The Epigrams are a collection of seven short Greek poems traditionally ascribed to the Athenian tragedian Aeschylus. Composed in the elegiac metre characteristic of the genre, they function primarily as funerary epitaphs and dedicatory inscriptions. One commemorates the Athenian dead at the Battle of Marathon, and another serves as a dedication for a statue of Eros. These verses do not survive on physical monuments but are transmitted through later literary anthologies, most notably the Greek Anthology. Their authenticity has been contested since antiquity. While a tenth-century Byzantine source records that Aeschylus began his literary career by writing elegies and epigrams, these specific poems are generally considered later compositions, likely from the Hellenistic period, attributed to the famous playwright to lend them greater authority.
