This article treats the figure of the fox that appears as one of the members of the embassy sent by the animal s to Zeus in Callimachus' second ¡ambo By exploring previous appearances of the fox in the poetic repertoire, I identify a series of Archaic and early Classical works that Callimachus uses by way of 'intertexts', and argue that the Hellenistic author draws on the animal's place within the interconnected iambic and fable traditions that inform his poem. Already visible (...) in these earlier texts, and anticipating Callimachus, is a concern with literary as well as ethical polemics. (shrink)

Une analyse sémantique exhaustive d’αἰανής, mot poétique attesté en contexte chez Archiloque, Pindare, Eschyle et Sophocle, fait apparaître la cohérence des emplois de l’adjectif. Le κόρος pindarique, qualifié par deux fois d’αἰανής, se révèle une notion centrale, prégnante dans des situations de parjure, de démesure et de justice divine. Son étude met en lumière la valeur générale de « auquel on ne peut se soustraire », valeur qui s’insère dans un réseau d’images et de termes récurrents.

This article treats the verbal and physical altercation between the disguised Odysseus and the local beggar Iros at the start of Odyssey 18 and explores the overlapping ritual and generic aspects of the encounter so as to account for many of its otherwise puzzling features. Beginning with the detailed characterization of Iros at the book's start, I demonstrate how the poet assigns to the parasite properties and modes of behavior that have close analogues in later descriptions of pharmakoi and of (...) famine demons expelled from communities in rites that are documented from different parts of the Greek world from the archaic period on; so too the account of Iros' ejection from the house and of his subsequent fate conforms to the patterns observable in these rituals. The second part of the discussion examines the ways in which the beggars' quarrel anticipates the enmities that the Ionian iambographers would construct with those whom they cast as their echthroi and rivals, and suggests that we see in the Homeric scene an early instance of an iambic-style confrontation presented in poetic form for performance at the symposium. The iambographers' own deployment of the scapegoat and famine demon paradigms for the vilification of their targets promotes the overlap between the epic and iambic material. In both portions of the argument, the discussion observes how the several frames informing the episode in Book 18 coincide with and promote the Odyssey's larger themes. (shrink)

Lycambes, the most famous of Archilochus' whipping boys, is everywhere upstaged in the surviving iambic texts and testimonia. This paper seeks to reconstruct something of Lycambes' voice and its role in the Archilochean tradition. I begin with a reconsideration of Archilochus' “first epode” and argue that Lycambes is styled as an older public rival to Archilochus who questions the role of the poet's iambos. The preliminary results of this section are then strengthened by drawing upon two relevant episodes in the (...) later ancient reception of Archilochean poetics: the sniping between Aristophanes and his older rival Cratinus and the Mnesiepes Inscription's tale of the uproar surrounding Archilochus' first performance. Lycambes emerges from this study as a character constructed to question the value and status of the iambist within the social space of contemporary Paros. As such, his criticisms afford Archilochus the opportunity to trumpet his claim to the very cultural capital that Lycambes strives to deny him. More than just a private enemy, Lycambes raises aesthetic and ethical debates that can still be heard throughout the iambographic tradition. (shrink)