The general sense of lines 1–2 is clear, and, while no one emendation has won universal support, many scholars agree in seeing in κοιμήσατο a corruption of κόνις. Gow and Page however consider σὰ πάλαι κοιμήσατο to be ‘highly plausible’, but, as they note, we would then have to presume two lines to be missing between 1 and 2, as there seems to be no way of reconciling σὰ πάλαι κοιμήσατο †δεσμῶν with the following line. However, having a total of six lines devoted to the description of Doricha, with only two for the answering δέ clause and two for the envoi, seems out of keeping with the brevity we find elsewhere in Posidippus, and funerary epigram generally. Thus assuming κοιμήσατο to be corrupt remains more prudent than positing a lacuna after line 1.

As for the end of the line, the most plausible emendations are Wilamowitz's ἀναδέσμη and Austin's ὅ τε δεσμός, both of which supply the expected ‘band’ for the genitive χαίτης. Of Jacob's ἀπόδεσμοι MeinekeFootnote ¹ observed that the word always refers to a band worn around the breast, and Gow-Page ad loc. raise the same objection to Mackail's ἀπόδεσμος. True, and we certainly cannot read ἀπόδεσμοι or ἀπόδεσμος χαίτης as meaning ‘the band(s) of your hair’.Footnote ² We could however read ἀπόδεσμοι | χαίτη θ’.Footnote ³ Similar to a μίτρα or στρόφιον, the ἀπόδεσμος was a band worn around or under the breasts (better translated as ‘bandeau’ or ‘breast-band’ than ‘corset’ or ‘girdle’), as Aristophanes, fr. 338 K.-A. (Thesm. II) indicates: τὴν πτέρυγα παραλύσασα τοῦ χιτωνίου | καὶ τῶν ἀποδέσμων οἷς ἐνῆν τιτθίδια. Fr. 332, from the same play, mentions both the ἀπόδεσμος (13) and the ἀμπέχονον (7). Epigrams addressed to or recording dedications by hetairai form a distinct group within Hellenistic epigram, and mention of their lingerie is a common topos, thus Callimachus, Epigr. 38 Pf. (XX G.-P.) records a dedication to Aphrodite by Σῖμον ἡ περίφοιτος of her μίτρην | ἣ μαστοὺς ἐφύλασσε (Fabri's correction of Anth. Pal.'s ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἐφίλησε).Footnote ⁴

This emendation is also palaeographically straightforward: ΚΟΝΙϹΗΔΑΠΟ > ΚΟΙΜΗϹΑΤΟ, with the left vertical of Ν becoming Ι, the remainder of the nu merging with the following Ι and Ϲ to yield Μ, and ΗΔ becoming ΗϹ, while the desire to supply a verb and similarity of letter shapes would easily result in ΑΠΟ changing to ΑΤΟ. Lastly, many scribal hands show a similar execution of Θ and Ϲ, and thus ΧΑΙΤΗΘ would easily result in ΧΑΙΤΗϹ, particularly given the breakdown in syntax in the preceding line and the seeming need for a genitive following δεσμῶν or its intermediary form. We can thus restore the first two lines and translate the poem as follows:

*****

Before the sands of Egypt surrendered nearly six hundred lines of the epigrammatist from Pella, the reputation of Posidippus rested on little over twenty poems, amongst which the Doricha poem was already conspicuous. In recent years there have been several discussions of the poem, many of which, it is argued here, err with respect to the memorial envisaged for Doricha, and thus on the interpretation of the poem overall.Footnote ⁵ Gow and Page offer a literal and minimalist interpretation of the poem. For them it is simply ‘[o]n a monument at Naucratis to the hetaera Doricha, mistress of Sappho's brother Charaxus’. For them one of the main difficulties is φίλης in line 5, which they describe as ‘a surprising adj., for ᾠδῆς, though it may embrace the whole of Sappho's poetry, is here relevant only to what she wrote about Doricha. The adj. can hardly mean friendly, for according to Athenaeus … Sappho's references to Doricha were the reverse; and indeed Pos. seems to overlook the equivocal character of Doricha's immortality.’ Gow and Page's concerns regarding φίλης are echoed by Lidov,Footnote ⁶ and this point will be addressed below. However, Gow and Page do Posidippus a disservice by suggesting that he ‘overlook[s] the equivocal character of Doricha's immortality’—as we will see, he does quite the reverse.

The context for Posidippus’ epigram is the story, handed down by Herodotus, Strabo, Athenaeus and Ovid, that Sappho's brother Charaxus fell under the sway of a hetaira at Naucratis named Doricha (or Rhodopis), which led to financial ruin and public shame for Charaxus and by extension his family. As a result of this Sappho is supposed to have attacked Charaxus and/or Doricha in her poetry.Footnote ⁷ The interpretation of the testimonia concerning Charaxus and Doricha, as well as the relevant fragments of Sappho, have recently received treatment elsewhere.Footnote ⁸ For our purposes it suffices to note that Posidippus most likely did know a poem or poems by Sappho which in general agreed with our testimonia, and that he expected his readers to be familiar with the tradition as well.

A further point to address before continuing is how to punctuate and interpret the last four lines of the poem. Gow and Page punctuate with a full stop at the end of line 6, with οὔνομα σὸν μακαριστόν beginning a new sentence. Austin and Bastianini however have revived the idea of having no punctuation at the end of line 6, and take οὔνομα σὸν μακαριστόν as the object of a participial phrase Σαπφῷαι … λευκαὶ φθεγγόμεναι σελίδες, translating ‘but Sappho's clear columns of lovely song remain and will still remain, giving voice to your blessed name …’. Footnote ⁹ φθέγγομαι as a transitive in the sense ‘sing, celebrate x’ is a usage mostly confined to Pindar.Footnote ¹⁰ While this does not rule out a transitive use here, the more common intransitive use, along with the word order, favours the interpretation as a participial adjective qualifying σελίδες rather than a participial phrase governing οὔνομα. Furthermore, a new sentence beginning with οὔνομα σὸν μακαριστόν provides the typical envoi with which many funerary epigrams conclude, giving the epigram a tripartite structure.Footnote ¹¹ These considerations thus favour retaining the punctuation of G.-P. over that of A.-B.

In 1997 RosenmeyerFootnote ¹² suggested that the ship that sails from the Nile could be carrying papyri or skilled performers, thus perpetuating Doricha's fame through the poetry of Sappho. This suggestion has been expanded upon by Bing,Footnote ¹³ who argues that ὧδε is anaphoric, referring back to the λευκαὶ φθεγγόμεναι σελίδες: ‘Posidippus pointedly thwarts epitaphic expectation. For ὧδε here refers back to the ability of the papyrus-scroll to bestow permanence on its subject … and therefore means that it is … “through the medium of the scroll” that Naucratis will preserve the hetaira's name.’Footnote ¹⁴ Bing commends Rosenmeyer for observing that the ship was ‘probably laden with papyri’, and suggests that ‘Naucratis was indeed ideally located in the Delta to play a significant part in the papyrus trade.’ This interpretation is endorsed by both Yatromanolakis and Acosta-Hughes.Footnote ¹⁵ All of these interpretations are however guilty of the fault of which Gow and Page accused Posidippus, namely overlooking the equivocal nature of Doricha's immortality.

There are two significant objections to the idea that Doricha's memory will be perpetuated through the export of papyri from Naucratis. Namely (a) it fails to take sufficient account of the fact that the hetaira Doricha was herself associated with Naucratis. All our ancient testimonia agree that Charaxus took up with Doricha at Naucratis, a city which, furthermore, was renowned in antiquity for its courtesans.Footnote ¹⁶ Given the Naucratite context for the affair of Charaxus and Doricha in Sappho, as well as the city's reputation for its courtesans and prostitutes throughout antiquity, it would be incredible if the presence of Naucratis in Posidippus’ epigram signified no more than its role in the ancient book-trade. And (b) while it could be argued that the renown of Doricha could be perpetuated through Sappho's songs, Posidippus could hardly suggest, or his readers hardly credit, that the condemnatory description of Doricha in Sappho could have contributed to her name being μακαριστόν, ‘blessed’.Footnote ¹⁷

What many discussions of the poem tend to neglect is the pointed contrast between lines 5–6 and 7–8. Each sentence of the poem begins with the emphatic fronting of its subject, Δωρίχα at line 1, Σαπφῷαι at line 5, and οὔνομα at line 7, with 1 and 7 forming a ring. The happiness of Doricha's name is not contingent upon Sappho's dear songs,Footnote ¹⁸ but upon Naucratis. The δέ clause at 5–6 simply provides the counterbalance to 1–4: the woman is long dead, as is her romance with Charaxus, but the story of the affair lives on through Sappho's songs. The blessedness of her name however is dependent upon ships from Egypt plying the seas, a point which is emphasized by the asyndetic and emphatic οὔνομα σὸν μακαριστόν. How then does Naucratis safeguard her name? ὧδε does thwart epitaphic expectation, as Bing righty observes, meaning not ‘here’—that is by means of the monument on which these lines are inscribed—but is rather cataphoric ‘thus, as follows’, referring to ἔστ’ ἂν ἴῃ Νείλου ναῦς ἐφ’ ἁλὸς πελάγη.Footnote ¹⁹ However, this does not refer to the ability of the papyrus-scroll to bestow permanence on its subject. Rather it exploits the reputation of Naucratis, and specifically signals the significance of Naucratis within the tradition of Charaxus and Doricha: as long as ships sail forth from the Nile, the renown of the hetairai and pornai of Naucratis will ensure the preservation of the renown of Doricha, the city's most famous daughter—it was after all a merchant ship that brought Charaxus to Naucratis and thus to Doricha in the first place.Footnote ²⁰ The symbiotic relationship between merchant seamen and prostitutes and courtesans is itself a topos in Hellenistic epigram, as a near-contemporary epigram attributed to Simonides reveals (‘Simonides’ I G.-P. = Anth. Pal. 5.159):

Posidippus’ epigram exploits the subtext of the role of merchants and seafaring both within the story of Charaxus and Doricha, and within the tropes of contemporary epigrammatic discourse on hetairai. Furthermore, φυλάσσω can mean not only ‘guard’, ‘protect’ but also ‘maintain’, ‘preserve’, ‘cherish’. Here the verb too subverts the expectations of funerary epitaph, for rather than meaning ‘guard’ in the way that a physical monument can be said to guard the memory of the deceased, we have that other sense of φυλάσσω ‘preserve’, ‘cherish’. Naucratis, a focal node in the ancient sex-trade, cherishes and perpetuates the name of Doricha through the continued activity and renown of its hetairai and pornai, whose renown in turn is disseminated by the merchants on board their seagoing ships.

Thus rather than having a somewhat pedestrian reference to the export of papyri, we can reconcile the presence of Naucratis in the poem with its role in the story of Charaxus and Doricha as sung by Sappho, as well as contextualize Posidippus’ epigram within contemporary epigrammatic discourse. Finally, we can absolve Posidippus of either wilfully or ineptly overlooking the single most important fact about Doricha within the context of Sappho's poetry and the ancient biographical tradition: that she was in fact a courtesan.