Tombs of Poets’ Minor Characters
Tombs of Poets’ Minor Characters
This chapter focuses on Hellenistic epigrams commemorating the death of minor literary characters: a hero named just once in Homer, the slaughtered children of Medea, a prostitute berated by Sappho, the daughters of Lycambes vilified by Archilochus, and the lovely Baucis, Erinna’s friend. It argues that these commemorations reveal an aspect of the Hellenistic reception of earlier Greek poetry—its avid engagement with the tradition, extending even to lesser figures. The chapter suggests that the epigrams, viewed against the backdrop of real-life hero cult, are a kind of metafiction, reactions to, and spin-offs from, an urtext. It demonstrates how an interest in buried literary figures enabled a discourse on literature as autonomous from real-life ritual and yet as best expressed through the materiality of the tomb.
Keywords: Palatine Anthology, imaginary tombs, cult, minor characters, Charlotte Temple, Doricha, daughters of Lycambes, Baucis
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
