Palladas (Ancient Greek:Παλλαδᾶς; fl. 4th century AD) was aGreek poet, who lived inAlexandria,Egypt.
All that is known about Palladas has been deduced from his 151epigrams preserved in theGreek Anthology (Anthologia graeca); another twenty-three appear in that collection under his name, but his authorship is suspect. His poems describe thepersona of apagan schoolteacher resigned to life in aChristian city, and bitter about his quarrelsome wife.
One of the epigrams attributed to him on the authority ofMaximus Planudes is aeulogy on the celebratedHypatia, daughter ofTheon of Alexandria, whose death took place in 415. Another was, according to ascholium in the Palatine Manuscript (the most important source for our knowledge of Greek epigram), written in the reign of the joint emperorsValentinian andValens (364–375). A third epigram on the destruction ofBeirut (Anth. Gr. 9.27) suggests an alternative chronology dating Palladas' activity to the age ofConstantine the Great.[1] It is based on his edition of apapyruscodex that arrived from a private collection to theBeinecke Library atYale University in 1996.[2] Some of his arguments in favor of this new chronology have, however, been called into question.[3]
An anonymous epigram (Anth. Gr. 9.380) speaks of Palladas as having a high poetical reputation. However,Isaac Casaubon dismisses him in two contemptuous words asversificator insulsissimus ("a most coarse poet").John William Mackail concurs with Casaubon, writing that "this is true of a great part of his work, and would perhaps be true of it all but for the savage indignation which kindles his verse, not into the flame of poetry, but to a dull red heat."
There is little direct allusion in his epigrams to the struggle against the onslaught of Christianity. One epigram speaks obscurely of the destruction of the "idols" of Alexandria popular in thearchiepiscopate ofTheophilus in 389; another in even more enigmatic language (Anth. Gr. 10.90) seems to be a bitter attack on the doctrine of theResurrection; and a scornful couplet against the swarms of Egyptian monks might have been written by a Reformer of the 16th century. For the most part his sympathy with the Greco-Roman pagan tradition is only betrayed in his despondency over all things. But it is in his criticism of life that the power of Palladas lies; with a remorselessness like that ofJonathan Swift he tears the coverings from human frailty and holds it up in its meanness and misery. The lines on theDescent of Man (Anth. Gr. 10.45), fall as heavily on theNeo-Platonic martyr as on the Christian persecutor, and remain even now among the most mordant and crushing sarcasms ever passed upon mankind.
Γραμματικοῦ θυγάτηρ ἔτεκεν φιλότητι μιγεῖσα
παιδίον ἀρσενικόν, θηλυκόν, οὐδέτερον.
The dominie's daughter eloped with a suitor,
And the baby was masculine, feminine, neuter.[4]
This translation omits the epigram's explicit reference to the role of grammar and thus grammatical gender in thought. Compare: "A grammarian’s daughter made love and then bore/A masculine and feminine and neuter child."[5]
The epigram's reference to the generative role of grammar underscores how the epigram is "likely quite dark: [the daughter] gave birth to twins (a boy and a girl) and at least one of them died thus giving the three declensions."[6]
Tabliope (Ταβλιόπη) is a made-up name of a "Muse" that is a comic invention ofPalladas, appearing in hisepigram found in book 11 (Humorous and convivial -Scoptic - Σκωπτικά) ofAnthologia Palatina.[7] The nameTabliope is made up from the word τάβλαtabla >tavla (Modern Greek τάβλιtavli "backgammon"), derived fromLatin"tabula", and the segment -ιόπη as in the name of theMuseCalliope ("Τάβλ"α + Καλλ"ιόπη" = "Ταβλιόπη"). The epigram, intended to make fun of an avidbackgammon player, reads:
Πάντων μουσοπόλων ἠ Καλλιόπη θεός ἐστιν • Ἠ σή Καλλιόπη Ταβλιόπη λέγεται.
"Calliope is the goddess of all adherents of theMuses [i. e. arts]; butyour Calliope is called Tabliope."
Some modern sources refer to Tabliope as thegoddess of the gamble (games ofrisk and randomchance).[8][9]
Mackail groups Palladas to the same period withAesopus andGlycon, each the author of a single epigram in theGreek Anthology. All three belong to the age of theByzantine translators, when infinite pains were taken to rewrite well-known poems or passages in different metres, by turningHomer intoelegiacs oriambics, and recasting pieces ofEuripides orMenander as epigrams.
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