Theocritus

by Fleischmann, Ellen L.

• ISBN13: 9780520235601
• ISBN10: 0520235606
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled Egypt in the middle of the third century B.C.E., Alexandria became the brilliant multicultural capital of the Greek world. Theocritus's poem in praise of Philadelphus--at once a Greek king and an Egyptian pharaoh--is the only extended poetic tribute to this extraordinary ruler that survives. Combining the Greek text, an English translation, a full line-by-line commentary, and extensive introductory studies of the poem's historical and literary context, this volume also offers a wide-ranging and far-reaching consideration of the workings and representation of poetic patronage in the Ptolemaic age. In particular, the book explores the subtle and complex links among Theocritus's poem, modes of praise drawn from both Greek and Egyptian traditions, and the subsequent flowering of Latin poetry in the Augustan age. As the first detailed account of this important poem to show how Theocritus might have drawn on the pharaonic traditions of Egypt as well as earlier Greek poetry, this book affords unique insight into how praise poetry for Ptolemy and his wife may have helped to negotiate the adaptation of Greek culture that changed conditions of the new Hellenistic world. Invaluable for its clear translation and its commentary on genre, dialect, diction, and historical reference in relation to Theocritus'sEncomium,the book is also significant for what it reveals about the poem's cultural and social contexts and about Theocritus' devices for addressing his several readerships. COVER IMAGE: The image on the front cover of this book is incorrectly identified on the jacket flap. The correct caption is: Gold Oktadrachm depicting Ptolemy II and Arsinoe (mid-third century BCE; by permission of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

Author Biography

Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge University.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Conventions and Abbreviations	ix
INTRODUCTION	1	(1)
1. Beginning from Zeus	1	(7)
2. Genre	8	(16)
3. Poets and Patrons	24	(22)
4. An Egyptian Dimension?	46	(7)
5. The Language of the Encomium	53	(11)
6. The Meter of the Encomium	64	(6)
7. A Note on the Transmission of the Text	70	(3)
SIGLA	73	(3)
Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus	76	(17)
THEOCRITUS
COMMENTARY	93	(108)
References	201	(18)
General Index	219	(4)
Index of Greek Words	223	(2)
Index Locorum	225