This chapter examines the self-conscious Hellenistic poets who were concerned to set their own seal or sphragis on their poetry, and to defend it against its detractors. It analyses how Herodas proves to be no exception to Hellenistic practice with his eighth Mimiamb. It also discusses several points of contact between Mimiamb 8 and Idyll 7, in which both poems have a festival as their setting and involve a rustic contest over poetry. The chapter describes a dramatic element of Mimiamb 8 through the setting of the festival to Dionysos, the god of drama. It mentions Hippônax, who criticised Herodas' poetry for crossing the form of the genre of comic drama and the metre of the genre of iambic invective.
