 |
trans. H. Jeremiah Lewis |
|
Using infrared technology, scholars have begun to decipher a cache of badly damaged papyrus scrolls from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. In many cases the scrolls are so darkened with age that the ink is illegible under normal conditions, and many are so fragile that if they were to be unwound they would crumble into dust. But using this technology, scholars are now able translate texts that have not been read in almost two thousand years, and this is shedding new light on ancient Classical literature. Among the works that can now be read are lost plays by Sophocles and Euripides, a previously unknown novel by the satirist Lucian, and an epic by the poet Archilochous. But one of the most exciting finds - translated here for the first time - was a number of passages from the 1st century Alexandrian poet Eunomius' masterpiece The Loves of Apollo. Previously all that was known of this work were a few fragments preserved in Oenomaus' Geloios Poites, and a brief citation in Suida. Now we have been given an unprecedented glimpse at this forgotten poet's greatest work. Very little is known about the life and career of Eunomius, and most of that is rather scandalous. From what we can gather from Oenomaus' Geloios Poites Eunomius was a man of humble birth who managed to climb his way up within Alexandria's glittering circle of literati. His father seems to have been a moderately successful trader who managed to give his two sons a solid Classical education, and even provided for their study in Alexandria. While Eunomius and his brother Isidore were studying under the rhetorician Maximus, their father died, and the elder brother returned home to tend to the family fortune. Unfortunately, Isidore lacked his father's skill in business, and after a few disastrous enterprises, the family was left quite impoverished. Eunomius refused to return home to Chaeronea, a city he felt completely bereft of culture, and so remained in Alexandria a penniless poet and philosopher. Oenomaus reports that Eunomius resorted to prostitution in order to survive, and years later was still known by the unflattering epithet <i>Cinaedus</i>. Eunomius seems to have impressed his clients not just with his amorous abilities but also with his cultivated learning and poetic skill, for a number of them offered to take him under their wing and offer literary patronage to the prostitute-poet. The most famous of these was the lawyer Lucius Assino, to whom Oenomaus reports The Loves of Apollo was dedicated. The Loves of Apollo related, in twelve books, all of the mythological romantic encounters of the God Apollo - from Daphne and Kassandra down to Hyakinthos and even, apparently, his brother Dionysos, an otherwise unattested liaison. Eunomius' other major work was a collection of banquet songs called the Symposiacs, of which nothing has come down to us. Oenomaus reports that Eunomius and Lucius had a falling out when Lucius discovered his house-poet in bed with his wife. Eunomius fled Alexandria in disgrace, only escaping with his life because of the lawyer's fondness for his verse, and nothing further was heard of him. Until, that is, a manuscript of The Loves of Apollo was unearthed in the Oxyrhynchus horde. Unfortunately it is incomplete, preserving only books 3 through 7, and most of these are so badly damaged that there are a number of fragments which it is impossible to place within the body of the text. These have been collected at the end in order to give the reader the fullest possible glimpse into the work of a singularly brilliant poet. It is much to be lamented that more of Eunomius' work has not come down to us, as his poetry breathes with a modern vitality, and its treatment of Apollo's romantic conquests would have contributed greatly to the canon of erotic verse. One wonders what other myths Eunomius knew and wrote about, but which, like the encounter with Dionysos, we have no other corroborating sources for. Introduction and translation of the fragments by H. Jeremiah Lewis, in the Everett Journal of Archaeological Research, Summer 2005. III. Daphne Did Daphne tremble to feel the touch of Phoebus IV. Kalliope Turn now, O Muse, to your sisters, V. Dionysos Dionysos, the Euian One .... competition of the laurel
and vine ... VI. Kyrene .... the fierce maid upon the rock ... VII. Hyakinthos he, his lover .... young prince. Fragments of uncertain placement: .... the gilded cup, craftsmanship unmatched ....
Hephaistos. |
