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Strato and Rufinus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan Cameron
Affiliation:
Columbia University

Extract

The last book we shall have from the hand of Denys Page is an edition of that ‘talented but inscrutable writer’ the epigrammatist Rufinus.1 It is a model of its kind, distinguished by all the virtues we have come to associate with Page's work - erudition, intelligence and judgement. But on the long-debated question of Rufinus’ date he may be as much as three centuries out.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to G. W. Bowersock for commenting on a draft of this article.

References

1 The Epigrams of Rufinus. edited with an introduction and commentary by Page, Denys (Cambridge University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; see also my review in Latomus 40 (1981)Google Scholar, and my notes in GRBS 22 (1981), 179–86.Google Scholar

2 Page still sticks (p. 4) to his own and Gow’s view that Philip’s Garland was published about A.D. 40, but see GRBS 21 (1980), 43–62.

3 Von Kallimachos zu Nonnos (Lund, 1933), 158.

4 Ch. 3 of Wifstrand’s book (pp. 155–77) discusses this change of style in detail.

5 I shall be establishing this point in a forthcoming book. The Greek Anthology: from Meleager to Planudes; meanwhile see Basson, J., De Cephala et Planude syllogisque minoribus (Diss. Berlin, 1917), 6171; cf. Page, pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

6 Zur Sprache des Epigrammatikers Lukillios‘, Philologus 112 (1968), 141–5.Google Scholar

7 Helikon 4 (1964), 341–2.

8 ‘Sur des inscriptions d'Éphese: 9’, Rev. de Philol. 41 (1967), 77–81. See too n. 30 below on περτλαμβάυω

9 Scholia in Lucianum, ed. H. Rabe, p. 270.

10 The best sketch of the change in direction in the early imperial epigram is by P. Laurens, ‘Martial et l'épigramme grecque du ler siècle après J.-C, REL 43 (1965), 315 f.

11 See Page's discussion of the so-called ‘sylloge Rufiniana’, pp. 3 f., with my Greek Anthology, ch. 4.

12 I do not think that Page’s summary of the similarities (p. 5) quite does justice to the facts.

13 None of the relevant texts or bibliography is quoted by Page; on the location of Koresus, see Keil, J., Jahreshefte 212 (1922–4), 96112Google Scholar; Robert, L., Hellenica 1112 (1960), 139–44 and Rev. de Philol. 41 (1967), 73–7. The best evidence turns out to be Rufinus’ poem, namely its implication that Koresus and the Artemision were at opposite ends of town: ‘disons, pour traduire Rufin dans le langage d’un Parisien: “‘je suis en pleurs, que j’aille à Montmartre ou à Montparnasse”’.Google Scholar

14 Rev. de Philol. 41 (1967), 76.

15 ‘Bemerkungen zu griechischen Epigrammen: 3’, Hermes 80 (1952), 499.

16 It is of course immaterial to this distinction that the ‘Nemesis-worshippers’ will also have been Alexis’ admirers.

17 e.g. Weinreich, O., Die Distichen des Catull (Tübingen, 1926), 61 f. (taking the influence of Rufinus on Strato for granted) and Nisbet and Hubbard on Horace, Odes I. 38. 1 (p. 424).Google Scholar

18 In my forthcoming book. The Greek Anthology. I shall be discussing a further probable case of Rufinus’ influence on Strato, but the argument is too dependent on the wider context there presented to summarize here.

19 See the useful discussion in Sakolowski, P.. ‘De anthologia palatina quaestiones’, Diss. Leipzig, 1893, pp. 158, and for his date and use by Cephalas, my forthcoming book, ch. 4.Google Scholar

20 PLRE i s.v. Magnus 7, p. 534.

21 The reference to the twin Nemesises of Smyrna in XII. 193 suggests local knowledge: cf. C. J. Cadoux. Ancient Smyrna (1938), 220–3.

22 Robert, L., Hellenica 4 (1948), 62Google Scholar: Malcus, B., ‘Die Proconsuln von Asien von Diokletian bis Theodosius II’. Opuse. Athen 7 (1967), 134–5; PLRE i. 52.Google Scholar

23 Studien zum corpus Priapeorum (Zetemata 28) (München, 1962). Ill, alleging also that it is a ‘sprechender Name‘.

24 Whence all our knowledge of the man: see the passages from Galen collected by Illberg, J., ‘Die Hippokratesausgaben des Artemidorus Kapiton und Dioskurides’, Rheinisches Museum 45 (1890), 111–37; cfGoogle Scholar. too Pfaff, F., ‘Die Überlieferung des corpus Hippocraticum in der nachalexandrinischen Zeit‘, Wien. Studien 50 (1932), 6782.Google Scholar

25 Sludien zum corpus Priapeorum (n. 23 above), 109 f.

26 Buchheit's main thesis that the Priapea are the work of one poet writing after Martial has been generally (and rightly) accepted: cf. (e.g.) Zicari, , RFIC 41 (1963), 355 f.Google Scholar; Kenney, , CR n.s. 13 (1963), 72 f.Google Scholar

27 De anth. pal. quaest. (1893), 71.

28 Die Sylloge Rufiniana’, Philologus 73 (1914), 18.Google Scholar

29 Marziale e Vepigramma greco (Palermo, 1937), 57 fGoogle Scholar. She also thinks that Strato drew on Martial (winning the support of Helm, R. in Lustrum 2 (1957), 193–4). but, as already indicated above, I do not find the parallels close enough to convince.Google Scholar

30 Robert argued that περτλαμβάυω has explicit sexual connotations, quoting several examples, including other first-century epigrammatists, Automedon AP V. 129. 7 and Nicarchus, AP V. 38. 3: cf. Rev. de Philol. 41 (1967), 80.