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THE LITERARY POLEMICS OF ANTH. PAL. 11.275

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2020

Rachel Philbrick
Rachel Philbrick*
Affiliation:
Cambridge, Massachusetts
*
rsphilbrick@gmail.com
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Extract

      Καλλίμαχος τὸ κάθαρμα, τὸ παίγνιον, ὁ ξύλινος νοῦς,
      αἴτιος ὁ γράψας Αἴτια Καλλίμαχος.
      Callimachus [means] trash, trifle, wooden mind:
      the cause is the Callimachus who wrote Causes.

This abusive epigram, probably composed in the first century c.e. by a certain Apollonius ‘Grammaticus’, has become famous on account of its false attribution to Apollonius of Rhodes and of its consequent identification as ‘evidence’ for the literary feud between Apollonius and Callimachus. Its literary features have attracted less interest. Cameron, for one, dismissed it, finding ‘no coherent literary thrust to the polemic’. I argue here that this epigram in fact shows close engagement with the poetics of Callimachus and his language of literary self-definition. As we find in other anti-Callimachean epigrams, the author of Anth. Pal. 11.275 crafts his insults by appropriating and transforming several Callimachean terms of literary-aesthetic value, which he then directs back against their creator.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , May 2020 , pp. 261 - 267
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

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References

1 Anth. Pal. 11.275 = 1 Page FGE Ap. Rhod. = 13 Powell Coll. Alex. Ap. Rhod. = T 25 Pfeiffer. I accept Bentley's conjecture Καλλίμαχος in line 2 for the reading Καλλιμάχου recorded in the Palatine and Planudian manuscripts, but cf. the argument against the emendation by Lehnus, L., ‘Notizie callimachee, II’, Paideia 45 (1990), 277–92, at 291–2Google Scholar.

2 See Cairns, F., ‘Callimachus the “woodentop” (AP XI 275)’, in Belloni, L., Milanese, G. and Porro, A. (edd.), Studia classica Johanni Tardi oblata (Milan, 1995), 607–15Google Scholar, at 608 (with bibliography); Cameron, Alan, Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton, 1995), 227Google Scholar; Lefkowitz, M.R., The Lives of the Greek Poets (Baltimore, 20122), 114Google Scholar; cf. Page, D.L., Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, 1981), 17Google Scholar, who accepts the attribution to the Rhodian.

3 Cameron (n. 2), 228: ‘Indeed, the most important objection to connecting the poem to Apollonius in any way is simply that there is no coherent literary thrust to the polemic. Line 1 contains mere abuse, and though Line 2 attacks the Aetia, the attack turns on nothing more profound than a pun.’

4 The lexical interpretation was first suggested by Croiset, A., Histoire de la littérature Grecque: Periode Alexandrine, vol. 5 (Paris, 1901), 211 n. 5Google Scholar; Rose, H.J., A Handbook of Greek Literature: From Homer to the Age of Lucian (London, 1934), 325Google Scholar accepted and expanded the idea to encompass also line 2, which he suggested introduces a second lemma (‘αἴτιος’) and definition.

5 Ferguson, J., Callimachus (Boston, 1980), 162–3Google Scholar. He suggests κάλλυσμα for κάθαρμα, καλλοπίσμα for παίγνιον, and καλόπους for ξύλινος νοῦς. Apparently independently, Aubreton, R., Anthologie Grecque, tome 10 (Paris, 1972), 168 nGoogle Scholar. 2 arrived at a very similar interpretation: ‘Le premier vers cite des terms rares employés par Callimaque qui auraient été rassemblés dans un lexique ou une glose alphabétique: κάλλυσμα⋅ τὸ κάθαρμα – καλο…⋅ τὸ παίγνιον – καλόπους⋅ ὁ ξύλινος νοῦς’.

6 Cairns (n. 2), 611 cites Suda κ 201 Adler as an example of the kind of lexical entry that the author of Anth. Pal. 11.275 was parodying. He concedes (at 613) that the connection to Callimachus would only have been appreciated by ‘the true cognoscenti’.

7 See Gutzwiller, K., Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context (Berkeley, 1998), 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The appropriation of Callimachean aesthetic vocabulary need not be exclusively antagonistic (cf. Sens, A., ‘Hedylus [4 and 5 Gow–Page] and Callimachean poetics’, Mnemosyne 68 [2015], 40–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

8 The language and the practice are discussed in detail by Cairns, F., Hellenistic Epigram: Contexts of Exploration (Cambridge, 2016), 125–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; he discusses the following epigram of Antipater at 174.

9 The epigram concludes by contrasting water-drinking (bad) poets with wine-drinking (good) poets such as Archilochus and Homer, which takes up and elaborates on Callimachus’ self-association with holy water and sacred springs, in a process very similar to what I describe below in the case of Anth. Pal. 11.275. The water/wine contrast may originate with Antipater (Knox, P., ‘Wine, water, and Callimachean poetics’, HSPh 89 [1985], 107–19, at 111Google Scholar). Also like Anth. Pal. 11.275, a lexicographical influence is suggested by the string of three obscure terms in line 1 (λόκκας ἢ λοφνίδας ἢ καμασῆνας); cf. Cameron (n. 2), 366 n. 26; Cairns (n. 8), 173.

10 Cf. Asper, M., Onomata allotria: Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos (Stuttgart, 1997), 109–34Google Scholar; Cheshire, K., ‘Kicking ΦΘΟΝΟΣ: Apollo and his chorus in Callimachus’ Hymn 2’, CPh 103 (2008), 354–73Google Scholar (with further references). καθαρός appears once elsewhere in Callimachus’ poetry, at Epigr. 7 Pf. (= 57 HE): ἦλθε Θεαίτητος καθαρὴν ὁδόν; cf. the similar language in an overtly metapoetic context at Aet. fr. 1.27–8 Harder (with n. ad loc.). In the Alexandrian literary-critical vocabulary, καθαρός is roughly synonymous with λεπτός, another positive-value term (cf. Arat. Phaen. 783: λεπτὴ μὲν καθαρή τε, which begins the famous ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic that runs lines 783–7; cf. Jacques, J.-M., ‘Sur un acrostiche d'Aratos [Phén., 783–87]’, REA 62 [1960], 48–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; more recently, Hanses, M., ‘The pun and the moon in the sky: Aratus’ ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic’, CQ 64 [2014], 609–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with references). Callimachean ‘pure’ (purus) style is adopted by later Roman poets, e.g. Prop. 3.1.3 (puro de fonte, a clear adaptation of Callim. Hymn 2.112: πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς, in an elegy that begins Callimachi manes); Prop. 2.13.12 (auribus et puris scripta probasse mea); Tib. 1.1.38 (diui … nec e puris spernite fictilibus); cf. Hunter, R., The Shadow of Callimachus (Cambridge, 2006), 14–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 λύματα appears four times in the extant Callimachean corpus: Hymn 1.17, Hymn 2.109, Aet. fr. 75.25 Harder (= fr. 75.25 Pf.), Hecale fr. 114 Hollis (= fr. 295 Pf.), where it is paired with φορυτόν; cf. Hopkinson, N., Callimachus: Hymn to Demeter (Cambridge, 1984), n. on 6.115Google Scholar. κάθαρμα does not appear in the extant corpus.

12 Page (n. 2), 17.

13 ludere is commonly used in this sense (cf. OLD s.v. 8b); for Gk. παίζειν used similarly, cf. Pind. Ol. 1.14; Ion, fr. 27.7. On the terms παίζειν and παίγνιον, cf. Reitzenstein, R., Epigramm und Skolion (Giessen, 1893), 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar (who identifies the phrase οἴνῳ καίρια συγγελάσαι at Callim. Epigr. 35.2 as a periphrasis for the ‘terminus technicus παίζειν’) and n. 2 there. The nouns παίγνιον and lusus are both well attested in reference to poetic compositions (e.g. Ael. NA 15.19 [about Theocritus]; Leonides, Anth. Pal. 6.322 = 2 Page FGE; Meleager, Anth. Pal. 7.196 = 13 HE; Ov. Tr. 2.223).

14 Stobaeus (Flor. 2.4.5) preserves the title and the following lines (fr. 25 Spanoudakis = fr. 12 Sbardella = fr. 10 Powell): οὐ μέ τις ἐξ ὀρέων ἀποφώλιος ἀγροιώτης | αἱρήσει κλήθρην, αἰρόμενος μακέλην⋅ | ἀλλ’ ἐπέων εἰδὼς κόσμον καὶ πολλὰ μογήσας, | μύθων παντοίων οἶμον ἐπιστάμενος. The phrase ἐπέων εἰδὼς κόσμον καὶ πολλὰ μογήσας may lie behind ἐπέων κόσμον λελυγισμένον ἀσκήσαντες at Anth. Pal. 11.20.3 (quoted above). Cf. Sbardella, L., Filita: Testimonianze e frammenti poetici (Rome, 2000), 127–36Google Scholar.

15 Cf. Gutzwiller, K., ‘The nautilus, the halcyon, and Selenaia: Callimachus's “Epigram” 5 Pf. = 14 G.–P.’, ClAnt 11 (1992), 194–209, at 208–9Google Scholar, on the presence of the poet's voice in this epigram. Strengthening the metapoetic reading of paignion here is the observation of Gutzwiller (n. 7), 194 that separation of this poem from its dedicatory context in a collection of epigrams would make the poet's voice more prominent.

16 Cf. Acosta-Hughes, B., Polyeideia: The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (Berkeley, 2002), 120–43, especially 130–1Google Scholar (the Callimachean terms used to describe Athena and her paignia) and 134–5 (Apollo's song).

17 Cf. Ambühl, A., Kinder und junge Helden: Innovative Aspekte des Umgangs mit der literarischen Tradition bei Kallimachos (Leuven, 2005), especially 385–413Google Scholar (on the Aetia prologue); Snell, B., The Discovery of the Mind (New York, 1982), 264–80Google Scholar; Asper (n. 10), 148–50.

18 Cf. Harder, A., Callimachus Aetia: Volume 2 Commentary (Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Cameron (n. 2), 242–3; Acosta-Hughes, B. and Stephens, S., ‘Aetia fr. 1.5: I told my story like a child’, ZPE 136 (2001), 214–16Google Scholar; Stephens, S., ‘Linus song’, Hermathena 173–4 (2002–3), 13–28Google Scholar. Age, especially the contrast between child and old man, is a key theme in the Aetia prologue; cf. Acosta-Hughes, B. and Stephens, S., ‘Rereading Callimachus’ “Aetia” fragment 1’, CPh 97 (2002), 238–55, at 240–1Google Scholar.

19 Cf. the similar insult from the roughly contemporary Lucilius, Anth. Pal. 11.140.4 (νηπυτιευόμενοι Νέστορι καὶ Πριάμῳ, ‘playing childish games with Nestor and Priam’), also directed against Callimacheans, where ‘childishness’ is clearly connected to pedantry and triviality.

20 Ach. Tat. 5.22 (ὁ δὲ σιδηροῦς τις ἢ ξύλινος ἦν), Palladas, Anth. Pal. 11.255 (Δάφνην καὶ Νιόβην ὠρχήσατο Μέμφις ὁ Σῖμος, | ὡς ξύλινος Δάφνην, ὡς λίθινος Νιόβην = Auson. Epigrammata Varia 9 in Green, R.P.H., The Works of Ausonius [Oxford, 1991]Google Scholar: Daphnen et Nioben saltauit simius idem, | ligneus ut Daphne, saxeus ut Niobe; a similar idea is expressed in Lucilius, Anth. Pal. 11.253).

21 In later Latin, ligneus is attested in reference to stupid people (TLL 7.2.1384.45–9), but the inference that the Greek phrase means something equivalent to ‘stupid’ is difficult to support through comparanda (cf. Cairns [n. 2], 613); Aubreton (n. 5), 168 translates the phrase with different emphasis, as ‘le cabochard’ (‘pigheaded’). He and Ferguson (n. 5), followed by Cairns (n. 2), have seen an allusion to a similar phrase, ὁ ξύλινος ποῦς, attested at Suda κ 201 (as a gloss on καλόπους, a cobbler's wooden foot form); cf. the reference to a poet's ‘wooden leg’ (crure ligneo) at Mart. 10.100.6, an overt metapoetic critique.

22 E.g. the laurel and olive trees in Iambus 4 (cf. Acosta-Hughes [n. 16], 191–204); Demeter's ξύλον ἱερόν in Hymn 6 (cf. P. Bing, ‘Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter’, SyllClass 6 [1995], 31 and Müller, C.W., Erysichthon [Stuttgart, 1987], 27–45)Google Scholar; Aet. fr. 178.12 (ὀλίγῳ κισσυβίῳ, with Cameron [n. 2], 136) and Aet. fr. 73 (with Harder [n. 18], 577). The Aetia prologue unites the themes of youthfulness and wood in the description of Apollo's visit to the poet as a child, when he first put his writing tablet (δέλτος, synonymous with τὸ ξύλινον) on his knees (Aet. fr. 1.21–2).

23 Cf. Kerkhecker, A., Callimachus’ Book of Iambi (Oxford, 1999), 268–9Google Scholar; Acosta-Hughes (n. 16), 102–3. The programmatic status of Iambus 13 is first signalled by the opening address to the Muses and to Apollo (Μοῦσαι καλαὶ κἄπολλον, οἷς ἐγὼ σπένδω, fr. 203.1).

24 Dieg. 9.33–8 (Pfeiffer vol. 1 page 205): ἐν τούτῳ πρὸς τοὺς καταμεμφομέ- | νους αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῇ πολυειδείᾳ ὧν γρά|φει ποιημάτων ἀπαντῶν φησιν ὅτι | Ἴωνα μιμεῖται τὸν τραγικόν⋅ ἀλλ’ οὐ|δὲ τὸν τέκτονά τις μέμφεται πολυειδῆ | σκεύη τεκταινόμενον (‘In this [poem] he says to those criticizing him for the variety of poems he writes, that he is imitating Ion the tragedian: no one criticizes the carpenter who crafts varied instruments’). Note the similar language in the Florentine scholia's summary of the Aetia prologue (Pfeiffer vol. 1 page 3 lines 8–9): [τοῖς με]μφομ(έν)ο[ι]ς αὐτοῦ τὸ κάτισ[χνον τῶν ποιη]μάτ(ων) (‘[he responds] to those criticizing the thinness of his poems’). Barber, E.A., ‘Review: The fragments of Callimachus’, CR 1 (1951), 78–80, at 80Google Scholar suggests the supplement δί]φρα καὶ τράπ[εζαν (‘chairs and table’) in fr. 203.36, which would provide the specific wooden products of the metaphor.

25 Also at Iambi 6 (ἁ τέχνα, 1) and 12.56–7 (with Acosta-Hughes [n. 16], 92–5, 135, 290–1; Kerkhecker [n. 23], 263), Hymn 2.55–64; cf. Aet. fr. 1.17 (τέχνῃ). Iambus 12 unites the themes of childhood, play and woodworking skill in the detail of the πολλὰ τεχνήεντα ποικ[ίλ]α γλ[υφῇ | παίχν[ια] (fr. 202.27–8 Pf.) that Athena gives to Hebe. Steiner, D., The Crown of Song: Metaphor in Pindar (Oxford, 1986), 52–65Google Scholar discusses Pindar's use of the craftsman metaphor; cf. also Finkelberg, M., The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece (Oxford, 1998), 100–11Google Scholar; Asper (n. 10), 28 and 71 n. 204. There is likely also Platonic influence in the references to the τέκτων and to Ion in Iambus 13: cf. Clayman, D.L., ‘Callimachus’ thirteenth Iamb: the last word’, Hermes 104 (1976), 29–35, at 32–3Google Scholar; Depew, M., ‘ἰαμβεῖον καλεῖται νῦν: genre, occasion, and imitation in Callimachus, frr. 191 and 203Pf.’, TAPhA 122 (1992), 313–30, at 326–7Google Scholar; Acosta-Hughes (n. 16), 85–9.

26 E.g. 13.64–6 (likely the poem's closing lines), which echo the critic's insults from lines 11–14. The process of assimilation in Iambus 13 likely goes in both directions, from poet to critic and back, since it appears that the critic in his turn appropriated the poet's language (e.g. the critic's [καλ]αι̣ Μοῦσαι at fr. 203.22 echoes the poet's Μοῦσαι καλαί at line 1), but the poet has the final word. Cf. Acosta-Hughes (n. 16), 79–82, 99 and 102–3.

27 Pedantry (characterized by an obsession with obscure and trivial subjects) is a common criticism of Callimacheans: e.g. Philip, Anth. Pal. 11.321 = 60 G–P; Antiphanes, Anth. Pal. 11.322 = 9 G–P; Philip, Anth. Pal. 11.347 = 61 G–P (cf. especially ἡ δὲ μέλαινα | ἱστορίη τήκοι τοὺς Περικαλλιμάχους, 5–6); Lucilius, Anth. Pal. 11.140.

28 The pentameter has historically posed interpretative problems (e.g. Page [n. 2], 18: ‘the meaning, especially in relation to the previous line, is obscure’), and the solution that has gained broadest support reads αἴτιος as a second lemma; so Paton, W.R., The Greek Anthology (Cambridge, MA, 1971), 4.199Google Scholar; Rose (n. 4), 325; Cairns (n. 2), 613–14.