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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses Callimachus and Catullus in a Quest for Liberty SBERNA, DANIELE How to cite: SBERNA, DANIELE (2017) Callimachus and Catullus in a Quest for Liberty, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12331/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Daniele Sberna – Callimachus and Catullus in a Quest for Liberty Although studies of Callimachus’s crucial influence upon Catullus abound, my thesis purports to provide new insights to an old question. I argue that Callimachus bequeaths a quest for liberty to Catullus. Each of the three chapters devotes its Greek half to one aspect of this Callimachean quest and its Latin half to the way in which Catullus Romanises such a pursuit. Specifically, in chapter 1, I submit that through the combination of two metaphors in the Reply to the Telchines (namely Μοῦσα λεπταλέη and σχοῖνος Περσίς) Callimachus stakes his claim to poetic freedom. Thereafter, I propose that Catullus’s decided adoption of Callimachean λεπτότης through the word lepos does not merely amount to the espousal of a poetic tenet. Rather, it heralds his infringement of the mos maiorum thanks to the social overtones of lepos even if, as poem 16 illustrates, Catullus is aware of his contemporaries’ malevolent reactions. Subsequently, in chapter 2, I set forth that Callimachus refuses to abide by the principle of τὸ πρέπον, which governs the convenient relationship between subject-matter and linguistic register. Thereupon, I propound that Catullus embraces Callimachus’s rebelliousness against the criterion of τὸ πρέπον. In so doing, despite the anxieties about his own attitude, which he voices in the last stanza of poem 51, Catullus conveys his own politically charged noncompliance with two staples of Roman seemliness (honestum otium and utilitas of the written fruits of leisure). Then, in chapter 3, I maintain that Callimachus masterfully succeeds in blending encomiastic poetry in praise of members of the Ptolemaic court with assertions of his poetic excellence. Finally, I put forward that, in his carmina addressed to socially superior individuals, Catullus absorbs and bolsters the Callimachean heritage: he reciprocates respect with poetic gifts and retaliates arrogance by means of vitriolic abuse. Callimachus and Catullus in a Quest for Liberty Daniele Sberna Thesis submitted to the Department of Classics and Ancient History, Durham University, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 30th May 2017 Table of Contents Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... 3 Declaration .......................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 5 Dedication............................................................................................................................6 Introduction… ..................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1: From Callimachus’s λεπτότης to multifaceted lepos in Lucretius, Catullus and Cicero .............................................................................................................. 57 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 57 1.2 Μοῦσα λεπταλέη versus σχοῖνος Περσίς: Callimachus stakes his claim to poetic freedom ................................................................................................................... 60 1.3 From Μοῦσαν λεπταλέην to musaeo lepore: Lucretius’s paradoxical reception of Callimachus ............................................................................................................. 78 1.4 Catullan passion for lepos and proclamationof liberty ............................................ 85 1.5 Cicero’s dismissal of lepos in the orations and his conditional endorsement thereof in de Orat. ................................................................................................................. 96 Chapter 2: Callimachus and Catullus against appropriateness........................................ 114 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 114 2.2. The Telchines’ slanderous insinuation of childishness on Callimachus’s part….117 2.2.1 Aristotle and his successors on τὸ πρέπον ............................................................ 123 2.2.2 Callimachus in opposition to τὸ πρέπον .............................................................. 129 2.3 Catullus and Cicero on otium ................................................................................ 135 2.3.1 Cicero and his obsession with honestum otium................................................... 135 2.3.2 Catullus’s inhonestum otium ............................................................................... 145 Chapter 3: Liberty and patronage ..................................................................................... 161 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 161 1 3.2 Callimachus vis-à-vis the Ptolemaic court ............................................................ 165 3.3 Catullus face to face with his amici superiores ..................................................... 187 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 218 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 230 2 Abbreviations Standard abbreviations for collections and editions of texts and for works of reference are used. The following may also be noted: AP Anthologia Palatina. FGE D. L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge 1981). OLD P. G. W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford1982). LSJ H.G. Liddell – R. Scott – H. Stuart Jones – R. McKenzie – P.G. W. Glare, Greek-English Lexicon, with a revised supplement (9th ed., Oxford 1996). RE A. Pauly – G.Wissowa – W. Kroll et al. (eds.), Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart-Munich1893-1980) SH H. Lloyd-Jones – P. Parsons, Supplementum Hellenisticum (Berlin-New York, 1983). All dates are BC, unless otherwise indicated. 3 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 4 Acknowledgements I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to my three mentors. Above all, I am profoundly grateful to Prof. Ivana Petrovic, my first supervisor, or, in Callimachus’s words, a Μοῦσα λεπταλέη: through all the stages of my postgraduate journey, she has been a generous source of support, inspiration and patience. I am also truly beholden to Dr Peter Heslin, my second supervisor: he has opportunely helped me to bring my work to completion. Likewise, I am much obliged to Prof. Irmgard Männlein-Robert for her bounteous hospitality during my Erasmus placement inTübingen. Concerning my nearest and dearest, I am deeply indebted to all my European dulces comitum coetus (to borrow from Catullus), to my family, most especially, my parents. Finally, I am really appreciative of Ms. Kate Hillier, who has painstakingly polished my English. 5 To my parents: without you, nothing would have ever begun. 6 Introduction Beyond doubt, my study of Callimachus’s crucial and multifaceted artistic influence upon Catullus walks a well-trodden path: as the literature review reveals, from the 1930s until the present day, it has been constantly putting generations of Latinists and Hellenists to the test. For all that, aware of the most recent developments in Callimachean and Catullan scholarship, in each of the three chapters of this thesis, I provide new answers to old questions. Namely, I argue that Callimachus’s quest for liberty in the aesthetic realm and in his interactions with the Ptolemaic court is fruitfully appropriated by Catullus in his own pursuit of autonomy from the mos maiorum (subordination of literature to thepolitical life and usefulness of the written work to the community) and in his unflinching relationships with socially superior individuals. In more detail, concerning Callimachus, I start by developing an idea originally advocated in my 2011 Durham MA dissertation taking on board the arguments contained in the opening chapter of Acosta-Hughes and Stephens’ 2012 monograph ‘Callimachus in Context’. I submit that through the combination of Μοῦσα λεπταλέη (Fr. 1.24 Harder,
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