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Sens, A. 2010. Asclepiades of Samos. Epigrams and Fragments, edited with translation and commentary by A.S. Oxford, Oxford University Press. cxvi, 353 pp. Pr. 90.00 (hb). ISBN 9780199253197. This is the first book in the English language entirely dedicated to the poems of Asclepiades of Samos (A.), and therefore, besides being an intelligent and careful study of the topic, it is as such a welcome addition to the field of studies in Hellenistic poetry. Other recent monographs on A. are Nastos 2006 Greek and Guichards 2004 Spanish commented editions, which pose problems for those deficient in these languages.1) Otherwise, those wishing to study A. could formerly consult broader studies such as Gutzwillers Poetic Garlands,2) Gow-Pages important, if sometimes outdated, Hellenistic Epigrams,3) or various older studies and editions (Beckby, the Bud) and of course the numerous disparate journal articles that treat questions of detail. One of the benefits of the study by Sens (S.) is that it contains ample references to this earlier scholarship on A. The book opens with an elaborate introduction (xxv-cxiv), with separate sections discussing evidence for A.s life and works; development of and generic influences on Hellenistic epigram; narrative voice and genre in epigram; A. and his contemporaries; A.s relations with the Ptolemaic court; language and style, metre; the transmission of the text. A brief section citing testimonia follows. The main part of the book is taken up by the edition of the text (with apparatus) accompanied by translation and commentary. Discussion of each poem starts with some general considerations before paying attention to questions of detail, which mostly works well, but occasionally makes for repetitiveness. In the introduction S. pays welcome attention to the question of A.s alias Sicelidas, which he plausibly connects with the expulsion of Samos population in 365 by Athens, which may have caused A.s family to flee to Sicily. The Sicilian connection might explain the presence of numerous Doricisms in the epigrams, and the connection with Theocritus (cf. Id. 7.40).

1)Guichard Romero, L.A. 2004. Asclepades de Samos. Epigramas y fragmentos. Estudio introductorio, revisin del texto, traduccin y comentario (Bern); Nastos, I.S. 2006. Asklepiadou tou Samiou epigrammata (Heraclion). Older studies include Peters, O.I. 1923. Asklepiades von Samos (Leipzig); Knauer, O. 1935. Die Epigramme des Asklepiades von Samos (Wrzburg), reprinted in Taran, S.L. (ed.) 1987. The Greek Anthology (New York). 2)Gutzwiller, K.J. 1998. Poetic Garlands, Hellenistic Epigrams in Context (Berkeley/Los Angeles). 3)Gow, A.S.F., Page, D.L. 1965. The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, 2 vols. (Cambridge).
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/156852512X621349

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The ample space dedicated both to stylistic and metrical analysis, which might at first seem somewhat excessive, proves valuable for judgment on the problems of ascription with which the extant corpus attributed to Asclepiades is riddled (in S.s edition, poems XXXIV-XLVII and fragments XLVIII-LII are all of uncertain ascription). The common sense observations in the brief but incisive sub-section Narrative Voice and Genre (xlviii-l) manage to throw unexpected light on many of the epigrams from an interpretative point of view. S. calls attention to the (wellknown) fact that poems written for the book-roll instead of an authentic material context made special demands on its readers who were compelled to reconstruct not only the speakers identity, but also the context and setting. For poets this represented an opportunity for innovation and experimentation with genre and narrative voice. A case in point is XXI (AP 12.75), which has been interpreted as a compliment to a boy by some but as a description of a statue by others. It is attractive to follow S. in positing (unlike previous scholars) that the ambiguity resulting from this lack of material context in this case, as in others, e.g. *XLI (AP 7.217, of uncertain ascription), may well be part of the sophisticated poetic pointe. Another helpful insight in this section is S.s stress on the distinction between the author and the speaker of the epigram. In itself, the observation that the diffference between the two should always be kept in mind may seem obvious, but its subtlety depends on the fact that in A.s poetry the point of an epigram often hinges on the disjuncture between the narrators words and information available to the reader on the basis of his familiarity with the literary traditions on which the poem draws (xlix, my italics). S. illustrates this well by citing XV (AP 12.46), where the speaker exclaims he is not even twenty-two years old, but already tired of living because of his love-sickness. Far from interpreting this as biographical information, S. points out how this poem plays on the (epitaphic) topos of early death depriving one of the joys of life (including love making) and thus exposes the misguided naivet of [the speakers] readiness for an early death (l). Similar play on the wording of epitaphs can be found in V (AP 5.210), XXVIII (AP 7.11) and again *XLI (AP 7.217), with similar efffects. S. is a perceptive reader who manages to bring out subtleties and unexpected turns often overlooked by previous commentators. I particularly liked his notes on the epigrams treating hetaeras who dedicate spurs, reins and whips to Aphrodite (sexual imagery based on the metaphor of intercourse as horse riding) as alluding playfully to epinician poetry, in particular the contemporary epinician epigrams for Ptolemaic royal women found in the New Posidippus.4)
4)VI (AP 5.203) and *XXXV (AP 5.202); Guichard also mentions this parodic connection with the Posidippus epigrams ad loc., although I could find no acknowledgement of this in S.

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Other assets of the book are the generous and up-to-date references to scholarly literature, to parallels in the poetry of contemporaries of A., and to parallel usage of single Greek words or expressions. All of this makes this book a rich and rewarding read for those wishing to learn about A., epigram in general, or Hellenistic poetry: S. conveys a clear sense of how A. wrote and why he did so in his own time and place in Greek literary history. In general then, this book deserves to be praised wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, there are some detailed points of interpretation and editorial choices which surprised me, and (although this is mere quibbling) quite a lot of typographical errors, some of them minor, some more serious, that look ill in any philological edition.5) Let me give some examples of interpretations and editorial choices where I found myself inclined to another opinion than the one expressed by S. In many of these cases, I felt that S.s cleverness of interpretation somehow marred his ability to see the most obvious sense of a poem, or to accept a less sophisticated but more probable interpretation, or better attested textual variant. It must be stated beforehand, however, that S. always clearly formulates the problem, gives the alternative readings and informs the reader well enough to choose to difffer from or agree with his own interpretations. In poem III (AP 5.153) S. emends the first line (Nicaretes sweet face, smitten by desire; the text of Palatinus graecus 23, which is metrically diffficult, but not impossible) by replacing the participle with Wilamowitzs conjecture . Wilamowitzs conjecture makes Nicaretes face imbued with desirability and thus postpones what in S.s view is the pointe of the epigram, viz. that Nicarete is in love with Cleophon (as becomes clear in 3 and 4). S. is presumably led in his considerations by the fact that some of the textual tradition of A.s poetry is rather uncertain, but although this emendation may in fact make the epigram more pointed, it seems dangerous to emend any poem on the basis of ones own judgement of what would make it better poetry. Besides, although S. provides parallels for beauty as being poured over someone, a precise verbal parallel for this expression (which refers to dipping something into a liquid) is lacking. A similar editorial choice occurs in *XXXIV (AP 5.194) where the perfectly possible reading of the MS is rejected in favor of a conjecture of Martorelli whichadmittedlymakes a nicer point, poetically. An example of counterintuitive and perhaps over-subtle explanation on word level is S. interpretation of in the phrase , /
5)E.g. xxviii: for ; lxxxv: work-break for word-break; cii: Parasinus for Parisinus; cvi: Barbarino-Vaticana for Barberino-Vaticana; pp. 12-9: the lemma reads whereas the text of the epigram reads , which is especially unhappy as the form of the word is under discussion in the lemma.

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. (IV.3-4; AP 5.158, punctuation by S.), the phrase inscribed in golden lettering on the sash of alluring Hermione. S. states the range of meaning of includes for ever... and completely..., and the point is likely that the wearer of the sash expects her partners love to be not only constant but complete... excluding not only emotions such as grief but for any other girl, though Hermione herself will not be equally faithful. S. seems to be especially drawn to this interpretation by the fact that the poem is in the past tense, which would suggest to the reader that the speaker has not heeded [the] command and moved on as well (21). It might be easier to take simply as wholly rather than forever, and see the sash as an ironic buyer beware sign, which advocates that Hermione, alluring though she may be, is after all a hetaera, and can never belong to anyone completely, although this is, paradoxically, in Hermiones own opinion, no reason to like her any less. Other surprising interpretations on wordlevel occur in XIV (AP 5.167) where v. 5 is translated as there, I shout this much, whereas it would seem more natural, especially in view of the past tense in the opening line ( ) to take the aorist as a past tense as well; might moreover better be translated as therefore. This would also afffect the interpretation of the last verses. One final example regards the overall interpretation of the famous and problematic epigram XVI (AP 12.50) , etc. One of its problems concerns the question of the identity of the speaker(s) addressing A. here. Some (Wilamowitz, Giangrande, Hutchinson, Gutzwiller) believe that the speakers should be identified with die Genossen, die A. anreden, der truebselig aus Liebesgram an der Kneiptafel sitzt (Wilamowitz). But others hold that the poet addresses himself (Achillea-Stella, Albini, Handley, Di Marco, Guichard). S. chooses the first option, and points to the first person plural verb forms in vv. 5-10, which according to him make it unlikely (after the address in the second person singular of 1-4) that A. is speaking to himself. There are, however, several reasons to suspect that this might not be the most convincing interpretation. In the first place, if we look at the speaking situations in all of A.s poems, there is no parallel for the situation sketched by S. In other poems, there is either a third-person narrative in the past tense (e.g. XXIV = AP 12.63) or a first person speaker (e.g. V = AP 5.210), who may be addressing his own heart, or a god, or personified object in a kind of soliloquy (e.g. XV = AP 12.46; XVII = AP 12.166). But in none is a speaker represented as addressing the poet. Secondly, there seems to be a noticeable break in the argument of the speaker in XVI after line 4 (1-4: questions to A. about his wretched state of mind; 5-10 conclusion: let us drink, while there still is time). This makes it easier to take the first person plural in the last four lines as generalizing by the speaker rather than pointing to a clearly identified group of Genossen. Besides,

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the poignant irony of regarding ones own feelings from a distance which such a self-address implies seems to me more attractive than the assumption that A. would represent his persona as being addressed by a friend but not answering. I would therefore prefer to read the epigram as a sample of audible thought, to use Walshs term.6) Similar speaking situations in later erotic poetry, like Catullus 8 (miser Catulle, desinas ineptire...), might endorse this interpretation. As these examples demonstrate, it is unlikely that all of S.s interpretations will convince everyone. This is not owing to a lack of poetic perceptiveness on S.s part, but rather to the fact that A. writes remarkably complex and sophisticated poetry, which occasionally has been garbled in the transmission. Despite this, or perhaps rather because this is so admirably made clear, S.s book is an absolute must-read for anyone seriously interested in these epigrams. University of Amsterdam, Department of Classics Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam, The Netherlands j.j.h.klooster@uva.nl Jacqueline Klooster

6)Walsh, G.B. 1990. Surprised by Self: Audible Thought in Hellenistic Poetry, CPh 85, 1-21.