This article has its origins in a paper delivered at a panel on “Vision and Power in Ancient Greece’, as part of the Celtic Classics Conference held in Cork in July 2008: my sincere thanks to the panel organisers—Sue Blundell, Douglas Cairns and Nancy Rabinowitz—as well as to the other conference participants for their critical discussion and feedback. The tenure of an Alexander von Hum-boldt-Stiftung Fellowship in Munich and Berlin in 2009 provided the opportunity to rework the material into the present form (as part of a larger project on ‘Epic and Epigram on the Tabulae lliacae’). For comments on an earlier draft, I am grateful to Luigi Bravi, Jas Elsner, Simon Gold-hill, John Henderson and Ivana Petrovic; sincere thanks also to Helen Morales and John Penwill at Ramus. Needless to say, all errors remain my own.

1. Plut. Mor. (De glor. Ath.) 346 F (= Simon, frg. 190b Bergk): ‘Simonides relates that a picture is a silent poem, and a poem a speaking picture’ ).

2. ‘La pittura è una poesia muta, e la poesia è una pittura cieca': for the context of the passage, see MacCurdy, E. (ed.), The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci ² (2 vols.: New York 1956Google Scholar), ii.213.

3. On the intermedial complexity of the Homeric ecphrasis, see Francis, J.A., ‘Metal Maidens, Achilles’ Shield and Pandora: The Beginnings of “Ekphrasis”’, AJP 130 (2009), 1–23Google Scholar; ‘The relationship between word and image in ancient ekphrasis is, from its beginning, complex and interdependent, presenting sophisticated reflection on the conception and process of both verbal and visual representation…. The very idea of representing a visual work of art with artistic words entailed a level of sophistication which had already begun to think abstractly about these modes of representation’ (3, 16); cf. Squire, M.J., The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae (Oxford forthcoming 2011Google Scholar), ch.7. The Homeric passage was soon subject to further imitation, and in no less sophisticated ways: see e.g. Becker, A.S., The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis (Lanham 1995), 23–40Google Scholar, on [Hes.] St: 139–320.

4. Cf. Plut. Mor. (Quomodo adul.) 17E. Among the most stimulating treatments of the Simonidean dictum are Carson, A., ‘Simonides Painter’, in Hexter, R. and Seldon, D. (eds.), Innovations of Antiquity (New York 1992), 51–64Google Scholar, and Sprigath, G.K., ‘Das Dictum des Simonides: Der Vergleich von Dichtung und Malerei’, Poetica 36 (2004), 243–80Google Scholar; note also Franz, M., Von Gorgias bis Lukrez: Antike Ästhetik und Poetik als vergleichende Zeichentheorie (Berlin 1999), 61–83Google Scholar, for the immediate cultural reception. On the evidence for the Simonidean model, and Plutarch’s later reinterpolations, see Bravi’s discussion in Bravi, L. and Brunori, S., ‘II racconto mitico fra tradizione iconografica e tradizione poetica: il pensiero dei moderni e il modello simonideo’, in Cingano, E. (ed.), Tra panellenismo e tradizioni locali: generi poetici e storiografia (Alessandria 2010), 451–81Google Scholar, at 463–69, esp.466f.

5. For discussion, see Männlein-Robert, I., Stimme, Schrift und Bild: Zum Verhaltnis der Kiinste in der hellenistischen Dichtung (Heidelberg 2007), 30fGoogle Scholar., along with 13–35 on the Archaic/Classical intellectual backdrop more generally: ‘Seit der ersten in der griechischen Literatur Uberlieferten Kunstbeschreibung…werden [Kunstbeschreibungen] von Anfang an haufig nicht nur als poetisch reizvolle Einlagen verwertet, sondern auch als Aussagen der Dichter iiber ihr Werk benutzt’ (13). It is also worth noting how, in ancient Greek, the very language for figuring ‘drawing’ and ‘writing’ served to perpetuate the analogy: painting (ζωγϱαØία) was conceived in relation to writing (γϱαØή), and vice versa: for the pun, cf. Squire, M.J., Image and Text in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Cambridge 2009), 147fGoogle Scholar., with further bibliography.

6. Ars P. 361–65: for discussion, see Brink, CO., Horace on Poetry: The Ars Poetica (Cambridge 1971), 368–72Google Scholar; Trimpi, W., ‘The Meaning of Horace’s ut pictura poesis’, JWI 36 (1973), 1–34Google Scholar; Hardie, P., ‘Ut pictura poesis? Horace and the Visual Arts’, in Rudd, N. (ed.), Horace 2000, a Celebration: Essays for the Bimillennium (London 1993), 120–39Google Scholar; Manieri, A., ‘Alcune riflessioni sul rapporto poesia-pittura nella teoria degli antichi’, QUCC 50 (1995), 133–40Google Scholar. The most important trio of books on the sister arts remain Hagstrum, J., The Sister Arts: The Tradition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray (Chicago 1955Google Scholar); Lee, R.W., Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting (New York 1967Google Scholar); and Praz, M., Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts (Princeton 1970Google Scholar).

7. As such, my approach in this article takes issue with that of e.g. Becker, A.S., ‘Contest or Concert? A Speculative Essay on Ecphrasis and Rivalry Between the Arts’, CML 23 (2003), 1–14Google Scholar. Becker’s scintillating article challenges ‘the predilection, in criticism of [Greek and Latin] ecphrasis, to posit a rivalry that is assumed as a given, or a ground, upon which ecphrasis, as such, plays’; instead, Becker presents ‘an appeal to allow a “naïve” reading to complement a more suspicious reading [of ecphrasis]’ (2). As I hope to show, there is absolutely nothing ‘naïve’ about Greek epigram’s theorisation of visual-verbal relations…

8. For Leonardo’s subsequent comparison of the arts, see especially Zubov, V.P., Leonardo da Vinci, tr. Kraus, D.H. (Cambridge MA 1968), 256–63Google Scholar, and Farago, C., Leonardo da Vinci’s Paragone: A Critical Interpretation (New York 1991Google Scholar); on the intellectual backdrop, compare Barkan, L., Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture (New Haven 1999), 5–7Google Scholar.

9. See especially Mitchell, W.J.T., Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago 1986Google Scholar), characterising the relation between image and text as ‘a dialectical struggle in which the opposed terms take on different ideological roles and relationships at different moments in history’ (98); cf. id., ‘Word and Image’, in Nelson, R. and Shiff, R. (eds.), Critical Terms for Art History ¹ (Chicago 2003), 51–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. On my use of the generic term ‘ecphrastic epigram’, see p.77 below. I have attempted a more detailed overview of ecphrasis, in both ancient and modern perspectives, in Squire (n.5 above), 139–46.

11. Gutzwiller, K.J., ‘Art’s Echo: The Tradition of Hellenistic Ecphrastic Epigram’, in Harder, M.A., Regtuit, R. and Wakker, G.W. (eds.), Hellenistic Epigrams (Groningen 2002), 85–112Google Scholar, at 110,87.

12. See pp.76f. below. Bing, P. and Bruss, J.S. (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden and Boston 2007Google Scholar), testifies to what is now a thriving branch of scholarship.

13. Cameron, A., The Greek Anthology: From Meleager to Planudes (Oxford 1993Google Scholar), 4 (his emphasis). On the earliest extant manuscripts of epigrammatic texts (and the continuous and unbroken presentation of single poems), compare N. Krevans, ‘The Arrangement of Epigrams in Collections’, in Bing and Bruss (n.l2 above), 131–46, at 135f.

14. Cf. Squire, M.J., ‘Making Myron’s Cow Moo? The Metapoetics of Naturalism in Ecphrastic Epigram’, AJP 131 (2010), 589–634Google Scholar, at 597–99, on the (deeply problematic!) chronology of Myron’s cow epigrams.

15. For bibliography on Meleager’s Garland, Philip’s subsequent Julio-Claudian imitation of it, and the relation of both collections to the surviving Palatine and Planudean anthologies, see n.17 below.

16. Crucial here are the studies of Alan Cameron (esp. Cameron [n.13 above], with references to earlier work), and Kathryn Gutzwiller (esp. Gutzwiller, K.J., Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context [Berkeley 1998], 15–56Google Scholar). For a recent guide to scholarship, see P. Bing and J.S. Bruss, ‘Introduction to the Study of Hellenistic Epigram’, in Bing and Brass (n.12 above), 1–26, at 17–26.

17. On the structures supposed to have underpinned these earlier anthologies—especially Meleager’s Garland—the work of Kathryn Gutzwiller is foundational: see in particular Gutzwiller, K J., ‘The Poetics of Editing in Meleager’s Garland’, TAPA 127 (1997), 169–200Google Scholar; ead. (n.16 above), esp. 227–322; ead., ‘Visual Aesthetics in Meleager and Cavafy’, CML 23.2 (2003), 67–87Google Scholar. L. Argentieri, ‘Meleager and Philip as Epigram Collectors’, in Bing and Bruss (n.12 above), 147–64, provides a concise and well-referenced overview.

18. See Gow, A.S.F. and Page, D.L. (eds.), The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams (2 vols.; Cambridge 1965Google Scholar); eid. (eds.), The Garland of Philip (2 vols.: Cambridge 1968Google Scholar); Page, D.L. (ed.), Further Greek Epigrams: Epigrams before AD 50 from the Greek Anthology and Other Sources not Included in “Hellenistic Epigrams” or “The Garland of Philip” (Cambridge 1981Google Scholar). In what follows, I supply references to Gow and Page’s classifications (cited as ‘GP’) in the context of full epigram citations, but otherwise refer simply to book and poem number (in the case of the Palatine Anthology) or poem number alone (in the case of the supplementary poems of the Planudean Anthology): texts have been adapted from Aubreton, R. and Buffière, F. (eds.), Anthologie grecque (13 vols.: Paris 1928–1980Google Scholar); translations are my own.

19. See Friedländer, P., Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius: Kunstbeschreibungen Justinianischer Zeit (Leipzig 1912), 55–60Google Scholar. Friedländer was explicit in stating that epigrams offered no straightforward source for reconstructing ancient statues and paintings (55, contra e.g. Benndorf, O., De Anthologiae Graecae epigrammatis quae ad artes spectant [Leipzig 1862]Google Scholar). But many have been less circumspect in raiding the Greek Anthology for archaeological information: cf. Webster, T.B.L., Hellenistic Poetry and Art (London 1964), 156–77Google Scholar; Schwarz, G., Die griechische Kunst des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. im Spiegel der Anthologia Graeca (Vienna 1971Google Scholar); Hebert, B.D., Schriftquellen zur Hellenistischen Kunst: Plastik, Malerei und Kunsthandwerk der Griechen vom vierten bis zum zweiten Jahrhundert (Graz 1989Google Scholar), esp. 55–101, Q 122–214. On the 416-verse fifth-century CE ecphrastic description that comprises the second book of the Palatine Anthology, see Bassett, S.G., ‘Historiae Custos: Sculpture and Tradition in the Baths of Zeuxippos’, AJA 100(1996), 49l–506CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 495–97.

20. See Lausberg, M., Das Einzeldistichon: Studien zum antiken Epigramm (Munich 1982), 199–245Google Scholar.

21. See Manakidou, F., Beschreibung von Kunstwerken in der hellenistischen Dichtung: Ein Beitrag zur hellenistischen Poetik (Stuttgart 1993), 18–50Google Scholar.

22. See especially Gutzwiller (n.l 1 above); ead., ‘Seeing Thought: Timomachus’ Medea and Ecphrastic Epigram’, AJP 125 (2004), 339–86Google Scholar.

23. See Goldhill, S., ‘The Naïve and Knowing Eye: Ecphrasis and the Culture of Viewing in the Hellenistic World’, in Goldhill, S. and Osborne, R. (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 197–223Google Scholar, esp. 199–216; id., ‘Refracting Classical Vision: Changing Cultures of Viewing’, in Brennan, T. and Jay, M. (eds.), Vision in Context: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Sight (New York 1996), 17–28Google Scholar, esp. 21–24; id., ‘The Erotic Eye: Visual Stimulation and Cultural Conflict’, in Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic, and the Development of Empire (Cambridge 2001), 154–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 157–67; id., ‘What is Ekphrasis For?’, CP 102 (2007), 1–19Google ScholarPubMed; id., ‘The Context of Ecphrastic Epigram’ (forthcoming). Compare also Zanker, G., Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and its Audience (London 1987Google Scholar), esp. 39–54, and id., Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art (Madison 2004Google Scholar), 82–84—although to my mind Zanker rather underplays epigram’s programmatic importance in constructing (and deconstructing) Hellenistic ‘modes of viewing’. On the ways in which the art themes of epigram were also explored in contemporary material culture, see Onians, J., Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek World View, 350–50 BC (London 1979Google Scholar), especially 95–118.

24. Goldhill (n.23 above 1994), 198, 210; cf. Goldhill (n.23 above 2007), 2f. Compare also Gutzwiller (n.l1 above), on how ‘the actual reader is at one remove from the representation that is the work of art, and may experience it only through the lens of a represented viewing’ (86).

25. See Goldhill (n.23 above 1994), 216–23. On the self-referential ecphrastic descriptions of Th. Id. 15 and Her. Mim. 4, see esp. Burton, J.B., Theocritus’s Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender, and Patronage (Berkeley 1995), 93–122Google Scholar; Hunter, R., Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge 1996), 116–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Skinner, M.B., ‘Ladies’ Day at the Art Institute: Theocritus, Herodas and the Gendered Gaze’, in Lardinois, A. and McClure, L. (eds.), Making Silence Speak: Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society (Princeton 2001), 201–21Google Scholar (with response in Goldhill [n.23 above 2007], 8–15); Männlein-Robert, I., ‘“Hinkende Nachahmung”; Desillusionierung und Grenzüberspielungen in Herodas’ viertem Mimiambos’, in Harder, M.A., Regtuit, R.F. and Wakker, G.C. (eds.), Beyond the Canon (Leuven 2006), 205–27Google Scholar; ead. (n.5 above), 261–307.

26. See Rossi, L., The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuven 2001Google Scholar), esp. 15–27.

27. See Meyer, D., Inszeniertes Lesevergnügen: Das inschriftliche Epigramm und seine Rezeption hei Kallimachos. (Stuttgart 2005Google Scholar); cf. ead., ‘The Act of Reading and the Act of Writing in Hellenistic Epigram’, in Bing and Bruss (n.12 above), 187–210.

28. See Prioux, E., Regards alexandrins: histoire et théorie des arts dans l’épigramme hellénistique (Leuven 2007Google Scholar); ead., Petits musées en vers: épigramme et discours sur les collections antiques (Paris 2008Google Scholar).

29. See Männlein-Robert (n.5 above); ead., ‘Epigrams on Art: Voice and Voicelessness in Hellenistic Epigram’, in Bing and Bruss (n.12 above), 251–71.

30. Space restricts me from referencing numerous other contributions, not least the foundational work of Peter Bing (now collected in Bing, P., The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry [Ann Arbor 2009]CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For a useful glossary of the shared technical language of artistic/poetic production and consumption in Hellenistic epigram, see Manakidou (n.21 above), 254–69, esp. 259–62.

31. All the more so when dealing with epigrams purportedly dedicated to statues of poets: cf. Bing, P., ‘Theocritus’ Epigrams on the Statues of Ancient Poets’, A&A 34 (1988), 117–23Google Scholar; Sens, A., ‘The Art of Poetry and the Poetry of Art: The Unity and Poetics of Posidippus’ Statue-Poems’, in Gutzwiller, K.J. (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford 2005), 209–16Google Scholar; Prioux (n.28 above 2007), 1–74; Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 60–65; Tueller, M.A., Look Who’s Talking: Innovations in Voice and Identity in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven 2008), 178–84Google Scholar.

32. See in particular Gutzwiller, K.J., ‘Posidippus on Statuary’, in Bastianini, G. and Casanova, A. (eds.), Il papiro di Posidippo un anno dopo: atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Firenze, 13–14 giugno 2002 (Florence 2002), 41–60Google Scholar; Sens (n.31 above); A. Stewart, ‘Posidippus and the Truth in Sculpture’, in Gutzwiller (n.3I above), 183–205; Prioux (n.28 above 2007), esp. 108–13; Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 53–81.

33. Among the most important analyses are Hunter, R., ‘Notes on the Lithika of Posidippus’, in Acosta-Hughes, B., Kosmetatou, E. and Baumbach, M. (eds.), Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309) (Cambridge MA 2004), 94–104Google Scholar; Petrain, D., ‘Gems, Metapoetics, and Value: Greek and Roman Responses to a Third-century Discourse on Precious Stones’, TAPA 135 (2005), 329–57Google Scholar.

34. For an excellent guide to bibliography, see Prioux (n.28 above 2008), 159–252.

35. Posidippus’ recourse to epigram to lead the reader-viewer through an organised literary collection finds numerous parallels (cf. Sens [n.31 above], 208). Most pertinent are Nossis’ collection of epigrams, which seem originally to have guided viewers around the votives collected in a temple of Aphrodite: cf. Skinner, M.B., ‘Nossis Thelyglossos: The Private Text and the Public Book’, in Pomeroy, S.B. (ed.), Women’s History and Ancient History (Chapel Hill and London 1991), 20–47Google Scholar, at 33–35; Gutzwiller (n.17 above), 213–16; ead. (n.16 above), 80–94; Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 45–52; Prioux (n.18 above 2008), 151–58; Tueller (n.31 above), 166–77.

36. On ecphrasis as a theorised rhetorical trope in the Progymnasmata, see pp.79 and 8If. below. Contrary to the current communis opinio (e.g. Francis [n.3 above], 8 n.22), there is plenty of evidence that ancient critics used the term of some of the passages modern criticism deems most programmatically ‘ecphrastic’: cf. e.g. scholia T on Il. 18.610 (H. Erbse [ed.], Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem [7 vols.: Berlin 1969–1988], iv.570).

37. Zanker, G., ‘New Light on the Literary Category of “Ecphrastic Epigram” in Antiquity: The New Posidippus (col. X 7-XI 19 P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309)’, ZPE 143 (2003), 59–62Google Scholar, at 61, 62; cf. id. (n.23 above 2004), 184f. n.26. For further discussions, see e.g. Lauxtermann, M.D., ‘What is an Epideictic Epigram?’, Mnemosyne 51 (1988), 525–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 526f.; Rossi (n.26 above), 15f.; Gutzwiller (n.l 1 above), 85 n.1; ead. (n.22 above) 361f.; Chinn, C., ‘Statius Silv. 4.6 and the Epigrammatic Origins of Ekphrasis’, CJ 100 (2005), 247–63Google Scholar, at 248–52; Petrovic, A., ‘Kunstvolle Stimme der Steine, sprich! Zur Intermedialität der griechischen epideiktischen Epigramme’, A&A 51 (2005), 30–42Google Scholar, at 38f.; Männlein-Robert (n.29 above), 25 If.; ead. (n.5 above), 37f.

38. For a much more stimulating approach to the question of ‘ecphrastic epigram’ as genre, see Elsner, J., ‘Introduction: The Genres of Ekphrasis’, Ramus 31 (2002), 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 12f.

39. Most notably in Hellenistic erotic epigram: for some provocative introductory comments, see e.g. Gutzwiller (n.l1 above), 107 n.28; ead., “The Paradox of Amatory Epigram’, in Bing and Bruss (n.12 above), 313–32, esp. 318f. on AP 5.153; cf. Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 104–20, on ecphrastic epigrams about Praxiteles’ statue of Eros (e.g. API. 195–215).

40. Elsner (n.38 above), 2f.; contra e.g. Webb, R., ‘Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: The Invention of a Genre’, Word & Image 15 (1999), 7–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 11–15, and ead., Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Famham 2009), 1–15Google Scholar. For my own opinions, see my review of Webb’s 2009 book in Aestimatio 5 (2008 [publ. 2010]), 234–45.

41. See n.54 below, on Zanker’s associated understanding of ἐ. For an excellent guide to the development of ecphrasis as an independent ancient literary genre, see Graf, F., ‘Ekphrasis: Die Entstehung der Gattung in der Antike’, in Boehm, G. and Pfotenhauer, H. (eds.), Beschreibung-kunst—Kunstbeschreibung: Ekphrasis von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Munich 1995), 143–55Google Scholar.

42. Rouveret, A., Histoire et imaginaire de la peinture ancienne (Ve siècle av. J.-C.—Ier siècle ap. J.-C.) (Paris 1989), 14fGoogle Scholar., quotation from 15, my translation; cf. Goldhill, S., ‘The Seductions of the Gaze: Socrates and his Girlfriends’, in Cartledge, P., Millett, P. and von Reden, S. (eds.), Kosmos: Essays in Order, Conflict and Community in Classical Athens (Cambridge 1998), 105–24Google Scholar, which nicely explores the juxtaposition with Socrates’ subsequent conversation with Theodote (Mem. 3.11). For further discussions, see Steiner, D.T., Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought (Princeton and Oxford 2001), 33–35Google Scholar; Neer, R.T., The Emergence of the Classical Style in Sculpture (Chicago 2010), 155–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43. As such, these comments should be understood as an ‘extramissive’ reply to earlier, pre-Socratic theories of ‘intromission’: for a summary of ancient debates about whether visual perception resonates from the eye actively emitting rays, or more passively from receiving these rays from the object perceived, see Nightingale, A.W., Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in its Cultural Context (Cambridge 2004), 7–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More generally on ancient optics, see Simon, G., Le regard, l’etre, et l’apparence dans Voptique de l’antiquité (Paris 1988Google Scholar), along with the concise overview of Morales, H., Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon (Cambridge 2004), 8–35Google Scholar.

44. Cf. Brancacci, A., ‘Ethos e pathos nella teoria delle arti: una poetica socratica della pittura e della scultura’, Elenchos 1 (1995), 103–27Google Scholar. The subsequent conversations with Cleiton and Pistias in the remainder of the chapter draw out the overriding moral (as discussed by Goldhill [n.42 above], 11 If.): because the semblance of mimetic lifelikeness (τò ζωτιϰòv øαὶvεσθι) distracts men’s souls through the faculty of vision 3.10.6), artists have an ethical responsibility to the polis; they must follow Socrates’ own example, moreover, and be directed by the collective needs of the citizenry, attending (in the analogy of Pistias’ breastplate) to what is fitting and thereby useful.

45. For an excellent guide to Plato’s theory of vision—along with its pre-Socratic debts and subsequent Aristotelian and Stoic reception—see Lindberg, D.C., Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago 1976), 1–17Google Scholar. For the influence of Platonic views on Aristotle, see Zanker, G., ‘Aristotle’s Poetics and the Painters’, AJP 121 (2000), 225–35Google Scholar.

46. Rouveret (n.42 above) remains the most important guide; cf. Steiner (n.42 above), 3–78.

47. See Wollheim, R., Art and its Objects² (Cambridge 1980), 205–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My thinking here is much indebted to Neer, R.T., Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy (Cambridge 2002), 27–86Google Scholar.

48. On the pre-history of phantasia in Socratic/Platonic philosophy, see esp. Silverman, A., ‘Plato on Phantasia’, ClAnt 10 (1991), 123–47Google Scholar. For a historical overview, see Rispoli, G.M., L’art-ista sapiente: per una storia della fantasia (Naples 1985Google Scholar).

49. For some recent guides, see Elsner, J., Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cambridge 1995), 26fGoogle Scholar.; Tanner, J., The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece: Religion, Society and Artistic Rationalisation (Cambridge 2006), 283–87Google Scholar; Bartsch, S., ‘Wait a Moment, Phantasia: Stoic Ecphrasis’, CP 102 (2007), 83–89Google Scholar; Labarrière, J.-L. (ed.), ‘Dossier: phantasia’, Metis 2 (2004), 189–272Google Scholar; Webb (n.40 above 2009), 107–30. On the larger epistemological context in which Stoic discussions of phantasia were framed, see Long, A.A., ‘Language and Thought in Stoicism’, in Long, A. (ed.), Problems in Stoicism (London 1971), 75–113Google Scholar, supplemented by Zagdoun, M.-A., La philosophie stoicienne de l’art (Paris 2000Google Scholar), and Reed, B., ‘The Stoics’ Account of the Cognitive Impression’, OSAPh 23 (2002), 147–80Google Scholar. Also helpful are Imbert, C., ‘Stoic Logic and Alexandrian Poetics’, in Schofield, M., Burnyeat, M. and Barnes, J. (eds.), Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology (Oxford 1980), 182–216Google Scholar, on Alexandrian poetic appropriation; and Annas, J., Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1992), 71–85Google Scholar, on Stoic theories of perception more generally.

50. Cf. Frede, M., ‘Stoics and Skeptics on Clear and Distinct Impressions’, in Burnyeat, M. (ed.), The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley 1983), 65–93Google Scholar, on how, according to Stoic theories of vision, ‘to see something…is to have a certain kind of thought generated in a certain way’ (67); on phantasia and the artistic imagination, compare also Männlein-Robert, I., ‘Zum Bild des Phidias in der Antike; Konzepte zur Kreativität des bildenden Künstlers’, in Dewender, T. and Welt, T. (eds.), imagination—Fiktion—Kreation: Das kulturschqffende Vermogen der Phantasie (Munich and Leipzig 2003), 45–67Google Scholar.

51. For discussion, see now Webb (n.40 above 2009), 117–19, with further bibliography.

52. For an excellent guide, see Goldhill (n.23 above 2007), 3–8, along with Webb (n.40 above 2009), esp. 93–96. The relevant Progymnasmata passages on ecphrasis are collected (and translated) in Webb (n.40 above 2009), 197–211; for further bibliography, see Squire (n.5 above), I42f. n.199.

53. Theon, Prog. 118.7 (Patillon, M. and Bolognesi, G. [eds.], Aelius Theon: Progymnasmata [Paris 1997], 66Google Scholar). The formulation is repeated verbatim in e.g. Hermog. Prog. 10.48 (Rabe, H. [ed.], Hermogenis Opera [Leipzig 1913], 22Google Scholar) and Aphthonius 36 (Rabe, H. [ed.], Aphthonius: Progymnasmata (Leipzig 1926], 36Google Scholar). The phrasing was evidently formulaic—hence Hermogenes’ qualifying phrase, ‘as they say’ (ὡς Øασίv). Ps.-Longinus defines phantasia in closely related fashion (Subl. 15.1): ‘the word has come into fashion for the situation whereby one seems actually to see the things which you are talking about and place it before the eyes of the audience’ ; cf. Manieri, A., L’immagine poetica nella teoria degli antichi: phantasia ed enargeia (Pisa 1998Google Scholar), esp. 51–60, 149–54.

54. The standard treatment of ἐvάϱγεια in Hellenistic literary criticism remains Zanker, G., ‘Enargeia in the Ancient Criticism of Poetry’, RhM 124 (1981), 297–311Google Scholar; cf. id. (n.23 above 1987), 39–54; id. (n.37 above); id. (n.23 above 2004), 28–30. But, to my mind, the issues are rather more complex than Zanker allows in variously defining ἐvάϱγεια as ‘literary pictorialism’, ‘pictorial representation of fine art’, ‘vivid and precise copy of the subject’, and ‘a more empiricist particularism in pictorial representation, and one quite close to modern Realism’. Zanker subsequently differentiates Hellenistic epigrams on artworks from other ecphrases because they do not include ‘direct description or ἐvάϱγεια’ (n.37 above, 61): ‘given epigram’s naturally small format, it must limit explicit, detailed description…. They were very rarely intended to give a visual description of the appearance of the works of art they celebrate’ (ibid. 61, 62). This interpretation is premised not only upon an overly restrictive reading of the Progymnasmata (and indeed the long literary tradition of ecphrasis to which they respond), but also upon a misunderstanding about Stoic epistemology at large. At the most basic level, ἐvάϱγεια is the metaphysical quality that brings about phantasia; it is not some ‘realistic’ formal quality (cf. e.g. Webb, R., ‘imagination and the Arousal of Emotion in Greco-Roman Rhetoric’, in Braund, S.M. and Gill, C. [eds.], The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature [Cambridge 1997], 112–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ead., ‘Mémoire et imagination : les limites de l’enargeia’, in Lévy, C. and Pernot, L.. [eds.], Dire l’évidence: philosophie et rhétorique antiques [Paris 2007], 229–48Google Scholar). Ecphrastic texts, moreover, were keenly aware that, no matter how descriptive their evocations, they offered readers a different sort of visualisation from images, bypassing their material form (for an excellent introduction, see Webb [n.40 above 2009], 167–91, on Greek Second Sophistic examples).

55. These themes are most spectacularly explored in Philostratus the Elder’s early third-century CE Imagines (especially in its proem), as well as in the subsequent imitations of it by Philostratus the Younger and Callistratus: see esp. Maffei, S., ‘La Sophia del pittore e del poeta nel proemio delle Imagines di Filostrato Maggiore’, ASNP 21 (1991), 591–621Google Scholar, in addition to the essays collected in Constantini, M., Graziani, F. and Rolet, S. (eds.), Le défi de l’art: Philostrate, Callistrate et l’image sophistique (Paris 2006Google Scholar), and Newby, Z., ‘Absorption and Erudition in Philostratus’ Imagines’, in Bowie, E. and Elsner, J. (eds.), Philostratus (Cambridge 2009), 322–42Google Scholar.

56. For some related comments on ecphrastic epigram’s relation to Stoic theories of vision, see Gutzwiller (n.22 above), 362f., and Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), esp. 100–03.

57. For an introductory overview, see Prioux, E., ‘Materiae mm cedit opus: matières et sujets dans les épigrammes descriptives (IIe siècle av. J.-C.-50 apr. J.-C.)’, in Rouveret, A., Dubel, S. and Naas, V. (eds.), Couleurs et matières dans l’antiquité: textes, techniques et pratiques (Paris 2006), 127–60Google Scholar, at 138–42. Manakidou (n.21 above), 257–59 provides an excellent appendix of references to lifelikeness as a Hellenistic epigrammatic motif.

58. On the language of naturalism in these poems, the crucial article remains Fuà, O., ‘L’idea dell’ opera d’arte “vivente” e la bucola di Mirone nell’ epigramma Greco e Latino’, RCCM 15 (1973), 52–55Google Scholar. I have discussed the epigrammatic sequence in much greater length in Squire (n.14 above), with references to further bibliography: for the adjectives ζωòς and ἔμπvooς, see 600 with nn.43 and 44. It is worth noting here how the term ἔμπvooς itself reverberates against Stoic theories of optical perception—in particular the concept of the optical pneuma which flows from the seat of the consciousness to the eye, turning it into an instrument of the soul: cf. Lindberg (n.45 above), 9–11.

59. On the ‘soul’ of Myron’s bronze statue of a cow, see e.g. AP 9.717.2, 736.2, 737.2, with discussion in Squire (n.14 above), 605-08.1 cite further parallels in Squire (n.14 above), 606 n.79—including AP 9.774.1, ἐvεψύχωπε; 12.56.3, ἔμψυχov; 12.57.3, ἔμψυχα; API. 97.3, ἔμψυχov; 110.6, ἐμψύχῳ; 159.1, ἐμψύχωπε; 266.7, ἔμψυχov; compare also Posidip. 63.8 A-B (ἔμψε]oς), as well as e.g. Theoc. Id. 15.83 (ἔμψυχ’) and Her. Mini. 4.29 (ψύξειv). Most provocative of all is Leonidas of Tarentum’s playful claim that Apelles represented Aphrodite ‘not painted/described, but with soul’ (oὐ γϱαπτóv, ἀλλ’ ὤμψυχov, API. 182.4—with the typical pun on the dual meanings of γϱαπτóς). Compare also Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 104–15, on how these themes are further developed within poems on (Praxiteles’ statue of) Eros.

60. Interestingly, we also find the theme referenced in the Progymnasmata: if an ecphrasis of a bronze statue proceeds from the head to the parts, writes Nikolaus (probably in the fifth-century CE), the speech (ὀ λóγoς) becomes ‘ensouled’ throughout (oὔτε γὰϱ παvταχóθεv ἔμψυχoς ὁ λóγoς γίvεται: see Felton, J. [ed.], Nicolaus: Progymnasmata [Leipzig 1913], 69Google Scholar). With typical wit and bravado, Lucian later turned these themes into the subject of a self-contained dialogue on Imagines at large—a sophisticated representation of the ontological challenges of ecphrastic representation. After Lycinus’ lengthy ecphrastic description of a woman modelled after (ecphrases of) artworks, Polystratus recognises the subject as the emperor’s wife, Panthea; but Lycinus, Polystratus complains, has described only Panthea’s outer appearance, remaining blind to the inner beauties of her soul Luc. Im. 11). Polystratus subsequently offers a rival description, setting out to ‘paint/describe an image of her soul’ , Im. 12). For some important preliminary observations, see Steiner (n.42 above), 295–306; there is now a superlative discussion in Cistaro, M., Sotto il velo di Pantea: Imagines e Pro Imaginibus di Luciano (Messina 2009), 113–47Google Scholar.

61. For an excellent guide, see Gutzwiller (n.22 above).

62. Cf. Männlein-Robert (n.29 above), 270f. I return to the quality of voice on pp.86–88 below.

63. It is also worth noting that the very quality of σoØία pertains to both literary and artistic production. Hellenistic poets (and poets of epigram in particular) made much of the pun: see Maffei (n.55 above); Squire (n.3 above), ch.3; Stieber, M.C., Euripides and the Language of Craft (Leiden 2011), 415–26Google Scholar.

64. Cf. e.g. API. 100.1, 109.3, 111.3f., 121.2. Glaucus’ poem on an image of Philoctetes is a particularly fine example, compounding the look of the statue with its silence: ‘for in his dry eyes there lurks a mute tear, and the wearing pain dwells inside’ (ἔv τε γάϱ ὀظαλμo[001]ς ἐαϰληϰóσι ϰωØòv ὑπoιϰε[001]/δάϰϱυ, ϰαὶ ὁ τϱύχωv ἐvτòς ἔvεστι πóvoς API. 111.3f.).

65. Gutzwiller (n.l 1 above), 99 n.20, rightly notes a parallel with Philostr. Imag. Pr.2.

66. See Gutzwiller (n.22 above), 364f.; compare API. 139—Julian of Egypt’s later (but closely related) poem. The look of Medea is subsequently turned into the subject of our looking at the painting: the resulting exhortation is that we ourselves view Medea viewing (e.g. orja: API. 136.5; ἴδε…ἴδε: 138.1; ἴδε; 140.1; ; ἴδ’: 143.1).

67. Hermog. Prog. 10.49 (Rabe [n.53 above 1913], 23): ἀϱεταὶ δὲ ἐϰØϱάσεως μάλιστα μὲv σχØήvεια ϰαὶ ἐvάϱγεια.

68. Hermog./Yog. 10.48 (Rabe [n.53 above 1913], 23): . On the Progymnasmata, see above, nn.52 and 53. The poem not only appropriates the language of EvdrjyEia and phantasia, but also the trope of ‘revelation’ itself (τò δηλoύμεvov).

69. All this, moreover, within an epigram that falls back on the Stoic language of phantasia to stage a further recession of replications: after all, this ‘Mytilenian Muse’ (whether poet or portrait) is described to have been crafted, and ultimately Mother Nature is the ‘forger’ (πλάστειϱα) said to have ‘moulded/modelled’ her/her statue/her poetry. For the epistemological backdrop, see Webb (n.40 above 2009): 168f.; for related puns in much earlier epigrams on Myron’s cow, see Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 90–92, and Squire (n.14 above), 604f.

70. My interpretation therefore parts ways here with the excellent analyses of e.g. Andrej Petrovic and Simon Goldhill: cf. Petrovic (n.37 above), 38: ‘Mit der Ekphrasis, was sie fur gewohnlich deriniert wird, haben diese Epigramme also nichts gemeinsam’; Goldhill (n.23 above 2007), 19: ‘ekphrastic epigrams…do not fit comfortably into the grander rhetorical theories of visualization. There is a gap between the theory of the rhetorical handbooks and the practice of these epigrammatists.’ In my view, epigrams on artworks can only be understood in relation to larger and evolving debates about vision, knowledge and textuality.

71. See Squire (n. 14 above), esp. 608–16.

72. For an excellent overview, see Bing, P., ‘Between Literature and the Monuments’, in Harder, M.A., Regtuit, R. and Wakker, G.W. (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven 1998), 21–43Google Scholar, at 29–35. As Bing and Bruss (n.16 above), 8, nicely put it, ‘literary epigram retains the inscriptions’ conventional deixis, but suddenly there is no “there” there’. Petrovic (n.37 above) provides an excellent discussion of the generic developments, centred around the ‘Änderung des Mediums’ (40). But I do not agree with his conclusion that ‘Anhand der erhaltenen griechischen Epigramme kann man wohl kaum vor Silentiarius oder vor der Blüte der Gattung in Konstantinopel von wirklichen ekphrastischen Epigrammen sprechen’ (38f.): granted, ‘die Ekphrasis nach der Regeln der rhet-orischen Schriften’ (38) is a later phenomenon; but the rhetorical rationalisation of ecphrasis is itself a response to an earlier literary phenomenon—and one that stretches back to the very earliest works of Greek literature.

73. For a helpful (but not exhaustive) list of examples, see Rossi (n.26 above), 17 n.13. Compare also the numerous exhortations to see the images evoked in Herodas’ fourth Mimiamb—which simultaneously poses as visual performance, audible narrative and readable text (e.g. ).

74. Cf. Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 151–86. I would add that this pun is all the starker when poems evoke pictures that are themselves depicted after poetic models—objects that are ‘painted/written’ after Homeric precedent AP 9.792.4), compared with the words ‘written/painted’ in Homeric epic , API. 125.4), or which, through the fabricated act of speaking, verbally respond to the literary ‘lies’ of the poet (ψεύσατo, APt. 151.10).

75. See Goldhill (n.23 above 1994), 199–204; Gutzwiller (n.16 above), 265–76; Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R., Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge 2004), 328–38Google Scholar; Meyer (n.27 above 2005), esp. 121–24; ead. (n.27 above 2007).

76. More generally on griphoi in the Palatine Anthology, especially its fourteenth book, see Luck, G., ‘Witz und Sentiment im griechischen Epigramm’, in Dihle, A. (ed.), L’épigramme grecque (Geneva 1968), 387–411Google Scholar. For the underlying high-cultural stakes, compare Luz, C., Technopaignia: Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung (Leiden 2010), 139–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77. In this connection, it is worth remembering that ‘although the epigram offers a paradigm for allegorical interpretation, there was no standard allegorizing iconography such as we find in medieval and renaissance religious art’ (Männlein-Robert [n.29 above], 261); cf. Borg, B., Der Logos des Mythos: Allegorien und Personifikationen in der frühen griechischen Kunst (Munich 2002), 85–88Google Scholar, on Lysippos’ statue.

78. For some related examples of hybrid visual subjects, cf. e.g. Art. 115, 116, 126, 218, 234.

79. For discussion, see esp. Meyer (n.27 above 2005), 118f., and A. AmbiihJ, ‘Tell, All Ye Singers, My Fame: Kings, Queens and Nobility in Epigram’, in Bing and Bruss (n.12 above), 275–94, at 286f.

80. Cf. Gutzwiller (n.39 above), 93. Alternatively, we might think the opening phrase a question, as interpreted by Aubreton and Buffiere (n.18 above), xiii.107.

81. For discussion of the poem, see esp. Elsner (n.38 above), 10–12; Gutzwiller (n.l 1 above), 95f.; Männlein-Robert (n.29 above), 260–62. For the supposed Epicurean resonance of the final line see Prauscello, L., ‘Sculpted Meanings, Talking Statues: Some Observations on Posidippus 142 A-B’, AJP 127 (2006), 511–23Google Scholar.

82. In doing so, the speaking statue takes its cue from an imagined epigraphic text attached to it: ‘Sicyonian Lysippos: Kairos the All-Subduer’. The fantasy of this dialogue is that the image can speak, and that these words take on a subjective voice independent from the poet’s own. As such, the epigram responds to the analysis of e.g. Plato (above, p.73, on Phdr. 275d): namely, that while painting holds silence, words can only articulate one and the same utterance forever. More generally on ‘talking inscriptions’ in Hellenistic epigram, see Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 157–67; Tueller (n.31 above), 141–54; Squire (n.14 above), 609–14.

83. Männlein-Robert (n.29 above), 262, referring to Gutzwiller (n.l I above), 95f.

84. My readings here have learnt particularly from various conversations on epigrammatic ecphrasis with Simon Goldhill in the summer of 2008: sincere thanks.

85. Compare the early-second century BCE ‘Menophila’ relief, complete with a 10-line inscription in elegiac couplets (see Squire [n.5 above], 161–65). That epigram is similarly figured as a series of questions and answers, probing the symbolic significance of the juxtaposed images. In this scenario, though, the combination of poem and picture suggests a close correspondence between the two media only to refute that suggestion, pointing to the untranslatability of each mode in the terms—or indeed pictures—of the other.

86. In this connection, compare APl. 313, on a statue of the orator Ptolemy at Antioch. The anonymous epigram knowingly echoes the question and format of the Posidippus epigram. Significantly, though, the speaking statue explicitly states that he has been fashioned by words ().

87. Once again, we should note the multivalent register of πλάστης, which refers to both the literal sculptor (Lysippus), as well as a more metaphorical ‘fashioner’ or ‘forger’ of an impression in the mind or soul: cf. n.69 above.

88. Cf. e.g. API. 58, 142, 245. The most sophisticated analysis of epigram’s concern with medium is Prioux (n.57 above), which contains a useful inventory of the different artistic media evoked (158–60, tableau 3).

89. For a material parallel, see Platt, VJ., ‘Making an Impression: Replication and the Ontology of the Graeco-Roman Seal Stone’, Art History 29 (2006), 233–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 252 n.8—on an amethyst representation of Methe (‘Drunkenness’).

90. For a related pun, see e.g. AP 9.752 (with Goldhill [n.23 above 1994], 210), as well as the poems on Pheidias’ Athenian statue of Nemesis carved out of Persian rock (APJ. 221, 222, 263). Such games are particularly rife in Posidippus’ Lithika: cf. Prioux (n.57 above), 131–38: ‘Au lieu d’imaginer des sujets susceptibles de renforcer les effets bénéfiques des pierres, les épigrammatistes dépeignent des situations de conflit entre la matiere et l’image’ (136).

91. See Platt, VJ., ‘Evasive Epiphanies in Ekphrastic Epigram’, Ramus 31 (2003), 33–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the ‘visibility which is eternally suspended by the ekphrastic paradox’ (42). Cf. Squire, M.J., The Art of the Body: Antiquity and its Legacy (London and New York 2011), 100–02Google Scholar; Platt, VJ., Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Culture (Cambridge forthcoming 2011Google Scholar), ch. 4.

92. On metamorphosis as a ‘symbol of text/image conversion’ in these poems, see Gutzwiller (n.l 1 above), 107–09 (quotation from 107).

93. The theme is not unique to this particular mythological subject: cf. APJ. 317, on the stone statue of Gessius, attributed to Palladas (in the fourth century CE). The ‘real’ Gessius is so ‘dumb and speechless’ 1) as to make him resemble a stone: which, then, is the stone image of which 2).

94. On the ontological ruse in the context of ancient theories of epiphany, see Platt (n.91 above 2002), 37f. The classic articulation is a poem attributed to Parmenion (API. 216): Parmenion distinguishes between Hera’s visual apparition ‘as Polyclitus saw her with his eyes’ (, If.), and ‘the unknown forms beneath the folds of Hera’s dress’ (, 3f.) who purport to be speaking in this epigram.

95. Meleager’s poem is particularly revealing here: the poet contrasts (the statue of) Niobe to (statues of) her daughters, ‘whose animated eyes still see the light’ (, APl. 134.10). But are these stony figures still alive, or are the stones just amazingly lifelike, according to epigram’s standard critical vocabulary for praising artistic verisimilitude?

96. Cf. Gutzwiller (n.l 1 above), 108f., on APJ. 134 and its relation to Sophocles’ lost tragedy on Niobe (TrGF 441a–51): ‘The voice heard in Meleager’s epigram belongs, not to a viewer of an art work, but to a tragic-like messenger’ (108). Cf. independently Zanker (n.23 above 2004), 112.

97. It also leads us back to subsequent Pindaric contests between epinician poetry and sculpture: for guides, see Benediktson, D.T., Literature and the Visual Arts in Ancient Greece and Rome (Norman 2000), 12–40Google Scholar; Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 22–24. For a related topos, in a closely related epigram, see APJ. 53: in this case, though, the conceit is that the Ladas’ victorious speed was ‘not able to be spoken’ 2).

98. For epigram’s poetic-pictorial plays on the language of , referring to both verbal and visual ‘craftsmanship’, see Squire (n.3 above), ch.5. Compare APJ. 96—an anonymous epigram on an image of Heracles wrestling the Ceryneian hind, in which the hind’s literal tongue teasingly reveals its distressed heart 6): the of the golden statue is thereby set against that of the gilded poem.

99. For some discussions, cf. Gutzwiller (n.ll above), 88–91; Skinner (n.25 above), 206–09; Meyer (n.27 above 2007), 197f.; Männlein-Robert (n.29 above), 255f.; ead. (n.5 above), 38–43, with detailed bibliography. The poem spurred many imitations of its own (e.g. APl. 277), although the date and ascription remains contested; cf. West, M.L., ‘Erinna’, ZPE 25 (1977), 95–119Google Scholar, at 114f.; and the response in Neri, C., Erinna: testimonianze e frammenti (Bologna 2003), 31–2Google Scholar, with further references.

100. Cf. Squire (n.3 above), ch.5.

101. See Gutzwiller (n.ll above), 105–07; Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 309–32; Meyer (n.27 above 2007), 196, on AP 14.56.

102. As Gutzwiller (n.11 above), 106, puts it, ‘the epigram, as literary counterpart of art, is precisely an echo of the statue of Echo’.

103. For the very silence of the image thereby paradoxically capturing its subject, compare e.g. API. 244, 317, 318.

104. For discussion, see Squire (n.5 above), 239–93; cf. Prioux (n.28 above 2008), 65–121. The Assisi epigrams take up a number of standard ecphrastic themes: the exhortation to look (epigram 5), the concern with sound (epigram 3), and the competitive ‘capping’ of the poetic sequence (the seventh and tenth epigrams were both supplemented in antiquity with variant forms); note too the ironic juxtaposition of the eighth and ninth epigrams, and the way in which the ninth epigram, on a painting of Narcissus, directly descends from Meleager’s two epigrams on Praxiteles’ statue of Eros (AP 12.56,57—with direct quotation of AP 12.56.8).

105. Cf. Bergmann, B., ‘A Painted Garland: Weaving Words and Images in the House of the Epigrams at Pompeii’, in Newby, Z. and Leader-Newby, R. (eds.), Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 60–101Google Scholar; Squire (n.5 above), 176–89; id., ‘Picturing Words and Wording Pictures: False Closure in the Pompeian Casa degli Epigrammi’, in F. Grewing and B. Acosta-Hughes (eds.), The Door Ajar: False Closure in Greek and Roman Literature and Art (Heidelberg forthcoming).

106. Two of the poems are known to us from the Palatine Anthology, one from the sixth book of dedicatory epigrams (AP 6.13), the other from the ninth book of epideictic poems (AP 9.75).

107. The 22 so-called Tabulae Iliacae have to be understood in a similar literary light, at least two of them setting epigrammatic inscriptions alongside their sophisticated pictorial renditions of epic: see Squire, M.J., ‘Texts on the Tables: The Tabulae Iliacae in their Hellenistic Literary Context’, JHS 130 (2010), 67–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id. (n.3 above). Compare also n.85 above, on the Menophila relief.

108. On these poems, see Ernst, U., Carmen Figuratum: Geschichte des Figurengedichts von den antiken Urspriingen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters (Cologne 1991), 54–94Google Scholar; L.A. Guichard, ‘Simias’ Pattern Poems’, in Harder, Regtuit and Wakker (n.25 above), 83–89; Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 140–54; Luz, C., ‘Das Ratsel der griechischen Figurengedichte’, MH 37 (2008), 22–33Google Scholar; ead. (n.76 above), 327–53. I have discussed them in greater length in Squire (n.5 above), 165–68 and Squire (n.3 above), ch.5. There are numerous Latin parallels, among them Laevius’ first-century BCE Latin poem on a ‘Pterygium Phoenicis’: see Courtney, E. (ed.), The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford 1993), 119,136fGoogle Scholar. Compare also Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius’ fourth-century CE poems (which include picture-poems on a water-organ, an altar and Pan-pipes): for an edition, see Polara, G. (ed.), Publilii Optatiani Porfyrii: Carmina (2 vols.: Turin 1973Google Scholar), where these poems are numbered 20b, 26 and 27; for discussion and further bibliography, see Rühi, M., ‘Panegyrik im Quadrat: Optatian und die intermedialen Tendenzen des spatantiken HerrscherbiIdes’, Millennium 3 (2006), 75–102Google Scholar; Squire (n.3 above), ch.5.

109. For a commentary on Simmias’ poems and the surviving scholia, see Strodel, S., Zur Ober-lieferung und zum Verständnis der hellenistischen Technopaegnien (Frankfurt 2002), 158–271Google Scholar. Particularly revealing is AP 15.21, with its homage to the mute and invisible Kalliope in its final words AP 15.21.18–20).

110. See nn.66 and 73 above, as well as e.g. Petrovic (n.37 above).

111. Classicists have been rather more literal-minded in the nineteenth and twentieth century, tending instead to debate whether they were ‘not really figure poems at all’ but rather designed as inscriptions to fit the shape of their specific objects; for a review of scholarship, see Cameron, A., Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton 1995Google Scholar), esp. 33–37; cf. Strodel (n.109 above), 265–71.

112. Alternatively, perhaps we should imagine the opposite scenario: that the poems worked like riddles, their physical appearance disguised by their original more prosaic appearance. In which case, the games must have proceeded in reverse: readers had quite literally to ‘figure out’ the picture from the clues latent in the unfigured poem, mentally drawing the picture out from riddling text. For discussion, see especially Männlein-Robert (n.5 above), 142–50, on AP 15.27, along with Luz (n.108 above), 22–27; for the manuscript tradition, see Strodel (n.109 above), 48–130, arguing that the extant presentations of the poems reflect later Byzantine conventions; cf. Guichard (n.108 above), esp. 85–89.