III

All this points the way toward some of the important preconditions for the production—and above all for the possibilities of achieving an effect—of those Hellenistic poets who were able to come out on top of the crisis that had been inflicted on poetry since the end of the fifth century. It also explains the apparent paradox as to why this relatively small number of learned poets , addressing themselves exclusively to a small intellectual elite of educated persons, were able to bring about a decisive breakthrough vis-à-vis the great number of the rest.

Ptolemy I proceeded on the basis of these preconditions when he found himself faced with the task of establishing a new empire in Egypt,

[39] Even though the influence of Aristotle's education ought not to be overrated, the very fact that he made Alexander acquainted with the Iliad is of great importance, cf. H. Flashar, "Aristoteles," in Die Philosophic der Antike , H. Flashar, ed. (Basel and Stuttgart, 1983) 3:232.

[40] Cf. 1. Düring, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition (Göteborg, 1957) T 42a-d (337f.).

on colonial soil, in a foreign environment, and with it a new center. As regards culture, literature, and—our exclusive concern here—especially poetry, he addressed himself to this task with abundant energy, but acting throughout not as innovator but as one with an extremely perceptive regard both for tradition and potential, in which matters he was well advised by competent experts. He also had his son and successor educated by scholars, namely, by Philitas of Cos, who was both scholar and poet, (i.e., exponent of ancient poetry with a famous work on glosses),^[41] and by the Peripatetic Straton of Lampsacus.^[42] On the advice of Demetrius of Phaleron (pupil and friend of Theophrastus, who also wrote on Homer and other poets) Ptolemy founded the Mouseion ,^[43] a research institution modeled on the Lykeion , in the palace area of Alexandria. He also founded the famous library in the Mouseion. Its first librarian, Zenodotus of Ephesus, described as a pupil of Philitas and really the founder of Alexandrian philology, is named as the third teacher of the heir-apparent and the other children of the king; his later successors in office included several educators of princes, among them the polymath Eratosthenes, who was the first to style himself and was himself also a poet.

A magnificent array of such scholar-poets could be seen at work at these institutions: Callimachus and others whose names and philological achievements have been comprehensively and lovingly tabulated by Rudolf Pfeiffer; there is no need to reel off a list of them here. But what we should remember is that there had always been princes and tyrants who attracted poets to their court, even in Macedonia itself, where Ptolemy himself came from. There had also already been poets who were also scholars: we have already mentioned the well-known case of Antimachus; and libraries too had already existed elsewhere. Furthermore, not all those who wrote poetry in Alexandria were themselves , not even one of the greatest among them, Theocritus; they did not all participate in the work of these institutions.

But what must be especially emphasized is that neither in a material nor in an intellectual sense is the new poetry to be regarded as the prod-

[41] Strabo 14.675; cf. Pfeiffer, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie , 116f.

[42] For the new meaning of philosophy, about 300 BC , as ars vitae , cf. A. Dihle, "Philosophie—Fachwissenschaft—Allgemeinbildung," in Aspects de la philosophie hellénistique , edited by H. Flashar and O. Gigon, Fondation Hardt, Entretiens 32 (Geneva, 1985), 185-223 (discussion, 224-231).

[43] Pfeiffer, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie , 123f., 133, was skeptical of Demetrius' influence upon the conception of the Mouseion and the Library, whereas now it is almost universally accepted; cf., e.g., P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1972) 1:315, 321; F. Wehrli, "Demetrios yon Phaleron," in Philosophie der Antike , 560, who considers it probable.

uct of these newly established institutions. Rather, it is the achievement of individual poets whom the king and his advisors tried systematically to attract to Alexandria from elsewhere, and—not always successfully—to keep there. But it is beyond dispute that this policy also had its successes. By means of the education of princes by poets and scholars of this kind, the interests of the king filtered down through several generations,^[44] reaching a zenith in the reigns of Philadelphus, Euergetes, and Philopator.

Now something on the position of poets and poetry in society: First and foremost, it did not depend on the material security of those poets who received their income from the king, but on the example that the king himself gave by the esteem in which he held them and by the bonds he established between them and his house and court. Victor Ehrenberg appropriately describes the significance of the king in the new Hellenistic empires: "The monarch alone was the embodiment of the state," and "when all is said and done the state [which had been brought into existence by conquest and was maintained through civil and military power exercised by the king] was the kings private property."^[45] And the example furnished by the king was then followed by society, as dependent on him, with the development of the new monarchies. He would gather around himself a circle of personalities whose loyalty to him was rewarded with his favor, and as "friends" of the king, these would comprise something like a new imperial nobility. Here is just one example of the esteem of these men for poets: the powerful admiral (nauarchos ) Callicrates of Samos, who played a dominant role in naval and religious policy throughout the empire during the reign of Philadelphus, had two epigrams written for him by Posidippus on the occasion of his erection of a temple to Arsinoe-Zephyritis, just as Sostratus (builder of the famous lighthouse on the island of Pharos) had done before him.^[46]

The artistic qualities of this new poetry meet the demands of , and this legitimizes the exercise of power on the part of its exponents. Literary patronage had always been a weight-bearing column of monarchical propaganda. By means of its panhellenic character, dissociated from any local function, the new poetry also satisfies the needs of a cos-

[44] The fact is explicitly recognized by, e.g., Eratosthenes: Powell, Coll. Alex . 35.13-18.

[45] V. Ehrenberg, Der Staat der Griechen , part 2: Der hellenistische Staat (Zurich, 1965), 195f.

mopolitan society that comes and goes in the new Hellenistic empires after the decline of the old city-states, or finds a new home in those empires. In addition, papyrus discoveries enable us to see that the reading of poets was also very popular among " in an alien environment far from the capital of the empire, and we also know about poems by the new poets who were already being read there in the third century, such as the Victoria Berenices by Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter by Philicus.^[47] We have up to this point spoken only about Ptolemaic Egypt, not because there was nothing comparable elsewhere—there was!—but because Egypt serves as the best example since it is the place about which we are best informed.

It is also worthy of note that efforts to perform dramatic poetry —that is, comedies and tragedies—in the new cities of Alexandria and Ptolemaïs have not left any palpable traces behind them.^[48] What we know of the so-called tragic Pleiad is practically only names; the satire Menedemus by Lycophron belongs to Eretria, not to Alexandria; and no one would want to maintain that the excessively long enigmatic speech that comes in the Alexandra (if it really is by Lycophron) was actually intended for tragic performance. And the status of the Mimiambi of Herondas in this regard, when compared, say, with the Women at the Adonis Festival of Theocritus, is questionable, to say the least. Neither have the new cults produced any cult poetry , or at least none that ancient critics of literature found interesting.^[49] All this contrasts with New Comedy, and also with tragedy and satyr plays, performances of which were continued by force of ancient tradition, above all in Athens, but also elsewhere.^[50] The new poetry, on the contrary, is, by its very nature, poetry to be read.