La protection du voyage dans les épigrammes de Posidippe de Pella
Résumé
This paper shows the prominence of the themes of travel and the protection of travellers in the New Posidippus. In the Lithika, Posidippus praises the stones and precious goods that travel from the East to Alexandria and are carried through streams. Travel is also the dominant theme of the oiônoskopika and it allows for a smooth transition to the following section, in which the divinized Arsinoe II, a new goddess protecting seafarers, receives a series of votive offerings. The next section (epitumbia) is interested in the symbolic path that leads to the Underworld. A few sections later, the nauagika, a series of epigrams on scenes of shipwrecks, provide a surprising answer or pendant to the oionoskopika and anathematika: some of the bad omens have come true and the bodies of drowned seafarers implicitly show how necessary the protection of a benevolent goddess can be. The theme of travel thus provides a real unity to Posidippus' poetry book: the poet, who probably travelled a lot in real life for his career as an epigrammatist, endeavours to build a rich image of the mobility of people and goods that characterized Alexandria as a prosperous capital city. Moreover, travel can be understood as a major metapoetic motif, as the poet explores new and audacious paths under the divine protection of the queen. The book indeed appears to be conceived as an anathematikon or pinax anakeimenon for the divinized Arsinoe.
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