1

POSIDIPPUS,

POSIDIPPUS, THE

THE MILAN

MILAN PAPYRUS,

PAPYRUS, AND

AND SOME

SOME HELLENISTIC

HELLENISTIC

ANTHOLOGIES

ANTHOLOGIES

Franco

Franco Ferrari

Ferrari

1.

1. A

A Puzzling

Puzzling

Marginale

Marginale

All sixteen columns of P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 are written in a style dating back
to ca. 220 BC and contain 112 epigrams, some of which are wholly
preserved. Of these two (AB 15 and 65) are ascribed to Posidippus by
Tzetzes (

Chil. 7.653-660) and the Planudean Anthology (AP 16.119). Based

on these considerations, Bastianini and Gallazzi, the first editors of the Milan
papyrus, and Austin and Bastianini, who published the

editio minor,

attributed all 112 epigrams to the Pellaean poet.

Following their theory, Bastianini and Gallazzi proposed an interpretation for
the letters appearing on the left margin next to epigrams 40, 69, 70, 72,
73, 77, 86, and 112. This

marginale was inserted by a hand (m. 4) different

from that of the main copyist (m. 1) and of the readers who inserted
corrections to the text (m. 2 and m. 3), and Bastianini and Gallazzi have
interpreted it as an abbreviation of Ë(). Ë(), they have argued, was
inserted by someone who intended to select a number of poems for further
study or in order to compile a new collection. Nevertheless, is not a
common abbreviation of Ë, nor are there extant examples of the use of a
marginal as an abbreviation of Ë.

1

The closest known parallel is

associated with

lemmata of the Greek Anthology, where Ë (ÈË) appears

frequently as a heading of epigrams that are associated with the poet who
authored the directly preceding poem(s). must therefore have the same
meaning which it has in Ë ÈË: simply “by”.

If we interpret as an abbreviation of Ë › (by this or by this poet) we
can therefore infer that, after having ascertained the anonymity of all the
epigrams of the collection, the scholar to whom manus

4 belonged singled

out those poems whose authors he thought he could identify. He probably

1

MacName 1977, p. 457 quotes only one example of

Ë()

, that is P. Oxy. 1604 (Pindar's

Dithyrambs), but this is not a real parallel: in fact, at sch. 6 we read

(Ë)

, as Grenfell and Hunt

correctly noted.

2

never finished his job for lack of philological tools or of the patience to

collate the

libelli of each poet. We may observe a parallel situation in P.

Petrie 2.49(a) (see infra), where the copyist did not complete his index, but
stopped after naming the first poet.

In my opinion the eight instances of that are spread over the Milan scroll
offer strong evidence for the anthological character of this collection and
specifically imply an anthology in which the predominance of poems that
were composed by Posidippus led a learned reader to identify the rest. This
theory explains then the total absence of

lemmata, as well as the infrequent

presence of .

Let us turn again to the reasons why all Milan epigrams have been attributed
to Posidippus. The editors have argued that taking into consideration a) the
fact that two epigrams can be attributed with confidence to the Pellaean
poet, as well as b) the character of epigram collections in the third and
second centuries BC, we must conclude that all remaining Milan epigrams
are apples from the same tree. In other words, because we know of the
existence of Hellenistic epigram rolls that were ascribed to single authors,
each epigram present in the Milan scroll must be ascribed to Posidippus.

2

The above perspective is perhaps too rash a conclusion given the general
inquiries that were carried out on Hellenistic epigram anthologies by
A. Cameron and L. Argentieri.

3

In particular, in

The Greek Anthology from

Meleager to Planudes (1993) Alan Cameron has maintained that, even if we

cannot exclude with certainty the existence of some large and
comprehensive pre-Meleagrian anthology, "it cannot be said that the papyri
so far found lend any real support to the hypothesis."

4

In his

Epigramma e

libro: morfologia delle raccolte epigrammatiche premeleagree (1998),

Lorenzo Argentieri has sketched out a development of epigram collections
along the chronological stages of a) the pre-Hellenistic

sylloge, when one

compiled without creating; b) the

libelli of the third and second centuries

BC, when one created without compiling; and c) of the later

anthologiae,

when, from Meleager onward, poet-editors compiled in order to create.
Based on these considerations, the Milan scroll must belong to the genre of
the

libellus or self-edition, in which the arrangement of poems belonging to

a single author depended on thematic or verbal links.

2

Bastianini-Gallazzi, p. 22.

3

For a similar but less drastic outlook see also Gutzwiller 1998, pp. 16-35.

4

Cameron 1993, p. 9.

3

2.

2. Hellenistic

Hellenistic anthologies

anthologies

At least one early Hellenistic exception

to the rule of the single-authored

libellus has been recognised by Bastianini and Gallazzi in P. Petrie 2.49b (=

SH 985). The papyrus in question dates to the second half of third century

BC and was published by J.P. Mahaffy in 1893. It was recently revisited by
Francesca Maltomini

5

who proposed a number of new readings. It contains a

series of quatrains all devoted to theatrical plays, and among the playwrights
are Sosiphanes, Aristarchus, Astydamas, and Pratinas. All quatrains are
preceded by titles placed in

eisthesis. In Cameron and Gutzwiller's opinion

6

this scroll contained a series of epigrams that were joined thematically and
written by the same poet. However, such a possibility is unlikely, especially
given the fact that the surviving ancient bio-bibliographical scholarship
supplies no information on collections by a single poet that were devoted to
the presentation of theatrical plays. More plausible seems to be a remark by
Lloyd-Jones and Parsons, according to which this scroll contained a
repertory of epigrams on dramatic texts that was compiled by someone who
liked to record these single poems on copies of the plays to which they
referred.

7

If this book was a collection of epigrams that were used in

building dramatic editions, it is therefore plausible to suggest, as F.
Maltomini did, that what really mattered for a reader to know about each
poem was not the author’s name but its subject and its purpose.

An overview of other relevant documents is in order:

a) P. Petrie 2.49a = P. Lond. Lit. 60 (= 961

SH), dated to ca. 250 BC. and

associated with Posidippus. On the

verso are two titles, written vertically and

reciprocally reversed: on the left [§]|µµ µ|µ "miscellaneous
epigrams", on the right ʵµ | §%µµ[] | "miscellaneous
epigrams by Posidippus".

According to Lloyd-Jones and Parsons,

8

haec, ut videtur, libri inscriptio …

nomen Posidippi et spatio seiunctum at ad dextram retractum: voluit igitur

5

Cf. Maltomini 2001.

6

Cf. Cameron 1993, p. 8 and Gutzwiller 1998, p. 23.

7

SH, p. 502.

8

SH, p. 465. Bastianini 2002, p. 4 objects that in the title that contains the poet's name,

(

is written by a hand different from that of the two previous lines, so that we could think

that

(

was not correlated to

ʵµ §%µµ

. Nevertheless, one cannot see, given

4

librarius non "epigrammata varia Posidippi" sed "epigrammata varia:

Posidippi..."; sequi debebant altera poetarum nomina, quae tamen omisit …

hoc si ita est, anthologiam habemus.

Cameron

9

also agrees that in this case the title placed on the right implies

that the first poem was written by Posidippus and that the copyist did not
trouble to finish his list of contents.

This scroll may have been a copy of a collection presented to Arsinoe II and
Ptolemy II Philadelphus on the occasion of their wedding in ca. 275 BC, to
which the elegy refers that was placed at the beginning.

b) P. Köln V 204, published by M. Gronewald in 1985 and written ca. 230 BC,
seems also to be an anthology. It preserves the remains of six epigrams
under the lemma []%, a Doric poet of the third century. Nos. 1 and 2
are unknown, no. 3 is

AP 7.488, transmitted under the name Mnasalces; no.

4 is

AP 6.266 (3 Gow-Page), but transmitted under the name of Hegesippus;

nos. 5 and 6 are unknown. In Gronewald’s opinion the attribution of no. 4 in
the

Palatina is wrong. Alternatively the version recorded on the papyrus is a

variation or an adaptation on a poem by Hegesippus by Mnasalces.

Nevertheless, arguing in favor of the attribution of epigram no. 4 to
Hegesippus, as the

lemma of the Palatina has it, are the traces of ink that are

actually preserved just above it. Gronewald was in doubt about the reading
["(], but he admittted that the first readable letter is probably pi and
the third

epsilon, which led Cameron to restore the text plausibly as

["(]() §[((µµ).

c) P. Vindob G 40611 (second half of third century BC) contains 240 lines by
two different hands under the title & §Êµ « §µµ% § '
Ê "the epigrams looked for in the first Book", and then, at the
beginning of col. v, there is § ' Ê "in the second Book" (cf. also §
' Ê in fr. c). The first editor, H. Harrauer (1981), has been able to
identify only one

incipit, from an epigram by Asclepiades, AP 12.46 (= 15 G-

P).

the placement of

(

under

ʵµ | §%µµ[]

, how the diversity of hands could

change the gist of the question.

9

Cameron 1993, pp. 7-8.

5

More than 200

incipits were gathered together by the compiler of this

papyrus from another collection which had been divided in various books
and was more extended. The presence of stichometric accounts suggests that
the epigrams listed here were selected in order to be copied. Next to each

incipit is the number of the poem’s lines, and at the end of several columns

we find the total of all the numerals; lastly, the totals of each section have
been recorded at the end of the first and the second section.

As a matter of fact, what we see on the second papyrus is the layout plan of
an anthology which ought to be a reduced version of a larger collection.

10

Based on evidence from P. Oxy. 3724 which is dated to the end of the first
century BC, Cameron concluded that

11

we cannot exlude that these

incipits

were all by Asclepiades. In my opinion, P. Oxy. 3274 leads to a different
conclusion: a series of epigrams and of hexameter poems are followed by
seven columns by a different hand which contain several

incipits of epigrams

(the last two columns are on the

verso) of which 25 or 27 have been

recognized as works by Philodemus, while another two can be attributed to
Asclepiades (

AP 5.150 and 5.145).

12

The numerical disproportion between

Philodemus and Asclepiades therefore suggests a collection in which the
prevailing presence of a given author (in this case Philodemus) admitted on
occasion epigrams by other poets.

d) A long time ago, Wifstrand proved the independence of the collection
preserved in P. Freib. 4 (=

SH 973), which is dated to the first century BC,

from Meleager's

Garland (published about 100 BC).

13

It preserves the

remains of some epigrams: the first of these, of which only three words
survive, but which was perhaps the model or a copy of

AP 16 (Plan).293, has

been thought to be about Homer; lines 8-11 dealt with Homer’s fatherland,
and their text has been partially recovered from a Berlin

ostracon (P. Berol.

Inv. 4757 =

BKT V i, p. 78); lines 12-15 are almost entirely lost; lines 17-20

are by Theodoridas

AP 9.743 = 17 G-P and refer to the twelve bronze cows

sculptured by Phradmon; lines 21-24 are badly damaged; and lastly lines 26-
29 are by Posidippus (

AP 16 (Plan).119) and refer to a sculpture of

Alexander by Lysippus. This epigram has also survived in the Milan scroll (AB
65).

10

Maltomini 2003, p. 68 n. 5.

11

Cameron 1993, p. 10.

12

For a detailed survey see Sider 1997, pp. 203-224.

13

Wifstrand 1926, pp. 30-33.

6

e) P. Tebt. 3 (I century BC) is an

epigrammatum anthologiae fragmentum

(Lloyd-Jones and Parsons). More precisely, lines 1-12 (=

SH 988) are the

ekphrasis of a sculpture or a painting which represented the death of

Phaethon; lines 13-20 present an epigram by Alcaeus of Messene which can
be found also in the

Palatina (9.588 = 17 G-P), with a dedication by

Hermocrates of a sculpture representing his son Clytomachus, champion
pancratiast; lines 22-25, with the lemma [(] (AB 117), concern a
literary work whose author (Asclepiades?) is dear to Posidippus; lines 26 ff.
= Asclep. 47 G-P, with the lemma [!], are about the painting of a
Spartan mother killing her cowardly son.

According to K. Gutzwiller

14

all these epigrams should be classified as

epideictic, but the Posidippean poem - an appeal to the Muses followed by
the praise of a friend publishing a book - is not epideictic: rather, the thread
which binds the entire sequence is artistic skill in painting, sculpture, and
poetry, and this is a theme that is absent from Meleager's

Garland.

15

Regardless of the problems that are associated with the compilations that
are discussed above, their evidence suggests that multi-authored epigram
anthologies existed before, or independently from, Meleager, and that some
of these such as P. Petrie 2.49b and P. Freib. 3 did not contain lemmata to
identify the authors. Nor do we find such lemmata in Hellenistic anthologies
like the

Elephantina Songs (lyrics and elegy) and the miscellaneous epigram-

like extracts, including the lyric lament of Helen and a landscape description
preserved on P. Tebt. 1.

16

Additionally, P. Petrie 2.49(a), P. Köln 204, and P. Oxy. 3724 suggest the
existence of collections in which a certain poet prevailed and to whose
poetry the poet himself or later compilers could add epigrams by other
poets that were variations of, or stood in contrast against, the work of the
main author.

As a matter of fact, this is exactly what seems to be happened in the Milan
scroll if we look closer at the epigrams marked by .

14

Gutzwiller 1998, p. 34.

15

On the thematic groups of Meleager

'

s

Garland cf. Cameron 1993, p. 26, who reckons that in AP we

find as originating from it

270 erotica, 290 epitymbia, 135 anathematica, and 50 epideictica which

go back to four different original books.

16

Cf.Ferrari 1988 and Pernigotti-Maltomini 2003.

7

We cannot comment on AB 112 since nearly all the text is missing (there are

only traces of two letters). AB 40 closes a short series in honour of Arsinoe
(AB 36-39), while AB 69 and 70 repeat the Lysippus/Myron pair (AB 65-66)
in reverse. The AB 72-73 pair (on horses winning at Nemea and at Pisa) is
placed within the diptych AB 71+74 (on horses winning at Delphi). AB 77
closes the series on horses winning at Panhellenic games before the sequel
dedicated to the Ptolemaic kings (AB 78-82). Lastly, AB 86 closes the

Hippica

before the 'Ptolemaic' couple AB 87-88.

In short, we get the impression that the poems marked by Ë were inserted
for the sake of expanding and completing an already well structured series
of poems without any real thematic or formal novelty .

3.

3. The

The

Soros

Soros from

from Reitzenstein

Reitzenstein to

to Lloyd-Jones

Lloyd-Jones

A lone supporter of the Milan scroll as a multi-authored collection, Hugh
Lloyd-Jones has pointed out that the epigrams which are doubly attributed
to Posidippus and Asclepiades by the

Palatina or the Planudea (nos. 39-40 in

Gow-Page,

Hellenistic Epigrams under Asclepiades), and two of the other

doubly-attributed epigrams (21 and 22 in Gow-Page's

Hellenistic Epigrams,

but under Posidippus), "fall under one or another of the categories under
which the epigrams in the new papyrus are listed". The reverse holds true
for the poems, all sympotic or erotic, that are ascribed only to Posidippus
(Posidippus 1-10 Gow-Page), which, according to Lloyd-Jones, "came from a
collection of the epigrams of Posidippus; so presumably did the seal poem
(

SH 705)".

In order to explain the many cases of double attribution Lloyd-Jones
suggests that such poems came "from a large collection of epigrams
arranged according to subject-matter, in which author's names were not
appended to each poem" and identifies this large collection with the

Soros

"Heap" (for the possible connection of this word with the heap of corn

cleaned from the husk cf. Theocr. 7, 155),

17

that is, according to an old

conjecture made by Richard Reitzenstein,

18

a joint collection of epigrams by

Asclepiades, Posidippus and Hedylus.

17

On the different interpretations of the word

Ò

cf. Fraser 1972, II, p. 801, Cameron 1993, p.

375 and Gutzwiller 1998, pp. 155-156. In the new Posidippus (AB 52.6) we find the

iunctura

Ú

§°

.

18

Reitzenstein 1893, pp. 97-102.

8

These three poets are mentioned as a group by Meleager in the preamble of
his

Garland (1.45-46 G-P) and, besides, Asclepiades and Posidippus are

recorded together both on a Delphic list concerning the grant of

proxenia in

276/275 or 273/272 BC (

Fouilles de Delphes III 3.192) and, in accordance

with the Florentine scholium (

PSI XI 1219) to the prologue of the Aitia of

Callimachus (I, p. 3 Pfeiffer), they are among the group of Telchines.

19

In

Lloyd-Jones' opinion, these epigrams therefore derive from the

Soros and

the Milan papyrus preserves part of that collection.

Lloyd-Jones is probably right in not sharing the objection that has been
raised about the existence of a three-author collection by Gow and Page and,
more recently, by Cameron.

20

According to these scholars "a separate edition

of any one of the three should have made certain that he did not appear in
any double attribution",

21

but it would be anachronistic to attach such

scholarly methods to Meleager, who "could not obtain the complete edition
of Posidippus or simply did not trouble to make use of one".

22

Nevertheless, Lloyd-Jone's hypothesis does not seem to me to be compelling.

All that we know about the

Soros comes from an Homeric scholium (sch. A

ad Hom. Il. 11.101 = 3.144 Erbse), according to which the alternate reading
Æ to ' ' $ (but ' $ Zenodotus) was adopted by Posidippus in
Il. 11.101:

È& ˘ ' ' #Ò ‹ # §(
and he moved to despoil Isos and Antiphos

was not found by Aristarchus of Samothrace "in the

Epigrams of Posidippus."

These

Epigrams were probably a complete and authoritative edition, to

which Athenaeus refers quoting two poems, AB 120 and 121, and hinting at
a piece about the

auletris Aglais, AB 143.

23

The scholion further suggests that

this alternate reading was found only "in the so-called

Soros".

19

Besides, both poets praise the

Lyde of Antimachus (Asclep. AP 9.63 = 32 G-P, Posidipp. AP

12.168.1-2 = AB 140.1-2) against Callimachus' verdict (fr. 398 Pfeiffer).

20

Cameron 1983, p. 373.

21

Gow-Page, II, p. 116.

22

Lloyd-Jones 2003, p. 279.

23

Cf. Gutzwiller 1998, pp. 152-153.

9

Æ could not be a true varia lectio (synctactically, this would have been
a

monstrum), but it was very likely the result of a mundane game in which

each player mentioned alternatively Greek and Trojan warriors along the
letters of the alphabet, so that Posidippus, not remembering the name of a
Trojan starting with

beta, wittily invented a fanciful warrior named Berisos.

24

At any rate, Aristarchus does not affirm, neither does he deny, that the

Soros contained epigrams not written by Posidippus.

Nevertheless, even if we do not consider it as the derivative of such a large
joint collection as the

Soros, it is all the same unlikely that the Milan

papyrus contained parts of it. The section about shipwrecks (AB 89-94) does
not contain

AP 5.209 = AB *128, about the shipwreck of Cleandrus, nor AP

7.267 = AB 132, a speech by the shipwrecked Nicetas to the sailors who
buried him. The

anathematica (AB 36-41) and the hippica (AB 1-20) sections

survive almost in their entirety, but neither contains

AP 5.202 = AB *127, an

epigram about the whip and the reins dedicated by Plangon.

The collection reconstructed by Reitzenstein must have had a prevailing,
though not exclusively, erotic and sympotic character because, as Cameron
remarked,

25

"there are numerous Meleagrian sequences in

AP (especially v

and xii) where epigrams by Asclepiades and Posisippus either directly follow
one another or are separated by contributions from Meleager, the editor of
the

Garland. No other pair of Meleagrian poets is linked so frequently, and is

not without reason that Reitzenstein conjectured that Meleager found their
poems already juxtaposed in whatever source he took them from".

Nor is wholly true that all the poems with double attribution to Posidippus
and Asclepiades in Asclepiades, 34-40 Gow-Page (containing a double
attribution to Hedylus and Asclepiades:

AP 5.161 = Asclep. 40 G-P) fall within

the

lato sensu epideictic type of the Milan scroll: A.P. 5.194 (Asclep. 34 G-P =

Posid. AB *126),

A.P. 12.17 (Asclep. 37 G-P = Posid. AB *134) and A.P. 12.77

(Asclep. 38 G-P = Posid. AB *136) have a clear erotic flavour.

The joint collection by Asclepiades-Posidippus-Hedylus, whether or not we
choose to identify it with the

Soros that was known to Aristarchus, surely

contained both erotic or sympotic epigrams and, like the Milan scroll,
epideictic pieces.

26

If we do not feel inclined to multiply

27

the collections

24

Cf. Reitzenstein 1893, p. 96.

25

Cameron 1993, p. 369.

26

A good survey of the facts in favour of a “joint collection” has been presented by Cameron 1993, pp.

369-387, who envisages an edition prepared by Hedylus, the youngest among our three poets, but this

10

made by Posidippus, and if we consider that

Soros was only a minor title (§

« µ° «, as the Homeric scholium writes), we could perhaps
conjecture that the

Soros did not differ from the Miscellaneous Epigrams of

P. Petrie 2.49a: in this case it was a gift presented at court by Posidippus in
ca. 275 BC.

4.

4. A

A court

court compliment?

compliment?

The Milan collection refers to almost all the members of the Macedonian-
Ptolemaic royal dynasty in the third century BC ("the Argead kings" of AB
31.3). There is Alexander the Great (AB 31; 35; 65; 70), Ptolemy I Soter (AB
78; 88), Berenice I (AB 78; 87; 88), Ptolemy II Philadelphus (AB 20; 63; 82),
Arsinoe II (AB 36; 38; 39; 78), and Berenice II (AB 78; 79; 82). However, we
do not find Ptolemy III who ascended the throne in 246 BC, whereas Berenice
II, born around 270 and married to Ptolemy III in 246, is exalted for her
equestrian victories at Olimpia in 248 (AB 78), at Nemea in 249 or 247 (AB
79), a success that was celebrated also by Callimachus in his

Victoria

Berenices, and at Corinth in 248 BC (AB 82).

Already in the second half of 248 BC, according to AB 78, Berenice II could
call Ptolemy I Soter and Ptolemy II Philadelphus "grandafather" and "father"
respectively. It was in ca. 250 BC, a short time before his death, that Magas,
king of Cyrene, promised his only daughter in marriage to Ptolemy III, and
the young princess was actually queen of Cyrene in 248 BC, but we may
conclude also from AB 82.5, celebrating Berenice’s Isthmian victory in April
of that year, that Ptolemy II was already called "her father.”

If, as argued by Bastianini and Gallazzi,

28

248 or the following year is the

lowest chronological border for the epigrams of the Milan scroll, we can
imagine that inside this very short lapse of time Posidippus, in keen
competition with Callimachus, offered the "virgin Queen" of Cyrene (for this

iunctura cf. AB 79.1, cf. AB 78.10) a new collection of epigrams in which he

had placed some other poems not written by himself and which, to his view,
were compatible with the themes and the taste of his own production. Using

seems not to agree with the fact that Aristarchus deemed Posidippus'

Epigrams to be later than the

Soros. On the contrary, Gutzwiller 1998, p. 170 imagines the Soros as a collection, published by
Posidippus, "that imitated and responded to a famous poetry book by Asclepiades", but I doubt if
this feature could be enough to give rise to such a plethora of double attributions.

27

A strong tendency of this type is recognizable in Gutzwiller 1998, pp. 150-170.

28

Cf. Bastianini-Gallazzi, p. 234.

11

as speaker Berenice II herself, the long epigram AB 78 recalls all equestrian

victories of the Ptolemaic royal house:

Tell, all ye bards, of my fame, [if it ever pleases you]

to speak of what is known, because my glory [goes back a long way].

My grandfather [Ptole]my [won] with his chariot,

driving his team on the race-courses at Pisa,

4

as did Berenice, my father's mother. Then again with his chariot

my father was victorious, a king son of a king

with his father's name. And all three victories for harnessed races

were won by Arsinoe in a single [competition].

8

[I now honour my father's] sacred clan [and] 'women's [pride']

[is the name I am given] as the vergin [queen].

Olimpia saw [these triumphs from] a single house

and the children's children winning prizes with their chariots. 12

Celebrate, O ye Macedonians, Queen Berenice's crown

for winning with the full four-horses team.

(Translated by C. Austin)

Berenice's call to the

aoidoi to celebrate her equestrian glories is

coincidental with what Posidippus and his friends were presently doing.
These poets are also said to be "Macedonian" (Œ ° 13), just like
Posidippus really was, so that it seems that here the court context, becoming
a literary motif, involved the Pellaean poet and the 'school' of his
Macedonian pupils, so to speak.

Lastly, we must notice the strategic arrangement of these court references.

The

lithica section ends, in AB 20, with the recollection of the danger run by

Egyptian Eleusis on occasion of a terrible earthquake and with a prayer to
the lord of Geraestus to keep free from perils Ptolemy's land and shores.

29

Similarly, the section on omens culminates (AB 35) in a funeral inscription
which could also have been inserted in the

epitymbia section, in which we

read that Alexander the Great recognized the worth of Strimon of Thracia as
"supreme steward of omens" when he defeated the Persians after consulting
the voice of his crow.

29

In this connection Hunter 2002, p. 11 has remarked that Callimachus'

Aitia ended with a

reference to"our queen" Berenice

II (fr. 112, 2-3 Pfeiffer).

12

With a sort of chiasmus, in the

anathematica the first three poems (AB 36-

38) begin in the name of Arsinoe. In AB 36 there is a reference to Ptolemy II
and to the warlike role of Arsinoe; in AB 37 a mention of the temple guard
over the Zephyrian cap where the queen was worshipped as Arsinoe-
Aphrodite; in AB 38 a praise of Arsinoe's generosity; then, in AB 39, Arsinoe
herself and the dedication of her temple by the Samian captain Callicrates
are linked to an appeal to a generic mariner and to whomever heads for dry
land in order to pray to the Queen who grants safe sailing.

Lastly, the

hippica, besides being dominated by the equestrain victories of

the Ptolemaic house, end with a poem (AB 88) in which Ptolemy II recalls,
just like Berenice II in AB 78, the successes of his parents Ptolemy I and
Berenice I.

There are enough suggestions, I think, to suppose an organic link between
the compilation of this book and its primary destination as a court
compliment.

30

It can be safely guessed that in the end the outcome of this contact of
Posidippus with Ptolemaic power and royalty was to become bitterly
frustrating. As we learn from the seal elegy (AB 118 =

SH 705), old

Posidippus leaves Alexandria to come back to his native Pella, where he
hopes to be revered by his countrymen in the public square with a memorial
worthy of that built by Mnesiepes for Archilochus at Paros and to be
honoured also by all the Macedonians, both the islanders and the neighbours
of the Asian shore. Significantly, he does not utter a single word about the
Ptolemaic kings or his personal and literary experience on the Egyptian land.

Franco Ferrari

Università dell’Aquila
[e-mail]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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