Classical World

Rosenmeyer focuses on the statue in Egyptian Thebes identified as the colossus of Memnon and surveys ancient visitors' reactions to it, in particular the call that it often made to its mother Eos (Dawn) in the morning. Her book falls into three sections. Chapters 1-3 give background, and discuss the identities of the visitors and inscriptions that they leave on the colossus. Chapters 4-5 focus on two subsets of the inscriptions: those that reflect the Homeric Memnon and those linked to Sappho. In chapter 6 reactions of German and English Romantic poets to Memnon and to the statue known as Ozymandias are surveyed. The book concludes with three appendices: diagrams of the inscriptions on the colossus; the text and translation of the inscriptions; and an index of the relevant names. Bibliography and an index follow.

Chapter 1 opens with Richard Pococke's description of the two colossi at Thebes, then quotes the earliest and latest datable ancient inscriptions on Memnon—by Servius Clemens, who wrote in Latin c. 20 ce, and Falernus, who composed elegiac couplets in Greek c. 205 ce. Within this 200-year span, 108 inscriptions recorded visits of over 90 visitors—centurions, prefects, strategoi; prefects' wives, women in Hadrian's circle (including his wife); sophists and poets.

The nature of these visits to the colossus is the subject of chapter 2, in which Rosenmeyer joins the debate about travel to sanctuaries in the Roman empire: was it primarily religious, for sightseeing, or scholarly? After she summarizes the scholarship, she examines the language that the inscribers use to record their reactions to hearing Memnon's cry. She concludes that their motivations [End Page 113] are "mixed: those of both a tourist and a worshipper, both an intellectual curiosity-seeker and someone eager to hear the voice of the divine" (75).

Chapter 3 studies two rhetorical devices found in the inscriptions: apostrophe and prosopopeia. Both reflect visitors' desire to present their experience of hearing the noise made by the colossus as a conversation. Sometimes they hear Memnon's cry to his mother, then they address the statue. Sometimes they tell Memnon that they have come to hear him call to Eos, although it has required repeated visits.

In chapter 4 Rosenmeyer summarizes much of the recent interest in the afterlife of the Troy tale and shows how many of these inscriptions fit the patterns that others have recently analyzed. Although visitors to the colossus accepted the identification as Memnon, they don't seem to have done anything new in their poetry—they use Homeric language, sometimes compose in dactylic hexameter, and demonstrate their knowledge of Memnon's fate.

Chapter 5, on poetesses, particularly Balbilla, and their poems that reflect Sappho, has a similar starting point, Greek and Roman interest in an earlier poet. Because there has been much less work done on ancient fascination with Sappho, Rosenmeyer has more of her own to contribute. She distinguishes between responses to Sappho as a poetess and Sappho as a lesbian, and after examining what could be identified as archaizing and/or Aeolic about Balbilla's verses, concludes that the latter wishes to be regarded as a poet in the tradition of Sappho.

Chapter 6 begins with the silencing of Memnon, then examines a selection of Romantic poetry devoted to the colossus, linked to the classical inscriptions through their use of prosopopeia. Rosenmeyer describes the rediscovery of the statue and provides glimpses of western European reactions of poets who did not—unlike their ancient counterparts—visit Thebes: Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Tennyson, Klingemann, Mayrhofer. Shelley's Ozymandias concludes the modern survey.

Rosenmeyer shows us another manifestation of ancient fascination with the Homeric past and demonstrates how broadly across society and time that interest spread. Her quick glance at the nineteenth century reveals more recent uses of the Homeric world. I would have enjoyed more discussion about the seemingly unquestioned...