The Hellenistic erotic epigrams of the Greek Anthology, concentrated mainly in Books 5 and 12, were a new phenomenon. They were alien to the epigraphic tradition, and were unconcerned with the social functions of their literary predecessors: praise of patrons in archaic and classical love lyric love, and politics in the amatory portions of the Theognidean corpus. Epigrammatists of the Hellenistic age writing love poetry did not disguise encomium as eros but foregrounded the erotic; and their amatory epigrams were generally apolitical. They took over the dominant male homoerotic interest of the Theognidean corpus, but not the female homosexuality of Sappho, and collectively they expanded the sphere of the erotic to include heterosexual love in full measure.

Another fresh element in Hellenistic erotic epigram is its overt casualisation of sexual relationships, which are often treated ab initio as transient and of no ultimate significance, however sharp and pressing the short-term needs, sufferings and emotions they generate. Heterosexual relationships in Hellenistic epigrams have few hints of the marital: the women involved are almost exclusively prostitutes, as are some male love-objects. This makes much of Books 5 and 12 of the Anthology an epigrammatic companion to Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae 13 with its accounts of famous prostitutes. Given that Hellenistic epigrammatists viewed their subjects through the lenses of Middle and New Comedy, no strict overlap between their erotic epigrams and real life can be assumed; but the continuing popularity of themes and characters from the demi- monde in Hellenistic and Roman literature, together with the material remains of Roman brothels and bath-houses, suggest that epigrammatic sexuality had some basis in reality. The mercenary nature of the sexual transactions portrayed is responsible for another novel element of the Hellenistic erotic epigram, the deep cynicism often displayed in its treatment of sexuality. Archaic poets could of course also express disillusionment about love and sex, but the cynical detachment of many Hellenistic erotic epigrams is deep-set, and consonant with Athenaeus’ witty and ironic anecdotes about hetaerae. Nevertheless the same erotic epigrammatists who on some occasions write with utter cynicism can on others exhibit remarkable emotional empathy.