Callimachus’ Muses: Divine and Authorial Voice in the Aitia

Mary Depew (University of Iowa)

Since Peter Parson in 1977 securely placed the fragmentary “Victory of Berenike” at the beginning of the third book of Callimachus’ Aitia, it has been clear that this erudite poem formed two discrete units. The Aitia's first two books were published early in Callimachus’ poetic career (Krevans, Cameron), while books 3-4 were probably published later, since the poems that frame them are both datable to the 240’s (S. West, Parsons). Several scholars (e.g., Krevans) have discussed how in books 1-2 Callimachus innovatively constructs a poetic voice that both takes up a Hesiodic dialogue with the Muses and at the same time asserts a new kind of control over the tradition. The first-person voice of these two books does not depend on the Muses for inspiration, but questions them as equals, or even possibly as inferiors, often answering questions he poses them himself. This is a new kind of poet and a new kind of Muse. In books 3-4 Callimachus leaves off this dialogue, however, and no particular set of unified themes is evident in the discrete aitiological episodes that make up the extant contents of these books.

With a view to uncovering another principle of unity for the second half of the Aitia, also based on the poet’s portrayal of the Muses, this paper will examine the “Victory of Berenike” and “The Lock of Berenike” in terms of how both poems portray Berenike II. Since the “Victory of Berenike” honors the queen for her chariot victory at Nemea, an obvious point of comparison can now be the recently published poems of the “New Posidippus” (P. Mil. Vog. VII 309), which also honor the Ptolemaic queens for their victories at the games. With the aid of a handout, I will compare the portrayal of the queens in Posidippus’ epigrams with the portrait in Callimachus’ “Victory,” as well as with other poems in which he portrays the queens in athletic terms. I will then compare the portrayal of the queen as a young wife in the “Lock of Berenike” with similar portrayals in Theocritus and in the epigrams of various contemporary poets. After briefly reviewing the evidence for the queens’ sponsorship of cults of the Muses, I will end by opening up for discussion the possibility that Callimachus frames Aitia 3-4 with poems that portray a new kind of Muse: a female regent who embodies both the status and authority long associated with victory at the Panhellenic games and the divine associations of two very different goddesses, Athena and Aphrodite.