In ancient literature writing and reading are frequently equated with wayfaring. Given the origins of the genre, the image of the traveling reader gains a special meaning in the context of epigram collections: the reception situation of epigraphic poetry, which forms part of antiquity's material culture, is transferred to the literary landscape of the bookroll, and the traditional passer-by morphs into a metaphorical wanderer. Just as inscriptions are concerned with catching the traveler's attention, the epigrams contained within a libellus have to attract the interest of the reader who is moving through the book.

No abstract

if we were to read ouÒ gá r eÒ stin eÒ co´menon shmeĩon shmeĩou, toũto d' eÒ stì diaí resiv hÕ su´nqesiv, the meaning being that a point cannot be immediately next to another point, and the point is practically the same as division and composition. 9 Still, it need to be explained why an interpreter should produce this gloss on a wellknown use of the term shmeĩon. There seems to be a simple answer. The preceding argument on points (Gen. Corr. 317a2-11) has consistently been using the term stigmh´, and the phrase that we are concerned with is the first passage using shmeĩon since 316b31. 10 Thus, the interpreter would certainly have expected stigmh in the conclusion, and when he found only shmeĩon, he helped future readers by writing hÕ (or h Ø toi) stigmh`stigmhv, probably as an interlinear gloss. Later this helpful comment found its way into the text thereby corrupting it. Finally, I should point out that this particular kind of corruption is known from other parts of the Aristotelian texts as well. Two examples will suffice. In the De Anima 416a11 all the most important manuscripts read tw n swmá twn h Õ tw n stoicei´wn, but Torstrik, supported by the ancient commentators, rightly, in my opinion, excised hÕ tw n stoiceí wn as a gloss, and he was followed by Ross. And in the De Memoria 452a29 almost all manuscripts read: w Ó spe@ ga`r fú sei to´de metat o´de eÒ stí n, ouÓ tw kaì eÒ nergeí a ¼. However, a few manuscripts 11 read hÕ duna´mei instead of eÒ stí n, and the reason for this is clearly that h Õ duna´mei was at one time written as a helpful comment on eÒ stí n above the line. Unfortunately, some scribe mistook the comment for a correction and therefore replaced eÒ stí n with the gloss. To sum up, I believe that the usual interpretations of Aristotle's De Generatione et Corruptione 317a11-12 are wrong, but the passage can easily be understood through the textual emendation proposed above, which clarifies not only the meaning of the term shmeĩon but also the analysis of the following toũto d' eÒ stì diaí resiv h Õ su´nqesiv.

No abstract

This article offers a new reading of Pankrates’ poem on Hadrian’s and Antinoos’ hunt of a lion in 130 AD, examining both its intertextual dialogue with Homer and its evocation of Egyptian imagery. I first show how the raging lion, which emerges directly out of a Homeric simile (Il. 20.163–164), has been transformed from comparatum to comparandum: he no longer serves to illustrate a warrior’s force, but has himself become part of the main narrative and the subject of analogy. Contemplating the aition in which the text culminated I argue that the Antinoeian lotus, which grew out of the lion’s blood, ought to be read against the backdrop of Egyptian mythology and iconography as an emblem of rebirth. Both Pankrates’ allusions to Homer, which subtly evoke Achilles’ loss of Patroklos, and the symbolic function of the lotus strongly suggest that the poem was composed in the aftermath of Antinoos’ death and conceived as a celebration of the youth’s apotheosis.