SAPPHO IN JULIUS POLLUX’S ONOMASTICON: A MATERIAL GIRL IN A MATERIAL WORLD

This article examines the reception of Sappho in Julius Pollux’s Onomasticon. The article shows that Pollux primarily quotes Sappho as an authoritative source on clothing and textiles. This presentation of Sappho is unusual, given that other ancient sources largely locate her poetry within an erotic, and sometimes sympotic, framework; and it is particularly notable for the way in which it emphasizes Sappho’s status as a specifically female poet with special insight into, and expertise in, the feminine domestic world. The article argues that this domestication of Sappho’s verses is not (primarily) an act of sexist belittlement, but rather demonstrates how Pollux reimagines Sappho in his own image. In the material world of the Onomasticon, Sappho becomes in turn an emblem of (feminine) materiality, whose apparent preoccupation with the fabric of everyday life productively mirrors the encyclopaedia’s own. As a whole, the article argues that Pollux’s creative engagement with Sappho’s poetry is both an important constituent part of, and a foil to, her wider reception in both antiquity and modernity.