¹ E.g. νρρηξαν δ᾽ ἄρα τοχους (12) recalls Il. 7.461 τειχος ναρρξας; ἂμ πλαγος (20) occurs at Od. 5.330, Hes. Theog. 190.

² E. 27, fr. 460 Pf.

³ Cf. Fraser, P. M., Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1972), pp. 635–6Google Scholar; Mooney, G. W. ed., The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Dublin, 1912; repr. Amsterdam, 1987), p. 24.Google Scholar

⁴ The Aratus addressed at Id. 6.2 and the man of the same name mentioned at Id. 7.98 were generally identified with the poet from Soli until von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., ‘Aratos von Kos’, Kleine Schriften II (Berlin, 1971), pp. 71–89Google Scholar (= Gött. Nachr. 1894, 182–99) pointed out the frailty of the support for such an identification.

⁵ Gow, A. S. F., Theocritus² (Cambridge, 1952; repr. 1965) II, p. 327Google Scholar. Rossi, M., Theocritus' Idyll XVII: A Stylistic Commentary (Amsterdam, 1989), pp. 8–10, is more confident about Theocritean borrowing here.Google Scholar

⁶ The text is that of Martin, J., Arati Phaenomena (Florence, 1956).Google Scholar

⁷ The passage continues until line 908. Cf. Phaen. 994–8: σκπτεο δ᾽ εὔδιος μν ὼν π χεματι μαλλον, / ς δ γαληναην χειμωνθεν, εὐ δ μλα χρ / ς Φτνην ραν, τν Καρκνος μϕιελσσει, / πρωτα καθαιρομνην πσης ὑπνερθεν μχλης / κενη γρ ϕθνοντι καθαρεται ν χειμωνι.

⁸ Maass, E., Aratea, Philologische Untersuchungen 12 (Berlin, 1892), p. 259Google Scholar; Wilamowitz (above, n. 4) p. 85.

⁹ Gow (above, n. 5), p. 119 n. 3; cf. Cholmeley, R. J., The Idylls of Theocritus (London, 1919), p. 17Google Scholar. A notable exception is Effe, B., RhM 121 (1978), 65 n. 32.Google Scholar

¹⁰ QUCC 53 (n.s. 24 (1986)), 47–53. Wilamowitz emphasized that the pseudo-Theophrastean De Signis (23) contains a passage on the Manger; Pendergraft, 49–50, points out, however, that the treatise has been shown to be a secondary compilation based on a variety of sources, including Aratus, and presumably also postdating Theocritus; she concludes that it is more likely that ‘Aratus’ poem was also the source of Theocritus' acquaintance with [the Asses' Manger] than that he perused some other of the hypothetical sources of the De Signis' (50).

¹¹ Mr A. S. Hollis suggests that the description of the Manger as μανρ (Id. 22.21) contributes to the creation of an Aratean atmosphere; although Aratus does not use the adjective itself, his word to describe dimness in stars, ϕανρς (cf. Phaen. 256, 277, etc.), differs by just one letter, and the Theocritean description might thus be a further example of imitation and variation of Aratus. Homer has only εἴδωλον μανρν at Od. 4.824, 835.

¹² Meineke's emendation οὐρανν εἰσανιντα for MSS οὐρανου ξανιντα is now widely accepted, and is supported by the reading of Gow's P3 (P. Antinoae), which has ]σανιοντα; for other proposals see the bibliography cited by Gow (above, n. 5), p. 586.

¹³ The closest párallel that I can find from antecedent hexameter poetry is Hes. WD 728: αὐτρ πε κε δῃ, μεμνημνος, ἔς τ᾽ νιντα.

¹⁴ pace Gow (above, n. 5), p. 119.

¹⁵ They bear no such responsibility for their trouble in the thirty-third Homeric hymn, where the Dioscuri are saviours of ships ὅτε τε σπρχωσιν ἄελλαι (7). As Gow (above, n. 5), p. 386, notes, the sense of the verb βιζομαι is here the same as in such expressions as τοὺς νμους β. and τ θεια β. at, e.g. Thuc. 8.53 and Paus. 2.1.5 respectively (cf. also Lys. 6.52); Gow's ‘wilfully disregarding,’ however, seems to me not sufficiently to capture the notion of force. Theocritus' expression bears a general resemblance to Apollonius' λαιτμα βιησμενοι, used in connection with the Argonauts' contemplated return to Mysia: κα νύ κεν ἂψ πσω Μυσων π γαιαν ἵκοντο / λαιτμα βιησμενοι νμον τ᾽ ἄλληκτον ἰων (A.R. 1.1298–9); for the possible connections between the Argonautica and the Theocritean storm narrative, see below.

¹⁶ On similar grounds, B. Effe (above, n. 9), 65 n. 32, suggests that the Theocritean storm scene is inspired by the Phaenomena, though at the level of diction he notes only the ‘unmistakably’ Aratean flavor of Id. 22.19–22. Meteorology, of course, is of great importance at sea, and Aratus naturally emphasizes the grave perils facing sailors who ignore the warnings of the constellations (153–5, 287ff., 758ff.).

¹⁷ E.g. Campbell, M., Hermes 102 (1974), 38–41Google Scholar; Dover, K. J., Theocritus. Select Poems (Basingstoke and London, 1971), p. 181Google Scholar; Hutchinson, G. O., Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford, 1988), p. 192Google Scholar; cf. now Effe, B., Hermes 120 (1992), 299–309Google Scholar. The opposing view has been expressed most fully by Köhnken, A., Apollonios Rhodios und Theokrit. Die Hylas- und die Amykosgeschichten beider Dichter und die Frage der Priorität (Göttingen, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on which see Griffin, J., CR 16 (1966), 300–2.Google Scholar

¹⁸ I have found connections between the proem and the Argonautica mentioned only by Griffiths, F. T., Theocritus' Hymn to the Dioscuri (Diss. Cambridge, MA, 1974), pp. 82–4Google Scholar (cf. HSPh 80 [1976], 299Google Scholar), who observes phonetic and verbal similarities to two Apollonian contexts, both closely associated with the Polydeuces–Amycus episode: the wave simile applied to Amycus at 2.70ff. and the actual wave that threatens the Argo immediately after its departure from Bebrycian territory at 2.169ff.

¹⁹ In Apollonius' account, the Argo is held fast between the Symplegades; Athena draws back one of the rocks with her left hand, simultaneously pushing the ship through with her right. Theocritus' Dioscuri, for their part, are said actually to drag sinking vessels even from the deep; in this respect the Theocritean version differs markedly from the thirty-third Homeric Hymn, where the twins intervene simply by stopping the storm without physically manipulating the ship in any way.

²⁰ Cf. HH 33.11–12: τν δ᾽ ἄνεμς τε μγας κα κυμα θαλσσης / θηκαν ὑποβρυχην.Google Scholar

²¹ The expression μγα κυμα, common in Homeric poetry, occurs in Apollonius only in this passage and later, in the dative, in the parallel account of the Argonauts' voyage through another set of rocks, the Planctae (4.924).

²² Apollonius has πρυμνθεν apparently in the sense of πρμνηθεν at A.R. 4.911 (contrast 4.1686). Aratus, who also uses πρυμνθεν in this way (343), has πρμνηθεν once, similarly in connection with the Argo: ὣς ἥγε πρμνηθεν Ἰησονς ἕλκεται Ἀργώ (Phaen 348). Elsewhere at Aes. Sept. 209, Eur. Ion 928, Tro. 20, IT 1349, Hel. 1603; SH 404.2 (Erinna?); cf. Orph. Arg. 528, 620.

²³ Homeric examples are collected by van Leeuwen, J., Enchiridium dictionis epicae (Leiden, 1918), p. 156Google Scholar; cf. A.R. 2.993 κ Διθεν, [Theoc.] Id. 25.180 οὑξ ῾Ελκηθεν, with Gow (above, n. 5), ad loc.

²⁴ Gow (above, n. 5) cites the Apollonian passage, without further comment, in his note on the line. Griffiths (above, n. 18), pp. 82–3 observes that the Theocritean expression ‘unmistakably parallels’ A.R. 2.586 and 2.993 (κ Διθεν). The adverb πρῴρηθεν/πρῴραθεν occurs elsewhere before Theocritus at Pindar, Pyth. 4.22, 10.52; Thuc. 7.36 (3x); cf. also Q.S. 14.378: π δ πρώρηθεν.

²⁵ SIFC n.s. 4 (1925), 85–8; cf. Otis, B., Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford, 1964), p. 401.Google Scholar

²⁶ The Rhetoric of Imitation (Ithaca and London, 1986), p. 35.Google Scholar

²⁷ Both the Theocritean and Apollonian passages also contain striking, though different, uses of the present participle of βιζομαι. In the Argonautica, the simplex of the verb is used only in this passage (cf. προπροβιαζμενοι at 1.386), where it appears in the spondaic fine ending πεγνμπτοντο δ κωπαι / ἠτε καμπλα τξα, βιαζομνων ρώων (A.R. 2.591–2); in Theocritus, of course, the participle is used of the personified ships themselves (9 ἄστρα βιαζμεναι). The journal's referee suggests that there might be a significant phonetic similarity between Id. 22.12 εἰς κολην ἔρριψαν, νρρηξαν δ᾽ ἄρα τοχους and A.R. 2.595 (sc. Argo) …πτρεχε κματι λβρῳ / προπροκαταϊγδην κοíλης λς. ν δ᾽ ἄρα μσσαις/ ….

²⁸ The possible relationship between this passage and the Theocritean storm scene was suggested by the journal's referee.

²⁹ The collocation subsequently appears at, e.g., D.C. 7.30.4, Dse. de materia medica 5.121.1, Greg. Naz. Epist. 28.1.

³⁰ A similar argument, based on different perceived points of contact, is made, tentatively, by Griffiths (above, n. 18), pp. 85–6.

³¹ Similarly, in Id. 13, Theocritus diverges from Apollonius on the manner in which the Argo traversed the Symplegades, claiming explicitly that the ship passed through unscathed, whereas Apollonius and others state that the end of the Argo's stern-post was clipped off in the passage; cf. Gow (above, n. 5), p. 236. Campbell, M., ‘Theocritus Thirteen’, in Craik, E. M., ed. Owls to Athens: Essays on Classical Subjects presented to Sir Kenneth Dover (Oxford, 1990), p. 117Google Scholar, sets the assertion that the Argo was untouched by the rocks in the context of Theocritus' reworking of Apollonius.

³² Cf. RE S.v. Argonautai, 759–60; cf. Delage, E., La Géographie dans les Argonautiques d'Apollonios de Rhodes (Bordeaux, 1930), pp. 117–18.Google Scholar

³³ Il. 3.237, Od. 11.300; HH 33.3; Hes. fr. 198.8, 199.1.

³⁴ In this regard it is perhaps relevant that the precise expression βοοισιν ἱμασιν (3), used of the thongs with which Polydeuces binds his hands, means ‘reins’ in Homer (Il. 23.324; cf Il. 22.397).

³⁵ Cf West, M. L., Hesiod. Theogony (Oxford, 1966), p. 187.Google Scholar

³⁶ Cf. Gow (above, n. 5), p. 387, who suggests that the twins may be addressed as οιδοí and κιθαριστα ‘because both singing and harping were knightly accomplishments… and because he intends to appeal to them to patronize his poetry.’

³⁷ On the narrator's strange claim about the Dioscuri and the Iliad, cf Sens, A., TAPhA 122 (1992), 335–50Google Scholar, where p. 336 n. 3. should read: ‘Even if White is correct in suggesting that κα ἄλλοις ρώεσσιν in 216 means “and also the heroes” (as it might) and not “and the other heroes” …’. Also, in the Homeric context paraphrased at p. 339 n. 11, Nestor has not been told to stay behind the lines, but is remarking that he will stay with the horsemen and give advice and encouragement while younger men do the spear fighting; at p. 346 n. 20 read ‘Antenor's son’.

³⁸ There may be, as often, an inherent irony, since the treatment of the twins, at least in the Castor narrative, is perhaps less than honorific.

³⁹ Similar thematic links perhaps exist between the opening section of Call. H. 2 and the explicitly programmatic closing lines of that poem; cf. Bassi, K., TAPhA 119 (1989), pp. 219–31.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ships, we might note, appear as metaphors for poetry as early as Pindar: e.g., Nem. 4.69–70; Pyth. 11.38–42.

⁴¹ A connection between the proem and the Polydeuces narrative would perhaps mirror a similar connection between the Castor narrative and the epilogue: cf Sens (above, n. 37).

⁴² Callimachus (E. 21 Pf.) and Leonidas (AP 9.25 = 101 G-P), for example, use the programmatically significant adjective λεπτς in connection with the poem, and one of the Ptolemies writes that among astronomical poets Aratus, whom he calls λεπτολγος, holds the sceptre (SH 712). The deep admiration such men felt for Aratean poetry finds direct expression in Callimachus' pamphlet Against Praxiphanes (fr. 460 Pf.), where the author is said to have called Aratus a learned poet of the very first rank (πολνμαθη κα ἄριστον ποιητν).

⁴³ Cf., e.g., Hutchinson (above, n. 17), p. 193.

⁴⁴ Campbell (above, n. 17), p. 40; cf. Gow (above, n. 5), pp. 399–400.

⁴⁵ Köhnken (above, n. 17), pp. 91–3, emphasizes Theocritus' traditionality and Apollonius' originality (cf. Campbell (above, n. 17), 40 n. 7), though Griffin (above, n. 17), 301 thinks it ‘more likely that Amycus was a typical molester of strangers (e.g. Cercyon, Busiris), and met the same end.’

⁴⁶ Versions of this paper were read at the American Philological Association meeting in New Orleans, December, 1992, and at the University of Virginia, February, 1993. I wish to thank James J. Clauss, Michael Poliakoff, and Richard F. Thomas, as well as A. S. Hollis and the journal's anonymous referee, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.