The ‘hierarchy of herdsmen’ in pastoral (cowherd > shepherd > goatherd) as discussed by ancient critics of Theocritus and Virgil was an important facet of ancient readers' engagement with this literature; it was known to imperial authors of prose pastoral Longus (1.16.1) and Alciphron (2.33.1-2), who each allude to it and adapt it to their own unique receptions of the pastoral tradition. Alciphron is concerned with hierarchies of wealth and status among his ‘low’ characters; he uses his readers' awareness of hierarchy as a theme of his pastoral hypotexts to sustain a theme of social status throughout his Letters and to order his four books according to their protagonists' position in the hierarchy. His relocation of ‘Idylls’ to a Classical Attic setting, and transposition into the Sophistic Atticizing prose valued by contemporary authors, follows up Longus' attempt to reclaim the pastoral tradition from Virgil for Greek literature. Menander is proposed as an authorial figure for Alciphron in Letters 4.18–19.
