Tra misure e magnificenza: lo Zeus di Olimpia da Callimaco a Marziale.

The article, after an initial review of certain or eventual reception of Callimachus as ‘art historian’ in Latin literature, reexamines the iambus 6 on Phidias’ Zeus at Olympia. The value of the composition is much debated. That Callimachus, with the insistence on measurements, alludes to the Herodotus’ rhetoric of wonder is suggested by the perhaps Ionic word used fifteen times by Herodotus for expense, anaisimōma, otherwise rare. It can be added that the measurements and, more occasionally, the cost are highlighted in the literature for those large constructions which, like the Zeus, fall into the category of the seven wonders of the world. The particular treatment of the statue does not seem to have given stimulus to the Roman authors. The article then analyzes the use of the figure of Phidias, sometimes with metapoetic meanings, in the literary production from Cicero to Martial and Statius.