Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology | Page 4

desiderata et annotationem criticam adiecit Fridericus Jacobs/ (Leipzig,
1813-1817: two volumes of text and two of critical notes). An appendix
to the latter contains Paulssen's fresh collation of the Palatine MS. The
small Tauchnitz text is a very careless and inaccurate reprint of this
edition. The most convenient edition of the Anthology for ordinary
reference is that of F. Dübner in Didot's /Bibliothèque Grecque/ (Paris,
1864), in two volumes, with a revised text, a Latin translation, and
additional notes by various hands. The epigrams recovered from
inscriptions have been collected and edited by G. Kaibel in his
/Epigrammata Graeca ex labidibus conlecta/ (Berlin, 1878). As this
book was going through the press, a third volume of the Didot
Anthology has appeared, edited by M. Ed. Cougny, under the title of
/Appendix nova epigrammatum veterum ex libris at marmoribus
ductorum/, containing what purports to be a complete collection, now
made for the first time, of all extant epigrams not in the Anthology.
In the notes, I have not thought it necessary to acknowledge, except
here once for all, my continual obligations to that superb monument of

scholarship, the commentary of Jacobs; but where a note or a reading is
borrowed from a later critic, his name is mentioned. All important
deviations from the received text of the Anthology are noted, and
referred to their author in each case; but, as this is not a critical edition,
the received text, when retained, is as a rule printed without comment
where it differs from that of the MSS. or other originals.
The references in the notes to Bergk's /Lyrici Graeci/ give the pages of
the fourth edition. Epigrams from the Anthology are quoted by the
sections of the Palatine collection (/Anth. Pal./) and the appendices to it
(sections xiii-xv). After these appendices follows in modern editions a
collection (/App. Plan./) of all the epigrams in the Planudean
Anthology which are not found in the Palatine MS.
I have to thank Mr. P. E. Matheson, Fellow of New College, for his
kindness in looking over the proofsheets of this book.
INTRODUCTION
I
The Greek word "epigram" in its original meaning is precisely
equivalent to the Latin word "inscription"; and it probably came into
use in this sense at a very early period of Greek history, anterior even to
the invention of prose. Inscriptions at that time, if they went beyond a
mere name or set of names, or perhaps the bare statement of a single
fact, were necessarily in verse, then the single vehicle of organised
expression. Even after prose was in use, an obvious propriety remained
in the metrical form as being at once more striking and more easily
retained in the memory; while in the case of epitaphs and
dedications--for the earlier epigram falls almost entirely under these
two heads--religious feeling and a sense of what was due to ancient
custom aided the continuance of the old tradition. Herodotus in the
course of his History quotes epigrams of both kinds; and with him the
word {epigramma} is just on the point of acquiring its literary sense,
though this is not yet fixed definitely. In his account of the three
ancient tripods dedicated in the temple of Apollo at Thebes,[1] he says
of one of them, {o men de eis ton tripodon epigramma ekhei}, and then

quotes the single hexameter line engraved upon it. Of the other two he
says simply, "they say in hexameter," {legei en exametro tono}. Again,
where he describes the funeral monuments at Thermopylae,[2] he uses
the words {gramma} and {epigramma} almost in the sense of
sepulchural epigrams; {epigegrammai grammata legonta tade}, and a
little further on, {epixosmesantes epigrammasi xai stelesi}, "epitaphs
and monuments". Among these epitaphs is the celebrated couplet of
Simonides[3] which has found a place in all subsequent Anthologies.
In the Anthology itself the word does not however in fact occur till a
late period. The proem of Meleager to his collection uses the words
{soide}, {umnos}, {melisma}, {elegos}, all vaguely, but has no term
which corresponds in any degree to our epigram. That of Philippus has
one word which describes the epigram by a single quality; he calls his
work an {oligostikhia} or collection of poems not exceeding a few
lines in length. In an epitaph by Diodorus, a poet of the Augustan age,
occurs the phrase {gramma legei},[4] in imitation of the phrase of
Herodotus just quoted. This is, no doubt, an intentional archaism; but
the word {epigramma} itself does not occur in the collection until the
Roman period. Two epigrams on the epigram,[5] one Roman, the other
Roman or Byzantine, are preserved, both dealing with the question of
the proper length. The former, by Parmenio, merely says that an
epigram of many lines is bad--{phemi polustikhien epigrammatos ou
xata Mousas einai}. The other is more