SOURCE: "The Quarrel between Callimachus and Apollonius," in Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Rudolf Habelt Verlag GMBH, 1980, pp. 1-19.

[In the following essay, Lefkowitz examines the contradictory evidence concerning the famous quarrel between Apollonius and Callimachus and explains the positions held by each of the two poets.]

I. The Evidence

Before I ever read a line of Apollonius I learned from my First Year Greek text that he was the target of Callimachus' quip: "a big book is a big evil" (F 465). Every assessment of Apollonius' work takes account of his alleged differences with Callimachus,¹ although no surviving text by either poet refers directly to a quarrel. The evidence derives from interpretation of Callimachus' statements about poetry and from ancient biographies. Callimachus is said in the Suda to have written "a poem distinguished for its obscurity and abuse … against a certain Ibis who was an enemy of Callimachus—this was Apollonius who wrote the Argonautica" (T 1. 13-15/T 39-40). According to the ancient Lives, Apollonius was a pupil … of Callimachus (Vit.A.8, B.5 Wendel). Callimachus also is said to have had something to do with the rejection of Apollonius' Argonautica and his consequent exile to Rhodes: "[Apollonius] was a pupil of Callimachus in Alexandria, who was a scholar, and he wrote his poems and recited them. Since he was very unlucky and embarrassed he went to Rhodes" (Vit.B. 5-7). "First he was closely associated with Callimachus, his own master … and turned late in life to composing poetry. And it is said that while still a young man he gave a recitation of the Argonautica and was condemned" (Vit.A. 8-11), left for Rhodes, revised the poem, which was well received. According to Vita B, "some say he went back to Alexandria and recited his poem once again and was held in highest regard, so that he was thought worthy of the libraries and the Mouseion and buried next to Callimachus himself (11-14). According to a papyrus list of librarians (POxy 1241/T 13), Apollonius was an Alexandrian who was called … a Rhodian, an acquaintance … of Callimachus; he was also teacher of the third (or fifth? the ms. reads "first") king; Eratosthenes succeeded him …, and then Aristophanes of Byzantium. Apollonius' Suda biography (Call. T. 12) makes him Eratosthenes' successor … under Ptolemy III Euergetes.

There are significant inconsistencies in this evidence: (1) Apollonius is said to have written the Argonautica as a young man and turned to writing poetry late in life; (2) he was sent into permanent exile in Rhodes and allowed to return and to be buried next to Callimachus; (3) he was teacher of Ptolemy III Euergetes or Ptolemy V Epiphanes, depending upon whether one reads triton or pempton where the ms. reads prōton. Scholars have tried to work round these inconsistencies because the notion of a literary quarrel seems to be supported by what Callimachus says elsewhere about epic poetry. Vian suggests three possible chronologies of Apollonius' birth (295, 300, 265) and proposes for the composition of the Argonautica a date (250-240) that would fit any of them.² He links the failure of the Argonautica with Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo, which he dates to 246. At the end of that hymn Callimachus compares himself to the "poet who signs as much as the sea," whose work is like the Assyrian river with its mud and trash (106-112). The scholia to the passage state that Callimachus is criticizing the people who made fun of him because he could not write a big poem, so as a result he was compelled to write the Hecale (Ó Hymn 2.106/T 37).

Callimachus also suggests that he has adversaries in the prologue to the Aetia (F 1): "Telchines mutter at my song, ignorant men, who are no friends of the Muse, because I didn't complete one continuous song … about kings … or heroes in thousands of lines but instead like a child roll out a tiny tale" (1-5). A little later he describes how Apollo advised him to keep his Muse thin, and to "walk on untrodden paths" (23ff). The scholia to the Aetia prologue (I p.3 Pf) identify the Telchines as two Dionysii, Asclepiades, Posidippus, Praxiphanes,. and two fragmentary names, but Apollonius isn't on the list, and there doesn't appear to be room for him in the papyrus. None the less scholars are inclined to maintain that there is at least a general connection. Vian observes that the lines are directed against the kind of poetry that Apollonius wrote.³ Fraser observes that not only had Apollonius borrowed from Callimachus the notion of Aetia and numerous lines and phrases, but that he had used them in a manner "changed almost out of recognition."⁴

The notion of a Quarrel with Apollonius gains support from testimonia about other contemporary literary disputes. Callimachus is said to have praised his contemporary Aratus in his Pros Praxiphanen (Call. F 460/Prax. F 16 Wehrli = T 5a Brink; cf. Call. Ep. 27); the scholia list Praxiphanes as one of the Telchines. Somewhere, perhaps even in this same work, Callimachus is said to have criticized Plato for praising the poet Antimachus (F 589). Callimachus in an epigram had called Antimachus' poem Lyde "a fat writing … and not incisive" (F 398). Then there is the comment "Callimachus the grammarian said a big book is like a big evil" (F 465), which despite what I was told in First Year Greek, doesn't refer specifically to the work of Apollonius or any particular poet.

Epigrams by contemporaries of Callimachus reinforce the impression of a literary battle between Callimachus and other poets. An epigram attributed to Apollonius calls Callimachus "refuse, triviality, wooden-head; the cause of the trouble is Callimachus who wrote the Causes" (13 Powell/ EG 947-8/ AP 11. 276). Asclepiades wrote an epigram in praise of the epic Lyde: "who has not sung of me, who has not read Lyde, the joint work … of Antimachus and of the Muses" (958ff G-P). His (or Posidippus') epigram describing young men in a brothel as "colts of the night now snorting" … (977 G.P) is said to be a parody of Callimachus' description in his Hymn to Athena of the sacred horses sensing the presence of the approaching goddess.…⁵ Couat imagines "a war of epigrams and pamphlets, all of which are now lost, and in which the master's poems and theories had not been spared." He draws on the story in the Vitae of Callimachus' early support for Apollonius to explain the intensity of the argument: "the attacks made by Apollonius knew no bounds; even granted that Callimachus had wronged him, respect and memory of other days ought to have held him back."⁶ Fraser speaks of the "rather fiery and authoritative temperament of Callimachus;" in addition to the intellectual rift between them, and the break in their "previously close" relationship, he deduces from the information in the Vitae that Apollonius was a native Alexandrian and that Callimachus, an aristocratic Cyrenean (Ep. 21) may have been contemptuous of Apollonius' origins.⁷

All this sounds plausible, especially to Europeans with literary affiliations and sensitivities to the importance of social rank. Scholars doubt some of the traditions and emphasize the importance of others, but no one, not even Wilamowitz, appears systematically to have investigated the sources of the data about these literary feuds. My own work on biographies of ancient poets has led me to be very sceptical of all information supplied by ancient biographers.⁸ I would argue, for example, that the story that Sophocles kept a cult of Asclepius (T 67 Radt) is no more reliable than any of the three (different) accounts of his death, and that virtually all anecdotes about Sophocles derive from his poetry, either directly, or in the form of more or less fanciful aetiologies: Sophocles wrote a paean to Asclepius (T 73a/PMG 737); Sophocles is said to have died while reciting or while winning the prize for his most famous play, the Antigone (Vit. 14), or in a manner connected with the god of tragedy, Dionysus, by choking on a raw grape at the festival of the Choes (FGrHist 334F37). In the case of the Quarrel between Callimachus and Apollonius, I propose that the ultimate source of the biographers' information is poetry by and about Callimachus and Apollonius. Not directly, of course, but through that curious process of objectification that characterizes ancient scholarship, by which the humorous is taken seriously, and conventional metaphor is interpreted as literal fact.

II. Callimachus

As I have tried to show elsewhere, poet's statements about their own poetry, like the end of the Hymn to Apollo or the Aetia prologue are particularly susceptible to misunderstanding. Anyone who has read the Pindar scholia will recognize the process: when the poet makes combative references to himself in opposition to others, the others are identified as specific individuals, Bacchylides or Simonides, no matter how generically they are described, whether as athletes, jackdaws, or as "shrill-voiced birds" or as a "pair of crows."⁹ But such statements are conventional; all archaic poets use them.¹⁰ Their function is to show the essential superiority of the present author. Aristophanes repeatedly claims in parabaseis that he is not only a better poet, but more elegant and less crude than his contemporaries (e.g., Ach. 629, Eq. 507, Nub. 518, Vesp. 1015, Pax 734, cf. Ran. 12ff). In Aristophanes' Vita such conventional claims emerge as literary history: "it was he who first decided to transform comedy, which was still wandering around in the old style, into something more constructive and serious; comedy had previously been more spiteful and shameful because the poets Cratinus and Eupolis had uttered more slander than was appropriate" (xxviii. 2-5 Koster). The idea of Art as a wayward and shameless female is another comic topos (Ran. 939-41, cf. Nub. 537; Pherecrates F 145 Kock).

At the end of the Hymn to Apollo Callimachus makes a declaration of his own excellence along the lines of one of Pindar's first personal statements.¹¹ …

Pindar speaks of envious people, but since he likes to talk about his own achievement in terms of his victor's success, he does not specify whether they are other poets or even what they are envious of (e.g., Nem. 4. 36ff, Pyth. 2. 88ff, Pyth. 1.81ff). In Hymn 2 Callimachus brings in Envy and Blame, but talks exclusively about poetry: Envy says to the subject of his hymn, Apollo, "I don't admire the bard whose song is not even as great as the sea" (106). Frederick Williams in his new commentary suggests that the sea signifies Homer; in other words, Envy disapproves of the poet who can't write a Homeric Hymn. Apollo responds with a gesture of contempt. He ignores Envy's contention, assuming that no one can match Homer,¹² and answers with a topos that for Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Quintilian had come to signify the relationship between Homer and other poets: Homer is the source of all rivers and springs.¹³ When Apollo states that a river like the Euphrates is big but full of mud and refuse, while the small stream retains the purity of its origins, he suggests that ambitious, indiscriminate poems compare less favorably to Homer than a poem on a small scale that retains an essence of the original. Since Pindar refers to his poetry as "the holy water of Dirce" (Isth. 6. 74), it is natural to assume that by the "pure and undefiled" spring Callimachus means his own Hymn to Apollo—I am assuming that like Thuc. (iii. 104.4-5) he regarded h.Hom.Ap. as one hymn, by the author of the Iliad.¹⁴ In making his comparison between the river and the spring, Callimachus doesn't specify what makes his hymn "pure" or whom (if anyone) he means by the Assyrian river. He might have had in mind an epic like the Cypria, which is big (11 books),¹⁵ and in comparison to Homer, unheroic and diffuse;¹⁶ he might have been thinking of Creophylus,¹⁷ but he doesn't say. The point is rather that his small hymn, for whatever reason, is closer to the source. Williams suggests that the affinity derives from Callimachus' profound knowledge of Homer, which allows him to apply an unusual word or phrase to a new and unexpected, yet appropriate context.¹⁸ But the scholia to the end of Callimachus' hymn offer a more mechanical interpretation, equating the sea with the "big stream" of the Euphrates river: "on account of this [not singing a song as great as the sea], he criticizes those who made fun of him for not being able to write a big poem, for which reason he was compelled to write the Hecale" (Ó Hymn 2. 106/T 37). Ancient commentators characteristically sought out particular incidents to "explain" what poets deliberately left general and metaphorical. When Pindar, in calling attention to the need for due measure in praise, speaks of triumphing over envious "enemies," the scholia specify: "this seems to pertain to Simonides, since he liked to use digressions" (ÓNem. 4. 60b). When Pindar claims in Nem. 7 that he did not "savage Neoptolemus in ruthless words" by telling the myth about his sacking Apollo's temple, Aristarchus' pupil Aristodemus specified that Pindar was apologizing to the Aeginetans for what he said about Neoptolemus in his Paeans (Ó Nem. 7. 150a).¹⁹

Callimachus tells us more about his poetry in the Aetia prologue, but still in metaphorical terms. He begins negatively, as Pindar often does, by talking about his "enemies:" …

" … Telchines mutter at my song, ignorant men, no friends of the Muse, because I did not complete one continuous song in thousands of lines … on kings … and heroes … but roll out a tiny tale, like a child, even though the decades of my years are not few" (F 1. 1-6). Callimachus speaks of the Telchines without referring directly to any of their established attributes: they were first inhabitants of Rhodes, wizards, jealous of teaching their skills to others (Diod. Sic. v. 55. 1-3), put to death on Ceos by the gods for their hybris (Call F. 75. 64-5).²⁰ Instead they appear in the Aetia prologue as "ignorant, no friends of the Muse." Heraclitus, in what has been taken to be the prologue of his work, speaks of other men as "unable to understand" (… 22B1); Pindar speaks of other poets, "like a pair of crows talking words not to be fulfilled against Zeus' sacred bird" (O1. 2. 87-88). The Telchines complain that Callimachus' song (i.e., the present poem, the Aetia) isn't an epic (i.e., a continous story thousands of lines long about kings and heroes); that he tells "a tiny tale, like a child" even though he is an old man. His reply answers all these charges with ironic exaggeration: someone else can sing epic themes; "little nightingales" sing more sweetly (16). The Telchines, the race of the "evil eye"… should go away; poetry should be judged by art, not by length; he doesn't make a big noise, because it's Zeus' job to thunder (17-20).

Callimachus concludes his own defense by saying that he has been following advice Apollo gave him when he was a schoolboy: "fatten sacrificial victims but keep the Muse slender" (23-4); Euripides says in Aristophanes' Frogs that he put tragedy on a diet after she had been stuffed with Aeschylus' heavy words (939-41).²¹ Apollo commands Callimachus: "don't walk on wagon roads, or drive your chariot in others' footsteps along the wide road, but stay on the narrow path" (25-8); Pindar advises his chorus to "sing songs of praise, not by going down the worn wagon-road of Homer, but with different horses" (F 52b. 10-2; cf. Pyth. 4. 247). Callimachus says (29ff) that he sings among those who like the shrill voice of cicadas, not the braying of asses; then he suggests that he, through his song, can become a cicada himself, able to shed old age. This claim appears to be another literary allusion, to a biographical tradition of the fifth century, about Hesiod's vigorous old age; according to an epigram attributed to Pindar, Hesiod "was a young man twice" (EG 428).²²"

By alluding to Aristophanes, Pindar, and Hesiod, Callimachus establishes that he is talking as a poet about his claims for his art. The allusions also convey with great economy what he means the Aetia to be: as elegant and light as Aristophanes' idea of Euripides' verse, as original as Pindar's, and as immortal (or significant) as Hesiod's. The description of the muttering Telchines makes a dramatic introduction to the prologue; dialogue provides more excitement than a simple narrative about his work. It's important to remember that the Telchines and his reply to them, like Apollo's speech, represent a fictitious situation: the Aetia prologue was not intended as a report of an actual historical event any more than the first person statements in Pindar's victory odes. To refer to the Aetia prologue as "Reply to the Telchines" is rather like calling the end of Pythian 2 "Reply to the Foxes."²³

Where did the scholia to the Aetia prologue get the names for the Telchines: the two Dionysii, Asclepiades, Posidippus, the orator … yrippus, and Praxiphanes of Mytilene? We don't know anything about the Dionysii or the orator, but I would suggest that Asclepiades and Posidippus appear on the list because they wrote epigrams praising the Lyde. Callimachus in an epigram called the Lyde "fat" (… F 398); in the Aetia prologue he says sacrificial victims should be "as fat as possible" … but the Muse should stay thin. The verbal correspondence suggests a link between the general metaphor of the Aetia prologue and the specific target of Callimachus' epigram; his epigram could be seen to be answering (or answered by) Asclepiades' and Posidippus',²⁴ the way Chamaeleon represents Sappho as answering Anacreon's poem about the girl from Lesbos (F 26 Wehrli). Biographers were eager to establish connections between famous poets.²⁵ Hermesianax records the chronologically impossible story about Sappho and Anacreon, along with the more plausible story about a love affair between Sappho and Alcaeus (F 7. 47ff).

In the literary tradition Callimachus is represented as "disparaging Antimachus' Lyde in his epigram" (F 398); but biographers were capable of attributing to an author the words of a participant in a dialogue. Philemon, not a character in his play, is said in the Euripides Vita to have wished to hang himself to see Euripides.²⁶ Other evidence suggests that Callimachus made positive use of Antimachus' poetry: Philodemus says that Callimachus "took over" … Antimachus' version of the story of Apollo's birth, perhaps (since it is the story of a heroine) from the Lyde itself.²⁷ Scholars have assumed that Callimachus resented Asclepiades' (or Posidippus') adaptation into an obscene poem of a phrase from his Hymn to Athena; but this is to assume that Callimachus would have regarded the adaptation as parody.²⁸ Since he did not share our Victorian notions about brothels, he might have regarded it as an amusing compliment, if indeed he did not, with his elegant irony, adapt the line from Asclepiades himself.²⁹

It is easier to explain the presence in the scholia list of Praxiphanes of Mytilene. Callimachus was said to have written a work against him: "Callimachus mentioned Aratus not only in his epigrams but in his Against Praxiphanes, praising [Aratus] as a learned man and an excellent poet" (F 460/Prax. F 16 Wehrli). No other fragment of this work survives, but Pfeiffer suggests it was a prose monograph like Apollonius' "Against Zenodotus."³⁰ That work appears to have concerned readings in Homer,³¹ so by analogy "Against Praxiphanes" might have involved assessment of other poets like Aratus. Callimachus in his poetry appears to have defended passages obelized by other scholars;³² even Aristarchus defended Homer against Praxiphanes, who was "surprised" that Odysseus in Od. 11 asked his mother about Telemachus and Penelope only at the end of his speech (F 20).

The existence of a work "Against Praxiphanes" explains Praxiphanes' presence on the scholia list, but there isn't any secure evidence that Praxiphanes himself complained about Callimachus. Brink argues that like other members of the "School of Aristotle" Praxiphanes approved of the long epics Callimachus disdains at the end of the Hymn to Apollo and in the Aetia prologue.³³ But the statement in the scholia that the Telchines "criticized [Callimachus] for the meagerness of his verse and because he did not admire length" (F 1. 9ff) is simply a prose gloss of Callimachus' metaphors, the way Pindar's elaborate comments about due measure in Nem. 4 are represented in the scholia as "the law of the encomion prevents me from making long digressions," with his "enemies" specified as one individual, Simonides, "since he liked to make digressions" (Ó Nem. 4. 60b).

It has also been suggested that Callimachus opposed Praxiphanes because they disagreed in their assessment of Plato. Praxiphanes' attitude could be inferred to be favorable because Praxiphanes wrote a dialogue On Poems or On Poets that featured Plato and Isocrates as characters.³⁴ Callimachus, on the other hand, is said to have considered Plato a poor judge of poetry (F 589). But here again we may be in danger of demanding too much from the kind of evidence provided by summaries and excerpts. Just because Praxiphanes wrote a dialogue about Plato there is no reason to think that his views were any more consistently complimentary than (say) Satyrus' views of Euripides.³⁵ Also there is the question of the nature of Praxiphanes' sources for his dialogue "at a country house with Plato entertaining Isocrates" (F 11 Wehrli). In addition to what Plato and Isocrates said about each other in their writings,³⁶ Praxiphanes had access to characterizations of Plato in comedy: there are twelve references to Plato in fragments of fourth century plays.³⁷ Praxiphanes is said to have complained that Plato in the Timaeus (27c) first stated the obvious and then put an ordinal after a series of cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3, 4th); Proclus tells the story seriously, but it sounds like the kind of philosophical nitpicking practised by Socrates in Aristophanes' Clouds (662-7).³⁸ So in the end Praxiphanes may have agreed with Callimachus about Plato; Proclus says Duris of Samos shared Callimachus' opinion (FGrHist 76F83), and Duris drew his information from peripatetics like Praxiphanes.³⁹

At least the conjunction in Proclus' commentary of the names Antimachus, Plato, Callimachus, and Duris can show us how originally separate events can be combined and distinct motives conflated.⁴⁰ I am inclined to believe that the names Asclepiades, Posidippus, and Praxiphanes got into the Aetia scholia by a similar process of condensation and association, and that Callimachus' original epigram about Antimachus' Lyde need not have been meant more seriously than his witty epigram about Creophylus; there is no reason to think it was written in response to Asclepiades' or Posidippus' epigrams on the Lyde any more than Xenophon's Cyropaedia was written in response to the first two books of Plato's Republic, as Aulus Gellius relates (xiv.iii.3).⁴¹

By the second century the philosophical discussions of the fourth century were characterized as malicious disputes. Plato and Xenophon's different accounts of the education of Cyrus were adduced as evidence of rivalry between them (Herodicus apud Ath. xi 504e), even though the passage Herodicus cites from the Laws (iii. 694c) concerns the education of Cyrus' children.⁴² The techniques by which philosophy could be transformed into biography had been well established in Old Comedy: portray doctrines as individuals; describe the creative process as a specific (and hostile) reaction to particular events. In much the same way, I would suggest, literary commentary of the third century, originally humorous and allusive, came to be portrayed in the second century as open warfare: Callimachus and Aristarchus are portrayed as pedants (Philip, Garl.Phil. 3033ff; Antiphanes, ibid. 771ff); by putting them down, a biographer like Herodicus can build up the value of his own scholarly efforts (Ep.Gr. 331 0ff Page).⁴³ The "obscurity" and "abuse" of Callimachus' Ibis (1. 13.15) would have made it an appealing source material for biographers, but I do not think that it was originally directed against Apollonius any more than the Aetia prologue was directed against Asclepiades, Posidippus, and Praxiphanes; we still don't know who Ovid's Ibis is.⁴⁴

III. Apollonius

The remaining evidence for the Quarrel derives from the two slightly different versions of Apollonius' Life that serve as prefaces to the manuscripts of the Argonautica. Both Vitae are so condensed that they give no indication of their sources, but their narratives follow patterns characteristic of biographical fiction. (1) Discipleship. Apollonius is said to have been a pupil of Callimachus (Vit.A.3, B.5). Fraser sees this discipleship as the key to the bittemess in their relationship, but as Fairweather's data suggest, stories that x was y's pupil tend to be narrative metaphors for influence.⁴⁵ For example, according to their Vitae, Euripides attended lectures by Anaxagoras, Prodi cus, and Protagoras; Sophocles studied with Aeschylus. On the basis of Callimachus' epigram about Aratus ("the song and the style are Hesiod's," Ep. 27), Aratus is said to have been an "emulator" … of Hesiod (Vit. I p.9. 10 Martin). (2) Unpopularity. According to their Vitae, Aeschylus left Athens because he was defeated in a poetic contest by Simonides; Euripides left Athens because audiences preferred Sophocles and because the comic poets "fore him to pieces in their envy" (Vit. 1.120ff Meridier).⁴⁶ Apollonius couldn't endure the "public disgrace or slander by other poets;" Callimachus is not explicitly connected with his failure in either Vita. (3) Voluntary exile. Apollonius left Alexandria because of adverse criticism and moved to Rhodes; according to their biographies Homer, Hesiod, Stesichorus, Aeschylus, and Euripides are all better received abroad than at home. (4) Final recognition. Apollonius is made a Rhodian citizen, his work "was thought worthy of the Library" and is buried next to Callimachus (Vit. B. 13ff). According to the Euripides Vita, when Sophocles heard that Euripides had died, he and his actors put on mourning garb and the audience wept (1. 46ff).

Where did this material come from? If Apollonius is like other poets, from poems by him or about him. First of all, there is the uncertainty about his father's name and the appropriateness of his mother's. Two names are proposed for his father; three are given for Pindar's. Two of these occur in Theban parthenia (F 94b10, Vit. I p.3 Dr); one is also given as his son's name; a third is also given as his aulos-teacher's.⁴⁷ The scholia to Idyll 7 say that Theocritus' father was Simichus; his Vita offers Praxagoras or Simichidas, citing Idyll 7. 28.⁴⁸ The name of Hesiod's father, Dios, derives from Perses' epithet dios genos (Erg. 299).⁴⁹ Hesiod's mother has the suitable name Pycimede (Ephorus FGrHist 70F1); Pindar's mother is Cleodice, his wife's Megacleia; Apollonius Rhodius' mother is Rhode. His father's name, Silleus, is a hapax (so is Illeus).⁵⁰ …

I will suggest that the story of Apollonius' voluntary exile in Rhodes also was occasioned by his origin and his poetry. (1) The notion that he recited his poems as a young man, but then recited (or "published,"… them later, after revision, accounts for the existence of the proekdosis of the Argonautica, although only six lines of Book I are said to have been affected. Actually the lines may only have been variants,⁵¹ but the story of two "editions" of his work provides a convenient explanation for the discrepancies. (2) The idea of voluntary exile in Rhodes explains his epithet "Rhodian." Two other aetiologies are preserved in the Vitae: his mother's name Rhode, and the phrase erythriasas (B. 7). In historical terms, it is a likely place to have gone to, for practical reasons. Praxiphanes of Mytilene is also called "Rhodian," presumably because he worked there (F 2 Wehrli).⁵² The "explanation" that "he was highly thought of there, and for this reason put himself down as Rhodian in his poetry" (Vit. A. 14f), is in fact the reason for the story; one can compare how the discrepancy between Aristophanes' Athenian citizenship and foreign birthplaces, is accounted for in his Suda biography: "Aristophanes, a Rhodian or a Lindian; some says he was Egyptian, others from Camirus; he was an Athenian by decree …, for he was enrolled as a citizen … among them" (Vit. XXX.Iff Koster).

The most natural explanation of why Apollonius called himself a Rhodian is not proposed by his biographers:, that he came from Rhodes to begin with, as an émigré to Alexandria, like Callimachus of Cyrene. The sensational stories are preferred by biographers because they bring some discredit to the poet:⁵³ Juvenal's references to Egypt in Sat. xv are explained not as examples of his erudition but by the story that he was sent off to Egypt on military service as an old man because of implied insults to the court in his comments about the actor Paris in Sat. vii. 90-2.⁵⁴ For Apollonius at least there was the historical precedent of Aeschines; a papyrus biography of the second century A.D. makes even his reasons personal rather than political (so XOrat. 840d): he didn't get the minimum fifth of the votes in a lawsuit he brought against Demosthenes (POxy 1800. 40-74).

The story of Apollonius' unpopularity and voluntary exile of course supports the notion that he belongs (at least as an honorary member) among the Telchines; but the Vitae and the papyrus list of librarians preserve another popular notion of the relation between Callimachus and Apollonius: Apollonius was the mathetes of Callimachus, or according to the papyrus list of librarians (Call. T. 13), gnōrimos, which comes to much the same thing—Chares, a gnōrimos of Apollonius, wrote a book About Apollonius' Histories (A. R., 2. 1053-7a). Being called a mathetes does not constitute evidence that Apollonius literally studied under Callimachus or had a close personal relationship with him; that Euripides attended lectures by Anaxagoras, Prodicus, and Protagoras (Eur. Vit. 1. 10) means only that his contemporaries, like Aristophanes, pointed out similarities in their works.⁵⁵ If Apollonius is called a ìáèçôþg? of Callimachus, his contemporaries thought his work was influenced by Callimachus. Simichidas, the narrator of Theocritus' Idyll 7, compares himself to Sicelidas (Asclepiades) and Philetas (40); Theocritus' Vita reports "he listened to … Philetas and Asclepiades, whom he mentions."

What these contemporaries meant by "influence" can be understood by analogy: in Euripides' case "studying with" means taking over ideas from, e.g., Anaxagoras. The third century poet Alexander Aetolus calls Euripides "good old Anaxagoras' boarding student" (F 7 Powell).⁵⁶ Saying that "Socrates and Mnesilochus appear to have collaborated with him" means that someone, in this case the comic poet Teleclides, had noted similarities of content: "that fellow Mnesilochus is cooking up a new play for Euripides, and Socrates is supplying him with firewood" (F 39, 40/Eur. Vit. 1. 12ff).⁵⁷ The scholia to Apollonius 1 1309 note "the line is Callimachus"' (Aet. I. 12.6); but they don't say anything about the other verbal similarities noted by recent scholars, e.g., in Jason's prayer (Aet. F 18. 5-7/A. R. I 411 and IV 1701), in the choice of rare words for blindness (Call. Hymn. 5. 103/A.R. II 444) or to describe height (Hymn 6. 37, A.R. II 360, IV 945) or in references to obscure geography (Aet. I. 19/A.R. IV 1706ff).⁵⁸ So apparently Apollonius' contemporaries weren't as sensitive about questions of imitatio as we have become, or they might have suggested that Callimachus collaborated with Apollonius.⁵⁹ If by "discipleship" they meant "ideas," Callimachus also told the story of the Argonauts' return in Book I of the Aetia (F 7-18); Apollonius twice refers to Callimachus' account of Jason's prayer. Callimachus wrote a work "Rivers of the World" (F 457-9) which the scholia to Apollonius cite as "Rivers of Asia" (I 1165/Call. F 459); Apollonius has Phineus describe in detail the rivers of Pontus (II 360).⁶⁰ Both Callimachus and Apollonius wrote about foundation legends and aetiologies, like the story about the Argo's anchor stone at Cyzicus (Call. F 108-9/A.R. 1955ff). But just because the scholia to Apollonius say that "Callimachus also mentions [the anchor stone]" means only that they knew he wrote a poem about it; they also cite Alcaeus (F 440). Fraser may well be right in thinking that "Apollonius had Callimachus in mind when he wrote the Argonautica;" but the many correspondences of topic and vocabulary he cites are not "enough to deprive him of the title of an independent poet."⁶¹ By the same standards Callimachus could be considered unoriginal because of his frequent allusions to Homer and the Homeric Hymns, or because he drew on Antimachus' Lyde for his version of the story of Apollo's birth.⁶²

Whoever may or may not be found behind the masks of the characters in Theocritus' Idyll 7, Simichidas describes a world where poets try to measure up to the standards set by their predecessors (Sicelidas-Asclepiades and Philetas, 40). They applaud what other poets sing, and exchange tokens of xenia when they part (129); competition is friendly; friends who start together remain together and drink with one another at the end of the day. Callimachus at the end of Hymn 2 and at the beginning of the Aetia describes himself as isolated and combative, like an archaic poet; but in epigram 56 he praises Aratus Poems that compliment other poets, whether contemporaries or predecessors, like Asclepiades (958ff G-P) and Posidippus (3086ff G-P), are no less representative of the literary climate of the day.

IV Conclusion

If being a mathetes of Callimachus can be interpreted as a compliment, and if Callimachus in talking about someone else when he complains about cyclic poems, how should we begin to talk about Apollonius? I would suggest that we should begin by judging him by the same standards as Callimachus, by expecting learned allusions and significant variations in Homeric phrases. For example, the opening lines of the Argonautica: …

The first words … suggest the format of a Homeric Hymn (e.g., 2. 1); but putting arkhomenos first gives prominence to the poet, and then the subject of the poem turns out not to be the god, but the famous deeds of "those born long ago." Palaigenes in Homer is the epithet of old men, but Apollonius substitutes phōtōÕn; these changes establish that, like the poet of a hymn, he needs no intermediary to address his subject matter but controls it himself; his language derives from Homer, not in formulae, but word by word. Interestingly, too, the subject is not one man, but the famous deeds of many. He starts right in with a description of their mission; Fraser comments that the Argonautica "plunges immediately in medias res; almost no explanation is given of the task placed on Jason by Pelias.. "⁶³ "Telchines murmur against me" is an even more abrupt beginning, and the Aeneid isn't much better. Vergil mirrors Apollonius' syntax, with a plural subject for his song followed by a relative clause, and reference to a violent journey under compulsion.

The Eclogues and Georgics show that Vergil studied Callimachus;⁶⁴ but there is much in the Aeneid that indicates that he knew Apollonius well, besides the reminiscences in his characterisation of Dido of Apollonius' Hypsipyle or Medea. When in Callimachus' Aetia Jason prays to Apollo on his voyage home he is "grieving at heart" (F 18.5); Apollonius in book IV makes the situation even more painful: the heroes do not know where they are, "the tears flowed down his face in his distress" (1072). The first time Jason prays to Apollo in the Argonautica, again with Callimachus' geographical references in mind (I 419/Call. F18.7), he confidently offers a sacrifice. Aeneas in Book I is a combination of Odysseus and Jason. His words paraphrase Odysseus' speech to his men as they approach Scylla and Charybdis (Od. 12. 200), but the setting also draws on the description of both of Jason's prayers in the Argonautica, the sacrifice in the first book that predicts the success of the voyage, and the despair of Jason when they do not know where they are or where they are going, like Odysseus' men when they first arrive on Circe's island (10.189ft). Vergil explains tha cause of Aeneas' dolor at the beginning of Book II; he speaks again of Scylla's cliffs and rocks in III, where his men are described as ignari viae before they come to the Cyclops (557ff); Jason's men in IV "did not know at all, and they entrusted their return to the sea" (1700-1).

Vergil could have learned from either Callimachus or Apollonius how to evoke a Homeric context,⁶⁵ and to call attention to the inner feelings of his characters; but it was in Apollonius' narrative that he could observe how to indicate by reminiscence the relation between events. For example, he could see how Apollonius' reiterated references to crimson in the description of Jason's cloak (… I 726-7) foreshadows the "crimson" … light of the shining star to which Jason is compared, which enchants but disappoints the eyes of brides (I 778); Hypsipyle's cheeks blush crimson (…, 791); Hylas "crimson" … in his beauty and grace catches the attention of the Nymph who drowns him (1230). I am not trying to argue that Apollonius' diction can match Callimachus' memorable precision of word choice and placement, or that Vergil did not add new emotional depth; but I think one can see that Vergil at least thought that Callimachus and Apollonius were fighting on the same side in the Battle of the Books.

Appendix
Antimachus and Plato

Proclus mentions Callimachus' (F 589) and Duris' (FGrHist 76F 83) disapproval of Plato's judgment of poetry in connection with an anecdote (once again) about Antimachus: Heraclides Ponticus (F 6 Wehrli) says he was sent by Plato to collect Antimachus' poetry (T 1 Wyss), even though most people at the time preferred the work of Choerilus.⁶⁶ The poem Antimachus recited does not appear to have been the Lyde, because according to another anecdote, perhaps from the same original source, he obliterated the text after the recital, and was comforted by Plato.⁶⁷

Riginos suggests that Heraclides' story is "probably true," since Heraclides was Plato's own pupil;⁶⁸ but statements that Heraclides was a gnōrimos of Plato (Suda/F 2 Wehrli) or Plato's zēlōtēs(D.L. v. 86/F 3 Wehrli) may (as in the case of Apollonius and Callimachus) only represent intellectual influence. In any case, being a contemporary or even a friend is no guarantee of accuracy; Ion of Chios' stories about Aeschylus and Sophocles are only meant to be representative of the poets' characters. Aeschylus is portrayed discussing forms of encouragement (FGrHist 392F22); the account of Sophocles seducing a young boy at a dinner party (FGrHist 392F6/Soph. T 75 Radt) shows the poet to be a more successful strategist in private life than on the battlefield, witty and urbane in social situations. Since the original context is lost, it is impossible to say if Ion meant the story to have any bearing on the composition of a particular drama. As it stands its principal function is to provide a contemporary assessment of Sophocles' style. Ion's portrayal fits in generally with Euripides' characterization in the Frogs of Sophocles' as "easy-going" … (82; cf. Phryn., Muses F 31; Ar., Pax 696).

Heraclides' anecdotes about poets also seem meant to represent characteristics; in order to make a general point he reports information not recorded elsewhere, i.e., that Socrates' mistreatment by the Athenians had precedents in Homer's being fined fifty drachmae for insanity, of Tyrtaeus being considered mad, and of their honoring Aeschylus' friend Astydamas (rather than Aeschylus) with a golden statue (F 169). He cites a lamentation about the death of Palamedes from Euripides' drama (F 588N) in "confirmation," much as a character in Satyrus' dialogue about Euripides uses lines from a choral ode about flying on golden wings to show that the poet was thinking of going to Macedonia (39 xvii).⁶⁹ Heraclides (F 170) also tells a story about Aeschylus being accused of profaning the Eleusinian mysteries, but being acquitted because his brother Cynegirus' hands were cut off and he himself had been wounded at Marathon. In "confirmation" he cites an epitaph that mentions Aeschylus' courage but not his injuries or Cynegirus' at Marathon (EG 454ff); he does not add that Cynegirus (at least according to Herodotus 6. 114) was killed. Like the story of Sophocles' trial of lophon (Soph. Vit. 13),⁷⁰ the anecdote about Aeschylus and the mysteries appears to be based on a scene in comedy that made fun of the poet's interest in the cult of his home town (e.g., Ran. 886-7; his drama Eleusinioi).

Heraclides' story about Plato's championing of Antiphon (F 6) shows that the philosopher already as a young man had an interest in the narrative poetry that he later both employs and condemns in his writings (e.g., Resp. 10.607b). Like Homer, who is said to have visited Ithaca as a young man, Plato began his career by practicing what he preached. Condensed and excerpted, the story could also be used against him; even the most persuasively articulated of Plato's doctrines were heavily satirized in antiquity. For example, there is Callimachus' epigram about how Cleombrotus was encouraged to commit suicide because of Plato's doctrine in the Phaedo of the immortality of the soul (Ep. 23).⁷¹ Anecdotes of this sort offer the most insubstantial evidence about a writer's view of other writers. Since Proclus speaks only in general terms about Callimachus' disapproval of Plato's views on poetry, it is possible to assume that he considered them no more extensively than in an epigram or epigrams; his epigram for Aratus (27) is the source of the statement in Aratus' Vita that Aratus was a zēlōtēs of Hesiod.⁷²

Notes

¹ E.g. R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968) 1 140-4; A. Lesky, A History of Greek Literature (London 1966) 729-30; P. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford 1970) I 636ff; G. Giangrande, CQ 17 (1967) 85ff, Hermes 92 (1974) 117ff.

² F. Vian, Apollonius de Rhodes (Paris 1974) x.

³ Ibid. xviii.

⁴ Fraser, (n.1) I 750.

⁵ Ibid., I 558; A.W. Bulloch, Callimachus, Hymn to Athena (Cambridge, forthcoming) ad loc.

⁶ A. Couat, Alexandrian Poetry (Eng. Edn., London 1931) 517, 531.

⁷ Fraser (n.1) I 751.

⁸ E.g., "The Euripides Vita," GRBS 20 (1979) 187-210. My Lives of the Greek Poets will be published by Duckworth in 1981.

⁹ See esp., "Pindar's Lives," Classica et Iberica (Festschrift Marique; Worcester, Mass. 1975) 79-82.

¹⁰ "The Poet as Hero," CQ 28 (1978) 460-2.

¹¹ On this passage, see esp. F. Williams, Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo (Oxford 1978) 90ff. Cf. Theoc., Id. 7.45ff.

¹² Cf. also Pfeiffer (n.1) I 137; W. Clausen, "Callimachus and Latin Poetry," GRBS 5 (1964) 184.

¹³ Williams (n.11) 87-9.

¹⁴ Also Hes. F 357 M-W; Paus. x.37.5; but cf. 6 Nem.2.1, where it is attributed to the Chian rhapsode Cynaethus; see W. Burkert, "Kynaithos, Polycrates, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo," Arktouros (Festschrift Knox; Berlin 1979) 53-62. According to Athenaeus i.22 the author was Homer or one of the Homeridae; Homeridae and other friends and relations in the biographical tradition account for questions of authenticity; see D. Fehling, "Zwei Lehrstulcke," RhM 122 (1979) 193-9.

¹⁵ Cf. also Theodorus' epic in at least 22 books (0 A.R.IV 264), Rhianus' Heracles (14 books), or long historical epics like Musaeus' Perseis (9), or Philon the Elder's About Jerusalem (14). See K. Ziegler, Das Hellenistische Epos (Leipzig 1966) 15-23.

¹⁶ On the Cypria, see esp. J. Griffin, "The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer," JHS 97 (1977) 44ff; H. Lloyd-Jones, "Stasinos and the Cypria," Stasinos 4 (1968-72) 121-2.

¹⁷ Clausen (n.12) 184.

¹⁸ Williams (n.11) 4-5.

¹⁹ "Autobiographical Fiction in Pindar," HSCP 84 (1980) 39-45.

²⁰ Cf. H. Herter, RE s.v. Telchines.

²¹ Cf. D. L. Clayman, "The Origins of Greek Literary Criticism and the Aetia Prologue," WS 11 (1977) 28.

²² K. J. McKay, "Hesiod's Rejuvenation," CQ 9 (1959) 1; he may also have in mind the notion of poet as cricket, said to have been used by Archilochus (F 167 Tarditi/223 West).

²³ E.g., Vian (n.2) xv.

²⁴ E.g., V. J. Matthews, "Antimachean Anecdotes," Eranos 77 (1979) 47.

²⁵ J. A. Fairweather, "Fictions in the Biographies of Ancient Writers," AS 5 (1974) 256ff.

²⁶ "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 205.

²⁷ A. Henrichs, "Toward a New Edition of Philodemus' Treatise On Piety," GRBS 13 (1972) 72-7, Text i. 971-5.

²⁸ See n.5.

²⁹ On questions of dating, see A. W. Bulloch, "Callimachus' Erysichthon, Homer, and Apollonius Rhodius," AJP 98 (1977) 122-3.

³⁰ Pfeiffer (n.1) 136; U.v.Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung (Berlin 1924) I 212.

³¹ Pfeiffer (n.1) I 141, 147-8.

³² Williams (n.11) 88.

³³ K. 0. Brink, "Callimachus and Aristotle," CQ 40 (1946) 16ff; cf. A. J. Podlecki, "The Peripatetics as Literary Critics," Phoenix 23 (1969) 124-5.

³⁴ Pfeiffer (n.l) I 136; Wehrli on Praxiphanes F 15-17.

³⁵ "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 189-93, 205-7.

³⁶ A. S. Riginos, Platonica (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 3; Leiden 1976) 118.

³⁷ I.Düring, Herodicus the Cratetean (Goteburg 1941) 138,9.

³⁸ Herodicus also wrote Komōidoumenoi; Düring (n.37) 125.

³⁹ Ibid. 146; Jacoby FGrHist ad loc.

⁴⁰ See Appendix.

⁴¹ Riginos (n.36) 60.

⁴² Düring (n.37) 55-6.

⁴³ Ibid. 7-9. To Philip's epigram, cf. Call. F 380; E. Degani, "Note sulla fortuna di Archilocho … in epoca ellenistica," QUCC 16 (1973) 83-4.

⁴⁴ Cf. A. E. Housman Classical Papers (Cambridge 1972) III 1040-2.

⁴⁵ Fairweather (n.25) 262-3; "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 189.

⁴⁶ Ibid. 193.

⁴⁷ L. Lehnus, "Scopelino 'Padre' di Pindaro," Istituto Lombardo (Rend.Lett.) III (1977) 78-82. Aratus is said to have mentioned his brothers' names "in his letters" (Vit. i p.6 5 Martin); but the letters' authenticity was questioned even in antiquity (Vit. i. p. 10. 13ff).

⁴⁸ A. S. F. Gow, Theocritus (Cambridge 1950) I 128.

⁴⁹ M. West, Hesiod, Works and Days (Oxford 1978) 232.

⁵⁰ But cf. Sellius the grammarian, Suda S.V. and POxy 1235.

⁵¹ M. Haslam, "Apollonius of Rhodes and the Papyri," ICS 3 (1978) 67.

⁵² Cf. the Carthaginian general Hannibal the "Rhodian," Polyb. i.46.4 Walbank.

⁵³ "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 206-8; During (n.37) 132.

⁵⁴ R.Syme, "The Patria of Juvenal," CP 74 (1979) 1-15; Fairweather (n.25) 241-2.

⁵⁵ Cf. K.J. Dover, "The Freedom of the Intellectual in Greek Society," Talanta 7 (1976) 51. The terms (imitatio) or (aemulatio) are applied to distant predecessors; see D.A.Russell, "de Imitatione," Creative Imitation in Latin Literature (Cambridge 1979) 2, 10. E.g., on the basis of Call.'s Ep. 27 and a few verbal parallels.…

⁵⁶ "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 192 n. 17.

⁵⁷ Cf. stories that Plato got "help" from Epicharmus, with forged letters (cf. n.47) to "prove" it (D. L. 3. 9, 18) or transcribed Protagoras' Controversies into Resp. (D. L. 3. 37); Riginos (n.36) 165-6. For other examples, see esp. E. Stemplinger, Das Plagiat in der griechischen Literature (Berlin 1912) 12-29.

⁵⁸ Bulloch (n.29) 116ff; E. Eichgrtin, Kallimachos und Apollonios Rhodios (diss. Berlin 1961) 111ff; Fraser (n.l) nn. 162, 169.

⁵⁹ Cf. how Plato is said first to have brought Sophron's mimes to Athens and then to have modelled his characters on them; he slept with a copy of Sophron under his pillow (D. L. 3. 18); Riginos (n.36) 128.

⁶⁰ Williams (n.11) 91.

⁶¹ Fraser (n.1) I 628, 640; cf. Wilamowitz (n.30) II 167ff.

⁶² See n.27.

⁶³ Fraser (n. 1) I 640.

⁶⁴ Clausen (n. 12) 192-6.

⁶⁵ Wilamowitz (n.30) II 164.

⁶⁶ Riginos (n.36) 124.

⁶⁷ Ibid. 125; Matthews (n.24) 44-5.

⁶⁸ Riginos (n.36) 127.

⁶⁹ "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 193 n.20.

⁷⁰ R.C.Jebb, Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus (Cambridge 1900) xli; "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 202.

⁷¹ Riginos (n.36) 132; "Eur. Vita" (n.8) 205. Cf. the epigram for the atheist Hippon, finding immortality in death, 38B2 D-K.

⁷² See n.55.