Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection by Richard Hunter

Abstract

Reviewed by: Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection by Richard Hunter Sara Kaczko Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection. By Richard Hunter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics). 2022. Pp. 294. The volume provides a commentary on eighty-one private inscribed funerary Greek epigrams from the archaic period through later antiquity. The texts are organized by gender consistent with Hunter's focus on the Hellenistic and imperial periods, with eleven epigrams down to the fifth century b.c.e., a dozen from the fourth century b.c.e., three dozen from the Hellenistic period, and twenty-two from the imperial era. In fact, epigrams down to the fifth century b.c.e. seldom show gendered differences in style or formulation (aside from references to death in battle). Public inscriptions are excluded, partly owing to Hunter's emphasis on poetic language celebrating the "ethical" and familial virtues of the deceased, though this language is characteristic of epigrams from the Hellenistic period onwards, with intimations of it in the fourth century b.c.e., rather than being an original defining characteristic of the genre. Also, public inscriptions, often being stylistically more elaborate than coeval private inscriptions, would offer valuable comparanda (e.g., CEG 4, 6, and 10 for Athenians fallen in battle; SEG 56.430, the new epitaph for the fallen at Marathon; and SEG 41.540, the polyandrion at Ambrakia). At any rate, anthologies require selection, and these are the criteria used for this volume. Five introductory chapters precede the commentary. The first provides definitions and context, including the differences between inscribed and literary funerary epigrams and the size of the corpus relative to that of prose funerary inscriptions, and describes the scope of the book. The second chapter addresses stylistic considerations, focusing on poetic models from Homer to tragedy (especially in fourth-century b.c.e. Attica) and on their language. This language is described as a negotiation between, as well as a blend of, poetic models (again, mostly Ionic-epic) and epichoric features. Hunter's remarks on the ostensibly limited local flavor of the dialect include the observation that Hellenistic epigrams favor the contemporary koine and seem not to display a marked Doric language, unlike the Doric of Theocritus' idylls. However, in the archaic and classical periods, Homeric features were adapted to the epichoric dialect precisely because of the strength of the local context. Also, the Doric flavor of Theocritus' verse was a literary mannerism in a period when the koine was, in many areas, including Doric ones, the "local" dialect, i.e., the language in common use. In other words, the expectation of a strong Doric flavor in a poetic composition is valid for some literary texts, but not for both literary and epigraphic poems. Overall, the chapter rightly stresses that in epigrams the linguistic and dialectal features vary, and that Doric features are found in both verse-inscriptions and literary funerary poems in non-Doric and Doric areas. The third chapter addresses the authors of the epigrams, whether they were members of the family or friends of the deceased. Alternatively, stonemasons may have provided the services of professional poets or ready-made poems for adaptation to individual circumstances, and pattern books, which have been invoked to explain strong similarities in funerary epigrams across the centuries and parts of Greece,1 may also have been in use. [End Page 368] In any case, Hunter correctly stresses the importance of oral memory and transmission. Also considered here is how the stonecutter received instructions regarding the epigram to be inscribed, whether directly from the poets, from intermediary figures (entrusted with the ordinatio), or from patrons, and whether these instructions were in written or in oral form, scenarios that may have consequences for the accuracy of the text. The extent of the errors in the inscribed epigrams and the claim that literary epigrams are more accurate both seem somewhat overstated. In inscribed epigrams there are, indeed, instances of correction, which indicate that accuracy was valued, and mistakes are also found in the literary transmission. For instance, the dialectal features of epigrams and of archaic and classical poetry are often banalized, especially when the...