(1320 A.D.), who has not merely grievously mutilated the anthology of Cephalas by omissions, but has disfigured it by interpolating verses of his own. We are, however, in debted to him for the preservation of the epigrams on works of art, which seem to have been accidentally omitted
from our only transcript of Cephalas.The Planudean was the only recension of the anthology known at the revival of classical literature, and was first published at Florence, by Janus Lascaris, in 1594. It long continued to be the only accessible collection, for although the Palatine MS., the sole extant copy of the anthology of Cephalas, was discovered at Heidelberg by Salmasius in 1606, it was not published until 1772, when it was included in Brunck s Analecta Veterum Poetarum G rcecorum. This edition was superseded by the standard one of Friedrich Jacobs (Leipsic, 1794-1803, 13 vols.), the text of which was reprinted in a more convenient form in 1813-17, and occupies three pocket volumes in the Tauchnitz series of the classics. The best edition for general purposes is perhaps that of M. Dlibner in Didot s Bibliotheca (Paris, 1864-72), which contains the Palatine Anthology, the epigrams of the Planudean Anthology not comprised in the former, an appendix of pieces derived from other sources, copious notes selected from all quarters, a literal Latin prose translation by Boissonade, Bothe, and Lapaume, and the metrical Latin versions of Hugo Grotius. The best edition of the Planudean Anthology is the splendid one by Van Bosch and Van Lennep (Utrecht, 1795-1822). Welcker, Meineke, and other German scholars have written valuable monographs on the Anthology.
Arrangement of the Anthology.—The Palatine MS., the archetype of the present text, was transcribed by different persons at different times, and the actual arrangement of the collection does not correspond with that signalised in the index. It is as follows : Book 1. Christian epigrams ; 2. Christodorus s description of certain statues ; 3. In scriptions in the temple at Cyzicus ; 4. The prefaces of Meleager, Philip, and Agathias to their respective collec tions ; 5. Amatory epigrams ; G. Votive inscriptions ; 7. Epitaphs ; 8. The epigrams of Gregory of ISTazianzus ; 9. Rhetorical and illustrative epigrams ; 10. Ethical pieces; 11. Humorous and convivial ; 12. Strato s Movcra TraiSi/o; ; 13. Metrical curiosities; 14. Puzzles, enigmas, oracles; 15. Miscellanies. The epigrams on works of art, as already stated, are missing from the Codex Palatinus, and must be sought in an appendix of epigrams only occur- ing in the Planudean Anthology. The epigrams hitherto recovered from ancient monuments and similar sources form another appendix in the second volume of Diibner s edition.
claims of the Anthology to attention is derived from its continuity, its existence as a living and growing body of poetry throughout all the vicissitudes of Greek civili sation. More ambitious descriptions of composition speedily ran their course, and having attained their complete de velopment became extinct, or at best lingered only in feeble or conventional imitations. The humbler strains of the epigrammatic muse, on the other hand, remained ever fresh and animated, ever in intimate union with the spirit of the generation that gave them birth. To peruse the entire collection, accordingly, is as it were to assist at the disinterment of an ancient city, where generation has suc ceeded generation on the same site, and each stratum of soil enshrines the vestiges of a distinct epoch, but where all epochs, nevertheless, combine to constitute an organic whole, and the transition from one to the other is hardly perceptible. Four stages may be indicated : 1. The Hellenic proper, of which Simonides is the characteristic representative. This is characterised by a simple dignity of phrase, which to a modern taste almost verges upon baldness, by a crystalline transparency of diction, and by an absolute fidelity to the original conception of the epi gram. Nearly all the pieces of this era are actual bona fide inscriptions, or addresses to real personages, whether living or deceased ; narratives, literary exercises, and sports of fancy are exceedingly rare. 2. The epigram received a great development in its second or Alexandrian era, when its range was so extended as to include anecdote, satire, and amorous longing ; when epitaphs and votive inscrip tions were composed on imaginary persons and things, and men of taste successively attempted the same subjects in mutual emulation, or sat down to compose verses as dis plays of their ingenuity. The result was a great gain in richness of style and general interest, counterbalanced by a falling off in purity of diction and sincerity of treatment. The modification, a perfectly legitimate one, the resources of the old style being exhausted, had its real source in the transformation of political life, but may be said to com mence with and to find its best representative in the play ful and elegant Leonidas of Tarentum, a contemporary of Pyrrhus, and to close with Antipater of Sidon, about 140 B.C. It should be noticed, however, that Callimachus, one of the most distinguished of the Alexandrian poets, affects the sternest simplicity in his epigrams, and copies the austerity of Simonides with as much success as an imitator can expect. 3. By a slight additional modification in the same direction, the Alexandrian passes into what, for the sake of preserving the parallelism with the eras of Greek prose literature, we may call the Roman style, although the peculiarities of its principal representative are decidedly Oriental. Meleager of Gadara was a Syrian ; his taste was less severe, and his temperament more fervent than those of his Greek predecessors ; his pieces are usually erotic, and their glowing imagery sometimes reminds us of the Song of Solomon. The luxuriance of his fancy occasion ally betrays him into far-fetched conceits, and the lavish- ness of his epithets is only redeemed by their exquisite felicity. Yet his effusions are manifestly the offspring of genuine feeling, and his epitaph on himself indicates a great advance on the exclusiveness of antique Greek patriot ism, and is perhaps the first clear enunciation of the spirit of universal humanity characteristic of the later Stoical philosophy. With respect to his more strictly poetical qualities, Mr Symonds does not overpraise him when he says " his poetry has the sweetness and the splendour of the rose, the rapture and full throated melody of the nightingale." His gaiety and licentiousness are imitated and exaggerated by his somewhat later contemporary, the Epicurean Philodemus, perhaps the liveliest of any of the epigrammatists; his fancy reappears with diminished bril liancy in Philodemus s contemporary, Zonas, in Crinagoras, who wrote under Augustus, and in Marcus Argentarius, of uncertain date ; his peculiar gorgeousness of colouring remains entirely his own. At a later period of the empire another genre, hitherto comparatively in abeyance, was developed, the satirical. Lucillius, who nourished under Nero, and Lucian, more renowned in other fields of litera ture, display a remarkable talent for shrewd, caustic epi gram, frequently embodying moral reflections of great cogency, often lashing vice and folly with signal effect, but not seldom indulging in mere trivialities, or deformed by scoffs at personal blemishes. This style of composition is not properly Greek, but Roman ; it answers to the modern definition of epigram, and has hence attained a celebrity in excess of its deserts. It is remarkable, however, as an almost solitary example of direct Latin influence on Greek literature. The same style obtains with Palladas, an Alexandrian grammarian of the 4th century, the last of
