Cyzicene epigrams explained

The Cyzicene epigrams are a collection of nineteen numbered Greek epigrams,^[1] each accompanied by a short prose preamble, which, together with a one-sentence introduction, constitute the third and shortest book of the Palatine Anthology.^[2] The epigrams are supposed to have been inscribed somewhere on the columns of the Temple of Apollonis at Cyzicus, a monument which no longer exists.^[3] Apollonis was the wife and queen of Attalus I, first king of Pergamon. When she died in the mid-second century BC, two of her sons, Eumenes and Attalus, built a temple in Apollonis' home town of Cyzicus, and dedicated it to her.^[4]

According to the one-sentence introduction, each epigram was, apparently, a kind of subtitle for a relief decorating each column of the temple, illustrating a scene from Greek mythology. The prose preamble, taking the place of the carved image, provides a description of it.^[5] As befitting a temple built by sons to honor their mother, the preambles describe scenes of love between mothers and sons.^[6]

The author and date of the collection is unknown.^[7]

References

• Demoen, Kristoffel, "The Date of the Cyzicene Epigrams. An Analysis of the Vocabulary and Metrical Technique of AP III", L'Antiquité Classique, 1988, T. 57 (1988), pp. 231-248. .
• Paton, W. R. (ed.), Greek Anthology, Volume I: Book 1: Christian Epigrams, Book 2: Description of the Statues in the Gymnasium of Zeuxippus, Book 3: Epigrams in the Temple of Apollonis at Cyzicus, Book 4: Prefaces to the Various Anthologies, Book 5: Erotic Epigrams, translated by W. R. Paton. Revised by Michael A. Tueller, Loeb Classical Library No. 67, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2014. . Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Livingstone, Niall, and Gidean Nisbet, Epigram, Cambridge University Press, 2010. .

Notes and References

1. Only eighteen are complete, epigram seventeen is almost completely lost, with only the fragment "fire and earth" preserved, see Paton, pp. 166, 167. For a short introduction and a translation of the Cyzicene epigrams see Paton, pp. 149 - 169. For discussions of the epigrams see Livingstone and Nisbet, pp. 99 - 101, and Demoen, pp. 231 - 248.
2. Livingstone and Nisbet, p. 99.
3. Livingstone and Nisbet, p. 99; Demoen, p. 231.
4. Livingstone and Nisbet, p. 99; Paton, p. 149.
5. Livingstone and Nisbet, p. 99.
6. Livingstone and Nisbet, p. 100; Paton, p. 149.
7. If we are to believe the introduction, the epigrams would apparently have been composed shortly after Apollonis' death in the early-second century BC. However, although some scholars accept the epigrams as authentic (see Livingstone and Nisbet, p. 99 n. 2), Livingstone and Nisbet, p. 101, describes a Hellenistic date for the epigrams as "extremely unlikely", while Demoen, p. 248, dates the collection as no earlier than the 6th century AD.