1. References are to Oppian’s Halieutica, following the text of Fajen (1999); all translations of Greek and German are my own. I should like to thank Richard Hunter, Katerina Carvounis, Helen Morales, William Fitzgerald and the anonymous readers for their helpful comments and feedback on various versions of this work.

2. The Hal. refers only to an emperor ‘Antoninus’ and his son, but the weight of internal and external evidence points to Marcus Aurelius. See Mair (1928) xiii–xxiii; Keydell (1939) 698f.; Fajen (1999) viii. Neither the Suda nor the extant vitae distinguish between the author of the Halieutica and that of the (later) Cynegetica, who are nowadays acknowledged to be different poets; see already Schneider (1776); Ausfeld (1876); James (1970) 1–4, with bibliography; Fajen (1999) ix; Hamblenne (1968); Whitby (2007b); although contrast White (2001).

3. Although the poem, like much Greek literature of the period, is currently undergoing a reflorescence. Hopkinson (1994d) 185 calls the Halieutica ‘the most accomplished and attractive didactic poem to survive from the Imperial period’, and recent full-scale studies on the Hal. include James (1970); Fajen (1969, 1999); Rebuffat (2001); Bartley (2003); Benedetti (2005).

4. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1912) 255.

5. Horster and Reitz (2005) speak of didactic poetry as a ‘hinge’ (7). This function of the genre has long been observed (cf. the prolegomena of the scholia to the Works and Days), and plays a prominent role in Goethe’s 1827 essay ‘Über das Lehrgedicht’, where didactic poetry is labelled ‘an intermediate creation’ (225) between poetry and rhetoric.

6. So Quint. Inst. 10.1.51–56, 85–87, on Greek and Roman ‘epic’ respectively. On Oppian as an έπoπoιóς see e.g. Athen. 1.13b–c; Suid. s.v. ‘Oππιαvóς. A number of relatively late treatises do distinguish didactic as a separate category of poetry; see Effe (1977) 9–26; Pöhlmann (1973), esp. 816–35; Lausberg (1990); Gale (1994) 100–02; Volk (2002) 30–32.

7. Cox (1969) 124.

8. Arist. Poet. 1447bl7–20. On fiction, falsehood and the status of didactic poetry, cf. Plut. De Aud.Poet. 16c.

9. Newman (1871) 12.

10. Anon. API. 16.311.

11. Bartley (2003). Cf. James (1970) on the Homeric tendency of Oppian’s linguistic innovations; Giangrande (1970), esp. 89 on Oppian’s familiarity with abstruse Homeric scholarship.

12. See already Eust. III.667.12f. van der Valk; Rittershusius (1597) 7r–7v.

13. 1.709–31, in which paradigms of animal love remind the reader that parental affection is not only a human preserve; compare analogous Homeric similes, e.g. the reunited Odysseus and Telemachus weeping like bereaved Lämmergeier (Od. 16.216–19). Oppian’s similes of the cranes and pygmies (1.620–25; cf. Il. 3.3–7) and blood-sucking harvest-flies (2.445–52; cf. Il. 17.570–72) similarly allude to well-known Homeric parallels; see James (1969).

14. In which even the fishermen carry weapons ‘as if for war’ (, 5.150). Cf. the Thracians’ gory slaughter of the pelamyds at 4.531–61, which Oppian labels an (4.561); cf. 4.534, 554.

15. Conte (1986) 142f. et passim.

16. A form of inversion common to much didactic poetry, as when Virgil likens vines to soldiers (G. 2.279–83). See Schindler (2000) 158–66; Thomas (1986) 178f.; Lausberg (1990) 180f.

17. ‘Heroic epic’ here including both the Homeric epics and the broader Epic Cycle; on the Telegony ascribed to Eugammon of Cyrene, see Apollod. Epit. 7.36, and on creative misprision and the ‘family romance’, see Bloom (1973) and then Ricks (1976). As Hunter (2004a) notes at 99: ‘The passing-on of wisdom and “heroic” values from father to son within the epic, most famously staged in the relations of Odysseus and Telemachus in the Odyssey, acts as a figure for the values which the epic itself transmits to successive generations and the cultural significance which it bears.’ That Telegonus is drawn as Odysseus’ bastard son further underscores the Halieulica’s portrayal of the oblique relationship between didactic and heroic epic, Telegonus and Telemachus.

18. Fowler (2000) 218. On this ‘incorporative’ tendency of didactic poetry, cf. Moreschini and Sykes(1997)60.

19. Bartley(2003) 158.

20. Note the apposite framing of this passage: the antidote to this poison is obtained from plants native to Oppian’s homeland Cilicia (Al. 402–04), and the pharicum itself is introduced directly after a discussion of the medicinal qualities of sea-creatures (Al. 390–96).

21. Cf. Hunter (2004b) 228f. on Dionysius the Periegete.

22. See 1.383–93, 580–83, 643,647–85; 2.533–52, 628–41; 5.416–518.

23. Douglas (1966). Cf. Sperber (1996).

24. Though the distinction between simile and direct parallel is a fine one; see McCall (1969), esp. vii,259.

25. E.g. Thgn. 215–18; Pi. fr. 43 SM; Luc. Salt. 67, in which the octopus becomes a model for the adroit adaptability of the poet, citizen, symposiast, sophist or politician.

26. Feeney (1992) 40; cf. 36. See also Kennedy (1999), esp. 33.

27. Feeney(1992)35.

28. Effe (2005) 34.

29. Effe(1977).

30. Effe (1977) 151 writes of ‘the poet’s lack of interest in factual instruction’.

31. Cf. Cox (1969) 124: ‘many would now claim that the art-form [of didactic poetry] is defunct because it is in principle impossible (resting upon a fusion of incompatible elements).’

32. Lucr. DRN 1.936–50 = 4.11–25; Hor. Ars P. 343f. (cf. 333f.). Already in the 3rd century BCE Neoptolemus of Parium advocated that verse should both delight and instruct: see Philod. Poet. 5 col. 13.8–15 Jensen; the idea gained credence in later rhetorical theory. See e.g. Kruschwitz (2005) 115; Brink (1971) 352; Schuler and Fitch (1983) 9.

33. Sen. Ep. Mor. 86.15: nec agricolas docere uoluit, sed legentes delectare. Cox (1969) 146f. points out that although these sentiments express ‘at least half the truth…Seneca’s mistake was to assume that these are all-embracing alternatives: there are other didactic levels where the essence of the poem may lie’.

34. Plato Symp. 196a, where Eros is , a context further evoked when Oppian praises the god and reflects upon his genealogy; cf. the moist, feverish eros at Phdr. 251a–e (cf. 255c–d); in h.Pan 33; Aphrodite in Anacreont. 16.21 West.

35. As reflected by the difficulties faced by editors of the Hal. in deciding upon a capitalisation scheme; the resultant inconsistencies in transl(iter)ation are indicative of the slippage Oppian effects between the personified and the practical eros.

36. Cf. Oppian’s at 5.254. On ὑγρóς of the sea and sea-creatures, see 2.30, 196; 3.183; 4.142. Cf. Riffaterre (1980) on syllepsis of this kind as a figure for ‘the duality of the text’s message’ (638).

37. : Thgn. 1231; A.R. 4.445. Theoc. 2.55 has , the adjective Oppian uses at Hal. 4.13; cf. Mel. APl. 5.177. Cf. Bartley (2003) 48f.

38. Cf. esp. Strat. APl. 12.241; see Murgatroyd (1984), and note e.g. the mosaics of erotes fishing in the Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily. Kenney (1970) 383 nicely analyses Lucretius’ gory take on the conventionally exsanguinated ‘wounds’ of Venus (DRN 4.1048–57), yet Oppian goes one step further in figuring ἔρως as a very literal death-blow to these fish.

39. Davidson (1997).

40. Diph. 32 K-A; Antiph. 164 K-A.

41. Matro fr. 1.33f. Olsen-Sens, on which see Olson and Sens (1999).

42. Cf. Riffaterre (1978) 6, on the reader surmounting the ‘mimesis hurdle’.

43. Toohey (2004) 236.

44. Toohey (2005) 20f. Cf. id. (1996) 202, where he asserts that Hal. 4 and 5 are ‘more curiosity pieces than instructional manuals’.

45. Toohey (2004) 253, 224, 246. It is worth noting Toohey’s own unwarranted obsession with Oppian’s emphasis upon eros, a distortion in part attributable to his wilful amalgamation of Oppian and pseudo-Oppian, whom he acknowledges to be different poets yet nevertheless treats as one.

46. Toohey (1996) 202.

47. Effe(1977) 142.

48. Boyle (1979) 4.

49. vuκτερας (‘bat’) is noted by Oppian at 2.205; cf. Hsch. s.v. ; Ael.NA 13.4.

50. , Hal. 2.409, which further recalls Hesiod’s injunctions against violent and unlawful behaviour (cf. Hes. Op. 327–34, 352). Aside from Euripides’ άμερóκoιτoι (of bleating kids, Cyc. 58) and the linguistic analyses offered by ancient grammarians and lexicographers, Oppian’s is the only extant instance of a post-Hesiodic or of the adjective tout court.

51. See Op. 298–316, in which άεργία and cognate forms recur a full six times. Hesiod remarks upon the universal loathing with which the idle are greeted ( , Op. 303f.) and cites a parallel from nature: that of the drone which eats without working, benefiting from the labour of the bees (Op. 304–06). In his tale of the day-sleeper, Oppian inverts the direction of this analogy, turning not from man to nature but from zoological exemplum to sententiae about mankind.

52. Children: 3.512, 585; 4.329; 5.403, 579. Fools: 3.370,457, 568; 4.572, 631.

53. Heath (2001) 131. The scholia refer to the melanurus at 3.457 as μωρoί (‘stupid’) and elsewhere gloss vήπιoς with (‘unintelligent’) or ἄφρωv (‘witless’); cf. the Iliadic D scholia ad Il. 2.38, 2.873; Suid. s.v. vήπιoς,. The scholia, however, also render as μωρóς those vήπιoι which Mair (though not Fajen) translates as ‘youthful’ or ‘childish’ (3.585 and 5.403), adding weight to Heath’s caveat about the elisions of this difficult term. Cf. the modern Greek μωρó, ‘baby’.

54. Cf. Arist. HA 588a-b, on the soul of a young child as little different from that of a wild beast. Cicero De Fin. 2.32 reports Epicurus’ theory of children and animals as specula naturae (‘mirrors of nature’), beings from whom the norms of life itself may be observed.

55. Hesychius glosses the derivative vηπύτιov with (‘voiceless’; cf. the Latin infans, ‘child’, lit. ‘unable to speak’), from vη.-, ήπύω, though it is noted by Frisk (1970) 11.215, III.157 and Chantraine (1974) 126 that the initial digamma in ἔπoς, renders this improbable. Edmunds (1990) 1 –24, following Lacroix (1937), favours a negation of ἤπιoς (i.e. ‘lacking a connection’, ‘deficient in social cohesion’). Beekes (1969) 98–113, and esp. 111, objects that the prefix vη- did not exist as a negation in early Greek. Despite its questionable validity, however, it was the first explanation, that of the voiceless vήπιoς, which seems to have been most common in antiquity. Apropos of the ‘voiceless’ helops fish, Carney (1967) 208 n.11 stresses the importance of a believed etymology as an indication of popular usage, regardless of linguistic certainty: ‘semantically…the word gets “meaning” from its associations for its users.’

56. E.g. Il. 2.136, 311; 4.238; 6.95, 276, 310; 11.113; 17.223; 18.514; 22.63; 24.730; Od. 12.42; 14.264; 17.433.

57. Edmunds (1990) 60–97, noting that of the 38 occasions on which the word is applied to adults, 27 result in that figure’s death. vήπιoς is that rare example of a Homeric term of rebuke employed both in direct speech and by the primary narrator; see Griffin (1986), who contrasts the term with e.g. σχέτλιoς and δαιμóvιoς.

58. Nastes: Il. 2.873; Patroclus: Il. 16.46 (cf. 16.686); Odysseus’ men: Od. 1.8; suitors: Od. 22.32 (cf. 21.85; 22.370).

59. Ingalls (1998) 18, and elaborated at 32f.; Vermeule (1979) 114; cf. Ulf (1990) 53–56 on childishness.

60. Mitsis (1993) 127, and referring at 128 to the reader ‘winking with the poet behind the back of the fool’.

61. See Boisacq (1950) 11.669, 785; Brugmann and Delbrück (1892) II.1012.

62. Cf. Effe (1977) 144. Detienne and Vernant (1978), esp. ch. 2, offer a lively analysis of the place of or cunning intelligence in the Halieutica.

63. Mitsis (1993) 123, of didactic poetry.

64. Cf. also the kings, also called vήπιoι (Hes. Op. 40).

65. Toohey (1996) 2. Cf. Conte (1994) xxi: ‘[b]y its very nature, the didactic structure requires and valorizes the function of the addressee’; Schiesaro, Mitsis and Clay (1993).

66. Mitsis (1993) 125, although he does cite DRN 1.41–43 as an exception.

67. Kramer (1979) 10. A refinement of Mitsis’ position is offered by Schiesaro (1993) in the same volume, and Mitsis’ approach has since been criticised for presenting too static a view of the addressee: see Fowler (2000); Gale (2005); contrast also Keen (1985); Clay (1983) 225.

68. Clay (1993); Konstan (1993) 13.

69. Clay (2003) 34; Clay (1993) 26, arguing against e.g. West (1978) 36–40.

70. On the changing pedagogical relationship between poet and addressee in didactic poetry, see Fakas (2001) 85–148, who conceives of the Phaenomena and the Works and Days as ‘Unterweisungsdramen’; cf. Semanoff (2006) 303–17.

71. Fowler (2000). Cf. Volk (2002) 20–23 on journey metaphors in relation to ‘poetic simultaneity’ and the self-referential nature of didactic poetry.

72. In antiquity as today: Plutarch (Mor. 977f–978a) tells of fishermen sewing a rush on to ensnared dolphins, before releasing them. If the same dolphin is caught again (and recognised by its rush), it is beaten and spurned, since it ought to have learned its lesson. Nowadays, mirror-recognition strategies, as well as claims that dolphins ‘speak’ and can understand human communication, perpetuate such popular notions of the dolphin’s quasi-human intelligence and capacity to learn.

73. Zen. 3.30. Cf. Apostol. 9.19 and Suid. s.v. ἰχθυάαι, on teaching fish to swim: , similarly glossed as . Much, I imagine, like teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs.

74. Particularly if we recall the popularity of the Halieutica as a school-text (see n.10 above).

75. Bibliography on the Second Sophistic has expanded rapidly in recent years, and a number of studies have focused on paideia as a strategy of self-making: see e.g. Reardon (1971) 3–11; Anderson (1993) 8–11; Gleason (1995) xxi–xxiv; Swain (1996) 18–64; Schmitz (1997) 39–66 et passim; Whitmarsh (2001); observe also the scepticism of Brunt (1994). On Oppian and the Second Sophistic, see Klotz (2006) ch.7; Iglesias Zoido (1999) briefly considers Oppian against what he takes to be the common characteristics of Greek imperial poets. The ‘Second Sophistic’ is a notoriously slippery category, and one divorced by now from its Philostratean context; as with all such terms, my aim in considering the Halieutica as a second sophistic text is not to resort to invidious generalisation but to seek out common intellectual currents across an extremely broad body of literature.

76. Too (2000) 31.

77. Cf. the agon between Aristotimus and Phaedimus in Plut. De Sollert. Anim., esp. 973a–974d.

78. Cf. Plut. Mor. 992a, where Gryllus claims that animal intelligence is ‘not unlearned or uninstructed, but self-taught and self-sufficient’. Cf. Goldhill (1995) 64–66; Morales (1995) 40.

79. Zeitlin (1990) 419, 439. Cf. Winkler (1990) 103; Whitmarsh (2001) 82: ‘This entire narrative constitutes a kind of controlled “experiment” whereby the relative importance of nature and culture in paideia may be gauged. Longus is manipulating his readers’ awareness of the contemporary debate over the relative roles of nature and culture in the formation of identity.’

80. Zeitlin (1990) 438.

81. Whereas Phemius’ famous claim to be αὐτoδίδακτoς, (‘self-taught’, Od. 22.347) seems to refer to divine inspiration, post-Homeric usage of the term tends towards an opposition between nomos and phusis; see Luschnat (1961–2); Assaël (2001). To return to sexual pedagogy and the ancient novel, Achilles Tatius’ Clinias uses the term to describe what can(not) be taught in the domain of Eros: (‘the god is a self-taught sophist’, Ach. Tat. 1.10.1).

82. Conte (1994) 120.

83. See Hansen (1996), esp. 1–22; Giannini (1963). More broadly, both Plutarch and Aelian tend to foreground the marvellous or peculiar (see Murphy [2004] 22 on the HN as ‘a kernel of secure knowledge delimited with wonders’), and wonders from the animal kingdom are incorporated also into the Greek novel: compare the tale of the viper and eel as related by Oppian at 1.554–79 (cf. Ael. NA 1.50, 9.66) with that narrated by Cleitophon at Ach. Tat. 1.18, appropriated for his own erotic ends. Cf. Morgan (1993).

84. Cf. de Jong (2004) 58–60 on anonymous focalisers. Gale (2005) 177f. discusses the ‘anonymous objector’ in Lucretius: ‘the pupil’s role as potential interlocutor is one on which the poet constantly plays throughout the poem’ (original emphasis). Lucretius, like Oppian, quotes this ‘objector’ directly (DRN 1.803–8, 897–900), although in the DRN, unlike the Hal, these objections are voiced only to be roundly quashed.

85. Op. 618–94. Cf. e.g. Arat. Phaen. 110, 295–99; Lucr. DRN 2.552–59; Virg. G. 1.456f.; Colum. Rust. 1 , pref. 8; DP. 709–17. See West (1978) 313f.; Kroll (1921), esp. 412f.; Lesky (1947) 31–37.

86. As Keydell (1939) 701 notes, Oppian never claims to have specific personal experience in fishing; cf. Wilamowitz (n.4 above); Sharrock (2005) 245 on the role of personal experience in technical prose and in didactic poetry.

87. Cf. the further prayer, (‘may I honour Poseidon on dry land’, 5.339).

88. See Klotz (2006) ch. 7, who reads this emphasis upon pleasure as central to the Halieutica as a whole.

89. Frost (1966) 35.