Greek Anthology
Encyclopedia
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
s, that span the classical and Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
periods of Greek literature
Greek literature
Greek literature refers to writings composed in areas of Greek influence, typically though not necessarily in one of the Greek dialects, throughout the whole period in which the Greek-speaking people have existed.-Ancient Greek literature :...
. Most of the material of the Greek Anthology comes from two manuscripts, the Palatine Anthology
Palatine Anthology
The Palatine Anthology is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palating Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantine Cephalas of the 10th century, which has been composed using older anthologies. It contains material from the 7th century...
of the 10th century and the Anthology of Planudes
Anthology of Planudes
The Anthology of Planudes, also called Planudean Anthology, in Latin Anthologia Planudea or sometimes in Greek Ανθολογία διαφόρων επιγραμμάτων , is an anthology of Greek epigrams and poems compiled by Maximus Planudes, a Byzantine grammarian and theologian, based on the Anthology of...
(or Planudean Anthology) of the 14th century.
While papyri
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
containing fragments of collections of poetry have been found in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, the earliest known anthology in Greek was compiled by Meleager of Gadara
Meleager of Gadara
Meleager of Gadara was a poet and collector of epigrams. He wrote some satirical prose, now lost, and he wrote some sensual poetry, of which, 134 epigrams survive...
in the first century BC, under the title Anthologia, or "Garland." It contained poems by the compiler himself and forty-six other poets, including Archilochus
Archilochus
Archilochus, or, Archilochos While these have been the generally accepted dates since Felix Jacoby, "The Date of Archilochus," Classical Quarterly 35 97-109, some scholars disagree; Robin Lane Fox, for instance, in Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer , p...
, Alcaeus
Alcaeus
Alcaeus may refer to:*Alcaeus , a writer of ten plays of the Old Comedy.*Alcaeus , one of several figures of this name in Greek mythology*12607 Alcaeus - a main belt asteroid...
, Anacreon
Anacreon
Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets.- Life :...
, and Simonides
Simonides of Ceos
Simonides of Ceos was a Greek lyric poet, born at Ioulis on Kea. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets, along with Bacchylides and Pindar...
. In his preface to his collection, Meleager describes his arrangement of poems as if it were a head-band or garland of flowers woven together in a tour de force that made the word "Anthology" a synonym for a collection of literary works for future generations.
Meleager's Anthology was popular enough that it attracted later additions.Prefaces to the editions of Philippus of Thessalonica
Philippus of Thessalonica
Philippus of Thessalonica or Philippus Epigrammaticus was the compiler of an Anthology of Epigrammatists subsequent to Meleager of Gadara and is himself the author of 72 epigrams in the Greek Anthology...
and Agathias
Agathias
Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus , of Myrina , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor , was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558....
were preserved in the Greek Anthology to attest to their additions of later poems. The definitive edition was made by Constantine Cephalas in the 10th century, who added a number of other collections: homoerotic
Homoeroticism
Homoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
verse collected by Straton of Sardis
Straton of Sardis
Straton of Sardis was a Greek poet and anthologist from the Lydian city of Sardis. He is thought to have lived during the time of Hadrian, based on Straton authorship of a poem about the doctor Artemidorus Capito, a contemporary of Hadrian...
in the 2nd century AD; a collection of Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
epigrams found in churches; a collection of satirical and convivial epigrams collected by Diogenianus
Diogenianus
Diogenianus was a Greek grammarian from Heraclea in Pontus who flourished during the reign of Hadrian. He was the author of an alphabetical lexicon, chiefly of poetical words, abridged from the great lexicon of Pamphilus of Alexandria and other similar works. It was also known by the title...
; Christodorus
Christodorus
Christodorus , a Greek epic poet from Coptos in Egypt, flourished during the reign of Anastasius I .According to Suidas, he was the author of Patria , accounts of the foundation, history and antiquities of various cities; Lydiaka , the mythical history of Lydia; Isaurica Christodorus , a Greek epic...
' description of statues in the Byzantine gymnasium
Gymnasium (ancient Greece)
The gymnasium in ancient Greece functioned as a training facility for competitors in public games. It was also a place for socializing and engaging in intellectual pursuits. The name comes from the Ancient Greek term gymnós meaning "naked". Athletes competed in the nude, a practice said to...
of Zeuxippos; and a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus
Cyzicus
Cyzicus was an ancient town of Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balıkesir Province of Turkey. It was located on the shoreward side of the present Kapıdağ Peninsula , a tombolo which is said to have originally been an island in the Sea of Marmara only to be connected to the mainland in historic...
.
The scholar Maximus Planudes
Maximus Planudes
Maximus Planudes, less often Maximos Planoudes , Byzantine grammarian and theologian, flourished during the reigns of Michael VIII Palaeologus and Andronicus II Palaeologus. He was born at Nicomedia in Bithynia, but the greater part of his life was spent in Constantinople, where as a monk he...
also made an edition of the Greek Anthology, which while adding some poems, primarily deleting or bowdlerizing
Thomas Bowdler
Thomas Bowdler was an English physician who published an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's work, edited by his sister Harriet, intended to be more appropriate for 19th century women and children than the original....
many of the poems he felt were impure. His anthology was the only one known to Western Europe (his autograph copy, dated 1301 survives; the first edition based on his collection was printed in 1494) until 1606 when Claudius Salmasius
Claudius Salmasius
Claudius Salmasius is the Latin name of Claude Saumaise , a French classical scholar.-Life:Salmasius was born at Semur-en-Auxois in Burgundy. His father, a counsellor of the parlement of Dijon, sent him, at the age of sixteen, to Paris, where he became intimate with Isaac Casaubon...
found in the library at Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
a fuller collection based on Cephalas. The copy made by Salmasius was not, however, published until 1776, when Richard François Philippe Brunck
Richard François Philippe Brunck
Richard François Philippe Brunck was a French classical scholar.-Biography:Brunck was born in Strasbourg, France, educated at the Jesuits' College in Paris, and took part in the Seven Years' War as military commissary. At the age of thirty he returned to Strasbourg to resume his studies,...
included it in his Analecta. The first critical edition was that of F. Jacobs (13 vols. 1794–1803; revised 1813–17).
Since its transmission to the rest of Europe, the Greek Anthology has left a deep impression on its readers. In a 1971 article on Robin Skelton
Robin Skelton
Robin Skelton was a British-born academic, writer, poet, and anthologist.Born in Easington, Yorkshire, Skelton was educated at the University of Leeds and Cambridge University. From 1944 to 1947, he served with the Royal Air Force in India. He later taught at Manchester University...
's translation of a selection of poems from the Anthology, a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement wrote, "The time of life does not exist when it is impossible to discover in it a masterly poem one had never seen before." Its influence can be seen on writers as diverse as Propertius, Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
and Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist...
. Since full and uncensored English translations became available at the end of the 20th century, its influence has widened still further.
Literary history
The art of occasional poetryOccasional poetry
Occasional poetry is poetry composed for a particular occasion. In the history of literature, it is often studied in connection with orality, performance, and patronage. As a term of literary criticism, "occasional poetry" describes the work's purpose and the poet's relation to subject matter...
had been cultivated in Greece from an early period—less, however, as the vehicle of personal feeling than as the recognized commemoration of remarkable individuals or events, on sepulchral monuments and votive offerings: Such compositions were termed epigrams, i.e. inscriptions. The modern use of the word is a departure from the original sense, which simply indicated that the composition was intended to be engraved or inscribed.
Such a composition must necessarily be brief, and the restraints attendant upon its publication concurred with the simplicity of Greek taste in prescribing conciseness of expression, pregnancy of meaning, purity of diction and singleness of thought, as the indispensable conditions of excellence in the epigrammatic style. The term was soon extended to any piece by which these conditions were fulfilled.
The transition from the monumental to the purely literary character of the epigram was favoured by the exhaustion of more lofty forms of poetry, the general increase, from the general diffusion of culture, of accomplished writers and tasteful readers, but, above all, by the changed political circumstances of the times, which induced many who would otherwise have engaged in public affairs to addict themselves to literary pursuits. These causes came into full operation during the Alexandrian era, in which we find every description of epigrammatic composition perfectly developed.
About 60 BC, the sophist and poet, Meleager of Gadara
Meleager of Gadara
Meleager of Gadara was a poet and collector of epigrams. He wrote some satirical prose, now lost, and he wrote some sensual poetry, of which, 134 epigrams survive...
, undertook to combine the choicest effusions of his predecessors into a single body of fugitive poetry. Collections of monumental inscriptions, or of poems on particular subjects, had previously been formed by Polemon Periegetes
Polemon of Athens
Polemon was a Stoic philosopher and geographer. Of Athenian citizenship, he is known as Polemon of Athens, but he was born either in Ilium, Samos, or Sicyon, and is also known as Polemon of Ilium and Polemon Periegetes. He travelled throughout Greece, and wrote about the places he visited...
and others; but Meleager first gave the principle a comprehensive application.
His selection, compiled from forty-six of his predecessors, and including numerous contributions of his own, was entitled The Garland , and in an introductory poem each poet is compared to some flower, fancifully deemed appropriate to his genius. The arrangement of his collection was alphabetical, according to the initial letter of each epigram.
In the age of the emperor Tiberius
Tiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
(or Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
, according to others) the work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist, Philippus of Thessalonica
Philippus of Thessalonica
Philippus of Thessalonica or Philippus Epigrammaticus was the compiler of an Anthology of Epigrammatists subsequent to Meleager of Gadara and is himself the author of 72 epigrams in the Greek Anthology...
, who first employed the term anthology. His collection, which included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to Meleager, was also arranged alphabetically, and contained an introductory poem. It was of inferior quality to Meleager's.
Somewhat later, under Hadrian, another supplement was formed by the sophist Diogenianus of Heracleia
Diogenianus
Diogenianus was a Greek grammarian from Heraclea in Pontus who flourished during the reign of Hadrian. He was the author of an alphabetical lexicon, chiefly of poetical words, abridged from the great lexicon of Pamphilus of Alexandria and other similar works. It was also known by the title...
(2nd century AD), and Straton of Sardis
Straton of Sardis
Straton of Sardis was a Greek poet and anthologist from the Lydian city of Sardis. He is thought to have lived during the time of Hadrian, based on Straton authorship of a poem about the doctor Artemidorus Capito, a contemporary of Hadrian...
compiled his elegant Μουσα Παιδικη (Musa Puerilis) from his productions and those of earlier writers.
No further collection from various sources is recorded until the time of Justinian, when epigrammatic writing, especially of an amatory character, experienced a great revival at the hands of Agathias of Myrina, the historian, Paulus Silentiarius
Paul the Silentiary
Paul the Silentiary, also known as Paulus Silentiarius , was an epigrammatist and an officer in the imperial household of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, responsible for the silence in the imperial palace....
, and their circle. Their ingenious but mannered productions were collected by Agathias into a new anthology, entitled The Circle (Κυκλος); it was the first to be divided into books, and arranged with reference to the subjects of the pieces.
These and other collections made during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
are now lost. The partial incorporation of them into a single body, classified according to the contents in 15 books, was the work of a certain Constantinus Cephalas, whose name alone is preserved in the single MS. of his compilation extant, but who probably lived during the temporary revival of letters under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, at the beginning of the 10th century.
He appears to have merely made excerpts from the existing anthologies, with the addition of selections from Lucillius
Lucillius
Lucillius was the author of one hundred twenty three epigrams in Greek preserved in the Greek Anthology. He lived under the emperor Nero. Many of his poems describe stereotyped people, such as doctors or thin people; as such his works are in the tradition of the Characters of Theophrastus. He...
, Palladas
Palladas
Palladas was a Greek poet, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. All that is known about this poet has been deduced from his 151 epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology....
, and other epigrammatists, whose compositions had been published separately. His arrangement, to which we shall have to recur, is founded on a principle of classification, and nearly corresponds to that adopted by Agathias
Agathias
Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus , of Myrina , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor , was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558....
. His principle of selection is unknown; it is only certain that while he omitted much that he should have retained, he has preserved much that would otherwise have perished.
The extent of our obligations may be ascertained by a comparison between his anthology and that of the next editor, the monk Maximus Planudes
Maximus Planudes
Maximus Planudes, less often Maximos Planoudes , Byzantine grammarian and theologian, flourished during the reigns of Michael VIII Palaeologus and Andronicus II Palaeologus. He was born at Nicomedia in Bithynia, but the greater part of his life was spent in Constantinople, where as a monk he...
(AD 1320), who has not merely grievously mutilated the anthology of Cephalas by omissions, but has disfigured it by interpolating verses of his own. We are, however, indebted to him for the preservation of the epigrams on works of art, which seem to have been accidentally omitted from our only transcript of Cephalas.
The Planudean Anthology (in seven books) was the only recension of the anthology known at the revival of classical literature, and was first published at Florence, by Janus Lascaris
Janus Lascaris
Janus Lascaris , also called John Rhyndacenus , was a noted Greek scholar in the Renaissance.After the fall of Constantinople he was taken to the Peloponnese and to Crete...
, in 1494. It long continued to be the only accessible collection, for although the Palatine manuscript known as the Palatine Anthology
Palatine Anthology
The Palatine Anthology is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palating Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantine Cephalas of the 10th century, which has been composed using older anthologies. It contains material from the 7th century...
, the sole extant copy of the anthology of Cephalas, was discovered in the Palatine library at Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, and copied by Saumaise (Salmasius) in 1606, it was not published until 1776, when it was included in Brunck
Richard François Philippe Brunck
Richard François Philippe Brunck was a French classical scholar.-Biography:Brunck was born in Strasbourg, France, educated at the Jesuits' College in Paris, and took part in the Seven Years' War as military commissary. At the age of thirty he returned to Strasbourg to resume his studies,...
's Analecta Veterum Poetarum Graecorum.
The manuscript itself had frequently changed its quarters. In 1623, having been taken in the sack of Heidelberg in the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, it was sent with the rest of the Palatine Library to Rome as a present from Maximilian I of Bavaria
Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria
Maximilian I, Duke/Elector of Bavaria , called "the Great", was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War ....
to Pope Gregory XV
Pope Gregory XV
Pope Gregory XV , born Alessandro Ludovisi, was pope from 1621, succeeding Paul V on 9 February 1621...
, who had it divided into two parts, the first of which was by far the larger; thence it was taken to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1797. In 1816 it went back to Heidelberg, but in an incomplete state, the second part remaining at Paris. It is now represented at Heidelberg by a photographic facsimile.
Brunck's edition was superseded by the standard one of Friedrich Jacobs
Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs
Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs , German classical scholar, was born at Gotha. After studying philology and theology at Jena and Göttingen, in 1785 he became teacher in the gymnasium of his native town, and in 1802 was appointed to an office in the public library...
(1794–1814, 13 vols.), the text of which was reprinted in a more convenient form in 1813–1817, and occupies three pocket volumes in the Tauchnitz
Tauchnitz
Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers.Karl Christoph Traugott Tauchnitz , born at Grossbardau near Grimma, Saxony, established a printing business in Leipzig in 1796 and a publishing house in 1798...
series of the classics.
The best edition for general purposes is perhaps that of Dubner
Johann Friedrich Dübner
Johann Friedrich Dübner , German classical scholar , was born in Horselgau, near Gotha....
in Didot
Didot
Didot is the name of a family of French printers, punch-cutters and publishers. Through its achievements and advancements in printing, publishing and typography, the family has lent its name to typographic measurements developed by François-Ambroise Didot and the Didot typeface developed by Firmin...
's Bibliotheca (1864–1872), which contains the Palatine Anthology, the epigrams of the Planudean Anthology not comprised in the former, an appendix of pieces derived from other sources, copious notes selected from all quarters, a literal Latin prose translation by Jean François Boissonade, Bothe, and Lapaume and the metrical Latin versions of Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
. A third volume, edited by E. Cougny, was published in 1890. The best edition of the Planudean Anthology is the splendid one by van Bosch and van Lennep (1795–1822). There is also a complete edition of the text by Stadtmuller in the Teubner series.
Arrangement
The Palatine MS., the archetype of the present text, was transcribed by different persons at different times, and the actual arrangement of the collection does not correspond with that signalized in the index. It is as follows: Book 1. Christian epigrams; 2. Christodorus's description of certain statues; 3. Inscriptions in the temple at Cyzicus; 4. The prefaces of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias to their respective collections; 5. Amatory epigrams; 6. Votive inscriptions; 7. Epitaphs; 8. The epigrams of Gregory of Nazianzus; 9. Rhetorical and illustrative epigrams; 10. Ethical pieces; 11. Humorous and convivial; 12. Strato's Musa Puerilis; 13. Metrical curiosities; 14. Puzzles, enigmas, oracles; 15. Miscellanies. The epigrams on works of art, as already stated, are missing from the Codex Palatinus, and must be sought in an appendix of epigrams only occurring in the Planudean Anthology. The epigrams hitherto recovered from ancient monuments and similar sources form appendices in the second and third volumes of Dübner's edition.Style
The poems in the anthology represent different periods. Four stages may be indicated:- The Hellenic proper, of which Simonides of CeosSimonides of CeosSimonides of Ceos was a Greek lyric poet, born at Ioulis on Kea. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets, along with Bacchylides and Pindar...
(c. 556 – 469 BC), the author of most of the sepulchral inscriptions on those who fell in the Persian warsGreco-Persian WarsThe Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus...
, is representative. Nearly all the pieces of this era are actual inscriptions or addresses to real personages, whether living or deceased. - The epigram received a great development in its second or Alexandrian era, when its range was extended to include anecdote, satire, and amorous longing; when epitaphs and votive inscriptions were composed on imaginary persons and things. The modification has a representative in Leonidas of Tarentum, a contemporary of PyrrhusPyrrhusPyrrhus or Pyrrhos or Pyrros may refer to the following figures from Greek history and mythology:* Pyrrhus or Neoptolemus, son of Achilles* Pyrrhus of Epirus , famous king, to whom the term Pyrrhic victory alludes...
, and closes with Antipater of Sidon, about 140 BC (or later). Callimachus, one of the Alexandrian poets, affects stern simplicity in his epigrams. - Meleager of Gadara was a Syrian; his pieces are usually erotic, with far-fetched conceits. His gaiety and licentiousness are imitated and exaggerated by his somewhat later contemporary, the Epicurean Philodemus, and his fancy reappears in Philodemus's contemporary, Zonas, in Crinagoras, who wrote under Augustus, and in Marcus Argentarius, of uncertain date. At a later period of the empire another genre, was developed, the satirical. Lucillius, who flourished under Nero, and Lucian, display a talent for shrewd, caustic epigram. The same style obtains with Palladas, an Alexandrian grammarian of the 4th century, the last of the strictly classical epigrammatists. His literary position is that of an indignant but despairing opponent of ChristianityChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. - The fourth or ByzantineByzantineByzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
style of epigrammatic composition was cultivated at the court of Justinian. The diction of Agathias and his compeers is ornate.
Translations and imitations
Latin renderings of select epigrams by Hugo GrotiusHugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
were published in Bosch and Lennep's edition of the Planudean Anthology, in the Didot edition, and in Henry Wellesley's Anthologia Polyglotta. Imitations in modern languages have been copious, actual translations less common. F. D. Dehèque's 1863 translation was in French prose. The German language admits of the preservation of the original metre, a circumstance exploited by Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
and Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs
Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs
Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs , German classical scholar, was born at Gotha. After studying philology and theology at Jena and Göttingen, in 1785 he became teacher in the gymnasium of his native town, and in 1802 was appointed to an office in the public library...
.
Robert Bland, John Herman Merivale
John Herman Merivale
John Herman Merivale was an English barrister and man of letters.-Life:He was the only son of John Merivale of Barton Place, Exeter, and Bedford Square, London, by Ann Katencamp or Katenkamp, daughter of a German merchant settled in Exeter, and was born in that city on 5 August 1779...
, and their associates (1806–1813), produced efforts that are often diffuse. Francis Wrangham's (1769–1842) versions are more spirited; and John Sterling
John Sterling
John Sterling may refer to:*John Sterling , British author, subject of a life by Thomas Carlyle*John Sterling, character in Robert A...
translated the inscriptions of Simonides. John Wilson
John Wilson (Scottish writer)
John Wilson of Ellerey FRSE was a Scottish advocate, literary critic and author, the writer most frequently identified with the pseudonym Christopher North of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine....
in Blackwood's Magazine
Blackwood's Magazine
Blackwood's Magazine was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. The first number appeared in April 1817 under the editorship of Thomas Pringle and James Cleghorn...
1833–1835, collected and commented on the labours of these and other translators, including indifferent attempts of William Hay.
In 1849 Henry Wellesley, principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, published his Anthologia Polyglotta, a collection of the translations and imitations in all languages, with the original text. In this appeared versions by Goldwin Smith
Goldwin Smith
Goldwin Smith was a British-Canadian historian and journalist.- Early years :He was born at Reading, Berkshire. He was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford, and after a brilliant undergraduate career he was elected to a fellowship at University College, Oxford...
and Merivale, which, with the other English renderings extant at the time, accompany the literal prose translation of the Public School Selections, executed by the Rev. George Burges
George Burges
George Burges was an English classical scholar born in India.-Biography:George Burges was educated at Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his degree in 1807, and obtaining one of the members' prizes both in 1808 and 1809. He stayed up at Cambridge and became a most...
for Bohn's Classical Library (1854).
In 1864 Major R. G. Macgregor published an almost complete but mediocre translation of the Anthology. Idylls and Epigrams, by Richard Garnett
Richard Garnett
Richard Garnett C.B. was a scholar, librarian, biographer and poet. He was son of Richard Garnett, an author, philologist and assistant keeper of printed books in the British Museum....
(1869, reprinted 1892 in the Cameo series), includes about 140 translations or imitations, with some original compositions in the same style.
Further translations (selections) are:
- Graham R. TomsonRosamund Marriott WatsonRosamund Marriott Watson was a Victorian poet and critic who wrote under the pseudonym of Graham R. Tomson. Her poems, which presaged modernism, are informed by aestheticism and occasionally avant-garde sensibilities. Watson's personal life was fraught with scandal, she left first husband George...
, Richard GarnettRichard GarnettRichard Garnett C.B. was a scholar, librarian, biographer and poet. He was son of Richard Garnett, an author, philologist and assistant keeper of printed books in the British Museum....
, Andrew LangAndrew LangAndrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...
, Selections from the Greek Anthology (London, 1889) - J. W. Mackail, Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology (with text, introduction, notes, and prose translation; London 1890, revised 1906)
- W. H. D. RouseW. H. D. RouseWilliam Henry Denham Rouse was a pioneering British teacher who advocated the use of the Direct Method of teaching Latin and Greek.-Life:Born in Calcutta India on 31 May 1863...
, An Echo of Greek Song (London, 1899) - L. C. Perry, From the Garden of Hellas (New York, 1891)
- W. R. Paton, Anthologiae Graecae Erotica: The Love Epigrams or Book V of the Palatine Anthology (edited, and partly rendered into English verse, London, 1898)
- Earl of CromerEarl of CromerEarl of Cromer is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1901 for Evelyn Baring, 1st Viscount Cromer, the long-time British Consul-General in Egypt...
, Translations and Paraphrases from the Greek Anthology (1903) - F. L. LucasF. L. LucasFrank Laurence Lucas was an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge....
, A Greek Garland: A Selection from the Palatine Anthology (text of 149 poems, introduction, notes, and verse translations; Oxford, 1939) - Dudley FittsDudley FittsDudley Fitts was an American teacher, critic, poet, andtranslator. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and attended Harvard University where he edited the Harvard Advocate. He taught at The Choate School 1926-1941 and at Phillips Academy at Andover 1941-1968...
, Poems from the Greek Anthology (New York, 1956) - Andrew Sinclair, Selections from the Greek Anthology: The Wit and Wisdom of the Sons of Hellas (selection and translation; New York, 1967)
- Peter JayPeter JayPeter Jay is a British economist, broadcaster and diplomat.-Background:Peter Jay is the son of Douglas and Peggy Jay, both of whom were Labour Party politicians...
, ed., The Greek Anthology and Other Ancient Greek Epigrams (Allen Lane, 1973; reprinted in Penguin Classics, 1981) - Daryl HineDaryl HineDaryl Hine is a Canadian poet and translator.-Life:Daryl Hine was born in Burnaby in 1936 and grew up in New Westminster B.C. He attended McGill University in Montreal 1954-58...
, Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology (Princeton UP, 2001) - Peter ConstantinePeter ConstantinePeter Constantine is a British and American award-winning literary translator who has translated literary works from German, Russian, French, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, Italian, Albanian, Dutch, and Slovene.-Biography:...
, Rachel HadasRachel HadasRachel Hadas is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is Classics: Essays , and her most recent poetry collection is The Ache of Appetite . Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants, the O.B...
, Edmund KeeleyEdmund KeeleyEdmund Leroy Keeley is an author, translator, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor Emeritus of English at Princeton University. He is a prize-winning novelist and a noted expert on Greek poets C. P...
, and Karen Van Dyck, eds., The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (New York; W. W. Norton, 2009)
A small volume on the Anthology, by Lord Neaves, is one of Collins's series of Ancient Classics for Modern Readers.
Two critical contributions to the subject are the Rev. James Davies's essay on Epigrams in the Quarterly Review (vol. cxvii.), illustrating the distinction between Greek and Latin epigram; and the disquisition in J. A. Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets (1873; 3rd ed., 1893).
List of poets in Greek Anthology
- Adaeus
- AgathiasAgathiasAgathias or Agathias Scholasticus , of Myrina , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor , was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558....
- Agis
- Alpheus MytilenaeusAlpheus MytilenaeusAlpheus Mytilenaeus was the author of about twelve epigrams in the Greek Anthology, some of which seem to point out the time when he wrote. In the seventh epigram he refers to the state of the Roman Empire, as embracing almost all the known world; in the ninth he speaks of the restored and...
- Ammianus
- Antipater of SidonAntipater of SidonAntipater of Sidon , Antipatros or Antipatros Sidonios in the Anthologies, was a Greek poet in the second half of the 2nd century BC....
- Antipater of ThessalonicaAntipater of ThessalonicaAntipater of Thessalonica was the author of over a hundred epigrams in the Greek Anthology. He is the most copious and perhaps the most interesting of the Augustan epigrammatists...
- Antiphilus
- Anyte of TegeaAnyte of TegeaAnyte of Tegea was an Arcadian poet, admired by her contemporaries and later generations for her charming epigrams and epitaphs...
- Apollonides
- Asclepiades of SamosAsclepiades of SamosAsclepiades of Samos was an ancient Greek epigrammatist and lyric poet. He was a friend of Theocritus, who flourished about 270 BC. He was the earliest and most important of the convivial and erotic epigrammists. Only a few of his compositions are actual inscriptions. Others sing the praises of...
- Asclepiodotus
- Archias
- Argentarius (Marcus)
- CallimachusCallimachusCallimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
- Claudius Ptolemaeus
- Crinagoras of MytileneCrinagoras of MytileneCrinagoras of Mytilene, also known as Crinogoras, sometimes spelt as Krinagorasis or Krinagoras was a Greek Epigrammatist and ambassador, who lived in Rome as a court poet.-Early life:...
- Demodocus of Leros
- Eratosthenes
- Glaucus
- Gregory of NazianzusGregory of NazianzusGregory of Nazianzus was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age...
- Leonidas of TarentumLeonidas of TarentumLeonidas of Tarentum was an epigrammatist and lyric poet. He lived in the third century B.C. Leonidas lived in Tarentum, in the coast of Calabria, then Magna Graecia. Over a hundred of his epigrams are present in the Greek Anthology...
- Lucian of Samosata
- Lucilius
- Meleager of GadaraMeleager of GadaraMeleager of Gadara was a poet and collector of epigrams. He wrote some satirical prose, now lost, and he wrote some sensual poetry, of which, 134 epigrams survive...
- Mnasalcas
- MoschusMoschusMoschus , ancient Greek bucolic poet and student of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace, was born at Syracuse and flourished about 150 BC...
- Myrinus
- Nicaenetus of SamosNicaenetus of SamosNicaenetus of Samos was a Greek epic and epigrammatic poet of the 3rd century BC, an Abderite who lived in Samos island. There are four epigrams of his in the Greek Anthology.-References:*...
- NicarchusNicarchusNicarchus or Nicarch was a Greek poet and writer of the 1st century AD, best known for his epigrams, of which forty-two survive under his name in the Greek Anthology, and his satirical poetry. He was a contemporary of, and influence on, the better-known Latin writer Martial. A large proportion of...
- PalladasPalladasPalladas was a Greek poet, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. All that is known about this poet has been deduced from his 151 epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology....
- Pamphilus
- Paulus Silentiarius
- PersesPersesPerses is an ancient Greek name given to:* Mythological people:* Perses * Perses * Perses , a son of Helios and the oceanid Perseis.* Real people:* Perses...
- Philippus of ThessalonicaPhilippus of ThessalonicaPhilippus of Thessalonica or Philippus Epigrammaticus was the compiler of an Anthology of Epigrammatists subsequent to Meleager of Gadara and is himself the author of 72 epigrams in the Greek Anthology...
- PhilodemusPhilodemusPhilodemus of Gadara was an Epicurean philosopher and poet. He studied under Zeno of Sidon in Athens, before moving to Rome, and then to Herculaneum. He was once known chiefly for his poetry preserved in the Greek anthology, but since the 18th century, many writings of his have been discovered...
- PlatoPlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
- RhianusRhianusRhianus was a Greek poet and grammarian, a native of Crete, friend and contemporary of Eratosthenes . The Suidas says he was at first a slave and overseer of a palaestra, but obtained a good education later in life and devoted himself to grammatical studies, probably in Alexandria...
- Rufinus
- Satyrus
- Simonides of CeosSimonides of CeosSimonides of Ceos was a Greek lyric poet, born at Ioulis on Kea. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets, along with Bacchylides and Pindar...
- Straton of SardisStraton of SardisStraton of Sardis was a Greek poet and anthologist from the Lydian city of Sardis. He is thought to have lived during the time of Hadrian, based on Straton authorship of a poem about the doctor Artemidorus Capito, a contemporary of Hadrian...
- TheocritusTheocritusTheocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
- Thymocles
External links
- Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J. W. Mackail (Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
) - Greek Anthology Loeb edition downloadable from the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J. W. Mackail, edited with excerpts in Greek (unicode) and a search engine
- The Greek Anthology, books 1–6, translated by W. R. Paton, with facing Greek text (Loeb Classical Library, 1916)
- Plaintext of Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, and Vol. 5 on Google Books.
- Epigrams by Women from the Greek Anthology from Diotima
- Maximus Planudes from William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867), v. 3, pp. 384–390; includes a detailed "Literary History of the Greek Anthology"
- Read Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology by Norman DouglasNorman DouglasGeorge Norman Douglas was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind.-Life:Norman Douglas was born in Thüringen, Austria . His mother was Vanda von Poellnitz...
at Project Gutenberg Australia - Epigramas/Ἐπιγραμματα, Miguel Sulis (Trans.), In. (n.t.) Revista Literária em Tradução nº 1 (set/2010), Fpolis/Brasil, ISSN 2177-5141 www.notadotradutor.com