Two dead warriors

Not very seasonal, I know. Two epitaphs for men killed in battle, the first from Attica in the sixth century, the second from Eretria in the fourth.

IV

Pause here and grieve beside a dead man’s tomb,
Croesus’, whom long ago the war-god slew
As he was in the forefront of the fight.

VIII

The world will never lack a monument
To tell your quality, Lysandrides:
You call a witness we must all believe,
Ares, who made you king of all the field;
Conquered by Fate, in death you gifted fame
To Andros, island garlanded by sea.

 

Three epigrams for Christmas

Happy Christmas, everybody! The following epigrams are from Book 1 of the Greek Anthology, the editor of which, Constantine Cephalas, gave pride of place to poems on Christian themes. None are assigned an author; instead we get explanatory headings. All three are in the book (ideal stocking filler).

37. On the birth of Christ

Trumpets and lightning, and the earth resounds;
But to your Virgin Mother you came down
And trod all silently upon your way.

38. On the same

This manger was as Heaven, and was more;
For Heaven is this newborn’s handiwork.

39. On the shepherds and the angels

One dance, one song for men and angels too,
For man and God have now become as one.

Three performers buried at Athens

These inscribed poems too are from Hunter's lovely new Green-and-Yellow. All are epitaphs from fourth-century Athens.

 

The entry for Euthias in Brill's New Pauly by Nesselrath (so hardly 'new') reads:

 

'(Εὐθίας; Euthías). Attic comic poet, who came second in a contest around the mid 4th cent. BC [1. test.]. Of his plays, neither titles nor fragments are extant.'

 

In other words, if it weren't for this epitaph (the middle one below), we would never have heard of him. He was a playwright; did he also act? And as for Potamo of Thebes, who died at Athens: was he just visiting, perhaps to perform at a festival, or had he made the city his home? The poems let you spin your own story, though clearly theirs were well enough known in their day.

VII

Hellas awarded for the piper’s arts
First prize in every match to Potamo,
A Theban, and he lies within this tomb.
Olympicus his father grew in fame
By virtue of his powers of memory,
Such was the boy he raised, a prodigy
And touchstone to the clever and the wise.

 

IX

All Greece admires him and it marks his loss
In every sacred contest: Euthias,
And rightly so. His gift was not innate
But won by training, and he rose in grade
In sweetly-laughing Comedy, the art
That earns the grape-wreath, to the second place;
So said the vote; but rank him first in grace.

X

Had Fortune brought you safe along the way
To prime of life, for sure, Macarius,
You would have risen high in hope and name,
And held the reins of Tragedy in Greece.
That future did not happen; all the same,
Though young in death, your sober character
And quality assure sufficient fame.