With contributions written by leading experts in the field, this volume explores the dialogue between Archaic and Classical Greek epigrams and their readers. The authors examine questions surrounding the identity of the speakers and the addressees. They also discuss the spatial, religious, historical and political contexts of epigram, as well as aspects of intertextuality, poetic variation and the creation of epigrammatic sub-genres. Collectively the volume demonstrates that the dominant view of epigram as a genre that became literary and artistic only in the Hellenistic period has to be revised. Archaic and Classical Greek epigrams did not simply serve the objects they describe but also demonstrate a high degree of aesthetic and literary achievement. This volume breaks new ground in the study of the genre and is important for scholars of classics, archaeology, epigraphy and papyrology.
Manuel Baumbach is Professor of Classics at Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany. He is the co-editor of Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (2004) and Quintus Smyrnaeus: Transforming Homer in Second Sophistic Epic (2007).
Andrej Petrovic is Senior Lecturer in Greek History at the University of Durham. He is the author of a number of articles, mostly concerned with Greek epigraphy, religion and society.
Ivana Petrovic is Lecturer in Greek Literature at the University of Durham. She has published a number of articles on Hellenistic poetry and Greek religion.