Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-qxsvm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-11T21:10:16.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Palladas and the Foundation of Constantinople*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2010

Kevin W. Wilkinson
Affiliation:
Yale University, [email protected]

Abstract

The recent adjustment to Palladas’ dates necessitates a fresh look at an old question: Should Constantinople be considered the proper setting for some of his epigrams? Allusions in a few poems to statuary and to buildings, and one ekphrasis of a coin, suggest not only that he was in Constantinople at some point during his life (as many others have thought), but also that he was there quite close to the time of the city's foundation. These epigrams yield precious (if also enigmatic) clues to a murky period in the history of the Eastern capital.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2010. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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.)

References

1 e.g. Franke, A., De Pallada Epigrammatographo (1899), 43Google Scholar; Peek, W., RE 18.3 (1949), 158–68Google Scholar, at 158; Bonanno, T. A., ‘Pallada’, Orpheus 5 (1958), 119–50Google Scholar, at 120–2; Irmscher, J., ‘Palladas-Probleme’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universität Rostock 12 (1963), 235–9Google Scholar, at 237.

2 On the first of these, see now Wilkinson, K. W., ‘Palladas and the age of Constantine’, JRS 99 (2009), 3660Google Scholar, at 56–60. On the second, see ibid., 38, 54–6, and below, Section I.

3 See especially Bowra, C. M., ‘Palladas and Christianity’, Proc. Brit. Acad. 45 (1959), 255–67Google Scholar; idem, Palladas and the converted Olympians’, Byz. Zeit. 53 (1960), 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cameron, Alan, ‘Palladas and the Nikai’, JHS 84 (1964), 5462CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Palladas and Christian polemic’, JRS 55 (1965a), 1730Google Scholar; idem, Notes on Palladas’, CQ n.s. 15 (1965b), 215–29Google Scholar.

4 Wilkinson, op. cit. (n. 2).

5 Sullivan, J. P., Martial, the Unexpected Classic: A Literary and Historical Study (1991), 130–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and passim. It might be objected that Martial is a Latin poet and therefore writing within a very different literary tradition, but the attention to Ptolemaic persons, events, and sites in Hellenistic Greek epigram is well-known, and similar sorts of allusions can be discerned in Greek scoptic epigram of the Roman period. On Lucillius and Ammianus, for example, whose influence on Palladas is extensive, see Nisbet, G., Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's Forgotten Rivals (2003), 113–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nisbet hedges a good deal more than earlier commentators but accepts the fundamental topicality of some of these scoptic epigrams.

6 Wilkinson, op. cit. (n. 2), 54–6.

7 Eusebius, VC 3.54; idem, LC 8.2–4; Jerome, Chron. a.d. 330; Julian, Or. 7.22 (Bidez); Anonymus, De rebus bellicis 2.2; Libanius, Or. 30.6, 37; Socrates, HE 1.16; Sozomen, HE 2.5; Zosimus 5.24.6.

8 The φόλλιν of Palladas’ epigram has been taken by some to mean ‘bellows’ rather than coinage. See especially White, H., ‘Notes on Palladas’, Myrtia 13 (1998), 225–30Google Scholar, at 229–30; Pontani, A., ‘Ancora su Pallada, AP IX 528, ovvero il bilinguismo alla prova’, Incontri triestini di filologia classica 6 (2006–2007), 175210Google Scholar. In a Greek context, I find it quite impossible to escape a monetary interpretation of the word, but I also think it likely that Palladas crafted a line that would allow for the bilingual reader to form multiple associations; see Wilkinson, K. W., ‘Some neologisms in the epigrams of Palladas’, GRBS 50 (2010)Google Scholar.

9 It should be noted that this epigram was traditionally situated in Constantinople during the fifth century. See above, n. 1; also Irmscher, J., ‘Das “Haus der Marina”’, in Varcl, L. and Willetts, R. F. (eds), ΕΡΑΣ: Studies Presented to George Thomson on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday (1963), 129–33Google Scholar. Others have argued for a setting in Alexandria at the end of the fourth century: e.g. Bowra, op. cit. (n. 3, 1960), 1–4; Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1965b), 223–5.

10 Curran, J., ‘Moving statues in late antique Rome: problems of perspective’, Art History 17 (1994), 4658CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 See especially Bowra, C. M., ‘Palladas on Tyche’, CQ n.s. 10 (1960), 118–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 θερμοδότις in this line is a hapax legomenon and its meaning not entirely secure. LSJ (s.v.) suggests ‘female bath-attendant’; see too Bowra, op. cit. (n. 11), 125. F. Jacobs (Animadversiones 2.3 (1801), 238) suggests ‘calidam vendens, pro copa; vino enim calidam admiscebant veteres’. And cf. Lampe, Greek Patristic Lexicon, s.v. θερμοδότης (the masculine equivalent, also very rare): ‘servant who brings hot water or perh. hot drinks’. The similarly rare cognate verb θερμοδοτέω appears in Leontius, Vita Sym. Sal. 176 (Festugière, A. J. and Rydén, L. (eds.) Vie de Syméon le Fou et Vie de Jean de Chypre (1974), p. 81Google Scholar, 8–9): ποτὲ δὲ θερμοδοτῶν ἐν καπηλείῳ ἐλάμβανεν τὴν τροφὴν αὐτοῦ. This is rendered: ‘Une fois, il [sc. Simeon] gagnait son pain en apportant de l’eau chaude dans un cabaret’ (p. 135; see also the brief comment on p. 193). The passage is discussed by Magoulias, H. J., ‘Bathhouse, inn, tavern, prostitution and the stage as seen in the lives of the saints of the sixth and seventh centuries’, Epet. Byz. 38 (1971), 233–52Google Scholar, at 237. From Leontius it is clear that whatever the precise nature of this menial task it was appropriate to the setting of a tavern.

13 e.g. Lacombrade, C., ‘Palladas d’Alexandrie ou les vicissitudes d’un professeur-poète à la fin du IVième siècle’, Pallas 1 (1953), 1726CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keydell, R., ‘Palladas und das Christentum’, Byz. Zeit. 50 (1957), 13Google Scholar; Bowra, op. cit. (n. 11), 122–6; Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1964), 57.

14 Wilkinson, op. cit. (n. 2), 43–8.

15 Bowra, op. cit. (n. 11), 122–3.

16 Gibson, C. A. (‘The Alexandrian Tychaion and the date of Ps.-Nicolaus ProgymnasmataCQ n.s. 59 (2009), 608–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar) has recently used this setting and date for AP 9.180–183 to locate Ps.-Nicolaus in the late fourth or early fifth century. This needs to be reconsidered in light of the revised dates for Palladas and the following case for the Constantinopolitan provenance of these four epigrams, but the rest of Gibson's argument for dating Ps.-Nicolaus much earlier than is conventional (at least before a.d. 488) is unaffected.

17 Rufinus, HE 11.22; Eunapius, VS 472; Socrates, HE 5.16–17; Sozomen, HE 7.15.

18 [Libanius], Progymn. 12.25 (Förster). On this ekphrasis, attributed by modern scholars to an anonymous author conventionally known as Pseudo-Nicolaus, see recently Gibson, C. A., ‘Alexander in the Tychaion: Ps.-Libanius on the statues’, GRBS 47 (2007), 431–54Google Scholar; idem, op. cit. (n. 16).

19 Zacharias Scholasticus, Vita Severi, 33–5. See discussion in Trombley, F. R., Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370–529, vol. 2 (1994), 1315Google Scholar; Gibson, op. cit. (n. 16), 615–17.

20 Theophylactus Simocatta, Hist. 8.13.

21 Gibson, op. cit. (n. 16), 612–15, notes that these were not the Tychaion's divine images, described by Ps.-Nicolaus, which had probably long since been destroyed. Simocatta calls them ἀνδριάντες (‘human statues’) rather than ἀγάλματα (‘divine statues’). They were perhaps the depictions of Alexander and the Ptolemies that are also described by Ps.-Nicolaus.

22 John Lydus, Mens. 4.132. The connection between this passage and Palladas’ four epigrams has long been recognized by commentators: e.g. Jacobs, F. (ed.), Anthologia Graeca, vol. 3 (1817), 491Google Scholar; Dübner, F. (ed.), Epigrammatum Anthologia Palatina cum Planudeis, vol. 2 (1872), 183Google Scholar; Stadtmüller, H. (ed.), Anthologia Graeca, vol. 3 (1906), 142Google Scholar.

23 Zerwes, W., Palladas von Alexandrien: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der griechischen Epigrammdichtung (1956), 269–70Google Scholar; Bowra, op. cit. (n. 11), 123; Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1964), 57.

24 As noted by Gibson, op. cit. (n. 16), 619, n. 49.

25 Zosimus 2.31.2.

26 Berger, A., Untersuchungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos, ΠΟΙΚΙΛΑ ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΝΑ 8 (1988), 272Google Scholar; Speck, P., ‘Wie dumm darf Zosimos sein? Vorschläge zu seiner Neubewertung’, Byzantinoslavica 52 (1991), 114Google Scholar, at 10. On the site of this structure, however, see below.

27 Mango, C., The Brazen House: A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (1959), 43–5Google Scholar; Janin, R., Constantinople byzantine: développement urbain et répertoire topographique2 (1964), 14Google Scholar; Bassett, S., The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (2004), 155Google Scholar, 156. Dagron, G. (Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (1974) 373)Google Scholar thinks that the reference is to the Tetrastoön (renamed Augoustaion). But see Mango, op. cit.

28 Mango, op. cit. (n. 27), 44. Speck, P. (Die Kaiserliche Universität von Konstantinopel Byzantinisches Archiv 14 (1974), 92107)Google Scholar argued that the site was in fact outside of the Basilikê. Berger (op. cit. (n. 26), 272–3) identified it with the Milion; followed by Speck, op. cit. (n. 26), 10. But see Cameron, Alan, ‘Theodorus τρισέπαρχος’, GRBS 17 (1976), 269–86Google Scholar, especially 269–73.

29 Hesychius, Patr. Const. 15: Ῥέας μὲν κατὰ τὸν τῆς Βασιλικῆς λεγόμενον τόπον νεών τε καὶ ἄγαλμα καθιδρύσατο, ὅπερ καὶ Τυχαῖον τοῖς πολίταις τετίμηται. See Janin, op. cit. (n. 27), 157.

30 Socrates, HE 3.11.

31 Dagron, op. cit. (n. 27), 373–4.

32 Malalas, Chron. 13.7 (Thurn, 246; Dindorf, 320) emphasizes the role of Fortuna's statue in the city's dedication ceremony (though the value of his report is uncertain). He says that it was processed to the hippodrome and that Constantine made a bloodless offering (θυσίαν ἀναίμακτον), calling the statue Ἄνθουσα (sc. Flora, the sacred name of Rome); C. Ando, The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire (2008), 189–91.

33 As Dagron (op. cit. (n. 27), 373–4) notes, this does not mean that Tyche was stripped of all religious significance; rather she was modified (indeed sanitized) and redirected along imperial lines.

34 Ando, op. cit. (n. 32), 189–95. Representations of Rome and Constantinople are prominent also in the coinage of this period; e.g. RIC VII, pp. 336–46 (Rome), nos 331–4, 338–9, 342–3, 349, 354–8, 361–2, 370–1, 386–7, 390, 396–8, 406–8.

35 John Lydus, Mens. 4.132.

36 Beckby and the other standard critical editions print the unwarranted emendation φιλόχρηστος for the manuscript's φιλόχριστος in line 2. For discussion, see Irmscher, J., ‘‘Ἡ φιλόχριστος πόλις (zu Anthologia Graeca XVI 282)’, in Studien zum Neuen Testament und zur Patristik Erich Klostermann zum 90. Geburtstag dargebracht = TU 77 (1961), 323–30Google Scholar; Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1964), 54–6; Wilkinson, op. cit. (n. 8).

37 Reiske, J. (ed.), Anthologiae Graecae a Constantino Cephala conditae libri tres, duo nunc primum, tertius post Iensium iterum editi, cum latina interpretatione, commentariis et notitia poetarum (1754), 254Google Scholar; Jacobs, op. cit. (n. 12), 244–5; Bonanno, op. cit. (n. 1), 122; Waltz, P., ‘Sur quelques épigrammes “protreptiques” de l’Anthologie (livre X): notes critiques et exégétiques’, REG 59–60 (1946–47), 176209CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 203; Irmscher, op. cit. (n. 36), 330.

38 Zerwes, op. cit. (n. 23), 325; Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1964), 56–9; Aubreton, R. (ed.), Anthologie Grecque, vol. 13 (1980)Google Scholar, ad loc. Irmscher also came to adopt this thesis in a later article (‘Alexandria: die christusliebende Stadt’, Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte 19 (1967–1968), 115–22). The possibility had been raised in passing by Franke, op. cit. (n. 1), 16–17.

39 Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1964), 56; Irmscher, op. cit. (n. 38), 117–20. It is only fair to note that Cameron says explicitly that he was relying on Irmscher's brief survey in the first of his two articles on this subject. The electronic TLG has rendered this sort of work much simpler and more comprehensive.

40 But see now P.Oxy 63.4394.11 (a.d. 494); P.Paramone 15.4 (c. a.d. 592).

41 Gregory Nazianzen, Or. 42.27.

42 Gerontius, Vita Melaniae 53. This occurrence is noted by Dagron, op. cit. (n. 27), 387, with other references to Constantinople as ‘Christ-loving’.

43 Jacobs, op. cit. (n. 12), 245.

44 For other examples of ecphrastic poems with coins as their objects, cf. Posidippus, Epigr. 31 (Austin and Bastianini); Ovid, Pont. 2.8. On the first of these, see Stephens, S., ‘For you Arsinoe…’, in Acosta-Hughes, B., Kosmetatou, ., and Baumbach, M. (eds), Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus, P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 (2004), 161–76Google Scholar, at 165–6.

45 Anonymous, Orig. Const. 30.

46 Similar coins were produced at the Constantinopolitan mint, recently founded by Constantine; see RIC VII, pp. 579, 582 (Constantinople), nos 63, 79, 86.

47 RIC VII, p. 337 (Rome), no. 343.

48 On the significance of this battle, see Anonymous, Orig. Const. 26; Zosimus 2.23–4. For its representation on coinage, see Alföldi, A., ‘On the foundation of Constantinople: a few notes’, JRS 37 (1947), 1016Google Scholar, at 11.

49 Irmscher, op. cit (n. 36), 329–30.

50 As noted by Zerwes, op. cit. (n. 23), 325; Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1964), 56.

51 Cameron, op. cit. (n. 3, 1964), 56, 59–62. And see Irmscher, op. cit. (n. 38), 121–2.

52 Waltz (op. cit. (n. 37), 200–3) thought that these lines proved Palladas to be a Christian. See also Keydell, op. cit. (n. 13), 3.

53 Wilkinson, op. cit. (n. 2), 43–8.

54 Paton, W. R. (ed.), The Greek Anthology, vol. 4 (1918), 32–3Google Scholar; Zerwes, op. cit. (n. 23), 54, and discussion at 57–8. This is also the reading adopted by Beckby. Does the nonsense written by the Palatine scribe (or someone before him) represent a failure of nerve upon realizing that the punchline was anti-Christian?

55 Julian, Caes. 38 (Lacombrade).

56 Zosimus 2.29 (drawing on Eunapius).

57 Eusebius, VC 4.58–60. For the ‘interpolation’ argument, see Downey, G., ‘The builder of the original Church of the Apostles at Constantinople: a contribution to the criticism of the “Vita Constantini” attributed to Eusebius’, DOP 6 (1951), 5180Google Scholar. Many, however, have taken Eusebius’ testimony to indicate beyond a reasonable doubt that Constantine was responsible for the church in its initial phase, though with varying theories of what form the building took. See inter alia Janin, R., Les églises et les monastères (1953), 4655Google Scholar; Krautheimer, R., ‘Zu Konstantins Apostelkirche in Konstantinopel’ in Stuiber, A. and Hermann, A. (eds), Mullus: Festschrift Theodor Klauser (1964), 224–9Google Scholar; Dagron, op. cit. (n. 27), 401–8.

58 Mango, C., ‘Constantine's mausoleum and the translation of relics’, Byz. Zeit. 83 (1990), 5162Google Scholar.

59 On the assimilation of Constantine to the original ‘Thirteenth Apostle’, see Staats, R., ‘Kaiser Konstantin der Grosse und der Apostel Paulus’, Vig. Chr. 62 (2008), 334–70Google Scholar.

60 Nicephorus Callistus, HE 8.55 (PG 146, 220c).

61 This technique can be seen in varying degrees in the epigrams discussed above. Cf. also AP 10.97, in which λίτραν ἐτῶν ζήσας (alluding to the newly introduced solidus and its weight in gold) means simply ‘at the age of seventy-two’.

62 The Latin text is that of Speyer, W. (ed.), Epigrammata Bobiensia (1963)Google Scholar. Speyer records H. Fuchs's suggestion of arripiat for astringat in line 4, hence the alternate translation in brackets. I am grateful to Philip Hardie for his assistance with the interpretation of this epigram.

63 cf. AP 11.270, 271, and presumably also 9.755, which provides no indication of date and is also anonymous. On the statuary of the hippodrome, see Bassett, S., ‘The antiquities in the hippodrome of Constantinople’, DOP 45 (1991), 8796Google Scholar (90 and 91 for the Scylla); idem, op. cit. (n. 27), 227–30.

64 See Munari's note in his edition of the Epigrammata Bobiensia, ad loc.: ‘Suspicor nostro epigrammati Graecum exemplar subesse.’ See also Cameron, Alan, The Greek Anthology: From Meleager to Planudes (1993), 94Google Scholar. A large block of Greek ecphrastic epigrams is missing from the Palatine Anthology between Books 9 and 10; only some of these were preserved by Planudes. See Gow, A. S. F., The Greek Anthology: Sources and Ascriptions, The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper no. 9 (1958), 51–2Google Scholar.

65 Cameron, op. cit. (n. 64), 78–96.

66 ibid., 95.

67 Some have thought that Rufinus, one of the poets represented in the lost anthology, may have been as late as the fourth century; see especially Page, D. L., The Epigrams of Rufinus (1978), 349Google Scholar. Cameron, Alan (‘Strato and Rufinus’, CQ n.s. 32 (1982), 162–73)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, however, has proved that he was writing three centuries earlier than this. And in any event all of his known epigrams are amatory.

68 As suggested by Alan Cameron, op. cit. (n. 64), 95.

69 Bassett (op. cit. (n. 27), 85, 230) has suggested that it might have been erected under Theodosius I or Arcadius. This judgement is based, however, solely on the hippodrome scenes from the Column of Arcadius (where Scylla is depicted). This evidence is capable of providing only a terminus ante quem.

70 Eusebius, at least, could say in the 330s that Constantinople was already filled with bronze statues that had been imported from all over the Empire (VC 3.54.3).

71 Not only because of the dates for Palladas’ life proposed in Wilkinson, op. cit. (n. 2), but also because of indications that the fourth-century anthology used by the Bobbio poets was already in existence by the early stages of Ausonius’ career; see ibid., 41–2.

72 Eusebius, VC 3.48.2. See Alföldi, A., The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome, trans. Mattingly, H. (1948), 110–23Google Scholar; Jones, A. H. M., Constantine and the Conversion of Europe 2 (1962), 191–2Google Scholar; idem The Later Roman Empire 284–602, vol. 1 (1964), 83Google Scholar; Barnes, T. D., Constantine and Eusebius (1981), 222–3Google Scholar; idem, Constantine after seventeen hundred years: the Cambridge Companion, the York exhibition and a recent biography’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 14 (2007), 185220Google Scholar, at 209.

73 e.g. Mango, C., Le développement urbain de Constantinople, Ive–VIIe siècles (1985), 34–6Google Scholar; Lenski, N., ‘The reign of Constantine’, in Lenski, N. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (2006), 5990Google Scholar, at 77–8; and in the same volume J. Elsner, ‘Perspectives in art’, 255–77, at 266–8; Kuban, Z., ‘Konstantins neue Polis: Konstantinopel’, in Demandt, A. and Engemann, J. (eds), Konstantin der Grosse: Geschichte, Archäologie, Rezeption: Internationales Kolloquium vom 10.–15. Oktober 2005 an der Universität Trier zur Landesausstellung Rheinland-Pfalz 2007 ‘Konstantin der Grosse’ (2006), 221–33Google Scholar.

74 e.g. Krautheimer, R., Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics (1983), 60–7.Google Scholar