CALLIMACHUS: COMA BERENICES: ORIGINS

Abstract

In the continuing debate on Callimachus' Coma Berenices (F 110 Pf.) and Catullus' translation of it (c. 66),l) one of the most controversial elements is that of the ritus nuptialis which we find described in Catullus lines 79-88 but which is missing from the Callimachus P. Oxy. 2258. Was the ritus nuptialis an invention of Catullus, or was it in the original Callimachus which Catullus had before him and translated? The thought of Catullus himself composing an aetion in the Callimachean manner which was not actually in the Callimachean original he was basically translating is intriguing, and, surely, far from impossible?a type of virtuoso composition, or contaminalo. R. Pfeiffer (2. XXXVII) thinks that it was Callimachus who added these lines when he inserted the Coma, until then assumed to be an independent elegy, into a second edition of the Aetia. There is also the evidence in P. Oxy. 2258 C of an additional closing distich, not evident in Catullus, which seems to suggest that Callimachus did make some changes to the Coma at this time. Presumably Pfeiffer is implying that Callimachus added an aetion to make the piece more suitable for the Aetia. Yet, some would argue that if the whole poem was an aetion anyway and therefore had every right to be included in the Aetia, it is puzzling that a second aetion should have been added at all.2) Some might also argue that the vexed ten lines do not read like translation, while most of c. 66 does, much of it very good translation. And, the ten lines seem to reflect Catullan idiom * I wish to express my gratitude to the anonymous reader who commented helpfully on this article.