The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry

10. Between Literature and the Monuments

This is an updated version of an article that appeared in Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, ed. M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, and G. C. Wakker, 21–43. Hellenistica Groningana 3. 1998. © 1998 Egbert Forsten Groningen. 1. For the excavations, see Empereur 1995a, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b, 1999, 2000), Empereur and Grimal (1997). Exciting underwater explorations of the royal quarter in the eastern harbor of Alexandria have been undertaken as well, cf. Goddio, etc. (1998, 2006). 194 Between Literature and the Monuments
Sostratus and the Lighthouse: Zeus Soter in Posidippus 11 GP (⫽ 115 AB) In the summer of 1995, a team of underwater archaeologists, led by JeanYves Empereur (head of the Centre de recherches Alexandrines and director of research at the CNRS), made a spectacular find working in the waters beside Fort Qait Bey. There, just east of the fort and beyond the city’s eastern harbor, they discovered—together with a variety of sculptural remains—a number of massive architectural blocks that, because of their enormous size and location right next to where scholars generally place the ancient Pharos, seem very likely to have belonged to the great Lighthouse of Alexandria itself. For the first time, it seems that we may be able to recover something of this monument’s physical aspect from its material remains.1 With this renewed focus on the Pharos, it is time to take another look at an important literary source for this building: the epigram of Posidippus chapter 10 2. The papyrus was found among the papers of two Macedonian brothers connected with the Serapaeum of Memphis in the mid-second century b.c., Ptolemaeus and Apollonius ; it contains a variety of literary passages, a very personal selection, as it seems (cf. Thompson 1987; 1988: 259–61). Cameron (1993: 7 with n. 25) suggests that Posidippus’ Macedonian origin may have made him an appealing choice for the brothers. According to Thompson, our poem in particular—as well as the other epigram of Posidippus preserved in the papyrus (12 GP ⫽ 116 AB)—is “in the rude hand of the elder brother,” Ptolemaeus. This brother’s possible connections with Alexandria and with the Pharos are discussed later in the present essay. Between Literature and the Monuments 195 (P. Firmin-Didot ⫽ 11 GP ⫽ 115 AB).2 For the sake of convenience, I print the text as constituted by Austin and Bastianini. ;Ελλ νων σωτη
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δε πλων. 10 [Savior among Greeks, this watchman of Pharos, was set up, Lord Proteus, by Sostratus the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes. Since in Egypt there are no lookout points on mountains as on the islands and the breakwater lies low for anchorage, for that reason, sheer and steep, this tower appears to cleave the air across countless leagues by day, and all night long quickly the mariner on the wave will see the great fire blazing from its peak, and though he may run to the Bull’s Horn itself, he would not miss Zeus Soter, O Proteus, in sailing hither.] This poem carries great evidentiary weight in discussions of the lighthouse . For it is our earliest evidence altogether, probably contemporary with the building’s completion. Its author was a prominent poet of the age, acclaimed in many parts of the Greek world, including Egypt, which he evidently visited during the first half of the third century b.c., 3. In addition to the previously known epigrams on the Pharos, the cult of ArsinoeAphrodite at Cape Zephyrion (12 GP ⫽ 116 AB; 13 GP ⫽ 119 AB), and the epithalamium of Arsinoe (P. Petrie II 49a ⫽ SH 961 ⫽ 114 AB, plausibly by Posidippus), see the numerous new epigrams of the Milan papyrus, on which, most recently, cf. Ambühl 2007. 4. For bibliography on our poem, cf. Chamoux 1975: 214 n. 2; Fraser 1972: I 17–20, 568 with nn. 129 and 132. More recently, see Austin 2002. 5. Thus e.g., Bernand (1966: 103–4; 1995, 50–53) and Préaux (1978: I 222). 6. The relevant passages are as follows: magnificatur et alia turris a rege facta in insula Pharo portum optinente, Alexandreae, quam constitisse DCCC talentis tradunt, magno animo, ne quid omittamus, Ptolemaei regis, quo in ea permiserat Sostrati Cnidii architecti structura ipsa nomen inscribi. (Pliny NH xxxvi 83) CρYα
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