Happy #NationalPuppyDay: A Homeric Simile and Puppy Sacrifice

Odyssey 9.287-293

“So I was speaking, but [the Kyklops] did not answer me because of his pitiless heart.
But then he leapt up, shot out his hands at my companions,
Grabbed two together, and struck them against the ground
Like puppies. Brains were flowing out from them and they dyed the ground.
After tearing them limb from limb, he prepared himself a meal.
He ate them like a mountain-born lion and left nothing behind,
The innards, the meat, and the marrow-filled bones.”

Image result for Ancient Greek dog

ὣς ἐφάμην, ὁ δέ μ’ οὐδὲν ἀμείβετο νηλέϊ θυμῷ,
ἀλλ’ ὅ γ’ ἀναΐξας ἑτάροισ’ ἐπὶ χεῖρας ἴαλλε,
σὺν δὲ δύω μάρψας ὥς τε σκύλακας ποτὶ γαίῃ
κόπτ’· ἐκ δ’ ἐγκέφαλος χαμάδις ῥέε, δεῦε δὲ γαῖαν.
τοὺς δὲ διὰ μελεϊστὶ ταμὼν ὁπλίσσατο δόρπον·
ἤσθιε δ’ ὥς τε λέων ὀρεσίτροφος, οὐδ’ ἀπέλειπεν,
ἔγκατά τε σάρκας τε καὶ ὀστέα μυελόεντα.

My perplexity over this passage provides a good example of how Twitter can be used for good. Last year, I asked a question about killing puppies got some great responses. One found a later passage that deals with puppies and has some interesting thematic resonance with Odysseus’ development:

https://twitter.com/TCleveland4Real/status/856587459827838976

Several mentioned that this is a typical way to deal with unwanted puppies:

https://twitter.com/Jen_Dodgson/status/856583596416548864

And several respondents also made nice points about the helplessness of the puppies in the image.

I think that all of these ideas are essential to a full interpretation of this passage. But, I do wonder if, in addition, we should consider ancient Greek practices of puppy sacrifice. I know that the following accounts are later, but what if we imagine the simile used here as evoking ideas of purification through sacrifice?

https://twitter.com/CarlyASilver/status/936282935669542912

Plutarch, Roman Questions 280 c

“Nearly all the Greeks made use of the dog in sacrifice and some still do today, for cleansing rituals. They also bring puppies for Hekate along with other purification materials; and they rub down people who need cleansing with the puppies.”

τῷ δὲ κυνὶ πάντες ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν Ἕλληνες ἐχρῶντο καὶ χρῶνταί γε μέχρι νῦν ἔνιοι σφαγίῳ πρὸς τοὺς καθαρμούς· καὶ τῇ Ἑκάτῃ σκυλάκια μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων καθαρσίων ἐκφέρουσι καὶ περιμάττουσι σκυλακίοις τοὺς ἁγνισμοῦ δεομένους 

Plutarch, Romulus 21.10

“The Greeks in their purification bring out the puppies and in many places use them in the practice called periskulakismos [‘carrying puppies around’]”

καὶ γὰρ ῞Ελληνες ἔν τε τοῖς καθαρσίοις σκύλακας ἐκφέρουσι καὶ πολλαχοῦ χρῶνται τοῖς λεγομένοις περισκυλακισμοῖς·

Pausanias, Laconica 15

“Here, each of these groups of youths sacrifice a puppy to Enyalius, god of war, because they believe that it is best to make this most valiant of the domesticated animals to the bravest of the gods. I don’t know any other Greeks who believe it is right to sacrifice puppies to the gods except for the Kolophonians. For the Kolophonians sacrifice a black female puppy to the goddess of the Crossroad. The sacrifices of both the Kolophonians and the Spartan youths take place at night.”

ἐνταῦθα ἑκατέρα μοῖρα τῶν ἐφήβων σκύλακα κυνὸς τῷ Ἐνυαλίῳ θύουσι, θεῶν τῷ ἀλκιμωτάτῳ κρίνοντες ἱερεῖον κατὰ γνώμην εἶναι τὸ ἀλκιμώτατον ζῷον τῶν ἡμέρων. κυνὸς δὲ σκύλακας οὐδένας ἄλλους οἶδα Ἑλλήνων νομίζοντας θύειν ὅτι μὴ Κολοφωνίους· θύουσι γὰρ καὶ Κολοφώνιοι μέλαιναν τῇ Ἐνοδίῳ σκύλακα. νυκτεριναὶ δὲ ἥ τε Κολοφωνίων θυσία καὶ τῶν ἐν Λακεδαίμονι ἐφήβων καθεστήκασιν.

Plutarch, Roman Questions 290 d

“Indeed, the ancients did not consider this animal to be clean either: it was never sacrificed to one of the Olympian goes, but when it is given to Hekate at the cross-roads, it functions as part of the sacrifices that turn away and cleanse evil. In Sparta, they sacrifice dogs to the bloodiest of the gods, Enyalios. In Boiotia, it is the public cleansing ritual to walk between the parts of a dog that has been cut in half. The Romans themselves, during the Wolf-Festival which they call the Lupercalia, they sacrifice a dog in the month of purification.”

Οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ καθαρεύειν ᾤοντο παντάπασιν οἱ παλαιοὶ τὸ ζῷον· καὶ γὰρ Ὀλυμπίων μὲν οὐδενὶ θεῶν καθιέρωται, χθονίᾳ δὲ δεῖπνον Ἑκάτῃ πεμπόμενος εἰς τριόδους ἀποτροπαίων καὶ καθαρσίων ἐπέχει μοῖραν. ἐν δὲ Λακεδαίμονι τῷ φονικωτάτῳ θεῶν Ἐνυαλίῳ σκύλακας ἐντέμνουσι· Βοιωτοῖς δὲ δημοσίᾳ καθαρμός ἐστι κυνὸς διχοτομηθέντος τῶν μερῶν διεξελθεῖν· αὐτοὶ δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι τοῖς Λυκαίοις, ἃ Λουπερκάλια καλοῦσιν, ἐν τῷ καθαρσίῳ μηνὶ κύνα θύουσιν.

Twitter brought another example from Festus

https://twitter.com/CorpusCynicum/status/1024017651788640256

https://twitter.com/CorpusCynicum/status/1024017739529302016

Alternative Facts in Myth: Penelope’s (In)Fidelity

Elsewhere, I posted a bit from Pausanias that discuses Penelope’s gravesite in Arcadia. It also mentions a Mantinean tradition that Penelope was expelled from Ithaca on a suspicion of infidelity. This story is in part reported by Apollodorus, (Ep. 7.38-39)

“Some say that Penelope was corrupted by Antinoos and that Odysseus sent her back to her father Ikarios. When she came to Mantinea in Arcadia she had Pan with Hermes. Others allege that she was killed by Odysseus because of Amphinomos, who seduced her. There are also those who say that Odysseus was charged by the relatives of those he had killed who took Neoptolemos as judge, then king of the islands near Epirus. He handed down a judgment of exile and Odysseus went to Thoas the son of Andraimôn who married him to his daughter. When he died from old age, he left a son Leontophonos.

τινὲς δὲ Πηνελόπην ὑπὸ Ἀντινόου φθαρεῖσαν λέγουσιν ὑπὸ Ὀδυσσέως πρὸς τὸν πατέρα Ἰκάριον ἀποσταλῆναι, γενομένην δὲ τῆς Ἀρκαδίας κατὰ Μαντίνειαν ἐξ Ἑρμοῦ τεκεῖν Πᾶνα: [39] ἄλλοι δὲ δι᾽ Ἀμφίνομον ὑπὸ Ὀδυσσέως αὐτοῦ τελευτῆσαι: διαφθαρῆναι γὰρ αὐτὴν ὑπὸ τούτου λέγουσιν. [40] εἰσὶ δὲ οἱ λέγοντες ἐγκαλούμενον Ὀδυσσέα ὑπὸ τῶν οἰκείων ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀπολωλότων δικαστὴν Νεοπτόλεμον λαβεῖν τὸν βασιλεύοντα τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἤπειρον νήσων, τοῦτον δέ, νομίσαντα ἐκποδὼν Ὀδυσσέως γενομένου Κεφαλληνίαν καθέξειν, κατακρῖναι φυγὴν αὐτοῦ, Ὀδυσσέα δὲ εἰς Αἰτωλίαν πρὸς Θόαντα τὸν Ἀνδραίμονος παραγενόμενον τὴν τούτου θυγατέρα γῆμαι, καὶ καταλιπόντα παῖδα Λεοντοφόνον ἐκ ταύτης γηραιὸν τελευτῆσαι.

Image result for Penelope ancient greek

The detail about Amphinomos might be drawn from a passage in the Odyssey where the narrative provides some insight into Penelope’s mind (16.394-398):

Amphinomos rose and spoke among them,
The dashing son of Nisos, the son of lord Arêtiades,
Who joined the suitors from grain-rich and grassy
Doulikhos. He was especially pleasing to Penelope
For he made good use of his brains.”

τοῖσιν δ’ ᾿Αμφίνομος ἀγορήσατο καὶ μετέειπε,
Νίσου φαίδιμος υἱός, ᾿Αρητιάδαο ἄνακτος,
ὅς ῥ’ ἐκ Δουλιχίου πολυπύρου ποιήεντος
ἡγεῖτο μνηστῆρσι, μάλιστα δὲ Πηνελοπείῃ
ἥνδανε μύθοισι· φρεσὶ γὰρ κέχρητ’ ἀγαθῇσιν·

It is somewhat amusing to compare this to what Telemachus says earlier when he describes the suitors.

Homer, Odyssey 15.518-524

“But I will tell you of another man you might encounter,
Eurymakhos, the shining son of sharp-minded Polyboios,
Whom the Ithakans now look upon the way they would a god.
He is by far the best man remaining and the best
To marry my mother and receive my father’s geras.
But Zeus is the one who knows these things as he rules on high”
Whether or not he will bring about a deadly day for them before a marriage.”

ἀλλά τοι ἄλλον φῶτα πιφαύσκομαι, ὅν κεν ἵκοιο,
Εὐρύμαχον, Πολύβοιο δαΐφρονος ἀγλαὸν υἱόν,
τὸν νῦν ἶσα θεῷ ᾿Ιθακήσιοι εἰσορόωσι·
καὶ γὰρ πολλὸν ἄριστος ἀνὴρ μέμονέν τε μάλιστα
μητέρ’ ἐμὴν γαμέειν καὶ ᾿Οδυσσῆος γέρας ἕξειν.

What to make of this difference? Telemachus’ evaluation appears to be based on Eurymakhos’ standing among the Ithakans. Penelope seems to favor someone who is not Ithakan and whose traits are like her own and her absent husband.

Lykophron in his Alexandra takes the view that Penelope was not faithful (768-773)

“For he will come, he will come to the harbor shelter of Reithron
And the cliffs of Nêritos. And he will see
His whole house upturned from its foundations
By wife-stealing adulterers. And that vixen
Will hollow out his home with shameless whoring,
Pouring out the wretch’s fortune feast by feast”.

ἥξει γάρ, ἥξει ναύλοχον ῾Ρείθρου σκέπας
καὶ Νηρίτου πρηῶνας. ὄψεται δὲ πᾶν
μέλαθρον ἄρδην ἐκ βάθρων ἀνάστατον
μύκλοις γυναικόκλωψιν. ἡ δὲ βασσάρα
σεμνῶς κασωρεύουσα κοιλανεῖ δόμους,
θοίναισιν ὄλβον ἐκχέασα τλήμονος.

Lykophron is positively chaste compared to the account provided in the Scholia:

“And Douris writes in his work on the lewdness of Agathokleos that Penelope had sex with all of the suitors and then gave birth to the goat-shaped Pan whom they took up to be one of the gods.  He is talking nonsense about Pan, for Pan is the child of Hermes and a different Penelope. Another story is that Pan is the child of Zeus and Hubris.”

Καὶ Δοῦρις δὲ ἐν τῷ περὶ ᾿Αγαθοκλέους μάχλον φησὶ τὴν Πηνελόπην καὶ συνελθοῦσαν πᾶσι τοῖς μνηστῆρσι γεννῆσαι τὸν τραγοσκελῆ Πᾶνα ὃν εἰς θεοὺς ἔχουσιν (FHG II 47942). φλυαρεῖ δὲ περὶ τοῦ Πανός· ὁ Πὰν γὰρ ῾Ερμοῦ καὶ Πηνελόπης ἄλλης †T. καὶ ἕτερος δὲ Πὰν Διὸς καὶ ῞Υβρεως.

Silly Debaters, Life is to be Lived!

Seneca, Moral Epistles 45.10-13

“Why do you detain me with that thing you call the liar’s paradox about which so many books have been written? Look, my whole life is a lie. Argue against that for, return to the truth, if you are precise enough. This judges things to be necessary when the greater portion is superfluous. And the part that is not superfluous possesses nothing of consequence in it, it has no potential to make someone fortunate and happy.

Something is not essentially good just because it is necessary. If that were the case, we would debase what good is, calling bread and oatmeal and other things needed for life ‘good’. The good must be necessary but what is necessary is not always good since rather basic things are needed to live. No one is so unaware of the true value of the good as to reduce it to daily needs.

What? Should you not rededicate your energy to showing all people what a tremendous waste of time superfluous things are and that many have moved through life merely collecting tools for living? Think about individuals, examine people altogether, there is no life not looking ahead to tomorrow.

How much of a problem is this, you ask? It is endless–for these people don’t live, they are always about to live. They put everything off. Even if we were constantly vigilant, life would outpace us. But now life sees us delaying and it passes us as if it were someone else’s and although it ends on our last day, it is dying on every day before it.”

Quid me detines in eo, quem tu ipse pseudomenon appellas, de quo tantum librorum conpositum est? Ecce tota mihi vita mentitur; hanc coargue, hanc ad verum, si acutus es, redige. Necessaria iudicat, quorum magna pars supervacua est. Etiam quae non est supervacua, nihil in se momenti habet in hoc, ut possit fortunatum beatumque praestare. Non enim statim bonum est, si quid necessarium est; aut proicimus bonum, si hoc nomen pani et polentae damus et ceteris, sine quibus vita non ducitur. Quod bonum est, utique necessarium est; quod necessarium est, non utique bonum est, quoniam quidem necessaria sunt quaedam eadem vilissima. Nemo usque eo dignitatem boni ignorat, ut illud ad haec in diem utilia demittat.

Quid ergo? Non eo potius curam transferes, ut ostendas omnibus magno temporis inpendio quaeri supervacua et multos transisse vitam, dum vitae instrumenta conquirunt? Recognosce singulos, considera universos; nullius non vita spectat in crastinum. Quid in hoc sit mali, quaeris? Infinitum. Non enim vivunt, sed victuri sunt. Omnia dififerunt. Etiamsi adtenderemus, tamen nos vita praecurreret; nunc vero cunctantes quasi aliena transcurrit et ultimo die finitur, omni perit.

meme from Dazed and confused with Matthew mcconaughey saying "what is necessary is not always good" in latin

Medicae: Women Doctors from the Roman Empire

Some more Non-Elite Latin from the tireless Brandon Conley

  1. AE 1937, 0017.
inscription for blog
(Image from EDH)

Hic iacet Sarman/na medica vixit / pl(us) m(inus) an(nos) LXX Pientius / Pientinus fili(us) et / Honorata norus / titolum posuerunt / in pace

“Here lies Sarmana the doctor. She lived around 70 years. Pientius, her son Pientinus, and daughter-in-law Honorata placed this monument. In peace.”

 

  1. AE 2001, 00263

C(aius) Naevius C(ai) l(ibertus) Phi[lippus] / medicus chirurg(us) / Naevia C(ai) l(iberta) Clara / medica philolog(a) / in fro(nte) ped(es) XI s(emis) / in agr(o) ped(es) XVI

“Gaius Naevius Philippus, freedman of Gaius, doctor and surgeon. Naevia Clara, freedwoman of Gaius, doctor and scholar. (Tomb size) 11.5 feet wide, 16 feet deep.”

 

  1. CIL 1.497
Arachne
(Image from Arachne)

D(is) M(anibus) s(acrum) / Iuliae Saturninae / ann(orum) XXXXV / uxori incompara/bili me[dic]ae optimae / mulieri sanctissimae / Cassius Philippus / maritus ob meritis / h(ic) s(ita) e(st) s(it) t(ibi) t(erra) l(evis)

“A sacred rite to the spirits of the dead. To Julia Saturnina, age 45, an incomparable wife, the best doctor, the most noble woman. Gaius Philippus, her husband, (made this) for her merits. She is buried here. May the earth be light on you.”

 

  1. CIL 6.09616

D(is) M(anibus) / Terentiae / Niceni Terentiae / Primaes medicas li/bertae fecerunt / Mussius Antiochus / et Mussia Dionysia / fil(ii) m(atri) b(ene) m(erenti)

“To the spirits of the dead. To Terentia of Nicaea, freedwoman of the doctor Terentia Prima. Mussius Antiochus and Mussia Dionysia, her children, made this for their well-deserving mother.”

  1. CIL 13.02019
EDCS
(Image from EDCS)

Metilia Donata medic[a] / de sua pecunia dedit / l(ocus) d(atus) d(ecreto) d(ecurionum)

“Metilia Donata, a doctor, gave this with her own money. This spot was given by decree of the decurions.”

  1. CIL 11.06394

…xia viva fecit / Tutilia Cn(aei) Tutili leib(erta) / Menotia hoc moniment(um) / fecit Octavia[e] Auli l(ibertae) / Artimisiae medicae

…(?) “Tutilia Menotia, freedwoman of Gnaeus Tutilus, made this monument for the doctor Octavia Artemisia, freedwoman of Aulus.”

A Mourner’s Meal

Slika and Incense. 40th day memorial, 18th March 2023, Istanbul. Courtesy: Nehna.

ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ ὁ κόκκος τοῦ σίτου πεσὼν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἀποθάνῃ, αὐτὸς μόνος μένει: ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ, πολὺν καρπὸν φέρει.

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. (John 12:24)

Οὐ θέλουν εἰς τὰ κόλλυβα τῶν προτελευτησάντων ἀμύγδαλα, ροΐδια, καρυδοκουκουνάρια, καὶ κανναβούριν καὶ φακὴν καὶ στραγαλοσταφίδας;

Don’t they need for the koliva almonds, pomegranates, walnuts and pine kernels, hemp seeds, lentils, chickpeas and raisins? (Ptochoprodromos, II 43-45)

It was an austere center table, fit for the occasion. A small rectangular koliva on a metal tray, with the vague shape of a cross on it and adorned only with chocolate drops, a white candle and a burner bowl with incense. It didn’t resemble the mourners’ tables I remember from the Greek Orthodox villages in northern Lebanon around Koura and Akkar, with their ornate “Rahmee” (the Arabic name for Koliva in Lebanon), boiled wheat kernels covered in pistachios, pecans, almonds and raisins, decorated with powdered sugar and passed around in glass bowls in the mourners’ homes during the different stages of commemorations of the dead.

But this wasn’t just any other mourners’ home. After a devastating earthquake shook the earth in Turkey and Syria, Antioch was destroyed (it is said that about half of the buildings in modern-day Antakya collapsed, but that roughly 90% of them will have to be demolished), and on the 40th day of mourning, as per the Orthodox as well as Muslim traditions, Antiochians gathered in Istanbul, to commemorate their dead.

In the Eastern churches, it is believed that the soul continues to wander the Earth for another 40 days after the initial death. While wandering about, the soul visits significant places from their life as well as their fresh graves. But in a situation such as Antioch’s, what kind of final rest would they find if their city has been destroyed together with their own lives? What if there’s no grave?

A natural disaster that blended with political vacuum has killed thousands, many are still missing, news of deceased people arrive constantly and millions are displaced across a dozen provinces of Turkey and Syria. Antiochians are now living in tents, have gone into exile, or simply remain in the limbo of uncertainty. It brings to mind the words American writer Susan Sontag had for the people of Sarajevo in 1993: “For they also know themselves to be terminally weak; waiting, hoping, not wanting to hope, knowing that they aren’t going to be saved. They are humiliated by their disappointment, by their fear, and by the indignities of daily life.” 

Source: Twitter

This week an iconic picture began making the rounds of the Internet, a nearly destroyed house in Antioch, with a scribble on the wall that reads: If the house collapses, please call, there’s a dead body inside. Other images like that followed.

During a visit to Antakya, on February 20th, a few hours before the third major earthquake which destroyed St. Ilyas Church in Samandağ and that we survived by sheer chance, a stroll near the now heavily militarized old city of Antakya, opened our senses to the reality of Antioch’s destruction: A strong smell of putrescine, a volatile diamine that results from the breakdown of fatty acids in the putrefying tissue of dead bodies, and which our species is conditioned to be repulsed by. The number of bodies under the rubble is unknown.

Many others have been buried in  unmarked mass graves, and the luckier ones, were able to retrieve the bodies of their relatives, with the help of rescue workers, often paying for additional equipment, and transporting the bodies themselves, to their resting places.

The truth is that it’s not possible to call mourning the spectacle of human cruelty that Antiochians endured over the 40 days that elapsed between February 6th and March 18th.

Anna Maria Beylunioglu and Can Terbiyeli, 40th day memorial, March 18, 2023, Istanbul.

In Istanbul, the gathering took place at the office of ISTOS, a publishing house born 12 years ago out of the initiative of members of the Istanbul Greek community to publish Greek works in Turkish and vice versa, whose nearby cafe disappeared with the pandemic and one of the last places where I sat before the lockdowns in March 2020. In fact, it was their volume “Muhacirname”, on the poetry of the Karamanlides refugees from Central Anatolia, what first inspired our work for the exhibition “After Utopia: The Birds”, now at Sadberk Hanim Museum in Istanbul. 

The atmosphere that day was friendly but solemn, as mourners and friends gathered around the table with “slika” (the Antiochian name for koliva) and incense, sharing their grief and testimonies of loss. For many members of the Antiochian community in Turkey and elsewhere–there’s a significant diaspora in Europe and the Middle East, the 40 days of mourning have actually been occupied with worrying, self-organizing, raising funds, finding help, or simply avoiding death. The number 40 contains multiple meanings in the Bible: The Great Flood lasted 40 days, the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, prophet Elijah walked 40 days to reach Horeb. 

Two women, amidst tears, shared their personal stories not only of the gruesome events of the day and the abandonment to which Antiochians were subjected, not only of grief and the loss of death, but also of the ongoing tragedy which overlaps with a disarray of facts that we already know: There are still bodies under the rubble; container houses are being talked about while there are people without tents; even those with tents are not protected from the seasonal floods and the rain.

Slika. Courtesy: The author.

But the intimate nature of their testimonies gave a new dimension to suffering: In fact, we remain at the gates and have not quite perambulated the deep terrain. As people were so overwhelmed with survival, of themselves, and others, there was no time to feel grief, it is all still on the surface. These women, dressed in black, reminded me of Aeschylus’ Suppliants, a play about ancient women refugees seeking asylum at a border, depicting not only their struggle to safety but the strife within the city that ultimately shelters them. King Pelasgus speaks: 

ἦ κάρτα νείκους τοῦδ᾽ ἔσω παροίχομαι
θέλω δ᾽ ἄιδρις μᾶλλον ἢ σοφὸς κακῶν
εἶναι.

For truly, it is to my undoing that I have come into this quarrel and yet I prefer to be unskilled rather than practiced in the lore of foretelling ill. (Aesch. Supp. 452-454)

But so far there’s no city welcoming the now-refugees of Antioch. Even though people want more than anything to return to their own city, if not to the same houses, but to the city itself, destroyed so many times and just as many rebuilt, encapsulated in the slogan “Geri Döneceğiz” (we will be back) scribbled on many buildings in the region.

“Cevlik mama”. Courtesy: The author.

I myself thought of spray painting it on the ruins of our small house in the village of Çevlik, which completely collapsed, after I saw it on February 11th, on my way to the earthquake region. My heart sank for the first time. I spent a few minutes wandering about, unable to cry, calling out loud the nickname of our kitty friend, “Çevlik mama”, the most ferocious and loyal feral cat, who visited our doorstep every morning. We still haven’t found her, but we will continue searching for her, with the hope that somehow she has survived. But this is only a small metaphor for the unspeakable destruction (and hope).

The Istanbul gathering was organized by the platform Nehna, founded only over a year ago, with the mission to publish materials related to the history of Antiochian Christians but that overnight turned into a self-organizing and activism front after the earthquake, as well as a media face for Antioch, in particular the charismatic Anna Maria Beylunioğlu, an academic based in Istanbul, and the Stanford history PhD candidate Emre Can Dağlioğlu.

But they’re not the entirety of the team; Ketrin Köpru was present at the memorial in Istanbul even though she’s more often in Samandağ coordinating resources, as well as Mișel Uyar in Iskenderun, and others such as Can Terbiyeli and Ferit Tekbaș. And there’re so many other people involved in the relief efforts for Antioch I couldn’t possibly list them all or what they do. Sometimes I feel as if the memorial was also a celebration of the life of those courageous people who against all odds have continued working for this beleaguered region.

A young psychologist, Barıș Yapar, himself an earthquake refugee, spoke at the gathering about the reactions to life-changing natural disasters that go through different phases–heroism, honeymoon, disillusionment and restoration. But he hastened to add that in a situation such as this when relief is not stable, people can’t create a sustainable way to cope with their trauma and instead, go through all the different phases at the same time.

Laki Vingas, a prominent lay leader of the Greek community in Istanbul was also present there, offering not only words of support for the Antiochian community but also the preparedness of Istanbul’s Greek establishment to support them in the reconstruction. Although differing in language and some traditions, the small community of Antiochians and Greeks shares the same faith and fate, and belongs to the same ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Turkey due to political geography. 

A striking testimony was that of Ibrahim Usta, a rather known face in the Old City of Antakya, for being one of the city’s most famous humuscu, a traditional humus maker, of which there are so few left. If you had been to his place, near the Bade winehouse and both the Greek Orthodox and Protestant churches (all of them now in ruins), you would taste this humble paste made of chickpeas or beans, and taste the whole of Antakya–it was more than just food, it was an ancient foam made out of silk. He spoke vividly about the earthquake day, the fear, the destruction, but more than anything, the loneliness, the abandonment that hovered over Antioch like a thick fog.

The slika on the table was plain and only slightly sugared, fit for such an occasion, where mourning has not even begun, let alone ended. Perhaps one day they will serve a lavish koliva adorned with almonds, pomegranates, walnuts and raisins, as the Byzantines did, and richly covered in fine powdered sugar, once Antioch has risen again and the mourning has been concluded. 

Thinking about food and the history of slika/koliva, makes me reflect on the long journey of Antioch and its people into the ancient past of Cilicia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Anna Maria Beylunioğlu, herself a researcher on the histories of minority cuisines in the region, writes that there are different versions on the origin of slika (also called hadig by Armenians and danik by Kurds): “It is a tradition carried from Central Asia, based on shamanic beliefs. It is said that it became widespread in Anatolia in the 3rd or 4th century.”

Beylunioğlu also notes that the recipe was known to the 12th Byzantine poet Ptochoprodromos, whose recipe is quoted above. But recipes vary greatly from place to place, even within the Antakya-Iskenderun-Mersin Arabic-speaking Orthodox continuum. She relates a funny tale about how Mersin’s Christians describe Samandağ’s slika as “the work of the poor”, and Mersin’s nut-rich slika fillings are likened by Antiochians to a “cookie”. 

But I think the story goes much further back: Κόλλυβα is the plural form of the rarely used singular κόλλυβο, derived from the Classical Greek κόλλυβος, a small coin or gold weight. In the Hellenistic world, with Antioch as its capital, the neuter plural form took the meaning of small pies made of boiled wheat. This is from where the ritual sense of koliva derives.

The Charonion monument, Antakya. Courtesy: The author.

It also overlaps with an even older past: For the Ancient Greeks, the beginning of spring was the Athenian festival of Anthesteria, held for three days in the month of Anthesterion (February-March), as a rite of passage from winter to spring, from death to life. During the third day of the festival, Greeks prepared panspermia, a multigrain soup based on boiled wheat, offered to Hermes Chthonius and the dead. The god is associated with the underworld, and a psychopomp who helps guide the souls of the deceased into the afterlife, just like Antioch’s famous Charonion. I guess this is the first predecessor of koliva, which evolved into its current form around the 4th century. 

Theodore Balsamon, a 12th century Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, maintains that the practice of koliva as a ritual food originated with Athanasius the Great, the 20th pope of Alexandria, during the reign of Julian the Apostate, in the 4th century; he is known for the destruction of a Christian shrine in the site of the former temple of Apollo in Harbiye, which is today still used for divination practices by Arab Alawites.

This unbreakable thread connecting present-day Antioch to its many pasts is one of the reasons for the incessant mourning of its people, for whom this past is buried deep inside themselves, even if the destructions of Antioch have erased a lot of the archaeological evidence of its many lives. The preparation of slika, with the long cooking hours of the blessed wheat, and the nine basic ingredients, representing the nine ranks of angels looking over human affairs, symbolizes this deep past. 

But slika is not only a tradition among Orthodox Christians; it is also used by Arab Alawites and other communities, to mark not only death but also birth, the toothing of children, or the life of saints. The social dimension of food contains our history as a whole, an idea I’m borrowing from Beylunioğlu. Alongside the slika, the informal memorial gathering in Istanbul–one without prayers, was punctuated by the smell of frankincense. The smell could immediately transport one not only to churches in Mersin, Samandağ or Beirut, but to more familiar spaces, such as a Levantine grandmother’s house, where incense was burnt in a censer, religiously every Sunday after mass. The burning, pungent smell that terrified everyone during childhood, felt now so warm, so inviting; an embassy from a lost world.   

Botanist Yelda Güzel writes that most of the frankincense used in recent years comes from the resin of the Boswellia and Commiphora trees of Yemeni origin, and resin from logwood. She tells us however that the oldest frankincense is without a doubt the one present in the local flora of Antioch: Mahaleb bark, rosary tree, Antiochian sage, and zahter.

Courtesy: Susan Kiryaman, Yeniden Samandag.

In the afternoon of March 18th, marking the 40 days, Antiochians in Istanbul were not the only ones burning frankincense. Women of Samandağ took to the streets in large numbers, in a procession of public mourning for their dead, their destroyed city and their interrupted life–indeed an unprecedented event, holding the traditional Reyhan and frankincense that mark births, children’s first baths, weddings and funerals, and chanting aloud in Arabic, “Ma rohna, nehna hon” (we haven’t died, we’re still here). Although the event went poorly noticed, it was a rare moment of acting in concert, visceral, sad, grievous, but also full of power and resistance to this new reality.

The Reyhan also has an ancient history of its own: Although it is often called basil or sweet basil, it has nothing to do with Ocimum basillicum. Reyhan is actually the ancient myrtle, a plant sacred to the goddess Aphrodite as a symbol of love, and wreaths made from laurel, ivy and myrtle were awarded to athletes and soldiers; Hellenistic myrtle wreaths made of gold have been found in graves. There are countless mentions of the plant in classical literature, from Homer and Plato to Euripides and Aristophanes, from Polybius and Strabo to Hippocrates and Arataeus.

Once again, it is Arab Alawites in particular who have kept these traditions alive, after they were long forgotten in the region. The mournful chants of Samandağ resembled the defiant final speech of Antigone to the chorus that decreed her death, amidst great injustice, in a city forbidding to honor the dead with a burial. The abandonment of Samandağ to its own fate, without regard for the living or the unburied dead, after many years of purposeful oblivion and neglect: 

οἴμοι γελῶμαι. τί με, πρὸς θεῶν πατρῴων.
οὐκ οἰχομέναν ὑβρίζεις, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπίφαντον;
ὦ πόλις, ὦ πόλεως πολυκτήμονες ἄνδρες:
ἰὼ Διρκαῖαι κρῆναι
Θήβας τ᾽ εὐαρμάτου ἄλσος, ἔμπας ξυμμάρτυρας ὔμμ᾽ ἐπικτῶμαι,
οἵα φίλων ἄκλαυτος, οἵοις νόμοις
πρὸς ἕργμα τυμβόχωστον ἔρχομαι τάφου ποταινίου:
ἰὼ δύστανος, βροτοῖς οὔτε νεκροῖς κυροῦσα
μέτοικος οὐ ζῶσιν, οὐ θανοῦσιν.

Ah, you mock me! In the name of our father’s gods, why do you not wait to abuse me until after I have gone, and not to my face, O my city, and you, her wealthy citizens? Ah, spring of Dirce, and you holy ground of Thebes whose chariots are many, you, at least, will bear me witness how unwept by loved ones, and by what laws I go to the rock-closed prison of my unheard-of tomb! Ah, misery! I have no home among men or with the shades, no home with the living or with the dead. (Soph. Ant. 839-850)

It’s quite an interesting plot twist that Antigone, the niece of king Creon, who in turn sentenced her to death over her disobedience of the law, claims the political subject of the stranger, by calling herself μέτοικος, technically a resident alien. According to Andrés Hénao, Antigone distinguishes here political membership from citizenship and challenges the inequality of her position, albeit by tragic means. In this sense, according to Hénao and his theatrical experiment with Palestinian women in Jenin, she performs a counter-politics in which she, as a member of a royal household, identifies with the defeated, which in our world today could identify with refugees, immigrants and undocumented people.  

Women of Samandag. Courtesy: Afet icin Feminist Dayanisma.

It seems to me an apt metaphor for the women of Samandağ, who not only have been treated as foreigners in their own land–dark humor about Antiochians being foreigners is a daily bread in the community, but who have also become strangers in an expanded sense: “The stranger, having lost his home and political status, is the equivalent to the loss of a juridical-political space of recognition and cannot find another one.”

This stranger is already outside the place called home, but yet there’s no place outside of it. Every place where the stranger arrives, is already somebody else’s home, and the paradox is that one cannot belong to a world he inhabits, with a right at least as equal as others to do so, because belonging to that world is only guaranteed by already belonging to a previously established political community, secured by a home and citizenship. The crisis of homelessness exemplified by these women, and embodied in the millions of displaced persons from the earthquake region is in fact not just a problem of aid policy or bureaucratic administration, but a political question of the first order. A people without a home, paradoxically, cannot be visible in the public realm.

In the tradition, the boiled wheat of slika represents both the earth and the body of the deceased, as a symbol of hope and resurrection. So there’s in fact a kind of return. According to St. John, a grain of wheat must first fall to the ground and die before it can return to bear life. This innocent metaphor, transcending across the different cultures coexisting in this geography, has survived into our own time because the tradition shaped the ritual aspect of wheat, as much as wheat, a basic staple in the Mediterranean basin, shaped the traditions of the place.

But wheat is not only about the hope of resurrection: How is the wheat that fell to the ground going to rise into life if there are no earthly homes to harvest it? We need Antioch to rise for an eighth time, after its seven destructions and reconstructions, as As Mișel Orduluoğlu has written for Nehna, in a moving tribute in honor of the 40 days:

“Antakya, this city which was destroyed seven times and rebuilt seven times. The Queen of the East, who had covered her head with a black scarf seven times, and the seven times she got up and lowered her scarf around her neck, and put back her magnificent crown: Once a woman of this land has taken it off her head, it is as if to signal that it is her duty to keep the memory of those who are no longer here by wearing it again. The mosaics were scattered seven times, the stones as well, but they were seven times re-arranged, while preserving the place of the lost stones. […] Now for the eighth time, Antakya has fallen, and this city has draped her black scarf on her head for the eighth time, the Queen of the East, for the eighth time the stones of the mosaic were scattered […]. Now we will put the queen’s crown on her head again, but this time more magnificently, we will arrange the stones of the mosaic again, but this time it will be stronger and the voice of the brothers will rise again, this time louder.” 

The Mosaic of Briseis Farewell, Hatay Archaeological Museum. Courtesy: the author.

A fragment of the mosaic of Briseis’ Farewell, excavated in 1935 under a house in Antakya and on display at the Hatay Archaeological Museum (it was surprisingly missing the last time we visited last summer), can tell you the story of Antioch. Only two figures are left from the panel: Patroclus holding Briseis’ hand. Her story in the Iliad sets the mood of the Trojan War and the events of the Odyssey. A legend says that after the death of Achilles, Briseis sank into great grief as she began preparing him for the afterlife.

But this is not the farewell depicted in the Antakya mosaic. It is actually about the speech she gave after the death of Patroclus who was always protecting her. Though she was herself enslaved, and Achilles never actually married her, she remained by his side, and the always gentle Patroclus, comforted her, even though it was something below his status as a hero. Briseis, in the farewell song of the mosaic, is depicted as golden like Aphrodite herself. Briseis is Antakya and Patroclus the countless dead Antiochians lost under the rubble.

Πάτροκλέ μοι δειλῇ πλεῖστον κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ
ζωὸν μέν σε ἔλειπον ἐγὼ κλισίηθεν ἰοῦσα,
νῦν δέ σε τεθνηῶτα κιχάνομαι ὄρχαμε λαῶν
ἂψ ἀνιοῦσ᾽: ὥς μοι δέχεται κακὸν ἐκ κακοῦ αἰεί.

Patroclos, you were the dearest to wretched me and
I left you alive when I went from your dwelling.
And now I find you here dead, leader of the armies,
When I return. Troubles are always wrestling me from
troubles. (Hom. Il. 19:287-290)

τώ σ᾽ ἄμοτον κλαίω τεθνηότα μείλιχον αἰεί.

So now I weep for you, dead and gentle forever. (Hom. Il. 19.300)

At the end of the memorial gathering, the last pot of the bitter Antiochian coffee was poured, and the plastic cups with the remaining slika were removed from the table as people took their leave in small groups, and then it was just the intoxicating noises and sights of Istanbul again, a city apparently immortal, where life continues no matter what. This indifference is key to its survival. The conversations about Antioch continued into the night, often mixing fantasy and reality; the desire to build a new home in place of the old, and what this home would look like, the shelves, the windows, the gardens, contrasted with the deteriorating sanitary conditions, the political volatility of the country, the uncertain food security, the fear of permanent displacement, and above all, the boundless cruelty that envelops everything. I keep thinking about the symbolism of the fine powdered sugar on the outer layer of the koliva: An uplifting sweet welcome into paradise. If only…

But something that the botanist Güzel said still gives me hope: “The ancient traditions of our destroyed city have survived for centuries. If they have managed to reach our own time in spite of all the destruction of the city in history, we are also trying to rebuild them and get them back on their feet. It means we have hope, our myrtle and our incense are still in our mountains after all…”

In my mind, whenever I see the images of the women of Samandağ with their myrtle branches and incense censers, chanting that they’re still alive, I see not only the enormous grief, but also the promise of a very blessed, very ancient land, and the light blue waters surrounding Kara Magara, in the southernmost tip of Antioch, just a few hundred meters from the Syrian border–deep, pristine, translucent. All of that will still be there somehow, glowing under the scorching sun, forever.

In times like this I remember the words of an Orthodox monk and poet, Silouan the Athonite from Mt. Athos: “Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.” 

 

Arie Amaya-Akkermans is a writer and art critic based in Izmir. He’s also tweeting about classics, archaeology, heritage, contemporary art and Turkey/Greece. Follow Arie on twitter (@byzantinologue) for updates and new articles as they come out.

 

Rushing Ahead To Fall Behind

Seneca, Moral Epistles 45.6-7

“If there is anything that can make a life happy, it is the good in its own right. For it cannot be debased into evil. How do we mess this up, when everyone wants a happy life? It is because people mistake the means to happiness for the thing itself–while they seek it, they flee it.

Although the summit of a happy life may be unshakeable safety, unbothered by events, most people collect the causes of anxiety and don’t merely carry their baggage through the dangerous journey of life, but gather more! They are always falling further away from the state they seek and the more they try the more they get in their own way and fall back. This is how it goes if you rush into a labyrinth: speed itself ensnares you. Goodbye.”

 Si quid est, quod vitam beatam potest facere, id bonum est suo iure. Depravari enim in malum non potest. Quid est ergo, in quo erratur, cum omnes beatam vitam optent? Quod instrumenta eius pro ipsa habent et illam, dum petunt, fugiunt. Nam cum summa vitae beatae sit solida securitas et eius inconcussa fiducia, sollicitudinis colligunt causas et per insidiosum iter vitae non tantum ferunt sarcinas, sed trahunt; ita longius ab effectu eius, quod petunt, semper abscedunt et quo plus operae inpenderunt, hoc se magis impediunt et feruntur retro. Quod evenit in labyrintho properantibus; ipsa illos velocitas inplicat. Vale.

gif of a stick figure sisphyus trying to push a stone up a hill and having it fall back

Septicia’s Second Marriage and Final Testament

Valerius Maximus, Famous Words and Deeds, 7.7.4

“Septicia as well, the mother of Ariminum’s Trachali, because she was angry with her sons, married Publicius who was already old, even though she could no longer have children, as an insult against them. Then she took both of them out of her will.  When they appealed to him, the divine Augustus criticized both the woman’s marriage and her final allotments. He ordered that the sons have their mother’s inheritance and the dowry since she had not begun the marriage for the purpose of having children.

If Fairness herself were to judge this affair, could she have come up with a more just or more substantial opinion? You spurn the children you bore, make a sterile marriage, make a mess of a final will because of your malicious spirit, and you don’t blush to hand all your wealth over to a man whose body you climb under even when it has already been laid out like a corpse? So, since you acted like this, you are struck by divine lightning even among the damned!”

Septicia quoque, mater Trachalorum Ariminensium, irata filiis, in contumeliam eorum, cum iam parere non posset, Publicio seni admodum nupsit, testamento etiam utrumque praeteriit. a quibus aditus divus Augustus et nuptias mulieris et suprema iudicia improbavit: nam hereditatem maternam filios habere iussit, dotem, quia non creandorum liberorum causa coniugium intercesserat, virum retinere vetuit. si ipsa Aequitas hac de re cognosceret, potuitne iustius aut gravius pronuntiare? spernis quos genuisti, nubis effeta, testamenti ordinem malevolo animo confundis, neque erubescis ei totum patrimonium addicere cuius pollincto iam corpori marcidam senectutem tuam substravisti. ergo dum sic te geris, ad inferos usque caelesti fulmine adflata es.

Related image
Marriage scene on a sarcophagus

 

The Original Virgin Suicides

Here’s an anecdote that is chilling and a bit upsetting. CW: it contains misogyny as well as reference to suicide clusters. In general, this reminded me of the suicide clusters in Silicon Valley discussed widely a few years ago. But–and I think this is more important–it also points to groups of suicide as an attempt to wrest agency in response to desperation, a lack of agency, and marginalization.

Aulus Gellius, Varia Historia 15.10

“In his first of the books On the Soul, Plutarch included the following tale when he was commenting on maladies which afflict human minds. He said that there were maiden girls of Milesian families who at a certain time suddenly and without almost any clear reason made a plan to die and that many killed themselves by hanging.

When this became more common in following days and there was no treatment to be found for the spirits of those who were dedicated to dying, The Milesians decreed that all maidens who would die by hanging their bodies would be taken out to burial completely naked except for the rope by which they were hanged. After this was decreed, the maidens did not seek suicide only because they were frightened by the thought of so shameful a funeral.”

Plutarchus in librorum quos περὶ ψυχῆς inscripsit primo cum de morbis dissereret in animos hominum incidentibus, virgines dixit Milesii nominis, fere quot tum in ea civitate erant, repente sine ulla evidenti causa voluntatem cepisse obeundae mortis ac deinde plurimas vitam suspendio amississe. id cum accideret in dies crebrius neque animis earum mori perseverantium medicina adhiberi quiret, decrevisse Milesios ut virgines, quae corporibus suspensis demortuae forent, ut hae omnes nudae cum eodem laqueo quo essent praevinctae efferrentur. post id decretum virgines voluntariam mortem non petisse pudore solo deterritas tam inhonesti funeris.

Suicides of public figures cause disbelief because of our cultural misconceptions about depression and about the importance of material wealth and fame to our well-being. While some clusters of suicide can be understood as a reflex of the “threshold problem”, we fail to see the whole picture if we do not also see that human well-being is connected to a sense of agency and belonging. Galen, in writing about depression, notes that melancholy can make us desire that which we fear.

Galen, De Locis Affectis 8.190-191

“But there are ten thousand other fantasies. The melancholic differ from one another, but even though they all exhibit fear, despair, blaming of life and hatred for people, they do not all want to die. For some, fear of death is the principle source of their depression. Some will seem paradoxical to you because they fear death and desire death at the same time.”

ἄλλα τε μυρία τοιαῦτα φαντασιοῦνται. διαφέρονται δὲ ἀλλήλων οἱ μελαγχολικοὶ, τὸ μὲν φοβεῖσθαι καὶ δυσθυμεῖν καὶ μέμφεσθαι τῇ ζωῇ καὶ μισεῖν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἅπαντες ἔχοντες, ἀποθανεῖν δ’ ἐπιθυμοῦντες οὐ πάντες, ἀλλ’ ἔστιν ἐνίοις αὐτῶν αὐτὸ δὴ τοῦτο κεφάλαιον τῆς μελαγχολίας, τὸ περὶ τοῦ θανάτου δέος· ἔνιοι δὲ ἀλλόκοτοί σοι δόξουσιν, ἅμα τε καὶ δεδιέναι τὸν θάνατον καὶ θανατᾷν.

In thinking about the impact of agency and belonging on our sense of well-being and relationship to death, I have been significantly influence by this book:

Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski. The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. London: Allen Lane, 2015.

Related image
Picture found here

If you or someone you know feel alone, uncertain, depressed or for any reason cannot find enough joy and hope to think life is worth it, please reach out to someone. The suicide prevention hotline has a website, a phone number (1-800-273-8255), and a chat line. And if we can help you find some tether to the continuity of human experience through the Classics or a word, please don’t hesitate to ask.

From Feces to Flowers And Back Again

Seneca, Moral Epistles 44.3

“Each of us has the same number of ancestors–everyone’s origin sits beyond human memory. Plato says that “every king has come from slaves and every slave descends from kings.” The long course of time mixed everything up and fortune turned them over again.

Who is noble? Someone who is naturally well-suited to virtue. This is the only thing that needs to be examined. If you look back to the ancients, every search comes to a place where there’s nothing. From the first foundations of the universe to this day, we have passed through origins that were sometimes lofty and other times base. A gallery full of smoke-stained ancestors doesn’t make someone noble.

No one has lived from past glory to today and nothing from before belongs to us. Only the soul makes us noble and it can rise up beyond fortune from whatever condition it was in before.”

Omnibus nobis totidem ante nos sunt; nullius non origo ultra memoriam iacet. Platon ait neminem regem non ex servis esse oriundum, neminem servum non ex regibus. Omnia ista longa varietas miscuit et sursum deorsum fortuna versavit. Quis est generosus? Ad virtutem bene a natura conpositus. Hoc unum intuendum est; alioquin si ad vetera revocas, nemo non inde est, ante quod nihil est. A primo mundi ortu usque in hoc tempus perduxit nos ex splendidis sordidisque alternata series. Non facit nobilem atrium plenum fumosis imaginibus. Nemo in nostram gloriam vixit nec quod ante nos fuit, nostrum est; animus facit nobilem, cui ex quacumque condicione supra fortunam licet surgere.

color photograph of line of busts in vatican museum
Hall of Busts, Vatican Museum

An Immortal Soul and a Pious Poet: Another Poem by Julia Balbilla

Julia Balbilla, Epigram 991 [from Kaibel 1878 with supplements from Rosenmeyer 2008]

In Memnonis crure sinistro. C. I. 4730 coll. Add. III p. 1202 sq.

“When I was near Memnon with August Sabina:

Child of Dawn and noble Tithonos,
Seated before Zeus’s city of Thebes
Or, Amenoth, Egyptian King, as the priests name you
The ones who know the ancient stories

Greet us and speak out to show your welcome, Memnon,
To the revered wife of Lord Hadrian.
A barbarian man lopped off your tongue and ears
That atheist Kambyses, but he paid the price
With a painful death under the same pitiful blade
He used to kill divine Apis.

But I do not believe that this statue of yours could ever be destroyed
And I cherish in my thoughts a soul immortal for all time.
This is because my parents and grandparents were reverent,
Wise Balbillus and the king Antiochus.
Balbillus was my Queen mother’s father
And King Antiochus was my father’s father.

I too have been allotted noble blood from their people—
And these are the words from reverent me, Balbilla.”

῞Οτε σὺν τῆι Σεβαστῆι Σαβείνηι ἐγενόμην παρὰ τῶι Μέμνονι.

Αὔως καὶ γεράρω, Μέμνον, πάι Τιθώνοιο,
Θηβάας θάσσων ἄντα Δίος πόλιος,
ἢ ᾿Αμένωθ, βασίλευ Αἰγύπτιε, τὼς ἐνέποισιν
ἴρηες μύθων τῶν παλάων ἴδριες.

Χαῖρε καὶ αὐδάσαις πρόφρων ἔμε [δέχνυσο, Μέμνον,
τὰν σέµναν ἄλοχον κοιράνω ῾¬Αδριάνω.
γλῶσσαν μέν τοι τ[μ]ᾶξ[ε (καὶ ὤατα βάρβαρος ἄνηρ
Καμβύσαις ἄθεος–τῶ λύγρῳ θανάτῳ
δῶκέν τοι ποίναν τῶ σῶ οἰκτ[ίρματος ἠδ’ ἇς
τῷ νήλας ῏Απιν κάκτανε τὸν θέιον.

ἄλλ’ ἔγω οὐ δοκίμωμι σέθεν τό [γε θῆον ὄλεσθαι,
ψύχαν δ’ ἀθανάταν, ἄ[φθιτε], σῶ[σδες ἄι.
εὐσέβεες γὰρ ἔμοι γένεται σέ[πτας ἀπὸ ῥίσδας
Βάλβιλλός τε σόφος κἀντίοχος [προπάτωρ·

Βάλβιλλος γένετ’ ἐκ μᾶτρος βασιλήιδος ῎Ακ[μας,
τῶ πάτερος δὲ πάτηρ ᾿Αντίοχος βασίλευς·
κήνων ἐκ γενέας κἄγω λόχον αἶμα τὸ κᾶλον,
Βαλβίλλας δ’ ἔμεθεν γρόπτα τόδ’ εὐσέβ[εος.

Colossi of Memnon

Rosenmeyer, P. (2008). Greek Verse Inscriptions in Roman Egypt: Julia Balbilla’s Sapphic Voice. Classical Antiquity, 27(2), 334-358.

Brennan, T. (1998). “The Poets Julia Balbilla and Damo at the Colossus of Memnon”. Classical World, 91(4), 215.

Plant, I., & Plant, Ian Michael. (2004). Women writers of ancient Greece and Rome : An anthology (University of Oklahoma Press ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.