Susan A. Stephens

Callimachus was arguably the most important poet of the Hellenistic age, for two reasons: his engagement with previous theorists of poetry and his wide-ranging poetic experimentation. Of his poetic oeuvre, which exceeded what we now have of Theocritus, Aratus, Posidippus, and Apollonius combined, only his six hymns and around fifty of his epigrams have survived intact. His enormously influential Aetia, the collection of Iambi, the Hecale, and all of his prose output have been reduced to a handful of citations in later Greek lexica and handbooks or papyrus fragments. In recent years excellent commentaries and synthetic studies of the Aetia, the Iambi, and the Hecale have appeared or are about to appear. But there is no modern study in English of the collection of hymns. And while there are excellent commentaries in English on three of the hymns (Apollo, Athena, Demeter), the commentaries on Zeus and on Delos are limited in scope, and there is no commentary at all on the Artemis hymn. Synthetic studies in English for the most part treat only one hymn, not the collection, and tend to focus on Callimachus' intertextual relationships with his predecessors and/or his influence on Roman poetry. Yet recent work is requiring scholars to broaden their perspective and to consider Callimachus' religious, civic, and geo-political contexts much more systematically in attempting to understand the hymns. A further incentive is that apart from the Homeric and Orphic hymns, Callimachus' are the only other hymns that have survived intact; those written in earlier periods are now reduced to fragments. For these reasons a study of the six hymns together is a desideratum. An additional reason is that Callimachus' collection of six hymns is very likely to have been an authorially arranged poetry book, quite possibly the earliest such book that we have intact; therefore, it allows a unique perspective on the evolution of the form. This volume offers a text and commentary of all six hymns for advanced students of classics and classical scholars, as well as interpretive essays on each hymn that integrate what has been the dominant paradigm-intertextuality-into a broader focus on Callimachus' context. Her introduction treats the transmission of the hymns, the potential for and likelihood of the Homeric hymns as models, the hymns as a poetry book, their language and meter (especially in light of recent work done on this topic), performance practices, and their relationship to cult, court, local geographies, and panhellenic sanctuaries. For each hymn Stephens presents the Greek text, a translation, and a brief commentary containing important information or parallels for interpretation.

The Hymns

Callimachus

Jörg Rüpke

Alessandro Barchiesi

In order to reconstruct ancient rituals we must rely on ancient texts. That is the premise of these eight papers which are taken from a conference held at Stanford University in 2002 which brought together scholars of Roman religion and scholars of Roman literature to debate the `textuality of ritual'. The papers are followed by six brief essays which discuss the themes of the and consider the problems of retrieving ritual from texts written by such complex authors as Virgil, Ovid and Livy. The essays themselves focus on: the theme of sacrificial ritual in Roman poetry; religious communication in Rome; professional poets and the 2nd-century BC temple of Hercules of the muses; Livy; the Aeneid ; Ovid's use of hymns in the Metamorphoses ; Ovid's depiction of a triumph in Tristia ; the secret name of Rome. The numerous extracts are presented in Latin verse and English prose translation.

A Conference on Religion and Literary Production in Ancient Rome Held at Stanford University in February 2002

Rituals in Ink

Charles H. Stocking

The Ancient Greek Athletics offers the most comprehensive collection to date of primary sources in translation for the study of ancient Greek athletics. Because Greek athletics was such an essential feature of both Greek and Roman culture, there is an especially strong need for proper treatment and understanding of the texts and other media used to reconstruct practices and ideologies of ancient athletics. The sources in this collection are arranged chronologically from the Archaic Period to the Roman Imperial Era, with an extensive appendix discussing key themes and topics. The organization and in-depth presentation of textual sources is designed to help students, scholars, and general readers fully appreciate the broader social and cultural significance of ancient Greek athletics as it developed in different historical time periods throughout antiquity.

Primary Sources in Translation

Ancient Greek Athletics

Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics Susan A Stephens

"Susan Stephens is interested in how the poetry of Callimachus, Theocritus and Apollonius reflects the Greek engagement with Egypt, and in particular with the traditions of Egyptian kingship and mythology. The exciting rediscovery through marine archaeology of Ptolemaic Alexandria means that there is currently great interest in the nature of Alexandrian culture, especially in how Greek and Egyptian elements were mixed. Stephens brings to notice important but generally neglected Greek texts (Hecataeus of Abdera, the 'Alexander Romance') and much material previously known only to Egyptologists. . . . Modern writing about colonialism is powerfully applied to the Hellenistic situation. This book will attract wide interest, and help in the gradual process of changing perceptions about the cultural life of Alexandria."—Richard Hunter, author of Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry "Susan Stephens' Seeing Double is the first book ever that explores comprehensively and persuasively how, in the political, social and cultural environment of Ptolemaic Egypt, the Alexandrian renewal of classical poetry leads to a new poetry. . . . In Stephens' view, the poetical dialogue between the Alexandrian poets, their intertextuality and the differences in their approaches and reactions to the colonial situation resolve the emerging duality of Greek and Egyptian cultures in a deeper intellectual unity that responds to, and reflects, the political reality."—Ludwig Koenen, author of Eine agonistische Inschrift aus Ägypten und frühptolemäische Königsfeste "This quietly daring research sets a new standard for the interpretation of poetry in a cultural, and most importantly in a bi-cultural, context. Stephens’ exploration of Alexandrian poetry as a contact zone is a successful example of how literary interpretation can be fertilized by discontent about traditional Classics."—Alessandro Barchiesi, author of The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse and Speaking Volumes: Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets A brilliant mastery and intersection of comparative history of literature and of theories of intertextuality and intercultural contacts make of this book a most profitable text for a larger readership than classical scholars."—Marco Fantuzzi, coauthor of Muse e Modelli: la poesia ellenistica da Alessandro Magno ad Augusto

Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria

Seeing Double

When, in the third century B.C.E., the Ptolemies became rulers in Egypt, they found themselves not only kings of a Greek population but also pharaohs for the Egyptian people. Offering a new and expanded understanding of Alexandrian poetry, Susan Stephens argues that poets such as Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius proved instrumental in bridging the distance between the two distinct and at times diametrically opposed cultures under Ptolemaic rule. Her work successfully positions Alexandrian poetry as part of the dynamic in which Greek and Egyptian worlds were bound to interact socially, politically, and imaginatively. The Alexandrian poets were image-makers for the Ptolemaic court, Seeing Double suggests; their poems were political in the broadest sense, serving neither to support nor to subvert the status quo, but to open up a space in which social and political values could be imaginatively re-created, examined, and critiqued. Seeing Double depicts Alexandrian poetry in its proper context—within the writing of foundation stories and within the imaginative redefinition of Egypt as "Two Lands"—no longer the lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, but of a shared Greek and Egyptian culture.

John J. Winkler

The recent discovery of fragments from such novels as Iolaos, Phoinikika, Sesonchosis, and Metiochos and Parthenope has dramatically increased the library catalogue of ancient novels, calling for a fresh survey of the field. In this volume Susan Stephens and John Winkler have reedited all of the identifiable novel fragments, including the epitomes of Iamblichos' Babyloniaka and Antonius Diogenes' Incredible Things Beyond Thule. Intended for scholars as well as nonspecialists, this work provides new editions of the texts, full translations whenever possible, and introductions that situate each text within the field of ancient fiction and that present relevant background material, literary parallels, and possible lines of interpretation. Collective reading of the fragments exposes the inadequacy of many currently held assumptions about the ancient novel, among these, for example, the paradigm for a linear, increasingly complex narrative development, the notion of the "ideal romantic" novel as the generic norm, and the nature of the novel's readership and cultural milieu. Once perceived as a late and insignificant development, the novel emerges as a central and revealing cultural phenomenon of the Greco-Roman world after Alexander. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Fragments: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary

Ancient Greek Novels

Benjamin Acosta-Hughes

New, provocative treatment of the Alexandrian poet Callimachus and his reception, approaching his work from four varied yet complementary angles.

Susan A. Stephens

Books

Your next favorite book is out there