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Scholars will be especially grateful for the new edition of Simias third and most eccentric
(p.107) poem, scrambled (p.106) into the shape of an egg (AP 15.27). Kwapisz dedicates more
space to this poem than to any other, but is refreshingly up-front about remaining quandaries (I
feel no wiser after a few months, or even years, as p.122 confesses of vv.910). Two insights
seem particularly important. First, Kwapisz draws systematic attention to the poems oral as
well as visual effects (hence the multiple allusions to sound and song: cf. p.107, along with
notes on pp.114, 124, 137). Second, and related, Kwapisz suggests that this poem might not
have been intended as a technopaegnion at all; rather, he speculates, it was perhaps forced into
the collection at a later date, sometime before the second century AD (pp.3537; 106108).
The decision whether the Egg was originally a figure poem should belong to the reader of this
book, not to its author, p.37 concludes.
There can be no doubting the expediency of this argument: from a textual critical perspective, it
gives Kwapisz free rein to emend at will, without overly worrying about spatial layout (p.108).
To my mind, though, the Eggs inherent difficulties are much like those of Simias Axe. Like the
Axe, this figurative layout can only work for readers who proceed antithetically (for the term,
already used by Hephaestio in the second century AD, see pp.3437). And yet, as Christine Luz
has recently argued, such tensions between visual layout and verbal form develop other
riddlesome references: while equating the acts of viewing and reading, both poems
simultaneously pitch image and text against one other, and in the most self-conscious of ways.3
For this reader, the Egg neatly tallies with other technopaegnia, despite its textual problems.
The Syrinx (AP 15.21) dubbed the most ingenious poem in the collection (p.138) is
important for Kwapiszs larger arguments about origins and anthologization. For all the poems
virtuoso games with Theocritean metre, vocabulary, and poetic themes, Kwapisz favours the
communis opinio in discrediting Theocritus authorship; instead, he tentatively looks to
Lycophron (whose name should be added to the list of suspects: pp.29; cf. pp.13840). Two
hypotheses follow: first, that the poem might have served as a sphragis for an early edition of
the Idylls (pp.2329, 4750, 138141); and second, that it subsequently functioned as as a
magnet drawing together all of the technopaegnia (p.47).
Although the final two poems share a related altar shape (AP 15.2526), Kwapisz rightly
emphasizes their different derivations and chronologies. On the one hand, the Doric Altar
attributed to Dosiadas (Munatius of Tralles?: p.28) is shown to be largely dependent on the
Syrinx (p.163), while nonetheless alluding to the metre and language of Lycophrons Alexandra
(cf. pp. 2728). On the other hand, the Ionic Altar of Besantinus (presumably Lucius Iulius
Vestinus, p.177) is shown to nod to the full gambit of earlier technopaegnia. If both the poems
shape and final verses allude to the Doric Altar, its fifth line hides an allusion to the pseudoTheocritean Syrinx (pp. 155, 184); at the same time, the poems polymetric play, closing
metrical arrangement and poetological reflections all echo Simias earlier Hellenistic examples
(pp.45, 178, 1867).
Such brief overview can hardly do justice to the richness of Kwapiszs discussions. Throughout,
the book balances macroscopic comment with close attention to philological detail: the result
will be essential reading for anyone interested either in the technopaegnia, or more generally in
Hellenistic book culture (p.19). Kwapiszs insistence on the poems combined visual and oral
effects proves particularly stimulating: I find it thought-provoking to consider what it would
mean to hear a figure poem (p.19), as Kwapisz puts it.
Inevitably, however, the book develops some themes more extensively than others. Since the
volume looks set to become a standard reference work, I end with two issues that might benefit
from further reflection in the future. The first concerns the relationship between these poems
and (what have come to be known as) ecphrastic Hellenistic epigrams.4 For all Kwapiszs
interest in the intersections between figure poems and other Hellenistic genres, the book
slightly underplays the associations with epideictic epigrams on artworks; indeed, Kwapisz
explicitly speculates that Simias poems might have formed part of a self-standing book of
Paignia a collection that was different from his book of [sic] (p.17). Whatever
we make of the poems subsequent collection and arrangement, I would suggest a much closer
epigrammatic affiliation: the games with the ventriloquist first-person voice, and not least their
playful deictic references (cf. e.g. pp.789, 934, 1534, 166, etc.), seem very much in keeping
with the conceits of epigrams on (in)visible objects; the crucial difference, of course, is that the
technopaegnia promise to visualize (quite literally) the objects to which they verbally allude.
The second (and related) issue concerns the broader archaeology no less than legacy of the
technopaegnia within ancient discourses about words and images. Reading Kwapiszs
discussion of origin (pp.821), one might almost think that these poems were an exclusively
Hellenistic phenomenon. But it would be mistaken, I think, to overlook their ancestry: if the
poems grow out of a Hellenistic obsession with collapsing writing and drawing (),5 that
obsession has a long history in the Greek world.6 In order to understand the origins of this
mini-genre, it also seems important to compare related phenomena. Kwapisz acknowledges as
much when he mentions, in passing, an affinity with the Tabulae Iliacae (p.31). But other
materials might prove no less helpful here: scratched graffiti arranged into pictorial forms,7 for
instance even whole poems, again preserved in the material record, inscribed into figurative
shapes;8 later, in the early fourth-century, Optatian Porphyrys Latin adaptations provide some
of our best evidence for how the Greek technopaegnia were subsequently read evidence to
which, I think, future scholars might profitably return.9
Because Kwapiszs predominant interest lies in the philology of the six technopaegnia, he is less
concerned with their broader cultural and intellectual contexts. Ultimately, though, what is
perhaps most fascinating about these poems is their refusal to remain purely philological
their importance not only for literary critics, but also for historians of (inter alia) ancient visual
culture.10 Thanks to Kwapiszs careful commentary, scholars are now better placed to bridge
that disciplinary divide.
Notes:
1. There is a substantial bibliography on the presentation of Simias poems: e.g., S. Strodel,
Zur berlieferung und zum Verstndnis der hellenistischen Technopaegnien (Frankfurt am
Main, 2002), esp. pp.48130; cf. L. A. Guichard, Simias pattern poems: The margins of the
canon, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker (eds.), Beyond the Canon (Leuven,
2006), pp.83103.
2. On Epeius horse as an object whose external appearance belied its internal reality, see D.
T. Steiner, Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought
(Princeton, 2001), p.83, n.16.