LESS CARE, MORE STRESS: A RHYTHMIC POEM FROM THE ROMAN EMPIRE

This article considers a short text that was widely circulated in the mid- Roman Empire, both four-line and six-line version, usually on gemstones. The is poem of sorts, but quite distinctive type. Part it can be scanned according to rules classical (quantitative) metre, more striking consistent rhythmic (stressed) pattern. Stressed poetry not otherwise attested so early; this may point substrate, now largely hidden from view, popular verse preceded metrical revolutions late antiquity Byzantine world. also piece visual artistry, designed looked at (particularly its gemstone format). hybrid status, between high art culture, detected content poem, which gestures towards poetics intellectual elitism (using intertextual allusion, dismissing views masses) level sexually aggressive assertion embodied selfhood. It valuable witness form middling literature (and demographic), caught aspirations elite-style individuality mimetic imperative an empire-wide consumer culture.