Anthologies and Anthologists 113epimerisms already existed in late antiquity^97 , I suspect that Ignatios’ “redis-
covery of grammar” entailed little more than producing a faithful copy of a
late antique manuscript with some additional information gathered from other
sources.
The epitaphs by Arethas, AP XV, 32–34, are probably the worst poems
ever written in ninth-century Byzantium. The poems on the death of his sister
Anna, AP XV, 32–33, probably date from the 870s or the early 880s, seeing
that she sadly died at the premature age of twenty-three. Unless we assume
that he was much older, Arethas (born c. 850)^98 will have been in his twenties
or his early thirties when his sister died. The epitaph on the nun Febronia, AP
XV, 34, may date from the same period as well. We happen to know a certain
Febronia, born about 810, who founded a monastery and was renowned for her
piety and erudition^99. With all the erudition and poetic talents she is credited
with, Febronia may have been capable of understanding and appreciating the
tortuous style of Arethas, which is more than we can say for ourselves. Take for
instance the second epitaph on the death of Anna written in dodecasyllables
with harsh enjambments offending the ear (33. 3–4 and 9–10) and with ugly
parentheses disrupting the natural flow of the verses (33. 2–3 and 7–8). It is
impossible to recite the poem without faltering. A poem that cannot be heard
is poetically dead – as dead as the sister whose passing-away Arethas bewails
with many highfalutin words, but without ever convincing us that he truly
mourns. The epitaph also lacks any reference to the spiritual salvation after
death, for which the Byzantines longed so dearly. What are we to think of this?
Did Anna not desire to be awarded a place in heaven? Did her family not care
about her future in the hereafter? Of course they did. And so did Arethas, but
he was more interested in words than in emotions. The epitaph on Febronia
runs more smoothly than the two poems on Anna, but still lacks in stylistic
dexterity. It begins as follows: “Febronia must surely have given some token
of her sympathy to the spirits below likewise, if there, too, the poor have need
of the wealthy”. The idea that the dead dwell in the limbo of Hades is common
in Byzantium, of course, but no Byzantine believed that the poor even needed
charity in the nether world. Neither did Arethas, but he simply used a classi-
cistic oxymoron to emphasize Febronia’s virtue. In the next verses Arethas
presents his own version of the Nekuia: “For not even there do the souls of the
(^97) On the Homeric epimerisms attributed to Herodianus, but dating from the sixth centu-
ry, see DYCK, o.c., II, 37–40.
(^98) See KOUGEAS 1913: 1–9.
(^99) See I. VAN DEN GHEYN, AnBoll 18 (1899) 234–236. The hagiographer praises Febronia for
her erudition: ta¦ß qe5aiß mel6taiß, Çti dê poihtik! kaò grammatik! kaò to¦ß t0n qe5zn pat6rzn
™mm6troiß pon8masin Çgnz Šaytën ™pido ̄nai (234, 11–13), and he calls her ™llögimoß kaò
pe¦ran œscyr2n ™n ta¦ß graóa¦ß Çcoysa (236, 6–7).