Around 5000 Greek funerary poems on stone are known from antiquity. The peculiarity of this inscription genre lies in its sub-literary character: the deceased are to be permanently recognised under the diverse, individual conditions of the everyday world, but at the same time through the means of expression of a 'classical' tradition.
The study explores this tension systematically and through detailed commentary on 19 texts from the Greek East, some of which are new. For example, the relationship between the stone poems and book epigrammar is examined and the extent to which Homer's epics, with their language, motifs and figures, which were familiar from ancient school lessons, were paradigmatic for the epigrams compared to other literary models. The educational milieu of the stone poets and their patrons comes to light, as do the methods used to compose the poems.
This study of epigraphic sources against the background of the literary tradition contributes to the literary-theoretical localisation of sepulchral stone epigrammar and also opens up important approaches to the history of education and everyday life in antiquity.