Images of Eternal Beauty in Funerary Verse Inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman Periods by Andrzej Wypustek (review)

The book surveys Greek funerary verse inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman periods that express positive concepts of the afterlife in order to establish whether they reflect eschatological beliefs about the posthumous destiny of the deceased. While scholars have so far mostly concentrated on the possible associations of this category of epitaphs with mystery cults and other organized sets of beliefs, Wypustek reasonably argues that most of these epitaphs do not reflect specific doctrines. Descriptions of the deceased as either ascending to the stars or kidnapped by a god are basically poetic metaphors that may or may not reflect eschatological beliefs. The title thus somewhat summarizes the author’s main conclusion (ch. 7), namely that the aim of such descriptions was to “beautify” and thus “eternalize” the dead as a means of consolation for the survivors based on “the human conviction that what was beautiful, dear and loved could not cease to exist and could not fall into oblivion” (199).

Chapter 1 discusses previous scholarly approaches to the topic and elaborates the useful interpretive category of “consciously formulaic” epigrams; that is, poems that use topoi and conventional language, while still reflecting the true beliefs of the people who selected them, and are thus reliable witnesses to their visions of the afterlife. Chapter 2 explores possible cases of direct apotheosis of the dead, and indirect forms, such as ascension to the ether and catasterism.

Chapter 3 is devoted to heroization: Wypustek argues that it was mostly reserved for those who died young and was a means of both securing the protective powers of the dead for the living and of preventing “the deceased child’s misfortunes in the afterlife” (94). Chapter 4 deals with premature death described as marriage with the gods. It analyzes the motif of the “bride of Hades,” where the deceased girl is portrayed as a new Persephone. Wypustek surveys the main interpretations of the topos (in particular, associations with Orphic themes and Eleusinian mysteries have often been detected by scholars). His reasonable conclusion is that, although it might have been used in association with specific doctrines, it mostly served the purpose of stressing the beauty of the deceased. Adonis is then suggested as a possible male equivalent for Persephone in the role of abduction victim: the hypothesis is fascinating, but is not supported by convincing evidence. It is almost exclusively based on a literary poem, Ausonius epigram 53 Green, where the myth of Adonis serves the purpose of stressing, through the association with that of Ganymede, the androgynous appearance of the deceased, as a way to make “acceptable” the pederastic theme to a fourth-century A.D. audience, as I have recently argued in Eikasmós 23 (2012) 283–300. It is thus more likely to be Ausonius’ innovation than the only remnant of a no longer extant funerary tradition where the male deceased was identified with Adonis abducted by Persephone.

Chapter 5 analyzes epitaphs where the dead are represented as abducted by the gods to become their lovers. Particular attention is paid to the myth of Ganymede. Wypustek dismisses Eustathius’ explicit interpretation of Ganymedes’ abduction as a symbol of premature death, arguing for a late source (in Il. 1205.10, 4.396.5 van der Valk), and he does not mention Plato, Phaedrus 255c, whose reading of the story already prefigured the symbolic idealization that was to become common. Nevertheless, he admits that Ganymede’s abduction was an allegory of premature death, and unconvincingly reaches this conclusion through the association of the topos with the theme of deaths caused by the thunder of Zeus. For Ganymede as a symbol of the ascension to heaven in literature and art in general, a reference to J. Davidson, The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece (London 2007) 169–200 would...