8. Notes on the Lithika of Posidippus [1] Richard Hunter, University of Cambridge The first group of epigrams is one of many surprises on the Milan papyrus, though perhaps it should not have been so. Lithika is indeed a genre not… Read more
9. Elusive Stones: Reading Posidippus’ Lithika through Technical Writing on Stones Martyn Smith, Emory University Posidippus [1] writes with an acute sense of the exceptional. In several places within the Lithika section of the new papyrus he highlights the “marvel” or… Read more
10. A Garland of Stones: Hellenistic Lithika as Reflections on Poetic Transformation David Schur, Miami University, Ohio Drawing inspiration from the importance of floral metaphors for poetry in the Western literary tradition and in our conception of the Hellenistic epigram tradition particularly, I think it would… Read more
11. ‘Winged Words’: Poetry and Divination in Posidippus’ Oiônoskopika [*] Manuel Baumbach, University of Heidelberg Kai Trampedach, University of Konstanz ὄρνιθες δέ τε πολλοὶ ὑπ᾿ αὐγὰς ἠελίοιοφοιτῶσ᾿, οὐδέ τε πάντες ἐναίσιμοι [1]… Read more
12. For You, Arsinoe … Susan Stephens, Stanford University The recent publication of P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 not only provides us with a substantial portion of an epigram collection from the early Hellenistic period, it allows us important new insights into the ways in which the images… Read more
13. Posidippus and the Mysteries: Epitymbia Read by the Ancient Historian Beate Dignas, University of Michigan Grave Inscriptions—Grave Epigrams Ancient historians and epigraphists rarely consider Hellenistic poetry in their research. Although literally transmitted funerary epigrams have been absorbed frequently in epigraphic corpora, skepticism prevails even… Read more
20. Ptolemaic Homers We may correlate this period of innovation in rhapsodic performances, roughly from the fourth to the first centuries BCE, with a small corpus of Homeric papyri from the Ptolemaic period (305–145 BCE) that stand out for the peculiarity of their divergences from the vulgate… Read more
21. Conclusions and Prospects Nearly fifty years ago Raphael Sealey cautioned his readers that in regard to the Homeridae, the fifth-century clan from Chios who at one time claimed exclusive descent from Homer: the distinction that has been drawn … between a poet and a mere… Read more
Appendix I. Ritual ΑΙΣΧΡΟΛΟΓΙΑ There are numerous ritual contexts in ancient Greece that call for joking and abuse, generally termed αἰσχρολογία ‘obscenity’. We may think immediately here of ἴαμβος ‘iambic verse’, but this category of joking must be extended to include several terms that are not altogether… Read more
Appendix II. The Discourse of Disputation: Three Comparative Typologies Formalized speech events involving insult and games of verbal dueling reproduce in microcosm the social and cultural values that give them meaning. In order to elucidate those meanings, however, the “internal” and “external” frames of the game need… Read more
