Julia Balbilla Philopappus (unknown - 130) was a poet who accompanied the imperial entourage of Vibia Sabina and her husband, the emperor Hadrian, on a trip to Egypt in 130 CE. She inscribed five epigrams on the left foot of one of the Colossi of Memnon in Thebes. Her epigrams were in Aeolic Greek, the language used by the great poet Sappho eight centuries earlier. They juxtapose the mortal and the immortal. They tell the story of Memnon, a mythical king of Ethiopia who was killed by Achilles at Troy and whom Zeus made immortal. Balbilla claimed for herself piety and a royal lineage to Balbillus the astrologer and the ruler Antiochus IV of Commagene. On the Colossus, she hoped that her words would last forever, and she, a mortal descendant of a king, would become immortal. She was the sister of Philopappos of Athens.
Works
- Epigrammata
Sources
- Rosenmeyer, Patricia (2009). Julia Balbilla. London: To be published. ISBN 9780415430067.
- Speller, Elizabeth (2003). Following Hadrian: a second-century journey through the Roman Empire. London: Review. ISBN 0-7472-6662-X.
- Yourcenar, Marguerite [1951]. Memoirs of Hadrian. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-52926-4.
