Archaic and Classical Attic Dedicatory Epigrams: An Epigraphic, Literary, and Linguistic Commentary

Despite the large number of early Greek inscribed epigrams and their historical and social importance, modern studies have focused either on the literary epigram or (especially after the publication of Hansen’s Carmina Epigraphica Graeca) on the inscribed funerary epigram. The dedicatory inscribed epigram, on the other hand, has received little scholarly attention. As a result, neither a comprehensive commentary nor a study of the different features (archaeological, epigraphical, literary and linguistic) of Archaic and Classical inscribed verse dedications has appeared to date. This book aims to fill such a significant void by offering an interdisciplinary commentary on all the early Attic dedicatory epigrams, i.e. those dating from the 7th through the 5th century BCE. Since the message conveyed by an inscribed epigram can be understood only by taking into account three different semantic systems ― that of art and archaeology, epigraphy, and that of language and style ― at the same time, this commentary will combine a description of the morphology of the monuments on which the epigrams were engraved with an analysis of the alphabets and dialects used in the poems, while making observations on stylistic and literary data.