Greek Graffiti in Verse from Olbia Pontica and Berezan Island (6th-5th Centuries BC)
Greek Graffiti in Verse from Olbia Pontica and Berezan Island (6th-5th Centuries BC)

Summary/Abstract: Olbia Pontica, together with slightly remote Berezan island settlement, is an unique city in the ancient Greek world: there are nearly 33 graffiti written in verse on table pottery (mainly shards) from the 6th–2nd centuries BC, which is a lager quantity than Athens has. Among them, 26 inscriptions pertain to the 6th–5th centuries, and 7 other to the Hellenistic time. The used poetic meters are: 9 hexameters, 7 ionics, 3 paeans, one-by-one bacchius, iambic trimeter, trochaic tetrameter, dactylic tetrameter. The Olbians have strongly loved great poet Homer and his poems, owing to it the hexameter was prevailing. The themes of the verses are different, amongst them prevailing the drinking and love motifs – 12 graffiti, half of the total quantity. Among the other content types, there are 3 comic verses, 2 theatre and choric actions, one by one dedicatory, sacral, obscene, gift inscriptions. The most important of all the ancient Greek written in verse graffiti is hymn of the 6th century to the sacral Olbian zone Hylaea and its gods, which includes 12 hexameter lines.

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