Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology

by Unknown

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 the compass of Graeco-Roman civilisation, from the epitaph, magnificent in its simplicity, sculptured on the grave of Cleoetes the Athenian when Athens was still a small and insignificant town, to the last outpourings of the ancient spirit on the tombs reared, among strange gods and barbarous faces, over Paulina of Ravenna or Vibius Licinianus of Nîmes.[4]

It has already been pointed out by how slight a boundary the epigram is kept distinct from other forms of poetry, and how in extreme cases its essence may remain undefinable. The two fragments of Theognis and one of Mimnermus included here[5] illustrate this. They are examples of a large number like them, which are not, strictly speaking, epigrams; being probably passages from continuous poems, selected, at least in the case of Theognis, for an Anthology of his works.

The epigrams extant in literature which are not in the Anthology are, with a few exceptions, collected in the appendix to the edition of Jacobs, and are reprinted from it in modern texts. They are about four hundred in number, and raise the total number of epigrams in the Anthology to about four thousand five hundred; to these must be added at least a thousand inscriptional epigrams, which increase year by year as new explorations are carried on. It is, of course, but seldom that these last have distinct value as poetry. Those of the best period, indeed, and here the best period is the sixth century B.C., have always a certain accent, even when simplest and most matter of fact, which reminds us of the palace whence they came. Their simplicity is more thrilling than any eloquence. From the exotic and elaborate word-embroidery of the poets of the decadence, we turn with relief and delight to work like this, by a father over his son:

{Sema pater Kleoboulos apepsthimeno Xenopsanto
thexe tod ant aretes ede saopsrosunes}[6]

(This monument to dead Xenophantus his father Cleobulus set up, for his valour and wisdom);

or this, on an unmarried girl:

{Sema PHrasixleias xoure xexlesomai aiei
anti gamou para theon touto lakhous onoma}[7]

(The monument of Phrasicleia; I shall for ever be called maiden, having got this name from the gods instead of marriage.)

So touching in their stately reserve, so piercing in their delicate austerity, these epitaphs are in a sense the perfection of literature, and yet in another sense almost lie outside its limits. For the workmanship here, we feel, is unconscious; and without conscious workmanship there is not art. In Homer, in Sophocles, in all the best Greek work, there is this divine simplicity; but beyond it, or rather beneath it and sustaining it, there is purpose. —————

[1] Anth. Pal. vii. 249; Hdt. vii. 228.

[2] Ibid. vii. 256.

[3] Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta. Berlin, 1878.

[4] Infra, III. 35, 47; XI. 48.

[5] Infra, XII. 6, 17, 37.

[6] Corp. Inscr. Att. 477 B.

[7] Ibid. 469.