Epitaphs for the heroes

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The Pepli Epitaphia were favored by Byzantine poets and late-Renaissance editors, yet their critical recovery only occurred in the nineteenth century. Initially known from a single thirteenth-century manuscript, the corpus expanded with fifteen new components identified in John Tzetzes' Scholia to the Carmina Iliaca. Subsequent editions and critical analyses had to navigate two main manuscript branches: the anthological (Laurentiana) and the Tzetziana. This edition rigorously collates 33 components from two Matritenses (M = Matrit. BN 4562, and Md = Matrit. BN 4621), adding two testimonies to the corpus's textual transmission. This contribution is depicted in stemma 2, a revised version of Leone's (1995) stemma for the Carmina Iliaca, integrating M and Md as legitimate partial testimonies of Tzetzes' Scholia. Ultimately, this work presents the first autonomous and commented edition of the Pepli Epitaphia, previously published only in Aristotle's Pseudoepigrapha or as an appendix to the Greek Anthology. It aims to serve scholars and students of Greek literature, religion, and archaeology, providing a valuable resource for further study.