The epigrams of the lesser-known epigrammatists of the Hellenistic period or of the major epigrammatists of the late Hellenistic period provide us with a good amount of material that leads us to suspect ecphrastic epigrams often had a metapoetic role, and some of them were possibly used as sphragides or set at key places in the poetry books. The influence of contemporary art and of the contemporary artistic context can be seen, if not through direct references to new masterpieces, at least in the choice of the opera nobilia that will be both copied by artists and celebrated by the poets.