Anth. Lat. 109 ShB (120 R):Footnote ¹

This epigram is the second in a series of six or seven on baths.Footnote ² It contains the acrostich FILOCALI and the telestich MELANIAE.Footnote ³ The identities and roles of these people have occasioned much debate. Prosopographical arguments have been advanced for their being historical figures from North Africa (where most of the poems in the Latin Anthology were written or assembled), and the meanings of condens (lines 1 and 5) and auctor (line 6) have attracted scrutiny.Footnote ⁴ Nevertheless, questions remain.

For instance, when arguing as to their identities, Cameron proposes that, while the so-called Elder Melania, the bath's condens (in the sense of ‘founder’) financed/built the baths,Footnote ⁵ the famous calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus, condens in the sense of ‘literary composer’, ‘engraved (and possibly composed) the poem’.Footnote ⁶ In arguing for different meanings for condens in lines 1 and 5, however, Cameron does not note that dominus in line 1 is masculine and so cannot apply to Melania. Instead, it seems likely that lines 1−2 refer to the same person as the one referred to in line 5, whom we know for definite is Filocalus (as shown by uersus primordia).Footnote ⁷ Meanwhile, line 6 refers to Melania (note littera summa). It is possible that lines 3−4 do as well, since this makes for a neat alternation in the ordering of lines: Filocalus (1−2) Melania (3−4) Filocalus (5) Melania (6); but it is also possible that they refer to Filocalus, that is, he is both the dominus and condens in line 1 and the fundi … praesul in line 3. In this case, either Melania is the auctor of the epigram, which raises questions about women poets and their position/influence,Footnote ⁸ or auctor carries an unusual sense: though the auctor of a building is usually the person responsible for its erection, might the baths have been Melania's idea although Filocalus executed it?Footnote ⁹

Whatever the correct identifications and the respective functions of the condens and the auctor, however, questions arise as to whom mihi in line 8 refers. Kay suggests, in addressing it,Footnote ¹⁰ that it must be to ‘the protagonist of the epigram and founder/owner of the baths, Filocalus, who effectively recommends his reader/clients to enjoy the local facilities and shun fancy foreign establishments’. The word sits oddly, however, since there is nothing to explain the first person here.

A possibility is that one should instead read tibi. This would do away with the difficulty of identifying the first-person mihi with the third-person references earlier in the poem; arguably, it would make the subjunctive placeant easier; and, in view of the contrast between fessos … uiae (line 2) and pontiuagi (line 7), it would achieve a more pointed ending to the epigram. Also, if the poem were originally written up in or engraved on the walls of baths, as seems likely,Footnote ¹¹ tibi would resonate with each bather as he read it.Footnote ¹² Compare Mart. 11.80.7, where tibi has replaced mihi (that is, the opposite to the case here): quod si deorum munere hoc mihi [Gilbert: tibi βγ] detur.Footnote ¹³ Compare also the confusion at Mart. 12.2(3).4 dat patrios amnes quos mihi [β: tibi γ] terra potens.Footnote ¹⁴

Before the possibility of tibi can be accepted, however, there is a further consideration to be met: it would appear that the current epigram is closely related to that immediately following it, Anth. Lat. 110 ShB (121 R), where the first line (quisquis Cumani lustrauit litoris antra) recalls line 7 lustrent pontiuagi Cumani litoris antra.Footnote ¹⁵ Might balnea nostra in line 4 lend any support to mihi in Anth. Lat. 109 ShB (120 R)?Footnote ¹⁶ This is possible;Footnote ¹⁷ but, instead of being a poetic plural referring to Filocalus/the bath's proprietor, and especially if this epigram too was displayed on the walls of the baths,Footnote ¹⁸ nostra could be an expression of local pride and identity: our baths are better than the foreign ones, overseas at Baiae—as anyone knows who has experienced both (lines 1−2). One cannot therefore insist that mihi is supported by nostra.

The case therefore remains for reading tibi instead of mihi at Anth. Lat. 109.8 ShB (120.8 R).