Playing with Menander’s Play: Martial’s Apophoreta 187 (with a Note on Propertius’ Cynthia , Apoph . 189)

Abstract

In the book cycle in the Apophoreta (183–196), Martial (re)reads Greco-Latin literature through a Saturnalian lens with the aim of challenging the traditional valuation of genres and ennobling his choice of epigram. This article focuses on the epigram for Menander’s Thais (187), which discusses the play in terms reminiscent of Latin love elegy. This study associates poem 187 with the Greco-Latin tradition of composing epigrams on poets and their books, especially that of forging poetic tituli . As in these examples from the tradition, poem 187 manipulates fundamental elements of the identification of poet and work and welcomes philological debate. Martial’s presentation of the erotic pair Menander-Thais enters scholarly polemic by correcting the name of the beloved, and does so in terms that allow for ambiguity between woman and book. That ambiguity applies also to Propertius’ Cynthia, forging a further connection between Menander and the elegist, and making of Thais a successor of the women-books Lyde, Lydia, or Dictynna. The Thais-Cynthia link reinforces the connection between Menander and Propertius, and consequently between the books that represent “minor” or “ludic” poetry, central in Martial’s self-presentation as a successor to the best poets.