The Mother of Bucolic Poetry?: Theocritus’ Reception of Anyte

Theocritus did not conceive the bucolic genre ex nihilo. Homer himself wrote on pastoral themes; two piping herdsmen are depicted on the Shield of Achilles and even the Cyclops Polyphemus communes with his ram.[1] However, the conditions required for bucolic poetry to become a viable genre were not met until the early Hellenistic period, wherein life became increasingly concentrated in urban centers. Alienated from rural Greek villages where cultural traditions had once developed, bucolic poetry was a form of escapism. Above all, the development of the bucolic genre became linked with one man, Theocritus – traditionally considered the inventor of the genre.[2] However, scant attention has been paid to his bucolic forebearers, specifically the poetess Anyte of Tegea, who invented the bucolic epigram.[3] In this paper, I provide the first critical study of Anyte’s reception by Theocritus.

Anyte was a native of Tegea in Arcadia, one of the most rural areas in Greece.[4] Her bucolic epigrams likely derived from her lived experiences in Arcadia. Remarkably little is known about her life – considering more of her poetry is extant than any other female poet besides Sappho – but her floruit has been traced to c. 300 BCE. She was slightly older than Theocritus.[5] Her nineteen epigrams can be subdivided into three broad categories: funerary, dedicatory, and descriptive.[6] There has been much debate on whether the voice she projects is distinctly feminine, but, whatever the case, she was clearly a docta poetria (“learned poetess”) because her poetry was laced with Homeric allusion and references to lyric poetry, earlier epigram, and tragedy.[7] Her sophisticated language implies that her epigrams were not used as actual inscriptions. Of her descriptive epigrams, eight are certainly bucolic or concerned with bucolic themes.[8]

With this exposition, I now transition to the thesis of this paper: identifying the relationship between Anyte and Theocritus. We can first compare the striking allusion by Theocritus to Anyte in the opening lines of Idyll 1.[9] In AP 16.228, Anyte writes this.[10]

Ξεῖν᾿, ὑπὸ τὰν πτελέαν τετρυμένα γυῖ᾿ ἀνάπαυσον·

ἁδύ τοι ἐν χλωροῖς πνεῦμα θροεῖ πετάλοις·

“Stranger, rest thy weary legs under the elm;

hark how sweetly the breeze murmurs in the green leaves;” (tr. Paton)

In Idyll 1, we find two instances of programmatic allusion to the above lines.

δεῦρ’ ὑπὸ τὰν πτελέαν ἑσδώμεθα τῶ τε Πριήπω (Id. 1.21)

ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα (Id. 1.1)

“​​Let us sit down here under the elm, facing Priapus” (tr. Hopkinson)

“A sweet thing is the whispered music of that pine by the springs, goatherd” (tr. Hopkinson)

In the latter allusion (Id. 1.1), Theocritus replicates the singing breezes of nature present in Anyte, referring explicitly to her in both subject and tone. The echo serves to evoke Anyte’s atmosphere of carefree country life. From solely this allusion, we may conjecture that Theocritus was familiar with Anyte’s epigrams.[11] This allusion alone does not suffice in fully depicting the nature of their relationship – any further claim would probably be an overextension.

But, whereas that allusion has its shortcomings, the former allusion (Id. 1.21) succeeds for two reasons. First, the allusion contains a longer replication and therefore is linguistically more significant. Second, and more importantly, it speaks to the renowned locus amoenus (“pleasant place”), one of the most idealized and fanciful themes in the Idylls and subsequent bucolic poetry. In its most successful form, the locus amoenus has two distinct elements: time – midday during the rest hour – and place – near cool water in the comfort of shade.[12] Descriptions conforming more or less to this model are commonplace throughout the Idylls and as a result, Theocritus has been lauded as the forebearer to this sub-genre.[13] As it happens, however, the elements of the Theocritean locus amoenus, have, with minor variations, literary precedent in Anyte’s AP 16.228 – in both Theocritus and Anyte, travelers are invited to lie down under the copious foliage of an elm tree to find sanctuary from the summer’s heat.

Commonly linked with locus amoenus is the concept of “Arcadia.” In the classical tradition, there are two “Arcadias” – the province of Arcadia in the Peloponnesian peninsula of Greece and the literary and allegoric “Arcadia” which provides respite from the pressures and complexities of urban life.[14] Though the locus amoenus is not explicitly placed in Arcadia until Vergil’s Eclogues, it finds origin in “the mythical landscape described in the pastoral poems of Theocritus.”[15] But why does Theocritus, who dwelled in Syracuse and Egypt, pay any attention to Arcadia? For example, in Id. 1.123-6, he speaks to the Arcadian god Pan.

“O Pan, Pan, whether you are on the high mountains of Lycaeus or are ranging over great Maenalus, come to the island of Sicily and leave the peak of Helice and that lofty tomb of the descendant of Lycaon which even the blessed gods admire.”[16] (tr. Hopkinson)

Of course, the invocation to Pan should be anticipated – he is a poetic, musical, and pastoral god. But, Theocritus wrote his poetry not through physical contact with the rural world but holed up in his study, surrounded by a stock of books that provided him with an excellent supply of pastoral material.[17] Then, we should consider that Theocritus chose the Arcadian region specifically because he found precedent in Anyte who dwelled there and wrote about the place in her epigrams.

This conjecture hinges on the fact that Anyte was considered the locus classicus for the Arcadian setting of the locus amoenus. To prove this, we should first examine the Greek Anthology, in which all Anytean epigrams except one are extant.[18] The Greek Anthology is a corpus of several thousand epigrams – from both classical and Byzantine Greece – found in two manuscript collections (the Palatine Anthology and Planudean Anthology) of partially overlapping content.[19] Part of the backbone of the Palatine Anthology is Melager’s Garlands, through which Anyte’s epigrams are preserved.[20] When compiling his Garlands, it has been posited that “Meleager had at his disposal a collection [of Anyte’s epigrams] from which he anthologized.”[21] This implies that Meleager’s selection of Anyte’s epigrams must have been intentional and based on what he viewed as significant: clearly, AP 16.228 – Anyte’s locus amoenus epigram – was one such epigram. That he regarded Theocritus as an author related to Anyte is evident from the context in which Meleager ordered his epigrams. The Greek Anthology preserves a series of bucolic epigrams in Meleager’s original order (AP 9.313-338). The series begins with two Anytean epigrams (9.313, 9.314) and concludes with a Theocritean epigram (9.338). Furthermore, in the lemma to 9.313, she is referred to as a μελοποιου (which translates to “lyric poet”).[22] Melager thus posits that Anyte had not just an epigrammatic, but also a lyric influence on Theocritus’ bucolic poetry.

In considering if Anyte is the locus classicus for the Arcadian setting of the locus amoenus, we must examine the literary tradition of the locus amoenus. The earliest example of a quasi-locus amoenus is found in Homer’s descriptions of the grotto of Calypso and the garden of Alcinous.[23] Since Anyte was a learned Homeric scholar, her use of the locus amoenus probably derives from a desire to imitate Homer.[24] However, no author, even Theocritus, fully connected the locus amoenus to Arcadia until Anyte because of her lived experiences. In fact, the only time Homer does refer to Arcadia in serious depth is in the Homeric Hymn to Pan, which does not contain a locus amoenus.[25] So, the conception of the locus amoenus may find precedent in Homer, but the Arcadian setting is an entirely Anytean invention. She was the “first epigrammatist to project a distinct literary persona, and…she did this by setting herself, as a woman and an inhabitant of largely rural Arcadia, in opposition to the anonymous composer of traditional epigram.”[26]

Interestingly, Vergil’s later connection of the locus amoenus with Arcadia is loosely derived from Theocritus’ portrayal of Arcadia.[27] If Theocritus was indeed concerned with Arcadia because of Anyte, then the Arcadian pastoral of the Eclogues finds origin in Anyte.[28] In fact, Vergil might have known directly of Anyte. That other Roman authors knew of her is certain – Ovid, himself, replicates her.[29]

Anyte AP 6.312

“The children, billy-goat, have put purple reins on you and a muzzle on your bearded face, and they train you to race like a horse round the god’s temple that he may look on their childish joy.” (tr. Paton)

Ov. Met. 10.121-5

“’Twas you who led the stag to fresh pasturage and to the waters of the clear spring. Now would you weave bright garlands for his horns; now, sitting like a horseman on his back, now here, now there, would gleefully guide his soft mouth with purple reins.” (tr. Miller)

In the last two lines, Ovid’s inspiration from Anyte’s epigram is evident. How well he was acquainted with the work of Anyte is unclear, but he certainly knew some of it. If Ovid knew of Anyte, Vergil likely did as well. Though the lack of comprehensive Anytean corpus means that we cannot make any definitive claim about how well Vergil knew her (or if he knew her at all), it is plausible, but not provable that he chose the Arcadian region for his locus amoenus because of Anyte. It is also plausible, however, that he was simply mimicking Theocritus, who, in turn, mimicked Anyte.

Anyte’s connection with this sub-genre is further strengthened by AP 7.190 which contains the inverted genre – the locus terribilis (“the terrible place”). It describes a young girl, Myro, who buries her two pets under the cover of foliage; the epigram is alluded to by the Greek epigrammist Marcus Argentarius (c. 1st century CE) at AP 7.364.[30]

Anyte AP 7.190

“For her locust, the nightingale of the fields, and her cicada that resteth on the trees one tomb hath little Myro made, shedding girlish tears; for inexorable Hades hath carried off her two pets.” (tr. Paton)

Argentarius AP 7.364

“Myro made this tomb for her grasshopper and cicada, sprinkling a little dust over them both and weeping regretfully over their pyre; for the songster was seized by Hades and the other by Persephone.” (tr. Paton)

Argentarius’ replication proves that the association between Anyte and the sub-genre of locus amoenus/terribilis is not unfounded; rather, the fact that AP 7.190 was replicated nearly four centuries later, implies that her relationship with the sub-genre must have been quite strong.

Whether or not the Arcadian locus amoenus derived from Anyte, the aforementioned point of allusion provides a basis for the relationship between Theocritus and Anyte. We can further examine the precise nature of their relationship by examining the work of Theocritus’ close friend, Nicias – the subject of Theocritus’ invocation in Idylls 11 and 13 and referenced in Idyll 28 and Theocritus’ 8th epigram. Nicias is typically considered a copycat of Anyte – of the 8 extant Nician poems, four have close Anytean source material.[31] Consider the following example.[32]

Nicias AP 6.122

“Maenad of Ares, sustainer of war, impetuous spear, who now hath set thee here, a gift to the goddess who awakes the battle? ‘Menius; for springing lightly from his hand in the forefront of the fight I wrought havoc among the Odrysae on the plain.’” (tr. Paton)

Anyte AP 6.123

“Stand here, thou murderous spear, no longer drip from thy brazen barb the dismal blood of foes; but resting in the high marble house of Athene, announce the bravery of Cretan Echecratidas.” (tr. Paton)

Nicias’ description of the spear closely resembles that of Anyte: both poets convey the violence of its purpose. Nicias describes the weapon as an “impetuous spear” and Anyte as a “murderous spear.” Furthermore, the word κράνεια (“spear”) is found only in these two poems. This seemingly guarantees a relationship between the two poets and “the ambiguity of Nicias’ opening might point to the [temporal] priority of Anyte.”[33] Nicias’ knowledge of Anyte is clear; he imitates her word choice, structure, and theme. From this analysis, we should conclude that if Nicias strongly knew Anyte’s work, so did Theocritus.

The strength of Theocritus’ Anytean knowledge is further proven in Idyll 1.52-4, where he replicates her content.[34]

Theoc. Id. 1.52-4

“He meanwhile is weaving a fine trap for grasshoppers by linking together rushes and stalks of asphodel, and his care for his knapsack and vines is much less than the pleasure he takes in his plaiting” (tr. Hopkinson)

Anyte AP 7.190

“For her locust, the nightingale of the fields, and her cicada that resteth on the trees one tomb hath little Myro made, shedding girlish tears; for inexorable Hades hath carried off her two pets.” (tr. Paton)

The activities of Theocritus’ boy, who amuses himself by weaving a trap to catch grasshoppers, correspond with the locusts and cicadas of Anyte’s girl which, already trapped and in boxes (i.e. the tomb), once entertained Myro. Furthermore, though the boy’s activities are not directly concerned with music, the fact that he is completely absorbed in his playful occupation of weaving a cricket cage evokes the characteristics of crickets as musical animals that resonate with the sounds of the bucolic landscape. Thus, the joy that the boy derives from fabricating the cage anticipates the joy he will experience when listening to the musical pet he hopes to catch. The parallel to Myro – who weeps because her nightingale-like locust has died – is obvious.

This analysis now concluded, we must consider what this means for Anyte’s poetry. Does her impact on Theocritus change our understanding of her work? Certainly, it means that her poetic influence now transcends the realm of epigrams and enters the world of poetry. Furthermore, that she was a woman poet in such a male-dominated field is not unique, but still noteworthy.[35] Few women – besides, of course, Sappho – have had as tangible an effect on the conception of a genre as Anyte. Her epigrammatic innovations gave her a distinct authorial voice that included new narrative perspectives and themes. Her concise style and her visual ability led to great appreciation by contemporary and later authors as I have now shown. By experimenting with the female voice and voiceless beings, she may have inspired male poets like Theocritus to include these new perspectives of people outside their class and gender, thereby creating a choir of male and female voices. As Theocritus is re-read with this study in mind, it will be important to compare his portrayal of the feminine voice with Anyte. However, we must be careful not to anachronistically overextend the nature of their relationship. Certainly, Theocritus was inspired by Anyte for his bucolic poetry. Nature as a place to rest, as a locus amoenus in Arcadia, populated by shepherds and the god Pan, are themes that are common to both authors and that Anyte was the first to shape. However, unlike Nicias, Theocritus did not replicate Anyte’s content in totality. Theocritus’ standing as the sole founder of bucolic poetry is with good reason: the ancients conceptualized the bucolic genre only after and in consequence to him.

Notes

[1] “Then two scouts were by them set apart from the army, waiting till they should have sight of the sheep and sleek cattle. And these came soon, and two herdsmen followed with them playing on pipes; and of the guile they had no foreknowledge at all.” (Hom. Il. 18.525-9, tr. Murray); see also Hom. Od. 9.447.

[2] See, for example, OCD s.v. Theocritus, where it states he is the “creator of the bucolic genre.”

[3] See, for example, Luck, “Die Dichterinnen,” 181 who writes “Anyte’s significance for the history of the Greek epigram should not be underestimated. She appears to have created the type of bucolic landscape-epigram and animal epitaph which remained in use for a very long period.”; Snyder, The Woman, 67 clearly agrees with Luck.

[4] Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 54 convincingly argues that Anyte’s poems were likely published in book form; whether Anyte was solely an epigrammist is unclear – Paus. 10.38.13 calls her ἔπη which denotes an epic poet. Nonetheless, only epigram has been handed down. Also note that Tegea is in Arcadia – a region portrayed in Ver. Ecl. as remote and idyllic (see Jenkyns, “Virgil and Arcadia,”); cf. Poll. 5.48, Steph. Byz. s.v. Τεγέα.

[5] See Reitzenstein, Epigramm Und Skolion, 123-7 for a full discussion; the conclusion is based on her style and the apparent imitation by Nicias and Mnasalces. Natoli, Pitts, and Hallett, Ancient Women, 144. date her floruit from 310-290 BCE, but it is unclear how such precision was concluded.

[6] I use translations and numbering from Paton’s edition in the Loeb Classical Library; there are twenty-four “Anytean” epigrams: nineteen are certainly authentic, two are probably authentic, and four are ascribed to Anyte and another author. Scholars lack consensus on categorizing Anyte’s poetry; Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 54 divides it into three, de Vos, “Negen aardse,” 150 into three, Plant, Women Writers, 56 into four, Snyder, The Woman, 67-77 into four, and Luck, “Die Dichterinnen,” into four. Gutzwiler’s and De Vos’ contention are most similar to mine.

[7] Anyte as a masculine poet traces to von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung and derives from her impersonal and, therefore, traditional tone. Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 55 opposes, stating “Anyte may have been the first epigrammatist to project a distinct literary persona…by her dominating interest in women, children, and animals and by the attention she paid to the landscape and its inhabitants, defined her literary self by her deviation from the standard imposed upon the traditional epigrammatist, that of celebrating upper-class, masculine achievements and values.” Geoghegan, Anyte, The Epigrams., 9. states “almost every line of the epigrams embodies a reminiscence of Homer”; Greene, Women Poets, 140 claims the “transposition of Homeric vocabulary to the personal and domestic sphere deflates heroic conventions and, at the same time, elevates the domestic to the heroic.” See Rowland, “FOOTNOTES TO SAPPHO,” 64-113 for a full discussion on Anyte’s other sources.

[8] AP 9.144, 313, 314, 745; 16.29, 228, 231, 312. For a strict definition of bucolic, see Rossi, The Epigrams, p. 31 and n. 17 for a strict definition; Rossi’s definition, albeit rigorous, is practically useless – in this strictly Theocritean sense, Anyte fails to become a bucolic poet. Further, the view that “the pastoral idyll of literature is his [Theocritus] and his only” (Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization, 276) is patently false.

[9] This allusion is first mentioned by Reitzenstein, Epigramm Und Skolion, p. 130 n. 1..

[10] In this paper, I abbreviate Palatine Anthology to AP.

[11] As do Reitzenstein, Epigramm Und Skolion, 130, Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 71-2, and J. Vara and Joanna Weatherby, “The Sources,” 342. Rosenmeyer, The Green, 35 rejects this proposition, stating that Anyte’s work reflects a religious experience of nature, which is absent from Theocritus. Halperin, Before Pastoral declines to mention Anyte at all in his study of the tradition of bucolic poetry.

[12] J. Vara and Joanna Weatherby, “The Sources,” 342; see also Russell, A History, 21.

[13] See, for example, Theoc. Id. 1.1-2, 12-6, 21-3; 5.3, 31-4, 45-9; 7.131-146.

[14] See Johnston and Papaioannou, "INTRODUCTION to IDYLLIC," in Acta antiqua for a full discussion.

[15] Johnston and Papaioannou, "INTRODUCTION to IDYLLIC," in Acta antiqua, 135.

[16] As noted in Theocritus, et al., Theocritus: Moschus, 33, Lycaeus and Maenalus are mountains in Arcadia and “the peak of Helice” and “the lofty tomb of Lycaon’s grandson” are famous Arcadian sites.

[17] As proven by J. Vara and Joanna Weatherby, "The Sources."

[18] One epigram is preserved at Poll. Onom. 5.48.

[19] For a full introduction, see Grafton, Most, and Settis, The Classical, 410-11.

[20] See OCD s.v. Meleager(2).

[21] Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 54.

[22] She is called the same in AP 7.724’s lemma; in the lemma to AP 7.208, she is called λυρικησ, meaning “lyric.”

[23] Hom. Od. 5.55, 7.112.

[24] See n. 7.

[25] Modern scholarship holds that the Homeric Hymns are not authentically Homeric; however, Verrall, "The Hymn," 2 states that the Hymns have “come down labelled as ‘Homer’ from the carliest times of Greek book-literature.” In other words, the ancients considered the Hymns to be Homeric.

[26] Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 55.

[27] As cited previously, Johnston and Papaioannou, "INTRODUCTION to IDYLLIC," in Acta antiqua, 135 say that “the development of this concept…grows out of the mythical landscape described in the pastoral poems of Theocritus of Syracuse.”

[28] By Vergil’s time, Sicily was a Roman province. Thus, Vergil needed a land for his shepherds that was further away from the familiar – Arcadia, a land that Vergil had never visited, was suitable. See Snell, "Arkadien, Die Entdeckung," 26 and Curtius, European Literature, 190.

[29] As pointed out by Trypanis, "Ovid and Anyte," 52.

[30] Pliny expands on this, incorrectly believing that Argentarius was imitating Erinna, not Anyte; cf. Plin. HN. 34.57

[31] See Reitzenstein, Epigramm Und Skolion, 123-8 for a full discussion; for this paper, it suffices to examine one example.

[32] This allusion is pointed out by Reitzenstein, Epigramm Und Skolion, 123.

[33] Fantuzzi and Hunter, Tradition and Innovation, p. 313 n. 96.

[34] This allusion is pointed out by J. Vara and Joanna Weatherby, “The Sources,” 341 and Kyriakou, Sistakou, and Rengakos, Brill’s Companion, 509-10.

[35] Other female Hellenistic poets were Moero, Erinna, and Nossis.

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