1 The Hymn to Zeus

The first hymn in this collection opens with the question “would anything else be better to hymn at libations for Zeus than the god himself?,” and fittingly the god’s name (Ζηνός) stands as the first word of the poem. It continues: “How shall we hymn him, as Dictaean or Lycaean?,” asking a traditional question in a way that implicitly acknowledges the range in cult locations where the god was worshipped before going on to privilege the specific local cult or occasion for which the hymn was written, and in the process to justify its claim to primacy. Callimachus chooses to narrate the Arcadian genealogy of the god, on the grounds that “Cretans always lie,” then describes the god’s birth on Mt. Lycaeon at some length (10–32). But just as his audience has settled into his Arcadian tale, Rhea hands the newborn to a nymph (Neda) who transports him to Thenae. At this juncture Callimachus exploits the fact that there were two places named Thenae, one in Arcadia, another in Crete (43), allowing us to imagine for a moment that we are still in Arcadia. However, it is to Crete that the nymph carries the baby, hiding him in order to keep his birth a secret from his father Cronus. Callimachus next narrates Zeus’s growth to adulthood on Crete (46–57), the way in which he assumed power as king of the Olympian gods (58–67), and Zeus’s divine prerogatives in comparison to other Olympians (70–84). After Zeus becomes the divine patron of kings, Callimachus again shifts geographies, now to the new city of Alexandria. If Zeus presides over the best part of power, or kings—and this is stated in Hesiodic terms with the borrowing ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες (79)—then Ptolemy is the best of all kings and more powerful than the rest, accomplishing at evening what he thought of in the morning (85–88). As a reinforcement of the geographic change, these lines no longer imitate Hesiod, but paraphrase a traditional Egyptian formula for kingship (see 87). The movement from Arcadia, the oldest part of Greece, to Crete, and finally to Alexandria, is complete. Callimachus makes explicit the role he assigns to his Zeus: it is to oversee the well-being and success of one local king in particular, Ptolemy of Egypt. The formulaic concluding prayer (91–96) asks the god for prosperity and virtue.

The Deity and His Relevant Cults

As head of the Olympian pantheon Zeus was widely worshipped throughout Greek-speaking lands under many cult titles and assimilated to many local non-Greek divinities such as Ammon in Libya. In this hymn Callimachus emphasizes Zeus’s connections to three locations: Arcadia, Crete, and Alexandria. There was a cult devoted to him on the slopes of Mt. Lycaeon, revived in the fifth and fourth centuries as an affirmation of a collective Arcadian identity (Polignac 2002: 119–22), and he was worshipped at many sites in Crete, among which is the Dictaean cave in eastern Crete and the Idaean cave in central Crete (Chaniotis 2001). Hesiod locates Zeus’s birthplace at Lyctus, slightly to the northwest of the Dictaean cave. Hesiod’s version of the Cretan birth story is usually taken to be the norm, the Arcadian as the more obscure version of the myth (e.g., Hopkinson 1984b: 143). However, Callimachus was from Cyrene, where, according to Herodotus (4.203), one of the earliest precincts outside the city was that of Zeus Lycaeus, probably because many of the city’s earliest settlers were from the Peloponnese. In this context E. Maass (1890: 401–2) made the attractive suggestion that the hymn’s distinctive blending of Arcadian and Cretan stories reflected or paid tribute to one of the three Cyrenean phylitic units, namely, the Peloponnesian-Cretan. Moreover, the Arcadian and Cretan versions had such similar characteristics that Pausanias (8.38.2) in his discussion of the Arcadian location goes so far as to state that the Arcadians had a place named Cretea and they “claim that the Crete, where the Cretan story holds Zeus to have been reared, was this place and not the island.”

In early Alexandria, the most frequent references are to Zeus Soter. He was very likely the divinity whose statue stood atop the Pharos lighthouse that was completed around 285 (Fraser 1972: 1.194; McKenzie 2007: 42). Ptolemy I Soter may have been associated with Zeus Soter after his death in 283, and somewhat later Zeus Olympios appears in dedications with Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, who were deified as the Theoi Adelphoi. Even if these dedications are later than the hymn, they certainly suggest that the association of god and king in the hymn belonged to mainstream Alexandrian cultic behaviors. Local audiences would have been neither confused nor astonished by Callimachus’ link of monarch and divinity.

Also, Macedonians worshipped Zeus under the cult title of Basileus, and Alexander is said to have celebrated the Macedonian Basileia in Egypt at the time he was crowned (Arrian 3.5.2). The early Alexandrians celebrated a Basileia that commemorated the birthday of the king, but whether it evolved from or continued elements of the older Macedonian Basileia is not clear.

The Sources and Intertexts

Cultic and rhapsodic hymns to Zeus are scarce. The Homeric hymn to Zeus (23) contains only four lines from an invocation. Pindar’s now fragmentary first hymn, traditionally thought to have been addressed to Zeus, with its priamelic listing of possible themes, may have been a model for Callimachus (e.g., Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 170–72); however, D’Alessio’s recent reconstruction (2009) makes a strong case for that hymn being addressed to Apollo (of course, the similarities remain). The hymn to Zeus embedded in the first stasimon of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon bears a general resemblance, but nothing that requires us to posit it as an intertext. The Palaikastro hymn to Zeus of Mt. Dicte (Furley and Bremmer 2001:1.68–76, 2.1–20) mentions Rhea and the Curetes, but is otherwise tangential to Callimachus’. However, lines 2–6 of the now fragmentary Hymn to Dionysus, which apparently opened the collection of Homeric hymns in the Codex Mosquensis (see West 2001), provide a good parallel for the opening of Callimachus’ hymn: “… Some say it was at Dracanus, some say it was on windy Icaros, and some on Naxos [where Semele bore you] … all speak falsely (ψευδόμενοι).” If this hymn did head a collection of Homeric hymns that predated Callimachus, then his imitation of it in hZeus provides a prima facie argument that he is announcing the opening of his own collection (Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 172–73).

Callimachus also depends on the Hymn to Hermes, as J. J. Clauss has demonstrated (1986). In addition to a series of important verbal links (ἐλατήρ, λίκνον, οἶμος, κήριον, ἀγγελιώτης) there are significant structural parallels: (1) both poems feature lies and their truthful resolution; (2) Hermes’ prodigious feats of inventing the lyre and stealing his brother Apollo’s cattle on the very day he was born parallel 88–89, where Zeus accomplishes by evening what he thinks in the morning; and (3) the strife between the younger (Hermes) and older brother (Apollo) mirrors that of Philadelphus and his older brother Ceraunus (see below).

By the early Hellenistic period hymns to Zeus had taken a philosophical turn. Cleanthes of Assos (331–232 bce), who headed the Stoic school in Athens after Zeno, wrote a Hymn to Zeus allegorizing him as the Stoic first principle ordering the universe, while Aratus of Soli (late fourth-early third century bce), who was also a pupil of Zeno, opened his hexameter poem on astral phenomena (Phaenomena) with a hymn to Zeus also with Stoic contours. Aratus’ and Callimachus’ poems are clearly interrelated, though which is prior is debated. Certainly, Callimachus’ own hymn shows awareness of philosophical trends. Line 8: ‘Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται’ was attributed to the sixth-century shaman, Epimenides of Crete, who represents a type of pre-philosophical wisdom. Line 5: ἐν δοιῇ μάλα θυμός, ἐπεὶ γένος ἀμφήριστον is a slightly altered version of the opening of the Hymn to Eros of Antagoras of Rhodes: ἐν δοιῇ μοι θυμός, ὅ τοι γένος ἀμφίσβητον (fr. 1.1 Powell, who accepts Meineke’s conjecture for ἀμφίβοητον of the mss.). Cuypers 2004: 96–102 makes an attractive argument that Antagoras’ own hymn was in part an Academic response to Stoic cosmogonic theories, and by varying the opening line with the rare ἀμφήριστον (“contested on both sides”) Callimachus is calling attention to this important philosophical debate about the nature of the divinity being hymned. Elsewhere in the hymn (46–54) Callimachus produces a rationalizing explanation for familiar details of Zeus’s birth story that align him with his older contemporary Euhemerus, whose Sacred Register speculated that the Olympian deities were originally men whose heroic deeds led to their being worshipped as gods after death (Stephens 2003: 36–39, 89–90; Cuypers 2004: 104–5). This narrative evolution of speculation on the nature of divinity both lends authority to and paves the way for the linking of god and king at the end of the poem.

In this hymn Hesiod’s poems provide the most extensive of Callimachus’ intertexts, a detailed account of which may be found in Reinsch-Werner 1976: 24–73. Works and Days opens with the praise of Zeus as one who makes men famous or not, sung or unsung as he wills; he easily straightens the crooked (7: ῥεῖα τ’ ἰθύνει σκολιόν), a sentiment that Callimachus paraphrases at line 83, while the Theogony, in relating the order of creation through Zeus’s coming to power, shares many features of a hymn to Zeus. The Hesiodic penumbra is pervasive, especially in the Cretan sequence and the discussion of kingship: it culminates with a quotation of Th. 96: ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες at line 79.¹

Callimachus imitates Hesiod (Th. 468–80) in the Cretan section to make a very specific poetological point. In the Theogony, when Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, she persuaded her parents to send her away from her husband, Cronus, in order to thwart his habit of eating his young. Rhea accordingly goes to Lyctus in Crete, a location near to the Dictaean cave, where she gives birth and then presents Cronus with a swaddled stone (instead of Zeus). Subsequently when Zeus comes to power, he forces Cronus to regurgitate his siblings and along with them the deceptive stone, which he placed in Delphi to mark his reign. Delphi was the center of the old Greek world. In his version of the divine birth, Callimachus provides a new center: lines 44–45 describe how Zeus’s umbilical cord (a rationalizing account of the ὀμφαλός) fell off as he was carried over Crete, where the “Plain of the Omphalos” now is.

Another Hesiodic imitation reinforces a sense of cults in motion. After giving birth, Rhea hands the newborn to her mother, Gaia. This is Callimachus’ model for Rhea handing the baby to Neda. But Gaia keeps the child on Crete (Th. 477–84). In contrast, Callimachus breaks up and reforms the old order. The Greek god not only moves from Arcadia, a place that boasted the original Greeks, to the southern Mediterranean, but as he does so, the Hesiodic tradition is eclipsed: the center (ὀμφαλός) of the Greek universe has been relocated. It is no longer at Delphi on the mainland, but a new physical space now located roughly halfway between the old center (Delphi) and the cities of Libyan Cyrene and Egyptian Alexandria: thus a fitting proclamation for a hymn collection that celebrates gods for a new world.

Theocritus’ Encomium for Ptolemy (17) has significant points of overlap with hZeus, especially in its opening (Stephens 2003: 148–51), though compositional priority cannot be established. Lines 31–35 of Aratus’ Phaenomena have an alternative version of Zeus’s nurture on Crete with verbal and conceptual similarities to this hymn (see Kidd’s notes ad loc.); and Apollonius’ description of the establishment of a cult to Rhea on Mt. Dindymon in Argonautica, book 1 (1132–52) contains impressionistic details that call this hymn to mind: Rhea produces water on a mountain; young men dance in armor to cover up the sounds of mourning; the bursting forth of water brings with it fertility; and the location is called “Bear mountain” (see Clauss 1993: 169–72).

The Ptolemaic connections

The festival of the Basileia in Alexandria apparently coincided with the celebration of Ptolemy II’s birthdate as well as his ascendancy to the co-regency with his father in 285/284 bce (Koenen 1977: 43–49, 51–55). A co-regency would effectively have excluded Ptolemy Ceraunus, Ptolemy I’s oldest son, from the succession, and he remained estranged from Ptolemy II until his death. These historical circumstances have led to a growing consensus that this hymn was written to commemorate the occasion of the Basileia (see Clauss 1986; Koenen 1993: 78–79; Perpillou-Thomas 1993: 152–53; Cameron 1995: 10).

Given the certain connection to Ptolemaic kingship, one element of the birth-myth that Callimachus relates, namely that the region of Arcadia was dry before the birth of Zeus and that waters flowed as a consequence, has a ready correlative in Egyptian myths of kingship. The god Horus, who was the divine analogue to the human pharaoh, was born on a “primeval hill” at the beginning of creation, to which the annual rise of the Nile was connected. Callimachus exploits this idea in hDelos as well: the Inopus on Delos is linked undersea with the Nile, and it is in spate when Apollo is born (hDelos 206–11).

ΕΙΣ ΔΙΑ

	Ζηνὸς ἔοι τί κεν ἄλλο παρὰ σπονδῇσιν ἀείδειν
	λώϊον ἢ θεὸν αὐτόν, ἀεὶ μέγαν, αἰὲν ἄνακτα,
	Πηλαγόνων ἐλατῆρα, δικασπόλον Οὐρανίδῃσι;
	πῶς καί νιν, Δικταῖον ἀείσομεν ἠὲ Λυκαῖον;
5	ἐν δοιῇ μάλα θυμός, ἐπεὶ γένος ἀμφήριστον.
	Ζεῦ, σὲ μὲν Ἰδαίοισιν ἐν οὔρεσί φασι γενέσθαι,
	Ζεῦ, σὲ δ’ ἐν Ἀρκαδίῃ· πότεροι, πάτερ, ἐψεύσαντο;
	‘Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται’· καὶ γὰρ τάφον, ὦ ἄνα, σεῖο
	Κρῆτες ἐτεκτήναντο· σὺ δ’ οὐ θάνες, ἐσσὶ γὰρ αἰεί.
10	ἐν δέ σε Παρρασίῃ Ῥείη τέκεν, ἧχι μάλιστα
	ἔσκεν ὄρος θάμνοισι περισκεπές· ἔνθεν ὁ χῶρος
	ἱερός, οὐδέ τί μιν κεχρημένον Εἰλειθυίης
	ἑρπετὸν οὐδὲ γυνὴ ἐπιμίσγεται, ἀλλά ἑ Ῥείης
	ὠγύγιον καλέουσι λεχώϊον Ἀπιδανῆες.
15	ἔνθα σ’ ἐπεὶ μήτηρ μεγάλων ἀπεθήκατο κόλπων,
	αὐτίκα δίζητο ῥόον ὕδατος, ᾧ κε τόκοιο
	λύματα χυτλώσαιτο, τεὸν δ’ ἐνὶ χρῶτα λοέσσαι.
	Λάδων ἀλλ’ οὔπω μέγας ἔρρεεν οὐδ’ Ἐρύμανθος,
	λευκότατος ποταμῶν, ἔτι δ’ ἄβροχος ἦεν ἅπασα
20	Ἀζηνίς· μέλλεν δὲ μάλ’ εὔυδρος καλέεσθαι
	αὖτις· ἐπεὶ τημόσδε, Ῥέη ὅτε λύσατο μίτρην,
	ἦ πολλὰς ἐφύπερθε σαρωνίδας ὑγρὸς Ἰάων
	ἤειρεν, πολλὰς δὲ Μέλας ὤκχησεν ἁμάξας,
	πολλὰ δὲ Καρνίωνος ἄνω διεροῦ περ ἐόντος
25	ἰλυοὺς ἐβάλοντο κινώπετα, νίσσετο δ’ ἀνήρ
	πεζὸς ὑπὲρ Κρᾶθίν τε πολύστιόν τε Μετώπην
	διψαλέος· τὸ δὲ πολλὸν ὕδωρ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἔκειτο.
	καί ῥ’ ὑπ’ ἀμηχανίης σχομένη φάτο πότνια Ῥείη·
	‘Γαῖα φίλη, τέκε καὶ σύ· τεαὶ δ’ ὠδῖνες ἐλαφραί.’
30	εἶπε καὶ ἀντανύσασα θεὴ μέγαν ὑψόθι πῆχυν
	πλῆξεν ὄρος σκήπτρῳ· τὸ δέ οἱ δίχα πουλὺ διέστη,
	ἐκ δ’ ἔχεεν μέγα χεῦμα· τόθι χρόα φαιδρύνασα,
	ὦνα, τεὸν σπείρωσε, Νέδῃ δέ σε δῶκε κομίσσαι
	κευθμὸν ἔσω Κρηταῖον, ἵνα κρύφα παιδεύοιο,
35	πρεσβυτάτῃ Νυμφέων, αἵ μιν τότε μαιώσαντο,
	πρωτίστῃ γενεῇ μετά γε Στύγα τε Φιλύρην τε.
	οὐδ’ ἁλίην ἀπέτεισε θεὴ χάριν, ἀλλὰ τὸ χεῦμα
	κεῖνο Νέδην ὀνόμηνε· τὸ μέν ποθι πουλὺ κατ’ αὐτό
	Καυκώνων πτολίεθρον, ὃ Λέπρειον πεφάτισται,
40	συμφέρεται Νηρῆϊ, παλαιότατον δέ μιν ὕδωρ
	υἱωνοὶ πίνουσι Λυκαονίης ἄρκτοιο.
	εὖτε Θενὰς ἀπέλειπεν ἐπὶ Κνωσοῖο φέρουσα,
	Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἡ Νύμφη σε (Θεναὶ δ’ ἔσαν ἐγγύθι Κνωσοῦ),
	τουτάκι τοι πέσε, δαῖμον, ἄπ’ ὀμφαλός· ἔνθεν ἐκεῖνο
45	Ὀμφάλιον μετέπειτα πέδον καλέουσι Κύδωνες.
	Ζεῦ, σὲ δὲ Κυρβάντων ἑτάραι προσεπηχύναντο
	Δικταῖαι Μελίαι, σὲ δ’ ἐκοίμισεν Ἀδρήστεια
	λίκνῳ ἐνὶ χρυσέῳ, σὺ δ’ ἐθήσαο πίονα μαζόν
	αἰγὸς Ἀμαλθείης, ἐπὶ δὲ γλυκὺ κηρίον ἔβρως.
50	γέντο γὰρ ἐξαπιναῖα Πανακρίδος ἔργα μελίσσης
	Ἰδαίοις ἐν ὄρεσσι, τά τε κλείουσι Πάνακρα.
	οὖλα δὲ Κούρητές σε περὶ πρύλιν ὠρχήσαντο
	τεύχεα πεπλήγοντες, ἵνα Κρόνος οὔασιν ἠχήν
	ἀσπίδος εἰσαΐοι καὶ μή σεο κουρίζοντος.
55	καλὰ μὲν ἠέξευ, καλὰ δ’ ἔτραφες, οὐράνιε Ζεῦ,
	ὀξὺ δ’ ἀνήβησας, ταχινοὶ δέ τοι ἦλθον ἴουλοι.
	ἀλλ’ ἔτι παιδνὸς ἐὼν ἐφράσσαο πάντα τέλεια·
	τῷ τοι καὶ γνωτοὶ προτερηγενέες περ ἐόντες
	οὐρανὸν οὐκ ἐμέγηραν ἔχειν ἐπιδαίσιον οἶκον.
60	δηναιοὶ δ’ οὐ πάμπαν ἀληθέες ἦσαν ἀοιδοί·
	φάντο πάλον Κρονίδῃσι διάτριχα δώματα νεῖμαι·
	τίς δέ κ’ ἐπ’ Οὐλύμπῳ τε καὶ Ἄϊδι κλῆρον ἐρύσσαι,
	ὃς μάλα μὴ νενίηλος; ἐπ’ ἰσαίῃ γὰρ ἔοικε
	πήλασθαι· τὰ δὲ τόσσον ὅσον διὰ πλεῖστον ἔχουσι.
65	ψευδοίμην, ἀΐοντος ἅ κεν πεπίθοιεν ἀκουήν.
	οὔ σε θεῶν ἑσσῆνα πάλοι θέσαν, ἔργα δὲ χειρῶν,
	σή τε βίη τό τε κάρτος, ὃ καὶ πέλας εἵσαο δίφρου.
	θήκαο δ’ οἰωνῶν μέγ’ ὑπείροχον ἀγγελιώτην
	σῶν τεράων· ἅ τ’ ἐμοῖσι φίλοις ἐνδέξια φαίνοις.
70	εἵλεο δ’ αἰζηῶν ὅ τι φέρτατον· οὐ σύ γε νηῶν
	ἐμπεράμους, οὐκ ἄνδρα σακέσπαλον, οὐ μὲν ἀοιδόν·
	ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν μακάρεσσιν ὀλίζοσιν αὖθι παρῆκας
	ἄλλα μέλειν ἑτέροισι, σὺ δ’ ἐξέλεο πτολιάρχους
	αὐτούς, ὧν ὑπὸ χεῖρα γεωμόρος, ὧν ἴδρις αἰχμῆς,
75	ὧν ἐρέτης, ὧν πάντα· τί δ’ οὐ κρατέοντος ὑπ’ ἰσχύν;
	αὐτίκα χαλκῆας μὲν ὑδείομεν Ἡφαίστοιο,
	τευχηστὰς δ’ Ἄρηος, ἐπακτῆρας δὲ Χιτώνης
	Ἀρτέμιδος, Φοίβου δὲ λύρης εὖ εἰδότας οἴμους·
	‘ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες’, ἐπεὶ Διὸς οὐδὲν ἀνάκτων
80	θειότερον· τῷ καί σφε τεὴν ἐκρίναο λάξιν.
	δῶκας δὲ πτολίεθρα φυλασσέμεν, ἵζεο δ’ αὐτός
	ἄκρῃσ’ ἐν πολίεσσιν, ἐπόψιος οἵ τε δίκῃσι
	λαὸν ὑπὸ σκολιῇσ’ οἵ τ’ ἔμπαλιν ἰθύνουσιν·
	ἐν δὲ ῥυηφενίην ἔβαλές σφισιν, ἐν δ’ ἅλις ὄλβον·
85	πᾶσι μέν, οὐ μάλα δ’ ἶσον. ἔοικε δὲ τεκμήρασθαι
	ἡμετέρῳ μεδέοντι· περιπρὸ γὰρ εὐρὺ βέβηκεν.
	ἑσπέριος κεῖνός γε τελεῖ τά κεν ἦρι νοήσῃ·
	ἑσπέριος τὰ μέγιστα, τὰ μείονα δ’, εὖτε νοήσῃ.
	οἱ δὲ τὰ μὲν πλειῶνι, τὰ δ’ οὐχ ἑνί, τῶν δ’ ἀπὸ πάμπαν
90	αὐτὸς ἄνην ἐκόλουσας, ἐνέκλασσας δὲ μενοινήν.
	χαῖρε μέγα, Κρονίδη πανυπέρτατε, δῶτορ ἐάων,
	δῶτορ, ἀπημονίης. τεὰ δ’ ἔργματα τίς κεν ἀείδοι;
	οὐ γένετ’, οὐκ ἔσται· τίς κεν Διὸς ἔργματ’ ἀείσει;
	χαῖρε, πάτερ, χαῖρ’, αὖθι· δίδου δ᾽ἀρετήν τ᾽ἄφενός τε.
95	οὔτ’ ἀρετῆς ἄτερ ὄλβος ἐπίσταται ἄνδρας ἀέξειν
	οὔτ’ ἀρετὴ ἀφένοιο· δίδου δ᾽ἀρετήν τε καὶ ὄλβον.

3 πηλαγόνων Et. gen.: πηλογόνων Ψ 4 νιν Ψ: μιν Wilamowitz 10 Παρρασίῃ Lasc.: Παρνασίῃ Ψ τέκεν, ἦχι μάλιστα Ψ: τέκεν εὐνηθεῖσα Origen. 20 Ἀζηνίς sch. Dion. Per.: Ἀρκαδίη Ψ 24 Καρνίωνος Arnaldus: Καρίωνος Ψ 33 κομίσσαι αβγδ: κομίζειν ζ, Hopkinson 36 πρωτίστῃ γενεῇ Ψ: πρωτίστη γενεή Schneider, Pfeiffer μετά γε Blomfield: μετά τε Ψ 51 τά τε Ψ: ἅ τε Steph. Byz. 53 πεπλήγοντες Lasc. η: πεπληγότες Ψ 68 οἰωνῶν H. Stephanus: οἰωνόν Ψ 80 σφε POxy 2258: σφι Ψ 87 νοήσῃ Lasc.: νοήσει Ψ 93 κεν Ψ: καί Wilamowitz ἀείσει Lasc. α: ἀείσοι Ψ 94 ἀρετήν τ’ ἄφενός τε Ψ: ἀρετὴν ἀφενόν τε Et. gen.

To Zeus

Would anything else be better to hymn at libations of Zeus than the god himself, ever great, ever lord, router of the Titans, dispenser of justice for the sons of Uranus? But how shall we hymn him, as Dictaean or Lycaean? (5) My heart is in doubt, for the birth is contested. Zeus, some say you were born in the Idaean mountains; Zeus, others say in Arcadia. Which of them is telling falsehoods, father? “Cretans always lie.” And indeed, Lord, the Cretans built a tomb for you; but you are not dead, you live forever.

(10) In Parrhasia Rhea bore you, where the mountain was especially dense with thickets. Afterwards the place was sacred; nothing in need of Eileithyia, neither crawling thing nor woman approaches it, but the Apidaneans call it the primeval childbed of Rhea. (15) From the moment when your mother produced you from her great womb, immediately she searched for a stream of water in which she might cleanse the afterbirth, and therein might wash your body. But the mighty Ladon was not yet flowing nor was the Erymanthus, the whitest of waters, and the whole of (20) Azenis was not yet irrigated. But thereafter it was to be called well irrigated. For at the time when Rhea loosened her sash, the watery Iaon bore many oaks above it, and the Melas provided a course for many wagons, (25) many serpents made their lair above the Carnion (although it is now wet), and a man was accustomed to walk upon the Crathis and the stony Metope, thirsty. But abundant water lay under his feet. In the grip of helplessness, lady Rhea spoke: “Dear Gaia, you too give birth; your birth pangs are light.” (30) She spoke and the goddess, lifting up her great arm, struck the hill with her staff; it was split wide apart for her and a great stream of water poured forth. There she washed your body, O Lord, and swaddled you, and gave you to Neda to carry to a Cretan hideaway, to rear you in secret. (35) She was the eldest of the Nymphs who attended her [Rhea] as midwives in the earliest generation after Styx and Philyra. Nor did the goddess reward her with an empty favor, but named that flow, Neda. This great stream somewhere by the very city of the Caucones (which is called Lepreion) (40) mingles with Nereus, and this most ancient water, the descendants of the bear, the daughter of Lycaon, drink. When the nymph left Thenae carrying you to Cnossus, Father Zeus, (for Thenae was near Cnossus) in that place your umbilical cord fell from you, Daimon, and afterwards the Cydones call it the (45) Omphalian plain. Zeus, you the companions of the Curbantes took into their arms, the Dictaean Meliae, and Adrastea laid you to rest in a golden cradle, and you suckled at the rich breast of the goat, Amalthea, and ate sweet honeycomb. (50) For suddenly the work of the Panacrian bees appeared in the Idaean mountains, which they call Panacra. And the Curetes danced the war dance around you with vigor, beating on their shields so Cronus would hear the clash of the shield and not your infant crying.

(55) Fairly you grew and fairly you were nourished, heavenly Zeus, and growing up quickly, down came swiftly to your cheeks. But when you were still a child you devised all things in their completion. And so your siblings, although they were older, did not begrudge you heaven to hold as your allotted home. (60) Ancient poets are not always completely truthful: they claim that a lot assigned homes in a threefold division to the sons of Cronus, but who would cast lots for Olympus and Hades, unless he was utterly foolish? For one casts lots, it seems, for things that are of equal value, but these are very far apart. (65) I would tell fictions of the sort that would persuade the ear of the listener. Lots did not make you king of the gods, but the deeds of your hands; your force and might, which you have set beside your throne. And you made the most distinguished of birds the messenger of your omens (may those omens you show to my friends be favorable). (70) And you chose what is most excellent among men; you did not choose the skilled in ships, nor the shield-wielding man, nor the singer, but you immediately ceded them to lesser gods, other spheres for others to look after, but you chose the rulers of cities themselves, under whose authority is the farmer, the skilled in the spear, (75) the oarsman, all things. What is not within the power of the ruler? For example, we say that bronze workers belong to Hephaestus, warriors to Ares, huntsmen to Tunic-clad Artemis, and to Phoebus those who are accomplished at the lyre, but “from Zeus are kings”; for nothing is more divine than Zeus’s kings. (80) Therefore you chose them for your portion. You gave them cities to guard, and sat yourself in their cities’ high places, vigilant for who rules the people with crooked judgments and who does the opposite. You have bestowed wealth on them, and abundant prosperity, (85) to all, but not very evenly. One can infer this from our king, for he far outstrips the rest. At evening he accomplishes what he thinks of in the morning; at evening the greatest things, the lesser, immediately he thinks of them. Others accomplish some things in a year, other things not in one; of others you (90) yourself cut short their accomplishment and thwart their desire.

Fare very well, loftiest son of Cronus, giver of wealth, giver of safety. Who would sing of your deeds? There has not been, there will not be; who shall sing of the deeds of Zeus? Hail, father, again hail. Grant virtue and prosperity. (95) Without virtue, wealth cannot increase men, nor virtue without wealth. Grant virtue and wealth.

Commentary

1–7. For the structure and organization of these lines see pp. 27–28. Both Aratus’ Phaenomena and Theocritus 17 begin with Zeus (ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα). The scholiast notes that the syntax of these lines is ambiguous: either Ζηνός belongs with the closer παρὰ σπονδῇσιν, “at libations for Zeus,” or with λώϊον, “would anything else be better than Zeus to hymn at libations than the god himself.” (For the latter the distance between Ζηνός and ἢ θεὸν αὐτόν might mitigate the redundancy and the shift in construction after the comparative.) “Libations for Zeus” should indicate a specific occasion honoring Zeus (as I understand the line), while the alternative may be no more than a generic reference to sympotic practice (see Lüddecke 1998: 12–13). Athenaeus 15.692f-93c records the habit of pouring the first libation at a symposium to Zeus Soter, while a scholium to Aratus claims that the first libation was to Zeus Olympios, the second to the Dioscuri and the heroes, and the third to Zeus Soter (see Kidd’s full discussion, p. 163).

3. Πηλαγόνων: the manuscript tradition preserves Πηλογόνων (“Mud-born”), while the variant Πηλαγόνων, glossed as “Giants,” occurs in ancient quotations of this line. According to Strabo (7 fr. 40) the Titans were called Πηλαγόνες, though Giants and Titans were often indistinguishable. Steph. Byz. s.v. complicates the picture: he states that Πηλαγονία was a region of Macedon and the name of the natives Πηλαγόνες. This has given rise to the conjecture that Πηλαγόνων was an allusion to the struggles of Ptolemy I with the Macedonian dynasts, particularly in light of 61 below.

ἐλατῆρα: Pindar (Ol. 4.1) applies this epithet to Zeus as driver of a chariot of thunder, Homer to a charioteer (Il. 4.145, 11.702), and in HhHerm, it describes Hermes as a driver away of cows (βοῶν ἐλατῆρα, 14, 265, 377). Certainly in Hesiod (Th. 820) Zeus Τιτῆνας ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ ἐξέλασεν, to which incident the phrase might allude (see the discussion in Hunter and Fuhrer 2002: 170n67). Nonnus (18.266) later imitates the phrase as Γηγενέων ὀλετῆρα, where Γηγενέων (“Earth-born”) may gloss the ms. reading of Πηλογόνων.

δικασπόλον: the word occurs twice in Homer (Il. 1.238, Od. 11.186). In the Odyssey passage Telemachus acts as a judge (δικασπόλος) in his father’s stead in Ithaca; as an intertext it might allude to Ptolemy II as the younger member of a co-regency. For Stoic Zeus as a lawgiver see Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus 24–25.

4. καί “in fact”; when it follows an interrogative, καί “denotes that the question cuts at the foundations of the problem under consideration” (Denniston, 313–14).

νιν: editors tend to preserve the ms. reading, though Wilamowitz proposed emending the Doric νιν to Ionic μιν (cf. 12 below). Cuypers 2004: 108 argues for the retention of νιν on the grounds that it is an echo of HhAp 528: πῶς καὶ νῦν βιόμεσθα. In that passage the Cretan speakers address Apollo as “Lord, who have brought us far from our dear ones and native land, how shall we live?” The allusion would be especially attractive in the context of Alexandria’s immigrant community.

5. See p. 50.

6–8. Callimachus asks Zeus himself to adjudicate the dispute over his birth. But the ostensibly formulaic question is unexpectedly answered by Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται (“Cretans always lie”), a famous paradoxical expression that was attributed to the archaic sage, Epimenides of Crete (see Cuypers 2004: 102–5). The logic of what follows is that, since Cretans are known for lying, you cannot trust their claims that Zeus was born in Crete, especially since they had a famous site said to be the tomb of Zeus. But who is the speaker? Is this Zeus, Callimachus, or Epimenides himself? If it is Zeus who answers, his rejection of Hesiod authorizes the hymnic realignment to follow, as the choice the god is given is between the Hesiodic version of his birth (Crete) and the one that Callimachus will go on to prefer (Arcadia). (For the ambiguities in the passage see Goldhill 1986.)

6. Ἰδαίοισιν ἐν οὔρεσι: the plural may be a reminder that in addition to Mt. Ida on Crete, a Mt. Ida also existed in Phrygia. Both locations were claimants for the birthplace of Zeus.

φασι γενέσθαι: four times in Homer, and used twice in this sedes of heroic fathers of heroes (Il. 4.375, of Tydeus ≈ Od. 4.201, of Antilochus): “For I never met or saw him, but they say he was preeminent among others.” The intertext would seem to locate Zeus with heroes of a former generation, thus preparing for his identification with “my king” below.

7. Ζεῦ … πάτερ: addressing Zeus as “father” here and again at 43 in the context of his birth may be intended to call into question traditional natal mythologies. The vocative occurs again in the final prayer (see 94 below).

8. ὦ ἄνα: the hiatus is normal and explained by digamma; at 33 the crasis of ὦ + ἄνα (= ὦνα) is unusual. In Callimachus’ hymns only Zeus (hZeus 8, 33) and Apollo (hAp 79) are addressed as ἄνα.

9. ἐτεκτήναντο: the unaugmented epic aorist is much more common, and used at HhHerm 25 of Hermes constructing the lyre. τεκταίνομαι often implies deceit (e.g., Eur. IT 951), as here.

10. Παρρασίῃ: Parrhasia was the region of Arcadia associated with Zeus Lycaeus.

Ῥείη: the spelling of Rhea alternates between Ῥείη and Ῥέη (21), as Callimachus explores the etymology of the name as from ῥεῖα (= easy) and from the verb ῥέω (= flow); the variants also allude to passages in Hesiod (Hopkinson 1984a).

11–13. Callimachus employs sacral language—the decree that pregnant creatures of any sort, human or animal, may not approach—to mark the holiness that the site takes on from its association with Zeus’s birth. For such prohibitions see Parker 1983: 48–50 and 344–46 (Cyrenean cathartic law).

11. περισκεπές “covered all around”; first in Callimachus (also hDelos 23); adjective formed from περί + σκέπας.

12–13. μιν … ἐπιμίσγεται: the construction of this verb with the accusative is unusual (Bentley and Schneider emend to οἱ); a parallel may be Hesiod Th. 803–4 (see West ad loc.), and the meaning not the more common “mingling with” but “come close to,” implying motion towards. In addition, the case may be intended to call attention to the phrase οὐδέ τί μιν: discussed above p. 24.

12. Εἰλειθυίης: Eileithyia was the goddess of childbirth. Naming her in this context hints at multiple traditions about her birth. One version makes her older than Cronus, and a daughter of Gaia; this goddess was associated with Crete. Hesiod (Th. 922) makes her the daughter of Zeus and Hera; this Eileithyia would be distinctly anachronistic at Zeus’s birth.

14. Four-word lines are exceptional in Callimachus. Here it closes the section and concludes the aition (again at 41, and for the thought see 45).

ὠγύγιον “primeval”; Homer seems to treat Ὠγυγίη as a proper name, and uses it always with νῆσος (e.g., for Calypso’s island at Od. 7.244). In hDelos 160 Callimachus describes Cos, the birthplace of Ptolemy II as ὠγυγίην … νῆσον. The symbolism of birth on a primeval hill or island was central in Egyptian creation myth (Stephens 2003: 95–96).

λεχώϊον “place of giving birth”; a Callimachean hapax, following a common pattern of treating an adjective as if it were a substantive (see McLennan ad loc. for further examples).

Ἀπιδανῆες: Apidaneans were the earliest Arcadians, said to have lived before the moon. The scholiast on A.R. (4.263–64a) derives the name from Apis, the son of Phoroneus, who was in turn the son of Inachus (the local river). The name Apidanees, therefore, conveys not only antiquity, it encapsulates an ancestral relationship: the Inachid line produced Io, her son Epaphus, and his descendants Libya, Danaus, and Aegyptus on the one hand, and Cadmus and Oedipus on the other. The former were significant for the Ptolemies (see p. 238), the latter Callimachus in hAp claims as ancestors of Cyrene. A second derivation is from ἀ + πίνω = without drink, or dry (see Hopkinson 1984a).

15–20. Arcadian rivers dried up in the summer and autumn, but Callimachus presents the local rivers—Ladon, Erymanthus, Iaon, Melas, Carnion, and Crathis—as still subterranean, only bursting forth after Zeus has been born. Puns on Rhea, as “flow,” and on Azenis (Arcadia), as ἀ-Ζήν or “without Zeus,” link names to this condition. Such etymologizing was a feature of Stoic philosophy, though articulated even earlier in Plato’s Cratylus, where the essence of divine names is explained (e.g., 396a1–b5).

15. ἀπεθήκατο κόλπων: ἀποτίθημι with the genitive “to give birth” (lit. “lay aside from her lap”); cf. HhHerm 20: ἀπ’ … θόρε γυίων; also at hArt 25.

16. δίζητο: from δίζημαι, “seek out”; Callimachus also uses the alternate form, δίζομαι. The lengthening of the final syllable before ῥόον is Homeric (cf. Il. 17.264, 21.258) and reflects initial digamma; also at hDelos 159, 206, hAth 77.

17. χυτλώσαιτο: from χυτλόω. This form occurs once in Homer (Od. 6.80), when Nausicaa’s mother sends her off to the seashore with a flask of oil to anoint herself (χυτλώσαιτο) after bathing, then once here in Callimachus, where it means “wash.” Apollonius 4.1311 probably imitates this passage to describe Athena being washed immediately after she was born from the head of her father.

χρῶτα: like Homer and Hesiod, Callimachus uses both forms of the accusative of χρώς (see 32).

λοέσσαι: from λοέω, the uncontracted form of λούω, a third singular aorist optative (so Griffiths 1981: 160). McLennan ad loc. takes as a “final-consecutive” infinitive, though δ’ suggests a construction parallel to the preceding optative. The verb occurs once in Homer at Od. 19.320, of servants bathing Odysseus.

18–32. For these lines Griffiths 1981: 159 points to the parallel of Aratus 218–20: οὐ γάρ πω … “for not yet was the peak of Helicon flowing with streams, but the horse struck it with its foot and on that spot water poured forth” (ἀθρόον … ὕδωρ | ἐξέχυτο).

18. For these rivers see map 2.

19–20. The phrase ἄβροχος ἦεν ἅπασα | Ἀζηνίς makes the equation clear: without rain, ἀ-βροχή = without Zeus, ἀ-Ζήν, without life, ἀ-ζῆν. ( J. J. Clauss makes the attractive suggestion that ἅπασα too may be attracted to this privative environment—“not anything.”)

19. ἄβροχος points to Egypt: it is a technical term used in Egyptian documents for land that has not been inundated by the Nile flood (cf. Eur. Hel. 1485 of the Libyan desert).

20. Ἀζηνίς was the northwestern section of Arcadia bordering on Elis. The mss. read Ἀρκαδίη, but this is almost certainly a gloss on the more specific, though less familiar Ἀζηνίς, found in a scholium on Dionyius the Periegete 415.

21. αὖτις “hereafter” (see LSJ s.v. αὖθις II 2).

ὅτε: the postponed temporal conjunction is frequent in the hymns (hArt 150, hDelos 229, 309, hDem 9).

22–27. Callimachus indicates the absence of the rivers with a number of images: oaks grow above the Iaon; wagons travel above the Melas; snakes have their lairs above the Carnion; and men walk over the Crathis. The anaphora of forms of πολύς in these lines serves to contrast the extreme dryness above ground with the abundant water beneath.

22–23. ἐφύπερθε … ἤειρεν: the phrase has been taken to indicate Callimachus’ preference for reading ἐφύπερθεν ἀειρθείς at Od. 9.383; the reading was later questioned by Aristarchus, who preferred ἐρεισθείς (Rengakos 1993: 162–63).

22. σαρωνίδας: first in Callimachus; according to the scholiast the word means “oak trees.” Pliny (HN 4.18.4–6) claims that the Saronic gulf was so named from its oak trees.

23. Μέλας: more than one river was so named because of the darkness of its waters, though none is attested for Arcadia; here “Black river” contrasts with “whitest” Erymanthus.

ὤκχησεν: from ὀκχέω, a metrically lengthened form of ὀχέω that occurred previously only in Pindar (Ol. 2.74, 6.24).

24. Καρνίωνος: the emendation is that of Arnaldus, based on Paus. 8.34.5 (for the Carnion, see map 2); mss. read the otherwise unattested Καρίωνος.

διερoῦ: twice in Homer (Od. 6.201, 9.43), where the meaning was debated; the meaning is either “living” or “swift” (see Rengakos 1992: 26). Here it seems to mean “wet,” though in light of 19–20 above, “living” may be implicit (as at hAp 23).

25. κινώπετα: here for the first time: according to the scholiast “animals that move on the ground.” Later in Nicander (Ther. 27) it is restricted to venomous creatures like snakes.

26. πολύστιον: according to the scholiast, “with many pebbles”; a Callimachean coinage from πολύ + στῖον. The scholiast on A.R. 2.1172 states that στία is what the Sicyonians call “a pebble.” Possibly Callimachus chose the Sicyonian word to allude to the mythology of the river Metope.

Μετώπην: the location of this river is not certain, but apparently near Stymphalus, and possibly identical with what Pausanias identifies as the river Stymphalus (Ael. VH 2.33.5–8, Paus. 8.4.6, 22.2). Metope was said to have been the daughter of Ladon (18) and the wife of Asopus, the main river of Sicyon (Pi. Ol. 6.84).

27. διψαλέος “thirsty” or “parched”; first here, then again of the river Peneius’ lament in hDelos 130. Later found at Batrach. 9 and in the medical writers. Crossing over a river without wetting one’s feet is a description of inferior rivers spoken with contempt by the Nile in Callimachus’ Victory of Sosibius (fr. 384.32–34 Pf.).

29–30. Rhea’s invocation of her mother both personifies Gaia and calls attention to the fact that she is the ground beneath her daughter’s feet. This begins a section that is heavily dependent on Hesiod’s description of the birth of Zeus on Crete. See p. 51.

29. Γαῖα φίλη, τέκε καὶ σύ: cf. Il. 21.106 and 119, in which Achilles kills Lycaon, a son of Priam, first telling him: ἀλλά, φίλος, θάνε καὶ σύ. “But, friend, you die too.” When he strikes him with his sword, copious amounts of blood flow (ῥέε) and soak the ground (γαῖαν). The imitation may result from the homonym with the Lycaon who was an early king of Arcadia and from whom the local mountain took its name (so Griffiths 1981: 160). But more importantly, Callimachus transforms a typical Homeric moment of war and death into the production of life and water that sustains life (so Hopkinson 1989: 125).

τέκε: aorist imperative from τίκτω. Gaia (Earth) is exhorted to give birth, i.e., to provide water.

ὠδῖνες: usually in plural; it occurs only at Il. 11.271 and HhAp 92 (of Leto) in the sense of “pangs of childbirth”; in both earlier texts they are bitter or prolonged, in contrast to Rhea’s parturition.

30. ἀντανύσασα: aorist participle from ἀνατανύω; a rare verb that combines ἀνά + Homeric τανύω on the model of ἀνατείνω, “stretch out”; also at A.R. 1.344.

θεή: mss. read θεά here, but elsewhere θεή; editors usually emend to bring into conformity with the rest of the hymn. The -α suffix could have arisen under the influence of the previous word.

31. πουλύ = πολύ: Callimachus regularly uses both forms of this adverb, often in close proximity, in the Homeric fashion.

32. χρόα φαιδρύνασα: the phrase may have been taken from Hes. Op. 753: μηδὲ γυναικείῳ λουτρῷ χρόα φαιδρύνεσθαι (“[a man] should not wash his skin with a woman’s bathwater”).

33. ὦνα: see 8n.

σπείρωσε: from σπειρόω, first in Callimachus; according to the scholiast, it is a variant of σπαργανόω. It occurs again at hDelos 6 of Delos swaddling Apollo.

34. κευθμόν “hiding place” or “covert”; the singular is formed from the Homeric hapax (Il. 13.28, ἐκ κευθμῶν); the variant, κευθμών, -μῶνος occurs at Od. 10.283, 13.367).

Κρηταῖον: that Zeus was reared in a Cretan cave is a traditional part of the birth myth, though according to Pausanias (8.38.2) there was a “Cretan cave” located on Mt. Lycaeon in Arcadia.

35. πρεσβυτάτῃ Νυμφέων: Neda is here said to be oldest of the nymphs in attendance, along with Styx and Philyra. For her service the Arcadian river that flowed from Mt. Lycaeon to the Cyparissian gulf was named for her.

μαιώσαντο: from μαιόομαι, “acted as midwives” in Hellenistic and later Greek.

According to Pausanias (8.47.3), the altar in the sanctuary of Athena at Arcadian Tegea represented Rhea, a nymph holding the infant Zeus, eight attending nymphs, including Neda, with figures of the Muses and Memory. Cf. HhAp 92–94 for divine attendants at Leto’s accouchement, where Eileithyia is also absent.

36. Στύγα: Styx was the name given to the oldest of the daughters of Ocean and to a small river that flowed into the Crathis in northern Arcadia. In Hesiod she is also identified with the Styx of the underworld (Th. 775–79). West ad loc. notes that the mythological Styx bears a resemblance to Nonacris, an Arcadian waterfall that was called “Styx” by ancient writers.

Φιλύρην: Philyra was the mother of the centaur Chiron; in A.R. 2.1231–41 while Zeus was still a child, Rhea surprised her husband Cronus as he was making love to Philyra; he turned himself into a horse. The resulting child was a centaur, half-man, half-horse.

37. ἁλίην: here “idle” or “empty,” though its placement immediately following the names of two Ocean nymphs momentarily suggests the homonym (ἅλιος = “of the sea”) and that we will be getting further information about the Oceanids.

39. Καυκώνων πτολίεθρον: the Caucones, according to Homer (Od. 3.366), were named for their ancestor Caucon, a son of Lycaon. Their city, Lepreum, is in southern Elis very close to the river Neda’s exit to the sea.

πεφάτισται: the perfect passive of φατίζω is not found before the Hellenistic period.

40. Νηρῆι: Nereus was an older sea god, the son of Gaia, whose mythology resembles that of Proteus. Here Nereus is a metonymy for the sea, and naming him reinforces the pre-Olympian time of these events. But Callimachus also anthropomorphizes him with his choice of συμφέρεται, perhaps implying a sexual mingling with Neda.

41. The Arcadian section of the hymn closes with a second four-word spondaic line.

υἱωνοί: the usual meaning of υἱωνός is “grandson,” but here clearly “descendant.”

Λυκαονίης ἄρκτοιο: Callimachus follows Hesiod (fr. 163 M-W) in making Callisto the daughter of Lycaon. Zeus fell in love with her, and she was subsequently turned into a bear (ἄρκτος), either by Zeus himself, or by Artemis or Hera, and was placed in the night sky as a constellation (Ursa Major, or the Great Bear). Her son by Zeus, Arcas, was an early king as well as the eponymous ancestor of the Arcadians; he also ends up as a constellation (Ursa Minor). Aratus 31–35 makes these constellations originally bears who nursed Zeus when he was reared in a Cretan cave (see Kidd ad loc.).

42–45. These lines create a moment of disorientation for the reader: suddenly, we are no longer in Arcadia (see p. 47).

42. For Cretan Thenae in Hellenistic cult, see Chaniotis 2001: 215–16.

42–43. The variation in the genitive forms of Κνωσοῖο and Κνωσοῦ is also found in Homer.

44. τουτάκι: poetic equivalent of τότε; the form occurs first in Pi. Py. 4.28, 255. Callimachus uses it here and again in the Doric hymns at hAth 115 and hDem 32. Bulloch (on hAth 115) conjectures that it may be a Doricism.

πέσε … ἄπ(ο): the preposition of the compound in tmesis here follows its verb. ἀποπίπτω occurs only once in Homer, Il. 14.351: στιλπναὶ δ’ ἀπέπιπτον ἐέρσαι. After Zeus and Hera make love, they lie upon a cloud from which falls “glistening dew.”

45. Ὀμφάλιον … πέδον: the Omphalion plain was located near Cnossus; cf. Diodorus 5.70, whose account of Zeus’s birth may owe some features to Callimachus, but also expands on traditional elements like the Curetes, honey, and the she-goat that suckled Zeus.

Κύδωνες: the Cydones, who lived in northwest Crete, are a metonym for the Cretans as a whole; according to Pausanias (8.53.4), they were the descendants of the sons of an Arcadian (Tegeates). Their city, Cydon, is modern Chania.

46–54. Zeus is secretly brought up in Crete, attended by the Ash nymphs. Apart from these nymphs, the rest of the figures would appear to be human (Curetes, Corybantes) and/or demythologized natural phenomena (goats, bees) in contrast to the convergence of divinity and landscape in the Arcadian portion of the poem (e.g., Gaia, Neda, Nereus). The Curetes, who were the Cretan attendants of Zeus, here dance the war dance (πρύλιν: 52) to keep Cronus from hearing the baby’s cries. The details of Zeus’s nurture align Callimachus’ narrative with Euhemerus and earlier rationalizing interpretations of myth (on which see Kirichenko 2012: 188–200) and pave the way for the later linking of god and king.

46. Κυρβάντων: a variant of Κορυβάντων. The Corybantes were servants of Phrygian Cybele. Euripides (Bacch. 120–25) is Callimachus’ precursor in locating the Corybantes in Crete, where they are said to invent the tambourine (cf. 53: τεύχεα πεπλήγοντες).

προσεπηχύναντο “take into one’s arms”; the verb is unique to Callimachus (cf. the simplex πηχύνω, which is also a Hellenistic poeticism).

47. Δικταῖαι Μελίαι: the “Ash nymphs” were said to have sprung from the blood of the castrated Uranus (Th. 187). Μελία was also the name of the ash tree, so called because it oozed a honey-like sap (μέλι). Ἀδρήστεια was the sister of the Curetes, and their father was Melissus; and the word for honey bee (μέλισσα) occurs in 50 (see Haslam 1993: 121–22 on this convoluted set of verbal associations).

48. ἐθήσαο: second singular aorist middle indicative of θῆσαι, “to suckle.” The verb occurs once in Homer at Il. 24.58, where Hera claims that Hector suckled (θῆσθαι) at a human breast in contrast to Achilles, who was the child of a goddess.

48–49. μαζόν | αἰγὸς Ἀμαλθείης: the earliest information on Amalthea is from Pherecydes of Athens (FGrH 3 F49, cited in Apollod. 2.7.5). She was a nymph who had a bull’s horn that supplied food in abundance (a literal “horn of plenty”). Callimachus and Aratus (163) make Amalthea a goat who suckles Zeus at her “breast.” Since μαζόν implies a human breast, not a goat’s udder, he calls attention to his own rationalizing variant of the myth. For Amalthea see Frazer’s detailed notes (1921: 1.7n3, 257n4).

49 ἐπὶ … ἔβρως: second singular aorist active. While βιβρώσκω is common, the compound ἐπιβιβρώσκω appears here for the first time (in tmesis). The meaning must be “ate after” (as at Dioscorides, Euphorista 2.140), referring to the natural progress of a newborn from breast milk to more solid food, the honeycomb. Clauss (1986: 165) points to HhHerm 558–62 as a parallel, where the Bee Maidens who live on Mt. Parnassus tell the truth and are able to bring events to fulfillment after eating honeycomb.

50. γέντο: here the equivalent of ἐγένετο (= “was born”), found only at Hes. Th. 199 (of Aphrodite) and 283 (of Pegasus). In Homer γέντο always occurs after the bucolic dieresis, and it is the equivalent of ἔλαβεν (as at hDem 43).

Πανακρίδος: the location of a mountain named Panacra is unknown (Steph. Byz. s.v. Πάνακρα does no more than cite this passage). Πανακρίδος is formed from πᾶν + the noun ἄκρις (“mountain peak”); Πάνακρα (51) from πᾶν + the adjective ἄκρος. “Mt. Tiptop” may have been a joke invented by Callimachus.

ἔργα μελίσσης: The phrase ἔργα + genitive is modeled on Homeric phrases like ἔργα γυναικῶν (Il. 6.289, Od. 7.97, and see below 66: ἔργα … χειρῶν). The idea of “manufacture” necessarily humanizes the bees’ contribution, as does μαζόν above.

The presence of bees carries another signification: the bee was the hieroglyph used to write “king of Lower Egypt,” or the region in which Alexandria was located (see 66).

51. τά τε κλείουσι (= καλέουσι): epic τε marks a digression, usually describing a permanent characteristic, but epic τε could be omitted from the sentence without altering the syntax and is thus closer in use to an adverb than a conjunction. Callimachus uses it about one-third as much as Homer (see Ruijgh 1971: 967–71). Also at 69.

52. οὖλα: the adjective is Homeric, and its meanings were debated in antiquity (see Rengakos 1992: 24); the adverbial use is first found in Callimachus, here and again at hArt 247 of dancing; the meaning is either “vigorously” or “with quick or rapid steps.”

Κούρητες: Strabo 10.3.19 provides the fullest account of the Curetes, citing Hesiod (= fr. 123 M-W), in which they are said to have been the children of Hecaterus and the daughter of Phoroneus (a descendant of Inachus) along with the mountain nymphs and satyrs. They are described as φιλοπαίγμονες ὀρχηστῆρες (“playful dancers”). Strabo goes on to give different versions, including their close connection with Crete and the rearing of Zeus, the tradition that they were the first to wear bronze armor, and that they were identified with the Corybantes in Phrygia.

σε περὶ πρύλιν ὠρχήσαντο: the phrase occurs again at hArt 240. The preposition is either in tmesis (and this would be the first occurrence of περιορχέομαι) or following its object σε (and thus should be accented πέρι). Whatever the exact syntax, the meaning is clear.

πρύλιν: the Cretan equivalent of the Athenian πυρρίχη, the dance was performed in armor as a demonstration of manhood (see Ceccarelli 1998: 116–19). Performing it to drown out the sound of Zeus’s infant cries reduces the Curetes to the status of baby-sitters, but it may have a significant point in that the war dance had lost some of its cultural luster by the Hellenistic period. For Curetes dancing see also the Palaikastro hymn (Furley and Bremmer 2001: 2.12–13).

53. πεπλήγοντες: either a reduplicated strong aorist (in which case the accent should be πεπληγόντες) or a perfect stem with present endings (thus πεπλήγοντες), which is a feature of Syracusan Doric (Hunter 1999: 225). See also hArt 61 for a similar form. The form and accent for such words in Homer was a matter of dispute (see Rengakos 1993: 121). The phrase makes clear that these are the armor-wearing Curetes that Strabo mentions (see 52n).

54. κουρίζοντος: here, “making babyish noises,” though κουρίζω normally means to be a child (κοῦρος). Callimachus thus constructs an etymology for Κούρητες.

55–57. Echoed in 85–88, where Zeus’s swift growth to maturity and his ability to accomplish his goals even as a child are reflected in Ptolemy’s ability to execute his plans as soon as he conceives them. The thought is reinforced by the parallel language: (Zeus) ὀξὺ δ’ ἀνήβησας and (Ptolemy) εὐρὺ βέβηκεν, and (Zeus) ἀλλ’ ἔτι παιδνὸς ἐὼν ἐφράσσαο πάντα τέλεια and (Ptolemy) ἑσπέριος κεῖνός γε τελεῖ … εὖτε νοήσῃ.

55. καλὰ … κᾰλά: καλός with long α is common in Homer, reflecting digamma after lambda (see Chantraine 1.159); κᾰλός is found in Hesiod, the Homeric hymns, and the lyric poets. Callimachus also changes quantities of a word within the same line at hAp 2, 25, 80, 103. For further examples of this kind of metrical variation in Greek poets, see McLennan ad loc.

ἠέξευ: this second singular imperfect middle of ἀέξω (“grow,” “increase”) is not found elsewhere; Callimachus uses the aorist middle (also unattested elsewhere) at Hecale fr. 48.9 Hollis.

ἔτραφες: second singular epic aorist active of τρέφω; in Homer used in a passive sense, as here (see LSJ s.v. τρέφω B).

οὐράνιε Ζεῦ: for Zeus at line end, cf. Il. 1.508: μητίετα Ζεῦ, and see Bühler on Mosch. Eur. pp. 103–4n5.

56. ταχινοί: late poetic form of ταχύς, first in Callimachus (also at hArt 158, hDelos 95, 114).

57. The precocity of child gods is a constant theme in Callimachus’ hymns: compare Apollo’s slaying of the Python in hAp, Artemis’ strength and acquisitiveness in hArt, and the prophecies of the unborn Apollo in hDelos. HhHerm may have started the trend in Greek poets, but Horus the child was a prominent feature of pharaonic iconography (as adapted by the Ptolemies) as well (see Selden 1998: 386–92).

58. τῷ “therefore”; both orthography and accent were debated in antiquity (see LSJ s.v.).

προτερηγενέες: the word occurs first in Antimachus (fr. 41a.7, and see Matthews ad loc.) to describe the Titans. It next appears here and in A.R. 4.268 (of “Egypt, mother of men of an earlier generation”); Callimachus uses it for Zeus’s siblings who are born earlier, but in the same generation, cf. Il. 15.166: γενεῇ πρότερος. In Hesiod (Th. 478) Zeus is the youngest of the children of Cronus, though in Homer (Il. 13.355, 15.166) Zeus is older than Poseidon.

59. οὐρανόν: the object, with ἐπιδαίσιον οἶκον in apposition.

ἐμέγηραν: cf. HhHerm 464–65: αὐτὰρ ἐγώ σοι | τέχνης ἡμετέρης ἐπιβήμεναι οὔ τι μεγαίρω. (“Yet I do not grudge you entering into my art”).

ἐπιδαίσιον: the word is unique to Callimachus, glossed in the Suda s.v. as ὁ ἐπίκοινον καὶ οὐ μεριστόν, ὁ ἐξ ἴσου καταλειφθεὶς δύο τισίν “shared equally and not divided; that which is left equally to two.” McLennan ad loc. argues that pace Suda Callimachus must have meant that the owner did not share property with another. But if behind the coinage stands an allusion to a co-regency, the Suda’s definition has merit: a property allotted in common (i.e., with his father) but undivided (i.e., with his brothers). Another aspect of Callimachus’ coinage that must have struck a contemporary audience: Daisios was a Macedonian month name used in early Alexandria.

60–64. Callimachus aligns himself with poets like Hesiod (Th. 881–85, where Zeus is elevated by divine consensus) and against previous poets who claimed that the Olympians cast lots for their respective territories (e.g., Homer at Il.15. 187–93, HhDem 84–87, and Pi. Ol. 7.54–56). Because of the tight linking of Zeus and Ptolemy, most scholars have seen this passage as an allusion to contemporary history. See pp. 17–18 and below 61.

60. δηναιοί: here in the sense “ancient,” a meaning that first occurs in the tragedians.

ἀληθέες … ἀοιδοί: for poets speaking truths see below 65. This is the second inherited falsehood that Callimachus sets out to contradict. For the first see 6–8 above.

61. διάτριχα “divided into three portions.” The word is rare and may recall HhDem 85–86: αὐτοκασίγνητος καὶ ὁμόσπορος· ἀμφὶ δὲ τιμὴν | ἔλλαχεν ὡς τὰ πρῶτα διάτριχα δασμὸς ἐτύχθη (“[Hades], your own brother and from the same seed; with regard to privilege, he has the portion he received at first in the threefold division.”

62. ἐρύσσαι: epic aorist optative from ἐρύω, “draw.”

63. The use of μή with the adjective is generic; see Smyth §2735.

νενίηλος: another coinage, not found elsewhere. Hesychius glosses it ἀνόητος (“without sense”), so appropriate for those who tell foolish stories.

ἰσαίῃ: a variant of ἴσος, first found here. ἴση with ellipse of μοῖρα or ψῆφος is common for “equal share,” cf. Od. 9.42. For forms in -αιος see McLennan ad loc.

64. πήλασθαι: aorist middle infinitive of πάλλω, “draw lots.”

τὰ δὲ τόσσον ὅσον διὰ πλεῖστον ἔχουσι: lit., “these things (τά) [i.e., heaven and Hades] are such (τόσσον) as (ὅσον) differ (διὰ … ἔχουσι) the most.”

65. Callimachus’ wish to tell more plausible fictions belongs to a long line of poetic statements about the relationship of poetry to truth that begins with Hesiod’s programmatic exchange with the Muses at Th. 26–28 (see Fantuzzi 2011: 445–48 for a discussion of this passage in light of Hesiod’s). Note also Hermes’ outrageous declaration at HhHerm 368–69: Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἤτοι ἐγώ σοι ἀληθείην ἀγορεύσω· | νημερτής τε γάρ εἰμι καὶ οὐκ οἶδα ψεύδεσθαι (“Father Zeus, I shall tell you the truth, for I am honest and do not know how to lie”). The philosophers also took up the question: both Plato and Aristotle characterize fiction as the ability to καλῶς ψεύδεσθαι, to tell stories that are untrue in a fitting way. Pl. Rep. 377e7 points specifically to Hesiod telling the story about Cronus swallowing his children (the story Callimachus does not tell) as an example of a poet who οὐ καλῶς ἐψεύσατο.

66. ἑσσῆνα: most ancient texts have ἐσ-, but ἑσ- is written in a papyrus of the Aetia (fr. 178.23 Pf.), hence it is conventional to print the rough breathing here. According to SIG 352.6 (fourth century bce), the term was used for the priests of Artemis at Ephesus (see also Paus. 8.13.1). Callimachus uses it here to mean “king.” According to the Etymologicum magnum, the king of the Ephesians was called Essên by analogy with the king of the bees, so called from residing ἔσω (“inside”). “Bee king” would have an obvious local reference: one of the hieroglyphic signs for the king of Lower Egypt (and used by the Ptolemies) was a bee (Stephens 2003: 107–8).

1. Hieroglyphic for king of Upper and Lower Egypt

67. εἵσαο: second singular aorist middle of ἵζω.

68–79. This section is also heavily dependent on Hesiod, but now Op., where Hesiod delineates the prerogatives of kings. The relationship of Zeus and Ptolemy is first constructed within patterns of Greek kingship.

68. θήκαο: a rare second singular aorist middle of τίθημι.

ἀγγελιώτην “messenger”; previously only at HhHerm 296. See Clauss 1986: 166.

69. ἐνδέξια: lit., “things on the right,” but here “propitious,” since omens that occurred on the right side were deemed auspicious.

70–71. Callimachus lists three professions: sailor, soldier, poet here and at 74–75 farmer, soldier, sailor. Farmers, soldiers, and sailors made up an important portion of Ptolemaic Egypt’s immigrant community; Callimachus inserts himself into this essential company.

71. ἐμπεράμους: variant of ἔμπειρος, “skilled in,” followed by a genitive; the word first appears here, and is copied by later poets. The adverb occurs at hAth 25.

σακέσπαλον “shield brandisher”; first in Homer at Il. 5.126 (used of Diomedes’ father Tydeus); later much imitated by Nonnus. For the form of the compound cf. 3: δικασπόλον.

72. ὀλίζοσιν: this comparative of ὀλίγος occurs only once in Homer (Il. 18.519, ὀλίζονες), of people on the shield of Achilles figured as “smaller” than the soldiers marching out to battle like gods.

αὖθι: here (and 94) as the equivalent of αὖθις; either “straightway” or “in turn.” Callimachus’ usage was criticized in antiquity (see Hollis on Hecale, fr.17.4 and Rengakos 1992: 39).

74–75. The categories that fall under the rulers’ power (ὑπὸ χεῖρα) are emphasized by the anaphora of ὧν (γεωμόρος, ἴδρις αἰχμῆς, ἐρέτης), a specificity that concludes with the inclusive πάντα.

74. αὐτούς: note the emphatic placement of the pronoun (also at 81 and 90).

ἴδρις αἰχμῆς may be intended to recall Choerilus’ ἴδρις ἀοιδῆς (fr. 2.1 Bernabé), part of his complaint that poets of old were blessed because they wrote before his time, when all topics had already been divided up.

76–78. There is an implicit contrast of the four Olympians mentioned: Hephaestus, Ares, Artemis, and Apollo. Hephaestus and Ares appear only briefly in these hymns, the former as a chthonic figure in hArt, the latter as hostile and destructive in hDelos. Apollo in hAp and hDelos brings light and song; Artemis in hArt is a protector of women and cities.

76. ὑδείομεν: a metrical variant of ὑδέω, “say,” “call”; it is not used before the Hellenistic period. The skill-sets praised are in the accusative: χαλκῆας, τευχηστάς, ἐπακτῆρας, λύρης εὖ εἰδότας οἴμους; the god under whose province they fall is genitive.

77. τευχηστάς: found previously only in Aesch. Sept. 644, where it describes a figure on Polyneices’ shield.

Χιτώνης: apparently a cult title referring to Artemis’ role as a huntress (see hArt. 225).

78. λύρης … οἴμους “pathways of the lyre [i.e., song]”; οἶμος with this meaning is first in Pi. Py. 4.247–48 and Ol. 9.47; οἴμους ἀοιδῆς occurs in HhHerm 451 in a passage on the wonders of Hermes’ invention, the lyre.

79. ‘ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες’: a quotation from Hes. Th. 96. See p. 50.

80. λάξιν “portion”; first in Herodotus, and common in prose; it has the legal sense of “assigned by inheritance.”

81–83. The description of Zeus’s characteristic behavior, sitting in the highest place in cities and watching (ἵζεο δ’ αὐτός | ἄκρῃσ’ ἐν πολίεσσιν, ἐπόψιος) occurs just before the mention of “my king.” Alexandria was alluvial, and its highest point was Pharos, which was probably dedicated to Zeus Soter; Posidippus 115.3 A-B even likened Pharos to σκοπαὶ οὔρεος of the Greek islands. It was built some time between 297 and 285 bce, so Callimachus could be alluding to Zeus “watching” from that high place.

82. ἐπόψιος: cf. A.R. 2.1123, where it is a cult title for Zeus (Epopsios), to whom Argus prays after being shipwrecked.

83. Callimachus borrows the oxymoron from Hes. Op. 7, where Zeus, who thunders, is described as seated aloft, where he “straightens the crooked” (ἰθύνει σκολιόν).

84. ῥυηφενίην: hapax in Callimachus, from ῥέω + ἄφενος, meaning “flowing wealth,” perhaps in contrast to the dry landscape of Arcadia before Zeus’s birth. The coinage is literally accurate for the Ptolemies, who depend on the wealth from the Nile flood. Cf. hDem 126n and Schmitt 165 (12.5.7).

85–88. Callimachus breaks with the hymnic tradition by introducing one specific monarch, Ptolemy, and the importation of this local king necessarily moves Zeus to Egypt.

In his choice of language Callimachus now turns away from Hesiod to use an Egyptian formula for kingship—whatever the king thinks he accomplishes as soon as he conceives the thought (Stephens 2003: 112–13).

86. περιπρό “especially”; hapax at Iliad 11.180, of Agamemnon’s prowess in battle.

87. The best Greek parallel for this sentiment is HhHerm 17–18, describing newborn Hermes. The more exact parallel is found in Egyptian royal inscriptions describing the powers of the pharaoh. Theocritus uses similar language in the Encomium of Ptolemy (17.13–15) of the deified Soter. Here the choice of language makes sense for a king who is also a pharaoh (Stephens 2003: 108–9), while parallels from HhHerm serve as a reminder that this king is also a younger brother.

89. πλειῶνι: in the Hellenistic poets, “period of a full year.” It is first found in Op. 617, where the meaning is unclear; Callimachus’ use may be an interpretation of the earlier text.

89–90. ἀπό … ἐκόλουσας: tmesis over two lines; κολούω occurs in Homer (Il. 20.370; Od. 8.211, 11.340,), but the compound may be first in Callimachus.

90. The initially ambiguous αὐτός (= Zeus) immediately following lines about Ptolemy momentarily collapses the distinction between king and god.

ἄνην: previously only in Aesch. Sept. 713 and Alcman (PMG fr. 1.82–84: ἀλλὰ τᾶν [. .] …, σιοί, | δέξασθε· [σι]ῶν γὰρ ἄνα | καὶ τέλος (“But receive … gods, for accomplishment and fulfillment are matters for the gods”).

ἐνέκλασσας: from ἐγκλάω, variant of the Homeric hapax, ἐνικλάω (Il. 8.408), of Hera attempting to frustrate whatever Zeus devises. Callimachus may use it here as a gloss on Homeric κολούω, compounded in 89–90 (see Rengakos 1992: 40).

μενοινήν “desire”; first in Callimachus and Apollonius, then much imitated in Nonnus. The noun seems to be a Hellenistic coinage from the epic and lyric μενοινάω.

91–96. The envoi is both a traditional hymnic closing and one that stresses the wealth of the king whom the god favors. Compare the ending of hDem with its emphasis on the wealth of herds and crops.

91. χαῖρε μέγα: also at hArt 44 and 268, a variant of μέγα χαῖρε (Od. 24.402, HhAp 466), which Callimachus uses at hDem 2, 119.

πανυπέρτατε: previously, once in Homer (Od. 9.25), of Ithaca. The adjective was the subject of debate in the Homeric scholia: was the island “last in line” or “furthest west”? But at A.R. 1.1122 it refers to the “highest” trees. For Zeus (and for Ptolemy II) “last in line” would be appropriate as well as “highest.”

δῶτορ ἐάων: the phrase occurs in Homer (Il. 8.335) and the Homeric hymns 18.12 (to Hermes) and 29.8 (of Hermes), and in Hesiod (Th. 46) of the gods.

ἐάων: irregular genitive plural of epic ἐΰς.

92. ἀπημονίης “freedom from harm”; hapax, an abstract counterpart of Homeric ἀπήμων.

ἔργματα: poetic variant of ἔργα found in lyric and tragedy; for ἔργματα in the context of song, see Pi. Nem. 4.6, 84.

93. ἀείσει: the construction κεν + future indicative is Homeric, though ἄν with the future occurs in later Greek as well (see Moorhouse 1946 for an analysis of this passage). For a similar question see hAp 31.

94. χαῖρε, πάτερ: this salutation for Zeus occurs in Aratus 15: χαῖρε, πάτερ, μέγα θαῦμα, μέγ’ ἀνθρώποισιν ὄνειαρ (“Hail, Father, great marvel, great boon to humankind”). For Aratus, Zeus is the Stoic first cause, which may be behind Callimachus’ choice of epithet here, but in Homer (Od. 18.122, 20.199) the salutation is used of Odysseus, and this again suggests a selection of intertexts that positions Ptolemy between gods and men.

ἄφενος is here treated as neuter accusative of an athematic declension; in contrast the genitive form ἀφένοιο (96) must derive from a masculine form of the thematic noun. The variants are as old as Hesiod (see Op. 24 with West’s note ad loc.).

1. For the various “origins” concentrated in this first hymn see Ambühl 2005: 235–45.