James J. Clauss is Professor of Classics at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book 1 of Apollonius' Argonautica (1993), the co-editor of Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art (1997), and the co-translator of Rome and Environs: an Archaeological Guide by Filippo Coarelli (2007). Martine Cuypers is Lecturer in Greek at Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of a forthcoming commentary on Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica and co-editor of Beginning from Apollo: Studies in Apollonius and the Argonautic Tradition (2005). She also maintains the online Hellenistic Bibliography.

• List of Maps viii Notes on Contributors ixPreface xivAcknowledgments xviAbbreviations xvii1 Introduction 1James J. Clauss and Martine CuypersPART I Contexts 152 From Alexander to Augustus 17Andrew Erskine3 Literature and the Kings 30Rolf Strootman4 Ptolemaic Alexandria 46Susan Stephens5 Education 62Jessica WissmannPART II Poetry 796 The Prefigured Muse: Rethinking a Few Assumptions on Hellenistic Poetics 81Benjamin Acosta-Hughes7 Callimachus’ Aetia 92Annette Harder8 Hellenistic Elegy: Out from Under the Shadow of Callimachus 106Jackie Murray9 Epigram 117Jon S. Bruss10 Apollonius’ Argonautica 136Adolf Ko¨hnken11 Narrative Hexameter Poetry 151Annemarie Ambu¨hl12 Hymns and Encomia 166Anthony W. Bulloch13 Sung Poetry: The Case of Inscribed Paeans 181Marco Fantuzzi14 Aratus 197Katharina Volk15 Nicander 211Enrico Magnelli16 The Bucolic Fiction of Theocritus 224Mark Payne17 Idyll 6 and the Development of Bucolic after Theocritus 238J. D. Reed18 Iambos and Parody 251Ruth Scodel19 Herodas and the Mime 267Elena Esposito20 Menander’s Comedy 282Susan Lape21 Hellenistic Tragedy and Lycophron’s Alexandra 297Alexander SensPART III Prose 31522 Historiography, Rhetoric, and Science: Rethinking a Few Assumptions on Hellenistic Prose 317Martine Cuypers23 Literary Criticism 337Kathryn J. Gutzwiller24 Philosophy after Aristotle 366Stephen A. White25 From Polybius to Dionysius: The Decline and Fall of Hellenistic Historiography 384Alain M. Gowing26 Prose Fiction 395Tim WhitmarshPART IV Neighbors 41327 Jewish Literature 415Erich S. Gruen28 Egyptian Literature 429Jacco Dieleman and Ian S. Moyer29 Literature in Western Asia 448Silke Knippschild30 From the Head of Zeus: The Beginnings of Roman Literature 463James J. ClaussBibliography 479Index 535

"New and interesting observations abound, and the volume as a whole offers a welcome introduction to an area of burgeoning scholarly interest. Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty." (Choice, 1 May 2011) "Particularly notable are the concluding four chapters, on cross-cultural influence and exchange with western Asia, the Jewish world, Egyptian literature, and the early Roman world. Throughout the volume, individual authors and works are described in detail, with excerpts occurring frequently in the Greek original followed by English translation. Written to be accessible to advanced language students and the non-specialist, with many references to current events and media for context, the scholarship of this work is very high, making the volume be a resource for scholars as well." (Book News Inc, November 2010)