epigram, Greek
epigram, GreekArchaic
An epigram was originally nothing more than an inscription on an object or monument to say whose it is or who made it, who dedicated it to which god, or who is buried beneath it. The earliest known are in hexameters (Carmina Epigraphica Graeca 1. 432 and 454, the Dipylon oenochoe and Pithecusae scyphus, both c.720 BC), but by c.500 they were predominantly in what was to be the classic metre of epigram, the elegiac couplet. The earliest consist largely of formulae (e.g. τύμβο< ὅδ᾽ ηστί, στῇθι καí οíκτιρον, … ηπέθηκε θανόντι, … μ᾽ áνέθηκε ‘this is tomb (of so-and-so), stand and take pity … (so-and-so) set up (this) for the deceased … (so-and-so) dedicated me’) plus the appropriate proper names in stereotyped epicizing phraseology. The material in Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften 1 (limited to epitaphs) is arranged by such...[The entire page is 1206 words long]
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