This paper considers the subject of signed funerary epigrams and seeks to clarify where, when and how the authors of such poems revealed their own identities through explicit claims to authorship. The long tradition of inscribed epigrams has produced thousands of verses carved in stone and monuments which are to be found all over the Greek and Hellenised world. Not only does the sheer volume of this body of work confirm that there was an undeniable appreciation for this form of poetry and its power to immortalise, but it also shows a progressive dissemination of the basic literary culture. The main aim of these inscribed epigrams was to perpetuate the memory of the deceased, rather than to honour and sing the praises of the poet who had composed the work. The poems share a certain similarity to other handcrafted works or physical artistic creations, where the presence of a signature was the exception rather than the norm. These exceptions manifested themselves, as one would expect, during the Hellenistic period, from the second century B.C., and they grew in number during the Imperial era, in particular between the second and third centuries A.D. A few poets, spurred on by a desire to "protect their rights as authors", and by a complete confidence in their own skills, signed their works and thereby came out of the shadows of anonymity. This catalogue lists the names of thirty-two known, or presumed, poets.The signatures were shown clearly either at the head or at the foot of the verses; alternatively, they could be incorporated into the poems themselves. The documents are divided into two sections which are based on the positioning of the signatures in the inscription: - epigrams where the signature is in the prose - epigrams where the signature is in the verses I have distinguished those poems which contain puzzles, where the riddles and word-puzzles contain the name of the poet, or of the deceased poet who wrote the epigram during his lifetime.

Autori di epigrammi sepolcrali greci su pietra. Firme di poeti occasionali o professionisti

Eleonora Santin (1)

1 HiSoMA - Histoire et Sources des Mondes antiques

Domaines: Etudes classiques; Histoire; Littératures

Eleonora Santin. Autori di epigrammi sepolcrali greci su pietra. Firme di poeti occasionali o professionisti. Bardi Editore, 24 (2), 2009, Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 8821810046, 9788821810046. ⟨hal-01674785⟩