Anyte of Tegea

Anyte of Tegea (Greek: Ἀνύτη Τεγεᾶτις, Anýtē Tegeâtis; fl. early 3rd century BC) was an Arcadian poet.[1][2] She is one of the nine outstanding ancient women poets listed by Antipater of Thessalonica in the Palatine Anthology.[3] He called her the female Homer because her poetry was so admired.[2] She was among the first Hellenistic poets to write bucolic poetry that praised life in the country.[4] She was called "Anyte the lyric poet" in antiquity, although none of her lyric poetry has survived.[5] Likewise, Pausanias refers to her epic poetry, but none of it has survived.[5]

Life

Anyte was from Tegea in Arcadia, which is a mountainous region in the middle of the Peloponnese.[1] No reliable information about her life survives, and she can only be approximately dated by the style of her work.[6] By examining her work, scholars have determined that she was writing during the beginning of 300s BCE; her birth year is estimated to be between 340 and 320 BCE. Only one story about Anyte's life is preserved, in which Pausanias claims in his work Description of Greece that Anyte was once visited by the god Asclepius while she was asleep, and told to go to Naupactus to visit a certain blind man there. She had a sealed tablet with her, given to her by Asclepius, and she told the man to take off the seal and read the tablet. In doing so, the man realized he was cured, and he built a temple to Asclepius, and gave 2000 staters of gold to Anyte, which means she would have been wealthy.[6] Though so little is known about Anyte's life, more of her poetry survives than any other ancient Greek woman, with the exception of Sappho.[6]

Works

Anyte was known for her epigrams, and she introduced rural themes to the genre. Most unusually, the epitaphs she wrote were not actual inscriptions on tombstones and grave markers, but were published to be widely read. She was also one of the first to write epitaphs for animals; this then became an important theme in the 300s BCE.[2] 24 epigrams attributed to Anyte survive today.[7] One of these is preserved by Julius Pollux; the remainder are part of either the Palatine or Planudean Anthology. Of these, Kathryn Gutzwiller considers that 20 of these were genuinely composed by Anyte.[7] It is likely that Anyte compiled a book of her poetry from her epigrams.[7] Anyte's poetry is often interested in women and children, and Gutzwiller argues that it was deliberately composed in opposition to traditional epigrams, which were composed by an anonymous author from a masculine and urban perspective.[8] Gordon L. Fain further states that Anyte was also among the first to write ecphrastic poetry, which concerns sculptures, paintings, and other such works of art. Accordingly, of five epitaphs written by Anyte which survive, only one marks the death of a young man, as was traditional in the genre; the remaining four all commemorate women who died young.[9] She is also known to have written poetry celebrating war.[10][2]

Examples

Here is a poem by her, referring to Aphrodite:

This is the site of the Cyprian, since it is agreeable to her
to look ever from the mainland upon the bright sea
that she may make the voyage good for sailors. Around her the sea
trembles looking upon her polished image.[11]

Here is a poem about a young woman who died tragically young:

In place of wedding songs and bridal room,
Your mother set upon this marble tomb
A maiden with your grace and form instead,
So, Thersis, we could greet you though you're dead.[12]

One of her many bucolic works:

:Oh rustic Pan by lonely thicket, say

Why, sitting, you sweet-sounding reed-pipe play?
"So heifers down this dewy mountain pass
May pasture, plucking thick-leaved tips of grass."[12]

Reception

She was widely admired in the ancient world for her style of poignant epigrams. As stated above, she was considered as great as Homer himself and regarded as one of nine best female poets in Ancient Greece, second only to Sappho. In the modern world, Anyte is recognized as one of the 999 women included on Judy Chicago's Heritage Floor;[13] she also has a crater on Mercury named after her, called Anyte.[14]

References
  1. Barnard 1978, p. 204.
  2. Joyce E. Salisbury (2001). Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World. ABC-CLIO. pp. 15–. ISBN 978-1-57607-092-5.
  3. Palatine Anthology 9.26
  4. Joyce E. Salisbury (2001). Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World. ABC-CLIO. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-1-57607-092-5.
  5. Ian Michael Plant (2004). Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 56–. ISBN 978-0-8061-3621-9.
  6. Barnard 1978, p. 209.
  7. Gutzwiller 1993, p. 71.
  8. Gutzwiller 1993, p. 72.
  9. Gutzwiller 1993, pp. 75–76.
  10. Gutzwiller, Kathryn J. (13 February 1993). "Anyte's Epigram Book". Syllecta Classica. 4 (1): 71–89. doi:10.1353/syl.1993.0005 – via Project MUSE.
  11. André Lardinois; Laura McClure (25 March 2001). Making Silence Speak: Women's Voices in Greek Literature and Society. Princeton University Press. pp. 210–. ISBN 0-691-00466-8.
  12. Gordon L. Fain (2 August 2010). Ancient Greek Epigrams: Major Poets in Verse Translation. University of California Press. pp. 34–.
  13. "Amyte". Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  14. "Anyte". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. Retrieved 19 November 2017.

Works cited
  • Barnard, Sylvia (1978). "Hellenistic Women Poets". The Classical Journal. 73 (3).
  • Gutzwiller, Kathryn J. (1993). "Anyte's Epigram Book". Syllecta Classica. 4.

Further reading
  • M. J. Baale, Studia in Anytes Poetriae Vitam et Carminum Reliquias (Haarlem, 1903)
  • M. S. Fernandez Robbio, Musas y escritoras: el primer canon de la literatura femenina de la Grecia antigua (AP IX 26). Praesentia, v. 15, 2014, pp. 1–9. (online)
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