CAPÍTULO 1 MARCO TEÓRICO
1.11. Metodología CRISP-DM
In Hellenistic poetry the genre of didactic poetry is represented by a few works which have been preserved and much discussed, such as Aratus’ Phaenomena and Nicander’s Theriaca and Alexipharmaca, and presumably also works like Callimachus’ Aetia should be regarded as part of the tradition of didactic poetry.9 The genre as a whole has been the object of scholarly interest in various monographs, articles, and collections of essays,10 but in this discussion the fragments have been largely ignored and the contribution which could be made by Supplementum Hellenisticum has not yet been explored systematically.11
If, however, we search through Supplementum Hellenisticum for fragments of didactic poetry, it becomes manifest what a useful tool this work is, because it enables us to gather much additional information, which may help to form a better picture of this genre in Hellenistic poetry.
In the first place we acquire information about the kinds of subjects that were of interest to writers of didactic poetry. Thus we are able to extend the picture that was created by focusing only on the astronomical and medical
9 See e.g. Kaesser 2005; Harder 2007.
10 See e.g. Effe 1977; 2005; Dalzell 1996; Fakas 2001; Volk 2002.
11 In Effe’s monograph on didactic poetry (1977) the fragmentary poems were still left out.
Parsons 1982, 185–6, however, briefly indicates the importance of fragments of didactic poetry and discusses some examples.
work of Aratus and Nicander. The fragments show a great variety of subjects, which may be divided into three categories, although the boundaries are not always very strict: (i) scientific subjects, probably with a certain emphasis on instruction and the practical use for the reader; (ii) scholarly subjects, in which the emphasis is more on the transmission of (often antiquarian) knowledge; (iii) practical instruction in various areas of the readers’ daily life. As to the first category, quite a number of fragments are from didactic poetry about astronomy,12 medical subjects,13 or geography,14 and some are about stones,15 while Archimedes SH 201 is an elegiac poem about the mathematical problem of the number of the cattle of Helios. The second category contains works on philosophy,16 aetiology,17 various kinds of catalogues,18 stories from Attica (?),19 metamorphoses,20 the labours of Heracles,21 and perhaps a theogony.22 In the third category we find works on the catching of fish23 and hunting,24 and cookery,25 while SH 207 suggests that at some stage a certain Arrianus made a Greek version of Virgil’s Georgics in hexameters.26
12 Alexander Ephesius SH 19–22; Aratus SH 86–91; Artemidorus SH 213; Hegesianax SH 465
(and 466–70); Hermippus SH 485 (and 486–90); Sminthes SH 729; and perhaps adesp. SH 922.
13
Aglaias SH 18 (elegiac); Aratus SH 92–8; Eudemus SH 412A (elegiac); Heliodorus SH 471 (and 472?); Numenius, Theriaca SH 589 (and 590–4) and perhaps SH 595 from another medical work; Philo SH 690 (elegiac).
14
Alexander Aetolus SH 20; Alexander Ephesius SH 19 and 23–38; Callimachus Iunior, Περ
ν9ων SH 309; Zenothemis, Περ πλου9 SH 855 (and 856–8); and perhaps Pancrates, Θαλα´99ια Ε
ργα SH 598–600 and Philostephanus SH 691, which may be from a work about unusual
harbours.
15 Satyrus SH 717–19 (which might be poetry or prose); Zenothemis SH 859–62 (perhaps
from a work about stones, but the fragments could also be part of his geographical work).
16
Timon, Indalmoi, SH 841–4 (elegiac) and Silloi, SH 775–840. Because these works have received considerable scholarly attention elsewhere (see e.g. Long 1978) I shall not go into them very much in this chapter.
17
Butas, Aetia Romana, SH 234–5 (elegiac); Dionysius, Aetia, SH 387–8. Cf. also Simias fr. 8 Powell on the origins of the names of months (elegiac?).
18 Thus we find a catalogue of erotes in Artemidorus SH 214 (an elegiac fragment, which may
be part of his Phaenomena; cf. the elegiac fragments in Phanocles frr. 1–6 Powell); of men in Sostratus SH 732–4 (elegiac). Cf. the catalogue of women in Nicaenetus fr. 2 Powell (also mentioned in SH 732), obviously part of the tradition of the Hesiodic Catalogues.
19 Perhaps in Euphorion SH 417; cf. also frr. 34–6 Powell and see Pfeiffer 1968, 122, 150;
Krevans 1984, 177.
20 Antigonus Carystius, \λλοι@9ει9 SH 50; Didymarchus SH 378A; Parthenius,
Μεταμορφ@9ει9 SH 636–7 (where, however, 637 might be poetry or prose); Theodorus
Μεταμορφ@9ει9 SH 749 (and 750?); adesp. SH 938 (which, however, could also be part of
a Theogony). Cf. also the fragments of Nicander’s Heteroioumena (on which see Gow and Scholfield 1953, 205–6).
21
Diotimus SH 393–4.
22
Adesp. SH 938 (which, however, could also be part of a Metamorphoses).
23 Caecalus SH 237; Numenius SH 568–82 (and 583–8); Pancrates SH 601 (and 598–600);
Posidonius SH 709.
24
Perhaps Sostratus SH 735.
25
Archestratus SH 132–92; Euthydemus, Περ ταρ χων SH 455.
26 For other Georgica see the fragments of Nicander (and the introduction in Gow and
Scholfield 1953, 209) and the anonymous fragment in Page 1942, 506–8, which according to the editor might be Hellenistic.
Many of these works of didactic poetry are attributed to specific authors and, although most of them are little more than names, some stand out a little more and allow us to form a picture of their work and interests, like Archestratus and Timon, but also some of the poets of whom we have less material. On the whole we have just a substantial list of names,27 which shows that authors like Callimachus, Aratus, and Nicander, and in later Greek poetry authors like Dionysius Periegetes, Oppianus, and Ps.-Orpheus (in his Lithica) were no exceptions in writing didactic poetry and in choosing the themes listed above. Several fragments, however, help us to form at least some idea of what kind of people these authors were.
Some of them apparently played a more or less prominent role in society. Thus we may infer from SH 19 that Alexander Ephesius, apart from his poems about astronomy and geography, also wrote a historical work (perhaps about the Bellum Marsicum; see SH 39) and was politically active. Strabo, to whom we owe this information, calls him a
Vτωρ
and tells us that he was also referred to asΛ#χνο9
.28SH 236 informs us that Butas, the author of an Aetia Romana, was a slave who had been given his freedom and acted as a political adviser for Cato. Aglaias of Byzantium, who wrote a poem in elegiacs about the cure of eye-diseases for his friend, the poet Demetrius in the first century ad, was a doctor according to SH 18. 2.Other fragments indicate that some poets also were working within the framework of a royal court. Thus SH 464 contains an anecdote about Hegesianax, who, when asked to perform a dance for Antiochus III, let him choose between a bad dance and a good performance of poetry. Antiochus chose the second and was so pleased with it that Hegesianax was invited to join him for dinner and became a ‘friend’ of the king. In SH 412A we read that the Theriaca of Eudemus were approved of by Antiochus IV and in SH 752 we are informed that Theodorus, who wrote a Metamorphoses and various epic poems, also wrote a poem in hexameters for Cleopatra.
Some indications of the intellectual affinities of the poets may be found in SH 485, which tells us that Hermippus of Smyrna, who wrote a Phaenomena, was a Peripatetic philosopher,29 and in SH 605, where we find evidence of contacts between Parthenius and poets like Virgil and Gallus.
Sometimes the material also allows further conclusions about the function and nature of the didactic works, as poets may refer to addressees, intended readers, and the origin and purpose of their work. Thus in the prooemium of
27 An alphabetical list of names derived from the fragments in Supplementum Hellenisticum
includes Aglaias, Alexander Ephesius, Antigonus Carystius, Aratus, Archimedes, Arrianus, Artemidorus, Butas, Caecalus, Callimachus Iunior, Didymarchus, Dionysius, Diotimus, Eudemus, Euthydemus, Hegesianax, Hermippus, Numenius, Pancrates, Parthenius, Philostephanus, Posidonius, Ptolemaeus, Satyrus, Sminthes, Sostratus, Theodorus, Timon, Zenothemis.
28 See further C. Selzer in Der Neue Pauly, i. 478 s.v. Alexandros [22, aus Ephesos]. 29
Archestratus’
ΗY δυπα´θεια
in SH 132K9τορ η9 1π δειγμα ποιο#μενο9
Ε
Y λλα´δι πα´9ηι
(‘making a display of the results of his research for the whole of Greece’) and 133Rπου 19τν -κα9τον
|κα´λλι9τον βρωτ*ν τε
(‘where every kind of food and . . . is the best’) the author claims to be writing for the whole of Greece and to inform his readers where the best food (and drink?) is to be found. He based his work on his travels and investigations and addressed it to his friends Moschus and Cleandrus, according to Athenaeus, who quotes SH 133. Also Aglaias of Byzantium gives a clear indication of the lasting and universal usefulness of his work on eye-diseases in SH 18. 5–6κα
9ο
(sc. Demetrius)δ
’<ξοχον <9ται 19 α χθεα
,παντ τ
’=νειαρ
|παρμ*νιμον
,κα´μψηι9 α χρι κεν 19 πλ!ονα9
(‘and for you it is an excellent means against suffering and for everyone it is a lasting advantage, until you will join the majority of people in death’).As to the nature of the didactic poems, one may find evidence about the use of mythic material, about metre and about the presentation of the poems. In Hegesianax SH 468–70, preserved in three passages of Hyginus’ Astro- nomica, we see that his astronomical work, the Phaenomena (presumably written in the late third or early second century bc), apparently contained a certain amount of mythical material: in this respect it may be compared with the Phaenomena of Aratus and the work of Nicander. The myths of which we find evidence in the fragments of Hegesianax are of the kind that were told by other Hellenistic poets as well and perhaps suggest a certain focus on heroes and episodes that were related to human history and the progress of civilization.30 Thus in SH 468 we see that he included a story about Theseus, who had to lift a rock in Troezen and bring the sword which was hidden below it to his father Aegeus in Athens, an episode which was also dealt with in Callimachus’ Hecale.31 In SH 469 we find a story about the benefits of Demeter, who sends Triptolemus to far-away regions like Thrace, in order to teach people to live by means of agriculture and to abandon the wild means of feeding themselves which they used before. This issue reminds us of the interest in Demeter in the Hellenistic period, evidence of which is also found in works of Callimachus, like the sixth Hymn and fr. 63 of the Aetia, and somewhat earlier in Philitas’ Demeter (praised by Callimachus in Aetia fr. 1. 9–10). SH 470 shows that Hegesianax also referred to the story of Deucalion and the flood, which later was treated at length in Ov. Met. 1. 381 ff. and obviously played an important part in the history of mankind. Although the fragments may represent only a very small part of Hegesianax’s work, it should be noticed that their contents recall the attention given to human ‘progress’ in Callimachus’ Aetia.32 The way in which this
30
One should of course bear in mind that the amount of material is very small, so that these conclusions are somewhat speculative and must be treated with caution.
subject-matter seems to be well tuned to the moods of the times could fit in with the anecdote in SH 464 about the pleasure Antiochus III derived from the poem and the praise of Hegesianax in SH 712.
The fragments also show that didactic texts could be both in hexameters and in elegiac distichs. As to the question whether there is a difference between elegiac and hexameter didactic in the sense that the elegiac didactic was more playful and personal—as is suggested by Callimachus’ Aetia and for Latin poetry by the work of Ovid33—the fragments offer no clear indications, because generally the material is too scanty. In fact the cookery book by Archestratus, which has been considered as a kind of parody of didactic epic,34 is in hexameters.
Concerning the presentation of didactic poetry one may observe that the dialogue format, known from the first two books of Callimachus’ Aetia, in Latin poetry from Ovid’s Fasti, and in later Greek poetry from Ps.-Orpheus’ Lithica, was employed by other poets too. Timon used it in his Indalmoi (SH 841–4) and Silloi (SH 775–840). In SH 495, an intriguing fragment attributed to Herodicus, we find part of a dialogue about love between Aspasia and Socrates, told by the latter. One may wonder how much the poem owed to Plato’s Symposium and in what ways it developed the notion of Socrates being taught by a wise woman as found in the episode with Diotima. In Philo of Tarsus SH 690 a multifunctional painkiller introduces and describes itself in an elegiac fragment of twenty-six lines in a way which recalls the speaking objects in Callimachus’ Aetia, like the lock of Berenice in fr.110. Philo’s fragment begins as follows:
Ταρ9!ο9 Uητρο$ο μ!γα θνητο$9ι Φ λωνο9 εJρεμα πρ9 πολλα´9 εUμι παθ)ν Zδ#να9
I am the great invention for mortals by Philo, the doctor from Tarsus, against the pains of many kinds of suffering.
Adesp. SH 938 shows that the Muses appeared in a didactic work (which may have been a Theogony or a Metamorphoses), the prooemium of which owes a great deal to that of Hesiod’s Theogony. The date of this poem, however, is disputed as it has been attributed to the third century ad as well as to the third century bc.
Collecting the fragments of didactic poetry in Supplementum Hellenisticum also leads to an interesting collection of contexts from the authors who quoted the poems. Generally the work of the didactic poets is used by later prose authors, such as Strabo, Athenaeus, Pliny, Hyginus, Diogenes Laertius, as a source without further reflection. However, the fact that these authors quoted this poetry shows that they found it of (some) importance. Besides,
33 See further Effe 1977, 104–5 n. 5; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 34; Kaesser 2005, 97. 34 See Effe 1977, 234 ff.
the authors who quote from the text of the poems sometimes add remarks about those fragments, and taken together these passages provide some insight into the way in which these works were regarded in later periods and thus into the reception of the genre.
We find several indications that the work of the Hellenistic didactic poets was regarded as a serious source of knowledge by later writers who possess a certain amount of authority in the same field. This applies for authors like Aratus and Nicander, the reception of whom gives ample evidence of serious treatment by later authors, as in e.g. the commentaries on Aratus by astronomers like Attalus and Hipparchus.35 The material in Supplementum Hellenisticum provides evidence of a similar attitude towards the authors of whom only fragments were preserved and may thus shed some additional light on one of the much-debated questions concerning didactic poetry: ‘Why write didactic poetry if the knowledge thus transmitted is also available in prose sources?’36 The serious treatment of the didactic poems which we find in the authors who quote from them may make us wonder whether for most people in antiquity this was a valid distinction. Even Galen, who is the only author who addresses this issue in a critical manner, still treats a poetic source of knowledge quite seriously in another context, as will be shown below.
We see that Archestratus is appreciated as an important and knowledgeable source of information and as a poet in the tradition of Hesiod and Theognis by Athenaeus, from whom almost all the fragments of this poet are derived. In the context of SH 154 Athenaeus calls him
τ)ν Zψοφα´γων ΗY 9 οδο9 X
Θ!ογνι9
(‘the Hesiod or Theognis among the gourmets’) and an authorkν
αντ τοI ΟY μρου προ9κυνε$9
(‘whom you worship on a plane with Homer’), and in the context of SH 192 he elaborates on this theme by stating:θαυμα´ζειν δ’ 19τν α ξιον τοI τα`9 καλα`9 Fποθκα9 παραδιδ*ντο9 "μ$ν \ρχε9τρ-
α´του, 9 Ε πικο#ρωι τ)ι 9οφ)ι τE9 "δονE9 καθηγεμ(ν γεν*μενο9 κατα` τν
\9κρα$ον ποιητ0ν γνωμικ)9 κα "μ$ν 9υμβουλε#ει τι9 μ0 πε θε9θαι,αFτ)ι δ;
προ9!χειν τν νοIν,κα 19θ ειν παρακελε#εται τα` κα τα´.
It is appropriate to admire Archestratus, who gave us these wonderful precepts, because having become a guide in pleasure for the wise Epicurus, in a didactic way like the poet from Ascra, he advises us too not to believe certain people, but to pay attention to himself, and he urges us to eat this and that.
When quoting other fragments he calls him e.g.
. . .
πολυ 9τωρ
\ρχ!9τρατο9
(‘the very learned Archestratus’) (SH 173) and. . .
9οφ9
35See the contributions by Mike Tueller and Roger MacFarlane (on Aratus) and by Myrto Hatzimichali (on Nicander) in Harder, Regtuit, and Wakker 2009.
36
See on this question in general the literature mentioned in n.10; the discussion on Aratus and didactic poetry in Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 224–38; and the discussion of Callimachus’