Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology | Page 8

vocabulary of Callimachus too is
practically the same as that of Simonides.

[1] The first inscriptions of all were probably in hexameter: cf. Hdt.
v. 59.
[2] Horace, A. P., ll. 75-8, leaves the origin of elegiac verse in
obscurity. When he says it was first used for laments, he probably
follows the Alexandrian derivation of the word {elegos} from {e
legein}. The /voti sententia compos/ to which he says it became
extended is interpreted by the commentators as meaning amatory
poetry. If this was Horace's meaning he chose a most singular way of
expressing it.
[3] Mr. F. D. Allen's treatise /On Greek Versification in
Inscriptions/ (Boston, 1888) gives an account of the slight changes in
structure (caesura, etc.) between earlier and later periods.
[4] Cf. infra, III. 2, VII., 4, X. 45, XII. 18, I. 30, IX. 23.
[5] From the Leominster MS. circ. A.D. 1307 (Percy Society, 1842).
III

The material out of which this selection has been made is principally
that immense mass of epigrams known as the Greek Anthology. An
account of this celebrated collection and the way in which it was
formed will be given presently; here it will be sufficient to say that, in
addition to about four hundred Christian epigrams of the Byzantine
period, it contains some three thousand seven hundred epigrams of all
dates from 700 B.C. to 1000 or even 1200 A.D., preserved in two
Byzantine collections, the one probably of the tenth, the other of the
fourteenth century, named respectively the Palatine and Planudean
Anthologies. The great mass of the contents of both is the same; but the
former contains a large amount of material not found in the latter, and
the latter a small amount not found in the former.
For much the greatest number of these epigrams the Anthology is the
only source. But many are also found cited by various authors or
contained among their other works. It is not necessary to pursue this
subject into detail. A few typical instances are the citations of the
epitaph by Simonides on the three hundred Spartans who fell at
Thermopylae, not only by Herodotus[1] but by Diodorus Siculus and
Strabo, the former in a historical, the latter in a geographical, work: of
the epigram by Plato on the Eretrian exiles[2] by
Philostratus in his
Life of Apollonius: of many epigrams purporting to be written by
philosophers, or actually written upon them and their works, by
Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives of the Philosophers. Plutarch among the
vast mass of his historical and ethical writings quotes incidentally a
considerable number of epigrams. A very large number are quoted by
Athenaeus in that treasury of odds and ends, the Deipnosophistae. A
great many too are cited in the lexicon which goes under the name of
Suidas, and which, beginning at an unknown date, continued to receive
additional entries certainly up to the eleventh century.
These same sources supply us with a considerable gleaning of epigrams
which either were omitted by the collectors of the Anthology or have
disappeared from our copies. The present selection for example
includes epigrams found in an anonymous Life of Aeschylus: in the
Onamasticon of Julius Pollux, a grammarian of the early part of the
third century, who cites from many lost writings for peculiar words or

constructions: and from the works of Athenaeus , Diogenes Laërtius,
Plutarch, and Suidas mentioned above. The more famous the author of
an epigram was, the more likely does it become that his work should be
preserved in more than one way. Thus, of the thirty-one epigrams
ascribed to Plato, while all but one are found in the Anthology, only
seventeen are found in the Anthology alone. Eleven are quoted by
Diogenes Laërtius; and thirteen wholly or partially by Athenaeus,
Suidas, Apuleius, Philostratus, Gellius, Macrobius, Olympiodorus,
Apostolius, and Thomas Magister. On the other hand the one hundred
and thirty-four epigrams of Meleager, representing a peculiar side of
Greek poetry in a perfection not elsewhere attainable, exist in the
Anthology alone.
Beyond these sources, which may be called literary, there is another
class of great importance: the monumental. An epigram purports to be
an inscription actually carved or written upon some monument or
memorial. Since archaeology became systematically studied, original
inscriptions, chiefly on marble, are from time to time brought to light,
many of which are in elegiac verse. The admirable work of Kaibel[3]
has made it superfluous to traverse the vast folios of the Corpus
Inscriptionum in search of what may still be hidden there. It supplies us
with several epigrams of real literary value; while the best of those
discovered before this century are included in appendices to the great
works of Brunck and Jacobs. Most of these monumental inscriptions
are naturally sepulchral. They are of all ages and countries within