¹ My thanks are due to P. G. McC. Brown for kindly reading and acutely criticizing a first draft.

² On the meaning of ‘cantores Euphorionis’ see n.25 below. Of course Cicero means to imply through this reference other peculiarities besides a warped sense of style. But style is clearly his main preoccupation, here as it Att. 7.2.1. At Att. 7.2.1. he hits at poets who cultivate an abstruse stylistic preciosity; at Tusc. 3.45 he stresses the corollary, the scorn of affected stylists for classical Ennian grandeur.

³ Note the cautious or sceptical views of Crowther, and of Bramble, J. C., Persius and the Programmatic Satire (Cambridge, 1974), pp.180 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Quinn is fairly cautious too (1.44–8) and refers to articles which forthrightly attack the notion of a school. Bardon (358–67) sees the neoterics as a rather vague and general movement (not a. school) and includes poets and types of poetry which must be excluded. Similarly, Schanz-Hosius, , 285–6.Google ScholarWiseman, , 44–58Google Scholar, holds a rather different view from mine as to who the neoterics were and what it was they did that was neoteric. Ross writes (p.11) ‘There is no question that Catullus was a neoteric poet’ and his book seeks among other things to arrive at a definition of what constituted neoteric poetry. But again his conclusions are rather different from mine, although at times our paths interestingly converge. (It should be noted that my views on neotericism have changed since CR 22 (1972), 37—Google Scholar my review of Ross.) Some of the most useful remarks to date on the neoterics are in Wheeler, A. L., Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry (California, 1934), pp.77–86.Google Scholar

⁴ In a forthcoming work on Poetae Novelli.

⁵ Cf. Wiseman, , 51.Google Scholar

⁶ But what else? ‘poetae novi’ or ‘new poets’ is unsuitable for the reason implied above. As for ‘cantores Euphorionis’, we still require confirmation that the term refers to the same group. Anyway it too is uncomplimentary. We will use the term that derives from the most significant and useful of Cicero's references-confident that the poets themselves would appreciate the irony.

⁷ Professor Cameron, , op. cit.,Google Scholar writes: ‘It is in this sense [i.e. the general, relative sense] … that Cicero … used the term of certain contemporary writers; not because they were prophets of a ‘new poetry’, but precisely because (in his opinion) they were epigoni.’

⁸ For Catullus' dates see conveniently Quinn II.xii–xv.

⁹ Catullus heavily emphasizes that the poem has been well begun: cf. Quinn 11.194–5. I think the implication is that too much attention to the Candida puella is holding up Caecilius' literary progress.

¹⁰ Catullus seems to have been particularly close to Calvus. Certainly later writers closely associated them—like a kind of double act: cf. Hor. Serm. 1.10.18 f.Google Scholar, etc.; Wiseman, , 52 n.43.Google Scholar

¹¹ The fragments are collected in Morel, W., Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum (2nd edn.Leipzig, 1927).Google Scholar On Calvus see conveniently Schanz-Hosius, , 289 f.Google Scholar, Bardon, 341–4. Cinna: Schanz-Hosius, , 307 f.Google Scholar, Bardon, 344–7 and now Wiseman, , 44–58Google Scholar; Wiseman has in fact pertinent things to say about most of these poets. Valerius Cato: Schanz-Hosius, , 287 f.Google Scholar, Bardon, , 337–41Google Scholar, Robinson, R. P., TAPA 54 (1923), 98–116Google Scholar, Crowther, N. B., CP 66 (1971), 108–9.Google Scholar Cornificius: Schanz-Hosius, , 309 f.Google Scholar, Bardon, , 355–6Google Scholar, Rawson, E., this volume of CQ, 188–201.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. Call. Epigr. 27 and 28 Pf., Aetia praef. (frg. 1 Pf.), Kroll, W., C. Valerius Catullus (4th edn.Stuttgart, 1960), pp.266 f.Google Scholar, Clausen, 188 f. Catull. 95b (‘at populus tumido gaudeat Antimacho’) repeats Callimachean polemic: cf. Call. frg. 398 Pf. .

¹³ I think it quite possible (given the situation with Volusius) that the Furius who has attacked Catullus on literary grounds (poem 16) and who is in turn subjected to banter or abuse by Catullus (poems 16, 23, and 26; and the address in poem 11 is surely ironical) is in fact the disastrous epic poet Furius (‘Alpinus’) parodied by Horace (see Serm. 2.5.40, with Porph. ad loc, Serm. 1.10.36 with Wickham ad loc., and Rudd below), and that at least part of the reason for Catullus' enmity towards him is literary. I am inclined to believe too that Furius ‘Alpinus’ is one and the same as Furius Bibaculus (those ancient sources who specify do in fact identify the epic Furius with Bibaculus). The main arguments in favour of supposing Furius ‘Alpinus’ and Furius Bibaculus to be two different people are usefully set out by Rudd, Niall (The Satires of Horace (Cambridge, 1966), pp.289 f.Google Scholar), together with many more useful references to their (or his) work. On Bibaculus see too Schanz-Hosius, , 290–2Google Scholar. A main point for Rudd in favour of separating them is that a ‘Neoteric’ is hardly likely to have written an historical epic. But there is no reason to suppose Furius Bibaculus to have been a ‘Neoteric’ or even a poet in sympathy with the Catullan coterie (though this is the usual view: cf. Quinn 1.44, Bardon, , 347 ff.Google Scholar). The only Furius that Catullus acknowledge: is, as we have seen, no great chum; and Furius Bibaculus' poems on Val. Cato (frgs. 1 and 2 M) strike me as far from unequivocally admiring or friendly. All that Furius Bibaculus has in common with Catullus is the not very striking phenomenon of a taste for abusive versicles; cf. Quint. 10.1.96, Tac. Ann. 4.34. In short (though there are problems of chronology which can be argued to and fro) I think there is probably only one Furius in play. I certainly feel there is no cause to divorce Bibaculus from ‘Alpinus’.

¹⁴ Poem 116 is very usefully explained by Macleod, C. W., CQ N.S. 23 (1973), 304–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ Cf. my Catullus, Handbook (Cambridge, 1975), pp.1–5.Google Scholar On Callimachus' aesthetics cf. usefully Brink, K. O., CQ 40 (1946), 11–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 16–19, Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1968), pp.137–8Google Scholar, Reitzenstein, E., ‘Zur Stiltheorie des Kallimachos’ in Festschrift Richard Reitzenstein (Leipzig/Berlin, 1931), pp.23–69.Google Scholar

The fact is perhaps underestimated that Callimachus will, to an extent, be misrepresenting critics in the preface to the Aetia—that of course is in the nature of polemic. No one would really maintain that we should judge poetry by its length (). The real alternative to the yardstick of is, I suppose, worth or seriousness of content: cf. Aristotle's (Poetics 1449^b) etc. (Brink, p.18). Callimachus is in many respects close to l'art pour l'art.

¹⁶ Cf. Quinn 1.5–18, Ross, , 137 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Cf. Veil. 2.16.3 and Münzer, F., Hermes 49 (1914), 196–205Google Scholar (and Quinn II.432); contrast Fordyce, 384.

¹⁸ Pliny in fact invokes as precedent for his filthy verses M. Tullius, C. Calvus, Asinius Pollio, M. Messalla, Q. Hortensius, M. Brutus, L. Sulla, Q. Catulus, and many other worthies (‘doctissimi, grauissimi, sanctissimi’) including four emperors.

²⁰ On the epyllion see Crump, M. M., The Epyllion from Theocritus to Ovid (Oxford, 1931)Google Scholar. I am in the process of completing my own monograph on the nature and history of the epyllion. For further comment which bears on epyllion's subject matter see below, pp. 182, 184.

²⁰ Calvus frg. 9 M: Met. 1.632 (Calvus frg. 9 is also echoed by Vergil at Ecl. 6.47– which is where Servius quotes it); frg. 11: Met. 1.713.

¹¹ Quint 10.4.4 and Serv. on Verg. Eel. 9.35 repeat or corroborate Catullus' evidence on the time taken in composition. Suet. gramm. 18 reports that an explanatory commentary was written by L. Crassicius. This commentary was celebrated in a clever little epigram (parodying Catullus) which Suet, quotes.

²² Cf. Otis, B., Ovid as an Epic Poet (2nd edn.Cambridge, 1970), pp.420 f.Google Scholar

²³ Cf. Sudhaus, S., Hermes 42 (1907), 185 n.3Google Scholar, Bardon, , 340.Google Scholar I think in fact that ve can learn much more about Cato's Diana, and about Calvus' Io and Cinna's Zmyrna, from a study of the Ciris which nost probably borrowed from all of them. See my forthcoming edition of Ciris C. U. P.).

²⁴ Cf. Wiseman, , 55,Google Scholar with useful bibliography. The Glaucus story was told by Hedyle, Hedylus, Alexander of Aetolus, and, it seems, Callimachus: cf. Webster, , 52 and 130Google Scholar, and the Suda, s.v. Callimachus.

²⁵ The meaning of ‘cantor’ here is often missed or blurred (and some nuances may indeed escape us); cf. of course Hor. Serm. 1.10.1Google Scholar ‘nil praeter Caluum et doctus cantare Catullum’. The basic sense in both cases must simply be ‘chant’, ‘recite’. Devotees are being referred to who can only, or only want to, chant or recite the verses of their favoured poet. But the implication in ‘cantores Euphorionis’ (at least) is probably that the devotees also chanted verses of their own, in the style of their idol. Cf. Allen, W., ‘ “Cantare” and “Cantores Euphorionis” ‘, TAPA 103 (1972), 1–14Google Scholar, especially p.13.

²⁶ On Euphorion see conveniently Webster, , 221–7Google Scholar with bibliography. The quotations are from pp.223–5.

²⁷ The poem is excellently discussed by Fraenkel, E., JRS 45 (1958), 1–8.Google Scholar

²⁸ Wiseman (56) conjectures that Caecilius' story was aetiological, something like Hermesianax's account (for which see Paus. 7.17.5, frg. 8 Powell).

²⁹ Quinn 11.284 f. gives some information on the very rare galliambic metre and quotes Varro's lines (Men. 79, 131, 132, 275). On galliambics see further below, p.181.

³⁰ Ross maintains that Catullus displays an artistry, an originality, and sophistication of style in his polymetrics and ‘longer poems’ that he does not display in his epigrams—and there is truth in this (cf. my review CR N.S. 22 (1972), 34–7Google Scholar). Ross also calls this artistry of style neoteric artistry, which may also (with qualifications) be justifiable. But we could not then say (not that Ross in so many words does) that such precious polymetrics would be sufficien on their own to distinguish a neoteric poet. It is hard to imagine that the uersiculi of Memmius and Hortensius were so very different from (e.g.) Catullus' (except in one respect which I am coming to). We may note that the ‘Graeci plusculi’ in Gellius (above, p.172) thought that Catullus and Calvus did stand out somewhat in the matter of lyric poetry; but they lumped Cinna with Laevius, Hortensius, and Memmius, considering them all, for much the same reasons, pretty hopeless.

³¹ Much of the ‘Catullan Revolution’ was therefore very particularly a Catullan revolution. Quinn (1.26), when defining the revolution, talks of the poet becoming ‘an independent personality who forces his personality into his poetry’ and of the unit becoming ‘the short poem, intensely personal …’ But is it not particularly Catullus' Lesbia poetry that this suits? And yet on p.24 Quinn talks of ‘The revolution that the poetae novi represent’.

Wiseman (52), referring to the ‘beginnings of personal poetry’ and noting how most scholars attribute these beginnings to the ‘neoteric movement’, is himself more circumspect: ‘For that, the “Catullan revolution” … we can certainly give the credit to Catullus himself and perhaps also to Calvus …’; later in the paragraph he says that ‘Cinna himself wrote love poetry’. But ‘personal poetry’ and ‘love poetry’ are terms that must be very clearly defined. There is a world of difference between the ‘personal poetry’ of Catullus and that of say Anacreon, or Sappho, or Meleager; and there was probably a world of difference between Catullus' and Calvus'.

Other scholars, like Schanz-Hosius, , 285–6Google Scholar, tend simply to assume or imply that Catullus was completely typical of the neoteric school.

³² e.g. at Ov. Am. 1.15.27 ff., and Apul. Apol. 10.

³³ Cf. Schanz-Hosius, , 312 f.Google Scholar On the chronology of Varro's works cf. too Hofmann, E., WS 46 (1927/1928), 170–6.Google Scholar

³⁴ On Calvus' epicedion and Catullus 96 see Fraenkel, E.‘Catulls Trostgedicht für Calvus’, WS 69 (1956), 278–88 (cf. too the next note).Google Scholar

³⁵ Note the text is ‘missas’ not ‘amissas’. Cf. Fraenkel, , op. cit., pp.285–8.Google Scholar (K. Bringmann has an ingenious alternative explanation of the couplet 3–4—that it refers to a mythological section in Calvus' epicedion, to mythical exempla which Calvus adduced as a mirror and comfort for his suffering: cf. MH 30 (1973), 25–31Google Scholar. The existence of such a mythological section in Calvus is highly likely—as B. shows; but B.'s interpretation of Catullus seems to me to founder—chiefly on ‘quo desiderio’. ‘desiderium’ is particularly the yearning one feels—it is the vox propria— for something personally dear that is parted from one or lost for always.)

³⁶ On Calvus' and Parthenius' epicedia see conveniently and interestingly Pfeiffer, R., ‘A Fragment of Parthenios' Arete’, CQ 37 (1943), 23–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; further bibliography at Wiseman, , 50 n.33.Google Scholar I am prepared now to reconsider my sceptical attitude (CR N.S. 22 (1972), 36 n.4Google Scholar) to Parthenius' influence on the neoterics–with qualifications however: see § IX. Pfeiffer's remarks in this connection (op. cit., pp.30–1Google Scholar) are cogent; so too are Wiseman's, , 47 ff.Google Scholar See also the useful and cautious article of Crowther, N. B., ‘Parthenius and Roman Poetry’, Mnemosyne 29 (1976), 66–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

I should have thought that the fact that no pseudonym (apparently) is used for Quintilia points to her status as wife rather than mistress. Certainly it seems that the poets in the ‘Lesbia’ tradition almost invariably used pseudonyms for lovers whether they were freedwomen or not (Camps on Prop. 2.34.89 suggests Quintilia might be a freedwoman of the Quintilii). It is certainly a very risqué act, to be specially remarked, when later on a married woman is celebrated under her real name (Ov. Trist. 2.437–8). (The assumption that Quintilia was Calvus' wife is also attacked by Trankle, H. in ‘Neoterische Kleinigkeiten’, MH 24 (1967), 93–9.)Google Scholar

³⁷ Parthenius' epicedion for Arete possibley did: Pfeiffer, , op.cit., p. 32.Google Scholar

³⁸ Cf. Verg. Ecl. 9.35 ‘nam neque adhuc Vario uideor nee dicere Cinna/digna’; Valgius Rufus praises a fellow-poet by equating him with Cinna (Schol. Veron. on Verg. Ecl. 7.22). The commentaries on Cinna's works, mentioned on pp.173 and 186, testify to his continuing fame.

Wiseman (53–8) argues for the primacy of Cinna among the neoterics (as he defines them).

³⁹ What (the question ought to be faced) of Valerius Cato and ‘Lydia’? Suet. gramm. 11 writes that Cato wrote ‘praeter grammaticos libellos etiam poemata ex quibus praecipue probantur Lydia et Diana. Lydiae Ticida meminit “Lydia doctorum maxima cura liber”.’ But this hardly sounds like a book of love poetry to a Lesbia-figure called Lydia. Perhaps the liber was more like Antimachus' Lyde: narrative elegiacs for, or in memory of, a girl; or perhaps Lydia in Asia Minor is meant (cf. Euphorion's Thrax?). At all events I imagine that the work was abstruse and mythological: there is a nice humour in calling such a book the ‘cura’ (‘the beloved’) of ‘docti’. It is the sort of joke that was made about Cinna's Zmyrna and the ‘doctus’ Crassicius in the epigram reported by Suetonius (gramm. 18). Cato's Lydia was, incidentally, certainly not the Lydia of the Appendix Vergiliana, which is patently influenced by the Augustan Elegists.

⁴⁰ Ross, , 129–30.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ross, , 130–1.Google Scholar

⁴² Ross, , 135.Google Scholar

⁴³ Hardly a revolutionary thesis of course: but my view of what direction the neoterics' Callimacheanism took is much more defined and specific than, say, Clausen's (187 ff.).

⁴⁴ On poem 62 as a narrative see above p.175, referring to Fraenkel's article.

⁴⁵ I take it that Callimachus considered efforts to write long, consistent, and continuous narrative in elegiacs just as disastrous as efforts to write traditional epic—for much the same reasons. And all such efforts—not just Antimachus'. We should remember that there are good grounds for supposing that Callimachus criticized the long narrative elegies of even Philitas and Mimnermus (Aetia praef. 10 ff.: see conveniently Trypanis (Loeb. edn.) ad loc., Lesky, A., A History of Greek Literature (English transl. 1966) pp.710 f.;Google Scholar Lesky is against this view, but he cites the evidence). Callimachus' own discontinuous, capriciously apportioned narrative episodes in elegiacs (e.g. in the Aetia) will have been as different from Antimachus' Lyde (and perhaps from Philitas' longer elegy and Mimnermus' Nanno) as his Hecate is from Apollonius' Argonautica—which is a lot, but not quite as much (perhaps) as Callimachus thought or would have us think. On Antimachus see further Lesky, , op. cit., p.638Google Scholar, Wilamowitz, U. von, Hellenisticbe Dicbtung (Berlin, 1924), i.101–3Google Scholar, also (though I disagree with the article in some quite important respects) Vessey, D. W. T. C., ‘The Reputation of Antimachus of Colophon’, Hermes 99 (1971), 1–10.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hephaestion 12.3 tells us that the very rare galliambic metre was particularly associated with the ‘magna mater’; he quotes two ‘famous’ lines (reminiscent of parts of Catull. 63): ; and the scholiast on this passage tells us that ‘Callimachus also used the metre.’ Cf. Elder, J. P., AJPh 68 (1947), 397 n.2, 397 n.9.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Is the Attis of Catull. 63 supposed to recall and ‘correct’ the image of the original mythical lover of Cybele (for whom see Graillot, P., Le Culte de Cybklè (Paris, 1912), e.g. p.12)?Google Scholar Or is he meant just to be an (idiosyncratically Greek and repentant) eunuch priest (priests of Cybele were named eponymously Attis: cf. Anth. Pal. 6.220, Graillot e.g. p.19)? I rather infer the former; Wilamowitz, , op. cit. ii.292Google Scholar seems to be on the side of the latter.

⁴⁸ Cf. Wilamowitz, , op. cit. ii. 291–5,Google Scholar Fordyce, 262. Elder, , op. cit., p.398Google Scholar, remarks on the ‘Callimachean’ narrative technique of the poem.

⁴⁹ Frg. 44 L-P. There is some doubt about the ascription as well as the nature of this poem: cf. Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry ² (Oxford, 1961), pp.227–31.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cf. RE i ^A2371 f.Google Scholar (We should note that Crusius, RE i. 1569.13 ff.Google Scholar detects reminiscences in Theoc. Id. 18 of Alcman—who was called by Leonidas (Antb. Pal. 7.19) ).

⁵¹ Cf. Maas, in RE ix.133.15 ff.Google Scholar

⁵² Cf. RE ix.133.4–38:Google Scholar the reported of Eratosthenes may have been for an actual wedding; those that Philodemus has in mind certainly are.

⁵³ The Alexandrians collected Sappho's epithalamia into a special book—while the rest of her poetry was organized according to metre (RE ix. 132.24 ff.Google Scholar). This may betoken an especial popularity for the particular genre; it was surely likely to encourage imitation.

⁵⁴ Cf. Reitzenstein, R., Zur Spracbe der lateinische Erotik (Heidelberg, 1912), p.3Google Scholar; also Wilamowitz, , op. cit. ii.279 n.l.Google Scholar But note Crowther, N. B., Mnemosyne 29 (1976), 67 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁵ The tendency of later epyllion's subject matter is probably fairly enough represented by Parthenius' collection of , written for Cornelius Gallus to draw upon and put (presumably what we should call epyllions) Many of the stories derive from Euphorion. On Gallus and Euphorion see below, §VIII.

⁵⁶ Cf. Fordyce, , 236–8.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Wiseman therefore (54) makes too much of the difference between Catullus' subject matter in poem 64 and that of the other neoterics' epyllions. The tactics of unorthodoxy seem to be fairly different in all of them, but the strategy, and the orthodoxy being played against, is common to all.

⁵⁸ Cf. Moschus' Europa and e.g. Parthen (cf. n.55 above) 4 (Oenone and Paris).

⁵⁹ See conveniently Fordyce, 344. As well as noting a plenitude of five-word hexameters, we should note three-word pentameters at 74 and 112. The extensive hypotaxis which Fordyce points to disapprovingly was probably intended by Catullus to be appreciated as mannered and contrived ars.

⁶⁰ Cf. how he has probably adapted a neoteric form to his particular use with poem 61; but the poetic achievement is not remotely comparable.

⁶¹ Cf. Kroll, W., C. Valerius Catullus ⁴ (Stuttgart, 1960), p.219.Google Scholar

⁶² Cf. Williams, G., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968), pp.229 ff.Google Scholar

⁶³ This has been argued most recently by Wiseman, , 88–103.Google Scholar One does not have to accept the suggestion that Manlius had his eye on sharing Catullus' mistress (I imagine he simply wants Catullus to organize a girl for him) to appreciate the cogency of some of Wiseman's points.

⁶⁴ Our collection could not possibly have been produced by Catullus himself, and the degree to which the present order of poems still reflects any of his original wishes is largely speculation. Several factors suggest that the ordering of the ‘longer poems’ in particular is not his. Such are the unassailable conclusions to be drawn from Wheeler, A. L., Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry (California, 1934), pp.1–32Google Scholar, especially 22ff.;also39f.

⁶⁵ Cf. Webster, , p ff.Google Scholar, especially 221–3, Clausen, 191 f.; Crowther, , 325–6.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Cf. Crowther, , 326–7Google Scholar, Bramble, J. C. (n.3), p.181.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Cf. the following footnote.

⁶⁸ But Servius' note is vaguer than many admit. The crucial words are as follows: ‘in quo <luco> aliquando Calchas et Mopsus dicuntur de peritia diuinandi inter se habuisse certamen … hoc autem Euphorionis continent carmina, quae Gallus transtulit in sermonem latinum …’ This seems to me to imply Servius’ knowledge of, or belief in, two separate facts: (1) that somewhere in his works Euphorion had told of or referred to the story of Calchas' and Mopsus' contest; (2) that Gallus ‘translated’ (one knows incidentally how loosely transfero is used by Servius) Euphorionic poetry. Nothing preciser. He may wish to imply that Gallus ‘translated’ a poem by Euphorion about Calchas and Mopsus, i.e. that the two facts should be put together; but he certainly does not commit himself to saying so. I think, in fact, it is clear that he knows at first hand no poem by either Gallus or Euphorion on Calchas and Mopsus, or for that matter any poem at all by them connected with the Grynean Grove.

⁶⁹ Cf. Clausen, , 192.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Cf. Wiseman, , 48Google Scholar, with references

⁷¹ I. Cazzaniga compares some fragmentary lines of Parthenius with Catull. 68.94—100 at Parola del Passato 16 (1961), 124–6.Google Scholar

⁷² Cf. Catull. 14, 35, 50 etc. (above, § III), Cinna frg. 14. The idea of Valerius Cato as the ‘Leader’ of the school has once more (it should not have been necessary) been exposed by Wiseman, , 53 f.Google Scholar

⁷³ Wiseman, , 47,Google Scholar cogently supports the notion that it was ‘Cinna the Poet’ who captured Parthenius, brought him to Rome, and then freed him on account of his learning.