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POxy 2509 and Callimachus' Lavacrum Palladis: αἰγιόχοιο Διòς κορη μεγάλοιο1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mary Depew
Mary Depew
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
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Extract

In his excellent commentary on Callimachus' fifth Hymn, A. W. Bulloch has discussed the many allusions to earlier literature out of which this poem is made. He has, however, missed one: an allusion to Hesiod's Catalogue, which, as I shall show here, not only sheds light on one of the poem's most puzzling scenes – Athena's consolatio to the nymph Chariclo – but also helps to explain the articulation and function of the poem's first, so-called ‘mimetic,’ section.

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Articles
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 1994 , pp. 410 - 426
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Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

2 The text I have used throughout is that of Pfeiffer, R., Callimachus II (Oxford, 1985 2).Google Scholar

3 57–8; cf. 69, and Bulloch, A., Callimachus: The Fifth Hymn (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar, hereafter ‘Bulloch’, on 57–69.

4 Lines 60–4, a catalogue of Boeotian settlements in the foothills of Mt. Helicon, where Athena often drove her horses (61–2), and often set Chariclo upon her chariot (65). Bulloch (p. 167) points to Sappho fr. 94.24ff. as a precedent for recollecting places visited together to illustrate inseparability in friendship.

5 See Bulloch, pp. 167ff. for bibliography. Tiresias, of course, is also associated with Thebes.

6 64; cf. Alcaeus 147 Page, where Athena is also mentioned in connection with Coronia and the Curalius, and Bulloch, p. 172 and n. 5.

7 Because of its ambiguity, and for the sake of convenience, I will refer to this ‘insubstantial voice’ (as N. Hopkinson has so aptly described it, Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter [Cambridge, 1984], p. 3)Google Scholar, simply as ‘the speaker’.

8 Th. 5–8.

9 It is an association rarely made in extant sources. Cf. h. Horn. Cer. 424, where Athena and Artemis appear with a group of Oceanids in Persephone's account of her own rape. As Richardson points out, the line has been suspected on the grounds that Athena and Artemis do not belong to the ‘original’ version, which mentions only the Oceanids (cf. h. Hom. Cer. 5): Richardson, N. J., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford, 1974), p. 290Google Scholar. The Berlin Orphic papyrus (P. Berol. 13044; fr. 49 Kern) does not include the line in its quotation (from memory, it would seem) of what is apparently the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, but the author is interested only in Oceanids at that point, so 424 would not be relevant (and, as Richardson points out, the papyrus does mention Athena and Artemis in its paraphrase (40f.)).

10 von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos II (Berlin, 1924), p. 23.Google Scholar

11 Ps. Apollod. 3.6.7 and Schol. T Od. 10.493 (= F. Jacoby, FGrHist I 3 F 92).

12 Lacy, L. R., ‘Aktaion and a Lost “Bath of Artemis”’, JHS 110 (1990), p. 29 n. 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives a full review of the discussion.

13 Cf. Haslam, M. W., ‘Callimachus' Hymns’, Hellenistica Groningana I (Groningen, 1993), pp. 123–4.Google Scholar

14 Again, see Lacy's article (especially p. 26 n. 3) for a full collection of the evidence. Actaeon's offence is courting Semele in the Hesiodic Catalogue (P. Mich. inv. 1447, verso, col. II. 1–6, which Merkelbach-West include as fr. 217A only in OCT3 [1990]; it is not included in their Fragmenta Hesiodea), Stes. ap. Paus. 9.2.3 (= Stes. PMG 236), and Acusilaus (FGrHist 2 F 33 = Apollod. 3.4.4.).

15 Lacy, op. cit. (n. 12), pp. 29–30 and n. 27. Lacy (pp. 31–3) argues that this offence underlies Apollod. 3.4.4., where Acusilaus' view is contrasted with the view held by οἱ πλεονες, for whom Actaeon's offence is ὃτι τν Ἅρτεμιν λουομνην εἶδε. In favour of the early existence of this version Lacy also cites Diodorus and pictorial evidence (34–42). Lacy is wrong, I think, to assume that Actaeon's wooing of Semele is punishable only in the context of the Cadmeid–Dionysiac saga in which Actaeon's attraction, if not betrothal, to his aunt would have provided an obstacle to the eventual birth of Dionysus (28–9). Surely Zeus'jealousy would have had no need of such reflection, nor is the element of incest as negligible as Lacy asserts. While they are not the norm in archaic Greece, such intra-familial marriages are attested. See Lacy p. 28 n. 16 and Janko, R., ‘P.Oxy. 2509: Hesiod's Catalogue on the Death of Actaeon’, Phoenix 38 (1984), p. 301CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Janko suggests that the element of incest and the desire to make the punishment fit the crime led to later versions involving Artemis (301). It is, however, Tiresias' punishment that matches the crime of incestuous sexual relations. On this see Buxton, R. G. A., ‘Blindness and Limits: Sophokles and the Logic of Myth’, JHS 100 (1980), pp. 32–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Haslam (op. cit. [n. 13], pp. 123–4) sums up the matter well: ‘…the story self-evidently belonged to Actaeon and Artemis before it was transferred to Teiresias and Athena. A nymphattended goddess, bathing in a mountain spring, disturbed by a young hunter: roles custommade for Artemis and Actaeon, and creakingly uncomfortable for Athena and Teiresias. Callimachus had authority for both stories. What is original to him is his bringing the two together.’

17 The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 30, Lobel, E. (ed.), (1964), pp. 4–7Google Scholar. Subsequent studies of the papyrus include Casanova, A., ‘II mito di Atteone nel Catalogo Esiodeo’, RFIC 97 (1969), pp. 31–46Google Scholar; Renner, T., ‘A Papyrus Dictionary of Metamorphoses’, HSCP 82 (1978), pp. 282–7Google Scholar; Janko, op. cit. (n. 15).

19 Casanova, op. cit. (n. 17), pp. 38–9.

20 Corroborating this interpretation is an Attic fifth-century red-figure bell-crater (Beazley, ARV 2 1045; LIMC I.1, p. 462; I.2, p. 357) which shows Actaeon being attacked by dogs. Standing by are Zeus, Artemis and a winged female labelled ΛΥΣΑ (i.e. Lyssa, ‘Madness’). For discussion see Renner, op. cit. (n. 17), pp. 284–5; Lacy, op. cit. (n. 12), pp. 28–9 and n. 17.

22 14 is very patchy, and the meaning of its end, ]ελετο λσσα[, is problematic. Lobel suggests for it a supplement based on phrases such as Il. 9.377 and 18.31 (κ γρ εὑ, σϕεων, ϕρνας εἵλετο…Ζες Παλλς Ἀθνη) or 19.137 (κα μευ ϕρνας ξλετο Ζες), and takes it to mean that at this moment Actaeon's dogs went mad and that the rending of their master ensued. Janko, op. cit. (n. 15), p. 303, argues convincingly that this will not do. Lobel's interpretation of 15f., for example (χὠ μ]ν ἔβη πρς [ Ὄλυμπον π χθονς εὐ]ρυοδεη[ς |] αὐτν] ἄγων μετ [ϕλα θεὼν αἰειγεν]ετ[ων), changes the scene too abruptly, and ‘the lapse of time assumed, for Dionysus to be born, grow up, and hunt with the dogs before eventually being elevated to Olympus, is far too great not to have been indicated’. Janko concludes that Casanova's reading (op. cit. [n. 17]) of the lines, in which the αγιχοιο Δις κορη μεγ[λοιο of 13 is the subject of the verbs in both 14 and 15, is preferable:

23 So Lobel, op. cit. (n. 17), p. 7; Janko, op. cit. (n. 15), pp. 302–3.

24 In his review of the editio princeps, West said that ‘The author of the Hesiodic Catalogue would turn in his grave if he knew that it had been attributed to him’ (CR 16 [1966], p. 22)Google Scholar, and more recently (The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure, and Origins [Oxford, 1985], p. 88)Google Scholar he has remarked that he is ‘still loth to believe…that [the Catalogue] is the source of the hexameter fragment preserved…in P.Oxy. 2509’. Malten, L., Kyrene (Berlin, 1911), pp. 18ffGoogle Scholar., originally suggested that the Catalogue included the Zeus–Semele account; see also Casanova, op. cit. (n. 17); Renner, op. cit. (n. 17), pp. 282–5; Janko, op. cit. (n. 15); Philodemus, De Pietate 60 Gomperz = Hesiod fr. 346 M.-W. (fr. 346 in ‘Fragmenta Dubia’), read by Henrichs, A. (‘Towards a New Edition of Philodemus' Treatise On Piety,’, GRBS 13 [1972], p. 67 n. 2)Google Scholar as ]ς Ἀκταωνι κα [γυν]αῖκα[{ι}]. καθπερ [ν] Ἠοα[iι]ς.

For discussion see Renner, op. cit. (n. 17), pp. 282–3; the entry now = Hes. fr. 217A in OCT3 (see above, n. 12). The dictionary, or at least the core of it, may well have been compiled as early as the Hellenistic period (Renner, p. 279, who cites its reference to the obscure stories of the Chalcidian Arethusa and the Aethyiae, which suggest the Alexandrians' fondness for recondite local legends).

26 Frs. 214ff. M.-W. So Malten, op. cit. (n. 16); Renner, op. cit. (n. 17), p. 285; Janko, op. cit. (n. 15), pp. 209–10. Cyrene is Actaeon's paternal grandmother. For Cyrene's grandchild to be treated in her Eoea would be in keeping with the practice of the Catalogue elsewhere (cf. Casanova, op. cit. [n. 17], pp. 31ff.; Renner, op. cit. [n. 17], p. 285 n. 13).

27 In his discussion of the important role of Cyrene in Callimachus' poetry, Pfeiffer (op. cit. [n. 1], pp. xxxviii–xxxix) cites among other passages Hymn 2.71ff. It would appear that to the many things Callimachus' fifth and sixth Hymns have in common (for which, see Hopkinson, op. cit. [n. 4], pp. 13–17) we should now add reference to a Hesiodic Eoea. In the sixth Hymn Callimachus very probably alluded to the Eoea of Mestra (for discussion, see Hopkinson, 18–26).

28 Schol. Pind. Pyth. 4.182 Drachmann.

29 Lobel, op. cit. (n. 17), p. 6. When Chariclo is depicted on archaic vases, she is regularly in the company of Chiron. For example, on two sixth-century vases, Sophilos' Erskine Dinos (London, BM 1971.11–I.I), and Kleitias' ‘François Vase’ (Florence, Mus. Arch. 4209), she is depicted along with Chiron and other divine guests at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (in both cases her inscribed name identifies her). In both representations, Chariclo is accompanied by Demeter and Hestia; Chiron either precedes them or follows behind. See LIMC III.1.190 and III.2.150–1.

31 To which cf. Eum. 736–8:

For Athena's motherless birth cf. also Hes. fr. 343 M.-W.; h. Hymn 28; Il. 5.875; Pind. Ol. 7.35 and Σ ad. loc. Kauer, S., Die Geburt der Athena im altgriechischen Epos (Würzburg, 1959)Google Scholar, discuss the evidence.

32 Line 82: μν ἔϕα, παιδς δ᾽ ὂμματα νὺξ ἔλαβεν. Cf. Bulloch, p. 189, for whom ‘Athena and the blinding are separate’. Schol. Hom, κ 494 (ii. 475 Dindorf) = Hes. fr. 275 M.-W. says of Hera's response: μν Ἣρα ργισθεισα πρωσεν. Schol. Lycophr. 683 (ii. 226 Scheer): ργισθεισα δ Ἣρα τϕλωσεν αὐτν.

33 Call, lines 120–30, which relate the same gifts as Zeus is reported to have given in the Melampodia (in most accounts, μαντικν κα πολυχρνιον ζων, as stated by Schol. Lycophr. 683 [ii. 226 Scheer]): see M.-W. fr. 275.

34 On Callimachus' other uses in this poem of ‘objets troués’ see Haslam, op. cit. (n. 13), pp. 123–4.

35 Of course, we do not know this is a ‘frame’ until we have read the poem once through. For discussion of the ‘mimetic’ (as opposed to the ‘diegetic’) aspect of the fifth Hymn, see Harder, M. Annette, ‘Insubstantial Voices: Some Observations on the Hymns of Callimachus’, CQ 42 (1992), 384–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some recent scholars have analysed the ‘mimetic’ aspects of Callimachus' hymns in terms of the conventions of choral and ritual poetry: Falivene, M. R., ‘La mimesi in Callimaco: Inni II, IV, Ve VI’, Quad. Urb. 65 (1990), 103–28Google Scholar; Hunter, R., ‘Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena’, MD 29 (1992), pp. 12–13Google Scholar; Fantuzzi, M., ‘Preistoria di un genere letterario: a proposito degli Inni V e VI di Callimaco’, in Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all'età ellenistica: Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili (Rome, 1993)Google Scholar; three papers in Hellenistica Groningana I (Groningen, 1993)Google Scholar: Calame, C., ‘Legendary Narration and Poetic Procedure in Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo’Google Scholar; Depew, M., ‘Mimesis and Aetiology in Callimachus' Hymns’Google Scholar; Henrichs, A., ‘Gods in Action: The Poetics of Divine Performance in the Hymns of Callimachus’.Google Scholar

36 Danielewicz, J., in ‘Deixis in Greek Choral Lyric’, Quad. Urb. 34 (1990), pp. 7–17Google Scholar, examines this phenomenon in Greek choral lyric; for discussion of Callimachus' use of such conventions, see Harder, op. cit. (n. 35), pp. 389–90.

37 See Bulloch, pp. 4ff. and Harder, op. cit. (n. 35), p. 384 n. 2, for the history of this question. In his forthcoming Callimachus and his Critics, Alan Cameron revives Cahen's suggestion that the hymns could have been performed at ritual celebrations, but ‘outside the formal framework of the festival itself’ (Cahen, E., Callimaque et son oeuvre poétique [Paris, 1929], p. 281)Google Scholar. Cameron suggests, for example, that they could have been performed in poetic contests.

38 Bulloch, p. 5 and Harder, op. cit. (n. 35), pp. 387–90, 394.

39 Bulloch undercuts the force of his statement by quoting with approval in his next sentence P. Friedländer, whose understanding of the purpose of the fifth hymn's ‘mimetic’ section is not atypical of many more recent readings. Since the Hellenistic period lacked the cultic, political and social contexts in which earlier poetry arose and had meaning, ‘[s]ie muss erst Gemeinschaft um sich zu gründen versuchen, und muss den Lebenszusammenhang, der nicht mehr gegeben ist, mit Kunst hervorbringen…’. (‘Vorklassisch und Nachklassisch’, in Jaeger, W. [ed.], Das Problem des Klassischen und die Antike [Leipzig and Berlin, 1931], pp. 35fGoogle Scholar., quoted by Bulloch, p. 5.)

40 On the important role of ‘epiphany’ in this hymn, and its connection with Athena's birth, see Hunter, op. cit. (n. 35), pp. 11–12.

41 For examples of such verbs (e.g. ἔρπε, λθ, πινσεο, ϕνηθι, μλε) and their use see Bremer, J. M., ‘Greek Hymns’, in Versnel, H. S. (ed.), Faith, Hope and Worship (Leiden, 1981), p. 194.Google Scholar

42 So Bulloch, p. 110.

43 Cf. e.g. ‘Paean Erythraeus’, CA, p. 136, v. 1 εσατε; CA, p. 138 v. 2 εὐϕημ[εῖτε; Socrates’ parody at Ar. Nu. 263–74. The passage that Bulloch cites when he notes that Callimachus is recalling ritual invocations (Eur. fr. 773.66ff. [Phaethon 99ff.]) is not from a hymn.

44 A point noted by Renehan, R., ‘Curae Callimacheae’, CP 82 (1987), p. 244.Google Scholar

45 Wilamowitz, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 16; Bulloch, p. 116; Norden, E., Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (Leipzig, 1913), pp. 143ffGoogle Scholar.; cf. Hunter, op. cit. (n. 35), pp. 13–15 for criticism of literalist interpretations. Commentators cite the Athenian Plynteria as the closest parallel to the ritual that the speaker is describing (e.g. Bulloch, pp. 9ff.). What has not been taken into account is that the Athenian Plynteria probably did not involve the removal and washing of the statue of Athena Polias. As the word indicates, the statue's peplos and other garments were washed; the statue itself would not have left the Erechtheum. (Farnell, L. R., The Cults of the Greek States [New York, 1977], vol. I, pp. 261fGoogle Scholar. and 262a, points out that the verb πλνειν properly refers to washing clothes and not a statue; cf. also Burkert, W., ‘Buzyge und Palladion: Gewalt und Gericht in altgriechischem Ritual’, Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 22 [1970], 359 and n. 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. also Romano, I. B., ‘Early Greek Cult Images and Cult Practices’, in Hägg, R., Marinatos, N., Nordquist, G. C. (edd.), Early Greek Cult Practice, Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens [Stockholm, 1988].)Google ScholarA fortiori, horses neither drew the image nor were washed with it. But there was another Athenian washing ceremony which bears interesting points of resemblance to what Callimachus tells us about the Argive ritual. Another statue of Athena – a Palladion – was yearly escorted by ephebes to Phaleron, bathed, and brought back to the city by torchlight (IG II/III2 1006,11; 1011,10f.) In this ceremony oxen–not horses – accompanied the image, and it is thought that they were bathed along with it. The opening scene of Callimachus' hymn has described the activity prior to the cleansing of a Palladion (cf. Bulloch, p. 111). In the context Athena is described as returning from her triumph over the Giants. If an Athenian ceremony is suggested, it is more likely to be the city's cleansing of its Palladion, a statue important to a cult celebrating the rational goddess of war and counsel, who is elsewhere connected with the Eumenides of the Areopagus.

46 Apollod. I.6. As Bulloch points out (p. 118), in many ancient sources the name Pallas (line 1) is said to have originated from the Gigantomachia. Palladia were representations of Athena in arms; the epithet Παλλς is used of the goddess particularly as a warrior-goddess (ancient etymologies of the word usually derive Παλλς from battle-activity of some kind). The epithet sets the tone for the characterization that follows.

47 E.g. Il. 10.572–9. Actually, the bathing of heroes in epic occurs more often after journeys (e.g. Od. 3.464–9, 4.48–51, 17.87–90) or death (cf. e.g. Il. 16.678–83).

48 Contra, Bulloch, pp. 116–17. For Bulloch lines 13–32 establish Athena as ‘a real feminine beauty’ (46) a goddess to whom Tiresias might well be attracted (cf. especially pp. 19–25). The debt this paper owes to Bulloch's commentary is everywhere apparent, but as the following argument shows, I disagree with him on this point in particular.

49 Griffiths, A., review of Bulloch, JHS 108 (1988), p. 232.Google Scholar

50 In line with his reading of this poem as an encomium of Athena, J. Heath, ‘The Blessings of Epiphany in Callimachus' Bath of Pallas’, CA 7 (1988), p. 73Google Scholar, takes Athena's care for her horses as a sign of her compassion. That this is a quality conspicuously absent from Athena's portrayal in this poem will become clear within the course of this paper.

51 For the bathing and dressing of males as a typical scene in epic cf. Arend, W., ‘Die typischen Szenen bei Homer’, Problemata 7 (1933), 124ffGoogle Scholar. Extending Arend's work on Homeric type scenes, Sowa has examined feminine bath and dressing scenes in Homer, Hesiod and the Homeric hymns: Sowa, C. A., Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (Chicago, 1984).Google Scholar

52 Od. 17.87–90, which describes Telemachus' return to Ithaca, includes all three elements:

53 E.g. h. Hom. Ven. 61–5 (Aphrodite is bathed λαῳ | μβρτῳ, clothed and decked with gold); Il. 14.170–214 (Hera bathes with ambrosia, perfumes and clothes herself with a robe made by Athena and with Aphrodite's girdle); Od. 18.192–4 (Athena cleanses Penelope's face κλλει μβροσῳ).

54 Theog. 573–5, Op. 72; Athena teaches Pandora needlework and weaving at Op. 63–4.

55 Od. 18.190–6. Odysseus bathes in typical masculine fashion, but is then beautified by Athena before his ‘seduction’ of Nausicaa (Od. 6.229–35) and Penelope (Od. 23.156–63).

56 On the Greek perception of scented oils as effeminate cf. Bulloch, pp. 124–5; Athena's preference here is decidedly masculine.

57 E.g. Bulloch, pp. 126–7; Heath, op. cit. (n. 50), p. 74.

58 For Bulloch this statement creates ‘the establishment of Athena early on in this section as a strong competitor in the Contest’ (p. 127). A similar contrast between these two goddesses is made in Soph. fr. 361 (ap. Athen. Deipn. 15.687c), where Aphrodite attracts Paris μρῳ λειϕομνη. Athena, on the other hand, can only offer ϕρνησις and νος. Also of interest is the beginning of the h. Hom. Ven. (7–33), in which the poet characterizes Aphrodite by comparing her to other goddesses (Athena, Artemis and Hestia). In a contrast not unlike the one Callimachus is making, cf. Il. 5.428–30 (Zeus to Aphrodite): οὔ τοι, τκνον μν δδοται πολεμια ἒργα, | λλ σ γ' ἱμερεντα μετρχεο ἒργα γμοιο, | τατα δ᾽ Ἄρηι θοῷ κα Ἀθλνῃ πντα μελσει.

59 For their athleticism, cf. Pind. N. 10.51, Theocr. Id. 22.24, Paus. 2.34.10, 5.8.4; for their horsemanship, Alcm. 9, h. Hom. 33.18, Eur. Hel. 1495; cf. also Theocr. 22.24.; Bethe in RE, ‘Dioskuren’, 1092–4.

60 As pointed out by Altheim, F., Epochen der römischen Geschichte, vol. II (Frankfurt, 1935), p. 133.Google Scholar

61 In order to counter the irony that mention of the κρσις introduces, Bulloch (pp. 131–40) interprets the comparison with Castor and Polydeuces as an allusion to Theocr. 18.22–32, in which a chorus of young girls sing an epithalamium for Helen and Menelaus. Bulloch sees Theocritus' description of Helen as ρ'οδχρως Ἑλνα (31) as the focus of the allusion: ‘Athena at her moment of beauty suggests the incomparable Helen’ (p. 138). Bulloch is correct in seeing in the Callimachean passage a connection to the Theocritean, but two points need to be made. First, Callimachus specifically compares Athena to two male Spartans. Secondly, Theocritus describes Helen's complexion in the way Greek poetry traditionally describes feminine beauty, that is, not only in terms of her blush but in terms of the whiteness of her skin (26–7). Athena's face, on the other hand, is simply flushed after exercise: ὧ κραι, τ δ᾽ ἒρευθος νδραμε. If the Callimachean passage recalls the Theocritean, it is to define Athena in terms of attributes she lacks, and if Callimachus is alluding to Theocritus' epithalamium (an allusion which would be, as Renehan has noted [op. cit., n. 44, p. 247], inappropriate in a description of the virgin warrior goddess), Helen must take her place beside Aphrodite and Hera, not with Athena. Perhaps we should note that in the Theocritean passage Helen is described as singing of Artemis and Athena (35–7). In addition to differentiating Athena from Helen, Callimachus may be suggesting what he is about to do in his own song.

62 E.g. the description of Athena at h. Hom. Ven. 8–15 (at line 8 she is called κορην τ’ αἰγιχοιο Δις). For other sources see Bulloch, p. 127, n. 1.

63 Renehan, op. cit. (n. 44), p. 247, makes a similar point about the comparison, but I would take his observation one step further and note that the contrast made by δς μετθηκε in 22 sets up Athena's assimilation to these legendary men's men (the ἂρσενα τκνα Δις, as Theocritus calls the Dioscuri (Id. 22.4).

64 Cf. e.g. the parody of gods in council at the beginning of the third book of Apollonius' Argonautica (25ff.).

65 P. 142.

66 Such as bridle making, lines 9–12. For Athena Χαλινῖτις cf., e.g., h. Hom. Ven. 12–13; Hes. Op. 429–31; Pind. Ol. 13.65; Paus. 2.4.1 or Eur. Tro. 9–14 (cf. Od. 8.492–5), where Athena inspires the skill necessary for making the Trojan Horse.

67 The term was suggested to me by R. Janko.

68 As Bulloch points out (p. 45), the speaker now addresses Athena herself in the ‘du-Stil’ typical of cult hymns, and the following portion of the poem (33–56) resembles a conventional ‘epicletic’ section. In fact, the section elaborates the characterization established in the first 32 lines. Two couplets (33–4 and 43–4), each addressed to Athena and each beginning ἔξιθ᾽ Ἀθαναα, surround the poem's third aetiological exemplum. The presence in the procession of Diomedes' shield is ‘explained’ by a mythological exemplum (35–42): the practice was taught to the Argives by Eumedes, who, banished from his own country, took the Palladion and fled with it to Mt. Kreios, where he placed it on the rocks that are now eponymously called Pallatids. Eumedes is Athena's κεχαρισμνος ἱρες; he is in a relation of χρις to the goddess. It is therefore striking that the content of the passage's capping couplet emphasizes not Athena's protection to those who deserve it, but instead her power to destroy. In 43 she is called περσπτολι, ‘sacker of cities’. This is a rare epithet, and it contrasts markedly with its more common antonym, ρυσπτολις, which is often applied to Athena (e.g. Il. 6.305; cf. Bulloch on v. 43). In line with the poem's earlier description of her, in the same verse Athena is also called χρυσεοπληξ, ‘golden-helmed’, an epithet which is used otherwise only of Ares (cf. Bulloch, p. 153 and n. 3 for citations). Athena ‘delights in the crash of horses and of shields’ (44), and her inclination to protect those who are in a right relationship to her is juxtaposed with an equal proclivity to destroy. In this context the warnings in 45–52 (μ βπτετε, πνετ᾽, οἲσετε, ϕρξεο) do not resemble the neutral prohibitions connected in the first 32 lines with the ceremony. Their distinctly ominous ring influences our reading of the myth.

69 Cf. Bulloch, p. 132.

70 Cf. e.g. Zeus' aloof response to human suffering at Il. 2.419.

71 P. 194.

72 Pfeiffer (following Wilamowitz) and Bulloch print in all three instances (lines 89–90), but the latter two are surely vocatives, since the mountain is directly addressed (παριτ, 90; πρξαο, 91).

73 The repetition of λαγνας from 6 above, where it was used of Athena's horses, suggests that the sight Tiresias saw was not one to inspire lust; contra, Hutchinson, G. O., Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford, 1990), p. 35Google Scholar; Hunter, op. cit., n. 35, p. 25.

74 88–9: offence/punishment ~ 91: punishment/offence ~ 91–2: offence/punishment.

75 See Bulloch, pp. 205–7 for citations; the passage also evokes Soph. Aj. 625ff., where Ajax's mother laments her son, whose misfortune also depends on Athena.

76 This passage expresses an even stronger appeal to the ‘audience's’ emotions than its Homeric predecessor: a mother's love for her child was widely recognized in Greece as the most powerful of affective bonds. Cf. e.g. Arist. EN 1159a27–33; Lys. 31.22; Xen. Mem. 2.2.13. For discussion see Blundell, M. W., Helping Friends and Harming Enemies (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 40ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Heinze first suggested that since the elegiac metre had some traditional association with lament, its use here may be explained by this focus in the narrative (Heinze, R., ‘Ovids elegische Erzählung’, Sitzungsberichte der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Phil.-Hist. Klasse 71, no. 7 [1919], p. 95)Google Scholar. For elegy's use in threnody cf. Page, D. L., Greek Poetry and Life (Oxford, 1936), pp. 206–30Google Scholar; Harvey, A. E., ‘The Classification of Greek Lyric Poetry’, CQ n.s. 5 (1955), 168–72Google Scholar. There is reason to question the existence of an earlier genre of elegiac threnody, and Bulloch does so, but his rejection of this account of the poem's metre by arguing that the narrative ends in a positive solution with the goddess's gifts of compensation is too optimistic (33f.). For the widening generic range of the elegiac couplet in the late classical period, see Hutchinson, op. cit. (n. 73), pp. 15–17. Hunter (op. cit., n. 35, pp. 18–22) explores how Callimachus exploits here the associations of the elegiac metre with the threnoi of Attic tragedy.

77 Χαρικλος δ δεομνης ποκαταστσαι πλιν τς ρσεις, Ps. Apollod. 3.6.7.

78 Cf. Quint. 7.4.13f. (= Hermagoras' defence category of μετστασις). I can see no reason to agree with Heath, op. cit. (n. 50), p. 78, who sees Athena's efforts here to distance herself from the deed as an indication that she feels there is something unjust in what she has done. Her denial is simply what would be in another context (and one very familiar to her) part of an effective defence.

79 For the sentiment in a παραμυθητικς λγος, cf. Russell, D. A. and Wilson, N. G. (edd.), Menander Rhetor (Oxford, 1981), p. 413.Google Scholar