Studies in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus

By Neil Hopkinson

Nonnus' Dionysiaca, a Greek epic poem on Dionysus in 48 books from the fifth century AD, is the longest extant work of ancient epic poetry. This collection of essays situates the poem in its literary-historical and cultural context.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cambridge Philological Society
• Release date: Aug 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913701239

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

It has now become commonplace for historians of Late Antiquity to call into question the borderlines traditionally seen to circumscribe the so-called ‘classical world’, and to emphasise the continuity underlying what seems at first sight a period of change and instability. This re-evaluation, well under way in other areas, needs to be extended to the literature of Late Antiquity; and the Dionysiaca of Nonnus is a good place to begin. This astonishing work, the longest ancient poetic text to survive, has for too long been relegated to a limbo between the classical and Byzantine worlds. It deserves the attention of a more sympathetic and better informed audience. The work of Professor Vian and his collaborators is making available the first real commentary on the poem. As the end of their labours at last comes into sight, it is time for critics to develop themes which cannot easily be discussed within the format of the Budé editions. This volume of essays is intended to supplement generally available information about the poet and his work, and to indicate new areas into which Nonnian studies might usefully be directed. The introduction which follows will attempt briefly to put the poem in context and to locate the essays within the wider field of Nonnian scholarship. The first section will discuss the place of the Dionysiaca in the literary tradition; the second will deal with some relevant aspects of the poem’s cultural, historical, and religious background.

I

From the second century A.D. until the end of antiquity, Dionysiac themes were very popular in both literature and art; and, at least until the advent of Christianity, Dionysiac cults were a part of civic life in many places.¹ Dionysus’ conquest of the East was a myth which had been fashioned in imitation of the Alexander legend, and it had to some extent been identified with the civilising mission of the Roman Empire. Sculptures, mosaics, and in particular a large number of sarcophagi from the second, third, and fourth centuries, variously depict Dionysus’ triumph over the Indians, his pacific mission, and episodes, both martial and amorous, from his victorious progress. His ultimate apotheosis was seen as the reward of uirtus for defeating the forces of darkness and barbarism.

Dionysiac themes had long been a subject for epic poetry. Dinarchus of Delos, Euphorion, Neoptolemus of Parium, and Theolytus of Methymna had devoted works to the god and his deeds. The Bassarica of a certain Dionysius, and a poem probably with the same title by Soterichus of Oasis, provided Nonnus with material. For details of Dionysus’ amorous exploits it is likely that he used in addition the sixty-book Ἡϱωϊϰαι Θεογαμίαι by Pisander of Laranda, a compilation of erotic encounters between gods and mortals.² But unless new material comes to light, the sources for many of Nonnus’ episodes are unlikely to be established.³

A more fruitful topic for study than speculation about Nonnus’ debt to lost Dionysiac epics is the nature of the influence on his work of poetry still in existence. Undoubtedly his most important point of reference for enhancing the complexity of allusion is Homer, and an attempt to analyse the relationship between Nonnus and Homer is made in Chapter I. The subject is an enormous one, and deserves a book-length study which might compare more fully Nonnus’ practices with those of other epic poets, both Greek and Latin, and investigate in greater detail the way in which he adopts and adapts Homeric vocabulary, plot-construction, narrative voice, heroic ethos, etc. Although the subject is an obvious one – made the more obvious by Nonnus’ explicit allusions to Homer in a number of places –⁴ it has been directly addressed in recent times only in a short paper by Professor Vian,⁵ whose approach differs in many respects from that adopted here. It seems that the commentators’ diligent search for verbal parallels and allusions has not yet been complemented by an attempt to define Nonnus’ overall strategy, and to examine the relationship between the two poets in broader terms. It is likely that further research will reveal many more aspects of the mixed spirit of emulation and imitation of Homer which characterises Nonnus’ poem.

The second important and detectable influence on Nonnus is that of Hellenistic poetry. Its influence was clearly thoroughgoing, again extending from verbal echoes to imitation and adaptation of whole passages. Nonnus had access, in the Alexandrian library or elsewhere, to many works of Hellenistic poetry no longer in existence; and it is some measure of the extent to which he alludes to them, that papyrus fragments of Hellenistic poetry are often found to be echoed in the Dionysiaca. It is of course impossible to assess fully Nonnus’ debt to poets such as Euphorion, whose work exists for us only in brief extracts and quotations; but Chapter II gathers together a sample of such allusions – some of them previously unnoticed – and pursues their implications. Approached with due caution, allusions of this type can provide evidence not only for the range of Nonnus’ reading and his methods of imitation, but also perhaps for the contexts in which some Hellenistic fragments may originally have stood. As might have been expected, Hellenistic influence is seen to be particularly prominent in Nonnus’ erotic episodes: the love epigrams of the Greek Anthology provide many parallels, and topics such as erotodidaxis and the propempticon can be traced with great probability to Hellenistic models. There can be little doubt that many of Nonnus’ tales of ravished nymphs and divine favourites were inspired by Hellenistic erotic narratives such as those of Phanocles and Hermesianax, or by aetiological stories told by the composers of poems which described the origins and foundation-myths of Greek cities. As our stock of fragments continues to grow, it will doubtless become more and more clear that many Nonnian characteristics serve to place the poet firmly in the Alexandrian tradition.

Chapter III deals with a more general aspect of Nonnus’ relationship with Hellenistic poetry, namely his use of pastoral themes and motifs. The essay moves beyond source-criticism and the tracing of allusions to consider the way in which allusion functions in the Dionysiaca. Pastoral allusions are not distributed evenly throughout the work, but serve a particular function in defining one aspect of Dionysianism: the lament for Hymnus in Book 15, which is Nonnus’ clearest and most protracted imitation of pastoral, can be seen as a lament for the demise of pastoral influence in the poem as pastoral music is finally assimilated to the Bacchic cacophony. Pastoral is one of several easily recognisable elements in Nonnus’ compendious epic. Scholars have been all too quick to condemn the poet’s style and taste, and very few have taken the trouble to enquire why the Dionysiaca is written as it is.⁶ There is a need for more studies combining literary criticism and source criticism in order to further our appreciation of the nature of Nonnian poetry.

There is scope, too, for more detailed discussion of the influence on Nonnus’ poem of rhetorical and encomiastic techniques,⁷ and of his allusions to the Greek novelists in his erotic scenes.⁸ One particularly controversial aspect of Nonnian source-criticism has hardly been touched on in this volume. Scholars are divided over the question of whether Nonnus alludes to Latin poets, and in particular to the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Since an allusion is almost by definition unprovable, and since allusion by a poet in one language to a poem in another cannot be done verbatim, it is hard to conceive that there will ever be found evidence to convince those who deny Nonnus’ knowledge of Virgil and Ovid. But further work on poets such as Quintus of Smyrna and Triphiodorus, and new papyrus discoveries of Latin school texts from late antique Egypt, may eventually cast fresh light on the question. As the evidence stands at present, however, it seems unlikely that Nonnus would have been well enough read in Latin poetry to have been able to use or allude to it extensively.⁹

One reason why few critics have attempted literary appraisals of the Dionysiaca is its sheer length and variety. The structure and ordering of the narrative have attracted more attention than most other aspects, and there has been a division between analysts and Unitarians similar to that which existed for Homer.¹⁰ Analysts can point to a number of features which suggest that the poem is in an unrevised state: lacunae and inconsistencies are certainly present, and Book 39 – to mention only the most glaring example – seems to be a series of unintegrated short descriptions rather than a continuous narrative. On the other hand, the story is clearly finished, and there can be no question of Nonnus’ having intended a forty-ninth book. The analysts assume that Nonnus died, or was converted to Christianity, or lost interest in the poem, after completing his first draft, and before tidying up the various loose ends; some posit the existence of a reviser who incorporated, sometimes in the wrong place, the poet’s afterthoughts and marginal additions, and who prepared the text for publication. But it is difficult to decide the significance that should be attached to these untidinesses. Clearly Book 39 is incomplete; but many of the lacunae in other books may result from the errors of copyists rather than from omission by the author; and inconsistency is so widespread in the poem that it might actually be described as a Nonnian characteristic. Although it seems beyond doubt, therefore, that Nonnus left the poem incomplete, it is by no means certain that the Dionysiaca is so confused, unorganised, and unpolished as some scholars have believed. Chapter IV attempts to trace some narrative threads, and to show that a carefully constructed plot underlies the varied episodes, by considering Dionysus’ role in the Indiad, the long central section of the poem: the god’s activities are carefully graded as he moves from peaceful missionary to epiphanic leader to slayer of the Indian king, Deriades. It may be that further research on the aesthetics of fifth-century literature and art will lead to a reappraisal of Nonnian narrative techniques.¹¹

As the structure of Nonnus’ poem has proved difficult to discern, so the nature and origins of his curiously luxuriant style, and the strict metrical rules which govern its expression, have given rise to controversy. Nonnus appears at first sight to have sprung fully formed on an astonished readership. The most notable attempt to chart a development in hexameter writing is Albert Wifstrand’s Von Kallimachos zu Nonnos,¹² which deals mostly with word placement and accentual restrictions, but makes in passing some observations on the origins of the Nonnian style. Chapter V goes beyond Wifstrand by comparing sample passages from Moschus, ps.-Oppian, Oppian, Quintus of Smyrna, and Triphiodorus with similar passages from the Dionysiaca in order to establish similarities and differences between Nonnus and his predecessors; an Appendix examines some fragments of poetry which is known to have influenced Nonnus. It will be seen that elements of the Nonnian style are indeed to be found in earlier poetry, and that by no means all of the poet’s characteristic effects are to be attributed to his own invention.

II

A superficial reading of the Dionysiaca might lead one to assume that the poem, dealing as it does with the traditional myths of a remote past, is exclusively concerned with that past and its own place in the literary tradition. But recent work has shown that this idea of the poem as a hermetically self-contained and fundamentally timeless epic is mistaken. The remainder of this introduction will review the poem’s historical and cultural context.

Although the date of composition of the Dionysiaca cannot be established with any certainty, it seems most likely that Nonnus flourished towards the middle of the fifth century.¹³ He was born at Panopolis in Upper Egypt, and probably lived at Alexandria.¹⁴ It is quite possible that he travelled in Asia Minor and as far as Constantinople, but evidence is lacking.

The Roman Empire had been officially Christian for more than a century, but paganism retreated slowly. It persisted most strongly in the eastern part of the Empire, among rural populations on the one hand and intellectuals on the other: many country people were unwilling to abandon their ancestral rituals and ceremonies, while intellectuals professed a formal allegiance to traditions which were in large measure transformed by their passion for systematisation and rational structures; orators such as Libanius saw paganism as essential to the continuity of the classical heritage, though they reconstructed it with a formalising emphasis; some Neoplatonic philosophers developed a hierarchic harmonisation with traditional religion, reverencing the various gods as aspects of a single One. In Egypt and elsewhere a less rigorous form of this religious philosophy had fused with variants of the Hermetic cult to offer a pagan counterpart to the mystical initiation rites of Christianity.¹⁵ Despite missionary work and, locally at least, persecutions by Christian zealots, several cities continued even in the mid fifth century to countenance worship in pagan temples. Panopolis, together with Heliopolis, Gaza, and other intellectual centres, contained a flourishing group of pagans throughout this period. It is this small number of intellectuals in Panopolis, Alexandria, and elsewhere, who must have been the intended audience for the Dionysiaca.¹⁶

Yet it may not have been pagans alone who were prepared to relish Nonnus’ intoxicating narrative. There exists under the name of Nonnus a hexameter paraphrase of St John’s Gospel written in a style very similar to that of the longer poem, but without its expansiveness and abundant verbal facility. A minority of scholars have doubted that the work is in fact by Nonnus;¹⁷ but for the majority who accept Nonnian authorship, the Paraphrase has posed considerable difficulties. Some have argued, in spite of stylistic arguments to the contrary, that Nonnus left the Dionysiaca unfinished when he was converted to Christianity. Others have contended that there could have been no objection in the mid fifth century to a Christian writing a poem infused with pagan evangelical fervour. This is not the place for a detailed examination of these possibilities;¹⁸ but certain facts about Hellenism and education in the time of Nonnus need to be considered if the question is to be approached in its proper light.

In major centres of learning such as Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople in the East, and Ravenna, Rome, and Carthage in the West, teachers of Greek or Latin rhetoric aimed to produce pupils who could compose or extemporise speeches with sententious and pointed elegance.¹⁹ This system of general education made it possible for a new literature to come into being in remote parts of the Empire, in which the emphasis placed on accurate imitation of the syntax and vocabulary of classical models resulted in an extraordinary uniformity of literary language.

Christians did not establish their own schools. A minority argued that the Bible stories were in all respects sufficient for both pleasure and instruction, but most continued to give their children a non-Christian education: they read the pagan classics as models of style and for what moral good they contained, and for the most part hoped to overlook, ignore, or allegorise away what conflicted with their own beliefs.²⁰ Early Christian thought is profoundly affected by Hellenism, and Christian religious literature and polemic were no less influenced than pagan writing by rhetorical precepts. Christian apologists attempted to defeat paganism with its own weapons of persuasion, and Christian poets used classical forms and metres to compose hymns, didactic works, and metrical lives of the saints.

By the fifth century religious discourse in Egypt was highly diverse. Some three-quarters of the population seems to have been Christian, and the remainder still pagan. Pagan writers were concerned to assimilate what they took to be their native Egyptian heritage to Greek tradition and mythology. Christian writers employed not only the forms and language of pagan literature, but also mythological allusion and the trappings of pagan religiosity. Christian artists borrowed much from pagan iconography, and pagans borrowed from Christian art.²¹ There existed individuals who according to modern definitions should be classed as both pagan and Christian; and there were Christians who were knowledgeable in the arts of magic and astrology.²² Nonnus’ pagan and Christian works reflect this culture of thoroughly Hellenised Christianity. Chapter VI reflects on these and other problems with particular regard to Dionysus, whose role as bringer of joy and salvation makes him closer than many pagan gods to the Christian concept of the incarnate logos. His myths and iconography, influenced in the third century B.C. by the Alexander legend and peculiarly fitted for appropriation by Roman emperors who campaigned in the East, are a good example of the way in which literature, art, and politics continued to interact in Late Antiquity.

The continuing popularity of Dionysus is not the only contemporary phenomenon reflected in the Dionysiaca. Although the poem has no extended reference to or description of Egypt, it does include a wealth of geographical and mythological information about areas in the eastern part of the Empire, derived from local traditions and works of local history and topography. Chapter VII deals in part with this aspect of the poem – and with the characteristics given by Nonnus to Dionysus’ enemies, the Indians, whose portrait is coloured both by historical events and by the oppositional role which they play within the poem. It is suggested that in his descriptions of cities such as Tyre and Beirut at the expense of others equally distinguished, Nonnus selects places whose inhabitants still maintained a popular interest in local history and tradition. Some of his facts Nonnus may have taken from ancient sources. But it is likely that for many he relied on patria-poems, a later version of the foundation-literature popular in Hellenistic times. Poems of that type, written often by versifiers who travelled throughout the eastern Empire in search of private patronage and civic commissions, proliferated in the fifth century. Many of the best-known Egyptian poets of the period, both pagan and Christian, may be classified as such ‘wandering poets’: Cyrus and Pamprepius from Panopolis, Olympiodorus of Thebes, and many others.²³ Like the professional rhetoricians, they moved from city to city to commemorate military successes, foundations of buildings, weddings, funerals, and anniversaries; and their work was filled with appropriate local detail. From poems such as these, as well as from the wide range of earlier Greek verse discussed above, Nonnus derived information for which he is now the only extant source.

To establish precisely the personal circumstances and beliefs of Nonnus is hardly feasible; but it is possible to see the poet not only as a continuator of the classical epic tradition, but also as a product of his time. It is hoped that the essays which follow may go some way towards broadening our view of the Dionysiaca in both these respects, and may help to encourage interest in a poem which will richly repay further study.

NOTES

1. On the civic background to the creative industry of artists and poets see e.g. Lane Fox (1986) 85–8 on Herodes Atticus and the ‘Iobacchi’ in second-century Athens.

2. On these poems see Vian (1976) XLII–XLV, and pp. 55–6, 123–9, and 172–3 of the present volume. Since they clearly influenced the Dionysiaca in a variety of ways, and since contributors’ views differ with regard to them, the Editor has allowed some repetition of material to stand.

3. See pp. 6, 57–8, 112, 151 n. 263, and 167 for Nonnus’ probable debt to poets and prose writers who dealt with local legends and traditions. Chuvin (1991) goes further than might have been thought possible in suggesting sources.

4. See pp. 12–14.

5. Vian (1991a).

6. Among the few honourable exceptions should be mentioned Lindsay (1965) 359–95, Braden (1974), and Winkler (1974).

7. See e.g. Lasky (1978).

8. Vian (1976) XLVIII–XLIX, with bibliography.

9. See Knox (1988).

10. See the summary of Vian (1976) XXIX–XLI.

11. See e.g. Riemschneider (1957).

12. Wifstrand (1933).

13. Vian (1976) XV–XVIII reviews the evidence.

14. 1. 13; cf. 26.238. See p. 33 n. 1.

15. On the Hermetic sect see Fowden (1992).

16. See Bagnall (1993) on the general background, and in particular 251–5 on paganism vs Christianity.

17. Though the doubters’ case is hardly bolstered by the fact that one of the few testimonia for Nonnus names him as author of the Paraphrase (Suda 3.478.26 Adler).

18. Most recently on the Paraphrase see Livrea (1987) and (1989).

19. The standard account of education in antiquity is Marrou (1956).

20. A particularly relevant text is St Basil’s sermon πϱὸς τοὺς νέους, ὅπως ἂν ἐξ Ἑλληνιϰῶν ὠϕελοῖντο λόγων: see Wilson (1975).

21. Bowersock (1990) 41–53.

22. Chuvin (1986), Bowersock (1990) 55–69. Astrology: Stegemann (1930), Chuvin (1992a) 3–43.

23. Cameron (1965).

I

NONNUS AND HOMER

The Dionysiaca, most unHomerlike of epics, measures its poetical art against that of Homer with plangent insistence. The forty-eight books, a suggestive number, have several references to Homer by name. Equally pervasive, however, is the influence of Hellenistic poetry: the words Φάϱωι παϱὰ γείτονι νήσωι (1.13) are not so much evidence of Nonnus’ having resided at Alexandria as a statement of poetical affiliation.¹

Armed with such distinctively Alexandrian weapons as literary allusion, digression, eroticism, grotesquerie, and scientific and mythological learning, Nonnus approaches Homer not with the disingenuous self-depreciation affected by Hellenistic poets, but face to face and without fear. Although his poem is influenced by many forms of writing,² it is chiefly moved by the desire to refashion Homer, and by the ambition, openly professed, to surpass him. This audacious undertaking is inspired by a new and multiform god, himself eager to find respect and recognition.

I

Inspired by twice-born Dionysus,³ the Dionysiaca has two proems.⁴ Both refer explicitly to the Homeric epics,⁵ and in both can be seen that curiously disconcerting mixture of serious and comic so characteristic of Dionysus and of the poem as a whole.⁶

The proem to Book 1

In his first proem Nonnus asks the Muse⁷ to tell of the double birth of Dionysus, whom Zeus took from the smouldering Semele and sewed into his own thigh. Both poet and Muses are depicted as members of the Dionysiac thiasos (11–12), and Egyptian Proteus is invoked to join the revels. Proteus is described as πολύτϱοπον (14) and as ποιϰίλον εἶδος ἔχων (15), a fitting complement to Nonnus’ ποιϰίλον ὕμνον (15). Whatever shape Proteus may adopt – serpent, lion, leopard, boar, water, tree – Nonnus will match him by singing on a related theme some aspect of Dionysus. Finally, lines 34–44 contrast Bacchic/Dionysiac with Apolline/Homeric attributes: the poet asks the Bacchants to equip him for Bacchic celebration, and leaves to Homer and Eidothea the stinking sealskin of Menelaus (37–8).

This jocular and self-confident polemic owes much to the poetic voice of Callimachus, who in his Reply to the Telchines (fr. 1) and elsewhere used strident denunciation and vivid imagery to advocate a new aesthetic for poetry;⁸ the noisome Homeric sealskin is a collateral descendant of Callimachus’ long-distance cranes, braying ass, bloated woman, and filthy river.⁹ But at the same time Nonnus contrasts his own Bacchic stance with the traditionally Apolline epic poet:¹⁰ Dionysus will infuse and enthuse his narrative, in contrast to the relatively calm and detached mode of other epics. Bacchic frenzy was a familiar poetic stance,¹¹ associated particularly with dithyrambic choral songs in honour of Dionysus.¹² Nonnus transfers the frenzied persona from lyric to epic poetry.¹³ Picturing his performance as a gigantic χοϱός (13), he does not reject Apolline inspiration (41 Φοῖβον ἐμόν), but he brings to Apollo’s genre a new ingredient. This point is made less directly in the opening lines of the poem, where the production of rational, chaste, and warlike Athena from the head of Zeus both contrasts with and complements the birth of Dionysus from his μηϱóς, a part of the body with quite different associations.¹⁴

Callimachean aesthetics disavowed ἓν ἄεισμα διηνεϰές (fr. 1.3), and the Aetia, though a long poem, was discontinuous and episodic. The Dionysiaca, by contrast, is in concept highly traditional: it treats from beginning to end the earthly existence of Dionysus, in the manner of countless Heracleids, Theseids, and poems concerning Dionysus himself. Such a format complies neither with the Callimachean aesthetic of discontinuity nor with the Aristotelian concept of unity.¹⁵ Yet the techniques which Nonnus brings to his theme are by no means traditional; and his habitual treatment of episodes in harsh and startling isolation owes far more to the discontinuous mode than first appearances might suggest. The Dionysiaca both is and is not old wine in new bottles, and its poet combines the literary characteristics of wine-bibber and water-drinker.

The proem falls into three sections, of which the longest (lines 11–34) introduces Proteus as emblem for Nonnian poetics. Whichever of his six Homeric metamorphoses Proteus might choose to adopt, Nonnus is able to match him with appropriately varied narrative. With characteristic and here programmatic elaboration, Nonnus expands the spare three-line Homeric description to eighteen lines.¹⁶ In this passage theory and practice are united:¹⁷ the metamorphoses of Proteus, archetype of curious changefulness, are matched by Dionysiac themes associated alternately with war and peace,¹⁸ and are portrayed in language self-consciously varied.¹⁹ The order in which these six Dionysiac subjects are mentioned bears no relation to that in which they will occur later. Here, as often elsewhere in the poem, the ordering of events, and the manner in which individual events are narrated, are controlled by the aim for contrast, variety, and antithesis.²⁰

Proteus is described as πολύτϱοπον and as ποιϰίλον εἶδος ἔχων (15). The adjective ποιϰίλος suggests intricacy, complexity, and variety as well as bright, variegated, and multi-coloured ornamentation; Nonnus uses it of, amongst other things, mosaic-work, weaving, and embroidery. In its metaphorical senses the word is to some extent interchangeable with πολύτϱοπος;²¹ but in an epic proem πολύτϱοπον inevitably alludes to the opening line of the Odyssey.²² In antiquity the meaning of πoλύτϱoπoν in Od. 1.1 was taken by some to be ‘much-wandering’,²³ by others as ‘of many wiles’. Nonnus’ πολύτϱοπον here is similarly ambiguous, Proteus being famed both for cunning wisdom and for metamorphosis. Lines 16–34 show that for Proteus here the reference is to changefulness. However, Proteus is not the only figure present in these lines. The poet likens himself and his work to Proteus: his poem will be the proteiform production of an inexhaustibly inventive author. Proteus thus represents the twin protagonists of the Dionysiaca, god and god-inspired poet, as they begin together their mission of Bacchic evangelism. Dionysus is θεὸς πολύτϱοπος a greater hero than Homer’s ἄνδϱα πολύτϱοπον; and his curious mixture of characteristics will belong to the poem in which he is celebrated.²⁴

In this way hero, poet, and poem are shown to resemble each other in their similarity to the admirably polymorphic escapologist. But in Homer Proteus