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Notes: Rudolf Pfeiffer (Callimachus, ii.xxxvi–xxxvii) believed that, as a young man, Callimachus wrote four books of Aetia. To these the poet added in his old age a Reply to his Critics (fr. 1), and a slightly revised version of his recent occasional elegy, the Lock of Berenice (fr. 110, now including a nuptial rite which has survived only in the translation by Catullus, 66.79–88); this revised Coma became the last poem in Aetia book 4, to be followed by an Epilogue (fr. 112) which may mark a transition to the Iambi. Pfeiffer's theory generally held the field until the brilliant article of P. J. Parsons, in ZPE 25 (1977), 1–50. With the help of newly recovered papyrus fragments Parsons showed that a previously unplaced elegy celebrating a Nemean victory (fr. 383 Pf.) was connected to the story of Molorchus (frs. 54–9), who entertained Heracles before that hero killed the Nemean lion and instituted the Nemean Games; thus the poem belonged to Aetia book 3. Furthermore, various pieces of evidence converge (Parsons, pp. 46–8) to make it probable, if not wholly certain, that this substantial poem (some 200 lines long) stood first in its book. So it appears that, at least in the final form of the Aetia, books 3–4 were framed by two poems honouring the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes, namely Victoria Berenices (Parsons' title) and Coma Berenices.Soon afterwards a further important advance was made by E. Livrea (ZPE 34 [1979], 37ff.), who perceived, on grounds of subject-matter as well as papyrology, that the poor man who sets a mousetrap in fr. 177 Pf. must be none other than Molorchus; note particularly the probable mention of Cleonae in fr. 177.37 Pf. = Supplementum Hellenisticum 259.37. Thus a new fragment of 38 lines accrued to the poem.These discoveries have some implications for the composition of the Aetia. Addition of a Coma Berenices (94 lines in Catullus' version) to a pre-existent Aetia book 4 could be countenanced easily enough, but, as Parsons says (p. 50), it would have required a much more radical, and therefore less plausible, revision for Callimachus to have added Victoria Berenices to a pre-existent Aetia book 3. Accordingly Parsons suggested that the original Aetia contained only books 1–2, united by the conversation with the Muses; then in his old age Callimachus compiled two more books, partly at least from poems already composed, and gave them a frame of two poems honouring Queen Berenice. Parsons' view has, I think, been widely accepted; Professor Lloyd-Jones wrote in SIFC 77 (1984), 56 ‘No-one has yet argued against the simple modification of Pfeiffer's theory of the two editions of the Aetia which Mr. Parsons based on this discovery. The first edition comprised two books only.’

Notes: Some scholars have seen in ‘fulminat’ an allusion to Callimachus' βροντ⋯ν οὐκ ⋯μ⋯ν, ⋯λλ⋯ Δι⋯c (fr. 1.20 Pfeiffer), and that is reasonable enough, since Virgil contrasts the warlike fulminations of Octavian with mocking disparagement of his own very different lifestyle (563–4 ‘illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem ignobilis oti’). But it may have escaped attention that Virgil seems to be imitating some lines by another Hellenistic poet, Rhianus (mid to late third century B.C.); the parallel has thought-provoking implications.

Notes: As far as I am aware, it has generally been taken for granted that ‘Kato’ in the pentameter must be vocative. The double vocative ‘Visce’—‘Kato’ does not seem objectionable if ‘non’ were repeated as first word of the pentameter (e.g., as Professor Nisbet suggests, ‘non ego, Visce, / non quadrupla, Kato, ...). None the less this is unexpected, and it seems at least worth considering the possibility that 'Kato’ might be nominative. The most plausible (if not the only) way of accounting for a nominative would be as subject of a relative clause. Further consequences would follow almost inevitably: the word-ending doubtfully read

Notes: A most pleasing recent advance in our knowledge of Callimachus’ fragmentary poems has been the recognition that an elegiac piece, part of which appeared as P. Oxy. vol. 1 no. 14, belongs to him and, one presumes, to the Aetia. Powell (Collectanea Alexandrina, p. 131) already thought of Callimachus as the author, others of Nicander (hence Gow-Scholfield doubtfully included the fragment in their edition, p. 220). Evidence that the author was of some standing is provided by the fact that a scholiast on Nicander, Theriaca 386 (P. Oxy. 2221 col. 11, 17–20) quoted line 4 of the fragment1 (though the additional letters at the start of the line have defied restoration and may be corrupt).2 Great progress came with the publication by M. Gronewald (ZPE 15 [1974], 105 ff.) of P. Mich. 4761, which preserves, almost though not quite perfectly, the beginning of lines 5–15 (underlined on the accompanying text), wherein P. Oxy.

Notes: Horace had good reason to know these lines (quoted by Diodorus Siculus 8.21) since they come from the foundation oracle of one of his favourite places, Tarentum, delivered to the founder Phalanthus whom Horace mentions in Odes 2.6.11–12, ‘regnata petam Laconi | rura Phalantho’. It is a regular feature of such oracles that, however absurd and impossible they may seem, they will be fulfilled in a quite unexpected way.