Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram by Manuel Baumbach, Andrej Petrovic, and Ivana Petrovic

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 181 materiality, and a desire to reconcile otherwise opposed or estranged parties), may be able to excavate the “popular” voices that have been so efficiently muted by our elite texts. Swarthmore College Jeremy B. Lefkowitz Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram. Edited by Manuel Baumbach, Andrej Petrovic, and Ivana Petrovic. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 2010. Pp. xiv, 439. Ancient epigram is a “hot topic,” the subject of an APA panel in 2011, a symposium at ENS-Lyon in 2010, several monographs since 2005, recent and forthcoming work on Poseidippos and Simonides, and surveys by N. Livingstone and G. Nisbet (Epigram [Cambridge 2010]) and P. Bing and J. Bruss (Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram [Leiden 2007]), as well as Bing’s The Scroll and the Marble (Michigan 2009). The present excellent volume, stemming from a 2005 conference, serves as a companion for earlier, mostly inscribed Greek epigram. The highlights of the volume are chapters by, in order of appearance, T. Schmitz, C. Keesling, W. Furley, C. Higbie, K. Gutzwiller, M. Fantuzzi, E. Bowie, and J. Bruss. All the pieces, however, repay one’s attention, and all contribute, as R. Hunter says of epigram collections in his chapter, “like stones in a mosaic, to a whole greater than its individual parts” (286), because the topics covered include most of those that demand attention. In Chapter One, the editors articulate the book’s conceptual unity around twin themes of “contextualisation” and “literarisation.” Twelve chapters in Part I explore the former, “the historical reception” of epigrams, i.e., their “ ‘meaning’ . . . decoded” from the situational , material, religious, political, and literary-generic contexts “which are in dialogue with the epigram.” Four chapters in Part II consider literarisation, “the place of archaic and classical Greek epigram in the epigrammatic genre as well as its role in the genre’s development from stone to book” (8). T. Schmitz (25–41) sets the stage for the first section of Part I by analyzing “strategies of incorporating the act of communication” (among imaginary speakers and addressees and real readers) “into the text, thus creating a special space for communication that is clearly demarcated from pragmatic, everyday discourse” (27); M. Tueller (42–60) on the passer-by, including the “stranger” motif, and G. Vestrheim (61–78) on “I” and “you” deixis, and the rhetorical efficacy of sentiments reflecting community values, treat specific issues along similar lines. Little attention is paid here or elsewhere to the thorny question (mentioned at 7) of whether these contexts of reception were activated in real encounters with inscribed monuments. Rather, these authors explicate epigraphic deixis, voice, and other authorial techniques for imagining readings in ways consistent with potential readers’ expectations. Those expectations were shaped in part by exposure to archaic lyric poetry, which, as Schmitz points out, employed similar strategies of constructing performances as fictional situations where, for instance, audience and addressee were not necessarily identical, as they were not in epigrams with prayers like CEG 326 (Mantiklos). Schmitz might have compared poets composing simultaneously for premieres and reperformances (cf. Vestrheim 75–77). The papers in the next section, on material and spatial contexts, give the visual equal billing with the verbal in their reconstruction of ancient encounters with inscribed monu- 182 PHOENIX ments and the recipients’ making of meanings for them. Given the variety of monuments, there is space only for three sondages, but the choices are interesting. B. Borg (81–99) examines the “chest of Kypselos,” dedicated at Olympia, now lost, but described by Pausanias , who quotes metrical labels accompanying various scenes.1 K. Lorenz (131–148), writing on inscriptions for kouroi, focuses on the reader-viewer’s active, dialectic contribution in responding to visual cues and speaking the text aloud. C. Keesling (100–130), in the volume’s closest approach to epigraphical analysis, focuses on Kallimachos’ Marathon dedication, which she helps us reconstruct mentally from the base (original location known from a cutting on the Akropolis), inscribed column in several pieces, Ionic capital , and winged female statue. The ensemble now stands restored in the new Akropolis Museum. Keesling demonstrates how the monument provided visual cues that triggered viewers’ expectations, and argues that this cueing reflected earlier...