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Sapphic Memnon
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Chapter 5 concentrates on four epigrams by Julia Balbilla, comprising fifty-four lines of Greek elegiac verse—the largest corpus on the colossus by any single author. While most visitors chose to model their language on Homer’s, Balbilla’s style and Aeolic dialect are unmistakably Sapphic (although her elegiac meter is borrowed from epigram rather than lyric). This chapter assesses what it means for Julia Balbilla to imitate Sappho while at the same time honoring her royal patrons in the public context of dedicatory inscriptions. Previous scholars have derided the quality of Balbilla’s poetry, but this chapter recuperates her as a talented poet, a skilled diplomat, and a model for two other women who wrote on the colossus. This chapter argues that Balbilla’s poems testify to the power of the colossus to engage different segments of society: male and female visitors, of high and middle rank, and with varying degrees of literacy.
Title: Sapphic Memnon
Description:
Chapter 5 concentrates on four epigrams by Julia Balbilla, comprising fifty-four lines of Greek elegiac verse—the largest corpus on the colossus by any single author.
While most visitors chose to model their language on Homer’s, Balbilla’s style and Aeolic dialect are unmistakably Sapphic (although her elegiac meter is borrowed from epigram rather than lyric).
This chapter assesses what it means for Julia Balbilla to imitate Sappho while at the same time honoring her royal patrons in the public context of dedicatory inscriptions.
Previous scholars have derided the quality of Balbilla’s poetry, but this chapter recuperates her as a talented poet, a skilled diplomat, and a model for two other women who wrote on the colossus.
This chapter argues that Balbilla’s poems testify to the power of the colossus to engage different segments of society: male and female visitors, of high and middle rank, and with varying degrees of literacy.
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