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Simichidas' Walk and the Locality of Bourina in Theocritus, Id. 7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

The aim of this article is to offer what I consider to be necessary substantiati for the view that the description of the walk which acts as a frame for the singing contest in Id. 7 is based on a precise knowledge of the geography of t island of Cos and that the poem thus displays a topographical realism unique Greek pastoral.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

1 See also Herzog's Heilige Gesetze von Kos (Abb. Pr. Ak. Wiss., Pbil.-Hist. Kl., 1928), Modona, A. N., L'isola di Coo nell' anticbija classica (Rhodes, 1933), D. Hatze amallos, (Athens, 1952), and G. E. Bean and J. M. Cook, ‘The Carian Coast III’, A.B.S.A. 52 (1957), 119–27.Google Scholar

2 So Gow ad loc. For the removal of the city in 366/365 BC from Astypalaea to the later site, see Bean and Cook, pp. 120 ff. and Sherwin-White, pp. 40 ff.

3 Op. cit., pp. 212 f., after Σ Herzog, Forscbungen, p. 165, follows them in his location of the deme.

4 Even though they take Theocritus to mean the deme Haleis, Paton and Hicks remark: ‘The stream which runs into the salt lake may have been also called Haleis’ (p. 213). It is true, however, that Σ ad loc. do not mention a river.

5 Op. cit., p. 59.

6 There is no evidence from Σ, epigraphy, or historical sources concerning the precise locality of the tomb of Brasilas (11). (See addendum.)

7 Paton and Hicks, pp. 212 f. discovered an inscription (No. 327) mentioning a in the ruins of a church to St. Paul; the tablets were not in their original position, but Paton and Hicks postulated that the town or village of Pyxa was not far away and suggested Asphendiu: ‘The village of Phyxa lay therefore to the south of the direct road to Haleis, and may be placed on the hill in the neighbourhood of Asphendiu’ (p. 212). They are followed by Herzog, Forschungen, p. 164, Gow ad 130, Sherwin-White, p. 59, et al. The nowadays, like Pyli and Antimachia, consists of several small it is interesting that the one that retained the name Asphendiu in Herzog's time (Forsch-ungen, p. 164) no longer does so.

8 (45–8) The case for the v.1. is weak-ened by Herzog's discoveries discussed below.

9 Heilige Gesetze, p. 17. Gow agrees with the identification, though he does not mention Herzog's discovery. Σ are unsure about the breathing (the smooth breathing is implied in the Σ quoted in the main text below) and perhaps we should follow the suggestion of F. Williams, art. cit., 142 f. that the spelling Horomedon be adopted.

10 Paton and Hicks did not have Herzog's evidence confirming Σ ad 130 about the cult of Apollo at Pyxa and dismissed them (p. 213); Herzog is followed e.g. by Sherwin-White, pp. 59 and 302 in locating Mt. Oromedon.

11 The well-house is described by Herzog, Forschungen, pp. 159 ff., Gow ad 6 f., Sherwin-White, p. 17, et al. Older scholarship (represented e.g. by Herzog and, more cautiously, Gow) argued from the beehive construction of its chamber that it is of Mycenaean date; more recently, scholars have drawn attention to the fact that there have been no Mycenaean finds at the site: so Sherwin-White, p. 17 (with lit.), who suggests that a Hellenistic or Roman date seems more likely (see further ibid., p. 284 n. 152).

12 The identification is accepted without further comment by e.g. Gow ad 6 f. and Sherwin-White, pp. 16 f.

13 ‘Die Dichterbegegnung in Theokrits “Thalysien”’, M.H. 17 (1960), 144 ff.

14 pp. 162 f. n. 58.

15 The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), p. 187.Google Scholar

16 G. Luck, ‘Zur Deutung von Theokrits Thalysien’, M.H. 13 (1966), 186 n. 3 and U. Ott, ‘Theokrits “Thalysien” and ihre literarischen Vorbilder’, Rh.M. N.F. 115 (1972), 147 n. 44.

17 Puelma (loc. cit.) argues for his identification on internal grounds. He claims that if Bourina is not on Phrasidamus' farm then the Bourina description lacks point. But surely it has point enough as a typically Alexandrian aition meant in a complimentary manner to connect Simichidas', or, to follow Σ ad 21, Theocritus' hosts with the mythical antiquity of Cos. Moreover, Puelma notes the repetition of the phrase in the lines on Bourina and the pleasance description (8 and 136); this, he says, proves the identification. But on a visit to the island in 1971 I saw elms and poplars at Zia, one of the of Asphendiu, and Mr John Raven has assured me that they could well have grown at Bourina and the likely site of Phrasidamus' farm in Theocritus' time; it is thus most probable that is an actual description and that poetic stylization (or necessity) has grouped the words in this combination. (Puelma notes that Call. H. Cer. refers to elms (27) and a poplar (37) among other trees around a grove of Demeter in Thessaly; I suggest that Callimachus too is simply representing a reality of the Greek countryside: cf. Od. 6.291 f. and 17.208 f., and Mnasalces 15.3 (HE.). See in general Lembach, K., Die Pflanzen bei Theokrit (Heidelberg, 1970), pp. 113–17). Puelma also argues that the beauty of the Bourina scene contrasts with the heat of midday described at 10 ff., 21 ff., that the same beauty at the poem's end is welcome relief after a long journey, and that the ‘Dynamik’ and ‘Rhythmus’ of the whole poem thus demand the identification; but ld. 7 can offer all these contrasts without our having to assume that the framing scenes are identical. Furthermore, it is a little unfair of Ott, loc. cit. to cite Herzog's view that the name Bourina is a nineteenth-century revival (see above, p. 375) in order to disprove the identification by Herzog et al. of the modern spring with the ancient! It is, moreover, in the light of modern archaeological discoveries merely perverse of him to claim that a reconstruction of the island's geography is largely based on Id. 7 and that there can therefore be no conflict between Puelma's view and modern archaeology.Google Scholar

18 The pipes, still extant, have Xenophon's name stamped on them; see Sherwin-White, pp. 283 f. (with lit.).

19 Ap. Galen 14.42.168 ff. Kühn.

20 For Tricca see R.E. 11.2 (1896) s.v. Asklepios, col. 1662 f.; for Rhodes, ibid., col. 1670 f.; for Epidaurus, ibid., col. 1665 f.

21 The view that Mim. 4 is set on Cos, upheld e.g. by Headlam, W. and Knox, A. D., Herodas: the Mimes and Fragments (Cambridge, 1922), pp. xlv and 175 (on line 2), has been criticized by I. A. Cunningham, CQ N.S. 16 (1966), 113 ff. and id., Herodas: Mimiambi (Oxford, 1971), p. 2 n. 3 and p. 128, but Cunningham's view that the poem is probably not localized has been successfully refuted by Sherwin-White, pp. 349 ff. and n. 508, who brings convincing new evidence for a Coan setting.Google Scholar

22 Herzog, Forschungen, p. 160 quotes the two passages and draws attention to their similarity to prove a separate point.

23 For the other Idd. see Gow, vol. i, pp. xix f.