Less about the number nine and more about female figures: a new approach to the ancient lyric "canon"

This paper argues that the ancient lyric “canon” is less about the number nine and more about female figures than is currently acknowledged in scholarship. The argument emerges from the most extensive survey to date of textual and visual material that is relevant to the concept of a lyric “canon” in antiquity. After presenting the material, which encompasses twenty-three items, in a chronological table, the survey departs from the anonymous epigram 9.184 in the Greek Anthology. This is universally recognized as the most solid piece of evidence which can be dated BCE for an ancient lyric ‘canon’. In the present paper this epigram is freshly regarded as a part of a pattern of poets and Muses in the anthology, in which Antipater of Thessalonica’s epigram 9.26 is particularly important. The survey then proceeds to investigate two items of plastic art, before looking into related items from Roman literature and Byzantine scholarship. Finally, a conclusion summarizes the result of the survey, which confirms that the ancient “canon” of lyric poets is less about the number nine and more about female figures.