'A fresh look at the Getty Hexameters: style, diction, tradition, and context’

The present paper offers a new interpretation of vv. 1-4 of the Getty Hexameters. A close analysis of the the syntax, grammar, and diction of various Homeric passages, of metrical inscriptions and juridical and legal prose texts shows that the beginning of the GH shares many features with texts from the early and classical age which had been previously neglected. It also shows that the universally accepted emendation kalypsei at v. 2 should be rejected in favour of the form kolapsei (aor. subj.), which only requires a slight modification of the participle kolapsas inscribed in the text. Finally, the widespread occurrence of the verb kolaptein in the epigraphical tradition from the 5th cent. BC in similar contexts in the same Sicilian area and elsewhere, helps to define the GH as a text of civic interest aimed also at individual use. We can assume that it was not buried, but deposited for display in a building made of stone in a public/religious place.