ANTHOLOGIA PALATINA 9.538, THE ALPHABET AND THE
CALLIGRAPHIC EXAMINATION IN THE COPTIC SCRIPTORIUM
Plate 1
Anthologia Palatina contains several epigrams (9.538, 539,
547) identified as anonymous. Their artificial character is so obvious that the English editor-translator limits himself to the following note without attempting any translation: "These Nonsense
Verses each contain all the Letters of the Alphabet."2 The following remarks concern only epigram 538.
The epigram was thought by Stadtmuller to have been composed by
Maximos Planudes since he was the scribe responsible for Marcianus
481. Parisinus 3058 (XV-XVI cent.) makes it the work of Joannes
Tzetzes (XII cent.), and this also does not seem unacceptable to
Stadtmuller: "Vocabula eiusmodi conflata ab ingenio Tzetzae non
aborrent." But H.G. Evelyn-White found this line among the VI-VII
century ostraca of Epiphanius' Monastery in Thebes,3 and thus the
line is shown to have existed at least five centuries before Tzetzes.
This is already noted in the P. Waltz edition.4 The line is to be
found as well in the Coptic manuscript Glazier 67 (G67), of which
1 H. Stadtmuller, Anthologia graeca epigrammatum Palatina cum Planudea 3.1
(Leipzig 1906); P. Waltz - G. Soury, Anthologie grecque, Premibre partie, AnthoZogie Palatine 8 (Paris 1974).
2 W. R. Paton, The Greek Anthology 3 (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge,
Mass. 1968) 299.
3 H. G. Evelyn-White, The Monastery of Epiphanius at Thebes 2: Greek Ostraca and Papyri (New York 1926) n.616, p.136 text, 321 commentary. The ostracon
is quoted as MMA 14.1.219. Despite the reference in the commentary (p.321) the
ostracon is not reproduced on Plate VII.
4 Cf. his apparatus to 9.538 and the complementary note p.234.
