A Fresh Look at Herodas' Bucolic Masquerade

THE EIGHTH MIMIAMB of Herodas survives in an even more mutilated form than the surviving other seven, having been largely put together from fragments of papyrus and published in stages by Kenyon, Nairn et aL It is very different from its seven predecessors in the London papyrus (in which its first three lines appear intact), and it has been arguedl that it stands as a programme piece at the end of a complete book. More plausible, particularly in view of the fact that it is followed in the papyrus by the fragmentary opening lines of Mimiamb 9, is the older suggestion2 that the eighth mimiamb is the prologue to a second book, and that in it Herodas replies to critics of his earlier work. Who are these critics, and how does Herodas relate himself to Hipponax, inventor of the choliamb, the metre of this and all the extant mimiambs? That Mimiamb 8 is a bucolic masquerade comparable to Theocritus Idyll 7 is dearly to be suspected;3 what is not agreed is the identity of the poets with whom Herodas is comparing himself. This article attempts to shed all assumptions except the indispensable one that everything we have must serve a coherent meaning, and look afresh at these and other problems.4 I start with a summary of what can be readily inferred from the text as it stands, then proceed to considerations which may help to fill in the import of the main lacunae (indicated by dots) and lead to conclusions about the author's meaning and intentions in making his poiema. The speaker, rightly taken to be Herodas himself, rouses the slaves of his household in haste to offer a sacrifice on account of a dream, which he invites one of them to interpret and which he proceeds to narrate. Herodas had succeeded in dragging (ieXKiov, line 65) a goat-later identified with a gift from if we accept the emendation of Edmonds and Knox-through a lengthy cleft in rocks when he was waylaid by goatherds, who tore the goat apart and ate it.... Dionysus appeared wearing a saffron-coloured tunic covered by a fawnskin, buskins, and an ivy crown.... A festival was held in honour of the god, with dancing and games, among them the askoliasmos, which-as we know from other

Art · Literature · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

• Hipponax’ Poetic Initiation and Herodas' ‘Dream’

  Open Access•Vanessa Cazzato•The Cambridge Classical Journal•2015

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• Herodas' Mimiamb 7

  Open Access•Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides•The Classical Quarterly•2015

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• The Dream of Herodas

  Open Access•A D Knox, Andrea Knox•The Classical Review•1925

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• The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, 1

  John Herington, P E Easterling et al.•Phoenix•1988

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• The Poems of Theocritus

  Gilbert Lawall, Anna Rist et al.•Phoenix•1979

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