Poets of the Axylon

Abstract

This paper offers new critical editions of fifteen late Roman verse epitaphs from the «Axylon», the East Phrygian steppe to the west of Lake Tatta in the Roman province of Galatia. Eleven of these epitaphs are assigned to three individual village poets, the «Zıvarık poet», the «Çe¸smelisebil poet», and the «Koça¸s poet». The author discusses the evidence which these epitaphs provide for levels of education and literacy in rural Anatolia in the late Roman period, with a particular focus on the use of words and phrases drawn from the Homeric epics. The metre of the texts is analysed in detail, and the paper concludes with a discussion of the social and ethical values expressed in the late Roman verse epitaphs of the region.