I would like to thank David Campbell, Michael Haslam, Marilyn Skinner and the anonymous readers of Ramus for their helpful criticism of earlier versions of this essay.

1. The text of this epigram, particularly the last two lines, is vexed. For a discussion of the alternatives see Gow, A.S.F. and Page, D.L., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams (Cambridge 1965), ii.442Google Scholar; Taran, Sonia Lida, ‘The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram’, Columbia Studies in Classical Thought 9 (1979), 132–49Google Scholar at 147 nn. 33 and 34; and most recently Skinner, Marilyn B., ‘Sapphic Nossis’, Arethusa 22 (1989), 5–18Google Scholar at 12. I accept the arguments of Page, Taran, Gow and Luck, Georg (‘Die Dichterinnen der griechischen Anthologie’, MH 11 [1954], 170–87Google Scholar at 186) for retention of the manuscript , but otherwise follow Waltz, P. (ed.), Anthologie Grecque (Paris 1960), v.158Google Scholar, who takes Boissonade’s ἅ τε and Brunck’s for the manuscript , and Hecker’s for the manuscript . Wilamowitz–s punctuation (cited in Taran 148 n.34) eliminates the need for the added -n in Brunck’s , followed by Beckby, H. (Anthologia Graeca [München 1957], ii.422Google Scholar) and supported by Gow–Page.

2. I am indebted to Kolodny, Annette, ‘Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism’, in Showalter, E. (ed.), The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature and Theory (New York 1985), 144–67Google Scholar at 153–56, for this approach to the use and consequent self-perpetuation of literary canons.

3. For other approaches to Nossis AP 7.718 see Taran (n.1 above), 146–48; Skinner (n.1 above), 1 If., and ‘Nossis Thelyglossos: The Private Text and the Public Book’, in Pomeroy, Sarah B. (ed.), Women’s History and Ancient History (Chapel Hill & London 1991), 20–47 at 34f.Google Scholar

4. In fact many early epitaphs were by the Hellenistic period attributed to Simonides on the strength of his fame for the one Nossis here quotes; see Cameron, Alan, The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes (Oxford 1993), 1.Google Scholar

5. See Walsh, G., ‘Callimachean Passages: The Rhetoric of Epitaph in Epigram’, Arethusa 24 (1991), 77–106Google Scholar, for a discussion of funeral epitaphs and their use in later Hellenistic poetry; Lattimore, R., Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana 1962), 230–37Google Scholar, for epitaphs appealing to wayfarers; and Taran (n.1 above), 146–49, for a detailed discussion of the motif of ‘conveying the message’ in funeral epitaphs, with reference to AP 7.718.

6. E.g. Callimachus’ two epitaphs for himself (AP 7.415) and for his father (7.525) which omit, respectively, his father’s name, and his own; an educated reader will understand from the clues who is meant.

7. See Svenbro, Jesper, An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece, tr. Lloyd, Janet (Ithaca 1993), 55f. and 84f.Google Scholar, on the importance of ‘giving voice’ to an epitaph.

8. Taran (n.1 above), 132, identifies this epitaph type and discusses its conventions in detail.

9. E.g. AP 7.521 (Callimachus), (‘if you come to Cyzicus…’), or 7.502 (Nicaenetus) (‘if you leave Torone and come to Amphipolis itself…’).

10. E.g. AP 7.540, where the place and manner of death is a Thracian ambush, and the father is the mourner.

11. For an example with a series of variants on the same epitaph, cf. AP 7.163–64–65, by Leonidas, Antipater and Archias.

12. E.g. in AP 7.187, where a contrast is drawn between the age of the mother who leaves flowers at the tomb, and the youth of her dead daughter.

13. A complete study of women’s epitaphs in the Greek Anthology and elsewhere has yet to be done; for a brief discussion see Lattimore (n.5 above), 299f., and Pomeroy, Sarah B., Women in Hellenistic Egypt (New York 1984), 72–75.Google Scholar

14. Furiani, Patrizia Liviabella, ‘Intimità e socialità in Nosside di Locri’, in de Martino, Francesco (ed.), Rose di Pieria (Bari 1991), 177–95Google Scholar at 192f., argues for the manuscript reading (‘Locrian woman’), over Brunck’s generally accepted emendation (‘Locrian land’). Even if one accepts the reading , however, Nossis’ mother and family are not named or specified; the woman’s only importance is as an inhabitant of Locris, to indicate Nossis’ place of birth. This usage stands in contrast to other women’s epitaphs, in which the specific kinship ties of the dead woman are the most important information given by the inscription.

15. Stadtmüller’s alters the force of this: Mitylene is then described as inspiring Sappho’s poetry, rather than the stranger who is going there in order to be inspired by it—and the word is in any case difficult (see the discussion in Taran [n.1 above], 147 n.33). For present purposes, however, the general effect remains the same: Nossis asks that the message go to Mitylene because it is known for Sappho’s poetry, and is the home of Sappho. For ‘flowers’ as poetry cf. AP 4.1 (Meleager), AP 4.2 (Philip), AP 5.170 (Nossis); for ‘flowers’ as poetry in Nossis specifically see Degani, E., ‘Nosside’, GFF 4 (1981), 43–52Google Scholar at 52; Skinner (n.1 above), 8f.; and cf. White, Heather, ‘The Rose of Aphrodite’, in Essays in Hellenistic Poetry (Amsterdam 1980), ii.17–20Google Scholar at 19, and Giuseppe Giangrande, ‘Deux passages controversés Théocrite, ID. XXIII, vv. 26–32, et Nossis, A.P. 170’, AC 61 (1992), 213–25Google ScholarPubMed at 223–25.

16. E.g. AP 7.37, for Sophocles; 7.55, for Hesiod.

17. E.g. AP 7.715, of Leonidas of Tarentum.

18. E.g. (epitaphs) 7.43, 7.149, 7.409, 7.410, 7.411, and (self–epitaphs) 7.715 (Leonidas) and 7.525 (Callimachus).

19. Eg. AP 7.43, for Euripides, whose (‘undying fame’) is sure to equal Homer’s; 7.159, for Telephanes the flute-player, whose fame is also compared to that of Nestor and Orpheus; 7.409, for Antimachus, as second only to Homer. Stesichorus is said to be the reincarnation of Homer (7.75); Sappho is said to surpass all female poets by as much as Homer surpassed all males (7.15).

20. The sole exception in self-epitaphs are Meleager’s two (AP 7.417, 7.418), which commemorate, along with his travels in the Mediterranean and his achievement of a garrulous old age, his imitation of the satires of Menippus. Meleager may have been influenced by Nossis, whom he had certainly read.

21. Sappho’s influence on Nossis has been noticed by commentators since Reitzenstein, R., Epigramm und Skolion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Alexandrinischen Dichtung (Giessen 1893), 138fGoogle Scholar, who believed that Nossis must also have written love and lyric poetry, now lost, like Maas, P., ‘Nossis’, RE (Stuttgart 1936)Google ScholarPubMed, col. 1053, who took Nossis’ reference to Sappho as evidence for this position. More recently see especially the thorough study by Skinner (n.1 above). See also Skinner (n.3 above), 34 and 36–38, and ‘Aphrodite Garlanded: Eros and Poetic Creativity in Sappho and Nossis’, in de Martino (n.14 above), 79–96, on Aphrodite in the two poets.

22. Furiani (n.14 above), 192f. and n.33, places Nossis in direct competition with Sappho, as does Luck (n.1 above), 187, who suggests that the comparison was presumptious—‘Nossis war keine grosse Dichterin’; cf. Taran (n.1 above), 148 n.34, and Gow-Page (n.1 above), ii.442, who doubt that Nossis would dare to call herself Sappho’s equal.

23. Skinner (n.1 above), 41f, argues for an ‘alternative, relatively autonomous female culture’ in which Nossis’ poems were produced; see also Skinner (n.3 above), 20f, 30, 37f; Skinner (n.21 above), 81, 95, and (on Sappho) ‘Corinna of Tanagra and Her Audience’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 2 (1983), 9–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 16, and ‘Women and Language in Archaic Greece, or, Why Is Sappho a Woman?’, in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin and Richlin, Amy (eds.), Feminist Theory And The Classics (New York & London 1993), 125–144 at 132.Google Scholar

24. Reitzenstein (n.21 above), 138f; Skinner (n.1 above), 16–18.

25. E.g. Skinner (n.1 above), 14: ‘There is…reasonable prima facie case for believing that Nossis’ lost erotic epigrams would likewise have looked to women, rather than men, as the objects of desire;’ Skinner (n.21 above), 95: ‘Inspiration…seems to originate in Sappho’s and Nossis’ verse from intimate physical and emotional contacts with many other women experienced in the ambiance of a female community…. For the duration of the performance, the poet and her receptive audience are bonded together, immersed in thrilling desire—the same desire that, though muted, still radiates today from the text to the empathetic reader.’

26. Barnard, Sylvia, ‘Hellenistic Women Poets’, CJ 3 (1978), 204–14Google Scholar at 210, and Snyder, J.The Woman and the Lyre (Carbondale 1989), 78Google Scholar, believe that the poets shared a common devotion to Aphrodite. Skinner (n.21 above) argues that both poets felt themselves to be inspired primarily by Aphrodite.

27. On a female poetic tradition see especially Skinner (‘Women’ n.23 above), 30f.

28. Cf.Bloom, Harold, A Map of Misreading (New York 1975)Google Scholar and Kabbalah and Criticism (New York 1975), 96ff.Google Scholar

29 Cf. Gubar, S., ‘Sapphistries’, Signs 10 (1984), 43–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. I accept Gow–Page’s argument (n.1 above, ii.434) for placing Nossis’ floruit at around 300 BCE, in the first generation of Hellenistic epigrammatists, contemporary with Anyte and somewhat later than Moero. For discussion cf. Carugno, G., ‘Nosside’, GIF 10 (1957), 324–35Google Scholar; Luck (n.1 above), 182, who makes her the latest of the four female epigrammatists he considers; Skinner (n.3 above), 26, who puts her before Moero and Anyte.

31. See most recently Holt Parker, N., ‘Sappho Schoolmistress’, TAPA 123 (1993), 309–51Google Scholar, and Most, Glenn W., ‘Reflecting Sappho’, BICS 40 (1995), 15–38.Google Scholar

32. On Sappho’s poetry as providing an alternative, woman–centred model of poetry and sexuality, see duBois, Page, ‘Sappho and Helen’, in Peradotto, John and Sullivan, J.P. (eds.), Women in Antiquity: The Arethusa Papers (Albany NY 1984), 95–106Google Scholar; Greene, Ellen, ‘Apostrophe and Women’s Erotics in the Poetry of Sappho’, TAPA 124 (1994), 41–56Google Scholar, and ‘Sappho, Foucault, and Women’s Erotics’, Arethusa 29 (1996), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Skinner (‘Women’, n.23 above); Stehle, Eva, ‘Romantic Sensuality, Poetic Sense: A Response to Hallett on Sappho’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 4 (1979), 465–71Google Scholar, and ‘Sappho’s Private World’, in Foley, Helene (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York 1981), 45–61Google Scholar; Jack Winkler, ‘Gardens of Nymphs: Public and Private in Sappho’s Lyrics’, ibid. 63–89.

33. Calame, Claude (Choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaique [Rome 1977])Google Scholar, Bennett, Curtis (‘Concerning “Sappho Schoolmistress”’, TAPA 124 [1994], 345–47 at 345)Google Scholar and Lardinois, Andre (’subject and Circumstance in Sappho’s Poetry’, TAPA 124 [1994], 57–84Google Scholar at 57) all hold that Sappho was primarily a public choral poet.

34. On Sappho’s audience as a private group of female friends, see Parker (n.31 above); as a a female–only choral audience,Hallett, Judith, ‘Sappho and Her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 4 (1979), 447–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 460; as women–only, Skinner (n.21 above), 81, Skinner (‘Women’, n.23 above), Stehle (‘Private’, n.32 above) and Greene (‘Apostrophe’, n.32 above).

35. J.M. Snyder, ‘Public Occasion and Private Passion in the Lyrics of Sappho of Lesbos’, in Pomeroy (n.3 above), 1–19, àrgues that the audience of Sappho’s poetry would be public or private, depending on the particular occasion and genre of poetry or the performance; cf. Lardinois (n.33 above), 73.

36. On Alcman’s male audience see Lefkowitz, Mary R., ‘Girls’ Choruses’, in Heroines and Hysterics (London 1981), 50–52Google Scholar; Skinner (‘Women’, n.23 above), 133f.; cf. Hallett (n.34 above), 460.

37. On the history of Sappho’s characterisation as a ‘spinster schoolmistress’ see Parker (n.31 above). Robbins, Emmet (’sappho, Aphrodite, and the Muses’, AncW 26 (1995), 225–39Google Scholar) still inclines towards the view of Sappho as a schoolmistress, but makes her, as a poet, primarily a hymn–writer. Stehle (‘Romantic’, n.32 above) considers her a writer of personal and erotic poetry; Parker argues that she is a personal and symposiast poet; Winkler (n.32 above) argued that she produced poetry of the ‘private’, i.e. the domestic, or non–public, sphere, which was informed by close readings of male poets; Bennett (n.33 above) makes her a cult devotee.

38. E.g. fr. 140a (Campbell, D.A. [ed.], Greek Lyric. Vol. 1 [Cambridge MA 1982])Google Scholar, anti–phonal lines in which Aphrodite laments the death of Adonis. Chance preserves the name ‘Cyth–erea’ as the speaker here; otherwise the reader would naturally make Sappho the subject. See Lardinois (n.33 above), 60 n.14.

39. Robbins (n.37 above) argues that many of the fragments presently read as ‘erotic’ have a strong religious component. Hallett (n.34 above), 56f., argues that the ‘erotic’ poetry in fact performs the paedagogical function of socialising young women for their sexual role in marriage; cf. Stehle’s response (‘Romantic’, n.32 above). Parker (n.31 above), 322–24, argues that the objects of Sappho’s love poetry are not younger women but women her own age; Lardinois (n.33 above), 60–62, that we cannot be sure that the speaker ‘Sappho’ is a persona, or another character. Winkler (n.32 above), 84, defends Sappho as a writer of (among other things) erotica.

40. Most (n.31 above), 29f.

41. ibid.

42. ibid.

43. On libraries, see Pfeiffer, Rudolf, History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford 1968), 102Google Scholar; on the book trade see Easterling, P.E. and Knox, B.M.W., ‘Books and Readers in the Greek World’, in The Cambridge History of Ancient Literature (Cambridge 1985), 1–42Google Scholar at 19f.

44. Testimonia and fragments are from Sappho unless otherwise noted; numbering follows Campbell (n.38 above).

45. Diphilus, Antiphanes, and at least four other fourth century BCE poets wrote comedies called Sappho (Athen. 13.598b–c, 10.450e, 11.487e, and Campbell [n.38 above] fr.26 n.1); other comedies which may have dealt with Sappho were two entitled Phaon by Plato Comicus and Antiphanes, and five by different authors entitled ‘The Leucadian’ (test 26 n.1). The comic poet Epicrates mentions Sappho’s love songs (Athen. 13.605e).

46. Cameron (n.4 above), 3.

47. Fr.l57Dn.1.

48. For the editions of the lyric poets in the Hellenistic period and before see Pfeiffer (n.43 above), 128–30, 181–86.

49. Pfeiffer (n.43 above), 200–05; see Quintilian 1.4.3 on the Hellenistic grammarians’ production of a formal canon (…auctores alios in ordinem redegerint, alios omnino exemerint nu–mero, ‘some authors they admitted into the order, others they left out altogether’), and on the involvement of Aristophanes of Byzantium (10.1.54) and Aristarchus (10.1.54 and 59) in this effort.

50. AP 9.571 gives the names of eight of the Hellenistic canon of nine, but hesitates over Sappho, claiming that she was not ninth among men but rather tenth among the Muses.

51. Meleager lists Anyte, Moero, Sappho, Nossis and Erinna (AP 4.1); Antipater adds Praxilla, Telesilla, Corinna and Myitis (AP 9.26). Of these Praxilla, Telesilla, and perhaps Myitis (besides Sappho) are not Hellenistic, but fifth century BCE and earlier; Corinna has since Page’s edition generally been agreed to be Hellenistic in date (Page, D.L., Corinna [London 1953]Google Scholar, but cf. Allen, A. and Frel, J., ‘A Date for Corinna’, CJ 67 [1972], 26–30Google Scholar). Tatian adds six more names, mostly Roman–era (oral, ad Graec. 33), and Eustathius adds Charixena, Theano and Myro, of uncertain date (schol. ad II. 2.711–15).

52. Gold, Barbara, Literary Patronage in Greece and Rome (Chapel Hill and London 1987), 30–35.Google Scholar

53. Aristodama of Smyrna, in the late third century, and Alcinoe of Thronion both travelled long distances in the company of male family members to win competitions in different cities; Aristomache of Erythrae won two victories at the Isthmia sometime before the second century. See Sarah Pomeroy, B., ‘Technikai kai Mousikai: The Education of Women in the Fourth Century and in the Hellenistic Period’, AJAH 2 (1977), 51–68 at 54f.Google Scholar

54. Reitzenstein (n.21 above, 137–44) classes Nossis on stylistic and dialectal grounds with the ‘Peloponnesian’ epigram–writers, a group in which he includes Leonidas of Tarentum, Perses of Thebes, Mnasalcas of Sicyon, Nicias of Miletus, Anyte of Tegea, Moero, and others; see Degani (n.15 above), 46, for recent discussion. Luck (n.1 above), 182–87, traces Nossis’ similarities in theme and dialect with contemporary epigrammatists. Gigante, M., ‘Nosside’, PP 29 (1974), 22–39Google Scholar, sets Nossis’ poetry in its Hellenistic context, arguing that it is inspired by contemporary realism and obeys Hellenistic norms. Most recently, Giangrande (n.15 above), 220–25 reads AP 5.170 as a manipulation of the conventions of Hellenistic poetry.

55. Snyder (n.26 above), 79, and Maas (n.21 above) argue that the epigrams were written for inscription on genuine dedications, and were not purely literary exercises; Degani (n.15 above), 45, argues that they need not have been inscribed. Cameron (n.4 above), 3, lists author’s collections of published epigrams in the third century BCE by Callimachus, Hedylus, Mnasalcas, Nicaenetus, Nicander, Philaetas and Posidippus.

56. On the nature of ‘publication’ in the Hellenistic world see Knox and Easterling (n.43 above), 19f.

57. Skinner (n.3 above), 32, following Luck (n.1 above), 183, argues that Nossis’ epigrams, with the addition of AP 5.170 and AP 7.718, were released to the public as a collection after prior private circulation among her friends.

58. See Cameron, , Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton 1995), 71–103Google Scholar, for a lucid discussion of the evidence.

59. So Luck (n.1 above, 187) implies; Snyder (n.26 above, 155) suggests that there existed a supportive and perhaps female local audience for women lyricists and elegiac poets. Skinner (‘Women’, n.23 above, 130f.) assumes a female audience as part of her linguistic argument; see also Skinner (n.21 above), 95, and Skinner (n.3 above), 21. In the latter article Skinner (30) argues that Nossis is in 7.718 identifying herself to an audience of women.

60. Skinner (n.3 above), 21.

61. E.g. in the suggestion ‘Let’s go to see’ () the dedication of a statue by Poly–archis, AP 9.332, which implies a female group who would all be interested in seeing it, and in the praise of Polyarchis’ beauty; in the praise for Kallo’s character, AP 9.605; and in the comment that Melinna looks just like her mother (AP 6.353), which seems to assume that the audience would know both mother and daughter. Skinner, , ‘Greek Women and the Metronymic: A Note on an Epigram by Nossis’, AHB 1.2 (1987), 39–42Google Scholar at 41f., argues that the use of the metronymic at Nossis AP 6.265 represents customary usage among women in private conversation, and therefore evidence that Nossis’ epigrams were intended for a female audience.

62. On the historical status of Locrian women see most recently MacLachlan, Bonnie C., ‘Love, War and the Goddess in Fifth–Century Locri’, AncW 26 (1995), 205–23Google Scholar, on women in the temple art and foundation myths of Locris. Barnard (n.26 above, 210) recognises a high status for women at Locris; Oldfather, A.E. s.v. ‘Lokris’ (RE 1926)Google Scholar and Maas (n.21 above) assume it and argue for the use of the metronymic at Locris, and for descent calculated through the female line; but cf. Snyder (n.26 above), 77, who sees no evidence that women’s status at Locris differed markedly from their status elsewhere in the Greek world.

63. For Nossis as prostitute, see Reitzenstein (n.21 above), 142, and cf. Gow–Page (n.1 above), ii.436, and Barnard (n.26 above), 211. Recent scholarship beginning with Cazzaniga, I. (‘Nosside, nome aristocratica per la poetessa di Locri?’ ASNP 3a ser II [1972], 173–76Google Scholar has argued persuasively for Nossis as a member of the aristocracy; see also Gigante (n.54 above), De–gani (n.15 above), 49, and Skinner (n.3 above), 23. For Nossis as a member of the middle class, see Maas (n.21 above).

64. There is evidence of public schooling for girls as well as boys in some cities by the third century BCE, and literacy among women will have been more common in urban centres and among the leisured classes, the intended audience for any poet. On female literacy in the Hellenistic world see especially Harris, William V., Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA 1989), 130–41Google Scholar; also Pomeroy (n.53 above), Susan Guettel Cole, ‘Could Greek Women Read and Write?’, in Foley (n.32 above), 219–45 at 228–34, and Pomeroy (n.13 above), 42–65 and 121.

65. Pomeroy (n.13 above, 42) points out that an intimate air was common to Alexandrian poetry; and on the shift from ‘major’ to ‘minor’ and ‘public’ to ‘private’ scenes and characters from classical to Hellenistic literature see James E.G. Zetzel, ‘Re–creating the Canon: Augustan Poetry & the Alexandrian Past’, in Roger von Hallberg (ed.), Canons (Chicago and London 1984), 107–29 at 118f..

66. Skinner (n.61 above).

67. Suggestions have ranged from simple book poetry to full–scale dramatic performances; most recently Cameron (n.58 above), 89f., argues for performances of Herodas by symposia guests.

68. Lefkowitz, Mary R., The Lives of the Greek Poets (London 1981).Google Scholar

69. On the unexamined assumption that female poets write emotionally and autobiographically, while male poets write artistically and skilfully, see Lefkowitz, , ‘Critical Stereotypes and the Poetry of Sappho’, in Heroines and Hysterics (London 1981), 59–68Google Scholar. It is necessary for the same reasons to be wary of specific autobiographical interpretations of Nossis, as, for example, Skinner’s (n.21 above, 93f.) and Degani’s (n.15 above, 48) interpretation of the compliments paid the looks of the women in the paintings described in Nossis’ epigrams as reflections of her own vulnerability to female beauty.

70. Lardinois (n.33 above), 62, 73; cf. Hallett (n.34 above), 456–64, on Sappho’s and Ale–man’s use of the persona of a young woman in their poetry; Lefkowitz (n.36 above), 51, points out that the intent of Alcman’s poetry, at least, was to draw the male gaze towards the object of the song.

71. See Knox and Easterling (n.43 above), 7, on reading in the Greek world; most texts will have been commonly read aloud, even by the Hellenistic period. Svenbro (n.7 above), 55f., argues further that epigrams in particular were intended to be read aloud, and that it was the reader’s part of the three–sided relationship between author, reader and listening audience to ‘give voice’ to the author’s words on a monument.

72. Williamson, Margaret, Sappho’s Immortal Daughters (Cambridge MA and London 1995), 16Google Scholar, argues that epigrams were ‘unperformed’, at least, not performed in the same sense that choral poetry was intended for performance; which, even if true, does not make epigram a ‘private’ genre. Degani (n.15 above), 45, argues that Nossis’ epigrams might have been performed, that is, read aloud for an audience, as does Skinner (n.21 above), 95.

73. As for example AP 7.424–426 must be ‘in the style of funeral epigrams, since they describe the decorations of a monument which, if the epigrams were genuine, readers could see for themselves.

74. Pfeiffer (n.43 above), 88 (on allusion in Hellenistic poetry), 120 (on Lycophron), 120f. (on Aratus), 125 (on Callimachus). Cf. AP 9.507 (Callimachus), on Aratus Phaenomena (commenting on Aratus’ use of Hesiod). Hutchinson, G.O., Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford 1988)Google Scholar, argues that a high degree of erudition may not always have been expected. Commentaries on Callimachus, at least, were produced with ‘elementary elucidation for readers of great ignorance’ (7) from a very early date; the papyrus to which he refers may have been a school text.

75. Cf. Zetzel (n.65 above), 119; Gigante (n.54 above) notes Nossis’ success in adapting Sapphic monody to epigrams.

76. Knox and Easterling (n.43 above), 23, 27.

(AP 5.170) Nothing is sweeter than love; all blessings are second to it; from my mouth I spit out even honey. Thus says Nossis; and whoever Aphrodite has not kissed, does not know her flowers, what roses they are.

78. On allusions to Sappho in AP 5.170 see esp. Skinner (n.1 above), 7–9. For the dependence of the first two lines of this poem on Th. 96f. see Cavallini, E., ‘Nossis AP V.170’, Sileno 7 (1981), 179–83Google Scholar; for AP 5.170 as the programmatic introduction to Nossis’ collection, see Skinner ibid.; cf. Giangrande (n.15 above), 220–25 contra.

79. While the word is not specifically used, ; was thought by the Greeks to be et–ymologically related to it (cf. Chantraine s.v.)

80. Skinner (n.3 above), 23, notes the use of the Homeric dyaixi in AP 6.265, and ibid. 43 n.26 notes that the ‘beauty and stature’ and ‘wisdom and kindness’ attributed to Sabaitha are elsewhere (in Homer and the Homeric Hymns) attributed to goddesses and heroines, e.g. Penelope (Od. 11.445f.) and Demeter (HHDem. 275).

81. Skinner (n.3 above), 31 and 43 n.30, traces the conceit whereby weapons grieve for the fallen warrior from Homer on; among Nossis’ contemporaries, AP 6.131 (Leonidas), AP 6.125 (Mnasalces) and AP 6.124 (Hegesippus) also make weapons express devotion to their former owners; cf. Luck (n.1 above), 183. Campbell, , Greek Lyric Poetry: A Selection (London 1967), 145Google Scholar, notes that Alcaeus (Ale. 428) and Anacreon (Anac. 381b) also wrote poems on the shields they threw away.

82. Skinner (n.3 above), 32.

83. Callimachus, for example, within a generation of Nossis, was known for his sharp judgments of other Hellenistic poets. Aristophanes of Byzantium, later in the century, produced an edition of only a ‘certain number’ of the lyric poets, and codified the canonical list of nine lyric poets, but selective lists of favoured poets very likely existed before his time. On the contemporary ‘ranking’ of Hellenistic poets in general see Pfeiffer (n.43 above), 119, 135f., 202, 205.

84. Spender, Dale, The Writing or the Sex? or Why you Don’t have to Read Women’s Writing to Know it’s No Good. (New York 1989).Google ScholarPubMed

85. So Elizabeth Barrett Browning can ask of English literature in the nineteenth century, ‘where were the poetesses? The divine breath…why did it never pass, even in the lyrical form, over the lips of a woman–I look everywhere for grandmothers and see none’ (Kenyon, Frederick G. [ed.], The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning [New York 1987], i.231f.Google Scholar, cited in Hogue, Cynthia, Scheming Women: Poetry, Privilege, and the Politics of Subjectivity [Albany 1995], 27f.)Google Scholar. The difficulty has not decreased in this era: Joanna Russ, a twentieth–century American novelist, was asked over a century after Browning how she planned to reconcile her adolescent ambition to become a writer with ‘the ‘fact’ that no woman had ever produced ‘great literature’ (Russ, Joanna, How to Suppress Women’s Writing [Austin 1983], 90).Google Scholar

86. Examples drawn from the autobiographies of female authors are too numerous to list, and I will give only one. Margaret Atwood, a highly successful poet and novelist who believes she met with an unusually favourable reception, still says of her early experience, ‘I felt that I was writing in the teeth of the odds; as all writers do, to be sure, but for women there were extra handicaps. I was writing anyway, I was writing nevertheless, I was writing despite’ (‘If You Can’t Say Something Nice, Don’t Say Anything At AH’, in Scheier, Libby, Sheard, Sarah and Wachtel, Eleanor [eds.], Language in her Eye: Writing and Gender—Views by Canadian Women Writing in English [Toronto 1990], 15–25 at 17),Google Scholar. See Spender (n.84 above), Ch.2 and p.51, on systematic discouragement of women’s writing in this century.

87. Elizabeth Barrett Browning names Sappho as the only female on her list of forty–two poets in ‘A Vision of Poets’ (Preston, Harriet Waters [ed.], The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning [Boston 1974], 318–21).Google Scholar

88. Cf. Gubar (n.29 above).

89. Snyder (n.26 above), 155, argues that the description of Sappho as the ‘tenth Muse’ is ‘acknowledging the inherently female nature of literary creativity’, but it is not clear that this was the archaic or Hellenistic view; I would argue rather that insofar as creativity was considered ‘female’ it was worshipped as ‘the Muse’ for the purpose of appropriation by other authors. See Bergren, Ann L.T., ‘Language and the Female in Early Greek Thought’, Arethusa 16 (1983), 69–96Google Scholar, for the seminal discussion of appropriation of female creativity in male authors; cf. Halperin, David, ‘Why is Diotima a Woman?’, in One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, and Other Essays on Greek Love (New York 1990), 113–51Google Scholar, on Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. Williamson (n.72 above, 15) points out that the description of Sappho as the tenth Muse makes it more difficult for another female poet to consider her as a model; cf. Russ (n.85 above), 84 and 87 on ‘tokenisation’ of female authors.

90. It has been argued that she also wrote lyric poetry (Gow–Page [n.1 above], ii.434; Maas [n.21 above]; Reitzenstein [n.21 above], 138f.; contra Vara–Donado, J., ‘Melos y elegia’, Emerita 40 [1972], 433–51)Google Scholar or love poetry (Reitzenstein ibid.), possibly homoerotic (Skinner [n.1 above], 13–15; Skinner [n.21 above], 93–95), but there is little evidence to go on.

91. Cited by Reitzenstein (n.21 above), 140f. n.1. Cillactor’s date is unknown but probably Roman era (Cameron [n.4 above], 89). While Cillactor did not necessarily read Nossis, he must at least have read someone who had read and been influenced by her, as Reitzenstein suggests.

92. It is a common critical tactic to exclude female authors from consideration as serious artists by criticising their lives, rather than their work, often on sexual grounds. See Lefkowitz (n.69 above), 59, and Russ (n.85 avove), 25–38 (‘Pollution of Agency’), on criticism of female artists in biographical and sexual terms; cf. Ellmann, Mary, Thinking About Women (New York 1968), 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on criticism of twentieth century female authors.