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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2015
Anth. Pal. 10.92, ascribed to Palladas of Alexandria, appears to be a short iambic prologue to a single epigram. Evidently addressed to a judge of some sort, it survives only in the Palatinus, which preserves the text as follows:
I am grateful to Gianfranco Agosti, Luis Guichard and the anonymous referee for CQ, whose comments on earlier drafts of this article forced me to sharpen the argument.
1 On the late antique convention of iambic prologues to long hexameter poems (or, in the case of Agathias, an anthology of epigrams), see Cameron, Alan, ‘Pap. Ant. III. 115 and the iambic prologue in late Greek poetry’, CQ 20 (1970), 119–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am not aware of any other example of an iambic prologue to a single epigram, but Anth. Pal. 10.92 presents itself as exactly that.
2 As recognized by the Palatine lemmatist, who noted in the margin that it was addressed εἰς ἄρχοντα (merely a Byzantine deduction, of course).
3 He printed the manuscript reading in the text of his edition, recording the emended line in his commentary; Jacobs, F. (ed.), Anthologia Graeca ad fidem codicis olim Palatini nunc Parisini ex apographo Gothano, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1817)Google Scholar, 652.
4 Including, most recently, Irigoin, J. and Maltomini, F. (edd.), Anthologie grecque, vol. 9 (Paris, 2011)Google Scholar. It is also the reading adopted by Zerwes, W., Palladas von Alexandrien: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der griechischen Epigrammdichtung (Tübingen, 1956), 228–9Google Scholar; Zerwes is nevertheless hesitant about the poem's meaning.
5 Cameron, Alan, ‘Notes on Palladas’, CQ 15 (1965), 215–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 215–16.
6 White, H., ‘Two Greek epigrams’, Giornale Italiano di Filologia 50 (1998), 67–9Google Scholar, at 67–8.
7 Ibid.
8 White defends the anarthrous construction, but it looks highly irregular, especially as nominative singular. The definite article is conjecturally supplied by both Jacobs (n. 3), 652 and Cameron (n. 5), 216.
9 So too Cameron (n. 5), 215.
10 Much as the Trojans suffered under the attacks of Poseidon while Zeus was asleep and therefore not in possession of his powers (Hom. Il. 14). Cf. Clytemnestra's attempts to wake the Furies in order that they might avenge her murder (Aesch. Eum. 94–130).
11 For the plural of ὕπνος with the sense of ‘dreams’, see LSJ s.v., I.3.
12 Anth. Pal. 10.93 is a distich on the unbearable arrogance of the wealthy (a prominent Palladan theme).
13 Θεῷ φίλε in line 5 is in accordance with the two manuscripts. Generally, however, modern editors of the Anthology have preferred to print the unwarranted emendation Θέων φίλε (sc. Theon, father of the philosopher Hypatia). There is no justification for meddling with manuscript readings that are perfectly intelligible.
14 I do not understand the bizarre interpretation that this πρεσβεία was not an embassy, but rather a letter sent to Palladas by the father of one of his pupils; e.g. Baldwin, B., ‘Palladas of Alexandria: a poet between two worlds’, AC 54 (1985), 267–3Google Scholar, at 272.
15 LSJ s.v. σύνταξις, II.4. But this is also one of several words in the epigram that are applicable to Palladas' curriculum; see below. On payment of grammarians, see Kaster, R.A., Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1988), 114–23Google Scholar; Cribiore, R., Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton, 2005), 63–5.Google Scholar
16 Wilkinson, K.W., ‘Palladas and the age of Constantine’, JRS 99 (2009), 36–60Google Scholar, at 49.
17 Ibid., 44–5 (with references). The epithet θεοφιλέστατος was used rarely of emperors before Constantine; Maresch, K., ‘Die Präsentation der Kaiser in den Papyri der Tetrarchenzeit’, in Boschung, D. and Eck, W. (edd.), Die Tetrarchie: Ein neues Regierungssystem und seine mediale Präsentation (Wiesbaden, 2006), 63–82Google Scholar, at 71. This adjective and its cognates became frequent (if also informal) imperial epithets during Constantine's reign, when they also took on a strong monotheistic and Christian resonance, especially in the articulated θεῷ φίλος. Julian, by contrast, was very pointedly known to his subjects as θεοῖς φίλος (with emphasis on the plural).
18 Anth. Pal. 10.90.2; 10.91.1, 5. It may be significant that these were both composed in iambic trimeter (a rare metre for epigrams) and directly precede the iambic prologue (Anth. Pal. 10.92).
19 Discussed at length in Wilkinson (n. 16), 43–8. The two epigrams correspond exactly to the contemporary propagandistic account of the war given by Eusebius. If there are any lingering doubts about the imperial context of Anth. Pal. 10.90 and 91, I failed to notice in my initial analysis that they play extensively with the core elements of imperial titulature: pius, felix, maximus. The phrase τὸν (ὃν) θεὸς φιλεῖ merely approximates pius, but εὐτυχής and μέγιστος are the exact Greek equivalents of felix and maximus (see Anth. Pal. 10.90.1, 2; 10.91.2, 4).
20 In fact, in a remarkable edict (CTh 9.1.4, dated 17 September 325), Constantine encouraged his subjects of any rank or status to appeal directly to him if they could prove an injustice perpetrated in a lower court or some other administrative abuse; see Dillon, J.N., The Justice of Constantine: Law, Communication, and Control (Ann Arbor, 2012), 97–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Constantine's reform of the appellate system, see ibid., 214–50.
21 Wilkinson (n. 16); id., ‘Palladas and the foundation of Constantinople’, JRS 100 (2010), 179–94Google Scholar; Barnes, T.D., Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Malden, 2011), 13–16Google Scholar, 128–30; Bardill, J., Constantine: Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age (Cambridge, 2012), 252, 266–7Google Scholar, 281, 286, 288, 369.
22 Barnes, T.D., ‘Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius’, AJPh 96 (1975), 173–86Google Scholar; Van Dam, R., Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge (Cambridge, 2011), 158–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wienand, J., Der Kaiser als Sieger: Metamorphosen triumphaler Herrschaft unter Constantin I. (Berlin, 2012), 355–402Google Scholar. The hypothesis that Palladas, like Porfyrius, offered a collection of poems to Constantine exceeds the scope of the present study but will be treated in full in a future publication.
23 On Constantine's reputed contempt for flatterers, see Euseb. LC 5.5. Another source reports that Constantine himself was irrisor potius quam blandus (Epit. de Caes. 41.16).
24 Arist. Poet. 1458a: σεμνὴ δὲ καὶ ἐξαλλάττουσα τὸ ἰδιωτικὸν ἡ τοῖς ξενικοῖς κεχρημένη· ξενικὸν δὲ λέγω γλῶτταν καὶ μεταφορὰν καὶ ἐπέκτασιν καὶ πᾶν τὸ παρὰ τὸ κύριον.
25 One of the panels on the Arch of Constantine in Rome depicts him speaking from the Rostra; see recently Van Dam (n. 22), 136–7.
26 Euseb. Vit. Const. 4.29.1–2; trans. Averil Cameron and Hall, S.G., Eusebius: Life of Constantine (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar, 164 (with commentary at 324–5). On Constantine as philosopher and orator, see also Drake, H.A., Constantine and the Bishops (Baltimore, 2000), 276–84Google Scholar; Maraval, P., Constantin le Grand: empereur romain, empereur chrétien, 306–337 (Paris, 2011), 316–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27 Euseb. Vit. Const. 4.55.1; trans. Cameron and Hall (n. 26), 174–5 (with commentary at 335).
28 On the often difficult and lengthy process of gaining an imperial audience, see Kelly, C., Ruling the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 120–9Google Scholar (in a chapter aptly titled ‘Standing in line’).