THE POETICS OF POST-CALLIMACHEAN TRAGEDY

Recent scholarship has established a secure connection between Callimachus and Lycophron, based primarily on the latter's engagement with rare Callimachean vocabulary.Footnote ⁵ But this relationship can be extended further to the sphere of poetics. In particular, the opening of the Alexandra resonates pointedly against Callimachus’ poetic programme (Alex. 1–15):

This programmatic opening intersects with the famous prologue of Callimachus’ Aetia (fr. 1 Harder) on both verbal and thematic levels.Footnote ⁶ To start, we can list the parallels that scholars have previously identified: both prologues are concerned with learning (εὐμαθής, 11 ~ σοφίην, fr. 1.18), questions of length (μηκυνθῇ λόγος, 2 ~ [ὀλ]ιγόστιχος … μακρήν, fr. 1.9–10) and assertions of novelty (οὐ … ὡς πρίν, 3–4 ~ κελεύθους | [ἀτρίπτο]υ̣ς, fr. 1.27–8). Both exploit the unusual metaphor of ‘unrolling’ words or paths (τυλίσσων, 11 ~ ἑλ[ίσσω], fr. 1.5).Footnote ⁷ And in both, the speaker likens himself to a winged figure: the messenger to a runner, Callimachus to a cicada (ἐγὼ δ’ … πτηνός, 13–15 ~ [ἐγ]ὼ δ’ … πτερόεις, fr. 1.32; cf. πτερόν, fr. 1.39). Most striking of all, however, is Lycophron's apparent rewriting of Callimachus’ path imagery from the prologue (Aet. fr. 1.25–8):

Just as Apollo instructs Callimachus to pursue a specific kind of path, so too does the Lycophronic guard instruct Priam to pursue Cassandra's path of riddles (9–12). We shall consider the significance of this parallel shortly, but for now we should simply acknowledge the sheer abundance of Lycophron's hodological imagery, which precisely echoes the language of Callimachus’ proem.Footnote ⁸

Taken together, this list of parallels suggests a significant relationship between these two passages, especially given their shared introductory and programmatic contexts. Scholars, however, have disagreed about what to make of these connections. Some suppose that they simply reflect independent engagement with broader trends of the literary tradition.Footnote ⁹ But in our view this conclusion is too cautious, since it fails to account for the underlying stylistic contrasts at play. Many details of the messenger's prologue diverge dramatically from the Callimachean course in such a way as to suggest a consistent aesthetic strategy.Footnote ¹⁰ The guard's promise to tell ‘everything accurately from the very beginning’ (1–2; cf. ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, 30) implies a systematic and sequential narrative akin to the ‘one continuous song’ desired by the Telchines but rejected by Callimachus (ἓν ἄεισμα διηνεκές, Aet. fr. 1.3). His apology to his ‘master’ for speaking at length (2–3) wryly acknowledges his departure from Callimachus’ stated preference for brevity.Footnote ¹¹ And his recalibration of Callimachus’ path imagery further suggests an aesthetic rebranding: in place of the Callimachean untrodden paths of novelty, we are asked to navigate the ‘unutterable’ or ‘inexplicable’ paths of Cassandra's prophecies (δυσφάτους αἰνιγμάτων | οἴμας, 10–11) to reach ‘what lies in darkness’ (τἀν σκότῳ, 12): a self-referential proclamation of the poem's obscure and challenging style.Footnote ¹²

Such stylistic departure from Callimachus is also visible in the opening verses’ rewriting of a passage from the Aeschylean Prometheus Vinctus (609–10):

In the drama, Prometheus promises to speak plainly to Io, avoiding the αἰνίγματα that characterize Cassandra's speech (cf. αἰνιγμάτων, 10). Scholars have previously noted how this opening allusion advertises Lycophron's Aeschylean affiliation, while also defining the Alexandra's style implicitly through contrast: unlike Prometheus’ prophecy, Cassandra's (and hence the messenger's) words are not free from αἰνίγματα, not presented in plain language (ἁπλῷ λόγῳ) and not conducted τορῶς (‘clearly’ or ‘smartly’).Footnote ¹³ What has gone unnoticed, however, is the particular resonance of this final adverb. Besides suggesting riddle-free clarity, it evokes a literary trait desired by Callimachus elsewhere. In an epigrammatic fragment, the Alexandrian famously dismissed Antimachus’ Lyde for failing to be τορός (Λύδη καὶ παχὺ γράμμα καὶ οὐ τορόν, fr. 398 Pf.). It is a stylistic attribute which Callimachus co-opted for his pure and refined aesthetic, opposed to literary παχύτης.Footnote ¹⁴ The opening allusion to Prometheus Bound thus opposes Lycophron's cryptic text not only to the plain-speaking Prometheus but also to the Alexandrian's pure aesthetic: unlike either Prometheus or Callimachus, Lycophron's γράμμα is οὐ τορόν. This allusion to Prometheus Vinctus programmatically sets the poem against Callimachus’ literary preferences from the very start.

The most significant point of reversal between the two prologues, however, is on the topic of divine inspiration and the sound it produces. Cassandra, just like Callimachus, is inspired directly by Apollo. Lycophron makes this clear at the outset (Cassandra is said to have ‘uttered the voice of Phoebus from her bay-chewing throat’, 6) just as he does at the poem's close: Cassandra refers to herself as a ‘swallow possessed by Apollo’ (φοιβόληπτον … χελιδόνα, 1460) and the guard calls her a ‘maiden inspired by Phoebus’ (παρθένου φοιβαστρίας, 1468).Footnote ¹⁵ This Apolline inspiration, however, results in a different form of song from that favoured by the Callimachean Apollo. The Alexandrian god favoured a slender Muse (Μοῦσαν … λεπταλέην, fr. 1.24), while Callimachus distanced himself from ‘song that makes much noise’ (μέγα ψοφέουσαν ἀοιδήν, fr. 1.19) and the ‘din of donkeys’ ([θ]όρυβον … ὄνων, fr. 1.30) in favour of the ‘shrill voice’ of the cicada (λιγὺν ἦχον, fr. 1.29). But such cacophony is precisely the kind of sound that emerges from Cassandra's mouth: framing the statement of her Apolline inspiration (6), we hear that she utters an ‘immense all-mixed shout’ (ἄσπετον … παμμιγῆ βοήν, 5) and imitates the voice of the dark Sphinx (Σφιγγὸς κελαινῆς γῆρυν ἐκμιμουμένη, 7). Alongside the princess’ later association with the Sphinx, Maenads, Sirens, Sibyl and Bacchants (1461–6), this suggests a different kind of acoustic from that favoured by Callimachus’ Apollo.Footnote ¹⁶

This alternative aesthetic is reinforced by a string of allusions to earlier passages of din and disarray in the Greek literary tradition. Scholars have previously focussed on the significance of παμμιγῆ in this regard: the rare word is previously used only of non-Greeks, especially Persians; it thus marks Cassandra's speech as exotic and foreign, precisely how Callimachus brands his literary detractors.Footnote ¹⁷ To this point, however, we may also add the noun γῆρυν in verse 7, a Homeric hapax legomenon which in the Iliad relates to the din of the Trojan troops, precisely because they do not share one language—their voices are all mixed together (Il. 4.436–8):

Through this reuse of a Homeric rarity, Cassandra is aligned with foreign, alien sounds, which are distinctively noisy and cacophonous (ἀλαλητός, θρόος)—appropriately so for a Trojan princess. The same could also be said of δυσφάτους (10), a word which appears only once previously in the literary tradition, again of Cassandra's prophecies, in Aeschylus’ description of the princess’ ‘inexplicable din’ (δυσφάτῳ κλαγγᾷ, Ag. 1152).Footnote ¹⁸ Through this dense network of sonic allusions, Lycophron establishes a sense of jumbled disorder and acoustic chaos. The Alexandra sets itself up as sonically antithetical to Callimachus’ preferences in the Aetia prologue.Footnote ¹⁹

Such an acoustic aesthetic is reinforced at the end of the poem when Cassandra asks herself why she is ‘barking at length’ to the deaf elements of nature (μακρὰ … βαύζω, 1451–3) and ‘twanging’ the ‘empty noise’ of her mouth (κενὸν ψάλλουσα μάστακος κρότον, 1453). Lycophron again presents his work as the embodiment of discordant non-Greek sound: the verb βαύζω dehumanizes Cassandra, associating her with the barking of beasts,Footnote ²⁰ while her lengthy speech aligns her with the kind of poetry that Callimachus rejects in the Aetia prologue (μακρά, 1451 ~ μακρήν, fr. 1.10). Particularly revealing, however, is the rare verb ψάλλουσα, usually used of plucking a bow- or lyre-string and thus ripe for metapoetic interpretation: as elsewhere in the poem, Cassandra's identity blurs with that of the guard and poet, presenting the whole poem as a cacophony of ‘empty noise’ (κενὸν … κρότον).

In addition, Cassandra's closing words here evoke the Aesopic fable of the hedonistic cicada and the hard-working ant, a tale which similarly stresses the futile din of song. While the ant secured hibernal provisions by working throughout the summer, the cicada spent all its time singing, was destitute when winter arrived, and received no sympathy or support from the industrious ant. The moral, it seems, is that there is an appropriate time for both work and play; industry is ultimately rewarded. This fable reaches us from antiquity in numerous forms, suggesting its enduring popularity.Footnote ²¹ But in one particular version, recounted by the rhetor anonymus Brancatianus, we read that ‘the twanging cicada's labour proved empty’ (τῷ ψάλλοντι δὲ τέττιγι κενεὸς ἦν ὁ πόνος) and that the ant, rather than offering any help, told its suffering peer to keep on ‘dancing and making noise’ (νῦν χόρευε καὶ κρότει).Footnote ²² It is striking how closely Lycophron's Cassandra echoes the verbal core of this fable: she ‘twangs empty noise’ (κενεὸν ψάλλουσα … κρότον), just as the Aesopic cicada ‘twangs’ and ‘makes noise’ to no avail (ψάλλοντι … κενὸς … κρότει). For an audience familiar with this fable, Cassandra aligns herself with the cicada.Footnote ²³ The insect proves an apt parallel for both the nature and the consequences of her song: both singers produce an unwelcome, cacophonous din (expressed through the onomatopoeic sibilance of ψάλλω and the hard consonants of κρότος/κροτέω); and both are examples of the limits and failings of singing: the cicada's music fails to secure any sustenance, while Cassandra's prophecy fails to persuade its audience (Alex. 1454–7). By alluding to this fable, Lycophron reinforces the distinctive aesthetic of his poem: it is not only a discordant racket but also an account of a prophecy that is destined to fall on deaf ears.

Here too, however, Lycophron appears to be positioning himself squarely against Callimachus. Given the contents of this fable, the allusion invites a polemical revaluation of the cicada from the Aetia prologue. The animal stood there as a symbol of pure, refined sound in comparison to the braying of donkeys (fr. 1.29–32), but Lycophron introduces another tradition in which the insect was a noisy nuisance: the cicada's κρότος proves uncomfortably close to asinine θόρυβος—a far cry from the λιγὺς ἦχος celebrated by Callimachus.Footnote ²⁴ Lycophron thus undermines Callimachean tradition by re-appropriating its strategies: as scholars have long recognized, the fable tradition is a significant element underlying Callimachus’ programmatics, especially his contrast between the donkey and the cicada (cf. 184 Perry).Footnote ²⁵ But whereas Callimachus aligned himself with the cicada as an emblem of delicate song, Lycophron's Cassandra adopts the same bestial mascot for different ends: it has become a symbol of disruptive discord.Footnote ²⁶ By echoing and inverting Callimachus’ programmatic proclamations, Lycophron thus carves out his own distinctive and alternative aesthetic, centred on raucous noise: an apt metaphor for the linguistically obscure Alexandra. At both the outset and the close of his poem, Lycophron positions himself agonistically against Callimachus’ programmatic preferences.

Lycophron's aesthetic relationship with Callimachus is not restricted to the Aetia prologue, however. The guard's programmatic language can also be interpreted on a wider level as a response to Callimachus’ more general criticisms of tragedy. At various points in his work (especially the Iambi and the epigrams), Callimachus appears to disparage tragedy as an art form.Footnote ²⁷ In one epigram, he pictures a Dionysian mask yawning at the tedious repetition of popular tragic lines (Epigr. 48 Pf. = 26 Gow–Page = Anth. Pal. 6.310—verse 6 quotes Eur. Bacch. 494). In an unplaced fragment of the Iambi, an unknown speaker claims that ‘the tragic actor did not rouse us yesterday’—an unfavourable assessment of the genre's emotional potential (οὐ πρῷν μὲν ἡμῖν ὁ τραγῳδὸς ἤγειρε, fr. 219 Pf.). And in another epigram he depicts a first-person speaker's account of tragic failure (Epigr. 59 Pf./Gow–Page = Anth. Pal. 11.362); as Gow and Page conclude, ‘the way to lose your friends is to write drama’.Footnote ²⁸ It is difficult to draw a coherent aesthetic from such contextless snippets, but even so the cumulative impression is that Callimachus scorned tragedy as a literary form. And from other poems it seems that this dislike was particularly rooted in the raucous noise and popular appeal of tragedy: in another unplaced fragment of the Iambi, we find a reference to ‘some bellowing, tragic Muse’ (ἥτις τραγῳδὸς μοῦσα ληκυθίζουσα, fr. 215 Pf.), associating the sound of tragedy with somebody speaking into a lekythos.Footnote ²⁹ Most revealing, however, is Callimachus’ assertion in Iambus 2 that tragedians ‘have the voice of those who inhabit the sea’ (οἱ δὲ τραγῳδοὶ τῶν θάλασσαν ο̣ἰ̣[κεύντων] | ἔχο[υ]σι φωνήν, fr. 192.12–13 Pf.). The meaning of this phrase has been disputed: some take it to refer to the muteness of fish, but a range of parallels and the larger context clearly favour a reference to their allegedly harsh and unmusical sound.Footnote ³⁰ For Callimachus, tragedians match non-human fish in their inarticulate and grating noises, a foil to his own refined poetics. Lycophron, by contrast, champions the din of tragedy and embraces it as his modus operandi.

As a final element in this aesthetic dichotomy, we should also cite Callimachus’ epigram on Theaetetus (Epigr. 7 Pf. = 57 Gow–Page = Anth. Pal. 9.565):

In this epigram Callimachus acknowledges the popular appeal of Dionysiac art (here not only tragedy but also dithyramb), marked by the ivy-clad road of its divine patron (Βάκχε)—it belongs to the domain of public heralds (κήρυκες). For all this appeal, however, the renown it bestows remains short-lived. Theaetetus, by contrast, will endure in memory by following a different ‘pure path’, not frequently trodden by the masses. The programmatic nature of this epigram is reinforced by its clear links with the Aetia prologue, not only in its concern for wisdom (σοφίην, v. 4 ~ σοφίην, Aet. fr. 1.18, both in the same sedes) but also in its assertion of the right kind of road to travel: the pure path (καθαρὴν ὁδόν) matches the prologue's undefiled and untrodden route (fr. 1.25–8). The dismissal of Dionysus, moreover, parallels the prologue's dismissal of the din of donkeys (fr. 1.30–2), an animal which was intimately connected with the god.Footnote ³¹ This epigram thus complements the programmatic polemic of the Aetia prologue, directing it specifically against the popular art of Dionysus. Indeed, reading both Callimachean texts together, we can gain a clear sense of an opposition between Callimachus’ pure and exclusive Apollo and the common and defiled Dionysus.

Here too we can see Lycophron's prologue positioning itself against such polemic. The Callimachean reference to κήρυκες might make us think of the context of the Alexandra, spoken by an unnamed herald, while the Alexandra's tangled hodological imagery contrasts strongly with the Callimachean ‘pure path’.Footnote ³² Most significantly, however, Lycophron does not distance himself from Dionysus, as Callimachus had: instead, Cassandra speaks from a programmatically ‘Bacchic mouth’ (ἡ δ’ ἔνθεον σχάσασα βακχεῖον στόμα, 28). Whereas Callimachus had opposed the Dionysiac in his epigram and favoured the Apolline in the Aetia prologue, Lycophron collapses the opposition between these two gods, embracing the influence of both: the prologue begins with Apollo (6) and closes with Dionysus (28).Footnote ³³ The Alexandra, therefore, self-consciously unravels Callimachus’ polarized poetics: it embodies both Bacchus and Apollo, both Dionysiac noise and Apolline inspiration.Footnote ³⁴ Through repeated engagement with Callimachean purple patches, Lycophron thus articulates a different aesthetic from that of his Alexandrian predecessor: one that embraces the boisterous noise of tragedy and aims for literary grandeur. Indeed, we may even see his rebellion against the Callimachean tradition mirrored and thematized by Cassandra's own rejection of Callimachus’ patron god, Apollo (cf. Alex. 1457).

A PRESCRIPTED AESTHETIC: ‘LYCOPHRON’ AND RHETORICAL FRIGIDITY

However, the Alexandra should not—and cannot—be viewed purely through a Callimachean lens. Such a framework is overly restrictive and prevents us from seeing many other aspects of Lycophron's work. As we have noted above, the poem can be—and has indeed been—subjected to other aesthetic interpretations through completely different frames of reference, such as Sistakou's analogy of Late European Romanticism. In the second half of this article, we wish to take the poem in yet another direction, by exploring how it constructs an alternative literary historical framework beyond Callimachus, drawing especially on the earlier literary criticism of Aristotle. The key to this interpretation lies in the name of the poem's author, ‘Lycophron’.

As is well known, names and naming play a major part in the obscure and riddling style of the Alexandra. Rarely does Lycophron name a person, place or god directly: instead, he intimates identities through a range of epithets, metaphors, analogies, periphrases, kennings, synecdoches, metonymies and more.Footnote ³⁵ The poet's interest in onomastics is reflected in the numerous -ώνυμος compounds that scatter the poem, exploring how names are shaped and changed over time.Footnote ³⁶ And even when figures are named directly, questions of identity and status remain: the Cyprian heroes Cepheus and Praxandrus, for example, are pointedly called ‘a nameless brood, not leaders of a naval expedition’ (Κηφεὺς δὲ καὶ Πράξανδρος, οὐ ναυκληρίας | λαῶν ἄνακτες, ἀλλ’ ἀνώνυμοι σποραί, 586–7); they are only named directly here because they have never featured in the literary tradition before.Footnote ³⁷ Individual names can also carry much significance within the poem: Lycophron's use of the name ‘Alexandra’, for example, rather than the more familiar ‘Cassandra’, invites a false etymology (derived from ἀ–λέξω), foregrounding the poem's central themes of miscommunication and mediated language. We never hear Cassandra's voice directly; she is indeed ‘without speech’.Footnote ³⁸ Even from this brief survey, it is clear that the Alexandra is deeply engaged in questions of names, their meaning and their interplay with individuals’ identity. It is a poem that is self-consciously and deeply attuned to onomastics.

One name that has received far less attention in modern scholarship, however, is that attributed to the poet of the poem: ‘Lycophron’. Traditionally, this name has been understood to refer to Lycophron of Chalcis, the Ptolemaic playwright and scholar. However, such an attribution was already doubted in the scholia to the Alexandra (Λυκόφρονος ἑτέρου νομιστέον εἶναι τὸ ποίημα, οὐ τοῦ {συγ}γράψαντος τὴν τραγῳδίαν, schol. Alex. 1226, page 226.5–6 Leone) and with good reason: most ancient sources merely ascribe the poem to an unspecified ‘Lycophron’, and it is only a handful of late testimonia (Tzetzes and the Suda) that directly identify this figure with the Ptolemaic poet.Footnote ³⁹ In any case, the ascription to the Chalcidian is impossible to maintain if the poem dates from the start of the second century b.c.e., as we believe.Footnote ⁴⁰ It should thus be viewed with considerable scepticism. Most previous scholars who have accepted the later dating of the poem conclude that we can know nothing more about its actual author, and that the Alexandra, like many other works in antiquity, is simply pseudonymous: it may or may not have been composed by some unknown ‘Lycophron’.Footnote ⁴¹ In this contribution, however, we would like to propose an alternative solution to this problem of authorial identity, one which simultaneously enriches our appreciation of the poem's aesthetic positioning.

We propose that the transmitted ascription to ‘Lycophron’ is in fact a pen name adopted by the poem's original author to embody and advertise his stylistic affiliation. It does not primarily associate the Alexandra with the famous Alexandrian playwright, an association which presumably only developed later (as the general lack of specificity in our earlier testimonia may suggest): given the Chalcidian's reputation for tragedy, scholarship and wordplay, he was a plausible candidate for anybody who wanted to attach a concrete personality to the poem.Footnote ⁴² Instead, we propose that the author of the poem pseudonymously adopted the name ‘Lycophron’ to evoke an earlier literary namesake from the Classical period: Lycophron the sophist (83 DK = 38 Laks–Most). Little is known of this figure today. An allusion in a pseudo-Platonic letter suggests that he may have resided at the court of Dionysius II in Sicily during the early fourth century b.c.e. (Epist. 2.314d1–5), but this reference has often been suspected and we otherwise know nothing about his life. Yet he was evidently an author of considerable repute in antiquity: Aristotle cites him repeatedly in a wide range of works—in a wider range, in fact, than he mentions other ‘sophists’ more familiar to us, such as Gorgias (Metaph. 1045b; Pol. 1280b; Ph. 185b; Rh. 1405b, 1406a; Soph. el. 174b; Nob. fr. 91 Rose).Footnote ⁴³ Most citations concern Lycophron's views on politics and metaphysics, but several provide significant insight into his more literary pursuits. In Sophistici elenchi (174b), we hear that the sophist was a refined rhetorician, skilfully able to rebrand a topic about which he had little material, as when he was asked to praise a lyre. According to the gloss of Alexander of Aphrodisias, he praised the lyre for only a short while, before turning to the eponymous constellation, ‘Lyra’, a topic on which he was far better equipped.Footnote ⁴⁴ Judging by this anecdote, he was evidently well attuned to the polysemous potential of language.

Most significantly for us, however, he is also cited in Aristotle's Rhetoric as a prime example of rhetorical frigidity, the locus classicus for ancient discussions of stylistic ψυχρότης (Rh. 1405b35–1407a18).Footnote ⁴⁵ Aristotle specifies four elements of speech which contribute to such frigidity: the use of compound words (τοῖς διπλοῖς ὀνόμασιν), obsolete or unusual words (γλώτταις), epithets that are overly long, unseasonable or too crowded (τοῖς ἐπιθέτοις τὸ ἢ μακροῖς ἢ ἀκαίροις ἢ πυκνοῖς χρῆσθαι), and metaphors (μεταφοραῖς). To exemplify these stylistic flaws, he draws illustrations from three sophists: Gorgias, Alcidamas and—crucially—Lycophron, whose work provides examples of the first two categories (Rh. 1405b35–1406a10):

In Aristotle's opinion, the sophistic Lycophron stood alongside Gorgias and Alcidamas as an archetype of rhetorical frigidity. He was known for his elaborate compound words, such as ‘many-faced’ heaven (πολυπρόσωπον), ‘mighty-peaked’ earth (μεγαλοκορύφου) and the ‘narrow-straited’ shore (στενοπόρον); and also for his use of unusual and recherché lexical items, describing Xerxes as ‘a gargantuan man’ (πέλωρον ἄνδρα) and Sciron as ‘a scourge of a man’ (σίνις ἀνήρ). From this passage of Aristotle, it seems that the name ‘Lycophron’ was already larded with a host of aesthetic associations by the fourth century: the name was ripe to become a buzzword for the ‘frigid’ style.

From this literary background, the ascription of the Alexandra to a ‘Lycophron’ gains considerable point: Aristotle's four stylistic traits of rhetorical ‘frigidity’ map perfectly onto core aspects of the poem's design.Footnote ⁴⁶ It too is characterized by elaborate compound words, many of which are hapax or proton legomena, such as λυκαινομόρφων (‘wolf-transforming’, 481) and κρατοβρῶτος (‘brain-eating’, 1066).Footnote ⁴⁷ It is replete with a wide range of γλῶτται, including foreign borrowings (for example the Egyptian βᾶριν, 747) and rarities of the literary tradition (for example τιθαιβώσσοντος, 622; cf. Od. 13.106).Footnote ⁴⁸ It contains numerous strings of lengthy and elaborate epithets, especially in reference to the gods (for example Athena: Τριγέννητος θεὰ | Βοαρμία Λογγᾶτις Ὁμολωὶς Βία, 519–20).Footnote ⁴⁹ And it frequently mentions heroes and places through the obscuring veil of metaphor (such as the sequence of birds and fish used to characterize Cassandra's assailant, Locrian Ajax).Footnote ⁵⁰ In the past, scholars have considered many possible precedents for these stylistic elements, including Aeschylean tragedy, dithyrambic New Music and oracular literature.Footnote ⁵¹ But alongside these various influences we should now set the ‘frigid’ style of classical rhetoric.Footnote ⁵² The Alexandra epitomizes all four of Aristotle's defining criteria for this aesthetic, pushing them to their extremes. Aristotle comments that these stylistic features verge on the poetic when used in excess (ἀλλ᾿ ἂν πολύ, πάντως ποιητικόν, Rh. 1406b1; ποιητικῶς γὰρ ἄγαν, 1406b10–11); but by taking them to an even greater extreme, the Alexandra has become hyper-frigid and hyper-poetic, near impenetrable in its language. What for Aristotle was a stylistic flaw (‘frigidity’) has here become the poem's key compositional strategy. In its ascription to ‘Lycophron’, we suggest that the poem self-consciously acknowledges this rhetorical precedent, situating itself within the same ‘frigid’ tradition as the classical sophist. In looking back to Aristotle's criticisms, the poem embodies and positively reappraises rhetorical frigidity: the ascription serves as a pen name, marking the poem's aesthetic affiliation.

Such an argument is bolstered by the widespread use of pen names and artistic aliases in antiquity.Footnote ⁵³ Already in the Archaic era, we could cite the precedent of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, a poem which famously fashions itself as a ‘Homeric’ composition through allusion to the Homeric biographical tradition (especially Hymn. Hom. Ap. 3.166–76).Footnote ⁵⁴ But a closer parallel in time is provided by the Tabulae Iliacae, some of which are inscribed with epigrams that assign the work to ‘Theodorean technê’. In the past, these attributions prompted numerous speculations surrounding the identity of the tablets’ artist(s) or inscriptions’ author(s), akin to those which have plagued the composer of the Alexandra.Footnote ⁵⁵ But in recent years Michael Squire has plausibly reinterpreted the evidence, arguing that these attributions serve as a pen name, marking allegiance to the style of the archaic craftsman Theodorus of Samos, who was renowned for his miniature artistic inventions (Plin. HN 34.83; Posidippus 67 A.–B.).Footnote ⁵⁶ By alluding to this stylistic precedent, the tablets acknowledge their status as refined, small-scale compositions, situating themselves within a pre-existing artistic tradition. In a similar manner, the pen name of the Alexandra positions the poem within a prior literary history of frigid composition: Lycophron's Hellenistic trimeters embody and exaggerate features of a pre-existing and much-maligned literary aesthetic.Footnote ⁵⁷ In its bulky, figurative and foreignizing language, the poem simply ‘does what it says on the tin’. It fulfils the literary expectations raised by the poem's alleged authorship.Footnote ⁵⁸

Besides this general stylistic continuity, the two Aristotelian quotations concerning γλῶτται exhibit further significant parallels with the work of our Hellenistic Lycophron. First, the description of Sciron involves onomastic wordplay which mirrors that which we later find in the Alexandra. In myth, Sciron was one of the notorious bandits that ranged the Attic countryside, forcing travellers to wash his feet before kicking them into the sea: his designation as a ‘scourge of a man’ (σίνις ἀνήρ) is thus extremely appropriate.Footnote ⁵⁹ As Aristotle recognized, however, the noun σίνις (‘scourge’/‘ravager’, here used in apposition) was an extremely rare poeticism: it is previously attested only in the manuscripts of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (λέοντα σίνιν, Ag. 717–18)Footnote ⁶⁰ and in a verse attributed to Sophocles’ Thamyras (Αὐτόλυκον, πολέων κτεάνων σίνιν Ἄργεϊ κοίλῳ, fr. 242.2 TrGF).Footnote ⁶¹ More commonly, the word served as a proper noun, referring to another mythical Attic bandit, Sinis, who—like Sciron—preyed on unwary wayfarers, catapulting them into the sky from a bent pine tree.Footnote ⁶² By using the rare word to describe Sciron, the sophistic Lycophron thus collapsed the two mythical figures into a single reference, emphasizing their similarity. After all, both bandits were punished by Theseus with a taste of their own medicine—Sciron hurled into the sea, and Sinis into the air. They are mythical doublets of each other, a point which Lycophron's phrasing implicitly acknowledges.Footnote ⁶³ Such a condensed allusion gives us a taste of the sophist's mythical mastery and allusive sophistication. Crucially for our purposes, however, this onomastic blurring is also a familiar feature of Lycophron's Alexandra, in which characters are often figuratively described through the names of others, as when Agamemnon is presented as Zeus (1124–5, 1369–71) and Zeus in turn as Agamemnon (335); they too are doublets of each other, one ruling on earth, the other in heaven. In already transferring names and blurring identities centuries earlier, the sophistic Lycophron provides significant precedent for the indirect and allusive onomastics of the Alexandra.

Most striking of all, however, is the sophistic Lycophron's description of Xerxes as a gigantic figure, a ‘gargantuan man’ (πέλωρον ἄνδρα, Arist. Rh. 1406a7–8). The Persian tyrant is described in a similar manner in the Alexandra itself (Alex. 1413–16):Footnote ⁶⁴

In the work of both Lycophrons, Xerxes was a gigantic, more-than-human figure. Like σίνις, πέλωρος is a rare poeticism but here of epic rather than tragic pedigree. In archaic and classical epic, it was regularly used of monsters and giants, to which Xerxes is thus equated.Footnote ⁶⁵ Admittedly, our absence of the wider context for the sophist's statement makes broader conclusions difficult, and it is possible that both authors were simply drawing independently on a wider analogical tradition of using the Gigantomachy to articulate cultural and political oppositions.Footnote ⁶⁶ But the resemblance is certainly striking and suggests that Aristotle's sophist may have been a model for the poet of the Alexandra in more than just style alone.

We therefore propose that the original poet of the Alexandra adopted ‘Lycophron’ as a pen name, aligning the poem with a predetermined ‘frigid’ literary aesthetic. We are not, of course, the first to mention these namesakes in the same breath: already in antiquity, an anonymous commentator on Aristotle attempted to clarify this passage of the Rhetoric by remarking that it refers to ‘another Lycophron and not the poet’ (Λυκόφρων ἄλλος καὶ οὐχ ὁ ποιητής).Footnote ⁶⁷ Rather than drawing such a sharp distinction between the two, however, we believe that it is better to see the poet of the Alexandra building on the reputation and the stylistic associations of his predecessor. The poem's ascription advertises its aesthetic credentials. Moreover, if scholars are right to situate the poet of the Alexandra in a South Italian context and to locate the sophistic Lycophron within the Sicilian school of rhetoric headed by Gorgias, we might even see some local pride in this implicit affiliation: both ‘Lycophrons’ would then be situated within the same geographical environment, and the poet of the Alexandra would be establishing his literary identity through specifically local precedent.Footnote ⁶⁸ Admittedly, such geographical overlap can be no more than speculation on current evidence, and it is worth acknowledging how little we in fact know of the sophist beyond Aristotle's citations. But in some respects the obscure identity of this earlier author is a perfect complement to the obscure style of the Alexandra itself. The poet's name is the ultimate ‘name-code’ throughout the whole poem, embodying its stylistic frigidity. However much the Alexandra plays against Callimachus’ poetic programme, therefore, it must also be situated within a far broader literary history—and its deep affiliation with rhetorical frigidity demonstrates a further strand of its aesthetic range.