Theocritus of Chios' Epigram Against Aristotle - D. T. Runia

8/11/2019 Theocritus of Chios' Epigram Against Aristotle - D. T. Runia

1/5

Theocritus of Chios' Epigram against AristotleAuthor(s): David T. RuniaSource: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 36, No. 2 (1986), pp. 531-534Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/639296 .Accessed: 21/09/2014 02:48

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to The Classical Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 192 .167.204.6 on Sun, 21 Sep 20 14 02:48:04 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cuphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=classicalhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/639296?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/639296?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=classicalhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup


2/5


3/5


4/5

SHORTER NOTES 533

buried not just in filth, but in barbarian filth. Was Hermias a /3dp/apos? No, says,W. Jaeger, 'he was certainly a Greek, or Aristotle in his hymn could never haverepresented him as the upholder of the true tradition of Hellenic virtue, in contrastto the barbarians who treacherously killed him'.10 The rabidly anti-MacedonianTheocritus, however, sees the matter quite differently. Anyone associated with themight of Macedon, who came from Bithynia and was a eunuch into the bargain (ifindeed he was), certainly deserved that pejorative epithet. Compare the words ofTheopompus in a letter to Philip (FGH 115 F 250): oto Kai 'Epplwas

,&AAws EXapLEL? KaLt

,/LIovaos y7yovsKapt 3dpfapos~ lEv ;v/Eir rjv vlAarwvEiwv

4LA0oaoEL^, 80o SE yEVO/tLEVQ?a 4oYotsYEy?ELv E' v i-ats 7TavrlyvpEULv yw-v[~E-raL.Whether his s 'sheer calumny' or not, 1 t illuminates he background f ourepigram.

The words in the previous ine8Ld

inv &Kpa7n aa-rposovaLv

lso demand ourattention. Though once again typical of the tradition of invective, hey too are notwithout Platonic resonances. Two passages on gluttony pring o mind: Tim. 73a4-80'TWS .q. . q rpok ...

.,LayaaorpL/apylav a4 LAaoovO KaV a/lovaov

tyTrrovoTEi

Nr YvoS, avlT7 KOOV 70oi OEL-rrov7-rriv

trap' -p71v;hdr. 238a6-b2 rEpl v Ydp

ASwSnv KpaTo0iaa 70ii A6yovU TE roi ap[aTOvai 7rcv AAwv E7rL0Vt1Lvv E7rrTLOvlayaaorptpapyla TE Kal 7v Xov7a Ta7? v TOiTO7 KEKAqtLEvoV 7rrapEeraL. We mayreasonably suspect that, were it not for restrictions of metre, Theocritus would haveliked to use the vox Platonica yaarpLtapyla instead of yaarpos c/watv.

If I am right in seeing a reference to reprehensible sexual activity in the final line,then the second

coupletin

partially explicitand

partiallyallusive terms covers those

two areas of the body where mrrtOv~ta nd JKpaala gain the upper hand. For thiscoupling one might compare two texts:12 Xenophon's defence of Socrates' activities,38 cbfpoStalwv Kal yaarps rr,7vorwv vponrr wv ~yKpa7rara7ros~

v (Mem. 1.2.1); andthe Stoic-Cynic definition of philosophy found later on in the Hellenistic period,OtAoaocfa 'EyKpa`-ELav /AE'v aarpo,

EyKpaELavSE Irwv LEira yaa-rpa...ava-

&8tSaKEL Philo, Congr. 80). This might seem to be labouring the point of what is afterall a scurrilous attack. But there is method in Theocritus' rudeness.

Theocritus himself was no Platonist. Just like Theopompus, he stood in theIsocratean tradition and would not have sung the Academy's praises without anulterior

motive.'3If we look

beyondthe cruder

aspects of its invective, the epigramattacks Aristotle on his own terms. He might pontificate at great length on the WloscLA6aoqoso in works like the Protrepticus and the Eudemus, but his actions by nomeans match his words; this becomes clear if one compares various pronouncementsmade by the Academy's founder.

The passages which I have discerned as backdrop to the epigram all belong to thebetter-known parts of Plato's oeuvre. In the decade after his death they would havebeen quickly recalled by those whom Theocritus had in mind as audience for hiswitticism. Later on, it seems, connections were made less easily. Plutarch quotes the

10 Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development (Eng. trans. Oxford, 19482), 112n. 2. Mutatis mutandis he observation made n n. 8 above applies here as well.1 DMiring, p. cit. 276, supported y Owen, art. cit. 16.

12 The place n Plato's works where one would expect his coupling o be worked out in detailis the description f the third part of the soul at Tim. 70d ff., but the requirements f the storydictate otherwise sex comes into the picture when woman is created, 91a-d). But cf. thedescription of the same part of the soul at Rep. 439d6-8, T0 si' p TE KaL TELV-r Kal 8LbfKal rrTpl Tas Aaas r8ulas E-TTr7TaL A/YLUTVTE KaLLUTaL77TLKa,rL7E7P06WEWV TLVWVKaL V8Sovv 7Ta pov (note also Aristotle, N.E. VII 4 1147b25-7).

13 R. Laqueur, RE nI 5 (1934), 2025-6.

This content downloaded from 19 2.167.204.6 on Sun, 21 Sep 20 14 02:48:04 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


5/5

534 SHORTER NOTES

last one and a half lines in his essay On exile (Mor. 603e), but he fails to perceive thewitty double entendre in Theocritus' final words, which appear to indicate aconventional geographical reference'4 but in fact have a much less innocuous intent.15

If he had recognized the presence of Rep. 533c in the background, it might havediscouraged him from making the suggestion that flopfopos was the name given bythe Madeconians to a river near Pella. For, as Diiring rightly observes, the riverBorborus owes its existence (and, we might add, its place in Pauly Wissowa'sRealencyclopdidie) ntirely to the fertile imagination of the author of this ad hoc

interpretation.16

Free University, Amsterdam DAVID T. RUNIA

1 ?7poXo- in the plural generally efers o the mouth of a river; cf. LSJ ad loc.15 The reader has no opportunity f checking, because Plutach quotes only the end of the

poem. We may assume, think, that he knew the whole of it.16 DMiring, p. cit. 381; RE 3.1 (1897), 720.

WHAT WORRIED THE CROWS?

A well-known epigram by Callimachus on the philosopher Diodorus Cronus (fr. 393Pfeiffer) reads as follows:

au~Os 6 M4togEypaqEv v TOLXOLs0 6 Kp6voV EUT O o'.

7vLSE oI KopaKES E7EYOV7T 'Koa aUv7TzrrTat;KpACOooLV at Ka) aGOt Ev-UortLEOa;'.

The question of the third line, while perhaps recondite from a contemporaryperspective, was clear in antiquity. The crows are asking' What follows (from what)?',in allusion to the Hellenistic disputes concerning the truth conditions of conditionalpropositions

(avv,~lyva),disputes in which the views of Diodorus figured

prominently.'I agree with Sedley that the question of the last line is 'much more problematic'.2

The common interpretation has been to read the a8 O as a form of a8LOt and tointerpret it temporally. The result, in Pfeiffer's estimation, is 'quomodo posthacerimus? .3

This interpretation derives from Sextus Empiricus' discussion at M. 1.309-12 of the

last two lines of the epigram. After crediting the grammarian with the ability tounderstand the allusion in the crows' first question (M. 1.310: Ka LUXpLpt o6TOv

(UVV7EtrO KaL 7TaL8tSLOL VWptL?ov), e proceeds to argue that the philosopher has

a better chance than the grammarian of understanding the second question. But, toquote Sedley, Sextus 'makes a ghastly mess of it' when he attempts his ownelucidation. According to an argument of Diodorus, a living thing does not die in thetime in which it lives nor in a time in which it does not live. Hence, Sextus concludes,it must be the case that it never dies and, 'if this is the case, we are always living and,according to him, we shall come to be hereafter

(aBOt~, 7EvrouLEOa)' (M. 1.312).With respect to an assessment of the adequacy of Sextus' account, I can scarcelydo better than quote the comments of Sedley:

1 See Sextus Empiricus, PH 2.110-12 and the discussion in B. Mates, Stoic Logic (Berkeleyand Los Angeles, 1961), pp. 45-7.

2 D. Sedley, 'Diodorus Cronus and Hellenistic Philosophy', Proceedings of the CambridgePhilological Society 20 (1977), 108 n. 35.

3 Pfeiffer, Callimachus (Oxford, 1949), i.35.

This content downloaded from 19 2.167.204.6 on Sun, 21 Sep 20 14 02:48:04 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Documents

Theocritus of Chios' Epigram Against Aristotle - D. T. Runia