The Greek Anthology is not an author but a compilation of epigrammatic poetry assembled over many centuries. Its foundational collection, the Garland, was compiled by Meleager of Gadara in the late second or early first century BCE, containing poems from the Archaic through Hellenistic periods. This corpus was expanded by later editors, including Philippus of Thessalonica in the first century CE and Agathias of Myrina, who compiled the Cycle in the sixth century CE. The final major synthesis was made by Constantinus Cephalas in the tenth century CE, whose work is preserved in the key manuscript known as the Palatine Anthology.

The sole "work" is the Anthology itself, a vast collection of thousands of short poems by hundreds of poets spanning from the seventh century BCE to the sixth century CE. The core of the transmitted corpus is found in two primary manuscripts: the tenth-century Palatine Anthology and the fourteenth-century Planudean Anthology compiled by Maximus Planudes.

The Anthology is the principal repository for the Greek epigram, preserving a diverse range of poetic voices, themes, and historical contexts across more than a millennium. It provides crucial evidence for the evolution of Greek poetry and profoundly influenced the revival of Greek studies in the Renaissance and the development of the European epigram.