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'HE SMILES AND IS GENTLE': THE LIGHTER SIDE OF PALLADAS OF ALEXANDRIA
Author(s): William Henderson

Source: Acta Classica, Vol. 56 (2013), pp. 62-92
Published by: Classical Association of South Africa
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ACTA CLASSICA LVI (2013) 62-92 ISSN 0065-1141
ΉΕ SMILES AND IS GENTLE: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF

PALLADAS OF ALEXANDRIA*
William Henderson
University or Johannesburg
ABSTRACT
Most of Palladas' epigrams are serious, sarcastic, bitter and pessimistic, and th
the overwhelming impression we have of his work as a whole. Yet there
lighter moments in his poems, where he seems to relax and look more objectiv
kindly and forgivingly at the world and people around him. In short, he sm
Within the larger context of his oeuvre this act of smiling comes as a surprise.
article examines the epigrams that reveal this lighter side of his nature.
Introduction
We recall the verdict of Georg Luck, who criticised Palladas' epigrams

their shallow pessimism and eccentric invective, which he regarded as n
balanced by a sense of values which recognizes the good and the beaut
next to the corrupt and the ridiculous in human life', and rather
symptom of a disease or neurosis which distorted life like a carni
mirror.1 It is true that the overwhelming majority of Palladas' epigrams
serious, highly critical and pessimistic. However, earlier in his article, L
also acknowledged Palladas' popularity in antiquity and quoted th
anonymous epigram AP 9.38 as evidence, concluding with this ob
vation: 'In view of this, the traditional portrait of Palladas as the gloo
outsider who nurses a grudge against everyone and everything, needs a
corrections.'2
* I am most grateful to the anonymous referees for comments, corrections

suggestions.
1 Luck 1958:467. Negative criticism of Palladas was already expressed by Salm
sius (1588-1653); cf. Franke 1899:8: '... Salmasius, qui omnino Palladae sa
pissime maledixit.'
Luck 1958:456. He also has other positive things to say of Palladas: his c
petent handling of the epigram, imagination, 'feeling for felicitous sound valu
and enjoyment of life in spite of his hopeless situation.
62
There are certainly a number of epigrams that have a happier, more
forgiving and accepting content and tone, which, although not sufficient to
restore the 'balance' that Luck sought, nevertheless reveal to us a much
more sympathetic side of the poet which he deliberately or instinctively
chose for the most part to conceal. This article takes a closer look at these
'more sympathetic' epigrams which have not received the analytical

attention they deserve.
Dedications
There is no better place to start in the process of uncovering the smiling

and gentler nature of Palladas than the two epigrams dedicated to his pear
tree:
δχνη, χειρός έμής γλυκερός πόνος, f| μεν έφ' ύγρω

φλοιώ φύλλον εδησα θέρεν πτόρθος δ' έπι δένδρω
ριζωθείς δένδροιο τομή και καρπόν άμείψας
νέρθε μεν άχράς ετ' εστίν, ΰπερθε δ' αρ' εΰπνοος δχνη.
This pear-tree is the sweet product of the toil of my hand,

with which I tied a graft in its wet bark in summer. The shoot,
rooted on the tree by cutting the tree, has changed its fruit:
below it's still a wild pear-tree, but above a fragrant pear-tree.
(9.5)4
Palladas expresses his pride in having pruned a pear-tree. The epigram is

composed in dactylic hexameters, which give it a mock-heroic tone and
also a fluent narrative instead of the antithetical statements of the epi
grammatic couplet. The clear formulation is enhanced by a few linguistic
features. First, the reader is meant to distinguish between two types of
pear-tree, the grafted or cultivated version (δχνη, the first and last word)
and the wild version (άχράς). However, the ancient terminology is not
quite as clear. The term δχνη is a later form of δγχνη and refers to what is
today called pyrus (or pirus) communis, the European wild pear. The latter
is found in Homer (Od. 7.115; 11.589; 24.234), the former in Theocritus
(1.134 and 7.144). Palladas contrasts this with άχράς, a term used by
3 See also Henderson 2012. In correspondence, Luis Arturo Guichard has

informed me that his critical edition of Palladas, with full critical apparatus, loci
similes, indexes, etc. is nearing completion.
4 Palladas' epigrams are numbered according to their position in the Anthologia
Palatina (AP); the edition used is that of Beckby 1967-1968.
63
several ancient scientific writers5 and referring to a kind of wild-pear, now
called pyrus amygdaliformis. Next there is the elliptical use of πόνος in the
sense of 'the result of labour',6 which creates an apparent oxymoron with
γλυκερός. Apart from the alliteration with φλοιω, φυλλον, normally in
the plural in epic, is here used (perhaps metri causa) not of a leaf or plant
in general, but specifically of a grafted slip, a sense not given in LSJ. The
tautology of έπί δένδρω | ριζωθείς δένδροιο τομή creates emphasis which
in turn suggests the poet's pride in his achievement and the intensity of the
effort. The genitive form δένδροιο also provides a Homeric touch. The
epigram closes with the antithesis between the wild pear-tree and the
cultivated one that bears proper fruit. As a whole it is a testament to
honest and productive toil.
In the next epigram, the pear-tree replies:
άχράς εην· θήκας σέο χερσί μυρίπνοον δχνην,

δένδρω πτόρθον ένείς· σήν χάριν εις σέ φέρω.
I was a wild pear; with your hand you made a fragrant pear-tree,
implanting graft on the tree. I bear a return favour for you.
(9.6)
The response of the 'grafted tree' picks up some of the vocabulary of the
'grafter/poet', but with differences. Where the former started with δχνη,
the tree begins with άχράς from the last line of 9.5; χειρός έμής becomes
σέο χερσί, πτόρθος δ' έπί δένδρω | ριζωθείς δένδροιο τομή becomes
δένδρω πτόρθον ένείς, and εΰπνοος δχνη becomes μυρίπνοον δχνην. The
phrase καρπόν άμείψας is then taken up by σήν χάριν, indicating that the
fruit is a gift of thanks from the tree to the pruner. The adjective
μυρίπνοον is attested only here and in Archytas of Amphissa (3rd century
BC).7
Taken together, the two epigrams display the technical skill and witty
use of language to amuse the reader - and the poet too, one may suppose.
5 Aristot. Ec. 355; HA 627bl7; cf. 595a29; Dioscor. 1.116; Theophrast HP 1.4.1,
where the wild pear is among the trees that bear more but less sweet fruit than
the cultivated ones; CP 2.8.2, where the wild pear is among the fruit-trees that are
earthy (γεώδη), astringent (στρυφνά) and strong (Ισχυρά). A rarer term is αχερδος
(Horn. Od. 14.10; Soph. OC 1596; Theocr. 24.90). In his translation Paton
(1958:3.5) uses the subspecies term 'pyraster' for the ungrafted wild pear.
6 LSJ s.v. πόνος III.
7 Archyt. Amph. 1 (Powell 1925:23); the variant μυρόπνοος is also quite rare:
Meleager, AP 12.15; Marcus Argentarius, AP 5.15; cf. LSJ.
64
The poetic exercise is intended to convey the poet's pride in his craft as a
'grafter' both of the pear-tree and of his poems. In this reading there need
not have been a real tree at all (in Alexandria and in the poet's garden?); it
is a symbol of his poetic craft. Then the phases of pleasant labour, grafting,
new fruit and reward become metaphors for composing verse, grafting
new shoots on to the old stock of the Greek poetry of the past.
In the 1st century AD, Cyllenius wrote an epigram on the same theme:
ή πάρος έν δρυμοΐσι νόθης ζείδωρος όπώρης

άχράς, θηροβότου πρέμνον έρημοσύνης,
όθνείοις δζοισι μετέμφυτος, ήμερα θάλλω,
ούκ έμόν ήμετέροις κλωσί φέρουσα βάρος.
πολλή σοι, φυτοεργέ, πόνου χάρις' εινεκα σείο
άχράς εν εύκάρποις δένδρεσιν εγγράφομαι.
Formerly a wild-pear in the woods, alien of a fruitful

harvest, stem of the animal-feeding solitude,
grafted with foreign shoots, I now flourish tamed,
bearing on my branches a load not my own.
Many thanks to you, gardener, for your toil; through you
I am enrolled as a pear-tree among fruit-trees.
[AP 9.4)
Palladas - if he knew this particular epigram - has reworked it into

something entirely new. Apart from the obvious paring down in length
and presentation of two perspectives, the poet/gardener's (9.5) and the
pear-tree's (9.6), there is a more striking difference. In both his epigrams,
Palladas makes a semantic distinction between the wild pear-tree (άχράς,
9.5.4; 6.1) and the cultivated one (οχνη, 9.5.1, 4; δχνην, 6.1). Cyllenius
uses only άχράς.
The following epigram is a dedicatory inscription for a girl's hair.
αντί βοός χρυσέου τ' αναθήματος "Ισιδι τούσδε

θήκατο τους λιπαρούς Παμφίλιον πλοκάμους.
ή δε θεός τούτοις γάνυται πλέον ηπερ 'Απόλλων
χρυσώ, δν εκ Λυδών Κροίσος έπεμπε θεώ.
Instead of a bull and golden offering to Isis

Pamphilion dedicated these shining locks.
The goddess is more delighted in these than Apollo
in the gold Croesus sent the god from Lydia.
(6.60)
65
Cameron found this epigram, on the offering of a lock of hair, 'a rather
banal piece' and suggested that it was not by Palladas, but by some other
poet whom Palladas included in his Sylloge (his own collection of his
poems which were absorbed into the Greek Anthology by Constantine
Cephalas) and then parodied in the next epigram, 6.61, a hymn to the
razor that cut the hair.8 This in itself is no reason for questioning the
ascription. The first couplet of the epigram does have the dispassionate
tone of such real or imaginary votive inscriptions (αναθηματικά) and there
are even precedents.9 In the second couplet, however, there is a kindness
towards the young girl: the poet compliments her by claiming that her hair
is more precious than gold offered to Apollo by Croesus. Herodotus
records such an offering by Croesus in detail (1.50): four ingots of solid
gold, measuring about 46 χ 23 χ 8 cm and weighing about 64 kg; 113
ingots of gold alloy weighing about 51 kg; and a solid gold lion weighing
more than 258 kg.10 This couplet is unlikely to have been commissioned
by a real person; there is a bit of hubris in the claim that Croesus' offering
of gold to Apollo was worth less than the girl's hair. The epigram itself is a
mock dedication and Pamphilion probably imaginary.
The presence of Isis is easily accounted for, as she was the leading deity
in Egypt at the time and worshipped as the protectress, particularly of
maidens and women, who offered a variety of objects (chiefly jewellery)
to her. Her particular icons were the throne, sun disk with cow's horns and
a sycamore tree. She is sometimes portrayed as a cow or with a cow's
horns. Although in Greek and Roman rituals it was normal practice to
sacrifice a male animal to a god and a female one to a goddess,11 Palladas is
referring to Egyptian practice, where a bull or heifer was sacrificed to Isis,
since the cow was sacred to her.12
The following epigram also purports to be a dedication of a girl's hair,
but turns into an extravagant eulogy of the razor that was used to cut off
her locks:
ώ ξυρόν ούράνιον, ξυρόν δλβιον, φ πλοκαμΐδας

κειραμένη πλεκτάς ανθετο Παμφίλιον,
ου σε τις ανθρώπων χαλκεύσατο, παρ δε καμίνω
8 Cameron 1965b:217; but see Baldwin 1984:268. On Palladas' Sylloge see Waltz
1960:LII-LVIII; Beckby 1967:1.82-84; Lauxtermann 1997; Albiani 2007.
9 Cf. Galli Calderini 1987:110, who mentions Archilochus, AP 6.133.
10 Beckby 1967:1.687-88.
11 Cf. Horn. II. 11.728; Od. 13.181; Burkert 1985:133 (cow for Hera); 63-64,
230-31 (bull for Zeus).
12 Cf. Hdt. 2.38-41; Solmsen 1979:17; Burkert 1983:81.
66
'Ηφαίστου χρυσέην σφϋραν άειραμένη
ή λιπαροκρήδεμνος, ΐν' ε'ίπωμεν καθ' "Ομηρον,
χερσί σε ταϊς ίδίαις έξεπόνησε Χάρις.
Ο celestial razor, happy razor with which Pamphilion

cut off her plaited locks and dedicated them,
no one among humans forged you, but beside the furnace
of Hephaistos, having raised the golden hammer,
she of the shining head-band, if I may quote Homer,
fashioned you with her own hands - a Chads.
(6.61)
Epic grandeur is shed on the humble razor by the direct apostrophe (ω),
the anaphora with hyperbole and personification in ξυρόν ούράνιον, ξυρόν
ολβιον, the assertion that a Grace herself forged it in Hephaestus' furnaces,
and the use of the epic epithet λιπαροκρήδεμνος from iL 18.382.13
Palladas, ever the grammatikos, draws attention to this Homeric reference
in the words that follow.14 The Charites usually come in a group of three;
here one is singled out and her name left unmentioned until the last word.
From the detail of her being beside Hephaestus' forge and the reference to
Homer the reader can identify her as Aglaia, wife of Hephaistos.15 The
total effect is one of literary fun, with the poet playing with the serious
form of the dedicatory epigram and learned literary references.16
The following epigram describes a painting of Eros holding a dolphin
and flower:
γυμνός "Ερως· δια τοϋτο γελά και μείλιχός έστιν·

ού γαρ έχει τόξον και πυρόεντα βέλη·
ουδέ μάτην παλάμαις κατέχει δέλφινα και άνθος·
τη μεν γαρ γαΐαν, τη δέ θάλασσαν έχει.
13 The epithet is also used of Ceres (h.Cer. 25, 459).

14 Contra Cameron's view (1965b:217) that the prosaic iv' εΐπωμεν καθ' "Ομηρον
intentionally ruins the solemnity of λιπαροκρήδεμνος.
15 Horn. II. 18.383: την ώπυιε περικλυτός Άμφιγυήεις. Also Hes. Theog. 945; cf.
Beckby 1967:1.688.
16 Thus also Galli Calderini 1987:110, who regards the two epigrams as 'meri
esercizi retorici'. She also observes that the three votive epigrams ascribed to
Palladas (6.60, 61 and 85) represent 'una prima, timida rinascita della poesia
anatematica' between the Hellenistic period and the age of Justinian. The
authenticity of epigram 85, which she considers more worthy, was questioned by
Peek 1965:160.
67
Eros is unarmed; because of this he smiles and is kind,
for he does not hold his bow and fiery arrows.
Not in vain does he hold in his hands a dolphin and flower,
for in one he holds the land, in the other the sea.
(16.207)
A different Eros is described, one who has set aside the weapons he
discharges at immortals and mortals alike and instead, smiling and gentle,
holds a dolphin and flower, the symbolism of which is elucidated for the
reader. The epigram is a miniature ecphrasis, a literary description of a
work of art, here probably a picture of Eros painted on a vase.17 The
description is direct, guiding the viewer and pointing out the details; one
notes the repetition of εχει (2, 4) and κατέχει (3) and the chiastic
arrangement of δέλφινα (Α] και άνθος (Β) and τη μεν ... γαΐαν (Β), τη δέ
θάλασσαν (Α).
Types
Here we examine a few types that Palladas adds to his human menagerie.
In many of his epigrams he scathingly targeted persons and types;18 the
types discussed below are treated with markedly more indulgence, resig
nation and even amusement.19 The following epigram features a puzzling
and most unusual duel:
κουρεύς και ραφιδεΰς κατεναντίον ήλθον αγώνος,

και τάχα νικώσιν τό ξυρόν αί ραφίδες.
A barber and a cobbler competed against each other,

and the needles quickly beat the razor.
(11.288)
The first problem to be addressed is the text. The codex Palatinus reads
ραφιδας, which LSJ gloss as an 'embroiderer' and found only in a Würz
17 Franke 1899:16: 'Amoris imaginem a recentiore artifice factam describit';

Beckby 1968:4.564.
18 Gessius (7.681-88; 16.317), women (9.165-68; 10.55, 56; 11.286, 287, 381),
the wealthy (10.60, 61, 93), the Hellenes (10.82, 89), Sestius (10.99), the rhetor
Maurus (11.204), the actor Memphis (11.255), the surgeon Gennadius (11.280),
the prefect Damonicus (11.283-85), philosopher (11.292), Pantagathus (11.340).
19 Also treated more gently are Psyllo (7.607), the physician Magnus (11.281) and
Olympius (11.293); cf. Henderson 2008a:102, 105, 100.
68
burg papyrus of the 4th century. From the earliest editions this reading has
been emended to ραφιδευς, which LSJ record as occurring only in this
epigram and equivalent to ραφεύς, 'stitcher, patcher, cobbler' as in Pollux
7.42. Drew-Bear has defended the Palatine's reading and proposed the
meaning 'cobbler' for ραφιδάς.20 This is the difficilior lectio, but it still does
not clarify the meaning of the epigram. The problems of text and
interpretation have arisen, of course, from the rarity of all three words
(ραφιδάς, ραφιδεύς, ραφεύς), which share the act of sewing or stitching. I
settle for 'cobbler', but the other crafts (embroiderer, tailor) are equally
applicable.
In a duel between a barber and a cobbler, in which they use the tools
of their trade, a razor and needles, the latter wins easily. Two questions
arise: Why does the cobbler win? and: What is the point of the argument?
Dübner, Paton and Beckby believed that the barber was being ridiculed for
his blunt razor, i.e. the cobbler wins because his weapons are sharper.21
This explanation would satisfy the principle of Occam's razor (as one
referee aptly suggested), but that is not the way a cryptic epigram such as
this works. There is no indication in the text that bluntness or sharpness is
the issue; in fact, it would be a bad barber indeed who allowed his razors
to be blunt. Also, this view may apply if one visualises the razor referred
to here as the familiar semilunar or triangular iron or bronze blades used
by Romans.22 However, there are examples of the elongated version
similar to the modern barber's razor dating from 100 BC; and a rare
example of a Roman-Byzantine one, 95 mm long, was recently advertised
on e-Bay.23 If the razor here is the long version, it would be equally
efficient at cutting an opponent wielding needles. The plural αί ραφίδες
should, however, be taken into account: the slashing and cutting of a razor
vs. the pricking and stabbing of multiple needles.
The point, I think, is that this is not some actual and bizarre duel with
razor and needles; that would be ludicrous. We need to move from the
realia to interpretation. Peek seems to me to have got it right: the epigram
is a parable.24 Both κουρεύς and ραφιδεύς were used metaphorically, the
20 Drew-Bear 1972:6.
21 Dübner 1888:384 ('Tonsorem obtusa novacula utentem ridere videtur'); Paton
1963:4.204 n. 3; Beckby 1968:3.844.
22 For the three shapes (the spatula or crescent, the broad triangular, and the long,
slender version with straight or curved blade), cf. Boon 1991:27-32 (with
drawings); Hurschmann 2008 (with additional literature).
23 Accessed 25 March 2013.
24 Peek 1965:162.41-44.
69
former for a gossip (Plut. 2.177a, 509a), the latter for a schemer or planner
(Aesch. Ag. 1604). To elaborate this reading: the barber performs his job
of cutting hair and shaving beards in a repetitive, almost causal and
automatic manner while indulging in idle talk with his customers;23 the
tailor or cobbler is a meticulous and focused worker with precise skill and
the ability to plan; the barber simply takes away, the tailor/cobbler
creates.26 He wins the contest on this basis. The two professions are used
to make an observation on two types of people: the casual, nonchalant
person who does a job that does not require much skill and concentration
and involves gossip, and the hard-working, highly skilled and dedicated
person who plans ahead. Their respective tools symbolise their roles and
temperaments. It is not unlikely that our poet was thinking of his own
craft and identifying himself with the ραφιδεύς - skilled, precise, focused
and creative.
Monks also come in for some gentle mocking:
εί μοναχοί, τί τοσοίδε; τοσοίδε δέ, πώς πάλι μοϋνοι;

ώ πληθύς μοναχών ψευσαμενη μονάδα.
If solitaries, why so many? If so many, how again solitary?

Ο crowd of solitaries giving the lie to solitude!27
(11.384)
The etymological punning on μοναχοί, μιοϋνοι, μοναχών and μονάδα is

difficult to capure in English, but the irony in the name (people who live
in solitude) and practice (living together in isolated communities) is not
lost on a modern reader. The pentameter encapsulates it with the juxta
position of πληθύς and μοναχών and the moral conclusion in ψευσαμένη
μονάδα. The focus of the epigram is solely on this aspect: mockery of the
25 Theophrastus [αρ. Plut. Mor. 5.679a) called barber-shops 'wineless symposia ...
because of the chatter of those sitting there' (αοινα συμπόσια ... δια την λαλίαν
τών προσκαθιζόντων); cf. Boon 1991:27, who does, however, mention (26) the
great skill required in the use of the twin blades for cutting hair, as Martial 6.52
implies.
26 A referee suggested (without any references) that cobblers were (the cobbler
who criticised Apella's rendition of a shoe?) and still are notorious as trouble
makers and even revolutionaries (Stalin?). But if such a baddy wins, what is the
point of the victory or the moral of the story?
7 Transl. Paton 1963:4.255, slightly altered.
70
contradiction in monks seeking solitude in numbers.28 Palladas is not
concerned with other aspects such as the vow of silence or the isolation in
small cells.
Bowra associated this epigram with the damage wrought by monks on
pagan monuments and statues after Theodosius' law of 391, damage which
Theodosius himself tried to restrain with a law passed in 390: quicunque
sub professione monachi repperiuntur, deserta loca et vastas solitudines sequi
adque habitare iubeantur ('whoever is found professing to be a monk, let
them be ordered to seek and inhabit deserted places and vast areas of
solitude', Cod. Theod. 16.3.1).29 Although such specific contextualising is
suspect, Bowra does note the poem's pointedness, double meanings, and
the 'relatively kind' mockery of the monks for their inconsistency when
compared to Eunapius.30 Cameron also places the epigram in the context
of the plight of pagans after the Theodosian legislation, considers the
epigram as 'one of the neatest of all his epigrams', and emphasises the irony
in the practice of the Christian ascetics 'who flocked to the desert in their
thousands [and] called themselves of all things solitaries.'31 He further
remarks that Palladas' irony would have amused his friends, but probably
have been 'safely lost on the ignorant monks of Alexandria'.32 Baldwin
considered the epigram 'arguably his best joke' and pointed out the
contrast with the solemnity of Rutilius Namatianus:
ipsi se monachos Graio nomine dicunt,

quod soli nullo vivere teste volunt.
28 Sozomen (6.29] mentions that Apollos of Hermoupolis became famous and

ruled 'beaucoup de moines', to which Bidez & Hansen 2005:393 n. 3 append a
footnote specifying 500 monks. The mocking tone and word-play are captured by
Harrison 1975 in his translation (no. 68).
29 Bowra 1959:255-56; also Irmscher 1961:460, who speaks of the 'terror' and
'fanatical monks'.
30 Eunap. VF 472: είτα έπεισήγον τοις ίεροϊς τόποις τους καλουμένους μοναχούς,
ανθρώπους μεν κατά τό είδος, ό δέ βίος αύτοϊς συώδης, καν εις τό εμφανές
επασχον τε και έποίουν μυρία κακά και άφραστα ('Next they [Theophilus,
Evagrius and Romanus] brought into the holy places those called "monachi", men
according to their appearance, but whose lifestyle was like pigs, and who ate in
public and committed thousands of evil and unutterable deeds'). Cf. also
Wilkinson 2010:305, who adds Libanius Or. 30.8.
31 Cameron 1965a:29.
32 Cameron 1965a:30.
71
They themselves call themselves by the Greek name 'monachi',
because they wish to live alone without a witness.
[De Reditu Suo 9)
Wilkinson comments on the uses and meanings of μοναχός in Greek

literature (mostly in philosophical texts) and in the papyri (in various
technical senses of 'having only one copy or layer') before focusing on its
novel meaning of 'monk' in late antiquity and in this epigram.33 He then
rejects Reiske's dating of the epigram before Theodosius I, moving it back
to the first half of the 4th century, a time when monasticism was already
firmly established in Egypt.34 The word μοναχός meaning 'monk' appears
first in a papyrus dated 6 June 324 (PCol 7.171.15) and in literature,
possibly first in Eusebius (Comment. in Psalm. = PG 23.689b), c. 330, and
then frequently in Athanasius.35 Palladas, writing around the same time,
therefore seems again to be employing a novel, colloquial term, this time
to poke fun at the oddities of Christianity. The epigram, 'not especially
hostile', is altogether different from the later attacks on destructive monks
during the reign of Theodosius.36
Wilkinson's carefully constructed and documented argument is cogent
and convincing, in particular on the dating, theme and tone of the epigram.
It could, however, be pointed out that Palladas' use of μοναχός is not
necessarily contemporary or all that soon after the earliest occurrences.
The one solid detail in the epigram itself, namely the absurdity of a
monastic existence, in itself cannot be attached to a particular time or
event. As critics we can only set up plausible constructs and contexts to
aid our understanding of the text.
Then there is an epigram on incompetent and corrupt officials:
ουδείς και καθαρός και μείλιχος ηλυθεν άρχων

εν γαρ ένός δοκέει δόγματος άντίπαλον
τό γλυκύ τοϋ κλέπτοντος, υπερφιάλου δέ τό άγνόν.
όργανα της αρχής ταϋτα δυ' εστί πάθη.
No official has come here both honest and benevolent,

for one notion seems to wrestle against the other.
Niceness is typical of the stealer, purity of the arrogant.
33 Wilkinson 2010:302-03, with further literature.

34 Wilkinson 2010:303-04.
35 Wilkinson 2010:304-05.
36 Wilkinson 2010:305-06.
72
These qualities are the two tools of government.
(9.393)
Palladas attacks particular officials in other epigrams,37 and in one epigram

he praises a magistrate for his linguistic skill in judgements and arguments
(δικάζεις και σοφιστευεις λόγοις) and promises to send him some poems
(10.92).38 In the above epigram he gives a general assessment of political
officials, with which many people today would agree.
The thought is built on a basic antithesis: either clean government (but
strict and harsh), or benevolent government (but lax and corrupt). The
antithesis involves a paradox, indicated by the unspoken but implied
implications in brackets: καθαρός and μείλιχος are presented as opposites,
the former metaphorical of cleanliness and honesty,39 the latter of
gentleness and kindness.40 The antithesis is sustained in the metaphor of
wrestling (άντίπαλον) to express the conflict between the two.41 The
metaphor is not uncommon with abstract nouns: Pindar uses it of the
'courage | to wrestle against old age' (μένος | γήραος άντίπαλον, Ol. 8.70
71; transl. Race 1997:1.145), Euripides of weeping contending with
marriage hymns (ύμεναίων γόος αντίπαλος, Ale. 922), Sophocles of the
difficulty of the struggle against 'the dragon', Thebes (άντιπάλω
δυσχείρωμα δράκοντος, Ant. 126), and Thucydides of opposing motions
(ρηθεισών δε των γνωμών τούτων μάλιστα αντιπάλων προς άλλήλας, 'but
when the opinions had been expressed so in conflict with each other',
3.49). Palladas himself elsewhere employs the metaphor in a different way
when he describes Odysseus' remedy against Circe's spell (γοητείας
φάρμακον άντίπαλον, 10.50).
The second couplet expands the thought in similar metaphorical
language, but in reverse, chiastic order. Whereas the concept of cleanliness
(καθαρός) precedes that of kindness (μείλιχος), now pleasantness (γλυκύ,
via a phonetic association with μέλι?) precedes purity (άγνόν).42 The
specific crimes are then linked to these types of government: theft in the
lax, corrupt form, arrogance in the harsh, strict form. The two extreme
37 Gessius and Damonicus; cf. Wilkinson 2010:304-05 n. 34.

38 Cf. Henderson 2008b: 134-35.
39 LSJ s.v. 3b and II Adv. 1.
40 LSJ s.v. I.
41 For the literal meaning, cf. e.g. Pind. Nem. 11.26: κάλλιον αν δηριώντων
ένόστησ' αντιπάλων ('a more noble homecoming than his wrestling opponents',
transl. Race 1997:2.127).
42 LSJ s.w.
73
forms of government function on these two principles which each
produces its own defects.
The otherwise unknown Patricius is the target of our poet's teasing in
the following epigram:
στυγνήν την Νίκην τις ίδών κατά την πόλιν έχθές

είπε· 'θεά Νίκη, τίπτε πέπονθας άρα;'
ή δ' άποδυρομένη και μεμφομένη κρίσιν, εΐπεν
ουκ εγνως σύ μόνος; Πατρικίω δέδομαι.'
ή ν αρα και Νίκη τιολυώδυνος, ην παρά θεσμόν
Πατρίκιος ναύτης ηρπασεν ώς άνεμον.
When a man saw a gloomy Nike in town yesterday,

he said: 'Divine Nike, what have you suffered, then?'
Lamenting bitterly and blaming the event, she said:
'Do you alone not know? I've been given to Patricius.'
So even Nike was deeply pained: contrary to law
the sailor Patricius had caught her like a breeze.
(11.386)
Nike explains to a bypasser that her depressed state of mind is due to a

victory achieved by a certain Patricius. The little drama is skilfully con
structed: action and dialogue alternate in the first two couplets before the
denouement comes in the last couplet.43 Several words are used to exag
gerate Nike's misery: στυγνήν (1), πέπονθας (2), άποδυρομένη και
μεμφομένη κρίσιν (3) and πολυώδυνος (5, a rare usage).44 In contrast,
Nike's explanation is short and simple: as everyone but her questioner
knows, Patricius has been victorious. The poet explains in seafaring
language: the 'sailor' Patricius' victory upset Nike because it was contrary
to divine law and thus undeserved since he had won by snatching Victory
like a sailor catches a breeze. Various identities have been given to
'Patricius'. Reiske thought he was a iudex iniquum.45 Alan Cameron argued
that Patricius was an Alexandrian charioteer who had won undeservedly
or unexpectedly, because he grasped opportunity.46 The nautical imagery
in the last line encapsulates this fortuitous event.
43 Palladas' predilection for anecdotal structure was noted by Galli Calderini

1987:132.
44 πολυώδυνος is attested in the passive only here and at AP 4.111 (Glaucus)
(LS J).
45 Reiske 1766:76; Franke 1899:41.
46 Cameron 1964:58-59, against Jacobs' proposed quaestor at Constantinople in
390 (followed by Bowra 1959:266; and Stella 1949:379-83). The connection
74
The next epigram, as we learn from the lemma είς ττοιητήν κυβεύοντα
(Sylloge Β), pokes fun at a poet who gambles:
πάντων μουσοπόλων ή Καλλιόπη θεός εστίν

ή σή Καλλιόπη Ταβλιόπη λέγεται.
The goddess of all minstrels is Calliope;

your Calliope is called Tabliope
(11.373)
The comic effect of the witty punning on Καλλιόπη and Ταβλιόπη, a

coinage from τάβλα, a dicing-table, is apparent.47 What is not so apparent
is why a dice-playing poet is targeted for our poet's humour. Perhaps he
spends too much time dicing or gambling instead of writing poetry; or
perhaps it is only about the clever substitution of Calliope, the one with
the beautiful face, with Tabliope, the one with the dicing-table face. The
word μουσοπόλος occurs often as and adjective to indicate subservience to
or association with the Muses. Sappho applies it to her home (μοισο
πόλων Ιοίκίαι, Fr. 150 Lobel-Page), Euripides to a dirge (στοναχά, Ph.
1499), Marcus Argentarius to hands (χείρες, AP 9.270.4), Meleager to a
garland (στέφανος, AP 12.257.6) and Castorion to the animal-like Pan
(θήρ, 2.5 Bergk = 310 Campbell 1993). However, its use here as a
substantive for minstrels or poets is rare. It is attested only in Euripides
{Ale. 445) and in a few inscriptions.48
Two epigrams are difficult to interpret because of lack of context. The
first sets a dramatic situation which is easy enough to understand:
Παυλω κωμωδω κατ' δναρ στάς είπε Μένανδρος

'ούδέν εγώ κατά σοΰ, και σύ κακώς με λέγεις.'
In a dream Menander stood by the comedian Paulus and said:

Ί spoke nothing against you, yet you speak me badly.'
(11.263)
between Nike's depression and the 'Christianised' Nikai figures in 16.282 is, at
most, tenuous: it is difficult to see how the nautical imagery would apply in the
latter case. Cf. Henderson 2008b: 132-34.
47 Cf. also Agathias, AP 9.482. Raines 1946:99, who appropriately translates
Ταβλιόπη as 'Gambliope', points out that the paronym is formed by 'clipping and
addition'.
48 LSJ s.v.; Stephanus s.v. To the two inscriptions (one from Iconium, the other
from Ostia) cited by LSJ, one might add another from Athens: CIG 425.
75
A comic actor named Paulus is visited in a dream by the ghost of the great
Menander who rebukes Paulus for acting badly in his plays. Although
κωμωδός can mean comic actor or comic poet,4 ' it seems preferable to
take κακώς με λέγεις literally of speaking or playing a role badly, rather
than of 'bad-mouthing'.50 It makes more sense that Menander complains
about an actor not enunciating words in his own plays than of a rival
comic poet attacking him. We know that Menander is the comic poet
most often mentioned or quoted in the Greek Anthology.51 Who Paulus
was and what caused Palladas to write this criticism, is, however, lost to
the modern reader. All we can appreciate is the assonance on ω, and the
antithesis in the last line.
In the second epigram, the plot is again clear, but the players unknown.
Έρμολύκου θυγάτηρ μεγάλω παρέλεκτο πιθήκω

ή δ' ετεκεν πολλούς Έρμοπιθηκιάδας.
εί δ' Έλένην ό Ζευς και Κάστορα και Πολυδεύκην
έκ Λήδης ετεκεν κύκνον άμειψάμενος,
'Ερμιόνη γ ε Κόραξ παρελέξατο· ή δε τάλαινα
φρικτών δαιμονίων έρμαγέλην ετεκεν.
Hermolycus' daughter slept with a great ape

and gave birth to lots of Hermo-apes.
But if Zeus, disguised as a swan, begot from Leda
Helen, Castor and Pollux, at any rate a Crow
slept with Hermione. And she, poor woman, gave
birth to a Hermae-herd of awful demons.
(11.353)
Paton comments: 'The epigram seems very confused. Is Hermione the

same as Hermolycus' daughter, and how did she manage to have such a
variety of husbands?'52 The puzzle depends on etymological punning on
the names [paranomasia). The father's name, Hermolycus, means Hermes
wolf; his daughter sleeps with an ape of a man and produces Hermes-apes;
whereas Zeus (swan), in contrast, mated with Leda who brought forth
Helen, Castor and Pollux, and Hermione (not the daughter) mated with
49 LSJ s.v. 2 and 3.

50 Cf. Raines 1946:86-87, who refers to other epigrams on bad actors: Phalaecus,
AP 13.6; Crinagoras, AP 9.513.
51 Raines 1946:84.
52 Paton 1963:4.237 n. 2.
76
the Crow (Korax, his actual name or a man like a crow, and not like a
swan) to produce a horrific brood of herms of terrifying demons (poor
η 53
womanlj.
The punning, starting from the name Hermolycus, generates two sets of
hybrid creatures and words: Έρμολύκου+πιθήκω = Έρμοπιθηκιάδας and
Ερμιόνη+Κόραξ = φρικτών δαιμονίων έρμαγέλην (instead of an expected
fusion of Hermione and Korax). Έρμοπιθηκιάδας and έρμαγέλην are
hapax legomena, coined by Palladas as a literary tour de force. At the centre,
in the middle couplet, the example of Zeus stands in contrast to human
hybrids on either side: the god produced Helen, Castor and Pollux; the
humans produced only horrible freaks. The poet has exploited the ability
of Greek to create such hybrid terminology. It does not matter who the
persons in this epigram are; what counts is the poet's linguistic virtuosity.
The unfortunate
Victims of misfortune, since it is beyond the control of human beings,

sometimes arouse the poet's sympathy rather than psogos. A general,
universal truth {gnome) is stated:
πολλά μεταξύ πέλει κύλικος και χείλεος άκρου.
Many things come between the cup and the lip's edge.
(10.32)
This is the idiom familiar in English as 'there's many a slip 'twixt the cup
and the lip.' It was a very old idiom already in Palladas' day.54 Gellius (c.
130-c. 180) records that Cato used the expression inter os et off am
('between the mouth and a morsel', 13.18.3).55 He explains that Erucius
Clarus asked Sulpicius Apollinaris, the second-century grammarian and
teacher of Gellius, the meaning of the expression and then continues:
Saepe audivi inter os atque off am multa intervenire posse ... Tum
Apollinaris ... rescripsit Claro, ut viro erudito, brevissime, vetus est
proverbium inter os et offam, idem significans quod Graecus ille
53 There is no apparent reason for viewing this Hermione as the daughter of

Menelaus and Helen. According to most ancient sources, her husband was
Orestes, her son Tisamenus (Paus. 2.18.6), hardly horrific creatures.
54 Paton 1963:4.21 η. 1 claims that 'some' think the idiom goes back even to
Homer, but gives no details.
55 Beckby 1968:3.824.
77
παροιμιώδης versus: πολλά μεταξύ πέλει κύλικος και χείλεος
άκρου.
I have often heard that many things can happen between the
mouth and a morsel ... Then Apollinaris wrote back to Clarus, as
being a learned man, very briefly, that the proverb inter os et off am
was old, signifying the same as that Greek proverbial verse [then
the Greek line above], Gellius 13.18.56
The context and application of the line here are obscure, though it is
unusual for Palladas not to add his own variation or application.57
A lame blacksmith is the subject of the next epigram:
υίον έχεις τον "Ερωτα, γυναίκα δε την Αφροδίτην

ούκ αδίκως, χαλκεϋ, τον πόδα χωλόν έχεις.
You have a son called Eros and a wife called Aphrodite;

it's not unfair, blacksmith, that you have a lame leg.
(11.307)
An unnamed blacksmith with a wife called Aphrodite and a son called

Eros ought to consider himself most fortunate, even if he is crippled. The
reader immediately thinks of the blacksmith Hephaestus, who was
portrayed on vases or other objets d'art.58 It is unlikely that the epigram
refers to a real blacksmith; a crippled blacksmith who deliberately married
a woman called Aphrodite and named his son Eros would be inviting
ridicule. Such ridicule of persons with a disability, which seems cruel to
modern sensibilities, was widespead in antiquity; familiar in the grotesque
costumes and gestures of Attic comedy, it is found, for example, in the
scoptic epigrams of Lucillius and Nicarchus, and elsewhere in Palladas.59
56 LS s.v. offa■ Beckby 1968:3.824. Franke 1899:14-15 expressed amazement at

the number of proverbs in Palladas ('Miramur quod tanta multitudo prover
biorum Palladae adscribitur', 14), and added that the proverb was included in
Zenobius' epitome and predated Palladas.
57 Cf. Labarbe 1967:377, who says that the line 'n'est pas autre chose qu'un ancien
proverbe'.
See, for example, Garland 1995: plates 18 and 19 (on a sixth-century vase
painting} and plate 17 (on a ring, dated c. 530-520).
59 E.g. Lucill. AP 11.87-109 (tall, short and skinny men), 196-97 (ugly man);
Nicarch. AP 11.110 (skinny man), 406 (man with a crooked nose); Pallad. 11.204
(man with an elephantine nose); also, after Palladas: Julian Antecessor, AP 11.368
(ugly man); Agathias, AP 11.372 (feeble, insubstantial man); Luxorius 295
78
Palladas is here far less nasty. The epigram could even have been addressed
to Hephaestus, the moral of the story still being that you can't have
everything.
Equally unreal is the treatment of a disastrous wedding:
ηρπασέ τις νύμφη ν, και τον γάμον ηρπασε δαίμων

ψυχών συλήσας τερπομένην άγέλην.
εις γάμος εικοσιπέντε τάφους επλησε θανόντων,
πάνδημος δέ νεκρών εις γέγονεν θάλαμος.
νύμφη Πενθεσίλεια πολύστονε, νυμφίε Πενθεϋ,
αμφοτέρων ό γάμος πλούσιος εν θανάτοις.
Someone carried off a bride, and fate carried off a wedding,

stripping the merry company of their lives.
One wedding filled the graves of twenty-four dead,
and one chamber became their shared morgue.
Mournful bride Penthesilea, bridegroom Pentheus,
the wedding of you two was rich in deaths.
(7.610)
The event is easily reconstructed from the carefully selected details in the
brief narrative. The roof of a wedding venue collapsed, killing twenty-four
guests; the bride apparently escaped (presumably with the groom), but her
wedding chamber was converted into a temporary mortuary. The happy
occasion turned into a tragic disaster, and the bridal couple, instead of
delighting in the rich gifts they have received, grieve for the deaths of their
relatives and friends.
The epigram is of a high literary quality. There is the overall irony in
the occasion of happiness and celebration of love and life being turned into
a place of burial and grief. This is enforced by chiasmus (ηρπασέ τις
νύμφην, και τον γάμον ηρπασε δαίμων, 1); the different meanings of
ηρπασε, the one benevolent, the other destructive; the contrast and epic
(effeminate advocate), 296 and 310 (dwarfs), 300 (obese man), 357 (blind man),
358 (hairy man). See further Galli Calderini 1987:132; Nisbet 2003:29-34. On
the phenomenon, see Garland 1995, who quotes as examples from comic theatre
a skinny man in a lost Aristophanic play mentioned by Athenaeus (12.55 la-c =
CAF I, fr. 428) and a tall man who used a plank to keep himself upright in
Aristoph. Av. 1377 (Athen. 12.55 Id) (77). His plates vividly illustrate the
portrayal of, among others, cripples (including Hephaestus, Cheiron and Aesop',
plates 17-19, 21 and 26 respectively), hunchbacks and dwarfs (plates 26, 45, 46)
on vases and in marble or terracotta statuettes and bronze figurines.
79
metaphor in ψυχών συλήσας τερπομένην άγέλην (2);60 the framing of είς
γάμος εικοσιπέντε τάφους επλησε θανόντων with the antithetical γάμος
and θανόντων (3); the restatement of the outcome in inverted order
(πάνδημος δε νεκρών εις γέγονεν θάλαμος, 4); the etymological punning
on the names of the bride, Penthesilea, and groom Pentheus (5), with the
root πενθευ ('mourn') in both names linking bride and groom in the grief,
but also recalling the tragic figure of Pentheus;61 and the closing irony and
deep tragedy of αμφοτέρων ό γάμος πλούσιος έν θανάτοις (6), emphasised
by the punning on πλούσιος and ΓΊλοϋτος/Πλούτων, the marriage 'rich',
but in deaths.
The presence of the mythological names enforces the notion that we
are dealing with literary play. Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, slain by
Achilles; Pentheus, the unfortunate son of Agave who resisted the new
cult of Dionysus and was torn to pieces by bacchant women among whom
was his mother - the plot of Euripides' Bacchae. Though we cannot be
sure, it is difficult not to accept that Palladas meant his reader to make
these connections — they are so prominent in the epigram.
Although 'of course fictitious',62 it is really quite irrelevant whether the
poem's narrative relates to a specific historical event. Such catastrophes
were not unknown in antiquity, probably the most famous example being
the collapse of the roof of the banqueting hall in which many members of
the Scopad family of Thessaly were killed.63 Other examples, variations on
the theme, are found in several Hellenistic epigrams. An anonymous poet
(.AP 7.298) describes as 'the worst thing' (τό κάκιστον) the death of either
bride or groom on their wedding day, but far worse the grief caused by the
death of both a bride (Lycaemon) and bridegroom (Epolis) when the roof
of the bedroom collapsed on their wedding night. Agathias Scholasticus
(AP 7.572) was less sympathetic towards adulterers punished in this way.
Likewise, Constantinus of Rhodes (or an anonymous poet, AP 15.19)
60 The verb συλάω is used especially of stripping armour off an enemy slain in
battle (LSJ).
61 Cf. Eur. Bacch. 367, where Pentheus' name is directly linked to πένθος: Πενθεύς
δ' δπως μή πένθος είσοίσει δόμοις | τοις σοϊσι, Κάδμε, 367-68. Beckby
1967:2.602 compares AP 7.444 (Theaetetus; on eighty persons consumed by a
fire), 15.19 and 7.298, but, of course, Alexandrian variation produces different
results.
62 Paton 1960:2.327 n. 1.
63 Cf. Simon. Fr. 521 PMG, which Stobaeus, citing Favorinus (2nd century AD) as
his source (4.41.9 and 62), connects to the event; Callim. Fr. 64.1-15 Pfeiffer; and
Quintilian 11.2.11-16, who supplies the details of the disaster, but doubts that
Simonides was writing about it.
80
denounces a physician called Asclepiades (the name is ironic rather than
real) who kidnapped a girl, raped her and forced her into a marriage which
was attended by a crowd of dancers and lewd women; their chamber's roof
also collapsed, leaving bloodied bodies and bouquets. Less heinous perhaps,
but equally culpable, was the fate of a man who remarried after his wife's
death, despite her ghost's warning him not to do so. On the wedding night,
groom and bride died when the roof collapsed (Apollonidas, AP 9.422).
Another kind of unfortunate victim of circumstance is the 'dinner
guest' who suffers a particularly bad 'culinary' experience.
δρνεον ήσθίομεν κεκλημένοι αθλιον άνδρες

άλλων ορνίθων βρώματα γινόμενοι·
και τον μεν Τιτυόν κατά γης δύο γΰπες εδουσιν,
ημάς δέ ζώντας τέσσαρες αίγυπιοί.
Invited, we men ate some wretched poultry,

having become food for other birds.
And two vultures eat Tityus under the earth,
but four vultures eat us alive.
(11.377)
The plot of the epigram seems simple: men in a banquet setting are eating
some unsavoury poultry dish. Previously they themselves had become
(γινόμενοι) meat for other birds. While two vultures gnawed at Tityus in
the Underworld, in contrast four vultures eat the guests, among whom is
the poet (ήσθίομεν, 1; ημάς, 4), alive. Various interpretations have been
offered to fit this rather obscure and enigmatic scenario. A literal inter
pretation, that the men are dinner-guests actually dining on badly prepared
fowl, after having themselves been victims at another banquet, does not
explain the rest of the epigram. Who are the other birds (presumably the
four vultures) that feed on them? A metaphorical reading seems a better
solution, but the identity of the birds, whether slanderers, thieves or
parasites, is still a mystery. The meaning is almost totally lost to us.64
What we can see in the text is the theme of some sort of reciprocal and
incremental physical, psychological or mental violence cast metaphorically
as a banquet, in which certain persons 'feed' on one group (including our
poet), only to end up on the menu of another group. The feeding frenzy in
64 Cf. Beckby 1968:3.848, who resignedly says 'Erklärung unbekannt', and records
the views of Opsopoeus [Grecized name of Johannes Koch, 1556-1596]
(slanderers), Boissonade (thieves), Jacobs (guests) and Zerwes (parasites). Paton
1963:4.251 η. 1 understands the άνδρες as banqueters.
81
which the poet is a victim is then exaggerated in comparison to the
situation of the mythical Tityus, the giant punished for assaulting Leto
(Horn. Od. 11.576-81). He only had two vultures pecking at his innards;
Palladas' group has four! Moreover, the second word used for the vultures
(αίγυπιοί, also in the final position) is older and more poetic than the
generic γϋπες.65 The vultures feeding on Tityus are, in other words, half as
destructive and painful as those feeding on the poet and his companions.
There is a progression from the nondescript bird (ορνεον) to the vultures
in the second couplet.
To my mind, it seems that the banquet setting and imagery exclude
slanderers and thieves as the persons referred to; such individuals would
simply not be invited back and forth, even to a metaphorical banquet.
Parasites, on the other hand, were notorious for their ability to get
themselves invited and reinvited, as Petronius' Satyrica 3 and Lucian's De
Parasito (esp. 5-6, 13, 51, 58), as well as Greek and Roman comedies
attest. The 'sympotic' groups that act and react here would likely be
within the same social class, or at least sharing common interests, though
obviously not without rivalry and strife. Such groupings could be socio
political (the Hellenes) or literary (fellow poets). Palladas' contemporary
readers probably recognized the references; in any case, he chose not to
put clearer clues in the epigram, thus making its meaning at once more
universal and (for us) more enigmatic.
A proverb is changed by the poet in the next epigram:
φασί παροιμιακώς'καν ύς δάκοι ανδρα πονηρόν.'

άλλα τόδ' ούχ ουτω, φημί, προσήκε λέγειν,
αλλά· 'δάκοι καν ύς αγαθούς και άπράγμονας ανδρας.'
τον δέ κακόν δεδιώς δήξεται ούδέ δράκων.
The proverb says: 'Even a pig would bite a wicked man.'

But, I say, we ought not to say that but instead,
Ά pig would even bite good and unmeddlesome men.'
But a snake, out of fear, will not bite an evil man.
(9.379)
It is uncertain whether the poet's rephrasing of the proverb is limited to

line 3 (Beckby), or continues to the end (Paton). My interpretation follows
the former. The proverb means something like: even the lowly, greedy,
omnivorous pig will bite an evil man - because it will bite anything. The
poet 'corrects' this to mean: a pig would even bite a good and righteous
65 LSJ s.v. αίγυπιός, γΰψ.
82
person — again because it does not discriminate. A snake, on the other
hand, would be too afraid to bite an evil person - presumably because it
could itself be 'poisoned' by the villain. The 'correction' of the idiomatic
expression then conveys what the poet believes to be a truer situation: the
wicked are difficult to punish.66
In transforming the proverb Palladas has drastically altered the word
order in the two hexameters. In the first the order is: conjunction (καν) -
subject (ύς) - verb (δάκοι) - object (ανδρα) - adjective (πονηρόν); in the
second it is: verb (δάκοι) - conjunction (καν) - subject (ύς) - adjectives
(αγαθούς και άπράγμονας) - object (ανδρας). This variation continues in
the last line, beginning with the object and ending with the subject: object
(τον δέ κακόν) - adjective (δεδιώς) - verb (δήξεται) - subject (δράκων).
The metrical dexterity is impressive.
In some epigrams serious matters are dealt with in a humorous manner.
Such is the case in an epigram relating the fate of a murderer:
άνδροφόνω σαθρόν παρά τειχίον ύπνώοντι

νυκτός έπιστήναι φασί Σάραπιν δναρ
και χρησμωδήσαν 'κατακείμενος ούτος άνίστω
και κοιμώ μεταβάς, ώ τάλας, άλλαχόθι.'
δς δέ διυπνισθείς μετέβη, τό δέ σαθρόν έκεΐνο
τειχίον έξαίφνης ευθύς εκείτο χαμαί·
σώστρα δ' εωθεν έ'θυε θεοϊς χαίρων ό κακούργος
ηδεσθαι νομίσας τον θεόν άνδροφόνοις.
αλλ' 6 Σάραπις έχρησε πάλιν δια νυκτός έπιστάς·
'κήδεσθαί με δοκεΐς, άθλιε, τών αδίκων;
εί μη νύν σε μεθήκα θανεΐν, θάνατον μέν αλυπον
νΰν έφυγες, σταυρω δ' ισθι φυλαττόμενος.'
They say that Sarapis appeared at night in a dream

to a murderer sleeping beside an unsound wall
and said oracularly: Ύou, lying asleep there, rise up,
move along and sleep elsewhere, poor man.'
The man awoke and left. And that unsound wall
suddenly all at once lay on the ground.
At dawn the glad killer offered thanks to the gods,
thinking that the god delighted in murderers.
But Sarapis appeared at night and prophesied again:
'Do you think, wretch, I look after criminals?
66 Cf. also Labarbe 1967:382: 'la mechancete toujours epargnee'.
83
If I did not let you die now, you now escaped a painless
death, but know you're being kept for the cross.'
(9.378)
A murderer dreamt that Sarapis warned him to move away from a wall
against which he was sleeping. Immediately after he had moved away, the
wall collapsed. His joy next morning was short-lived; the next night he
dreamed Sarapis reappeared to inform him that the reprieve from a
sudden death was only in order to save him for the slower and more
painful death of crucifixion.
This narrative of crime and divine punishment is presented as a
reported story, since, of course, there were no witnesses. It is, in fact, a
kind of urban legend, but, more importantly, also a little drama. This is
another example of the epigrammatic form being fused with both epic and
drama, a recurrent and characteristic phenomenon of Hellenistic poetry.67
Narration (setting, events and comment) and drama (dreamt monologue)
alternate with each other, building up to the climax. The tone of Sarapis'
two speeches differs. The first gives instructions (the imperatives and
participle άνίστω | και κοιμώ μεταβάς ... άλλαχόθι) and seems sympa
thetic and helpful (ώ τάλας). The second speech is reproachful and angry
as the goddess hurls the murderer's own thoughts (χαίρων ο κακούργος |
ηδεσθαι νομίσας τον θεόν άνδροφόνοις) back at him (κήδεσθαί με δοκεΐς
... των αδίκων;). There is now no sympathy in άθλιε. Variation is also at
work: ηδεσθαι becomes κήδεσθαί, νομίσας becomes δοκεΐς, άνδροφόνοις
becomes των αδίκων and ώ τάλας becomes άθλιε.
The poem's message is that punishment will eventually follow crime;
the murderer's plight may have its humorous side, but the final divine
retribution is harsh and cruel. The reader's sympathy may even devolve
upon the murderer. Some scholars have related the incident to the
destruction of the Serapis temple in 391,68 but, although it is unnecessary
to resort to such historical referencing to give the epigram meaning, the
poem itself presumes a date when the Serapeion still stood.
The doctus poeta at play
We close this discussion with three witty and light-hearted epigrams. The
first concerns the use of writing.
67 Cf. Kroll 1964:2002-03; Cameron 1995:146-54; Fantuzzi & Hunter 2004:vii

viii, 17-41,457-61.
68 See Beckby 1968:3.795.
84
ή φύσις έξεύρεν φνλίης θεσμούς άγαπώσα
των άποδημούντων όργανα συντυχίης,
τον κάλαμον, χάρτην, τό μέλαν, τά χαράγματα χειρός,
σύμβολα της ψυχής τηλόθεν άχνυμένης.
Nature, loving the rules of friendship, invented

instruments for what happens to those abroad:
the pen, parchment, ink, the characters of the hand,
tokens of the soul that grieves far away.
(9.401)
Writing and reading were prominent, even defining, features in the

Alexandrian 'book culture' that developed around the libraries and infused
later centuries.69 Palladas' attention is on written correspondence, not, of
course, unknown in earlier times, and especially abundant at Alexandria,
even among ordinary people, as attested by papyrus finds. For him, it was
Nature herself who, in her love for the conventions of friendship, invented
writing and provided the necessary tools. In the last line the poet narrows
down the type of correspondence to letters written by those who feel the
pain of being far from home. To enforce this idea he employs the
metaphor of the writing-instruments and script as symbola of the soul. The
image is unique and rich in associations: symbolon signifies one of two
halves of an agreement, such as a contract, or a token or seal of identity, or
a token of goodwill.70
The second is about the medicinal use of conditum:
κονδίτου μοι δεν. τό δέ κονδϊτον πόθεν εσχεν

τοΰνομα; της φωνής έστι γαρ άλλότριον
τής των 'Ελλήνων· ει 'Ρωμαϊκώς δέ καλείται,
αύτός αν είδείης 'Ρωμαϊκώτατος ων.
σκεύασον ούν μοι τοϋτο· τό γαρ κατέχον με νόσημα
τοΰ στομάχου χρήζει τούδε, λέγουσι, ποτοϋ.
I need conditum. From where did conditum get

its name? For its sound is foreign to that
of the Greeks. But if it is named from the Latin,
you will know yourself, being so very Latin.
69 The phrase is Herington's (1985:3-40); see further, for example, Davison

1968:86-128; Bullock 1985:541-42, 549-50; Knox 1985; Easterling 1985:16-41;
Harris 1989:7-13.
70 LSJ s.v. σύμβολον 1 and 4.
85
So prepare it for me; for this disease of the stomach
has grabbed me and, they say, needs this potion.
(9.502)
Afflicted with some stomach ailment, the poet begs a friend to supply him
with conditum, which he knows is not Greek but suspects to be Latin and
which he has heard is the required medicine. In the midst of his
discomfort (if it is real) he has time to ponder and speculate on the origin
of the word and explain why he is approaching his unnamed addressee (if
he is real) for help, namely because the word is Latin and the addressee is
an expert on Latin.
Conditum was a mixture of wine, honey and pepper, used for pre
serving fruits and other perishable foods.71 Apicius gives a recipe for a
conditum which was used for digestive disorders, sales conditi ad diges
tionem, ad ventrem movendum (salts for digestion and bowel movement) -
exactly what Palladas is complaining about. The recipe is made up of the
following: common salt, sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride), white
pepper, black pepper, ginger, cumin, thyme, celery seed (or parsley),
origano, rocket-seed, saffron, hyssop from Crete, bay-leaf, dill and parsley.
The mixture was also effective against omnes morbos et pestilentiam et
omnia frigora.72 This was strong medicine, called for by a serious ailment;
the metaphor of the disease taking hold of him (κατέχον με νόσημα)
suggests as much.
The question arises whether conditum as a word or culinary and
medical concoction really was that unknown to Palladas. He must have
known the Greek version ταριχεία or ταριχηνη, from ταριχευειν.73
Certainly, he plays with the Greek transcription, repeating it in the first
line and perhaps savouring its novelty. It occurs here for the first time in
71 LS s.v. condo Bl; conditus 4; OLD s.v. condo 2 b; also conditura. For recipes, see
Flower & Rosenbaum 1958:43-44, nos. 1.1 and 2.
72 Flower & Rosenbaum 1958:54-55, no. XIII.
73 LSJ s.v. ταριχεία 1: ταύτο δέ τούτο δρώσι και περί τάς ταριχείας, Aristot. Mete.
359a 16 ('they do the same thing also in the case of salting fish'); και οΐ γε θύννοι
και εις τάς ταριχείας φαύλοι οί γέροντες, HA 607b28 ('and indeed, even tunny
that are old are bad even for salting'); εις ταριχείαν [δραχμή] α [διώβολον], POxy
4.736.5 (1st century AD); ταριχεύω 2: ταύτα ειπών ετεμνε τους ανθρώπους δίχα,
ώσπερ οί τα δα τέμνοντες και μέλλοντες ταριχεύειν, Plato, Symp. 190d ('So saying,
he [Zeus] cut the humans in half, just as people cut sorb-apples for pickling
them'); PRyl 2.231.5 (1st century AD): ταρειχεύσας [...] πέμψας.
86
extant Greek literature.74 It is a safe assumption that he also knew the
Latin well enough. During the early 5th century, Egyptians generally were
reading Latin for practical and literary purposes; and the Alexandrian elite
were reading Latin literary works for pleasure and their interest in the
literary life of the West.75 Wilkinson is surely right to suggest that Palladas
is faking ignorance of the word's derivation, as his use of σκευασον (Greek
for condito) shows. Palladas is using the word, perhaps a relatively recent
arrival in everyday speech, to give a colloquial flavour to his epigram.76
The tone is more difficult to assess, since it depends on how one reads
the text aloud or mentally; there are few objective markers in the text
itself. The only emotive words are μοι δει and σκευασον οΰν μοι,
suggesting the urgency of the appeal. Between these phrases the tone is
one of calm curiosity and pondering, and teasing explanation for his choice
of addressee. The repeated ou-sound in the last line could be intended to
imitate cries of pain: τοΰ στομάχου χρήζει τούδε, λέγουσι, ποτοϋ. The
words 'Ρωμαϊκώς and 'Ρωμαϊκώτατος, the first rare and the second unique,
draw attention by the repetition so close to each other and by their
strangeness. Coming immediately after φωνής ... άλλότριον | της των
Ελλήνων, they also set up an antithesis of Greek and Roman culture.
Wilkinson interprets this antithesis as an expression of Palladas' sense of
the superiority of Greek over Roman culture. For him, 'Ρωμαϊκώς and
'Ρωμαϊκώτατος are 'dripping with disdain' and symptomatic of the
invasiveness of Roman culture.77 Wilkinson also asks whether this has, in
fact, caused the pain in his stomach. This is an attractive interpretation,
especially since it is very likely that the stomach-ache is metaphorical or at
least imaginary. But one is bound to ask: Why would Palladas beg for a
Roman cure if he suffered from a disease caused by Romans? In order not
to push the text too far and charge it with an emotive load it cannot bear,
I prefer to take the tone down from disdain and dislike to gentle leg
pulling and intellectual sparring.78
74 First attested in PRyl 4.629.367 (AD 317-323); also in Orib. Coli. Med. 5.33.8-9
(4th century) and Macar. Aegypt. [?] (ob. c. 390), Horn. 16.9; cf. also Wilkinson
2010:297. It appears again in the 6th century, in Alexander Trallianus 8.2; 11.1;
see LSJ Suppl. s.v. κονδεΐτον (κονδΐτον) and Lampe 1961-68:767.
75 See Baldwin 1985:237-40, who traces the beginning of the Byzantines'
familiarity with Latin literature from the 4th century to its decline in the 7th or
8th century.
76 Wilkinson 2010:297.
77 Wilkinson 2010:298.
78 Harrison 1975 captures this in his witty translation (no. 35).
87
The third epigram also concerns a medicine, this time the unknown
dizyphon:
ούκ άλόγως έν +διζύφοις δύναμίν τινα θείαν

είναι εφην. χθες γοΰν δίζυφον έν χρονίω
ήπιάλω κάμνοντι τεταρταίω περιήψα,
και γέγονεν ταχέως οία κρότων υγιής.
I did not wrongly say that in dizyphi there is some

divine power. Yesterday, at least, I applied
dizyphon to a man afflicted with chronic quartan fever,
and he became at once as healthy as a tick.
(9.503)
The word δίζυφον is recorded elsewhere only once, in a papyrus dated to

the 2nd/3rd century AD (POxy 6.920.1), and is equated with ζύζυφον, a
tree bearing the jujube berry.79 In the epigram Palladas claims he was
correct in believing in the healing power of this plant since it immediately
cured a man suffering from a fever that recurred every fourth day, which
sounds like malaria. Having impressed his reader with the learned medical
diagnosis and cure (έν χρονίω | ήπιάλω κάμνοντι τεταρταίω περιήψα),
Palladas closes with a witty and lively simile: the man became as healthy as
a tick (κρότων). The Suda lexicon reports a similar expression, κροτώνος
υγιέστερος ('sicker than a tick') as being proverbial, and cites Zenobius,
who explains the proverb and refers to Menander as an example.80 For
Zenobius, active in Rome during the reign of Hadrian (117-138), the
expression was already a proverb; the occurrence in Menander of Athens
(342/41-293/89), two centuries later and in another locality, is an
indication of the widespread use of the proverb before it was adapted by
Palladas.
79 LS J; cf. Paton 1958:3.279 η. 1; Beckby 1968:3.802.

80 Zenobius, Paroemiae Centuria 6.27: υγιέστερος κρότωνος· επί των πάνυ
ύγιαινόντων ή παροιμία, από ζώου τοΰ κρότωνος. λεΐον γαρ έστιν δλον, και χωρίς
αμυχής, και μηδέν έχων σίνος. μέμνηται τούτου Μένανδρος έν Λοκροΐς ('healthier
than a tick: the proverb relating to the extremely healthy, from the life of the tick.
For it is entirely smooth, without a scratch and having no damage. There is
mention of this in Menander's Locri'); Von Leutsch & Schneidewin 1839:169.
Strabo 6.262 credits the provenance of the proverb to the healthful town of
Croton in Sicily (και την παροιμίαν δέ ύγιέστερον Κρότωνος λέγουσαν εντεύθεν
είρήσθαι φασιν, 'and they say that the proverb "healthier than Croton" arose from
there')· Cf. also Stephanus s.v. κρότων: 'proverbio dici coepit'; LSJ s.v., who refer
only to 'Men. 318'= Fr. 318 Kock, 263 Koerte).
88
Conclusion
Literary analysis of the twenty-two epigrams above shows that Palladas did
not limit himself to serious and harsh criticism and negative judgements. In
the discussed epigrams he is seen advocating positive values, such as honest
labour (9.5, 6; 11.288), the inevitable punishment of crime (9.378),
friendship advanced by the art of writing (9.401), and the lesson that one
should be content with what one has (11.307). He also exhibits feelings
such as kindness and humour (6.60, 61; 16.207), amused contemplation of
certain types of people (11.288, 373, 377, 386), mild contempt (9.393;
11.384), sympathy (10.89), while also exhibiting his linguistic virtuosity in
punning (11.353, 373, 384), irony (7.610; 9.393), neologisms (9.502, 503)
and exploiting the proverbial (9.379).
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'HE SMILES AND IS GENTLE': THE LIGHTER SIDE OF PALLADAS OF ALEXANDRIA

Author(s): William Henderson

ΉΕ SMILES AND IS GENTLE: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF

We recall the verdict of Georg Luck, who criticised Palladas' epigrams

* I am most grateful to the anonymous referees for comments, corrections

'more sympathetic' epigrams which have not received the analytical

There is no better place to start in the process of uncovering the smiling

δχνη, χειρός έμής γλυκερός πόνος, f| μεν έφ' ύγρω

This pear-tree is the sweet product of the toil of my hand,

Palladas expresses his pride in having pruned a pear-tree. The epigram is

3 See also Henderson 2012. In correspondence, Luis Arturo Guichard has

άχράς εην· θήκας σέο χερσί μυρίπνοον δχνην,

ή πάρος έν δρυμοΐσι νόθης ζείδωρος όπώρης

Formerly a wild-pear in the woods, alien of a fruitful

Palladas - if he knew this particular epigram - has reworked it into

αντί βοός χρυσέου τ' αναθήματος "Ισιδι τούσδε

Instead of a bull and golden offering to Isis

ώ ξυρόν ούράνιον, ξυρόν δλβιον, φ πλοκαμΐδας

Ο celestial razor, happy razor with which Pamphilion

γυμνός "Ερως· δια τοϋτο γελά και μείλιχός έστιν·

13 The epithet is also used of Ceres (h.Cer. 25, 459).

κουρεύς και ραφιδεΰς κατεναντίον ήλθον αγώνος,

A barber and a cobbler competed against each other,

17 Franke 1899:16: 'Amoris imaginem a recentiore artifice factam describit';

εί μοναχοί, τί τοσοίδε; τοσοίδε δέ, πώς πάλι μοϋνοι;

If solitaries, why so many? If so many, how again solitary?

The etymological punning on μοναχοί, μιοϋνοι, μοναχών and μονάδα is

ipsi se monachos Graio nomine dicunt,

28 Sozomen (6.29] mentions that Apollos of Hermoupolis became famous and

Wilkinson comments on the uses and meanings of μοναχός in Greek

ουδείς και καθαρός και μείλιχος ηλυθεν άρχων

No official has come here both honest and benevolent,

33 Wilkinson 2010:302-03, with further literature.

Palladas attacks particular officials in other epigrams,37 and in one epigram

37 Gessius and Damonicus; cf. Wilkinson 2010:304-05 n. 34.

στυγνήν την Νίκην τις ίδών κατά την πόλιν έχθές

When a man saw a gloomy Nike in town yesterday,

Nike explains to a bypasser that her depressed state of mind is due to a

43 Palladas' predilection for anecdotal structure was noted by Galli Calderini

πάντων μουσοπόλων ή Καλλιόπη θεός εστίν

The goddess of all minstrels is Calliope;

The comic effect of the witty punning on Καλλιόπη and Ταβλιόπη, a

Παυλω κωμωδω κατ' δναρ στάς είπε Μένανδρος

In a dream Menander stood by the comedian Paulus and said:

Έρμολύκου θυγάτηρ μεγάλω παρέλεκτο πιθήκω

Hermolycus' daughter slept with a great ape

Paton comments: 'The epigram seems very confused. Is Hermione the

49 LSJ s.v. 2 and 3.

Victims of misfortune, since it is beyond the control of human beings,

πολλά μεταξύ πέλει κύλικος και χείλεος άκρου.

53 There is no apparent reason for viewing this Hermione as the daughter of

υίον έχεις τον "Ερωτα, γυναίκα δε την Αφροδίτην

You have a son called Eros and a wife called Aphrodite;

An unnamed blacksmith with a wife called Aphrodite and a son called

56 LS s.v. offa■ Beckby 1968:3.824. Franke 1899:14-15 expressed amazement at

ηρπασέ τις νύμφη ν, και τον γάμον ηρπασε δαίμων

Someone carried off a bride, and fate carried off a wedding,

δρνεον ήσθίομεν κεκλημένοι αθλιον άνδρες

Invited, we men ate some wretched poultry,

φασί παροιμιακώς'καν ύς δάκοι ανδρα πονηρόν.'

The proverb says: 'Even a pig would bite a wicked man.'

It is uncertain whether the poet's rephrasing of the proverb is limited to

65 LSJ s.v. αίγυπιός, γΰψ.