Erotic Greek Epigram A Diachronic Approach

Despite its small size, epigram attracted some of the best poetic talents of antiquity, exerting a strong influence on Latin literature and continuing to inspire poetic creativity until today. During the last decades research on epigram flourished to an unprecedented degree. Greek Erotic Epigram: A Diachronic Approach draws on and engages with this renewed scholarly interest in the briefest of the ancient Greek genres. By shifting focus away from a particular poet, collection, and the epigrammatic production of a specific historical period, it explores diachronically erotic epigram from various interpretative angles, treating the surviving material as an organic whole.

Four motifs drive diachronic research encompassing a wide chronological span from the Hellenistic up until the early Byzantine era: the lamp, sea, and nautical imagery, the beloved's comparison to Aphrodite, and Eros and the Erotes. By analysing how these motifs were shaped and adapted over the centuries, the book illustrates the epigrammatists' changing attitudes towards the material inherited from earlier poetic tradition, and leads to a deeper appreciation of the narrative techniques adopted by them as well as of the inner dynamics of poetic imitation and competition.

Moreover, the scrutiny of the motifs within wider literary and historical backgrounds reveals the influence exerted by different cultural and sociopolitical environments on the epigrammatists' work in the course of centuries. The book offers a model for the type of diachronic research that can be applied to other epigrammatic subgenres and other motifs, and to Latin epigram.

Maria Kanellou, Research Fellow, Academy of Athens, Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature, Greece

Maria Kanellou studied at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and at UCL. She is currently Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens, and she has previously worked at UCL, KCL, the University of Kent, and OUC. She has co-organized three international conferences on Greek epigram and on Theocritus, and she has co-edited two collective volumes: one on Greek epigram published by OUP, and one on Palladas and the Yale Papyrus Codex (P. CtYBR inv. 4000) published by Brill. Another volume on Theocritus is forthcoming in the series Hellenistica Groningana.

AcknowledgemetsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction1. Why Write a Book on the Diachronic Study of Erotic Epigrams?2. The Contents of the Book1. The Lamp as a Vehicle for Exploring the Lover's Emotions1. First Appearances of the Lamp Motif in Asclepiades2. The Development of the Motif in the Meleagrian Epigrams3. Outside the Melegrian Garland: Philodemus and Statyllius Flaccus4. Marcus Argentarius and the Lamp's Prophetic Abilities5. The Survival of the Lamp in the Cycle of Agathias6. Conclusions2. Unboxing Sea and Nautical Metaphors in Erotic Epigram1.1 The Ship-Prostitute Epigrams and their Intertextual Background1.2 Alcaeus and the Ship-Prostitute1.3 Theognis and Aristophanes: Ship-Imagery and the Ambiguities of Control2.1 The Ship-Prostitute in the Epigrams: Hetaerae Described as Ships2.2 Ships Described in Language Applicable to Hetaerae3.1 Hellenistic Epigram and the Sea of Love3.2 The Heterosexual Epigrams3.3 The Homoerotic Epigrams4.1 The Survival of Sea and Nautical Metaphors after Meleager's Garland4.2 Sea Metaphors in their Sexual Form: The Case Study of Autodemon AP 11.294.3 Further Examples of Sexual Sea Metaphors: The Anonymous AP 11.220 and Rufinus AP 5.354.4 The Sea of Love in Macedonius Consul AP 5.2355. Conclusions3. Comparing the Beloved with the Supreme Goddess of Beauty1. The Beloved's Praise in the Poetic Tradition: The Limitations of Hyperbole2. Implied Comparison with Aphrodite: Nossis' Dedicatory Epigrams3. Hellenistic Queens and Aphrodite: Three Posidippean Epigrams4. Asclepiades or Posidippus AP 5.194: Indirect Links Between a Non-Royal Woman and Aphrodite5.1 Antipater of Sidon: Staying within Limits (AP 9.567 and 7.14)5.2 Antipater of Sidon: Stretching the Boundaries (AP 7.218)6. The 'Apotheosis' of the Motif in the Meleagrian Epigrams7. Comparing the Male Beloved with Eros8.1 The Motif after Meleager: Marcus Argentarius and Rufinus8.2 The Motif in the Cycle of Agathias9. Conclusions4. Eros and the Erotes: The Tormentors of Humans1.1 Eros' Disguises: Recollections of Lyric Poetry1.2 Eros the Crawling Creature2. Amalgamation of Different Portrayals of Eros in the Same Epigram3.1 From the Single Eros to the Erotes: The Motif's Literary Roots3.2 Multiple Erotes for Multiple Effects4. ConclusionsEpilogueBibliographyGeneral IndexIndex Locorum