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DISTINCTION, CENTRALITY AND CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN PRE-ALEXANDRIAN COURT POETRY: THE CASE OF LYCIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2020

Brett Evans
Brett Evans*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
bce6ht@virginia.edu
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This article examines allusions to Greek poetry in two Greek verse inscriptions carved on public monuments for Lycian dynasts of the late fifth and early fourth centuries b.c. (CEG 177, 888). Scholarship on these epigrams celebrating the rule, achievements and outstanding qualities of the dynasts Gergis (Lycian Kheriga) and Arbinas (Erbinna) has largely focussed on the evidence they provide for Lycian history, dynastic ideology and Lycia's relationship to Greece. Less attention has been paid to the possible significance of their long-noted echoes of Greek poetry. Literary analysis of these epigrams has been sidelined, it seems, owing to a prevailing assumption that they were composed and inscribed primarily for Greeks visiting or resident in Xanthus, the Lycian ‘capital’ where they were inscribed, and so their literariness, unheard by Lycian ears, cannot add to our understanding of Lycia and Lycians. Yet, a recent observation of Peter Thonemann suggests that the appropriation and manipulation of Greek poetry is in fact central to the dynastic intent of the epigrams: to assert Lycia's non-Greek, ‘Asiatic’ identity.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 558 - 576
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.

This article examines allusions to Greek poetry in two Greek verse inscriptions carved on public monuments for Lycian dynasts of the late fifth and early fourth centuries b.c. (CEG 177, 888). Scholarship on these epigrams celebrating the rule, achievements and outstanding qualities of the dynasts Gergis (Lycian Kheriga) and Arbinas (Erbinna) has largely focussed on the evidence they provide for Lycian history,Footnote 2 dynastic ideologyFootnote 3 and Lycia's relationship to Greece.Footnote 4 Less attention has been paid to the possible significance of their long-noted echoes of Greek poetry.Footnote 5 Literary analysis of these epigrams has been sidelined, it seems, owing to a prevailing assumption that they were composed and inscribed primarily for Greeks visiting or resident in Xanthus, the Lycian ‘capital’Footnote 6 where they were inscribed,Footnote 7 and so their literariness, unheard by Lycian ears, cannot add to our understanding of Lycia and Lycians.Footnote 8 Yet, a recent observation of Peter Thonemann suggests that the appropriation and manipulation of Greek poetry is in fact central to the dynastic intent of the epigrams: to assert Lycia's non-Greek, ‘Asiatic’ identity.Footnote 9

Building upon Thonemann's work, I contend that the poets of CEG 177 and 888 persistently allude to, and in so doing manipulate, Greek poetry in order to assert Xanthus’ position as a new, yet ancient, cultural centre of the oikoumenē with a distinctly Lycian identity. I challenge the assumption that these epigrams were not written primarily for a Lycian audience, suggesting instead that their allusions appropriate Greek poetry as cultural capital for the dynasts and their courts, providing them a new means to distinguish themselves from rival members of the local elite. In their allusivity, cultural appropriation and social function rooted in the court society, these Lycian verse inscriptions foreshadow the poetic production of the Hellenistic courts, most notably Ptolemaic Alexandria.Footnote 10

Literary analysis of these epigrams’ allusions is particularly timely, as scholars of Lycia, especially archaeologists, revise past orthodoxy about the region's engagement with Greece.Footnote 11 The relationship between Lycian and Greek art is well known and so strong, in fact, that Gerhart Rodenwaldt in 1933 could even argue that Lycian art was simply Greek art expressing Eastern ideas (‘am Orient der Gedanke, an der Antike die Gestalt’).Footnote 12 The early French archaeologists of Xanthus similarly described the history of Lycian art in terms of ‘Hellenization’,Footnote 13 a narrative of acculturation which in some guises bore mistaken notions of progress and Lycian passivity in the face of the cultural superiority of Greece.Footnote 14 Current scholars instead look for political, cultural and other motivations for Lycians’ engagement with Greek cultural products,Footnote 15 and there has been a concomitant emphasis on local Anatolian traditions in art and architecture.Footnote 16 In some cases, however, this epichoric turn has come with a rejection of Lycian engagement with Greek culture.Footnote 17 This trend has also informed recent approaches to Greek verse inscriptions in Lycia.Footnote 18 It is still possible, however, to focus on Lycian engagement with Greek culture without falling into the old trap of Lycian passivity. In my analysis of CEG 177 and 888 I seek to demonstrate how Lycian rulers and their courts, with the help of Greek poets, actively appropriated Greek cultural products for their own local profits.Footnote 19

The article is divided into four sections. The first provides an overview of Lycian engagement with Greek cultural products, chiefly art, up to the early fourth century and suggests that in the court of the dynast Arbinas we see clearly the emergence of appropriation of Greek products for use as a cultural capital. The second section turns to the epigrams and examines their allusions to Athenian epigram, tragedy, Homer and Hesiod as a literary mode of cultural appropriation asserting the centrality and distinction of Xanthus in the oikoumenē. In the third section, I suggest how these epigrams may have functioned as a cultural capital in Lycian court society, proposing Greek education and the dynastic symposium as exclusive social mechanisms by which dynast and courtiers came to understand these epigrams’ allusions and appropriate them as ‘social weapons’. Finally, the fourth section compares the Lycian epigrams’ allusive form and intercultural posturing to the court poetry of Ptolemaic Alexandria and underscores the determining influence that both the court context and the marginal location of Lycia and Alexandria in the traditional Greek world had on their poetics. I conclude with a suggestion about the social status of the Lycian poets seen in light of their Hellenistic counterparts.

I. LYCIAN ENGAGEMENT WITH GREEK CULTURAL PRODUCTS TO THE EARLY FOURTH CENTURY

Greek ceramics appear on the ‘acropolis’Footnote 20 of Xanthus as early as the seventh century and substantially increase around 550 b.c., the time of the Persian conquest (Hdt. 1.176.1–3).Footnote 21 This is the beginning of the ‘dynastic period’, in which Lycia was ruled by members of the stratified ruling elite known as dynasts.Footnote 22 Nor was pottery the only import: the head and leg of an East Greek kouros and a marble perirrhanterion, a kind of basin on a stand, found on the acropolis suggest a wide range of Greek dedications in the late sixth and early fifth centuries.Footnote 23 By the mid fifth century Greek imports seem to have been prominent in public life, when three peplophoroi, which scholars associate with Building G, are proposed to have been ranged outside it in the open air.Footnote 24

Amidst this abundance of Greek art, we should, however, refrain from jumping to the conclusion that the Lycians appreciated these imports for the sake of their being ‘Greek’ and should instead consider the possibility of Lycian participation in the international visual culture of the Aegean. This distinction is important when we consider the use of Greek iconography on Lycian monuments on the acropolis in the fifth century. The Harpy Monument (480–470), a pillar tomb larger and more finely decorated than those before it,Footnote 25 also differs from earlier pillar tombs in its use of motifs from Greek art. Catherine Draycott, however, describes this iconography as ‘modish’ and ‘Aegean’, and suggests that the dynast wished his family to be shown participating in international, rather than narrowly ‘Greek’, modes of prestige.Footnote 26 Her study of the building programme of the dynast Kuprlli (minting coins c.480–440)Footnote 27 on the acropolis extends this analysis.Footnote 28 On the one hand, Draycott suggests that Kuprlli's new buildings may have intentionally created the impression of an acropolis to suggest Xanthus’ place next to Athens, Delphi and other poleis as an important Aegean city. On the other hand, the architecture of the new Buildings F, G and H is conspicuously Lycian: this is participation, not acculturation. Thus we might be cautious of leaning too heavily on the Lycians’ use of iconography from Greek vases on the fifth-century buildings on the acropolis: the relief depicting a winged nikē,Footnote 29 another with wild animals lifted from Attic vase painting,Footnote 30 and so on may not have been seen and valued as Greek but au courant.

It is under the dynast Arbinas in the early fourth century that we seem first to observe the pointed appropriation of Greek art and architecture. The Nereid Monument (390–380), widely considered to be the funerary monument of Arbinas, belongs to a tradition of ‘house tombs’ or ‘heroa’ perhaps beginning in Xanthus with Buildings F, G and H.Footnote 31 Unlike these Lycian-style buildings, however, the Nereid Monument has the form of an Ionic peripteral temple,Footnote 32 and placed between many of its columns were Greek-style statues of women atop sea creatures. Given the patently Greek character of the monument, these figures are commonly identified as Nereids,Footnote 33 and the monument is argued to appropriate the myth of the Nereids carrying the body of Achilles to the Isles of the Blest in order to suggest Arbinas’ heroization.Footnote 34 Some have rejected this interpretation, claiming that the monument is Lycian, not Greek: Thurstan Robinson argues that the female figures are not Nereids but Lycian water deities, the Eliyana.Footnote 35 In light of the monument's novel use of the Ionic order,Footnote 36 however, Robinson suggests that it was intended to be ‘(mis)read’ as a Greek temple by Greeks. If Arbinas could intend a Greek (mis)reading, it seems that he too could enjoy and promote such a double reading among Lycians, which sees both Eliyana and Nereids bearing him off in Greek style as a Lycian hero. To insist on the Nereid Monument's engagement with Greek art, architecture and ideas is neither to misread it nor to deign it a ‘manifesto of triumphant Hellenism’Footnote 37 but to recuperate it as a Lycian triumph of Greek appropriation.

By the late fifth century members of the Lycian elite were speaking Greek, and some had even adopted Greek names.Footnote 38 Still, Arbinas’ enthusiasm for Greek culture was exceptional, extending far beyond art. Thanks to two verse inscriptions accompanied by poetic signatures at the Letoon, the extra-urban sanctuary of Xanthus, we know that he engaged both a Greek diviner (μάντις, CEG 888.ii.18) named Symmachus from Pellana in the Peloponnese and a Greek physical trainer (παιδοτρίβας, CEG 889.ii.7) whose name is lost. As Andrej Petrovic argues, the authors’ designation of their poems as δῶρα (‘gifts’) for Arbinas (CEG 888.i.19, 889.ii.8) suggests that they were not itinerant professionals but personally associated with the dynast and/or resident in Lycia for a longer period of time.Footnote 39 Arbinas’ approval of these epigrams and their signatures for inscription suggests that he wished to publicize his relationship with Greek professionals to all who came to the Letoon, Lycians foremost among them. In the terms of Pierre Bourdieu,Footnote 40 Greek cultural products were a cultural capital Arbinas was eager to appropriate and display to reap the symbolic profits of distinction, setting himself apart from other dynasts, his courtiers and other elites who either did not possess it or possessed less of it. Scholars have noted the apparent weakness of Arbinas’ rule:Footnote 41 developing and displaying a distinctive cultural capital seems to have been a strategy to set himself apart on the local stage. It is as a cultural capital that we shall examine the Greek verse inscriptions of Arbinas and his father Gergis.

II. LYCIAN ALLUSIONS TO GREEK POETRY IN CEG 177 AND 888

In this section I assume an implied reader to allow a maximal interpretation of intertexts as meaningful allusions.Footnote 42 In the next section I will suggest in what ways a Lycian audience could have come to understand these allusions and deploy the epigrams as ‘social weapons’.

A new hero, a new centre (CEG 177 = SGO 17/10/01)

Gergis’ pillar tomb, the ‘Inscribed Pillar’, was probably set up in the late fifth century on the Xanthian ‘agora’ north of the acropolis.Footnote 43 Sporting the first extant Greek epigram on a Lycian monument and crowned by a statue of the dynast himself, this monument would have awed all who saw it, but most of all those who understood its Greek allusions. Here is the text and translation:

[ἐ]ξ οὗ τ’ Εὐρώπην [Ἀ]σίας δίχα πόν[τ]ος ἔνεμ[ε]ν,
[ο]ὐδές πω Λυκίων στήλην τοιάνδε ἀνέθηκ<ε>ν
[δ]ώδεκα θεοῖς ἀγορᾶς ἐν καθαρῶι τεμένει,
[ἔρ]γ̣ων καὶ πολέμου μνῆμα τόδ’ ἀθάν<α>τον.
[Γέ]ρ̣[γ]ις ὅδε Ἁρπάγο<υ> υἱὸς ἀριστεύσας τὰ ἅπαντα    5
[χε]ρσὶ πάλην Λυκίων τῶν τότ’ ἐν ἡλικίαι,
[πο]λλὰς δὲ ἀκροπόλες σὺν Ἀθηναίαι πτολιπόρθωι
[π]έρσας συνγενέσιν δῶκε μέρος βασιλέας⋅
ὧν χάριν ἀθάνατοί οἱ ἀπεμν<ή>σαντο δικαίαν.
ἑπτὰ δὲ ὁπλίτας κτεῖνεν ἐν ἡμέραι Ἀρκάδας ἄνδρας,    10
Ζηνὶ δὲ π<λ>ε̃στα τρόπαια β<ρ>οτῶν ἔ[στ]ησεν ἁπάν<τ>ων,
καλλίστοις δ’ ἔργοις Κα[ρ]ίκα γένος ἐστεφάνωσεν.

From the time the sea rent Europe asunder from Asia, no one of the Lycians ever dedicated such a stēlē to the twelve gods in the pure sanctuary of the agora, this immortal monument of deeds and war. This Gergis, son of Harpagus, having beaten on all occasions with his hands in wrestling the Lycians then in his age group, and having sacked many acropoleis with the help of Athena, sacker of cities, gave a share of kingship to his relatives; for the sake of which things the immortals rendered him rightful thanks. He slaughtered seven hoplites, Arcadian men, in a day, and to Zeus he set up the most trophies of all mortals, and he crowned the house of Karika with most beautiful deeds.

The opening verse announces the poet's distinctive mode of glorification: the appropriation and refashioning of Greek poetry. The first line is taken whole from the beginning of a famous epigram attributed to Simonides (45 FGE) celebrating a Delian League victory over the Persians, probably at Cyprus (450/449).Footnote 44 Already in 1900 Otto Benndorf argued that this quotation was polemical.Footnote 45 The Delian League had compelled Lycia to join at some point in the fifth century, perhaps in preparations for Eurymedon.Footnote 46 By the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, however, Lycia had defected, and Thucydides reports (2.69) that in 430/429 the stratēgos Melesandrus was killed in Lycia and his troops routed on an expedition collecting funds. Now on display on the Xanthian acropolis, Benndorf suggested that Simonides’ image of the continental divide of Europe and Asia no longer prefigured the Athenians’ defeat of Persia but Lycia's defeat of Athens.Footnote 47

This Simonidean epigram made for fine spoils, indeed: judging from allusions to it in verse inscriptions on Athenian public monuments,Footnote 48 the poem was well known and highly valued. As if its first line were not enough, Paola Ceccarelli has shown that the first four lines of CEG 177 respond carefully to the first four lines of the Simonidean epigram.Footnote 49 I quote these here, emphasizing the parallels (Simon. 45.870–3 FGE):

ἐξ οὗ τ’ Εὐρώπην Ἀσίας δίχα πόντος ἔνειμεν
καὶ πόλιας θνητῶν θοῦρος Ἄρης ἐπέχει,
οὐδέν πω τοιοῦτον ἐπιχθονίων γένετ’ ἀνδρῶν
ἔργον ἐν ἠπείρωι καὶ κατὰ πόντον ἅμα⋅

From the time when the sea rent Europe asunder from Asia and rushing Ares held sway over men's cities, no deed of men took place upon the earth of such a kind, simultaneously on land and by sea.

Additionally, Ceccarelli makes the tentative suggestion that the description of Gergis’ wrestling victories (CEG 177.5–6) might recall Simonides’ image in the final couplet of Asia groaning as she is pummelled by the Greek ‘fists’ of naval and infantry battle (μέγα δ’ ἔστενεν Ἀσὶς ὑπ’ αὐτῶν | πληγεῖσ’ ἀμφοτέραις χερσὶ κράτει πολέμου, Simon. 45.876–7 FGE).Footnote 50 This echo is attractive, especially in light of how intently CEG 177 recalls its Simonidean model. On this reading, the poet of CEG 177 fashions Gergis as the avenger not only of Lycia but of all Asia, giving Athens the proverbial chair.

The Simonidean allusion of CEG 177 has received the lion's share of scholarly attention,Footnote 51 and so we turn now to two intertexts that have been largely ignored.Footnote 52 The first is to tragedy, the Athenian literary genre par excellence. The poet's description of Gergis’ wrestling talent (ἀριστεύσας τὰ ἅπαντα | [χε]ρσὶ πάλην, 5–6) echoes the conclusion of an important speech in Sophocles’ Trachiniae, where the herald Lichas reveals to Deianeira that her husband Heracles has fallen for Iole, princess of Oechalia, and taken her home with him. Lichas concludes his unfortunate news: ὡς τἄλλ’ ἐκεῖνος πάντ’ ἀριστεύων χεροῖν | τοῦ τῆσδ’ ἔρωτος εἰς ἅπανθ’ ἥσσων ἔφυ (‘As in other matters he altogether excelled with his hands, he was altogether defeated by his desire for this girl’, 488–9).

Scholars have long cited this passage as a parallel for CEG 177.5–6, as the rare phrase πάντ’ ἀριστεύω refers to wrestling only in these two passages.Footnote 53 Seeing as Heracles’ portrayal in Trachiniae was famous enough to be alluded to in an epigram of the fourth-century Daochus Monument in Delphi,Footnote 54 we might consider another intentional allusion to this play in CEG 177. As argued by Louis Robert,Footnote 55 Heracles was the interpretatio Graeca of the Anatolian rider-god Kakasbos worshipped in Lycia and thus worthy of dynastic emulation. Yet, the Heracles of Sophocles’ Trachiniae offers further attractions for Gergis. Heracles, we recall, had won an archery contest for Iole's hand and, upon being rebuffed by her father Eurytus, sacked the city and took her by force. If any Athenian tragedy were to be popular in Lycia, it would be Trachiniae: Heracles’ aretai, archery and city-sacking, were key components of Lycian excellence, and dynasts made a point of celebrating their achievements in them.Footnote 56 The Sophoclean allusion in CEG 177 thus models Gergis on a fittingly ‘Lycian’ Heracles. Further, for most of the tragedy Heracles is off-stage on Euboea consecrating altars and sacrificing to Zeus.Footnote 57 In this way too Sophocles’ Heracles is a fitting model for Gergis, who also prided himself on his piety to Trqqas, the Lycian storm god analogous to Zeus;Footnote 58 the Inscribed Pillar's Lycian Chronicle even celebrates Gergis’ dedication of altars in Trqqas’ sanctuaries, much like the dedications of Heracles.Footnote 59 As a result, on reaching the climactic boast of CEG 177 that no mortal ever set up more trophies to Zeus than Gergis (Ζηνὶ δὲ π<λ>ε̃στα τρόπαια β<ρ>οτῶν ἔ[στ]ησεν ἁπάν<τ>ων, 11), the reader, aware of the Sophoclean intertext, can appreciate that Gergis has even surpassed Heracles.Footnote 60

The sensitive fashioning in CEG 177 of a Lycian hero from the cloth of Greek poetry is also on display in an allusion to Hesiod's Theogony. When Gergis sacked many cities, his poet notes that the gods thanked him: ὧν χάριν ἀθάνατοί οἱ ἀπεμν<ή>σαντο δικαίαν (‘for which things the immortals rendered him just thanks in return’, CEG 177.9). Scholars have long cited as a parallel Hes. Theog. 503, οἵ οἱ ἀπεμνήσαντο χάριν εὐεργεσιάων (‘[the Cyclopes] who rendered him [Zeus] thanks in return for his benefactions’).Footnote 61 The possibility of meaningful allusion has not to my knowledge been discussed, but the context of Theog. 503 suggests the passage's attractions to a Lycian audience. At Theog. 453–506 Hesiod narrates Zeus's birth and defeat of his father Cronus, putting him on the path to rule the immortals. Gergis’ trajectory bears obvious resemblances to Zeus's: Zeus, for example, excels like Gergis in wrestling, with which skill he will defeat his father Cronus (βίηι καὶ χερσί, Theog. 490). The phrase ἀπεμνήσαντο χάριν occurs at the close of this succession narrative in the lines quoted below (Theog. 501–6):

λῦσε δὲ πατροκασιγνήτους ὀλοῶν ὑπὸ δεσμῶν,
Οὐρανίδας, οὓς δῆσε πατὴρ ἀεσιφροσύνηισι⋅
οἵ οἱ ἀπεμνήσαντο χάριν εὐεργεσιάων,
δῶκαν δὲ βροντὴν ἠδ’ αἰθαλόεντα κεραυνὸν
καὶ στεροπήν⋅ τὸ πρὶν δὲ πελώρη Γαῖα κεκεύθει⋅
τοῖς πίσυνος θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισιν ἀνάσσει.

He released from grievous bonds the brothers from his father, sons of Ouranos, whom his father bound in folly; and they rendered him thanks in return for his benefactions and gave him thunder and the flashing thunderbolt and lightning, which earlier huge Gaia had hidden; reliant on these he rules mortals and immortals.

In freeing his uncles, the Cyclopes, Zeus resembles Gergis, who after sacking many cities gave a share of power to his relatives (συνγενέσιν δῶκε μέρος βασιλέας, CEG 177.8). Moreover, this episode of Zeus and the Cyclopes would have strong appeal to a Lycian audience: a tradition first witnessed by Strabo (8.6.11) holds that the walls of Tiryns were built by seven Cyclopes summoned from Lycia; and this Hesiodic passage depicts the very moment at which Zeus, in receiving thunder and lightning, assumed the attributes defining his Lycian analogue, the storm god Trqqas.

Given our poet's careful choice of hypotexts, it is tempting to push this Hesiodic allusion a step further. Immediately before freeing the Cyclopes, Zeus places the stone regurgitated by Cronus at Delphi to be both a σῆμα (‘sign’) and a θαῦμα (‘wonder’) for generations to come (Theog. 498–500):

τὸν μὲν Ζεὺς στήριξε κατὰ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης
Πυθοῖ ἐν ἠγαθέηι, γυάλοις ὕπο Παρνησσοῖο,
σῆμ’ ἔμεν ἐξοπίσω, θαῦμα θνητοῖσι βροτοῖσι.

This [the stone] Zeus fixed in the earth of broad ways in most holy Pytho, beneath the hollows of Parnassus, to be a sign for future time, a marvel for mortal men.

Hesiod here offers an aetion for the Delphic omphalos which marked the sanctuary as the centre of the world. Might our poet, thinking of the Lycian monument on which his epigram was to be inscribed, have hoped his reader would reflect on the Delphic omphalos preceding the passage to which he alluded? He does not, to be sure, describe the Inscribed Pillar in explicitly omphalic terms as a sēma or thauma. But it was certainly both: as Gergis’ tomb it was a sēma, and its quality as a thauma is announced at the start of the epigram ([ο]ὐδές πω Λυκίων στήλην τοιάνδε ἀνέθηκ<ε>ν, ‘no one of the Lycians ever set up such a stēlē’, CEG 177.2). On this reading, the poet appropriates the Delphic omphalos for the Inscribed Pillar in order to identify Xanthus as a new, yet ancient, centre of the oikoumenē. While an allusion to this passage may seem tenuous on textual grounds alone, it becomes more plausible in light of an action of Gergis’ son, Arbinas. CEG 888 commemorates his consultation of none other than the Delphic oracle on the matter of the dedication of his statue in the Letoon (Πυθῶι ἐρωτήσας Λητῶι μ’ ἀνέθηκεν ἑαυτο[ῦ] | εἰκόνα, CEG 888.i.9–10).Footnote 62 Arbinas’ manifest interest in Delphi suggests that his father's court may likewise have been intrigued by a play with Hesiod's aetion of the sanctuary's emblematic monument.

Taken together, the allusions of CEG 177 assert Xanthus and her dynast Gergis as central to, yet culturally distinct from, the inhabited Greek world. What was Greek has become Lycian: her Heracles is a Lycian warrior, her Zeus has become Trqqas, and even Delphi makes way for Xanthus.

Like father, like son, but better (CEG 888 = SGO 17/10/03)

The same allusivity characterizes CEG 888, a collection of epigrams inscribed on a statue base of Arbinas in the Letoon. In these poems, repeated allusions to CEG 177 and the Iliad fashion Arbinas as a Lycian Homeric hero who has even surpassed his father. The very monument on which CEG 888 is inscribed declares the son's desire to compete with him: although smaller than the Inscribed Pillar, it too is a monumental rectangular statue base inscribed in Greek and Lycian on all four sidesFootnote 63 which supports a statue of the dynast.Footnote 64 But the difference is obvious: instead of a twelve-line Greek epigram occupying part of one face, Arbinas’ monument boasts over fifty Greek verses inscribed on two faces all to themselves. The wide face presents a seventeen-line epigram in hexameters (CEG 888.i) followed by a sphragis, an elegiac couplet declaring the epigram to be the work of Symmachus of Pellana (CEG 888.ii). I shall refer to the verses of this side as Symmachus’ poem. The narrow face bears thirty-four extant verses, with perhaps eight to ten missing from the beginning, in a mix of hexameter and elegiacs (CEG 888.iii) without a sphragis. I shall call these the verses on the narrow face.Footnote 65

As CEG 177 took its structure from the Simonidean poem, Symmachus’ takes its structure from CEG 177. Both epigrams begin by describing the monument they accompany (CEG 177.1–4, 888.i.1–3); narrate the dynast's achievements, especially in youth (177.5–8, 888.i.4–7); affirm his divine favour (177.9, 888.i.8–9); and conclude with additional achievements and a statement of familial piety (177.9–12, 888.i.11–17). Borrowed diction reinforces structural similarity. In line 5, for example, the description of young Arbinas sacking three towns in a month (ἀ̣ρ[χῆι] ἐφ’ ἡλικίας πέρσας ἐμ μηνὶ τρία ἄσ[τη], CEG 888.i.5) combines reference to three passages of CEG 177: Gergis’ praise as best of his age-group (τῶν τότ’ ἐν ἡλικίαι, 6); celebration of his sacking many acropoleis with the help of Athena, sacker of cities ([πο]λλὰς δὲ ἀκροπόλες σὺν Ἀθηναίαι πτολιπόρθηι | [π]έρσας, 7–8); and his slaughter of seven Arcadians in one day (ἑπτὰ δὲ ὁπλίτας κτεῖνεν ἐν ἡμέραι Ἀρκάδας ἄνδρας, 10). At the same time as these echoes suggest Arbinas’ likeness to his father, they assert his higher order of magnitude. While young Gergis was busy wrestling, Arbinas was out sacking cities; although Gergis killed seven men in a day, Arbinas sacked three towns in a month.

Arbinas’ distinction from his father, however, is brought about even more through allusions to the Iliad. In his publication of the epigrams for Arbinas, Jean Bousquet noted copious echoes of Lycian portions of the Iliad; he did not, however, discuss the significance of the individual parallels that he observed.Footnote 66 Although in some cases Bousquet seems to cast too broad a net to gather such parallels,Footnote 67 several of his passages make compelling cases for Homeric allusion. I shall examine a selection below.

In one instance Symmachus pointedly appropriates the Iliad to elevate Arbinas over his father. Symmachus’ description of Arbinas’ sieges (πολλὰ μὲν ἄστεα ἔπερσε, CEG 888.i.12) recapitulates CEG 177.7–8 (πολλὰς δὲ ἀκροπόλες … πέρσας), but by substituting ἄστεα for ἀκροπόλες he alludes to the Catalogue of Ships, where Heracles is described as ‘having sacked many towns’ (πέρσας ἄστεα πολλά, Il. 2.660) in the same metrical position. Given that the Homeric passage appears to be the only other collocation of these words in a phrase,Footnote 68 allusion seems possible and would be of a piece with Arbinas’ iconographical programme strongly featuring Heracles.Footnote 69 Symmachus’ Homeric allusion thus dresses Gergis down: both may have sacked many cities, but Arbinas did so in Heraclean style.

Another parallel concerns the Lycians’ mythical king and lord of Xanthus, Sarpedon.Footnote 70 As the Iliad seems to offer an aetion for the hero's reception of cult on the Xanthian acropolis (Il. 16.676–83), his attractions to Arbinas are obvious.Footnote 71 Symmachus seems to allude to Sarpedon with the phrase πάντ’ ἐμ πᾶσι πρέπων (CEG 888.i.14), which echoes a description of Sarpedon's excellence in Iliad Book 12 (ὃ δ’ ἔπρεπε καὶ διὰ πάντων, ‘he stood out even among all men’, 12.104). Not only is this the only extant attestation of πρέπω διὰ πάντων or ἐν πᾶσιν before CEG 888, but also it occurs in the description of the Lycian contingent preceding the book's famous Lycian scenes, including Sarpedon's exhortation of Glaucus (12.310–28) and the Lycians’ attack on the Greek wall (12.329–441). Symmachus’ allusion to Sarpedon thus both likens Arbinas to his mythical predecessor and evokes some of his and the Lycians’ most memorable words and deeds.

We would be better able to evaluate the extent of the allusive programme in CEG 888 were the verses on the narrow face better preserved. There is, however, a tantalizing hemistich which merits attention: κῆλ̣[α] θ̣εῶν μὲν ἐγώ (‘I … the bolts of the gods’, CEG 888.iii.43). While the best-known κῆλα from the Iliad are Apollo's arrows of plague (κῆλα θεοῖο, Il. 1.53, 1.383), κῆλα figure prominently in a major simile at Il. 12.278–89, in which the stones volleyed across the Greek wall by both sides are compared to a violent snowstorm sent by Zeus, the snow figured as ‘those bolts of his’ (τὰ ἃ κῆλα, 12.280). This simile directly precedes Zeus's rousing of his son Sarpedon to fight (12.290–3). The poor preservation of CEG 888 here makes it difficult to tell the speaker's precise reason for invoking κῆλα θεῶν, but in light of his comparison of Arbinas to Achilles and other heroes, whose names are now lost, several lines later (CEG 888.iii.45), it seems possible that the ‘bolts of the gods’ may be meant to evoke the fierce battle between Greeks and Lycians in the Iliad.

III. ALLUSIVE EPIGRAMS AS LYCIAN ‘SOCIAL WEAPONS’

In no way, then, may we categorize the engagement of CEG 177 or CEG 888 with Greek poetry as ‘banal reminiscence’ or as ‘a superficial smattering of Greek’.Footnote 72 Rather, these epigrams allude intensely to Greece's vast poetic tradition to assert the distinctly Lycian identity of their dynasts and even, in the case of CEG 177, the city's central position in the Greek oikoumenē as an Athenian rival, a new Delphi, proudly her own. But is this how Lycians read these poems? Did they catch these references, almost Hellenistic in their surgical precision? Earlier scholars may have dismissed this possibility out of hand, but several considerations seem to make it plausible. As we have seen, these poets’ choice of passages relevant to Lycian culture suggests that they were writing with an appreciative Lycian audience in mind. Moreover, monuments and epigrams are exorbitantly expensive. Given that Gergis and Arbinas invested in bringing Greek trainers, diviners, artisans and poets to their courts, it is hard not to imagine their eagerness to appreciate these epigrams’ most valuable asset, that is, their allusive appropriation of the Greek poetic tradition.

How, then, could the Lycians have gained the knowledge of Greek poetry necessary to interpret such recherché poetry? Two social mechanisms suggest themselves. The first is Greek education. We have seen already that Arbinas had a Greek physical trainer (παιδοτρίβης) who composed an epigram for him inscribed in the Letoon (CEG 889); scholars have suggested that Arbinas likewise received an education in Greek mousikē.Footnote 73 Were this the case, we could reasonably assume that at least some in Lycia's dominant class adopted this fashion as well to keep up with their dynasts’ growing and ever more sophisticated appetite for Greek cultural capital.

A broader, yet still exclusive, audience of elites could have understood these epigrams’ allusions through their recitation and/or discussion at social gatherings of the court, especially dynastic banquets or symposia. Here the dynast would profit from putting to display his poet, an objectified cultural capital, to his courtiers, with whom the poet could discuss his latest composition according to Greek sympotic custom.Footnote 74 The possibility of Greek poetry's performance at dynastic symposia is established by the signatures of CEG 888 and 889, which reveal, as discussed in the first section, a personal relationship between the authors and Arbinas. As ritualized friends, these Greek professionals and poets would be welcome guests at his table. Still more intriguingly, a mid fourth-century verse inscription (SGO 17/19/03) on the monumental tomb of Apollonius in East Lycia, near Olympus, closely links dynastic drinking to Greek poetry. The epigram is inscribed below a relief depicting a funerary banquet, at which Apollonius reclines with a rhyton in hand, and complements the relief with sympotic themes:Footnote 75

τῆιδε θανὼν κεῖμαι Ἀπολλώνιος Ἑλλαφίλου παῖς.
ἠργασάμην δικαίως, ἡδὺν βίον εἶχον ἀεὶ ζῶν
ἐσθίων καὶ πίνων καὶ παίζων. ἀλλ’ ἴθι χαίρων.

Having died, here I lie, Apollonius, son of Hellaphilus. I did business justly, I always had a pleasurable life while living, eating and drinking and sporting. But go, faring well.

As Draycott notes, κεῖμαι in the first line refers not only to Apollonius’ eternal rest inside the tomb but also to his representation on it, reclining with drinking horn aloft.Footnote 76 In this way, the Greek epigram glosses Hellaphilus’ son as a Greek symposiast. Might this iconotext be evidence that in life as well as in death Apollonius enjoyed Greek poetry in the cups?

We need not assume, then, that Gergis, Arbinas and other Lycians had memorized thousands of Greek verses to be able to interpret such allusive epigrams: rather, their poets could interpret these poems for them. Thus, the group of Lycian cognoscenti would have been restricted in the first place to the dynasts themselves and their social circle at court. In this way these allusive epigrams could serve as social weapons, surgically sharpened to carve distinctions between the dynasts and their courtiers who invested in the cultural capital of Greek poetry and those who did not. We may, in fact, catch a significant glimpse of this competition of taste in Symmachus’ poem. At the beginning of his epigram, Symmachus praises Arbinas as συνέσει δυνάσει τε κ[ράτιστος] (‘most powerful in intelligence and strength’, CEG 888.i.4). Symmachus returns to the theme of intelligence in his sphragis: Σύμμαχος Εὐμήδεος Πελλανεὺς μάντις ἀ[μύμων] | δῶρον ἔτευξε ἐλεγῆια Ἀρβίναι εὐσυνέ[τω]ς (‘Symmachus, Eumedes’ son of Pellana, a [blameless] prophet, wrought these verses intelligently as a gift for Arbinas’, CEG 888.ii.18–19). Following his apparent use of the Homeric formula μάντις ἀμύμων, the adverb εὐσυνέτως here refers at least in part to Symmachus’ ‘intelligent’ use of Homeric allusion.Footnote 77 By a feat of skilled ring composition, Arbinas’ σύνεσις at the beginning of the epigram takes on a literary valence: like his intelligent poet, Arbinas embodies the Greek cultural capital necessary to appreciate and judge the value of this allusive epigram.Footnote 78 In effect, Symmachus cultivates a public image of Arbinas as a skilled reader of Greek verse, so that Greek poetic technē is asserted as a new aretē required of any Lycian who would compete with Arbinas for pre-eminence.

Courtiers take cues from the top, and so it is easy to imagine Gergis’ and Arbinas’ allusive Greek Muse forming a distinct taste for Greek poetry at their courts. Symmachus’ proclamation of Arbinas’ intelligence acts as a gauntlet thrown: Arbinas understands and values this poem; I should, but can I? Rolf Strootman has argued persuasively that in the Hellenistic courts allusive poetry kindled competition at symposia between courtiers vying to explain the text in the presence of the king, thereby displaying their cultural capital in hopes of winning royal favour.Footnote 79 Much the same can be imagined in the Xanthian court: seeing their dynast's investment in Greek poetry would prompt courtiers to do the same, keeping up with his taste in order to distinguish themselves from their own rivals.

IV. ANTICIPATING ALEXANDRIA: LYCIAN EPIGRAMS AS PRE-HELLENISTIC COURT POETRY

So far we have examined CEG 177 and 888 in their historical context of late fifth- and early fourth-century Lycia as marking an innovative engagement with Greek cultural products for local dynastic gains. In this final section I adopt a diachronic perspective to compare this Lycian court poetry to that of the Hellenistic courts, especially that of Ptolemaic Alexandria. It is my hope that a brief consideration of some remarkable similarities between these literary productions—in terms of allusivity, intercultural dynamics, legitimate judgement of taste, and the social position of poets—will shed new light on each of these courts’ poetry, separated though they are by over a century and differences in culture.

As scholars in recent decades have moved Hellenistic poetry out of the supposedly insular Museum into the court, the purpose of its poets’ famed allusivity has been re-evaluated. Encouraged by Gregory Hutchinson's observation that Hellenistic poetry is not all ‘scholarly quizzes’,Footnote 80 Gregor Weber suggested that all poetry, even the allusive, was suitable for performance at the king's symposia,Footnote 81 and scholars increasingly emphasize the royal symposium as an important venue for performing and/or discussing new poetry from the Museum.Footnote 82 In the previous section I mentioned Strootman's most recent argument that relates Hellenistic allusivity to courtiers’ social struggles at court. The Lycian epigrams offer a useful corroboration of this argument: composed as they were without the resources of the Museum, they suggest that the arte allusiva developed not solely as a reflex of the Library but rather as a poetic technique to draw social distinctions. At the same time, however, not all courts develop tastes for highly allusive verse: the Argead court of Archelaus, for example, contemporary with Gergis and Arbinas, seems to be a notable exception.Footnote 83 We should consider what other characteristics uniting the Lycian and Alexandrian courts may have motivated their poets’ development of similarly allusive tastes.

First and most important, Xanthus and Alexandria initially shared marginal positions in the traditional Greek world, both geographically and culturally. With rising interest in geopoetics in the wake of the Milan Posidippus,Footnote 84 scholars of Hellenistic poetry have drawn attention to how Callimachus and others re-centre old Greece around Alexandria.Footnote 85 I have tried to demonstrate similar strategies in CEG 177 and suggested that a Hesiodic allusion may even appropriate the centrality of the Delphic omphalos for Gergis’ Inscribed Pillar in Xanthus. In fact, the first poet to move the omphalos explicitly is none other than Callimachus. In his very Hesiodic Hymn to Zeus, Callimachus replaces Hesiod's aetion of the Delphic omphalos with that of the Omphalian plain in Crete (Hymn 1.42–5), thereby relocating the omphalos, as Susan Stephens has argued, halfway between Delphi and Alexandria, the old centre and the new.Footnote 86 Manipulating more than just space, Stephens has demonstrated that some Ptolemaic poets incorporated Egyptian pharaonic ideology into their works, even to the extent of constructing parallel Greek and Egyptian narratives.Footnote 87 The allusive articulations of Zeus-Trqqas and a ‘Lycian’ Heracles in CEG 177 encourage a similar double vision. Both courts, then, not only appropriated Greek poetry to assert their own centrality, but at the same time inscribed their cultural difference into the very texts they took for their own.

Yet another commonality of the Lycian and Alexandrian courts related to their allusivity is their elevation of the king over the poet as the ultimate arbiter of poetic technē. It is well known that the Ptolemies promoted themselves as paragons of literary excellence: their children had world-renowned tutors,Footnote 88 they themselves wrote literary works,Footnote 89 they bested their intellectuals in their respective fieldsFootnote 90 and, most significantly, they appointed the head of their Museum.Footnote 91 Their poets, moreover, do not contest this claim but reinforce it. At Id. 17.112–16, for example, Theocritus declares that Ptolemy II always gives gifts to poets at the festivals of Dionysus in accordance with their works’ technē: Philadelphus is here portrayed as an impartial and objective judge of craft who makes cultural capital visible for all to see in the clear language of gifts. Then again, in Idyll 14, Philadelphus is lauded as εἰς ἄκρον ἁδύς (‘the pinnacle of sweetness’, 61), a claim which, by echoing Theocritus’ own programmatic term ἁδύ (Id. 1.1),Footnote 92 thereby praises Ptolemy as Theocritus’ best critic.Footnote 93 In late fourth-century Lycia, Symmachus’ sphragis does much the same in lauding Arbinas as the knowledgeable reader whose σύνεσις renders him best able to appreciate the value of Symmachus’ allusive verses.

In both Lycia and Alexandria, the elevation of the king to the top position in the field of cultural production seems to have grown out of not only their patronage of professionals in many cultural fields but also, crucially, these intellectuals’ extended stays at court. Archaic and Classical poets travelled the oikoumenē offering their services to a wide network of competing patrons;Footnote 94 the Hellenistic and Lycian poets seem instead to have put down roots. By acquiring a semi-permanent entourage of poets, entrance to which the ruler controlled, both Lycian dynasts and Ptolemaic kings elevated themselves to the pole position as arbiters of cultural capital. Theirs was the only opinion which mattered.

In closing, I would like to offer a final related suggestion regarding the social status of the Lycian poets. Scholars have recently emphasized that Hellenistic poets were fully fledged courtiers competing among the philoi for the king's favour.Footnote 95 A Hellenistic court poet such as Callimachus differs greatly in this respect from his Archaic and Classical counterparts, who like Simonides went from court to court seeking and accepting patronage where he went. What about Symmachus of Pellana? As I mentioned in the first section, Petrovic has argued that Symmachus’ and the anonymous trainer's designations of their epigrams as gifts for Arbinas reveal that both were personally associated with Arbinas; coupled with their professions as a physical trainer and a religious official of the Letoon,Footnote 96 we may reasonably assume that they resided in Lycia for some time. Being as they were in residence at courts of the powerful, these Lycian poets resemble the poets of the Hellenistic age far more than they do the Archaic poets. Were Symmachus and the παιδοτρίβης similarly enmeshed in the social world of court? At the very least we may say that Symmachus presents the value of his poetic gift in a strongly antagonistic spirit: he is a knowledgeable poet composing for a knowledgeable dynast, a claim which both distinguishes Arbinas and challenges his courtiers to prove their own distinction in his court. Symmachus is fully aware of the value of his cultural capital at court; in a way strongly reminiscent of Posidippus’, Callimachus’ and Apollonius’ lifestyles, I would suggest that Symmachus, too, carved out a position for himself as a genuine courtier.

Footnotes

I would like to thank Andrej Petrovic for feedback on several drafts and Catherine Draycott, who in addition to offering suggestions on an earlier draft corresponded with me on matters of Lycian art and archaeology. I am grateful to several audiences at the University of Virginia, the Epigraphic Friday organized by Angelos Chaniotis at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Annual Meeting of CAMWS at Lincoln, NE. Finally I thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of Classical Quarterly for their suggestions for revision.

References

2 For the historical approach to CEG 177, see e.g. Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D. (edd.), A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century b.c. (Oxford, 1969), 282–3Google Scholar; for CEG 888, see especially Robert, L., ‘Les conquêtes du dynaste lycien Arbinas’, JS (1978), 3–48Google Scholar and Keen, 141–5.

3 In favour of Achaemenid ideology, see Herrenschmidt, C., ‘Une lecture iranisante du poème de Symmachos dedié à Arbinas, dynaste de Xanthos’, REA 87 (1985), 125–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Greek ideology, see Savalli, I., ‘L'idéologie dynastique des poèmes grecs de Xanthos’, AC 57 (1988), 103–23Google Scholar; for a Lycian synthesis of the two, see Roy, C. le, ‘Lieux de mémoire en Lycie’, Cahiers du centre Gustave Glotz 15 (2004), 7–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See especially Childs, W.A.P., ‘Lycian relations with Persians and Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries re-examined’, AS 31 (1981), 55–80Google Scholar, at 71 characterizing the use of Simonides in CEG 177 as likely evidence for ‘the cultural debt of Lycia to Athens’.

5 For CEG 177 see the parallels noted in Kalinka's commentary to TAM I.44 and Ceccarelli, P., ‘La struttura dell'epigramma del pilastro iscritto di Xanthos (TAM I 44 = CEG 177)’, in Dell'Era, A. and Russi, A. (edd.), Vir bonus, docendi peritus: omaggio dell'Università dell'Aquila a Giovanni Garuti (San Severo, 1996), 47–69Google Scholar. For CEG 888, see Bousquet, J., ‘Les inscriptions du Létôon en l'honneur d'Arbinas et l’épigramme grecque de la stèle de Xanthos’, in Metzger, H. (ed.), Fouilles de Xanthos 9 (Paris, 1992), 1.155–99Google Scholar, at 1.163–4.

6 Keen, 56–60.

7 Benndorf, O., ‘Zur Stele Xanthia’, JöAI 3 (Vienna, 1900), 98–120Google Scholar, at 117–18 already thought that the quotation of Simonides in CEG 177 was intended to humiliate resident Greeks. See more recently Asheri, D., Fra ellenismo e iranismo (Bologna, 1983), 104Google Scholar; T. Robinson, ‘Erbinna, the Nereid Monument and Xanthos’, in G. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Ancient Greeks, East and West (Oxford, 1999), 360–77, at 369.

8 Note, however, that Petrovic, A., ‘Epigrammatic contests, poeti vaganti and local history’, in Hunter, R. and Rutherford, I. (edd.), Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism (Cambridge, 2009), 195–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 214–15 tentatively suggests the possibility of Lycians apprehending and appreciating Homeric phrasing in CEG 888.

9 Thonemann, P., ‘Lycia, Athens and Amorges’, in Ma, J., Papazarkadas, N. and Parker, R. (edd.), Interpreting the Athenian Empire (London, 2009), 167–94Google Scholar, at 180–2 discussing the quotation of Simonides in CEG 177 (treated below).

10 A similar claim has been made by Borchhardt, J., ‘Die Bedeutung der lykischen Königshöfe für die Entstehung des Portraits’, in von Steuben, H. (ed.), Antike Porträts: Zum Gedächtnis von Helga von Heintze (Möhnesee, 1999), 53–84Google Scholar, arguing that the political dynamics of Lycian courts provided a stimulus for the region's development of ruler portraits in advance of the Hellenistic period.

11 I am here indebted to Catherine Draycott for discussing this scholarship with me in correspondence, and steering me through the archaeological material.

12 G. Rodenwaldt, ‘Griechische Reliefs in Lykien’, SPAW (1933), 1028–55, at 1055.

13 For models of the phases of ‘Hellenization’ in Lycian art, see Demargne, P., ‘Xanthos et les problèmes de l'hellénisation au temps de la Grèce classique’, CRAI (1974), 584–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 587–90 and Demargne, P., ‘Le décor sculpté des monuments funéraires de Xanthos: principes explicatifs d'un art grec au service d'une idéologie orientale’, in Méthodologie iconographique: actes du colloque de Strasbourg 27–28 avril 1979 (Strasbourg, 1981), 85–9Google Scholar.

14 E.g. Metzger, H., ‘Sur deux groupes des reliefs “Gréco-Perses” d'Asie Mineure’, AC 40 (1971), 505–25Google Scholar, at 522 describes Lycians’ passive adoption of Greek art; Demargne (n. 13 [1974]), 589 even attributed the long time it took Lycians to produce art of high Attic classicism to their resistance to an ‘humanisme trop tôt rationnel pour ceux qu'on appelle des Barbares’ (‘a rational humanism too early for those called Barbarians’). On such assumptions smuggled in with ‘Hellenization’, see Robinson (n. 7), 361–3 and Raimond, E.A., ‘Hellenization and Lycian cults during the Achaemenid period’, in Tuplin, C. (ed.), Persian Responses: Political and Cultural Interaction with(in) the Achaemenid Empire (Swansea, 2007), 143–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 143.

15 E.g. Raimond (n. 14), 149–57 suggests that Greek acculturation in the dynastic period is best considered politically motivated action on the part of philhellenic Lycian dynasts. I discuss Catherine Draycott's relevant work in section I below.

16 See e.g. Courtils, J. des, ‘Xanthos archaïque: une survivance du système palatial archaïque jusqu'au Ve siècle a.C.?’, in Summerer, L., Ivantchik, A. and von Kienlin, A. (edd.), Kelainai – Apameia Kibotos: Stadtentwicklung im anatolischen Kontext/Kélainai – Apamée Kibôtos: développement urbain dans le contexte anatolien. Akten des Kolloquiums, München 2 April–4 April 2009 (Bordeaux, 2011), 359–68Google Scholar.

17 See Işık, F., ‘Lykian civilization's transition from Hellas to Anatolia during the “25 year” period of Patara excavations’, in İşkan, H. and Işık, F. (edd.), From Sand into a City: 25 Years of Patara Excavations, International Symposium Proceedings, 11–13 Nov. 2013 Antalya, Patara VII.1 (Istanbul, 2015), 619–40Google Scholar; he argues at 624–6 that Ionia was Anatolian, so the use of Ionian art or architecture is not to be understood as an engagement with Greek culture. Others reinterpret art and architecture previously described as Greek as Anatolian or expressing Anatolian ideas: on the Nereid Monument, see Robinson, T., ‘The Nereid Monument at Xanthos or the Eliyana Monument at Arnña?’, OJA 14 (1995), 355–9Google Scholar and Robinson (n. 7) (discussed below).

18 Discussing SGO 17/19/03, a fourth-century sepulchral epigram in Greek for Apollonius, son of Hellaphilus, in East Lycia, Haake, M., ‘Die patchwork-Repräsentation eines lykischen Dynasten: Apollonios, Sohn des Hellaphilos, und das Grab vom Asartaş Tepesi’, in Winter, E. (ed.), Vom Euphrat bis zum Bosporus: Kleinasien in der Antike. Festschrift für Elmar Schwertheim zum 65. Geburtstag (Bonn, 2008), 1.277–96Google Scholar, at 1.288 argues that the epigram, though written in Greek, does not express Greek ideas. He criticizes the approach of Wörrle, M., ‘Leben und Sterben wie ein Fürst: Überlegungen zu den Inschriften eines neuen Dynastengrabes in Lykien’, Chiron 28 (1998), 77–83Google Scholar and ‘Die Inschriften am Grab des Apollonios am Asartaş von Yazir in Ostlykien’, Lykia 3 (1996–7), 24–38, suggesting the influence of Greek sympotic poetry and ideology of kingship on Apollonius’ self-representation.

19 My work thus complements the recent study of Chrubasik, B., ‘From pre-Makkabaean Judaea to Hekatomnid Karia and back again’, in Chrubasik, B. and King, D. (edd.), Hellenism and the Local Communities of the Eastern Mediterranean: 400 b.c.e.–250 c.e. (Oxford, 2017), 83–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arguing at 96–104 that the Hecatomnids adopted Greek cultural practices in order to distinguish themselves from local competitors.

20 Sometimes called the ‘Lycian acropolis’ to distinguish it from the ‘Roman acropolis’. There has been a tendency to avoid using the terms ‘acropolis’ and ‘agora’ attested in the Greek epigrams to designate Xanthian spaces (acropolis: CEG 888.iii.36; agora: CEG 177.3) so as not to impose ‘Greek’ ideas on Lycia. See now, however, Draycott, C.M., ‘“Heroa” and the city: Kuprlli's new architecture and the making of the “Lycian acropolis” of Xanthus in the early Classical period’, AS 65 (2015), 97–142Google Scholar, who suggests the usefulness of these terms to express possible Lycian intent.

21 See Metzger, H., Fouilles de Xanthos 4 (Paris, 1972), 188–91Google Scholar, considering them evidence of trade; Keen, 66 suggests inter alia relations of xenia. Lycian-Greek relations already existed in the Bronze Age, and in the Iron Age relations with Rhodes were strong: see the overview of these periods by Raimond (n. 14), 144–9.

22 On the dynastic class, see Keen, 50–6 and C.M. Draycott, ‘Dynastic definitions: differentiating status claims in the Archaic pillar tomb reliefs of Lycia’, in A. Sagona and A. Çilingirloğlu (edd.), Anatolian Iron Ages 6 (Leuven, 2007), 103–34.

23 For the kouros, H. Metzger, Fouilles de Xanthos 2 (Paris, 1963), 93–4, pl. 51; for the perirrhanterion see 94–6, pl. 52. Draycott (n. 20), 105 discusses both.

24 Metzger (n. 23), 51, pls. 33.2, 35.

25 On Lycian pillar tombs, see P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos 1 (Paris, 1958). Draycott (n. 22), 105–18 discusses their form and function; her figure at 121 usefully shows differences in size and design.

26 Draycott (n. 22), 123–6, suggesting at 119 the likelihood that the artist was likewise ‘imported’.

27 For an overview of his rule, see Keen, 112–24.

28 Draycott (n. 20).

29 P. Demargne, ‘Sur un relief de Xanthos’, RA (1968), 85–92.

30 H. Metzger, ‘La frise de satyres et de fauves de l'acropole de Xanthos’, in Mansel'e Armağan (Mélanges Mansel) (Ankara, 1974), 1.127–37, pls. 63–4.

31 See Draycott (n. 20), 111–20, 126–7.

32 Coupel, P. and Demargne, P., Fouilles de Xanthos 3 (Paris, 1969), 71–89Google Scholar, pls. 26–33.

33 W.A.P. Childs and P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos 8 (Paris, 1989), 167–9 on the Nereids. For an overview of the monument, see now W.A.P. Childs, Greek Art and Aesthetics in the 4th Century b.c. (Princeton, 2018), 219–21.

34 Childs and Demargne (n. 33), 270–7.

35 Robinson (n. 7), with his formulation at 358 ‘Greek style should not be mistaken for Greek content’. Differently Işık (n. 17), 629 argues that the Ionic style is Anatolian.

36 All the more conspicuous, it should be noted, vis-à-vis the Lycian-style temples Arbinas had built at the Letoon, the extra-urban sanctuary of Xanthos, around 400: see J. des Courtils, ‘From Elyanas to Leto: the physical evolution of the sanctuary of Leto at Xanthos’, in C. Gates, J. Morin and T. Zimmermann (edd.), Sacred Landscapes in Anatolia and Neighboring Regions (Oxford, 2009), 63–7.

37 P. Demargne and H. Metzger, ‘Xanthos (33)’, RE 2nd ser. 9.2 (1967), 1375–408, at 1391.

38 On the use of Greek by the Lycian elite, see Asheri (n. 7), 120–3 and C. le Roy, ‘La formation d'une société provinciale en Asie Mineure: l'exemple lycien’, in E. Frézouls (ed.), Sociétés urbaines, sociétés rurales dans l'Asie Mineure et la Syrie hellénistiques et romaines (Strasbourg, 1987), 41–7.

39 Petrovic (n. 8), 196–200.

40 On cultural capital, see P. Bourdieu, ‘The forms of capital’, in J. Richardson (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York, 1986), 241–58, at 243–8. My discussion of distinction and cultural capital as a social weapon is indebted to P. Bourdieu (transl. R. Nice), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, MA, 1984).

41 Keen, 145–7.

42 On the implied reader with reference to epigram, see D. Meyer, ‘The act of reading and the act of writing in Hellenistic epigram’, in P. Bing and J.S. Bruss (edd.), Brill's Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden, 2007), 187–210, at 187–91.

43 On the Inscribed Pillar, see Demargne (n. 25), 77–105 and P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos 5 (Paris, 1974), 113; Keen, 9 gives an overview focussed on the inscriptions. The identity of the tomb-holder has been much debated. M. Domingo Gygax and W. Tietz, ‘“He who of all mankind set up the most numerous trophies to Zeus”: the Inscribed Pillar of Xanthos reconsidered’, AS 55 (2005), 89–98, at 91–2 provide a survey of older scholarship and argue persuasively that Gergis commissioned the monument for himself. The Greek epigram is accompanied by two Lycian inscriptions covering the rest of that face and the remaining three. These are a lengthy prose description in Lycian A of Lycian dynastic history, centred around Gergis’ Harpagid line (the ‘Lycian Chronicle’, TAM I.44a1–c19), and a metrical inscription in Lycian B (TAM I.44c32–d71), possibly a eulogy for Gergis, on which see J. Borchhardt, H. Eichner and K. Schulz, Kerththi oder der Versuch, eine antike Siedlung der Klassik in Zentrallykien zu identifizieren (Antalya, 2005), 21. Domingo Gygax and Tietz (this note), 92–7 argue that only the Greek inscription coincides with the Pillar's original design and that the Lycian inscriptions were added later; for this reason, they think that the ‘agora’ was north of the Pillar from where the Greek inscription would be visible. Thonemann (n. 9), 185 n. 23, however, objects to their arguments on grounds of epigraphic implausibility.

44 On the transmission and question of the battle to which the epigram refers, see FGE, 266–8.

45 Benndorf (n. 7), 117–18, not cited by Thonemann (n. 9).

46 See Keen, 97–111. For Lycian relations with Athens in the mid fifth century, see Childs (n. 4), 55–72; Keen, 125–35.

47 Benndorf made the additional point that the Inscribed Pillar's ‘Lycian Chronicle’ seems to attribute the defeat of Melesandrus and his army not to Gergis but to Trbbẽnimi, who Thonemann (n. 9), 176 suggests was an East Lycian dynast: see the translations of TAM I.44a.44–5 by Thonemann (n. 9), 175 and Schürr, D., ‘Eine lykische Fluchformel mit Zukunft’, EA 43 (2010), 149–58Google Scholar, at 152; contra, T.R. Bryce, The Lycians: Volume I. The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources (Copenhagen, 1986), 107 (followed by Keen, 131), taking Gergis as the subject. On the difficult chronology of this section of the Lycian Chronicle, see Schürr, D., ‘Kaunos in lykischer Inschriften’, Kadmos 36 (1998), 127–40Google Scholar and Thonemann (n. 9), 174–80.

48 See CEG 6.ii = IG I3 1162, an epigram accompanying the Athenian casualty lists of 447, and CEG 890.i = IG II2 1141.1–4, accompanying the tribe Cecropis’ resolution of 376/5 to praise and crown Pyrrhus and Sosibius for their benefactions.

49 Ceccarelli (n. 5), 53.

50 Ceccarelli (n. 5), 65 n. 34.

51 Simonidean epigram seems to have been known by Lycians more broadly: SGO 17/19/03, the sepulchral epigram for Apollonius, son of Hellaphilus, echoes Simonides’ satirical epigram on the dead poet Timocreon of Rhodes (37 FGE). Moreover, the final image of Gergis crowning his lineage (Κα[ρ]ίκα γένος ἐστεφάνωσεν, 12) in CEG 177 recalls the phrase ἐστεφάνωσαν Ἀθήνας from the third line of the epigram on the monument for the Marathonomachoi found at Eua-Loukou; I owe this point to Angelos Chaniotis. In this case CEG 177 would appropriate yet another Athenian epigram from the Persian Wars. For the text of the Eua-Loukou epigram, see the editio princeps of G. Steinhauer, ‘Στήλη πεσόντων τῆς Ἐρεχθηίδος’, Horos 17–21 (2004–9), 679–92.

52 I will mention a third here whose significance is uncertain. Scholars since Benndorf (n. 7), 114 have noted a parallel between Gergis’ slaughter of seven men in a single day (CEG 177.10) and an Athenian verse inscription for Pythion of Megara, who slayed seven enemy soldiers while rescuing three Athenian tribes in the Megarian revolt of 446 (CEG 83.2–3 = IG I3 1353, c.447–425). Asheri (n. 7), 93–5 and Ceccarelli (n. 5), 54–5 argue that killing seven men in a day was a trope, but their parallels are not wholly compelling. If Gergis’ seven Arcadians were in the service of the Athenian-backed Amorges—as Meiggs and Lewis (n. 2), 283 and Keen, 136–7 have suggested—the poet could here be making another allusive jab at Athens by appropriating Pythion's praise for Lycia. But other occasions for Gergis’ aristeia have been suggested: see references in Keen, 133 and D. Schürr, ‘Formen der Akkulturation in Lykien: Griechisch-lykische Sprachbeziehungen’, in C. Schuler (ed.), Griechische Epigraphik in Lykien: eine Zwischenbilanz (Vienna, 2007), 27–40, at 33. The question of allusion must therefore be left undecided.

53 Benndorf (n. 7), 114 and Kalinka at TAM I.48 attribute the parallel to Moritz Schmidt. The other Classical attestations are Soph. Ant. 195 and Pl. Resp. 540a.

54 CEG 795.ii.5, Soph. Trach. 1102; see P. Bing, ‘Inscribed epigrams in and out of sequence’, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Reguit and G.C. Wakker (edd.), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Leuven, 2014), 1–24, at 5.

55 Robert, L., Hellenica: recueil d’épigraphie, de numismatique et d'antiquités grecques (Paris, 1946)Google Scholar, 3.38–73.

56 Gergis’ sieges are praised at CEG 177.7–8, as are Arbinas’ at CEG 888.i.5–6, 12; 888.iii.24–5; 889.i.3. City sieges appear in Lycian funerary art, as in the Nereid Monument, on which see Childs and Demargne (n. 33), 255–6; see also W.A.P. Childs, The City-Reliefs of Lycia (Princeton, 1978), especially 48–84 discussing iconographic parallels. Arbinas’ archery is praised at CEG 888.i.15 and perhaps 888.iii.43, and Arbinas also minted coins depicting Heracles with a bow: see Mørkholm, O. and Zahle, J., ‘The coinages of the Lycian dynasts Kheriga, Kherêi and Erbbina: a numismatic and archaeological study’, AArch 47 (1976), 47–90Google Scholar, at 86. Regarding Lycian archery, Herodotus notes that the Milyans carried ‘Lycian bows’ (7.77) and describes the bows and unfeathered arrows carried by the Lycian marine contingent (7.92) which—as Keen, 229 notes—may but need not be representative of all Lycian troops.

57 See e.g. Soph. Trach. 237–8: ἀκτή τις ἔστ᾽ Εὐβοιίς, ἔνθ᾽ ὁρίζεται | βωμοὺς τέλη τ᾽ ἔγκαρπα Κηναίωι Διί (‘There is a Euboean headland, where he [Heracles] is setting up altars and fruitful offerings for Zeus Cenaeus’).

58 On the relationship between Trqqas, Zeus and Cronus, see Bryce (n. 47), 177 and Keen, 201–2. Raimond (n. 14), 153–4 argues that Cronus-Trqqas was a simple interpretatio Graeca whereas Zeus-Trqqas was politically motivated by philhellenic dynasts.

59 See TAM I.44b.51–2: se-dde tuwetẽ : kumeziya : τere τere : Trqqñti pddãtahi, translated as ‘and he has set up [altars?] to the local Trqqas throughout the sanctuaries’ by E. Laroche, ‘Les dieux de la Lycie classique d'après les textes lyciens’, in H. Metzger (ed.), Actes du colloque sur la Lycie antique: Bibliothèque de l'Institut français d’études anatoliennes d'Istanbul 27 (Paris, 1980), 1–6, at 3.

60 Indeed, this line too may allude to Sophocles’ Heracles: see the similar phrasing at Trach. 1102 (κοὐδεὶς τροπαῖ᾽ ἔστησε τῶν ἐμῶν χερῶν).

61 The parallel is noted by Benndorf (n. 7), 115 and Kalinka at TAM I.48; see also J. Bousquet, ‘Arbinas, fils de Gergis, dynaste de Xanthos’, CRAI (1975), 1.138–50, at 140, calling it a ‘souvenir hésiodéen’ (‘Hesiodic reminiscence’). CEG 177.9 may also recall Il. 24.428 τῶ οἱ ἀπομνήσαντο καὶ ἐν θανάτοιό περ αἴσηι, especially given the presence of ἀθάνατοι in the Lycian epigram. In the Homeric passage, Achilles has told Priam that the gods are preserving Hector's body from decay, which Priam attributes to the many gifts he gave them, ‘wherefore they returned him this favour even in the fate of death’. Could the poet of CEG 177 hereby suggest a similar preservation of Gergis’ body in the Inscribed Pillar? On the question of Lycian hero-cult for rulers, see H.-Nieswandt, H., ‘Zum Inschriftenpfeiler von Xanthos’, Boreas 18 (1995), 19–44Google Scholar, at 24–5. Recently Cavalier, L. and Courtils, J. des, ‘Permanence d'un culte héroïque dans la nécropole intra muros de Xanthos?’, in Konuk, K. (ed.), Stephanèphoros de l’économie antique à l'Asie Mineure: hommages à Raymond Descat (Bordeaux, 2012), 247–59Google Scholar and J. des Courtils, ‘The city of Xanthus: “lieu de mémoire” of the Lycians’, in E. Mortensen and B. Poulsen (edd.), Cityscapes and Monuments of Western Asia Minor: Memories and Identities (Oxford, 2017), 55–65 have argued on the basis of Hellenistic burials found at the base of the Harpy Monument and of a dedication made there by Ptolemaic mercenaries to ‘Kybernis’, the Lycian leader known from Hdt. 7.98, that the dynast received hero cult at his tomb, the Harpy Monument, upon his death. For the dedication, see P. Baker and G. Thériault, ‘Dédicace de mercenaires lagides pour Kybernis sur l'Acropole lycienne de Xanthos’, in P. Brun, L. Cavalier, K. Konuk and F. Prost (edd.), Actes du colloque Euploia, Bordeaux, Ausonius, 1–3 oct. 2009 (Bordeaux, 2013), 293–302. I thank Catherine Draycott for pointing me to this work.

62 On Arbinas’ Delphic consultation, see Bousquet (n. 5), 166–7.

63 I assume by this time that the Inscribed Pillar had been inscribed with its Lycian texts.

64 Bousquet (n. 61), 143 likewise characterizes the relationship between the monuments as imitation. For a description of this statue base for Arbinas (no. 6121), see A. Bourgarel and H. Metzger, ‘Les deux bases d'Arbinas’, in H. Metzger (ed.), Fouilles de Xanthos 9 (Paris, 1992), 1.149–54, at 1.150–4 with photographs at 2.72–3.

65 Whether these verses, which repeat much of Symmachus’ content with variation and expansion, are an unordered anthology, an ordered collection or a single epigram remains an open question: Bousquet (n. 5), 159 argues for an unordered anthology of variations on a theme; Petrovic (n. 8), 211 suggests that these are separate poems entered in an epigrammatic contest and judged worthy of inscription. The answer bears heavily on the question of the development of epigrammatic collections: for recent scholarship on this issue, see M. Fantuzzi, ‘Typologies of variation on a theme in Archaic and Classical metrical inscriptions’, in I. Petrovic, A. Petrovic and M. Baumbach (edd.), Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram (Cambridge, 2010), 289–310; Bing (n. 54); J.D. Day, ‘The “spatial dynamics” of Archaic and Classical Greek epigram: conversations among locations, monuments, texts, and viewer-readers’, in A. Petrovic, I. Petrovic and E. Thomas (edd.), The Materiality of Text: Placements, Presences, and Perceptions of Inscribed Text in Classical Antiquity (Leiden, 2018), 73–104.

66 For his parallels, see Bousquet (n. 5), 163–4; at 165 he describes the epigrams as ‘imitations’ of Greek poetry composed of ‘citations’, ‘reminiscences’, and the like.

67 E.g. at CEG 888.iii.36 ποίων γὰρ σὺ καλῶν ἐπιλείπεα̣[ι – ⏑ ⏑ – ⏓] Bousquet offers the supplement Ἀρβίνα ἀνδρῶν, yielding the sense ‘For of what sort of fine men do you, Arbinas, fall short?’ and notes a parallel with Heracles’ son Tlepolemus’ taunt that the Lycian leader Sarpedon cannot be Zeus's son, ‘since you fall far short of those men born of Zeus in the days of earlier men’ (ἐπεὶ πολλὸν κείνων ἐπιδεύεαι ἀνδρῶν | οἳ Διὸς ἐξεγένοντο ἐπὶ προτέρων ἀνθρώπων, Il. 5.636–7). Tempting as this parallel is, the differing semantic ranges of ἐπιδεύομαι and ἐπιλείπω make Bousquet's supplement difficult. Whereas ἐπιδεύομαι can be used for a person who falls short of another (LSJ s.v. 2), the lexica cite no such use of ἐπιλείπω in the passive. I would thus hesitate before positing allusion here.

68 Perhaps there is also a reminiscence of Od. 1.1–3 ὃς μάλα πολλὰ | πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε⋅ | πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω.

69 For Arbinas’ coinage depicting Heracles, along with that of the dynast Kherêi, see the discussion by Mørkholm and Zahle (n. 56), 85–7. Heracles also appears in the coinage of Kuprlli, discussed by O. Mørkholm and J. Zahle, ‘The coinage of Kuprlli: a numismatic and archaeological study’, AArch 43 (1972), 57–113, at 101–2. For Heracles or Theseus as the model of Arbinas on the Grand Frieze of the Nereid Monument, see Childs and Demargne (n. 33), 255, 262. For these reasons Bousquet's supplement [Ἡ]ρακλε[–––––] at CEG 888.iii.48 is attractive.

70 For Xanthus as his domain, see e.g. Il. 12.313.

71 Further, Keen, 186–92 argues that Building G on the Xanthian acropolis (c.460) was the Sarpedoneion known from Appian (B Civ. 4.78), suggesting at 147 that the Nereid Monument was designed as a herōon imitating it. Other identifications of Building G and the Sarpedoneion have recently been proposed: Draycott (n. 20), 122–6 argues that Buildings F, G and H could have been memorials for contemporary Xanthians (Kuprlli and family?) who ‘refounded’ Xanthus; L. Cavalier, ‘Appien, le Sarpédonion et le rempart de Xanthos’, in S. Ladstätter, B. Beck-Brandt and B. Marksteiner-Yener (edd.), Turm und Tor: Siedlungsstrukturen in Lykien und benachbarten Kulturlandschaften. Akten des Kolloquiums in Gedenken an Thomas Marksteiner (Vienna, 2015), 132–41 reinterprets Appian in light of recent excavations, arguing that the Sarpedoneion was located instead on the ‘upper agora’ in the city centre.

72 Asheri (n. 7), 87, 105 on CEG 177.

73 E.g. Domingo Gygax and Tietz (n. 43), 95 assume that the παιδοτρίβης was also Arbinas’ teacher.

74 On the sympotic origins of literary criticism, see A. Ford, The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece (Princeton, 2004), 25–45.

75 The influence of Greek sympotic poetry on the epigram is discussed in the studies of Wörrle (n. 18).

76 Draycott, C.M., ‘Drinking to death: the “Totenmahl”, drinking culture and funerary representation in late Archaic and Achaemenid western Anatolia’, in Draycott, C.M. and Stamatopoulou, M. (edd.), Dining & Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the ‘Funerary Banquet’ in Ancient Art, Burial and Belief (Leuven, 2016), 219–98Google Scholar, at 255.

77 Petrovic (n. 8), 214 understands εὐσυνέτως passively as referring to the Homeric diction making the poem ‘intelligible’. The same would be conveyed by the active meaning: a poem wrought ‘intelligently’ will be ‘intelligible’ to the ‘intelligent’.

78 For a different, political interpretation of σύνεσις, see Savalli (n. 3), 106–7.

79 See most recently Strootman, R., The Birdcage of the Muses: Patronage of the Arts and Sciences at the Ptolemaic Imperial Court, 305–222 b.c.e. (Leuven, 2017), 78Google Scholar.

80 Hutchinson, G.O., Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford, 1988), 6–7Google Scholar.

81 Weber, G., Dichtung und höfische Gesellschaft: Die Rezeption von Zeitgeschichte am Hof der ersten drei Ptolemäern (Stuttgart, 1993), 181–2Google Scholar.

82 See especially Alan Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton, 1995), 71–103; Murray, O., ‘Ptolemaic royal patronage’, in McKechnie, P. and Guillaume, P. (edd.), Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World (Leiden, 2008), 7–24Google Scholar, at 20–4; Acosta-Hughes, B. and Stephens, S.A., Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets (Cambridge, 2013), 130–45Google Scholar.

83 Hecht, C., Zwischen Athen und Alexandria: Dichter und Künstler beim makedonischen König Archelaos (Wiesbaden, 2017)Google Scholar only identifies ‘hypotextuality’, which she claims at 39 is characteristic of Hellenistic poetry, in one instance from Archelaus’ court, namely the general relationship of Timotheus’ Persae to the Aeschylean tragedy, discussed at 153; needless to say, this seems a far cry from Hellenistic allusivity.

84 See e.g. Bing, P., ‘The politics and poetics of geography in the Milan Posidippus, section one: On Stones (AB 1–20)’, in Gutzwiller, K. (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford, 2005), 119–40Google Scholar.

85 For this aspect of Callimachus’ poetry, see M. Asper, ‘Dimensions of power: Callimachean geopoetics and the Ptolemaic empire’, in B. Acosta-Hughes, L. Lehnus and S. Stephens (edd.), Brill's Companion to Callimachus (Leiden, 2011), 153–77 and Acosta-Hughes and Stephens (n. 82), 148–203.

86 Stephens, S.A., Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley, 2003), 103–4Google Scholar.

87 See especially Stephens (n. 86). Not all poets shared this strategy, however, Posidippus being a notable exception, as the Ptolemies also had use for a solidly Graeco-Macedonian representation abroad: see Stephens, S.A., ‘Battle of the books’, in Gutzwiller, K. (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford, 2005), 229–48Google Scholar.

88 Notably Philitas of Cos for Ptolemy II. On royal tutors, see Fraser, P.M., Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1972), 1.308–9Google Scholar.

89 Ptolemy I Soter wrote a history of Alexander (FGrHist 138); Ptolemy IV Philopator wrote a tragedy Adonis (TrGF 119) and perhaps also the epigram on Aratus (SH 712) attributed to ‘King Ptolemy of Egypt’.

90 See e.g. the anecdote about Philadelphus’ clever grammatical joke played on Sosibius ὁ λυτικός, a grammarian famous for ‘solving’ literary puzzles (Ath. Deipn. 11.493f–11.494a).

91 Strabo 17.1.8; on the Museum and Library, see Fraser (n. 88), 1.312–35.

92 The first word of the Idylls even in antiquity, since the scholia's prefatory note to Idyll 1 claims it begins the collection because it is χαριέστερον καὶ τεχνικώτερον τῶν ἄλλων (I.b Wendel).

93 I owe this observation to Ivana Petrovic.

94 On Archaic and Classical court poets’ mobility, see G. Weber, ‘Poesie und Poeten an den Höfen vorhellenistischer Monarchen: συνῆσαν δὲ ἄρα καὶ τότε βασιλεῦσι ποιηταί (Paus. 1, 2, 3)’, Klio 74 (1992), 25–77, at 52. For sources and evaluation of Simonides’ career, see Molyneux, J.H., Simonides: An Historical Study (Waucunda, IL, 1992)Google Scholar.

95 Strootman (n. 79), 99–114 argues that poets were courtiers like any other on the grounds that they portray their poetry as a gift given in exchange for patronage, and (at 69–73) that gift-exchange was the heart of Hellenistic courtiership. Some poets are explicitly named philoi in our sources: the New Comedy poet Philippides was a philos of Lysimachus (Plut. Vit. Demetr. 12.5), and a certain Hegesianax, author of a fifteen-book history of the Trojan War and of poetry, became a philos of Antiochus III (Ath. Deipn. 4.155b–c). While other poets may have been titled philoi (Callimachus seems as likely a case as any, on which see Cameron [n. 82], 3–11), it is safer instead to focus on how they presented themselves as philoi as a stratagem to secure and maintain patronage. See the analysis of Hellenistic court scientists’ self-representation by Berrey, M., Hellenistic Science at Court (Berlin, 2017), 89–125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 If Symmachus, the μάντις ἀ[μύμων] (CEG 888.ii.18), is also the πρόπολος sent by Leto to Arbinas (CEG 888.iii.27–8).