Science and Poetry in the Early Reception of Aratus''phaenomena

Science and Poetry in the Early Reception of Aratus' Phaenomena

A dissertation submitted to the

Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Department of Classics

of the College of Arts and Sciences

by

John Ryan

M.A. University of Cincinnati

March 2016

Committee Chair: Kathryn Gutzwiller, PhD.

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Abstract

This dissertation locates three moments in the history of the ancient reception of the Greek astronomical poem, the Phaenomena, written by Aratus of Soloe in the third century BC. I argue that Aratus achieves his appeal and authority by reinforcing the precision of his scientific material with the stylistic precision of his poetry. Several intellectual communities engage at length with his poem, which enjoyed a wide, learned readership on account of its polyvalent appeal to scientific, literary, and philosophical communities. In the first chapter I introduce the dissertation by demonstrating that Aratus' fusion of prosaic science and archaic poetry is marked in the poem itself, and that Aratus invites his readers to meditate on the merit of poetics in scientific discourse. In the second chapter I argue that the Phaenomena's reputation for poetic precision and vividness among his third century audience lends him authority as a technical, scientific writer. In the third chapter I argue that the second century BC astronomer and commentator Hipparchus of Nicaea responds to a tradition of scientific commentary that assents to Aratus as an authoritative source. Hipparchus criticizes the readership of Aratus by seeking precise means to read, interpret, and then check the astronomical claims of the Phaenomena. In the fourth chapter I argue that the Latin translations of Cicero and Germanicus Caesar from the first centuries BC and AD continue the Hellenistic Greek reception of the Phaenomena. Cicero promotes the vividness of Aratus' poetic style, while Germanicus accommodates the scientific corrections of Hipparchus all while insisting on the Phaenomena's poetic form. The dissertation concludes that Aratus' reputation for vividness and precision as a poet secured him a prominent place in astronomical literature for centuries to come.

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Acknowledgments

This dissertation would not have been possible, were it not for the support I received from colleagues, friends, and family. I would like to thank library staff: Mike Braunlin, Jacquie Riley, Cade Stevens, and the late David Ball. All went beyond the call of duty to help me at a moment's notice. I would like to thank the Classics Department faculty for their support and wisdom over the years. Both Daniel Markovic and Valeria Sergueenkova have patiently waded through many drafts to help me develop and clarify my thoughts and points. Kathryn Gutzwiller has patiently guided me through my career as a graduate student. She has generously offered her scholarly and professional wisdom throughout the outlining, writing, and revising of this dissertation. I could not have hoped for a finer committee. Tommy Sheehan was kind enough to spare a small fraction of his immense talent either to re-draw or touch up the images on which I rely to illustrate points of central importance. Kate Brown and Anne Sheehan have loved me unconditionally since the day I was born. Their support throughout my time as a graduate student has taken too many forms to name, but I am forever grateful. Finally, thanks to John Ryan and Rae Ryan, whose unwavering support and love were indispensible in the present undertaking.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction...... 1 Constellations in the Phaenomena...... 7 The Present Work...... 15 Chapter 2: Poetic and Scientific Refinement of the Phaenomena in Contemporary Epigram...... 20 Λεπτότης in the Phaenomena...... 23 The Epigram Tradition...... 32 Chapter 3: Philology and Astronomy: The Commentary Tradition...... 51 Hipparchus Philologus...... 60 Hipparchus Mathematicus...... 93 The Reception of the Phaenomena as Evidence of a Second-century Scientific Community...... 113 Chapter 4: Aratus in Rome: The Reception of the Phaenomena in Translation...... 116 The Phaenomena in Cicero's Rhetorical Thought...... 126 The Phaenomena in the Astronomical Tradition...... 139 Aratea...... 152 Chapter 5: Conclusion...... 156 Bibliography:...... 159

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Written by Aratus of Soloe in the 270's BC, the Phaenomena is a 1,154-line versification of the fourth-century astronomical work of Eudoxus of Cnidus and meteorological material drawn from an unknown source.1 Aratus cast his scientific source text in the mold of the epic tradition of Hesiod and Homer and so fused together the two apparently odd bedfellows of scientific astronomy and archaic epic. The poem was an immediate and lasting success, celebrated throughout the Hellenistic age and translated into Latin a number of times.2

Scholars have variously interpreted the Phaenomena as a display of erudition,3 a comment on humankind's relationship with the larger cosmos,4 and a Stoicizing account of the celestial sphere whose movement is dictated by divine order.5 Each approach

1 Vita 1 (Martin 1974, 8) names only Eudoxus as the source of the Phaenomena. 2 See Sale 1965, Lewis 1992, and Gee 2013, 12-16 for explanations of the popularity of Aratus in antiquity. Cribiore 2001, 142-3 discusses the Phaenomena's place in the educational canon. The Phaenomena was translated into Latin several times: Avienus’ entire translation has been preserved by manuscript tradition (Soubiran 1981); considerable portions of translations by Cicero and Germanicus survive in their own tradition (Soubiran 1972, Gain 1976); Varro of Atax certainly wrote a translation, at least of the weather signs, which only survives in scant fragments (Courtney 1993, 244-5), and there is evidence to suggest that Ovid, Quintus Cicero, and the emperor Gordian I produced translations as well (Gee 2000, 68-70; Courtney 1993, 179-81; Soubiran 1981, 6). 3 Kroll 1925, 1847-50; Fakas 2001 treats the bookish nature of the Phaenomena. 4 Erren 1967, Effe 1977, 40-56; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 224-5; Hunter 1995. 5 Erren 1967; Gee 2000, 70-91. Gee 2013, 57-109 argues that Lucretius responded to Cicero's translation of the Phaenomena as an endorsement of Stoic cosmology. For the

1 brings to the fore important features of the poem: Aratus writes in the tradition of

Hesiod's didactic poetry, although he updates that tradition by treating a subject whose precision is not really possible in the archaic world of oral composition. At the same time, his traditional constellation of mankind and Zeus within the cosmos at large is naturally attractive to a Stoic philosophy concerned with describing a divine cosmos. The versification of a cosmological poem, moreover, coheres well with Stoic notions of poetry: Cleanthes is reported to have claimed that philosophical truths demand to be expressed in verse, and a poem about cosmological order might similarly dispose the soul of its reader.6 Traditional ties to Hesiod, contemporary technical astronomy, and strong cosmological assertions made the Phaenomena an attractive text for poets, astronomy enthusiasts, and philosophical communities alike. Each approach tackles one or two sides of a dynamic reception.

The present work treats the ancient reception7 of the Phaenomena in literary and scientific circles, from its composition in the 270's BC to the beginning of the first century BC. Emma Gee has examined threads of a Roman reception of Aratus, which identify the Phaenomena as a symbol of a generally Stoic sympathy for what we might term an "intelligent design" account of the cosmos. Although Gee's studies offer extensive commentary on responses to the Phaenomena's cosmological claims in Latin

Zeus of the Phaenomena as pervasive Stoic pneuma, see James 1972, 36, Kidd 1997, 162, and Gee 2000, 72-3. Maass 1958, 335-6: scholia to Phaen. 3 identify this Zeus with pronoia. 6 On Cleanthes, see SVF 1.109 with discussion in DeLacy 1948, 270-71. On the disposition of a poem effecting a certain disposition in its reader, see the discussion in DeLacy 1948, 248. 7 See Graziosi 2002, 1-10 for my basic approach. I am similarly committed to the idea that ancient documents can in fact be used to reconstruct a history of how Aratus was received in antiquity. Cf. Martindale 1993 and Martindale and Thomas 2006 and discussions therein for discussions of reception theory.

2 prose and poetry, it omits entirely any account of the work's Hellenistic reception, such as we can reconstruct, and it focuses solely on matters of Stoicism. The present study's originality lies in two features: the account of the poem's reception will begin in the community of Aratus' Greek contemporaries, treating its Latin translations as an epilogue to the poem's Greek reception, and it will examine how the Phaenomena's reception in various kinds of communities tie together into the question of what was so important about the Phaenomena in the first three centuries following its composition. In explaining the popularity of the Phaenomena I will determine how the receptions of different intellectual communities interlock, resulting in an Aratean tradition that would last for centuries to follow.

Four short biographies of Aratus' life survive in the manuscripts, in addition to a fifth one in the Suda. Although much of the content seems fanciful, it appears that Aratus came from Cilicia, that he spent some time in Athens, and that he was invited to the court of Antigonas Gonatas II at Pella in 276, where he appears to have written the

Phaenomena at the king's request. Generally, Aratus is credited with a number of works

(on which, see chapter two), most of which involve erudite or scientifically detailed topics. The immediate circumstances of his composition of the Phaenomena are recorded in two ways: we are told that Antigonas gave Aratus the work of Eudoxus, quipping that he might make the work "more famous" (εὐδοξότερον), and we are told a less plausible anecdote that Aratus and Nicander, the former a doctor and the latter an astronomer, traded prose works, each putting the other's into verse (Martin 1974, 8-9). Although verifying either account is more or less impossible, both stress the way the Phaenomena fuses different modes of expression by arranging prosaic material into verse.

3 The conditions under which Aratus produced the poem are difficult to discern due to a gap in evidence from the fourth and early third centuries BC: although we know that didactic poetry was being produced, we know very little of its nature, a difficulty articulated recently by Katharina Volk and reiterated by Emma Gee.8 Aratus' fusion of epic traditions of poetic authority with observational astronomy may only appear original.

The poem therefore presents something of a mystery: arising from the shadows it appears to have become an instant classic with perhaps the most thriving extant reception of any single work from its time.

Although the Phaenomena's singularity at the time of its production may be an illusion resulting from our lack of evidence, remnants of the poem's reception confront us with an embarrassment of riches. Celebrated in contemporary epigram for his notorious

λεπτότης (thinness/refinement), Aratus appears to have garnered practically universal admiration among his contemporaries, which is reflected in a remarkably detailed biographical tradition.9 The subsequent century (ca. 140's BC) has left us with an entirely unique piece of evidence from the Hellenistic world: an extant commentary devoted to the Phaenomena written by Hipparchus of Nicaea, perhaps the most important astronomer of the ancient world. Hipparchus' commentary has been understood as a criticism of the Phaenomena,10 and is almost unmentioned in a recent work completely

8 Volk 2010, 197-98; Gee 2013, 4. Almost no didactic poetry survives from the fourth century BC outside of 340 lines of Archestratus' Hedupatheia, which appears to have been a light parody of didactic poetry treating fine dining. See Olsen and Sens 2000, xxxii-xlii. 9 Collected in Martin 1974, 6-22. 10 Tueller and Macfarlane 2009 interpret the work as a comment on the methods and literary technologies appropriate to science; Netz 2009, 169-70 understands Hipparchus' commentary as a humorous misreading of the poem that highlights its shortcomings as a scientific treatise.

4 devoted to the poem's reception.11 Beyond that, abundant scholia attest strong literary, philosophical, and scientific threads of reception in the way of commentaries and supplementary materials surrounding the poem.12

In the Roman world, the first century BC saw a translation by Cicero, of which several hundred lines survive, both in a large section passed down in an independent (and very interesting) manuscript tradition, while a good deal more is quoted at length by

Cicero himself in his philosophical work. The beginning of the first century AD, moreover, saw another translation by Germanicus Caesar, of which the entire astronomical section survives in its own manuscript tradition. A fourth century AD translation by Avienus remains fully intact, and numerous ancient translations have been attested. The reception of Aratus extends well into the modern era.13

Making sense of the prominence of the Phaenomena has typically raised questions centered on why a poem on constellations and weather signs should command such admiration in antiquity. Confusion on this point has obfuscated the central position the Phaenomena occupies within the ancient canon: after Homer, I can think of no other

Greek poem whose reception rivals it. The amount of anecdotal evidence attesting the

Phaenomena's reception, moreover, is similarly unparalleled. And yet, the reception itself seems difficult to take account of, ranging from epigrams, to astronomical scientific writing, to Latin translation, to prolific allusion. Most work on the tradition of Aratus has focused on the Phaenomena itself or individual characteristics of its reception.

11 Gee 2013 mentions Hipparchus only once in a book devoted to Aratus' reception. 12 Collected in Maass 1958 and Martin 1974. 13 See Mark Possanza's book review of Aaron Poochigian's translation (Possanza 2012) for a good overview of the Phaenomena's fate in modernity.

5 But Aratus' polyvalent reception among different intellectual communities mirrors the Phaenomena's fusion of two source texts from similarly disparate traditions.

Although the circumstances of the poem's production are veiled by a dearth of evidence, thematic threads embedded in the Phaenomena bear out in various lines of early reception, indicating an uneasy union of epic tradition and fourth century astronomical science.14 The Phaenomena appears to have been produced—or so it was remembered in antiquity—as a response to questions concerning the viability of a didactic tradition in the midst of the formidable technical prose that appears to have characterized fourth century knowledge production. So just as the poem itself thematizes the interaction of the didactic poetry of Hesiod with the astronomical tradition of the fourth century, the Phaenomena's reception divides roughly along these same lines: in literary circles Aratus secured admiration for himself as a paradigm of a learned poet in the style of Hesiod and Homer; in scientific and scholarly circles Aratus' work invited praise and scrutiny; in philosophical circles the Phaenomena came to be a testimony of the divine order defended by the Stoics. If the Phaenomena was merely a part of a strong tradition of technical didactic poetry uniting science with the trappings of epic, it was not remembered this way in its earliest reception, which paints a picture of a radically precise, scientific poem whose verse embodies the noble traditions of archaic epic: the

Hesiodic tradition updated to accommodate the latest in Greek astronomy in a framework capable of unveiling cosmic secrets.

14 Strabo 1.2.3 criticizes Eratosthenes for reducing Homer to an entertainer. See discussion in Roller 2010, 112-13.

6 Constellations in the Phaenomena

Opening with a hymn praising Zeus as a divine provider of signs, the

Phaenomena is immediately marked by an intellectual tradition rooted in archaic epic.

Aratus' description of the anthropomorphic Zeus recalls the proem of the Theogony, firmly establishing Aratus in the tradition of Hesiodic verse. Opening with ἐκ Διὸς

ἀρχώμεσθα ("let us begin with Zeus," 1), he echoes Hesiod's opening to the Theogony,

μουσάων Ἑλικωνιάδων ἀρχώμεθ᾽ ἀείδειν (“let us begin to sing from the Heliconian

Muses,” 1) as well as his “second opening” τύνη Μουσάων ἀρχώμεθα (Th. 36). Aratus' address to the Muses echoes Hesiod as well, greeting Zeus and the Muses, "hail"

(χαίροιτε, Phaen. 16 / χαίρετε, Th. 104). Both Aratus and Hesiod intimately connect

Zeus and the Muses; so Aratus' relation to the Muses, as well as their relation to Zeus, reflects an archaic model of knowledge production most clearly demonstrated in the

Theogony. But Aratus has drawn astronomical material from his fourth century prose source as well. The result is a union of the divine authority of the archaic poet and the empirical authority of an astronomer, juxtaposing two potentially incompatible models of authority and knowledge.

Straddling two disparate intellectual traditions, Aratus variously characterizes the constellations as the product of either Zeus or the human mind. As Aratus initially claims,

Zeus arranges the stars into constellations for the benefit of mankind (5-13):

τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος εἰμέν˙ ὁ δ᾽ ἤπιος ἀνθρώποισι δεξιὰ σημαίνει, λαοὺς δ᾽ ἐπὶ ἔργον ἐγείρει μιμνήσκων βιότοιο, λέγει δ᾽ ὅτε βῶλος ἀρίστη βουσί τε καὶ μακέλῃσι, λέγει δ᾽ ὅτε δεξιαὶ ὧραι καὶ φυτὰ γυρῶσαι καὶ σπέρματα πάντα βαλέσθαι. αὐτὸς γὰρ τά γε σήματ᾽ ἐν οὐρανῷ ἐστήριξεν

7 ἄστρα διακρίνας, ἐσκέψατο δ᾽ εἰς ἐνιαυτὸν ἀστέρας οἵ κε μάλιστα τετυγμένα σημαίνοιεν ἀνδράσιν ὡράων, ὄφρ᾽ ἔμπεδα πάντα φύωνται.

For we are also his children; and he kindly gives good signs to men, and stirs his people to work, reminding them of their livelihood, and he tells them when the ground is best for cattle and for mattocks, and he tells them when the seasons are right both for planting trees and spreading all seeds. For he himself set out the signs in the sky, arranging them into constellations, and prepared the stars for the year that they might be well made signs for men, giving the time of year, so that all might grow without fail.15

Aratus describes not only the creation of the stars themselves, but also their arrangement into constellations as the work of Zeus, an anthropomorphic god who deliberately creates constellations ontologically prior to human interaction with them. Aratus's use of the noun σήματα interacts with multiple discourses: in the Iliad it is the word used of the characters in Bellerophon's fatal note,16 and so evokes the image of Zeus engaged in a form of "writing" that informs mortals when to take up various tasks, and it is also the epic version of the noun for a mathematical point (σημεῖον).17 Aratus' σήματα introduces the concept of "signs," but must logically refer to the stars as fixed points on a sphere.18 The term can therefore indicate an epic tradition involving divine portents

(signs) as well as a mathematical tradition of spherical geometry (points). Aratus praises

Zeus for arranging σήματα, that is, signs: constellations, Zeus' celestial script, or fixed points on a sphere.

15 Translations are my own, although my debt to Kidd will be obvious throughout. 16 Il. 6.168. Volk 2012, 225-9 discusses how the individual stars act as letters in the sky. 17 The opening of Autolycus of Pitane's fourth century treatise On the Moving Sphere (Aujac 1979), for instance, tells us that all the points (σημεῖα) on the surface of a sphere spinning around an axis will create parallel circles. 18 So Kidd 1997, 168. See also scholia (Martin 1974, 55), which differentiate between ἀστέρες (stars) and ἄστρα (constellations), drawing an etymological link between the former and the verb ἐστήριξεν.

8 A later digression toward the beginning of Aratus' exposition of the southern sky suggests another origin and another nature for the constellations (367-85):

οἱ δ᾽ ὀλίγῳ μέτρῳ ὀλίγῃ δ᾽ ἐγκείμενοι αἴγλῃ μεσσόθι Πηδαλίου καὶ Κήτεος εἱλίσσονται, γλαυκοῦ πεπτηῶτες ὑπὸπλευρῇσι Λαγωοῦ, νώνομοι˙ οὐ γὰρ τοί γε τετυγμένου εἰδώλοιο 370 βεβλέαται μελέεσσιν ἐοικότες, οἷά τε πολλὰ ἑξείης στιχόωντα παρέρχεται αὐτὰ κέλευθα ἀνομένων ἐτέων, τά τις ἀνδρῶν οὐκέτ᾽ ἐόντων ἐφράσατ᾽ ἠδ᾽ ἐνόησεν ἅπαντ᾽ ὀνομαστὶ καλέσσαι ἤλιθα μορφώσας˙ οὐ γάρ κ᾽ ἐδυνήσατο πάντων 375 οἰόθι κεκριμένων ὄνομ᾽εἰπεῖν οὐδὲ δαῆναι. πολλοὶ γὰρ πάντη, πολέων δ᾽ ἐπὶ ἶσα πέλονται μέτρα τε καὶ χροιή, πάντες γε μὲν ἀμφιέλικτοι˙ τῷ καὶ ὁμηγερέας οἱ ἐείσατο ποιήσασθαι ἀστέρας, ὄφρ᾽ἐπιτὰξ ἄλλῳ παρακείμενος ἄλλος 380 εἴδεα σημαίνοιεν˙ ἄφαρ δ᾽ ὀνομάστ᾽ ἐγένοντο ἄστρα, καὶ οὐκέτι νῦν ὑπὸ θαύματι τέλλεται ἀστήρ˙ ἀλλ᾽ οἱ μὲν καθαροῖς ἐναρηρότες εἰδώλοισι φαίνονται, τὰ δ᾽ἔνερθε διωκομένοιο Λαγωοῦ πάντα μάλ᾽ ἠερόεντα καὶ οὐκ ὀνομαστὰ φέρονται. 385

And the (stars) covering a small span and with a faint gleam twirl between the Rudder and the Monster, lying below the flanks of the grey Hare, nameless; for they are not like the body of a wrought figure, like the many that pass formed in ranks along the same paths as the years go round; someone of the men who no longer devised these (constellations), and endeavored to call them by name after shaping them into groups; for he was not able to say the name of all (the stars) individually nor to learn them. For there are many, and they are everywhere, and the size and color of many are the same, and all are dragged around; on that account he decided to make groups of stars, so that one lying next to another in a row might signify figures; and thereupon the constellations became named, and now no longer does a star rise to our marvel; but rather some appear joined in clear likenesses, but all the ones beneath the pursued Hare are hazy and go unnamed.

Aratus' second aition creates tension with the first by having a human connect the stars as preexisting points in the sky to create the constellations. Although Stanley Lombardo and

Jean Martin have attempted to reconcile the two accounts completely, following a slight

9 alteration in Cicero's translation (Arat. 34.160-3),19 Douglas Kidd has rightly interpreted

Aratus' language as describing the archaic observer's actions decisively: ἐφράσατ᾽ ἠδ᾽

ἐνόησεν indicates the observer's independent act of organizing the constellations before naming them.20 More recently Katharina Volk has assigned equally active roles to both

Zeus and the observer, thus likening astronomical observation to reading Zeus' celestial script, a metaphor pervasively active in the Phaenomena.21

I would maintain that Aratus' two origins for the constellations effectively create tension.22 Key to the passage is the distinction between stars (ἄστερες) and constellations

(ἄστρα): unnamed stars below the Hare occasion Aratus' digression about the archaic observer, who mentally converted other stars into constellations. Although in isolation

ἐφράσατ᾽ in 374 can indicate that the archaic observer merely "observed" Zeus' divinely formed constellations, the context directs us to consider the epic use of the verb to indicate an act of contrivance.23 The aorist participle μορφώσας in 375 redefines the action of ἐφράσατ᾽ ἠδ᾽ ἐνόησεν: he devised the constellations, that is to say he molded the stars into groups. As the passage progresses, moreover, Aratus explains that the

19 Lombardo 1983, ad loc.; Martin 1998, xcvii, 310. 20 Kidd 1997, 320 ad. The scholia appear to agree; see Martin 1974, 258-9: ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ πολλῶν Κηφέα <καὶ> Λέοντα καὶ Τοξότην εἰπὼν καὶ τἆλλα πάντα διετύπωσε καὶ προσηγορίαν πάσηι τῆι διατυπώσει δέδωκε, Τοξότην εἰπὼν καὶ Λέοντα καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. 21 Volk 2012, 220-2. Hunter 1995 discusses the image as well. 22 Pendergraft 1989 also examines this tension. 23 For this use of φράζω see LSJ s.v. II.2, which lists Homeric usages of the middle to mean "contrive." Od. 8.94 and 8.533 use the formula ἐφράσατο ἠδ᾽ ἐνόησεν to describe Alcinous' observations and recognition of Odysseus' sadness, but the meaning cannot be exactly the same, since Aratus' ἐνόησεν must be taken closely with κελέσσαι (LSJ s.v. νοέω III), "he endeavored to call." I am thankful to James Clauss for sharing an observation that the Homeric echo may have been pointed: Alcinous is the only one observant enough to recognize the sadness of a famously observant man. One might read Aratus' use of the formula as an implied comparison between the intellectual capacity of the observer and that of Odysseus.

10 observer was not able to know and recite the names of the stars individually on account of their multitude, their ubiquity, and the similarity of so many of them. He therefore decided to make (ποιήσασθαι) the stars grouped (ὁμηγερέας), in order that they might come to signify shapes (i.e. constellations). The result is that there came to be named constellations (ὀνομάστ᾽ ἐγένοντο ἄστρα), which provide us with a means of knowing the celestial sphere. The logic of the passage thus indicates that an observer created constellations, not in the sense that he placed stars at certain points as Zeus is supposed to have done in the proem, but in the sense that he conceptually drew lines to connect the dots in such a way that they might resemble shapes, thereupon naming them accordingly.

The observer did this, moreover, not in response to a call to decipher a message from

Zeus, but because he could not keep track of celestial motion otherwise (οὐ γάρ κ᾽

ἐδυνήσατο... ὄνομ᾽εἰπεῖν οὐδὲ δαῆναι).

Aratus' digression is consistent with an "instrumentalist" understanding of the constellations, wherein the mythical figures in the sky are a fancy of the mind to aid us in organizing phenomena into a comprehensible system. Observing a tension between

Aratus' two aitia of the constellations provides a productive lens through which to read a double aesthetic of the Phaenomena that easily alternates between the epic narrative of catasterism myths and the scientific description characterizing Hellenistic astronomy, raising questions about how didactic traditions cohere with the advancements of astronomical observation.

Perseus and the constellations associated with him afford a singularly suitable opportunity for Aratus to illustrate the potential for disharmony between empirical

11 evidence and divinely inspired poetic "truth." Aratus arranges Perseus with reference to

Cassiopeia (250-3):

αὐτὰρ ὅ γ᾽ ἐν βορέω φέρεται περιμήκετος ἄλλων. καί οἱ δεξιτερὴ μὲν ἐπὶ κλισμὸν τετάνυσται πενθερίου δίφροιο˙ τὰ δ᾽ ἐν ποσὶν οἷα διώκων ἴχνια μηκύνει κεκονιμένος ἐν Διὶ πατρί.

But he travels taller than the others in the north, and his right hand reaches for his mother-in-law's chair; and like one pursuing something on foot he lengthens his strides kicking up dust in his father Zeus.

By describing Perseus’ position in relation to Cassiopeia, Aratus recalls mythical narrative without elaboration. He is represented as eternally dashing through the sky, that is, Zeus, who is also his father. The group Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Perseus are all represented in the same portion of the celestial sphere as a cluster (Phaen. 179–

253). The local proximity of the constellations themselves finds reinforcement in the familial relationship of mythical characters they represent. At the intersection of the astronomical observance and mythical identity of the figures lies Zeus, both the sky in which the constellations are set and the father of Cepheus and Perseus. Moreover,

Perseus' running perhaps fits both realms as well: the participle κεκονιμένος evokes a

Homeric hero’s running (Il. 21.541–2), while his dynamic pose, striding through the sky, may reflect the movement of constellations.24 The discourses of epic and science reinforce one another for the moment, suggesting harmony between two intellectual traditions, epic and astronomical.

But the harmony of the Phaenomena's double discourse disintegrates immediately following the description of Perseus, when Aratus uses him to triangulate the Pleiades, seven of which are recorded in epic tradition, although only six can be seen (254-63):

24 Admittedly, the constellation does not move in the direction of the figure's stride.

12 ἄγχι δέ οἱ σκαιῆς ἐπιγουνίδος ἤλιθα πᾶσαι Πληιάδες φορέονται˙ ὁ δ᾽ οὐ μάλα πολλὸς ἁπάσας χῶρος ἔχει, καὶ δ᾽ αὐταὶ ἐπισκέψασθαι ἀφαυραί. ἑπτάποροι δὴ ταί γ μετ᾽ ἀνθρώπους ὑδέονται, ἓξ οἶαί περ ἐοῦσαι ἐπόψια ὀφθαλμοῖσιν. οὐ μέν πως ἀπόλωλεν ἀπευθὴς ἐκ Διὸς ἀστήρ, ἐξ οὗ καὶ γενεῆθεν ἀκούμεν, ἀλλὰ μάλ᾽ αὕτως εἴρεται. ἑπτὰ δὲ κεῖναι ἐπιρρήδην καλέονται Ἀλκυόνη Μερόπη τε Κελαινώ τ᾽ Ἠλέκτρη τε καὶ Στερόπη καὶ Τηυγέτη καὶ πότνια Μαῖα.

And near his left knee all grouped together move the Pleiades; and not a large space holds all of them, and they themselves are faint to see. Among men they are called seven, though only six are visible to the eyes. Not ever does a star perish into obscurity from the action of Zeus from the time we hear of it, but this is just what is said. And those seven are called in order Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, and Electra, as well as Sterope, Teygeta, and lady Maea.

Aratus emphatically contrasts the oral tradition of seven Pleiades with the empirical experience of six, using the pointed line endings μετ᾽ ἀνθρώπους ὑδέονται and ἐπόψια

ὀφθαλμοῖσιν, the former calling upon mythical accounts and the latter redundantly affirming the act of observation. Immediately afterward we are told that no star has become obscure ἐκ Διός, an ambiguous comment either meaning that Zeus' will sees to it that even stars no longer visible will be celebrated among men, or simply that no star has fallen from the sky.25 The former interpretation confirms the veracity of the epic tradition despite what we can observe with our own eyes, whereas the latter challenges mythical tradition in the face of empirical evidence.26 Aratus sets the epic tradition at odds with an empirically based astronomy by equivocating about the number of Pleiades. Aratus

25 In second century Hipparchus of Nicaea is said to have reported that he has discovered a star born during his career and suggests the possibility of a star's disappearance (Plin. NH 2.95). 26 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 244, on the contrary, interpret the passage to mean that Aratus unambiguously demonstrates the falseness of the mythical account. Gee 2013, 115 considers the possibility of celestial change implicit in Aratus' description of the Pleiades to be emblematic of disorder.

13 suggests an uneasy union of intellectual models, intimating harmony and disharmony in quick succession.

Whether Aratus' fusion of fourth century astronomical science with archaic didactic epic is an innovation or not, it is a prominent feature of the poem. Although we do not have a clear view of didactic poetry for the century preceding Aratus, his reception indicates that his ancient audience remembered the Phaenomena, if not as an innovation, as an iconic instance of such generic mixing. But Aratus himself is not so clear about what the end of such a mixture might be. While the familial relationship of Perseus and the house of Cepheus seems to connect the constellations in a realm beyond mere astronomy, the missing star of the Pleiades puts these traditions at odds. Modern scholars have disagreed about what Aratus' point may have been, but we approach the poem in the wake of a scientific revolution and enlightenment, both of which entailed sharp restriction on what intellectual pursuits and what literary technologies27 were to be considered appropriate for hard science. The Phaenomena's ancient audience inhabited a world in which the distinction was still being drawn. More at home with Aratus' implicit questions concerning the field of astronomy, they were fiercely divided concerning poetry's place in the intellectual tradition.

The Phaenomena's bifurcated nature is reflected by the various contexts of its reception, which approach the poem from different perspectives with different concerns.

Authors responding to Aratus' work must nevertheless deal with its "other personality."

Third century BC poets applaud stylistic and aural qualities of the work but connect these

27 See Shapin 1984, 491-97, whence I borrow the term "literary technology." Here I only mean to indicate the literary means by which scientific acquires assent from its audience. Shapin argues that Robert Boyle did so through the "virtual witnessing" of his pneumatic experiment.

14 poetic qualities to scientific thought by discussing them in light of the precision of the content. Hipparchus of Nicaea's broadest goals are scientific, but he writes confronted with a tradition of accuracy born from Aratus' poetic achievement. The Roman translators, finally, are confronted with two traditions when attempting to write Aratea.

Understanding the nature of how traditions of science and poetry interact with one another in the poem itself is important for examining the reception, not only because that reception spans multiple intellectual communities with different concerns, but because individual responses to the poem prominently feature tension between the work's form and content, to the extent that the two are able to be separated.

The Present Work

15 The image above juxtaposes a third century AD mosaic from Trier and an illustration taken from a twelfth century manuscript of an eighth-century translation known as Aratus Latinus.28 Each image shows two figures facing one another, one sitting down pointing to a globe with a compass and holding a scroll in his other hand while the other stands, also pointing to the globe. The mosaic identifies the sitting figure as Aratus and the standing figure as the Muse Ourania. The inclusion of both the star globe and the

Muse Ourania represents Aratus' fusion of two intellectual models and two literary technologies, archaic epic embodied by Ourania, a particularly appropriate muse for an astronomical poem, and fourth century astronomical science embodied by the star globe.29 Thus the image presents us with a possible way to reconcile an uneasy union: the

Phaenomena is the result of observation enhanced by the inspiration of the Muse, who points to a star globe, helping Aratus form shapes out of the raw material it supplies.

Regardless of how complete the possibility of reconciliation is, the image, which recurs in a few places, may indicate a concern underlying the various contexts of Aratus' wide ranging reception.

In three chapters this dissertation deals with the first three centuries of the astronomical section of the Phaenomena's reception, the first two treating the Hellenistic reception in the Greek world, while the third adds to the considerable amount of scholarship treating Aratus' Roman reception. The second and third chapter split up

Aratus' reception between a broadly "literary" reception that follows the Phaenomena's

28 Maass 1958, 172-73 provides both images. 29 Richter 1965, 240 tentatively identifies a figure in a similar image on a silver cup from Berthouville as Aratus. Assuming the identification is correct, the cup emphasizes Aratus' dual identity as astronomer and poet by depicting a lyre placed between him and the Muse. See also Lapitan 2015.

16 treatment in book epigram by contemporaries and what scholars have been content to call a "scientific" commentary by Hipparchus of Nicaea. The fourth chapter focuses on the translations by Cicero and Germanicus, pinpointing concerns bound up with Aratus' delivery of the poem's technical material.

The second and third chapters deal with Aratus' Hellenistic reception, a topic virtually untreated on its own. Although Aratus' literary reception in the third-century BC centers on three Greek epigrams and spare pieces contained in the biographical tradition, it is nonetheless a complicated tradition. The interpretation of the epigrammatic evidence has notoriously defied consensus, and even the basic meaning of two of the epigrams has proven elusive. Yet the response to the poem by epigrammatists coheres along relatively consistent lines, praising the suitability of Aratus' poetry for its subject matter. The response from third century epigram, moreover, seems to provoke a reaction from

Hipparchus of Nicaea in the following century.

The third chapter examines Hipparchus' challenge to Aratus' audience. This chapter contributes considerably to scholarship by seriously dealing with Hipparchus' commentary as a part of Aratus' reception. Contrary to modern scholars who use the commentary to edit the Phaenomena, glean what one can of the broader career of

Hipparchus,30 or examine Hipparchus' criticisms of the Phaenomena itself, I view the commentary as a sophisticated work of both scholarship and science. It is worth close examination, not only because it is the most detailed extant piece of evidence for

Hellenistic reading practices among the scientific and scholarly community, but because

30 Besides his commentary on the Phaenomena, Hipparchus' was almost completely consumed by Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest (Toomer 1998), which incorporated the best of Hipparchus' astronomical work. Hipparchus' own work was thus rendered obsolete.

17 it interfaces with other major trends in the reception of Aratus. Hipparchus' status as preeminent astronomer does not merit his banishment from the history of the

Phaenomena's reception as a "purely scientific" commentator, whose introduction has been severed from the rest of his work by modern scholars.

The final chapter examines how the translations of the Phaenomena by Cicero and Germanicus Caesar reflect trends from Aratus' Hellenistic reception. Cicero's translation reflects the poetic concerns of third century epigram, without demonstrating any concern for astronomical detail. Germanicus' translation, however, achieves something analogous to Aratus' original: whereas Aratus fuses traditions of poetry and science in his didactic poem, Germanicus fuses poetic and scientific receptions of the

Phaenomena by attempting to account for many of Hipparchus' corrections within an astronomical discussion of more or less the same number of lines. Aratus' Roman reception is by far the most trodden, but the present work will innovate by treating that reception as a development upon a thriving reception in the Greek Hellenistic world.

Although our ignorance of fourth century didactic poetry impairs our ability to understand the conditions under which Aratus wrote the Phaenomena, it can indicate what the ancient audience found remarkable about the poem. The varied contexts in which our record of the poem's reception survives, spanning the worlds of poetry, science, and philosophy, come together to address a similar question from different angles. Thus the ancient reception of the Phaenomena informs us not only about how different intellectual communities responded in common ways to the Phaenomena itself, but also about how these communities interacted with one another. The intellectual dynamism characterizing those who produced Hellenistic literature is well attested, but

18 the response to the Phaenomena provides a particularly suitable context for such mental gymnastics. In a world that sought to embrace its classical tradition with a view to the developments of the fourth century, Aratus' hallmark poem functioned as a flag around which the poets could marshal and revive an important question that had begun to come under fire in the late fifth century: what sort of didactic function might poetry serve?

19

Chapter 2 The Poetic and Scientific Refinement of the Phaenomena in Contemporary Epigram

In the several centuries dividing Hesiod and Aratus, the authority of didactic poetry gave way to that of stylistically dry prose with little to no artistic embellishment.31

The Phaenomena challenged the prominence enjoyed by prose on technical subjects by rendering astronomical work into verse that drew heavily on the didactic tradition of

Hesiod. Evidence for the celebration of its success in the Hellenistic world survives in epigram, rich vitae attesting further discussion (which may yet be a reaction to epigram), and the second century BC response of the astronomer Hipparchus to earlier commentators. Third-century evidence suggests that Aratus' Phaenomena was a classic in the Greek world more or less overnight: Aratus was praised as a precise poet tackling a difficult subject, an heir to the didactic poetry of Hesiod, and an excellent imitator of

Homer.

Reactions to the Phaenomena expressed in contemporary epigrams reveal the poem’s status as an instant classic. Most notably Callimachus, Leonidas of Tarentum, and a certain Ptolemy all affirm Aratus' identity as a learned, precise poet by emphasizing his ability to convey information clearly and accurately. Moreover, each casts Aratus in the epic tradition by making him an heir to either Hesiod or Homer. I suggest that such

31 Goldhill 2002. Hutchinson 2009, 198 points out the difficulty of distinguishing between what he calls didactic prose and poetry in terms of practicality. Pfeiffer 1968, 88 speaks of a third-century revival of Greek poetry. See also Volk 2010, 198, who points out that a dearth of evidence could be giving us a misleading picture: it is possible that we are simply missing a large body of didactic poetry from the late fourth and early third centuries BC.

20 literary reaction to the Phaenomena relates Aratus' precision to his poetics and in fact responds to self-referential claims within the Phaenomena to poetic refinement

(λεπτότης). The literary esteem with which the Phaenomena was held appears to have lent the poem astronomical authority, creating a myth of technical precision encapsulated in the poem's hallmark quality of λεπτότης. This "refinement," which can refer to precise thought or cleverness, stylistic exactness, shrill noise, or fine detail, was appropriate for praising the Phaenomena in several senses which combined to lend the work authority as an astronomical source.32 The poets of the third century viewed the Phaenomena's poetic form as a strength, only adding to its merit as an astronomical work. Aratus was famous for using poetry to elevate his astronomical material, which third century BC epigrams celebrate by linking themes of visual experience and material craftsmanship to the detailed nature of his subject matter. Such appeals to the audience's synesthetic experience of the poem are reflected as well in the rich scholia drawn from discussions otherwise no longer extant.

The Phaenomena had a strong commentary tradition attested both throughout the surviving scholia and in the extant commentary by Hipparchus of Nicaea from the second century BC.33 Hipparchus agrees with the preserved, unanimously positive literary judgments of Aratus as a poet, but issues a warning to those who would derive astronomical information from Aratus' verse, on the grounds that it lulls the reader into

32 Goldhill 2002, 104-110 locates Aristotle's logical work within the history of prose as an attempted departure from vying for authority through performative tactics and social norms toward the abstraction of logic itself. 33 The scholia are collected in Maass 1958 and Martin 1974. For Hipparchus' commentary, Manitius 1894.

21 relying on the poem in the place of actual observation (1.1.7).34 Hipparchus does not criticize the Phaenomena itself as much as he does its reception: intimately bound up with his astronomical objections to material in the Phaenomena is his objection to how previous commentators edited and interpreted the poem by reconciling it with celestial phenomena. Such an editorial and hermeneutic strategy required the highest confidence in the Phaenomena, which resulted in part from the polyvalent attribution of λεπτότης found in the epigrams of Callimachus, Leonidas, and Ptolemy. For them, both the way in which Aratus constructs verses and the way in which the poem appeals to its audience's aural and visual experience enhanced faith in the Phaenomena's astronomical accuracy.

My argument will proceed first by discussing Aratus' famous acrostic spelling

ΛΕΠΤΗ at Phaenomena 783-87. I will argue that Aratus uses his description of moon signs to activate a synesthetic metaphor in which the moon’s appearance reflects his own poetic embodiment of "refinement." There, Aratus describes how moons of varying shapes and hues can indicate various kinds of weather. I will argue that the acrostic is a pointed self-referential comment: "thin" moons indicate good weather whereas "fat" moons indicate bad weather. This antithesis between thin and fat echoes the poetic polemic of Callimachus' prologue to Aetia I. Descriptions of other celestial phenomena in the Phaenomena work with this strong thematic passage to characterize his precision in visual terms, reinforcing both the aural experience of the poem and its technical subject matter. Here also I will argue that the phrase κατὰ λεπτόν, which recurs in the vitae, does not necessarily refer to a collection of short poems, as scholars have assumed, but implicitly characterizes the subjects of much of Aratus' poetry as technical, "in fine

34 Hipparchus' warning about the deceptive capacity of χάρις (charm) is traditional as well. Cf. Ol. 1.28-32.

22 detail." Thereafter I will argue that the epigram tradition responds to Aratus' own thematic claim to "refinement" by casting Aratus' detailed work as a renewal of poetry of

Homer and Hesiod in a form attuned to his contemporary intellectual climate. The

Phaenomena not only treats a subject involving fine craftsmanship—Zeus' creation of the celestial sphere—but comes to be treated as the product of Aratus' refined labor. Themes of the material reproduction of the sky, Aratus' painstaking imitation of archaic epic poetry, and careful attention to detail all center on the Phaenomena's embodiment of

λεπτότης, a motif that responds to Aratus' acrostic. This stylistic "refinement" contributes to Aratus' authority as an author treating the detailed and technical subject of celestial phenomena.

Λεπτότης and the Poetics of the Phaenomena

The single feature of the Phaenomena drawing the most attention in the third century appears to have been its λεπτότης ("refinement").35 Aratus celebrates this refined style in the lines transitioning from the astronomical section to his meteorological material with a gamma-style acrostic—that is, an acrostic wherein the first word is the same as the word spelled down the front edge of the following lines.36

35 See Reitzenstein 1931, 25-41; Cameron 2005, 323-28. 36 Jacques 1960, Vogt 1967, 83-85, Levitan 1979, Danielewicz 2005, Luz 2010, 47-51, and Hanses 2014 all discuss acrostics in Aratus. Most work on acrostics takes the form of small articles discussing specific cases, of which some of the most recent are Fowler 1983, Damschen 2003, Damschen 2004, Feeney and Nelis 2005, Katz 2007, Somerville 2010, and Stewart 2010. For general treatment of acrostics, see Vogt, 1967, Luz 2010, 1- 77 and Katz forthcoming, 1-10.

23 λεπτὴ μὲν καθαρή τε περὶ τρίτον ἦμαρ ἐοῦσα εὔδιός κ᾽ εἴη, λεπτὴ δὲ καὶ εὖ μάλ᾽ ἐρευθὴς πνευματίη, παχίων δὲ καὶ ἀμβλείῃσι κεραίαις τέτρατον ἐκ τριτάτοιο φόως ἀμενηνὸν ἔχουσα ἢ νότῳ ἄμβλυνται ἢ ὕδατος ἐγγὺς ἐόντος.

When the [moon] is fine and clear around the third day [of the month], she will indicate fair weather, and if she is fine and particularly red, she will indicate windy weather, and if she is fat with blunt horns, giving a weak glow between the third and fourth day, she is either blurred by a southerly wind or because of nearby rain. (Phaen. 783-87)

These lines quickly outline what the moon's appearance can tell the keen observer about the weather. The antithesis between a “thin” and a “fat” moon resembles that found in

Callimachus' Aetia, when the "fattest" (πάχιστον) sacrifice is contrasted with the "thin"

(λεπταλέην Aet. 1.23-24) Muse, as well as his famous description of the Lyde as a "book both fat and not thin" (καὶ παχὺ γράμμα καὶ οὐ τορόν fr. 398 Pf.). Aratus' intention seems undeniable: λεπτή begins the passage, is spelled down the first column of text, and even runs diagonally across the text, but deciphering acrostics presents a few challenges.

Usually taken to be a visual phenomenon, acrostics are a marked feature of poetry composed for a reading audience.37 For Aratus specifically, however, there is a further point: the Phaenomena is devoted to the visual activity of finding patterns in the stars as points (σημεῖα) scattered throughout the sky to make them into signs

(σημεῖα=σήματα).38 While finding acrostics in Aratus can often be merely an act of creative reading, that found in Phaenomena 783-87 is certainly deliberate. It is sign-

37 Luz 2010, 3-4. But see CLE 699 with discussion on its literary pretensions in Trout 2013, 5-7: we have at least one late Latin hexameter acrostic inscribed on stone, in which the line divisions are merely indicated by a small space. “Seeing” the acrostic, then, would be partially a verbal and aural activity of following the meter. 38 See my Introduction.

24 posted by the repeated imperative instructing the reader to look for it (σκέπτεο),39 and the term holds aesthetic significance for Hellenistic poetry. Upon seeing the pattern of the acrostic itself, the reader is attuned to the possibility of deriving meaning from the letters oriented, as it were, on more than one axis. Thus the antithesis of λεπτή (784) and

παχίων (785) line up perfectly on a vertical axis, each ending with the fifteenth letter of the line.40 The association of "thin" (λεπτή) with "clear" (καθαρή) in 783 and

"temperate" (εὐδιος) in 784 links the Phaenomena's famous feature with good weather.

This in turn lends possible significance to another vertically oriented antithetical pair:

φόως ("bright") and ὕδατος ("water" / "rain") almost make a similar pair 786 and 787.

Thin, clear, and bright contrast with fat, dull, and rainy. Although the extent of the significance the adjective λεπτή has for Hellenistic aesthetics has been questioned,41 its repetition in these lines and explicit association with clarity and fair weather suggest that

Aratus lends the term importance.42

Part of the difficulty in working with acrostics in the Phaenomena lies in the fact that Aratus invites us to create added layers of meaning by deliberately establishing patterns of text along multiple axes in some places. At the same time, his own narrative of a human observer creating meaning in the individual stars by connecting them into constellations suggests that the similar process of recognizing an acrostic might be a

39 Phaen. 778; 799; 832; 880; 892. 40 Cameron 1995, 324-326 suggests that this antithesis is natural, and that we are therefore unwarranted in looking into it. Little about the passage seems random or accidental, however, and the selection and order of the signs seems a little too convenient. 41 Hutchinson 1988, 215 n. 4; Porter 2011. 42 See also Kidd 1997, 446.

25 creative act of the reader.43 This mode of writing—and reading—results in a dynamic relationship between form of the text and its meaning, separate in a sense but inextricable in another.44 Although the presence of the acrostic has some sort of relationship to the meaning of the poem, it is difficult to know the nature of that relationship, since acrostics, by their nature, invite us to read texts in atypical and unexpected ways. The acrostic's thematic relationship with other passages can only suggest a viable interpretation.

The meaning of λεπτός in the Phaenomena has proven difficult to triangulate.45

I have been using the noncommittal "fine" to translate it. Katharina Volk has located the importance of λεπτότης in Aratus' fascination with signs that are difficult to see.46

Aratus' description of the Bears in the beginning of the poem seems to set forth this sort of program.

καὶ τὴν μὲν Κυνόσουραν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσι, τὴν δ᾽ ἑτέρην Ἑλίκην. Ἑλίκῃ γε μὲν ἄνδρες Ἁχαιοὶ εἰν ἁλὶ τεκμαίρονται ἵνα χρὴ νῆας ἀγινεῖν, τῇ δ᾽ ἄρα Φοίνικες πίσυνοι περόωσι θάλασσαν. ἀλλ᾽ ἡ μὲν καθαρὴ καὶ ἐπιφράσσασθαι ἑτοίμη, πολλὴ φαινομένη Ἑλίκη πρώτης ἀπὸ νυκτός˙ ἡ δ᾽ ἑτέρη ὀλίγη μέν, ἀτὰρ ναύτῃσιν ἀρείων˙ μειοτέρῃ γὰρ πᾶσα περιστρέφεται στροφάλιγγι˙ τῇ καὶ Σιδόνιοι ἰθύντατα ναυτίλλονται.

And they call one Cynosura by name, and the other they call Helice. Achaean men discern by Helice whither to steer their ships on the sea, and Phoenicians sail the sea with their faith in the other. But Helice, on the one hand, is clear and easy to see, as it shines bright from the beginning of the night; [Cynosura], on the other hand, is small, but better for sailors; for all of it orbits on a smaller circle; and by it the Sidonians sail straighter. (Phaen., 34-44)

43 Hunter 1995 discusses how the form of acrostic reflects the content of the Phaenomena. Volk 2012 argues that the Phaenomena is primarily concerned with reading both the text and the world around us. 44 Levitan 1979, 60-63. 45 Cameron 1995, 321-28; Volk 2010, 205-508; Porter 2011. 46 Volk 2010, 207.

26

Although the root λεπτ- does not occur in this passage, the contrast between the Bears pertains to fine detail. Helice is clear (καθαρή), because it is big and bright, and therefore lends itself to easier navigational use. Cynosura, although small (ὀλίγη), is still better for sailing, because it travels in a tighter circle. But qualities often associated, fineness and clarity, are here attributed to different Bears. Helice is clear, while Cynosura is small, which describes a star of small magnitude in the Phaenomena.

About fifty lines after describing the Bears as navigational guides, Aratus describes the light emanating from the arms of Ophiouchus as fine, and yet certainly visible.

λεπτὴ γὰρ καὶ τῇ καὶ τῇ ἐπιδέδρομεν αἴγλη˙ ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπης κἀκεῖναι ἐπόψιαι˙ οὐ γὰρ ἐλαφραί.

for thin is the beam running on this hand and that; but they are still completely visible; for they are not insignificant. (Phaen. 80-81)

The distinction drawn between "fine" (λεπτή) and "faint" (ἐλαφραί) or not "visible"

(ἀλλ᾽...ἐπόψιαι) coheres with Aratus' depiction of the moon as "fine" (λεπτή), "clear"

(καθαρή), and even "bright" (φόως): the fineness of λεπτότης, it seems, does not impair observation. Although the Greeks prefer to follow the bigger Helice, the "small" (ὀλίγη)

Cynosura is nevertheless a better guide. If the visual experience of λεπτότης is to map onto one's experience of reading or hearing Aratus' poem, then, it will be a fine, detailed aesthetic that nevertheless achieves brightness and vividness. In fact, this is precisely what we hear about the Phaenomena from attestations elsewhere.

The vitae of Aratus report lists of Aratus' works, most of which deal with technical subjects.

27 καὶ ἔστιν αὐτοῦ ἕτερα συντάγματα κατὰ λεπτόν, ἄξια δὲ μνήμης τέσσαρα, ἓν μὲν Ἰατρικῶν Δυνάμενων, δεύτερον Κανόνος Κατατομή, τρίτον τὰ Φαινόμενα, τέταρτον Περὶ Ἀνατολῆς, ὅ φασί τινες μὴ εἶναι Ἀράτου, ἀλλὰ Ἡγησιάνακτος.

And there are other compositions kata lepton of [Aratus], and four are worthy to recall, one about Medical Prescriptions, a second the Division of a Monochord, a third the Phaenomena, and a fourth On the Horizon, which some say is not Aratus’, but Hegesianax’s. (Martin 1974, 11.)

Scholarly consensus interprets κατὰ λεπτόν as the title of a separate collection of short poems,47 but the evidence does not indicate that the phrase has anything to do with the length of the poems it describes. In fact, the most natural reading of the passage is that the author includes the Medical prescriptions, Division of a Monochord, Phaenomena, and On the Horizon under the description κατὰ λεπτόν, which should mean something like "in minute detail." All works listed cover technical matters of exact sciences, and it is likely that this is at least in part what the phrase indicates. This interpretation is consistent with another list of works from the first vita.

ἔγραψε δὲ καὶ ἄλλα [ποιήματα] περί τε Ὁμήρου καὶ Ἰλιάδος, [οὐ μόνον τὰ Φαινόμενα,] καὶ Ὀστολογίαν καὶ Ἱατρικὰς Δυνάμεις καὶ εἰς Πᾶνα ὕμνον καὶ εἰς Μύριν τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἐπικήδειον καὶ Διοσημείας καὶ Σκυθικὸν καὶ κατὰ λεπτὸν ἄλλα, ἐπιτετευγμένως δὲ αὐτῷ ἐγράφη τὰ Φαινόμενα, ὡς παρευδοκιμηθῆναι πάντας ὑπ᾽ Ἀράτου.

And he wrote other [poems] about both Homer and the Iliad, [not only the Phaenomena,] and Bone Gathering and Medical Prescriptions and a hymn to Pan and a dirge for his brother Myris and the Diosemeia and the Scythicon and others kata lepton, and the Phaenomena was written so successfully that all were surpassed by Aratus. (Martin 1974, 9)

Typically, a conjectured καί is inserted before ἄλλα in order to preserve the interpretation that the Kata Lepton is in fact the title of a discrete poem or collection of

47Lloyd-Jones and Parsons 1983, 39-40; Westendorp 1949, xx-xxiv; Maass 1958, 228; Martin 1974, 179.

28 poems. 48 The conjecture is needless, however, and, on the most natural reading of the passage, again one ought to understand the phrase κατὰ λεπτόν as modifying ἄλλα, and so implicitly the list of poems preceding it as well. Again, the list mostly comprises work on technical subjects. The hymn to Pan and the dirge for Myris are the outliers, but sense does not necessitate that all the poems listed before καὶ κατὰ λεπτὸν ἄλλα be appropriately described as κατὰ λεπτόν. Still, the vitae do not exhaust such references to

Aratus' work.

The final instance of the phrase κατὰ λεπτόν that leads scholars to believe that it is a title can be found in a passage from book 10 of Strabo’s Geography. Although this is the strongest evidence for a book of poetry entitled κατὰ λεπτόν, it remains inconclusive.

δηλοῖ δὲ τὰς ἀπορίας αὐτῶν καὶ Ἄρατος ἐν τοῖς κατὰ λεπτόν˙

ὦ Λητοῖ, σὺ μὲν ἤ με σιδηρείῃ Φολεγάνδρῳ δειλῇ ἢ Γυάρῳ παρελεύσεαι αὐτίχ᾽ ὁμοίην.

And Aratus points out their poverty [of the people of Gyaros] in the κατὰ λεπτόν;

Oh Leto, you will pass me by like iron Pholegandros or worthless Gyaros. (Strabo 10.5.3).”

Strabo's citation of the Aratus as a source might motivate his description of the poem as

κατὰ λεπτόν: a detailed, technical work makes a more compelling source. Strabo's possible motivation to remind his readers that Aratus' poetry was of such a nature is obvious. His only other use of the phrase κατὰ λεπτόν occurs after an account of the

48 Cameron 1995 324 n.110 accepts a supplement from Birt 1910, which suggests <καὶ> ἄλλα. Cameron claims that the supplement is “surely” correct, probably because he assumes that it is a title. Given the remainder of the evidence, however, his assumption not firmly grounded.

29 Nile (ἐδέησε δὲ τῆς ἐπ᾽ ἀκριβὲς καὶ κατὰ λεπτὸν διαιρέσεως, "there was need of the minute and detailed division" 17.1.3), where the pairing of ἐπ᾽ ἀκριβὲς and κατὰ

λεπτὸν certainly suggests that he means something like "with minute detail" or "with precision." There is, in the end, no reason not to understand the phrase in a similar way when applied to Aratus's work.

Callimachus and Aratus both attribute to their own poetry the quality λεπτότης. It would be surprising if the uses of κατὰ λεπτόν in the vitae were not interacting with

Aratus' claim in some way. Bastianini has decisively disproven the reading of κατὰ

λεπτόν in the London scholia of the prologue to the Aetia,49 discrediting the supplement printed by Pfeiffer (1.11). But Callimachus still clearly advocates “fine” poetry

(λεπταλέην 1.23 Harder), having Apollo prefer it to “fat” sacrifices (πάχιστον 1.24

Harder). What is more, I will discuss below Callimachus' praise of Aratus’s “fine verses”

(λεπταὶ ῥήσιες), a point of praise specifically linked to the Phaenomena. Although the technical nature of Aratus' work written κατὰ λεπτόν provides a good starting point, it seems unsound to reduce Aratus' (and Callimachus') claim to λεπτότης to a straightforward matter of technical detail, especially since such a meaning would seem wholly inappropriate in Callimachus. A polyvalent set of references is a more promising possibility.

The quality of λεπτότης can in fact refer to a number of things: intellectual acuity, sound, and writing can all be said to embody it. So in Aristophanes’ Clouds we see παχύς used in hendiadys with ἀμαθής (Nub. 182), while Strepsiades exclaims to

Socrates’ student that one of his explanations shows a “subtlety of mind” (λεπτοτήτος

49 Bastianini 1996.

30 τῶν φρενῶν, Nub. 153). But Socrates’ student also connects the sound of a mosquito to the narrowness of its anus, which vaguely connects the idea of “thinness” to sound (Nub.

161). The author of the pseudo-Aristotelian De Audibilibus talks about the λεπτότης of sound in a way familiar to us from Callimachus’ prologue (Aet. fr. 1 Harder).

Λιγυραὶ δ᾽ εἰσὶ τῶν φωνῶν αἱ λεπταὶ καὶ πυκναί, καθάπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν τεττίγων καὶ τῶν ἀκρίβων καὶ αἱ τῶν ἀηδόνων, καὶ ὅλως ὅσαις λεπταῖς οὔσαις μηθεὶς ἀλλότριος ἦχος παρακολουθεῖ. ὅλως γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν ούτ᾽ ἐν ὄγκῳ φωνῆς τὸ λιγυρόν, οὔτ᾽ ἐν τόνοις ἀνιεμένοις καὶ βαρέσιν, οὔτ᾽ ἐν ταῖς τῶν φθόγγων ἁφαῖς, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ὀξύτητι καὶ λεπτότητι καὶ ἀκριβείᾳ.

And sharp voices are those that are thin and concentrated, such as those of grasshoppers, locusts, and nightingales, and generally thin sounds that a second other sort of sound does not follow. For sharpness is generally not in the magnitude of the sound, nor in its tones being loose and deep, nor in touching of the notes, but rather in sharpness, thinness, and accuracy. (De Aud. 804a 19-27)

Two striking features of this passage are the list of thin-voiced animals and the collocation of sharpness, thinness, and accuracy.50 Two of the animals cited appear as exemplars of Callimachus’ poetic ideal in the prologue to his Aetia,51 which is interesting given his aim at achieving “refined” poetics. The nightingale is already an active image for a poet in the time of Hesiod (Op. 202-12), while grasshoppers are connected with good speaking by Homer (Il. 3.151). Τhe same collocation can be used to describe thought, as when the—admittedly late—neoplatonist Iamblichus tells us that the practice of mathematics puts together in the mind the "purity" (καθαρότητα) and "subtlety"

(λεπτότητα) of thoughts with "accuracy" (ἀκρίβειαν) of language.52 That is not to suggest that these words are synonyms, but rather to note that these three qualities are

50 Krevans 1993, 149-60 first applied the De Audibilibus to the examination of Hellenistic aural "refinement" in Callimachus' polemic against Antimachus. Pendergraft 1996, 46-49 follows her lead, attributing a refined aural quality to Aratus. 51 Aet. 1.16 and 1.30. 52 Comm. Math. 22.

31 often found in conjunction and attributed to the same subject. These very qualities can all describe sound, thought, and style alike.

The polyvalence of the adjective λεπτός might allow it to refer at once to the content, the acoustic experience, and the composition of the Phaenomena. To the potential objection that I have not defined precisely what it means to say that Aratus' poetry is "refined" in each of these senses, I might defy the objector to define precisely what Matthew Arnold means when characterizing Homer's poetry as "grand" in his treatise On Translating Homer. Aesthetic terms are normative and often nebulous, but this does not constitute grounds to dismiss the importance of "thinness" or "refinement" to Hellenistic poetics, especially the Phaenomena. Aratus clearly invests a good deal in the term, and contemporary poets identify it with the Phaenomena.

The Epigram Tradition

Our strongest third century evidence for Aratus’ fame comes from epigrams by

Callimachus, Leonidas, and a certain Ptolemy. All three praise Aratus' λεπτότης, relating the quality to Aratus' accuracy. At the same time, the epigrams commemorate Aratus' elevation of his astronomical material with hexameter verse. The epigrammatists variously align Aratus within the epic tradition. Ptolemy and Callimachus both suggest links to Hesiod, whereas Leonidas’ epigram links Aratus to Homer. The Vitae report that this difference had grown into a scholarly debate by the second century on some scale.53

Themes of vivid detail and material craftsmanship recur in the epigrams as well. Aratus has earned his reputation as a poet partially for his ability to reconstruct the visual

53 Martin 1974, 12-13, quoted below.

32 experience of observing celestial phenomena. This reconstruction, in turn, is brought out in references to material craftsmanship found within the Phaenomena itself as well as the epigrams discussing it. Aratus' astronomical accuracy, his fine poetic composition, as well as the detailed reconstruction of visual phenomena all partake of his λεπτότης as different points of reference for the same abstract quality.

Ptolemy’s epigram praises Aratus for his accuracy and places him within the tradition of Hesiod. Although its date is uncertain, I will work under the assumption that the author is Ptolemy Philadelphus, placing it in the third century BC.54 In any case, the epigram reflects third century reactions to the Phaenomena.

πάνθ᾽ Ἡγησιάναξ τε καὶ Ἕρμιππος <τὰ> κατ᾽ αἴθρην τείρεα καὶ πολλοὶ ταῦτα τὰ φαινόμενα βίβλοις ἐγκατέθεντο, ἀποσκόπιοι δ᾽ ἀφάμαρτον· ἀλλὰ τὸ λεπτολόγου σκῆπτρον Ἄρατος ἔχει.

Both Hegesianax and Hermippus have put all the signs in the sky down in books, and many others have done the same with these phenomena, but they are far from the mark; rather, Aratus holds the scepter of the man of refined speech. (FGE Ptolemy 1)

Little else is known about the authors listed in the first line of Ptolemy’s epigram. Quoted above, the second vita ascribes a work Περὶ Ἀνατολῆς (On the Horizon) to Aratus but indicates that others ascribe the work to a Hegesianax.55 Whoever Hegesianax and

Hermippus may be, they appear to have produced inaccurate, or at least flawed, astronomical work, according to Ptolemy. Significantly Aratus’ refined speech is positioned antithetically (ἀλλὰ) to their errors (ἀποσκόπιοι δ᾽ ἀφάμαρτον). In some sense Aratus' rivals have fallen short where Aratus himself has succeeded, and the mark

54 FGE, 85. The first vita identifies Ptolemy as a king. 55 Martin 1974, 11.

33 of that success is his scepter of refined speech, an image that recalls Hesiod's famous acceptance of a scepter from the Muses who grant him his authority (Th. 30). The

Phaenomena is thus aligned with the tradition of Hesiodic verse, although the material is explicitly bookish (βίβλοις). The Muses presented Hesiod with a σκῆπτρον after boasting about their ability to report the truth (ἀληθέα, 28) and "false things like the real" (Th. 30)56, which directs us to associate Aratus' award with his accurate or realistic description of the sky. Understanding Aratus' possession of the "scepter of the man of refined speech" as an emblem of his accuracy coheres with the antithesis: other astronomical writers fall short, but Aratus has described the sky well. At the same time, the language suggests euphonistic criticism concerned only with aural properties of poetry. Philodemus tells us that the Hellenistic κριτικοί spoke of poets hitting and missing the mark (οἱ μὲν ἐπέτυχον, οἱ δ᾽ ἥμαρτον) in selecting poetic diction as well, although the text is highly fragmentary, and the exact context eludes us.57 Thus Aratus’

λεπτότης, as well as the accuracy associated with it, could refer simultaneously to his aims as a writer of the stars and his aims as an aesthetically successful poet. That very juxtaposition, then, brings into focus Aratus’ use of poetry as a medium through which to disseminate technical information. Ptolemy thus emphasizes the significant relationship between Aratus’ poetics and the scientific content of his poem. Aratus can hit the mark in two senses at the same time, one regarding the form of his poem, and the other its meaning. Aratus exhibits emphatic awareness of form and content as distinct entities in

56 West 1966, 162 interprets the line to indicate the occasional falsity of the poetic tradition while insisting upon its capacity for truth. 57 On Poems I col 187, 20-21 (Janko). Gutzwiller 2010, 347-54 provides an overview of the evidence for euphonistic criticism in the Hellenistic period.

34 his famous acrostic, which betrays a sophisticated interplay between his astronomical material and the poem's layout in hexameter lines.

Ptolemy's choice of terminology to refer to the constellations marks the

Phaenomena's participation within two intellectual communities, underlining the vivid embellishment of Aratus' account of the heavens. The Greek word τείρεα refers literally to “marvels,” and by extension can indicate “signs” as well as “monsters,” both of which can be described as objects of wonder. The epigram therefore simultaneously refers to constellations as signs and to the monsters seen in the constellations,58 reflecting, again, the double aesthetic in the Phaenomena, which engages its subject simultaneously at the level of medium—that is, stars—and representation—that is, the figures of myth found in the constellations. In addition to assigning the creation of the constellations to both Zeus and an ancient observer of the heavens, Aratus gives multiple causes for Zeus’ actions, and freely switches from describing the shapes in the sky as constellations to narrating the actions of the mythical images created by the stars.59 Just as the Bear on Achilles’ shield watches Orion, and thus becomes at once a star sign and an animal wary of its hunter, Aratus’ Serpent writhes in the hands of Ophiuchus.60 There is no reason, then, to dismiss either meaning of τείρεα in favor of the other. Ptolemy’s epigram has encapsulated in one word that important feature of the Phaenomena: Aratus engages in

58 Phaen. 205, for instance, describes the Horse as πέλωρ, and Phaen. 46 and 382 play with the idea of the stars as “marvels.” 59 Pendergraft 1989; Semenoff 2005. 60 Il. 18.485-89; Phaen. 86-87; Pendergraft 1989; Semanoff 2005, 164-65. This is one of many examples. The Phaenomena is filled with poetic descriptions of the constellations that seamlessly flow from the level of the mythical object to the level of what the constellations depict.

35 two modes of discourse simultaneously, that of medium itself, namely stars, on the one hand, and that of representation and poetic narrative, on the other.

Despite the difficulty with both the text and the interpretation , the diction and the content of the Phaenomena stand out as primary points in Callimachus’ epigram praising

Aratus:

Ἡσιόδου τό τ᾽ ἄεισμα καὶ ὁ τρόπος· οὐ τὸν ἀοιδόν ἔσχατον, ἀλλ᾽ ὀκνέω μὴ τὸ μελιχρότατον τῶν ἐπέων ὁ Σολεὺς ἀπεμάξατο. χαίρετε λεπταί ῥήσιες, Ἀρήτου σύμβολον ἀγρυπνίης. (Callimachus 56 HE)61

1. ἀοιδῶν Scaliger; 4. σύμβολον Ruhnken; σύντονος AP; σύγγονος Ach. Tat.; σύντομος has been suggested by Stewart 2008; ἀγρυπνίης Ach. Tat.; ἀγρυπνίη AP.

Both the song and the manner are Hesiodic; he has not imitated the poet through and through, but I am afraid that the man of Soloe has imitated the sweetest of his verses. Rejoice, refined words, the symbol of Aratus’ wakefulness.

The epigram begins with Ἡσιόδου, emphatically establishing Hesiod as Aratus’ poetic model. Cameron has provided parallels for ἀπεμάξατο retaining its root meaning of

“skimming off,” noting that the meaning fits well with both the idea of discarding some of Hesiod’s inadequate verses and the root meaning of λεπταί,62 but his interpretation comes to mean that Aratus imitated the sweetest of Hesiod’s poetry all the same.63

61 Cameron 1995, 374-79 gives a good overview of the history of the text and interpretation of this difficult epigram. Most recently Stewart 2008 has suggested σύντομος ἀγρυπνίη, arguing that σύντομος, or “concise” builds on the image of something that is skimmed off and husked. The text as I have reproduced it is the reading printed in HE. That said, I accept Gow and Page’s reading tentatively, and propose to proceed with my interpretation accordingly. 62 Cameron 1995, 378; cf. Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 14. 63 Ran. 1040 provides a parallel for poetic imitations: ὅθεν ἡμὴ φρὴν ἀπομαξαμένη πολλὰς ἀρετὰς ἐποίησεν.

36 The final phrase is densely packed as well. Cameron has noted that ῥήσιες is a term typically used of spoken word as opposed to a song.64 Callimachus’ choice may have come from two considerations. First, the pun on Aratus’ name is almost irresistible

(ῥήσιες Ἀρήτου), and likely alludes to a pun found in the second line of the

Phaenomena, which tells us that Zeus never goes “unspoken” (ἄρρητον).65 The word choice may also indicate an acknowledgement that Aratus is engaging in a prose subject with his poem. It may even indicate the nature of Aratus’ project: a versification of a prose treatise. This could find support in the remainder of the line. It has been well noted that marking Aratus’ lines as the “symbol of Aratus’ wakefulness” carries more than one meaning.66 First, one observes celestial bodies at night, when others are typically asleep.

But the line also cleverly alludes to the hours of late-night study involved in writing such a learned poem from a prose treatise. His insomnia, in fact, may be a pretense for writing poetry in the first place.67 We might translate it as “the symbol of Aratus’ late nights” in order to maintain the ambiguity.

The implications of ἀγρυπνίης, then, all of which Callimachus activates simultaneously, are that Aratus is out gazing at the stars, that he is up late studying hard, or that he is writing poetry as a reaction to insomnia. To a certain extent the first, and certainly the latter two, further imply great labor on Aratus’ part. This interpretation finds support in an epigram found in the beginning of some of the manuscripts of the Works

64 Cameron 1995, 321-22. 65 Bing 1990. 66 Bing 1988, 36; Hose 1994; Nisetich 2001, 312; Koning 2010, 334. 67 Thomas 1979, 195-205 suggests a third possibility: ἀγρύπνια can indicate the sort of insomnia produced in the lovesick. This seems the least appropriate possibility for Aratus, but it nevertheless is consistent with the idea of "burning the midnight oil." See Theocritus Idyll 11.1-3 for an example of poetry as the only cure for love.

37 and Days hitherto, to my knowledge, not discussed in any explications of Callimachus’ epigram.68

ἀρνειῶν καλέειν εὔαδεν ἀλλὰ βροτῶν˙ χαῖρ᾽ Ἑλικὼν ὃς τοῖον ἐθρέψαο, χαίρετε λεπταὶ ῥήσιες Ἡσιόδου μουσοπνόων στομάτων.

...... it is sweet to call [not...] of rams but of mortals; rejoice, Helicon, who nourished such a man, rejoice refined speech from the Muse-inspired mouth of Hesiod.

Although this imitation of Callimachus' epigram is missing its first line, we might line up the final couplets of both poems thus:

χαῖρ᾽ Ἑλικὼν ὃς τοῖον ἐθρέψαο, χαίρετε λεπταὶ τῶν ἐπέων ὁ Σολεὺς ἀπεμάξατο. χαίρετε λεπταί ῥήσιες Ἡσιόδου μουσοπνόων στομάτων. ῥήσιες, Ἀρήτου σύμβολον ἀγρυπνίης.

rejoice, Helicon, who nourished such a man, rejoice Rejoice, refined words, the symbol of Aratus’ refined speech from the Muse-inspired mouth of wakefulness. Hesiod.

The epigram is probably late and is missing its first line. But it clearly alludes to

Callimachus’ work by repeating key words in the same positions within the final couplet.

Callimachus’ second line and the first preserved pentameter of the imitation give us the second element of some sort of antithesis. The following hexameter in either epigram contains a reference to the poet’s home, and then ends in χαίρετε λεπταὶ. 69 The final line begins with ῥήσιες, and then spells out the poet’s source material. Hesiod was famously—and literally—inspired by the Muses (Th. 31). I suggest, therefore, that the epigram preserved in manuscripts of the Works and Days provides us with an

68 Pertusi 1955, 4-5 provides the manuscript evidence for the epigram. Koning 2010: 335, n. 150 contains the only scholarly discussion of this epigram, as far as I can tell. 69 Callimachus’ epigram is also an allusion to Phaen. 16 χαίροιτε δὲ Μοῦσαι.

38 interpretation of Callimachus’ last line, which possibly reflects ancient interpretations.

Aratus’ nocturnal study is a new sort of poetic “inspiration,” the kind that comes from scientific sources. The λεπταὶ ῥήσιες are a symbol of Aratus’ late nights at study, and thus attest either to Aratus’ personal observation or careful examination of prose treatises, which are analogous to Hesiod’s divine inspiration. Cameron justifiably associated

ἀγρύπνια here with the work involved in composing the Phaenomena, and the result of

“refined verses” evokes the image of the work of a master craftsman producing detailed work (κατὰ λεπτόν), one of the themes underlying the Phaenomena itself.

If ἀγρύπνια identifies the poetic inspiration of the Phaenomena as hard work,

Aratus’ λεπταὶ ῥήσιες qualify it as a product of painstakingly precise work. The combination of rigorous labor and a fine product could hyperactivate the metaphorical use of ἀπεμάξατο, which can refer to different sorts of imitation. Asclepiades uses the same verb of Lysippus’ work in creating a statue of Alexander (AP 16.120.1), and

Posidippus 63 AB tells us that Hecataeus, in making a statue of Philitas, "imitated"

(κατεμάξατο) his likeness with all his skill while keeping to the straight canon of truth.70

Just as Hecataeus creates a mold of the image of Philitas, so Aratus’ poetry imitates the best of Hesiod's. While similarities in the critical language of literary and visual arts should not surprise us, Aratus' emphatic use of the language of material craftsmanship licenses a closer reading of Callimachus' diction.71

Repeated themes of materiality emphasized in the Phaenomena itself might suggest that Callimachus is evoking a metaphor that compares poetry to material

70 Asclepiades 43 HE; Posidippus 63 AB. For the relationship between poetry and sculpture in these epigrams, see Sens 2005. 71 Porter 2010, 179-93 discusses the synesthetic development of Greek aesthetic language from its furthest known origins in the 6th century BC.

39 craftsmanship. Take, for instance, Phaenomena 162, where Aratus tells us that the Goat is “hammered” upon the shoulder of Helice, or Phaenomena 177, where the Bull and

Heniouchos are “welded” or “pinned” (ἐπελήλαται / συνεληλάμενοι) together, joined at the left horn and the right foot respectively.72 The passage most programmatically comparing the sky to metalworking comes when Aratus introduces the celestial circles:

τοὺς μὲν παρβολάδην ὀρθοὺς περιβάλλεται ἄξων μεσσόθι πάντας ἔχων˙ ὁ δὲ τέτρατος ἐσφήκωται λοξὸς ἐν ἀμφοτέροις, οἵ μίν ῥ᾽ ἑκάτερθεν ἔχουσιν ἀντιπέρην τροπικοί, μέσσος δέ ἑ μεσσόθι τέμνει. οὔ κεν Ἀθηναίης χειρῶν δεδιδαγμένος ἀνὴρ ἄλλῃ κολλήσαιτο κυλινδόμενα τροχάλεια τοῖά τε καὶ τόσα πάντα περὶ σφαιρηδὸν ἑλίσσων, ὡς τά γ᾽ ἐναιθέρια πλαγίῳ συναρηρότα κύκλῳ ἐξ ἠοῦς ἐπὶ νύκτα διώκεται ἤματα πάντα.

An axis spins the parallel [circles] around, holding them in the middle; but the fourth one is fixed at a slant between both tropics, which hold it from opposite ends, and the middle [circle] cuts it in half. A man learned in the craft of Athena would not weld together revolving wheels of this sort and this size, interweaving them all into a sphere, in another way than how the ethereal wheels joined by a slanted circle follow around from dawn to dusk for all days. (Phaen. 525-534)

This passage compares the celestial circles, the celestial equator, both tropics, and the ecliptic (i.e. the apparent path of the sun), to an armillary sphere created by a craftsman.73

In one sense, the sky becomes an ordered creation bearing marks of some sort of intelligent design. But from a different perspective, Aratus could be describing not the circles themselves, but an actual armillary sphere, that is, an imitation of the celestial circles. Then his poem becomes a recreation of an imitation of the celestial circles.

72 See Kidd 1997, 242. See Phaen. 162-3: σκαιῷ δ᾽ ἐπελήλαται ὤμῳ / Αἲξ ἱερή,... and 174-6: λαιοῦ δὲ κεράατος ἄκρον / καὶ πόδα δεξιτερὸν παρακειμένου Ἡνιόχοιο / εἷς ἀστὴρ ἐπέχει, συνεληλάμενοι δὲ φέρονται. The use of ἐλαύνω to indicate metalworking goes back to Homer, e.g. Il. 12.295-96. 73 Schott and Böker 1958, 111; Erren 1967, 172-74; Kidd 1997, 369.

40 The verb ἀπομάσσω, meaning to “skim off,” comes to mean something like

“take the image from a mold,” and so comes to indicate reproduction. The verb can refer both to the material imitation found in sculpture and the poetic imitation from a model.

Callimachus’ use of the material image of making a mold to describe Aratus’ poetic imitation of Hesiod, then, could be thematically connected to Aratus’ imitation of the armillary sphere using poetry as a medium and the craftsman’s imitation of celestial sphere using metal as his medium.74

In any case, it is clear that Callimachus' epigram is unequivocally laudatory.75

Callimachus identifies Hesiod as Aratus’ model, placing the Phaenomena within the tradition of Greek epic. Aratus is an heir to Hesiod, and he has imitated the sweetest parts of Hesiod’s poetry, reworking them in his own. The final sentence praises Aratus’

λεπτότης, implying that it is both the result of Aratus’ selection of Hesiod’s sweetest verses or words, and identifying it as the proof of Aratus’ learned labor. It appears then, that λεπτότης pertains to both composition and content, Aratus' imitation of Hesiod as well as his "late nights," during which he could attain competency.

Our final third century epigram about Aratus purports to be a book tag for an edition of the Phaenomena. Leonidas treats Aratus along familiar lines in praising his learning and his λεπττότης, and although his epigram is not quoted in the scholia to

74 Aristophanes Ran. 1040 provides a parallel for poetic imitations: ὅθεν ἡμὴ φρὴν ἀπομαξαμένη πολλὰς ἀρετὰς ἐποίησεν. 75 Tsantsanaglou 2009, 83-85 argues that Callimachus’ epigram is insincere, suggesting that the first line credits Hesiod at Aratus' expense and that ἀπεμάξατο indicates that Aratus has neglected the best parts of Hesiod (i.e. the first half of the Works and Days). The reading has no parallel in the reception of the Phaenomena, however, and presupposes a simplistic imitation of Hesiod on Aratus' part. That Aratus has neglected the first half of the Works and Days, moreover, is simply not true.

41 Aratus or the Vitae tradition, it clearly works with contemporary and later reception of

Aratus.

γράμμα τόδε Ἀρήτοιο δαήμονος, ὅς ποτε λεπτῇ φροντίδι δηναιοὺς ἀστέρας ἐφράσατο, ἀπλανέας τ᾽ἄμφω καὶ ἀλήμονας, οἷσί τ᾽ἐναργής ἰλλόμενος κύκλοις οὐρανὸς ἐνδέδεται˙ αἰνείσθω δὲ καμὼν ἔργον μέγα καὶ Διὸς εἶναι δεύτερος, ὅστις ἔθηκ᾽ἄστρα φαεινότερα.

This is the book of knowledgeable Aratus, who once observed with his subtle mind the ancient fixed stars and the wandering pair76 and the circles to which the vivid, twirling sky has been fixed; let him who has made the constellations brighter be praised as being the craftsman of a great work and being second to Zeus. (Leonidas 101 HE)

On the surface, the epigram gives us a summary of the content of the Phaenomena. The astronomical section of the Phaenomena consists mainly of an account of the stars, an account of the celestial circles, and an account of the activities of the sun and the moon.77

76 I.e., the Sun and the Moon. ἄμφω is usually interpreted as taking the place of ἄμφότερον to be taken as an adverb with τὲ καί. There would be no parallel for such a subsitution before Nonnus, however, and the word order would create difficulty. Taking ἄμφω as the dual "both" modifying the plural ἀλήμονας may not alleviate the difficulty of the word order, but it would be a more natural usage. It would also specify the sun and the moon as the planets in question, not the five from which Aratus specifically recuses himself at Phaen. 454-61. 77Others have presumed that Leonidas merely imitates Callimachus without having a command of the text of the Phaenomena itself: see Kaibel 1984, 122. Cameron 1995, 324 argues only that Leonidas must have been familiar with the beginning of the poem. But my interpretation finds support in the fact that the epigram is a direct allusion to a specific passage of the Phaenomena (see below). See also Phaen. 319, where the line ending, ἀλήσιος ἠελίοιο, refers to the “wandering of the sun.” The point is two-fold: first the Sun progresses through the signs of the Zodiac, making it a sort of “planet,” and second the ecliptic lies on a slant from the equator of about 24° (λοξὸς ἐν ἀμφοτέροις Phaen. 527). The confused interpretation of the epigram as referring to planets has led LSJ to cite Leonidas’ ἀλήμονας as meaning “planets” (v. ἀλημοσύνη). Most recently Volk 2012, 211 n.7 has also suggested that, while Leonidas does indeed refer to the planets, his focus is rather the circle on which they lie, the ecliptic. Volk’s interpretation is certainly possible, since the ecliptic only takes on significance because of the planets,

42 But the epigram does much more, as it interfaces with both contemporary literary critical language and discrete parts of the Phaenomena itself.

Leonidas’ epigram offers us a literary evaluation of the Phaenomena similar to those found in the epigrams by Callimachus and Ptolemy. Aratus’ λεπτότης is again mentioned, and, again, it clearly has something to do with the learned nature of his poem: his mind is “refined,” and he has used it to observe and to create a representation of the celestial sphere.78 As ἐφράσατο has the potential to indicate both “devising” and

“observing,” it captures what Aratus’ observer needed to do—define constellations—and what Aratus does as poet—creates an account of celestial sphere. Leonidas emphasizes the visual in the Phaenomena, making the sky "vivid" (ἐναργής). “Vividness” is a quality of poetry praised in Hellenistic literary criticism,79 which then becomes important in Latin rhetoric in the first centuries BC and AD. It is defined as putting an image before the mind’s eye, thus referring to a mental and visual experience.80 Ptolemy points us in a similar direction with τείρεα.

The call to praise Aratus as the creator of a great work brings to the fore two connected motifs from the Phaenomena itself and its reception in the Hellenistic period.

The phrase used to describe Aratus’s achievement in composing the Phaenomena

(καμὼν ἔργον μέγα) stresses the same image of exhausting labor found in

Callimachus’s epigram (ἀγρυπνίης), as well as the related theme of material

but the Sun and the Moon were in fact considered planets in later astrological contexts, which could require seven planets. 78 For ἐφράστο meaning “he devised” in the passage from the Phaenomena see Kidd 1997, 320. Kidd notes the second line of Leonidas’ epigram as a parallel usage, but does not make any broader statements about the epigram’s relationship to this passage. 79 See, for instance, Philodemus On Poems 5 col. xxx 6-10. 80 Pliny, Epist., 5.6.42-3 cites Aratus as a model in his effort at putting a villa before the reader’s eyes (cum totam uillam oculis tuis subicere conamur).

43 craftsmanship, which we find throughout the Phaenomena, particularly when Aratus describes the celestial circles. At its root, κάμνω indicates exhausting labor, providing a parallel for Callimachus’ ἀγρυπνία. Moreover, Homer uses the word of metalworking,81 and therefore its use here could recall the same theme found throughout the Phaenomena, which activates the metaphor wherein material craftsmanship provides a vehicle to describe the process of composing verse, perhaps supporting the interpretation of

Callimachus’ ἀπομάσσω as a pointed use of the same metaphor. Leonidas’ interest in the celestial circles as one of the major features of the poem likely points to Aratus’ description of the circles as an armillary sphere (525-44). All three epigrams seem to use a metaphor of poetry as a visual form of art, attributing λεπτότης to the product in some way.

While Callimachus and Ptolemy clearly point to Hesiod as Aratus’ model,

Leonidas uses an intertext with another epigram in order to assign Homer as Aratus’ predecessor. Leonidas’ epigram on Aratus can be read against another of his epigrams on

Homer (HE 101):82

ἄστρα μὲν ἠμαύρωσε καὶ ἱερὰ κύκλα Σελήνης ἄξονα δινήσας ἔμπυρον Ἠέλιος, ὑμνοπόλους δ᾽ἀγεληδὸν ἀπημάλδυνεν Ὅμηρος λαμπρότατον Μουσέων φέγγος ἀνασχόμενος.

The sun, on the one hand, makes dim the stars and divine wheels of the moon by driving his fiery chariot around, and Homer, on the other hand, has extinguished poets without exception by holding up as his own the brightest splendor of the Muses.

81 Il. 18.614 uses the word of Hephaestus’ labor to create Achilles’ shield. 82 Campbell 2013, 54-58

44 The opening word intimates that this epigram could form a pair with Leonidas’ epigram about Aratus. The image of brightness, moreover, interfaces with the last line of the epigram about Aratus. Homer’s splendor is such that it obscures other poets, just as the sun “extinguishes” the stars. Aratus, on the other hand, makes the stars brighter as constellations. The second vita of Aratus suggests that his brightness was connected to his resemblance to Homer's style.

Βοηθὸς δὲ ὁ Σιδώνιος ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ αὐτοῦ φησιν οὐχ Ἡσιόδου αὐτὸν ζηλωτήν, ἀλλ᾽ Ὁμήρου γεγονέναι˙ τὸ γὰρ πλάσμα τῆς ποιήσεως μεῖζον ἢ κατὰ Ἡσίοδον. πολλοὶ μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἄλλοι Φαινόμενα ἔγραψαν, καὶ Κλεόπατρος καὶ Σμίνθης καὶ Ἀλέχανδρος ὁ Αίτωλὸς καὶ Ἀλεξανδρος ὁ Ἐφέσιος καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Λυκαίτης καὶ Ἀνακρέων καὶ Ἀρτεμίδωρος καὶ Ἵππαρχος καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοί, ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως λαμπροτέρα γέγονε πάντων ἡ Ἀράτου δύναμις ἐπισκοτήσασα τοῖς ἄλλοις. ἐχρήσατο γὰρ τῇ τῶν φυσικῶν φιλοσόφων δυνάμει. εἶναι γὰρ φησι τὸ διοικοῦν τὸν κόσμον ἀκριβῶς περί τε τοῦς ἐνιαυτοὺς καὶ μῆνας καὶ ἡμέρας καὶ ὥρας καὶ ἀνατολάς τε καὶ δύσεις ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης καὶ τῶν πέντε ἀστέρων. (Martin 1974, 12-13)

Boethus of Sidon says about him in the first place that he is not an imitator of Hesiod, but of Homer; for the style of the poem is greater than that of Hesiod. For many others also wrote Phaenomena—Cleopatros, Sminthes, Alexander Aetolus, Alexander the Ephesian, Alexander Lycaetes, Anacreon, Artemidorus, Hipparchus, and many others—but still the ability of Aratus is brighter than all, and thus casts darkness upon the others. For he used the capacity of the natural philosophers. For he says that there exists a precise ordering of the cosmos as regards the years, the months, the days, the hours, the rising and setting of the Sun and the Moon, and the five planets

Boethus of Sidon likened Aratus more to Homer than to Hesiod on the grounds of his poetic composition. In this pool of authors of nocturnal phenomena, Aratus acts as a lesser Homer, casting darkness upon authors of Phaenomena specifically, whereas

Homer casts darkness upon all without exception. Thus a sort of hierarchy of epic poets emerges, and Leonidas, like Callimachus and Ptolemy, has placed Aratus within the

45 tradition of epic poets as a sort of heir to Homer and Hesiod, although he emphasizes

Homer as a model rather than Hesiod.83 The image of brightness, moreover, could be a reference to another feature of Hellenistic literary criticism. Although the euphonists disagreed with one another on many accounts, they all focused to some extent on the sound of the poetry as divorced from its content.84 They tended to describe the sounds of poetry in synesthetic terms, such that they might speak of the “brightness” of a line's sound. So Philodemus tells us that Andromenides85 claims that the line πλοχμοί θ᾽ οἳ

χρυσῶι τε καὶ ἀργύρωι ἐσφήκωντο (the braids were plaited with gold and silver Il.

17.52) is luminous not because of the words “gold” and “silver,” but because of the sound of πλοχμοί (“braids”) and ἐσφήκωντο (“were plaited”).86 Aratus uses ἐσφήκωται to describe the obliquity of the ecliptic in his passage about the celestial circles at Phaen.

525. The usage of ἐσφήκωντο here appears to be rare, and it seems quite a coincidence that Iliad 17.52 is quoted in the scholia to elucidate the passage in the Phaenomena. The idea of Homeric “splendor,” then, is familiar from literary critical language, while critical discussion of "bright" verses, Homer, and Aratus all intersect in the use of ἐσφήκωντο in

Phaen. 525. Leonidas tells us that Homer is so bright that he extinguishes all other poets, comparing him to the sun casting the nighttime celestial bodies into obscurity. But

Aratus, who may very well have already had a reputation for casting other writers of phaenomena into darkness, afforded Leonidas the opportunity to corrupt the metaphor.

Aratus makes the constellations “brighter,” and thus deserves the rank of second to

83 The possibility thus arises that Callimachus’ epigram is a response to that of Leonidas or the opinion it reflects. The emphatic first word, Ἡσιόδου, supports such a notion. 84 Janko 2000, 120-189 and Gutzwiller 2010 provide good overviews. 85 Janko 2000, 212 attributes the opinion to Andromenides. The precise identity of the source is not at issue here, however. 86 Janko, Philodemus: On Poems, F. 23-24.

46 Zeus.87 Brightness is recast as a double-edged entity that can both illuminate subject matter, on the one hand, and cast competitors into obscurity, on the other. Stylistically,

Aratus’s intense labor makes him an emulator of Homer, but second in rank. Still, in making the stars brighter, he has outshone all the authors of the night, who write when there is no sun to extinguish them, that is, no Homer to outshine all alike.

Leonidas’ epigram on Aratus (HE 101) is complex, and while scholars cite it as a testament to Aratus’ popularity, nobody has yet explored the extent to which it interacts with the Phaenomena itself. I suggest that the epigram is an intricate allusion to the very important passage, quoted in the introduction, narrating the creation of the constellations by an unnamed observer.88

οἱ δ᾽ ὀλίγῳ μέτρῳ ὀλίγῃ δ᾽ ἐγκείμενοι αἴγλῃ μεσσόθι πηδαλίου καὶ κήτεος εἱλίσσονται, γλαυκοῦ πεπτηῶτες ὑπὸπλευρῇσι Λαγωοῦ, νώνομοι˙ οὐ γὰρ τοί γε τετυγμένου εἰδώλοιο 370 βεβλέαται μελέεσσιν ἐοικότες, οἷά τε πολλὰ ἑξείης στιχόωντα παρέρχεται αὐτὰ κέλευθα ἀνομένων ἐτέων, τά τις ἀνδρῶν οὐκέτ᾽ ἐόντων ἐφράσατ᾽ ἠδ᾽ ἐνόησεν ἅπαντ᾽ ὀνομαστὶ καλέσσαι ἤλιθα μορφώσας˙ οὐ γάρ κ᾽ ἐδυνήσατο πάντων 375 οἰόθι κεκριμένων ὄνομ᾽εἰπεῖν οὐδὲ δαῆναι. πολλοὶ γὰρ πάντη, πολέων δ᾽ ἐπὶ ἶσα πέλονται μέτρα τε καὶ χροιή, πάντες γε μὲν ἀμφιέλικτοι˙ τῷ καὶ ὁμηγερέας οἱ ἐείσατο ποιήσασθαι ἀστέρας, ὄφρ᾽ἐπιτὰξ ἄλλῳ παρακείμενος ἄλλος 380 εἴδεα σημαίνοιεν˙ ἄφαρ δ᾽ ὀνομάστ᾽ ἐγένοντο ἄστρα, καὶ οὐκέτι νῦν ὑπὸ θαύματι τέλλεται ἀστήρ˙ ἀλλ᾽ οἱ μὲν καθαροῖς ἐναρηρότες εἰδώλοισι φαίνονται, τὰ δ᾽ἔνερθε διωκομένοιο Λαγωοῦ πάντα μάλ᾽ ἠερόεντα καὶ οὐκ ὀνομαστὰ φέρονται. (Phaenomena 367-385)

87 “Second to Zeus” may also be a nod toward a possible pun in the second line of the Phaenomena. See Bing 1990. 88 Volk 2012, 221 notes that ἐφράσατο marks a reference to Phaen. 374.

47 And the [stars] covering a small span and with a faint gleam twirl between the rudder and the Monster, lying below the flanks of the grey Hare, nameless; for they are not like the body of a wrought figure, like the many that pass formed in ranks along the same paths as the years go round; someone of the men who no longer live devised these [constellations], and came to learn to call them by name after shaping them into groups; for he was not able to say the name of all [the stars] individually nor to learn them. For there are many, and they are everywhere, and the size and color of many are the same, and all are dragged around; on that account it was decided by him to make groups of stars, so that one lying next to another in a row might indicate shapes; and thereupon the constellations became named, and now no longer does a star rise to our amazement; but rather some appear joined in clear likenesses, but all beneath the pursued Hare are hazy, and do go unnamed.

In this passage Aratus narrates the story of how an unnamed observer marked out the constellations in the sky. There were too many stars for us to organize them individually, and so a man came along to form constellations in such a way that we could understand them without wonder. The unnamed observer, then, holds a similar position to that of the

Phaenomena itself: he has created mythical constellations, an act analogous to writing poetry. Aratus’ observer has created the constellations and so makes knowledge of the heavens accessible. In a sense this is precisely what Aratus—as poetic voice—is doing with his Phaenomena. And notice how this unnamed man of a past era has observed and mentally interpreted (ἐφράσατο) the stars as well. But he was not able to learn (δαήναι) all the stars until he had created the constellations. Finally he grouped the stars

(ἀστέρας) into constellations (ἄστρα). Leonidas’ epigram assigns the same role to

Aratus himself as poet. Ηe has observed (ἐφράσατο) the heavens. He is knowledgeable

(δαήμονος). While he observed the stars, finally, he either made stars brighter, or, to give ἄστρα a proleptic sense, made them brighter as constellations.

Katharina Volk recently argued that the Phaenomena deals primarily with signs and the process of reading the heavens as an analogue to reading the written word.

48 Toward that end she notes that Aratus uses similar language to describe the “reading” of the heavenly signs to that used in Greek epigram to describe the reading of the written word89. Thus she fits the Phaenomena into a broader third century focus on the physical book and the physical text of poetry. Leonidas’ double use of ἐφράσατο both to mean observation and a more active devising of patterns from the raw material of the night sky can thus reflect well the action of Aratus’ observer. In either instance of the verb, we have two layers of meaning running along the same line, which cannot be divorced from one another.

The epigram tradition surrounding Aratus responds to themes found within the

Phaenomena itself. The emphasis of Aratus' λεπτότης, repeated themes related to material craft, and the insertion of Aratus by Leonidas into the role of the unnamed observer all indicate Aratus' remarkable influence over his own literary reception. The theme of craftsmanship brought out in the opening hymn to Zeus (Phaen. 1-16), who sets out (ἐστήριξεν) the stars, nuanced in the unnamed observer "shaping" (μορφώσας) the stars into constellations, and reinforced with the language of metallurgy describing the constellations resonates in the epigrams of Callimachus and Leonidas, and even in that of

Ptolemy, to a lesser extent. Aratus' famous ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic becomes a cue followed by all three epigrammatists, who crown Aratus as the poet of λεπτότης while maintaining the term's flexibility to refer to multiple, but connected, facets of the poem.

89 Volk 2012, 218.

49 Aratus' λεπτότης materializes in the precision of the Phaenomena. That very precision, moreover, can referentially manifest in a number of ways: the astronomical claims themselves (διάνοια), the sound of the poetry (φωνή), and the poetic composition

(σύνθεσις or διάλεκτος). Hellenistic scholarship is a poorly preserved minefield of polemics, but it is at least clear that synesthetic language had long characterized literary criticism. The euphonists appear to have agreed that poetics were to be found in the sound of the poetry rather than its meaning. The tradition of scholar poets descending from Philitas of Cos, however, nevertheless emphasized learning: content and meaning were certainly of great importance to them. At the same time, the science of style had thrived for centuries. The specialty of Aratus' brand of "refinement" may have been its polyvalence. Ptolemy, Callimachus, and Leonidas praise then both the form and content of the Phaenomena in response to Aratus' own self-referential, synesthetic cues. The metaphor of material craft helps to elucidate the detailed precision of the Phaenomena's content brought out by the adjective λεπτός, which is, in origin, a physical quality.

In the end, however, the many references of "refinement" are difficult to separate.

The separation of content from language was a preoccupation of the euphonists, and thus a literary critical issue of the day. The Phaenomena may have attained some of its fame by problematizing neat separation of form and content among Hellenistic intellectual circles.

50

Chapter 3

Philology and Astronomy: The Commentary Tradition

Parallel to the praise of Aratus' poetic peers, a rich commentary tradition surrounding the Phaenomena appears to have thrived already by the second century BC.

Evidence for this tradition includes a unique gem from the Hellenistic world: Hipparchus' intact commentary, which reaches us in manuscript tradition independent of the

Phaenomena itself.90 Although Ptolemy's Almagest superseded most Hellenistic astronomy, extensive quotation by later astronomers and mathematicians and Ptolemy's own use of Hipparchus' measurements leave the impression that he was likely the most important and productive astronomer of the Hellenistic world. Hipparchus' main contributions include the use of better observations, the application of Babylonian records to Greek geometrical models,91 and the introduction of the first trigonometric functions.92

Increasing the predictive capacity of Greek astronomical science, Hipparchus pushed the field in a direction that allowed a more practically reliable set of astronomical models.93

90 There are two recensions, an earlier recension that stands alone and a later recension that has a copy of Ptolemy's star chart appended to it. See Manitius 1894, xii-xiii. 91 E.g. Alm. 7.11 attests his extensive use of Babylonian observations as well as his comfort with Babylonian, Greek, and Egyptian dating systems. 92 Toomer 1973 reconstructs the history of Hipparchus' chord table, likely used in Alm. 1.11. 93 Although Ptolemy's admiration of Hipparchus is abundantly clear throughout the Almagest, his account of the meticulous care with which Hipparchus made his own observations, compiled those of others, and put both of these to use in proposing

51 To him we attribute the discovery and accurate measurement of precession, the calculation of the solar year within a quarter day,94 and the invention of a map of the celestial sphere used by Ptolemy. He was portrayed on coins from Nicaea into the imperial period.95

Around the third quarter of the second century BC, Hipparchus wrote an astronomical commentary of the Phaenomena, responding to the work of a previous commentator by the name of Attalus of Rhodes, about whom little else is known. Taking

Attalus as representative of the best of his predecessors, the only one worthy of response,

Hipparchus criticizes his target for falling victim to Aratus’ deceptive charm (χάρις,

Comm. in Arat. 1.1.7), which has encouraged assent to Aratus’ flawed astronomy. Aratus' literary esteem celebrated by Callimachus, Leonidas, and Ptolemy appears to have influence the Phaenomena's reception in scientific circles. One of Hipparchus’ major goals is to separate the evaluation of the Phaenomena as an astronomical treatise from the apparently universal admiration elicited by the poem's literary merits. In doing so,

Hipparchus attempts to write a strict critique of Aratus useful to readers interested in astronomy, as well as an account of the movement and measurement of the celestial sphere for the sake of "love of learning" (φιλομαθία, 1.1.3-6). As Hipparchus represents the broader commentary tradition of the Phaenomena and his own role in it, he attempts to assess the Phaenomena's astronomy by separating the question of its scientific

astronomical theories at Alm. 9.2 demonstrates Hipparchus' reputation adequately. There Ptolemy supposes that Hipparchus never put forth a planetary theory on the grounds that he did not have sufficient evidence. He did, according to Ptolemy, disprove the planetary theories of others and collect and make observations that advanced the study of planetary motion. 94 Alm. 3.1 95 Richter 1965, 247.

52 authority from that of its literary esteem. Earlier commentators, including Attalus, whom

Hipparchus characterizes as an astronomer (μαθηματικός), had conflated Aratus’ literary reputation with his astronomical merit.

Hipparchus responds to Attalus as the representative of a tradition that ascribes to

Aratus such great astronomical expertise that the text must be reconciled with the phenomena—what is observed and what is reported. Hipparchus’ commentary, written in the form of a letter addressed to an unidentifiable Aeschrion, begins with a compliment to

Aeschrion for his persevering pursuit of learning (τὸ ἐπίμονόν σου τῆς πρὸς

φιλομαθίαν οἰκειώσεως 1.1.1). Hipparchus is particularly impressed with the facility

(φιλοτεχνίαν) that Aeschrion shows in his work with Aratus’ account of the simultaneous risings and settings (Συνανατολαῖς) of the constellations of the zodiac with the other constellations, especially taking into account how busy Aeschrion has been after the death of his brothers (1.1.1). Hipparchus promises to give a critical account of

Aratus’ astronomy.

Although often reduced by modern scholars to the status of a scientific commentary, Hipparchus' work takes part in the traditions of both scholarship and science.96 Hipparchus appears primarily to have concerned himself with scientific fields, especially astronomy, and his interest in the Phaenomena is easy to explain in terms of his specific contributions to astronomical science. But the commentary is as much an exegetical and scholarly piece as it is a scientific treatise: Hipparchus goes to great length to establish Aratus' text, literary practices, and authorial intention, all of which make him at home in a tradition of Homeric scholarship as well.

96 I use "scholarship" to refer to expert editorial and exegetical interaction with literary texts and "science" to refer to the technical astronomical work of the μαθηματικός.

53 Hipparchus' contribution of establishing celestial phenomena explains his interest in the Phaenomena from a scientific perspective: the poem's title indicates that it collects and organizes observations, which, Aristotle tells us, constitute a field subordinate to mathematical astronomy (APo. 78b.39). The title Phaenomena situates the poem within the genre of scientific writing treated in the works of the same name by Eudoxus and

Euclid. His access to and facility with Babylonian observations, apparently unprecedented and never to be excelled, indicates one of his motivations for working with a poem called the Phaenomena,97 but does not exhaustively explain the presentation of the commentary, especially in the first two books.

By far the oldest extant commentary from the Greek world, Hipparchus' work also occupies a significant place in our record of Hellenistic scholarship. From this perspective, we might place Hipparchus within the Hellenistic scholarly tradition whose beginnings could be placed with Philitas and Zenodotus.98 The techniques deployed to support his own interpretations and readings of the Phaenomena, as well as those employed to attack his predecessor Attalus, resemble the picture we retrieve from

Homeric scholia of the discussions of the Alexandrian Homeric scholars, Zenodotus,

Aristophanes, and Aristarchus. Both the use of manuscripts and the internal parallel

(Aratus ex Arato) appear in the polemical repertoire of Hipparchus' contemporary

Aristarchus.99

97 For Hipparchus' use of Babylonian observations and methods, see Neugebauer 1963, 530-34 and Jones 1991, 442-52. Thurston 2002 passim demonstrates Hipparchus' superiority to contemporary astronomers, even suggesting that Ptolemy's debt to him is greater than was realized. 98 Pfeiffer 1968, 87-95. 99 The famous addage Ὅμηρον ἐξ Ὁμήρου σαφηνίζειν appears first in Porphyry, although it may fairly describe Aristarchus' professed practice. Scholia D to Il. 5.385

54 Daston and Most have recently suggested a broad research program that connects the histories of science and philology from antiquity into the modern age.100 Hipparchus' commentary of Aratus' Phaenomena presents an intersection of just these two histories.

As Hipparchus tells the reader, the goal of his work is not only to correct the astronomical content, but also, in the first place, to provide a precise reading of Aratus' words. We would therefore expect Hipparchus to employ a precise philological method to edit and interpret Aratus' work, and, upon a closer reading, this is precisely what we will find.

Numerous—if polemical—quotations of Attalus preserved by Hipparchus indicate that Attalus used Aratus’ reputation for astronomical accuracy as an editorial and interpretive tool. In cases where multiple readings survive, Attalus tends to select the most astronomically accurate of the variants, or at least this appears to be his aim. At times Attalus will even emend the text, according to Hipparchus, in order to make the content consistent with the author's reputation for precision. Finally, Attalus will use

Aratus’ reputation for accuracy and precision as a principle by which to interpret the poet. Aratus’ meaning must reflect his reputation for accuracy, and so the celestial phenomena themselves can be brought to bear on the exegesis of the Phaenomena. As

Hipparchus quotes Attalus:

perhaps preserves an interesting quote: Ἀρίσταρχος ἀξιοῖ "τὰ φραζόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιητοῦ μυθικώτερον ἐκδέχεσθαι κατὰ τὴν ποιητικὴν ἐξουσίαν, μηδὲν ἔξω τῶν φραζομένων ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιητοῦ περιεργαζομένους." (Aristarchus thinks it right "to understand what is said by the poet in a mythical sense in accordance with poetic license, and not seek [meaning] outside of what is said by the poet.") See the discussion at Pfeiffer 1968, 226-227. 100 Daston and Most 2015.

55 διὸ δὴ τό τε τοῦ Ἀράτου βιβλίον ἐξαπεστάλκαμέν σοι διωρθωμένον ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν καὶ τῆν ἐξήγησιν αὐτοῦ, τοῖς τε φαινομένοις ἕκαστα σύμφωνα ποιήσαντες καὶ τοῖς ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιητοῦ γεγραμμένοις ἀκόλουθα.

Wherefore I have sent to you both Aratus’ book edited by me and its commentary, having made each part both in accordance with the phenomena and in conformity with what is written by the poet. (Comm. in Arat. 1.3.3)

And a little later, Hipparchus tells us, Attalus follows up on this:

τάχα δέ τινες ἐπιζητήσουσι, τίνι λόγῳ πεισθέντες φαμὲν ἀκολούθως τῇ τοῦ ποιητοῦ προαιρέσει τὴν διόρθωσιν τοῦ βιβλίου πεποιῆσθαι˙ ἡμεῖς δὲ ἀναγκαιοτάτην αἰτίαν ἀποδίδομεν τῆν τοῦ ποιητοῦ πρὸς τὰ φαινόμενα συμφωνίαν. (Comm. in Arat. 1.3.3)

Perhaps some seek to know by what rationale I have been persuaded when I say that the edition of the book has been made in accordance with the conscious choice of the poet; I offer a most powerful basis [for my confidence], the agreement of the poet with the phenomena.

Before we examine Hipparchus’ generally polemical demeanor, consistent with the polemical atmosphere of Hellenistic science and scholarship at large, Attalus’ statement about his own editorial and interpretive principles merits examination on its own terms.

On the face of it, Attalus' literary critical methods appear to be aimed at "saving"

Aratus by means of overly charitable interpretations as well as textual alterations. We must be careful, however, when reading Attalus through the lens of Hipparchus, a biased mediator.101 As we receive him through Hipparchus' commentary, Attalus’ assumption that the Phaenomena must contain information that is not only correct, but also precise, probably has origins in a third-century tradition reflected, if not rooted, in the epigrams discussed in the previous chapter. We have already seen how Callimachus relates Aratus’

λεπτότης to his late nights of composition, partly implying arduous nights at study (HE.

101 Cf. Pfeiffer 1968, 112-114, which offers Schol. A to Il. 4.88, 18.247, 24.528, and 1.5 as examples of Aristarchus unjustly accusing Zenodotus of altering the text of Homer.

56 56.3=Pf. 27.3). Leonidas applies the adjective form of the same root to Aratus’ intellectual capabilities (λεπτῇ φροντίδι, HE 101.2), and Ptolemy directly opposes error

(ἀφάμαρτον) to Aratus’ scepter of refined speech (λεπτολόγου σκῆπτρον), implying that this “scepter” is a symbol of the poet’s accuracy (FGE 1.3-4). What is more, Aratus controls much of his own reception with thematic passages. It is hard not to see a parallel between the "refinement" attributed to Aratus by Callimachus, Leonidas, and Ptolemy and the precision attributed to him by Attalus. Both λεπτότης and ἀκρίβεια connote fineness and can be used in a number of metaphorical senses. The change in vocabulary may indicate the differing concerns of the scientific community of Attalus, which seriously engaged Aratus as a source for astronomy, and whose stylistic concerns may have differed from those of the literary community.102

Although many others have written commentaries on the Phaenomena,

Hipparchus regards only Attalus’ as worthy of response. He tells us that Attalus is in fact an astronomical expert, who has written the most careful account of Aratus’ work. But

Hipparchus considers exegesis of the meaning of the poem (διάνοιαν) to be unnecessary: the poet is nontechnical and concise, and yet clear to those paying even moderate attention. Rather, the most beneficial and useful work will be to evaluate what is correct and what is incorrect in the Phaenomena (1.1.3-4). Having set the stage, Hipparchus then undermines Aratus’ reputed expertise by demonstrating his debt to a fourth-century source in Eudoxus of Cnidus. After demonstrating the relationship of the two texts at length (1.2.1-22), he gives an account of the errors of Aratus, Eudoxus, and Attalus throughout the remainder of the first book. The second book begins with a criticism of

102 But see chapter two, where I show that λεπτότης and ἀκρίβεια can both describe literary qualities.

57 Aratus’ synanatolai, which is followed by Hipparchus’ own version of synanatolai mapped out in a more prosaic style (2.4.1-3.4.12).

After years of neglect, scholars have recently begun to give consideration to

Hipparchus’ commentary. This neglect is surprising, since it is such a singular piece of evidence: an intact commentary from the second century BC.103 As a result of a recent resurgence, attempts to classify the work and situate it within a literary context have yielded interesting results. Setting the commentary within a Hellenistic scientific community characterized by its engagement with literary texts, Reviel Netz considers

Hipparchus' interaction with the Phaenomena a playful, overly technical engagement with nontechnical literature.104 Michael Tueller and Roger Macfarlane have treated it as a manifesto on the proper methods of scientific inquiry and writing, thus opposing the scientific writing advocated by Hipparchus to Aratus' deceptively charming poetry.105

Caroline Bishop has situated the commentary within the tradition of the “detractors” of

Homer associated particularly with Zoilius of Amphipolis from the fifth and fourth centuries BC.106 On a larger scale, Netz demonstrates how Hipparchus' choice to correct the astronomy of a poem suits the literary fancies of the Hellenistic scientific community both in their engagement with literary texts and in the literary nature of their own work;

Tueller and Macfarlane underline key passages in the commentary that help frame

Hipparchus' polemical goals beyond a mere correction of Aratus' astronomy; Bishop reintegrates Hipparchus into a larger commentary tradition surrounding his work. But

103 Dickey 2007. 104 Netz 2009, 169-70. See especially 170, where Netz speaks repeatedly of Hipparchus' "intentional misreading" of Aratus' poetic text. 105 Tueller and Macfarlane 2009. 106 Bishop 2015; I thank Dr. Bishop for allowing me to view an early draft. Friedländer 1895 collects the fragments of Zoilius and the detractors.

58 common to all of these approaches is the tendency to highlight what to my mind is of less importance to Hipparchus’ goals: the author’s criticism of Aratus as an astronomer

Although much of Hipparchus’ work reads as a lemmatic commentary rendering critical judgment on the astronomical content in the Phaenomena, his habit of explaining what Eudoxus, Aratus, and Attalus have to say about each astronomical claim indicates a further goal: Hipparchus is not only interested in the astronomical content of the

Phaenomena, but Aratus' sources and the reading strategies of his predecessor Attalus as well. His passing warning about the “charm” of poetry indicates that poetry’s bewitching powers have caused some problems, but it also indicts reading strategies that foreground

Aratus' literary reputation, a reputation won through verse composition.107 Hipparchus’ programmatic repetition of themes of utility in the beginning of the commentary and his repeated criticism of Attalus’ hermeneutic strategies that aim to reconcile phenomena with the verses of the Phaenomena indicate that Hipparchus focuses on reading strategies useful to the μαθηματικοί. That is to say that Hipparchus wishes to pinpoint specific meaning from the Phaenomena derived from textual evidence and regular writing practices. The words written by Aratus and an understanding of how he habitually expresses his thoughts ought to be, and actually are, sufficient to make clear declarations of phenomena.108 On this basis alone, Hipparchus determines that Aratus’ work, just like his source text, is in fact written in a general register, not the “precise” register attributed

107 In the following chapter I discuss the extent to which Cicero emphasizes Aratus' ignorance of astronomy while praising his craft as a poet. 108 Cf. Tueller and Macfarlane 2009, 228-30 suggest that Hipparchus reads the Phaenomena as a purely "literary" text not suited to clear exposition of astronomical phenomena. On the contrary, as I show below, Hipparchus explicitly tells us that Aratus makes very clear claims about celestial phenomena, and then assumes—and even argues for—clear, concrete claims made by Aratus throughout.

59 to Aratus via his literary reputation as a poet of λεπτότης. All the same, it is important to remember that he says the same about Eudoxus. Hipparchus is not challenging the ability of poetry to make claims about astronomy.109

Hereafter my argument will proceed as follows. First I will elucidate the philological techniques employed by Hipparchus to establish secure text and meaning, arguing, contrary to scholarly trend, that Hipparchus headlines these specific goals in response to Attalus’ reading strategies. What will become clear throughout this discussion is that the commentary’s structure is only partially organized by its lemmatic style following the lines of the Phaenomena. Hipparchus’ exposition of his strategy of engaging texts and responding to them in a "useful" way, in contrast with Attalus, organizes the commentary on a larger scale. Second, I will argue that the commentary's structure results from Hipparchus' philological and scientific goals to address issues surrounding authority, observation, and the establishment of phenomena in astronomical discourse. Finally, I will argue that Hipparchus’ own presentation of celestial phenomena occupying the last part of his commentary serves as his own model of precise astronomical discourse of greater use to the μαθηματικοί.

Hipparchus Philologus: Hipparchus, Attalus, and the Reading Strategies of

the Μαθηματικοί

Hipparchus’ commentary has two major goals, one philological and one scientific.

“Philological” here indicates neither the polymathy celebrated by Eratosthenes' title nor

109 Comm. in Arat. 2.3.24 (quoted below) characterizes the writing of both Aratus and Eudoxus ὁλοσχερῶς ("vague").

60 the activity of examining the intricacies of linguistic construction and the use of rare words, but a more modern sense combining textual criticism with the interpretation of the text thus established. Although in the recent scholarship there is a preference to stress

Hipparchus' interest in science, the commentary is as much about reproducing the words and meaning of the Phaenomena. Whereas Attalus alters his text and interpretation to fit his faith in Aratus' precision, Hipparchus exhibits a trust in the text of the Phaenomena as a record at the expense of his personal trust in Aratus himself as an accurate astronomer.

But Hipparchus' skepticism of the astronomical claims in the Phaenomena does not amount to an attack on Aratus himself. Although Hipparchus does mention the problematic “charm” (χάρις 1.1.7) of Aratus’ poetry, which has deceived so many readers, it must be remembered that establishing Eudoxus as Aratus’ source in fact insulates Aratus from blame.110 Hipparchus criticizes reading strategies that are unable to draw falsifiable assertions rooted in the text of the poem.111 Insofar as Hipparchus critiques the poem itself, his main concern is to question the accuracy and precision with which Aratus presents phenomena: whereas Attalus demonstrates how to reconcile the poem with phenomena, Hipparchus investigates the poem's capacity to provide anything more than a vague picture of the celestial sphere.112 In this way, Hipparchus' treatment of

110 Bishop 2011, 27-36 argues that Cicero’s choice to translate the Phaenomena into Latin was motivated in part by Aratus’ universally positive reception. There is little indication of ancient disapproval of the Phaenomena, especially when we discount Hipparchus among Aratus’ critics, as I think we must. There is no clear evidence to support the assumption of, for instance, Cuomo 2001, 82 that Hipparchus found fault with Aratus' manner of expressing himself. 111 Bishop 2015, 382-83 notes Hipparchus' criticism of Attalus' philological methods but then proceeds to claim that Hipparchus is not concerned with making his own philological and interpretive arguments. This is objectively false, as will become clear. 112 For discussion of the meaning of the τὰ φαινόμενα in ancient scientific and philosophical texts, see Owen 1961; Nussbaum 1986, 240-63; Cleary 1994, 61-97;

61 Aratus parallels that of Homer by Eratosthenes, who argues in his geographical work not that Homer's geography was incorrect, but that his goals are not consistent with any attempt to extract geographical knowledge from the text.113

Hipparchus' commentary comes under two traditions of scientific and scholarly inquiry, both beginning in the third and second centuries BC. His treatment of the

Phaenomena is more pointed than Eratosthenes' treatment of poetic texts, as far as we know, but the amalgam of textual and scientific investigation constituting his commentary resembles Eratosthenes' great geographical work. Hipparchus' response to

Attalus, whether fair or not, must be taken as a part of a scholarly tradition not exclusively focused on astronomy itself but on the text of a poem. In a sense, Hipparchus reaffirms Aratus' position within the broader tradition of hexameter poetry, even while providing scientific corrections.

Hipparchus' pointed syncrisis of Attalus' methods with his own casts suspicion on

Attalus' textual editing and exegesis, which imply a problematic theory of the nature of the text and its relationship to celestial phenomena it describes: what is the goal of an editor and interpreter of such a poem? Attalus’ reading strategy suggests that phenomena themselves bear on his reading of the text, which makes critical reading difficult and undermines any text’s conceivable usefulness as a scientific source, since one’s ability to

Nieuwenburg 1999. Whereas Owen, seeing that τὰ φαινόμενα could refer in Aristotle to both what is observed in the sky in astronomical contexts and act as a synonym for τὰ λεγόμενα in other contexts, extrapolated two separate meanings from the words, Nussbaum sees an overarching sense with two references. I tend toward the latter view: τὰ φαινόμενα in astronomical contexts can refer to observations in both senses, one firsthand, the other recorded. For the particular importance of "appearances" in ancient Greek astronomy, Duhem 1908; Lloyd 1978. 113 See, for instance, Strabo 1.2.7. Strabo's report of Eratosthenes' attitude toward Homer is highly polemical and must be read with caution. See also Pfeiffer 1968, 166.

62 interpret it relies on preexisting knowledge of phenomena.114 In order to correct this,

Hipparchus seeks to establish the text of the Phaenomena as well as its meaning separately from any consideration of his own astronomical insight. Rather than use celestial phenomena to guide his interpretation, Hipparchus employs philological arguments to establish Aratus’ text and meaning, which he then might critique for the benefit of a scientific audience. To this end, Hipparchus employs a series of philological techniques in order to establish Aratus’ text and meaning: manuscript tradition, internal parallel, and broader conventions in astronomical literature are all deployed to challenge

Attalus' criterion for determining authorial intention—i.e. Aratus' famed astronomical expertise.

Once Hipparchus has set out the goals of his commentary for his audience, he immediately establishes Eudoxus as Aratus’ source, specifying two works, one called

(also) the Phaenomena and another called the Enoptron (Mirror 1.2.2). Hipparchus relies on an accumulation of evidence to demonstrate Aratus’ debt in full, but his introductory argument uses two particularly persuasive examples, Cepheus and the Kneeler, whose descriptions by both authors contain errors in common. His reasoning implies that he understands the particular weight carried by parallels containing the same error. Citing parallel descriptions of the constellation Cepheus (Phaen. 184-87), Hipparchus demonstrates his awareness of the demonstrative power of mutual errors:

Ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ Κηφέως ὁ μὲν Εὔδοξος οὕτως˙ “ὑπὸ δὲ τὴν οὐρὰν τῆς Μικρᾶς Ἄρκτου τοὺς πόδας ὁ Κηφεὺς ἔχει πρὸς ἄκραν τὴν οὐρὰν τρίγωνον

114 Everyone brings external insight to a given text, and it is in fact easier to read the Phaenomena when equipped with a basic understanding of celestial movement. Hipparchus' objection pertains to the priority Attalus gives aligning Aratus' claims with phenomena.

63 ἰσόπλευρον ποιοῦντας˙ τὸ δὲ μέσον αὐτοῦ πρὸς τῇ καμπῇ τοῦ διὰ τῶν Ἄρκτων Ὄφεως.” ὁ δὲ Ἄρατός φησιν˙

ἴση οἱ στάθμη νεάτης ἀποτείνεται οὐρῆς εἰς πόδας ἀμφοτέρους, ὅσση ποδὸς εἰς πόδα τείνει, αὐτὰρ ἀπὸ ζώνης ὀλίγον κε μεταβλέψειας πρώτης ἱέμενος καμπῆς σκολιοῖο Δράκοντος. (Phaen. 134-87)

παρ᾽ ἑκατέρῳ δ᾽αὐτῶν τὸ πρῶτον ἐστι ψεῦδος˙ τὸ γὰρ μεταξὺ τῶν ποδῶν τῶν τοῦ Κηφέως διάστημα ἔλασσόν ἐστιν ἑκατέρου τῶν πρὸς τὴν οὐρὰν διαστημάτων. (Comm. in Arat. 1.2.11-12)

And regarding Cepheus, Eudoxus [says] thus: “And Cepheus positions his feet beneath the tail of the Little Bear such that they make an equilateral triangle with the tip of the tail; and his midriff points toward the bend of the Dragon that goes between the Bears.” And Aratus says: 184 An equal distance stretches from the tip of her tail, to both feet, and as great a distance extends from foot to foot, and you might look a short way from his belt if searching for the first bend of the winding Dragon. And for each them the first claim is false; for the distance between the feet of Cepheus is less than either of the lengths [from a foot] to the tail.

In both passages quoted by Hipparchus, the author claims that the stars representing the feet of the constellation Cepheus and the tail of the Little Bear form an equilateral triangle, and then advises the reader how to find the middle bend of the Dragon by drawing his eye off of Cepheus’ waist. The juxtaposition of the two details already suggests some sort of relationship between the texts, but Hipparchus continues to note that both passages commit the same error in describing what is actually an isosceles triangle as though it were an equilateral triangle.

Hipparchus makes a similar, but more pointed, observation regarding the relationship between the head of the Dragon and the foot of the Kneeler.

64 Ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ Ἐνγόνασιν ὁ μὲν Εὔδοξός φησι˙ “παρὰ δὲ τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ Ὄφεως115 ὁ Ἐνγούνασίν ἐστιν, ὑπὲρ τῆς κεφαλῆς τὸν δεξιὸν πόδα ἔχων.” ὁ δὲ Ἄρατος˙

μέσσῳ δ᾽ ἐφύπερθε καρήνῳ δεξιτεροῦ ποδὸς ἄκρον ἔχει σκολιοῖο Δράκοντος. (Phaen. 69-70)

ἐξ οὗ καὶ μάλιστα φανερὸν γίνεται τὸ προκείμενον˙ παρ᾽ ἑκατέρῳ γὰρ αὐτῶν ἠγνόηται˙ τὸν γὰρ ἀριστερὸν ἔχει πόδα ὁ Ἐνγόνασιν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ Δράκοντος, καὶ οὐ τὸν δεξιόν. (Comm. in Arat. 1.2.6)

And about the Kneeler Eudoxus says: “The kneeler is near the head of the serpent, holding his right foot over his head.” And Aratus says:

And he holds the end of his right foot over the middle of the head of the tortuous Dragon.

From which my proposition becomes even abundantly clear; for in each of them lies ignorance; for the Kneeler has his left foot upon the head of the Dragon, and not his right.

In the passage about the Kneeler, Hipparchus emphasizes the connection between the astronomical error and the relationship between Eudoxus and Aratus. The point of καὶ

μάλιστα φανερὸν appears to be that the fact that it is a common error strongly establishes Aratus’ reliance on Eudoxus. Establishing a source text is, in a way, a lot like establishing an ancestor manuscript. In either case, mutual accuracy indicates very little about the relationship between two texts. But errors in common can indicate the use of a given source by a later text.116 Hipparchus’ use of particles indicates the same reasoning: from this common astronomical claim it becomes most clear (μάλιστα φανερὸν) that

Aratus imitates Eudoxus; for (γὰρ) they are both wrong, and the way in which they are wrong (γὰρ) is that the Kneeler holds his left foot, not his right, over the Dragon’s head.

115 Ὄφεως = Δρακόντος here, judging both from Hipparchus’ use of the example and Vitruvius’ similar usage of serpens at 9.4.6. Hipparchus quotes Eudoxus at 1.2.3 in another instance where Ὄφις must refer to Δράκων. See Martin 1998, 185. 116 Or a common source for both: Hipparchus simultaneously makes his case by means of aggregate evidence.

65 Following a list of parallel passages outlining the similarity of the text and expression of the two authors, Hipparchus assures his reader that he could provide several more individual examples, although he stops for the sake of brevity. Instead, he moves on to cite larger, structural similarities between Eudoxus and Aratus. Despite using a different order, Aratus cites the same stars to delineate the summer and winter tropics as

Eudoxus (1.2.19-21) and presupposes the same observational latitude (1.2.22). Having demonstrated these points, again, by direct quotation of both Eudoxus and Aratus,

Hipparchus provides an account of the errors of Eudoxus, Aratus, and Attalus in the description of the constellations, beginning with the northern hemisphere and moving to the southern hemisphere (1.3.1).

The length to which Hipparchus goes in order to establish Eudoxus as Aratus’ source suggests that the point is not insignificant. In listing Aratus’ errors, he repeatedly blames Eudoxus for making the initial error, which Aratus merely follows. Hipparchus thus distinguishes Aratus from a real astronomer. Responsibility for the errors in the

Phaenomena, he reasons, ought not be assigned to Aratus, as he does not make his own observations (οὐ κατ᾽ ἰδίαν παρατηρήσας ἢ μαθηματικὴν κρίσιν 1.1.8). The immediate justification for establishing Eudoxus as the source of the Phaenomena appears to be to discredit Aratus as a viable astronomical source. But he simultaneously mitigates his criticisms of Aratus by alleviating his responsibility for any errors.

More importantly, establishing a source text in the beginning, Hipparchus provides himself with another philological tool to rival the editorial and interpretive principle employed by Attalus. While Attalus uses Aratus’ reputation for accuracy and precision in order to gain psychological insight to Aratus’ authorial intent, Hipparchus

66 uses the text of Eudoxus, which he has established as a source, in order support his interpretation of Aratus' authorial intention.117 Thus Hipparchus uses Aratus’ debt to

Eudoxus in two ways: the debt itself serves as an index of Aratus’ lay status, and the content of Eudoxus’ work provides an interpretive tool to rival Aratus’ supposed authority.

Hipparchus' institutional trust in the techniques of the copyist and the technology behind the production of physical copies of text, as well as his limited personal trust in the regularity of Aratus’ terminology and expression—but not in his astronomical expertise—appears to underlie his editorial and exegetical methods.118 Attalus’ method, in comparison, stresses faith in the consistency of Aratus with the broader astronomical community: the Phaenomena must reflect the phenomena. Thus Attalus’ faith in Aratus himself is at the expense of his trust in the regularity of Aratus' expression, the institution of textual production, and the regularity of its deviation.119 In response to faith in Aratus,

117 While Attalus’ precise attitude is less clear, Hipparchus explicitly unites the meaning of the text with the author’s intention, an unproblematic concept for this second century BC scholar-scientist. 118 Johnstone 2011, 3 distinguishes between the impersonal trust that allowed ancient Athenians to conduct business in the market through various systems and personal trust, which those systems rendered irrelevant. Berrey 2015 argues that the Hellenistic Empiricists elided our distinction between personal and institutional trust in their faith in the testimony of Hippocrates: not only do they demonstrate unwavering faith in the capacity of a text to demonstrate the intentions of an author, provided one understands how the technology of producing copies works, but in Hippocrates as an ethically and intellectually unimpeachable witness as well. Mapped out in the same terms, Attalus demonstrates the latter in his willingness to alter the text and interpretation of Aratus in order to preserve his authority as a witness, while Hipparchus demonstrates the former, only putting his faith in Aratus himself as clear and consistent communicator whose intentions he might access through the institution of manuscript production. 119 I will argue below that there is some reason to think that Hipparchus prefers to emend by conjecture in such a way that the copyist's error be plausible.

67 Hipparchus finds an alternative source of insight into the intention (βούλημα) of Aratus in his source text, the work of Eudoxus of Cnidus.

Hipparchus structures his commentary to showcase his own method of reading, in juxtaposition with that of Attalus. First he criticizes Attalus' methods and assumption that

Aratus is a knowledgable source; then he demonstrates the debt to Eudoxus; finally he deploys his own exegetical methods against those of Attalus.The end of his criticism of the Synanatolai serves as a culmination of this methodological syncrisis. Here

Hipparchus inserts, as it were, a centerpiece, which divides his criticism of Aratus,

Eudoxus, and Attalus from his own attempt at precisely mapping out the celestial sphere.

Although the commentary is lemmatic in a sense, then, it also functions as an extended methodological argument.

The relationship between the Kneeler and the Dragon, which, as I have discussed, constitutes a remarkable piece of evidence used to establish Eudoxus as a source text, provides an excellent example of Hipparchus’ philological method (Comm. In Arat,

1.2.11-12). When Hipparchus brings up the same lines in the Phaenomena once again, the reader discovers that Attalus’ treatment posed greater problems than were revealed in the first instance:

Ἐπὶ δὲ Ἐνγόνασι παρεωρακέναι μοι δοκοῦσιν ὅ τε Εὔδοξος καὶ ὀ Ἄρατος, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ διημαρτηκέναι, εἰπόντες τὸν δεξιὸν πόδα ἐπὶ μέσης τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ Δράκοντος κεῖσθαι. ὁ μέντοι γε Ἄτταλος παρὰ τὸ βούλημα τοῦ ποιητοῦ δοκεῖ μοι τὸ ἡμιστίχιον μετατιθέναι γράφων οὕτως˙ “μέσσου δ᾽ ἐφύπερθε καρήνου” καὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ Δράκοντος ἔξω τοῦ κόσμου στρέφων, ἵνα γένηται αὐτὸ τὸ δεξιὸν μέρος τῆς κεφαλῆς κατὰ τὸν πόδα. τά τε γὰρ ἄστρα πάντα εἰς τὸ ἐντὸς τοῦ κόσμου μέρος ἐπεστραμμένα, ὡς ἔφην, ἀστροθετεῖται ὑπὸ πάντων καὶ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Ἀράτου, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς βιβλίοις γράφεται˙ μέσσῳ δ᾽ ἐφύπερθε καρήνῳ δεξιτεροῦ ποδὸς ἄκρον ἔχει σκολιοῖο <Δράκοντος>. (Phaen. 69-70)

68 (Comm. in Arat. 1.4.9)

And concerning the Kneeler, both Eudoxus and Aratus seem to me to have committed a minor oversight, but not an all out error, in saying that his right foot lies on the middle of the head of the Dragon. Now Attalus certainly seems to me to emend the half-line contrary to the poet’s intention, when he publishes it thus: “Above the middle of the head [using the genitive instead of the dative]” and in the process turns the Dragon’s head toward the outside of the cosmos in order that it become the right side of the head beneath the foot. For as I said, all the constellations are catasterized with their orientation directed toward the inside of the cosmos by Aratus himself as well as everyone else, and in all the books it is published:

And from above on the middle of the head of the twisting Dragon he holds the end of his right foot.

Hipparchus' argument addresses the perspective of the Phaenomena. Aratus was variously understood as writing his poem from the perspective of one looking upon a star globe from the outside or from that of one standing on the earth looking up at the stars. Hipparchus' orientation of left and right depends on his insistence that Aratus describes the constellations as they are seen in the sky from within the celestial sphere. To the left lies the layout of the Kneeler and Dragon as seen from Earth; a star globe would show their mirror image. In either case it would be customary to imagine the mythical figure facing toward the viewer, which would reverse the orientation of left and right. See Evans 1998, 44 for a picture of a fourteenth century manuscript of al- Sūfī's Book on the Constellations of the Fixed Stars, which shows Taurus oriented from both perspectives.

Figure 1 The Kneeler and the Dragon Hipparchus begins by asserting that Eudoxus and Aratus have misspoken by stating that the Kneeler’s right foot resides above the head of the Dragon. Attalus has apparently emended the line by changing μέσσῳ δ᾽ἐφύπερθε καρήνῳ to μέσσου δ᾽ ἐφύπερθε

καρήνου to make ἐφύπερθε take the genitive. Hipparchus accepts the reading of

καρήνῳ in the dative. What Hipparchus perceives to be at stake here is the accuracy of

69 Aratus’ astronomy, since Aratus is incorrect to say that the Kneeler's right foot is over the

Dragon's head. Attalus, he supposes, has emended the case of "head" as a result of his assumption that Aratus must be correct. With “head” in the genitive, the problematic

δεξιτεροῦ ceases to be a problem: it may modify καρήνου (to mean the "right side of the head") instead of ποδός, and Aratus’ famed accuracy remains intact. But Hipparchus objects: if we orient the Kneeler’s foot over the right side of the Dragon’s head, the

Dragon must be turned out from the cosmos (ἔξω τοῦ κόσμου στρέφων). The only way to put the Kneeler's foot over the right side of the Dragon's head, Hipparchus implies, is to see the Dragon as one would on a star globe, from the outside of the celestial circle.

Hipparchus tells us that this goes against the conventions of astronomical terminology: constellations face toward the middle of the cosmos (ἄστρα πάντα εἰς τὸ ἐντὸς τοῦ

κόσμου μέρος ἐπεστραμμένα ἀστροθετεῖται)—i.e. towards the earth-bound viewer.

Insisting that Aratus (following Eudoxus) has misspoken, Hipparchus defends the manuscript reading of Aratus. Attalus has gone against the intention (βούλημα) of the poet in reading the genitive, Hipparchus argues. First he argues that Attalus’ emendation deviates from conventional astronomical terminology. Hipparchus’ second argument is based on something resembling emendatio ope codicum: no copies of the poem record line 69 as Attalus reads it. But Hipparchus is not complacent with the argument as it stands.

Continuing his arguments about the reading of μέσσῳ δ᾽ ἐφύπερθε καρήνῳ at

Phaenomena 69, Hipparchus next proceeds to list internal parallels from within the

Phaenomena itself. Aratus’ typical method of triangulating a constellation on the celestial

70 sphere, argues Hipparchus, would dictate that he specify the right leg rather than the right side of the head.

πρὸς δὲ τούτῳ καὶ τὸν σχηματισμὸν ἡμῖν τοῦ Ἐνγόνασι καὶ τὴν θέσιν διασαφεῖν βουλόμενος ὁ Ἄρατος εὐλόγως ἂν σημαίνοι καὶ ποῖος αὐτοῦ ποὺς κεῖται ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ Δράκοντος κεφαλῆς˙ οὐ γὰρ ἄλλως παρατίθησι τὴν τοῦ Δράκοντος κεφαλήν, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα τῇ θέσει τοῦ Ἐνγόνασι παρακολουθῶμεν, ὅπερ καὶ ἐπὶ ἄλλων πλειόνων ποιεῖ. καθάπερ καὶ ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Ἐνγόνασι τὰ ἄλλα αὐτοῦ μέρη <διασαφῶν> φησι˙ νώτῳ μὲν Στέφανος πελάει, κεφαλῇ γε μὲν ἄκρῃ σκέπτεο πὰρ κεφαλὴν Ὀφιούχεον. (74-75) καὶ ἔτι τῇ Λύρᾳ, φησί, γούνατί οἱ σκαιῷ πελάει (272) καὶ ὡς ἐπὶ τοῦ Περσέως˙ ἄγχι δέ οἱ σκαιῆς ἐπιγουνίδος ἤλιθα πᾶσαι Πληιάδες φορέονται. (254-55) καὶ πάλιν˙ καὶ οἱ δεξιτερὴ μὲν ἐπὶ κλισμὸν τετάνυσται πενθερίου δίφροιο. (251) καὶ ὡς ἐπὶ τοῦ Ὄρνιθός φησι˙ κατὰ δεξιὰ χειρὸς Κηφείης ταρσοῖο τὰ δεξιὰ πείρατα φαίνων. (279-80) (Comm. in Arat. 1.4.10-11)

And on top of this, Aratus, in his desire to clarify the shape and placement of the Kneeler for us, would rightly indicate also which foot of his lies on the head of the Dragon; for he does not supply the head of the Dragon for any other reason except that we might follow the placement of the Kneeler, which he does in more instances. Likewise for the Kneeler clarifying his other parts he says: 74 The crown lies at his back, and beside the tip of his head see the head of Ophiouchus. (74) And also in reference to the Lyre he says, [the Lyre] lies by his left knee. (272) and so when discussing Perseus: And near his left thigh muscle all in a group travel the Pleiades. (254-55) and again: and his right hand is stretched toward the seat of his bride’s mother. (251) and so discussing the Bird he says: along the right hand of Cepheus stretching the feathers of his right wing (279-80)

71 First Hipparchus quotes Phaenomena 74, demonstrating that Aratus, when discussing the

Kneeler, triangulates his specific parts using other constellations. Immediately following this argument, Hipparchus demonstrates that Aratus refers to the leg over the Dragon’s head, which also lies next to the Lyre, as the left leg at Phaenomena 272. Thereafter

Hipparchus offers a list of parallels in which Aratus specifies which limb he uses to locate various constellations. Thus Hipparchus provides his readers with internal parallels, beginning with the discussion surrounding the Kneeler itself, but then moving on to show how Aratus typically specifies the members of the constellation that he is attempting to triangulate at the moment. These philological arguments identify Aratus' normal practice of placing specific members of one constellation by reference to another.

Hipparchus’ arguments regarding the relationship between the Kneeler and the

Dragon depend on a specific attitude toward the text wherein the reader is able to access the author's original text and intention. His strategy employs philological means that avoid recourse to Aratus’ reputation as an accurate astronomical author. His assurance that all the books record the dative and not the genitive implies something like manuscript collation. His argument that using Attalus’ emendation to make δεξιτεροῦ modify καρήνου attributes to Aratus a break from convention speaks against the probability of the emendation implies Aratus ex Arato.120 Hipparchus insists that Aratus has made an oversight, not an error, on the basis that Aratus misidentifies the leg of the

Kneeler only here. Although he does not spell out the logic, he explains how this is an

120 It is probably worth noting here that a scholiast attempts to save Aratus with a different solution: δεξιτεροῦ modifies Δρακόντος, and is synonymous with βορειοτέρου Martin 1974, 107-08. The scholiast explains, ἡμῶν γὰρ ἱσταμένων πρὸς τὴν τοῦ παντὸς κίνησιν τὰ δεξιὰ μέρη ἐστὶ τὰ βόρεια, τὰ δὲ ἀριστερὰ τὰ νότια. ὥστε οὖν φυσικῶς τὸ δ ε ξ ι τ ε ρ ο ῦ ἐστι ‘τοῦ βορειοτέρου’. ἡ δὲ τοῦ παντὸς κίνησις πρὸς δυσμὰς γίνεται.

72 “oversight” by making reference to line 272, where Aratus says that the left leg of the

Kneeler is near the Lyre, and that leg must be the same one identified as the right leg in line 70 (i.e. above the Dragon). Thus Hipparchus is willing to allow for the possibility of some inconsistency on Aratus’ part.121 Hipparchus then continues to cite internal parallels in order to establish Aratus’ regular practice. The final piece of evidence, not expounded upon here, is Aratus’ source text. Hipparchus does not need to cite Eudoxus at this point, since he cites him above, quoting the sentence, παρὰ δὲ τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ Ὄφεως ὁ

Ἐνγούνασίν ἐστιν, ὑπὲρ τῆς κεφαλῆς τὸν δεξιὸν πόδα ἔχων (1.2.6, quoted above).

In establishing the source of the Phaenomena, Hipparchus provides himself with a clear, prosaic version of what Aratus must be saying. All of these means of argument establish

Aratus’ intention (βούλημα), which Attalus has undermined in his attempt to reconcile astronomical accuracy with Aratus’ words.

By suggesting that Attalus’ edition runs contrary to the intention or meaning of the poet, Hipparchus underlines a feature of Attalus’ theoretical attitude toward the text itself. Attalus subscribes to a reading strategy that gives priority to the authoritative reputation of the author as an independent evidentiary phenomenon, which deserves consideration on par with astronomical observation. Hence arise his moments of “blind faith” in Aratus, his attempts to reconcile the manuscript readings of the Phaenomena with astronomical phenomena, and his emendation of the text.122 Hipparchus, on the

121 Tueller and Macfarlane 2009, 241 point out that internal consistency is of greater importance to Attalus, and indicates accuracy in his opinion. Hipparchus in fact uses consistency more than Attalus, but only does so to establish Aratus' meaning; evaluation of his astronomical claims is another matter. 122 Tueller and Macfarlane 2009, 238-45 list five characteristic strategies of Attalus’ commentary as Hipparchus presents it. All of these observations can be reduced down to

73 other hand, prefers philological means to reconstruct Aratus’ meaning, leaving his astronomical insight to the side until he has established the meaning of the text.

Hipparchus’ criticism of Attalus’ work challenges basic theoretical assumptions, which appear to have been embedded into the commentary and editorial tradition.

Hipparchus' work constitutes a deliberate departure from the sort of reasoning that sanctioned reading philosophical or technical insight into the text of Homer.123 The

Phaenomena is not like the Homeric texts: the content of Aratus’ work has an empirically observable correlate, and belongs to a branch of mathematics. Because Aratus' poem is scientific and so subject to demonstrable error, the idea of authorial will or intention

(βούλημα) raises questions about whether “Aratus wants (βούλεται) to say” refers to what the poem ought to say in order to reflect accurately what contemporary astronomers know or what Aratus himself did in fact know and intends to say. What was the goal of creating an edition of the Phaenomena? Attalus’ editorial and interpretive principle of using celestial phenomena in order to edit Aratus’ text prioritizes astronomical accuracy, and in doing so, programmatically builds in a process in which the Phaenomena’s content is updated and corrected, a process thus embedded in the production of Attalus’ edition or commentary.

Hipparchus effectively accuses Attalus of eliding Aratus' authorial intention and scientific fact: Attalus attempts to edit the Phaenomena by bringing in external insight from expert astronomers.

Attalus’ theoretical approach to the text, and in listing them as separate strategies, Tueller and Macfarlane miss exactly what is at stake in Hipparchus’ criticism. 123 So called “allegorical” readings of Homer (cf. Long 1996, 60) only serve as an analogue in a limited way. First, the nature of physics and astronomy was different for the ancients, since physics was an uncertain endeavor, whereas astronomy, a branch of mathematics, could call for certainty among its practitioners. See Lehoux 2007, 37-39.

74

Ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἑξῆς περὶ τῶν τροπικῶν καὶ τοῦ ἰσημερινοῦ καὶ ζῳδιακοῦ κύκλου λέγων φησίν˙

αὐτοὶ δ᾽ ἀπλατέες καὶ ἀρηρότες ἀλλήλοισι πάντες, ἀτὰρ μέτρῳ γε δύω δυσὶν ἀντιφέρονται. (Phaen. 467-68)

γραφομένου δὴ διχῶς καὶ ἐν οἷς μέν˙ “αὐτοὶ δ᾽ ἀπλατέες”, ἐν οἷς δέ˙ “αὐτοὶ δὲ πλατέες”, ὁ Ἄτταλός φησι βέλτιον εἶναι “αὐτοὶ δὲ πλατέες”. “καὶ γὰρ οἱ ἀστρολόγοι,” φησὶν, “πλατεῖς ὑποτίθενται τούς τε τροπικοὺς καὶ τὸν ἰσημερινὸν καὶ τὸν ζῳδιακὸν διὰ τὸ τὸν ἥλιον τὰς τροπὰς μὴ ἀεὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ κύκλου ποιεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ ποτὲ μὲν νοτιώτερον ποτὲ δὲ βορειότερον.” καὶ ὅτι γίνεται τοῦτο, καὶ Εὔδοξός φησι. λέγει γοῦν ἐν τῷ Ἐνόπτρῳ οὕτως˙ “φαίνεται δὲ διαφορὰν τῶν κατὰ τὰς τροπὰς τόπων καὶ ὁ ἥλιος ποιούμενος, ἀδηλοτέραν δὲ πολλῷ καὶ παντελῶς ὀλίγην.”

And in the following passage, talking about the tropic, the equatorial, and the zodiacal circle he says:

And these are all without width and connected to one another, but in their measurement two match with two.

Since the passage is read in two ways, and in some books it reads “and these are without width,” while in others it reads, “and these have width,” Attalus says that the reading, “and these have width,” is better. “For the astronomers,” he says, “suppose that the tropical, the equatorial, and the zodiacal circles have width, because the sun does not always make its turns on the same circle, but sometimes it turns farther south and sometimes farther north.” And Eudoxus also says that this happens. At least he says in his Mirror the following: “and the sun appears to change the places of its turns, in a way almost imperceptibly and ever so slightly.” (Comm. in Arat. 1.9.1-2)

In this instance we are told that there was indeed manuscript evidence for Attalus’ reading. As Hipparchus represents it, Attalus explicitly selects a manuscript variant because of (γάρ) its consistency with other astronomers. He is wrong about the astronomy: the idea that the sun’s solstitial points vary in celestial latitude is probably derived from the same property found in the orbits of the Moon and the planets and

75 perhaps confirmed by inaccurate observations of the solstices over time.124 Hipparchus

(not Attalus) attributes the same view to Eudoxus. But Hipparchus' decision to include both Attalus' reading and reason for accepting that reading implies a methodological comparison: Attalus' preference for αὐτοὶ δὲ πλατέες is grounded in his confidence that

Aratus will reflect the opinion of experts. Hipparchus first responds by arguing that

Attalus’ reading is not astronomically correct. If the sun were to deviate from a straight course as Attalus claims, and as the moon does, then the shadow cast by the Earth would behave in the same way, in which case astronomers would not be able to predict a lunar eclipse (Comm. in Arat. 1.9.3-4). But the argument for accepting ἀπλατέες is philological: he cites a number of loci where Aratus is supposed to have assumed that the celestial circles do not have any width (Comm. in Arat. 1.9.9-15).

Hipparchus' philological argument for ἀπλατέες at Phaen. 467 relies on his faith that Aratus' assumption about the planets is consistent. Here he has opted for a reading that contradicts his supposition that Eudoxus is Aratus' source text. His contention that

Aratus likely says ἀπλατέες in 467 on the grounds that Aratus otherwise consistently assumes that the celestial circles have no width, moreover, seems to work against his allowance for inconsistency regarding the foot of the Kneeler in Phaen. 69-70.

124 Kidd 1997, 349-50. The manuscript tradition of the Phaenomena does not preserve the readings of Attalus or Hipparchus, but δ᾽ ἀπλανέες. Both Kidd 1997 and Martin 1998, 338 argue that the reading of the manuscripts, while not without sense, adds little meaning to the text. In any case, the subject currently under discussion is Hipparchus’ reaction to the Phaenomena. Geminos 5.11 tells us that the celestial circles are without width, elaborating thus: τούτους δὴ τοὺς κύκλους δεῖ νοεῖν ἀπλατεῖς, λόγῳ θεωρητούς, ἐκ τῆς τῶν ἀστέρων θέσεως καὶ τῆς τῶν διόπτρων θεωρίας καὶ τῆς ἡμετέρας ἐπινοίας διατυπουμένους. Μόνος γὰρ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ κύκλος ἐστὶ θεωρητὸς ὁ τοῦ γάλακτος, οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ λόγῳ εἰσὶ θεωρητοί.

76 Hipparchus has made a judgment in favor of Aratus ex Arato over his use of Eudoxus as a source text in this particular instance.

Hipparchus shows his capacity for similarly particularist judgment when he responds to Attalus’ proposal of an emendation of Phaenomena 693-94, which discusses constellations rising simultaneously with the Water Pourer:

Παρέχει δέ τισιν ἐπίστασιν, πῶς ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων ζῳδίων ὁ Ἄρατος τὰς ἀρχὰς ἐπὶ τῆς ἀνατολῆς ὑποτιθέμενος καὶ οὕτως τὰς τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων ἀνατολὰς καὶ δύσεις διασαφῶν τὸν Ὑδροχόον μέσον ἀνατέλλειν ὑποτίθεται, λέγων οὕτως˙

ἵππος δ᾽ ὑδροχόοιο μέσον περιτελλομένοιο ποσσὶ τε καὶ κεφαλῇ ἀνελίσσεται. (Phaen. 693-94)

τούτου δ᾽ ἀπορουμένου ὁ Ἄτταλός φησιν ἁρμάρτημα εἶναι, δεῖν δὲ γράφειν οὕτως˙ “Ἵππος δ᾽ ὑδροχόοιο νέον περιτελλομένοιο.” λανθάνει δὲ τόν τε Ἄτταλον καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους τὸ βούλημα τοῦ ποιητοῦ, τάχα δὲ καὶ τὸ φαινόμενον. ὁ γὰρ Ὑδροχόος, τῇ θέσει κείμενος ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας πρὸς ἄρκτους, τὰ μὲν κατὰ τὸ στῆθος καὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν μέρη πολὺ ἐκπίπτοντα τοῦ ζῳδιακοῦ κύκλου εἰς τὸ πρὸς ἄρκτους μέρος, τὰ δὲ κατὰ τοὺς πόδας νοτιώτερα ἔχει τοὺ ζῳδιακοὺ κύκλου˙ ἐν δὲ τῷ ζῳδιακῷ τὰ μέσα αὐτοῦ κεῖται. ἑπεὶ οὖν τὰ δωδεκατημόρια τοῦ ζῳδιακοῦ κύκλου ὑποτίθεται ἀναφερόμενα, διὰ τοῦτο ὁ Ἄρατος λέγει τοῦ Ὑδροχόου κατὰ μέσον τὸ σῶμα ἀνατέλλοντος “ὁ Ἵππος ποσσί τε καὶ κεφαλῇ ἀνελίσσεται” καὶ οὐχὶ τὸ μέσον τοῦ ἐν τῷ δωδεκατημορίῳ μήκους, ὡς οἵ τε πολλοὶ καὶ ὁ Ἄτταλος ἐκδέχεται. ἀναγκαῖον οὖν εἶναι δοκεῖ μοι, μὴ μετατιθέναι τὸν στίχον, ὡς ῾Ἄτταλος ὑποδεικνύει, ἐν πᾶσί γε δὴ τοῖς ἀντιγράφοις οὕτως αὐτοῦ γραφομένου. (Comm. in Arat. 2.3.6-9)

And it posed a point of difficulty for some, how, when it comes to other signs of the zodiac, Aratus, placing their beginnings on the horizon, and thus elucidating the risings and settings of other constellations, clearly sets forth the rising of the middle of the Water-pourer, speaking thus:

And the Horse rolls around with its feet and head as the midsection of the Water-pourer twirls up.

And Attalus, at a loss at this, says that it is an error, and that it is necessary to read thus: “And the Horse [rolls around…] as the Water-pourer begins to twirl up [above the horizon].” But the poet’s intention has eluded both Attalus and the

77 others [who say this], and perhaps the celestial appearance itself has as well. For the Water-pourer, lying in its orientation from south to north, has the parts containing its chest and head falling far to the north of the zodiac circle, and the parts containing its feet to the south of the zodiac circle; And its midsection lies on the zodiac. So since Aratus shows the rising twelfths of the zodiac circle, he says, “The Horse rolls around with its feet and legs,” as the Water-pourer rises at the midsection of his body, and does not refer to the midpoint of the length along the sign of the zodiac, as Attalus and many others understand.125 So it seems necessary to me, not to change the line, as Attalus indicates, since, in all the copies it is written this way.

See the waist of the Waterpourer (labeled “Aquarius”) lies on the ecliptic. The constellation’s waist rises at the sign’s beginning. The fore feet and head of the horse are visible to the left of the Water-pourer.

Hipparchus appears to surmise that Attalus emends the text of Aratus 693-94 in order to agree with the celestial phenomenon: since the feet and head of the Horse are visible at the beginning of the rising of the sign of the Water Pourer, reasons Attalus, we should write (δεῖν δὲ γράφειν) νέον instead of μέσον. Hipparchus explains that Attalus has misunderstood what Aratus means by ὑδροχόοιο μέσον. The belt of the zodiac centers on the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun throughout the year. The zodiac is divided into twelve thirty-degree segments named after the constellations Crab, Lion, Virgin,

Claws (our Balance), Scorpion, Archer, Goat-horn, Water-Pourer, Fishes, Ram, Bull, and

125 Hipparchus draws a distinction here between the middle of the sign of the zodiac, i.e. a 30 degree length of the zodiac belt itself, and the middle of the constellation marking that sign, i.e. the Water-pourer.

78 Twins. For the sake of convenience, I shall refer to the 30-degree segment of the zodiac as the “sign” of the zodiac, distinguishing it from the constellation marking the sign.

Interpreting Attalus to understand that Aratus refers to the middle of the sign of the

Water-Pourer, which would be a deviation from Aratus’ common practice, Hipparchus corrects that Aratus refers to the middle (i.e. the midriff) of the Water-Pourer (i.e. the constellation). The constellation itself is very large, and only the waist actually lies on the zodiacal circle, and so Aratus’ Ὑδροχόοιο μέσον actually does refer to the waist of the constellation itself, that is the beginning of the sign (= the 30-degree segment).

The arguments surrounding the reading of Phaenomena 693-94 reveal underlying issues in Hipparchus’ general critique of Attalus’ reading strategy. It is not clear whether

Attalus' use of “error” (ἁμάρτημα) indicates an error in textual reception or an astronomical error by Aratus. Perhaps eliding the two, Attalus appears to propose an emendation based on his own knowledge of the celestial phenomenon in question. But

Hipparchus, keeping with the evidence of “all the manuscripts” (ἐν πᾶσί γε δὴ τοῖς

ἀντιγράφοις οὕτως αὐτοῦ γραφομένου), understands the text as it is written to reflect the celestial phenomenon without complication. Although Hipparchus’ interpretation is scientifically charitable toward Aratus, he grounds his defence of his reading in the unanimity of the manuscripts putting his faith in the technology and consistency of the production of texts as much as in his own ingenuity.

Attalus does not always resort to emendation to make Aratus’ text agree with phenomena; at times he will interpret the words of Aratus with what Hipparchus sees as undue charity, or, what is worse, pass over astronomical error without comment.

Discussing Phaenomena 254, for instance, Attalus attempts to explain away the dubious

79 statement that “all of the Pleiades are near the left knee of Perseus” (ἄγχι δέ οἱ σκαιῆς

ἐπιγουνίδος ἤλιθα πᾶσαι Comm. in Arat. 1.6.12). The word for near (ἄγχι), Attalus explains, is not standing in for near (ἐγγύς), but nearest (ἐγγυτάτω). Hipparchus quotes

Attalus’ explanation:

“βούλεται γὰρ λέγειν,” φησίν, “ἐγγυτάτω τῶν Πλειάδων κεῖσθαι τὸ ἀριστερὸν γόνυ παρὰ τοῦς λοιποῦς ἀστέρας.” (Comm. in Arat. 1.6.12)

“For he intends to say,” [Attalus] says, “that the left knee lies beyond the rest of the stars closest to the Pleiades.”

The clustered stars to the northeast of Taurus are the Pleiades. Literally, they lie below Perseus’ foot; so the star representing his knee is not the closest to the Pleiades.

Hipparchus responds to this attempt at saving the Phaenomena by correcting Attalus’ astronomy: there are two stars on the foot of Perseus closer to the Pleiades than his left knee is. Therefore, Hipparchus considers Aratus’ statement an error, despite praising

Aratus for identifying the correct leg of Perseus.126 Attalus here invokes the intention of

126 Kidd 1997, 276 identifies Aratus' mistake as a misconstrual of his source text, Eudoxus' ἀποτείνων πρός.

80 the poet, just as Hipparchus did in discussing the Water-pourer at 2.3.7. Here, however,

Hipparchus does not seem to care whether or not Attalus has correctly ascertained

Aratus’ intention on the grounds that his astronomy is still wrong.

But invoking Aratus' intention (βούλημα) with reference to the Pleiades at 1.6.12 is telling. When Hipparchus says that the poet’s intention has eluded Attalus at 2.3.7 (on the Water-pourer), he is making several logical jumps that reveal his own attitude toward

Attalus’ method of editing and interpreting the text of the Phaenomena. He assumes that

Attalus has found a reading in the manuscripts, determined, in agreement with many others in this instance, that the astronomy is incorrect, and then, equating the poet’s intention with what is in the sky, has determined that there must be something wrong with text. At 1.6.12, regarding the Pleiades, we are able to glean a penultimate step:

Attalus attempts to interpret what is written in such a way that it conforms to the placement and movement of the stars. Hipparchus is happy to refute Attalus by appeal to the phenomena, since he sees no possible reason for such an interpretation on astronomical grounds. Here our “scientific” commentator has made a brief appearance.

Hipparchus’ treatment of the rising of the waist of the Water-Pourer and Attalus’ interpretation of the left knee of Perseus being “nearest” to the Pleiades both purport in a sense to save Aratus by interpreting the text in such a way that it remains consistent with astronomical phenomena. But Hipparchus’ reading strategy at Phaenomena 693-94

(Water-pourer) differs from that of Attalus at Phaenomena 254 (Pleiades). Hipparchus' interpretation of μέσον does not rely on any supposition that the word is not to be taken literally. Rather, it relies on another equally legitimate application of the word to the constellation itself and not the 30-degree segment along the ecliptic. Attalus is attempting

81 to derive what Aratus must mean (βούλεται γὰρ λέγειν) from what appears in the sky.

The terms in which Attalus sets what Aratus “wants to say” are interesting: Attalus maintains an ambiguity between an assertion of complete psychological access to what the author, Aratus, wished to say and an assertion of knowing what the author, wishing to reflect observed phenomena, would have wanted to say. Either way, the phenomena bear on his treatment of the text. In the instance of Perseus’ foot, Hipparchus is happy to argue on Attalus’ terms on the grounds that his astronomy is wrong in the first place.

Hipparchus criticizes Attalus’ reading strategy of the Phaenomena, and in the process of doing so advocates his own strategy in its place. Whereas Attalus uses the phenomena as an interpretive and editorial tool to produce his commentary and edition of the Phaenomena, Hipparchus establishes various means of reconstructing the text itself.

He does so by bringing manuscript evidence, internal parallels, and source material to bear on his reconstruction of the text and the meaning of Aratus’ poem. In short,

Hipparchus is a philologist, for whom authorial intention is not only unproblematic, but also fully recoverable through observation of consistent communicative habits and textual transmission. Hipparchus’ commentary employs a theoretical criticism of Attalus' methods.

Hipparchus has carefully organized his commentary to emphasize the method of his philological program culminating with one passage, which lies about midway through the commentary.127 Hipparchus affords the rising of Perseus’ belt extended attention in a passage that serves as a sort of microcosm of his entire approach to the text of the

Phaenomena.

127 The commentary does, however, seem incomplete.

82

Περὶ δὲ τῆς τοῦ Κριοῦ ἀνατολῆς ὁ Ἄρατος λέγων τὰ μὲν δεξιά φησι τῆς Ἀνδρομέδας οἱ Ἰχθύες

αὐτοὶ ἐφέλκονται, τὰ δ᾽ ἀριστερὰ νειόθεν ἕλκει Κριὸς ἀνελκόμενος. τοῦ καὶ περιτελλομένοιο ἑσπερόθεν κεν ἴδοιο Θυτήριον, αὐτὰρ ἐν ἄλλῃ Περσέος ἀντέλλοντος ὅσον κεφαλήν τε καὶ ὤμους˙ αὐτὴ δὲ ζώνη καί κ᾽ ἀμφήριστα πέλοιτο ἢ κριῷ λήγοντι φαείνεται ἢ ἐπὶ Ταύρῳ. (Phaen. 708-713)

γράφεται μὲν οὕτως ὁ ἔσχατος στίχος˙ εἰκὸς μέντοι γε ἠγνοῆσθαι τὸ “λήγοντι”. ἐξ ἀρχῆς γὰρ πάντων τῶν ζῳδίων τὰς ἀρχὰς ἐπὶ τῆς ἀνατολῆς ὑποτίθεται, καὶ οὐχὶ μεσοῦντα ἢ λήγοντα˙ ἐπὶ γὰρ τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων τινὰ μὲν μέρη μεσούντων τῶν ζῳδίων, τινὰ δ᾽ ἀρχομένων ἢ λγόντων δύνει ἢ ἀνατέλλει. ὅθεν καὶ ὁ Ἄτταλος κατά γε τοῦτο ὀρθῶς συνεώρακε τὸ ἀγνόημα˙ καὶ δεῖ τοι ἢ ὡς ἐκεῖνός φησι γράφεσθαι˙ “ἢ Κριῷ ἀνιόντι φαείνεται ἢ ἐπὶ Ταύρῳ,” ἢ νὴ Δία, οὕτως˙ “ἢ Κριῷ λήγουσα φαείνεται,” ὥστε τὸ “λήγουσα” ἐπὶ τὴν ζώνην ἀναφέρεσθαι. λέληθε μέντοι γε αὐτὸν τὸ βούλημα τοῦ ποιητοῦ καὶ ἐν τούτοις˙ λέγει γὰρ οὕτως˙ “ἡμεῖς μέντοι καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῷ τε ποιητῇ συμφώνως καὶ τοῖς φαινομένοις ἀκολούθως οἰόμεθα δεῖν γράφεσθαι τὸ ποίημα τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον˙

αὐτὴ δὲ ζώνη καί κ᾽ ἀμφήριστα πέλονται128 ἢ Κριῷ ἀνιόντι φαείνεται ἢ ἐπὶ Ταύρῳ, σὺν τῷ πασσυδίῃ ἀνελίσσεται. (Phaen. 712-14)

ἐπεὶ γὰρ μέλλοντος μὲν τοῦ Κριοῦ ἀνατέλλειν ὁ Περσεὺς ὁμολογουμένως μέχρι τῶν ὤμων ἐκφανὴς γίνεται, ἅμα δὲ τῷ ἄρξασθαι ἀναφέρεσθαι τὸν Κριὸν εὐθέως ἔκδηλος ἡ τοῦ Περσέως ζώνη γίνεται διὰ τὸ βραχὺ παντελῶς παραλλάσσειν τῆς τοῦ Κριοῦ ἀρχῆς τὴν φάσιν αὐτῆς, διστάζει, πότερον κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Κριοῦ μέλλοντος ἀνατέλλειν ἀρχὴν ὑποθῆται <αὐτὴν> φανερὰν ἤδη γίνεσθαι, ἢ ἐπὶ τὸ μᾶλλον ὁμολογούμενον ἔλθῃ, διότι τοῦ Ταύρου μέλλοντος ἀναφέρεσθαι ἐκφανής ἐστι τοῦ Περσέως ἡ ζώνη μετὰ τοῦ λοιποῦ σώματος. καὶ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον γραφομένου τοῦ ποιήματος τά τε φαινόμενα σωθήσεται, καὶ τὰ περὶ τῆς ζώνης ὁ ποιητὴς οὐ μόνον ἐμπείρως, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀκριβῶς ἐξηγούμενος ἂν φαίνοιτο.” (Comm. in Arat. 2.3.18-23)

And when discussing the rising of Ram, Aratus says that the Fish “themselves drag” the right of Andromeda,

128 Hipparchus addresses Attalus’ reading, πέλονται, for πέλοιτο at 2.3.32:

83 and from below, the rising Ram drags up the left side [of Andromeda]. And as it rises, you might also see the Altar from the West, as Perseus rises as far as his head and shoulders on the other [eastern] horizon; and it is uncertain whether the belt itself rises while the Ram finishes rising or with the Bull.

Thus is the last line read; indeed it is likely that the “finishes” is wrong. For he positions the beginnings of all the signs of the zodiac upon the horizon throughout his account, and not the middle or the end; for some parts of the other constellations set or rise while the middle of the sign rises and some parts set or rise while the sign begins or finishes its rising. Therefore even Attalus in this matter has correctly understood the mistake. And it is in fact necessary either to publish it as he [Attalus] says: “whether it appears as Ram is rising or with Bull,” or, by God, thus: “whether [the belt] finishes rising with Ram,”129 so that “finishing” modifies the belt. The intention of the poet has surely escaped him in these lines; for he says this: “we think that regarding this part it is necessary to publish the passage in this way, both in agreement with the poet and following the phenomena:

And it is also uncertain whether the belt appears with Ram rising or in Bull, during whose rising he [Perseus] emerges entirely.130

“For Perseus admittedly is visible as far as his shoulders when Ram is about to rise, and Perseus’ belt becomes immediately conspicuous at the beginning of the rising of Ram on account of the fact that its appearance is close to the beginning of Ram’s rising. Therefore he [Aratus] expresses doubt as to whether to represent that the belt is visible already when the very beginning of Ram is about to rise, or rather to come in line with the more agreed upon view, that the belt of Perseus is visible with the rest of his body when the Bull is about to rise. And, if the passage is published in this way, the phenomena will be preserved, and the poet would clearly relate the matter of the belt not only knowledgeably, but with precision as well.”

129 Manitius ad loc. translates “Ob sein End.” I have translated φαείνεται λήγουσα as “finishes its rising,” because φαείνεται in astronomical contexts can simply mean “rises.” Also possible: “clearly finishes,” “its end appears” (pace Manitius), and “appears finishing (its rising).” All will denote the same celestial question: is the belt risen when the Ram begins its rising? See also Kidd ad loc. 130 So Kidd 1997.

84 When the constellation of Ram is about to rise, Perseus’ belt is already well over the horizon. The Bull follows the ram on the zodiac.

First Hipparchus remarks on a textual issue in Phaenomena 713, where he challenges the reading λήγοντι. This is the reading retained in standard modern editions as the accepted reading.131 But the above passage shows that both Attalus and

Hipparchus wished to emend the text, neither citing any copies for their suggestions.

Hipparchus gives us his reason first: Aratus orients all constellations that are outside of the zodiac to the point at which the beginning of a certain zodiac sign crosses the horizon.

Aratus provides specifications about when the middle and the end of a constellation pass the horizon only if that constellation is not a part of the zodiac. Note that Hipparchus grounds his reasoning solely in internal parallel—Aratus ex Arato.

The next part of this passage lists the suggested emendations. Hipparchus concludes that the passage must be published ἢ Κριῷ ἀνιόντι φαείνεται ἢ ἐπὶ Ταύρῳ, as Attalus suggests, or ἢ Κριῷ λήγουσα [sc. ζώνη] φαείνεται. Attalus’ emendation

ἀνιόντι would simply change the line to mean that it is uncertain whether the belt appears in the sky when the Ram or Bull begins to rise, and Hipparchus’ further suggestion would mean that it is uncertain whether the belt finishes its rising—and so is visible—at the beginning of Ram’s rising or at the beginning of Bull’s. Hipparchus first

131 Kidd 1997, 419; Martin 1998, 447-51.

85 states that Phaenomena 713 must be changed either (ἢ) as Attalus says (ὡς ἐκεῖνός

φησι) or (ἢ) in the following way (οὕτως): ἢ Κριῷ λήγουσα φαείνεται. Hipparchus then explains that the latter reading would make the participle “finishing (its rising)” modify Perseus’ belt. Thus the example that Hipparchus provides constitutes an instantiation of his own rule, that Aratus only specifies the end of a constellation’s rising when discussing constellations outside of the zodiac.132 Hipparchus immediately follows his own suggested emendation by assuring his reader that Aratus’ intention has escaped

Attalus’ notice, whereupon he cites Attalus’ rationale and then challenges that rationale.

The rhetorical aim of his “however" (μέντοι γε), then, is to reinforce the greater plausibility of his own emendation versus Attalus', since Attalus makes what Hipparchus believes is a bad argument for his own emendation, namely, that the emendation preserves Aratus’ reputation.

The reported rationale behind each editor reflects Hipparchus’ general criticism of

Attalus. Hipparchus structures 2.3.18-23 (just quoted) chiastically, stating first his own reason for emending (A), then Attalus’ emendation (B), then his own emendation (B), followed finally by Attalus’ reason for emending (A). In doing so he effectively highlights Attalus’ goal: to save the phenomena and to make the poet appear both knowledgeable and precise (2.3.23), since such a measure will ensure the faithfulness of his edition through its consistency with Aratus’ reputation. The structure affords

Hipparchus the opportunity to “bookend” the passage with his and Attalus’ respective editing principles. Hipparchus favors both the textual evidence and parallels with Aratus’ own practice in the Phaenomena. Although he cannot tolerate λήγοντι, since it is

132 But Kidd 1997, 419 argues that Hipparchus’ rigid description of Aratus’ practice does not reflect Aratus' practice.

86 inconsistent with Aratus’ practice elsewhere, he prefers λήγουσα to ἀνίοντι, because, I suggest, it gives priority to reconciliation with textual evidence as far as possible.

Hipparchus’ emendation, that is, is what one might call “more conservative.” Attalus, on the other hand, intervened freely in the text in order to meet his two important criteria: the reading must be consistent with celestial phenomena, and it must be consistent with the poet’s reputation, rather than his empirically demonstrable practice within the poem.

Attalus’ editing rationale places him in the awkward position of arguing that

Aratus’ expression of uncertainty in 2.3.23 is in fact evidence of the astronomical expertise and close precision supposedly underlying his writing. Before offering his own explanation of Aratus’ doubt, Hipparchus responds to Attalus’ interpretation.

Πρῶτον μὲν οὖν ἐν τούτοις ὁ Ἄτταλος ἀγνοεῖ, νομίζων ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον τὴν ἀκρίβειαν ἐν τοῖς Φαινομένοις ὑπὸ Ἀράτου διειλῆφθαι, ὥστε περὶ αὐτῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ ζώνῃ τοῦ Περσέως ἀστέρων διστάζειν αὐτόν, πότερον τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ Κριοῦ ἐπ᾽ ἀνατολῆς οὔσης καὶ αὐτὴ ἤδη φανερά ἐστι σὺν τοῖς ὤμοις καὶ τῇ κεφαλῇ ἢ μετ᾽ ὀλίγον. χωρὶς γὰρ τοῦ ὁλοσχερῶς μὴ μόνον τὸν Ἄρατον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν Εὔδοξον ἐν τοὶς Φαινομένοις ἀναστρέφεσθαι, καθάπερ ἐπιδεδείχαμεν, ἔτι καὶ οὐ μόνον ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ Περσέως ζώνης τοῦτ᾽ ἂν παρὰ τῷ Ἀράτῳ διστάζοιτο, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ πάντων <τῶν> δυσὶν ἢ καὶ πλείοσι ζῳδίοις συνανατελλόντων. τελέως δ᾽ ἀγνοεῖν δόξειεν <ἂν> ὁ Ἄτταλος καὶ τὰ φαινόμενα, ὑπολαμβάνων κατὰ ἀλήθειαν133 οὕτως εἶναι δισταζόμενα <τὰ> περὶ τὴν ζώνην τοῦ Περσέως, καθάπερ προείρηκεν. οὐ

133 The difference between τὰ φαινόμενα and κατὰ ἀλήθειαν is sometimes important in Astronomy. Autolycus of Pitane begins his On Risings and Settings contrasting the two(Aujac 1979): τῶν ἀπλανῶν ἄστρων αἱ ἐπιτολαί τε καὶ δύσεις αἱ μὲν λέγονται ἀληθιναί, αἱ δὲ φαινόμεναι: “Some risings and settings of the fixed stars are called true, and others apparent.” The distinction happens, for instance, in a heliacal rising; a star will pass the horizon while obscured by the Sun’s rays—its true rising—and only appear in the sky once the sun has set sufficiently—its apparent rising. Here Hipparchus seems to be saying that Attalus cannot possibly know the apparent rising time of Perseus’ belt in relation to the Ram and Bull, since, as he will argue, it would leave no doubt as to where to place the belt’s actual rising. This makes sense of the particles: he is utterly wrong (τελέως δὲ)...for (γάρ) the apparent situation is not even close to what he describes. The diagram below supports this: notice that the belt has risen far before the Ram ever makes it to the horizon, closer to the beginning of the Fish.

87 γὰρ μόνον ἡ ζώνη τοῦ Περσέως φαίνεται ὑπὲρ γῆν τοῦ Κριοῦ ἀρχομένου ἀνατέλλειν, ἀλλὰ και ὅλος σχεδὸν ὁ Περσεὺς πλὴν τοῦ ἀριστεροῦ ποδὸς καὶ τοῦ γόνατος. ὁ μὲν γὰρ δεξιὸς αὐτοῦ ποὺς συνανατέλλει τῇ η´ μοίρᾳ τῶν Ἰχθύων, ὀ δὲ ἐν τῷ δεξιῷ γόνατι τῇ ζ´ μοίρᾳ˙ ὁ δὲ ἐν τῷ γοργονίῳ καὶ τῇ ἀριστερᾷ χειρὶ κείμενος λαμπρὸς ἀστήρ, ὃς μικρὸν προηγεῖται τοῦ ἀριστεροῦ μηροῦ, τῇ ιγ´ μοίρᾳ τῶν Ἰχθύων συναναφέρεται. μόνη δὲ αὐτοῦ ἡ ἀριστερὰ κνήμη τῷ Κριῷ συνανατέλλει. δῆλον οὖν ὅτι ἀγνοεῖ, λέγων τά τε φαινόμενα σωθήσεσθαι καὶ τὸν Ἄρατον ἐμπείρως καὶ ἀκριβῶς τὰ περὶ τῆς τοῦ Περσέως ζώνης φανεῖσθαι ἐξηγούμενον. (Comm. in Arat. 2.3.24-28)

First, in this matter, Attalus shows his ignorance in thinking that accuracy is maintained by Aratus in the Phaenomena to such a great extent that, regarding the stars that are in Perseus’ belt, he would be uncertain as to whether the belt itself is also already visible along with the shoulders and the head as the beginning of Ram is on the horizon, or it rather rises a little after. For aside from the fact that not only Aratus, but Eudoxus as well, engages the phenomena in broad strokes,134 just as I have shown, still this would not only be a source of hesitation for Aratus regarding Perseus’ belt, but also regarding all the constellations rising in two or more signs of the zodiac. And Attalus would seem utterly to show his ignorance also regarding the phenomena as well, supposing that the truth about Perseus’ belt is so uncertain, as we have said. For not only is Perseus’ belt visible over the land as Ram begins to rise, but so is almost all of Perseus except for the left foot and knee. For his right foot rises with the 8˚ Fish, and at his right knee he rises with the 7˚; and the bright star lying on the left hand—the hand holding the Gorgon— which precedes the left thigh by a little, comes up with the 13˚ Fish. And only his left shin rises with Ram. So it is clear that he shows his ignorance, saying both that the phenomena will be saved and that Aratus is clearly explaining the material about Perseus’ belt both knowledgeably and precisely

134 ὁλοσχερῶς is the opposite of ἀκριβῶς, the quality attributed the Phaenomena so adamantly by Attalus.

88 After introducing his criticism of Attalus' editing with a familiar accusation of ignorance

(ἀγνοεῖ),135 Hipparchus responds with three arguments. First, as he has been demonstrating throughout his commentary, both Eudoxus and Aratus discuss the sky at the level of generalities (ὁλοσχερῶς) and not specifics. They do not write precisely

(ἀκριβῶς). Second, internally, Attalus’ argument makes no sense. While Attalus has argued that Aratus is uncertain whether or not the belt is visible at the beginning of

Ram’s rising or just after, and so labels the matter as doubtful, Hipparchus replies by saying that this issue would accompany every instance in which a constellation rises during two different signs. Finally, Hipparchus points out that Attalus’ astronomical explanation fails to reflect the sky accurately: Perseus’ belt is clearly visible, along with almost all of Perseus, at the beginning of the Ram’s rising. Thus Hipparchus concludes that Attalus’ interpretation of the text is wrong: Aratus’ uncertainty does not speak to his own astronomical expertise and precise expression, but actually speaks against it.

At this point Hipparchus offers his own explanation for Aratus’ hesitation, and herein lies the central example distinguishing himself from Attalus.

Δοκεῖ δέ μοι διηπορῆσθαι ὁ Ἄρατος παρὰ τὴν αὐτὴν αἰτίαν, παρ᾽ ἣν καὶ ὁ Εὔδοξος, ᾧ κατηκολούθηκεν ῾Ἄρατος. ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῷ συντάγματι τῷ περὶ τῶν φαινομένων γράφει, ὅτι τοῖς Ἰχθύσι συνανατέλλει τὰ δεξιὰ τοῦ Περσέως, ὥστε τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ Κριοὺ πρὸς τῇ ἀνατολῇ οὔσης τὰ δεξιὰ μόνον τοῦ Περσέως μέρη κατ᾽ αὐτὸν ὑπὲρ γῆν φαίνεσθαι˙ ἐν δὲ τῷ ἑτέρῳ συντάγματι, ὃ ἐπιγράφεται “Ἔνοπτρον”, τοῖς Ἰχθύσι φησὶν αὐτὸν ὅλον πλὴν ὀλίγου συνανατέλλειν. ἐν πᾶσιν οὖν σχεδὸν τοῖς περὶ τὰς ἀνατολὰς τῶν ἄστρων συμφωνούντων ἀλλήλοις τῶν δύο συνταγμάτων, περὶ δὲ τοῦ Περσέως διαφόρου τῆς ἀναγραφῆς οὔσης, εὐλόγως ὁ Ἄρατος, διαπορεῶν, ποίᾳ τις κατακολουθήσει ἀποφάσει, ἀμφήριστόν φησιν εἶναι καὶ

135 Hipparchus uses terminology regarding Attalus’ ignorance that reflects the conventions of textual arguments found in Homeric scholia. See Scholia A to Il. 4.88, 18.27, 24.528. See also Pfeiffer 1968, 112-13, for an account of how Zenodotus was similarly treated by Aristarchus.

89 δισταζόμενον, πότερον καὶ ἡ ζώνη τοῦ Περσέως μετὰ τῶν ὤμων καὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ Κριοῦ ἀνατέλλοντος μετέωρος φαίνεται ἢ τοῦ Ταύρου ἀναφερομένου, ὡς τὸ ἕτερον τῶν τοῦ Εὐδόξου συνταγμάτων περιέχει. οὐ παρὰ τὸ τῇ αἰσθήσει οὖν δύσκριτον εἶναι διὰ μικρότητα τῆς διαφορᾶς, ὡς ὁ Ἄτταλος ὑπέλαβεν, ἀμφήριστόν φησιν εἶναι, πότερον ἡ ζώνη τοῦ Περσέως ὑπὲρ γῆν ἤδη φαίνεται τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ Κριοῦ πρὸς τῷ ὁρίζοντι οὔσης, ἢ ἀρχομένου ἤδη ἀνατέλλειν τοῦ ταύρου, τότε καὶ αὐτὴ ἀναφέρεται, ἀλλὰ <παρὰ> τὸ μὴ ἔχειν εἰπεῖν διὰ τὸ ἑκατέρως παραδεδόσθαι. (Comm. in Arat. 2.3.29-31)

And to me Aratus appears to raise difficulty for the same reason as Eudoxus, whom Aratus follows. For in the composition about the phenomena he writes that the right of Perseus rises with the Fish, with the result that only the right parts of Perseus appear over the land when the beginning of the Ram is on the horizon; and in the other treatise, which is named “Mirror” he says that all of (Perseus) except for a small part rises with the Fish. So since the two treatises agree with each other in nearly all the parts concerning the risings of constellations, whereas the description concerning Perseus is different, correctly does Aratus, having difficulty as to which assertion to follow, say that it is doubtful and a point of hesitation as to whether Perseus’ belt is also visible, along with his shoulders and head, when the Ram is rising overhead, or it is visible when the Bull is rising, as Eudoxus’ other treatise has it. So not on account of the fact that it is difficult to discern by observation because of the minuteness of the difference, as Attalus has supposed, does he say that it is doubtful whether Perseus’ belt appears over the land already when the beginning of the Ram is on the horizon, or it is then also rising when the Bull is beginning to rise already, but on account of the fact that he is not able to say because of the contradiction between the two possibilities.

Hipparchus’ initial demonstration and incremental reinforcement of Aratus’ debt to

Eudoxus comes to a head in this passage, where he uses his strongest concrete example to exhibit his own textual critical method against the likes of Attalus. The more or less central placement, the length at which Hipparchus belabors his argument—I have quoted more or less all of it in three blocks—and the emphatic way in which Hipparchus presents and organizes both Attalus’ and his own arguments all indicate the passage’s importance. Hipparchus discusses the rising of the Ram for fourteen chapters, only to finish the remainder of the Zodiac, the Bull and the Twins, in a mere six. Although

Hipparchus is bound by the order in which Aratus treats the signs of the zodiac, he

90 manages to give the passage as central a position as he can within the strictures of a lemmatic organization, where it separates his treatment of the Phaenomena from his own model of a Synanatolai and celestial map, as it were. The arguments cited, moreover, reflect the gamut of his own editorial and interpretive technique, which he opposed to

Attalus’. Thus his deference to manuscripts appears to lead to his preference for

λήγουσα to ἀνίοντι in 713, which sets his emendation closer to the textual evidence offering λήγοντι. Hipparchus nevertheless feels the need to change the text, on the grounds that it is Aratean to mention only the beginning of a sign’s rising. Thus his strategy of interpreting Aratus ex Arato comes into play. In response to Attalus’ assumption that the utmost precision on Aratus’ part explains his doubt regarding the rising of Perseus’ belt, Hipparchus deploys the tool by which he accesses Aratus’ psyche: he uses Aratus’ established debt to Eudoxus to portray an author utterly at a loss when two source texts are at odds.

Hipparchus uses his criticism of the simultaneous rising of Perseus’ belt with Ram not only to correct Attalus’ interpretation of this passage of Aratus, but also to attack

Attalus’ entire approach to reading the Phaenomena. The passage constitutes a climax in

Hipparchus’ polemic about how to approach the Phaenomena in a properly

“mathematical” way. Only at this point will the “strictly scientific” Hipparchus make a prolonged appearance, after he has argued at length for his own approach to the text.

Hipparchus’ commentary has been correctly characterized as a mathematically or scientifically oriented treatment of the Phaenomena, but the tendency to emphasize his disinterest in literary matters has lead scholars to underemphasize Hipparchus’ philological strategies, which appear quite rigorous. In fact, Hipparchus’ commentary

91 constitutes a sophisticated use of textual evidence to reconstruct the words and meaning of the Phaenomena as Aratus composed it. Moreover, Hipparchus’ occasional departure from his own methods displays the flexibility of his practice. There is an obvious way in which knowledge of celestial phenomena aides one in understanding Aratus’ poetry, and

Hipparchus does not shy away from appealing to the phenomena himself at 2.3.7, when he supposes that “the will of the poet and perhaps even the phenomena” have eluded

Attalus. Hipparchus’ manner of laying out his own reading strategy does not prevent him from making such appeals, but rather allows him, as textual critic and commentator, to bring to bear all the tools of his mind on the reconstruction of the text and meaning of the

Phaenomena. Hipparchus is no “mere puller of levers.”136

In reconstructing Aratus’ Phaenomena through textual evidence, internal parallel, and his establishment of Eudoxus as a source, Hipparchus takes a strong theoretical stance regarding the nature of the text: the goal in editing and interpreting the

Phaenomena is to reproduce what exactly the man, Aratus, wrote and the meaning he intended to convey. In the following section I will examine how Hipparchus the astronomer relates this type of reading to the world of science: The proper activity of the

μαθηματικός, then, is to take that meaning, and test it against phenomena.

136 West 2001 (BMCR) uses this phrase to deride the arguments of Nardelli and Nagy in their criticism of his own methods of textual criticism. Timpanaro 2005 (first edition appearing in 1959-60), in historicizing techniques of textual criticism of the 19th century, demonstrates aptly the gap that can appear between what a critic prescribes and what he practices.

92 Hipparchus Mathematicus: The Commentary in the Context of Hellenistic

Astronomy

In denying that Hipparchus’ concerns are literary, scholars refer to the fact that his goals are, in the end, primarily concerned with scientific discourse. As I have already noted, Hipparchus clearly lays out his intention in the beginning of his work to accomplish two goals: he will correct the astronomy found in Eudoxus, Aratus, and

Attalus, and he will focus specifically on his critique of the so-called Synanatolai. In laying out this goal, Hipparchus tells us what prompts him to the task.

Θεωρῶν δ᾽οὖν <ἐν> τοῖς πλείστοις καὶ χρησιμωτάτοις διαφωνοῦντα τὸν Ἄρατον πρὸς τὰ φαινόμενά τε καὶ γινόμενα κατὰ ἀλήθειαν, τούτοις δ᾽ἅπασι σχεδὸν οὐ μόνον τοὺς ἄλλους, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν Ἄτταλον συνεπιγραφόμενον, ἔκρινα τῆς σῆς ἕνεκα φιλομαθίας καὶ τῆς κοινῆς τῶν ἄλλων ὠφελείας ἀναγράψαι τὰ δοκοῦντα μοι διημαρτῆσθαι. τοῦτο δὲ ποιῆσαι προεθέμην οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ τοὺς ἄλλους ἐλέγχειν φαντασίαν ἀπενέγκασθαι προαιρούμενος˙ (κ ε ν ὸ ν γὰρ κ α ὶ μικρόψυχον παντελῶς˙ τοὐναντίον δὲ δεῖν οἴομαι πᾶσιν ἡμᾶς εὐχαριστεῖν, ὅσοι τῆς κοινῆς ἕνεκεν ὠφελείας ἰδίᾳ πονεῖν ἀναδεχόμενοι τυγχάνουσιν˙) ἀλλ᾽ ἕνεκα τοῦ μήτε σὲ μήτε τοῦς λοιποὺς τῶν φιλομαθούντων ἀποπλανᾶσθαι τῆς περὶ τὰ φαινόμενα κατὰ τὸν κόσμον θεωρίας. (Comm. in Arat. 1.1.5-6)

And so, seeing that Aratus was discordant in the most useful matters with what appears to happen (τὰ φαινόμενα) and with what in fact is the case (τὰ γινόμενα κατὰ ἀλήθειαν), and that in nearly all these matters, not only others, but even Attalus agreed with him, I decided, for the sake of your love of learning and for the sake of the shared benefit of others to write those things that appeared to me to be in error. And I proposed to do this not desiring to gain a reputation from the refutation of others (for this is altogether useless and small-minded; on the contrary I think that we must give thanks to all who happen to undertake to put forth personal labor for the common benefit) but so that neither you nor other

93 lovers of learning stray from knowledge137 of the phenomena of the celestial sphere.

Repeatedly stressing themes of usefulness, benefit, and knowledge, Hipparchus indicates his own motivation for writing his commentary.138 Aratus’ audience has taken him to be an astronomical expert on account of his poetic charm (χάρις 1.17), and Hipparchus sets out to rectify this situation with the goal of providing useful knowledge as a benefit to lovers of learning. Although Hipparchus attributes Aeschrion's inability to follow the synanatolai to being too busy (1.1.1), these lovers of learning need not be experts themselves.139

Hipparchus’ first step in addressing this misinformation is to dispel the reputation of Aratus as an expert astronomer, and so he establishes the poet’s debt to Eudoxus immediately, the slavishness of which he demonstrates while discussing Aratus’ treatment of Perseus’ belt. Aratus is at a loss when his two source texts disagree. Second,

Hipparchus runs through Aratus’ description of the celestial sphere, continuing to demonstrate its dependency on the flawed, vague astronomy of Eudoxus, and showing how Attalus’ reading strategies for the Phaenomena are not helpful to any aspiring astronomer. In attacking the reading strategy of Attalus, Hipparchus is called upon to set out his own, which occasions a sophisticated philological program. Although I have argued at length that this program is an important part of the commentary, its final cause must be embedded in Hipparchus’ broader program promoting utility. Next, Hipparchus

137 Manitius 1894, 5 translates θεωρίας as “Auffassung der Erscheinungen.” Possanza 2004, 90 renders it as “observation.” Astronomical θεωρία may elide the reference: knowledge of phenomena is ultimately the product of observation (by definition). 138 Arguments for the utility of one's work are a trope. See especially Plb. 9.2.1-5. 139 The beginning of the commentary rather reads as an attempt at acquiring a patron, and the repeated references to utility and benefit might betray Hipparchus’ own concern with the mutual benefit to be bestowed on himself as well as his addressee.

94 comes around to criticizing the synanatolai specifically, which, I will argue, reinforces his themes of usefulness and the love of learning displayed by his ideal audience. Finally

Hipparchus provides his own model of an accurate account of the heavens. Just as

Hipparchus’ initial observation distinguishes between the appearances and the reality of celestial movement, Hipparchus maintains this distinction throughout in his promotion of a useful account of the poem, the commentary tradition, and celestial occurrences.

Beginning book 2, Hipparchus concludes his previous discussion of how

Eudoxus, Aratus, and Attalus treat their descriptions of the constellations themselves, and proposes his intention to move on to the synanatolai. Hipparchus’ approach to the synanatolai continues his theme of usefulness by challenging the most clearly expressed claim for usefulness offered by Aratus.

Πρῶτον μὲν οὖν ὁ Ἄρατος ὑποδεῖξαι βουλόμενος, πῶς διὰ τῆς ἀνατολῆς καὶ τῆς δύσεως τῶν ἄστρων ἐπιγνωσόμεθα τὴν ὥραν τῆς νυκτός, λέγει ταυτί˙

οὔ κεν ἀπόβλητον δεδοκημένῳ ἤματος εἴη μοιράων σκέπτεσθαι, ὅτ᾽ ἀντέλλωσιν ἕκασται˙ αἰεὶ γὰρ τάων γε μιῇ συνανέρχεται αὐτὸς ἠέλιος. τὰς δ᾽ ἄν κε περισκέψαιο μάλιστα εἰς αὐτὰς ὁρόων˙ ἀτὰρ εἰ νεφέεσσι μέλαιναι γίνοιντ᾽ ἢ ὄρεος κεκρυμμέναι ἀντέλλοιεν, σήματ᾽ ἐπερχομένῃσιν ἀρηρότα ποιήσασθαι. αὐτὸς δ᾽ ἄν μάλα τοι κεράων ἑκάτερθε διδοίη Ὠκεανός, τά τε πολλὰ περιστρέφεται ἑοῖ αὐτῷ, νειόθεν ὁππῆμος κείνων φορέῃσιν ἑκάστην. (Phaen. 599-608)

φησὶν οὖν ἐν τούτοις μάλιστα μὲν ἡμᾶς ἐπιγνώσεσθαι τὴν ὥραν, ἐὰν αὐτῶν τι τῶν δώδεκα ζῳδίων θεωρῶμεν ἀνατέλλον. τὸν γὰρ γινώσκοντα, ἐν ᾧ ἐστι ἥλιος καὶ καθ᾽ ὃ μέρος αὐτοῦ, καὶ διότι ἐν πάσῃ νυκτὶ ἓξ ζῴδια ἀνατέλλει, ῥᾳδίως ὑπελάμβανε συνήσειν ἐκ τοῦ ἀνατέλλοντος ζῳδίου τὴν τῆς νυκτὸς ὥραν. εἰ μέντοι γε ἢ διὰ ὄρη ἢ διὰ νέφη μὴ εἴη φανερὸν τὸ ἀνατέλλον ζῴδιον, ἐκ τῶν λοιπῶν ἀστέρων τῶν ἐκτὸς τοῦ ζῳδιακοῦ κύκλου, κειμένων δ᾽ ἐγγὺς τοῦ ὁρίζοντος, ἐπιγνώσεσθαι ἡμᾶς τὸ

95 ἀνατέλλον ζῴδιον, ἐὰν ἴδωμεν, ποῖα τῶν ἄστρων ἑκάστῳ ζῳδίῳ συνανατέλλει ἢ ἀντικαταδύνει. (Comm. in Arat. 2.1.2-3)

So first Aratus, wanting to show how we might know the hour of the night by means of the rising or setting of the constellations, says the following:

It would not be without use for one awaiting day to observe when each sign [of the zodiac] rises. For the Sun always rises with one of them. And you would best observe them by looking at the signs themselves; but if they should become obscured by a cloud or rise hidden by a mountain, establish a reliable pointer for them as they rise. And the Ocean himself can give you from each of his horns the many constellations that ring around him, whenever he brings up each [twelfth of the zodiac] from below.

So he says in these lines that we will know the hour, if we should observe which of the twelve signs of the zodiac is rising. For he supposes that one who knows in what sign the sun is and in what part of it and that six signs rise within every night would know from the rising sign the hour of the night. Now if the rising sign should not be visible on account of a mountain or a cloud, he claims that we might come to know the rising sign from the remaining stars outside of the zodiacal circle, and those lying near the horizon, if we know which constellations rise with and set opposite each sign.

As the sun regresses through the sky in relation to the fixed stars (as we see it from our perspective) throughout the year, it delineates a circle oblique to the equator such that the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn mark the northern and southern limits of its path. This path (i.e. the ecliptic) has a belt surrounding it, which is what we call the zodiac. The zodiac is divided into twelve sections, thirty degrees each, and these sections are named after constellations appearing near each of them. These are what we call the

“signs of the zodiac.” In Phaenomena 559, Aratus advocates the usefulness of knowing which sign of the zodiac is rising at any given point in the night. As observers, if we know that six signs of the zodiac must rise every night, and we know which sign the Sun currently occupies, the order of the zodiac will provide a sort of countdown toward the sun’s rising. If the zodiacal belt is obscured by a cloud or a mountain, other constellations

96 that rise simultaneously with each sign of the zodiac can indicate for the mindful observer what sign is currently rising. Hipparchus’ interpretation of the present passage has incurred criticism from modern scholars: Aratus’ lines do not necessarily imply that one might know with this limited knowledge the precise hour of the night , merely the number of signs that must pass the horizon before sunrise.140 But Hipparchus’ interpretation is programmatically important to his commentary as a whole. By suggesting that Aratus claims to be providing instructions on how the night sky can act as a timepiece, Hipparchus exaggerates the supposed utility of the Phaenomena, and so returns to his initial theme of the utility of his own activity. Simultaneously, he continues to undermine the reception of the poem as a precise astronomical treatise. Immediately,

Hipparchus takes up the task of exposing the insufficiency of Aratus’ account, first pointing out that the difference in rising times of the various signs of the zodiac means that anyone using this method would still be unable to determine the time of night

(Comm. in Arat. 2.1.4). Immediately thereafter, returning to his primary target,

Hipparchus criticizes Attalus’ comment about the introduction to Aratus’ Synanatolai.

μάλιστα δ᾽ ἄν τις θαυμάσειε, πῶς καὶ ὁ Ἅτταλος συγκατατίθεται τούτῳ˙ λέγει γὰρ τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον˙ “ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἐχομένοις πειρᾶται ὑποδεικνύειν, πῶς ἄν τις διὰ τῶν ἄστρων δύναιτο τὴν ὥραν τῆς νυκτὸς ἐπιγινώσκειν. ἐπεὶ γάρ ἐστιν ἀρχὴ νυκτὸς ἡλίου δύσις, ὁ δὲ ἥλιος ἀεὶ ἔν τινι τῶν δώδεκα ζῳδίων ἐστίν, δῆλον ὅτι τῷ γινώσκοντι, ἐν τίνι τε ζῳδίου ὁ ἥλιός ἐστι καὶ ἐν πόστῃ μοίρᾳ τοῦ ζῳδίου, ῥᾴδιόν ἐστιν ἐπιγνῶναι, καὶ ποῖον ζῴδιον ἐν ἀρχῇ τῆς νυκτὸς ἀνατέλλει καὶ ποία μοῖρα. τῇ γὰρ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου κατεχομένῃ μοίρᾳ ἡ κατὰ διάμετρον κειμένη τὴν ἀνατολὴν κατὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς νυκτὸς ποιήσεται. τοῦτο δὲ προϊστορηκὼς καὶ ἐπεγνωκώς, ὅτι ἐν πάσῃ νυκτὶ ἕξ ζῴδια πρὸς τῇ ἀνατολῇ ἀνίσχουσι, γνώσεται, καὶ πόσον τῆς νυκτὸς παρεληλυθός ἐστι, καὶ πόσον ἔτι λοιπὸν ἕως τῆς τοῦ ἡλίου ἀνατολῆς.” (Comm. in Arat. 2.1.5-6)

140 Erren 1967, 210-11; Kidd 1997, 376-77; Martin 1998, 374-75.

97 And one might especially wonder at how even Attalus agrees with this; for he says the following: “and in what follows he tries to show how someone might be able to figure out the hour of the night by means of the constellations. For since the beginning of the night is the setting of the sun, and the sun always is in one of the signs of the zodiac, it is clear that for him who knows in what sign of the zodiac and on what degree of that sign the sun is, it is easy to know both what sign of the zodiac rises in the beginning of the night and what degree [of that sign]. For the degree lying opposite to that lying with the sun will rise at the beginning of the night. And having researched and learned that within the span of each night six signs of the zodiac cross the horizon, he will know both how much of the night has passed and how much is left until the rising of the sun.”

Hipparchus’ interpretation of the passage, that one can know the precise hour of the night by knowing the sign and degree on which the Sun lies, thus agrees with that of Attalus.

Aratus’ language at Phaenomena 559-68 does not imply the level of precision assumed by Hipparchus. It appears, rather, that Hipparchus bases his interpretation on that of

Attalus. Rhetorically, Hipparchus’ interpretation allows him to pursue two major programs: first he continues his criticism of Attalus’ assumption that Aratus is an accurate and precise astronomical writer, and second, he demonstrates a deficiency in the utility of Aratus’ text and poises himself to offer his own work as a model of a precise astronomical treatise for the μαθηματικός. And so Hipparchus addresses the insufficiency of the synanatolai as Attalus has interpreted their usefulness.

μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα λέληθεν ἀμφοτέρους αὐτούς, ὅτι οὐδ᾽ ἂν αὐτὸ τὸ ζῴδιον βλέπῃ τις ἀνατεταλκός, δυνατόν ἐστιν ἀκριβῶς τὴν ὥραν τῆς νυκτὸς συλλογίσασθαι κατὰ τὸν προειρημένον τρόπον. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἕκαστον τῶν ἠστερσμένων καὶ βλεπομένων ζῳδίων συνεπληροῦτο καὶ ἓν δωδεκατημόριον τοῦ ζῳδιακοῦ κύκλου, παρ᾽ αὐτὴν μόνην τὴν ἐν ταῖς ἀνατολαῖς τῶν χρόνων ἀνισότητα διεπίπτομεν <ἄν>. ἐπεὶ δὲ οὔτε τοῖς δωδεκατημορίοις ἴσα ἐστὶ τὰ φαινόμενα ζῴδια, οὔτ᾽ ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις κεῖται τόποις ἅπαντα, ἀλλὰ τινὰ μὲν αὐτῶν ἐλάσσονά ἐστι τοῦ δωδεκατημορίου, τινὰ δὲ πολλῷ μείζονα, καθάπερ εὐθέως ὁ μὲν Καρκίνος οὐδὲ τὸ τρίτον μέρος ἐπέχει τοῦ δωδεκατημορίου, ἡ δὲ Παρθένος καὶ τοῦ Λέοντος καὶ τῶν Χηλῶν ἐπιλαμβάνει, τῶν δὲ Ἰχθύων ὁ νοτιώτερος ὅλος σχεδὸν ἐν τῷ τοῦ ὑδροχόου κεῖται δωδεκατημορίῳ, πῶς ἂν δυνατὸν ἐκ τῆς τοιαύτης τῶν

98 δώδεκα ζῳδίων ἐπιτολῆς <τὴν> τῆς νυκτὸς ὥραν συλλογίσασθαι; (Comm. in Arat. 2.1.7-8)

And after this it has escaped them both (i.e. Aratus and Attalus) that, even if one should see the zodiacal constellation itself risen, it is not possible to calculate the hour of the night accurately in the aforementioned way. For if each of the catasterized zodiacal signs as they are seen were to fill also the twelfth of the zodiacal circle, we would err on account of the the inequality of time in the risings alone. But since neither the observed zodiacal constellations are equal to the twelfth [of the zodiac], nor do they all lie in their own allotted space, but rather some of them are smaller than the twelfth of the zodiac, and some are greater by far, like the Crab certainly and does not occupy a third of the twelfth [of the zodiac], and the Maiden touches both that of the Lion and the Claws, and the northern member of the Fish lies nearly all in the twelfth allotted to the Water- Pourer, how would it be possible from this sort of rising of the twelve constellations of the zodiac to calculate the hour of the night?

Hipparchus’ sequence of logic here is interesting. First he states that it would not be possible to calculate the hour of the night, even if the constellations of the zodiac did in fact correspond perfectly to their respective thirty degree divisions of the zodiacal belt.

Thus he first assumes, hypothetically, that the constellations of the zodiac, as we observe them, do in fact reflect the thirty-degree mathematical divisions of the sky. If this were the case—it is not—the obliquity of the ecliptic would still cause problems with calculating the hour of the night. Although Hipparchus’ apparent contribution to the problem of oblique ascension does not survive,141 the problem of determining the varying rising times of the signs of the zodiac received attention during this time.

After alluding to the mathematical problem of varying rising times for each sign of the zodiac, he points out that the constellations do not correspond to the signs of the zodiac exactly. If the visible constellations did in fact correspond to the signs of the zodiac, the unequal rising times would render the information provided in the

141 Pappus of Alexandria references Hipparchus’ work in Coll. book 6. See Hultsch 1876- 77, 600. Hipparchus’ own methods remain unknown.

99 Phaenomena insufficient for calculating the time of the night. But the constellations do not in fact correspond precisely to the signs at all. Some are shorter than thirty degrees, some are longer, like the Fish, which extends beyond the boundaries of its actual sign on both ends. Some lie far to the north or south of the zodiacal belt, like the Lion, which actually rises in Crab (as Hipparchus points out a little later at 2.1.10). In saying so,

Hipparchus distinguishes between the appearance and what really happens (1.1.5).

Hipparchus’ decision to focus on the Synanatolai thus coheres well with his program of promoting the usefulness of his own astronomical writing as opposed to a work like the Phaenomena. In challenging the reading of Aratus as competent and accurate (οὐ μόνον ἐμπείρως, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀκριβῶς ἐξηγούμενος, as Attalus characterizes him, 2.3.23), Hipparchus demonstrates the limited application of the

Phaenomena to actual astronomical learning. Hipparchus argues that the register of the

Phaenomena is not precise, but he does not dismiss the merit of the poem altogether. His only comment about the merits of the Phaenomena is in fact fairly high praise: it is concisely written and yet quite clear (ἁπλοῦς τε γὰρ καὶ σύντομός ἐστι ποιητής, ἔτι δὲ

σαφὴς τοῖς καὶ μετρίως παρηκολουθηκόσι˙1.1.4).142 Hipparchus simply distinguishes between the scientific nature of his own writing, which is useful and beneficial for the lover of learning, on the one hand, and the nature of Aratus’ writing, on the other, which is ill suited for the same purpose on account of his poetic charm (1.1.7) and its vagueness.

That vagueness, however, is a function of his source text, not the poetic expression. Still, he challenges Aratus’ claim to utility—at least as Attalus interprets the text—at

Phaenomena 559-68. Whether Hipparchus’ interpretation of Aratus’ text is fair or not, it

142 Stewart 2008 notes the extent to which scholiasts note the conciseness of Homer.

100 facilitates the fulfilment of his programmatic aim of emphasizing the utility of his own work, as well as his own reading strategy, which distinguishes the Phaenomena and its content from phenomena as such.

What follows in Hipparchus’ commentary is a treatment of the Synanatolai organized by sign of the zodiac. Again, not Aratus, but the content itself, is the primary target, attributed to Eudoxus, and the reception of Aratus’ Phaenomena. In further introductory remarks about the synanatolai Hipparchus even argues that Aratus is in fact more accurate than Eudoxus, since Aratus implies Crab’s beginning lies on the northern tropic, whereas Eudoxus sets the center of Crab on the tropic (2.1.16). This means that there is a fifteen degree difference in the orientation of Eudoxus’ and Aratus’ claims about the simultaneous risings and settings, and Hipparchus informs us that Aratus’ claim is thus closer to the truth, despite his dependency on Eudoxus.

Hipparchus’ extended treatment of the Synanatolai follows the organization of the

Phaenomena. He begins with Crab, and ends with the Twins. We have seen a sample of his work regarding the rising of Perseus’ belt. The formula generally runs through what

Aratus claims, what Eudoxus claims, and often, as with Perseus’ belt, what Attalus has to say about Aratus’ treatment of each rising. As we have seen, Hipparchus consistently emphasizes the generality of Aratus’ treatment.

As I have suggested above, Hipparchus reaches a climax in his discussion of

Perseus' belt. There Hipparchus demonstrates decisively his major contentions about the nature of Aratus’ text, that Eudoxus is the source of the astronomy—that this fact sufficiently explains Aratus’ doubt—and that Aratus does not express accurate information precisely, as Attalus claims. After demonstrating these points at length,

101 Hipparchus begins to address his second goal, namely to provide his own account of the major astronomical content, beginning with the simultaneous risings and settings, and moving on to mapping out the celestial sphere. At this point, therefore, a compositional ring emerges in Hipparchus’ treatise. He corrects Aratus’ and Eudoxus’ description of how the constellations of the fixed celestial sphere relate to one another (A); then he critiques their account of the simultaneous risings and settings (B); then he offers his own account of the simultaneous risings and settings (B); then he outlines his own map of particular fixed stars and their position in relation to one another (A). Hipparchus’ version of “the phenomena” is intended to live up to the standards he has set for himself, usefulness and precision. One might in fact use it to track the length of the night without insight into the geometrical difficulty of oblique ascension.

After demonstrating the shortcomings of both the Phaenomena itself and the work of previous commentators, Hipparchus summarizes to the effect that, “this is the content of the writings of Aratus and Eudoxus that seemed to be useful to me to examine and comment on.”143 He then announces his intention to subjoin his own account of simultaneous risings and settings organized under headings of each constellation. For each constellation, he will give the sign and degree of the zodiac rising when it begins to rise and when it finishes. In order to give such a precise account, however, Hipparchus must establish the observer's latitude, which will affect how one perceives phenomena.

The Phaenomena is an account of celestial phenomena observed from the latitude at which the longest and shortest days of the year have a ration of 5:3. Hipparchus criticizes

Aratus on this account in the beginning of his commentary, saying that this translates to

143 Comm. in Arat. 2.4.1.

102 about 41˚ North, which is closer to the Hellespont than Hellas (Comm. in Arat. 1.3.7).144

Hipparchus defines his own latitude as that at which the day of the summer solstice lasts about fourteen and a half hours (Comm. in Arat. 2.4.2). This translates to about 36˚ or 37˚

North, and is closer to the latitude of Rhodes. After offering this preliminary information,

Hipparchus lays out exactly how his account of the simultaneous risings and settings will look.

πρῶτον μὲν οὖν ἐκθησόμεθα τὰς τῶν βορειοτέρων ἄστρων τοῦ ζῳδιακοῦ κύκλου συνανατολάς τε καὶ συγκαταδύσεις, ἔπειτα δὲ τὰς τῶν νοτιωτέρων, ἐπὶ πᾶσι δὲ τὰς τῶν δώδεκα ζῳδίων˙ λέγω δὲ τῶν ἠστερισμένων, ἐπειδήπερ ἃ μὲν μείζονα τόπον ἐπέχει τοῦ δωδεκατημορίου, ἃ δὲ ἐλάσσονα. ἔτι δὲ καὶ πολλῷ τινὰ μὲν βορειότερα, τινὰ δὲ νοτιώτερα ὄντα τοῦ ζῳδιακοῦ πολὺ προτερεὶ καὶ ὑσερεῖ ἐν ταῖς ἀνατολαῖς καὶ δύσεσι τῶν κατ᾽ αὐτὰ δωδεκατημορίων. (Comm. in Arat. 2.4.4.)

First I will lay out the simultaneous risings and settings of the constellations to the north of the zodiacal circle, and then those to the south, and, aside from all those, the risings and settings of the twelve constellations of the zodiac; And I say “of the constellations,” since there are some that occupy a greater space than a twelfth, and some that occupy a lesser. And [I will set out] which ones, being to the north of the zodiac, lead by far and which ones, being to the south of the zodiac, follow by far upon the risings and settings of the signs of the zodiac with which they are associated.

Hipparchus situates his approach directly as a correction of the shortcomings of Aratus, who conflates the constellations of the zodiac with the signs of the zodiac, ignoring the fact that some of the constellations are much larger than others, and that they do not all lie on the ecliptic itself. Hipparchus will talk about the constellations of the zodiac in relation to the thirty-degree segment of the zodiac, thus disambiguating Aratus’ conflation of the appearances of the zodiac with the thirty-degree segments. But the passage also gives us, as it were, a table of content. The largest section will be that of the northern constellations, then the southern constellations, and then the constellations

144 See also, Kidd 1997, 358-59 and Martin 1998, 175-76.

103 demarcating the circle of the zodiac. As he moves on, Hipparchus further narrows down how he will lay out his exposition under each of those headings.

προσδιασαφήσομεν δὲ ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστου καὶ τό τε μεσουρανοῦν ἐν τῷ ζῳδιακῷ κύκλῳ ζῴδιον καὶ τὴν μοῖραν αὐτοῦ, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις τοὺς μεσουρανοῦντας ἀπλανεῖς ἀστέρας ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς καὶ τελευταὶς τῶν ἀνατολῶν καὶ δύσεων οἰουδήποτε ἄστρου, καὶ ἔτι ἐν πόσαις ὥραις ἰσημεριναῖς ἕκαστον τῶν ἄστρον ἢ δύνει ἢ ἀνατέλλει. (Comm. in Arat. 2.4.5)

And I will clearly present for each constellation the sign of the zodiac on the zodiacal circle and its degree, which crosses the meridian, and on top of this the fixed stars crossing the meridian as well, during the beginnings and ends of the risings and settings of whatever constellation [is being discussed], and also I will clearly present in how many equinoctial hours each of the constellations either sets or rises.

True to his word, Hipparchus does in fact present all of this information in this clear and ordered manner. He begins by going through the risings of the northern constellations

(2.5.1-16), following up with the settings of these same constellations in the same order

(2.6.2-16), after making a clear transition between the two (2.6.1).145 Hipparchus then reiterates his outline before treating the constellations to the south of the ecliptic (3.1.1a), whose risings he describes at 3.1.1b-14, following with an account of the settings at

3.2.1-3.2.14. Thereafter Hipparchus provides an account of the risings (3.3.1-12) and settings (3.4.1-12) of the constellations of the zodiac, clearly disambiguating their risings and settings from the signs associated with them. Finally, Hipparchus provides a set of references to delineate a sort of hourly grid, again promoting utility (εὔχρηστον), whereupon the commentary cuts off abruptly (3.5.1-23). Offering his account in this manner stresses the usefulness of Hipparchus’ work. One can easily use Hipparchus’ work as a reference guide for any of the constellations discussed. In that way his prose

145 2.6.1: Περὶ μὲν οὖν τὰς ἀνατολὰς τῶν βορειοτέρων ἄστρων τοῦ ζῳδιακοῦ κύκλου ταῦτα συμβαίνει ἐν τῇ προειρημένῃ τοῦ κόσμου ἐγκλίσει, περὶ δὲ τὰς καταδύσεις τὰ τοιαῦτα.

104 works almost like the many examples of tables we have from later astronomical manuscripts (e.g. Alm. 2.8). And in fact, before diving into the material itself, Hipparchus makes a note about the usefulness of his account.

ἕκαστον δὲ τούτων διασαφήσομεν κατὰ συνεγγισμὸν ἕως ἀδιαφόρου παραλλαγῆς. διότι γὰρ ἡ τοιαύτη πραγματεία πολλῷ τε τῶν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχαίων συντεταγμένων ἐστὶν εὐχρηστοτέρα καὶ πρὸς πολλὰ συντείνει τῶν κατὰ ἀστρολογίαν θεωρημάτων, εὐκατανόητον εἶναί σοι νομίζω. (Comm. in Arat. 2.4.6).

And I will make each of these things clear approximately down to negligible variance. For I think that it is easy for you to understand that this sort of work is by far more useful than the compositions written by the old authors, and draws one a good deal toward knowledge of astronomy

Hipparchus brings to the fore the degree of his own accuracy. He will give an account accurate down to negligible error. Thereafter he immediately contrasts his own work with the work of the ancient authors, referring to Aratus, perhaps, but more importantly the sources of Aratus’ work, which are even more out of date. Whereas his predecessors exalted Aratus’ accuracy to the status of authoritative truth, Hipparchus offers his own account as a more accurate model of astronomical work. Hipparchus measures his account of his own accuracy, however, using as his criterion utility for his readers as opposed to the aesthetic achievement of Aratean λεπτότης.

Hipparchus does not stop at giving mathematical measurements of the signs of the zodiac in his own account of simultaneous risings and settings. Rather, he gives multiple reference points, using both the eastern and western horizons as well as the meridian. In discussing what crosses the meridian at a given constellation’s rising, moreover,

Hipparchus gives both the position of the zodiac down to the degree and conspicuous stars from other fixed constellations. This makes Hipparchus’ work truly accessible for

105 the learned amateur. One does not necessarily need observational tools to use

Hipparchus’ work as a guide to the night sky, because he has the angular distance between major constellations at hand. For the rising and setting of each constellation, one knows what will be passing the meridian, which cuts the horizon by 90˚. This gives an account of what is happening to the west, the east, and the midpoint at almost any given time of the night. Relating this to measurements of the zodiac potentially tells the reader the sun’s position, if one carefully observes its rising and setting. Hipparchus’ account of simultaneous risings and settings is, in the end, an account of signs aimed at providing a foothold for amateur study of astronomy.

But Hipparchus’ work is useful in a way far different from the work of Aratus.

Both Hipparchus and Aratus convey information to their audience, but with different purposes. Although each maintains a didactic stance in that they both address their audience as a student, their didactic modes differ. Throughout the Phaenomena Aratus repeatedly asserts that the fixed stars and the constellations formed from them are signs that indicate something, but he only gives occasional examples of what exactly these things can indicate. Hipparchus is less concerned with the status of the stars as signs, and more concerned with conveying knowledge that will be useful to those interested in understanding the celestial sphere mathematically. In that sense Aratus’ poem invites its audience to the study of astronomy, whereas Hipparchus’ work responds to what has already become a popular interest: Aratus’ Phaenomena. Hipparchus’ version of the simultaneous risings and settings differs from Aratus' according to its different purpose.

Whereas Aratus attempts to create the visual experience of looking at the sky, building, as it were, a physical model with his poetry, Hipparchus aims at providing

106 measurements that show the temporal connection between the celestial phenomena in the sphere of fixed stars. This difference can be seen in how they treat the same material. On a larger scale, Hipparchus’ treatment works more like a reference guide that a calculating observer would consult. His work departs from Aratus' poetic portrayal of an ordered cosmos:

ἤτοι μὲν τά γε κεῖται ἀλίγκια δινωτοῖσι τέσσαρα, τῶν κε μάλιστα ποθὴ ὄφελός τε γένοιτο μέτρα περισκοπέοντι κατανομένων ἐνιαυτῶν. σήματα δ᾽εὖ μάλα πᾶσιν ἐπιρρήδην περίκειται πολλά τε καὶ σχεδόθεν πάντη συνεεργμένα πάντα˙ αὐτοὶ δ᾽ ἀπλατέες καὶ ἀρηρότες ἀλλήλοισι πάντες, ἀτὰρ μέτρῳ γε δύω δυσὶν ἀντιφέρονται. (Phaen. 462-68)

There are four wheel-like structures, of which there would be a desire and need to know for one observing the length of the completed years. And indeed good signs lie clearly around them all, the signs being many, all of them bound together closely all the way around; and these circles have no width and are all linked to one another, but two match two in size.

Aratus focuses on the fact that these stars are signs, an important theme in the

Phaenomena. He first lays out the entire apparatus as a physical model. He will then draw the circles out using the signs he mentions here, proving his assertion that an abundance of signs exists (Phaen. 480-524). Thereafter, he lays out the circles in relationship to one another, saying that the tropics are parallel to the equator, one set above it, the other set below it, and that the ecliptic is set obliquely to bind them all together, giving his reader the image of an armillary sphere (Phaen. 525-30). Hipparchus’ introduction, in contrast, lays out the broader structure of his own exposition, emphasizing its utility as a tool for understanding how the field of astronomy works in basic terms. The phrase, πρὸς πολλὰ συντείνει τῶν κατὰ ἀστρολογίαν θεωρημάτων

("draws one a good deal toward knowledge of astronomy" 2.4.6), is appropriate for

107 Hipparchus’ program. Although ἀστρολογία can simply mean “astronomy” in general terms, Aristotle explicitly contrasts ἀστρολογία from φαινόμενα: the former indicates astronomy as a branch of mathematics, whereas the latter denotes the collection of observations upon which the mathematical systems were based (Post. A. 78b 39). In providing more precise phenomena, Hipparchus places his reader on the path toward understanding the mathematical principles of spherics.

The body of Hipparchus’ account of the simultaneous risings and settings is also organized somewhat like a working reference guide. Thus it can guide a reader’s astronomical observation in a way that the Phaenomena cannot. If we take as an example the rising of Crab as Aratus and Hipparchus describe it respectively, the different effect of Hipparchus’ account becomes clear.

οὔ οἱ ἀφαυρότατοι, ὅτε Καρκίνος ἀντέλλῃσιν, ἀστέρες ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἑλισσόμενοι περίκεινται, τοὶ μὲν δύνοντες, τοὶ δ᾽ ἐξ ἑτέρης ἀνιόντες. δύνει μὲν Στέφανος, δύνει δὲ κατὰ ῥάχιν Ἰχθῦς˙ ἥμισυ μέν κεν ἴδοιο μετήορον, ἥμισυ δ᾽ ἤδη ἐσχατιαὶ βάλλουσι κατερχομένου Στεφάνοιο. αὐτὰρ ὅ γ᾽ ἐξόπιθεν τετραμμένος ἄλλα μὲν οὔπω γαστέρι νειαίρῃ, τὰ δ᾽ὑπέρτερα νυκτὶ φορεῖται. τὸν δὲ καὶ εἰς ὤμους κατάγει μογερὸν Ὀφιοῦχον Καρκίνος ἐκ γονάτων, κατάγει δ᾽ Ὄφιν αὐχένος ἐγγύς. οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔτ᾽ Ἀρκτοφύλαξ εἴη πολὺς ἀμφοτέρωθεν, μείων ἠμάτιος, τὸ δ᾽ ἐπὶ πλέον ἔννυχος ἤδη. τέτρασι γὰρ μοίραις ἄμυδις κατιόντα Βοώτην ὠκεανὸς δέχεται˙ ὁ δ᾽ ἐπὴν φάεος κορέσηται, βουλυτῷ ἐπέχει πλεῖον δίχα νυκτὸς ἰούσης, ἦμος ὅτ᾽ ἠελίοιο κατερχομένοιο δύηται. κεῖναί οἱ καὶ νύκτες ἐπ᾽ ὀψὲ δύοντι λέγονται. ὣς οἱ μὲν δύνουσιν, ὁ δ᾽ ἀντίος οὐδὲν ἀεικής, ἀλλ᾽ εὖ μὲν ζώνῃ εὖ δ᾽ ἀμφοτέροισι φαεινὸς ὤμοις Ὠρίων, ξίφεός γε μὲν ἶφι πεποιθώς, πάντα φέρων Ποταμόν, κέραος παρατείνεται ἄλλου.

Not faintly do the stars rotating above both horizons lie all around, the ones setting, and the ones rising from the other horizon. The Crown sets, and the back

108 of the Fish; you will see half above the horizon, and the ends of the setting Crown cast half of it already down. But the backward turned man is not yet up as far as his belly, but the upper parts are passing by in the night. And the Crab drives down the struggling Ophiuchus from the knees to the shoulders, and it drives down the Serpent near the neck. Nor would Bootes loom much on both sides of the horizon, but less of him would be above the horizon, and more of him would already have set. For the ocean receives the setting Bootes in four signs; and when he has his fill of light, he occupies more than half of the passing night with the loosing of his oxen, at that time when he sets as the Sun goes down. And those nights are named for his setting in the evening. As these set, Orion, who is not at all unequal, but well lit at his belt and both shoulders, trusting in the strength of his sword, carrying the entire River, extends opposite along the other horn (of the horizon). (Phaen. 569-89)

Most obviously, Aratus’ account is poetical. The name of the constellation, Bootes, or

“plowman,” occasions Aratus’ artful expression of his evening setting as the time when he unyokes his oxen.146 Notice also how the parts of constellations are all referred to by body parts without any reference to the stars themselves, and the Crab can be said to

“drive down” Ophiuchus. But even leaving aside this sort of poetic expression, Aratus’ treatment, after outlining the general shape of the celestial circles, merely gives a list of signs with an approximation of their position in the sky as the Crab rises. Talking about

Bootes unyoking his cattle and the Crab driving down Ophiuchus in his struggle asserts the importance of the signs themselves and emphasizes the constellations as images in the sky rather than geometrical points on a sphere.147 Hipparchus treats the constellations merely as markings on a sphere or mathematical points, as can be seen in his description of Crab rising.

Τοῦ μὲν οὖν Καρκίνου ἀνατέλλοντος συνανατέλλει μὲν αὐτῷ ὁ ζῳδιακὸς ἀπὸ Διδύμων γ´ καὶ κ´ μοίρας ἕως Καρκίνου ιη´˙ μεσουρανεῖ δὲ ἀπὸ Ἰχθύων ε´ ἕως Κριοῦ α´ μέσης. καὶ πρῶτος μὲν ἀστὴρ ἀνατέλλει ὁ ἐν ἄκρᾳ

146 See also Kidd 1997, 383. 147 Although this double reference is always present: σῆμα is archaic for σημεῖον, which is used by Autolycus of Pitane to indicate a mathematical point on a sphere (Aujac 1979, 42).

109 τῇ βορείᾳ χηλῇ, ἔσχατος δὲ ὁ ἐν ἄκρᾳ τῇ νοτίᾳ χηλῇ. Μεσουρανεῖ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων ἀστέρων πρῶτος μὲν ὁ ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ τῆς Ἀνδρομέδας λαμπρός, ἔσχατος δὲ τοῦ τε Κριοῦ τῶν ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ τριῶν λαμπρῶν ὁ ἡγούμενος, καὶ ὁ πρὸς μεσημβρίαν κείμενος τοῦ Κήτους κατὰ μέσον αὐτοῦ τὸ σῶμα ἀκατονόμαστος καὶ λαμπρός, καὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ τετραπλεύρῳ τοῦ κήτους ὁ νοτιώτερος τῶν ἑπομένων, καῖ τῆς Ἀνδρομέδας ὁ ἀριστερὸς πούς, μικρὸν ὑπολειπόμενος τοῦ μεσημβρινοῦ. Ἀνατέλλει δὲ ὁ Καρκίνος ἐν ὥρᾳ μιᾷ καὶ δυσὶ μέρεσιν ὥρας. (Comm. in Arat. 3.1.1b)

As the Crab is rising, the zodiac rises with it from 23˚ Twins to 17˚ Crab; and it passes the meridian from 5˚ Fish to ½˚ Ram. And the first star to rise is the one on the tip of its northern claw, and the last is on the tip of the southern claw. And the first of the other stars to pass the celestial meridian is the bright one on the head of Andromeda, and the last is the foremost of the three bright stars on the head of the Ram, and the unnamed, bright star lying to the south of the Monster along the middle of his body, and of the stars on the rhombus of the Monster to the south of those following it, and the left foot of Andromeda, a little to the East of the meridian. And the Crab rises in one hour, and forty minutes.

The differences at a glance are obvious. Hipparchus uses precise measurements. He sets the rising of all constellations on the ecliptic, including the constellations that mark out the zodiac. Thus, although he does not mention that the constellations are signs, he does in fact provide his reader with enough information to use them as signs actively.

Hipparchus does this explicitly in order to offer a useful version of the information contained within the Phaenomena. Aratus’ work points out that the stars can be read as signs, but Hipparchus tells us how to use them thus.148 He therefore fills in all of the information missing from the Phaenomena, by telling what the first star of the constellation is, what the last star is—thus clearly defining the constellation itself—what part of the zodiac rises with it—thus clearly distinguishing between the constellation and the thirty-degree sign—what other constellations pass the meridian, and precisely what stars lie on the meridian. We have already seen Hipparchus criticize Aratus for erring in

148 Volk 2009, 181: this quality of Aratus' poetry correlates to Katharina Volk’s useful image of Manilius’ Astronomica as an analogue to a modern coffee-table book.

110 these regards. He has criticized the incorrect assignment of body part to star in the instance of Perseus’ knee. Aratus conflated the thirty-degree sign itself with the constellation associated with it. Whereas Aratus gives general quadrants of the sky to locate various constellations, above the eastern horizon, overhead, or above the western horizon, Hipparchus gives the precise stars that pass the celestial meridian at the very beginning and end of each constellation’s rising and setting. Thus he connects phenomena with the mathematical system at work, the “appearances” with “what in fact happens” (τὰ φαινόμενά τε καὶ γινόμενα κατὰ ἀλήθειαν Comm. in Arat. 1.1.5).

Hipparchus treats the stars as mathematical points on a sphere passing a line of no width.

In doing so, he uses a mode of expression found in the work On the Moving Sphere by

Autolycus of Pitane (Aujac 1973), our earliest example of extant work on spherics, dating from the beginning of the fourth century B.C., and thus bridges the gap between

Phaenomena and prose Sphaeropoiia. The final chapter of Hipparchus’ third book, moreover, serves as an appendix of the distances between stars in terms of hours. Hours were—and still are—a legitimate way to map out the celestial sphere, which converts the space of the celestial sphere into time passing by. Thus Hipparchus facilitates the measurement of the length of night, even if he does not systematically give the rising time of each thirty-degree sign of the zodiac.

Although many of the differences between the simultaneous risings and settings of the fixed constellations of Aratus and Hipparchus respectively are obvious, it is worth noting how the similarities work with different emphasis in either version. Both

Hipparchus and Aratus locate the stars on the celestial sphere at the rising of each constellation, and both Hipparchus and Aratus specify stars using body parts of the figure

111 depicted by the constellation. But Aratus, as we have seen, engages this double-identity of astronomical body and mythological figure to poeticize his fusion of astronomical science with mythical narrative, whereas Hipparchus merely uses the figures to specify the precise star to which he refers at any given time. This does not necessarily mean that

Hipparchus considers the constellations themselves to be a "necessary evil", nor does it indicate a total lack of concern with the identity of the figure as a figure of myth. But there is a difference between Aratus marking the evening setting of Bootes as the time at which he unyokes his oxen, and Hipparchus referring to the foot of Andromeda. Aratus portrays the sky as a vivid landscape of mythical figures, whereas Hipparchus uses the constellations. to organize phenomena in the most technical sense. Hipparchus, in effect, advocates a mathematically useful map of fixed stars, whereas Aratus’ embellishment on his predecessor, Eudoxus, is poetic. Hipparchus, then, fixes the Phaenomena for the uses of the μαθηματικός, while suppressing the poetic facets of Aratus’ work. Hipparchus engages the poem called the Phaenomena in the same way the μαθηματικός interacts with phenomena: after correcting the content of Aratus’ poem, Hipparchus adapts the material to spherical applications by relating the phenomena to the absolute, mathematical division of the ecliptic.

It is important to my argument that Hipparchus is more critical of Aratus’ contemporary reception than he is of Aratus himself. One effect of establishing Eudoxus as his astronomical source is to avoid the awkward position of attacking one of the most universally respected poems of the Greek world. In certain instances, Hipparchus’ judgment of Aratus’ own work can be a bit more sophisticated than simple negative criticism. In the case of the starting point of the zodiac, for instance, Hipparchus argues

112 that in setting the exact turning point (τὸ τροπικὸν σημεῖον) of the Sun’s path at the beginnings of the signs of Crab and Goat, Aratus in fact exceeds the accuracy of

Eudoxus, who sets these points in the middle of the signs. Hipparchus' criticism, then, might apply to Eudoxus' treatises as it does to Aratus' Phaenomena.

The Reception of the Phaenomena as Evidence of a Second-Century

Scientific Community

The singularity of the commentary's survival exacerbates the difficulty of characterizing it, since we simply have no basis for comparison from the Hellenistic world. Scholars speculating about Hipparchus' motivation in writing his commentary have suggested a few possibilities: the playfully precise scientific engagement of a literary text, the elucidation of the appropriate literary technology for scientific content, and an active role within a tradition of detractors. The argument presented here offers a better answer: Hipparchus' commentary must be read as an attempt to historicize the

Phaenomena both in terms of its production as a piece of literature and with reference to its astronomical content.

Hipparchus' careful demonstration of Aratus' debt to Eudoxus as well as his sophisticated textual and interpretive arguments locates the text's production within its literary history. By demonstrating that Aratus was so reliant on the work of Eudoxus that he was unwilling to choose between mutually exclusive claims, as in the case of Perseus' belt, he offers an account of Aratus and the Phaenomena contrary to the myth of the

113 poet's expertise and the poem's status as a useful astronomical treatise. Whereas commentators such as Attalus appear to lend weight to epigrammatic tradition promoting

Aratus' accuracy, Hipparchus focuses on the evidence from the text itself, finding that they contradict the myth surrounding both poem and poet. Hipparchus is then able to establish the author's conventional expression from which he can derive the author's intention and poem's meaning. In this way, the commentary is an account of both the production and the nature of the Phaenomena, that is to say, it is a literary historical scholarly treatment.

On the other hand, Hipparchus also contextualizes the Phaenomena with reference to astronomical science by examining closely the accuracy of its claims. By literally juxtaposing his accounts of the Phaenomena and the phenomena, he situates

Aratus' poem within a set of recorded observations, accounting both for how Aratus came to have them as well as their merit. Tueller and MacFarlane characterize the commentary as an exposition of what science ought to look like. While Hipparchus surely achieves such a demonstration, looking more broadly at Hipparchus' great contributions to

Hellenistic astronomy can offer another perspective. Hipparchus stands out as a great collector of astronomical observations, both firsthand and recorded. This science subordinate to astronomy, known to Aristotle as τὰ φαινόμενα, provided the basis of fact for mathematical astronomy. Hipparchus' improvement upon Hellenistic knowledge of phenomena likely means that he has good scientific reasons for producing his scholarly work: the authority of the Phaenomena placed it within a set of observations to whose collection and evaluation Hipparchus had devoted a great deal of time. His

114 treatment of the poem, then, was appropriate and reasonable, regardless of the degree to which it was scientifically useful.

The characterization of Hipparchus' work offered above amounts to this:

Hipparchus followed in the tradition of Eratosthenes as a man of both science and scholarship. On account of his interaction with so many fields, Eratosthenes became the first to claim the label φιλόλογος.149 The wide range of Hipparchus' impressive intellectual skills might have earned him the same title.

149 Suet. De Gram. et Rh. 10.4. Pfeiffer 1968 158-59 discusses the history of the adjective.

115

Chapter 4 Aratus in Rome: The Reception of the Phaenomena in Latin Translation

More evidence survives for Aratus' Roman reception than does for his Hellenistic reception. Fascination with the poem has been explained with appeals to astrology and mythical wonder, the Roman educational canon, and, most recently, the poem’s place as a representation of an orderly, predictable cosmos, like that imagined by the Stoics.150

Although the Hellenistic period witnessed a close association between mathematical astronomy and what we would call astrology, the Phaenomena only connects terrestrial phenomena to celestial phenomena in the form of weather signs; Aratus' work on simultaneous risings with the various constellations of the Zodiac is not nearly precise enough for fields such as genethlialogy.151 What is more, although Aratus’ position in the

Roman educational canon must be acknowledged, it does sufficiently explain Aratus' importance.152 Emma Gee's attribution of Aratus' popularity to Stoic cosmology has the virtue of addressing qualities of both the text itself as well as those of its Roman

150 Sale 1965; Lewis 1992; Gee 2013, 1-21, who prudently warns against allowing modern ideas of science and poetry to cause excessive skepticism of the Phaenomena’s literary merit. 151 Sale 1965 argues that the potential to use the Phaenomena for determining horoscopes must have been its chief appeal. Not only does Sale provide no evidence outside of the poem itself, but the Phaenomena is not suitable for such use, making his conclusion unlikely. 152 For Aratus' place in the Roman education, see Cribiore 2001, 142-43, Bastianini et al. 2004, 55-76, and Maehler 1980. For his place in the Hellenistic literary canon, see Cameron 1995, 321-29.

116 reception. But these explanations all apply specifically to Aratus' appeal to a Roman audience without considering how use of the Phaenomena in Rome fits into larger trends extending back to its composition. By examining the continuity of the response to the

Phaenomena from the Hellenistic Greek to the Roman world, I will situate its reception in Latin literature within the framework offered in the previous two chapters: the

Phaenomena derived its importance from its crucial role as a testament to poetry’s effectiveness in disseminating astronomical knowledge.

All the same, Latin literary evidence offers a particularly Roman context of use of

Aratus' Phaenomena: rhetorical thought and education. The poem’s importance in a

Roman educational system so rhetorical by nature is not surprising.153 Although much of

Cicero’s Latin translation of the Phaenomena has come down to us through its own independent manuscript tradition, we also find much of it quoted in his philosophical and rhetorical works, where Cicero is concerned with the poem's presentation. The

Phaenomena's philosophical implications supporting a Stoic cosmology are important to

Cicero, but even this can be explained in part by his admiration of the poem's composition. I submit that Cicero’s fascination with the Phaenomena as a poem stemmed from its status as a paradigm of what came to be called ecphrasis, that is, a vivid verbal account creating images in an audience’s mind.154 Not only does Cicero represent Aratus as a master of ecphrasis, but he implies that his own translation accomplishes a similar

153 Lewis, 1992. 154 For instance, see the Progymnasmata by Theon Ailios 118.1.7 (Patillon 1997): ἐκφρασις ἔστι λόγος περιηγηματικὸς ἐναργῶς ὕπ᾽ ὄψιν ἄγων τὸ δηλούμενον (ecphrasis is a descriptive account vividly putting what is described before the eyes.) For my purposes here, I use the word ecphrasis to mean simply the creation of mental images from words as an important rhetorical technique: part of Cicero's fascination with the Phaenomena was its execution of just that technique. See Zanker 1987, 39-112; Vasaly 1993, 1-130; Webb 2009; Otto 2009, especially 103-07; Sheppard 2014, 1-46.

117 effect by using it as visual evidence. Thus, as an imitator of Aratus, he presumes to share this reputation.155

Cicero focuses on the poem's broad philosophical implications and compositional excellence at the expense of minute astronomical detail. Later, when Germanicus Caesar took on the task of translating Aratus, he was similarly concerned with Aratus’ poetic form, but also took great care to address, at least speciously, the scientific concerns of the commentary tradition as well as other astronomical sources. Germanicus poeticizes the astronomical material (res) itself, as well as the act of putting it into hexameter (carmen).

Cicero's interests lie more in the form of the poem (carmen), while those of Germanicus lie in the form (carmen), content (res), and the combination of the two.

This chapter will therefore examine the translations of Cicero and Germanicus in order to highlight the differing concerns of each. Beginning with a brief overview demonstrating the importance of Aratus and his Phaenomena within Latin literature, I will demonstrate that Cicero's fascination with Aratus and the Phaenomena revolves around the poet's execution of the rhetorical technique of evoking a visual experience with his words. Although apparently aware of a rich scholarly tradition surrounding the

Phaenomena, he accordingly does not concern himself as much with astronomical criticism as with expression itself. Thereafter I will demonstrate that Germanicus differs in just this respect: he concerns himself with both the expression and the astronomical content of the Phaenomena, poeticizing their combination in a manner similar to that found in the long proem to Manilius' Astronomicon, which celebrates the union of carmen et res (1.20-22). Although the survival of two ancient Latin translations of an

155 Bishop 2011, 25-78 argues that Cicero’s choice to translate Phaenomena was motivated by a desire to share the nearly unanimously positive reputation of Aratus.

118 extant Greek poem constitutes a singular collection of literary evidence from the Greek and Roman worlds, focusing on Cicero and Germanicus masks the pervasive influence of

Aratus' lodestar poem on Latin literature in the first centuries BC and AD. Before discussing some finer points of the translations of Germanicus and Cicero, therefore, I will provide a brief overview of Aratus' reception and tradition of translation in Rome.

Aratus as a Poetic Model

The ubiquity of reference to Aratus in Latin literature has generally been acknowledged by scholars. Recently Emma Gee has demonstrated more fully the importance of Aratus and the tradition surrounding him in Latin literature, particularly in

Lucretius’ interaction with Cicero’s translation of the Phaenomena.156 Aratus and the

Phaenomena occupy an important position in Latin literature as one of the weightiest models from the Hellenistic age. The Phaenomena was translated into Latin several times: Avienus’ entire translation has been preserved by manuscript tradition;157 considerable portions of translations by Cicero and Germanicus have come down in manuscript tradition;158 Varro of Atax certainly wrote a translation, at least of the weather signs, which only survives in scant fragments,159 and there is evidence to suggest that

Ovid,160 Quintus Cicero,161 and the emperor Gordian I162 produced translations as well.

156 Gee 2013. 157 Soubiran 1981 provides an edition. 158 See Ewbank 1933 and Soubiran 1972 for the textual tradition of Cicero's translation, and Breysig 1867 and Gain 1976 for that of Germanicus. 159 Courtney 1993, 244-245 collects the fragments of Varro's Ephemeris. 160 Gee 2000, 68-70. Two fragments of Ovid’s Phaenomena survive, preserved in Probus ad Vergil, Georgics 1.138 and Lactantius, Div. Inst. 2.5.24.

119 The earliest of these translations, that of Cicero, has been preserved in one longer segment, which has come down in an independent manuscript tradition, as well as a series of quotations in his philosophical writings.163 We are told that Cicero wrote his translation of the Phaenomena as a young man (DND 2.98), but his penchant for quoting his own work at length in later works such as the De Natura Deorum and the De

Divinatione suggests that his interest did not fade with age.

Varro of Atax, a contemporary of Cicero, appears to have written a number of translations and to have indulged particularly in learned subjects. He wrote a translation of the Argonautica in addition to his translation of the Phaenomena164 and appears to have had a proclivity toward the sort of learned subjects for which Aratus was known.165

Thus his Bellum Sequanicum likely treated Caesar’s campaign against Ariovistus (Fr. 1-2

Courtney), his Chorographia appears to have treated both geography and cosmology (Fr.

15-20 Courtney), and his translation of Aratus, the Ephemeris, appears to have focused on the meteorological section of the Phaenomena (Fr. 13-14 Courtney).

Almost all of the astronomical material of the Phaenomena survives in a first century AD translation, which has been attributed to Germanicus Caesar.166 Germanicus’

161 Courtney 1993, 179-81. 162 Soubiran 1972, 6. 163 DND 2.98; Ac. 2.66; De Or. 1.69; Re Pub. 1.14; De Div. 2.1.3; De Leg. 2.7. 164 Collected in Courtney 1993, 238-243. 165 Quintilian (1.4.4) groups Varro with Empedocles and Lucretius as one of those “who have handed down the teaching of wisdom in verse.” 166 Gain 1976, 16-20 proposed that the author could only be narrowed down to the emperor Tiberius or Germanicus Caesar, whereas Possanza 2004, 219-33 concluded that Germanicus must be the author. The recentiores of the fifteenth century bear tituli indicating T.—corrected to Ti. by Winterfield 1900—Claudi(i) Caesaris as the author. Possanza suggests that these find their ultimate source in Lactantius 1.21.38 and 5.5.4, which attest a translation of Aratus by a Germanicus Caesar. Although Cassius Dio 57.8.2 tells us that Tiberius was sometimes called “Germanicus,” and Suetonius’ Tiberius

120 translation survives mostly intact for what appears to be about half the original poem and transitions into the beginning of what appears to be an added astrological section before breaking off. Thereafter five more “fragments” survive in various manuscripts.167

Germanicus' translation carefully reflects the content of the Phaenomena, as well as additions and corrections provided from the commentary tradition and perhaps other astronomical sources.

Translations of the Phaenomena could also be embedded into other poems, most famously in the case of Vergil’s Georgics 1.351-460, where Vergil freely adapts the weather signs in the latter half of the Phaenomena, innovatively changing the arrangement and expression.168 Recently, John Henkel has argued that Vergil celebrates in the first book of the Georgics not only the Phaenomena itself, but its Hellenistic reception as well.169 Vergil's reception of Aratus is mediated through the famous epigrams praising Aratus by Leonidas of Tarentum and Callimachus, according to

Henkel, who provides as a parallel an epigram by Cinna, which apparently served as a book tag for an edition of the Phaenomena. Cinna writes about a copy of the

Phaenomena being shipped from Bithynia:

69.1, 70.1, and 70.3 describe Tiberius as a connoisseur of astrology and mythology, a fluent speaker of Greek, and a man of letters, Possanza marshals internal evidence from the proem to determine that Germanicus must have written the poem. The date of composition is thus determined to have been between 4 and 8 AD, the terminus ante quem provided by Fantham 1986 being 7 AD, when Germanicus started to take on more grown-up tasks. Thus Fantham’s reasoning assumes that the translation of the Phaenomena was a part of his schooling. The terminus post quem has been established by Tiberius’ adoption by Augustus. Provisionally, I assent to the timeframe and the authorship, but the intellectual reception that I am tracing through Germanicus' translation has little to do with the precise identity of the author. 167 Gain 1976, 1-11. 168 Kidd 1997, 42-43. 169 Henkel 2011.

121 haec tibi Arateis multum uigilata lucernis carmina, quis ignes nouimus aerios, leuis in aridulo maluae descripta libello Prusiaca uexi munera nauicula. (fr. 11 Courtney)

I have brought to you by a small boat of Prusias the gift of this poetry diligently belabored at Aratus' lamps, poetry by which we have come to know the celestial flames, traced out in a dry little book of polished mallow.

The first line's use of uigilata has been identified by Henkel as an allusion to references to precise labor in the epigrams of Callimachus (ἀγρυπνίης) and Leonidas (καμὼν

ἔργον μέγα).170 Some manuscripts give the reading Areteis instead of Arateis. Although

Courtney rejects the reading, even he offers the possibility that it comes from

Callimachus' Ἀρήτου, which suggests that Cinna's audience connected the epigrams.

Arateis ... uigilata lucernis carmina, moreover, may connect the "wakefulness" (vigilata) of Callimachus with the Leonidas' image of "brightness" (lucernis). The emphasized diminutives in the third line, finally, can evoke Aratus' hallmark aesthetic, λεπτότης.

Cinna's epigram, then, indicates that the Romans, to a certain extent, inherited the literary concerns of the Phaenomena's Hellenistic reception.

Vergil’s third Eclogue, moreover, demonstrates Aratus’ status as a poetic heavyweight by paralleling Aratus with Callimachus. Rival herdsmen Damoetas and

Menalcas engage in a poetry contest, which begins with the invocation of patron deities,

Jupiter and Apollo respectively.

D. Ab Ioue principium Musae: Iouis omnia plena; ille colit terras, illi mea carmina curae. M. Et me Phoebus amat; Phoebo sua semper apud me munera sunt, lauri et suaue rubens hyacinthus. (Ecl. 3.60-63)

170 Henkel 2011, 181.

122 D. From Jupiter is the beginning, Muses: all is full of Jupiter; he cultivates the earth, and to him my songs are a care. M. And Phoebus loves me; always are the gifts of Phoebus in my possession, the laurel and the sweetly blushing hyacinth.

As the two begin to compete, they each claim the favor of a god, Damoetas Jupiter and

Menalcas Apollo. But in claiming the favor of Jupiter, Damoetas more or less translates the beginning of the Phaenomena, and in claiming Apollo’s favor for himself, Menalcas recalls Aetia 1.21-28, where the poet narrates Apollo's address.171 The herdsmen thus come to represent two Hellenistic models pitted against each other. Before Damoetas and

Menalcas choose their models, however, a prize is proposed for the competition.

In medio duo signa, Conon et—quis fuit alter, descripsit radio totum qui gentibus orbem, tempora quae messor, quae curuus arator haberet? (Ecl. 3.40-42)

In the middle are two images, Conon and—who was the other, who etched the whole cosmos for the nations with a stick, as well as what seasons the reaper and what seasons the curved plow keep?

The identity of the unnamed astronomer has been questioned since antiquity, the favorite possibility appearing to be Eudoxus, although Springer has strengthened the argument for

Aratus on the basis of the pun in line 43, arator.172 Eudoxus and Aratus are intimately connected as source text and versifier, and it is entirely possible that the name of one

171 It may not be coincidence that Aet. 1.20 precedes Apollo's appearance with βροντᾶν οὐκ εμόν, ἀλλὰ Διός (“It is not for me to thunder, but for Zeus”). 172 Segal 1967, Fisher 1982. Servius suggests Aratus, Ptolemy, and Eudoxus; Junius Philargyrius suggests Eudoxus or Aratus, indicating that others suggest Hesiod; the Scholia Veronensia offer Eudoxus, Aratus, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Euctemon, Hesiod, and Euclid. Springer 1983 argues for Aratus based on the pun formed by arator, rejecting Eudoxus as a possibility accordingly. Eudoxus could easily have been closely associated with Aratus at this time, however, and I see no reason why the pun might not work all the same. Cf. Georg. 2.490, where the identity of the poet referenced has come under similar dispute.

123 might evoke that of the other. Conon can be identified with Aetia 4 (fr. 110 Pfeiffer), where Callimachus celebrates his discovery of the lock of Berenice. Eudoxus / Aratus, whom Menalcas ostensibly suppresses, can be identified with Aratus’ Phaenomena. Thus

Vergil pits Aratus against Callimachus, while generically imitating Theocritus in the

Eclogues broadly conceived. The balanced reference to Callimachus and Aratus sets the two up as equally impressive Hellenistic models.

Aratus’ importance in the Roman world has been attributed to his status as a representative of a Stoic world-view.173 Gee has recently adduced Balbus' use of the

Aratea beginning at De Natura Deorum 2.98 to support his arguments for a Stoic cosmos to suggest that Cicero's choice to translate the Phaenomena was motivated by his affinity to Stoicism.174 In another recent discussion Siebengartner suggests that Cicero's use of visual imagery within his translation serves to adapt the Phaenomena—itself describing a cosmos akin to that of the Stoics—into a Stoic poem.175 Following the insights of these two scholars, we can conclude that Cicero's Stoic affinities dovetail with his argumentative strategy of converting creating a visual experience with his oral / aural delivery. This conversion, then, is as much a part of his rhetorical and psychological theory as it is his cosmology. So while my arguments in no way suggest a denial of a

Stoic element to Cicero's fascination with the Phaenomena, I will maintain my focus on his interest in the poem's ecphrastic qualities.

As I will show below, in citations outside of the De Rerum Natura Cicero primarily concerns himself with Aratus as a model of rhetorical technique. Specifically,

173 Gee 2001, 70-84; Gee 2013. Siebengartner 2012 argues that Cicero's Stoic sympathies motivate his increased use of visual terminology throughout his translation. 174 Gee 2001. 175 Siebengartner 2012, 113-15.

124 Cicero praises Aratus' ornatus, and seems to admire Aratus' ability to use words to produce a visual experience for his audience. Concerned with Aratus' arrangement and presentation of material, Cicero does not deal with the technical tradition surrounding the

Phaenomena. If Cicero's translation truly mediates most of the later reception of the

Phaenomena, Aratus’ poetic skill, not his astronomical expertise, secures his place in the astronomical tradition in Rome, which extends into (and well beyond) the early first century AD when fervor for astronomical and astrological material permeates Latin literature.176 As a result, Aratus continues to be catalogued as an astronomical authority even when more technical commentaries like that of Hipparchus come to elucidate and correct the content of the Phaenomena. Fascination with Aratus' carmen, highlighted by

Cicero's oratorical and philosophical works, thus secures his position as an authority on astronomical res, both of which come to a head in the translation of Germanicus.

Germanicus updates the astronomy of the poem in accordance with other sources, including Hipparchus' commentary. By incorporating the astronomical tradition surrounding Aratus into his verse translation, he falls in line with a program familiar from the first book of Manilius' Astronomica.

Bina mihi positis lucent altaria flammis, ad duotempla precor duplici circumdatus aestu carminis et rerum... (Astr. 1.20-22)

Twin altars shine with light placed by me, I pray to a double temple surrounded by the twin flames of song and material...

176 Barton 1994a, 38-44, 1994b, 33-62, and Volk 2002, 202 discuss the particular importance of astronomical science under the Caesars.

125 Manilius' proem explicitly places his work in a tradition of didactic poetry.177 Here he poeticizes the practice of constraining scientific material (res) with poetic meter (carmen) and all the tradition of song surrounding that meter. Writing at nearly the same time as

Manilius, Germanicus is similarly preoccupied with the tradition of writing scientific poetry, poeticizing not only the astronomical material itself, but the intellectual traditions surrounding the Phaenomena as well. His interests appear to differ from those of Cicero in that he does not merely imitate the source text by putting astronomical material into verse, but illustrates its reception in scientific circles as an important part of the history of astronomical verse.

The Phaenomena in Cicero's Rhetorical Thought

The importance of visualization and vividness in Latin rhetorical thought is well documented. Ann Vasaly has traced the relationship between visual experiences and

Cicero’s rhetoric, bringing out two processes: the orator creates an image in his own head in order to make himself persuasive and, through speaking, creates an image in the mind of his audience by which they might be persuaded.178 Read with this technique of persuasion through ecphrasis in mind, Cicero's references to Aratus and the Phaenomena in his dialogues suggest a reason for his lifelong fascination with his own Aratea. Just as the orator creates an image in his own head, from which he might draw his own rhetorical

177 Abry 2007 places Manilius within the tradition of Aratus' reception, observing structural and thematic continuity. 178 Vasaly 1992, 90.

126 fervor, and then creates a persuasive image in the audience's mind,179 Aratus converts the experience of observing the celestial sphere into text, which, in turn, creates a vivid mental picture for his readers. I will argue, by analyzing references to the Phaenomena in

Cicero's dialogues, that a large part of the appeal of Aratus’ poetry to Cicero is its supposed ability to create this visual experience in the mind of the reader. This method of understanding Cicero’s Aratean references offers us a clue as to why Cicero admires

Aratus' ability to organize material and invokes him as a paradigm to be imitated by the ideal orator, namely his ability to convert readers to viewers.180

Although Hipparchus tells us that Aratus used a prose treatise by Eudoxus as a source and the Vita tradition tells us that Nicander and Aratus exchanged prose treatises to versify one another's work, there appears to have been a parallel tradition suggesting that Aratus wrote his poem either using a celestial model or looking at the sky itself.

Below are two images, the left from the Aratea codex, the right from a third century AD mosaic, of Aratus writing the Phaenomena, using a model of a celestial globe.181 While both Aratus and Thales could typically be depicted as figures pointing to a celestial globe, Aratus was distinguished by the presence of either one or more Muses, Ourania

179 Examples suggesting the rhetorical advantage of making an aural audience into viewers are plentiful, e.g. Ad Her. 4.68, Part. Or. 20, De Or. 3.202, De Inv. 1.104 and 107, and Quint. 4.2.63, 6.2.32, 8.3.61-71, and 9.2.40-44. 180 There are other names for the rhetorical technique: subiectio sub oculos, evidentia, enargeia, hypotyposis, diatyposis, demonstratio, descriptio, and illustratio. Webb 2009 offers a good reminder of the primary meaning of ecphrasis from the ancient mindset, namely, a vivid account that converts listeners / readers to viewers. 181 Maass 1958, 172-73 provides both images, the left a reproduction of a twelfth-century manuscript containing the text of Aratus Latinus, the right an image of the Monnus mosaic (3rd c. AD) from Trier.

127 and/or Calliope, or a lyre.182 Additionally, Sidonius Apollinaris (5th c. AD) describes an image in Athens of Aratus looking up at the sky (9.9.14) among a list of philosophers painted on the gymnasia and prytanea in Athens. This pose is paralleled on a late Coptic textile residing in the Benaki Museum in Athens, on which the figure is labeled Aratus and surrounded by Ourania and Calliope.183 Although the iconography may not be literal, it nevertheless recommends Aratus as an observational astronomer.

In the first book of the Republic Cicero lists Aratus among a series of astronomical authorities. Significantly, however, Aratus stands out as a poet among a series of astronomers who have produced physical and mechanical models that trace celestial phenomena.

Dicebat enim Gallus sphaerae illius alterius solidae atque plenae uetus esse inuentum, et eam a Thalete Milesio primum esse ornatam, post autem ab Eudoxo

182 Richter 1965, 82 and 240-41. The vignette of Aratus looking at a globe with a lyre appears on the Berthouville silver cups as well (see Lapatin 2015). 183 Richter 1965, 240.

128 Cnidio, discipulo ut ferebat Platonis, eandem illam astris quae caelo inhaererent esse descriptam; cuius omnem ornatum et descriptionem sumptam ab Eudoxo multis annis post non astrologiae scientia sed poetica quadam facultate uersibus Aratum extulisse. Hoc autem sphaerae genus, in quo solis et lunae motus inessent et earum quinque stellarum quae errantes et quasi uagae nominarentur, in illa sphaera solida non potuisse finiri, atque in eo admirandum esse inuentum Archimedi, quod excogitasset quem ad modum in dissimillimis motibus inaequabiles et uarios cursus seruaret una conuersio. (Rep. 1.22.4)

“For Gallus used to say that the invention of that other solid and filled sphere was ancient, and that the sphere was first furnished by Thales of Miletus, but that afterward the same [sphere] was etched in with the constellations that are fixed to the sky by Eudoxus of Cnidus, a student, he [Gallus] claimed, of Plato; and he [Gallus] continued, saying that Aratus, many years later, had expressed in verses the entire arrangement of this sphere as well as the inscription taken from Eudoxus not with his knowledge of astronomy but with a certain poetic skill. But he said that the sort of sphere in which are contained the movements of the sun and the moon and of those five stars that are named wanderers and, as it were, vagabonds, could not have been produced in that solid [model of a] sphere and that, on this account, the invention of Archimedes was worthy of wonder, on the grounds that he had devised in what way one rotation might reproduce celestial paths varied and not uniform in their different movements.”

Narrating the history of celestial models behind a wondrous mechanical model built by

Archimedes, Cicero’s Gallus attributes an older sphere to Thales, who arranged a star globe. Eventually, according to Cicero, Eudoxus etched constellations into the sphere,184 and Aratus described the entire model, arranged by Thales and marked by Eudoxus, in his

Phaenomena. Although both Hipparchus and Cicero identify Eudoxus as Aratus' immediate source, Cicero diverges from Hipparchus in his description of Eudoxus' medium: whereas Hipparchus cites a prose account of the celestial sphere, Cicero

184 eandem illam astris quae caelo inhaererent esse descriptam is generally interpreted to indicate that Eudoxus physically marked the sphere, not that he described it in prose. Supporting this interpretation is astris, which is difficult to fit into the syntax if one assumes that describere here means "to describe." See OLD, which provides this passage as its only example of describere meaning "to mark." Fisher 1982, 807 uses this passage to demonstrate that describere need not refer only to drawing a model in sand but does not offer an interpretation.

129 describes a physical model carved or marked in some way by Eudoxus. Even if it is just as likely that a written description might accompany a three-dimensional model, Cicero's focus on the physical sphere is interesting. Aratus’ act of transferring his own visual experience of looking at a model into poetry resembles the image from the mosaic provided above. Cicero depicts Aratus writing the Phaenomena as a response to his visual experience of looking at a physical model, which he is able to reproduce in verse, not on account of any scientific knowledge, but on account of his poetic skill of translating that experience. As a poet, Aratus translates what he sees into verse; under the paradigm of the rhetorical techniques traced by Vasaly, his success will be determined by the poem’s ability to create an image in the mind of the reader.

In the De Natura Deorum, Cicero’s Balbus argues at length in support of the Stoic cosmic view that the entire universe works in a well-managed system of cause and effect, conceivably predictable, when he decides to dispense with argumentation altogether in favor of appeal to the manifest evidence to be gained by visual experience.

Licet enim iam remota subtilitate disputandi oculis quodam modo contemplari pulchritudinem rerum earum quas diuina prouidentia dicimus constitutas. (DND 2.98.1)

“For it is permitted now, upon dismissing precise argumentation,185 to contemplate with our eyes in some way the beauty of these things that we say have been put together by divine providence.”

Balbus proceeds to list several phenomena that we can see "with our eyes." Thereupon he appeals to Cicero’s translation of the Phaenomena.

185 This could be a synonym for subtilitas disserendi, which Wilkens equates to dialectics.

130 Atque hoc loco me intuens “Utar” inquit “carminibus Arateis, quae a te admodum adulescentulo conuersa ita me delectant quia Latina sunt, ut multa ex memoria teneam. Ergo, ut oculis adsidue uidemus, sine ulla mutatione aut uarietate Cetera labuntur celeri caelestia motu cum caeloque simul noctesque diesque feruntur quorum contemplatione nullius expleri potest animus naturae constantiam videre cupientis. (De Natura Deorum 2.104.6)

“And at this point, looking at me, he said, “I will use Aratean verses, which, translated by you when you were only a boy, delight me so much, because they are in Latin, that I remember much of it. Therefore, as we look intently with our eyes, without any change or deviation, day and night, the rest of the celestial bodies move in a swift motion and travel along with the sky at the same rate by whose contemplation the mind of nobody who desires to see the constancy of nature is able to be overfilled.”

Balbus’ progression of thought runs immediately from the compelling evidence of a literally visual experience (DND 2.98.1) to reciting Cicero’s translation of the

Phaenomena (2.104.6). Their juxtaposition is enough to suggest some similarity between

Balbus’ invocation of visual experience and his recitation of Cicero’s Aratea. Introducing the quotation of the Aratea, moreover, Balbus explicitly likens the experience of both reciting and listening to viewing (as we look). His ability to remember the poetry, moreover, is significant in and of itself. The delight is a result of the poem being in Latin, giving Cicero as translator an important place in the Aratean tradition.

As Balbus proceeds to recite a total of 84 lines of Cicero's translation, he comments intermittently on the cosmos in his own words, using Cicero's translation as his evidence.

Et quo sit earum stellarum admirabilior aspectus, has inter veluti rapido cum gurgite flumen torvus Draco serpit supter supraque revolvens sese conficiensque sinus e corpore flexos.

131 eius cum totius est praeclara species in primis aspicienda est figura capitis atque ardor oculorum: huic non una modo caput ornans stella relucet, verum tempora sunt duplici fulgore notata e trucibusque oculis duo fervida lumina flagrant atque uno mentum radianti sidere lucet; opstipum caput, a tereti cervice reflexum optutum in cauda maioris figere dicas. et relicum quidem corpus Draconis totis noctibus cernimus, hoc caput hic paulum sese subitoque recondit, ortus ubi atque obitus parti admiscetur in una. Id autem caput attingens defessa velut maerentis imago vertitur quam quidem Graeci Engonasin vocitant, genibus quia nixa feratur. . (DND 2.106-108)

And so that the appearance of these stars be all the more wondrous, just as a river with a rapid eddy, between these [Bears] the fierce Dragon slides under and over twisting himself about and forming winding coils with its body. Not only is his entire appearance brilliant, but also especially do the shape of his head and fire of his eyes merit a look: for him not only one star shines to adorn his head, but the temples are distinguished by twin splendor, and two fiery lights burn from his pitiless eyes and his chin shines with one bright star; you might say that his head is slanted, and you might say that he holds it bent back on a curved neck fixed on the tail of the of the Great Bear. And indeed we see the rest of the body of the Dragon in the entirety of the night for a little bit this head conceals itself suddenly here, where its rising and setting meet in the same place. And touching this head, moreover, the weary image as though of a man overworked rotates which the Greeks call the Kneeler, since he passes struggling on his knees

Balbus uses Cicero's Aratea as one might use a visual aide to demonstrate the divine order of the cosmos. His repeated use of visual language (admirabilior aspectus, species praeclara, aspicienda, cernimus) to introduce his quotations of Cicero's translation suggest that Balbus wants his interlocutors to see an image as he describes the Dragon.

Although his primary point is to demonstrate the regularity of their movement as the

132 Kneeler moves attached (attingens) to the Dragon, moreover, he repeatedly refers to the splendor or marvel of the constellations. Balbus uses Cicero's vivid language to create a visual experience in the minds of his audience, as well as his own mind (cernimus). In doing so, Balbus mimics Cicero's own practice within the Aratea of using first person plural verbs of viewing to place himself alongside his audience to view the constellations.186 Cicero’s Balbus becomes an ideal reader of the ecphrasis of the Aratea, a reader who is converted into a viewer.

Although not explicit, it is possible to draw a connection between vividness and

Balbus' ability to memorize the Aratea through the lens of Cicero’s rhetorical and psychological theory. In the Academica Lucullus argues that clarity and perspicuity distinguish visa vera from visiones inanes. The mind assents to true images, discarding the false visions, and so real perceptions are left imprinted upon the memory.187 Balbus’ ability to remember the Aratea on account of its delight, therefore, might be precisely on account of its perspicuity, its vividness. Gallus' account of Aratus' versification of a physical sphere and Balbus' use of the Aratea in the De Natura Deorum together illustrate the Phaenomena's ability to record visual experiences in words and then reproduce those same experiences for the audience.

When defining the skill set of the orator, Cicero's Cato explicitly compares

Aratus’ ability to arrange and present information to that of the orator.

186 Siebengartner 2012, 113-15. 187 Vasaly 1993, 89-104. The system creates obvious problems in accounting for how one is able to persuade another of a falsehood, but in short, clarity is the hallmark of verisimilitude, and so provides persuasive capacity precisely on account of its ability to impress upon the memory. Thus memorability and persuasiveness are intimately connected.

133 Quare hic locus de vita et moribus totus est oratori perdiscendus; cetera si non didicerit tamen poterit, si quando opus erit, ornare dicendo, si modo ad eum erunt delata et ei tradita etenim si constat inter doctos hominem ignarum astrologiae ornatissimis atque optimis versibus Aratum de caelo stellisque dixisse; si de rebus rusticis hominem ab agro remotissimum Nicandrum Colophonium poetica quadam facultate, non rustica scripsisse praeclare; quid est cur non orator de rebus iis eloquentissime dicat, quas ad certam causam tempusque cognorit? Est enim finitimus oratori poeta, numeris adstrictior paulo, verborum autem licentia liberior multis vero ornandi generibus socius ac paene par. (De Or. 1.69)

“Wherefore this area concerning his life and habits must be thoroughly learned by the orator; if he has not learned the rest, he will nevertheless be able, if there is a need, to elevate it by speaking, so long as it is reported and taught to him, if indeed it is agreed among learned men that a man ignorant of astronomy, Aratus, has dissertated on the sky and the stars with the most well outfitted and best verses; if it is agreed that Nicander of Colophon, a man most removed from the field has written most clearly about agricultural matters with a certain poetic ability, not an agricultural one; what is the reason that an orator should not speak most eloquently about those matters that he has come to know on the spot in a particular circumstance and time? For the poet is closest to the orator, a little more restricted in his rhythms, but freer in his choice of words, but indeed a companion and almost equal in many kinds of embellishment.”

As Cicero attempts to delineate the difference between the philosopher and the orator, he distinguishes three branches of philosophy, physics (naturae obscuritas), dialectics

(disserendi subtilitas), and ethics (vita et mores, De Orat. 1.68).188 The orator, according to Cicero, does not need to know physics or dialectics, but he is best equipped to arrange and present any material put before him. Cicero compares this ability to that of the poet, beginning with Aratus as a concrete example. Again, Aratus has written about the stars with the most well-chosen and well-arranged words, not because of his knowledge of astronomy, but on account of his ability as a poet. So the orator, reasons Cicero, is able to perform a comparable task, although his freedom in meter and restriction in diction

188 So identified by Wilkens 1892, ad loc. Cf. Acad. 1.5.19: fuit ergo iam accepta a Platone philosophandi ratio triplex: una de uita et moribus, altera de natura et rebus occultis, tertia de disserendo, et quid uerum, quid falsum, quid rectum in oratione prauumue, quid consentiens sit, quid repugnet iudicando.

134 contrasts with the inverse restriction and freedom of the poet. The tradition that Aratus and Nicander are able to perform this very task is preserved also in the vitae, where we are told that Nicander, an astronomer, and Aratus, a doctor, exchanged prose treatises in order to put one another’s work into verse.189 The vita thus emphasizes the capacity of both to present material outside of their expertise by heretically casting Aratus in the role of doctor and Nicander in the role of astronomer. In the De Oratore Cicero links his admiration for Aratus' poetry explicitly with skills applicable to oratory.

The Phaenomena derived special importance on account of its famously technical material as well as Aratus’ famed ability to recreate a visual experience. Just as Aratus translates his visual encounter with a celestial sphere into verse, the orator translates a visual encounter he creates in his mind into a speech. Just as Balbus parallels visual evidence with the recitation of Cicero’s Aratea, the orator creates a visual experience in the mind of his audience through vivid description.190 Finally, just as Aratus exemplifies the ideal capacity of versifying technical material, the orator is ideally able to take up and arrange any material with which he is furnished.

Aratus’ fame for “putting material before the eyes” of his reader is not limited to

Cicero. Letter 5.6 of the Younger Pliny, which provides a literary tour through his Tuscan villa, has been plausibly identified as a display of ecphrasis.191 At the end of the letter

Pliny apologizes for the length of his letter by attributing the length not to his description per se, but to the villa described. It is here where Pliny betrays his ecphrastic goals,

189 Martin 1974, 8. 190 Vasaly 1992, 99 argues that, with the exception of Quintilian, who acknowledges that words, once filtered through the individual member of the audience, might evoke different mental images for different people (8.3.64), the assumption among rhetorical texts seems to be that the same words evoked the same image in everyone. 191 Chinn 2007.

135 comparing his letter to famous instances of vivid description in the poetry of Homer,

Vergil, and Aratus.

In summa (cur enim non aperiam tibi uel iudicium meum uel errorem?) primum ego officium scriptoris existimo, titulum suum legat atque identidem interroget se quid coeperit scribere, sciatque si materiae immoratur non esse longum, longissimum si aliquid accersit atque attrahit. Vides quot uersibus Homerus, quot Vergilius arma hic Aeneae Achillis ille describat; breuis tamen uterque est quia facit quod instituit. Vides ut Aratus minutissima etiam sidera consectetur et colligatur; modum tamen seruat. Non enim excursus hic eius, sed opus ipsum est. Similiter nos ut ‘parua magnis’, cum totam uillam oculis tuis subicere conamur, si nihil inductum et quasi deuium loquimur, non epistula quae describit sed uilla quae describitur magna est. (5.6.42-44)

“In the end (for why should I not show either my discernment or my error to you?) I think that the first duty of a writer is to read his own title and ask himself what he has begun to write, and to know that [his work] is not long if it lingers over its substance, but that it is very long if it summons and heaps on something [extraneous]. You see in how many lines Homer and in how many lines Vergil depict arms, the latter of Aeneas, the former of Achilles; nevertheless each is brief, because he does what he has set out to do. You see that Aratus researches and stitches together even the smallest stars; nevertheless he maintains the proper length. For this is not his digression, but the work itself. In the same way, (to compare) "small things to great things," because we are trying to place the entire villa before your eyes, if we say nothing strange or, as it were, out of the way, it is the villa described that is large, not the letter that describes it.”

Pliny invokes the arming scenes of Homer and Vergil as well as all the astronomy in the

Phaenomena as models of placing a visual experience before the eyes of his reader. The invocation of Aratus is especially interesting, because it activates several traditional aspects of Aratus’ poetry—he is concise (Comm. in Arat. 1.1.4) but nonetheless provides a description of the heavens in minute detail.192 Pliny uses the Phaenomena as a paradigm in his attempt to place his villa before his readers' eyes, that is, a paradigm of ecphrasis.

The villa’s grandeur parallels the vastness of Aratus’ subject, the celestial sphere. Finally,

192 See chapter one for Aratus’ famed λεπτότης.

136 Pliny compares the Phaenomena to Homer’s description of the arms of Achilles (Il.

18.478-614), a scene used by Aelius Theon as a classic example of ecphrasis in poetry

(Prog. 118-19).

Aratus' famed ability to convert readers into viewers can shed light on an interesting epigram preserved from the Garland of Philip by Antipater of Thessalonica

(1st c. AD.), a productive epigrammatist and the client of Lucius Calpurnius Piso.

Antipater dedicates to Piso a gift epigram describing two drinking vessels, which represent the northern and southern hemisphere of the celestial sphere.

Θειογένης Πείσωνι τὰ τεχνήεντα κύπελλα πέμπει˙ χωροῦμεν δ᾽οὐρανὸν ἀμφότερα˙ δοιὰ γὰρ ἐκ σφαίρης τετμήμεθα, καὶ τὸ μὲν ἡμῶν τοὺς νοτίους, τὸ δ᾽ ἔχει τείρεα τἀν Βορέῃ. ἀλλὰ σὺ μηκέτ᾽ Ἄρητον ἐπίβλεπε˙ δισσὰ γὰρ ἀμφοῖν μέτρα πιὼν ἀθρεῖς πάντα τὰ φαινόμενα. (Antipater of Thessalonica 64)

“Theogenes sends to Piso these skillfully crafted bowls; we both carry the sky; for the two of us are cut from a sphere, and one of us holds the southern [stars] and the other the signs in the North. So no longer look upon Aratus: for when you drink a double measure from both you observe all the celestial phenomena.”

Theogenes' gift, a pair of drinking cups, obviates any need for Piso to read the

Phaenomena, or so the epigram claims. By drinking, Piso can see the stars, and thus replace what he would supposedly gain from reading Aratus’ poetry, an act that Antipater describes as "looking" (ἐπίβλεπε). I would suggest that part of the game in the epigram is that it reverses a process for which Aratus was famous: whereas Aratus took a visual experience and translated it into words, the cups replace the experience of reading

Aratus’ poetry with a literally visual experience. The final couplet, furthermore, specifically suggests not "looking upon" Aratus, but drinking from each cup instead. It is

137 tempting to read this as a reference to the synanatolai, (i.e. the Simultaneous Risings) specifically: just as Aratus gives the simultaneous risings and settings of various constellations with the signs of the zodiac, one can view them for oneself as the wine recedes and the constellations “rise.”193 The ecphrastic quality of the Phaenomena comes out here in Antipater’s suggestion of a set of dynamic hemispheres, which can simulate the motion of rising and setting by the movement of the wine, converting the Syanatolai of the Phaenomena back into a physical model. Whether one reads Aratus or drinks with the cups, his or her experience is in some way visual.

Aratus’ achievement in delivering the content of the Phaenomena as he did earned him great fame among the Roman literary elite. In large part, this fame appears to have been connected to his ability to “put images before the eyes” with his words. While the mode of expression for which Aratus was famous cannot be completely severed from the content, Cicero and Pliny make direct reference to Aratus' ability to put words into images, while Antipater poeticizes the interchangeability of the Phaenomena with a visual model of the celestial sphere. In fact Cicero explicitly denies Aratus the knowledge of an astronomer, claiming that his ability to arrange and deliver the material, a poetic skill, earned Aratus his fame. Perhaps significantly, many of the alterations in Cicero’s translation appear to have been clarifications rather than corrections or astronomical divergences, suggesting a concern with expression rather than the scientific content of the

193 Barnes 2014 details the recent discovery of an archaic skyphos with constellations on the outside. I merely suggest the possibility that the reader of Antipater’s epigram is to see the constellations on the inside of the cups. Athenian eye cups, which in many cases can act as masks for those drinking in a sympotic setting, provide a parallel of drinking vessels that facilitate dynamic interaction between drinker and decoration: see Boardman 1976, 288, Ferrari 1986, Kunisch 1990, and Neer 2002, 42. Bundrick 2015 has most recently provided a contextual qualification for the function of this motif.

13 8 poem.194 The fact that Cicero did not use Hipparchus, then, could just as easily have been a function of deliberate choice as genuine ignorance. Cicero’s goal was the reproduction of a certain rhetorical effect; he was not a slavish translator. He set himself within the

Aratean tradition with a particular focus on Aratus' ability to arrange and present material, as well as the visual experience such a presentation might evoke. He chose not to engage the res of the poem on its own terms.

The Phaenomena in the Astronomical Tradition

Aratus and his Phaenomena could also be invoked as a crucial popularization of scientific astronomical work specifically. Especially when grouped with Hipparchus’ commentary, the Phaenomena appears to have won Aratus a name among a pantheon of astronomical experts, despite what Cicero tells us about his lay status. Vitruvius lists

Hipparchus and Aratus consecutively in a litany of astronomical experts (De Arch. 9.6.3), and Seneca cites Aratus as an authority on meteorology (Nat. Quaest. 1.13.3). When

Trimalchio’s guests flatter their host by claiming him to be an astronomical expert, moreover, they do so by denying that Aratus and Hipparchus are comparable to

Trimalchio (Cena 40).195 Here we see Aratus being linked with Hipparchus as if he were

194 Bishop 2011, 55-57. 195 iuramus Hipparchum Aratumque non comparandos illi non fuisse (We swore that neither Hipparchus nor Aratus were to be compared with him).

139 his peer in astronomical knowledge.196 According to one’s purposes, then, Aratus could be invoked as a model of science as easily as he could be invoked as a master of composition.

The scientific face of the Aratean tradition becomes manifest in Germanicus’ translation, whose technical embellishments distinguish it from Cicero’s translation.

Although we know little about the immediate context of Germanicus’ translation, its points of departure from Cicero's indicate a different set of concerns from those of

Cicero. Germanicus’ translation betrays familiarity with at least some of the content of

Hipparchus’ commentary, which accounts for several departures from Aratus’ original.

Germanicus also uses other sources, which remain obscure to us.197 Although

Germanicus’ poem is clearly a product of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, it also demonstrates astronomical competency sufficient to address some apparent shortcomings of the Phaenomena. Nevertheless, the work remains firmly within the didactic tradition:

Germanicus is more interested in acknowledging some of the astronomical imprecision in the Phaenomena than following through with a detailed scientific account that one might expect from the likes of Hipparchus.

At the same time, Germanicus carefully balances his embellishments of the

Phaenomena with close attention to the form of his poem. Thus in addition to adapting

Aratus’ work to its Roman imperial context—most notably, addressing his proem to

Caesar(ref.)—and rhetorically acknowledging astronomical issues in the commentary tradition of his Greek original, Germanicus takes pains to maintain the length of the

196 In Petronius, at least, it is possible that the guests' ranking of Aratus as an astronomical expert on par with Hipparchus is meant to make them appear foolish. 197 Gain 1976, 14-16.

140 astronomical section of the Phaenomena despite frequent expansions, for which he compensates through economy elsewhere. As I will show, Germanicus emphasizes his departures from the text while reflecting the overall length of his Aratean material: in the first fragment of around 725 lines, each divergence from the original entails a careful calculation restricting the translation to the same length as the text of the Phaenomena, within about ten lines. When adding to the content of his source text, Germanicus maintains the length of the poem through economy elsewhere.

Germanicus illustrates his control as a poet when he expands his description of the Maiden by comparing himself, as a poet, to a charioteer, who can freely direct his car into the Ages of Man digression. Despite a series of departures from and additions to the original, Germanicus’ account of the Maiden begins in line 96, exactly where Aratus’ account begins. Thus Germanicus begins:

Virginis inde subest facies, cui plena sinistra fulget Spica manu maturisque ardet aristis. quam te, diua, uocem? tangunt mortalia si te carmina nec surdam praebes uenerantibus aurem exosa heu mortale genus, medio mihi cursu stabunt quadrupedes et flexis laetus habenis teque tuumque canam terris uenerabile numen. (Aratus 96-102)

Then, beneath is the face of the Maiden, in whose left hand the Spica shines fully and burns with bright ears. How should I address you, goddess? If the songs of mortals touch you and you do not turn a deaf ear to worshippers in your hatred of human kind, my horses will stop in the middle of their course, and, delighting in the manipulation of my reins, I shall sing you and your divine godhead to the world.

Germanicus’ direct address to the Maiden is an addition to the Phaenomena, displacing

Aratus’ questions concerning the Maiden’s parentage:

141 ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ ποσσὶν ὕπο σκέπτοιο Βοώτεω Παρθένον, ἥ ῥ᾽ ἐν χειρὶ φέρει Στάχυν αἰγλήεντα. εἴτ᾽ οὖν Ἀστραίου κείνη γένος, ὅν ῥά τέ φασιν ἄστρων ἀρχαῖον πατέρ᾽ ἔμμεναι, εἴτε τευ ἄλλου, εὔκηλος φορέοιτο. (Phaen. 96-100)

And you might see beneath the feet of Bootes the Maiden, who holds in her hand a shiny Spica. Whether she is the child of Astraeus, whom they say to be the ancient father of the stars, or of someone else, may she pass in peace.

The Myth of the Ages follows 96-102 of Germanicus’ translation, just as it follows 96-

100 of Aratus’ original. Although Germanicus expands his introduction of the myth with a direct address to the Maiden and so displaces the Aratus' questions about her parentage, he nevertheless weaves those questions into his account of the Golden Race. Despite

Germanicus’ embellishment and lengthening of the original, his description of the constellation called the Charioteer begins at line 157, reflecting Phaenomena 156 with a difference of only one line. On the surface, Germanicus’ address to the Maiden merely marks the extended castasterism as a digression in a metapoetic metaphor comparing himself to a charioteer. He will pause his dissertation on celestial phenomena to narrate the Ages of Man myth. At the same time, Germanicus digresses from the Phaenomena by expanding on Aratus’ Greek original, delighting in his control over the presentation of

Aratus’ material. Thus Germanicus marks his own poetic goal of expansion and economy while reflecting the content of Aratus’ original. Germanicus will fulfill his promise through manipulation of his source text, while taking into account the commentary tradition, previous translations, and his distinctly Roman audience—directing the reins accordingly, as it were—all while maintaining the meter, length, and content of Aratus’ presentation of celestial phenomena.

142 Germanicus’ celebration of his own control over his poetic model follows a display of his various techniques, which can be illustrated in three sections—his introductory hymn to Caesar (1-16), his added glosses to Aratus’ treatment of the

Bears(27-28), and his correction of Aratus’ placement of Ophiouchus (81-82). Despite this succession of alterations and emendations to Aratus’ astronomy and mythological background, Germanicus highlights his manipulation of the source text by beginning his account of the Maiden on line 96 and celebrates it in his address to the Maiden herself.

The beginning of Germanicus’ translation explicitly distinguishes itself thematically from the Greek original by forsaking Aratus’ address to Zeus for an address to the emperor instead.

Ab Ioue principium magno deduxit Aratus. carminis at nobis, genitor, tu maximus auctor, te ueneror tibi sacra fero doctique laboris primitias. probat ipse deum rectorque satorque. quantum etenim possent anni certissima signa, qua Sol ardentem Cancrum rapidissimus ambit diuersasque secat metas gelidi Capricorni quaue Aries et Libra aequant diuortia lucis, si non parta quies te praeside puppibus aequor cultorique daret terras, procul arma silerent? nunc uacat audacis ad caelum tollere uultus sideraque et mundi uarios cognoscere motus, nauita quid caueat, quid scitus uitet arator, quando ratem uentis aut credat semina terris. haec ego dum Latiis conor praedicere Musis, pax tua tuque adsis nato numenque secundes. (Arat. 1-16)

Aratus finely wove his beginning from great Jupiter. But, father, you are the greatest source of my song; I honor you and bring to you sacrifice and the first fruits of my learned work. The ruler and savior of the gods himself approves. For how potent would [even] the surest signs of the year be [telling us] where the Sun most rapidly rounds the fiery Crab and cuts past the opposite turning post of the frozen Goat or where the Ram and the Balance make equal the division of light [from dark], if the peace having arisen from your chiefdom were not providing the

143 sea to ships and lands to the farmer, if arms were not silent for a long time now? Now, if one dares, there is time to lift his face to the sky and learn the varying movements of the universe, of what the sailor is wary, what the knowing plowman avoids, when the one entrusts his ship to the winds or the other his seeds to the earth. While I try to pronounce these things with Latin Muses (i.e. in Latin), may you as well as your peace be at hand for your son, and may you aide me with your presence.

The first line serves two purposes: it identifies the poem as a translation of the

Phaenomena, transmitting both the famous opening line as well as the name of its author, and it sets Germanicus up to distinguish his project from that of his predecessor. While

Aratus began with Zeus, Germanicus will offer his poem to the deceased Caesar, drawing a parallel between Zeus and the emperor.

Analogous to Germanicus’ announced deviation from Aratus’ beginning with

Zeus is his subsequent deviation from Aratus’ focus on Zeus’ activity as a placer of signs:

Germanicus’ proem focuses not on Zeus as the placer of the signs but on Caesar as the facilitator of Germanicus’ exposition of them. Roman peace, he contends, has allowed the world the time to learn to read the phenomena, which are implicitly useless for those without the leisure to read them. Germanicus attributes to his father a role similar to that attributed to Aratus himself by Leonidas of Tarentum by crediting him with the opportunity to study the stars (HE 101). While Leonidas praises Aratus for making the stars brighter, Germanicus praises his father for allowing us to look at them, thus making them "more visible" in the sense that he has established a peace that affords his subjects the opportunity to study them. In either case, the recipient of this praise is mentioned after Zeus / Jupiter.

144 Finally, Germanicus marks his poem as a translation both by beginning his poem with "Aratus" and invoking the Latin Muses.198 He emulates Aratus in his attempt (conor) to accomplish in Latin what Aratus accomplished in Greek. Emulation simultaneously extols Aratus and emphasizes the challenge of converting his masterpiece into Latin.

Germanicus’ poem, then, becomes a poem self-consciously following the tradition of

Aratus. Rather than celebrate celestial phenomena themselves, it celebrates the tradition of studying and recording them. His point is not merely to celebrate astronomy, but the astronomical tradition facilitated by the peace established by the emperor.

Almost immediately following the proem, both Aratus and Germanicus address the circumpolar constellation the Bears, also called the Wagons. Again Germanicus poeticizes not only the content of the Phaenomena, but the commentary tradition as well, expanding upon Aratus’ description (Phaen. 26-27) by including details offered by a scholiast.

Axem Cretaeae dextra laeuaque tuentur siue Arctoe seu Romani cognominis Ursae Plaustraue, quae facies stellarum proxima uerae: tres temone rotisque micant, sublime quaternae. (Arat. 24-27)

The Cretan [Bears] look upon the axis to the right and left, whether they be Arctoe or Ursae by their Roman name or Plows, which is truly the image closest to the image of the stars: three stars shine on the rod and wheels, four on the upper part.

Both authors then move on to give the catasterism myth behind their identification as the

Bears and then contrast Helice from Cynosura in her capacity as a guide for sailors.

Germanicus’ gloss equating Ursae and Plaustra with Arctoe is an addition to his source

198 McElduff 2013, 152-57 discusses how Germanicus' proem emphasizes its status as a translation.

145 text for the convenience of his Roman readers. His explanation of how the constellations resemble plows is also an addition to the text, apparently drawn from whatever sources lie behind our Aratean scholia (Martin 1974, 77). Germanicus thus not only adds the equivalent Latin terminology to Aratus’ naming of the constellations as Bears or Wagons but also contributes information drawn from the scholarship connected to the passage.

The addition, however, results in two extra lines in Germanicus’ text, two lines for which Germanicus compensates in his subsequent description of the Kneeler.

Haud procul effigies inde est defecta labore. non ulli nomen, non cognita causa laboris: dextro namque genu nixus diuersaque tendens bracchia, suppliciter passis ad numina palmis, Serpentis capiti figit uestigia laeua.

Not far from there is an image overcome with labor. To nobody is his name known, nor the cause of his labor: for indeed straining on his right knee and holding his arms out apart, with his palms held up to the gods in the manner of a suppliant, he affixes his left foot to the head of the Dragon. (Arat. 65-69)

Germanicus’ economy eliminates three lines from Aratus’ original:

τῆς δ᾽ ἀγχου μογέοντι κυλίνδεται ἀνδρι ἐοικὸς εἴδωλον. τὸ μεν οὔτις ἐπίσταται ἀμφαδὸν εἰπεῖν, οὐδ᾽ ὅντινι δρέμαται κεῖνος πόνῳ ἀλλά μιν αὕτως ἐν γόνασιν καλέουσι τὸ δι᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἐν γούνασι κάμνον ὀκλάζοντι ἔοικεν˙ ἀπ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων δέ οἱ ὤμων χεῖρες ἀείρονται, τάνυται γε μὲν ἄλλυδις ἄλλη ὅσσον ἐπ᾽ ὀργυιήν˙ μέσσῳ δ᾽ἐφύπερθε καρήνῳ δεξιτεροῦ ποδὸς ἄκρον ἔχει σολιοῖο Δράκοντος. (Phaen. 63-70)

And near her rotates the likeness of a man laboring. Nobody is able to say openly who he is or on what task that man is working, but they just call him the Kneeler because of the fact that he resembles someone laboring at something on his knees; and his hands rise from both his shoulders and one stretches one way, the other the other as far as a fathom; and he holds the end of his right foot over the middle of the head of the tortuous Dragon.

146 Germanicus omits no information, although he does side with Hipparchus against Aratus by claiming, unequivocally, that the Kneeler’s left foot, not his right, lies above the

Dragon’s head (Comm. in Arat. 1.2.6).199 All the same, he uses five lines to convey the information that Aratus conveys in eight. To this end he elides Aratus’ logic by making the image itself (effigies) overcome by labor, whereas Aratus tells of an image of a man overcome by labor. Germanicus’ line 66, moreover, does almost all the work of Aratus’

64-65. Despite his economy, he specifies that the Kneeler is on his right knee (dextro) with his left foot (laeua) over the Dragon’s head, relating the content of Hipparchus' commentary.

In leaving nothing about the Kneeler’s position ambiguous, Germanicus responds to the commentary tradition surrounding Aratus’ description, which produced at least three reactions. Attalus emends the line in order to save Aratus’ authority (Comm. in

Arat. 1.4.9); Hipparchus criticizes and corrects Aratus, pushing his own agenda of challenging Aratus’ audience to read critically (Comm. in Arat. 1.1.4); the scholiast maintains the same text as Hipparchus, but interprets δεξιτεροῦ as an adjective modifying Δράκοντος and meaning "further north," thus saving the Phaenomena with interpretive ingenuity (Martin 1974, 102-3). Germanicus’ rendition leaves nothing to doubt, specifying precisely which leg is in what position. Germanicus’ poetic economy, which allows him to reflect the form of Aratus’ Phaenomena by matching the overall length of the astronomical section, still accommodates the rhetoric of scientific precision, accounting for the commentary tradition that calls into question Aratus’ reputation for astronomical accuracy.

199 See my discussion in chapter 2.

147 As Germanicus approaches nearer to the myth of the Maiden, he describes the relative positions of the Scorpion and the Snake in lines 81-89, reflecting Phaenomena

82-89.

Scorpios ima pedum tangit, sed planta sinistra in tergo residet uestigia dextera pendent. impar est manibus pondus: nam dextera paruam partem Anguis retinet, per laeuam attollitur omnis quantumque ab laeua distantia Serta notantur erigitur tantum Serpens atque ultima mento stella sub aetheria lucet crinita Corona. at qua se dorso sinuabit lubricus Anguis insigni caelum perfundent lumine Chelae. (Arat. 81-89)

The Scorpion touches the bottom of his [Ophiuchus'] feet, but the bottom of his left foot sits on the back and the right foot hangs. The weight in his hands is uneven: for the right hand holds a small part of the Snake, and all is lifted through his left hand, and however much the Garlands are seen extending beyond his left hand so much does the Serpent rear up, and the last star shines on its chin as though it has hairs under the celestial Crown. But where the slippery Snake wraps itself around his [Ophiuchus'] back the Claws pour forth with clear light throughout the sky.

Compare Aratus’ correlating lines:

ἀμφότεραι δ᾽ Ὄφιος πεπονήαται, ὅς ῥά τε μέσσον δινεύει Ὀφιοῦχον. ὁ δ᾽ ἐμμενὲς εὖ ἐπαρηρὼς ποσσιν ἐπιθλίβει μέγα θηρίον ἀμφοτέροισι Σκορπίον ὀφθαλμῷ τε καὶ ἐν θώρηκι βεβηκὼς ὀρθός. ἀτάρ οἱ Ὄφις γε δύω στρέφεται μετὰ χερσί, δεξιτερῇ ὀλίγος, σκαιῇ γε μὲν ὑψόθι πολλός. καὶ δή οἱ Στεφάνῳ παρακέκλιται ἄκρα γένεια, νειόθι δὲ σπείρης μεγάλας ἐπιμαίεο Χηλάς. (Phaen. 82-89)

And both hands struggle with the Serpent, which twirls about the middle of Ophiouchus. And he, firm on his feet, crushes the great beast with both of them, the Scorpion, standing straight on both his eye and his midriff. The snake, however, wraps about in his two hands, a little on the right and a lot in the left on high. And of course the ends of his knees lie near the Crown, and underneath its coil you might find the great Claws.

148 Germanicus reorganizes his passage to reflect corrections of Aratus. Thus, agreeing with

Hipparchus that only one of Ophiouchus’ feet touches the back of the Scorpion (Comm.

In Arat. 1.4.15),200 Germanicus adapts the precise discourse of astronomical prose by indicating specifically that the left foot lies on the Scorpion’s back while the right foot hangs. Despite his expansion, however, Germanicus nonetheless lands on line 89 at the end of his description, maintaining the overall shape—hexameters—and length of the first 100 lines of the Phaenomena preceding the description of the Maiden. The first hundred lines of the translation thus establish a program of incorporating the astronomical tradition while emphatically constraining his work within the boundaries of didactic poetry. This program culminates in his version of Aratus' synanatolai (573-88).

The Synanatolai hold special importance for the scientific tradition surrounding

Aratus’ Phaenomena. When criticizing the supposed usefulness of Aratus’ poetry,

Hipparchus pays close attention to this section as the most emphatically utilitarian of the poem. Challenging the Phaenomena’s utility, Hipparchus points out that the obliquity of the ecliptic entails a change in rising time from sign to sign and provides his own detailed version of the Synanatolai that works more precisely as a sort of astronomical reference guide. Germanicus poeticizes the call for precision while emphasizing the poetic form of

Aratus’ work.

Saepe uelis quantum superet cognoscere noctis et spe uenturae solari pectora lucis. prima tibi nota Solis erit, quo sidere currat; semper enim signo Phoebus radiabit in uno. cetera tum propriis ardentia suspice flammis, quod cadat aut surgat summoue feratur in orbe, quantoue exiliant spatio, cum caerula linquunt;

200 But see Hyginus Astron. p. 87.18-23 Brunte, which agrees with Aratus.

149 namque aliis pernix saltus, maiore trahuntur mole alia, Oceanum tardo linquentia passu. quodsi nube caua Solis uia forte latebit, occultet aut signum conscendens uertice caelum altus Athos uel Cyllene uel candidus Haemus Gargaron aut Ides superisue habitatus Olympus, tum dextra laeuaque simul redeuntia signis sidera si noris, nunquam te tempora noctis effugient, nunquam ueniens Tithonidos ortus. (Arat. 573-88)

Often you may want to know how much of the night remains and for your heart to be consoled by the hope of light soon to come. The first thing for you to know will be with what star it runs; for always Phoebus will shine in one sign. Then observe the remainder of the stars burning with their own flames, which one falls or rises or coasts in the sphere above, or in how much time it rises when they are leaving the blue depths behind; for some there is a quick leap, others are dragged in greater heaps, leaving Ocean with a slow step. But if the Sun’s path will be hidden, by chance, by a dark cloud, or high Athos, or Cyllene, or white Haemus, or Gargaron, or Ides, or Olympus, inhabited by the gods, then, if you have learned the stars to the right and left returning at the same time as the signs, never will the times of the night escape you, never the impending rising of Tithonus’ lady.

Lines 576-80 are an addition to Aratus’ original, which appears, on the face of it, to claim that one need only count the number of signs left before sunrise in order to know the remaining length of the night.201

οὔ κεν ἀπόβλητον δεδοκημένῳ ἤματος εἴη μοιράων σκέτεσθαι ὅτ᾽ ἀντέλλῃσιν ἑκάστη˙ αἰεὶ γὰρ τάων γε μιῇ συνανέρχεται αὐτὸς ἠἔλιος. τὰς δ᾽ ἄν κε περισκέψαιο μάλιστα εἰς αὐτὰς ὁρόων˙ ἀτὰρ εἰ νεφέεσσι μέλαιναι γίνοιντ᾽ ἢ ὄρεος κεκρυμμέναι ἀντέλλοιεν, σήματ᾽ ἐπερχομένῃσιν ἀρηρότα ποιήσασθαι. αὐτὸς δ᾽ ἂν μάλα τοι κεράων ἑκάτερθε διδοίη ὠκεανός, τά τε πολλὰ περιστέφεται ἑοῖ αὐτῷ, νειόθεν ὁππῆμος κείνων φορέῃσιν ἑκάστην. (Phaen. 559-568)

201 Kidd 1997, 377 argues, on the contrary, that Aratus' words do not necessarily imply that one can know the precise time of night by observing the zodiac. Rather, the Zodiac can serve as a rough guide.

150 It would not be fruitless for one awaiting day to look at when each of the signs should rise; for always does the sun itself rise with one of them. And you should seek them especially by looking straight at them; but if they should rise covered by clouds or hidden by a mountain, affix signs to them as they rise. And Ocean himself might give to you on each of its horns the many constellations that wrap around him, whenever he should bring up each of those twelfths from below.

Hipparchus criticizes Aratus’ version of the Synantolai specifically on the grounds that the obliquity of the ecliptic and the varied size of the constellations marking the signs make the rising times of each sign deviate drastically. Germanicus addresses the issue in line 579 by noting that one must know the different rising time of each sign before he can know when the Sun will rise. Rather than put this qualification in terms of the obliquity of the zodiac and distinguish between the constellations of the zodiac and the mathematically measured out signs, however, Germanicus chooses to depict a much more poetic world in which the constellations themselves “leap” (580) out of the ocean at varying speeds. In calling attention to the use of knowing the simultaneous risings and settings, moreover, Germanicus replaces Aratus’ generic “mountain” with a list of mountains of mythological importance. Thus Germanicus simultaneously engages the more prosaic tradition of discussing the Phaenomena’s astronomical legitimacy and also reaffirms his work as emphatically poetic.

Germanicus’ concerns differ from those of Cicero, who appears to attach more importance to the rhetorical presentation of the Phaenomena. While the evidence suggests that Cicero’s concerns with the Phaenomena are more or less purely formal,

Germanicus exercises his celebrated control over his source material not only in order to exalt Caesar but also to align himself with a tradition of enhanced scientific precision surrounding and reacting to Aratus’ work, all while maintaining the original shape and length of the Phaenomena. Thus throughout his translation, Germanicus emphasizes this

151 exactness by expanding upon Aratus’ original material, even though he does not follow through in providing his audience with the tradition’s strongest claim to utility, that of determining the time of night through the Synanatolai. Although Germanicus corrects

Aratus in accordance with Hipparchus’ commentary, clarifying that one cannot tell the time of night by the signs of the zodiac without determining the varied rising times of the signs (579),202 he does not provide those rising times. I suggest that this is because

Germanicus’ scientific embellishments aim to poeticize the tradition surrounding Aratus and the union of carmen and res. Although he incorporates the wider commentary tradition surrounding the Phaenomena, he nevertheless remains within the purview of didactic poetry: he stresses what one can know through celestial phenomena and indicates how one can know it, but he does not provide his readers with all the necessary tools to do so.

Aratea

The Phaenomena’s continued importance throughout the first centuries BC and

AD is abundantly evident. Poetic imitation of Aratus well demonstrated most recently by

Emma Gee, as well as the rich tradition of translating the Phaenomena, clearly shows the poem’s importance, while Aratus’ canonization as an astronomical authority secured his position as an emblem of scientific genius. The translations of Cicero and Germanicus approach the question of poetry’s suitability as a means of conveying precise scientific information from, as it were, opposite ends. Cicero focuses on Aratus’ rhetorical mastery,

202 Or at least there is no evidence that he does; the end of the poem does not survive.

152 and Germanicus poeticizes the mathematical tradition of engaging astronomical poetry by calling attention to how he manipulates his source material to convey updated astronomical material within the constraints of the size and form of Aratus’ original.

Aratus’ polyvalent appeal allowed him to hold an important position in both astronomical and epic traditions. Whether the importance of Cicero’s translation for

Lucretius was associated with the Phaenomena's status as an emblem of Stoic cosmology or not, Aratus’ importance for Cicero himself appears to have been, in the end, a matter of poetry’s kinship with rhetoric. Although Balbus’ use of the Aratea does occur during a defense of Stoic cosmology, the specific context begins with an argument appealing to visual phenomena and continues to do so through recitation of Cicero's Aratea. Balbus recites the verses because of their ability to evoke a persuasive image within the mind of the reader, as it were, in lieu of showing his interlocutors a picture. Cicero’s description of the activity of Aratus and Eudoxus, moreover, relates the composition of the

Phaenomena to the construction of physical models accounting for the movements of the stars. Although these instances come from Cicero’s philosophical work, his concerns are, all the same, bound up in oratory, which he demonstrates by comparing Aratus and

Nicander directly to an orator. Cicero is not alone in his admiration for Aratus’ ability to create an image in the mind of his readers: Pliny’s letter listing ecphrastic paradigms ranks the Phaenomena with the shield of Achilles and the shield of Aeneas, and

Antipater’s gift epigram indicates the Phaenomena's ecphrastic qualities by replacing the poem with a pair of physical cups. Aratus’ importance, then, was as much a matter of ecphrastic and rhetorical technique as it was founded on his role in the astronomical tradition.

153 Germanicus’ translation appears to differ from Cicero’s, as far as we can see, in that it poeticizes Aratus and the tradition surrounding the Phaenomena. By marking his poem as a translation of the Phaenomena in the first line, poeticizing his manipulation of

Aratus’ original material with the poet as charioteer metaphor, and incorporating the commentary tradition into his poem, Germanicus addresses not only astronomy per se, but the astronomical tradition surrounding Aratus as well. Germanicus affirms the efficacy of poetry as a medium for precise information by incorporating criticisms of

Aratus into his version while constraining himself to the length of the original. By supplanting the weather signs with what appears to be an astrological account,

Germanicus updates his poem to suit the interest of his contemporary audience and may even buttress his claim to the utility of the simultaneous risings and settings: a precise enough account of the Synanatolai would facilitate the determination of a horoscope.

Thus Germanicus poeticizes the entire tradition of scientific verse by translating, updating, and critiquing Aratus, all the while maintaining the same shape and length as his source material.

The Roman reception of Aratus and the Phaenomena, then, follows directly from its Hellenistic reception, which has at its heart a question concerning the appropriate role of astronomical verse. Aratus composed the Phaenomena in the early third century, after a long process wherein prose had supplanted poetry as the predominant medium of preserving precise systematic knowledge. The epigrammatic tradition preserved from

Aratus’ contemporaries praises the precision of his style and content. The commentaries of Attalus and Hipparchus each approach the text of the Phaenomena in different ways.

Whereas Attalus prioritizes Aratus’ status as a precise poet and so interprets the verses

154 accordingly, Hipparchus establishes Aratus’ meaning independently of astronomical matter of fact. Cicero’s use of Aratus as a model reflects Attalus’ interpretive technique by stressing Aratus’ poetic and communicative abilities without engaging critically with the astronomy. Germanicus’ translation expounds upon the Aratean tradition more broadly, deliberately compressing the wider tradition surrounding Aratus’ poem into the same package used by Aratus. Thus the translation tradition of Cicero and Germanicus reflect the Phaenomena’s Hellenistic reception by stressing the same two roles played by

Aratus, that of a poet in the epic tradition and that of astronomical authority. The fascination with which Aratus was viewed would seem to have been rooted in broader concerns about the role of poetry in knowledge production and dissemination in an age of ever increasing scientific precision.

155

Chapter 5

Conclusion

This dissertation has cast the reception of the Phaenomena into three phases: a contemporary response among poetic and intellectual circles, an astronomical response witnessed in Hipparchus' commentary, and a reception in Latin translations of the first centuries BC and AD. The progression from Aratus' poetic contemporaries to

Germanicus' translation finds unity in the relationship of the Phaenomena's reception to an underlying question concerning poetry's role in the organization and presentation of scientific knowledge. The Phaenomena sat at the heart of a larger conversation about whether poetry's primary function was to entertain or to educate.

Among his poetic contemporaries, Aratus won him a great deal of fame for technical verse composition. The success of the Phaenomena coheres well with the Stoic claim that cosmology can best be described by a poetic form reflecting the order of the universe. At the same time, the aesthetic qualities attributed to the Phaenomena— brightness, thinness, and purity—all contributed to Aratus' reputation for conveying precise astronomical content. Aratus invites this blurring of style and content in his famous acrostic, where the "thin" quality of the moon is literally spelled out in multiple axes all dependent on the metrical presentation of the content. The enhancement of

Aratus' authority through the nature of his verse composition appears to be novel in a sense: minute technical detail is reflected by his "refined" style. This represents, in a

156 sense, a departure from the progression of scientific authority rooted in abstract logic that culminated in Aristotle.203

Hipparchus' reaction to his predecessors suggests that Aratus' literary fame lent him authority in scientific circles as well. As represented by Hipparchus, even Attalus

(whom Hipparchus explicitly identifies as an astronomer) follows the imperative of reconciling the Phaenomena with celestial phenomena. Although Hipparchus blames this imperative on the seductive charm of Aratus' poetry, he explicitly blames Aratus' errors not on his use of poetic form, but on his prose source text. The poetic form does not inhibit Aratus from saying what he needs to say; it inhibits the audience from reading critically. At the same time, the decision to write a companion piece to the Phaenomena, rather than compete with it, endorses the primacy of Aratus as an introduction to astronomy, all the while demonstrating the insufficiency of his work. The Phaenomena provides a general introduction; Hipparchus provides the fine details to accompany it.

Translations of Cicero and Germanicus emphasize different aspects of this same

Aratean tradition: whereas Cicero concerns himself primarily with aspects of the

Phaenomena related to its poetics and related philosophical implications, Germanicus' interest lies in the tradition of astronomical verse itself. Cicero's admiration and imitation of Aratus' presentation of astronomical information dovetail well with his Stoic sympathies, which are wrapped up in the poem's capacity to reflect cosmic order. The vivid description of the Phaenomena also contributes to Aratus' ability to persuade his audience and so provides a good model for rhetorical ecphrasis.

203 Goldhill 2002, 80-110 argues that Aristotle's innovation was to ground his authority purely in abstract logic.

157 Germanicus indicates the focus on the tradition of astronomical verse with his first line, which locates the beginning of that tradition in Aratus' famous opening ἐκ Διὸς

ἀρχώμεσθα. By affirming the capacity of poetry to accommodate advancements in astronomical records, Germanicus' Aratus resembles the tradition of mathematical texts, which could evolve along with advances in mathematics and the needs of Hellenistic editors.204 Germanicus insists on the form and poetic narrative of Aratus' project by maintaining its original length and even embellishing its poetic narrative, even while he updates the astronomical details within that structure.

The history of the Aratean tradition, then, lies at the crux of conversations concerning the appropriate role of poetry, often represented in a dilemma between entertainment and utility. The reception of the Phaenomena for the first three centuries provides the development of a more nuanced answer: although poetic form provides entertainment, it can reinforce the content in various ways. Thus Callimachus connects the synesthetic themes with the sweetness of Aratus' poetry, and Balbus remembers the

Aratea because of his enjoyment. Although Hipparchus issues his warning about Aratus' potentially deceptive charm and emphasizes the benefit of his own project, he does not deny Aratus' ability to make meaningful claims. The form of scientific texts have solidified since the Enlightenment, but the value of a scientific poem was not so preposterous to an ancient audience. And in fact the popularity of Aratus' Phaenomena would endure up to the modern era, giving credence to Ovid's pronouncement: "with the sun and moon will always be Aratus," (Am. 1.15.16).

204 Berggren and Thomas 1996, 15-16.

158

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