In the six decades since Walter Wimmel’s seminal Kallimachos in Rom,[1] the Augustan poets’ debt to Callimachus has received much scholarly attention.[2] With her monograph Rival Praises, Celia M. Campbell adds another Callimachean perspective on Augustan literature.
Zooming in on the first pentad of the Metamorphoses, the author discusses Ovid’s references to and reverence for Callimachus’ Hymns. Campbell’s approach is philological: the questions she asks concern intertextuality, allusion, narratology, genre, geographical and etymological references. Although hymns take center stage, the book omits the realms of religion and cultic worship and of political panegyrics: Campbell assertively narrows her focus to literary hymns as texts to be read rather than performed (pp. 11–13). The hymnic tradition mentioned in the subtitle means first and foremost Callimachus’ extant corpus of six hymns, although some of the “Homeric” Hymns and hymnic texts by Hesiod, Pindar, Horace, Lucretius, Grattius, and Epicharmus are discussed as well.
The relationship between Ovid and Callimachus, both confident, playful poetae doctissimi, is presented as one of respectful rivalry. Rivalry, competition, and emulation are also at the heart of many passages Campbell focuses on: the rivalry among deities dominates most chapters, specifically those between Jupiter and Cupid (chapter 1), Jupiter and Apollo (chapter 2), Apollo and Diana (chapter 3), Diana and Minerva (chapter 4), the Muses and the Pierides (chapter 5), and Venus and Ceres (chapter 6). Other competitive relationships treated throughout the book include textual geographies (rivers, meadows, or palaces), diverging versions of certain myths (especially, but not exclusively those of Ovid and Callimachus), and different poetic traditions (pp. 5–11; chapter 4; and pp. 225–235). Since not all of Campbell’s densely argued points can be discussed here in detail, I limit myself to whetting the appetites for some representative lines of thought.
Competitive bickering between divine siblings is a recurring motif in Callimachus’s Hymns and in some of the “Homeric” Hymns that Callimachus refers to. Ovid continues this learned game: in his take on the twin deities Apollo and Diana, he creatively merges, adapts, and comments on source material from Pindar, Horace, Tibullus, and the “Homeric” Hymns, and Campbell disentangles all these twisted references in rich detail. Yet Ovid owes most of the “mythological, geographical, and narrative decisions” (p. 133) in this scene to Callimachus. While Apollo and Diana are usually portrayed as a harmonious dream team in Augustan literature, most prominently perhaps in Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, Ovid’s depiction of their relationship is more ambivalent and much closer to Callimachus’ hymnic corpus than to those of other Augustans. Comparing the siblings’ names, epithets, attributes, cult sites, and signature moves that are used and described throughout the Ovidian oeuvre, Campbell shows that Ovid frames them as competitors rather than as partners in crime. Daphne becomes a pawn in their rivalry, “a literary device, constructed to comment on the competing identities of Apollo and Diana” (p. 133). Initially Daphne, a Diana-like virginal figure who roams the woods in short skirts (but with Apolline flowing hair) and even cites Callimachus’ Artemis when she begs her father to let her remain unmarried, is forced into close association with Apollo (who has just lost another competitive trial of strength against Cupid). Apollo thus takes his sister’s follower and violently makes her his sacred tree. Instead of Artemisian eternal virginity, she gets eternal Apolline honors as his laurel crown. In addition, Ovid’s Daphne becomes a daughter of Peneus and, hence, a granddaughter of Cyrene (a Pindaric nymph who was not only another love-interest of Apollo, but also the name-giver of the region Callimachus claims to come from), and thereby a nexus of metapoetic, intertextual allusions.
For Athena, Callimachus creates an atypical role in his hymn On the Bath of Pallas: he connects her to the landscape of Helicon, and thus to poetic inspiration, arts and prophecy. In Ovid’s Book 5 of the Metamorphoses, Minerva also assumes the role of a Muse – and suitably inspires the Ovidian scene of the poetic contest between Muses and Pierides. In chapter 5, Campbell offers several compelling new insights about the Pierides: readers can look forward to stringent arguments about the poetic competition’s likeness to territorial civil war, the Pierides’ etymological connections to large size that befits their anti-Callimachean agenda, or the anti-Olympian sentiments in their hyper-epic Gigantomachy. Chapter 6 focuses on Calliope’s song that an unnamed Muse repeats verbatim for Minerva. It treats the topic covered in the “Homeric” Hymn to Demeter that Callimachus refused to talk about in his Hymn 6: the abduction and rape of Proserpina. Campbell analyzes Ceres’ and Venus’ shared responsibility and rivalry as fertility goddesses, examines the alleged virginity of Muses, goddesses, and nymphs, and outlines connections between Arethusa and Diana. Especially eye-opening and felicitous is the identification of the unnamed narrating Muse: Campbell detects hints to Hesiod, Pindar, Empedocles, and Ovid’s own Fasti, all of which point to Polyhymnia being the narrator.
Impatient readers looking for bold ‘hot takes’, subversive interpretations, or radical opinions about the literary canon, Ovidian power dynamics, or the portrayal of sexual violence will be held in suspense. Campbell offers essentially no catchy sensationalisms or reductive slogans, but there are some pointed statements and subtle puns. Enjoyable throughout the book are playful subheadings such as “A Game of Thrones: Whose Palatine? Whose Palace?” (p. 46) or “Musing on the Nature of Love” (p. 201). It is ‘slow philologists’ who can gain most from Campbell’s careful, diligent, and meticulously researched close-readings. Signposting is a clear strength of the book: each chapter, as is the entire book, is framed by an introductory overview and a summarizing conclusion; a general index and a thorough index locorum helps to navigate through the book; 42 pages of explanatory endnotes provide readers at all stages of their academic careers with various research avenues to follow up on. The book is generally well-edited; the few typos I have found (blank space missing on p. 24; unnecessary hyphen on p. 97; “closely” for “close” on p. 231; and “Euripedes” on p. 318) can easily be corrected in a second edition.
It is a pity that Campbell applies her hymnic perspective to only the first pentad of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Expanding the focus to Book 6, Book 8, and Book 15, for instance, would have been fruitful and illuminating, as Campbell also admits in her final envoi (pp. 232–235); I hope that this enterprise will be undertaken in the future either by the author herself or by praising colleagues (rather than rivals).
Notes
[1] Walter Wimmel, Kallimachos in Rom (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1960).
[2] On the reception of Callimachus in Augustan literature, see Richard L. Hunter, The Shadow of Callimachus: Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome (Cambridge 2006); Benjamin Acosta-Hughes and Susan Stephens, Callimachus in Context. From Plato to the Augustan Poets (Cambridge 2012), 204–274; and Alessandro Barchiesi, “Roman Callimachus,” in Brill’s Companion to Callimachus (Leiden 2011), 509–533. More specifically on Ovid’s reception of Callimachean poetics, see Stephen Hinds, Metamorphosis of Persephone. Ovid and the Self-Conscious Muse (Cambridge 1987), 18–21 and 128–133; and Edward J. Kenney’s influential article “Ovidius Prooemians,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 22 (1976), 50–52.