Herodas: Mimiambs

265 Pages·2009·3.196 MB·English

by  Graham Zanker

Herodas
MiMiaMbs

Aris & PhilliPs ClAssiCAl TexTs
Herodas
MiMiaMbs
Edited with Translation, introduction and Commentary by
Graham Zanker
Aris & Phillips Classical Texts
are published by
Oxbow Books, Oxford
© G. Zanker, 2009
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying
without the prior permission of the publishers in writing.
ISBN 978-0-85668-883-6 cloth
ISBN 978-0-85668-873-7 paper
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover image: Terracotta group of two women, c. 100 BC
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Printed and bound by Athenaeum Press, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear
For Ruth again

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
The Mimiambs and the Question of Performance 4
Herodas’ Metre 6
Herodas’ Dialect 7
Herodas Mimiambs 13
Mimiamb 1 14
Characters and characterization 32
Mimiamb 1 and Theokritos’ Idylls 2, 14 and 15 36
Mimiamb 2 42
The Characterization of Battaros 66
Mimiamb 3 72
Characters and interactions in Mimiamb 3 95
Mimiamb 4 98
Constructing the scene 122
Constructing the works of art in the scene 124
Mimiamb 4 and Hellenistic art criticism 128
Mimiamb 5 132
Characters and chararacterization 153
Setting 156
Mimiamb 6 158
Characters and chararacterization 181
The objectivity of Herodas 184
Mimiamb 7 188
Mêtrô and Kerdôn 214
Kerdôn’s salesmanship 215
viii Herodas: Mimiambs
Mimiamb 8 218
Mimiamb 8 as a statement of Herodas’ literary programme 233
The Fragments 236
Bibliography 240
Index 249
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Herodas has seen a resurgence in scholarly interest in recent years. The
question how his Mimiambs were performed, for example, fits in fairly and
squarely with the current and exciting study of performance in Classical
literature in general. On the other hand, the poems’ combination of realistic
and even vulgar subject-matter with sophisticated and self-conscious
literariness – and the humour that arises out of the fusion – has perhaps a
more perennial fascination.
Part of the challenge in writing this commentary has been to communicate
the typically Hellenistic humour of the Mimiambs to the diverse audience
that the Aris & Phillips series aims to address. These are, broadly speaking,
students of literature who have no knowledge of Greek, those whose Greek is
nascent to fairly advanced, and those who would like original contributions
to our thinking about Herodas’ poetry. To the more advanced reader I might
seem to have been over-generous in the help I have offered, particularly in
my referencing of works with which a less advanced student will not be
familiar; but what author cannot feel for the young scholar who has wasted
an honest morning’s work puzzling over what is meant by, for example,
‘AB 298.5’ without further help being given? So I have used the Harvard
system’s ‘Bekker (1814) 298.5’, by which the student can easily get the
full details of the reference by looking up Bekker’s Anecdota Graeca in the
Bibliography.
The works of two scholars in particular have been of enormous value in
my attempt to open out the readership of Herodas. The various studies by
I. C. Cunningham are outstanding in their meticulous incisiveness, and the
recent two-volume edition of the poems by L. Di Gregorio is invaluable in
its comprehensive scholarly doxography. It is a pleasure to record my thanks
to both scholars.
I have been helped by many colleagues and friends. I am indebted to the
former chief editor of this series, the late Malcolm Willcock, who originally
accepted the idea of an edition of Herodas, and commented wisely on
sections of it in draft. At all stages, however, it has been Chris Collard who
has provided exceptional hospitality and support, improving the manuscript
and the first proofs beyond my hopes; few editors can have entered into the
spirit of such a venture with such acumen and sense of fun, for which I am
profoundly grateful and by which I have been hugely entertained.