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On the Metrical Inscription Found at Pergamum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

L. Lehnus
L. Lehnus
Affiliation:
State University of Milan/Wolfson College, Oxford
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Extract

The epigram is remarkable for its metre as well as for the amount of erudition it displays. Thoenias of Sicyon was already known as a later representative of the school of Lysippus; that Dionysodorus was a fellow-citizen of his has not emerged so far, but he is mentioned by Polybius as an admiral and an emissary of Attalus. ‘Frisky’ is known to us from an epigram by Dioscorides, where he guards the tomb of Sositheus, and from a passage of Nonnus; Cornutus, N.D. 30 classified Scirti along with Satyrs and Silens. But the poet remains unnamed: Dionysodorus, a military man, can hardly be credited with such a piece of refined Hellenistic versification.

Information

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , May 1996, pp. 295 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

1 ‘Ein neues hellenistisches Weihepigramm aus Pergamon’, ChironM 19 (1989), 499–553.Google Scholar

2 Lebek, W.D., ZPE 82 (1990), 297–8.Google Scholar

3 On stichic hendecasyllables in Hellenistic poetry see Kassel, R., Kleine Schriften (Berlin & New York, 1991), 138–9.Google Scholar

4 Details in Müller, op. cit. (n. 1), 508–21.

5 A.P. 7.707 and Dion. 14.111. Add SEG 36.1263, from late-antique Paphos.

6 Müller, op. cit. (n. 1), 535 rightly discards Dioscorides, who was active in Alexandria. But Dionysodorus is no appropriate replacement.

7 Most thoroughly by Kerkhecker, A., ‘Zum neuen hellenistischen Weihepigramm aus Pergamon’, ZPE 86 (1991), 30–2.Google Scholar

8 Antiph. fr. 233.2 K.-A., Athen. 33bc, Plin. N.H. 14.74. Claiming Sicyonian origin and Scirtus seems to enjoy being involved in that tangle of dithyramb and satyr-play which had Sicyon and Phlius as its joint background

9 E. V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon2 (Ithaca & London, 1971), 408 would incline to attribute P. Hamb. inv. 381 to that milieu, but see Lloyd-Jones and Parsons on SH 958. Leschides was later.

10 A.P. 13.6. See Morelli, G., ‘Origine e formazione del tredicesimo libro dell'Antologia Palatina’ RFIC 113 (1985), 257–96 (esp. 279ff.).Google Scholar

11 Second half of III century, cf. P. Maas s.v. Theodoridas in Pauly-Wissowa (1934), and Gabathuler, M., Hellenistische Epigramme auf Dichter (Diss. Basel, 1937), pp. 31–2, 92.Google Scholar

12 A.P. 13.21.3–6 epigr. 18 Seelbach (1964). I print Beckby's and Buffiere's text ( Salmasius, P; , P: an -Toup, -P), but I am aware of the textual shortcomings of the passage, which Gow and Page obelized, though conceding that ‘the first half of is evidently rightly corrected and its implication clear’ (HE ii. 547). Mnasalces is styled at v. 2, and we know that Simonides also wrote elegies (frr. 1–18 IEG2), but Theodoridas' bombastic language hardly suggests parody of elegy, cf. F. Buffiere in the Budé edition (1970.

13 ‘This epigram would appear to show that Mnasalces wrote dithyrambs as well as epigrams’ 68 test. 1 1989). Since the publication of P. Koln 204 in 1985 Mnasalces is no longer to be thought of as an exclusively elegiac epigrammatist.Google Scholar

14 Epigr. 15 Seelbach (attribution discussed on pp. 54–5). On Mnasalces' chronology and political stance see J. Geffcken, s.v. in Pauly-Wissowa (1932).

15 IG VII 395, cf. A. Wilhelm, Neue Beiträge zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde (Wien, 1915), iv. 3–6.

16 For dithyramb and Satyrs cf. T. B. L. Webster in Pickard-Cambridge, DTC2 20, for Pratinas see B. Zimmermann, Dithyrambos. Geschichte einer Gattung (Gottingen, 1992), 124–5. Theodoridas too wrote dithyrambs (fr. 739 SH) and his link with Sicyon through Mnasalces should not be overlooked; he is a possible candidate too.

17 From the deme of Plataeae, see no. 212 Skalet, Prosopographia Sicyonia (1928). Epigr. 1 S. deals with a vine shedding its leaves prematurely.

18 34/539 PMG, cf. Ar. Byz. fr. 124 Slater.

19 ‘Haeremus’ says F.W., Schneidewin (ed.), Simonidis Cei reliquiae (Brunsvigae, 1835), 129.Google Scholar

20 Page, cf. Campbell (ed.), GL iii. pp. 488–9.

21 See Philologus 5 (1850), 510.

22 Doubts on the assumed attribution of the poem to Dionysodorus (most recently SEG 39, 453) arose during the discussion following a paper on Callimachean chronology, which I gave in Cambridge in November 1994:1 am indebted to members of the Literary Seminar for many thought-provoking comments. I am especially grateful to Dr (now Professor) James Diggle, Cambridge, and to Mr Franco Basso, Oxford, for reading subsequent drafts of this note and offering helpful suggestions, as well as for greatly improving my English. For what is here I am solely responsible.