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to Lycophron. Finally Chapter 10 deals with some aspects of the impact of

Hellenistic poetry in Rome; it contains interesting observations on the way in which

people in antiquity developed a sense of cultural periods, on the poetics of

Philodemus, on ways in which Romans translated Greek poetry, and nally on

Catullus Attis-poem.

The book contains an extensive and up-to-date bibliography and an index ofpassages discussed as well as a good general index, which helps the reader nd the way

quickly to specic issues.

As the rst chapter indicates, this is not meant to be a handbook. Even so, it is

fairly comprehensive and gives a good picture of recent views on the nature of

Hellenistic poetry and of the central issues in the scholarly discussion. Moreover, it

combines general observations with detailed analysis of many passages and thus helps

to give these general views a sound basis in the actual texts. There are many valuable

observations on details.

Although the book has so much to offer I have one small regret. It would have been

even more interesting if the authors had focussed somewhat less on the canonicauthors and had given a little more attention to the important genre of didactic

poetry (Aratus appears only in the chapter on epic in a minor key; Nicander is left

out altogether), to an innovative author like Herondas, and to the large number of

authors of whom only fragments are preserved, but who are still of considerable

interest, for example Euphorion, Hermesianax, Alexander Aetolus. It would have

been interesting to see how these minor poets handled the aspects of tradition and

innovation with which the canonic poets were dealing so capably. On the other hand

Menanders new comedy, which largely belongs to a different cultural environment,

seems somewhat less at home in this book.

University of Groningen ANNETTE HARDER

m.a.harder@rug.nl

CALLIMACHUS AND INSCRIBED EPIGRAM

M (D.)Inszeniertes Lesevergngen. Das inschriftliche Epigramm

und seine Rezeption bei Kallimachos. (Hermes Einzelschriften 93.)

Pp. xii + 335. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005. Paper, 64. ISBN:978-3-515-08660-8.doi:10.1017/S0009840X0700039X

From its earliest instantiation inscribed epigram poses something of a double

paradox. In a culture that is largely oral, inscribed epigram is a poetic form that

inherently calls attention to itself as written (hence epigram), and yet presents the

conceit of an imagined act of speech. And at the same time inscribed stone, which

serves as a topographical marker in the present, in its inscription is a temporal marker

into the past. In the Hellenistic era a rather different paradox arises; epigram is now

both a literary art form that may consciously evoke an earlier inscribed tradition, and

at the same time the tradition of inscribed epigram continues, now often inuenced bythe properties of the literary poem. D. Meyers work on inscribed epigram and

Callimachus adaptation of this art form in his surviving epigrams is an excellently

conceived study of the manipulation of a venerable written genre, and of its implicit

reader, not only in his own epigrams but also in his elegiac and iambic poetry.

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Callimachus evokes written texts, and the act of writing, fairly frequently in his

poetry; a signal example is fr. 64 (The Tomb of Simonides) which essentially details the

reading of a remembered epigram, no longer extant. The ambiguity of identifying

speaker (Simonides? the now absent tomb? the author of the inscription?) and

addressee capture Callimachus play on the inherent enigma of epigrammatic voice,

and the logical evolution of speaker and addressee to author and reader.M. divides her work, following a brief methodological introduction, into three

sections (outlined on p. 23): an overview of select epigrams (extant both in inscription

and in literature) from the eighth to the third centuries that outlines a relationship of

inscribed text with an implied reader; the epigrams of Callimachus and their rapport

with this tradition, particularly in terms of speaker and reader; and a shorter section

that considers the presence of epigram and epigram tradition in other poetry of

Callimachus, particularly moments in theAetiaandIambithat evoke art objects and

their inscriptions. In the rst part M. is especially concerned with epigram as a written

text that imagines a speech-act and justies itself in a largely oral culture. Her

observations on the signicance of the inscribed speech-act are especially acute.There is a great deal of value in this section, and the modern reader of Hellenistic

poetry will leave it with an enhanced understanding of the genres appeal to later

poets.

The second and central section is a careful overview of the epigrams of

Callimachus in light of, or in response to, the generic expectations of the epigram

tradition, and particularly with regard to expectations of readership. This is a

splendid study of Callimachus epigrams that includes a number of impressive

readings of individual poems. M. touches on, but does not become overly tied down

by, the long-standing problem of the ultimate destination of these poems (for

inscription, book or both); rather she considers Callimachus overall use of speaker(now often the poet) and addressee (now sometimes more explicitly the reader). The

tables (pp. 14858) in which she has catalogued the poems based on their

epigrammatic characteristics (type of speech act, speaker addressee, type of address,

etc.) are extremely useful and, given the lack of a large-scale commentary on these

poems, an enormous service to the eld. This chapter is especially welcome for its

broad treatment of the epigrams, and for reminding us of the large proportion of

sepulchral and dedicatory poems among them. Callimachean scholarship,

particularly that focussed on his poetics and their subsequent development in Roman

poetry, has tended to focus on a few epigrams, e.g. 28 Pf. (2 GP), 6 Pf. (56 GP) that

have literary critical relevance, and on a few, e.g. 23 Pf. (53 GP) and 2 Pf. (34 GP)which are famous poems in their own right. A systematic treatment of Callimachus

epigrams is very welcome. Throughout this chapter M. makes excellent use of earlier

work on individual poems, and in some ways her insight on these epigrams

relationship to the earlier traditions of inscribed texts results in a very good

complement to G. Walshs work on delineation of thought in these poems; both

should be required reading for students working on Callimachean epigram.

The nal section, on epigrammatic presence in Callimachus elegiac and iambic

poetry, is a valuable if necessarily somewhat limited treatment of the poets other

work. None the less there are some striking readings here, and M.s observations on

the effect of appropriating epigrammatic features into other poetic genres (pp. 2256)are intelligent and thought-provoking. Indeed the presence of so many statues and

other possibly inscribed objects in Callimachus poetry (Acontius apple being one

example) allows the inuence of epigram to be a large and varied one.

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M.s book is a major contribution to the rapidly increasing scholarship on Greek

epigram. It is lucidly and intelligently written, if occasionally verbose. The

bibliography is exhaustive1, and the indexes thorough and very clear.

A nal note. Both K. Gutzwiller, in her 1988 study of Callimachus epigrams, and

M. in the work under review here (p. 144 n. 83), lament the absence of an extended

scholarly commentary on Callimachus epigrams, a pressinglacunain the scholarshipon this major poet. With these two studies to hand the future commentator certainly

has excellent tools available, and a signicant amount of groundwork is already

achieved. It is earnestly to be hoped that someone will soon step up to the task.

The University of Michigan BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES

bacosta@umich.edu

CALLIMACHUS AND OVIDV T (H.) Poetic Memory: Allusion in the Poetry of

Callimachus and the Metamorphoses of Ovid. (Mnemosyne

Supplementum 258.) Pp. x + 218. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004.

Cased. ISBN: 978-90-04-14157-5.doi:10.1017/S0009840X07000406

The goal of this monograph is signalled by its title: in her introductory chapter the

author presents her study as an attempt to apply Contes typology of allusion to both

a Greek and Latin poet, giving each poet and his language equal consideration (p.

22). There she rehearses the genealogy of Contes approach and mentions some of the

issues that other scholars, chiey Hinds, have raised since Contes work became more

widely known, about 20 years ago. Five additional chapters follow this introductory

and theoretical or methodological one. The last is a brief conclusion, while each of

the remaining four delves into some specic aspect of allusion by conducting a

particular case study. The rst of these (Chapter 2) considers the relationship between

the prologue of theAetiaand the proem of theMetamorsphoses. The remaining three

chapters shift the Callimachean focus fromAetiato hymns. Chapter 3 concerns the

fth hymn (Baths of Pallas) and the Diana and Actaeon episode ofMet.2; Chapter 4,

the fourth hymn (Delos) and a series of episodes inMet.6; and Chapter 5 the sixth

hymn (Demeter) and the Erysichthon episode ofMet.8.

The most successful of these case studies somewhat surprisingly, in view of how

many times previously the material has been discussed is the rst. V.T. deserves

credit for expanding the context of lexical and intertextual associations within which

key words and phrases such as 4 /carmen perpetuumand /carmen deductumare usually assessed, and I recommend this chapter to allwho are interested in these passages and the issues that they raise. By the same token,

there are useful observations scattered throughout the remaining chapters, generally

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1Two titles that should probably be added are, on the negative impact of writing in a largely

oral culture, D. Steiner, The Tyrants Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece

(Princeton, 1994), and on epigrams on poets S. Barbantani, I poeti lirici del canone alessandrino

nellepigrammatistica, Aevum Antiquum6 (1993), 597.