Scholarship on Grattius’ Cynegetica, a minor Augustan didactic poem on hunting, has done a laudable job of finding allusions in the text or other ancient passages that elaborate the sometimes-obscure information that Grattius provides.Footnote ¹ Such scholarship has not led to a floruit for Grattian research, although the June 2015 conference ‘Grattius in context(s): Hunting an Augustan Poet’ indicates that there is more to the poem than meets the eye, for those who are willing to spend time with the text. One area particularly open to research is the influence of Greek authors, a subject not addressed even in the aforementioned conference. To demonstrate what work can be done, as well as to speculate on the underlying themes of Grattius’ Cynegetica, I wish to discuss one unnoticed allusion to the Greek epinician poet Pindar. These two authors are not often or obviously read in conjunction to one another, but there are moments of contact: a recognized reference occurs at Grat. 527, cantatus Graiis Acragas.Footnote ² One unrecognized moment of contact is when Grattius quotes Olympian 1.13 when discussing dog-breeding (Grat. 198). The allusion highlights that there is still literary work to be done on the Cynegetica to appreciate fully Grattius’ poetic agenda and how he establishes his authority—not to mention the idea that Grattius has an agenda at all. To discuss this reference, I will first focus on the technical aspects of the translation before discussing interpretations of the line and the allusion.

In a long list of dog breeds and their particular virtues and vices (150–206), Grattius discusses how and why to breed out certain character flaws like barking too much (193–9):

The end result is a well-rounded pup (198–9). The sentiment and the words are taken from Pindar's Olympian 1. In this ode, the first antistrophe begins (1.12–15):

Here, Hieron, the tyrant of Syracuse, is actively seeking virtues. Interest in the attainment of virtue is ubiquitous in antiquity, but the exact word choice less so. In Latin literature, it is the Historia Augusta that echoes ‘the flower of every virtue’ best: … Gordianum proconsulem, uirum, ut diximus, uenerabilem, natu grandiorem, omni uirtutum genere florentem … (‘… the proconsul Gordian, a man [as we have said] respectable, greater in birth, flourishing with each and every kind of virtue …’).Footnote ³ Note that the adjective omnis does not modify uirtus, and flos has taken its verbal form floreo. The parallel to Pindar is weaker here than the precision in Grattius’ translation. I shall first look, then, at Grattius’ translation choices before briefly considering the ramifications.

Grattius employs a mix of expected and unexpected translation choices. Other than the number, ‘from every virtue’ is rendered exactly in Latin translation of noun, adjective and even preposition.Footnote ⁴ The other words need more discussion. First, the verb-object pair does not precisely align: the foremost definition of δρέπω (‘to pluck, gain possession of’) could better be rendered with carpo (‘to pluck, crop, etc. the fruit of’), and κορυφή (‘height, excellence of … ’) perhaps with cacumen (‘peak’), caput (‘head’) or summus (‘most distinguished for excellence’).Footnote ⁵ Gerber's commentary on the ode observes that Pindar is fond of using both the verb δρέπω and the noun κορυφή, but that only here does he use both of them together and that Pindar is unusual to use κορυφή to mean ‘peak’ in the sense of ‘best’.Footnote ⁶ The more common object for δρέπω would be ἄνθος (‘flower’) or some other flora.Footnote ⁷ Ἄνθος in Latin would be flos, so Grattius actually fixes Pindar's unique verb-object pair with the appropriate object.Footnote ⁸ However, he creates a new unexpected verb-object pair in the process by using capesso (‘to seize’) instead of carpo, a verb used metaphorically in Horace's now famous carpe diem.Footnote ⁹ Perhaps to avoid echoing Horace's metaphorically creative carpe diem with a verb-object pairing as predictable as carpunt florem, Grattius changes the verb to capesso. The audience may not expect a flower to be seized, given the strong military and political colouring of the verb.Footnote ¹⁰ Such military connotations, however, are appropriate to a work that likens the hunt to war on other occasions (for example, Grat. 2 and 157). The military connotations also fit with uirtus, which Grattius links to ideas of military valour and courage.Footnote ¹¹ For example, the praeceps uirtus of line 167 is the fierce spirit arising from a pup sired by a tiger. This uirtus is connected to heritage, an idea also found in 198–9: good breeding leads to good uirtus, and dedication to uirtus allows good natura to follow behind. Virtus also predates ars (‘technical skill’) and the use of ratio in the proem (2–6): uirtus is part of the good character of a person or pup, even a foundational part, but it must be used rationally to maximize one's potential. With the changes in translating the verb and the object, Grattius displays a level in creativity as he fixes and manipulates his predecessors, not to mention showing an interest in the physical strength and the military discipline required for his understanding of life.

Scilicet remains to be discussed. One might say it is not vital to the specific allusion, given that the participial phrase of Pindar has been sufficiently translated for a Roman audience to hear. I suggest, however, that it is another piece of the translation. There are two reasonable explanations for its use.Footnote ¹² First, scilicet is regularly used in the Cynegetica to mark sententiae, or general gnomic statements.Footnote ¹³ Second, it corresponds to μέν, as made clear in the Latin text with the corresponding at for δέ in the next sentence.Footnote ¹⁴ The Latin has more adversative force than the μέν/δέ in the ode, but it is nevertheless a potential translation of the words if not the particular meaning.

Whether or not every piece of evidence is convincing, the combination justifies reading an allusion here. So what, then, do we make of this allusion? On a very basic level, it is evidence for the poet's familiarity with his Greek predecessors. The influence of Greek literature on Latin poetry is familiar, particularly in Neoteric and Augustan poets. There has been much discussion about Pindar's influence on Rome's most famous lyric poet, Horace, and while consensus, as summarized in Race, argues that Horace does not often directly quote Pindar, there are nevertheless many stylistic and thematic connections between the two.Footnote ¹⁵ Tarrant has noticed that, after Horace's flirtation with Pindaric lyric, there was a Pindaric renaissance in Rome, for example the poet Rufus mentioned at Ov. Pont. 4.16.27–8.Footnote ¹⁶ Within just the didactic genre, the opening of Virgil's Georgics 3 also invokes the poem-as-building image from Pindar.Footnote ¹⁷ Grattius’ dactylic hexameter is in a different register from Pindaric lyric, but his audience would have been prepared to hear Pindar's Olympian 1. He offers references to delight a learned audience, but he also uses allusions to make his audience reflect on the source's relationship to his poem, in particular who is obtaining virtue in each.

One question to consider is, somewhat naturally, what uirtus includes and who can manipulate it. As mentioned before, uirtus has various meanings, although Grattius has an emphasis on courage. Within the passage on dog breeds (150–262), Grattius uses uirtus six out of the eleven total times, and it is almost always clearly associated with military strength and courage in hunting, its presence often making up for other flaws in dogs (for example 167, 179, 210 and 254). These strengths at times relate to specific abilities. In 207–10, for example, the Petronian hounds would be better if they could hunt without barking (taciti, ‘silent’), but because of this flaw their uirtus is futile (inrita). The description immediately before the allusion more clearly discusses the virtues and vices of each breed according to their use in hunting, such as the useless barking of the Calydonian being improved by the Molossian (193–7). The ‘every virtue’ mentioned in the Pindaric line logically refers to the senses and traits of the dogs.

Who takes the flower from each uirtus, however, is unclear. The plural subject of capessunt could be the audience, as they do logically have the most active hand in breeding particular dogs. The next sentence, however, begins with an adversative address to the reader (199): at te leue si qua | tangit opus pauidos iuuat conpellere dorcas … (‘But if light work touched you at all, and it's pleasing to hunt timid does …’). The adversative is employed to contrast the former breeds of dogs with the Petronian, but the initial placement of te seems to turn the focus from the dogs to the wish of the hunter. The emphasis indicates that the subject of the preceding verb may not be the audience, but could be the dogs. The latter interpretation fits the preceding lines where certain breeds of dogs improve the abilities of other breeds.Footnote ¹⁸ The human subject is briefly occluded to put more emphasis on the dogs. The idea that dogs pursue virtue gives agency to them, and the preceding lines also put focus on familial canine relations, referring to the breeding stock as mater (‘mother’) and pater (‘father’).Footnote ¹⁹ Furthermore, the image of dogs seizing something (capessunt) and then something following (sequitur) mimics an actual hunt, as dogs are released one at a time after prey, and the other dogs and the hunters themselves would follow.Footnote ²⁰ The personification of the animals improves the reader's opinion towards dogs and is appropriate to a cynegetic text. Dogs are valorized in the Cynegetica and imagined as fighting in a wild war, and, by quoting Pindar's praise of Hieron, Grattius adds a further layer of praise for the dogs and their virtues.

But there is a significant difference between the virtue-seekers in that Hieron is the patron with political power who hired Pindar. Dogs are only the subject of the Cynegetica: by implying that they have virtues and are worthy of praise, Grattius gives more importance to his own project, even overshadowing the greatest epinician poet who is praising the aristocratic competition at the most important ancient games. In Grattius, dogs and sport-hunting are as impressive as horses and competitive games, if not more impressive. Grattius could give praise to a patron or his internal audience instead of the dogs, but Grattius has no named patron or internal audience. The presence of Pindar reminds us of this absence, especially in the Augustan age when many expect the figure of Augustus to appear in poetry. In all surviving 541 lines, Grattius remains one of the Augustan poets who never explicitly refers to Augustus, although he may hint at the political figure (for example, unusque magister, Grat. 328).Footnote ²¹ His lessons are written to be applied more generally than to only the current political context. The Cynegetica focusses its praise on the dogs, the hunters, the gods and the poetry itself. Grattius provides frequent examples of glorifying his own project without any explicit reference to Augustus.Footnote ²² His work deals with what experience can teach us, and he himself praises the value of experience from lines 427–9. I argue that in an age of political transition Grattius prefers to praise the eternal virtues of hunting where his own experience lay. One of the best ways for a poet to demonstrate mastery, knowledge and experience is to cite authority, and so Pindar's Olympian 1 is repurposed to heighten the reader's appreciation of dogs as well as Grattius.