T.M. has made a significant and welcome contribution to the study of inscribed Greek epigram, a field that has exploded in popularity since P.A. Hansen made texts down to 400 bce so accessible in Carmina Epigraphica Graeca or CEG (1983, 1989). Much subsequent work has been interpretative, occasionally juxtaposing inscribed epigram with literary, itself a burgeoning field, as in E. Sistakou and A. Rengakos (edd.), Dialect, Diction, and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram (2016). While offering excellent interpretations, T.M.’s volume should be categorised among editions. Some editions after Hansen have pushed beyond his terminus, for example, É. Cairon, Les épitaphes métriques hellénistiques du Péloponnèse à la Thessalie (2009); A. Martínez Fernández, Epigramas Helenísticos de Creta (2006). Others, including T.M. and S. Kaczko (Archaic and Classical Attic Dedicatory Epigrams [2016]), revisit periods covered by Hansen. All these editions attempt both less and more than Hansen. They limit their collections by region, sub-genre (e.g. sepulchral) or theme (e.g. warriors fallen in battle) as well as period; but the limits allow a fullness exceeding earlier editions, including the laconic CEG. An exception, less full but broad of scope, is R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten or SGO (1998–2004).
T.M. divides his texts into categories: private epitaphs for fallen warriors (nos 1–17) and for warriors who did not fall in battle (nos a–e); public epigrams for war casualties (nos I–XV); later copies or compositions commemorating earlier events (nos A–D); incerti (nos α–ε). Individual entries begin with basic description, bibliography, Greek text with apparatus criticus and translation; fuller comments follow on archaeology, epigraphy, philology and history. Concordances and indexes are useful, including a complete Greek index, but one misses a subject index. T.M. gives reasons for drawing his lower chronological line (p. 13); still, despite good summary comments on later times (pp. 172–6), I wish he had carried on at least to Chaironeia.
Most welcome for many, T.M. presents several public inscriptions not in CEG. The epigram from Arta (T.M.’s no. I), published in 1991 (SEG 41.540A), is now widely studied. Two Athenian epigrams that accompanied casualty lists commemorate the battle of Marathon and likely date to the 470s. First, no. III (fully published 2009 [SEG 56.430]): the Erechtheid tribe list from Herodes Atticus’ villa at Loukou, moved there from Marathon. T.M. offers a plausible reading of the epigram's problematic first verse: Φε̄μί· καὶ hόσστις ναίε̄ι hυϕ᾿ Ἅο̄ς ḥέσσχατα γαίε̄ς | … πεύσεται …, ‘Dico: anche chi abita sotto Aurora i confini della terra | verrà a sapere …’ Second, no. IV: lapis A has long been known, carrying CEG 2ii and iii, although T.M. follows others in rejecting Agora I 4256 (his no. A) as a copy of 2ii; lapis C (which proves there were now missing lapides B and D) was included at IG I3 503/504 (where CEG 3 was taken as lapis B, rejected by T.M. and treated as no. V). There is no consensus on which Persian War battles this city-centre monument commemorated; T.M. assigns it all to Marathon. No. IX, published in 2014 (N. Papazarkadas, The Epigraphy and History of Boeotia, pp. 223–33), honours the Theban dead of Plataea or Tanagra. No. XII, an Athenian relief stele with cavalry casualty lists and epigram, has not been properly published (SEG 48.83), but T.M. offers complete texts based on published photographs. Finally, two later inscriptions: no. B from Miletus (Peek GVI 33, SGO I 1/20/08) is a Hellenistic composition celebrating casualties in a long past war; no. C from Megara (IG VII 53, Page FGE Simon. 16) is a fifth-century ce copy of a fifth-century bce epigram honouring Megarian casualties in the Persian Wars.
Epigraphical matters, including letter-forms and layouts, are treated with fullness, accuracy and clarity grounded in autopsy of many stones and/or squeezes. New readings and restorations (see p. 19) include the first verse of no. III (see above). At no. IV, T.M. treats the epigraphical issues well, but his text's layout on p. 103 is problematic: an unsuspecting reader would assume the missing pentameters to the left and restored pentameter-ends on the right belong to lapis C rather than the missing B and D respectively. At no. VI (IG I3 1143, CEG 131, Corinthians on Salamis), T.M. sees an upsilon at the end of line 1 (Ϙορίνθου). He also gives a fuller account than others of subsequently added letters, although not without an error: he discusses IM beneath the first line (p. 112), but his drawing at fig. 15.1 shows MI. I further question T.M.’s omitting from the text of VI half- and elbow-brackets (contrast CEG) to indicate portions taken from literary transcriptions and edited to reflect archaic orthography.
T.M.’s figures can complement epigraphical discussion nicely. The photograph of no. 13 (IG I3 1381, CEG 88) at fig. 9, for example, is a close-up of the left side, which shows that T.M. rightly confirms Raubitschek's perception of original surface there, important for attempts at restoration. Other photographs are less successful: they are too small (figs. 4.1 and 2, 13.3, 18), cut off part of the text (1, 2, 5, 24), or are unclear (3, 10, 15.3, 23, 25); squeezes can be nearly illegible (12.1, 15.2). Sometimes drawings help (figs. 12.2, 15.1); but more would be welcome, as at no. VIII (IG I3 1149, CEG 135), where fig. 6 at N. Papazarkadas and D. Sourlas, Hesperia 81 (2012), 597, would make T.M.’s discussion clearer.
Much archaeological discussion serves reconstruction of inscriptions. At no. III (above), however, T.M. clarifies issues surrounding the monument's original appearance and subsequent reuses. Although recutting erased the evidence, T.M. suspects that this and the nine missing stelai each stood independently in a row at Marathon, not forming a wall of joined stelai. The first reworking was for placement in such a wall inside Herodes Atticus’ villa in the 160s ce; a later, rougher recutting accompanied final reuse in a lime kiln. T.M. also speculates about a context for Herodes’ removal of the stones from Marathon, namely, the Roman campaign against the Parthians during which Lucius Verus visited Herodes in 162.
T.M.’s philological and literary discussions are sound and interesting. At no. a (IG I3 1200, CEG 19), for example, his restoration [οὐδὲ̄]ς and taking the participle προσιδὸ̄ν as concessive produce a thought not unlike Pindar's favouring poetry over statuary at Nemean 5.1–5: ‘[no one], although looking at the sêma’ (statue of the deceased), ‘will know the man's courage …’ Attention to onomastics yields good insights at, for example, no. 1 (IG IX 12 4 880, CEG 145): T.M. resurrects an older idea that the epitaph commemorates Charops son of ?Arnias (σᾶμα τόδε Ἀρνιάδα Χάροπος …), rather than taking χαροπὸς as an epithet of Ares, the agent of Arniadas’ death. More of a stretch, given the lack of specific verbal allusion, T.M. sees references to mythic battles in the Marathon epigrams: Achilles vs Memnon in no. III, Athena vs Poseidon in IV.
Finally, T.M. attempts to associate epitaphs with known history. At nos 2 and 3, he shows that the names Tettichos and Kroisos suggest links to the Alkmaionidai, although the point is not pressed. T.M. tries to determine what battles claimed the victims, often with plausible results. Tokes’ monument at Amphipolis (no. VII, CEG 155) likely memorialises a death in one of the known Athenian campaigns to the lower Strymon. While the mid-fifth-century battle of Tanagra is well-represented (nos 11, 11a, VIII, possibly IX), T.M. argues convincingly that nos 15 and XI, sometimes associated with Tanagra, belong to the early Peloponnesian War.
T.M. has gathered and critically discussed a treasure trove of information about an important body of epigrams and their monuments. His texts are reliable and the commentaries are full and balanced. He makes a major contribution to epigram studies as well as to broader explorations of the memorialisation of war and its casualties.
