Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:22:47.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

DISTINCTION, CENTRALITY AND CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN PRE-ALEXANDRIAN COURT POETRY: THE CASE OF LYCIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2020

Brett Evans*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia

Extract

This article examines allusions to Greek poetry in two Greek verse inscriptions carved on public monuments for Lycian dynasts of the late fifth and early fourth centuries b.c. (CEG 177, 888). Scholarship on these epigrams celebrating the rule, achievements and outstanding qualities of the dynasts Gergis (Lycian Kheriga) and Arbinas (Erbinna) has largely focussed on the evidence they provide for Lycian history, dynastic ideology and Lycia's relationship to Greece. Less attention has been paid to the possible significance of their long-noted echoes of Greek poetry. Literary analysis of these epigrams has been sidelined, it seems, owing to a prevailing assumption that they were composed and inscribed primarily for Greeks visiting or resident in Xanthus, the Lycian ‘capital’ where they were inscribed, and so their literariness, unheard by Lycian ears, cannot add to our understanding of Lycia and Lycians. Yet, a recent observation of Peter Thonemann suggests that the appropriation and manipulation of Greek poetry is in fact central to the dynastic intent of the epigrams: to assert Lycia's non-Greek, ‘Asiatic’ identity.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Andrej Petrovic for feedback on several drafts and Catherine Draycott, who in addition to offering suggestions on an earlier draft corresponded with me on matters of Lycian art and archaeology. I am grateful to several audiences at the University of Virginia, the Epigraphic Friday organized by Angelos Chaniotis at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Annual Meeting of CAMWS at Lincoln, NE. Finally I thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of Classical Quarterly for their suggestions for revision.

References

2 For the historical approach to CEG 177, see e.g. Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D. (edd.), A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century b.c. (Oxford, 1969), 282–3Google Scholar; for CEG 888, see especially Robert, L., ‘Les conquêtes du dynaste lycien Arbinas’, JS (1978), 348Google Scholar and Keen, 141–5.

3 In favour of Achaemenid ideology, see Herrenschmidt, C., ‘Une lecture iranisante du poème de Symmachos dedié à Arbinas, dynaste de Xanthos’, REA 87 (1985), 125–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Greek ideology, see Savalli, I., ‘L'idéologie dynastique des poèmes grecs de Xanthos’, AC 57 (1988), 103–23Google Scholar; for a Lycian synthesis of the two, see Roy, C. le, ‘Lieux de mémoire en Lycie’, Cahiers du centre Gustave Glotz 15 (2004), 715CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See especially Childs, W.A.P., ‘Lycian relations with Persians and Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries re-examined’, AS 31 (1981), 5580Google Scholar, at 71 characterizing the use of Simonides in CEG 177 as likely evidence for ‘the cultural debt of Lycia to Athens’.

5 For CEG 177 see the parallels noted in Kalinka's commentary to TAM I.44 and Ceccarelli, P., ‘La struttura dell'epigramma del pilastro iscritto di Xanthos (TAM I 44 = CEG 177)’, in Dell'Era, A. and Russi, A. (edd.), Vir bonus, docendi peritus: omaggio dell'Università dell'Aquila a Giovanni Garuti (San Severo, 1996), 4769Google Scholar. For CEG 888, see Bousquet, J., ‘Les inscriptions du Létôon en l'honneur d'Arbinas et l’épigramme grecque de la stèle de Xanthos’, in Metzger, H. (ed.), Fouilles de Xanthos 9 (Paris, 1992), 1.155–99Google Scholar, at 1.163–4.

6 Keen, 56–60.

7 Benndorf, O., ‘Zur Stele Xanthia’, JöAI 3 (Vienna, 1900), 98120Google Scholar, at 117–18 already thought that the quotation of Simonides in CEG 177 was intended to humiliate resident Greeks. See more recently Asheri, D., Fra ellenismo e iranismo (Bologna, 1983), 104Google Scholar; T. Robinson, ‘Erbinna, the Nereid Monument and Xanthos’, in G. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Ancient Greeks, East and West (Oxford, 1999), 360–77, at 369.

8 Note, however, that Petrovic, A., ‘Epigrammatic contests, poeti vaganti and local history’, in Hunter, R. and Rutherford, I. (edd.), Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism (Cambridge, 2009), 195216CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 214–15 tentatively suggests the possibility of Lycians apprehending and appreciating Homeric phrasing in CEG 888.

9 Thonemann, P., ‘Lycia, Athens and Amorges’, in Ma, J., Papazarkadas, N. and Parker, R. (edd.), Interpreting the Athenian Empire (London, 2009), 167–94Google Scholar, at 180–2 discussing the quotation of Simonides in CEG 177 (treated below).

10 A similar claim has been made by Borchhardt, J., ‘Die Bedeutung der lykischen Königshöfe für die Entstehung des Portraits’, in von Steuben, H. (ed.), Antike Porträts: Zum Gedächtnis von Helga von Heintze (Möhnesee, 1999), 5384Google Scholar, arguing that the political dynamics of Lycian courts provided a stimulus for the region's development of ruler portraits in advance of the Hellenistic period.

11 I am here indebted to Catherine Draycott for discussing this scholarship with me in correspondence, and steering me through the archaeological material.

12 G. Rodenwaldt, ‘Griechische Reliefs in Lykien’, SPAW (1933), 1028–55, at 1055.

13 For models of the phases of ‘Hellenization’ in Lycian art, see Demargne, P., ‘Xanthos et les problèmes de l'hellénisation au temps de la Grèce classique’, CRAI (1974), 584–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 587–90 and Demargne, P., ‘Le décor sculpté des monuments funéraires de Xanthos: principes explicatifs d'un art grec au service d'une idéologie orientale’, in Méthodologie iconographique: actes du colloque de Strasbourg 27–28 avril 1979 (Strasbourg, 1981), 85–9Google Scholar.

14 E.g. Metzger, H., ‘Sur deux groupes des reliefs “Gréco-Perses” d'Asie Mineure’, AC 40 (1971), 505–25Google Scholar, at 522 describes Lycians’ passive adoption of Greek art; Demargne (n. 13 [1974]), 589 even attributed the long time it took Lycians to produce art of high Attic classicism to their resistance to an ‘humanisme trop tôt rationnel pour ceux qu'on appelle des Barbares’ (‘a rational humanism too early for those called Barbarians’). On such assumptions smuggled in with ‘Hellenization’, see Robinson (n. 7), 361–3 and Raimond, E.A., ‘Hellenization and Lycian cults during the Achaemenid period’, in Tuplin, C. (ed.), Persian Responses: Political and Cultural Interaction with(in) the Achaemenid Empire (Swansea, 2007), 143–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 143.

15 E.g. Raimond (n. 14), 149–57 suggests that Greek acculturation in the dynastic period is best considered politically motivated action on the part of philhellenic Lycian dynasts. I discuss Catherine Draycott's relevant work in section I below.

16 See e.g. Courtils, J. des, ‘Xanthos archaïque: une survivance du système palatial archaïque jusqu'au Ve siècle a.C.?’, in Summerer, L., Ivantchik, A. and von Kienlin, A. (edd.), Kelainai – Apameia Kibotos: Stadtentwicklung im anatolischen Kontext/Kélainai – Apamée Kibôtos: développement urbain dans le contexte anatolien. Akten des Kolloquiums, München 2 April–4 April 2009 (Bordeaux, 2011), 359–68Google Scholar.

17 See Işık, F., ‘Lykian civilization's transition from Hellas to Anatolia during the “25 year” period of Patara excavations’, in İşkan, H. and Işık, F. (edd.), From Sand into a City: 25 Years of Patara Excavations, International Symposium Proceedings, 11–13 Nov. 2013 Antalya, Patara VII.1 (Istanbul, 2015), 619–40Google Scholar; he argues at 624–6 that Ionia was Anatolian, so the use of Ionian art or architecture is not to be understood as an engagement with Greek culture. Others reinterpret art and architecture previously described as Greek as Anatolian or expressing Anatolian ideas: on the Nereid Monument, see Robinson, T., ‘The Nereid Monument at Xanthos or the Eliyana Monument at Arnña?’, OJA 14 (1995), 355–9Google Scholar and Robinson (n. 7) (discussed below).

18 Discussing SGO 17/19/03, a fourth-century sepulchral epigram in Greek for Apollonius, son of Hellaphilus, in East Lycia, Haake, M., ‘Die patchwork-Repräsentation eines lykischen Dynasten: Apollonios, Sohn des Hellaphilos, und das Grab vom Asartaş Tepesi’, in Winter, E. (ed.), Vom Euphrat bis zum Bosporus: Kleinasien in der Antike. Festschrift für Elmar Schwertheim zum 65. Geburtstag (Bonn, 2008), 1.277–96Google Scholar, at 1.288 argues that the epigram, though written in Greek, does not express Greek ideas. He criticizes the approach of Wörrle, M., ‘Leben und Sterben wie ein Fürst: Überlegungen zu den Inschriften eines neuen Dynastengrabes in Lykien’, Chiron 28 (1998), 7783Google Scholar and ‘Die Inschriften am Grab des Apollonios am Asartaş von Yazir in Ostlykien’, Lykia 3 (1996–7), 24–38, suggesting the influence of Greek sympotic poetry and ideology of kingship on Apollonius’ self-representation.

19 My work thus complements the recent study of Chrubasik, B., ‘From pre-Makkabaean Judaea to Hekatomnid Karia and back again’, in Chrubasik, B. and King, D. (edd.), Hellenism and the Local Communities of the Eastern Mediterranean: 400 b.c.e.–250 c.e. (Oxford, 2017), 83110CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arguing at 96–104 that the Hecatomnids adopted Greek cultural practices in order to distinguish themselves from local competitors.

20 Sometimes called the ‘Lycian acropolis’ to distinguish it from the ‘Roman acropolis’. There has been a tendency to avoid using the terms ‘acropolis’ and ‘agora’ attested in the Greek epigrams to designate Xanthian spaces (acropolis: CEG 888.iii.36; agora: CEG 177.3) so as not to impose ‘Greek’ ideas on Lycia. See now, however, Draycott, C.M., ‘“Heroa” and the city: Kuprlli's new architecture and the making of the “Lycian acropolis” of Xanthus in the early Classical period’, AS 65 (2015), 97142Google Scholar, who suggests the usefulness of these terms to express possible Lycian intent.

21 See Metzger, H., Fouilles de Xanthos 4 (Paris, 1972), 188–91Google Scholar, considering them evidence of trade; Keen, 66 suggests inter alia relations of xenia. Lycian-Greek relations already existed in the Bronze Age, and in the Iron Age relations with Rhodes were strong: see the overview of these periods by Raimond (n. 14), 144–9.

22 On the dynastic class, see Keen, 50–6 and C.M. Draycott, ‘Dynastic definitions: differentiating status claims in the Archaic pillar tomb reliefs of Lycia’, in A. Sagona and A. Çilingirloğlu (edd.), Anatolian Iron Ages 6 (Leuven, 2007), 103–34.

23 For the kouros, H. Metzger, Fouilles de Xanthos 2 (Paris, 1963), 93–4, pl. 51; for the perirrhanterion see 94–6, pl. 52. Draycott (n. 20), 105 discusses both.

24 Metzger (n. 23), 51, pls. 33.2, 35.

25 On Lycian pillar tombs, see P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos 1 (Paris, 1958). Draycott (n. 22), 105–18 discusses their form and function; her figure at 121 usefully shows differences in size and design.

26 Draycott (n. 22), 123–6, suggesting at 119 the likelihood that the artist was likewise ‘imported’.

27 For an overview of his rule, see Keen, 112–24.

28 Draycott (n. 20).

29 P. Demargne, ‘Sur un relief de Xanthos’, RA (1968), 85–92.

30 H. Metzger, ‘La frise de satyres et de fauves de l'acropole de Xanthos’, in Mansel'e Armağan (Mélanges Mansel) (Ankara, 1974), 1.127–37, pls. 63–4.

31 See Draycott (n. 20), 111–20, 126–7.

32 Coupel, P. and Demargne, P., Fouilles de Xanthos 3 (Paris, 1969), 7189Google Scholar, pls. 26–33.

33 W.A.P. Childs and P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos 8 (Paris, 1989), 167–9 on the Nereids. For an overview of the monument, see now W.A.P. Childs, Greek Art and Aesthetics in the 4th Century b.c. (Princeton, 2018), 219–21.

34 Childs and Demargne (n. 33), 270–7.

35 Robinson (n. 7), with his formulation at 358 ‘Greek style should not be mistaken for Greek content’. Differently Işık (n. 17), 629 argues that the Ionic style is Anatolian.

36 All the more conspicuous, it should be noted, vis-à-vis the Lycian-style temples Arbinas had built at the Letoon, the extra-urban sanctuary of Xanthos, around 400: see J. des Courtils, ‘From Elyanas to Leto: the physical evolution of the sanctuary of Leto at Xanthos’, in C. Gates, J. Morin and T. Zimmermann (edd.), Sacred Landscapes in Anatolia and Neighboring Regions (Oxford, 2009), 63–7.

37 P. Demargne and H. Metzger, ‘Xanthos (33)’, RE 2nd ser. 9.2 (1967), 1375–408, at 1391.

38 On the use of Greek by the Lycian elite, see Asheri (n. 7), 120–3 and C. le Roy, ‘La formation d'une société provinciale en Asie Mineure: l'exemple lycien’, in E. Frézouls (ed.), Sociétés urbaines, sociétés rurales dans l'Asie Mineure et la Syrie hellénistiques et romaines (Strasbourg, 1987), 41–7.

39 Petrovic (n. 8), 196–200.

40 On cultural capital, see P. Bourdieu, ‘The forms of capital’, in J. Richardson (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York, 1986), 241–58, at 243–8. My discussion of distinction and cultural capital as a social weapon is indebted to P. Bourdieu (transl. R. Nice), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, MA, 1984).

41 Keen, 145–7.

42 On the implied reader with reference to epigram, see D. Meyer, ‘The act of reading and the act of writing in Hellenistic epigram’, in P. Bing and J.S. Bruss (edd.), Brill's Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden, 2007), 187–210, at 187–91.

43 On the Inscribed Pillar, see Demargne (n. 25), 77–105 and P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos 5 (Paris, 1974), 113; Keen, 9 gives an overview focussed on the inscriptions. The identity of the tomb-holder has been much debated. M. Domingo Gygax and W. Tietz, ‘“He who of all mankind set up the most numerous trophies to Zeus”: the Inscribed Pillar of Xanthos reconsidered’, AS 55 (2005), 89–98, at 91–2 provide a survey of older scholarship and argue persuasively that Gergis commissioned the monument for himself. The Greek epigram is accompanied by two Lycian inscriptions covering the rest of that face and the remaining three. These are a lengthy prose description in Lycian A of Lycian dynastic history, centred around Gergis’ Harpagid line (the ‘Lycian Chronicle’, TAM I.44a1–c19), and a metrical inscription in Lycian B (TAM I.44c32–d71), possibly a eulogy for Gergis, on which see J. Borchhardt, H. Eichner and K. Schulz, Kerththi oder der Versuch, eine antike Siedlung der Klassik in Zentrallykien zu identifizieren (Antalya, 2005), 21. Domingo Gygax and Tietz (this note), 92–7 argue that only the Greek inscription coincides with the Pillar's original design and that the Lycian inscriptions were added later; for this reason, they think that the ‘agora’ was north of the Pillar from where the Greek inscription would be visible. Thonemann (n. 9), 185 n. 23, however, objects to their arguments on grounds of epigraphic implausibility.

44 On the transmission and question of the battle to which the epigram refers, see FGE, 266–8.

45 Benndorf (n. 7), 117–18, not cited by Thonemann (n. 9).

46 See Keen, 97–111. For Lycian relations with Athens in the mid fifth century, see Childs (n. 4), 55–72; Keen, 125–35.

47 Benndorf made the additional point that the Inscribed Pillar's ‘Lycian Chronicle’ seems to attribute the defeat of Melesandrus and his army not to Gergis but to Trbbẽnimi, who Thonemann (n. 9), 176 suggests was an East Lycian dynast: see the translations of TAM I.44a.44–5 by Thonemann (n. 9), 175 and Schürr, D., ‘Eine lykische Fluchformel mit Zukunft’, EA 43 (2010), 149–58Google Scholar, at 152; contra, T.R. Bryce, The Lycians: Volume I. The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources (Copenhagen, 1986), 107 (followed by Keen, 131), taking Gergis as the subject. On the difficult chronology of this section of the Lycian Chronicle, see Schürr, D., ‘Kaunos in lykischer Inschriften’, Kadmos 36 (1998), 127–40Google Scholar and Thonemann (n. 9), 174–80.

48 See CEG 6.ii = IG I3 1162, an epigram accompanying the Athenian casualty lists of 447, and CEG 890.i = IG II2 1141.1–4, accompanying the tribe Cecropis’ resolution of 376/5 to praise and crown Pyrrhus and Sosibius for their benefactions.

49 Ceccarelli (n. 5), 53.

50 Ceccarelli (n. 5), 65 n. 34.

51 Simonidean epigram seems to have been known by Lycians more broadly: SGO 17/19/03, the sepulchral epigram for Apollonius, son of Hellaphilus, echoes Simonides’ satirical epigram on the dead poet Timocreon of Rhodes (37 FGE). Moreover, the final image of Gergis crowning his lineage (Κα[ρ]ίκα γένος ἐστεφάνωσεν, 12) in CEG 177 recalls the phrase ἐστεφάνωσαν Ἀθήνας from the third line of the epigram on the monument for the Marathonomachoi found at Eua-Loukou; I owe this point to Angelos Chaniotis. In this case CEG 177 would appropriate yet another Athenian epigram from the Persian Wars. For the text of the Eua-Loukou epigram, see the editio princeps of G. Steinhauer, ‘Στήλη πεσόντων τῆς Ἐρεχθηίδος’, Horos 17–21 (2004–9), 679–92.

52 I will mention a third here whose significance is uncertain. Scholars since Benndorf (n. 7), 114 have noted a parallel between Gergis’ slaughter of seven men in a single day (CEG 177.10) and an Athenian verse inscription for Pythion of Megara, who slayed seven enemy soldiers while rescuing three Athenian tribes in the Megarian revolt of 446 (CEG 83.2–3 = IG I3 1353, c.447–425). Asheri (n. 7), 93–5 and Ceccarelli (n. 5), 54–5 argue that killing seven men in a day was a trope, but their parallels are not wholly compelling. If Gergis’ seven Arcadians were in the service of the Athenian-backed Amorges—as Meiggs and Lewis (n. 2), 283 and Keen, 136–7 have suggested—the poet could here be making another allusive jab at Athens by appropriating Pythion's praise for Lycia. But other occasions for Gergis’ aristeia have been suggested: see references in Keen, 133 and D. Schürr, ‘Formen der Akkulturation in Lykien: Griechisch-lykische Sprachbeziehungen’, in C. Schuler (ed.), Griechische Epigraphik in Lykien: eine Zwischenbilanz (Vienna, 2007), 27–40, at 33. The question of allusion must therefore be left undecided.

53 Benndorf (n. 7), 114 and Kalinka at TAM I.48 attribute the parallel to Moritz Schmidt. The other Classical attestations are Soph. Ant. 195 and Pl. Resp. 540a.

54 CEG 795.ii.5, Soph. Trach. 1102; see P. Bing, ‘Inscribed epigrams in and out of sequence’, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Reguit and G.C. Wakker (edd.), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Leuven, 2014), 1–24, at 5.

55 Robert, L., Hellenica: recueil d’épigraphie, de numismatique et d'antiquités grecques (Paris, 1946)Google Scholar, 3.38–73.

56 Gergis’ sieges are praised at CEG 177.7–8, as are Arbinas’ at CEG 888.i.5–6, 12; 888.iii.24–5; 889.i.3. City sieges appear in Lycian funerary art, as in the Nereid Monument, on which see Childs and Demargne (n. 33), 255–6; see also W.A.P. Childs, The City-Reliefs of Lycia (Princeton, 1978), especially 48–84 discussing iconographic parallels. Arbinas’ archery is praised at CEG 888.i.15 and perhaps 888.iii.43, and Arbinas also minted coins depicting Heracles with a bow: see Mørkholm, O. and Zahle, J., ‘The coinages of the Lycian dynasts Kheriga, Kherêi and Erbbina: a numismatic and archaeological study’, AArch 47 (1976), 4790Google Scholar, at 86. Regarding Lycian archery, Herodotus notes that the Milyans carried ‘Lycian bows’ (7.77) and describes the bows and unfeathered arrows carried by the Lycian marine contingent (7.92) which—as Keen, 229 notes—may but need not be representative of all Lycian troops.

57 See e.g. Soph. Trach. 237–8: ἀκτή τις ἔστ᾽ Εὐβοιίς, ἔνθ᾽ ὁρίζεται | βωμοὺς τέλη τ᾽ ἔγκαρπα Κηναίωι Διί (‘There is a Euboean headland, where he [Heracles] is setting up altars and fruitful offerings for Zeus Cenaeus’).

58 On the relationship between Trqqas, Zeus and Cronus, see Bryce (n. 47), 177 and Keen, 201–2. Raimond (n. 14), 153–4 argues that Cronus-Trqqas was a simple interpretatio Graeca whereas Zeus-Trqqas was politically motivated by philhellenic dynasts.

59 See TAM I.44b.51–2: se-dde tuwetẽ : kumeziya : τere τere : Trqqñti pddãtahi, translated as ‘and he has set up [altars?] to the local Trqqas throughout the sanctuaries’ by E. Laroche, ‘Les dieux de la Lycie classique d'après les textes lyciens’, in H. Metzger (ed.), Actes du colloque sur la Lycie antique: Bibliothèque de l'Institut français d’études anatoliennes d'Istanbul 27 (Paris, 1980), 1–6, at 3.

60 Indeed, this line too may allude to Sophocles’ Heracles: see the similar phrasing at Trach. 1102 (κοὐδεὶς τροπαῖ᾽ ἔστησε τῶν ἐμῶν χερῶν).

61 The parallel is noted by Benndorf (n. 7), 115 and Kalinka at TAM I.48; see also J. Bousquet, ‘Arbinas, fils de Gergis, dynaste de Xanthos’, CRAI (1975), 1.138–50, at 140, calling it a ‘souvenir hésiodéen’ (‘Hesiodic reminiscence’). CEG 177.9 may also recall Il. 24.428 τῶ οἱ ἀπομνήσαντο καὶ ἐν θανάτοιό περ αἴσηι, especially given the presence of ἀθάνατοι in the Lycian epigram. In the Homeric passage, Achilles has told Priam that the gods are preserving Hector's body from decay, which Priam attributes to the many gifts he gave them, ‘wherefore they returned him this favour even in the fate of death’. Could the poet of CEG 177 hereby suggest a similar preservation of Gergis’ body in the Inscribed Pillar? On the question of Lycian hero-cult for rulers, see H.-Nieswandt, H., ‘Zum Inschriftenpfeiler von Xanthos’, Boreas 18 (1995), 1944Google Scholar, at 24–5. Recently Cavalier, L. and Courtils, J. des, ‘Permanence d'un culte héroïque dans la nécropole intra muros de Xanthos?’, in Konuk, K. (ed.), Stephanèphoros de l’économie antique à l'Asie Mineure: hommages à Raymond Descat (Bordeaux, 2012), 247–59Google Scholar and J. des Courtils, ‘The city of Xanthus: “lieu de mémoire” of the Lycians’, in E. Mortensen and B. Poulsen (edd.), Cityscapes and Monuments of Western Asia Minor: Memories and Identities (Oxford, 2017), 55–65 have argued on the basis of Hellenistic burials found at the base of the Harpy Monument and of a dedication made there by Ptolemaic mercenaries to ‘Kybernis’, the Lycian leader known from Hdt. 7.98, that the dynast received hero cult at his tomb, the Harpy Monument, upon his death. For the dedication, see P. Baker and G. Thériault, ‘Dédicace de mercenaires lagides pour Kybernis sur l'Acropole lycienne de Xanthos’, in P. Brun, L. Cavalier, K. Konuk and F. Prost (edd.), Actes du colloque Euploia, Bordeaux, Ausonius, 1–3 oct. 2009 (Bordeaux, 2013), 293–302. I thank Catherine Draycott for pointing me to this work.

62 On Arbinas’ Delphic consultation, see Bousquet (n. 5), 166–7.

63 I assume by this time that the Inscribed Pillar had been inscribed with its Lycian texts.

64 Bousquet (n. 61), 143 likewise characterizes the relationship between the monuments as imitation. For a description of this statue base for Arbinas (no. 6121), see A. Bourgarel and H. Metzger, ‘Les deux bases d'Arbinas’, in H. Metzger (ed.), Fouilles de Xanthos 9 (Paris, 1992), 1.149–54, at 1.150–4 with photographs at 2.72–3.

65 Whether these verses, which repeat much of Symmachus’ content with variation and expansion, are an unordered anthology, an ordered collection or a single epigram remains an open question: Bousquet (n. 5), 159 argues for an unordered anthology of variations on a theme; Petrovic (n. 8), 211 suggests that these are separate poems entered in an epigrammatic contest and judged worthy of inscription. The answer bears heavily on the question of the development of epigrammatic collections: for recent scholarship on this issue, see M. Fantuzzi, ‘Typologies of variation on a theme in Archaic and Classical metrical inscriptions’, in I. Petrovic, A. Petrovic and M. Baumbach (edd.), Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram (Cambridge, 2010), 289–310; Bing (n. 54); J.D. Day, ‘The “spatial dynamics” of Archaic and Classical Greek epigram: conversations among locations, monuments, texts, and viewer-readers’, in A. Petrovic, I. Petrovic and E. Thomas (edd.), The Materiality of Text: Placements, Presences, and Perceptions of Inscribed Text in Classical Antiquity (Leiden, 2018), 73–104.

66 For his parallels, see Bousquet (n. 5), 163–4; at 165 he describes the epigrams as ‘imitations’ of Greek poetry composed of ‘citations’, ‘reminiscences’, and the like.

67 E.g. at CEG 888.iii.36 ποίων γὰρ σὺ καλῶν ἐπιλείπεα̣[ι – ⏑ ⏑ – ⏓] Bousquet offers the supplement Ἀρβίνα ἀνδρῶν, yielding the sense ‘For of what sort of fine men do you, Arbinas, fall short?’ and notes a parallel with Heracles’ son Tlepolemus’ taunt that the Lycian leader Sarpedon cannot be Zeus's son, ‘since you fall far short of those men born of Zeus in the days of earlier men’ (ἐπεὶ πολλὸν κείνων ἐπιδεύεαι ἀνδρῶν | οἳ Διὸς ἐξεγένοντο ἐπὶ προτέρων ἀνθρώπων, Il. 5.636–7). Tempting as this parallel is, the differing semantic ranges of ἐπιδεύομαι and ἐπιλείπω make Bousquet's supplement difficult. Whereas ἐπιδεύομαι can be used for a person who falls short of another (LSJ s.v. 2), the lexica cite no such use of ἐπιλείπω in the passive. I would thus hesitate before positing allusion here.

68 Perhaps there is also a reminiscence of Od. 1.1–3 ὃς μάλα πολλὰ | πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε⋅ | πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω.

69 For Arbinas’ coinage depicting Heracles, along with that of the dynast Kherêi, see the discussion by Mørkholm and Zahle (n. 56), 85–7. Heracles also appears in the coinage of Kuprlli, discussed by O. Mørkholm and J. Zahle, ‘The coinage of Kuprlli: a numismatic and archaeological study’, AArch 43 (1972), 57–113, at 101–2. For Heracles or Theseus as the model of Arbinas on the Grand Frieze of the Nereid Monument, see Childs and Demargne (n. 33), 255, 262. For these reasons Bousquet's supplement [Ἡ]ρακλε[–––––] at CEG 888.iii.48 is attractive.

70 For Xanthus as his domain, see e.g. Il. 12.313.

71 Further, Keen, 186–92 argues that Building G on the Xanthian acropolis (c.460) was the Sarpedoneion known from Appian (B Civ. 4.78), suggesting at 147 that the Nereid Monument was designed as a herōon imitating it. Other identifications of Building G and the Sarpedoneion have recently been proposed: Draycott (n. 20), 122–6 argues that Buildings F, G and H could have been memorials for contemporary Xanthians (Kuprlli and family?) who ‘refounded’ Xanthus; L. Cavalier, ‘Appien, le Sarpédonion et le rempart de Xanthos’, in S. Ladstätter, B. Beck-Brandt and B. Marksteiner-Yener (edd.), Turm und Tor: Siedlungsstrukturen in Lykien und benachbarten Kulturlandschaften. Akten des Kolloquiums in Gedenken an Thomas Marksteiner (Vienna, 2015), 132–41 reinterprets Appian in light of recent excavations, arguing that the Sarpedoneion was located instead on the ‘upper agora’ in the city centre.

72 Asheri (n. 7), 87, 105 on CEG 177.

73 E.g. Domingo Gygax and Tietz (n. 43), 95 assume that the παιδοτρίβης was also Arbinas’ teacher.

74 On the sympotic origins of literary criticism, see A. Ford, The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece (Princeton, 2004), 25–45.

75 The influence of Greek sympotic poetry on the epigram is discussed in the studies of Wörrle (n. 18).

76 Draycott, C.M., ‘Drinking to death: the “Totenmahl”, drinking culture and funerary representation in late Archaic and Achaemenid western Anatolia’, in Draycott, C.M. and Stamatopoulou, M. (edd.), Dining & Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the ‘Funerary Banquet’ in Ancient Art, Burial and Belief (Leuven, 2016), 219–98Google Scholar, at 255.

77 Petrovic (n. 8), 214 understands εὐσυνέτως passively as referring to the Homeric diction making the poem ‘intelligible’. The same would be conveyed by the active meaning: a poem wrought ‘intelligently’ will be ‘intelligible’ to the ‘intelligent’.

78 For a different, political interpretation of σύνεσις, see Savalli (n. 3), 106–7.

79 See most recently Strootman, R., The Birdcage of the Muses: Patronage of the Arts and Sciences at the Ptolemaic Imperial Court, 305–222 b.c.e. (Leuven, 2017), 78Google Scholar.

80 Hutchinson, G.O., Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford, 1988), 67Google Scholar.

81 Weber, G., Dichtung und höfische Gesellschaft: Die Rezeption von Zeitgeschichte am Hof der ersten drei Ptolemäern (Stuttgart, 1993), 181–2Google Scholar.

82 See especially Alan Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton, 1995), 71–103; Murray, O., ‘Ptolemaic royal patronage’, in McKechnie, P. and Guillaume, P. (edd.), Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World (Leiden, 2008), 724Google Scholar, at 20–4; Acosta-Hughes, B. and Stephens, S.A., Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets (Cambridge, 2013), 130–45Google Scholar.

83 Hecht, C., Zwischen Athen und Alexandria: Dichter und Künstler beim makedonischen König Archelaos (Wiesbaden, 2017)Google Scholar only identifies ‘hypotextuality’, which she claims at 39 is characteristic of Hellenistic poetry, in one instance from Archelaus’ court, namely the general relationship of Timotheus’ Persae to the Aeschylean tragedy, discussed at 153; needless to say, this seems a far cry from Hellenistic allusivity.

84 See e.g. Bing, P., ‘The politics and poetics of geography in the Milan Posidippus, section one: On Stones (AB 1–20)’, in Gutzwiller, K. (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford, 2005), 119–40Google Scholar.

85 For this aspect of Callimachus’ poetry, see M. Asper, ‘Dimensions of power: Callimachean geopoetics and the Ptolemaic empire’, in B. Acosta-Hughes, L. Lehnus and S. Stephens (edd.), Brill's Companion to Callimachus (Leiden, 2011), 153–77 and Acosta-Hughes and Stephens (n. 82), 148–203.

86 Stephens, S.A., Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley, 2003), 103–4Google Scholar.

87 See especially Stephens (n. 86). Not all poets shared this strategy, however, Posidippus being a notable exception, as the Ptolemies also had use for a solidly Graeco-Macedonian representation abroad: see Stephens, S.A., ‘Battle of the books’, in Gutzwiller, K. (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford, 2005), 229–48Google Scholar.

88 Notably Philitas of Cos for Ptolemy II. On royal tutors, see Fraser, P.M., Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1972), 1.308–9Google Scholar.

89 Ptolemy I Soter wrote a history of Alexander (FGrHist 138); Ptolemy IV Philopator wrote a tragedy Adonis (TrGF 119) and perhaps also the epigram on Aratus (SH 712) attributed to ‘King Ptolemy of Egypt’.

90 See e.g. the anecdote about Philadelphus’ clever grammatical joke played on Sosibius ὁ λυτικός, a grammarian famous for ‘solving’ literary puzzles (Ath. Deipn. 11.493f–11.494a).

91 Strabo 17.1.8; on the Museum and Library, see Fraser (n. 88), 1.312–35.

92 The first word of the Idylls even in antiquity, since the scholia's prefatory note to Idyll 1 claims it begins the collection because it is χαριέστερον καὶ τεχνικώτερον τῶν ἄλλων (I.b Wendel).

93 I owe this observation to Ivana Petrovic.

94 On Archaic and Classical court poets’ mobility, see G. Weber, ‘Poesie und Poeten an den Höfen vorhellenistischer Monarchen: συνῆσαν δὲ ἄρα καὶ τότε βασιλεῦσι ποιηταί (Paus. 1, 2, 3)’, Klio 74 (1992), 25–77, at 52. For sources and evaluation of Simonides’ career, see Molyneux, J.H., Simonides: An Historical Study (Waucunda, IL, 1992)Google Scholar.

95 Strootman (n. 79), 99–114 argues that poets were courtiers like any other on the grounds that they portray their poetry as a gift given in exchange for patronage, and (at 69–73) that gift-exchange was the heart of Hellenistic courtiership. Some poets are explicitly named philoi in our sources: the New Comedy poet Philippides was a philos of Lysimachus (Plut. Vit. Demetr. 12.5), and a certain Hegesianax, author of a fifteen-book history of the Trojan War and of poetry, became a philos of Antiochus III (Ath. Deipn. 4.155b–c). While other poets may have been titled philoi (Callimachus seems as likely a case as any, on which see Cameron [n. 82], 3–11), it is safer instead to focus on how they presented themselves as philoi as a stratagem to secure and maintain patronage. See the analysis of Hellenistic court scientists’ self-representation by Berrey, M., Hellenistic Science at Court (Berlin, 2017), 89125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 If Symmachus, the μάντις ἀ[μύμων] (CEG 888.ii.18), is also the πρόπολος sent by Leto to Arbinas (CEG 888.iii.27–8).