A gathering of poetic blossoms.
The Greek Anthology
contains some 4,500 short Greek poems in the sparkling and diverse genre of epigram, written by more than a hundred poets and collected over many centuries. To the original collection, called the
Garland
(
Stephanus
) by its contributing editor, Meleager of Gadara (first century BC), was added another
, by Philip of Thessalonica (mid-first century AD) and then a
Cycle
by Agathias of Myrina (AD 567/8). In about AD 900 these collections (now lost) and perhaps others (also lost, by Rufinus, Diogenianus, Strato, and Palladas) were partly incorporated and arranged into fifteen books according to subject by Constantine Cephalas; most of his collection is preserved in a manuscript called the
Palatine Anthology
. A second manuscript, the
Planudean Anthology
made by Maximus Planudes in 1301, contains additional epigrams omitted by Cephalas.
Outstanding among the poets are Meleager, Antipater of Sidon, Crinagoras, Palladas, Agathias, and Paulus Silentiarius.
This Loeb edition of
The
Greek Anthology
replaces the earlier edition by W. R. Paton, with a Greek text and ample notes reflecting current scholarship. Volume I contains the following: Book 1. Christian Epigrams; Book 2. Description of the Statues in the Gymnasium of Zeuxippus; Book 3. Epigrams in the Temple of Apollonis at Cyzicus; Book 4. Prefaces to Various Anthologies; Book 5. Erotic Epigrams.