«Figures loved and idealised …»

Poems inspired by historical events of the variegated Hellenistic period, as it formed under the successors and descendants of Alexander the Great. This section -in the first gallery of the Stathatos Mansion- begins with the legendary, supreme commander Alexander the Great, king of Macedon. It then moves to King Demetrius Poliorketes of Macedon and his dealings with King Pyrrhus of Epirus, to Antioch and the Seleucids, before focusing on Egypt’s glorious past under the Ptolemies. It refers, in particular, to the increasing influence of Rome on cosmopolitan Alexandria at the time of Cleopatra and Mark Antony and the mood that prevailed after the crushing defeat of their joint forces at the Battle of Actium by Octavian in 31 BC. The ‘historical’ poems in the second room focus on the Hellenized ‘barbarian’ rulers of the Pontus and Parthia, in regions of Persia and Mesopotamia, on great men of Rome’s Republican and Imperial periods, such as Julius Caesar and Nero and on important orators like Herodes Atticus of the 2nd century AD.

Poems with mythological subjects inspired by the Trojan Cycle, the life of Achilles, the conflicts between illustrious Trojan and Greek
heroes, and the relation between gods and mortals. This and the following groups are shown on the first floor.

Poems with pseudo-historical content, in which imaginary sculptors and metal-smiths create beautiful objects for well-known rulers of the Hellenistic world, with references to Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria, and the early years of Roman rule. These poems examine the connection between art and life, artistic freedom and the ideal in art in relation to the imperatives dictated by authority or by desire for personal gain, both economic and social.

‘Funerary’ poems, as scholars call them, in which Alexandrian youths, both pagan and Christian, play the leading role; all of them died prematurely but had, during their lifetime, experienced intellectual and artistic encounters, along with the propensity to
sensual and luxurious life.

Poems referring to worship in Late Antiquity, to pagan and Christian religious practices, and to the often violent transitional period from the old to the new religion, before Christianity’s predominance. This section closes with the poems ‘The priest of the Serapion’ and ‘In Church’, in which Cavafy muses over the ‘glorious’ historical past of the Greek Christian religion in a Post-Byzantine environment.