CHAPTER NINE

CALLIMACHUS ON KINGS AND KINGSHIP Silvia Barbantani

Abstract In Aetia fr. 1.35 Pfeiffer Callimachus complains that his adversaries, the Telchines, accuse him of not writing one continuous poem in many thousands of verses, celebrating kings and heroes. Callimachus did choose to celebrate kings and heroes, but in poetry that is subtle, brief, allusive, learned, and ironic. Contemporary kings occur particularly in the hymns to Zeus, Apollo, and Delos, while queens are more prominent in the Aetia. Hesiod is Callimachus most important Greek model in constructing an image of the just king from whom wealth, prosperity and peace flow. A number of scholars have also argued that Egyptian models of kingship may be in play as well, though filtered through Greek texts.

In one of the most controversial passages in the Prologue to his Aetia (fr. 1.35 Pf. = 1 M.), Callimachus complains that his adversaries, the Telchines, accuse him of not writing one continuous poem in many thousands of verses celebrating kings and heroes. This is generally understood to mean contemporary kings and heroes of old. The Telchines, then, identify two main strategies of a narrative poem: the mythical (chosen by Apollonius in his Argonautica) and the historical,1 in praise of living kings. What Callimachus rejects is not the content proposed by the Telchines but the modality of treatment of this material: a single lengthy poem, describing in detail, and possibly in chronological order, deeds of the protagonist. Callimachus did choose to celebrate kings and heroes, but in poetry that is subtle, short, allusive, learned, and ironic, without the overt adulation of encomia or the grand style of epic. Contemporary kings occur, particularly in the hymns to Zeus, Apollo, and Delos, but only rarely in the Aetia, where queens are more prominent, if we are to judge from the extant fragments. Hesiod is Callimachus most important Greek model in constructing an image of the just king from whom wealth, prosperity,

See, for example, POxy 30.2520, an epic poem on Philip II.

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and peace flow. A number of scholars have also argued that Egyptian models of kingship may be in play as well, though filtered through Greek texts. The Aetia Poems for Berenice II, the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene, who married Ptolemy III Euergetes, open Book 3 and close Book 4 of the Aetia. In The Victory of Berenice, which opens Aetia 3 (fr. 383 Pf. + SH 268C), Ptolemy II Philadelphus occurs only tangentially, joined with his sister-wife, Arsinoe II, as the dynastic parents of Berenice II with the title Sibling Gods.2 After the marriage with his sister, but probably only after her death in 270 or 268 bc, Ptolemy II assumed the title of Philadelphus and was worshipped together with his spouse.3 It has been argued that Ptolemaic endogamy should be seen only as an Egyptian phenomenon, though the poets look to Zeus and Hera for a model of the sibling marriage.4 Probably Egyptian royal ideals resonate with Ptolemaic politics. Certainly conjugal love is exploited as a royal virtue, as it guarantees the birth of a legitimate successor. Ptolemy III appears in The Lock of Berenice (fr. 110 Pf.), the elegy that closes the Aetia, not so much as a victorious warrior (as he is portrayed in the Adulis and Canopus decrees, OGIS 54 and 56) but as the beloved spouse of Berenice II, who with the sacrifice of her lock and her ardent prayers obtains his safe homecoming after his victory in the Third Syrian War. Conjugal love between the rulers, the true subject of the poem, is stressed as a guarantee of dynastic stability. In Catullus version of The Lock of Berenice Ptolemy appears as a successful warrior as well as the object of his wifes affection, and his enterprises are presented mainly from the womans point of view (Carmen 66.1112, 20, 3536). The same royal couple may have been mentioned in the first
2 Line 3: . . . . The only other place where a similar epithet appears, Philadelphoi, is the ambiguous fr. 507 Pf.: . See Lehnus 1996b: 146147; DAlessio 2007: 710711; Pfeiffer (comm. ad loc.) considers it part of an elegy for a courtier. 3 Also in plastic arts: see the monument dedicated to the Siblings by Callicrates at Olympia OGIS 26 and 27; Hintzen-Bohlen 1992: 7781). 4 Koenen 1993: 161164; Carney 1987; Criscuolo 1990; Ager 2005; Rolandi 2006; however, according to Hazzard 2000, the main concern of Philadelphus in marrying his sister was not to conform to pharaonic habits but to gather around himself the dispersed family descended from the Savior Gods, Theoi Soteres, Ptolemy I Soter and his wife Berenice I.

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line of Aetia 4 (fr. 86.1 Pf.), ] [ ], and they certainly occur in the Epilogue of the Aetia (fr. 112.8 Pf.), where the poet asks Zeus to protect the house of his lords (presumably Ptolemy III and Berenice II), whom he designates by the lofty Homeric term (lords). But nowhere in what we have of the Aetia does the king seem to be singled out as an individual; rather he is present only as part of the royal couple. Fragmentary Poems Although we know from Posidippus Hippica that Ptolemaic kings were passionate competitors in the equestrian games (PMilVogl 8.309), we have no epinician elegy by Callimachus for a king. In the elegiac epinician for the powerful courtier Sosibius (fr. 384 Pf.), the monarch remains in the background as a recipient of the glory earned by his loyal and beneficent subject (ll. 5358).5 Sosibius won in the double run (diaulos: fr 384.3941 Pf.), probably at the Ptolemaia, the festival instituted in honor of Ptolemy I.6 In the poem Callimachus pays homage to the deceased and deified Soter, father of the reigning king, addressing him directly at lines 4041: , | , , [. . .] [ (We chose to compete for the first time [in the diaulos] by you, O Lagid Ptolemy, when to you . . . O F[athe]r ? . . . ). In another fragment (fr. 388 Pf.), which may have been a epinician for Berenice II, there is mention of her wedding and her heroic deeds. In The Victory of Berenice the married queen had already been adopted by the Sibling Gods, but in this poem she is still unmarried, and her natural father, Magas, the king of Cyrene and Ptolemy IIs half brother, is named (l. 8). The basileus appearing at lines 34, however, ]. . . . .[.]. [ | ] . . . [] (king . . . most wholly accomplished of all), might as easily refer to Zeus, the king of the gods (Call. Hymn 1.57), as to the Cyrenaean sovereign. The name of Ptolemy II, who was responsible for the suppression of a Celtic mercenaries revolt in Egypt, does not appear in the extant frag-

5 Cf. the praise of an officer in SP 3.111 (third century bc; see Parsons 1996; C. Austin and Stigka 2007): among other virtues, he is . . . . . . (kings friend . . . great in trust . . . philhellene). 6 The festival is not named, but the most likely hypothesis is that Callimachus refers to the Ptolemaia; see DAlessio 2007: 687 n. 23.

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ments of the Galatea, but the Celtic king Brennus, leader of the hordes attacking Delphi in 279 bc, is prominently named in a fragment attributed to the same poem (fr. 379 Pf.): [the warriors] whom Brennus guided from the western sea to overthrow the Greeks. Although there are only a few lines surviving, the mythological context seems clear: Galatea was the Nereid mother of Galatas, the eponymous ancestor of the Galatians (also called Gauls, or Celts); therefore it is reasonable to imagine that hiding under a mythological veil were the recent events of the Galatic Wars (280278 bc).7 The Galatians are featured again in the Hymn to Delos, where their defeat in Greece and in Egypt is seen as righting the cosmic order. In that hymn Callimachus adopts a majestic, celebratory tone suitable to the genre; in the Galatea he may have chosen an aetiological approach to the contemporary event. The Hymns Callimachus most explicit praise of kings is to be found in the first (To Zeus), second (To Apollo), and fourth (To Delos) of the six hymns of his collection. These are balanced by three others devoted to female deities, possibly representing aspects of the royal women (see Depew 2004.) Like encomia, the hymns included a narrative section, the aretalogy of the god, or a specific episode of his or her life.8 The development of a royal dynastic theology and the proliferation of civic cults in honor of the Benefactor and Savior Gods contributed to blurring the boundary between the two genres.9 Hymns refer clearly to the Ptolemaic court pantheon, with any shift between analogy and identification of gods and rulers often being imperceptible.10

7 So Pfeiffer 19491953: 1.xxxix, followed by Fraser 1972: 1.659; Meillier 1979: 55; Nachtergael 1977: 184185; Petzl 1984; Bing 1998b; and DAlessio 2007: 675 n. 1. Alan Cameron 1995: 66, 281282, suggested that the poem was performed in the competition of the Soteria in Delphi. Frr. 378 and 379 Pf. also belong to the poem; Livrea 1998: 3133 has found a possible echo of the Galatea in late-antique poetry. On the sources of the Galatea myth, see Pfeiffer 19491953: 1.3045; Lightfoot 1999: 531535. 8 Pavese 1991: 169173; on the relationship between Idyll 17 and the Homeric Hymns, see Gow 1950: 2.325; Cairns 1972: 106. 9 On the royal cult organized by the poleis, see Habicht 1970; Gauthier 1985: 3953; Bringmann 1993: 724 and 1995. 10 Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 164175. Bing 1988b: 126 was the first to argue that Hymns 2 and 3 are companion pieces; cf. Erler 1987. Hymn 3.12137, modeled on Hes. Op. 225247, offers again a model for the good king.

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Only in the Hymn to Delos is the identification of the monarch certain. Ptolemy II Philadelphus is easily recognizable by virtue of his birth on Cos. For the Hymn to Zeus and the Hymn to Apollo the identity of the monarch is uncertain. However, in each of these three hymns the poet articulates a facet of his own poetics: praise poetry involves a negotiation of identity and authority; on the part of the poet, it involves the ability to recognize, represent and embellish the gods status and prior relationship to the poet and the group for whom s/he speaks. On the part of the god, hymns set out to construct a divine complicity in the performance of praise itself (Depew 2004: 118). The court poet could not choose a better occasion to advertise his own authority and value as a servant of the Muses than with a hymn or encomium to the king and to the gods who grant the ruler power, riches, and prosperity, therefore obliging him to extend generosity toward his loyal ministers and subjects, including poets. (On the virtues praised in hymns, see Weber 1993: 204243.) The Hymn to Zeus Hymn 1, the shortest, typifies Callimachus rejection of long works in honor of kings and heroes.11 When it comes to praise of the greatest deity, Zeus, the poet bids an abrupt farewell (Hymn 1.91, 94),12 refusing to deal with the gods innumerable ergaafter all, who could (l. 92)? There has been considerable debate on the date of the poem, on the identification of the king hidden under the character of the titular god, and on the role of the poet as speaker of truth, as presented in lines 19 and 5569. The hymn is generally interpreted as a celebration of Philadelphus accession to coregency with his father, Ptolemy Soter,13 on 12 Dystrus

11 For general comments: McLennan 1977; Hopkinson 1984b; Clauss 1986; Haslam 1993; Stephens 2003: 77114. On the hymns sources, see Cozzoli 2006. On the many voices of the poet in this hymn, see Lddecke 1998. On Zeuss birth, see Ambhl 2005: 235245. 12 This happens also in the Hymn to Apollo, where the god himself cuts the poem short by kicking away Phthonos; see Haslam 1993: 115116. 13 Iust. 16.2.7. See Clauss 1986: 155170; Stephens 2003 and 1998: 171183; contra, Meillier 1979: 6178; Laronde 1987: 366; Carrire 1969. According to Lehnus 1993: 76, Callimachus was probably born in 303 bc; therefore he was a younger contemporary of his patron, Ptolemy II.

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285 bc (= 15/16 December).14 These events coincided with the Basileia, an Alexandrian festival in honor of Zeus Basileus.15 The incipit of the hymn, inviting libation (ll. 12), suggests the context of a symposium (whether fictional or a formal court gathering), which traditionally opened with three libations: one to Olympian Zeus, one to the Heroes, and one to Zeus Soter.16 Zeus appears immediately as a great and eternal whose earthly hypostasis is the ruler. If the hymn was created for and performed at the ceremony of accession, the king was likely to be present. Ptolemy Philadelphus was elevated to coregent despite being the youngest of several brothers: Magas and Ptolemy Ceraunus were sons of Ptolemy Soter and Eurydice, whereas Ptolemy II was the issue of Soter and his second wife, Berenice I. Inserting the myth of Zeuss accession to the throne (ll. 5562), Callimachus rejects the Homeric tradition of the division of cosmic power through drawing lots (Il. 15.18693; cf. Pind. Ol. 7.54), following instead the Hesiodic tradition (Theog. 881885) whereby Zeuss brothers, Hades and Poseidon, spontaneously offer him supreme power.17 Callimachus, like Hesiod (Theog. 453457, 478) makes Zeus younger than Poseidon and Hades, whereas according to Homer Zeus is older than Poseidon (Il. 13.355, 15.166).18 If this really is a reference to Philadelphus rule, the poem

14 So Koenen 1977; Clauss 1986. Alexander may have been crowned at the Basileia in Memphis in 331 bc. According to Weber 1993: 172, the Basileia as royal festival was founded as a commemoration of the death of Ptolemy I (dead in 283/2). 15 Ptolemy IIs accession as sole ruler was celebrated in 282 bc, some weeks later than the Basileia: that is, on 25 Dystrus 282 bc (6/7 January), the same coronation day as his father. (See Koenen 1977: 5862 and 1993: 73 n. 114.) He reigned alone from 282 to 246 bc. 16 Cf. Athen. 15.692f693c; Paean Erythraeus in Seleucum Powell, CA 140.1: opening libations to Apollo; Pindar Isthm. 6.89 and Prosodion fr. 89a SM. 17 In the Augustan age, the tradition reemerges in Egypt in one of the four epigrams on the Pillar of Ptolemagrius from Panopolis (Bernand 1969: no. 114): the poems are a Hellenistic summa of royal theology, presenting the Roman emperor as Zeus King of the World: of these four epigrams, the first is dedicated to Poseidon and recalls the division of the world among the three divine brothers; the second, to Zeus Caesar , , king of the universe; the third, to Ares (the poet presents himself as a servant, or , of Caesar and Ares); and the fourth, to Pan and Apollo. See Criscuolo 2000, www.telemaco.unibo.it/epigr/agrios.htm. 18 McLennan 1977: 9599. The discrepancy may be due to the fact that Poseidon and Hades, though older than Zeus, were vomited up (reborn) later by Cronus thanks to Zeuss intervention. As Clauss 1986 noticed, Callimachus poem is also heavily indebted to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes: the reconciliation between Apollo and Hermes in HH Hermes 423b35 is due to Hermes singing a theogony.

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must date from very soon after his accession to the throne. Ptolemy IIs older half brothers resented their fathers choice and contested Philadelphus position after Soters death. The hymn treats subjects suitable to an early datethe birth and the accession of Zeus to powerand his just rule can be understood as both an aition and a wish for the young king. Zeus is given royal prerogatives in spite of the fact that he is presented as a newborn child in the first half of the hymn: he is addressed as Father Zeus(Hymn 1.7, 43) at the very moment when the beginning of his life is narrated. However, there are only faint allusions to his deeds (ll. 3, 57, 6667). Wilamowitz (1924: 2.11), followed by many other scholars, read in Callimachus refusal to sing of Zeuss erga a hint of the very young age of the actual dedicatee of the poem, Ptolemy II, who at the time of the hymn had no exploits yet. Apollonius also treats the birth of Zeus and the establishment of his power in the Argonautica (1.50711, 73034; 2.123334). The collection of Homeric Hymns does not include a major hymn to Zeus although Pindar composed one (fr. 29 SM). It is possible that Pindars hymn was placed first in the Hellenistic edition of his poems,19 and its aporetic incipit may well have inspired Callimachus. The topos of doubt is similarly part of the fragmentary Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, which likewise stands first in the collection of the Homeric Hymns.20 Other allusions to previous and contemporary literature are detectable in the opening lines of the poem: line 5, (my heart is in doubt), coincides with line 1 of the Hymn to Eros by Antagoras of Rhodes, a contemporary poet active at the court of Antigonus Gonatas.21 At line 8, was attributed in antiquity to Epimenides of Crete,22 but this proverb also echoes the contemporary views of Euhemerus, who also appears in Callimachus Iambus 1 (Spyridakis 1968).

Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004: 371. DAlessio 2005 and 2009 thinks that Pindars Hymn 1 was dedicated to Apollo. Cf. also Pind. Pyth. 1, where the cosmic order created by Zeus is kept by the tyrant Hieron, victor over the barbarians; cf. Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 168172. 20 The Hymn to Dionysus opens with various false traditions of the gods birth to which the poet contrasts his own true one, rejecting the (l. 6). This hymn stands first in the Homeric collection in the best codex, the Mosquensis (West 2001). 21 McLennan 1977: 3132. Cuypers 2004: 96101 reads this hymn as an Academic antagonist to the Stoic celebration of Zeus by Aratus and Cleanthes. 22 Cuypers 2004: 102105. Epimenides probably is also alluded to in Iambus 12. On the weight of the Epimenidean tradition in Callimachus, see Cozzoli 2006: 124128.

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The main model for Callimachus is Hesiod, who describes the birth of Zeus in Theogony 467506 and treats justice and kingship both human and divine in his Works and Days. That Hesiod had always been a central model for Callimachus is evident from the dream sequence that follows the Prologue of the Aetia, where Callimachus recalls the Boeotian poet at the moment of his poetic investiture.23 Hesiod, the ancient servant of the Muses consecrated on Mount Helicon, became a point of reference for all the Alexandrian poets. Hesiod was the first to sanction with his poetic auctoritas the interdependent relationships among kings, Muses, and poets,24 and to have provided the image of the city governed justly.25 The heavily Hesiodic elements in Callimachus Hymn to Zeus (esp. ll. 7990) find a resonance in a later Hymn to Isis of Isidorus found in Egypt.26 In Isidorus the kings who abide with Isis are rich, powerful, victorious, and bringers of domestic peace. Similar Hesiodic echoes occur in Theocritus Idyll 17.77120. Both poems [Isidorus and Theocritus] clearly reflect both traditional Greek ideas and aspects of Egyptian royal ideology, and they shed light upon a kind of lingua franca of praise which turns up in many different guises all over the Hellenistic world.27 In Apollonius Argonautica (4.110, 117779, 12012), Alcinous is an earthly manifestation of Zeuss pure justice, as his wise sister-wife Arete is an avatar of Hera.
Truth and lies. Ancient poets were true in no respect. They said that the son of Cronus divided the residences in three, drawing lots. But who would leave to chance the possession of Olympus or Hades, except an utter fool? In fact it is reasonable to chance for equal portions, but those are worlds apart. May my fictions persuade the listeners ear! Not chance was it that made you lord of the gods, but the deeds of your hands, your might, and the power that you placed next your throne. Callimachus Hymn 1.6067

23 Fr. 2 Pf. = 4 M.; Scholia Florentina 1619; AP 7.42. See Wilamowitz 1924: 2.92 96; Bing 1998b: 7071; Alan Cameron 1995: 362371; Pretagostini 1995b: 168171. Dependence on Hesiod: Reinsch-Werner 1976: 2473. 24 Theog. 80103. See Brillante 1994: 1426; Hunter 1996: 81. 25 Op. 213247. A testimony to Hesiods significance as a master of wisdom in linking civil harmony and the fertility of the land comes from a stele on Mt. Helicon dated to the third century bc: see Hurst 1996: 5771; Veneri 1996: 7386. 26 See especially Isid. Hy. 3.118; Vanderlip 1972: 4950. 27 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004: 352354. Callimachus reuses the same Hesiodic passage in Hymn 3.12135.

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Callimachus here adapts the proem of the Theogony to create his own conception of truth poetry.28 The power of poetry to convey truth, but also lies that can disguise some elements of truth, is a particularly important issue for a court poet, because it bears on the veracity and value of his statements about the nature of monarchy. The hymn is structured around two lies: in the first section of the hymn Callimachus exposes the lie of the Cretans on the birth of Zeus (Hymn 1.414); in the second, the lie of the acquisition of power by Zeus (ll. 5565). The first claim, against a Euhemerist interpretation of the gods, comes early in the poem and lays the foundations for the poems second part, where the poet articulates the kingly attributes of Zeus and the divine attributes of the human king. Moreover, the statements about poetic doubt, truth telling, and lies (ll. 78, 6566) acquire a new light if considered from the perspective of the Egyptian world that Ptolemy now ruled as pharaoh at the same time as he ruled the Greeks as basileus: He [Callimachus] presents himself as devising fictions, as experimenting with a variety of inherited traditions in order to construct a lineation for the king of the Nile, who is neither Greek nor Egyptian, but both.29 A bicultural monarchy. So far I have concentrated on Ptolemy as a Greek king, but he ruled over Egypt and Egyptians as well as Greeks. A number of scholars (most recently Susan Stephens, in the greatest detail) have argued that Callimachus deliberately fashioned his Hymn to Zeus in conformity with features of Egyptian cosmology salient for kingship:
Arcadia provides a primordial Greek landscape for Zeus birth, the contours of which are made to resemble Egypt, in that the arid land comes to be watered at the time of the birth of the divine child. The Cretan landscape has associations with Near Eastern dying gods on the one hand, but also the Euhemerist tradition that demotes the Olympic pantheon to culture heroes.

In Callimachus first hymn (line 66), the naming of Zeus as king of bees () employs a very rare Greek word that may be intended

28 See Serrao 1977: 228229; Clauss 1986; Alan Cameron 1995: 371; Pretagostini 1995b: 163165. 29 Stephens 2003: 113. Truth and lies differ in accordance with cultural perspective: a Greek lie may contain an Egyptian truth and vice versa. (E.g., Osiris is a dying god.) There are competing truths: Ptolemy is both a mortal and a god; the kingship is both Greek and Egyptian. And for the citations that follow, pp. 107109.

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to translate an Egyptian term, the hieroglyphic symbol of the bee that designates the king of Lower Egypt; but it is mainly via Hesiod that:
[Callimachus] adumbrates the ideological essentials of Egyptian kingship: the link between the king and the god, the victory over chaos personified as a cosmic enemy, and the maintenance of cosmic harmony or justice. Not surprisingly, Hesiods texts exhibit demonstrable links with the ancient Near East, and particular patterns of kingship.

The phrase used of Zeus in Hymn 1.3, has also been linked with the implicit addressee of the poem, the king, though its meaning remains a subject of debate: means driver of chariots, charioteer, in Homer and Pindar (Ol. 4.1, of Zeus as charioteer) but also driver away; Pelagonians may be either the Earth-born Titans () or human beings (if we accept the reading of the manuscripts, , Mud-born). The most economical suggestion, if not entirely convincing, is Adolf Khnkens, reading the expression simply as shepherd of human beings, a variation of the Homeric formula for hero kings, (shepherd of the people).30 According to James Clauss, the epithet refers to Ptolemy Philadelphus being able to drive away those who contest his claim to the throne, whereas G.R. McLennan proposes a very unusual meaning, router of the Pelagonians [Macedonians],31 reading the line as praise of Ptolemy Soter as victor over Demetrius Poliorcetes. If an allusion to the Titans should be read here (cf. Hes. Theog. 820: Zeus drives away Titans from Olympus), in line with the Hesiodic fil-rouge running through the hymn, the verse may anticipate Callimachus Hymn 4.174, where Ptolemy II conquers the late-born Titans: that is, the Celts or Galatians. (Cf. also the Hellenistic hymn on PChic col. VI, 13, where the gods victory over the Giants is recalled in line 14.)32 In Hesiod, Zeuss defeat of Typhoeus (the Egyptian Seth, Horus adversary) and the Titans demonstrated his capacity for maintaining rule and order: Ptolemys Galatian enterprise was yet to come (275/4?), though his

30 See Khnken 1984, with a possible allusion also to Hermes, who drives away the cows, , in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes 3, 14, 265, 377. 31 Clauss 1986: 162163; McLennan 1977: 2728. For Pelagonians meaning Macedonians, see Strabo 7.39f.; Steph. Byz. s.v. ; Philod. De piet. 248v Schober. 32 Powell 1925: 84 considers this a hymn to Zeus or to Apollo. See Meliad 2008; Barbantani 2008. Cf. GDRK I 22 (GLP fr. 135, pp. 542544) on the victory of Diocletian and Galerius over the Persians, where the two emperors are assimilated to Zeus and Apollo in the act of crushing the Giants (fr. 1 verso).

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father and brothers, like Zeuss older brothers, spontaneously accepted his rule before he had actually performed any deeds. The description of Zeus, who while still a child devises everything to perfection (Hymn 1.57), is echoed by a description of Ptolemy as a king well able to accomplish whatever he devises immediately or, at most, by the end of the day.33 If the monarch here paralleled with Zeus is young Ptolemy II, Callimachus may have had in mind also the Homeric Hymn to Hermes 1719, where Hermes, born in the morning, steals the cattle of his half brother Apollo on the same day, then is reconciled with him (Clauss 1986: 160167). Again, a concept found in traditional Greek poetry has parallels within Egyptian culture: the idea that a deed is accomplished as soon as the king thinks it was a feature of Egyptian hymns and royal inscriptions, where it described the power of the god and, by extension, of the pharaoh (Stephens 1998: 17183 and 2003: 112). Theocritus, praising Ptolemy Soter in the encomium addressed to his son, expresses a similar concept (Idyll 17.1315):
From his ancestors what a man for accomplishing a great deed was Ptolemy son of Lagus, when in his mind he had conceived a decision that no other man would be able to think.

This also reprises the Hesiodic topos of the protection granted by Zeus to the kings. (Compare Idyll 17.7475 with Hymn 1.6986.)34 Nothing is closer to Zeus than rulers (Hymn 1.80). The power of the kings is absolute and, like that of Zeus, is based on bia and kratos, Force and Power (l. 67). Then the Homeric explicit at lines 9596 (Without virtue, wealth cannot enhance men, | nor virtue without prosperity. Give us virtue and wealth.) reprises line 84 (you have bestowed abundant wealth on them) and expresses a Hesiodic (Theog. 96; cf. Hymn 1.84) as well as a Pindaric concept,35 familiar also in Egyptian culture: the coincidence between the prosperity of the land and the personal virtue of all its inhabitants, but especially of the king.

33

Cf. also Hymn 4.16270, widening the horizon over which Ptolemy extends his

rule. For relationships between encomiastic poems by Callimachus and Theocritus, see Pretagostini 2000b: 157159. 35 See scholia to Pind. Ol. 2.96f and Pyth. 5, 1a.172 Drachmann, in which these final lines of Callimachus hymn are quoted.
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Zeus is also a giver of wealth:36 in the Hellenistic monarchies, riches were used to manifest the kings munificence, or euergesia, toward his subjects and, of course, to his Friends; therefore the poet twice asks the god (Hymn 1.94, 96)in the person of the kingfor virtue and prosperity (, , cf. Theognis 30, 129130 West). There is an echo here of Theocritus Idyll 17.95, but Theocritus at line 135 instructs Ptolemy to ask the god directly for these gifts, without the poet as intermediary.37 Like the king, Philoithat is, his courtiers of highest rank in every field (administration, army, culture; cf. Hymn 1.69)38were expected to exercise benevolence and generosity. Callimachus states the same idea firmly in the epinician elegy for the influential minister Sosibius (fr. 384.5758 Pf.). The subtext of the last section of the hymn is clear: Zeus endows kings with gifts and prerogatives, and protects them (Hymn 1.8184); Ptolemy excels among kings (ll. 85-90); the poet ranks next to the king (cf. Hes. Theog. 9496); and so Callimachus, the only poet capable of properly lauding the king of the godsand his own masterdoubtless excels among poets. The Hymn to Apollo The god celebrated in Hymn 2 is explicitly presented as patron of Callimachus home town, Cyrene, where a majestic temple to Apollo had been dedicated and the festival of the Carnea had a long tradition, going back to the Spartan ancestors (Hymn 2.71).39 Since Cyrene is honored and beloved by the god of poetry more than other cities (ll. 9596), the Cyrenaean Callimachus wishes to be honored above any other poet (ll. 2829). Alan Cameron (1995: 64) suggested that Callimachus Hymns could be performed in festivals and public ceremonial occasionsin this case, a setting in Cyrene would be appropriate. Most scholars, however, prefer to think that in this poem, as

36 (granter of wealth, Hymn 1.91) occurs only with reference to Hermes in Odyssey 8.335 and Homeric Hymns 18.2 and 29.8: another reference to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and its story. 37 On beneficence as the capital element of the monarchic ideology, see Erler 1987 and Bringmann 1993; on the same theme in Theocr. Id. 17, see Hunter 1996: 8689. 38 McLennan 1977: 107 suggests that here the philoi are the literary associates of Callimachus. 39 For the relationship between Call. Hymn 2 and Pindar Pyth. 4 and 5, see Calame 1993 and Ambhl 2005: 337348. See Lehnus 1994a: 197201 for Apollos exceptional role as founderarchegetes and ktistes (man and god are sunoikisteres) of Cyrene.

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well as in the other mimetic hymns, the poet is creating the fiction of ritual performance.40 Hymn 2 contains only two short but quite overt references to the nature of monarchy and to rulerswho, however, remain unnamed. The identification of these characters has a decisive relevance for the dating of the poem. The king is presented as an avatar of Apollo in lines 2527 (cf. Theocr. Id. 22.212):
. , , .

Cry Hie! Hie! It is bad to strive with the Blessed. He who fights with the Blessed Ones would fight with my king; and whoever fights with my king would fight also with Apollo.

An explicit reference to the kings of Cyrene, in the person of the founder, Battus, occurs in lines 6568:
, , .

Phoebus, too, revealed to Battus my city of fertile soil, and as a raven guided the people entering Libya, auspicious to the founder, and swore that he would give walls to our kings. Always Apollo keeps his promises.

A scholion to line 26 reads (scholia to Hymn 2.2526; Pfeiffer 1949 1953: 2.50): The reference is to Ptolemy Euergetes. It is because he is philologos that the poet honors him like a god. Many scholars have taken this to mean that the Ptolemy in question is actually Philadelphus,41 because philologos is more characteristic of him: he was primarily responsible for the development of the Library and the Museum. But others prefer to give credit to the scholiast and see Euergetes in the reference to my king,42 possibly because Callimachus had an affectionate reverence for his wife, Queen Berenice II. The portrayal of the nymph Cyrene in the Hymn to Apollo 9192 may allude to the manly deeds of Berenice, both on the athletic field and in the

40 41 42

E.g., F. Williams 1978: 23; Depew 1993. E.g., Wilamowitz 1924: 2.80, 87; Lehnus 1993: 100; Depew 2004: 125. E.g., Pfeiffer 19491953: 1.xxxviiixxxix; Weber 1993: 221.

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political arena.43 The passionate love that moves Apollo toward Cyrene is also paralleled by the strong conjugal bond between the king and his loyal consort, which is the subject of The Lock of Berenice: in addition to praying for her husbands safe return from the battlefield, Berenice brought him as dowry the riches of her city and her fleet, enabling him to launch the Third Syrian War. If this reconstruction is correct, the Hymn to Apollo should be dated after the wedding of the Euergetae in 246 bc. P. Smotrytsch (1961: 662), however, would date the poem to the 260s, when Berenice was still engaged to Ptolemy III and fighting against her mother, Apama: in lines 2527 Callimachus would then be addressing the two factions tearing apart Cyrene after the death of Magas, endorsing Ptolemaic control over the city. The future tense in line 28 would imply that the poet is seeking the protection of the young Euergetes in the future; and Euergetes, who was coregent with his father, Ptolemy II, would be the equivalent of Apollo, sitting to the right of Zeus (Hymn 2.29). Cameron alone would date the hymn to the 270s, identifying my king as the last independent Cyrenaean king, Magas, father of Berenice II (Alan Cameron 1995: 408409). Consensus has it that the king in lines 2627 is a contemporary of Callimachus, and not the original Battus, the founder of the city, also named in line 65.44 Battus was used generically for any Cyrenaean ruler and never became a proper name:45 the dynasty of the first Battus died out in the fifth century bc with Arcesilas IV, a patron of Pindar. Callimachus proudly styled

43 Smotrytsch 1961: 664665; F. Williams 1978: 79. Young Berenice, engaged to Ptolemy III, rebelled against her mother, Apama, a partisan of the Seleucid faction, who wanted her to marry instead Demetrius the Fair. Apparently Berenice II had Demetrius killed and married Euergetes in 246 bc. Equestrian victories of Berenice II are celebrated by Callimachus in Aetia 3 (The Victory of Berenice) and by Posidippus 78, 79, 82 ab. 44 Contra S. White 1999: 177. As Apollos designated , the founding hero was an earthly representative of the god. In this case there is no correspondence between divine attributes and prerogatives of the Ptolemaic king: whereas Apollo liked to found new cities (Hymn 2.5657), the Ptolemies would found only one new polis in Egypt, Ptolemais. On Ptolemaic settlements outside of Egypt, see Mueller 2006. 45 See the scholia to Pind. Pyth. 4.6065, 105106 Drachmann; cf. Hdt. 4.155. Pindar Pyth. 5, where the line between Apollo in Sparta and in Cyrene is traced, gives the etymology of Battus, whose dynasty is prophesied in Pind. Pyth. 4.9. Revival of either royal name could then suggest royalist pretensions, whether during the period of independence or under the subsequent reign of Magas and the Ptolemiesa sort of patriotic claim for Greeks of Dorian ancestry surrounded by natives (S. White 1999: 173175).

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himself Cyrenaean (Ep. 21.2 Pf. = 29 GP) and Battiades (Ep. 35.1 Pf. = 30 GP), not necessarily boasting a royal lineage but as a sign of loyalty and affection toward his homeland: Battiadae at Hymn to Apollo 96 may well refer to all Cyrenes citizens or simply to its ancient monarchs. In conclusion, our kings in line 68 does not necessarily refer to the same ruler as in line 26: the possessive suggests that the former named may be the long-extinct dynasty of the Battiads, or the mythical founders of Cyrene;46 the latter, the actual patron of the poet in Alexandria, Ptolemy II or III. Apparently Callimachus did not see any break in continuity in the traditions of his homeland, considering the successors of Lagus (whether Magas or Euergetes) no less worthy than the descendants of Battus (in the past) as Cyrenaean rulers, and their legitimate successors. It must be noted, in any case, that references to Battiadae (l. 96), my city (l. 65), or my king and our kings (ll. 26, 68) are spoken not necessarily by the poet in propria persona but by a chorus, ideally present at the cultic ceremony, or by the poet as representative of the community, a generic feature in archaic choral lyric performance:47 the central section of the poem (especially ll. 7172) is heavily indebted to Pindars Pythian 5, which celebrates Arcesilas and traces a continuity in the worship of Apollo from Sparta to Libya. Callimachus Apollo is indeed the divine model for the poet, just as Zeus of the First Hymn is the divine model for the king. . . . The Hymn to Apollo thus forms a close counterpoint to the Hymn to Zeus in its debt to Hesiods Theogony (94103) (Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 153; cf. Depew 2004: 121). As a patron of poets, Apollo serves as a correlative for the poetic patronage of rulers. Hymn 2, like Hymn 1, explicitly considers the nature of poetry and the role of Callimachus himself as a court poet, whether at Alexandria or Cyrene. In line 31 the king should be an easy subject of songs like Apollo, and like the Cyclades in Hymn 4.4.

46 Cf. Cahen 1930: 4647, 6970; Laronde 1987: 362364; Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 156157; Morrison 2007: 108109. 47 On the poetic persona in the mimetic hymns, see Gelzer 1982; Bulloch 1984 (esp. 215220); Falivene 1990; Pretagostini 1991b; M.A. Harder 1992; Depew 1993. Here Morrison 2007: 132133 suggests a strict parallel with the narrators claim about his own ancestry in Pind. Pyth. 5. Calame 1993: 50: in imitation of the intimate relation that is established between Phoebus and the young chorus who celebrates him, an affinity is suggested between my king, the narrator/speakers sovereign, and the divinity protecting him.

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The poem ends abruptly with an Abbruchsformel in which Apollo takes the part of the speaker (Callimachus) and rejects Phthonos. This is not the place to explore the meaning of these famous lines.48 Let us say only that the two moments converge, the political and the poetic: The final link in his chain of enmities and favor given and received identifies both Ptolemy and Apollo as joint sponsors of choral performance, and of the poet (Henrichs 1993: 146). Zeus in Hymn 1 and Apollo in Hymn 2 are presented as divine role models for the king and the poet, respectively, even though Apollo himself, as in the Hymn to Delos, can also be seen as a divine figure for the king. The Hymn to Delos Hymn 4, the Hymn to Delos,49 is modeled on the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (recalling the defeat of Pytho in the Delphic section)50 and Pindars Paeans 5 and 7. The longest and most complex of Callimachus Hymns, this is the only one in which reference to the king is unambiguous for modern reception; in this section praise of Philadelphus is uttered by Apollo, the god of poetry (Hymn 4.16590):
But another god is due her [Cos] by the Moirai, from highest lineage of the Saviors; beneath his diadem shall comenot displeased to be ruled by a Macedonianboth the internal lands and those that are set in the sea, as far off as the sunset and whence the swift horses carry the sun. And he shall have the characteristics of his father (170). And one day he will face an enterprise in common with us, in the future, when against the Hellenes rising the barbarian sword and Celtic war, the late-born Titans from the farthest West, will rush like snowflakes, and numerous (175) as the stars when they flock most thickly in the sky; [. . .] and Crisaean Plains and the valleys of Hephaestus will be under siege, and shall behold thick smoke of their burning neighbor, and no longer by hearsay only; (180) but already beside the temple they will see the ranks of the enemy, and already beside my tripods the sword and impious belts and hostile shields, which shall cause an evil journey for the foolish tribe of the Galatians. Some of them will be an offering to me; others, (185) after seeing their wearers perish amid fire, will be set beside the Nile as a prize for the king who toiled so much. O Ptolemy who will be, these are the

48 For the concluding lines of this hymn the bibliography is immense: see at least Bundy 1972; F. Williams 1978: 8599; Bing 1986; Alan Cameron 1995; Kofler 1996. 49 General comments: Fleming 1981; Hopkinson 1985; Mineur 1984 (esp. 180194); Schmiel 1987; Bing 1988b: 91146; Gigante Lanzara 1990 (esp. 124133); Meillier 1996; Barbantani 2001: 188195; Vamvouri Ruffy 2005: 245283; Ukleja 2005. 50 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004: 355356.

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prophecies of Phoebus for you. You will greatly praise him who still in his mothers womb was prophet every day in the future (190).

Apollo foresees the birth of another god and refuses to be born in Cos in order to leave the little island the honor of being the exclusive homeland of the future king. Cos also had a key role in the propagandistic exploitation of the Galatian Wars, which offered Philadelphus an opportunity to boast a majestic enterprise as a guarantee of his kingship, as the slaying of Python had been for Apollo. The Galatian revolt in Egypt. The passage above alludes to Philadelphus suppression of a mutiny of Celtic mercenaries, the only other evidence for which are a scholion to the Hymn to Delos and a passage in Pausanias (1.7.2). The taming of rebellious barbarians gains significance in connection with the much more dangerous invasion of mainland Greece by Galatian hordes in 279/8 bc, followed by a sequence of attacks and battles in Thrace and Asia Minor that continued until the first half of the second century bc. Military enterprises undertaken during the Galatian Wars achieved the status of legend even among contemporaries, and their fame spread to the farthest reaches of Alexanders former empire.51 These victories offered aspiring basileis like Antigonus Gonatas in Macedonia and Attalus I in Pergamum a means of justifying their accession to the throne and provided monarchs who were already established in power, like Antiochus I in Asia Minor, a way of solidifying the position that they had inherited from their predecessors.52 Ptolemy II did not have the chance to take part in any of these glorious battles, but he could not miss so splendid a propagandistic opportunity. In Hymn 4, the attack on Delphi is presented as an event contemporary with the local Delphic commemoration of Apollos victory over Python in order to underline the parallel between the chthonic powers once defeated by the god and the New Titans assaulting the

On the Galatian Wars: Nachtergael 1977; Strobel 1991 and 1994; Barbantani 2001. 52 The Hellenistic king must reign over a spear-won land, (cf. SH 922.9, Ptolemy I, son of Lagus, renowned for his spear, [] ; SH 979.67, Ptolemy IV king worthy in spear and Muses, ). See also Call. Hymn 1.74, (skilled with the spear); Theocr. Id. 17.56 and 103, (spearman Ptolemy) and (knowing how to brandish the spear).

51

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sanctuary,53 and (potentially) the territories controlled by Ptolemy II. Apollo, in his prophecy, defines the fight against the Galatians as a common cause (l. 171) with Ptolemy Philadelphus, the other god mentioned in line 165. (Cf. Hymn 2.27.) Following the apotheosis of his parents (the Saviors: i.e., the divinized Ptolemy I and Berenice I), Ptolemy was moving from the rank of to a divine status,54 which would have been completed after the death of his wife (270: divinization of the couple of the Philadelphoi). The prophecy of the god while still in the womb concludes with a vision of Ptolemys enterprise in such ambiguous and oracular terms as to suggest an episode of epic proportions. The syntactical continuity between Brennus descent into Greece and the extermination of the rebellious mercenaries inserts a marginal event (three lines are devoted to it, ll. 185187) into the broad context of cosmic history, where victory over the forces of chaos was assured by the help of the Olympian gods. The news of the victory at Delphi arrived in Egypt via the island of Cos, birthplace of Ptolemy Philadelphus: Cos was the first Greek community to commemorate it with a decree celebrating the Delphic and Aetolian success over the invaders.55 The prominence of Cos in Hymn 4 may reflect this event and probably indicates that the poem was written before the defeat of the Ptolemaic fleet around this island (ca. 262/1) and the end of the Chremonidean War, when Ptolemy lost control over it (lower terminus ca. 253 bc).56 In any case, the poem, with its celebration of the Cyclades, belongs to a period when Ptolemaic influence in this archipelago was at its height, as stated also by Theocritus Idyll 17.90. But the exact date of the hymn is by no means certain.57 The terminus post quem is obviously the revolt of the Galatian mercenaries whom Ptolemy II enrolled through a Philos named

53 For the chronology of the procession in the Valley of Tempe and the lacunose ll. 177ab, 178: Mineur 1979; Bing 1986 and 1988b: 129130; Gigante Lanzara 1990: 128. 54 Also promoted by Theocr. Id. 17, a true hymn to the king. Cf. l. 7, . 55 Syll.3 398. See Nachtergael 1977: 401403. Representatives of Ptolemaic Egypt were invited to the Delphic Soteria. 56 Weber 1993: 303. Bing (1988: 93) proposes 259 as terminus ante quem of this hymn, since at l. 19 Corsica is still said to be Carthaginian, as it was no longer after being conquered by Cn. Cornelius Scipio in that year. 57 Griffiths 19771978 places it before the death of Arsinoe and Theocr. Id. 17, ante 271.

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Antigonus.58 The occasion for the enrollment was, according to Pausanias, the revolt of Ptolemys half brother Magas (Chamoux 1956: 2021, 29), which cannot be dated precisely but probably fell between 277 and 274. Magas attack against Alexandria was soon stopped by a raid of the nomads against Cyrene; apparently only after Magas withdrawal did the Galatian mercenaries revolt, and they were defeated before the First Syrian War broke out between Ptolemy and Antiochus I. We can therefore hazard for Hymn 4 a date around 276/5 bc, on the grounds that in order to be effective as an encomium the hymn was likely to have been composed and performed not much later than the event described. No other Ptolemaic poetic work survives celebrating this event, with the possible exceptions of SH 958 and Callimachus Galatea. (For SH 958, see Barbantani 2001.) The theme of barbarian invasion of Greek sacred spaces appears also in Callimachus Hymn 3.25158, an allusion to the Cimmerian attack on the rich sanctuary of Ephesus. Hymns 3 and 4 may have been composed in the same period: both contain a Herodotean topos, the divine retribution that follows upon the hubris of the invaders (Hymn 3.252) and prevents their safe return home (cf. Hymn 4.184.) Hymns 3 and 4 both rhetorically exaggerate the numbers of the enemy: the Galatians are like snowflakes (Hymn 4.17576);59 the Cimmerians, like grains of sand (Hymn 3.253). It is, however, difficult to establish a relative chronology between Hymn 4 and Theocritus Idyll 17.60 Although the latter seems to be later than the First Syrian War, it lacks any allusion to the Galatian revolt, which, if it had already happened, very likely would have been pressed into service for this encomium. The celebration of the suppression of the Galatian revolt in Egypt and its link with the Delphic victory in 279, achieved with the decisive role of the Aetolians, is significant also for the maintenance of good relations between Philadelphus and the powerful sanctuary of Apollo. Immediately before the descent of the Galatians into mainland

On the episode, see bibliography and discussion in Barbantani 2001: 188203. Cf. Il. 3.222, 19.357. Geffcken 1902: 28 thinks that Or. Sib. 5.46467 refers to the same episode. 60 According to Griffiths 19771978 and Hunter 1996: 82 n. 21, Hymn 4 precedes Id. 17 (271), whereas Mineur 1984 believes that Hymn 4 is later. Ambhl 2005: 348 remarks upon the complementarity of Hymn 4 and Id. 17: in Callimachus the praise is a future prospect, whereas Theocritus sings the prophecy fulfilled in the present; in Hymn 4, Cos waits for the god reserved to her (ll. 165166), whereas in Theocr. Id. 17.6667 Cos wishes to be venerated as is Delos, the island of Apollo.
59

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Greece and after the death of Ptolemy I Soter (283), Ptolemy II asked the Delphic Amphictiony to accept the new festival that he had founded in honor of his father, the Ptolemaia (cf. Hazzard 2000: 2832, 66); however, so far as we know Philadelphus did not send troops to Greece to fight Brennus, although his rivals Antiochus I and Antigonus did (Paus. 10.20.5). In spite of his failure to do so, Delphi granted Alexandria the right of promanteia (Syll. 404) and accepted as proxenos an Alexandrian courtier, Sostratus. About 247/6, when the Aetolians reorganized the Soteria created thirty years before, the Ptolemies were invited to participate (Nachtergael 1977: 228229). The Galatians as new Titans. The attacks of the Celts functioned for contemporary dynasts as a reenactment of the Persian Wars, in which the whole social order was threatened. The exploitation of antiPersian feelings, still vivid in Egypt, was useful to Philadelphus in the legitimation of his power, both with his Greek and with his Egyptian subjects. The memory of the deeds of Alexander, the conqueror of Persia, was very much present in the court poetry of the age of Philadelphus and was exploited in public pageants like the Grand Procession (Callix. apud Ath. 5.201d; Rice 1983: 102111, 191). Ptolemy II was presenting himself as heir to the Philhellenic and anti-Persian politics of Alexander, the man who in Theocritus Idyll 17.19 is represented as punishing the Persians and standing next to Ptolemy I, the founder of the dynasty. According to Greek sources, the Galatians had in common with the Persians the sacrilegious attitude that would, following the Hesiodic and Herodotean principle of retribution, lead to the fate already experienced by the Medes. In the Hymn to Delos the Galatians are not named explicitly, but they have become late-born Titans.61 The ethnic appears only in line 184. Their designation as Titans is motivated by their physical appearance (Paus. 10.20.7; Liv. 7.10.9; Gell. 9.11), but also by their similarities to the mythical opponents of the gods, the Titans and the Giants, in their impiety and lack of restraint. The Galatians arrival from the far West, a place of access to the chthonic world and inhabited by monstrous creatures, is underlined in Callimachus fragment 379 Pf., from the Galatea. The direct

61 Hymn 4.174. , Late-born (cf. Il. 3.353, 7.87) is opposed to earlier-born Titans in Antim. 41a7 Matthews and to in Hes. Theog. 424.

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collision between and in Hymn 4.17273 is expressive, and its meaning politically noteworthy: whereas Delphic propaganda later tried to convince the Greeks that the attack was mainly directed at the sanctuary, Callimachus, although concentrating on the Apollo episode, constructs the threat as hovering over all the Greeks, therefore making Ptolemys deed a common cause with the reaction of the entire Greek world against the invaders. The Galatians are seen by Callimachus as a moving forest of weapons (Hymn 4.18384), to which is attributed the character of the warriors carrying them: the , the , the military belts, and especially the shields are here personified (as often in an ex-voto) in the lines relating the extermination of the mercenaries.62 The shields are an element of continuity between the Delphic enterprise and that near Alexandria. In both cases they were exhibited as a trophy: consecrated by the Aetolians in Delphi to the savior god Apollo, they were exhibited as a victory prize by Ptolemy.63 Judging from the use that Greek citizens and other Hellenistic monarchs made of enemy shields,64 those of the defeated mercenaries were probably exhibited as a trophy also in Egypt, where they were represented under the feet of the Egyptian god Bes (Perdrizet and Picard 1927; Nachtergael 1977: 190191). In Egypt the attention to the Galatian shields could also have been motivated by the dynastic legend according to which the infant Ptolemy I was exposed in a shield and saved by a divine eagle (Suda 25 Adler; Nachtergael 1977: 189). Ptolemaic coins show the image of the shield from the first year of Philadelphus reign, and these clearly cannot be associated with the suppression of the revolt (though they might reflect the dynastic legend). The golden and silver shields adorning the royal tent during the Grand Procession of the Ptolemaia,65 however, probably do evoke the Celtic shields.

62 For weapons used to represent feelings to their owners, cf. AP 6.131.3, ICret. 4.243. 63 Paus. 10.19.4. On the use of the Galatic shield, see bibliography in Barbantani 2001: 194196. See Meillier 1996: 141144 for the affinity between Hymn 4 and the epinician. 64 Paus. 1.4.6; 10.18.7, 10.21.5; AP 6.130; Nachtergael 1977: 196197. 65 Athen. 5.196f; Studniczka 1914: 8991. Hazzard 2000 sets the procession in 262 bc; Frtmeyer 1988, between December 275 and February 274, just before the First Syrian War. Some date it to 270 (e.g., Rice 1983), just after this conflict.

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Greek-Egyptian elements. Just as in the Hymn to Zeus, elements of the narrative are constructed to appeal to both the Greek and the Egyptian audience. In the Hymn to Delos the syncretistic elements are more obvious than in other poems, even though the poem attempts to interpret in Greek terms and for a Greek audience a conception of monarchy which, in some of its most conspicuous features, was shaped by Egyptian customs (Bing 1998b: 132). Ptolemy appears wearing the characteristic diadema of Hellenistic monarchs (Hymn 4.16668: ), sported also by the divinized Alexander in Theocritus Idyll 17.1819 (Hunter 2003c: 115). The king reigns over (l. 168), both continents, Asia and Europe (a stock iunctura in praise poetry: cf. Isid. Hy. 3.13 Vanderlip) but this phrase can also hint at another, common to Egyptian royal titulature, Upper and Lower Egypt. Cos, where Ptolemy was born, is defined in Hymn 4.160 as a primeval island, like the birthplace of Horus (the floating island Chemmis: Hdt. 2.156) and Zeus.66 In the Hymn to Delos the child Apollo is born when the river Inopus is swollen by a subterranean flow from the Nile (ll. 2068). The contests between Apollo and the Python and between Zeus and the Titans have analogues in Egyptian mythology with the struggle between Horus, the divine child with whom the pharaoh is identified, and Seth, god of the desert and of death.67 Even the use of fire in destroying the Galatian prisoners has parallels in pharaonic tradition.68 (It is, though, most likely that the Galatians threw themselves into the flames, in a ritual mass suicide, just as the Galatians defeated in Delphi did.)69 According to Peter Bing (1998b: 131132; cf. also Weber 1993: 217, 306307, 376388), the superimposition of the kings image on
66 Stephens 2003: 114121, 180181: the birth of Horus, like that of Apollo, was preceded by the wanderings of his mother, Isis. 67 The Egyptian serpent Apophis is also defeated by Horus. Ptolemy V is assimilated to Horus, slayer of the , in OGIS 90.11, 27 (the Rosetta Stone); the identification with Hermes, also proposed in the stele, in Egyptian terms is an equivalence with Thoth, another benefactor god. 68 Koenen 1983: 174175 and 1993: 8184. Plut. Is. 73.380d relates that in Egypt human beings are burned alive as a sacrifice to Typhon. In the Egyptian tradition, rebels against the pharaoh are , working for Typhon-Seth: the second-century bc version of the Oracle of the Potter (cf. POxy 22.2332.9, third cent. ad) imagines that the Typhonians are set on fire by the reigning king; at the time of Philadelphus, a version of this oracle calls the impious zonophoroi. Cf. the Galatians in Call. Hymn 4.183: . 69 Launey 19491950: 498; Weber 1993: 307 n. 1 is skeptical.

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that of Apollo engaged in the fight with underworld forces should be considered as part of a cultural project promoted by the Ptolemaic court: that is, the translation, in terms acceptable for the GraecoMacedonian population, of some Egyptianizing aspects of the ideology and practice of the Ptolemaic government (e.g., as the foundation of order, or maat).70 There is also a striking note on the ethnic provenance of the king, which occurs only here in Callimachus but is more common in Posidippus:71 in Hymn 4.167 the poet asserts that all the lands do not refuse to have a Macedonian king. The king is styled as (almost) a Greek sovereign, in order to present him properly as a savior of the in line 171. In Hellenistic poetry, Hellene is used only as opposed to non-Greeks, and in his surviving works Callimachus uses the terms Hellene (fr. 379 Pf.; Hymn 4.172) and barbarian (in the adjectival form ) only in the context of the Galatian invasion.72 Stripped of its contingent elements in Hymn 4, the suppression of the Galatian mercenaries revolt assumes a universal significance in a pharaonic interpretation of the world not very different from the Hellenistic or Augustan interpretation: the divine and the royal victory over destructive forces are part of the same equilibrium, which also allows the court poets to create and experiment in peaceand possibly to pay appropriate tribute, in the form of encomia, to the monarch responsible for this peaceful condition. If Delos first salutes Apollo as a god (Hymn 4.6), and Apollowho in turn recognizes Ptolemy as a godwould praise Callimachus or the chorus for celebrating Delos (ll. 910), the hope is that the king also would commend his loyal poet (Bing 1988b: 119).

See Faraone and Teeter 2004. D.J. Thompson 2005; Stephens 2004a and 2005. Van Bremen 2007: 173 rightly argues that the primary reason for the ethnic claim was the rule of the epinician genre, which included the statement of the winners homeland. 72 Hunter 1991: 85, 87 n. 19. Cf. SH 969.7: (Barbantani 2001: 111114).
71

70