The Grammarian and the Princess, or the History of Smyrna and Crassicius

Abstract

This paper studies an epigram from Suetonius De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, dedicated to the grammar Crassicius. Smyrna, a princess eponymous of the Cinna’s poem Zmyrna, rejetcs all suitors and chooses as a husband the grammar Crassicius, because, as a result of his deep learning, he knows the secrets of the bride (and of the work). The rhetoric figure by which a fictional character jumps from his/her narrative level to the author’s level has been labeled by the theorist Genette as metalepsis. We study as well some themes closely related to this rhetoric figure as literary fatherhood and artistic incest (Pigmalion). It seems that literary authors don’t like that books, their intelectual sons, reach freedom by being freely interpretated by theirs readers. The grammar Crassicius was, too, an author of mimes (mimographus). The epigram’s point could yet be sharper if the mimus scriptwriter and the leading lady were actually married as they were in epigram’s fiction.