ANTHEMIUS, a Greek mathematician and architect of great genius, who produced, under the patronage of Justinian (532 A.D.), the original and daring plans for the church of St Sophia, in Constantinople, which strikingly displayed at once his knowledge and his ignorance. He was one of five brothers―the sons of Stephanus, a physician of Tralles―who were all more or less eminent in their respective departments. Dioscorus followed his
father's profession in his native place; Alexander became at Rome one of the most celebrated medical men of his time; Olympius was deeply versed in Roman jurisprudence; and Metrodorus was one of the distinguished grammarians of the great Eastern capital. There appears to be good grounds for believing that Anthemius anticipated Buffon in the invention of burning glasses; he has also been credited, though on very dubious authority, with a knowledge of gunpowder, or some similar compound, and with a certain acquaintance with the force of steam. Some portions of his περὶ παραδόξων μηχανημάτων were published by Dupuy in 1777, and also appeared, in 1786, in the forty-second volume of the Hist. de l'Acad. des Inscr. (See Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, vol. vii. cap. xl; Procopius, de Aedific.)
ANTHESTERIA, an Athenian festival held annually in the month of Anthesterion, corresponding nearly to our February, at which time the wine stored at the previous vintage was considered fit for use. The object of the festival was to celebrate the arrival of that season, and the beginning of spring. It lasted three days, from the llth to the 13th of the month. On the first day, called Pithoigia, or "jar opening," libations were offered from the newly-opened jars to the god of wine, all the household, including servants or slaves, joining in the festivity of the occasion. The rooms and the drinking vessels in them were adorned with spring flowers, as were also the children over three years of age. The second day, which was named Choēs, or " the pouring," was a time of merry-making. The people dressed themselves gaily, some in the disguise of the mythical personages in the suite of Bacchus, and paid a round of visits to their acquaintances. Drinking clubs met to drink off matches, the winner being
he who drained his cup most rapidly. Others did not forget deceased relations, but poured libations on their tombs. On the part of the state this day was the occasion of a peculiarly solemn and secret ceremony in one of the temples of Bacchus, which for the rest of the year was closed. The Basilissa, or Basilinna, wife of the Archon Basileus for the time, went through a ceremony of marriage to the wine god, in which she was assisted by fourteen Athenian matrons, called Gerarae, chosen by the Basileus, and sworn to secrecy. The third day was named χύτροι or "jugs." Cooked fruit of all kinds was offered to Mercury, in his capacity of a god of the lower world; rejoicings and games were held; and though no tragedy was allowed to be performed in the theatre, there was yet a sort of rehearsal, at which the players for the ensuing dramatic festival were selected.
ANTHOLOGY. The term anthology, literally denoting a collection of flowers, is figuratively applied to any selection of literary beauties, and especially to that great body of fugitive poetry, comprehending about 4500 pieces, by upwards of 300 writers, which is commonly known as the Greek Anthology.
Literary History of the Greek Anthology.—The art of occasional poetry had been cultivated in Greece from an early period,—less, however, as the vehicle of personal feeling, than as the recognis-ed commemoration of remarkable individuals or events, or the accompaniment of votive offerings. Such compositions were termed epigrams, i.e., inscriptions. The modern use of the word is a departure from the original sense, which simply indicated that the composition was intended to be engraved or inscribed. Such a composition must necessarily be brief, and the restraints attendant upon its publication concurred with the simplicity of Greek taste in prescribing conciseness of expression, pregnancy of meaning, purity of diction, and singleness of thought, as the indispensable conditions of excellence in the epigrammatic style. The term was soon extended to any piece by which these conditions were fulfilled. The transition from the monumental to the purely literary character of the epigram was favoured by the exhaustion of more lofty forms of poetry, the general increase, from the general diffusion of culture, of accomplished writers and tasteful readers, but, above all things, by the changed political circumstances of the times, which induced numbers who would otherwise have engaged in public affairs to addict themselves to literary pursuits. These causes came into full operation during the Alexandrian era, in which we find every description of epigrammatic composition perfectly developed. About 90B.C., the sophist and poet, Meleager of Gadara, undertook to combine the choicest effusions of his predecessors into a single body of fugitive poetry. Collections of monumental inscriptions, or of poems on particular subjects, had previously been formed by Polemon the grammarian, Alcetas, and others; but Meleager first gave the principle a comprehensive application. His selection, compiled from forty-six of his predecessors, from Sappho downward, and including numerous contributions of his own, was entitled The Garland (Στέφανος); and in an introductory poem each poet is compared to some flower, fancifully deemed appropriate to his genius. The arrangement of the collection was alphabetical, according to the initial letter of each epigram.
In the age of Tiberius (rather than of Trajan, as commonly stated) the work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist, Philip of Thessalonica, who first employed the term anthology. His collection included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to Meleager. Somewhat later, another supplement was formed by the sophist Diogenianus, and, under Hadrian, Strato of Sardis compiled his elegant but tainted Μοῦσα παιδική from his own productions and those of earlier writers. No further collection from various sources is recorded until the time of Justinian, when epigrammatic writing, especially in its amatory department, experienced a great revival at the hands of Agathias, the historian, Paulus Silentiarius, and their circle. Their ingenious but mannered productions were collected by Agathias into a new anthology, entitled The Circle (Κύκλος); the first to be divided into books, and arranged with reference to the subjects of the pieces.
Five Greek anthologies, accordingly, existed at the commencement of the Middle Ages. The partial incorporation of these into a single body was the work of a certain Constantinus Cephalas, whose name alone is preserved in the single MS. of his compilation extant, but who probably lived during the temporary revival of letters under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, at the beginning of the 10thcentury. He appears to have merely made excerpts from the existing anthologies, with the addition of selections from Lucillius, Palladas, and other epigrammatists, whose compositions had been published separately. His arrangement, to which we shall have to recur, is founded on a principle of classification, and nearly corresponds to that adopted by Agathias. His principle of selection is unknown; it is only certain that while he omitted much that he should have retained, he has preserved much that would otherwise have perished. The extent of our obligations may be ascertained by a comparison between his anthology and that of the next editor, the monk Maximus Planudes
