This chapter shows how epigrams contributed to the formation and dissemination of literary criticism and theories of style, while also expressing ideas about literary history and the development of a given literary genre or τέχνη. These epigrams, which allowed their author to express ideas on literary tradition and style, were often written as pseudo-epitaphs for poets of the past. The use of companion pieces could also allow epigrammatists, such as Posidippus of Pella, Asclepiades of Samos, Dioscorides of Nicopolis and Antipater of Sidon, to comment on pairs of artists or poets who represented different and often opposing aesthetics. Posidippus’ and Dioscorides’ epigrams are of peculiar interest, since they seem to allude to lost treatises that used recurring frameworks to write the history of a given τέχνη, for example one of the visual arts or a literary genre. The ideas initially expressed in these prose treatises appear to have been reworked, in a very creative manner, by epigrammatists who were eager to formulate their own ideas about poetry.

This chapter argues that, unlike all other Greek novelists, Longus shows knowledge of Callimachus’ poetry, both the Aitia (whence his use of ἀρτιγένειος, twice: 1.15.1 and 4.10.1) and the Epigrams (whence the figurative ἕλκος of 1.14.1, near to Longus’ first use of ἀρτιγένειος). These strong cases increase the probability that some other words (ἐπτoηθεῖσαι 1.22.2) and themes (e.g. the simultaneous death of two young siblings at 4.24.2, cf. Call. Anth.Pal. 7.517; the recondite myth of Branchus, 4.17.6, cf. Call. fr. 229 Pfeiffer) are drawn from Callimachus. In explaining why Callimachus might attract Longus’ interest, it is proposed that the four-book format of Daphnis and Chloe, unique in the novels, might be a further Callimachean intertextuality, calculated to invite readers’ reflection on how Longus’ work could be read as a series of Aitia, that of the cave of the Nymphs (in the preface and Book 4) complementing those of the inset tales of Books 1 to 3.

Catullus‘ polymetric poems often show a keen interest in the book-roll, its appearance and significance. The book as an object becomes a way of thinking about the nature of representation, and about what the relationship is between the individual poet and the work that he produces. This is a topic only in the polymetric section of Catullus’ corpus; we do not see references to books in the elegies, and in only one of the longer poems.

This chapter offers a cultural survey of the Great Oasis and inquires about the existence of Greek literary culture in various localities. The schools that have come to light in Amheida and Kellis are of great importance because they are extremely rare in the Greek and Roman worlds. In Amheida a school that covered primary and grammatical learning was annexed to the house of a notable, Serenos. It was identified because of benches and literary texts written on the walls: Homer, Plutarch, and eight epigrams in elegiac couplets and hexameters. In addition a verse from Euripides’ tragedy Hypsipyle was scribbled on a wall of the house. Some Greek inscriptions with poetic words also exist in Amheida and a large broken piece with a poetic encomium. Other Greek texts emerge from places such as Ain Birbiyh, Kysis, and Karga: metrical and mythological inscriptions of high-level and subliterary texts written on ostraca that testify to the existence of elementary education. The evidence considered shows that people in the Great Oasis were interested in Greek culture and education. Some were able to reach an elementary education and the elites aspired to know prose and poetry of high level.

The history of temple buildings in the Great Oasis shows periods of intense activity alternating with periods of relative quiet. When seen in combination with the varying amounts of archaeological remains over time, this data allows us to chart the development of contacts between the oases and the Nile Valley. In particular, this has consequences for the times of the Libyan conflicts of the 19th Dynasty. This chapter argues that the oases were in Libyan hands during this time, after which the Egyptian army re-established control. Two dated finds from the temple at Amheida, Dakhla, are of particular interest for this discussion. A stela of Seti II marks building works at Amheida shortly after the wars of Merenptah, and a fragment of relief dated to Ramesses IX sheds light on the incursions of Libyans into the Nile Valley at that time.