Kallimachos and the Seleukid Apollo

In his Hymn to Apollo, Kallimachos conspicuously omits mention of Apollo's famed oracle at Didyma. However, he draws his audience's attention to the Euphrates, which has no special significance to the god. The itinerary he charts for his Apollo hymn maps onto the inter-kingdom politics of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTransactions of the American Philological Association (1974) Vol. 146; no. 1; p. 61
Main Author Brumbaugh, Michael
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.03.2016
Subjects
Geopolitics
Ideology
Poetry
Poets
Politics
Power
Euphrates River
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Summary:In his Hymn to Apollo, Kallimachos conspicuously omits mention of Apollo's famed oracle at Didyma. However, he draws his audience's attention to the Euphrates, which has no special significance to the god. The itinerary he charts for his Apollo hymn maps onto the inter-kingdom politics of the eastern Mediterranean, and a geopolitical reading of the poem reveals the poet's engagement with contemporary relations between the Ptolemaic and Seleukid empires, offering further clues about the poem's date. This politically antagonistic dimension resonates with the literary polemics long recognized as a central feature of the hymn.
ISSN:2575-7180
2575-7199
DOI:10.1353/apa.2016.0006