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- * I would like to thank M. Berti and M. Pelucchi for reading and discussing with me the content of th (...)
- 1 SH 45. On the identity of Anaximenes the rhetorician and Anaximenes the poet see BNJ 72 T 3; M. Pel (...)
1Anaximenes of Lampsacus was known in antiquity as an esteemed rhetorician and historian, author of prose historical works on Philip II and Alexander the Great, and, apparently, ἔπη τὰ ἐς Ἀλέξανδρον, of which nothing is known.*1 The existence of a historical epic by him lies exclusively on the following passage from Pausanias, who voices his scepticism about Anaximenes’ authorship of such poem: Paus. VI, 18,2–6 = SH 45 (i):
ἐνταῦθα (Olympiae) καὶ Ἀναξιμένους οἶδα εἰκόνα ἀνευρών, ὃς τὰ ἐν Ἕλλησιν ἀρχαῖα καὶ ὅσα Φίλιππος ὁ Ἀμύντου καὶ ὕστερον Ἀλέξανδρος εἰργάσατο συνέγραψεν ὁμοίως ἅπαντα . . . τὰ ἔπη δὲ τὰ ἐς Ἀλέξανδρον οὔ μοι πιστά ἐστιν Ἀναξιμένην τὸν ποιήσαντα εἶναι.
“Here, too, I remember discovering the statue of Anaximenes, who wrote a universal history of ancient Greece, including the exploits of Philip the son of Amyntas and the subsequent deeds of Alexander . . . though I cannot believe that he was the author of the epic on Alexander.” (transl. W.H.S. Jones)
2The existence of verses on Alexander seems to be presupposed in an anecdoton preserved in Gnom. Vat. 78, p. 35 = SH 45 (ii), where Anaximenes was severely reproached by the king:
ὁ αὐτὸς (scil. Alexander) ἐλθὼν εἰς Ἴλιον καὶ θεασάμενος τὸν Ἀχιλλέως τάφον στὰς εἶπεν· “ὦ Ἀχιλλεῦ, ὡς σὺ μέγας ὢν μεγάλου κήρυκος ἔτυχες Ὁμήρου”. παρόντος δὲ Ἀναξιμένους καὶ εἰπόντος “καὶ ἡμεῖς σέ, ὦ βασιλεῦ, ἔνδοξον ποιήσομεν”, “ἀλλὰ νὴ τοὺς θεούς”, ἔφη, “παρ’ Ὁμήρῳ ἐβουλόμην ἂν εἶναι Θερσίτης ἢ παρὰ σοὶ Ἀχιλλεύς”.
“Once at Troy, having seen the tomb of Achilles, Alexander exclaimed, standing next to it: ‘Achilles, great as you were you found in Homer a worthy singer indeed.’ And Anaximenes, who was present, intervened and said: ‘But we will also be responsible for your glory!’ Alexander replied: ‘By the gods, I would prefer being Homer’s Thersites than Achilles in a poem of yours.’”
3Strikingly, the same embittered and scornful response is offered by the king to Choerilus in Pomponius Porphyrio commenting on Horace’s Ars Poetica (357, p. 175 Holder):
Poeta pessimus fuit Choerilus, qui Alexandrum secutus opera eius descripsit. huius omnino septem versus laudabantur. hinc Alexander dixisse fertur, multum malle se Thersiten iam Homeri esse quam Choerili Achillem.
- 2 Choeril. Iasius T 6a Pelucchi. Similarly in T 7 Pelucchi = Pseudo-Acro ad Hor. AP 357 (II p. 365 Ke (...)
“Choerilus was a very bad poet who followed Alexander in his campaigns and described his deeds. Only seven verses by him did not lack decency. They say that Alexander would have greatly preferred to be Homer’s Thersites rather than Choerilus’ Achilles.”2
- 3 Choeril. Iasius T 4 Pelucchi = SH 333 = Hor. AP 357–58. For a detailed assessment of Choerilus and (...)
- 4 Choeril. Iasius T 3 Pelucchi = SH 333 = Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 232–34; cf. the use of incultus in T 13 Pelu (...)
- 5 C.O. Brink, Horace on Poetry. The ‘Ars Poetica’, Cambridge, CUP, 1971, 365–66. A rapid metrical and (...)
- 6 Hsch. ο 621 glosses ὀλοόν with κακόν ≃ male in Horace.
4The Choerilus in question is Choerilus of Iasos, homonymous with the more famous Samian, but later than the latter by nearly a century. In Horace’s Ars Poetica he is mentioned as a poet with a natural propension for bad poetry: Choerilus ille, / quem bis terque bonum cum risu miror.3 He also features in a passage of the Epistles as the author of ‘unpolished, misbegotten verses’ and representative of an ‘unworthy’ kind of poetry originating from overt sycophantism: Choerilus, incultis qui versibus et male natis / rettulit acceptos, regale nomisma, Philippos.4 Horace, a ‘Callimachean’ poet in many aspects, classes Choerilus as both incompetent and servile.5 While monetary compensation for poetic efforts goes against the Callimachean credo, see 222, 1–2 Pf. οὐ γὰρ ἐργάτιν τρέφω / τὴν Μοῦσαν, the epigonal figure of Choerilus embodies a genre that no longer serves the purpose it was created for; Callimachus, like Horace, is not interested in traditional epic, a genre which, at this chronological stage, is destined to yield only bad quality poetry, cf. incultis . . . et male natis with Callimachus’ characterization of the Telchines as ὀλοὸν γένος lacking τέχνη and σοφίη in Aet. fr. 1, 17–18 H.6
- 7 Translation after Janko. On the relationship between Philodemus and Horace, who could have known Ch (...)
5Anaximenes and Choerilus are contrasted unfavourably with Homer by another Epicurean, Philodemus, who in his On Poems reports and critiques the view of a member of the euphonist school, probably Pausimachus:7
- 8 T 8 Pelucchi = Phld. De poematis 2, 42 (p. 208 Janko). On τ̣ὸ συνέ|χο̣ν, cf. διηνεκές in Aetia fr. (...)
ὑπε|λάμβανε κατὰ τ̣ὸ συνέ̣|χο̣ν καὶ κυριώτατον̣ | τῶν ἐμ ποιη̣τικῇ δι̣α̣|φέρειν Χοίριλ̣ον καὶ Ἀνα|ξιμένην Ὁμήρου καὶ | Καρκίνον καὶ Κλεα[ί]νε|τον̣ Εὐρειπίδου καὶ τοὺς | ἄλλ̣ο̣υ̣[ς] τοὺς πονηροὺς | ἐμ ποιητικῇ τῶν ἀρί̣|[στω]ν̣.8
“He assumed that in continuity and authority Choerilus and Anaximenes differ as poets from Homer, Carcinus and Cleaenetus from Euripides, and the others that are bad at poetry from the best.”
6In another passage of the De poematis, the verses of Choerilus and Anaximenes are said not to improve, even when they are read aloud, which is, by contrast, what happens with Homer:
- 9 T 17 dub. Pelucchi = Phld. De poematis 1, 42 (p. 231–33 Janko). Choerilus’ name is supplied, with g (...)
[Χοίριλος] || καὶ Ἀν̣αξίμενης, ἀλ[λὰ τού|των οὐδ’ ἀνεγνω<σ>μέν[α τὰ] | πράγματ’ ἐπ̣[ηι]ν̣ε<ῖ>το, κ[αὶ ἴδι]|ον οὐδὲν ποιo[ῦ]σιν, ἀλ̣[λὰ | πρόδ]ηλος α[ὐ]τῶν ἡ ἀτέλ[ει|α γίνε]ται . . . ὅταν | [δὲ τὰ] Ὁμήρου ἀναγινώσ|[κητ]α̣ι̣, πάντα μ[ε]ίζω | [καὶ κα]λ̣λίω φ[αίνε]ται.9
“. . . Choerilus and Anaximenes . . . , but not even when read out were their contents praised; they compose nothing particular (to verse), but their imperfection becomes obvious . . . But when Homer’s verses are read out, they all appear greater and more beautiful.”
7At first, the passage appears to point to a performance of encomiastic epic, presumably held at Alexander’s court. In an anecdote contained in the Gnomologium Vaticanum, Anaximenes is interrupted towards the end of a long performance by an exasperated Theocritus of Chios:
ὁ αὐτὸς ’Αναξιμένους ποιούμενος ἀκρόασιν ἐπὶ πολὺ cυνεγγίζοντος ἤδη τῇ τελευτῇ τοῦ βιβλίου μεγάλῃ [τῇ] φωνῇ ἔφη· “θαρσεῖτε ἄνδρες· γῆν ὁρῶ”.10
“As he was listening to a recitation by Anaximenes, who was then nearing the end of the book, he said in a loud voice; “Courage, men; I see land!”
8Through the use of this nautical interjection, Theocritus effectively verbalizes a Callimachean concern, if we take the sea to symbolize traditional poetry: οὐκ ἄγαμαι τὸν ἀοιδὸν ὃς οὐδ’ ὅσα πόντος ἀείδει (Ap. 106).
9The anecdote features in a slightly differently worded version in Diogenes Laertius (VI, 38), where the statement is attributed to Diogenes the Cynic, who comments on the recitation by an unidentified writer:
μακρά τινος ἀναγινώσκοντος καὶ πρὸς τῷ τέλει τοῦ βιβλίου ἄγραφον παραδείξαντος ‘θαρρεῖτε,’ ἔϕη, ‘ἄνδρες· γῆν ὁρῶ.’
“When someone was reading aloud at great length and then pointed toward the end of the book where there was no writing, Diogenes said, ‘Courage, men; I see land!’” (tr. Mensch)
- 11 K. Fleischer, “Structuring the History of Philosophy – A Comparison between Philodemus and Diogenes (...)
- 12 J.F. Kindstrand, “Diogenes Laertius and the Chreia Tradition,” Elenchos 7, 1986, 217–43.
- 13 A. Cameron (op. cit., 51–52) already made the connection.
10The similarity in phrasing is striking; may have Diogenes borrowed the statement directly from Philodemus? Diogenes knew Philodemus’ Σύνταξις τῶν φιλοσόφων, but actively consulted only its tenth book as source on Epicureanism, not Cynicism.11 There is no evidence that he ever accessed the De Poematis. In fact, it would be tempting to connect the use of μακρά in relation to never-ending oral readings of books in the statement by Diogenes, who makes ample use of Hellenistic collections of chreiai,12 with Callimachean criticism; μακρός, used of books of excessive length, is, indeed, one of the keywords contained in the prologue of the Aetia. (vv. 10, 15, and perhaps 13). And we know, of course, that Callimachus equated voluminous books to a big evil (fr. 465 Pf.).13
11The impression is that the shadowy figures of Anaximenes and Choerilus, whose historicity was blurred by centuries of hearsay and second-hand scholarship, could have been easily interchanged. It also does not surprise that Choerilus of Iasos is confused with the Samian, author of an epic on the Persian war, by Suidas (χ 595 s.v. Χοίριλος), who conflates biographical data regarding the two:
Χοίριλος, Σάμιος, τινὲς δὲ Ἰασέα [. . .] ἔγραψε δὲ ταῦτα· τὴν Ἀθηναίων νίκην κατὰ Ξέρξου {ἐφ’ οὗ ποιήματος κατὰ στίχον στατῆρα χρυσοῦν ἔλαβε} καὶ σὺν τοῖς Ὁμήρου ἀναγινώσκεσθαι ἐψηφίσθη·{Λαμιακά·} καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ ποιήματα αὐτοῦ φέρεται.
“Choerilus, of Samos, for others, of Iasos . . . He wrote the following; the Triumph of the Athenians over Xerxes, thanks to which he was awarded a gold statēr per line written, and which was voted to be recited along with Homer’s poems; the Lamian War; and some other poems circulate under his name.”
12In addition to his ethnonym, the statement by Suidas contains two pieces of information concerning Choerilus of Iasos:
- Λαμιακά cannot but refer to a poem of historical character by Choerilus of Iasos on the Lamian war fought by the Macedonian army led by Antipater against a coalition of Greek forces commanded by Leosthenes in 3232 BC. The occasion must have offered ample room for unrestrained praise and seems not at odds with Choerilus of Iasos’ eulogistic pretentions;14
- the detail on the gold statēr received by Choerilus for each verse of his poem must also refer to the panegyrist of Iasos known by Horace.15 M. Pelucchi has shown that the detail about Choerilus of Samos receiving money for writing a ‘Triumph of the Athenians over Xerxes’ on behalf of the Athenians is unlikely to be true; that it was erroneously applied to the wrong Choerilus; and that the confusion originated in Suidas, or its sources, rather than Horatian exegesis.16
- 17 Choeril. T 4 Bernabé = Ath. VIII, 345d; on Istrus see M. Berti, Istro il Callimacheo. I, Testimonia (...)
- 18 M. Perale, G.D.M. Taietti, B. Cartlidge (eds.), Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus, forthcoming.
- 19 M. Corradi, “Thucydides adoxos and Praxiphanes,” in A. Martano, E. Matelli, D. Mirhady (eds.), Prax (...)
- 20 Τ 3 Bernabé = Plu. Lys. 18, 7 τῶν δὲ ποιητῶν Χοιρίλον περὶ αὐτὸν εἶχεν ὡς κοσμήσοντα τὰς πράξεις δι (...)
13Such confusion can be excused when we think that Choerilus of Samos, according to the Callimachean critic Istrus, via Athenaeus, received pay of four hundred drachmas a day while at Archelaus’ court, which he spent all on fish and other dainties.17 While there is no reason to doubt Pelucchi’s conclusions, Istrus’ portrayal as Choerilus of Samos as a mercenary poet cannot be easily dismissed as an error of judgement on his part. A disciple of Callimachus, Istrus had his own reasons to discredit a poet who embodies traditional epic.18 Despite his attempts to modernize the genre of epic and innovate in both genre and vocabulary, Choerilus faced criticism in the Hellenistic period from multiple fronts for his style of poetry. The verdict expressed by Crates, either the pergamene scholar of Mallus or an older contemporary of Euphorion, in AP 11, 218, 1 = HE 1371 Χοιρίλος Ἀντιμάχου πολὺ λείπεται is damning. If Choerilus ‘falls short of Antimachus,’ who is in turn despised by Callimachus, he would certainly not have appealed to Istrus. In addition, Choerilus appeared in a dialogue by Praxiphanes, a ‘Telchine’ and one of the targets of Callimachus (Aet. fr. 1b, 7–8 H.; 460 Pf.), where he possibly presented a defense of historical epic.19 It is not surprising to see him playing the role of the sycophant in Plutarch’s Lysander, where he is said to have been kept in Lysander’s retinue after his victories in the Ionian war (in 404 BC) ‘to adorn his achievements in verse.’20 All in all, it appears that already by the time of Philodemus, before reverberating through the text of Plutarch, the reputation of the Samian among some literary circles was already irrimediably tarnished.
- 21 M. Pelucchi, “Pessimi poetae: On Philodemus, Ancient Tradition, and Selection Criteria,” art. cit., (...)
14One last point: it has gone unnoticed that Philodemus (speaking of both Choerilus of Iasos and Anaximenes), Diogenes (with reference to an unknown poet, but likely drawing on material about Anaximenes), and Suidas (referring to Choerilus of Samos) all use the technical verb ἀναγι(γ)νώσκω to refer to oral recitation performed by these poets. In addition, Homer is used as benchmark for how poetry should sound in oral recitations in both Suidas (σὺν τοῖς Ὁμήρου ἀναγινώσκεσθαι: Homer sounds better than the Samian) and Philodemus (ὅταν [δὲ τὰ] Ὁμήρου ἀναγινώσ[κητ]α̣ι̣: Homer sounds better than Anaximenes and the Iasian). This is suspicious; both Philodemus and Suidas (and perhaps Diogenes as well) must have drawn information from a common source on the performance of Choerilus and/or Anaximenes’ verses in relation to Homer’s.21
15It would therefore not be surprising if the topos of the ‘bad Choerilus’ originated from the authoritative statement on the Samian by Istrus, grammarian and antiquarian in the Callimachean circle, which may have contributed to staining, over the course of the centuries, the reputation of the other Choerilus. As both Choerilus of Iasos and Anaximenes wrote about Philip and Alexander, albeit in different form, the label of encomiastic epic writer could have been erroneously transferred from Choerilus to Anaximenes, at a time when both Anaximenes and Choerilus had no recognizable literary profile. Pausanias is probably right in distrusting the tradition regarding Anaximenes as a writer of epic. He does, however, bear witness to the circulation in the Imperial age of anecdotal biographical notices on court flatterers of the age of Alexander. This tradition might have gone back to the Hellenistic period and may have affected Philodemus’ perception of the quality of these poems, whether or not those were accessible to him.
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Bibliographie
Bernabé, A., “Quérilo y la Geranomaquia. Sobre el fr. 13 Colace (= 14 Kinkel = SH 332),” Emerita 52, 1984, 319–23.
Berti, M., Istro il Callimacheo. I, Testimonianze e frammenti su Atene e sull’Attica, Rome, Tored, 2009.
Brink, C.O., Horace on Poetry. The ‘Ars Poetica’, Cambridge, CUP, 1971.
Cameron, A., Callimachus and His Critics, Princeton, PUP, 1995.
Corradi, M., “Thucydides adoxos and Praxiphanes,” in A. Martano, E. Matelli, D. Mirhady (eds.), Praxiphanes of Mytilene and Chamaeleon of Heraclea. Text, Translation and Discussion, New Brunswick, London, Transaction Publishers, 2012, 495–523.
Diederich, S., Der Horazkommentar des Porphyrio im Rahmen der kaiserzeitlichen Schul‑ und Bildungstradition, Berlin, New York, W. De Gruyter, 1999.
Fleischer, K., “Structuring the History of Philosophy – A Comparison between Philodemus and Diogenes Laertius in the Light of the New Evidence,” CQ 69.2, 2019, 684–99.
Henrichs, A., Response to P. Parsons, Identities in Diversity, in A. Bulloch, E.S. Gruen, A.A. Long, A. Stewart (eds.), Images and Ideologies. Self-definition in the Hellenistic World, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1993, 172–97.
Hollis, A.S., “The Reputation and Influence of Choerilus of Samos,” ZPE 130, 2000, 13–15.
Kindstrand, J.F., “Diogenes Laertius and the Chreia Tradition,” Elenchos 7, 1986, 217–43.
McOsker, M., The Good Poem According to Philodemus, Oxford, OUP, 2021.
Netz, R., Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture, Cambridge, CUP, 2020.
Pelucchi, M., Cherilo di Iaso. Testimonianze, frammenti, fortuna, Berlin, Boston, W. De Gruyter, 2022.
Pelucchi, M., “Pessimi poetae: On Philodemus, Ancient Tradition, and Selection Criteria,” in N. Bruno, M. Filosa, G. Marinelli (eds.), Fragmented Memory: Omission, Selection, and Loss in Ancient and Medieval Literature and History, Berlin, Boston, W. De Gruyter, 2022, 27–54.
Perale, M., “Critical Notes on Hexameter Adespota,” APF 67.1, 2021, 5–42.
Perale, M., “Predecessors of Hellenistic Poetry in V–IV BC,” in A. Harder, J. Klooster (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge, CUP, forthcoming.
Stephens, S., “Battle of the Books,” in K Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus. A Hellenistic Poetry Book, Cambridge, CUP, 2005, 229–48.
Taietti, G.D.M., “The Poets at Alexander’s Court: How Flat Is Flattery?,” in M. Perale, G.D.M. Taietti, B. Cartlidge (eds.), Hellenistic Poetry before Callimachus, forthcoming.
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Notes
SH 45. On the identity of Anaximenes the rhetorician and Anaximenes the poet see BNJ 72 T 3; M. Pelucchi, “Pessimi poetae: On Philodemus, Ancient Tradition, and Selection Criteria,” in N. Bruno, M. Filosa, G. Marinelli (eds.), Fragmented Memory: Omission, Selection, and Loss in Ancient and Medieval Literature and History, Berlin/Boston, W. De Gruyter, 2022, 37–39; G.D.M. Taietti, “The poets at Alexander’s Court: How Flat Is Flattery”?, in M. Perale, G.D.M. Taietti, B. Cartlidge (eds.), Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus, forthcoming. On the attribution of P.Oxy. 2520 = SH 913–21 to Anaximenes see M. Perale, “Critical Notes on Hexameter Adespota,” APF 67.1, 2021, 14–15.
Choeril. Iasius T 6a Pelucchi. Similarly in T 7 Pelucchi = Pseudo-Acro ad Hor. AP 357 (II p. 365 Keller), who pillaged and distorted Porphyrio in a late ‘surrogate’ of the original work by the II–III century Roman grammarian Acro dangerously verging on the anecdotal, see S. Diederich, Der Horazkommentar des Porphyrio im Rahmen der kaiserzeitlichen Schul‑ und Bildungstradition, Berlin, New York, W. De Gruyter, 1999, 10. Ιt is impossible to determine whether the statement on Choerilus discredited by the king himself was originally contained in Acro, Porphyrio, or whether it was subsequently attached to one of their commentaries to Horace. In the Alexander Romance (1, 42, 9–13), the king also addresses an unnamed poet (ποιητής τις) with the following words: βούλομαι παρ’ Ὁμήρῳ Θερσίτης εἶναι ἢ παρὰ σοὶ Ἀγαμέμνων.
Choeril. Iasius T 4 Pelucchi = SH 333 = Hor. AP 357–58. For a detailed assessment of Choerilus and his sources see now G.D.M. Taietti, op.cit.
Choeril. Iasius T 3 Pelucchi = SH 333 = Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 232–34; cf. the use of incultus in T 13 Pelucchi = Auson. Epist. 27, 9 (a) 13, which contains the same anecdote.
C.O. Brink, Horace on Poetry. The ‘Ars Poetica’, Cambridge, CUP, 1971, 365–66. A rapid metrical and prosodic assessment of the fragments in the Supplementum Hellenisticum shows that Choerilus would have never passed the test of Callimachus. It suffices to read the incipit of Choerilus’ translation into metrical Greek of the epithaph of king Sardanapalus, εὖ εἰδὼς ὅτι θνητὸς ἔφυς σὸν θυμὸν ἄεξε (SH 335, 1 = ep. dub. 1.1. Pelucchi), which starts with a cacophonic hiatus and where θν‑ in θνητός does not, very awkwardly, make position. However, the attribution is controversial, see M. Pelucchi, Cherilo di Iaso. Testimonianze, frammenti, fortuna, Berlin/Boston, W. De Gruyter, 2022, 157–62.
Hsch. ο 621 glosses ὀλοόν with κακόν ≃ male in Horace.
Translation after Janko. On the relationship between Philodemus and Horace, who could have known Choerilus through Philodemus’ treatise see M. Pelucchi, “Pessimi poetae: On Philodemus, Ancient Tradition, and Selection Criteria,” art. cit., 39–41. On the euphonists see M. McOsker, The Good Poem According to Philodemus, Oxford, OUP, 2021, 24–25.
T 8 Pelucchi = Phld. De poematis 2, 42 (p. 208 Janko). On τ̣ὸ συνέ|χο̣ν, cf. διηνεκές in Aetia fr. 1, 3; A. Cameron, Callimachus and His Critics, Princeton, PUP, 1995, 341.
T 17 dub. Pelucchi = Phld. De poematis 1, 42 (p. 231–33 Janko). Choerilus’ name is supplied, with good reasons, by Janko, who is also the author of the translation above.
Gnom. Vat. 348.
K. Fleischer, “Structuring the History of Philosophy – A Comparison between Philodemus and Diogenes Laertius in the Light of the New Evidence,” CQ 69.2, 2019, 697–99.
J.F. Kindstrand, “Diogenes Laertius and the Chreia Tradition,” Elenchos 7, 1986, 217–43.
A. Cameron (op. cit., 51–52) already made the connection.
Pace ibid., 278; cf. M. Pelucchi, Cherilo di Iaso. Testimonianze, frammenti, fortuna, op. cit., 152–57.
Ibid., 34–36.
Ibid., 38–42.
Choeril. T 4 Bernabé = Ath. VIII, 345d; on Istrus see M. Berti, Istro il Callimacheo. I, Testimonianze e frammenti su Atene e sull’Attica, Rome, Tored, 2009; Jackson – Berti, BNJ 334. On the possible source of Choerilus, M. Berti, per litteram: “As a pupil of Callimachus, Istrus was able to collect curious references on numerous topics related to the great exegetic work carried out by the Alexandrians on Classical authors. He could have found the reference to Choerilus’ gluttony in a lost source, perhaps on comedy, or possibly in a biographical record containing curious anecdotes on the poet”. For a comparison of Callimachus and Choerilus’ declaration of poetics see A. Henrichs, Response to P. Parsons, Identities in Diversity, in A. Bulloch, E.S. Gruen, A.A. Long, A. Stewart (eds.), Images and Ideologies. Self-definition in the Hellenistic World, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1993, 176. The idea that Callimachus might have alluded to Choerilus in his Prologue of the Aetia (A. Bernabé, “Quérilo y la Geranomaquia. Sobre el fr. 13 Colace (= 14 Kinkel = SH 332),” Emerita 52, 1984, 319–23; A.S. Hollis, “The Reputation and Influence of Choerilus of Samos,” ZPE 130, 2000, 13–15) has not encountered the favour of recent scholarship. For a more convincing interpretation involving Posidippus 22, 3–6 A.-B. see S. Stephens, “Battle of the Books,” in K Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus. A Hellenistic Poetry Book, Cambridge, CUP, 2005, 229–48. On the nature of fourth-century patronage, including Choerilus’stay at the court of Archelaus, see now R. Netz, Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture, Cambridge, CUP, 2020, 282–83.
M. Perale, G.D.M. Taietti, B. Cartlidge (eds.), Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus, forthcoming.
M. Corradi, “Thucydides adoxos and Praxiphanes,” in A. Martano, E. Matelli, D. Mirhady (eds.), Praxiphanes of Mytilene and Chamaeleon of Heraclea. Text, Translation and Discussion, New Brunswick, London, Transaction Publishers, 2012, 506 on Praxiphanes’ περὶ ἱστορίας, fr. 21 M.
Τ 3 Bernabé = Plu. Lys. 18, 7 τῶν δὲ ποιητῶν Χοιρίλον περὶ αὐτὸν εἶχεν ὡς κοσμήσοντα τὰς πράξεις διὰ ποιητικῆς; cf. M. Pelucchi, Cherilo di Iaso. Testimonianze, frammenti, fortuna, op. cit., 37–38.
M. Pelucchi, “Pessimi poetae: On Philodemus, Ancient Tradition, and Selection Criteria,” art. cit., 41–44, also thinks that “the oppositional pattern [that can be seen in Philodemus, sc. bad vs ἄριστοι] goes back to the first Hellenism,” but locates the origin of this form of criticism among the Peripatetics, possibly in the work of Neoptolemus of Parium.
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