Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T23:47:19.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE POETICS OF LATER GREEK ECPHRASIS: CHRISTODORUS COPTUS, THE PALATINE ANTHOLOGY AND THE PERIOCHAE OF NONNUS’ DIONYSIACA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2019

Fran Middleton
Fran Middleton*
Affiliation:
Murray Edwards College, Cambridgefcm27@cam.ac.uk
Get access

Extract

There is increasing interest in what might be thought ‘special’ about late antique poetry. Two volumes of recent years have focused on Latin poetry of this time, Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity edited by Scott McGill and Joseph Pucci (2016) as well as The Poetics of Late Latin Literature edited by Jaś Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato (2017), while it has become increasingly acceptable to remark on late antiquity as a cultural period in its own right, rather than a point of transition between high antiquity and the middle ages. Greek poetry of late antiquity has yet to receive the level of attention offered to Latin literature of this time, and so it is to help answer the question of what may be thought special about late antique Greek poetry that I here discuss the poetics of later Greek ecphrasis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 2018 , pp. 216 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Ramus 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful for the many comments I have received on this paper, which initially took a very different form. I was first inspired to work on the Nonnus periochae by the Dionysiaca reading group hosted in Cambridge by the Imperial Greek Epic project in 2014/15, and I received particularly important suggestions from Emily Kneebone and Max Leventhal, who suggested AP 9.385 might be of interest. Simon Goldhill's early comments encouraged me to think about ecphrasis and so turn to Christodorus, while Richard Hunter's later remarks allowed me to make better sense of how the piece should be framed. I am especially grateful to the editors and reviewers here at Ramus for suggesting some important final touches.

References

Allen, T.W. (ed.) (1902–17), Homeri opera. (4 vols: Oxford).Google Scholar
Bär, S. (2012), ‘“Museum of words”: Christodorus, the Art of Ekphrasis, and the Epyllic Genre’, in Baumbach, M. and Bär, S. (eds), Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception (Leiden and Boston), 447–71.10.1163/9789004233058_020Google Scholar
Bassett, S.G. (1996), ‘Historiae custos: Sculpture and Tradition in the Baths of Zeuxippos’, AJA 100, 491–506.10.2307/507026Google Scholar
Bassett, S.G. (2004), The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Beckby, H. (ed.) (1957–58), Anthologia Graeca (4 vols: München).Google Scholar
Bessone, L. (1984), ‘Le Periochae di Livio’, A&R 29, 42–55.Google Scholar
Bessone, L. (2015), ‘The Periochae’, in Mineo, B. (ed.), A Companion to Livy (Chichester), 425–36.Google Scholar
Billerbeck, M. (ed.) (2006), Stephani Byzantii Ethnica (4 vols: Berlin).Google Scholar
Brakke, D. (1995), Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford).Google Scholar
Brown, P. (2008 [1988]), The Body and Society [twentieth anniversary edition with a new introduction] (New York).Google Scholar
Castelli, E. (2016), ‘ΠΟΙΗΜΑΤΑ ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΑΚΑ. Agazia e la prima circolazione dei versi dionisiaci di Nonno di Panopoli’, VetChr 53, 67–76.Google Scholar
Castelli, E. (2017a), ‘I canti separati. Il pap. Berol. 10567 e la più antica tradizione dei Διονυσιακά di Nonno di Panopoli’, ZPE 204, 47–54.Google Scholar
Castelli, E. (2017b), ‘Il titolo taciuto. Sull'epigramma IX, 198 dell’Anthologia Palatina e la trasmissione dei Dionysiaca di Nonno di Panopoli’, ByzZ 110.3, 1–14.Google Scholar
Chaplin, J. (2010), ‘The Livian Periochae and the Last Republican Writer’, in Horster, M. and Reitz, C. (eds), Condensing Texts – Condensed Texts (Stuttgart), 451–68.Google Scholar
Conybeare, C. (2007), ‘Sanctum, lector, percense volumen: Snakes, Readers, and the Whole Text in Prudentius's Hamartigenia’, in Klingshirn and Safran (2007), 225–40.Google Scholar
Dufallo, B. (2013), The Captor's Image: Greek Culture in Roman Ecphrasis (Oxford).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735877.001.0001Google Scholar
Ebbot, M. (2009), ‘Text and Technologies: the Iliad and the Venetus A’, in Dué, C. (ed.), Recapturing a Homeric Legacy: Images and Insights from the Venetus A Manuscript of the Iliad (Cambridge MA/London), 31–55.Google Scholar
Elsner, J. (1995), Art and the Roman Viewer (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Elsner, J. (2002), ‘Introduction: The Genres of Ekphrasis’, in Elsner, J. (ed.), The Verbal and the Visual: Cultures of Ekphrasis in Antiquity, Ramus 31, 1–18.Google Scholar
Elsner, J. (2007), ‘Philostratus Visualizes the Tragic: Some Ecphrastic and Pictoral Receptions of Greek Tragedy in the Roman Era’, in Kraus, C., Goldhill, S., Foley, H.P. and Elsner, J. (eds), Visualizing the Tragic: Drama, Myth, and Ritual in Greek Art and Literature (Oxford).Google Scholar
Elsner, J. and Hernández Lobato, J. (eds) (2017), The Poetics of Late Latin Literature (New York).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199355631.001.0001Google Scholar
Gigli Piccardi, D. (ed. and tr.) (2003), Nonno di Panopoli, Le Dionisiache, Canti I–XII (vol. 1: Milano).Google Scholar
Goldhill, S. (1994), ‘The Naive 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), 192–223.Google Scholar
Goldhill, S. (2007), ‘What is Ekphrasis for?’, CPh 102.1, 1–19.Google Scholar
Goldhill, S. (2012), ‘Forms of Attention: Time and Narrative in Ecphrasis’, CCJ 58, 88–114.Google Scholar
Green, R. (ed.) (1991), The Works of Ausonius (Oxford).Google Scholar
Gutzwiller, K.J. (1998), Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London).Google Scholar
Gutzwiller, K.J. (2002), ‘Art's Echo: The Tradition of Hellenistic Ecphrastic Epigram’, in Harder, M., Regtuit, R. and Wakker, G. (eds), Hellenistic Epigrams (Leuven/Paris/Sterling VA), 85–112.Google Scholar
Haines-Eitzen, K. (2007), ‘Engendering Palimpsests: Reading the Textual Tradition of the Acts of Paul and Thecla’, in Klingshirn and Safran (2007), 177–93.Google Scholar
Haines-Eitzen, K. (2012), The Gendered Palimpsest: Women, Writing, and Representation in Early Christianity (Oxford).Google Scholar
Kahlos, M. (2006), ‘Perniciosa ista inanium dulcedo litterarum: The Perils of Charming Literature in Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 16’, Maia 58.1, 53–67.Google Scholar
Kaldellis, A. (2007), ‘Christodoros on the Statues of the Zeuxippos Baths’, GRBS 47, 361–83.Google Scholar
Keydell, R. (ed.) (1959). Nonni Panopolitani Dionysiaca (2 vols: Berlin).Google Scholar
Klingshirn, W.E., and Safran, L. (eds) (2007), The Early Christian Book (Washington DC).Google Scholar
Kotsifou, C. (2007), ‘Books and Book Production in the Monastic Communities of Byzantine Egypt’, in Klingshirn and Safran (2007), 48–66.Google Scholar
Ludwich, A. (ed.) (1909–11), Nonni Panopolitani Dionysiaca (2 vols: Leipzig).Google Scholar
Magrassi, M. (1998), Praying the Bible: An Introduction to Lectio Divina, tr. E. Hagman (Collegeville MN).Google Scholar
McGill, S., and Pucci, J. (eds) (2016), Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity (Heidelberg).Google Scholar
Miguélez Cavero, L. (2008), Poems in Context: Greek Poetry in the Egyptian Thebaid 200–600 AD (Berlin/New York).10.1515/9783110210415Google Scholar
Payne, M. (2001), ‘Ecphrasis and Song in Theocritus Idyll 1’, GRBS 42, 263–87.Google Scholar
Petrain, D. (2014), Homer in Stone: the Tabulae Iliacae in their Roman Context (Cambridge).10.1017/CBO9781139342612Google Scholar
Porter, J. (2011), ‘Against λεπτότης: Rethinking Hellenistic Aesthetics’, in Erskine, A. and Llewellyn-Jones, L. (eds), Creating a Hellenistic World (Swansea), 271–312.Google Scholar
Rapp, C. (2007), ‘Holy Texts, Holy Men, and Holy Scribes: Aspects of Scriptural Holiness in Late Antiquity’, in Klingshirn and Safran (2007), 194–222.Google Scholar
Rapp, C. (2009), ‘Safe-Conducts to Heaven: Holy Men, Mediation and the Role of Writing’, in Rousseau and Papoutsakis (2009), 187–203.Google Scholar
Rouse, W.H. (ed. and tr.) (1940), Nonnos, Dionysiaca (3 vols: Cambridge MA/London).Google Scholar
Rousseau, P., and Papoutsakis, M. (eds) (2009), Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown (Farnham and Burlington).Google Scholar
Scourfield, J. (ed.) (2007), Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity: Inheritance, Authority, and Change (Swansea).10.2307/j.ctvvnb1nGoogle Scholar
Squire, M. (2010), ‘Making Myron's Cow Moo? Ecphrastic Epigram and the Poetics of Simulation’, AJPh 131.4, 589–634.Google Scholar
Squire, M. (2011), The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae (Oxford).Google Scholar
Stroumsa, G.G. (2012), ‘Augustine and Books’, in Vessey, M. (ed.), A Companion to Augustine (Malden/Oxford/Chichester), 151–7.10.1002/9781118255483.ch12Google Scholar
Stupperich, R. (1982), ‘Das Statuenprogramm in den Zeuxippos-Thermen: Überlegungen zur Beschreibung des Christodoros von Koptos’, MDAI(I) 32, 210–35.Google Scholar
Tissoni, F. (2000), Cristodoro: Un'introduzione e un commento (Alessandria).Google Scholar
Vian, F. (ed. and tr.) (1976–2006), Nonnos de Panopolis, Les Dionysiaques (19 vols: Paris).Google Scholar
Vox, O. (2000), ‘Autori scenici nelle terme di Zeuxippo a Costantinopoli (da Christodorus AP 2,1)’, InvLuc 22, 241–53.Google Scholar
Waltz, P. (ed. and tr.) (1928), Anthologie grecque. Première Partie. Anthologie Palatine. Livres I–IV (vol. 1: Paris).Google Scholar
Zanker, G. (2004), Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art (Madison WI).Google Scholar
Zeitlin, F. (2013), ‘Figure: Ekphrasis’, G&R 60.1, 17–31.Google Scholar
Zelchenko, V. (2003), ‘Молчание Эринны (AP II, 108–110)’, Hyperboreus 9, 37–43.Google Scholar
Zuenelli, S. (2016), ‘Die Perioche der Dionysiaka als Mittel der Selbstinszenierung’, Mnemosyne 69.4, 572–96.10.1163/1568525X-12341875Google Scholar