Scicolone ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 ISSN 2159-3159 Article copyright held by the author(s) and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Chest of Cypselus and the Temple of Apollonis at Cyzicus: Showing and Telling in Literary Inscriptions Federica Scicolone REEK EPIGRAMS ON ARTWORKS express a tension be- tween verbal and visual modes of communication, since they play on their liminal status as textual evocations of absent epigraphic realities.1 Especially from the end of the fourth century B.C., epigrams of this sort started to be collected in literary anthologies,2 occasionally arranged in sets and com- menting on specific objects. Deictic indicators play an important role in bridging the divide between epigrammatic texts and their extra-textual contexts, for deixis “renders possible verbal refer- ences to the space and time of, as well as to the participants in, the act of communication.”3 Linguistic strategies for pointing to extra-textual visual referents, alongside allusive features, can be employed in Greek epigram to invoke lost referents (i.e. artefacts that originally existed, but disappeared with the passage of time) and imaginary referents, which never existed and are the pro- 1 M. J. Squire, “Making Myron’s Cow Moo? Ecphrastic Epigram and the Poetics of Simulation,” AJP 131 (2010) 589–634, at 613–616. 2 On epigram anthologies see, among others, K. J. Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigram in Context (Berkeley 1998) 227–322; N. Krevans, “The Arrangement of Epigrams in Collections,” in P. Bing et al. (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram: Down to Philip (Leiden 2007) 131–146. 3 C. Calame, “Deictic Ambiguity and Auto-Referentiality: Some Examples from Greek Poetics,” Arethusa 37 (2004) 415–443, at 415. G 290 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 duct of the poet’s and readers’ fantasy.4 This paper examines the way in which the language of reference and allusion is employed to point to lost and imaginary objects in selected literary inscrip- tions that comment on their visual apparatus. By “literary inscriptions” I intend texts that can be interpreted either as originally epigraphic texts, which were later transmitted in literary form, or epigrams written as if they were originally inscribed, whereas they could be literary compositions from the start.5 This paper revisits through a linguistic lens two groups of such epigrams: those originally inscribed on the Chest of Cypselus, from the sixth century B.C., which have reached us through Pausanias’ account of this artwork (5.17.5–5.19.10); and selected cases from Book 3 of the Palatine Anthology, which collects the epigrams accompanying the reliefs in the otherwise un- attested temple of Apollonis at Cyzicus, possibly dating to the second century B.C., although scholars generally agree on a much later date for the epigrams.6 The epigrams from these 4 On literary epigrams guiding readers’ imaginations in constructing a mental image of an inscribed object, see P. Bing, “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” A&A 41 (1995) 115–131 = The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry (Ann Arbor 2009) 85–105. 5 Thus, literary epigrams that display a “simulated” epigraphic reality. Cf. A. Hartmann, “Cui vetustas fidem faciat: Inscriptions and Other Material Relics of the Past in Graeco-Roman Antiquity,” in P. Liddel et al. (eds.), Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford 2013) 33–63, at 40; on the poetics of inscriptions that are “embedded” in a literary host-text, see in the same volume M. Dinter, “Inscriptional Intermediality in Latin Literature,” 303–316, esp. 303–308, and A. V. Zadorojnyi, “Shuffling Surfaces: Epigra- phy, Power, and Integrity in the Graeco-Roman Narratives,” 365–386, at 367 n.8; B. Allgaier, Embedded Inscriptions in Herodotus and Thucydides (Wies- baden 2022); P. Bing, “Embedded Epigrams in Callimachus,” Aevum(ant) 22 (2022) 13–41. 6 On the epigrams’ chronology see K. Demoen, “The Date of the Cyzicene Epigrams: An Analysis of the Vocabulary and Metrical Technique of AP, III,” AntCl 57 (1988) 231–248, who indicates the sixth century A.D. as the earliest possible date of these epigrams based on vocabulary and metrical analysis, following up on the philological analysis and conclusions of H. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 291 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 series hint at and supplement the traditional material of myth allegedly represented on their material supports, weaving to- gether intertextual references to literary precedents that elab- orated on the same myths. In the case of the Chest of Cypselus, much has been said on its poetics of allusion to the Homeric works: the use of narrative strategies and figurative modes of expression that are remark- ably similar to those of poetry (e.g. allegorical personifications) denotes familiarity with the Iliad and an extensive knowledge of poetry, possibly also in written form.7 The force of allusion emerges also from the epigrams of AP 3, introduced by prose lemmata independent of the poems, and of late date:8 a tripartite Meyer, De Anthologiae Palatinae epigrammatis Cyzicensis (Königsberg 1911). Cf. S. Goldhill, Preposterous Poetics: The Politics and Aesthetics of Form in Late Antiquity (Cambridge 2020), who observes (32–34) that there is no certain evidence that they are not coeval to the temple or do not refer to a later inscriptional event. On a second-century date, see F.-H. Massa Pairault, “Il problema degli ‘stylopinakia’ nel tempio di Apollonis a Cizico. Alcune considerazioni,” AFLPer(class) 19 (1981/2) 147–219, and “L’interprétation des frises du Grand Autel de Pergame et des stylopinakia de Cyzique: Quelques problèmes,” in Images et modernité hellénistiques. Appropriation et représentation du monde d’Alexandre à César (Rome 2007) 205–221. Further comments on the epigrams are in R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten II (Munich 2001) 18–39. 7 In contrast with vase painters from the Archaic period, who relied on their memory to illustrate particular episodes and myths, due to the oral nature of poems; see A. M. Snodgrass, Homer and the Artists: Text and Picture in Early Greek Art (Cambridge 1998), and “Pausanias and the Chest of Kypselos,” in S. E. Alcock et al. (eds.), Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece (Oxford 2001) 127–141; B. E. Borg, Der Logos des Mythos. Allegorien und Personifikationen in der frühen griechischen Kunst (Munich 2002), and “Epigrams in Archaic Art: The ‘Chest of Kypselos’,” in M. Baumbach et al. (eds.), Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram (Cambridge 2010) 81–99, at 97–99. 8 Nothing more specific can be said on the exact date of the lemmata, which apparently were not by the composer of the epigrams. The epigrams- lemmata combination can be ascribed to a now lost source prior to AP. On this, and on the independence of the lemmata from the epigrams, see F. 292 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 relationship can be envisaged here between the purported epi- graphic reality of the reliefs in Apollonis’ temple, the epigrams, and their prose introductions, which expand on the traditional mythic narratives that inspired both the reliefs and the poems. This paper explores the way in which deixis, especially verb tenses and demonstrative pronouns, and allusion are used in both series of epigrams to evoke a broader network of references to myth, thus stretching beyond the boundaries of the epigrams’ (actual or make-believe) pictorial counterparts.9 As to the func- tion of demonstratives, the anaphoric οὗτος is used in texts to “refer back” to what is already shared information between the speaker and the reader, as it can be inferred while viewing the relief scene; the cataphoric ὅδε, by contrast, introduces new and “cognitively salient” pieces of information.10 Deictics can point to extra-textual referents in two ways: on the one hand, they in- troduce elements that could supposedly be experienced through the senses, denoting different degrees of newness of these referents to readers. On the other hand, the referential function of deixis can be anchored in the story, pointing to characters who, at a specific narrative moment, enter the scene and can then be visualised by readers. In this second case, deixis is imagination- oriented, as it calls upon the audience’s capacity to transcend the Maltomini, “Osservazioni sugli epigrammi di Cizico (AP III),” AnnPisa SER. IV 7 (2002) 17–33, at 19 n.6; C. Ballestrazzi, “Gli stylopinakia e il tempio della regina Apollonide di Cizico. Una revisione letteraria e archeologica del terzo libro dell’Anthologia Palatina,” RivFil 145 (2017) 126–158, esp. 132–134. 9 Seeing the representation of a mythological scene and recalling other episodes of the same myth was apparently a standard interpretive process for ancient viewers, as discussed in R. Brilliant, Visual Narratives: Storytelling in Etruscan and Roman Art (Ithaca 1984). This paper focuses on the different ways in which deixis allowed ancient viewers to do this, by simultaneously pointing both to the ocular and to the imaginary in these representative contexts. 10 This interpretation of demonstratives is informed by E. J. Bakker, “Pragmatics: Speech and Text,” in A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language (Chichester 2010) 151–167, esp. 153–161. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 293 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 texts’ (real or notional) epigraphic reality.11 Since this article focuses on literarily transmitted epigrams, it also considers the mediation respectively of Pausanias’ explana- tory comments and of the prose introductions later combined with the poems of AP 3.12 It examines such diverse cases collec- tively, considering indexicals and other devices of presence and absence, such as narrative voices and poetic personae.13 It con- siders similarities and differences in the use of deictics in both series, although these belong to different times and reading con- texts, to direct the readers’ understanding of perceivable sights and to invoke absent ones. This work does not aim to ascertain the epigraphic reality of the two monuments under discussion and the pictorial features of the reliefs. Its main focus is on the “epigrammatic perception” of the reliefs from the chest and from Apollonis’ temple that both poetic series reflect.14 This ap- proach will allow me, first, to concentrate on whether both sets of epigrams used similar deictic and allusive strategies to interact with their related mythic episodes and generate their presence for readers; and second, to consider the different sorts of access to the epigrams’ underlying narratives that the framing of Pau- 11 On imaginary and ocular deixis see K. Bühler, Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language (Amsterdam 1990) 137–157, esp. 140–143. On epigrammatic deixis see recent discussions in F. Licciardello, Deixis and Frames of Reference in Hellenistic Dedicatory Epigrams (Berlin 2022); F. Scicolone, The Language of Objects: Deixis in Descriptive Greek Epigrams (Leiden 2023). 12 See Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 82–86, esp. 84 on Pau- sanias as a trustworthy narrator in his detailed account of the kypsele and its reliefs. On the response of the “characters who become involved with inscrip- tions” (such as the narrator) when epigraphy is narrativised, see Zadorojnyi, in Inscriptions and their Uses 367 n.10. 13 On epigrammatic voices see I. Männlein-Robert, Stimme, Schrift und Bild: Zum Verhältnis der Künste in der hellenistischen Dichtung (Heidelberg 2007), and “Epigrams on Art: Voice and Voicelessness in Ecphrastic Epigram,” in Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram 251–271; in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram, J. S. Bruss, “Ecphrasis in Fits and Starts? Down to 300 BC,” 385–403, and M. A. Tueller, “The Passer-by in Archaic and Classical Epigram,” 42–60. 14 Quotation from Goldhill, Preposterous Poetics 34. 294 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 sanias and that of the AP ’s prose lemmata provide to the reading audience. The epigrams on the Chest of Cypselus Looking at the artworks in the Heraion at Olympia, Pausanias comments upon the complex iconography of the chest, which is dated to around the 580–570.15 His account represents the only available evidence of the existence of this artefact. As stated by the author himself, the κυψέλη was donated by the Corinthian descendants of Cypselus to the sanctuary at Olympia,16 where it was still visible in the second century A.D. It is described as a wooden container (either square or round in shape) decorated all around with wood, gold, and ivory reliefs allocated in five friezes. After preliminary considerations on the history of the artefact, Pausanias moves to a description of its nine metrical inscriptions; these are carved all around the chest in an Archaic and boustrophedon style, and written in dactylic hexameter and in the Doric dialect.17 They include the names of the carved 15 See Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 81 with n.3, for the most significant contributions on the chronology of the chest. This chronology, originally proposed by H. Payne, Necrocorinthia. A Study of Corinthian Art in the Archaic Period (Oxford 1931) 125 and 351 n.4, is now generally agreed on and was more recently supported by R. Splitter, Die “Kypseloslade” in Olympia. Form, Funktion und Bildschmuck. Eine archäologische Rekonstruktion (Mainz 2000). Cf. Snodgrass, in Pausanias: Travel and Memory 128. See also T. Cossu, “Il pro- gramma figurativo dell’arca di Cipselo e la propaganda politica di Perian- dro,” in M. Giuman (ed.), L’arca invisibile: Studi sull’arca di Cipselo (Cagliari 2005) 81–163, esp. 154–155 on the chronology of the Cypselids and the chest in its historical and political context of production. 16 Dio Chrys. Or. 11.45 differently refers to the chest as dedicated by Cyp- selus himself. 17 H. S. Jones, “The Chest of Kypselos,” JHS 14 (1894) 30–80, at 39–41. For a commentary of Pausanias’ account of the chest and its inscriptions see J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece III (London 1898) 600–620; G. Maddoli and V. Saladino, Pausania: Guida della Grecia V, L’Elide e Olimpia (Milan 1995) 297–304; for a commentary and detailed analysis of the epi- grams in Paus. 5.18.2–5.19.5 see C. Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi di Pausania: commento ai testi epigrafici (Pisa 2006) 170–215. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 295 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 figures, thus allowing for their recognition, and briefly identify the narrative in each scene.18 Since these epigrams are not strictly descriptive and are re- corded by Pausanias for subsequent readers of his account, he often supplements them with additional explanations. None of the inscriptions seems to be a direct quotation from a preserved literary work,19 but for some of these texts a relationship with specific lines of poetry can be established. As forms of “caption” inscriptions, they are characterised by a marked use of the ana- phoric demonstrative οὗτος (5.18.4: Apollo and the Muses; Atlas holding heaven, which is examined below; 5.19.4: the fight between Coon and Agamemnon, also discussed below). By con- trast, the cataphoric ὅδε occurs in only one inscription, on the judgement of Paris (5.19.5): Ἑρµείας ὅδ’ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ δείκνυσι διαιτῆν τοῦ εἴδους Ἥραν καὶ Ἀθάναν καὶ Ἀφροδίταν. This Hermes here shows to Alexander, to arbitrate on their beauty, Hera and Athena and Aphrodite.20 The presence of the first-person demonstrative ὅδε “this-here,” which is conventionally associated with speaker-oriented deixis,21 marks the arrival of prominent information about the narrative, 18 The earliest name inscriptions referring to mythological narratives in pictorial art date as early as the mid-seventh century B.C. See the overview by G. Ahlberg-Cornell, Myth and Epos in Early Greek Art: Representation and Interpretation (Jonsered 1992) 176, and L. Giuliani, Image and Myth: A History of Pictorial Narration in Greek Art (Chicago 2013) 93. 19 Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 91. 20 See Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 202–204. D. F. Elmer, “Helen Epi- grammatopoios,” ClAnt 24 (2005) 1–39, at 20 n.70, ascribes the use of ὅδε here and the name of Hermes in first position to metrical reasons. 21 E. Schmolling, “Zum Gebrauch von οὗτος und ὅδε,” Jahresberichte des Philologischen Vereins zu Berlin 42 (1916) 30–32; J. Svenbro, Phrasikleia: An Anthro- pology of Reading in Ancient Greece (Ithaca 1993) 33; J. S. Klein, “ ‘Sá-figé’ and Indo-European Deixis,” HSF 109 (1996) 21–39, at 26–27; E. J. Bakker, “Homeric ΟΥΤΟΣ and the Poetics of Deixis,” CP 94 (1999) 1–19, at 6, and in A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language 153. 296 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 namely the identification of the intermediary between Paris and the goddesses as Hermes. The scene, as introduced by Pausanias (ἄγει δὲ καὶ Ἑρµῆς παρ᾿ Αλέξανδρον τὸν Πριάµου τὰς θεὰς κριθησο- µένας ὑπὲρ τοῦ κάλλους) and identified by the epigram, seems to recall Attic black-figure vase representations of the Judgement of Paris episode of Type B, where a procession of the three god- desses, led by Hermes, reaches the arbitrator, Paris.22 In the epigram’s physical reality, where both the text and its relief could be experienced through sight, the viewer’s physical proximity to the carved figure of Hermes played an important cognitive role.23 Nevertheless, in the reading experience of the epigram, once the disjunction of the text from the object has occurred, the referential function of ὅδε has shifted: the first- person demonstrative no longer points to a fixed referent in time and space (the perceivable representation of Hermes on the chest), but it now performs the “presence” of myth in multiple ways, depending on the subjective viewpoint of the reader who impersonates the “I” of the epigram (“this Hermes before me”) and visualises the referent. The polysyndeton in line 2 (Ἥραν καὶ Ἀθάναν καὶ Ἀφροδίταν) contributes to the deixis of the epigram, by guiding the gaze of (actual and imaginary) viewers as they iden- tify the goddesses in this processional scene. In the subsequent reading of the epigram in Pausanias’ account, deictics continue to provide a context for the reader’s imagined encounter with the chest by constructing “different orders of knowledge”:24 the 22 On this type see A. G. Mitchell, Greek Vase-Painting and the Origins of Visual Humour (Cambridge 2009) 96–97 and 232, where he focuses on the parodic implications of this scene in some black-figure depictions. 23 P. Bing, The Well-Read Muse: Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets (Göttingen 1988), and “The Un-Read Muse? Inscribed Epigram and Its Readers in Antiquity,” in M. A. Harder et al. (eds.), Hellenistic Epigrams (Leuven 2002) 39–66, at 42–47. 24 Thus Elmer, ClAnt 24 (2005) 27; cf. Bakker, in A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language 153–157. On literarily transmitted epigrams as re-enacting the act of viewing a given artwork, see discussions in D. Meyer, “The Act of FEDERICA SCICOLONE 297 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 proximal deictic introduces something about the judgement of Paris, viz. the identification of the intermediary as Hermes, which is no longer experienceable through sight (a visual order of knowledge), but can still be visualised through the audience’s imagination and memory of earlier literary and artistic treat- ments of the episode.25 The poem on the return of Marpessa by Idas (5.18.2), the first in Pausanias’ account and one of those without demonstratives, exemplifies the use of verbs to perform temporal deixis: Ἴδας Μάρπησσαν καλλίσφυρον, ἃν οἱ Ἀπόλλων ἅρπασε, τὰν Εὐανοῦ ἄγει πάλιν οὐκ ἀέκουσαν. Idas leads back, not unwilling, fair-ankled Marpessa, daughter of Evenus, whom Apollo snatched away.26 The aorist ἅρπασε in line 2 describes an action that is not con- tained within the temporal frame of the ongoing narrative, namely the one supposedly depicted on the chest and marked by the present tense ἄγει also in 2. A temporal sequence is thus inscribed into the scene: the speaker temporarily leaves the time- Reading and the Act of Writing in Hellenistic Epigram,” in Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram 187–210; J. W. Day, Archaic Greek Epigram and Dedication: Representation and Reperformance (Cambridge 2010); T. Christian, Gebildete Steine: Zur Rezeption literarischer Techniken in der Versinschriften seit dem Hellenismus (Göt- tingen 2015). 25 Interestingly, the only allusion to the judgement episode in the Homeric poems, Il. 24.27–30, follows a section (lines 22–24) in which Hermes also has a key role, as the gods almost unanimously urge him to steal Hector’s body away from Achilles’ fury. On Il. 24.27–30 see K. Reinhardt, “Das Paris- urteil,” in Tradition und Geist: Gesammelte Essays zur Dichtung (Göttingen 1960) 16–36; M. Davies, “The Judgement of Paris and Iliad Book XXIV,” JHS 101 (1981) 56–62; K. Dowden, “Homer’s Sense of Text,” JHS 116 (1996) 47–61. See also C. J. Mackie, “Iliad 24 and the Judgement of Paris,” CQ 63 (2013) 1– 16, on this section as part of a wider pattern of allusion to traditional nar- ratives of the Trojan saga in Book 24. 26 See Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 170–174. On this episode see also Cossu, in L’arca invisibile 111–112. 298 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 line of the present and digresses on Apollo’s earlier action.27 By informing the reader about the background of the episode, the relative clause with the aorist adds narrative depth to the main sentence. Like Hermes’ name in the Judgement epigram, here too the names of the two main characters portrayed, Idas and Marpessa, occur in first position in the epigram to allow for their unambiguous identification, even in the absence of deictic pointers. By contrast, the verbal elements describing their ac- tions in the present of the relief (ἄγει πάλιν οὐκ ἀέκουσαν) are postponed to the end of the epigram; this implies a delay in deciphering the scene until the reader reaches the poem’s con- clusion. The parenthetical remark about Marpessa’s willingness to follow Idas, in the form of the double negative οὐκ ἀέκουσαν of Homeric provenance,28 hints at the conclusion of the account reported by Apollodorus (1.7.9), where Zeus asked the girl to choose between the two contenders, Idas and Apollo, and she chose Idas. Thus, this epigram would provide the earliest attesta- tion of such a version of the myth, by alluding to the fact that Marpessa is granted freedom of choice by the father of the 27 Cf. Bakker, in A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language 164–166, on Hdt. 7.207–225. 28 The litotes recurs in Homer in a formulaic phrase about horses; with the feminine form of ἀέκων, it occurs in Od. 19.374, of Eurycleia; cf. the com- ments of M. Napolitano in E. Franchini, Ferecrate, Krapataloi – Pseudherakles ( frr. 85–163): introduzione, traduzione, commento (Göttingen 2020) 252, on the same phrasing in Pherecr. fr.155.1 Kassel-Austin. The litotes later occurs in Mosch. Eur. 14 εἴρυεν οὐκ ἀέκουσαν, of Europa being dragged away “not against her will” by an unnamed woman in a dream, which is generally inter- preted as in contrast with the forceful abduction of Persephone in Hymn. Hom.Dem. 19 ἁρπάξας δ᾿ ἀέκουσαν (see also 72 and 124). On this, see discus- sion in J. Smart, “Intertextual Dynamics in Moschus’s Europa,” Arethusa 45 (2012) 43–55, at 48–53. It would be tempting to consider the inscription of Idas and Marpessa on Cypselus’ chest a layer of mediation between these two accounts, gradually leading to the construction, through the figure of Mar- pessa, of a more explicit portrait of the female “willing” victim (as in the char- acter of Europa). FEDERICA SCICOLONE 299 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 gods.29 At the same time, the use of καλλίσφυρος for Marpessa is evocative of the world of epic, as in the Homeric account of this episode (Il. 9.557–560) the epithet occurs twice to qualify the woman. Furthermore, Marpessa is also referred to as Evenus’ daughter both in the Iliadic passage (Μαρπήσσης καλλισφύρου Εὐηνίνης, 557) and in the epigram reported by Pausanias (τὰν Εὐανοῦ, line 2). The epigram insists on the suspension of the nar- rative flow of the present, as signalled through the aorist form; lexical choices and syntax work in concert to evoke the mythic background of the carved relief and earlier literary treatments of the episode, which readers are thus prompted to recall. In the case of the episode of the duel between Agamemnon and Coon, the epigrams are fused together with the description offered by Pausanias (5.19.4): Ἰφιδάµαντος δὲ τοῦ Ἀντήνορος κειµένου, µαχόµενος πρὸς Ἀγα- µέµνονα ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ Κόων ἐστί· Φόβος δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἀγαµέµνονος τῇ ἀσπίδι ἔπεστιν, ἔχων τὴν κεφαλὴν λέοντος. ἐπιγράµµατα δὲ ὑπὲρ µὲν τοῦ Ἰφιδάµαντος νεκροῦ· Ἰφιδάµας οὗτός τε Κόων περιµάρναται αὐτοῦ· τοῦ Ἀγαµέµνονος δὲ ἐπὶ τῇ ἀσπίδι· Οὗτος µὲν Φόβος ἐστὶ, βροτῶν ὁ δ’ ἔχων Ἀγαµέµνων. While Iphidamas, the son of Antenor, is lying, Coon is over him, fighting against Agamemnon; Phobos is on the shield of Aga- memnon, having the head of a lion. The inscription over the corpse of Iphidamas: “This is Iphidamas and Coon fights for him.” And the one on the shield of Agamemnon: “This is Phobos, while Agamemnon is the one among mortals carrying (him).”30 29 Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 173–174. According to schol. bT Hom. Il. 9.557 f., this was also Simonides’ version of the story (Simon. PMG 563 = 353 Poltera), but O. Poltera, Simonides lyricus (Basel 2008) 587–588, finds it unlikely that Simonides was involved in the development of the myth. On this episode see also Bacchyl. fr.20A Maehler. 30 Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 192–201. See also Maddoli and Saladino, 300 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 The carved scene represented the fight between Agamemnon and Coon over the corpse of Iphidamas, Coon’s younger brother who has just been killed by Agamemnon. The account of the fight is part of Agamemnon’s aristeia (Il. 11.218–263). The first hexameter, carved over the lying body, focuses on the two brothers, while the second refers to Agamemnon. In using the prepositional phrase ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ to describe Coon in the relief, Pausanias plays on the ambivalence of ὑπέρ to signify the person “for” whom and “above” whom Coon is fighting. If interpreted as an indicator of ocular deixis describing Coon’s actual posture in his representation on the chest, the preposition evokes Il. 11.261 τοῖο δ᾿ ἐπ᾿ Ἰφιδάµαντι κάρη ἀπέκοψε παραστάς, which sim- ilarly emphasises Coon’s position at the time of his death over the body of his brother.31 Pausanias seems to elaborate further on this detail of the Iliadic account by using ὑπέρ also to describe the position of the epigrams in relation to the carved figures: Coon stands over his brother, in the same way as the inscription is “over the body of Iphidamas” (ἐπιγράµµατα δὲ ὑπὲρ µὲν τοῦ Ἰφι- δάµαντος νεκροῦ). Furthermore, as Pausanias reports, the iconography of the chest triggered further Homeric allusions through the visual reference to Phobos on Agamemnon’s shield in the form of a man with a lion’s head: this element recalls the simile of the lion describing Agamemnon’s fury in war in the same Homeric passage (11.239 ὥς τε λίς) and reveals prior knowledge of Il. 11.36–37, on Phobos’ and Deimos’ portrayal on the shield of Pausania V 117 and 302. The compound περιµάρναµαι is rare (cf. Il. 16.497 ἐµεῦ πέρι µάρναο χαλκῷ, also with genitive; Od. 24.37–39 ἀµφὶ δέ σ᾿ ἄλλοι / κτείνοντο Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν υἷες ἄριστοι, / µαρνάµενοι περὶ σεῖο, in an analo- gous context, of those fighting for Achilles’ dead body; cf. later Nonnus Dion. 43.118). On this episode see also Cossu, in L’arca invisibile 137–138. 31 Pausanias’ deictic reference to the position of Coon “over the body” of Iphidamas would be in keeping with the fact that in these lines he provides an exact description of the carved scene (rather than of the episode represented in the scene). FEDERICA SCICOLONE 301 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 Agamemnon.32 In the relief, both the position of Coon and the symbolic depiction of Phobos with leonine features would have allowed readers to grasp, on different levels, the Homeric allu- sions and recognise the episode depicted; the demonstrative οὗτος, occurring in both hexameters to qualify Iphidamas and Phobos as “this man (whom I see and recognise),” similarly alludes to the presumed familiarity of the audience with the characters, whose roles in the mythic narrative are shared material between reader and narrator. The cultural complexity of this scene is further denoted by the fact that it elaborates on the well-established iconographic scheme of the duel over a corpse.33 At the same time, in keeping with Agamemnon’s frequent characterisation as a lion in Iliad 11, the mention of Phobos in the second hexameter qualifies, via allegorical personification, an attribute of Agamemnon who, via Phobos’ depiction on his shield, is endowed with the ability to terrify his opponent. Pausanias explains this element for his readers in the interest of an exhaustive exegesis of the chest, pro- viding the most suitable context to understand the hexameters and the scene, and this is characteristic of Pausanias’ epigraphic habit in the Description.34 While the epigram establishes the 32 On the iconography of Phobos see H. A. Shapiro, Personification in Greek Art. The Representation of Abstract Concepts. 600–400 B.C. (Zürich 1993) 208–215, esp. 208–209; cf. Maddoli and Saladino, Pausania V 302; Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 195–201; Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 89 n.36. 33 Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 87. See also Giuliani, Image and Myth 98–102, on the same pictorial motif on the seventh-century Rhodian plate (London, British Museum, inv. A749) portraying the combat between Menelaus and Hector over the body of Euphorbus (partly inspired by Il. 17.70–113). This motif recurs in decorative contexts about the duel between Achilles and Memnon over the corpse of a dead warrior, either Antilochus or Melanippus; see A. Kossatz-Deissmann, “Achilleus,” LIMC I.1 (1981), nos. 727, 833, and possibly 825. 34 H. Whittaker, “Pausanias and his Use of Inscriptions,” SymbOslo 66 (1991) 171–186; Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 21–114 and 399–436; Y. Z. Tzifopoulos, “Inscriptions as Literature in Pausanias’ Exegesis of Hellas,” in 302 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 physical link between Phobos and Agamemnon, Pausanias adds an extra level of symbolic significance, informing the reader that Phobos takes the form of a lion-headed man and unveiling the lion’s allusive meaning. In this way Pausanias composes a narra- tive unit that picks up on the iconographic element of the shield and expands on its relevance for the heroic characterisation of Agamemnon.35 Pausanias’ literary mediation aims not only to unpack the concise narrative in the epigram, but also to direct his readers towards the supplementation of the imagery on the chest by means of traditional literary accounts (such as Iliad Book 11) and common iconographic motifs. Pausanias’ mediation proves necessary also to understand the broader context of the scene of Atlas and Heracles (5.18.4): Ἄτλας οὐρανὸν οὗτος ἔχει, τὰ δὲ µᾶλα µεθήσει. This Atlas holds heaven, but he will drop the apples.36 And this is Pausanias’ description of the scene, preceding his quotation of the epigram: Ἄτλας δὲ ἐπὶ µὲν τῶν ὤµων κατὰ τὰ λεγόµενα οὐρανόν τε ἀνέχει καὶ γῆν, φέρει δὲ καὶ τὰ Ἑσπερίδων µῆλα. ὅστις δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἔχων τὸ ξίφος καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἄτλαντα ἐρχόµενος, ἰδίᾳ µὲν ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ Inscriptions and their Uses 149–165, at 155 and 161; cf. J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cam- bridge 1995) 125–155, with 316–317 n.30, and Snodgrass, in Pausanias: Travel and Memory 134–135, on the “Homerist hypothesis” in Roman Imperial inter- pretations of early Greek art and in Pausanias’ work as well, i.e. the tendency to look for scenes of Homeric inspiration because of Homer’s prestige in literary, political, and philosophical circles. 35 Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 87–89. The Agamemnon lion simile occurs in Il. 11.113–114, 129–130, 172–177, 239. See M. Clarke, “Between Lions and Men: Images of the Hero in the Iliad,” GRBS 36 (1995) 137–159, on the lion similes in the Iliad. 36 See Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 182–186. On the myth and iconogra- phy of Atlas in the Graeco-Roman world see B. de Griño, R. Olmos, J. Arce, and L. J. Balmaseda, “Atlas,” LIMC III.1 (1986) 2–16; cf. Cossu, in L’arca invisibile 124–126. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 303 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 γεγραµµένον ἐστὶν οὐδέν, δῆλα δὲ ἐς ἅπαντας Ἡρακλέα εἶναι. γέγραπται δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις … And Atlas, in accordance with the account, on the one hand sup- ports heaven and earth upon his shoulders, and on the other hand carries also the apples of the Hesperides. Whoever is the man holding a sword and coming towards Atlas, nothing is inscribed specifically upon him, but it is clear to everyone that this is Hera- cles. And on these figures, it is written … Pausanias clarifies that the episode depicted concerns Heracles’ quest for the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides at the behest of Eurystheus, king of Argos. The scene refers to a specific version of the myth attested in Pherecydes,37 in which Heracles persuades Atlas to get the apples for him from the Hesperides, on the advice of Prometheus.38 Atlas, after fetching the apples for Heracles, who in the meantime is temporarily supporting the sky for him, is unwilling to take it back, but Heracles induces him to do so by using a trick that Prometheus had previously taught him—asking Atlas to hold the sky while Heracles is arranging a carrying-pad on his head.39 The carver 37 This version is first attested in schol. Ap. Rhod. 4.1396–1399b quoting as authority the mid-fifth-century Athenian logographer Pherecydes (fr.17 Fowler), and whose version is later reported by Apollodorus (2.5.11). 38 On Heracles and Prometheus see Hes. Theog. 526–532, with M. L. West, Hesiod. Theogony (Oxford 1966) 313. At Theog. 517–519 Atlas (holding the sky only) is already located “in front of the clear-voiced Hesperides” (Ἄτλας δ’ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχει κρατερῆς ὑπ’ ἀνάγκης, / πείρασιν ἐν γαίης πρόπαρ’ Ἑσπερίδων λιγυφώνων / ἑστηώς, κεφαλῇ τε καὶ ἀκαµάτῃσι χέρεσσι); see also 746–748. Cf. Hom. Od. 1.53–54 on Atlas holding the “pillars” between earth and heaven (ἔχει δέ τε κίονας αὐτὸς / µακράς, αἳ γαῖάν τε καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀµφὶς ἔχουσιν). 39 According to M. L. West, “The Prometheus Trilogy,” in M. Lloyd (ed.), Aeschylus (Oxford 2007) 359–396, at 391, Pherecydes’ narration of the trick of the carrying-pad may have been suggested by a metope of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (Paus. 5.10.9), completed just before the games of 456 B.C., in which Atlas brings the apples to Heracles, who supports the sky with the help of a padded cushion, in the presence of a female figure, either one of the Hesperides or Athena. See Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece III 524–525 304 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 of the Atlas relief may have already been aware of this version of the myth before Pherecydes reported it: the carved figure of Atlas, holding both heaven and the apples at the same time, as Pausanias reports (οὐρανόν τε ἀνέχει καὶ γῆν, φέρει δὲ καὶ τὰ Ἑσπερίδων µῆλα) and the epigram suggests, condenses the mythic narrative of the Titan’s encounter with Heracles in all its consti- tutive phases. Indeed, the scene represents Atlas simultaneously in two different moments of the account (first holding heaven, and then with Heracles’ apples) before he is induced to drop the apples against his will.40 Based on Pausanias’ description, the scene constructs a putative anterior episode to the traditional account, while the epigram anticipates its conclusion according to the mythic version later codified by Pherecydes, as signalled by the future tense µεθήσει at the end of the epigram.41 In this respect, the carver of the scene is very similar to Archaic vase painters, whose recollection of a specific episode to illustrate would have been contaminated by different versions of the same with fig. 68; H. V. Herrmann, Olympia: Heiligtum und Wettkampfstätte (Munich 1972), pl. 57; Maddoli and Saladino, Pausania V 236; J. Boardman, Greek Art (London 1996) 138, fig. 128. Cf. Paus. 5.11.5 on another depiction of the same episode inside the temple of Zeus on the barriers painted by Panaenus, with Atlas also holding both heaven and sky. On this passage and scene see Frazer 540–541; Maddoli and Saladino 241. See also Paus. 6.19.8 on another representation of this episode with the Hesperides, on the treasury of the Epidamnians. 40 On such simultaneity of the actions, see also Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece III 614; de Griño et al., LIMC III.1 (1986) 13; Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 91. As observed by D. Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford 2013) 38–39, “the icono- graphic tradition that emerged in the fourth century elided Atlas’ role and had Heracles prevailing upon the Hesperides directly.” 41 On a similar construction of a putative anterior episode to a traditional scene see Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth 32. Cf. Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 185, on the ironic implications of this part of the line (τὰ δὲ µᾶλα µεθήσει), pointing to Atlas’ paradoxical inability to hold the apples, despite his ability to hold the vault of heaven. On a similar mechanism of anticipation of future events in pictorial art see Giuliani, Image and Myth 104–105, about a (now lost) sixth-century Corinthian column crater. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 305 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 narrative.42 Furthermore, as already observed,43 the epigram re- calls the initial part of Hesiod Theog. 517 (Ἄτλας δ’ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχει) with the one, but substantial, difference that the epic adjec- tive εὐρύν is replaced on the chest by the deictic οὗτος: as in the case of the two hexameters on Iphidamas and Phobos, here too the demonstrative suggests that the identification of the figure on the chest as Atlas was more easily inferable by readers. This was possibly due to the distinctive iconography of the episode in its mythic imagery, as the same Pausanias confirms about Heracles in the relief who, despite not being mentioned in the epigram, can be identified by any passer-by. The referential function of the epigram, thus, moves beyond the “hereness” of the inscrip- tion to delve into the related myth and its literary treatments. These case studies exemplify different forms of access to the underlying mythological narratives that the epigrams on the Chest of Cypselus, together with Pausanias’ explanations, pro- vide to the readers. As to the deictic ὅδε in the Judgement epi- gram, pointing to newly introduced and prominent information about Hermes’ role in the relief, its referential function shifts from pointing to a fixed perceivable moment on the original monument-cum-epigram to pointing to Hermes in relation to the subjective here and now of subsequent readers. Forms of the deictic οὗτος suggest a higher degree of inferability of their refer- ents on the part of the reading audience, pointing to shared narrative material and acknowledging the centrality of readers in determining the present of the utterance. Verbal deixis in- scribes temporal sequences of the past and the future, reflecting the narrative depth of the mythic episode that inspired the epigram-relief ensemble. Pausanias’ descriptive remarks make up for the absence of the chest, bringing the sensible features of the reliefs before the readers’ eyes. The encounter with the chest is made into a meaningful experience both for ancient viewers and for subsequent readers, each provided with the most suitable 42 Borg, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 98. 43 Jones, JHS 14 (1894) 51; Elmer, ClAnt 24 (2005) 21. 306 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 frame of reference to decipher the artefact. The following section, on the epigrams from AP 3, will explore whether similar representational strategies are deployed to engage with the epi- grams’ visual apparatuses and their mythic past. The epigrams from the temple of Queen Apollonis at Cyzicus The illusion of mediation between traditional myths, their purported rendering in epigraphic form, and their literary trans- mission (and re-reading) is at stake also in the nineteen epigrams of the third book of the Palatine Anthology.44 According to the introductory lemma of the book, the poems were engraved on the stylopinakia of a temple dedicated to Queen Apollonis at Cyzicus, erected by her sons Eumenes II and Attalus II: ἐν Κυζίκῳ εἰς τὸν ναὸν Ἀπολλωνίδος τῆς µητρὸς Ἀττάλου καὶ Εὐµενοῦς ἐπιγράµµατα ἃ εἰς τὰ στυλοπινάκια ἐγέγραπτο περι- έχοντα ἀναγλύφους ἱστορίας ὡς ὑποτέτακται. At Cyzicus, in the temple of Apollonis the mother of Attalus and Eumenes, the epigrams inscribed on the stylopinakia containing stories wrought in relief, as follows. Apart from this lemma, no other evidence exists of a temple for Queen Apollonis in her hometown, although it can be assumed that she received such honour as part of the Attalid propaganda following her union with Attalus I in the third century B.C.45 As 44 They occur in Pal.gr. 23, fol. 76–81. AP 3.17 is almost entirely missing from the series (only the first three words πυρὸς καὶ γαίης are transmitted, followed by a blank space), but its lemma is in the manuscript; this element suggests that neither the epigrams nor the lemmata were composed and put together by the Palatine scribes; on this see A. Cameron, The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes (Oxford 1993) 148; Maltomini, AnnPisa IV 7 (2002) 19 n.6, who also observes that the lemmata in textu can be ascribed directly to the same source used for the epigrams, using the case of AP 13 as a parallel. 45 Ballestrazzi, RivFil 145 (2017) 128–130. See also B. Virgilio, Gli Attalidi di Pergamo. Fama, eredità, memoria (Pisa 1993) 44–52, on the praise of Apollonis’ excellence during her life and on the cult of the deified queen, and Lancia, diadema e porpora. Il re e la regalità ellenistica (Pisa 2003) 104–106 and 243–245, on second-century B.C. epigraphic evidence of such cult, especially from Teos and Hierapolis. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 307 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 to the epigrams, these are generally regarded as later additions or creations, produced not earlier than the sixth century A.D.46 There is no reason to doubt that the reliefs existed and that the composer of the epigrams had some sort of access to them, probably through a written source prior to AP describing the monument. The texts comment on episodes of filial devotion and family relationships,47 and have prompted scholarly interest over time for a series of partially solved issues. Among them, there is the interpretation of the stylopinakia, since the word is an absolute hapax:48 this term would identify small tablets carved in relief and attached to each column of the temple, as the lemmata in textu and their epigraphic terminology seem to confirm (cf. the lemmata to AP 3.2 Ὁ βʹ κίων ἔχει …, “The second pillar has …”; 3.9 Ἐν τῷ θʹ Πελίας καὶ Νηλεὺς ἐλλελάξευνται, “On the ninth 46 Demoen, AntCl 57 (1988) 237, 245, 248; Maltomini, AnnPisa IV 7 (2002) 19; cf. Goldhill, Preposterous Poetics 32–34. 47 Thus, revolving around a unitary theme, see by contrast Brilliant, Visual Narratives 37–38, on the “visual discontinuity” of Pausanias’ account of the Chest of Cypselus, as in his description he moves around from panel to panel by addition, without following (or failing to identify) a specific narrative thread. 48 H. Van Looy and K. Demoen, “Le temple en l’honneur de la reine Apollonis à Cyzique et l’énigme des stylopinakia,” EpigAnat 8 (1986) 133–144, esp. 137; Maltomini, AnnPisa IV 7 (2002) 21–24. See also C. Picard, “Notes d’archéologie grecque,” REA 29 (1927) 241–285, at 255–275, and 267–272 on the parallel with the decorative system of the columnae caelatae, which is particularly attested in Asia Minor; F.-H. Massa Pairault, AFLPer(class) 19 (1981/2) 161, for the parallel between the stylopinakia and the representation of small columns and decorative candlesticks with little pinakes in Third Style Pompeian painting, e.g. in the House of M. Lucretius Fronto, cf. G. Pugliese Carratelli and I. Baldassarre, Pompei: pitture e mosaici III (Rome 1990) 1006– 1017, esp. no. 83a–b. For another Third Style example of small column with pinax portrayed in a wall painting from Villa Imperiali, in the Civita Giuliana area, see G. Stefani, Pompei, vecchi scavi sconosciuti: la villa rinvenuta dal marchese Giovanni Imperiali in località Civita (Rome 1994) 78–80, pl. 5.1. A further parallel is provided by Paus. (5.20.7), who quotes the verses inscribed on the πινάκιον χαλκοῦν in front of the last standing στυλίς of the house of Oenomaus at Olympia. 308 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 Pelias and Neleus are hewn in stone”; 3.10 Ἐν δὲ τῷ κατὰ δύσιν πλευρῷ ἐστὶν ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦ ιʹ πίνακος Εὔνοος γεγλυµµένος καὶ Θόας, “On the western side, on the initial part of the tenth panel, Eu- noos and Thoas are engraved”). If, on the one hand, the epigrams and their lemmata do not shed full light on the temple’s architecture, on the other hand their reading suggests an attempt to construct an “architecture of myth” through engagement with episodes from the mythic and literary tradition that readers are prompted to recall in a fictional journey through the carved panels. The practice of juxtaposing scenes from myth in visual form on a single monu- ment, as a form of distributed narrative, has been related to the artistic production of the Hellenistic period, which the epigrams on the Cyzicene stylopinakia may recall.49 Indeed, the epigrams in AP 3 are independent poems that claim to engage with the accompanying images (of which also the prose lemmata reveal autonomous knowledge) but were conceived as a unitary poetic work.50 They denote mastery of the Greek mythic tradition and represent a later development of the synergy between visual and verbal media, of which Cypselus’ chest represents a significant example among Archaic artworks.51 49 Such a practice of allusion could be related to similar combinations and meaningful associations of myths in Classical architectural and sculptural production. See Brilliant, Visual Narratives 35–37 (about the epigrams from AP 3), 66, and 37–38 (on Cypselus’ chest); K. Lorenz, “Distributed Narrative: A Very Short History of Juxtaposing Myths on Pompeian Walls,” in L. Audley- Miller et al. (eds.), Wandering Myths: Transcultural Uses of Myth in the Ancient World (Berlin 2018) 143–167, at 144. 50 Maltomini, AnnPisa IV 7 (2002) 30–33, who draws a parallel between these epigrams and the ecphrasis on the statues of the Baths of Zeuxippus by Christodorus of Coptos, transmitted in AP 2, namely a unitary poem that could be read as an assemblage of descriptions. See also Goldhill, Preposterous Poetics 96. 51 This synergy will increase from the seventh century B.C. onwards, when writing develops a symbiotic relationship with narrative and visual culture; see R. Osborne and A. Pappas, “Writing on Archaic Greek Pottery,” in FEDERICA SCICOLONE 309 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 This analysis of cases from AP 3 suggests that the deictic efficacy of the epigrams is enhanced by the alternation of differ- ent narrative voices, allowing the readers to engage with the characters and scenes with varying degrees of proximity. The epigrams are mostly uttered in the third- (AP 3.1, 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 15, 18) and second-person voices (3.5, 7–11, 14, 16, 19). In the latter group, epigrams 7 and 10 use imperative forms for further emphasis: through the reader’s voice, the speaker “instructs” the portrayed characters to perform the actions that they are ex- pected to execute, based on the related mythic narrative (3.7: line 2 κτείνατε, line 5 καθάπτετε; 3.10: line 1 φαῖνε, line 5 στεῖχε … σύ). Two cases that slightly diverge from this pattern are 3.15 and 3.18: here the third-person voice emphatically shifts in the final couplet to a second-person address to the poems’ main characters (Glaucus in 3.15, Cleobis and Biton in 3.18). Only AP 3.2, discussed below, is uttered through the first-person perspec- tive of the protagonist, Telephus (line 2 ἐπέβην, line 4 ἀγάγω), which enhances the liveliness of the account and furthers the reader’s capacity to impersonate the main character. As for the demonstratives, in contrast with the widespread use of the ana- phoric deictic οὗτος in the epigrams from the Chest of Cypselus, AP 3 features only very few forms of the proximal ὅδε:52 as in the case of the Judgement epigram from the chest examined above, this deictic introduces the referents to the reader as new and salient pieces of information, as if these were not easily inferable from the reliefs. Epigram AP 3.1 is uttered from the third-person perspective and displays verbal deixis to mark the divide between the mythic Z. Newby et al. (eds.), Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007) 131–155; Giuliani, Image and Myth 89–130; J. Whitley, “The Material Entanglements of Writing Things Down,” in L. C. Nevett (ed.), Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Ancient Greece: Manipulating Material Culture (Ann Arbor 2017) 71–103. 52 AP 3.1.1, 3.7.2 and 6, 3.9.2, 3.10.1, 3.12.1, 3.13.1, 3.19.1—except for ἐκεῖνος qualifying Amyntor in 3.3.5, which picks up on his initial mention in line 1. 310 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 episode and its representation: Τάνδε Διὸς δµαθεῖσαν ἐν ὠδίνεσσι κεραυνῷ, καλλίκοµον Κάδµου παῖδα καὶ Ἁρµονίης, µατέρα θυρσοχαρὴς ἀνάγει γόνος ἐξ Ἀχέροντος, τὰν ἄθεον Πενθεῦς ὕβριν ἀµειβόµενος. This woman here, overcome in childbirth by the thunderbolt of Zeus, the fair-haired daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, as a mother the thyrsus-loving son leads up from Acheron, he who responds to the godless insolence of Pentheus. As in the case of the aorist ἅρπασε in the Marpessa epigram (297 above), here the aorist participle δµαθεῖσαν in line 1 inscribes a sequence of anteriority into the scene, thus performing temporal deixis.53 This aorist form contrasts not only with the present tenses following it (ἀνάγει … ἀµειβόµενος, 3–4), but also with the proximal deictic τάνδε preceding it. On the one hand, the demonstrative points to the arrival of new information to the readers, guiding them to identify the main female character in the episode as Semele; the fact that she is not named in the epigram furthers the impression that her identification on the part of the panel’s imaginary viewers was not immediately ap- parent. On the other hand, the aorist describes a “timeless” event (namely her death by Zeus’ lightning), which would not have been portrayed in the relief scene.54 The sequence of char- acters in the epigram (this woman here – Zeus – Cadmus – Harmonia – thyrsus-loving son – Pentheus) provides the reader with further clues, beyond the deictic τάνδε, to identify and visualise the two characters who lack explicit naming, Semele and Dionysus.55 At the same time, the use of an external narrative voice, located in the third-person verbs throughout the 53 The phrase δµαθεῖσαν … κεραυνῷ evokes Pind. Pyth. 8.17 δµᾶθεν δὲ κεραυνῷ, of Zeus’ victory over Typhoeus. 54 Bakker, in A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language 165. 55 Note the genitive Πενθεῦς in the epigram’s last line: its circumflex accent would not have been marked in the inscription, thus creating confusion be- tween Pentheus and Dionysus as the subject of ἀµειβόµενος. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 311 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 epigram, depersonalises the account and increases the distance between the supposed poem-pinakion pairing and the back- ground of Semele’s myth. By contrast, in AP 3.7 the divide between mythic narrative and its perceivable manifestations is bridged through the dialogic mode of narration, which stages the illusion that the reader may “direct” the characters’ actions: Ἀµφίων καὶ Ζῆθε, Διὸς σκυλακεύµατα, Δίρκην κτείνατε τάνδ’ ὀλέτιν µατέρος Ἀντιόπας, δέσµιον ἣν πάρος εἶχε διὰ ζηλήµονα µῆνιν· νῦν δ’ ἱκέτις αὐτὴ λίσσετ’ ὀδυροµένη· ᾇ γε καὶ ἐκ ταύροιο καθάπτετε δίπλακα σειρήν, ὄφρα δέµας σύρῃ τῆσδε κατὰ ξυλόχου. Amphion and Zethus, whelps of Zeus, kill this Dirce here, who intended to slay your mother Antiope, whom formerly she held captive because of her jealous spite. But now she herself is sup- pliant and begs lamenting. Tie her to a bull with a double rope, so that it may drag her body through this thicket here. According to the lemma, the scene purportedly represented Amphion and Zethus tying Dirce to a bull (προσάπτοντες ταύρῳ τὴν Δίρκην), but in the epigram this action is presented as a direct command uttered by the speaker to the characters as the story unfolds. Such narrative development is exemplified by the shift in Dirce’s characterisation, through homeoteleuton, from ὀλέτις in line 2 to ἱκέτις in 4, marking the woman’s sudden change of attitude. Furthermore, a temporal shift emerges from the juxta- position of πάρος and νῦν in 3 and 4, pointing respectively to the narrative background of the episode and its present represen- tation on the relief. The forward-pointing demonstratives τάνδε (2, of Dirce) and τῆσδε (6, of the thicket) fulfil a twofold deictic function: on the one hand, they foster the illusion that the viewer’s gaze is guided through the sequence of elements as they appear on the pinakion, as if the deictics provided the audience with imaginary “stage directions”; on the other hand, they intro- duce new and cognitively salient elements of the narrative to the reader who, giving voice to the “I” of the epigram and uttering 312 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 the direct commands κτείνατε and καθάπτετε (2 and 5), enacts the mythic episode in the present of the speech act. AP 3.2 is uttered from the first-person perspective of its pro- tagonist, Telephus; this narrative mode allows readers, who lend their voice to the speaking hero, to identify with him:56 Τὸν βαθὺν Ἀρκαδίης προλιπὼν πάτον εἵνεκα µατρὸς Αὔγης τᾶσδ’ ἐπέβην γᾶς Τεϋθραντιάδος, Τήλεφος, Ἡρακλέους φίλος γόνος αὐτὸς ὑπάρχων, ὄφρα µιν ἂψ ἀγάγω ἐς πέδον Ἀρκαδίης. Leaving the deep path of Arcadia for the sake of my mother Auge, I, Telephus, being myself the beloved descendant of Heracles, set foot on this Teuthranian land, in order to lead her back to Ar- cadia. The epigram alludes to the version of Telephus’ myth related in Sophocles’ lost Mysians. From Hyginus’ Fab. 10057 we infer that this play was concerned with Telephus’ departure from Arcadia to Mysia (the “Teuthranian land” in the epigram) to find his mother.58 Hyginus also reports that, after the mother-son recog- nition (to which the epigram’s lemma refers), Telephus takes his mother back to Arcadia (in patriam suam reduxit), as also reported in the epigram (ὄφρα µιν ἂψ ἀγάγω ἐς πέδον Ἀρκαδίης). The hero relates the episode in the first person (ἐπέβην, ἀγάγω): the ap- positive phrase in line 3, in which the speaker identifies himself as Telephus, is in keeping with the characterisation of the relief as a scene of recognition, which is confirmed by the lemma of the epigram (Ὁ βʹ κίων ἔχει Τήλεφον ἀνεγνωρισµένον τῇ ἑαυτοῦ µητρί, “The second pillar has Telephus recognised by his mother”). The deictic τᾶσδε in 2, allowing for the identification of the setting as the Teuthranian land, is pronounced by the reader as “this one before me” and therefore recreates the fiction 56 For a discussion of this case see Goldhill, Preposterous Poetics 33–34. 57 P. K. Marshall, Hyginus: Fabulae2 (Munich 2002) 92–93. 58 TrGF IV frr.409–418; A. H. Sommerstein, “Fragments and Lost Trag- edies,” in A. Markantonatos (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Sophocles (Leiden 2012) 191–209, at 201 and 205–207. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 313 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 that the reading audience is an integral part of it.59 As is often the case in the poems in AP 3, the lemma and the epigram provide different forms of access to the mythic episode, while complementing each other:60 the speaker of the poem puts in a nutshell the full account of Telephus and Auge, while the lemma identifies the scene on the panel as a scene of recognition. The mentions of Heracles in 3 and of the king of Mysia, Teuthras (through the toponym γᾶς Τεϋθραντιάδος, 2) further allow the reader to visualise the mythic narrative and to integrate it into the (imagined) experience of the panel. Thus the epigrams from AP 3 analysed here exemplify the use of different strategies respectively for bridging the divide be- tween traditional myths and readership, by way of textual and (imagined) pictorial representation, namely the epigrams and their stylopinakia. In AP 3.1 the third-person narrative voice, in addition to aorist tenses inscribing temporal sequences of the past, marks the distance between the realia of representation and the remoteness of myth. Such a divide is reduced in AP 3.7 where, through second-person utterances and imperatives, the readers of the epigram are involved in the enactment of the represented scene. The readers’ involvement is further height- ened in AP 3.2: through the first-person voice of the narrative’s protagonist, Telephus, they are drawn into the myth that in- spired the epigram. This paper has focused on two illustrative series of “literary 59 This function of deictics, contributing to the fictional stage setting, is commonly used in Euripidean prologues to define the setting of the tragedy; see I. J. F. de Jong, “Sophocles Trachiniae 1–48, Euripidean Prologues, and their Audiences,” in R. J. Allan et al. (eds.), The Language of Literature: Linguistic Approaches to Classical Texts (Leiden 2007) 7–28, at 19–28; S. Scullion, “Prob- lems in the Prologue and Parodos of Bacchae,” in P. J. Finglass et al. (eds.), Hesperos: Studies in Ancient Greek Poetry Presented to M. L. West (Oxford 2007) 239– 258, at 247–250. 60 See also the lemma to AP 3.14, on Tityus shot by Apollo and Artemis, whereas the epigram suggests that the giant was killed by Zeus, following Hyginus’ version of the myth (Fab. 55, a Iove fulmine est interfectus). 314 SHOWING AND TELLING IN LITERARY INSCRIPTIONS ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 inscriptions” that play with the ambiguity between their literary status and their absent epigraphic reality. Neither series is de- scriptive in a strict sense: the epigrams from the chest conform to the type of explanatory Beischriften (i.e. captions-style texts),61 identifying the narratives and characters that enable Pausanias’ description. The epigrams from AP 3 seem the product of a late erudite with an interest in mythography and the poetics of ecphrasis, as denoted by the emphasis on the scenes’ content and by the lack of engagement with their materiality.62 In both sequences, the epigrammatopoioi toyed with the idea of using the epigrams to engage with a broader repertoire of literary ante- cedents and myths by evoking, condensing, and modifying specific aspects of them. In order to do so, deixis is employed to elaborate on the dialectics between visual and verbal communi- cation.63 The literary mediation performed by Pausanias’ ex- planatory remarks and by the prose lemmata in AP 3 contributes to enhance the Deixis am Phantasma of the epigrams: Pausanias employs the epigraphic evidence observed at Olympia to expand on aspects of the portrayed narratives that transcend the boun- daries of their epigraphic reality, with the main aim of enriching his exegesis and instructing his readers about the main sites, monuments, and literary traditions of Greece.64 Likewise the lemmata in AP 3 reveal awareness of the practice of pairing 61 A. E. Raubitschek, “Das Denkmal-Epigramm,” in A. Dihle (ed.), L’Épi- gramme grecque (Geneva 1968) 3–26; Elmer, ClAnt 24 (2005) 13–14, 19. 62 As observed also by Maltomini, AnnPisa IV 7 (2002) 30–32. 63 See discussion in É. Prioux, Regards alexandrins: histoire et théorie des arts dans l’épigramme hellénistique (Leuven 2007), and Petits musées en vers: épigramme et discours sur les collections antiques (Paris 2008) 29–121; M. J. Squire, Image and Text in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Cambridge 2009) 176–189 and 239–288, and “Reading a View: Poem and Picture in the Greek Anthology,” Ramus 39 (2010) 73–103. 64 Tzifopoulos, in Inscriptions and their Uses 161; see also F. Chamoux, “Les épigrammes dans Pausanias,” in D. Knoepfler et al. (eds.), Éditer, traduire, commenter Pausanias en l’an 2000 (Geneva 2001) 79–91, at 80 and 89–90; Snod- grass, in Pausanias: Travel and Memory 136–137; Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi 439–443. FEDERICA SCICOLONE 315 ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 289–315 images with poems in real-life reading contexts,65 and expand on the episodes that the epigrams describe to relate them to the wider mythic tradition. The information provided by Pausanias and the lemmata of Book 3 bridge the gap between the epi- grams’ literary status and their (purported) epigraphic contexts, thus inviting the readers to transcend questions of monumental reality and embrace the epigrams’ “poetics of simulation.”66 February, 2024 Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Naples f.scicolone@ssmeridionale.it 65 On which practice see Prioux, Petits musées 141–340. 66 Squire, AJP 131 (2010) 589–634.