TheGreek Anthology (Latin:Anthologia Graeca) is a collection ofpoems, mostlyepigrams, that span theClassical andByzantine periods ofGreek literature. Most of the material of theGreek Anthology comes from two manuscripts, thePalatine Anthology of the 10th century and theAnthology of Planudes (orPlanudean Anthology) of the 14th century.^[1][2]

The earliest known anthology in Greek was compiled byMeleager of Gadara in the first century BC, under the titleAnthologia, or "Flower-gathering." It contained poems by the compiler himself and forty-six other poets, includingArchilochus,Alcaeus,Anacreon, andSimonides. In his preface to his collection, Meleager describes his arrangement of poems as if it were a head-band or garland of flowers woven together. This metaphor gave rise to the word "Anthology", meaning a collection of short literary works.

Meleager'sAnthology was popular enough that it attracted later additions. Prefaces to the editions ofPhilippus of Thessalonica andAgathias were preserved in theGreek Anthology to attest to their additions of later poems. The definitive edition was made byConstantine Cephalas in the 10th century, who added a number of other collections:homoerotic verse collected byStraton of Sardis in the 2nd century AD; a collection ofChristian epigrams found in churches; a collection of satirical and convivial epigrams collected byDiogenianus;Christodorus' description of statues in the Byzantinegymnasium ofZeuxippos; and a collection of inscriptions from a temple inCyzicus.

The scholarMaximus Planudes also made an edition of theGreek Anthology, which while adding some poems, primarily deleted orbowdlerized many of the poems he felt were too explicit. His anthology was the only one known to Western Europe (his autograph copy, dated 1301 survives; thefirst edition based on his collection was printed in 1494) until 1606 whenClaudius Salmasius found in the library atHeidelberg a fuller collection based on Cephalas. The copy made by Salmasius was not, however, published until 1776, whenRichard François Philippe Brunck included it in hisAnalecta. The first critical edition was that of F. Jacobs (13 vols. 1794–1803; revised 1813–1817).

Since its transmission to the rest of Europe, theGreek Anthology has left a deep impression on its readers. In a 1971 article onRobin Skelton's translation of a selection of poems from theAnthology, a reviewer for theTimes Literary Supplement wrote, "The time of life does not exist when it is impossible to discover in it a masterly poem one had never seen before." Its influence can be seen on writers as diverse asPropertius,Ezra Pound andEdgar Lee Masters. Since full and uncensored English translations became available at the end of the 20th century, its influence has widened still further.

The art ofoccasional poetry had been cultivated in Greece from an early period, being used to commemorate remarkable individuals or events, on funerary monuments and votive offerings. These compositions were termed epigrams, i.e. inscribed poems. Such a composition must necessarily be brief, and as a result, conciseness of expression, pregnancy of meaning, purity of diction and singleness of thought are the indispensable conditions of excellence in the epigrammatic style. The term was soon extended to any piece by which these conditions were fulfilled.^[3]

About 60 BC, thesophist and poetMeleager 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 byPolemon Periegetes and others; but Meleager first gave the principle a comprehensive application. His selection, compiled from forty-six of his predecessors, and including numerous contributions of his own, was entitledThe Garland (Στέφανος); in an introductory poem each poet is compared to some flower, fancifully deemed appropriate to his genius. The arrangement of his collection was alphabetical, according to the initial letter of each epigram.^[3]

In the age of the emperorTiberius (orTrajan, according to others) the work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist,Philippus of Thessalonica, who first employed the term "anthology". His collection, which included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to Meleager, was also arranged alphabetically, and contained an introductory poem. It was of inferior quality to Meleager's. Somewhat later, underHadrian, another supplement was formed by the sophistDiogenianus of Heracleia (2nd century AD), andStraton of Sardis compiled his elegant Μοῦσα παιδική (Musa Puerilis) from his productions and those of earlier writers. No further collection from various sources is recorded until the time of Justinian, when epigrammatic writing, especially of an amatory character, experienced a great revival at the hands ofAgathias of Myrina, the historian,Paulus Silentiarius, and their circle. Their ingenious but mannered productions were collected by Agathias into a new anthology, entitledThe Circle (Κύκλος); it was the first to be divided into books, and arranged with reference to the subjects of the pieces.^[3]

These and other collections made during theMiddle Ages are now lost. The partial incorporation of them into a single body, classified according to the contents in 15 books, 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 literary revival underConstantine Porphyrogenitus, at the beginning of the 10th century. He appears to have merely made excerpts from the existing anthologies, with the addition of selections fromLucillius,Palladas, and other epigrammatists, whose compositions had been published separately. His arrangement is founded on a principle of classification, and nearly corresponds to that adopted byAgathias. His principle of selection is unknown. The next editor was the monkMaximus Planudes (1320), who removed some epigrams from Cephalas' anthology, added some verses of his own, and preserved epigrams on works of art, which are not included in the only surviving transcript of Cephalas.^[3]

ThePlanudean Anthology (in seven books) was the only recension of the anthology known at the revival of classical literature, and was first published at Florence, byJanus Lascaris, in 1494. It long continued to be the only accessible collection, for although the Palatine manuscript known as thePalatine Anthology, the sole extant copy of the anthology of Cephalas, was discovered in thePalatine library atHeidelberg, and copied bySaumaise (Salmasius) in 1606, it was not published until 1776, when it was included inBrunck'sAnalecta Veterum Poetarum Graecorum (Crumbs of the Ancient Greek Poets). The manuscript itself had frequently changed its quarters. In 1623, having been taken in the sack of Heidelberg in theThirty Years' War, it was sent with the rest of the Palatine Library to Rome as a present fromMaximilian I of Bavaria toPope Gregory XV, who had it divided into two parts, the first of which was by far the larger; thence it was taken toParis in 1797. In 1816 it went back to Heidelberg, but in an incomplete state, the second part remaining at Paris. It is now represented at Heidelberg by a photographic facsimile.^[4]

Brunck's edition was superseded by the standard one ofFriedrich Jacobs (1794–1814, 13 vols.), the text of which was reprinted in a more convenient form in 1813–1817, and occupies three pocket volumes in theTauchnitz series of the classics. The best edition for general purposes is perhaps that ofDubner inDidot'sBibliotheca (1864–1872), which contains thePalatine Anthology, the epigrams of the Planudean Anthology not collected in the former, an appendix of pieces derived from other sources, copious notes, a literal Latin prose translation byJean François Boissonade,Bothe, andLapaume and the metrical Latin versions ofHugo Grotius. A third volume, edited byE. Cougny, was published in 1890. The best edition of the Planudean Anthology is the splendid one byvan Bosch andvan Lennep (1795–1822). There is also an incomplete edition of the text byHugo Stadtmüller in theTeubner series, 3 vols.,^[5] which stops at IX 563 due to Stadtmüller's death. More recent editions are one in theCollection des Universités de France series, 13 vols., started by Pierre Waltz and continued by other scholars, and one edited byHermann Beckby, 4 vols., in theTusculum series. The most recent edition is byFabrizio Conca,Mario Marzi andGiuseppe Zanetto, with the cooperation in vol. I ofCarla Castelli, 3 vols., published byUTET.

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 signalized in the index. It is arranged into the following books:^[5]

1. Christian epigrams;
2. Christodorus's description of certain statues;
3. Inscriptions in the temple at Cyzicus;
4. The prefaces of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias to their respective collections;
5. Amatory epigrams;
6. Votive inscriptions;
7. Epitaphs;
8. The epigrams of Gregory of Nazianzus;
9. Rhetorical and illustrative epigrams;
10. Ethical pieces;
11. Humorous and convivial;
12. Strato'sMusa Puerilis;
13. Metrical curiosities;
14. Puzzles, enigmas, oracles;
15. Miscellanies.

The epigrams on works of art, as already stated, are missing from theCodex Palatinus, and must be sought in an appendix of epigrams only occurring in the Planudean Anthology. The epigrams hitherto recovered from ancient monuments and similar sources form appendices in the second and third volumes of Dübner's edition. TheLiddell Scott Greek Lexicon divides the Anthologia Graeca sources intoAnthologia Palatina, Planudea (1864-1968), thenAppendix nova epigrammatum (1890 onward).^[6]

The poems in the anthology represent different periods. Four stages may be indicated:

1. The Hellenic proper, of whichSimonides of Ceos (c. 556 – 469 BC), the author of most of the sepulchral inscriptions on those who fell in thePersian wars, is representative. Nearly all the pieces of this era are actual inscriptions or addresses to real personages, whether living or deceased.
2. The epigram received a great development in its second or Alexandrian era, when its range was extended to include anecdote, satire, and amorous longing; when epitaphs and votive inscriptions were composed on imaginary persons and things. The modification has a representative inLeonidas of Tarentum, a contemporary ofPyrrhus of Epirus, and closes withAntipater of Sidon, about 140 BC (or later).Callimachus, one of the Alexandrian poets, affects stern simplicity in his epigrams.
3. Meleager of Gadara was a Syrian; his pieces are usually erotic, with far-fetched conceits. His gaiety and licentiousness are imitated and exaggerated by his somewhat later contemporary, the EpicureanPhilodemus, and his fancy reappears in Philodemus's contemporary, Zonas, inCrinagoras of Mytilene, who wrote under Augustus, and inMarcus Argentarius, of uncertain date. At a later period of the empire anothergenre, was developed, the satirical.Lucillus of Tarrha, who flourished under Nero, andLucian, display a talent for shrewd, caustic epigram. The same style obtains withPalladas, an Alexandrian grammarian of the 4th century, the last of the strictly classical epigrammatists. His literary position is that of an indignant but despairing opponent ofChristianity.
4. The fourth orByzantine style of epigrammatic composition was cultivated at the court ofJustinian. The diction of Agathias and his compeers is ornate.^[5]

Latin renderings of select epigrams byHugo Grotius were published inBosch and Lennep's edition of the PlanudeanAnthology, in the Didot edition, and inHenry Wellesley'sAnthologia Polyglotta. Imitations in modern languages have been copious, actual translations less common.F. D. Dehèque's 1863 translation was in French prose. The German language admits of the preservation of the original metre, a circumstance exploited byJohann Gottfried Herder andChristian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs.^[7]

Robert Bland,John Herman Merivale, and their associates (1806–1813), produced efforts that are often diffuse.Francis Wrangham's (1769–1842) versions,Poems (London, 1795), are more spirited; andJohn Sterling translated the inscriptions of Simonides.John Wilson inBlackwood's Magazine 1833–1835, collected and commented on the labours of these and other translators, including indifferent attempts ofWilliam Hay.^[7]

In 1849 Henry Wellesley, principal ofNew Inn Hall, Oxford, published hisAnthologia Polyglotta, a collection of the translations and imitations in all languages, with the original text. In this appeared versions byGoldwin Smith and Merivale, which, with the other English renderings extant at the time, accompany the literal prose translation of thePublic School Selections, executed by the Rev.George Burges forBohn's Classical Library (1854).^[7]

In 1864 MajorR. G. Macgregor publishedGreek Anthology, with notes critical and explanatory, an almost complete but mediocre translation of the Anthology.Idylls and Epigrams, byRichard Garnett (1869, reprinted 1892 in the Cameo series), includes about 140 translations or imitations, with some original compositions in the same style.^[7]

Further translations and selections include:

• Robert Bland, John Herman Merivale,Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology (London, 1806)
• ———Collections from the Greek Anthology, &c. (London; John Murray, 1813)
• George Burges,The Greek Anthology, as selected for the use of Westminster, Eton, &c. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855)
• Richard Garnett,Idylls and Epigrams chiefly from the Greek Anthology (London: Macmillan, 1869)
• ———A Chaplet from the Greek Anthology (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892)
• Fydell Edmund Garrett,Rhymes and Renderings (Cambridge; Bowes & Bowes, 1887)
• Andrew Lang,Grass of Parnassus: Rhymes Old and New (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1888)
• ———Grass of Parnassus: First and Last Rhymes (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1892)
• Graham R. Tomson, ed.,Selections from the Greek Anthology (London: Walter Scott, 1889)
• H. C. Beeching,Love in Idleness: A Volume of Poems (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1883)
• ———In a Garden, and Other Poems (London: John Lane; New York: Macmillan, 1895)
• Walter Headlam,Fifty Poems of Meleager (London: Macmillan, 1890)
• ———A Book of Greek Verse (Cambridge UP, 1907)
• J. W. Mackail,Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology (with text, introduction, notes, and prose translation; London, 1890, revised 1906)
• L. C. Perry,From the Garden of Hellas (New York: John W. Lovell, 1891)
• W. R. Paton,Anthologiae Graecae Erotica: The Love Epigrams or Book V of the Palatine Anthology (edited, and partly rendered into English verse, London, 1898)
• Jane Minot Sidgwick,Sicilian Idylls and Other Verses Translated from the Greek (Boston: Copeland & Day, 1898)
• W. H. D. Rouse,An Echo of Greek Song (London, 1899)
• Evelyn Baring,Translations and Paraphrases from the Greek Anthology (London: Macmillan, 1903)
• J. A. Pott,Greek Love Songs and Epigrams from the Anthology (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1911)
• Herbert Kynaston; Edward Daniel Stone, ed.,Herbert Kynaston: a short memoir with selections from his occasional writings (London: Macmillan, 1912)
• G. B. Grundy, ed.,Ancient Gems in Modern Settings; being Versions of the Greek Anthology in English Rhyme by Various Writers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1913)
• James G. Legge,Echoes from the Greek Anthology (London: Constable & Co., 1919)
• Alfred J. Butler,Amaranth and Asphodel: Songs from the Greek Anthology (London: Basil Blackwell & Mott, Ltd., 1922)
• F. W. Wright,The Girdle of Aphrodite: The Complete Love Poems of the Palatine Anthology (London: G. Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1923)
• ———The Poets of the Greek Anthology: A Companion Volume to The Girdle of Aphrodite (London: G. Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1924)
• Norman Douglas,Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology (Florence: Tipografia Giuntina, 1927)
• Robert Allason Furness,Translations from the Greek Anthology (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1931)
• J. M. Edmonds,Some Greek Poems of Love and Beauty (Cambridge UP, 1937)
• ———Some Greek Poems of Love and Wine (Cambridge UP, 1939)
• C. M. Bowra, T. F. Higham, eds.,The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation (Oxford UP, 1938)
• F. L. Lucas,A Greek Garland: A Selection from the Palatine Anthology (text of 149 poems, introduction, notes, and verse translations; Oxford, 1939)
• ———Greek Poetry for Everyman (New York: Macmillan, 1951)
• Dudley Fitts,Poems from the Greek Anthology (New York: New Directions, 1956)
• Kenneth Rexroth,Poems from the Greek Anthology (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1962)
• Andrew Sinclair,Selections from the Greek Anthology: The Wit and Wisdom of the Sons of Hellas (selection and translation; New York: Macmillan, 1967)
• Robin Skelton,Two Hundred Poems from The Greek Anthology (Seattle: U of Washington P, 1971)
• Peter Jay,The Greek Anthology and Other Ancient Greek Epigrams (Allen Lane, 1973; reprinted inPenguin Classics, 1981)
• Daryl Hine,Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology (Princeton UP, 2001)
• Peter Constantine,Rachel Hadas,Edmund Keeley, and Karen Van Dyck, eds.,The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009)
• George Theodoridis, 2010,[1]

A small volume on the Anthology, edited and with some original translations byLord Neaves, is one of W. Lucas Collins's seriesAncient Classics for Modern Readers,The Greek Anthology (Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1874)

Two critical contributions to the subject are the Rev. James Davies's essay on Epigrams in theQuarterly Review (vol. cxvii.), illustrating the distinction between Greek and Latin epigram; and the disquisition inJ. A. Symonds'sStudies of the Greek Poets (1873; 3rd ed., 1893).

• List of anthologies of Greek epigrams

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Garnett, Richard (1911). "Anthology". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 94–96.

• anthologiagraeca.org Texts, scholia, images of the codex, translations in English, French & other languages.sources A Collaborative Edition by the Canada Research Chair in Digital Textualities.
•  GreekWikisource has original text related to this article:Palatine Anthology in the original Greek
•  GreekWikisource has original text related to this article:Anthology of Planudes in the original Greek
• Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J. W. Mackail (Project Gutenberg)
• The Greek Anthology,W. R. Paton (ed.), 5 vol., London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's sons, 1927-28:vol. 1,vol. 2,vol. 3,vol. 4,vol. 5.
• Greek Anthology English translation byW. R. Paton, arranged by poet rather than by book, atattalus.org
• Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J. W. Mackail, edited with excerpts in Greek (unicode) and a search engine
• Plaintext ofVol. 1,Vol. 2,Vol. 3,Vol. 4, andVol. 5 onGoogle Books.
• Epigrams by Women from the Greek AnthologyArchived 2011-06-06 at theWayback Machine from Diotima
• Maximus Planudes from William Smith'sDictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867), v. 3, pp. 384–390; includes a detailed "Literary History of the Greek Anthology"
• ReadBirds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology byNorman Douglas atProject Gutenberg Australia

• Greek Anthology
• Poetry anthologies
• Greek literature (post-classical)
• Epigrammatists of the Greek Anthology
• Works subject to expurgation

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Latin-language text
• Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Webarchive template wayback links