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in reverting to the preceding".6 In the following sentence he refers to this as "alexandrinische Praxis". There is a measure of truth in this: Alexandrian, or rather Hellenistic, poetry sought to break new paths without entirely abandoning tradition, creating something new by varying the old. Thus it is understandable that intertextuality should play a role of some importance in the work of these poets. We can be certain about their authorial intention, while they, for their part, could be certain that they would be understood by their readers. Writing for a highly erudite in-crowd, they knew that their allusions and the way they played with literary tradition would not be lost on them. |
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When studying the Hellenistic poets we must realise that part of the intertextuality may ecape us, for the simple reason that much of Greek literature that was known to them has been lost to us. And when we turn to Theocritus' Idyll 13, the epyllion about Hylas and Heracles, the written tradition faces us us with another problem: the fact that we often do not know with certainty when a particular Greek work 'appeared'. |
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The actual source of the Hylas story is unknown. Strabo describes (12.4.3) a ritual in which the citizens of Cios took to the hills and called on Hylas, since Heracles had charged them never to give up the search. The Hellenistic poets may have been inspired by this local tradition, but according to the scholion accompanying Argonautica 13557, the Laconian epicist Cinaethon had already told the story:  . Today, however, Cinaethon is such a shadowy figure that we can say with certainty only that the story appeared (or reappeared) in the third century, and from then on seems to have had a great deal of appeal for many authors.7 |
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It is not certain that Callimachus ever wrote a poem about Hylas, and even assuming that he did, we have no way of knowing how he dealt with the theme.8 We do, however, have the version by Apollonius, and it is here that our problems begin. It is abundantly clear that there is a relationship between Theocritus' poem and Argonautica 1.12071372, but we have absolutely no criterion for determining which text came first. Theories have been put forward, but these are based on esthetic and thus subjective |
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6 "In solchen Texten wird nämlich mit einer Intensität und Zwanghaftigkeit zitiert, wie dies vor allem in kulturellen Spätzeiten üblich ist, in denen Kreativität sich zuallererst im Rückgriff auf Vorgängiges manifestiert." |
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7 We know that Hylas appeared in the work of Nicander. In Latin literature we meet him in the poetry of Propertius (1.20) and Valerius Flaccus (Arg. 3.487597). Vergil (Georgica 3.6) makes it clear that the theme was very popular: cui non dictus Hylas puer . . . ? |
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8 The scholiast of Apollonius (ad Arg. 1.1207) finds fault with the poet because Hylas is carrying a woman's jar:  This remark seems to suggest that Callimachus did write about Hylas, but Pfeiffer does not consider this decisive proof: de quolibet iuvene vel viro dixisse potest (see fr. 596 in his edition of Callimachus). |
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