callimachus 8

7/29/2019 Callimachus 8

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Talk at JHU (2006), work in progress.

CALLIMACHUS IN ROMEA TASTE FORDISTINCTION

For a long time, scholars have investigated the ways in which Roman poets of the 1st

and 2nd cent. BCE have read, adapted, and imitated the 3rd cent. Alexandrian poet Cal-

limachus. Rarely, however, they have asked why. Three generations, from young Cice-

ro till Ovid, practically grew up reading him. What did these Romans like so very

much about him?

Callimachus became clearly fashionable not earlier than Parthenius, i.e. during the

70s of the 1st cent. BCE. Already in the 90s, we find young Cicero busily adapting

Callimachus Glaucusfor Roman readers. A generation later, for Catullus and Lucreti-

us, Callimachus was already a vital source of inspiration. Thus, we cannot answer the

why-question as Wimmel did. He believed that Roman readers and Roman poets hadrecognized their princeps Augustus in the Ptolemies subtly glorified by Callimachus.

Hence, Callimachus would have equipped them with a paradigm of how to talk about

such godlike persons. This is certainly an attractive idea. However, it cannot explain

why Callimachus was popular already in the late republic, 50 years before the young

Octavian hit the scene.

Why did the Romans begin to read Callimachus, approximately around 100 BCE,

and why did he stay fashionable till ca. 40? This immediately leads us to another prob-

lem: whowas reading Callimachus during these times? Dozens of roughly contempo-

rary Greek poets, like e.g. Posidippus, obviously did not make that big an impression.


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Callimachus in RomeA Taste For Distinction 2

Of course, its the nature of our game that all I can do here is to merely hint at some

possible facts and come up with a rather speculative explanation.

Now, a traditional classicist would have no trouble to answer my question: Why,

s/he would say: isnt it evident that the Romans lovingly read Callimachus for the

same reason we do, i.e. simply because he is so gorgeous? I am the last to deny that he

is, indeed. Unfortunately, however, we cannot accept this argument. If we did, we

would have to concede that canonization works on the basis of absolute, timeless

qualities, and, even more difficult to concede, that the Romans of the late republic

would have acknowledged and estimated these timeless qualities in just the same way

as we do. There are too many anachronisms involved here. Therefore, I will look not

for timeless qualities, but for historical explanations. Audiences are not homogenous.

Some groups of readers have certain needs and cravings, which differ substantially

from those of other groups. Different people have different tastes. The readers tastes

are not entirely determined, but at least heavily influenced, by the respective place of

these readers in their societies. How much we like a work of art is at least partially de-

pendent on how accurately it meets the preexisting cluster of our specific demands,

wishes and desires -- all of which we more or less transform into a sum of decisions

that we call our taste.Whatever concurs with our tastes, thereby agrees with some

aspect of our self-image. It tells us something about ourselves, something pleasant or

reassuring. I am investigating whether Callimachus had something like this to tell his

Roman readers.

It is far from clear that Callimachus had anything to offer to anybody who was not

reading him in 3rd cent. Alexandria. Or, to put it otherwise: Callimachus aims at his

primary audience in a more specific way than is commonly acknowledged. For many

years modern scholars have tried to convince us that Alexandrian poets were working


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within both closed and tiny circles, within an ivory tower, as it were; that they were

essentially writing for their peers down the hall in the Museum. To read them like this,

basically, turns them into non-historical, pre-modern scholar-poets. Only recently,

however, some people have argued that these poets were aiming at a more wide-

spread impact, that they were writing for a specific historical situation, that it is even

fair to think of them as political poets. If this is trueand I believe that it is true

our question arises even more forcefully, because the respective historical situations in

3rd cent. Alexandria and 1st cent. Rome differed widely. Thus, my first step will be to

describe these two situations.

1. Callimachus in Alexandria and in Rome

Let me briefly sum up the situation in Ptolemaic Alexandria. We know that Callima-

chus was read all over Egypt in his day, not only by a few urban coteries at Alexan-

dria. In early papyri, found in provincial settlements, he was occasionally glossed for

readers whose knowledge was obviously a far cry from elite or scholarly. We may bet-

ter understand why Callimachus hit a nerve among his contemporaries, when we look

at some peculiar features of the environment in which he was working: During the

first century of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt, i.e. till ca. 220, Greek and Macedonian immi-

grants were the one group on which the Ptolemies based their power. We do not

know of any native Egyptians holding any positions at the court, in the army, or in the

administration (this changed after the battle of Raphia, in 214). Neither do we know

of any cases of intermarriage among Greeks and Egyptians before that date. It seems

that the Ptolemies were trying to keep the two groups apart. Now, this Macedonian-Greek upper class differed from any earlier group of colonists in that the Greeks in

Egypt retained their old identities as belonging to certain, but different, city-states in


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mainland Greece. We know, e.g., that 3rd generation Greeks both in Alexandria and in

Egypt proper still used eponyms like of Rhodos, of Cyrene etc. We also know

that all the Greeks at Alexandria celebrated the festivals (which means: the ritual

frameworks) of the cities from which their families originated. I have the impression

that the Ptolemies reacted with two strategies: First, they created a new kind of pan-

hellenic representation geared towards homogenizing the heterogenous group of

Greeks in Egypt. The establishment of the Museum and library, the patronage of

Greek knowledge, and the establishment of the new ruler cult were all part of this

strategy. On the other hand, they kept Egyptians out of all this and, at the same time,

adopted a traditional representation as Egyptian Pharaohs towards them. They even

went so far as to separate the Greek center of Ptolemaic Egypt from its Egyptian cen-

ter: they were Greek kings at Alexandria, and Pharaohs at Memphis. Historians have

coined the phrase of the two faced-, i.e. janus-like representation of the Ptolemies: a

Greek face looking towards the Greeks, an Egyptian one towards the Egyptians.

Lets compare Callimachus and his contemporary poets. I discern some para llels:

All their works, most blatantly theAetia, but just as well theArgonautica, are panhel-

lenic, collecting facts and stories from all of Greece. The same is true for the linguistic

aspects of these works: they mix all kinds of glosses, dialects, genres. All this is work-

ed into a new, essentially panhellenic fabric. At the same time, all of the Alexandrian

poets ignored Egypt. The weirdest ritual of rustic Arcadia or the merest detail of Cre-

tan geography are lovingly evoked by Callimachus, but we look in vain for Egyptian

places, names, myths, rituals, aetiologies etc. These poets were obviously pretending

not to be anywhere but in a timeless Panhellenia. In brief, my impression is that the

craving for panhellenic lore we observe in Alexandrian poetry fits in very well with the

Ptolemaic politics of separation and homogenization. Just like collecting all the books


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ever written by Greeks, this kind of poetry must have had an integrative impact on its

audience. It constructs a new identity for the immigrants and, at the same time, keeps

them worlds apart from their Egyptian neighbors. Viewed from this angle, Alexandri-

an obsession with the Greek past acquires a new quality, I believe: it is not simply

scholars burying themselves in ivory towers, both devouring and producing dusty

volumes of irrelevant, pedantic knowledge as an end in itself. I see them as an ener-

getic group of politically engaged scholars, eagerly constructing a past that backed up

their present. In short, they tried to create a Greek ethnic identity which was inde-

pendent from any of the old city-states. Here, knowledge indeed has something to do

with power. The Museum was part of the palace, both in topographical as in political

terms. Therefore, the new poetry of the Alexandrians was deeply rooted in their par-

ticular historical situation, in 3rd cent. Alexandria.

If this is true, how do we account for their success at Rome? What pleasure could

the Romans have derived from Ptolemaic political poetry? There was no need there

for a discourse evoking panhellenic identity. It is fair to conclude, I think, that the

Romans since Ennius, Catulus, young Cicero and the Neoterics probably did not read

the Alexandrians as politically engaged poets.1 Viewed through their eyes, the Alexan-

drian project must have been somewhat different. This is evident, e.g., with respect to

all the details about local rituals that figure so prominently in Callimachus and Eupho-

rion. Greek audiences had probably heard of them or maybe had even once visited

the site. We can imagine that there were some local patriotic feelings involved. Not so

for Romans for whom these were simply exotic stories, separated from their geo-

graphical space and ethnic background and, therefore, turned into literature. In short,

1 Both Cicero and Cornificius have written a Glaucus, ca. 20 years earlier than Parthenius! (cf. Hinds 1998, 77); cf. alsoLaevius and hisErotopaegniathe Callimachism of which is, however, doubtful.


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if it was the project of the Alexandrian poets to equip their audiences with a new eth-

nic identity by means of a freshly constructed past, then Roman readers could not

have responded to this.2

2. Roman literature and theordo equester in the 2nd1st cent. BC

Now that I have outlined the problem, I will next try to figure out who those Romans

were who read our poets. Could we possibly draw any inferences as to their social en-

vironment? Of course, when it comes to sociology of literature, our knowledge is se-

verely limited. Basically, this means that we can only draw inferences from readers

writing about their readings. Nevertheless, thanks to the prosopographical work ofsome Roman historians the answer is surprisingly obvious: it was the ordo equester, the

knights. Let me briefly describe this group.

With knights I am referring here not only to the 1800 members of the equestri-

an centuries who were selected by the censor and honored by the equus publicus, but

to all individuals who were not a member of the nobility, but wealthy enough to fulfill

the census of 400,000 sesterces. That is, I refer to the knights not as a political body,

but as a group marked off by economic factors. 3 This group had become rich during

the years following the Punic wars; 4 they gained in political consciousness through the

activities of the Gracchi who tried to balance senatorial with equestrian power.5 The

senators were not allowed to derive profit from banking or trading since the lex Clau-

dia, passed in 218. Thus, the knights soon became the financial and municipal elite of

2 PaceThomas 1993, 215: But it is Callimachus, I suspect, who [...] showed in short how to read, struggle with, andrevitalize the tradition he was to share with the poets of Rome.

3 Mommsen 1887, 480ff.4 Alfldy 1984, 40; Mutschler 1988, 114.5 Kolb 1977, 254f.


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the expanding Roman empire.6 In 129 the so-called lex reddendorum equorumwas passed

which forced knights who wanted to become senators to resign from their knightly

status. After that, knights and senators were mutually exclusive groups.7 8 This group

was fairly substantial: whereas the senate was restricted first to 300, later to 600 mem-

bers, the knights quickly gained in numbers: From Dionysius of Halicarnass we learn

that up to 5,000 knights participated in the yearly procession of the knights in Augus-

tuss days;9 according to Livy, in his time 500 knights lived in Patavium alone.10 Obvi-

ously, during the last century of the republic, the knights gained in numbers and

wealth and, indirectly, in importance, more than other groups. Cicero addresses them

so frequently as a group that the concept of some kind of group identity of the equites

must have made sense to his audience.11 Thus, how did it feel to be an eques Romanus?

Of course, we cannot know exactly. We might guess that identities of groups are usu-

ally constructed and maintained by careful distinction from other groups. Usually, this

distinction is carried out symbolically by the showing off of what we call status sym-

bols. Unsurprisingly, since the Roman knights were a distinct and distinguished group,

they made use of a couple of status symbols. Above all, this was the gold ring and the

purple stripe on the tunic.12 However, there were more: e.g. special seating at public

festivals and the yearly procession that I have already mentioned.13 We can take it for

6 Alfldy 1984, 50; Mommsen 1887, 509f., esp. as regards the ordo publicanorum.7 Since the Gracchi both courts and higher ranks of the army seem to have dominated by nights: Alfldy 1984, 70f.;

Mommsen 1887, 516, 552.8 Alfldy 1984, 46, 50.9 Ant. 6.13.4.10 Ross Taylor 1968, 485; vgl. Strabon 5.1.7, 3.5.3. The ordo equesterloses 1600 members in the time of Sulla and 2000 by

the proscriptions in 43 BC (Alfldy 1984, 80: Bell. alex. 56.4.). The families from the provinces fill these gaps. Fornumbers, see also Frier 1985, 256f.

11 Berry 2003, 223.12 Since the lex Roscia67 BC; cf. Mommsen 1887, 513521; Alfldy 1984, 50; Kolb 1977, 246ff.13 Ross Taylor 1968, 480; re-established by Augustus (Sueton,Aug. 38; Mommsen 1887, 493), described by Dionysius of

Halicarnassus (Ant. 6.13.4).


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granted, I think, that the knights used status symbols; all the more so, since the group

was quite heterogenous in terms of actual occupation, descent, geographical and polit-

ical background.14 Now, besides the lifeless tokens that we usually recognize as status

symbols like, e.g. cars, activities and habits also exist which, as long as they are specific

to a given group, may work like status symbols. I would rather call them status prac-

tices. As for the Roman knights, the most important of these practices might have

been making money and enjoying life quietly.They were princes of industry and

commerce, as Syme has put it.15 Apart from these, theres another practice I am go-

ing to focus on: the reading and writing of poetry.

When we look at the poets and writers ofbelles lettresin the time between the

Gracchi and the Augustan age, we find that almost all of them are knights. This clearly

differs from the later 3rd and earlier 2nd cent., a time when the prose genres of oratory

and history were the domain of the senators,16 whereas poetry was produced by

freedmen and foreigners. In contrast, one century later we know of 53 authors from

knightly families 32 of whom were poets or writing fiction.17 The poets who show

clearly that they have read and enjoyed Callimachus all belong to this category (with

the early exception of Lutatius Catulus): Lucilius and many of the neoteric poets (as

probably Catullus, Helvius Cinna, and Lucius Ticida) the majority of whom were from

municipal aristocracies.181920Of the poets of the next generation, those producing

love elegies with its Callimachean inclinations were, again, knights: Gallus, Tibullus,

14 Kolb 1977, 254, Frier 1985, 256f.15 Syme 1951, 82.

16 Mutschler 1988, 115.17 Nicolet 1966, 450456 lists 51 authors (add young Cicero and L. Iulius Calidus: Ross Taylor 1968, 472 n. 5 quotes

Nepos, Att. 12.4:post Lucretii Catullique mortem multo elegantissimum poetam).18 Mutschler 1988, 122ff.paceRoss Taylor 1968, 482f. (Catullus not a knight).19 Mutschler 1988, 125.20 According to White 1993, Licinius Calvus is senatorial by descent and Helvius Cinna dies as a senator.


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probably Propertius, and Ovid. No matter what Horace tells us, as a military tribune

he was probably a knight, too.21 About Virgil we can only infer that he was given

knightly honor at some point after 40 BCE.22 Lucretius is the only writer among the

Callimacheans whose status remains unclear. Without generalizing too boldly, we may

fairly, I hope, arrive at the conclusion that among the knights, specifically the younger

ones, Callimachus was read with intense pleasure.23 Extending the scope of our in-

quiry a bit, i.e. including scholarly readers, we find those who are interested in anti-

quarian knowledge and, thus, follow a Callimachean pursuit, to be knights: we have

positive evidence as for Aelius Stilo, his son-in-law Servius Clodius,24 Cicero and Var-

ro.25 Moreover, with Cicero again and his close friend Pomponius Atticus we see two

knights engaged in the industry of literature. Maecenas probably belongs here, too. I

infer from all this prosopographical evidence that reading for pleasure was established

as a habit among knights. Recently it has even been suggested that thegeneralreading

public of that time consisted mainly in knights.26 Obviously, then, the needs of these

readers were satisfied by authors from the same group.

Therefore, it would appear that reading for pleasure was a status practice pursued

by and typical for the knights as a group. The ordo equesteror a substantial part of

it, which had been growing in numbers since the Punic wars and was generally up-

21 Ross Taylor 1968, 477f.22 Ross Taylor 1968, 483: Virgil was definitely knight in the reign of Augustus (seat of honor in theatre, big donations

etc.). Probably he had been knighted already by his earlier friends holding a imperium, e.g. by Asinius Pollio in 40 BC.

23 From White 1993, 211-22 I derive the following relation of callimacheans: senators: knights: other = 3: 8: 3 of a totalof 56 names of poets. After all, for our purposes Whites otherwise extremely useful account is less helpful becausefor him only the status at the end counts: thus, Cicero is made senatorial.

24 Ross Taylor 1968, 471.25 Mutschler 1988, 116ff.26 Eich 2000, 48ff.


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wardly mobile, chose literature as a field of representation and distinction.27 By using

literature as a means of distinction, they followed the practice of the established nobil-

ity. On the other hand, the nobility dealt differently with this field: their representa-

tional practice consisted mainly in fostering and sponsoring poetry and poets, mainly

epic, in close imitation of Hellenistic courts. In his speech Pro ArchiaCicero tells us all

about the senatorial use of poetry as a means of representation; it is mainly patronage

of poets. These poets were usually non-citizens such as Ennius or Naevius, and they

often composed Greek poems for their Roman patrons as e.g. Archias and Philode-

mus did. Clearly the knights both imitated this senatorial habit by choosing literature

as a status practice and set themselves apart by engaging with it more directly, person-

ally. Also, which is the main point I wish to make here, they engaged with poetry

which carried, unlike the epics preferred by the nobility, a distinctive meaningin itself.

Finally, this brings me back to Callimachus. First, we observe that Roman Cal-

limachism somehow seems to be coextensive with the rise of the ordo equester: After

some isolated references in Ennius,28 Lutatius Catulus and Lucilius,29 which do not

betray any programmatic intention, a Callimachism as a taste, a fashion, a program-

matic current, arises maybe in the 90s, gains impetus in the 70s and is at full force in

the 40s till 20s (Callimachism always considered as the programmatic reference to Cal-

limachus). With Ovid it is drawing towards its end, later, in the works of Statius and

27 Already in Mommsen there is a tendency to parallel the knights with modern middle classes in the 19th cent.; same inNicolet 1966, 703.

28 Zetzel 1983, 95f.; O. Skutsch, Studia Enniana, London 1968, 69. Clausen 1964, 186ff. reads the proem of the An-nalesas anti-callimachean; inAnn. 213ff. (polemics directed against Naevius) Ennius is definitely Callimachean.

29 Lucilius Callimachism is difficult to assess. Puelma 1949 thinks of him as of a Callimachist, Wimmel 1960, 149 n. 2and Bagordo 2001, passim, esp. 32, however, advocate the opposite. Lucilius adopts isolate motifs, but no coherent,distinctive Calimachism (typically, Fr. 589593 Krenkel: neitherpopulusnor nimis doctosas audience, neither Persius orManilius, but Iunius Congus).


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Persius,30 we come across references only occasionally. I find it quite cogent to think

that these two facts, the rise and establishment of the knights on the one hand, the

rise and fall of Callimachism on the other, are related. The knights, maybe influenced

by Parthenius who brought to their attention this weirdly aggressive and brilliant poet,

took to reading contemporary Greek poets, to translating and reworking them and so,

eventually, to writing in the same fashion. They were a perfect audience because at

that time they were looking for practices of distinction which were not already occu-

pied by the nobility while retaining their distinctive force.31 The reading and writing of

new poetry became a practice of distinction for at least some of them. This is the first

point I wish to make.32 Put differently, getting involved with contemporary poetry

suddenly acquired the meaning of a social statement: it became a practice of distinc-

tion, equivalent to a status symbol. Callimachus happens to fit in with this practice

especially well.

3. Callimachusa poet for the knights?

His works are apt to satisfy the needs of somebody looking for distinction, because in

his many programmatic statements he leads us to assume that his main project is to

do something new, to forget about tradition, to be different. In other words: towards

his reader, he presents himself as someone aiming at distinction. I have outlined

above that when it comes to the bulk of his work, Callimachus was engaged with a

different project, constructing a new identity. However, when it comes to program-

matic, self-referential statements, we find Callimachus describing something which the

30 Wimmel 1960, 4 nn. 2, 9: distinguishes Neoteric, Augustan and later Callimachism.31 Clausen 1964, 192: Now (it may be asked) could a single Greek professor have made such a difference to Latin

poetry? Persuasively Hinds (1998, 7682) argues that Parthenius influence is overrated.32 A parallel: Flaig convincingly argues that the Roman nobility was never really hellenized and that only the second-rate

elite, i.e. the knights, used hellenization as a means of distinction.


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reader must understand as a taste for distinction. That he usually employs tricky met-

aphors to convey his message makes the program all the more suggestive. Two typical

examples you may find as Nos. {1 + 2} on your handout. Let me be perfectly clear

here: these programmatic passages do not describe Callimachus sufficiently. Original-

ly, they were probably nothing more than a paratext, meant to bring into focus the

sympathies of the prospective readers. The actual poeto logy of Callimachus is there,

surely, but implicitly hidden in his texts, less so in these statements. However, a reader

looking for props of distinction will eagerly sip these passages up, all the more so,

since they are metaphorical and blur the distinction of poetry and life and, therefore,

are easily turned into a statement of habit, a taste governing all decisions in life. Not

least, they are easily transformed into meaning for the reader because they are free

from Greek lore. All this must have appealed to the knights enormously. Here was a

Greek poet who appeared to put into powerful words exactly their own, the audi-

ences, concern: how to leave behind the glory of a past (and its partisans) of which

you had no share, and how to be both newanddistinguished. For Roman readers of

equestrian status, Callimachus aesthetical pseudo-program transformed their desire

for social distinction into an aesthetical mode, i.e. a taste for distinction. All the meta-

phors that Callimachus used for the old-fashioned, washed out, and tasteless made

sense to them when applied to the media which the senators favored: heroic epic,

dusty volumes of badly written history, and shrill oratory. For them, Callimachus

programs seemed to announce a new beginning and to promise distinction from the

past. Put otherwise, these few verses in Callimachus bridged the gap, i.e. made him

translatable into their concern. He offered an aesthetical transposition to their social

or political issues. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu amassed relevant data and

discussed such phenomena, i.e. how social groups transform their social concerns into


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aesthetic expressions and decisions that add up to a specific taste, in contemporary

France (his book Distinction is still a fascinating read, despite its bulk and its occa-

sionally gross Marxist terminology). Adopting his terminology we could say that the

concerns of the equestrian readers seemed to them to be homologous with those

metaphorical programs of Callimachus.33 This is my 2nd claim: Callimachus was read

by the Roman knights as a prophet of distinction.

(Maybe I should add here that I am aware of the heterogeneity of the knights.

While claiming that all Callimachists are knights I do not claim that all knights are

Callimachists. We know of some equestrian poets who pursued non-Callimachean

genres: Furius Bibaculus, e.g., Varro Atacinus or the mime writer Laberius. An inter-

esting group in themselves are the jurists.34 Furthermore, the knights fall into several

sub-groups that may be differentiated according to geography (e.g. the knights of the

Transpadana), age (most Callimachists seem to write for a young audience) and activi-

ties (e.g. the landed gentry vs. the bankers). All of these probably had their specific

status practices and strategies of distinction. Unfortunately we have no data as for in-

vestigating these sub-groups further. That is why I prefer to talk about knights as a

group.35 They may have had different tastes, but they probably all were concerned

with distinction and also the taste for it.) Now back to the Neoterics:

Neoteric callimachism is exactly that: a taste for distinction in aesthetic matters.

We know it best from the works of Catullus who applies Callimachean metaphors and

verdicts to the works of contemporaries, e.g. in c. 95.36 37 This is No. {3} on the

handout. Here, of the partisans of bad taste, the first, Hortensius, is of senatorial rank,

33 For the notion of homology cf. Bourdieu 1984, 175, 232ff. (about the fields of cultural-goods production).34 See Ross Taylor 1968, 474-6.35 See also Berry 2003, 223.36 For traces of Callimachus in Catullus cf. Arkins 1988, 287f.


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about the second, Volusius, we do not know much (his work, however, is either a

large epic or a prose work of history, i.e. it is among the genres traditionally favored

by the aristocracy), and the third, Antimachus, is one of the targets of Callimachus

(and would never have been read by Roman masses anyway). Thus, this avant-garde

taste is political only in its aesthetical disguise.

That all changes with the callimachism of Augustan poets: most prominently, they

embed Callimachean metaphors in a device called recusation by classicists. There

are about 20 of these in the works of Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Ovid. One handy

example I have selected is No. {4} on the handout. Often at the beginning of a work,

the poet acknowledges that his sponsor would like him to compose a great heroic ep-

ic; however, the poet is unable to achieve something like this. Therefore he turns to

poetry on a Callimachean scale, i.e. love elegy or other genres as long as they consist

of short, highly refined pieces. At once, we have here both an aesthetic program and a

political statement, both of which are built around a taste for distinction from a past.38

Nevertheless, some part of the message is to display political loyalty towards the

sponsor. 39 Later on, in the Aeneid of Virgil, the Fasti of Ovid or, especially the 4th

book of Propertius, Callimachean tastes agree with explicit political panegyrics (as

they already did within the works of Callimachus himself). Ovid and Propertius obvi-

ously model their works according to CallimachusAetia. Propertius even calls himself

Callimachus Romanus(4.1.64).Hence, Augustan callimachism has been politically do-

mesticated. Here, I assume, we may observe that self-image and political importance

of the equestrian rank has changed significantly. The new regime needed the knights

37 Lefvre 1999, 226228.38 About love elegy cf. Mutschler 1988, 123.39 About recusations see Wimmel 1960, 33; Arkins 1988, 292; Gosling 1992, v.a. 509ff.


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because the established aristocracy was not entirely reliable. 40 Therefore, Augustus

encouraged knights to participate in leading positions in both army and administra-

tion. He systematically built up the group identity of the knights: E.g. he re-

established the knightly procession mentioned above. The knights became something

as a second nobility, the members of which were personally appointed by and person-

ally loyal to the princeps. 41 Soon, they were the actual elite of the rapidly growing

Roman empire. Since their self-confidence and their political and social standing had

changed so much, their taste must also have changed, I assume. Avant-gardism is

something the upwardly mobile, but still underprivileged tend to indulge in. This

change of taste is evident in Augustan Callimachism which was growing more affirma-

tive by the years. It changed from a brusque, purely aesthetical taste for distinction

from the past and its advocates in the present into a politically charged program af-

firmative of the new political order.

Among the authors of this generation two more implications of this taste for dis-

tinction become prominent. Again, these poets are successful among Roman readers

only because they run parallel to some of the knights social concerns. Both of them

are markedly different from the established tastes of the past i.e. from the habits of

established aristocracies.

First, our poets like the conceptual framework of craftsmanship. Art is something

to be achieved by work, patience, and time, less so by being inspired.

Ovid contrasts his direct model Callimachus with old-style Ennius by conceding

to the former poet ars, not ingenium, but to the latter ingenium, not ars. As Catullus does

in the quoted poem, Horace more than once emphasizes that the artist has to work

40 Kolb 1977, 249; Alfldy 1984, 91.41 Mommsen 1887, 495.


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patiently for a long time: both are thinking of nine years as an appropriate amount of

time.42 Here, the homology is easy enough to see: the social prestige of the knights

was based on an economical foundation that had been achieved quite recently, espe-

cially when compared with the wealth and influence of senatorial families. The capital

of the knights in many cases was the result of recent work, industry and ingenuity. It

had not been handed down to them along the lines of endless family-trees. (The self-

confidence of the knights, I imagine, would have squared well with the slogan of a

modern manufacturer of sports apparel: Just do it!) Hence it does not come as a sur-

prise that a literature dominated by knights falls for an aesthetical norm that empha-

sizes the doable, i.e. work, industry and painstaking accuracy.43 To wait for a god

deigning to inspire the old-style poet does not appeal to somebody who has achieved

so much on his own. On the other hand, we just as clearly perceive how much the old

concept might have appealed to the established nobility who often traced its very de-

scent from the personage celebrated in those epics. Therefore, we can translate the

tendency of Roman lart pour lartat least approximately into the social situation of the

knights. The next step in this development is the notion that art could and maybe

even should be autonomous from reallife, an idea we find in the poems of Catullus.44

It would be interesting, and lead to partly parallel results, to have a look at the eco-

nomic and social backgrounds of Thophile Gautier and early 19th cent. advocates of

lart pour lart.45

The second development of the knights taste for distinction is nearly the oppo-

site: an aesthetics of leisure. The most avant-garde groups of knights, especially their

42 Horace, ep. 2.1.1617.43 See Callimachus fr. 1.17f. Pf.44 C. 16, esp. 5f. Schwindt 2002, esp. 8890.45 Cf. Asper 2001, 8994.


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pampered sons, say good-bye to any form of career in favor of poetry, love, a life in

the country and, sometimes (e.g. in the case of Aelius Stilo), also of scholarly pur-

suits.46 They just said no to everything that seemed to matter to the established leading

circles.47 We have some evidence that generally the pointed pursuit of leisure was a

knightly habit, and they even turned this into some specific form of showing off their

wealth. Whenever Cicero talks about otium, he usually mentions it with respect to

some knight.48 In Ovids poetic autobiography49 we are told how a young knight cool-

ly decides against a political career in favor of less public pursuits. In Virgilwe often

come across invocations ofotiumand the quiet life.50 More specifically, for many

knights, as maybe for Horace, otiumprobably meant to back off from applying for a

quaestura, i.e. from transcending the barrier keeping them from the senatorial ranks.

In all of this I perceive a taste for distinction, particularly widespread among the

knights. This taste results from orto avoid stepping into the trap of an all too de-

terminist perspectiveit is explainable by their quickly and radically changing posi-

tion in Roman society in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The change made them look

for a whole new set of status symbols and status practices, some of which naturally

were interested in distinction from the established nobility and, accordingly, the aes-

thetics favored by traditional tastes. Hence, they developed a taste for distinction. I

am suggesting here that it was this taste for distinction that made some of them feel

attracted to Callimachus whose poetical practice has some distinctive features and

who himself explicitly, albeit metaphorically, outlines a taste for distinction in some

crucial passages. Basically, however, I am convinced that Roman readers liked Callim-

46 Mutschler 1988, 119.47 Zetzel 1983, 91.48 For evidence see Ross Taylor 1968, 472 and n. 6.49 Trist. 4.10.33ff.


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achus for reasons quite unrelated to his own political concerns in Alexandria. That is,

the Roman reading of Callimachus is a re-reading that changes the meaning of the

textual artifact, like many acts of acculturation do.

Now, I guess, many of you will feel that my argument is backed up too weakly by

prosopographic or statistical evidence. Any modern sociologist would simply laugh in

my face, I suppose. And even by the flexible standards of classics, my argument is

speculative.To those of you who dont buy it, all I have to offer are four case stud-

ies that to me seem to strengthen my case.

First, in Satire 1.10 Horace not only talks about knights knowing about gram-

mar (grammatici equites), thereby proving that the leisurely pursuit of language-related

knowledge was indeed something knights zoomed in on; but he also invokes another

elitist aesthetics, announced by a fictitious actress named Arbuscula who states that

she does not care for the approval of masses, as long as the knights are applauding her(nam

satis est equitem mihi plaudere).51 {5}Whatever this means within the context, it clearly

shows that Horaces audience was meant to react favorably to Arbusculas motto and,

even more important, that the knights were really a distinct group among possible au-

diences. Furthermore, Arbuscula clearly formulates an elitist taste for distinction, ef-

fortlessly identified with knights.

The second argument concerns Maecenas. Not, however, the Maecenas we all

know as the man behind Horace, but one of his freedmen, the full name of whom is

C. Maecenas Melissus.52 Besides Palliata and Togata, he tried to establish knightly

comedy as a new genre, the Trabeata (labeled by the short cloak typical for knights,

the trabea). As was the case with Horaces Arbuscula, we perceive how important the

50 Also, see Georg. 4.563f.: illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat/ Parthenope studiis florentem ignobilis oti.51 Hor., Serm. 1.10.76.


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knights were as an audience. Unfortunately, Maecenas Melissus had no success. If we

asked why, we could answer: because he was too late by 50 to 100 years. As I tried to

show, at the end of the century the knights advanced into a position of power which

made it less attractive for them to opt for a specifically distinctive taste. They began to

merge with the traditional nobilityand that was the end of the knights taste for dis-

tinction from the former aristocracy.

Now, I am afraid I have to end this talk. Summaries, however, are boring. Instead,

let us have a last look at two knights who managed eventually to enter upwards into

senatorial rank. This had some impact upon their tastes. I am talking about the elder

Cato and Cicero, of course. Once they had successfully climbed the ladder, they be-

came prominent advocates of the tastes of their new peers. We see Cato battling

against the new fancy of Greek. We see Cicero strongly opposed to cantores Euphorionis

{6} i.e. poetic followers of Euphorion who was an Ultra-Callimachean of the 2nd

cent., admired, e.g., by Parthenius. In both cases, being opposed to new tastes means

to vividly foster the old ones: Cato evokes ethics and language of traditional senatorial

families and tries to establish Latin epic by sponsoring Ennius. Cicero who in his

younger years was himself active as a Callimachist poet, now turns into a fervent ad-

mirer of Ennius, i.e. an old-fashioned Latin poet. In both cases taste is homologous

with the recently secured social position. The upwardly mobile adopt the taste of their

new group-mates and display it probably more distinctly than the noble families of

old. In the case of Cicero we discern a change of taste which runs admirably parallel

to his changing social position.53 In both cases we perceive that aesthetical judgments,

the sum of which I have called taste, spring from an act of social self-positioning and

52 A Roman grammarian from Spoletium, freedman of Maecenas, made librarian in the Porticus Octaviae by Augustus.


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are prone to change in a homologous way whenever the judging individual manifestly

changes its position in society.

Just one final remark: we have gone a long way from Alexandria where, unless I

am very much mistaken, nothing like this ever happened. Thus, simply by reading,

some Romans appropriated Callimachus and turned him into something new. Thats

why they liked him: they recognized themselves in his verses. After all, from their per-

spective, he was one of them. Now, the next problem should be: why do welike him?

Or do we?

53 Nevertheless, in his causes he heavily capitalized on his special relationship with the equestrian juries as has recentlybeen demonstrated by Berry (2003), esp. 234.


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