4. Alexandrian Posidippus: On Rereading the GP Epigrams in Light of P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309

Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, University of Michigan

Among the poems of pre-Milan Posidippus that at once contextualize him in a third-century BCE Alexandrian setting, and highlight some of the more revealing features of the epigrammatist’s verse, this commemorative epigram is one of the more remarkable. The poem’s eight lines are a series of striking juxtapositions that entwine temporal and physical distance, contrasting images of the passage of time, and a series of changing focal points, as each distich envisions a different figure: Doricha, Charaxus, Sappho, the evoked commemoration. Among the poem’s more revealing features are the following:

1. Contrast of monuments: The first quatrain appears to evoke a funeral monument: yet from line 1 to line 2 there is a transition from imagery of death to imagery of life. [3] The robe of line 2, lightly personified by the phrase μύρων ἔκπνοος, ‘perfume-breathing’, evolves into the image of living embrace in the following distich. The final imagery of morning, and of agrypnia, provide a poignant contrast with the imagery of sleep inherently present in the imagery of death of the opening line. [4] The second quatrain evokes a different commemoration, Sappho’s verse, with a transition from the imagery of life, in the singing of Sappho’s ‘white voice-giving columns of lovely song’, to that of death in the return, in the final distich, to the figure of the dead Doricha and her commemoration. Particularly the term μακαριστόν, ‘blessed’, mainly used of the dead, captures Doricha both as dead figure and as subject of song. [5] The poem can also be read as a kind of eclectic ecphrasis, envisioning a real or imagined funerary monument, that moves in its second half to an evocation of Sappho’s songs that in turn records, in its final distich, an appropriate inscription for Doricha’s tomb. And so the poem captures two commemorative media in one harmonic whole. [6]

2. Personification of objects: The perfume-breathing robe of the first quatrain and the ‘white, voice-giving columns’ of the second, not only juxtapose two living images, they also both evoke the imagery of enfolding. Doricha’s robe enfolds the embracing couple, Sappho’s columns encompass (and hence enfold) their erotic subject—and one might think further here of the imagery of the papyrus roll in turn enfolding its song. [7] There is then a transition, or transformation, of the enfolding robes into the enfolding papyrus, i.e. song. And the contents of the song are of course, in turn, the enfolding of the robe, so that the song retrospectively creates (or has created) the second distich of the epigram. Further, recall of the physical is then answered by the recall of sound. For Sappho’s songs, while eternal, also recall a past voice, that of the poet.

3. Play with sound and word position: This works in the epigram on several levels. Χάραξον, μακαριστόν, Ναύκρατις transfers the poem’s focus temporally from the Archaic setting of embrace to the speaker’s contemporary setting of reflection on memorial. The sound repetition in line 3 χαρίεντα περιστέλλουσα Χάραξον places emphasis on Charaxus’ winning qualities: [8] there is also the lovely touch that Doricha’s robe actually enfolds him in the line. The repetition at line 5 μένουσι, μενέουσιν, both enacts the enduring quality of Sappho’s song first and effects a marked juxtaposition of the figures of Sappho and her poetry, Sappho now become a characterization, her song personified. Further, Σαπφῷαι . . . σελίδες enclose the distich, which is marked by the repetition not only of μένουσι/μενέουσιν, but also by the repetition of v in the initial words Σαπφῷαι and ᾠδῆς, and the predominance of the sounds μ, λ and φ. [9]

This epigram is itself emblematic of the transference of the world of Archaic poetry to an Alexandrian setting. The preservation of Doricha’s memorial, and the enduring character of Sappho’s poetry, (wonderfully captured in line 6: ᾠδῆς αἱ λευκαὶ φθεγγόμεναι σελίδες, ‘white voice-giving columns of song’, as both song and text), are of the poet’s contemporary world, and its relationship to its cultural and poetic past. At the same time the poem encapsulates an earlier Greek presence in Egypt; [10] it also perceives the preservation of archaic Greek culture in Alexandrian terms—the Nile’s enduring course will ensure Doricha’s eternal fame.

In the pages that follow I consider the pre-Milan author, under three categories particularly evoked in the new collection. These are:

1. representation of Alexandrian monuments and ecphrastic technique;
2. resonances of other authors, especially here Sappho;
3. evocation of pathos in the representation of death (or near death).

In each case the new collection casts remarkable light on the old, and features that seemed perhaps less remarkable before turn out to be far more representative of the poet’s artistry than we might have thought.

Modern knowledge and reception of Hellenistic poetry is, in large part, dependent on the chance survival of texts: we, a much later audience, imagine a whole from the shards that remain. Inevitably this leads to a hierarchy of authors that, rightly or wrongly, prefers the survivors. In some cases, e.g. Euphorion, the modern audience knows, at least at one level, that it sees “through a glass, darkly,” that poets of great artistic significance for their own and later eras are now all but entirely lost. [11] Often only the occasional reference of a scholiast is the sole hint of the artistic value of lost work. The discovery of a lost text can lead to an enhanced appreciation of an already valued author, as was the case with the publication of the Lille papyrus. [12] In the case of a less valued author, the discovery of lost text can lead to a more radical re-evaluation of the poet in terms of his place in his contemporary setting, the scope of his work, and his role as a model. This is very much the case with Posidippus: the publication of P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 has already led to a wide-ranging reassessment of his poetry as both intertextual matrix of his own period and influence on Latin literature. [13] But the discovery of a new text often has another function as well—it necessitates re-evaluation of earlier known text now part of a larger, different corpus. The new epigrams, whether all, or some, are correctly attributed to the third-century BCE Macedonian poet Posidippus, do compel us to look again, and from a new perspective, at the author we had before and our earlier reception of him. [14]

Prior to the publication of the Milan papyrus one might rightly have said, to someone inquiring about this epigrammatist, that Posidippus was of particular interest for three reasons:

First his name appears in the company of several others in the Florentine Scholia to Callimachus’ Aetia Prologue (fr. 1 Pf.). PSI 1219, fr. 1.1–10 appears to equate a number of contemporary literary figures with the Telchines of the opening line of Callimachus’ poem. The text of the scholion is fragmentary, and the subject of considerable scholarly debate.

While there is still much room for debate as to what is exactly going on in this fragmentary passage, two things are especially revealing. [17] a) The scholion lists Posidippus with a number of other literary figures in some way associated with Callimachus: whether some or all polemically, and whether these are in fact the Telchines of the Aetia’s opening line is of less interest than the association. There are some very intriguing points of correspondence between the two poets not only in the new epigrams, on which several contributors to this volume comment in detail, but also in the old ones. [18] b) Significantly here, as in several other contexts, including the opening poem of Meleager’s Garland, Posidippus is paired with, and follows, Asclepiades. Although the fragment may have contained many other names, ours is a reading here at once associative and hierarchical—we have the epigrammatists together, and in this order.

Secondly, when read with Asclepiades, his poems provide a revealing contrast to some aspects of the former’s epigrams. A. Sens has recently written a nuanced study of ecphrastic epigrams that develops just such a contrasting reading. [19] The association of the two poets, and of their poetry, is not only a historical one, attested by the association of their names and doubtful attribution of some poems to either in the Greek Anthology, but one predicated on marked artistic resonance in both poets’ work. Their compositions appear to reflect one another.

Thirdly, Posidippus’ epigrams include one on the description of the construction of the Pharos lighthouse AB 115 (= 11 GP) and two on the cult of Arsinoe Zephyritis, AB 116 and 119 (= 12 and 13 GP). He is a witness to early Ptolemaic cultural monuments and trajectories in a way that sets him somewhat apart from other epigram authors. [20]

Looking again, in a new context, at the pre-Milan author, we encounter some ‘problematics’ in approaching the collection, and these are worth detailing briefly.

1. Gow and Page in their 1965 edition of Hellenistic Epigrams give us some 24 poems: Page in his 1975 Epigrammata Graeca ascribes 29 to Posidippus. [21] There are then the fragments in the Supplementum Hellenisticum (frr. 698–708) of which the Seal (SH 705) is of particular interest for its autobiographical voice, for its parallels with the themes and imagery of Callimachus’ Aetia Prologue, and for its portrayal of memorial of poetry and of poet. [22] Particularly the metaphorical references to the physicality of the text are revealing both for their resonances elsewhere in Posidippus’ poetry and their correspondences in Callimachus. [23] Fernandez-Galiano in his 1987 edition of Posidippus includes additionally a number of inscriptional epigrams, which he, following several earlier scholars, tentatively attributes to Posidippus. [24] These last I leave aside here, but in considering the rest of the texts would draw attention to what might be termed a ‘contested’ character of the pre-Milan collection, a corpus marked in the scholarship by query and doubt. The main contributing factors to this are a rather contested poetic voice, and a poetry in its scholarly interpretation of contested attribution, contested quality, and a problematic dual role of the epigram poet Asclepiades. Let us consider each of these for a few moments.

2. Neither in the pre-Milan epigrams in GP, nor in the new material, does Posidippus name himself, as does Asclepiades at 16 GP, or Callimachus, albeit obliquely, in his two funerary epigrams 29 GP and 30. The important exception here is the Seal, a poem specifically about poetic composition, and one that astutely plays on the conventions of dedicatory epigram—the statue is of the poet himself. Nor is it easy from the first-person references that might be associated with a poetic voice to really derive a sense of “Posidippus”: again the situation is very different with Asclepiades. The Seal of Posidippus (SH 705, AB 118), whether understood as an epigram or as a longer elegiac work, is of course a markedly first-person utterance, and the fragment does include two self-references (lines 5 and 9). [25] In the remaining epigrams, however, it is not easy to gage the first person voice.

3. Confusion of attribution, assignation to Asclepiades or Posidippus, is already at issue with six epigrams from the Greek Anthology: these are assigned by Gow to Asclepiades (GP Asclepiades 34–39), but subsequently by Page in his OCT edition to Posidippus (Posidippus 23–28). [26] But the association with Asclepiades is rather more complicated than one of contested attribution alone. Gow-Page’s remarks on a number of Posidippus’ epigrams take the stance that, essentially, “Asclepiades did it better.” [27] Their remarks on other epigrams of Posidippus use Asclepiades as a point of comparison and reference. [28] Clearly the association is a legitimate one, and one that can contribute much to interpretation. On the other hand, this reading of one epigrammatist in the light of another has the effect of trivializing the one compared. Posidippus becomes the Tibullus to Asclepiades’ Propertius, or (to borrow a parallel from my co-contributor D. Sider), the Salieri to Asclepiades’ Mozart, the secondary figure, the subject of variation rather than its object. One wonders how the new poems, if indeed by Posidippus, will affect this rapport. Surely one of the contributing factors to the older hierarchy is that there were more epigrams of Asclepiades than Posidippus, and that these formed a more comprehensive group. The new epigrams, even if there remain, in the end, doubts on the attribution of the entire collection to Posidippus, alter this ratio. [29]

4. There remain several instances in the pre-Milan corpus of poems contested on grounds of other problematic attribution or perceived quality. These include the “satiric” AB 133 (= GP 22) on the miseries of human life, [30] and the Seal itself, thought by some to be the composition of a later Posidippus, author of elegiac poetry. AB 65, 142, and 15 (= 18–20 GP), all poems preserved in sources other than the Palatine Anthology, have also been held as suspect: these of course include two of the poems found among the new epigrams in the Milan roll.

What this brief survey does, I think, suggest is that our pre-Milan collection is in some respects a rather unstable one, and may, in the context of a larger corpus, come to be perceived quite differently. And then there is the odd experience of reading this collection of epigrams in light of the new ones. For the epigrams of Posidippus from the Palatine Anthology are not, of course, contiguous: the associations made between them, now contiguous on the modern page, are partly ours, the modern readers, as, in some cases, their separation in the new editio minor makes clear. The Milan epigrams are, on the other hand, contiguous, and the experience of reading them necessarily very different, one that experiences their order, their position, and their respective quality to Posidippus.

The pre-Milan epigram collection encompasses a number of categories, a rather large number given the relatively small number of epigrams: these include symposiastic epigrams (among them drinking and erotic epigrams), ecphrastic, funereal, and satiric epigrams. The ecphrastic epigrams are remarkable for the juxtaposition (in category, not in text) of very large and very small objects, the Pharos lighthouse and the snakestone of AB 15 (= 20 GP). There is the further revealing character that the epigram on the Pharos lighthouse, AB 115 (= 11 GP), and those on the cult of Arsinoe Zephyritis, AB 116 and 119 (= 12 and 13 GP), themselves in turn provide a small ecphrasis of Alexandria. Alexandria is far less present in e.g. the surviving epigrams of Callimachus. The reader of Posidippus reads the city through his poetry. [31]

A remarkable characteristic of these three epigrams is the variety of perspective. While all three play on the traditional conventions of inscribed epigram, the relationship of speaker and audience is differently configured in each one. AB 115 (= 11 GP), on the Pharos lighthouse, addresses the figure surmounted on the structure’s summit. [32] AB 116 (= 12 GP), on the shrine of Arsinoe-Aphrodite at Zephyrium, assumes the first person voice typical of dedicatory epigram: here the monumental object, the shrine, is the speaker. AB 119 (= 13 GP) has neither apostrophe of the monument nor first person self-reference: it addresses an otherwise unidentified second person plural audience. The variation in the three epigrams extends to their evocation of topographical setting, beneficiary of the monument, and imagery of the sea. Their points of similarity and difference are necessarily highlighted in part by their adjacent position in GP, and are thus emblematic of the real challenges that positioning of epigrams renders for the reader. [33] At the same time all three also illustrate both variety of technique in ecphrastic composition and in the encompassing of large monuments in small poems, an artistic inclination Posidippus shares with other Hellenistic poets. [34]

AB 116 and 119 (= 11 and 12 GP), the two 10-line poems preserved by the Firmin-Didot papyrus, share particularly an extended play of image and monument, and sense of geographical place. [35] As P. Bing has evocatively shown, the image (of Zeus Soter) in the first and last distichs encloses the aition of the monument (lines 3–4), and its daytime (lines 5–6) and nighttime aspects (lines 7–8, with the pointed juxtaposition at the opening of 7 ἤματι, παννύχιος δέ). [36] The image of the tower shining forth at great distance in lines 5–6 is answered in lines 7–8 with the light of the tower’s summit perceived by the distant sailor—distance perceived at each end of the spectrum. The eye of the reader/viewer moves first up, then outward, then back. There is similar play in direction in several poems of the new collection: cf. AB 90 (from the Nauagika) γῆν ἔνθεν τε καὶ ἔνθεν ὁρώμενον, where the verse captures the swimmer’s wandering gaze. AB 116 (= 12 GP) displays similar touches of prefigure and recall. The opening distich configures monument and place, the monument, in a nice touch in the first ηεμιεπσ, is set indeed ‘between’ μέσσον ἐγὼ Φαρίης. These two lines, encompassing place and monument, are followed by two juxtaposed distichs, one on place (lines 3–4), one on monument (5–6). [37] The monument evolves into the divinity at lines 7–8, and then back into the monument in the final line.

Several sections of the new epigrams markedly feature viewing, the gaze, audience evoked. In particular the Anathematika, the Nauagika, and the Iamatika appear to ‘read’ physical settings: the shrine of Arsinoe-Zephyritis, funeral votaries, perhaps a shrine of Asclepius. [38] The Oiônoskopika also center on viewing; the gaze of both figures in the poems and the external audience is constantly drawn to new birds, their movements, and the direction of their flight. In a similar way the epigrams of the Firmin-Didot papyrus appear to ‘read’ the Alexandrian shoreline, both from land and from sea, and to preserve its light, wide spaces, and sea-faring activity in the compass of the small poem.

The epigram on Doricha’s tomb (AB 122 = 17 GP), discussed above, is remarkable both for the characterization of Sappho’s verse as physical text, and particularly as a collective cultural metaphor. The appearance of Sappho’s verse in a similar guise in one of the new epigrams (AB 55.2) and its conjecture in another (51.6) encourages us to re-consider Posidippus’ use of Sappho, and also Posidippus’ place in a long tradition of reception of Sappho in Hellenistic and Latin poetry. Both passages in the new epigrams occur in the contexts of funerary lament, and so share with the epigram on Doricha’s tomb the association of Sappho and death:

In their comments on AB 55.2, the editors of the editio princeps, comparing this use of the adjective Ϲαπφώιουϲ with that of 17.5 GP, doubt that the phrase Ϲαπφώιουϲ ἐξ ὀάρων ὀάρουϲ referred to Sappho’s poetry. “Qui Ϲα<φ>ώιουϲ dovrebbe invece genericamente significare ‘femminili’ (cfr. παρθενίουϲ τ᾿ ὀάρουϲ in Hes. Theog. 205) come induce a credere anche il confronto con altre inconsuete formazioni aggettivali presenti nel rotolo: per es., δελφὶϲ … Ἀριόνο[ϲ di VI 19, dove all’aggettivo pare essere attribuito il generico scopo di designare un delfino ‘qual era quello di Arione’ …” In their translations of this epigram both the Italian and English renditions reflect this: “conversari femminili”, “conversations à la Sappho”. Concerning the sense of AB 51.6 their interpretation is similar. [41] Yet we might choose to look at this evocation of Sappho from another perspective, that of Archaic poet now become poetic motif—Sappho as metaphor, as it were. Sappho is by no means the only figure who is present, through evocation or as intertext, in the epigrams of Posidippus; in particular the poets Theocritus and Callimachus have a marked presence in the epigrams, as several recent studies have well shown. [42] But the simple recurrence of the epithet. Ϲαπφῷοϲ in the collection might suggest looking again, from a different perspective, at other epigrams that appear to recall Sappho.

One example would be AB 139 (= GP 8), the prayer of Callistion:

Commentators have been troubled by the inconsistency of dialect forms in the poem, particularly the jarring contrast of Doric ë in the anaphora of line 1 and Ionic ¥ of line 2. [43] A. Sens in this volume has a nuanced study of the light the new epigrams cast on Posidippus’ use of Doric dialect in his verse: he argues for a specific Doric/Ionic demarcation in Hellenistic poetics. In this case, though, I think one might also wonder whether the dialect evoked in the first line is not Aeolic, and the image evoked not Sappho, specifically the voice of Sappho fr. 1. [44] The structure of the epigram is clearly one of rather striking contrast: the apparent solemnity of the first distich contrapoised with the far more mundane, yet piquant second one. [45] The association of Sappho fr. 1 as opening poem of the Alexandrian edition of Sappho is clearly important for later authors (e.g. Horace 4.1): [46] the question here would be whether this is already true for Posidippus. While there are some tantalizing specific parallels among the fragments of Sappho, at issue here is a rather broader type of evocation, one again that reflects Sappho as cultural metaphor. [47] Callistion’s prayer for the goddess’ attendance is, in it first distich, in its setting, imagery, and relative pronoun, set in part in Sappho’s realm, in the second very much in Callistion’s own. [48]

The use of Sappho’s name as epithet in the new epigrams raises a number of intriguing questions about Posidippus’ reading of Sappho, and of the reception of Sappho in this period, particularly, again, as cultural metaphor. Once again the new epigrams cast light back on the old, and vividly make clear for us the significance, which we may not have perceived, of the verses we already had. The final line of BA 123 (= 1 GP) μέλοι δ᾿ ἡμῖν ὁ γλυκύπικρος Ἔρως has always been understand as a resonance of Sappho’s image (fr. 130 V: Ἔρος δηὖτέ μ᾿ ὀ λυσιμέλης δόνει, | γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον. The degree, and variety, of Sappho’s resonance in Posidippus is only now becoming clear.

A surprising number of the epigrams preserved by P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 have death as their focus: these include the categories on grave offerings (Epitymbia), shipwreck (Nauagika), sickness and cure (Iamatika) and the somewhat enigmatic Tropoi. Poems in other categories, particularly the Oiônoskopika, also include poems that have death as a central image. The poems exhibit a great innovation in the conventions of funerary epigram, and as well a wide range of treatment of pathos. It is particularly with this variation in pathos in mind that I would like, in the final portion of this paper, to look again at a pre-Milan epigram of Posidippus that plays in revealing ways with conventions of pathos, and with the audience’s expectations. AB 131 (= 21 GP) appears twice in the Palatine Anthology, the second time ascribed to Callimachus: in the Planudean Anthology it is ascribed to Posidippus. Gow’s remark on the epigram, “its tenderness or sentimentality does not accord very well with what we know of Pos.”, would need re-thinking in light of the new collection.

The sequence of action in the distichs is remarkable (cf. e.g. AB 74) as is the change of viewer and viewed in each distich: each depicts an image and suggests a reaction. Revealing also are some of the vivid adjectives. The εἴδωλον κωφόν of line 2 at once draws the boy’s gaze and prefigures his subsequent state (cf. Euripides Medea 1162: ἄψυχον εἰκὼ προσγελῶσα σώματος). τὸν παῖδα διάβροχον of the following line at once captures the child seized by the mother and recalls the image perceived through the water of the previous distich. The apparent recollection at line 5 of Theocritus 13.53–54: Νύμφαι μὲν σφετέροις ἐπὶ γούνασι κοῦρον ἔχοισαι | δακρυόεντ᾿ ἀγανοῖσι παρεψύχοντ᾿ ἐπέεσιν, is truly very striking: [49] the boy, apparently represented in death here (and hence perhaps the sense of the final ἔχει) is at the same time in a sense captured, as is Hylas in Idyll 13, as though alive. The ‘viewer’ of poem (and monument) is left, at the epigram’s end, with the same question given the boy’s mother at line 4— whether indeed the boy is still alive. Is the juxtaposition of thanatos and hypnos here contrast or confluence of imagery?

As the present volume was on the eve of going to press, C. Austin’s and G. Bastianini’s editio minor of Posidippus appeared, the first volume to include all of extant Posidippus between two covers. Their positioning of the poems was of course crucial for their reception—for while the edition follows a logic at once material and chronological, it also effectively incorporates the pre-Milan epigrams together with the new, both through continuous numeration and placement of categories. A continuous reading of the volume results in an appreciation of the old epigrams informed by the new—the reader perceives the old epigrams anew, with new association and meaning.