The last four decades have seen the continuing development, refinement, and expansion of an outstanding resource for classics students and scholars, namely the Aris & Phillips Classical Texts series (now published by Liverpool University Press). Like some other such series of classical texts, the Aris & Phillips library has grown not only in the number of volumes, but also in the size of individual contributions. The volume under review offers one example of the trend to release fuller-scale editions of major authors, a weighty new tome on Callimachus that offers an anthology of the great Hellenistic poet’s surviving fragmentary work. This big book (of nearly 700 pages) is one of those mammoth achievements that dispels any notion that a big book is necessarily a big evil. Together with Edith Hall’s similarly lavish 2024 Agamemnon in the same series, it is one of the “must have” titles among recent publications on Greek poetry.
These have been good years for readers of Callimachus. Major new editions and studies have appeared, the Loeb Classical Library has a splendid new three-volume set,[1] and the venerable Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics Hellenistic Anthology of the late Neil Hopkinson (for not a few, their first introduction to the author) has a second edition.[2] This rich field is now supplemented by this successful, highly recommended addition to the bibliography, a book that balances the needs of diverse audiences by not sacrificing detail and scholarly apparatus while maintaining relatively broad accessibility. That said, this would be a daunting book for an undergraduate with little background in Hellenistic poetry. On the other hand, graduate students should find it an essential vademecum to their exploration of the rich remnants of the genius from Cyrene.
One of the greatest strengths of this book may be noted from the start. The lengthy introduction is a superb survey of Callimachus’ life and work, including his afterlife in Greek verse, the difficult problem of his preservation and the intriguing question of who may have been the last person with access to a complete edition of the poet. Meter and prosody, peculiarities of language and diction, and the history of scholarship on the poet provide additional topics for consideration (there is a valuable separate listing of editions and commentaries). Graduate curricula would do well to consider assigning this introduction as a detailed yet succinct companion to Callimachean studies.
The introduction is especially helpful at tracing the development of Greek verse from the archaic and classical through the Hellenistic and imperial periods. This is no surprise, given the author’s particular expertise in the reception of Pindar in Ptolemaic poetry. The notes and individual, briefer introductions of this volume constitute a veritable paean to the intertextual game that Callimachus so ably mastered. All of these sections are packed with information, which is presented in a lucid style that manages not to overwhelm (no easy task given how much the editor has managed to include).
The bulk of the book is then devoted to the “select longer fragments” promised by the title. Each work is accorded its own introduction, followed by a critical text of the fragment, an English translation, and a detailed commentary. A long bibliography follows, together with a general index and an index of cited passages (of particular value). The commentary is especially strong on mythological notes, historical details, and metrical problems. The literary politics of Callimachus’ age are analyzed in detail, indeed to such a degree that someone working through this volume closely would receive a more than fair grounding in the history of Alexandrian (and beyond) poetry. Especially welcome in this regard is the study of the debts of Nonnus and Colluthus to Callimachus.
Among his selection of lyric samples, notably Kampakoglou includes Callimachus’ poem on the death of the sister-spouse of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Arsinoe II (the so-called Ἐκθέωσις Ἀρσινόης), a work that has received significant recent attention (not least a full-scale edition).[3] Callimachus’ occasional poetry has sometimes been comparatively neglected at the expense of, say, the Aetia and the Hecale. Users of this volume are treated to a more comprehensive view of the poet’s vast and diverse corpus, without missing favorites such as the Aetia prologue, Acontius and Cydippe, Berenice’s lock, and the first and fourth iambs. The emphasis throughout is on providing more than serviceable coverage of the poet’s diverse output. That said, given the scale of coverage and the length of the project, it made sense to produce a volume devoted to the fragmentary works alone.
The individual introductions to the fragments (especially when studied in close conjunction with the commentaries) provide students with a serviceable entry to the study of textual criticism, paleography, and the (sometimes patchwork) history of Callimachean recovery. In this regard the text is also judiciously presented (it is taken from the existing editions). In a volume like this, the goal is to produce a reliable text rooted in the textual decisions made by those who produced full-scale editions. Those who work through the lyric fragments in particular will be treated to a valuable primer on the problems and perils of textual criticism and the art of making conjectures.
Perhaps the most noteworthy achievement of this ambitious project is the way in which both introduction and commentary manage to present a long and complicated history both of preservation and of exegesis, in a manner that is accessible both to seasoned readers of Alexandrian verse in the original, and to users from other disciplines who lack Greek.
The editor expressly notes that the translations are not meant to aspire to literary quality (a standard disclaimer in such works). Certainly, they succeed at making clear how the Greek is being construed, which is the goal.
One refreshing feature of this book is the manner in which it displays its thorough grounding in the work of its predecessors. This is not a contentious study. Rather, on every page there is illustration of how it fits into the ever more formidable Callimachean catena. To the degree that users are familiar with the editorial work of Pfeiffer, Massimilla, Harder, et al., this book will be all the more valuable. For novice readers of the poem, the notes and introductions offer good suggestions on where to go next.
Another point that should be noted to the credit of this project is that it focuses on providing an abundance of detail (prejudicing the specific over the general), and that amid the panoply of resources marshalled to explicate the sometimes frustratingly enigmatic remains of the poet, there is a marked effort to avoid succumbing to the temptation of over-analyzing paltry fragments, or of erecting ramshackle reconstructions. Anyone working on Callimachus is entering a potential minefield in terms of this or that interpretive or textual problem. Kampakoglou wisely steers a middle course that is imbued with the scholarly labors that make any new book on the Aetia or Iambi possible. This is not so much a book that avoids controversy, as it is one that displays an acute awareness of the provisional nature of much of most of our conclusions about the poet, from the problems of his biography to the structure and analysis of his less than well preserved pieces.
On every page, the focus is maintained on basic questions: what did Callimachus say, why did he say it in the manner he did, and what influence did he have on other artists? To give but one example of many, readers of the Coma Berenices section will be treated to an expert summation of the practice of astronomical and astrological verse (especially in court poetry), the preservation of the piece, and Catullus’ celebrated reception of his Ptolemaic predecessor.
Production values here are good when it comes to proofreading and copyediting. For the price, the binding could have been better (this is becoming a lost art in academic publishing). But all things considered, this is a lovely book.
Kampakoglou’s Aris & Phillips is an ideal choice for courses on Callimachus at either the undergraduate or graduate level (there is more than enough to fill a term), and it is easily supplemented with an edition of one or more of the hymns. It complements existing major resources, while admirably charting its own path by offering insightful, original analyses of controversial, difficult passages. The editor is to be congratulated for a welcome addition to the Callimachean bibliography, and we await his planned second volume for the same series, which will include all of the epigrams.
Notes
[1] D.L. Clayman, ed., Callimachus (3 vols.), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2022.
[2] N. Hopkinson, ed., A Hellenistic Anthology (Second Edition), Cambridge, 2020.
[3] Z. Adorjáni, ed., Kallimachos’ Ektheosis Arsinoes in der Tradition griechischer Herrscherenkomiastik: Einleitung, Text und Kommentar (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 158), Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2024. For a convenient introduction to the problems posed by this enigmatic piece, see B. Acosta-Hughes, “A Lost Pavane for a Dead Princess (Call. Fr. 228 Pf.),” in J.J.H. Klooster, M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, and G.C. Wakker, eds., Callimachus Revisited: New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Hellenistica Groningana, Vol. 24), Leuven: Peeters Publishers 2019: 5-26 (a work that the edition under review makes good use of in its treatment of this intriguing, difficult work).