PORTRAIT OF A POET: ERINNA’S EKPHRASTIC EPIGRAM, AP 6.352

Abstract

Although we know very little about the young female poet, Erinna, it is evident from the reception of later Hellenistic epigrammatists that she was highly respected and contributed greatly to the advancement of the Hellenistic aesthetic. However, her pioneering role in the development, if not the establishment, of the literary ekphrastic epigram has long been overlooked in favour of her short hexameter poem and funerary epigrams on female lamentation and loss. This paper examines the numerous ways in which Erinna had contributed to the ekphrastic tradition and the manner in which her ekphrastic epigram AP 6.352 may have served as a prototype for later ekphrastic texts of the Hellenistic age.