From Stone to Parchment: Epigraphic and Literary Transmission of Some Greek Epigrams

Abstract

This paper deals with an oft-neglected aspect of the complex relationships between the Hellenistic culture and the Archaic and Classical tradition, namely the epigrams handed down to us in both epigraphical and literary sources. These (unfortunately rare) epigrams represent the only opportunity we have to detect the divergence between the original Archaic or Classical texts preserved on stone and their copies transmitted by manuscripts. Indeed, the Archaic and Classical epigrams have usually been handed down to us either as inscriptions or in manuscript copies, but very rarely in both forms. During the literary transmission the epigrams were modified in many ways: e. g. the writing conventions of the Archaic alphabets were abandoned and replaced by the “standard” system, and the linguistic shape suffered remarkable alterations. One of the aims of this paper is to explore the nature of the modifications undergone by some Archaic and Classical epigrams on stone during their literary transmission.

Obviously, most of the modifications found in the literary tradition are either banal scribal errors or alterations due to the well-known tendency of those who copied the texts to turn dialect forms into their Attic (Koine) counterparts. Yet in some instances the modifications seem to be deliberate and in line with the typically Hellenistic tendency to “embellish” the texts by means of dialect forms absent from the original but perceived as “prestigious”. It is precisely on this tendency and its effects on the texts that I shall dwell in this paper.