Richard Hunter’s book meets a genuine need. Interest in epigram continues to explode with annotated editions (G. Staab, Gebrochener Glanz (Berlin 2018)), monographs (F. Licciardello, Deixis and Frames of Reference (Berlin 2022)), conference volumes (M. Kanellou, I. Petrovic and C. Carey (eds), Greek Epigram (Oxford 2019)), a Blackwell Companion (ed. C. Henriksén (Hoboken 2019)) and the Dictionnaire de l’épigramme littéraire (ed. C. Urlacher-Becht (Turnhout 2022)). Much of this work serves specialist readers, but the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics introduced a broader audience to literary epigram with A. Sens’ Hellenistic Epigrams (2020). Hunter provides a comparably excellent entry into the largest category of inscribed epigrams, namely, epitaphs.
After introducing the topic helpfully (1–34), Hunter presents (37–67) and comments on (69–252) 81 Greek texts from many areas and periods (late seventh century BCE to third CE), divided into two categories: I–XLVII for men, XLVIII–LXXXI for women. The epitaphs are private, typically family-sponsored; those commissioned by political authorities are excluded, an unfortunate omission only for earlier times. Commentaries include introductions discussing significant issues and line-by-line notes. Cited scholarship is generally up-to-date; rare lapses include XXXVI, where Staab 2018: 236-53 *03/02/77 is missed, and readers can access https://iospe.kcl.ac.uk/3.196.html for LXXVI. A bibliography, concordances (mainly to Bernand, CEG, GVI, IK, SEG and SGO) and indices round off the volume.
Hunter is clear-eyed about what he does not provide, namely, an epigraphical edition: ‘I have taken various liberties with the texts for the sake of accessibility and legibility’ (33). These ‘liberties’, which to epigraphical purists will seem a throwback to P. Friedländer and H. Hoffleit’s Epigrammata (Berkeley 1948), include regularization of epichoric orthography, layout by verse rather than inscribed line (the two often correspond, but line divisions are nowhere marked), absence of sublinear dots and the inclusion of emendations without angle brackets (letters on the stones do appear in the apparatus). One cannot, however, disagree with Hunter’s goal of accommodating ‘readers with widely differing literary and historical interests and widely different levels of linguistic attainment’ (33). Comments on gravestone iconography are understandably minimal, but a bit more introduction to the riches of text and image would be welcome.
The title, Epitaphic Poetry, reveals much about what Hunter does provide. Apart from establishing texts, scholarship on inscribed epigram tends to focus on material and cultural matters. In contrast, Hunter marries formidable knowledge of Greek poetry to wide experience with inscribed verse to produce, not only 81 philologically learned commentaries, but cumulatively a sensitive treatment of poetic quality in epigraphic verse.
Hunter parses unusual verb forms and frequently offers several interpretations of unclear passages. Instances of ‘sound-play’ merit comment (LIV), and he is especially attentive to dialect and metre. He notes, for instance, that Doricisms in two stanzas of LXVIII, as against Ionic forms in the others, match the emotional content by echoing Doric lament. He indicates metrical irregularities and explains oddities like XLIII in sotadeans; but he also points to skill in standard versification, as in XV (one spondee in three couplets) and LXVIII (bucolic diaeresis in every hexameter).
Hunter makes no excessive claims about epitaphic poeticity. Language and themes originating in literary poetry (for example, a husband mourning like Admetus: LXVIII; 29–33 treat Alcestis and epitaphs) can appear so frequently that Hunter allows for circulating pattern books alongside oral tradition (10–16). Nevertheless, he rightly emphasizes variety, ‘self-conscious play with the traditions and voice of epitaphic poetry’ (116 on XXVII) and a ‘broadening of the scope and ambition’ (27) of post-classical epigrams. One text from Alexandria ‘suggests a poet in touch with the Alexandrian mode’ (89 on XV), while another reflects the contemporary Callimachus (191 on LX). Epitaphs of multiple stanzas or poems rank among the most ambitious: the parts of LXVIII ‘pick up recurrent themes … there is an emotional narrative running through the whole’ (205). Poetic quality was apparently one criterion for Hunter’s selection from around 5,000 verse epitaphs (2 n.6).
Interesting historical and cultural matters perhaps constituted another criterion. Women’s death in childbirth is sadly frequent: LXV, LXX, LXXVII, LXXX. Race figures prominently in XLV, which commemorates a slave from Nubia by contrasting his ‘dark skin and the “white flowers” of his soul’ (163). Some poems assume a happy afterlife like that of the gold lamellae (21–28; XIII, XLII, LXXIX, LXXXI). We find unusual deaths: a boy fallen from a tree (XXXVIII), a murder victim (XLI), a woman who died during a festival (LXXI), a girl struck by lightning (LXXIX) and Pomptilla, who prayed to die in her husband’s place (LXXIV).
This volume provides a good feel for nearly a millennium of Greek epitaphic poetry, its stereotyping beside a capacity to surprise, its linguistic awkwardness beside high poetic quality. Hunter will inspire scholars to dig deeper, teachers to bring these texts into classes and graduate students to realize that, despite all the recent work, inscribed verse holds untapped riches.
