154 Part Two: Epigrams in Context
Two Epigrams from the Greek Anthology
The anthology of Cephalas, especially its first book (AP I), contains many
Byzantine epigrams that are of great art-historical interest. Here I shall discuss
two little-known texts which can be found in IXb, the Cephalan book of
epigrams on works of art: namely, AP IX, 818 and IX, 815.
AP IX, 818 is one of a series of three dedicatory epigrams (IX, 817–819)
celebrating the donation of liturgical objects by a certain Peter to a church
that probably adjoined the hospice of Euboulos^14. The first of these three
epigrams was written on an altar cloth embroidered with pictures of martyrs^15.
The second and third ones were inscribed on a diskopoterion (paten and chal-
ice), probably made of silver or gilded metal. The epigrams probably date from
the early seventh century, seeing that they follow the Pisidian rules of versifi-
cation. The epigrams are written in prosodic dodecasyllables, with an obligato-
ry stress accent on the penultimate; but IX, 819. 2 has a resolution in the first
metrical position. The text of IX, 818 runs as follows:
Kaò P6troß 4lloß tñn t1óon to ̄ Kyr5oy
tñn fzopoiñn eœside¦n më symóq1saß
Çglyva d5skon, mn8matoß qe5oy t7pon,
™n î¢ tñ Cristo ̄ s0ma k7vaß prosbl6pz.“I, another Peter, not having arrived in time to behold the life-giving tomb
of the Lord, engraved this paten, a symbol of the holy sepulchre, in which,
bowing down, I see the body of Christ”. Peter the donor compares himself to
Peter the apostle: just as the apostle could not keep up with his companion and
arrived with some delay only to find the grave empty (Joh. 20: 3–9), so the
donor was not able to see the holy sepulchre in Jerusalem with his own eyes. In
order to compensate for the missed opportunity of going on pilgrimage to the
Holy Land, Peter produced this paten, which, although not the real thing, may
be viewed in a symbolic sense as a representation of the holy sepulchre because
the Eucharist, once it is consecrated, turns into the body of Christ itself. The
meaning of the word k7vaß is deliberately ambiguous. It not only denotes the
priestly gesture of bowing the head and the upper part of the body as a sign of
reverence to the mystery of Christ’s transubstantiation, but it is also an
(^14) AP IX, 816 is a late antique epigram on a minswrion (missorium, platter) t0n EJbo7lzn
(on this hospice, see Malalas, 411, Chronicon Paschale, 622 and Theophanes, 165). The
lemmata attached to AP IX, 817–819 possibly indicate that the three objects were also
found in the hospice: 817 eœß ™nd7thn Šayto ̄ (sic), 818 eœß d5skon 4llon ™n t/ aJt/ and 819
eœß pot8rion ™n t/ aJt/. See also P. WALTZ, REG 58 (1945) 105–117.
(^15) The epigram is not mentioned in P. SPECK’s two lists of endytai: JÖBG 15 (1966) 323–375,
and Varia II (Poik5la Byfantin1 6). Bonn 1987, 331–337.