gems, history of gemology, early lapidaries, history of mineralogy, Greek lapidaries, Latin lapidaries

Posidippus of Pella (3rd century B.C.) was famous above all as a writer of epigrams. About 100 lines had been preserved in the medieval tradition, either in the Palatine Anthology or as quotations in Athenaeus. A few papyrus finds in Egypt preceded the historic discovery of a 3rd century B.C. roll containing over 600 verses, namely P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309, edited in 2001 by G. Bastianini and C. Gallazzi, with the assistence of C. Austin, in vol. 200 of the collection Il Filarete" published by LED. Given this noteworthy increase in our knowledge, and in order o provide students of classical antiquity with an attractive hand-edition, Colin Austin and Guido Bastianini have brought together in this volume the whole surviving output of the poet from Pella: they offer an up-to-date bibliography, testimonia, a critical text with detailed apparatus and brief notes, facing translations in both Italian and English, full concordances and a complete Index nominum et verborum."