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HELLENISTIC ARMING IN THE BATRACHOMYOMACHIA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2014

Adrian Kelly
Adrian Kelly*
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford
*
adrian.kelly@balliol.ox.ac.uk
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Extract

Scholarship has long argued that the Batrachomyomachia (BM) is to be dated to the Hellenistic period or later, but the question of its literary affiliations in this context has only recently been addressed. Usually considered an example of παρωιδία, the poem is a unique example of that genre in several respects, including the extent to which it develops its own formularity rather than merely mirroring the Homeric exemplar with minimal change, and the fact that it was passed off as the work of Homer himself instead of being self-consciously distanced from the parodied author. It is therefore fitting that the BM is also unusual for ancient parody in dealing with the scholarly discourse surrounding its primary exemplar. This note offers, as an(other) example of this tendency, the BM's engagement with the Homeric arming scene, and its reception in Hellenistic poetry and scholarship.

Information

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , May 2014 , pp. 410 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

Scholarship has long argued that the Batrachomyomachia (BM) is to be dated to the Hellenistic period or later,Footnote 1 but the question of its literary affiliations in this context has only recently been addressed. Usually considered an example of παρωιδία,Footnote 2 the poem is a unique example of that genre in several respects, including the extent to which it develops its own formularity rather than merely mirroring the Homeric exemplar with minimal change,Footnote 3 and the fact that it was passed off as the work of Homer himself instead of being self-consciously distanced from the parodied author. It is therefore fitting that the BM is also unusual for ancient parody in dealing with the scholarly discourse surrounding its primary exemplar.Footnote 4 This note offers, as an(other) example of this tendency, the BM's engagement with the Homeric arming scene,Footnote 5 and its reception in Hellenistic poetry and scholarship.

One example in particular, the arming scene of Paris (Il. 3.330–8), seems to have excited a fair amount of interest in Hellenistic Alexandria. Antonios Rengakos has argued persuasively that Apollonius of Rhodes uses the arming scene of Aietes (Argon. 3.1225–34)Footnote 6 in order to comment both on the Iliad's scene and its emendation by the Alexandrian scholar Zenodotus.Footnote 7 For convenience, the sequences are here set out side by side:

In his version of the Homeric scene, Zenodotus removed Il. 3.334–5 (sword and shield), and then inserted at the end another verse (338a) (shield),Footnote 9 thus taking away the sword and reversing the order of the Iliad's shield > helmet sequence by placing the shield last.Footnote 10 The first change is very likely a response to the fact that Paris does not use this sword (which he has at 3.18) in the ensuing duel,Footnote 11 and so the shield has to go as well, given the formulaic association between these two items in other major arming scenes (3.334–5 = 16.135–6, 19.372–3). The second change follows naturally from this excision, with the shield inserted at the scene's end so as to minimize disruption to the otherwise universal helmet > spear sequence.

As Rengakos observed, Apollonius follows Zenodotus in not having a sword, and in putting the helmet before the shield, thus seeming to endorse the critical impetus behind the Zenodotean version. But, as might be expected from the author of a monograph entitled πρὸς Ζηνόδοτον,Footnote 12 Apollonius restores the spear to its usual Homeric position at the end of the scene. In other words, he incorporates Zenodotus' two major innovations before reverting to the more traditional ending, partially endorsing the editor's decisions while also making his own – more Homeric – modification.

Apollonius' attitude was far more generous than that of Zenodotus' successor Aristarchus, who was entirely unimpressed by the new sequence:

ὥστε ἐναντίως τῷ Ὁμηρικῷ ὁπλισμῷ ἔχειν· πρὸ τῆς ἀσπίδος γὰρ φανήσεται ἀναλαμβάνων τὴν περικεφαλαίαν καὶ ξίφος μὴ ἔχων.

So that it is in opposition to the Homeric arming scene; for he will seem to take the helmet before the shield and not to have a sword.Footnote 13

The fact that Homer never uses this order elsewhereFootnote 14 is less important than its practical impossibility, as another scholionFootnote 15 explains, because the shield-bands could not be put on over a crested helmet; the shield must be put on first.Footnote 16 These practicalities aside, the simple fact that Zenodotus’ version is explicitly criticized on no less than three separate occasions in the Aristarchean scholia indicate a certain prominence in the Homeric scholarship of Hellenistic Alexandria.

The BM’s two consecutive arming scenes (124–31 mice, 161–5 frogs) belong in this contested context of poetic, textual and practical criticism. Firstly, the BM not only omits the sword as Apollonius does, but it also uses the same number of the same items found in Zenodotus' version. If Apollonius, who lacks the sword but has only four of those five items, was also responding to that version, how much stronger must be the BM's claim to the same relationship? Secondly, and crucially, the BM differs from both Zenodotus and Apollonius in retaining the Homeric positioning of the shield before the helmet, i.e. the very thing for which the Aristarchean scholia had criticized Zenodotus. Either this is a coincidence, or the BM is alluding to – and agreeing with – this scholarly fallout.

Moreover, the comparison of scenes suggests that the BM was also familiar with Apollonius' reception of Zenodotus' renovated Iliad scene. Firstly, there is an overall similarity to the process of engagement in both the BM and the Argonautica: an initial, partial endorsement of Zenodotus' emendation followed by a more Homeric modification, in the former case by restoring the shield > helmet sequence, in the latter by putting the spear back at the scene's end. Secondly, the BM has two full arming scenes for the opposite sides, something which happens nowhere in Homer but does occur in the Argonautica, for Aietes' scene is then followed by Jason's (3.1246–67), though the latter scene is deliberately curtailed.Footnote 17 Just as the BM outdoes Apollonius in following Zenodotus' items more closely, so here its poet attempts to go one better again, not simply by repeating part of the same scene as the Argonautica does, but constructing a ‘hyper-Homerism’ and repeating it all.Footnote 18 Finally, and most tellingly, the BM must be reflecting Apollonius' scenes in (twice) deploying his (twice used) shield > spear sequence. Otherwise, given the BM's refusal to innovate on the respective positions of the shield and the helmet, we would have to wonder why its poet did not simply revert to the standard Homeric sequence of shield > helmet > spear.

Taken together, these observations indicate that the BM is engaging not only with Zenodotus' edition or critical work on the Iliad, but also its fate in subsequent scholarship and poetry. Whatever else is going on here, and however playful the BM is intended to be, this is a sophisticated engagement with the Iliad and its ancient receptions.

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Matthew Hosty and CQ's anonymous reader.

References

1 Cf. Wackernagel, J., Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Homer (Göttingen, 1916), 188–96Google Scholar; Wölke, H., Untersuchungen zur Batrachomyomachie (Meisenheim am Glan, 1978), 46–70Google Scholar; Glei, R., Die Batrachomyomachie (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 34–6Google Scholar; Most, G.W., ‘Die Batrachomyomachia als ernste Parodie’, in Ax, W. and Glei, R. (edd.), Literaturparodie in Antike und Mittelalter (Trier, 1993), 27–41Google Scholar; Vine, B., ‘Towards the stylistic analysis of the Batrachomyomachia’, Mnemosyne 39 (1986), 383–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sens, A., ‘τίπτε γένος τοὐμὸν ζητεῖς; the Batrachomyomachia, Hellenistic epic parody, and early epic’, in Montanari, F. and Rengakos, A. (edd.), La Poésie épique grecque: métamorphoses d' un genre littéraire (Geneva, 2005), 215–48Google Scholar; contra e.g. Bliquez, L., ‘Frogs and mice in Athens’ TAPhA 107 (1977), 11–25.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Olson, S.D. and Sens, A., Matro of Pitane and the Tradition of Epic Parody in the Fourth Century BCE: Text, Translation and Commentary (Atlanta, 1999), 5–12Google Scholar for a brief narrative; contra Cebrián, R.B., Comic Epic and Parodies of Epic: Literature for Youth and Children in Ancient Greece (Hildesheim, 2008)Google Scholar, who classes the BM within a different genre, the παίγνιον.

3 Cf. Olson and Sens (n. 2), 37 and Fantuzzi, M., ‘‘Homeric’ formularity in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes’, in Papanghelis, Th. and Rengakos, A. (edd.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden, 2001), 171–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for the same practice in Apollonius. That is not to say that the BM poet entirely avoids this practice, but it is considerably less prominent than in the work of Euboeus, Polemon, Hegemon, Matro et al.

4 Cf. Sens (n. 1). One example is the strategy of ‘Homeric mistake’, in which the BM points to the Iliad's propensity to ignore the deaths of some of its characters, a problem on which the scholia had commented and sometimes tried to fix; cf. Kelly, A., ‘Parodic inconsistency: some problems in the Batrakhomyomakhia’ JHS 129 (2009), 45–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Cf. Arend, W., Die typischen Szenen bei Homer (Berlin, 1933), 92–7Google Scholar; Armstrong, J.I., ‘The arming motif in the Iliad’ AJPh 79 (1958), 337–54Google Scholar; Danek, G., Studien zur Dolonie (Vienna, 1988), 203–29Google Scholar; Kelly, A., A Referential Commentary and Lexicon to Homer, Iliad VIII (Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar, 318 and n. 1.

6 Cf. Hunter, R.L., Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica Book III (Cambridge, 1989), 232–3Google Scholar; Knight, V.H., The Renewal of Epic: Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius (Leiden, 1995), 102–4.Google Scholar

7 A. Rengakos, ‘Apollonius Rhodius as a Homeric scholar’, in Papanghelis and Rengakos (n. 3), 193–216, at 209–10; already suggested by S.R. West, The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer (Cologne, 1967), 55 n. 34. The information comes from Σ A (Ariston.) ad Il. 3.334–5.

8 This is the order in the scholium, but G.M. Bolling, The External Evidence for Interpolation in Homer (Oxford, 1925), 83 suggested deleting the expression εἵλετο δ’ ἄλκιμον ἔγχος; cf. West (n. 7), 54 n. 33. If correct, then Zenodotus followed the traditional shield > spear sequence, and Apollonius was not correcting him (see above). There is, however, no reason to doubt the scholium's integrity, and in any case my argument about the BM is unaffected.

9 Cf. previous note. I make no judgement here as to whether Zenodotus had MS authority for this version; cf. Nickau, K., Untersuchungen zur textkritischen Methode des Zenodotos von Ephesos (Berlin, 1977), 173–6Google Scholar, who compares the arming scenes from Apollonius and the BM, but only in order to show that Zenodotus' version is ‘eine “Modernisierung” des homerischen Schemas’ (175); also below, n. 18.

10 For the complete sequence as set out in Paris' scene, cf. Il. 11.17–46, 16.130–9, 19.369–88. For abbreviated examples showing the sequence shield > helmet > spear, cf. Il. 14.370–4, 15.479–82, Od. 22.122–5; for the sequence sword > shield > helmet, cf. Il. 10.255–9. In all of these cases, the shield comes before the helmet.

11 Cf. Nickau (n. 9), 175; Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume I: Books 1–4 (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 314.

12 Cf. Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford, 1968), 146–8Google Scholar; Rengakos (n. 7), 206–12.

13 Σ A (Ariston.) ad Il. 3.334–5a; cf. also Σ A (Ariston.) ad Il. 15.480a: ὅτι πρότερον τὴν ἀσπίδα εἴληφεν εἶτα τὴν περικεφαλαίαν. ὁ δὲ Ζηνόδοτος ἐνήλλαχεν ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀλεξάνδρου μονομαχίας (‘because he has taken up the shield first, and then the helmet. But Zenodotus has changed the order in Alexander's duel’).

14 The priority of the shield is seen even in the arming scene of Eumaeus (Od. 15.526–30), where the cloak which protects him against the cold (~ shield) (esp. 529) is once more taken up before the skin of a shaggy, wild goat (~ helmet); cf. R.M. Newton, ‘Cloak and shield in Odyssey 14’, CJ 93 (1997), 143–56, at 149–50.

15 Σ A (Ariston.) ad Il. 11.32: πρὸ δὲ τῆς περικεφαλαίας ἀναλαμβάνει τὴν ἀσπίδα, ὡς ἂν δι’ ἀναφορέων χρωμένων ταῖς ἀσπίσιν. ὁ δὲ Ζηνόδοτος ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὸν ὁπλισμὸν ἐνήλλαχεν (‘And he takes up the shield before the helmet, because of the (shield-)bands which work shields. But Zenodotus has changed the order in the arming scene of Alexander’).

16 Cf. e.g. Σ A ad Il. 2.388b, Σ T ad Il. 7.304a; also Nickau (n. 11), 174 with n. 28, and van Wees, H., ‘The Homeric way of war: the Iliad and the hoplite phalanx (II)’, G&R 41 (1994), 131–55Google Scholar, at 132–3 with nn. 50–8 (149), for discussion of the practicalities, and further bibliography.

17 Cf. Knight (n. 6), 102–4.

18 A strategy evident in the Homeric papyrus Π Hibeh 19 (third century b.c.e.), which adds several verses to Menelaus' somewhat terse arming scene (3.339) in response to Paris', giving the arrangement shield > helmet > spears (339a) > greaves (339b) > sword (339c). The papyrus preserves the Homeric order (whilst omitting the breastplate), in taking the opening greaves > sword sequence and placing it after the shield > helmet > spears sequence, creating thereby a rather pleasing ring composition. It is surely inauthentic; cf. West (n. 7), 54–6.