Article ID: CBB001863903

Socrates' Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything: Explaining the Arithmetical Riddles of AP 14 (2020)

unapi

Book 14 of the Palatine Anthology comprises, alongside proper riddles and oracles, forty-five arithmetical epigrams. Long underrated as poetry, these deserve to be reappraised in light of a recent trend of unmasking a complex cultural agenda of ancient scientific literature. By focusing on two particularly elaborate epigrams (AP 14.1 and 4), this discussion sets out to explore these poems' self-aware engagement with various literary and cultural traditions. I argue that as poetry as much as pieces of an arithmological jigsaw puzzle, these are vehicles for an intricate, if not entirely serious, Platonizing and neo-Pythagorean program of uniting poetry and mathematics.

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Authors & Contributors
Hoz, María Paz de
Green, Steven J.
Megremi, Athanasia
Guichard, Luis Arturo
Perrone Capano, Lucia
García Alonso, Juan Luis
Concepts
Science and literature
Poetry and poetics
Science and culture
Greek language
Astronomy
Mathematics
Time Periods
Ancient
Medieval
19th century
20th century
18th century
17th century
Places
Greece
Rome (Italy)
England
Egypt
Hellenistic world
Mediterranean region
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