The eleventh book of the Anthologia Palatina includes various epigrams of the scoptic genre, often mocking peculiar physical features.Footnote 1 Long-nosed people are among the favourite victims, of which 11.418 is an interesting example.Footnote 2 The poem compares a man’s large nose with the gnomon of a sundial, casting its shadow on his teeth and hereby indicating the hour:Footnote 3
The epigram caught scholarly attention because of the scholium added to these two lines: Τραϊανοῦ βασιλέως. This looks suspicious, since it is the only mention of Trajan as the composer of a poem.Footnote 5 The evidence of Greek poetry written by other Roman emperors, on the contrary, is more substantial. Suetonius, for instance, describes Tiberius’ Hellenistic literary output and his poetic style (Tib. 70), of which Anth. Pal. 9.387 seems to be an example; and, perhaps more interestingly, the Historia Augusta alludes to the poetic activity of Trajan’s immediate successor, Hadrian (Hadr. 14–16), also confirmed by the Anthologia Palatina which includes various of his epigrams.Footnote 6 This contrasts sharply with the lack of any further evidence in the case of Trajan as a Greek poet.Footnote 7
However, Page correctly argues that one needs a convincing explanation for how 11.418 ended up being attributed to Trajan, if he is not the author.Footnote 8 Scholars never came up with such an explanation, so the attribution is usually accepted with caution.Footnote 9 Let us attempt such an explanation here. Anyone familiar with the many statues of Trajan and coins that bear his image will have noticed his distinctive long-bridged nose.Footnote 10 As a consequence, it seems perfectly possible that the distich was not written by the emperor but about him instead; it would by no means be the only epigram that makes fun of a Roman emperor.Footnote 11 If this hypothesis is correct, one can readily see where the misattribution might have originated from.Footnote 12 It also makes sense from an interpretative point of view. The notions of monumentality (στήσας; the gnomon set up like a pillar) and public space (πᾶσι παρϵρχομένοις) receive particular attention in the poem. Such constructions were often established by the emperors (e.g. the horologium Augusti):Footnote 13 if Trajan is the addressee of 11.418, the punchline would be that the ruler should not build a horologium, since he might serve as one himself, with this epigram as its inscription.
If one accepts this interpretation, the distich sheds light on the surprising opening anecdote of Plutarch’s Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata, his only work dedicated to Trajan (172E):Footnote 14
Πέρσαι τῶν γρυπῶν ἐρῶσι καὶ καλλίστους ὑπολαμβάνουσι διὰ τὸ Κῦρον ἀγαπηθέντα μάλιστα τῶν βασιλέων γϵγονέναι γρυπὸν τὸ ϵἶδος.
The Persians love hook-nosed men and consider them the most beautiful, since Cyrus, their most beloved king, was of a hooked-nosed appearance.
This also opens the section on Cyrus the Great (172E–F), which in turn introduces the Persian part of the work (172E–174B).Footnote 15 It is striking that the opening ‘apophthegm’ does not contain a quote of the Persian ruler, as this contrasts with the preceding dedicatory letter to the Roman emperor. Here Plutarch claims to have collected sayings of famous kings and generals for his busy addressee, as a brief substitute for the lengthy Parallel Lives (172B–E).Footnote 16 As such, this apparent contradiction does not need to be problematic, since other anecdotes at the outset of a section also serve as an introduction and do not contain a saying of the historical figure.Footnote 17 Yet even if other opening anecdotes provide such general descriptions of the new character as well, it still is ‘remarkable that, immediately after the discussion of the importance of sayings, the first apophthegm does not contain one: it only relates that the Persians love people with hooked noses because of Cyrus’ physical appearance (172E)’.Footnote 18
However, in light of this new hypothesis on Anth. Pal. 11.418, the story about Cyrus’ nose might in fact be highly relevant for Plutarch’s powerful addressee, not in the least if we read the apophthegm collection in the context of Trajan’s Parthian expeditions, as recent scholarship inclines to do.Footnote 19 Plutarch’s message would be that Trajan’s long-bridged nose, just like the appearance of his admired and beloved hook-nosed Persian predecessor, will in the future no longer be derided, but will be regarded as a new ideal of beauty and majesty across the Roman empire, Parthia included, reminding all subjects of the emperor’s great exploits and his wonderful rule.Footnote 20
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