Sappho: Transparency and Obstruction

A number of issues obstruct our vision of Sappho and her ancient reception. This chapter revisits such obstructions as the loss of Sappho’s poetry, the difficulty of accessing information regarding e.g. Chamaeleon’s treatise on Sappho, the attestation of the Athenian sculptor Silanion’s portrait of Sappho at Rome, and the significance of the poem variously known as Ovid’s Heroides 15 and Epistula Sapphus, as well as most of the testimonies for Sappho’s alleged ugliness and association with prostitution. Finally, conflicting images of Sappho are measured against the consistently erotic depiction of her figure and poetry at Rome, where she becomes particularly closely linked with a Roman brand of the metapoetics of love poetry, dubbed erotopoetics in this volume.