Sappho, Corinna and Colleagues in Ancient Rome. Tatian’s Catalogue of Statues (Oratio ad Graecos 33-4) Reconsidered

Abstract

In his Oratio ad Graecos Tatian claims to have seen Sappho's statue among a number of other female fijigures in Rome, which, according to a passage in Pliny the Elder, seem to have been in the Portico of Pompey. This article examines how diffijiculties in the scholarly reception of Tatian's Oratio ad Graecos continue to obstruct a fuller picture of the role of female fijigures such as Sappho in late Republican and Augustan Rome. Furthermore, by bringing fresh archaeological evidence into the discussion of Tatian's text and pointing out previously ignored philological connections between Oratio ad Graecos and late Republican and Augustan literature, the article refijines the image of a woman like Sappho in Ancient Rome.

‘Divine Corinna’: Pre-Twentieth Century Receptions of an Artistic Authority

“…2.3.21, 'and when she pits her writings against those of ancient Corinna'). See also Thorsen (2012) 710 comparing Propertius' description emphasising Corinna's scripta (writings) with the miniature copy of Silanion's Corinna, cf. fig.…”

“…See also McNelis (2002), who also points out, with support from Page (1953) 71, that Corinna apparently was taught by Greek grammarians such as the father of Statius, Tryphon and Habron, see n. 3 above. 17 -I will not enter into the subject of Ovid's Corinna in this context; but see Heath (2013) and Thorsen (2018). I intend to explore the connection between Boeotian and Ovidian Corinna further in a future publication.…”

“…4.57 and Tatian, below. See also Stewart (1990) Thorsen (2014) 160-1, with notes. For an overview of the scepticism this astonishing list has prompted in scholarship from the end of the nineteenth century onwards, see Thorsen (2012), referring especially to Kalkmann (1887); Page (1953) 73, n. 6 andWest (1990) 557.…”

“…6 -In addition to Corinna and Sappho, the most famous woman poets were (in alphabetical order) Anyte, Erinna, Moero, Myrtis, Nossis, Praxilla, the earlier Sulpicia and the later Sulpicia, and Telesilla; for their extant fragments, see Snyder (1989), Rayor (1991), Balmer (1996) and Plant (2004); cf. Thorsen (2019) 16.…”

Plastic accommodations of female agency: Vergil, Horace and Antipater of Thessalonica

“…The striking correspondence, along with the deictic qualities of the poem (τάσδε 1, 'these'; ἰδὲ 7, 'look') has prompted the suggestion that the epigram represents the poet's stroll in the Portico of Pompey, where he addresses the individual portraits of the women poets, finally comparing them with the group of Muses that was also present in the Portico. 26 Within the framework of the epigram, it is the number of nine that allows Antipater to claim that the women poets represent a parallel to the celestial Muses, whose number 23 See Thorsen 2012 and2014, 84. 24 Translation by Gow and Page 1968.…”