Cut These Words into My Stone

II
Late Archaic and Classical Periods, 600–350 BCE

A small group of well-known epigrams have traditionally been assigned to the first Greek lyric poets and to several later literary luminaries. According to this tradition, early in the sixth century canonical innovators of the Greek lyric, like Sappho and Anacreon, crafted masterful elegiac couplets and tombstone verse. Similar contributions to the genre followed, by the legendary commemorative poet Simonides (556–468 BCE), the early dramatist Aeschylus (525–456 BCE), and the philosopher Plato (427–348 BCE), among others. Today, modern scholars persuasively argue that most if not all of these venerable entries are literary forgeries composed by poets of a later age.

Complete surviving poems by Sappho and Anacreon are all but nonexistent. Among their remaining fragments no epigrams appear — only those “preserved” in the much later Greek Anthology. The purpose of attributing epitaphs and epigrams to these two early giants of lyric poetry seems to have been to confer respect by association on poets and poems written centuries later in the Hellenistic period.

A few of the many epitaphs ascribed to Simonides may rest on firmer ground. Simonides flourished in the early fifth century, when Greece’s small city-states were first invaded by mammoth Persia and when courage against great odds was especially prized. Unsigned epitaphs, set on pillars, were commissioned at this time to memorialize Greek heroes who had fallen in battle. In particular, three poems in the Anthology which are assigned to Simonides are also quoted by a near-contemporary, the historian Herodotus, in his description of the battle at Thermopylae (see pages 31, 32, and 33). While this may establish the age of the verses, we have only the assertion of an often unreliable author that one of them was composed by Simonides.

The playwright Aeschylus lived in the same period. He fought the Persians at Marathon (490 BCE) and elsewhere. The play he wrote later concerning their defeat is the oldest complete Greek drama we possess. In an epitaph (page 40) ascribed to him in the Anthology, this highly honored Athenian dramatist asks only to be remembered as a soldier. Though certainly not by Aeschylus, the poem underscores the primacy of service to one’s city that defined Athenian character in his time.

By contrast, epitaphs under the names of lesser fifth-century poets like Cleoboulus and Isidorus seem correctly attributed. Anonymous poets wrote fine epitaphs in this period, too. At the battle of Salamis, an unknown author set in stone a poignant fraternal testament to a defeated leader:

To our towering friendship
I’ve raised this little stone.
Sabinus, I will look for you forever …

The epigrams attributed to Plato a few decades later reflect a popular belief that, before he turned to philosophy, this masterful practitioner of Greek prose tried his hand at verse. Certainly several of the epitaphs ascribed to him are memorable. Shelley singled out one of them as the best short poem of its kind. Nonetheless, Plato is almost certainly not the author of these pieces.

By now, experts have reassigned most of the poems in the following section to anonymous poets of the third century BCE, who wrote them to manufacture a venerable tradition, either for the genre itself or for the historical figures they memorialize. Provenance aside, their artful language and emotional clarity help rank some of them among the best epitaphs in Greek. It is a tribute to their nameless makers that for centuries native Greek readers, including expert anthologists, accepted the famous names attached to them as real.

Sappho

This dust is Timas, struck down before she could

wed.

Persephone’s dark bridal hall received her.

When she died, her girlfriends

All sharpened blades and sheared their gorgeous

hair.

Τιμδος δε κνις, τν δ πρ γμοιο θανοσαν

δξατο Φερσεφνας κυνεος θλαμος,

ς κα ποφθιμνας πσαι νεοθγι σιδρ

λικες μερτν κρατς θεντο κμαν.

Cleoboulos

I am a girl made of bronze resting on Midas’s

grave.

As long as water runs and tall trees spread,

I’ll stand on this tomb where the tears keep

flowing,

To tell all those who pass: Midas lies here.

Χαλκ παρθνος εμ, Μδα δ π σματι κεμαι.

στ ν δωρ τε ν, κα δνδρεα μακρ τεθλ,

ατο τδε μνουσα πολυκλατ π τμβ,

γγελω παριοσι, Μδας τι τδε τθαπται.

Anacreon

Courageous Timocritus, this is his grave.
War spares the coward, not the brave.

Καρτερς ν πολμοις Τιμκριτος, ο τδε σμα·

ρης δ’ οκ γαθν φεδεται, λλ κακν.

Anacreon

While the fearsome warrior Agathon
Who died fighting for Abdera
Lay stretched on a funeral pyre
The whole town shouted out his praise,

For the bloodthirsty war god Ares
Who stripped away his armor
Dragged down no boy like him
In the swirling eddy of that awful fight.

βδρων προθανντα τν ανοβην γθωνα

πσ’ π πυρκας δ’ βησε πλις.