BICS 31 (1984) 13
IBYCUS: GORGZAS AND OTHER POEMS
John P. Barron
For R.P. W.-I.
Those of us who have had the delight of working with Professor R.P. Winnington-Ingram at the Institute of Classical Studies and elsewhere know him not only as one of the most acute and sensitive critics of Greek poetry now writing in the English language, but as an extraordinarily helpful and generous friend to our own studies. Now, as the Institute celebrates his entry into his ninth decade, it is a great pleasure to offer him a small return for all that he has meant to US:^ eEoiti& ool toOhGv apogac hvri6wprpJaiaro.
Ibycus is particularly suitable for the occasion, because the beginning of the modern phase of critical work on his poetry exactly coincided with the beginning of Professor Winnington-Ingram’s academic career, when he came up to Trinity from Clifton in 1922. Until then there was little basis for an appreciation of Ibycus, whose seven lost books had earned him a place in the ancient canon of nine pre-eminent lyric poets. Citations by other writers preserved a fragment of thirteen lines and another of seven; but a thorough combing of ancient literature and of the scribblings of scholiasts could not amass as many as fifty lines more, of short and miscellaneous quotations, of imponderable quality. True, the fates had been even less kind to Ibycus’ fellow-Westerner Stesichorus, of whose “graves Camenae” the short and pedestrian snatches which survived gave no idea at all - or so, in charity, one hoped. At least the two substantial fragments of Ibycus were filled with unforgettable imagery, whose haunting power in no way fell short of the finest similes of Homer: the poet’s burning stormy love which knows no rest nor season, contrasted with the quinces and vines disturbed by growth only in spring; the anxieties of love in middle age compared to the feelings of a prize-winning race-horse, now well past his prime, as he waits uncertainly for the starter’s signal (Frr. 286, 287).2 The apparently unending stream of new texts from Oxyrhynchus has transformed the situation for both the western poets, and in making an assessment of either Stesichorus or Ibycus we are in a quite different position from our predecessors of sixty, or even of twenty, years ago. The rediscovery of Ibycus began with Hunt’s publication of forty-eight continuous lines of a poem addressed to one Polycrates, from the end of a roll of papyrus written as early as the second century B.C. (Fr. 282 = S 151). To have survived into the Alexandrian period at all, it was likely that the poem was in antiquity attributed to a famous author; and considerations of metre, language, dialect, and style ruled out all but Stesichorus and Ibycus. The biographical tradition connected Ibycus, but not Stesichorus, with Polycrates tyrant of Samos; and for most people, though not for so great a scholar as Paul Maas, that was enough to turn the scale.3 In an earlier article of my own I advanced a further argument in confirmation.4 It can be shown that in the desperately mutilated lines 37-40 of the poem the author introduces two obscure princes of Sicyon, and deliberately contradicts the Homeric tradition to assert that one of them, Zeuxippus, was the most handsome of the Greeks before Troy. Ibycus, it had already been noticed, showed a special interest in Sicyon, including knowledge of its local traditions: he spoke of the genealogy of its eponymous hero, and related the local tale that its River Asopus flowed under-sea to the Peloponnese from Phrygia. This new Sicyonian reference in the poem to Polycrates seemed to me to support the identification of Ibycus as its auth~r.~ 14 BZCS 31 (1984)
Even if most people concurred in this attribution, they made no secret of their disappointment at the quality of the new poem. A perfunctory summary of the siege of Troy, it was an extraordinary patchwork of Homeric tags; and Page summed up the general view of it - “Some phrases are ungainly, others border on the inarticulate”.6 But the patchwork of tags, I suggested, discloses the nature of the poem. It is addressed to Polycrates as prospective patron, to whom it promises that immortality which only poetry confers. To illustrate this power of poetry Ibycus is concerned to point out that it is in epic alone that Agamemnon, Ajax, Achilles are immortal; and the point is made effectively by a recital of the epic phrases - formulae, we say - which came most readily to mind: nodac chdc ‘A~iXXijc,pdyac Tehapdvloc ah~ycocAhc, ’Aywdpvov. . . paaiXdc ayoc ELvdpov (lines 20 f., 33 f.). The theme was commonplace - we know it in Sappho (Fr. 55LP) and Theognis (237-52) - and Ibycus’ expression of it rhetorically effective even if deficient in poetic charm. But in addition to the level of general reminiscence, I argued that the poet had in mind, and intended the reader to have in mind, two specific contexts in earlier verse, the one Homeric, the other Hesiodic. Lines 23-31 of the poem to Polycrates correspond closely to the invocation to the Muses at the beginning of the Cztalogue of Ships, Iliad ii 484-93, affirming their power to assist a task which no mortal man could achieve unaided.7 The correspondence of the two passages is close, and needs no further argument. The Hesiodic passage is lines 646-662 of the Works and Days, in which the poet undertakes to speak of navigation, and in which he alludes to the departure of the Greek fleet from Aulis for Troy (65 1-3). Hesiod himself is embarrassed at the outset. He is not aeaocpiopkvoc, and knows little of qWv nohuydpcpov (649,660-2). But the Muses know, and they have taught him. The point is the same as in Homer. Ibycus signals his allusion to the passage in 1.24 by calling his Muses ‘Ehi~~vid~c,for the Muses of Helicon are Hesiod’s, not Homer’s Muses, the poet’s guides to the Theogony (1-8, 22-34) as well as to the Works and Days (658-9). And the allusion is placed beyond doubt by the conjunction of the departure from Aulis - 27 ff., compare 65 1-3 - with two rare words, oeoocpiupkvai - 23, compare 649 - and nohuyoppi - 18, compare 660.8 Ibycus’ motive is very clear. Hesiod’s purpose was to boast of his own skill: he only crossed the sea once, from Aulis to Euboea, and there he won first prize for his hymnos. Ibycus wishes tactfully to remind Polycrates that he too is a champion poet and worthy of employment.
Allusions of this kind presuppose a high degree of familiarity with earlier literature - a higher degree than we find easily credible. But sixth-century Greece must have been in terms of literature still a society of predominantly oral culture.9 It is only with the availability of books that the memory atrophies; and the dominance of Homer and Hesiod in the educational curriculum assured Ibycus of an audience who would catch allusions such as these. Still, as I have been told by some who have objected to my interpretation of the poem, repetition of clichds is one thing, their use as catch-words to identify particular contexts is quite another, and the intention that the recipient of the poem should read into it the implications of the context so identified is yet another still. The second of these, let alone the third, has seemed to some to assume a degree of subtlety and literary sophistication unthinkable in the bluff plain-spoken age of the tyrants. It is well-known, and the rich new fragments of Ibycus’ forerunner Stesichorus serve to emphasize the fact, that the use of epic clichds is as much a feature of early lyric as it is of the epics themselves. The sophisticated use of clichds which I have credited to Ibycus adds a further dimension, and my interpretation plainly requires further defence. Here, of course, I find myself embarrassed by the fragmentary nature of the evidence. But it seems clear that something of the kind had already been attempted a century before Ibycus by Tyrtaeus, whose unforgettable picture of an old man’s death gains by association with the Homeric passage from which it is adapted, in which Prim foresees his own death.10 Such creative imitation in Ibycus would therefore be nothing new. In the poem to Polycrates, of which we have almost fifty lines, not only can the tenor of the whole poem be judged, but its point is even made explicit at the end. Most of our other fragments are shy of disclosing their point, and one half of my equation is necessarily missing. What I can show is that the use of multiple catch-words which recall whole contexts is not peculiar to the poem addressed to Polycrates, but is a feature of Ibycus’ work to be identified in at least three other poems attributed to him by name and in another almost certainly his. EZCS 31 (1984) 15
First the magical picture of the birds in Fr. 317 (a), attributed by Athenaeus (388E): TOi) p€V 7T€‘TUhOlUlV in’ hKPOTU701C itavoiui nowi hat aiohO6eLpoi navihonec haBioppvpidec
IF?[ lvou~o~[ 1;oct T&T(~)[ IETWV CW,[ 1.w xociv a[ I.OP0C &BP& B[ lwwv[ Iqvaq. [ IVELP l?lCTW. [ 1 .vov. [ The first six lines, at least, should be text rather than commentary. As Lobel pointed out in publishing the fragment, there is an echo here of Hesiod, Fr. 158M-W: vofieoc 6; noos~viino 6oiinoc bpcjpel.
The third case is more interesting, Fr. 288. Athenaeus (564 F) repeats some lines of Philoxenos, then goes on to call them “blind praise and nothing like the well-!mown piece by Ibycus”, which he quotes. E%pdaXe yhavKiwv Xapir w v eahoc, <‘Qp&v> K ahA i K O p w v peh&pa, UP p2v Kdnpic u r’ u-yavo/3Aiqzpoe n E i- e d bo~iolowiv ii v e E u 1 epi$ev As Bergk pointed out in proposing the supplement ‘Slp&v to fill the lacuna indicated by the metre at the end of line 1, these lines are reminiscent of lines 73-75 of Hesiod’s Works and kys.l1 hppid ioixapiric re eeai Kai ndrvia neied dppovc xpvoeiovc. Peeaav xpo i!. apqi 66 rqv -ye ‘S2pai KahhiKopai ur&pov uveeoi eiapivoiow. The echoes are too true and too numerous to be merely coincidental. They are also so closely and compactly organized as to suggest that the original context may have been important to Ibycus. Here, I believe, we can test the hypothesis. Ibycus’ admiration of Euryalus, no doubt some courtly favourite of Polycrates, is not without a trace of bitterness. In addition to the three Hesiodic agencies, Aphrodite has helped to work the miracle of beauty in the boy. To Ibycus, Aphrodite, Kdnpic., was never an unmixed blessing. On three other occasions he mentions her, and always as a destroyer, a setter of snares. So, in the poem to Polycrates, of the Sack of Troy: nipyapou 6’ avi& rahan&wu hra I xpuooieelpav did. KdnplGa (8-9). In the Cydonian quinces poem, 286, it is Kypris who makes the poet’s restless unseasonable love rage like Boreas, h{ahPaic pauiaiow. So too the poet in Fr. 287 feels himself driven into the Cyprian’s net, when he likens himself to 16 BIGS 31 (1984)
a race-horse, once a prize-winner and now past his prime.12 If Cypris has had a hand in the loveliness of Euryalus, we may be sure that Ibycus sees the boy as a torment, bitter-sweet. This precisely agrees with the implication to be drawn from the echoes of Hesiod, for the object of all that labour by the Graces, Persuasion, and the fair-haired seasons, with their spring flowers, was the adornment of Pandora, the Original Torment. Ibycus' use of Hesiod here, I submit, is precisely analogous to his use of Homer and Hesiod in the poem to Polycrates, or to Tyrtaeus' use of the Homeric lines on Priam.
The fourth case is more complicated (Fr. 289), in that we do not even possess verbatim the lines of Ibycus in question. However, I believe we can deduce enough of the detail of their content. The scholia to Apollonius' Argonautica at iii 158 state that in these lines, describing the flight of Eros from Olympus down to Earth to perform his task upon Medea in Colchis, the poet imitates Ibycus' account of the abduction of Ganymede given in his ode to Gorgias, to which Ibycus had added an account of Tithonus' abduction by the Dawn. Wilamowitz, it is true, transposed the scholium to apply to lines 114-1 17, and in his edition of the scholia Wendel followed him.13 The two passages of the text are as follows: 31 pa KU~Ehhine B~KOV,kqwpaprqoe 6' 'A&jvq, k~ 6' iuav &~cporaiye nahiauvroi. h 66 Kai &q fl* b' ijlev ObXripnow Kara nnjxac, el pw kqeripoi. dpe 66 rdvy' hnavwtle, Adc Bahepfi tv ahofi, O~Kohv, pera Kai I'avvpq6ea, rdv pa nore Z&c 115 obpav6 kyrtarivaoaev kq&~rwvh8avciroiaw, &XXeoe beptleic.
flq 66 616~peyahow Adc nayKapnov hhdv, ahrap Cneira mihue k(7jhvtlev ObA&urow aisephc. Cvtlev 6P KaraQaric kari ~ihw90~ 160 obpavk Goid 66 ndhoi hv&ovai Kapqva obpiwv qhQarov, ~~pvcpaixtlovdc, +xi r' aeptleic qiXwc npcjqaiv kperitlerai hrtriveaaiv. vedtli 6 ' ahhore yak cpepiaflwe aarea r' av6pJv KdnOTCl&6V kP0; phi, ahh0TE 6' 165 ~K~LEC,@pi 66 ndvroc, av' aisipa nohhdv idvri. The transposition of the scholium is unnecessary. Apollonius discovers Eros and Ganymede at play, and when he comes to describe the former's flight down to earth the recent mention of Ganymede suggests material for him to adapt from Ibycus - presumably a description of the flight of Zeus' eagle down to fetch Ganymede. Now Bacchylides in his fifth ode gives us a description of the earthward flight of Zeus' eagle, this time intent on bearing praise to Hieron, victor at Olympia: fl&v 6 ' aisPpa (ovtlaiai r~vwv b$oii nrepriyeaai raxd cue akrdc d~puavartrocayyehoc zqvdc kplaq?€Lpayov 20 tlapaei Kparepiii niavvoc iqrii, nraaaovri 6 ' dpvi- xec h1~~0yyo1CpdflWl. 06 viv ~~pvcpaipeyahac laxovai yak, ob6 ' ahdc hrtaparac 25 Gvanainaha Mipara. vopii- rat 6' tv hrpvrwi xaei henrdrpixa dv felpjpov nvoi- aiaiv Ctleipav apiyvo- roc per' avtlpcjnoic is€& 30 BICS 31 (1984) 17
35
The passage contains some similarities to the words of Apollonius, though nothing particularly striking. The eagle, like Eros, flies over land and sea: a commonplace, of course. But Apollonius’ 6oid 66 7rOhoi hv&ovoi /uipvva oirphv jlh4hr~v~opvcgai XOovoc (1 61-2) could pass for a distant verbal reflection of Bacchylides’ 06 viv ~~puqizipeyahac i‘~ouoiyabc (24) - the Kopv.paiwhose function Apollonius expresses by uKpw (166). And Apollonius’ hv’ ai0Cpa 7roXhdv wvri (166) could be a pale shadow, but none the less a shadow, of Bacchylides’ paOuv 6’ ais6pa . . . rupvwv (17). Much more striking is the fact that Bacchylides’ context includes two unmistakeable phrases adapted from 1by~us.l~The first has long been known. The scholiast on Aristophanes’ Birds at line 192 attributes to Ibycus the phrase noriirai 6’ tv hhhorpiq xaei. The similarity of this to Bacch. v 26-27, vwpiirai 6’ tv arpurwi XUEL,had led editors of Ibycus to suppose that the scholiast was both misquoting and misattributing the line, which they reje~ted.1~The proper observation is that Bacchylides plundered the line from Ibycus. For we now know that Ibycus lies behind Bacchylides elsewhere in the same passage. In lines 16-17 the phrase SaOuv 6’ ai0Ppa r&vwv has an Ibycean parallel, to be found inPOxy 2637, a learned commentary on lyric poetry (S 220-257). In these fragments Ibykos is named twice, the ode to Gorgias cited, and the lemmata contain quotations from lyrics in the dialect used by Ibycus. There should be no doubt, therefore, that the work is in fact a commentary on that poet.16 In the passage in question, Fr. S 223(a), lines 5-7, immediately before a discussion of the views of Acesander and others about Geryon, we read ”I] aunog hdpw 1.0 xaov6s ;S .Ip[..lav Ba9[ijv ai436pa -roipvwv.
I take it that the first two words are to say that “Ibycus in another place” - tT&ppwOi - uses the phrase which follows. And though the comment must be connected with what comes next about Geryon, and then Pegasus, winged creatures both, we are explicitly not to suppose that the phrase quoted necessarily comes from an account of either of them; though we may, if we wish, believe that the commentator’s point is that Ibycus used the phrase twice, once perhaps in relation to Geryon, once k~6pwOi.~~‘ErkpwOi, I believe, was in his account of Zeus’ eagle, hastening to the rape of Ganymede. And I support this by reference to the supplement which Page proposed, in line 7 of the papyrus, ~0pv.pUv.In the preceding line, before XOovdc, all that is secure is the foot of a single upright stroke. Neglecting it, I would read ] . o XOovoc kc I ~~p[uq]uvPa8 [uv ai816pa ~tylvwv,recalling not only Bacchylides’ paNv 6’ aiOCpa rupvwv, but also his ~~pupaipeyuhac . . . yabc (24) and Apollonius’ KU~U~CL~XOovoc (1 62). I have said enough on this point, and I summarize it briefly. Both Bacchylides and Apollonius drew upon Ibycus to describe the flight from Olympus to Earth. Where they show verbal similarities, they owe their words or images to Ibycus; and through them we can allocate to the ode to Gorgias two unplaced quotations attributed to Ibycus. Further curiosities remain. In Bacchylides v 37-40, the poet pictures Hieron’s victorious steed, storm- swift Pherenikos, beside the broad-flowing Alpheius watched by - by whom? By the Dawn; but why? Was it that his use of Ibycus’ ode to Gorgias, containing not only the rape of Ganymede but also the tale of Tithonus and the Dawn, gave rise to this further association of ideas? The suggestion is confirmed by 18 BICS 31 (1984) verbal echoes between Bacchylides and what were evidently two of Ibycus' own sources.18 The first is obvious and uncomplicated. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite contains the same collocation of Ganymede and Tithonus and in the same order (202-238). Moreover Bacchylides' mention of ncjXov heXXoSpdpav and xpvuonaxvc 'A& in successive lines (39-40) calls to mind two successive lines of the hymn (217-218): meduvvoc S'i'nnololv heXhonO6 euutv bxeiro. ijc S'dTiewvov xpvooepovoc qpnauev 'Hdc.. . The storm-footed horses are the horses of Tros in the last line of the story of Ganymede, and gold-enthroned Dawn begins the second tale, of Tithonus. Yet we do of course know that both stories were in the ode of Ibycus which Bacchylides used, and it is obviously very possible that the phrases of the hymn were echoed by Ibycus, who in turn became Bacchylides' source. Moreover, the hymn, in Aphrodite's dialogue with Anchises, is thoroughly in keeping with recurrent Ibycean sentiment. The point about Eos and Tithonus, and the reason why Aphrodite repeats the tale to Anchises, is that love brings only misery and frustration unless it is accompanied by youth. Ganymede was indeed hsuvaroc. Kai hyrjpoc &a eeoibw (2 14). But it never occured to Eos to ask the second as well as the first privilege for Tithonus (225 ff.): rov S * fi rot eke piv hev nohvqparoc $3~, 'Hoi repnopevoc Xpvuoepovq qpiyeveln vaie nap' 'Rueavo5 pofic tni neipaui yaiqc. But when his first grey hairs appeared, she could no longer bring herself to share his bed. For a time she tried what ambrosia and fine garments could do. But when he became really old and decrepit, she locked him away out of sight. It is easy to see how this tale might haunt the middle-aged poet who in another of his fragments saw himself as an ageing race-horse, afraid to risk the memory of his glorious youth in yet another race, against younger rivals (Fr. 287).'9
The theme and tenor of the ode to Gorgias may be judged from its echoing the Hymn fo Aphrodite. But the ode, like that to Polycrates, seems also to have contained a second level of reminiscence, which, in the absence of Ibycus' full text, I find quite inscrutable. Lines 380-383 of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter are echoed by both Bacchylides and Apollonius in the passages at which we have been looking:20 ptj~qu82 paKpa K6Xmea 6iqvvuav, oi6k OaAaoua 060' 6Swp Irorapcjv oh' aywa Iroiqevra innwv hs~urovOij+ii~ple~ zoxeeov bppfiv, ahX' hip [email protected] qipa ripwv ZVTEC. The way down is KCXmeoc in Apollonius (160), paKpu KCheuea in the hymn. In both passages (164-6, 380-3) the way leads over sea and fertile land, rivers, and mountain peaks - uKpiec in both. We have already noted in Apollonius the phrase hv' ai8Cpa noXXdv wvra, and related it to Bacchylides' p&v 6 ' ai8dpa . . . riyCvwv as a fainter echo of Ibycus' p&v ai8ipa riyCvwv; and we now see Ibycus' source in the hymn, Pdvbipa ripwv idwec. Finally in Bacchylides we are told that neither the mountain peaks nor the waves of the sea hold Zeus' eagle from his course (24-6), 08 vw ~~pvqxzipeyaXac luxoval yak, 0%' hXdc hmwarac SuonaiIraAa mipara. This is precisely the relevance of the geographical features in the Hymn to Demeter: neither sea nor rivers nor pastures oh' uKpiec zuxeeov bppqv. These concentrated echoes and similarities of thought and diction seem to me to show beyond reasonable doubt that Ibycus meant his audience to seize an allusion to the Hymn to Demeter. The passage describes Hades' journey in his chariot, taking Persephone back to her grieving mother. Pessimistic as the tone of Ibycus' ode to Gorgias may have been, I cannot yet grasp the purpose of so precise an allusion. Meanwhile, I digress for a moment to consider why Bacchylides chose at this point to weave such a dense texture of allusion to Ibycus' account of the rape of Ganymede. There is an obvious association of ideas in the myth, for Zeus sought to console Ganymede's father Tros for the loss of his son by a gift of immortal, unbeatable racehorses - storm-swift, like Pherenikos in honour of whose victory for Hieron the ode was sung. BICS 31 (1984) 19
If that is right, then the nature of the allusion to the unspoken content of a context verbally signalled is very like the use of allusion which I have attributed to Ibycus himself in the poem to Polycrates, in which he echoes a context of Hesiod to proclaim himself similarly a prize-poet. Returning to the papyrus commentary, Fr. S 223(a), whose “second context”, kripwfk,in which Ibycus used the phrase OaBirv aitlipa rapvwv we have identified as the ode to Gorgias, we should ask what can be said of the “first context”, the passage on which the commentator’s note itself is written. It is along note, with at least thirty-two lines -all that survives of column ii -of discussion of the same poem.21 The phrase we have considered, of cleaving the air, evidently described the flight of Geryon. For the note goes on to cite authorities for rov mbt’J706 rp[t~]qoUXoupC0ov (lines 7-14); and both Stesichorus and some of the contemporary vase-painters represent Geryon as winged.22 In line 23 is a reference to rov nrjyaoov followed by a citation of Duris. Finally, before the text becomes too fragmentary for sense, there is an appeal to nlv I [6apoc - - - ‘O]hvpntovk[atc]Koptv- (26-7). As Lobel recognized, the latter is almost certainly a reference to Olympian xiii, the ode for Xenophon the Corinthian, with the myth of Bellerophon and Pegasus the winged horse, offspring of Medusa the Gorgon by Posidon (63-92).23 What point the citation of Pindar was to make, we cannot now tell. But the personnel are taken from Hesiod’s Theogony (270-292): Medusa’s union with dark-haired Posidon, their sons Pegasus and Chrysaor, the latter’s son Geryoneus whom Heracles killed when he drove off his cattle, @6c ijhaoev (Theog. 291) - no doubt the source of Ibycus Fr. 332, ijhaaro potk, if the phrase is not too commonplace to need a source.24 There is every probability that Marcovigi was right in associating with the context of the note two unplaced fragments of the same papyrus roll which contained the poem to Polycrates, PUxy 1790 Fr. 7 and 20810 Fr. 3 (S 154).25 A conservative text (after Page) might run as follows:
1 I 1 1
The context in Ibycus, then, included Pegasus’ father the Earthshaker as well as Geryon his nephew. Of Pegasus himself we are told by the commentator (21) that he was UEA]+O~T$~LV.But we have already conjectured the presence of some form of this word in the ode to Gorgias, taken from the Hymn to Aphrodite as &zl%v aiekpa rapvwv was from the Hymn to Demeter, and both re-echoed by Bacchylides. If that is right, then Ibycus did not only echo others: in one or other of the poems he echoed himself. * * * * * * * *
Ibycus’ rich use of imagery and his sophisticated technique of allusion are themes which are not yet exhausted. But I want to turn now to a more historical question, that of the genres in which Ibycus wrote. It should be said at the outset that except for the statement that his work ran to seven books, the ancient testimonia are of no profit to us in this inquiry. The accepted doctrine today appears to be this.26 Ibycus, a native of Rhegium in the west, began to write in the tradition of lyric narrative of triadic shape which his fellow Westerner Stesichorus had pioneered. Later on, in Samos, he was drawn to take up the personal love-lyric of the East. The poem to Polycrates, triadic in form, epic in content but with the beauty of young men at its climax, marks the transition from one genre to the other. It must be admitted that the first element in this history is conjectural. The poems to Polycrates 20 BICS 31 (1984) and Gorgias make it clear that all the mythological material for which Ibycus is cited could have appeared in personal poetry, and that this material is not by itself a compelling reason to suppose that Ibycus ever wrote Stesichorean narrative lyrics. Yet the evidence of confusion in antiquity over the attribution of works to the two western poets - for instance Athenaeus’ doubt about the attribution of the ‘At% im’ neX4~27- must continue to suggest that Ibycus did in fact at some period of his career take upon him the mantle of Stesichorus. The more recently published papyri encourage us to guess a little more, but of great interest if true, about the purpose of some of the poems addressed to individuals. In POxy 2735 (S 166-219) we have two substantial and fifty-two badly mutilated fragments which on grounds of language dialect and metre must be attributed either to Stesichorus or to Ibycus. Lobe1 guessed Stesichorus, and was followed by Professor West and others. Page, however, at once saw solid reasons to prefer Ibycus.28 In the first place, the fragments belong to at least three poems. Our knowledge of Stesichorus’ Geryoneis and Oresteia suggests that that poet’s works each occupied a whole book or a number of books.29 Three or more poems in one roll would hardly be his. And even if the fragments are not all from a single roll - though there is no reason to doubt that they are - it is too much to believe that they came from as many as three. In the second place, the fragments have an obtrusively erotic content: S 166.7, oiu T’ €p270Toc, compare 23-6, dhhturov imx13[0vlov],[eel~l~oc ivuh[i]y~rov E~&I[c] ; S 173.7, [dXX]p~e nutbGv; S 181.10, [7rept~u]$hk’kpuu?[uv]. This element is better suited to Ibycus, to whose erotic bent Cicero bears witness, than to the “graves Camenae” of Ste~ichorus.~~Moreover, a comparison made by Professor West himself gives strong confirmation. Writing of S 166, he drew attention to the similarity of structure between it and Ibycus’ poem to Polycrates: both have a section of perfunctory myth, broken off in order to turn to praise of beauty and of the recipient - here at line 22, the beginning of an epode. The fragment shows us, he argued, the degree of similarity between Stesichorus and Ibycus, the extent of the dependence of Ibycus upon his predecessor.31 But the point is that POxy 2735 is anonymous and awaits attribution. The comparison tends to suggest that its author is the poet who wrote for Polycrates, not that the latter depended upon the former.
What strikes one about POxy 2735 (S 166-219) is not only the erotic but the very considerable athletic content. Of the three poems which Page could identify, two embrace this theme. Lines 36-7 of S 166 evidently contain references to wrestling and running, and to an ugon. The first fourteen lines of S 176 appear to be a recital in the rapid manner of Ibycus of the contests in the funeral games of Pelias: the presence of Peleus the wrestler in line 11 and in line 14 his opponent 71 hv ~&UTO[UAtalante, of Heracles in line 6 and of Iolaos in line 9, in a context of chariot-racing, leaves no doubt of the subject.32 Moreover the papyrus commentary on lyrics POxy 2637 (S 220-257) gives even more evidence of the poet’s interest in athletics. That Ibycus is indeed the subject of all or part of this commentary, seems clear from the fact that the poet is twice mentioned by name, his Corgias is cited, and the dialect is appropriate to him (p. 17 above). Fragment 221 at line 32 has the title KuXhk, followed by a quotation in the dialect of Ibycus, no doubt the opening of the poem, in which the poet expresses a hope for more occasions in the future for singing the recipient’s praises.33 As no author is named for the Callzizs, it is to be presumed that the earlier part of the column, S 220, dealt with another poem by the same author. Line 19 cites from the poet a phrase containing nobGv, and the following commentary includes, lines 20 f., iv ~jjtheX[~]uet, line 22, the victor, b yip vtK[Ljv or b rup VLK[~~UW.Alexandrian editors often tended to group poems by theme. If this poem had an athletic context, Callzizs may also have had. The question is, can any of these poems have been Epinicians? Hitherto, we have known of no Epinicians before Simonides, and the received opinion is that there were n0ne.3~Yet it is in the last degree improbable that archaic victors were content merely with the ritual cry of rrjvchhu. It was not archaic but classical Greece which spoke of good fortune in hushed tones for fear of provoking Nemesis. Archaic heroes, with their Homeric models, will have been more prepared to exult in their prowess, like Milon of Croton who went into battle dressed as Heracles and with all his athletic victory wreaths piled on his head.35 We know from Homer that moments of celebration or of public emotion called for dance and song.36 If there were really no Epinicians before Simonides, it would be a matter for the greatest surprise. Moreover we have the BICS 31 (1984) 21
positive evidence of Pindar, Nem. viii 50 ff.:
$U YE /..lUU klTlKWpWc 6pVOC ij+ ncihai Kal' nprpiu yeuMai rb~'Aijpaorov rau TE Kdpciwu Zpiu. The context is explicitly concerned with Epinician verse; and though the period to which Pindar refers is the heroic age, the point of his remark appears to depend upon the assumption of continuity. It is at any rate hard to see how Pindar could have made this remark if he had believed that the Epinician was invented almost in his own life-time. We should not, then, be afraid to look for Epinicians of Ibycus or of any other of Simonides' possible precursors in the art, even though the Alexandrian editors may not formally have classified them as such. Let us return to S 166. The athletic context of lines 36-37 comes in the personal section of the poem. As we have seen, the mythological themes are dropped at line 22, in order to address someone of god-like beauty, most handsome of mortals under the light of the sun, whether Ionian or - and the other name of a race is missing. That is the epode, 22-28. This paragon appears to be a dweller in Sparta, renowned in men (29-30) and that, no doubt, was the reason why the mythological section had concerned the great Spartan sportsmen Castor and Pollux, 15-2 1. The antistrophe, beginning at 36, goes on to speak of wrestling and racing, and an agon tn' 'A. [, perhaps even in' 'AU[. The a is marked long in the manuscript, and Lobel suggested the River Asopus. For that is an agon we know about, since Pindar refers to it in the ninth Nemean, line 9 - the a&hu . . . a TE @o@y'ABfiKEu 'AAGpaoroc in' 'Auwnofi p~i'ABp0ic.~~In Ibycus' day the festival at Sicyon had been taken away from Adrastus, victim of the tyrant Cleisthenes' anti- Dorian anti-Argive policies, and transferred to the patronage of Melanippus (Hdt v 67). No doubt it provided a focus for all who hated Dorian Argos, among them the Spartans who maintained the anti- Dorian facade in Sicyon as their protectorate in Ibycus' time.38 It would be no surprise to find Spartans among the contestants and victors in the Games. In a poem of this period, in which Sparta found it prudent to soft-pedal her Dorian race to claim instead the Achaean heritage of Agamemnon and Menela~s,~~ and to foster relations with the predominant Ionian state, Sam~s,~Oit is not wholly fanciful to ask, did line 28 of our poem read ]uu' 'Ihuac our' u[u' 'Axawvc? Perhaps a victory celebration, then, for a young Spartan, undefeated in wrestling and running in the games at Sicyon. I cannot forebear to mention that the only recorded parallel for mijiuuEipuu (29) in its necessary sense "renowned in men" is an epigram of ca. 220 B.C. standing first in the Planudean collection, an epigram of Demagetos, for a Spartan boy, a champion wrestler: 41 our' and Meaaauac oh' 'A p yo 8 E u ~ipinaXaLorac. Znapra poi, Crapra KvGuiuEipa, narpic. Did the epigrammatist perhaps have Ibycus' ode in mind? There is no way of telling the purpose or identifying the recipient of the lines on the ?A'ABXa kni &hip S 176, and I pass it over. In the light of S 166 we look again at the learned commentary POxy 2637 Fr. 1, S 220-221. We are concerned with a single column of text, divided by the title Kuhh[i]ac at line 32. Lines 1-31 of the papyrus column evidently contain comment on one poem, for if they dealt with more than one we should have expected another title, like KahXlac below, to be inserted. The athletic references in lines 19 to 22 may then be taken with the one geographical reference, in lines 3-4. Ibycus had used the phrase Kpovhv nrvxai. The commentator explainsK1pduwu b Iz~owivo~c.~~Did Ibycus' victor hail from Leontini? Ibycus was no stranger to that region, for it was on a journey from nearby Catana to Himera that he fell out of his chariot, and stopped his song (Fr. 343). The next poem in the roll on which the commentator worked was headed Kahhiac. As Lobel pointed out, the only hope of a parallel for the naming of a poem for a presumably contemporary character in the nominative case must be sought in Epinician poetry. Not that manuscripts of Pindar or Bacchylides use the nominative: always the dative. But the scholia preserve the implication of a different practice in the naming of Pindar's Olympians and Pythians - for instance on Pythian iv for Arcesilaus, r&oc 'Ap~~uihhv.~~Was this the practice which obtained in the day of the scholar who wrote POxy 2631? Was Ibycus' Callias an Epinician too? 22 BICS 31 (1984)
So far the new papyri have given us three possible odes written to celebrate victories in the Games: for a Spartan at Sicyon, for an athlete of Le~ntini,~~and for the unknown Callias. Or is he unknown? There is of course a well-!mown Callias in whose honour such a poem might appropriately have been composed. Callias the son of Phaenippus, an Athenian, who had already been successful in the Pythian Games, won the horse-race at the 54th Olympiad, in 564 B.C.; at the same meeting his four-horse chariot came in sec0nd.~5 Some have preferred to set Ibycus’ career rather later than this; but the same date, the 54th Olympiad, is that given by the Suda for Ibycus’ journey to the tyrant’s court of Samos, in my view the occasion of the Ode to P0lycrates.4~ Yet another victory-ode may lurk in the indirect tradition. I refer to Fr. 323, the Scholia on Theocritus i 117. Commenting on the spring of Arethusa at Syracuse, the scholiast notes a tradition that the Alpheus crossed under the sea from Elis and came up in the fountain Arethusa - a popular variant of the story of the river-god’s love for Arethusa.47 This tradition, says the scholiast, was to be found in Ibycus, nupimopGv nepl riic ’OXvpn~~~fic(puihqc (Fr. 323). We know about this phiale, and about Alpheus’ love for Arethusa, from Servius’ commentary on Virgil’s Eclogues x 4: once upon a time, there was found in Arethusa a golden patera which an Olympic victor had thrown into the Alpheus. This proved the truth of the story of the river-god’s pursuit of the fountain-nymph. Furthermore, adds Servius, when sacrificial victims are slaughtered at Olympia their blood runs into the Alpheus and comes up in Areth~sa.~~There is good reason to believe that the story of the blood as well as that of the phiale may have been told by Ibycus. For the theme of the under-sea river evidently fascinated him. He told a similar story of the Sicyonian ASOPUS,making it re-emerge in Peloponnese after travelling under the Aegean from Phrygia (Fr. 322); and the proof of that, given by Pausanias as local Sicyonian tradition (ii 5.3), is that it owed its red colour to the blood of the satyr Marsyas, flayed in Phrygia. Ibycus is naptmopcjv, digressing, about the Olympic phiale. What was his main theme? I suggest it was the praise of a Syracusan victor in the Olympic Games, returning home across the watery route Alpheus travelled from Elis to the fountain of Arethusa. We do at least know that Ibycus wrote about Syracuse, describing the conversion of Ortygia from island to peninsula (Fr. 320). That could be part of the praise of the victor’s city.
All attempts to regain some idea of the scope and nature of Ibycus’ poetry are bound to be filled with conjecture. My own is no exception. Like Asopus and Alpheus, with the end of Antiquity the poet’s own stream disappeared, to find a new spring in the sands of Egypt in our day. But it is for the reader to judge whether I have seen in the water a trace of the true blood, or whether, like the men of Sicyon and the men of Syracuse, I have seen only the discoloration of the mud that I myself have stirred.
King’s College, London
NOTES Earlier drafts of this paper were read to the Cambridge Philological Society and at McGill University and the Institute of Classical Studies. I have learned much from the comments and criticisms of those present; and I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Dr N.J. Richardson and the late Sir Denys Page. Fragments are cited by the continuous numbering of D.L. Page, Poetae Melici Grueci (Oxford 1962) and Supplemenrum Lyricis Gruecis (Oxford 1974), the numeration of the latter prefixed by “S”. B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, The OxyrhynchusPapyri 15 (London 1922) 73-84 no. 1790;ibid. 17 (1927) 80f. no. 2081 0.Attribution and discussion: P. Maas, Philol. Wochenschr. 42 (1922) 577 ff.; B. Snell, Philol. 96 (1944) 290ff.; D.L.-Page, “Ibycus’ Poem in Honour of Polycrates”, Aegyptus 31 (1951) 158-72; C.M. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poerry2 (Oxford 1960) 247-57;F. Sisti, “L’ode a Policrate: un cam di recusatio in Ibico”, Quad. Urbin. 4 (1967) 59-79. “Ibycus: To Polycrates”, BICS 16 (1969) 119-49, esp. 132f., 137. Of more recent studies of this poem, the following have been particularly helpful: C.M. Robertson, “Ibycus: Polycrates, Troilus, Polyxena”, BICS 17 (1970) 11-15; M.L. West, “Melica”, CQ n.s. 20 (1970) 206-9; id., ibid. 25 (1975) 307;G.F. Gianotti, “Mito ed encornio: il carme di Ibico in onore di Policrate”, RIFC 101 (1973) 401-10; L. Simonini, “11 Fr. 282P di Ibico”, Acme 32 (1979) 285-98; A. Gostoli, “Osservazioni metriche sull’encomio a Policrate di Ibico”, Quad. Urbin. 31 (1979) 93-9; BICS 31 (1984) 23
B.M. Palumbo Stracca, “La preterizione in Ibico”, Boll. Class. 2 (1981) 150-7; J. Peron, “Le po6me A Polycrate, une ‘palinodie’ d‘Ibycus?”, Rev. Phil. 56 (1982) 33-56. Cf. “The Son of Hyllis”, CR n.s. 11 (1961) 185-7; C.M. Bowra, op.cit. (n. 3) 246 f. Add now to this the further Sicyonian reference in Fr. S 166.37, on which see below, p. 21 and n. 37. Aegyptus 31, 166. See, however, H. Maehler, Die Auffassung des Dichterberufs im frirhen Griechentum bis zur Zeit Pindars, Hypomnemata 3 (Gattingen 1963) 74-7, who sees this proneness to quotation as a kind of mannerism. I take this opportunity to say that I am now persuaded by Professor West’s emendation, abrdc for Ouardc, in Fr. 282 = S 151, line 25: Philol. 110 (1966) 152f.; id., CQ n.s. 25 (1975) 307; cf. A. Gostoli, op.cit. (n. 4) 93 f. M.L. West, Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford 1978) 322, on line 659, notes a further echo of Hesiod’s Muses of Helicon, betip€ rb np3rou hryupfic k7TCpqfJQU hol~fiq,in Ibycus, lines 23 f., KQ~T~p+ UU] ~oiuat~e~~r[u]p,Cuar I ei) ‘EALKWU&[[ES]tppaieu hdyw[i. 9. Cf. on this the perceptive studies of E.A. Havelock, The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences (Princeton 1982) 10. Tyrt. Fr. 10.19-27 West: ZIiad xxii 66-76. See the important study by M.R. Lefkowitz, “Bacchylides’ Ode 5: Imitation and Originality”, HSCP 73 (1969) 45-96, making the point that, however alien to modern canons of criticism, for an ancient poet an important part of his very originality lay in creative imitation. On Tyrtaeus and Homer, and other examples of similar imitation, ibid. 147 and n. 4. 11. Th. Bergk, on PLG4, Ibycus Fr. 5;adopted by Page, PMG ad loc. The Hesiodic passage, WD 70-80, has been thought an interpolation. Ibycus would appear to guarantee it at least archaic. See West, op.cit. (n. 8) ad lac. 12. See now M. Davies, “The Eyes of Love and the Hunting-Net in Ibycus 287P”, Maia 32 (1980) 255-7. 13. C. Wendel, Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium Vetera (Berlin 1935, repr. 1958) p. 220, citing a note of Wilamowitz in his copy of H. Keil’s edition of the scholia (1854). 14. For the full extent of Bacchylides’ borrowing from other poets for this ode, see M.R. Lefkowitz, op.cit. (n. 10); on this passage, 53-56,95 f. - where, however, Bacchylides’ use of Ibycus is not noticed, since S 223 (a) and (b) were not available in 1969. See also H. Maehler, Die Lieder des Bakchylides I, Die Siegeslieder (Leiden 1982) ii 92ff. ad loc.; N.J. Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford 1974) 281, note on line 383. For a different perspective, see A. Bonnafd, “L’aigle dans Bacchylide v 26-30”, ZPE 9 (1972) 35-40. 15. Fr. 28 Bergk; not included by Diehl, or by Page in PMG; readmitted as S 223 (b). 16. S 223 (a)& 225.2,226.2; and for the dialect ~i and hy&, 221.1,4, in a generally Doric setting. (It is not certain that S 227-57 deal with Ibycus, but there is no positive reason to doubt it.) See D.L. Page, “Fragments of Greek Lyrical Poetry: P.0xy. 2637”,Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. n.s. 16 (1970) 91-96;G. Marcovigi, Stud. Ital. Fil. Class. 43 (1971) 65-78; and, identifying the poet as Simonides, M. Treu KwKahbc 15 (1969) 428-38. 17. One or other context may be represented by Fr. 282 (c) fr. 3 = S 154.6, ]?&pvW[. For a possible reconstruction, see below, p. 19, and Marcovigi, loc. cit. (n. 16). In S 223 (a), line 7, I read aielhpa rather than h]Cpa because of the closeness of Bacchylides’ echoes and the use of the former word by Apollonius iii 166 (above). The physical state of the papyrus offers no help in deciding between those possibilities, for Fr. 5(a) and (b) of POxy 2637 do not join, and the distance between them is fixed by reference to the restoration here: see Lobel, Ox. Pap. 32 (1967) p. 145 ad loc. 18. For what follows, see N.J. Richardson, 1oc.cit. (n. 14). I am particularly grateful to Dr Richardson for discussing this material with me. 19. One might of course conjecture from this that Fr. 287 is in fact part of the ode to Gorgias, the equine context having suggested the simile. But there is no positive evidence, and Ibycus may often have felt his advancing age. 20. Richardson, loc. cit. (n. 14). 21. P. Oxy. 2637 Fr. 5 col. ii. The column runs for 32 lines but is not complete at either top or bottom. Unlike Fr. 1 (a) = S 220-221, it is not interrupted by the title of a fresh poem, as it would be if there were one. 22. Stesich. Fr. 186, cf. S 37.1; C.M. Robertson, “Geryoneis: Stesichorus and the Vase Painters”, CQ n.s. 19 (1969) 207-21, esp. 208; for the two “Chalcidian” amphoras (actually Rhegine?) discussed - Paris, Cab. Mdd. 202, and London, Brit. Mus. B 155 - see A. Rumpf, Chalkidische Vasen (Berlin and Leipsic 1927) 8 no. 3, 10 no. 6,46 f., 65 f., P11. 6-9, 13-15. 23. Lobel, Ox. Pap. 32, 146; cf. Marcovigi, op.cit. (n. 16) 70 ff. 24. Cf. Marcovigi, opxit. 66. 25. Marcovigi, op.cit. 70 ff., proposes also to bring POxy 1790 Fr. 5 and 2081 U, Fr. 4 (S 153, 165) into this re- construction. The case is uncertain. 26. First enunciated by F.G. Schneidewin, Ibyci Rhegini Carminum Reliquiae (Gattingen 1833) 38 ff.; cf. Bowra, op.cit. (n. 3) 252ff.; Sisti, op.cit. (n. 3) 59-63. 24 BICS 31 (1984)
27. Athen. 172D = Fr. 179; almost certainly not S 176, see below, and n. 32. 28. E. Lobel, Ox. Pap. 35 (1968) p. 9; M.L. West, “Stesichorus Redivivus, ii, Stesichorus in Sparta”, ZPE 4 (1969) 142-49. D.L. Page,Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. n.s. 15 (1969) 69-71. 29. M.L. West, “Stesichorus”, CQ n.s. 21 (1971) 302. 30. Cicero, Tusc. iv 71, maxime vero omnium fkgrasse amore Rheginum Ibycum apparel ex scriptis; cf. Suda S.V. ’~PUKOC,kpw7opeuiu7a7oC nept‘ peip&aca. On Stesichorus, by contrast, see Horace, Odes iv 9.8; Quint., Or. x 1.62. The force of Athenaeus’ comment that he too was ob pespiwc kp~~td~(601A) is diminished by Athenaeus’ difficulty in distinguishing the work of the two lyric poets (cf. above and n. 27). 31. ZPE 4,148f. 32. There is no real likelihood that this is the ‘ABha of Stesichorus, or the poem whose authorship was in dispute between him and Ibycus (n. 27 above). The subject passes all too rapidly. See D.L. Page, Proc. Camb. Phil. SOC. n.s. 17 (1971) 89-93. 33. Id., ibid. n.s. 16 (1970) 91-96, esp. 93. 34. See, however, the cautious remarks of Page, ibid., 94 f.; cf. Bowra, op.cit. (n. 3) 8 f., 310-11, on encomia in general. 35. Diod. xii 9.6. 36. Cf. Iliad i 472-4, vii 241, xviii 50-1, 314-6,493 ff., 570, xxiv 723 ff.; Odyss. viii 262ff., xxiv 60ff.: Bowra, op.cit. (n. 3) 4-6. 37. “hremean” ix is actually an ode for a chariot-victory at Sicyon, cf. lines 1,9. Here, then, we may have one more instance to add to the growing number of Ibycus’ references to Sicyon. 38. Sparta put down the Sicyonian tyranny cu. 556, according to Rylands Papyrus 18 (F.Gr.Hist. 105 F 1): D.M. Leahy, Bull. of rhe John Rylands Library 38 (1956) 406-35; cf. N.G.L. Hammond, CQ n.s. 6 (1956) 45-53; Leahy, Historia 17 (1968) 1-23. But the anti-Dorian tribe-names instituted by the tyrant Cleisthenes in the early sixth century lasted for sixty years after his death: Hdt. v 68; see G.L. Huxley, Early Sparta (London 1962) 69 f. 39. Huxley, op.cit. 67 ff. 40. P.A. Cartledge, “Sparta and Samos: a Special Relationship”, CQ n.s. 32 (1982) 243-65. 41. A.S.F. Cow and D.L. Page, The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams (Cambridge 1965) i 79 no. xi; for commentary, ibid ii 229. 42. There is no particular reason to follow Lobel in identifying this with the site of the Carthaginian victory over the Sicilian Greeks in 383 B.C. (Diod. xv 16). For after the battle the victors fell back on Panormos, a long retreat. M. Treu, op.cit. (n. 16) 429 f., gathers the evidence for this common Sicilian place-name. 43. Lobel, Ox. Pap. 32 (1967) p. 142 ad loc. 44. Not, presumably identical with the subject of Gorgias. For, though the name is Leontine later - note the famous sophist and orator - the victor from Leontini appears to have won on foot (S 220.19), whereas Corgias, if a victory ode, must have been concerned rather with chariot-racing, to judge from what we have said of it above. 45. [Hdt.] vi 122, cf. schol. Aristoph., Birds 284, See J.K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford 1971) 255, “Kallias I”; L. Moretti, “Olympionikai, i vincitorinegliantichi agoni olimpichi”, Mem. Ace. Lincei ser. 8, viii 2 (Rome 1957) 70 no. 103. The name of Callias suggested Athens, and Simonides as author, to M. Treu, 1oc.cit. (n. 16). 46. BICS 16, 136 f. and nn. 77-8; cf. “The SixthCentury Tyranny at Samos”, CQ n.s. 14 (1964) 210-29; F. Sisti, “Ibico e Policrate”, Quad. Urbin. 2 (1966) 91 ff. The evidence is not so readily to be dismissed as M.L. West argues, CQ n.s. 20 (1970) 206-9. 47. Cf. the further references collected by Page, ad Fr. 323. 48. Servii Grammatici. . . Commentarii, edd. G. Thilo and H. Hagen, iii (Leipsic 1887, repr. 1927) 119.