Table Of ContentTitle Pages
Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's
Forgotten Rivals
Gideon Nisbet
Print publication date: 2003
Print ISBN-13: 9780199263370
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263370.001.0001
Title Pages
Published under the supervision of a Committee of the Faculty of Classics in the
University of Oxford
(p.i) Oxford Classical Monographs
(p.iii) Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial’s Forgotten Rivals
(p.ii) The aim of the Oxford Classical Monographs series (which replaces the
Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs) is to publish books based on the
best theses on Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and ancient
philosophy examined by the Faculty Board of Classics.
(p.iv) This book has been printed digitally and produced in a standard
specification in order to ensure its continuing availability
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,
scholarship,
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Title Pages
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© Gideon Nisbet 2003
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Title Pages
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Dedication
Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's
Forgotten Rivals
Gideon Nisbet
Print publication date: 2003
Print ISBN-13: 9780199263370
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263370.001.0001
Dedication
(p.v) To my family (p.vi)
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Acknowledgements
Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's
Forgotten Rivals
Gideon Nisbet
Print publication date: 2003
Print ISBN-13: 9780199263370
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263370.001.0001
(p.vii) Acknowledgements
Most of this material had a past life as a doctoral thesis submitted to the Board
of Literae Humaniores at Oxford in 1998. I am profoundly indebted to both of my
supervisors during that time for their patient and judicious attentions. Ewen
Bowie offered meticulous criticism during the earlier stages of the project’s
development; papyrus tsar Peter Parsons supplied countless tactful suggestions
for improvement, along with splendid lunches. In addition, both generously
allowed me access to unpublished material of their own, which I found extremely
useful in formulating my own heretical opinions. Errors that remain in what
follows are most likely the outcome of one of my decisions to ignore their wise
and oft-repeated caveats. Both have been unfailingly supportive and
understanding, and they continue to boost my morale by a variety of cunning
ploys. I am grateful to them for the years they have permitted me to take off
their lives. I am indebted also to my examiners, Denis Feeney and Dominic
Montserrat, for their perceptive and encouraging feedback; and to my employer
during much of this time, Dirk Obbink, for his encouragement.
Any number of friends, colleagues, and well-wishers helped and advised me
along the way. Any list, however long, would be invidiously selective; the
following is very brief. Julia Hamer Hunt and Catherine Steel read and criticized
early drafts. Martin Hubbard lent me his notes on the family of Cossus Cornelius
Lentulus; Jane Lightfoot helped with the chelidony. William M. Calder III, Robin
Osborne, and Helen King were among many others who offered much-needed
encouragement. I gratefully acknowledge the support offered by my editors at
Oxford University Press: Hilary O’Shea, Lavinia Porter, Lucy Qureshi, and Enid
Barker. I am also indebted to my copy-editor Tom, Chandler, whose enthusiasm
and good sense led to many improvements.
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Acknowledgements
(p.viii) Some particular debts of gratitude demand to be singled out.Ian Ruffell
and his partner Chloe Stewart endured draft after draft, and made sure I ate;
without their moral support and good sense this project would have got
nowhere. Stephen Harrison persuaded me that 1 might have something to say,
and has consistently looked out for my best interests; I am glad to be able to
embarrass him here by way of recompense. My partner Diana Spencer read and
commented on the entire book in draft, and encouraged and supported me in
bringing it to completion.
G.N.
Birmingham, 2002
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Editions and Abbreviations
Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's
Forgotten Rivals
Gideon Nisbet
Print publication date: 2003
Print ISBN-13: 9780199263370
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263370.001.0001
(p.x) Editions and Abbreviations
Unless otherwise indicated, the text used is Robert Aubreton’s Budé of 1972—
the most up-to-date edition, and not too difficult to get hold of. The text is overly
punctuated, but otherwise seems fine to me. Aubreton has a great feel for the
language and rhythm of skoptic epigram, and his notes are often very useful. I
have raided them for points of detail more often than 1 can remember, certainly
more often than my own footnotes would indicate—a backhanded and incidental
testimonial to a formative influence who, along with his fellow-countrymen Louis
Robert (1968a and b) and Pierre Laurens (1905), helped shape my
understanding of how the things work. Two either editions have proved useful in
resolving occasional difficulties: Hermann Beekby’s 1958 Teubner, and the text
of Loukillios offered by Burton Jay Rozema in his very sound 1971 doctoral
thesis, Lucillius the Epigrammatist.
Abbreviations for journals ete. are generally as in OCD 3. Given my out-of-the-
way subject material, my commonest abbreviation is also the one most likely to
confuse the uninitiated: ‘AP’, Anthologia Palatina, the main body of the (Greek
Anthology as it stands today. The Palatine MS (‘Palatinus’) is as close as we get
to an original of the Anthology compiled by Constantine Cephalas around 900
CE. Palatums resurfaced in the early 1600s, but remained unpublished until the
nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the only version of the Greek Anthology in
circulation was a rearranged and bowdlerized version of Cephalas’ Anthology,
produced in 1301 by Maximus Planudes. The ‘Greek Anthology’ we read today
consists of the Palatine Anthology plus an Appendix, made up of poems found in
Planudes but not in Palatums. The history of the Anthology and its tributaries is
dauntingly complex; the most recent attempt to explain it all is Cameron’s
(1903).
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Editions and Abbreviations
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Dramatis Personae
Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's
Forgotten Rivals
Gideon Nisbet
Print publication date: 2003
Print ISBN-13: 9780199263370
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263370.001.0001
(p.xi) Dramatis Personae
FIRST CENTURY CE
LOUKILLIOS
a grouch with a grudge, putative father to a subgenre
NIKARKHOS
a cheeky Egyptian
SECOND CENTURY CE
AMMIANOS
a punning pundit
LOUKIANOS
long-lost twin brother of Lucian
SUPPORTING ROLES
POLLIANOS
a critic with high standards
APOLLINARIOS
who disapproves of grammarians
TRAJAN
an emperor
GAETULICUS
a Roman slumming it
PISO
a grumbling governor
LEONIDES/AS
who likes to count
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Introduction ‘Skoptic Epigram’
Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's
Forgotten Rivals
Gideon Nisbet
Print publication date: 2003
Print ISBN-13: 9780199263370
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263370.001.0001
Introduction ‘Skoptic Epigram’
GIDEON NISBET
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263370.003.0011
Abstract and Keywords
This introductory chapter clarifies terminology, outlines the book's scope and
rationale, reflects briefly on the state of play in skoptic epigram scholarship, and
identifies some key methodological concerns: literary and cultural
contextualisation (including material culture), political readings, and academic
reception history. It flags up the importance of developing a methodologically
supple and richly contextualised reading strategy, in response to the
characteristic ambiguities which are fundamental to the process of skoptic
humour.
Keywords: skoptic epigram, reception, material culture, deconstruction, history of scholarship
Nothing interesting ever happens at the center. Everything interesting is
out at the edges … zine publishers, renegade video artists, underground
sysops, fashion monsters … spewing memes like thought-viruses into the
ether … Covert Culture is the unexplored terrain that’s been right in front
of you all along, but was impossible to see … … X doesn’t mark the spot,
but a thousand Xs mark a thousand spots.
‘The Revolution Will Be Faxed’: Kadrey (1993) 1–2
‘What on earth is a skoptic epigram?’
A quick orientation course. Within Mediterranean culture in the early centuries
CE, ‘the Classical world’, an epigram is a short poem. Its name—epi-gramma,
‘mark-upon’—contains its oldest origins: texts, poetic or otherwise, which are
encountered as inscriptions on monuments or statues. The Hellenistic era saw
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