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.bp \f8Eumolpus' literary models\f6, at least the ones he cites, are Homer, the lyric poets, Vergil, and Horace (118.5). Other poets either did not see the path \f7qua iretur ad carmen\f6, or else were afraid to tread it. It is usually assumed that ``Petronius is obviously thinking of epic (\f7carmen\f6, not \f7nugae\f6 or \f7lusus\f6), because he insists that lofty, non-vulgar language is the appropriate style.''\|\c .f "Sullivan (1968) 167." But only two of the models whom Eumolpus cites actually wrote epic: \f7lyrici\f6 points to a specific genre which is \f7not\f6 epic, and Horace famously wrote several \f7recusationes\f6 avoiding the loftier genre.\c .f "Horace, \f7Odes\f6 1.6, 2.12, 4.2, 4.15, and arguably others." .p The mention of Horace, the quotation of him (\f7odi profanum uulgus et arceo\f6, 118.4=\f7Carmina\f6 3.1.1), and the reference to a \f7uiam qua iretur ad carmen\f6 all recall another poet: Callimachus. The history of the \f7recusatio\f6 goes back to Callimachus, who turns away from epic poetry in the prologue to the \f7Aetia\f6. Indeed, the Horace quote is in turn a quotation of Callimachus: σικχαινω παντα τα δημοσια (\f7Epigr.\f6 28.4 Pf.). In the same epigram, Callimachus also despises ``the well-trod path'' (ουδε κελευθωι χαίρω τις πολλους ωδε και ωδε φερει, \f7Epig.\f6 28.1–2 Pf.). This is an image again employed in the prologue to the \f7Aetia\f6, where Apollo warns Callimachus away from the path on which the wagons travel. This triple-allusion elucidates the somewhat strange choice of the verb \f7calcare\f6 (118.5): ``the Latin \f7calcare\f6 is the regular translation for πατεω, the verb Callimachus uses to describe the wagons which travel on the path a good poet should avoid.''\|\c .f "Connors (1998) 133." .p But all this cross-reference makes Eumolpus' point obscure. The overall point of the passage is to honour the traditions of poetry. It is a conservative message, and one which advises against innovation. But the advice of Callimachus is to ``find one's own way'': advice which Eumolpus must support, since it is the source of the line from Horace which he quotes so approvingly.\c .f "Of course it is possible that Eumolpus is unaware of the connection with \ Callimachus, and that he quotes Horace only with reference to the need \ for refined diction in poetry; but this likewise would contribute to the \ characterization of his ignorance in literary matters." Furthermore, Eumolpus' choice of the word \f7calcare\f6 indicates that, unlike Callimachus, he advocates taking the common road, the path of traditional epic which Homer, Vergil, and countless others trod. It becomes even more difficult to ascertain Eumolpus' view when \f7calcare\f6 turns up in the poem itself: \f7haec ubi calcauit Caesar iuga\f6 (v. 152). On the one hand, the path through the alps is narrow, unmarked, and treacherous. On the other hand, Caesar is following in the footsteps of great men, namely Hercules and Hannibal, just as Eumolpus advocates following in the steps of literary greats. It should also be noted that the imagery of Eumolpus' insistence that the poet be inundated by a great flood of literature (\f7ingenti flumine litterarum inundata\f6, 118.3) clashes somewhat with another Callimachean image: the preference for the narrow stream or light mist rather than the wide flood. Connors suggests that a contemporary enthusiasm for neo-Callimacheanism is being attacked here,\c .f "Connors (1998) 132–4." but Eumolpus is not consistently anti-Callimachean; rather he both approves and disapproves of the Callimachean ideal. Eumolpus at least seems to be muddling his allusions. .p Petronius has done this before to characters who present themselves as critical authorities, including Agamemnon, Trimalchio, even Encolpius. Trimalchio is by far the worst offender: blatantly and unknowingly confused in his knowledge of wines, mythology, and literature, he makes a series of gaffes to the amusement of the reader and chagrin of his fellow diners.\c .f "Section 48 is particularly replete with Trimalchio's blunders of this sort." Agamemnon and Encolpius are not so obviously caricatured, but they are both portrayed as hypocrites. Encolpius declaims against declaiming (1–2), while Agamemnon acknowledges the problems with the education system, yet continues to pander to it (3–5). Such paradoxical incongruities are a staple of Petronius' humour. The case with Eumolpus, though, is more subtle. He can perhaps be forgiven for faulty art criticism in the \f7pinacotheca\f6 (88), since art is not his game; but Eumolpus is a self-professed poet (\f7ego … poeta sum\f6, 83.8): he ought really to be in his element when it comes to literary criticism. That he makes a blunder of his literary allusion may be yet another—\c indeed, this the most refined—testament to Petronius' genius for characterization. .p On the other hand, it may be that in his jumbled reference to other poets Eumolpus is not so much betraying his inadequacy as deliberately misleading the reader. To return to the point of genre, it has already been noted that less than half of the authors whom Eumolpus cites (\f7lyrici\f6 is plural) actually wrote epic poetry. References to Homer, Vergil, and their \f7ambages deorumque ministeria\f6, have all led scholars to assume that Eumolpus is principally concerned with that genre. But the genre which Eumolpus elects for his \f7exemplum\f6 is is not \f7mythical\f6 epic, in the line of the \f7Odyssey\f6, the \f7Iliad\f6, or the \f7Aeneid\f6; the genre of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 is \f7historical\f6 epic. This has a slightly different tradition in that the events which it describes have occurred in the recorded and sometimes even living memory of the audience; the mythical variety takes place, by contrast, in the mythical past. This difference is perhaps what led Lucan to eschew the Vergilian and Homeric gods: an audience familiar with the historical motives for, and events of, the Civil War would perhaps find a supernatural account of such factors less compelling than the naturalistic account provided in the \f7Pharsalia\f6. Historical epic was popular in the principate; Eumolpus seems also to be working in that genre, and yet the models he cites are not his contemporaries. Moreover, the poets whom he does claim as his inspiration did not touch historical epic. If Eumolpus' intent really were to provide a ``fair copy'' version of the Civil War, true to the tradition of the epic genre, why does he not cite Ennius or Naevius, the fathers of Roman epic and both authors of revered historical works? Are they to be understood as among the \f7ceteri\f6 (118.5) who either did not see or feared to tread the path to true poetry? It seems there is some dissonance between the type of poetry Eumolpus claims to admire in his discourse on \f7ars poetica\f6 and that which he claims to have produced in the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6. .p In this connection it is also of interest to note the different genres in which an author such as Horace, admired by Eumolpus, actually did write. Sullivan assumes that \f7carmen\f6=epic;\c .f "Sullivan (1968) 167." but of course Horace's \f7Carmina\f6=odes.\c .f "Catullus too wrote \f7carmina\f6 which were not epic." Eumolpus does not seem to be drawing attention to these of Horace's poems, though, for he has already adduced the \f7lyrici\f6;\c .f "Although it is probably the Greek lyric poets that are meant." so what else did Horace write? The \f7Ars Poetica\f6 is naturally relevant to Eumolpus' present purpose. On the proper subject matter for verse, though, compare what Eumolpus has to say: .bl \f7non enim res gestae versibus comprehendendae sunt, quod longe melius\ historici\ faciunt\f6 (118.6)\p .ck with what Horace says: .bl \f7res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella .br quo\ scribi\ possent\ numero\ monstravit\ Homerus\f6 (\f7Ars\ P.\f6\ 74–5)\p .ck That the phrase \f7tristia bella\f6 occurs near the very beginning of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 (v.\ 6) confirms the confusion Eumolpus is in. Horace agrees that Homer was right to cast \f7res gestae\f6 into hexameters, and Eumolpus cites both of these authors approvingly, only to in the same breath deny that \f7res gestae versibus comprehendendae sunt\f6, and then go on to treat an historical event in verse. Moreover, the poet who privileges frenzied inspiration (\f7furentis animi\f6) over measured restraint (\f7religiosae orationis\f6, 118.6) seems to encourage the unbalanced behaviour of the \f7poeta uesanus\f6 who appears at the end of Horace's work: .bl .nf \f7ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urget aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana, uesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poetam qui sapiunt, agitant pueri incautique sequuntur. hic, dum sublimis versus ructatur et errat, si ueluti merulis intentus decidit auceps in puteum foueamue, licet `succurrite' longum .fi clamet,\ `io\ cives',\ non\ sit\ qui\ tollere\ curet.\f6 (\f7Ars\ P.\f6\ 453–60)\p .ck Elsewhere Eumolpus is said to be afflicted by an illness (\f7quid tibi uis cum isto morbo\f6, asks Encolpius, 90.3) which means he cannot keep from spouting verse at any opportune moment: he promises Encolpius he will desist (90.6), only to break his promise twice almost immediately (91.3/92.6, 93.3). After the shipwreck, too, he is described in terms similar to Horace's poet: trapped like a wild animal and uttering annoying pleas (\f7murmur insolitum … quasi cupientis exire beluae gemitum\f6, 115.1), he is a ``mooing poet'' (\f7poetam mugientem\f6, 115.5). Wise people avoid Eumolpus: he is ejected from the picture gallery (90.1), the theatre (90.5), and the baths (92.6). His multiple similarities with Horace's \f7poeta uesanus\f6 again undercut the poetic programme in section 118: the ``inspired'' behaviour of the raving poet (\f7liber spiritus, …furentis animi uaticinatio\f6, 118.6) is completely at odds with the \f7Horatii curiosa felicitas\f6 (118.5). .p Finally, it should be noted that Horace also wrote satires. Though the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 claims to be historical epic, many have noted a satirical tendency in the work. Slater points out that without the benefit of the clue in the preface (\f7ecce belli ciuilis ingens opus quisquis attigerit…\f6, 118.6), the reader of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 would struggle to place the subject matter of the work, and its genre: .bl Without this context, the beginning of Eumolpus' poem is almost unreadable. Though the metre is hexameter, the genre could as easily be satire as epic. The subject of the next forty-two lines is the moral decay of Rome, couched in terms so general that we still have no firm signal from the poetry itself that the time is that of the civil war. … Even allowing for the rhetorical style of epic in the Silver Age, we still have no incontrovertible genre markers.\c .f "Slater (1990) 196." .ck Though ``almost unreadable'' is an exaggeration, it is certainly true that Eumolpus avoids making it clear from the beginning that he is embarking on an historical epic on the Civil War. The lack of a proemium or invocation of the muses contributes to this, but the content of the first sixty lines especially reads like a contemporary criticism of Roman society and its declining moral values. Nor are such subjects confined to the poem's opening: they are the principal concern in the conversation of Dis and Fortuna, Caesar himself decries the \f7mercedibus emptae / ac uiles operae quorum est mea Roma nouerca\f6 (vv. 165–6), and the panicked flight from Rome can well be read from a satirical point of view. Slater's mention of the hexameter reminds one that this was the metre not only of epic but of didactic and satirical verse as well. Horace's use of hexameters was restricted to only these last two genres—indeed the first book of Horace' \f7Satires\f6 begins with a poem on greed and avarice. .p Besides muddling his literary allusions, Eumolpus also muddles his literary models. The poem he offers his companions on the road to Croton pretends to be an historical epic, but only two of the poets Eumolpus cites in his theory of \f7ars poetica\f6 actually wrote epic, and neither of them the historical variety. On the contrary, one of those models, Horace, refused to write epic and did write satires; so it is perhaps not surprising that the poem which Eumolpus presents has a strongly satirical flavour. Of course, the theory set out in section 118 is concerned with poetry in general, so really Eumolpus was free to choose whichever role models he liked. But when he then turns to historical epic specifically he undercuts the expectations he has set up by discussing the merits of such poets as Homer, the lyric poets, Vergil, and Horace.