Regina Höschele: The Wondrous Journey of Cicero’s Head to Sardis: Hellenic Identity and Biculturalism in a Greek Imperial Epigram

My paper examines an inscriptional epigram from Sardis, which a Greek named Polybius (possibly to be identified with the author of several linguistic treatises) set up in the 2nd century AD to accompany a bust of Cicero no longer extant: “Having found your sacred head, Cicero, I erected it – I, Polybius a Greek, the head of the first among Romans” (Merkelbach-Stauber 04/02/05). In this poem, the expression σὴν ἱερὴν κεφαλήν, which is borrowed from a widely known epitaph of Homer (AP 7.3), does not, I submit, simply function as pars pro toto for the person commemorated (as it does in its model), but has a concrete, material referent: the bust of Cicero in front of the spectator’s eyes. The epigram, moreover, playfully engages with the rhetorical tradition surrounding Cicero’s decapitation (a popular declamatory theme) in suggesting that Polybius stumbled upon (εὑρών) the orator’s severed head, which we are invited to picture as having traveled all the way from Rome to Sardis. Through a comparison with Hellenistic tales about Orpheus’ truncated head, whose journey from Thrace to Lesbos served as an aition for the island’s famous song culture, I reflect on the implications of this imagined voyage, in particular on the complex dynamics of Polybius’ dedication, which, in a very self-conscious manner, expresses a Greek’s admiration for a Roman. Contemplating its negotiation of Greek and Roman culture vis-à-vis contemporary reflections on similar issues, my paper situates the epigram within the period’s bicultural discourse. In sum, I show how this brief, at first sight seemingly inconspicuous inscription stands in the tradition of Hellenistic epigram with its frequent play upon the genre’s physical contexts, and (self-ironically?) presents its author as a Greek fan of Rome’s foremost orator.