La piccola ape attica e la tomba del poeta. Alcuni carmina Latina epigraphica di Cirta, un microcosmo poetico da riscoprire

Some carmina by Cirta are examined, whose historical, geographical and phi­ lological content helps to understand the strong territorial roots of the epigraphic po­ etry of this city of Algerian Numidia and reveals the desire of local authors to insert themselves within the strands of Greek epigrammatics and Latin epigraphic poetry, to express feelings and emotions. In this sense, one of the poems, from which the title of the article The Little Attic Bee and the Poet’s Tomb is taken, is particularly significant: Cirta represents a poetic microcosm to be rediscovered, as shown by the funerary poem of an anonymous poet, which has been somewhat neglected by more recent studies on African poems. Moreover, other carmina also contribute to directing towards this re­ search perspective. And then the figure of the rhetorician and grammarian Frontone di Cirta, the teacher of Aulo Gellio and tutor of the princes Marcus Aurelius and Lucio Vero, emerges in an overwhelming manner; the relations of Frontone with his homeland and the influence that seems to derive from his contacts with Cirta for the development of stylistic features and models subsequently used by the local epigraphic workshops for the development of the carmina are examined. Thanks to a fragmentary poem in honor of three Augusti and the presence in it of the verb bacchari, the existence of a school of cirtense rhetoric is hypothesized. The degree of poetic awareness of the clients and recipients of cirtense poetry is examined. Finally, different perspectives of analysis on the contents of these carmina are indicated, useful for example to know the composition of cirtense society and the role of women had in it, often with reference to pagan, oriental and Christian religiosity.