Structures of Epic Poetry

Structures of Epic Poetry
Structures of
Epic Poetry
Volume I: Foundations
Edited by
Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann
ISBN 978-3-11-049200-2
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Acknowledgements
Ancient epic and, in particular, structures of epic poetry have stood in the centre
of Christiane Reitz’ research for a long time. Due to this continued interest in the
various structural elements of the epic genre more than 10 years ago in a working
group with long-time collaborators the idea was born to bring experts and new
voices in the field of epic poetry together in order to develop a comprehensive
companion to the structures of ancient epic. With the generous support of the
German Research Foundation (DFG) and the arrival of Simone Finkmann who
joined Christiane Reitz from the University of Oxford to take on this truly ‘epic’
task with great enthusiasm and new ideas, this complex concept could finally be
realised and developed into its current form, a four-volume compendium on the
structural elements and narrative patterns of the literary tradition from Homer to
Neo-Latin epic.
It is a testament to the closely-knit community of scholars working on epic
poetry that many of the colleagues who came together a decade ago to discuss this
project indeed became contributors of this compendium and that those who were
unable to contribute papers of their own acted as important advisers. As the latter
group does not appear in this compendium, we would like to take this opportunity
to thank them and acknowledge their invaluable support and input: Thomas Baier,
Ludwig Braun, Claudia Klodt, Gernot Michael Müller, Christine Schmitz, Ferdinand
Stürner, and last but not least, Christine Walde who advised and encouraged
us throughout the project. We would moreover like to thank Manuel Baumbach,
Pramit Chaudhuri, Christopher Forstall, Lavinia Galli Milić, Gesine Manuwald,
Damien Nelis, Peter Orth, and Alessandro Schiesaro for their extensive feedback
and advice on individual papers as well as the entire project at several stages of
our work.
We are most grateful to all our contributors who not only agreed to write the
comprehensive diachronic chapters but also took time out of their busy schedules
to share and discuss their results with us during a series of colloquia, lectures,
workshops, and conferences at Rostock, Berlin, and Vandœuvres. We are especially
indebted to those colleagues who kindly offered to contribute more than one
chapter or who agreed to write a paper at a later stage of the project, following
belated author withdrawals or conceptual additions to our volumes. This is also
the reason why we took it upon ourselves to contribute more than one chapter
each to our compendium.
In addition to the German Research Foundation, without whom this project
would not have been possible, we received financial support from the Heinrich
Schliemann-Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, the Philosophische Fakultät,
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-202
VI | Acknowledgements
the Professorinnenprogramm funded by the University of Rostock and the German

Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Society for the Promotion
of Hellenic Studies, and the Department ‘Wissen–Kultur–Transformation’ of the
Interdisciplinary Faculty of the University of Rostock, which allowed us to employ
a team of research assistants, undertake crucial research stays in London at the
Institute of Classical Studies and in Vandœuvres at the Fondation Hardt, and to
organise additional workshops, such as our two main conferences ‘Non nisi grandia
canto – Die Transformation narrativer Strukturelemente in der epischen Tradition’
(15.–17.12.2016) and ‘Narratology and Structure in Ancient Epic’ (16.–17.11.2017) in
Rostock.
We are excited that the work on our project has led to a new departmental
partnership with the Classics Department at the University of Georgia, and we
are grateful to Thomas Biggs and his colleagues, as well as to Gesine Manuwald
and our Erasmus partners Alison Sharrock and Marco Fucecchi for hosting us
and/or members of our team, as well as to the many other colleagues who invited
us to give lectures during this time, allowing us to present our on-going work
to a wider audience. We were also able to discuss our plans and findings in an
interdisciplinary setting during the conference we held in December 2016 and on
various other occasions with colleagues from neighbouring disciplines both in
Rostock and at other institutions.
We are very thankful to Lavinia Galli Milić, Damien Nelis, and the Swiss Na-
tional Science Foundation (SNF) for hosting the joint workshop ‘Exploring the
Boundaries of Narrative Structures in Epic Poetry’ (3.–5.2.2017) at the Fondation
Hardt in Vandœuvres and to our publishing house De Gruyter, especially Serena
Pirrotta, Katharina Legutke, and Torben Behm, for their kind and professional
supervision of the book publication, their encouragement and support, as well as
their generous offer to host workshops for us in Berlin and to finance a part-time
research assistant for the preparation of the index rerum and the index nominum.
During our work on the manuscript we could rely on the help of many support-
ive collaborators. We were so fortunate to work with an excellent team of student
helpers and research assistants without whom the editing of our four volumes
would not have been feasible: Felix Apel, Maria Dreier, Jannien Finck, Lars Liemer,
Maria Lüchow, Katja Milkowski, Laura Rodegro, Eric Starzynski, and Martin Wag-
ner all supported us in various phases of our project. We are, in particular, indebted
to Patrick Hilmer who became an invaluable team member in the final two years
of our projects and to Hellmut Braun who diligently helped us prepare the in-
dex nominum and the index rerum. We are moreover grateful to Konrad Löbcke,
Christopher Londa, and Orla Mulholland who assisted us with the correction of
the contributions by non-native speakers and, as experts in the field of Classics
Acknowledgements | VII
themselves, also provided some of our authors with excellent translations of their
work.
Eric Naujoks’ expertise, patience, and meticulous work on the typesetting of
our compendium cannot be praised highly enough. If it had not been for his, and
in the final stages of the project, also Jörn Kobes’ very capable and conscientious
work, our four volumes would have taken on a very different appearance. The
same can be said not only of our De Gruyter editors but also of the entire Konvertus
team, Anne Rudolph, Katja Schubert, and especially Simone Hausmann, who very
competently supervised the editing process.
Just as crucial to the success of the project was Matteo Romanello from the Digi-
tal Humanities Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
who designed our EpiBau digital companion, a web application (http://epibau.ub.
uni-rostock.de/app/) and API (http://epibau.ub.uni-rostock.de/api/) that make
the compendium’s contents more readily accessible and easily searchable for its
readers, and allowed us to extract the cited ancient literature semi-automatically
for our index locorum with his Cited Loci citation mining technology. We are also
grateful for the support from the University Library in Rostock and its Digital
Library Division, especially Robert Zepf, Karsten Labahn, and Robert Stephan,
who helped us design the digital compendium in the early stages and who will
curate the database to ensure its long-time accessibility.
At the Heinrich Schliemann-Institut für Altertumswissenschaften we could
always rely on the kind and competent help of Brigitte Meyer, Grit Rausch, and
especially Anke Wegner, as well as on the encouragement of our colleagues, some
of whom have also become contributors to our compendium.
Last, but certainly not least, we are extremely grateful to our loving families
and friends for their patience, support, and understanding during what has been
a demanding, but most rewarding research project.
Christiane Reitz
Simone Finkmann
Contents
Acknowledgements | V

Introduction | 1
Part I: Theories of epic
Philip Hardie
Ancient and modern theories of epic | 25
Joseph Farrell
The narrative forms and mythological materials of classical epic | 51
Egbert Bakker
Learning the epic formula | 81
Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

Narratology and classical epic | 99
Christiane Reitz
Epic and rhetoric | 115
Gregor Bitto
Alexandrian book division and its reception in Greek and Roman epic | 133
Part II: Classification and genre
Annemarie Ambühl
Intergeneric influences and interactions | 167
Jason Nethercut
History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic | 193
Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and interactions | 213
X | Contents
Alison Sharrock
Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the naughty boy of the Graeco-Roman epic
tradition | 275
Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

Epic fragments | 317
Simone Finkmann
Narrative patterns and structural elements in Greek epyllia | 357
Nicola Hömke
Epic structures in classical and post-classical Roman epyllia | 443
Part III: Core structures
Claudia Schindler
The invocation of the Muses and the plea for inspiration | 489
Andrew Zissos
Closure and segmentation: endings, medial proems, book divisions | 531
Heinz-Günther Nesselrath
‘Almost-episodes’ in Greek and Roman epic | 565
Anke Walter
Aetiology and genealogy in ancient epic | 609
Christiane Reitz, Cédric Scheidegger Lämmle, and Katharina Wesselmann

Epic catalogues | 653
Ursula Gärtner and Karen Blaschka

Similes and comparisons in the epic tradition | 727
Stephen Harrison
Artefact ekphrasis and narrative in epic poetry from Homer to Silius | 773
Indices | 807
Introduction
On 21 April 1797 Friedrich Schiller wrote to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that a
chief characteristic of the epic poem is the independence of its parts.¹ Indeed,
ancient philologists, especially those engaged in early Homeric criticism, have
long since observed that within the Iliad and the Odyssey certain recognisable
scenes organise the poems’ sequences of action.² The scholiasts and ancient com-
mentators, however, did not develop an overarching concept for the analysis of
this phenomenon; rather, they discussed the individual scenes separately accord-
ing to their shared content: e.g. arming scenes, messenger scenes, and typical
actions on the battlefield. In 1933 Arend published his dissertation Die typischen
Scenen bei Homer. This influential work identified recurring narrative themes in
the Homeric epics and assessed both how a given pattern may be altered to fit each
new poetic context and how schematic ‘type-scenes’ accentuate actions within the
poem. Such scenes included, for example, meal preparations, sacrifices, arrivals,
and assemblies.
At the same time as classical philologists of the early 20th century were studying
Homeric type-scenes, scholars of oral poetry, at that point a still developing field
of research, made similar observations about their material. Edwards (1991, 11–15),
in his concise overview of Homer’s orality,³ traces the roles played by ‘type-scenes’
and ‘story patterns’ within developing conceptions of the production and reception
of oral poetry.⁴ Today many Homeric scholars, while accepting the importance of
orality for their subject, nevertheless take a measured view of the issue, a position
nicely illustrated by the Basler Gesamtkatalog⁵ or by the introduction to Graziosi/
Haubold (2010, 17):
1 “Es wird mir aus allem was Sie sagen, immer klarer, daß die Selbstständigkeit seiner Theile einen
Hauptcharakter des epischen Gedichtes ausmacht.” In their correspondence during the spring of
1797 Goethe and Schiller examine the parallels and differences between the epic and the dramatic
form. Their discussion combines theoretical reflection with their own practical experience. This
exchange of ideas came to be known as the shared text “Über epische und dramatische Dichtung”.
The letter is quoted from the edition of Beetz (1990).
2 Cf. Nünlist (2009, 307–15).
3 See also Edwards (1975) and Edwards (1992).
4 On oral tradition, see, e.g., Foley (1991) and Bakker in this volume.
5 Cf. de Jong/Nünlist (3 2005, 170–1).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-001
2 | Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann
Traditional patterns, then, should not be regarded as the unwieldy legacy of an oral tradition,
but rather as versatile poetic resources. The poet commands a very rich and diverse tradition,
from which he draws together and combines many different elements.
This tradition, as research on early epic poetry has shown, encompasses pre-
Homeric developments in Greek poetry as well as the likely influence of ancient
Near-Eastern narrative modes.⁶ Structural elements, whose roots may be found
in oral traditions, become formative for the genre of epic poetry after Homer. The
German term ‘Bauform’ (translated as “structural element” or “building block” in
this compendium) was first employed by Lämmert in 1955 for describing aspects
of German narrative literature. In 1971 the concept gained currency in the field
of Classical Philology with Jens’ study Die Bauformen der griechischen Tragödie.
The assessment of structural elements in ancient epic poetry, however, brings a
different set of questions to the foreground than those that are germane to drama.
The aim of the present compendium is to identify and to trace those epic
scenes and structures diachronically whose set forms, sequences, and recognisable
features mark them as a lasting and integral part of the ancient epic tradition.
Our notion of the bauform or ‘epic structure’ is more capacious than that of the
established concept of the ‘type-scene’ and goes far beyond the conceptual scope
of epic formulae. Our underlying theoretical considerations are reflected by a
deliberate variety of concepts.
Firstly, we build on the ideas of structuralist thinkers and, in particular, the tra-
dition of Russian Formalism. The terminology of the Geneva School of Linguistics
(Ferdinand de Saussure), a differentiated and productive engagement both with
synchronic and with diachronic observations, and the acceptance of the systemic
structural nature of language and literature form the basis of the studies collected
in this compendium. Yet, we have to take into account that already at an early stage,
Formalism opted against a too ‘scholastic formalism’. To name one example, Tyn-
janov and Jakobson explicitly argued for a view on literary products that includes
both a historical approach and a structural analysis.⁷ We aim at achieving a mode
6 On structures of Indo-European narratives, cf. the influential book by Watkins (1995, esp. 12–27)
and the short but fundamental article by Schmitt (1968). On the Mycenaean roots of the Homeric
poems, cf. the summary in Latacz (2003, 200–5 and esp. 261–95 with the example of the Catalogue
of Ships). On ancient Near-Eastern epic with a view to the Homeric poems, see, in particular, the
work of West (2007, esp. 35–6 on structures).
7 Cf. Tynjanov/Jakobson (1972, 382–3): “Die entschiedene Gegenüberstellung von synchronischem
(statistischem) und diachronischem Schnitt war noch unlängst für die Linguistik wie für die
Literaturgeschichte eine fruchtbare Arbeitshypothese, da sie den Systemcharakter der Sprache
(bzw. der Literatur) für jeden einzelnen historischen Moment aufzeigte. Heutzutage veranlassen
uns die aus der synchronischen Konzeption gewonnenen Einsichten, auch die Prinzipien der
Introduction | 3
of speaking that is both theoretically grounded and practicable, and that requires
us as scholars to engage with the material in its structural form and to attend to the
dynamic processes of its reception and imitation. Through a conscious synthesis
of established methods, we strive to build a theory and terminology based on the
texts themselves.
We acknowledge that in recent years the terminology of narratology and the
analytic apparatus of intertextuality have fundamentally influenced how scholars
interpret ancient texts. The study of ancient epic, in particular, has always been
concerned with the processes of reception and imitation. A few stages of scholarly
preoccupation with the phenomenon of literary imitatio deserve a brief outline.
Within the broader humanities but also among classical philologists an increased
interest in literary theory⁸ and a need for a consistent terminology for describing
how texts interact and mutually influence one another⁹ have led scholars to engage
thoroughly with the intellectual processes underlying the practice of literary refer-
ence. The theories of intertextuality¹⁰ and narratology¹¹ are established research
paradigms available to readers and researchers for describing these complex pro-
Diachronie neu zu überprüfen. Entsprechend der Entwicklung auf dem Gebiet der synchronischen
Betrachtungsweise ist man auch auf dem der diachronischen dazu gekommen, das Konzept einer
mechanischen Agglomeration der Erscheinungen durch den Begriff des Systems, der Struktur zu
ersetzen.”
8 The work of Wellek/Warren (1948), a quintessential expression of thought in New Criticism and
the Structuralist School, is often mentioned as one of the starting points. How influential this book
became can be seen from a quotation from Delarue (2000, 53), who takes the idea that “Le plaisir
que l’on prend à un œuvre d’art naît à la fois d’un sentiment de nouveauté et d’un sentiment de
reconnaissance” as his basis for interpreting the teichoscopy and the river battle in Statius by
comparison to Homer.
9 Among other works, the often cited but little read study of Reiff (1959) on terminology merits
mention. Nevertheless, Reiff’s study does not investigate the particulars of these practices as they
relate to epic.
10 We cannot strive for completeness in this brief introduction: exemplary are the works of Conte,
who on the shoulders of Kristeva and Genette laid the groundwork for this kind of inquiry; cf.,
e.g., Conte (1980). On the relationship of model and imitation, Conte (1980, 121) writes: “Omero
non è solo spesso . . . il Modello-Esemplare di Virgilio . . . ma anche, e costantemente, il Modello-
Codice. Omero è dunque presente come il modello costituito da una sequenza di singole imitazioni
sedimentate, ma rappresenta anche l’istituto epico tout court.” Conte’s work formed the basis
for future research; cf., e.g., Barchiesi’s wide-reaching studies: Barchiesi (2001a) and Barchiesi
(2001b).
11 Sullivan summarises the development and importance of de Jong’s work in the area of narra-
tological theory as part of their joint collected volume; cf. de Jong/Sullivan (1994, 1–26). In the
present compendium, narratology is given further treatment in a short essay by Kirstein/Abele/Nill
intended to relieve this introduction and the other contributions from the demands of reviewing
its specific terminology.
cesses.¹² Here, especially the works in the wake of Conte merit mention.¹³ Most
recently, studies of literary forgery and authorial attribution have brought new
focus to questions of originality and imitation.¹⁴
As both a spur and an aid to the analysis of imitatio, studies like those of
Knauer (1964) and Juhnke (1972) emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Their intensive
comparisons of the Homeric text to Latin epic produced the surveys and tables
that formed the basis for future research into the referential practices of individual
authors.¹⁵ Moreover, in recent decades imperial epic has received greater scholarly
attention.¹⁶ As new editions, translations, and essay collections on Quintus of
Smyrna and Nonnus demonstrate, this new scrutiny extends to the period’s Greek
poems as well as those in Latin.¹⁷ In addition to an abundance of single-themed
studies and companions,¹⁸ a host of imperial poets have received edited volumes
devoted to their works and careers. There are now companions to Silius Italicus¹⁹
and Lucan,²⁰ as well as multiple collections of essays on Statius and Valerius
Flaccus.²¹ A comparable revival can be seen in scholarship on Hellenistic epic.
Since the 1990s, after a period of relative disinterest, Apollonius Rhodius has
been the subject of many monographs as well as a companion.²² A particularly
12 On Vergil and the Homeric epics, see recently Dekel (2012).

13 For Conte, see note 10 above.
14 See McGill (2012) and Peirano (2012).
15 Delarue (2000, 41–59), for example, does this pointedly in his introductory chapter on Statius
and Homer. Additionally, cf. the review by Dominik (2002), which concurrently gives a short survey
of French-language works on Flavian epic.
16 Providing an overview is not possible in this setting. After earlier individual studies like Kytzler
(1955) and Schetter (1960), and influential works on Lucan (e.g. Ahl, 1976) and on Flavian writers
of epic (e.g. Reitz, 1982 or Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy, 1986), scholarly interest in imperial epic increased
considerably in the 1990s and continues into the present day. By way of example, we may point to
the Lucan-Projekt under the direction of Walde (see, e.g., Walde, 2005) and the series of volumes
with the title Ratis omnia vincet on Valerius Flaccus, with the review by Toohey (2002). Hardie
(1993) is surely the best summary of the topic.
17 Cf. Gärtner (2005) and Gärtner (2010); the collected volume La poésie épique grecque (2006)
contains an essay on Nonnus; Paschalis (2005) combines contributions on epic production in
both languages.
18 From these we would highlight, in particular, the reflections on structure, like Roberts/Dunn/
Fowler (1997) on “closure” (see esp. the contribution by Hardie, 1997) and Kyriakidis/de Martino
(2004) on “middles” (see esp. the contribution by Tipping, 2004).
19 Cf. Augoustakis (2010a). See also the essay collection Studi su Silio Italico (Castagna, 2006)
and the volume edited by Schaffenrath (2010).
20 Cf. Asso (2011).
21 See, for example, Smolenaars/van Dam/Nauta (2008), Heerink/Manuwald (2014) on Valerius
Flaccus, and Dominik/Newlands/Gervais (2015) on Statius.
22 See Knight (1995), Reitz (1996), and Papanghelis/Rengakos (2 2008).
Introduction | 5
important study is Nelis’ discussion of Apollonius’ reception by Vergil.²³ Moreover,

the epyllion and its idiosyncratic poetics have been the focus of productive new
research.²⁴ Likewise, interest in epitomised and epitomising epic continues to
increase.²⁵ Diachronic surveys of ancient epic in its entirety or of the Latin or Greek
epic tradition separately complete this field of research.²⁶
Within this growing body of scholarship a number of approaches are distin-
guishable. Works of literary criticism range from studies of particular authors and
poems to extended treatments of whole epochs.²⁷ New scholarly attention to is-
sues of gender has put the questions it entails at the forefront of many research
projects and programmes.²⁸ Another fruitful approach investigates the relationship
between politics and poetry, especially as it pertains to the conditions of literary
production under dictatorial regimes.²⁹ The perspective of cultural history increas-
ingly informs single-author studies and multi-author collections on epic. Works of
this kind, e.g. Galinsky (1996) on the Augustan period and the volumes by Boyle/
Dominik (2003) and Kramer/Reitz (2010) on the Flavian period, illuminate the
contexts and historical processes that bear on the various modes and media of
expression within a given epoch. Furthermore, today the afterlives of texts and
authors in the Middle Ages and in Neo-Latin epic receive treatment not only in
individual studies, but also in more general overviews.³⁰
Given this profusion of work on intertextual theory and ancient epic, one
might suppose that the field is suitably outfitted. Yet, through all the surveys,
edited volumes, and cross-sections thus far, scholarship on ancient epic lacks an
overarching and systematic way of discussing and comparing epic structures across
poems. A reader intent on examining the occurrences and variations for a particular
type-scene – to borrow momentarily the terminology of Homeric philology – or
one who wants to compare underworld scenes across ancient epic must rely on
23 Cf. Nelis (2001).

24 Cf. Baumbach/Bär (2012).
25 Conferences on the Ilias Latina in particular (Erlangen, January 2019) and on epitomising
practices in general (Zurich, February 2019) reflect this renewed interest. See also Reitz (2007).
26 Cf. Boyle (1993) and Foley (2005). The introductory summary by Rüpke (2012) has a different
ambition and shows how urgently the field still needs an entry point that is academically rigorous
and organised by objective criteria.
27 See Feeney (1991). Tipping (2010) is an example of an especially convincing study that focuses
on structure. See also Tipping (2004).
28 For example, Sannicandro (2010) on Lucan, Klodt (2001) on Statius, and Augoustakis (2010b)
on Silius.
29 See Dominik (1994b), McGuire (1997), Ripoll (1998), Bernstein (2008a), and Bernstein (2008b).
30 See Hardie (2002b) on Ovid, Dominik (2002) on Silius Italicus, and Walde (2009) on Lucan.
On structural elements in Neo-Latin epic, see Braun (2010–2011).
the remarks of commentaries, individual studies, or in the most fortunate cases

the highly abbreviated entries of lexical reference works like Der Neue Pauly.³¹
Farrell (1991, 8), in his résumé of the reactions to Knauer (1964), notes this gap
in scholarship when he observes that the standard conventional elements of epic
need to be seen as “integral parts of a tightly woven fabric of intertextuality” and
when he describes the epic tradition as “an extensive systematic programme of
allusion based on an analytical reading of major sources.”³²
Broad cross-sectional works on individual structural elements exist only in a
small number. There are, however, a series of exemplary studies examining the
use of a single bauform. Miniconi (1951), for instance, attempts to gather the vast
number of structural elements pertinent to warfare. Looking at the deployment
of funeral games in Statius, Lovatt (2005) highlights how the poet both engages
and departs from his epic predecessors. Foucher (1997) discusses aristeiai and
Gibson (2008) studies battle scenes in Statius.³³ The account of dream sequences
given by Walde (2001a) is another example of this kind of fruitful studies.³⁴ Es-
pecially the phenomenon of ekphrasis has received much critical attention in
recent years.³⁵ Nevertheless, a study like that of Putnam (1998) demonstrates that
political readings – in this case the presupposition that Vergil is a critic of the
Augustan regime – often hazard opportunities to approach this narrative bauform
objectively. Naturally, interest in the interaction between figurative and textual
storytelling dominates the study of ekphrasis. Departure scenes in the poetry of
Valerius Flaccus form the focus of Tschiedel’s article from 2004. Klodt (2003) and
Reitz (2012a) explore arming scenes, especially those in Vergil. Romano Martín
(2009) investigates the councils of the gods as a recurring scene, while Reitz (2012b)
analyses their function in the plots of Flavian epics. Bettenworth’s extensive study
of banquets from 2004 illustrates the pragmatics and variability of this commonly
occurring situation.
Thus, structural approaches to elements of epic narratives indeed exist, and
studies that combine a sensitivity for the systematic aspects of epic with an un-
derstanding of its historical context are highly fruitful, as many examples have
31 Cf., for example, the following lemmata: Aristie, ekphrasis, Gastmahl, Gleichnis, katabasis,
Katalog, Teichoskopie.
32 Farrell (1991, 9).
33 On the battle scenes in Ovid, cf. Braun (2009).
34 By contrast, Bouquet (2001) gives an unsatisfactory account of the same topic. Cf. the review
by Weber (2002).
35 Cf. the lemma ekphrasis in DNP (Fantuzzi/Reitz/Egelhaaf-Gaiser, 1997). The most important
essay on the intellectual richness of ekphrastic elements is still Fowler (1991). See also Zeitlin
(2013).
Introduction | 7
demonstrated. Nevertheless, the terminology at play in these efforts is still in a

state of flux. The term ‘type-scene’, for instance, cannot be used sensibly for nar-
rative patterns, such as the epic catalogue or ekphrasis, nor does it encompass
similes and proems. These structural elements are not restricted to single episodes,
but they occur within epic poems, providing unity and coherence to the plot. On
occasion they also comment on the narrative proper or offer the path for pro- and
analeptic extensions of the storyline. Varied in kind, these structures characterise
epic narratives and serve as genre markers. They merit being discussed together
under a single conceptual framework (‘core structures’).
With our compendium we aim to put forward a systematic overview of the
most important structural elements in ancient epic. The frequent interplay and
juxtaposition of individual narrative elements makes it clear that epic poems
are neither limited nor constrained by tradition. To the contrary, they can also
be influenced by other genres.³⁶ Epic poetry develops its power for innovation
precisely out of the recognisability of its fixed structures. In reference to Statius,
Henderson (1993, 162) described the great variety of epic structures as total chaos:
Olympian inserts, twin catalogues and teichoscopy, necromancy and underworld scenogra-
phy, funeral games and aristeiai, prayer-sequences and prophecy, tragic included narrative
and aetiological hymn, developed formal similes, battle-Sturm und Drang, mountain vastness
. . . in extenso – the whole works!
We are more optimistic to be able to find a systematic approach. Set forms and
familiar contents, on the one hand, enable recipients to orient themselves within
the vast texture of an epic narrative and form a shared set of expectations, which
allows the epic poet either to fulfil them or to be innovative by deviating from
them. They can be reversed, compressed, or simply alluded to as, for example, in
‘almost-episodes’. Epic structures, by their very consistency, facilitate variation.
The overarching design for our own work evolved step by step, taking its start in
a group of like-minded colleagues. The now classic monograph by Heinze (3 1928)
formed an important impetus.³⁷ The format as it now stands was then further
developed by Reitz and Finkmann.
The first volume (‘Foundations’) contains theoretical considerations on the
architecture of ancient epic that lay the foundation for our study: contributions on
genre and genre theory, on formularity in epic narration, on classification, i.e. the
36 See Ambühl (2017).

37 See the appraisal of Heinze by Schmidt (1995, 137–41) in his essay on Latin philology. Schmidt
identifies Heinze as perhaps the only ‘unideological’ Vergilian scholar of the first half of the 20th
century, esp. in German Classical Philology.
distinctions between didactic and narrative epic, and the use of mythological and
historical material. Every scholar and reader of epic literature is confronted with
the problem that in many respects Ovid’s Metamorphoses occupies an exceptional
place in the epic tradition. Consequently, we have left it up to the contributors
whether to include the Metamorphoses in their essays or whether to exclude the
work from their purview. To address potential gaps in coverage arising from our
editorial guidelines, a separate contribution examines Ovid’s engagement with
traditional epic structures using the poet’s battle, storm, and hospitality scenes as
representative examples.
The question of book divisions as early attempts to identify structures, and
the role of the authorial voice in the initial proem, the internal proem, and the
sphragis are handled in individual contributions. As we encouraged a plurality
of narratological approaches, we included the aforementioned chapter on narra-
tology and epic poetry in this volume to unburden the single contributions from
repetitive methodological introductions. Volume I also broaches the topic of those
structural elements whose function may denote those structural elements that
pause or accompany the main action. They are, in a sense, situated alongside the
plot, not disconnected to it but capable of coming loose. In addition to forming
narratological digressions, they can contain inset narratives of parallel stories
or offer retrospect and proleptic narration. In this respect, structural elements,
like catalogues, aetiological and genealogical digressions, ekphraseis, or similes,
are also open to metapoetic interpretations. The comparably rare but important
occurrence of ‘almost-episodes’ is also treated separately in this volume.
Whereas the essays designated for each individual bauform keep their focus
within the genre of epic, a separate contribution discusses the intergeneric aspects
of structural elements, especially in connection to tragedy. Similarly, special man-
ifestations of epic forms, like parody, are not treated in the essays on individual
structural elements. Rather, the topic is taken up in the contributions on Greek and
Roman epyllia. Another problem is raised by texts transmitted only in fragments,
which may nonetheless have formed an important influence on later poems. There-
fore, a separate contribution is devoted to examining the traces of epic structures
in fragmentary epic poems.
In volumes II.1 and II.2 (‘Configuration’) we aim to provide a comprehensive
approach to the discussion of the most important epic structures that are tied to
epic plots. Volume II.1 is devoted to representations of battle scenes, proceeding
sequentially through war preparations (arming), observation (teichoscopy), the
individual stages and modes (single combat, mass combat, chain-reaction fights,
naval and river battles), and extraordinary feats (aristeiai) of epic combat, as well
as its aftermath (deaths, burial rites, and funeral games). The first section of volume
II.2 is dedicated to epic journeys and their related scenes, most importantly arrivals,
Introduction | 9
banquet scenes, departures, and storm scenes, which are at the core of nostos and
ktisis epics. The recognition that epic action takes place in time and space (both on
the horizontal and vertical axis) informs the second and the third section of volume
II.2. A set of contributions explores how epic poetry understands and makes use of
time (and, by extension, weather and the challenges or blessings it provides) in its
varying structural functions and of space, especially with regard to the portrayal
of landscapes, cities, mythical places, as well as the abodes of the dead and of the
gods. The fourth and final section of volume II.2 encompasses the broad domain
of communication. The scope includes not only communication as it transpires
between the characters of a given poem (e.g. in messenger and council scenes),
but it also extends to communication with the past and the future in the context of
underworld scenes, prophecies, epiphanies, and dreams.
In volume III our authors address the question of epic structures on a timeline
from Akkadian epic to the Neo-Latin texts of the 19th century. The final paper
discusses one of the many possibilities provided by digital research tools and
methods for the study of structural elements and narrative patterns in the epic
tradition.
By including extensive bibliographies³⁸ and indices of sources, names, and
subjects, we have endeavoured to make the compendium as accessible as possible
not only for classical philologists, but for any literary scholar or reader interested in
narrative genres. We are convinced that the contributions in these volumes furnish
the concept of the bauform with the needed structural rigor, new analysis, and fresh
presentation. The sophisticated toolkit available to today’s philologists and recent
theoretical insights into epic imitation have together enabled this project, in all its
intended plurality, to plumb the utility of existing methodologies and to leverage
a clear structure and comprehensible organisation into attaining the following
goal: to give an overview of ancient epic structures that describes their diachronic
development, analyses their varied instantiations, and ultimately provides a key
to the intertextual character of ancient epic narrative and its tradition.
Further reading
Accorinti, D. (ed., 2016). Brill’s companion to Nonnus of Panopolis. Leiden.
Adamietz, J. (1976). Zur Komposition der Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus. Munich.
38 The core bibliography in volume III provides an overview of the most important primary
literature (translations, editions, commentaries). It may serve as an introduction to the field of
epic poetry and will be expanded and digitally updated as part of our EPN Network website (www.
epic-poetry-network.com).
Ahl, F. M. (1976). Lucan: an introduction. Ithaca, NY/New York.

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|
Part I: Theories of epic
Philip Hardie
Ancient and modern theories of epic
Abstract: This chapter will analyse the range of ancient statements and debates
about the nature and goals of epic poetry, both as formulated explicitly in surviving
discussions in the ancient literary critics, chief among whom Plato, Aristotle,
Horace, and the fragmented theory of epic to be excavated from the scholia; and as
formulated implicitly in ‘werkintern’ or ‘werkimmanent’ representations within the
epic texts: performances by fictional epic bards and the response thereto by internal
audiences, ekphrasis, figures of fama, etc. Questions of authority and tradition in
this most authoritative and traditional of genres prompt ancient theorisation of
the status and exemplarity of the two ‘gods’ of ancient epic, Homer and Vergil:
topics will include the idea of the universality of Homer as source, and of Vergil,
the Roman Homer; and the importance of allegorisation as a means of defending
the authority of epic, and of asserting the profundity of its doctrine.
The universalist view of Homer sees him as the source of all genres; ancient
theory of epic is much concerned with the relationship of epic to other genres, both
to other kinds of poetry within the broader category of hexameter epos (bucolic,
didactic), and to other genres (tragedy, lyric, elegy, etc.). Within the genre of epic
there is discussion and negotiation of subgenres, in their relationship to the ‘gold
standard’ of Homer and Vergil: cyclical epic, historical epic, panegyrical epic,
epyllion.
The chapter will also look forward to Renaissance and modern theories of epic,
in terms of their reception both of ancient epic and of ancient theories of epic.
For example the protracted Renaissance debate over epic and romance picks up
on Ovid’s testing of the limits of Vergilian epic in his Metamorphoses. Bakhtin’s
contrastive characterisation of epic and the novel gives a negative cast to ancient
epic’s claim to authority.
1 Literary history and generic classifications

There is no single ancient theory of epic, no tradition of treatises dedicated to
defining the nature and goals of the genre, and only intermittent evidence of
debates about the proper limits and expectations of the epic poem, such as the
fictional Eumolpus’ presumed reactions to Lucan’s divergence from the norms
of epic, based on a reading of the Bellum Ciuile in Petronius’ Satyricon (Petron.
119–24). There is nothing surviving on the scale of the literary-theoretical quarrels in
Renaissance Italy over Dante (is the Commedia an epic or not?), or over Ariosto and
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-002
26 | Philip Hardie
Tasso (does the romance represent a falling away from the Aristotelian principles
by which epic proper is to be judged?).¹ As a genre (and this is true of ancient
genres in general), epic is defined principally by the praxis of poets working within
and against a tradition that creates expectations for both composers (or writers)
and their audiences (or readers).
With regard to tradition and authority, epic is marked by its position at the
summit of the hierarchy of genres, by its claim to be the oldest, and hence most
authoritative of genres, and by the exceptional status of the father of the genre,
Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey define the genre in a way that exceeds the respect
normally accorded to the early practitioners of a genre. While we have no surviving
monographs from antiquity dedicated to epic, we do have treatises dedicated to
Homer: the Homeric Allegories (or Homeric Problems) ascribed to one Heraclitus,
and the Ps.-Plutarchan Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer.² Homer holds this
position of a revered supremacy for both Greek and Roman epic poets; Vergil
will come to hold an analogous supremacy within Roman epic, and the Aeneid
correspondingly represents the norms to which later Roman epic poets feel the
pressure to conform or from which they consciously fall away.
Theoretical and literary-critical statements about epic occur in the course of
treatises on poetics in general (most importantly those of Plato, Aristotle, and
Horace), which naturally give a privileged place to epic; or in the course of discus-
sions on literary, cultural, philosophical, theological matters. General theoretical
and critical positions can also be excavated from the ancient scholia and commen-
taries;³ and critical positions on epic are also contained in the ancient lives of the
poets.⁴
Epic poems themselves may be read for comment on their own poetics. Be-
cause the epic narrator does not, with rare exceptions, intrude his own personality
or views into his narratives, epic as a genre is not often as explicit about its own
workings and goals as some other genres, chiefly those which use the first per-
son to speak about the poet’s aims and intentions both in the world outside the
text and within the world of the text (e.g. lyric, notably Pindar;⁵ Latin love elegy;
comedy, especially Old Comedy). However, some epic poets do step forward to
make statements about their poems in paratextual prologues (sometimes separate
from the main body of an epic, as in Claudian’s prefatory poems)⁶ and epilogues.
1 Cf. Weinberg (1961, 819–911 and 954–1073).

2 Cf. Russell/Konstan (2005). Aristotle also devoted a work to Homer, the lost Homeric Questions.
3 See Richardson (1980), Feeney (1991, 5–56), and Nünlist (2009).
4 See Graziosi (2002).
5 See Richardson (1985).
6 See Felgentreu (1999).
Occasionally (and, in the case of Lucan, more than occasionally) epic poets voice
their own reactions to their poems within the main body of an epic.
There are, however, many indirect routes into implicit epic theories through
‘werkintern’ or ‘werkimmanent’ readings. The singer or bard is a standard character
in the epic cast-list from the time that Homer introduces the aoidoi Phemius and
Demodocus into the world of the Odyssey, inaugurating the history of the poet
in the text;⁷ the blind Demodocus, in particular, was taken as a self-portrait by
Homer.⁸ In the Iliad the outstanding hero, Achilles, himself takes on the role of
epic singer in his self-enforced absence from the battlefield. Another standard part
of the epic tool-kit is the ekphrasis, the description of a work of art, these days read
almost automatically as a visual counter-part to and reflection on the verbal text of
which it is a part.⁹ The ancient scholia already took the web woven by Helen in Iliad
3, into which she was weaving “the contests of the horse-taming Trojans and the
bronze-tunicked Achaeans, which they endured at the hands of Ares on her behalf”
(Hom. Il. 3.125–8) as an artistic representation of the subject-matter of the Iliad itself.
Other places where modern critics have looked for self-reflexive commentary in epic
include invocations to the Muses,¹⁰ the epic underworld (viewed as a repository
and ordering of tradition),¹¹ scenes of prophecy,¹² outlines of the plot of epic Fate
or the plan of Zeus (Dios boule), the epic poet as Zeus/Jupiter, and personifications
of Fama (such as in Vergil, Aeneid 4 and Ovid, Metamorphoses 12).¹³
2 The person of the epic poet and the sources of

his poetry
In the person of the aoidos Demodocus, the Odyssey introduces a figure of the epic
poet determinative for the whole of the later tradition: Hom. Od. 8.43b–5 καλέσασθε
δὲ θεῖον ἀοιδὸν / Δημόδοκον· τῷ γάρ ῥα θεὸς πέρι δῶκεν ἀοιδὴν / τέρπειν, ὅππῃ
θυμὸς ἐποτρύνῃσιν ἀείδειν, “Summon the divine bard, Demodocus. For him the
god gave special powers of song, to give delight in whatever direction his spirit stirs
7 See Goldhill (1991, 56–68, esp. 57 n. 98 with further bibliography).

8 See Graziosi (2002, 138–42).
9 Cf. Harrison in this volume.
10 Cf. Schindler in this volume.
11 See Most (1992) and Hardie (1993, 59–65). See also Reitz in volume II.2.
12 Cf. Beck and Finkmann/Reitz/Walter in volume II.2.
13 See Hardie (2012, 78–125) on Vergil and Hardie (2012, 150–77) on Ovid.
28 | Philip Hardie
him to sing.”¹⁴ At 8.73 the divinity urging him to sing “the famous deeds of heroes”
(κλέα ἀνδρῶν) is named as the Muse. The inspiration of the Muse, or a Muse-like
figure, is a fixed feature of epic, whether we are to take this as the actual belief of
the poet and his audience, or as merely a convention to which the book-learned
poet of later centuries adheres to lend epic elevation to his poetry, or as a figure to
express the sense of some inner and not entirely explicable power by which the
poet is moved.¹⁵ The divine inspiration of the epic poet becomes part of Democritus’
more general theory of poetic enthousiasmos, the state of having the ‘god within’,
and of Plato’s theory of poetic madness (mania); the rhapsode’s claim to divine
inspiration is the target of Socrates’ ironical questioning in Plato’s Ion.¹⁶
The inspired poet is the sublime poet. Sublimity is attributed to the great-
est poet, Homer,¹⁷ but is foregrounded particularly in the Latin epic tradition,
where the supercharged epic sublimity of the Aeneid creates a norm for much
post-Vergilian epic, in imperial Latin epic notably Lucan, Statius, and Silius Itali-
cus.¹⁸ In these poets the epic sublime is mirrored in figures other than the fictional
epic bard but who have an affinity with the epic poet: for example, the manically
possessed Sibyl in the Aeneid (6.42–82),¹⁹ or the priest and prophet Thiodamas
in Statius’ Thebaid (10.160–75).²⁰ The greatest monument of English epic, Par-
adise Lost, established the ‘Miltonic sublime’ at the centre of British and European
literature.²¹
Ps.-Longinus associates enthousiasmos with the sublime. He also derives sub-
limity from a mimesis of previous great writers whose influence he compares to the
inspiration that the Pythian priestess draws from the divine vapours that arise from
the cleft at Delphi, and speaks of Plato “drawing off for his own use ten thousand
runnels from the great Homeric spring” (Ps.-Longinus, On the Sublime 13.2–3).²²
Much later the Neo-Latin poet Girolamo Vida ends his De arte poetica with a hymn
to Vergil as the poetic god who inspires the modern epic poet. In the Hellenistic
period Homer had a temple in Alexandria, the Homereion, which is probably repre-
14 Koster (1970, 4–5); see also Goldhill (1991, 49–54).

15 On the epic Muse, see Detienne (1960), Laird (2002) and Spentzou/Fowler (2002).
16 See Russell (1981, 69–83).
17 Cf. Porter (2016, 360–81).
18 See Hardie (2013).
19 See Gowers (2005).
20 On Thiodamas as prophet and narrator, see Walter (2014, 181–90).
21 See Hoxby/Coiro (2016, index s.v. “sublime, the”).
22 On Ps.-Longinus’ On the Sublime and inspiration, see Porter (2016, 533–6).
sented on the relief by Archelaus of Priene, showing a Zeus-like Homer worshipped

by personifications of literary genres and virtues.²³
The closeness of the epic poet to divinity and the topos of inspiration receive a
fresh charge in the long line of biblical epics which begins with Juvencus’ early
fourth-century Euangeliorum libri IV and which turn from the pagan gods to the
inspiration of the third person of the Christian God, the Holy Spirit, or to a Chris-
tian Muse, Urania.²⁴ Milton, in his own way, is as serious about the Christian
divine sources of Paradise Lost as Homer appears to be about the dependence of
Demodocus on the teaching of the Muse.
3 The knowledge and powers of the epic poet

The divine sources of the poet give access to knowledge extensive in space and
time. The poet is able to report on events in all parts of the human world, in the
world of the gods on Olympus, and in the world of the dead beneath the earth.²⁵
He ranges far back in time, and has perfect recall of events long past. All this is
thanks to the Muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne (Hes. Th. 53–4). Epic is the
poetic genre par excellence of memory, through which it both memorialises the
history and traditions of the culture, and perpetuates the glorious deeds of its
heroes. These functions bring it into a close relationship with the prose genre of
history, which developed later than, and in close dependence on, the Homeric
poems. The relationship between epic and historiography drew the attention of
later critics and theorists.²⁶
Not only do the Muses convey information to the epic poet, enabling him to
be an omniscient and ‘objective’ narrator,²⁷ but they also enable him to visualise,
and describe for his audience, the events narrated in a particularly vivid way
(enargeia).²⁸ Homer calls on the Muses to put him in mind of all the leaders and
their ships that came to Troy: Hom Il. 2.485–6 ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ
τε πάντα, / ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, “For you are goddesses,
and are present, and know all things, but we hear only a report and do not know
23 See Brink (1972) and Pollitt (1986, 15–16).

24 See Campbell (1935).
25 Cf. Kersten and Reitz on the abodes of the gods and the dead in volume II.2.
26 On historical epic, cf. Häußler (1976). See also Nethercut in this volume.
27 For a qualification of the received idea that the epic poet is an ‘objective’ narrator, see de Jong
(1987).
28 On enargeia, see Zanker (1981) and Nünlist (2009, 194–8).
30 | Philip Hardie
anything.” At Hom. Od. 8.491 Odysseus then praises Demodocus for his song on the
fate of the Achaeans (events in which he himself was an actor), “as if you yourself
were present, or had heard it from another” (ὥς τέ που ἢ αὐτὸς παρεὼν ἢ ἄλλου
ἀκούσας).
The Olympian competence of Homer, combined with his status as one of
the earliest, and certainly the greatest, of Greek poets, encouraged still greater
claims for the scope of his knowledge. The relief by Archelaus of Priene, as well
as divinizing Homer, suggests that he is a universal poet, the source of all later
literary kinds,²⁹ and, crowned by figures of Chronus and Oikoumene, he is a poet
for all times and all places. In a common image, Homer is like the stream of Ocean
described at Hom. Il. 21.195–7, from which flow all the rivers of eloquence.³⁰ For
Silius Italicus Homer is the poet who “in his song encompassed earth, sea, stars
and underworld” (carmine complexus terram, mare, sidera, manis, Sil. 13.788).
Still more ambitiously, Homer is seen as the source of all arts and forms of
wisdom, as expounded at length in the Ps.-Plutarchan On the life and poetry of
Homer, possibly by a late second century AD grammatikos, and probably typical of
how Homer was taught in the Roman Empire. The author sums up by saying that
he has attributed to Homer “physical, political, and ethical discourse and all sorts
of wisdom.”³¹ A similar status was accorded in Late Antiquity to Vergil, regarded
by Servius and Macrobius as a repository of all manner of learning and wisdom.
Servius comments, on the beginning of Aeneid 6, totus quidem Vergilius scientia
plenus est, in qua hic liber possidet principatum (Serv. Aen. 6.1). This characterisa-
tion of the ‘gods’ of Greek and Roman epic encouraged a more general sense of
epic as an encyclopaedic genre, with pretensions to embrace the whole of human
culture and learning.
An emphasis on the doctrinal content of epic was also encouraged by the
status shared by Homer and Hesiod as founders of the Greek poetic tradition,
by the shared metre (hexameter) of heroic epic and didactic epos, by the shared
language of the Homeric and Hesiodic traditions, and by the fact that in antiquity
didactic poetry was not given a separate generic definition, but, together with
heroic epic, was ascribed to the category of epos.³² Hexameter was also the metre
of the verse expositions of their philosophies by Xenophanes, Empedocles, and
Parmenides. In later centuries epic continued to be accommodating of scientific
and philosophical content. In the proem to his Annals, Ennius defines himself as the
29 On the generic encyclopaedism of Homer, see below.

30 See Williams (1978) on Call. Ap. 105–13. Cf. also Quint. Inst. 10.1.46.
31 See Keaney/Lamberton (1996).
32 On didactic epic, cf. Effe (1977) and Toohey (1996). See also Buglass/Fanti/Galzerano in this
volume.
Roman Homer, in his report of the dream in which the shade of Homer announced
to him that the true soul of Homer had been reincarnated in Ennius; appeal to
the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis to explain this claim signals Ennius’
own interest in infusing his Roman historical epic with philosophical content,
and inaugurates a newly vigorous symbiosis of narrative epic and philosophical
didactic in Roman epic. Vergil progresses from didactic (the Georgics) to epic (the
Aeneid), but Lucretius’ didactic poem on Epicurean physics, the De rerum natura,
is as powerful a presence in the latter as in the former, and the Aeneid shows an
awareness of other schools of philosophy, notably Stoicism, whose world-view is
repeatedly aired and tested in Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile.³³
In literary terms, epic becomes a kind of supergenre: Homer was the source
of all later kinds of literature, and post-Homeric epics aspire to a generic inclu-
siveness (on which see below). This was a view that continued into the Middle
Ages and Renaissance, informing the poetics of Dante’s Commedia and of Milton’s
Paradise Lost. The latter is an encyclopaedic epic, in terms of the range of literary
kinds which it accommodates, and it is also an epic with a strong didactic content,
teaching the truths of a Christian world-history and a Christian world-view.³⁴ Ac-
cording to one of the most important Renaissance literary theorists, Julius Caesar
Scaliger (1484–1558), epic is “the chiefest of all forms, because it contains all kinds
of subject-matter.”³⁵
In a further expansion of the status of the epic poet, divinity and comprehen-
siveness combine to yield the figure of the epic poet as demiurge, creating a poetic
cosmos analogous to the physical cosmos, in an act of poetic cosmogony. This
idea is famously expressed by Torquato Tasso (1544–1595), the greatest epic poet
of the Italian Renaissance, and an important theorist of epic in his Discorsi del
poema eroico, where he says that the poet is called ‘divine’ for no other reason than
that he resembles the supreme craftsman in his operations, shaping in his poem a
little world.³⁶ A similar conception of the epic poet can, however, be traced back to
antiquity.³⁷ The Homeric shield of Achilles was interpreted as an image of the phys-
ical and human cosmos, and Hephaestus’ making of the shield was allegorised as
the creation of the cosmos by the demiurge.³⁸ Vergil alludes to this interpretation
33 Cf. Schotes (1969) and Roche (2009, 30 n. 56).

34 See Lewalski (1985, 4–5).
35 Julius Caesar Scaliger, Poetices libri septem 1.3 (Deitz/Vogt-Spira) idcirco omnium est princeps,
quia continent materias uniuersas.
36 Cf. Mazzali (1977, 41).
37 There is much relevant material in Lieberg (1982), who, however, takes poeta creator in a wider
sense than ‘poet as demiurge’.
38 Cf. Heraclitus, Allegoriae 43; see also Buffière (1956).
32 | Philip Hardie
and allegorisation of the Homeric shield in his ekphrasis of the shield of Aeneas in
Aeneid 8, an image of the creation of the cosmos of Roman world empire, forged
by a Vulcan who is haud uatum ignarus (“not unaware of the seers/poets”, Verg.
Aen. 8.627).³⁹ This comes close to an equation of Vulcan with the poet as demiurge,
an equation that is also hinted at by Ovid at the beginning of the Metamorphoses,
where the narrative of cosmogony, the poet’s opening creation of his universe, hints
at the ekphrasis of the Homeric shield.⁴⁰ Tasso’s formulation of the microcosmic
creation of the poet may be indebted to Macrobius’ characterisation of the variety
of styles in Vergil, who followed no guide but Nature herself (Macr. Sat. 5.1.19):
Quippe si mundum ipsum diligenter inspicias, magnam similitudinem diuini illius et huius poe-
tici operis inuenies. Nam qualiter eloquentia Maronis ad omnium mores integra est, nunc bre-
uis nunc copiosa nunc sicca nunc florida nunc simul omnia, interdum lenis aut torrens: sic
terra ipsa hic laeta segetibus et pratis ibi siluis et rupibus hispida, his sicca arenis hic irrigua
fontibus, pars uasta aperitur mari.
Indeed, if you carefully examine the world itself, you will see a great similarity between
that divine creation and this poetic one: just as Maro’s eloquence is a complete whole that
responds to the characters of all people – now brief, now abundant, now dry, now colourful,
now all at once, sometimes gentle, sometimes turbulent – so the earth itself has fertile fields
and meadows in one place, shaggy woods and rugged crags in another, dry desert sands
here, places soaked by springs there, and part opened up to the desolate expanse of the sea.
4 The goals and effects of epic poetry

When Demodocus is introduced in the Odyssey, the effect of his songs is that
of giving pleasure (τέρπειν, Hom. Od. 8.45).⁴¹ The content of his songs are κλέα
(“famous deeds”): in other words, another goal of his poetry is to perpetuate the
fame of heroes. Epic is, before anything else, praise poetry. Servius states that the
two intentions of the Aeneid are “to imitate Homer, and praise Augustus through
his ancestors” (intentio Vergilii haec est, Homerum imitari et Augustum laudare a
parentibus, Serv. Aen. praef.). Demodocus’ songs about the Trojan War have the
further effect of moving Odysseus to tears. Odysseus is not a typical audience, since
he is a chief actor in the events of which Demodocus sings, but nevertheless we
see that epic song works on the emotions as well as giving pleasure. The elevated
39 See Hardie (1986, 336–76).

40 See Wheeler (1995).
41 See Koster (1970, 143–51 [“Ziele der Dichtung”]). On the particularly potent, and potentially
dangerous, form of pleasure that is thelxis (“enchantment”, “bewitching”), see Goldhill (1991,
60–1 and 64–6).
status of the epic poet and the vast range and profundity of his subject matter also
make of him a teacher (as we have seen in the previous section). The idea that
the poet is a teacher is deeply rooted in ancient thought,⁴² but the epic poet is a
teacher par excellence.
Thus the three officia of the orator (docere, delectare, mouere) are also regarded
as the goals of the epic poet, but different critics give differing emphases. In an
important passage for the history of Homeric criticism Strabo takes issue with
the Alexandrian scholar and poet Eratosthenes who asserted that poets aim at
psychagogia (“winning over the soul”), i.e. entertainment, rather than to teach. In
response Strabo asserts the utility of poetry, saying that men of old regarded poetry
as the first form of philosophy, introducing us to the art of life and instructing us,
with pleasure, in character, emotions, and actions (Str. 1.2.2–3). For Strabo, Homer
is in possession of vast learning (polymatheia). Horace famously sums up a view
that “the poet who mixed the useful with the sweet, won every vote” (omne tulit
punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, Hor. ars 343), a statement about poetry in general,
but including epic.
When it comes to the effects of epic poetry on the emotions, many commenta-
tors on Aristotle’s Poetics have taken a cryptic remark on epic (Arist. Po. 1462b13–14)
to imply that the tragic emotions of pity and fear are those proper to epic as well.⁴³
However, different epics make different demands on an audience’s emotions, and
expectations in this respect change over time. Many modern readers would agree
that the Iliad is a more dramatic and tragic poem than the Odyssey, and this was the
view of Ps.-Longinus, for whom in the Odyssey “declining emotional power passes
into character portrayals” (ἡ ἀπακμὴ τοῦ πάθους ἐν τοῖς μεγάλοις συγγραφεῦσι καὶ
ποιηταῖς εἰς ἦθος ἐκλύεται, Ps.-Longinus, On the Sublime 9.15). The tragic passions
are foregrounded in Heinze’s account of the aims (“Ziele”) of the Aeneid, under the
headings of pathos (“pity and fear”) and ekplexis (“astonishment”).⁴⁴ The violent
interventions of Juno at the beginning of the first and second halves of the poem,
through the hyperbolic storm of Book 1 and the terrifying eruption from hell of
the Fury Allecto in Book 7, are programmatic for this Vergilian intensification of
epic emotions, which also serves a greater striving for the sublimity for which the
Homeric poems are in any case the most frequently cited texts in Ps.-Longinus’ On
the Sublime.⁴⁵
42 See Russell (1981, 84–98).

43 See Halliwell (1986, 263).
44 Cf. Heinze (3 1957, 466–93).
45 Cf. Heinze (3 1957, 481–93). On the Vergilian sublime, see also Conte (2007); on the Homeric
sublime, see Porter (2016, index s.v. “Homer”).
34 | Philip Hardie
5 Gods and heroes

Ps.-Longinus takes examples of the Homeric sublime from the actions of both
gods and heroes: Poseidon striding across the landscape (Ps.-Longinus, On the
Sublime 9.8), or Hector raging across the battlefield like a forest fire (9.11). Another
aspect of the universalism of the epic as a genre is that it takes as its characters
both humans and gods. Theophrastus may be the ultimate source of the following
standard definition of epic: Diom. Gramm. 483.27–484.2 Keil Epos dicitur Graece
carmine hexametro diuinarum rerum et heroicarum humanarumque comprehensio;
quod a Graecis ita definitum est, ἔπος ἐστὶν περιοχὴ θείων τε καὶ ἡρωικῶν καὶ
ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων.⁴⁶ Another version is that of Servius: nam est metrum
heroicum et actus mixtus, ubi et poeta loquitur et alios inducit loquentes. est autem
heroicum quod constat ex diuinis humanisque personis continens uera cum fictis
(Serv. Aen. 1.63b–6a).
A narrative that operates on the two levels of gods and men is definitive of the
Homeric tradition of epic. The Homeric gods are not identical with the gods of the
cults of the Greek city-states, but neither do they inhabit a completely separate
world of literary fiction. Herodotus takes Homer and Hesiod as central to the
definition of Greek theology: Hdt. 2.53.2 οὗτοι δὲ εἰσὶ οἱ ποιήσαντες θεογονίην
῞Ελλησι καὶ τοῖσι θεοῖσι τὰς ἐπωνυμίας δόντες καὶ τιμάς τε καὶ τέχνας διελόντες
καὶ εἴδεα αὐτῶν σημήναντες, “They are the poets who composed our theogonies
and gave the gods their titles, and allotted them their offices and powers, and
declared their shapes.”
The presence of the gods as actors in epic narratives is both a distinguishing
feature of epic, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks for the survival of the
archaic genre into the centuries of philosophy and of new religions. The need to
accommodate the Homeric gods leads to the development of a theory of fictionality,
and to new ways of reading epic, to save the dignity and credit of the Homeric
gods.⁴⁷
A radical solution to the ‘problem’ of the divine machinery of traditional epic
was to cut the gods out of the action altogether, as Lucan does in his Bellum Ciuile, a
poem whose political iconoclasm involves human and divine actors alike.⁴⁸ Lucan’s
46 See Koster (1970, 86–7).

47 On fiction, allegorisation, and rationalisation, see below. On the strategies developed by post-
classical Christian writers of epic to provide a monotheistic equivalent to the divine machinery of
pagan polytheism, see Gregory (2006). See also Schubert, Bažil, and Verhelst in volume III.
48 On Lucan’s attitude to the gods in epic and to state religion, see Feeney (1991, 262–301).
epic is a historical epic, and that in itself was nothing new in antiquity,⁴⁹ but for
his almost entire elimination of the divine machinery of epic Lucan was viewed
as more like a historian than a poet: Serv. Aen. 1.382 Lucanus namque in numero
poetarum esse non meruit, quia uidetur historiam composuisse, non poema.
The poetaster Eumolpus in Petronius’ Satyricon gives a specimen of a poem on
the Civil War, which is widely held to be some kind of a response to Lucan’s Bellum
Ciuile, and which reintroduces the divine machinery excised by Lucan. Eumolpus
introduces his effort with a miniature theory of civil war epic (in fact one of the
longest such statements on epic to survive from ancient Rome) at Petron. 118.6:⁵⁰
non enim res gestae uersibus comprehendendae sunt, quod longe melius historici faciunt, sed
per ambages deorumque ministeria et fabulosum sententiarum †tormentum†⁵¹ praecipitandus
est liber spiritus, ut potius furentis animi uaticinatio appareat quam religiosae orationis sub
testibus fides . . .
It is not a question of recording real events in verse; historians do that far better. But the free
spirit must plunge headlong into obscurities and divine interventions and rack itself [?] for
great thoughts of a mythological kind, so that the result should appear rather the prophecy
of an inspired spirit than the exactitude of a statement made on oath before witnesses . . .
The term ambages can perhaps be translated as “oblique representations” (Feeney,

1991, 263), with reference to the greater distance that epic traditionally keeps from
historical truth, and deorum ministeria is most naturally taken of the traditional
epic divine machinery; praecipitandus est liber spiritus, ut potius furentis animi uati-
cinatio appareat speaks the language of inspiration, of the excited kind that we find
in Ps.-Longinus: Eumolpus is in tune with the heated sublimity that characterises
much of post-Vergilian Roman epic.⁵²
In the ancient hierarchy of genres epic stands at the top of a kind of class
system. In keeping with this decorum the human actors in epic are predominantly
of the better sort: in his categorisation of the objects of imitation for different
genres, Aristotle (Arist. Po. 1448a1–4) defines the persons of tragedy and Homeric
epic as σπουδαῖοι (“good”) or βελτίους (“better”). The social superiority of the
human actors is registered in shorthand expressions for epic, such as the reges
et proelia (“kings and battles”) that Vergil claims that he was setting out to sing
when Apollo reminded him that a shepherd should sing a slender song (Verg. ecl.
49 On historical epic, see Häußler (1976) and Nethercut in this volume.

50 Cf. Schmeling (2011, ad loc.), with further bibliography.
51 Poletti (forthcoming) argues for the authenticity of tormentum in his recent dissertation:
“l’intreccio meraviglioso di sentenze”.
52 Cf. e.g. Stat. Theb. 1.3 Pierius menti calor incidit and 10.827–31 on the maior amentia needed to
sing of Capaneus’ assault on the gods.
36 | Philip Hardie
6.3–5). This is not to say that epic is uncritically laudatory of its heroes. A critique
of heroic behavioural models is built in to the genre from the time that the hero of
the Odyssey survives and succeeds by learning and living up to excellences that
are markedly different from those that might qualify a hero in the Iliad to be “the
best of the Achaeans”. New philosophies and theologies lead to revaluations of
the epic hero, explicitly when Milton declares himself (Paradise Lost 9.27–33):
Not sedulous by nature to indite

Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroic deemed chief mastery to dissect
30 With long and tedious havoc fabled knights
In battles feigned; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unsung.
6 Allegorisation and rationalisation

The behaviour of the Homeric gods early drew criticism from thinkers who held that
neither the nature nor the morality of the Homeric gods was in keeping with what
should be expected of the divine. An early critic was Xenophanes, who objected
that “Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods everything which in mankind is
disgrace and reproach: stealing, committing adultery, deceiving one another”
(πάντα θεοῖσ’ ἀνέθηκαν ῞Ομηρός θ’ ‘Ησίοδός τε, / ὅσσα παρ’ ἀνθρώποισιν ὀνείδεα
καὶ ψόγος ἐστίν, / κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν, B11 Diels/Kranz).
The anthropomorphic toing and froing of the Homeric gods was not in keeping
with what befitted divinity: god should be thought of rather as unmoving, and as
controlling the universe from a distance through the power of his mind (B25 and
B26 Diels/Kranz). The most famous attack on the Homeric gods is that of Plato in
the Republic harshly criticising the false myths of gods who attack their fathers
and make war on each other (Pl. R. 377d4–8d).⁵³
One defence against moralising and philosophical attacks of this kind was to
allegorise the Homeric poems and, in particular, the actions of the gods.⁵⁴ This
approach goes back to the very beginnings of Homeric criticism. The sixth-century
BC Theagenes of Rhegium is cited in a scholion as an authority for the interpretation
of the battle of the gods in Iliad 20 as being in truth an allegorical representation
53 Cf. Bernard (1990).

54 On the allegorisation of Homer, see Buffière (1956) and Struck (2004). For the reception of
ancient allegoresis in the Renaissance, see Seznec (1953) and Borris (2000).
of the conflict in the natural world between the principles of hot and cold, dry and
wet, etc. This kind of natural-philosophical allegorisation was eased by the fact
that a number of the Olympian gods were traditionally associated with parts of the
natural world (Zeus–sky, Hera–air, Poseidon–sea, Apollo–sun, etc.). The associa-
tion of some gods with psychological principles (Athena–wisdom, Hermes–reason)
further encouraged moralising or psychological allegorisation of the Homeric nar-
ratives. A third kind of allegorisation is the historical, or rationalizing, as practiced
by Palaephatus’ Περὶ ἀπίστων, in which mythological marvels and monsters are
explained away as figures for natural events or objects (e.g. Cadmus did not fight
a dragon, but a king of Thebes called Draco).⁵⁵ The incentives to allegorisation
can be of either a negative kind (a defensive response to rationalist attacks on the
Homeric gods), or a positive kind, based on the conviction (see above) that Homer
is a profoundly wise poet, the master of knowledge, and the source of all later
developments in philosophy and the arts.⁵⁶
Allegoresis (i.e. allegorical interpretation) of poetry and, in particular, of epic
is continuous from archaic Greece, through Late Antiquity, into the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance, although it was resisted or belittled by some scholars and
thinkers. Plato does not have much time for allegoresis as a way of explaining
away the immorality of the Homeric pantheon. Nor did the Alexandrian school
of philology and Homeric criticism encourage allegorical interpretation, whereas
the Pergamene School, of which Crates of Mallus was a leading light, did.⁵⁷ The
Homeric Allegories, attributed to one Heraclitus (late first or early second century
AD), expounds the allegorical method and applies it to a sustained reading of the
Homeric poems.⁵⁸ For Heraclitus, if Homer expressed nothing through allegory,
then he was utterly impious (Heraclit. All. 1.1). The Iliad is a continuous song of the
philosophy of Homer, in which he allegorised the doings of the gods (Heraclit. All.
60.1). The wanderings of Odysseus in the Odyssey are nothing but a vast allegory,
and Odysseus himself is like an instrument of all the virtues in which Homer
displays his philosophy, out of his hatred for the vices that consume human life.
Odysseus is the wise man who overcomes vices in the shape of the various monsters
and obstacles that delay his return to Ithaca. Horace provides a similar reading
in Hor. epist. 1.2, which takes the Iliad as a series of lessons in the deleterious
effects of vices, anger, love, lust, etc., while the Odyssey provides in the person of
its hero a useful example of what virtue and wisdom are capable of. Moralizing
turns into allegorisation in Horace’s reference to a very common interpretation
55 For Palaephatus, see the edition of Stern (1996).

56 For the concepts of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ allegory, see Tate (1949).
57 See Hardie (1986, index s.v. “Crates of Mallus”).
58 See the edition of Buffière (1962).
38 | Philip Hardie
of Circe’s beasts as images of the spiritual, rather than physical, bestialisation of

man through enslavement to the passions.⁵⁹ Yet, more elaborate allegorisations
of the Homeric poems were developed by the Neoplatonists of later antiquity.⁶⁰
Porphyry’s Cave of the Nymphs, an interpretation of the eleven-line description of
the cave of the nymphs in Ithaca in Odyssey 13 in terms of Neoplatonist metaphysics
and eschatology, is an important and influential example.⁶¹
Allegorical interpretation fed into allegorical composition. It has become in-
creasingly clear that the surface mimesis of Vergil’s Aeneid works, intermittently at
least, in an allegorical mode:⁶² Jupiter is opposed to Juno as the upper aether to the
lower aer, the place of storms, such as the storm raised by Juno at the beginning of
the poem. The shield of Aeneas is informed by the reading of the Homeric shield
of Achilles as a natural-philosophical allegory of cosmogony (see above). The song
of Demodocus (Hom. Od. 8.266–369) on the scandalous adulterous liaison of Ares
(god of war) and Aphrodite (god of love) was sanitised as an allegory of Empe-
doclean physics about the interactions of the principles of Strife and Love. The
Vergilian equivalent of Demodocus, Iopas, the bard at the court of Dido, sings a
song explicitly on natural-philosophical questions (Verg. Aen. 1.740–7), as if to
reveal the true nature of the song of Demodocus. Palaephatus rationalises the
monster Scylla as a pirate-ship, which attacked Odysseus and his companions;
Scylla is also the name (and presumably the figurehead) of one of the ships in the
ship-race in Aeneid 5 (together with other ‘monstrous’ ships, a Pristis, a Chimaera,
and a Centaur).
Allegoresis of the Aeneid surfaces occasionally in Servius’ commentary.⁶³ For
a sustained allegorical reading of the Aeneid we have to wait for the Expositio
Vergilianae continentiae secundum philosophos moralis of Fulgentius (6th century),
in which the career of Aeneas becomes a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress. The first fully
allegorical epic is Prudentius’ Psychomachia (c. AD 400), which however brings
on to the epic battlefield a cast of personifications of virtues and vices, rather than
staging the allegorical journeys and battles of a hero or heroes. Prudentius draws
on traditions of allegoresis both classical and Christian.
Allegory flourished in both interpretation and composition of epic in the Re-
naissance. The Florentine Humanist and Platonist, Cristoforo Landino, commenta-
tor on Dante’s allegorical ‘epic’ as well as Vergil’s Aeneid, developed an influential
59 See Kaiser (1964).

60 See Lamberton (1986).
61 See Lamberton (1983) and Akcay (2016).
62 This is a central argument of Hardie (1986).
63 On the tradition of allegorising Vergil, see Ziolkowski/Putnam (2008, index s.v. “allegory”).
allegorisation of the Aeneid.⁶⁴ Torquato Tasso provided an allegorical commentary

L’allegoria del poema (1576) on his own epic, the Gerusalemme Liberata, intended
as a defence of his poem against accusations of impiety, and therefore not to be
taken straightforwardly as the poet’s own reading of his epic, but yet showing
how his compositional practice can be situated in the traditions, to which Tasso
appeals as precedents, of allegorising Homer, Vergil, and Dante.⁶⁵ With regard
to the combination of external imitation of human actions and internal allegory,
with which Tasso begins his L’allegoria del poema, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
tends more to the allegorical, with characters who are at times little more than
schematic personifications of the parts of the Platonic soul which underpin Tasso’s
allegory.⁶⁶ The complexities of the allegorical tradition, as it had evolved by the
late Renaissance, continue to inform the very different kind of epic that is Milton’s
Paradise Lost.
7 Fact and fiction, truths and lies, the probable

and the verisimilar
Allegorisation, the assertion that the superficial lies of the epic narrative conceal
profound philosophical and moral truths, is one way of dealing with the scandal
of the traditional divine machinery of epic. Another way is to allow that the actions
of the epic gods, as well as the unbelievable or unacceptable parts of the action on
earth, exist in a separate realm of the fictional. Antiquity struggled to achieve a fully
developed theory of the autonomy of fiction,⁶⁷ although it did evolve a hierarchy of
narrative types that distinguished between “history” (ἱστορία, historia), “fictitious
story” (πλάσμα, argumentum) and “myth” (μῦθος, fabula),⁶⁸ and also formalised
the idea of a “poetic licence” (ἐξουσία ποιητική, licentia poetica).⁶⁹ Aristotle went
some way to circumventing Plato’s condemnation of poets as liars, observing that
“moreover, correctness in poetry is not the same thing as correctness in politics,
nor yet is it the same as correctness in any other art” (πρὸς δὲ τούτοις οὐχ ἡ αὐτὴ
ὀρθότης ἐστὶν τῆς πολιτικῆς καὶ τῆς ποιητικῆς οὐδὲ ἄλλης τέχνης καὶ ποιητικῆς,
64 Cf. Müller-Bochat (1968).

65 See Borris (2000, 41–6).
66 See Quint (2003).
67 For a subtle account of some of the stages in antiquity’s dealings with fiction, see Feeney (1991,
5–56).
68 See Brink (1971) on Hor. ars 338–42.
69 Cf. Nünlist (2009, 174–84).
40 | Philip Hardie
Arist. Po. 1460b13–15). Petronius’ Eumolpus affirms the licence of the epic poet to
deal in fabulae (see above).
A recognition that poets deal in lies goes back to one of the earliest statements
on poetics, Hesiod’s report that, when he met the Muses as a shepherd on Mount
Helicon, they told him: “We know how to say many lies that are similar to true
things, and we know how to speak true things, when we wish.” (ἴδμεν ψεύδεα
πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, / ἴδμεν δ’, εὖτ’ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι, Hes.
Th. 27–8). To make the Muses the mouthpiece gives authority and licence to the
practice of the poet of epos (covering both didactic epic and heroic narrative epic) of
departing from what in later centuries would be called historical truth. A rather less
reputable supernatural source for the mixture of fact and fiction, but a personage
closely related to the Muses, is the personification of Fama in Aeneid 4, who is
“clinging to distorted fiction as much as she reports the truth” (tam ficti prauique
tenax quam nuntia ueri, Verg. Aen. 4.188).⁷⁰ In the immediate context Fama is the
embodiment of the rumours, half true, half false, that swirl about the relationship
between Dido and Aeneas, but she is also a dark reflection of the power of the
epic poet to propagate and immortalise his own version of events. There is a more
particular self-reflexivity in that the story of Dido’s uncontrollable passion for
Aeneas is in conflict with what before Vergil was the more usual story of a chaste
Dido who upheld her loyalty to her dead husband, and this story may even be
Vergil’s own invention. Ovid unpacks still further some of the implications of
Vergil’s Fama in his description of the house of Fama at Ov. met. 12.39–66, esp.
12.54–8:
mixtaque cum ueris passim commenta uagantur

55 milia rumorum confusaque uerba uolutant.
e quibus hi uacuas implent sermonibus aures,
hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti
crescit, et auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor.
And everywhere wander thousands of rumours, falsehoods mingled with the truth, and
confused reports flit about. Some of these fill their idle ears with talk, and others go and tell
elsewhere what they have heard; while the story grows in size, and each new teller makes
contribution to what he has heard.⁷¹
There is the same mixture of truth and fictions, to which are added reflections on
the relationships of poet to audience, and poet to poet within an epic tradition: the
intertexts for uacuas . . . aures (12.56) point predominantly to the role of poetry in
70 See Hardie (2012, 134).

71 All translations of Ovid are taken from Miller (1916).
entertaining or giving pleasure,⁷² while in the transmission of the subject matter of

poetry from one poet to another “the fiction grows in scale”⁷³, and new elements
are added to the received material. By its positioning within the Metamorphoses,
Ovid’s house of Fama acts as a kind of prologue to Ovid’s ‘Little Iliad’ (to be followed
by Ovid’s ‘Little Aeneid’), so that the poetics of Ovid’s Fama are more specifically
the poetics of the epic tradition as Ovid looks back on it from his own vantage
point in literary history.
The hierarchy of narrative types according to their degree of factual truth
(ἱστορία, historia; πλάσμα, argumentum; μῦθος, fabula) introduces us to the notion
of the verisimilar. The second term, πλάσμα or argumentum, refers to a fiction that
is like the truth, ueri simile, or, in one of Horace’s formulations, ficta uoluptatis
causa sint proxima ueris (Hor. ars 338).⁷⁴ This, probably Hellenistic, doctrine of the
πιθανόν πλάσμα, goes back to Aristotle’s statements on the principles of necessity
(τὸ ἀναγκαῖον) and probability (τὸ εἰκὸς).⁷⁵ In a highly influential section of the
Poetics Aristotle distinguishes between the functions of the poet and the historian
(Arist. Po. 1451a36–b7):
φανερὸν δὲ ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων καὶ ὅτι οὐ τὸ τὰ γενόμενα λέγειν, τοῦτο ποιητοῦ ἔργον ἐστίν,
ἀλλ’ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο καὶ τὰ δυνατὰ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον. ὁ γὰρ ἱστορικὸς καὶ ὁ ποιη-
τὴς οὐ τῷ ἢ ἔμμετρα λέγειν ἢ ἄμετρα διαφέρουσιν [1451b] εἴη γὰρ ἂν τὰ ῾Ηροδότου εἰς μέτρα
τεθῆναι καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἂν εἴη ἱστορία τις μετὰ μέτρου ἢ ἄνευ μέτρων· ἀλλὰ τούτῳ διαφέρει,
5 τῷ τὸν μὲν τὰ γενόμενα λέγειν, τὸν δὲ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο. διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαι-
ότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ’ ἱστορία τὰ καθ’
ἕκαστον λέγει.
It is also evident from what has been said that it is not the poet’s function to relate actual
events, but the kinds of things that might occur and are possible in terms of probability or
necessity. The difference between the historian and the poet is not that between using verse or
prose; Herodotus’ work could be versified and would be just as much a kind of history in verse
as in prose. No, the difference is this: that the one relates actual events, the other the kinds
72 Cf. Verg. georg. 3.3 cetera, quae uacuas tenuissent carmine mentes (“other themes, which else
had charmed with song some idle fancy”), Hor. epist. 1.16.25–6 si quis bella tibi terra pugnata
marique / dicat et his uerbis uacuas permulceat aures (“Suppose a man were to speak of wars
fought by you on land and sea, and with words like these flatter your attentive ears.”), and
Ov. met. 4.39–41 utile opus manuum uario sermone leuemus / perque uices aliquid, quod tempora
longa uideri / non sinat, in medium uacuas referamus ad aures (“let us . . . lighten with various talk
the serviceable work of our hands, and to beguile the tedious hours, let us take turns in telling
stories, while all the others listen”). All translations of Vergil are taken from Fairclough (1916); the
translations of Horace are taken from Fairclough (1926).
73 Hardie (2012, 151).
74 See Feeney (1991, 50), with reference to Kroll (1924, 52).
75 Cf. Halliwell (1986, 99–106).
42 | Philip Hardie
of things that might occur. Consequently, poetry is more philosophical and more elevated
than history, since poetry relates more of the universal, while history relates particulars.
Aristotle returns to the topic of the probable with specific reference to epic in
chapter 24 of the Poetics (Arist. Po. 1460a26–9), where Homer is praised for showing
how to utter lies as they should be, and it is stated that plausible impossibilities
(ἀδύνατα εἰκότα) are preferable to things that are possible but incredible (δυνατὰ
ἀπίθανα). In this section Aristotle also comes back to the topic of wonder and the
marvellous (τὸ θαυμαστόν), and says that “the irrational” or “absurd” (τὸ ἄλογον)
is more acceptable in epic than in tragedy, because the actions are not viewed, as
they are on stage.⁷⁶ Horace makes room for “brilliant fantasies” (speciosa miracula),
such as the king of the Laestrygonians, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Cyclops in
his prescription for the good epic poem (Hor. ars 144–5).⁷⁷ One of the most striking
fantasies in the Aeneid, the transformation of Aeneas’ ships into nymphs (Verg. Aen.
9.107–22) was criticised in antiquity as a poeticum figmentum (Serv. Aen. 9.81). Might
Vergil have constructed the episode on purpose to test the limits of the marvellous
and epic decorum? It became a central exhibit in the Renaissance debates on the
marvellous and the verisimilar.⁷⁸ Torquato Tasso reconciled verisimilitude and the
marvellous by defining the marvellous as the work of divinity in his Discorsi del
poema eroico (see above): faith transforms a supernatural into a natural cause.
8 Narratology
The narrative management of the Homeric poems is the subject of important state-
ments by Plato and Aristotle. In the third book of the Republic (Pl. R. 392d–4d)
Plato distinguishes between two narrative modes, according to whether the poet
“himself is the speaker and does not even attempt to suggest to us that anyone but
himself is speaking” (ἁπλῆ διήγησις, “simple, or pure, narrative”), or whether the
poet “delivers a speech as if he were someone else” (μίμησις, “imitation”).⁷⁹ Epic is
a mixed kind, since passages of narrative are interspersed with speeches put in the
mouths of characters within the narrative.⁸⁰ In the Poetics Aristotle picks up on the
Platonic distinction between the diegetic and the mimetic (Arist. Po. 1460a5–11),
76 See Halliwell (1986, index s.vv. “wonder, or the marvellous”).

77 See Citroni (2009).
78 See Hathaway (1968, 109–32).
79 Cf. Genette (1980, 162–6).
80 See Reitz in this volume.
and praises Homer for saying least in his own diegetic voice, compared to other
epic poets, but impersonating through mimetic speeches of characters.
Aristotle also praises Homer for the unity of plot (μῦθος) of his epics, a unity
which the Iliad and the Odyssey share with the best form of tragic plot, which has
a beginning, middle, and end, in accordance with necessity (ἀνάγκη, Arist. Po.
1450b26–31).⁸¹ By ἀνάγκη is to be understood “the cardinal principle of ‘necessity
or probability’, which represents the internal and intelligible cohesion of the action
dramatized in the poetry.”⁸² Unity is not secured by a plot based on the history of
a single hero, since many disparate things happen to an individual: the Odyssey
does not tell the whole history of Odysseus, but a single action (πρᾶξις) of the hero.
Horace makes influential statements on the epic plot in the Peripatetic tradition in
the Ars poetica (Hor. ars 146–52):
nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri

nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ouo:
semper ad euentum festinat et in medias res
non secus ac notas auditorem rapit et quae
150 desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit
atque ita mentitur, sic ueris falsa remiscet,
primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.
Nor does he begin Diomedes’ return from the death of Meleager, or the war of Troy from the
twin eggs. Ever he hastens to the issue, and hurries his hearer into the story’s midst, as if
already known, and what he fears he cannot make attractive with his touch he abandons;
and so skilfully does he invent, so closely does he blend facts and fiction, that the middle is
not discordant with the beginning, nor the end with the middle.
Unlike the writers of cyclical epic, Homer does not go right back to the ultimate
origin of a story, but he hurries to the outcome. In Hor. ars 151–2 Horace combines
a statement on the poet’s combination of poetic falsehood and factual truth with
an Aristotelian emphasis on the need for the tight coherence of beginning, middle,
and end: here the point is that fictions and truths should be fitted together in such
a way as to leave visible no joint between them.⁸³ The famous statement in Hor. ars
148–9 about launching an epic in medias res combines a consequence of the need
for unity of the plot with an observation on psychagogia, the emotional effect of
sweeping along (rapit) the audience. Related comments on the oikonomia (“plot
management”) of the Homeric epics, both of which begin from events towards the
81 On the unity of the tragic and the epic plot, see Arist. Po. 1450b22–1a35 (chs. 7 and 8) and
1459a17–b7 (ch. 23).
82 Halliwell (1986, 99).
83 I follow the interpretation of Brink (1971, 223).
44 | Philip Hardie
end of the story as a whole, are to be found in the Homeric scholia and the Ps.-
Plutarchan On the life and poetry of Homer.⁸⁴ Horace may have in mind specifically
the in medias res opening of Vergil’s Aeneid, the violent storm raised by a furious
Juno and designed to work on the emotions (pathe) of the readers.⁸⁵
Both the Odyssey and the Aeneid famously fill in parts of ‘the story so far’ with
flashback narratives from the mouth of the main hero. What modern critics since
Genette call analepsis, together with its complement, prolepsis, a looking forward
to later events in the plot, are the subject of comment in the scholia.⁸⁶
Roman epic poets inscribe references to the Peripatetic doctrine of the unified
plot in their own poems. The scenes of the Trojan War in the Carthaginian temple
of Juno in Aeneid 1 are introduced by the narrator as Iliacas ex ordine pugnas /
bellaque iam fama totum uulgata per orbem (“the battles of Ilium, the warfare now
known by fame throughout the world”, Verg. Aen. 1.456b–7), where per orbem puns
on the Epic ‘Cycle’, criticised by Horace, which narrated the whole of the Trojan
War in chronological order, as opposed to the partial and analeptic narratives
of Homer and Vergil.⁸⁷ Ovid alludes to the Vergilian pun in his description of a
personified Fama, undiscriminatingly exhaustive in her information gathering,
who “searches throughout the world” (totumque inquirit in orbem, Ov. met. 12.63).
Within Ovid’s ‘Little Iliad’ Fama opens a narrative of the Trojan War that begins
with the assembling of the Greek fleet at Aulis at the very start of the ten years.⁸⁸
This extended retelling of the Iliad is in keeping with the plot of the Metamorphoses
as a whole, an ‘epic’ which starts at the very beginning of everything, the creation
of the world, and goes down to the latest possible date, Ovid’s own times. Statius’
very Ovidian epic on Achilles, the Achilleid, provocatively sets out to narrate not
an Iliad-sized chunk of the life of its hero, but to “go through the whole [life of]
the hero” (ire per omnem . . . heroa, Stat. Ach. 1.4–5). An argument over the unity of
the epic plot is at the centre of the Renaissance debates over epic and romance,
focused in the quarrel over the unified plot of Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata in
contrast to the romance wanderings and interlaced narratives of Ariosto’s Orlando
Furioso.⁸⁹
84 Cf. Schol. A Hom. Il. 1.1 and Ps.-Plu. Vit. Hom. 162.
85 Servius Danielis notes the parallel between the in medias res openings of the Odyssey and
the Aeneid: Serv. auct. Aen. 1.34 ut Homerus omisit initia belli Troiani, sic hic non ab initio coepit
erroris.
86 See Nünlist (2009, index s.vv. “analepsis” and “prolepsis”). Note that Genette’s analepsis is not
used by the ancient scholars in this sense. On analepsis and prolepsis, see also Harrison (2001).
87 So Barchiesi (1999, 334–5).
88 See Hardie (2012, 154–6).
89 See Weinberg (1961).
9 Genre and the rota Vergilii

Epic stands at the summit of the ancient hierarchy of genres, regal and noble poetry
about regal and noble characters. A reflection of the imperialist ambition of epic as
a genre is antiquity’s view that epic is also the source of other genres, and that in
some sense it contains all genres, as an encyclopaedic genre. Self-consciousness
on the part of writers and critics of epic about its place within the system of genres,
and about the relationship between epic and other genres goes back at least to
Aristotle, whose discussion of epic in the Poetics is conducted mostly in terms
of the relationship between epic and tragedy. This self-consciousness becomes
pronounced in the Hellenistic period, and turns into an obsession with Roman
poets of the late Republic and early Empire.⁹⁰ In the form of the recusatio poets
working in lesser genres proclaim their inability to aspire to the lofty heights of
epic, defined in one-sided terms as poetry of heroic warfare; particularly sublime
themes regarded as typical of epic are Gigantomachy and the secrets of natural
philosophy.⁹¹ These simple oppositions are seen, for example, in Hor. carm. 1.6,
a refusal to write of the military exploits of Agrippa, with the central opposition
of tenues grandia (“[I a] slender [poet do not attempt] grand themes”, Hor. carm.
1.6.9). Yet Horatian lyric is perfectly capable of accommodating military and heroic
subject matter.
Similar schematic oppositions structure statements by Vergil about epic and
epic achievement in the Eclogues and Georgics. The recusatio of Eclogue 6 opposes
the “kings and battles” (reges et proelia, Verg. ecl. 6.3) of the epic from which Vergil
claims that Apollo has warned him off with the “fine-spun song” (deductum . . .
carmen, 6.5) and “slender reed” (tenuis harundo, cf. 6.8) of his lowly songs about
shepherds. The sphragis to the Georgics contrasts the rural subject matter of both
Eclogues and Georgics, composed by a Vergil who shuns fame in the otium of Naples,
with the epic thundering of Caesar Augustus as he forges a path to Olympus in his
great wars in far-distant countries. Vergilian practice, as opposed to programmatic
statement, is more complicated. The Eclogues contains poems of lofty, indeed epic,
aspiration, above all Eclogues 4, 5 and 6, while the four books of the Georgics can
be read as progressively charting a path in the direction of the heights of the epic
90 Rossi (1971) is an important discussion of the ‘laws’ of genre in antiquity. Genre has been
at the centre of much recent work on Latin poetry: for a succinct survey of ancient and modern
theories of genre, see Harrison (2007, 1–33); for a range of recent essays on generic play in epic
and didactic, see Papanghelis/Harrison/Frangoulidis (2013).
91 See Innes (1979).
46 | Philip Hardie
to which Vergil turned next.⁹² Furthermore, Vergil’s three major works, all in the
same metre, Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, taken together structure themselves
as a sequence that ascends from the lowly to the elevated, a sequence that in
Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was formalised as the rota Vergilii (“wheel of
Vergil”), in which subject matter, genre, and style are matched in ascending order:
Eclogues (herdsmen–pastoral–humble style); Georgics (farmers–didactic–middle
style); Aeneid (soldiers–epic–high style).⁹³ These three works also map out a poetic
career, in which the young poet tries out his strength on lesser genres before
spreading his wings for epic flight, a pattern discernible to some extent in the
careers of Edmund Spenser and John Milton in English literature.⁹⁴
The contamination or enrichment of genres that is found in Vergil’s earlier
works continues in the Aeneid, which contains, for example, episodes of pastoral,
elegiac, didactic, tragic, and comic colouring, as well as resonances with prose
genres, oratory, and historiography. In some cases there are self-reflexive cues to
non-epic genres, as in the cothurnus worn by Venus (disguised as a huntress) when
she appears to Aeneas in Book 1; cothurnus is the boot worn by hunters, but it is
also the word for the tragic “buskin”, appropriate for a divinity who is about to
deliver a Euripidean prologue to the ensuing ‘tragedy’ of Dido.⁹⁵ Milton, whose
Paradise Lost is also generically encyclopaedic, is more explicit in the switch from
a rural interlude in the epic to tragedy as he prepares to narrate the Fall (9.1–8):
No more of talk where God or angel guest

With man, as with his friend, familiar used
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast . . .
5 . . . I now must change
Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of man, revolt,
And disobedience: . . .
This kind of reflection on the limits and transgressive possibilities of epic as a

genre is frequent in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a poem which could almost be said to
practice a theory about the history and genre of epic. For example, the narrative
of the rape of Proserpina in Book 5 may be read as a dynamic exploration of
the relationships between epic and elegy.⁹⁶ Not all readers of epic are as open-
92 See Farrell (1991).

93 See Ziolkowski/Putnam (2008, index s.vv. “rota Vergilii”).
94 See Hardie/Moore (2010).
95 See Harrison (1972–1973).
96 See Hinds (1987).
minded as Ovid about the generic pluralism of epic: the late antique Vergilian
commentator Tiberius Claudius Donatus, for example, assigns the Aeneid to the
genus laudatiuum, and his commentary is a sustained exercise in reading the poem
as unambiguous epic praise of its hero Aeneas. Modern readers of the Aeneid have
been more willing to find ‘further voices’ in Vergil’s epic, voices that may express
themselves through genres other than that of the dominant epic voice. This generic
polyphony is one of the reasons why Bakhtin’s characterisation of epic as a one-
dimensional, monologic genre, in contrast to the dialogism of the novel, is these
days often regarded a misrepresentation.⁹⁷
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Joseph Farrell
The narrative forms and mythological
materials of classical epic
Abstract: The most characteristic themes of Greek and Roman epic are warfare and
voyaging. Most epics therefore develop or examine the proposition that ‘life is a
battle’ or that ‘life is a journey’. Epic treatments of both themes regard them as con-
summately heroic undertakings, but may present them either as unproblematically
compatible with one another, or else as antithetical or complementary themes.
Hercules, for instance, travels the world in what is a series of battles. For Achilles,
on the other hand, a journey home stands in sharp contrast to the glorious but short
life that he has chosen. But Odysseus’ long-delayed homecoming is the defining
achievement of his heroic career. For Homer and most of his critics, Achilles and
Odysseus are mutually incompatible, even antagonistic types of hero; yet, Vergil
seems to suggest that Aeneas’ ‘Odyssean’ wandering is a necessary prelude to his
‘Iliadic’ victory.
These story patterns inform not only mythic but historical epic as well, and
once again in various ways. The pattern of voyage followed by war may have been
intrinsic to the subgenre of ktisis (foundation) epic, particularly in the case of
Greek cities that traced their origins to the colonisation movement of the archaic
period. Such poems seem also to have followed the practice of local historians and
mythographers by tracing the origins of the cities and peoples that they celebrated
back to the heroic period (as is most clearly visible in Ennius’ Annales, despite
its fragmentary condition); alternatively, they correlated historical events with
mythic antecedents in a typological way (as can be seen variously in the remains of
Rhianus’ Messeniaca or Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum and with great clarity in Vergil’s
Aeneid). Sophisticated responses to these tendencies are to be found in Apollonius’
Argonautica, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, and in Flavian epic.
1 Archetypal story patterns

A commonplace has it that there are only two plots in all of literature: someone goes
on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. But this is really the same story told
from two different perspectives, that of the traveller, and that of the people he visits.
In classical epic poetry, variations on the journey of adventure are one element in a
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-003
52 | Joseph Farrell
different pair of dominant story patterns;¹ the other is warfare, perhaps the genre’s
quintessential theme.² Thus, the power of epic narrative largely depends upon
the intuitive appeal of two archetypal motifs, with most epic plots focusing on
warfare or voyaging to state the proposition that ‘life is a battle’ or ‘life is a journey’.
Individually and in combination, these twin master plots inform all surviving
specimens of Greek and Latin epic to such an extent that the history of the genre
demands to be written in these terms.
At the same time, ancient critics regarded epic poetry through quite different
lenses. Among them, a mythographic perspective regarded individual epics as
components of heroic sagas or ‘cycles’ connected with specific places, protagonists,
and events. But the most successful cycles achieved a Panhellenic relevance that
transcended regional origins; so, for our purposes, the distinctive character of
the sagas is best understood with reference not to locale, but to the kind of plot
that each involved. Of what may have been many archaic traditions, three had a
particular impact on literary epic.
The earliest of these in mythic time is the story of the Argonauts, which begins
and ends in Thessaly. It involves a collective enterprise by many Greek heroes
against a barbarian ‘other’ in the extreme East. No fragment or explicit attestation
of an archaic ‘Argosy’ survives, although there is good reason to believe such a
poem did exist, as we shall see. The Argonautic saga is fundamentally the story
of a voyage, or rather two voyages, a quest (to Colchis for the Golden Fleece) and
a nostos (the ‘return home’ to Iolcus). Surviving treatments always emphasise
the themes of adventure, exploration, colonisation, and mercantile or political
expansion, rather than warfare as such.
Next in mythic time comes the Theban Cycle of four epics for which we do have
direct evidence.³ The Oedipodeia probably covered the same events as Sophocles’
Oedipus Tyrannus; similarly, the plot of the Thebaid is reflected in Aeschylus’ Seven
against Thebes. The Epigonoi told of a second expedition undertaken by the sons
of the Seven. The Alcmeonid, named for the Argive hero Alcmaeon, one of the
Epigonoi, concerned his revenge against his mother, Eriphyle, who had convinced
Amphiaraus, her husband and Alcmaeon’s father, to march to his doom with the
rest of the Seven. The focus of this saga is the story of its second instalment, the
Thebaid, which is the quarrel between Oedipus’ sons, Eteocles and Polynices, over
which of them would inherit their father’s throne. The quarrel becomes a war
in which the brothers not only kill one another, but also cause a band of heroes
1 Cf. Ripoll in volume II.2 on arrival and departure scenes in classical epic.
2 Cf. the individual contributions on different aspects of epic battle scenes in volume II.1.
3 On these poems, see Davies (1989, 19–30), West (2003, 38–63), and Davies (2015).
recruited from Argos and other parts of Greece to perish; and this causes the sons
of these heroes to destroy Thebes in the next generation. As a whole, the saga
represents warfare, in the form of fraternal strife, civil war, and conflict between
the peoples of Greece, as a pointless, self-destructive means of settling nothing.
The Trojan Cycle is the latest of the sagas in mythic time and the most varied
and prolific.⁴ Its plot is set in motion by the fact that Zeus desired the nymph Thetis,
but knew that she was fated to bear a son more powerful than his father. The
stakes were enormous: Zeus was third in a series of kings among the gods, and
each of the first two had been violently deposed by his son, Uranus by Cronos and
Cronos by Zeus himself.⁵ He therefore married Thetis to a mortal hero, Peleus, to
whom she bore Achilles. At the same time, Zeus conceived a plan to rid the earth of
excess population by killing off the race of heroes in a great war between the ruling
families of Argos and Troy. The saga thus represents a number of themes that were
enormously important to Greek cultural identity. As the greatest in a series of joint
ventures among the peoples of Greece, the expedition against Troy represents a
sense of ethnic identity and shared values that result in victory over a powerful
external foe. At the same time, because it is the last venture of the Heroic Age, it
represents the end of mythic time and the start of a more ordinary, historical epoch,
in which ‘we ourselves’ live. The Trojan Cycle is thus enormously consequential
for the entire Greek conception of both past and present.
In addition to these, there were probably other sagas based on other regional
mythologies, and still others devoted to the heroes like Hercules and Theseus; but
almost nothing of them survives.⁶
Within the landscape of archaic epic, the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey offer
a substantial challenge, but also a welcome opportunity, both stemming from
the poems’ exceptional monumentality. On the one hand, these masterpieces
4 See Davies (1989, 32–91), West (2003, 64–171), and West (2013). The Trojan Cycle comprised eight
epics. The first (Cypria, in eleven books) began with the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the parents
of Achilles, and continued all the way to the opening of the Homeric Iliad, which was the second
installment. The third (Aethiopis, five books) dealt with two Trojan allies, the Amazon warrior
Penthesilea and the Ethiopian hero Memnon, both slain by Achilles, and with Achilles’ own death.
The fourth (Little Iliad, four books) dealt with subsequent events, including the construction of
the Trojan Horse and the Judgment of the Arms. Next the Iliupersis (two books) narrated the actual
sack of the city, and the Nostoi (five books) told of the homecomings of the Greek heroes, except
that of the last to arrive, which is the subject of the Odyssey. There was also a Telegonia (two books)
that told of a later journey by Odysseus from Ithaca to Thesprotia, which ended with the hero’s
death at the hands of Telegonus, his son by Circe. See also Bär/Schedel on epic fragments in this
volume.
5 The canonical account is that of Hesiod in the Theogony.
6 See West (2003, 172–285).
54 | Joseph Farrell
effectively eclipsed many other epics, not only of the Trojan Cycle but also of other
regional traditions, because they grew by absorbing them. On the other hand, we
can read in the Iliad and Odyssey traces of the poems and traditions that they
absorbed. With respect to post-archaic epic, this same process accounts for the
extent to which the Iliad and Odyssey became the essential points of reference
for all subsequent epic poetry, whether of warfare or voyaging, dealing with any
mythical or historical theme.
2 The Iliad, the Odyssey, and archaic epic

The Iliad and Odyssey became the paradigmatic epics of warfare and voyaging in
part because the Trojan Cycle in particular offered circumstances favourable to the
development of two such masterpieces. The fact that both warfare and voyaging
were intrinsic components of the saga – as is not true in either the Argonautic or the
Theban Cycles – is of crucial importance. In addition, the Trojan Cycle insistently
thematises the question of who is the greatest hero of all. In an important sense,
the entire saga is a confrontation between Achilles, the irresistible warrior, and
Odysseus, the resourceful voyager. The enormous cultural significance surrounding
the Trojan War lends this confrontation all the more urgency and force. By the same
token, the enormous prestige achieved by the Iliad and Odyssey greatly reinforced
the importance of Trojan mythology as well.
The narrative economy of the Iliad is such that it came to serve as a précis of
almost the entire Trojan Cycle, or at least of those portions involving the war itself.
This it does first by incorporating episodes, such as the Catalogue of Ships⁷ and
the teichoscopy,⁸ that it must have borrowed from earlier portions of the Trojan
Cycle (the mustering of the Greek fleet at Aulis and the first appearance of the
army beneath the walls of Troy). In addition, as the poem draws to a close, the
inevitability and proximity of Achilles’ youthful death is made palpably present by
those of Patroclus and Hector, while in practical terms Hector’s death guarantees
that Troy will soon fall. In this sense, the Iliad contains all the essential aspects of
the warfare theme as offered by the Trojan Cycle. At the same time, it is a critical
examination of the warrior as a cultural ideal. Achilles’ devotion to a martial
heroism is so strong that he can recognise no other measure of human dignity or
achievement. His single-mindedness sets the plot of the Iliad in motion by pitting
him against Agamemnon, a lesser warrior but an older, more experienced, ‘kinglier’
7 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann in this volume.

8 Cf. Fucecchi in volume II.1.
figure and the leader of the Greek expedition. Achilles, the consummate warrior,
therefore refuses to fight, unable to accept an ethical standard that would place
Agamemnon, or anyone, above him in honour.
By the same token, the Iliad concentrates upon warfare to the almost total
exclusion of voyaging as a heroic theme. One finds this, again, in the Catalogue of
Ships, which in the Iliad does not concern the voyage of the fleet from Aulis but the
size of the Greek army besieging Troy. Similarly, when Phoenix, Ajax, and Odysseus
visit Achilles to persuade him to return to battle, Achilles announces his intention
to sail home, choosing nostos and a long, inglorious life over the short life and
posthumous fame that he had come to Troy to earn. This amounts to a choice by
the hero of the Iliad to live according to anti-Iliadic values. Yet, the same episode
contains the strongest expression of Achilles’ difference from and even antipathy
towards Odysseus. When the latter uses silver-tongued persuasion to coax Achilles
back to the fray, Achilles sees right through him, and famously replies: “I hate
as I hate the gates of death that man who hides one thing in his heart, and says
another.”⁹ This rebuff establishes the two heroes as antithetical, Achilles being
straightforward, uncomplicated, and reliant on his sheer physical strength, where
Odysseus is crafty, even devious, and reliant mainly on strategy. In keeping with
the poem’s dominant perspective on life as a battle, it treats Achilles as clearly
the greater hero. And it is, of course, in battle alone that Achilles must realise
his heroic destiny. This he ultimately does when he takes revenge against Hector,
the greatest of the Trojan champions, for slaying his beloved friend, Patroclus. In
the grip of battle fury, Achilles is revealed as more than a match not only for any
mortal, but even for the elements of fire and water, and nearly for the gods.
In the Odyssey, by contrast, the hero’s stature is defined not by battle-prowess
but by intelligence and, especially, by success in achieving his long-delayed home-
coming. Where the Iliad adumbrates the end of the war by brooding over the fates
of the greatest fighters on both sides, the Odyssey instead recalls its hero’s clever-
ness in critical situations.¹⁰ And just as the Iliad sums up what the Trojan Cycle
has to say about warfare, so, too, does the Odyssey surpass any other tale of heroic
voyaging. This is true in the first place because Odysseus, simply by obtaining
a successful nostos, shows himself superior to the other Greek heroes, most of
9 Hom. Il. 9.312–13 ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς ᾿Αίδαο πύλῃσιν / ὅς χ’ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν,
ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ.
10 Cf. the recollections of Odysseus offered by Nestor in Book 3 (Hom. Od. 3.120–9) and by Helen
and Menelaus in Book 4 (4.220–89), and two of Demodocus’ songs in Book 8 (the quarrel between
Achilles and Odysseus, 8.72–82, and the ruse of the Trojan Horse, 8.487–520). In addition, these
episodes, which mainly concern the final stages of the war, continue the process of incorporating
cyclic material into the Homeric Odyssey.
56 | Joseph Farrell
whom either perished on the journey home or met with some disaster upon ar-
rival. References to these disasters are very frequent in the poem.¹¹ Moreover, the
hyperbolic difficulty of Odysseus’ homecoming only enhances his heroic stature.
Such a plot is the perfect vehicle for celebrating Odysseus’ innate qualities and
for demonstrating how these develop along the way. Above all, with regard to the
question of who is the greatest hero of the Trojan Cycle, it is crucially important
that Odysseus’ heroism depends not on devotion to an inflexible code of honour,
but on endurance, versatility, and cunning. His greatness consists not in winning
every battle, but in absorbing and learning from defeat to prevail in the end. His
task, unlike that of Achilles, is to stay alive at all costs, rather than die gloriously
in battle. Accordingly, near the very centre of the Odyssey, Homer again confronts
Odysseus with Achilles to contrast their respective types of heroism.¹² This time,
Odysseus meets Achilles’ shade in the land of the dead; and when he questions
Achilles about the afterlife, Achilles answers that he would rather be the slave of a
poor man among the living than be king of all the dead (Hom. Od. 11.488–91).¹³
This is, in effect, a claim by the Odyssey that the choice Achilles makes in the Iliad –
to forego his nostos in favour of a short but glorious life – was a mistake, and an
assertion that the resourceful voyager, not the steadfast soldier, has chosen the
superior life.
Each of these traditions thus claims superiority over the other; but an asym-
metry involving the ‘belatedness’ of the Odyssey allows the poem to thematise its
belatedness to its advantage. Two episodes of epic performance, again one in each
poem, figure the relationship between the kind of narrative that each represents.
In the Iliad, just before Achilles receives the embassy in Book 9, he is found singing
the klea andron (Hom. Il. 9.189), “the glorious deeds of heroes”, i.e. epic songs of
war. This is the only category of heroic poetry that the Iliad recognises. By contrast,
at the beginning of the Odyssey, we find the bard Phemius singing about the home-
comings (nostoi) of the Greek heroes who fought at Troy. This disturbs Penelope,
who tells him to sing something else; but Telemachus rebukes her, arguing that
it is only right for Phemius to sing one of the new songs that people want to hear.
11 References to the nostoi of the other Greek heroes are very frequent. In the concilium deorum
that opens the narrative, Zeus himself makes reference to the disastrous homecoming of Agamem-
non, which remains a leitmotif throughout the poem (Hom. Od. 1.32–43; cf. also 11.385–464 and
24.1–97). Not much later in Book 1, the bard Phemius entertains the suitors with songs about the
homecomings of those who fought at Troy (1.325–64). On his visits to Pylos and Sparta, Telemachus
hears different homecoming stories from Nestor (3.102–312) and Menelaus (4.351–592).
12 Cf. Demodocus’ song about the quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus (see above) with Nagy
(1979, 15–29).
13 Cf. Finkmann and Reitz in volume II.2.
With this, the Odyssey acknowledges the martial Iliad as the more primal of the
two epics while representing itself – a poem of nostos – as a ‘new song’, and one
that is preferable to a younger audience (Hom. Od. 1.325–64).
There is a second asymmetry: The Iliad must dispense altogether with the
motif of voyaging, except to treat it in a wholly negative way: for Achilles to have
acted on his impulse to return home would have been to confess his failure as a
hero. On the other hand, Odysseus, though one of the greatest voyagers in world
literature, would nevertheless be a pallid hero indeed if not for the battles and other
adventures in which he prevails – not least his final battles, in which he dispatches
the suitors and all who support them. Thus the Odyssey does not conclude before
establishing the hero’s superiority in arms, even if his victory over the suitors is
carried out by cunning, and not brute force alone. In effect, the poem presents its
hero as a multivalent response to the unitary character of the Iliadic Achilles. In
this sense, as many have maintained, warfare is the definitive and indispensable
epic theme, while the motif of voyaging is an alternative theme that becomes heroic
(instead of merely picaresque) only by virtue of the superhuman challenges that
the voyager must overcome along the way.
In this way, our earliest epics establish norms for the treatment of our two
principal plot types. The Iliad is simpler than the Odyssey: it has no room for
cunning or for new songs. It is the epic of warfare par excellence. The Odyssey is
an epic of voyaging that contains many different adventures. As such, it cannot
be simple. It is also a new poem, a secondary poem; but even if cunning is the
defining characteristic of its hero, he must show martial prowess, as well.
In addition to the cognate material that allows the monumental Iliad and
Odyssey to summarise almost the entire Trojan War saga, both poems draw upon
quite distinct traditions to reflect upon their main themes and to expand their
frame of reference, especially in a Panhellenic sense.
Again in the crucially important embassy episode of Iliad 9, the emissary who
is closest to Achilles, his tutor Phoenix, tells him a story, ‘The Anger of Meleager’,
to help convince Achilles to relent from his own anger (Hom. Il. 9.527–605). Like
the Iliad, it is a story of honour and dishonour in the context of a great collective
enterprise, in this case the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, a major episode of Aetolian
mythology. Although Meleager himself kills the boar, a battle breaks out over who
deserves credit for the success of the venture between Meleager’s own Aetolians and
their neighbours and allies, the Curetes, led by his uncles. In this battle Meleager
kills one of his uncles, causing his mother Althaea to curse him; whereupon he
in anger refuses to defend his city against the Curetes. The parallels to Achilles’
situation are sufficiently clear that the story seems to be not just a convenient
exemplum, but possibly even evidence of a fundamental story pattern shared by
epics of warfare across regional traditions. If it is that, than Phoenix’ citation
58 | Joseph Farrell
could be taken as signalling the ambition of the Iliad poet to produce the definitive
example of such a poem, not just within the Trojan Cycle, but in archaic epic in
general.
Traces of a fully developed Aetolian saga are lacking, so that inferences such
as these must remain somewhat conjectural. In confrontations between the Trojan
and Theban Cycles, we are on firmer ground. In Iliad 4, Agamemnon attempts to
rally his troops by going through the ranks and speaking to their leaders in ways
that seem intended to rouse the fighting spirit of each man. When he comes to the
Argive heroes Diomedes and Sthenelus, he accuses them of being inferior warriors
to their fathers (Hom. Il. 4.364–400) – thus inscribing them within one of the key
themes that define Achilles in relation both to Zeus and to Agamemnon himself.
Sthenelus replies indignantly that their fathers, who were among the Seven who
marched on Thebes, failed to take the city, while they themselves, the Epigonoi,
succeeded, and were therefore better than their fathers (Hom. Il. 4.401–10); and
even if Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, is only a minor figure in the Iliad, Diomedes’
stature is impressive indeed. As a result, Sthenelus’ words can easily be read as
asserting the superiority not only of Diomedes over his father Tydeus (himself a
major figure in the Thebaid), but also of the Trojan saga over the Theban.
Despite the success of the original Epigonoi, however, their name came to
signify ‘belated’ and, in a literary sense, ‘derivative’ and ‘unoriginal’. At the same
time, the archaic Thebaid was later imitated by poets like Antimachus of Colophon
(fl. c. 400 BC), who won for himself a reputation as second to Homer in the Greek
epic canon, but not at all close to him in quality.¹⁴ This is the very definition of
second-rateness; and in keeping with this judgment, an epic Thebaid came to
signify the uninspired treatment of a second-rate theme. This perspective is easy
to understand, since the attack of the Seven was, indeed, a failure that settled
nothing. By comparison, the Trojan War ended the Heroic Age in accordance with
the plan of Zeus, ushering in the Age of Iron and the historical epoch. It is hard to
imagine a more important set of results than that.
The Odyssey, too, draws on archaic sagas other than the Trojan Cycle in ways
that are even more determinative. Odysseus’ most famous adventures take place in
a largely imaginary, symbolic landscape in which east and west are not so much
geographical coordinates as metaphors pointing to a cosmic frame of reference;
and there are good reasons to suspect that these episodes are additions to an
original Odyssey tradition. Until his escape from the Laestrygonians, Odysseus
commands a small fleet of a dozen ships, but afterwards he makes his way in just
one. It is also at this point that his voyage takes on certain Argonautic contours.
14 Cf. Quint. inst. 10.1.53.

His next adventure is on the island of Aea, the home of Circe, daughter of the Sun
and sister of King Aeetes, keeper of the Golden Fleece and father of Medea. When
Circe instructs Odysseus on the best way to set his course for home after he leaves
her, she says that after getting clear of the Sirens – who probably figured in an
earlier Argonautic epic, as they do in later ones¹⁵ – he has a choice of trying to
sail either through the Planctae (the ‘Clashing Rocks’) or between the monster
Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Since she adds that only the world-famous
Argo ever managed to steer a course through the Planctae, and then only with the
help of Hera, Odysseus chooses the alternative. This makes practical sense, but in
metanarrative terms, the poem is also signalling that it will return to the narrative
arc of a traditional Odyssey instead of continuing to pursue the path of the Argo,
while at the same time acknowledging how much our Odyssey owes to the story of
the Argonauts.
On one level, the incorporation of Argonautic adventures into an Odyssey
resembles the inclusion of an intradiegetic ‘Anger of Meleager’ within an Iliad.
However, these Argonautic elements serve a purpose that goes well beyond that
of intertextual commentary. In the first place, by adding Argonautic episodes to
traditionally Odyssean ones, Odysseus’ voyage becomes much more heroic than
any previous ‘Odyssey’ or ‘Argosy’; even more, by taking advantage of Circe’s
geographical and cosmic associations – as the daughter of the Sun, who dwells in
the Far East, near the Sun’s risings, on the banks of the river Oceanus.¹⁶ Sailing in
the stream of the Ocean itself, Odysseus is able to keep pace with the sun in his
diurnal journey, starting at morning in the extreme east, arriving in the evening at
the farthest reaches of the Ocean in the Far West, and returning to Aea by night,
arriving with the dawn.
At the centre of Odysseus’ cosmic voyage around the entire world is the nekyia,
which is the actual point of this particular adventure.¹⁷ There are no convincing
indications that a nekyia or a katabasis was a traditional episode of the Argonautica
or of any pervious Odyssey. The most convincing theory is that the episode was
ultimately inspired by Near Eastern stories like that of Gilgamesh.¹⁸ But just before
Odysseus leaves the site of the nekyia, he encounters the shade of Hercules, who
remarks on the similarities between them, specifically citing his own journey to
fetch the hellhound Cerberus, conventionally the last of his labours. Odysseus
then remarks that he lingered awhile in the hope of seeing the shades of Theseus
15 Cf. West (2005, 45–7).

16 Homer places at the centre of his poem a heroic circumnavigation of the entire world in the
course of a single day.
17 Cf. Reitz in volume II.2.
18 Cf. West (2005, 62–4). See also Haubold in volume III.
60 | Joseph Farrell
and Pirithous, until a multitude of shades appeared, frightening him back to his
ship (Hom. Od. 11.601–40). With these references to previous katabatic heroes, the
poem appears to ‘cite’ two eschatological voyages from earlier Greek epic, whether
as conceptual parallels, as specific sources or models, or perhaps as both.
In these ways, one can see how that Iliad and Odyssey, in the process of growing
to monumental dimensions, arrogated to themselves the major themes and heroic
energy associated with warfare and voyaging not only in the Trojan Cycle, but in
other archaic traditions as well. In the process, they maintained an attitude of
mutual opposition, which was asymmetrical in the ways that have been stated,
but remained powerful, and was even exaggerated in reception.
3 Classical, Hellenistic, and early Roman

developments
The influence of Homer was such that no subsequent poem in any genre, especially
any epic, could escape it. This applies equally to mythological and, eventually, to
historical epic. No matter its subject, no epic after Homer could avoid being read
as a poem of Iliadic warfare, Odyssean voyaging, or some combination of the two.
Not that epic remained an especially prolific genre after the Homeric poems
attained their final form. During the archaic period, other poems ascribed to Homer
were composed or written down, and the poems of the Epic Cycle, variously as-
cribed to Homer and to other poets, emerged from the same ancient oral traditions
that gave rise to the Iliad and Odyssey themselves.¹⁹ A few additional names are
known as the authors of still other epics.²⁰
19 Stasinus is said to be the author of the Cypria, Arctinus of the Aethiopis and the Iliupersis,
Lesches of the Little Iliad, Agias or Eumelus of the Nostoi, and Eugammon of the Telegonia.
Cinaethon and Antimachus of Teos appear as authors in the Theban Cycle, but the situation
there is even more uncertain. See Bakker on oral poetry and performance of the Homeric poems
in this volume.
20 West (2005) categorises the epic poetry of this period, apart from the Trojan and Theban Cycles,
under the rubrics of “poems on Heracles and Theseus”, which include The Capture of Oechalia
ascribed to Creophylus of Samus, two epics of Heracleia by Pisander of Camirus and Panyassis,
and an anonymous Theseid, and “genealogical and antiquarian epics”, among which the remains
of Carcinus’ Naupactia seem mainly concerned with the Argonautica; other titles include the
Titanomachia ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth and the regional epics of Thestorides of Phocaea (?)
entitled Phocais, Danais, etc.
In the classical period, the most important contexts of epic reception were
tragedy in the fifth century and philosophy in the fourth century BC.²¹ After Aeschy-
lus’ Achilleid, an influential re-imagination of the Iliad as a dramatic tetralogy,
tragedians tended to shy away from the consummately heroic, but troublingly
solipsistic Achilles, although they did explore the issue of heroic education, by fo-
cusing on episodes of Achilles’ youth and that of his son, Neoptolemus.²² Odysseus,
on the other hand, fared badly at the hands of tragedians, who used him as a kind
of stage villain.²³ In this way, the Homeric dichotomy between the steadfast soldier
and the versatile voyager and strategist, if anything, intensified in the classical
period, to the disadvantage of the latter. But in the time of the Sophists and the
Socratici uiri, this situation began to reverse itself, so that Achilles came to seem
merely intransigent, while the flexible Odysseus spoke more convincingly to the
complex challenges faced by citizens of the fourth-century polis. This process only
continued, to the point that ethical philosophers in the Hellenistic period iden-
tified the heroes of the Iliad mainly as negative examples of ‘kingly’ behaviour –
i.e. of engaged citizenship – and Odysseus himself as a more appropriate model of
ethical self-comportment.
In epic poetry itself, poets of the Hellenistic period avoided challenging Homer
by drawing inspiration too obviously from the Iliad, the Odyssey, or indeed the
Trojan Cycle. The most successful epicist of this period was Apollonius of Rhodes,
author of that exceedingly rare thing, a Hellenistic poem that has survived in a
regular medieval manuscript tradition. His four-book Argonautica illustrates the
importance of the Homeric prototypes for all subsequent epic poets, along with
the imitative and emulative techniques adopted by the best poets to assert control
over a crushing burden of expectation.
By composing an Argonautica, Apollonius might be seen as having chosen,
like the unfortunate Antimachus, to circumvent the challenge posed by Homer’s
twin masterpieces, and to some extent this is the case. The voyage of the Argo, like
the assault of the Seven against Thebes, belongs to a different heroic saga than the
Trojan Cycle, and even if we cannot say to what extent Apollonius drew directly
on archaic material, we can identify ways in which he engaged with surviving
Argonautic poetry by Pindar, Euripides, and others. But we have also seen that the
Homeric Odyssey itself is an Argonautic poem, and Apollonius was well aware of
the Argonautic element in the Odyssey. He exploited this by causing his Argonauts
to ‘anticipate’ the adventures of Odysseus at every stage, and to do so not once,
21 Cf. Ambühl in this volume on intergeneric influences and interactions.

22 Cf. Michelakis (2002, 22–57).
23 Cf. Stanford (1963, 102–17).
62 | Joseph Farrell
but twice. Recall here that any ‘Argosy’ involves a double voyage, a quest for the
Golden Fleece and a successful nostos. This it is certainly true of Apollonius’ poem:
the double nature of the voyage is greatly emphasised by symmetrical treatment,
the first two books telling of the voyage from Iolcus to Colchis, and the latter two
of the return. But more than that, both legs of the journey are described in ways
that emphasise their similarity to the voyage of Odysseus. Specifically, both the
outward and the homeward legs of the Argo’s round-trip are modelled on Odysseus’
adventures as he describes them to Alcinous in his Apologoi. Now, the Apologoi
include the episodes that Homer borrowed from an archaic Argonautica; so that
Apollonius’ double imitation of the Apologoi effectively comments on the Argonau-
tic element in Homer’s poem. This is no straightforward imitation of Homer by a
belated follower, but a sophisticated instance of the ‘future reflexive’ intertextual
mode, which permits a later author to produce a poem as if it were ‘prior to’ and
even ‘predictive of’ an older poem on which the new one is in fact based.²⁴
Critics of Apollonius commonly stress the similarity between the Argonautica
and the Odyssey precisely as epics of seafaring adventure. This is entirely under-
standable, but it should not cause anyone to overlook the importance of the Iliad
to Apollonius’ conception of heroism. The first book of the Argonautica is mightily
concerned, almost to the point of obsession, with Iliadic questions about heroic
excellence.²⁵ Throughout this book, Iliadic issues and motifs are replayed, in every
case through detailed intertextual permutation. The result is to invite the readers
to reflect on leadership by reworking the Homeric theme of who is the best of
the Achaeans, asking instead which of Apollonius’ heroes will be the best of the
Argonauts. This means deciding which hero is most fit to lead such an expedition.
The potential antithesis that exists between Jason and Hercules quickly develops
into antipathy on the part of the latter. Fortunately, the Argonauts accidentally
abandon Hercules in Mysia; but towards the end of the poem, when they barely
miss encountering their former shipmate in the Garden of the Hesperides, the
poet admits that if the meeting had taken place, Hercules would have killed them
all. This leaves no doubt either that Hercules is a greater warrior than any of the
Argonauts, or that he entirely lacks a flexible capacity for taking advantage of
whatever others may have to offer. In this sense, the Iliadic elenchus of Book 1 is
misleading: the Argonautica is a poem that has almost no place for consummately
solipsistic warriors like Achilles and Hercules, requiring instead a hero who is, if
anything, even more pliable that Odysseus himself. And in the end, of course – at
least, within the boundaries of Apollonius’ narrative – Jason is more successful
24 Cf. Barchiesi (1993).

25 Cf. Clauss (1993).
than Odysseus as well, in that he performs a double version of Odysseus’ nostos

and arrives home not alone, but with his crew almost entirely intact.
Apollonius was also a prolific author of historical epics dealing with city foun-
dations, or ktisis epics. Virtually nothing of his work in this genre survived; but it
may be possible to draw inferences from the Argonautica, which reflects Apollonius’
world as defined by the spate of foundations by Alexander and his successors.²⁶
Moreover, whereas the Argonautica notably enlists both Iliadic and Odyssean
motifs in a confrontation between the warrior and the voyager, it would not be sur-
prising if the pattern of voyaging followed by warfare was symbiotically combined
in his ktisis epics. In a related way, both the Argonautica and ktisis epic represent
a departure from the norms of archaic, or at any rate Homeric epic, for Homer
is not an aetiological poet. In contrast, the Argonautica is full of aetiology, and
ktisis epic, being concerned with foundations of cities, must have been consum-
mately aetiological.²⁷ And by treating the origin story of a people, whether this
was shrouded in myth or based on historical sources, the purpose of ktisis epic
was very likely to make some fundamental point about the nature of that people in
the present. Because this approach involves comparisons between the heroic past
and the present day, presumably encouraging the inference that the present is a
worthy successor to the past, it would be a mistake to exaggerate the difference
between mythical and historical epic.²⁸
As it happens, our clearest examples of ktisis epic are found in the fragments
not of Greek poetry, but of Gnaeus Naevius and Quintus Ennius, the earliest Roman
poets to work in this genre. In addition, both these poets treat the foundation of
Rome explicitly as a continuation of the Trojan Cycle. This is the result of a process
by which, over the previous two centuries or so, mythographers came to regard the
Romans as descendants of the ancient Trojans.²⁹ The charter myth that warranted
26 Cf. Thalmann (2011); see also Clauss (2000), Clare (2002), and Meyer (2 2008).
27 On aetiology and genealogy in classical epic, cf. Walter in this volume.
28 Cf. Nethercut in this volume. It is entirely open to conjecture whether the various foundation
epics drew appreciably upon the regional sagas of archaic epic. On the other hand, it is clear that
these poems were influenced by Homer. We see this in Rhianus’ Messenica, a poem on the Second
Messenian War (c. 675 BC) written about four and a half centuries after the event. Rhianus drew
explicitly on Homeric prototypes to characterise the Messenians’ heroic struggle for freedom from
enslavement by the Spartans; and we find this same basic technique employed in the epics of
Naevius, Ennius, and Vergil (see immediately below and section 4).
29 On this process, see Galinsky (1969), Gruen (1992), and Casali (2010). Already Livius Andronicus
had written his Odusia, which means that the first Roman epic of which any trace has survived is
a translation of Homer. Livius, Naevius, and Ennius were all playwrights as well, which means
that they were schooled in the reception of Homer in Athenian tragedy, and they produced plays
on Trojan themes even more frequently than their fifth-century predecessors.
64 | Joseph Farrell
this conception is in Book 20 of the Iliad, where Poseidon informs the hero Aeneas
of his destiny after the fall of Priam’s city to rule over the remaining Trojans; and
by the early third century, these Trojans and their descendants had come to be
identified with the people of Rome. This conception was useful to the Greeks as they
struggled to understand the ascendency of an upstart people, who quickly became
their rulers, and to the Romans, who gained from it both a locus standi within
the traditional Greek system of heroic genealogy as well as an aura of millennial
inevitability that, as it turned out, was ratified by historical events. In this way, the
Trojan Cycle, already preeminent among the archaic sagas of heroic myth, achieved
a new importance, which contained an implicit conception of cyclical prophecy.
Just as the Heroic Age came to an end, and the historical era began with a great,
Panhellenic expedition and victory over a formidable eastern opponent, so now,
a thousand years later, a young western power, the Roman descendants of the
vanquished Trojans, were asserting their hegemony over the Greeks along with all
the peoples of the Mediterranean oecumene. Thus, Naevius in his Bellum Poenicum
and Ennius in his Annales both incorporate the fall of Troy and Aeneas’ journey
to Italy into their respective treatments of Roman history in ways that reflect a
decisive acceptance of this mythic ancestry. As a result, epic poetry in Rome would
always take its bearings from the Trojan Cycle, treating every conflict, mythical or
historical, as a version of the Iliad, and every voyage, whether by land or sea, as a
version of the Odyssey.
The Homeric paradigms remain relevant even in the last decades of the Ro-
man Republic, a period characterised by the “obsolescence of epic”.³⁰ The most
interesting poets at this time deliberately cultivated several species of anti-epic.
Lucretius’ didactic poem on the nature of the universe is a key example.³¹ By virtue
of its length and hyper-Ennian style, it invited comparison with the Annales and
with Homer, Ennius’ avowed model. And Lucretius praises Epicurus for winning
greater triumphs than military victors like Pyrrhus and Scipio, for being a greater
civilising force than Hercules, and for conducting an intellectual voyage, far greater
than that of Odysseus, through the entire universe.³² Lucretius thus draws on epic
motifs of warfare and voyaging in the service of expounding an extremely anti-epic
philosophical system.
Catullus, a contemporary of Lucretius, also takes a sceptical approach as he
conjures with both of the archetypal Homeric plots. Unlike Lucretius, he takes his
bearings not from Ennius’ Annales but from the shorter epics or epyllia and from
30 Otis (1964, 5–40).

31 On epic and didactic poetry, see Buglass/Fanti/Galzerano in this volume.
32 The motifs of triumph and intellectual exploration are combined at Lucr. 1.62–79; the compari-
son with Hercules and other culture heroes appears at 5.13–54.
the stylistic ideals promulgated and practiced by the Alexandrian poets, especially
Callimachus.³³ We can only guess at how closely Catullus’ masterpiece, Carmen
64, resembled the works of like-minded friends, like the Zmyrna of Gaius Helvius
Cinna or the Io of Gaius Licinius Calvus. If one can draw inferences from these
titles and from subsequent treatments of the same themes, it seems possible that
heroic journeys were plot-elements in both these poems, however obliquely related
to the principal theme of love, but it is hard to imagine that they had much time
for Iliadic warfare. In fact, it seems likely that a rejection of martial values, as in
Lucretius, was an important element of these poems, and that the theme of warfare
was supplanted by that of love – though here, too, Cinna and Calvus may have
shared with Lucretius a certain scepticism about the life of love, even if they must
have presented their case in a very different way. Catullus is part of the same world,
but Carmen 64 is remarkable in taking on the theme of love while addressing the
heroic values of the Odyssean quest as well as those of Iliadic warfare. Catullus
opens with the voyage of the Argo – the prototype of Odysseus’ nostos, as we
have seen – and, specifically, with the moment when Peleus and Thetis first saw
one another (Catull. 64.1–21). He moves briskly on to their wedding, which places
the reader right at the beginning of the Trojan Cycle, which in Homer concludes
with the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope. But instead of a permanently happy
resolution, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis takes place under a cloud of ominous
warnings. One of these is a wedding gift, a tapestry depicting another instance of
seafaring and the erotic union involving Theseus and Ariadne, which ends with
Theseus’ abandoning her (Catull. 64.47–206). The second troubling omen is the
song of the Parcae (or Fates), which concludes the poem by predicting the carnage
that Achilles, the offspring of Peleus and Thetis’ union, will wreak havoc on Greeks
and Trojans alike (Catull. 64.303–408). In this way, the poem grapples with both of
Homer’s foundational epic plots, brings them together in a remarkable tour de force,
and does so in a way that voices extreme scepticism about the entire value system
represented by heroic poetry. Catullus works entirely within mythical paradigms,
but strong thematic parallels between this poem and the rest of his œuvre³⁴ lend
these mythical paradigms a strong relevance to contemporary historical realities.³⁵
33 On Greek and Roman epyllia, see Finkmann and Hömke in this volume.
34 For instance, his own sense of erotic rejection by Lesbia, the association of Troy with his
brother’s death as well as the death of so many heroes, his evident fascination with lessons
learned from travel, and his ostentatious disgust with business of administering an empire.
35 Cf. Putnam (1961) and Konstan (1977).
66 | Joseph Farrell
4 Vergil and his contemporaries

It was against this background that Vergil began his career and became the poet
who would eventually write the Aeneid. His first work, a collection of ten Eclogues
(or Bucolics), is another kind of anti-epic collection in the Hellenistic and Neoteric
manner, but it does repeatedly allude to epic themes and motifs. This is especially
evident in Eclogue 4 and 6, which are frank explorations of ideas that lie beyond
the usual confines of pastoral or bucolic poetry. To name only the most obvious
elements, Eclogue 4 predicts that the future has in store another Argonautic voyage
and that Achilles will go again to Troy; and in Eclogue 6, the Song of Silenus
begins with prominently Argonautic themes, while making near its conclusion a
sophisticated reference to the Scylla of the Odyssey as an erotic heroine.³⁶ Other
poems in the collection present travel and militarism as negative forces antithetical
to the world of the Eclogues – or the world as the poet of the Eclogues would prefer
to imagine it – especially in the framing Eclogues 1 and 9.³⁷
Horace, whose Satires (or Sermones) were written not long after the Eclogues –
he may even have begun them before Vergil’s collection was complete – probably
published his first poetry book as a collection of ten Satires, also in hexameters, in
response to Vergil’s example.³⁸ Like the Eclogues, the Satires distinguish themselves
pointedly from the epic of Homer and Ennius, even as they, too, borrow the epic
motifs of journey and battle in quite sophisticated ways: journey, outstandingly,
in Satire 5, in which Horace accompanies Maecenas on an overland voyage to a
diplomatic conference in Brundisium, a poem modelled on an earlier travel satire
by Lucilius; battle almost surreptitiously in Satire 7, a quasi-legal altercation set
in the military camp of Brutus the Liberator shortly before Philippi. Both poems
point unmistakably to the expectation that the tense peace of the triumviral years
could not but give way to another round of civil war, as in fact it was soon to do.
In such different ways, both these books of ten short, ostensibly anti-epic poems
draw upon readers’ Iliadic and Odyssean paradigms to put mythical and historical
subjects in the service of commenting on current events and their likely outcome
in the very near future.
At the end of his own libellus, Horace praises Vergil as the best contemporary
poet of molle atque facetum (sc. epos), of “gentle, witty epic”, which seems, es-
36 Cf. Verg. ecl. 4.34–6 and 6.43–4 (the Hylas episode).

37 Cf. Verg. ecl. 1.64–78 (Meliboeus, in dialogue with Tityrus, anticipates a journey into exile at
the end of the earth after his lands are taken from him), 9.2–6 (Moeris reintroduces the theme of
dispossession and exile in conversation with Lycidas).
38 Cf. Putnam (1996), Reckford (1999), and Zetzel (2002).
pecially to modern ears, almost a contradiction in terms. But when in the same
passage Horace contrasts Vergil’s efforts with the “brave, spirited epic” (forte epos
acer) of his and Vergil’s friend, Varius Rufus, it seems very unlikely that he was
praising Varius as a more frankly Homeric poet (Hor. sat. 1.10.43–5). We know very
little about Varius’ poem beyond its title, De morte (“On Death”), which it shared
with a philosophical treatise by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara,
the head of a school in Herculaneum. Vergil, Horace, Varius, and other literary
friends apparently met Philodemus there, and the philosopher later dedicated at
least one of his works (De adulatione, “On Flattery”) to them.³⁹ Thus it is a very
reasonable inference that Varius’ epic, though written in a more serious and sub-
lime style than the Eclogues or the Sermones, was a kind of didactic poem, more
Lucretian than Ennian or Homeric, and quite possibly not a poem that it would be
useful for us to group with conventional epics of quest or battle.⁴⁰
The Battle of Actium in 31 BC ended the tense stalemate of the triumviral years
and introduced a briefer period of anxious expectation. Horace published a sec-
ond book of Satires shortly thereafter; it includes a burlesque nekyia featuring
Odysseus and Tiresias (Hor. sat. 2.5), along with a few other mock-epic touches.
However, Vergil’s nearly contemporary Georgics would prove to be the most ambi-
tious Homeric essay in some decades. This four-book didactic poem is ostensibly
a verse treatise on farming, but is easily recognised as a profound meditation on
man’s place in the universe and on what might be done to regenerate a just society.
Like Satires 2, it was written mainly during the triumviral years, and it fully reflects
the uncertainty of those times. But it was not finished until after Actium, so that it
also reveals a measure of hope for the future as well as real uncertainty about what
the young Caesar, now victor in a civil war, will do next.⁴¹ This is not the place
to address fully the poem’s extensive engagement with Homer. Long considered
simply as Vergil’s attempt to make himself the Roman Hesiod, the poem largely
leaves behind formal imitation of Works and Days by the end of Book 1, devel-
oping a polyphonous approach to poetic and prose models from which Homer
emerges at last as the leading voice.⁴² Iliadic and Odyssean themes are in fact
woven throughout the poem, but they emerge with great force and clarity in Book 4.
There an account of beekeeping represents the hive as analogous to a human city
(and specifically to Rome), and the bees as both Odyssean wanderers and Iliadic
warriors in ways that draw upon mock-epic conventions without obscuring an
underlying seriousness of purpose. Later in the book, the virtuosic concluding tale
39 Cf. Gigante (1995, 47) and Farrell (2014).

40 Cf. Gigante (1995, 47).
41 Cf. Nappa (2005).
42 Cf. Farrell (1991) and Gale (2000).
68 | Joseph Farrell
of Aristaeus, Orpheus, and Eurydice combines references to specific, emblematic

scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey (for example, Achilles’ acceptance of new
armour from Thetis; Odysseus’ nekyia) in a way that forges Homer’s contrasting
themes into an unexpected, even astonishing unity.⁴³
If one can form a general judgment on the basis of what happens to have
survived, then, the best and most imaginative epic poetry written during the second
half of the first century BC took various forms of alternative epic – didactic, erotic,
‘humble’ bucolic, or satirical parody – and still, the essential Homeric story patterns
remain very much in evidence. When Vergil turned to epic in a frankly heroic mode,
he produced, over the course of a decade during which the victor of Actium was
establishing himself as Augustus, a poem that engages as no one had ever done
before, or would do since, with the story patterns of both Homeric masterpieces in
the fullest possible way.⁴⁴ The Aeneid also pays due attention to the Argonautic
character of Odysseus’ and Aeneas’ voyages through reference to Apollonius’ poem,
while at the same time incorporating elements of both the Naevian and Ennian
approaches to ktisis epic, reflecting on the entire history of Rome and its empire
while paying special attention to the mythical origins of the new ruler’s ancestors
and to his recent victory over all opponents.⁴⁵ In the Aeneid, neither voyaging nor
warfare is in any sense a tangential or merely metaphorical motif. Both are symbolic:
the life and career of the mythical hero Aeneas, along with that of his historical
descendant Augustus, Vergil’s contemporary, and the historical experience of an
entire people, from their pre-Roman period of legendary wandering as refugees
from the Trojan War, to the notional fulfilment of their destiny as an imperial power
bestowed by fate – a fate best articulated when Anchises enjoins Aeneas, and every
Roman, “to impose the habit of peace, to spare the humbled and war down the
proud.”⁴⁶
5 Post-Vergilian epic
One could say that the Aeneid was a glorious aberration, and that conventional
epic remained ‘obsolete’ as Vergil’s successors continued to devise imaginative
approaches to the genre. The first of these were Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Lucan’s
43 Cf. Farrell (1991) and Morgan (1999).

44 Knauer (1964) remains the fundamental study.
45 See Nelis (2001) on Apollonius, Buchheit (1963) on Naevius, as well as Norden (1915) and
Goldschmidt (2013) on Ennius.
46 Verg. Aen. 6.853 parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.
Bellum Ciuile, both decidedly heterodox in respect to generic convention and to

the Aeneid in particular. Then the Flavian period returned to a style that is super-
ficially more conventional and more Vergilian, but that represents still another
reinterpretation of the genre.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid looks beyond epic to draw inspiration from cos-
mogony, mythography, and universal history.⁴⁷ Indeed, the poem’s structure, which
moves from the creation of the universe through mythical time to the author’s
present, resembles that of a mythological encyclopaedia, such as the Bibliotheca
once erroneously attributed to Apollodorus of Athens.⁴⁸ This framework allows
Ovid to incorporate all of the principal heroic sagas and all the most prestigious
epic poems of earlier antiquity, together with important contributions from tragedy.
Thus, in just two books (Metamorphoses 3–4), he recites almost the entire Theban
Cycle within a structure largely adapted from Euripides’ Bacchae. This episode
has been seen as the first post-Vergilian essay in ktisis epic because it begins with
Cadmus’ foundation of Thebes, thus inviting comparison between Thebes and
Rome.⁴⁹ In Book 7, Ovid treats the Argonautic saga largely as the story of Medea, a
character who accompanied the poet throughout his career.⁵⁰ With her escape to
Athens at the end of the book, the focus shifts to the heroic careers of Theseus and
Hercules before Ovid transitions into a highly asymmetrical rendition of the entire
Trojan Saga, de-emphasising material from the Iliad and Odyssey in favour of the
Cyclic poems and, once again, tragedy.⁵¹
At this point Ovid departs decisively from the pattern represented by Ps.-
Apollodorus. The latter concludes his survey with the Trojan Cycle, the boundary
between mythical and historical time. Ovid instead transitions seamlessly from
Memnon’s death, an episode of the Cyclic Aethiopis, to his ‘Little Aeneid’, a masterly
reworking of Vergil’s masterpiece in a completely different key. He all but ignores
Dido and Lavinia, while nevertheless greatly emphasising the theme of love.⁵²
From Aeneas’ voyage Ovid moves on to Roman history as far as the apotheosis of
47 Cf. Wheeler (2002). See also Sharrock in this volume.

48 Apollodorus belongs to the second century BC, while the Bibliotheca is of imperial date, and
certainly post-Ovidian, but its structure is assumed to depend on an earlier source, possibly
the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women; see West (1985). Cole (2004) and Cole (2008) develop the
observations of earlier scholars regarding this similarity, but emphasise time over genealogy as a
structural principle.
49 Cf. Hardie (1990).
50 Cf. Hinds (1993).
51 An important contribution from tragedy is the episode of Ajax and Odysseus’ contest for the
arms of Achilles, which had been the subject of tragedies by (probably) Aeschylus and both Accius
and Pacuvius.
52 Cf. Galinsky (1975, 217–51), Nagle (1988), and Farrell (1992).
70 | Joseph Farrell
Julius Caesar, which Caesar is said to deserve primarily because he is the (adoptive)
father of Augustus. In this way, having begun with the creation of the world out
of elemental chaos and having continued with a ‘comprehensive’ survey of the
Greek myths, Ovid represents the foundation of Rome and its refoundation in the
Augustan regime as the culminating episodes of both natural philosophy and the
human experience.
Perhaps in reference to the pax Augusta that prevailed in the years when the
poem was written, Ovid handles the indispensable epic motif of warfare with a
certain irony, as in the comical mock-epic warfare between Perseus and his uncle
Acrisius (Book 4), the erotically inflected hunt for the Calydonian Boar (Book 8),
or battles featuring two invulnerable warriors, Caeneus and Cycnus (Book 12).
However, where one might most expect to find it, warfare is actually eliminated.⁵³
For instance, Ovid’s ‘comprehensive’ treatment of the Theban Cycle manages to
ignore the assaults of the Seven and the Epigonoi altogether.⁵⁴ By the same token,
the ‘Little Aeneid’ is represented not in the form of an Odyssey followed by an Iliad,
but mainly as a voyage along an itinerary made familiar many times in the poem,
a pattern of migration from east to west. This is inscribed in the cosmic order by
the Sun’s daily journey across the sky and in the stories of numerous individuals,
such as Daphne, Phaethon, Bacchus, Ino, Daedalus, Evander,⁵⁵ Pythagoras, and
Asclepius. Notably, the destination of many of travellers is Italy, and even Rome;
in Daphne’s case it is the house of Augustus itself. Thus the motif of the heroic
journey instantiates the theme of translatio imperii (while of course taking many
other forms as well).⁵⁶
It would take more time before Lucan could devise yet another new approach
to epic by focusing relentlessly on a single, epochal event, the war that ended the
Roman Republic. In his Bellum Ciuile, Lucan largely eschews mythic materials,
and with them any serious reference to the heroic ancestors and founders of Rome.
Instead, he represents Julius Caesar, victorious in the civil war that he waged
against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, less as the founder of a dynasty still in power
53 For a more detailed discussion of battle scenes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, cf. Sharrock in this
volume.
54 Only many books later are Eteocles and Polynices ‘named’, very obliquely and in passing, and
Oedipus himself even more so, at Ov. met. 15.429, a passage evidently noted and cited by Lucan.
8.407 and Stat. Theb. 1.313 et passim.
55 On Evander, see Fantham (1992), Labate (2003), Labate (2010, 157–92), and Farrell (2013,
239–50).
56 Some of these include the gadfly-driven wanderings of Io (Ov. met. 1.722–37), Phaethon’s journey
to the palace of the Sun (which is elided by the transition between Books 1 and 2), the abduction
of Europa and Cadmus’ quest for her (2.872–3.25), the aerial excursions of Ceres (5.438–63), Medea
(7.350–403), and Daedalus (8.183–235), as well as the stormy sea voyage of Ceyx (11.474–572).
when Lucan was writing, and more as the anti-founder or destroyer of a Republic
that had endured almost 500 years. In keeping with this inversion, some of the
most characteristic features of earlier epic are absent. Above all, famously, the
poem lacks the divine ‘machinery’ of Homer, Apollonius, Vergil, Ovid, and the
rest.⁵⁷ Neither is there an invocation of the Muse, or revelatory prophecy on the
part of Jupiter or any other god. Critics argue about whether the poem has a hero,
or who he is, or how many of them might be. These reversals extend to Lucan’s
treatment of his epic predecessors and to his handling of the motifs of warfare and
voyaging, and with them the ethical values that they had traditionally represented.
Lucan launches his narrative as if in medias res – specifically, in what he
characterises as the tenth year of a (therefore) Iliadic conflict between the surviving
members of the First Triumvirate. Indeed, Lucan generally depicts the relationship
between Caesar and Pompey as an instauration of the angry Achilles’ quarrel with
the older and more distinguished Agamemnon.⁵⁸ But these roles are not absolutely
fixed: Caesar’s marshalling of forces to march on Rome recalls the catalogue of
Agamemnon’s forces in Iliad 2, though Lucan lists not Caesar’s own troops, but
the Gallic tribes left unguarded when he crosses the Rubicon.⁵⁹ Further details
remind the reader of Rome’s Trojan identity while emphasising the theme of civil
conflict. Still within the catalogue, the Gallic Aureni are said to have claimed kinship
with the Romans on the basis of shared Trojan ancestry; then, soon afterwards,
when news arrives in Rome of Caesar’s advance, panic quickly grips the city as
the people anticipate another Iliupersis.⁶⁰ To avert this fate, the city is purified
by (among others) the Vestal Virgins, “who alone have divine warrant to behold
Trojan Minerva”⁶¹ – i.e. the Palladium brought from Troy to Italy by Aeneas. Much
later, Caesar’s indulgence in battlefield tourism when he visits the abandoned
site of Troy recalls the landscape of the Iliad as a whole together with the Trojans’
exploration of the ‘abandoned’ Greek encampment in Aeneid 2 and Aeneas’ visit
to Buthrotum in Book 3.⁶²
57 Although Feeney (1991, 250–69) shows that there is more to the story than that.
58 Cf. Green (1991) and Roche (2009, 19–20).
59 Cf. Lucan. 1.392–465. Similarly Caesar, again like Agamemnon, is required to put down a
mutiny in Book 5 (5.237–373).
60 Cf. Lucan. 1.427–8 and 1.488–98, with Roche (2009, ad loc.). The Iliupersis motif is further
developed in Book 2 (Ambühl, 2010, 17–38) and in the death of Pompey, which Lucan bases on
Asinius Pollio’s treatment of the event in his Histories but with an eye on Vergil’s adaption of this
episode to the death of Priam in Aeneid 2 (on which see Delvigo, 2013).
61 Cf. Lucan. 1.597–8 Vestalemque chorum ducit uittata sacerdos / Troianam soli cui fas uidisse
Mineruam.
62 On the motif of ‘war tourism’ in Latin poetry, see Hardie (2013).
72 | Joseph Farrell
At the same time, all of the poem’s would-be heroes, and even some of its
least heroic figures, undertake notably heroic, or ‘heroic’, voyages. In all cases,
Lucan alludes to epic precedents in unexpected but also unmistakable ways. The
Battle of Massilia episode reads both as an Iliadic melee and an Odyssean storm at
sea.⁶³ Later a contingent of Caesar’s soldiers attempt a bizarre voyage across the
Adriatic Sea on improvised rafts, but when intercepted by Pompey’s men avoid
being captured by deciding to slay one another (Lucan. 4.402–581). Equally strange
is Caesar’s own attempt, after gaining the Illyrian coast with part of his forces, to
sail back to Brundisium in a raging storm to convince Marcus Antonius to bring
the rest of the troops across (Lucan. 5.476–721). Lucan makes the journey seem
just as pointless as his storm is hyperbolic, and the episode mainly serves Lucan’s
ambition to outbid all his epic predecessors. Other journeys, whether by land or
sea, involve grotesque inversions of Odysseus’ successful nostos.⁶⁴
Homer and Vergil are by no means the only epic predecessors laid under
contribution. The poem’s theme is not just war, but war distorted into civil war,
and worse, because the combatants were once linked by marriage.⁶⁵ This enables
Lucan to invoke the Theban paradigm.⁶⁶ Among the prodigies that forecast the war,
Vesta’s flame “split in two . . . like the funeral pyres of Thebes” – i.e. the joint pyre
of Eteocles and Polynices.⁶⁷ Shortly thereafter, a Fury besets the city, “like the Fury
that maddened Theban Agave and armed cruel Lycurgus” – i.e. producing different
responses to the arrival of Bacchus.⁶⁸ Then, during the panic that grips the city
as Caesar approaches, a Roman matron raves like a bacchant over the traditional
Theban landscape (1.673–80). Individual set-pieces point to other typical epic
subjects, if not always to specifically identifiable treatments of them.⁶⁹
63 On the sources of this episode, see Masters (1992, 11–42).

64 E.g. Pompey escapes from Pharsalus by sea, via Lesbos, to Egypt, where he is murdered (Lucan.
8.536–636); Cato survives a torturous march across the parched and snake-infested Libyan desert
(Book 9) – an episode partly inspired by Apollonius, whose Argonauts portage their vessel along a
similar route (A.R. 4.1381–92) – to no real purpose, as the reader knows that Cato will soon commit
suicide, though his death is not treated in the Bellum Ciuile.
65 Pompey’s deceased wife Julia, Caesar’s daughter, appears to him in a dream vision at Lucan.
3.1–45.
66 Cf. Masters (1992, 161–2).
67 Lucan. 1.551–2a scinditur in partes . . . / Thebanos imitata rogos is subsequently recalled at
4.551b dirum Thebanis fratribus omen (the myth of the Sparti, a dreadful omen for the Theban
brothers; cf. 9.714); see also 6.356 (a reference to the Seven against Thebes) and 8.407 (the sons of
Oedipus again).
68 Cf. Lucan 1.574b–6a Thebanam qualis Agauen / inpulit aut saeui contorsit tela Lycurgi / Eume-
nis.
69 Cf. especially the episode of Curio’s demise at the site of Hercules’ battle with Antaeus (Lu-
can. 4.581–824). The topothesia of Thessaly as a landscape shaped by Gigantomachy (6.381–412),
In respect of voyaging, Lucan finds specifically Argonautic relevance in some

episodes. In Book 2, when Caesar has Pompey’s fleet pinned down in the harbour
of Brundisium, but the latter manages to escape through a narrow opening in the
blockade, a simile recalls the passage of the Argo through the Symplegades (Lucan.
2.709–25). This inaugurates a series of Argonautic comparisons inspired by the
triumph that the historical Pompey had celebrated for his victory over Mithridates
of Pontus.⁷⁰
The poem ends with two episodes depicting Caesar as unequal to either of the
principal Homeric heroes. The first episode is anticipated by a series of observations
on the immensity and unknowability of the African continent and on the Romans’
naiveté in thinking they could ever rule it (Lucan. 9.411–62). So, when Caesar asks
the Egyptian priest Acoreus to tell him about the origins of his race, the geography
of Egypt, and the customs of its people and their religion, the reader is invited to
consider Lucan’s ‘hero’ as a type of Odyssean voyager, questing after knowledge of
the world (Lucan. 10.177–9).⁷¹ However, the comparison is not a flattering one: the
knowledge Caesar seeks is not the hard-won knowledge of experience, but mere
table talk, unverified and unverifiable. It is therefore no surprise when the end of
the same book (and of the poem as we have it) finds Caesar trapped in a tower by a
surprise Egyptian attack, looking not at all like an Achillean warrior or founder
of a great imperial dynasty. Instead, he seems a mere pretender who is in no way
equal to the ambitions that he affects. If Lucan surpasses his epic predecessors, he
does so not by celebrating an even greater hero, but by exposing the pretensions
of a would-be hero, and perhaps of heroes in general.
It would then not be until the Flavian period that Silius Italicus, Valerius
Flaccus, and especially Statius discovered new possibilities offered by the genre in
its Homeric and Vergilian form. Silius’ Punica may be seen as restoring a degree of
generic decorum to a genre that had been so greatly distorted by Lucan in particular.
The choice to write a historical epic not about the fall of the Republic in a civil war,
but on the Republic’s greatest victory over a worthy foreign foe, is one element
of this design. Another is Silius’ treatment of Lucan specifically. Allusion to the
Bellum Ciuile marks civil war as a fundamental theme in the Punica. However,
Silius associates this theme with the Romans only in Books 4–10, which cover the
disasters at the Ticinus, the Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae; but once the tide
conventionally the ultimate epic battle theme, points to the poem’s fundamental theme of battle
narrative.
70 See Murray (2011).
71 With Lucan. 10.178 uulgique edissere mores cf. Hom. Od. 1.3 πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα
καὶ νόον ἔγνω.
74 | Joseph Farrell
of the war turns, it is the Carthaginians in Books 11–17 who are stalked by Lucan
until their eventual defeat.⁷²
Even more than Silius, both Valerius Flaccus in his Argonautica and Statius in
his Thebaid could be seen as returning to a Vergilian ‘norm’ by choosing mytho-
logical subjects, but ones that allow them to avoid direct competition with the
Aeneid and the political aspects of the Trojan saga. However, both poets do not wish
merely to restore traditional epic decorum, but also to engage the opportunities and
challenges presented to them by Vergil, Ovid, and Lucan.⁷³ For our purposes, it is
also significant that each poet takes as his theme the definitive mythic example of
voyaging or warfare, respectively, and that the particular stories that they choose
involve not homecoming and foreign conquest, but a voyage of exploration and a
civil war. Their handling of these themes in relation to the political, social, and
intellectual atmosphere of their times was little appreciated until not long ago. The
critical inquiries of recent years have revealed the depth and power of both poems,
and suggest that there is much more to learn about them.
Early in the Argonautica, Valerius praises Domitian’s circumnavigation of
Britain, carried out by his legate Agricola in 82 AD, in contrast to the failure of
the Julio-Claudians to accomplish this same feat (Val. Fl. 1.7–10).⁷⁴ By mentioning
this recent nautical ‘first’, Valerius establishes a favourable connection between
the current regime and his mythical subject.⁷⁵ To be sure, it is a different sort of
connection than that between the previous dynasty (who are dismissed as the
“Phrygian” – i.e. not just “Trojan”, but insufficiently manly – Julians) and their
mythical ancestors. Still, it is an important step towards opening the poem to
political interpretation. Valerius returns to this motif when Jupiter praises the
Argonauts as exemplars of translatio imperii, celebrating the succession of one
imperial power by another (Val. Fl. 1.542–60). We have seen that Ovid invokes
this motif as part of his teleological reading of world history, which ends with
Augustus. However, after the regime change that brought the Flavians to power,
the idea of transferring imperium must have assumed a different meaning. Not
only the epochal migration of authority from one imperial capital to the next, nor
even the untroubled succession of one emperor by another, but the chaotic end of
the Julio-Claudians and the violence of the year 69 AD must also be potentially in
72 Cf. Marx (2010).

73 They appear to be attentive to, and perhaps competitive with one another as well, but the
chronology makes it difficult to sort out the direction of influence in specific cases.
74 See Zissos (2008, ad loc.); cf. also Feeney (1991, 334–5).
75 On the ‘primacy of sailing’ motif, see Braund (1993) and Newman (2 2008). On epic adventure,
see Feeney (1991, 319). On political aspects of the opening of the Caledonian Sea, see Hardie (1993,
83); on the conquest of Judea, see Clauss (2014, 103–4).
view.⁷⁶ It is thus very significant when Valerius initially rejects civil war as possible
theme, only later to accept that his chosen material requires him to deal with
it (Val. Fl. 1.71–3). The massacre of the Lemnian men, for instance, a canonical
part of the ‘Argosy’, is a kind of civil war, and an intrafamilial one, at that (Val.
Fl. 2.107–310). Later Valerius introduces the motif of civil, and indeed, fraternal
war even against tradition. In Book 6, the Argonauts oblige Aeetes by making war
upon his brother, Perses, King of the neighbouring Sarmatians. But in Apollonius,
though the Sarmatians are said to be a threat to Aeetes, there is no Perses, no war
between Aeetes and his brother, nor any such demand on Aeetes’ part.⁷⁷
In this respect, then, Valerius is the successor not only of Vergil: after Lucan,
warfare in Roman epic will always have the potential to be a civil war. This was
perhaps inevitable, in that an empire coextensive with the entire world, even if
only in ideological terms, can find no opportunity for war, except with itself. And
in this light, it is notable that Valerius, in an epic of voyaging, has made Jason
himself a much more significant warrior than had Apollonius.⁷⁸
The archaic Theban saga, as we have seen, is about self-destructive civil war,
and Theban mythology is deployed by Ovid as a rejoinder to Vergil’s treatment
of ktistic themes in the Aeneid. Lucan, too, had exploited this material in a poem
about civil war in Rome. Statius, for his part, accentuates the motif of Thebes
as an avatar of Rome in representing Venus and Mars as the divine progenitors
of Cadmus’ city (Stat. Theb. 3.260–323).⁷⁹ This is a significant reworking of the
Empedoclean myth that had figured in Julian ideology.⁸⁰ If Venus and Mars are
Love and Strife, their union produced a daughter, Harmony – or in Latin Concordia,
an important political slogan in virtually all periods – who is the bride of Cadmus,
76 See Feeney (1991, 35) on the theme of harmony among the Flavians versus chaos under Nero;
cf. Clauss (2014, 113 n. 39).
77 See Buckley (2010) and Stover (2012, 113–50); cf. A.R. 3.351–3 and 3.392–5. The only Perses
named by Apollonius (via the patronymic Perseis, 3.467) is a Titan, the father of Hecate, as in Hes.
Th. 409–11.
78 On Jason’s superior martial prowess in Valerius (e.g. Val. Fl. 3.80–6 and 6.613–56) vis à vis
Apollonius (cf. Val. Fl. 5.128 and 5.218 ∼ A.R. 3.2–3; Val. Fl. 5.363–5 ∼ A.R. 3.319–25, Val. Fl. 6.602–8
∼ Hom. Il. 22.26–31, Verg. Aen. 10.272–5, cf. Val. Fl. 5.368–72 ∼ A.R. 3.957–9), see Hershkowitz (1998,
119–25); cf. also Clauss (2014, 105): “The reimagining of Jason as an archaic hero fiercely desirous
of glory (Val. Fl. 1.76–8), a Jason more at home in pre-classical versions of the myth as far as can
be reconstructed from largely fragmentary texts and vase paintings, serves the larger mythopoeic
goal of connecting Flavian Rome with the first – and thus pre-Julian – Trojan War.”
79 On relations between Venus and Mars, see McNelis (2007, 61–7).
80 Venus, the mother of Aeneas, is the genetrix of the Roman people, while Mars, the father
of Romulus, is the divine progenitor. Their adulterous affair, humorously narrated by Homer’s
Demodocus, had been interpreted by Empedocles as a cosmic allegory, so that the pair represented
Love and Strife.
76 | Joseph Farrell
founder of Thebes. In this sense, Thebes, like Rome, ought to be a convincing

symbol of political stability founded on cosmic equilibrium. But, of course, that
is only half of the story, or less than half. Not all of Cadmus’ people were born of
Harmony; many came from the Sparti, the warriors who sprang from the earth
when Cadmus sowed the teeth of a dragon he had slain and immediately began
killing one another. The concepts represented in this foundation legend have to do
with autochthony and colonisation, and also with internecine strife in the face of
external aggression. It is a commonplace that Rome, too, was founded on fratricide.
Like the Julio-Claudians, the Flavians came to power in a civil war. It is hard to
imagine that any well-informed ancient reader could have overlooked these facts.
6 Conclusion
Poets of the second century AD showed little interest in heroic epic, and the literary
culture of the third began to change in significant ways along with the political
and social environment of the Empire itself. By the fourth and fifth centuries,
epic poetry began to renew itself, once again along with a more general political
and literary renaissance. These changes, however, which are manifest both in the
specific character of the new literary production and, what is no less important, in
the sheer volume of what survives, makes treating late antique epic as a simple
continuation of earlier epic both ill-advised and, frankly, unfeasible. In addition,
the particular elements of epic poetry that we have been tracing – the motifs of
warfare and voyaging in relation to the major local traditions of the archaic period –
become less salient, even if they do not disappear altogether.⁸¹ Eventually, they
re-emerge with vigour in the chansons de geste of the Middle Ages, when claims
of Trojan descent by the ruling families of different European kingdoms would
give new relevance to the matière de Rome, in which the erotic element assumes
great prominence, as in the anonymous Roman d’Enéas and the Roman de Troie of
Benoît de Sainte-Maure in the 12th century and in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato
and Chaucer’s Troilus and Creseyde in the 14th century.⁸² Fundamental to this
process was the reception of the late antique novelistic prose treatments of the
81 Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica places itself squarely in the tradition of the Trojan Cycle,
covering roughly the same events as the Aethiopis, Little Iliad, and Ilupersis. The date and social
context of the poem are controversial; it has been placed as early as the second century and
as late as the fifth. Nonnus’ Dionysiaca narrates Dionysus’ civilising mission in a manner that
may resemble that of the lost Hercules epics. It shares certain elements with the Theban Cycle,
particularly as handled by Ovid. Nonnus probably wrote in the late fourth or early fifth century.
82 Cf. Verbaal on medieval Latin epicity in volume III.
Trojan War by Dictys of Crete and Dares of Phrygia, who also tell of a visit by the
Argonauts to Laomedon’s Troy. This tradition influenced Benoît’s Roman de Troie,
which devotes over 1000 lines to an Argonautic episode, which in turn influenced
later treatments of the theme in Trojan romance.⁸³ Also in the 12th century there
appears an anonymous Roman de Thèbes, which influenced Boccaccio’s Teseide
and Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale. In these ways, the narrative structures of archaic
and classical epic find new life in the masterpieces of medieval romance.
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Egbert Bakker
Learning the epic formula
Abstract: This chapter offers a broad overview of oral-formulaic theory. It argues
that the conditions for formulaic composition of epic poetry in hexametric verse
are not confined to the historical context envisaged by oral-formulaic theory: the
production of epic song in the complete absence of writing and texts. Reading
and writing in their earliest stages do not end a poet’s reliance on the interplay
between formulas and the verse. Nor are formulas as such a phenomenon that is
confined to oral-formulaic poetry: ordinary language is full of ready-made phrases
and word combinations, and the way in which an apprentice poet learns the epic
language is not fundamentally different from the way in which children learn their
native language. The chapter ends with a brief analysis of some lines of the late
antique epic poet Quintus of Smyrna as an illustration that even under conditions
of full literacy poets can acquire and interiorise the epic language.
1 Introduction
The epic formula: this phrase has come to typify Homeric poetry like no other. In the
course of the 20th century, it came from being the quintessential building-block of
Homeric diction to being nothing less than the key to the correct understanding of
Homer as oral poetry. The key names are Milman Parry and his student Albert Lord,
whose theory of oral-formulaic composition dominated Homeric scholarship in the
1960s and 1970s in the English-speaking world, propelled to prominence by the
interest of the age in formal and structural properties of literature. Due to Parry’s
rigorous analysis of Homeric style the formula became for those who embraced the
oral poetry programme a master trope evoking mathematical precision and proof.
2 Milman Parry: from traditionality to orality

Building on earlier German scholarship on the dependence of epic language on the
epic verse,¹ oral-formulaic theory developed by Parry started as an (unacknowl-
edged) exercise in structuralism (he wrote a doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne in
1 See Ellendt (1864), Düntzer (1872), Witte (1912), and Meister (1921).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-004
82 | Egbert Bakker
Paris)² and ended with bringing ethnographic fieldwork into the philologist’s study.
The first step was a study of the so-called noun-epithet formulas in Homer (phrases
consisting of a noun or name and an adjective) that was of an unprecedented rigor.
Parry was able to demonstrate that the noun-epithet formulas are not merely ‘or-
namental’, but interact in systematic ways with the structure of the verse, forming
‘systems’ in which the metrical form of the epithet ensures the required structural
difference with other phrases in the system. Thus, the phrase πολύμητις ᾿Οδυσσεύς
(“much/many-minded Odysseus”), filling the metrically significant slot between
the fourth-foot caesura (Hephthemimeres) and the end of the line, is different in
a systemic, structural way, from πολύτλας δῖος ᾿Οδυσσεύς (“much-suffering god-
like Odysseus”), which runs from the middle (trochaic) caesura to the end of the
line. For Parry, the difference between these two phrases becomes structural and
‘systemic’ when we observe that (1) each of the two phrases is unique (there is no
other formula for Odysseus filling the same metrical slot); and that (2) the same
difference exists for all the other major gods and heroes in the epic tale. Parry
spoke in this regard of “an extended system of great simplicity.”³
No conclusions concerning oral poetry are drawn at this point, though Parry’s
conception of the structural regularity he observed provides the perspective for
his later conception of oral poetry. Parry reasoned that the elaborate systems
of formulas he detected could never have been the creation of any individual
poet; instead, they had to be traditional. In other words, ‘traditional’ is set up in
opposition with, and against a background of, individual poetic creativity. This is
a significant and telling assumption, since Parry could also have set the formulaic
structures as a specialised form of language against a background of language use
in general. After all, Ferdinand de Saussure, the original founder of structuralism,
had called the system of a language a ‘tradition’ – of course without the need to
argue that language cannot be the creation of a single individual.⁴
Yet, Parry hews to a solidly romantic perspective, in which original expression
of an individual poet is the default case. Homeric poetry, having been found to be
not original and not individual, has to be evaluated as a particular kind of poetry in
the absence of the features that make up ‘normal’ poetry. What fundamentally sets
Homer apart, according to Parry, is his ‘fidelity to the formula’, a blind trust in the
ornamental meaning of a phrase that is used solely for its metrical utility, which
the poet uses “without ever thinking of using other words to express the same
2 Cf. Parry (1928). On Parry in the Parisian intellectual context, see De Vet (2005), Bakker (1997,
15), and Bakker (2009).
3 Parry (1971, 17). See also Parry (1928, 20): “un système très étendu et d’une grande simplicité.”
4 Cf. De Saussure (1982, 31): “[la langue] extérieure à l’individu, qui à lui seul ne peut ni la créer
ni la modifier.”
idea, without ever so much as considering the possibility of utilising the portion
of the line taken up by the epithetic words for the expression of some original
idea.”⁵ The result is a stable universe in which people and things are what they
are, regardless of literary or narrative context, a semantics to which the original
audience is attuned through extensive exposure to epic tales told in the same
formulaic and traditional idiom as the Homeric poems.
The decisive step toward the final conceptualisation of this special kind of
poetry came with Parry’s fieldwork on the South-Slavic bardic tradition with the
assistance of his student Lord. Observing the Serbo-Croatian and Bosnian guslari
brought Parry to the conclusion that what he had termed the ornamental and
traditional features of Homeric epic were necessitated by the constraints and
demands of the composition of the epic tale in oral performance: unlike the writing
poet, Parry argued, the orally composing poet has no time for the search of the mot
juste under the pressures of the performance before a live audience. The extensive
formulaic systems with their remarkable economy that he had formulated in the
Paris dissertation on Homer could now be seen as an adaptive response to the
need to compose the tale under time pressure, a response developed over many
generations of singers. The Iliad and the Odyssey, in other words, had turned from
traditional poetry into oral poetry.
The composition-in-performance of the Homeric poems that Parry had distilled
out of his observation of the South-Slavic singers would seem to be a phenomenon
that can be studied and theorised for its own sake and on its own terms. In reality,
however, oral poetry remained defined in terms of writing and written poetry, as
precisely the absence of the features that for Parry characterised ‘writtenness’.
The formula is the element that fills the gap created by writing’s absence, the
sole device that can make up for the loss of the compositional opportunities that
writing provides. Formulas are thus a consequence of the production of the song
rather than a matter of its deliberate design; they are not repetition for its own
sake, and they are used for no other reason than being ‘useful’: “when the element
of usefulness is lacking, one does not have a formula but a repeated phrase which
has been knowingly brought into the verse for some special effect.”⁶ Nor is being
repeated a necessary condition for being a formula, though many formulas are in
fact repeated: since Homer is considered to be merely a tiny sample of early Greek
epic oral poetry that has survived, any single phrase may simply be the sole reflex
of a formula that is otherwise lost:
5 Parry (1971, 14).

6 Parry (1971, 272–3).
84 | Egbert Bakker
It is important [. . . ] to remember that the formula in Homer is not necessarily a repetition, just
as the repetitions in tragedy are not necessarily formulas. It is the nature of an expression
which makes of it a formula, whereas its use a second time in Homer depends largely upon
the hazard, which led a poet, or a group of poets, to use it more than once in two given poems
of a limited length. We are taking up the problem of the Homeric formulas from the side of
the repetitions, but only because it is easier to recognise a formula if we find it used regularly,
and that it helps the poet in his verse-making.⁷
Parry holds that the oral poet has no concern, or ability, other than filling out his
verses in a standardised, formulaic way. This exclusive concern with production
and ‘on-line’ composition was an essential, albeit controversial, correction of
an unreflective conception of Homeric diction as ‘poetic’ language. Within the
community of Homer scholars it was hailed by some as the definitive answer to
the Homeric question, but its success in the 1960s and 1970s (especially after the
publication of Parry’s collected writings by his son in 1971) can also be attributed,
at least in part, to the interest in ‘form’ and ‘structure’ that was typical of the
age. Yet, critique was vigorous, from the start, assailing Parry’s theory precisely
on its principal claim regarding the formula as the opposite of poetic individual
originality. The result was a zero-sum game in which critiquing one side was
paramount to joining the other camp.
In recent decades, however, it has become possible to critique Parry’s and
Lord’s original conception. Parry’s conception had the effect of isolating Homeric
poetry from writing and so from all other early Greek literature, and this was its
intent as well. However, softening the boundaries between Homeric ‘oral’ poetry
and ‘writing’, and later written epic poetry, far from ‘diluting’ the case for orality
actually strengthens it. For Parry and Lord, writing is a self-evident given, just
like originality. We make a crucial adjustment, and put an end to the quarrel of
Parry and his critics as an opposition between ‘orality’ and ‘literacy’ as mutually
exclusive entities, when we turn the perspective around, treating traditionality
and speaking as a given, and view originality and writing as the phenomenon in
need of explanation and understanding. Let us start with the latter.
3 Performance, speech, and writing

The idea of the oral poet rests on the assumption that oral poetry is in and of itself
incompatible with writing. Writing for Parry suppresses the unique conditions that
make the system of formulas indispensable, and it splits the figure of the oral bard
7 Parry (1971, 304).

into two: he either becomes the original poet who now has the leisure to ponder
over the right word or phrase to create a fully original style; or he degenerates from
being a creative aoidos (“singer”) to being a mere rhapsoidos (the reciter of a fixed
text that he has learned by heart without having to rely on the system of formulas
that now has become unnecessary and obsolete).⁸ Parry himself did not discuss the
paradox of Homer as an oral poet and the existence of our Homeric text; this issue
was discussed by Lord in the form of the concept of the ‘oral dictated text’: the oral
poet dictates his poem to a scribe, who is qua scribe, an outsider to the tradition.
The contact with writing as recording, observing medium has to be tangential and
peripheral, or the true nature of oral-formulaic composition is irrevocably altered.⁹
We now know that the boundaries between oral composition and recitation
as well as between oral composition and writing are not so sharp and clear-cut.
The study of medieval vernacular traditions has revealed that early writing in its
historical context is neither the facilitator of an original and individual literate
style nor an ‘objective’ recording mechanism of the unspoiled and undisturbed
oral poem. The transformation of an oral tradition into a written text has long been
seen in terms of the printed critical editions that scholars are studying, but in the
course of the past decades it has become clear that those early texts are hardly
closed or fixed. They are imbued with ‘orality’, in various ways.
The idea that writing reduces performance to recitation, a mechanical replica-
tion of the written text, has come to be replaced with a vision in which primacy
has shifted from text to performance. That is, even in the presence of a written text
the poem does not cease to be an action, and the impulse to produce texts of the
poem as ‘transcripts’ derives from its life as a performance tradition. Hence the
existence of variants between manuscripts that cannot be accounted for in terms
of the usual conception of vertical textual transmission envisaged by conventional
textual criticism. There is what the medievalist Zumthor (1983, 253–6) called mou-
vance, the textual mobility in a transmission in which performance and writing,
‘orality’ and ‘literacy’, are deeply intertwined.¹⁰ Writing has penetrated into the
originally textless universe of the singer of tales, but it is a writing that extends the
work’s oral potential and its distribution, instead of ending it.
In this situation the hard distinction between aoidos and rhapsoidos begins
to break down. In the work of Nagy (1996) the latter is not the mere reciter of the
8 See Lord (1960, 129): “The written technique . . . is not compatible with the oral technique . . .
The two by their very nature are mutually exclusive”. Cf. also Kirk (1985, 15–16) who considers
writing as incompatible with the flourishing of “the creative oral genius”.
9 Cf. Lord (1953, 130–2) on the oral-dictated poem as an ‘ideal’ text of higher quality than would
have been possible without writing, yet without writing essential to the poem’s conception.
10 Cf. Cerquiglini (1989) and Nagy (1996, 107–52).
86 | Egbert Bakker
Homeric poems and as such external to their composition and transmission; the
rhapsoidos is an essential component in the transmission as he recomposes the
work of Homer in performance, thereby becoming Homer, the legendary composer,
himself.¹¹ But even when a text is produced, not to facilitate a future performance,
but in order to copy an already existing text qua text, the act of writing has been
found to be aligned with the performance of the poem. Whether a text comes into
being through dictation or textual replication, the act of writing, performed by a
scribe who presumably would have been intimately familiar with the tradition’s
idiom and ‘special speech’, would be aural and vocal: the writing is prompted by
voice, either the voice of the performing poet or that of the scribe himself.¹²
4 Formulas as constructions
The ‘hard’ Parryist would reply here that the activity of a scribe is very different
from that of the singer in performance, who is under constant time pressure and
needs formulas to propel him on under these conditions. But the presence of the
Homeric text as a central cultural institution in the archaic and classical ages turns
that purely oral aoidos into something of a mirage. The rhapsodes and scribes
need much the same skills as the singer if the tradition of the poem is to be carried
on, all of them having learned the elaborate ways in which the words and phrases
of the epic tradition interact with the verse. The way this competence is acquired,
whether or not in interaction with written texts, is very much like the acquisition of
a secondary language, or as Lord (1960, 35–6) puts it, “the ‘grammar’ of the poetry,
a grammar superimposed, as it were, on the grammar of the language concerned.”
The acquisition of epic formulaic language as a ‘superimposed grammar’,
however, is different from first language acquisition in degree, not in essence.
Ordinary language is not a background of freedom and ‘originality’ against which
the singer learns the system of metre-bound formulas. The underlying grammar
of the language is just like the superimposed poetic grammar formulaic to a high
degree and in ways that were not understood in Parry’s and Lord’s day.¹³ The rise
of corpus-based empirical linguistics in recent decades has revealed that speakers
are far less ‘original’ than was always supposed: they remember entire phrases
11 Cf. Nagy (1996, 61–2).

12 See Doane (1994) and Ready (2015).
13 An early discussion of formularity in ordinary language is Kiparsky (1976). See also Bakker
(1997, 157–9). For an overview of formularity in ordinary language, see Bozzone (2010), to which
the present discussion is much indebted.
wholesale, use standard collocations of varying degrees of fixity, and show that
idiomaticity is a central feature of language use, not a matter of isolated instances.
As Bolinger (1961, 381), one of the pioneers of this conception of language, puts it:
At present we have no way of telling the extent to which a sentence like I went home is a result
of invention, and the extent to which it is a result of repetition, countless of speakers before
us having already said it and transmitted to us in toto. Is grammar something where speakers
‘produce’ (i.e. originate) constructions, or where they ‘reach for’ them, from a pre-established
inventory?¹⁴
The pure freedom of originality in syntax is especially avoided by native speakers,

who keep to a relatively limited number of formulaic utterances out of the much
larger number of sentences that are strictly speaking grammatical, but are felt as
not ‘nativelike’. In other words, true originality is for foreigners.¹⁵
And what is true of nativelike mastery of a language also applies to the way
this mastery is acquired from infancy. Bozzone (2010, 34–7) has shown that Lord’s
description (1960, 21–9) of the process by which the young apprentice singer learns
the art of singing from his mentor matches the phases by which children learn
their native language as laid out by Wray/Perkins (2000). In a first phase, young
children learn phrases ‘holistically’ by repeating what they hear, just like the ap-
prentice singer, who hears and repeats the formulaic phrases that his mentor utters.
In a second phase grammatical competence becomes more ‘compositional’: the
child learns how to substitute terms within phrases, just as the singer substitutes
terms within the formulas he has learned. The relative ‘freedom’ thus acquired is
countered when, in a third phase, the ‘prefabs’ begin to form a corpus of useful
expressions, a storehouse from which phrases can be ‘pulled’ in the form of rou-
tinised discursive behaviour. In the final, mature phase the speaker is able to draw
on this storehouse for recurrent situations while honing his skills in the combi-
natory, ‘analytic’ creation of new phrases for new situations. Likewise, the fully
trained oral poet is able to reach for numerous formulaic prefabs for the frequently
recurring situations in the tale, while being able to generate new phrases, as the
situation requires.
A comprehensive ordinary language analogue to the epic formula is the so-
called ‘construction’, commonly defined as a “learned pairing of form and func-
14 Similar also Bozzone (2010) citing Bolinger (1976, 2–3): “we are now in a position to recognize
that idiomaticity is a vastly more pervasive phenomenon than we ever imagined, and vastly harder
to separate from the pure freedom of syntax, if indeed any such fiery zone as pure syntax exists.”
15 See also Erman/Warren (2000).
88 | Egbert Bakker
tion.”¹⁶ Constructions can be idioms or prefabs that speakers retrieve wholesale

from their memory, such as the following list from Goldberg (2013, 27):
You’ve got to be kidding! Double whammy

Wear out <one’s> welcome Eat, drink and be marry
What’s up? Excuse <poss> French
What for? Face the music
Shoot the breeze sooner or later
Are you all right? What did you say?
Tell me what happened Can I come in?
I’m sorry to hear that Need any help?
It just goes to show I see what you mean
They can also be compositional, containing variables that can be filled in by ele-
ments that can be substituted for each other. Here is a list¹⁷ of constructions arrayed
on a cline running from fixed to structurally flexible:
Construction Examples
Word Iran, another, banana
Word (partially filled) pre-N, V-ing
Idiom (filled) Going great guns, give the Devil his due
Idiom (partially filled) Jog <someone’s> memory
Idiom (minimally filled): The Xer the Yer The more you think about it the less you
understand.
Ditransitive construction: S V O1 O2 (unfilled) He gave her a fish taco; he baked her a
muffin.
Passive: S aux VPpp (PPby) (unfilled) The armadillo was hit by a car.
The distinction between ‘filled’ and ‘partially filled’ idiom seems particularly rel-
evant for the study of Homeric formulas, since it aligns with a distinction made
by Parry (1971, 275) himself between fixed formulas and compositional formulas,
phrases that have one or more variables:
Formulas are of two sorts. First, there are those which have no close likeness to any other,
as, so far as we know, is the case for ὀνείαθ’ ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα in the following verse [Hom.
Od. 4.67]: οἱ δ’ ἐπ’ ὀνείαθ’ ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα χεῖρας ἴαλλον. The other kind of formula is that
which is like one or more which express a similar idea in more or less the same words, as, for
example, ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε is like ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἑλόντες, or as ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοί
16 See, more fully, Goldberg (2006, 5): “Any linguistic pattern is recognized as a construction as
long as some aspects of its form or function is not strictly predictable from its component parts
or from other constructions recognized to exist. In addition, patterns are stored as constructions
even if they are fully predictable as long as they occur with sufficient frequency.”
17 Cf. Goldberg (2013, 17).
is like ἀρετῶσι δὲ λαοί and δαίνυτό τε λαός. We may say that any group of two or more such
like formulas make up a system, and the system may be defined in turn as a group of phrases
which have the same metrical value.
The difference between ‘partially filled’ idioms in ordinary language and Homeric
diction is of course that in the latter the conditions under which the substitution
of constitutive elements takes place is highly constrained by metre. One can “jog
John’s memory” or “jog Jonathan’s memory” or put the idiom in the past tense; in
Homer such simple inflections can take place only within the metrical space that
the verse allows and may involve forced, ‘grammatical’ substitutions. For example,
the idea “suffer sorrow” as participial phrase after the bucolic diaeresis will change
the participial element according to case:
ἄλγεα πάσχων ||
ἄλγε’ ἔχοντα ||
And the corresponding active expression, “inflict sorrow”, in the same metrical
slot, will change the verb according to the tense required:
ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε ||
ἄλγεα τεύχει ||
There is in Homer, then, a fusion of syntax and lexicon. Each case form, as in the
former case, and each tense form, as in the latter, constitutes its own idiom, as it
calls for a metrically conditioned lexical choice. So what for Goldberg in the list of
‘constructions’ above is one partially filled combination can become, in Homeric
formulaic grammar, a series of fixed combinations. But is it confined to Homer? The
formulaic systems in their metrical contexts are for Parry, as we saw, in function of
rapid extemporaneous composition; they can perform that function because they
put strong constraints on the flow of verbalisation.¹⁸ But those constraints at the
same time constitute a stable structure that allows hexametric formulaic language
to survive the early Greek epic tradition.
18 For a discussion of constraints as a form of organisation that keeps oral traditions stable, see
Rubin (1995).
90 | Egbert Bakker
5 From Homer to Quintus

The complex system of preferred and forbidden word end that characterises and
constrains Homeric language must have come into being with the gradual emer-
gence of the formulaic system and is an integral part of the ‘grammar’ of Homeric
language.¹⁹ In other words, frequently uttered phrases of certain metrical profiles
have over time shaped the metrical cola of the hexameter, such as:
¯˘˘ ¯
¯˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯
¯˘˘ ¯¯˘
˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯¯˘
˘ ¯˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯¯˘
Anyone who has read hexameter poetry in sufficient quantity and with sufficient
attention will know what parts of the hexameter these sequences represent. It
is important to realise, however, that originally they are recurrent phrases, not
metrical slots. But once the dactylic hexameter is in place as a stable metrical
structure, the cola become preverbal shapes that have to be interiorised by anyone
composing hexametrical poetry in any quantity or with any ease. Together they
constitute the interconnected system of the dactylic hexameter, with its intricate
pattern of caesurae and ‘bridges’. Homeric syntax tends to follow the contour of the
metrical cola in an intricate interplay between language and verse. The formulaic
constructions, the metrical ‘words’ that make up the hexameter, are interiorised
not only by the poets and performers, but also by the listeners, thus facilitating not
only the production, but also the comprehension of the tale. The result is a stylised
form of speech in which the cola match the ‘intonation units’ of ordinary speech,
the short ‘spurts’ of vocalisation by which speakers move from one conscious
moment to the next in the production and presentation of their speech.²⁰
This system is transmitted, with remarkably few modifications, to poets and
poetic traditions after the early Greek epic tradition. The stability of the system
has been captured with the term ‘localisation’: the focus on wholesale cola now
yields to the ‘placement’ of words in the metrical space of the hexameter under
the constraints due to the various metrical boundaries. The localisation of the
metrical ‘word-types’, as demonstrated by O’Neill (1942), differs very little across
authors, periods, and genres. For example, a word of the metrical shape has
˘ ¯˘˘
19 For the idea that formula generates metre (rather than the other way around) in a diachronic
perspective, see Nagy (1974) and Nagy (1990, 18–35). Cf. also Bakker (1997, 184–90).
20 See in detail Bakker (1997).
little chance of being ‘placed’ anywhere but between the trochaic caesura and the
bucolic diaeresis, regardless of author, genre, or ‘medium’.²¹
Every poet in any genre and in either language has to abide by this diachroni-
cally and generically stable structure. For some the art is to ‘hide’ the contours of
the verse and to produce a syntactic flow that does not seem to be determined by
the metre. The result (or aim) is a prose-like quality of the way in which the syntax
moves through the metrical space of the hexameter, as in the following extract
from Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (A.R. 3.913–18):
αὐτίκα δ’ Αἰσονίδην ἑτάρων ἄπο μοῦνον ἐρύσσας

῎Αργος, ὅτ’ ἤδη τήνδε κασιγνήτων ἐσάκουσεν
915 ἠερίην ῾Εκάτης ἱερὸν μετὰ νηὸν ἰοῦσαν,
ἦγε διὲκ πεδίου· ἅμα δέ σφισιν εἵπετο Μόψος
᾿Αμπυκίδης, ἐσθλὸς μὲν ἐπιπροφανέντας ἐνισπεῖν
οἰωνούς, ἐσθλὸς δὲ σὺν εὖ φράσσασθαι ἰοῦσιν.
And immediately, having drawn the Aesonid away from his companions,
Argus, when he had heard from his brothers that she [Medea]
in early morning was going to the temple of Hecate,
he led <him> across the plan; and with them came Mopsus
son of Ampycus, skilled at reading the bird signs
that appeared before them, and skilled at advising those who were on their way.
The ‘feel’ of this passage is very different from that of Homeric narrative. The par-
ticipial phrase in A.R. 3.913 precedes the subject of the complex sentence, Argus,
whose principal act, expressed in the main verb of the sentence, ἦγε (3.916), is
separated by an intervening temporal sub-clause. The hearer / reader is constantly
asked to process syntactic elements that look ahead, such as the participle ἐπι-
προφανέντας (3.917), which is not fully understood until οἰωνούς in the next line.
The Hellenistic producer of ‘art epic’ honours all the metrical rules and restric-
tions inherited from the early tradition, but has been able to produce a prose-like
narrative that is unlike anything we find in Homer.
This is all grist for the mill of Parry, for whom Apollonius’ syntax and apparent
lack of ‘feel’ for the formula is nothing other than the loss of the typical mechanics
of oral poetry due to writing.²² However, dated some six centuries after Apollonius
and more than a millennium after the formative phase of the early Greek epic
21 See O’Neill (1942, 143): table 11 lists 95.3% placement in this position for the Iliad and 98.8%
for the œuvre of Callimachus.
22 Parry (1971, 251–65) compares Homer with Apollonius and Vergil in the context of a study of
enjambment, which in Homer tends to take place in the form of ‘adding’ entire speech units that
‘enjamb’ into the next line, in line with the general match between metrical structure and colon
sequence. See also Bakker (1990).
92 | Egbert Bakker
tradition, we have the Posthomerica of Quintus of Smyrna. This work is a sequel

to the Iliad, composed after the cyclical poems covering the traditional events
between the death of Hector and the sack of Troy (the Aethiopis, Ilias mikra, and
Ilioupersis) had apparently been lost. We know nothing about the conditions
under which Quintus’ epic was received by its original audience, in performance
(through recitation?) or through silent reading. But for those who have competence
in Homeric Greek, a feel for the formulaic rhythms that is necessary to be able to
compose and ‘speak’ in the epic idiom, the flow of Quintus’ narrative and the way
in which his syntax follows the rhythmical contours of the verse must have felt
familiar. Quintus reproduces the ‘feel’ of Homeric narrative, as befits an ‘extension’
of the Iliad, but he does not replicate the Homeric formulas. The Posthomerica
creates formulaic tendencies of its own, in spite of the fact that Quintus does not
seem keen on formulaic repetition for its own sake or to pursue the ‘thrift’ that was
for Parry one of the hallmarks of the formulaic style.²³ A typical example is the
following extract (Q.S. 1.373–86), a narratorial comment following on the mistaken
expectation of an anonymous Trojan that the Achaeans will not return home alive,
now that Penthesilea is wreaking havoc among their ranks:
ὣς ἄρ’ ἔφη Τρώων τις ἐνὶ φρεσὶ πάγχυ γεγηθώς,

νήπιος· οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἐφράσσατ’ ἐπεσσύμενον βαρὺ πῆμα
375 οἷ αὐτῷ καὶ Τρωσὶ καὶ αὐτῇ Πενθεσιλείῃ.
οὐ γάρ πώ τι μόθοιο δυσηχέος ἀμφὶ πέπυστο
Αἴας ὀβριμόθυμος ἰδὲ πτολίπορθος ᾿Αχιλλεύς
ἀλλ’ ἄμφω περὶ σῆμα Μενοιτιάδαο κέχυντο
μνησάμενοι ἑτάροιο, γόος δ’ ἔχεν ἄλλυδις ἄλλον.
380 τοὺς γὰρ δὴ μακάρων τις ἐρήτυε νόσφι κυδοιμοῦ,
ὄφρ’ ἀλεγεινὸν ὄλεθρον ἀναπλήσωσι δαμέντες
πολλοὶ ὑπὸ Τρώεσσι καὶ ἐσθλῇ Πενθεσιλείῃ
ἥ σφιν ἐπασσυτέροις κακὰ μήδετο, καί οἱ ἄεξεν
ἀλκὴ ὁμῶς καὶ θάρσος ἐπὶ πλέον, οὐδέ γ’ ποτ’ αἰχμὴν
385 μαψιδίην ἴθυνεν, ἀεὶ δ’ ἢ νῶτα δάιζε
φευγόντων ἢ στέρνα καταντίον ἀισσόντων.
Thus spoke one of the Trojans, fully contented in his heart,

the fool; he was evidently unaware of heavy ruin hurtling,
toward himself, the Trojans, and Penthesilea herself.
For not yet had word of the awful battle-din reached
Ajax strong of spirit, and Achilles the sacker of cities;
both were bent over the tomb of Menoetius’ son,
23 Foley (1991, 25–7) notes that the economy that figures so prominently in Parry’s theory seems
to be typical for Homer, being far less characteristic of other epic formulaic traditions, such as the
Serbo-Croatian tradition that was Parry’s principal comparandum.
remembering their comrade, and exchanging lament.

These two one of the blessed ones was keeping far from the battle,
so that, beaten, they would fill up the full measure of their painful demise,
many of them, at the hands of the Trojans and valiant Penthesilea,
who wrought ruin to them, one after the other, and it increased for her,
strength and likewise courage as well, and never once
did she aim her spear in vain: again and again she pierced the back
of those who fled, or the chest of those confronting her face to face.
Q.S. 1.373 (which is identical to 4.32) contains the partially filled construction
ἐνὶ φρεσὶ(ν)
¯˘˘ ¯¯˘ where the open space specifies what happens in or with
the φρένες in question. In Homer the obvious formulaic implementation is σὺ δ’
ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσι (“and you, throw this in your mind”). Quintus’ phrase is
not found in Homer (the participle γεγηθώς itself does not occur²⁴), but it has an
intuitively Homeric ‘feel’ due to such formulas as γεγήθει δὲ φρένα Νηλεύς (“and
Neleus rejoiced in his heart”, Hom. Il. 11.683) or γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα ποίμην (“and
the shepherd rejoices in his heart”, Hom. Il. 8.559). The construction in question
as deployed in both authors can be arranged as in Tab. 1 (see below).
We see that there is very little overlap between the two systems. The Homeric
system is heavily weighted toward the βάλλεο σῇσι formula, but apart from this
system there is considerable variation. Many expressions occur only once, just as
in Quintus.
The second line (Q.S. 1.374) begins with a narratorial comment on a character’s
ignorance or foolishness that is familiar from the Iliad (Hom. Il. 2.38, 12.113, 16.686).
The typical construction is || νήπιος, οὐδ’ (ἄρ), which is followed by Quintus; the
late antique poet then diverges and does so formulaically (the line is repeated in
Q.S. 13.20); ἐφράσσατ’(ο) is Homeric, but not in this position.²⁵
A similar case of the combination of tradition and innovation is Q.S. 1.376. The
phrase οὐ γάρ πώ τι with πέπυστο is Homeric, but whereas Homer keeps the verb
with the temporal modifier (Hom. Il. 13.521 || οὐδ’ ἄρα πώ τι πέπυστο and 22.437
οὐ πώ τι πέπυστο ||), Quintus separates the two. The intervening phrase has the
epithet δυσήχεος in the expected metrical position between the trochaic caesura
and the bucolic diaeresis (14 times in Homer). However, whereas in Homer the
epithet always modifies either πολέμοιο or θανάτοιο, Quintus has it preceded by
the Iliadic battle word μόθοιο in an inflected form that never occurs in Homer.
The next line (Q.S. 1.377) has the Hesiodic (Hes. Th. 140) epithet ὀβριμόθυμος
(not in Homer), of which Quintus is fond: he uses it 27 times. Just like in Parry’s
24 γεγηθώς || is used further in Q.S. 1.353 and 3.473.

25 See, for example, Hom. Il. 24.352 ἐφράσσατο κῆρυξ || and Hom. Od. 4.529 ἐφράσσατο τέχνην ||.
94 | Egbert Bakker
Homer, the epithet is sensitive to the heroes’ names: it typically fits Ajax and
Memnon, whose names can be placed between the beginning of the verse and the
epithet. It is for metrical reasons not easy, whether in Homer or in Quintus, for
Achilles to be “strong of spirit”, or to be “strong” (ὄβριμος) in general.²⁶
Tab. 1: Partially filled constructions in Quintus and Homer
Quintus of Symrna Homer
| ἐνὶ φρεσὶ(ν) πάγχυ γεγηθώς || βάλλεο σῇσι || (7× Iliad, 7× Odyssey)

(Q.S. 1.373, 4.32)
| ἐνὶ φρεσὶ(ν) καγχαλόωντες || θυμὸς ἐτόλμα || (Hom. Il. 10.232)
(Q.S. 3.136, 14.403)
ἔζεεν αἷμα (Q.S. 3.163) θυμὸς ἄητο (Hom. Il. 21.386)
πένθος ἀέξων (Q.S. 3.490) θυμὸς ἰάνθη (Hom. Il. 24.321, Hom. Od. 15.165)
πένθος ἔχουσαι (Q.S. 14.385) πένθος ἔχοντα (Hom. Od. 7.218)
μήδεται ἦτορ (Q.S. 4.93) πένθος ἔκειτο (Hom. Od. 24.423)
τείρεται ἦτορ (Q.S. 6.10) μαίνεται ἦτορ (Hom. Il. 8.413)
ταῦτα μενοινᾷ (Q.S. 5.171) ἵλαος ἔστω (Hom. Il. 19.178)
σῇσι βαλέσθαι (Q.S. 9.493) σῇσι νοήσεις (Hom. Od. 3.26)
μητιάασθε (Q.S. 12.9, 12.51) μήδετο νόστον (Hom. Od. 3.132)
μερμήριξει/-ίζει (Hom. Od. 2.93, 16.73, 20.38, 20.41,
24.128)
βυσσοδόμευον (Hom. Od. 4.676)
μῆτιν ὑφήνας (Hom. Od. 4.739)
ὁρμαίνοντες (Hom. Od. 4.843)
εἴδεται εἶναι (Hom. Od. 9.11)
μήσεαι ἔργον (Hom. Od. 11.474)
πάντα ἰδυῖα (Hom. Od. 13.417)
θυμὸν ὄρινας (Hom. Od. 15.486)
κέρδε’ ἐνώμας (Hom. Od. 18.216)
These short examples suffice to show that Quintus creates his own formulaic dic-
tion, modifying or extending the Homeric prototype in various ways. His treatment
of Homeric diction is in fact reminiscent of the way in which Homeric diction itself
has been seen as an elaboration of earlier and simpler formulaic phraseology:²⁷
Homeric formulas are split, substitutional paradigms extended, and new formu-
26 In the Iliad it is used only at Hom. Il. 19.408 in the vocative (ὄβριμ’ ᾿Αχιλλεῦ). The epithet suits
bisyllabic names beginning with the vowel, such as ῎Αρης or ῞Εκτωρ (placed at line-end). Quintus
extends the construction ὄβριμος
¯˘¯ beyond Homeric usage, frequently employing ὄβριμος υἱός
and ὄβριμος ἀνήρ and inflected forms.
27 On this, see Hoekstra (1965) and Hainsworth (1968).
las created. Quintus performs a balancing act by remaining close to the Homeric
prototype while at the same time studiously avoiding some of its most salient
features:²⁸ for example, his elaborate system of speech-introductory formulas,
the partially filled construction with two variable slots τὸν δ’ [particle
προσέφη [name
˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯]
],²⁹ which serves in Homer as the ‘staging’ for many of
˘˘ ¯˘˘ ¯¯
the noun-epithet combinations in the nominative case,³⁰ is largely absent; Quintus
deploys it only once, pointedly filling in the variable slots with material that is not
found in Homer: τὸν δ’ ὑποδερκόμενος προσέφη μενεδήιος Αἴας (Q.S. 3.252).
Nor is Quintus interested in achieving the economy in his formulaic usage that
Parry had observed for Homeric diction (to the extent that Quintus had noticed
economy in Homer at all). Here are, for example, some line-end noun-epithet
formulas for Achilles in the genitive case (none of them being Homeric):
| ἀταρτηροῦ ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 4.476)

| ἀμειλίκτου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 8.335)
| ἐυπτολέμου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 3.552, 7.183, 7.576, 8.76)
| φιλοπτολέμου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 6.79, 7.245, 8.256)
| μενεπτολέμου ᾿Αχιλῆος || (Q.S. 7.245, 7.583, 8.285)
Homer knows μενεπτόλεμος in the nominative case in the same position, most
often followed by Πολυποίτης. The ‘competing’ epithet φιλοπτόλεμος is in Homer
only used for collectives (e.g. Trojans, Achaeans, and Myrmidons). There does not
seem to be any reason not to extend its use to individual heroes, and Quintus has
not hesitated to create the metrical and prosodic ‘synonyms’ based on the two
epithets.
There can be no doubt that Quintus of Smyrna, working in what most scholars
think is the fourth century AD, ‘wrote’. But that is hardly a defining characteristic of
his epic poem. Quintus shows that formulaic usage is not simply, or is not always,
the result of the typical conditions under which the epic poem is composed in
performance. Many of the features that are so characteristic of Homer, the formulas,
the synchrony of metrical and syntactic structure, can also be studiously pursued,
even under conditions of ‘full’ orality. Nor is ‘result’ uersus ‘aim’ a distinction
that sets Homeric poetry as oral poetry apart from written epic poetry. Even in the
(hypothetical) case of an entirely textless performance is there conscious rhetorical
design, as there is in ordinary speech.³¹
28 See also Bouvier (2002, 196–202).

29 Cf., e.g., τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις ᾿Οδυσσεύς, which is used 5× in the Iliad,
and 45× in the Odyssey. See Beck (2018, 209).
30 On the ‘staging’ of noun-epithet formulas, see Bakker (1997, 162–73).
31 Cf. Bakker (1997, 125–38).
96 | Egbert Bakker
It seems reasonable to suppose that Quintus’ primary aim is to ‘imitate’ Homer.

But the way he achieves this aim is not through replication of Homeric formulas.
Quintus aims at a mimesis of Homer in the sense that his poetry comes across as
Homeric. In the process he has developed his own ‘sense of the formula’ based
on a deep ‘nativelike’ competence in the interaction of metre and epic diction. If
the Homeric bard learns his formulas the way a speaker learns his language, then
Quintus has become completely fluent in a second language.
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Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill
Narratology and classical epic
Abstract: Narrative theory or narratology, to use the term coined by Tzvetan Todorov
in the late 1960s, has in recent decades evolved into a key concept of literary theory.
Its subject, the oral and written, literary and non-literary narrative has become
almost a principal paradigm of Cultural Studies. In this view, narrative appears as
an anthropologically given (culturally and socially variable) fact, as a ubiquitous
means both of individual and collective interpretation of the world and of the
making of cultural meaning. No other literary genre of modern literature is so
closely linked to the aspect of the search for meaning in an increasingly fragmented
and uncertain world as the novel.
This gives rise to two aspects that are relevant for the narratological inter-
pretation of ancient Greek and Latin texts: first, a significant portion of current
narratological theorizing takes place around the (modern) novel. Second, the spe-
cial role of the ancient epic as an object of narratological analysis within the study
of Classical Philology is given by the fact that epic poetry has been viewed as the
literary precursor of the novel since the 18th century. The occasional objection that
narratology, with a certain arbitrariness, imposes unfitting, modern theories upon
ancient texts proves problematic since the earlier research of the 20th century – in
a time when the term ‘narratology’ was still unfamiliar – was partially based upon
the same theoretical approaches that, together with (French) structuralism, led to
today’s concept of narratology.
The first part of this article deals with the history, methodology, and terminol-
ogy of narratological research from the late 1960s until now both in the general
field of Literary Studies and in Classics. The second part responds to the ‘clash of
cultures’ between traditional hermeneutics and modern theory. The third and final
section discusses themes and trends in the area of narratology and Classics.
1 Narratology: beginnings and context

The study of classical literature in the West, both Greek and Latin, experienced a
rather delayed application of theoretical approaches and methods – which also
applies to narratology. This principle lack was diagnosed at an early stage by Segal
(1968, 10):
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-005
100 | Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill
When we come to consider specific methods of criticism, it is clear that classical critics have
not of late been pioneers or innovators of new approaches, as they were in the early part of
the century. No new critical theories have arisen from classical studies per se.
Among common explanations one finds the notion that Classics as the oldest
philology and “leader in the field of literary interpretation” (de Jong, 2014b, 6–7)
did not feel particular pressure of innovation. Therefore, it failed to keep pace
with the literary theories and concepts developed within the neighbouring modern
philologies.¹ Narratology’s delayed entry into Classics is all the more striking
since, as de Jong (2014b, 3) has pointed out, “in fact, narratology can be said to
have started in antiquity, when a number of central concepts were developed”. As
examples de Jong refers to Plato’s differentiation between dihegesis and mimesis
(Pl. R. 3.392–3) or Aristotle’s remarks on the tripartite structure of plot (Arist. Po. 7).
In the 1970s Rubino (1977, 66) called on classicists to draw their attention to the
works of French structuralism:
I am making a plea for active and strenuous reading, for the lectio difficilior of my title. There
is no substitute for reading the structuralist texts themselves, difficult though that may be;
for, with very few expectations, one page of Barthes or Lévi-Strauss is worth many pages of
explanation by the Anglo-American interpreters and critics.
In this period, French structuralism being rooted in the theories and concepts of
the Russian formalists and Ferdinand de Saussure, developed a wider response.²
The journal Arethusa started to dedicate several issues to ‘modern’ interdisciplinary
and theoretical methods, such as Psychoanalysis and the Classics (1974, Arethusa
7), Classical literature and contemporary critical perspectives (1977, Arethusa 10),
Women and their world (1978, Arethusa 11), Semiotics and Classical Studies (1983,
Arethusa 16), Audience-oriented criticism and the Classics (1986, Arethusa 19).³ One
branch of greater importance became the study of signs or semiotics, initiated by
the philosophical work of Charles Sanders Peirce and adopted by Roland Barthes
(Système de la mode, 1967) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (Mythologiques, vol. 1, 1964).
Their thinking influenced the classicist ‘Paris-School’ and the Greek studies of
Jean-Pierre Vernant (Mythe et pensées chez les Grecs, 1965) and Pierre Vidal-Naquet
(Économies et sociétés en Grèce ancienne. Périodes archaïque et classique, 1972).
1 Cf. de Jong (2014b, 6–7).

2 Cf. Rubino (1977). On the application of further modern literary theories on classical studies,
see the volumes edited by Hexter/Selden (1992) and de Jong/Sullivan (1994) on psychoanalysis,
aesthetic reception, speech act theory, gender studies, and Poststructuralism, as well as Schmitz
(2 2006) and Schmitz (2007).
3 Cf. also Fowler/Fowler (3 2005, 873).
They also influenced North American classical scholarship: early examples are
Charles Segal (Landscape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1969) and Froma Zeitlin (The
ritual world of Greek tragedy, 1973). Another semiotic concept, which has had a
vast impact on classical studies, was Julia Kristeva’s intertextuality (Word, Dia-
logue, and Novel, written in 1966). Based on the general notion that “any text
is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and trans-
formation of another”,⁴ this concept enhanced the idea that via ‘allusions’ and
‘parallels’ ancient authors intentionally referred back to literary predecessors.
Classical philologists such as Gian Biagio Conte (Memoria dei poeti e sistema lette-
rario, 1974; The rhetoric of imitation, 1986), Alessandro Barchiesi (La traccia del
modello, 1984; Homeric effects in Vergil’s narrative, 2015), and R. O. A. M. Lyne
(Further voices in Vergil’s Aeneid, 1987) then applied this approach to the interpre-
tation of Latin literature, which had a far-reaching effect on classical scholarship –
especially on the reappraisal of the so-called ‘Silver Latin’ works, such as Flavian
epic.⁵
Another most influential branch of structuralism has been widely received
until today: the formal analysis of narratives, also known as narratology.⁶ Building
on Todorov’s study Grammaire du Décaméron (1969), Gerard Genette (Figures III,
1972) elaborated a comprehensive and highly systematic framework analysing Mar-
cel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (1913–1927). The main focus of Genette’s
Figures lies on the relationship between the narrated world (histoire), the narra-
tive representation of the narrated world (récit), and the narrative representation
through a narrating instance (narration). This concept proved to be an adaptable
and fruitful approach to ancient texts, not only to narrative genres such as epic and
the novel, but also to drama, lyric, elegy, hymns, didactic poetry, epistolography,
and historiography.⁷
In the 1980s a breakthrough of structuralist-narratological analyses of classical
texts took place, comprising a wide range of genres, such as on epinicean poetry
by Hurst (1983) and Köhnken (1983), on Greek epic by Fusillo (1985, with a special
focus on Genette’s notion of time), and on the Greek novel by Fusillo (1988). A
prominent narratological study of the Latin novel was provided by Winkler (1985),
4 Kristeva (1980, 66).

5 Cf. Fowler/Fowler (3 2005, 872) and Augoustakis (2016, 1–14).
6 For a concise overview of the history of narratology and its most influential theorists, see de Jong
(2014b, 3–6).
7 On ground-breaking narratological studies in the various genres of ancient Greek and Latin
prose and poetry, cf. Grethlein/Rengakos (2009b). Cf. also Suerbaum (1968) whose principle
approach can be characterised as ‘narratological’, even though the term ‘narratology’ was not
coined yet.
but it was especially de Jong’s monograph Narrators and focalizers (2004) which
leveraged narratology to advance the field of Classics and inspire Greek and Latin
scholars to take up modern narrative theory. This fundamental study offers an
analysis of focalisation in Homeric epic: its analytical categories are based on the
narratological model provided by Mieke Bal (3 2009), one of Genette’s students, who
refined his methodological instruments. Since then, a rapidly increasing amount
of narratological approaches to ancient texts continues to appear.
Introductory monographs, volumes, and articles – some of them with empha-
sis, however, on literary theory rather than on narratology in its narrow sense –
comprise Galinsky (1992), Hexter/Selden (1992), de Jong/Sullivan (1994), Harrison
(2001c), Schmitz (2 2006), Schmitz (2007), Grethlein/Rengakos (2009b), Konstan/
Nünlist (2009), and Scodel (2014). Since 2012 the Mnemosyne supplements com-
prises a subseries dedicated to Studies in ancient Greek narrative. The most com-
prehensive introduction to the application of narratology and its methods to Greek
and Roman literature is given by de Jong’s influential monograph Narratology and
Classics. A practical guide (2014; 2017). It deals with narratology in a systematic
way (narrators and narratees, focalisation, time, and space) and draws examples
from both modern and ancient sources – and here not only from narrative genres
such as epic poetry, but also from historiography, biography, the ancient novel,
and even drama and lyric.
Theory building in the area of narratology has been based mainly on the
analysis of 19th and early 20th century novels. If one assumes ancient epic, in line
with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and others, to be the major forerunner of this
genre, a tentative and careful application of these modern theories on ancient texts
seems both inviting and justified.⁸ Narratological studies in the field of Classics
add to an overall diachronic (transgeneric and transcultural) understanding of
narrative and open up new perspectives for interdisciplinary cooperation: “It
combines the synchronic and the diachronic, offering not only analyses of the
handling of a specific narrative device by individual authors, but also a larger
historical perspective on the manner in which techniques change over time.”⁹ An
example for the enrichment of our understanding of narrative texts on a diachronic
axis is given by de Jong’s observation that metalepsis in ancient Greek literature
8 Hegel characterises the modern novel as “moderne bürgerliche Epopoë” in the second volume
of his Ästhetik (1965, 452).
9 De Jong (2014b, 11). See also Grethlein/Rengakos (2009a, 3–4), Scodel (2014, 2–3), and von
Contzen (2015, 97); for narratology and Medieval literature, cf. von Contzen/Kragl (2018). Von
Contzen/Tilg (forthcoming) are currently preparing an interdisciplinary handbook of historical
narratology.
adds credibility and authority to the narrator rather than in modern literature
where it often serves as an “illusion disturbing” device.¹⁰
2 Narratology and Classics: a clash of cultures?

Particularly in the 1990s the growing emergence of theoretical and narratological
studies in Classics caused strong reservations and tensions within the Classics
community. Hexter/Selden (1992, p. xii) made this internal friction a subject of
discussion in their volume’s introduction:
Whatever the ultimate cause or value of the turn toward theory in modern language studies,
this state of affairs contrasts sharply with the situation in most Classics departments today.
Some would say our longer view holds us above fluctuations in interpretative fashions. Many,
however, whether by accident or force of will, remain largely ignorant of even the basic
issues that are being debated among contemporary theorists. Others have read and pondered
the new theories, only to reject them, it would seem, or in any case their application to the
Classics.
Schmitz (2007, 6–10) summarises the most prominent reproaches made against
literary and narrative theory: “Theory for theory’s sake”, “modern theories are
inappropriate to ancient texts”, “new wine in old wineskins”, “literary theory is
too fashionable”, “texts must be approached unprejudiced”, “literary theory uses
incomprehensible jargon”.¹¹ He states that these objections
are by no means a sufficient reason for flatly condemning the study of theory. . . . we, who have
the privilege of a regular and easy access to the rich and enriching cultural heritage of antiq-
uity, should view opinions that differ from our own not as a threat, but as a supplementation
and a challenge, in the spirit of cheerful pluralism.¹²
In his general introduction, Harrison (2001a) emphasises this necessity of cooper-

ation between theoretical studies and traditional scholarship within Classics. In
the same volume, Fowler (2001, 68) argues in a similar way:
Viewed as a bundle of techniques, narratology fits as easily into such traditional concerns as
the construction of authorial intention (why did Vergil narrate this event before this event?)
10 See de Jong (2009); cf. also Grethlein/Rengakos (2009a, 5).

11 For criticism against narratological methods and approaches, cf. Pearcy (1988) and Kullmann
(2002).
12 Schmitz (2007, 10).
or of historical ‘reality’ (is this detail focalised from Thucydides’ point of view or that of one
of his characters?) as it does into postmodernism.
Additionally, Harrison (2001a, 6) claims that both approaches should be considered

not only with regard to academic research, but also to teaching:¹³
The ideal graduate student of the 21st century in classical literature should be able both to
analyse and discuss the relative merits of variant manuscript readings, and to give a coherent
account of the basic features of narratology and reader-response theory, and their possible
effects on literary interpretation.
What seems to be most important and more and more generally accepted is the
observation that narratology, though being theoretical in its foundation, does not
lead away from the text, but conversely provokes its close and careful reading.
Today, the vigorous debate between the allegedly dichotomous approaches
has noticeably cooled down. The great potential narrative theory has for the in-
terpretation of ancient texts has become evident in the vast variety of articles,
volumes, and monographs which have been published since the beginning of
the 21st century. Even though the major part of those contributions does not offer
narratological analyses in a strict sense, they at least demonstrate a strong affinity
with models and categories of narrative theory. In retrospect, Donald and Peta
Fowler’s observation from 1996, that “the narratology of Genette and Bal . . . , with
a wealth of new terminology and methods, is often seen as the least ‘threatening’
approach by traditional scholars”¹⁴ appears to still hold true, especially for Greek
and Roman epic, but more and more also with regard to genres which do not rely
as much on narratives.
3 Themes and trends

Narratology in Classics has brought closer attention to multiple aspects of narration.
Examples are narrators and narratees,¹⁵ the notion of focalisation or point of
view,¹⁶ the determination of different levels of voices,¹⁷ the categories of time,
and more recently, of space, the narrative potential of ekphrasis and other forms
13 For a recent example taking this approach, see Polleichtner (2018).

14 Fowler/Fowler (3 2005, 871).
15 See de Jong/Nünlist (2004) and de Jong/Nünlist/Bowie (2004).
16 Cf. Fowler (1990), Nünlist (2003), de Jong (2 2004), and Kirstein (2015a).
17 See Barchiesi (2002), Rosati (2002), Barchiesi (2006), and Slater (2017).
of description,¹⁸ the analysis of beginning and closure,¹⁹ or the phenomenon of

metalepsis,²⁰ all aspects which are of central importance for the interpretation of
large scale narrative texts, such as ancient Greek and Roman epic.
Grethlein/Rengakos (2009a, 2), taking up Harrison’s and Fowler’s positions,
propose a furthering of classical narratology by cultural studies or theories from
neighbouring fields in order to create new methodological resources and tools for
interpretation: “the singular ‘narratology’ has given way to a plurality of ‘narra-
tologies’ . . . While many of these interdisciplinary and intermedial narratologies
still rely on traditional structuralist concepts, some scholars have ventured to set
narratology on a new footing.” The notion of multiple narratologies reflects an
on-going trend in narratology to enhance and refine traditional concepts by post-
classical and post-structuralistic approaches, for instance cognitive (shifting from
text to the act of reception and reader-response theory), cultural (e.g. post-colonial,
feminist), functional, and historical.²¹
On a different axis of thought, when discussing the different major genres of
ancient literature, there seems to be no need for modelling a variety of narrato-
logical toolboxes. De Jong (2014b, 171–2) makes this point with regard to ancient
historiography:
All in all, for ancient historiography our position can be more that of Barthes, White and
Genette: ancient historians make use of the same narrative devices as their literary counter-
parts. The reason is not difficult to imagine: the first historians were heavily indebted to the
Homeric epics, in terms of both content (the focus on individuals) and form (the speeches and
prolepses/analepses). . . . Therefore, there is no need to develop a separate historiographic
narratology, and narratology can help to detect how historians adapt traditional narrative
devices or invent new ones to convey their view of the past.
There is also growing influence of postmodernism in literary theory and narratology

which triggers an interest in themes and concepts, such as body and space,²² visu-
18 On this, see Fowler (1991), Putnam (1998), Harrison (2001b), Bartsch/Elsner (2007), Harrison
(2009), de Jong (2011), and Koopman (2018).
19 Cf. Dunn/Cole (1992), Hardie (1997), Roberts/Dunn/Fowler (1997), Fowler (2000a), Fowler
(2000b), Asper (2013), and Schmitz/Telg genannt Kortmann/Jöne (2017).
20 See de Jong (2009), Nauta (2013a), and Nauta (2013b).
21 Cf. Fowler (2001, 67), Nünning (2002), Herman (2009, 26), Alber/Fludernik (2010), Scodel
(2014, 5), and Grethlein (2017). Psychological approaches can be problematic for the interpretation
of ancient texts because of our limited knowledge and empiric data of the authors as well as the
contemporary readers.
22 See de Jong/Nünlist (2007), de Jong (2012), Klooster (2014), Skempis/Ziogas (2014), Ziogas
(2014), Kirstein (2015a), and Nelis (2015); for a digital approach to spatio-narratological issues, cf.
Viehhauser et al. (2017). See also Kirstein in volume II.2.
ality,²³ concepts of character and characterisation,²⁴ the Possible Worlds Theory,²⁵

or the representation of violence in literature.²⁶
Particularly structuralist narratology has also led to a revision of traditional
philological genres. The most prominent example is de Jong’s seminal narrato-
logical commentary on Homer’s Odyssey from 2001.²⁷ On Ovid’s Metamorphoses
there is a commentary of Book 8 by Tsitsiou-Chelidoni (2003) and a commentary
of all books edited by a team around Barchiesi and Rosati from 2005 to 2015. There
remains, however, still a great need of commentaries with a narratological focus
in the field of Classics.²⁸
Narratology also plays an important role for this project (Structures of Epic
Poetry). First, it allows for a more precise analysis of individual epic structures
both within the poems under discussion and across time periods, authors, and
works from Homer to Nonnus, especially, though not necessarily when questions
of inter- or intratextuality come into play.²⁹ Secondly, narratological analyses
provide a better understanding of narrative, for instance, by contributing to an
overall diachronic research, which extends the vertical timeline beyond antiquity
to medieval, early modern and modern literature.
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Christiane Reitz
Epic and rhetoric
Abstract: Speech and discourse are stock components of the narrative from the
beginning of the epic tradition. The speakers’ rhetorical skills become part of the
narrative discourse, as can be seen from Iliad 3: Helen in the teichoscopy charac-
terises Odysseus by his rhetorical skills. Statistically speaking, 45% of the Iliad
and 67% of the Odyssey are made up of direct speech. Epic speeches, both Greek
and Latin, have been subjected to rhetorical analysis and theoretical discussion
by the ancient critics, and epic poets have been evaluated – or denigrated, as in
the case of Ovid and Lucan – by their use of rhetoric. In this survey, I concentrate
on the interaction between theory and rhetorical practice, as evident from its use
in epic poetry.
1 Introduction
In the third book of the Iliad, Priam and the Trojan leaders stand on top of the
city walls and survey the Greek enemies gathering outside. Helen responds to
Priam’s questions and identifies the individual heroes. The Trojan Antenor adds
his personal observations about Odysseus to Helen’s response and elaborates on
the hero’s eloquence (Hom. Il. 3.200–6 and 3.212–23):
200 “οὗτος δ’ αὖ Λαερτιάδης πολύμητις ᾿Οδυσσεύς,

ὃς τράφη ἐν δήμῳ ᾿Ιθάκης κραναῆς περ ἐούσης
εἰδὼς παντοίους τε δόλους καὶ μήδεα πυκνά.”
τὴν δ’ αὖτ’ ᾿Αντήνωρ πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα·
“ὦ γύναι ἦ μάλα τοῦτο ἔπος νημερτὲς ἔειπες·
205 ἤδη γὰρ καὶ δεῦρό ποτ’ ἤλυθε δῖος ᾿Οδυσσεὺς
σεῦ ἕνεκ’ ἀγγελίης σὺν ἀρηιφίλῳ Μενελάῳ·”
“That one is Laertes’ son, Odysseus of many wiles, who was reared in the land of Ithaca,
rugged though it is, and he knows all manner of tricks and cunning devices.” Then to her
in turn answered Antenor, the prudent: “Lady, that is a true word that you have spoken, for
once before also noble Odysseus came here on an embassy concerning you, together with
Menelaus, dear to Ares.”
* This paper is building on my contribution “Rhetorik im Epos – Rhetorik des Epos” to the German
Handbuch der Rhetorik (2018). I am very grateful to both the editors, M. Erler and C. Tornau, as
well as our publisher De Gruyter for giving me permission to incorporate this revised version of
the paper in our compendium.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-006
116 | Christiane Reitz
ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μύθους καὶ μήδεα πᾶσιν ὕφαινον

ἤτοι μὲν Μενέλαος ἐπιτροχάδην ἀγόρευε,
παῦρα μὲν ἀλλὰ μάλα λιγέως, ἐπεὶ οὐ πολύμυθος
215 οὐδ’ ἀφαμαρτοεπής· ἦ καὶ γένει ὕστερος ἦεν.
ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ πολύμητις ἀναίξειεν ᾿Οδυσσεὺς
στάσκεν, ὑπαὶ δὲ ἴδεσκε κατὰ χθονὸς ὄμματα πήξας,
σκῆπτρον δ’ οὔτ’ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπρηνὲς ἐνώμα,
ἀλλ’ ἀστεμφὲς ἔχεσκεν ἀίδρει φωτὶ ἐοικώς·
220 φαίης κε ζάκοτόν τέ τιν’ ἔμμεναι ἄφρονά τ’ αὔτως.
ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος εἵη
καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν,
οὐκ ἂν ἔπειτ’ ᾿Οδυσῆί γ’ ἐρίσσειε βροτὸς ἄλλος·
But when they began to weave the web of words and of devices in the presence of all, Menelaus
to be sure spoke fluently, with few words, but very clearly, since he was not a man of lengthy
speech nor rambling, even though in years he was the younger. But whenever Odysseus of
many wiles arose, he would stand and look down with eyes fixed on the ground, and his
staff he would move neither backwards nor forwards, but would hold it stiff like a man of no
understanding; you would have thought him some sort of a churl and nothing but a fool. But
when he projected his great voice from his chest, and words like snowflakes on a winter’s
day, then could no other mortal man rival Odysseus.¹
Antenor recalls his reception of Menelaus and Odysseus when they were sent to
Troy as Achaean ambassadors and proceeds to characterise them with regard to
their outward appearance and their rhetorical skills. This is even more remarkable
in the context of a teichoscopy, in which the act of seeing, i.e. the focalisation of
characters, is of central importance.²
Not only have speech and discourse been stock components of the narrative
from the beginning of the epic tradition insofar as the characters within the plot
perform speech acts in direct or indirect discourse such as monologues, dialogues,
or generic interlocutions, but also the speakers’ rhetorical skills themselves become
part of the narrative discourse.³
This is in line with the rhetorical theory of later centuries, which postulates
that epic poems and their speech representation should be analysed according to
the same aesthetic criteria as dramatic texts. Aristotle describes both narrative and
dramatic poetry as the imitation of action (mimesis); epic dialogues are discussed
on the same level as those of drama.⁴
1 This translation is taken from Murray/Wyatt (2 1999).

2 Cf. Fucecchi in volume II.1.
3 Note that Achilles is said to have been educated as “both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds”
(Hom. Il. 9.443).
4 Cf., e.g., Arist. Rh. 3.1409b and Arist. Po. 1448a, 1449b.
The correlation between a character’s general portrayal and his speech charac-
teristics is an important rhetorical and philosophical theorem. It is true that, within
its context, Seneca’s dictum (Sen. epist. 114.1) talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis uita
(“The way people speak is the same way they live”) argues that a person’s character
traits and speech characteristics are indicative of the general decline of oratory
and the depravation of an entire era. Still, Seneca’s statement shows that implicit
and explicit characterisation through speech is an important principle both in epic
poetry and rhetorical theory. Rhetoric is not a foreign element that intrudes into
the epic text and shapes its form, but it is intrinsic to the genre. For, in a broader
sense, rhetoric and rhetorical speech form the basis for the communication within
a given society. To a certain extent, rhetoric thus constitutes a part of all literary
genres.⁵ This is not only true for Roman literature even though post-Vergilian epic
in particular has been characterised as ‘rhetorical’ – a label, that was for a long
time considered to be a pejorative judgement of aesthetic inferiority in comparison
to earlier epics.⁶ Although Greek epic predates the invention of rhetoric,⁷ as it were,
readers from antiquity onwards have interpreted it in terms of its rhetorical form
and function.⁸ Categories such as ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ or ‘oral’ and ‘written’ are
therefore inadequate to examine differences in the epics’ respective rhetorical
embellishment properly.⁹
In view of this finding, a diachronic analysis of Greek and Latin epic has to be
supplemented with more theoretical considerations regarding the speech acts of
epic characters, be they in the epic poems themselves or in theoretical treatises.
Furthermore, it will be necessary to give an overview of the potential motiva-
tions for characters to speak and the corresponding typology of speech acts in epic
poetry. It will become clear that not all of these classifications have become part
of rhetorical handbooks, i.e. they did not develop into clearly defined set-pieces.
However, even the (direct or indirect) speeches that do not conform to any strict
5 For a general discussion of these matters, see Calboli/Dominik (1997, 3–12, esp. 10).
6 This tendency to denigrate rhetoric is still present although more recent literary criticism has
adopted a more sober perspective. For the judgements passed on Lucan, starting from Quint. inst.
10.1.90, and for a summary of the discussion about rhetoric’s negative impact on epic, see Radicke
(2004, 531).
7 See Toohey’s (1994, 153) introductory remarks. Toohey follows Kennedy (1982) and distinguishes
between “primary” and “secondary rhetoric”.
8 Cf. Kenney (1966, 331): “A poem may be composed in a manner that is perfectly just to call
‘rhetorical’ and yet exemplify not a single schema from the handbooks. It is a matter of degree and
proportion in the systematic exploitation of linguistic and literary resources and of the relationship
of ends to means.”
9 See Farrell (1997, 135).
formal description never lack a conscious design that reinforces their respective
intention.
An overview is provided in the following table:¹⁰
Tab. 1: Classification of rhetorical speech acts in epic poetry
Speeches within the rhetorical canon Speeches outside the rhetorical canon
– forensic orations – narratives

– speeches of persuasion – descriptions
– prayers – monologues
– speeches of mourning and consolation – apostrophes
– exhortations – challenges, threats, and taunts
– speeches of praise and blame – commands
– prophecies
– questions and responses
Obviously, analysing speeches within their narrative context raises an abundance

of narratological questions. The roles of speakers and addressees are constantly
changing, which entails a variation in the linguistic and stylistic characteristics
of their speeches. Even though these aspects cannot be part of the subsequent
overview, every single case is worth being studied in detail.
2 Greek epic
Among many other honorary titles, Homer was called the inventor of rhetoric by
ancient critics.¹¹ The speeches in his epics were regarded as paramount examples
of oratory.¹² His speeches even take up more space than his battle descriptions;
striking examples of rhetorical speeches are to be found in the long speeches of
assemblies (agorai or boulai) or divine councils. According to the ancient critics,
three characters of the Iliad represent the three rhetorical styles: Odysseus stands
for the high, Nestor for the middle, and Menelaus for the low style. Although the
10 This typology is based on Dominik (1994). Also see Dominik (1994, esp. 19–23) for general
considerations and definitions, for remarks on opening and closing formulae as well as on direct
and indirect speech, including further bibliographical references.
11 Cf. Kennedy (1957, 26–9).
12 On speech representation in Homeric epic, see Cantilena (2002) and Beck (2012).
terminology was not used consistently, we may reasonably assume that these
categories prevailed.¹³
The oral tradition underlying Homer’s work is discernible not only in its narra-
tive passages, but also in its speeches, not least because of their predominantly
paratactic structure.¹⁴ The verbal utterances of humans and gods clearly aim at
convincing other characters; the speech acts frequently serve a parenetic purpose,
i.e. they admonish others to do something and fulfil the function of instigating or
continuing certain actions. They also serve to characterise the respective speak-
ers.¹⁵ This feature is especially salient with Nestor’s speeches, seeing that – due to
his old age – he does not actively fight any battles in the Iliad. Nevertheless, he
delivers numerous speeches, four of which are rather lengthy (Hom. Il. 1.254–84,
7.124–60, 11.656–803, and 23.625–50).¹⁶ Using language- and content-related cri-
teria, Nestor’s speeches can be interpreted as examples of ἠθοποιία.¹⁷ It would
be a mistake, however, to identify the characterisation of certain character types,
e.g. that of the loquacious old man, as the speeches’ principal aim. The fact that
most rhetorical speeches issue an appeal raises the question as to the specific
effects of every individual element. In Nestor’s case, we would have to ask how
the seemingly redundant flashbacks to his youth help achieve the overall aims
of his speeches. By comparing Nestor’s first three speeches with his last one in
Book 23, Primavesi (2000) shows that the flashbacks to Nestor’s earlier deeds
are paradigmatic. According to Aristotle (Arist. Rh. 1.1357b), such paradigms, i.e.
examples that provide a basis for comparison, may be used as arguments in order
to convince other people. In this sense, Nestor’s first three speeches can be seen as
being perfectly in line with rhetorical theory. The very absence of such a paradigm
in Book 23 of the Iliad points to the fact that this speech works towards a different
goal, in this case the expression of thanks for an honorary gift. There are also a
number of speeches that are in some way related to one another and whose mean-
ing only becomes clear by discerning the more or less subtle differences between
13 See Nünlist’s (2009, 220–1) discussion of the relevant scholia.

14 Cf. Toohey (1994, 154). For an analysis of the language used in Homeric speeches, see Griffin
(1986).
15 See Minchin (2006–2007) for an examination of gender differences within speeches and
Minchin (2011) for an analysis of the speeches delivered by gods.
16 It is remarkable that these four belong to the group of 22 analeptic speeches, i.e. speeches
about events taking place before the action of the Iliad; cf. Fingerle’s overview in Primavesi (2000,
45 n. 1); see Primavesi (2000) on the dating of Book 10 and its implications for the interpretation
of the speeches. See Lohmann (1970, 55) on the speeches in the Iliad and Martin (1989) for the
rhetoric idiolects of the characters.
17 Helzle (1996, 23–4) notes that Nestor is rather fond of using the expression ὦ πόποι and of
using repetitions, especially polyptota and paronomasiai.
them (for instance, Nestor’s speech in Book 23 addressing the funeral games for
Patroclus refers to his lengthy speech to Patroclus in Book 11). Cross references
such as these prove that repetitions have several functions in early Greek epic:
on the one hand, in the context of the poems’ recitation,¹⁸ they aid memory and
characterisation. On the other hand, even slight variations of seemingly repetitive
passages may point out key characteristics of the respective correlation. In this
way, repetitions can open up an immense frame of reference, which in the case at
hand is constituted by both of Nestor’s speeches, the advice to Patroclus and the
retrospective view after his death.
The Odyssey in particular is profoundly shaped by its speeches. Lengthy pas-
sages of its texts are made up of narratives related by different speakers, such as
prophecies, tales, and plot elements unfolded after the fact. Odysseus’ account of
his wanderings at the palace of the Phaeacians (his so-called Apologoi in Books
9–12) is a case in point. Statistically speaking, 45% of the Iliad and 67% of the
Odyssey are made up of direct speech.¹⁹ Narratological research has focused on
different narrators and their respective narrative perspectives.²⁰ This narratological
point of view examines various narrative ‘voices’, including those of the bards
who – e.g. on the occasion of a banquet – function as intradiegetic narrators. Their
self-contained accounts contain more or less specific references to the main nar-
rative. At the Phaeacian banquet, Odysseus listens to his own story as related by
the bard Demodocus. Being moved by the song, Odysseus finally reveals his true
identity and starts to give his own account of the events. As becomes clear, e.g., in
the case of apostrophes and interjections, Odysseus here takes on the role of the
epic poet, as it were. In the second half of the Odyssey though, he is presented as
the master of deceit. He makes a number of speeches in which he lies about his true
intentions and his identity. For instance, he tells the swineherd Eumaeus (Hom.
Od. 14.199–359) as well as his wife Penelope (19.172–202) a story made up of both
true and false claims about his Cretan origin and his alleged adventures during the
18 It is undisputed that the large-scale epics transmitted to us go back to an oral tradition. This
paper, however, cannot elaborate on how much of this tradition can still be identified in the
written texts.
19 Cf. de Jong (2 2004, 149). Larrain (1987) offers a structural interpretation of the “invariant”
speeches in the first eight books of the Odyssey. He focuses on drawing a clear distinction between
the different types of speeches pointing either backward or forward in the plot.
20 The research conducted by de Jong has paved the way in this respect, cf. de Jong (2 2004). Baier
(1999) compares the narrative perspectives in the works of Homer, Vergil, and Ovid. Bakker (2009)
uses the example of the Odyssey to show that it is often close to impossible to draw a definite
distinction between the voice of the characters and that of the narrator.
Trojan War.²¹ His intention is not only to protect himself by misleading others but
also to put to the test his addressees’ loyalty. In tragedies, deceptive speeches later
became a productive means to create dramatic irony. Sinon’s famous speech in the
second book of Vergil’s Aeneid or Pelias’ and Aeetes’ deceitful speeches in Book 1
and 5 of Valerius’ Argonautica can also be seen as an adoption of this rhetorical
strategy.
Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days cannot be considered as epic poems
in the narrower sense since they do not depict any continuous plot. This is why
they are treated separately in this volume and this chapter does not elaborate
on the way these works can be analysed and interpreted in terms of rhetoric. It
is essential to realise though, as stated by Strauss Clay, that the proems of these
genealogical and didactic texts address the question of whether divinely inspired
poetry is necessarily truthful and reliable.²²
It is striking that in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica speeches only make up
a rather small portion of the text (some 30%). Toohey (1994) interprets this finding
in the light of the fact that the written medium had taken on crucial importance
in Hellenistic culture and literature.²³ In analogy to primary and secondary epic,
Toohey defines the different types of rhetoric in the Argonautica as either primary
or secondary. His thesis is that in the Hellenistic epic the emotions of the characters
are predominantly internalised and much less likely to be openly expressed in
the characters’ speeches. Toohey regards this as a general tendency in later Greek
epic.
Mori (2007, 458–72) points to another aspect in which Apollonius appears to
distinguish his epic from the Iliad, albeit with a different intention. He finds that
most speeches having a significant bearing on the plot are set in an atmosphere of
privacy. Furthermore, he observes, the characters’ intentions as well as the epic’s
plotlines, which tend to work against each other, are embedded in a network of
rhetorical acts. The words and speeches of Jason in particular, but also of Argus
and others, are frequently referred to by the poet as “sweet” or “charming”.²⁴
They often serve to mediate between adversaries, to work out a compromise in
order to avoid aggression. What makes this thesis convincing is the fact that the
21 Cf. Grossardt (1998), whose research focuses partly on the oral tradition of deceitful speeches
and partly on their literary productivity. He also elaborates on their development into “Schwindel-
literatur”.
22 Strauss Clay (2007, 447–57, here 447): “Hesiod is the first to extend the Muses’ domain from
poetry to rhetoric and thereby to put the power of persuasion under divine patronage.”
23 Toohey (1994) uses four speeches of the Argonautica’s third book to exemplify this interiorisa-
tion of feelings.
24 Cf. Nishimura-Jensen (1998).
epic introduces two characters who adopt a standpoint opposite to that of the
rhetorically educated heroes: Heracles departs from the epic’s plotline and is
left “speechless” (A.R. 1.1168–71); Aeetes, the king of Colchis, rejects any serious
negotiation (3.372–81) and is finally defeated in a conflict that could have been
avoided. According to Mori, the epic poet from the Hellenistic era demonstrates
that speeches can have an impact on the audience’s emotions and passions. This is
completely in line with the tenets of rhetorical education, which had already been
established and which we can grasp in ancient rhetorical handbooks, albeit of a
later date.²⁵ Jason’s rhetoric, however, is not free from dishonesty and intrigue: e.g.
when convincing Medea of his proposal (3.997–1007), he confines his comparison
between her and Ariadne to the very point that serves his purpose; a few words
too many would have turned the mythical example against him. When Jason and
Medea are compared to trees at their first meeting, we find an explicit reference
to the power of words:²⁶ the mute trees, agitated by the wind or by Eros, begin
to rustle. The artificial mingling of epic convention and innovation is not least
achieved by the rhetorical power wielded by Jason, whose imperfect standards
of morality disqualify him as a hero in the positive sense. This relationship is
also illustrated by one of the images on Jason’s coat, which was given to him by
Hypsipyle on Lemnos.²⁷ Some of these images look back at past actions and the
last one to be mentioned presents a conversation between Phrixus and the ram
with the Golden Fleece (1.765–7):
765 κείνους κ’ εἰσορόων ἀκέοις, ψεύδοιό τε θυμόν,

ἐλπόμενος πυκινήν τιν’ ἀπὸ σφείων ἐσακοῦσαι
βάξιν, ὃ καὶ δηρόν περ ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι θηήσαιο.
Beholding them thou wouldst be silent and wouldst cheat thy soul with the hope of hearing
some wise speech from them, and long wouldst thou gaze with that hope.²⁸
Somewhat paradoxically, the ekphrasis allows for an image to underline the crucial
role of speeches within mythical narratives.
25 Mori (2007, 466) compares the conflict between Jason and Aeetes to the examples Demetrius
uses to describe the emergence of political crises (Demetr. Eloc. 189.291–3). The fact that we cannot
exactly pinpoint the time of composition for Demetrius does not weaken Mori’s argument since,
as he rightly emphasises, the handbooks only reproduce what had already been firmly established
in rhetorical instruction.
26 On similes in Apollonius’ Argonautica, cf. Reitz (1996).
27 Cf. Mori (2007, 469).
28 This translation is taken from Seaton (1912).
3 Latin epic
Livius Andronicus’ (280–205 BC) translation of the Odyssey, the Odusia, marks
the birth of Latin epic. It was composed in the old Roman Saturnian meter. Even
though most of this translation has been lost, we can clearly discern a profound
influence of the Homeric poems. The second Latin epicist we know of is Naevius
(275–201 BC), who wrote the Bellum Poenicum, a historical epic on the First Punic
War. Only about 60 fragments survive, which were also composed in the Saturnian
meter.²⁹
The fragments of the Annals, written by Ennius (239–169 BC), add up to about
600 lines. Even though this small portion of the original text makes it difficult to
judge the role of speeches and rhetoric in the Annals, it is not only evident that En-
nius was Naevius’ successor but also that he makes exceptionally clear references
to his Greek role models. In addition to using typical scenes and structures from
Homer’s and Hesiod’s works (e.g. the invocation of the Muse, the account of the
poet’s calling, divine councils, battle scenes, and similes), Ennius introduces the
dactylic hexameter to Latin poetry, replacing the Saturnian and having a lasting
impact on Latin poetical diction. The fragments attest that speeches make up a
large portion of his work. For instance, fragment frs. 304–8 Vahlen (324 Skutsch),
transmitted in Cicero’s rhetorical treatise entitled Brutus (Cic. Brut. 58), can be read
as a metapoetical statement. Here, Ennius appears to praise the rhetorical skill
of C. Cornelius Cethegus and to make a connection to Suada, the personification
of eloquence. In his commentary, Skutsch interprets Suada as the translation of
Peitho, the Greek goddess of oratory and persuasion.
It is clear that the Annals were characterised by their rhetorical flourish since
many fragments have been preserved for this very reason. For instance, a Late
Republican handbook on rhetoric (Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.18) cites a speech from
Romulus addressing Titus Tatius, the king of the Sabines: O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta
tyranne tulisti (“Oh Titus Tatius, tyrant, you have borne upon yourself so much”, fr.
109 Vahlen, 104 Skutsch). Although the unknown author of the handbook warns
his readers against the overuse of alliterations, the line certainly appears to have
been familiar and memorable. Other fragments attest that battle descriptions were
introduced by the respective military leaders addressing their troops (adlocutio, e.g.
Hannibal promises the Carthaginian citizenship to a number of auxiliary troops
joining the battle, fr. 280 Vahlen, 234 Skutsch).
Publius Vergilius Maro wrote the Aeneid probably between 29 and 19 BC. De-
spite being innovative in many regards, the work is firmly rooted in the epic tradi-
29 Cf. Bär/Schedel in this volume.

tion. As far as speeches are concerned, the Aeneid takes up typical epic structures,
such as the flashback narrated by a character within the story (similar to Odysseus’
Apologoi): having arrived as a stranger at Queen Dido’s court in Carthage, Aeneas
gives a first-hand account of the sack of Troy and of the survivors’ subsequent
wanderings. Among the longest speeches of the epic are the prophecies such as
the prediction by Helenus, which is later reproduced by Aeneas in Book 3, or the
announcement of Rome’s future greatness made by Anchises (in the course of
the so-called katabasis in Book 6). The battle narrative in the second half of the
epic provides the opportunity for important battle speeches (e.g. Numanus Remu-
lus, Verg. Aen. 9.598–620) and final exhortations of the troops by the respective
commanders (e.g. by Turnus at 10.279–84 and Aeneas at 12.565–73). When gods
communicate or assemble, their speeches often provide information about future
events: Jupiter lets the goddess Venus know that her son Aeneas will eventually
overcome all obstacles on his way to greatness (1.257–96). Before the final con-
frontation between the Trojan invaders and the Italic natives (12.830–40), Jupiter
assures Juno, who still adamantly opposes Aeneas’ cause, that the two peoples will
eventually mingle and become a great empire. Extensive research has been done
on the speeches in the Aeneid,³⁰ not least because they were constantly emulated
by later epic poets. Apart from the scenic design of the speeches, monologues, dia-
logues, or assemblies, more recent research has taken into consideration the way
these elements are embedded into larger structures. Scholars have also focused
on gestures and other processes of non-verbal communication.³¹ Narducci (2007),
following Highet (1972), points out a connection between epic and tragedy in that
speeches frequently serve to express emotions. He goes on to assert that speeches
are also relevant to the plot development, especially when they are delivered at
assemblies or when they further ‘diplomatic’ aims. Moreover, they represent con-
temporary rhetorical practices in Rome. Narducci (2007, 382–412) is right to claim
that the way ancient writers judged Vergil as a poet and as an orator underwent a
marked change: while Quintilian judged both aspects separately, the assessment
of later critics was one-sided in that they regarded Vergil’s speeches as showpieces
of rhetoric. This tendency is evident, for instance, in Ilioneus’ introduction of the
Trojans to the Carthaginians at Verg. Aen. 1.522–58 or in his lengthy speech to Lati-
nus at 7.213–48. Servius meticulously identifies the individual loci of this speech,
30 Both older and more recent works on speeches in ancient epic poetry base their considerations
on the statistical study by Lipscomb (1909); for the Aeneid, see Highet (1972). Narducci (2007)
offers a summary of the past research on Vergil as well as a brief comparison with Lucan. Harrison
(2010) analyses the use of colloquialisms, focusing on speeches delivered by gods.
31 Ricottilli (2000) takes into account modern theories of communication; see Lobe (1999) for a
rather conventional analysis of gestures.
the textbook elements of rhetorical education in his commentary on the Aeneid

from the 4th century AD. It is crucial to note that the following warning given by
Highet (1972, 9) is relevant to ancient commentators and modern interpreters alike:
“It is always tempting to apply the neat patterns of the rhetorical manuals to any
extended speech, whether the author meant it to be a piece of oratory or not.”
Due to the markedly different narrative structure of Ovid’s (43 BC–17 AD) car-
men perpetuum, this discussion will only provide a brief overview of the most
important aspects of Ovid’s speech representation. Although the Metamorphoses
cover the entire period from the creation of the world to the Augustan era, they
do not depict a linear plotline. Instead, they come up with a number of tableaus,
containing tales of transformation; the stories form a whole by means of a complex
interrelation between one extradiegetic and several intradiegetic narrators. Ovid
places rhetorical ‘courses of action’ in the mythical realm when he, for instance,
has the gods put forward their arguments in assemblies reminding readers of the
Roman Senate. His characters often make use of rhetorical devices to convince
others of their proposals. In the last book, the lengthy speech made by Pythagoras
(Ov. met. 15.60–478) makes clear that Ovid employs narrators as well as orators
to advance arguments and voice opinions. Pythagoras, in his didactic speech, ad-
dresses the transmigration of souls, which can be seen as the theoretical basis of
all metamorphoses.
The fact that Ovid himself was rhetorically educated – as we know, for instance,
from Seneca the Elder (Sen. contr. 2.2.8) – has frequently brought him into disrepute.
He has been considered slick, unauthentic, and ‘rhetorical’; a view that became
prevalent for the interpretation of later epic.
The epic poet most often accused of ‘rhetorisation’ is Marcus Annaeus Lu-
canus (39–65 AD). The first instances of criticism are already voiced in antiquity:
Quintilian’s statement on Lucan in the tenth book of his Institutes of Oratory (c.
100 AD) has often been (mis)interpreted as being disparaging.³² The grammarian
Fronto (Marcus Cornelius Fronto, c. 100–70 AD) finds fault with the proem of Lu-
can’s civil-war epic (Front. de or. 6). He criticises the poet for using ever-changing
words to express one and the same idea. As a matter of fact, the work is profoundly
shaped by its rhetorical devices: the narrative is full of antitheses, contrasts, and
other aspects that some critics have tried to explain by pointing to the rhetorical
style of controuersiae and suasoriae. What is more, Lucan indulges in unusual
expressions and paradoxes; he enjoys going to extremes and using colores, the
32 See Quint. inst. 10.1.90 Lucanus . . . oratoribus magis quam poetis imitandus (“Lucan should
be imitated by orators rather than by poets”). Ahl (2010) reads this as a political statement: it
opens up, though cautiously, the possibility to stand up for liberty and to oppose the system of
the Principate.
rhetorical ‘colouring’ of descriptions and accounts. Throughout the work, readers

feel the presence of the intrusive narrator, who does not hide his dismay at the
events he recounts.³³ Helzle (1996) thoroughly analysed the speeches in the Bellum
Ciuile.³⁴ He shows that the poem’s protagonists are characterised and assessed by
the way they talk (their idiolects). Caesar is unable to priuata loqui, i.e. he cannot
switch to a tone appropriate for private matters, even if this is what the circum-
stances call for. His talk is always that of a military leader; he is prone to using
imperatives, even when praying to the gods. Pompey’s speeches, however, more
often refer to private matters than to public ones. Helzle (1996, 134–7) observes
that, strikingly, the register of military discourse recedes into the background at
the very point where a speech delivered by a true general would have been ap-
propriate, i.e. just before the decisive battle at Pharsalus (Lucan. 7.343–82). As far
as Cato is concerned, we have to doubt whether his speeches, full of old Roman
patriotism and embellished by sententiae, characterise him as an indisputably
positive character.³⁵ As Thorne (2010, 5) has shown by analysing the speeches of
Cato and Brutus in the second book of the Civil War, it is rather about presenting
Cato as part of a shared remembrance, as a monument of a free Rome that is lost
and is never to return.
Ambühl (2015) points out that Greek tragedies have regularly provided models
for Lucan’s speeches. Therefore, it is not surprising that they are not only shaped
by rhetorical devices but also indicative of an overall arrangement based on dra-
matic considerations. Rolim de Moura (2010) also identifies a basic structure that
underlies the epic as a whole and that frames the individual characters’ speeches.
His study, focusing on the seventh book, shows that different voices – be they of
specific characters, of the troops, or of the narrator – are constantly engaged in a
dialogue with one another. This is even the case when the plot does not appear to
allow for such communication. Both the history of the civil war and the conflicting
ideologies at work are not least expressed by the characters’ verbal utterances.
Rolim de Moura (2010) reads as a metapoetic experiment the fact that, e.g., Cae-
sar’s speeches appear to be a reaction to Pompey’s. In Lucan, this phenomenon
extends far beyond its Homeric model.³⁶ The composition of his speeches attests
33 Walde (2003) takes up the research on rhetoric as an interpretive paradigm with Lucan’s epic;
cf. Ambühl’s (2015, 13) summarising remarks.
34 See also Tasler (1972).
35 See Helzle (1996, 138–43) on Cato.
36 See Hom. Il. 9.160 and 9.362: In both cases, we encounter the same characterising adjective
directly after a speech was ended; cf. Rolim de Moura (2010, 90).
that Lucan is “an original writer who is at the same time historian, orator, and
poet.”³⁷
The following assessment made by Dominik (1994, 2) does not only apply to
Statius, but also to the other epic poets of the Flavian era, Valerius Flaccus and
Silius Italicus, which will subsequently be discussed in what has commonly been
accepted as the most likely chronological order:
Even a cursory analysis of the epic . . . poetry . . . reveals a deep indebtedness to the literary
and rhetorical traditions that preceded him; this is the case with respect to the different
generic forms and conventions of literature and rhetoric, especially the various speech types.
As noted in Dominik’s introduction (1994, p. xxx), literary production and rhetorical

tenets are basic components of ancient epic texts, which cannot be separated. Most
speeches we encounter in the epics are also dealt with in the rhetorical handbooks.
The only exceptions are warnings against battles and laudatory or vituperative
speeches in the course of a fight. There are however several models for these speech
types as well, not only in the epic but also in the historical tradition.
Gaius Valerius Flaccus (died 90 AD) composed the Argonautica, an epic of
eight books that is probably unfinished. The poem recounts the Argonauts’ journey
to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Colchis, making it a ‘prequel’ to the events
unfolding around Jason and Medea. In a way, the Argonautica transfers this plotline
from the epic tradition into the Roman world. Modern scholarship has interpreted
Valerius Flaccus’ panegyrical references to the Flavian dynasty as praise for the
military achievements of Vespasian and Titus in particular. Similar references
may, of course, be found in the works of all three epic poets of the Flavian era.
Such a reading can be supported, for example, by the divine council of the first
book, in which Jupiter asserts that the Argonauts’ triumph will eventually lead to
Rome’s dominion over the world (Val. Fl. 1.531–60). This teleological view is also
proclaimed in Jason’s speeches (e.g. when he talks to his companions and to Aeetes
in Book 5). On the structural level, Valerius experiments with the ways speeches
are delivered. During the banquet at Aeetes’ court (Book 5), the host formally
enumerates a catalogue of his troops that will be sent into battle the following
day. Medea’s response to her father’s deceit, her deliberation and subsequent
decision to help the stranger are, on the one hand, based on epic role models such
as Apollonius’ Medea and Vergil’s Dido, on the other hand, the banquet scene,
combined with the correspondent dialogues between Jason and Medea, highlights
this epic’s tendency to use dramatic irony in direct speech acts and point forward
to the inevitably tragic ending of the story. A range of hints and comments serve
37 Rolim de Moura (2010, 89–90).

to show the action and the speeches in a different light: the fact that Medea will
eventually murder her children and that Jason will kill Medea’s brother are never
absent from the epic; the tension may even be said to increase towards its end. In
this regard, the speeches are often not (to be) experienced first-hand, but are of a
rather retrospective character.
Publius Papinius Statius’ Thebaid comprises twelve books and was probably
published in 92 AD. The work stands out in that it takes up a markedly dramatic
subject. It is true that the Seven against Thebes as well as the fatal duel between
Oedipus’ sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had also been presented in epic poetry.
However, none of these epics survive and the tragedies revolving around the myths
of Thebes were certainly predominant, not least in Rome. It is thus not surprising
that the epic is continuously competing, both explicitly and implicitly, with the
dramatic genres. The Thebaid exploits the potential of epic narratives by means
of diversified catalogues that, for instance, present the Argives assembling at the
city walls in a kind of teichoscopy (Book 7).³⁸ This tendency is also exemplified
by the lengthy flashback in Hypsipyle’s story (Book 5) and it is a clear connection
to the tale of the Argonauts.³⁹ What is more, dramatic settings often provide the
role models for both why and how characters speak in the Thebaid.⁴⁰ In order
to examine the epic’s narrative structure and its competition with the dramatic
genres, it is worthwhile analysing the speeches of those characters who are closely
interlinked. As Helzle (1996, esp. 175–88) has shown, several characters of the
Thebaid should be interpreted in pairs. This is not only the case for the brothers
Eteocles and Polynices but also for the two female protagonists, Argia and Antigone,
the two seers, Amphiaraus and Tiresias, and the two rulers, Adrastus and Creon.
Moreover, Oedipus’ ghost, which ascends from the underworld and starts the
action, and Theseus, who functions as a deus ex machina in the twelfth book, are
not least linked by the diametrically opposed ways in which they speak. Towards
the end of the epic, we encounter two speeches aimed at preventing the fight that
will lead to the death of both brothers. These speeches thus mark a situation of a
particularly tragic nature. While Jocasta makes haste to reach the Theban camp
and to dissuade Eteocles from fighting, Antigone, speaking from the top of the
city walls, tries to change Polynices’ mind. Both scenes and both speeches (Stat.
Theb. 11.329–53 and 11.363–82) emphasise the importance of dialogues, which –
technically speaking – are not an inherently prominent feature of epic poetry.
38 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann on epic catalogues in this volume.

39 On the role of speeches in Flavian epic, see Dominik (2002). See Walter (2014) on the narrators
in Flavian epic poems and Soerink (2014) on Hypsipyle’s story. On the competition between
dramatic and epic forms within the Thebaid, see Bessone (2011).
40 Cf. Frings (1991).
The women involve the addressees into their speeches by means by interjections,
invocations, gesticulations and touches, but also by adding detailed descriptions
to their appeals: a dramatic scene is framed by an epic speech. As opposed to the
tragic model, both speakers pursue the same aim and both are doomed to fail.
For, at the very moment when Polynices appears to yield to his sister’s emotional
entreaty, we read of the Fury’s intervention, prompting him to make his attack.
A short, heated argument between the two ensues (11.389–92 and 11.393–5) and
marks the beginning of the battle. Here the text attests to the flexibility of epic
narratives, combining speeches and actions, retardation and acceleration to reach
a thrilling climax.
The Punica, composed by Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus (c. 25–101 AD),
was composed at roughly the same time as the Thebaid. Even though its 17 books on
the Second Punic War are based on the respective historical events, they also vary
and summarise the action using typical narrative patterns of the epic tradition, such
as divine councils and lengthy descriptions. Due to the large number of military
leaders who were in charge during the 17 years of fighting (218–211 BC), it is hard
to identify one of the protagonists as the main hero. Yet, it is worth noting that the
future Scipio Africanus is introduced as a young warrior before being built up as
Hannibal’s chief opponent in the last books. The various – and often unsuccessful –
Roman generals are not least characterised by the way they talk. Flaminius, who
is responsible for the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene, is characterised by his
speeches as blasphemous and haughty (Book 5). On this occasion, his words are
contradicted by a speech of Corvinus, who was presumably invented for this very
purpose. Corvinus is described as standing out due to both his ancestry and his
rhetorical skills (Sil. 5.76–100, esp. 5.77). It is possible that the name of this character,
similar to the names of some fighters, is supposed to evoke a historical relationship
pertaining to the recent past or even contemporary Rome.⁴¹ It may refer to the
fictitious Corvinus’ potential descendants in Rome, i.e. the Augustan orator Marcus
Valerius Messalla Corvinus.⁴² This would mean that Silius establishes a sense of
continuity not only with regard to the military achievements but also rhetorical (i.e.
political) virtues. Similarly, the way he talks is one major aspect characterising the
consul Gaius Terentius Varro, whose rash actions eventually bring about the defeat
at Cannae. His ambition – not least reflected in his rhetoric – and his correspondent
style are described as immoderate, hasty, and wild. A simile, taking up the common
metaphor of the orator as charioteer, highlights that Varro has lost control of his
41 Cf., e.g., McGuire (1997).

42 See Helzle (1996, 244–7).
team.⁴³ The conflict between the two consuls Aemilius Paulus and Varro leads to
an altercation reminding readers of a controuersia, a fixed pattern of arguments
and contradictions. Their dispute could almost be part of a schoolbook on rhetoric.
Their speeches present virtuous characters, such as Fabius Maximus and Scipio,
as being of superior prudence. Helzle (1996, 258 n. 2) has shown that, on the one
hand, Hannibal’s speeches are most prominently marked by his aggressive diction
and by a sharp focus on his respective opponent. Scipio, on the other hand, can
be seen as the spokesman of Roman virtues in that he refers to pietas and makes
use of historical exempla. It is striking that Silius does not have Scipio deliver a
speech at the very moment when the story is about to come to its triumphant end:
on the Roman side, there is no adlocutio right before the battle of Zama! This goes
to show that the poet, at the proper time, may even choose to refrain from imitating
rhetorical brilliance in order to characterise his protagonist.
Farrell (1997) has rightly claimed that the later Greek epics, Quintus of Smyrna’s
Posthomerica (3rd century AD) and Nonnus’ Dionysica (5th century), have closer ties
to the imperial Latin epics than to the works of Homer due to the quantity, quality,
and contextualisation of the speeches in later Greek epic. Farrell righty emphasises
that we face serious dangers when reading and interpreting post-Vergilian epics. It
is tempting to presume that the seemingly inferior quality of these works was due
to the development (or the degeneration) of the ars rhetorica. The conclusion at
which Farrell (1997, 142–4) arrives for post-Vergilian epic may also serve as a fitting
conclusion for this brief overview in general: “Rhetoric in epic is not confined
to speeches.” What we need is a set of precautions against importing bias and
prejudice, be they ancient or modern, into our reading of epic poetry. One of these
precautions is not to look for ‘rhetoric in the epic’ but for ‘the rhetoric of epic’.
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Gregor Bitto
Alexandrian book division and its reception
in Greek and Roman epic
Abstract: It remains a matter of debate when the two Homeric poems were divided
into 24 books each. A wide range of suggestions has been offered: from a divi-
sion that ultimately goes back to the poet himself to an attribution solely to the
Alexandrian editors. Apollonius’ Argonautica, the first ancient epic after Homer’s
Iliad and Odyssey to survive in its entirety, exhibits clear characteristics of a book
division very consciously made and one that refers back to the aforementioned
predecessors. Its substantial reduction of book numbers, from 24 to 4, adds special
weight to each book in terms of unity and separation. Additional proems to Books
3 and 4 underline the segmentation and its potential to create narrative meaning.
Composing an epic poem with special attention to book division becomes
fashionable for Roman epicists, at least since Ennius: Livius Andronicus is likely
to have adopted the book division of his Greek original; there is evidence for a
posthumous, post-Ennian book division in Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum (Suet. gramm.
2). Ennius’ 18 books of the Annales show a division into triads. Fragments of the
proems to Books 7 and 10 display metapoetic statements that emphasise the book
division and make use of the special attention readers give to beginnings.
The prime importance of book division for the macrostructure of an epic poem
is most prominent in the 12 books of Vergil’s Aeneid, without being employed
schematically or pedantically: for example, the double structure of an Odyssean
and an Iliadic half is suggested, but the proem in the middle in Book 7 is not
situated directly at the beginning but a little later, thus undermining a clear-cut
division. The reception of Vergil transformed his Aeneid into the model Roman
epic. Just to mention two examples: playing with book divisions is characteristic
for Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the 12-book structure serves as a benchmark for
Statius’ Thebaid.
Accordingly, my paper focuses on the reception of the (Alexandrian-)Homeric
book division in subsequent epics, including, of course, the reception of such
receptions, in order to highlight how this structuring device, totally disconnected
from its originally mostly pragmatic function, is employed by later epicists to add
layers of meaning to their narrative.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-007
134 | Gregor Bitto
1 Introduction
A 21st century reader of Homer’s Iliad or Vergil’s Aeneid is accustomed to the
epics’ traditional subsections, often called ‘book’ or ‘song’, with their consecutive
numbering, the equivalent of our modern book divisions into chapters. An ancient
reader was, however, not confronted with one copy of one medium, but with
several units of one medium – papyrus scrolls.¹ The maximum length of an ancient
papyrus scroll designed for reading covered about 3 500 lines² and would not
have sufficed to accommodate a work of 10 000 or more lines. Simply for reasons
of practicality, the division into several scrolls was a necessary procedure. This
contribution therefore examines how Alexandrian editors developed an originally
pragmatic division into an aesthetic criterion that was subsequently adopted by
poets as an artistic device for structuring large works.³
2 Homer
There is strong disagreement among scholars about the Homeric book division
and, in particular, on questions such as the date of the original division and its
architect.⁴ The scope of proposals⁵ ranges from ascribing the division to the poet
himself⁶ to a subsequent fixation in writing in 6th century BC Athens,⁷ and to
Alexandrian scholars, such as Zenodotus or Aristarchus.⁸
1 A general introduction to the physical media of ancient (not only Graeco-Roman) epic is provided
by Haslam (2005). See Birt (1882, 444–6) for evidence of extra-long scrolls that contained both
Homeric poems together. As Birt (1882, 287) himself notes, such a format is extremely unpractical
for reading and philological study. Cf. also the ensuing explanations by Birt (1882, 288–341)
regarding book formats for different genres. On the subject of listeners and recitations, see below.
2 For this calculation, see van Sickle (1980, 7).
3 The 4th century BC historian Ephorus is supposed to be the first writer who divided his longer
works into books. See Birt (1882, 446–61) and Higbie (2010, 16–17) for later book divisions of
pre-Alexandrian works.
4 The Symbolae Osloenses-debate of 1999 is a good example for the liveliness of this discussion.
The article by Skafte Jensen, which puts forward the controversial thesis that the two epics with
their 24 songs were dictated on just as many days in sixth century BC Athens, is followed by ten
different responses from distinguished experts on Homer like Gregory Nagy or Stephanie and
Martin West.
5 See the surveys of de Jong (1996, 21–2), Skafte Jensen (1999, 6–10), and Heiden (2000, 247–8).
6 See Goold (1977, 26–30).
7 See West (1967, 18–25).
8 De Jong (1996, 30) proposes Zenodotus, while Taplin (1992, 285) suggests Aristarchus.
From a modern perspective, it is surprising that for such an essential change

as the introduction of the structural division of texts into books for a central author
such as Homer, there are no valid ancient testimonies that allow at least for an
approximate dating. There are only a few hints whose interpretation is still a matter
of debate: in Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero the division of both Homeric poems accord-
ing to the letters of the alphabet is not attributed to the poet, but to Aristarchus
and his disciples (Ps.-Plu. Vit. Hom. 2.4).⁹ A Pindaric scholion explains the word
‘rhapsode’ by connecting it to ῥάπτειν (“to sew”): the rhapsodes are supposed to
have sown together, i.e. to have united, separate, independent Homeric songs,
thereby creating the two long poems (Schol. Pi. N. 2.1d). That would imply that
the division, too, is not Homeric, but was introduced by a later editor. Whether
an original segmentation played any role in the division of the books remains, of
course, an open question.
Those who favour a later dating of the book division point to the ancient prac-
tice of quoting Homer.¹⁰ The earliest quotations from Homer (beginning with Hdt.
2.116), cite the name of the author, the work, and/or the episode in which the quote
is to be found, but never the number of a book.¹¹ The earliest citation of Homer
by book number appears on a papyrus dating from the second century BC.¹² Com-
bining these two facts, one could conclude that the book division is Alexandrian.
Adding Apollonius’ reception of the book division (see below, section 3), Zenodotus
has to be credited as the inventor for chronological reasons.¹³ Furthermore, the
alphabetic order seems to be typical for Zenodotus.¹⁴
9 Heiden (1998, 68 n. 4) discards this passage as evidence. Nünlist (2006) points to another
testimonium for Alexandrian division, an h-class scholion, cited in Erbse’s testimonial apparatus
to Schol. b Hom. Il. 2.877b. This scholion is ascribed by Erbse (1969) to Nicanor (2nd century
AD). In contrast to the passage above, the scholion speaks of the anonymous γραμματικοί who
divided the continuous Homeric epic into 24 books according to the alphabet. As Nünlist (2006)
notes, this makes the Alexandrian dating in Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero seem more than just an ad
hoc-invention.
10 See Skafte Jensen (1999, 10–11); for criticism, see Heiden (2000, 248).
11 For a more detailed discussion, see Higbie (2010, 3–8).
12 See Higbie (2010, 10). Hillgruber (1994, 89–90) adduces two papyri of the Odyssey from the
3rd century BC that contain hints to an existing book numbering and argues for Aristarchus to be
excluded from the list of potential originators of the book division.
13 Cf. de Jong (1996, 30). Closural parts of a scene do not necessarily imply the closure of a book.
Apollonius does not necessarily refer to an existing Homeric book division, but could simply adopt
his or somebody else’s analysis of closural parts. See also Taplin (1992, 286), who contends that
24 is just one possibility and that one could just as well divide the Iliad into a different number of
books.
14 See Alpers (1975, 116) with further references.
136 | Gregor Bitto
This reasoning has incurred several objections. Heiden (2000, 249), for exam-
ple, doubts that a division made by Zenodotus would have been accepted so quickly
and universally by his philological contemporaries and successors.¹⁵ On the other
hand, as Higbie (2010) has shown, quoting Homer by episode titles remained an
accepted practice until the 1st century AD, alongside the reference to book numbers.
Athenaeus is the first to cite all authors and works by book number, although he is
familiar with the older practice. Higbie attributes this development to the growing
literacy of the audience that provided authors and readers alike with an easier way
of dealing with texts in a more philological manner.¹⁶ Those who opt for an earlier
dating of the Homeric book division argue that the older practice of referring to
Homer by episode titles is to be explained by the very different practice of reception
(sc. via recitations) that does not exclude an original book division. Those who
think of Homer rather in terms of recitation than of reading are more likely to think
in terms of performance practice with its self-contained rhapsodies.¹⁷
It is striking that an early dating is based on aesthetic criteria – that is, the
segmentation of the medium corresponds to a division regarding the content and
is supported by certain signals in the text. The more subtle these signals, the more
plausible it seems that the original author and not a later editor is responsible
for the division.¹⁸ Inversely, aesthetically displeasing or arbitrary divisions are
supposed to indicate the opposite,¹⁹ like the equal division of both Homeric poems,
despite their unequal length, into 24 books each, both with alphabetic numbering –
a ‘childish division’ according to Lachmann.²⁰
Irrespective of who is to be credited with the book division of the Homeric
poems (I am personally more inclined to link it to the Alexandrians’ editorial
practices), the division itself has received a lot of attention from scholars studying
the reception of Homer, as we will see below. Even if an Alexandrian dating is
15 This argument is not as solid as it may seem at first glance. A pre-Alexandrian division could
have already existed that was just modified, or another type of division could have been har-
monised. The fast acceptance could be seen as a sign for the high esteem in which Alexandrian
scholarship and its combination of aesthetic and pragmatic issues was held. Already at this point
it becomes clear that we are working with hypotheses that are all equally plausible.
16 See Higbie (2010, 27–8).
17 Cf. Skafte Jensen (1999, 11).
18 See, for example, Heiden (1998) and Heiden (2000). Cf. also Stanley (1993), who assumes
a revision and division of the original text by the rhapsodes. For that reason, he argues for a
pre-Alexandrian division; see esp. Stanley (1993, 249–61 [for the book divisions] and 279–93 [for a
reconstruction of the genesis of book divisions in the sixth century BC]).
19 For all 23 divisions of the Iliad, see Taplin (1992, 285–93). Taplin (1992, 2–31) proposes a division
into three parts that corresponds to an original performance during three days or nights.
20 Cf. Lachmann (2 1865, 93): “kindische Eintheilung beider Werke.”
favoured, it remains an open question whether the division is the result of aesthetic
considerations – both from a later editor and a later poet adopting the division,
irrespective of the time span between them – that pre-date the edition and division,
or whether text segments formed the basis for aesthetic criteria for the division.
An even more important question for the ancient reception is who was credited
with the book division by ancient readers. The passages quoted at the beginning
of this section indicate that it was mainly attributed to the Alexandrians. This a
very likely assumption with regard to their editorial practice in general, such as in
the case of the Alexandrian edition of Pindar’s Epinician Odes.²¹ An overview of
their editorial criteria may illustrate how subtle the Alexandrian editors’ interest
in these matters was. Lowe (2007, 171–4) has identified eight different criteria:
1. Authorship (attribution of a certain ode to Pindar).
2. Suprageneric rule (εἰς θεούς – εἰς ἀνθρώπους).
3. Number of books per genre (not, as in the case of Bacchylides, one genre and
one book).
4. Prestige of the festival.
5. Prestige of the event.
6. Status of the victor; victors with several odes get a prominent place, then follow
the ones with only one ode (with the exception of Pi. N. 1 and Pi. N. 9, where
criterion 5 is more important).
7. The victor with the highest number of odes occupies the first place in the
collection.
8. Within such groups, the more important – i.e. the longer odes – precede the
others (e.g. Pi. P. 4 before Pi. P. 5).
It becomes clear in such a collection of poems that the author never intended joint
publication: the diligence of the editor is meant to be perceived by the reader in
order to avoid the impression of arbitrariness – e.g. that several odes belonging to
one victor appear in different places in the book instead of in a sequence (criterion
6). Such a book division and composition presupposes sensitive editors and readers
who expect such standards from contemporary literary productions and who, out
21 This, of course, is a parallel only to a limited extant: the Homeric book division and the
Alexandrian edition of Pindar’s Epinician Odes are linked by their concept of books as aesthetic
units. An important difference, however, is that Pindar’s poems are simply too short to form a
book on their own. Therefore, they had to be collected into books and put into a certain order;
one may compare Callimachus’ Aetia. In the case of Homer, it is the other way round: a poem
that is too long to fit into one book had to be segmented. Barchiesi (2005) justly advises against a
perspective that is too idealistic with regard to the perfect poetry book and that does not take into
account the materiality of the medium and the reception practices.
138 | Gregor Bitto
of their contemporary literary experience, expect such standards from their literary
heritage and its presentation in books.
3 Apollonius Rhodius
Already at first glance the difference between Apollonius’ Argonautica and its
Homeric predecessors becomes apparent:²² the Argonautica comprises just four
books instead of 24, all of which are significantly longer than each of the Homeric
books, but add up to just half of the length of the Odyssey.²³ Thus, each division
becomes more significant and the reader’s attention is drawn to the book division
itself.²⁴ Since there are no longer several divisions, each of the three receives
special attention. Books 1 and 2 narrate the adventures of the Argonauts during
their voyage to Colchis; Book 3 recounts the events in Colchis; Book 4, finally, the
stealing of the Golden Fleece and the voyage home. This clear and absolutely linear
structuring of the content is accentuated by the distribution of the proems.²⁵ Book
2, in contrast to the other three, is not introduced by an individual proem as the
journey continues directly from the first book to the second.
22 This paper focuses on epic poetry; therefore Callimachus’ Aetia is omitted, even though this
(collection of) elegiac poem(s) had an enormous influence on the composition of poetry in books;
see, for example, Krevans (1984, 138–300) and Hutchinson (2008, 42–63). Equally omitted from
this discussion is Callimachus’ Hecale, an epyllion, which was contained within a single book.
See Finkmann and Hömke in this volume.
23 According to van Sickle (1980, 11) the average book length of the Iliad is 654 lines and of
the Odyssey 505 lines; the average length of Apollonius’ books, by comparison, is 1458 lines.
Hutchinson (2008, 77) notes that the overall length of the four books of Apollonius’ Argonautica
corresponds to the four books of Homer’s Apologoi (Books 9–12 of the Odyssey). Van Sickle (1980,
8–12) assumes a development of Alexandrian books, beginning with an older practice (3rd century
BC) of units of 1000 to 2000 lines (cf. Callimachus’ Aetia and Hecale) and a younger one (from the
1st century BC onwards) that favoured a total of 300 to 900 lines. The latter became the model for
Roman poets since Vergil. This, according to van Sickle, also explains why we have fragmentary
papyri that contain several Homeric books in one scroll; cf. West (1967, 22–3, esp. 25 n. 48). For
West (1967, 19) these different book lengths are also evidence against an Alexandrian division of
the Homeric poems.
24 See also Hutchinson (2008, 82) who regards the book division as the most important structuring
device of the first two books.
25 This linear narrative is counterbalanced by several digressions, aetiologies, and internal cross-
references; cf. Nelis (2005, 355–6).
At the same time, book endings highlight important events:²⁶ the end of Book
1, the loss of Heracles; the end of Book 2, the landing in Colchis. With Book 3, the
Medea episode begins and this new stage of the narrative is introduced by the
invocation of the Muse Erato and the following Olympic scene, the only one in the
whole epic.²⁷ The end of Book 3 coincides with the end of a day in contrast to the
two sunrises that close Books 1 and 2.²⁸ In addition, it marks the end of Jason’s fight
against the bulls,²⁹ while the stealing of the Golden Fleece gets a special place at the
opening of Book 4. These two climactic events are highlighted by their respective
book boundaries, whereas proems of five lines each link Books 3 and 4 in contrast
to the four-line proem of Book 1.³⁰ The double dawn at the end of Books 1 and 2
is interpreted by de Jong (1996, 30) as a contrasting reference to Homeric book
endings that close several times with a sunset.³¹ This inversion, according to de
Jong, mirrors Apollonius’ aspiration for independence from the epic model Homer
and turns the book ending with a sunset in Book 3 into a contrastive imitation
so that both the epic tradition and Apollonius’ deviation from it are highlighted.
There is an analogous tension between book boundaries and narrative continuities
across those boundaries in the book pairs 1–2 and 3–4.³²
4 Republican epics: Livius Andronicus, Naevius,

and Ennius
About a generation after Apollonius, the history of Latin epic poems is about
to begin with Livius Andronicus’ Latin adaptation of the Homeric Odyssey.³³ He
26 See Campbell (1983, 154) and Ambühl (2017). For the meaning of book endings, cf. Fowler
(2000, 251–9) and Schmitz (2017). See also Zissos in this volume.
27 Cf. Reitz on divine council scenes in volume II.2.
28 Cf. Wenskus on time in Greek epic in volume II.2.
29 Campbell (1983, 154) concludes that this is more important than the voyage home that begins
at A.R. 4.212. See also Hutchinson (2008, 9–82) for the unifying ἄεθλος-motif that is noticeable in
the book composition.
30 See also the parallel of Jason’s ἄεθλος in the last line of Book 3 and Medea’s κάματος in the
first line of Book 4. For the proems within the narrative structure, see Köhnken (2010, 139–40)
and Schindler in this volume.
31 Cf. the overview in de Jong (1996, 22–3 and esp. 24–9) for the caesura created by dawns and
sunsets in Homer. For a more detailed discussion of the recapitulating beginnings of books, see
Campbell (1983, 154–5).
32 For a more detailed account, see Köhnken (2010, 140–2).
33 Toohey (1992, 90) calls attention to this synchronicity.
140 | Gregor Bitto
uses the Saturnian verse (Liv. Andr. carm. frs. 1–36 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel), as
does his successor Naevius for his Bellum Poenicum before, with Ennius’ Annales,
the hexameter becomes the standard epic meter in Roman epic.³⁴ After Ennius,
hexameters are used for the composition of Livius’ Odusia, as well (Liv. Andr. carm.
frs. 37–40 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel). Regarding these two versions of the Odusia,
Courtney (1993, 46) states that only the hexametric version of Livius’ Odusia had
a book division, whereas the first version was contained in one scroll.³⁵ This,
according to Courtney, is due to the fact that the Homeric Odyssey has been divided
into books by Aristarchus – that is, after Livius Andronicus; but, as we have seen,
his dating is a matter of debate (see above, section 2). Proof for his hypothesis
is that there is only one quotation from Livius Andronicus that is accompanied
by the book number: the grammarian Priscian cites a fragment from Book 1 (Liv.
Andr. carm. fr. 37 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel, with an equivalent in Odyssey 1).
The authenticity of a second quotation with book number has been questioned.³⁶
From the first quotation, there is nothing to be gleaned about the total number of
books and their correspondence to the Homeric division. Furthermore, Courtney’s
explanation that the Homeric division was introduced by Aristarchus after Livius
is far from certain. Finally, there are serious doubts whether Livius translated the
complete Odyssey at all or just a section of it.³⁷
With Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, we are on much firmer ground. Suetonius
refers to this poem as proof of the developing Roman interest in philology, after the
visit to Rome in 168 BC of Crates of Mallus, a contemporary of Aristarchus. Accord-
ing to Suetonius, Octavius Lampadio divided Naevius’ epic, which was originally
contained in one scroll, into seven books.³⁸ However, concerning the structure
of this work and its books, opinions are divided among scholars. Generally, it is
clear that the first three books contained the early Roman history from the fall of
Troy to the founding of Rome, while Books 4–7 were devoted to the main topic, the
First Punic War. Depending on how we deal with a quotation from the grammarian
34 For the aesthetic appeal of Saturnian verse, see Goldberg (1995, 58–82).
35 So also Goldberg (2005, 432). Cf. Gell. 18.9.5 offendi enim in bibliotheca Patrensi librum [singu-
lar!] uerae uetustatis Liui Andronici, qui inscriptus est ᾿Οδύσσεια . . . , “For in the library at Patrae
I found a manuscript of Livius Andronicus of undoubted antiquity, entitled ᾿Οδύσσεια . . . ” This
translation is taken from Rolfe (1927).
36 On Liv. Andr. carm. fr. 42 Morel, which was not included by Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel, see
Courtney (1993, 46) and Suerbaum (1992, 168 n. 35).
37 See Suerbaum (1992, 168–70).
38 Cf. Suet. gramm. 2 C. Octauius Lampadio Naeuii Punicum bellum quod uno uolumine et con-
tinenti scriptura expositum diuisit in septem libros, “Gaius Octavius Lampadio thus treated the
Punic War of Naevius, which was originally written in a single volume without a break, but was
divided by Lampadio into seven books.” This translation is taken from Rolfe (1914).
Charisius (Char. gramm. fr. 3 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel) in terms of textual criti-

cism, two options for the overall structuring of the narrative emerge: it is either a
long flashback after the beginning of the war as an inserted story within the story
or a prehistory that is told separately.³⁹ Several quotations situate the events in
Troy and its continuation in Book 1.⁴⁰ However, Char. gramm. fr. 3 introduces a
few lines about the expedition of Manius Valerius, the consul of 263 BC, with the
designation “from Book 1”. Combining these two pieces of evidence, Book 1 would
then begin with the events of 264–262 BC and continue with a long digression
from Troy to Rome. Beginning with Book 4, the remainder of the war – that is,
the years from 261 to 241 BC – would have been told with about five years being
covered in each book. In order to avoid such an enormous digression, Baehrens
(1886) wanted to change belli Punici libro I to belli Punici libro IIII. A decision
on whether this question is ever to be solved definitively depends on how much
literary refinement one is ready to grant ‘archaic’ literature.⁴¹ A linear narrative
seems to be the easier solution, especially in view of the ‘prologue’ of the Odyssey,
the Telemachy (Odyssey 1–4). On the other hand, the Odyssey itself offers proof of a
flashback that covers several books (Odyssey 9–12). So, to my mind, there is a lot to
be said for drawing surprising but reasonable conclusions from texts without the
need for alteration. One has to note, though, that apparently for Naevius himself,
as well as for Livius before him, the artistic device of book divisions was not of any
interest, in contrast to the readers of a later generation. These readers expect their
epics to be divided into books, and so older epics have to be adapted to suit the
new standards, as Suetonius attests for Naevius.⁴²
With Ennius, we have the first Roman epic in which the poet himself adapts the
Hellenistic interest in book divisions.⁴³ As far as can be seen from the remaining
fragments, Ennius introduces at least Books 6, 7, 10, and 16 with individual proems
39 For the inserted episode, cf. von Albrecht (1999, 48) and Goldberg (2005, 433); for the ‘mythical
prologue’ (“mythischer Vorbau”), cf. Häußler (1976, 96–7). See also the overview in Toohey (1992,
94).
40 See, for example, Char. gramm. frs. 6, 9, and 14 Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel.
41 See Toohey (1992, 94) and von Albrecht (1999, 48).
42 There are very different estimates of the total number of lines of the Bellum Poenicum: about
5000 lines, like Apollonius, according to von Albrecht (1999, 50), and, similarly, Toohey (1992, 94)
who compares the average book length of the Homeric and Vergilian epics; or not more than 1850
lines in order to fit onto one scroll – uno uolumine, as Suetonius says: thus Suerbaum (1992, 165).
43 Cf. Jocelyn (1972, 1010): “His basic unit of composition was not the pontiff’s whitened board
but the Hellenistic book trade’s average-length papyrus roll.” Jocelyn draws a parallel with the
Homeric division that he dates to Alexandrian philological activity. See also Classen (1999) for
Ennius’ general influence on Roman literature.
142 | Gregor Bitto
that accentuate the boundaries between the respective books.⁴⁴ In total, the Annales
covered 18 books, as attested by Diomedes (Diom. gramm. 1.484 Keil). These are
commonly grouped into six triads.⁴⁵ The last triad begins with the proem to Book
16 in which the poet refers to the tribulations of old age. This proem is interpreted
by Skutsch (1985) as the troublesome resumption of poetic activity (Enn. ann. 401).
Together with a note in Pliny the Elder (Plin. nat. 7.101) that Ennius added Book 16,
this is seen as a hint that Ennius added a sixth triad, having finished his Annales
previously in 15 books.⁴⁶ The established thematic structuring runs as follows:⁴⁷
Books 1–3: Reign of the kings

Books 4–6: Conquest of Italy and the war against Pyrrhus
Books 7–9: Punic Wars
Books 10–12: Events in Greece
Books 13–15: War in Syria
Books 16–18: Recent wars (sc. during Ennius’ life time).
The proems to Books 7 and 10 separate the Punic Wars in a unified subsection,
especially because in the proem to Book 7 Ennius refers to the existing literary
tradition – that is, Naevius’ epic about the First Punic War – and distances him-
self from his predecessor’s aesthetics.⁴⁸ However, as Enn. ann. 164 Skutsch (the
opening line of Book 6) demonstrates, not only were the boundaries between the
triads highlighted, but also boundaries between individual books. This way the
structuring into individual books receives special attention. This applies to the
reception of Ennius’ book division, too: this line is quoted by Quintilian as part
44 See Hutchinson (2008, 26). As Elliott (2013, 67) notes, 267 of the 623 fragments are quoted
with their book number.
45 See Elliott (2013, 38–40, esp. 39 n. 65 for older literature, 213–14, and 298–302); however, she
raises doubts, too, concerning this communis opinio.
46 Cf. Skutsch (1985, 5–6). For Gärtner (2005, 5), this addition indicates that the five triads where
not aesthetically intertwined, since the symmetry would have been destroyed by a sixth triad.
47 See Skutsch (1985, 5) and Elliott (2013, 298–302). Cf. also Elliott (2013, 18–74) for a thorough
correction of a too rigid classification of the narrative structure of Ennius’ Annales as the result of
a too narrow understanding of the title. For Classen (1999, 133–4), the book division of the Annales
is not only a literary achievement, but it also introduces a division for Roman history.
48 See Enn. ann. 206–9 Skutsch scripsere alii rem / Vorsibus quos olim Faunei uatesque cane-
bant / [cum] neque Musarum scopulos / Nec dicti studiosus [quisquam erat] ante hunc, “Others
have written of the matter in verses which once upon a time the Fauns and seers used to sing,
when no one had surmounted the rough rocks of the Muses nor was anyone mindful of style before
this man.” This translation is taken from Warmington, 1935. Note the reference to the Alexandrian
philological tradition: dicti studiosus. For the context in which this fragment has been preserved
(Cic. Brut. 71), see Elliott (2013, 180–1).
of witty reply by Cicero who is using this opening line and the book number in
reference to a defendant named Sextus Annalis (Quint. inst. 8.3.86). This joking
reference to a book by its number and opening line proves that in Cicero’s time it is
impossible to think of an epic poem without paying attention to its book division.
5 Vergil
Being the first complete extant narrative epic poem of Latin literature,⁴⁹ Vergil’s
Aeneid allows for a more reliable⁵⁰ analysis of the structuring into books. With 12
books, the Aeneid is only half as long as the Homeric epics, although, as already
noted by Servius, Vergil’s epic contains an Iliadic and an Odyssean half, albeit in
reverse order of Homer’s narrative chronology:⁵¹ Books 1–6, Odyssey; Books 7–12,
Iliad.⁵² This division, however, does not appear to be systematic. The beginning
49 This does not include Lucretius’ didactic poem or the lost Republican epics: e.g. Hostius’
Bellum Histricum in at least two books, Accius’ Annales in at least 27 books, Cicero’s De consulatu
suo and De temporibus meis in three books each, Furius Bibaculus’ Annales Belli Gallici in at
least 11 books, and Varro Atacinus’ Bellum Sequanicum in at least two books. Cf. Nethercut’s
overview (Tab. 2) in this volume. For Lucretius, see the short overview in Kenney (2 2014, 10–11
n. 37) with further literature. The most important aspects shall be briefly summarised here: the
six books are structured into three pairs (Books 1–2: atoms, Books 3–4: soul, Books 5–6: world);
the central position of Books 3–4 is emphasised by the framing repetition of Lucr. 1.76–7 in
5.89–90; the contrast between the symmetry of Books 3–4 in the central position, linked by 3.31–40
corresponding to 4.26–44, and a linear climax occurs at the beginning of each pair (Epicurus as
homo in 1.66, pater in 3.9, and deus in 5.8). The incomplete editorial status, however, impedes the
analysis; see Bailey (1947, 31–7) for the connection between the book composition and the genesis
of the poem. As Butterfield (2015, 2 n. 6) makes clear, lines 6.92–5 show that Book 6 was supposed
to be the last and 6.937 indicates that the first book in the manuscript tradition was meant to take
this position.
50 This has to be qualified insofar as Vergil was not able to edit his almost finished work by
himself. Existing discrepancies, such as half lines, do not concern the epic’s organisation into
books. On the cross-references between Books 1 and 12 that mark the twelfth book as the last one,
see Tarrant (2012, 3). For the unfinished status of the Aeneid, see O’Hara (2010).
51 In contrast, cf. the programmatic statement at the beginning: Verg. Aen. 1.1 arma uirumque.
52 Cf. Serv. Aen. 7.1. See also Macr. Sat. 5.2.6 and Don. vita Verg. 21. McNelis (2004, 263) links the
caesura in Book 7 to the caesura in Enn. ann. 7 Skutsch. Suerbaum (1999, 141–9) shows that an
exact correspondence of the two halves to the two Homeric epics and their composition cannot
be established, except for a general analogy of a half with errores and another with bella. On
the twofold division of the Odyssey (Books 1–12: wanderings, Books 13–24: Ithaca) as the main
model for the Aeneid, cf. also Schmidt (1988) who points out the problems of the Iliadic / Odyssean
structuring of the Aeneid and argues for the Odyssey as the principal structural model. For a
thorough analysis of Vergil’s reception of Homer, see the seminal study by Knauer (1964).
144 | Gregor Bitto
of the second half is not placed at the beginning of Book 7, but it is postponed
until Verg. Aen. 7.37 and introduced by a so-called proem in the middle,⁵³ thus
separating the second half for a second time. This unusual division between Books
6 and 7 calls the attention of the reader (who is used to a structuring into halves
in Vergil’s previous poems)⁵⁴ to the delayed middle proem and beginning of the
second half: it is therefore the delay itself that provides special emphasis.⁵⁵
We find an analogous play with divisions and links in the tetradic sub-
structure⁵⁶ of the Aeneid: Book 4 concludes the Dido episode; with Book 9 the
actual fighting begins; and at the same time Aeneas looks back to Carthage in Verg.
Aen. 5.1–7 (cf. respiciens in Verg. Aen. 5.3 with metapoetic resonance) and thus
in the same book that begins with interea.⁵⁷ This technique will be adapted and
developed even further by Ovid in the Metamorphoses.⁵⁸
To what extent Vergil is thinking of book structures⁵⁹ when composing his
epic can be illustrated by the following examples:⁶⁰ Aeneas’ account of his past to
Dido comprises exactly two books, with Aeneid 2 covering the events in Troy and
Aeneid 3 his following wanderings.⁶¹ The idea to begin a new book with a speech
by the epic’s main protagonist that is so long that it continues beyond the end of
the book is borrowed from Homer: Odysseus’ Apologoi (Odyssey 9–12). Similarly,
the games in Iliad 23 are not only the model for Aeneid 5, but also for the creative
53 Cf. Conte/Harrison (2007, 218–31). Holzberg (1998, 90) and Nickbaht (2006), however, interpret
the last two lines of Book 6 that mention the anchoring of the ships as a metapoetic reference
to reaching the end of the first half. On the imagery of seafaring as a metaphor for writing epic
poetry, cf. Harrison (2007). See also Schindler and Zissos in this volume.
54 See the recusatio in Verg. ecl. 6 and the proem to Verg. georg. 3.
55 For links between Books 1 and 7, see Lebek (1976, 210–13).
56 See Duckworth (1968, 68–9) for the superposition of several structural patterns in the Aeneid.
57 For the synchronicity of Books 8 and 9, see below.
58 Cf. also Sharrock in this volume and see below (section 6).
59 The late antique argumenta to the individual books of the Aeneid (AL 1–2 Shackleton Bailey)
witness the same way of conceptualising the Aeneid as an epic composed in books. Cf. Serv. Aen.
5.871: the lines of Verg. Aen. 6.1–2 originally formed the end of Book 5 and were transposed to the
beginning of Book 6 by Varius and Tucca. This indicates the artistic importance ascribed to book
division, as Thomas (2014) rightfully concludes.
60 For the compositional unity of the individual books, see Heinze (3 1915, 448–53); cf. also Heinze
(3 1915, 463) for the emotional uariatio displayed in the sequence of the books. For an elaborate
analysis of the book composition of the Aeneid, cf. Worstbrock (1963, 33–121, esp. 118): “Die
Reihe der zwölf Bücher stellt keinen linearen kontinuierlichen Verlauf dar, sondern geschlossene
Einheiten erzählter Zeit.”
61 Note the framing repetition in the first and last lines: Verg. Aen. 2.1 conticuere and 3.718
conticuit.
decision to devote an entire book to this topic.⁶² Vergil does not employ other
structuring motifs, such as sunrise, at the opening of a book as often as Homer,
but it is used for the opening of Book 11.⁶³ Books 8 and 9 narrate simultaneous
events in different locations (Book 8: Aeneas visiting Evander, Book 9: the Trojan
camp near the Tiber), while during the simultaneous events of Book 9 the main
hero is absent for the whole book.
In general, the beginnings and endings of books in the Aeneid are, according
to Worstbrock (1963, 69), “prominent, often structurally independent parts of the
composition” that serve as a means to emphasise the unity of the individual book
and highlight the ‘compositional joints’ (“Kompositionsfugen”) and do not serve
primarily as transitional passages.⁶⁴ Through ‘ruptures’, lapses of time or a sudden
change of scenery, Vergil places greater emphasis on the unity of the book than
on creating a linear narrative.⁶⁵ With the Aeneid, he establishes a new point of
reference for all subsequent epics.
6 Ovid
The number of books in Ovid’s Metamorphoses comes as a surprise: 15 books, not 24
as in Homer, or half of that, as in Vergil. Merli (2004) takes this as a programmatic
signal: in the epic tradition, multiples of six are the favoured numbers (Homer:
24, Ennius: 18, Vergil: 12). Ovid instead seems to draw inspiration from the units
of smaller poetic genres (cf. Vergil’s 10 Eclogues) and especially his own elegiac
62 See below (section 8), for Statius and Silius. Cf. the overview in Lovatt (2005, 18). There is a
structural parallel: Iliad 23 and Aeneid 5 take the penultimate position, though admittedly in the
Aeneid, it is the penultimate book of the first (and Odyssean) half.
63 See de Jong (1996, 22–3). If de Jong (1996, 30) is right about Apollonius’ reception of Homer in
this respect (see above, section 3), with Aeneid 11 Vergil would turn Apollonius’ contrast into a
parallel.
64 Kytzler (1990), by contrast, stresses book middles, calculated by line numbers, as prominent
passages. This is, according to Kytzler (1990, 184–5), not to be seen as a pedantic game of numbers,
but displays Vergil’s sense of harmony and balance. For middles and endings of the Aeneid, see
also Thomas (2004, esp. 136–46) and Schindler (2017).
65 Cf. Worstbrock (1963, 70). Thomas (2014) points out that book endings are often marked by a
death scene: Creusa in Book 2, Anchises in Book 3, Dido in Book 4, Palinurus in Book 5, Pallas,
Lausus, and Mezentius in Book 10, Camilla in Book 11, and Turnus in Book 12; Caieta’s death is
delayed until the beginning of Book 7, after the underworld in Book 6. On the importance of death
scenes in epic poetry, cf. Dinter in volume II.1.
146 | Gregor Bitto
poetry (15 poems in Amores 1 and 3), thus hinting at the elegiac colouring of his
epic poem.⁶⁶
Ovid himself refers to these 15 books in the Tristia two times by ter quinque
uolumina (Ov. trist. 1.1.117 and 3.14.19). Rieks (1980, 95 n. 50) wants to take this
periphrasis not just as a metrically convenient way of saying ‘15’, but as a serious
reference to the structure of the Metamorphoses.⁶⁷ He sees a connection between
programmatic passages and compositional aspects. Therefore, he emphasises the
metapoetic relevance of the Muses in Ov. met. 5.250–678, of Orpheus in 10.413–739,
and of Pythagoras in 15.75–478, as well as the sphragis at the end of Book 15.⁶⁸
Both Ovid’s book composition and the composition of the Metamorphoses
overall have been the subject of much debate.⁶⁹ Especially in the past two decades
the book structure of Ovid’s opus magnum has received great scholarly attention,⁷⁰
and has resulted in a re-evaluation of the poet’s motive with the overriding of the
book boundaries⁷¹ being no longer interpreted as a narrative device solely designed
to stress the epic’s narrative continuity and to keep the audience in suspense.⁷²
66 Cf. Kenney (2005), who sees Metamorphoses and Fasti with their originally intended 12 books
as a diptych; cf. Ov. trist. 2.549 sex ego Fastorum scripsi totidemque libellos. Within this diptych,
the Fasti would represent the other end of the spectrum: an epic book number, corresponding to
the Aeneid, for an elegiac and Callimachean work. For the question about the unfinished status
of the Fasti, see Barchiesi (1997, esp. 197–207). Hofmann (1985, 225), by contrast, compares the
Metamorphoses to the 15 books of the first edition of Ennius’ Annales and argues for an “Ennian
superstructure” in contrast to the Homeric 12 books of the Aeneid; see Hofmann (1985, 237 n. 10)
for evidence that in Augustan Rome it was known that the first edition of the Annales contained
15 books. Furthermore, Hofmann refers to a parallel in the book division: Ovid’s Metamorphoses
14–15, from the apotheosis of Romulus and Hersilia to the beginning of Numa’s reign, corresponds
to Ennius’ Annales 1–2. For further Ennian parallels, see Hofmann (1985, 225–6). See also Holzberg
(1998, 82), who agrees with Hofmann’s conclusion, and Merli (2004, 305), who remains sceptical.
67 For periphrases and their importance in Latin poetry in general, see Vogel (2014); for the
passages from the Tristia mentioned above, see Vogel (2014, 277–83).
68 Cf. Rieks (1980, 90–4) for parallels and similar connections in Ovid’s other works. See also
Holzberg (1998, 78) and Gärtner (2004, 3–4).
69 Reviews of the early scholarship on the composition of the Metamorphoses are offered by Rieks
(1980, 86–90), Crabbe (1981, 2274–6), Holzberg (1998, 77–8 and 95–8) with extensive bibliography,
and Gärtner (2004, 2–4).
70 Contra Coleman (1971, 471): “One unit of structure Ovid has ignored, namely the division into
books, which Vergil had exploited so effectively in Aeneid.”
71 As Wheeler (1999, 87) notes, there are explicit references to the book boundaries by the narrator.
72 Besides these functions, Holzberg (1998) highlights the metapoetic relevance of the book
boundaries and argues for a pentadic macrostructure, while Gärtner (2004) concentrates on the
composition of the individual books in contrast to superstructures spanning across multiple books.
For these two basic explanations provided in earlier scholarship, cf. Wheeler (1999, 87). See also
Fowler (2000, 258–9).
Already the first transition from the first book scroll to the second is, for the
reader acquainted with the epic tradition from Homer to Vergil, an interpretative
tour de force: Clymene advises her son Phaethon to visit his father Sol in order to
gain certainty about his origin (Ov. met. 1.775). Book 1 ends with Phaethon’s travel
(1.776–9) and Book 2 begins with an ekphrasis of the regia Solis (2.1–18). It is not a
literal sunrise that opens Book 2, but rather a metaphorical one: for the reader, the
sun rises with the ekphrasis and thus a closer look at Sol’s home. At the same time,
as Wheeler (1999, 88) points out, the destabilisation of the boundary is established
through the final word of Book 1: ortus. On a narrative level, the term is used to
describe the area of the rising sun as Sol’s home, while hinting at Phaethon’s origin,
too; as a word denoting a ‘beginning’, it is also a metapoetic pun at the end of the
book. The boundary between Book 1 and 2 mirrors Clymene’s statement that Sol’s
home is terrae contermina nostrae (1.774),⁷³ thus fittingly separating the spheres of
the human and the divine.
Clymene’s last words to Phaethon are introduced as follows: si modo fert
animus, 1.775. As correctly identified by Holzberg (1998, 90), this refers back to the
beginning of Book 1 and the whole epic: 1.1 in noua fert animus. The narrator and
Phaethon are connected via the established metapoetic imagery of travelling, with
regard to Phaethon’s story, especially of travelling by chariot.⁷⁴ The reader, too,
finds his own journey from one book to another mirrored in Phaethon’s travel and
this book boundary.⁷⁵
A concluding glance at the central Book 8 may suffice to illustrate the meaning
of book division in the Metamorphoses.⁷⁶ It is the only book of the epic that actually
begins with an epic sunrise (8.1–3).⁷⁷ This sunrise is preceded, as Holzberg (1998,
84) has shown, by a metapoetic transition at the end of Book 7. Through this
transition, the character of Cephalus, who is introduced as an epic warrior from
73 Thus, convincingly, Wheeler (1999, 88–9).

74 According to Wheeler (1999, 88), the narrator’s cosmology in Ov. met. 1 matches Phaethon’s
ekphrastic look at the regia Solis in Book 2. Cf. also Holzberg (1998, 91) and Harrison in this volume.
Ovid links fert animus with the metapoetical chariot imagery in Ov. ars 3.467–8 fert animus propius
consistere: supprime habenas, / Musa, nec admissis excutiare rotis, “My spirit bids me take a closer
stand; draw in the reins, my Muse, nor dash headlong with ungoverned wheels.” This translation
is taken from Mozley (1929).
75 Cf. Holzberg (1998, 90), Wheeler (1999, 89), and Sharrock in this volume. See also Ripoll in
volume II.2 on epic journeys.
76 Cf. the extensive discussion in Crabbe (1981, 2315–26). See also Hardie (2004, 159–64) on the
reception of the bipartite structure of Vergil’s Aeneid and the importance of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
8.
77 See Barchiesi (2005, 340): “a spoof of the convention of dawns as segmentations of long
continuous actions, as their function was in Homer’s corpus.”
148 | Gregor Bitto
7.501 onwards and receives an elegiac colouring in the Procris episode narrated by
himself (7.690–862), is brought back into the epic world (7.863–5):⁷⁸
F l e n t i b u s haec l a c r i m a n s heros memorabat, et ecce

Aeacus ingreditur duplici cum prole nouoque
865 m i l i t e; quem Cephalus cum f o r t i b u s accipit a r m i s.
This story the hero told with many tears. And now Aeacus came in with his two sons and his
new levied band of soldiers, which Cephalus received with their valiant arms.
The end of Book 8 introduces Achelous’ story about his fight with Hercules in Book
9. This correspondence between the transition from the narrator to a character’s
narration to the transition from one book to another occurs frequently in the epic
tradition:⁷⁹ see Odysseus in Odyssey 9⁸⁰ and Aeneas in Aeneid 2.⁸¹ The words with
which Achelous proclaims his own ability to transform himself into a bull enclose
a metapoetic reference to the book division:⁸² “put my strength into my horns”,
he says in the last line of Book 8 (Ov. met. 8.882 uires in cornua sumo). As Mart.
11.107.1 illustrates in the penultimate epigram of this book, one says ad sua cornua
when one reaches the end of the book, i.e. the umbilicus.
The Aeneid’s dichotomy between narrative unity and a self-contained book
structure also becomes part of the composition of the Metamorphoses, but takes
on an exceptionally intense form: there are more book boundaries due to the
higher number of books, but none of these boundaries separates episodes from
one another. Instead, book boundaries have an important narrative and metapoetic
importance:⁸³ the Metamorphoses is a carmen perpetuum and a carmen in libros
diuisum at the same time.⁸⁴
78 The emphasised words are those of Holzberg (1998, 84); the translation is taken from Miller/
Goold (1916).
79 See Sharrock in this volume.
80 For the analogous stichometric allusions, see Lowe (2013, 443 n. 1–3).
81 Cf. Holzberg (1998, 83).
82 See Holzberg (1998, 84) and Wheeler (1999, 92–3).
83 On the different functions of book boundaries, see the summary in Holzberg (1998, 95).
84 The same ambivalence characterises the first truly Roman epic, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, too,
which was divided into books posthumously (see above, section 4). This is perhaps a reception of
Alexandrian philology: see above for an h-class scholion in Erbse’s testimonial apparatus to Schol.
b Hom. Il. 2.877b stating that Homer composed an uninterrupted corpus (ἑνοῖ τὸ σωμάτιον καὶ τὰ
ἔπη ἐν εἱρμῷ), which was eventually divided into individual books by the grammarians. Even if
this scholion is to be attributed to Nicanor, a philologist working under Hadrian and thus after
Ovid, it applies Aristotle’s idea of unity in epic poetry, as Nünlist (2006, 48) correctly observes. See
also Wheeler (1999, 90–2), who compares the reader’s implicit surprise about the book boundary
(Ovid, Metamorphoses 2–3) introduced by the author to the Alexandrian (that is, if this dating is
7 Lucan
Whereas the unfinished status of the Aeneid does not pose any problems with regard
to the question of book composition and division,⁸⁵ and Ovid’s announcement in
Ov. trist. 1.7 that the Metamorphoses are an unfinished work can be considered a
fictional reception of Vergil,⁸⁶ with Lucan the reader encounters a serious problem:
the narrative breaks off abruptly in the middle of Book 10 (Lucan. 10.546).⁸⁷ The
architecture of the whole epic is not as clear as that of the Aeneid. Even if almost ten
complete books are extant, any reconstruction that extrapolates a compositional
plan for the entire epic has to work with a certain degree of speculation, which
explains the variety of proposed solutions.⁸⁸ The present communis opinio⁸⁹ may
be summarised as follows: Lucan planned to write an epic in 12 books, matching
the number of books in the Aeneid, with Cato’s death as the climax of Book 12⁹⁰ and
Lucan’s necromancy in the middle of the epic (Book 6) as counter-part to Vergil’s
famous underworld scene in Aeneid 6.⁹¹
The only epic sunrise at the beginning of a book is to be found in Book 7 of
the Civil War (Lucan. 7.1–6) and immediately indicates the degree of perversion of
correct) book division of Homer and the reader’s exposure to it while reading one of the Homeric
poems.
85 See above.
86 Cf. Krevans (2010).
87 See Lovatt (1999) for observations on Lucan’s and Statius’ respective endings, the lack of
closure through abundance, and the appropriate lack of conclusion for poems dealing with civil
war. See also Walde (2017).
88 See the overviews in Radicke (2004, 59 n. 27–9), Rutz (1989, 193–217), and Bruère (1970, 218–22).
89 See the most recent arguments by Stover (2008) and Radicke (2004, 59–65); earlier verdicts
on the deficient composition of Lucan’s epic are collated by Schönberger (1970, 277).
90 Scholars who interpret the extant part as a complete version include Kaestner (1824, 20),
Vögel (1968, 223), Bruère (1970, 217 n. 1), Haffter (1970), Masters (1992, 216–59), and, most recently,
Tracy (2011, 52–3), who argues that, despite his early death, Lucan had enough time between the
exposure of the Pisonian affair and his suicide to create a meaningful break-off, irrespective of
the original plan. This is in itself close to biographical interpretation. Masters’ argumentation is
criticised by Radicke (2004, 56–7) and Stover (2008, 571 n. 1). For the status of Book 10, see the
detailed discussion of scholarly approaches in Berti (2000, 25–41), who comes to the conclusion
that Lucan’s Civil War has most likely been conceived in 12 books. An overview of the different
opinions about the ending is offered by Vögel (1968, 222–6) and Radicke (2004, 58–9 n. 26).
91 It is not an affirmative reception, but almost a caricature: an extensive analysis of the Erichtho
scene and its relationship to Vergil is provided by Korenjak (1996, esp. 39–43). Cf. also Finkmann
and Reitz in volume II.2.
150 | Gregor Bitto
the traditional motif:⁹² the sun only rises reluctantly because it will have to see
the Battle at Pharsalus. Lebek (1976, 213–27) demonstrates how Lucan adopted
correspondences between Aeneid 1 and 7 in his corresponding books. Although
Lucan’s seventh book does not open the second half of his epic with bella like
Aeneid 7,⁹³ it is in Book 7 that the central battle at Pharsalus takes place.⁹⁴ As in
the Aeneid, other compositional patterns determine the macrostructure. A tetradic
structure is observed by several scholars:⁹⁵ from Book 4 to Book 5 the setting,
characters, and the line of action change; the same applies for the transition from
Book 8 to Book 9.⁹⁶ The final book of each tetrad moreover ends with a prominent
death: Curio in Book 4, Pompey in Book 8, and, one may suspect, as a climax, Cato
in Book 12.⁹⁷
Radicke (2004, 46) acknowledges the flowing transitions, but convincingly
argues for the individual books to be separated by a change of perspective or the
reflection and / or commentary on the events.⁹⁸ Rutz (1989, 57) also downplays
the importance of the individual book as a compositional unit due to their blurred
boundaries and attempts to explain the minor importance of the individual books
by referring to Ovid’s Metamorphoses as Lucan’s model.⁹⁹ As we have seen above
(section 6), this claim has been invalidated for the Metamorphoses by more recent
research and the same may be proposed for Lucan, too. Gärtner (2009, 262–3), for
example, has shown that the penultimate line of Book 6 of Lucan’s Civil War is a
92 The proem already highlights this perversion by presenting the absurd aspects of the civil war
as a war against oneself (Lucan. 1.1–32).
93 Even in Book 2 of Lucan’s Civil War, there is fighting in Troy.
94 See Radicke (2004, 64–5), who refers to Lucan. 9.985–6 for the title Pharsalia and the impor-
tance of the Battle at Pharsalus. For the significance of Books 6 and 7 for the whole work, see
Tesoriero (2004).
95 See Marti (1970), Schönberger (1970, 281–2), Rutz (1989, 57), and Radicke (2004, 48–50) for
analogies between the tetrads. Marti (1970), however, proposes four tetrads, with a caesura after
Pompey’s death in Book 8.
96 See Radicke (2004, 49).
97 For the climax as the compositional principle of Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, see Rutz (1989, 54). For
dyads, see Radicke (2004, 51–2); triads are missing according to Radicke (2004, 54–5), but they are
proposed by Schönberger (1970, 281).
98 Cf. the connective opening words in Books 2, 6, and 10: Lucan. 2.1 iam, 6.1 postquam, and 10.1
ut primum. For the composition of the individual books, see Radicke (2004, 157–510) and Rutz
(1989, 15–63) as well as the extensive discussion in Mitchell (1971, 325–8): for her, every book
consists of three or four compositional units with several subsections (ranging from 6 to 14) that
are arranged according to symmetrical or sequential principles that establish either a parallel or a
contrast. Each book focuses on one character and one location. An overview of older literature is
provided by Mitchell (1971, 5–13).
99 Cf. Rutz (1989, 53–5). For Lucan’s reception of the Metamorphoses, see Wheeler (2002).
contrastive intertextual reference to the penultimate line of Aeneid 6. This is just

one of many examples that indicate that for Lucan book endings appear to have
the same intertextual prominence as for Ovid.¹⁰⁰
8 Flavian epic: Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and

Silius Italicus
The textual transmission of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica gravely impedes any
attempt to interpret the book composition. Directly after the beginning of a speech
by Jason, the text breaks off at the end of Val. Fl. 8.467, an almost ironic break off:
[sc. putas] me talia uelle? It is unclear whether it is just the transmission that breaks
off here or if Valerius himself was not able to compose the remainder.¹⁰¹ Basically,
two proposals have been made for the overall book number with about the same
number of lines:¹⁰² 8 books (double the number of Apollonius’ Argonautica) and 12
books (following Vergil’s Aeneid). The former is more plausible, as we will see,¹⁰³
and constitutes the current communis opinio. Despite this, a general tendency
of ‘Vergilisation’ of Apollonius¹⁰⁴ can be perceived in Valerius’ epic.¹⁰⁵ As has
often been noticed, corresponding to the Aeneid,¹⁰⁶ the Argonautica is divided
into two halves,¹⁰⁷ of which the second half displays a delayed beginning like
Aeneid 7 (the voyage to Colchis lasts until Val. Fl. 5.216 when the second half
100 See also Gärtner (2009, 260–2) on Lucan. 2.725–3.6 and Verg. Aen. 2.795–3.12.
101 See the overviews in Adamietz (1976, 107–9) and Zissos (2008, pp. xxvi–xxviii). Poortvliet
(1991) identifies places where the Argonautica exhibits traces of missing “the last file”. From these
passages, he concludes that the Argonautica generally constitutes an unfinished poem. This is
to my mind no definitive argument against a complete first version needing some amendment,
but including an ending that was only lost in transmission. Informed by reception aesthetics,
Hershkowitz (1998, 1–35) discusses the issue of the unfinished/incomplete Argonautica against
the background of the prolepseis, the reader’s knowledge of the myth, and the several possible
endings provided by this myth.
102 For more on this, see Adamietz (1976, 110).
103 This is impressively demonstrated by Schetter (1994). For parallels between Argonautica 1
and 8, see also Zissos (2008, pp. xxxi–xxxii).
104 For Vergil himself, of course, Apollonius was an important point of reference, see Nelis (2001).
105 Cf. Nesselrath (1998, 350): “Vergilisierung”.
106 See also the suggestion made by Hershkowitz (1998, 9) that “it is equally possible to imagine
the epic finishing not with the heroes’ return but with a Turnus-like murder of Absyrtus at the
hands of Jason (and Medea?).”
107 Cf. also the two-part division of Apollonius with a second proem in book 3; see above (section
3).
152 | Gregor Bitto
is introduced by an invocation of the Muse in Val. Fl. 5.217–24a),¹⁰⁸ whereas in

Apollonius Rhodius Colchis is reached at the end of Book 2.¹⁰⁹ Nevertheless, the
initial word of Book 5 contains metapoetic relevance, as is the case for Books 1
(Val. Fl. 1.1 prima) and 3 of the Argonautica (3.1 tertia) as well: 5.1 altera lux haud
laeta uiris emersit Olympo (“The next day’s light brought no joy to the heroes as it
broke forth from Olympus”).¹¹⁰ The beginning of the new scroll with altera lets the
reader expect a paratextual commentary about the second half of the poem: altera
pars Argonauticon incipit. Although this speculation is proved wrong, it is a correct
interpretation on a structural level: Books 1 and 5 are linked by two divine scenes
(1.498–573 and 5.618–95)¹¹¹ through which, apart from the macrostructure of the
Aeneid, the two councils of the gods in Odyssey 1 and 5 are echoed as a connecting
motif.¹¹²
Valerius continues the tendency of Ovid and Lucan to blur the book boundaries:
the Cyzicus episode spans Books 2 and 3; the episode with Hercules in Mysia spans
the boundary of Book 3 to Book 4; the Lycus episode does the same with Books
4 and 5; the return journey does not begin with the last book, but is delayed
until 8.134.¹¹³ Accordingly, Adamietz (1976, 117–18) observes that on the one hand
an effort is made to establish smooth transitions, while, on the other hand, the
importance of book boundaries is emphasised: “similar situations that belong to
different adventures are placed at the beginnings and endings of books and, thus,
contribute to structuring the narrative.”¹¹⁴
Statius’ Thebaid is the first extant Latin epic about whose editorial status there
are no doubts whatsoever.¹¹⁵ The Thebaid is also the Flavian epic that follows the
108 Valerius deviates from Apollonius’ version of the myth in order to include fights in Book 6
that correspond to the bella of the Aeneid; cf. Gärtner (2008, 8) and Zissos (2008, p. xxvi). For
middles in Valerius, see Zissos (2004) and in this volume.
109 There is an extensive discussion of this structuring signal in Schetter (1994, 83–8).
110 This translation is taken from Mozley (1934). Cf. Barchiesi (2005, 340). See also the negatively
connoted sunrise in Lucan 7.1–6 (see above, section 7).
111 Cf. Adamietz (1976, 113).
112 For further parallels between Argonautica 1 and 5, see Zissos (2008, p. xxxi).
113 Cf. Burck (1979, 217–18).
114 Cf. Adamietz (1976, 118): “gleichartige Situationen, die verschiedenen Abenteuern angehören,
[sind] an die Buchanfänge und Buchenden gestellt und tragen so zur Strukturierung der Handlung
bei”; e.g. meals at the end of Books 2, 4, and 5; nightfall at the end of Books 3, 5, and 6; dawn
with the beginning of Books 3 and 5; cf. also the contrast of the tranquillity of the gods at the end
of Book 5 with the restlessness of Mars at the beginning of Book 6. For a more comprehensive
discussion of the composition of the individual books, see Lüthje (1971).
115 Statius himself points this out in the contemporaneous Silvae: Stat. silv. 1 praef. 6 and 4 praef.
17–18.
structure of the Aeneid most closely:¹¹⁶ like the Aeneid, it comprises 12 books that
are structured into two halves, of which the first is devoted to preparations for
war and the march against Thebes, while the second features the fighting itself.¹¹⁷
The significance of the book boundaries in the Thebaid is still a matter of debate.
Krumbholz (1955, 252) sees them as mechanical divisions that are inserted when-
ever a certain number of lines has been reached. Schetter (1960, 80–1 on Thebaid
6 and 12) is willing to attribute an individual status to some of the books, whereas
Burck (1979, 312) identifies Statius’ books as predominantly self-contained units
like those of the Aeneid,¹¹⁸ attaching no or very little importance to book bound-
aries and reducing the Thebaid to a poem of temporal or narrative continuities.¹¹⁹
Some draw a parallel to Ovid’s Metamorphoses and its episodic structure.¹²⁰ Mostly,
without question,¹²¹ Statius’ book endings are composed as grand finales,¹²² while
at the same time the boundary is often blurred in the narrative sense and therefore
highlights a crucial stage within the narrative.¹²³
This double function of providing continuity as well as a boundary can be seen
very clearly in the recapitulations at the beginning of Thebaid 9 and 11: they present
the ending of the previous book in an epitomised version and, thus, emphasise
continuity while also allowing the reader to re-immerse himself in the narrative
after changing the book roll. However, the macrostructure of the Aeneid is always
present, albeit in variation: the funeral games do not take place in Book 5, but in
116 Gärtner (2008, 8) concludes that Statius is the most conservative in his imitation of the Aeneid.
117 Cf. Burck (1979, 311) and Gärtner (2005, 8) contra Vessey (1973, 317). See also Lebek (1976,
213–16) for correspondences between Thebaid 1 and 7 and Aeneid 1 and 7 as well as McNelis (2004)
on the relevance for the Thebaid’s macrostructure. A statement about the time the poet spent
working on the Thebaid at Stat. Theb. 12.811 (bis senos . . . per annos) suggests that Statius spent
one year per book, and six for each half of the poem. For the periphrasis of numbers in Ovid, see
above, section 6.
118 An extensive analysis of the transitions from one book to another is conducted by Kytzler
(1955, 56–109), who concludes (64–5) that book endings can both represent climaxes and provide
narrative continuity; for exceptions, see 67–9, esp. for the strong caesura between Books 3 and 4.
119 Cf. Vessey (1973, 319–21). See also Schetter (1960, 78–9), who argues against the triadic
structuring, proposed by Kytzler (1955, 72–109), who asserts (59) that the Thebaid does not comprise
books that form a self-contained narrative unit such as Aeneid 2, 4, and 6.
120 Cf. Schetter (1960, 79) and more explicitly Vessey (1973, 322).
121 An exception is Krumbholz (1955, 252), who, at the same time, also likens the Thebaid to a
mosaic of self-contained and thus often dispensable episodes.
122 As Vessey (1973, 319 n. 3) observes, Thebaid 1, 2, 4, and 5 end with a prayer, while 7–10 end
with the death of one of the Seven in analogy to the deaths at the end of Aeneid 2–5 and 10–12 (see
above).
123 See Schetter (1960, 71) on Thebaid 6–7 and Schetter (1960, 92–3) on Thebaid 7–10.
154 | Gregor Bitto
Book 6;¹²⁴ the nocturnal activities of Hopleus and Dymas, whose models Nisus
and Euryalus are explicitly mentioned by the narrator (Stat. Theb. 10.445–8),¹²⁵ are
related in Book 10 (like the Doloneia in Iliad 10), not in Book 9. The end of Book 11
with the last word umbra (Stat. Theb. 11.761) points towards the final word of the
Aeneid (Verg. Aen. 12.952 umbras);¹²⁶ the two brothers Eteocles and Polynices die
in Book 11, while Aeneas’ main adversary Turnus is killed in Aeneid 12,¹²⁷ but the
Thebaid continues in an additional book with a less abrupt ending and a sphragis
and, thus, implicitly surpasses the Aeneid.¹²⁸ Several beginnings of books moreover
display metapoetic references: in Stat. Theb. 7.1, at the beginning of the bella-half,
Jupiter sees the primordia bella that are delayed. The actual fighting only starts at
7.470 (an epic sunrise!) and thus mirrors the delayed opening of the second half
of the Aeneid. Almost jokingly, Book 4 opens with the term tertius¹²⁹ in reference
to the third year that has passed while at the same time, ironically irritating the
reader who has just opened the fourth book roll.
The unfinished Achilleid shall at least be addressed in passing here.¹³⁰ The
manuscript tradition contains different book divisions, but the division after Stat.
Ach. 1.960 has been authenticated through quotations from late antique gram-
marians.¹³¹ The second book, in traditional epic fashion, begins with a sunrise,
whose function goes beyond marking the beginning of a new section; its epic con-
notations are important for the subsequent depiction of Achilles¹³² and establish
a significant intratextual parallel to the transition between Books 3 and 4 of the
Thebaid.¹³³
124 For the epic games in Statius, see Lovatt (2005) and Lovatt in volume II.1.
125 As Hinds (1998, 92) observes, at the same time there is a stichometric allusion to the model,
Verg. Aen. 9.446–9.
126 Vergil’s reference to the end of the Iliad is obvious: for this ending, see Fowler (2000, 245–6).
127 Theseus’ murder of Creon in Book 12 creates another parallel to Turnus’ death. The interpre-
tation of Thebaid 12 is debated: see the overview in Criado (2015, 291–2); for Book 12 as the final
book, see Hardie (1997, 151–8).
128 The sphragis addresses the distance to the Aeneid (Stat. Theb. 12.816) as well as the contempo-
raneous success (12.813–15); the poet’s ability to follow the Aeneid (Stat. Theb. 12.817) and his own
posthumous fame (12.818–19) are stressed, too; see Parkes (2012, 10). For Statius’ self-conscious
awareness of his belatedness, cf. also Stat. silv. 4.7.25–8
129 The metapoetic relevance is pointed out by Parkes (2012, ad loc.).
130 For the overall plan of the Achilleid, see the overview in Bitto (2016, 175–7).
131 See Anderson (2009, pp. xii–xiii).
132 See Bitto (2016, 337–9).
133 Cf. Gärtner (2009, 268–9).
The importance of Vergil’s Aeneid as primary model for Silius’ Punica is ap-
parent in many aspects;¹³⁴ curiously, though, its book number, 17, is a glaring
exception: 17 books can neither be divided into two halves nor into hexads, tetrads
or triads and, thus, do not fit the established patterns. It comes as no surprise that
several scholars have speculated about an originally intended number of 18 books,
in analogy with the 18 books of Ennius’ Annales, which could be subdivided into
halves and hexads, and would move Books 9 and 10 about the Battle at Cannae
into the centre of the narrative.¹³⁵ Küppers, by contrast, points out the difficulties
of a potential hexadic structuring of the Punica¹³⁶ and highlights the general im-
portance of narrative continuity in imperial epic as particularly relevant for Silius
and indicative of the influence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.¹³⁷
Book endings, as Gärtner (2009, 269–70) demonstrates, address important
events and contain significant information: ten out of 17 books, for instance, end
with a prophecy (Books 2–6, 8, 10, 11, 13, and 14), a technique Silius is supposed
to have adopted from Lucan (Books 1, 2, and 5). Silius’ reception of Vergil’s book
composition is not dominated by numerical aspects: the proem in the middle of
the Punica at Sil. 14.1–10, for example, follows the nekyia in Book 13 and mirrors
the analogous sequence of Books 6 and 7 in the Aeneid without adopting the
structuring into halves or a similar macrostructural device.¹³⁸ The paradoxical
134 Cf. the second part of von Albrecht (1964). See also Pliny’s obituary and the veneration of
Vergil attested there (Plin. epist. 3.7.8).
135 See Bickel (1911), Wallace (1958), Burck (1979, 260–70, esp. 270 n. 42), and Kißel (1979, 211–18).
For Cannae as the middle of the epic, see Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy (1986, 2505–11) who assume a total
of 17 books with an alternating macrostructure of two and three books and Books 8–10 in the
centre. A double structure of 18 books is proposed by Delarue (1992) consisting of halves in the
divine sphere and hexads in the human sphere. A review of past literature on this topic is offered
by Küppers (1986, 176–8), Fröhlich (2000, 18–28), and Gärtner (2010, 78–83).
136 Küppers (1986, 180–3) argues that, among other things, a caesura between Books 12 and 13
that corresponds to the one between Books 6 and 7 is missing. An additional problem is that Book
17 is by no means an incomplete ending. Wallace (1958, 102) and Burck (1979, 270 n. 42) therefore
postulate that Silius seeing his waning powers or death approaching changed his original plan
and fitted the material of two books into 17. For the last book of the Punica, see Hardie (1997,
158–62). Stürner (2011, esp. 148–51) argues against the 18 book theory and for a completion within
17 books, as originally intended. Reitz (2010) also defends the unusual book number. She suggests
that it might be a purposeful allusion to historiographical writing.
137 Cf. Küppers (1986, 187–8, esp. 191) for spatial continuity: Books 1–3 Spain; Books 4–10 North
and Middle Italy; 11.1–13.380 South Italy; beginning with the second half of Book 13, this continuity
is given up, as explicitly stated in the proem in the middle at Sil. 14.1–10.
138 Cf. Gärtner (2010, 84–6 and esp. 86–90) for an additional reception of the delayed new
beginning in Aeneid 7 through the delayed intervention by Juno beginning with Sil. 8.25. The
parallel appearance of Juno in Punica 1 and 8 reminds Gärtner of Juno in Aeneid 1 and 7. An
156 | Gregor Bitto
relationship between continuity and division has been characterised by Gärtner

(2010, 94) in the following way: Silius does not refrain from structuring his Punica
into 17 books, but he dispenses with the numerical balance.¹³⁹ With the funeral
games, though, an epic set-piece par excellence¹⁴⁰, the Punica shows a numerical
and structural correspondence to the ultimate point of reference for an ancient
epic poem, the Iliad:¹⁴¹ both funeral games occupy a penultimate position in the
sequence of the books (Punica 16 and Iliad 23).¹⁴²
9 Conclusion and the later epic tradition

To conclude, we have seen how the book division of the Homeric poems, which can
most likely be attributed to Alexandrian scholarship, served as a reference for the
early generations of Alexandrian scholars and poets, as evidenced by Apollonius’
Argonautica. A culmination and at the same time a turning point for composing
epics in books is reached with Vergil’s Aeneid. Its books are, on the one hand,
conceived as self-contained units while, on the other hand, book division begins to
be blurred. The most obvious example is the proem in the middle, which is not, as
in Book 3 of Apollonius’ Argonautica, at the exact beginning of the second half, but
which is delayed and does not coincide with the start of Aeneid 7. This technique of
blurring the book boundaries is developed further by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.
asymmetrical structuring is also perceived in the development of Hannibal because the turning
point comes in Book 11 of 17; cf. Gärtner (2010, 90–4). On the importance of the number 17 in
Silius, ancient medicine, and its subdivision in Peripatetic number theory, see Wenskus (2010).
139 Cf. Stürner (2011, 162), who contends that Silius does not structure his epic primarily according
to an overall number, but composes in hebdomads and triads; cf. also the scheme in Stürner (2011,
156): a central triad (Books 8–10) is surrounded by hebdomads that comprise a triad focusing
on Hannibal at the beginning and a triad focusing on Scipio at the end. Fröhlich (2000, 50–8)
suggests a different subdivision of the 17 books into three corresponding pentads (1–5, 7–11, and
13–17) while Books 6 and 12 are singled out; see Fröhlich (2000, 28–49) for an analysis of each
book and its place in the whole work.
140 Another traditional epic motif Silius employs to structure his epic is the use of day and night
as start and end points in his narrative. See Telg genannt Kortmann (2017).
141 For a full analysis of Silius’ reception of Homeric scenes and structures, see Juhnke (1972,
185–267 and 377–410) with an extensive catalogue.
142 This was already seen by Lorenz (1968, 231) and independently repeated, as it seems, by
Fröhlich (2000, 397 n. 3). For the reception of Homer in Silius’ games, see Juhnke (1972, 229–67);
in the Aeneid, the penultimate position is not as clear (see above) as the position of Statius’ games
in Thebaid 6. For parallels between the games in Statius and Silius, see the second part of Lorenz
(1968) and Lovatt (2010).
However, book boundaries retained their significance in narrative and metapoetic

respects, and in some cases even increased. The tension between continuity and
division is handled very differently by the Flavian poets, overtly in Valerius Flaccus
and Statius, and in a more restrained manner by Silius.
Even though my discussion of book divisions ended with the 1st century AD in
accordance with the main scope of this volume, this by no means suggests that
later epic did not continue this tradition. Quite the contrary: Gärtner has demon-
strated the importance placed on book divisions in late antique and medieval Latin
epic.¹⁴³ Alongside classical models, especially Vergil, as in Corippus’ Iohannis,
other models gain importance¹⁴⁴ – for example, in biblical epic. The four books
of Juvencus point to the four canonical gospels;¹⁴⁵ likewise in Sedulius’ Carmen
paschale, in which a first book with scenes from the Old Testament is followed by
four books that represent a gospel harmony.¹⁴⁶
As a last example, this time from Greek epic, I cite Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, an epic
in 48 books that cover in a manner of speaking Iliad and Odyssey taken together (cf.
the Aeneid) and constitute something like a Homeric sum.¹⁴⁷ The second invocation
of the Muse in Nonn. D. 25.1–10 requests a continuation of the Muse and underlines
the caesura after the first 24 books. In doing so, a leap in time into the last year of
Dionysus’ battle against the Indians is explicitly justified by referring to Homer
(25.6–10) and a second Iliadic half is introduced, even though there have been
fighting scenes in previous books, too (cf. Aeneid 2).
143 See Gärtner (2005, 9–30 and 30–3) with a short overview on Neo-Latin epic. Late antique
and medieval epic decontextualises the book division and retains it as a purely aesthetic device
because with the codex the older limitation of the papyrus scroll is actually obsolete.
144 See Gärtner (2008, 33–40).
145 For the book division in Juvencus, see Thraede (2001).
146 Cf. also the reference to the four canonical Evangelists in Sedul. carm. pasch. 1.355–8. The five
relatively short books (Book 5 with 438 lines being the longest) – when compared to Juvencus and
classical epic – use book division as a structuring device. The number of five books corresponds
to the five books of Psalms and the Pentateuch; cf. Springer (1988, 97–9). For more details on the
epic substance of these works, see Green (2006).
147 For Nonnus, see the recent and voluminous companion by Accorinti (2016), especially the
contributions by Gigli Piccardi (2016) on Nonnus’ metapoetics and Bannert/Kröll (2016) on Nonnus’
reception of Homer. At least in passing I would like to refer to the very instructive articles by Schenk
(1997), Schmidt (1999), and Gärtner (2017) on the composition of Quintus’ Posthomerica that pay
attention to book composition, division, and number.
158 | Gregor Bitto
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|
Part II: Classification and genre
Annemarie Ambühl
Intergeneric influences and interactions
Abstract: This chapter examines the genre-specific conventions of Graeco-Roman
epic before the backdrop of intertextual and intergeneric references to epic poetry
in other genres – and vice versa –, a dynamic process through which the reciprocal
boundaries of the various genres have been defined and developed. In this context,
the idea of the Homeric epics as the source of all other genres, which has been
propagated mainly from the Hellenistic period onwards, is scrutinised (e.g. the
view of the Homeric speeches as matrices of rhetoric in Quintilian), as well as
the typological analysis of the relationship between epic and tragedy found in
Aristotle’s Poetics and its further developments in Ps.-Longinus and the ancient
commentary tradition. These formal approaches are then compared and contrasted
with recent scholarship on Hellenistic and Roman epic. In particular, the literary-
historical and structural cross-connections between epic and tragedy and the issue
of ‘tragic epic’, which have been defined in widely diverging ways, are reviewed
critically. Finally, a few select examples are adduced in order to demonstrate the
impact of intergeneric interactions on specific epic type-scenes and structural
elements, and the changes they undergo in the course of the epic tradition as a
result of it. It is argued that self-conscious reflections of such processes can be
found in certain epic similes that point to an immanent poetics of intergeneric
exchange.
1 Intergeneric relations in ancient literature

The status of epic as the ‘oldest’ and ‘grandest’ genre of Greek and Roman liter-
ature – in any case according to retrospective constructions of literary history –
entails that the other, ‘younger’ or ‘minor’ genres define themselves by their close-
ness to or distance from epic.¹ This concept is not only found in ancient literary
criticism, whose peculiar view of the evolution of genres of course should not be
adopted unquestioningly, but even to a higher degree in the practice of writers
of works classified (by the authors themselves or in subsequent literary criticism)
1 The term ‘epic’ is used here in a flexible, non-normative sense. Cf. Hutchinson (2013, 223–4 and
275–8) on the hexameter “supergenre”. For classical and modern approaches to the complex issue
of ancient genre, see, for example, Depew/Obbink (2000), Farrell (2003), Rosenmeyer (2006),
Harrison (2007, 1–33), and Harrison (2013, 1–11). See also Hardie on ancient and modern theories
of epic poetry in this volume.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-008
168 | Annemarie Ambühl
as lyric, drama, elegy, epigram, or bucolic. The intricate play with self-definition
through explicit or implicit references to epic exhibited in these texts has been
studied intensely in classical scholarship. Yet, such a dynamic can also be viewed
from the reverse point of view: how does epic react to the appropriation or rejection
by other genres of formal or thematic elements that are perceived as typically epic?
Surely, epic does not stay unaffected by such intergeneric negotiations but evolves
along with them, resulting in a process of “generic enrichment”.²
Indeed, as has often been observed, at least from the Hellenistic period on-
wards epic incorporates elements from other genres. This phenomenon is reflected
in the careers of poets who are versatile in different genres, such as the Roman
Republican writers who compose both epics and dramas. Now epic becomes ‘tragic’
and in a sense ‘bucolic’ as well, as Vergil overwrites Apollonius’ reception of Attic
tragedy with his own reception of Homer and Greek and Roman drama. He com-
poses his Aeneid as the culmination of his poetic œuvre, building on the Eclogues
and the Georgics. The elegiac world view, which by Roman writers of love elegy
presenting themselves as the successors of Callimachus is polemically construed
as the ‘other’ to martial epic, is imported back into epic (far beyond Vergil’s Dido)
and developed simultaneously with the ever-changing forms of Ovidian elegy.³
Even the epigram, which in its programmatic brevity had established itself as the
‘unepic’ genre par excellence by the Hellenistic period, can be re-inscribed within
epic, for example, in the form of epitaphs.⁴
2 The concept of generic enrichment was developed by Harrison (2007), who defines it as “the way
in which generically identifiable texts gain literary depth and texture from detailed confrontation
with, and consequent inclusion of elements from, texts which appear to belong to other literary
genres” (Harrison 2007, 1). This conveys the reciprocal dynamics of intergeneric exchange better
than the older term ‘crossing of genres’ (“Kreuzung der Gattungen”) coined by Kroll (1924, 202–24).
For a critical evaluation of the terminological and ideological implications of the concept of
‘crossing’, see Barchiesi (2001), Hinds (2000, esp. 221–3), and Farrell (2003, esp. 392–3); cf. also
Fantuzzi (1980) on contamination and the evolution of genres in Hellenistic literature, Fedeli
(1989) on “intersezioni dei generi e dei modelli” in Latin literature, and Walde (2009, esp. 30–5)
on intercultural and intergeneric processes of ‘literary hybridisation’ in Rome; for case studies of
intergeneric relations in Latin literature, cf. Papanghelis/Harrison/Frangoulidis (2013).
3 On elegiac elements in Lucan, see Caston (2011) and Esposito (2017) with further literature. To
an even higher degree, Statius’ Achilleid is a paradoxically ‘elegiac’ epic; on this, see Davis (2015);
cf. also Hinds (2000) on the idea of an “essentially epic epic”. See also Ripoll on the ‘elegisation’
of scenes of departure by sea in the course of the epic tradition in volume II.2.
4 On epigrams in Apollonius, cf. Koukouzika (2016); on the Aeneid, see Dinter (2005) and Harrison
(2007, 217–25); on Valerius Flaccus, cf. Dinter (2009). By contrast, the contributions on interactions
between epic and epigram in Durbec/Trajber (2017) mainly focus on the reception of Homer in
epigram.
Similar phenomena can be observed in the interactions of epic poetry with

prose genres. Among them, historiography has especially close ties with epic. This
is however not a simple one-way or two-way process, but rather a triangulation
involving drama as well, as historiography often employs dramatizing techniques,
a tendency visible not only in Hellenistic ‘tragic history’ (a type of historiography
that particularly appeals to the audience’s emotions and was notoriously criticised
by Polybius),⁵ but actually already in the 5th century BC historiographers. In Latin
literature, too, historical epic, historical drama (fabula praetexta), and historiogra-
phy have developed in close interaction.⁶ Due to their common subject matter, epic
and history (as well as drama) share many generic scenes involving instances of
successful or failed leadership and decision-making, such as speeches and council
scenes or battle descriptions, but also more specific elements such as scenes of
female lament, where intergeneric interactions can be observed on a micro level.⁷
With respect to other genres, it is questionable whether labels like ‘rhetorical
epic’, ‘philosophical epic’, or ‘satiric epic’, which have all been applied to Latin
epic from the early imperial period, really are helpful in describing the nature of
these epics.⁸ This is not to say that the impact of rhetoric (especially the decla-
mations) or philosophy (especially Stoicism) is to be neglected, as these cultural
practices certainly played an important part in the educational background of
authors and audience alike and therefore shaped expectations.⁹ Yet, the reduction
to one single and often ideologically biased line of interpretation such as a Stoic
reading unnecessarily constrains other possible readings. Rather, the question
should be in what ways these epics succeed in integrating all kinds of discourses
and how these discourses in turn shape the multiform identity of epic.
Despite this wide range of examples, such phenomena of generic evolvement
and redefinition seem to be less prominent in epic than in other genres. The main
reason for this is probably that in view of epic’s nearly unchallenged status epic
poets do not need explicit programmatic statements in order to legitimise their
works; if they do so at all, they place themselves within the epic tradition by in-
voking the founders of the genre, Homer or Vergil, as for instance Ennius, Lucan,
5 For a re-examination of Plb. 2.56.3 and 2.56.6–13 as well as the issue of ‘tragic history’, see
Marincola (2013).
6 Cf. Leigh (2007), Levene/Nelis (2002), and Miller/Woodman (2010); on Vergil, see Rossi (2004);
on Lucan, cf. Leigh (1997).
7 On lament in epic and drama, see Beissinger/Tylus/Wofford (1999, esp. 187–236), Suter (2008),
and Rossi (2004, 40–9).
8 See Jenkyns (2005, 572), who labels Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile “a satiric epic”.
9 On rhetoric and epic, cf. Reitz in this volume.
Silius, Statius, and Nonnus do.¹⁰ In contrast, intergeneric signposts are not usually
flagged up conspicuously in epic (with the partial exception of Ovid’s Metamor-
phoses, a poem that advertises its epic identity alongside its generic variety in
a highly self-conscious manner),¹¹ but introduced in more subtle ways through
intertextuality and through gradual transformations of traditional epic elements
or mutual adaptations of elements from other genres.
In view of the Protean nature of the evidence and the limited scope of this
chapter, it is not possible to give a systematic and exhaustive overview of all inter-
generic interactions, even if considering only the epics that have been transmitted
in a more or less complete state and leaving out epyllia.¹² Nor will Hellenistic and
late antique cross-generic experiments be discussed here, such as brief hexametric
compositions that borrow ‘elliptic’ structural elements from tragedy (e.g. Theocri-
tus’ Idyll 26 that adapts a messenger speech or the Megara, ascribed to Moschus,
that mainly consists of a dramatic exchange of rheseis) or hexametric tragedies
(e.g. the so-called Alcestis Barcinonensis or the short poems by Dracontius). As
historical epic and its relations with historiography as well as didactic epic and its
relations with scientific and philosophical prose writings are treated elsewhere
in this volume, the following survey focuses predominantly on mythological epic
and its interactions with other poetic genres.¹³ For the present purpose, the contri-
bution’s focus is not on the influence of epic on other genres, but on the impact
that interactions with other genres may have had on the development and the
self-definition of Greek and Roman epic.¹⁴ The interrelations between epic and
10 Cf. Zeitlin (2001, 236–8): Ennius in the fragmentary proem to his Annales represents himself
by means of a dream as Homer reincarnated, Lucan evokes the “bard of Smyrna” (Lucan. 9.984)
and his fame in a sphragis in the context of Caesar’s visit to the ruins of Troy, and Silius has his
protagonist Scipio meet the shade of Homer in the underworld (Sil. 13.778–97), whereas Statius in
the epilogue of his Thebaid invokes the “divine Aeneid” as his revered model (Stat. Theb. 12.816;
but cf. Homer in Stat. Ach. 1.3–4). Nonnus repeatedly invokes Homer by name; cf. Hopkinson
(1994, 9–14), Shorrock (2001, 116–19 and 170–4), as well as Kröll (2016, 98–100). While in the
proem of the Dionysiaca he refers to Homer’s Odyssey as a model to be both followed and rejected
(Nonn. D. 1.36–8), in the second proem in Book 25, he asks the Muse to arm him with the weapons
of “father Homer” (25.253–70, esp. 25.265; cf. also 13.50 and 32.184). For a more detailed discussion
of these references to epic predecessors and the traditional invocations of the Muse, cf. Schindler
in this volume.
11 Cf. Solodow (1988, 17–25), Farrell (2009), Harrison (2002), and Keith (2002). See also Sharrock
in this volume.
12 Cf. Finkmann and Hömke in this volume.
13 Cf. the contributions by Nethercut and by Buglass/Fanti/Galzerano in this volume.
14 See Jenkyns (2005, 562): “the incorporation into epic poetry of themes and colours drawn
from literature of different kinds; and the influence of epic poems upon writers whose own work
tragedy will be highlighted, as they offer a rich field for studying various ancient
as well as modern approaches to the issue.
2 Interrelations between epic and other genres as

reflected in ancient literary criticism
Intergeneric interactions thus form an integral part of ancient literary practice.
Are such phenomena reflected in ancient literary theory, too, and if so, in what
way?¹⁵ Epic’s central place in the system of genres finds it counter-part in cata-
logues of canonical authors, where epic regularly comes first, e.g. in Dionysius of
Halicarnassus (Book 2, epitome 2) or in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (10.1.46–55
and 85–92).¹⁶ Homer is worshipped as the ‘divine poet’ (e.g. Arist. Po. 1459a30
θεσπέσιος), which also reflects the aforementioned status of epic as the genre from
which all the other genres take their origins.¹⁷ An analogous concept informs the
well-known Hellenistic relief by Archelaus of Priene, which depicts the apotheosis
of Homer in the presence of Zeus and the Muses; there personifications of var-
ious genres (according to the subscriptions Myth, History, Poetry, Tragedy, and
Comedy) take part in the sacrificial procession honouring the poet, while the Iliad
and the Odyssey kneel before his throne.¹⁸ According to Quintilian, Homer, who
is compared to the Ocean, appears as the model and source of eloquence and all
its parts (Quint. inst. 10.1.46 Hic [sc. Homerus] enim, quem ad modum ex Oceano
dicit ipse amnium fontiumque cursus initium capere, omnibus eloquentiae partibus
was not of epic character”; Garner (2005) in his overview of epic and other genres in the ancient
Greek world concentrates on the latter, while Jenkyns (2005) himself in his companion piece
on the Roman world combines both. Hutchinson (2013, 323–54) studies the interplay within the
‘supergenre’ as well as with other genres. Regarding the interactions between tragedy and epic, cf.
the reversal of perspective in Scodel (2009, 195): “Epic, having created tragedy, recreated itself on
the model of its creation.”
15 Although ancient literary theory is in many ways very different from modern literary theory,
here the term is used to refer to theoretical reflections by ancient scholars and literary critics, as
opposed to immanent poetics derived from the poems themselves. On ancient literary criticism
and poetic theories, see, e.g., Fuhrmann (2 1992), Ford (2002, esp. 250–71 on genre), Laird (2006b),
with the general thoughts by Laird (2006a) and Feeney (2006), as well as Müller (2012).
16 Cf. the lists of poetic genres in Hor. ars 73–85 and 401–6 that both start with Homer.
17 Cf. Brink (1972, 547–56) and Hunter (2004, esp. 235) on Homer as the ‘source’ and ‘father’ of all
later literature. On the role of Homer in Greek and Roman culture, see Lamberton (1997), Zeitlin
(2001), Farrell (2004), Zimmermann (2011), and Hardie (2011); cf. also Hillgruber (1994, 5–35) on
Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero.
18 On the relief, see also Hardie’s discussion in this volume.
exemplum et ortum dedit).¹⁹ In a similar way, the speeches by Menelaus, Nestor,

and Odysseus in the Homeric epics are viewed as prototypes of the different modes
of rhetoric (Quint. inst. 12.10.64).
Among poetic genres, epic is regularly aligned with tragedy as its fellow genus
grande.²⁰ Plato in his criticism of poetry in the Republic differentiates between epic
and tragedy on formal grounds, with epic representing the mixed genre consisting
of narrator-text and direct speeches as compared to purely mimetic drama (Book
3); on moral grounds, however, both are to be banned from his ideal state be-
cause of their shared mimesis (Book 10), for Homer is the “first teacher and leader
of all the tragedians” (Pl. R. 595c1–2 τῶν καλῶν ἁπάντων τούτων τῶν τραγικῶν
πρῶτος διδάσκαλός τε καὶ ἡγεμών; cf. 598d7–8 τήν τε τραγῳδίαν καὶ τὸν ἡγεμόνα
αὐτῆς ῞Ομηρον) and the “greatest poet and first among tragic poets” (607a2–3
῞Ομηρον ποιητικώτατον εἶναι καὶ πρῶτον τῶν τραγῳδοποιῶν).²¹ Aristotle, who in
his Poetics (cf. esp. chapters 3–5, 8, and 23–4) adapts and modifies Plato’s formal
distinctions, puts more emphasis on the parallels between both genres with regard
to plot structure, characters, and style; ideally, they differ only in scope, not in
‘dramatic’ quality. As a crucial structural element shared by both genres he men-
tions the recognition scene (ἀναγνώρισις: chapters 11, 14 and 16; cf. 1459b11 and
chapter 15 on epic). Interestingly, despite his historicising approach to the evolu-
tion of the genres, Aristotle describes epic retrospectively from the point of view
of tragedy. In his teleological construction, tragedy is, as it were, the perfection
of epic and therefore the superior art form (chapter 26), for tragedy encompasses
all the elements of epic, whereas epic does not feature all the elements of tragedy
(1449b18–20 and 1462a14–17).
Ps.-Longinus’ treatise On the Sublime (9.11–15) takes up Aristotle’s definition of
the Iliad as “full of pathos / suffering” (Arist. Po. 1459b14 παθητικόν) and of the
Odyssey as “full of ethos / character” (1459b15 ἠθική) by characterising the Iliad
as “dramatic” (δραματικόν, 9.13) and the Odyssey as “narrative” (διηγηματικόν,
9.13). However, in comparing the Odyssey to a comedy (9.15 οἱονεὶ κωμῳδία τίς
ἐστιν ἠθολογουμένη), it deviates from Aristotle, who derives tragedy from both the
Iliad and the Odyssey and comedy from the Margites (Arist. Po. 1448b38–9a2; cf.
1451a28–30 and 1459b1–3). Another intriguing quote, which unfortunately has been
transmitted without context, is ascribed to the Platonist philosopher Polemon of
Athens, who according to Diogenes Laertius called Homer an “epic Sophocles” and
19 On the rhetorical reception of Homer, see Hunter (2015, esp. 686). Cf. also Reitz in this volume.
20 On Plato’s criticism of poetry, see, e.g., Murray (1996), on Aristotle’s conceptions of epic and
drama, cf. Schwinge (1990), Schmitt (2009), and Kircher (2018, 57–125). On ancient theories of
epic and drama in general, see Koster (1970) and Fuhrmann (2 1992).
21 See also Hardie on ancient theories of epic in this volume.
Sophocles a “tragic Homer” (D.L. 4.20 ἔλεγεν οὖν τὸν μὲν ῞Ομηρον ἐπικὸν εἶναι
Σοφοκλέα, τὸν δὲ Σοφοκλέα ῞Ομηρον τραγικόν).
All these comparisons of epic and drama are rather general, whereas more
specific interactions between the genres on the level of structural elements are not
often discussed in the ancient treatises, with the partial exception of Aristotle’s
Poetics. Some isolated remarks can be found in ancient commentaries as well.²²
The Homeric scholia state that by beginning the Iliad literally with Achilles’ wrath
Homer “invented the tragic proem for tragedies” (AT scholia on Hom. Il. 1.1a ἄλλως
τε καὶ τραγῳδίαις τραγικὸν ἐξεῦρε προοίμιον). Here a structural element typical of
epic, the proem (προοίμιον),²³ is associated with the prologue of a tragedy (πρόλο-
γος: cf. Arist. Po. 1452b16 and 1452b19); at the same time, the scholiast may be
alluding to the conception of the Iliad itself as a ‘tragedy’, which then becomes
the model for Attic tragedy.²⁴ The ensuing explanation that the narration of misfor-
tunes renders the audience more attentive and that the poet, like a good doctor,
first exposes the diseases of the soul before administering the cure (AT scholia on
Hom. Il. 1.1a καὶ γὰρ προσεκτικοὺς ἡμᾶς ἡ τῶν ἀτυχημάτων διήγησις ἐργάζεται,
καὶ ὡς ἄριστος ἰατρὸς πρῶτον ἀναστέλλων τὰ νοσήματα τῆς ψυχῆς ὕστερον τὴν
ἴασιν ἐπάγει) reminds of the Aristotelian katharsis (Arist. Po. 1449b27–8 δι’ ἐλέου
καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν) as the emotional
effect tragedy has upon the audience.²⁵ Likewise, the bT scholia use the dramatic
term peripeteia (τὰς περιπετείας, cf. Arist. Po. 1450a34, 1452a22, and 1456a19 on
tragedy, and 1459b10 on epic) for Athena’s interventions when she stops Achilles
from killing Agamemnon (bT scholia on Hom. Il. 1.195b) and the troops from failing
Agamemnon’s test (bT scholia on Hom. Il. 2.156); in the latter case, Homer is also
credited with having invented the deus ex machina for the benefit of the tragedians
(bT scholia on Hom. Il. 2.156 πρῶτος δὲ καὶ τοῖς τραγικοῖς μηχανὰς εἰσηγήσατο; cf.
22 On terms and concepts of literary criticism in Greek scholia, see Nünlist (2009), who in his
chapter on narrative and speech (‘diegetic’ vs. ‘dramatic’) cautions that he does not address the
classification by genre, which is not given much attention in the scholia; cf. Nünlist (2009, 94 n. 1).
Elsewhere Nünlist (2009, 307) notes that the scholia recognise the concept of Homeric type-scenes,
although they do not use a particular term. On the relationship of the Homeric epics to tragedy and
comedy, cf. also Hillgruber (1999, 423–34) on Ps.-Plutarch’s De Homero 213–14, with references to
the scholia.
23 Cf. Schindler in this volume.
24 By translating the phrase as “invented a tragic prologue for his tragedies”, Rinon (2008, 5)
implies such a reading.
25 For similar medical metaphors describing emotional effects on the reader, cf. Nünlist (2009,
143 n. 29).
Arist. Po. 1454b1–2 with respect to tragedy and epic, adducing the same example
from the Iliad).²⁶
Greek discussions of the relations between the genres of epic and drama thus
often involve teleological constructions. On a more (inter)textual level, the Latin
commentary tradition sometimes notes Vergil’s debts to Greek and Roman drama-
tists in general or to specific plays. For instance, Servius auctus comments on the
theatrical simile in Book 4 of the Aeneid (see below, section 4.1) that Vergil ex-
pressed a phrase in a tragic manner by imitating Euripides (Serv. auct. Aen. 4.470
SOLEM GEMINVM tragice dixit, imitatus Euripidem).²⁷ The note on Dido’s suicide
remarks that Vergil does not introduce her in the act of killing herself but shows
her already dead (Serv. auct. Aen. 4.664 CONLAPSAM ASPICIVNT non induxit occi-
dentem se, sed ostendit occisam. et hoc tragico fecit exemplo, apud quos non uidetur
quemadmodum fit caedes, sed facta). This is compared to the tragic convention
of not showing the act of killing on stage but having it reported instead (Hor. ars
179–88). Vergil’s narrative choice is thus compared to a tragic messenger speech;
however, this does not exactly correspond with the epic sequence, where Dido
has just given her farewell speech ‘on stage’ and is not removed from the scene
during her suicide.²⁸ The epic narrative achieves a similar distancing effect through
a sudden shift of perspective to the onlookers who witness Dido collapsed on the
sword. Later on, the dirge of Euryalus’ mother (Verg. Aen. 9.473–502) is described
as a “tragic and pitiable lament” (Serv. Aen. 9.287 unde sequitur matris eius tragicus
et miserabilis ille conquestus). Here again, the type-scene of female lament found
in epic (from the Iliad onwards) as well as in tragedy is explained in terms of a
tragic element and the tragic emotion of pity evoked by it (cf. ἔλεος in Arist. Po.
1449b27).²⁹ This fits in with the characterisation of the second, ‘Iliadic’ half of the
26 Cf. Nünlist (2009, 267–9). The bT scholia on Hom. Il. 21.34b explicitly call Homer the inventor
of the “theatrical peripeteia”: πρῶτος οὖν καὶ τὸ τῶν περιπετειῶν εἶδος ἔδειξε, ποικίλον ὂν καὶ
θεατρικὸν καὶ κινητικόν.
27 Cf. also Serv. auct. Aen. 4.469 and 4.471.
28 The last words and suicide of Deianira, one of Dido’s tragic models, are reported by her nurse
(S. Tr. 899–946). However, Ajax, another model for Dido, commits suicide on stage (S. Aj. 815–65);
cf. Panoussi (2002, 113–14).
29 In contrast, Macrobius derives the lament of Euryalus’ mother exclusively from Andromache’s
lament for Hector in the Iliad (Hom. Il. 22.437–515); cf. Macr. Sat. 5.9.12 Mater Euryali ad dirum nun-
tium, ut excussos de manibus radios et pensa demitteret, ut per muros et uirorum agmina ululans
et comam scissa decurreret, ut effunderet dolorem in lamentationum querelas, totum de Androma-
che sumpsit lamentante mortem mariti, “When Euryalus’ mother reacts to the dreadful news by
hurling her shuttles and wool from her hands, running with a howl and tearing her hair among
the ranks along the walls, pouring out her grief in a torrent of plaintive lamentation, the whole
passage is taken from Andromache’s lament at her husband’s death.”
Aeneid as a ‘tragic work’ full of wars (Serv. Aen. 7.1 et re uera tragicum opus est, ubi
tantum bella tractantur), in line with the above-mentioned definitions of the Iliad
as a ‘tragedy’.
While in the commentaries such notes are limited in scope, Macrobius in Book
5 of his Saturnalia has a more extended discussion. After a lengthy comparison of
Vergil with Homer (Macr. Sat. 5.2–16), the focus shifts to other authors and genres,
among them Apollonius, Pindar, and Aristophanes (5.17–18.12). Then tragedy is
introduced, for Vergil is said to have been enormously familiar with the writers of
Greek tragedies (5.18.21 est enim ingens ei cum Graecarum tragoediarum scriptoribus
familiaritas). As in the other cases, the material presented here is extremely diverse,
ranging from single phrases to motifs and whole scenes borrowed from Greek
dramatists; so the cutting of Dido’s lock at the end of Book 4 of the Aeneid (Verg.
Aen. 4.693–705) is derived from Euripides’ Alcestis and lines from Dido’s magic
ritual (4.513–14) are associated with Medea’s magic from Sophocles’ lost Rhizotomoi
(Macr. Sat. 5.19.1–14). While these examples are not explained in terms of structural
elements, in one instance an entry from the catalogue of the Latin forces in Book 7
of the Aeneid (Verg. Aen. 7.684–90) is linked to a detail from a messenger speech in
Euripides’ lost play Meleager:³⁰
Macr. Sat. 5.18.13 Sunt in libro septimo illi uersus quibus Hernici populi et eorum nobilissima,
ut tunc erat, ciuitas Anagnia enumerantur.
The following lines are found in Book 7, where the Hernici and Anagnia, their best known
city, as it was then, are listed in the catalogue.
Macr. Sat. 5.18.16 morem uero Aetolis fuisse uno tantum modo pede calceato in bellum ire
ostendit clarissimus scriptor Euripides tragicus, in cuius tragoedia quae Meleager inscribitur
nuntius inducitur describens quo quisque habitu fuerit ex ducibus qui ad aprum capiendum
conuenerant.
That it was the Aetolians’ custom to go to war with only one foot shod is shown by Euripides,
the most brilliant of tragic poets, in his tragedy Meleager, when a messenger enters to describe
the dress of each of the leaders who had assembled to capture the boar.
Although the parallel function of the epic catalogue (enumerantur) and the tragic
messenger speech (nuntius . . . describens) to convey ethnographical information is
not spelled out explicitly, the naming of the respective structural elements hints at
the intergeneric exchange between epic and tragedy.³¹
30 All translations of Macrobius are taken from Kaster (2011).

31 The catalogue as a structural element of epic had been introduced shortly before in the com-
parison with Homer; cf. Macr. Sat. 5.15–16, esp. 5.15.1 Ubi uero enumerantur auxilia, quem Graeci
3 Interactions of epic with other genres from the

perspective of modern scholarship: the issue of
‘tragic’ epic
In ancient literary theory and practice, epic appears as a kind of supergenre which
incorporates elements from a wide range of genres and from which the other
genres distance themselves in turn through dynamics of interdependencies and
reciprocal boundaries that are constantly being negotiated between poets and
audiences in changing cultural contexts. While ancient literary critics do recognise
certain cross-generic formal and intertextual exchanges, for instance, between
epic and tragedy, they do not normally study them in a systematic manner. Modern
scholarship, too, has identified such historical and structural cross-connections
between epic poetry and other genres. These interactions have, however, been
defined in widely diverging ways and therefore need to be reviewed critically, with
particular attention to their impact on the genre-specific conventions of epic and
the possible changes that structural elements undergo as a result. In the course
of literary history, intergeneric and intertextual layers build up in an on-going
process of accumulation, as epic poets react to their predecessors’ experiments
with genre, so that innovative epics become themselves model epics to be imitated
and modified all over again.³² So, for instance, post-Vergilian epic takes up the
Aeneid’s engagement with tragedy on the one hand by reinforcing the status of
‘tragic’ epic within the epic tradition and on the other hand by in turn referring
back to drama as a generic model as well as to specific plays.
Recent research has focused predominantly on epic’s interaction with drama
(and vice versa). One common factor that unites many of these studies is their
recourse to Aristotelian definitions of the tragic. Although Aristotle’s positions
need not necessarily have been the predominant view in antiquity, for the present
purpose such an approach serves well as a working hypothesis insofar as it focuses
on formal and textual elements rather than presupposing wider conceptions of a
catalogum uocant . . . See also Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann on epic catalogues in this

volume.
32 Cf. Hinds (2000, 235): “Does this outcome mean that even elements that had been emplotted by
Vergil as transgressive for epic (like the erotic dalliance at Carthage) were now read as normative
for the genre? Once the Aeneid became the code model, did it lose all potential to be read as,
in places, an unepic epic?” With a somewhat different emphasis, Harrison (2007, 208) in his
chapter on ‘epic inclusivity’ in Vergil’s Aeneid discusses the accommodation to the ‘host’ genre of
‘guest’ generic material from tragedy, elegy, lyric, epigram, hymn, pastoral, and didactic, which
“is appropriated to enhance rather than to oppose traditional epic plot and values.”
tragic universe, interesting though these might be.³³ Strictly speaking the notion
of ‘tragic’ epic can only be applied to epics composed after the emergence of
tragedy in the 6th century BC and its subsequent development as a literary genre.
Nevertheless, the idea of the tragic has been projected back onto the Homeric epics;
this seemingly anachronistic approach invokes the authority of Aristotle, who had
closely assimilated tragedy and the Homeric epics (see section 2).³⁴
In the more specific sense of an interaction between epic and tragedy as genres
with distinct characteristics developed in the course of their evolution, various
Hellenistic and Latin epics have been characterised as ‘tragic’ or ‘dramatised’
epics.³⁵ The implications of this concept vary considerably in the different studies,
depending on the underlying definition of the ‘tragic’. It has been applied to formal
structures on the level of the plot or the composition of single books, to intertextual
relationships with single plays, as well as to narrative strategies (e.g. the association
of the epic narrator with a tragic chorus), type-scenes, or characters generally seen
as deriving from or related to tragedy. Moreover, wider issues such as mythical and
ritual patterns (Bacchic worship and Maenadism, madness, sacrifice, violence,
and lament), the role of the gods and fate, the poet’s moral or political world view
especially in times of crisis and (civil) war, the arousing of the audience’s emotions
through pathos, and notions of poetics such as (meta)theatricality all have been
brought into play. Finally, the association of epic and drama has biographical
implications in the case of poets such as Naevius, Ennius, or Ovid, who composed
works in both genres, thus opening up cross-connections within their own poetic
corpus.
Among the Hellenistic and Latin imperial epics that have been perceived as
essentially ‘tragic’ in outlook are Apollonius’ Argonautica, Vergil’s Aeneid, Lucan’s
33 For an overview of the evolution from the genre of tragedy to the idea of the tragic in the
history of literary criticism and philosophy, see Most (2000); for ancient, medieval, and modern
concepts of the tragic, cf. Toepfer/Radke-Uhlmann (2015). On the transformations of tragedy and
the tragic on its way from Athens to Alexandria, Rome, and beyond, see Garelli-François (1998),
Panoussi (2005), Gildenhard/Revermann (2010, esp. 3, 9–10, and 20–2 on intergeneric reception
and dialogue), and Sistakou (2016).
34 Redfield (1975) relies on Aristotle’s definition of the tragic hero and tragic error in his inter-
pretation of the Iliad; see also Schmitt (2015) and Kircher (2018, esp. 19–56 and 127–88). Rinon
(2008) identifies Aristotelic notions of the tragic in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, whereas Liebert
(2017) takes a Platonic, anti-Aristotelian approach to ‘tragic pleasure’ in Homer. Cf. Scodel (2009,
195): “Thanks to the Poetics, it is often impossible to distinguish what tragedy took from Homer
from what we see in epic because tragedy, and the history of criticism of tragedy, has directed our
vision.”
35 On such a generic ‘transversity’, cf. Dangel (2009).
Bellum Ciuile, Valerius Flaccus’ incomplete Argonautica, and Statius’ Thebaid.³⁶ As

it is impossible to give a full overview of scholarship on these aspects of the epics,
only a few recent studies will be discussed here. Apollonius Rhodius engages with
Euripides’ Medea (and other plays) in a highly allusive manner, so that the tragic
events staged in Attic drama become the palimpsest upon which the future of the
Hellenistic epic’s heroine is being written; moreover, as Sistakou (2016, 141–67) has
argued, the impact of tragedy pervades the epic’s narrative structure, with certain
episodes or whole books paralleling dramatic elements such as prologues, rheseis,
and interventions by a ‘chorus’. Similar approaches to the Aeneid have mainly
focused on Book 4, which is often defined as ‘the tragedy of Dido’ in Aristotelian
terms in combination with the five-act structure typical of Hellenistic and Roman
drama.³⁷ Yet, Vergil’s engagement with tragedy extends far beyond the ‘dramatic’
structure of single books: Aeneas’ recollections of the fall of Troy in Book 2 exhibit
formal features of a messenger speech as well as thematic links with the tragic
topoi of the capture of a city and female lament, as Rossi has shown (2004, 17–53),³⁸
and Panoussi (2009) develops this approach further by linking Vergil’s structural
and intertextual engagement with Greek tragedy to larger issues such as ritual
patterns of conflict and reconciliation reflecting the ideological tensions inherent
in the establishment of the Augustan empire.³⁹
Obviously, the Metamorphoses are much more than a ‘tragic’ epic, although
tragedy occupies a crucial place in Ovid’s self-conscious metageneric reflections,
as Curley (2013, 101) claims by calling the Metamorphoses a “theater of epic”.
Nevertheless, this epic, too, contains nuclei where the interaction with tragedy
and tragic myths is especially highlighted: Ovid’s so-called ‘Thebaid’ (Hardie,
36 The fact that this list more or less coincides with the extant examples of mythological and
historical epic from these periods might partly be due to chances of transmission.
37 Cf. Wlosok (1976) and Heinze (3 1957, 119), who classified Book 4 as a ‘tragic epyllion’ (“tragi-
sche[s] Epyllion”). See also Heinze (3 1957, 323–6) on the dramatic peripeteia. Lesueur (1998) reads
Book 7 in similar terms of tragic structure and character. This reading of Book 4 is reinforced with
intertextual links to tragic imagery and to specific plays; cf. Krummen (2004); Panoussi (2002)
and Panoussi (2009, 182–98) on Sophocles’ Ajax; Panoussi (2005, 415–18) on Euripides’ Alcestis.
This was already noted by ancient commentators (see section 2). Cf. also Harrison (2007, 208–14)
on Vergil’s simultaneous engagement with tragedy and elegy. Fernandelli (2003) emphasises the
tragic emotions evoked by reading Book 4 and the Aeneid as a whole, while Kircher (2018, 189–214,
esp. 207–14) defines Book 4 as a Stoic rather than Aristotelian tragedy of affects.
38 See also Rossi (2004, 54–69) on the ‘tragic plot’ of Aeneid 9–12 centred on a peripeteia.
39 On interactions between epic and tragic narrative in Aeneid 2, cf. Deremetz (2000). Overviews
of approaches to Vergil and tragedy are to be found in Hardie (1997); see also Hardie (1993, esp.
19–26, 36, 71–3). On the reception of this dimension in Latin imperial epics, cf. Galinsky (2003,
281), who points out “Vergil’s dramatisation, and concomitant problematisation, of Homer in the
manner of the Greek tragedians”, as well as Curley (2013, 52–7).
1990) in Books 3 and 4 not only features Dionysiac themes and a marked sense
of theatricality (after all Dionysus is the god of theatre), but also parricide (a
quintessentially tragic plot according to Arist. Po. 1453b19–22) and civil war hinted
at in the episode of the Sparti (see section 4.1).⁴⁰ To be sure, the Theban myth was
treated in epics as well as in tragedies, but still, in Rome Thebes is perceived as a
prototypically tragic subject, up to Statius’ epic Thebaid. Likewise Ovid’s selection
of episodes from the Trojan War in the first part of Book 13 combines epic and tragic
intertexts in its focus on the tragic characters of Ajax and Hecuba; the sacrifice
of Polyxena and Hecuba’s revenge for the murder of Polydorus by Polymestor
encompass the plots of whole tragedies within brief epic-dramatic scenes featuring
a high proportion of direct speech and a focus on the protagonists’ emotions.⁴¹
Like Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which might even have been one of its models, the
late antique Dionysiaca by Nonnus of Panopolis is not to be read in exclusively
‘tragic’ terms either, although in view of its subject matter it might appear as
a quintessentially ‘theatrical’ epic. Rather, as Shorrock (2001) and Kröll (2016)
have shown, this hyper-Homeric and at the same time anti-Homeric epic in 48
books interacts with a whole range of genres besides epic.⁴² One of its conspicuous
intergeneric experiments with tragedy is an epic re-writing of Euripides’ Bacchae
in the ‘Pentheid’ of Books 44–6.
Latin imperial epics build on Vergil and Ovid and on their own contemporaries’
works in their appropriations and transformations of patterns derived from tragedy.
Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile and Statius’ Thebaid mirror each other’s subject matters,
respectively historical civil wars and mythical fraternal wars, by engaging not
only with their predecessors’ ‘tragic’ epics but also with the genre of tragedy itself.
While Statius directly adapts Greek and Roman dramas dealing with the conflict
between the sons of Oedipus and the war of the Seven against Thebes (but also
40 On interactions with epic and tragedy in Ovid’s ‘Thebaid’, see also Gildenhard/Zissos (2000),
as well as Keith (2002, 258–68) and Keith (2010). Other passages have been interpreted in tragic
terms as well: cf. in general Gildenhard/Zissos (1999); Seng (2007) analyses the Phaethon story
in Book 2 of the Metamorphoses as a dramatic narrative structured in five acts and enriched with
epic elements such as ekphrasis and catalogue; Panoussi (2005, 418–22) associates the distorted
rites of marriage, Maenadism, and sacrifice in the Procne episode in Book 6 with issues of Greek
drama; Schmitz (2015) reads the Myrrha episode in Book 10 as a dramatic presentation (by means
of the heroine’s monologue and the nurse’s role) of an ‘un-tragic’ character.
41 On Ovid’s “dramatised epic reconstruction” of the fall of Troy, see Papaioannou (2007, 18–19
and 207–51) as well as Curley (2013, 101–15, 153–61, and 185–200); Curley also studies Medea and
Hercules as tragic characters across Ovid.
42 Specifically on the role of tragedy in the Dionysiaca, see Shorrock (2001, 189–97); cf. also Kröll
(2016, 147–50) on the Ampelus episode in Books 10–12.
with other tragic subjects such as Hypsipyle and the Lemnian women),⁴³ Lucan
(whose epic is one of Statius’ models) uses tragic subtexts in a more indirect way.
On the one hand, he alludes to tragic myths in similes, catalogues, and ekphraseis,
on the other hand, through intertextual references or more general evocations
of tragic motifs, he associates his protagonists Caesar and Pompey with tragic
characters like Eteocles and Polynices, and moreover uses dramatizing narrative
techniques such as a narrator who acts as a dramatis persona in order to involve
the audience emotionally in his civil war epic.⁴⁴ Valerius Flaccus takes up the
Argonautic theme that obviously has both epic and tragic intertextual resonances
(prominently, but by no means exclusively in the figure of Medea);⁴⁵ moreover, he
uses dramatic elements and plot structures in the composition of single episodes
or whole books, as Sauer (2011) has argued, again with recourse to Aristotelian
categories. However, another important background for all three poets is Senecan
drama, which fulfils a mediating role between the genres of epic and tragedy,
as Seneca adapts epic narrative elements in his dramas, which in turn serve as
dramatic models for contemporary and later epicists (see section 4.2). What is at
stake in all these cases is not the identity of the genres allegedly being endangered
by the intrusion of foreign elements, but rather a gradual convergence that helps to
put the characteristics of the individual works and their innovative moves within
their respective genres into sharper relief.
43 See the brief overviews by Marinis (2015) on Statius and Greek tragedy and by Augoustakis
(2015) on Statius and Senecan drama; cf. Heslin (2008) and Hulls (2014) on epic and tragic Athens,
Thebes, and Rome; see also Soerink (2014) on Hypsipyle. A fuller discussion of the roles of epic
and tragedy in the Thebaid’s narrative of fraternal war is found in Ripoll (1998) and Bessone (2011).
44 On the various aspects of Lucan’s engagement with tragedy, see Ambühl (2015). In a critical
review of modern definitions of the Bellum Ciuile as a ‘tragic epic’ (including the narrator as ‘leader
of a chorus’, the role of fate, and the main characters as ‘tragic’ heroes), Ripoll (2016) tries to
reconcile the resulting contradictions through a political reading and comes to the conclusion
that it is not a ‘tragic epic’ but as an ‘epic with a tragic mask’. Marti (1975) and D’Alessandro
Behr (2007, esp. 9 and 76–87) discuss dramatic techniques and the emotional involvement of the
audience, whereas Leigh (1997) relies on more general notions of ‘spectacle’ and ‘tragic history’.
The classification of Lucan’s epic as a tragedia in the Middle Ages on the grounds of its style and
subject matter cannot be pursued here; cf. von Moos (1979).
45 Cf. Buckley (2014) and Davis (2014).
4 Intergeneric interactions in epic structures:

select examples
As emerges from the foregoing overview, ancient and modern definitions of the
interaction of epic with other genres, notably with tragedy, differ widely, despite the
fact that some of the modern studies professedly apply an Aristotelian approach.
While ancient critics, on the one hand, highlight the global resemblances between
the genres of epic and tragedy and, on the other hand, identify isolated cases of
intertextual relations, modern scholarship tends to focus on the similarities and
differences between the epic and the tragic hero and on the social and political
impact of both genres in their respective cultural contexts. In contrast, intergeneric
influences with specific regard to structural elements are not usually singled out
as an object of study, with the exception of (at times somewhat forced) readings
of single epic books in terms of a five-act structure and more global comparative
narratological analyses of epic and dramatic narrative.⁴⁶
Of course, there are obvious correspondences between both genres, despite the
fact that epic, roughly speaking, is a predominantly diegetic genre in comparison
to the largely mimetic drama. Among the elements shared by both genres are direct
speeches or typical scenes such as dreams, epiphanies, and prophecies. Conversely,
seemingly typical epic elements such as ekphraseis and similes are also found in
mainly narrative parts of drama such as messenger speeches or teichoscopies.⁴⁷ It
is precisely these grey areas of overlap that offer an interesting field of study. In the
last part of this chapter, a few exemplary case studies will be discussed through a
combination of narratological and poetological approaches while also considering
diachronic intertextuality.
4.1 The simile as a locus of inter- and metageneric reflections
Even if epic does not normally comment explicitly on its own generic status in
the way other genres do, in a few special cases intertextual and/or metaliterary
signposts may draw attention to passages interacting with drama. A well-known
example is the description of the rocky bay that forms the backdrop to Aeneas’
landing on the shores of Libya in Book 1 of the Aeneid as a ‘stage’ (Verg. Aen. 1.164
46 On narrative elements in Greek tragedy, see, for example, Goward (1999). Cf. also the cross-
generic narratological series ‘Studies in ancient Greek narrative’ by de Jong/Nünlist/Bowie (2004),
de Jong/Nünlist (2007), and de Jong (2012).
47 For the aforementioned structural elements, see volume II.1 and II.2.
scaena) and his ensuing encounter with Venus in the guise of a huntress wearing
the cothurn (1.337 coturno). Situated shortly before Aeneas’ arrival at Carthage and
his first meeting with Dido, this theatrical setting together with the references to
the theatre being built under the supervision of the queen (1.427–9) can be read
as an anticipation of the imminent ‘tragedy of Dido’, to be postponed due to the
flashback in Books 2 and 3. Yet, on the formal level, these ‘metatragic’ markers
are embedded in an essentially epic sequence of scenes from the sea-storm to the
shipwrecked party’s meeting with a goddess disguised as a native huntress and
their kind reception at the royal court. In Book 4, however, the combination of
epic and dramatic elements even extends to the structural level (see section 2 and
3). This is further underlined by means of a simile that associates Dido, who is
terrified by nightmares, with tragic characters acting on the (Greek or Roman) stage
(4.469–73):
Eumenidum ueluti demens uidet agmina Pentheus

470 et solem geminum et duplices se ostendere Thebas,
aut Agamemnonius scaenis agitatus Orestes,
armatam facibus matrem et serpentibus atris
cum fugit ultricesque sedent in limine Dirae.
As when Pentheus out of his mind sees the troop of the Eumenides and the sun double and
Thebes appearing twice, or when Agamemnon’s son Orestes chased across the stage flees
his mother, who is armed with torches and black snakes, and the avenging Dirae sit on the
threshold.
This simile stages the live experience of a theatrical performance of these famous
scenes of tragic madness from the point of view of the actor and/or the spectator.
Thereby the epic simile explicitly acknowledges the existence of tragedy as another
literary genre, which informs the intertextual interaction underlying the simile
and its narrative context.⁴⁸
While this ‘metageneric’ simile has regularly been adduced in studies on
the ‘tragic’ quality of Vergil’s Aeneid, it is often overlooked that it also set an
48 Already Servius auctus recognises both dimensions, when he refers both to the Greek tragic
stage and to tragedies as literary texts (according to him, the frequentative verb agitare reflects
the high number of plays featuring Orestes): Serv. auct. Aen. 4.471 SCAENIS AGITATVS famosus,
celebratus tragoediis, [qualiter a Graecis in scaena inducitur]. et ‘agitatus’, quia et furuit, et multae
sunt de eo tragoediae: quasi frequenter actus. Modern scholars have studied the Orestes myth and
especially Aeschylus’ Oresteia as a crucial intertext for the literary and political design of the
Aeneid; cf. Hardie (1991) and Rebeggiani (2016).
important precedent for later epics.⁴⁹ In another explicitly theatrical simile from
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the men sprung from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus
are compared to figures rising on a curtain in the theatre (Ov. met. 3.111–14):
sic ubi tolluntur festis aulaea theatris,

surgere signa solent primumque ostendere uultus,
cetera paulatim, placidoque educta tenore
tota patent imoque pedes in margine ponunt.
As, when curtains are raised at the theatre on festival days, images are wont to rise and show
forth first the faces and then the rest little by little, and are exposed, drawn up in a gentle
motion, and set their feet on the lowest edge.⁵⁰
At first sight the content of this simile refers to the theatre (theatris) rather than
specifically to tragedy, but its context within the Theban Cycle of the Metamor-
phoses lends it a tragic character, too, especially in connection with the motif of
fratricide and civil war (3.116–23).⁵¹ Lucan in his Bellum Ciuile reflects on both
of his predecessors’ similes by transforming them into similes of his own. In the
Vulteius episode in Book 4 he reverses the relationship between Ovid’s simile and
its narrative context, for the element of performance now is acted out on the level
of the epic action in the mass suicide staged by the Caesarian soldiers, and the
mythic paradigm of both the Theban and the Colchian Sparti (the latter under
Medea’s spell) is transferred to the simile (Lucan. 4.549–56). Although on the sur-
face of the text more general impressions of (amphi)theatricality and spectacularity
prevail, the simile evokes tragic as well as epic subtexts through its intertextual
associations with Ovid and Apollonius, who themselves had imported tragic ele-
ments into their epics.⁵² In his description of Caesar’s nightmares after the Battle
of Pharsalus in Book 7, Lucan reworks Vergil’s Dido simile by staging the same two
tragic characters, Orestes and Pentheus, together with the latter’s mother Agave
(Lucan. 7.777–80):
haud alios nondum Scythica purgatus in ara

Eumenidum uidit uultus Pelopeus Orestes,
49 On this simile and the other metatragic markers in the Aeneid, see Hardie (1997, 322) and
Curley (2013, 53–5) with further references. Vergil’s and Ovid’s similes are briefly compared in
Barchiesi (1993, 352–3), Hardie (1990, 226 n. 14), and Keith (2010, 193–4).
50 This translation is taken from Feldherr (2010, 181).
51 Keith (2010, 194) also points out the contrast between a typically epic martial simile (Ov. met.
3.704–7) and the theatrical setting of the Pentheus episode (Ov. met. 3.708–11), which according to
her implicitly inscribes “a literary contest between the genres of epic and tragedy”.
52 See Ambühl (2015, 99–108) with further references.
nec magis attonitos animi sensere tumultus,

cum fureret, Pentheus aut, cum desisset, Agaue.
Even so Pelopean Orestes beheld the faces of the Furies, before he was purified at the Scythian
altar; nor did Pentheus in his madness, or Agave, when she had returned to her senses, feel
more horror and disturbance of mind.⁵³
In this case, too, Lucan adapts the dramatic contents of Vergil’s simile without
explicitly acknowledging its metatheatrical dimension, but again the intertextual
background functions as a metaliterary signal for the employment of tragic patterns
in the immediate context, such as the issue of tragic guilt and the denial of burial to
fellow citizens. Valerius Flaccus in turn splits Vergil’s and Lucan’s double similes
into two similes in Book 7 that again evoke the same scenes from tragic plays (Val. Fl.
7.147–52: Orestes; 7.301–4: Pentheus), thus marking Medea’s gradual transformation
into the character known from tragedy.⁵⁴
Through this chain of examples, the mythological simile referring to tragic plots
evolves into a new subcategory within the tradition of this typically epic element
and comes to function as an intertextual marker for processes of intergeneric
exchange.⁵⁵ Such metageneric markers are not limited to similes but may also occur
in connection with other structural elements. For instance, in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca
(12.147–53, esp. 12.152), a reference to Dionysiac musical performances and the Attic
institution of the theatre is embedded in a prophetic speech of Atropos, one of the
Fates (Nonn. D. 12.142–71); here the epic/tragic device of prophecy is inserted in the
dramatic episode of the death of Ampelus, thus underlining the tragic associations
of the epic narrative.⁵⁶
4.2 Messenger scenes and teichoscopies across epic and

tragedy
Messenger scenes and teichoscopies may function as another test case for such
gradual assimilations between the genres of epic and tragedy, for they are type-
scenes shared by both genres.⁵⁷ Whereas in Greek literature dramatic messenger
53 This translation of Lucan is taken from Duff (4 1957). See also the discussion in Ambühl (2015,
87–98).
54 See Gärtner (1994, 185–90 and 195–8), who downplays the role of Lucan as a mediator.
55 On the role of tragic myths in Lucan and in Flavian epic (not exclusively in similes) before the
background of Vergil, Ovid, and Seneca, see Esposito (2012).
56 Cf. Kröll (2016, 148–9, 167–9, 204, and 254).
57 Cf. Dinter/Khoo, Finkmann, and Fucecchi in volume II.2.
speeches have been analysed using narratological and intertextual approaches

in order to identify tragic responses to the Homeric epics,⁵⁸ in Latin literature a
reciprocal comparison should be enabled by the near-contemporary composition
of both epics and tragedies. Still, there, too, such interactions have been studied
mainly from the point of view of (Senecan) drama. Indeed, the tragedies of Seneca
in their extensive narrative passages such as messenger speeches, teichoscopies
or ekphraseis display markedly epicising or even ‘hyper-epicising’ tendencies, to
quote a phrase coined by Baertschi.⁵⁹ They combine a reworking of Greek and
Latin dramatic models with epic intertexts from the Augustan era, notably from
Vergil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and integrate typically epic set-pieces
such as descriptions of storms, catalogues, or extended similes.
The same question can be asked from the reverse perspective: how does Latin
epic from the early imperial period engage with Greek and Roman dramatic models
through teichoscopies and related type-scenes?⁶⁰ For the present purpose a few
observations have to suffice.⁶¹ In epic a teichoscopy usually precedes or follows a
battle scene after the model of the Iliad, where Helen in Book 3 points out the Greek
heroes to Priam before the duel between Menelaus and Paris (Hom. Il. 3.121–244),
while at the end of Book 22 the Trojans and his wife Andromache lament Hector’s
death from the walls (Hom. Il. 22.405–515). In tragedy, the teichoscopy assumes a
slightly different structural function, as at least in the extant tragedies from the
Theban Cycle it is not immediately followed by the duel of the enemy brothers, but
leads to scenes of supplication. In Euripides’ Phoenician Women, the teichoscopy
forms part of the prologue (88–201), consisting in a dialogue between Antigone
and her pedagogue about the identity of the Seven, which itself is an adaptation
of the messenger speech from Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes (369–652). The
teichoscopy is thus widely separated from the fatal duel of the brothers and the en-
suing battle between the two armies, events reported only in the fifth epeisodion in
a long messenger speech (E. Ph. 1335–479). Before, in the first epeisodion, Jocasta in
vain tries to reconcile her sons, whereupon in the fourth epeisodion, another, more
58 Cf. Barrett (2002).

59 Cf. Baertschi (2010) and Baertschi (2015).
60 On the predominantly epic teichoscopy, see Augoustakis (2013, 157–70) as well as Lovatt (2006)
and Lovatt (2013, 217–46); cf. esp. Lovatt (2013, 27): “Teichoscopy is a central epic trope, and
yet it is always at the margins of epic, threatening to become tragedy or even elegy.” On the
predominantly tragic teichoscopy, see Scodel (1997) and Goldhill (2007). Another example of a
type-scene interacting across the genres of epic and tragedy is the necromancy; cf. Augoustakis
(2015, 378–85) on adaptations in Statius’ Thebaid of the necromancy scenes from Seneca’s Oedipus
and Finkmann in volume II.2.
61 For a more detailed discussion, see Fucecchi in volume II.1.
conventional teichoscopy reported by a messenger and his appeal to Jocasta to try

to prevent the imminent duel (1067–263) follows. As appears from this paraphrase,
Euripides’ Phoenician Women is an extraordinarily lengthy tragedy (irrespective of
the disputed authenticity of its exodos) with a high proportion of narrative parts.
Therefore, this drama is an ideal model for epic adaptations; not by coincidence, it
was one of Euripides’ plays that was held in great esteem during his later reception,
also in Latin literature. The second part of Seneca’s dramatic fragment Phoenis-
sae reproduces Euripides’ play in an abbreviated version: the teichoscopy, which
again assumes the form of a dialogue between Antigone and an attendant, is com-
bined with their urgent appeals to Jocasta to perform a mother’s supplication (Sen.
Phoen. 363–442), followed by her failed mediation between her sons on the very
battlefield (443–664). Finally, Statius in Books 7 and 11 of his Thebaid combines
epic and tragic structural elements: after a compressed messenger speech (Stat.
Theb. 7.227–31), which briefly resumes the long epic catalogue of the Argive forces⁶²
from 4.32–344, Antigone performs a teichoscopy of the Theban allies through a
dialogue with the aged Phorbas (7.243–373); then she joins her mother to beseech
Polynices, a mediation scene aborted by the outbreak of open war (7.470–627).
A similar sequence is reproduced in Book 11, where Jocasta is informed of the
imminent duel between her sons and unsuccessfully tries to stop Eteocles from
going to fight his brother, while Antigone fails to dissuade Polynices from the wall
(11.315–402). Statius thus successfully reintegrates dramatic sequences (already
with epic touches) from Euripides’ and Seneca’s plays consisting of abbreviated
messenger speeches, teichoscopies (partly as a dramatic replacement of an epic
catalogue), and scenes of failed mediation into his epic narrative.
5 Conclusion
As a consequence of the high status of epic within the ancient system of genres,
intergeneric interactions have often been viewed from the point of view of the other
genres that adapt and transform type-scenes and structural elements typical of
epic. Yet, epic itself, too, evolves in a process of constant negotiation with other
genres. While in ancient literary criticism such issues are mainly approached from a
formal or teleological perspective and specific case studies are not often discussed
on a larger scale, modern scholarship has paid much attention to such intergeneric
processes, in particular to the impact of tragedy on the formal characteristics,
the thematic focuses, and the political outlook of epic. As specific examples of
62 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann on epic catalogues in this volume.

exchanges between epic and tragedy, here a small selection of similes, messenger
scenes, and teichoscopies has been adduced in order to demonstrate the gradual
assimilation between elements of the respective genres that in turn constitute
new precedents for subsequent epics. A more systematic survey would have to
study every single epic type-scene or structural element along these lines and look
for subtle adaptations and transformations that may have occurred during the
sustained evolvement of epic’s interaction with other genres. This, however, would
be a task far beyond the scope of the present chapter.
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Jason Nethercut
History and myth in Graeco-Roman epic
Abstract: This essay explores the boundaries that separate historical epic from
mythological epic, concluding that these are much more malleable than one may
think. By analysing specific structural elements that recur indiscriminately in both
mythological and historical epic (e.g. type-scenes), I emphasise the similarities
between these two modes of epic. In fact, diachronic, intertextual analysis of the
epic tradition underscores how productive the cross-fertilisation between these
two strands was. Select examples treated in this essay come from Homer, Choerilus
of Samos, Apollonius, Ennius, Vergil, Lucan, and Flavian epic.
1 Introduction
To juxtapose mythological epic with historical epic presupposes that historical epic
exists as a category, yet the existence of such a genre remains an open question.¹
On the one hand, it is undoubtedly true that we have a number of poems written in
dactylic hexameter in both Greek and Latin that treat events that were also narrated
in prose historiography.² On the other hand, it is difficult to isolate elements in
these putative historical epics, aside from subject matter, that differentiate them
from mythological epics like those of Homer.³ This paper first enumerates the
evidence we have for historical epic from Homer to Silius, then advances the
argument that the boundaries that separate historical epic from mythological epic
are, in fact, quite permeable by showing how mythological epic can be viewed as
historiographical and how historical epic often contains mythological elements.
Both mythological and historical epic offer ways of conceptualising the past, and
both regularly do so with reference to the audience’s present moment. The essay
concludes with necessarily selective close readings of passages in which the same
structural element occurs diachronically in mythological and historical epic, which
underscore the affinities between mythological and historical epic canvassed in
the first three parts of this paper.
1 Fundamental are the discussions in Ziegler (2 1966) and Cameron (1995, 263–73).
2 For general accounts of historical epic, see Kroll (1916), Ziegler (2 1966), Clinard (1967), Häußler
(1976), and Häußler (1978).
3 Fundamental for the relationship between ancient historiography and myth are Gomme (1954),
Wiseman (1979), Veyne (1983), and Woodman (1988); cf. Feeney (1991, 253–62).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-009
194 | Jason Nethercut
2 Evidence for historical epic

We have substantial evidence for a body of epic poems written on historical
themes.⁴ It seems likely that many of the archaic epics whose fragments we pos-
sess derived from localised traditions (e.g. the Phocais and Danais);⁵ such poems
could be conceptualised as a sort of inchoate epic historiography on a local scale.
Despite such suggestive beginnings, however, the first epic we know of which was
properly historiographical was Choerilus of Samos’ Persica, written sometime
towards the end of the Peloponnesian War.⁶ Though it is hazardous to make
sweeping conclusions on the basis of the few fragments left to us of this poem, we
know from the Suda that Choerilus wrote about the Athenian victory over Xerxes.⁷
In the proem to his epic, Choerilus laments the dearth of new material available
to the contemporary epic bard, jealously pining for the ἀκήρατος λειμών that
was available to earlier poets like Homer (SH 317). This passage almost certainly
functioned as an apology for the subject matter of the poem that followed.⁸ In any
case, Choerilus is rightly seen as the primus inuentor of historical epic.
In the Hellenistic Period, the evidence for historical epic becomes problematic.
We do have testimonia that historical epic like Choerilus’ Persica continued to be
written.⁹ For example, we know that Agis the Argive (SH 6–7) and Anaximines
of Lampsacus (SH 18) wrote epics about Alexander the Great’s exploits, and Si-
monides of Magnesia is said to have written an epic about Antiochus I and his
battle against the Galatians (SH 349).¹⁰ Of the actual fragments we do possess
from this period, however, the vast majority comes from what look like either
mythological epics (e.g. the Heraclea by Diotimus of Adramyttium [SH 181–2] or the
4 I gather together all of this evidence for the reader to consult in the two tables at the end of this
paper.
5 On epic fragments, see the contribution by Bär/Schedel in this volume.
6 See Huxley (1969) and Hollis (2000) for a more detailed discussion of Choerilus and his poem.
7 See Suda, s.v. Χοιρίλος, Σάμιος (SH 315). On the scope of the Persica, cf. MacFarlane (2006), who
concludes that we should accept evidence from Strabo and Ephorus that Choerilus included in his
narrative the construction of Darius’ Scythian bridge. For MacFarlane Choerilus’ poem imitated in
epic verse the broad narrative and temporal scope encountered in Herodotus’ prose version of the
conflict with Persia.
8 See MacFarlane (2009) for an analysis of this proem in the context of Choerilus’ poetic achieve-
ments in the other remaining fragments of the Persica.
9 Cameron (1995, 263–73) suggests that none of the evidence we have from this period should be
understood as historical epic on a grand scale.
10 We also have fragments from epics written on themes from Jewish history: 20 lines of an epic
on the history of Jerusalem by Philo the Elder (SH 328–31) and almost 45 lines from an epic by
Theodotus (SH 360–5).
Bacchic epic by Theolytus of Methymna [CA 9]) or so-called ktisis epics (e.g. the
Lyrcus by Nicaenetus of Samos [CA 1–2] or the 28 lines from various ktisis epics by
Apollonius of Rhodes [CA 4–8]). Unfortunately, fragments are all that remain for
us of any putative genre of historical epic in the Hellenistic period. That different
scholars can point to the same evidence either to articulate an entire theory of
historical epic qua genre or repudiate the very existence of this genre should serve
as a cautionary reminder about the allure of the fragmentary.
We are on much firmer footing in the Roman period, as concrete evidence
for Latin historical epic is available in spades, including the only fully extant
historical epic we possess, Silius’ Punica. From the beginning, Roman epic focused
on Roman history, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum and Ennius’ Annales setting the
stage for the historical epics of the Republican period. The figures behind the
names Hostius, Furius, and Volusius are as inaccessible to us as the exact nature
of their poems. We can ascertain, however, that very recent history was a popular
subject for historical epic in the Republic. Naevius himself fought in the First
Punic War, the subject of his epic poem written in the Saturnian metre. Ennius not
only accompanied Fulvius Nobilior to Aetolia, which campaign Ennius probably
narrated in Annales 15, but Ennius is also reported to have added on three books to
the Annales to cover the years between the publication of his original 15 book epic
and the present day.¹¹ In the middle of the 1st century BC, Cicero writes an epic on
his own consulship and Varro Atacinus writes a Bellum Sequanicum on Caesar’s
campaigns in Gaul. From the Augustan Period we possess fragments of a Bellum
Siculum by Cornelius Severus, which presumably narrated the war with Sextus
Pompey (Courtney 320–8), a few lines from an epic by Rabirius that features Mark
Antony (Courtney 332–3), and a papyrus that preserves almost seventy hexameters
from an epic on the Battle of Actium.¹² This is the background against which one
should understand the historiographical sections of the Aeneid, e.g. the shield of
Aeneas, which depicts, among other scenes from Roman history, Augustus’ triple
triumph of 29 BC.
During the imperial period, Albinovanus Pedo wrote an epic under Tiberius on
the exploits of Germanicus (Sen. suas. 1.15 Courtney 315–18). The epics of Lucan and
Silius, which, of course, provide us with the most extensive evidence for historical
epic in the Graeco-Roman tradition and which prominently narrate events that no
one living had personally experienced, would appear to deviate from the thematic
norms established by earlier Roman historical epic. In the later imperial period,
11 We know from Macrobius that Enn. ann. 391–8 Skutsch, which describe the Istrians fighting
during a siege (Macr. Sat. 6.2.32 in obsidione), come from Annales 15. It is reasonable to conclude
that this siege includes Istrian participants is Ambracia.
12 Pierluigi Gatti is currently preparing a new edition of this papyrus (P.Herc 817).
Claudian resumes the norm of writing on contemporaneous events in both De Bello

Gildonico and De Bello Gothico. We have evidence, therefore, that historical epic
was written almost continuously from the end of the Peloponnesian War through
the Flavian period. Aside from the problematic vestiges from the Hellenistic period,
we can say that diachronically in this period historical epic usually narrated events
from recent memory.
3 Epic myth as historiography

Given that we have such abundant evidence for historical epic in the Graeco-Roman
tradition, it should not surprise us, perhaps, that mythological epic beginning
with Homer exhibits its own historiographical tendencies and that ancient authors
often treat mythological epic as a source of historiographical information. The
two Homeric epics both contain elements that could be read as a sort of inchoate
historiography. Most famously, perhaps, one could point to Odysseus’ narration
to the Phaeacians of his travels as a sort of intradiegetic historiography, insofar
as Odysseus provides his own oral version of past events in order to explain how
he came to be where he is at the present moment. The same could be said about
Menelaus’ narration in Odyssey 4, the story of Meleager at Hom. Il. 9.527–605, or
the many tales of Nestor in both Homeric poems.
An informative example of how such “epic historiography” functions comes
from 4.364–400, when Agamemnon chastises Diomedes and Sthenelus for being
inferior to their fathers Tydeus and Capaneus, both members of the Seven Against
Thebes. Agamemnon retells the story of how Tydeus killed all but one of the over
fifty Thebans who ambushed him on his way home from the city, in order to
juxtapose Diomedes’ inaction to his father’s prowess. Agamemnon’s narration of
Tydeus’ past aristeia,¹³ however, is open to interpretation, as Sthenelus accuses
Agamemnon of lying (4.404) and affirms the superiority of the Epigonoi, who were
successful in their siege of Thebes, to their fathers, who died to a man outside
the city’s walls. Unlike the ‘histories’ narrated by Odysseus, Menelaus, Nestor, or
Phoinix, here we read an actual negotiation of historical fact and its relevance
for the present. Obviously, this is subtextual and not the immediate point in this
passage from Iliad 4, but it is clear that passages like this not only emphasise that
the past serves as a repository of significance for the present within (Homeric)
mythological epic, but that this significance is open to interpretation by both
narrator and audience.
13 See also Stocks’ diachronic study of aristeia from Homer to Flavian epic in volume II.1.
It is also the case that we have many ancient witnesses who treat the Homeric
epics as a form of historiography. To put this another way, already in antiquity the
Homeric poems were viewed as historical epics.¹⁴ Herodotus, for example, takes
the events in Homer as factual and uses them to explain the origins of the animus
that the Persians felt towards the Greeks (Hdt. 1.3–5). Similarly, at 2.112–14, he
treats Homer as a historical source for his account of Helen’s sojourn in Egypt.
Thucydides (1.3) likewise takes Homer as a source for his contention that the Greeks
did not conceive of themselves as a collective group called Hellenes until after the
Trojan War and for his assessment of the size of the group who sailed against Troy
(Th. 1.10.3). Perhaps the most explicit discussion of the Homeric poems (and the
Epic Cycle) as a form of historiography comes from Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. In
the context of proving the mortality of the world (Lucr. 5.324–31), Lucretius argues
that the world must have had some origin, and must not, therefore, be immortal. In
order to support his argument, he points to the newness of the world, as evidenced
by the fact that we do not possess historiographical accounts of events before the
Theban and Trojan wars in epic poetry (5.327 cecinere poetae). His point is that if the
world were immortal, we would expect to have written records of many other deeds
beyond what we find in Homer and the Epic Cycle. This argument presupposes
that the Homeric poems and the Epic Cycle narrate reliable information about the
history of humanity, and, therefore, represent a sort of epic historiography; this is
precisely the way in which Herodotus and Thucydides engage with the Homeric
poems.¹⁵
4 Myth in historical epic

While there are reasons to recognise the historiographical aspects of the Homeric
epics, the epics that are traditionally considered historical also contain mythologi-
cal elements. This fact further establishes the interpenetration of the mythological
and the historical in the epic tradition. The most prominent of these mytholog-
ical elements is the interventionist divine apparatus that appears in almost all
historical epics that we possess, with the noticeable exception of Lucan.¹⁶
14 See Kim (2010, 22–46). On the historicity of the Homeric poems, see Finley (1954), Gomme
(1954), Snodgrass (1974), Geddes (1984), Morris (1986), Sherratt (1990), Taplin (1992), Raaflaub
(1993), Crielaard (1995), and Petrakis (2006).
15 Strabo similarly devotes the first two sections of his work entirely to establishing the historical
and geographical authority of Homer; see Kim (2007).
16 Feeney (1991) remains a seminal study on this subject.
Owing to the fragmentary nature of Hellenistic historical epic, we cannot say

with certainty much about the role of the gods in these poems. In the fragments of
Choerilus’ Persica, we have no secure mention of the gods outside of the metaphor
of drunken violence in πνεῦμα Διονύσοιο (SH 321). If P.Oxy. 2524 contains fragments
of the Persica, then it is suggestive that both Zeus and the vocative Φοῖβε appear
there. Commentators often point out the “strange mixture” of the mythological and
historical in the fragments of this papyrus.¹⁷ It is too corrupt to make any definite
conclusions, but, generally, these fragments would appear to show that Choerilus
was not overly concerned with removing the gods from his historical narrative,
even if it does not provide actual proof that he included divine participation in his
poem.¹⁸
The fragments that have been argued to come from Hellenistic historical epic
offer no evidence of how the gods participated in the narrative, but it is reasonable
for us to assume some role for the gods in these epics.¹⁹ We can, however, assume
that Hellenistic ktisis epics featured an interventionist divine apparatus, not least
because the patterns of ktisis narratives regularly associate the mythological past
with the foundation of a present city.²⁰ As a result, it would make sense that the
gods of myth were featured in these narrative patterns when appropriate.²¹ Perhaps
the most explicit sanction for this assumption comes from the Foundation of Lesbos,
traditionally ascribed to Apollonius of Rhodes.²² One longer fragment of this epic
narrates the story of how Pisidice falls in love with Achilles and helps him sack
Methymna (cf., e.g., Hom. Il. 9.129). Apollonius attributes Pisidice’s betrayal of
her city to the actions of Aphrodite who makes her fall in love with Achilles (CA
12.5b–9):
5 θαλερὴ δέ μιν ἄασε Κύπρις

῾Η γαρ ἐπ᾿ ᾿Αιακίδῃ κούρης φρένας ἐπτοίησεν
Πεισιδίκης, ὅτε τόν γε μετὰ προμάχοισιν ᾿Αχαιῶν
17 Cf. Huxley (1969, 27).

18 Generally, scholars have been prepared to deny any divine participation in the Persica; cf.
Ziegler (2 1966, 24–8 and 67), Clinard (1967, 19), and Misgeld (1968, 29–30); see also the refutation
of this claim by Häußler (1976, 65–6) and Feeney (1991, 265–6).
19 Of course, this must remain speculation in the absence of any positive evidence. For a series of
circumstantial arguments, which, to my mind, are quite convincing, see Feeney (1991, 266–7) with
further bibliography.
20 On this aspect of aetiology in Hellenistic epic, cf. Klooster (2014). See also Walter’s discussion
of aetiology in Apollonius of Rhodes in this volume.
21 On the almost universal acceptance in antiquity of the basic information in the inherited
mythological tradition, see Häußler (1978, 22–38) and Feeney (1991, 253) with further bibliography.
22 For the best general treatment of Apollonius’ ktisis epics, see Sistakou (2 2008).
χάρμῃ ἀγαλλόμενον θηέσκετο, πολλὰ δ᾿ ἐς ὑγρὴν

ἡέρα χεῖρας ἔτεινεν ἐελδομένη φιλότητος.
And blooming Cypris led her astray, for she confounded the mind of the girl Pisidice with love
for the Aeacid, when she watched him among the front ranks of the Achaeans, delighting in
battle; and often did she raise her hands into the liquid air, wishing for his love.²³
This example in which Aphrodite afflicts a young girl with love for a foreign enemy
resonates with Apollonius’ own narrative of Medea’s love for Jason in the Argo-
nautica. At the same time, it serves as an example of the notion that the activity of
the gods in human affairs was not confined to the mythological past in Hellenistic
ktisis epics, insofar as such divine intervention had a causal relationship with the
lived realities of the audience’s present.
In Roman historical epic, these possibilities that we find in the fragments of
epic in the Hellenistic period appear to be fully developed.²⁴ This is clear already
with the earliest Roman historical epic, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, over one third
of which was devoted to a mythological digression (probably in the form of a
flashback), replete with divine actors.²⁵ What is most important, because it was
most novel and had the biggest impact on subsequent Latin epic (e.g. Verg. Aen.
1.223–96), was Naevius’ use of divine prophecy as sanction for Rome’s historical
achievement.²⁶ Likewise, we have every reason to think that divine participation in
Ennius’ Annales was not, as earlier scholars insisted, confined to the first ‘mytho-
logical section’ of the poem.²⁷ On the basis of the fragments we possess, it seems
certain that the gods’ involvement continued into the Pyrrhus narrative of Book 6
(Enn. ann. 203–4 Skutsch), and it seems probable that there was divine interven-
tion in Ennius’ narrative of the Punic Wars (Enn. Ann. 232 and 53 Skutsch, with Serv.
Aen. 1.281) and possibly even as late as Book 15 (Enn. ann. 399–400 Skutsch). The
23 This translation is taken from Race (2009).

24 Cf. Feeney (1991, 269): “With such gaps in our knowledge, there is no room for dogmatism.
But what we know of the tradition inclines us to regard as most likely the hypothesis that divine
participation in Roman historical epic (in whatever guise) was the norm rather than the exception.”
25 The crucial contribution to our reconstruction of the Bellum Poenicum was Strzelecki (1935); cf.
Rowell (1947). We should remember that the book divisions of Naevius’ epic were not the work of
the poet, but of the later editor Octavius Lampadio; cf. also Bitto’s discussion of Alexandrian book
divisions in this volume. Along with Rowell (1947), Mariotti (1955), Büchner (1982), and Feeney
(1991, 117), I follow Strzelecki’s reconstruction of Naevius’ mythological aetion as a flashback. For
further bibliography, see Waszink (1972, 905–10).
26 Cf. Macr. Sat 6.2.31 and Naev. carm. frg. 14–16 Strzelecki, along with Feeney (1991, 109–15).
27 On the gods in the Annales, see Feeney (1991, 120–8) and Elliott (2013, 45–51 and 263–9) with
citations of earlier scholarship that dismisses the possibility of divine participation outside of the
early mythology section of the poem.
role of the gods in Naevius and Ennius, as Feeney has powerfully demonstrated,
was at once literary and political.²⁸ Insofar as these earliest Roman historical epics
were grafting themselves onto the tradition of poetry that originated in the Homeric
poems, anthropomorphised, interventionist divinities would have been a generic
feature for poets like Naevius and Ennius to adopt. Given that both Naevius and
Ennius emphasise the especially Roman aspects of the Homeric Zeus in their po-
ems – Naevius refers to Jupiter as optimum (Naev. carm. frg. 14 Strzelecki) and
Ennius calls him maxime diuom (Enn. ann. 444 Skutsch) – we understand that
these poets are claiming the literary past under the banner of contemporaneous
Roman hegemony.
Among the fragments of Republican historical epic after the Annales, our most
extensive evidence for an interventionist divine apparatus comes from Cicero’s
poem on his own consulship, in which we are told Cicero himself was admitted
into a concilium deorum and was instructed by Minerva how best to protect Rome
(Ps.-Sall. in Tull. 2.3). This striking scene would have appeared in addition to the
extended list of omens anticipating the Catilinarian conspiracy narrated by Urania
to Cicero (Cic. div. 1.17–22). From the generation immediately after Ennius, Hostius’
Bellum Histricum contains one fragment (Host. carm. frg. 4 Courtney) that com-
mentators have variously connected with a council of the gods or, more probably,
given allusions to Homer, to a scene where Minerva and Apollo survey the epic
battlefield.²⁹ We cannot know this for certain, of course, and the listing of divine
epithets for Apollo in this fragment does not necessitate the god’s appearance in
the narrative at all. Macrobius (Macr. Sat. 6.1.32 ad Verg. Aen. 1.539) provides a
fragment from the sixth book of a poem traditionally identified as the Annales Belli
Gallici by Furius Bibaculus in which some interlocutor addresses Jupiter as Saturno
sancte create (Bibac. carm. frg. 11 Courtney). Although again we cannot know this
with any level of certainty, this fragment suggests Jupiter may have appeared in
the narrative. What we can say for certain is that one character’s appeal to Jupiter
was featured in this epic.
Whatever one might say about the Aeneid as a specimen of historical epic,
it is clear that when Vergil includes historiographical sections in his poem they
are intricately connected to mythological material. The most linear narrative of
Roman history in the poem occurs in a prophecy voiced by Jupiter to Venus in
Book 1; the ‘Heldenschau’ that reflects in poetry the sculptural program of the
summi uiri in the Forum of Augustus takes place in the underworld amidst all
manner of mythological personalities and monsters; the narrative of the Battle of
28 Cf. Feeney (1991, 113–17 and 127–8); see also Elliott (2013, 263–9).
29 See Vinchesi (1984, 48–51) and Courtney (1993, 53–4).
Actium on Aeneas’ shield takes the form of a theomachy, as the gods of Rome take
part in the battle to oppose those of Egypt; Aeneas himself constantly serves as
the mythological avatar of the historical Augustus. In the imperial period, Silius
Italicus and Claudian both follow the norm by admitting a robust divine apparatus
into their narratives of Roman history.
The outlier, of course, is Lucan, whose rejection of the epic divine machinery
was already viewed as problematic in antiquity (Petron. 118.6, Serv. Aen. 1.382).³⁰
On the one hand, the absence of the anthropomorphic, interventionist gods in
Lucan’s narrative is perhaps the most prominent instance of Lucan’s deviation
from epic norms. On the other hand, Lucan does include mythological elements in
his poem and this underscores the interpenetration of myth and history through-
out the epic tradition. When we encounter myth in Lucan, it is in the service of
aetiology.³¹ At 4.589–660, Lucan has a local African explain to Curio the place
named “Antaeus’ kingdom”, by relating at length the story of Hercules’ battle with
Antaeus.³² Similarly, at 9.619–99, Lucan relates the story of Medusa and Perseus
as a backdrop for the catalogue of snakes that Cato encounters in Libya.³³ Lucan
inherits this use of myth as historical aetiology generally from Hellenistic ktisis
epic, but specifically, in the context of Roman historical epic, from Naevius and
Ennius, both of whom grafted their stories of recent events in Roman history onto
the mythological background of Aeneas’ adventures after the fall of Troy. Obvi-
ously, Vergil provides Lucan with another model here, not least insofar as Lucan’s
Hercules and Antaeus are reworkings of Vergil’s Hercules and Cacus. In the end,
therefore, even Lucan provides us with evidence that it is impossible to sustain
any bifurcation of “history” and “myth” as discrete categories in the epic tradition.
5 Structural elements in mythological and

historical epic
The interpenetration of myth and history that we have been tracking throughout the
epic tradition so far is also apparent when one juxtaposes how structural elements
30 On the divine in Lucan, see Schönberger (1958, 235–8), Häußler (1978, 96–7), Johnson (1987,
4–11), and Feeney (1991, 270–301).
31 On Lucan’s use of Ovidian mythology, cf. Keith (2011).
32 On this episode, see Grimal (1949), Ahl (1972), Ahl (1976, 91–103), and Saylor (1982).
33 The Medusa inset has received much attention recently. Cf. Wick (2004, ad loc.), along with
Eldred (2000), Raschle (2001), Saylor (2002), Malamud (2003), Papaioannou (2005), and Bexley
(2010).
are deployed in ‘mythological’ versus ‘historical’ epic. It would take more space
than I have here to explore this topic comprehensively, so in what follows I will
limit myself to treating the instances of one specific structural element across these
two types of epic, namely the theme of lumberjacking. On the one hand, this topos
does not appear in the current volume’s list of epic structures. Insofar as the motif
appears in funerals, sieges, and departure scenes, it is more accurate to consider it
an important part of many different structural elements rather than an element in
itself. On the other hand, the very ubiquity of lumberjacking in the epic tradition
makes it a useful motif to work with in order to juxtapose ‘myth’ and ‘history’ in
Graeco-Roman epic. This is especially true, insofar as the double valence of ὕλη /
silua makes it an inherently metapoetic topos. The chopping down of woodland
material inside the narrative reflects the compiling of poetic material that produces
the narrative. With each subsequent deployment of the tree-felling topos, therefore,
the epic poet identifies the tradition into which he inserts his poem and actively
develops a space for his poem in this tradition.³⁴ In any case, the appearance of
this topos in the epic tradition underscores, above all, the permeability of any
boundaries that separate mythological and historical epic as well as the diachronic
cross-fertilisation between these two modes of epic.³⁵
This topos ultimately derives from Homer, and the two Homeric poems provide
the two major contexts in which this topos appears. The original instance occurs
as part of Patroclus’ funeral in the Iliad (Hom. Il. 23.114–23), where the Greeks cut
down trees to construct the pyre. Similarly, at the end of the Iliad (24.782–7), the
Trojans gather wood for the pyre of Hector, whose funeral concludes the poem.
The Odyssey provides us with the other narrative context in which this topos is
deployed, when Odysseus cuts down trees to build a ship on Ogygia (Hom. Od.
5.234–45). Given the metapoetic associations of ships and wayfaring in ancient
poetry (e.g. Hor. carm. 1.3), the Odyssean instance of the tree-felling topos was
especially ripe for reflexive appropriation. It is no accident that mythological epyllia
regularly feature this Odyssean context for the deployment of the tree-felling topos
34 On the tree-felling topos, see Williams (1968, 263–8), Wigodsky (1972, 57–8), Häußler (1978,
149–52), Leeman (1985), Goldberg (1995, 83–5), Schmidt (1997), Hinds (1998, 10–14), Goldschmidt
(2013, 205), and Kersten (2018, 68–97). On tree-felling in Latin poetry, cf. Thomas (1988) and Lowe
(2011).
35 One might investigate any number of the structural elements, of course, and another useful data
set for my current topic would be the use of the warhorse simile as we encounter it in mythological
epic (Hom. Il. 6.506–11 and 15.263–8, A.R. 3.1259–62, and Verg. Aen. 11.492–7) and historical epic
(Enn. ann. 535–9 Skutsch), along with von Albrecht (1969) and Wülfing-von Martitz (1972, 267–70).
See also Gärtner/Blaschka for a more detailed discussion of warhorse similes in classical epic in
this volume and Schaffenrath for Neo-Latin epic in volume III.
(Catull. 64.1–10, Triph. 59–61, and Colluth. 192–200; cf. Verg. Aen. 3.5–6 and Ov. fast.
4.273–6).³⁶ The Odyssey’s deployment of this topos represents a less obvious model,
but one invested with as much Homeric authority as the instance from Iliad 23. By
aligning themselves with the Odyssey rather than the Iliad, these epyllia emphasise
their epic authority, while also signalling their innovative characteristics.
The tree-felling topos occurs most frequently in the epic tradition as part of
funeral proceedings. After the two instances of the topos in the Iliad, we do not
encounter it until the first Latin poem written in hexameters, Ennius’ Annales (Enn.
ann. 175–9 Skutsch). Macrobius (Macr. Sat. 6.2.27) provides us with these lines,
specifically ascribing them to Annales 6 and juxtaposing them with Verg. Aen.
6.179–82, where trees are cut down for the funeral pyre of Misenus. We do not know
the narrative context in the Annales, but it is a reasonable inference on the basis
of Macrobius’ citation that these lines from Ennius describe funeral preparations
and that Vergil repurposed this narrative context for his use of the topos at Verg.
Aen. 6.179–82. Since we know that these lines came from Book 6 of the Annales, we
could then assume that this topos describes funeral preparations during the war
with Pyrrhus of Epirus. What Ennius appears to have contributed to the history
of this trope are the onomatopoeic effects that he achieves through alliteration
and assonance (e.g. Enn. ann. 178–9 Skutsch pinus proceras peruortunt: omne
sonabat / arbustum fremitu siluai frondosai). While he seems to have developed
and expanded these features from the Homeric original (Hom. Il. 23.116 πολλὰ
δ᾿ἄναντα κάταντα πάραντά τε δόχμιά τ᾿ἦλθον), they became primary markers of
allusion to Ennius (e.g. Accius, Annales 4 Courtney, whose narrative context is
completely unrecoverable) in subsequent deployments of the topos.
Vergil provides two instances of this topos in the Aeneid (Verg. Aen. 6.179–85
and 11.135–8), both in the context of gathering wood for funeral preparations.
The allusive aspects of these Vergilian passages have already been thoroughly
discussed by Hinds (1998).³⁷ I would only add to his trenchant discussion that
Vergil self-consciously highlights his appropriation of both Homer and Ennius and
that he does so both times in an aetiological context (Misenus’ funeral location
explains a toponym; the funerals in Aeneid 11 are part of the war that will ultimately
allow Aeneas Romanam condere gentem (1.33). These two facts underscore the
causal interaction between mythology and history that I have been tracing in the
epic tradition, but that also finds its perfect instantiation in Vergil’s Aeneid as a
whole.
36 On Greek and Roman epyllia, see Finkmann and Hömke in this volume.
37 Cf. Hinds (1998, 10–14).
In the period between the Aeneid and the Flavian epicists, we find the tree-
felling topos deployed in novel ways by both Ovid and Lucan. This novelty is a
reflection of the innovative, albeit differently innovative, epics composed by these
two poets. In the Metamorphoses, as part of his narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice,
Ovid completely reverses the basic logic of the tree-felling topos, while signalling
via narrative cues that this is precisely what he is doing (Ov. met. 10.90–108). After
losing Eurydice for a second time, Orpheus mourns her for three years (10.79–82).
Such lamentation is a regular part of epic funerals going back to Hector’s funeral
in Iliad 24. On this Homeric model, the felling of trees for the construction of the
pyre should follow Orpheus’ lamentation. Of course, this is not possible in the
case of Eurydice. In the place of the tree-felling topos that the reader coming from
the epic tradition might be expecting, however, we find an elaborate catalogue of
trees (Ov. met. 10.90–108).³⁸ True to Ovid’s manipulation of the structural elements
of epic poetry, this passage can be seen to conflate two different structures: the cat-
alogue and lumberjacking.³⁹ Only, instead of cutting trees down, Orpheus creates
a spectacularly impossible configuration that combines trees that cannot actually
grow in the same localities. It is fitting that Orpheus, the archetypal poet and an
especially poetological character in the Metamorphoses, is the figure who gathers
together all of these trees into a new, impossible grove, cobbling together with
his song an elaborate silua made up of all manner of epic “material”. Especially
Ovidian is the fact that many of these trees (e.g. Daphne, the innuba Laurus at 10.92)
feature in stories of metamorphosis elsewhere in the poem. In any case, Ovid may
signal his appropriation of the tree-felling topos here by beginning his catalogue
with the oak, which he calls Chaonis arbor (10.90). The loaded epithet Chaonis
refers to the oak’s location in Epirus, and we remember that Ennius’ introduction
of the topos into Latin epic occurred in Annales 6 during the narrative of the war
with Pyrrhus of Epirus.
After these Ovidian innovations, Lucan similarly deploys the tree-felling topos
in an unconventional way in the Bellum Ciuile. As part of his narrative of the
Siege of Massilia, Lucan tells how Caesar desecrates a holy grove in order to build
a rampart (Lucan. 3.399–445).⁴⁰ The funereal associations of this topos remain
implicit in Lucan’s narrative. That this rampart eventually is engulfed in flames and
38 Hinds (2002, 127) takes this catalogue as an aetiology of the locus amoenus.
39 There may be a link in this respect with the opening of Catullus 64. In general, cf. Schubert
(1984).
40 On this scene in Lucan, which is modelled on Ovid’s Erysichthon’s (Ov. met. 8.741–76) similar
desecration of Ceres’ grove, see Phillips (1968, 298–9), Masters (1992, 25–9), and Leigh (1999).
Lucan prepares for this disruption of the topos at 2.669–79, where Caesar uses trees to obstruct the
departure of Pompey.
anticipates the funeral Pompey never will receive underscores the displacement of
the traditional associations of tree-felling in Lucan’s handling of the trope.⁴¹ The
metapoetic valences of the trope are also operative in Lucan, as the desecration of
the grove can be seen to parallel the desecration of the epic tradition itself.⁴²
The Flavian epicists appear to return to a more traditional deployment of the
tree-felling motif, even as they continue to highlight their own innovations. In the
Flavian Argonautica (Val. Fl. 3.163–5), the topos occurs in the context of the battle
with Cyzicus, but Valerius displaces the topos into a simile that describes Her-
cules laying his opponents low like so much lumber. Statius (Stat. Theb. 6.90–117)
includes the topos as part of the funeral preparations for Opheltes that initiate
the Nemean Games. Of the extant instances of this topos that pertain to funeral
preparations, Statius’ is the most elaborate, including an assortment of trees that
rivals Ovid’s catalogue. At 6.99 (Chaoniumque nemus brumaeque illaesa Cupressus,
“the Chaonian grove and the cypress, unharmed in winter”), Statius could be seen
to signal through window allusion his command over the entire epic history of the
tree-felling topos, appropriating Ovid’s possible nod to Ennius’ use of the topos as
the first in Latin epic (Chaoniumque nemus) in the same line that he mentions the
cypress, the tree whose metamorphosis provides the narrative context for Ovid’s
tree catalogue (Ov. met. 10.86–147). Statius thus can be seen to delineate a literary
tradition for his use of the topos that includes the foundational epic of Ennius, as
well as the more experimental epic of Ovid. One conclusion that such a delineation
suggests is that Statius aspires to culminate the entire tradition of Latin epic in this
passage and the poetic materies that he incorporates in his version of the topos
includes both historical and mythological epic. Finally, Silius Italicus includes one
instance of this topos at Sil. 10.529–39, where Hannibal has his soldiers cut down
trees to build the funeral pyre for the Carthaginian war-dead after Cannae. Silius
appears to return to the Homeric model, even as he signals his own connection
to the literary past with the metapoetic comment about the ilex (“holm oak”) that
it is proauorum consita saeclo (“sown in the age of our great-grandfathers”, Sil.
10.532), all while alluding specifically to language that occurs in Vergil’s handling
of the topos, which itself derives from Ennius (Sil. 10.531 scinditur; Verg. Aen. 6.182
frangitur: Enn. ann. 177 Skutsch).⁴³
My diachronic analysis of this trope shows that tree-felling becomes part
of the epic action regardless of any mythological or historical content. What is
primarily operative is the implication that such lumberjacking is part of funeral
41 Cf. esp. Masters (1992, 26–7) and most recently Kersten (2018, 68–97).
42 Cf. Masters (1992, 29): “all poetic writing, in Lucan’s vision, is an impious war.”
43 Cf. Littlewood (2017, 207–9). Von Albrecht (1964, 162–3) rejects the idea that Silius was directly
influenced by Ennius here.
preparations. It is important to note that the Odyssean model where the tree-felling
motif is used for ship-building is productive only in the epyllion. Second, this topos
continues to serve as an intertextual locus where each subsequent poet can position
himself in the tradition of epic poetry. The novel deployments of the motif by Ovid
and Lucan only underscore their innovation in this tradition. We justly focus on
the generic abnormalities of the Metamorphoses and Bellum Ciuile, but, outside
of the context provided by the epic tradition, such abnormalities might not be
recognised as such. As a result, it is clear that the tree-felling topos provides us with
good evidence that the structural elements of epic themselves were not deployed
differently in mythological epic compared to historical epic. In fact, the use of
this topos uniformly underscores the equivalence to poets in the epic tradition
between mythological epic and historical epic. Such a similarity corresponds with
the other considerations in this paper regarding the interaction of myth and history
throughout the Graeco-Roman epic tradition.
Tab. 1: Greek historical epic (Overview)
Author Date (BC) Title
Choerilus of Samos 5th c. Persica (historical epic on the Persian Wars; see
Supplementum Hellenisticum 314–23)
Nicaenetus of Samos/Abdera 3rd c. Lyrcus (historical epic on Caunus; 10 lines
preserved, Collectanea Alexandrina 1–2)
Phaestus 3rd c. (?) Lacedaemonica (Macedonica?) (1 line remains;
CA 28 and SH 316–7)
Apollonius of Rhodes mid-3rd c. Canobus (3 lines); The Founding of Alexandria
(title only); The Founding of Caunus (5 lines);
The Founding of Cnidus (title only); The
Founding of Naucratis (6–7 lines); The Founding
of Rhodes (2 lines); The Founding of Lesbos (21
lines); see CA 4–8
Agis the Argive 3rd c. (?) Epic poem about Alexander the Great (SH 6–7)
Anaximenes of Lampsacus 3rd c. (?) Epic poem about Alexander the Great (SH 18)
Hegemon of Alexandria Troas 3rd c. (?) Epic poem on the Leuctrian War (title only); SH
236–7
Simonides of Magnesia late 3rd c. Epic poem about Antiochus I and the Battle
against the Galatians (SH 349)
Demosthenes of Bithynia early 2nd c. Bithyniaca (at least 10 books, only about 10
lines of which survive; see CA 25–7)
Rhianus of Crete early 2nd c. Heraclea (1 line); Thessalica (15 lines); Achaica
(4 lines); Eliaca (2 lines); Messeniaca (5 lines);
see CA 9–18 and SH 346–7
Hyperochus of Cumae 2rd c. (?) Cumaica (only testimonia); see SH 249–50
Idaeus of Rhodes 2nd c. (?) Rhodiaca (title only); see SH 250
Philo the Elder 2nd c. Around 20 lines of an epic poem on the history
of Jerusalem (SH 328–31)
Theodotus late 2nd c. Epic poem on Jewish history (c. 45 lines; see SH
360–5)
Nicander of Colophon late 2nd c. Colophoniaca (title only, possibly a prose work);
Oetaica (at least 2 books; 4 lines remain);
Thebaica (at least 3 books; 2 lines remain);
Sicelia (at least 8 books; 2 lines remain);
Europia (at least 5 books; 7 lines remain)
Aulus Licinius Archias 1st c. Epic poems on the Cimbrian Wars (Cic. Arch.
9.19); on the War with Mithridates, definitely in
Greek (Cic. Arch. 9.21; Cic. Att. 1.16.15); on the
deeds of Metellus (Cic. Arch. 10.25; Cic. Att.
1.16.15)
Thyillus mid-1st c. Country of the Eumolpidae (Cic. ad Att. 1.9.2; SH
366)
Tab. 2: Latin historical epic (Overview)
Author Date (BC/AD) Title
Gnaeus Naevius end of 3rd c. Bellum Poenicum (Saturnian meter; 7 books); see
Blänsdorf/Büchner/Morel (3 1995)
Hostius late 2nd c. Bellum Histricum (?) (at least 3 books; 7 lines remain);
probably on the Istrian War of 129 BC; see
Vinchesi (1984), Courtney (1993, 52–5), and Casali
(2006, 591–3)
Accius late 2nd c. Annales (7 or 27 books; subject matter difficult to
discern; 12 lines remain); see Courtney (1993, 56–60)
Furius Antias early 1st c. Epic poem, possibly on the Cimbrian War fought by
Catulus (6 lines remain); see Courtney (1993, 97–8)
Cicero mid-1st c. De Consulato Suo (3 books; c. 80 lines remain); De
Temporibus Suis (3 books; no lines extant, though
some discussion of the subject matter in the letters
and subsequent authors; cf. Harrison, 1990); see
Courtney (1993, 149–78)
Furius Bibaculus mid-1st c. Annales Belli Gallici (at least 11 books originally; 14
lines remain); probably on Julius Caesar’s Gallic
expedition; see Courtney (1993, 192–200)
Varro Atacinus mid-1st c. Bellum Sequanicum (at least 2 books; 1 or maybe 2
lines remain); on Julius Caesar’s campaign against
Ariovistus in 58 BC; see Courtney (1993, 235–8)
Volusius mid-1st c. Annales (cacata charta, mentioned in Catull. 36)
Hortensius (?) mid-1st c. Annales (possibly mentioned alongside Volusius in
Catull. 95, which, however, is a notoriously difficult
crux)
Albinovanus Pedo Augustan Period Epic poem on Germanicus (23 hexameters, no title);
see Sen. suas. 1.15 and Courtney (1993, 315–19)
Cornelius Severus Augustan Period Res Romanae (at least one book); Bellum Siculum;
Carmen Regale (?): total of 40 hexameters; see
Courtney (1993, 320–8)
Rabirius Augustan Period 6 hexameters of historical epic that featured Mark
Antony; see Courtney (1993, 332–3).
Anon. Augustan Period Carmen De Bello Actiaco (papyrus containing 67
hexameters on the war against Mark Antony and
Cleopatra); see Courtney (1993, 334–40)
Anon. Augustan Period Ov. Pont. 4.16.23 quique acies Libycas Romanaque
proelia dixit
Lucan 39–65 AD Bellum Ciuile (10 books, incomplete); see
Shackleton Bailey (1997)
Silius Italicus 26–101 AD Punica (17 books, complete); see Delz (1987)
Claudian 370–404 AD De Bello Gildonico; De Bello Gothico; see Hall (1985)
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Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano
Didactic and epic: origins, continuity, and
interactions
Abstract: This chapter explores the continuity, flexibility, and limits of genre clas-
sification between the hexameter genres of didactic and epic, and the interfer-
ences between didactic and epic poetry with regard to structural patterns and
type-scenes.
The first section of the chapter explores the origins and the definitions of the
didactic genre. Parallels with Near-Eastern instructional texts encourage us to
consider its origins within the wider context of wisdom literature. Ancient sources
do not provide a univocal definition of didactic poetry, but rather focus on some
key features, such as meter, theme, intent, and author–addressee relationship.
Most modern critics follow the same pattern; however, new critical perspectives
have begun to shed light both on critical phases in the development of didactic
poetry and on its fluid boundaries, in close relationship (and reciprocal influence)
with other poetic genres but also with didactic prose.
After some introductory remarks on the coexistence and interaction of dif-
ferent types of didactic poetry from Hesiod to Roman authors up to the end of
the first century AD, the second section of the chapter offers an overview of the
presence of the addressee in Greek and Roman didactic poetry in chronological
order. The discussion will focus on the following structural patterns: the presence
of the addressee within the text, his relationship with the poetic persona, and the
performative value of the didactic works.
The third and final section of the chapter uses illustrative examples of epic
structures and formulas to explore the effect of the epic genre on didactic poetry,
and, to a lesser extent, the reverse. The discussion explores the blurring of the
boundaries between the two genres as well as the artful, even didactic, use of
repetitions and formulas in epic poetry from Homer onwards.
* In this contribution, each co-author was responsible for several sub-sections of the chapter.
Manuel Galzerano wrote sections 1–6, Giulia Fanti sections 7–9, and Abigail Buglass sections 10–11,
for which grateful thanks go to Gavin Kelly and Michael Lurie for numerous helpful suggestions
and comments. The authors are indebted to the editors for their invaluable feedback as well as to
Alessandro Schiesaro for his comments and guidance from the outset.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492590-010
214 | Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano
1 Introduction
In antiquity didactic poetry¹ was mainly understood as a form of hexameter poetry,²
designed to instruct on a specific field of knowledge, which sometimes even entails
the reader’s moral enhancement. Most modern critics agree that didactic poetry
cannot be defined as a genre, but rather as a subgenre within epic poetry.³ The
modern canon⁴ includes the most remarkable examples of classical didactic poetry:
on the Greek side, Hesiod’s Works and Days, the physical poems (Περὶ φύσεως)
written by the Pre-Socratic philosophers, Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedo-
cles,⁵ Aratus’ Phaenomena, and Nicander’s Theriaca and Alexipharmaca;⁶ on the
Latin side, Ennius’ Hedyphagetica, the tradition of translations of Aratus’ poem
(Cicero, Germanicus, and Avienus), Lucretius’ De rerum natura, Vergil’s Georgics,
Ovid’s Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, Medicamina faciei femineae, and Halieutica,
Manilius’ Astronomica, Grattius’ Cynegetica, the Aetna, and Columella’s Garden.⁷
2 Near-Eastern and Egyptian forerunners

It is useful to consider the origin of Greek didactic poetry within the wider con-
text of ‘wisdom literature’.⁸ Hesiod’s Works and Days, the first extant example
1 ‘Didactic poetry’ is a modern definition, which does not have a parallel in antiquity; see Effe
(1977, 9–25) and Toohey (1996, 2). As Sider (2014, 18) argues, “it may come as a surprise to learn
that they never actually used the adjective διδακτικός to modify ποίημα or ποίησις, and in fact
it is not clear when the term ‘didactic poetry’, in any language, was first used.” Cf. Sider (2014,
14–15). See also Fowler (1982, 106–11) and Volk (2002, 42–3).
2 See Kroll (1925, 1851–3), Effe (1977, 184–6), and Sider (2014, 28–9) on non-hexametric didactic
poetry.
3 See Pavese (1998, 86) and Ercolani (2010, 34–5) for a wide definition of epic poetry.
4 This list includes only the most influential didactic poems, excluding other relevant poems
such as Callimachus’ Aetia, Horace’s Ars poetica, or Ovid’s Fasti and Metamorphoses, whose
incorporation in the list of didactic poems has been the subject of debate. For a more comprehensive
list of authors and works, see Kroll (1925), Pöhlmann (1973), Effe (1977), and Sider (2014, 28–9).
5 For an overview of the debate about the existence of a single Empedoclean poem or rather two
poems, Καθαρμοί (“Purifications”) and Περὶ φύσεως (“On Nature”), see Petrovic/Petrovic (2016,
79–80).
6 For Nicander’s other didactic poems, see Magnelli (2010, 211–13).
7 On Latin didactic poems in Late Antiquity (e.g. Avienus’ Ora maritima and Periegesis, Teren-
tianus Maurus’ De litteris, De syllabis, De metris, and Nemesianus’ Cynegetica), see Effe (1977) and
Toohey (1996, 194–211).
8 Cf. the introduction to Greek wisdom literature in Ercolani (2010, 39–44 with bibliography).
of Greek didactic poetry,⁹ “shows noteworthy affinities with the long-established

wisdom traditions of the Near East.”¹⁰ Works of exhortation and instruction have
been composed in Mesopotamia since the early second millennium BC and in
the Egyptian tradition from the time of the Old Kingdom onwards.¹¹ Regarding
Mesopotamian tradition,¹² it is worth mentioning The Sumerian Agricultural Hand-
book (early second millennium BC), The Sumerian Instructions of Suruppag (18th
century BC), The Father to His Misguided Son, the Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom
(second half of the second millennium BC [?]), and The Book of Ahiqar (fifth century
BC). Relevant examples for the Egyptian tradition of books for instruction are: The
Maxims of Ptahhotep (Old Kingdom), The Eloquent Peasant (Middle Kingdom),
The Instructions of Ipuwar (New Kingdom), The Instructions of Amenemope (13th
century BC), and The Instructions of Onchsheshonqy (first millennium BC).¹³ It is
also useful to consider the Hebrew tradition, in particular The Book of Proverbs
(probably written in the fifth century BC, but reusing older texts) and The Book of
Amos (eighth century BC).¹⁴
The parallels between Hesiod’s poem and Near-Eastern wisdom literature em-
brace the following aspects of both form and content:¹⁵ a less or more fictitious
narrative setting,¹⁶ the importance of the relationship between teacher and ad-
9 See West (1997, 306). For other didactic poems attributed to Hesiod (in particular, the Great
Works, the Precepts of Chiron, and the Astronomy) and for Greek gnomic poetry (Phocylides and
Theognis), see West (1978, 22–5) and Ercolani (2010, 17). On the question of Hesiod’s identity and
poetic persona as well as the definition of his work as a literary or oral product, see Blümer (2005)
and Ercolani (2010, 15–16).
10 West (1978, 27–30). The relationship between Hesiod’s Works and Days and Near-East literature
was already suggested by Dornseiff (1934). For a history of the debate about Near-Eastern influence
on Hesiod’s poem, see Schmitz (2004, 311–19).
11 Cf. West (1978, 12).
12 See Walcot (1966), West (1978, 3–7), West (1997, 307–33), and Rutherford (2009, 17–19). For
other Akkadian wisdom texts comparable with Hesiod’s Works and Days, see Haubold (2013, 57)
and Haubold in volume III.
13 Cf. Lichtheim (1973, 134–5), West (1978, 8–13), and Dieleman/Moyer (2010, 437); for a com-
parison of ancient Egyptian didactic language with Greek narrative works, see Lazaridis (2009,
67–87).
14 See West (1978, 12–13) and Rutherford (2009, 18–19).
15 Cf. Ercolani (2010, 39–41). The situation is far from clear for the mythical accounts of the Four
Ages of Man, Prometheus, and Pandora in Hesiod’s poem. Rutherford (2009, 19–20) convincingly
argues against West (1997, 310–19) that “they are just as likely to be the result of a more general
cultural diffusion and some of them may not be the result of borrowing at all.”
16 See West (1978, 34) and Stoddard (2004, 17–19).
dressee,¹⁷ the presence of moral precepts,¹⁸ the use of myths and fables to instruct
the reader,¹⁹ and the possibility of displaying ‘tones’, peculiar to other genres, such
as complaint and prophecy.²⁰
As Rutherford (2009, 19–20) claims, the similarities between the Works and
Days and these texts are most likely “due to a cultural koine in this region,”²¹
“to the transmission of literary forms, narratives and motifs,”²² or “the reflection
of underlying similarities in the political and social structures of the cultures in
question.”²³ Unlike the Homeric poems and Hesiod’s Theogony,²⁴ there is no evi-
dence of a direct relationship between Hesiod’s Works and Days and any particular
Near-Eastern Egyptian works.²⁵ However, as Canevaro (2015, 37) highlights, “it
is not the possibility of direct influence that makes such comparisons so fruitful,
but the glimpse they give into a pre-existent tradition.” Whereas there is no con-
sensus about how and to what extent Near-Eastern wisdom literature influenced
Greek didactic literature, it is generally agreed that Hesiod’s Works and Days shows
original features, corresponding to a particular social and cultural context, which
is different from the Near-Eastern tradition.²⁶ Therefore, Near-Eastern influence,
regardless of its impact, is not passively absorbed, but reworked and reshaped to
fit into a new, Greek context.
17 Cf. West (1997, 306–8). In the ‘didactic’ tradition of the Near East, the addressee can either be
a member of the family (usually a son) or a ruler. The speaker has often suffered injustice from
the addressee and is therefore indignant (see, e.g., The Complaints of the Peasant, Instructions of
Onchsheshonqy) while the addressee can be depicted as a scoundrel in need of correction and
personal exhortation, leading a dissipated life (see, e.g., The Father and His Misguided Son).
18 See West (1997, 324–8). The speaker often shares moral precepts, generally using sententious
speech and proverbs (e.g. Instructions of Shuruppaq, Counsels of Wisdom, Instructions of Amen-
emope, Proverbs), including warnings against unjust gain (e.g., Instructions of Amenemope), and
injustice in the division of inheritances (e.g., Maxims of Ptahhotep).
19 See, for example, The Instructions of Shuruppaq and The Book of Ahiqar.
20 Cf. Dieleman/Moyer (2010, 439). Didactic texts may include non-didactic sections and didactic
sections may also be found in non-didactic works.
21 See Penglase (1994, 4–5), Burkert (2005, 300–1) referring to Homeric poems, but potentially
valid also for Hesiodic poems, and Haubold (2013).
22 On myths in Hesiod’s Works and Days, see Rutherford (2009, 20–2).
23 Nelson (2005, 335) considers the Greek didactic tradition as the autochthonous “reflection of a
long peasant tradition”; some aspects could even derive directly from an original Indo-European
tradition; see West (1978, 26) and West (2007, 71).
24 Cf. Haubold (2002), Burkert (2005, 297), and Rutherford (2009, 22–35).
25 See Rutherford (2009, 22) and Lazaridis (2016, 200–2).
26 Cf. Schmitz (2004, 329–30) and Ercolani (2010, 34–5). As Volk (2002, 44–5) puts it, “while the
tradition of Wisdom Literature thus sheds light on a number of features of the Works and Days . . . ,
it is not sufficient to explain all its characteristics.”
3 Ancient definitions
It is not possible to propose a univocal definition for what modern critics call
“didactic poetry”,²⁷ but following Poehlmann’s subdivision,²⁸ ancient testimonies
about didactic poetry can be divided into four groups:
1. Didactic poetry as a borderline case of epic poetry:²⁹ according to this inter-
pretation, meter is the hallmark of poetry. Therefore, as a type of hexameter
poetry, didactic poetry is incorporated into the wider genre of epic. Quintil-
ian’s list of hexameter poetry and its authors, for instance, includes not only
didactic but also epic-cosmologic and pastoral poetry (Quint. inst. 10.1.46–56
and 10.85–92).³⁰
2. Didactic poetry as an example of a non-poetic, or only formally poetic, genre:³¹
the locus classicus is Aristotle’s famous statement in the Poetics,³² accord-
ing to which, the hexameter is the only point of contact between Homer and
Empedocles. Therefore, only Homer would be considered a real poet, whereas
Empedocles would rather be classified as a natural philosopher.³³ Their simi-
larity is only formal,³⁴ because genuine poetry cannot be ἀμίμητος (without
μίμησις). Aristotle’s statement demonstrates how most of his contemporaries
conversely considered Empedocles’ hexameters as an example of ἐποποιία.³⁵
Likewise, in his essay De Pythiae oraculis Plutarch includes Hesiod in his list
of philosophers (402e8–a3): Orpheus, Hesiod, Parmenides, and Empedocles
are not poets, but philosophers, who used poetry to enhance their message.
The same can be said about astrological poetry, which can also be traced back
to Hesiod’s model. Plutarch makes an analogous statement in De audiendis
poetis 16c3–d1: Empedocles, Parmenides, Nicander, and Theognis used verses
27 See Effe (1977, 9–25) and Conte (1991, 118). For a general introduction to and interpretation of
didactic poetry, cf. Riffaterre (1972, 15–30).
28 See Pöhlmann (1973, 816–35).
29 Cf. Pöhlmann (1973, 820–5): “Das Lehrgedicht, ein Grenzfall des Epos.”
30 Cf. also Manil. 2.1–48.
31 Cf. Pöhlmann (1973, 816–20): “Das Lehrgedicht als Musterfall einer unpoetischen Gattung.”
32 Cf. Arist. Po. 1447b16–20. Plato draws a similar distinction between philosophers (οἱ σοφοί)
such as Parmenides and Empedocles and poets (οἱ ποιηταί) such as Homer (Pl. Tht. 152e). See
Fabian (1968, 68).
33 See Obbink (1993, 51 n. 4) for a different interpretation (with bibliography). Obbink argues
that Aristotle does not deny Empedocles the status of poet, but simply classifies him as “a non-
representational poet read allegorically.”
34 In the Περὶ ποιητῶν (fr. 1 Ross = D.L. 8.57), Aristotle praises Empedocles defining him as
῾Ωμηρικός with reference to his language and style. Cf. Fabian (1968, 69).
35 Cf. Martin (2005, 11).
as a means to ennoble their non-poetical contents.³⁶ The same opinion is

expressed in the scholia to the Hellenistic grammarian Dionysius Thrax (Gram-
matici Graeci, vol. I, pars 3, Hilgard, 1901, 166.13–15 and 168.8–12): didactic
(Empedocles), parenetic (Tyrtaeus), and astronomic authors are not authentic
poets because their poetry is ἄμυθος (such as the Pythia’s prophecies).³⁷ An
echo of this interpretation also appears in Lactantius (Lact. inst. 2.13) who
extended its application to Empedocles’ Latin heirs, Lucretius and Varro.³⁸
3. The poetic nature of didactic poetry and its non-mimetic character:³⁹ this
interpretation appears in the Tractatus Coislinianus (derived from an early
peripatetic tradition), which contrasts ‘mimetic’ with ‘non-mimetic’ poetry (di-
vided into didactic/παιδευτική and historical/ἱστορική). Didactic poetry can
be divided into expositive (ὑφηγητική) and theoretical (θεωρητική) poetry,
including both Hesiod and physical poets (Empedocles and Parmenides).⁴⁰
Similarly, in the Scholia ad Hesiodum, Hesiod is named as an example of ‘diege-
matic’ poetry, that is, a text in which only the poet speaks.⁴¹ Diomedes’ De
poematibus refers to this kind of poetry as enarratiuum uel enuntiatiuum (trans-
lating the Greek ἐξηγητικόν and ἀπαγγελτικόν),⁴² subdividing it into three
types: ἀγγελτική (containing sententiae and chriae, like Theognis’ Elegies),
ἱστορική (containing enarrationes and genealogiae, such as Hesiod’s Catalogue
of Women) and διδασκαλική (containing Empedocles’ and Lucretius’ philo-
sophical poetry, Aratus and Cicero’s astronomic poetry, and Vergil’s georgic
poetry).⁴³
36 The same opinion about didactic poetry as a versification of non-poetic content appears in Cic.
de orat. 1.69, Lucr. 1.932–50, and Verg. georg. 3.290.
37 Cf. Wöhrle (1993). Cic. de orat. 1.217 shares the same opinion, with one noteworthy exception:
Empedocles’ egregium poema. However, Cicero also considered Aratus, Nicander, and Lucretius
as examples of great poetry; cf. Cic. de orat. 1.69 and Cic. ad Q. fr. 2.9.3.
38 See Fabian (1968, 70).
39 Cf. Pöhlmann (1973, 825–32): “Das Lehrgedicht, der Typus amimetischer Dichtung.”
40 Cf. Fabian (1968, 71) and Sider (2014, 15–16). See also Volk (2002, 41) on the difference between
instructional-expositive and theoretical didactic poetry in the Tractatus Coislinianus.
41 Cf. Poetae minores Graeci, vol. II, Gaisford (1823, 5.9–10): καὶ διηγηματικὸν μέν ἐστιν ἐν ᾧ ὁ
ποιητὴς μόνος φαίνεται φθεγγόμενος. As for the classification of poetry in three characters (δρα-
ματικόν; διηγηματικόν; μικτόν), cf. Scholia in Theocritum uetera, Wendel (1914, 11): in ‘diegematic’
poetry, the person of the poet is always present (τὸ διόλου ἐμφαῖνον) and there are no other
characters (λόγος ἄνευ προσωποποιίας).
42 Diom. gramm. 1.482.17–25 Keil. About Diomedes’ sources, in particular Suetonius’ De poetis,
but also Varro and Theophrastus, see Pöhlmann (1973, 830–2).
43 Diom. gramm. 1.482.30–483.3 Keil. Contra Vesperini (2015, 25–6 n. 1), who underlines that the
distinctions in Diomedes’ scheme were not universally recognised.
4. The key elements of didactic poetry:⁴⁴ the most important example is Servius’
definition of didactic poems⁴⁵ (libri didascalici) as works addressed to someone
(ad aliquem) in order to instruct him, thus requiring two personae: the teacher
(doctoris persona) and the pupil (discipuli persona), who usually is a persona
muta.⁴⁶ This interpretation underlines the importance of the didactic intention
whereas meter is only a medium.⁴⁷
4 Did ancient poets have a notion of a ‘didactic

(sub)genre’?
4.1 Greek poets
Literary sources from the Archaic and Classical Age do not explicitly distinguish
‘didactic poetry’ as a separate genre.⁴⁸ Conversely, passages such as Aristophanes’
Frogs (Ar. Ra. 685–6 and 1030–6) suggest that, in this period – mainly charac-
terised by an oral culture⁴⁹ – all the poets are equally considered as “teachers of
mankind.”⁵⁰ However, the absence of written evidence and an explicit definition
of didactic poetry does not mean that ancients did not perceive the differences
44 This is a partial re-interpretation of Pöhlmann’s category “Das Lehrgedicht zwischen Fachbuch

und Dichtung”.
45 Fabian (1968, 74) notes that since Late Antiquity, the Georgics have been considered an example
of useful poetry, aimed at teaching (docere) in contrast to the Bucolics, an example of playful
poetry aimed at entertaining (delectare).
46 Cf. Serv. georg. praef. 129 Thilo. See also Philarg. Verg. ecl. praef. 4.8–15 Hagen, Verg. georg.
praef. 195.1–5 Hagen, and Scholia uetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies, Pertusi (1955, 3). Contra Vesperini
(2015, 25–69).
47 See Scholia uetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies, Pertusi (1955, 1). The same opinion is expressed in
Proclus’ first scholion to Hesiod’s Works and Days (Procl. ad Hes. Op. 1.1–18, Marzillo, 2010, ad loc.,
n. 3). On Proclus’ classification of Hesiod’s Works and Days as an educational text (παιδευτικός),
see van den Berg (2014). In fact, in the sixth essay of his Commentary on the Republic (Procl. in
R. 1.177.7–9.32) Proclus ranks didactic poetry as ‘middle-class poetry’ between superior poetry
(divinely inspired) and inferior (mimetic) poetry. See van den Berg (2014, 393).
48 Cf. Conte (1991, 118–20) and Sider (2014, 17–22).
49 Cf. Pavese (1998, 85–6) and Ercolani (2010, 17, 26–9, and 44–9). Orality explains another
feature of Hesiod’s poem, absent in later didactic literature, i.e. the formal discontinuity and lack
of coherence. See also Bakker in this volume.
50 Cf. Pl. Ion 540d, Pl. Phdr. 245a, and Hdt. 2.53. See also Schuler/Fitch (1983, 6), Martin (2005,
15), and Nelson (2005, 335). For didactic intentions in archaic elegy (e.g. Tyrtaeus and Theognis),
cf. Sider (2014, 18).
between Homer and Hesiod: the “implicit laws” of didactic poetry could have been
universally acknowledged and respected.⁵¹ A list of these characterising features
could include: the hexameter, a standard length, the existence of a teacher-student
constellation, involving the presence of particular forms (e.g. imperatives), and an
explicit instructional aim.⁵²
The Hellenistic Age represents a crucial phase in the development of the iden-
tity of didactic poetry. First, Hesiod is explicitly recognised as the ‘father’ of didactic
poetry.⁵³ Callimachus calls Aratus a ‘new Hesiod’ (Call. epigr. 27 Pfeiffer = AP 9.507
῾Ησιόδου τό τ’ ἄεισμα καὶ ὁ τρόπος, “The rhythm and the manner are Hesiod’s.”⁵⁴)
with reference to the Work and Days.⁵⁵ In the Aetia Callimachus himself gives spe-
cial attention to Hesiod’s ‘didactic’ model.⁵⁶ Similarly, Nicander shows a profound
debt to Hesiod and Aratus,⁵⁷ who will remain a point of reference for later Greek
didactic poetry, from Dionysius to the two Oppians, covering new topics of instruc-
tion such as geography, hunting, and fishing.⁵⁸ The Hellenistic Age brings about
another innovation: the new hexameter poems are aimed at versifying didactic
literature in prose on technical issues, a genre that had reached its definitive pinna-
cle.⁵⁹ This development would give priority to the poet’s technical skills,⁶⁰ which
become prominent, weakening the strong ethical intent of archaic and classical
didactic poets.
51 Cf. Rossi (1971), Heath (1985, 11 n. 29), Conte (1991, 12–18), and Canevaro (2015, 124–5).
52 See Toohey (1996, 3), who underlines that, following the Hesiodic model, most of the didactic
poems “preserve the single-book format and their lengths are generally in the 500–1000 vv. range.”
On book lengths and divisions in epic poetry, cf. Bitto and Zissos in this volume.
53 For a definition of genre as imitation of a literary ‘father figure’, see Rosenmeyer (1985, 81–2)
and esp. Conte (1991, 17): “genre means, after all, family.” See also Hunter (2014, 40–122). The
thematic contrast between Homer and Hesiod was enhanced by the progressive depiction of Homer
as a ‘poet of war’ (with reference to the Iliad) and of Hesiod as a ‘poet of peace’, giving advice to
common people. Cf. the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi and Ercolani (2010, 15–16).
54 This translation of Callimachus is taken from Paton (1917).
55 On the influence of Hesiod’s Work and Days on Aratus’ poem as well as Menecrates of Ephesus,
see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 11), Fakas (2001), Volk (2010, 199), and Sider (2014, 23).
56 Cf. Reinsch-Werner (1976): “Callimachus Hesiodicus.” See also Sistakou (2009) and Harder
(2010, 92).
57 Cf. Magnelli (2010, 216–18) and Hunter (2014, 20).
58 A list of late antique didactic poems is provided by Toohey (1996, 208–9).
59 For instance, Aratus’ poem is a versification of Eudoxus’ prose text. See also Sider (2014, 22–3).
60 Archestratus’ Hedypatheia (late fourth century BC) shows the existence of a parodic type of
Hellenistic didactic poetry as an alternative to the higher Aratean model. On this ‘gastronomical
Baedeker’, see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 11–12).
4.2 Latin poets
The influence of Greek didactic poetry on Latin literature is first testified in the sec-
ond century BC, with Ennius’ Hedyphagetica, a translation of Archestratus’ parodic
gastronomic poem Hedypatheia, and the first example of Latin hexameter poetry.⁶¹
However, the most influential Greek didactic poet for Latin literature is Aratus who
inspired a Latin tradition of Aratea (Cicero, Germanicus, and Avienus).⁶² At the
same time, Latin didactic poetry also revived Empedocles’ model of both philosoph-
ical and prophetic-didactic poetry about the nature of the universe (natura rerum
or rerum causae). The most distinguished example is Lucretius’ De rerum natura,
in which the poet introduces himself as a ‘new Empedocles’ (Lucr. 1.716–41).⁶³
Similarly, Vergil’s Georgics (Verg. georg. 4.6–7) are greatly influenced both by the
Empedoclean-Lucretian model and by Aratus-Nicander in addition to its main
model, Hesiod (Verg. georg. 2.176 Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen,
“and through Roman towns to sing the song of Ascra”).⁶⁴
Latin authors clearly distinguished between different types of didactic poetry.
On the one hand, Ov. trist. 2.471–91 reveals the existence of a parodic-playful type
of didactic poetry, teaching practical activities (from sports to board games), but
actually meant to entertain the readers (2.491 talia luduntur fumoso mense Decem-
bri, “Such playful verses as these are written in smoky December”⁶⁵). Ovid’s Ars
amatoria, Remedia amoris, and Medicamina can also be included in this list.⁶⁶ On
the other hand, authors recognise the existence of a high-level epic didactic poetry,
treating cosmology, natural phenomena, and their causes,⁶⁷ referring primarily to
Hesiod and Empedocles.⁶⁸ Inserts of this kind of poetry appear in recusationes (e.g.
Prop. 3.5.25–46) as well as in special sections of non-didactic works (e.g. Silenus’
61 On archaic Latin didactic poetry, see Kruschwitz (2005).

62 About the tradition of Aratea, see Hübner (2005) and Volk (2010, 208–9).
63 Lucretius’ poem also introduces the new format of the “multi-book didactic poem”. Cf. Toohey
(1996, 4).
64 All translations of Vergil are taken from Fairclough (1916) and Fairclough (1918).
65 All translations of Ovid’s Tristia are taken from Wheeler (1924). On this passage, see Toohey
(1996, 167) and Lowrie (2009, 367).
66 Another example sometimes included in the canon of didactic hexameter poetry is Horace’s
Ars poetica: see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 19) and Reitz (2005) contra Volk (2002, 42–3).
67 Cf. Volk (2005) and Gale (2005b, 181–2).
68 This type includes, among others, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid’s Fasti, and Manilius. Since Lucretius
(Lucr. 1.921–50), the functions of docere and delectare are interlaced. See also Sen. epist. 79.5–7.
song in Verg. ecl. 6.31–40, Iopa’s song in Verg. Aen. 1.740–6, Anchises’ speech in
6.724–51, and Pythagoras’ speech in Ov. met. 15.75–478).⁶⁹
5 Modern definitions
Modern theories of didactic poetry can be divided into two groups: on one side,
ahistorical (or synchronic) approaches, aiming at identifying some key features
which may characterise didactic poetry despite its evolution in time; on the other
side, some scholars take a diachronic approach to underline the variation of didac-
tic poems in different historical, social, and cultural contexts.
In many respects, the first group of modern definitions of didactic poetry can be
described as a reformulation of the aforementioned ancient theories. Developing
the ancient interpretation of didactic poetry as a “Grenzfall des Epos”, Hutchinson
(2013a, 19) defines didactic as a subgenre of the ‘supergenre’ of hexameter poetry.⁷⁰
A more radical interpretation is proposed by Vesperini (2015, 25), who denies the
existence of didactic poetry as a genre, defining it as an “invention des modernes”,
due to the modern distinction (absent in antiquity) between “description” and
“narration”.⁷¹
Following the sources that aim at identifying the key elements of didactic po-
etry (first of all, Servius), Schiesaro (1993, 129–31) argues that a minimal definition
of didactic poetry can be found in the existence of a didactic project, involving
both a teacher (doctor) and a pupil (discipulus). Similarly, according to Fowler
(2000, 205), the fundamental elements of didactic poetry include a teacher, a body
of knowledge that is to be imparted, and a pupil. Volk (2002, 36–40) identifies four
characteristics of didactic poetry: teacher–student constellation, didactic intent,
“poetic self-consciousness”, and “poetic simultaneity”. Effe (1977, 40–79), who at-
tributes a pivotal role to the didactic intent of the poet, distinguishes between three
fundamental types (“Grundtypen”) of didactic poetry from Aratus onwards: the
directly instructional (“sachbezogen”), including Lucretius, Manilius, and Diony-
69 For didactic influence on epic poetry, see Toohey (1996, 213–37). Cf. Hardie (1995), Sider
(2014, 25–6), and Sharrock in this volume on the classification of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a
didactic poem. This tendency dates back to Apollonius Rhodius, who includes didactic sections
in his Argonautica (A.R. 1.496–511 and 4.672–81), thus reviving the Hesiodic, Empedoclean, and
Parmenidean models in an epic context. See also Kyriakou (1994, 309–19).
70 Hutchinson (2013b, 278–81) outlines some invariable and specifically didactic features in
contrast to epic poetry.
71 According to this interpretation, there is no difference between epic poetry and didactic poetry:
they share the same meter (hexameter) and they are designed both to teach and to entertain.
sius Periegetes; the indirectly or obliquely instructional (“transparent”), including

Aratus, Oppian, and Vergil; the astonishing or ornamental (“formal”): including
Nicander and Nemesianus.⁷² In order to embrace also mnemotechnical writers
such as Terentianus Maurus and parodists such as Ovid, Effe proposes a special
category (“Sonderformen”). Similarly, Heath (1985, 10–12) suggests a distinction
between ‘final’ didactic (i.e. having a real didactic commitment, like Lucretius’ De
rerum natura) and ‘formal’ didactic (i.e. deprived of a real didactic purpose, such
as Ovid’s Ars amatoria).
Unlike synchronic classifications, diachronic definitions do not find their roots
in ancient interpretations.⁷³ Toohey (1996, 2–14) distinguishes six phases of didac-
tic poetry, also defined as a collateral form of epic poetry⁷⁴ characterised by the
presence of three or four technical instructions, an addressee, the hexameter, a
length of 400 or more verses, and the use of narrative, mythological, or explanatory
insets.⁷⁵ According to Sider, “didactic poetry as a genre was essentially invented
in Hellenistic times, and then retrojected backward in time to include only those
earlier poets that conformed to Hellenistic notions: in primis Hesiod,⁷⁶ but also
the Pre-Socratics.”⁷⁷ Therefore, Sider (2014, 22) proposes a threefold diachronic
distinction: the archaic and classical phase, in which “didactic as such does not
exist as a genre until, perhaps, the three Pre-Socratic versifiers”; the Hellenistic
phase, in which poets versify pre-existing prose treatises; the Roman phase, in
which Latin poets introduce an innovation, translating into Latin Hellenistic di-
dactic poems. The situation is fluid, because authors in stage 2 or 3 can return to
the earlier form or mix didactic with other genres.
72 Cf. Effe’s categories provided by Kenney (1979, 71): “Broadly speaking, a didactic poet aspires
either to instruct or to astonish: if the former, the ostensible subject of instruction may not be the
real one.”
73 Plutarch, De Pythiae oraculis 402e–f and 406e, however, seems to allude to an oral phase of
didactic poetry, in which didactic prose did not yet exist.
74 Cf. Grilli (1993) for a definition of didactic poetry (e.g. Vergil’s Georgics) as a “non-Homeric”
type of epic poetry.
75 Cf. Toohey (1996, 247), who stresses that “the societal significance” of didactic poetry consists
in “the role adopted by leisure and play.”
76 See Hunter (2014, 51).
77 Sider (2014, 22) contra Canevaro (2015, 124–5).
6 New perspectives
Almost 40 years ago, in his review of Effe’s book, Schrijvers (1982, 400–2) firmly
stated that, in the field of didactic poetry, specific studies were more necessary
than global interpretations: “pour l’instant, nous n’avons pas besoin de grand
peintres de fresques mais plutôt de miniaturistes.” Modern research has shed
light on many aspects, laying the foundation for a new systematic study about
didactic poetry. Such a new “great fresco” should pay particular attention to the
grey area of the interaction of didactic poetry with other (sub)genres, taking into
account that generic boundaries are often more open and fluid than it seems.
This becomes clear if we consider, for example, the relationship between didactic
poetry and other types of hexameter poetry, in particular heroic epic. In fact, since
its beginning, didactic poetry is perceived as a part of the “epic archipelago”,⁷⁸
sharing the same meter and the same language we find in other forms of epic
poetry. The close connection between ‘heroic’ epic and ‘didactic’ epic is confirmed
by their continuous overlapping through the centuries: it is sufficient to mention
the recurrence of didactic sections in epic poems (e.g. their predominant role in
Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile) and, conversely, of epic features in didactic poems (e.g.
Empedocles or Lucretius).⁷⁹
At the same time, archaic and classical Greek didactic poems can be better un-
derstood, if considered within the wider context of ‘wisdom literature’, in relation
with other forms of educational writing (e.g. fable, parenetic, gnomic, catalogic,
and genealogical poetry). Such an approach should also take into account the
metrical form. Most didactic poetry is hexametric, but it is important to stress the
existence of other possibilities; first and foremost, the elegiac distich, which plays a
fundamental role in archaic gnomic and parenetic poetry⁸⁰ as well as in Hellenistic
instructional poetry (e.g. Callimachus’ Aetia).⁸¹ Only taking into account this long
78 Rossi (2010).
79 See Gale (2005a, 440): “Lucretius invites us in a number of more concrete and specific ways
to read his work against the background of Homeric and Ennian Epic.” Cf. also Gale (2005b,
181–2): “Lucretius self-consciously sets out to revitalize didactic tradition with a new infusion of
‘epic-ness’.”
80 See Griffith (1983) for a comparison of Hesiod’s Works and Days with Theognis’ gnomic poetry.
However, only a systematic comparison could help us understand, as Stoddard (2004, 6) puts it,
to what extent “the difference between these metres implies a difference – perhaps a significant
one – between the artistic goals of the two poets and the conventions of their respective genres.”
81 See Hutchinson (2008, 62) and Harder (2010, 92), who accepts Fantuzzi’s and Hunter’s inter-
pretation of this “complex and highly experimental work” as a continuation of Hesiod’s Theogony.
tradition, for example, Ovid’s choice of the distich in his didactic works like Ars
amatoria or Fasti can be fully appreciated.⁸²
Another issue to be considered is the relationship between prose and poetry:
it cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional antinomy, with poetry as just a means
(ὥσπερ ὄχημα, using Plutarch’s words) to ennoble prosaic content.⁸³ On the con-
trary, didactic poetry and didactic prose (e.g. ‘Fachliteratur’) are closer than we
expect, often obeying to the same rhetorical schemes and constantly influencing
one another.⁸⁴
It is important to underline that a new interpretation of didactic poetry should
concentrate on some (often underestimated) critical phases in its long history.
For instance, the study of Roman didactic poetry ought to be opened to the re-
evaluation of Latin ‘pre-classical’ didactic literature,⁸⁵ which is more than just
Ennius’ Hedyphagetica. Late Antiquity would also deserve better attention: al-
though often regarded as a time of crisis, it gave a significant contribution to the
development of new and experimental poetic forms, which prompted the transition
from antiquity to the Middle Ages.⁸⁶
On Callimachus’ imitation of Hesiod, esp. the “didactic voice” of the Works and Days, cf. Kaesser
(2005, 95–114) and Sistakou (2009, 227–8).
82 Cf. Miller (1992) and Volk (2002, 42–3).
83 Cf. Schuler/Fitch (1983, 4), Nieddu (1993, 155–9), Wright (1998), Osborne (1998), Primavesi
(2005, 69–93), Kruschwitz/Schumacher (2005, 14), and Hutchinson (2008, 228–50).
84 See Reitz (2003) and Hutchinson (2008, 230–1). About didactic poems contained in tech-
nical prose treatises, cf. Formisano (2005). The concept of polymorphism, applied to ancient
‘Fachliteratur’, could be easily extended to didactic poetry; see Fögen (2003, 34).
85 See Volk (2002, 59–60), Kruschwitz (2005), and Kruschwitz/Schumacher (2005), who use a
remarkably broad definition of didactic poetry, derived from Kühlmann (2000, 393): “überwiegend
versgebundenes Schrifttum zur Vermittlung von Sach-, Verhaltens- und Orientierungswissen.”
This definition embraces a far greater number of texts than the common didactic canon. As for the
existence of an archaic Latin didactic tradition in verse, perhaps Saturnians, authored by Marcius
the uates, Appius Claudius, and Cato, see West (1978, 16).
86 Cf. Schindler (2005). As for late antique didactic poetry and its relationship with Christian
apologetic poetry (e.g. Prudentius’ Hamartigenia and Claudius Marius Victorius’ Alethia), see
Toohey (1996, 209–11), Haskell (1999, 6), Salvadore (2009), and Kuhn-Treichel (2016). Haskell
rightly highlights that didactic poetry is in continual evolution; therefore, it is better to reconsider
the idea that “classical didactic poetry is a discrete entity, hermetically sealed off from what
followed in the Middle Ages.” On medieval didactic poetry, see Schuler/Fitch (1983, 21), Haye
(1997), and Feros Ruys (2008).
7 Coexistence and interaction of different types of

didactic poetry
Identifying different types of didactic poetry has been a common approach to the
genre since the Tractatus Coislinianus. Two main streams may be identified, one
mainly concerned with the delivery of a moral (and, therefore, with the reader’s
cognitive development), and another of a more technical knowledge. It is therefore
worth considering how, from the origins of the genre, so far as we can determine,
different types of didactic poetry coexisted and interacted. Hesiod’s instrumental
use of poetry to communicate a moral and his expositive approach to the subject
cannot be separated from a more instructional mode, which will be developed by
the Hellenistic technocrats, Aratus and Nicander in primis (and, to a lesser extent,
the two Oppians in the Imperial Age), representative of the Alexandrian taste for
refined details and erudition.
Denying the Pre-Socratics the label of poets, as Aristotle and Plutarch did,
would deprive their poems of any didactic value, although in their works the poetic
language is ancillary to the expression of philosophical truths, purged from tech-
nical sections of Hesiod’s Works and Days. A more genuine aim of converting the
audience comes to the fore: the interaction with an addressee becomes increasingly
crucial, as it will also be in the Roman successors, first among all Lucretius’ De
rerum natura, which it would nonetheless be unduly restrictive to classify as just a
philosophical work.⁸⁷
Cicero’s Aratea display a lively intertwining of didactic types. The author’s
concern for a careful translation of originally Greek concepts (an attitude which is
itself didactic, as a flawed translation might cause a distorted learning) coexists
with an attempt to exploit the subject matter both as a form of personal translation
exercise, and as a chance to display erudition, though not distinct from a philo-
sophical zeal. Manilius’ Astronomica blends together Cicero’s didacticism towards
a precise translation, his Alexandrian care for details, and the more concerned
position of a Stoic philosopher: both the typical Alexandrian and Pre-Socratics
(and Lucretian) types well merge in his persona.
Vergil’s Georgics and Ovid’s poetry appropriate this polyphony at best. The
philosophical zeal of the Georgics is not defined by a definite philosophical pro-
gramme, and Vergil himself showcases such lack of ambition (Verg. georg. 2.483–6).
The poem is interspersed with very technical sections dealing with agricultural
87 Cf. Lucr. 1.921–50 on the role of docere and delectare. See Kenney (1970) on the Hellenistic
influence upon Lucretius’ poem. Cf. Murley (1939) on Lucretius and satire.
matters, which bring it closer to the Hesiodic and Hellenistic models, rather than
to the Pre-Socratics. At the same time, the celebration of the Italian countryside
sets the poem close to imperial panegyrics, to such an extent that the Georgics
have also been portrayed as a meditative, rather than a didactic poem.⁸⁸ Ovid’s
works appear kaleidoscopic, and he himself seems to acknowledge the existence of
different types of didactic poetry (Ov. trist. 2.471–91). Far from the subject matters
typical of high-level didactic poetry, his poetry connects a more playful vein with
the Alexandrian taste for erudite information:
On his profound knowledge of, and admiration for, the masters of the genre – Empedocles,
Lucretius, Vergil – . . . the Ars, Fasti and Remedia resort to the structure and syntax of didac-
ticism to describe . . . a world of uncertainty dominated more by mutable desires (human and
divine) and elusive memories than by unyielding natural or providential laws.⁸⁹
8 The (un)named addressees of didactic poetry

The presence of an addressee and a honed self-confidence of the poetic persona
mark a significant divergence between epic and didactic poetry. The addressee
is one of the qualifying features of the latter, essential for the construction of a
didactic discourse between the poet/praeceptor, and his audience/pupil, who is
addressed both in the second person singular and with less direct passive forms.⁹⁰
The addressee is the author’s interlocutor, and the exchange between the two
becomes an interactive progress. The addressee can be admonished, offered advice
about the topic under discussion, and made to feel comfortable with any potential
difficulties of the subject matter.
The discussion of the addressee in didactic poetry has attracted considerable
scholarly attention, although an inclusive treatment remains a desideratum, and
some crucial questions still need to be discussed more thoroughly.⁹¹ This contri-
bution attempts to offer a general overview of the presence of the addressee in
Greek and Roman didactic poetry following a paradigmatic and diachronic order.
The analysis will focus on the presence of a named addressee, the dedicatee of
the poem; the unnamed addressee, which is a more pervasive presence gener-
88 Cf. Wilkinson (1969) and Perkell (1989).

89 Schiesaro (2002, 62).
90 Cf. Toohey (1996) and Volk (2002). On imperatives in Latin didactic literature, cf. Gibson (1998,
67–98).
91 The most valuable contributions remain the special volume of MD 31 (1993) and Volk (2002).
ally identifiable with a generic second person singular addressed throughout; the
performative value of didactic poetry.
8.1 Named addressee
Addressing a named individual is a way for the poet “to present himself as a wise
and sympathetic person concerned for the welfare of his friend, rather than a
lecturing old curmudgeon, haranguing the general public.”⁹² It gives a dramatic
setting to the lesson, adding credibility to it. It goes without saying that the impact
of the text upon the reader differs according to the kind of intra-textual addressee
sketched by the poet, who can play “the role of a foil.”⁹³ It ranges from a perfect
overlapping between them (mainly possible when the latter remains an indistinct
character, more easily customisable by the extra-textual addressee) to a more
pronounced discrepancy (especially when the intra-textual addressee is presented
with highly typical traits, therefore urging the extra-textual reader to react).
Hesiod’s Works and Days⁹⁴ is unique among Greek didactic poems: Perses, his
brother, is engaged in a conversation soon after the proem (Hes. Op. 10), which,
consistently with the epic tradition of hexameter poetry, presents an invocation to
the Muses, who are to praise their father Zeus. Hesiod will proclaim truths (ἐτήτυμα
μυθησαίμην, 10) to Perses, who is nonetheless not explicitly admonished until line
27, where he is urged to steer up in his spirit the oppressive Strife: ὦ Πέρση, σὺ δὲ
ταῦτα τεῷ ἐνικάτθεο θυμῷ. Hesiod addresses his poem to the kings as well (202
and 248), a more blurred presence and, like Perses, a mute interlocutor,⁹⁵ both
presented as νηπίοις, and functioning as a κωφὸν πρόσωπον,⁹⁶ “a literary device . . .
within a poem that is really addressed to an unmentioned external audience.”⁹⁷
Perses’ failings are not only “different in different contexts, but are determined by
the requirements of the context in each place.”⁹⁸ He is addressed by name nine
times (in a poem of 828 lines), which all correspond to a critical moment in his
92 Stoddard (2004, 15).

93 Volk (2002, 38). See also Schiesaro (1993).
94 Dornseiff (1934) and Kranz (1961) consider Hesiod’s quarrel with Perses as mere literary conve-
nience. West (1978), inter alios, is instead convinced of its reality. For an overview of the relationship
between Hesiod and Perses, see Stoddard (2004, 15–26).
95 Cf. Strauss Clay (1993, 23): “After Hesiod, the silent presence of the addressee becomes a
convention of didactic poetry.”
96 Cf. Strauss Clay (1993, 24).
97 Heath (1985, 253). The prolegomena and scholia first considered the possibility of Perses’
fictionality. See West (1978, 33–40).
98 West (1978, 36–7).
education.⁹⁹ Hesiod’s recurrent stress on the foolish spirit of his addressee has
three consequences: it creates a hiatus with the fine thoughts spoken by the poetic
persona (286 σοὶ δ’ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση, “To you, Perses, you
great fool, I will speak my fine thoughts”);¹⁰⁰ it prompts the extra-textual readers
to dissociate themselves from the negative models that the poet is targeting, and to
follow his prescriptions uerbatim, outdoing the counter-model presented in the text,
and implementing the teachings offered; it serves as an effective didactic device,
as the audience is shielded from any potential criticism, which is rather addressed,
in the first instance, to the νήπιος addressee. The author’s acknowledgment of
Perses’ failure in the educative process might cause his fading from the last section
of the poem, which suggests that the lesson has progressed regardless of Perses’
idleness, and, not least, that it was not exclusively conceived for his sake.
The character of the inept dedicatee also appears in some of the Pre-Socratics’
works, first of all in Empedocles’ On Nature: he addresses his mortal companion
Pausanias (1),¹⁰¹ reaching and benefitting him thanks to the intercession of the
Muse Calliope (e.g. 4), who attends the poet while delivering ἀγαθὸν λόγον (131).¹⁰²
We understand that Pausanias is not the most dedicated pupil (17 and 21), which
is why he has to be guided step-by-step (110 and 111) and needs to be admonished:
Pausanias mirrors the condition of an audience, worthy of conversion, interested in
engaging with Empedocles’ philosophy, but in danger of backsliding. This pattern
will establish itself as a model for those works dealing with the teaching of natural
philosophy, above all, Lucretius’ De rerum natura.
Quintilian’s judgement about the lack of an identifiable voice in Aratus’ poem
(Quint. inst. 10.1.55), which unavoidably reflects on the unnamed addressee of the
Phaenomena, could easily be extended to most Hellenistic and Imperial didactic
poems and their teachings for the sake of erudition rather than cognitive devel-
opment. For this reason, the addressees appear more as recipients of a literary
endeavour, presented to them as homage, rather than a (counter-)model prompting
the audience to engage in the educative process. We will not encounter another
character with the complexity of Hesiod’s Perses: the addressee’s invitation to
read, his predominant anonymity, and the lack of a specific occasion, encourage
us “to identify ourselves with this role in the act of reading.”¹⁰³
99 Cf. Strauss Clay (1993, 26–7).

100 All translations of Hesiod are taken from Most (2006).
101 Obbink (1993) remains to date the only thorough study of the addressees of Empedocles.
102 Empedocles (On Nature 131) appeals to Calliope by direct address, mainly in the form of a
traditional ὕμνος κλητικός; see also Obbink (1993, 59). She is also invoked for apotropaic purposes,
for instance in Emp. 3.1–5, 23, and 131.
103 Bing (1993, 99).
There is no space for the addressee in the proem of the Phaenomena, which
“owes its form to the traditions of Hesiodic epic and its content to the contemporary
themes of Stoicism”:¹⁰⁴ an invocation to Zeus (Arat. 15) is followed by an address to
the elder race (16), most likely Aratus’ astrological models, and to the Muses (16).¹⁰⁵
Nicander, by contrast, restores the exchange between poet and addressee absent
in Aratus.¹⁰⁶ Hermesianax is addressed in line 3 of the Theriaca, in an apostrophe
that runs up to line 7. We learn that Hermesianax was the most honoured of many
kinsmen (Nic. Th. 3), which could induce us to believe that he was a real person,
and possibly a fellow doctor.¹⁰⁷ Protagoras (Nic. Al. 3) is the dedicatee of the Alex-
ipharmaca and is apostrophised at 1–11. In the same way as Aratus’ vagueness
might find an explanation in the “centrality of the fixed order of nature in which
no individual is particularly important,”¹⁰⁸ Nicander’s choice to introduce named
addressees gives the poems a better connection with reality, as if they were real
healing tools. Although Nicander, besides the named addressees that occur in the
proems, has a second addressee in mind, “he conflates them in one person so
that there is no formal distinction between the doctors and those who receive the
remedies.”¹⁰⁹
Both Oppian’s Halieutica and Pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica are dedicated to
Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius and Caracalla respectively, which, according to
Lightfoot (2014, 101–2), compromise the didactic attitude of the poets/teachers, who
would rather act as courtiers, pointing out to their royal masters the wealth of their
empire. I rather agree with Toohey (1996, 200), who highlights the typical didactic
features of the poems, in which there is an “unequivocal use of the addressee.”
The poet’s concern for a noteworthy dedicatee might undoubtedly influence his
didactic mode, but does not invalidate his didactic attempts.
Memmius, the controversial character of Lucretius’ dedicatee in the De rerum
natura, stands out among the named addressees in Latin didactic poetry.¹¹⁰ What
Epicurus did for humankind – to free men from the oppressing chains of religio
104 Kidd (1997, 161).

105 Dionysius Periegetes displays striking similarities with Aratus, both for the lack of a named
addressee and for the (lack of) performative value that it entails, as we shall show. He also invokes
the Muses four times, where they are not associated with the traditional epic themes, but rather
accommodated to geography; see Lightfoot (2014, 107).
106 Cf. Lightfoot (2014, 102).
107 On the identity of Hermesianax, see Overduin (2014, 39–40).
108 Hunter (2008, 168).
109 Lightfoot (2014, 111).
110 Publius Silvinus is another notable lay addressee in Latin didactic poetry, dedicatee of Col-
umella’s De re rustica. He is addressed at Colum. 10.1, to reappear again only at the end of the
composition at 10.433, giving the 436 line-poem a circular structure. However, the dedicatee
(Lucr. 3.1–30) – Lucretius aims to achieve for his Roman audience, most immediately
his explicit dedicatee.¹¹¹ Memmius’ vague presence (he is named only eleven times)
and the absence of any reference to his progress or engagement suggest that the
De rerum natura was not shaped around him: his presence and absence are rather
explicable by his possible relationship with or withdrawal from Epicureanism or
from Lucretius’ friendship.¹¹² Clay’s argument that the second person instances
in the De rerum natura involve the character of Memmius is questionable.¹¹³ If,
on the one hand, the poet acknowledges Memmius’ reticence towards Epicurean
philosophy (1.410–11),¹¹⁴ on the other hand, he discloses certainty about the success
of his teachings on the readers’ keen-scented mind (1.407–9).¹¹⁵ The dedication to
Memmius, therefore, is rather a munus amicitiae than evidence of the poet’s intent
to convert the dedicatee.
The polyphony of the Georgics also finds expression in the way in which the
poet engages with his addressees.¹¹⁶ Schiesaro (1993, 136) rightly speaks of “strate-
gia incentrata sulla moltiplicazione, e, in parte, sulla confusione dei ruoli.” In
addition to the country gods (Verg. georg. 1.1–42),¹¹⁷ Vergil also invokes Bacchus
(2.1–8) and Maecenas (2.39–46) at the start of Book 2,¹¹⁸ Maecenas and Caesar in
the proem to Book 3 (3.1–48), and again Caesar at the end of Book 4 (4.559–66).
fades completely throughout the poem, and, when, at 10.35–40, the Muses are prayed for divine
inspiration, the readers soon forget about him.
111 On the historical character of Memmius, see Münzer (1931); for a résumé of his life, see
Neudling (1955, 126–9). On Memmius’ dubious allegiance with Epicureanism (Cic. fam. 13.1.3), see
Fanti (2017).
112 Cf. Giussani (1896), Mussehl (1912), Bailey (1947), and Fanti (2017).
113 Cf. Clay (1983).
114 Lucretius might have selected Memmius for literary reasons as a possible patron: he evidently
had a taste for poetry (Cic. Brut. 247).
115 Contra Mitsis’ theory (1993) of Lucretius’ readers as νήπιοι. Classen’s suggestion (1968) to
read De rerum natura as a cooperative interchange between mutually consenting adults suits the
teacher-pupil relationship in the De rerum natura better.
116 See Wilkinson (1950) and Wilkinson (1969), who interprets Vergil’s poem as a celebration of
the Italian countryside. See Otis (1964, 144): “The Georgics is didactic only in the most superficial
sense”; Batstone (1997, 135): “meaning in the Georgics . . . is so difficult to name because the
epistemological certainty presupposed by didaxis is exactly what the poem puts in question.”
117 Thomas (1988a, ad loc.) claims that this forces an arbitrary assertion of similarity between
Octavian, the divinities of the Roman countryside, and Vergil’s poem. Schiesaro (1993, 135–6)
stresses how the proem of the Georgics opens up the text to the direct contact with multiple
extra-textual addressees.
118 Schiesaro (1993, 147) suggests that Maecenas’ presence in the poem, which is all but univocal,
traces the different levels of reception intended by the Georgics.
While the addressees of Ovid’s didactic poems and the anonymous Aetna re-
main unnamed, Manilius’ Astronomica opens with an invocation to Caesar (whose
identity is debated).¹¹⁹ He is the one who inspired Manilius’ purpose, giving him
the strength to undertake his poetic endeavour: Manil. 1.7–10a hunc mihi tu, Caesar,
patriae princepsque paterque, / qui regis augustis parentem legibus orbem / conces-
sumque patri mundum deus ipse mereris, / das animum, “You, Caesar, First Citizen
and Father of your Country, who rule a world obedient to your august laws and
merit the heaven granted to your sire, yourself a god, are the one who inspires this
purpose . . . ”¹²⁰
However, as Neuburg (1993, 256–7) claims, “the living Caesar, no matter who
he is, is of value to Manilius mainly as a poetic device.” Conversely, the role ful-
filled by Diana in the proem of Grattius’ Cynegetica goes beyond that of a mere
poetic device. The first section of the poem focuses on the relationship between
author and goddess, openly praised at Gratt. 1–4 and again at 13–15, and on the
invocation to Ratio (5–9), who respectively donated hunting to humankind and
allowed it to develop.¹²¹ The role traditionally fulfilled by the apostrophes to the
reader is subordinated to Grattius’ poetic ambitions: his work discloses divine gifts
to humankind, from which even demigods could have benefitted (65–6).¹²²
8.2 tu or the unnamed addressee(s)
The named addressees tend to fade throughout the didactic discourse, leaving
room for the pivotal addressee of the poet’s teachings: the unnamed addressee.
Hesiod’s Perses disappears in the last section of the poem,¹²³ where a generic
second person singular prevails, especially in the highly technical section from
Hes. Op. 306 onwards when the reader is instructed about good conduct, agricul-
ture, farming, and fishing. Perses seems to lend his foolishness to the anonymous
addressee, as we understand from 646, establishing an inescapable model for
119 For an overview of Manilius’ emperor(s) and the date of the Astronomica, see also Housman
(1903, pp. lxix–lxxii), Gebhardt (1961), and Volk (2009, 137–73).
120 All translations of Manilius are taken from Goold (1977).
121 Henderson (2001, 9) reads this invocation as a real “teleology of Reason”.
122 See the use of what is a highly emphatic tone throughout the poem, with frequent apostrophes
(to mythical and historical characters, and even to dogs), e.g. Gratt. 95, 176, 209, 317–22, 427, 451,
and 528. Cf. Fanti (2018).
123 Strauss Clay’s suggestion (1993) that Hesiod would shift to an ideal listener as his brother
would be incapable of dealing with the increased role of chance in the latter section of the lesson
(therefore far from the ἐτήτυμα promised at the beginning), but still practising hard work and
δίκη, is certainly grounded.
subsequent didactic works (εὖτ᾿ ἄν ἐπ΄ ἐμπορίην τρέψας ἀεσίφρονα θυμόν, “if you
turn your foolish spirit to commerce”). The brother’s character serves as a pattern
for Hesiod to depict his ideal audience of citizens and farmers: the predominance of
negative orders (“do not . . . ”) in the section on traditional customs (695–756) implic-
itly hints at the flawed behaviour of the addressee, suggesting the counter-action
they have to take to outdo the wrong example set by Perses.
Parmenides’ On Nature can rather be classified as a prophetic account than
a didactic discourse ad personam as, in some respects, the Works and Days were:
the author becomes the addressee (and the pupil) of the goddess’ teachings. Par-
menides, prompted by a missionary zeal, offers his experience to further cognitive
development in the readers, albeit without any final revelation.¹²⁴ At Parm. 4.1–2,
the poet’s right attitude is essential to follow the goddess’ precepts (2.1 κόμισαι
δὲ σὺ μῦθον ἀκούσας, “have a care for this discourse when you have heard it”).¹²⁵
There is just one way of enquiry, to which the goddess points (8.7–9). Empedocles
sets himself closer to the Hesiodic model.¹²⁶ It is for his reader that Empedocles
intends to speak words that do not deceive.¹²⁷ The frequent use of apostrophes¹²⁸ is
not only part of the lesson (such as in Emp. 35), but renders the narrative more en-
gaging, especially at key stages of the discourse, such as when introducing the four
irreducible elements. The poet’s voice guides the reader through the lesson (35.1–3)
and demands the pupil’s (and by extension the reader’s)¹²⁹ attention through a
sequence of imperatives,¹³⁰ promising a positive reward (110).
Given the Hellenistic and imperial poets’ predominant concern with aesthetics,
their didactic intent is not always spelled out. Continuous oscillations between the
apostrophes to the generic “you” and to farmers and sailors, particularly interested
124 See Tulli (1993, 37).

125 All translations of Parmenides are taken from Laks/Most (2016).
126 On Hesiod and Empedocles, see Hershbell (1970).
127 At Emp. 17.26, Empedocles seems to set himself at a distance from the deceitful arrows of the
Parmenidean goddess (8.51–2); cf. Trépanier (2004, 49).
128 If Pausanias’ name fades from the surviving text, apostrophes to a more general reader are
largely attested: peremptory imperative forms and second person singular pronouns constitute
the bulk of the work. Over 90% of the remaining sections consisting of consecutive lines contain
some sort of invocations or exhortations – numbers that are only matched in early Greek poetry
by Hesiod’s Works and Days. See Obbink (1993, 72–3) for an account of the most interesting cases.
129 The poem offers six instances of the second person plural, which widen the perspective
standing as “a foil to Empedocles’ audience” (Obbink, 1993, 52): Emp. 112 and 114, addressed to
the citizens of Acragas; 124, 136, 141, and 145 to men in their folly; 11 pertains to the understanding
of Empedocles’ argument. See Trépanier (2004, 46–8 and 50–1) on Empedocles’ plural addresses.
130 Cf., e.g., Emp. 345, 346, 349, 355, 356, 368, and 398 Kirk/Raven/Schofield.
in the interpretation of stars and weather signs for their activities,¹³¹ are character-
istics of Aratus’ poem.¹³² Aratus’ addressee is “one perhaps with a general interest,
but no immediate practical or occupational need.”¹³³ That Aratus and his pupil
“were certainly not contemplating the sky together”¹³⁴ is validated by the forms of
the apostrophes to the audience, especially through temporally neutral forms¹³⁵
such as present imperatives instead of aorist (which would expect an immediate
reaction). Although the poem leaves us with “little sense of personal communica-
tion,”¹³⁶ Aratus does pay attention to a second person singular addressee, directing
the information at the reader,¹³⁷ whose action is prompted, through the fictitious
image of an inquiring internal addressee (Arat. 156–9), and with whom Aratus
sometimes seems to sympathise, anticipating his fears, acknowledging his (slight)
effort, and promising rewards.¹³⁸
In Nicander’s Theriaca, the instructions primarily inform the addressee about
what he has to do in order to save his own life, not those of others (Nic. Th. 539–40
and 915–16), while the Alexipharmaca focuses on the antidotes against poisons
and their effects: Klauser (1898, 3) noted how the Alexipharmaca gives Protagoras
instructions to help the others, while the Theriaca are directed to those who are
victims themselves. Although the poetic voice in Nicander’s works is mainly de-
131 Arat. 408–29 is a good example of Aratus’ continuous shift of attention from an addressee to
another: from mankind to the second person singular, from the sailors and back to the second
person singular again.
132 According to Bing (1993, 100), the references to farming are less frequent, only occurring in
24 lines, as compared to 66 for seafaring.
133 Bing (1993, 103). Hutchinson (1988) believes that Aratus is not addressing his teachings
primarily to sailors and farmers, while Ludwig (1963) and Effe (1977) identify the target of the
poem in them.
134 Lightfoot (2014, 110).
135 Cf. Erren (1967). Dionysius’ Periegesis results in an instructional book for the pleasure of the
reader, who is sitting at home, “projected into the text as an armchair traveller” (Lightfoot, 2014,
103) and metaphorically tours the world with the poet’s guidance. The only imperative in the
poem, φράζεο, suggests that imagination allows the reader to realise a clear portrait of the lands
described without relying on autopsy; the addressee engages in the lesson to gain respect (D.P.
171–3) and knowledge (884–6).
136 Hutchinson (1988, 224).
137 92 instances of second person singular and plural forms can be counted throughout the poem,
while Aratus’ persona only crops up 17 times: for a list of all the occurrences, see Bing (1993, 109).
138 Cf. Arat. 290, 758–62, and 1153–4. On Aratus’ Stoic optimism, see Toohey (1996, 72–3). Compare
Hesiod’s Works and Days: at 826–8, the poet praises the man who has heeded Hesiod’s advice.
See also Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) and Emp. 132.
tached,¹³⁹ the pronounced self-consciousness of his poems creates the premises for
an authoritative didactic discourse and a tight relationship with the audience.¹⁴⁰
However, if we consider the Theriaca, it is only at Nic. Th. 493–4 that a second inter-
nal addressee is explicitly introduced: Nicander says he will expound to mankind
(ἀνδράσιν, 494) all the remedies for these ills, the herbs, and the time to cut their
roots. The communication between the praeceptor and the pupil is neutral in tone
and no personal engagement is envisaged: the resulting tone is dry and the second
person forms often seem to meet structural needs rather than to engage the readers,
linking the different sections of list-like accounts of the poisonous creatures or
plants.¹⁴¹
Among imperial didactic poetry, Oppian’s Halieutica is concerned with the
moral instruction of the reader:¹⁴² fish are anthropomorphised and the sea is a
mirror of human existence.¹⁴³ At Opp. H. 3.457, the malanuri are said to be foolish, in
contrast with the wisdom of their fishermen (νήπιοι, οὐδ’ ἐδάησαν ὅσον πινυτώτε-
ροι ἄνδρες, “Foolish fishes! which know not how much more cunning are men”),
which indirectly implicates the reader.¹⁴⁴ Similarly, the swordfish perishes because
of its own folly (3.568).¹⁴⁵ Is Oppian, as Kneebone (2008) suggests, pointing out
the discrepancy between the foolish creatures and the readers, who cannot fail to
engage with the poet’s warnings about the danger of stupidity evoked by the school
of fish? Oppian may point out to his audience, alongside his imperial dedicatee, the
advantages yielded through his precepts. This would encourage both the reader’s
complicity with the poet, but also dissociation from the recalcitrant targets of the
poem.
Since Ennius’ first didactic endeavour with the Hedyphagetica (AP 39),¹⁴⁶ we
note the attempt to engage with an (unnamed) addressee. In his Aratea,¹⁴⁷ Cicero
139 See Overduin (2014). This creates a sharp contrast between the medium and the message, and
draws the reader’s attention mainly to the form, rather than the content.
140 Note ῥεῖα, used as the very first word of the Theriaca (Nic. Th. 1), and the acrostic with his
name (345–53). Nicander refrains from the traditional invocation to Muses or Zeus, the poetic voice
of the Alexipharmaca is, however, still less marked than in the Theriaca; cf. Overduin (2014, 69).
141 Cf., e.g., Nic. Th. 21, 40, 45, and 87.
142 See Effe (1977).
143 Cf. Ovid’s Halieutica and Toohey (1996, 196): “fish have been substituted for women and
men.”
144 All translations of Oppians’ Halieutica are taken from Mair (1928).
145 Compare Hesiod’s disparaging tone towards his νήπιος brother.
146 Of the surviving 11 hexameters, three imperatives are addressed to the reader (37 sume, 38
scito, 39 fac).
147 In the fourth century AD, Avienus attempted a translation of Aratus’ Phaenomena. See Soubi-
ran (1981, 40–65). The clarity of thought and expression is often affected by the redundancy of the
first (and Germanicus following his example) reflects on how the addressee is
engaged in the didactic discourse. Cicero’s concern with accurate translation from
the Greek allows the addressee to learn “about the process of constructing an equiv-
alent sphere in the Latin language,”¹⁴⁸ and supports his learning by providing the
details needed to understand his lesson (e.g. Cic. Arat. 27 and 36–7). Germanicus’
Aratea is set in the present (nunc, Germ. 11), during the reign of Augustus. This
immediacy increases the impact of his lesson and strengthens his relationship
with the addressee (1 ab Ioue principium magno deduxit Aratus).
It is with Lucretius’ De rerum natura that the didactic interaction between the
magister and his discipulus fully develops.¹⁴⁹ The problem of Lucretius’ audience
was already addressed by Bruns (1884, 4).¹⁵⁰ In contrast with Memmius’ presence,
that of the general reader is constant throughout the text, and instances of second
person singular forms occur every 17.4 lines on average.¹⁵¹ Being a very concerned
teacher, Lucretius makes sure he guides his pupil through the conversion to Epi-
cureanism step-by-step, first uprooting his false beliefs, then constructing the
foundation for the Epicurean tenets. This explains the hammering tone that dic-
tates the steps the addressee ought to undertake, especially in the first half of the
lesson. The querulous pupil “is continually made to voice objections to the poet’s
teaching, or associated with erroneous views.”¹⁵² The reader’s incorrect approach
is pointed out from the beginning, as well as his reluctance to trust Lucretius’
words (Lucr. 1.267 ne qua forte tamen coeptes diffidere dictis), against which the
poet warns him categorically (1.269 accipe praeterea quae corpora tute necessest,
form, making it a highly rhetorical exercise for schools; cf. Gee (2007, 583). The didactic intent of
the text lies in its performative values, more than in what Soubiran (1981, 65) calls “le goût du
grandiose.”
148 Possanza (2004, 12).
149 Lucretius moreover addresses Venus (Lucr. 1.1–49), Epicurus (3.1–30), and Calliope (4.92–5).
On the invocation of Venus and its interpretations, see Bignone (1945), Bailey (1947, p. ii and
590), Furley (1966), Schrijvers (1970, 27–86), Nichols (1976, 25–45), Giancotti (1978), Asmis (1982),
Clay (1983, 82–110 and 226–34), Brown (1984, 41), and Sedley (1998, 15–21). On the literary and
interpretative background of the hymn, cf. Gale (1994, 208–23) and Campbell (2014). On the
invocation of Calliope, see Clay (1983) and Godwin (1991). Cf. also Schindler in this volume.
150 The similes of the sick children in need of being nursed (Lucr. 1.936–42 = 4.11–17) and fright-
ened of the dark (2.55–6, 3.87–8, and 6.35–6) suggest that Lucretius does not regard his readers as
equals. Lucretius’ reader is not an Epicurean yet – cf. Bruns (1884, 8–11) –, although he appears
keen to be converted (1.402–3, 5.1281–2, and 6.527–34).
151 Keen (1985, 3) observes how Lucretius encourages his reader’s use of perceptions throughout,
“the chief form of mental activity in Lucretius’ program.” Townend (1978) surveys Lucretius’ ways
of addressing his reader; cf., inter alios, Clay (1983), Conte (1991), Mitsis (1993), Gale (2001), and
Fanti (2016).
152 Gale (2001, 24). For a sketch of the reader’s progress, see Gale (2001, 23–4).
“learn in addition of bodies which you must yourself of necessity . . . ”).¹⁵³ The
dubitative formula si forte putas underlines the reader’s proclivity to being lured
by other philosophical creeds.¹⁵⁴ However, the poet not only criticises, but also
supplies the right attitude (2.1041b–3 sed magis acri / iudicio perpende et, si tibi
uera uidentur, / dede manus, aut, si falsum est, accingere contra, “but rather ponder
it with keen judgement; and if it seems to be true, own yourself vanquished, or, if
it is false, gird up your loins to fight”). Lucretius’ attitude towards the audience
becomes more positive in the second half of the lesson, suggesting the reader’s
intellectual development, prompting him to adopt what the teacher regards as the
right view. Not surprisingly, percipe, often emphasised at the beginning of the line
(2.335, 2.731, 4.111, 4.270, 6.536, and 6.768), is the most recurrent imperative form:
empiricism is at the core of scientific inference in Epicureanism.¹⁵⁵ Emblematic of
this prescriptive mode is also the formula nonne uides, a “formula di transizione
all’esempio”,¹⁵⁶ an appeal to the reader’s visual memory.¹⁵⁷ Besides these appeals,
the use of second person singular indicative or subjunctive creates a more conversa-
tional atmosphere throughout the lesson by anticipating the topic or recapitulating
what has already been said.¹⁵⁸ An important role is played by the anticipation of
the reader’s doubts and objections (e.g. 2.80–2 and 2.739–40). The employment
of final clauses also justifies what the poet is doing and how he is doing it. For
instance, 1.52 ne . . . relinquas, 1.80 ne . . . rearis, and 1.267 ne . . . coeptes diffidere
are aimed at keeping the reader free from incorrect beliefs. Frequently, as stated
by Gale (2011, 24), the pupil’s possible objections are attributed to anonymous
speakers (si forte aliquis . . . ), whose views are swiftly refuted (e.g. 2.225, 2.931,
5.908, and 6.673),¹⁵⁹ a didactic strategy that shields the addressee from the poet’s
criticism, which would hinder their relationship. In his process of conversion, the
153 All translations of Lucretius are taken from Rouse (1924). For similar examples, cf. Lucr.
2.730–6 and 2.739–40. See also Piazzi (2011, ad loc.): “mira a prevenire le reazioni del lettore,
smontandone anticipatamente le false opinioni attraverso una occupatio.”
154 See Lucr. 1.770, 1.916, 2.80, 3.533, and 3.698.
155 Other occurrences of percipe can be found at Lucr. 4.115, 4.723, 4.880, and 6.46. On Epicurean
empiricism and epistemology, see Asmis (1984).
156 Schiesaro (1984).
157 nonne uides occurs with this same sense at Lucr. 2.196, 2.207, 2.263, 4.122, 4.808, 4.1201, 4.1286,
5.382, 5.556, 5.602, 5.646, 6.806, 6.813, 6.900, and 6.1103.
158 Marković (2008, 146) notes that all the rhetorical elements in the De rerum natura “function
as cognitive and mnemonic aids for the reader.” On the repetition of didactic formulas, such as
nunc age, see section 10.
159 A similar didactic strategy is employed at Lucr. 3.952–60, where the warnings of the personified
Natura are applied first to the whole of humankind, and afterwards to an old man. Cf. Wallach
(1976) and Reinhardt (2002).
teacher’s confidence towards the pupil (6.534) may encourage him to progress in
his survey of nature, whose successful outcome is promised as early as in Book 1
(1.408b–9 poteris caecasque latebras / insinuare omnis et uerum protrahere inde,
“so will you be able . . . to penetrate all unseen hiding-places, and draw forth the
truth from them”). The reader “is left to quell the sources within himself of a belief
in divine anger and to accept the subliminal visions of the true gods of Epicurean
philosophy with a newfound calm and serenity . . . (6.78).”¹⁶⁰
Although Lucretius’ influence is pervasive in the literary texture of Vergil’s
poem,¹⁶¹ the polyphonic nature of the addressee in the Georgics is not borrowed
from this model. Lucretius’ most characteristic didactic strategies are adapted by
Vergil’s protean interlocutor(s): a lively succession of second person singular forms,
plural imperatives, jussive subjunctives, questions (e.g. Verg. georg. 2.433–4), and
interjections (e.g. 1.63 ergo age and 3.515 ecce autem) confers a sense of urgency
to the discourse, and traditionally Lucretian phrases, such as nonne uides (e.g.
1.86, 3.103, and 3.250), set the agricultural content in a didactic frame.¹⁶² The
effect of a lively relationship with the audience is increased by the depiction of the
addressee’s reactions and emotions, for instance, at 1.335, 1.459, and 4.239, and
Vergil puts the addressee at ease (3.66–8), when “he admits his own dismay at
alarming signs, and waxes eloquent on the transience of human success.”¹⁶³ Vergil
also instructs the farmers (e.g., 1.101 agricolae, 1.210 viri, 2.35–6 agricolae, 3.288
coloni, 3.420 pastor) to manage their farms and crops, visualising himself as part of
the rural community (1.257 speculamur and 2.393–4 ergo . . . dicemus), or offering
realistic, self-deprecating insights (1.456b–7 non illa quisquam me nocte per altum /
ire neque a terra moneat conuellere funem, “On such a night let none urge me to
travel on the deep, or pluck my cable from the land”)¹⁶⁴ and an experienced view
160 Clay (1983, 225).

161 See Gale (2000).
162 Nelson (1998) suggests a comparative reading of Hesiod’s and Vergil’s poems. See also Farrell
(1991, 131–68) on the influence of Hesiod and Aratus on the Georgics.
163 Rutherford (2008, 86).
164 On the identity of Vergil’s rural addressees, see Wilkinson (1969, 53): “he would generally
be an absentee landlord, if a landlord at all.” Vergil’s farmer was most likely a colonus, an “old-
fashioned yeoman – uetus colonus – revived” (Wilkinson (1969, 53–4), someone whom he idealises
in the portrait of the Corycian old man, as in Verg. georg. 4.125–46. Vergil also addresses inanimate
objects or places: e.g. at Verg. georg. 2.95–6, 2.102, 2.159–60. There is, however, inconsistency in
Vergil’s attitude, especially when he sets himself apart from this same rural community (2.458–9a
o fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, / agricolas!, “O farmers, happy beyond measure, could
they but know their blessings!”). Cf. Schiesaro (1993, 138).
(1.193, 1.197, and 1.318 uidi – 1.472 or uidimus).¹⁶⁵ However, the variable relationship
that Vergil establishes with the addressee is compromised by the generic fiction
going on in the Georgics, as the poet himself points out (2.42, 3.284, 4.147), when
disclosing awareness of his incapacity to achieve thoroughness in his treatment
of natural philosophy (2.475–86). The lack of a dynamic quest that bestows an
idea of progression upon the poem also contributes to a sense of fictionality in the
relationship between the poet and his addressee.¹⁶⁶
The audience of Ovid’s love poems (Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, and
Medicamina faciei femineae) is overall homogeneous.¹⁶⁷ While the Ars is a lesson
on how to fall in love, conceived for his young fellow Roman citizens (pueri are the
addressees of Book 1 and 2 of the Ars, puellae of Book 3),¹⁶⁸ the Remedia appears
as a “rehabilitative therapy”¹⁶⁹, primarily for decepti iuuenes (Ov. rem. 41), but
eventually also for puellae (49–52), whom Ovid instructs on how to fall out of
love (41–2). The Medicamina, on the other hand, targets married women, who are
advised to employ cultus to please their husbands (Ov. medic. 25–6).¹⁷⁰
The lessons that Ovid offers in the Ars amatoria and in the Remedia “resem-
ble . . . scenes in a drama”;¹⁷¹ similarly, the parodic aspects of the Medicamina have
frequently been pointed out in modern scholarship.¹⁷² Ovid, as praeceptor Amoris
(Ov. ars 1.17), guides his addressee through the lesson, which, if followed uerbatim,
165 Cf. Rutherford (1995, 21–2). Vergil highlights his teaching authority throughout (e.g. Verg.
georg. 3.295, 3.300, 3.440, and 4.264).
166 On the opposition between Vergil and Lucretius, see Schiesaro (1993, 139) and Rutherford
(1995, 27).
167 Shifts of addressees are recurrent in Ovid’s poems, too. The case of the Medicamina is em-
blematic: the puellae, who are apostrophised at Ov. medic. 1 (discite quae faciem commendet cura,
puellae, “Learn, O women, what pains can enhance your looks”) and 43 again (prima sit in uobis
morum tutela, puellae, “Think first, ye women, to look to your behaviour”), are suddenly replaced
by a more generic second person singular (disce age), which resembles the dry impersonal style
of the metaphrasts; see also Ov. medic. 69–75 and Watson (2001).
168 Cf. Ov. ars 1.35–40. The reference might go to women of a certain class, to whom certain
privileges were recognised by law (3.58 quas pudor et leges et sua iura sinunt). Cf. also 3.195 sed
non Caucasea doceo de rupe puellas, “But I am not teaching girls from the cliffs of Caucasus.”
Miller (1992) sees this concession as an index of Ovid’s growing lack of control in the didactic
discourse.
169 Rosati (2006, 155).
170 The simile offered in the proem links the Sabine women both with the elegiac puellae and
the matronae. Cf. Rosati (1985, 9–19) and Watson (2001, 469).
171 Holzberg (2006, 42).
172 Cf. Toohey (1996, 160): “The didactic strategy in all of this . . . is persistently parodic”; see
also the different reading by Volk (2010, 9): “With Medicamina Ovid begins his foray into didactic
poetry.” See, moreover, Wilkinson (1955) and Rimell (2006).
will lead to successful results.¹⁷³ Ovid’s self-awareness is positively reflected in

what Holzberg (2006) calls the reader’s response, the active participation of the
addressee in Ovid’s love poems:¹⁷⁴ the enactments of Ovid’s erotic theories, not
least with references to his personal experience, prompt the pupil to put the lesson
to good use. On the other hand, when in the Remedia Ovid helps the victims of love
to unlearn what he taught them (Ov. rem. 211 dediscis amare, “unlearn your love”;
503 intrat amor mentes usu, dediscitur usu, “By wont love comes into the mind,
by wont is love unlearnt”; 752 dum bene de uacuo pectore cedat amor, “until love
ebb quite away from your empty heart”), he engages them in a negative process
and seems to expect credit from his pupils for the harmful teaching he imparted to
them before.¹⁷⁵
Johnson (1978, 8) rightly claims that the content of the Fasti “baffled Ovid and
its form therefore eluded him.”¹⁷⁶ A wide range of technical instructions about the
Roman calendar (from astronomy to the origins of names, customs, and festivals) is
delivered by a Protean poetic persona to an equally protean addressee(s). While the
first proem predicts calendrical honours for Germanicus and his family (Ov. fast.
1.11–12), at the same time it promises to treat Augustus’ religious festivals (1.13–14),
therefore embracing a sort of imperial panegyric, causing difficulty for the readers
as it ranges “from the serious to the perfunctory to the downright comic.”¹⁷⁷ Ovid’s
main topics of discussion in the Fasti, causas (aetiologies), and tempora (festival
rituals), as programmatically announced in the proem (1.1–2), are addressed respec-
tively to a Roman reader, who mainly benefits from aetiological instructions, and
to a diversified group of people. Raising the style when issuing ritual directions, as
if in a dramatic festival hymn, Ovid addresses an audience (1.75–6, 2.623, 2.631–6,
4.135–8, 4.867–9, etc.) that ranges from a more impersonal crowd (1.74 liuida turba
and 1.659 tu populus), to farmers (1.663 iuuenci), mariners (4.625 nauita), pontiffs
(4.630 pontifices), boys and girls (3.815 pueri . . . puellae), and even prostitutes
(4.865 uolgares . . . puellae): Ovid shifts to one or the other, now identifying with
them, then distancing himself, playing either the role of leader of the ceremonies,
173 The poet foresees a reward for the pupil, for example, at Ov. ars 1.2, 2.741–3, and 3.792.
174 See Holzberg (2006, 48–9) on other examples of reader’s response. Ovid assumes the identity
of a medical man in the Remedia (Ov. rem. 43–4, 76, 81, 91, 101, 109, etc.); cf. Toohey (1996, 171).
175 All translations of Ovid’s Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, and Medicamina faciei are taken
from Mozley (1979). See Hardie (2006) and Rosati (2006) on the paradoxical didactic process of
“unlearning” in the Remedia.
176 Volk (2002, 42) concludes that in Ovid’s Fasti “there is no indication that the persona’s main
intent is to teach anyone about the Roman calendar.” We shall, nonetheless, consider the Fasti as
a didactic poem in our discussion.
177 Miller (1992, 14).
or a Roman Callimachus.¹⁷⁸ The polyphony of the Fasti meets the didactic aims
of the poem more satisfactorily than Vergil’s Georgics: the multifaceted didactic
persona changes alongside the addressee, directing the teachings appropriately.
There is no overlapping between the Roman educated readers and the populus:
whilst the former, although likely involved in the performance of these ceremonies,
were mainly interested in the scholarly aspects of the poem, the latter is the explicit
target of the poet’s ad personam instructions.
In Manilius’ Astronomica the introduction of the addressee is delayed until
Manil. 1.194.¹⁷⁹ As Green (2011, 122) has argued, Book 1 “amounts to a descriptive,
static representation of the heavens”; yet, by its close, the reader has not gained
any significant astrological knowledge, as Manilius’ purpose here is to “map out
the cosmic backdrop for a study of astrology.”¹⁸⁰ The content influences the pres-
ence of the reader also in the other books: the highly technical nature of Books
2 and 3 engages the audience closely, while, in Book 4 and 5, which do not have
“the essential difficulty, astrological or astronomical, of Books 2 and 3,”¹⁸¹ the in-
terlocutor is introduced only after apostrophes to the mortales (4.12) and the Moon
(5.7), and his presence remains vague. Manilius’ concern is mainly addressed to
the reader’s observation and mental effort,¹⁸² which should aim at nouisse (1.16),
representing the first step towards knowledge, and scire (1.17), the theoretical act
that follows. The transition from the first to the second step is marked by cernere
(1.18–19a quaque regat generetque suis animalia signis / cernere, “to mark how it
controls the birth of all living beings through its signs”). The poet involves the
pupil in a dynamic process (3.36–9), his work is aimed at anyone (quicumque, 3.36)
willing to take on a highly technical subject matter, anyone who has the capability
to understand (potes),¹⁸³ and to follow carefully the poet’s teachings (3.43–6). Such
a work could not be intended for an uninterested audience, nor can it be considered
178 E.g. Ov. fast. 1.681, in contrast with 1.695. Cf. Miller (1980) and Schiesaro (2002).
179 In Aratus’ poem we also encounter a delayed appearance of the reader (Arat. 75). Neuburg
(1993) surveys Manilius’ use of the second person singular.
180 Green (2011, 123). On Manilius’ proems, see Landolfi (2003). There are significant gaps where
the reader is a mostly silent presence and is addressed only at the beginning and the end of these
passages, as if the poet wanted to secure his attention before focusing on scientific explanations,
thereby anticipating his possible doubts, as at Manil. 1.373, 1.458, 1.562, 1.648–9, 1.666, and 1.859.
181 Housman (1920, p. iv). See also Green (2011, 128).
182 The most common verbs are aspicere (5×), uidere (3×), accipere (5×), percipere (8×), and
cernere (3×). Related to the next step of mental discernment are: posse cognoscere / discernere
(2×), ne mirere (7×), and credere (2×).
183 On the ambiguity of Manilius’ idea of knowledge (universal and elitist), cf. Volk (2001, 85–117)
and Volk (2011, 104–19). See also Manil. 2.137 nec in turba nec turbae carmina condam, “Not in the
crowd nor for the crowd shall I compose my song.”
a “coffee-table” book, as Volk (2009) puts it. Manilius hides his audience behind
the simile of the rudes pueri (2.755):¹⁸⁴ Manilius’ audience is rudis, i.e. the poet has
to teach ab initio. However, only those who do not bind the cosmos and subjugate
it to their wishes (2.127–8) are allowed to approach this superior knowledge. It is
therefore not a poem for everyone: the discriminatory line lies in the acceptance of
the Stoic creed, which confers credibility upon the uates’ words.
A delayed apostrophe to the addressee is shared by Grattius’ Cynegetica, where
it is introduced as late as at line 62. Grattius’ audience is engaged with the lesson
from 127 onwards when they are provided with a list of instructions for hunting
that needs to be followed uerbatim. However, as we understand from 62–6, Grattius
is primarily urging his pupil to consider his poetic merits. Lines 73–4a also validate
this argument with the imperative directing the reader towards the poet’s authority
exige, si qua meis respondet ab artibus . . . / gratia, “Consider, then, what benefit,
derived from the arts I treat . . . ”.¹⁸⁵ Grattius defines the artes as meae, granted
to him by Diana: the audience is just a spectator and Grattius does not appear
to be concerned with their understanding of the arts (73), for there are no signs
of progression in knowledge nor does the poet appear to follow any “gerarchia
conoscitiva.”¹⁸⁶
The addressee’s passivity is characteristic of the Aetna as well: he only grad-
ually makes his appearance in the poem following the step-by-step actions pre-
scribed by Stoic epistemology,¹⁸⁷ occurring once every 14 lines (7.1%). The reader is
apostrophised directly only at Aetna 144–5 (tu modo subtiles animo duce percipe
causas / occultamque fidem manifestis abstrahe rebus, “Let but your mind guide
you to a grasp of cunning research: from things manifest gather faith in the un-
seen”¹⁸⁸). Trenchant imperatives serve as a reminder of the correct approach before
the start of the lesson¹⁸⁹ and the addressee’s field of action seems mainly restricted
to the most empirical aspects of the survey.¹⁹⁰ When senses cannot succeed, the
addressee’s presence is drastically reduced, and, conversely, the teacher’s presence
184 Cf. the Lucretian simile of the sick children in need of healing at Lucr. 1.943–9 (= 4.18–24).
185 All translations of Grattius are taken from Duff/Duff (1982).
186 Schiesaro (1993, 137). On Grattius’ poetic persona and addressee, see Fanti (2018).
187 See Cic. ac. 1.42, with reference to Zeno.
188 All translations of the Aetna are taken from Duff/Duff (1982).
189 First one’s senses need to be trusted: cernere (11×), putare (6×), and credere (2×) refer to
the attitude to assume after the preliminary warning to percipere (Aetna 144), which stands as
a sine qua non for approaching the poem, and, at the same time, for the comprehension of the
phenomenon of volcanism.
190 Note the eclipse of the addressee in long portions of the poem, mainly because of the kind of
content discussed.
becomes preponderant, insinuating his unquestionable authority and guidance

(duce me, 178).
With Henderson’s claim (2002, 113) that Columella “composes The Garden as
a definitionally separate world” the question arises if Columella’s hortus is also
didactically separated from the rest of Book 10, reflecting the engagement between
Columella and his audience. Although Columella’s didactic intent is made explicit
from the outset of Book 10, his kaleidoscopic use of the addressees is striking and
reminds us of Ovid’s Fasti¹⁹¹ with its continuous alteration between the first and
second person plural and the second person singular: for instance, nescia plebs . . .
ne parcite at Colum. 10.58 (most likely referring to those unaware of the art of
gardening) is suddenly replaced by the anaphoric use of nos (both at 10.65 and
10.66, which ought to be interpreted as “we human beings”), which is eventually
substituted with an unspecific tu (10.71, 10.72, and 10.73).¹⁹² This continual change
blurs the poet-reader’s constellation invalidating the declared instructional aim
of the poem. Instead, Columella’s authority, as established in the prose preface
of Book 10, languishes in the hexameters and the same appears to happen to the
engagement of the addressee. But what caused Columella to neglect the necessary
clarity of a didactic discourse? Are his choices indicative of a feeling of inadequacy
in comparison to his Vergilian model? Is it a desperate attempt to incorporate a
wide range of poetic (and didactic) patterns in order to establish his own poetic
authority? Or is this just Columella’s successful attempt to duplicate, in his poetic
endeavour, the polyphonic nature of the Vergilian model? After all, clarity in the
didactic discourse is certainly not one of the most commendable features in the
Georgics.
9 Performative value of didactic poetry

The problem of the performative value of didactic poems first emerged with He-
siod’s Works and Days. Did he genuinely intend to write an agriculture manual?
Jaeger (1945) and Fränkel (1975) both believe in the performative value of the
poem, a compendium of peasant wisdom that Hesiod, a peasant, would write
191 Columella’s alternations of addressees are not met by the poet’s different masks, which causes
a detachment between the poet and his addressee.
192 At Colum. 10.96 and 10.105 Columella, for instance, addresses a second person plural; at
10.140 a first person plural; 10.163 date is in sharp contrast with the individual addressee of tu at
10.165. Columella also addresses mythological characters (e.g., 10.172 Cinyreia uirgo and 10.224
Delie te Paean). See also the apostrophe to uiri (10.159).
for other peasants, in the memorisable form of maxims for daily usage. However,
whether we wish to accept the hypothesis of the Works and Days as a genuinely
instructional poem or not, a question to bear in mind is whether Hesiod’ statements
have anything of value to impart.¹⁹³ If Parmenides’ unique didactic patterns seem
to lose most of the performative value characteristic of Hesiod’s Works and Days,
where Perses’ negative example encourages a positive reaction in the readers,
inviting them to detach from their negative model, Empedocles follows the Hesiodic
example more faithfully.¹⁹⁴
No reaction is expected from Aratus’ audience, nor from Nicander’s and Op-
pian’s. Their reader mainly identifies with the elite of their time,¹⁹⁵ someone who
would appreciate their multi-layered erudition without necessarily engaging di-
rectly with their lesson. Even if Nicander’s generalising “you” is directed at fellow
doctors, “it is in their capacity as connoisseurs of literature, not as physicians, that
they are addressed.”¹⁹⁶ The performative value of these poems is therefore limited
to a personal reading, which only allows a full appreciation of their stylistic refine-
ments: knowledge for knowledge’s sake is the message they seem to convey.¹⁹⁷
Lucretius’ Memmius offers the reader a counter-model, similar to Perses’ case
in the Works and Days. Despite the intellectual development in the envisaged audi-
ence, we cannot determine whether their mental alertness and resulting progress
are replicated by the beneficiaries of the work, as we lack evidence of Lucretius’
proselytism in Rome. Lucretius’ confidence in his imaginary pupil’s accomplish-
ments might suggest both an attempt to convince his readers of their success¹⁹⁸
and a difference between the two – envisaged and actual – audiences. Lucretius
might shape the former differently from his readers in order to manipulate them
and conform them to the ideal model portrayed. More generally, offering to his real
audience a model of a successful didactic process reflects the teacher’s confidence
in his method, when delivered to an attentive disciple.
The main, if not the sole, performative value that we can hypothesise for the
Georgics is identifiable with the public readings in front of Augustus. Although he
193 See Stoddard (2004, 33).

194 The fragmentary condition of his work does not allow a comprehensive discussion of the
reader’s performance.
195 Aratus belongs to that very elite; cf. Bing (1993, 100). Instances of inclusive discourse in the
Phaenomena are Arat. 297, 768–72, and 1101–3. Cf. also Nic. Th. 309–19, 566–71, and 759–68 for
references to the environment of Alexandria.
196 Overduin (2014, 43).
197 Cf. Jacques (1960) and Bing (1990) on Aratus’ acrostics and puns.
198 Marković (2008) does not put much weight on the different identities of Lucretius’ envisaged
and real audience.
was aiming at restoring interest in Italian agriculture, “no Roman farmer would
have read the poem for practical instruction when Varro’s Res Rusticae was avail-
able; had he done so, moreover, his success would have been limited, for Vergil is
extremely selective with his precepts.”¹⁹⁹
Ovid’s love poems “were not intended as a practical guide to ensnaring the
opposite sex, any more than Vergil really intended his Georgics to be a practical
handbook of farming.”²⁰⁰ Ovid himself admits (Ov. trist. 2.471) that the Ars ought
to be treated as entertainment and that his love works are played in December (Ov.
trist. 2.491) being “parlour games for winter for writer and reader alike.”²⁰¹
The way of un-teaching in the Remedia produces a unique detachment between
the intra-textual and extra-textual addressee, as exemplified by the “paradoxical
divinity,” at 549–78, Lethaeus Amor.²⁰² It personifies “the place held by memory
and forgetting in the poem as a whole,” stressing that “even were it possible
for the doctus amator to ‘unlearn’ (dediscere) love, it is the characteristic of the
doctus lector that s/he does not, cannot, forget what has been read before,” thus
undermining the performative value of the entire didactic discourse. Besides, “Ovid
well knows that to continue to speak of love – even if only to repeat that it is over
and that one is no longer in love – means continuing to dwell in the world of
desire.”²⁰³ Equally, his warning to the readers against love poetry (Ov. rem. 756–8),
after an earnest self-defence (357–98) explaining his enthusiasm for love poetry
and the reader’s joy,²⁰⁴ clashes both with the action the audience is engaged with
and impinges upon the implementation of the teachings.
The overlap between Manilius’ intra-textual and extra-textual addressee is
noteworthy. Volk (2009, 180) argues that “the readers of Manilius . . . wanted to . . .
learn something (not everything) about the stars, without having any intention of
putting what they learned into action.” Although the astronomical calculations
we learn about are not primarily conceived for measuring the skies, they serve a
deeper aim, and it is on this that both addressees grow in the learning process:
a mature awareness of the cosmic divine order, according to the tenets of Stoic
philosophy.
199 Thomas (1988a, 4).

200 Binns (1973, 85).
201 Toohey (1996, 167). Although Ovid claims he wrote the Medicamina to teach about those
paints that will make women beautiful (Ov. ars 3.205–8), their practical use is doubtful. See Toohey
(1996). A similar taste for the display of erudition emerges from Ovid’s fragmentary Halieutica, cf.
Wilkinson (1955) and de Saint-Denis (1975).
202 Cf. Hardie (2006, 167–8).
203 Rosati (2006, 164).
204 On the relationship between form and content in the Remedia, see Brunelle (2001).
Did Grattius intend to write a hunting manual? We understand that hunting

was a widely practiced activity by the Roman elite in the 1st century AD.²⁰⁵ The
Cynegetica is, therefore, mainly aimed to please such an audience by celebrating
this popular leisure activity.²⁰⁶
The survey of the performative value in the most interesting cases of didactic
poetry allows us to draw some important conclusions. The Hellenistic fashion of
writing didactic poetry seems to clash with any form of progress, moral or intellec-
tual, on the addressee’s side, being mostly concerned with the display of erudition,
and with the delivery of list-like prescriptions in the guise of technical manuals. It
is in fact with philosophical-related contents that a more active reaction from the
addressee finds space, as they either espouse or shrink from the doctrine received.
It is the poet’s belief in a certain worldview that guarantees a successful outcome
of the lesson and any concrete attempt towards the creed that the addressee might
undertake. While the performance of epic poetry was mainly, if not only, limited
to the oral performance of the bards, didactic poetry adds another dimension
to the performative value: communal educational dynamics tie together internal
addressee and readers, who are not separate, but rather act and/or counter-act
simultaneously in the plot.
10 Repetitions in epic and didactic hexameter

poetry
Homeric repetitions are frequent and unmistakeable, and appear in many different
forms: individual words in identical line position, names or nouns with modifiers
or modifying expressions, individual verses, multiple verses, and situations, or
narratives using similar language.²⁰⁷ These repetitions were a source of bewilder-
ment to scholars until Milman Parry in the 1920s and 1930s explained them with
the oral composition of the Homeric epics.²⁰⁸ Putting aside the debate about oral
composition, repetitions of various kinds in literary texts have long been viewed as
a technical necessity of composition, and consequently have been little considered
in terms of their literary and rhetorical merit. In didactic poetry, too, a range of
205 Cf. Hor. epist. 1.18.49–50 and Green (1996).

206 Grattius himself likely belonged to that elite; see Fanti (2018).
207 Cf. Clark (2004, 117–18). Hesiod also repeats himself, though not as frequently. According
to Notopoulos (1960, 80) Homer repeats 33% and Hesiod 23%. Edwards (1971, 40–2), however,
questions the validity of Notopoulos’ method and figures.
208 Cf. Parry (1971) and Clark (2004, 118–19) for a useful summary. See also Bakker in this volume.
repetition-strategies may be observed. This relationship between the structural

forms of didactic and epic warrants further exploration. Owing to limitations of
space, our discussion is limited to a few important case studies of what is arguably
the most fundamental and striking of relationships between the authors of didac-
tic and epic hexameter genres: Lucretius and Vergil. This may reveal some of the
idiosyncrasies of particular texts or authors (such as the ‘Homeric’ multi-linear
repetition in Lucretius), but the selected examples are illustrative of the types of
shared and divergent features of the hexameter genres of didactic and epic.²⁰⁹
This part of the chapter first explores the ways in which Homeric epic formulas
have been used in later didactic poetry, finding a common function, but also
suggesting that in didactic poetry, formulas have taken on a clearly didactic and
even rhetorical role. The discussion moves on to an analysis of the ways in which
type-scenes are verbally signposted in both epic and didactic poetry and explores
what effect signposting has on the audience. Finally, attention is paid to broader
structural connections between epic and didactic poetry. This includes exploration
of the influence of epic on didactic and vice versa.
10.1 Didactic-epic formulas
Studies of epic formulas have a rich history; formulas form the basis for Parry’s
monumental work on the oral composition of the Homeric epics.²¹⁰ It is generally
accepted that a formula is repeated and that it conveys something essential or
common.²¹¹ Didactic poems also, unsurprisingly, make use of formulas and exhibit
formulaic language.
The opening of Lucretius’ controversial and influential didactic poem, De rerum
natura, famously begins with a line redolent of an epic formula (Lucr. 1.1 Aeneadum
genetrix hominum diuomque uoluptas, “Mother of Aeneas and his race, darling of
men and gods”). Signalling to the reader that they are reading an epic, the line
echoes Ennius, whose variations of the formula include diuomque hominumque
pater, rex (Enn. ann. 591) and the closely related patrem diuumque hominumque
209 For the different kinds of repetition in Lucretius, see Deutsch (1939), Ingalls (1971, 227), and
Buglass (2015).
210 Cf. Parry’s (1971, 13) much-quoted definition of a Homeric formula: “an expression regularly
used, under the same metrical conditions, to express an essential idea.”
211 See also Hainsworth (1968, 33–9), who defines a formula as a repeated word-group, Ingalls
(1972), Edwards (1987, 45–54, esp. 51), who talks about the repetition of formulas as giving “stabil-
ity” and reassurance to an audience “by their familiarity”, and Visser (1999, 376). Edwards (1987,
51) claims that formulas do not necessarily indicate a connection in narrative, tone, or intention.
(592).²¹² These are apparently direct translations of Homer’s πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν
τε (Hom. Il. 1.554); even -que . . . -que . . . echoes the Homeric τε . . . τε.²¹³ There is
also the (looser) verse diuom pater atque hominum rex at Enn. ann. 6.203 Skutsch.²¹⁴
Vergil also recycles these three Ennian fragments in the Aeneid. It is possible
that Vergil is alluding not (only) to Ennius, but also to Lucretius:
Verg. Aen. 10.174–6

175 insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis.
tertius ille h o m i n u m d i u u m q u e interpres Asilas,
cui pecudum fibrae, c a e l i cui sidera parent
. . . an island rich in the Chalybes’ inexhaustible mines. Third comes Asilas, famous interpreter
between gods and men, whom the victims’ entrails obey, and the stars of heaven . . .
Lucr. 1.1–2
Aeneadum genetrix, h o m i n u m d i u o m q u e uoluptas
alma Venus, c a e l i subter labentia signa
Mother of Aeneas and his race, darling of men and gods, nurturing Venus, who beneath the
smooth-moving heavenly signs . . .
The passage from the Aeneid refers to an interpreter hominum diuumque called
Asilas, who reads the entrails as well as the stars. Lucretius, meanwhile, in Book 1
addresses Venus, the delight hominum diuumque, in his famous hymn, but this is
followed by the paradoxical assertion of the gods’ disinterest in human affairs at
Lucr. 1.44–6, and we cannot and should not take the hymn as straightforward. In
Book 6 the formula is repeated when Lucretius asks the Muse Calliope to show him
the way (6.92–5),²¹⁵ but this comes after a similar statement of the gods’ indifference
(6.68–78), and directly before a statement of the importance of understanding the
ratio caeli (6.80–91). It appears for a moment as if Lucretius buys into traditional
ideas, signalled by the formula, but he subsequently corrects the reader’s momen-
tary assumption. In this case, the content, but also the repetitions and formulas
themselves are suggestive of the epic tradition and its values. However, in the
212 For these fragments, cf. Skutsch (1985, 111–12) and the section entitled sedis incertae anna-
lium. See also Skutsch (1985, 730) on whether 591 and 592 are in fact separate fragments, contra
Elliot (2008, 242–3), who views Ennius as repetitive in this case. There are inherent difficulties in
discussing repetitions and formulas in fragmentary texts.
213 Cf. Hom. Il. 4.68, 5.426, 8.49, 8.132, 11.182, 15.12, 15.47, 16.458, 20.56, 22.167, 24.103, Hom. Od.
1.28, 12.445, and 18.137. There are four times as many occurrences of the formula in the Iliad as
in the Odyssey. Cf. Hes. Th. 47 Ζῆνα θεῶν πατέρ’ ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν, “Zeus, the father of gods and of
men.” See also Elliot (2008, 250).
214 For further connections between Lucretius, Ennius, and Homer, see West (1969, 30–4).
215 Cf. also Iuv. 13.31.
De rerum natura, such obsequiousness to the gods can also be a foil for rational
explanation and even anti-religious argument.
Elliot (2008) argues that Vergil often appropriates Homeric formulas in the
Aeneid via Ennius’ text rather than directly through Homer;²¹⁶ however, it seems
right to insert Lucretius into the equation: Lucretian repetition and formularity
are also emulated or Vergil is at the least aware of Lucretius’ use of the traditional
formula. Not only are early epic texts exhibiting a degree of formularity which
influences later epic texts, but didactic texts, such as Lucretius’ De rerum natura,
exhibit the same formularity,²¹⁷ and can likewise influence an epic poem, such as
the Aeneid.
A similar phenomenon can be observed in the Georgics: Vergil takes the half
verse simulacra modis pallentia miris (“similitudes . . . pallid in wondrous wise”)
from Lucr. 1.123 and uses [simulacra] modis [pallentia] miris twice in the Georgics: a
direct echo of Lucr. 1.123 at Verg. georg. 1.477 and a modified version (uisenda modis
animalia miris, “creatures of wondrous wise to view”) at 4.309.²¹⁸ It is subsequently
used four times in the Aeneid. Lucretius uses the line to paraphrase Ennius’ (lost)
description of the simulacra of human bodies and souls that dwell in Acheron (Lucr.
1.116–23).²¹⁹ This paraphrase of Ennius’ writing is explicitly named by Lucretius as
an example of ignorance as to the nature of the soul (1.112). Although versions of
the phrase recur in Lucretius in different forms, it is in the Georgics, with uerbatim
repetition and later adaptation of Lucr. 1.123, that [simulacra] modis [pallentia]
miris becomes a formula.²²⁰
The half verse occurs in Lucretius 19 times aside from the instance at 1.123 in
a related, but different, form: (multa) modis multis.²²¹ In almost every instance,
Lucretius is explaining or describing certain natural phenomena, which are, in the
end, caused by atoms and their interactions (e.g. 2.116, 4.128, and 4.861). These
216 See Elliot (2008, 242–8). We do not restrict ourselves to this view.
217 Manilius displays a (quasi-) formulaic (and sometimes Lucretian) language of his own, such
as moenia mundi, praecordia mundi, lumine mundi, inania mundi, nomina signis, semina rebus,
and lumina terrae.
218 The formula does not appear to have its origin in Greek epic-didactic poetry. Commentaries
make no mention of a potential Homeric parallel; for Horsfall (2013, II, on Verg. Aen. 6.738),
the expression modis . . . miris is “part of the traditional language of high poetry rather than a
recognisable debt to a given author.”
219 Lucr. 1.124–6 goes on to summarise Ennius’ description of Homer’s ghost appearing to him.
At 1.120 Lucretius quotes Enn. scaen. 107 with Acherusia templa. See also Brown (1984) on Lucr.
1.122.
220 Cf. Finkmann on necromancies in volume II.2.
221 The phrase is reminiscent of multis sum modis circumuentus, morbo exilio atque inopia in Enn.
trag. 16. Cf. Skutsch (1985, 155).
uses of the phrase are linked both verbally and argumentatively with the simulacra
modis pallentia miris of Lucr. 1.123. The line refers to mythical ghosts, after all, and
the reader requires understanding of the nature of atoms – often explained using
the related phrase (multa) modis multis – to overcome fear caused by belief in such
myths.
The formula’s first instance in the Georgics occurs where, in a line ending
identical to Lucretius’ introduction of the formula, Vergil recounts the horrific
omens which occurred on the day Caesar died, including the eclipse (Verg. georg.
1.466–97); the formulaic line describes ghosts of strange pallor which wandered in
the darkness (1.477). The second instance appears at the beginning of the Bougonia
exposition in Georgics 4, in which the author explains how to create a new stock of
bees spontaneously from the carcass of an ox: Vergil describes how the creatures,
in wondrous ways, begin to swarm together (4.308–10). Vergil then reuses the
formulaic verse in the Aeneid: at Verg. Aen. 1.354 Venus describes how Dido saw
the pale face of her dead husband’s ghost.²²² At 6.738, in Anchises’ description of
the afterlife of the poor souls who have a pestis deeply ingrained and are punished
in the underworld, we have modis inolescere miris; at 7.89 when Latinus visits
the oracle and he sleeps and sees ghosts, one finds multa modis simulacra uidet
uolitantia miris, which is so similar to Lucr. 1.123.²²³ Finally, there is ora modis
Anchisiades pallentia miris at Verg. Aen. 10.822, where Lausus’ face is described as
modis . . . pallentia miris when Aeneas, who killed him, watches him die with pity.
An epic formula (here from Lucretius as far as we can tell) has thus become
a didactic formula, and is then transferred again to epic. The epic formula is
irrevocably altered once it has been used in a didactic context and with a didactic
function. Formulas can signal to a reader an epic worldview, or, they can undermine
a particular worldview with which a particular formula is associated. In turn, a
‘didactic’ formula like modis . . . miris can lend ambiguity to a text like the Aeneid,
when it is inserted into contexts which recall epic narratives that had already been
undermined by a text like De rerum natura.²²⁴ Still, the formula, when used in
didactic context, recalls the oral tradition of the Homeric epics and the traditional
language of earlier didactic poems such as Hesiod’s Works and Days.
Lucretius uses formulas, then, in obviously ‘epic’ ways, even if his end is to
undermine certain aspects of the worldview portrayed and promoted in epic poems.
But he also morphs the epic formula into a different type of formula: into a direct
222 Here pallentia is replaced with attollens pallida to create coniugis ora modis attollens pallida
miris.
223 Cf. Lucr. 4.127–8, 4.164–5, and 4.724–5.
224 See Giesecke (2000) for a reading of the Aeneid against Lucretius’ De rerum natura.
address to his addressee such as nonne uides, nunc age.²²⁵ These (repeated) ad-
dresses to the reader have a formulaic quality to them. While the oral performance
of epic poems is in need of such structuring devices as formulas and epithets,
the didactic poet uses these same structuring devices which are familiar to the
audience, but adapts their function so that they serve several purposes.
One of the purposes served by formulaic addresses is an obviously didactic
one of allowing for a quasi-dialogue with the reader of the text (see above). Apart
from this, formulaic addresses also perform a function closely related to their
performance in epic poetry, of dividing the text and acting as a sort of place-
marker, to gain or maintain the reader’s attention.²²⁶ The phrase quod superest,
for example, which may be translated variously as something like “as for the rest”,
or “for what remains”, implies that Lucretius is nearing the end of some sort of
section or argument.²²⁷ This is evidently also connected to rhetorical prose: one
also sees in Cicero’s forensic speeches numerous and repeated addresses to his
audience, including the frequent quae cum ita sint and quid enim est.²²⁸
But, such addresses also “intrude” into the universe of the reader, which can
be viewed as a form of metalepsis.²²⁹ In a didactic text, a refrain (such as a repeated
address to the reader) may be indicative of the author’s acute awareness of the
passage of time as the addressee reads.²³⁰ This is in some respect also connected
225 Nunc age also occurs at Manil. 2.939, 3.43, 3.275, 4.585, Verg. georg. 4.149, Verg. Aen. 6.756,
and 7.37, but is notably absent from Ovid’s didactic poetry. Cf. also nonne uides at Verg. georg. 1.56,
3.103, and 3.250. On these phrases in the Georgics, cf. Thomas (1988a, 4), who sees such echoes as
mainly formal emulation of Lucretius.
226 Volk (2002, 76) suggests that phrases like nonne uides give structure to the poem, but also
lend it an “archaic feel”. Bailey (1947, 145) notes these repeated introductory phrases as a type of
repetition in his prolegomena.
227 The phrase occurs 21 times in Lucretius’ De rerum natura: Lucr. 1.50, 1.921, 2.39, 2.183, 2.491,
2.546, 3.350, 3.905, 4.195, 4.768, 4.1283, 5.64, 5.91, 5.206, 5.261, 5.772, 5.1241, 6.219, 6.423, 6.906, and
6.1000. Other repeated phrases that belong to the same group are: nunc age (seen 15 times at 1.265,
1.921, 1.953, 2.62, 2.333, 2.730, 2.417, 4.110, 4.176, 4.269, 4.673, 4.722, 6.495, 6.535, and 6.738), quare
etiam atque etiam (seen 13 times at 1.295, 1.1049, 2.243, 2.377, 2.1064, 3.228, 3.576, 3.686, 4.216, 4.289,
4.856, 4.1207, and 5.821), and quoniam docui (seen 7 times at 1.265, 1.951, 2.478, 2.522, 3.31, 4.45,
and 6.43). These phrases may be seen as performing either or both of the functions. Cf. Schiesaro
(1987, 46–7) for the ‘formula’ iam ostendimus in Lucretius, Cicero, and Rhet. Her.
228 The former is seen in works such as Catil., Mur., S. Rosc., Verr.; the latter, e.g., in Rab. perd.,
Balb., Phil.
229 Genette (1980, 234–5) describing metalepsis writes that “any intrusion by the extradiegetic
narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe . . . or the inverse, produces an effect of strangeness
that is either comical . . . or fantastic.” See also de Jong (2009, 87–116) and Whitmarsh (2013).
230 We are indebted to Karen Caines and David Konstan for an illuminating discussion on these
ideas.
with rhetorical strategy. After all, Lucretius is in a constant bid to persuade his
audience of the accuracy of a hypothesis that is often debatable. Cicero is fond of
the phrase ut supra dixi, and one can see a connection between this and Lucretius’
quae diximus (seen in both Cicero and Lucretius, though only once in Lucretius),
ut diximus (ante) (seen in both Cicero and Lucretius), ut(i) docui, and ostendimus
ante.²³¹ These phrases serve as a footnote to an earlier argument. They not only
draw attention to the recurring importance of previous arguments in De rerum
natura, but also say something about and make the reader all the more aware
of the cumulative and interconnected nature of arguments in De rerum natura:
arguments are constantly built upon to make a case for something related to, or at
times, more complex than, an idea already discussed. One can claim connection to
epic formulas both in the origin of these formulaic addresses, but also in the idea
that allusions build connections between different narratives, and so the same
might be said of self-allusions, as one might term a repetitive formula.²³²
One may also suppose that with these repeated addresses Lucretius is in part
attempting to give the reader this same awareness of time: to break the reader out
of the fictive world and to come into their own world again briefly. A structuring
device like quod superest might easily draw attention to the text qua creation by
an author. This momentary slip between worlds would allow the reader to apply
all that they read in Lucretius’ literary, textual world, to their own world. This is,
after all, Lucretius’ whole objective for the reader. The transition out of the world
of De rerum natura into the reader’s world may bridge the gap between the two,
and in doing so, unite the textual world with the actual world: the text may be
part of the world of the reader and the reader may enter back into the world of
the text, ready again to apply to their world that which they find in the text. In
these ways, didactic and epic differ. Arguably formulas give an epic poem structure,
just as these quasi-formulas in Lucretius do.²³³ But, the use of formulas to give an
awareness of time, to intrude into the world of the audience, and certainly as a
231 quae diximus (Lucr. 4.643, Cic. fin. 5.60.6, and Cic. Tim. 7.9), ut diximus (Lucr. 2.509, Cic. inv.
1.40.10, and Cic. Cato 48.3), ut diximus ante (Lucr. 3.538, 4.73, and 4.882), uti docui (Lucr. 1.539,
2.339, 2.1050, 3.522, and 5.364), ut docui (3.458 and 3.500), ostendimus ante occurs eight times
in Lucretius, seven of which appear as part of a full verse repetition: three times in id quod iam
supera tibi paulo ostendimus ante (Lucr. 1.429, 1.531, and 4.672); twice in multimodis uarians, ut
paulo ostendimus ante at 6.989 and 6.997; and twice in corpora sunt, quorum naturam ostendimus
ante at 3.810 and 5.355. See 6.774 res ad uitai rationem ostendimus ante.
232 For the footnote function of repetitions, cf. Smith (1966, 77) as well as Ross (1975, 78) and
Hinds (1998, 5) on the “Alexandrian footnote”. This type of contextual connection is comparable
to Knauer’s (1964, 145–7) ‘guiding-citations’ (“Leitzitate”); cf. Farrell (2005, 103–6). On “thematic
links”, see Kelly (2008, 175).
233 See, e.g., Bowra (1930, 96–7) and Hainsworth (1968, 41).
direct address to the reader, and a clear sign of self-consciousness, is didactic, not
epic.²³⁴
10.2 Type-scenes from epic to didactic
Type-scenes have been described as “one of the most important aspects of the
Homeric epics”, and continued to be a key feature of the subsequent epic tradi-
tion.²³⁵ These repeated epic structures are also a prominent element of Lucretius’
didactic verse, who is influenced heavily by Homer in this regard. For example, one
might read Lucretius’ famous and sorrowful depiction of Iphigenia’s sacrifice (Lucr.
1.84–101) against the respective Homeric type-scene. Homeric repetitions can carry
the same didactic and rhetorical function as repetitions in didactic poetry.²³⁶ These
building blocks do not only help the epic poet structure his poem, but they can
emphasise a deliberate departure from or difference to the other context(s) of the
repetition and might highlight progress or change in the narrative or character
development.²³⁷ It will become clear in the following examples that the didactic
function of these structural elements is related to their earlier epic function.
The three messenger scenes, which occur in close proximity in Iliad 24, contain
signposts or markers to indicate the repeated narrative.²³⁸ The first instance shows
Iris who was sent by Zeus to summon Thetis and ask her to persuade Achilles to
return the body of Hector to Priam (Hom. Il. 24.83–6):
εὗρε δ᾿ ἐνὶ σπῆι γλαφυρῷ Θέτιν, ἀμφὶ δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἄλλαι

εἵαθ᾿ ὁμηγερέες ἅλιαι θεαί· ἣ δ᾿ ἐνὶ μέσσῃς
85 κλαῖε μόρον οὗ παιδὸς ἀμύμονος, ὅς οἱ ἔμελλε
φθίσεσθ᾿ ἐν Τροίῃ ἐριβώλακι τηλόθι πάτρης.
234 On self-consciousness in didactic poetry, see Volk (2002, 12–24).

235 Clark (2004, 134). Cf. Arend (1933) and Edwards (1992). Visser (1999, 370) considers this a
“repeated scene”.
236 Minchin (1999, 348) proposes that “serial repetition” helps the poet as a storyteller in addition
to helping composition.
237 This is hinted at in Bowra (1930, 88), who claims the audience is “more prepared” to hear
something new after a repetition during which they can rest. Research on child-language acqui-
sition shows that repetition renders the repeated information “common ground”, which in turn
creates space for new information: Clark/Bernicot (2008, esp. 350 and 368).
238 The terminology is adapted from Farrell’s (2005, 100–1) “intertextual marker” and Hinds’
(1998, 4) “signpost”.
And she found Thetis in the hollow cave, and around her other goddesses of the sea gathered
together, and she in their midst was weeping for the fate of her incomparable son, who was
to perish in the deep-soiled land of Troy, far from his native land.²³⁹
In the second scene Thetis visits Zeus to hear what it is that he wishes her to do
(Hom. Il. 24.98–9):
εὗρον δ᾿ εὐρύοπα Κρονίδην, περὶ δ᾿ ἄλλοι ἅπαντες

εἵαθ᾿ ὁμηγερέες μάκαρες θεοὶ αἰὲν ἐόντες
And they found the son of Cronos, whose voice resounds afar, and around him sat gathered
together all the other blessed gods who are forever.
In the third passage Thetis visits Achilles by his ship to persuade him to take the
ransom for Hector’s body and return it to Priam (Hom. Il. 24.123–5):
ἷξεν δ᾿ ἐς κλισίην οὗ υἱέος· ἔνθ᾿ ἄρα τόν γε

εὗρ᾿ ἁδινὰ στενάχοντα· φίλοι δ᾿ ἀμφ᾿ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι
125 ἐσσυμένως ἐπένοντο καὶ ἐντύνοντο ἄριστον
. . . came to the hut of her son. There she found him groaning ceaselessly, and round about
him his dear comrades were busily making ready their early meal.
Verbal connections draw together the different stages of the narrative at hand,
the requests and the fulfilments of those requests.²⁴⁰ The aorist of εὑρίσκω occurs
in the same line-initial position when each searcher finds the character they are
looking for.²⁴¹ The character found is surrounded by their fellow goddesses, gods,
or companions respectively.²⁴² Thetis’ task is the same throughout each instance:
to persuade Achilles to give up the body of Hector. The repetitions highlight that
essential information is conveyed and generate unity in the narrative; at the same
time, they also draw together different parts of the same story and stress the differ-
ences between the individual stages of the narrative. In general, verbal repetitions
can help the audience recall what previously occurred.²⁴³
239 All translations of Homer are taken from Murray/Wyatt (2 1999).

240 See Manil. 5.640–1 and Hübner (2011, 149–50) for the use of repetition in an outward and
return journey.
241 Cf. Shewan (1923, 157) on the common Homeric practice of repeating words in the same
metrical position.
242 Cf. Hom. Il. 1.326–30 and 24.166–70. The companions are either described by ἀμφὶ (as in 24.83
and 24.124) or the synonym περὶ is used (24.98). Thetis’ own description as being ἐνὶ μέσσῃς at
24.84 emphasises this further. See also Verg. georg. 4.334–5, where Aristaeus’ mother Cyrene is
found, also surrounded, by nymphs.
243 Mansfeld’s (1995) idea of “insight by hindsight” is helpful: he talks of allusion in anticipation.
This technique of signposting plays a crucial role in the De rerum natura.

In the proem to Book 5 Lucretius discusses the mortality (that is, subjection to
death) of humans and the world, in almost identical language (Lucr. 5.59–61 and
5.65–6). In Book 5 the phrase mortali corpore appears five times (5.6, 5.65, 5.238,
5.321, and 5.377): three times this phrase occurs together with the adjective natiuus
(5.235–40, 5.318–21, and 5.376–9), all occurring within an argument that the world
was born and will eventually die. Again, as in Homer, different parts of the same
story are drawn together by verbal repetition.²⁴⁴ What is more, on a basic level, the
recurrence of natiuus and mortalis emphasises to the reader not only the world’s
mortal status, but also that it did indeed have a birth at one point.²⁴⁵
Lucretius builds on this kind of (perhaps subconscious) repetition, which
is seen in Homer, in his particular aim to help readers in their apprenticeship
to Epicureanism. Lucretius, moreover, has a more obvious need to connect the
argumentative contexts and “hammer in” assertions.²⁴⁶ Irrespective of whether
one accepts or not that this type of repetition in Homer is consciously meant to
have some effect on the reader, it is sensible to suggest a cause-effect relation-
ship between the repetitions or internal allusions of Homer and Lucretius, and,
extrapolating from this, between those which are found in epic and the subgenre
of didactic epic.²⁴⁷
One also sees multi-linear repetitions in Homer as part of a bauform: our
example here pertains to the same narrative of the recovery of Hector’s body,
though the action shown occurs at different stages of the narrative. When Hecuba
attempts to dissuade Priam from going to Achilles, she says that he has a “heart of
steel” (σιδήρειόν νύ τοι ἦτορ). The phrase occurs as part of a multi-linear passage
that will be repeated later in the book: Hom. Il. 24.203–5 = 24.519–21. Meanwhile,
when Priam visits Achilles to recover Hector’s body, Achilles also tells Priam that
his heart is made of steel, but here the meaning of the phrase σιδήρειόν . . . ἦτορ is
clearly about bravery and not “hard-heartedness” or unfeeling behaviour.²⁴⁸ An
identical repetition, not only of the phrase, but also of the multi-linear passage is
244 Note the repetition of constare and the identical word position of mortale corpus.
245 See, for example, Bailey (1947, 162–3).
246 For the idea of emphatic “hammering home” through repetition, see Bailey (1947, 162). Cf.
Classen (1968, 98–9) and Deutsch (1939, 21 and 97–120). It is important to recognise that didactic
poetry is arguably not usually seeking to teach what it professes to teach; see Volk (2009, 175–82).
Classen (1968, 98–9) points out the rhetorical nature of emphatic repetition.
247 See Hübner (2011, 149–50). Volk (2009, 183) explains the inevitability of the interaction by
those writing in hexameters with all those who have done so before, and the intentional imitatio
and aemulatio.
248 Cf. the English expression “nerves of steel”. See Brügger (2009, on Hom. Il. 24.205), who notes
the duplication of the verses and of σιδήρειόν . . . ἦτορ with different meaning: “zwei – nicht immer
therefore used to highlight the difference in perception:²⁴⁹ to Hecuba, her husband

is immovable, stubborn, and hard; to Achilles, he is courageous and unrelenting.
Hecuba resents these qualities, while Achilles admires them.²⁵⁰
Instances of multi-linear repetition in didactic poetry as a whole are not al-
together common.²⁵¹ But there is a preponderance of it in Lucretius. Multi-linear
repetition is used to connect different parts of the De rerum natura, to emphasise
argumentative links and shared essential elements, while at the same time allow-
ing the reader to detect a difference between the two (or more) uses of the passage.
For example, Books 3 and 5 are connected in subject matter and by a repetition of
13 verses.²⁵² The passages are almost identical and assert the inevitable death of
the human soul and the world respectively.²⁵³ Given the close connection between
arguments, if the reader found the arguments in Book 3 for the mortality of the
soul compelling, they would probably also find the arguments in Book 5 for the
mortality of the world persuasive. As with the Homeric example, the separation
of the two arguments by thousands of verses would not likely be an obstacle to
the reader’s detection of the repetition: the lengthy duplication would trigger the
memory of the reader.²⁵⁴ Lucretius uses the same strategy as in the Iliad to connect
different parts of a ‘narrative’: here, one argument stated in two different contexts
scharf voneinander zu unterscheidende – Sinnrichtungen”: “ausdauernde Stärke: ‘unermüdlich,

beharrlich’” and “unerbittliche Gefühllosigkeit: ‘hartherzig, erbarmungslos’”. Brügger’s first
meaning is not quite the “bravery” we suggest for 24.521; his suggestion “unerschütterlich” in
the same note as a meaning for the phrase at 24.521 comes closer. Richardson (1993, on Hom. Il.
24.519–21) notes the verbal duplication but not the difference in perspective. On 24.203–5 he notes
the repetition of σιδήρειόν . . . ἦτορ. Alden (2000, 311–18) provides an illuminating appendix on
women entreating their husbands, but does not mention this repetition and the connection to
Hecuba’s entreaty when discussing Priam’s mission.
249 For corrective allusions, cf. Thomas (1986, 188); on Manilius’ correction of Vergil, see Volk
(2009, 185–6).
250 For more connections between Priam and Achilles, see Buxton (2004, 154–5). From the
difference in how Hecuba and Achilles view Priam one could extrapolate ways in which the
audience is meant to view Priam.
251 For example, the ‘father’ of didactic poetry, Hesiod prefers polyptota and small-scale repetition
in general, though he does repeat whole verses at times. Neither Manilius’ nor Ovid’s didactic
poetry is particularly repetitive. On repetition in poetry more broadly, see Wills (1996).
252 Lucr. 3.806–18 = 5.351–63 (but at 5.362 read qui for quis and dissiliant for diffugiant). It has
been suggested that the passage in Book 3 has been incorporated into the text from a marginal
note by a later hand. Lachmann (1850) deletes the verses; with Martin (1969) and others we retain
the passage in both places.
253 Cf. Bailey (1947, 163–5). Bailey is on the whole concerned with which passage was written
first (e.g. 165).
254 The reader has already seen a connection between the body of man and the body of the
world through multi-linear repetition (Lucr. 3.784–97 and 5.128–41); the reader is therefore likely
so that it applies to bodies on two different scales. This is just one of many cases
in which a continuation from epic to didactic can be determined in the use of
repetition as a connecting structural device.
10.3 Further epic and didactic interactions

10.3.1 Bees
The importance of the simile as an epic building block has long been established
and is discussed in great detail by Ursula Gärtner and Karen Blaschka in this
volume.²⁵⁵ Among the many different functions of similes in the epic plot are the
creation of a pause in the narrative²⁵⁶ and the possibility for the poet to include ‘un-
epic’ material within an epic poem.²⁵⁷ The latter aspect applies no less to Vergil’s
didactic epic, the Georgics. The bees of Georgics 4 are an apt illustration of in-
teractions between the similes of epic and the similes of didactic poetry.²⁵⁸ The
connection between the bees and human society has been suggested by many,²⁵⁹
and while aspects of Vergil’s bees are inherited from the heroic similes of Homer
(esp. the bees of Hom. Il. 2.85–92),²⁶⁰ the didactic elements of Vergil’s description
to be more perceptive to the connection by 5.351. This argument is even more convincing if one
considers Schiesaro’s (1994) theory that Lucretius’ De rerum natura was intended to be re-read,
and the idea that epics were not heard only once.
255 See also Buxton (2004, 139–55). Farrell (1991, 240) tellingly assimilates the simile with epic
style in general. Schindler (2000) provides an important study of the didactic simile, investigating
the similes of Lucretius, Manilius, and Vergil.
256 Minchin (2001, 160) talks of “prolonging the pleasure of a selected narrative moment . . . for
its listening audience.” On the question of similes and their relation to the narrative, see Edwards
(1991, 30–4) and Buxton (2004, 141–2).
257 If one looks at the famous simile depicting Achilles’ battle with the river Scamander (Hom.
Il. 21.257–64), one can easily detect a technical agricultural description. On the reception of the
simile, see Richardson (1993); on river battles as a bauform of ancient epic, see Biggs in volume
II.1. This passage is later echoed in the Georgics (Verg. georg. 1.104–10), but while the formerly
epic simile becomes technical again, it retains its epic flavour. Cf. Thomas (1988a, 26–7) on the
importance of similes and vignettes in the Georgics; see also Thomas (1988a) and Mynors (1990)
on Verg. georg. 1.104–10.
258 See Farrell (1991, 239–53) for a masterful analysis of Vergil’s “Homeric program”.
259 See, for example, Griffin (1979, 62–3), Putnam (1979, 237), and Thomas (1982, 70–84). For
the equivalence in Vergil’s inherited tradition, see Varro rust. 3.16.6 haec ut hominum ciuitates,
quod hic est rex et imperium et societas (“Their commonwealth is like the states of men, for here
are king, government, and fellowship”.). This translation of Varro is taken from Hooper (1935).
260 The bees of the Georgics are rich with Homerisms. Knauer (1981, 895) points out the striking
number of similes in this part of the Georgics: six compared with seven in Books 1–3, and only
of the bees are inspired by a technical prose tradition which includes Varro²⁶¹ and
perhaps the lost poem by Nicander.²⁶² Vergil takes an animal motif from epic poetry
(itself cross-generic) and inserts it into his didactic poem, but he also portrays his
bees as martial (Verg. georg. 4.67–98) and therefore in many ways epic. Putnam
describes the bees as changing “from instinctive lovers of flowers to preternatural
warriors.”²⁶³ As formal structures similes provide an opportunity for the author to
include material which is not necessarily common to or representative of the genre
in which he writes. There is a pause in time in which the epic poet need not be
epic: he can “build up a picture of the world outside.”²⁶⁴ He can bring the everyday,
agricultural world into the world of war.²⁶⁵ Likewise, one finds the same function
in didactic poetry: Vergil’s bees allow him to include an epic world in the rustic
universe he has created in his Georgics.
Homer’s rural universe, by comparison, is not a peaceful one, as Buxton is keen
to emphasise, but this is also a connecting theme between the epic and didactic
forms: the Georgics, after all, portray images of violence between man and nature
in both directions.²⁶⁶ To this one might compare Iliadic similes, which have been
described as “depicting mankind in a losing struggle with nature.”²⁶⁷ Conversely,
in the Georgics, man is often the victor.
The bees of Georgics 4 also become the bees of the Aeneid. Again, the bees are a
clear metaphor for human society: in Aeneid 1 the busy bees are the Carthaginians
raising the city (Verg. Aen. 1.418–40).²⁶⁸ Vergil has transferred the epic simile to
his didactic poem in the Georgics, subsequently bringing it into the epic Aeneid.²⁶⁹
The animal simile is arguably apt for this kind of transferral and generic interplay,
given its mixed-genre heritage. The association of bees with poets perhaps makes
it all the more inevitable that Vergil would consciously use this metaphor rich with
four in the Aristaeus episode. Cf. Fränkel (1921, 16–25) and Farrell (1991, 239–41). Cf. Hom. h. Merc.
4.533 for “bee-maidens” and Vergados (2013).
261 See Thomas (1988a, 8–11).
262 Farrell (1991, 239) emphasises the speculative nature of the connection to Nicander.
263 Putnam (1979, 246). Cf. Thomas (1988b, on 67–87).
264 Buxton (2004, 151–2).
265 See again Buxton (2004, 153): “the parallel world of the similes offers alternatives, a set of
possibilities on which to gaze if the traumas of the battlefield become overwhelming.”
266 See, e.g., Putnam (1979, 26, 34–5, and 55–6), Thomas (1988a, 19–20), and Morgan (1999,
162–3).
267 Edwards (1991, 35).
268 Cf. Hardie (2009, 163). On the distinction between simile and metaphor, see Buxton (2004,
139–40).
269 See Thomas (1988a, 5 n. 15).
associations of poetry.²⁷⁰ And yet Vergil chooses to make the bees of the Georgics
entirely unpoetic.²⁷¹ The reappearance of the artless bees in one of the earliest
similes of Vergil’s magnum opus is perhaps suggestive of Vergil’s conception of
the Aeneid as a continuation of his undertaking in the Georgics. The song of the
didactic poet Iopas (Verg. Aen. 1.740–6), at the close of Aeneid 1 before Aeneas
is urged to tell his tale, and therefore before Aeneas’ personal Aeneid, is surely
representative of this progression from didactic to epic.²⁷²
10.3.2 Teichoscopy
Teichoscopy, the act of viewing the action from high walls, is another classic
structure of epic poetry (for instance, at Hom. Il. 3.121–244).²⁷³ Lucretius takes
this motif, which allows the viewing character special knowledge or insight, and
transforms it into a metaphor for the limits of knowledge. He draws attention to
the teichoscopy trope with repeated uses of the phrase moenia mundi. In Book 1
Epicurus is characterised as a general on a “foraging expedition”.²⁷⁴ The language
is undoubtedly military: humanity lies prostrate under the rule of religio and
Epicurus is first to dare to resist the enemy (Lucr. 1.66–7).²⁷⁵ West draws out the
aforementioned metaphor for limits of knowledge in his discussion of the narrow
bars of the gates at 1.70–1: “it is wonderfully suggestive of the narrow confines of
man’s understanding before Epicurus enlarged it . . . he puts human limitations into
correspondence with bolts.”²⁷⁶ The military context with which the phrase moenia
270 See Griffin (1979, 64 and 78 n. 18) for an anthology of evidence.

271 Cf. Griffin (1979, 64) and Ross (1987, 189–90). Griffin (1979, 64–8) reads this as a preliminary
grappling with his imminent undertaking of the epic Aeneid, connecting the “apoetical” society
of the bees in the Georgics and their recurrence in the Aeneid with the “traditional Roman state,
in its impersonal and collective character.”
272 Even if one views the song of Iopas as Lucretius’ De rerum natura, one can still interpret it as
a connection to and progression from a great didactic epic to a great epic. On Iopas, see Kinsey
(1979), Segal (1971), and Segal (1981).
273 See Fucecchi in volume II.1 for a detailed discussion of teichoscopies in ancient epic.
274 Cf. Davies (1931) for the passage as a military triumph, which West (1969, 59–60) successfully
refutes.
275 The repetition of contra, the use of obsistere, peruicit, extra moenia processit, the flammantia
moenia, refert nobis uictor, and the final couplet of the section (Lucr. 1.78–9 quare religio pedibus
subiecta uicissim / obteritur, nos exaequat uictoria caelo) all contribute to the militaristic image.
276 West (1969, 61).
mundi is associated early in the poem and the reference to walls themselves suggest
to me that it is not unlikely that Lucretius had the epic teichoscopy in mind.²⁷⁷
In one sense the phrase moenia mundi is reused in the De rerum natura in
precisely the same context: knowledge is used to disturb or traverse the “walls of
the world” (i.e. the boundaries of current understanding). But Lucretius also alters
the sense to a degree: whereas in Book 1 it is the general Epicurus who “proceeds
far beyond” the moenia (1.72–3), by Book 5 one sees eos . . . qui, “those who . . .
disturb” them (5.118–19). The change of verb from one mention of the moenia to
another signifies that by Book 5, the notion of the challenge to the status quo is
strengthened: Lucretius no longer discusses someone who “proceeds far beyond”
the walls (1.72–3): now he disturbs them (5.119 qui ratione sua disturbent moenia
mundi, “who with their reasoning shake the walls of the world”).²⁷⁸ At the start
of the De rerum natura one sees a wish to “break” the gates’ bolts in order to go
beyond the moenia; but towards the end of the poem the moenia are actually being
disturbed, even destroyed.
Even if the moenia mundi of Book 1 do not in isolation definitively indicate a
teichoscopy, there are more connections to the tradition of this epic structure. The
proem to Book 3, an eulogy to Epicurus, includes a passage that is inescapably
reminiscent of the trope of viewing from the walls (3.14–17): the narrator describes
his own vision of the universe (3.17 totum uideo per inane geri res) in a translation
of Hom. Od. 6.41–5.²⁷⁹ The reference to vision with moenia mundi (in addition
to the metaphorical meaning we have already observed) is further suggestive of
the continuation of the epic trope. Lucretius describes how Epicurus’ reasoning
gives voice to the nature of the world, natura rerum, and the walls of the world
“open out” (discedunt, Lucr. 3.17). Instead of a view of a battle or destruction,
Lucretius sees geri res: the events in the universe. He observes the diuum numen
sedesque quietae, which are never disturbed (3.18–22). The gods of Homer have
been made Epicurean; the narrator understands the peaceful nature of the gods.
The passage ends with a description (3.28–30) of the narrator’s pleasure and awe
at how thoroughly natura has been shown and revealed to him (3.29b–30 quod sic
natura tua ui / tam manifesta patens ex omni parte retecta est, „because nature
thus by your power has been so manifestly laid open and uncovered in every part“).
This particular instance of moenia mundi affects the other instances of the phrase.
Connections are built in the reader’s mind between the contexts associated with
277 Giesecke (2000, 63) views the passage as showing Lucretius’ harnessing of heroic epic.
278 There is a strong connection between effringere ut . . . cupiret at Lucr. 1.70–1 and the use of
disturbent at 5.119.
279 Noted by Bailey (1947). See also West (1969, 31–3). For the passage as relating to Vergil’s
Eclogue 5, see Mizera (1986, 367–8) and Giesecke (2000, 52–3).
the repeated phrase. So the moenia mundi become a metaphor for an obstacle to a
complete understanding of the nature of things and the nature of the divine.
Lucretius’ use of this structural element is later taken up by Vergil in the
Aeneid.²⁸⁰ Vergil evidently saw Lucretius’ vivid descriptions of the moenia mundi
as a sort of teichoscopy, connecting them with his own version of this structure. In
Aeneid 2, Aeneas climbs to the roof of Priam’s palace, where he sees overwhelming
panic and chaos as Troy falls and he watches Pyrrhus killing the aged King Priam
(Verg. Aen. 2.458–566). Aeneas then has a vision of his father’s death, his sad wife,
the fall of his house, and his son’s fate. Notwithstanding the much-disputed Helen
episode at 2.566–87, soon thereafter, Aeneas’ mother Venus appears, explaining
that the fall of Troy is not caused by human action, but by divine intervention
(2.601–3):
non tibi Tyndaridis facies inuisa Lacaenae

culpatusue Paris, diuum inclementia, diuum
has euertit opes sternitque a culmine Troiam.
Know that it is not the hated face of the Laconian woman, daughter of Tyndareus, it is not
Paris that is to blame; but the gods, the relentless gods, overturn this wealth and make Troy
topple from her pinnacle.
What follows is a striking allusion to the Lucretian teichoscopy in Book 3, where

the moenia mundi have been opened to reveal the true nature of the world. Venus
describes a cloud dulling Aeneas’ human vision and offers to remove it so that
his mortal vision will no longer be dimmed (Verg. Aen. 2.604–7). She also shows
him the Olympian gods controlling the universe (2.608–18). It is striking that,
completely unlike the Lucretian (and Homeric) vision of peaceful numina, the true
nature of the world revealed to Aeneas is dominated by divine anger and hate: Juno
is saeuissima and furens (2.610–11), and the gods are shown as being hostile to Troy
(2.622–3a apparent dirae facies inimicaque Troiae / numina magna deum). To this
language at 2.622–3 we ought to compare Lucr. 3.18 apparet diuum numen sedesque
quietae, “before me appear the gods in their majesty, and their peaceful abodes.”²⁸¹
Aeneas then describes his vision of the fall of Troy (Verg. Aen. 2.624–31).
Vergil’s teichoscopy is more than a viewing of action from walls: it opens
Aeneas up to visions beyond this world. In this respect, the Lucretian, didactic
metaphor of the moenia, representative of worldly understanding, has been trans-
ferred to the universe of the Aeneid: Aeneas now possesses knowledge beyond that
of other mortals and sees things others do not see. Didactic poetry has thus taken
280 On the influence of Lucretian “visions” on Vergil, see Hardie (2009, 153–79, esp. 165–7).
281 Cf. Bailey (1947) and Hardie’s (2009, 168–9) brief but illuminating discussion.
the tradition of this popular scene from epic poetry, but Vergil in turn has been in-
fluenced by Lucretius’ manipulation of the teichoscopy for his Epicurean purposes.
Didactic has therefore arguably extended the meaning of the Vergilian teichoscopy
scene: once the De rerum natura was written, the epic landscape cannot really be
the same.
10.3.3 Ghosts
Another example of the ways in which epic affects didactic and vice versa is in
scenes of communication with the dead.²⁸² Ghosts are a stock feature of epic poetry:
for example, in the underworld Odysseus sees the ghost of his dead mother, and,
after her speech tries to embrace her three times in vain (Hom. Od. 11.204–8);
Creusa’s ghost similarly appears to Aeneas (Verg. Aen. 2.774–94), and she, too,
after her speech, three times eludes his grasp (2.790–4).
790 h a e c u b i d i c t a d e d i t, lacrimantem et multa uolentem

dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras.
t e r conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;
t e r frustra comprensa m a n u s e f f u g i t imago,
p a r l e u i b u s u e n t i s u o l u c r i q u e s i m i l l i m a s o m n o.
When thus she had spoken, she left me weeping and eager to tell her much, and drew back
into thin air. Thrice there I strove to throw my arms about her neck; thrice the form, vainly
clasped, fled from my hands, even as light winds, and most like a winged dream.
Lines 2.792–4 are repeated at 6.700–2 where Aeneas meets his father’s shade. The
scenes in the Aeneid clearly allude to Hom. Od. 11.204–8a:
ὣς ἔφατ᾿, αὐτὰρ ἐγώ γ᾿ ἔθελον φρεσὶ μερμηρίξας

205 μητρὸς ἐμῆς ψυχὴν ἑλέειν κατατεθνηυίης.
τρὶς μὲν ἐφωρμήθην, ἑλέειν τέ με θυμὸς ἀνώγει,
τρὶς δέ μοι ἐκ χειρῶν σκιῇ εἴκελον ἢ καὶ ὀνείρῳ
ἔπτατ᾿.
So she spoke, and I wondered in my heart how I might clasp the ghost of my dead mother.
Three times I sprang toward her, and my will said, “Clasp her”, and three times she flitted
from my arms like a shadow or a dream.
Vergil’s earlier didactic poem, the Georgics, also features an elusive ghost. Orpheus
is unable to take hold of Eurydice’s spirit after she addresses him as part of the
Aristaeus episode towards the end of the fourth book (Verg. georg. 4.499–502a):
282 Cf. Finkmann and Reitz in volume II.2.

dixit et ex oculis subito, ceu fumus i n a u r a s

500 commixtus t e n u i s , f u g i t diuersa, neque illum
p r e n s a n t e m nequiquam umbras et m u l t a u o l e n t e m
d i c e r e praeterea uidit.
She spoke, and straightway from his sight, like smoke mingling with thin air, vanished afar
and saw him not again, as he vainly clutched at the shadows with so much left unsaid.
The language is remarkably similar to Creusa’s appearance in Verg. Aen. 2.790–4

(and by extension the Odyssey passage):²⁸³
790 haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et m u l t a u o l e n t e m

d i c e r e deseruit, t e n u i sque recessit i n a u r a s.
ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;
ter frustra c o m p r e n s a manus e f f u g i t imago,
par leuibus uentis uolucrique simillima somno.
The epic motif of the vain embrace has been transferred to didactic poetry in the
Georgics. It is worth pointing out that Book 4 of the Georgics is the most “epic” of
the four books, so one might expect epic structures to be found in this book in
particular.²⁸⁴ There are other slightly looser versions of this trope, in both Greek
epic and Latin epic and didactic: all include the ghost’s escape from a loved one’s
attempted grasp.²⁸⁵ There is clearly a conscious attempt by Vergil at building a
connection between Greek epic, Roman didactic, and later Roman epic.
But there is another important element to the vain embrace. Before Vergil
writes the Georgics or the Aeneid, Lucretius explains how the soul cannot exist
without the body, and that at the point of death it disperses, and breaks down
in corpora prima, and therefore cannot be grasped at all (Lucr. 3.425–44). Again,
Lucretius’ didactic poetry has changed the landscape, and the ghost motif has
altered in some way with it. Verg. Aen. 2.791 dicere deseruit tenuisque recessit in
auras alludes to Lucr. 3.232 tenuis enim quaedam moribundos deserit aura. Lucretius’
verse comes at the beginning of the argument that the soul is made of breath,
heat, air, and a fourth nameless substance (3.230–57), and describes how breath
mixed with heat leaves those about to die (moribundos).²⁸⁶ This is an anti-Homeric
explanation, recollecting the repeated idea of the soul leaving the dying warrior,
283 For a more detailed comparison of the scenes, see Jöne (2017).
284 On various interpretations of Georgics 4, see Griffin (1979). See also Wilkinson (1969, 129) on
the suitability of the form of epyllion to end the Georgics. On epyllia, see Finkmann and Hömke in
this volume.
285 Cf., for example, Hom. Il. 23.99–101. See also Austin (1964) on Verg. Aen. 2.790.
286 This is part of the explanation of the nature of the mind and spirit at Lucr. 3.94–416.
even bemoaning their fate (e.g. Patroclus’ death at Hom. Il. 16.856–7). In Homer’s
world the soul exists outside of the body and is even capable of consciousness
and speech. Lucretius’ claims are striking when read against Homer, even more so
when they come from the mouth of Vergil.
11 Conclusions
This chapter explored the origins, points of contact, and distinctions between
didactic and epic poetry. A survey of the earliest texts of instruction revealed the
origins of didactic poetry, explored its development, and attempted to sketch the
main features of what would later be acknowledged as the didactic genre. The
analysis of ancient and modern theories about didactic poetry demonstrated that,
though in different ways, most scholars recognise the existence of essential features
of didactic poetry, distinct from epic, despite its clear continuity with epic poetry.
The subsequent sections of the chapter analysed the structural forms of epic
and didactic. A marked feature of didactic poetry is the presence of an addressee,
whether named, or unnamed. This presence is closely connected to the strong
voice of the poetic persona, which is particularly prominent in didactic verse. This
is one of the points in which didactic and epic diverge: didactic poetry is seen to
add another dimension to the performative aspects of the hexameter genres, in
the continual interaction between external and internal addressee.
Many interactions and continuities are evident between epic and didactic texts
in the repetitions, formulas, and type-scenes so prominent in oral epic poetry. Di-
dactic poetry incorporates structural elements, motifs, and formulas, but it adapts
these epic forms to its own didactic and even rhetorical aims. This consciousness of
a didactic mission presents another point of separation between epic and didactic
hexameters and their structural forms. Further, didactic and epic poetry interact
continuously, not only in the indisputable influence of early oral epic poetry on
later epic and didactic verse, but also in the impact which didactic modifications
and adaptations of existing epic structures had on later epic poetry.
Undoubtedly, many questions remain as to the flexibility, continuity, and limits
of the classification of the hexameter genres of epic and didactic. Through analysis
of some important and illustrative examples of various structural points of contact
between epic and didactic poetry, this chapter examined not only the shared ideas
and concepts which are recalled and evoked by the use and adaptation of epic
structures, but also the challenges and ambiguities which this adaptation can
present.
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Structures of Epic Poetry

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Structures of Epic Poetry

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019953831

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

the Professorinnenprogramm funded by the University of Rostock and the German

Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann

Part I: Theories of epic

Robert Kirstein, Andreas Abele, and Hans-Peter Nill

Part II: Classification and genre

Abigail Buglass, Giulia Fanti, and Manuel Galzerano

Silvio Bär and Elisabeth Schedel

Part III: Core structures

Christiane Reitz, Cédric Scheidegger Lämmle, and Katharina Wesselmann

Ursula Gärtner and Karen Blaschka

12 On Vergil and the Homeric epics, see recently Dekel (2012).

important study is Nelis’ discussion of Apollonius’ reception by Vergil.²³ Moreover,

23 Cf. Nelis (2001).

the remarks of commentaries, individual studies, or in the most fortunate cases

demonstrated. Nevertheless, the terminology at play in these efforts is still in a

36 See Ambühl (2017).

Ahl, F. M. (1976). Lucan: an introduction. Ithaca, NY/New York.

Beck, D. (2012). Speech presentation in Homeric epic. Austin.

Galinsky, G. K. (1975). Ovid’s Metamorphoses. An introduction to the basic aspects. Oxford.

1 Literary history and generic classifications

1 Cf. Weinberg (1961, 819–911 and 954–1073).

2 The person of the epic poet and the sources of

7 See Goldhill (1991, 56–68, esp. 57 n. 98 with further bibliography).

14 Koster (1970, 4–5); see also Goldhill (1991, 49–54).

sented on the relief by Archelaus of Priene, showing a Zeus-like Homer worshipped

3 The knowledge and powers of the epic poet

23 See Brink (1972) and Pollitt (1986, 15–16).

29 On the generic encyclopaedism of Homer, see below.

33 Cf. Schotes (1969) and Roche (2009, 30 n. 56).

4 The goals and effects of epic poetry

39 See Hardie (1986, 336–76).

42 See Russell (1981, 84–98).

5 Gods and heroes

46 See Koster (1970, 86–7).

The term ambages can perhaps be translated as “oblique representations” (Feeney,

49 On historical epic, see Häußler (1976) and Nethercut in this volume.

Not sedulous by nature to indite

6 Allegorisation and rationalisation

53 Cf. Bernard (1990).

55 For Palaephatus, see the edition of Stern (1996).

of Circe’s beasts as images of the spiritual, rather than physical, bestialisation of

59 See Kaiser (1964).

allegorisation of the Aeneid.⁶⁴ Torquato Tasso provided an allegorical commentary

7 Fact and fiction, truths and lies, the probable

64 Cf. Müller-Bochat (1968).

mixtaque cum ueris passim commenta uagantur

70 See Hardie (2012, 134).

entertaining or giving pleasure,⁷² while in the transmission of the subject matter of

76 See Halliwell (1986, index s.vv. “wonder, or the marvellous”).

nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri

9 Genre and the rota Vergilii

No more of talk where God or angel guest

This kind of reflection on the limits and transgressive possibilities of epic as a

92 See Farrell (1991).

97 See Bakhtin (1981).

1 Archetypal story patterns

2 The Iliad, the Odyssey, and archaic epic

7 Cf. Reitz/Scheidegger Lämmle/Wesselmann in this volume.

14 Cf. Quint. inst. 10.1.53.

15 Cf. West (2005, 45–7).