Talk at JHU (2006), work in progress.

CALLIMACHUS IN ROME A TASTE FOR DISTINCTION

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 Callimachus. Rarely, however, they have asked why. Three generations, from young Cicero 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 Glaucus for Roman readers. A generation later, for Catullus and Lucretius, 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 had recognized 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 problem: who was reading Callimachus during these times? Dozens of roughly contemporary Greek poets, like e.g. Posidippus, obviously did not make that big an impression.

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

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 dependent 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

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

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 widespread 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 true and 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 Callimachus was read all over Egypt in his day, not only by a few urban coteries at Alexandria. 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 better 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 immigrants 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 MacedonianGreek 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

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

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 panhellenic 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 center: 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 parallels: All their works, most blatantly the Aetia, but just as well the Argonautica, are panhellenic, 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 worked 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 Cretan 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

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

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, Alexandrian 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 energetic 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 independent 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 particular 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 Alexandrian 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 Euphorion. 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 geographical 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. also Laevius and his Erotopaegnia the Callimachism of which is, however, doubtful.

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

if it was the project of the Alexandrian poets to equip their audiences with a new ethnic identity by means of a freshly constructed past, then Roman readers could not have responded to this.2 2. Roman literature and the ordo 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 environment? Of course, when it comes to sociology of literature, our knowledge is severely limited. Basically, this means that we can only draw inferences from readers writing about their readings. Nevertheless, thanks to the prosopographical work of some 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 equestrian 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 Claudia, passed in 218. Thus, the knights soon became the financial and municipal elite of

2 Pace Thomas 1993, 215: But it is Callimachus, I suspect, who [...] showed in short how to read, struggle with, and revitalize 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.

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

the expanding Roman empire.6 In 129 the so-called lex reddendorum equorum was 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 members, 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 Augustuss days;9 according to Livy, in his time 500 knights lived in Patavium alone.10 Obviously, 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 usually 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 symbols. 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 equester loses 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. For numbers, see also Frier 1985, 256f. 11 Berry 2003, 223. 12 Since the lex Roscia 67 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).

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

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 political 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 practices. 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 going to focus on: the reading and writing of poetry. When we look at the poets and writers of belles lettres in 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.18 19 20Of the poets of the next generation, those producing love elegies with its Callimachean inclinations were, again, knights: Gallus, Tibullus,
14 15 16 17 Kolb 1977, 254, Frier 1985, 256f. Syme 1951, 82. Mutschler 1988, 115. 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. pace Ross 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.

Callimachus in Rome A Taste For Distinction

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 inquiry a bit, i.e. including scholarly readers, we find those who are interested in antiquarian 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 Varro.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 the general reading 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 equester or 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 total of 56 names of poets. After all, for our purposes Whites otherwise extremely useful account is less helpful because for 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 nobility. On the other hand, the nobility dealt differently with this field: their representational practice consisted mainly in fostering and sponsoring poetry and poets, mainly epic, in close imitation of Hellenistic courts. In his speech Pro Archia Cicero 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 Philodemus 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, personally. 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 meaning in itself. Finally, this brings me back to Callimachus. First, we observe that Roman Callimachism 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 programmatic 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 Callimachus). 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 in Nicolet 1966, 703. 28 Zetzel 1983, 95f.; O. Skutsch, Studia Enniana, London 1968, 69. Clausen 1964, 186ff. reads the proem of the Annales as anti-callimachean; in Ann. 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. 2 and Bagordo 2001, passim, esp. 32, however, advocate the opposite. Lucilius adopts isolate motifs, but no coherent, distinctive Calimachism (typically, Fr. 589593 Krenkel: neither populus nor nimis doctos as audience, neither Persius or Manilius, 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 occupied 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 distinction, equivalent to a status symbol. Callimachus happens to fit in with this practice especially well. 3. Callimachus a 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 programmatic, 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 metaphors 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. Originally, they were probably nothing more than a paratext, meant to bring into focus the sympathies of the prospective readers. The actual poetology 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 audiences, concern: how to leave behind the glory of a past (and its partisans) of which you had no share, and how to be both new and distinguished. 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 metaphors 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 occ asionally 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 interesting 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 activities (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 investigating 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 34 35 36 For the notion of homology cf. Bourdieu 1984, 175, 232ff. (about the fields of cultural-goods production). See Ross Taylor 1968, 474-6. See also Berry 2003, 223. 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 epic; 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 obviously model their works according to Callimachus Aetia. Propertius even calls himself Callimachus Romanus (4.1.64). Hence, Augustan callimachism has been politically domesticated. 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 administration. He systematically built up the group identity of the knights: E.g. he reestablished the knightly procession mentioned above. The knights became something as a second nobility, the members of which were personally appointed by and personally 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 affirmative 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 affirmative of the new political order. Among the authors of this generation two more implications of this taste for distinction 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, especially 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 selfconfidence 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 surprise that a literature dominated by knights falls for an aesthetical norm that emphasizes 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 descent from the personage celebrated in those epics. Therefore, we can translate the tendency of Roman lart pour lart at 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 real life, 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 economic 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 opposite: an aesthetics of leisure. The most avant-garde groups of knights, especially their
42 43 44 45 Horace, ep. 2.1.1617. See Callimachus fr. 1.17f. Pf. C. 16, esp. 5f. Schwindt 2002, esp. 8890. 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 pursuits.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 coolly decides against a political career in favor of less public pursuits. In Virgil we often come across invocations of otium and the quiet life.50 More specifically, for many knights, as maybe for Horace, otium probably 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 or to avoid stepping into the trap of an all too determinist perspective it is explainable by their quickly and radically changing position 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 aesthetics 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 Callim46 47 48 49 Mutschler 1988, 119. Zetzel 1983, 91. For evidence see Ross Taylor 1968, 472 and n. 6. 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 studies that to me seem to strengthen my case. First, in Satire 1.10 Horace not only talks about knights knowing about grammar (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 audiences. Furthermore, Arbuscula clearly formulates an elitist taste for distinction, effortlessly 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 nobility and that was the end of the knights taste for distinction 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 became 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 admirer 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 perspective, he was one of them. Now, the next problem should be: why do we like him? Or do we?

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

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