The Demotion of the Literary Cowherd

Longus promotes an αἰπόλος (‘goatherd’) to bear the privileged name Daphnis, transferring his canonical role of βουκόλος (‘cowherd’) to other herdsmen—easily done, since all play the syrinx. But Longus’ Daphnis does not inherit the Theocritean αἰπόλος’ gift of mellifluous song: whereas Chloe does sing sola, Longus’ males, including Daphnis, do not, except the cowherd in the μῦθος of I.27 and Philetas at II.3.2—instead they tell μῦθοι. Perhaps Longus envisages his own, often poetic, prose achieving what song had achieved for Polyphemus, and eliminates male solo song as part of his programme of refashioning Sappho and Theocritus in prose. Of the three characters to whom (from a Daphnis) the status βουκόλος is transferred Dorcon twice saves Daphnis, but his understanding of eros does not advance the couple’s; Philetas’ does, and his wise interventions are important; Lampis’ impact, however, like Dorcon’s, is ephemeral, his person unpleasant. Despite Philetas’ positive role, Dorcon’s and Lampis’ actions hint that Theocritus was wrong to lavish so much sympathy on βουκόλοι, who in Longus can be boisterous and self-assertive, and that a society in which cowherds had free rein would be rougher than one in which standards of behaviour were set by goatherds and shepherds.