimachus dramatizes this situation so as to highlight the somewhat embarrassing disparity between the kingdom’s grand presumptions and the little it at first had to show for them: the Nile itself declares that until Sosibios, “no one had brought a trophy back to the city from these sepulchral festivals [i.e., the Panhellenic Games] and, great though I am, I, whose sources no mortal man knows, in this one thing alone was more insignificant than those streams that the white ankles of women cross without difficulty and that children pass over on foot without wetting their knees” (ο"] γρ π τις 6π[] πτλιν Aγαγ/ εθλον / ] ταφων τω
νδε πανηγυρων / κ]α  πουλς, Tν ο"δ/ @θεν ο,
δεν Cδεω / θνητς ν ρ, 2ν γου
ν τMω
δ/ (α λιττερος / κε[νω]ν οWς µογητ δι σφυρ λευκ γυναικω
ν / κ[α πα]ι
ς βρκτMω γονατι πεζς (βη, vv. 29– 34). In a series of epigrams celebrating equestrian victories, the Milan papyrus makes clear that the Ptolemies’ pursuit of such prestige was far more determined than we had hitherto imagined.21 With his conspicuous victory at Pytho, Kallikrates doubtless helped his sovereigns attain their goal. The same holds true of his dedication to Zeus Olympios in honor of Ptolemy and Arsinoe at Olympia. It is worth recalling this remarkable monument here, for it helps us visualize on just how grand a scale and with what audacious and meaningful design Kallikrates sought to glorify his sibling lords.22 Here, too, he made sure to present them in terms evoking divinity, specifically as a couple, like Zeus and Hera. At the same time, it is striking again, by contrast, how modestly he presented himself—just as in 21. Cf. particularly Fantuzzi 2004a, 2005. 22. The dedications appear to have no connection with specific victories, as the inscriptions make no mention thereof. However, the new epigrams reveal that both Ptolemy and Arsinoe won such victories. The 126th and 127th Olympiads (276 and 272 b.c.) are the only festivals overlapping Ptolemy’s marriage to Arsinoe II, which occurred sometime after 279 (cf. Hauben 1970: 35). It was evidently at one of these that Arsinoe won the triple Olympic victory celebrated by Posidippus in 78.7–8 AB. It was possibly at the same festival that Philadelphus won the Olympic chariot victory mentioned in the same poem (78.5–7 AB), though there can be no certainty about this. Another epigram of Posidippus (88 AB) deals with a chariot victory of Ptolemy II, which he won while coregent with Ptolemy I (i.e., before 283, prior to his marriage to Arsinoe).

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the epigram for his Delphic victory.23 The dedication consists of a monumental pedestal 20 m. long by 4 m. wide by 1.12 m. high in the middle of which was an exedra 2.35 m. long by 1.68 m. wide, articulated with a bench. Bracketing the pedestal on either end, large stylobate blocks supported tall (8.93 m.) Ionic columns,24 each crowned by a bronze statue resting on a statue base atop the capital. As the texts symmetrically inscribed in four lines on the plinths at the base of each column reveal, one statue was of King Ptolemy Philadelphus, the other of his queen Arsinoe (OGIS I 26–27). Hoepfner (1971: 45–49) persuasively described how the columns with their statues dominate the eastern end of the broad plaza in front of and facing the great temples of Zeus and Hera. Indeed, as his site plan indicates, they are carefully aligned so as to stand in relationship—at precisely the same angle—to the end columns of the temples of Hera and Zeus. Thus Ptolemy and Arsinoe as king and queen, but also as brother and sister, become the visual counterparts to the divine couple, the brother-sister sovereigns Zeus and Hera. Theocritus made a similar analogy in his Idyll 17 (vv. 131–34).25 Further, the pair of columns serve quite literally to exalt the royal couple above the plane of the viewer, strongly suggesting their divinity. Philadelphus in fact established the cult of the Theoi Adelphoi within his own and his sister’s lifetime, making them gods on earth. The divinization of the brother-sister pair was a momentous step that Ptolemaic apologists sought to make intelligible and to legitimize through Greek precedent.26 The monument does just that. Finally, Hoepfner suggests that Kallikrates’ dedication injects a subtly Egyptianizing element into this most Greek milieu. On his view (1971: 47–48), the highly unusual double-columned monument deliberately evokes pharaonic tradition, recalling the paired obelisks with which Egyptian rulers marked important occasions. It was at about this time, he notes, that Ptolemy first brought an obelisk to Alexandria to be set in honor of his sister-wife before her shrine, the Arsinoeion (cf. Pliny NH 36.68, 34.148). Certainly the inclusion of such an Egyptianizing component is consistent with Kallikrates’ attempts to mediate between the new world and the old. But even as the monument exalts its Ptolemaic sovereigns to the skies, drawing the gaze of the viewer heavenward, it also communicates the rela23. For the dimensions and reconstruction, I rely on Hintzen-Bohlen (1992: 77–78), following Hoepfner (1971). 24. The stylobate blocks are of white marble like the columns and thus visually form a unity with these, distinct from the pedestal, which is built of limestone. Cf. Hoepfner 1971: 15. 25. On this analogy in Theocritus and elsewhere, see Hunter 2003b: 192–93 ad 131–32. 26. On this topic, cf., most recently, Huss 2001: 307–9, 325.

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tive humility of its sponsor, Kallikrates of Samos—just as in the epigram celebrating his dedication to the Theoi Adelphoi on the occasion of his victory at Pytho. For the viewer encounters Kallikrates name at eye level (Hoepfner 1971: 46), inscribed in lines of text each a mere three centimeters high and cut just two to three millimeters deep into the stone (ibid., 15)—a strikingly unobtrusive, even self-effacing declaration of authorship, when set against the imposing size of the monument as a whole. I turn now to some of the new epigrams concerning the shrine of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis. Their appearance in the Milan papyrus adds new force to the old observation that Meleager was not interested in collecting poems about Ptolemaic monuments or occasions. For none of the poems on this shrine (including those by Callimachus and Hedylus) are transmitted in the Palatine or Planudean anthologies, nor is the epigram by Posidippus about Sostratus of Cnidus and the Pharos.27 I start with the new poem that is closest to the old Posidippan examples about this shrine (39 AB). κα µλλω
ν κα πει
σµα καθπτειν  ν 9λα νηq περα χερσθεν, Ε"πλοαι ‘χαι
ρε’ δς /Αρσινηι, π]τνιαν 6具κ典 νηου
καλων θεν, !ν C Βοyσκου ναυαρχω
ν Σµιος θ κατο Καλλικρτης, ναυτλε, σο τ µλισταD κατ/ ε_πλοιαν δ+ δικει τη
σδε θ εου
χρ ιζων πολλ κα λλος ν ρD εGνεκα κα χερσαι
α κα ε,ς 9λα δι
αν φιες ε"χς ε#ρ σεις τν 6πακουσοµνην.

5

[Whether you plan to cross the sea by ship or make fast the stern-cable from the shore, say “hail” to Arsinoe of Fair Sailing, and call the goddess-queen from her temple, which Boiskos’ son, the nauarch, Samian Kallikrates dedicated especially for you, sailor. In pursuit of fair sailing often another man has called upon this goddess. Therefore whether you’re on dry land or casting off for sea, you will find her attentive to your prayers.] We recall that in one of the previously known epigrams by Posidippus about this cult (12 GP ⫽ 116 AB), the shrine itself had taken voice to call 27. On the latter poem, see my treatment in “Between Literature and the Monuments” in the present volume. Similarly absent is Posidippus’ scoptic epigram (143 AB ⫽ SH 702, referred to in Athen. 10.415 a–b and Ael. VH 1.26) about Aglais, daughter of Megakles, who blew the trumpet in the first great Ptolemaiia.

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upon two sorts of audience: “But come to that Aphrodite who shall be called Zephyritis, you chaste daughters of the Greeks, and men who work the sea” (vv. 7–9). The new poem addresses only the second of these groups. It tells the sailor that Kallikrates dedicated the temple especially for him (ναυτλε, σο τ µλιστα, v. 5) and that he should greet its goddess, Arsinoe, as Euploia (She of Fair Sailing). With this cult title, the poem makes plain what was previously implicit in the second of the earlier known Posidippan poems on this shrine (13 GP ⫽ 119 AB), where we heard that Arsinoe-Aphrodite would grant fair sailing, ε"πλοyην δσει (v. 5). The new poem thus confirms Louis Robert’s suspicion that Aphrodite was worshiped at Zephyrion as Euploia, a title with important associations. Through it, Kallikrates forged a link between Arsinoe and such celebrated old-world exemplars of Aphrodite Euploia as the Knidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles28 and Konon’s temple in the Piraeus (Paus. 1.1.3). Indeed, Robert plausibly argued that the many humble private dedications to Arsinoe Philadelphus, which cluster particularly in the far-flung port cities of the Ptolemaic empire and also the numerous ports renamed for Arsinoe, reflect Kallikrates’ activities as “ardent propagandist” for this cult,29 promoting its spread far beyond the confines of Egypt. In other words, the links Kallikrates forged went in both directions: from old Hellas to Egypt and from Egypt back to old Hellas. A final observation about this poem: the assimilation to Aphrodite is here so complete that, unlike in the previously known poems, Aphrodite is not even mentioned. Arsinoe is invoked as theos entirely on her own (π]τνιαν 6具κ典 νηου
καλων θεν, v. 3; τη
σδε θ εου
χρ ιζων, 6). Scholars have argued, on the basis of Posidippus’ description of Arsinoe as βασλισσα in epigram 12.5 GP (⫽ 116.5 AB), that Kallikrates founded the cult at Zephyrion while Arsinoe was still the reigning queen, since that designation appears in inscriptions that presuppose Arsinoe alive.30 Be that as it may, the new poem addresses her as πτνια (v. 3), a comparable term, but one customarily applied to divinities. By invoking her in this way and by calling her theos without mention of Aphrodite, the new poem may suggest that we are dealing with the sovereign as she was divinized after her death.31 28. Posidippus himself appears linked to both the Knidian and Zephyrian cults of Euploia, since he is said to have written about Praxiteles’ statue in a work entitled Peri Knidou (147 AB ⫽ SH 706). 29. Robert 1966: 201–2, 208. 30. For the pros and cons, cf. Hauben 1970: 44–45. 31. Probably in 268 (cf. n. 4 in the present essay). The first Kanephoros of Arsinoe Philadelphus is recorded in 268/7, i.e., following her demise, and thus speaks for the establishment of a separate cult for the divinized queen shortly after her death. Cf. Hauben 1992: 161.

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That also seems to be the case in the next poem I want to deal with (36 AB). /Αρσινη, σο του
το δι στολδων νεµου
σθαι βσσινον γκειται βργµ/ π Ναυκρτιος,
ι σ, φλη, κατ/ =νειρον 4µρξασθαι γλυκ1ν δρω E
Aθελες 4τρηρω
ν παυσαµνη καµτωνD uς 6φνη具ς典, Φιλδελφε, κα 6ν χερ δορατος α,χµ ν, πτνα, κα 6ν π χει κοι
λον (χουσα σκος. ? δ+ σο α,τηθει
σα τ λευ具 χ典ανον καννισµα παρθνος ;Ηγησ5 θη
κε γνος Μακ[τη.

5

[Arsinoe, for you this gift is dedicated, to be swept by the wind across your garment’s folds, a linen cloth from Naukratis, with which in a dream, dear one, you wished to wipe your dulcet sweat when you’d ceased from your busy labors. Thus you appeared, O dear to your brother, in your hand the pointed spear, queen, and on your arm a hollow shield. At your request, this white strip of cloth the maiden Hegeso, of Macedonian heritage, gave in offering.] What has this poem to do with Kallikrates or the cult he established at Cape Zephyrion? The poem records a dedication for the divinized Arsinoe Philadelphus, with no apparent reference to Aphrodite, her cult title, or to seafaring, such as we see in the other poems. Yet there may be grounds for making a connection. First of all, the mention of Naukratis as the source of the βσσινον . . . βργµα (v. 2) evokes an Egyptian milieu. That squares with Hegeso’s proud insistence on her Macedonian roots: in a largely alien environment, Greeks might appeal to their Greekness with particular emphasis.32 The affectionate bond evoked when Hegeso addresses Arsinoe as φλη (v. 3) suggests a relationship between the goddess and her maidenworshiper, defined by more than just her dream. Moreover, the goddess’ title “Phil-adelphos,” indicating she is both “dear to” and “loving” her brother, necessarily links her function to love and marriage. We note that in one of the previously known Posidippus epigrams (13 GP ⫽ 119 AB), it is 32. See the similar insistence on the part of Apollonios, one of the Macedonian brothers connected with the Memphite Serapaeum in the mid-second century b.c., as described by Thompson (1988: 261).

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expressly as Arsinoe Philadelphus (i.e., Arsinoe Who Loves Her Brother) that the queen is equated with Kypris (vv. 1–2). Most suggestive, however, is the specification that the offering is “to be swept by the wind / across your garment’s folds” (δι στολδων νεµου
σθαι, v. 1). Does this detail serve any purpose in the poem beyond the merely ornamental? So far as I can see, of the numerous literary instances we have of women dedicating textiles—from the Trojan women of Iliad 6 offering the peplos to Athena in her temple (6.90–92, 271–73, 288–95), to the bride presenting her veil to Hera in an epigram by “Archilochus” (AP 6.133 ⫽ FGE p. 147–48), to Nossis and her mother dedicating a fine linen garment to Hera Lakinia at her shrine near Croton (3 GP ⫽ AP 6.265)—none of them pictures the dedication billowing in the wind.33 I would suggest that νεµου
σθαι hints at Arsinoe’s identity as Aphrodite Zephyritis.34 Indeed, the celebrity of this cult was such that perhaps the mere mention of wind in conjunction with Arsinoe could trigger the association.35 If this is so, then Hegeso, the Macedonian maiden, represents that other constituency to which Posidippus addressed himself in the earlier-known poem I cited before (12.9 GP ⫽ 116 AB). She is one of those “chaste daughters of the Greeks” (;Ελλ νων Zγνα . . . θυγατρες) who—together with the “men who work the sea”—were urged to come to the temple of Arsinoe-Aphrodite. And while sailors came to the shrine to pray for fair sailing, the young women came in the hope of a smooth voyage on the sea of love and marriage.36 Is that what Hegeso desires? On the face of it, the idea does not look promising: Arsinoe appeared to the maiden equipped with spear and shield and sweating from her labors. Bastianini and Gallazzi note a dream recounted in Plutarch's Life of Lucullus 10 in which Athena sweats due to her efforts on behalf of Cyzicus in the Mithridatic War, and they wonder whether we should assume a comparable martial context here in connection with that same goddess. Specifically, 33. Cf. Rouse 1902: 274–77. 34. Note that the windswept garment accords with the iconography of Aphrodite generally; cf. LIMC II 936–50, 985. 35. Recall the νεµδεα χηλν that her temple is said to occupy in Posidippus 12.3 GP ⫽ 116.3 AB. 36. This point is convincingly demonstrated by Gutzwiller (1992b: esp. 198–202) with reference to Callimachus’ epigram on the offering of the nautilus shell at the shrine of Aphrodite Zephyritis. Thus, in the closing words of Posidippus 12 GP (⫽ 116 AB), παντς κµατος ε"λµενον (v. 10), the qualification παντς refers to a haven not just from every wave in a literal sense but also from every erotic wave. Cf. Theogn. 459–60 (of the γυν να): πορρ ξασα δ+ δεσµ / πολλκις 6κ νυκτω
ν λλον (χει λιµνα; 1273–74: 6κ δ+ θυελλω
ν / V
κ γ/ 6νωρµσθην νυκτς 6πειγµενος.

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they weigh the Chremonidean War, which pitted Ptolemy Philadelphus against Antigonus Gonatas. It may be that Arsinoe’s weapons, toil, and sweat suggest something on these lines. But it is worth recalling that Aphrodite may be portrayed as armed quite apart from any overt military function, at various well-known cult sites, particularly on Kythera and in Laconia.37 As early as Saphho’s appeal to the goddess to “fight alongside” her, σµµαχος (σσο (1.28 Lobel-Page), it is possible to speak of Aphrodite’s erotic activities in martial terms. But even if we accept a possible reference to a contemporary war, it would not preclude an erotic subtext. For why is Hegeso portrayed here as παρθνος? Could it be that the maiden was thinking about an armed Arsinoe-Aphrodite, even dreaming of her, because she cared about someone involved in a war, a prospective husband perhaps? One last poem from the new epigrams, though poorly preserved, may refer to the shrine of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis. If so, then the epigram suggests again how this cult could serve as a conduit through which the cultural heritage of Greece might enter the new terrain of Egypt (37 AB). /Α
  ρσινη, σο τ  [ν]δε λρην #π χειρ[ς οιδο]υ φθ εγξαµ[νην] δ ελφς Aγαγ/ /Αρινιο[ς ο υε λου[]α ς 6κ κµατος λλ/ οτ[ κει
νος αν[]ς λευκ περα
ι πελ[γη πολλα πο[] τητι κα α,λα τη
ι[ φωνη
 ι π[]ακον κανον ηδον[
Φιλ] δελφε, τν Aλασεν [ /Αρ]ων, νθεµα δ /, [b τνδε δ[χου,]υσου µ具ε典λια ναοπλο[υ.

5

3 ο " ρη
ι BG : Iλ/ ο" [βλψ]ας ex. gr. Austin : σσ]ας, κλσ]ας, 6ρσ]ας vel sim. BG : λλοτ[ε δ/ οaτω Lapini : λλοτ[ε δ/ λληι Bettarini : λλ/ @τ[ε σω
ος Puelma 4 ν[ωστω]ς ex. gr. Austin : ν[ρ σω
ο]ς Lapini : ν[δρυτο]ς Bettarini 5 πο[ει
φιλ] τητι κα α,λα ex. gr. Austin : τε[η
ι θε] τητι Luppe : πο[ω
ν φιλ] τητι Bettarini 6 π[η
µ/ (λ]ακον κα具ι典νν ηδον[δες ex. gr. Austin : π[η
γµ/ (λ]ακον Bettarini : π[λου
ν (λ]ακον Bing : κα具ι典νν ηδν[ιον Gronewald : κα具ι典νο具υ
典 ηδον[ου Puelma 7 [ο,
µον /Αρ]ων Austin : [ε,κον/ ]ων Luppe

[Arsinoe, Arion’s dolphin brought you this lyre that once resounded at the touch [of a singer] . . . from the wave. But when [ that one . . . crossed the foaming sea 37. Nilsson (GGR1 I 490 n. 7) cites the temple of Aphrodite Areia (Paus. 3.17.5; cf. Plut. Mor. p. 239 A; IG V 1.602; Aphrodite 6νπλιος (early third century a.d.). There is an armed xoanon of Aphrodite Ourania on Kythera (Paus. 3.23.1). Cf. Magnelli 1999 on Alexander Aetolus fr. 9 (⫽ 8 Powell p. 127); cf. also Flemberg 1991: 29–42. For the armed Aphrodite in art, cf. LIMC II 243–45.

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many things . . . and various with [ his voice . . . But this offering, O Philadelphus, which Arion played please accept it, a dedication of . . . your temple custodian.] This poem records the dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphus, by her temple keeper (ναοπλος), of a lyre brought ashore by “Arion’s dolphin” (δ ελφς . . . /Αρινιο[ς), a reference to the late seventh-century musician of Methymna.38 It seems plausible to infer from the text that this seaborne offering was made in—perhaps even found near—the temple of ArsinoeAphrodite Zephyritis, the celebrated foundation of the Ptolemaic admiral Kallikrates of Samos, which (as Posidippus put it in the epigram from the Didot papyrus, 12.2–3 GP ⫽ 116.2–3 AB) occupied “the windy headland among the encircling waves” (6ν περιφαινοµνMω κµατι χω
ρον (χω / . . . νεµδεα χηλν, vv. 2–3).39 If this is correct, then the poem represents a striking example of how an object, the lyre, may be made to embody the cultural/historical heritage and become (quite literally) the vehicle by 38. Contrary to my view in the original version of this article, I now hesitantly follow BG, who suggest that the masculine articles of vv. 7–8 refer to a synonym of the lyre lost in the lacuna at the end of v. 7—though it must be admitted that no plausible candidate has been found until now. Alternately, Austin (in BG) proposes that the articles refer to a word, such as ο,
µον, and that the epigram thus represents itself as a “song” of Arion. More speculatively, Bettarini (2003) goes beyond Austin, proposing that the missing word is aµνον. This would refer to a separate hymn, perhaps by “Arion,” dedicated with the lyre and possibly inscribed in the temple as well (cf. his n. 81). That hymn would be comparable to or even a version of that at PMG 939, which Aelian (NA 12.45) says Arion composed to thank Poseidon for his rescue by the dolphin. In the context of Ptolemaic Egypt, the maritime deity now honored is Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis rather than Poseidon. This latter point is also eloquently argued by Fantuzzi (2004b: 31–33); cf. also Puelma 2006: 70–71. Different reconstructions of the closing lines and other parts of the poem have been suggested by Lapini (2003: esp. 39–42) and Luppe (2003). Lapini thinks the object dedicated was a statue of the dolphin-riding poet Arion with his lyre, like that at Cape Taenarum commemorating Arion’s landing there (Hdt. 1.24). Thus he suggests the supplement τν Aλασεν [,χθ1ν /Αρ]ων, with the verb used in the sense of “forged.” This view has now been taken up and eloquently argued by Puelma (2006) in a detailed discussion of the whole poem. It does not explain, however, why the lyre alone (τ [ν]δε λρην, v. 1) is highlighted with deixis as the dedication at the start of the poem (pace Puelma 2006: 70 n. 27). Luppe makes the more plausible proposal that the dedication was a sculpture of the lyre, hence [ε,κν(α), while the end of the lacuna ]ων conceals the artist’s name. On this view, however, there remains a worrying disjunction between the lyre itself, “which Arion’s dolphin brought to you, Arsinoe,” and its presumed sculptural representation dedicated in the temple: or does Luppe mean that the dolphin brought the statue ashore (inscribed with the artist’s name)? 39. The identification of the site is also made by Bastianini and Gallazzi (BG in their introduction to VI 18–25), though their characterization of the shrine as the “tempio di Arsinoe a Canopo” is misleading.

Posidippus and the Admiral

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which that heritage is transmitted to a new place. For the epigram clearly alludes to the legend of Arion as told by Herodotus (1.24). In that account, upon being threatened with robbery and death by the crew of the ship on which he was sailing, Arion—“the best singer in the world”—leaped into the sea in full citharodic regalia. He was saved, however, through the miraculous intervention of a dolphin—the most musical of creatures—who caught him up and carried him safely ashore at Cape Taenarum. There, a statue of a man riding a dolphin was dedicated in a temple of Poseidon to commemorate the singer’s deliverance. Clearly Posidippus’ poem evokes not just the story of the rescue but also the subsequent dedication—both of them made at a coastal shrine on a rugged Cape. By describing how this lyre—together with the tradition it evokes—came to Egypt, the poet links the third-century b.c. shrine of Arsinoe to one of the great figures of archaic poetry from the seventh century b.c. and, with him, to the rich tradition of Lesbic lyric, including Terpander, Sappho, and Alcaeus. But a further, less obvious model may be floating just below the surface here as well. For the story of the lyre’s wondrous appearance on Egyptian shores may be intended to recall and provide a modern counterpart to a well-known Lesbian tale linked with Methymna, likewise about a wondrous poetic windfall—the story of Orpheus’ lyre, which, after the legendary singer had been torn apart by the Thracian maenads, floated across the sea together with his severed head until running aground, as Ovid put it, “on Methymnaean Lesbos’ shore” (et Methymnaeae potiuntur litore Lesbi, Met. 11.55).40 This tale is memorably recounted in an elegy of Phanocles, plausibly of early Hellenistic date (fr. 1, pp. 106–7 Powell). Tου
δ/ π µ+ν κεφαλν χαλκMω
τµον, α"τκα δ/ α"τν ε,ς 9λα ΘρηϊκJη 8ι
ψαν Cµου
χλυϊ \λMω καρτνασαι, Gν/ 6µφοροιντο θαλσσJη µφω 9µα, γλαυκοι
ς τεγγµεναι 8οθοις. Τς δ/ ερJη
ΛσβMω πολι 6πκελσε θλασσαD Vχ δ/ uς λιγυρη
ς πντον 6πσχε λρης, ν σους τ/ α,γιαλος θ/ Zλιµυρας, (νθα λγειαν νρες /Ορφεην 6κτρισαν κεφαλ ν, 6ν δ+ χλυν τµβMω λιγυρν θσαν, ! κα ναδους πτρας κα Φρκου στυγνν (πειθεν aδωρ. /Εκ κενου µολπα τε κα µερτ κιθαριστ1ς νη
σον (χει, πασων δ/ 6στν οιδοττη.

15

20

40. Lucian (Adv. indoct. 11) retells this story at length, calling it a Λσβιος µυ
θος. Cf. Burkert 1983: 202 with nn. 30 and 33.

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[They cut off his head with a sword of bronze and threw it at once in the sea along with the Thracian lyre, binding them strongly with a nail, so they would both be carried on the sea together, soaked by the billowing surf. And the foaming sea drove them to sacred Lesbos. And the clear echo of the lyre spread across the sea and over the islands and sea-beaten shores, where men interred the clear-sounding Orphic head and set in the tomb the bright-ringing lyre, which used to persuade even mute stones and the hateful water of Phorkos. From that time forth, songs and lovely kithara music have occupied the island, the most musical of them all.] In effect, this tradition about the lyre of Orpheus constitutes an aition of the poetry of Lesbos, lending the authority of one of poetry’s founding fathers to that island’s status as a great repository and source of song. Transmission and preservation of the lyre here function virtually as a charter. Inasmuch as this early Hellenistic text invests the geographic transfer of this instrument with such poetological significance, I think it plausible to take the tale in Posidippus’ epigram in a similar way—that is, to see it as emblematic of the Ptolemies’ claim to be the true inheritors and guardians of the literary legacy of Hellas, in particular here the great tradition of Lesbian song. The Lesbian lyre has been passed on; today its home is Egypt.41 At the same time, our epigram on the dolphin and the lyre may point to important political ties in the mid-third century b.c. between Egypt and Arion’s native Methymna on Lesbos. That city came to serve as an important strategic base for Ptolemaic interests in the northern Aegean, and its third-century b.c. coinage included the image of the citharodic dolphin rider as its emblem.42 The extent of Egypt’s influence here is plain in epi41. In this sense, the poem serves a function comparable to that of the epigram about the seal ring of Polycrates (9 AB), with its image of the lyre. For by setting that lyre-bearing gem in the context of his λιθικ, with its pointedly Ptolemaic orientation, Posidippus similarly linked his monarchs with a grand figure of the lyric heritage (in that case, Anacreon), as well as with Polycrates as an important archaic model of artistic patronage. Gronewald (2004) has plausibly suggested that our poem on Arion’s lyre served as the model for an epigram by Philip of Thessalonica (AP 9.88 ⫽ Garland of Philip 40); cf. also Puelma 2006. If that is so, it is striking that Philip leaves no trace of Posidippus’ concern with the transmission and appropriation of the cultural heritage within a contemporary political context. 42. Cf. Wroth 1964: 179 no. 16 (note also the lyre and dolphin on no. 14), 180 no. 27, 181 no. 35. Cf. also Buchholz 1975: plate 12. The lyre alone appears already on Methymnean coinage of the late fifth and fourth centuries, but this is an emblem it shares with the coins of Methymna’s rival Mytilene.

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graphic sources, which attest to, for instance, a priest of the divinized Ptolemy there between 267 and 260 (IG XII Suppl. 115), worship of Arsinoe Philadelphus (CIG II Add. no. 2168; IG XII 2, 513), regular celebrations of the Ptolemaia on the model of those in Alexandria (IG XII Suppl. 115; cf. also at Eresos IG XII 2, 527 and Suppl. p. 33), and perhaps a month named Ptolemaion (IG XII Suppl. 115).43 Hence, a poem commemorating Egypt’s acquisition of the lyre through the miraculous agency of “Arion’s dolphin” would certainly have conveyed a potent political message at just the time when Methymna had become a vital part of the Ptolemies’ maritime empire and when the nauarch Kallikrates had recently founded his cult of Arsinoe Zephyritis to mark the deified queen’s special patronage of the Ptolemaic navy. Indeed, if E. Puglia’s recent suggestion44 that the dedicator of the lyre, the unnamed “temple keeper” (ναοπλος) of verse 8, was none other than Kallikrates himself, then this gift would have been all the more meaningful for coming from the very man responsible for those close ties between Methymna and Egypt. We see, then, how the shrine established by Kallikrates became a focal point into which might flow and from which might spread the broad political/cultural interests of the Ptolemaic court—interests that were far-flung both geographically and chronologically. In this respect, the poem about the lyre’s migration takes its place beside comparable epigrams concerning objects dedicated in this shrine, such as one by Callimachus (14 GP: Κγχος 6γ5, Zεφυρι
τι ⫽ 5 Pf. ⫽ Athen. 7.318) that charts the passage to the land of Egypt of the roving nautilus shell and its itinerant dedicator— a certain Selenaia from Aeolian Smyrna (v. 12) who found the shell on the beach at Iulis on Keos, a way station perhaps on her way from Smyrna to Alexandria.45 The poem conforms to what Selden has described with respect to Callimachean dedicatory epigram generally; that is, it “locates the offering at the site of multiple displacements,” leaving “traces of . . . alterity that make the dedication significant.”46 The lyre, just like the shell and 43. See, generally, Brun 1991; Labarre 1996: 54–56. Labarre doubts Brun’s dating of the priesthood for the divinized Ptolemy, placing it rather—as originally proposed by Habicht (1970: 109) and Bagnall (1976: 162)—in the reign of Philopator. The month name Ptolemaion is plausibly conjectured in IG. Cf. Buchholz 1975: 230; Trümpy 1997: 247. 44. In Puelma 2006: 71 with a n. 32. 45. It has been observed that in the mid-third century b.c., the nearby Kean town of Koresia became an important Ptolemaic port, which (significantly) was renamed Arsinoe following the queen’s death (cf. Robert 1960). It is probably also important that Keos has literary significance as the birthplace of Simonides and Bacchylides. 46. Selden 1998: 309, with his illuminating discussion of the Selenaia epigram (309–13). In a forthcoming article “New Inscriptions on Old Shells—Callimachus’ Nautilus Epigram

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its dedicator, finds its way to the shrine from elsewhere and carries something of its origins into its new environment. The same may be said about another offering in the temple of Arsinoe “to whom the West Wind is dear” (φιλοζεφρου, 1)—that is, ArsinoeZephyritis—described in an epigram of Hedylus (4 GP ⫽ Athen. 11.497D). Contrary to what we found in the previous poems, however, its alterity bears the exotic stamp of Egyptian culture—and here we recall Kallikrates’ interest in fostering Egyptian gods as well as Greek ones, manifested in his founding of a cult of Anubis and Isis on behalf of Ptolemy and Arsinoe at Canopus (mentioned earlier in the present essay). The offering is a rhyton conceived and dedicated by the Greek engineer Ktesibios in the shape of an Egyptian god, the dancer Bes (4ρχηστν Β σαν Α,γπτιον, v. 3). When wine flows through its mouthpiece, the god seems to trumpet a shrill note (Tς λιγ1ν V
χον / σαλπζει, κρουνου
πρς 8σιν ο,γοµνου, vv. 4–5), which is “like the ancestral melody that Lord Nile produced from his sacred waters” (Νει
λος Cποι
ον ναξ . . . / ε#
ρε µλος θεων πτριον 6ξ #δτων, vv. 8–9). In short, the poem represents an Egyptian melody played by an Egyptian god at a shrine in Egypt but mediated by an epigram in Greek commemorating a Greek’s dedication to a deified Greek queen. Even in those poems, then, in which Kallikrates is not actually named, his shrine remains true to that project that, as we have seen, the admiral seems to have set himself, namely, to mediate between old world and new. Situated on the windswept frontier between those worlds, simultaneously a point of convergence and a clearinghouse, it continued to serve as a conduit through which political/cultural traditions of Greece could enter into Egypt and from which the Ptolemies could broadcast their own peculiar contributions to that legacy.

(5 pf. ⫽ 14 G.-P.) and the Aesthetics of Inscribed Seashells,” Chad Schroeder makes a fascinating case that this epigram also bears traces of Egyptian tradition, in which shells were decorated and inscribed for dedication. For more explicit reference to Egyptian culture in a dedication at the temple of Arsinoe-Zephyritis, see the next example in this essay, Hedylus 4 GP.

c h a p t e r 13

The Politics and Poetics of Geography in the Milan Posidippus Section One, on Stones 1–20 AB


A

t the start of his sixth Olympian ode, Pindar—comparing the construction of his song to that of a conspicuous palace whose portal is raised on golden columns—memorably states that “when a work of poetry is begun we must make the entrance far-shining [τηλαυγς, v. 4].” The new Posidippus papyrus was arranged in at least nine sections, each headed by a title. Of these nine, the first and longest with its 126 verses, was evidently on “Stones.” Its fragmentary title may with some plausibility be restored as [λιθι]κ  in light of the consistent subject matter of its twenty-one epigrams.1 That it was the first section of the roll seems likely. For although stichometric annotations appear in the margins at the end of each section to record its length, only in that on stones is there a further stichometric note at the bottom of the first column, strongly suggesting that it held a special place as the first of the roll.2 This essay is adapted from that originally published in K. Gutzwiller ed., The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book pp. 119–40, © 2005 Oxford University Press. 1. Diodorus Siculus cites Λιθικ as the title of a work by Orpheus (7.1.1), perhaps the same mentioned by the Suda (s.v. “Orpheus”) as being on eighty gemstones and their engraving. And indeed, such a work is extant—the Orphic Λιθικ: cf. Halleux and Schamp 1985; cf., generally, Plantzos 1999: 10. 2. Cf., generally, BG p. 13. To be sure, the start of the papyrus was repaired with a new protokollon, leaving the chance that there were segments preceding what is now the first column

253

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The Scroll and the Marble

Further, as an opening to a poetic work, the section on stones provides precisely that splendid introduction Pindar recommended. Indeed, that special brilliance embodied in Pindar’s τηλαυγς insistently recurs in the terms Posidippus uses to describe the luminosity of his gemstones: α"γ (8.6 AB), α"γζω (3.1), διαυγς (16.5); such nouns as σλας (6.6) and φη (7.6); the verbs στλβω (11.1), µαρµαρω (6.3), and συλλµπω (7.6); such adjectives as πολις (16.1); and above all, terms evoking celestial phenomena, such as στερεις (5.1), ντισληνος (4.3), Vλιος (16.6), Vερεις (14.1), α,θριος (14.6), and στρπτω (13.4). An eye-catching start. But to what end? In what follows, I argue that the Lithika draw our attention, right from the first, to fundamental themes that figure prominently elsewhere in the scroll, illuminating important aspects of both politics and poetics and frequently tying them together. In particular, I hope to show how the stones exemplify, in their geographical distribution and social construction, both the territorial and cultural/artistic aims of the Ptolemies and of their poet, Posidippus. To begin with poetics, many of the poems of this section linger on the artist’s exquisite workmanship, and it is tempting to read them programmatically: as art contemplating art, they invite a self-reflexive interpretation likewise apt for the beginning of a work.3 David Schur suggests that such an interpretation may extend even to the title, for inasmuch as epigram is by its origin and history inescapably linked with stone, the possibility that this opening section was called λιθικ—“things having to do with stones”—suggests a high degree of generic self-awareness.4 Indeed, in this sense, λιθικ could be taken as a title for the overall collection. In any case, the concern with artistry seems to reflect a number of standard “Alexandrian” preoccupations. It is linked here, for instance, to diminutive works in a minor artistic genre, Kleinkunst as the Germans call it. Though I shrink to mention it, the term λεπτ —“slender, delicate, refined”—appears in the very first poem (1.4 AB). This, of course, was a crucial watchword of Hellenistic poetics: notably in the programmatic opening poem of Callimachus’ Aetia, with its “slender” Muse (fr. 1.24; cf. AP 9.507 ⫽ Ep. 27 Pf. ⫽ 56 GP), and in Aratus’ celebrated acrostic at Phainomena 783– (selis) of writing. Nonetheless it is likelier that the section on stones formed the original opening. Damage such as that repaired by the new protokollon is characteristic of the outermost (i.e., the opening) part of the scroll, where the papyrus is most exposed to mishap (cf. Turner 1968: 5). Johnson (2005) is more skeptical that this formed the beginning of the roll. 3. One thinks, for instance, of Theocritus 1 or the prologue to Callimachus’ Aetia. 4. Cf. Schur 2004.

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87; thereafter also in Augustan poetry.5 A section leading off with gems provides an ideal platform to highlight this refined aesthetic, for again and again Posidippus calls attention to the delicacy of the engraver’s art. Delicacy such as this is, moreover, a result of τχνη and µχθος. In one of the two previously known epigrams, the speaker claims that the engraved chariot on a snakestone must have been carved with the superhuman vision of a Lynceus (του
θ/ #π Λυγκεου βλµµατος 6γλφετο 15.4 AB ⫽ AP 16.119.4 ⫽ 20.4 GP), finding it a marvel that such “toil” (µχθος) did not hurt (cognate 6µγησε) the artist’s eyes (
/Η κα θαυ
µα πλει µχθου µγα, πω
ς C 6 λιθουργς / τς τενιζοσας ο"κ 6µγησε κρας, 15.7–8). Yet other epigrams in the section suggest that tiny works like these—though marginal— are prized by connoisseurs, particularly royalty. A sadly fragmentary poem (9 AB) evokes the famous seal ring of Polycrates, which in Herodotus (3.41) was the Samian tyrant’s most treasured possession. The epigram introduces a significant innovation vis-à-vis Herodotus in that it has Polycrates take as his emblem on the seal “the lyre of a singer-man, strumming his song at your feet” (νδρς οιδου
/ του
φο]ρ µζ[οντος σοι
ς π αρ π [οσσ] λρην, 9.1–2 AB). This most likely refers to Anacreon, whom Herodotus describes as present in Polycrates’ banquet hall (3.121). Thus Posidippus brings us back to the contemplation of poetry. Indeed, inasmuch as this tiny seal (σφρηγ[ι
δα, 9.1 AB) is embodied in the comparably brief compass of his epigram, he suggests that the one art form can stand for the other. In so doing, he indirectly presents us with a sphragis of his own, bearing the stamp and conveying to us the impression of an important poetic forerunner. But more than possibly delineating programmatic parameters, the section on Stones explores and maps out a political landscape reflecting certain aspirations of sovereignty that set the tone for the whole work (i.e., it outlines the “world” we are dealing with).7 In this regard, we do well to recall the long section in Theocritus’ Idyll, the Encomiium to Ptolemy, which recounts the lands Ptolemy Philadelphus counted as his own in addition to Egypt (vv. 86–93). 5. For the term and its impact in Roman poetry, cf., e.g., Hopkinson 1988: 90, 98–101. We will see that Posidippus uses metapoetic water imagery in ways similar to Callimachus (cf. n. 17 in the present essay). Further, the similarities between the “seal poem” on his old age (SH 705 ⫽ 118 AB) and the prologue to Callimachus’ Aetia have long been noted. 6. For the emphasis on techne in Hellenistic poetics, cf. Callim. Aet. 1.17–18. For “toil” as part of the poet’s self-image, cf. the paignion of Philitas (10, p. 92 Powell ⫽ 12 Sbardella, with commentary). Posidippus (AP 12.98 ⫽ 6 GP ⫽ 137 AB) describes his ψυχ as 6ν ββλοις πεπονηµνη (v. 3). Cf. generally Prioux 2007b. 7. Susan Stephens thinks in similar terms (2004: 170–71).

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κα µν Φοινκας ποτµνεται /Αρραβας τε κα Συρας Λιβας τε κελαινω
ν τ/ Α,θιοπ ωνD Παµφλοισ τε πα
σι κα α,χµηται
ς Κιλκεσσι σαµανει, Λυκοις τε φιλοπτολµοισ τε Καρσ κα νσοις Κυκλδεσσιν, 6πε ο να
ες ρισται
σα κα α,
α πντον 6πιπλοντι, θλασσα δ+ πα κα ποταµο κελδοντες νσσονται ΠτολεµαMω

86

90

[And he cuts off for himself part of Phoenicia and of Arabia and of Syria and Libya and the black Ethiopians. And he holds sway over all the Pamphylians and Cilician spearmen, and over the Lycians and war-loving Carians and over the Cycladic isles, for his ships are the best that sail the sea: indeed all the sea and all the earth, and the thundering rivers are ruled by Ptolemy.] As Gow comments (ad v. 92), “the hyperbole in Theocritus is remarkable.” But Callimachus is no less hyperbolic when he speaks in his fourth hymn (vv. 166–70) of that same sovereign, “beneath whose crown shall come— not unwilling to be ruled by a Macedonian—both continents and the lands that are set in the sea, as far as where the ends of the earth are and the
#π µτρην / source from whence the swift horses of Helios carry him (ME G ξεται ο"κ κουσα Μακηδνι κοιρανεσθαι / µφοτρη µεσγεια κα αj πελγεσσι κθηνται, / µχρις @που περτη τε κα Cππθεν bκες Gπποι / /Ηλιον φορουσιν).8

The first words of the poem in Posidippus’ section on Stones are /Ινδς ;Υδσπης, “the Indian river Hydaspes” (1.1 AB)—the source, it

appears, of the gem that formed the subject of the poem. This river was essentially the furthest limit of Alexander’s conquests in the East. The section ends with a poem about a massive boulder in Euboea, in the traditional Greek motherland, and closes with a prayer on behalf of Ptolemy: “But now, Geraestian lord [Poseidon], along with the islands of Ptolemy preserve his land unshaken and also his shores” (νυ
ν δ, Γεραστι/ ναξ, ν  σ ων µτα τν Πτολεµαου / γαι
αν κ ιν την 具 : 典σχε κα α,γιαλος, 20.5– 6). This closing prayer, suitably open-ended in its definition of Ptolemaic boundaries, retrospectively colors our understanding of the geographic parameters within which the section unfolds, setting it all in a Ptolemaic 8. Cf. Hunter 2003b: ad 86–92, on both these passages as reflecting conventions of the “oriental rhetoric of kingship” (p. 168) and, in particular, of Alexander as a model.

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perspective:9 the range of lands available to the Ptolemies as a source of wealth corresponds to no less than the empire won by Alexander. In addition to India, which was famously rich in gems10 (cf. also 2.4, 8.5), the stones in these epigrams derive notably from Persia (4.5, 5.2, 11.2, 13.3), Arabia (7.1, 16.1), Lydia (8.1), Mysia (17.1), Samos (9.1), and the depths of the sea (11.1, 12.1). As Theocritus says in Idyll 17, “In wealth Ptolemy could outweigh all other kings, so much comes each day to his sumptuous house from
µαρ everywhere (PΟλβMω µ+ν πντας κε καταβρθοι βασιλη
αςD / τσσον 6π/  Iκαστον 6ς φνεν (ρχεται ο,
κον / πντοθε, 17.95–97).11 The evocation of Alexander’s empire in the geographic distribution of stones in the λιθικ finds confirmation in a little-noted passage from Theoprastus’ Characters. There, in describing the alazon, “the idle boaster,” Theophrastus tells how this character is apt to claim that he was on close terms with Alexander the Great himself on his Eastern campaigns (23.1–3). C δ+ λαζ5ν τοιου
τος τις, ο
ος . . . κα συνοδοιπρου δ+ πολαυ
σαι 6ν τJη
CδMω
δεινς λγων, Eς µετ/ /Αλεξνδρου 6στρατεσατο, κα Eς α"τMω
9. Lest we miss how the reader retroactively acquires a Ptolemaic orientation, the first two poems of the following section—the oionoskopika—reinforce the shift by turning our attention toward Egypt. The section is launched with an epigram about launching a ship (21 AB), beginning and ending with the words νη καθελκοµνηι (for similarly artful equivalence between beginnings and ends of a journey and of a poem, cf., Wray 2000, 241–45. It is followed by one in which the speaker presents himself as a traveler heading toward Egypt: “For us who are about to seek out the Egyptian sea, may the Thracian crane be our guide along the forestays” (?µι
ν δ/ Α,γπτου πλαγος µλλουσι δικειν / Θρη
ισσα κατ προτνων ?γεµονοι γρανος, 22.3–4 AB. The word δικειν suggests that the speaker is far from Egypt and that the Α,γπτου πλαγος is his goal (cf. LSJ s.v. δικω I 2). In all likelihood, his journey is from Europe (Macedonia?) to Egypt, since, as Kannicht observes in his commentary on Euripides’ Helena (1969: ad 1478–94), the crane is known above all as an intercontinental traveler, and only his migratory flight in autumn from north to south appears in literature: “der notorische Kranichzug [ist] immer nur der des Herbstes, weil eben nur der Herbstzug beobachtet werden kann; denn nur im Herbst lassen sich die Kraniche sozusagen Zeit, fallen hier und da in die Länder, die auf ihrer Route liegen, ein, rasten, und fliegen στολδες weiter. Deshalb ist in den literarischen Zeugnissen fast ausnahmslos der Herbstliche NordSüd Zug gemeint . . . Der Rückflug im Frühjahr bleibt dagegen in der Regel unbemerkt, weil die Kraniche dann ohne Verzug und in sehr großer Höhe direkt ihre nördlichen Brutgegenden anfliegen” (p. 388). For the transitional function of the first two poems of the oionoskopika, cf., further, Petrain 2003: 381; Stephens 2005. 10. Plantzos 1999: 106. 11. Nenna describes Ptolemaic interest in gems from the Arabian desert as follows: “Une des premières décisions des Ptolémees fut de réorganiser l’exploitation des carrières du désert arabique. Cette industrie minière, fondée sur la recherche des émeraudes, topazes ou de pierres semi-précieuses . . . était soigneusement surveillée par les collecteurs et les convoyeurs de pierreries appointés par le souverain” (1998: 156).

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ε,
χε, κα @σα λιθοκλλητα ποτ ρια 6κµισεD κα περ τω
ν τεχνιτω
ν τω
ν 6ν τJη
/ΑσYα, @τι βελτους ε,σ τω
ν 6ν τJη
Ε"ρπJη, µφισβητη
σαιD κα ταυ
τα ψοφη
σαι, ο"δαµου
6κ τη
ς πλεως ποδεδηµηκς

[The alazon is the sort who . . . on a journey is apt to put one over on a travel companion by relating how he campaigned with Alexander, and how Alexander felt about him, and how many gem-studded goblets he brought back as booty, and arguing that the craftsmen in Asia are better than those in Europe (he says all this even though he’s never been out of town).] (translation after Rusten 2002) Wonderful how Theophrastus here slyly suggests that the journey and companionship of the road prompt the alazon to “recall” his imagined journeys and friendship with Alexander—only to divulge in the end that the present journey is strictly parochial: the boaster has never in his life strayed beyond the narrow limits of the polis. Most interesting in this passage for our purposes, however, is what this provincial alazon associates with those campaigns: “gem-studded goblets” and superb craftsmen. The passage is revealing in a number of ways. First, it suggests that the topic of rare gems and their artistic use was easily linked in the public mind with Alexander. Second, it shows how the Macedonian’s conquests were viewed as having made accessible the great mineral wealth of the East. That is what Alexander’s “comrades in arms” would have brought back from their campaigns as booty (@σα . . . 6κµισε; cf. LSJ s.v. κοµζω II 2). Finally, it reveals that people from all strata of society—not just the ruling classes— were aware of these precious objects, knew of their exotic provenance, and had some appreciation for the artistry involved in turning them into jewels: traveling companions might idly chat about them to pass the time on a journey, and debate the relative merits of Asian and European craftsmen. That broad awareness, together with the association of gemstones with Alexander, would make λιθικ a politically charged topic and an appealing vehicle for promoting Ptolemaic aspirations. Those aspirations were not restricted to the Ptolemies, however; they could extend as well to those in their employ. It is striking that the territorial aims of the Ptolemies on view in these poems match those of Posidippus himself. For the poet sets similar parameters to his own fame in his “seal poem,” the elegy in which he considers his legacy from the perspective of old age (SH 705 ⫽ 118 AB). There, he asks Apollo to give an oracle “so that the Macedonians may do me honor, both those on the islands and the dwellers near the coast of all Asia” (=φρα µε τιµ σω[σι] Μακηδνες οG τ/ 6π

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ν[ σων / οG τ/ /Ασης πσης γ 具ε典τονες Vινος, vv. 14–15). In particular, the phrase “all Asia” (/Ασης πσης) invites readers to think of this continent in

the most expansive terms, as, for example, in Herodotus (4.36–41; cf. 2.16), where Asia extends from the Hellespont all the way to India.12 In this way, the lines attest to the radical expansion of Macedonian power in the aftermath of Alexander’s conquests, notwithstanding its humble beginnings,13 for here again we are dealing with territory that may be considered coextensive with Alexander’s dominions. Now the Ptolemies were eager to present themselves as “Macedonians,” as the Milan papyrus repeatedly demonstrates (78.32f., 82.3, 87.2, 88.4 AB; Paus. 6.3.1, 10.7.3; Callim. Hymn 4.166f., cited above),14 and so was Posidippus, one of the principal poets who served them: “My family is from Pella,” he declares in the very next line (Πελλαι
ον γνος µν, SH 705.17 ⫽ 118.17 AB), thus identifying himself with his public and also justifying his expectation of honor from them. We may thus see Posidippus’ hopes for recognition from the Macedonians as being bounded only by the limits of Ptolemaic territorial ambition. Here, then, political and poetic aspiration coincide, and the geographic breadth of opportunity available to the poet expands with that of his patrons.15 Within these geographic parameters, the details of the journey from physical source to cultural application are a persistent theme of the λιθικ: the passage from earth, sea, or shore to the artisan who shapes the natural object and, through his representational skills, makes it signify; how, further, it may be bound in a frame as a jewel and, finally, take its place in a social setting, on a person’s finger, neck, breast, or furniture. To illustrate, let me cite just one poem, 7 AB (with the admittedly uncertain, but plausible, supplements of Bastianini and Gallazzi). 12. Contrast the more limited sense noted by Dodds (1960) for /Ασαν τε πα
σαν at Eur. Ba. 17, where it is used “in the restricted sense of western Asia Minor, as the context shows.” Posidippus’ reference to “the dwellers near the coast of all Asia” accords with the idea in Herodotus (4.44) that Asia is largely defined and bounded by its coasts. 13. This contrast is stressed by Polybius (1.2.2): “The Macedonians ruled Europe from the regions along the Adriatic Sea to the Danube River, which seems an altogether small part of the above-mentioned land. Later, by overthrowing the Persian dynasty, they added sovereignty over Asia” (Μακεδνες τη
ς µ+ν Ε"ρπης V
ρξαν π τω
ν κατ τν /Αδραν τπων Iως 6π τν PΙστρον ποταµν, T βραχ1 παντελω
ς [ν φανεη µρος τη
ς προειρηµνης χραςD µετ δ+ ταυ
τα προσλαβον τν τη
ς /Ασας ρχ ν, καταλσαντες τν τω
ν Περσω
ν δυναστεαν). 14. Cf. Fantuzzi 2005: 250–52. 15. It is worth considering, as Kathryn Gutzwiller suggests, whether this poem may have been placed as the closing piece in the missing final part of the Milan papyrus (2005a: 317– 19). Certainly it would there have stood in appropriate balance to the geopoetic concerns of the opening section in the λιθικ. For the relationship of Posidippus’ seal to the biographical literature of the time, see Bing 1993a.

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6ξ /Aρβων τ ξνθ/ 4[ρων κατρ]υτα κυλων,
κ/ [6φρει ποτα]µς ε,ς 9λα χειµρρους b τν µλιτι χροιν λθ[ον ε:κελον, T]ν Κρονο[υ] χ ερ (γλυψεD χρυσω
ι σφι具γ典κτ[ς @δε γλυκερ]η
ι Νικονηι κθεµα τρη[τν φλγει, E]ς 6π µαστω
ι συ具λ典λµπει λευκω
ι χρω τ µελιχρ φη.

[Rolling the yellow debris from the Arabian mountains, the storm-swollen river carried swiftly to the sea this honey-colored stone, which the hand of Cronius carved. Bound fast with gold for sweet Niconoe it blazes as a necklace chain, so that on her breast its honeyed radiance gleams together with her fair skin.] The poem starts with a detailed echo of a Homeric simile in which Hector, in his assault on the Achaean ships, is likened to a great stone pried loose from its rock by a winter storm, and carried irresistibly down into the plain, but then coming, powerless, to a halt (Il. 13.137–43). . . . 4λοοτροχος uς π πτρης, @ν τε κατ στεφνης ποταµς χειµρροος eσJη 8 ξας σπτMω =µβρMω ναιδος (χµατα πτρηςD aψι δ/ ναθρMσκων πτεται, κτυπει δ θ/ #π/ α"του

aληD T δ/ σφαλως θει (µπεδον, ε ος Gκηται ,σπεδον, ττε δ/ ο_ τι κυλνδεται 6σσµενς περD uς KΕκτωρ ε
ος µ+ν πελει µχρι θαλσσης . . .

140

[. . . like a great rolling stone from a rock face that a river swollen with winter rain has wrenched from its socket and with immense washing broken the hold of the unwilling rock face; the springing boulder flies on, and the forest thunders beneath it; and the stone runs unwavering on a strong course, till it reaches the flat land, then rolls no longer for all its onrush; so Hector for a while threatened lightly as far as the sea . . .] Posidippus varies the source of stone from the Iliad’s rocky height (στεφνης, v. 138) to Arabian mountains; for Homer’s κυλνδεται (v. 142), he substitutes the more modern form κυλων (7.1); he apparently reverses the Homeric ποταµς χειµρροος (v. 138) with χειµρρους . . . ποταµς (7.2); and he transposes Homer’s mention of the sea as stopping point (µχρι θαλσσης, v. 143) from the framing narrative about Hector into his

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account of the stone (ε,ς 9λα, 7.2). If we follow the reconstruction of the editors, the yellow debris reveals a honey-colored stone, which the skillful hand of an artist like Cronius—mentioned by Pliny as being second in fame after Alexander’s personal gem engraver, Pyrgoteles (NH 37.4.8)— transforms into a jewel. Shaped thus, and translated to another kind of hill (6π µαστω
ι, 7.5),16 it can match the radiance of human beauty in the lovely Niconoe. While discarding the overt form of the Homeric simile, the poet recalls its function by subtly comparing and equating (συ具λ典λµπει, 7.6) the stone’s honeyed color (τν µλιτι χροιν λθ[ον ε:κελον, 7.3; µελιχρ φη, 7.6) to the fairness of the woman’s skin (λευκω
ι χρω τι, 7.6)—and perhaps also to her sweetness, if we accept the thrust of the supplement γλυκερ]η
ι (7.4). But unlike Hector, whose onslaught—like the boulder’s— finally grinds to an impotent halt, Niconoe’s power is undimmed, for the meaning of her name implies that the possessor of such a beautiful gem has been and will be “triumphant in her plans,” whatever those may be. In that light, the costly journey from exotic source through the artist’s transforming hand and into the possession of a Greek owner proves worthwhile indeed—a potent figure for the exploitation and mastery of the earth in an implicitly Ptolemaic context. At the same time, from a poetological standpoint, the Homeric simile of the massive stone thundering down the mountain is an apt image of the epic hero. The development of that simile, then, by Posidippus—which focuses on the fine gem extracted from what’s swept down by the torrent and how it is artfully cut into a jewel—may stand as an allegory of the Hellenistic poet’s reception and transformation of Homeric raw material to new ends.17 Such a poetological subtext will hardly surprise in a section dealing so insistently with “sources.” Without a doubt, it is in the λιθικ that the “politics and poetics of geography” (as I call it in the present essay’s title) intersect most prominently. Yet this section represents only a particularly rich lode in a vein that ramifies throughout the scroll. One could, for instance, productively 16. For this double meaning of µαστς, cf. Pindar Pyth. 4.8; Callim. Hymn 4.48 with Mineur’s note (1984). 17. In its programmatic Bildersprache, it resembles Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo (vv. 108– 12), with its opposed images of the “masses of waste and refuse that the great stream of the Assyrian river sweeps along” and “the trickling drops from the pure and unpolluted spring.” For Posidippus, however, the debris-carrying torrent is itself the ultimate source of the gem. For another Iliadic simile about surging water (11.492–97) and its impact as a stylistic metaphor in Hellenistic and Roman poetry, as well as in rhetoric, cf. the illuminating discussion of Hunter (2003a: 219–23). Concerning Homeric allusion elsewhere in the Milan papyrus, cf. Petrain 2003; Hunter 2004; and diNino 2009 (forthcoming).

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mine poems of the νδριαντοποιικ or of the ππικ for the convergence of geopolitics and geopoetics. In my essay “Posidippus and the Admiral” in the present volume, I treat in detail an exemplary instance, 37 AB, from the section on dedications, the ναθεµατικ, which suggests the ongoing importance of this theme throughout Posidippus’ work. Let us set aside our gemstones for a moment, then, to explore it briefly. As in the poem on the seal ring of Polycrates, this one concerns a lyre, and as in many of the λιθικ, it charts an object’s route from exotic source into a new Ptolemaic context. The poem commemorates the dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphus, by her temple keeper (ναοπλος), of a lyre brought ashore, most likely near the temple of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis, by “Arion’s dolphin” (δ ελφς . . . /Αρινιο[ς). The lyre evokes not only the great seventhcentury musician of Methymna but, with him, the whole rich tradition of Archaic Lesbic lyric (including Terpander, Sappho, and Alcaeus), linking it with the third-century shrine of Arsinoe. Its transfer to Egypt exemplifies the Ptolemies’ claim to be the true inheritors and guardians of the literary legacy of Hellas, in particular (here) the great tradition of Lesbic song. At the same time, Egypt’s acquisition of this lyre may have a political dimension, since the Ptolemies made Arion’s native Methymna an important strategic base for their interests in the northern Aegean in the mid-third century; the city became a vital part of their maritime empire.18 As in the λιθικ, then, we see how a precious object embodying Egypt’s geopolitical/geopoetic ambitions enters the eager, inclusive embrace of Ptolemaic power. The flip side of this ambition—that is, to make Egypt also a source disseminating that poetic heritage to the world—is apparent elsewhere in Posidippus, namely, in his epitaph for Doricha, a hetaira of Naucratis in Egypt, famous as the mistress of Sappho’s brother Charaxus (Athen. 13.596c ⫽ 17 GP ⫽ 122 AB).19 In commenting on the enduring power of Sappho’s verse, Posidippus here significantly links it with its written medium: “The bright resounding papyrus columns of Sappho’s / dear song abide and will yet abide” (ΣαπφMω
αι δ+ µνουσι φλης (τι κα µενουσιν / 18. I lay out the details of these ties in “Posidippus and the Admiral” in the present volume. 19. Cf. already Hdt. 2.135, where the author calls her by her nickname “Rhodopis” (cf. Page 1955: 49 n. 1). However, Lidov (2002) proposes that Rhodopis and Doricha only came to be identified with one another in the Hellenistic biographical tradition, for which Posidippus is our earliest source. Doricha also appears in Sappho’s poetry (frs. 7, 15 L-P), though not immediately connected with Charaxus (frs. 5 and, generally, 202 L-P). On Posidippus’ reception of Sappho and recontextualization in Hellenistic Egypt, see Acosta-Hughes and Barbantani (2007: 439, 447, 452).

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Mbδη
ς α λευκα φθεγγµεναι σελδες, vv. 5–6). The importance of writing

as a means of preservation is further stressed in the following couplet, which addresses Doricha: “Most blessed is your name, which Naucratis
δε / as long as a ship sails out from the Nile across the salt will preserve E
δε φυλξει, / (στ/ [ν :Jη sea.” (ο_νοµα σν µακαριστν, T Νακρατις E Νελου ναυ
ς 6φ/ Zλς πελγη, vv. 7–8). In the sepulchral context, we would
δε (v. 7) to be used in its conventional deictic sense and normally expect E mean “here.” But Posidippus pointedly thwarts epitaphic expectation. For
δε here refers back to the ability of the papyrus scroll to bestow permaE nence on its subject (µνουσι . . . (τι κα µενουσιν / α λευκα φθεγγµεναι σελδες, vv. 5–6) and therefore means that it is “thus,” “in this way”20—that is, through the medium of the scroll—that Naucratis will preserve the hetaira’s name. It will do so, moreover, “as long as a ship sails out from the Nile across the salt sea” (v. 8). P. A. Rosenmeyer elucidated the particular point of this conclusion, acutely observing that the ship was probably laden with papyri.21 Naukratis was indeed ideally located in the Delta to play a significant part in the papyrus trade.22 Its very name (Νακρατις, v. 7), meaning “the city whose power is in ships,” bespeaks its mercantile strength and age-old standing as a base of maritime trade between Egypt and far-flung points in the Mediterranean.23 That connotation of the city’s name is deftly activated by Posidippus in the final line ((στ/ [ν :Jη Νελου ναυ
ς 6φ/ Zλς πελγη, v. 8), inasmuch as the ναυ
ς envisioned there implies that Naucratite ships—with their precious cargo of scrolls—will sail down the Nile and out to sea forever.24 Here, then, Posidippus, famous in the Greek world as a poet of epigrams for monuments,25 shows himself equally aware of the memorializing power of papyrus. In particular, he is mindful of Egypt’s special role not just in collecting and preserving but in disseminating the precious poetic heritage of Greece. Precious objects could be of various sorts, however, even amongst the
δε, cf. Gow and Page (GP ad 17.7), who note that the translation “thus” seems 20. On E “more likely” than “here.” 21. Rosenmeyer 1997: 132. 22. E. Marion Smith (1926: 35). 23. See, most recently, Möller 2000; Höckmann and Kreikenbom 2001. 24. The verses may be viewed as an update—from the perspective of book-conscious Hellenistic Egypt—of what is implied already about the easy dissemination of written verse in such an image as Pindar’s at Nem. 5.2–3: λλ/ 6π πσας Cλκδος (ν τ/ κτMω, γλυκει
/ οιδ, στει
χ/ π/ Α,γνας διαγγλοισ/ (“on every merchant ship, on every boat, sweet song, go forth from Aegina proclaiming the news”). 25. Cf. the honors bestowed on him as 6πιγραµµατοποις at Thermon, which are discussed in greater detail in the chapter on Reimagining Posidippus in the present volume.

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λιθικ. Returning now to our stones, we find there Ptolemaic interests of

another, though related, kind, reflected in the epigram that follows the initial sixteen-poem series—the “gemstone sequence,” as Gutzwiller has called it (2004: 88). This epigram has to do with a stone whose natural properties, rather than any artful craftsmanship applied to it secondarily, make it a marvel worthy of contemplation (17 AB).26 σκψαι C Μσιος ο
ον νερρζωσεν PΟλυµπος τνδε λθον διπλη
ι θαυµσιον δυνµειD τη
ιδε µ+ν Iλκει 8ει
α τν ντ 具ε典ντα σδη ρον µγνης ο
α λθος, τη
具ι典δε δ/ πωθεν 6λα
ι, πλευρη
ι 6ναντιοεργ具典ςD T κα τρας 6ξ 2ν ς α"του
, πω
ς δο µιµ具ε典
ι ται χερµδας ε,ς προβολς.

5

[Look upon this stone, such a one as Mysian Mt. Olympus grew, wondrous for its double power. With one side it easily pulls the iron set before it, like a magnet-stone; with the other it drives it far away with opposing effect. Even that is the marvel, how from one itself it imitates two stones with regard to movements.] This poem suggests that the Ptolemies were interested not simply in claiming the wealth of the world but also in gathering together its wonders (note θαυµσιον, v. 2; τρας, v. 5). But what is the nature of this marvel? Bastianini and Gallazzi were puzzled by the idea that one stone imitates two: “It would not be clear,” they say, “what the two χερµδες are that are imitated by the stone described: one could be the µγνης λθος, which attracts iron; the other, however, which repels it, would not be described in any way. Above all, finally, the phrase would add nothing of substance with regard to what was previously said, while the connective T κα τρας necessarily implies that the topic is something new.”27 Without minimizing the difficulty of the final couplet, I think that the commentators fail to account here for the long-standing ignorance in ancient sources about magnetic polarity—that is, that every magnet has two poles and that when two mag-

26. On this poem, cf. Luppe 2001. 27. BG ad III 19: “non si capirebbe quali siano le due χερµδες imitate dalla pietra descritta: una potrebbe essere il µγνης λθος che attira il ferro, l’ altra però, che lo respinge, non sarebbe indicata in nessun modo; sopratutto, infine, la frase non aggiungerebbe nulla, in sostanza, respetto a ciò che è detto prima, mentre il nesso T κα τρας implica necessariamente che si dica qualcosa di nuovo.”

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netized objects of the same pole meet, they repel, while opposite poles attract. Surprisingly, the earliest known text—prior to the discovery of our epigram—to describe a stone that can simultaneously attract and repel comes from the fifth century a.d.28 In rare instances, authors note that magnets can occasionally repel, but as A. Radl remarks in his study Der Magnetstein in der Antike, that is “an exception”: such a faculty “is more usually attributed then to ‘another stone’ altogether.”29 Thus the standard view in ancient sources is that magnets attract. That is why our epigram compares its subject to a magnet when seeking to illustrate that ability alone: “With one side it easily pulls the iron set before it, / like a magnet-stone” (τη
ιδε µ+ν Iλκει 8ει
α τν ντ 具ε典ντα σδη ρον / µγνης ο
α λθος, vv. 3–4). Those that repel, by contrast, are normally considered different stones—here the second of the δο . . . χερµδας that our stone imitates. This epigram is thus by far the earliest evidence for a single stone that incorporates both powers. Inasmuch as this flies squarely in the face of prevailing wisdom, it would indeed be perceived as a “marvel” (τρας, v. 5) that this stone from Mysian Olympos, being only one, “imitates two stones with regard to movements.”30 The unexpectedness and novelty of the phenomenon justifies our taking the relative phrase T κα τρας as retrospective, looking back to the preceding description of the stone’s paradoxical doubleness and amplifying it (“even this is a marvel”) rather than introducing some new wonder.31 The poem reflects the Hellenistic interest in paradoxography, which was given a decisive impetus and new scope through the conquests of 28. Cf. Marcellus Empiricus De medicamentis liber 1.63; thereafter Johannes Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 403.24. Radl (1988: 7), discounting the testimony of Marcellus, concludes: “Lediglich einmal [sc., in Philoponus] wird als ganz besondere Kuriosität bemerkt, daß ein und derselbe “Stein” sowohl anzieht als auch abstößt.” Cf. also H. Rommel, RE XIV/1 477: “Neben der Anziehung beobachtete man auch die Abstoßung . . . ohne daß man sich aber über die Polarität ganz klar wurde.” 29. “Über eine abstoßende Wirkung wird ebenfalls berichtet; aber nur als Ausnahme, die dann eher einem ‘anderen Stein’ zugeschrieben wird” (Radl 1988: 7). Cf. Lucretius 6.1042–3; fit quoque ut a lapide hoc ferri natura recedat / interdum. Similarly, Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride 62, 376b, citing Manetho [FGrHist III C, n. 609 F 21]), speaks of a stone that at different times (πολλκις µν . . . πολλκις δ) attracts and repels. Pliny (NH 20.2) sees the stone that repels as a different stone. 30. The phrase 6ξ 2νς α"του
recalls philosophical discussions concerning τ dν α"τ. Cf. Plato Parm. 137b3 and esp. Aristot. Met. 1001b5, which pointedly asks “from whence is there to be another one besides the one itself?” (6κ τνος γρ παρ τ dν (σται α"τ λλο Iν;). That seems precisely what is miraculous about the one stone that embodies the function of two. 31. The editors take T κα τρας in the latter sense as meaning “and this, too, is a wonder.” Granted that that is its sense at 8.7 AB, we need not assume that the phrase will always be used in the same way.

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The Scroll and the Marble

Alexander the Great. One may see how the influx of carved gems into the Ptolemaic realm, as described in the λιθικ, is paralleled by the collecting of wonders initiated by Callimachus in his Θαυµτων τω
ν ε,ς 9πασαν τν γη
ν κατ τπους συναγωγ .32 Or in verse paradoxography of the same period, there are the poems of the Egyptian Archelaus (SH 125–29), who, according to Antigonus of Carystus, “explained paradoxes in epigrams to Ptolemy.”33 In other words, what flows into the Ptolemies’ domain is not merely material wealth (=λβος)—as Theocritus 17.95–97 (quoted earlier) might suggest—but comprises as well the wealth of cultural/scientific information, including strange fact and fancy, that accompanied territorial expansion (or its ambitions).34 The Ptolemaic interests as surveyed in the section on Stones are not simply geographic but cut across time. We already mentioned the epigram concerning the ring of Polycrates. There are other antique gems described in this section as well, particularly associated with Persian royalty (4, 8 AB), through which Posidippus suggests the Ptolemaic appropriation—following the ever-present model of Alexander—of the artistic inheritance of the Persian Empire as well. Perhaps we may find traces of the Persian legacy—again via Alexander—in yet another poem where it has not previously been suspected. I mean in the poorly preserved 18 AB, which, with its opening invitation to recline (νακλνθητε, v. 1) and its apparent references to a young wine steward (ο,νο]χωι σ1ν παιδ, v. 3) as well as to an amphora (]µφο ρα, v. 4), seems to point to a sympotic context. δευ
]τ/ 6π/ (µ/, 6ννα φω
τες , νακλνθητε δ[]ε ις D ] ω γρ 6γ5 τρει
ς[]λιθ ε[ ο,νο]χωι σ1ν παιδ µ[]  ποδ[ 8ηι]δως Iκχουν δεξ[ ]µφο ραD Vν]δεD τη
ι µ+ν πντ/ [νδρω
ν] π χος, ?
ι δεδ [ τη
]ι δ+ τρισπθαµος τ[] πιτ[ε]ρος

5

32. Callimachus is seen as the first fully fledged exponent of the genre paradoxography, exerting important influence on his contemporary Antigonus of Carystus, who wrote ;Ιστοριω
ν παραδξων συναγωγ . Cf. Susemihl 1891: 463ff. 33. The reference is to either Ptolemy II Philadelphus or Ptolemy III Euergetes (De mirab. 19.3–4 ⫽ PGR p. 42 Giannini); cf. Fraser 1972: I 778–80. Cf. also the verse and prose paradoxes of Callimachus’ student Philostephanus of Cyrene. 34. Our poem is of course only an explicit example of a scholarly/paradoxographical interest that pervades the whole section, as has been shown by Martyn Smith in his examination of Posidippus’ use of technical treatises (2004). For paradoxography in the Milan papyrus generally, cf. Krevans 2005: 89–92, 96.

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267

] τετραγλχις πλε[ 6]π µη
κος ε[ τη
ι] µ +ν 6φ/ dξ προσθε[]εσι, τη
ι δ/ φ[ 1 δ / [ολλ]ε
ις Austin 3 µ[θης]  ποδ  τ[ορα τερπνη
ς Austin 4 δξ[οµαι Austin 5 πντ/ α[νδρω
ν Fantuzzi : πεντ[πεδος Austin : δδ[εθ/ Zρµς Austin 6 τ[η
ι πολ1] πιτ[ε]ρος Austin 7 πλε[ι
ον δ/ Austin

[Come to me, you nine men, and lie down [together?] . . . for I . . . three . . . of stone with a young wine-pourer . . . easily . . .will hold a six-choes amphora Look! Here the width is that of five [men] where [the joint is held together (?); here it is of three spans; [here it is much] fatter (?) with four corners, [but greater (?)] in length on the one hand six, on the other . . .] Bastianini and Gallazzi (BG ad III 23) propose that this poem’s subject and speaker may be a large and costly stone krater, “which declares . . . its own capacity” (more than a six-choes amphora, i.e., more than twenty liters), which it holds easily. “If,” say the editors, “we are truly dealing with a stone krater, then we might be able to understand why the epigram would be included in this section” (BG ad III 22–23; cf. also introduction to III 20–27). But something is not right with this picture. A six-choes amphora is not particularly large. The standard capacity of a storage amphora is twelve choes (⫽ one µετρητ ς; cf. OCD3 s.v. “measures”). A container somewhat more than half that size, even if this were a deliberate understatement, does not mesh with the description of an object whose width alone suffices to hold five men (πντ/ [νδρω
ν] π χος, v. 5)35 and that appears to have four corners (τετραγλχις, v. 7). I think it more likely that we are dealing with one of two possibilities. The first is a kline, or couch,36 possibly big and sturdy enough to hold the nine men (not the usual one or two to a couch) who are invited in the opening line to “come to me . . . and lie down.” In this connection, M. 35. Much less with an object “five feet thick” (πεντ[πεδος] π χος), the supplement proposed in BG (ad loc.), discussed what follows. 36. In a similar direction, cf. Luppe 2002. Luppe suggests that because the epigram belongs to the λιθικ, the speaker must be a boulder with three benchlike outcroppings capable of holding three men each. However, this suggestion, with its bold supplements, lacks plausibility inasmuch as it is not supported by a shred of archaeological evidence—are there examples of sympotic furniture built thus into a natural outdoor setting?—or by any suggestion as to where such a structure might have been. Cf. further Prioux (2007b: 127–29).

268

The Scroll and the Marble

Fantuzzi notes that we should reject the editors’ supplement πεντ[πεδος] π χος (v. 5), as it ignores the central caesura—an exceedingly rare occurrence in the history of epigram, and one that we should certainly not create through conjecture.37 He suggests instead πντ/ [νδρω
ν] π χος, “a width of five men,” a characterization that—in addition to observing the caesura—aptly describes a couch large enough along its length and breadth to carry nine men. The second possibility is a massive table perhaps set up in the conventional manner in front of the couch where the men are reclining.38 Couch or table, I agree with the editors that λιθ ε[ at the end of line 2 suggests that stone or gems figured in the construction. Now where would such a grand couch or table be found? In a setting, I suggest, that evokes a heroic context. A cue that prompts us in this direction may lie in the appeal to “nine men,” 6ννα φω
τες. This is, first of all, 39 a Homeric combination. More importantly, it recalls a passage from the Iliad (7.161) where, in response to Nestor’s scolding challenge, nine great heroes spring up to volunteer to fight Hector: ο δ/ 6ννα πντες νσταν. Significantly, this line is quoted verbatim in a sympotic context in Hippolochus of Macedon’s description of the sumptuous wedding feast of Caranus the Macedonian (Athen. 4.129f ). There, after one of the feasters empties, at a single draught, a σκφος χοαι
ος, a capacious six-pint cup of barely diluted Thasian wine (πληρσας ο:νου Θασου 4λγον τι 6πιρρνας aδατος 6ξπιεν), the host responds by offering to give the cup as a Homeric-style γρας to all who can match this feat. “At these words,” continues the narrator, citing Homer, “all nine sprang up and seized a cup, each striving to outstrip the others” (6φ/ ο
ς λεχθει
σιν “ο δ/ 6ννα πντες νσταν” Zρπζοντες κλλος λλον φθνοντες). In other words, the convivial agon is made parallel to the heroic agon. I suspect that, in view of the Macedonian authorship and subject of this description, the Homeric phrase may have had some currency in Macedonian circles, including that of the Ptolemies. With its nine men, our epigram similarly evokes the Homeric model and thereby lends a touch of epic grandeur to its imagined symposium. At the same time, of course, it humorously undercuts that grandeur by inverting the Iliadic νσταν (“the nine sprang up”) with νακλνθητε (“nine men, lie down,” v. 1). 37. The same goes for Luppe’s proposal (ibid.), πεντα[χερ+ς] π χος. 38. In that case, we might consider whether τρει
ς in v. 2 might refer to the standard three-legged sympotic table and whether πδας might be part of a plausible supplement in the gap following τρει
ς. 39. It appears just once in Homer (Il. 16.785), of Patroklos’ final murderous assault, τρς δ/ 6ννα φω
τας (πεφνεν.

The Politics and Poetics of Geography in the Milan Posidippus

269

Larger than life opulence may be evoked in another way as well. Despite its tattered condition, the epigram strikes us at once by its profusion of numbers and measurements (6ννα φω
τες, v. 1; τρει
ς, v. 2; Iκχουν, v. 4; πντ/ [νδρω
ν], v. 5; τρισπθαµος, v. 6; τετραγλχις, v. 7; dξ, v. 8). This feature immediately calls to mind the periegetic prose of the Hellenistic period, particularly elaborate accounts of gigantic royal tents, ships, and processions—gaudy narrative showpieces obsessed with quantity and size40 and meant to convey an impression of endless wealth and power. Oswyn Murray has emphasized the importance in the development of the Hellenistic royal symposium of the Persian model, combined with Macedonian customs of royal feasting. He stresses “the central importance of tryphê and feasting in the life of the [Persian] king,” recognized as early as Herodotus, and notes how “Alexander’s banquets were certainly compared to those of the Persian king” in this regard.41 Alexander’s lavish feasting pavilion (Athen. 12.538b–539a) was in turn the clear model for the great banquet tent of Ptolemy Philadelphus described by Callixenus of Rhodes (Athen. 5.196a–197c). That tent, with its 130 gold couches (5.197a), each with a pair of three-legged gold tables set before it, seems deliberately to echo—and outdo—Alexander’s furnishings, which included only a hundred couches of silver: the sole couch of gold belonged to Alexander himself. Most significantly for our epigram, in Ptolemy’s tent there was a couch (κλνη), “in full sight of the sympotic assembly,” that could hold a great pile of goblets, cups, and utensils—all of gold, studded with jewels (` δ πντα χρυσα
τε V
ν κα διλιθα, θαυµαστ ται
ς τχναις), and weighing ten thousand silver talents (5.197c). The text does not say of what material this kline was made, but to bear such a load—fully three hundred tons—it seems a fair bet that it must have been of stone.42 If the object described in our epigram is a kline, it was doubtless more modest than this one. But I think that in exploring the context of royal symposia— 40. A verse counterpart might be the description of the statue of Olympian Zeus in Callimachus’ Iamb. 6. Cf. I. Petrovic 2006; Prioux 2007b: 127–29. 41. O. Murray 1996: 18–19. It is worth noting—especially in light of Posidippus’ interest in the ring of Polycrates, mentioned earlier—that a Greek model for the display of deluxe furniture may also be at work here. A tantalizingly brief notice in Herodotus (3.123) tells us that Polycrates’ secretary, Maeandrius, following his master’s death, dedicated in the Heraion of Samos all the furniture from the tyrant’s banquet hall—“a sight worth seeing,” Herodotus says: τν κσµον τν 6κ του
νδρεω
νος του
Πολυκρτεος 6ντα ξιοθητον νθηκε πντα 6ς τ KΗραιον.
πντα χρσεα κα λιθοκλλητα 42. Cf. Cleopatra’s βασιλικν συµπσιον for Antony, 6ν ME περιττω
ς 6ξειργασµνα ται
ς τχναις (Athen. 4.147f ). In this case, the use of stone inlay appears to have extended to the furniture.

270

The Scroll and the Marble

“Hellenistic . . . gigantosymposia,” as Bergquist has called them (1990: 53)— we are looking in the right place. A comparable royal context would be suitable if we consider the object in our poem a table, for we have a detailed source describing Ptolemy Philadelphus’ special interest in the manufacture and exquisite craftsmanship of a gem-encrusted table made of gold. I am referring to the sumptuous table said to have been given by the king to the high priest of Jerusalem, Eleazar, and minutely described in an extended ecphrasis in the Letter of Aristeas (51–72). To be sure, its dimensions were smaller than what our epigram describes: δω πηχων τ µη
κος, τ δ+ aψους π χεος κα ?µσους (57), that is, roughly three feet long by two feet high. Ptolemy had
ν C βασιλε1ς hoped to make it colossal in size (προεθυµει
το µ+ν ο" #προπλν τι ποιη
σαι τοι
ς µτροις τ κατασκεασµα, 52), but naturally he

bowed to biblical authority in this regard. What the table lacked in size, however, it more than made up for in its art and precious material. These are lovingly set out in the elaborate ecphrasis already mentioned, which— like our epigram—repeatedly stresses the dimensions of each detail. I propose, then, that we may have here in verse a counterpart to the sensational prose descriptions—the Hellenistic answer to the tabloids of today—of spectacular objects on display at royal symposia, quite possibly Ptolemaic symposia. To conclude, it is worth noting that the Ptolemaic orientation revealed in this section on Stones recurs with far greater emphasis in that on dedications (ναθεµατικ); that on victories in equestrian contests (ππικ), where numerous epigrams celebrate the institutions and achievements of the first three generations of Ptolemaic kings and queens; and that on cures (,αµατικ), which seems to take its cue from the interests of a high Ptolemaic official.43 Posidippus was evidently active in quite disparate parts of the Greek world and served a variety of masters. We know, from an inscription in Thermon, that in 263/2 he received proxeny from the Aetolian League in his function as writer of epigrams (6πιγραµµατοποις, IG IX 12; 17 A ⫽ test. 3 AB); and he appears to come up in a proxeny list from the 270s at Delphi as well (Fouilles de Delphes III 3 no. 192 ⫽ test. 2 AB). Further, he seems to have maintained close ties to his native Pella in Macedonia (cf. his poetic sphragis, SH 705 ⫽ 118 AB). The remarkable emphasis on Ptolemaic themes in the Milan papyrus—to the exclusion of almost any other regional power’s political interests—strongly suggests, 43. Cf. Bing 2002a; 2003a; and the chapter on “Posidippus’ Iamatika” in the present volume.

The Politics and Poetics of Geography in the Milan Posidippus

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then, that the epigrams in this collection were selected with a Ptolemaic audience in mind.44 An apparent exception, like epigram 83 AB, commemorating a victory of one of the Thessalian Scopadae in a horse race at Olympia, in fact just adds luster to the Ptolemaic victories so prominently described by evoking the precedent of Simonidean epinician (cf., similarly, Theocr. 16.34ff.). Bearing in mind the striking number of epigrams that focus on women—the first seven poems of the λιθικ,45 almost all those from the section on epitaphs, the prominence of Ptolemaic queens among the ναθεµατικ and ππικ46—we may even contemplate a collection shaped to the interests of a Ptolemaic queen or to one in her service.

44. This squares with the Ptolemaic emphasis found in the previously known epigrams of Posidippus, where such notables as the nauarch Kallikrates of Samos or Sostratus of Cnidus, the dedicator of the statue of Zeus Soter atop the Pharos, are prominent. Cf. “Between Literature and the Monuments” and “Posidippus and the Admiral” in the present volume. 45. Cf. BG p. 25: “Nel sottogruppo concernente le pietre incise (I 2–III 7), prima troviamo riuniti insieme tutti gli epigrammi che hanno per tema gemme intagliate offerte in dono a donne (I 2–35).” 46. Note especially how the last two poems of the ππικ insistently situate the achievement of these queens in a female context and according to feminine criteria. Cf. 87.3–4 AB: τ Κυνσκας / 6ν Σπ[ρ]ται χρνιον κυ
δος φειλµεθα (sc., the horses of Berenike); 88.5–6 AB: λλ/ @τι µτηρ / ε
λε γυν νκαν 9ρµατ具ι典, του
το µγα. For the prominence of women in the poems of the Milan papyrus generally, cf. Bernsdorff 2002: esp. 38–41; Hutchinson 2002: esp. 2.

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Index of Ancient Passages Cited


(Passages treated in detail are marked in bold print.) Aelian fr. 44: 62 Varia Historia 9.14: 14 Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 183–85: 157n.20 184: 87n.6 187: 87n.6 AP 6.330 ⫽ CEG 776: 220–21 Aeschylus Cho. 1018: 31 Vita 25: 219n.8 Alcaeus fr. 346 Voigt: 171–73 fr. 347 LP: 152n.6, 154n.12 Alexander of Aphrodisias Comm. in Arist. Graeca 1.818.4–8: 22 Alkaios of Messene 13 GP ⫽ AP 7.536: 139n.45 Anacreon AP 6.137: 212n.48 AP 6.138: 211–14 PMG 416.2: 167n.46 Anthologia Planudea 375 “Anon.”: 229

Antigonus of Carystus Mir. 8: 26–27 Antimachus fr. 22.2: 20n.25 Antisthenes of Paphos ID 1533: 168n.47 Anyte 19 GP: 162n.31 Ap. Rhod. 2.302: 239n.14 2.375: 65 2.842–50: 130n.27 2.1271: 20n.25 Aratus AP 12.129 ⫽ 1 GP: 125–26 Phaen. 14: 201n.22 783–87: 110, 254–55 Archelaus SH 125–29: 266 Archilochus fr. 128.7 W: 167n.46 fr. 133 W: 130n.29 AP 6.133 “Archilochus”: 246 Archimedes SH 201: 115, 207n.37 293

294

Index of Ancient Passages Cited

Archimelus SH 202: 184, 212n.50 Arion PMG 939: 248n.38 Ariphron PMG 813: 231n.40 Aristophanes Wasps 97–99: 121 Wasps 393: 162n.30 Aristotle de Ath. rep. 7: 87n.6 Eth. Eud. 1235a9: 167 Eth. Nic. 1.8.14. 1099a27: 87n.6 History of Animals 8.607a: 218n.5 Metaphysics 1001b5: 265n.30 1091a5: 22 Poetics 1.1447b21: 111 4.1448b24: 153n.10 16.1455a: 168 24.1460a2: 111 Rhet. 1.7.1365a: 87n.6 1.9.1367b: 87n.6 3.12.1413b8: 111 pseudo-Aristotle mirab. auscult. 58 (59): 87n.6 131: 85–86, 87n.6 133: 87n.6 Asclepiades 16 GP ⫽ AP 12.50: 170–74 18 GP ⫽ AP 12.135: 166–67 31 GP ⫽ AP 7.500: 131n.30 43 GP ⫽ APl. 120: 14n.6 Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 1.9a: 168n.47 2.83: 27 2.137.7: 48 3.2: 48 4.80: 27 4.129f: 268 4.147f: 269n.42 5.196a–97c: 269 5.209c–e: 184, 212n.50

7.318d: 178n.5 9.401 d–e: 14–15 9.495e: 18–19 10.415a: 178n.5 10.442e: 87 11.483a: 20–21 12.538b–539a: 269 14.645d: 19–20 15.669c: 141 15.677c: 18–19n.19 Callimachus Epigrams 13 GP ⫽ 43 Pf.: 152n.6, 166–69 14 GP ⫽ 5 Pf.: 251–52 21 GP ⫽ 33 Pf.: 91–95; 215n.60 22.2 GP ⫽ 34.2 Pf.: 98n.38 29 GP ⫽ 21 Pf.: 99–102 30 GP ⫽ 35 Pf.: 99–102 34.1 GP ⫽ 2.1 Pf.: 131n.31 36 GP ⫽ 22 Pf.: 102–5 43 GP ⫽ 12 Pf.: 131n.30 50 GP ⫽ 58 Pf.: 97–99 56 GP ⫽ 27 Pf.: 110; 254 Fragments (Pf.) 1.9–10: 11 1.32–35: 15n.11 57.1–2 (Victoria Berenices): 95–97 64: 139 67: 94 75.8–9: 26 110 (Berenike’s Lock): chap. 4 passim 112.2: 80 112.8: 80 186.27: 17n.16 384 (Victory of Sosibios): 241 400 Pf.: 198, 200n.21 Fragments (SH ) 254–69 (Victoria Berenices): 111–12 254.5: 200n.20 Hymns 1.92ff: 55n.24 2: chap. 2 passim, 63n.46 2.106ff: 55n.24 2.108–12: 63n.46, 261n.17 2.110–12: 63

Index of Ancient Passages Cited 3.256: 66 3.268: 55n.24 4.166–70: 256, 259 5.11: 239n.14 6: chap. 3: passim pseudo-Callisthenes 32.1–3: 200 Calpurnius Siculus Ecl.1.20–32: 142n.54 Catullus 14: 114 50: 114, 208n.37 62.1: 59n.34 65.3–4: 68 65.16: 68 66 (Coma Berenices): chap. 4: passim CEG I 28: 92; 169 40: 156n.17 275.4: 91n.15 304: 136–37 313: 213–14 345: 91n.15 407: 91n.14 413: 91n.14 429: 162n.32 430: 157n.19 454 (“Ischia Cup”): 126n.18, 151–55, 208n.38 CEG II 512: 100–102 593.4: 164n.37 597: 156n.17; 166n.43 755: 159 807.2–3: 200 808: 221n.19 818: 221n.19 888.38–50: 158n.21 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 5.23: 138–40 CIL IV 1904: 121n.9 IV 1906: 121n.9 IV 2175: 121n.9 IV 2461: 121n.9 IV 2487: 121n.9

295

“Demetrius” De eloc. 222: 90n.13 Demosthenes De corona 18.289: 87n.6 pseudo-Demosthenes 7.39: 87n.6 Diog. Laert. 6.37–38: 226 Dionysius 1 GP ⫽ AP 7.78: 13 Dionysius of Halicarnassus De comp. 25 (p.208 Reiske): 1–2 Dioskorides AP 7.76 ⫽ 33 GP: 230n.38 Epicharmus frs. 159–61: 27 Eratosthenes 35 Powell: 115n.15 Euripides Alc. 382: 164n.37 Bacchae 17: 259n.12 116: 182 165: 182 Helen 4–5: 200 1478–94: 257n.9 IT 1082ff: 162n.30 Medea 187–89: 56 Phoen. 302: 102n.50 FGE Anon. 102: 87n.6 Anon. 150: 159–62 FH 107: 213–14 114: 93 GG 424: 162–66 Glaukos 3 GP ⫽ AP 9.341: 122–23n.13 Gregory of Nazianzus AP 8.188: 102n.51

296 GV 455: 229 627: 164–65n.40 1231: 98n.37 1248.1–2: 134 1312: 156n.18 1353: 131 1513: 189 1620.1–5: 137n.42 1625.1–2: 131n.31 1729: 157–59 1735.1–4: 163 1874.7: 229 1990.5: 102n.51 2036.11: 102n.51 Hedylus 4 GP: 235n.3, 235n.5, 252 Hegesippus 8 GP ⫽ AP 7.320: 139n.45 Hephaest. Isag. 4 3.4: 153n.10 Hermesianax fr. 7, Powell: 23–25 fr. 7.75–78, Powell: 24–25 fr. 7.77–78, Powell: 12 Herodotus 1.24: 248n. 38, 249 1.73: 31 1.87.3: 200n.20 2.16: 259 2.112f: 200 2.135: 262n.19 3.41: 255 3.121: 255 3.123: 269n.41 4.36–41: 259 4.44: 259n.12 4.88: 87n.6, 87–88, 209 5.59: 87n.6 5.60: 87n.6 5.77.2: 87n.6 7.228: 87 n.6 8.22.1: 133n.34 8.85: 133n.34 pseudo-Herodotus Life of Homer 5.24: 89n.10

Index of Ancient Passages Cited Hesiod Op. 109: 31 Theog. 291: 31 Hesychius α 3417, I. 120 Latte: 17 Hippocr. Epid. 5.46: 228 Homer Iliad 1.250: 31 1.449: 31 1.461: 31 1.465: 31 1.458–68: 32 2.285: 31 2.421–31: 32 2.761: 162 2.791–94: 128 2.811–15: 129–30n.27 4.169–81: 128n.24 4.189: 99n.40 6.6: 157n.19 6.90–92: 246 6.271–73: 246 6.288–95: 246 6.514: 102n.50 7.67–91: 127–29 7.161: 268 8.282: 157n.19 8.397: 200 8.470: 31 9.206: 19–20 10.375: 48 10.415: 128 11.101–3: 190–91 11.166: 128n.26 11.371–72: 128 11.379: 128 11.492–97: 261n.17 11.631–36: 152–55 11.797: 157n.19 13.137–43: 260–61 13.437: 122 13.515: 102n.50 14.1: 152 15.269: 102n.50 15.669: 157n.19

Index of Ancient Passages Cited 16.39: 157n.19 16.431–57: 156n.17 16.642: 18–19 16.785: 268n.39 17.133–36: 57n.28 17.432–33: 122 18.524: 31 18.552–57: 16–18 18.558–59: 30n.52 19.301–2: 98n.37 20.495: 31 22.24: 102n.50 23.9: 156n.17 23.326ff: 129 24.349: 128n.26 24.611: 162n.33 Odyssey 1.1: 162–63 1.2: 165n.40 1.3–4: 159, 164–65n.40 1.6: 165n.40 1.60–62: 165n.40 1.261: 165n.40 3.51–53: 152 3.106: 161n.28 3.454–63: 32 4.196–98: 156n.17 4.278–79: 48 4.385: 200 4.621: 31 4.693: 31 4.765: 162n.30 6.180–85: 164n.38 7.224: 161n.27 8.38: 26n.44 8.84–85: 168–69n.48 8.92: 168–69n.48 8.93–95: 167–68 8.532–35: 167–68 9.45: 31 11.75–76: 128n.23 11.211: 158n.22 11.289: 31 13.131: 161n.27 13.323: 161n.28 14.423: 164 18.300: 18n.19

297

19.205–8: 57 20.49: 31 20.238: 164 21.203: 164 22.12: 31 24.80–84: 128n.23; 128n.24 24.189–90: 156n.17 24.296: 156n.17 Homeric Hymn to Apollo: chap. 2: passim Homeric Hymn to Demeter: chap. 3: passim 229: 41n.26 Ibycus PMG 342: 188n.24 I. Cret. I xxii 4.A.35–38: 236 IG I 381: 213–14 II/III ed. min., vol. 3.2 no. 7695: 101 IV2 1, no. 121.1–9: 222–23 IV2 1, no. 121.22: 226–27 IV2 1, no. 121.33: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 121.72: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 121.95: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 121.107: 224–25n.28 IV2 1, no. 121.120: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 121.122: 231n.39 IV2 1, no. 121.125: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 122.7: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 122.45 231n.39 IV2 1, no. 122.55: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 122.64: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 123.115: 223n.26, 227 IV2 1, no. 123.123: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 123.129: 223n.26 IV2 1, no. 125: 224–25n.28 IV2 1, no. 440: 223n.26 IX 12 i, 17A.24: 180, 182–83, 224, 270 IX2 8, 13: 186 IX2 51: 141n.50, 185–89 XI 4, 1105: 155n.14 XII 2, 513: 251 XII 2, 527: 251 XII.3, 540: 121n.9

298

Index of Ancient Passages Cited

IG (continued) XII.6, 446: 235 XII Suppl. 115: 251 Isocrates Panathenaicus 246–47: 134n.37 Leonidas 46 GP ⫽ AP 6.13: 208–9 60 GP ⫽ AP 7.264: 99n.39 61 GP ⫽ AP 7.266: 99n.39 70 GP ⫽ AP 7.163: 98n.38 93 GP ⫽ AP 7.715: 100n.44 101 GP ⫽ AP 9.25: 110 Letter of Aristeas 51–72: 270 Life of Aesop 78.1: 142–43 Lucian de historia conscribenda 62: 196n.6 Lucretius 6.1042–43: 265n.29 Lycophron Alex.6: 239n.14 Alex.1104: 20n.25 Alex.1166: 239n.14 Lycurgus In Leocr. 109: 87n.6 Meleager 2 GP ⫽ AP 7.417: 100n.44 3 GP ⫽ AP 7.418: 100n.44 4 GP ⫽ AP 7.419: 100n.44 Nicander Alexipharmaca 3–5: 115n.16 Theriaca 756–58: 23 15: 66 Nonnus Dionysiaka 4.233–75: 145–46 12.29–115: 143–45 41.339–99: 145 Nossis 3 GP ⫽ AP 6.265: 246 11 GP ⫽ AP 7.718: 100n.44

Ovid Amores I 5.23–25: 96n.32 Ars am. 3.329–48: 12 Met. 11.427–29: 142n.54 Pont. 3.1.57–8: 24 Rem. am. 759–60: 12 Tr. 1.6.1–3: 24 Pausanius 6.3.1: 259 9.31.4ff: 191 10.7.3: 259 10.33.12: 187n.22 Phalaecus 2 GP ⫽ AP 13.5: 162n.31 Phanocles fr. 1 Powell: 249–50 Philikos of Corcyra SH 677: 109 SH 980: 158n.21 Philitas of Cos Grammatical Fragments 33 Kuchenmüller/Spanoudakis ⫽ 5 Dettori: 18–19 37 Kuchenmüller/Spanoudakis ⫽ 9 Dettori: 19–20 38 Kuchenmüller/Spanoudakis ⫽ 10 Dettori: 20–21 41 Kuchenmüller/Spanoudakis ⫽ 13 Dettori: 18–19n.19 46 Kuchenmüller/Spanoudakis ⫽ 18 Dettori: 17–18 Poetic Fragments 10 Powell ⫽ 12 Sbardella ⫽ 25 Spanoudakis: 12 16 Powell ⫽ 18 Sbardella ⫽ 20 Spanoudakis: 26–27 Pindar Isthmian Odes 3.67: 66 Nemean Odes 5.2–3: 263n.24 Olympian Odes 5.23: 231n.40 6: 253 Paeans 7b: 34n.4

Index of Ancient Passages Cited Pythian Odes 3.55–58: 232n.41 4.247–48: 96 5: 42n.29 Threnoi 129: 170n.50 Plato Apol. 41a: 170n.50 Charmides 164d: 120n.7 165a: 87n.6 Crat. 403a: 230 Critias 119c–20b: 133n.33 Hipparchus 228d–29b: 87n.6, 120n.7, 134–37 Minos 316e: 17 Parm. 137 b3: 265n.30 Phaedrus 259b–d: 15n.11 262d–e: 2 263e–64a: 2 264c: 87n.6, 88–90 Protagoras 343a–b: 120n.7 Resp. 345c: 31 363c–d: 170n.50 Pliny NH xxvi 83: 196n.6 6.171: 160n.26 20.2: 265n.29 34.148: 242 36.68: 242 37.4.8: 261 Plutarch Cimon 7.3–8.2: 157n.20 de E apud Delphos 385d: 120n.7 de Iside et Osiride 62, 376b: 265n.29 Pythia 395a: 141 Polybius 1.2.2: 259n.13 12.10.4: 137 12.11.2: 137 Posidippus 1.1 AB: 256 1.4 AB: 254

299

3.1 AB: 254 4 AB: 266 4.5 AB: 257 5.1 AB: 254 5.2 AB: 257 6 AB: 254 7 AB: 257, 259–61 8 AB: 254, 266 9 AB: 250n.41, 255 11.1–2 AB: 257 13.3 AB: 257 14.1 AB: 254 14.6 AB: 254 15 AB: 255 16.1 AB: 254 16.6 AB: 254 17 AB: 264–66 18 AB: 266–70 20.5–6 AB: 184, 256–57 29.4 AB: 187 33.4 AB: 187 36 AB: 245–47 37 AB: 247–51, 262 39 AB: 243–44 42 AB: 181 43 AB: 181 44 AB: 181–82 63 AB: 11n.1, 12–14, 184, 192 65.3 AB: 187 74 AB: 235, 236–43 78 AB: 184, 241n.22, 259 79 AB: 184 82 AB: 184, 259 83 AB: 271 87 AB: 184, 259, 271n.46 88 AB: 259, 271n.46 95 AB: 217–18, 220, 233 96 AB: 218n.3, 219n.9, 219n.10, 220, 223, 223n.26 97 AB: 218n.3, 219n.11, 220n.12, 223n.26, 227–29, 232 98 AB: 218n.3, 219n.11, 220, 223n.26, 228 99 AB: 218n.4, 219n.10, 220, 223n.26, 230–31, 232 100 AB: 218n.4, 219n.11, 220, 223n.26, 229–30, 232

300

Index of Ancient Passages Cited

Posidippus (continued ) 101 AB: 218n.3, 219n.8, 219n.10, 220, 231–33 103 AB: 228–29, 232 113 AB ⫽ SH 978: 206n.34 114 AB ⫽ SH 961: 183, 196n.3 115 AB ⫽ 11 GP: 184, 187n.21, chap. 10: passim 116 AB ⫽ 12 GP: 184, 195n.2, 196n.3, 236, 243–44, 246n.35, 248 118 AB ⫽ SH 705: 178, 180, 181, 184, 192–93, 258–59, 270 119 AB ⫽ 13 GP: 178n.5, 184, 196n.3, 244, 245–46 122 AB ⫽ 17 GP: 190, 262–63 132.1 AB ⫽ AP 7.267 ⫽ 15 GP: 187n.21 137 AB ⫽ AP 12.98 ⫽ 6 GP: 189–90, 223, 255n.6 140 AB ⫽ AP 12.168 ⫽ 9 GP: 191 143 AB ⫽ SH 702: 178n.5, 243n.27 144 AB ⫽ SH 701: 190–91 147 AB ⫽ SH 706: 244n.28 P.Oxy. 1793: 76–80 2258: 67n.7, 71n.17, 80–81 Propertius 3.1.1–6: 12 3.51–52: 12 9.43–44: 12 PSI 1092 67n.7, 70–72 Ptolemaeus UPZ 78.28–39: 205–6 Sappho 1.28 L-P: 247 5 L-P: 262n.19 7 L-P: 262n.19 15 L-P: 262n.19 104 L-P: 59n.34 202 L-P: 262n.19 SEG 17.817: 240n.17 Semonides fr. 2: 130n.29

SH 712 Ptolemy Philadelphus: 110 977 Epigrams for Tauron: 115, 165n.42, 207–8 979 Epigram for Ptolemy IV: 206n.34 Simonides AP 7.251.3–4 “Simonides”: 141n.50, 188–89 PMG 581: 89 123–25 PMG 604: 231n.40 Sophocles Philoct. 291: 102n.50 TrGF IV F 362: 188n.24 Statius Silv. 1.2.252: 12 Stesichorus PMG 245: 130n.29 Strabo 14.2.19, 657c: 11 16.4: 160n.26 16.4.5: 161 16.4.13: 161 791.6: 197, 201–3 Strato Phoinikides 1 PCG: 15, 28–32 Theocritus Epigram 17: 209–10 Idyll 1: 103–5 2.106–10: 57 7: 17n.17 7.21: 102n.50 10.4: 27 16.30: 158n.22 16.54–55: 158n.22 17.1: 201n.22 17.86–93: 255–57 17.95–97: 257, 266 17.134: 239n.14 26.2: 182n.12 Theognis 459–60: 246n.36 1123–4: 162n.29 1273–74: 246n.36

Index of Ancient Passages Cited Theophrastus Characters 23.1–3: 257–58 Hist. Pl. 6.4.10: 27 Theopompus FGrHist II 115 fr.285: 87n.6 Thucydides 1.132: 87n.6 2.43.2–3: 140n.47 3.102: 34n.4 6.54: 87n.6 6.59: 87n.6

301

Timon of Phlius SH 786: 107–9 Xenophon of Ephesus Ephesian Tale 1.12: 142–43n.54 5.10–12: 142–43n.54 Zenodotus 3 GP ⫽ AP 7.315: 139n.45

Subject Index


acrostics, 110–11, 220–21 Aesop, 142–43 Agathon, 113 agon, musical, 107, 111 Alexander the Great, 7, 200, 219, 235, 256–58, 261, 266, 269 allusion: in Archaic poetry, 151–55, 152n.6, 155n.12; in Hellenistic poetry, 51–55, 56–57, 59–60, 103–5, 110, 141n.50, chap. 8, passim, 188–89, 260–61; in inscriptions, chap. 8, passim, 141n.50, 188–89 Ancona painter, 122–23 Anjou, René d’, 118n.1 Antigonus Gonatas, 247 Antigonus of Carystus, 26, 266 Apollo, chap. 2 passim Arion, 247–49, 251, 262 Aristarchus, 11, 16, 17, 190 Arsinoe II. See Ptolemies Arsinoe III. See Ptolemies Arsinoe-Aphrodite, shrine, of. See Ptolemies Artemis, 91–95 Asclepiades, 183, 191; and Alcaeus, 171–73; and Callimachus, 166–69 Asclepius, chap. 11 passim

Attalids: Attalus I, 155; Philetaerus, 155n.14 Baehrens, E., 70 Barthes, Roland, 40n.21, 105, 105n.65 Battis, 23–25 Battus, 44, 99–100 Berenike I. See Ptolemies Berenike II. See Ptolemies Bittis. See Battis bucolic anaphora, 103–5, 188 Callimachus, 3–6, 11, chaps. 2–6 passim, 166–69, 179, 190–92, 251, 254, 266; and Asclepiades, 166–67, 191; Epigrams, chap. 5 passim, 166– 69, 251–52; and Euripides, 56–57; Hymn to Apollo, chap. 2 passim; Hymn to Artemis, 34n.3; Hymn to Delos, 34n.3, 256; Hymn to Demeter, chap. 3 passim; Hymns, as collection, 64; Hymns, as related to Homeric Hymns, 34–35, 41, 47–48, 49–55; Lock of Berenike, chap. 4 passim; and Pindar, 96; poetic program, 45–46; 63–64, 110, 254, 261n.17; and Theocritus, 57, 103–5

302

Subject Index 303 Cameron, Alan, 5, 15, chap. 6 passim Capra, Frank, 116–18, 119, 143 Cavafy, Constantine, 118n.2 Chairemon, 110–11 Chalybes, 65–66, 68–70 Charaxus, brother of Sappho, 190, 262–63 Cronius, gem-engraver, 260–61 Cyrene, 43–44, 62, 99–102, 240n.17 Dante, 118 Daphnis, 103–5 Delphic maxims, 120 Diogenes, Cynic, 226 Dionysodorus, son of Deinokrates, 155 Doric dialect, 53, 155 Doricha, 190, 262–63 Dositheus, astronomer, 115, 207n.37 Drakon, father of Skorpion, 186–89 dreams, 205–6, 219, 226–27, 245–47 elephant hunting, 160 elite, literary, 27–28, 37, 45–46, 63–64, 107–9, 111, 150, 153–55, 166–74 Ellis, R., 74n.24 epigram, chap. 5 passim, 113–15; chaps. 7–13 passim; books, 92–93, 101–2, 210–16, chap. 11 passim; Casa degli Epigrammi, 208–9; humor in, 164–65n.40, 228–31; inscribed, 85–93, 100–102, chaps. 7–8 passim, 182–89, 192–93, chaps. 10–11 passim; readers of, chap. 5 passim, chaps. 7–8 passim, chaps. 10–11 passim fragments, poetic, chap. 4 passim Gebrauchspoesie, 149, 214 Gibbon, 113 Goethe, 111, 147–50 graffiti, 120–21, 126 Harmodius and Aristogeiton, 157n.19 Hekataios, sculptor, 12–14, 191–92 Hieron II, 184, 212n.50 Hipparchus, 134–37, 157n.19

Hippolochus of Macedon, 268 Homer, 15–21, 23, 25–26, 28–32, 127–30, 151–55, 157–59, 190–91 Horace, 24 Ingarden, R., 86n.2 inscriptions. See epigram, inscribed Ischia Cup, 151–55, 156, 157, 169, 170, 208n.38 Iser, Wolfgang, 105 Kallikrates of Samos, 184, chap. 12 passim, 271n.44 Koine Greek, 26 Konon, astronomer, 72–74 Lazarus, Emma, 120n.6 letters, 114–15, 165n.42, 207–8 library, Alexandrian, 3, 27–28 Ligorio, Pirro, 209 Lincoln memorial, 116–19, 120, 132, 143 Magas, king of Cyrene, 240n.17 Medeios of Olynthos, 184, 218–19, 233 Methymna, 248–51, 262 Midas Epigram, 88–90 Muret, Marc-Antoine, 68–69 Naeke, A. F., 78 “Nestor’s Cup.” See Ischia Cup Orpheus, 249–50 Pan, 159–61 papyrus scroll, 189–93, 204–16, 262–63 paradoxography, 26–27, 263–66 Pella, 180–82, 192–93, 259, 270 Penelope, 163–64 performance, of poetry, 2–3, 34, 42, 60–61n.38, chap. 6 passim, 152n.6, 154n.12 Pergamon, 155 Pfeiffer, Rudolf, 21, 68, 70–72, 74–81 Pharos, lighthouse, 194–206

304

Subject Index

Philikos of Corcyra, 109–10 Philitas, chap. 1 passim, 63, 192 Philochoros, 87, 207 Plato, 1–2, 88–90 Polemon of Ilion, 87, 137, 207 Poliziano, Angelo, 21, 65–68 Polycrates of Samos, 255, 262, 266, 269n.41 Posidippus, 12–14, chaps. 9–13 passim; and Berisos, 190–91; and Callimachus, 190–92, 254, 261n.17; and epigram books, 189–91, 218–19, chap. 13 passim; and Homer, 190–91, 260–61, 268; and inscribed epigram, 182–89, 194–206, 216, chap. 11 passim; poetic program, 191–92, 254–55, 261; and the Soros, 190–91 Poussin, N., 118n.2 Pratinas of Phlius, 155 Praxiteles, 244 Ptolemaeus, scribe, 205–6, 216 Ptolemais, port on Red Sea, 159–60 Ptolemies: Arsinoe II, 60–61n.26, 184, 234–36, 241–52, 262; Arsinoe III, 159, 160–61n.26; ArsinoeAphrodite, shrine, of, 234–36, 243– 52, 262; Berenike I, 184; Berenike II, chap. 4 passim, 95, 112, 184; and Egyptian culture, 47, chap. 12 passim; as literary patrons, 11–12, 47, 107–9, 180, 184–85, 195–203, 218–19, chap. 12 passim, chap. 13 passim; Ptolemy I Soter, 11, 184, 240; Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 11, 12, 27, 109, 112, 115, 160–61n.26, 165n.42, 184, 192, 207, 219, 234–35, 240, 241–42, 247, 251, 252, 255–57, 269–70; Ptolemy III Euergetes, 80, 184; Ptolemy IV Philopator, 159, 160–61n.26, 162; Theoi Adelphoi, 219, 235, 237–38, 240–43 Pyrgoteles, gem-engraver, 261

reading, 1–7, 35–36, 38, 41–42, 44, 45–46, chap. 5 passim, chap. 7 passim, chap. 8 passim, chap. 10 passim, chap. 11 passim Reitzenstein, R., 113–14 Riese, A., 70 Sappho, 23–24, 190, 247, 249, 262–63 Scaliger, Joseph, 69–70 Schneider, Otto, 73–74 scholars, Alexandrian, chap. 1 passim, 141–42, 190–91. See also elite Shelley, Percy, 131–32, 135 similes, 20–21, 56–57, 122, 260–61 Simonides: Sylloge Simonidea, 86–87, 183n.15 Skorpion, son of Drakon, 186–89 Socrates, 88–90, 134–37 Sostratus of Cnidus, 184, 195–203, 216, 243, 271n.44 Stewart, Jimmy, 116, 117 (fig. 2) Svenbro, J., 3, 36n.7, 41n.25, 127, 140 symposium, 107, 113–14, 153–55, 166–74 Terpander, 249, 262 Theoi Adelphoi. See Ptolemies Thermon, 180, 182–84, 185–89, 224, 270 Tischbein, J. H. W., 147–48 (with fig. 5) translation, chap. 4 passim Virgil, 118 Voice: feminized, 55–59; first person, 33–47; indeterminacy of, 38–42; reader’s identification with, 41–42, 59–64, 93–94, 188 Youtie, Herbert, 67, 79 Zenodotus, 11, 190 Zenon, 115, 165n.42, 207–8