This volume – the 22 contributions of which stem from papers presented at the Sorbonne in September 2022 – emerges at a critical moment in the study of the Greek poetry of late antiquity. As G. Agosti notes (p. 5), academic interest in the subject has exploded lately on the basis of: (i) the inclusion of Christian literature into the Graeco-Roman corpus; (ii) greater attention to minor authors; (iii) greater appreciation of the poetic value of rhetoric; (iv) the idea that poetry was a significant part of late antique cultural production. The aim of this volume, therefore, – to analyse the various conjunctions of poésie, histoire et société aux époques imperiale et tardive, stretching from Philo of Tarsus in the Augustan Principate to George of Pisidia at the end of the proto-Byzantine period – makes for an exciting prospect.

The volume’s intriguing title – μάρτυρι μύθῳ (‘with witnessing word’) – is a Nonnian invention, which appears once in the Dionysiaca and eight times in the Paraphrase of the Gospel of John. The formula is used in reference to statements that ultimately bear witness to truth (in the Paraphrase, the truth of Christianity). Similarly, the contributions analyse how the authors of imperial Greek poetry might act as μάρτυρες for the socio-cultural truths of their times: ‘ces œuvres s’inscrivent dans leur temps’ (p. xiii). This is an avenue of study that, although still understudied, has grown in recent years: for example, the ongoing series Nonnus of Panopolis in Context; the series of Collected Imperial Greek Epics (ed. T. Whitmarsh), the first volume of which, on the Dionysiaca, is due out in June 2026; and E. Greensmith’s forthcoming Homer and the Bible: Christian Greek Epic in Late Antiquity.

The first contribution – that of Agosti – is programmatic for the theme of the volume, demonstrating that it is wrong to think of imperial poetry (Agosti’s focus being late metrical inscriptions) as an activity restricted to the Ivory Tower. Rather, authors were firmly engaged in their own cultural contexts, and their trade reached even the most remote areas of the Empire; the latter point is further demonstrated by J.-L. Fournet, who analyses poetry as a medium of authorial expression, with particular reference to more rural areas of poetic production, in the encomia and progymnasmata of Dioscorus of Aphrodito.

One of the primary cultural entanglements of imperial Greek poetry with its social context is its engagement with the political, as authors offer both praise and critique to a range of political figures, including even the emperor. L. Floridi analyses the σκώμματα and ψόγοι of early imperial epigrammatists, who utilised the familiar media of stock characters and hyperbolic language to mock and criticise. In a similar vein, A. Vergados’s exploration of mythological digressions, concerning Phineus and (especially) Dionysus, in the Cynegetica of Pseudo-Oppian concludes that the lack of cruelty ascribed to Dionysus in the text – in contrast to the versions of the myth of Pentheus by the likes of Euripides, Theocritus and Ovid – highlights the fratricidal cruelty that came to define the reign of Caracalla. The fascinating contribution by Zito accounts for the surprisingly numerous references to abortion and miscarriage in the astrological poetry of Maximus of Ephesus, suggesting influence from contemporary religious debate as well as from events at the courts of Constantius II and Julian, with Eusebia (wife of the former) involved – according to contemporary historiographical sources – in the miscarriages of Helena (wife of the latter). Zito concludes that the text may have provoked discord in the contemporary court concerning matters of imperial dynasty.

A particular political icon of poetic interest is the sixth-century emperor Justinian, who is addressed in three pieces within the volume. Cariou detects in the didactic elements of Oppian’s Halieutica a panegyrical stance on the cosmic importance of Justinian and his vital role in the continuation of a stable empire. This notion of Justinian as a divine παμβασιλεύς (Hal. 1.78) is also identified by C. Minuto in an exploration of six panegyric epigrams – two anonymous, two by Agathias of Myrina and two by Julian the Egyptian – that depict Justinian as a ruler of a world whose unification is demonstrated by his militaristic display, particularly in combat against the Persians, and his depiction as God’s representative on Earth, perhaps even as a late antique realisation of the Logos-Christ paradigm. Finally, R. Biagiucci identifies allusion to Pindaric epinicia amongst the panegyric to Justinian in the Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae by Paul the Silentiary, which is influenced further by Christian, Neoplatonic and Nonnian literature.

A second major stream of research within this volume is the engagement of late antique Greek poetry with other forms of literature, beyond the expected allusions to epic and scriptural corpora, which have dominated research on the topic thus far. Ó. Prieto Domínguez places the epigrammatic dedications of Gregory of Nazianzus to his mother, Nonna, within a literary continuum of the Greek prose hagiography, as well as the Latin and Syriac verse hagiography, of late antiquity. Similarly, E. Zimbardi places within a literary continuum of Christian homiletics, as well as Syriac and Greek religious verse, the poetry of Ephrem the Greek, whose work constitutes the first attempt at isosyllabic poetry in Greek Christianity. Whilst these examples of poetic engagement with contemporary, or at least generically related, literature may not be surprising, the same cannot be said of Hymn 9 by Synesius of Cyrene. As H. Seng discusses, Synesius’ representation of the ascent and descent of the soul, as well as being influenced by the Orphic Chaldean Oracles and the author’s Neoplatonic leanings, engages with motifs from Anacreontic poetry, but rejects its fundamental values through a fascinating display of Kontrastimitation.

In this analytical strand of literary engagement what is also noted is the need for the requisite literary knowledge of these complex intertextual poetic compositions on the part of ancient audiences. O. Karavas – in an analysis of the subtle subversion of myth in Colluthus’ Abduction of Helen – challenges the reader’s prior knowledge of the story that resulted in the outbreak of the Trojan War. Karavas’s suggestion that Colluthus engages in a playful form of poetic puzzle-making – imitating the lipogrammatic literature that flourished in the Hellenistic period to write the story of the apple of Discord without using the term καλός or its cognates – further demonstrates the literary artistry of late antique Greek poetry.

Detailed analysis of imperial Greek poetry as a vessel of scientific communication is a major point of interest – and a major contribution – of the volume. T. Whitmarsh, in a study of the repeated emphasis on the negative moral implications of the black skin colour of the Indians in the Dionysiaca, while considering the appropriateness of applying modern critical race theories, situates Nonnus within a landscape of broader physiognomic discourse, especially with regard to the work of Polemo of Laodicea. Whitmarsh’s contribution ends with further consideration of how the Christianisation of the Roman Empire seems to have bolstered this dichotomous paradigm of ‘black as bad’ and ‘white as good’. J. Lightfoot’s chapter on the Carmen Astrologicum of Dorotheus of Sidon considers the poet’s presentation of dense, technical scientific information in a more comprehensible, engaging and memorable manner through the use of Homeric style. The final three papers that explore the theme of scientific knowledge in the poetic medium all address the fields of medicine and pharmacology. A. Guardasole provides an edition with apparatus criticus and brief philological commentary of a recipe for an analgesic in elegiac verse by Philo of Tarsus and preserved by Galen (Kühn XIII 267.10–269.2). Guardasole subsequently presents plausible solutions for a range of textual and hermeneutic problems relating to this obscure poetic form. M. Diarra’s analysis of one of Lucian’s lesser-known texts, the Podagra (a satirical tragedy on the affliction of gout), showcases the author’s profound familiarity with contemporary medical information and debates in the medical community, largely as they are presented in the work of Galen. Finally, A. Broseta connects an Orphic passage at Lithica 699–747 on obsidian and an associated ritual of eating snakes, with the longue durée of pharmacological ophiophagy as an antidote against poison. These considerations lead Broseta to propose a later date of composition than traditionally thought for the Orphic text.

Beyond these, several other social realities of late antiquity have been traced through this volume’s close analysis. E. Kneebone examines how increased mobility, especially between shifting centres of intellectual and political power, in late antiquity seems to have influenced the ‘geo-poetics’ of Colluthus’ intensely mobile story of Paris’ journey from Troy to Sparta and back again in the Abduction of Helen, a text in which narrative and environment are unsurprisingly intrinsically connected. D. Lauritzen hypothesises that the Panegyric to Anastasius of Procopius of Gaza and the Ekphrasis of John of Gaza were complementary pieces – one prose, one verse –, presented on the same occasion of the arrival of the Cosmic Tableau into Gaza. A similar theme of the reality of the performance of poetry is analysed by A. Cosme-Thomas, who argues that Heraclius is subtly praised through the more explicit praise to Bonus at the recital of George of Pisidia’s In Bonum Patricium, at which event Bonus was present, but Heraclius was not. Finally, the major religious shifts in the late antique period are demonstrated to be intertwined with contemporary poetics in the contributions of S. Morlet and D. Iliev. Morlet explores the doctrinal appropriation of classical myth in various ways by the Patristic authors of the second century, including Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, as early Church Fathers chose to interpret the works of classical poets either as implicitly testifying to scriptural truth, foreshadowing the life and death of Christ, or as testifying to the falsehood of paganism. The contribution of Iliev considers Palladas’ epigram to Serapis, in which the syncretistic Graeco-Egyptian deity appears to a murderer in a dream and saves him from certain death, before ensuring that the criminal is appropriately crucified for his actions. It seems that, in addition to engaging with the still vibrant Greek tradition of aretological literature, the epigrammatic shift from ‘Serapis to the cross’ reflects the social reality of late antique Alexandria, in which indigenous and Graeco-Egyptian religious traditions merged with, and in some aspects were replaced by, the Christian faith.

If only the new translations and critical editions remained of this volume, it would still be considered a valuable contribution to scholarship. As it is, the goal implied by the dauntingly broad title of the volume – to analyse as many facets of imperial Greek poetry as possible – is certainly one that the work accomplishes. It will doubtlessly come to be considered a staple source of information on the contemporary socio-cultural realities of imperial Greek poetry for avenues of future research.