Here is a buffoon (i. 380):
Νηλειὴς Ἀΐδης· ἐπὶ σοὶ δ' ἐγέλασσε θανόντι,
Τίτυρε, καὶ νεκύων θῆκέ σε μιμολόγον.[179]
Perhaps the most beautiful of all the sepulchral epigrams is one by an unknown writer, of which I here give a free paraphrase (Anth. Pal. vii. 346):
Of our great love, Parthenophil,
This little stone abideth still
Sole sign and token:
I seek thee yet, and yet shall seek,
Though faint mine eyes, my spirit weak
With prayers unspoken.
Meanwhile, best friend of friends, do thou,
If this the cruel fates allow
By death's dark river,
Among those shadowy people, drink
No drop for me on Lethe's brink:
Forget me never!
Of all the literary epitaphs, by far the most interesting are those written for the poets, historians, and philosophers of Greece. Reserving these for separate consideration, I pass now to mention a few which belong as much to the pure epigram as to the epitaph. When, for example, we read two very clever poems on the daughters of Lycambes (i. 339), two again on a comically drunken old woman (i. 340, 360), and five on a man who has been first murdered and then buried by his murderer (i. 340), we see that, though the form of the epitaph has been adopted, clever rhetoricians, anxious only to display their skill, have been at work in rivalry. Sardanapalus, the eponym of Oriental luxury, furnishes a good subject for this style of composition. His epitaph runs thus in the Appendix Planudea (ii. 532):
εὖ εἰδὼς ὅτι θνητὸς ἔφυς, τὸν θυμὸν ἄεξε
τερπόμενος θαλίῃσι· θανόντι σοι οὔτις ὄνησις·
καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ σποδός εἰμι, Νίνου μεγάλης βασιλεύσας.
τόσσ' ἔχω ὅσσ' ἔφαγον καὶ ἐφύβρισα, καὶ μετ' ἔρωτος
τέρπν' ἐδάην· τὰ δὲ πολλὰ καὶ ὄλβια κεῖνα λέλειπται.
ἥδε σοφὴ βιότοιο παραίνεσις ἀνθρώποισιν.[180]
We find only the fourth and fifth lines among the sepulchral epigrams of the Anthology of Cephalas (i. 334), followed by a clever parody composed by the Theban Crates. Demetrius, the Spartan coward, is another instance of this rhetorical exercise. Among the two or three which treat of him I quote the following (i. 317):
ἁνίκ' ἀπὸ πτολέμου τρέσσαντά σε δέξατο μάτηρ,
πάντα τὸν ὁπλιστὰν κόσμον ὀλωλεκότα,
αὐτά τοι φονίαν, Δαμάτριε, αὐτίκα λόγχαν
εἶπε διὰ πλατέων ὠσαμένα λαγόνων·
κάτθανε, μηδ' ἐχέτω Σπάρτα ψόγον· οὐ γὰρ ἐκείνα
ἤμπλακεν, εἰ δειλοὺς τοὐμὸν ἔθρεψε γάλα.[181]
Agathias writes a very characteristic elegy on Lais (i. 315):