Abstract

Καλλίμαχος τὸ κάθαρμα, τὸ παίγνιον, ὁ ξύλινος νοῦς,αἴτιος ὁ γράψας Αἴτια Καλλίμαχος.Callimachus [means] trash, trifle, wooden mind:the cause is the Callimachus who wroteCauses.This abusive epigram, probably composed in the first centuryc.e.by a certain Apollonius ‘Grammaticus’, has become famous on account of its false attribution to Apollonius of Rhodes and of its consequent identification as ‘evidence’ for the literary feud between Apollonius and Callimachus. Its literary features have attracted less interest. Cameron, for one, dismissed it, finding ‘no coherent literary thrust to the polemic’. I argue here that this epigram in fact shows close engagement with the poetics of Callimachus and his language of literary self-definition. As we find in other anti-Callimachean epigrams, the author ofAnth. Pal.11.275 crafts his insults by appropriating and transforming several Callimachean terms of literary-aesthetic value, which he then directs back against their creator.