Abstract

The original thematic features displayed by 93 A.-B. find an explanation in the comparison with Odyssey 24.290-96, its hypotext. Posidippus, however, is not only trying to fulfil the typical Hellenistic demand for originality. The imperative περίστειλον represents a Homeric gloss through which the learned epigrammatist explains the hapax περιστέλλω that puzzled Homer's commentators. Such intertextuality provides new evidence of the reception of Homer in the Hellenistic Age, revealing that Posidippus, too, was ποιητὴς ἅμα καὶ κριτικός.