Matthew Chaldekas, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Recent years have seen much new scholarship on the prose writings of Philodemus of Gadara. But before the decipherment of the Herculaneum papyri, Philodemus was primarily known for his epigrams, and he still has much to teach us about Hellenistic poetry. This paper focuses on the topos of erotic objectification in Philodemus’ epigrams, especially AP 5.132 (= GP 12). After exploring the connections between Philodemus and his earlier Hellenistic models, the paper considers the extent to which Philodemus’ topos of erotic objectification fits within Hellenistic poetics more broadly.
Shaye Cohen calls AP 5.132 Philodemus’ “most famous epigram” (Cohen 1981: 41) and considers its detailed visual catalogue of the female body a significant innovation in Greek erotic poetics, which is later adopted by poets such as Horace (Sat. 1.2.90-93) and Ovid (Am. 1.5.19-23; Cohen 1981: 44-46). Cohen’s estimation of Philodemus’ originality is gainsaid by a similar poem of Dioscorides from the late 3rd century BCE (AP 5.56 = HE 1; see Galán Vioque 2011: 108). Nevertheless, Dioscorides’ epigram ends with a disavowal of such detailed erotic descriptions, whereas Philodemus includes catalogic descriptions of the beloved’s body in multiple epigrams, including AP 5.13 (= GP 2) and AP 5.121 (= GP 8). Philodemus’ use of this topos thus deserves further study.
The erotic epigram traces its roots to Archaic and Classical sympotic culture, but Asclepiades of Samos was the “Archeget des erotischen Epigramms,” whom later epigrammatists frequently varied and imitated (Ludwig 1968: 302). Asclepiades’ poems often feature objects which serve as material testimony for eros, such as the dedication of a prostitute’s ‘tools of the trade’ (AP 5.203 = HE 6) or a lamp which witnesses erotic activity (AP 5.7 = HE 9). Meleager of Gadara, who was born a generation before his countryman Philodemus, employs elements of ecphrastic epigram which frame the beloved as an artwork (cf. Gutzwiller 2002: 107 n.28), a technique which can also be traced back to Asclepiades (Sens 2002). The appearance of the beloved in erotic epigrams is generally couched in figurative and emotive terms. In comparison, Philodemus’ epigrams stand out for their explicit, detailed description of the bodily appearance of the beloved, which treats her in objective terms. Philodemus’ innovation is all the more striking considering that erotic epigram had undergone a period of quiescence during the second century BCE and experienced a renaissance at the time of Meleager (Ludwig 1968: 301).
Such detailed bodily description does, in fact, have a history in Greek literature, in what the Progymnasmata call “ekphrasis of person” (ἔκφρασις προσώπων, Aelius Theon 118.7). This topos went on to play an increasingly significant role in Roman rhetoric (e.g. Gladhill 2012), but in terms of Hellenistic poetics, such ecphrastic catalogues were a target of scorn by none other than Callimachus (Iambos 6; Kerkhecker 1999: 147-181). Dioscorides’ disavowal of the trope may reflect this Callimachean sentiment, whereas Philodemus’ employment of the trope constitutes a turning point in the development of ancient erotic poetics.