Chapter 8 has argued that the close relationship between human and non-human animals in the Halieutica is modelled in part on the linguistic and thematic similarities that associate human and animal anatomy, behaviour, psychology, and habitat in the Homeric epics. We have seen that close attention to the relationship between the two domains is a feature of Homeric poetry discussed extensively by ancient critics, and to which the Halieutica draws attention with its very first word. Yet Oppian, I now show, goes further even than Homer in blurring the boundaries between the two realms; this chapter embeds this aspect of the poem in its contemporary cultural contexts, arguing that it speaks to a wider imperial Greek fascination with the relationship between human and non-human animals, above all in the ethical and erotic spheres.

The next two chapters expand on the issues raised in Chapter 7: Oppian’s detailed engagement with the similes and metaphors of the Homeric epics, as well as his evident familiarity with ancient literary-critical debates about these practices; the close thematic connection between sequences and clusters of images in the Halieutica; the perceived degree of similarity between humans and other animals; and the ethical dimensions of that relationship, including the desire for bloodshed. This chapter focuses on the poet’s reflective engagement with the representation of animals in the Homeric epics, while Chapter 9 explores the ways in which the poet speaks also to a contemporary imperial Greek interest in the status of (non-human) animals.

The Halieutica opens by representing the sea as a vast, impenetrable, and unpredictable environment, its myriad inhabitants both fascinating and baffling. As often in ancient thought, the sea is imagined to bring both terror and adventure, mortal danger and new frontiers. For Oppian this is also a realm that marks an epistemological boundary, and the start of the poem is structured by a tension between what can be known and what cannot. The sea is in part available to be catalogued and described, yet its limits lie tantalisingly out of reach, and its depths have yet to be conquered by man. Book 1 – which catalogues sea-creatures according to habitat (1.93–445), before discussing their mating practices (1.446–797) – is not structured according to the moral qualities that dominate the following three books; it is concerned less with the failings of fish than with delineating the environment in which these creatures live and breed.1 In placing weight on the unfathomable enormity of the sea, I argue, the poet writes his work into a didactic epic tradition that draws attention to the process of gathering and disseminating knowledge, foregrounding not only the possibilities but also the epistemological challenges generated by the drive to catalogue such an immense and daunting realm.

The Halieutica proclaims itself the product of a distinctively imperial age. The poem opens by invoking not the gods or Muses but Marcus Aurelius (1.3), who is addressed and praised, sometimes together with his son Commodus, in every book.1 The emperor is represented as a figure of near-divine status, a glorious leader for whom all mortal actions are carried out (3.6), whose power over the natural world is so great that even fish delight at being caught by him (1.70), and who has ushered in the just and peaceful conditions under which the poem has been composed (2.684). Oppian’s laudatory language underscores the majesty of the all-powerful and divinely favoured emperor.2 This divine favour seems far-reaching indeed: Marcus is frequently invoked or addressed in association with the gods,3 and the poet at times switches unexpectedly between the two, leaving the reader momentarily uncertain as to the identity of the (divine or human) βασιλεύς being invoked (1.73, 5.45).4

The final book of the Halieutica is devoted primarily to κήτεα or large sea-creatures: dolphins, seals, dogfish, and other sizeable species. The core of the book relates the dramatic process of hunting and killing a vast and terrifying sea-monster, a beast that lies somewhere between a shark and a whale in form.1 This is a hunt of epic proportions: the account occupies the first half of the book (5.46–349), incorporates over a dozen extended similes and a barrage of metaphors and comparisons, and culminates in crowd of gawping onlookers, one of whom utters a terrified prayer at the sight of the creature’s grim corpse. No other episode in the Halieutica is related at such length. At the height of the hunt the whale thrashes furiously on an oversized hook, churning the sea with its panting breaths (5.207–22). This chapter builds outwards from an analysis of this moment, arguing that the episode confronts the reader with a vision of poetic allusivity in its most magisterial, incorporative guise. The scene, I show, draws attention to the scale, truth status, and power of epic poetry itself. The monstrous κῆτος represents a provocatively overpopulated palimpsest of myths, threats, and jostling epic intertexts – a composite foe that incorporates elements of Typhon and the Titans, Polyphemus, Charybdis, the Clashing Rocks, and the κήτεα of the wider poetic tradition.

Images of fluidity saturate this proem, which dramatises the transposition of Eros or desire to the sea. In a richly multisensory constellation of images, the Muses are said to have ‘crowned’ the poet with the gift of song, providing him with a sweet stream (γλυκὺ νᾶμα) to blend (κίρνασθαι) for his imperial addressees (4.10). The verb κίρνασθαι connotes the mixing of wine with water, depicting the poem as a drink to be consumed by the emperor, and exploiting the aquatic connection between its marine subject-matter (εἰνάλιος, 4.6) and the potable nature of the poetic drink. The adjective γλυκύς in turn suggests both the aesthetic appeal of this ‘sweet’ or delightful verse and an implied thematic contrast between brine and fresh water. The mixing metaphor thus advertises the skilful nature of the poet’s didactic role in transforming the raw materials of the salty sea into a palatable literary draught that benefits both ears and mind (οὔασι καὶ πραπίδεσσι, 4.10), imparting knowledge and pleasure to the audience in an expertly judged blend. The metaphor of ‘mixing’, I suggest, amounts to a manifesto for the poet’s didactic enterprise, drawing on ancient critical debates about the proper ‘educative’ or ‘entertaining’ function of poetry;1 it also sets out the poet’s wider literary and ethical agenda of the ‘blend’ or well-judged mean.

Examines Quintus’ use of memory as a device for literary recapitulation. Considers what happens when Quintus’ characters, who are ‘still in the Iliad’, remember the Iliad incorrectly. It is argued that rather than offering a correction of Homer’s version of events, Quintus uses the pliability of memory as a retrospective figure to defend and continue the act of poetic selectivity. He is therefore able to provide Homer’s response to charges of lying prevalent in revisionist strands of his imperial reception (e.g. in Dio Chrysostom, Dares, Dictys and Philostratus – who emerge as key players in this chapter).

Sets out the book’s critical framework and methodology. Outlines the current scholarly consensus regarding the Posthomerica and its place within imperial Greek epic. Emphasises the strong relationship between these readings and the ‘supplementary’ poetics attached to Roman, and particularly silver Latin, poetry.It then demonstrates the ways in which this book will depart from these readings. Introduces the concept of the ‘poetics of the interval’ as the key aspect of this departure: Quintus’ new formative poetics. Sets this poetics within and against various relevant traditions: pseudoepigraphia, the epic cycle, Latin literature. And sets up the political and cultural implications of this new framework: shows Quintus’ politically engaged interaction with imperial Greek performance culture,declamation and rhetoric, and other imperial Greek epic. Ends by establishing the ‘terms of engagement’: the book’s approach to key concepts such as intertextuality, allusion, postmodernism and ‘metapoetics’.

Analyses the re-animating culture of imperial Greek culture, focusing on sophistic declamations, ethopoetic exercises, ‘close encounter’ descriptions and Homeric performance. Suggests how all these spaces reveal a strong and very textually engaged awareness of the concept of ‘doubleness’ (being and not being the subject of one’s impersonation). By reading these modes alongside depictions of performance from within the Posthomerica (Nestor’s song, the song of the bards and the debate between Ajax and Odysseus) argues for the direct influence that they exerted on Quintus’ composition, providing models for how to expand creatively within the boundaries of a canonical, traditional text.

Considers how Quintus captures his stance towards Homer through the presentation of family relationships. Harnessing the frequent collusion between generational and poetic succession (examined using Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence’ and very prevalent in silver Latin poetry), Quintus first depicts a series of failed rivalrous filial usurpations – Penthesilea, Ajax, Achilles, Memnon – and shows that they fail because of their violent antagonism. He then portrays the two most successful examples of succession – Neoptolemus and Athena – as characterised by impersonation, embodiment and necromantic possession. This contrast becomes a reading of Quintus’ own positive and assimilating approach to Homer. Becoming the poetic father thus becomes the surest way to achieve lasting renown.