Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology

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DIOSCORIDES, the author of forty-one epigrams in the Palatine Anthology, lived at Alexandria early in the second century B.C. An epitaph of his on the comedian Machon is quoted by Athenaeus, who says that Machon was master to Aristophanes of Byzantium, who flourished 200 B.C. His style shows imitation of Callimachus; the /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 23, speaks of him as "the cyclamen of Muses."

ARTEMIDORUS, a grammarian, pupil of Aristophanes of Byzantium and contemporary of Aristarchus, flourished about 180 B.C., and is the author of two epigrams in the Palatine Anthology, both mottoes, the one for a Theocritus, the other for a collection of the bucolic poets. The former is attributed in the Palatine MS. to Theocritus himself, but is assigned to Artemidorus on the authority of a MS. of Theocritus.

PAMPHILUS, also a grammarian, and pupil to Aristarchus, was one of the poets in the /Garland/ of Meleager (l. 17, "the spreading plane of the song of Pamphilus"). Only two epigrams of his are extant in the Anthology.

ANTIPATER OF SIDON is one of the most interesting figures of the close of this century, when Greek education began to permeate the Roman upper classes. Little is known about his life; part of it was spent at Rome in the society of the most cultured of the nobility. Cicero, /Or./ iii. 194, makes Crassus and Catulus speak of him as familiarly known to them, but then dead; the scene of the dialogue is laid in B.C. 91. Cicero and Pliny also mention the curious fact that he had an attack of fever on his birthday every winter. "The young Phoenician cypress of Antipater," in the /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 42, refers to him as one of the more modern poets in that collection.

There is much confusion in the Anthology between him and his equally prolific namesake of the next century, Antipater of Thessalonica. The matter would take long to disentangle completely. In brief the facts are these. In the Palatine Anthology there are one hundred and seventy-eight epigrams, of which forty-six are ascribed to Antipater of Sidon and thirty-six to Antipater of Thessalonica, the remaining ninety-six being headed "Antipater" merely. Twenty-eight other epigrams are given as by one or other in Planudes and Diogenes Laërtius. Jacobs assigns ninety epigrams in all to the Sidonian poet. Most of them are epideictic; a good many are on works of art and literature; there are some very beautiful epitaphs. There is in his work a tendency towards diffuseness which goes with his talent in improvisation mentioned by Cicero.

To this period seem to belong the following poets, of whom little or nothing is known: ARISTODICUS of Rhodes, author of two epigrams in the Palatine Anthology: ARISTON, author of three or four epigrams in the style of Leonidas of Tarentum: HERMOCREON, author of one dedication in the Palatine Anthology and another in Planudes: and TYMNES, author of seven epigrams in the Anthology, and included in the /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 19, with "the fair-foliaged white poplar" for his cognisance.

(5) MELEAGER son of Eucrates was born at the partially Hellenised town of Gadara in northern Palestine (the Ramoth-Gilead of the Old Testament), and educated at Tyre. His later life was spent in the island of Cos, where he died at an advanced age. The scholiast to the Palatine MS. says he flourished in the reign of the last Seleucus; this was Seleucus VI. Epiphanes, who reigned B.C. 95-93. The date of his celebrated Anthology cannot be much later, as it did not include the poems of his fellow-townsman Philodemus, who flourished about B.C. 60 or a little earlier. Like his contemporary Menippus, also a Gadarene, he wrote what were known as {spoudogeloia}, miscellaneous prose essays putting philosophy in popular form with humorous illustrations. These are completely lost, but we have fragments of the /Saturae Menippeae/ of Varro written in imitation of them, and they seem to have had a reputation like that of Addison and the English essayists of the eighteenth century. Meleager's fame however is securely founded on the one hundred and thirty-four epigrams of his own which he included in his Anthology. Some further account of the erotic epigrams, which are about four-fifths of the whole number, is given above. For all of these the MSS. of the Anthology are the sole source.

DIODORUS of Sardis, commonly called ZONAS, is spoken of by Strabo, who was a friend of his kinsman Diodorus the younger, as having flourished at the time of the invasion of Asia by Mithridates B.C. 88. He was a distinguished orator. Both of these poets were included in the Anthology of Philippus, and in the case of some of the epigrams it is not quite certain to which of the two they should be referred. Eight are usually ascribed to Zonas: they are chiefly dedicatory and pastoral, with great beauty of style and feeling for nature.

ERYCIUS of Cyzicus flourished about the middle of the first century B.C. One of his epigrams is on an Athenian woman who had in early life been captured at the sack of Athens by Sulla B.C. 80; another is against a grammarian Parthenius of Phocaea, possibly the same who was the master of Virgil. Of the fourteen epigrams in the Anthology under the name of Erycius one is headed "Erycius the Macedonian" and may be by a different author.

PHILODEMUS of Gadara was a distinguished Epicurean philosopher who lived at Rome in the best society of the Ciceronian age. He was an intimate friend of Piso, the Consul of B.C. 58, to whom two of his epigrams are addressed. Cicero, /in Pis./ § 68 foll., where he attacks Piso for consorting with /Graeculi/, almost goes out of his way to compliment Philodemus on his poetical genius and the unusual literary culture which he combined with the profession of philosophy: and again in the /de Finibus/ speaks of him as "a most worthy and learned man." He is also referred to by Horace, 1 /Sat./ ii. 121. Thirty-two of his epigrams, chiefly amatory, are in the Anthology, and five more are ascribed to him on doubtful authenticity.