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THE EPIGRAM AND ITS CONTEXTS

C.’s book is a product of robust scholarship and a welcome contribution to the flourishing research on ancient epigram. C. explores within particular ‘contexts’ an admirable number of Hellenistic epigrams and some later first-century CE poems, almost all composed by well-known representatives of the genre. His book covers a wide range of themes. C. discusses, for instance, the exploitation of philosophy and medicine in his selected examples (Chapters 2, 3 and 8) and interprets three epigrams as originally inscriptional with the function, as he argues, of advertising shrines and contributing to the ‘fund-raising process’ (p. 95, Chapter 4). He studies others within the framework of literary polemics (Chapters 5, 6 and 7) and analyses a cluster of epigrams based on the use of local dialects, poetic allusions and the epichoric ‘context’ (Chapter 10) as well as generic innovations (mainly Chapters 12 and 13). It is not possible to comment here on every aspect of this book, rich in thoughtprovoking ideas, but a few words should be said about C.’s endeavour to detect an original epigraphic context for a large number of Hellenistic epigrams, a topic that has already triggered reactions (see the reviews by A. Sens, BMCR 2017.06.21 and D. Sider, CW [2018], 280–1). The issue has been discussed in relation to specific epigrams: well-known examples are Posidippus 11 HE celebrating the Pharos of Alexandria (pp. 15–16), Posidippus 74 A–B on Callicrates’ dedication for his chariot victory (pp. 21–2) and the poet’s three epigrams about the temple of Arsinoe-Aphrodite (p. 96). Since, however, no stones with the epigrams on them survive, an original epigraphic context should remain a possibility, indeed a very plausible one. The issue is far from simple, especially if we take into consideration the cross-fertilisation between the two forms from the Hellenistic era onwards: an epigram interpreted as originally inscribed may excellently imitate inscriptional practices with its composer giving it the verisimilitude of an inscription, while the survival on stone of some epigrams preserved also on papyrus (with altered readings), for example the first distich of ‘Anacreon’ AP 6.144 (= CEG 312, p. 337) and ‘Anacreon’ AP 6.138 (= CEG 313, pp. 16–17) (cf. ‘Aeschines’ AP 6.330 below), establishes beyond doubt that other ‘literary’ epigrams, or even parts of them, as AP 6.144 shows, started their life as inscriptions. The accumulation and study of poems preserved on both papyri and stone (or claimed to have been inscriptional in ancient sources) might stimulate research in this field. C. opens up new perspectives when, for instance, he brings to our attention two unquestionably epigraphic epitaphs for victims of wine and rightly argues that such circumstances of death should not instantly lead one to the conclusion that an epigram on this topic is fictitious (pp. 244–7). However, the status of the two related epigrams in Ath. 10.436d–e is controversial (pp. 254–6), and if they were composed for a readership, then the date of the two inscriptions on deaths as a result of drinking (second century BCE and early second century CE?) could suggest that what enabled and influenced the transfer of such material on inscriptions was the use of drunkards, binge-drinking deaths and similar motifs in bookish epigrams (e.g. the fictitious epitaphs on the ‘drunkard’ Anacreon, with some of these epigrams possibly originating in a sympotic ‘context’). While I agree that Hellenistic poets were not ‘averse to writing for inscription’ (p. 18), I would argue that the line between THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 410