The Greek Anthology is a collection of Greek epigrams and other short poems, in sixteen books, by poets from the archaic period to the Byzantine. Its core is the anthology that Constantine Cephalas made at Constantinople about 900 CE from earlier collections, chief among them the Garland of Meleager (about 100 BCE), the Garland of Philip (first century CE) and the Cycle of Agathias (sixth century CE). Cephalas's work, with additions, survives in the Palatine manuscript, copied in the tenth century and now divided between Heidelberg and Paris. The sixteenth book gathers the epigrams found only in the anthology Maximus Planudes compiled about 1300.
The books are arranged by kind of poem. Book I holds Christian epigrams, Book II Christodorus's description of the statues in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus, Book III the epigrams for the temple at Cyzicus, and Book IV the prefaces of the earlier collections. Books V to VII hold love poems, dedications and epitaphs, and Book VIII the epitaphs of Gregory of Nazianzus. Display pieces, hortatory poems, and convivial and satirical epigrams fill Books IX to XI; Book XII is Strato's collection on the love of boys. Book XIII has epigrams in metres other than the elegiac couplet, Book XIV arithmetical problems, riddles and oracles, Book XV a miscellany, and Book XVI, from Planudes, chiefly poems on statues and pictures.
Contents
-
Αʹ Book I
Christian epigrams open the collection, beginning with verses for the churches of Constantinople: the restored images of Hagia Sophia, Justin's rebuilding at Blachernae, and the foundations of Studius, Amantius, Sphoracius and Justinian. Couplets on scenes from the Gospels and their Old Testament types follow, among them Lazarus, Palm Sunday, the crucifixion, Gideon's fleece and Moses. The book ends with iambics on a church of the Virgin and lines by Sophronius on the rock of Calvary.
-
Βʹ Book II
Christodorus of Coptos describes, in a single hexameter poem, the bronze statues that stood in the public gymnasium of Zeuxippus. He moves from figure to figure: Deiphobus facing Menelaus, Aeschines, Aristotle and Demosthenes, the Locrian Ajax, Oenone glaring at Paris, the boxers Dares and Entellus. The close reaches Pompey, ancestor of the emperor Anastasius, Homer of Byzantium, son of the poetess Moero, and Virgil.
-
Γʹ Book III
Nineteen epigrams from Cyzicus, written for the carved panels of the temple of Apollonis, mother of Attalus and Eumenes, each introduced by a prose note on its scene. Every panel shows a son honouring or avenging his mother: Dionysus leading Semele up from Hades, Telephus finding Auge, Cresphontes with Merope, Thoas freeing Hypsipyle, Perseus turning Polydectes to stone, Heracles bringing Alcmene to Rhadamanthys, and Romulus and Remus freeing theirs.
-
Δʹ Book IV
The prefaces of the earlier collections from which the Anthology was built. Meleager's introduction to his Garland weaves each poet into a flower, from Anyte's lilies and Sappho's roses to Callimachus's myrtle. Agathias's prefaces to his Cycle follow, in iambics and hexameters, praising the emperor's victories and setting out the subjects of his books, and a closing poem sets wisdom above statues and painted portraits.
-
Εʹ Book V
Love epigrams by many poets, after a short iambic preface. Antipater of Thessalonica curses the cock that ends a night with Chrysilla, and Callimachus mocks a lover's broken oath. Asclepiades orders supplies for a party, Meleager sends the maid Dorcas with a message he cannot finish, and Philodemus tries to pick up a woman in the street. Diophanes of Myrina then calls Eros a thief who strips his victims, and a couplet on a carved gem ends the book.
-
Ϛʹ Book VI
Offerings left in temples are the matter of these dedicatory epigrams. Plato's Lais gives her mirror to Aphrodite, bows from the Persian wars hang in Athena's temple, and a fisherman retires the tools of his trade, a theme Leonidas, Philip and others vary in turn. A cluster of versions has three brothers give Pan their nets for bird, beast and fish. The book ends with modest gifts from the poor, two Cretan girls serving Artemis, and Omphale's robe.
-
Ζʹ Book VII
Homer's tomb on Ios opens the book of epitaphs, real and literary, in a series by Alcaeus of Messene, Antipater of Sidon and Paul the Silentiary. Cenotaphs for the drowned follow, and several poets on the sons of Oedipus, still at war in a shared tomb. The close includes the cranes that avenged Ibycus, Libanius's couplet on Julian dead beyond the Tigris, and Antipater on the mound of Semiramis.
-
Ηʹ Book VIII
Epitaphs by Gregory of Nazianzus, collected from his poems. After an epitaph for John and Theodosius, the book turns to his laments for his friend Basil, bishop of Caesarea, and continues with poems for a Cappadocian family, the wife and sons of Amphilochus, among them the young orator Euphemius, who died on the eve of his wedding. A long closing series curses those who rob tombs for gold and find only bones.
-
Θʹ Book IX
Epideictic epigrams, display pieces on scenes, objects and paradoxes. The book opens with variations on a doe whose milk, poisoned by a viper, kills her fawn, then a roadside walnut tree stoned by boys and a grafted pear. Further in, Sarapis warns a murderer in a dream, Palladas turns a proverb, and a hexameter piece shows Hero waiting with her lamp. The close turns to Pan, Echo and a satyr fountain.
-
Ιʹ Book X
Priapus of the harbour, in hortatory epigrams by Leonidas, Antipater of Sidon and others, opens the book by telling sailors that spring has come and the sea is open. The long middle belongs largely to Palladas: naked we come and go, the rich cannot take their wealth to the grave, Fortune favours the unjust. The close sets Aesop's question how to escape life beside short sayings on children, wives, friends and servants.
-
ΙΑʹ Book XI
Nicarchus opens the convivial and satirical epigrams with a man who trips and spills six jugs of wine, and other poets turn to drinking, poor men's marriages and gifts for the dead. The satire mocks painters, poets and sophists, among them Eutychus, none of whose twenty sons resembles him, and the boy-lover Cratippus. One-line jibes at Corinthians, Argives and Megarians close the book, with Pisistratus claiming he gathered Homer's scattered poems.
-
ΙΒʹ Book XII
Strato of Sardis's collection of poems on the love of boys, opening with his own epigrams that begin from Zeus as Aratus did and rank the ages of youth from twelve to seventeen. Poems from Meleager's Garland are set among his, including Aratus on Philocles of Argos and Meleager warning his own heart, caught like a bird in lime. The close has Meleager's garland of boys from Tyre, his closing poem for Diocles, and Strato's farewell.
-
ΙΓʹ Book XIII
Epigrams in metres other than the elegiac couplet. Theocritus writes on the tomb of Hipponax, Anacreon on a friend killed defending his country, Phalaecus sets two victors in quick dialogue, and Callimachus has Menitas of Lyctus give Sarapis his bow. Lists of athletic victories and choral dedications follow, and Nicaenetus recalls Cratinus's praise of wine as the poet's fast horse, before the book ends with single lines by Simonides and Timocreon, each repeated in a second metre.
-
ΙΔʹ Book XIV
Arithmetical problems, riddles and oracles in verse. The problems attributed to Socrates open the book: Pythagoras counting his pupils for Polycrates, the gold of a statue of Pallas, the apples the Muses took from Eros, the cattle of Augeas. The middle gathers oracles, among them the warnings to Glaucus son of Epicydes on perjury and to the Athenians before the Persian invasion. The close returns to sums and Aegeus's oracle of the wineskin.
-
ΙΕʹ Book XV
A miscellany. It opens with inscriptions from cities and tombs, among them a series on the monument of Sacerdos, a hierophant of Nicaea. Further on come Simias's figured poem The Egg, a hexameter crucifixion by Anastasius the Stammerer, and Ignatius's epitaph for himself. The close honours the charioteer Uranius, crowned by both the Blues and the Greens, and ends on Archias's bronze boar.
-
ΙϚʹ Book XVI
Epigrams found in the anthology of Planudes and not in the earlier manuscript, most of them on statues and pictures. Athletes come first, among them a Spartan wrestler, Theognetus and Diophon, then Alcaeus setting Titus's liberation of Greece against Xerxes, and the piper Dorotheus. Statues of Eros fill the middle. The close has a painted charioteer, lines that read the same backwards, and Julian's poem of Eros dipped in wine and swallowed.