Table Of ContentPoetic Garlands
Poetic Garlands
Hellenistic Epigrams in Context
Kathryn J. Gutzwiller
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gutzwiller, KathrynJ .
Poetic garlands : Hellenistic epigrams in context / Kathryn J. Gutzwiller.
P. cm. — (Hellenistic culture and society : 28)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-20857-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Greek poetry, Hellenistic—History and criticism. 2. Epigrams,
Greek—History and criticism. 3. Books and reading— Mediterranean
Region. 4. Meleager-—Knowledge— Literature. 5. Callimachus.
Epigrams. 6. Literary form. 1. Tide. II. Series.
PA 3123.G88 — 1998
888.'or08-dcat 97-5676
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
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of ANSUNISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
For Bob and Charlie
CONTENTS
PREFACE / ix
ABBREVIATIONS / χη
i. Introduction / i
2. Hellenistic Epigram Books: The Evidence from Manuscripts and Papyri / 45
“in the Epigrams οὔ..." 16
On Papyri 20
In Manusenpt 36
3. The Third Century: From Stone to Book / 47
Anyle 54
Nossts 74
Leonidas of Tarentum. 88
4. The Third Century: Erotic and Sympotic Epigram } 115
Asclepiades 122
Posidippus 150
Hedylus 170
5. The Book and the Scholar: Callimachus! Epigrammata ΜΔ 183
The Epigrammata 188
Dedicatory Epigrams :90
Sepulchral Epigrams 196
Erotic Epigrams 213
5. The Art of Variation: From Book to Anthology / 227
Antipater of Sidon 236
Meleager 276
TABLES / 323
I. Structure of Cephalan Books. 325
Il. Meleager's Amatory Book 326
TN. Structure of Meleager's Amatory Book 328
IV. Meleager’s Dedicatory Book 329
V. Meleager’s Sepulchral Book 330
VI. Meteager’s Epideicti. Book 332
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY / 433
INDEX OF PASSAGES CITED / 341
GENERAL INDEX / 353
PREFACE
In the Foreword to his commentary on Hellenistic epigrams, A. S. F. Gow
remarks that he took up the Greek Anthology because he had been “constantly
reminded how inadequate was the provision of signposts for those who strayed
into that labyrinth.” The image of the maze seems particularly apt in describing
the various woven and unwoven strands that make up our Byzantine anthologies
of Greek epigrams. The commentary of Gow and Page remains an essential
guide in matters of chronology, diction, and text, and one now supplemented
in important ways. Sonya L, Taran has reprinted in two volumes a number of
earlier German monographs that provide crucial information about the ancient
anthologies through which Hellenistic epigrams passed into the Byzantine
tradition. In addition, Alan Cameron has recently issued a detailed history
of the Greek Anthology, which builds upon these earlier discoveries and adds a
wealth of information derived from papyri and his own study of the Byzantine
texts. What remains to be attempted, however, is a specifically literary study of
Hellenistic epigrams. The poems themselves have, apparently, seemed too brief
and the labyrinth of the Anthology too uncharted to accommodate lengthy studies
concerned with interpretation rather than the realia of textual transmission. But
the problem has seemed to me, in literary terms, to be one of failure to account
fully for context; I have thought that, if we could uncover to any degree at all the
original settings in which these epigrams were read, we would have a basis for
understanding the literary meaning the poems held for ancient readers.
The significance of the term context in my title is twofold. On the one hand,
it refers to the specific physical context in which an epigram is read. Verses
inscribed on grave monuments or accompanying dedications take on meaning
in relation to their site of inscription. During the Hellenistic era epigrams were
sometimes recited as entertainment for friends, a context that produced different
types of epigrams—erotic, satiric, and sympotic—as well as different responses.
Within the third century B.c. epigrams were also collected into poetry books,
ix
x PREFACE
where even the briefest of poems could acquire broader meaning by juxtaposition
with other epigrams. By the beginning of the first century B.c. these epigram
collections were being excerpted and rewoven into anthologies, like Meleager's
Garland, where the grouping of poems by multiple authors on a single theme
contextualized the history of the form. In the course of time even these contexts
were remolded as the ancient anthologies were plucked apart to form the great
Byzantine compendia based on different principles of arrangement. One goal
of this book is to show how changed context produces changed meaning.
Because readers tend to privilege the poetic contexts established by authors,
I have concentrated on studying the way in which Hellenistic epigrams may
have functioned in their original collections. 1 am under no delusion that
the scope or order of these lost poetry books can be reestablished. Meleager
clearly used earlier epigram collections, but he thoroughly redistributed their
contents throughout his anthology. In addition, he probably excerpted only
a small percentage of published Greek epigrams and may have selected from
a given poet certain types of epigrams over others. But it is also likely that
he tended to anthologize key poems from earlier collections, those on themes
unique to a certain author and those that foster an impression of the poetic
persona controlling the collection. Although I believe that in certain instances
enough evidence exists to justify speculation about a poem's position within a
collection, usually as an opening, closing, or transitional poem, my order of
discussion, both of individual poems and of poems in groups, is more often
designed to illustrate similarities and so interconnections, not to suggest an
original order. The exception is Meleager's Garland, for which I have been able
to build upon earlier, and largely unknown, scholarship in order to establish the
major structure of his various sections. The patterns of arrangement that can
now be reconstructed for this anthology are so complex and fascinating that they
no doubt represent a culmination in the Hellenistic process of weaving poetic
garlands.
Because I concentrate in this diachronic continuum on the synchronic mo-
ment of the author-issued epigram collection, the term context acquires a further
reference to the social and historical matrix in which the author composed.
These are not poems written by scholars in ivory towers, with an eye only to
earlier Greek literature or contemporary literary quarrels. The individuals pre-
sented in the epigrams are, for the most part, either historically real or fictioned
as like persons of the poet's own day. The dominating themes I identify for
the epigrammatists discussed here are connected to the personal positions they
occupied in the fragmented and shifting world of Hellenistic culture. Anyte and
Nossis write from the perspective of women dwelling in communities far from
the centers of literary culture and political power. Leonidas, who characterizes
himself as a poor wanderer, presents a more sympathetic identification with
the underclass figures in his epigrams than with the wealthy and aristocratic
ones, those who would be more likely to appreciate, and patronize, his art.
