Books by Silvia Barbantani
Polemika Identity in context in verse epitaphs for Hellenistic soldiers (working title). Monograph. Forthcoming.
Polemikà. Identity in context in verse epitaphs for Hellenistic soldiers.
The book collects t... more Polemikà. Identity in context in verse epitaphs for Hellenistic soldiers.
The book collects the results of a decade of studies on Hellenistic military epitaphs.
Δόσις δ’ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε. Studi offerti a Mario Cantilena per i suoi 70 anni, 2019
Revised and expanded papers presented on 18 April 2018 during "Δόσις δ’ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε. Giornat... more Revised and expanded papers presented on 18 April 2018 during "Δόσις δ’ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε. Giornata di studi per Mario Cantilena": https://milano.unicatt.it/eventi/evt-giornata-di-studi-per-mario-cantilena
CONTENT
ANTONIETTA PORRO, Premessa
ISABELLA NOVA, L’Odissea del Pittore di Penelope.
RICCARDO GINEVRA, Indo European Poetics, Mythology, and Folktale in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: ΥΛΟΤΟΜΟΣ, ΥΠΟΤΑΜΝΟΝ and a new interpretation for lines 227-30 and the Demophon episode.
ELENA LANGELLA, Notti ἐπίρροθοι: sull’ interpretazione di Hes. Op. 560.
ANDREA FILONI, Il ponte di Callimaco.
SARA CHIARINI, Per una formularità delle preghiere maligne greche e latine. Il caso della formula ‘di scomposizione’ della vittima.
SILVIA BARBANTANI, Viaggio mitic nella Caria e nella Licia tolemaiche nella Fondazione di Cauno di Apollonio Rodio. Folktales, fondazioni e potere.
ALBERTO CAMEROTTO, Un Crisippo d’oro. Skommata epici contro i filosofi in Luciano di Samosata.
NICOLA MONTENZ, Omero, Euripide, Shakespeare... e «Vogue»: per uno studio delle anamorfosi dell’antico nel primo atto della Ägyptische Helena di Hofmannsthal e Strauss.
ABSTRACTS
ISABELLA NOVA: The Odyssey of the Penelope Painter.
This article focuses on two paintings by the Penelope Painter (working in 5th century Athens), representing the adventures of Odysseus once he has come back to Ithaca, a theme almost unknown to vase-painting before this period. The analysis of the two scenes, compared with other literary and iconographic sources on the same subjects, shows that the painter was not strictly following the Homeric Odyssey, but rather he was influenced also by other mythical traditions.
RICCARDO GINEVRA: Indo-European Poetics, Mythology, and Folktale in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Ὑλοτόμος, ὑποτάμνον and a new interpretation for lines 227-30 and the Demophon episode .
The article argues for the interpretation of ὑλοτόμος ‘the one who/which cuts wood’ and ὑποτάμνον ‘that which cuts under’, both attested within the Demo¬phon episode of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, as poetic terms for [axe] or [met¬al]. This analysis finds support in the lexicon, phraseology, and narrative elements occurring in the Hymn itself, in texts in Ancient Greek and other Indo European languages, as well as in modern European folktales.
ELENA LANGELLA: Ἐπίρροθοι Nights: on the interpretation of Hes. Op. 560.
The analysis of the Hesiodean use of ἐπίρροθος from the referential, syntactic, and semantic point of view lets us reach a new interpretation of Op. 560. In its etymological meaning, this epithet here reflects the widely spread image of the running Night. So ἐπίρροθοι εὐφρόναι can be understood as a cryptic name for the winter nights, which run and accumulate one after another. This reading can shed some light on the interpretation of Soph. Ant. 413-414, too.
SARA CHIARINI: The formulaicity of Greek and Latin curses. The case of the ‘breakdown’ formula’.
The paper deals with the features of the formulaicity which informs the language of ancient curses. It does this on the basis of a specific formula attested in this corpus, by which the victim is bound or, more broadly, harmed in their hands and feet. The review of the uses of this formula and its comparison with similar expressions found in other sources help us better appreciate the manifold ways in which the shaping of the vocabulary of ancient curses could take place.
SILVIA BARBANTANI: Mythical travels in Ptolemaic Caria and Lycia with Apollonius Rhodius’ Καύνου κτίσις. Folktales, Foundations, and Power.
The paper analyzes the extant remains of the poem Καύνου κτίσις (The Foundation of Kaunos) by Apollonius of Rhodes: leaving aside the Argonautica, this is one of the few hexameter poems (epyllia) composed by Apollonios which survive in fragments, or in abstracts by other authors. Two stories narrated in the Καύνου κτίσις have been preserved in prose summaries by Parthenius of Nicaea, in the Erotika Pathemata (§1: Lyrkos; §11: Byblis and Kaunos); both myths have also been treated by the Hellenistic poet Nikainetos. A small hexameter fragment at¬tributed to Apollonius and preserved in the Etymologicum Magnum is among the dubia of the Καύνου κτίσις, and is briefly discussed. The focus of the paper, how¬ever, is on the potential Ptolemaic connection of the Carian and Lycian myths presented by Apollonius: in the myth of Lyrkos, heir of the king of Kaunos, the main elements of interest for an Alexandrian poet sponsored by the Ptolemaic court are Lyrkos’ Argive origin, the role in his story of the Apollinean sanctuary of Didyma near Miletos, and his dynastic relationship with the god Dionysos (through his son Staphylos, king of the Carian city of Bubastos/Bybassos). In the Milesian/Carian myth of Byblis, also transmitted by the mythographer Conon and by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, a potential element of interest for the Ptolemies would be her wandering in the area of Limyra, in Lykia, since the 3rd century BCE site of a Ptolemaion (sanctuary for the royal cult of the Ptolemaic king).
ANDREA FILONI: Callimachus’ Bridge.
The most important poets of the Hellenistic period (Callimachus, Aratus, Apollonius of Rhodes) seem to avoid the hexameter’s structure which consists of three adonii delimited by word-end (ds|ds|ds||): they may observe a double bridge, unknown to the scholars hitherto, which includes the already known Hilberg and Naeke’s bridges. The exceptions to the double bridge, which are almost absent in the considered Hellenistic poets, are already rare in Homer, as rare as the exceptions to the Hermann’s bridge. The percentage difference between the double bridge and Hilberg and Naeke’s bridges indicates that the former is perceived as an independent law.
ALBERTO CAMEROTTO: A golden Chrysippus: epic skommata against the philosophers in Lucian of Samosata.
The aim of the essay is to analyze the function and modes of action of the parody and the epic verses used by Lucian of Samosata in the satire against the philosophers and against the spectacularization of culture. With a look at the epic parody of the Cynics.
NICOLA MONTENZ: For a study of the anamorphosis of Antiquity in the First Act of the Ägyptische Helena by Hofmannsthal and Strauss. Homer, Euripides, Shakespeare... and «Vogue».
A kaleidoscopic, intellectually difficult work, Die Ägyptische Helena is the second-to-last result of the legendary artistic partnership between the Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the German composer Richard Strauss. After a long, sometimes contorted groundwork, which is well shown by the author’s correspondence, Helena was publicly idealised by both the poet and the composer on the eve of the première. This paper, which is not aimed at calling in question the real meaning of Hofmannsthal’s and Strauss’s public decla¬rations, attempts to provide an overview on the so far neglected issue of the literary intertext of the opera. Namely, in Die Ägyptische Helena classic, Shakespearean, and even contemporary sources tend to blend into an extraordinarily new drama by the means of an impressive assembly technique. At the same time, the study of Helena’s intertextual background seems to provide an interesting overview both on the reception of classical heritage, and on its merger with modern and contemporary cultural suggestions in the first half of the 20th century
"This work focuses on Hellenistic and Roman epigrams dedicated to three lyric poets who were born... more "This work focuses on Hellenistic and Roman epigrams dedicated to three lyric poets who were born or died (or both) in Italy: Ibycus, Stesichorus and Simonides. Although included in the canon of the Nine Lyric Poets (AP 9.184 and AP 9.571), and frequently quoted and praised in the scholastic and rhetorical environment, these three authors did not enjoy the same popularity as their ‘colleagues’ Anacreon, Sappho and Pindar as ‘stock characters’ celebrated in epigram. For some reason epigrammatists found inspiration mainly in their death or burials, often linked to mysterious or peculiar circumstances that now defy interpretation: Ibycus’ violent death and ‘miraculous’ vengeance by a flock of cranes, an episode which finds an echo in a Pythagorean tale and which later passed into the realm of proverb, inspiring a dramatic ballad by Schiller; Stesichorus’ complex mausoleum, a peculiar Hellenistic creation probably influenced by Pythagorean symbolism, which left traces in a motto (Panta okto) and in the traditions of medieval and modern Catania; the violation of Simonides’ grave and its punishment (also related to a proverb, “Do not move Camarina”),
described by the poet himself in a Callimachean aition which, until the first half of the twentieth century, was believed to be an epigram. After Late Antiquity, the memory of these lyric poets survived for centuries preserved in anecdotal tales, random quotes and a few epigrams, evenwhen their poems, bodies and monumental graves had been destroyed by time and human impiety. Buried in papyri and in the manuscripts of epigrammatic anthologies, Ibycus, Stesichorus and Simonides would need a few more centuries to rise again from their grave as wise men"
"The Last Will of paolo Giovio". First edition of a Latin manuscript (XVII century) of the Last W... more "The Last Will of paolo Giovio". First edition of a Latin manuscript (XVII century) of the Last Will of Paolo Giovio, owned by a private collector.
Euripide, Le Baccanti. A cura di M. Cazzulo (commento e note a cura di S. Barbantani), Milano: Signorelli 1994
Chapters of Books by Silvia Barbantani
Presentation of some of the Papyri Mediolanenses (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano) w... more Presentation of some of the Papyri Mediolanenses (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano) with Homeric quotations, marginal notes, and with exegetical texts.
The shadows of Homer, Simonides and Alexander: Identity of soldiers in Hellenistic epigrams, in "The Past in the Present: Cultural Memory and its Agencies in the Ancient Mediterranean World (and the Beyond)"', ed. A.Moroo, A.Zournatzi, N.Sato, Y.Suto, MELETHMATA, Athens 2026
"The Past in the Present: Cultural Memory and its Agencies in the Ancient Mediterranean World (and the Beyond)"', ed. A.Moroo, A.Zournatzi, N.Sato, Y.Suto (Series MELETHMATA), 2026
"Epigram and ancient scholarship on lyric", in "Greek Lyric Poetry and Ancient Scholarship", ed. by Theodora Hadjimichael and Zoe Stamatopoulou, In preparation for Trends in Classics Supll. volumes
“Fragments of a woman from Kos”. Some notes on Delphis, elegiac poetess.in H. Gulab, J. Ma (eds), Reframing Hellenistic Poetry: Hidden Figures and Local Canons, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, Brill (in preparation)
Expanded and adapted english version of "Delphis di Cos, poetessa elegiaca, θῆλυς Φιλίτας? Qualch... more Expanded and adapted english version of "Delphis di Cos, poetessa elegiaca, θῆλυς Φιλίτας? Qualche considerazione su IG XII,4 2:837 e IG XII,4 2:845" published in R. Gallé Cejudo (ed.), Studia Hellenistica Gaditana IV, Lecce 2024
"Early Hellenistic Elegy", in B. Cartlidge, J. Kwapisz, M. Perale, G. Taietti (eds.), "Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus". In preparation (under submission to CUP)
Fragments of Hellenistic poetry
The Cambridge Companion to Hellenistic Poetry, edited by Annette Harder, Jacqueline Klooster, Cambridge University Press, in press, 2026
R. Gallé Cejudo, T. Silva Sánchez, P. Fernández Camacho (eds.), Studia Hellenistica Gaditana IV: cuando la poesìa se asoma a los umbrales de la historia (I), (Quaderni di Satura, 10), Lecce: Pensa Multimedia 2024, pp. 31-59, 2024
Due iscrizioni di Kos (IG XII 4, 2: 837 e IG XII 4, 2: 845, una ellenistica e una
del I-II secol... more Due iscrizioni di Kos (IG XII 4, 2: 837 e IG XII 4, 2: 845, una ellenistica e una
del I-II secolo d.C.) documentano l’esistenza di Delfide (Delphis), figlia di
Prassagora, «scrittrice di elegie», vissuta nel III secolo a.C., e altrimenti ignota.
Se in effetti la sua produzione si concentrò sulle elegie, si tratterebbe dell’unica
autrice ellenistica attestata a Kos a seguire le orme di Filita. La rilevanza
culturale della poetessa per i cittadini di Kos è dimostrata dalla dedica di una
statua in suo onore (oggi perduta), motivata, nell’epigramma che
verosimilmente la accompagnava, dal suo rapporto con le Muse. L’articolo
analizza in dettaglio le tracce superstiti di questa poetessa dimenticata.
Herenizumushi niokeru Arekusandorosu. Meisei (kleos) wo tutaeru Shi = Alexander in Hellenistic poetry. Transl. by Hiroshi Kishimoto
Chapter 8 in: Yoshiaki Nakai and Yutaka Horii (eds.), Kioku to Kankou no Seiyou Kodaishi: Ejiputo kara Roma made (= Memory and Customs the Ancient Mediterranean World: From Egypt to Rome), Minerva Shobo LTD, Kyoto 2021, 2021
Adapted and modified version of "Alexander presence (and absence) in Hellenistic Poetry" in F. La... more Adapted and modified version of "Alexander presence (and absence) in Hellenistic Poetry" in F. Landucci (ed.), Alexander’s legacy: Atti del Convegno, Milano-Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, settembre 2015, Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2016, pp. 1-24
In M. Sánchez Ortiz de Landaluce – R. J. Gallé Cejudo (eds.), Studia Helenistica Gaditana II: De Calìmaco a Nono de Panópolis. Estudios de crìtica textual y exégesis literaria (Satura quaderni 6), Lecce: Pensa multimedia 2021, pp. 111-144
Paper given at the Jornadas sobre Literatura Helenística y Imperial: Los trasvases temáticos entr... more Paper given at the Jornadas sobre Literatura Helenística y Imperial: Los trasvases temáticos entre la prosa y el verso, Universidad de Cadiz, 13-14/11/19.
The paper focuses on the modality of transmission and on the contents of two of the Foundation poems by Apollonius of Rhodes, the Ktisis of Naucratis, whose extant hexameters are preserved by Athenaeus, and to the Ktisis of Caunus, two episodes of which are summarized by Parthenius of Nicaea in his Erotika Pathemata
Alexander presence (and absence) in Hellenistic Poetry" in F. Landucci, C. Bearzot (eds), "Alexander’s legacy: Atti del Convegno, Milano-Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, settembre 2015". L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma 2016, pp. 1-24.
Hellenistic and Roman military epitaphs on stone and on papyrus: questions of authorship and literariness. In C. Carey. I. Petrovic M. Kanellou (eds.), Greek Literary Epigram: From the Hellenistic to the Byzantine Era, Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press 2019, pp. 154-175
Chapter 10 studies Hellenistic and Roman military epitaphs, and addresses a number of interconnec... more Chapter 10 studies Hellenistic and Roman military epitaphs, and addresses a number of interconnected issues: the unpopularity of epitaphs for individual soldiers in the Greek Anthology; the near absence of inscribed epitaphs in literary sources, despite the fact that they are often of good literary quality; and the question of their authorship.
Apparently, there was no ‘Hellenistic Simonides’, author of warriors’ inscriptional epitaphs worthy to be gathered in a book. In the seventh book of the Greek Anthology there are many fictitious epitaphs for Homeric heroes or famous historical figures, but funerary epigrams celebrating the death in battle of individual, contemporary military men are only a dozen. This lack may be a choice of later compilers of florilegia, or may be due to the fact that epigrammatists who composed military epitaphs did not publish them as a collection. There is no evidence that any epigrammatist known from the Greek Anthology also acted as a professional writer of military epitaphs; we can just propose some hypothetical candidates for this role, such as Damagetus and Posidippus. Epitaphs for common soldiers were usually commissioned to professional poets, most of whom now remain anonymous (only occasionally we find signatures in epigraphic poems); the technitai found their inspiration in Homer and in the elegiac, lyric and tragic ‘classics’; anthologies like that of Meleager could also offer some models, although the main literary-epigraphic reference was still the Simonidean corpus. The lack of a specific, recognizable personal style makes it difficult to trace the same hand in contemporary epitaphs. It has been suggested that professional versifiers used ‘sample books’ for composing epitaphs, but the very existence and the nature of these anthologies is still to be proved. In some cases, the deceased, especially when he presents himself as a veteran belonging to the local élite, may have had his say on the contents and form of his future epitaph, or even might have been responsible for composing it.
Uploads
Books by Silvia Barbantani
The book collects the results of a decade of studies on Hellenistic military epitaphs.
CONTENT
ANTONIETTA PORRO, Premessa
ISABELLA NOVA, L’Odissea del Pittore di Penelope.
RICCARDO GINEVRA, Indo European Poetics, Mythology, and Folktale in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: ΥΛΟΤΟΜΟΣ, ΥΠΟΤΑΜΝΟΝ and a new interpretation for lines 227-30 and the Demophon episode.
ELENA LANGELLA, Notti ἐπίρροθοι: sull’ interpretazione di Hes. Op. 560.
ANDREA FILONI, Il ponte di Callimaco.
SARA CHIARINI, Per una formularità delle preghiere maligne greche e latine. Il caso della formula ‘di scomposizione’ della vittima.
SILVIA BARBANTANI, Viaggio mitic nella Caria e nella Licia tolemaiche nella Fondazione di Cauno di Apollonio Rodio. Folktales, fondazioni e potere.
ALBERTO CAMEROTTO, Un Crisippo d’oro. Skommata epici contro i filosofi in Luciano di Samosata.
NICOLA MONTENZ, Omero, Euripide, Shakespeare... e «Vogue»: per uno studio delle anamorfosi dell’antico nel primo atto della Ägyptische Helena di Hofmannsthal e Strauss.
ABSTRACTS
ISABELLA NOVA: The Odyssey of the Penelope Painter.
This article focuses on two paintings by the Penelope Painter (working in 5th century Athens), representing the adventures of Odysseus once he has come back to Ithaca, a theme almost unknown to vase-painting before this period. The analysis of the two scenes, compared with other literary and iconographic sources on the same subjects, shows that the painter was not strictly following the Homeric Odyssey, but rather he was influenced also by other mythical traditions.
RICCARDO GINEVRA: Indo-European Poetics, Mythology, and Folktale in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Ὑλοτόμος, ὑποτάμνον and a new interpretation for lines 227-30 and the Demophon episode .
The article argues for the interpretation of ὑλοτόμος ‘the one who/which cuts wood’ and ὑποτάμνον ‘that which cuts under’, both attested within the Demo¬phon episode of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, as poetic terms for [axe] or [met¬al]. This analysis finds support in the lexicon, phraseology, and narrative elements occurring in the Hymn itself, in texts in Ancient Greek and other Indo European languages, as well as in modern European folktales.
ELENA LANGELLA: Ἐπίρροθοι Nights: on the interpretation of Hes. Op. 560.
The analysis of the Hesiodean use of ἐπίρροθος from the referential, syntactic, and semantic point of view lets us reach a new interpretation of Op. 560. In its etymological meaning, this epithet here reflects the widely spread image of the running Night. So ἐπίρροθοι εὐφρόναι can be understood as a cryptic name for the winter nights, which run and accumulate one after another. This reading can shed some light on the interpretation of Soph. Ant. 413-414, too.
SARA CHIARINI: The formulaicity of Greek and Latin curses. The case of the ‘breakdown’ formula’.
The paper deals with the features of the formulaicity which informs the language of ancient curses. It does this on the basis of a specific formula attested in this corpus, by which the victim is bound or, more broadly, harmed in their hands and feet. The review of the uses of this formula and its comparison with similar expressions found in other sources help us better appreciate the manifold ways in which the shaping of the vocabulary of ancient curses could take place.
SILVIA BARBANTANI: Mythical travels in Ptolemaic Caria and Lycia with Apollonius Rhodius’ Καύνου κτίσις. Folktales, Foundations, and Power.
The paper analyzes the extant remains of the poem Καύνου κτίσις (The Foundation of Kaunos) by Apollonius of Rhodes: leaving aside the Argonautica, this is one of the few hexameter poems (epyllia) composed by Apollonios which survive in fragments, or in abstracts by other authors. Two stories narrated in the Καύνου κτίσις have been preserved in prose summaries by Parthenius of Nicaea, in the Erotika Pathemata (§1: Lyrkos; §11: Byblis and Kaunos); both myths have also been treated by the Hellenistic poet Nikainetos. A small hexameter fragment at¬tributed to Apollonius and preserved in the Etymologicum Magnum is among the dubia of the Καύνου κτίσις, and is briefly discussed. The focus of the paper, how¬ever, is on the potential Ptolemaic connection of the Carian and Lycian myths presented by Apollonius: in the myth of Lyrkos, heir of the king of Kaunos, the main elements of interest for an Alexandrian poet sponsored by the Ptolemaic court are Lyrkos’ Argive origin, the role in his story of the Apollinean sanctuary of Didyma near Miletos, and his dynastic relationship with the god Dionysos (through his son Staphylos, king of the Carian city of Bubastos/Bybassos). In the Milesian/Carian myth of Byblis, also transmitted by the mythographer Conon and by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, a potential element of interest for the Ptolemies would be her wandering in the area of Limyra, in Lykia, since the 3rd century BCE site of a Ptolemaion (sanctuary for the royal cult of the Ptolemaic king).
ANDREA FILONI: Callimachus’ Bridge.
The most important poets of the Hellenistic period (Callimachus, Aratus, Apollonius of Rhodes) seem to avoid the hexameter’s structure which consists of three adonii delimited by word-end (ds|ds|ds||): they may observe a double bridge, unknown to the scholars hitherto, which includes the already known Hilberg and Naeke’s bridges. The exceptions to the double bridge, which are almost absent in the considered Hellenistic poets, are already rare in Homer, as rare as the exceptions to the Hermann’s bridge. The percentage difference between the double bridge and Hilberg and Naeke’s bridges indicates that the former is perceived as an independent law.
ALBERTO CAMEROTTO: A golden Chrysippus: epic skommata against the philosophers in Lucian of Samosata.
The aim of the essay is to analyze the function and modes of action of the parody and the epic verses used by Lucian of Samosata in the satire against the philosophers and against the spectacularization of culture. With a look at the epic parody of the Cynics.
NICOLA MONTENZ: For a study of the anamorphosis of Antiquity in the First Act of the Ägyptische Helena by Hofmannsthal and Strauss. Homer, Euripides, Shakespeare... and «Vogue».
A kaleidoscopic, intellectually difficult work, Die Ägyptische Helena is the second-to-last result of the legendary artistic partnership between the Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the German composer Richard Strauss. After a long, sometimes contorted groundwork, which is well shown by the author’s correspondence, Helena was publicly idealised by both the poet and the composer on the eve of the première. This paper, which is not aimed at calling in question the real meaning of Hofmannsthal’s and Strauss’s public decla¬rations, attempts to provide an overview on the so far neglected issue of the literary intertext of the opera. Namely, in Die Ägyptische Helena classic, Shakespearean, and even contemporary sources tend to blend into an extraordinarily new drama by the means of an impressive assembly technique. At the same time, the study of Helena’s intertextual background seems to provide an interesting overview both on the reception of classical heritage, and on its merger with modern and contemporary cultural suggestions in the first half of the 20th century
described by the poet himself in a Callimachean aition which, until the first half of the twentieth century, was believed to be an epigram. After Late Antiquity, the memory of these lyric poets survived for centuries preserved in anecdotal tales, random quotes and a few epigrams, evenwhen their poems, bodies and monumental graves had been destroyed by time and human impiety. Buried in papyri and in the manuscripts of epigrammatic anthologies, Ibycus, Stesichorus and Simonides would need a few more centuries to rise again from their grave as wise men"
Chapters of Books by Silvia Barbantani
del I-II secolo d.C.) documentano l’esistenza di Delfide (Delphis), figlia di
Prassagora, «scrittrice di elegie», vissuta nel III secolo a.C., e altrimenti ignota.
Se in effetti la sua produzione si concentrò sulle elegie, si tratterebbe dell’unica
autrice ellenistica attestata a Kos a seguire le orme di Filita. La rilevanza
culturale della poetessa per i cittadini di Kos è dimostrata dalla dedica di una
statua in suo onore (oggi perduta), motivata, nell’epigramma che
verosimilmente la accompagnava, dal suo rapporto con le Muse. L’articolo
analizza in dettaglio le tracce superstiti di questa poetessa dimenticata.
The paper focuses on the modality of transmission and on the contents of two of the Foundation poems by Apollonius of Rhodes, the Ktisis of Naucratis, whose extant hexameters are preserved by Athenaeus, and to the Ktisis of Caunus, two episodes of which are summarized by Parthenius of Nicaea in his Erotika Pathemata
https://books.google.it/books?id=sQPcDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=it&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Apparently, there was no ‘Hellenistic Simonides’, author of warriors’ inscriptional epitaphs worthy to be gathered in a book. In the seventh book of the Greek Anthology there are many fictitious epitaphs for Homeric heroes or famous historical figures, but funerary epigrams celebrating the death in battle of individual, contemporary military men are only a dozen. This lack may be a choice of later compilers of florilegia, or may be due to the fact that epigrammatists who composed military epitaphs did not publish them as a collection. There is no evidence that any epigrammatist known from the Greek Anthology also acted as a professional writer of military epitaphs; we can just propose some hypothetical candidates for this role, such as Damagetus and Posidippus. Epitaphs for common soldiers were usually commissioned to professional poets, most of whom now remain anonymous (only occasionally we find signatures in epigraphic poems); the technitai found their inspiration in Homer and in the elegiac, lyric and tragic ‘classics’; anthologies like that of Meleager could also offer some models, although the main literary-epigraphic reference was still the Simonidean corpus. The lack of a specific, recognizable personal style makes it difficult to trace the same hand in contemporary epitaphs. It has been suggested that professional versifiers used ‘sample books’ for composing epitaphs, but the very existence and the nature of these anthologies is still to be proved. In some cases, the deceased, especially when he presents himself as a veteran belonging to the local élite, may have had his say on the contents and form of his future epitaph, or even might have been responsible for composing it.