Poets and Poetics in Greek Literary Epigram
A dissertation submitted to the
Graduate School
of the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Classics
by
Charles S. Campbell
B.A. Grinnell College
M.A. University of Cincinnati
November, 2013
Committee Chair: Dr. Kathryn J. Gutzwiller, Ph.D.
1 Abstract
This dissertation offers a new analysis of the treatment of poets and poetics in Greek
literary epigram from the early Hellenistic Period (3rd century BCE) down to the early
Roman Imperial Period (1st century CE). In their authorial self-representations (the
poetic ego or literary persona), their representation of other poets, and their thematization
of poetry more generally, literary epigrammatists define, and successively redefine, the
genre of epigram itself against the background of the literary tradition.
This process of generic self-definition begins with the earliest literary epigrammatists’
fusion of inscriptional epigram with elements drawn from other genres, sympotic and
erotic poetry and heroic epic, and their exploitation of the formal and conceptual
repertoire of epigram to thematize poetic discourse. With the consolidation of the
epigrammatic tradition in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, the distinctively epigrammatic
poetic discourse that had evolved in the 3rd century BCE was subsumed into the persona
of the poet himself, who is now figured as the very embodiment of the epigrammatic
tradition and genre. In the first century BCE, as epigram was transplanted from Greece
to the new cultural context of Roman Italy, the figure of the epigrammatist served to
articulate the place of both poetry and the poet in this new world.
ii Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Citation of Greek and Latin Texts
Introduction
Chapter 1: Creating a Poetic Discourse in Literary Epigram
Introduction – Origins
Poetic Voices and Personae in Early Hellenistic Epigram:
Nossis and Asclepiades
Persona and Poetics in Leonidas of Tarentum
Callimachus’ Epigrams and the Aetia Prologue
Alcaeus of Messene on Homer and Hesiod
Dioscorides on the History of Drama
Epigram, Objects, and Poetic Legacy in Posidippus
Chapter 2: Consolidating the Tradition
Introduction – Rethinking Imitation and Variation
Part 1 – Antipater of Sidon’s Panorama of Greek Poets
Antipater’s Ancient and Modern Reception
The Two Antipaters
Systems of Generic and Stylistic Classification
Stylistic Imagery
The εὔκρατος ἁρµονία – Epigrams on Homer and Stesichorus
The αὐστηρὰ ἁρµονία – Epigrams on Pindar, Aeschylus and
Antimachus
Anacreon and the γλαφυρὰ ἁρµονία
Part 2 – Meleager and the Riddle of Epigram
Chapter 3: Transplanting the Tradition – Epigrammatists
in First Century BCE Italy
Introduction – From Meleager to Philip
“Occasional” Poetry
Case Studies in Formal Imitation (Gaetulicus AP 6.190
and Ariston AP 6.303
An Epigrammatic Invitation (Philodemus AP 11.44)
Crinagoras from Mitylene to Italy
Antipater of Thessalonica – The Epigrammatist as Provocateur
Poetry, Poverty, and Freedom – Antipater vs. Parmenion
Conclusion: The Epigrammatic Sensibility
Works Cited
iv
v
1
12
18
31
61
78
86
96
106
112
117
121
125
128
135
142
153
170
176
182
188
198
211
222
236
251
iii Abbreviations
AB
Austin, C. and G. Bastianini, eds., 2002. Posidippi Pellaei omnia quae
supersunt. Milan: LED.
AP
Palatine Anthology
APl
Planudean Anthology
CA
Powell, J. U., ed. 1925. Collectanea Alexandrina. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
CEG
Hansen, P., ed. 1983. Carmina epigraphica Graeca saeculorum VII-V a.
Chr. n. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
CEG2
Hansen, P., ed. 1989. Carmina epigraphica Graeca saeculi IV a. Chr. n.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
FGE
Page, D. L., ed. 1981. Further Greek Epigrams. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
GPh
Gow, A. S. F. and D. L. Page, eds. 1965. The Greek Anthology: The
Garland of Philip. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Galán Vioque Galán Vioque, G., ed. 2001. Dioscórides, Epigramas. Huelva:
Universidad de Huelva.
HE
Gow, A. S. F. and D. L. Page, eds. 1968. The Greek Anthology:
Hellenistic Epigrams. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
PMG
Page, D. L., ed. 1962. Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Pf.
Pfeiffer, R., ed. 1949-1951. Callimachus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
RE
Pauly, A., G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, eds. 1893-1978. Realencylopädie
der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler.
Sens
Sens, A., ed. 2011. Asclepiades of Samos: Epigrams and Fragments.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
SGO
Merkelbach, R. and J. Stauber, eds. 1998. Steinepigramme aus dem
griechischen Osten. 5 vols. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner.
SH
Lloyd-Jones, H. and P. Parsons, eds. 1983. Supplementum Hellenisticum.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
iv Citation of Greek and Latin Texts
For each ancient text that has been quoted at length, the edition from which the text is
drawn is indicated in an abbreviation in parentheses (e.g. Text = HE). In cases where the
text I print diverges from the edition of reference, the abbreviation for that edition is
followed by an asterisk (e.g.: Text = HE*), and discrepancies are noted in an apparatus
criticus. Also noted in the apparatus will be certain places where the edition of reference
differs from the editorial communis opinio or other standard editions, or where an MS
reading is of significance for my argument. All translations are my own unless otherwise
noted.
v Introduction
Out of fifteen otherwise run-of-the-mill epigrams transmitted in the Greek
Anthology under the name of Parmenion, a poet of the early first century CE (probably),
two stand out as the expression of an ethical and poetic manifesto:
AP 9.342 – Parmenion = GPh XI (text = GPh)
φηµὶ πολυστιχίην ἐπιγράµµατος οὐ κατὰ Μούσας
εἶναι· µὴ ζητεῖτ’ ἐν σταδίῳ δόλιχον·
πόλλ’ ἀνακυκλοῦται δολίχου δρόµος, ἐν σταδίῳ δέ
ὀξὺς ἐλαυνοµένοις πνεύµατός ἐστι τόνος.
I say that the writing of many lines does not accord with
the Muses of Epigram.1 Don’t look for distance running
in a sprint. The distance run turns many times, but in a
sprint the runners must draw their breaths quickly.
AP 9.43 – Parmenion = GPh VI (text = GPh)
ἀρκεῖ µοι χλαίνης λιτὸν σκέπας, οὐδὲ τραπέζαις
δουλεύσω Μουσέων ἄνθεα βοσκόµενος.
µισῶ πλοῦτον ἄνουν, κολάκων τροφόν, οὐδὲ παρ’ ὀφρὺν
στήσοµαι· οἶδ’ ὀλίγης δαιτὸς ἐλευθερίην.
The humble covering of a cloak suffices for me, and I
will not slave at banquets since I feed on the flowers of
the Muses. I hate thoughtless wealth, nourishment of
flatterers, and I will not stand at attention for the proud:
I know the freedom of a humble meal.
On the face of it, nothing could be simpler. The first epigram deals with poetic form, the
second with the life of the poet. Each of these reinforces the other: the unassuming
brevity of the epigram reflects and conditions the poet’s equally unassuming lifestyle.
Poetic “smallness” (the opposite of πολυστιχίη, AP 9.342.1) goes hand in hand with an
ethics of “smallness” embodied in simple clothing (χλαίνης λιτὸν σκέπας, AP 9.43.1)
and food (ὀλίγης δαιτὸς, 9.43.4). The relative stylistic simplicity of the epigrams makes
them seem all the more straightforward.
1
Or, perhaps, taking ἐπιγράµµατος with πολυστιχίην, “the epigram of many lines is
not in accordance with the Muses’ will” (Gow-Page), similarly Soury apud Waltz.
Campbell
Introduction
1 Upon closer scrutiny, however, this appearance of simplicity is upset. Even if we
grant that brevity is naturally suited to epigram, it is surprising to find an appeal to the
“Muses of epigram” in support of this contention. It is equally surprising that Parmenion
correlates his poetics with a particular lifestyle and ethical outlook at all.
The connection of poetry with the Muses, of course, is foundational in Greek
literature. Different Muses, moreover, inspire different kinds of poetry. The various
kinds of poetry they inspire are composed by different kinds of people whose poetry is a
reflection of their personality and lifestyle.2 Broadly speaking, these were basic
assumptions about the nature of poetic composition in the ancient Greek world. What is
surprising in Parmenion, then, is not these assumptions themselves, but the application of
them to epigram.
Long before Parmenion’s time, the Greeks had classified their literature according
to generic types and identified authors who represented the best and quintessential
paradigms of these types. Lists of canonical authors—the “approved” (ἐγκεκριµένοι)—in
each genre were drawn up in the fourth and third centuries BCE, and by common
consensus treated as fixed for all time.3 The lists were constituted in accordance with a
conservative attitude that rigidly excluded contemporary poets and venerated age
reflexively.4 This meant that epigram, which began to be written down in books and
2
Cf. Plat. Ion, 534 c4: τοῦτο µόνον οἷός τε ἕκαστος ποιεῖν καλῶς ἐφ᾽ ὃ ἡ Μοῦσα
αὐτὸν ὥρµησεν, ὁ µὲν διθυράµβους, ὁ δὲ ἐγκώµια, ὁ δὲ ὑπορχήµατα, ὁ δ᾽ ἔπη, ὁ δ᾽
ἰάµβους. (“Each man can compose well only that towards which the Muse has stirred
him; the one composes dithyrambs, another encomia, another pantomimes, another epic,
and another iambs.”)
3
See the discussion of Pfeiffer, 1968, 203-9.
4
Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Or., 10.1.54: Aristarchus atque Aristophanes, poetarum iudices,
neminem sui temporis in numerum redegerunt. (“Aristarchus and Aristophanes, the
judges of poets, did not include in their enumeration anyone of their own time.”)
Campbell
Introduction
2 connected with named authors only in the fourth century BCE, was always shut out.
Where then does Parmenion’s generically rooted self-representation come from?
Leaving aside AP 9.342 for the moment, let us look closer at AP 9.43.
Underpinning this bold statement of poetic program and “epigrammatic” ideology are
several layers of literary tradition. In its two couplets, the epigram incorporates within
itself a kind of “stratigraphy” of Greek poetry. The initial image, the χλαῖνη, recalls the
archaic iambist Hipponax, who addresses a prayer to Hermes:
Hipponax fr. 32.4 West
…
δὸς χλαῖναν Ἱππώνακτι …
“…
Give a cloak to Hipponax …”
… and says in a rebuke (it is not clear to whom):
Hipponax fr. 34.1 West
ἐµοὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἔδωκας οὔτέ κω χλαῖναν
δασεῖαν ἐν χειµῶνι φάρµακον ῥίγεος …
“For you did not even give me a rough cloak in winter as an
antidote for the cold …”
In his poetry, Hipponax’ clothing is an important symbol of his social status, and by
extension the status and genre of his poetry. His poverty is correlated with his stance as
an outsider who directs invective poetry against various targets—note how in the second
fragment the cloak itself becomes an occasion for invective.
Between Hipponax and Parmenion there are several further layers of tradition,
each of which adds further shades of significance to the epigram. Two key figures of
early Hellenistic epigram, Callimachus and Leonidas of Tarentum, provided Parmenion
with additional inspiration. The first couplet of AP 9.43 was likely inspired by Leonidas’
AP 7.655, while the second echoes Callimachus, AP 12.43:
AP 7.655 – Leonidas of Tarentum = XVII HE
Campbell
Introduction
3 ἀρκεῖ µοι γαίης µικρὴ κόνις, ἡ δὲ περισσή
ἄλλον ἐπιθλίβοι πλούσια κεκλιµένον
στήλη, τὸ σκληρὸν νεκρῶν βάρος. εἴ µε θανόντα
γνώσοντ᾽, Ἀλκάνδρῳ τοῦτο τί Καλλιτέλευς;
A slight dusting of earth is sufficient for me. Let the
extravagant gravestone, a troublesome weight for corpses,
vex some other man opulently buried. What difference does
it make to Alkandros the son of Kalliteles whether or not
people know me now that I am dead?
AP 12.43 - Callimachus
Ἐχθαίρω τὸ ποίηµα τὸ κυκλικὸν οὐδὲ κελεύθῳ
χαίρω τὶς πολλοὺς ὧδε καὶ ὧδε φέρει·
µισέω καὶ περίφοιτον ἐρώµενον, οὐδ᾽ ἀπὸ κρήνης
πίνω· σικχαίνω πάντα τὰ δηµόσια.
Λυσανίη σὺ δὲ ναίχι καλὸς καλός· ἀλλὰ πρὶν εἰπεῖν
τοῦτο σαφῶς ἠχώ φησί τις ῾ἄλλος ἔχει᾽.
I hate the cyclic poem, and do not like the path that carries
many hither and thither. I also loath the promiscuous
beloved, nor do I drink from the public fountain. I detest all
things common. And you, Lysanias, yes you are beautiful—
beautiful! But before I’ve uttered this, an echo clearly says
“another has him”.
Beyond mere formal similarity, each of these echoes turns out to be quite pointed. In
Callimachus’ epigram, as in Parmenion’s, statements about lifestyle and poetics blend
into one another. Callimachus’ ethic of “privacy” applies as readily to the κυκλικὸν
ποίηµα of line 1 as it does to the boy Lysanias in line 5. Parmenion’s epigram makes a
similar movement, shifting from the food of the opulent convivium (for this is what I
think we are to imagine) to the metaphorical “food” of the Muses, that the poet, imagined
as a bee, “harvests” and on which he subsists. Each epigram, then, treats poetry as one
part of a larger statement of worldview.
The connection to Leonidas is somewhat more complex. Although Leonidas’
epigram seems clearly to have provided the model for Parmenion’s epigram, the tone of
the two poems is quite different. The light humor of the Leonidean model has become,
Campbell
Introduction
4 through the blending with the Callimachean model, a staunchly austere statement of
poetic principles.5 What is the point of this invective turn and who is its target?
The answer may be found in an epigram of Antipater of Thessalonica, AP 9.92:
Antipater of Thessalonica AP 9.92 = II GPh (Text = GPh)
ἀρκεῖ τέττιγας µεθύσαι δρόσος, ἀλλὰ πιόντες
ἀείδειν κύκνων εἰσὶ γεγωνότεροι.
ὣς καὶ ἀοιδὸς ἀνὴρ ξενίων χάριν ἀνταποδοῦναι
ὕµνους εὐέρκταις οἶδε παθὼν ὀλίγα.
τοὔνεκά σοι πρώτως µὲν ἀµείβοµεν· ἢν δ’ ἐθέλωσιν 5
Μοῖραι, πολλάκι µοι κείσεαι ἐν σελίσιν.
A little dew is enough to intoxicate cicadas, but when they
drink it, they are louder singers than swans.
So too a poet knows how to give poems as recompense to
benefactors even when he has received just a little kindness.
This is why I’ve written to you, and if the Moirai should
wish it, you will often lie in my pages.
Whether Antipater wrote before Parmenion (as I think likely) or after, the two are
separated by, at very most, about thirty years.6 So, on top of the archaic (Hipponax) and
the early Hellenistic (Callimachus and Leonidas), Antipater’s poem may constitute yet
another “stratigraphic layer” to the deceptively dense texture of Parmenion’s poem, this
one dating to the early Imperial period. In stark contrast to Parmenion, Antipater
emphasizes the interdependency of poet and benefactor, not just on the social level, but
on the poetic level too. The patron has the power to stimulate the production of poetry
and, in Antipater’s telling, will even feature in the book itself. Parmenion, by contrast,
champions poetic independence against what he pictures as the life of a toadie, who must
5
Regarding the Leonidean epigram, Gutzwiller, 1998a, 101, remarks, “The irony of the
… epigram is especially choice, for there the deceased names himself in a poem that
protests any need for the naming or for an inscribed context where the name may be
read.”
6
The information we have about Antipater’s life and times will be discussed in Chapter 3
below. Parmenion’s epigrams, unlike Antipater’s, do not contain any historically
dateable references.
Campbell
Introduction
5 “slave” at banquets. At the end of this study, we will examine the relationship between
Antipater and Parmenion in greater detail. For now, it will suffice to say that the two
poets present sharply opposing views of the world and the place of poetry within it, and it
is plausible that it was Antipater’s ostentatious appeal for patronage that prompted
Parmenion’s invective outburst.
The purpose of this brief analysis of Parmenion’s epigrams has been to broach the
basic questions about literary epigram that will be explored in this dissertation and to
illustrate some of the methods I will use to answer them. Where does a generically
defined epigrammatic poetic voice come from, how does it develop, and what are its
literary functions? I will argue that the answer lies in the nexus of poetic discourse, that
is the thematization of poetry and poetics in epigram, and authorial self-representation,
the self-assertion of the author as a figure who presides over and unifies the diverse
poems.
In examining the representation of poets in epigram, my study builds upon and
refines the scholarly discussion of Hellenistic poets’ engagement with their literary past.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, scholars have placed phenomena such as generic
hybridization and experimentation that typify the Greek literature of the late fourth and
early third centuries BCE within the context of a larger shift away from old cultural and
political forms, i.e. the dominance of the polis, and the rise of cosmopolitan literary
centers.7 These changes, it has been argued, gave rise to a sense of “belatedness” relative
7
Kroll, 1924, 202: “Die Literatur löst sich vom Boden der Landschaft und vom Dialekt;
das ergab sich aus der Auflösung der alten Polis und aus dem Entstehen von
Literaturzentren zuerst in Athen, dann auch in nichtgriechischen Ländern (Alexandreia).”
This seems to belie the claim of Klooster, 2011, 44, that Kroll, ignoring the importance of
social and political factors, viewed the literary developments of the Hellenistic period as
Campbell
Introduction
6 to the literature produced under the old order(s).8 Furthermore, under the patronage of
the various Hellenistic monarchs there appeared new institutions supporting both the
study and the composition of literary works. Poets might find themselves literally
surrounded by works of earlier literature in a way they never had been before, and were
often themselves engaged both in scholarly study and poetic composition.9 This change
is reflected on the level of metaphor in the persistent focus on the written text rather than
oral performance as a medium for poetry.10 In this new context, composing poetry could
no longer be imagined as the seamless transmission of tradition from one generation to
the next. The very terms of poetic composition had to be reconceived.
It should come as no surprise that epigram, with its intrinsic “memorializing
impulse,”11 offered an attractive vehicle for the representation of the new relationship
Greeks had to their past, and a way to come to terms with a period that was in some sense
definitively “over”—an object of memory rather than immediate experience.12 Indeed,
born from “a wish for originality tout court”. Barchiesi, 2001, a valuable examination
and critique of the theoretical background of Kroll’s essay, compares Kroll’s model of
generic mixture to “a scientific experiment in an ivory laboratory” (p. 152), but at the
same time draws attention to the political/cultural dimensions of his argument (esp. pp.
151 and 153). Cf. Bing, 1988a, esp. 17. For valuable critiques and caveats, including a
fresh examination of the ideas of generic contamination and experimentation, see
Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi-Hunter, 2004, 17-41.
8
Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter, 2004, 50.
9
Cf. Klooster, 2011, 45-46. Cf., for instance, on the exemplary and prototypical case of
Philitas of Cos, Spanoudakis, 2002, 68-72.
10
This is not to say that we should take this textual obsession as a simple reflection of the
reality of poetic reception in the early Hellenistic period. None of the cultural changes I
have mentioned, including the publication of poetry in papyrus scrolls, was by any means
new. (Hunter in Fantuzzi-Hunter, 2004, 18-19, for instance, draws attention to ideas of
generic contamination already in Plato and Timotheus.) Nor was any of the changes
between the past and the present states of affairs total. The difference was in the intensity
and confluence of these processes at the end of the fourth century BCE.
11
The phrase belongs to Bing, 1993a, 620.
12
Bing, 1988b, cf. Bing, 1993a.
Campbell
Introduction
7 the beginning of the 3rd century BCE saw a proliferation of epigrams about poets, most of
them fictional epitaphs celebrating the great figures of the archaic and classical periods.13
The Hellenistic obsession with the past should not be thought of as simple
antiquarianism. It was motivated instead by contemporary concerns, and in epigram, at
least, by the desire to create a new poetic form that would take its place alongside earlier,
established literary genres. As Bing aptly says of the tradition of epigrams about poets:
“the entire Hellenistic vogue for poems on past poetic greats … shares a common
impulse with the great comtemporary projects of literary classification, such as
the Pinakes of Callimachus: namely, the wish, on the one hand, to engage the
past, to give it its due through painstaking contemplation … but also the need to
assert control, to master a past that was viewed as unattainably, at times
oppressively distinguished.”14
Contemplation of the past was, in other words, far from disinterested. Instead, as
Klooster has recently argued, discourse about poetry functions for Hellenistic poets as
both a “window” offering a view to the past, and “mirror” in which to see a reflection of
the present.15
Where my work departs from studies of “Hellenistic literature” à la Bing and
others, however, is in its focus on how authors working in a particular literary genre,
epigram, engage with the literary past and with poetic discourse in general, and the
influence of this generic form on how these topics are treated. In what sense, that is, is
the representation of poetic subjects in epigram distinctly epigrammatic? What literary
functions do such representations serve in epigram collections? Such questions would
have seemed absurd until only fairly recently, since epigrams were for a long time treated
13
Some of this material was gathered and commented on in the still very useful study of
Gabathuler, 1937.
14
Bing, 1988b, 123.
15
See in general Klooster, 2011.
Campbell
Introduction
8 more like documents than as poems in their own right.16 More recently, however, the
work of Gutzwiller has called our attention to the poetic dimensions of the epigrams
themselves, the poetic agenda of their authors, and the importance of reading epigrams as
parts of larger poetic wholes.17 Building upon these insights, my readings aim to
illustrate the various possibilities individual poets found in epigram as a form of poetic
expression, how they developed them, and how their innovations influenced the
subsequent development of the genre in the hands of others.
This study traces the threads of poetic discourse and poetic self-representation
through three phases, beginning with the early 3rd century BCE and concluding with the
early 1st century CE. It charts the process by which the two threads came first to be
intertwined and then how epigrammatic poetic discourse comes to be subsumed within
the figure of the poet himself, the epigrammatist as the embodiment of the epigrammatic
genre. The first chapter examines the poetic persona or poetic ego in early Hellenistic
epigram alongside epigrams in which other poets and their works are represented and
assessed. I argue that in their self-representational poems, as in their representations of
others, the epigrammatists engage in a process of “recasting” the elements of the earlier
poetic tradition, the great figures and works of the archaic and classical periods, into a
new generic mold, combining elements from earlier genres with the forms and concepts
of inscribed epigram. The representation of the poetic self and the representation of
others in epigram thus comes to serve as a vehicle for a new, literary definition of the
16
Many examples could be cited, but fairly recent and exemplary is Cameron, 1995, 401,
on Callimachus HE LV, an epigram on the Oechaliae Halosis of Creophylus. Cameron
regards the poem as a genuine epigraph meant for Callimachus’ personal copy of the
poem or perhaps a library copy.
17
Especially the groundbreaking Poetic Garlands (Gutzwiller, 1998a), to which I will
make frequent reference particularly in the first half of the study.
Campbell
Introduction
9 epigrammatic genre, or, in other words, as a means for individual poets to define their
conception of epigram as a form against the background of the archaic and classical
tradition.
The second chapter charts the consolidation—the gathering up and the
synthesis—of the 3rd century tradition in the works of two key later figures, Antipater of
Sidon and Meleager of Gadara. In Antipater’s case, I argue, this synthesis is represented
in the construction of a large epigram group providing a panoramic overview of the great
figures of the literary past that is, at the same time, a compendious gathering of
Antipater’s own models in the genre of epigram itself. In his Garland, an epochal work
in the history of the genre, Meleager puts Antipater’s obsessive engagement with earlier
poetic models in the service of a new conception of the epigrammatist as a generically
defined poetic subject whose persona is the complete expression of epigram as a poetic
form. Meleager’s fusion of poetics and the poetic self redefined epigram at its core. For
Meleager, epigram was not, or not necessarily, reducible to a set of formal rules, much
less a set of inscriptional types and topoi, but a “sensibility”, a way of viewing poetry and
human life.
The final chapter studies the development of epigram in the first centuries BCE
and CE, in the wake of the publication of Meleager’s Garland. While scholarly accounts
have tended to focus on discontinuity and a decline in quality in epigram of this period, I
show that epigrammatists at this time engage with the earlier tradition in much richer and
more complex ways than has previously been realized. The resulting picture is of a
concerted process of generic transplantation, undertaken by a number of key figures,
including Philodemus, Crinagoras, and Antipater of Thessalonica, by which epigram was
Campbell
Introduction
10 introduced and acclimated to the cultural context of Roman Italy. I argue that
epigrammatists created new kinds of poetic personae in order to fit into this new context,
weaving together elements of earlier epigrammatic models, above all Callimachus and
Leonidas of Tarentum, using techniques of textual imitation and variation learned from
Antipater of Sidon and Meleager. As heirs of Meleager, I argue that these poets embody
the epigrammatic tradition in themselves, and their poetic personae constitute different
“recipes” for the integration not only of the genre of epigram, but also Greek poetry and
Greek poets into Roman life.
Campbell
Introduction
11 Chapter 1
Creating a Poetic Discourse in Literary Epigram
Introduction - Origins
The earliest Greek epigrams (ἐπιγράµµατα) were carved on objects—
tombstones, statues, or pieces of pottery, for instance—starting, as far as we know,
around the middle of the 8th century BCE.18 They served to explain the significance of
their objects, commemorating dedications to the gods, victories in competitions, and the
lives of the deceased.19 Although basically functional in nature, even from the earliest
period epigrams had an aesthetic dimension and inherited a great deal in terms of content,
diction, and meter from the high literary tradition, especially Homeric epic.20 For
instance, one of the earliest Greek inscriptions (whether prose or verse), the famous “Cup
of Nestor” from Pithecusae (CEG 454) dated to ca. 715 BCE, carries a prominent
reference to the cup of Nestor as described at Iliad 11.63-637.21
By the fifth century BCE, a process of “Entlapidisierung”22 had begun whereby
originally inscriptional poems and forms were separated from their material contexts,
giving rise to new possibilities for meaning. Poems originally carved on objects began to
find new homes in books; real or alleged inscriptions were incorporated into literary
18
Archaic and classical verse-inscriptions are gathered in Hansen’s collections, CEG and
CEG2. Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 1, n.1, and 2, n.2. On the history of the term ἐπίγραµµα,
see Puelma, 1996 and 1997.
19
Cf. Baumbach, Petrovic, and Petrovic, 2010, 4.
20
On the aesthetic dimensions of early epigrams and their connection with higher genres
such as epic and choral lyric, see, for instance, Vestrheim, 2010, and Trümpy, 2010.
21
On the text and interpretation of the Nestor’s cup inscription see the discussion in
Wachter, 2010, 252-254.
22
The term is derived from Baumbach, Petrovic, and Petrovic, eds. 2010.
Campbell
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12 works such as the Histories of Herodotus and the dialogues of Plato.23 Meanwhile
certain authors, most notably Simonides, came to be known for their authorship of
epigrams.24 Starting in the fourth century we also know, if almost entirely at secondhand, of works in which numerous epigrams of the same type were gathered together
systematically.25 These new book contexts gave rise to subtle new twists on the old
inscriptional forms. The epitaphs for heroes contained in the Peplos attributed to
Aristotle, for instance, offer examples of new epigrammatic forms clearly based upon, yet
distinct from real inscriptions, with a purpose and significance transcending any
particular locale.26
The process by which inscriptional forms came to be divorced from objects and to
find a new context in books (not to mention in oral culture), had thus already taken many
complicated turns by the end of the fourth century BCE, which the present study takes as
its beginning. As a result, poets at this time had available to them epigrams which had
been divorced from any inscriptional context, and which could therefore be manipulated
in ingenious new ways. Accordingly, rather than seeing literary epigram at this stage as
in some sense determined by inscriptional forms, we should instead think of epigram as
rather the limit case of a widespread tendency to self-consciously exploit the ideas of
23
On the incorporation of epigrams into pre-Hellenistic literary works see Petrovic, 2007.
Cf. Cameron, 1993, 1.
25
Cf. Cameron, 1993, 1-2.
26
Cf. Gutzwiller, 2010, 222: “these heroic epitaphs can be distinguished … both from
inscribed epitaphs, which are characterized by more local and private concerns, and from
the ‘literary’ epitaphs of the Hellenistic age, which were sometimes built on allusions to
the well-known heroic epitaphs of the past.” 24
Campbell
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13 writing and writtenness for poetic purposes.27 It is within this larger literary and cultural
context that we must approach the experiments of the later fourth century epigrammatists.
The inscriptional tradition nevertheless continued to provide fourth century
epigrammatists with concepts and forms with which to experiment. Some new, literary
elements in epigram, for instance, arose from the ambiguities opened up by the very
absence of the object to which the epigram originally referred. These ambiguities were
exploited even further in epigrams written for circulation in books that nevertheless still
maintained the fiction of being attached to an object. Bing has argued that a significant
part of the intellectual appeal of early literary epigram was the demand it placed on the
reader to actively construct the object and context to which a given poem was supposed
to refer, a process he calls “Ergänzungspiel”.28
From the standpoint of content too, early literary epigram involves an exploration
of elements already found in inscriptional poems. Literary epigram’s roots in archaic and
classical verse inscriptions, for instance, obviously account for the composition of
copious literary epitaphs and dedications, the outwardly formulaic character of literary
epigrams, and for a playful use of quasi- or para-epigraphic vocabulary even in poems
lacking any epigraphic conceit (on which more below).
These elements of continuity with the tradition of inscribed epigram coexist,
however, alongside rather dramatic generic ruptures and innovations, such as the
27
On the importance of writing, writtenness, and inscription as metaphors for the
changing nature of literary practice in the Hellenistic world, cf. Bing, 1988a, 17:
“[Epigram] no longer has to be inscribed since all poetry has moved in the direction of
epigram: a poem is now always an inscription.”
28
Bing, 1995.
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14 seemingly sudden appearance of epigrams on sympotic and erotic subjects.29 Hellenistic
epigrammatists could, after all, have contented themselves with producing clever poems
hewing to the same forms as their inscribed predecessors and exploiting the gaps between
stone- and book-inscriptions.30 Instead, in addition to breaking away from the constraints
of real objects, they also began to enrich the epigrammatic tradition by combining its
typical forms, motifs, and themes with material drawn from other literary genres and
spheres of life. AP 5.181, by Asclepiades, offers a vivid illustration of the sophisticated
pay with genre that typifies literary epigram already from an early stage:
AP 5.181 – Asclepiades = HE XXV (Text = Sens)
τῶν †καρίων† ἡµῖν λάβε †κώλακας†· ἀλλά ποθ’ ἥξει;
καὶ πέντε στεφάνους τῶν ῥοδίνων. τί, τὸ πάξ;
οὐ φῂς κέρµατ’ ἔχειν; διολώλαµεν. οὐ τροχιεῖ τις
τὸν Λαπίθην; λῃστήν, οὐ θεράποντ’ ἔχοµεν.
οὐκ ἀδικεῖς οὐδέν; φέρε τὸν λόγον. ἐλθὲ λαβοῦσα,
5
Φρύνη, τὰς ψήφους. ὢ µεγάλου κινάδους·
πέντ’ οἶνος δραχµῶν, ἀλλᾶς δύο ̶ ⏑ ⏑ ̶ x
ὦτα, λέγεις, σκόµβροι, †θέσµυκες†, σχάδονες.
αὔριον αὐτὰ καλῶς λογιούµεθα. νῦν δὲ πρὸς Αἴσχραν
τὴν µυρόπωλιν ἰὼν πέντε λάβ’ ἀργυρέας·
εἰπὲ δὲ σηµεῖον, Βάκχων ὅτι πέντ’ ἐφίλησεν
ἑξῆς, ὧν κλίνη µάρτυς ἐπεγράφετο.
10
Buy … for us—will he ever come?
And five rose garlands. What do you mean,
‘enough’? Are you saying you don’t have any
change? We’re done for. Someone put the
Lapith on the rack! We’ve got a bandit, not a
servant. You’re not doing anything wrong?
Bring the account. Get the abacus, Phryne, and
bring it here. What a great rogue! Wine for five
drachmas, sausage for two…
ears, mackerel, hare (?), honeycomb. Tomorrow
we’ll reckon everything exactly. For now, go to
Aeschra the unguent-seller and get five silver
(oil flasks). Tell her as proof of your status that
Bacchon embraced her five times in a row, for
which the bed was inscribed as a witness.
29
30
Cf. Cameron, 1993, 2.
Such as, for instance, the epigrams of Perses as read by Tueller, 2008, 58-61.
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15 (Translation = Sens, 2011.)
There is nothing about this epigram that is inscriptional in nature; instead, as Gow and
Page say, it is a miniature mime.31 Yet this poem fits perfectly into the sympotic
ambience of Asclepiades’ other epigrams, depicting the preparations for a symposium
(just as other epigrams depict the komos that follows). Furthermore, when read in the
context of these other epigrams, the poem will be seen to gesture playfully towards truly
“epigraphic” poetry with its final verb ἐπεγράφετο, which is here used in its technical
legal sense, “to be placed on a list of witnesses”.32 This nicety seems to draw the reader’s
attention to the generic mixture Asclepiades has created. As Sens remarks, “the only
object inscribed in Asclep.’s epigram is the bed, and that only by the marks of lovemaking.”33 Asclepiades is in complete control of his generic resources here, and rather
than being constrained by inscriptional forms he invokes them only in order to create a
pleasing ambiguity within another generic context.34
31
Gow-Page compare the epigram to the hexameter mimes of Theocritus, which present
a similar generic puzzle. Cf. also Sens, 2011, xlviii, on the epigram’s use of the style of
mime.
32
On the legal usage cf. Gow-Page ad loc. This kind of “para-epigraphic” play—that is
the use in epigram of language appropriate to an epigraphic context within a different
semantic context where it is nevertheless equally at home—is a phenomenon that will
reappear again and again in the epigrams of Meleager, discussed below.
33
Sens, 2011, 172.
34
On the generic enrichment of epigram in the third century BCE, cf. Cameron, 1993, 23. Fantuzzi, in Fantuzzi and Hunter, 2004, connects the fusion of epigram and sympotic
poetry to forms of sympotic writing such as καλός-inscriptions. See esp. 285: “… it
may therefore be that the first generation of ‘literary’ epigrammatists in the first half of
the third century, who had behind them not a fixed genre with its topoi and conventions,
but rather the unlimited cultural and literary heritage of the past, thought of their texts as
a meeting-point between the sympotic practice of composing and reading graffiti on
vases and the refined literary forms elaborated in the sympotic genres of archaic poetry.” Campbell
Chapter 1
16 The most significant and problematic new voice or “character” to appear in late
fourth and early third century epigram, however, is that of the poet him/herself. Whereas
in earlier genres the role of the poet, and the poetic persona, were defined or conditioned
by the performative context for which poets composed and (later) by an earlier generic
tradition to which they could seamlessly refer, the earliest literary epigrammatists were in
quite a different situation. Seen against the background of inscribed epigram and its
semi-literary offshoots, the appearance of the epigrammatist as a figure within his or her
own work presents a paradox. As Gutzwiller puts it, “the [inscriptional] epigrammatist,
unlike the praise poet, never took up the custom of vocalizing his own participation in the
praise … . The proper stance of the epigrammatist … is to have no stance at all.”35 This
is because inscriptional forms provided only very limited resources for authorial selfrepresentation. Tueller has drawn attention to the highly constrained template of basic
speaking voices (“characters” in his terms) available to the inscriptional epigrammatist:
the grave or the dedicated object speaks; the deceased person or the dedicator speaks; or
the divinity that receives a dedication speaks.36 The voice of the poet, if involved at all,
must be “hidden” beneath one of these categories.
Starting in the fourth century, we first begin to find epigrams carved on stone
along with attributions of authorship (the earliest we know of is CEG 819.iii, by Ion of
Chios).37 At about the same time, meanwhile, certain epigrammatists began to write
themselves into their own works as authorial figures, and in so doing collectively
35
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 11. Cf. Tueller, 2008, 54.
On these “characters” in archaic and classical inscribed epigrams see Tueller, 2008, 1215.
37
On this inscription, see Fantuzzi, in Fantuzzi-Hunter, 2004, 290-291.
36
Campbell
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17 expanded and redefined epigram as a literary genre. The first part of this study will
explore in detail how three early literary epigrammatists—Nossis, Asclepiades, and
Leonidas of Tarentum—created authorial personae for themselves through a melding of
inscriptional elements with elements drawn from other literary genres.
Poetic Voices and Personae in Early Hellenistic Epigram: Nossis and Asclepiades
Foucault has remarked that the name of an author serves to distance discourse
from everyday speech, marking it out as belonging to a certain mode. The author’s name,
that is, marks out the work as different from everyday speech in the same way as stylistic
devices such as the use of archaism. Foucault follows this observation with an important
specification:
“The author’s name manifests the appearance of a certain discursive set
and indicates the status of this discourse within a society and a culture.
It has no legal status, nor is it located in the fiction of the work; rather, it
is located in the break that founds a certain discursive construct and its
very particular mode of being.”38
[Emphasis added.]
The status of the literary work within society and culture is all the more important when
the reception of the work is envisioned as primarily through books and reading. The
authorial figure within the text then as it were steps into the gap between the written text
and the contexts in which it may be enunciated. In Foucault’s account, the authorial
voice looks inward, unifying disparate elements of the text through a kind of focalization,
and also outward, situating the new work within the world formed by other texts.39
38
Foucault’s essay is cited from the translation in Rabinow, 1984, 107.
On the authorial voice as an organizing force within collections of epigrams, cf.
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 12-13.
39
Campbell
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18 All of the early Hellenistic epigrammatists share a common interest in the
expressive possibilities of inscribed forms, but they bring these into combination with a
very wide variety of elements drawn from other literary genres and areas of life, sympotic
and erotic lyric, elegy, drama, popular philosophical discourse, and so on. In the process,
the inscriptional elements as well as those elements drawn from other genres undergo a
kind of mutual transformation, rendering the result greater than the sum of its generic
parts. The formal and conceptual apparatus of epigram, that is, act as a kind of filter
through which the other generic elements are passed. As they are refracted, they take on
qualities that are distinctly “epigrammatic” without any longer being strictly tied to
inscriptional form. These include focused concision, closure, and pointedness—the sense
that something is being said in a compendious way, and somehow fixed for all time.40
I will take as my first case study Nossis, a native of Epizephyrian Locri, who
lived and wrote in the late fourth or early third century BCE.41 Among a scant twelve
extant epigrams attributed to her are two in which she speaks to us explicitly in her own
voice:
AP 5.170 – Nossis = I HE42
Ἅδιον οὐδὲν ἔρωτος, ἃ δ’ ὄλβια δεύτερα πάντα
ἐστίν· ἀπὸ στόµατος δ’ ἔπτυσα καὶ τὸ µέλι.
τοῦτο λέγει Νοσσίς· τίνα δ’ ἁ Κύπρις οὐκ ἐφίλασεν
οὐκ οἶδεν κήνα τἄνθεα ποῖα ῥόδα.
40
See Gutzwiller, 1998a, 8: “As a statement that must define its subject for all time, and
in a form short enough to be engraved on stone, the epigram developed the distinctive
traits not only of brevity and restraint but also of appearing to have the last word.”
41
General studies in Gigante 1974; Gutzwiller 1997b, and 1998a, 74-87; Skinner, 1989
and 1991; Bowman, 1998 (with special attention to epigrams I and XI HE).
42
The text is identical to that of HE except for that, where Gow-Page obelize κῆνα τ᾽ (4),
I follow Gutzwiller in printing κήνα τἄνθεα (based on the κηνατανθεα transmitted by
P).
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19 Nothing is sweeter than love. Everything desirable is second
to it. I spit even honey from my mouth.
This is what Nossis says. But the one whom Cypris has not
loved, that woman does not know what sort of flowers roses
are.43
AP 7.718 - Nossis = XI HE (Text = HE)
Ὤ ξεῖν᾽, εἰ τύ γε πλεῖς ποτὶ καλλίχορον Μιτυλήναν
τᾶν Σαπφοῦς χαρίτων ἄνθος ἐναυσόµενος,
εἰπεῖν ὡς Μούσαισι φίλαν τήνᾳ τε Λοκρὶς γᾶ
τίκτε µ᾽· ἴσαις δ᾽ ὅτι µοι τοὔνοµα Νοσσίς, ἴθι.
Oh stranger, if you are sailing to fair Mitylene to harvest the
blossom of Sappho’s Graces,
say that Locri bore me, one dear to the Muses and to her.
Knowing that my name is Nossis, go.
It has been plausibly supposed that the epigrams were intended as introduction and
epilogue (respectively) to Nossis’ collected epigrams.44 The use of the priamel in the
first epigram, and the epitaphic, valedictory, form of the second reinforce the poems’
supposed positions at the beginning and end of a hypothetic single-author collection. In
addition to the repetition of the author’s name, the prominent floral motifs in each poem
(τἄνθεα ποῖα ῥόδα, AP 5.170.4; τᾶν Σαπφοῦς χαρίτων ἄνθος, AP 7.718.2) and the
equally prominent verbs of speaking (λέγει; εἰπεῖν) give the sense that the two epigrams
complement or balance one another. Finally, the objective tone of AP 5.170, especially
the phrase τοῦτο λέγει (AP 5.170.3), adds to the sense that this poem is meant to be
Nossis’ definitive poetic pronouncement.45 Positioned at the “boundaries” of the poetry
book, we will see, AP 5.170 and 7.718 serve to mediate between the epigrams the book
comprises and the larger literary tradition.
43
Trans. adapted from Gutzwiller, 1998a, 76.
Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 75 and 85.
45
Skinner, 1989, 5.
44
Campbell
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20 Through a dense web of associations, the epigrams invoke a set of literary
models—Hesiod, Erinna, and above all Sappho—that serve to claim a place for Nossis’
epigrams within the tradition at the same time as they characterize their content. They
frame the collection as focused on the world of women, their social relations and
(importantly) the bonds of friendship, family, and sympathy that bind them together. In
addition to laying a claim to literary glory, they thus serve as a kind of protocol,
providing the reader with a set of associations to guide his or her reading and
appreciation of the poems.46
AP 5.170 is densely laden with allusive connections. The priamel in the first
epigram, with its ranking of love objects, draws the reader’s attention inevitably back to
Sappho, fr. 16 Lobel-Page, particularly the first four lines:
ο]ἰ µὲν ἰππήων στρότον οἰ δὲ πέσδων
οἰ δὲ νάων φαῖσ’ ἐπ[ὶ] γᾶν µέλαι[ν]αν
ἔ]µµεναι κάλλιστον, ἔγω δὲ κῆν’ ὄτ‑
[ ]τω τις ἔραται·
…
Some say an army of cavalry, others one of infantry
others one of ships, is the most beautiful thing on the dark
earth. But I say it is that which one loves.
The priamel form and the embrace of Eros serve to acknowledge Sappho as a poetic
model, but there are still more layers to the allusion. With the emphatic rejection of
honey we move beyond the Sapphic background—the positive model—and toward a
rejection of other forms of poetry, subject matter, and models. Based on similarities with
the beginning of the Theogony (lines 96-7), Gutzwiller has argued that the other poet
Nossis implies here is probably to be understood as Hesiod, who claims that sweet honey
46
The function of the epigrams as a kind of protocol is emphasized by Bowman, 1998.
Campbell
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21 flows from the mouth of the one beloved by the Muses.47 Wrapped up in this allusion to
Hesiod, moreover, may be a further reference to the “womens’ tradition” in Greek poetry,
specifically the fourth-century female poet Erinna.48 Her Distaff, ostensibly written as a
song of morning for the poet’s deceased friend Baucis, along with the epigrams attributed
to her, may have served as a more proximate model for Nossis’ own depiction of the
world of female relationships.49
In articulating this complex relationship between Nossis and the wider world of
Greek literature, the introductory and closing epigrams take on an interesting hybridized
quality, a blending of the inscriptional and the non-inscriptional, that is itself a mark of
their mediating function. Nossis, as an authorial figure presiding over the epigrams,
emerges through this fusion. This authorial voice, in turn, informs our reading of the
epigrams: epigrammatic praise takes on an erotic coloring because the authorial voice
has already demonstrated this move before our eyes, taking epigraphic forms and
“expanding” or “reenergizing” them by drawing on other traditions.
Particularly in the closing piece, we can see this process play out in the
modification of multiple traditional elements from inscribed verse. The epigram begins
like an epitaph—the incipit, ὢ ξεῖν’ is common in inscriptions and will perhaps have
reminded readers especially of Simonides’ epitaph for the Spartan dead at
Thermopylae—but then goes on to play ingeniously with the types of information this
47
See Gutzwiller, 1998a, 76: “Hesiod’s ‘sweet song’ … stands as the direct antecedent
of the ‘honey’ that Nossis spits from her mouth. In her introductory manifesto, then,
Nossis rejects the inspiration of Hesiodic epic, so proudly maintained by contemporary
poets like Aratus and Callimachus, in favor of a tradition of more personal, erotic verse.”
48
49
On the “women’s tradition,” see Bowman, 2004.
Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 76-9.
Campbell
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22 encoding leads us to expect, the name of the deceased, her birthplace, and her family. As
Bowman’s concise analysis shows, Nossis makes Sappho her “family”, and Mitylene her
“real home”.50 Rather than news of her death, we hear instead news of her literary talent,
and of how she was dear to the Muses, who take the place we would have expected to be
occupied by mourners. In short, Nossis has imbued the epigram, with its built-in
apparatus for praise and mourning, with a set of associations derived from her poetic
models—feminine social bonds underwritten by an all-embracing eros.
If we did not possess Nossis’ introductory and concluding poems, it would
probably be possible to read the (meager) remnants of her work without thinking too
much of Eros or Sappho. Her poems comprise epitaphs and dedications which would
have been suitable for inscription (whether they actually were or not), and while they do
prominently feature females, this is as far as the obvious parallels with the two
sphragistic epigrams go. In the two other early epigrammatists I will take as my case
studies, Asclepiades and Leonidas of Tarentum, we are in a considerably better position
to see how the construction of the authorial persona relates to the contents of the book.
Both of these epigrammatists, moreover, provide even more extensive illustrations of the
intermixing of elements drawn from inscribed epigram and from other generic sources.
Asclepiades presents us with a world of sympotic revelry and erotic passion,
unified both by subject matter and poetic voice. This “world” is articulated in a series of
discrete moments (i.e. different epigrams) which are crystallized, often in a quite piercing
way, through a well of energy drawn from the tradition of inscribed epigram. AP 12.46
50
See Bowman, 1998, 40-41. Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 86, “… Nossis sends a message of
her birth across both temporal and spatial seas to her poetic mother Sappho.”
Campbell
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23 offers an interesting starting point for considering how Asclepiades constructs the
speaking-voices in his epigrams, what generic ingredients he uses, and the result they
yield when cooked together:
AP 12.46 – Asclepiades = XV HE (Text = Sens.)
οὐκ εἴµ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἐτέων δύο κεἴκοσι, καὶ κοπιῶ ζῶν·
ὤρωτες, τί κακὸν τοῦτο; τί µε φλέγετε;
ἢν γὰρ ἐγώ τι πάθω, τί ποιήσετε; δῆλον, Ἔρωτες,
ὡς τὸ πάρος παίξεσθ᾽ ἄφρονες ἀστραγάλοις.
I am not yet twenty-two and I’m sick of living! O, Erotes,
what kind of evil is this? Why do you burn me? For what
will you do if something should happen to me? I suppose,
Erotes, that you will play thoughtlessly at dice as you did
before.
A young man bewails the fickleness of Eros.51 It has often been pointed out that the
epigram begins like a sepulchral inscription, with the speaker a typical παῖς ἄωρος.52
This expectation, however, goes unfulfilled, since at the end of the first line we learn that
the speaker is not dead but merely “sick of living”. According to Tueller, with this
revelation, “the sepulchral motif fades somewhat”.53 Rather than merely fading,
however, it seems more apt to say that the motif is shattered: we find that where we had
expected one “character” (to use Tueller’s term)—the voice of the deceased—what we
51
Sens, 2011, analyzes this and other Asclepiadean voices as thumbnail character
sketches, in which the poet creates an ironic distance between himself and the speaker of
the epigram (see esp. Sens, 2011, xlix-l). In other epigrams, this may well be
Asclepiades’ procedure, but there seem to be consistencies between this and a few other
poems by Asclepiades and the sphragistic AP 12.50 to encourage the reader to infer that
the author is the speaker. Ultimately, however, what is important for my purposes is the
use of certain techniques of character-drawing, regardless of whether we believe this to
be the “authorial voice” or not. 52
So, e.g., Sens, 2011, 98, who cites the rather close parallel GVI 1576.7-8.
53
Tueller, 2008, 128.
Campbell
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24 find is another character entirely—the “young man”—drawn not from inscribed epigram
but from the world of New Comedy.54
Rather than rely on the conventions of inscribed epigram, then, Asclepiades here
creates a speaking voice based upon a tropos or “manner of speaking” recognizable to the
reader. In the second book of the Rhetoric, Aristotle discusses the characters (ἤθη)
typical of youths (νέοι), old men (πρεσβύτεροι), and men in their prime (ἀκµάζοντες).55
He connects these characters with certain typical manners of speaking (τρόποι).
Aristotle sets up the character of the young and old as polar opposites, conceiving that of
the man in the prime of life as a mean between the two.
This is the character of the youth:
“The young, as to character, are ready to desire and to carry out what they desire.
Of the bodily pleasures they chiefly obey those of sensual pleasure and these they
are unable to control. Changeable in their desires and soon tiring of them, they
desire with extreme ardor, but soon cool; for their will, like the hunger and thirst
of the sick, is keen rather than strong. They are passionate, hot-tempered, and
carried away by impulse, and unable to control their passion … They are not illnatured, but simple-natured … confiding, because they have as yet not been often
deceived … .” (3-8)
This is consistent in its essentials with Asclepiades’ emotional outburst at AP 12.46,
where Sens aptly remarks on the speaker’s “misguided naïveté”.56 The lover figures
himself as the “plaything” of the Erotes, who carelessly toy with him in lieu of knucklebones. Their fickleness takes on an added dimension when we read this poem alongside
Asclepiades’ other erotic epigrams. Here, we find that this young lover is equally fickle
54
On the influence of New Comedy upon Asclepiades, see Sens, 2011, xlvi-xlviii. At the
stylistic level, I would point to the use of assonance and alliteration, carefully situated
within lines and couplets, which, if not generically comic, at any rate add to the
distinctiveness of the voice: οὐκ … οὐδ … κείκοσι καὶ κοπιῶ (1); τί τοῦτο … τί (2);
ἐγὼ τι παθῶ, τί ποιήσετε (3); πάρος παίξεσθ᾽ ἄφρονες ἀστραγάλοις (4).
55
The entire discussion runs from II.12.3-14 (=1389a-1390b).
56
Sens, 2011, l. Cf. Campbell, 2011, 369.
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25 in his own affections, no matter how strongly-felt they may be at any given moment (i.e.
in any given epigram).
I would argue that we find the same tropos speaking elsewhere in Asclepiades’
epigrams. Aristotle’s remark about the “confiding” nature of youth is borne out in
epigrams AP 5.7 and 5.150 (= IX and X HE). Commentators have pointed out the use of
the phrase ἥξειν … κοὐκ ἥκει in each poem, an expression of the speaker’s
disappointment in the face of his beloved’s broken oath:
AP 5.7 – Asclepiades = IX HE (Text = Sens)
Λύχνε, σὲ γὰρ παρεοῦσα τρὶς ὤµοσεν Ἡράκλεια
ἥξειν κοὐχ ἥκει· λύχνε, σὺ δ’, εἰ θεὸς εἶ,
τὴν δολίην ἀπάµυνον· ὅταν φίλον ἔνδον ἔχουσα
παίζῃ, ἀποσβεσθεὶς µηκέτι φῶς πάρεχε.
Oh lamp, by you when she was here Heraclea swore three
times that she would come, and she has not come. Lamp, if
you are a god, take vengeance on the deceiver: Whenever
she is at play with some lover at her house,
burn out, and no longer provide light.
AP 5.150 – Asclepiades = X HE (Text = Sens)
ὡµολόγησ’ ἥξειν εἰς νύκτα µοι ἡ ’πιβόητος
Νικὼ καὶ σεµνὴν ὤµοσε Θεσµοφόρον,
κοὐχ ἥκει, φυλακὴ δὲ παροίχεται. ἆρ’ ἐπιορκεῖν
ἤθελε; τὸν λύχνον, παῖδες, ἀποσβέσατε.
Niko the much-maligned agreed that she would come around
nightfall for me, and made an oath by the holy
Thesmophoros, and she has not come, although the watch is
past. Did she really break her oath on purpose? Slaves,
extinguish the lamp.
The same credulous speaker reappears in AP 5.164 (HE XIII), a paraclausithyron where
he finds himself locked by his beloved out in spite of an earlier invitation:
AP 5.164 – Asclepiades = XIII HE (Text = Sens*)
Νύξ, σὲ γάρ, οὐκ ἄλλην µαρτύροµαι, οἷά µ’ ὑβρίζει
Πυθιὰς ἡ Νικοῦς, οὖσα φιλεξαπάτης.
κληθείς, οὐκ ἄκλητος, ἐλήλυθα· ταὐτὰ παθοῦσα
σοὶ µέµψαιτ’ ἐτ’ ἐµοῖς στᾶσα παρὰ προθύροις.
3 ταὐτὰ apogr.] ταῦτα P probat Sens
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26 Oh Night, for I invoke you and no other as witness, (see)
how Pythias daughter of Niko wrongs me in her love of
deception. Invited, not uninvited, I have come. May she
suffer the same, and rebuke you standing at the entryway to
my house!
In the final line, the poet gestures towards the language and context of inscribed epigram.
The youth prays that his beloved will “stand” (στᾶσα) before in the entryway to his
house in much the same way that a dedication might be “stood” or “set up” in or on the
porch of a temple.57
When we take the three epigrams together, we can see how the use of
inscriptional language serves as a kind of foil for the appearance on the scene of a
exuberant, youthful voice drawn from (inter al.) New Comedy.58 We might view this
process as the filling of the vessel of dedicatory epigram with erotic contents, as, for
instance, Tueller seems to do.59 We could equally well say, however, that Asclepiades
has taken the basic scenario of a paraclausithyron and “transformed” it into or crossed it
with a dedicatory epigram.60
A classic example of the meeting point between sepulchral and non-sepulchral
elements in literary epigram is Asclepiades, AP 5.158:
AP 5.158 – Asclepiades = IV HE (Text = Sens)
Ἑρµιόνῃ πιθανῇ ποτ’ ἐγὼ συνέπαιζον ἐχούσῃ
ζωνίον ἐξ ἀνθέων ποικίλον, ὦ Παφίη,
57
For placement of an object “at the front doors” as a dedicatory motif, cf. Posid. APl
275 = HE XIX, where it is said that Lysippus has placed his statue of Kairos at the
doorway (ἐν προθύροις) of a temple (?) to serve an instructional purpose (διδασκαλίη)
for passersby.
58
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 123, considers this to be the voice of the poet: “The identifying
characteristic of this youthful Asclepiades is his entrapment within an endless cycle of
love, a cycle of desire and betrayal, symbolized by the dice game of the Erotes.”
59
Thus he speaks, e.g., of Asclepiades “transforming a dedicatory setting into an erotic
one”. Tueller, 2008, 120.
60
On the paraclausithyron as a motif in Greek and Latin poetry, see Copley, 1956.
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27 χρύσεα γράµµατ’ ἔχον· “διόλου” δ’ ἐγέγραπτο “φίλει µε,
καὶ µὴ λυπηθῇς ἤν τις ἔχῃ µ’ ἕτερος.”
I once fooled around with the enticing Hermione, who has
multicolored underwear as if made of flowers—O
Paphian!—bearing the golden letters: “Go all the way with
me,” it was written, “and don’t feel bad if another has me.
In this poem, the poet draws the reader’s attention to his play with inscriptional form. He
does this, it seems, in order to create a series of paradoxes. The “inscription” in the poem
is not on a stone or any similar durable object, but on a woman’s underwear, which is
described as no more substantial than if it was made of flowers! This material instability
correlates nicely with the emotional instability in the poem. Far from commemorating an
emotion such as grief for all time, as we would find in a sepulchral inscription, the
epigram commemorates fickleness itself. As Gutzwiller has argued, “the Hermione
epigram reveals precisely the paradox—of fixed form and emotional instability—that is
amatory epigram.”61 Like some of Asclepiades other most successful epigrams,62 this
poem brings the speaker’s experience into the kind of piercing focus with which we recall
our most persistent memories. In such poems, we might justly speak of a consciousness
that has become, in a fundamental way, “epigrammatic.” So, at the same time as the
inscriptional motif is expanded by its application to non-inscriptional (or at least not
traditionally inscriptional) content, the erotic dimension of the poem is enriched by its
fusion with the conceptual resources, and particularly the “memorializing impulse” of
inscriptional verse.
A similar kind of mixture can be observed in AP 12.50:
AP 12.50 – Asclepiades = XVI HE (Text = Sens)
61
Gutzwiller, 2007, 318.
This epigrammatic “focusing” effect is especially noticeable in poems on “love at first
sight” (e.g. AP 5.153 = III HE).
62
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28 πῖν᾽, Ἀσκληπιάδη. τί τὰ δάκρυα ταῦτα; τί πάσχεις;
οὐ σὲ µόνον χαλεπὴ Κύπρις ἐληίσατο,
οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ σοὶ µούνῳ κατεθήκατο τόξα καὶ ἰούς
πικρὸς Ἔρως· τί ζῶν ἐν σποδιῇ τίθεσαι;
πίνωµεν Βάκχου ζωρὸν πόµα· δάκτυλος ἀώς.
ἦ πάλι κοιµιστὰν λύχνον ἰδεῖν µένοµεν;
†πίνοµεν οὐ γὰρ ἔρως·† µετά τοι χρόνον οὐκέτι πουλύν,
σχέτλιε, τὴν µακρὰν νύκτ᾽ ἀναπαυσόµεθα.
Drink, Asclepiades! Why these tears? What’s the matter?
It’s not only you that harsh Kypris has despoiled, nor is it
only for you that Eros has donned his bow and arrow. Why,
though living, do you lie in the dust? Let us drink a strong
draught of Bacchus: there is only a finger’s-width of dawn.
Or are we waiting for a lamp to put us to bed again (i.e.
waiting until nightfall)?63 Let us drink … for not long from
now, unhappy man, we will sleep the “long night”.
As in AP 5.7, death is in the background once again, and ties the poem to the thematic
realm of inscribed epitaphs.64 As commentators have long noted, however, the speaking
voice derives from the genre of sympotic lyric or elegy, and should perhaps be connected
specifically with the archaic lyric poet Alcaeus, whose fr. 346.1, an exhortation to drink,
may provide the model for lines 5 and 6 of the epigram:65
Alcaeus:
πώνωµεν· τί τὰ λύχν’ ὀµµένοµεν; δάκτυλος ἀµέρα·
Asclepiades:
πίνωµεν Βάκχου ζωρὸν πόµα· δάκτυλος ἀώς·
ἦ πάλι κοιµιστὰν λύχνον ἰδεῖν µένοµεν;
Kathryn Gutzwiller suggests that the speaker in Asclepiades’ epigram serves a function
that looks beyond the poem itself. In addition to responding to the imagined emotions of
63
On the difficulties of the text and interpretation, see Sens, 2011, 108-9.
Hunter, 2010, 287, points out the “almost oxymoronic” phrase “living in the dust”
(ζῶν ἐν σποδιῇ) as a particularly pointed repurposing of a stock sepulchral image.
65
On the relationship between the two texts, cf. Hunter, 2010, 284-88. On the “identity”
of the speaker, cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 148, n. 64.
64
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29 Asclepiades himself, the speaker’s advice presents, “the internal auditor’s response to the
content of the collection.”66 The epigram thus serves an important poetic function, to
reify the disparate epigrams as a coherent body and to model a certain aesthetic response
to them.
Asclepiades’ epigrams, more so than Nossis’, combine the traditions of inscribed
verse and earlier literature in complex ways. In some of his epigrams, Asclepiades seems
to use inscriptional forms as a basis for the development of erotic themes (as in, e.g., AP
5.158). In others, he invokes the ideas of death and religious dedication, with which
inscribed epigram was generically associated, without using it as a formal template (as in,
e.g., AP 12.46). In still other poems, inscribed epigram is merely gestured at, with a kind
of playful nod (cf. the mime-like AP 5.181 above). While he clearly found inscribed
forms to provide a rich poetic resource, he was conscious of, and drew attention to, his
experimental use of these conventions and his mixing of them with elements from other
genres.
In AP 12.50, the “sphragistic” use of the poet’s own name does not just serve to
claim authorship of his epigrams as gathered in some hypothetical collection. In Nossis,
reading the sphragistic opening and closing poems led us, at very least, to look at the
epigrams in a new light, informed by the poetry of Sappho. Here too, the “authority” of
the sphragis diffuses over the individual epigrams, signaling to the reader that, in some
sense, these poems belong together. At the same time, the pathos in the epigram serves
also to place the “stamp” of a unified authorial persona upon the anonymous speakers of
the epigrams. Through the fusion of epigrammatic form with erotic subjectivity, the
66
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 149.
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30 consciousness or sensibility of this authorial persona takes on a character that is,
fundametally, “epigrammatic” even when the poet frees himself from the constraints of
inscriptional form.
The epigrams of Asclepiades thus offer an interesting opportunity to consider
where the “voice” of the epigrammatist might come from and what sort of generic
character it might have. As I have already noted above, this was problematic, since
inscribed epigram, which even erotic epigrammatists like Asclepiades clearly treated as a
fundamental point of reference, excluded authorial self-expression. In order to overcome
this obstacle and write first person erotic poetry that is also recognizably “epigrammatic”,
Asclepiades draws upon the resources of other genres, especially drama and sympotic
lyric and even mime. These different voices, being brought into contact with the
epigrammatic tradition, necessarily undergo a transformation of their own. Their
utterances, and, so to speak, the “consciousness” they express are filtered through the
conceptual apparatus of epigram; we might even say that the characters see the world in
epigrammatic terms. Subtle, transitory moments come into focus in a flash, only to
disappear as the next epigram begins. In this way, just as the old formulae of verse
inscriptions gain new energy from being combined with other kinds of content, the
content also is charged with a new pointedness and overall sensibility.
Persona and Poetics in Leonidas of Tarentum
We have now seen how the poetic persona in Nossis’ epigrams looks inward,
organizing the contents of the collection under the banner of Eros, and outward, using the
poetry of Sappho as a point of reference for this form of eroticism. Something of this
same dynamic was at work in Asclepiades, who clearly intended to mark the connection
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31 between his epigrams and the sympotic lyric of (among others) Alcaeus. In Asclepiades,
the poetic persona also served another function, acting as a kind of representative for the
speakers in the epigrams. Whether we take these speakers to be identical to the author
(as Sens would have it) or instead the author’s “fellow symposiasts”, it remains the case
that Asclepiades represents himself as, in some sense, one of them.
In the epigrams of Leonidas of Tarentum, the poetic persona serves some of these
same functions. He stands as a mediator between the epigrams and the wider world of
poetry and philosophy, framing the poems in terms of a Homeric worldview filtered
through the popular-philosophical lens of ancient Cynicism. At the same time, perhaps
because we possess so much more of Leonidas than of virtually any other Hellenistic
epigrammatist, we are in a position to see how complex the interplay of different generic
elements is in the creation of the persona.
Leonidas emerges as a vivid authorial presence, more fully sketched than Nossis
and more clearly marked than Asclepiades. His persona is carefully drawn, and the
elements of an “autobiography”—poverty, illness, a life of wandering—are sketched
quickly but effectively through the various poems. He identifies his own circumstances
and experiences as a poet with those of the humble characters who populate his epigrams,
and his ethical exhortations are complemented by his account of his own life, in which he
embodies them. The various aspects of his epigrams are thus mutually reinforcing, and
the impression upon the reader is that of a miniature world focalized and unified by a
distinctive speaking voice. Since his epigrams had a remarkable influence on the later
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32 tradition, it will be worthwhile to investigate his persona in detail here.67
Poetic style has always been at the center of criticism and scholarship on
Leonidas and his followers, and has tended to overshadow the consideration of other
aspects of his work including his literary persona.68 Because Leonidas’ language is
obviously recherché, and his representations of his own and others’ poverty is mediated
through literary topoi, scholars have concluded not only that his poetry does not reflect
his empirical circumstances but that it is, for this reason, precious or ostentatious.69 The
supposed inappropriateness of his “baroque” lexical inventiveness to his humble subjectmatter—indicated by Geffcken in his commentary with the lapidary tag ‘leonideisch’—
has prompted many scholars to discount any larger literary or philosophical agenda and
regard him, as Beckby did, as a mere ‘Formvirtuose’.70
So too, Leonidas’ supposed interest in the lives of lowly members of society is
written off as due only to the fashion of the time—Theocritus, Callimachus, and Herodas
all wrote about such figures too—and not part of any broader philosophical or ethical
worldview.71 Even his chronology, about which there is still no firm consensus among
67
On Leonidas’ persona in general, see Gutzwiller, 1998a, 107-114; Clayman, 2007, 511.
On Leonidas’ influence, Geffcken, 1896, 146-149, and below, chapter 3.
68
The most recent stylistic studies are Criscuolo, 2003, and Criscuolo, 2004.
69
This is the premise, for instance, of a polemical essay by Lombardo Radice, 1965,
“Leonida Tarentino, poeta ‘ricco’”.
70
So too Gabathuler, 1937, 72. For a collection of the (mostly negative) assessments of
Leonidas’ style, see Coco, 1985, 62, n. 10.
71
E.g. Zanker, 1987, 162 (on AP 7.295): “The subject matter is realistic enough and
there is real pathos in the comparison of Theris’ death with a lamp dying out. Yet the
style is artificial, the poem features many words not found elsewhere, and it is plainly a
display piece, like most of Leonidas’ other funerary poems. Leonidas’ attitude to the
realistic matter of his poems is thus in fact quite distant, for all his occasional success in
evoking pathos … . Inferences from his choice of subject-matter that Leonidas was
concerned with the humble life per se or as a reflection of his own poverty are
accordingly dubious.”
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33 scholars, has been subjected to arguments based purely on his stylistic defects.72
In addition to style, philosophical orientation, and most particularly the question
of the poet’s adherence or non-adherence to the Cynic doctrine, has been an important
part of the scholarly assessment of Leonidas.73 Whether or not we view Leonidas as a
“card-carrying” member of the sect, it seems difficult to deny that his poetry and the
outlook he adopts in it are influenced by Cynicism and its later-fourth and early-third
literary exponents such as Crates of Thebes.74 What is more important than his
adherence to a particular school, however, is that Leonidas represents himself in his
72
There is some dispute among scholars about Leonidas’ dates. Gigante, 1971, 37, and
Mele, 1995, argue for a period of activity during the early-third century. Gutzwiller,
1998a, 88-89, suggests the second quarter of the third century as the most likely date.
The argument of Gow, 1958, that Leonidas’ activity be dated to the second half of the
third century rests on no firmer basis than his claim that Leonidas is worse than
Callimachus and Asclepiades, and rather more akin to Dioscorides, who wrote no earlier
than the late third century. Historical references in the epigrams themselves are
consistent with a period of activity sometime in the first half of the third century.
Dateable historical references occur in AP 6.334 (a dedication by Neoptolemus, probably
the son of Alexander, king of Epirus who co-ruled with Pyrrhus prior to his murder in
295) 6.129 and 6.131 (dedications of spoils taken from the Lucanians, which may refer to
hostilities between Tarentum and the Lucanians in the 290s BCE). Leonidas’ epigram
praising Aratus (AP 9.25) indicates that he must have been active in the 270s or later (i.e.
after the publication of the Phaenomena), as does AP 6.130 (on Pyrrhus’ defeat of
Antigonus Gonatas in 273 BCE, cf. Gigante, 1971, 18, on the ascription of this epigram).
Although his epigrams have many affinities with other third-century authors, it is difficult
to determine which way the influence runs, or if there is in fact influence at all; cf. Izzo
D’Accinni, 1958.
73
In his commentary, Geffcken claimed that Leonidas was an adherent of Cynicism.
This view was afterwards attacked by Hansen, 1914, and renounced by Geffcken himself
in his RE article on Leonidas. Others have disputed any philosophical dimension at all in
Leonidas’ epigrams, or have seen a lack of sincerity as obviating any real ethical
concerns. Thus, e.g., Izzo D’Accinni, 1958, 315.
74
On the ancient Cynic tradition, see in general Dudley, 1937, and Desmond, 2008.
Unlike exponents of the other traditions in post-Platonic philosophy, Cynics were
markedly resistant to the kinds of formal association typical of other philosophical
schools (esp. the Epicureans, on which more below). Dudley, 1937, 48, notes the
considerable variety in the views attributed to the adherents of Cynicism. On Leonidas’
ties to Cynic thought, see most recently Gutzwiller, 1998a, 107, and Clayman, 2007, 51012.
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34 epigrams as part of a coherent ethical and poetic world.75 The poems in which he speaks
in his own voice are remarkable insofar as they are concerned not only with poetry, but
also advocate a broader ethical worldview, a valorization of a certain lifestyle and
principles, complementary to his view of poetry. In particular, his exaltation of humble
life is concretized in epigrams on humble figures whose lives are sketched with the same
eye to characteristic detail that Leonidas displays in his autobiographical poems.76
For the most part, however, scholars concerned with Leonidas’ style and his
putative philosophical predilections have yet to explore the interpretive space opened up
by the recognition that Leonidas is not a “realist” poet but a poeta doctus with a literary
project of his own. Accordingly, my interest here (as elsewhere) will be not to connect
the poet’s writing with his “empirical ego”, but to examine his self-representation as part
of a literary endeavor.77 So, for instance, as to the question of Leonidas’ philosophical
views, my concern is less with whether he was an adherent of this or that school, but the
ways in which he thematizes philosphical ideas within his work.
In order to sketch Leonidas’ self-representation, I will begin AP 7.472, one of the
epigrams in which his outlook on life is most explicitly laid out:
AP 7.472 = Leonidas LXXVII HE (Text = HE)
75
Barigazzi, 1985, emphasizes the broader cultural diffusion of the ethical ideas in
Leonidas, though he unduly discounts the coherence of Leonidas’ worldview (e.g.: “…
nella scarsa produzione di Leonida si hanno solo idee sparse che possono trovare una
spiegazione diversa.” p. 202).
76
The overall coherence of Leonidas’ poetic outlook is stressed by Gutzwiller, 1998a,
114: "His achievement was to weld a variety of poignant individual epigrams--on men
and women, rich and poor, gods and humans--into a coherent statement of class ideology
founded on Cynic principles, that stands as a counterpart and a challenge to the whole
tradition of archaic and classical inscribed epigram."
77
The basic distinction between “empirical” ego (the author as historical human being)
and poetic ego (the author as a literary “function” within the text) is stressed by Paduano,
1993. This distinction will remain salient throughout my study.
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35 Μυρίος ἦν, ὤνθρωπε, χρόνος πρὸ τοῦ ἄχρι πρὸς ἠῶ
ἦλθες, χὠ λοιπὸς µυρίος εἰν Ἀίδῃ.
τίς µοῖρα ζωῆς ὑπολείπεται ἢ ὅσον ὅσσον
στιγµὴ καὶ στιγµῆς εἴ τι χαµηλότερον;
µικρή σευ ζωὴ τεθλιµµένη, οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτή
5
ἡδεῖ’ ἀλλ’ ἐχθροῦ στυγνοτέρη θανάτου.
ἐκ τοίης ὥνθρωποι ἀπηκριβωµένοι ὀστῶν
ἁρµονίης †ὑψος τ’† ἠέρα καὶ νεφέλας.
ὦνερ, ἴδ’ ὡς ἀχρεῖον, ἐπεὶ περὶ νήµατος ἄκρον
εὐλὴ ἀκέρκιστον λῶπος ἐφεζοµένη
10
†οἷον τὸ ψαλάθριον ἀπεψιλωµένον οἷον†
πολλῷ ἀραχναίου στυγνότερον σκελετοῦ.
ἠοῦν ἐξ ἠοῦς ὅσσον σθένος, ὦνερ, ἐρευνῶν
εἴης ἐν λιτῇ κεκλιµένος βιοτῇ
αἰὲν τοῦτο νόῳ µεµνηµένος ἄχρις ὁµιλῇς
15
ζωοῖς ἐξ οἵης ἡρµόνισαι καλάµης.
8 ὕψος τ C: ὕψιστ᾽ P; alii alia
The time before you were born, oh man, was infinite, and the
time to come in Hades is also infinite. What portion is left
over for life but a pin-prick, or if anything is tinier than that?
Your life is small and distressed, for even it is not sweet, but
more hateful than foul death. Men built from such an
assemblage of bones †…† the air and clouds. Oh man,
consider how pointless it is, since at the end of the thread a
moth seated on the loosely-woven garment †…† more
loathsome than the body of an insect in a spider’s web.
Gathering as much strength as you can from day to day, o
man, sustain yourself in a simple life. May you associate
with the living keeping in mind the sort of reed out of which
you are composed.
I have not attempted to offer a new text of this difficult epigram.78 Nevertheless, the
outlines of the thought are clear enough to allow me to offer a few points with the aim of
integrating it into the larger complex of Leonidas’ corpus.
Beginning with an address to a general listener, the speaker calls life a
vanishingly brief interruption (2-4) in an otherwise unbroken non-existence (1-2). This
brief period of existence, moreover, is itself filled with misery (5-6). These two ideas,
the negligibility and the wretchedness of human life, are then expressed through a series
78
On the considerable textual difficulties in the epigram, see Gow and Page, HE, II, 379,
and Barigazzi, 1985.
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36 of images—clouds, air, and spider's corpses (7-12). In what stands as the second half of
the poem, the listener (ὦνερ, 9) is bidden to consider the futility, probably, of wealth,
status or other worldly goods—the corruption of the text makes it difficult to say.
Finally, the speaker tells his audience to be content with a meager lifestyle (13-14),
bearing in mind the fragility of human existence and the uncertainty of the future (15-16).
Obviously the epigram is remote from any inscriptional form—“a collection of
Cynic sentiments which, even if inscribed on a tomb (or tombs), should be called an
elegy rather than an epitaph,” as Gow and Page say.79 At the same time, the theme of
death, but more specifically the use of death as a focus for ethical exhortation, is quite
reminiscent of earlier inscribed epigrams. These often emphasize death’s universality,
and encourage the passerby to live a good life, given his mortality, and take the deceased
as a model for his own behavior.80
The epigram establishes several important, if quite commonplace, philosophical
themes that run throughout Leonidas' epigrams. These are the essential fragility of
human life—vividly expressed in the final image of man as fashioned out of a stalk of
reed (ἐξ οἵης ἡρµόνισαι καλάµης, 16)—and the consequent imperative to live frugally,
since human circumstances are subject to violent overthrow. As Geffcken noted, the
entire poem (if we consider the lines to belong to one poem) works up to the praise of the
simple life in line 14.81 Not only is the simple life a Cynic trademark, the “choice of
79
Gow-Page, HE, vol. II, 380.
For the exhortation to lead a good life as a feature of archaic inscribed epigram, see
CEG 13; on the universality of death, see CEG 487.
81
“Der Kern des ganzen Gedichtes,” per Geffcken, 1896, 130).
80
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37 lifestyle” is a central topos in popular-philosophical, and especially Cynic discourse.82
The repetitious style of the poem will also reappear in many of Leonidas’ other
epigrams,83 while the diction emphasizes key words and concepts—µικρός, στυγνός,
λιτός, βιότη—that relate to Leonidas’ broader literary and ethical preoccupations. These
features, shared with other Leonidean poems, serve to integrate the epigrams as the
variously articulated parts of a larger, coherent poetic whole.
Unlike AP 7.472, AP 6.300 follows a clear inscriptional pattern. The poet, who
names himself expressly, makes a humble offering to the goddess (probably to be
identified with Aphrodite), who has saved him from sickness:
AP 6.300 - Leonidas of Tarentum = XXXVI HE (Text = HE)
Λαθρίη, ἐκ †πλάνης† ταύτην χάριν ἔκ τε πενέστεω
κἠξ ὀλιγησιπύου δέξο Λεωνίδεω
ψαιστά τε πιήεντα καὶ εὐθήσαυρον ἐλαίην
καὶ τοῦτο χλωρὸν σῦκον ἀποκράδιον
κεὐοίνου σταφυλῆς ἔχ’ ἀποσπάδα πεντάρρωγον,
5
πότνια, καὶ σπονδὴν τήνδ’ ὑποπυθµίδιον.
ἢν δέ µε χὡς ἐκ νούσου ἀνειρύσω, ὧδε καὶ ἐχθρῆς
ἐκ πενίης ῥύσῃ, δέξο χιµαιροθύτην.
Lathria, accept this offering from wandering, impoverished
Leonidas, he of the small mealtub: rich cakes and longstored olive oil, this green fig fresh from the branch and this
bunch of five grapes from the vine good for wine, O
goddess, and this libation from the bottom of the jar. And if
you also save me from hateful poverty, as you saved me
from illness, receive me as a goat-sacrificer.
In the first couplet, the poet introduces himself with a series of adjectives that rapidly
sketch the outlines of a biography: a wanderer, a poor man, and a man characterized by
his “little meal-tub”. The humble food items he dedicates serve as the concrete symbol of
82
Cf. later Antipater of Sidon on the Cynic Hipparchia: τῶν δὲ Κυνῶν ἑλόµαν
ῥωµαλέον βίοτον, AP 7.413 = HE LXVII.
83
Μυρίος … µυρίος (1, 2); ὅσον ὅσσον (3); στιγµὴ … στιγµῆς (4); στυγνοτέρη
στυγνότερον (6, 12); ἠοῦν … ἠοῦς (13).
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38 his lifestyle.84 The first of these introduces the key Cynic theme of exile. Diogenes’
exile from Sinope for his notorious “defacement of the currency” led, in a sense, to the
beginning of the Cynic movement.85 Diogenes is said to have lamented his life as an
exile, quoting a character from an unknown tragedy: ἄπολις, ἄοικος, πατρίδος
ἐστερηµένος, | πτωχός, πλανήτης, βίον ἔχων τοὐφ’ ἡµέραν.86 The triplet “poor, a
wanderer, living day to day” lines up remarkably well with Leonidas’ description of
himself in the first couplet of the epigram.
Leonidas’ characterization of himself here, as we will see again and again
elsewhere, links him with the humble people featured in his epigrams. The first and last
couplets, for instance, bear a marked resemblance to the words he puts in the mouths of
three sisters at AP 6.288.9-10.
Compare:
Λαθρίη, ἐκ πλάνιος ταύτην χάριν ἔκ τε πενέστεω
κἠξ ὀλιγησιπύου δέξο Λεωνίδεω,
…
ἢν δέ µε χὡς ἐκ νούσου ἀνειρύσω, ὧδε καὶ ἐχθρῆς
ἐκ πενίης ῥύσῃ, δέξο χιµαιροθύτην.
“Lathria, accept this offering from wandering, impoverished
Leonidas, he of the small mealtub
…
And if you also save me from hateful poverty, as you saved
me from illness, receive a goat-sacrificer.”
with:
84
Piacenza, 2010, reads the food items metapoetically as each representing a different
generic “ingredient” in Leonidas’ epigrams.
85
Indeed, one Cynic anecdote actually has Diogenes claim as much (with more than a
touch of irony): Πρός τε τὸν ὀνειδίσαντα αὐτῷ τὴν φυγήν, “ἀλλὰ τούτου γ’
ἕνεκεν,” εἶπεν, “ὦ κακόδαιµον, ἐφιλοσόφησα” (Diogenes Laertius VI.49). (“To
someone who cast his exile against him as a reproach, he said, ‘But it was on account of
that, you fool, that I took up philosophy.’”)
86
D. L. VI.38. Diogenes (the Cynic) may be speaking ironically, since elsewhere he
famously refers to himself as a “world-citizen”.
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39 τῶν χέρας αἰέν, Ἀθάνα, ἐπιπλήσαις µὲν ὀπίσσω,
θείης δ’ εὐσιπύους ἐξ ὀλιγησιπύων.
“May you fill their hands forever after, Athena,
and make their meal-tubs great instead of small.”
Note how the women do not pray for anything extravagant, but only that their “meal
tubs”—in and of themselves a mark of a humble lifestyle—always be full. This
preference for the “simple life” is shared by Leonidas himself. AP 6.302 gives us a look
inside the poet’s house and lets us know about his diet:
AP 6.302 = XXXVII HE (Text = HE)87
Φεύγεθ’ ὑπὲκ καλύβης, σκότιοι µύες· οὔτι πενιχρή
µῦς σιπύη βόσκειν οἶδε Λεωνίδεω.
αὐτάρκης ὁ πρέσβυς ἔχων ἅλα καὶ δύο κρίµνα·
ἐκ πατέρων ταύτην ᾐνέσαµεν βιοτήν.
τῷ τί µεταλλεύεις τοῦτον µυχόν, ὦ φιλόλιχνε,
οὐδ’ ἀποδειπνιδίου γευόµενος σκυβάλου;
σπεύδων εἰς ἄλλους οἴκους ἴθι--τἀµὰ δὲ λιτά-ὧν ἄπο πλειοτέρην οἴσεαι ἁρµαλιήν.
5
Get out of my hut you shadowy mice! The poor meal-tub of
Leonidas does not know how to feed mice. An old man is
self-sufficient if he has salt and two biscuits: this is the lifestyle we have adopted from our ancestors. Why do you
mine this corner, o glutton, getting to taste not even an afterdinner scrap? Hurry off to other houses—my means are
slight—from which you’ll get a richer store.
The multi-layered speaking voice in this epigram offers an excellent example of
the synthesis of different literary and cultural traditions that is typical of the early
Hellenistic epigrammatists. Leonidas here shows himself to be skillful at exploiting
character-types, popular philosophical discourse, and inscriptional conventions, to create
a self-representation that is, at the same time, an encapsulation of his poetic and ethical
outlook as a whole. Note, for instance, how Leonidas’ self-representation here recalls
87
Due to his narrow focus on epigrams with inscriptional conceits, Gabathuler, 1937, did
not include this epigram in his collection, although he does include the sepulchral AP
7.715.
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40 both his ethical exhortation in AP 7.472.14 (εἴης ἐν λιτῇ κεκλιµένος βιοτῇ) as well as his
depictions of humble figures such as the fisherman Theris in AP 7.295:
ἀλλ’ ἔθαν’ ἐν καλύβῃ σχοινίτιδι, λύχνος ὁποῖα,
τῷ µακρῷ σβεσθεὶς ἐν χρόνῳ αὐτόµατος.
But he died in his hut of reeds, like a candle
extinguished all on his own in the long span of time.
So, in addition to embodying the ethical principles he elsewhere advocates, in this
epigram (as elsewhere) Leonidas also shows himself very much to belong among the
humble folk who populate his epigrams.
To begin examining this peculiar poem, I would like first to return to the idea of
tropos discussed above in connection with the persona(e) in Asclepiades, which drew
upon features conceived of as “typical” of youths. Leonidas, by contrast, represents
himself in a number of ways as an equally typical old man. The anger of this outburst,
for instance, finds a parallel in Aristotle’s account of the ἦθος of the old man (οἱ θυµοὶ
ὀξεῖς µὲν ἀσθενεῖς δέ εἰσιν), and readers familiar with the conventions of New Comedy
would recognize him as belonging to the dyskolos type. There are even some particular
points of comparison with Menander’s Knemon, the solitary, irascible, advocate of selfsufficiency (autarkeia).88
Although the epigram does not maintain an overt inscriptional conceit, the
language of inscriptions contributes to the poem’s overall tone and purpose, lending a
kind of solemnity that is mixed with the humorous picture of the old man’s confrontation
with the mice. Like the quasi-official tone Nossis gave to her pronouncement on the
88
For Knemon as an advocate of autarkeia, cf. 712-14, his “anagnorisis”: ἓν δ᾽ ἴσως
ἥµαρτον ὅστις τῶν ἁπάντων ὠιόµην | αὐτὸς αὐτάρκης τις εἶναι καὶ δεήσεσθ᾽
οὐδενός. (“In this one thing perhaps I was mistaken, I who of all men imagined myself
to be someone self-sufficient and needing no one.”)
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41 superiority of Eros in AP 5.170 (see above) the effect here is to give the ethical content of
the poem added weight. The initial imperative is evocative of religious ritual and sacred
regulations.89 Formulas of invitation to or prohibition from a certain space are sometimes
found at the beginning of hymns;90 formulae such as Callimachus' ἑκὰς ἑκὰς ὅστις
ἄλιτρος (Hymn to Apollo, 2) might be uttered to warn those who were impure from
entering the sacred precinct.91 Timotheus (PMG fr. 20), at what seems to be the
beginning of a poem (though we are not told this explicitly), says:
οὐκ ἀείδω τὰ παλαιά,
καινὰ γὰρ ἁµὰ κρείσσω·
νέος ὁ Ζεὺς βασιλεύει,
τὸ πάλαι δ᾽ ἦν Κρόνος ἄρχων·
ἀπίτω Μοῦσα παλαιά.
I do not sing the ancient songs, for new ones are better.
Zeus, young, rules; in the past, Kronos was leader. Let the
ancient Muse begone.
Near the end of his Persae (PMG 15.213-217), meanwhile, he says:
ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὔτε νέον τιν᾽ οὔτε γεραὸν οὔτ᾽ ἰσήβαν
εἴργω τῶνδ᾽ ἑκὰς ὕµνων·
τοὺς δὲ µουσοπαλαιολυµας, τούτους δ᾽ ἀπερύκω …
I do not bar from these songs any youth, old man, or middleaged man . The poetic archaizers, however, them I shut out.
Invitations to worshipers, meanwhile, were included in temple programmata, and appear
89
So Gigante, 1971, 99: “Leonida con un modulo esorcistico si difende dai topi.” See
also the discussion in I. Petrovic, 2011, with discussion of formal features of sacred
regulations pp. 268-9.
90
See Furley and Bremmer, 2001, vol. 1, 55, on the request for a god to come to a
particular place as a common feature of hymnic invocation of deities.
91
On formulae of inclusion and exclusion in Callimachus’ Hymns, see Bassi, 1989, esp.
pp. 221-2. Bassi connects the exclusionary opening of Hymn 2 with Callimachus’
combative aesthetic program in that poem.
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42 in literary epigram as well.92 The first couplet as a whole is structurally akin to
prohibitions or incantations harmful or impure forces. A “lex sacra”, for instance, might
state that the sacred space will not accomodate the presence of the impure and order them
to keep away, as in SGO 1.01.17.01: πόρρω ἀπ᾽ ἀθανάτων ἔργεο καὶ τεµένους· | οὐ
στέργει φαύλους ἱερὸς δόµος ... .93 Leonidas' epigram, by comparison, lightly
personifies his meal-tub, saying that it "does not know" (οὔτι ... οἶδε, 1-2) how to feed
mice. Robert points to parallels in later amulets and magical papyri, and notes that
inscribed lintels also carry such messages.94 The epigram's closing, meanwhile, with its
urge to the addressee to “hurry off”, evokes the language of imprecation against
interlopers in religious ritual and mystery rites.95
This affinity with the stylized language of religious ritual and leges sacrae may
partly explain the slightly strange mixture of subjective and objective modes of
expression in the poem.96 Leonidas begins by speaking of himself indirectly, with the
genitive in line 2. He then speaks of himself once again in the third person, or else
perhaps as an instance of a type—ὁ πρέσβυς (with ἐστίν implied) in line 3. The aorist in
line 4, the poet’s statement of his ethical principle, is the only first-person verb in the
92
For an example in literary epigram, see AP 9.189, addressed to the women of Lesbos,
beginning with the phrase ἔλθετε πρὸς τέµενος, possibly in imitation of Sappho fr. 53.
On the programmata, see I. Petrovic, 2011, 273-275.
93
The inscription, which has been dated anywhere between the 3rd century BCE and 2nd
century CE, is quoted and discussed in I. Petrovic, 2011, 269.
94
Robert, 1965, v. 13, 268. Cf., e.g: Φῦγε ἀπ᾽ ἐµοῦ, πᾶν κακόν, πᾶν πο[νηρόν] (P.
Gr. Mag. II, P 5 d), cited by Robert, 1965, v. 13, 270. Cf. Weinreich, 1938, 42, n. 31, on
the Haussegen (“house-blessing”) lintel-inscription quoted by Diogenes Laertius VI.50
(incidentally in the context of a Cynic anecdote). Compare the incantation against
headache (SH 900) ascribed in a papyrus of the 1st c. BCE to Philinna of Thessaly: φεῦγ᾽
ὀδύν[η] κεφάλης … .
95
Cf. I. Petrovic, 2011, 269, n. 18, on the particular connection of this language with
mystery-rites.
96
This feature is touched upon by Criscuolo, 2003, 334, n. 50.
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43 poem. Adding a further nuance to the speaking voice, the poem closes with a touch, the
phrase τἀµὰ δὲ λιτά (7), that is reminiscent of sepulchral inscriptions. This phrase,
which Leonidas applies to his hut and simple food, is similar to inscribed verses such as,
e.g, IG II2 10345 (Attica, early 4th century BCE), lines 6-8:
…
χαίρε[τ]ε οἱ παρι<ό>ντες, ἐγὼ δέ γε τἀµὰ φυ<λά>ττω.
You passersby farewell; I guard what is mine.
The second word of the Leonidean poem, ὑπέκ, is uncommon in epigram and
belongs instead to the stylistic register of hexameter epic.97 The juxtaposition of this
preposition with its object, the "hut" (καλύβη),98 thus introduces a note of parodic
incongruity, which is heightened when we learn that the addressee of Leonidas'
imprecation is a group of mice, who have come to raid his meal-tub.99
97
A TLG search for ὑπέκ reveals no uses outside of hexameter/elegiac poetry apart from
Leonidas and an epigram of Automedon. For its use in epic, cf. Criscuolo, 2004, 41, who
aptly notes, “[la parola] ben rende l’immagine dei topi che, scavato un passaggio, entrano
ed escono di sotto la casa.”
98
A reasonably clear sense of the type of shelter denoted by the word can be got from the
passages cited in LSJ: a small dwelling, capable of being erected impromptu (see Thuc.
I.133), apparently without foundations or cellar (see Hdt. V.16, where καλύβαι are
erected on a wooden platform over a lake). They are connected with laborers: cf. Leon.
AP 7.295 as well as the fishermen’s shelters, apparently some sort of tent, at [Theoc.]
XXI.6-8, a poem on the theme of penia: Ἰχθύος ἀγρευτῆρες ὁµῶς δύο κεῖντο γέροντες
| στρωσάµενοι βρύον αὖον ὑπὸ πλεκταῖς καλύβαισι, | κεκλιµένοι τοίχῳ τῷ
φυλλίνῳ. Pan constructs a similar shelter for Cadmus when the latter is posing as a
goatherd in order to deceive Typhon at Nonnus, Dionysiaca, I.369-375. It is noteworthy
that the mouse at the opening of the Batrachomyomachia says that he was born and bred
in such a house (γείνατο δ’ ἐν καλύβῃ µε καὶ ἐξεθρέψατο βρωτοῖς, 30).
99
Gigante, 1971, 58 takes this feature of Leonidas’ style as imparting an epic seriousness
to his subjects (cf. “nobiltà lessicale”, p. 63). Similarly Puglia, 1992, 97, who speaks of
“il profondo messagio di dignità e frugalità”. I would suggest, however, that the effect of
this stylistic device may vary depending upon the context in which it is employed, and
thus, with Robert, 1965, v. 13, 269, find a certain humor in the poem. (Cf. my discussion
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44 The mice invading the poet's hut are called dark or shadowy (σκότιοι),
presumably because they try to conceal themselves by hiding in corners and holes. His
"poor meal-tub" (πενιχρή | σιπύη, 1-2)100 is incapable of feeding the beasts, he claims,
because he keeps on hand only as much food as he requires (αὐταρκής, 3)--a matter of
principle for him and his ancestors (ταύτην ᾐνέσαµεν βιοτήν, 4).101 He then implores
the mice to go somewhere where they will find fuller stores of food (πλειοτέρην ...
ἁρµαλιήν, 8), since his own are slight (τἀµὰ δὲ λιτά, 7). The old man's character and
social standing are vividly expressed, and his attempt to reason with the pests that invade
his house, in combination with the bathos created by the use of high-style diction to
sketch such a humble scene, adds to the epigram’s parodic or mock-epic effect.102
Uses of mice in fable are also suggestive of the associations Leonidas’ epigram
may have had for ancient readers. In the story of the mus urbanus and mus rusticus
(Babrius 108 = Aesopica 352 Perry, cf. Horace, Serm. 2.6), the town mouse invites the
country mouse to dine at his home after enjoying a simple meal in the country. They raid
the pantry, but are caught by the ταµιοῦχος of the house (who used to be called the
of 6.300, above.) The mixture of humor and seriousness is reminiscent of iambos (see
Acosta-Hughes, 2002, 218-20) and is taken up in the Cynic σπουδαιογέλοιον (cf., e.g.,
Diogenes Laertius VI.83, describing the works of Monimus: παίγνια σπουδῇ λεληθυίᾳ
µεµιγµένα).
100
Hollis, 2009, 9 (on Hecale fr. 35.1) suggests that the word σιπύη is taken over from
Old Comedy.
101
Here Leonidas presents his own life as conforming to that advocated in AP 7.472.
Geffcken, 1896, 127, n. 1, sees this as an acknowledgement by Leonidas of his
philosophical predecessors, but it can simply be read as a mark of the traditionalism
typically associated with old men in Greek literature.
102
Mice were a topic ripe for mock-epic treatment: in addition to the Molorchus episode
in the Hecale, cf. the whole of Batrachomyomachia. Horace, at Ars Poetica, 139, uses
the mouse as a symbol of the failure to achieve epic grandeur: parturient montes,
nascetur ridiculus mus (“The mountains labor and a ridiculous mouse is born”).
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45 “bailiff” in British English). After they escape, the country mouse tells the town mouse,
“you enjoy the luxury of all of these victuals, I am happy with the nourishment of
security and freedom.” The situation and the message of Leonidas’ epigram are similar,
but in his epigram, we might say, Leonidas acts the part of both ταµιοῦχος and country
mouse, shooing away the mice and proclaiming his satisfaction with a humble but
independent existence.
Once again, an additional layer of signficance is added when we consider the
philosophical background of the epigram. The poem is practically a compilation of
themes and motifs suggestive of Cynicism, and particularly of the stories that grew up
around its best-known exponent, Diogenes of Sinope. As I have already mentioned, a
humble existence and its corollary principles of αὐταρκεία and λιτότης are fundamental
parts of the Cynic lifestyle.103 Leonidas’ irascibility recalls the attitude of various Cynics
toward potential followers and the general public—the Cynic dog was known for its
ability to bite.104 The reference to the choice of a certain lifestyle (cf. ταυτὴν ᾐνέσαµεν
βιότην, 4) is characteristic of Cynic discourse, which focuses on action rather than
doctrine.105 Of particular interest is the use of Leonidas’ material possessions—his food
and hut—as symbols of his lifestyle. This is another key trait of Cynic discourse, where
the very bare necessities of life are of central ethical significance.106 The form of the
epigram itself, moreover, which resembles a miniature mime, has ties to Cynic literary
103
See, for instance, the Cynic maxim reported by Diogenes Laertius VI.11: αὐτάρκη
τὸν σοφόν.
104
See, e.g., D. L. VI.3; 4; 21; 24; cf. Dudley, 1937, 37. 105
Dudley, 1937, 51. 106
On the importance of food in Cynic thought, see Dudley, 1937, 44. The πίθος in
which Diogenes slept is, of course, a well-known symbol of Cynicism. Cf. D. L. VI.104,
on the accoutrements typical of Cynic λιτότης.
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46 production.107 The genres of epigram and mime were both very well suited for the
expression of Cynic sentiments, since each accommodated the representation of the life
of the poor. On its own, none of these elements is exclusively “Cynic”, but in
combination they tie Leonidas’ epigrams closely with both the style and substance of
contemporary Cynic discourse.
The language and ideas of the epigram are tightly integrated into the larger
Leonidean corpus. Gutzwiller has pointed out connections between this poem and AP
6.300, and has suggested that the mice-epigram likely came second after that poem in an
edition of epigrams organized by Leonidas himself.108 This suggestion gains plausibility
from the quasi-religious language of the mice epigram, which would complement the
explicitly religious dedicatory epigram it may have followed.109 This case must of course
remain speculative in the absence of direct evidence about such a collection, but
prominent placement in an introductory position of some kind would be consistent with
the remarkable success of the poem among subsequent epigrammatists.110
Leonidas’ character in the epigram bears a marked resemblance to another mock-
107
Dudley, 1937, 68. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 111-12.
109
Hymns, of course, are a feature of prooimia from Homer onwards. Other forms of
religious language are also found at the beginning of poetry books, as in Meleager's
reference to the readers of his anthology as initiates of a mystery cult (µύσται, AP
4.1.57); cf. the address to the dead spirits of Callimachus and Philitas at Prop. III.1.
110
Ariston, only a name to us, composed an imitation (AP 6.303 = HE III, discussed
below) in which he asks the mice to go elsewhere rather than feed on his books, the
implication being that these are all he has. If Gow and Page are right to assign Ariston to
Meleager's Garland, then Ariston is perhaps to be credited with an important innovation
on Leonidas' original. On this epigram see Gutzwiller, 1998a, 112. Cf. Herodicus of
Babylon I EG = Athen. 5.222a, who takes the step of incorporating Cynic invective
against grammarians into epigram (cf. Bion of Borysthenes F5B and 6 Kindstrand).
108
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47 epic protagonist, the figure of Molorchus in the third book of Callimachus’ Aetia.111
Leaving aside narrow questions of dependency or influence, the effect of the mixture of
epic and non-epic elements in the epigram may be better understood if we compare the
two passages.112 This comparison will inturn set the stage for a consideration of the
mice-epigram within the larger context of Leonidas’ poetic project. In the third book of
the Aetia, Heracles has stopped at Molorchus’ house on his way to face the Nemean lion.
During his stay, Molorchus, a poor man, finds his house assailed by mice, which he
dispatches by means of his new invention, a mousetrap. Stylistic features, as well as the
juxtaposition of Molorchus’ battle with the mice and Heracles’ with the Nemean lion,
contribute to a marked mock-epic effect in this scene.113 Like Leonidas, Molorchus
addresses the mice with exasperation (fr. 54c 12-14 Harder ≈ SH 259 ≈ fr. 177 Pf.):
“ὀ̣χληροὶ τί τ̣ο[δ’] α̣ὖ γείτονες ἡµέ[τ]ερ̣ο̣ν
ἥ̣κατ’ ἀποκναί̣σοντες, ἐπεὶ µάλα [γ’] οὔτι φέρο̣[ισθε;
ξ]εί̣νο̣ι̣ς̣ κωκυµ̣οὺς ἔπλασεν ὔµµε θεός.”
“Troublemakers, why have you come as neighbors
to destroy our home, even though you will get nothing from
it? A god created you as a source of wailing for your hosts.”
Note how the rhetorical appeal is the same as Leonidas’: why do you come to my house,
where there is so little food to steal?114 There is a further (albeit slight) verbal parallel at
111
Ambühl, 2004, presents a detailed comparison of the Molorcus episode and the
Hecale, arguing that they are versions of the same type-scene calibrated to different
generic contexts. Elements of Leonidas’ description of his own poverty recall Hecale fr.
74 Pf., where (it seems) one of the talking crows describes the lifestyle of Hecale (in the
fr. cf. λιτόν, 3, and κρῖµνον, 5).
112
As to the question of the influence of one of the passages on the other, I think we must
reserve judgment considering that the underlying premise of the scenes is a simple one
and there are only minor verbal similarities. 113
Harder, 2012, 389.
114
For οὔτι φέρο̣[ισθε, 13 compare Leonidas’ οὔτι πενιχρὴ, 6.302.1. Callim. uses οὔτι
in this sedes three other times (frr. 278 and 801 Pf. and Hymn to Delos, 198).
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48 line 25 of the same fragment, where Molorchus’ possessions are ἔργα πενιχροῦ (with
which compare Leonidas’ πενιχρὴ | σιπύη). The Callimachean passage shows how a
similar character was used to humorous effect in a clearly mock-epic context. Perhaps
more importantly, both the Molorchus episode and Leonidas’ epigram use the encounter
with the mice as a new way of approaching epic. Yet while such Callimachean
experimentation and play with generic categories has received a great deal of attention,
Leonidas’ has gone largely neglected even though, as I will argue, Leonidas too is
concerned with how to adapt the epic tradition to the expression of new ideas and subject
matter.
The theme of exile touched upon in AP 6.300 is developed further in Leonidas’
self-epitaph AP 7.715:
AP 7.715 - Leonidas of Tarentum = XCIII HE (Text = HE)
Πολλὸν ἀπ’ Ἰταλίης κεῖµαι χθονὸς ἔκ τε Τάραντος
πάτρης, τοῦτο δέ µοι πικρότερον θανάτου.
τοιοῦτος πλανίων ἄβιος βίος· ἀλλά µε Μοῦσαι
ἔστερξαν, λυγρῶν δ’ ἀντὶ µελιχρὸν ἔχω,
οὔνοµα δ’ οὐκ ἤµυσε Λεωνίδου· αὐτά µε δῶρα
5
κηρύσσει Μουσέων πάντας ἐπ’ ἠελίους.
Far from Italy and from my fatherland of Taras I lie;
this to me is more bitter than death. This life of wanderers is
no life at all. Yet the Muses have looked kindly upon me,
and so instead of pains I have what is sweet. The name of
Leonidas will not dim: the gifts of the Muses will herald me
for all time.
Scholars, assuming that the poem was meant for inscription, have occasionally doubted
the authenticity of the poem on the grounds that the poet would have been unlikely to
“predict” the place of his death in this way.115 As the poem unfolds, however, the basic
115
The authenticity of the epigram was rejected on these grounds by Geffcken. GowPage also express doubts, since (HE II, 390), "the temptation to ascribe the lines to L. is,
in view of their content, obvious", but at the same time allow that "the case against [the
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49 conceit of all epitaphs in which the deceased speaks (and thus by definition self-epitaphs)
takes on a particular significance. At the end of line 3 the poet turns to consolation: the
favor shown him by the Muses outweighs his sorrows (3-4) and even allows him to
overcome death itself (5-6). Here the form of the self-epitaph, in which the poet speaks
“from beyond the grave” is itself a pointed illustration of this transcendent power of
poetry.
As was the case in Leonidas’ other autobiographical epigrams, the themes here
reflect broader popular-philosophical, and particularly Cynic, ideas.116 The rejection of
worldly pursuits in favor of poetry, in particular, is closely paralleled in a fragment of
Cercidas.117 The epigram also concretizes the precepts presented by Leonidas elsewhere.
In addition to the reminiscences of AP 7.472, the poem recalls AP 7.736, in which
Leonidas warns the listener against an itinerant lifestyle. The subject matter and form of
the epigram, as well as the inclusion of the epigrammatist’s name, have suggested to
many scholars that this book occupied a closural position within a Leonidean poetry
collection.118 The recapitulation of the motif of “gifts” (δῶρα, 5) from AP 6.300,
perhaps an originally introductory poem, provides some further evidence in favor of the
hypothesis, since this kind of “book-ending” effect is paralleled, for instance, in the
epigram’s authenticity] is not strong." More recently, however, the authenticity has been
defended by Gigante, 1971, 20, n. 25.
116
See, e.g., Dudley, 1937, 87, on the themes of itinerancy, poverty, health, wealth,
homeland, and self-sufficiency in the Cynic author Teles.
117
For the address to the soul on the exhortation to poetry as recourse against the power
of death, cf. Cercidas F 3.6-7 Lomiento: πάντα τεοῖσι δ᾽ ὑπ̣ὸ̣ σ̣π̣λ̣α̣γχνο̣ις ἔσκ̣᾽ ἁ̣β̣ρὰ
̣ ̣
Μουσῶν κνώδαλα, | Πιερίδων θ᾽ ἁ̣λ[ι]ευτὰς ἔπλεο θυµέ, καὶ ἰχνε̣υ̣τ̣ας ἄριστ[ο]ς. Cf.
Dudley, 1937, 84. Livrea, 1997, has suggested that the same passage of Cercidas
influenced Callimachus’ self-representation in the prologue to the Aetia.
118
So Gabathuler, 1937, 68, and Gigante, 1971, 81.
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50 arrangement of Meleager’s Garland.119 If it was intended as a concluding piece, it would
serve to recapitulate in a vivid and concrete way the ethical pronouncements made earlier
in the book. Note especially how the language hearkens back to AP 7.472 (esp.
πικρότερον θανάτου, 2, cp. στυγνοτέρη θανάτου, 7.472.6), and how the sorrow of a
life of wandering in this poem points back to Leonidas’ warning against seafaring (AP
7.736). So, in addition to the philosophical and thematic coherence of the poem, its
position within the book, coupled with its invocation of key Leonidean themes, would
have lent it extra force.
This epigram illustrates yet another means for constructing the poetic subject, this
time through comparison not with an earlier poet, but with a character from earlier
literature, Odysseus. The alliterative first three lines, (n.b. Πολλὸν, πάτρης,120 and
τοιοῦτος πλανίων) echo the beginning of the Odyssey:
Ἄνδρα µοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς µάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε·
πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω,
πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυµόν,
ἀρνύµενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.
Like Nossis sending a message to Sappho in AP 7.718, Leonidas, in what was likely the
final poem of his collected epigrams, looks outward to the broader poetic tradition. He
frames his representation of himself and the world in which he lives in terms of the model
offered by Homer’s Odyssey.121 In the background behind this rather prominent textual
allusion may be a more subtle reference to the Iliad. The doleful tone of the first couplet
119
Cf. Dettmer, 1997, on similar compositional patterns in the polymetra of Catullus.
In this context, πάτρης at the beginning of line two is evocative of the phrase
πατρίδα γαῖαν, which occurs often in the Odyssey.
121
The allusion to the Odyssey in Leonidas’ self-epitaph is discussed by Gutzwiller,
2012, 105-107. Gigante, 1971, 81, emphasizes the connection between Leonidas’ praise
of Homer in AP 9.24 and his claim to immortality in his self-epitaph in AP 7.715.
120
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51 may remind us of Achilles’ words at the end of the the poem (24.540-542): οὐδέ νυ τόν
γε |γηράσκοντα κοµίζω, ἐπεὶ µάλα τηλόθι πάτρης | ἧµαι ἐνὶ Τροίῃ, σέ τε κήδων ἠδὲ
σὰ τέκνα (“I will not take care of him [Peleus] in old age, but remain at Troy far from
my fatherland, bringing pain to you and your children”). On this reading, Leonidas has
deftly combined reflections on the importance of homeland drawn from each of the
Homeric epics.
In certain other respects too, the function of the self-epitaph is quite similar to that
of Nossis’ AP 7.718. Indeed, the similarities between the two may have been one of the
reasons Meleager situated them closely together in the preserved Garland-sequence of
epigrams on poets and other famous figures running from 7.707-719 in the Palatine
Anthology. Leonidas’ representation of himself as a wanderer like Odysseus in turn
reflects back onto the contents of Leonidas’ book: in his humble subjects we can find
parallels, as Gigante did, with the diverse cast of characters who people the Odyssey as a
whole.122 Just as Nossis’ persona placed a Sapphic stamp upon her epigrams as a
collection, through his connection to the Odyssey the figure of Leonidas ties the contents
of his book to the earlier literary tradition, and marks them, taken together, as a kind of
“revision” of Homer.123
122
Cf. Gigante, 1971, 77-8: “Leonida riconobbe in Omero … l’esemplare poeta del
romanzo umile dell’Odissea, il creatore di personaggi domestici come Laerte, Penelope,
Eumeo, Euriclea, … . Ma sopratutto Omero non ignorò gli umili artigiani … i ‘lavoratori
del popolo … .”
123
One could equally well compare Asclepiades’ sphragistic poem AP 12.50, where the
author portrays himself as part of the same erotic-sympotic milieu depicted in his
epigrams.
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52 In referring to the Odyssey, Leonidas was very likely influenced by Cynic authors
who had already made Odysseus into a kind of Cynic hero.124 Cynic authors such as
Crates of Thebes, moreover, had repurposed Homeric epic for the expression of Cynic
ideas in a parodic poetic form. It is plausible, then, that Leonidas drew upon the existing
tradition of reading the Odyssey through a Cynic lens, and combined this with the form of
epigram to produce a picture of a world of humble figures for whom the poet himself is a
kind of spokesperson.
Leonidas’ combination of inscriptional forms with subject matter and ethos drawn
in part from a Cynic reading of the Odyssey thus bears many similarities to the
experimental strategies of other early literary epigrammatists. His use of Homeric epic,
however, places him within yet another current of literary innovation during the
Hellenistic period, the renovation of the epic tradition, in which, as we shall see further
below (ch. 3), he came to play an influential role.
The importance of Homer (and the broader epic tradition) for Leonidas’ poetic
self-conception is given further emphasis by AP 9.24 and 9.25, epigrams in praise of
Homer and Aratus respectively:125
AP 9.24 – Leonidas of Tarentum XXX HE 126
Ἄστρα µὲν ἠµαύρωσε καὶ ἱερὰ κύκλα σελήνης
ἄξονα δινήσας ἔµπυρος ἠέλιος·
ὑµνοπόλους δ’ ἀγεληδὸν ἀπηµάλδυνεν Ὅµηρος
124
Cf. Montiglio, 2011, 66-94.
It is somewhat surprising that in spite of their collocation in AP the two epigrams have
never to my knowledge been discussed in connection with each other. Gow and Page, for
instance, even situate them remotely from one another in their edition. 126
Although Planudes ascribes AP 9.24 to “Antipater”, its Leonidean authorship has
rarely been doubted. Argentieri, 2003, 209, plausibly suggests that Planudes, or the MS
from which he was working, may have fallen into error due to the fact that in the AP (and
originally in Cephalas) epigrams 9.23 and 9.26, which enclose the epigrams on Homer
and Aratus, are each by Antipater of Thessalonica.
125
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53 λαµπρότατον Μουσῶν φέγγος ἀνασχόµενος.
As it turns on its axis the fiery sun dims the stars and the
holy circle of the moon. Homer (too), holding up the
brightest light of the Muses, has obscured the whole crowd
of other poets.
AP 9.25 – Leonidas of Tarentum CI HE
Γράµµα τόδ’ Ἀρήτοιο δαήµονος, ὅς ποτε λεπτῇ
φροντίδι δηναιοὺς ἀστέρας ἐφράσατο,
ἀπλανέας τ’ ἄµφω καὶ ἀλήµονας, οἷσιν ἐναργὴς
ἰλλόµενος κύκλοις οὐρανὸς ἐνδέδεται.
αἰνείσθω δὲ καµὼν ἔργον µέγα, καὶ Διὸς εἶναι 5
δεύτερος, ὅστις ἔθηκ’ ἄστρα φαεινότερα.
This is the writing of learned Aratus, who once with subtle
understanding explained the ancient stars—the unmoving
ones and the wanderers both—by the orbits of which the
bright heaven is entwined. He should be praised as having
accomplished a great work, and as worthy of being second
after Zeus, since he has made the stars brighter.
I would like to sidestep for the moment some problems involving the second poem in
particular and concentrate first on some overlooked literary dimensions of the epigrams.
AP 9.24 pays tribute to Homer’s preeminence among poets—a practically indisputable
truism in antiquity.127 Just as the sun, when it appears, renders the other stars invisible,
Homer’s excellence renders other poets “invisible”, that is negligible, by comparison.128
While Gigante and others are right to regard the poem on Homer as a statement of literary
allegiance (rather than, say, an epideictic “exercise”),129 the real point of this sentiment
only comes through when we read it alongside AP 9.25, on Aratus’ Phaenomena.
Parallels of imagery and structure, moreover, suggest that the two poems were composed
127
The major exception, the Certamen of Homer and Hesiod, in which Hesiod is named
the victor, only winds up proving the rule.
128
The equation is paralleled, perhaps in imitation of Leonidas, at Inschriften von
Pergamon 203.13-14: τόσσογ γὰρ ἐπὶ χθονὶ φ̣έγγος ἔλαµψε | Μουσάων ὁπ̣όσον
τείρεσιν ἠέλιος.
129
Gigante, 1971, 77.
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54 to be read together, regardless of how they came to occupy their present position in the
Palatine Anthology.130
Leonidas uses imagery to create a metaphorical expression of the relationship
between the subjects of the epigrams. Each uses astronomical imagery, and in particular
the topos of the sun extinguishing the other stars, as a metaphor for poetic status. In
Aratus’ case, this imagery takes on an added significance, since it also reflects the content
of his poem, a didactic epic on astronomy. Note how the first line of the Homer epigram,
where the topos is invoked, is nicely balanced by the last line of the epigram on Aratus:
Homer had dimmed the stars; Aratus makes them brighter. Note too how the opening of
the first epigram, Ἄστρα µὲν ἠµαύρωσε, is answered by the last words of the second,
ἔθηκ’ ἄστρα φαεινότερα. Furthermore, the logic of the imagery—and by extension the
relationship between the two poets—is encapsulated in the balanced, line-initial
adjectives: Homer’s superlative (λαµπρότατον) is answered by Aratus’ comparative
(δεύτερος, and cf. φαεινότερα at line end).131
The connection between the epigrams goes deeper than these neatly balanced
elements of structure and imagery. When Leonidas praises Homer’s supreme luminosity,
and goes on to praise Aratus’ less-powerful, but still impressive ability to “illuminate” his
130
The order of the epigrams at the beginning of book IX is due, most proximately, to
Constantine Cephalas. Perhaps he found them this way already in the Garland of
Meleager.
131
“Anspielung auf den Titel des Buches,” notes Gabathuler, 1937, 68. There is a further
layer of subtlety to the formulation if Bing, 1990, is correct in seeing a playful reference
in Leonidas’ Διός … δεύτερος to the opening of the Phaenomena, where the initial
invocation of Zeus is followed directly by a possible pun on Aratus’ own name (ἄρρητον
≈ Ἄρητος). In this sense, as Cameron, 1995, 322, points out, Aratus’ name literally
comes “second after Zeus” in the Phaenomena. Cf. Volk, 2012. On other plays on
Aratus’ name, see Prioux, 2005.
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55 subject matter, we are to read this as a comment on the nature of the relationship between
the modern poet and his archaic model.132 Aratus does not rival Homer in sheer
luminosity, but within the confines of his subject he has achieved, somewhat
paradoxically (note the contrast between λεπτῇ φροντίδι and ἔργον µέγα), the stylistic
effect in which Homer was unquestionably supreme.
The pairing of Leonidas’ epigrams on Homer and Aratus offers a new point of
departure for thinking about Callimachus’ famous epigram in praise of Aratus:
Callimachus AP 9.507 = LVI HE = 27 Pf.
Ἡσιόδου τό τ᾽ἄεισµα καὶ ὁ τρόπος· οὐ τὸν ἀοιδόν
ἔσχατον, ἀλλ ὀκνέω µὴ τὸ µελιχρότατον
τῶν ἐπέων ὁ Σολεὺς ἀπεµάξατο. χαίρετε λεπταί
ῥήσιες, Ἀρήτου σύµβολον ἀγρυπνίης.
4 σύµβολον ἀγρυπνίης Ruhnken σύντονος ἀγρυπνίη P σύγγονος
ἀγρυπνίης Achilles vita Arati 5.78.28 Maass
The song and the style are Hesiod’s; not, however, did he
copy the poet completely, yet I dare say that he has imitated
the very sweetest of his verses. Hail, subtle words, the token
of Aratus’ wakefulness.
We will return below to some of the problems of interpretation presented by this epigram
in a moment, and focus for now on its relationship to Leonidas’ poem. Scholarly
accounts have typically taken Callimachus’ epigram as chronologically primary and,
from a literary standpoint, the foundation for the Leonidean “imitation”. Thus, Leonidas’
praise of Aratus becomes an epideictic exercise rather than a real expression of poetic
ideals.133 As to the chronological relationship, I think we must say non liquet.134
132
In the same vein, Bing 1988a, 29, has argued that the word γράµµα here and
elsewhere (e.g Asclepiades AP 9.63 on Antimachus’ Lyde) points to the gap between a
primarily oral mode of poetic composition and reception and labor-intensive composition
dependent upon writing and written to be read.
133
Cf. Gabathuler, 1937, 68-69: “auf den Spuren des Kallimachos … . [Leonidas] spricht
nicht als Verehrer und Kenner des Dichters, sondern benutzt einfach dargebotenen Stoff,
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56 Regardless of who wrote first, it seems that each author articulated his praise of Aratus
through a connection with an earlier generic model, Leonidas using Homer, Callimachus
Hesiod. Each epigrammatist is interested in the dynamics of literary tradition; for each of
them, Aratus’ poem serves as the occasion to explore the possibilities of recreating some
aspect of the poetry of the past in the present. Here, the tradition of ancient scholarship
on the Phaenomena may offer a useful lens through which to read the epigrams. One of
the Vitae of Aratus records that scholars engaged in a complicated dispute over whether
Aratus was properly to be considered the emulator (ζηλωτής) of Homer or Hesiod:135
ζηλωτὴς δὲ ἐγένετο τοῦ ὁµηρικοῦ χαρακτῆρος κατὰ τὴν τῶν ἐπῶν
σύνθεσιν. ἔνιοι δὲ αὐτὸν λέγουσιν Ἡσιόδου µᾶλλον ζηλωτὴν γεγονέναι.
καθάπερ γὰρ ὁ Ἡσίοδος τῶν Ἔργων καὶ Ἡµερῶν ἀπαρχόµενος τῶν ὕµνων
ἀπὸ Διὸς ἤρξατο λέγων “Μοῦσαι Πιερίηθεν ἀοιδῇσι κλείουσαι, / δεῦτε Δί’
ἐννέπετε”, οὕτω καὶ ὁ Ἄρατος τῆς ποιήσεως ἀρχόµενος ἔφη “ἐκ Διὸς
ἀρχώµεσθα”· τά τε περὶ τοῦ χρυσοῦ γένους ὁµοίως τῷ Ἡσιόδῳ, <καὶ>
κατὰ πολλοὺς ἄλλους µύθους. Βοηθὸς δὲ ὁ Σιδώνιος ἐν τῷ (15) πρώτῳ περὶ
αὐτοῦ φησιν οὐχ Ἡσιόδου αὐτὸν ζηλωτήν, ἀλλ’ Ὁµήρου γεγονέναι· τὸ γὰρ
πλάσµα τῆς ποιήσεως µεῖζον ἢ κατὰ Ἡσίοδον. πολλοὶ µὲν γὰρ καὶ ἄλλοι
Φαινόµενα ἔγραψαν, καὶ Κλεόπατρος καὶ Σµίνθης καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ
Αἰτωλὸς καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἐφέσιος καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Λυκαΐτης καὶ
Ἀνακρέων καὶ Ἀρτεµίδωρος καὶ Ἵππαρχος καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοί, ἀλλ’ ὅµως
λαµπροτέρα γέγονε πάντων ἡ Ἀράτου δύναµις ἐπισκοτήσασα τοῖς ἄλλοις.
He was an emulator of the Homeric style in the composition of his verses. Some
say that he was more an emulator of Hesiod. For just as Hesiod when he began
his Works and Days started his hymns from Zeus, saying “Muses from Pieria
who give glory in songs, come now and sing of Zeus,” so too Aratus, at the
beginning of his work said, “Let us begin from Zeus.” And in his account of the
Golden Age he is also like Hesiod, and in several other stories. Boethus of
Sidon, however, in his first volume on him [sc. Aratus], says that he was not an
emulator of Hesiod, but of Homer. For the style of his verse is grander than it is
um ihn auf seine Weise zu variieren und mit seinem Vorgänger zu wetteifern.” Against
this judgment cf. Cameron, 1995, 323.
134
The most thorough discussion of the particular problems associated with AP 9.25 is
Amerio, 1981 (with discussion of the attribution p. 111, n. 1). Cf. Izzo D’Accinni 1958,
305.
135
Maass, p. 12, ln. 7 - p. 13 ln. 5. The passage is brought into connection with
Callimachus’ epigram by Gabathuler, 1937, 60. Cf. Cameron, 1995, 380; Riedweg,
1994, 128; and the brief discussion of Klooster, 2011, 157. A connection to Leonidas’
epigram has never been proposed.
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57 in Hesiod (?). For many others wrote works on/called Phaenomena, including
Cleopatros, Sminthes, Alexander Aetolus, Alexander of Ephesus, Alexander of
Lyke, Anacreon, Artemidorus, Hipparchus, and many others, but all the same,
Aratus’ capacity proved more splendid than all and cast a shadow over the others.
There are many points of contact between the epigrams and this passage, beginning with
the basic comparison of Aratus with either Homer or Hesiod. The Vita, moreover, treats
first lines of the Phaenomena as a locus for the articulation of Aratus’ relationship with
his models. So too, as already discussed above, the epigrams of Leonidas and
Callimachus engage on a minute level with the first lines of the Phaenomena. Then, in
the summary of the judgment of Boethus of Sidon (2nd century BCE), we find the very
stylistic quality of splendor (cf. λαµπροτέρα in the final sentence of the Vita-passage)
used to connect Aratus with Homer rather than Hesiod. Moreover, it was by virtue of this
splendor, Boethus claims, that Aratus “outshone” his competitors in the field of
astronomical poetry.136 The point in citing this passage from the Vitae as a comparandum is not
necessarily to suggest that the epigrams exercised a direct influence on the later tradition
(although this is possible).137 Instead, I would like to emphasize how the passage
presents in an explicit and synthetic way what is presented in the epigrams in a
disconnected, implicit, literary-symbolic way. The various texts, that is, represent two
different modes of a unified literary-critical discourse. 136
There is a shade here of the epigram ascribed to “King Ptolemy” (FGE, 84), in which
he assigns Aratus first place among authors of Phaenomena.
137
On the enormous influence of Callimachus’ epigrams in general, see Gutzwiller,
1998a, 183. The epigram on Aratus is in fact directly cited by another of the Vitae Arati
(p. 9, ln. 10 Maass). Epigrams are also used elsewhere as evidence in literary critical
arguments. So, e.g., the fragment of Callimachus’ epigram on Antimachus’ Lyde (fr. 398
Pf.) is cited in a discussion of literary style in the Vita Dionysii Periegeta (Cf. Kassel,
1985).
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58 We may now be in a better position to assess the literary function of Leonidas’
paired epigrams in praise of Homer and Aratus in the larger context of his allusion to the
Odyssey in his self-epitaph and his reworking of Homeric style elsewhere. The third
century was a time in which various authors experimented with the integration of new
material into the epic tradition. In addition to Aratus’ astronomical poem, we could
mention Theocritus 11, featuring the young Polyphemus in love, the depiction of the
young Medea (and much else) in Apollonius’ Argonautica, and Callimachus’
unconventional Hecale, a short epic centered on the meeting of a young hero (little more
than a child) and a poor, elderly woman. Later on, the author of the Batrachomyomachia
turned to the inspiration of both Callimachus and Leonidas—among others—to craft the
quintessential mock epic. In the case of Callimachus’ Hecale, Gutzwiller has argued that the genesis of the
poem can be located within contemporary literary-critical debates about the relationship
between poetic style and the scale (or more simply, length) of a work. The Hecale is a
meeting point between diverse elements, “a juxtaposition of high and low that promotes a
reexamination of grand epic through the lens of the humble.”138 Leonidas’ epigrams
could be viewed as a (very extreme) example of the same phenomenon, combining
marked elements of epic with the (equally marked) description of humble figures. This
may go a long way towards explaining Leonidas’ praise of Aratus. Scholars have often
regarded the Phaenomena as appealing to an exceptionally learned readership made up of
people like Callimachus.139 What Leonidas admired in Aratus was not just his learning,
138
Gutzwiller, 2012, 240.
This aspect of Aratus’ reception is emphasized, e.g., by Bing, 1993b. While the
elements of recondite, playful erudition he points out in the poem should hardly be
139
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59 however, but rather the way in which he was able to mold the epic tradition to new poetic
purposes and to integrate new content and stylistic effects into it. The preceding discussion has shown that Leonidas’ paired epigrams in praise of
Homer and Aratus, which have seemed to many scholars to be merely derivative and
even vapid, can be connected, if read as a diptych, with his project of reenvisioning the
epic tradition within the generic framework of epigram (recall again Leonidas’ prominent
allusion to Odysseus’ travels in his self-epitaph AP 7.715). As a result of recent
scholarship showing the artistry with which ancient poetry books were often composed,
scholars are generally less apt to treat epigrams as isolated works, but rather as parts (or
what were originally parts) of larger poetic ensembles.140 Reading groups of two or more
epigrams as coherently designed artistic creations is a natural consequence of this shift in
scholarly reading habits. The idea of an epigram “group” is an elastic one: Epigrams
situated together in the same inscriptional context,141 or in proximity to one another on a
papyrus roll, epigram “companion-pieces”,142 or epigrams on the same subject or sharing
a similar form, could all be said to form groups of different kinds. We should also
discounted, it seems nevertheless that the Phaenomena held still further attractions for
ancient audiences that we as yet do not understand.
140
Compare, however, Barchiesi, 2005, who emphasizes the fundamental instability of
ancient poetry books, which are always subject to reordering, supplementation, or
excerption.
141
Many examples of this phenomenon could be adduced. In the particular case of poetepigrams, IG XIV.1183 and 1188 (three epigrams apiece on Menander and Homer
respectively; the inscriptions date to the 3rd c. AD) and Inschriften von Pergamon 203
(three epigrams on the birthplace of Homer) stand out.
142
On this sort of epigram-pair, in which epigrams present information supplementing
one another see Kirstein, 2002. Among extant poet-epigrams, the only examples which
fit Kirstein’s exacting definition are Callimachus’s epitaphs for his grandfather and
himself (AP 7.415 and 7.525 respectively).
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60 imagine epigrams grouped thematically in live performance. We have already seen how
Leonidas’ epigrams on Homer and Aratus “shed light” on one another when read as a
diptych on epic poetry. By reading epigrams by a series of poets of the third and earlysecond centuries BCE, Callimachus, Dioscorides, and Alcaeus of Messene, we will see
that this systemic approach to the composition of epigrams about poets is quite a
pervasive trend.143 Reading epigrams as groups will allow us, moreover, to get a clearer
idea of how assessments and representations of other poets are, for certain
epigrammatists at least, part of larger coherent literary projects. Callimachus’ epigrams and the Aetia prologue
The self-reflexive function of the representation of other poets is prominently
illustrated in the epigrams of Callimachus, whose praise of Aratus, AP 9.507, we have
already touched on above. I quote the text again for convenience here:
Callimachus AP 9.507 = LVI HE = 27 Pf.
Ἡσιόδου τό τ᾽ἄεισµα καὶ ὁ τρόπος· οὐ τὸν ἀοιδόν
ἔσχατον, ἀλλ ὀκνέω µὴ τὸ µελιχρότατον
τῶν ἐπέων ὁ Σολεὺς ἀπεµάξατο. χαίρετε λεπταί
ῥήσιες, Ἀρήτου σύµβολον ἀγρυπνίης.
4 σύµβολον ἀγρυπνίης Ruhnken σύντονος ἀγρυπνίη P σύγγονος
ἀγρυπνίης Achilles vita Arati 5.78.28 Maass
The song and the style are Hesiod’s; not, however, did he
copy the poet completely, yet I dare say that he has imitated
the very sweetest of his verses. Hail, subtle words, the token
of Aratus’ wakefulness.
143
See, in general, Gabathuler, 1937. Cf. Skiadas, 1965, and Bolmarcich, 2002, on
epigrams on Homer. Bing, 1988b on Theocritus’ epigrams on poets; Fantuzzi, 2007a on
Dioscorides’ epigrams on dramatists; Barbantani, 1993, and Acosta-Hughes and
Barbantani, 2007, on epigrams on lyric poets; Rosen, 2007, on epigrams on Archilochus
and Hipponax. Though beyond the scope of this study, Pini, 2006, on a group of
epigrams on poems and poets in Martial’s Apophoreta, deserves consideration alongside
studies of the Hellenistic material.
Campbell
Chapter 1
61 Much has been written about the text and interpretation of this epigram.144 My view is
that Callimachus praises the Phaenomena on the grounds that in it Aratus has imitated
Hesiod not “all the way” (ἔσχατον), but rather has “skimmed off” the sweetest part of
his verses.145 Two points need to be addressed at the outset regarding the text of line 1
and the (much contested) line 4. Although an Oxyrhynchus papyrus now provides the
reading ἀοιδῶν (Scaliger’s emendation),146 I am not convinced by the interpretations so
far offered of the resulting text and print the ἀοιδόν transmitted in AP and the MSS of
the Vita Arati. I am also not convinced by attempts to defend the transmitted σύντονος
ἀγρυπνίη in line 4, and print Ruhnken’s widely-accepted σύµβολον ἀγρυπνίης instead.
Although Callimachus and Leonidas trace Aratus’ poetic genealogy back to
different sources, Hesiod and Homer respectively, it nevertheless seems that they praise
him for essentially the same reasons. For each of them, Aratus’ importance lies in the
essential stylistic quality of his work and its relation to his models. His work is
recognizably kindred to the foundational works of Greek epic, yet at the same time
possesses something that marks it as different. For Leonidas, this was a quality of
luminosity, which brings the astronomical contents of Aratus’ work into detailed focus-“illuminating the stars”, as Leonidas puts it. The movement of Callimachus’ epigram
stresses the same quality of uncanny similarity to and difference from the epic tradition in
Aratus’ poem. The beginning of the epigram, the terse subjective genitive plus noun in
the style of a “book tag” or sillybos, quickly gives way to something both more complex
144
See esp. Cameron, 1995, 374-379, for discussion of competing interpretations.
This is, substantially, the interpretation of Kaibel, 1894, 121, which is also endorsed
by Cameron, 1995, 377
146
See, e.g., the interpretation of Obbink, 2005, who argues in support of the papyrus
reading.
145
Campbell
Chapter 1
62 and ambiguous. Whereas ἄεισµα had seemed at first to be simply the substantive
(“song”) derived from the verb ἀείδω (“sing”), the immediate addition of another
element, ὁ τρόπος, indicates that we must be dealing with some specialized use of the
word: both the ἄεισµα and the τρόπος are aspects of the work (taking ἄεισµα to mean
“the kind of song”—i.e. the meter/genre—and τρόπος the “style”), but neither of them is
identical to the work. In these particular aspects, the work resembles that of Hesiod, but
this resemblance does not go all the way (οὐκ ἔσχατον).147 Like Leonidas, Callimachus
singles out a particular quality, in this case sweetness, as the locus for the articulation of
the uncanny relationship between Aratus and Hesiod. The sweetness is an element of
Hesiod’s work, but by “skimming it off” or “taking a mold of it” (ἀπεµάξατο), isolating
and condensing it, Aratus has created something truly new.
In both Callimachus and Leonidas, what is being celebrated is a new, selfconscious and sophisticated form of µίµησις or ζήλωσις distinct from simple copying.
The generation of poets and literary critics writing at the end of the fourth and beginning
of the third centuries had to create and develop this mode of composition themselves, but
we can see the theoretical fruits their work ultimately bore, as for example in the subtle
account of µίµησις given by Longinus:
ἐστὶν δ᾽ οὐ κλοπὴ τὸ πρᾶγµα, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἀπὸ καλῶν ἠθῶν ἡ πλασµάτων ἢ
δηµιουργηµάτων ἀποτύπωσις (de sublimitate, 13.4)
“This thing [mimesis] is not theft, but is just like a mold taken of fine figures for
sculptures and other artworks.”
147
Other scholars, reading τὸν ἀοιδῶν | ἔσχατον, have found in this line a reference to
Homer, the ἔσχατος ἀοιδῶν (whatever that would mean). See Cameron, 1995, 374-375,
for discussion of the difficulties of this approach.
Campbell
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63 Although in Longinus we find a “fully-formed” conception of imitatio that postdates
Callimachus, the conceptual connection between Callimachus’ epigrams and this later
literary criticism is not merely accidental, but an indication that the two texts are engaged
in the same kind of discourse.148 For Callimachus’ poetic works quite often involve the
practice of literary criticism (the classification and judgment of works of poetry) within
the different generic frameworks of hymn, iambus, elegy, and so on. Callimachus’ poetic
persona, in short, is as much a literary critic as the Callimachus who composed the
Pinakes. As Gutzwiller puts it, “his creative presence within the collection [of epigrams]
is detectible through his constant self-reflection, in both theory and practice, upon his
own literary, intellectual, and emotional position.”
We have seen that Leonidas’ epigram on Aratus fits alongside both his praise of
Homer (AP 9.24) and his reworking of Homeric epic within the generic framework of
epigram (AP 7.715). Callimachus composed quite a large number of epigrams about
poets (including himself), works of poetry, and poetic principles. Like Leonidas’
epigrams on Homer and Aratus, Callimachus’ epigrams on poetics ask to be read
alongside one another, and create a coherent picture when we do. I would like now to
consider how Callimachus’ epigrams on Aratus and other poets are connected to one
another, and how they in turn relate to his broader poetic program, particularly as
expressed in the prologue to the Aetia. The literary program that is presented in the two
passages, I will argue, is essentially the same, but cast in two different generic molds. To
put it another way, the epigrams present a literary-critical poetic program that is distinctly
148
Tueller, 2008, 173-174, proposes a further connection between Callimachus’ Aratus
epigram and sculpture, arguing that the epigram was inspired by Nossis, AP 6.354, on a
statue of a woman.
Campbell
Chapter 1
64 epigrammatic in form, and the way in which Callimachus redefines and challenges
generic elements of epigram (e.g. praise and sorrow) mirrors his aims and innovations as
a poet and critic. As other poets had made epigram into a vehicle for sympotic or Cynic
content, Callimachus adapts the genre to the purposes of literary criticism and to his own
revolutionary aesthetic principles.
We will start with the Aetia prologue and move from there to the epigrams,
illustrating points that connect with one another and with the ideas and images of the
prologue. The Aetia prologue is one of the most widely studied passages in all of
Hellenistic poetry, but in spite of intense scholarly interest in its literary background, the
collective significance of these similarities has never been explored.149 The connections
with the epigrams are so pervasive, however that we might justly view the Aetia prologue
as the transposition of Callimachus’ poetological epigrams into a connected elegy, or,
depending on which we believe to have been written first, the epigrams as the resolution
of the elegiac program into individual tesserae.150
Callimachus, Aetia fr. 1.1-37 (text = Harder, 2012)
Πολλάκ⌟ι µοι Τελχῖνες ἐπιτρύζουσιν ἀ⌞οιδῇ
νήιδε⌟ς οἳ Μούσης οὐκ ἐγένοντο φίλοι,
εἵνεκε⌟ν οὐχ ἓν ἄεισµα διηνεκὲς ἢ βασιλ[η
......]ας ἐν πολλαῖς ἤνυσα χιλιάσιν
ἢ .....]. ους ἥρωας, ἔπος δ᾽ ἐπὶ τυτθὸν ἑλ[ίσσω
παῖς ἅτ⌟ε, τῶν δ᾽ ἐτέων ἡ δεκὰ⌞ς⌟ οὐκ ὀλίγη.
5
149
On allusions to earlier literature in the Aetia prologue, see Acosta-Hughes and
Stephens, 2002.
150
The relative chronology of the final edition of the Aetia and the epigrams is uncertain.
Although the epigrams may have been composed over a number of years, I follow
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 183-5, in believing that Callimachus published his own edition of
them. The prologue was added to the Aetia some time after the composition and
publication of its first edition. If we take the reference to old age at the end of the
prologue as autobiographically accurate, then it would be an edition made near the end of
the poet’s career and thus (likely) after the epigrams had been published. I regard this as
the most likely relationship between the texts, but certainty is impossible and my
argument does not rely on the epigrams’ priority.
Campbell
Chapter 1
65 ......].[.] καὶ Τε[λ]χῖσιν ἐγὼ τόδε· ῾φῦλον α[
.......]̣ τ̣ήκ[ειν] ἦπαρ ἐπιστάµενον,
......].. ρ̣εη̣ν̣ [ὀλ]ιγόστιχος· ἀλλὰ καθέλ⌞κει
.... πο⌟λ̣̣ὺ̣ τὴν µακρὴν ὄµπνια Θεσµοφόρο[ς·
τοῖν δὲ] δ̣υ̣οῖν Μίµνερµος ὅτι γλυκύς, α̣⌞ἱ γ᾽ ἁ̣π̣αλαὶ [
......] ἡ µεγάλη δ᾽ οὐκ ἐδίδαξε γυνή.
......]ο̣ν ἐπὶ Θρήϊκας ἀπ᾽ Αἰγύπτοιο [πέτοιτο
αἵµατ]ι̣ Πυγµαίων ἡδοµένη [γ]έρα[νος,
Μασσαγ˼γέ̣τ̣αι ˻κ˼αὶ µακρὸν ὀϊστεύοιε̣ν ἐπ᾽ ἄνδρα
Μῆδον]· ἀ̣η̣[δονίδες] δ᾽ ὧδε µελιχρ[ό]τεραι.
ἔλλετε Βασκανίη⌋ς ὀλοὸν γένος· αὖθι δὲ τέχνῃ
κρίνετε,] ⌊µὴ σχοί⌋νωι Περσίδι τὴν̣ σοφίην·
µηδ’ ἀπ’ ἐµεῦ διφᾶ⌋τε µέγα ψοφέουσαν ἀοιδήν
τίκτεσθαι· βροντᾶ⌋ν οὐκ ἐµόν, ⌊ἀλλὰ⌋ Διός.’
καὶ γὰρ ὅτ⌋ε πρώ̣τιστον ἐµοῖς ἐπὶ δέλτον ἔθηκα
γούνασι⌋ν, Ἀπ̣[ό]λλων εἶπεν ὅ µοι Λύκιος·
.......]... ἀοιδέ, τὸ µὲν θύος ὅττι πάχιστον
θρέψαι, τὴ]ν̣ Μοῦσαν δ’ ὠγαθὲ λεπταλέην·
πρὸς δέ σε] καὶ τόδ’ ἄνωγα, τὰ µὴ πατέουσιν ἅµαξαι
τὰ στείβε⌋ιν, ἑτέρων ἴχνια µὴ καθ’ ὁµά
δίφρον ἐλ]ᾶ̣ν µηδ’ οἷµον ἀνὰ πλατύν, ἀλλὰ κελεύθους
ἀτρίπτο]υ̣ς, εἰ καὶ στε⌊ι⌋ν̣οτέρην ἐλάσεις.
τῷ πιθόµη]ν· ἐνὶ τοῖς γὰρ ἀείδοµεν οἳ λιγὺν ἦχον
τέττιγος, θ]όρυβον δ’ οὐκ ἐφίλησαν ὄνων.
θηρὶ µὲν ο⌋ὐατόεντι πανείκελον ὀγκήσαιτο
ἄλλος, ἐγ]ὼ δ’ εἴην οὑλ̣[α]χύς, ὁ πτερόεις,
ἆ πάντ⌋ως, ἵνα γῆρας ἵνα δρόσον ἣν µὲν ἀείδω
προίκιο⌋ν ἐκ δίης ἠέρος εἶδαρ ἔδων,
αὖθι τ⌋ὸ̣ δ̣’ ⌊ἐκ⌋δύοιµ⌊ι⌋, τό µοι βάρος ὅσσον ἔπεστι
τριγ⌋λ̣ώ⌊̣ χι⌋ν̣ ὀλ⌊οῶι⌋ νῆσος ἐπ’ Ἐγκελάδωι.
....... Μοῦσαι γ⌋ὰρ ὅσους ἴδον ὄθµα⌊τ⌋ι παῖδας
µὴ λοξῶι, πολιοὺς⌋ οὐκ ἀπέθεντο φίλους.
10
15
20
25
30
35
The Telchines are often muttering at my song,
ignorant and no friends of the Muse,
since I did not complete a single, continuous poem … kings
… in many thousands of lines …
or on heroes, but unroll my verse little by little,
like a child, although the decade of my years is not short.
… and I say this to the Telchines: … race
knowing (only?) how to melt your livers,
… of few lines, but the nourishing Lawgiver outweighs by
much the long …
but of the two, that Mimnermos is sweet, the smooth (?) …
… but the big woman did not teach.
… Let the crane that delights in the blood of pygmies
fly from Egypt to Thrace,
and the Massagetai take long shots at the Median man,
but nightingales are sweeter like this.
The hell with you, destructive breed of Spite! Judge poetry
on the basis of skill, not by the Persian chain; do not look for
a loud-sounding song to be born from me:
thundering is Zeus’ business, not mine.
Campbell
Chapter 1
66 For when I first placed my tablet upon my knees,
Lycian Apollo said to me:
‘… singer, rear a sacrifice as fat as possible, but keep your
Muse slim, my good man. And in addition I bid you do this:
to tread where wagons do not, not to drive your chariot in the
same tracks as others, and not along the broad road, but on
the untrodden paths, even if it means driving on a narrower
path.
I heeded him, for my audience is those who love the clear
sound of the cicada, and not the noise of asses.
Let someone else bray like a long-eared animal,
let me be the small one, the winged one.
Ah, in every way, so that old age, so that dew, the one I may
eat as free food from the shining air as I sing,
and the other slough off, which is a weight upon me as heavy
as the three-cornered island upon ruinous Enceladus.
… for the Muses do not desert those friends when they are
grown old, upon whom they looked not cock-eyed when
they were youths.
The prologue (as I will refer to it for the sake of convenience) raises many textual and
interpretive problems, around which a vast forest of scholarship has grown up.151 It falls
into four basic parts: an introduction relating certain criticisms of Callimachus’ poetry
voiced by critics (called ‘Telchines’) (1-6); Callimachus’ retort (7-20); his account of
Apollo’s instructions to him at the beginning of his career (20-28); and finally his account
of and justification for his own poetic practice (29-38). In short, the prologue constitutes
a multi-faceted discussion of poetic criticism from the point of view of Callimachus in his
capacities as critic and poet.
My interest here is confined to a number of parallels between the prologue and
Callimachus’ epigrams. Commentators have of course noticed a number of points of
connection between the two, but as far as I know there has been no extended discussion
of the interconnections and their significance. I would like to argue here that we find in
151
In general, see the commentary of Harder, 2012, whose discussion incorporates the
scholarship that has appeared since Pfeiffer.
Campbell
Chapter 1
67 the epigrams a generically “epigrammatic” rendering of what is, essentially, the same
poetic program represented in a different generic framework in the prologue to the Aetia.
The same poetic issues are at the heart of both texts: the appropriate style of poetry and
the poet’s relationship to his models (especially early epic). A somewhat more subtle
theme, yet a crucial one for both the epigrams and Aetia, is what I would call the poet’s
relationship to “society”—that of his fellow poets and critics as well as society more
broadly defined. In the prologue and in the epigrams, then, Callimachus is concerned
with the (literary) past, but also with the poet both in contemporary society and in relation
to posterity. The tradition of inscribed epigram, with its emphasis on praise and the
transmission of glory across space and time, provides a fruitful conceptual field for
Callimachean literary discourse. In his “epigrammatic program” (as I would call it)
Callimachus’ reconfiguration of these traditional epigrammatic categories mirrors his
own iconoclastic poetic agenda.
Near the center of the Aetia prologue is Apollo’s famous advice to the poet:
Callimachus, Aet. fr. 1.23-4
.......]... ἀοιδέ, τὸ µὲν θύος ὅττι πάχιστον
θρέψαι, τὴ]ν̣ Μοῦσαν δ’ ὠγαθὲ λεπταλέην·
… poet, rear your sacrifice as fat as possible,
but your Muse, my good man, make thin.
The couplet clearly recapitulates a distinction made in the epigrams between different
stylistic qualities of poetry, “fatness” and “thinness”. Rebutting an epigram by
Asclepiades in praise of Antimachus’ Lyde, Callimachus derides the style of the work:
Callimachus, HE LXVII = fr. 398 Pf.
Λύδη καὶ παχὺ γράµµα καὶ οὐ τόρον.
The Lyde is a thick writing and not clear.
Campbell
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68 As we have already seen, instead of the Lyde Callimachus prefers Aratus’ Phaenomena,
which embodies the stylistic quality of leptotes. The epigram on Aratus can, furthermore,
be readily integrated with two other epigrams, HE LV and AP 9.565, about poets, poetic
inheritance, and fame.152
Callimachus HE LV = 6 Pf. (Text = HE)153
Τοῦ Σαµίου πόνος εἰµὶ δόµῳ ποτὲ θεῖον ἀοιδόν
δεξαµένου, κλείω δ᾽ Εὔρυτον ὅσσ᾽ ἔπαθεν,
καὶ ξανθὴν Ἰόλειαν, Ὁµήρειον δὲ καλεῦµαι
γράµµα. Κρεωφύλῳ, Ζεῦ φίλε, τοῦτο µέγα.
I am the work of the Samian, who once upon a time received
the divine singer in his home. I sing of all that befell
Eurutos, and of tawny Ioleia, and am called a Homeric
writing. Dear Zeus!—what a great thing this is for
Creophylus.
The initial genitive (the poet) plus nominative (the work) matches the epigram on Aratus
as does ἀοιδόν at the end of the first line. The phrase “γράµµα. Κρεωφύλῳ,” matches
the metrical form and—although broken up by punctuation—the sense of the phrase
ῥήσιες Ἀρήτου (note that both phrases occur in the fourth line of their respective
epigrams). Meanwhile, γράµµα at the beginning of the final line recalls the first line of
the epigram on the Lyde (παχὺ γράµµα, fr. 598 Pf.); if we had more of that poem than
just the first six words, perhaps we would find some additional points of connection with
both the Aratus and Creophylus poems.
The epigrams on Aratus and on Creophylus each deal with epic poets and their
relationship to the past. The two poems create an interesting contrast: in the Aratus
epigram, the speaker begins with the identification of the poem as Hesiod’s, only to move
152 Gow
and Page seem to have acknowledged some affinity between the poems in their
ordering (LV on Aratus; LVI on Creophylus; LVII on Theaetetus) 153 Quoted by Strabo 14.638 Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. 1.48; Σ Dion. Thr. 160.12; Eustathius
331.5. Campbell
Chapter 1
69 away from this tentative position and arrive at the “right answer”, that the poem belongs
to Aratus. In the Creophylus epigram, meanwhile, what the poem boasts is precisely the
fact that it is believed (however wrongly) to be by Homer. Herein lies Creophylus’
“great” achievement (τοῦτο µέγα): to have created a good enough simulacrum of
Homer that his work actually passes for Homer’s. Callimachus’ praise of Creophylus
may then be double-edged: judged by one standard, Creophylus’ poem is on a par with
Homer himself, but by Callimachus’ own standard, his epic is merely a simulacrum or a
fake—the wrong kind of imitation.154
Scholars have not noted the pointedness of the distinction between Callimachus’
representation of Aratus, who skimmed off only the sweetest part of the poetry of Hesiod,
and Creophylus, who made a convincing replica of Homeric poetry.155 In light of this
incongruity, I think we ought to read the µέγα of the final line of the Creophylus epigram
as ironic. After all, for Callimachus, this is not necessarily a term of approbation. In
addition to the famous formula, τὸ µέγα βιβλίον ἴσον ἔλεγεν εἶναι τῷ µεγάλῳ κακῷ
(“he used to claim that the big book was equal to the big trouble”) (fr. 465 Pf.), in the
prologue we find him saying:
Callimachus – Aet. fr. 1.17-20
ἔλλετε Βασκανίη⌋ς ὀλοὸν γένος· αὖθι δὲ τέχνῃ
154
Regarding the sincerity of Callimachus’ praise, see the various views surveyed by
Cameron, 1995, 400-401. Gabathuler, 1937, 61, takes the poem to be clearly ironic and
in fact meant as a slight against Creophylus, whose work represents the type of “cyclic
poem” attacked by Callimachus in AP 12.43.1 = II HE (ἐχθαίρω τὸ ποίηµα τὸ
κυκλικόν). Gow and Page, HE vol. 2 merely say, “no criticism of the poem as a whole is
intended, though the quatrain as a whole may be slightly disparaging.” Cameron himself,
p. 401, taking the poem at face value (and believing it to be destined primarily for
“[Callimachus’] own or a library copy of Creophylus”) asserts, “it would be a
compliment for any poet to have a poem mistaken for Homer.” 155
For a reading of the Creophylus and Aratus epigrams as a contrasting pair representing
negative and positive forms of imitation (respectively), see Peirano, 2012, 224-5.
Campbell
Chapter 1
70 κρίνετε,] ⌊µὴ σχοί⌋νωι Περσίδι τὴν̣ σοφίην·
µηδ’ ἀπ’ ἐµεῦ διφᾶ⌋τε µέγα ψοφέουσαν ἀοιδήν
τίκτεσθαι· βροντᾶ⌋ν οὐκ ἐµόν, ⌊ἀλλὰ⌋ Διός.’
20
The hell with you, accursed spawn of Envy. Judge poetic
skill by craft, not according to the Persian chain. Don’t
expect a big-sounding song to be born from me. Thundering
belongs to Zeus, not to me.
The Creophylus epigram, like this passage, has to do both with the kind of poetry one
composes as well as the reputation one gets for it. As a criterion for the evaluation of
poetry, Callimachus proposes τέχνη, rather than simple measurement of length, an
absurd procedure he imputes to the Telchines. Creophylus, then, may be the kind of poet
whom the Telchines would praise, if he produced a work of suitable grandeur (i.e. size)
as to be mistaken for Homer. At very least, Callimachus’ standard of τέχνη contrasts
with the cruder one of likeness that the poem of Creophylus boasted for itself.
A similar irony (again involving the adjective µέγα) may be at work in an
epigram commemorating little Simos’ dedication of a mask of Dionysus, in thanks
(perhaps) for a victory in a schoolroom competition:
AP 6.310 – Callimachus = XXVI HE = 48 Pf.
εὐµαθίην ᾐτεῖτο διδοὺς ἐµὲ Σῖµος ὁ Μίκκου
ταῖς Μοῦσαις, αἱ δὲ Γλαῦκος ὅκως ἔδοσαν
ἀντ᾽ ὀλίγου µέγα δῶρον. ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἀνὰ τῇδε κεχηνώς
κεῖµαι τοῦ Σαµίου διπλόον, ὁ τραγικός
παιδαρίων Διόνυσος ἐπήκοος· οἱ δὲ λέγουσιν
῾ἱερὸς ὁ πλόκαµος᾽, τοὐµὸν ὄνειαρ ἐµοί.
Simos, son of Mikkos, begged for learning and gave me to
the Muses, and they, like Glaucus, gave a great gift in return
for a small one. So I am set up here gaping twice as wide as
the Samian, I the tragic Dionysus, an audience for the kids.
They say, “sacred is the lock,” telling me my own dream.
Fantuzzi hones in on the first word, εὐµαθίη, attested only rarely, and then only in prose,
before the Hellenistic period. This word, he argues is meant to set up a contrast with AP
7.22, by Simias, where the same quality is praised in Sophocles. Whether or not we read
Campbell
Chapter 1
71 the beginning of Callimachus’ epigram as an allusion to Simias’, it seems that Fantuzzi is
correct to find a larger reflection on literature in the epigram. As he puts it,
“[Callimachus] implicity evokes a panorama of contemporary theater in which the tragic
εὐµαθία was no longer the extraordinarily creative εὐµαθία evoked by Simias for
Sophocles, but the reproductive εὐµαθία of school boys who learned selections from the
classic theater by heart”. On this reading, we may find some irony in the words of the
mask, when it says that, “the Muses, like Glaucus, gave him a great (µέγα) gift” (3).
Simos’ victory in the school contest, which is what the epigram seems to commemorate,
is a “great gift” only by a reckoning of value that Callimachus himself (through the
intermediary of the mask) distances himself from.
The epigram need not offer a judgment of the theater or poetry performed at
festivals tout court. Instead, in drama, as in other forms of poetry, Callimachus is
concerned with the distinction between originality and slavish reproduction of earlier
models. The latter may win praise from certain quarters, but Callimachus himself is
concerned to mark out space for a different standard of poetic excellence. Reversing the
jibe of the Telchines, who had accused him of composing poetry “like a child” (παῖς ἅτε,
Aet. fr. 1.6), Callimachus likens slavish imitators to schoolchildren competing in a
contest.
The questions of reputation and originality are examined from another angle in
Callimachus AP 9.565, on the dithyrambist Theaetetus:156
AP 9.565 – Callimachus = LVII HE = 7 Pf. (Text = Pf.)
Ἦλθε Θεαίτητος καθαρὴν ὁδόν, εἰ δ᾽ ἐπὶ κισσόν
τὸν τεὸν οὐχ αὕτη, Βάκχε, κέλευθος ἄγει
156
Perhaps to be identified with the “Theaetetus” whose epigrams are included in the
Greek Anthology. See RE v, 2, 1372 (‘Theaitetos’, 4). Cf. Cameron, 1995, 59.
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72 ἄλλων µὲν κήρυκες ἐπὶ βραχὺν οὔνοµα καιρόν
φθέγξονται, κείνου δ᾽ Ἑλλὰς ἀεὶ σοφίην.
Theaetetus traveled an unsullied path, and, even if this path
did not lead him to your ivy, Bacchus, heralds will call the
names of others for a short time, but Hellas will shout of his
wisdom forever.
This epigram offers a good opportunity to examine how Callimachus engages with
inscriptions as forms and with the idea of the inscribed epigram. A tension arises in the
epigram from the distance between the praise offered by Callimachus and the civic praise
offered to winners in poetic competitions by heralds and commemorated in celebratory
epigrams.157 While the tragic mask, the memorial of Simos’ glory, laments its
confinement in the schoolroom, Callimachus has in mind an audience imagined as
unlimited in time and space. By the same token, although Theaetetus has not won
recognition for his works, in the future all of Greece will celebrate his art forever.
The ideas of originality, poetic success, and the relation between the two, are
further developed in Callimachus’ oeuvre. The image of the path in the Theaetetus
epigram recurs in his epigram about Pittacus AP 7.89 (= 1 Pf.), in which the Atarneitan
stranger asks the sage for advice about his prospective marriage. Pittacus tells him to
follow the example of a group of boys who are playing with tops on the ground, telling
each other to “follow your own path” (τὴν κατὰ σαυτὸν ἔλα). The epigram ends with
these same words, now addressed to the reader of the epigram itself.158 The words of the
boys are echoed by Callimachus himself in AP 12.43 (see the introduction above):
157
Fantuzzi, 2007b, 484.
See Gutzwiller, 1998a, 224-6, who proposes that the Pittacus epigram came first in
Callimachus’ edition of his epigrams and served a programmatic function. She integrates
it with the epigrams on Theaetetus and Aratus with that on Pittacus, calling it “another
imagistic illustration of Callimachus’ philosophy of life and poetics.” (226) On the
158
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73 AP 12.43.1-2 - Callimachus
Ἐχθαίρω τὸ ποίηµα τὸ κυκλικὸν οὐδὲ κελεύθῳ
χαίρω τὶς πολλοὺς ὧδε καὶ ὧδε φέρει·
…
I hate the cyclic poem, and I do not like the path that carries
crowds hither and thither.
Here Callimachus himself takes up the quality he had praised in Theaetetus, the
enigmatic advice of the Pittacus epigram. In poetry, as in love, he despises what is
common and used.159 The same idea reappears in lines 25-8 of the prologue, where it is
now Apollo who gives advice to the poet:
πρὸς δέ σε] καὶ τόδ’ ἄνωγα, τὰ µὴ πατέουσιν ἅµαξαι
τὰ στείβε⌋ιν, ἑτέρων ἴχνια µὴ καθ’ ὁµά
δίφρον ἐλ]ᾶ̣ν µηδ’ οἷµον ἀνὰ πλατύν, ἀλλὰ κελεύθους
ἀτρίπτο]υ̣ς, εἰ καὶ στε⌊ι⌋ν̣οτέρην ἐλάσεις.
25
There is more at stake here than a mere topical resemblance to the epigrams. Theaetetus’
career becomes a template for Callimachus’ own as represented in the prologue.
Theaetetus did not achieve the kind of loud public praise won by a contestant in the
dramatic contests at Athens. Instead, Callimachus says, he will win a glory for his skill
that will transcend place (Ἑλλὰς standing pars pro toto for “the world”) and time (ἀεί).
Callimachus too does not seek to gain fame by treading in the tracks of others, and this
has brought down upon him the criticism of the “Telchines”. Nevertheless he will, like
Theaetetus, continue to follow his own path.
image of the path, see D’Alessio, 2007, v. 2, 374, n. 18; Fantuzzi, 2007b, 485; and, in
general, Asper, 1997, 21-108.
159
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 218, notes: “it is this unity of artistic and erotic selves that helps to
integrate the amatory section with the other portions of the Epigrammata.”
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74 A similar recasting of epigrammatic form in the service of literary criticism
occurs in Callimachus’ celebrated epigram on his fellow epigrammatist Heraclitus of
Halicarnassus, a meditation on poetic immortality:160
AP 7.80 – Callimachus = XXIV HE
Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν µόρον ἐς δέ µε δάκρυ
ἤγαγεν ἐµνήσθην δ᾽ ὁσσάκις ἀµφότεροι
ἠέλιον [ἐν] λέσχῃ κατεδύσαµεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ µέν που,
ξεῖν᾽ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδίη,
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.
Someone told me, Heraclitus, of your death, and it brought a
tear to my eye when I remembered how often the two of us
set the sun in leisure. I suppose that you, Halicarnassian
friend, are ancient dust, but your Nightingales live on, upon
which Hades, which snatches away all things, will never lay
a hand.
At the heart of the epigram is a topos we have seen already in the self-epitaph of
Leonidas of Tarentum, and which appears very often elsewhere: the power of poetry to
overcome death itself. However Callimachus has added another layer to the topos by
subverting the conventions of inscribed epigram. For, after all, the Heraclitus epigram is
very pointedly not an epitaph. As speaker, Callimachus distances himself from the death
and from the imagined site of the tomb, saying only “someone told me of your death” and
“I suppose you are aged dust”. The word ξεῖνος in the epigram, moreover, which in a
real epitaph would have referred to the passerby, here refers to Heraclitus himself, not a
160
It was likely on the basis of this epigram that Housman, followed by many editors,
restored ἀ̣η̣[δονίδες] in line 16 of the Aetia prologue. If this is the correct reading, this
would add yet another point of connection between the epigrams and the prologue. See,
however, the reservations of Harder, 2012, ad loc.
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75 “stranger” but the poet’s friend.161 Yet again, the treatment of traditional features of
epigram is calibrated to the literary claim Callimachus is making.
Returning to the nexus between prologue and epigrams, we come to AP 7.525,
one of Callimachus’ two preserved self-epitaphs (the other is 7.415):
AP 7.525 – Callimachus = XXIX HE = 21 Pf. (Text = Faraone, 1986):162
Ὅστις ἐµὸν παρὰ σῆµα φέρεις πόδα, Καλλιµάχου µε
ἴσθι Κυρηναίου παῖδα τε καὶ γενέτην.
εἰδείης δ᾽ ἄµφω· ὁ µέν κοτε πατρίδος ὅπλων
ἦρξεν, ὁ δ᾽ ἤεισεν κρέσσονα βασκανίης
ἄχρι βίου. Μοῦσαι γὰρ ὅσους ἴδον ὄµµατι παῖδας
5
µὴ λοξῷ πολιοὺς οὐκ ἀπέθεντο φίλους.
5 ἄχρι βίου huc transposuit Faraone e v. 6: οὐ νέµεσις P Pl
6 µὴ λοξῷ Σ Hes.: ἄχρι βίου P Pl 5-6 secluserunt multi
Whoever you are who carry your foot past my tomb, know
that I am the child and the father of Callimachus of Cyrene.
You might know them both: the one led the infantry forces
of his fatherland, the other sang more powerfully than
jealousy throughout his life. For whom the Muses do not
scorn as children, they do not put aside when they are greyhaired.
The poem is ingenious—an epitaph for Callimachus’ father, who memorializes his own
father as well as his son the poet, both of whom are named “Callimachus”. Scholars have
emphasized the importance of the poem as a possible closing piece; in Gutzwiller’s
words, “the poem is clearly Callimachus’ signature piece, the only extant epigram in
which he names himself expressly”.163
161
Cf. Hunter, 1992, who analyzes Callimachus’ play with voice in the Heraclitus
epigram as an expansion or radicalization of a dynamic already present in Heraclitus’
own work (exampled by AP 7.465): “Whereas Heraclitus’ poem remains within (broadly
defined) boundaries of the funerary form, while exploring, with considerable originality,
the overt role of the poet in such a tradition, Callimachus moves completely away from
these traditional forms; they remain, however, hovering over his poem, advertising its
difference.” (123) [Emphasis added.]
162
For a defense of the transmitted οὐ νέµεσις, see Gutzwiller, 1998a, 212-3.
163
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 212, who also broaches the possibility that the epigram was
appended to the collection of Callimachus’ epigrams at the same time as the final edition
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76 It has caused great consternation among scholars that the final couplet of the
epigram cited is repeated almost verbatim in the prologue:
Aet. fr. 1.37-8:
....... Μοῦσαι γ⌋ὰρ ὅσους ἴδον ὄθµα⌊τ⌋ι παῖδας
µὴ λοξῶι, πολιοὺς⌋ οὐκ ἀπέθεντο φίλους.
This overlap between these texts has often been considered a mark of corruption in the
epigram, especially given the other difficulties involved in making sense of the text of the
epigram as transmitted. Faraone, however, has suggested that the text of the epigram
suffered partial corruption from the similar passage in the Aetia prologue,164 and that the
overlap itself represents ultimately not a corruption in either of the two texts, but a partial
self-quotation.165
According to my argument, the overlap between the epigrams and the Aetia
prologue here merely caps what is a farther reaching and more substantive set of
interconnections. Callimachus has constructed complementary representations of his
poetic program, one of them (the Aetia prologue) according to the generic rules of elegy,
the other according to the generic rules of epigram. The prologue’s central antithesis
between “thick” and “thin” style poetry is recapitulated in the paired epigrams on
Antimachus and Aratus, but there is more at stake than just stylistic preferences. As we
have seen, Callimachus’ praise of Aratus also has to do with a revolutionary vision of
of the rest of his works was being prepared, and that it was followed by the couplet AP
7.415, which was meant to “sum up” Callimachus’ entire career.
164
Faraone, 1986, with the tentative approval of Harder, 2013, 84. Unlike many other
editors, Harder does not print the supplement οὐ νέµεσις (derived from the scholia to
Hesiod) at the beginning of Aet. fr. 1.37 despite regarding it as consistent with the
context.
165
See Faraone, 1986, esp. pp. 55-6. One may be reminded of Vergil’s self-quotation of
Eclogues 1.1 at the end of the final book of the Georgics.
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77 poetic excellence that eschews direct imitation in favor of a refined, creative, and
ultimately transformative engagement with earlier models. This distinction is illustrated
in the epigrams on Creophylus and on the boy Simos, both negative poetic examples I
think, and Theaetetus, a positive example who takes the Callimachean unsullied path. In
Callimachus’ epigram on Aratus, the quality of λεπτότης, and the labor required to
achieve it, constituted the fundamental affinity between Aratus and his model, Hesiod.
When Callimachus, in the prologue, claims this quality for his own poetry, he at the same
time takes over this relationship to Hesiod, who will be invoked directly in fr. 2 (the
Somnium). Like Theaetetus in the epigrams, finally, Callimachus too will win poetic
glory not by aping Hesiod, but by “following his own path” even in the face of criticism.
Read alongside one another, the prologue and the epigrams constitute the most extensive
investigation of the relationship between the poet and other authors (his models and his
anti-models) that we have yet seen, and would provide for later poets a standard for the
representation of their own poetic values.
Alcaeus of Messene on Homer and Hesiod
Like Leonidas’ epigrams on Homer and Aratus, Alcaeus of Messene’s epigrams
on Homer and Hesiod form a kind of diptych on epic poets.166
AP 7.1 – Alcaeus of Messene XI HE
Ἡρώων τὸν ἀοιδὸν Ἴῳ ἔνι παῖδες Ὅµηρον
ἤκαχον ἐκ Μουσέων γρῖφον ὑφηνάµενοι·
νέκταρι δ’ εἰνάλιαι Νηρηίδες ἐχρίσαντο
καὶ νέκυν ἀκταίῃ θῆκαν ὑπὸ σπιλάδι,
ὅττι Θέτιν κύδηνε καὶ υἱέα καὶ µόθον ἄλλων
ἡρώων Ἰθακοῦ τ’ ἔργµατα Λαρτιάδεω.
ὀλβίστη νήσων πόντῳ Ἴος, ὅττι κέκευθε
βαιὴ Μουσάων ἀστέρα καὶ Χαρίτων.
5
166
Unlike the pair of epigrams by Leonidas, these two seem to be recognized (if tacitly)
as a pair by Gow and Page, who place them side by side in their edition. On the
relationship between the two epigrams see also Skiadas, 1965, 59.
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78 On Ios, some children brought pain to Homer, the singer of
the heroes, by weaving a riddle; but the sea-nymphs anointed
him with nectar and placed his body in a seaside cave,
because he brought glory to Thetis and her son and the
battling of the rest of the heroes, and the deeds of the Ithacan
son of Laertes. Most blessed of the islands in the sea is Ios,
since it, though small, has covered the star of the Muses and
the Graces.
AP 7.55 – Alcaeus of Messene XII HE
Λοκρίδος ἐν νέµεϊ σκιερῷ νέκυν Ἡσιόδοιο
Νύµφαι κρηνίδων λοῦσαν ἀπὸ σφετέρων
καὶ τάφον ὑψώσαντο· γάλακτι δὲ ποιµένες αἰγῶν
ἔρραναν ξανθῷ µιξάµενοι µέλιτι·
τοίην γὰρ καὶ γῆρυν ἀπέπνεεν ἐννέα Μουσέων 5
ὁ πρέσβυς καθαρῶν γευσάµενος λιβάδων.
In a shaded glen of Lokris the Nymphs of the woods washed
the body of Hesiod (with water) from their springs and
heaped up a tomb. Shepherds sprinkled a libation of goat’s
milk, mixing it with golden honey. For such song of the
nine Muses did the old man breathe forth when he had tasted
pure drops of water.
In Leonidas, we have already seen how the praise of Aratus was integrated into a larger
epigrammatic program, the aim of which was a generic recontextualization of the epic
tradition. In Callimachus, meanwhile, we saw how the epigrammatic form could be put
in service of literary critical aims. Alcaeus’ epigrams owe something to each of these
approaches. Alcaeus adopts critical terminology derived from Callimachus in order to
claim for his epigrams a line of descent from both the great figures of epic.
The epigrams are quite similar in content and structue (as Gow and Page may
have meant to suggest by arranging them side-by-side in HE). Indeed, like Leonidas’
epigrams on Homer and Aratus, which may have been Alcaeus’ inspiration, they seem to
have been composed to be read as a pair. Each begins with enigmatic references to the
stories of the poets’ deaths, requiring the reader to fill in the details. The story of
Homer’s death is referenced directly, but in a way that will not make sense to someone
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79 who does not already know the full version of the tale.167 The full story is given in the
pseudo-Herodotean Vita Homeri (35), of which the relevant passage is quoted by GowPage.168 While visiting Ios, Homer and some companions were approached by some
fisherboys who challenged them to solve the riddle, “what we caught we left behind,
what we did not catch we take with us.” (The answer: fleas.) According to the story,
Homer, unable to answer correctly, subsequently died of sadness and was buried on
Ios.169
In the epigram on Hesiod, the details of the poet’s death are evoked in an even
more roundabout way. Once again, Gow-Page summarize the story and provide the
sources.170 While staying in Locri, Hesiod was unwittingly and mistakenly caught up in
an adultery scandal. The brothers of the woman involved ambushed the poet near the
temple of Nemean Zeus in Locri, killed him, and threw his corpse into the sea. It was
carried back to shore, however, by either dolphins or sea nymphs, and was given proper
burial near the same temple of Nemean Zeus where Hesiod had been ambushed.171
The epigrams not only share the same introductory strategy, they go on to develop
precisely in parallel:172
Specification of place of
death/burial
Name of the poet
Description of funeral rites
Ios
Locri
Homer
Body anointed with nectar
by Nereids
Hesiod
Body washed with
springwater by nymphs,
167
Gabathuler, 1937, 91, calls attention to this point.
HE II, 17.
169
The story as reported in the pseudo-Herodotean vita itself closes with a simple
epigram, of which Alcaeus’ poem could be considered a kind of elaboration: ἐνθάδε τὴν
ἱερὴν κεφαλὴν κατὰ γαῖα κάλυψεν | ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων κοσµήτορα θεῖον Ὅµηρον.
170
HE II, 18.
171
Note the oblique reference to Nemea in the choice noun “νέµεϊ”.
172
Specific verbal parallels are tabulated by Skiadas, 1965, 59.
168
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80 Explanation of the
appropriateness of the rites
Reference to the
Muses/Graces
His poems featured
maritime themes
Muses and Graces
anointed with milk and
honey by goatherds
His voice was sweet
Muses
The parallel structural development of the epigrams delineates a set of oppositions
between the two poets that is reinforced through imagery. The imagery of water and land
here plays much the same role as astronomical imagery did in Leonidas’ epigrams on
Homer and Aratus, creating a framework for the metaphorical expression of the
relationship between the two poets. The tombs of Homer and Hesiod are situated
symbolically within the epigrams’ miniature landscape. This landscape, and the
epigrammatic diptych in which it is contained, is organized around the traditional
identification of Homer with the sea and Hesiod with fresh water. Although this imagery
seems to have gained a wider currency already by the third century,173 Alcaeus’
173
F. Williams, 1978, 88, says, “there are firm indications that it was already a
commonplace in the Hellenistic period.” If we take at face value Aelian’s description of
a painting by Gelaton placed (so it seems) in the temple of Homer set up by Ptolemy IV
Philopator, then it would seem that the image of Homer as Ocean was certainly available
by the last quarter of the third century BCE: Πτολεµαῖος ὁ Φιλοπάτωρ
κατασκευάσας Ὁµήρῳ νεών, αὐτὸν µὲν καλὸν καλῶς ἐκάθισε, κύκλῳ δὲ τὰς πόλεις
περιέστησε τοῦ ἀγάλµατος, ὅσαι ἀντιποιοῦνται τοῦ Ὁµήρου. Γαλάτων δὲ ὁ
ζωγράφος ἔγραψε τὸν µὲν Ὅµηρον αὐτὸν ἐµοῦντα, τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους ποιητὰς τὰ
ἐµηµεσµένα ἀρυτοµένους. (“Ptolemy Philopator set up a temple of Homer and not only
set up a fine statue of the poet himself in a fine way but set around it all the cities that lay
claim to Homer. And Galaton the painter painted Homer himself vomiting, and all the
other poets drawing off the vomit for themselves.”) A passage from Manilius (II.8-11)
cited in Williams’ appendix uses the image of Homer as the Ocean from whom other
poets, figured as rivers, draw their water. This is an example of how precisely the same
image as in Gelaton’s painting could be used in a less irreverent way.
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81 formulation of it owes a lot to Callimachus in particular, or perhaps more accurately to a
certain way of reading the end of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo (text = Pf.):174
ὁ Φθόνος Ἀπόλλωνος ἐπ᾽ οὔατα λάθριος εἶπεν·
105
῾οὐκ ἄγαµαι τὸν ἀοιδὸν ὃς οὐδ᾽ ὅσα πόντος ἀείδει.᾽
τὸν Φθόνον ὡπόλλων ποδί τ᾽ἤλασεν ὧδέ τ᾽ ἔειπεν·
῾Ἀσσυρίου ποταµοῖο µέγας ῥόος, ἀλλὰ τὰ πολλά
λύµατα γῆς καὶ πολλὸν ἐφ᾽ ὕδατι συρφετὸν ἕλκει.
Δηοῖ δ᾽ οὐκ ἀπὸ παντὸς ὕδωρ φορέουσι µέλισσαι,
110
ἀλλ᾽ ἥτις καθαρή τε καὶ ἀχράαντος ἀνέρπει
πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς ἄκρον ἄωτον.᾽
Envy whispered secretly in Apollo’s ear:
‘I do not admire the poet who does not sing as much as Ocean.’
Apollo struck Envy with his food and spoke thus:
‘Great is the current of the Assyrian River, but it carries
much muck and flotsam in its water.
The bees do not bring water to Deo from every source,
but the little drop, the very finest, which bubbles up
pure and undefiled from a sacred spring.’
This passage turns on an antithesis between the water of Ocean and fresh water that
bubbles up in small droplets from a sacred spring. Williams offers a detailed allegorical
reading of the passage: “The poet” (τὸν ἀοιδὸν) is Callimachus himself, and Phthonus
reproaches him with not singing a quantity of song equal to that of Homer, represented by
Ocean. The “Assyrian river” of Apollo’s reply (i.e. the Euphrates) represents the poet
who pursues quantity over quality in an attempt to equal Homer: the flow of the river is
great, but is contaminated with all sorts of garbage. The water gathered by the bees (like
the poetry of Callimachus), although it does not match Homer in quantity, is preferable to
the torrent of the Euphrates because it is pure and carefully selected.
Building on Callimachus’ imagery, Alcaeus’ epigrams create an antithesis
between the Ocean, represented by Homer, and fresh water, represented by Hesiod. Note
174
Note that fresh water also plays a prominent role in Callimachus’ account of his dream
(the Somnium, fr. 2 Harder), in which he visits Helicon and sees the fountain of
Hippocrene and the rivers there.
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82 how Alcaeus transforms Callimachus’ “little drop” into the inspirational water of
Hippocrene that inspired Hesiod:
Callimachus – H. 2.111-2
ἀλλ᾽ ἥτις καθαρή τε καὶ ἀχράαντος ἀνέρπει
πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς ἄκρον ἄωτον.᾽
Alcaeus – AP 7.55.5-6
τοίην γὰρ καὶ γῆρυν ἀπέπνεεν ἐννέα Μουσέων
ὁ πρέσβυς καθαρῶν γευσάµενος λιβάδων.
The reworking of the pure Callimachean droplets in the Hesiod epigram is balanced by
the reference to the sea (pontos) in Alcaeus’ Homer epigram:
Alcaeus – AP 7.1.7-8
ὀλβίστη νήσων πόντῳ Ἴος, ὅττι κέκευθε
βαιὴ Μουσάων ἀστέρα καὶ Χαρίτων.
The connection with Callimachus, I would argue, goes further than reworking of imagery
and language. In these epigrams, Alcaeus’ aim, like Callimachus’ at the end of the Hymn
to Apollo, is to carve out a position for his own poetry in relation to the most important
figures of the past.
As I have already noted, Hesiod’s burial marks his restoration to the land from
the sea, where his corpse had been wickedly deposited. Nereids are responsible for
Homer’s funeral rites, Nymphs and herdsmen for Hesiod’s. Homer is anointed with
nectar, Hesiod is washed with spring water and anointed with milk and honey. Homer’s
body is placed in a seaside cave (νέκυν ἀκταίῃ θῆκαν ὑπὸ σπιλάδι, 4), Hesiod’s tumulus
is piled up in the grove itself.
The description of the burial rites is followed by an explanation of them.175
Homer receives this treatment because he glorified Thetis, Achilles, the travails of the
175
Note the explanatory ὅττι (7.1.5) and τοίην γάρ (7.55.5).
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83 heroes, and the deeds of Odysseus. Hesiod is honored as he is because his song exhibited
a stylistic sweetness (herdsmen, of course, play a prominent role in Hesiod’s account of
his encounter with the Muses).176 Finally, as noted above, each epigram closes with a
pointed reference to water: Homer is buried on a small island in the vastness of the sea
(πόντῳ, 7), Hesiod is said to have composed poetry after he “tasted pure/fresh water”
(καθαρῶν γευσάµενος λιβάδων, 6).
The cumulative effect of these antitheses is to create, as it were, an allotment of
the natural world between Homer, who receives the sea as his portion, and Hesiod, who
receives the land.177 The allotment of separate parts of the earth to the two poets may be
read as a symbolic resolution of the traditional dispute as to which of them was the
supreme poet of epos, famously presented in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod. In this
way, the biographical details related to Hesiod’s death and reburial and the location of
Homer’s tomb are made to comment also on the nature of their poetry. The allotment of
separate spheres to the poets seems, in a way, to respond to the Certamen tradition.
There, the question was which poet was better and according to what standard, with the
prize going finally to Hesiod. In these epigrams, rather than attempting to decide the
176
Sweetness is a key metapoetic term for the genre of bucolic (cf., e.g., Theoc. Id. I.1
ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισµα…). Note that Hesiod in Alcaeus’ epigram is assimilated to bucolic
heroes like Daphnis (Theoc. Id. I) or Adonis (Bion, Epitaphium Adonidis), whose deaths
are lamented by herdsman and (by extension) the divine figures they invoke.
177
Rossi, 2002, 161-2 aptly remarks that the earth and the sea represent “the opposition
between spheres of life and pertinence”. It may be significant that, as Hunter, 2006, 1819 points out in a discussion of Paus. 9.29.5, a statue of Homer was conspicuously absent
among the statues of famous hexameter poets at an ancient shrine of the Muses at the
base of Mount Helicon. Hesiod’s doubtful status vis à vis Homer—whether in age or in
poetic skill—is a recurrent theme in the tradition about his life and work. Even when not
explicitly mentioned, Homer is frequently an unacknowledged presence in ancient
discussions of Hesiod’s poetry. In epigram, cf., e.g Mnasalcas AP 7.54, who claims that
Hesiod is the greatest poet provided that one judges according to the appropriate standard
(i.e. that of σοφία). See also Graziosi, 2002, 168-184, and Skiadas, 1965, 37-44.
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84 question in favor of one or the other, Alcaeus delineates their differences, and
accordingly allots them primacy in different natural and, by extension, poetic spheres.
The epigrams close with parallel miniature images. In Alcaeus’ epigrams, Homer
is the poet of the sea, and Hesiod the poet of seawater and the land. Yet Homer’s
epigram closes with the island of Ios—a tiny rock in the midst of the ocean—while
Hesiod’s epigram ends with the image of the drops of pure water. These wittily situated
miniatures seem to drive home the overarching message of the two epigrams. The
allotment of spheres between Homer and Hesiod has been carried out within the compass
of the epigrams. By encompassing within the world of his epigrams both masters of
archaic epic, Alcaeus claims a place for his epigrams as the continuation of both sides of
the archaic epic tradition,178 but regardless of their possible direct relevance for the nature
of Alcaeus’ own poetry (which must remain speculative given the small amount of
Alcaeus that survives), Homer and Hesiod function in the epigrams as symbols in a
dialogue between poetic past and present. The final image in each poem, the pure
droplets and the island of Ios, ingeniously represents the relationship between the genre
of epigram and these two outsized greats of the literary past. The droplets are, as it were,
the refined element that has been distilled from Hesiod and captured in epigram, while
178
In light of his praise of both Homer and Hesiod, it may be significant that included
among Alcaeus’ poems are the (extraordinarily polemical) epigrams against Philip,
emphasizing martial themes (esp. AP 7.247 and APl 5) as well as bucolic epigrams such
as APl 226 (cf. above on the “sweetness” of Hesiod as praised by Alcaeus and its relation
to bucolic poetics). On the interpenetration of bucolic and epigram, cf. Kroll, 1924, 207208.
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85 the tiny island of Ios sits in the sea—a symbol of Homeric poetry—while at the same
time Homer himself is in the island.179
Dioscorides on the History of Drama
The same set of concerns we have already seen elsewhere, the nature of poetic
innovation and the relationship between the literary past and present, underlie a
remarkable series of five epigrams on dramatists by the late third-century BCE
epigrammatist Dioscorides.180 In this miniature literary history, Dioscorides depicts the
evolution of drama as a continuous process in which each poet is both an innovator and,
in turn, an ancestor whose work forms the basis for later poets’ innovations. Dioscorides
places his subjects within an imaginary landscape in which motion, rest, and distance,
symbolize artistic progress and the relationship between poetic past and present. The
literary creativity of generations of dramatists thus acts as a bridge between different
times and places, since this creativity is both forward-looking, but also (in Dioscorides’
telling) necessarily refers back to the work of earlier poets. In this way, the epigrams also
serve as a form of self-reflection for the epigrammatist himself, and a novel turn on the
theme of literary influence in epigram.
In the first of the epigrams the speaker is Thespis, the semi-legendary inventor of
tragedy:
AP 7.410 – Dioscorides XX HE = Galán Vioque 20 (Text = Galán Vioque)
Θέσπις ὅδε τραγικὴν ὃς ἀνέπλασα πρῶτος ἀοιδήν
κωµήταις νεαρὰς καινοτοµῶν χάριτας
†Βάκχος ὅ τετριθῦν κατάγοι χορόν ᾧ τράγος ἄθλων
179
The imagery will be developed more explicitly by Antipater of Sidon (AP 7.2) who
says that Homer left his “breath” (πνεῦµα), with which he sang his songs, in the island.
On this poem, see below, chapter 2.
180
In addition to the commentary of Galán-Vioque, see esp. Fantuzzi, 2007a, and
Fortuna, 1993.
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86 χὠττικὸς ἦν σύκων ἄρριχος ἆθλος ἔτι·†
εἰ δὲ µεταπλάσσουσι νέοι τάδε, µυρίος αἰὼν
πολλὰ προσευρήσει χἄτερα, τἀµὰ δ’ ἐµά.
5
I am that Thespis, who was the first to fashion tragic song,
introducing new graces for his countrymen, †when Bacchus
led the heavy-sounding dance, for which the prize was still a
goat and a basket of Attic figs. (?)† But if the newcomers are
remolding it—long time will find many new innovations, yet
what is mine is mine.
Fraser has seen in this epigram, and the series of epigrams on dramatists as a whole, the
expression of an archaizing taste hostile to a group of “New Poets” to be identified with
Dioscorides’ contemporaries or recent predecessors, and refers to the epigrammatist’s
“conservative leanings” and “dislike of literary innovation”.181 The categories of “old”
and “new”, however, are less clearly demarcated than Fraser believes, and do not seem to
function as a simple polemical antithesis. Instead, innovation and archaism are
intermingled and confounded. Posterity, looking backwards, would describe Thespis as
the predecessor of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Thespis’ sweeping reference to
νέοι (5) is no doubt intended to remind the reader of precisely this literary historical
relationship. Dioscorides, however, as if aware that “archaic poets are never aware of the
fact that they are archaic poets”,182 has Thespis speak of himself merely as one in a series
of innovators, a “new poet” (νεαρὰς καινοτοµῶν χάριτας, 2) who looks forward to the
inventions of the “new poets” (νέοι, 5). Furthermore, as Galán Vioque notes, the
beginning and end of the poem are balanced by forms compounded from πλάσσω:
181
Fraser, 1972, v. 1, 601 and 599, respectively. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 260, sees rather the
“reflection of a contemporary appreciation of preclassical drama and its archaizing
revival in the third century.”
182
Hinds, 1998, 55.
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87 Thespis “molded” tragic song first (ἀνέπλασα, 7.410.1); others are “remolding” it
(µεταπλάσσουσι, 7.410.5).
Dioscorides’ epigram on Aeschylus, AP 7.411, announces itself as a companionpiece to AP 7.410:
AP 7.411 – Dioscorides = XXI HE = Galán Vioque 21 (Text = Galán Vioque)
Θέσπιδος εὕρεµα τοῦτο· τὰ τ’ ἀγροιῶτιν ἀν’ ὕλαν
παίγνια καὶ κώµους τούς ἀτελειοτέρους
Αἰσχύλος ἐξύψωσεν, ὁ µὴ σµιλευτὰ χαράξας
γράµµατα, χειµάρρῳ δ’ οἷα καταρδόµενα,
καὶ τὰ κατὰ σκηνὴν µετεκαίνισεν. ὦ στόµα πάντων 5
δεξιόν, ἀρχαίων ἦσθά τις ἡµιθέων.
2 τούς ἀτελειοτέρους Salm. τοὺς δὲ τελειοτέρους P
This is the invention of Thespis. The jests in the rustic
woodland and the revels still inchoate Aeschylus elevated to
a more refined level, he who carved letters not finely
chiseled, but as if worn away by a torrent, and he innovated
in regards to stage decoration. Oh mouth accomplished in
every way, you were one of the ancient heroes.
The poem begins with a direct reference to Thespis (and thus to epigram 7.410), and the
epigram turns on Aeschylus’ position as a kind of intermediate figure between Thespis
and the urbanity of Sophocles (who will be treated in AP 7.37). Invention is here looked
at from the point of view of hindsight: a prototype will inevitably seem “inchoate”
(ἀτελειοτέρους, 2, if we accept the emendation attributed to Salmasius) in comparison
with later models. After figuring Aeschylus as an innovator, the epigram turns, in line
three, to his status as an “archaic” poet, characterized by the imprecision of his “carving”
(ὁ µὴ σµιλευτὰ χαράξας). His poetry is also “elevated” (cf. ἐξύψωσεν) and weatherbeaten (χειµάρρῳ δ’ οἷα καταρδόµενα), metaphors borrowed from the contest between
Aeschylus and Euripides in Aristophanes’ Frogs.183 Since this whole scene was a well 183
For the image, Galán Vioque points to Ran., 900-902 (particularly the adjective
κατερρινηµένον, “chiseled” of the poetry of Euripides) and, for the word σµιλευτά,
Ran., 819 (σµιλεύµατα τ᾽ἔργων, again of Euripides).
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88 known point of reference for descriptions of Aeschylus, reappearing in epigram and in
the Vita Aeschyli,184 readers will have understood the description as implicitly pointing up
Aeschylus’ status as the “archaic” poet vis à vis Euripides. In the epigram, then,
Aeschylus is captured as at once archaic and innovative.
As in the epigrams on Aratus examined earlier, we can once again see here a
poetic representation of the concerns and conceptual structures of literary criticism.185
The epigram, for instance, expresses in a concise and picturesque way an observation
made in one of the Vitae accompanying the plays of Aeschylus in some manuscripts. The
writer there remarks that compared to his successors, Aeschylus’ plot construction and
language seem old-fashioned, but in comparison with his predecessors, highly complex
and innovative.186
A second diptych on dramatists by Dioscorides centers on a pair of satyr-statues,
one on the tomb of Sophocles, the other on the tomb of Sositheus.187 In the epigram on
Sophocles, Dioscorides has the statue of a satyr converse with a passerby:
AP 7.37 – Dioscorides XXII HE = Galán Vioque 22 (Text = Galán Vioque)
- Τύµβος ὅδ’ ἔστ’, ὤνθρωπε, Σοφοκλέος, ὃν παρὰ Μουσῶν
184
Ran., 1004-5, an address to Aeschylus (ἀλλ᾽ ὤ πρῶτος τῶν Ἑλλήνων πυργώσας
ῥήµατα σεµνὰ | καὶ κοσµήσας τραγικὸν λῆρον) is cited in the Vita Aeschyli (p. 331 in
Page’s Aeschylus OCT). 185
In this connection it may be relevant to note that, as G. Williams, 1968, 255, points
out, the following Dioscoridean epigrams on Sophocles and Sositheus influenced Horace
in his Ars Poetica, 220-4, which, of course, explicitly “poeticizes” literary critical theory.
186
Westermann, 1845, 122: τὸ δ᾽ἁπλοῦν τῆς δραµατοποιίας εἰ µέν τις πρὸς τοὺς µετ᾽
αὐτὸν λογίζοιτο, φαῦλον µὲν ὑπολαµβάνοι καὶ ἀπραγµάτευτον, εἰ δὲ πρὸς τοὺς
ἀνωτέρω, θαυµάσειε τῆς ἐπινοίας τὸν ποιητὴν καὶ τῆς εὑρέσεως. “If one considered
the simplicity of his dramatic technique in comparison with those who came after him,
one would suppose that it was trifling and lacking in action, but if (one considered it) in
comparison with those who came before, one would wonder at the poet’s intelligence and
inventiveness.”
187
On the epigrams as diptych, see Bing, 1988a, 39-40 and Fortuna, 1993, 238. On
Sositheus, see RE ser. 2, vol. 5, col. 1175, ‘Sositheus’ (2).
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89 ἱρὴν παρθεσίην ἱερὸς ὢν ἔλαχον·
ὅς µε τὸν ἐκ Φλιοῦντος ἔτι τρίβολον πατέοντα
πρίνινον ἐς χρύσεον σχῆµα µεθηρµόσατο
καὶ λεπτὴν ἐνέδυσεν ἁλουργίδα. τοῦ δὲ θανόντος
εὔθετον ὀρχηστὴν τῇδ’ ἀνέπαυσα πόδα.
- Ὄλβιος, ὡς ἀγαθὴν ἔλαχες στάσιν. ἡ δ’ ἐνὶ χερσί
κούριµος, ἐκ ποίης ἥδε διδασκαλίης;
- Εἴτε σοὶ Ἀντιγόνην εἰπεῖν φίλον, οὐκ ἂν ἁµάρτοις,
εἴτε καὶ Ἠλέκτραν· ἀµφότεραι γὰρ ἄκρον.
5
10
- “O man, this is the tomb of Sophocles, which I, as a priest,
received as a sacred charge from the muses. He brought me
from Phlius, when I was still tramping the threshing board,
changed me, who had been wooden, into a golden figure,
and clothed me in a fine purple cloak. When he died I
arrested my nimbly dancing foot here.”
“Lucky you to have gotten such an excellent post! But from
what play does the mask of a girl in your hand come?” –
“Whether it pleases you to say Antigone or Electra, you
won’t go wrong, for both are supreme.”
The first epigram contains a number of features that do not tally with the tradition that
has come down to us about Sophocles’ burial, indicating that the epigram describes an
imaginary tomb. Sophocles’ tomb is said to have had a statue or carving of a Siren or a
swallow on it rather than a satyr and rather than being situated ἐν ἄστει (7.707.2) it was
located at Decelea.188 The significance of these fictional elements in the first epigram
will only become apparent upon a reading of the second.
In this pair of epigrams, movement and physical appearance are elaborated as
symbols of artistic change and progress. Sophocles has transferred the satyr from city to
country and dressed him in fine new clothes—the reader almost imagines a “dressing
scene” as in Euripides Bacchae, in which Sophocles outfits the rustic satyr with citified
garments.
The posture of the inert statue is brought into sharp focus in line six, where
the phrase εὔθετον ὀρχήστην … πόδα invites the reader to picture the statue frozen in a
188
For the swallow, cf. the testimony of Pausanias, 1.21.1; for the Siren and the location
at Decelea, the Vita Sophoclis, 15.
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90 delicately poised dance step. As Fantuzzi points out, the metaphor of physical motion as
artistic progress (and its culmination) is developed through the image of the statue, frozen
in its spot.189 He argues further that the verb ἀνέπαυσα symbolizes the perfection, and
thus the cessation of progress, of tragedy in the hands of Sophocles, an idea further
supported by the final word of the epigram, ἄκρον, which suggests that, in the satyr’s
telling, Sophocles brought tragedy to the “peak” of its development.
At very least, the epigram seems to exploit the ideas of motion from city to
country and of dance as metaphors for artistic practice. The movement from Phlius to the
ἄστυ in epigram 7.37 reflects the refinement of the satyr play from its primitive origins
in the works of Pratinas of Phlius.190 AP 7.707, on Sositheus, the author of tragedies and
satyr-plays and a member of the Alexandrian “Pleiad”, sustains this spatial symbolism.
The epigram looks back to AP 7.37 explicitly, and like it is spoken by the statue of a satyr
that stands upon the tomb:
AP 7.707 – Dioscorides XXIII HE = Galán Vioque 23 (Text = Galán Vioque)
Κἠγὼ Σωσιθέου κοµέω νέκυν, ὅσσον ἐν ἄστει
ἄλλος ἀπ’ αὐθαίµων ἡµετέρων Σοφοκλῆν,
Σκίρτος ὁ πυρρογένειος· ἐκισσοφόρησε γὰρ ὡνήρ
ἄξια Φλιασίων, ναὶ µὰ χορούς, Σατύρων
κἠµὲ τὸν ἐν καινοῖς τεθραµµένον ἤθεσιν ἤδη
5
ἤγαγεν εἰς µνήµην πατρίδ’ ἀναρχαΐσας,
καὶ πάλιν εἰσώρµησα τὸν ἄρσενα Δωρίδι Μούσῃ
ῥυθµόν, πρός τ’ αὐδὴν ἑλκόµενος µεγάλην
†ἑπτά δέ µοι ἐρσων τύπος οὐχερὶ† καινοτοµηθείς
τῇ φιλοκινδύνῳ φροντίδι Σωσιθέου.
10
And I Skirtos the red-bearded tend the body of Sositheus,
just as in the city another of my brethren holds that of
Sophocles. For he, a man worthy of the Phliasian Satyrs,
won glory, I swear by the dancing-circles, and led me, who
had been brought up amongst novel customs, back to my
189 Fantuzzi,
2007a, 114, has argued that the pairing of the epigrams on Sophocles and
Sositheus, and the shift in the Sophocles epigram from satyr-play to tragedy, are meant to
represent the Aristotelian theory of tragedy as an outgrowth of satyr-play. 190
Fortuna, 1993, 240.
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91 ancestral memory and restored ancient ways. And once
again I imposed the masculine rhythm upon the Doric Muse,
drawn to his great voice … opened afresh by the risk-taking
mind of Sositheus.
Beginning with the conjunction καί, the reference to Sophocles, and to the (fictional)
satyr that guards his tomb, the epigram immediately announces itself as a companionpiece to AP 7.37.191 The location of the tomb is implied to be the country by means of a
contrast with Sophocles’, which is located in the city (ἐν ἄστει, 1). The path traveled by
Sophocles as he took tragedy from country to city is then retraced in reverse: whereas
Sophocles’ satyr claims to have been brought to the city from Phlius, Sositheus’ says that
his poet composed plays “worthy of the satyrs of Phlius” and brought them back to their
“ancestral memory”. This reversal is mirrored on the grammatical level in line 5, which
varies line 3 of the epigram on Sophocles (κἠµὲ τὸν ἐν καινοῖς τεθραµµένον ἤθεσιν ἤδη;
ὅς µε τὸν ἐκ Φλιοῦντος, ἔτι τρίβολον πατέοντα).
Sositheus’ activity in archaizing is presented almost as a form of innovation. It is
difficult to assess line 9 due to textual corruption, but it seems plausible that the participle
καινοτοµηθείς (assuming of course that it is not meant to be negated by an οὐ in the
corrupted portion of the line) indicates that Sositheus’ work is in its way innovative. Just
as the prototypical “archaic” tragedian Thespis was also, seen from another perspective,
an innovator, so too, in removing the satyr from the “novel habits” he had been made
accustomed to by Sophocles, Sositheus is paradoxically doing something new.192 Given
the prominence of the idea of migration in these epigrams, the idea of “path-breaking” in
191
Cf. Bing, 1988a, 40, on AP 7.37 and 7.707: “implicit in the unassuming καί and
κἠγώ nothing less than the entire transformation of the world into an interior, literary
landscape.” 192
Sositheus’ activity (cf. καινοτοµηθείς, 9) is made to recall Thespis’ (νεαρὰς
καινοτοµῶν χάριτας, 7.410.2) Campbell
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92 καινοτοµηθείς may be more than a dead metaphor:193 Sositheus paradoxically “breaks a
new path” on his way back to the country (note the contrast between city and country
implitic in ὅσσον ἐν ἄστει), whence Sophocles had brought the satyr play in the first
place.
AP 7.708 – Dioscorides XXIV HE = Galán Vioque 24 (Text = Galán Vioque)194
Τῷ κωµῳδογράφῳ, κούφη κόνι, τὸν φιλάγωνα
κισσὸν ὑπὲρ τύµβου ζῶντα Μάχωνι φέροις·
οὐ γὰρ ἔχεις κύφωνα παλίµπλυτον ἀλλά τι τέχνης
ἄξιον ἀρχαίης λείψανον ἠµφίεσας.
τοῦτο δ’ ὁ πρέσβυς ἐρεῖ· “Κέκροπος πόλι, καὶ παρὰ Νείλῳ 5
ἔστιν ὅτ’ ἐν Μούσαις δριµὺ πέφυκε θύµον.”
3 κύφωνα Gow κηφῆνα Athen. ἔχει σφῆναγε P
Oh light dust, may you bear living ivy that delights in
competition over the tomb for Machon, the comic poet. For
you do not contain some re-dyed slouch, but rather a worthy
remnant of ancient art. The old man will say: “City of
Cecrops, sometimes even by the Nile the bitter thyme grows
among the Muses.”
The epitaph for Machon is somewhat the “odd man out” among Dioscorides’ epigrams
on dramatists. Each of the previous examples has belonged to a pair (Thespis-Aeschylus;
Sophocles-Sositheus) marked by explicit verbal connections. Furthermore, unlike the
epigrams on Thespis and Aeschylus, which do not pretend to be inscriptional, and the
epigrams on Sophocles and Sositheus, in which (unusually) a statue located at the tomb
tells the story of its relationship to the deceased, this epigram follows traditional
inscriptional conventions rather closely.195 Athenaeus even claims that the epigram was
inscribed on Machon’s tomb, although this report should be treated with due skepticism.
In spite of these caveats, the poem shows marked thematic similarities with the other
193
Alongside the more general meanings of “begin something new” and “innovate”, LSJ,
citing late classical and early Hellenistic authors, gives “open a new vein” (as in mining)
and “cut a new path” (as in road-making).
194
= Athen. 6.241f.
195
See especially κούφη κόνι in the opening, with Galán Vioque’s note ad loc.
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93 poems on dramatists, and repays examination alongside them. Certainty is impossible,
but it seems like to have been meant to form part of the same ensemble, a kind of
appendix to the other epigrams.
As in the case of the epigram on Sositheus, the subject here is a “new” poet, this
time a native of Alexandria (according to the passage in Athenaeus where the epigram is
preserved), who hearkens back to an older style, the bitter invective typical of fifth
century Attic comedy. This is emphasized in lines 2 and 3, where the noun λείψανον,
part of the language of funerary epigram, is given a metapoetic meaning: the tomb holds
Machon’s physical remains, but even while alive, Machon was himself a λείψανον of an
earlier time.196 The epigram thus returns to key ideas from Dioscorides’ other poems on
dramatists. In the epigrams on Thespis and Sositheus, the relationship between city and
country was made into a metaphor for the relationship between primitive rustic and
refined urbane arts. In AP 7.707 Sositheus, who is praised for having brought the satyrplay back to its rustic ancestral stomping-grounds (cf. ἀναρχαΐσας, 6), accordingly has
his tomb located in the country. Space and place take on a somewhat different
metaphorical significance in the Machon epigram. Here, the tomb, located in Egypt,
nevertheless hearkens back to Attica: τοῦτο δ᾽ ὁ πρέσβυς ἐρεῖ· “Κέκροπος πόλι, καὶ
παρὰ Νείλῳ | ἔστιν ὅτ᾽ ἐν Μούσαις δριµὺ πέφυκε θύµον” (3-6). The old man of line 5
(probably to be thought of as representing comic character-type—perhaps to be imagined
as a mask represented on the tomb—rather than Machon himself), apostrophizes Attica,
saying that the “bitter thyme” also grows by the Nile—i.e. at Alexandria where Machon
196
For the various uses of λείπω and its cognates in sepulchral epigram, see Tueller,
2008, 48-9.
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94 lived at the end of his life. The reference to Attica and thyme here “closes the circle” that
was opened up with the Thespis epigram and its mention of Attic figs (7.410.4). The
generic connection between Machon and Attic comedy, the geographical relationship
between Athens and Egypt, and the local fauna—thyme, in this case—express the
complicated relationship between Machon and classical comic drama.197 Dioscorides’
epigrams constitute a sophisticated poetic representation of the development of literary
genres more complicated than a simple teleological unfolding towards eventual
perfection. Instead it is a process in which innovation and the literary past are
inextricably intertwined. In the epigram on Machon, Dioscorides opens a figurative
channel of communication between Athens and Alexandria, using the image of a plant,
which is said to grow in both locales, as a symbol of poetic affiliation between the two
places. As in Callimachus’ epigram on Aratus, moreover, the thyme also represents the
process of successful imitation. According to Callimachus, rather than just aping Hesiod,
Aratus “skimmed off” the sweetest part of his verse. So too, although Machon’s work
differs in form from that of the Attic comedians of the fifth and fourth centuries,
nevertheless he maintains from them the key element of bitter invective represented by
the “bitter thyme”.
Epigram in general was a potent vehicle for reflecting upon the past. Dioscorides,
however, shows how the intrinsic bond between epigram and physical space and objects
also made it possible to create a sort of “landscape” within which he placed the subjects
of his epigrams. This landscape, in turn, provides a framework within which to relate the
197
On thyme as a typical “stylistic ingredient” of Attic comedy, see Fantuzzi, 2007a, 120.
Fantuzzi, p. 119, aptly notes the similarity between Nossis’ invocation of Sappho and
Dioscorides’ figuration of the relationship between Machon and his predecessors.
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95 epigrams to one another conceptually.198 By telling a history of drama not just through
epigrams, but through a series of figurations of poets and poetic innovations as objects
(think of Aeschylus’ “unclear carvings” in AP 7.411), Dioscorides claims for his own
epigrams a place within the continuous process of artistic change and motion they
describe.
Epigram, Objects, and Poetic Legacy in Posidippus
In the past decade, our knowledge of the epigrams of Posidippus of Pella, a
contemporary of Callimachus,199 has been revolutionized by the publication of a papyrus,
P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309,200 containing about 112 epigrams generally accepted as belonging
to him.201 The contents of the new papyrus were surprising: from Meleager we knew
Posidippus mostly as an erotic poet in the tradition of Asclepiades;202 the Milan papyrus,
on the other hand, contains epigrams, none of them erotic, sub-divided into a number of
sections according to subject matter,203 and includes poems on subjects unattested or only
scantily attested in the Greek Anthology.204 It is as if we had known Martial from a small
anthology of skoptic epigrams, and then discovered a large cache of xenia or apophoreta.
198
On the “landscape” created by the epigrams, see, in addition to Bing, 1988a, 40 (cited
above), Höschele, 2010, 130-133. 199
For the basic information about Posidippus’ life and work, see Gutzwiller, 2005a, 3-4.
200
The editio maior is Bastianini and Galazzi, 2001; AB is the editio minor with text and
English translations. The poems from the Milan papyrus are translated by Nisetich in
Gutzwiller, ed., 2005. On the papyrus, see Stephens and Obbink, 2004; Obbink, 2004;
and Johnson, 2005.
201
AB 15 (= XX HE) and AB 65 (= XVIII HE) were already transmitted (in Tsetzes and
APl respectively) under the name of Posidippus, and formed one of the bases for the
ascription of all the Milan papyrus epigrams to him.
202
On the other non-Meleagrean sources in which epigrams of Posidippus are
transmitted, see Stephens and Obbink, 2004.
203
On the organization of poems in the papyrus, see Krevans, 2005, and Gutzwiller,
2005b.
204
On the relationship between the “Old” and “New” Posidippus, see Sider, 2004.
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96 This unique situation gives us the opportunity to consider the treatment of poets in
epigram and the construction of the authorial persona in a rather different light from the
case-studies we have examined so far. The overall impression one gets from bringing
this new batch of epigrams together with those transmitted in the Greek Anthology and
other sources (on which more in a moment) is one of diffusion and disunity, and perhaps
also of reading works that come from different stages in the poet’s career when he had
different concerns and when his talents were at an earlier stage of development.205 From
this confusion, however, a couple of common threads emerge. Like his contemporaries,
Posidippus was very interested in the dynamic of continuity and rupture with the past,
and with epigram as a vessel for preserving the poetic tradition while moving in new
directions. For Callimachus, Aratus’ “skimming” off of the sweetest part of Hesiod’s
poetry pointed the way toward a mode of composition rooted in the past but innovative at
the same time. The same basic idea underlies Posidippus’ treatment of “poetic
objects”—material objects that he imagines as imbued with the poetic tradition. These
function as temporal and geographical bridges as well as symbols, things that stand for or
in place of something but are—in Posidippus’ epigrams, quite pointedly—not that thing
itself, advertising, in a certain sense, the gap between themselves and the thing they
signify. By capturing all of these objects in his epigrams, moreover, Posidippus draws a
parallel between the function of the objects as transmitters of earlier culture and his
epigrams as the vessel in which the poetic tradition is preserved.
Posidippus thematizes the preservation of the poetry of the past in several of his
epigrams. The first two poems we will examine, preserved in the Milan papyrus,
205
On the epigrams in the Milan papyrus as examples of Posidippus’ “occasional” poetry,
see Obbink, 2005.
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97 concern, respectively, the lyre of the mythical poet Arion and a statue of the fourth
century poet and scholar Philitas of Cos:
Posidippus – 37 AB (Text = AB)
Ἀ̣ρσινόη, σοὶ τ̣ή̣[ν]δε λύρην ὑπὸ χειρ[ὸς ἀοιδο]ῦ̣
φθεγξαµ[ένην] δ̣ελφὶς ἤγαγ’ Ἀριόνιο̣[ς]
ο̣ὐ̣ ̣ ̣ ε̣ λου[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣]ας ἐκ κύµατος ἀλλ’ οτ[
κεῖνος αν[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣]ς λευκὰ περᾶι πελά[γη]
πολλα̣πο[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣] τ
̣ ητι καὶ αἰόλα τῆι ̣[
φωνῆι π[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ]̣ ακον καινὸν ἀηδον̣[
ἄνθεµα δ’, [ὦ Φιλ]ά̣δελφε, τὸν ἤλασεν [ ̣ ̣ ̣ Ἀ
̣ ρ]ίων,
τόνδε δέ̣[χου, ̣]ύσου µ〈ε〉ίλια ναοπόλο̣[υ. 5
Arsinoe, Arion’s dolphin brought you this lyre which once resounded at the touch [of a singer] … from the wave. But when.[ that one … crossed the foaming sea many things … and various with [ his voice … But this offering, O Philadelphus, which Arion played please accept it, a dedication of … your temple custodian. (Trans. = Bing, 2005, 128)
Posidippus – 63 AB (Text = AB)
τόνδε Φιλίται χ̣[αλ]κὸν̣ [ἴ]σ̣ο̣ν̣ κατὰ πάνθ᾽ Ἑκ̣[α]τ̣αῖος
ἀ]κ̣[ρ]ι̣β̣ὴς ἄκρους [ἔπλ]α̣σ̣ε̣ν̣ εἰς ὄνυχας,
καὶ µε]γ̣έθει κα̣[ὶ σα]ρ̣κὶ̣ τὸν ἀνθρωπιστὶ διώξας
γνώµο]ν᾽ , ἀφ᾽ ἡρώων δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἔµειξ᾽ ἰδέης,
ἀλλὰ τὸν ἀκροµέριµνον ὁλ̣[ηι κ]α̣τεµάξατο τέχνηι
πρ]έσβυν, ἀληθείης ὀρθὸν [ἔχων] κανόνα·
αὐδήσ]οντι δ᾽ ἔοικεν, ὅσωι πο̣ι̣κ̣ί̣λ̣λεται ἤθει,
ἔµψυχ]ο̣ς, καίπερ χάλκεος ἐὼν ὁ γέρων·
ἐκ Πτολε]µ̣αίου δ᾽ ὧδε θεοῦ θ᾽ ἅµα καὶ βασιλῆος
ἄγκειτα̣ι Μουσέων εἵνεκα Κῶιος ἀνήρ.
Hecataeus molded this bronze and made it like Philitas in
every way even down to the tips of the fingernails; in its size
and its shape he followed human proportions, and did not
mix in any heroic element. Instead, with all his art he
expressed the punctilious old man, using the straight rule of
truth. The old man is like someone about to speak, so varied
in character is he, vivid, though he his made of bronze.
Here, under the auspices of Ptolemy, both god and king, the
Coan man is dedicated on account of his poetry.
Each of these epigrams is concerned with what seem to be real objects—the first a
dedication of some kind offered by a temple-keeper in the employ of Arsinoe
Philadelphus in the first poem, and in the second a bronze statue of Philitas by the
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98 sculptor Hecataeus, paid for (if the supplement ἐκ Πτολε]µ̣αίου, AB 63.9, is correct) by
one of the Ptolemies. The first poem, as poorly preserved as the text is, apparently
describes the movement of poetry through space and time through the medium of the lyre
of the quasi-mythical archaic poet Arion.206 As Bing puts it, “By describing how this lyre
… came to Egypt, [Posidippus] links the third-century-BC shrine of Arsinoe to one of the
great figures of archaic poetry from the seventh century, and with him to the rich tradition
of Lesbian lyric including Terpander, Sappho, and Alcaeus.”207
Although the second epigram, on the fourth-century poet Philitas of Cos, is also
imperfectly preserved, the textual problems are less daunting than in the Arion epigram,
and so we get a more detailed look at the way Posidippus handles the relationship
between poetry and objects. Philitas, who was born about 340 BCE and flourished
during the late fourth century, is said to have been engaged by Ptolemy I Soter as the
teacher of his son Philadelphus.208 As a member of the royal court, a scholar, and a poet,
Philitas would serve as a kind of prototype for learned poets of the third century BCE at
Alexandria and elsewhere. His work on Homeric glosses, for instance seems to have
gained instant fame,209 and the later epigrammatic tradition remembers him (humorously)
for his linguistic fastidiousness and his dedication to scholarship.210
206
Compare AB 9, on the seal of Polycrates bearing the image of the poet Anacreon.
Bing, 2005, 129, who usefully compares the arrival of the lyre in Egypt with the story
of the landfall at Lesbos of the lyre and severed head of Orpheus.
208
Philadelphus was born on Cos and so was a compatriot of Philitas. Fragments and
testimonia of Philitas are collected in Spanoudakis, 2002.
209
In the Phoenikides of the New Comic poet Strato (PCG VI.1.40-6 = Spanoudakis T4),
Heracles consults Philitas’ book of Homeric glosses.
210
Cf. the distich quoted at Athen. 9.401e (= T21 Spanoudakis): ξεῖνε, Φιλητᾶς εἰµί.
λόγων ὁ ψευδόµενός µε | ὤλεσε καὶ νυκτῶν φροντίδες ἑσπέριοι. (“Oh stranger, I am
Philitas. The counterfeiter of words and nightly lucubrations did me in.”)
207
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99 In Posidippus’ epigram, it is this scholarly side of Philitas, with its obsession with
“accuracy” (ἀκρίβεια, cf. the supplement ἀ]κ̣[ρ]ι̣βὴ
̣ ς, 2), that is celebrated. As Sens has
pointed out, the art with which Hecataeus has sculpted his subject is the perfect
encapsulation of this signal quality of Philitas’ poetry.211 The third couplet neatly
expresses the parallel between the poet and the sculptor, with the “punctilious”
(ἀκροµέριµνον) old man rendered according to the sculptor’s “straight rule of truth”
(ἀληθείης ὀρθὸν [ἔχων] κανόνα).212 The faithful realism of the statue likewise
commemorates Philitas in his capacity as a scholar and, one might add, as Ptolemy’s
teacher. Like Aratus, who in Callimachus’ judgment “skimmed off” the sweetest part of
Hesiod, Hecataeus’ statue (and, perhaps, by extension Posidippus’ epigram about it) has
captured and distilled the key quality—in the view of the sculptor and the
epigrammatist—of Philitas’ work.
In the Milan papyrus, Posidippus seems often to put his epigrams in the service of
dedicators, a temple-keeper or Ptolemy Philadelphus himself in the case of the two
epigrams we have just examined. Elsewhere, however, he seems to compose without the
interests of any “clients” in mind, and when he approaches the same themes—the
relationship between poetry and objects, for instance—his treatment of them seems to be
more clearly self-reflexive and programmatic. Athenaeus, for instance, preserves for us a
well-known epigram by Posidippus on the poetry of Sappho:
Posidippus apud Ath. 13.596.XVII HE = 122 AB (Text =
AB)
Δωρίχα, ὀστέα µὲν σὰ πάλαι κόνις ἦν ὅ τε δεσµὸς
211
Sens, 2005, 209-10.
(“punctilious”) is a typical epithet of scholars and scholar poets. Cf.
Dionysius of Cyzicus, AP 7.78 = I HE, on Eratosthenes: ἀκρὰ µεριµνήσας,
Ἐρατόσθενες. 212 Ἀκροµέριµνος
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100 χαίτης ἥ τε µύρων ἔκπνοος ἀµπεχόνη,
ἧι ποτε τὸν χαρίεντα περιστέλλουσα Χάραξον
σύγχρους ὀρθρινῶν ἥψαο κισσυβίων·
Σαπφῶιαι δὲ µένουσι φίλης ἔτι καὶ µενέουσιν
ὠιδῆς αἱ λευκαὶ φθεγγόµεναι σελίδες
οὔνοµα σὸν µακαριστόν, ὃ Ναύκρατις ὧδε φυλάξει
ἔστ’ ἂν ἴηι Νείλου ναῦς ἐφ’ ἁλὸς πελάγη.
5
Doricha, your bones have long since turned to dust, along
with the band of your hair, and your shawl redolent of
myrrh, with which once upon a time you enfurled lovely
Charaxus and with your bodies touching lifted early-morning
cups. But the Sapphic pages of beloved song, shining,
remain and will still remain, resounding with your blessed
name, which Naucratis will still keep safe as long as the Nile
sends ships out to sea.
The poem celebrates the poetry of Sappho through one of the “characters” in her work, an
Egyptian courtesan named Doricha, who is said to have been the lover of Sappho’s
brother Charaxus.213
Like the epigram on the lyre of Arion this poem involves a speaking object (note
τ̣ή̣[ν]δε λύρην … φθεγξαµ[ένην], AB 37.1-2, and φθεγγόµεναι σελίδες AB 122.6), and
in each there is a similar movement from the past to the present, the origin of the object
and the renewal or continuation of the song it embodies. Acosta-Hughes has remarked
on the shift in the Sappho epigram from the imagery of death, attached to Doricha, to that
of life, attached to the poetry of Sappho embodied in the papyrus text.214 The parallel
between the two is perhaps not entirely to Doricha’s advantage—Klooster goes so far as
to call Posidippus’ treatment of her “scathing”.215 Erotic experience itself, represented by
213
On this tradition and the problems it raises (which are not of immediate concern here),
see Lidov, 2002, who locates its origins in 5th century comic poetry.
214
Acosta-Hughes, 2010, 3; cf. the entire discussion from 1-4 and Acosta-Hughes, 2004.
215
Klooster, 2011, 29.
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101 Doricha, is, like all human life, ephemeral; the erotic poetry preserved in the “Sapphic
pages”, on the other hand, is capable of transcending death.216
This dynamic is representative too of Posidippus’ conception of his own poetry
and of the genre of epigram. In the epigrams on Arion, Philitas, and Sappho, poetic
objects, and perhaps too the epigrams that describe them, serve as a vehicle for the
continuous preservation of the archaic tradition that is at the same time a kind of
transformation. A remarkable poem, Posidippus’ so-called sphragis (AB 118, preserved
on a first century CE wax tablet P.Berol. 14283). This lengthy poem raises many
problems of interpretation. Three segments of this unusually long poem are particularly
germaine to the connection between poetic legacy and material objects explored in
Posidippus’ other epigrams:
Posidippus AB 118 (excerpted)
…
νῦν δὲ Ποσε[ι]δίππῳ στυγερὸν συναείρατε γῆρας
γραψάµεναι δέλτων ἐν χρυσέαις σελίσιν.
…
τοίην ἐκχρήσαις τε καὶ ἐξ ἀδύτων καναχήσαι[ς
φωνὴν ἀθανάτην, ὦ ἄνα, καὶ κατ᾽ ἐµοῦ,
ὄφρα µε τιµήσωσι Μακηδόνες, οἵ τ᾽ ἐπὶ ν[ήσων
οἵ τ᾽ Ἀσίης πάσης γείτονες ἠϊόνος.
Πελλαῖον γένος ἀµόν· ἔοιµι δὲ βίβλον ἑλίσσων
ἄφνω λαοφόρῳ κείµενος εἰν ἀγορῇ.
…
µηδέ τις οὐν χεύαι δάκρυον· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ
γήραϊ µυστικὸν οἶµον ἐπὶ Ῥαδάµανθυν ἱκοίµην
δήµῳ καὶ λαῷ παντὶ ποθεινὸς ἐών,
ἀσκίπων ἐν ποσσὶ καὶ ὀρθοεπὴς ἀν᾽ ὅµιλον
καὶ λείπων τέκνοις δῶµα καὶ ὄλβον ἐµόν.
5
15
25
5 συναείρατε Friedrich συναεισαδε tab.
…
now help Posidippus to bear the burden of hateful old age,
writing down the song on the golden columns of your tablets.
…
May you send forth and sound out from your holy shrine
such an immortal voice, O Lord, even for me,
216
The invocation of the columns of a papyrus scroll rather than Sappho herself
heightens this contrast between erotic experience and erotic poetry. Campbell
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102 so that the Macedonians may honour me, both the [islanders]
and the neighbors of all the Asiatic shore.
Pellaean is my family. May I find myself unrolling a book,
standing all at once in the crowded market-place.
…
and let no one shed a tear. But in old age
may I travel the mystic path to Rhadamanthys,
longed for by my people and all the community,
on my feet without a stick, sure of speech among the crowd,
and leaving to my children my house and my wealth.
(Trans. = Austin)
The movement of the poem is complex, but there is an underlying thematic logic that ties
the excerpted passages together. At the beginning, the poet complains of hateful old age
and prays for the Muses to lift it from him by “writing in golden columns of tablets”—i.e.
by inspiring him to write beautiful poetry even about “hateful” old age. Callimachus
wishes for much the same thing at the end of the Aetia prologue, when he wishes that,
like a cicada, he too could slough off his outer skin (cf. LSJ s.v. γῆρας II) and thus
become young again.217 The image of columns of writing also recalls Posidippus’
epigram on Sappho, where the σελίδες vouchsafe Sappho’s poetry against the power of
death that consumes the erotic charm of Doricha.218
He next asks that the Muses send out their “immortal report” about him so that he
can win honor from the Macedonians and have his statue set up in the agora (at Pella, the
passage implies). He imagines himself rendered unrolling a papyrus scroll, probably as if
about to recite his own poetry to the Macedonian crowds (cf. λαοφόρῳ, 18). If the
golden tablets of the Muses in line 6 recalled Posidippus’ epigram on Sappho, the wish to
217
Klooster, 2011, 179, n. 12, notes that the Muses and old age are referenced together in
the prologue to the Aetia, and, n. 13, that both the Aetia prologue and Posidippus’
sphragis feature writing tablets.
218
Note how Posidippus emphasizes that the “shining Sapphic columns remain and will
still remain” (µένουσι … ἔτι καὶ µενέουσιν, AB 122.5).
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103 be represented as a statue recalls Philitas of Cos—both Posidippus’ epigram about the
statue of him by Hecataeus and perhaps also the statue mentioned by Hermesianax
(Leontion, fr. 7.75-76 CA) set up by the citizens of Cos themselves. Like Hecataeus’
statue of Philitas, set up “on account of the Muses” (i.e. because of the excellence of his
poetry) Posidippus’ imaginary statue will commemorate one aspect of his personality, his
poetic skill.
The sphragis closes with a vision of the poet’s life beyond the grave. He hopes to
leave behind him the accoutrements of mortal success (cf. δῶµα καὶ ὄλβον ἐµόν) and to
go to meet Rhadamanthys, the presiding judge of the blessed dead in Elysium. There, he
will be divested of his old age (cf. ἀσκίπων, 27) and will speak “clearly and correctly”
(ὀρθοεπής, 27) amid the crowd (by which we are perhaps to understand “the crowd of
blessed poets”). This is an optimistic, but not outlandish, hope; it was not unheard of for
poets to receive a special dispensation and gain admission to the ranks of the blessed. A
century or so after Posidippus, for instance, Antipater of Sidon prays that the great lyric
poet Anacreon be allowed to continue to enjoy drink and song even in the afterlife (ἐν
µακάρεσσιν, as Antipater puts it, AP 7.27.1).219
Posidippus’ epigrams form a fitting conclusion to this part of my study insofar as
they offer vivid illustrations of the two major themes that I have examined in the other
early Hellenistic epigrammatists. His poetic objects, the lyre of Arion, the statue of
Philitas, exemplify the way in which Hellenistic epigrammatists “recast” earlier poetry
into the generic mold of epigram with its fundamental conceptual relationship to material
objects. Even Sappho, whose poetry Posidippus praises as deathless, becomes a kind of
219
On this epigram more below.
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104 object—her “white” or “clear” lines still shine while Doricha’s bones have long since
turned to dust. Secondly, Posidippus’ epigrams offer a case study in the way the
representation of others is intimately connected with the poet’s own self-representation.
He presents the reader with a threefold vision of his legacy, in golden columns on a
papyrus scroll, in a statue in Pella, and in his life among the blessed in the afterlife. In
each of these aspects, his “voice” will live on, through the writing on the page, through
the depiction of him reading from a bookroll, and in the “correct speech” (ὀρθοέπεια) he
wishes to possess even after death in the company of the blessed. The explicit precedent
Posidippus cites for his wish is that of Archilochus (cf. ln. 12), whose father received an
oracle that his son would be renowned for song.220 Read against the background of his
other epigrams, however, we can also see that the fame of Sappho and Philitas serve as
models or precedents for Posidippus’ vision—the sphragis is his bid to place himself in
the same tradition and, in this way, divest himself of old age.221 In its recapitulation of
these earlier themes, the sphragis suggests an attitude, developed over the course of
Posidippus’ long and varied career, toward the epigrammatic form itself and its
relationship to earlier poetry. It presents a vivid illustration of how epigram’s constant
memorialization of earlier poetry served to open new paths of poetic creativity as well as
lay claim to the possibility of a poetic success and immortality rivalling the heroized
authors of the past.
220
For the interpretation see Klooster, 2011, 180.
Klooster, 2011, 182, n. 23, cites the statue of Philitas as a precedent for Posidippus’
imagined statue.
221
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105 Chapter 2
Consolidating the Tradition
Introduction – Rethinking Imitation and Variation
We have already seen that one of the defining characteristics of early literary
epigram, especially the poetry of Asclepiades and his followers, involves the fusion of
the traditions of inscribed epigram and sympotic song. The fusion of these two traditions
is also central to the nature of allusion and intertextuality in epigram. Literary epigram
borrows from inscriptions a formulaic mode of composition and fuses it with an agonistic
form of imitation and variation typical of sympotic discourse.222
What Hunter has said of literary epigrams is equally true of their inscriptional
antecedents: “in a physical sense … no single epigram was ever ‘alone’.”223 Rather they
were often composed for inscriptional sites—locations where they would be surrounded
by many other inscriptions of a similar type. Sepulchral inscriptions would be grouped
with other sepulchral inscriptions, decrees with decrees, and so forth, depending upon the
function of the inscription. For this and other reasons, inscriptional epigrams were bound
to be highly formulaic. Any single votive inscription, for instance, would often be
surrounded by other inscriptions all addressing the same god and giving thanks for his or
her help in similar circumstances. The fact that the verse inscriptions must have very
222
On thematic connections between epigram and sympotic poetry, cf. in general
Giangrande, 1968.
223
Hunter, 2010, 286.
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106 often been the work of a relatively small number of local specialists working from more
or less standardized copybooks must also have contributed to their formulaic character.224
Sympotic poetry, on the other hand, was a kind of game, or rather games, since
there were several distinct types, that proceeded by fixed rules and therefore produced
results that were equally formulaic, but in a qualitatively different way. In one sympotic
game, a theme was set and each participant improvised a composition in turn. A further
rule stipulated that the participants should base their own composition on those which
had come before. The later a participant’s turn came, the more he would find the material
for his composition already laid out for him, the task then being rearrangement and
reworking rather than fresh inventio. As Seneca puts it, in this kind of game the position
of the last participant is preferable (condicio optima est ultimi).225 The fun of the game,
then, derived from the combined challenges of ex tempore composition on the one hand,
and agonistic variation on the other. Plato’s Symposium, for instance, paints a vivid
picture of the simultaneous collaboration and competition involved in sympotic
discourse. Each speaker in the dialogue takes up the same topic and carefully relates his
speech to the earlier ones.226
In literary epigram, we will find that a formulaic appearance taken over from
inscribed epigram masks, or serves as a trope for, a creative engagement with earlier
224
See Tsagalis, 2008, 53-55, on the probable use of inscriptional copybooks by
professional epigrammatists of the 5th and 4th centuries.
225
Epist. LXXIX.6. This is what Collins, 2004, ix, calls “capping”: “… usually between
two but sometimes more speakers or singers, one participant sets a topic or theme in
speech or verse to which another responds by varying, punning, riddling, or cleverly
modifying that topic or theme.”
226
Rowe, 1998, 8.
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107 models that mimics the agonistic dynamics of sympotic composition.227 The gathering of
epigrams in books, and especially in anthologies, creates a space in which the reader
encounters the different poems and “reads” the relationships between them.228 Epigrams
aping inscriptional formularity enter into allusive relations with other epigrams, and the
epigrammatists themselves take on, metaphorically, the role of symposiasts participating
in a game, i.e. the genre of epigram. This dynamic is apparent in a pair of epigrams by
Alcaeus of Messene and Philip V of Macedon. Alcaeus composed an epigram vaunting
over Philip’s defeat at Cynoscephalae in 197 BCE:
AP 7.247 – Alcaeus of Messene = HE IV (Text = HE)
Ἄκλαυστοι καὶ ἄθαπτοι, ὁδοιπόρε, τῷδ’ ἐπὶ τύµβῳ
Θεσσαλίης τρισσαὶ κείµεθα µυριάδες
〈Αἰτωλῶν δµηθέντες ὑπ᾽ ἄρεος ἠδὲ Λατίνων
οὓς Τίτος εὐρείης ἤγαγ᾽ ἀπ᾽ Ἰταλίης〉
Ἠµαθίῃ µέγα πῆµα. τὸ δὲ θρασὺ κεῖνο Φιλίππου
πνεῦµα θοῶν ἐλάφων ᾤχετ’ ἐλαφρότερον.
3-4 om. PPl
Unmourned and unburied, oh traveler, upon this mound we
thirty thousands from Thessaly lie—a great woe to Emathia.
But that rash spirit of Philip has vanished faster than swift
deer.
Philip then responded (ἀντικωµῳδῶν τὸν Ἀλκαῖον, as Plutarch says):
Philip V of Macedon, apud Plut. Flamininus, 9 (cf. GowPage HE II.11-12)
Ἄφλοιος καὶ ἄφυλλος, ὁδοιπόρε, τῷδ᾽ ἐπὶ νώτῳ
Ἀλκαίῳ σταυρὸς πήγνυται ἠλίβατος.
227
On the divergence between inscriptional formularity and the phenomenon of
“variations on a theme”, cf. Fantuzzi, 2010, who argues that the latter is a feature of
literary epigram not evident in inscriptions. Cf. also Fantuzzi, 2006, 603: “Il gusto per la
variazione sul tema è una delle caratteristiche essenziali dell’epigramma letterario
dell’epoca ellenistica e imperiale-romana.” (Emphasis added.)
228
Cf. the remark of Gutzwiller, 1998a, 14: “By grouping old with new, known with
unknown, the poet-editors of epigram anthologies fashioned a literary context for
historical intertextuality.”
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108 With neither branches nor leaves, oh traveler, on this ridge
there stands a cross fixed on high for Alcaeus.
Philip’s epigram derives its humor from the appearance, or rather parody, of inscriptional
formularity that emerges when it is set alongside Alcaeus’. The first line of each
epigrams consists of two privative adjectives, the vocative ὁδοιπόρε, and a location,
indicated by ἐπί + dative. By calling out Alcaeus by name in the pentameter, and
substituting a crucifix for the tomb that would have been expected according to the
conventions of epigram, Philip transforms this innocuous formal similarity into a
humorous provocation. This is an admittedly extreme case, but it serves to illustrate a
kind of agonistic dynamic that, I argue, proves central to the generic development of
epigram in the second and first centuries BCE.
Although it has been widely recognized that imitation and variation are central to
the practice of ancient epigrammatists, these phenomena have occasioned dismissal more
often than serious study. Two assumptions have underpinned much scholarship on the
phenomenon of imitation and variation in epigram and still have yet to be completely
dispelled. The first is that these are essentially mechanical processes involving alteration
only of a formal shell, leaving the core content of the model text unaffected. The second
assumption, a corrollary of the first, is that these phenomena are essentially meaningless.
On these bases, a persistent distinction is drawn between the “real poet” whose work is
meaningful (and indeed aims at the creation of meaning), and the “virtuoso”, whose
purpose is only to dazzle the audience with feats that are extraneous to poetry properly
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109 defined. On this assumption, there is no use trying to interpret the works of such
virtuosos, since there is, properly speaking, nothing to interpret.229
During the last several decades, however, scholars have begun to reexamine
literature that has traditionally been viewed as derivative, epigonal, and/or imitative—in
short, not the work of “true poets”. The entire revival of interest in Hellenistic poetry,
aided by the discovery of so many important new papyrus texts, is part of this larger
tendency. Within this context, the arts of imitation and variation in epigram have been
revisited by a number of scholars, who have shown how even extremely conventional
forms of imitation and variation may serve serious literary purposes.230 The extreme
conventionality and topicality of epigram might, after all, be expected to preclude
similarities between one epigram and another from having any interpretive
significance.231 Yet scholars have noted that, somewhat paradoxically, literary epigram
draws the reader’s attention precisely to the topicality of a particular utterance, and that
conventional topoi and epigram-forms become vehicles for poetic self-assertion.232 The
point of the epigram, that is, lies in the creative engagement with particularly
authoritative instances of the same topos in epigram or with a whole tradition or sub-
229
This is not to say that the general problems associated with this approach have not
been apparent to some classicists for a long time. Paratore, 1942, 3, puts it nicely: “… è
necessario che non ci lasciamo indurre, nel tentativo di sceverare la poesia dalla non
poesia, ad includere in quest’ ultima anche la poesia incompresa, come abbiamo visto che
purtroppo spesso è avvenuto finora.” [Emphasis added.]
230
See Ludwig, 1968; Tarán, 1979; Gutzwiller, 1998a, 227-235; Sens, 2007.
231
On conventional features in literary epigram cf. Fantuzzi, in Fantuzzi-Hunter, 2004,
292: “the high degree of conventionality and the repetitiveness of inscribed archaic
epigram created a precedent which, in a certain sense, authorized the highly topical
character of literary epigram, perhaps indeed the most topical form of all Greek poetry.”
[Emphasis added.]
232
See, e.g., Sens, 2007, 390.
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110 genre focused on the topos. Sites of maximum conventionality, that is, are precisely the
place where epigrammatists mark themselves out from their peers.
Earlier studies of imitation and variation, including those of Sens and Tarán, have
regarded these techniques essentially as processes by which new epigrams may be
created on the basis of earlier ones. So an epigram (or set of epigrams) may be used by a
later epigrammatist as the raw material for the creation of a new poem. The remainder of
this study, by contrast, will aim to show that what we might regard as “mechanical”
processes of (often quite minute) textual manipulation are endemic to the later poetic
tradition (not just epigram) and blend seamlessly into higher level forms of imitation.
We will find, for instance, that entire groups of epigrams can be viewed as imitative
adaptations of earlier model groups. What is more, even high-level literary phenomena
such as the authorial persona can be fruitfully analyzed in terms of the techniques of
imitation and variation.
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111 Chapter 2: Part 1
Antipater of Sidon’s Panorama of Greek Poets
Antipater’s Modern and Ancient Reception
“He had few ideas of his own, but is sufficiently skillful to vary other
people’s agreeably … .”233
Such was the judgment of Gow and Page of the poetry of Antipater of Sidon, the secondcentury BCE epigrammatist whose poems were included in the Garland of Meleager,
composed in the decade or so after 100 BCE. The second half of their statement is true
as far as it goes: the most immediately striking quality of Antipater’s poetry is his
mastery of the techniques of imitation and variation. At times, his epigrams even seem to
be little more than a cento fashioned from the works of earlier epigrammatists. The first
half of Gow and Page’s judgment, however, implicitly underrates these techniques as
potential modes of poetic expression. Other scholars too have regarded Antipater’s
epigrams as somehow resistant to interpretation, showpieces of an essentially mechanical
technique of imitation lacking any conceptual depth.234 Yet I would suggest that this
very derivative quality of the epigrams, an index of Antipater’s deep immersion in the
epigrammatic tradition, makes him an especially interesting test case for assessing
imitation and variation as modes of poetic composition. Since, moreover, these
techniques are quite prevalent in later Greek epigram—even if they are not taken to quite
the same extreme—a clear account of them is vital, as I hope to show, to the assessment
of these later poets, beginning with Meleager.
233
Gow-Page, HE v. 2, 32.
More recently, scholars such as Goldhill, 1994, and Gutzwiller, 1998a, 236-275, have
begun to find greater cultural and literary interest in Antipater’s poetry.
234
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112 So far we have seen successive epigrammatists engage with the “literary past”,
particularly poets of the archaic and classical periods, as a way of creating the new poetic
form of literary epigram. Or, rather, forms—the various epigrammatic experiments we
have encountered so far have involved the fusion of inscriptional forms with diverse
generic elements. The results varied widely, ranging from Asclepiades’ combination of
sympotic and inscriptional elements, Nossis’ filtering of epigrammatic praise through the
lens of Sapphic eroticism, Leonidas’ fusion of the poetic Cynicism of Crates with
sepulchral and dedicatory forms, and Callimachus’ literary criticism cast as epigrams.
Antipater’s innovation, in contrast with these earlier figures, was to study epigram itself
and synthesize the diverse approaches to the literary past he found there in his own work.
In his long series of epigrams on poets, I will argue that what he winds up creating is both
a panoramic history of archaic and classical Greek literature and a synthesis of earlier
epigrammatic representations of poetry.
Unlike some earlier epigrammatists (e.g. Leonidas of Tarentum) who had already
created rather elaborate literary personae, Antipater presents the reader with very little in
the way of poetic subjectivity. The second part of my argument may therefore seem
paradoxical: through his synthesis of earlier epigrammatic views of poetry, Antipater
laid the foundation for a conception of the epigrammatist himself as a generically defined
poetic subject. This conclusion will be supported through a reading of Meleager’s
epitaph for Antipater AP 7.428 in which Meleager situates Antipater himself within the
epigrammatic panorama he (Antipater) had created. Counterintuitive as it may at first
seem, for Meleager, Antipater—the poet who hides himself behind a wall of tradition—
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113 provides the starting point for a construction of the epigrammatist as a generically
defined authorial figure.
Antipater is elusive for reasons both intrinsic and accidental. As I have already
emphasized, his poetic techniques emphasize his debt to his predecessors, and, at least in
the epigrams we have, he does not present the reader with an authorial persona of his own
that might give an overt shape and unity to the collection. Furthermore, he has suffered
even more than most other epigrammatists from the complicated process by which parts
of the anthologies of Meleager and Philip have come down to us. He shares his name
with Antipater of Thessalonica, the epigrammatist whose works were included in the
Garland of Philip, and the attribution of epigrams between the two is often vexed. To
further complicate the picture, Antipater is one of the few epigrammatists for whom we
have a rich body of (nearly contemporary) testimonia, which, I will argue, offer some
valuable clues about how we ought to approach his work.
The few biographical data that can be gleaned from the testimonia on Antipater
are by now not a matter of much controversy. He was born at Sidon about 170 BCE or
before and probably died about 100 BCE.235 Some indication of his success as a poet for
hire is given by an inscription at Delos (Inscr. de Délos 2549 = XLII HE, where an
otherwise unknown epigram by him commemorating dedications made to Apollo and
Artemis by a Delian banker named Philostratus is paired with an epigram on the same
subject by a certain Antisthenes of Paphos.236
235
On Antipater’s life see in general Gutzwiller, 1998a, 236-7 and Argentieri, 2003, 29-
33.
236
The inscription was originally published by Peek, 1957. See also, on the
commissioner Philostratus, Mancinetti-Santamaria, 1981, and on the epigrams, Fantuzzi,
2008.
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114 Antipater’s live performances were famous enough, and his display of virtuosity
impressive enough, that Cicero not only has Crassus cite his technique with approval but
even couches his praise within a kind of argumentum a fortiori: what Antipater was able
to accomplish in verse should be all the easier to do in prose:
Quod si Antipater ille Sidonius quem tu probe, Catule, meministi solitus est
versus hexametros aliosque variis modis atque numeris fundere ex tempore,
tantumque hominis ingeniosi ac memoris valuit exercitatio ut cum mente ac
voluntate coniecisset in versum verba sequerentur, quanto id facilius in oratione
exercitatione et consuetudine adhibita consequemur. (de Oratore, III.194)
But if Antipater of Sidon, whom I suppose you, Catulus, surely remember, was
accustomed to pour forth hexameter and other verse in varied modes and meters
extemporaneously and if the training of this talented man possessed of an
excellent memory was so effective that when he had applied his mind and will to
versification, the words would follow, then so much the more easily, with
training and practice, ought we to achieve this effect in oratory.
Writing in 55 BCE, Cicero presents a fictional conversation, set in 91 BCE, among a
group of aristocratic Romans with literary and rhetorical interests. Among them are
Marcus Licinius Crassus and Quintus Lutatius Catulus. He very likely traveled to Rome
later in life and was acquainted with Quintus Lutatius Catulus (cos. 102). This
acquaintanceship is significant in itself. Catulus was an enthusiastic patron of the arts
and had a special fondness for epigram.237 In addition to Antipater, he was also
connected with the poet Archias (likely the epigrammatist). Catulus also composed
epigrams, and a couple of his poems, Latin reworkings of Greek epigrams by
Callimachus, come down to us thanks to Aulus Gellius.238 Antipater can thus claim an
important role as a conduit by which the epigrammatic tradition—and the methods of
237
Catulus’ friendship with the poet Archias is mentioned by Cicero (pro Archia poeta 56). On Catulus’ literary relationships and interests see Morelli, 2000, 136-142. Cf.
Morelli, 2007.
238
Catulus fr. 1 Courtney adapts Callimachus AP VII.317; fr. 2 adapts Meleager AP
XII.12.
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115 poetic imitation and variation—were propagated at Rome. What is more, as this passage
from Cicero illustrates, Catulus even had a personal acquaintance of some kind with
Antipater (quem tu probe Catule meministi), and—so the logic of the passage suggests—
would have seen him perform his epigrams or other kinds of poetry ex tempore.239
The passage from Cicero is important not only for its high estimation of
Antipater’s abilities, but also for its attestation of a certain moment in the reception of his
poetry: we have here a clear indication that one way Antipater’s poetry was received was
through oral, ex tempore, performance. What is more, Cicero tells us that Antipater’s
example showed what talent (ingenium) combined with training of the memory
(exercitatio memoriae) could accomplish. Antipater, then, had not only subjected himself
to the kind of memory training that all educated ancient people undertook to one degree
or another, but had achieved the status of a prodigy.240
Antipater’s poetry has often been analyzed based on the assumption—implicit or
explicit—that his poetry was composed and received through live, improvisatory
performance. A commentator on the Greek Anthology, for instance, remarks that
Antipater’s series of five epigrams on Anacreon, discussed here at length below, reflects
in its repetitiousness Antipater’s “vie d’improvisateur”.241 That is to say that as an
improvisational performer, Antipater developed a kind of toolbox of common forms and
themes, which he could reproduce and modify almost automatically ad infinitum (or ad
239
Cicero praises Archias’ ex tempore performances in similar terms at pro Archia, 18.
Cicero’s reference to Antipater’s memory has not received much attention from
modern scholars, but already Weigand, 1840, 48, suggested that Antipater is called
memor because he had committed to memory a vast amount of the poetry of others,
which he could then vary.
241
Desrousseaux in Waltz et al., 1928, vol. 4, 71 n. 1. Cf. the remark of Setti, 1890, 18,
on Meleager, CXXII and Cicero, de Oratore, III.194: “ben s’addicono [i.e. the two
testimonia] ad una natura d’improvvisatore.” [Emphasis added.]
240
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116 nauseam depending on the taste of the critic). In spite of the popularity of Antipater’s
performances, however, they were not the only context in which his poetry was received.
We should accordingly beware of writing off peculiar qualities of his work, such as
extended series of epigrams on the same theme, simply as relics of its origins in
improvised, oral performance.242 Yet even if we were to suppose that all of Antipater’s
epigrams originated in oral ex tempore performance, the poems that survived through
preservation by Meleager had, obviously, to be written down at some point. Unless we
imagine a stenographer transcribing the oral performance directly, the epigrams will have
to have been written out by the poet himself at some point afterwards, and it is
inconceivable that Antipater would not have expended some effort on preparing and
reworking his poems if they were to circulate in books of some kind.
The Two Antipaters
The absence of an authorial persona in Antipater’s corpus as well as his methods
of imitation and variation make it difficult to glimpse the figure of the poet behind his
work. There is however a further obstruction to our understanding of Antipater’s
particular artistry, this one accidental: Antipater is an extremely common name shared
by Antipater of Thessalonica, an epigrammatist of the Garland of Philip. In the Palatine
and Planudean anthologies, epigrams come down to us assigned variously to “Antipater”,
“Antipater of Sidon”, “Antipater of Thessalonica”, and “Antipater of Macedon”
242
E.g HE, v. II, 48: “… it may be well to remember that A. of Sidon was an improviser,
and some of his epigrams may naturally show lack of polish.” Cf. ibid., vol. II, 33: “He
is fond of variations on the same theme … and in view of his reputation as an
improvvisatore it is not uncharitable to suppose that a good many of the surviving
epigrams were impromptu compositions.” Compare once again the apt remark of
Fantuzzi, 2006, 603, already cited above, that “Il gusto per la variazione sul tema è una
delle caratteristiche essenziali dell’epigramma letterario dell’epoca ellenistica e
imperiale-romana.” (My emphasis.)
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117 (generally taken to be identical with the Thessalonican).243 Since no clear-cut stylistic
criteria present themselves for judging the lemmatists’ ascriptions,244 their value must be
evaluated based on instances where their statements can be checked against other criteria,
such as the presence of chronologically decisive references in the epigram itself; this
procedure often shows the lemmatists in a rather bad light.245 Furthermore, we must
examine the contexts in which the epigrams are attested in the Palatine and Planudean
anthologies, which can provide strong evidence about authorship.246 In the end, it must
be acknowledged that any epigram transmitted to us in the MS tradition attributed to an
‘Antipater’, not belonging to a Garland-context, and not containing information
decisively fixing its date of composition in either the second or the first century BCE
could be by either of the two Antipaters.247
The problem of ascription is particularly acute in the case of the numerous
epigrams on poets ascribed to an “Antipater” in the Anthology. The large majority of
these, along many other the Hellenistic epigrams on poets, is clustered at the beginnings
243
The attribution of poems between the two Antipaters has been dealt with at length by
Weigand, 1840; Setti, 1890; Waltz, 1906; and Argentieri, 2003. For tables presenting the
attributions of the epigrams in the manuscripts, see Argentieri, 2003, 17-23, esp. 16 n. 15.
244
HE, v. I, 33.
245
For instance, the lemmatist [J] makes a rather elementary chronological error in
ascribing 9.93, a gift epigram addressed to Lucius Calpurnius Piso (cos. 15 BCE), to
Antipater of Sidon. ([J] is guilty of similar mistakes elsewhere: at AP 7.715 he makes
Leonidas of Tarentum out to be the author of the isopsephic epigrams that can be
ascribed with certainty to Leonidas of Alexandria, an author known on the basis of
explicit internal references to belong to the Neronian period.) So too Planudes ascribes
his epigram 184 to Antipater of Sidon in spite of a reference to Piso.
246
The “Corrector” [C], for instance, ascribes epigrams 7.409 and 7.413 (both in a long
Meleagrean sequence) to Antipater of Thessalonica.
247
There is, of course, the additional possibility that such an ascription is entirely
mistaken, or, conversely, that an epigram not ascribed to Antipater is in fact by him. In
the absence of further papyrological evidence, this latter possibility remains untestable.
Stylometric statistics are provided in Argentieri, 2003, but it must be borne in mind that
the total sample size is rather small.
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118 of books VII and IX of the Palatine Anthology, in sections arranged by Constantine
Cephalas.248 As a result of Cephalas’ reorganization, we lack for most of these epigrams
either Meleagrean or Philippan contexts, which otherwise provide a good indication of
authorship. The following table presents all of the epigrams on poems and poets ascribed
in the MSS to an ‘Antipater’ (with or without specification of the city of origin, Sidon or
Thessalonica):249
Poet-epigrams ascribed to one of the Antipaters
Subject
Homer
Anth. Gr.
Homer
Orpheus
Sappho
Sappho
Alcman
Anacreon
Anacreon
Anacreon
Anacreon
Anacreon
Gow-Page
Gabathuler
AP 7.2
HE VIII
76
AP 7.6
AP 7.8
AP 7.14
AP 7.15
AP 7.18
AP 7.23
AP 7.26
AP 7.27
AP 7.29
AP 7.30
HE IX
HE X
HE XI
GPh LXXIII
GPh XII
HE XIII
HE XIV
HE XV
HE XVI
HE XVII
75
74
78
80
84
85
83
87
86
248
On book the organization of AP VII see Lenzinger, 1965, 11-15, and 17-20 on book
IX. Cf. the tables at Lenzinger, 1965, 64-5; Cameron, 1993, 126-7; and tables V and VI
at the end of Gutzwiller, 1998a. The thematically arranged sections run from VII.1-363
and IX.1-214. An epigram like AP VII.1 could quite easily have been incorporated into
Book IX, insofar as it narrates an anecdote—the manner of Homer’s death and burial—
and is not strictly sepulchral. It is only the fact that the “anecdote” has to do with the
death of Homer that has led to its inclusion in the sepulchral book.
249
Excluded from this list are poems that can be ascribed with certainty to the
Thessalonican. AP 9.93 (Antipater of Thessalonica on a book of his own poems) and
9.541 (mentioning Aratus’ Phaenomena) can be definitively ruled out of consideration
here by the mention of the Thessalonican’s patron Piso. AP 11.20, a polemic against
pedantic poets, fits well into the 1st century BCE/CE tradition of epigrams against
grammarians (cp. AP 11.321 Philip; 11.322 Antiphanes; 11.347 Philip) and can be
ascribed with confidence to the Thessalonican. AP 9.517, comparing a piper named
Glaphyrus with Orpheus, can be safely ascribed to Antipater of Thessalonica, since a
Glaphyrus is also praised in AP 9.266 (in a securely Philippan context). Neither the
attribution of epigram AP 7.18 nor of epigram 7.39 is specifically discussed by
Argentieri, 2003, who asserts (p. 192) that Antipater of Thessalonica is the author without
further comment.
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119 Pindar
Aeschylus
Stesichorus
Antimachus
Erinna
Ibycus
Nine Female Poets
Sappho
Aristophanes
Homer
Pindar
AP 7.34
AP 7.39
AP 7.75
AP 7.409
AP 7.713
AP 7.745
AP 9.26
AP 9.66
AP 9.186
APl 296
APl 305
HE XVIII
GPh XIII
GPh LXXIII
HE LXVI
HE LVIII
HE XIX
GPh XIX
HE XII
GPh CIII
GPh LXXI
GPh LXXV
88
81
89
90
82
79
77
Only two of these epigrams, 7.409 and 7.713, are preserved in long Meleagrean
sequences and can thus be ascribed with a high degree of certainty to Antipater of Sidon.
In ascribing the remainder, we must have recourse to literary arguments. It seems at least
plausible, and in some of these cases highly likely, that Antipater of Sidon is the author of
epigrams that have not traditionally been ascribed to him. In what follows, I will specify
instances where my argument relies on authorship by the Sidonian (or, conversely, the
Thessalonican) or where an attribution is not crucial to the argument itself.
However we ascribe the epigrams of doubtful authorship, it seems safe to say that
no other epigrammatist composed so many surviving poet-epigrams or as many poems on
a single subject. Although we must always bear in mind Meleager’s interventions as
editor, this large number of poet-epigrams seems to evince a particular affinity for this
sub-type on Antipater’s part.250
In what follows, I will argue that Antipater’s poet-epigrams constitute a
purposefully designed group, or bundle of groups with intersecting organizational
principles. These include internal features such as common subject-matter and imagery
250
As noted by Gutzwiller, 1998a, 260, and Argentieri, 2003, 103.
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120 and explicit cross-references, as well as external factors, namely the structure of the
contemporary literary system.251
Antipater doubtless had access to epigram collections written by his predecessors,
and he was able to vary and adapt their works not only on the level of the individual
epigram, but on that of the epigram group as well. That is to say, Antipater not only
takes up and varies the diction and themes of other poets, but also adapts their
organizational strategies to his own purposes. Again and again we will find Antipater
employing, with subtle modifications, language, imagery, and organizational schemes
derived from Leonidas, Callimachus, Dioscorides, Alcaeus of Messene, and others.
Starting from the works of these predecessors—both their individual epigrams and their
organizational strategies—Antipater creates a panoramic survey of Greek poetry
organized in the manner of a tripartite (“three-style”) system of generic and stylistic
classification.252 Antipater’s reception of his subjects in these epigrams is thus mediated
both by the terms of contemporary literary-critical discourse as well as the epigrammatic
tradition. Thus Antipater simultaneously situates himself within the traditions of archaic
and classical literature and that of Hellenistic epigram.253
Systems of Generic and Stylistic Classification
251
Antipater’s poet-epigrams could thus be said to form an “epigrammatic cycle,”
according to the definition formulated by Lorenz, 2004, 257: “… all groups of epigrams,
adjacent poems, or scattered pieces that display a common theme or motif, common use
of language, or common structural features.” The important thing, of course, is to
identify precisely what these common features are in a given case.
252
By contrast, previous studies of poet-epigrams, including those of Antipater, have
tended to focus on single poets or genres: e.g. Skiadas, 1965, and Bolmarcich, 2002 on
Homer; Barbantani, 1993, and, 2010, on lyric poets; Chirico, 1981, on Antipater’s
epigrams on Anacreon.
253
On this phenomenon in Hellenistic epigram, see Sens, 2007.
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121 Antipater responded to a contemporary literary milieu different from that in which
his predecessors operated, in which the relationships among authors were no longer
conceived in the same terms. During the Hellenistic period, under the influence of
Peripatetic scholarship and the work of literary classification and criticism underway at
Alexandria and other intellectual centers, we begin to see attempts at general schemes for
the analysis of language, encompassing all literary genres whether poetry or prose.254 An
incipient classification was already in place by the fifth century BCE: both Aristophanes’
Frogs and Alcidamas’ Against those who write written speeches rely on a dichotomous
view of literary style.255 This basic framework seems to underpin later stylistic
criticism.256 However, although the schemes presented by later authors have in common
an evident origin in the system of two diametrically opposed modes of expression, they
disagree in their analysis of the intermediate grades of style. The author of the περὶ
ἑρµηνείας (“On Style”) ascribed to a “Demetrius”, meanwhile, presents a system of four
styles, two of which are mutually exclusive, and two of which can combine with any of
the others indifferently.257 Others employ a third style that incorporates elements of the
254
The early Hellenistic works of this kind are lost, but the author of the Rhetorica ad
Herennium indicates that such works already by his time formed an established genre in
Greek. On the history of stylistic classification of authors see, in general, Russell, 1981,
129-172.
255
I would suggest that the epigrammatic diptychs we encountered earlier are, in part, an
index of an original dualism in stylistic classification.
256
On the literary criticism of Alcidamas and its relationship to Aristophanes see
O’Sullivan, 1992.
257
The date and authorship of the περὶ ἑρµηνείας is a famously vexed question.
Opinions have ranged from the third century BCE down to the first century CE. On the
one hand, Demetrius responds overtly to a system comprising only two styles, and this
would seem to place his work (or at any rate the ideas contained therein) sometime before
the first century BCE. But some linguistic points militate against such an early date. On
the date, see the discussion in Marini, 2007, 4-16, but against her late (first cent. CE)
dating of the work (p. 16), see de Jonge, 2009.
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122 two extremes—i.e. a “mixed” style—sometimes positing an intermediate style that is a
mean between the other two, but nevertheless autonomous and possessing its own distinct
characteristics.258
One major source for the system of three styles is Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
who, in his series of essays on poetry and prose authors and his de compositione
verborum gives both a theoretical and practical account of literary stylistics. Marked
similarities between Antipater’s epigrams and Dionysius’ works, particularly in the
choice of poetic exemplars and the imagery used to describe them, indicate that each
drew on a common stock of ideas about genre, style and the history of literature, as well
as a shared repertory of metaphorical imagery for describing literary style. Thus, even in
spite of the lack of any particularly close connection between the texts otherwise,
Dionysius’ practice can be useful for making explicit what Antipater leaves implicit in
his poems.
In the de compositione verborum (esp. chs. 21-24) and in de Demosthene (chs. 3842) Dionysius employs a system of three styles, two of which—the αὐστηρά (“austere”
or “severe”), and the γλαφυρά (“smooth” or “polished”) ἁρµονίαι are conceived as the
two limits of a continuum, while a middle style (which Dionysius calls εὔκρατος or
“well-mixed”) consitutes not a third autonomous style, but instead a judicious mixture of
the two extremes.
Stylistic exemplars in the de compositione verborum and de Demosthene of Dionysius of
Halicarnassus259
258
We should also beware of assuming that all “three style” systems are equivalent. Cf.
Lausberg, 1998, 477: “The three genera [genus subtile; medium; grande] only represent
a selection of the possibilities of the really necessary forms of expression … In practice
the system of the three genera dissolves into a large number of variants … .”
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123 αὐστηρὰ ἁρµονία (de
comp. verb. 22; Dem. 38)
εὔκρατος ἁρµονία (de
comp. verb. 24; Dem. 41)
γλαφυρὰ ἁρµονία (de
comp. verb. 23; Dem. 40)
Epic ἐπικὴ
ποίησις
Antimachus; Empedocles
Homer
Hesiod
Lyric
µελοποιία
Pindar
Stesichorus; Alcaeus
Sappho; Anacreon;
Simonides
Tragedy
τραγῳδία
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Oratory
πολιτικοὶ
λόγοι
Antiphon
Demosthenes
Isocrates
History
ἱστορία
Thucydides
Herodotus
-----
Looking at this system alongside Antipater’s epigrams, there are some fairly
obvious points of comparison. First, there is a striking overlap in the authors who are
treated: out of nine possible poetic stylistic positions in Dionysius’ scheme, we have
epigrams by Antipater on six exemplary authors. (As for those authors cited by
Dionysius but absent from Antipater, many are treated little or not at all in extant
Hellenistic epigram: prose authors in general are largely ignored,260 as are, perhaps more
surprisingly, Alcaeus and Simonides.261) Secondly, the imagery and themes of the
epigrams closely track those used by Dionysius to describe his three styles. Finally,
Antipater’s procedure and that of Dionysius and other authors on style share a common
purpose. The authors on style seek to present their readers with a set of recognizable
259
Pindar, Aeschylus, Sappho, Anacreon, Isocrates, Plato, Homer, Herodotus and
Demosthenes himself are the exemplars cited in the shorter treatment of the styles in the
de Demosthene; the full list is given in the de compositione verborum.
260
The lack of epigrams on prose authors is noted by Gabathuler, 1937, 1. Philosophers,
however, feature prominently in epigram, and Antipater himself composed an epigram on
the Cynic Hipparchia (AP 7.413).
261
Though both are mentioned in a catalog of the nine lyric poets: AP 9.571
ἀδέσποτον.
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124 signposts, a matrix within which they can select a particular position depending on their
purposes on a given occasion, and a position that comes pre-loaded with a set of literary
and even social and political associations.262 As in Dionysius, the poets featured in
Antipater’s epigrams are not treated as multifaceted, varied figures, but rather as
illustrative types. Also like Dionysius’ system of classification, Antipater’s epigrams
create a mutually reinforcing group of poetic exempla, the individual elements of which
depend on one another for their significance.
Stylistic imagery
The Greek and Latin authors on literary style made use of an extensive
metaphorical vocabulary to capture the impressionistic effects of different kinds of
writing and speaking on the listener. In the de compositione verborum, Dionysius says
that even the names he uses to designate his three styles (ἁρµονίαι) are themselves not
technical terms, but rather metaphorical descriptions.263 Descriptions of literary style
employ a further wealth of metaphors encompassing age, physical mass and magnitude,
as well as tactile, auditory, and olfactory or gustatory qualities. They extend further to
ethical and social ideas such as moral probity, sobriety, seriousness, and bravery in battle.
To further complicate the picture, there is a persistent tendency to confound style and
subject matter: the idea of a proper harmony between the form and content of an
262
On the latter valence of literary and oratorical stylistics, see, in general Krostenko,
2004.
263
Cf. Dion. Hal., de compositione verborum, 21: ἐγὼ µέντοι κυρίοις ὀνόµασιν οὐκ
ἔχων αὐτὰς προσαγορεῦσαι ὡς ἀκατονοµάστους µεταφορικοῖς ὀνόµασι καλῶ τὴν
µὲν αὐστηράν, τὴν δὲ γλαφυράν, τὴν δὲ τρίτην εὔκρατον. “I, however, lacking
agreed upon names to call them by (for they do not have them), using metaphors call the
first ‘harsh’, the second ‘smooth’, and the third the ‘well-mixed’.”
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125 utterance slips naturally into the view that certain styles are necessarily affiliated with
certain subject matter.264
The Greeks analyzed sensation in terms of polar opposites, and this made it easy
to apply sense-terms to literary stylistics, which were likewise understood, at least
initially, in terms of two opposing types.265 The best-known comparison of literary styles
using these metaphorical descriptors is probably the agon of Aeschylus and Euripides in
the Frogs of Aristophanes. Here, Aeschylus’ poetry is characterized by a set of
adjectives and metaphors connoting weight and magnitude (“swollen”, οἰδοῦσαν, 940),
loud sound, physical power, imposing countenance and monstrosity (ὀφρῦς ἔχοντα, δείν᾽
ἄττα µορµορωπά, 925). This diametrical opposition between literary styles, along with
the metaphorical terms in which it is expressed, become staples of later critical
discussions, both in poetry and in prose sources. The picture is complicated, however, by
changes in theoretical conceptions of style, and particularly the introduction of a third,
“middle” style. The concept of a “middle style”, whatever its nature, was a product of
the period between Aristotle on the one hand and the rhetorical authors of the first
century BCE on the other. What remained in Aristotle somewhat general references to
the desirability of the mean and of mixture (Aristotle’s verb is κεράννυµι) in literary style
had by the first century turned into a common assumption of the existence of a discrete
middle style defined either as a mean or a mixture of some kind.
264
Demetrius, de elocutione, 76, tells us that the painter Nicias applied this maxim to
painting.
265
Pairs of diametrically opposed sense-terms are cataloged, e.g., by Aristotle (de Anima
422b). A very similar catalog of sensory opposites is used by Xenophon Mem. 3.10 to
comment on painting.
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126 In the περὶ συνθέσεως ὀνοµάτων (De compositione verborum), Dionysius sets
out to instruct his young dedicatee Rufus Metilius in how to “arrange [words] in a
combination which unites grace and dignity.”266 After a discussion of the nature, effect,
and aims of this process, σύνθεσις (composition), Dionysius describes its γενικώταται
διαφοραί (“principal varieties”). Although he acknowledges that in practice there exist
many types of composition, he identifies three which are primary, dubbing them the
αὐστηρά (rough), γλαφυρά (smooth/polished), and εὔκρατος (well-mixed). He then
discusses each in turn, first providing a general description, a list of authors exemplary of
the form of composition in each genre, and a passage drawn from one of their works
followed by a detailed syllabic and lexical analysis.
Dionysius begins with a description of the austere style of composition using a
series of concrete metaphorical terms. He emphasizes especially its solidity, strength,
roughness, lack of polish, breadth, nobility, grandeur, and archaism. He exemplifies this
style using passages from Pindar and Thucydides. I quote parts of his description
exempli gratia:
… ἐρείδεσθαι βούλεται τὰ ὀνόµατα ἀσφαλῶς καὶ στάσεις λαµβάνειν ἰσχυράς …
τραχείαις τε χρῆσθαι πολλαχῃ καὶ ἀντιτύποις ταῖς συµβολαῖς οὐδὲν αὐτῇ διαφέρει
… συντιθεµένων ἐν οἰκοδοµίαις λίθων αἱ µὴ εὐγώνιοι καὶ µὴ συνεξεσµέναι βάσεις …
µεγάλοις τε καὶ διαβεβηκόσιν εἰς πλάτος ὀνόµασιν ὡς τὰ πολλὰ µηκύνεσθαι φιλεῖ …
ἐπιτηδεύει τοὺς ῥυθµοὺς ἀξιωµατικοὺς καὶ µεγαλοπρεπεῖς … ἥκιστ᾽ ἀνθηρά,
µεγαλόφρων, τὸν ἀρχαϊσµὸν καὶ τὸν πίνον ἔχουσα κάλλος. … ταῦθ᾽ ὅτι µέν ἐστιν
ἰσχυρὰ καὶ στιβαρὰ καὶ ἀξιωµατικὰ … . (de compositione verborum, 22)
… It requires that the words shall stand firmly on their own feet and occupy strong
positions … It does not mind admitting rough and dissonant collocations … like blocks
of natural stone laid together in building, with their sides not cut square or polished
smooth, but remaining unworked and rough-hewn. … It has a general liking for
expansion by means of long words which extend over a wide space … it cultivates
dignified and impressive rhythms … [it is] not at all florid, but magnanimous … its
beauty consists in its patina of antiquity. (Trans. = Usher)
266
De compositione verborum, 1. (Trans. = Usher.)
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127 Dionysius then describes the polar opposite form of composition, the γλαφυρὰ ἁρµονία,
which is flowing (ὥσπερ τὰ ῥέοντα), smooth (λεῖα), soft (µαλακά), flowery, and
youthful (τὸ νεαρόν). It abhors roughness (τραχείαις δὲ συλλαβαῖς καὶ ἀντιτύποις
ἀπέχθεταί που). Instead of old-fashioned and stately figures of speech, it employs
delicate and appealing ones (τρυφεροῖς τε καὶ κολακικοῖς). Dionysius exemplifies this
style using passages from Isocrates and Sappho.
Dionysius’ third form of composition, the εὔκρατος ἁρµονία, is a kind of
mixture, which draws judiciously on elements of each of the two extreme styles: σχῆµα
µὲν ἴδιον οὐδὲν ἔχει, κεκέρασται δὲ ὡς ἐξ ἐκείνων µετρίως καὶ ἔστιν ἐκλογή τις τῶν ἐν
ἑκατέρᾳ κρατίστων (“It has no form of its own, but is as it were mixed in equal
measures from the others and is a selection of what is most effective in each.”).267
Composition in this style therefore implies a mastery of the other two as well as the
ability to properly intermingle them. No passages are adduced to illustrate this style, but
Homer is pointed out as its chief exemplar. In what follows I will aim to show broad
parallels in imagery and organization between Dionysius’ scheme of stylistic
classification and imagery and Antipater’s series of poet-epigrams.
The εὔκρατος ἁρµονία – Epigrams on Homer and Stesichorus
Antipater composed perhaps as many as four epigrams on Homer.268 The briefest
of these, and the simplest in structure, is a four-line epitaph, in which a string of honorific
epithets evocative of the epic style is attached to Homer’s name in the accusative. This is
267
De comp. verb. 24.
AP 7.2; 7.6; 9.792; APl 296. On the changing views of Homer in Greek (and Roman)
culture, see Zeitlin, 2001, and Graziosi, 2002. On Homer in epigram see Skiadas, 1965,
and Bolmarcich, 2002.
268
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128 followed by an address to the reader (ξεῖνε) and the common sepulchral formula κέκευθε
κόνις:269
AP 7.6 – Antipater of Sidon = IX HE (Text = HE)
Ἡρώων κάρυκ’ ἀρετᾶς µακάρων δὲ προφήταν,
Ἑλλάνων βιοτᾷ δεύτερον ἀέλιον,
Μουσῶν φέγγος, Ὅµηρον, ἀγήρατον στόµα κόσµου
παντός, ἁλιρροθία, ξεῖνε, κέκευθε κόνις.
Herald of the greatness of heroes, prophet of the immortals,
second sun for the life of the Greeks: Homer, light of the
Muses, ageless mouth of the entire cosmos, o stranger, the
sea-girt dust covers.
This epigram, like the longer AP 7.2, is structured around a paradox that is commonplace in poet-epigrams but particularly appropriate to Homer: the grandeur of the man is
all out of proportion to the physical tomb which holds his remains.270 The more
particular idea underlying this commonplace, however, is that no physical space could
encompass Homer, since he and his poetry are, in fact, all-encompassing. This point is
made three times over in AP 7.6. Homer is a second sun (δεύτερον ἀέλιον, 2)—he
shines on all the Greeks. The triplet of phrases in the first couplet, taken as a group,
express the global scope of Homer’s poetry: he ministers to heroes (Ἡρώων κάρυκ’, 1),
gods (µακάρων δὲ προφήταν, 1), and men alike (Ἑλλάνων βιοτᾷ δεύτερον ἀέλιον,
2).271 In AP 7.5, Alcaeus of Messene had claimed Homer as a native son of Chios, and as
we have already seen, allotted him the sphere of the Ocean, making him a counterpart to
269
Unless otherwise stated, my decision to discuss the epigrams in a particular order does
not imply any claim about their order in Meleager’s Garland or in a hypothetical
Antipatrean collection.
270
Cf., e.g., AP 7.18 on Alcman: Ἀνέρα µὴ πέτρῃ τεκµαίρεο· λιτὸς ὁ τύµβος |
ὀφθῆναι, µεγάλου δ’ ὀστέα φωτὸς ἔχει. This poem is ascribed by Gow and Page to
Antipater of Thessalonica, but may well be by Antipater of Sidon.
271
Cf. Theophrastus fr. 708 Fortenbaugh, who defines epic poetry as περιοχὴ θείων καὶ
ἡρωικῶν καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων πραγµάτων (“an encompassing of divine, heroic, and
human affairs”).
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129 Hesiod, who received the land and fresh water as his portion. Antipater’s second couplet
revises this picture, dubbing Homer the “ageless mouth of the entire universe”
(ἀγήρατον στόµα κόσµου | παντός).272
As Gabathuler and Skiadas have shown, this epigram draws heavily on diction,
themes, and imagery that, by Antipater’s time, had come to be stock features in
representations of Homer in epigram as well as other kinds of literature.273 Two
epigrammatic models are particularly important, Alcaeus of Messene AP 7.1 and
Leonidas of Tarentum AP 9.24 (both discussed above). The phrases Ἡρώων +
accusative and Ἑλλήνων + dative are paralleled in two epigrams on Homer by Alcaeus
(ἡρώων τὸν ἀοιδόν, AP 7.1.1, and Ἑλλήνων παισίν, AP 7.5.6, respectively), and the
comparison of Homer with the sun (δεύτερον ἀέλιον) and the phrase Μουσῶν φέγγος
are paralleled in Leonidas AP 9.24.3 (λαµπρότατον Μουσέων φέγγος).274 Even in this
brief epigram, we have seen that although Antipater bases his representation of Homer on
these models, he renders a rather different picture of his subject.
Not only is Homer’s greatness is incongruent to the small island where he died,
but the magnitude of his poetry vastly surpasses the little poems that commemorate
272
A. Plan. 296 has usually been ascribed to Antipater of Thessalonica, but it may be
noted that the catalogue of cities as well as the final point of the epigram (that Homer
transcends any specific geographical location), would be equally at home in an epigram
of the Sidonian. On epigrammatic catalogues of cities claiming Homer as a native son,
see the helpful synoptic table of Argentieri, 2003, 165 (who ascribes this epigram to the
Antipater of Sidon).
273
See Gabathuler, 1937, 33 (= epigram no. 75), and Skiadas, 1965, 78-82.
274
The language of AP 7.6 and the theme of AP 16.296 are rather closely paralleled in
Inschriften von Pergamon 203, which comprises three epigrams on the birthplace of
Homer: compare IvP 203.13-4: … τόσσογ γὰρ ἐπὶ χθονὶ φ̣έγγος ἔλαµψε |
Μουσάων ὁπ̣όσον τείρεσιν ἠέλιος.
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130 him.275 This incongruity is developed in the longer epigram AP 7.2, where the speaker is
the island of Ios itself:
AP 7.2 – Antipater of Sidon = VIII HE (Text = HE)
Τὰν µερόπων Πειθώ, τὸ µέγα στόµα, τὰν ἴσα Μούσαις
φθεγξαµέναν κεφαλάν, ὦ ξένε, Μαιονίδεω
ἅδ’ ἔλαχον νασῖτις Ἴου σπιλάς, οὐ γὰρ ἐν ἄλλᾳ
ἱερόν, ἀλλ’ ἐν ἐµοὶ πνεῦµα θανὼν ἔλιπεν,
ᾧ νεῦµα Κρονίδαο τὸ παγκρατές, ᾧ καὶ Ὄλυµπον 5
καὶ τὰν Αἴαντος ναύµαχον εἶπε βίαν
καὶ τὸν Ἀχιλλείοις Φαρσαλίσιν Ἕκτορα πώλοις
ὀστέα Δαρδανικῷ δρυπτόµενον πεδίῳ.
εἰ δ’ ὀλίγα κρύπτω τὸν ταλίκον, ἴσθ’, ὅτι κεύθει
καὶ Θέτιδος γαµέταν ἁ βραχύβωλος Ἴκος.
10
The power of Persuasion personified, the great mouth, the
head of the son of Maeonis that spoke with a voice like the
Muses, O stranger, this island rock of Ios has as its share.
For in no other place but me did he leave his breath when he
died. That breath with which he spoke of the all-powerful
nod of the son of Cronus, with which too he sang of
Olympus, and the prowess of Ajax in the battle by the sea,
and Hector torn to the bones on the Dardanian plain by the
Pharsalian horses of Achilles. But if I am small to cover so
great a man, consider that little Ikos covers even the husband
of Thetis.
As Gabathuler points out in his notes on the epigram, much of the diction hearkens back
to Alcaeus of Messene’s epigram on the burial of Homer (AP 7.1), one half of the
Homer-Hesiod diptych discussed above. Antipater also takes over (and strengthens
rhetorically) the antithesis between the great poet and the little island of Ios, who
becomes the speaker in this epigram.276 Nevertheless, its form and content, although also
somewhat similar, make substantive alterations to the underlying point of the model. As
275
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 263, reads the reference to the size of the tomb as a programmatic
statement, with the tomb representing epigram as a genre. I will return to this point in my
discussion of Antipater’s epigrams on Anacreon.
276
Skiadas, 1965, 61.
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131 in AP 7.6, the point once again is to emphasize the boundless capacity and global scope
of Homer’s poetry, and it is this that guides Antipater’s reworking of his models.
The structure is slightly complicated: the subject of the epigram is identified in
the first couplet by three epithets, the location of his tomb in the second couplet. In the
third and fourth couplets the focus shifts from Homer to the contents of his work, and
three famous scenes from the Iliad are presented in a very abbreviated form: the nod
(νεῦµα, 5) of Zeus (punningly compared with the breath (πνεῦµα, 6) of Homer); the
battle by the ships; and Achilles’ mistreatment of Hector’s corpse. These scenes are not
chosen at random, nor simply because of their overall importance to the plot of the
Iliad.277 Instead, they are deployed in furtherance of the same point that was made in
epigram 7.6, namely that Homer’s poetry is all-encompassing in its scope. Like Alcaeus,
then, Antipater uses the spatial location of the scenes he has chosen as a symbol of poetic
qualities. However, whereas Alcaeus identifies Homer with the sea (in contrast to the
fresh water representing Hesiod), Antipater asserts Homer’s dominion over all three
natural realms (i.e. the “whole cosmos”, παντὸς | κόσµου, AP 7.6 3-4). The tripartite
division of the cosmos goes back to a famous passage in the Iliad (15.189-193), however
the particular form it takes here is a result of Antipater’s methods of imitation and
variation. He has essentially crossed Alcaeus AP 7.1 with Leonidas AP 6.13,
commemorating the dedication of three brothers, one a hunter, one a fisherman, one a
bird-catcher. Antipater was quite familiar with this epigram, and even composed a direct
277
As Gabathuler, 1937, 33 notes, the scenes mentioned are 1) Il. I.528; 2) XV.674-746;
3) XXII.395-404—scenes from the beginning, middle, and end of the poem, respectively.
Ajax’s bravery in the battle by the ships was a famous scene and is already referenced as
an exemplary deed of heroism by Bacchylides (13.71-76) and by Teucer in Sophocles’
Ajax (1273-9).
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132 adaptation of it (AP 6.14).278 In its careful delineation of the three natural realms,
Antipater’s epigram on Homer precisely mirrors the way Leonidas’ describes the
brothers’ dedication of their respective nets, one for catching birds, one for catching
woodland creatures, and one for catching fish. Like the brothers’ nets, Homer’s poetry
encompasses all three realms, sky (Ὀλύµπον), sea (ναύµαχον … βίαν), and land
(πεδίῳ).279 In Antipater, Homer has been recast in the role he played in the system of
three styles as the quintessential poet of the εὔκρατος ἁρµονία.
In Dionysius’ system, Homer is joined as a poetic exemplar of the εὔκρατος
ἁρµονία by Sophocles and Stesichorus. We have no epigrams by Antipater on
Sophocles, but Stesichorus is celebrated in AP 7.75. This poem echoes a number of
features of AP 7.2 and 7.6 on Homer, and even connects its subject explicitly with
Homer:
AP 7.75 – Antipater of Sidon*280
Στασίχορον, ζαπληθὲς ἀµέτρητον στόµα Μούσης,
ἐκτέρισεν Κατάνας αἰθαλόεν δάπεδον,
οὗ, κατὰ Πυθαγόρεω φυσικὰν φάτιν, ἁ πρὶν Ὁµήρου
ψυχὰ ἐνὶ στέρνοις δεύτερον ᾠκίσατο.
Ἀντιπάτρου Pl
278
Cf. Prioux, 2008, 45: “Les filets offerts à Pan contiennent en effet un abregé du
monde.” Prioux makes the attractive suggestion that the point of the epigram lies in the
implicit play on Pan’s name and its homophone πᾶν (“everything”).
279
The parallelism between these two particular epigrams may be particularly
noteworthy: adjacent frescoes in the “House of the Epigrams” at Pompeii depict the
dedications of the three brothers (with Leonidas’ epigram AP 6.13 painted below) and
Homer’s ultimately fatal encounter with the fishermen (an incident alluded to by Alcaeus
of Messene, AP 7.1). Cf. the extensive discussion of this material in Prioux, 2008, 29-64.
280
Ascribed by Gow and Page to Antipater of Thessalonica (= LXXIV GPh), though they
admit “we see no means of deciding” between the two Antipaters in this case. Of the
arguments given by Argentieri, 2003, 107, in favor of attribution to the Sidonian (which
he supports), the most compelling is the parallel between the phrases ζαπληθὲς
ἀµέτρητον στόµα Μούσης, AP 7.75.1, τὸ µέγα στόµα, AP 7.2.1, and ἀγέραντον
(ἀγήρατον P) στόµα κόσµου, AP 7.6.3.
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133 Stesichorus, the full-sounding measureless mouth of the
Muse, the fiery land of Catane has buried,
in whose breast, according to Pythagoras’ teaching on
nature, the erstwhile spirit of Homer took up a second home.
The epigram outwardly references a tradition according to which the soul of Homer
transmigrated into the body of Stesichorus.281 This was not the only way in which the
two were thought to be connected, however.282 Stesichorus composed long lyric poems,
such as the Geryoneis, on typically heroic themes, and Quintilian (Inst. Or. X.1.62)
pointed to similarities in subject matter between the two poets, illustrating the point with
a metaphor: Stesichorum quam sit ingenio validus materiae quoque ostendunt, maxima
bella et clarissimos canentem duces et epici carminis onera lyra sustinentem
(“Stesichorus’ subject matter shows how endowed with natural talent he was, since he
sings of the greatest wars and most famous generals and supports the weight of epic verse
with his lyre”).
The praise of Stesichorus is markedly similar to the praise of Homer in AP 7.6.
First, as Barbantani points out, whereas Homer was called the “ageless mouth of the
cosmos” (ἀγήρατον στόµα κόσµου, AP 7.6.3) Stesichorus is described, in the same
metrical sedes, as the “measureless mouth of the Muse” (ἀµέτρητον στόµα Μούσης,
1).283 Calling a poet a κεφαλή (“head”) or a στόµα (“mouth”) is a way of indicating that
281
On this tradition see Kivilo, 2010, 82-4, with the suggestion (p. 83, n. 99), based on
Longinus de sublimitate 13.3, that the point of this story may be to suggest a stylistic
affinity between the two poets.
282
On ancient comparisons between the two poets, see Barbantani, 2010, 26-7.
283
Barbantani, 2010, 26. Alpha-privatives, mostly in ornamental epithets, are in fact so
common in Antipater’s poet epigrams that they may be said to constitute a common
thread connecting the poems with one another: ἀγήρατον 7.6.3; φιλακρήτου 7.26.6;
ἄκρητον 7.27.8; ἀµέτρητον 7.75.1; ἀθανάταις 7.14.1; πανάφθιτον 7.14.7; ἄφθιτα
7.14.8; ἀκαµάτου 7.409.1; ἀγέλαστον 7.409.4; ἄτριπτον, ἀνέµβατον 7.409.5.
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134 his or her work partakes of a superhuman quality that can only be gotten from a divinity,
for whom the poet serves as a mere mouthpiece.284 These words are often used of those
poets who are in some respect judged equal to or akin to Homer, as Stesichorus is here.285
Finally, the adjectives ζαπληθές (“full”/“fully”) and ἀµέτρητον (“measureless”) set
Stesichorus alongside Homer as an exemplar of the capacious εὔκρατος ἁρµονία.
The αὐστηρὰ ἁρµονία – Epigrams on Pindar, Aeschylus, and Antimachus
The epigrams on Homer and Stesichorus emphasize the boundless power of these
poets. In AP 7.34, 7.39, and 7.409, the canonical representatives of the αὐστηρὰ
ἁρµονία, the poetry of Pindar, Aeschylus, and Antimachus (respectively), is
characterized by imagery associated with that style—weight, grandeur booming noise,
and so on. AP 7.34 praises Pindar’s special combination of these qualities with a certain
stylistic sweetness:
AP 7.34 – Antipater of Sidon = XVIII HE (Text = HE)
Πιερικὰν σάλπιγγα, τὸν εὐαγέων βαρὺν ὕµνων
χαλκευτάν, κατέχει Πίνδαρον ἅδε κόνις,
οὗ µέλος εἰσαΐων φθέγξαιό κεν, ὡς ἀπὸ Μουσῶν
ἐν Κάδµου θαλάµοις σµῆνος ἀπεπλάσατο.
This dust holds the Pierian trumpet, the stout smith of clearsounding songs, Pindar. Hearing his song you would say
that a swarm of bees from the Muses had molded it in the
halls of Kadmos.
284
Lucillius 9.572 makes the meaning of the periphrasis clear: it is really the Muse who
sings, but through Homer’s (or a similarly inspired poet’s) mouth (… εἶπεν Ὁµηρείῳ
Καλλιόπη στόµατι).
285
Anyte, the “female Homer” is called by synecdoche Ἀνύτης στόµα in the epigram
ascribed to ‘Antipater’ cataloging the female poets (AP 9.26.3). Cf. AP 7.12.2 κυκνείῳ
… στόµατι, of Erinna, sometimes herself called the female Homer (e.g ἄδηλον AP
9.190).
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135 Antipater uses Pindaric motifs and diction in order to characterize the poet’s work. The
poet is likened to a blacksmith, with the poems as the metal he works.286 The likening of
poetic practice or speech to metalworking is borrowed from Pindar himself (Pyth. I.86:
ἀψευδεῖ δὲ πρὸς ἄκµονι χάλκευε γλῶσσαν), and thus evokes a Pindaric style by using
the poet’s own words. Similarly, the word εὐαγέων, found also at Pindar Paean fr. 52h
ln. 47—although Antipater may have borrowed it from Leonidas (AP 6.204.3) if we
accept Dindorf’s emendation there—is rare enough in earlier Greek poetry to evoke a
Pindaric style as well.287 Another element drawn from Pindar’s poetry itself may be
found in the second couplet: as Gow-Page note, lines 3-4 seem to refer obliquely to
Pindar Pyth. 3.88-91, where the Muses are said to have sung at the wedding of Cadmus
and Harmonia.
In the first couplet, we find imagery typical of accounts of the αὐστηρὰ ἁρµονία.
In addition to employing the metaphor of the poet as metalworker, Antipater calls Pindar
βαρύς, “heavy”—at the surface level of the metaphor a reference to the deep booming of
the forge in which he works, but of course also a description of his poetry. The second
couplet, in addition to connecting Pindar with his home town of Thebes, adds another
element to the description of his poetry. The simplest explanation of these admittedly
difficult lines is that, if you heard Pindar’s song, you would think that it was made by a
swarm of bees, sent by the Muses (ἀπὸ Μούσων) in the halls of Cadmus (i.e. “at
286
Indeed, APl 305, also ascribed to “Antipater” (plausibly the Sidonian) elaborates the
image, emphasizing the loud volume of the σάλπιγξ in comparison with other
instruments.
287
A TLG search yields one two two instances apiece in Callimachus, Apollonius, and
Theocritus, one in Euripides, and one in Parmenides.
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136 Thebes”).288 Although the text may not be entirely sound, it seems that this would then
be a reference to the bees who were said to have built a honeycomb around the lips of
Pindar (either while he slept or in a dream).289 The imagery of the bees carries a further
metapoetic connotation, indicating that Pindar’s poetry possesses an element of
sweetness in addition to its typically high-style characteristics.290
Similar imagery recurs in AP 7.39 on Aeschylus, the exemplar of the αὐστηρὰ
ἁρµονία in tragedy:
291
AP 7.39 – Antipater of Sidon*
Ὁ τραγικὸν φώνηµα καὶ ὀφρυόεσσαν ἀοιδὴν
πυργώσας στιβαρῇ πρῶτος ἐν εὐεπίῃ,
Αἰσχύλος Εὐφορίωνος, Ἐλευσινίης ἑκὰς αἴης
κεῖται κυδαίνων σήµατι Τρινακρίην.
He who built up the tower of tragic speech and its proud
poetry, who was first in stout eloquence,
Aeschylus, the son of Euphorion, lies here, bringing glory to
Trinacria with his tomb far from the Eleusinian land.
The structure of the poem is closely patterned on that of AP 7.34 on Pindar. The first
couplets of each poem (which are almost metrically identical to one another), are loaded
288
It may be preferable to take ἀπεπλάσατο to mean, more specifically, “copied”, in the
way that a seal stamped in wax is a “copy” of the original. I.e., the wax honeycomb
molded by the bees, representing Pindar’s song (Lefkowitz, 1981, 59, notes the pun on
µέλος ≈ µέλι), is “copied” from the song of the Muses itself.
289
On this tradition, see Lefkowitz, 2012, 59. The story is more clearly invoked at APl,
which may also be by Antipater of Sidon.
290
On the imagery of the bees, see F. Williams, 1978, 93.
291
Attributed by Gow and Page (without further comment) to Antipater of Thessalonica
(= XIII GPh). Argentieri too accepts the lemmatist’s attribution to the Thessalonican
without comment. The context in AP does not help with determining authorship in this
case. Both the style and content are very similar to AP 7.34 (generally attributed to the
Sidonian), and as we shall see the epigram fits neatly into the conceptual structure formed
by Antipater’s other poet-epigrams, so that one seems justified in assigning this epigram
(if only tentatively) to the Sidonian instead. I can find no scholarly discussion of the
attribution of the epigram otherwise.
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137 with imagery associated with the αὐστηρὰ ἁρµονια. Pindar’s trumpet—a famously loud,
martial instrument—is matched, in the same sedes, by Aeschylus’ imposing φώνηµα.292
Pindar’s poetry was characterized by its weight, Aeschylus’ by its grandeur; he is said to
have placed tragedy’s “proud” or “severe” (ὀφρυόεσσαν, 1) song in a tower of sturdy
eloquence (στιβαρῇ … ἐν εὐεπίῃ, 2).293
The chief model in earlier epigram is Dioscorides AP 7.410, also on Aeschylus.
As in that epigram, the language of the agon between Aeschylus and Euripides from
Aristophanes’ Frogs features prominently in the description of Aeschylus’ poetry.294
Antipater, however, is also interested to fit Aeschylus into his own scheme. Whereas
Dioscorides’ miniature history of tragedy began with Thespis (cf. AP 7.410.1, τραγικὴν
ὃς ἀνέπλασα πρῶτος ἀοιδήν), for Antipater, who is more interested in literary stylistics
than the history of genre, it is Aeschylus who is πρῶτος, 2, at least in respect of his
stylistic innovation.
292
According to a TLG search, φώνηµα is found in extant Greek poetry only in
Aeschylus (1x) (ap. Alciphr. Letters of Parasites III, 12, 1 = fr. 352b Mette) and
Sophocles (3x) (Phil. 234; 1295; fr. 314.45 Radt), and so may be meant to evoke an
elevated, stereotypically “tragic” style. Compare the use of εὐαγέων in AP 7.34,
discussed above.
293
The language and imagery used to describe Aeschylus’ poetry is derived from Ar.
Ran., 925 (ὀφρῦς ἔχοντα) and 1004-5 (ἀλλ’ ὦ πρῶτος τῶν Ἑλλήνων πυργώσας
ῥήµατα σεµνὰ | καὶ κοσµήσας τραγικὸν κλῆρον). Cf. my discussion of Dioscorides
AP 7.411 above.
294
As pointed out by Gabathuler, 1937, 28.
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138 The imagery of height, weight, grandeur, and loud sound, staples of the αὐστηρὰ
ἁρµονία, is intensified and elaborated in Antipater’s epigram on Antimachus of
Colophon, the exemplar of this style in the genre of epic:295
AP 7.409 – Antipater of Sidon = LXVI HE (Text = HE)
Ὄβριµον ἀκαµάτου στίχον αἴνεσον Ἀντιµάχοιο,
ἄξιον ἀρχαίων ὀφρύος ἡµιθέων,
Πιερίδων χαλκευτὸν ἐπ’ ἄκµοσιν, εἰ τορὸν οὖας
ἔλλαχες, εἰ ζαλοῖς τὰν ἀγέλαστον ὄπα,
εἰ τὰν ἄτριπτον καὶ ἀνέµβατον ἀτραπὸν ἄλλοις
µαίεαι· εἰ δ’ ὕµνων σκᾶπτρον Ὅµηρος ἔχει,
καὶ Ζεύς τοι κρέσσων Ἐνοσίχθονος, ἀλλ’ Ἐνοσίχθων
τοῦ µὲν ἔφυ µείων, ἀθανάτων δ’ ὕπατος,
καὶ ναετὴρ Κολοφῶνος ὑπέζευκται µὲν Ὁµήρῳ,
ἁγεῖται δ’ ἄλλων πλάθεος ὑµνοπόλων.
Praise the thunderous verse of tireless Antimachus,
worthy of the hauteur of the ancient demigods,
forged on the anvils of the Pierides; if you’ve got a sharp
ear, if you’re eager for the voice that is without laughter, if
you search for the path that is untrod and difficult for others.
Even if Homer holds the scepter for his songs, Zeus also is
greater than the Earth-shaker, but the Earth-shaker, though
weaker than him, is loftiest of the (other) immortals; so too
an inhabitant of Colophon is yoked behind Homer, but leads
the pack of the rest of the poets.
In this epigram, Antipater’s densely-packed references to poems of his predecessors and
to his own work create a kaleidescopic effect, in which the ability to spot the repurposed
elements of the model-texts is crucial. The poem is, in part a jab at Callimachus, turning
his own literary critical language against him. As has often been noted, the epigram
recapitulates the literary controversies that played themselves out between the poets of
the early third-century. Callimachus, responding to Asclepiades’ epigram praising the
Lyde (AP 9.63), attacked the poem as “unclear”—οὐ τόρον. Antipater’s rejoinder here
(εἰ τορὸν οὖας ἔλλαχες) implies that the fault lies not with the poem, but with the dull
295
On the attribution, see Skiadas, 1965, 122-123 (cf. 122 n. 1 and 123 n. 1), who notes
that earlier scholars, attributing the poem to Antipater of Thessalonica, ignored the fact
that the poem is preserved in a Meleagrean context.
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139 ear of the critic.296 Antipater goes on to say that it is Antimachus’ poetry that presents the
would-be imitator with a “difficult path” (τὰν ἄτριπτον καὶ ἀνέµβατον ἄτραπον
ἄλλοις), usurping the image of the “untrodden path” so dear to Callimachus in the
prologue to the Aitia and elsewhere.297
Although Asclepiades and Callimachus have furnished grist for Antipater’s mill,
Antipater treats Antimachus in a categorically different way. At issue for them was the
quality of the elegiac Lyde and whether or not it could be described as a τορὸν γράµµα,
i.e. a work fulfilling the quality of fineness and precision signified by the term λεπτότης.
In Antipater, the object of praise is not the Lyde, but instead Antimachus’ στίχος (“line
of verse”), a term most easily understood as referring to hexameters rather than elegiac
couplets.298 Morever, the στίχος is not “fat” or “thin” or “exalted”, but “thunderous”,
“tireless”, “proud”, and “forged on the anvils of the Muses”. The word στίχος, like
Pindar’s µέλος (AP 7.34.3) and Aeschylus’ τραγικόν φώνηµα (AP 7.39.1) serves to
identify the genre of poetry under consideration in the epigram, while the description of it
places it within the larger stylistic matrix Antipater is building.
296
Antipater’s οὖας picks up on Callimachus’ θηρί … οὐατόεντι at Aet. fr. 1.31 (in that
context a reference to an ass). The same phrase is later quoted to humorous effect by the
second-century epigrammatist Pollianus, AP 11.130. Cf. also Callim. Hymn to Apollo
105—another significant metapoetic context—where Envy “whispers secretly in Apollo’s
ear” (ἐπ᾽ οὔατα λάθριος εἶπεν). One suspects that similar anti-Callimachean jabs may
lie behind such distinctive lexical choices as µαίεαι, 6 or ναέτηρ, 9 (both in these forms
only here, according to TLG), but I am unable to find specific Callimachean parallels.
For µαίεαι, cf. Hermesianax, Leontion, fr. 7.80 CA: σκοτίην µαιόµενοι σοφίην (a
description of scholars like Philitas of Cos); cf. Catullus, 116.1: saepe tibi studioso
animo venante requirens, also in an invective context, alluding to Callimachus (see
Barchiesi, 2005).
297
fr. 1.28 Pf. Cf. Callim. HE II and Hymn to Artemis, 48. See my discussion of
Callimachus’ epigrams and the Aetia prologue above.
298
See HE, vol. II, 87 on the question of whether Antipater praises a particular poem of
Antimachus here.
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140 The first word of the epigram, ὄβριµον, with its connotations of deep, loud, noise
immediately connects the poem with the imagery in the poems on Aeschylus and
Pindar.299 Like Pindar’s σάλπιγξ or Aeschylus’ φώνηµα, the imagery of thunder, and
the forge are all vividly evocative of the powerful stylistic qualities attributed to
Antimachus’ poetry.300 The word ὀφρύος, 2 and the phrase Πιερίδων χαλκευτὸν, 3,
also echo the language of Antipater’s epigrams on Pindar and Aeschylus.301
In the second half of the epigram, Antimachus’ relationship to Homer is likened
to the relationship of Poseidon to Zeus through the image of a team of horses, of which
Homer is the leader and Antimachus is the second member.302 This is in line with the
shift from priase of the Lyde to praise of the epic στίχος. The effect is to recast
Antimachus from the role he had played in early Hellenistic literary disputes into the role
he took on later, in the stylistic criticism of the first century BCE and onward.303
299
The adjective ὄβριµον also recalls the poetological terminology and programmatic
statements of Callimachus (e.g Aet. fr. 1.20 Pf.: βροντᾶν οὐκ ἐµόν, ἀλλὰ Διός).
300
For the equine imagery here, cf. Aristophanes, Ran., 821, on Aeschylus’ ἱπποβάµονα
ῥήµατα.
301
Cf. AP 7.39.1 ὀφρυόεσσαν ἀοιδήν and the first words of lines 1 and 2 of 7.34:
Πιερίκαν … χαλκευτάν.
302
Penzel, 2006, 186 ad loc. notes the similarity between line 1 of the epigram and
Hermesianax fr. 7.45; Grilli, 1979, 204 points instead to Hes. Th. 39 ἀκάµατος ῥέει
αὐδή; but an even closer parallel is nearer to hand: Antipater’s ἀκαµάτου … αἴνεσον
recalls αἰνείσθω … καµών of Leonidas’ epigram (HE CI = AP 9.25) on Aratus’
Phaenomena. For Leonidas, Aratus came second to Homer (as a star to Homer’s sun),
but for Antipater, the same position is filled (using similar diction) by Antimachus. For
the quality of the listener’s ear as decisive for the reception of poetry cf. Posid. AB 118.2:
καθαροῖς οὔασιν ἐκλ[ύ]ετε.
303
Cf., e.g., Quint. Inst. Or. X.53: Sed quamvis ei secundas fere grammaticorum
consensus deferet, et adfectibus et iucunditate et dispositione et omnino arte deficitur, ut
plane manifesto appareat quanto sit aliud proximum esse, aliud secundum. (“But
although the grammarians pretty much agree in giving him second prize, he falls short in
passion, in charm, in composition, and in technique in general, so that it becomes plainly
obvious what a difference there is between being ‘nearest’ and being ‘second’.”)
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141 Antimachus is no longer one of the paradigms of elegiac verse, but rather the “secondplace” poet of epos and the exemplar of the “grand” style in that genre.304 Antipater’s
epigram, while drawing on several of his epigrammatic predecessors in pointed ways,
nevertheless reflects, in the words of Argentieri, a contemporary
“rediscovery/reevaluation” of Antimachus, who now takes his place in Antipater’s
panorama.305
In a sense, in this epigram, Antimachus’ poetry has been “reduced” to epic, and
the over-the-top imagery and diction seems even to stress that we are dealing with a
stereotype. We will see a similar phenomenon in the epigrams on Anacreon, which I will
discuss next. These stereotypes, considered in isolation, are relatively impoverished as
representations of the poets themselves. It is only within the context of a larger
conceptual framework that their significance can be appreciated.
Anacreon and the γλαφυρὰ ἁρµονία
The final group of poet-epigrams by Antipater I will consider comprises five
epigrams on the 6th century BC lyric poet Anacreon of Teos.306 In his poems on
Anacreon, Antipater drew upon a well-established tradition in Hellenistic epigram.307
Along with figures like Homer, Sappho, and Hipponax, Anacreon is one of the most
Quintilian’s uncharitable gloss on the phrase secundas deferet is, in a sense, implied by
the comparison between Zeus and Poseidon insofar as the idea of the comparison itself
goes back to a scene in the Iliad in which Zeus asserts that his power is not only greater
than Poseidon’s, but greater by far (Il. 15.158-167).
304
See Skiadas, 1965, 124, on Antimachus as a canonical poet of epic.
305
Argentieri, 2003, 94.
306
On these epigrams, see esp. Chirico, 1981, and Barbantani, 1993.
307
Cf. Leonidas APl 306 and 307; Theocritus AP 9.599; [Simonides] AP 7.24 and 25;
Dioscorides, AP 7.31; On the tradition in general see, in general, Barbantani 1993, 47-66.
Cf. Posidippus, 9 AB, from the Milan papyrus, though this epigram is of a much different
type from the others.
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142 popular subjects in Hellenistic poet-epigram. The epigrammatists were not, however,
interested in presenting a rounded representation of the poet and his work.308 Instead,
they portray him as the stereotyped figure found depicted in vase paintings and literature
as early as the classical period, a poet of wine, song, and love (especially pederastic).309
Whether or not they served as a direct model for the epigrammatists, the ten extant
hexameters on Anacreon by Critias (PMG 500), the politician, poet, and friend of
Socrates, already feature several key elements of what becomes practically a template for
the representation of Anacreon in Hellenistic epigram:310
τὸν δὲ γυναικείων µελέων πλέξαντά ποτ’ ὠιδάς
ἡδὺν Ἀνακρείοντα Τέως εἰς Ἑλλάδ’ ἀνῆγεν,
συµποσίων ἐρέθισµα, γυναικῶν ἠπερόπευµα,
αὐλῶν ἀντίπαλον, φιλοβάρβιτον, ἡδύν, ἄλυπον.
οὔ ποτέ σου φιλότης γηράσεται οὐδὲ θανεῖται,
5
ἔστ’ ἂν ὕδωρ οἴνωι συµµειγνύµενον κυλίκεσσιν
παῖς διαποµπεύηι προπόσεις ἐπὶ δεξιὰ νωµῶν
παννυχίδας θ’ ἱερὰς θήλεις χοροὶ ἀµφιέπωσιν,
πλάστιγξ θ’ ἡ χαλκοῦ θυγάτηρ ἐπ’ ἄκραισι καθίζηι
κ ο τ τ ά β ο υ ὑ ψ η λ α ῖ ς κ ο ρ υ φ α ῖ ς Β ρ ο µ ί ο υ ψ α κ ά δ ε σ σ ι ν . 308
A point already noted at HE, vol. 2, 45. Cf. Acosta-Hughes and Barbantani, 2007,
442: “The epigrammatic tradition views Anacreon as a character rather than an author.”
In some of Antipater’s epigrams, however, Anacreon is emphatically figured as an author
(see below on AP 7.26.2).
309
The process by which Anacreon’s personality came to be constructed using only
certain themes of his poetry to the exclusion of all others is described by Rosenmeyer,
1992, with a discussion of depictions of Anacreon on Attic red-figure vases on pp. 32933. Chirico, 1981, 53 ascribes to Antipater, “l’intenzione di recuperare il valore
autentico della poesia di Anacreonte.” [Emphasis added.] This is true only if we define
“authentic” as that which had been judged by the tradition to be the “essential” qualities
of Anacreon’s work.
310
Gabathuler, 1937, 71, speculates that the epigrammatists’ depictions of Anacreon
depend in part upon the scholarly work of Chamaeleon, the author of a lost περὶ
Ἀνακρείοντος. (Cf. Bing, 1988b, 121, n. 17.) While this is possible, it is worth noting
that the only extant fragment of this work (quoted by Athenaeus ΧΙΙ.46 Kaibel), quotes
an invective passage from Anacreon (against Artemon), an aspect of the poetry that the
epigrammatists completely elide.
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143 “Teos brought sweet Anacreon to Greece, the weaver of womanly songs, rouser of revels,
seducer of women, opponent of the flute, lover of the lyre, the delightful, the carefree;
and never shall love of you (/ your love), Anacreon, grow old or die, so long as the
serving-boy brings water mixed with wine for cups, pouring toasts on the right-hand side,
so long as female choruses perform night-long rites, so long as the scale-pan—the
daughter of bronze—sits high upon the summit of the cottabus-pole ready for the
throwing of the wine-drops.” (Translation adapted from Edmonds’ Loeb.)
The major elements of this depiction of Anacreon are love (5), poetry and music (1-2, 4),
wine (6-7, 10) and Dionysus (10), and the symposium (3, 10). Furthermore, the passage
claims for Anacreon a certain kind of immortality that is activated precisely by the
performance of the “rituals” of the symposium.311 In this sense, Critias’ poem is an index
of Anacreon’s transformation from a mere poet to a sympotic hero. Taken together, these
elements constitute a template—a collection of formal and thematic elements—that
recurs again and again in portrayals of Anacreon.312
We have seen that Antipater is always very attentive to his predecessors in
epigram, often basing his poems quite closely on theirs. In the case of Antipater’s
epigrams on Anacreon, Dioscorides’ AP 7.31 provides an especially important
background in its form, diction, the accumulation of motifs drawn from Anacreontic
poetry, and the notion of a kind of continued life after death for the poet:
AP 7.31 – Dioscorides = HE (Text = HE)
Σµερδίῃ ὦ ἐπὶ Θρῃκὶ τακεὶς καὶ ἐπ’ ἔσχατον ὀστεῦν,
κώµου καὶ πάσης κοίρανε παννυχίδος,
τερπνότατε Μούσῃσιν Ἀνάκρεον, ὦ ’πὶ Βαθύλλῳ
χλωρὸν ὑπὲρ κυλίκων πολλάκι δάκρυ χέας,
αὐτόµαταί τοι κρῆναι ἀναβλύζοιεν ἄκρητου
5
311
As Rosenmeyer, 1992, 17, remarks, “Critias’ symposium is a sacred one, and
Anacreon, dead and venerated, seems to rank just below Dionysus as the presiding
divinity.”
312
Critias’ depiction also differs from those of the epigrammatists in some important
ways. The prominent references to heterosexual love, Anacreon’s putative aversion to
the αὐλός, and most importantly the reference to the mixture of water with wine, either
go unmentioned or are contradicted by the epigrammatists.
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144 κἠκ µακάρων προχοαὶ νέκταρος ἀµβροσίου,
αὐτόµατοι δὲ φέροιεν ἴον τὸ φιλέσπερον ἄνθος
κῆποι, καὶ µαλακῇ µύρτα τρέφοιτο δρόσῳ,
ὄφρα καὶ ἐν Δηοῦς οἰνωµένος ἁβρὰ χορεύσῃς
βεβληκὼς χρυσέην χεῖρας ἐπ’ Εὐρυπύλην.
10
Consumed right down to the bone-marrow by Thracian
Smerdies, leader of revelry and of every night-time
celebration, Anacreon, most loved by the Muses, you who
often pour out a fresh tear over your cups for Bathyllus:
may springs of pure wine spontaneously spout forth and may
founts of ambrosial nectar pour forth and may the gardens
spontaneously sprout violets—the blossom that delights in
the night-time—and may the myrtle be fed with mild dew.
This way even in the grave, wine-drunk, you may step
nimbly, your hands stretched out to golden Eurypyle.
The litany of images in the epigram evokes the sympotic triad of wine, love, and song, in
a celebration of Anacreon’s poetry.313 The theme of love is introduced right away in the
first line with the mention of Smerdies, and is sustained by the naming of other loves of
Anacreon, Bathyllus and Eurypyle (3 and 10). The theme of wine is represented in the
depiction of Anacreon as habitué of the symposium (πάσης κοίρανε παννυχίδος, 2)
followed by wine-cups (4), the unmixed wine (ἄκρητον, 5), and the adjective οἰνωµένος
(9). As Gow-Page note ad loc., the milieu of the symposium is further evoked by
profusion of flowers, used at symposia for plaiting garlands, at lines 7-8, and by the
epithet φιλέσπερος, used of the violet in line 7.
Dioscorides also uses key words and images that stand metaphorically for the
intangible stylistic qualities of Anacreon’s poetry. The adjective χλωρός describes a tear
in line 4, but gains added significance when we consider that Demetrius singles out the
related adjective χλωρηΐς at Od. 19.518 as imparting to that passage the χάρις that is for
313
On elements of Anacreon’s own poetry (e.g. the names of his beloveds) taken up in
Hellenistic epigram, see the discussion of Barbantani, 1993, 47-66.
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145 him the signal quality of the γλαφυρὸς χαρακτήρ.314 Similarly, the adjective µαλακός
used of dew (8), the violets of lines 7-8, and the adjective ἁβρός used adverbially of
Anacreon’s gait at line 9 all anticipate the imagery of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’
description of the γλαφυρά ἁρµονία, discussed above. This adjective emphasizes the
poet’s continued vitality even in the underworld, where souls are usually sluggish and
slowed by the weight of death.
With this background in mind, we will turn to Antipater’s series of five epigrams
on Anacreon:315
AP 7.23 – Antipater of Sidon = XIII HE (Text = HE)
Θάλλοι τετρακόρυµβος, Ἀνάκρεον, ἀµφὶ σὲ κισσός
ἁβρά τε λειµώνων πορφυρέων πέταλα,
πηγαὶ δ’ ἀργινόεντος ἀναθλίβοιντο γάλακτος,
εὐῶδες δ’ ἀπὸ γῆς ἡδὺ χέοιτο µέθυ,
ὄφρα κέ τοι σποδιή τε καὶ ὀστέα τέρψιν ἄρηται,
εἰ δή τις φθιµένοις χρίµπτεται εὐφροσύνα.
5
May the ivy with its four-tipped leaves and the soft flowers
of the crimson meadows blossom around you, Anacreon, and
may fountains of shining milk pour forth and fragrant sweet
wine flow from the earth, so that even your ashes and bones
may receive delight, if in fact any joy reaches the dead.
AP 7.26 – Antipater of Sidon = XIV HE (Text = HE)
Ξεῖνε, τάφον παρὰ λιτὸν Ἀνακρείοντος ἀµείβων,
εἴ τί τοι ἐκ βίβλων ἦλθεν ἐµῶν ὄφελος,
σπεῖσον ἐµῇ σποδιῇ, σπεῖσον γάνος, ὄφρα κεν οἴνῳ
ὀστέα γηθήσῃ τἀµὰ νοτιζόµενα,
ὡς ὁ Διωνύσου µεµεληµένος εὐάσι κώµοις,
ὡς ὁ φιλακρήτου σύντροφος Ἁρµονίης
µηδὲ καταφθίµενος Βάκχου δίχα τοῦτον ὑποίσω
τὸν γενεῇ µερόπων χῶρον ὀφειλόµενον.
5
Stranger, passing by the slight tomb of Anacreon:
If any benefit has come to you from my books,
pour out liquid upon my dust, so that my bones may delight
in being wetted. Thus I, who was devoted to the rites of
314
On Style, 133.
On this series, see, in general, Chirico, 1981; Barbantani, 1993, 55-60; Gutzwiller
1998a, 263-265.
315
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146 Bacchus with the shout of ‘Euhoe’, and who was the
companion of unbridled harmony, may not, when dead,
endure without Bacchus this land where the race of men
must go.
AP 7.27 – Antipater of Sidon = XV HE (Text = HE)
Εἴης ἐν µακάρεσσιν, Ἀνάκρεον, εὖχος Ἰώνων,
µήτ’ ἐρατῶν κώµων ἄνδιχα µήτε λύρης·
ὑγρὰ δὲ δερκοµένοισιν ἐν ὄµµασιν οὖλον ἀείδοις
αἰθύσσων λιπαρῆς ἄνθος ὕπερθε κόµης,
ἠὲ πρὸς Εὐρυπύλην τετραµµένος ἠὲ Μεγιστῆ
ἢ Κίκονα Θρῃκὸς Σµερδίεω πλόκαµον,
ἡδὺ µέθυ βλύζων, ἀµφίβροχος εἵµατα Βάκχῳ,
ἄκρητον θλίβων νέκταρ ἀπὸ στολίδων.
τρισσοῖς γάρ, Μούσαισι, Διωνύσῳ καὶ Ἔρωτι,
πρέσβυ, κατεσπείσθη πᾶς ὁ τεὸς βίοτος.
5
10
May you in the company of the blessed, Anacreon, pride of
the Ionians, not be without your lusty revels or your lyre;
and may you sing clearly with eyes glancing moistly,
shaking flowers upon your anointed head; turned toward
Eurypyle or Megistes, or to the Ciconian hair of Thracian
Smerdies, dribbling sweet wine, your clothes drenched with
Bacchus, wringing the unmixed nectar from your clothes.
For, old man, your whole life was poured as an offering to
three divinities: the Muses, Dionysus, and Eros.
AP 7.29 – Antipater of Sidon = XVI HE (Text = HE*)
Εὕδεις ἐν φθιµένοισιν, Ἀνάκρεον, ἐσθλὰ πονήσας,
εὕδει δ’ ἡ γλυκερὴ νυκτιλάλος κιθάρη,
εὕδει καὶ Σµέρδις, τὸ Πόθων ἔαρ, ᾧ σὺ µελίσδων
†βάρβιτ’ ἀνεκρούου† νέκταρ ἐναρµόνιον·
ἠιθέων γὰρ Ἔρωτος ἔφυς σκοπός, εἰς δὲ σὲ µοῦνον
τόξα τε καὶ σκολιὰς εἶχεν ἑκηβολίας.
5
5 ἔφυ Grotius (Gow-Page sequentibus) ἔφυς PPl
You sleep among the dead, Anacreon, having accomplished
worthy things, and the sweet lyre, sounding at night, sleeps
as well, and Smerdis, the springtime of desires sleeps.
Singing a song to him you […] tuneful nectar. For you were
a target of the Love of youths, and at you alone he aimed his
bow and his skill in archery.
AP 7.30 – Antipater of Sidon = XVII HE (Text = HE)
Τύµβος Ἀνακρείοντος· ὁ Τήιος ἐνθάδε κύκνος
εὕδει χἠ παίδων ζωροτάτη µανίη.
ἀκµὴν οἶν᾽ ἐρόεντι µελίζεται ἀµφὶ Βαθύλλῳ
ἵµερα, καὶ κισσοῦ λευκὸς ὄδωδε λίθος,
οὐδ’ Ἀίδης σοι ἔρωτας ἀπέσβεσεν, ἐν δ’ Ἀχέροντος
ὢν ὅλος ὠδίνεις Κύπριδι θερµοτέρῃ.
5
3 οἶν᾽ Gow ἐρόεντι Stadtmüller οἱ λυρόεν PPl
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147 The tomb of Anacreon: Here sleeps the Tean swan and the
purest madness for boys. Some lovely song is still sung by
him for Bathyllus, and the white stone is redolent of ivy.
Hades has not extinguished your love, and even in Acheron
you are all in agony with burning desire.
The epigrams present Anacreon as the consummate symposiast. Each, accordingly,
features motifs representing the sympotic triad of, wine, song, and love,316 as well as an
abundance of floral imagery evocative of sympotic garlands. Antipater’s picture of
Anacreon is especially dependent upon the “extreme” Anacreon represented by
Dioscorides AP 7.31 and Leonidas AP 306 and 307.317 Thus his love, like his song and
his wine, is unrestrained and “unmixed”.318 This Anacreon fits the character-type of the
inveterate drinker we find elsewhere, for example, at Leonidas AP 7.455, on the old
woman Maronis, who calls for wine even in the grave.
The whole sequence treats Anacreon as the kind of sympotic “hero” encountered
in Critias’ hexameters (PMG 500), a quasi-divine figure also invoked in the Carmina
Anacreontea.319 The similarity may incidentally offer a hint as to why Antipater
composed a full five epigrams—variations, but nevertheless each quite similar to the
others—on this poet: they are meant to recall the formulaic songs sung by symposiasts
one after the other, of which the Anacreontea are specimens.320 The speaker in AP 7.23
316
Cf. esp. AP 7.27.9-10: τρισσοῖς γὰρ, Μούσαισι, Διωνύσῳ καὶ Ἔρωτι, | πρέσβυ,
κατεσπείσθη πᾶς ὁ τεὸς βίοτος.
317
On the connections between Antipater’s epigrams on Anacreon and earlier models,
see Gabathuler, 1937, 37-8, Barbantani, 1993, 55-60, and Penzel, 2006, 85-92.
318
Cf. φιλακρήτου … ἁρµονίης, 7.26.6; παίδων ζωροτάτη µανίη, 7.30.2; ἄκρητον …
νέκταρ, 7.27.8.
319
Cf. Anacreontea 1, where Anacreon appears to the speaker in a dream and presents
him with a garland that inspires eros in him.
320
Antipater composed multiple epigrams on other poets (e.g. Homer, AP 7.2 and 7.6;
Pindar, AP 7.34 and APl 305), but these seem to differ categorically from the Anacreon
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148 prays for a supernatural efflorescence of flowers and spouts of wine and milk. Pictured
this way, the poet’s grave bears more than a passing resemblance to the pirate ship
overtaken by a sudden growth of grape vines in the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (34-44),
with Anacreon now acting as a surrogate for the god. The poet himself, meanwhile, calls
on the reader to pour a libation of wine at his grave,321 in order to bring him the joy
ordinarily denied to the dead in Greek thought.322 He is also pictured continuing his
revels among the blessed (µακάριοι, 7.27.1), where he wrings wine--likened to nectar,
the drink of the gods—from his robes (7.27.8).
Antipater has fit Anacreon into his larger ensemble of poet-epigrams as the
representative of the γλαφυρὰ ἁρµονία. We have already seen that Dioscorides, AP
7.31, was loaded with words—µαλακός, χλωρός, and so on—evocative of the “smooth”
style. So too in Antipater’s Anacreon epigrams much of the descriptive language of
softness and liquidity (e.g. ἁβρός, 7.23.2; ἡδύς 7.23.4, 7.23.7; λιπαρός, 7.27.4; γλυκερή,
7.29.2) evokes descriptions of this poetic style in Dionysius and other authors, and offers
a sharp contrast to the descriptions of the exemplars of the αὐστηρὰ ἁρµονία as heavy,
rough, hard, and thundering.323 In addition to being a sympotic motif, moreover, the
flowers that are so abundant in the epigrams are a key symbol of the γλαφυρὰ
series. In these other cases, one poem is a brief summary treatment, the other a more
detailed elaboration of the same theme.
321
Where note the unusual word γάνος (“brightness”/“joy”, “of water and wine from
their quickening qualities” per LSJ). In the Cretan Hymn to Zeus (ln. 3) Zeus is the
παγκρατὲς γάνος (“universales Lebensprinzip”, according to the explanation of
Wilamowitz cited in Furley and Bremmer, 2001, v. 2, 8, who add, “γάνος belongs to the
language of cult: it may refer to the god-givenness of what is decisive for the quality of
human life: water, wine, honey.”
322
On the lack of joy amongst the dead as a commonplace in Greek though, cf. Sens,
2011, 10-11 on Asclep. AP 5.85.
323
See, e.g., the extracts from Dionysius discussed above.
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149 ἁρµονία.324 Antipater’s Anacreon even dubs his lyre the “fellow nursling of the
undiluted harmony” (ὁ φιλάκρητου σύντροφος ἁρµονίης, 7.26.6), outwardly a
reference to music, but easily read, metapoetically, as setting Anacreon’s style at an
extreme point distinct from the “well-mixed” (εὔκρατος) middle style.
This series of epigrams engages with the themes of poetic change and continuity
we have seen already, for example, in Dioscorides’ epigrams on dramatists. For
Antipater, the gravestone itself becomes a medium for the revivification of Anacreon’s
poetic voice. In earlier epigram, such as Heraclitus AP 7.465, the garland left on the
“brow” of the gravestone symbolized the fusion of sympotic and sepulchral poetic
traditions. Here, it is not just a garland, but the miraculous efflorescence of sympotic
elements around the stone that marks the union of these poetic traditions. The ivy, a
symbol of both the symposium and Anacreon’s poetic excellence, even leaves the hint of
its odor upon the stone as the token of this commingling.325
As we have seen, poets of the early Hellenistic period had written about figures of
the past in order to make space for their own poetic innovations. In their own distinct
ways, each of them was concerned with the preservation and continuity of earlier poetic
voices within the context of a new world that entailed new poetic forms. In his
panoramic survey of archaic and classical poets, Antipater too assimilates his famous
subjects into the world of his epigrams at the same time as he assimilates—and outdoes—
324
Compare, for instance, Demetrius, de elocutione, 131-2: εἰσὶν δὲ αἱ µὲν ἐν τοῖς
πράγµασι χάριτες, οἷον νυµφαῖοι κῆποι, ὑµέναιοι, ἔρωτες, ὅλη ἡ Σαπφοῦς ποίησις.
(“There are also charming kinds of subject matter, like gardens of the nymphs, wedding
songs, Erotes—the whole of Sappho’s poetry.”)
325
On the motif of ivy, cf. Barbantani, 2010, 20-21 (and n. 60). To the passages cited
there add Callim. AP 9.565 on Theaetetus, discussed above.
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150 the earlier epigrammatists he takes as models for his endeavor. When the island of Ios in
AP 7.2 boasts that Homer has “deposited his breath in me” (πνεῦµα θάνων ἔλιπεν), we
can easily see this as a metapoetic statement: this little epigram is now the purveyor of
the Greek poetic tradition.326 The immortal voice of Anacreon is here too, and they are
accomodated in a poetic landscape like (and likely modeled after) that of Dioscorides, but
stretching much farther, from Sicily in the West to Teos in the East, and encompassing all
genres and literary styles.
Yet in Antipater, this all this occurs as if at a remove. Homer, Anacreon, and the
others, are no longer voices that are being reenergized and transformed (as in the case of
Nossis’ Sappho), but rather figures received through the earlier epigrammatic tradition
and now installed in Antipater’s museum-like panorama. In the fleeting moments when
he does seem to offer reflections on his own poetry, as when the gravestone of Anacreon
serves as a site for the revival of the poet’s voice, these seem to be exaltations of an
established epigrammatic tradition, rather than attempts to gain authorization for a new
poetic form. For earlier epigrammatists, the poetic persona was a means of opening new
space in the literary tradition, acting as a mediator between epigrammatic forms and the
other generic elements with which the poet might combine them. For Antipater, this
process of fusion and innovation was already complete, and his project, rather than to
create a new literary form, was to synthesize the diverse innovations of his predecessors.
326
Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 263: “Like Ios, Antipater feels himself small in comparison
with the monumental literary figures of the past, who lie deeply buried under the only
memorial he can make to them, not rivalrous imitations, but the smaller commemoration
of fictitious epitaph.” Chirico, 1979, 20-1, remarks on Antipater’s use of Homeric
language: “Antipatro … ha sopratutto sempre presente Omero e i due grandi poemi a lui
tradizionalmente attribuiti.”
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151 The occlusion of the authorial persona in Antipater’s epigrams thus marks, in a
certain sense, the end of the first period in the development of epigram as a literary genre.
This first period self-consciously marked itself off from the archaic and classical past,
and used this past as a fulcrum for the creation of a new literary genre. Antipater brought
together this material and created a corpus of poetry that synthesized it at the level of
diction, the conception of individual poems, and, as I have tried to show here, the design
of whole groups of poems. Turning to Meleager, Antipater’s close successor, we will see
how the figure of the poet in epigram was reconceived in light of Antipater’s
consolidation of the genre, and how Antipater himself comes to provide, paradoxically
enough, a template for the figuration of the epigrammatist as a generically defined
authorial persona.
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152 Chapter 2: Part 2
Meleager and the Riddle of Epigram
Scholars have recognized that Antipater, as an avid imitator of earlier epigram,
was an important model for Meleager’s anthological project.327 It would seem that the
same influence could not be detected in the construction of Meleager’s authorial persona,
since Antipater, as we have already seen, did not create a poetic persona of his own. I
would like, however, to argue that, paradoxically, Antipater did offer Meleager a
model—though only a partial model—of the epigrammatist as an authorial figure. For
Meleager, Antipater was the epitome of the poet as the sum of his literary models.
Beginning from this starting point, Meleager, especially in his self-epitaphs, which will
form the focus of my discussion here, reconstitutes a poetic persona that is the perfect
reflection or analog of the text of his Garland, the synthesis of diverse, even
contradictory, elements.
The image of the poet as a complex entity, appearing through the combination of
multiple literary models, had roots in early Hellenistic epigram too. Posidippus’ selfrepresentation appealed greatly to Meleager, and poems by him seem to have occupied
important positions in Meleager’s book of erotika.328 Moreover—a point I shall return to
below—Meleager’s self-representation recalls Posidippus’ in many places.
327
Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 276: “… we may attribute to [Antipater] the impetus for the
earliest epigram anthologies, which were based, as Meleager’s Garland and the Amyntas
papyrus show, on grouping poems in sets of variations.”
328
For reconstructions of the possible layout of the books of Meleager’s Garland, see the
tables at the back of Gutzwiller, 1998a.
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153 Like Nossis and others, Posidippus in AP 12.168 represents himself in reference
to earlier poets, but he complicates the picture by invoking multiple, and disparate,
models:
AP 12.168 – Posidippus = IX HE = 140 AB (Text = AB)
Ναννοῦς καὶ Λύδης ἐπίχει δύο καὶ φιλεράστου
Μιµνέρµου καὶ τοῦ σώφρονος Ἀντιµάχου·
συγκέρασον τὸν πέµπτον ἐµοῦ, τὸν δ’ ἕκτον ἑκάστου,
Ἡλιόδωρ’, εἴπας, ὅστις ἐρῶν ἔτυχεν.
ἕβδοµον Ἡσιόδου, τὸν δ’ ὄγδοον εἶπον Ὁµήρου,
5
τὸν δ’ ἔνατον Μουσῶν, Μνηµοσύνης δέκατον.
µεστὸν ὑπὲρ χείλους πίοµαι, Κύπρι. τἆλλα δ’ Ἔρωτες
νήφειν οἰνωθέντ’ οὐχὶ λίην ἄχαρι.
1 φιλεράστου Jacobs φερεκαστου P
For Nanno and Lyde pour two measures, one for the lover’s
friend Mimnermus and one for sober Antimachus. Mix in
the fifth in my name and the sixth with the words, “For
everyone, Heliodorus, who ever chanced to love”. Say the
seventh is for Hesiod and the eighth for Homer, the ninth for
the Muses and the tenth for Mnemosyne. Full above the
brim will I drink the cup, Cypris. For the rest, Ye Loves, for
a man who has drunk much to remain sober is not at all
unpleasant.329
In form, the epigram combines two elements of earlier sympotic poetry, the series of
toasts and the ethical pronouncement on the good kind of symposium/symposiast.330
Posidippus manipulates both of these elements in a distinctive way. The toasts come in
pairs, each of which fills a line (or in one case, a couplet): Nanno and Lyde (1);
Mimnermus and Antimachus (2); the poet himself and “anyone who ever chanced to
love” (3-4); Hesiod and Homer (5); the Muses and Mnemosyne (6). There are pointed
relationships between various pairs in this carefully constructed list. Nanno and Lyde
correspond to Mimnermus (author of the erotic elegy Nanno) and Antimachus (author of
329
Trans. = Austin.
Passages of this type from philosophical authors are helpfully gathered by Lewy,
1929, 26, n. 1.
330
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154 the mythological elegy Lyde); Hesiod and Homer pair with the Muses (the underwriters
of Hesiod’s poems) and Mnemosyne (who inspired Homer).
The point of the epigram emerges as the various pairs are introduced. It is made
plain with the sententia of the final line, in which the poet describes the paradoxical (yet
not unpleasant) effect that the various toasts have upon him: “being sober when drunk”.
The paired toasts prepare us for this conclusion. In the first, the seventh-century elegiac
poet Mimnermus is paired with his compatriot, the fifth-century elegist Antimachus.
While the pairing seems natural enough, the two represent different “brands” of elegy:
Mimnermus was an exponent of the sympotic-erotic type, in which Erotic pathos played
a major role; Antimachus, meanwhile, was famous for his Lyde, a mythological poem
about the various lost loves of the gods, which he wrote, we are told, to console himself
over the death of his wife Lyde. Antimachus’ distance from the sympotic Mimnermus is
signalled by the epithet sophron attached to him: while Mimnermus is a poet of wine,
Antimachus is abstemious.331 As Sider remarks, the drink mixed in this epigram is “a
compilation of the interdependent components of the poet Posidippus, including his
literary models.”332 [Emphasis added.]
Although various scholars have proposed to emend the poem in order to yield a
sense along the lines of “drunk or sober it is pleasing to …”, this would needlessly
banalize the line. Posidippus instead seems to aim for a paradoxical effect through the
modification of an earlier form of sympotic sententia of a kind we find in Theognis:
331
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 163, goes on to connect Homer with wine and Hesiod with water,
and interprets Mnemosyne and the Muses as competing sources of inspiration.
332
Sider, 2005, 180. Cf., in a similar vein, Gutzwiller, 1998a, 163: “… when the ladling
has been done, the full cup that the poet consumes contains a mixture of the literary
ingredients from which his epigram has been fashioned.” Campbell
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155 αἰσχρόν τοι µεθύοντα παρ᾽ ἀνδράσι νήφοσιν εἶναι,
αἰσχρὸν δ᾽ εἰ νήφων πὰρ µεθύουσι µένει.
(Theognidea, 627-8)
“It is shameful that a man be drunk among men who are
sober, and it is shameful if he remains sober among
drunkards.”
The ability to mold one’s behavior to match the varying dispositions of one’s associates
is a key value in the politically ambiguous world of the Theognidea. It is the same
characteristic that Callimachus claims for himself in AP 7.415 (discussed above).333 I
will return to this idea below in my discussion of Meleager, but for now I would like to
note that Posidippus has taken Theognidean polytropia a step further and combined the
opposing dispositions within the same series of toasts, leading to his paradoxical state of
sober drunkenness at the close of the epigram.334
In addition to being a poet of “mixture”, Posidippus, in his epigrams, is a poet of
different moments. This aspect of his work and that of some others, including
Callimachus and Meleager, has been highlighted by Paduano, who argues that in
Posidippus’ epigrams, the reader gains a “sense of time”, by virtue of which we see the
poet now as a scholar, now as a lover, now in possession of his wits, now out of his mind,
yet nevertheless presented as one and the same individual.335 This captures more
accurately the dynamics and the continuity of the poetic ego in Posidippus than the
333
In Callimachus’ case, the political significance of Theognis’ passage seems to be
transferred to the sphere of poetics. Although Callimachus’ world lacks the radical
political uncertainty of Theognis’, Callimachus must nevertheless situate himself within a
poetic milieu that (in his representation) mirrors the gamesmanship and duplicity of
archaic politics.
334
Paradoxical but not oxymoronic: the verb νήφω, like English “to be sober”, had long
since acquired the secondary meaning, “to be master of oneself” (so Chantraine, citing Pl.
Laws, 818d).
335
Paduano, 1993, esp. pp. 137-140.
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156 account of Fantuzzi, who regards it as a kind of ad hoc persona, to be taken up and
discarded at a whim (i.e. at the beginning and end of each individual epigram).336 Just as
Posidippus’ poetry reflects a multitude of literary models, his authorial persona is pulled
in different directions by conflicting impulses. This tension is dramatized in AP 12.98,
where the poet pictures himself as the “cicada of the Muses”, inoculated against Pothos
by his literary (and philosophical?) training:
Posidippus AP 12.98 = HE VI = 137 AB
τὸν Μουσῶν τέττιγα Πόθος δήσας ἐπ᾽ ἀκάνθαις
κοιµίζειν ἐθέλει πῦρ ὑπὸ πλευρὰ βαλών·
ἡ δὲ πρὶν ἐν βύβλοις πεπονηµένη ἄλλα θερίζει
ψυχὴ ἀνιηρῷ δαίµονι µεµφοµένη.
Desire bound the Muses’ cicada on thorns and wishes to put
him to sleep by casting fire into his breast, but the soul,
already exercised in books, harvests other things, finding
fault with the wicked god.
The poet, represented by the cicada, is caught somewhere between the unbridled passion
of youth and the sober life of the scholar or philosopher.337 The epigram provides a
counterpoint to AP 5.134, where Posidippus bids Zeno and Cleanthes to be silent so that
the poet and his friends can concern themselves with Eros:
AP 5.134 – Posidippus = I HE
Κεκροπί, ῥαῖνε, λάγυνε, πολύδροσον ἰκµάδα Βάκχου,
ῥαῖνε· δροσιζέσθω συµβολικὴ πρόποσις·
σιγάσθω Ζήνων, ὁ σοφὸς κύκνος, ἥ τε Κλεάνθους
Μοῦσα, µέλοι δ᾽ ἡµῖν ὁ γλυκύπικρος Ἔρως.
Drip, Cecropian jug, a dewy drop of Bacchus. Drip. Let the
group toast be a dewy one. Let Zeno, the wise swan, be
336
Cf. Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi-Hunter, 2004, 348: “the poets seem to declare: ‘I,
Callimachus (or I, Posidippus, or I, Meleager), even if I have been brought up to make
use of my intellect under the guidance of the Muses, I, too, sometimes get drunk, and
therefore I fall in love, but only because I am/I want to become a sympotic poet.’”
337
The philosopher or intellectual overtaken by Eros is a rather common topos in epigram
and elsewhere: cf. Hermesianax, Leontion, fr. 7.75-84 Powell (on Philitas of Cos); Leon.
Tar. AP AP 6.293 (on the Cynic Sochares); ἄδηλον AP 12.100; Meleager AP 12.101
(the model for Propertius I.1). Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 160.
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157 silent, and the Muse of Cleanthes, and for us let bittersweet
Eros be our care.
These antithetical moments in Posidippus’ persona are of a piece with his representation
of himself in AP 12.168. The multiplicity of models invoked there, Mimnermus,
Antimachus, and the rest, corresponds to a multiplicity of moments in the personality of
the poet, who emerges as a complex figure within his work.
We will see that this image of the poet as a mixture of different, perhaps
conflicting, elements, provided one of the bases for Meleager’s portrayal of Antipater of
Sidon and, in turn, for Meleager’s own self-representation. Antipater’s panorama only
made room for canonical archaic and classical poets and genres. When Meleager created
his anthology, however, he made a kind of special dispensation, and furnished Antipater
with a place of his own in the panorama by composing an epitaph for him. Set alongside
the other elements of the panorama, Meleager’s epitaph for Antipater offers an interesting
illustration of the relationship between epigram and other literary genres and between the
epigrammatist and other poetic subjectivities. The other genres are represented by clearly
defined representative types, but the epigrammatist is a riddle:
AP 7.428 – Meleager = HE CXXII
Ἁ στάλα, σύνθηµα τί σοι γοργωπὸς ἀλέκτωρ
ἔστα, καλλαΐνᾳ σκαπτοφόρος πτέρυγι,
ποσσὶν ὑφαρπάζων νίκας κλάδον; ἄκρα δ’ ἐπ’ αὐτᾶς
βαθµῖδος προπεσὼν κέκλιται ἀστράγαλος;
ἦ ῥά γε νικάεντα µάχᾳ σκαπτοῦχον ἄνακτα
5
κρύπτεις; ἀλλὰ τί σοι παίγνιον ἀστράγαλος;
πρὸς δέ, τί λιτὸς ὁ τύµβος; ἐπιπρέπει ἀνδρὶ πενιχρῷ
ὄρνιθος κλαγγαῖς νυκτὸς ἀνεγροµένῳ.
οὐ δοκέω· σκᾶπτρον γὰρ ἀναίνεται. ἀλλὰ σὺ κεύθεις
ἀθλοφόρον νίκαν ποσσὶν ἀειράµενον.
10
οὐ ψαύω καὶ τᾷδε. τί γὰρ ταχὺς εἴκελος ἀνὴρ
ἀστραγάλῳ; νῦν δὴ τὠτρεκὲς ἐφρασάµαν·
φοῖνιξ µὲν νίκαν ἐνέπει πάτραν τε µεγαυχῆ
µατέρα Φοινίκων, τὰν πολύπαιδα Τύρον·
ὄρνις δ’, ὅττι γεγωνὸς ἀνὴρ καί που περὶ Κύπριν
15
πρᾶτος κἠν Μούσαις ποικίλος ὑµνοθέτας·
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158 σκᾶπτρα δ’ ἔχει σύνθηµα λόγου· θνᾴσκειν δὲ πεσόντα
οἰνοβρεχῆ προπετὴς ἐννέπει ἀστράγαλος.
καὶ δὴ σύµβολα ταῦτα, τὸ δ’ οὔνοµα πέτρος ἀείδει,
Ἀντίπατρον, προγόνων φύντ’ ἀπ’ ἐρισθενέων.
O stele, why does a bright-eyed cock stand upon you as an
emblem, carrying a scepter in his blue-green wing,
seizing with his claws the branch of victory, and a die lies
fallen at the edge of the base?
Is it that you cover a scepter-bearing king, a victor in war?
But why then do you have this plaything, a die? And what’s
more, the tomb is slight, and befits a poor man roused in the
night by the cries of a bird.
I don’t think this is right, for the scepter argues against it.
Rather you cover a champion who won victory with his feet.
Here too I haven’t hit upon it, for how is a swift man like a
die? But now I’ve got it: The palm indicates both victory
and a proud fatherland, the mother of the Phoenicians, Tyre
with its many children; and the bird indicates that this was a
man who made himself heard, and one who was outstanding
in matters of love, and amidst the Muses a versatile poet.
And he holds a scepter as a symbol of his speech, and the
fallen die indicates that he died after falling while drunk.
Yes, these are the symbols, but the stone sings the name:
Antipater, offspring of powerful ancestors.
The speaker begins by inquiring of the stone as to the meaning of the symbols carved on
it—a rooster carrying a sceptre in his claws and a fallen die (1-4). By way of explaining
these symbols, the speaker then introduces several biographical speculations about the
deceased (5-10), rejecting each of them in turn as inconsistent with the symbols. The
speaker then announces that he has found the solution (12) and interprets the symbols as
indicating that the deceased was a citizen of Tyre, a poet, and died as the result of a
drunken fall. In the last couplet, the speaker reveals that the only word carved on the
stone is the name of the deceased—ΑΝΤΙΠΑΤΡΟY (19-20).
As the poem unfolds, the reader becomes gradually aware that the poem is
reflecting on itself—on its relationship to other poems and on its position within the
Garland. Through this ingenious device, the process of reading and understanding
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159 epigrams is dramatized, before our eyes, as the solving of a certain kind of puzzle. The
poem outwardly asks merely for the identity of the deceased, but read self-reflexively, it
is really asking, who the epigrammatist is, the elusive figure behind this enigmatic
literary form. Gow and Page’s terse summary of the poem entirely fails to take note this
effect, saying only, “after the customary rejection of other guesses the correct answer is
given … .”338 Goldhill, by contrast, gets at the peculiar effect of the epigram when he
describes it as:
“an elaborate game of ironic description of Antipater and his poetry (especially
the type of poem immediately preceding Meleager’s in this collection), a
description that depends on a competitive establishment of Meleager’s art
through and against Antipater’s (and Leonidas’) poetry (that Meleager has
collected and organised).”339
The poem recapitulates motifs and words from the six riddle epigrams that precede it, the
first of them by Leonidas and the rest by Antipater himself,340 and is thus constructed
according to the rules of Antipater’s own art of imitation and variation. There are also
elements drawn in from other poems by Leonidas of Tarentum as well as by Antipater.
As the speaker of the poem proceeds, for instance, the figures of Leonidas and
Anacreon briefly come into view before being dissolved in the final lines, when the
speaker comes to his conclusion. As was the case with Antipater’s epigrams, the effect is
a bit disorienting, as Antipater’s and Leonidas’ depictions of Anacreon, and Leonidas’
poetic persona, blend with the elements taken over from the series of riddle epigrams
immediately preceding Meleager’s epitaph. The humble appearance of the tomb initially
338
HE, v. II, 673.
Goldhill, 1994, 204. Goldhill’s parenthetical phrasing neatly suggests the
kaleidoscopic effect of Antipater’s/Meleager’s methods of composition on the reader.
340
The connections are illustrated by Gutzwiller, 1998a, 274-5.
339
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160 leads the speaker to conjecture that its inhabitant must be a poor man (τί λιτὸς ὁ τύµβος;
ἐπιπρέπει ἀνδρὶ πενιχρῷ, 7). For a reader of epigram, the word λιτός inevitably points
(among other places) back to Leonidas AP 6.302, the mice-epigram, and it is also used by
Antipater to describe Anacreon’s tomb (7.26.1).341 So too with the mention of
Antipater’s fatal drunken fall (17), which has caused commentators difficulty. It is of
course possible that Antipater did die as the result of such a fall, but this report conflicts
with Cicero (de Fato 5), who says that he died of a fever. The problem disappears,
however, if we suppose that Meleager is aiming at a point other than biographical
accuracy.342 First of all, the drunken fall is a motif in Leonidas AP 7.422, which forms
the kernel of the series of riddle epigrams,343 but it also recalls Leonidas’ epigrams on
images of Anacreon, in which the speaker observes Anacreon’s unsteady gait, and prays
that Dionysus not allow the drunken poet to fall (APl 306, cp. APl 307):
A. Plan. 306 – Leonidas of Tarentum
Πρέσβυν Ἀνακρείοντα χύδαν σεσαλαγµένον οἴνῳ
θάεο δινωτοῦ στρεπτὸν ὕπερθε λίθου,
ὡς ὁ γέρων λίχνοισιν ἐπ’ ὄµµασιν ὑγρὰ δεδορκὼς
ἄχρι καὶ ἀστραγάλων ἕλκεται ἀµπεχόναν·
δισσῶν δ’ ἀρβυλίδων τὰν µὲν µίαν οἷα µεθυπλὴξ
ὤλεσεν, ἐν δ’ ἑτέρᾳ ῥικνὸν ἄραρε πόδα.
µέλπει δ’ ἠὲ Βάθυλλον ἐφίµερον ἠὲ Μεγιστέα,
αἰωρῶν παλάµᾳ τὰν δυσέρωτα χέλυν.
ἀλλά, πάτερ Διόνυσε, φύλασσέ µιν· οὐ γὰρ ἔοικεν
ἐκ Βάκχου πίπτειν Βακχιακὸν θέραπα.
1
5
Gaze on old Anacreon, brim-full of wine, turned over the
two-sided stone; see how the old old man, tripping along
341
As pointed out by Gutzwiller, 1998a, 111, λιτός and πενιχρός are both key terms for
Leonidas. Cf. my discussion of Leonidas’ ethical program above. 342
Contrast the approach of Weigand, 1840, who attempts to harmonize the two different
accounts of Antipater’s death, and of Waltz, 1906, 12, who thinks Meleager more reliable
insofar as he is a contemporary source. But the fact that a writer was in a position to
provide more accurate biographical information is no guarantee that he has done so.
343
As noted by Gutzwiller, 1998a, 275.
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161 with a moist glance in his lusty eyes, carries a pouch of dice.
The wine-addled man has lost one of his boots, and in the
other he lifts a wrinkled foot. He sings some song of lovely
Bathyllus, or Megistes, raising with his hand his lovesick
lyre. But father Dionysus, keep him safe: for it is not right
that a minister of Bacchus should fall because of Bacchus.
Like the other epigrams on Anacreon examined already, this poem gives him three basic
attributes: he is drunken (σεσαλαγµένον οἴνῳ, 1, µεθυπλήξ, 5), a lover of boys (7), and
a poet (µέλπει, 7). It also includes a motif not featured in other epigrams on the poet—
Anacreon’s unsteady gait, which the speaker of the epigram views with (playful) alarm,
fearful that the old man will fall. The connection between Meleager’s depiction of
Antipater and Leonidas’ of Anacreon is further solidified by the words of Meleager’s
speaker at lines 15-18:
ὄρνις δ’, ὅττι γεγωνὸς ἀνὴρ καί που περὶ Κύπριν
15
πρᾶτος κἠν Μούσαις ποικίλος ὑµνοθέτας·
σκᾶπτρα δ’ ἔχει σύνθηµα λόγου· θνᾴσκειν δὲ πεσόντα
οἰνοβρεχῆ προπετὴς ἐννέπει ἀστράγαλος.
The themes of poetry, love, and wine are interwoven here, with the phrases ‘γεγωνὸς
ἀνὴρ’, ‘κἠν Μούσαις ποικίλος ὑµνοθέτας’, and ‘σκᾶπτρα δ’ ἔχει σύνθηµα λόγου
indicating Antipater’s poetic excellence, ‘που περὶ Κύπριν | πρᾶτος’ his reputation as a
passionate lover, and the adjective ‘οἰνοβρεχῆ’ his fondness for alcohol.344 Meleager’s
portrayal thus combines an image of Anacreon drawn from Leonidas with the “sympotic
triad” of wine, poetry, and love, used in epigrams on Anacreon by ‘Simonides’,
Dioscorides, and Antipater himself, and so paints Antipater as a kind of “new Anacreon”.
344
As G-P note, οἰνοβρέχη is a rare word (a TLG search finds it only here and at P. Lit.
Lond. 192), and may remind the reader of Antipater’s description of Anacreon,
ἀµφίβροχος εἵµατα Βάκχῳ (AP 7.27.7), discussed above.
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162 Meleager’s report of Antipater’s birthplace as Tyre, rather than Sidon, contrary to
the contemporary testimony of ID 2549, may reflect a literary rather than biographical
agenda as well. As Argentieri, following Weigand and Waltz, points out, Tyre stands
here for the common ancestral source of all the Phoenician people, regardless of their
actual place of birth.345 The specific motive behind Meleager’s phrasing, however, may
be to connect Antipater and himself through a bond of geography. At Gadara, Meleager
says he wrote under the influence of Menippus, whereas at Tyre he composed epigrams.
By connecting Antipater with Tyre rather than Sidon, and connecting his own
composition of epigrams with his residence at Tyre, Meleager casts Antipater as an
inspirational figure for epigram analogous to Menippus in the literary genre that bore his
name.346
Thanks to this epitaph, Antipater, the poet who spoke through, and thus
disappeared into, his models receives a place of his own alongside the classics of Greek
poetry, ranged among them in the panorama he himself created. Meleager does not do
Antipater this service without self-interest, however. The construction of Antipater as a
protean figure provides the starting point for Meleager’s own self-representation.
Meleager constructs himself not just as the sum of his literary models, but as the
embodiment of his own literary text, the Garland, that contains them.
As a literary work, the Garland is held together by a complex web of metaphors.
The long prefatory poem AP 4.1 establishes weaving as the “master metaphor” of the
345
Argentieri, 2003, 29.
On the metapoetic significance of a poet’s hometown, in this case Hipponax and
Ephesus, cf. Callim. Iam. 13.64-6. On this passage see Fantuzzi and Hunter, 2004, 16
and Acosta-Hughes, 2002, 99-103. On “geo-literary” discourse in Iambus 13, see Lelli,
2004, esp. 123-5.
346
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163 entire collection, with the major poets whose works are included in the Garland each
likened to a different flower. Through this metaphor, the literary text is made into an
imaginary physical object created by the combination of disparate elements into a single
whole.347 The same synthetic quality of the collection is once again emphasized in the
final poem, in which the koronis, marking the end of the text, places Meleager’s sphragis
on the work and boasts:
…
φαµὶ τὸν ἐκ πάντων ἠθροισµένον εἰς ἕνα µόχθον
ὑµνοθετᾶν βύβλῳ τᾷδ᾽ ἐνελιξάµενον
ἐκτελέσαι Μελέαγρον, ἀείµνηστον δὲ Διοκλεῖ
ἄνθεσι συµπλέξαι µουσοπόλων στέφανον.
…
5
“I declare that Meleager has finished, he who enrolled
in this book the labor of all poets gathered into one, and that
it was for Diocles he wove with flowers a wreath, whose
348
memory is evergreen.” (Trans. = Bing, 1988, 34)
Aspects of the opening poem AP 4.1 and this concluding poem are mirrored or recalled in
Meleager’s series of five self-epitaphs (AP 7.416-7.421).349 In his capacity as
anthologist, of course, Meleager is a gatherer and a mixer of poems, but what the selfepitaphs return to over and over again is that Meleager himself is as much a “mixture” of
elements as his text. The series begins with a distich establishing the basic theme that is
taken up with greater complexity in the longer epigrams that follow:
AP 7.416 – Meleager350
347
Cf. Höschele, 2010, 184: “Die Zusammenführung distinkter Elemente zu einem trotz
aller Heterogenität einheithlichen Ganzen kann mithin für Meleager, den Schöpfer des
Kranz wie den liebenden Dichter, als Charakteristikum gelten.”
348
On the tortuous syntax of these lines as an ethopoesis of the koronis, see Bing, 1988a,
33-34.
349
See especially Gutzwiller, 1998b, and Männlein-Robert 2007.
350
The poem has often been excluded from Meleager’s epigrams and regarded as
anonymous. However, its position in a Meleagrean sequence (not to mention its
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164 Εὐκράτεω Μελέαγρον ἔχω, ξένε, τὸν σὺν Ἔρωτι
καὶ Μούσαις κεράσανθ’ ἡδυλόγους Χάριτας.
I hold Meleager, the son of Eukrates, who mixed the sweetspeaking Graces with Eros and the Muses.
AP 7.417 – Meleager = II HE
Νᾶσος ἐµὰ θρέπτειρα Τύρος· πάτρα δέ µε τεκνοῖ
Ἀτθὶς ἐν Ἀσσυρίοις ναιοµένα Γάδαρα·
Εὐκράτεω δ’ ἔβλαστον ὁ σὺν Μούσαις Μελέαγρος
πρῶτα Μενιππείοις συντροχάσας Χάρισιν.
εἰ δὲ Σύρος, τί τὸ θαῦµα; µίαν, ξένε, πατρίδα κόσµον 5
ναίοµεν, ἓν θνατοὺς πάντας ἔτικτε Χάος.
πουλυετὴς δ’ ἐχάραξα τάδ’ ἐν δέλτοισι πρὸ τύµβου·
γήρως γὰρ γείτων ἐγγύθεν Ἀίδεω.
ἀλλά µε τὸν λαλιὸν καὶ πρεσβύτην σὺ προσειπὼν
χαίρειν εἰς γῆρας καὐτὸς ἵκοιο λάλον.
The island of Tyre brought me up but Gadara, an Attic fatherland
situated among the Assyrians, gave birth to me. I blossomed
into Meleager, son of Eucrates, companion of the Muses, having
first entered competition with my Menippean Graces. And if I
am Syrian, what wonder is that? We inhabit a single world, oh
stranger, and one Chaos birthed all us mortals.
In old age I wrote these things on tablets prior to my death, for
old age is a neighbor near to Hades. But bid me, a garrulous old
man, ‘hail’, may you yourself reach a chatty old age.
AP 7.418 – Meleager = III HE
Πρώτα µοι Γαδάρων κλεινὰ πόλις ἔπλετο πάτρα,
ἤνδρωσεν δ’ ἱερὰ δεξαµένα µε Τύρος·
εἰς γῆρας δ’ ὅτ’ ἔβην, ἁ καὶ Δία θρεψαµένα Κῶς
κἀµὲ θετὸν Μερόπων ἀστὸν ἐγηροτρόφει.
Μοῦσαι δ’ εἰν ὀλίγοις µε, τὸν Εὐκράτεω Μελέαγρον 5
παῖδα, Μενιππείοις ἠγλάισαν Χάρισιν.
The famed city of Gadara was my fatherland in the first place;
then holy Tyre received me and brought me to manhood; and
when I reached old age, Kos, which also reared Zeus, made me a
citizen and cared for me. The Muses made me, Meleager the son
of Eucrates, flourish like few others with my Menippean Graces.
AP 7.419 – Meleager = IV HE
Ἀτρέµας, ὦ ξένε, βαῖνε· παρ’ εὐσεβέσιν γὰρ ὁ πρέσβυς
εὕδει κοιµηθεὶς ὕπνον ὀφειλόµενον,
Εὐκράτεω Μελέαγρος, ὁ τὸν γλυκύδακρυν Ἔρωτα
καὶ Μούσας ἱλαραῖς συστολίσας Χάρισιν·
ὃν θεόπαις ἤνδρωσε Τύρος Γαδάρων θ’ ἱερὰ χθών· 5
Κῶς δ’ ἐρατὴ Μερόπων πρέσβυν ἐγηροτρόφει.
similarity to Callimachus’ self-epitaph that precedes it in AP) is more than enough reason
to suppose that it is Meleager’s.
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165 ἀλλ’ εἰ µὲν Σύρος ἐσσί, „Σαλάµ“, εἰ δ’ οὖν σύ γε Φοῖνιξ,
„Αὐδονίς“, εἰ δ’ Ἕλλην, „Χαῖρε“, τὸ δ’ αὐτὸ φράσον.
8 φράσον PPl φράσεις Herwerden
Walk without fear, oh stranger: The old man sleeps among the
pious, bedded down for the sleep that is owed (by all men),
Meleager son of Eucrates, who united the tearful-sweet Eros and
the Muses with the cheerful Graces. Him divine Tyre and the
holy land of Gadara brought to manhood. Lovely Kos, land of
the Meropes, cared for him in his old age. But if you are Syrian,
‘Salam’, if Phoenician, ‘Audonis’ and if you are Greek ‘Chairei’:
and you say the same thing yourself.
AP 7.421 – Meleager = V HE
Πτανέ, τί σοι σιβύνας, τί δὲ καὶ συὸς εὔαδε δέρµα;
καὶ τίς ἐὼν στάλας σύµβολον ἐσσὶ τίνος;
οὐ γὰρ Ἔρωτ’ ἐνέπω σε—τί γὰρ νεκύεσσι πάροικος
Ἵµερος; αἰάζειν ὁ θρασὺς οὐκ ἔµαθεν—
οὐδὲ µὲν οὐδ’ αὐτὸν ταχύπουν Χρόνον· ἔµπαλι γὰρ δὴ 5
κεῖνος µὲν τριγέρων, σοὶ δὲ τέθηλε µέλη.
ἀλλ’ ἄρα, ναί, δοκέω γάρ, ὁ γᾶς ὑπένερθε σοφιστὰς
ἐστί, σὺ δ’ ὁ πτερόεις τοὔνοµα τοῦδε λόγος.
Λατῴας δ’ ἄµφηκες ἔχεις γέρας ἔς τε γέλωτα
καὶ σπουδὰν καί που µέτρον ἐρωτογράφον.
10
ναὶ µὲν δὴ Μελέαγρον ὁµώνυµον Οἰνέος υἱῷ
σύµβολα σηµαίνει ταῦτα συοκτασίας.
χαῖρε καὶ ἐν φθιµένοισιν, ἐπεὶ καὶ Μοῦσαν Ἔρωτι
καὶ Χάριτας σοφίαν εἰς µίαν ἡρµόσαο.
Winged one, why do the hunting spear and the boar-skin please
you? Who are you, and a symbol on whose grave-stone? I
shouldn’t call you Eros—for how can desire be a neighbor of the
dead? That rash one never learned to lament.—Nor would I call
you Time, for that one is a very old man, whereas you are in the
prime of life. But now, yes, I think: the one beneath the earth
was a rhetorician, and you, with your wings, are a description of
his speech. You hold the double-edged gift of Leto’s daughter,
fit for laughter and seriousness and, I suppose, the elegiac meter.
Yes, indeed, these symbols of hunting represent a Meleager, the
namesake of the son of Oineus. Hail even among the dead, since
you have fit together the Muse with Eros and the Graces in a
single work.
The tomb in AP 7.416 informs the reader that it holds Meleager, who has “mixed the
sweet-speaking Graces with Eros and the Muses.” The poet, like his Garland, is a
mixture of distinct elements. The key idea, mixture, and the underlying unity of
apparently distinct elements, gains further emphasis from the redender Name of
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166 Meleager’s father, Eukrates, or “Well-mixed”.351 This same basic theme is developed in
the course of the next four self-epitaphs, where the idea of mixture is expanded to include
the ideas of ethnicity, geography, and language.352 Gadara is “Attic” (Ἀτθίς) and yet
situated “among the Assyrians”; the poet’s Syrian ethnicity is dismissed as unimportant,
or at any rate unremarkable (εἰ δὲ Σύρος, τί τὸ θαῦµα;, 7.417.5), since we all have all
come from the same Χάος, the primordial state in which everything was mixed together
indiscriminately.
In AP 7.419, the primordial unity of nations referenced in AP 7.417 is transmuted
into an ultimate identity among languages, with a trilingual greeting in Greek, Syrian, and
Phoenician, the native languages of each of Meleager’s three homelands. The final
poem, with its emphasis on the idea of the (paradoxical) combination of disparate
elements into a unified whole, provides a fitting conclusion to the whole series.353
Moreover, as Höschele notes, the final couplet neatly recapitulates AP 7.416, which, as
we have seen, forms a kind of generative kernel and supplies the leitmotif of mixture that
underlies the self-epitaphs as a group.354 As a form, the Rätselepigramm is especially
appropriate for the exploration of this kind of mixture, especially the mixture of
seemingly contradictory or incongruous elements. The perplexity of the speaker as he
tries to puzzle out the meaning of the signs on the tomb arises from the paradoxical
351
Höschele, 2010, 186. Etymologically speaking, of course, “Eukrates” is actually
formed from a combination of εὐ and the root κρατ-, as in κράτος.
352
On Meleager’s representation of his ethnicity, cf. Gutzwiller, 1998b, 83, and
Höschele, 2010, 186.
353
Gutzwiller, 1998b, 86: “The final couplet, with its play on χαῖρε and Χάριτας rounds
off the series of epitaphs by suggesting an essential unity to Meleager’s literary career
and by connecting that unity to the quality of the poet’s continuing existence among the
dead.”
354
Höschele, 2010, 184.
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167 associations they evoke. The winged figure calls up Eros, but as a young god he ill befits
the sepulchral context (3-4); Chronos, on the other hand, is proverbially old, while the
figure depicted is evidently vigorous. So too, the generic elements of Meleager’s art, the
“double-edged” spoudaiogeloion and the bipartite elegiac meter--reflect this duality.
Like the Garland as a whole, the self-epitaphs assimilate an impressive amount of
the earlier epigrammatic tradition, and particularly earlier poets’ representations of
themselves and assessments of others. As with Antipater’s panorama of Greek poetry,
the geographical and temporal dimensions of Meleager’s self-representation incorporate
and transcend those of his predecessors. The self-epitaphs are bordered on one side by
Callimachus’ two-line self-epitaph, AP 7.415, and on the other by the series of riddleepigrams culminating with Meleager’s epitaph for Antipater of Sidon. Accordingly,
Meleager’s cycle of epigrams about himself begins with a couplet in the manner of
Callimachus and ends with a riddle-epigram. Posidippus’ notion of the poet as a mixture
of his models, meanwhile, provides the conceptual background for Meleager’s couplet on
himself, the son of “well-mixed”.355 In AP 7.418, the beginnings of the first three lines
(Πρώτα; ἤνδρωσεν; εἰς γῆρας) divide the poet’s life temporally, while the line endings
(Γαδάρων … πόλις … πάτρα; Τύρος; Κῶς) divide it geographically. This
geographical and temporal progression, coupled as it is with the poet’s activity in various
literary genres, looks back above all to Nossis’ invocation of Sappho, Lesbos, and Locri
in her self-epitaph (AP 7.718). Rather than connecting himself to a single place,
however, Meleager identifies himself with three. We have also seen that Leonidas
355
The influence of Posidippus’ epigram on Meleager’s self-representation is even more
marked in Meleager AP 5.136 and 5.137 (near the beginning of the erotika), where he
“mixes” the name of his beloved Heliodora with his wine.
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168 portrayed himself as an old man, while the persona of Asclepiades displayed
characteristics typical of a youth, and that their ages played a programmatic role in their
epigrams. Meleager, by contrast, wraps all three stages of human life into his epitaphs.
The possibility of representing people, including the author, as complex and
multi-sided was always, in a sense, implicit in the form of epigram itself. The
fragmented nature of the epigram supplies a ready trope for the different events in a
single life or in the social life of a community.356 It was not until Meleager, however,
that the circle was closed between the epigrammatic form and the representation of the
poet as a figure within epigram. Portraying Antipater of Sidon’s omnivorous art of
variation as a precursor of his own anthological practice, Meleager at the same time
makes Antipater into a model for the representation of the epigrammatist as a poetic
persona. In his twin roles as anthologist and epigrammatist, Meleager creates a unique
kind of “textual self”—an authorial presence within the text that mirrors the multifarious
structure of the text itself. To paraphrase the ancient saying, epigrammatic oratio was
correlated by Meleager with an equally “epigrammatic” vita.
356
Cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 13, “… epigram, matching form to content, could represent
individuals as they now were—marginal, drifting, fragmentary and fractured selves. …
epigram books, inasmuch as they lacked the unified and balanced structures of earlier
literature, as discontinuous and fragmented entities without organic requirements of
length or form, were effective representations of the changeable and unpredictable
patterns of affiliation that linked Hellenistic individuals one to another.”
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169 Chapter 3
Transplanting the Tradition:
Epigram in Italy in the 1st Centuries BCE/CE
Introduction – From Meleager to Philip
Meleager’s Garland marks a turning point in the history of Greek epigram in
several respects. It had an immense influence on the later Greek and Latin poetic
tradition, becoming almost immediately the standard of reference for readers of Greek
epigram, and largely (if not, perhaps, entirely) supplanting earlier collections; its
influence is already evident in authors of the first half of the first century BCE, such as
Philodemus (on whom more below) and Catullus.357. Its authoritative status is further
indicated by the fact that in the first century CE the epigrammatist Philip of Thessalonica
composed an anthology of his own, expressly modeled after Meleager’s.358
Meleager also happens to stand at a turning point in the larger history of Greek
literature, at a time when the political and cultural center of gravity was shifting ever
more rapidly westward and Greek poets more and more composed within a culturally
Roman (and geographically Italian) context for a Roman audience.359 As G.M.
Bowersock has argued, as the Roman empire expanded to encompass formerly Greek
lands, the Romans found that dealing with the practical problems of local administration
was facilitated by the development of Greek clientelae.360 At the same time, Romans
357
See Gutzwiller, 2012b, on Catullus and Gutzwiller, 1996, on Vergil.
AP 4.2.3-4: καὶ σελίδος νεαρῆς θερίσας στάχυν ἀντανέπλεξα | τοῖς Μελεαγρείοις
ὡς ἴκελον στεφάνοις. On the composition of Philip’s Garland, see in general GPh, xixxi; cf. Cameron, 1993, 33-43; Argentieri, 2007. On the programmatic function of
Philip’s prologue, AP 4.2, see Magnelli, 2004.
359
On these developments, see esp. Laurens, 1965a. Cf. Cogitore, 2010, esp. p. 269.
360
Bowersock, 1965, esp. 1-2.
358
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170 traveling or serving in an official capacity abroad acquired Greek intellectuals, doctors,
grammarians, philosophers, etc. as slaves or dependents and brought them back to Italy.
Others, such as the epigrammatist Antipater of Thessalonica (on whom more below),
made their way to Italy to take advantage of the opportunities available to an educated
Greek there.361 For Greek intellectuals of the second and first centuries BCE, therefore,
success now depended upon integration into these new networks structured according to
Roman social norms. While some of Meleager’s authors, such as Antipater of Sidon, had
already been part of this great historical shift, Philip himself and all of his most
prominent authors were integrated to one degree or another into this Roman/Italian
milieu. Philip’s Garland itself is dedicated to a certain Camillus,362 and significant
number of the poets he anthologized can be linked with Roman patrons.363
The anthologies of Philip and Meleager account for the bulk of extant epigram
from their respective periods, and the epigrammatic tradition before the mid-first century
CE thus comes down to us largely pre-packaged and periodized in terms of the
chronology and aesthetic standards of these two ancient curators. Philip gathered the
poems of epigrammatists beginning where Meleager left off—the earliest datable is
Philodemus (ca. 110 - ca. 40 BCE)—and continuing down to his own day, the reign of
either Gaius or Nero.364 Although he organized his anthology in alphabetical sequences,
this practice extended only to the first letter of each poem and so left room for
361
On this phenomenon see Bowersock, 1965. On the thematization of the migration and
importation of Greek intellectuals in Latin literature, see Hinds, 2001, and Young, 2011.
362
See GPh I, xlix.
363
See GPh I, xxxii-xxxiii.
364
The terminus ante quem of Philip's Garland is a matter of some controversy. Gow
and Page argue for a probable date of 40 CE, GPh I, xlix. Argentieri, 2007, 158-9 opts
for a date in the mid-50s. The debate hinges upon certain epigrams ascribed to
Antiphilus containing references to events of the 50s CE.
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171 considerable editorial discretion.365
Philip’s epigrammatists have suffered greatly from their awkward situation vis à
vis the subsequent periodization and transmission of Greek literature. Too late to be
considered really "Hellenistic", they also pre-date the "Second Sophistic", the other major
period of focus in scholarship on post-classical Greek literature. Moreover, little Greek
poetry of this period has survived apart from epigram, and so it is difficult to assess the
epigrammatists against the background of the contemporary Greek literary scene.
Among the Philippan epigrammatists only Philodemus has been the subject of a
dedicated scholarly commentary in the past century.366 They are typically given short
shrift in histories of literature as well as in specialized studies. This scholarly neglect is
no doubt due in part to the extremely negative evaluation passed on them by successive
generations of scholars.367 Gow and Page particularly disliked most of these poets, and
Page excluded all but Philodemus and Crinagoras--the ‘epigrammatistae praecipui’ of
their time368--from his Oxford text.369
The differing editorial tastes of Philip and Meleager, and the differing tastes of the
poets whose works they collected, will be evident even to the casual reader. A prominent
motif in scholarship on the Garland of Philip is the lament over the obvious penchant of
365
No full study of Philip’s editorial practice has yet been undertaken. See Cameron,
1993, 33-43.
366
Sider, 1997.
367
On the relative merits of Meleager’s and Philip’s anthologies, see, e.g., the assessment
of Baumgarten and Wagner, 1913, 573: “Ein Vergleich zwischen beiden läßt den
Rückgang der Kunst mit Händen greifen.”
368
EG, v.
369
The hostility of Gow and Page against the Philippan epigrammatists can be perceived
throughout the introduction to GPh. Their objections are most compendiously stated at p.
xxxvi, where they condemn most of the Philippan epigrammatists as "second-rate",
"second hand", pretentious, and insincere.
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172 Philip and his poets for the elaborate style of Leonidas of Tarentum and for the
techniques of imitation and variation. The extraordinary scorn poured upon most of
Philip's authors in GPh, for instance, is a direct consequence of their evident high regard
for Leonidas, who was one of Gow and Page's particular bêtes noires.370 For Gow and
Page, the influence of Leonidas vitiated even the otherwise laudable attributes of these
epigrammatists, infecting them with the same pretentious, insincere artificiality that they
ascribed to Leonidas himself:
"The present collection [The Garland of Philip] includes a few other competent
and pleasing authors, notably Adaeus, Antiphanes, Antistius, Diodorus of Sardis,
and Erucius. These compose as a rule in a relatively straightforward style on
conventional themes; but a much stronger impression is left on the reader's mind
by those epigrammatists who reflect the baneful influence of the Tarentine
Leonidas. ... The characteristics of the style are too familiar to need more than a
summary description here. ... The themes are as a rule conventional or novel
variations on the conventional, and the epigram is designed simply to exhibit the
composer's skill in the Leonidean style." (GPh I, xxxiv)371
As with their view of Antipater of Sidon quoted at the beginning of chapter two, their
verdict here is based on a kernel of accurate observation: the widespread and undeniable
influence of Leonidas of Tarentum on the poets of Philip's Garland. Three aspects of
their account stand out, however, and have rather far-reaching implications. The first is
their vehement abhorrence of Leonidas' style and his "baneful influence".372 Along with
370
The animus seems to have come mostly from Gow, for whom Leonidas was a "tedious
writer", Gow, 1958, 113. On the other hand, Dudley, 1937, 114, for instance, goes so far
as to call Leonidas "one of the greatest of Hellenistic authors".
371
Repeated nearly verbatim by Magnelli, 2007, 175-6. Cf., e.g, GPh xxxvi: “It matters
little or nothing if the style is second-rate and second-hand, and the subject inspired in the
author by nothing more than a desire to impress the sophisticated city-folk. Many of
these epigrams reflect, as Lucas says, ‘the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears’ of simple
people; there were and still are, many homes in the remote villages of Greece and Crete
where they ring truer than they ever did in the minds of their composers.” The purported
insincerity of the Philippan epigrammatists is still lamented by Argentieri, 2007, 161.
372
On Gow-Page's hostility to Leonidas, cf. Gutzwiller, 1998a, 89, n. 103, and 90, n. 108.
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173 their tendency, already noted at the beginning of chapter two, to treat imitation and
variation as mechanical rather than artistic procedures, this distaste led them to greatly
oversimplify the nature and scope of Leonidas' influence.373 In short, Gow and Page
viewed the epigrammatic tradition as containing a malignant tendency towards formal
imitation and variation—the Leonidean blight374—which had to be occluded so that the
vital elements in the tradition could be appreciated.375 In this way, aesthetic judgments
about Leonidas—particularly the view that he is a mere “Formvirtuose” whose style is
gratuitous and jarring—led to unwarranted literary-historical assumptions: that his
influence is confined to the stylistic level. Second, they presume to separate the "good"
Philippan poets from the "bad" in part by referring to the criterion of Leonidean
influence, and regard the “relatively straightforward” style they privilege in certain
epigrammatists as an indication of their freedom from this influence.376
As was the case with Antipater of Sidon, the prominence of imitation and
variation in the Garland of Philip has largely discouraged scholars from engaging in any
detailed literary interpretation. On the basis of this reconsideration of the techniques of
imitation and variation offered earlier, however, I will propose a reevaluation of how the
373
Gigante, 1971, 17, complains both of the negative aesthetic judgment passed against
Leonidas by Gow and Page and of their tendency to emphasize the stylistic qualities of
his poetry over its substance.
374
Comparing Leonidas with other early Hellenistic epigrammatists such as Callimachus
and Asclepiades, Gow, 1958, 117 remarks, “a ripe fruit may already have a rotten patch”.
375
On Crinagoras, cf. the generally positive assessment of Gow and Page, who call him
"one of the most interesting authors in the Anthology" (GPh II, 210), and of the
Cambridge History of Classical Literature, "vivid and clever" (CHCL, 650). Cf. the
glowing appraisal of Philodemus at GPh II, 373. Compare Geffcken’s assessment of
Crinagoras as a “Poetaster”, RE XI.2.1860.
376
This dichotomy is taken over in the Cambridge History of Classical Literature by
Bowersock, who notes the influence on the Philippan epigrammatists of Leonidas’
"overwrought" style (CHCL, I, 651).
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174 Philippan epigrammatists engage with their predecessors in the genre of epigram. During
this time, epigrammatists ceased to define themselves in terms of archaic and classical
models. Instead, it was poets of the Hellenistic period who now formed the “literary
past” of epigram. Through the art of imitation and variation, Callimachus and Leonidas
of Tarentum, perhaps the two epigrammatists whose influence is most pervasive in later
epigram, shaped the way that epigrammatists portrayed themselves within their own
works. In this chapter, we will trace the development of an ethical and poetic discourse
in epigram tied to the construction of the poetic persona, through the reception and
revision of these two figures.
In chapter one, we saw that Leonidas’ key achievement was to manifest himself
as a character within the world of his epigrams who acts as a mouthpiece for certain
values. This, as much as his linguistic pyrotechnics, was the reason for his astonishing
popularity among later poets. For Leonidas exercises an influence as a figure—"Men
who live their visions as well as write them, who are what they write, whom we think of
as standing for something as men because of what they have written in their books. They
preside, as it were, over certain ideas and attitudes."377 In short, while Gow and Page
(and others) have been quite right to emphasize the importance of Leonidas as a model
for epigrammatists of the Garland of Philip, their mistake was to confine their
investigation of his influence, for aesthetic reasons, to the stylistic level, and to neglect
the influence of his persona and ethical outlook (let alone those of other epigrammatists).
I will argue, however, that Leonidas was influential in substantive matters of philosophy,
lifestyle, attitudes toward poetry, and, most importantly, the construction of poetic
377
Trilling, 1952, ix, writing, incidentally, about George Orwell.
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175 persona. Leonidas (or rather the persona he presents in his epigrams) thus constitutes not
only a poetic model, but also a "paradigm"--a figure whose biography and worldview was
adapted by poets of the first centuries BCE and CE to articulate their position in the
literary and social spheres of their time.378 In Augustan poetry, “Callimachean” echoes
often take on political dimensions. At the end of the Georgics, for instance Augustus
“thunders” along the Euphrates. The collocation fulminat Euphraten evokes two
Callimachean passages—the Aetia prologue (fr. 1. 20 Pf.) βροντᾶν οὐκ ἐµὸν ἀλλὰ Διός
(as pointed out by Thomas)379, and also, perhaps, the end of the Hymn to Apollo, where
Callimachus distances himself, metaphorically, from the “Assyrian river” (i.e., the
Euphrates).380 The image of the Callimachean poet is deployed, that is, in order to create
a space for poetry within the political landscape of the Roman empire. In Greek epigram
of the same period, Leonidean and Callimachean notions of ethical and poetic simplicity,
of the power of poetry, and of the nature of power, crop up again and again as the
epigrammatists, in their own way, grapple with the new world in which they found
themselves and invent ways of transplanting the Greek tradition into new soil.
“Occasional” poetry
Antipater’s poetic “panorama”, surveyed above, represents the culmination of the
Hellenistic tradition of poet-epigrams devoted to the tombstones, statues, and works of
the great figures primarily of the archaic and classical periods. This form of epigram
continued to be produced after Meleager, but, if the number of such epigrams extant from
the subsequent period is any indication, in much smaller numbers and on a more limited
378
Cf., in general, the studies of the reception of classical “literary careers” in Hardie and
Moore, eds., 2010.
379
Thomas, 1988, on Georgics IV.560-561.
380
See F. Williams, 1978, 91.
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176 range of figures.381 Furthermore, although the same tradition is in evidence for poets of
Philip's Garland, a shift seems to have occurred during this time away from the obsessive
interest in a monumentalized literary past and towards the epigrammatists' contemporary
situation. Consequently, we see much more attention paid to the poet’s own life (or
representation thereof)—his literary activity, his relationships with his patrons, the
Roman/Italian milieu, and so forth.382 It is partially indicative of this shift that even those
poems that do take a poem or poet of the past as their subject tend to treat them within a
contemporary context of some kind, rather than presenting them as figures of the past
mediated through a tombstone or statue.383
This emphasis on contemporary situations and social relations poses an
interpretive problem. Are these merely occasional (i.e. ephemeral) poems composed for
a limited reception within a narrowly circumscribed social sphere, or did their authors
381
The apparent drop-off could always be put down to Philip’s editorial preferences.
Examples of the earlier type of poet-epigram included in or contemporary with Philip’s
Garland include Pinytus AP 7.16 and Tullius Laurea 7.17 on Sappho; Erycius 7.36 on
Sophocles; Diodorus 7.38, 7.40, and 7.370 on Aristophanes, Aeschylus, and Menander
(respectively); Bianor 7.49 and Adaeus 7.51 on Euripides; Philip 7.405 on Hipponax. Cf.
Archias, AP 9.64 on Hesiod (on the attribution of which see most recently Sens, 2011).
(Antipater of Thessalonica is excluded from this list, since, as outlined in Chapter 2, I
harbor doubts about the attribution of most of the poet-epigrams he is supposed to have
written.)
382
Cogitore, 2010, 254, justly notes a certain ‘sociabilité nouvelle’ in the works of the
Philippan epigrammatists. Cf. Laurens, 1965, 325, on the shift in this period towards
epigram as “Zeitgedicht”.
383
A few examples illustrate the considerable diversity of epigrammatic contexts in
which poets are invoked during this period: Philodemus XII GPh on an Oscan dancing
girl who does not know the poems of Sappho; Crinagoras VII GPh on the poems of
(probably) Anacreon presented as a gift to Antonia; Marcus Argentarius XV GPh on
being distracted from Hesiod’s Works and Days by the appearance of his mistress.
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177 compose with an eye toward a wider, more literary, reception?384 On the one hand,
biographical factors play a significant, and in some cases demonstrable, role in the
constitution of the poet’s voice and his account of his life. As we shall see, however, this
biographical empirical reality is heavily mediated by the earlier literary, and especially
the epigrammatic, tradition. The creation of a poetic “self”—a picture of the Greek poet
in Roman society articulated through models drawn from the epigrammatic genre itself—
could be considered one of the overarching literary endeavors of major Philippan poets
such as Crinagoras and Antipater of Thessalonica. The poets of Meleager’s Garland
developed a genre with roots in anonymous inscriptions and thus had to look beyond the
genre of epigram for their models of self-representation (as, for instance, Nossis looked
back to the erotic lyric of Sappho). Poets writing after Meleager encountered epigram as
an already established, consolidated poetic form with quasi-canonical models.
Closely intertwined with the influence of Leonidas is that of Callimachus, whose
poetic declarations, which as we have already seen informed the poetics of, e.g., Alcaeus
of Messene, continue to exercise a major influence. Particular passages—the beginning
of the Aetia, the Hymn to Apollo, and in several epigrams—provide the epigrammatists
with a repertory of programmatic, and polemical, motifs and terminology, which,
whether treated positively or negatively, recurs again and again in later epigram.
Meleager, finally, exercises a multi-faceted influence on the Philippan poets. As I
shift my focus to these epigrammatists, it will be necessary to adopt an interpretive
framework that takes into account Meleager’s activity as an editor, since his “packaging”
384
The problem has been well-explored in studies of the Latin epigrammatist Martial,
with White, 1974, representing the “narrow” approach and Fowler, 1995, the more
literary. It will become clear as my argument develops that I follow the latter approach.
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178 of the earlier tradition shaped the way earlier epigrammatists were received. Philodemus,
for instance, demonstrably knew Meleager’s Garland, and, as I will argue below, was
influenced by Meleager’s arrangement. Meleager also anticipates and perhaps
encouraged the popularity of Leonidas of Tarentum as a model among the Philippan
poets. In chapter two, for example, we saw that in Meleager’s anthology a Leonidean
original often serves as the “base” for a group of thematically and/or formally related
poems.
By reading epigrams by a number of Philippan epigrammatists alongside their
earlier models, we will see that there is a continuity between the strict stylistic imitation
so deplored by scholars and variation and freer kinds of adaptation. We will follow
particular images (the poet’s house and food) and key words (especially λιτότης) in
order to see how they are adapted and transformed by successive epigrammatists. In
addition to tracing the development of motifs and themes, we will see how in these poets
an awareness of form and diction is accompanied by an interest in ethical ideas,
particularly as they apply to the lifestyle of the poet. Finally, in the examination of
multiple imitations of the same Leonidean model text, we will see how the awareness of
previous imitations can give rise to innovations within the tradition, as epigrammatists
respond to one another’s interpretations of Leonidas. The epigrammatists’ use of
common generic models as points of reference for the construction of their poetic
personae generates an idea of “the epigrammatist” as a stylized authorial figure. This
figure, with his habits of expression and typical ethical concerns comes to constitute a
generic marker of epigram.
To begin with, as noted above, we need to adjust the frame of reference in which
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179 we read the early Hellenistic epigrammatists. Up till now I have discussed their works
within the interpretive context of hypothetical single-author collections. For their
reception, however, the context of their epigrams within the Garland of Meleager is of
decisive importance. This point is well illustrated by two of Leonidas’ self-referential
poems, AP 6.300 and 6.302, which come down to us in a brief, intact Garland sequence.
This comprises four poems on the theme of simple food, by Leonidas, Callimachus,
Leonidas, and Ariston, respectively:
AP 6.300 - Leonidas of Tarentum = XXXVI HE
Λαθρίη, ἐκ πλάνιος ταύτην χάριν ἔκ τε πενέστεω
κἠξ ὀλιγησιπύου δέξο Λεωνίδεω,
ψαιστά τε πιήεντα καὶ εὐθήσαυρον ἐλαίην
καὶ τοῦτο χλωρὸν σῦκον ἀποκράδιον
κεὐοίνου σταφυλῆς ἔχ’ ἀποσπάδα πεντάρρωγον,
πότνια, καὶ σπονδὴν τήνδ’ ὑποπυθµίδιον.
ἢν δέ µ’ ἔθ’, ὡς ἐκ νούσου ἀνειρύσω, ὧδε καὶ ἐχθρῆς
ἐκ πενίης ῥύσῃ, δέξο χιµαιροθύτην.
5
Lathria, accept this offering from wandering, impoverished
Leonidas, he of the small mealtub: rich cakes and longstored olive oil, this green fig fresh from the branch and this
bunch of five grapes from the vine, oh goddess, good for
wine, along with this libation from the bottom of the jar.
And if you also save me from hateful poverty, as you saved
me from illness, receive a goat-sacrificer.
AP 6.301 – Callimachus = XXVIII HE = 47 Pfeiffer
τὴν ἁλίην Εὔδηµος, ἐφ᾽ ἧς ἅλα λιτὸν ἐπέσθων
χειµῶνας µεγάλους ἐξέφυγεν δανέων,
θῆκε θεοῖς Σαµόθρᾳξι, λέγων ὅτι τήνδε κατ᾽ εὐχήν,
ὦ λαοί, σωθεὶς ἐξ ἁλὸς ὧδε θέτο.
Eudemus dedicated his salt-box to the Samothracian gods,
the box aboard which—eating his humble salt—he
weathered great storms of debts, saying, O people, that he
placed it here since in accordance with his prayer he had
been saved from the salt/sea.
AP 6.302 – Leonidas of Tarentum = XXXVII HE (Text = HE)
Φεύγεθ’ ὑπὲκ καλύβης, σκότιοι µύες· οὔτι πενιχρή
µῦς σιπύη βόσκειν οἶδε Λεωνίδεω.
αὐτάρκης ὁ πρέσβυς ἔχων ἅλα καὶ δύο κρίµνα·
ἐκ πατέρων ταύτην ᾐνέσαµεν βιοτήν.
τῷ τί µεταλλεύεις τοῦτον µυχόν, ὦ φιλόλιχνε,
5
οὐδ’ ἀποδειπνιδίου γευόµενος σκυβάλου;
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180 σπεύδων εἰς ἄλλους οἴκους ἴθι--τἀµὰ δὲ λιτά-ὧν ἄπο πλειοτέρην οἴσεαι ἁρµαλιήν.
Get out of my hut you shadowy mice! The poor meal-tub of
Leonidas does not know how to feed mice. An old man is
self-sufficient if he has salt and two biscuits: this is the lifestyle we have adopted from our ancestors. Why do you
mine this corner, oh glutton, getting to taste not even an
after-dinner scrap? Hurry off to other houses—my means
are slight—from which you’ll get a richer store.
AP 6.303 - Ariston = III HE
ὦ µύες, εἰ µὲν ἐπ᾽ ἄρτον ἐληλύθατ᾽, ἐς µυχὸν ἄλλον
στείχετ᾽-ἐπεὶ λιτὴν οἰκέοµεν καλύβηνοὗ καὶ πίονα τυρὸν ἀποδρέψεσθε καὶ αὔην
ἰσχάδα καὶ δεῖπνον συχνὸν ἀπὸ σκυβάλων·
εἰ δ᾽ἐν ἐµαῖς βύβλοισι πάλιν καταθήξετ᾽ ὀδόντα
κλαύσεσθ᾽, οὐκ ἀγαθὸν κῶµον ἐπερχόµενοι.
5
Oh mice, if you have come for bread, head to another house,
for I inhabit a humble hut. There, you’ll get rich cheese and
a dry fig and a great feast of leftovers. But if, on the other
hand, you sharpen your tooth on my books again, you will
lament that you have come to no good banquet.
This sequence illustrates some of Meleager’s usual working methods as well as his
literary and “philological” sensibilities. He strives for an artistic effect in the selection
and ordering of poems, following a “twofold system” of organization involving the
alternation of poems by major poets interspersed with those of minor ones connected by
verbal and thematic links.385 The cohesion of this particular group depends upon a
number of overlapping generic, topical, and/or lexical features: each poem treats the
closely-linked themes of poverty (πενίη) and/or simplicity (λιτότης); the first and third
poems are by the same author, Leonidas of Tarentum; the first and second are dedications
of humble food items by poor men; the speakers of the second and third subsist on a
bread and salt diet; the last poem, AP 6.303, is a relatively close variation of AP 6.302.
385
On Meleager as editor, see Gutzwiller 1997a. On the “twofold system” of
organization in the Garland, cf. Cameron, 1993, 19.
Campbell
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181 As we study these (and other) poems, it will become clear that Meleager’s studied,
sometimes provocative, collocation of poems was paradigmatic for the entire way in
which the Philippan epigrammatists approached the earlier tradition.
Case Studies in Formal Imitation (Gaetulicus AP 6.190 and Ariston AP 6.303)
I have suggested that the techniques of formal imitation and variation are
continuous (and coexist with) “higher level” (i.e. thematic) engagement with literary
models. At one end of the spectrum, the more formal end, we have a remarkable epigram
by Gaetulicus (AP 6.190), probably dating to the early first century CE.386 This exercise
in close, even minute, formal imitation and variation will provide a useful basis for the
examination of freer adaptations by other epigrammatists:
AP 6.190 – Gaetulicus = II FGE
Λάζεο, τιµήεσσα Κυθηριάς, ὑµνοπόλοιο
λιτὰ τάδ’ ἐκ λιτοῦ δῶρα Λεωνίδεω·
πεντάδα τὴν σταφυλῆς εὐρώγεα καὶ µελιηδὲς
πρώιον εὐφύλλων σῦκον ἀπ’ ἀκρεµόνων
καὶ ταύτην ἀπέτηλον ἁλινήκτειραν ἐλαίην
5
καὶ ψαιστῶν ὀλίγων δρᾶγµα πενιχραλέον
καὶ σταγόνα σπονδῖτιν, ἀεὶ θυέεσσιν ὀπηδόν,
τὴν κύλικος βαιῷ πυθµένι κευθοµένην.
εἰ δ’, ὥς µευ βαρύγυιον ἀπώσαο νοῦσον, ἐλάσσεις
καὶ πενίην, δώσω πιαλέον χίµαρον.
10
2 λιτὰ τάδ’ ἐκ λιτοῦ Jacobs] αἶψα τάδε κλυτοῦ P, Suda, αἶψα τάδε
κλειτοῦ Pl
Receive, oh honorable Cytherian, these humble gifts from
the humble poet Leonidas:
a bunch of five fine grapes and a sweet early fig from leafy
branches, this leafless olive that swam in brine,
386
This poet, to whom ten epigrams are ascribed in the Greek Anthology, may be
identical with Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus cos. 26 CE, executed by Caligula in
39 CE, who is mentioned by Martial in the preface to his Epigrammaton Libri as a
composer of (Latin) epigrams. None of the epigrams attributed to him occur in a
Philippan series, and there are no historical references in the epigrams that would provide
further information about their date. Campbell
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182 a poor handful of little cakes, and a drop of wine for a
libation, ever the accompaniment of sacrifices, lying hidden
in the tiny bottom of a kylix.
And if, as you warded off limb-wearying disease from me,
you will also drive away poverty, I will give you a fat goat.
Imitating Leonidas’ dedication in AP 6.300, Gaetulicus effectively appropriates the voice
of his model.387 Page, in FGE, rates Gaetulicus rather highly for his abilities as an
imitator of Leonidas: “he is indeed so like Leonidas that, if his epigrams had been
transmitted under that author’s name, there would have been no reason to doubt the
ascriptions … .”388 Although this may be a dubious distinction in light of the views of
Leonidas and his imitators expressed in HE and GPh, it is nevertheless true that the
epigrams of Gaetulicus, and in particular 6.190, seem to be among the purest examples of
formal imitation of Leonidas in epigram of the period.
The overall structure of AP 6.190 and 6.300 is the same: the goddess (Aphrodite)
is invoked, the poet identifies himself as the dedicator, his dedications are enumerated,
and a further (richer) dedication is promised if the goddess will perform further kindness
for him. The appeal of the later poem derives from the tension between formal identity
with its model and a studied distancing achieved through a variety of rhetorical and
grammatical techniques.
A set of elements taken over directly from the model undergirds the imitation:
Λεωνίδεω, 2 and ἐλαίην, 5 appear in the same form, line, and metrical sedes (cf. πενίην,
10, in the same line and sedes as Leonidas’ πενίης). The individual items in the
catalogue of dedications are enumerated with line-initial καί (5, 6, 7) in a manner almost
387
388
Cf. the very similar epigram AP 6.191, by Cornelius Longus.
FGE, 49
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183 identical to Leonidas’ (4, 5, 6).
Other elements of the poem, however, seem designed to draw the reader’s
attention, in one way or another, to the simultaneous similarity and difference between
the model and the imitation. The first words of the poems are different, but each begins
with the letters Λα-; other examples of the same phenomenon include σῦκον ἀπ’
ἀκρεµόνων, 4, which varies Leonidas’ σῦκον ἀποκράδιον in the same line and metrical
sedes. Compound adjectives beginning with εὐ- are used repeatedly (6.190.3, 4, compare
AP 6.300.3, 5), but the adjectives themselves are different. Gaetulicus also employs
various kinds of grammatical mutatio, such as the expression of the same idea using a
different construction at line 9, ἀπώσαο, where the change in verb demands a change in
the construction of the rest of the line, even as the sound of the verb—compare
ἀνειρύσω, 7, in Leonidas (where correptio epica yields a metrical shape identical to
ἀπώσαο)—remains aurally similar. Likewise, although the grammatical subject of the
final verb has been changed, from the second-singular-middle-aorist-imperative δέξο to
first-singular-active-future-indicative δώσω, the poet has again shown his ingenuity in
retaining a quite similar sound-effect. A somewhat more mundane version of the same
process involves the use of distinct, but lexically related, words (e.g σπονδῖτιν, 7
replacing Leonidas’ σπονδήν, 6). Elements are reordered within lines (as at πεντάδα
τὴν σταφυλῆς εὐρώγεα, a rewriting of Leonidas’ line 5, σταφυλῆς ἔχ᾽ ἀποσπάδα
πεντάρρωγον) and shuffled between couplets—so, the first element of Leonidas’ list
(ψαιστά, 3) comes next-to-last in Gaetulicus’ and Leonidas’ next-to-last element
(ἀπόσπαδα, 5) comes first in Gaetulicus’.
Although the fireworks of formal imitation and variation au Antipater of Sidon
Campbell
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184 are the main attraction in this epigram, it is also of some conceptual interest. The poem is
remarkable in being not merely an imitation of Leonidas (AP 6.300), but also an
impersonation of him (as Gow and Page note, the word ὑµνοπόλος in line 1 forestalls
any confusion about which ‘Leonidas’ is being invoked). Thus Gaetulicus, who
elsewhere channels the “voice” of Leonidas insofar as he composes epigrams on the same
themes and in a similar style as him, now appropriates his persona in an even more direct
way. The epigram thus fits into the same tradition of poetic impersonation represented
by Callimachus’ first Iambus, or the image of poetic inheritance presented in the first
poem of the carmina Anacreontea, both discussed briefly in chapter 2 above. Gaetulicus’
prayer also bears an affinity to Antipater of Sidon’s prayers for the revivification of
Anacreon, especially those in which the dead Anacreon himself speaks. The poem
highlights several Leonidean themes and keywords, with a catalogue of rustic foods,389 a
lament of the ills of poverty (πενίη), and, if Jacobs’ emendation in line 2 is correct, an
embrace of simplicity (λιτότης) not found in the primary model (AP 6.300), which
Gaetulicus has instead imported from AP 6.302.390 In this respect at least, the epigram
constitutes an interpretation or distillation of the characteristic elements of Leonidas’
poetry in addition to a formal reworking of it.
Now that we have seen an example of more or less pure formal imitation, I would
like to turn to an epigram that combines these techniques with a freer, more additive,
approach to a Leonidean model. In this poem, AP 6.303 Ariston, the Leonidean model
389
The meal offered by country mouse to town mouse at Babrius 108 (= Aesopica 352
Perry), for instance, includes some of the same items.
390
For a comparable analysis of imitations of Leonidas by later epigrammatists, and in
particular the use of elements from more than one Leonidean model within the same
epigram, see Ypsilanti, 2006, especially 69-70.
Campbell
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185 remains immediately identifiable, but entirely new material has been introduced.
Although the poem is included in the “dedicatory” book of the Palatine Anthology, its
position is due to its close formal similarity to Leonidas AP 6.302—as is his common
practice, Meleager has juxtaposed a model and its imitation in order to highlight the
relationship between the two. Ariston reproduces the basic scene from Leonidas’ miceepigram AP 6.302, including much of the same diction and imagery, but gives the
epigram a closing “pointe” that departs from the Leonidean original:
AP 6.303 - Ariston = III HE
ὦ µύες, εἰ µὲν ἐπ᾽ ἄρτον ἐληλύθατ᾽, ἐς µυχὸν ἄλλον
στείχετ᾽—ἐπεὶ λιτὴν οἰκέοµεν καλύβην—
οὗ καὶ πίονα τυρὸν ἀποδρέψεσθε καὶ αὔην
ἰσχάδα καὶ δεῖπνον συχνὸν ἀπὸ σκυβάλων·
εἰ δ᾽ ἐν ἐµαῖς βύβλοισι πάλιν καταθήξετ᾽ ὀδόντα
κλαύσεσθ᾽, οὐκ ἀγαθὸν κῶµον ἐπερχόµενοι.
5
Oh mice, if you have come for bread, then go to another
house, for I inhabit a simple hut; there you will get fat cheese
and a dried fig and a rich meal from the crumbs. But if you
whet your teeth on my books again, you will regret coming
to an unpleasant party.
The poem develops in a way similar to Leonidas’, with the same basic points presented in
a more compressed or elaborated way. If the mice have come for food, they are told to
go elsewhere, since, as his house itself suggests, Ariston’s circumstances are humble
(ἐπεὶ λιτὴν οἰκέοµεν καλύβην, 2). There, they will find richer stores of food, a catalogue
of which replaces Leonidas’ (very brief) description of his own diet.
Many of the techniques of imitation and variation found in Gaetulicus are also
present in this epigram of Ariston. The words σκυβάλων, 4, οὗ, 3, µύχον, 1, and λιτήν
… καλύβην, 2, for instance are all taken from Leonidas with variations in grammatical
form and/or position in the poem. In the final couplet, however, the poet turns to a
second, and entirely new, possibility—that the mice have come looking not for bread, but
Campbell
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186 for books to eat. In this case, they will face a severe, if unspecified punishment. Puglia
has aptly noted that Ariston’s innovation has given his poem a particular ethical point:
the poet’s books are, to him, a form of sustenance more important than food itself.391
On the one hand Ariston’s epigram represents a formal departure from the model
that would be out of bounds according to the aesthetic principles of, e.g., Gaetulicus’
imitation. At a conceptual level, however, Ariston’s epigram functions as a kind of
“gloss” or interpretation of the Leonidean model in terms of Leonidas’ own ethics as
represented elsewhere in his epigrams. Ariston has taken the message of Leonidas’ selfepitaph—that poetry confers upon the poet an everlasting glory that transcends death and
physical privation, in and of itself a common enough idea—and, in his final couplet,
incorporated it into an imitation of Leonidas’ mice-epigram.392
Ariston’s reading of Leonidas may have inspired the long series of imitations of
Leonidas’ “self-referential” poems in Greek epigram after Meleager. Indeed, Gaetulicus’
choice to “impersonate” Leonidas could itself be seen as a manifestation of this trend. I
will now consider epigrams that, like Ariston’s, depart from the letter of the model while
in some way engaging with its conceptual significance. Observing the techniques
employed in these free imitations of Leonidas will shed light on the finer contours of
epigrammatists’ use of their models and provide a corrective to more narrowly stylistic
analyses.
The systematic inversion or substitution not only of particular words and phrases
but also of motifs and rhetorical features of their models is one of the fundamental
391
Puglia, 1992, 98.
Piacenza, 2010, may be right to see this poem as constructed through the conflation of
two models, AP 6.300 and 6.302.
392
Campbell
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187 compositional principles of the epigrams I will consider. All the poems, moreover,
evince the poets’ awareness of the traditions of imitation and variation: not only
particular models, but also the subsequent history of their reception and rewriting, are
implied in their construction. Antipater of Thessalonica, for instance, can be seen to
respond not only to early Hellenistic figures, but also to his more recent predecessors
Philodemus and Crinagoras.
An Epigrammatic Invitation (Philodemus AP 11.44)
The earliest of the poets named in the preface to Philip’s Garland is the Epicurean
philosopher Philodemus. Born at Gadara, Philodemus travelled to Athens and from there
to Italy, where he was resident on the Bay of Naples and a friend of Lucius Calpurnius
Piso.393 In this capacity he met other members of Piso’s circle, including Vergil and
Horace, and composed works of philosophy, including some, such as On the Good King
According to Homer, dedicated to Piso himself. Philodemus is thus a prominent example
of a phenomenon increasingly prevalent in the first century BCE—the migration of
learned Greeks to Italy and their installation in the aristocratic coteries.
It is a somewhat surprising fact that within the now rather large body of
scholarship on literary patronage, Greek epigrammatists of the first century BCE have
been almost entirely ignored.394 For the relationship to Roman military power in general,
and the specific power of Roman patrons over their clients, is a major theme in these
poets’ autobiographical poems. In their works, the various stages of the patron-client
relationship are depicted, from the establishment of the relationship to its continuation
393
On Philodemus’ life, see Gigante, 1995, 49-61.
No references to epigrammatists in Gold, 1987 or Bowditch, 2001; one reference to
Antipater of Thessalonica (as writer of epic) in White, 1993, 80-81.
394
Campbell
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188 through the giving of gifts and shared personal interactions. Such an interaction between
poet and patron is the subject of Philodemus AP 11.44:
Philodemus AP 11.44 = GPh XXIII = Sider 27
αὔριον εἰς λιτήν σε καλιάδα, φίλτατε Πείσων,
ἐξ ἐνάτης ἕλκει µουσοφιλὴς ἕταρος
εἰκάδα δειπνίζων ἐνιαύσιον· εἰ δ’ ἀπολείψῃς
οὔθατα καὶ Βροµίου Χιογενῆ πρόποσιν,
ἀλλ’ ἑτάρους ὄψει παναληθέας, ἀλλ’ ἐπακούσῃ
Φαιήκων γαίης πουλὺ µελιχρότερα·
ἢν δέ ποτε στρέψῃς καὶ ἐς ἡµέας ὄµµατα, Πείσων,
ἄξοµεν ἐκ λιτῆς εἰκάδα πιοτέρην.
5
Tomorrow at three your Muse-loving friend drags you to his
humble cottage, oh dearest Piso, to feed you your yearly
dinner celebrating The Twentieth.395 If you miss sowsudders and toasts of Chian wine, nevertheless you will see
true friends and hear things sweeter than the Phaeacian tales.
And if you turn your eyes towards us, oh Piso, we shall
celebrate a richer, rather than a humbler, Twentieth.
This epigram takes the form of an invitation, in which Philodemus invites Piso to join
him and some friends at his dwelling. Although it has been much discussed, the
relationship between this poem and Leonidas’ mice-epigram has never to my knowledge
been pointed out. I will argue that here we find a clever adaptation of the Leonidean
persona to figure the poet’s relationship with his patron. In this respect, Philodemus is a
key figure for subsequent Greek epigrammatists, many of whom address their poetry to
one or more patrons and adapt Leonidas in similar ways. The epigram ingeniously
blends a series of literary references evocative of the themes of food, friendship,
philosophy, and the simple life.396 Philodemus invites his patron to a dinner-party in
honor of Epicurus, the occasion known as the εἰκάς.397
395
For the interpretation of ἐνιαύσιον, see Sider, 1997, ad loc.
On this epigram, see the introductory remarks in Sider, 1997, and in general Gigante,
1995, 79-90, with extensive discussion of secondary literature.
397
The ‘Piso’ named here is the consular Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. On the
historical background, see the concise account of Hiltbrunner, 1972, 168-9.
396
Campbell
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189 The poet bids Piso to forego opulent feasting in favor of true friendship (3-4).
The conversation will outclass even the “things of the Phaeacians” (5-6). Ea igitur oris
licentia utitur philosophus erga patronum, qua semper adversus deos Graeci uti
solebant, Kaibel rightly says.398 The poet prays that Piso will forego more opulent fare in
favor of a humble dinner party. Race, 1979, 183, points to Bacchylides, fr. 21,399 a
prayer to the Dioscuri:
Οὐ βοῶν πάρεστι σώµατ᾽ οὔτε χρυσός
οὔτε πορφύρεοι τάπητες,
ἀλλὰ θυµὸς εὐµενὴς
Μοῦσά τε γλυκεῖα καὶ Βοιωτίοισιν
ἐν σκύφοισιν οἶνος ἡδύς.
No bodies of bulls nor gold nor
crimson cloths are here,
but a kind heart,
and a delightful Muse,
and sweet wine in Boeotian cups.
This and other religious formulae undergo a process of “laicization”, and become a part
of courtly, and finally merely polite, language. This phenomenon is especially salient in
epigram, where, for instance, the language of dedicatory epigram is made to serve the
function of gift epigram.
The poem has often been discussed as an example of the subgenre of the
"invitation-poem", which becomes somewhat common in Latin literature of the first
centuries BCE/CE.400 Scholars have expressed some puzzlement over the origins of this
form, since Philodemus' epigram seems to be the only comparandum in Greek literature
398
Kaibel, 1885, xxiv.
= Athen. 11.500a.
400
See Cairns, 1972, 240-4 (‘vocatio ad cenam’); Edmunds, 1982; Marcovich, 1991;
Gowers, 1993, 220-310. Cf. G. Williams, 1968, 125-9.
399
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190 before Catullus.401 Clayman points to Epicurus’ own dinner invitation (text in Clay,
1986, T6), calling Philodemus’ poem a versification of that type of text, but the two do
not share any particular formal or verbal similarities.402 At least some aspects of the
epigram parallel non-literary invitations: a Latin invitation to a birthday party, preserved
on one of the wooden tablets from Vindolanda, provides a later parallel for the sentiment
expressed in the final couplet of the epigram, that the presence of the addressee will make
the occasion even happier.403
Sider remarks that given the importance of the celebration, and the appearance of
another such invitation at Philodemus de Pietate 812-819 Obbink, the poem may belong
to an entirely Epicurean tradition, and that "[t]here may be no need ... to search earlier
Greek literature for the origins of the poetic invitation ... ."404 We cannot, of course, rule
out the possibility that other invitations now lost—epigrams or not—may have provided a
generic background for Philodemus’ poem. Even though there are no proper invitations
to be found in earlier literary epigram, other epigrammatic models, as yet unnoticed, are
crucial for the form and content of Philodemus’ poem.
Specifically, through a series of
witty inversions, Philodemus has adapted the language and rhetoric of Leonidas' mice 401
Edmunds, 1982, 186, nn. 9-12 cites several Greek examples, but most (from Lucillius)
post-date Philodemus by more than a century. Gowers, 1993, 222, meanwhile, points to
the "specifically Roman" elements in Philodemus' poem. Many scholars have assumed
that the Greek comparanda have simply been lost: “è molto probabile che si tratti di
argomenti e situazioni, di cui si presuppone la presenza in epigrammi greci più antichi ma
perduti”, Carilli, 1975, 925. Cf. Hollis, 2009, 348: “… there must have been earlier
epigrams of the same type, now lost”; Pasquali apud Braga, 1950, 195, “Invitare a cena
con un epigramma dovette essere di modo nell’età ellenistica …”.
402
Clayman, 2007, 515.
403
Cf., e.g., tablet 291.5-7 in Bowman, 1983: libenter facias ut venias | ad nos
iucundiorem mihi | [diem] interventu tuo factura.
404
Sider, 1997, 153. Sider, 1997, 161, draws attention to earlier Hellenistic epigrams
featuring preparations for a meal, which provide at least circumstantial evidence for lost
invitation poems.
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191 epigram to serve as a dinner-invitation addressed to his patron.405 In doing so, he varies
not just the poem’s language, but its philosophical orientation, shifting from the ethics of
Cynicism towards the ethics of Epicureanism. The epigram begins with a loaded
image—Philodemus’ “simple cottage” (λιτήν ... καλιάδα, 1)—which invokes Leonidas
as a literary model and broaches the key ethical concept which underlies the rest of the
poem.406 Λιτός was a keyword for the Epicureans as well as the Cynics, but had a
different meaning. The Cynics were minimalists, and litotes entailed austerity—living on
as little as possible. For the Epicureans, it was not austerity as such, but ataraxia that
was the goal. One could make full use of material goods so long as one avoided the
disturbance caused by gluttony, for instance. The same goes for the καλιή (“cottage”),
which replaces Leonidas’ καλύβη.407 The similarity between the words creates an
obvious aural reminiscence, but we have moved from the drastic austerity of the Cynics
to the moderate litotes of the Epicureans—one could not host any kind of dinner party, no
matter how humble, in a καλύβη.408 The entire force and affect of the epigram is
405
A connection with Leonidas has not been noted by earlier scholars, although Carilli,
1975, 944, does point to ἅλς in Leonidas’ epigram in connection with the sal of Catullus
13, a poem that has always been acknowledged to be closely connected to Philodemus
AP 11.44.
406
As Hiltbrunner, 1972, 169, remarks, “[λιτή] führt sogleich in einen zentralen Bereich
epikureischer Lebensführung.” Cf., e.g., Epicurus, fr. 51 Arrighetti: ἐζηλώσαµεν τὴν
αὐτάρκειαν οὐχ ὅπως τοῖς εὐτελέσι καὶ λιτοῖς πάντως χρώµεθα ἀλλ᾽ ὅπως
θαρρῶµεν πρὸς αὐτά. (“We have pursued self-sufficiency not in order to live always in
cheap and humble circumstances, but rather in order to bear up against them.”)
407
Chantraine, s.v. ‘καλιή’ doubts the existence of a real etymological connection
between the two words. It would have been hyperbolic for Philodemus to have spoken of
himself as living in a καλυβή, which was in any case no place for a party however
humble.
408
The hut to which Philodemus invites Piso is, in a sense, the mirror image of
evocations of the grand domus of the patron as evoked by Latin poets. On this motif in
Latin literature see the discussion of White, 1993, 4. Cf. Hiltbrunner, 1972, 169.
Campbell
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192 similarly reversed: Leonidas’ irascibility, with its background in stories about the Cynic
philosophers, is replaced by Philodemus’ echt-Epicurean conviviality and friendliness.409
Finally, each of the epigrams, one a prohibition from, the other an invitation to, a dinner,
uses the subjects of food and shelter as an occasion for philosophical reflection.410
Now to turn to the way in which Philodemus addresses Piso, where once again
earlier epigrammatic models provide important clarification. Kaibel and others rightly
point out the debt to religious language in Philodemus’ treatment of Piso, but did not
realize that this dimension of the poem can also be explained in terms of epigrammatic
models. If we set the poem alongside the sequence from Meleager’s Garland AP 6.300303, reproduced above, it becomes clear that Philodemus has imitated multiple poems
from this sequence, and that the infusion of religious undertones into the epigram is a
result of this approach. Leonidas’ dedication to Aphrodite, AP 6.300, for instance, gives
Philodemus the basic form for his address to Piso:
Leonidas AP 6.300.7-8
ἢν δέ µ’ ἔθ’, ὡς ἐκ νούσου ἀνειρύσω, ὧδε καὶ ἐχθρῆς
ἐκ πενίης ῥύσῃ, δέξο χιµαιροθύτην.
And if you also save me from hateful poverty, as you saved
me from illness, receive a goat-sacrificer.
Philodemus AP 11.44.7-8
ἢν δέ ποτε στρέψῃς καὶ ἐς ἡµέας ὄµµατα, Πείσων,
ἄξοµεν ἐκ λιτῆς εἰκάδα πιοτέρην.
And if you turn your eyes towards us, oh Piso, we shall
celebrate a richer, rather than a humbler, Twentieth.
He also inverts Leonidas’ ἀποποµπή to the mice in AP 6.302. Leonidas tells the mice:
409
On Epicurean ideas of friendship, see Gordon, 2012, 59.
Like the Cynics, the Epicureans advocated simplicity of nourishment. Sider, 1997,
161, notes the humorous remark of Cicero Disp. Tusc. 5.89 regarding the Epicureans:
nemo de tenui victu plura dixit (“no one talked more about a meager diet”).
410
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193 go elsewhere, where you will find a richer dinner. Philodemus says to Piso: even though
you could find a richer dinner elsewhere, have dinner here instead:
AP 6.302.7-8 - Leonidas
σπεύδων εἰς ἄλλους οἴκους ἴθι--τἀµὰ δὲ λιτά-ὧν ἄπο πλειοτέρην οἴσεαι ἁρµαλιήν.
Hurry off to other houses—my means are slight—from
which you’ll get a richer store.
AP 11.44.7-8 - Philodemus
ἢν δέ ποτε στρέψῃς καὶ ἐς ἡµέας ὄµµατα, Πείσων,
ἄξοµεν ἐκ λιτῆς εἰκάδα πιοτέρην.
And if you turn your eyes towards us, oh Piso, we shall
celebrate a richer, rather than a humbler, Twentieth.
Also remarkable is that Philodemus has imitated not only Leonidas, but Ariston’s
imitation of Leonidas:
Prohibition from the καλύβη:
AP 6.303.1-2 - Ariston
ὦ µύες, εἰ µὲν ἐπ᾽ ἄρτον ἐληλύθατ᾽, ἐς µυχὸν ἄλλον
στείχετ᾽-ἐπεὶ λιτὴν οἰκέοµεν καλύβηνOh mice, if you have come for bread, head to another house,
for I inhabit a humble hut.
Invitation to the καλιάς:
AP 11.44.1-2 – Philodemus
αὔριον εἰς λιτήν σε καλιάδα, φίλτατε Πείσων,
ἐξ ἐνάτης ἕλκει µουσοφιλὴς ἕταρος
Tomorrow at three your Muse-loving friend drags you to his
humble cottage,
AP 6.303.5-6 - Ariston
εἰ δ᾽ἐν ἐµαῖς βύβλοισι πάλιν καταθήξετ᾽ ὀδόντα
κλαύσεσθ᾽, οὐκ ἀγαθὸν κῶµον ἐπερχόµενοι.
But if, on the other hand, you sharpen your tooth on my
books again, you will lament that you have come to no good
banquet.
AP 11.44.7-8 - Philodemus
ἢν δέ ποτε στρέψῃς καὶ ἐς ἡµέας ὄµµατα, Πείσων,
ἄξοµεν ἐκ λιτῆς εἰκάδα πιοτέρην.
And if you turn your eyes towards us, oh Piso, we shall
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194 celebrate a richer, rather than a humble, Twentieth.
In the discussion of Leonidas’ mice-epigram in chapter 1, we saw that these forms of
protrepsis and apotrepsis were rooted in religious language, the resonance of which
Leonidas exploited for literary purposes. The conclusion of Philodemus’ epigram adds a
further religious note. The references to Piso's gaze (στρέψῃς ... ὄµµατα, 7, cf. ὄψει, 5)
and to his capacity to change the poet's circumstances (ἐκ λίτης) recall Callimachus’
hymn to Apollo:
ὡπόλλων οὐ παντὶ φαείνεται, ἀλλ’ ὅτις ἐσθλός·
ὅς µιν ἴδῃ, µέγας οὗτος, ὃς οὐκ ἴδε, λιτὸς ἐκεῖνος.
ὀψόµεθ’, ὦ Ἑκάεργε, καὶ ἐσσόµεθ’ οὔποτε λιτοί.
10
Apollo does not appear to everyone, but only to him who is worthy.
He who sees him is great, and he who doesn’t is small.
We will see, O Far-shooter, and we will no longer be small.
The use of the language of prayer or supplication to address kings or patrons is a common
phenomenon in Greek and Latin literature, but it takes on a particular dimension in the
context of an Epicurean gathering. By addressing Piso in this way Philodemus likens
him not only to a divine figure, but to Epicurus himself, the inspiration for the dinnerparty, who was commonly called by his followers θεῖος ἀνήρ.411 Piso will not just confer
quasi-divine favor on his friends, but will also, so to speak, fill in for Epicurus himself.412
Philodemus’ use of these models, which has gone unnoticed till now, illuminates
the way he handles the more explicit literary background of his invitation to Piso—the
guest friendship of Odysseus and Alcinous, which is introduced with the phrase
Φαιήκων γαίης in line 6. In the case of the Odyssey, just as with the epigrammatic
models, Philodemus can be seen to rework the earlier literary tradition so as to fit an
411
412
On the use of the term θεῖος ἀνήρ/divinus vir of Epicurus, see Bieler, 1935, 136.
Hiltbrunner, 1972, 172-3.
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195 Epicurean mold.
At the beginning of book IX, Odysseus accepts the dinner invitation of the
Phaeacian king Alcinous:
οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γέ τί φηµι τέλος χαριέστερον εἶναι
ἢ ὅτ’ ἐϋφροσύνη µὲν ἔχῃ κάτα δῆµον ἅπαντα,
δαιτυµόνες δ’ ἀνὰ δώµατ’ ἀκουάζωνται ἀοιδοῦ
ἥµενοι ἑξείης, παρὰ δὲ πλήθωσι τράπεζαι
σίτου καὶ κρειῶν, µέθυ δ’ ἐκ κρητῆρος ἀφύσσων
οἰνοχόος φορέῃσι καὶ ἐγχείῃ δεπάεσσι·
τοῦτό τί µοι κάλλιστον ἐνὶ φρεσὶν εἴδεται εἶναι.
5
10
I say that no goal is more pleasurable
than when joy fills the land and revelers
in the halls listen to a bard seated side by side
and the tables beside them are full of bread and
meat, and the wine-pourer drawing wine
from the mixing bowl brings it around and pours
it into the cups. This seems, to my mind, to be the
finest thing there is.
The scene is one of friendly conviviality—note how the participants are pictured as
sitting next to one another (ἑξείης)—including eating, drinking and song. Odysseus’
quasi-ethical claim—no goal is more pleasurable than this—is rendered all the more
forceful by the typically repetitious Homeric framing provided by lines 5 and 11. This
passage functions as a rhetorical background for Philodemus’ epigram: when
Philodemus says that Piso will hear “things sweeter than the Phaeacians” he effectively
claims, in the manner of a priamel—“some (i.e. Odysseus) say that feasting and drinking
in abundance is the sweetest and finest thing, but I say …”.
In Kaibel’s view, the elliptical phrase Φαιήκων γαίης involved an audacissima
brevitas. For a reader with a philosophical background, however, the phrase would not
have presented much difficulty.413 The phrase recalls the introduction to the "Myth of
Er" told at the end of Plato's Republic. Here, the tales told by Odysseus to Alcinous
413
Cf. Gordon, 2012, 43 on the phrase τὰ Φαιάκων at Plut., non posse suaviter vivi
secundum Epicurum 1093c.
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196 (including, of course, Odysseus’ many fabrications) are similarly foregone in favor of the
(true) account of Er's journey.414 More germane to Philodemus’ epigram is the common
ancient view of the Phaeacians as Epicureans avant la lettre. Gordon points to the
beginning of book nine of the Odyssey as an important locus for ethical, and in particular
Epicurean, readings of the poem.415 Later writers go so far as to call Epicurus and his
followers “Phaeacians” and read Odysseus’ speech to Alcinous at the beginning of Book
IX of the Odyssey as a statement of Epicurean ideals.416 This connection has traditionally
been seen as forming part of the ancient polemics against Epicureanism, but Philodemus’
epigram may point in a different direction: perhaps Epicurus invoked the Phaeacians in a
somewhat ironic way, identifying himself with their exaltation of pleasure while defining
pleasure in different terms.417 Otherwise, it is possible that, as Gordon argues,
Philodemus exploits the Epicurus-Phaeacian connection as a background, but frames his
point in a way that does not derive directly from the master or any other source.418
If Epicurus provides the philosophical background for Philodemus' εἰκάς, and the
Roman patron-client relationship the social framework for the invitation to Piso,
Leonidas has furnished the poetic framework for the expression in epigram of the poet’s
ethics of λιτότης.419 Moreover, if the literary background of the Latin "invitation-poem"
seems obscure, then this may be because its earliest Greek exemplar is actually modeled
414
Rep. 614b, where the phrase ἡδίον ἀκούοντι picks up on references to listening to
songs at the beginning of Od. IX (τόδε καλὸν ἀκουέµεν, 3; ἀκουάζωνται, 7).
415
Gordon, 2012, 38-71. On the Odyssean reference, see Clayman, 2007, 514-5 and
Bettenworth, 2012. 416
Gordon, 2012, 40-46.
417
On the use of the Odyssey as a background here, cf. most recently Bettenworth, 2012.
418
Gordon, 2012, 54.
419
Gutzwiller, 1998a, 110, points to the further affinity between Leonidas' and
Philodemus' attitudes towards Aphrodite as patron goddess.
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197 after a poem that shoos its addressees away, rather than inviting them in. Philodemus'
epigram, although it engages with the earlier poetic tradition using many of the same
formal methods as, e.g., Gaetulicus in AP 6.190, is hardly a mere formal exercise. Nor is
the engagement with the literary tradition in the service of merely “occasional” poetry.420
To the contrary, Philodemus treats Leonidas’ epigram as an ethical statement, and his
formal variation of the model mirrors his “variation” or reworking of this ethical content.
In much the same way that earlier epigrammatists serve as erotic models for
Philodemus—models, that is of the poet as lover—Leonidas serves as an ethical model or
a model of the poet in society.
Crinagoras from Mitylene to Italty
Now that we have seen the techniques of imitation and variation at work in the
creation of authorial persona in a single epigram, I would like to consider how they
operate across multiple epigrams by particular authors. I will argue that epigrammatists
create coherent poetic personae through strategies of imitation and variation that can be
traced across multiple poems. To begin to explore this phenomenon, I would first like to
turn to Crinagoras of Mitylene, a younger contemporary of Philodemus. Here, we find a
more fully worked out response to Leonidas’ biography and poetic persona. Again and
again in these poems, Crinagoras can be shown to use the epigrams of Leonidas as point
of reference for the construction of his own authorial persona. This response is
developed across autobiographical and metapoetic poems in which the poet presents his
420
Compare Braga, 1950, 197, who regards the epigram as “poesia ufficiosa”, “senza
slancio”, “troppo controllati nella forma per contenere una sola ‘mica salis’”; cf. Carilli,
1975, 945, on the putative “interessata e forzata reverenza” exhibited by Philodemus
towards Piso. Carilli, 1975, 943, views Catullus’ poem as “parodia degli ossequiosi
inviti che si rivolgevano ai patroni” and imputes to Catullus “l’intento di mettere in
ridicolo il formalismo della poesia di invito vera e propria” [Emphases added].
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198 attitudes towards life in Italy, his relationship to members of the Augustan regime, and
his attitude towards poetry as a vocation. This common thread between the poems once
again indicates that the use of Leonidas (and other models) is not simply a matter of craft
deployed sporadically in poems written purely for special occasions, but part of a fullyfledged literary agenda.
Crinagoras is a remarkable figure among the epigrammatists of Philip’s Garland.
He was born at Mitylene, evidently into a family of high status.421 He was among a
group of ambassadors sent from Mitylene to Rome to renegotiate the island’s political
status. His subsequent activity as an envoy included two more embassies to Rome, in 45
BCE and 26/25 BCE. Following this last embassy, he remained in Rome and, in the
words of Bowersock, enjoyed the status of a Greek “poet laureate” at the courts of
Augustus and Tiberius. In the course of a long career as an epigrammatist—beginning
probably in the 40s BCE and lasting until at least 11 CE—he composed poetry for
members of the emperor’s intimate inner circle. Thus, like Philodemus and even more so
his younger contemporary Antipater of Thessalonica, Crinagoras’ poetry is heavily
marked by his relationships with high-status Romans and by the Italian environment in
which he lived and worked.
Roman Italy constitutes the background or “setting”, implicit or explicit, for much
of the Garland of Philip. Philodemus, Crinagoras, and Antipater of Thessalonica all
came to Italy and made their journies and/or new environs a theme in their epigrams.
Leonidas, since he associated himself prominently with his Italian homeland, was a
natural model for the representation of what became a very common experience among
421
The following summary of Crinagoras’ career is derived from GPh II, 210-3. On the
historical context of Crinagoras’ epigrams, see also Cichorius, 1922.
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199 Greeks of the first century BCE. Crinagoras, AP 9.559, illustrates how Leonidas’
example may shape the poet’s self-representation even as he inverts or otherwise alters
certain elements. In this epigram, Crinagoras announces his intention to voyage to Italy
and asks his friend Menippus to compose a travel-guide to help him on his way:
AP 9.559 - Crinagoras = GPh XXXII
πλοῦς µοι ἐπ᾽ Ἰταλίην ἐντύνεται· ἐς γὰρ ἑταίρους
στέλλοµαι, ὧν ἤδη δηρὸν ἄπειµι χρόνον.
διφέω δ᾽ ἡγητῆρα περίπλοον, ὅς µ᾽ ἐπὶ νήσους
Κυκλάδας ἀρχαίην τ᾽ ἄξει ἐπὶ Σχερίην.
σύν τί µοι ἀλλά, Μένιππε, λάβευ φίλος, ἵστορα κύκλον
γράψας, ὦ πάσης ἴδρι γεωγραφίης.
5
I am planning a trip to Italy, for I’m going to see friends I’ve
been away from for a long time. But I need a periplous to
guide me, which will take me to the Cycladic Islands and
ancient Scheria. Help me out, my dear Menippus, by writing
a learned “Tour”, you who are knowledgeable in all aspects
of geography.
Here, imitation and variation at the grammatical level mirror certain similarities and
differences in the actual lives of Crinagoras and Leonidas. Whereas Leonidas was a
Greek native of Italy, who warned against the itinerant life (AP 7.736) and lamented his
own absence from Italy (AP 7.715), Crinagoras, as an ambassador of his native Mitylene,
traveled to Italy on several occasions and eventually took up residence there. He signals
this affinity with and divergence from the experiences of Leonidas in the opening of his
epigram, which neatly reverses the direction of Leonidas' travels while retaining his
sound and structure. The two (metrically identical) lines share a strong aural/graphic
similarity:
πλοῦς µοι ἐπ᾽ Ἰταλίην ≈
πολλὸν ἀπ’ Ἰταλίης
ἐς γὰρ ἑταίρους ≈
ἔκ τε Τάραντος.
In addition to the grammatical and directional inversions, there is a complementary
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200 inversion of the emotional affect of the model. Crinagoras’ journey is not framed as a
separation from homeland and loved ones (even though it was that, in a sense), but as a
journey to visit friends. If he does lament at all, it is over the length of his absence from
Italy, his destination: the expression of (temporal) separation, δηρὸν ἄπειµι χρόνον, 2,
again recalls, but inverts the force of, Leonidas' expression of (spatial) separation,
Πολλὸν ἀπ’ Ἰταλίης.422
The overall construction of the poem is closely comparable with Catullus, c. 101,
and a comparison between the two sheds light on both poets’ methods:
Catullus c. 101 (Text = Mynors)
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora uectus
aduenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, aue atque uale.
Having come through many peoples and seas I arrive, brother, at
these pitiful funeral rites, to give you death’s final due and speak in
vain to your ashes, since fortune has robbed me of yourself— alas,
wretched brother, wrongly robbed from me. Now, however,
receive these things, which are given to the dead in a grim rite in
accordance with the custom of our ancestors, dripping much with
brotherly tears, and forever, brother, hail and farewell.
Conte first pointed out the first line of the poem recalls the beginning of the Odyssey:423
Catullus’ voyage is figured as a kind of reversal of Odysseus’—to Troy rather than away
from it. Gutzwiller recently has noted that this Odyssean background is mediated
422
Crinagoras’ procedure can be compared with the similar reversal of direction in
Philodemus, AP 11.44.
423
Conte, 1986, 32-3.
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201 through a combination of epigrams, Meleager’s lament for Heliodora (AP 7.476) and,
most relevant for Crinagoras, Leonidas’ self-epitaph (AP 7.715).424
The simultaneous presence of the first line of the Odyssey and Leonidas’ selfepitaph is a striking coincidence, but Crinagoras exploits the Leonidean epigram in a
more detailed way than Catullus.425 Crinagoras’ reading of the Odyssey is exactly the
opposite of Leonidas’. In Leonidas, Odysseus’ wanderings are viewed pessimistically—
they keep him from his homeland. Crinagoras, however, is more optimistic, and looks
instead to the completion of the journey and the joy he will feel at seeing old friends, like
Odysseus being reunited with his family. The double allusion to the beginning of the
Odyssey and to what was likely the end of Leonidas’ collected epigrams suggests that this
poem may be of greater thematic importance than has previously been acknowledged.
The case must remain speculative, of course, but it is possible that the poem was meant to
introduce (a collection of) Crinagoras’ epigrams and identify them thematically with Italy
and his experience as a Greek poet among the Romans.
We already have seen Philodemus use the epigrammatic tradition, particularly
Leonidas’ mice-epigram and later imitations and variations of it, as a framework for
representing his relationship with Piso. Crinagoras AP 9.545, is an equally brilliant
adaptation in just the same tradition, although the elements have undergone even more
radical and ingenious transformations. Like AP 11.44, this epigram too is concerned with
the relations between the epigrammatist and a powerful Roman aristocrat. The poet
424
Gutzwiller, 2012b, 103-7.
As Gutzwiller, 2012b, 106, remarks, “As intertext, the Leonidas epigram functions as
model for the epitaph Catullus could have written for his brother had he not more closely
followed the intervening model of Meleager’s ritual lament.” (Emphasis added.)
425
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202 sends a book of poetry as a gift for Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus:426
AP 9.545 – Crinagoras = XI GPh
Καλλιµάχου τὸ τορευτὸν ἔπος τόδε· δὴ γὰρ ἐπ’ αὐτῷ
ὡνὴρ τοὺς Μουσέων πάντας ἔσεισε κάλως.
ἀείδει δ’ Ἑκάλης τε φιλοξείνοιο καλιὴν
καί, Θησεῖ Μαραθὼν οὓς ἐπέθηκε πόνους·
τοῦ σοὶ καὶ νεαρὸν χειρῶν σθένος εἴη ἀρέσθαι,
Μάρκελλε, κλεινοῦ τ’ αἶνον ἴσον βιότου.
5
This is the chiselled epic of Callimachus: on it the man
shook all the sails of the Muses. He sings both of the
hospitable hut of Hecale, and the labors which Marathon
imposed upon Theseus. May it also be possible for you to
achieve the youthful strength of your hands, and equal praise
for a glorious life.
The Hecale told the story of the young Theseus’ journey from Athens to Marathon to
fight a bull who was ravaging the area.427 Along the way, he is offered hospitality during
a storm at the hut of a poor old woman named Hecale. Returning having defeated and
captured the bull, he learns that the old woman has died and institutes sacred rites in her
honor. Hecale thus becomes a kind of “patron saint” of travelers (cf. Hecale fr. 1.1
Hollis, τῖον δὲ ἑ πάντες ὁδῖται).
The poem makes a very apt gift for the young Marcellus. The expedition to
Marathon was the last of the deeds Theseus accomplished during the early period of his
life, prior to his voyage to Crete and subsequent establishment as king at Athens. If, as
Gow and Page plausibly suggest, the epigram belongs to the period around 27 BCE when
Marcellus was first embarking on a military career, the figure of Theseus would have
offered him an inspiring example.428 According to Plutarch (Thes. 5.4), Theseus, in his
426
Crinagoras also composed AP 6.161 (= X HE) for Marcellus on the occasion of the
cutting of his first beard (depositio barbae).
427
On the Hecale see, in general, Hollis, 2009.
428
The poem offers, "un miroir du prince," in the words of Cogitore, 2010, 258. Theseus
was later worshipped as a hero, and Marcellus too might have hoped for as much: see the
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203 early youth, was marked by an uncommon combination of physical strength and virtue
that is emphasized again and again in various treatments of his story. When he first set
out on his labors, he did so with the goal of stopping wrongdoers and scrupulously
avoiding any wickedness himself. Crinagoras recalls this element of the tradition in his
final wish for Marcellus, that he not only prove himself strong, but also win praise for the
conduct of his life. Theseus was inspired in this civilizing mission by the greatness of
Heracles, whom he hoped to emulate. So too, we should consider the comparison of
Marcellus with Theseus within the context of the very widespread contemporary
comparisons between Augustus and Heracles, such as, for instance, Horace C. 3.14. Seen
as a piece of this larger literary (and artistic) context, the epigram functions as a kind of
miniature royal propaganda, setting up Marcellus as Augustus’ heir.
The Hecale and Crinagoras’ epigram are thus perfectly suited to the situation, and
it is quite easy to see a real occasion behind the poem. Yet a dense web of connections
between the epigram and the earlier poetic tradition on the one hand and to Crinagoras’
other epigrams on the other suggest that we should beware of regarding the poem as
subliterary because its composition can plausibly be tied to a certain occasion. The
poem’s eventual publication was not an accident or afterthought, but was envisioned by
the poet already when he was writing, and the poem is meant to be understood within this
larger literary context.
In addition to making subtle use of the traditions surrounding Theseus, the
epigram engages in a complicated play with earlier epigram, with Callimachus’ poetic
career, and, to a degree we are only in a position to partially appreciate, with the text of
list of Roman magistrates who received cult honors in the East in Bowersock, 1965, 1501.
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204 the Hecale itself. The very first words of the poem, Καλλιµάχου τὸ τορευτὸν ἔπος,
evoke the famous literary dispute between Callimachus and his contemporaries over the
evaluation of Antimachus' Lyde. Crinagoras' adjective τορευτόν mimics the sound of
Callimachus' τορόν at fr. 194 Pf., but carries a vividly physical sense—“chiselled”—that
is appropriate to describe not only the careful work expended by Callimachus on its
composition,429 but also appropriate to the epigram that accompanies it.430 The epigram
also invokes the opening of the Hecale itself when referring to the poem’s central theme
of hospitality.431
Crinagoras rather ingeniously thematizes the ambiguous generic status of the
Hecale and the literary polemics which where thought to have motivated its composition.
The poem was thought in antiquity to have been Callimachus’ attempt, in response to his
critics, to accomplish epic poetry within a brief compass—not a poem on kings and
heroes in “thousands of lines” (a project he dismissed at the beginning of the Aetia (fr.
1.3-5), but an epic poem shrunk down to the size of a single papyrus roll.432 Crinagoras
plays on this set of generic issues in the phrase πάντας ἔσεισε κάλως (“he shook out all
429
On the meaning of the word, see Milne, 1941, who argues that it refers to embossing
and engraving (as opposed to sculptural work of any kind in the round). For the metaliterary connotations, cf. D. Hal. Thuc. 24: διετέλεσέ γέ τοι τὸν ἑπτακαιεικοσαετῆ
χρόνον τοῦ πολέµου ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἕως τῆς τελευτῆς τὰς ὀκτὼ βύβλους, ἃς µόνας
κατέλιπεν, στρέφων ἄνω καὶ κάτω καὶ καθ’ ἓν ἕκαστον τῶν τῆς φράσεως µορίων
ῥινῶν καὶ τορεύων.
430
Cf., e.g., Honestus AP 7.274.4, where the inscription (i.e. the epigram) is described
(per the reading of the Corrector of P) as a γράµµα τορευθέν.
431
Φιλοξείνοιο καλιὴν recalls the opening of the Hecale (fr. 2 Hollis): τίον δὲ ἑ πάντες
ὁδῖται | ἦρα φιλοξενίης. The precise collocation φιλοξείνοιο καλιήν is paralleled at
Hecale fr. 263: φιλοξείνοιο καλιῆς, as pointed out by Jacobs, 1826, ad loc. On the
importance of the Hecale as a model for scenes of poverty in later literature, see Hollis,
2009, 341-54, Appendix III (“The Hospitality Theme”).
432
On the Hecale and ancient disputes over the genre and length of poetry, see
Gutzwiller, 2012a.
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205 his sails”).433 It refers here to the writing of epic poetry as at, e.g., Propertius III.9.3-4:
quid me scribendi tam vastum mittis in aequor? | non sunt apta meae grandia vela rati.434
Propertius recuses himself from writing a martial epic; Crinagoras’ purpose here is to
underline that the Hecale was Callimachus’ distinctive version of epic. It is slightly
ironic since, after all, the trip to Marathon from Athens is only about 15 miles and, like
Theseus’ other early labors, this one did not include any travel by sea, a point that is
emphasized by Plutarch (Thes. 4.6).435 Crinagoras’ point in folding all of this into his
into his epigram is to make a self-reflective comment about his own poetry. It is
precisely the programmatic brevity of the Hecale that makes it doubly appropriate as a
gift given by an epigrammatist. If, that is, Callimachus had “miniaturized” the scope of
heroic epic in terms of geography and size, Crinagoras has gone one step further,
reducing the Hecale and its core ethical and poetic message to epigrammatic length.436
While Crinagoras has one eye on the Hecale and on the traditions surrounding its
composition and reception, he keeps another fixed on the earlier epigrammatic tradition.
Crinagoras exploits the name of the poem’s titular character and its author, the central
motif of the poem (the old woman's hut, καλίη), and, figuratively, its style (πάντας
ἔσεισε κάλως) to create a wordplay that runs through the first three lines (Καλλιµάχου ...
433
The phrase has a slight echo in the Hecale (fr. 239 Hollis): διερὴν δ᾽ ἀπεσείσατο
λαίφην. 434
Where Heyworth and Morwood, 2011, 184, paraphrase, “the elegiac poet unable to set
out onto the epic sea in his small boat”. For further comparanda, see Wimmel, 1960,
230.
435
Theseus journeyed overland from Troezen to Athens contrary to the wishes of his
grandfather Pittheus, who warned him of monsters plaguing the land route. Plutarch
further remarks that Theseus’ kingship took place during the time before the Athenians
were “addicted” to the sea (Thes. 17.6).
436
The phrase would make the gift of the poem doubly appropriate if, as Gow-Page
suggest, Marcellus is embarking on a sailing voyage. On the generic implications of this
image, see further Gutzwiller, 2012a.
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206 κάλως ... Ἑκάλης ... καλιήν).437 This soundplay is traditionally “epigrammatic”,
hearkening back to the sound-play at, e.g., Leonidas AP 7.726:
AP 7.726 – Leonidas = LXXII HE
ἡ καλὰ καὶ καλῶς Πλατθὶς ὑφηναµένη
10
There is also perhaps a parallel in the humorous, equivocal use of ἅλς (“salt”) in
Callimachus AP 6.301. The point of the wordplay has been already been discussed
above; here it is the sound of the lines that is salient:
AP 6.301 – Callimachus = XXVIII HE = 47 Pf.
τὴν ἁλίην Εὔδηµος, ἐφ᾽ ἧς ἅλα λιτὸν ἐπέσθων
…
ὦ λαοί, σωθεὶς ἐξ ἁλὸς ὧδε θέτο.
1
4
A further epigrammatic touch is the poet’s wish for Marcellus: σοί ... εἴη ἀρέσθαι ...
κλεινοῦ ... αἶνον ἴσον βιότου. Using the same procedure as in 9.559 (πλοῦς µοι ἐπ᾽
Ἰταλίην … inverting Leonidas’ πόλλον ἀπ᾽ Ἰταλίης) Crinagoras reworks Leonidas'
avowal of his own poverty (ἐκ πατέρων ταύτην ᾐνέσαµεν βιοτήν, AP 6.302.4), making
it apply instead to the lofty Marcellus.
These are merely minor elements of formal poetic technique, however. What is
more noteworthy is the way the entire conception of the poem is informed by earlier
epigrams, and most of all by AP 6.302 (the “mice-epigram”) and its descendants,
437
It is interesting to consider this wordplay in connection with Leonidas AP VII.726.
As Reitzenstein, 1893, 148, remarked parenthetically of this epigram, “Anklänge an …
Hekale”. There may then be a hidden point in Leonidas' closing his poem with the words
ἡ καλὰ καὶ καλῶς Πλατθὶς ὑφηναµένη (text = Page). Whether or not Leonidas aimed
for this effect (see Izzo D'Accinni, 1958, 306 on the question of dependency),
Crinagoras’ phrasing seems to look back to the Platthis epigram and thus to have been
inspired by the similarity between Platthis and Hecale. For similar wordplay elsewhere
in Leonidas, cf. the chiastically-arranged AP 6.13.2: ἀγρότα Πάν, ἄλλης ἄλλος ἀπ᾽
ἀγρεσίης. For similar techniques employed elsewhere in Hellenistic epigram, see
Garrison, 1978, 41-2.
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207 including Philodemus 11.41, discussed already earlier in this chapter. We saw that
Philodemus had quite ingeniously inverted Leonidas’ curse-like address to the mice and
turned it into a dinner invitation. Both the Leonidean poem and Philodemus’ reworking,
moreover, served as vehicles for the expression of the poet’s ethical ideals. Crinagoras’
epigram fits perfectly into this chain of imitations and variations. The καλίη in
Crinagoras evokes the καλιάς of Philodemus and, through that intermediary, the καλυβή
of Leonidas.438 Beyond the mere formal similarity, in each poem the dwelling serves as a
symbol of the ethical message the poet wishes to convey. Crinagoras does not set himself
up as an advocate of “the simple life” in the way Leonidas and Philodemus do, but this
ethical ideal does play an important role in his message to Marcellus. Like Philodemus
inviting Piso to a dinner in honor of Epicurus, Crinagoras is using the Hecale and his
epigram as a form of ethical protreptic. The path he is trying to turn him toward is that of
Theseus, the paradoxical “democratic king” brought on stage, for instance, by Euripides
in the Suppliant Women. When a Theban herald arrives at Athens and asks, “Who is the
tyrant of this land?” (399), Theseus replies:
πρῶτον µὲν ἤρξω τοῦ λόγου ψευδῶς, ξένε,
ζητῶν τύραννον ἐνθάδ᾽· οὐ γὰρ ἄρχεται
ἑνὸς πρὸς ἀνδρός, ἀλλ᾽ ἐλευθέρα πόλις.
δῆµος δ᾽ ἀνάσσει διαδοχαῖσιν ἐν µέρει
ἐνιαυσίαισιν, οὐχι τῷ πλούτῳ διδοὺς
τὸ πλεῖστον, ἀλλα χὡ πένης ἔχων ἴσον.
You spoke falsely at the very start of your speech,
stranger, when you sought a tyrant here. For this city is
not ruled by one man, but is free. The people rule in turn
with yearly terms of office, not giving the wealthy man the
greater portion—no, the poor man has an equal share.
While it would be rash to suggest that Crinagoras must be gesturing towards this sort of
438
Going back further one could add to this litany Eumaeus’ κλισίη in the Odyssey
(starting at bk. XIV.45), where Odysseus receives his servant’s humble hospitality.
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208 strongly democratic vein in the Theseus-tradition, it seems nevertheless that there is a
fundamental connection between Theseus’ respect for the poor and the nature of his
kingship that would have resonated as an undertone to the epigram. The Hecale story is
of special importance for this aspect of Theseus’ character, since it was through her
hospitality that Theseus learned of the reciprocal relationship between the leader and “the
people”.439 In addition to military glory (implied by νεαρὸν χειρῶν σθένος) Crinagoras
urges Marcellus to adopt an attitude toward the poor and powerless like that of Theseus.
Philodemus’ invitation to Piso, examined above, serves as a particularly valuable
intermediary for Crinagoras. That epigram took up the Leonidean theme of Lebenswahl,
an inheritance from archaic elegy, fifth century philosophy, and more recently Cynic
literature. Philodemus’ epigram is more than just an invitation to dinner; it is also an
“invitation” to a certain lifestyle and certain philosophical outlook. So too, Crinagoras’
poem is more than just an “invitation” to read a poem, it is also an invitation to choose a
lifestyle in accordance with a certain view of the world. The epigram (in Greek, of
course), invites Marcellus to read a Greek poem (itself about Hecale’s invitation to
Theseus), which will supply him with a Greek hero after whom to model himself as
Roman conquering warrior.
Scholars have missed the presence of the poet himself in this poem.440 Cogitore
infers from the overt absence of the poet that Crinagoras presents the gift without the
439
On Theseus’ institution of democracy at Athens, cf., e.g., Plut., Thes., 24-25. On
Theseus as a model “democratic king” in late 6th and 5th century BCE Athens, see
Walker, 1995, 35-66.
440
Contrary to his practice in other gift epigrams (AP 6.227; 229; 261 = III, IV, V GPh)
Crinagoras here omits his own name.
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209 expectation of recompense.441 But this misses the delicate way in which Crinagoras
figures his relationship to Marcellus. For the poet is still implicitly present; someone
after all must be giving the gift. Like Philodemus, Crinagoras adopts in relation to his
patron the persona of the lowly man who entertains his social superior in his humble hut.
The copy of the Hecale Crinagoras gives to Marcellus serves as a suitable token of
friendship not only because it deals with the journey of a young hero, but also because it
too involves a relationship of ξενία (φιλοξείνοιο, 3) between lofty and humble figures.
In fact, Crinagoras' comparison of Marcellus to Theseus (τοῦ σοὶ καί, 5; ἴσον, 6), leaves
implicit—to a reader who knows the plot of the Hecale—the analogy between
Crinagoras' position as a Greek client to a Roman patron and that of Hecale vis à vis
Theseus in the poem.442 As in Philodemus’ invitation poem, the Leonidean background
(refracted through the lens of its “rereadings” in later epigram) provides the poet with a
vehicle for situating himself within his poetic and social environment.
So far, we have examined Crinagoras’ use of Leonidean motifs, phrases, and
situations. In an epigrammatic soliloquy Crinagoras engages with Leonidas’ poetic
ethics, placing dreams of wealth in opposition to literary pursuits:
AP 9.234 - Crinagoras = XLVIII GPh
Ἄχρι τεῦ, ἆ δείλαιε, κεναῖς ἔτ’ ἐπ’ ἐλπίσι, θυµέ,
πωτηθεὶς443 ψυχρῶν ἀσσοτάτω νεφέων,
ἄλλοις ἄλλ’ ἔπ’ ὄνειρα διαγράψεις ἀφένοιο;
κτητὸν γὰρ θνητοῖς οὐδὲ ἓν αὐτόµατον.
Μουσέων ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ δῶρα µετέρχεο· ταῦτα δ’ ἀµυδρὰ
εἴδωλα ψυχῆς ἠλεµάτοισι µέθες.
5
How long, oh wretched heart, flying on hopes up in the
chilly clouds, will you write palimpsests of dreams of
441
Cogitore, 2010, 258.
Note that at Hec. fr. 49 Hollis a speaker, almost certainly Hecale herself, discusses the
importance of setting sail under favorable omens. See Hollis, 2009, 46-7.
443
Like Icarus at AP 7.699, ἀδέσποτον: Ἰκάρου … ἐς ἠέρα πωτηθέντος.
442
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210 riches? Nothing comes into man’s possession of its own
accord. Pursue the gifts of the Muses instead: leave these
dim phantoms of the mind to idle men.
Here Crinagoras takes up philosophical themes raised by Leonidas in the “diatribe” AP
7.472. Crinagoras’ poem employs the hortatory stance of the diatribe, but turns the
exhortation inward, to his own heart (θυµός), which he urges to turn towards poetry.
In the first two couplets, the poet tells his heart to cease dreaming idly of wealth,
likening these dreams to clouds using an image partly borrowed from Leonidas (cf. AP
7.472.8 νεφέλας).444 A transition is made from the theme of wealth to poetry in line
three, where the image of “writing” dreams one on top of another (as in a palimpsest) is
used to illustrate the vanity of the pursuit of wealth. The final couplet then bids the poet
to turn to poetry—“the gifts of the Muses” (Μουσέων δῶρα, 5). This figurative way of
describing poetry, as well as the adjective ἀµυδρά, 5, used to describe the ephemeral
nature of wealth, refer back to Leonidas’ claim to immortality in his self-epitaph:
οὔνοµα δ’ οὐκ ἤµυσε Λεωνίδου· αὐτά µε δῶρα | κηρύσσει Μουσέων πάντας ἐπ’
ἠελίους (5-6). Crinagoras, in relating the adjective ἀµυδρά to the verb ἤµυσε, once
again takes up a Leonidean expression and recasts it. Drawing from two Leonidean
models, he combines Leonidas’ ethical exhortations, vocabulary, and elements of his
autobiographical narrative to craft his poetic statement.445
Antipater of Thessalonica – The Epigrammatist as Provocateur
We have seen that although Philodemus recasts the quasi-religious language of
Leonidas in philosophical terms, his epigram retains an undercurrent of religious
444
The opening words ἄχρι τεῦ likewise may look back to ἄχρι at AP 7.472.1
Rubensohn, 1888, 84, suggests that line 3 of the epigram may have been inspired by
Callimachus, H. 1.95-96, οὐτ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἄτερ ὄλβος ἐπίσταται ἄνδρας ἀέξειν | οὐτ᾽
ἀρετὴ ἀφένοιο … .
445
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211 deference. Later poets too evidently recognized both the religious undertones of the
mice-epigram as well as its function as a programmatic introductory piece. Antipater of
Thessalonica, in his imitation of AP 6.302, fastens upon the religious undertones of the
poem to craft a poetic manifesto that is quite different, even radically at odds with, the
message of the model. Antipater is the first of the datable Philippan poets to write an
overt imitation of Leonidas' mice-epigram.446 In his poem, we are transported from
Leonidas’ humble καλύβη to a symposium in honor of the birthday of Archilochus and
Homer:
AP 11.20 - Antipater of Thessalonica = XX GPh
Φεύγεθ’, ὅσοι λόκκας ἢ λοφνίδας ἢ καµασῆνας
ᾄδετε, ποιητῶν φῦλον ἀκανθολόγων,
οἵ τ’ ἐπέων κόσµον λελυγισµένον ἀσκήσαντες
κρήνης ἐξ ἱερῆς πίνετε λιτὸν ὕδωρ.
σήµερον Ἀρχιλόχοιο καὶ ἄρσενος ἦµαρ Ὁµήρου
σπένδοµεν· ὁ κρητὴρ οὐ δέχεθ’ ὑδροπότας.
1
5
Away all you who sing of ‘loccae’ (cloaks) or ‘lophnides’
(torches) or ‘camasenes’ (fish), you race of thorn-gathering
poets, who trick out the twisted ornament of your verse and
drink humble water from a sacred spring. Today we pour
libations in honor of the birthday of Archilochus and Homer:
the krater does not receive water-drinkers.
The epigram advertises its relationship with its model, Leonidas, AP 6.302, the “mice
epigram”, one of only two other epigrams in the Palatine and Planudean Anthologies to
begin this way.447 Like Leonidas, Antipater shoos away a group of pests. The mice of
Leonidas’ epigram, however, have been wittily transformed. This time, the "pests" that
assail the poet are actually other poets, attacked for their excessively abstruse diction.448
446
On the dates of Antipater of Thessalonica, see GPh II, 18-20. His datable epigrams
belong to the next-to-last decade of the first century BCE.
447
The other, by Herodicus of Babylon (quoted in Athenaeus 5.222a), also seems to
imitate Leonidas.
448
As Gow-Page note ad loc., λόκκες, λοφνίδες, and καµασῆνες are all exceedingly rare
words.
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212 In addition to Leonidas, there is, at very least, an implied comparison with Posidippus’
elaborately mixed drink in AP 12.168—an important epigram, as I have argued, for
Meleager’s construction of a “mixed” poetic persona. Antipater features Homer at his
symposium, but excludes Hesiod, tacitly for now, but overtly in AP 11.24, discussed
below.
Scholars have often noted the appropriation of Callimachean language in this
epigram. Knox, 1985, points to a number of specific verbal parallels: The obscure words
in line one may be meant to parody Callimachean learning; Callimachus himself used at
least one of the words (λοφνίδας, fr. 755 Pf.).449 In φῦλον ἀκανθολόγων, 2, there is an
unmistakeable echo of Callimachus' attack against the Telchines (φῦλον ἀ[ ... ) at Aet. fr.
1.7.450 Further Callimachean imagery, once again from an explicitly poetological
context, is taken up in line 4, with the address to the water-drinkers: κρήνης ἐξ ἱερῆς
πίνετε λιτὸν ὕδωρ.451 The draught from the sacred spring seems to refer back to the
beginning of the Aetia (fr. 2), where Callimachus recalls Hesiod’s vision of the Muses by
the spring of Hippocrene. The phrasing, meanwhile, derives from another Callimachean
passage, the close of his Hymn to Apollo, where Callimachus said that
Δηοῖ δ’ οὐκ ἀπὸ παντὸς ὕδωρ φορέουσι µέλισσαι,
ἀλλ’ ἥτις καθαρή τε καὶ ἀχράαντος ἀνέρπει
πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς ἄκρον ἄωτον.
“Bees of Demeter do not gather water from just anywhere,
but only the small drop that bubbles up from a sacred
449
Knox, 1985, 108.
Skiadas, 1965, 116. The use of animal imagery to attack pedants goes back at least to
Timon of Phlius (SH 786), and is paralleled in Callimachus’ comparison (in the mouth of
Hipponax) of philologists to wasps or flies, Iam. 1.26-28.
451
Antipater also distances himself from water-drinking/water-drinkers at AP 9.305 and
11.31.
450
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213 spring.”
The use of Callimachean language in the poem is thus similar to Antipater of Sidon’s
epigram in praise of Antimachus (AP 7.409, discussed above), where the language of the
Callimachean poetic program (as enunciated in the epigrams and Aetia prologue) was put
in the service of a distinctly non-Callimachean message.452 The poem has often, for this
reason, been read as an anti-Callimachean manifesto.453 Knox, noting Antipater’s use of
distinctive language used also by Callimachus,454 goes so far as to mark this poem as the
point at which the symbolism of water-drinkers vs. wine-drinkers is first given a fixed
meta-poetic significance, with Callimachus being identified polemically with the former
group.455 The inclusion of Archilochus in the epigram seems to be yet another slight at
Callimachus, who called him µεθυπλήξ (fr. 544 Pf.).456 Epigrammatists after Antipater
take an explicitly hostile stance toward Callimachus: he figures prominently, for
instance, in attacks against grammarians (some of which will be considered below), and
Martial makes the Aetia into a poetic anti-model (X.5).457 Yet even if the epigram pokes
fun at Callimachus, a purely “anti-Callimachean” reading risks missing important, and,
from the point of view of the later epigrammatic tradition, productive aspects of the
452
On this epigram see the discussion in ch. 2, above.
So, e.g., Gow-Page at GPh II, 37: "[T]he sneers are evidently directed, if not at
Callimachus himself, at his followers and admirers." Cf. Skiadas, 1965, 116. Hunter, in
Fantuzzi-Hunter, 2004, 447, is more circumspect: “… in opposition to (probably)
Callimachus … and/or (? self-styled) imitators.”
454
Knox, 1985, 108, notes the presence of Callimachean language in the phrase κρήνης
ἐξ ἱερῆς and the word λοφνίδες, used by Callimachus at fr. 755 Pf.
455
Knox, 1985, 107. Compare the reservations of Argentieri, 2003, 98, and Magnelli and
De Stefani, 2011, 543, n. 34, about the supposedly “anti-Callimachean” message.
456
Skiadas, 1965, 117.
457
Martial's epigram takes its inspiration from a frankly invective poem attributed to
'Apollonius the grammarian' (AP 11.275), but his attitude toward Callimachus is not
uniformly hostile (compare Mart. IV.23.1).
453
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214 poem’s artistry. The first of these has to do with the use of religious language, and in
particular the application of Callimachean religious language as a kind of "gloss" on the
Leonidean model; the second with the poem’s relationship to the ethical content of its
various models, including, in addition to Callimachus, Leonidas and Philodemus.
I have argued above (Ch. 1) that Leonidas' epigram used language evocative of
religious prohibitions in a non-religious context to create a humorous, parodic effect.
Philodemus’ epigram too was informed by the language of religious ritual, even though
its subject matter is distinctly non-religious. Antipater’s epigram, by contrast, uses the
language of ritual explicitly. In so doing, the poet merges the Callimachean and
Leonidean texts, using the religiously charged language of the Hymn to Apollo to bring to
the surface the religious undertones of Leonidas’ text (discussed above, ch. 1).
Furthermore, the philosophical “ritual” of Philodemus’ epigram, the εἰκάς, provides a foil
for the imagined ritual context of Antipater’s epigram.
We have already seen the marked presence of both Leonidean and Callimachean
elements in the epigram. In line 4, however, these two models converge in an interesting
way. In rejecting Callimachus' clear water, Antipater takes up the adjective λιτός, a
crucial word both in Callimachus' hymn (2.10-11) and in Leonidas' mice-epigram (not to
mention AP 11.44). This word, which Leonidas had used to describe the paltriness of his
own means of subsistence (τἀµὰ δὲ λιτά, AP 6.302.7), and which Callimachus had used
to speak of those whom the gods do not deem worthy of witnessing epiphany, is here
transferred into the "sacred water" drunk by the pedantic poets as a source of inspiration.
Antipater thus collapses images from Callimachus’ metapoetics and Leonidas’ ethics in
the single image of the λιτὸν ὑδώρ (“plain water”).
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215 The ethical dimension of the epigram becomes even more important in the final
couplet. The first part of the epigram is concerned with a particular stylistic feature—the
use of obscure words—as a marker of a broader poetic and even ethical orientation, to
which Antipater opposes his own outlook. In the final couplet, this outlook is concretized
in the image of the krater.
In the final couplet Antipater turns from condemnation of the pedantic poets to a
description of his own practice. He announces that today he and a group of celebrants are
pouring a libation (σπένδοµεν, 6) in honor of the birthdays of Archilochus and Homer.
This verb characterizes the context of the epigram as both sympotic and ritualistic. The
verb δέχεται (6) comes also from the lexicon of religious ritual, evoking not only the
acceptance of sacrificial offerings by a god but, more pointedly, the admission of
worshippers into sacred space.
Two elements of the Leonidean model AP 6.302 are adapted in this final couplet,
the hut and the meal-tub. The part of Leonidas’ meal-tub is now played by Antipater’s
krater, while the physical space of the hut has been transformed into the ambience of a
symposium. Antipater has also adapted Leonidas’ symbolic use of these motifs. Just as
the hut and the meal-tub were icons of Leonidas’ lifestyle and ethical outlook, so too the
krater and the sympotic space and occasion are used to symbolize a hedonism that is
developed as a programmatic stance in a number of Antipater’s other epigrams.
Antipater’s transformation of motifs from AP 6.302 owes something to the
reworkings of this poem by earlier epigrammatists. The metapoetic reading of Ariston
laid the groundwork for Antipater’s literary polemic. The occasion of the poem,
meanwhile, the birthday of Archilochus and Homer, reworks Philodemus’ Leonidean
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216 adaptation, where the occasion of the poem was the εἰκάς in honor of Epicurus. As the
revaluation of the term λιτός indicates, Antipater’s lifestyle is as far (if not farther) from
that of Philodemus or Leonidas as his poetics is from Callimachus’, though all of these
poets have provided him with poetic models for this epigram.458 He has borrowed his
frame from Leonidas, and blends Leonidas’ quasi-religious language seamlessly with that
of Callimachus. The occasion of his epigram, a symposium, is formulated as if in
opposition to Philodemus’ Epicurean celebration. Antipater’s polemic is perhaps not so
narrowly directed against one figure, say Callimachus, as it is against an array of other
poetic and ethical stances, some of which are exemplified by his models. The awareness
of Antipater’s models does not serve simply to inform the reader about the covert “target”
of his attacks, but rather provides the reader a background against which to assess
Antipater’s distinctive programmatic claim.459
AP 11.20 situates Antipater within the epigrammatic tradition as a hedonist,
defined in opposition to earlier poets of different ethical and/or poetic orientations—
Callimachus, Leonidas, and Philodemus, for instance. This persona is further developed
in a pair of epigrams, AP 11.24, and 9.517, in which objects of the poet’s desire provide a
458
It is worth noting that the attack on water-drinkers in this epigram, connected with
Callimachus in particular by Knox, 1985, would be equally applicable to a poet so
influenced by Cynic ethics as Leonidas, since water-drinking was a key part of Cynic
askesis (see Gigante, 1992, 48-9, with ample documentation; cf. Dudley, 1937, 88). The
Cynic Crates of Thebes, moreover, compares human folly to a “wine-dark” sea (οἰνόπι
τύφῳ, fr. 6.1 Diehl), laying special emphasis on the traditional Homeric epithet (see
Dudley, 1937, 44). On the Epicureans as “water-drinkers” see Hiltbrunner, 1972, 169.
Posidippus HE I develops a similar opposition between philosophical and erotic/sympotic
themes: the Stoic Zeno (student of Crates of Thebes) and his student Cleanthes are told
to “keep silent” as the poet orders wine to be poured and announces love as the subject of
the conversation.
459
See also Carilli, 1975, 974, who points to Callimachus’ ἔλλετε βασκανίης ὀλοὸν
γένος as the common point of reference for both Catullus 14.21-23 and Antipater’s
epigram.
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217 metaphorical framework for him to comment on his own poetry.
The metapoetic symbolism of water and wine, and their affect on the quality of
one’s poetry, is once again invoked in AP 11.24, an epigram in praise of a cupbearer
named “Helicon”:
AP 11.24 – Antipater of Thessalonica = III GPh (text = GPh)
ὢ Ἑλικὼν Βοιωτέ, σὺ µέν ποτε πολλάκις ὕδωρ
εὐεπὲς ἐκ πηγέων ἔβλυσας Ἡσιόδῳ·
νῦν δ’ ἡµῖν ἔτι κοῦρος ὁµώνυµος Αὔσονα Βάκχον
οἰνοχοεῖ κρήνης ἐξ ἀµεριµνοτέρης.
βουλοίµην δ’ ἂν ἔγωγε πιεῖν παρὰ τοῦδε κύπελλον 5
ἓν µόνον ἢ παρὰ σεῦ χίλια Πηγασίδος.
Oh Boeotian Helicon, in earlier times you often burbled up
from your fonts water inspiring sweet speech for Hesiod.
And now too, for us, a boy who shares your name pours
Italian Bacchus from a more carefree source. I would rather
drink a single draught from this cup that a thousand from
you, Pegasid fountain.
Within the large epigrammatic subgenre of poems in praise of a beautiful boy or woman,
this poem belongs to a smaller, yet still well-represented, subset of epigrams in which
poetry itself—whether that sung by the performer or composed by the poet—is made part
of a sympathetic reaction between the speaker (i.e. the epigrammatic persona) and the
praised beloved. In some of these epigrams, an element of the poetry sung by the
performer is transmitted into the epigrammatist (the listener), and causes a change in him,
specifically the arousal of eros. An early, relatively transparent example is Dioscorides,
AP 5.138:460
Dioscorides AP 5.138 = HE II = Galán Vioque 4 (Text = Galán Vioque)
Ἵππον Ἀθήνιον ᾖσεν ἐµοὶ κακόν· ἐν πυρὶ πᾶσα
Ἴλιος ἦν, κἀγὼ κείνῃ ἅµ᾽ ἐφλεγόµην,
οὐ δείσας Δαναῶν δεκέτη πόνον· ἐν δ᾽ ἑνὶ φέγγει
τῷ τότε καὶ Τρῶες κἀγὼ ἀπωλόµεθα.
460
See in general Iordanoglou, 2009, with discussion of earlier interpretations.
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218 Athenion sang of the horse, ruinous to me. All Ilion was
aflame, and I burned along with it, fearing not the Danaans’
decade-long toil. But on that single day, both I and the
Trojans were destroyed.
The playful wit of the epigram lies in the juxtaposition two kinds of fire and
destruction—the conflagration of Troy narrated in the song of Athenion and the
figurative fire of Eros kindled in the heart of the poet as he watches the performance. We
might also read the epigram in a programmatic way: the epigrammatist pays attention to
the erotic charms of the singer rather than the cyclic epic that she sings (shades of, e.g.
Callimachus’ ἐχθαίρω τὸ ποίηµα τὸ κυκλικόν, AP 12.43.1) though if present this
message is left implicit.461
Just as this epigram relies for its wit on two distinct senses of fire and destruction,
Antipater AP 11.24 turns very neatly on the duality encapsulated in the name ‘Helicon’,
once upon a time (ποτε) a mountain, but now (νῦν) a boy (κοῦρος). As the epigram
develops, the two referents of this name are in turn correlated, respectively, with water
and the wine, and (implicitly) with the types of poetry that these draughts inspire,
Hesiodic epic and sympotic epigram. The epigram makes the programmatic potential
that was latent in Dioscorides overt, making Helicon and the wine he pours inspire a
particular kind of poetry, defined in opposition to the poetry of Hesiod and the labor with
which it is associated. Antipater rejects at once the content of Hesiod’s work (Erga) and
the labor one is to imagine the poet expending in its composition—think of Callimachus’
praise of Aratus’ diligent ἀγρυπνία at AP 9.507, discussed above ch. 1, or Marcus
Argentarius’ witty play on the title of the Works and Days, ἔργα τί µοι παρέχεις, ὢ
461
So too the speaker’s comparison of the drawn out seige of Troy (Δαναῶν δεκέτη
πόνον, 3) and the instantaneous action of Eros (ἐν δ᾽ ἑνὶ φέγγει) mirrors the relationship
between the expansiveness of epic and compression of the epigram .
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219 γέρον Ἡσιόδε; (AP 9.161).462
Looked at in terms of the methods of imitation and variation, the most relevant
prior model seems to be an epigram of Callimachus, AP 12.51, in praise of an eromenos:
AP 12.51 - Callimachus = V HE = 29 Pf.
ἔγχει καὶ πάλιν εἰπὲ “Διοκλέος”· οὐδ᾽ Ἀχελῷος
κείνου τῶν ἱερῶν αἰσθάνεται κυάθων.
καλὸς ὁ παῖς, Ἀχελῷε, λίην καλός, εἰ δέ τις οὐχί
φησίν ἐπισταίµην µοῦνος ἐγὼ τὰ καλά.
Pour a toast and once again say, “For Diocles!” Achelous
does not taste the cups dedicated to that one. The boy is
lovely, Achelous, all too lovely. And if someone says
otherwise, then I alone recognize the beautiful.
Callimachus’ epigram depends on the significance of the name Achelous, also the name
of a famous river. As Clarke points out, “Achelous is water in general … but water is
inappropriate in a cup pledged to an eromenos.”463 Formally speaking, Antipater
“replaces” Callimachus’ Achelous (i.e. water) with his own Helicon. This is not the
Helicon of Hesiod (and Callimachus) but a new (cf. νῦν) Helicon who pours out
inspirational wine—Italian wine (Αὔσονα Βάκχον)—instead of water. The formal
imitation and variation of Callimachus’ Achelous epigram, then, maps onto a larger
thematic reworking and challenging of Callimachean poetics. Just as Callimachus rejects
the idea of writing an epic of many thousands of lines at the beginning of the Aetia (fr.
1.3-5), Antipater here rejects “a thousand” drafts of the water of Hesiod, representing
462
The scenario is developed more fully by Propertius (3.3), where the poet prepares to
drink from the springs of Helicon (as Ennius had done, 6), but is dissuaded by Apollo,
who warns him against attempting something beyond his abilities (15-24). The poet then
enters the cave of the Muses, where Calliope advises him to devote himself to erotic
themes instead (39-52).
463
Clarke, 1981, 298.
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220 sober, moralistic didactic poetry, in favor of just one drink from Helicon’s cup.464
Antipater returns to the theme of sympotic praise for a beautiful youth, this time a
piper, in AP 9.517:
AP 9.517 – Antipater of Thessalonica = IV GPh (text = GPh)
Ὀρφεὺς θῆρας ἔπειθε, σὺ δ᾽ Ὀρφέα· Φοῖβος ἐνίκα
τὸν Φρύγα, σοὶ δ᾽ εἴκει µελποµένῳ, Γλάφυρε,
οὔνοµα καὶ τέχνης καὶ σώµατος. οὔ κεν Ἀθήνη
ἔρριψεν λωτοὺς τοῖα µελιζοµένη
οἷα σύ, ποικιλοτερπές. ἀφυπνώσαι κεν ἀκούων
αὐτὸς Πασιθέης Ὕπνος ἐν ἀγκαλίσιν.
Orpheus enticed animals, but you enticed Orpheus, Phoebus
overcame the Phrygian, but yields to you as a singer,
Glaphyrus—a name for your art and your body. Athena
would not have cast aside the pipes had she played the way
you do, with your varied charms. If he heard, Sleep himself
would awaken in the arms of Pasithea.
Once again, the poet’s praise takes its point of departure from the name of the beloved,
Γλάφυρος (“Polished”/“Smooth”/“Elegant”). As before with the name “Helicon”,
Antipater does not leave it up to the reader to unpack the double meaning of the name,
which describes both the body of the performer and his art. During the discussion of
Antipater of Sidon, we discussed the literary-critical usage of the term, which by
Antipater of Thessalonica’s time was already firmly established.465 The γλαφυρὰ
ἁρµονία/γλαφυρὸς χαρακτήρ was associated with several canonical figures (including
Hesiod), but in an erotic-sympotic context like the one Antipater has set up here, the
name brings to mind most of all Anacreon, Alcaeus, and Sappho. Much like the Italian
wine offered by Helicon in AP 11.24, then, Glaphyrus’ body and his song are meant to
464
This is also a variation of the approach taken by Alcaeus of Messene, AP 7.55, who
distilled Hesiod’s poetry down to “pure droplets” of Callimachean water. See above,
chapter 1.
465
Cf. the discussion of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ system of styles and Antipater’s
epigrams on poets above.
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221 reflect on Antipater’s own art.
Poetry, Poverty, and Freedom – Antipater vs. Parmenion
Antipater’s rejection of Callimacheanism, exemplified in 11.20 and 11.24, flies in
the face of some of the trends of the time, particularly among Latin poets (recall that
Antipater’s dateable epigrams span the period from about 14 BCE to 14 CE and so
postdate most major works of “Golden” Latin poetry). Chief among these trends is the
refusal to write martial epic and, more specifically, to celebrate the military deeds of
particular Roman generals, and the literary form—the recusatio—that expresses and,
through repeated use, comes to symbolize this refusal.466
We have already seen how, using the same Leonidean model, epigrammatists may
alternately enact a poetics of inclusion (e.g Philodemus) or exclusion (e.g Antipater of
Thessalonica), the former in regard to patrons, the latter in regard to critics or other poetic
enemies. Two epigrams, these by Antipater of Thessalonica and Parmenion, provide a
further example of how the earlier epigrammatic tradition can be used as a staging area
for diametrically opposed programmatic claims.
The common epigrammatic background they each start from is, once again, and
epigram by Leonidas:
AP 7.655 – Leonidas of Tarentum = XVII HE
ἀρκεῖ µοι γαίης µικρὴ κόνις, ἡ δὲ περισσή
ἄλλον ἐπιθλίβοι πλούσια κεκλιµένον
στήλη, τὸ σκληρὸν νεκρῶν βάρος. εἴ µε θανόντα
γνώσοντ᾽, Ἀλκάνδρῳ τοῦτο τί Καλλιτέλευς;
A slight dusting of earth is sufficient for me. Let the
extravagant gravestone, a troublesome weight for corpses,
vex some other man opulently buried. What difference does
466
E.g. Horace, C. 2.12; Verg. Ecl. 6.3-8. On the Latin recusatio and its connections to
Callimachus, cf. Wimmel, 1960, 162-167.
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222 it make to Alkandros the son of Kalliteles whether or not
people know me now that I am dead?
It may be, as Giangrande has suggested, that in this poem Leonidas has taken a stock
topos of sympotic poetry and transposed it into a sepulchral context. Some support for
this view may be provided by the lines ascribed to Nicaenetus of Samos (CA fr. 6), which
describe a symposium in a rustic context, where the poet will content himself with a
simple cloak as a cushion:
ἀρκεῖ µοι λιτὴ µὲν ὑπὸ πλευροῖσι χάµευνα,
3
A simple cushion beneath my sides is enough for me …
Together, this passage and the epigram—a first century BCE reader would perhaps have
been aware of other, similar passages—establish some generic expectations. The reader
becomes accustomed to treat the sentence-initial ἀρκεῖ (especially at the beginning of a
poem or line) as a signal that the author is about to meditate on the ethical topos of selfsufficiency, simple pleasures, and the shunning of vanity.
It is with this background in mind that we ought to read Antipater AP 9.92:
Antipater of Thessalonica AP 9.92
Ἀρκεῖ τέττιγας µεθύσαι δρόσος· ἀλλὰ πιόντες
ἀείδειν κύκνων εἰσὶ γεγωνότεροι.
ὣς καὶ ἀοιδὸς ἀνὴρ ξενίων χάριν ἀνταποδοῦναι
ὕµνους εὐέρκταις οἶδε παθὼν ὀλίγα.
τοὔνεκά σοι πρώτως µὲν ἀµείβοµεν· ἢν δ’ ἐθέλωσιν 5
Μοῖραι, πολλάκι µοι κείσεαι ἐν σελίσιν.
A little dew is enough to intoxicate cicadas, but when they
drink it, they are louder singers than swans.
So too a poet knows how to give poems as recompense to
benefactors even when he has received just a little kindness.
This is why I’ve written to you, and if the Moirai should
wish it, you will often lie in my pages.
The image underpinning the analogical structure of Antipater’s epigram is a familiar one.
The τεττίξ (“cicada”), thought to subsist solely on air and dew (Arist. HA 532b13), is
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223 likened to a poet in Plato’s Phaedrus, and this comparison goes on to achieve great
popularity in Hellenistic epigram. Antipater has two more proximate models in mind. At
the end of the Aetia prologue (fr. 1.29), Callimachus likens his song to that of the cicada
and wishes that he too could slough off old age and live on dew the way the cicada does
(1.33-35). Antipater’s intoxicated cicada, meanwhile, which is suited to his overall
sympotic program, is taken over from Meleager, AP 7.196.1 (δροσεραῖς σταγόνεσσι
µεθυσθείς).
The situation between poet and addressee is a little obscure. I agree with those
who suggest that Antipater addresses an (unnamed) patron, who has so far been
unforthcoming with support. The poet’s appeal has two parts. On the one hand, a little
favor goes a long way with poets; but if the Moirai should wish it, the addressee will
often “lie” in Antipater’s pages. This may be perfectly innocuous: in return for a little
favor Antipater will compose frequent poems about his patron. It may also be menacing:
if no favor is forthcoming, the patron will often “lie” (i.e. “lie dead”) in Antipater’s
books. The point, on this reading, would be that, like Archilochus, Antipater knows how
to gratify and how to sting with his verse. If the addressee is not officious, then, the
“Fates of Death” (Moirai) will see to it that he will often find himself “lying” in
Antipater’s pages.
This polemical reading of the final couplet is further strengthened if we consider
πολλάκι µοι in line 6 as a further reminiscence of the Aetia prologue. Antipater has
already reworked Callimachus’ metapoetic image of the cicada feeding on dew; in this
final couplet he transforms the very first two words of the Aetia from a polemic against
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224 critics into an attack on a (would-be) patron.467
In conception, then, this poem is far different from the Leonidean epigram that
supplies its formal model as well as from generic relatives like the passage from
Nicaenetus. In Leonidas, the verb ἀρκεῖ activates the ethics of αὐτάρκεια, which is
pointedly inappropriate to a poem in which the epigrammatist seeks support from a
patron (and much less to a poem in which the poet threatens a potential patron!). The use
of the same verb in the context of a request for patronage, taken over as it obviously is
from the ostentatiously self-reliant Leonidas, seems, like so much else about Antipater’s
persona, intentionally provocative.
The model of agonistic, allusive, imitation and variation that Antipater applied to
his predecessors was turned back around on him by his own contemporaries. Although
we have little to go on, it seems that the Philippan epigrammatist Parmenion’s outlook,
and particularly his attitude toward patronage, is precisely the inverse of Antipater’s,
even making use of the same matrix of earlier models and meta-poetic imagery. AP 9.43
is a scathing invective against poets who rely on such relationships:
AP 9.43 - Parmenion = VI GPh
Ἀρκεῖ µοι χλαίνης λιτὸν σκέπας, οὐδὲ τραπέζαις
δουλεύσω Μουσέων ἄνθεα βοσκόµενος.
µισῶ πλοῦτον ἄνουν, κολάκων τροφόν, οὐδὲ παρ’ ὀφρὺν
στήσοµαι· οἶδ’ ὀλίγης δαιτὸς ἐλευθερίην.
The humble covering of a cloak suffices for me, and
I will not slave at banquets since I feed on the
flowers of the Muses. I hate thoughtless wealth, the
nourishment of flatterers, and I will not stand at
attention for the proud: I know the freedom of a
humble meal.
Parmenion represents himself here as an easily identifiable ethical type, the humble man
467
Compare the equivalent Callimachean allusion (saepe tibi…) at Catullus 116.1, also
an invective poem, pointed out by Barchiesi, 2005, 333-335.
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225 who shuns the accoutrements of wealth as a matter of principle. In classical literature,
this type is represented, for instance, by Eteoclus in the funeral oration delivered by
Adrastus in Euripides’ Suppliant Women:468
τὸν δεύτερον λέγω
Ἐτέοκλον, ἄλλην χρηστότητ’ ἠσκηκότα.
νεανίας ἦν τῶι βίωι µὲν ἐνδεής,
πλείστας δὲ τιµὰς ἔσχ’ ἐν Ἀργείαι χθονί.
φίλων δὲ χρυσὸν πολλάκις δωρουµένων
875
οὐκ εἰσεδέξατ’ οἶκον ὥστε τοὺς τρόπους
δούλους παρασχεῖν χρηµάτων ζευχθεὶς ὕπο.
the second man I mention
is Eteoclus, who was practiced in an exceptional virtue.
As a youth he was wanting in means,
yet he had the greatest honors in the Argive land.
And though his friends would often offer money,
he did not accept it into his house so as to
enslave his behavior beneath the yoke of wealth.
Eteoclus’ poverty, the enticement of money, and the refusal to “enslave” himself all
match Parmenion quite neatly; this is a well-worn ethical type.
Yet although Parmenion’s ethical posture is commonplace, it is articulated
through the same earlier models, Callimachus and Leonidas, invoked by Antipater in AP
9.92, and this affinity of generic models makes the poem readily identifiable as a pointed
“retort” to Antipater’s epigram. The epigram is organized into four clauses with verbs at
the beginning of each line. These are capped by a short clause summing up the sense of
the poem as a whole. The first four verbs break into two pairs, each with a positive and a
negative member. The poet avows a simple life (note λιτόν, 1) and foreswears luxury in
favor of poetry. The first word of the second line, δουλεύσω, sets up the first leg of an
468
For the topoi of noble poverty in preference to ignoble wealth and the enslavement to
wealth in archaic and classical poetry, see Collard on Eur. Suppl. 871-2 and 875-7,
respectively. Among later authors, Babrius 108.29-32 (the rustic mouse’s rejection of
urbane food) is strikingly similar: “τοιαῦτα δειπνῶν” εἶπε “χαῖρε καῖ πλούτει, καὶ
τοῖς περισσοῖς αὐτὸς ἐντρύφα δείπνοις, ἔχων τὰ πολλὰ ταῦτα µεστὰ κινδύνων.
ἐγὼ δὲ λιτῆς οὐκ ἀφέξοµαι βώλου, ὑφ᾽ ἣν τὰ κρίµνα µὴ φοβούµενος τρώγω.”
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226 antithesis between freedom and slavery that will be completed in the final word
ἐλευθερίην. The remainder of the line sets up a coordinated contrast between the status
of the poet and that of the parasite.
As we have already seen, along with the broader ethical ideas associated with “the
simple life”, the incipit ἀρκεῖ µοι invokes some definite literary predecessors including
Nicaenetus and Leonidas.469 In line with practices we have seen already, e.g. in
Philodemus’ invitation to Piso, Parmenion takes key words and motifs and pointedly
transforms them. Leonidas’ dust (µικρὴ κόνις) and Antipater’s dew (δρόσος) are
replaced by the "simple covering of a cloak" (χλαίνης λιτὸν σκέπας, 1). The χλαίνα, a
garment charged with poetic and philosophical significance through its association with
Hipponax and later the Cynics,470 provides a foretaste of the attitude that will be taken up
in the poem. Furthermore, the garment not only takes the place of Leonidas’ dust
formally speaking, but also assumes precisely the same symbolic function served by that
motif in the Leonidean model. In Leonidas, the dust represented, metonymically, a
memorial not only to the man—indeed in this capacity it was too slight to be very
effective—but also to his ideals, of which its simplicity and size were the perfect
embodiment. So too Parmenion’s simple cloak, with its literary pedigree running back to
Hipponax, and his epigram itself, with its roots in Leonidas, function as memorials of his
poetic ideals. Like Leonidas (and, incidentally, Philodemus), Parmenion uses food as an
index of morality, making poetic activity his own sustenance and attacking poets who
"sing for their supper". His poverty, represented by his humble clothing and food, is
469
Identical incipits are, of course, not uncommon in epigram, but this particular one is
found in the Greek Anthology only in the three epigrams under discussion here.
470
Cf. Hipponax frr. 32 and 34 West.
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227 noble because it frees him from the obligation to “enslave” himself at banquets
(τραπέζαις | δουλεύσω, 1-2), and his small meal brings with it freedom (ἐλευθερίην,
4).471
The second half of the first line and the first pentameter introduce the image of
the poet as a bee.472 The image is common enough in Greek literature, but the particular
form it takes here is derived from Leonidas, who likened the poetess Erinna to a bee.473
Although the image of the bee and the collocation ἄνθεα βοσκόµενος may be derived
from Leonidas’ epigram on Erinna (AP 7.13.1-2), the ideological force Parmenion gives
this image pretty clearly owes something to the end of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, a
passage we have already seen invoked by earlier poets—it is in fact the very passage
alluded to, polemically, by Antipater of Thessalonica at AP 11.20. In this passage,
Callimachus opposes the muddy water of the Euphrates with the pure drops that the
“bees” (priestesses) bring to Demeter:
Δηοῖ δ’ οὐκ ἀπὸ παντὸς ὕδωρ φορέουσι µέλισσαι,
ἀλλ’ ἥτις καθαρή τε καὶ ἀχράαντος ἀνέρπει
πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς ἄκρον ἄωτον.
“Bees of Demeter do not gather water from just anywhere,
but only the small drop that bubbles up from a sacred
spring.”
In Parmenion’s reimagining, rich banquets take the place of the muddy water while the
“blossoms of the Muses” effectively correspond to the clear water. The thought looks
471
Cf. also Ariston AP 6.303, discussed above, where the poet is more concerned about
the safety of his books than of his food-supply.
472
The entomological image nicely corresponds to the poet-as-cicada in Antipater’s
epigram.
473
AP 7.13.1-2: Παρθενικὰν νεαοιδὸν ἐν ὑµνοπόλοισι µέλισσαν | Ἤρινναν Μουσῶν
ἄνθεα δρεπτοµέναν.
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228 back to Leonidas' self-epitaph AP 7.715. There, the poet laments his life of wandering,
and his death far from his homeland. He takes comfort, however, in poetry, saying that
he is happy in spite of his troubles, since his poetry will enjoy a life of its own after his
own life is over. The same thought, of poetry as a special, autonomous space, is invoked
by Crinagoras in AP 9.234. In all three epigrammatists, poetry is figured as a means of
transcending the constraints of human life.
This idea is developed further in the second couplet, where the word µισῶ points
the reader back to Callimachus’ poetic manifesto in AP 12.43 (discussed above, ch. 1):
Ἐχθαίρω τὸ ποίηµα τὸ κυκλικὸν οὐδὲ κελεύθῳ
χαίρω τὶς πολλοὺς ὧδε καὶ ὧδε φέρει·
µισέω καὶ περίφοιτον ἐρώµενον, οὐδ᾽ ἀπὸ κρήνης
πίνω· σικχαίνω πάντα τὰ δηµόσια.
Λυσανίη σὺ δὲ ναίχι καλὸς καλός· ἀλλὰ πρὶν εἰπεῖν
τοῦτο σαφῶς ἠχώ φησί τις ῾ἄλλος ἔχει᾽.
I hate the cyclic poem, and do not like the path that carries
many hither and thither. I also loath the promiscuous
beloved, nor do I drink from the public fountain. I detest all
things common. And you, Lysanias, yes you are beautiful—
beautiful! But before I’ve uttered this, an echo clearly says
“another has him”.
Unlike Callimachus, Parmenion’s target is not “the public”, but another social sphere—
the wealthy and their parasites. In spite of this distinction, there is an underlying affinity
between the two poets. Callimachus too wishes to create an autonomous space for poetry
away from the ephemeral concerns of the public sphere.
This Callimachean echo is intertwined with another Leonidean touch, the
combination οἶδα – λιτός. These were used as book-ends by Leonidas in his miceepigram AP 6.302. Parmenion has transferred the verb οἶδα from Leonidas' meal-tub,
which in Leonidas' poem "[did] not know how to feed many mice" to himself, saying
forcefully "I know the freedom of a small meal" (οἶδ', 4). Like Leonidas, Parmenion too
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229 uses the word λιτός to describe his possessions, in his case his clothing. Parmenion has
inverted the order of these elements of Leonidas’ poem (where οἶδε occurred in the
second line, λιτά in the penultimate line), but maintained their book-ending function.
The epigram as a whole, then, involves a blending of motifs and diction derived from
different Leonidean epigrams, in the service of a self-reflexive poetic statement.
Parmenion “updates” Leonidas—the Hellenistic epigrammatist not affiliated with any
royal court—to respond to contemporary patronage relations, particularly as embodied by
Parmenion’s contemporary epigrammatist Antipater of Thessalonica. Through the
careful responsion of motifs and allusions between his epigram and Antipater’s,
Parmenion not only sets up an antithesis between the poet who depends upon aid from his
patron with the one who advocates poetic independence, but calls on the support of an
entire tradition, including most prominently Callimachus and Leonidas, and more
recently Crinagoras, which conceived poetry as an autonomous realm in which the poet
was sovereign.
A final word may be said about the placement of Antipater’s AP 9.92 and
Parmenion’s AP 9.43 in hypothetical poetry books by these authors, and this may in turn
tell us something further about the epigrams’ literary function. I have already noted some
parallels between Antipater AP 9.92 and Catullus 116, the final poem (deliberately so, it
seems) in the Catullan corpus.474 In Parmenion’s epigram AP 9.43, the verb µισέω may
also argue for an original prominent placement at the beginning or end of a book, since
by Parmenion’s time it the verb ‘to hate’ had likely already been used by Horace in both
474
Macleod, 1973, pointed out the closural features in c. 116. Forsyth, 1977, building on
this conclusion, noted the balancing effect with c. 65. As noted above, Barchiesi, 2005,
further noted that the first words of 116, saepe tibi, formally recall the beginning of the
Aetia.
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230 introductory and closing positions (Persicos odi, puer, apparatus, 1.38.1; odi profanum
volgus et arceo, 3.1.1, both phrases reminiscent of Callimachus).475 The parallels
between the epigrams by Antipater and Parmenion and poems of Catullus and Horace
which have come down to us within artistically designed poetry books suggest that the
epigrams too were conceived of as programmatic in nature and held a correspondingly
prominent position at or near the beginning or end of their respective books.
Unlike their predecessors, the epigrammatists of Philip’s Garland did not turn to
the archaic and classical past in search of models for their own self-representation. To
the contrary, during this period the long-lived tradition of writing epigrams about the
great poets of those days goes into steep decline. As poets turned more and more for
inspiration to their own circumstances and surroundings, it was the poets of the early
Hellenistic period, and chiefly Callimachus and Leonidas, who provided them with
models for self-expression.
A very different picture of Leonidas’ reception has emerged from the polemical
account of Gow and Page (et al.) outlined at the beginning of this chapter. According to
that view, Leonidas, himself a deficient poet, was the favored model for a mechanistic
form of imitation and variation—in the sterile tradition exemplified by Antipater of
Sidon—practiced by a certain subset of the poets of Philip’s Garland. Their work,
vitiated by this insincere, pretentious, stylistic bombast, was compared invidiously with
the more original efforts of poets like Philodemus and Crinagoras.
In the foregoing analysis, however, I have tried to show that Leonidean influence
manifests itself in ways more complex and expansive than previous scholars had allowed.
475
Nisbet on Hor. C. 1.38, cites Parmenion AP 9.43 as a “particularly relevant” example,
though he is not concerned with the question of book organization per se.
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231 Like the masters of the narrower form of imitation and variation exemplified by Antipater
of Sidon, each of the poets I have examined in this chapter exhibits a close textual
engagement with Leonidas and other models. Beyond the textual level, however, the
Leonidean persona, with its distinctive manners of speaking, favorite motifs, themes,
epigrammatic forms, and poetic and ethical outlook serves as a common point of
reference for the Philippan epigrammatists. They refer back to it again and again not
only in order to articulate their own poetics, but in constructing literary representations of
their relationships with Roman patrons and the Italian cultural and political context.
Leonidas offered a versatile model, as evidenced by the diverse attitudes of these
poets, who often differ greatly from Leonidas and from one another. Philodemus inverts
the polemical force of Leonidas’ mice-epigram, retaining the ideas of simplicity and
virtue, in order to craft an Epicurean invitation addressed to his patron. Crinagoras’ suite
of autobiographical epigrams, meanwhile, returns again and again to different Leonidean
models, framing his own situation as a Greek resident in the Augustan court at Rome in
the terms offered by Leonidas, whose own circumstances were quite different. Antipater
of Thessalonica, paradoxically, repurposes Leonidas’ Cynic-inspired philosophical
outlook to express an exuberant hedonism. By way of a “correction” of Antipater’s
attitudes toward patronage, Parmenion attacks the very institution and its deleterious
effect on poetry, framing his stance as a return, of sorts, to authentic Leonidean ideals.
Stylistic imitation is, then, only the “tip of the iceberg” of Leonidean influence in
later epigram. Leonidas’ vivid poetic persona inspired a succession of imitators, each of
whom engaged not only with Leonidas himself, but with the tradition of imitation that
had grown up around him. This common tradition served as a conventional background
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232 against which epigrammatists could stake their own literary claims and portray their lives
as Greek poets in a Roman context. Not only is epigram of this period marked by the
influence of Leonidas, the figure of the epigrammatist is largely defined in terms created
by him.
The presence of Callimachus in the Garland of Philip is equally important and
similarly multi-faceted. As we have seen, it is also often intertwined with that of
Leonidas. The same passages that served as Callimachean “emblems” for contemporary
Latin poets reecho again and again in the Greek epigram of the period—the Aetia
prologue, of course, but also the end of the Hymn to Apollo and several of the epigrams.
It would be the subject of another study to explore how these invocations (which have
never attracted much sustained attention) relate to those of contemporary Latin poetry,
where the reception of Callimachus has now for a long time been a major area of inquiry.
More substantively, however, for the Greek epigrammatists as much as for their
Latin counterparts, Callimachus was not simply a source of poetic ideals. As important
as these were, they were always bound up with what could be called either political or
ethical ideals, depending on the frame of reference. As Hunter observes,
“in the last years of the Republic and the early years of the empire there was an
important political dimension to the ‘pastness’ of Callimachus and his
contemporaries. The turn to the poets of the first three Ptolemies was a turn to the
‘glory days’ of Alexandria, when the city was believed to have flourished
politically, militarily, and artistically under powerful and virtuous rulers, and
before corruption and vice brought the dynasty and country low in a way that the
Romans knew only too vividly.”476
For Greek poets, the question of the nature of the new regime (whether that of Roman
domination in general or the Augustan order in particular) and its relationship to the past
476
Hunter, 2006, 143.
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233 was not unimportant: Crinagoras’ epigram on the Hecale pushes Marcellus to adopt a
certain set of traditional attitudes about political power, for instance. More generally,
however, figures such as Callimachus and Leonidas offered Greeks templates for how to
figure themselves as poets in a foreign society. Homeric and Callimachean models of
guest friendship, each mediated through the epigrams of Leonidas, underpin Philodemus’
and Crinagoras’ addresses to their powerful Roman counterparts. Note too, for instance,
how prominently Crinagoras features the themes of friendship and travel in AP 9.559, his
inversion of Leonidas, AP 7.715. The imagination of poetry as an autonomous sphere
unto itself, to which the poet could retreat from worldly affairs is part of the same matrix
of concerns. For a Roman poet, this “retreat” had to be figured in terms of otium and/or
the recusatio, a kind of apology, however ironic, for the failure to participate in the
political and poetic activities of empire. A Greek experienced no such “anxiety”.
Parmenion valorizes the private sphere of poetry because it is the place where Greek
ἐλευθερία (note the contrast with the Roman ideology of otium) still exists.
The best illustration of the ethical dimension in the treatment of literary models is
Antipater of Thessalonica, whose whole literary program could justly be summarized as
the rejection and inversion of his predcessors’ ethical ideas. We should accordingly keep
in mind when reading his epigrams that the persona he has created—the poet as
hedonistic parasite—is constructed according to the same principles as the personae of
Philodemus or Crinagoras; indeed, Antipater at times invokes them as (anti-)models
alongside the early Hellenistic epigrammatists. When we find Antipater addressing an
epigram to Piso to accompany a martial epic he has written about his defeat of the Bessi
(AP 9.428), we might read this as a mere document of the traffic in praise and patronage
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234 in Augustan Rome:
AP 9.428 – Antipater of Thessalonica = I GPh (Text = GPh)
σοί µε, Θρηϊκίης σκυληφόρε, Θεσσαλονίκη
µήτηρ ἡ πάσης πέµψε Μακηδονίης,
ἀείδω δ᾽ὑπὸ σοὶ δεδµηµένον Ἄρεα Βεσσῶν
ὅσσ᾽ ἐδάην πολέµου πάντ᾽ ἀναλεξάµενος.
ἀλλά µοι ὡς θεὸς ἔσσο κατήκοος, εὐχοµένου δέ
κλῦθι. τίς ἐς Μούσας οὔατος ἀσχολίη;
To you, desploiler of Thracia, Thessalonica, mother of all
Macedonia, sends me. I sing of the Ares of the Bessi,
subdued beneath you—all that I learned by reading. But
you, like a god, hear me, and listen as I pray. What ear does
does not have leisure for the Muses?
We will notice the literary dimensions of this poem only when we integrate it into the
larger picture of Antipater’s work. It is only natural, after all, that the poet who inverts so
many dearly-held ideas about the autonomy of poetry would also be the one to write an
epigram (to say nothing of the poem it accompanied) that is precisely the inverse of the
recusatio, one of Latin poetry’s stylized Callimachean symbols par excellence.
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235 Conclusion
The Epigrammatic Sensibility
This study began with a survey of poetic self-representations created by the early
Hellenistic literary epigrammatists Asclepiades, Nossis, and Leonidas of Tarentum.
These poets, I have argued, created their distinct bodies of poetry by drawing on different
literary genres, sympotic lyric, Sappho, and epic, respectively. They combined these
various generic elements with the tradition of inscribed epigram in different ways, with
Nossis and Leonidas drawing heavily upon sepulchral and dedicatory motifs, while
Asclepiades instead mined the traditions of inscribed verse for a treasury of symbols and
metaphors for aspects of erotic experience. One need only compare the exuberant
symposiastic persona of Asclepiades with the irascible, austere Leonidas to see that these
diverse approaches to the genre gave rise to equally diverse conceptions of the
epigrammatist as an authorial figure.
The poets of the Garland of Philip are quite reminiscent of these early Hellenistic
predecessors in the diversity of their outlooks and poetic personae, as illustrated, for
instance, by a comparison of the mercenary hedonism of Antipater of Thessalonica with
the self-sufficient asceticism of Parmenion. The outward disparity, however, is of a
qualitatively different kind from what we have seen before, and appears on closer
scrutiny to be the mark of a deeper generic affinity among the epigrammatists. As we
have seen, although Antipater and Parmenion appear to be diametrically opposed to one
another, they turn out to be rooted in the same poetic tradition and depend on the very
same poetic models. Poets of this period are in this sense rather like the various speakers
at a symposium, whose own words rely for a large part of their significance (and, indeed,
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236 their content) on the words of other, earlier speakers, with whom they may differ in the
strongest terms, but without whom they themselves could not be fully understood.
Parmenion’s ethical posture, his ideal of the poet’s place in the world, and the poetics that
goes along with it were probably conceived, that is, as a response to Antipater, and are
able to be understood as such because he employs the same storehouse of generic
materials as his counterpart.
This study has been concerned primarily with exploring the mechanisms by which
this matrix of generic possibilities took shape from the early Hellenistic down to the early
Imperial period, and the ways in which it was augmented and transformed by individual
poets along the way. Writing epigrams about poetry, and writing oneself into epigram as
an authorial figure, were both means first of defining, and later of redefining, epigram as
a poetic form. Leonidas’ praise of Aratus in AP 9.25, for instance, so often derided as
arid rhetorical posturing, proved to part of a larger poetic program aiming at the
renovation of epic within new formal contexts. Aratus’ versified astronomy and
Leonidas’ miniaturized epigrammatic Odyssey (see my discussion of Leonidas’ selfepitaph, AP 7.715) are each instantiations of this poetic project. I have argued that a key
part of this process of generic self-definition for Leonidas and other epigrammatists is the
dramatization of the relationship between past and present, the interconnections between
the two, and the ways in which quite new literary creations can emerge from earlier
models.
The second claim advanced in the first chapter of this study was that
epigrammatists of the 3rd and early 2nd centuries BCE created a way of talking about
poetry that was unique to the genre of epigram, a properly epigrammatic poetic discourse,
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237 in other words. I argued, for example, that in Callimachus’ epigrams we find the poetic
program of the Aetia prologue recast according to the generic norms of epigram. In a
similar way, Dioscorides, in his epigrams on dramatists, filtered contemporary literary
critical debates through the conceptual apparatus of epigram. I argued that much the
same metaphorical repertoire was also at work in other Hellenistic epigrams on poets,
such as Alcaeus of Messene’s epigrammatic “miniaturizations” of Homer and Hesiod, AP
7.1 and 7.55. In the epigrams of Posidippus (e.g. AB 37, 63, 118, 122) we saw the
connection between epigram and objects exploited for programmatic purposes, as
material objects again and again serve as conduits for the transmission and renovation,
continuity and change, in the tradition through space and time and come to function as a
symbol for Posidippus’ own poetic practice.
The second chapter argued that the second-century constitutes a turning point, at
which epigrammatists began to construct in earnest a proper epigrammatic tradition with
its own canonical models, against the background of which their own work acquires its
meaning. One of the most important figures in this great project of generic consolidation
was Antipater of Sidon. The poetic “panorama” he created is an ingenious artifact,
containing within it a complete accounting of the great literature of the archaic and
classical periods. At the same time, in its diction, imagery, and structural design, it is an
encapsulation of the previous epigrammatic tradition. This group of epigrams, along with
the rest of Antipater’s work, might be dismissed as a kind of curiosity, the limit case of a
particular type of epigrammatic composition. For Meleager, however, Antipater’s
experiment illustrated something fundamental about the nature of epigram as a poetic
form. In Meleager’s presentation, epigram is defined by mixture and synthesis. On the
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238 one hand, this refers to the synthesis of particular epigrammatic model texts, as in
Antipater’s epigrams. But Meleager broadens this concept to refer to mixture of all
kinds, including the mixture of different, even contradictory elements constituting the
epigrammatist himself. This is where Antipater’s and Meleager’s undeniable obsession
with the formal qualities of literature broadens into a true outlook, becoming the basis for
a new, generically defined conception of the epigrammatist as an authorial figure.
The poets of the Garland of Philip inherited a conception of epigram that had
already been enriched by the introduction of the authorial figure as a unifying force in the
collection, the insertion and situation of epigram within the literary system, and the
development of an intensely intertextual model of imitation and variation. The third part
of this study examined how epigrammatists of the first centuries BCE/CE used these
tools in order to refashion the genre of epigram for the cultural context of Roman Italy.
Crucial to my reevaluation of these poets was the contention that the techniques of formal
imitation and variation should not be, or indeed cannot be, separated from higher level
thematic engagement with literary models. This was most clearly illustrated in poems
such as Crinagoras AP 9.559, the poet’s announcement of his intention to sail to Italy,
where the manner in which Crinagoras reworked the precise letters of Leonidas AP
7.715.1 could be fit into a larger project of recontextualizing the poetic values of
Leonidas (and other epigrammatic models) in the milieu of the Augustan court.
Crinagoras’ poem on the Hecale (AP 9.545), meanwhile, illustrated how the tradition of
writing epigrams about poetry and other poets could be seamlessly interwoven with the
tradition of authorial self-representation in epigram, with the poem fusing Leonidas’
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239 mice-epigram (AP 6.302), Callimachus’ Hecale, and Callimachus’ epigram on
Antimachus’ Lyde (fr. 398 Pf.) all at once.
In short, the various poetic innovations I have studied here yield, in combination
with one another, a robust conception of epigram as a genre with norms of style and
content as well as its own quasi-canonical group of “classics”—Callimachus and
Leonidas above all—who served not only as poetic, but also ethical and political
paradigms. It would be the topic of still another study to consider fully the ramifications
of these developments outside the genre of Greek epigram proper. In the light of recent
scholarship showing the extensive intertextual connections between Latin poetry and
Greek epigram, few would deny that the Latin poets frequently read and adapted
(elements from) Greek epigrams for their own purposes. I would argue that what I have
called the “epigrammatic sensibility”, a set of generic norms embodied in a conception of
the epigrammatist as an authorial figure, is an especially important factor in determining
the nature of Greek epigram’s influence in Latin poetry.
I would like to conclude with some observations about the poetry of Catullus,
where, I argue, we can see this “epigrammatic sensibility” at work in the poet’s creation
of a unified outlook on life and literature. Catullus’ relationship to the genre of epigram
is more complicated than it may at first appear. His so-called “epigrams”, with their
heavy dose of invective, do not conspicuously resemble earlier (or contemporary) Greek
epigram. Nevertheless, scholars have noticed many places in both the polymetric and the
elegiac poems where Catullus can be seen to adapt particular Greek epigrams or rework
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240 epigrammatic topoi.477 Catullus’ close familiarity with the epigrammatic tradition is also
suggested by the works of his friends, such as Helvius Cinna, who composed an
adaptation of Callimachus, AP 9.507, on Aratus’ Phaenomena.
A series of poems in hendecasyllabics cc. 12, 13, and 14 (text = Mynors) is, I
would argue, paradigmatic not only of the way Catullus engages with Greek epigram and
with his literary models more generally. This sequence further illustrates the ways in
which the epigrammatic tradition informs Catullus’ outlook or sensibility, how it supplies
a template for a coherent representation of the author’s social world as well as his ethical
and poetic ideals:
12.
Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
non belle uteris: in ioco atque vino
tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
hoc salsum esse putas? fugit te inepte:
quamvis sordida res et invenusta est.
non credis mihi? crede Pollioni
fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
mutari velit: est enim leporum
differtus puer ac facetiarum.
quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos
exspecta, aut mihi linteum remitte;
quod me non movet aestimatione,
verum est mnemosynum mei sodalis.
nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis
miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus
et Veranius: haec amem necessest
ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.
5
10
15
Marrucinus Asinius, you use your left hand in a way that is
not nice: amid joking and wine you steal the napkins of the
distracted. You this this is funny? It escapes you, you fool,
how base and uncouth a thing it is. You don’t believe me?
Believe your brother Pollio, who would be willing to absolve
your thefts even at the price of a talent, being as he is a boy
stuffed with charm and wit. Therefore, either await threehundred hendecasyllables, or return the napkin to me, which
477
See, e.g., Hezel, 1932; Tait, 1941; Avallone, 1944; Braga, 1950; Paratore, 1963;
Laurens 1965b; Carilli, 1975; Hutchinson, 2003; Ingleheart, 2003; Gutzwiller, 2012b.
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241 affects me not because of its cost, but because it is a true
keepsake of my friend. For Fabullus and Veranius sent them
to me as a gift, handkerchiefs from Saetabis, from where the
Spaniards live. I must love these just as I love my dear
Veranius and Fabullus.
13.
Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me
paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus,
si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam
cenam, non sine candida puella
et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.
haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster,
cenabis bene: nam tui Catulli
plenus sacculus est aranearum.
sed contra accipies meros amores
seu quid suavius elegantiusvest:
nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae
donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque;
quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis,
totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.
5
10
You will dine well, my Fabullus, at my place in a few days,
if the gods are kind to you, if you bring with you a good,
large feast, a white-skinned girl, and wine and salt and all the
laughs. If you bring these things, I say, my lovely man,
you will dine well, for your Catullus’ wallet is full of
cobwebs. But on the other hand, you will receive the truest
love or something sweeter and more elegant—if any such
thing exists: for I will give you a balm which the Venuses
and Cupids have bestowed upon my girlfriend. When you
smell it, you will pray to the gods, Fabullus, to make you all
nose.
14.
Ni te plus oculis meis amarem,
iucundissime Calue, munere isto
odissem te odio Vatiniano:
nam quid feci ego quidue sum locutus,
cur me tot male perderes poetis?
isti di mala multa dent clienti,
qui tantum tibi misit impiorum.
quod si, ut suspicor, hoc nouum ac repertum
munus dat tibi Sulla litterator,
non est mi male, sed bene ac beate,
quod non dispereunt tui labores.
di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum!
quem tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum
misti, continuo ut die periret,
Saturnalibus, optimo dierum!
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5
10
15
242 non non hoc tibi, false, sic abibit.
nam si luxerit ad librariorum
curram scrinia, Caesios, Aquinos,
Suffenum, omnia colligam uenena.
ac te his suppliciis remunerabor.
uos hinc interea ualete abite
illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis,
saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae.
20
If I did not love you more than my own eyes, dearest Calvus,
because of that gift of yours I would hate you with a
Vatinian hatred: for what have I done or said to make you
ruin me with such a miserable quantity of poets? May the
gods give many ills to that client of yours who sent you such
a load of wicked men. But if, as I suspect, Sulla, the
grammarian, gives this new and recherché gift to you, then
it’s not a bother to me, but rather happy and lucky, since you
haven’t wasted your own labor on it. Great gods, what a
horrible and accursed book! You, of course, sent it to your
Catullus so that he would perish just on the Saturnalia, the
finest of days! You won’t get away with this, you schemer.
For if day breaks, I will run to the cases in the book shops
and gather up Caesii, Aquini, Suffenus—all that poison—
and with these punishments I will pay you back. You,
meanwhile, farewell; away with you back whence you
brought your wicked foot, you banes of our age, oh awful
poets.
Scholars have often considered these poems as a group;478 they share the same meter
(hendecasyllabics) and are bordered by poem 11 (Sapphic stanzas) and the apparently
transitional fragmentary poem 14b.479 Each is a direct address to a friend or acquaintance
on the subject of the exchange of presents and/or punishments.
Scholars have filled in some of the poems’ background in Greek poetry. It is now
generally recognized that poem 13, for instance, is closely connected with Philodemus
AP 11.44, examined at length in chapter 3 above. The findings outlined there will prove
to be of some significance for the understanding of this series of poems, and indeed for
478
479
See, e.g., Wiseman, 1985, 147.
On 14b as a transitional piece, cf. Skinner, 1981, 44.
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243 our appreciation of Catullus’ way of approaching Greek epigram in general. We saw that
Philodemus’ epigram is, in conception, a variation on Leonidas’ mice-epigram AP 6.302.
What is more, Philodemus incorporated into his imitation elements of an earlier imitation
of the same Leonidean model (Ariston, AP 6.303). That is to say, AP 11.44 is an
imitation of (at least) two epigrams that Philodemus found situated together in
Meleager’s Garland.
When we place Catullus c. 13 into its libellus-context, between cc. 12 and 14, we
find something suprising: the poems constitute a sequence organized according to
principles derived from Meleager’s Garland, specifically the intact Meleagrean sequence
AP 6.300-303.480 A simple comparison of various features of the poems will suffice to
show the basic relationship between them. The napkin theft in poem 12 matches the
attempted theft by the mice in poem 6.302 (and 6.303); the invitation in poem 13 matches
Philodemus’ invitation-poem AP 11.44, which, as already discussed above (ch. 3), is
itself an imitation of 6.300, 6.302, and 6.303. The situation in poem 14 is slightly more
complicated. As in Ariston, AP 6.303, the subject is now a book (or books) of poetry
(ἐµαῖς … βίβλοις, 6.303.5; libellum 13.2), but whereas the books in Ariston’s epigram
belonged to the poet himself, here it is the book (and, figuratively, the poets whose work
it contains) that “assails” the poet like a pest. Note how the end of Catullus’ poem vos
hinc interea valete abite | illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis, would be just as suitable an
address to mice as it is (in this case) to bad poets. Here Catullus’ “imitation” of the
Meleagrean sequence AP 6.300-303 shows an awareness of other epigrams imitating
480
Skinner, 2007, reviews the long and heated scholarly debate over the arrangement of
poems in the corpus Catullianum. My proposals here, if accepted, would join the other
arguments in favor of some degree of authorial influence over (at least) the first part of
the polymetra.
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244 Leonidas’ mice-epigram; Philodemus AP 11.44 has already been mentioned, but there is
also an echo of an epigram by Herodicus of Babylon preserved by Athenaeus:
Herodicus of Babylon apud Athenaeus 5.222a = SH 494
φεύγετ’, Ἀριστάρχειοι, ἐπ’ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάττης
Ἑλλάδα, τῆς ξουθῆς δειλότεροι κεµάδος,
γωνιοβόµβυκες, µονοσύλλαβοι, οἷσι µέµηλε
τὸ σφὶν καὶ σφῶιν καὶ τὸ µὶν ἠδὲ τὸ νίν.
τοῦθ’ ὑµῖν εἴη δυσπέµφελον· Ἡροδίκῳ δὲ
Ἑλλὰς ἀεὶ µίµνοι καὶ θεόπαις Βαβυλών.
Flee Hellas over the broad backs of the sea, Aristarcheans
more cowardly than a flighty deer, who buzz
monosyllabically in the margins, who obsess over “sphin”
and “sphoin” and “min” and “nin”. I wish you a bad
journey. But for Herodicus, may Hellas and divinely-born
Babylon always remain.
The epigram seems to refer to the flight of the Aristarcheans from Alexandria during the
reign of Ptolemy VIII Phsycon, and would thus belong to the 140s BCE or so.481 If this is
the case, then the epigram likely served as a model for later epigrams (and other poems)
that inveigh against grammarians in terms ultimately derived from Leonidas, AP 6.302.482
Just as Philodemus’ invitation poem acted as an intermediary between Leonidas
AP 6.302 and Catullus 13, Herodicus’ epigram stands between Leonidas and Catullus 14.
From Herodicus’ epigram (or others like it) Catullus has taken the motif of the
grammarian as an object of invective, giving his poem a double target—Sulla, the
grammarian (litterator) and the poets he has anthologized. It is especially fitting that an
481
On this incident, see Pfeiffer, 1968, 252-3.
So Lloyd-Jones and Parsons at SH p. 248, comparing in Greek Ant. Thess. AP 11.20;
Antiphanes AP 11.322; Philip AP 11.321; in Latin: [Verg.] Cat. 2 and 5 against pedantic
rhetors. Cf. in addition Philip AP 11.347, although the target there is pedantic
astronomers (followers of Aristarchus of Samos) rather than grammarians.
482
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245 apparent anthology, this one consisting of bad poetry, should figure in a series of poems
modeled largely on another anthology!483
Once we recognize these basic points of connection between Catullus’ poems and
the epigrams, several finer points come to light illustrative of how carefully Catullus has
handled the motifs and themes taken over from the epigrams. The overarching themes of
cc. 12-14, for instance, are the interdependent ideas of friendship and enmity, between
which Catullus oscillates over the course of the series. He gives gifts to his friends and
receives them in return, and threatens punishments against those who violate himself and
his friends. At c. 12.7-8, for instance, Pollio is willing to recompense his brother’s
napkin theft at the price of a whole talent, while Catullus threatens to dispatch three
hundred hendecasyllabi against Marrucinus if the napkin is not returned. All this because
the napkin is a “real keepsake” (verum … mnemosynum) of a friend (12.13), and is as
dear to him as his friends Veranius and Fabullus who sent it to him (12.13-17). In poem
13, by contrast, Catullus’ mood is friendly (if ironically so), and he promises his own
modest gift to Fabullus, who will have to supply all the other elements of the feast. In c.
14, enmity and friendship are closely bound up with each other. As if to cap the series
thematically, Catullus begins by saying “if I did not love you… I would hate you”
(amarem … odissem). The humorous phrasing mirrors the oscillation between the two
emotions in the previous two poems on the one hand, but also the shifting modes of
Catullus’ models (Leonidas’ invective, Philodemus’ friendly invitation, and so forth).
The ironic ambivalence of Catullus’ mood is, in part, a reflection of his expert mixture of
483
Meanwhile, in c. 27, Catullus prefigures a later Greek imitation of Leonidas: c. 27.57: at vos quo libet hinc abite, lymphae, | vini pernicies, et ad severos | migrate: hic merus
est Thyonianus. Compare Ant. Thess. AP 11.20.6: ὁ κρήτηρ οὐ δέχεθ᾽ ὑδροπότας.
Campbell
Chapter 3
246 literary models, a technique he learned brilliantly from Meleager both in his capacities as
an epigrammatist (which we already knew) but also as anthologist.
The imagery in the poems takes on a fluid, metamorphic quality when looked at
against the epigrammatic background. Salt, a metaphor for wit, is a recurring image in
Catullus’ oeuvre.484 Its metaphorical meaning features prominently in poem 12, where
Marrucinus’ theft is condemned more for its gaucheness than the damage it causes (cf.
hoc salsum esse putas?, 12.4). Note how the napkin which Marrucinus steals serves,
even if only ironically, the same function as Leonidas’ salt-box in AP 6.302—a symbol
of the author’s ethical values. The metaphorical sense of sal as “wit” may perhaps recur
in poem 14, where Catullus may call Calvus salse (O and R read false; G has false with
salse as an alternate reading485). Martial, ep. IV.23, will later mark this as a distinctly
Roman quality, “the salt of Roman Minerva” (sal Romanae Minervae) in contrast to
“Attic charm” (lepor Cecropius), but in c. 13 we catch a glimpse of how the Catullan
product was manufactured. In addition to its semantic meaning of “wit”, the rhetorical
structure of this poem gives the salt a further shade of significance as an mark of the
poet’s (extreme) poverty. Salt, along with bread, was, after all, one of the components of
what antiquity viewed as the simplest, most austere kind of diet—the diet of a Cynic or
someone simply destitute. To say that Fabullus must bring even the salt is, then, an ironic
play on, for instance, Leonidas’ claim to autarkeia in AP 6.302. In AP 6.301, the poem
that preceded AP 6.302 in Meleager’s Garland, Callimachus too had capitalized on
484
In addition to 12.4 cf. 13.5, 16.7, and 86.4. On 14.16, where the manuscripts have
false or salse, more below.
485
salse is printed by Thomson, Goold, and most recently adopted by Trappes-Lomax,
2007, 66, who notes that Calvus has been witty (salsus) at Catullus’ expense rather than
treacherous (falsus).
Campbell
Chapter 3
247 multiple meanings of the word “salt” (salt proper as well as “brine” or simply “the sea”)
and its status as a symbol of poverty:
AP 6.301 – Callimachus = XXVIII HE = 47 Pfeiffer
τὴν ἁλίην Εὔδηµος, ἐφ᾽ ἧς ἅλα λιτὸν ἐπέσθων
χειµῶνας µεγάλους ἐξέφυγεν δανέων,
θῆκε θεοῖς Σαµόθρᾳξι, λέγων ὅτι τήνδε κατ᾽ εὐχήν,
ὦ λαοί, σωθεὶς ἐξ ἁλὸς ὧδε θέτο.
Eudemus dedicated his salt-box to the Samothracian gods,
the box aboard which—eating his humble salt—he
weathered great storms of debts, saying, O people, that he
placed it here since in accordance with his prayer he had
been saved from the salt/sea.
Through a similar wordplay the salt in Catullus c. 13 doubles as “wit”, gaining extra
humor from the fact that, because the host is so impoverished, it is just one more of the
things Fabullus will have to bring with him to the dinner. The full significance of
Catullan “salt” emerges out of this complicated mixture of earlier models, in much the
same way that Catullus’ attitude in the three poems—the oscillation between amiable and
invective modes—reflects his methods of imitation and variation of epigrammatic
models. Like the rest of the meal in c. 13, the salt is indeed programmatic, but not in the
manner of a simple stylistic allegory: salt = the wit that is a typical ingredient of Catullan
style.486 Instead, this poem and those that stand alongside it in the libellus situate
Catullus programmatically within a particular tradition (implicating Leonidas, Meleager,
Philodemus and others in addition to Callimachus) against which his innovations stand
out.
For all this, however, Catullus’ poems are not “epigrams”, at least not formally. It
is not just that they do not feature any inscriptional conceit, they also depart from the
486
Straightforward readings of the elements of the meal as stylistic symbols are well
discussed and problematized by Gowers, 1993, 229-233.
Campbell
Chapter 3
248 standards Meleager himself had established in his Garland, in which short poems of
about 6-8 lines in elegiac couplets predominate. What Catullus takes over from epigram
is, instead, a generically determined sensibility—a coherent way of looking at the world
and at poetry, embodied or focalized in the figure of the poet. This concept of the
character and function of the author within the work is grounded in epigrammatic
traditions of authorial self-representation, literary critical discourse, and intense
intertextuality that have been the subject of this dissertation. As this concluding
discussion of Catullus has suggested, the importance of these developments was not
limited to epigram or to Greek poetry of the 1st centuries BCE/CE; Latin poets of the first
century BCE, not to mention later poets such as Martial, are equally implicated.487 In
their works, recognizably “epigrammatic” articulations of the poet and his or her poetic
ideals, employing textual strategies learned from the likes of Antipater of Sidon and
Meleager, begin to proliferate across generic boundaries.488
At the same time, as we have seen, literary epigram continued in the 1st century
BCE to undergo changes of its own. In the epochal turn toward “occasional poetry” that
is such a marked feature of the Garland of Philip, epigram began to embrace more and
more of human life in all its aspects, anticipating Martial’s famous declaration of
epigrammatic realism, hominem pagina nostra sapit (X.4.10). It was through the figure
of the poet, who has subsumed the epigrammatic tradition and its poetic discourse within
himself to the point even of embodying it, that epigram as a genre came “back to life”,
487
The papers gathered in Keith, 2011, explore some aspects of the interplay between 1st
century BCE epigram and contemporary Latin literary production, but much work
remains to be done.
488
See Thomas, 2011, for instance, on the porousness of the boundary between epigram
and Latin love elegy.
Campbell
Chapter 3
249 reborn as a form whose fragmented, multifarious nature is mirrored in its representation
of the world and in the subjectivity of the poet who presides over it.
Campbell
Chapter 3
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