Valerius Cato, Callimachus and the Very Large Girl (Ticida fr. 103 frp) The only testimony for the Lydia of Valerius Cato comes in Suetonius, De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus (11.2) (1), which states that it and the same poet’s Diana were “particularly esteemed” (praecipue probantur) and quotes a pentameter by Ticida to support this claim (Tic. poet. fr. 2 FPL/FLP = 103 FRP) : Lydia doctorum maxima cura liber as is widely noted, the surface meaning of this line is that the learned and obscure poem was an object of care, attention and perhaps even anxiety for its learned readers, but Ticida plays on the personification of the book (facilitated by its having a woman’s name, possibly that of Cato’s puella) and the further sense of cura to mean “object of affection” or even “girlfriend” to suggest that the learned readers had a pseudo-erotic desire for the text, as in the commentator Crassicius’ “marriage” to Cinna’s Zmyrna (2). The use of cura to mean “girlfriend” derives partly from its transference from the emotion to its object, partly from a bilingual wordplay on the greek koúrh, first found at Verg., E. 10.22 but probably originating in gallus. if maxima cura can thus be punningly rendered “the very large girl”, then in connection with the name Lydia and in a context redolent of alexandrian aesthetics, it could be argued that it alludes to Callimachus’ famous deprecation of h™ megálh gunä at Aetia fr. 1.12 Pf. maxima cura is not an uncommon iunctura, either in prose or verse, though this is very probably the earliest extant occurrence in the latter (3). it is the con- (1) The idea, originating with Scaliger, that it is to be identified with the Lydia preserved in the Appendix Vergiliana (e.g. W. M. LindSay, Notes on the Lydia in CR 32, 1918, 62-63 ; L. HerrMann, Trois poèmes de P. Valerius Cato in Latomus 8, 1949, 111-144) is now all but universally rejected. See e. CourTney (ed.), The Fragmentary Latin Poets, oxford, 1993, p. 190-191. (2) r. o. a. M. Lyne, The Neoteric Poets in CQ n.s. 28, 1978, p. 167-187, at p. 179, n. 39 ; r. a. KaSTer (ed.), C. Suetonius Tranquillus, De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, oxford, 1995, p. 155 ; a. S. HoLLiS (ed.), Fragments of Roman Poetry c.60BC - AD20, oxford, 2007, p. 163. Crassicius : fr. 223 FPL = Cinna 7b FRP. (3) CiC., Ver. 2.131, Att. 5.17.4, Verg., G. 4.354, A. 1.678, LiV. 42.48.2, ProP. 2.16.2, oV., Ep. 17.198, Tr. 3.11.70, 4.3.17, Pont. 1.6.7, V. Max. 6.5.1, 7.5.1, Epic. Drusi 196, LuC. 3.707, SiL. 4.547, 16.247. it occurs in the accusative, once in Cicero and thrice in Columella ; Cicero uses the predicative dative six times in his correspondence. valerius cato, callimachus and the very large girl 95 text, therefore, which would make the wordplay recognizable, and that only if the name Lydia evoked a reference to antimachus’ Lyde in the Callimachean original. Three issues must therefore be addressed if it is to be accepted that Ticida is alluding to the Aetia prologue here : whether h™ megálh gunä of fr. 1.12 Pf. did in fact refer to antimachus’ Lyde, whether the play on cura/koúrh was sufficiently current to be both recognizable and able to be linked with gunä, and finally what the allusion to Callimachus’ polemic against antimachus could mean in the context of, as is generally believed, one poet of alexandrian sensibilities praising another. The interpretation of Aetia fr. 1.9-12 is among the most vexed questions in the study of Callimachus and perhaps of all greek literature. Since the passage is so familiar and only lines 11-12 are directly relevant to this argument, i quote only them here : toîn dè] duoîn Mímnermoc oçti glukúc, a ⎣i™ katà leptón …..]h™ megálh d’ ou¬k e¬dídaxe gunä The small but crucial gaps in the papyrus, combined with uncertainties about the interpretation and even the reading of the Scholia Florentina’s comments on this passage (12-15), mean that, although it is clear that the works metonymized by tæn makræn (whatever noun is lost at the start of line 9) and h™ megálh gunä are deprecated in comparison with, respectively, the Demeter of Philetas and the poems which Mimnermus wrote katà leptón, it is far from clear what those works are. although there are minor variations, the two main schools of interpretation are as follows. The first, most influentially asserted by Pfeiffer, and followed by, among others, Hollis, Cameron, and Massimilla, accepts the testimony of the Scholia Florentina (as it is most convincingly deciphered and interpreted) and sees the contrast as being between the longer and shorter poems of Philetas and Mimnermus (4). on this interpretation, h™ megálh gunä would most probably be the latter’s mysterious Nanno or Smirneis. The second school of interpretation, whose most influential proponent was Puelma, followed by, among others, Barigazzi, frazer, Matthews, and most recently Spanoudakis, sees a contrast between the short poems of Philetas and Mimnermus and the long poems of someone else, specifically antimachus, whose Lyde, criticized elsewhere by Callimachus at fr. 398 Pf., would be h™ megálh gunä (5). it is beyond the (4) r. Pfeiffer (ed.), Callimachus, i, oxford, 1949, ad loc. ; a. S. HoLLiS, Callimachus, Aetia fr. 1.9-12 in CQ n.s. 28, 1978, p. 402-406 ; a. CaMeron, Callimachus and His Critics, oxford, 1995, p. 307-309 ; g. MaSSiMiLLa (ed.), Callimaco, Aitia, libri primo e secondo, Pisa, 1996, p. 206-212. The last surveys earlier scholarship on the question. (5) M. PueLMa, Die Vorbilder der Elegiendichtung in Alexandrien und Rom in MH 11, 1954, p. 101-116 ; a. Barigazzi, Mimnermo e Filita, Antimaco e Cherilo nel Proemio degli Aitia di Callimaco in Hermes 84, 1956, 162-82 ; P. M. fraSer, Ptolemaic Alexan- 96 r. cowan scope of this note to rehearse all the arguments on each side of this debate, let alone to make any sort of substantial contribution to it. Suffice to say that a strong case has been repeatedly made for interpreting Callimachus’ megálh gunä as antimachus’ Lyde. The similarity between, at the very least, the name of this poem and that of Cato’s Lydia would help both to motivate and to signal the play on megálh gunä/maxima cura. indeed, though there is inevitably a risk of circularity in such an argument, if one does read maxima cura as such an allusion, it could support the case for a reference to antimachus in the Aetia prologue. The use of cura as bilingual wordplay on koúrh, the ionic equivalent of attic kórh and doric kórh or kåra, is most famously found at Verg., E. 10.22, where tua cura, (immediately followed by Lycoris, with its further echo of kåra) renders tu kåra at Theocritus 1.82. ross speculates that this play on cura/koúrh may have originated with gallus (6). Whatever its origins, a trace of it can arguably be found in any instance where cura is used in the sense of puella or amica (7). However, certain instances are particularly marked, such as when Tibullus juxtaposes the Latin term with its pseudo-greek equivalent (2.3.31-2) : cui sua cura puella est, / fabula sit mauult quam sine amore deus ; indeed some scholars think this might allude to the wordplay of gallus and Virgil (8). The name of ovid’s Corinna has itself been etymologically connected to kórh, a derivation which undermines his claims to her uniqueness by branding her generically “a girl” (9), so that one might be tempted to see added point in his famous assertion tu mihi, siqua fides, cura perennis eris (Am. 1.3.16), which dria, ii, oxford, 1972, p. 1053, n. 253 and p. 1058, n. 287 ; V. J. MaTTHeWS, Antimachos in the Aitia Prologue : A New Supplement in Mnemosyne 4e ser. 32, 1979, p. 128-137, esp. 133 ; K. SPanoudaKiS, Poets and Telchines in Callimachus’ Aetia-Prologue in Mnemosyne 4e ser. 54, 2001, p. 425-441, esp. 433-437. (6) d. o. ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry : Gallus, Elegy, and Rome, Cambridge, 1975, p. 69. f. CairnS, Sextus Propertius : the Augustan Elegist, Cambridge, 2006, p. 115-116, is unequivocal that the use of cura to mean “beloved” is gallan (at least in “feel” for later poets), though he hints that Ticida might have used it earlier and gallus “vectored” it. There are difficult issues of chronology here, and though Cairns mentions the wordplay on koúrh in relation to Verg., E. 10.22, it is not clear whether he regards it as present in every use of cura as “beloved”. (7) a. gudeMan, TLL, iV, 1909, art. cura, col. 1475.42-60 : “metonymice de persona amata”. (8) r. MaLTBy, Tibullus, Elegies : Text, Introduction and Commentary, Cambridge, 2002, ad loc. notes that it “looks like an intentional acknowledgement by Tibullus of this conceit” ; J. H. gaiSSer, Tibullus 2.3 and Vergil’s Tenth Eclogue in TAPhA 107, 1977, p. 131-146, at p. 140, n. 23, suggests an allusion to Ecl. 10, but does not mention the bilingual pun. (9) J. C. MCKeoWn, Ovid, Amores : Text, Prolegomena and Commentary, i, Liverpool, 1987, p. 21 notes further that every instance of Corinna can be replaced by its prosodic equivalent, puella, the Latin for kórh. Cf. r. arMSTrong, Ovid and his Love Poetry, London, 2005, p. 54. valerius cato, callimachus and the very large girl 97 would not only insist that Corinna would be his eternal puella, but would further etymologize her name bilingually from kórh perennis. Perhaps the wittiest use is in ovid’s Remedia Amoris, where he exemplifies the technique of replacing one lover with another using the case of agamemnon, Chryseis and Briseis (465488). The telling use of the polyptoton in et posita est cura cura repulsa noua (484) to emphasize the interchangability of the “beloveds” gains added point when the doctus lector recalls the reference to koúrhv Crushfidov at Hom. Il. 1.111 and to Brishfidov… koúrhv at 1.336 ; the latter is called simply koúrhn in the next line, and again, with or without the inclusion of her name, on six further occasions (10). There is thus ample evidence that the play on cura/koúrh had currency among roman poets beyond gallus and Virgil. it is also worth noting that even in the exiguous remains of Ticida’s poetry, there is some evidence for such wordplay. frank persuasively suggests that his use of Perilla as a pseudonym for his beloved Metella (if one believes apuleius) plays on the substitution of perí for metá, one greek preposition for another (11). of course, the two steps from cura to koúrh and hence to gunä, not to mention the shift in megálh and maxima not just from greek to Latin but from positive to superlative would in themselves strain the detection of an allusive wordplay, were it not for the close resemblance of Lydia to Lyde, and the more general parallelism whereby both poems are personified as women, and, as is often suggested, as their own beloved subject and addressee (12). The parallelism between female body and poetic text is a very common one, particularly in roman elegy (13). This parallelism can extend to the use of descriptive terms which can be interpreted as referring both to the physical attributes of a woman and to the aesthetic qualities of a poem (14). indeed Papanghelis has suggested that the synkrisis between Lesbia and Quintia in Catullus 86 can also be read in poetological terms as one between the alexandrianizing neoteric aesthetics which the poet favours and the more traditional, commonplace style which he deprecates ; in particular, the fact that nulla uenustas, / nulla in tam magno est corpore mica salis (3-4) may be seen as either an allusion to or informed by Callimachus’ (10) HoM., Il. 1.392, 2.689, 9.106, 132, 274, 261. (11) T. franK, Ticidas the Neoteric Poet in CR 34, 1920, p. 91-93, at 92. far less persuasive is the suggestion that Ticidas (sic) itself is a pseudonym for Claudius aesopus, exploiting the equivalence of túch and ai®sa. (12) on the poetological metaphors of large and small in Callimachus, see M. aSPer, Onomata allotria : zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos, Stuttgart, 1997, p. 135-156, esp. 153-156 on the Werkspersonifikationen in fr. 1.9-12 Pf. (13) M. WyKe, Written Women : Propertius’ Scripta Puella in JRS 77, 1987, p. 47-61 ; ead., Mistress and Metaphor in Augustan Elegy in Helios 16, 1989, p. 25-47. (14) a. KeiTH, Corpus eroticum : Elegiac Poetics and Elegiac puellae in Ovid’s Amores in CW 88, 1994-1995, p. 27-40. 98 r. cowan image of h™ megálh gunä (15). When such imagery is widespread, the probability of reading maxima cura as “the very large girl” is greatly increased. indeed, one might even suggest that, while maxima is naturally read as “very great, very intense” with cura in its sense of “[poem as] object of care”, and even in its transitional sense of “object of erotic care”, the more it moves semantically towards signifying a physical woman, the more maxima will demand to be read in a similarly physical sense, as “very tall” or “very large”. indeed, while most instances of cura maintain an ambiguity between the more abstract idea of the “care” which the beloved inspires and the more concrete of the beloved herself, several tend very much towards the latter : an abstract sense of “prettiness” could just be extracted from pulcherrima cura (Prop. 2.25.1), but it is surely Cynthia rather than Propertius’ emotions which Lynceus is accused of trying to “touch” (Lynceu, tune meam potuisti, perfide, curam tangere ? 2.34.9-10). Ticida’s Lydia is, of course, not so unambiguously concrete as Propertius’ Cynthia is here, but the latter does suggest just how physical one half of the double entendre in cura maxima is. The last word of the pentameter, liber, swings the reader back from Lydia the woman to Lydia the poem, but even here some Callimachean resonances might be heard. The presence of maxima and liber in the same line might distantly evoke Callimachus’s famous (and oft misquoted) méga biblíon i s¢ on tøı megálwı kakøı (fr. 465 Pf.). There is no suggestion of personification here, of course, but there remains the parallelism between physical size and the abstract enormity of the evil. To complete the triangulation of personification without explicit mention of the text (in the Aetia prologue) and physicalization of the text without personification (fr. 465 Pf.), there is a final line of Callimachus which, like Ticida’s, draws the two together. His unambiguous condemnation of antimachus’ Lyde, Lúdh kaì pacù grámma kaì ou¬ torón (fr. 398 Pf.), emphasizes its status as a text, even using the neuter noun grámma to distance the adjectives from the feminine proper name. However, for all that pacúv may refer to the Lyde’s “florid language and metrical roughness” (16), it still cannot entirely escape some suggestion that both the book Lyde and the woman Lyde are “fat” (17). The presence of liber in Ticida’s pentameter does not so much tip the (15) T. d. PaPangHeLiS, Catullus and Callimachus on Large Women (A Reconsideration of C. 86) in Mnemosyne 4e ser. 44, 1991, p. 372-386. (16) n. KreVanS, Fighting against Antimachus : the Lyde and the Aetia Reconsidered in M. a. Harder, r. f. regTuiT, and g. C. WaKKer Callimachus, groningen, 1993, p. 149-160. on the poetological metaphors of pacúv and leptóv throughout Callimachus, see aSPer, Onomata allotria [n. 12], p. 156-189. (17) Contra aSPer, Onomata allotria [n. 12], p. 185 : “Kallimachos ist von der gedichtpersonifikation…abgerückt : das nach dem frauennamen harsch einsetzende neutrum läßt in Verbindung mit dem wenig zur Personifikation geeigneten grámma dieses pacù nicht spontan als Beschreibung eines Lebewesens erkennen.” valerius cato, callimachus and the very large girl 99 scales towards a purely poetic interpretation of the line, as maintain the balance of ambiguities already present in its Callimachean intertexts. finally, one might also wonder whether there is a further play in Ticida’s doctorum – “the learned” but more literally “those who have been taught” – on Callimachus’ ou¬k e¬dídaxe, in context “did not show” but inevitably with at least a suggestion of “did not teach”. of course, the negative here would render this an antiphrastic allusion, and this may help in considering why Ticida might have praised Cato by alluding to Callimachus’ condemnation of antimachus. The notion that Valerius Cato was, whether as a teacher, critic, poet, or combination of the three, some sort of founding father of neoteric poetry, based ultimately on furius Bibaculus’ hyperbolic and enigmatic claim that he solus legit ac facit poetas (fr. 6 FPL/FLP = 86 dub. FRP), died hard but was eventually put safely to rest (18). However, the titles of his known poems, his combination of the roles of critic and poet, and the nature of the references to him by ovid, Messala Corvinus, and Suetonius, all make it clear that he wrote in accordance with the alexandrian aesthetics espoused by the neoterics, even if he was not instrumental in promulgating them. as Wiseman puts it, “with his Lydia and his Dictynna, the learned Cato evidently belonged to the neoteric school of epic, but he was not its doyen” (19). it might therefore seem odd for Ticida – whose glyconic epithalamium and love poetry to his puella Perilla place him in the same aesthetic camp – in apparently praising his poem, to allude to the figurehead of alexandrianism’s attack on his principal poetic bête noire in one of the key programmatic passages of Hellenistic poetics (20). it is possible that the parallel between the Lydia and the Lyde goes beyond the similarity of names and the fact that both, as well as being proper names, could mean “the Lydian woman”. Lyne speculates that “[p]erhaps the liber was more like antimachus’ Lyde : narrative elegiacs for, or in memory of, a girl”, while Cairns even goes so far as to suggest that it might have been a translation of the Lyde (21). Such a connection would further justify Ticida’s allusion to Callimachus’ verdict on antimachus, but only if the intention were likewise to criticize him. our evidence about Cato and Ticida is very limited and susceptible to a range of interpretations, but nothing (18) first attacked by r. P. roBinSon, Valerius Cato in TAPhA 54, 1923, p. 98-116 ; cf. n. B. CroWTHer, Valerius Cato, Furius Bibaculus, and Ticidas in CPh 66, 1971, p. 108109. (19) T. P. WiSeMan, Cinna the Poet, and Other Roman Essays, Leicester, 1974, p. 53. (20) on the reception of Callimachus in roman poetry, the classic study remains W. WiMMeL, Kallimachos in Rom : die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit, Wiesbaden, 1960, but an up-to-date perspective is offered by r. HunTer, The Shadow of Callimachus : Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome, Cambridge, 2006. (21) Lyne, Neoteric Poets [n. 2], p. 179 n. 39 ; CairnS, Sextus Propertius [n. 6], p. 116 n. 44. 100 r. cowan in it suggests any such degree of hostility or of aesthetic disagreement, indeed quite the opposite as, in addition to the explicit statement of Suetonius, their names are linked by ovid and Messala Corvinus. no certain explanation can be offered, but it seems most likely that Ticida is alluding to Callimachus antiphrastically, evoking the condemnation of antimachus’ Lyde to reject any such criticism of Cato’s similarly-named (and perhaps similar in other ways) Lydia. it may be useful in this context to think in terms of what Christopher ricks has termed an “anti-pun”. as he describes it, “Whereas in a pun there are two senses which either get along or quarrel, in an anti-pun there is only one sense admitted but there is another sense denied admission. So the response is not ‘this means x’ (with the possibility even of its meaning y being no part of your response), but ‘this-means-x-and-doesn’t-meany’, all hyphenated” (22). Ticida, then, would be evoking the response “maxima cura-means-greatest darling/care-and-doesn’t-mean-megálh gunä”. The association of doctrina with alexandrianism would support this, since a megálh gunä would not be the maxima cura of the docti. This interpretation is bolstered still more by one further wordplay. for cura is generally associated in Latin poetry with the Callimachean ideals of polish, painstaking revision, and artistry, standing alongside – sometimes synonymous with – ars in antithesis to ingenium, and rendering Callimachus’ own qualities of técnh and pónov (23). among numerous examples, perhaps the clearest such usage is Pliny’s famous dismissal of Silius italicus as having written maiore cum cura quam ingenio (Ep. 3.7), but probably the most pertinent is ovid’s description of his own Medicamina Faciei at Ars 3.206 : paruus, sed cura grande, libellus, opus. Here, if one sets aside the poet’s disingenous defensiveness about the slightness of the work, ovid is playfully but carefully disambiguating the potential contradiction at the heart of the Callimachean aesthetics of the small-scale. His is not a méga biblíon but a libellus in the fine alexandrianizing tradition of Catullus (1.1), Cinna (fr. 11 FPL/FLP = 13.3 FRP), Horace (S. 1.10.92), and Propertius (1.11.19, 3.3.19), but though it satisfies the Callimachean stricture of being small in size, it is nevertheless great in quality, and that greatness is a result of the Callimachean ideal of cura. Ticida’s antithesis is not as pointed, but this further resonance of cura emphasizes how Cato’s Lydia was crafted using that Callimachean ideal and thus that its greatness is one of quality and not one of size like a méga biblíon or a megálh gunä. The University of Sydney. robert CoWan. (22) C. riCKS, The Force of Poetry, oxford, 1984, p. 265-266. (23) gudeMan, cura [n. 7], col. 1462.44-1463.70 “B speciatim : 1 opera rebus cognoscendis navata,… ars, praecipue de labore scriptoris … (opp. … ingenium).” cura as Callimachean pónov : M. HeLzLe (ed.), Publii Ovidii Nasonis Epistularum ex Ponto liber IV, Hildesheim, 1989, p. 152, with a list of examples from the exile poetry.