Alibis

Abstract

This is a general reading of Callimachus' work within the socio-political context of Ptolemaic Alexandria. "Alibis" refers to the constitutionally expatriate nature of the populace and culture established there, which in Callimachus gives rise to a poetics based on the principles of displacement and convergence. Close analysis of a wide variety of passages, drawn principally from the epigrams, Aetia, and Hymns, demonstrates how the "order of the alibi" informs all major aspects of the poet's work, from the lexical make-up of his texts to their larger narrative and thematic structure. Certain poems in the corpus, such as the Lock of Berenice and the Hymn to Apollo, not only require detailed knowledge of Greek literature, history, and religious institutions, but also draw extensively on Egyptian mythography and cultural models, which do not so much replace the Hellenic matter as-characteristically-cohabit with it. In this respect, Callimachus served both as a key architect of the new, multi-ethnic culture that the Ptolemies institutionalized in Egypt and as its most penetrating critic.

QUEER (A)EDI-(M)OLOGY: ON CALLIMACHUS’AETIAPROLOGUE

“…Hermesianax's emphasis on πάντα may also point to the fact that Philitas' lexicogrophy 'takes for its text not merely Homer but the totality of the language' (Bing [2003], 337, my italics). This (impossible) notion of an all-encompassing linguistic archive is also strongly Callimachean, as noted, e.g., by Selden (1998), 374, whose language resembles Hermesianax's description of Philitas: Callimachus' texts exhibit features that 'have been culled from every dialect and genre…from every stage of the language's historical development, and foreign sources' (my italics).…”

Hospitality Narratives in Virgil and Callimachus: The Ideology of Reception

“…1.36-7): see Wills (1987), Farrell (1997). 11 On the ideological force of the Aetia, see Weber (1993) 264-6;Selden (1998); Stephens (2002) 235-70, with 246-55 on the Victoria Berenices; Harder (2003); Asper (2011); Barbantani (2011); Acosta-Hughes and Stevens (2012) 148-203;Harder (2014); Clayman (2014) 89-104 and (on the Victoria Berenices) 145-7. 12 On Athens and the Ptolemies in this period, see Habicht (1992), esp.…”

Catullus, Serapis, and Harpocrates

“…Although hair-sacrifice was an element of Greek funerary ritual familiar from Homer, 43 her dedication of a tress in thanksgiving for a husband's safe return assimilates her even more closely to the mourning Isis, who cut her hair upon learning of Osiris' death and dismemberment. 44 Awareness of the Egyptian royal foundation myth is therefore essential to grasp the message Callimachus had attempted to convey.…”