The Composition of Aratus' Phaenomena
Rossius Andrey A.
All those who support the idea of a smooth transition from the astronomical to the meteorological part of the Phaenomena believe that Zeus's orders and reminders promised to the mankind in the proem (6 and 7) are actually realized in the second part. But lines 10-13 make it absolutely clear that what the poet is speaking about here are only the parapegmata-type signs, such as are abundant in the first part and totally absent from the second. It follows that, on compositional level, Aratus's task was not to conceal but, on the contrary, to stress the contrast between the two parts of his work. What then serves as the unifying principle to these contrasting elements is still the much discussed Stoicism of the poem, which, however, bears little resemblance to a rather simplistic, vaguely optimistic and amorphous outlook as it is described by J. Martin and most other modern scholars. It is well known that the most concentrated statement of Aratus's Stoicism one finds in the proem of the Phaenomena; at the same time these first lines of the poem introduce Hesiodic context as the constant reference for the younger poet's work. But, contrary to the received opinion, Aratus does not fill the Hesiodic images with Stoic content: what he does right from the start is to counterpoise the ideal picture of the celestial world, correlated with Stoic way of life and the right moral choice, with that of the earthly world, which he draws in Hesiodic colours. This juxtaposition is given significant backing in the episode with the anonymous stars (ll. 367-385) and, together with the morally charged myth of Dike, it leads to the formulation of the implicit question: do people in these days still live the same virtuous life as the Heroic generation of the Golden Age and, if not, what is the cause of degradation? Thus the entire text of the Phaenomena is given an additional dramatic dimension, the argument constantly developing between the opposite limits of Stoic hope and Hesiodic pessimism, embodied in the very structure of the poem as well.