Speaking Statues: Voice and Presence in Hellenistic Epigram

The dream of a talking statue has long fascinated ancient and modern cultures alike. In the Hellenistic world, this fantasy finds a distinctive voice in epigram – a genre that originated from brief inscriptions carved in stone. Early inscribed epigrams served functional purposes: to record dedications, to name the dead or to honour achievements. Even when statues spoke in the first person, their voice was formulaic and impersonal, sharing little beyond names and origins. By the Hellenistic age, however, poets transformed the genre into a literary space where statues could speak with depth and personality. Central to this shift was prosopopoeia – a rhetorical device that enabled inanimate objects to speak. Statues now narrated their placement, responded to onlookers, and expressed emotion and memory. These imagined voices animated the statue, turning it from a passive object into a presence that engages with its reader. Consequently, poets reshaped the epigram into a medium of both commemoration and performance, blurring the boundary between statue and person, art and life. This seminar explores how literary forms interact with material culture, shedding light on how the ancient world imagined the relationship between text, object and audience.