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The composition of Callimachus' Aetia in the Light of P. Oxy. 2258

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. S. Hollis
A. S. Hollis
Affiliation:
Keble College, Oxford
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Extract

Rudolf Pfeiffer (Callimachus, ii.xxxvi–xxxvii) believed that, as a young man, Callimachus wrote four books of Aetia. To these the poet added in his old age a Reply to his Critics (fr. 1), and a slightly revised version of his recent occasional elegy, the Lock of Berenice (fr. 110, now including a nuptial rite which has survived only in the translation by Catullus, 66.79–88); this revised Coma became the last poem in Aetia book 4, to be followed by an Epilogue (fr. 112) which may mark a transition to the Iambi. Pfeiffer's theory generally held the field until the brilliant article of P. J. Parsons, in ZPE 25 (1977), 1–50. With the help of newly recovered papyrus fragments Parsons showed that a previously unplaced elegy celebrating a Nemean victory (fr. 383 Pf.) was connected to the story of Molorchus (frs. 54–9), who entertained Heracles before that hero killed the Nemean lion and instituted the Nemean Games; thus the poem belonged to Aetia book 3. Furthermore, various pieces of evidence converge (Parsons, pp. 46–8) to make it probable, if not wholly certain, that this substantial poem (some 200 lines long) stood first in its book. So it appears that, at least in the final form of the Aetia, books 3–4 were framed by two poems honouring the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes, namely Victoria Berenices (Parsons' title) and Coma Berenices.

Soon afterwards a further important advance was made by E. Livrea (ZPE 34 [1979], 37ff.), who perceived, on grounds of subject-matter as well as papyrology, that the poor man who sets a mousetrap in fr. 177 Pf. must be none other than Molorchus; note particularly the probable mention of Cleonae in fr. 177.37 Pf. = Supplementum Hellenisticum 259.37. Thus a new fragment of 38 lines accrued to the poem.

These discoveries have some implications for the composition of the Aetia. Addition of a Coma Berenices (94 lines in Catullus' version) to a pre-existent Aetia book 4 could be countenanced easily enough, but, as Parsons says (p. 50), it would have required a much more radical, and therefore less plausible, revision for Callimachus to have added Victoria Berenices to a pre-existent Aetia book 3. Accordingly Parsons suggested that the original Aetia contained only books 1–2, united by the conversation with the Muses; then in his old age Callimachus compiled two more books, partly at least from poems already composed, and gave them a frame of two poems honouring Queen Berenice. Parsons' view has, I think, been widely accepted; Professor Lloyd-Jones wrote in SIFC 77 (1984), 56 ‘No-one has yet argued against the simple modification of Pfeiffer's theory of the two editions of the Aetia which Mr. Parsons based on this discovery. The first edition comprised two books only.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , December 1986 , pp. 467 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 Edited by Lobel, E. in P. Oxy. 20 (1952), 69ff.Google Scholar, with photographs, plates xiii-xvi. Pfeiffer was able to use this before publication for his 1949 volume of Fragments; it is papyrus no. 37 in Pf. ii.xxiv, and no. 186 in Pack2.

2 SH 290–1 as well as the piece mentioned by Pfeiffer, i.506–7.

3 E.g. quoting at length from a hexameter poem (SH 391) by a previously unknown author called Diophilus or Diophila which gives instructions where to find the constellation Coma Berenices in the sky.

4 Where it would presumably be followed by the Epilogue to the Aetia (fr. 112).

5 Pfeiffer saw the correct interpretation of this in ii.116.

6 Fr. 74 on one side, and fr. 75.3–6 on the other; cf. Pf. i.501.

7 i.501 on frs. 84–6 (for the scholia on the other side) and p. 503 on fr. 177.4–6.

8 ZPE 34 (1979), 38Google Scholar, and Miscellanea Papyrologica (ed. Pintaudi, R., 1980), 138Google Scholar. In both places the reference is inaccurate, with ‘B’ having been transformed into ‘13’, and fr. ‘2’ omitted. In the list of sources (ZPE 34 [1979], 40Google Scholar, under C) read PSI 1218 (for 1228) and 11–20 init. (for 1–20).

9 CQ 44 (1950), 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar (cf. Pfeiffer ii.114). Lines 10–11 describe the ‘Temesaean’ bronzework of the statue.

10 i.503.

11 Which reflect the final form of the Aetia, with Coma Berenices at the end of book 4.

12 I am grateful to Mr Parsons for alerting me to the implications of this point.

13 Lobel, , P. Oxy. 20 (1952), 70Google Scholar.

14 Parsons points to a mention of the Nemean Games (not yet founded) in the scholia to SH 257.26.

15 Cf. SH p. 115.

16 Miscellanea Papyrologica (ed. Pintaudi, ), 138Google Scholar ‘Hercules Molorchi hospes respicitur’ (cf. ZPE 34 [1979], 40Google Scholar).

17 Maas supplemented the line ὅ οἱ μετ⋯ .

18 In an unpublished paper (which I have not seen).

19 Cf. Livrea, in Misc. Pap. p. 137Google Scholar, who suggests that the ‘child’ in SH 259.4 may be Molorchus' son.

20 Pfeiffer notes that his fr. 766 inc. auct. ⋯сπ⋯ριον ξ⋯νον might suit Heracles in this story, or Theseus in the Hecale.

21 Parsons, (ZPE 25 [1977], 41, 42)Google Scholar suggests that Callimachus may have returned to Berenice in an Epilogue; it seems from the Coma that our poet was quite prepared to insert new lines (the nuptial rite, Catullus 66.79–88) in a pre-existent poem.

22 Perhaps considerably less, if the previous aetion (?Euthycles) spilled over to the first part of P. Oxy. 2258 B fr. 2 ‘front’.

23 This could easily be done, since in books 3–4 one aetion followed another without connexion.

24 See P. Oxy. 20 (1952), 88Google Scholar.

25 I am grateful to Mr Parsons and Professor Lloyd-Jones for comments (which should not of course be taken to imply agreement with the hypothesis put forward here). A preliminary form of this paper was read to the Corpus Christi classical seminar in Oxford in February 1986.