inscriptions throughout the cities of Greece. Athenaeus also speaks of
authors otherwise unknown, Alcetas and Menetor,[4] as having written
treatises {peri anathematon}, which would be collections of the same
nature confined to dedicatory inscriptions; and, these being as a rule
in verse, the books in question were perhaps the earliest collections
of monumental poetry. Even less is known with regard to a book "on
epigrams" by Neoptolemus of Paris.[5] The history of Anthologies
proper begins for us with Meleager of Gadara.
The collection called the Garland of Meleager, which is the basis of
the Greek Anthology as we possess it, was formed by him in the early
part of the first century B.C. The scholiast on the Palatine MS. says
that Meleager flourished in the reign of the last Seleucus ({ekhmasen
epi Seleukou tou eskhatou}). This is Seleucus VI. Epiphanes, the last
king of the name, who reigned B.C. 95-93; for it is not probable that
the reference is to the last Seleucid, Antiochus XIII., who acceded
B.C. 69, and was deposed by Pompey when he made Syria a Roman province
in B.C. 65. The date thus fixed is confirmed by the fact that the
collection included an epigram on the tomb of Antipater of Sidon,[6]
who, from the terms in which Cicero alludes to him, must have lived
till 110 or even 100 B.C., and that it did not include any of the
epigrams of Meleager's townsman Philodemus of Gadara, the friend of L.
Calpurnius Piso, consul in B.C. 58.
This Garland or Anthology has only come down to us as forming the
basis of later collections. But the prefatory poem which Meleager
wrote for it has fortunately been preserved, and gives us valuable
information as to the contents of the Garland. This poem,[7] in which
he dedicates his work to his friend or patron Diocles, gives the names
of forty-seven poets included by him besides many others of recent
times whom he does not specifically enumerate. It runs as follows:
"Dear Muse, for whom bringest thou this gardenful of song, or who is
he that fashioned the garland of poets? Meleager made it, and wrought
out this gift as a remembrance for noble Diocles, inweaving many
lilies of Anyte, and many martagons of Moero, and of Sappho little,
but all roses, and the narcissus of Melanippides budding into clear
hymns, and the fresh shoot of the vine-blossom of Simonides; twining
to mingle therewith the spice-scented flowering iris of Nossis, on
whose tablets love melted the wax, and with her, margerain from sweet-
breathed Rhianus, and the delicious maiden-fleshed crocus of Erinna,
and the hyacinth of Alcaeus, vocal among the poets, and the dark-
leaved laurel-spray of Samius, and withal the rich ivy-clusters of
Leonidas, and the tresses of Mnasalcas' sharp pine; and he plucked the
spreading plane of the song of Pamphilus, woven together with the
walnut shoots of Pancrates and the fair-foliaged white poplar of
Tymnes, and the green mint of Nicias, and the horn-poppy of Euphemus
growing on these sands; and with these Damagetas, a dark violet, and
the sweet myrtle-berry of Callimachus, ever full of pungent honey, and
the rose-campion of Euphorion, and the cyclamen of the Muses, him who
had his surname from the Dioscori. And with him he inwove Hegesippus,
a riotous grape-cluster, and mowed down the scented rush of Perses;
and withal the quince from the branches of Diotimus, and the first
pomegranate flowers of Menecrates, and the myrrh-twigs of Nicaenetus,
and the terebinth of Phaennus, and the tall wild pear of Simmias, and
among them also a few flowers of Parthenis, plucked from the blameless
parsley-meadow, and fruitful remnants from the honey-dropping Muses,
yellow ears from the corn-blade of Bacchylides; and withal Anacreon,
both that sweet song of his and his nectarous elegies, unsown honey-