Time and Place, Narrative and Speech in Philicus, Philodamus and Limenius

chapter 5 Time and Place, Narrative and Speech in Philicus, Philodamus and Limenius

E.L. Bowie

My three chosen subjects may seem unlikely bedfellows: two poets whose epi- graphically preserved hymns were composed for performance in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, Philodamus of Scarpheia and Limenius of Athens; and composing between them chronologically, but treated before them in my discussion, a scholarly figure from the Alexandrian Pleiad, Philicus of Corcyra, of whose hymn to Demeter a third century bc papyrus preserves 62 lines in vari- ous degrees of legibility. Yet their works are all “hymns,” and their diversity will cast some light on the difference that can be found between species of the capa- cious form. My discussion of Philicus will bring out how prominent speeches seem to have been in his hymn, and how its spatial focus was concentrated on three demes of Attica associated with the cult of Demeter and Persephone, Eleusis, Halimous and above all (I propose) Prospalta, a focus that seems to have been matched by his otherwise surprising choice of Attic dialect for his medium. Philicus’ apparent choice of Prospalta for the dramatically presented entry and rhesis of the old woman from Halimous, Iambe, may, I suggest, have related to his use of his hymn to offer an alternative explanation for the origins of aischrologia in the cult of Demeter and perhaps for its place in Attic comedy. By contrast the hymns of Philodamus and Limenius, performed and then inscribed for timeless readers in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, sweep their audiences and viewers along on the whirlwind journeys through Greece performed by the fama and by the persons of the hymned divinities—Dionysus in the case of Philodamus, Apollo in that of Limenius—journeys that end at the navel of the world where the performance and inscription happens, and in Limenius’ poem a journey that is paralleled by the movement from Athens to Delphi of the Pythais that performs it. Again by contrast with Philicus, whose poem seems to have had a possibly slender narrative frame within which very substantial aetiological speeches were set, the primary level of utterance chosen by Philodamus is invocation, to which narrative of the god’s birth, movements and instructions to mortals is subordinated by a relative pronoun. Limenius has roughly equal proportions of invocation and narrative. Within

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004289512_007 88 bowie these narratives we never hear unambiguously inset speech, though Philo- damus offers some cases where singers of the paean and singers who inhabit his subordinate narrative may be singing from the same hymn sheet.

Philicus

Although Philicus falls chronologically between Philodamus and Limenius, the very different nature of his hymn prompts considering him first.1 Philicus was a priest of Dionysus in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus and probably an early president of the guild of Dionysiac technitae, with whom he marches in the great procession of the penteteric Ptolemaea that fell in 279/278bc, 275/274bc or 271/270bc and whose description by Callixeinus of Rhodes is preserved by Athenaeus.2 As is shown by the metre of fragment 677 sh (printed below), his name is Philicus, not Philiscus, the form which is found in the manuscripts of the Suda and is unfortunately printed by Olson in his recent Loeb edition of Athenaeus.3 The Suda entry suggests that Philicus was chiefly known for the composition of tragedies:

Φιλίσκος, Κερκυραῖος, Φιλώτου υἱός, τραγικὸς καὶ ἱερεὺς τοῦ Διονύσου ἐπὶ τοῦ Φιλαδέλφου Πτολεμαίου γεγονώς. καὶ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τὸ Φιλίσκιον μέτρον προση- γορεύθη, ἐπείπερ αὐτῷ ἐνεδαψιλεύετο. ἔστι δὲ τῆς δευτέρας τάξεως τῶν τραγι- κῶν, οἵτινές εἰσιν ζʹ καὶ ἐκλήθησαν Πλειάς. αἱ δὲ τραγωιδίαι αὐτοῦ εἰσι μβʹ.

Philiscus of Corcyra, son of Philotas, tragedian and priest of Dionysus active under Ptolemy Philadelphus. And the Philiscian meter was named after him, since he indulged in it liberally.He is among the second group of tragedians, who are seven and were nicknamed the “Pleiad.” His tragedies number 42.4

1 For careful and perceptive discussions of the poem see Brown 1990; Furley 2009, Giuseppetti 2012. A valuable re-edition of the fragments of Philicus, with introduction and commentary, is offered by Provenzale 2009. I am grateful to Prof. J. Danielewicz for drawing my attention to this thesis. Philicus makes no appearance at all in Bouchon, Brillet-Dubois and Le Meur Weissman 2012. 2 Ath. 5.196a and 198b–c = Callixeinus, FGrH 627 f2. On the date cf. Rice 1983: 182–187, Proven- zale 2009: 43. 3 Olson 2006: 456 (Ath.5.198b), Suda Φ 358, cf. Snell, TrGF 104. On the form of the name see Provenzale 2009: 36–37. 4 The translation is that of Chad Schroeder in the Suda on line. Käppel’s figure of 24 in Brill’s New Pauly s.v. Philicus is presumably a misprint.