‘From atop a lofty wall…’

Abstract

Chapter 17 examines how poets engage with philosophers and philosophy in epigram, at times modelling and championing the views of the philosopher, at others distancing themselves sharply from their subjects. The theme is sufficiently pronounced as to constitute a thematic subgenre from Callimachus to the end of classical antiquity. Careful study is paid to individual poems representative of different periods and to the techniques most commonly employed, ‘praise’ and ‘blame’. The chapter further argues that in several epigrams poets employ the recusatio to disavow philosophy both as a genre and as a discursive medium and champion instead epigram and poetry writ large as humbler and superior discursive modes.