Book Vii.--{erotika}; From the {erotika} of Cephalas, With Twenty-Six

new epigrams.

Obviously then the Anthology of Planudes was almost wholly taken from that of Cephalas, with the exception of epigrams on works of art, which are conspicuously absent from the earlier collection as we possess it. As to these there is only one conclusion. It is impossible to account for Cephalas having deliberately omitted this class of epigrams; it is impossible to account for their re-appearance in Planudes, except on the supposition that we have lost a section of the earlier Anthology which included them. The Planudean Anthology contains in all three hundred and ninety-seven epigrams, which are not in the Palatine MS. of Cephalas. It is in these that its principal value lies. The vitiated taste of the period selected later and worse in preference to earlier and better epigrams; the compilation was made carelessly and, it would seem, hurriedly, the earlier part of the sections of Cephalas being largely transcribed and the latter part much less fully, as though the editor had been pressed for time or lost interest in the work as he went on. Not only so, but he mutilated the text freely, and made sweeping conjectural restorations where it was imperfect. The discrepancies too in the authorship assigned to epigrams are so frequent and so striking that they can only be explained by great carelessness in transcription; especially as internal evidence where it can be applied almost uniformly supports the headings of the Palatine Anthology.

Such as it was, however, the Anthology of Planudes displaced that of Cephalas almost at once, and remained the only MS. source of the anthology until the seventeenth century. The other entirely disappeared, unless a copy of it was the manuscript belonging to Angelo Colloti, seen and mentioned by the Roman scholar and antiquarian Fulvio Orsini (b. 1529, d. 1600) about the middle of the sixteenth century, and then again lost to view. The Planudean Anthology was first printed at Florence in 1484 by the Greek scholar, Janus Lascaris, from a good MS. It continued to be reprinted from time to time, the last edition being the five sumptuous quarto volumes issued from the press of Wild and Altheer at Utrecht, 1795-1822.

In the winter of 1606-7, Salmasius, then a boy of eighteen but already an accomplished scholar, discovered a manuscript of the Anthology of Cephalas in the library of the Counts Palatine at Heidelberg. He copied from it the epigrams hitherto unknown, and these began to be circulated in manuscript under the name of the Anthologia Inedita. The intention he repeatedly expressed of editing the whole work was never carried into effect. In 1623, on the capture of Heidelberg by the Archduke Maximilian of Bavaria in the Thirty Years' War, this with many other MSS. and books was sent by him to Rome as a present to Pope Gregory XV., and was placed in the Vatican Library. It remained there till it was taken to Paris by order of the French Directory in 1797, and was restored to the Palatine Library after the end of the war.

The description of this celebrated manuscript, the Codex Palatinus or Vaticanus, as it has been named from the different places of its abode, is as follows: it is a long quarto, on parchment, of 710 pages, together with a page of contents and three other pages glued on at the beginning. There are three hands in it. The table of contents and pages 1-452 and 645-704 in the body of the MS. are in a hand of the eleventh century; the middle of the MS., pages 453-644, is in a later hand; and a third, later than both, has written the last six pages and the three odd pages at the beginning, has added a few epigrams in blank spaces, and has made corrections throughout the MS.

The index, which is of great importance towards the history not only of the MS. but of the Anthology generally, runs as follows:--

{Tade enestin en tede te biblo ton epigrammaton

A. Nonnou poirtou Panopolitou ekphrasis tou kata Ioannen agiou euaggeliou. B. Paulou poirtou selantiariou (sic) uiou Kurou ekphrasis eis ten megalen ekklesian ete ten agian Sophian. G. Sullogai epigrammaton Khristianikon eis te naous kai eikonas kai eis diaphora anathemata. D. Khristodorou poietou Thebaiou ekphrasis ton agalmaton ton eis to demosion gumnasion tou epikaloumenou Zeuxippou. E. Meleagou poietou Palaistinou stephanos diaphoron epigrammaton. S. Philippou poietou Thessalonikeos stephanos omoios diaphoron epigrammaton. Z. Agathiou skholastikou Asianou Murenaiou sulloge neon epigrammaton ektethenton en Konstantinoupolei pros Theodoron Dekouriona. esti de e taxis ton epigrammaton egoun diairesis outos. a. prote men e ton Khristianon. b. deutera de e ta Khristodorou periekhousa tou Thebaiou. g. trete (sic) de arkhen men ekhousa ten ton erotikon epigrammaton upothesin. d. e ton anathematikon. e. pempte e ton epitumbion. s. e ton epideiktikon. z. ebdome e ton pretreptikon. e. e ton skoptikon. th. ebdome e ton protreptikon. i. diaphoron metron diaphora epigrammata. ia. arithmetika kai grepha summikta. ib. Ioannou grammatikou Gazes ekphrasis tou kosmikou pinakos tou en kheimerio loutro. ig. Surigx Theokritou kai pteruges Simmiou Dosiada bomos Besantinou oon kai pelekus. id. Anakreontos Teiou Sumposiaka emiambia kai Anakreontia kai trimetra. ie. Tou agiou Gregoriou tou theologou ek ton epon eklogai diaphorai en ois kai ta Arethou kai Anastasiou kai Ignatiou kai Konstantinou kai Theophanous keintai epigrammata.}

This index must have been transcribed from the index of an earlier MS. It differs from the actual contents of the MS. in the following respects:--

The hexameter paraphrase of S. John's Gospel by Nonnus is not in the MS., having perhaps been torn off from the beginning of it.

After the description of S. Sophia by Paulus Silentiarius, follow in the MS. select poems of S. Gregorius.

After the description by Christodorus of the statues in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus follows a collection of nineteen epigrams inscribed below carved reliefs in the temple of Apollonis, mother of Attalus and Eumenes kings of Pergamus, at Cyzicus.

After the proem to the Anthology of Agathias follows another epigram of his, apparently the colophon to his collection.

The book of Christian epigrams and that of poems by Christodorus of Thebes are wanting in the MS.

Between the /Sepulcralia/ and /Epideictica/ is inserted a collection of 254 epigrams by S. Gregorius.

John of Gaza's description of the Mappa Mundi in the winter baths is wanting in the MS.

After the miscellaneous Byzantine epigrams, which form the last entry in the index, is a collection of epigrams in the Hippodrome at Constantinople.

The Palatine MS. then is a copy from another lost MS. And the lost MS. itself was not the archetype of Cephalas. From a prefatory note to the /Dedicatoria/, taken in connection with the three iambic lines prefixed to the /Amatoria/, it is obvious that the /Amatoria/ formed the first section of the Anthology of Cephalas, preceded, no doubt, by the three proems of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias as prefatory matter. The first four headings in the index, therefore, represent matter subsequently added. Whether all the small appendices at the end of the MS. were added to the Anthology by Cephalas or by a later hand it is not possible to determine. With or without these appendices, the work of Cephalas consisted of six sections of {Erotika}, {Anathematika}, {Epitumbia}, {Epideiktica}, {Protreptika} and {Eumpotika kai Skoptika}, with the {Mousa Stratonos}, and probably, as we have already seen, a lost section containing epigrams on works of art. At the beginning of the sepulchral epigrams there is a marginal note in the MS., in the corrector's hand, speaking of Cephalas as then dead. Another note, added by the same hand on the margin of vii. 432, says that our MS. had been collated with another belonging to one Michael Magister, which was copied by him with his own hand from the book of Cephalas.

The extracts made by Salmasius remained for long the only source accessible to scholars for the contents of the Palatine Anthology. Jacobs, when re-editing Brunck's /Analecta/, obtained a copy of the MS., then in the Vatican library, from Uhden, the Prussian ambassador at Rome; and from another copy, afterwards made at his instance by Spaletti, he at last edited the Anthology in its complete form. ----------

Cf. especially Hdt. v. 59, 60, 77; Thuc. i. 132, vi. 54, 59.

Suid. s.v. {PHilokhoros}.

Athen. x. 436 D., 442 E.

Athen. xiii. 591 C, 594 D.

Ibid. x. 454 F. The date of Neoptolemus is uncertain; he probably lived in the second century B.C.

Anth. Pol. vii. 428; Cic. Or. iii. 194, Pis. 68-70.

Ibid. iv. 1.

Anth. Pal. xii. 257.

Melanippides, however, also wrote epigrams according to Suidas, s.v., and the phrase of Meleager may mean "the epigrams of this poet who was celebrated as a hymn-writer".

Anth. Pal. ix. 363.

Ibid. ix. 440.

Ibid. xii. 256.

Anth. Pal. iv. 2.

Anth. Pal. ix. 178.

Ibid. x. 23.

Suidas s.v. {Diogenianos}.

Bacch. 318.

v. 61.

Anth. Pal. xi. 117.

Anth. Pal. xvi. 53, 82, 114, 131, 147, 173.

Agathias, Hist. i. 1: {ton epigrammaton ta artigene kai neotera oialanthanonti eti kai khuden outosi par eniois upophithurizomena}. Cf. also Suidas, s.v. {Agathias}.

Anth. Pal. iv. 3.

Schol. on Anth. Pal. iv. 1.

Anth. Pal. vii. 429.

{Konstantinos o Kephalas o makarios kai aeimnestos kai tripothetos anthrepos}.

When any selection of minor poetry is made, the principle of arrangement is one of the first difficulties. In dealing with the Greek epigram, the matter before us, as has been said already, consists of between five and six thousand pieces, all in the same metre, and varying in length from two to twenty-eight lines, but rarely exceeding twelve. No principle of arrangement can therefore be based on the form of the poems. There are three other plans possible; a simply arbitrary order, an arrangement by authorship, or an arrangement by subject. The first, if we believe the note in the Palatine MS. already quoted, was adopted by Meleager in the alphabetical arrangement of his Garland; but beyond the uncommon variety it must give to the reader, it seems to have little to recommend it. The Anthologies of Cephalas and Planudes are both arranged by subject, but with considerable differences. The former, if we omit the unimportant sections and the Christian epigrams, consists of seven large sections in the following order:

(1) {Erotika}, amatory pieces. This heading requires no comment.

(2) {Anathematika}, dedicatory pieces, consisting of votive prayers and dedications proper.

(3) {Epitumbia}, sepulchral pieces: consisting partly of epitaphs real or imaginary, partly of epigrams on death or on dead persons in a larger scope. Thus it includes the epigram on the Lacedaemonian mother who killed her son for returning alive from an unsuccessful battle; that celebrating the magnificence of the tomb of Semiramis; that questioning the story as to the leap of Empedocles into Etna; and a large number which might equally well come under the next head, being eulogies on celebrated authors and artists.

(4) {Epideiktika}, epigrams written as {epideixeis}, poetical exercises or show-pieces. This section is naturally the longest and much the most miscellaneous. There is indeed hardly any epigram which could not be included in it. Remarkable objects in nature or art, striking events, actual or imaginary, of present and past times, moral sentences, and criticisms on particular persons and things or on life generally; descriptive pieces; stories told in verse; imaginary speeches of celebrated persons on different occasions, with such titles as "what Philomela would say to Procne," "what Ulysses would say when he landed in Ithaca"; inscriptions for houses, baths, gardens, temples, pictures, statues, gems, clocks, cups: such are among the contents, though not exhausting them.

(5) {Protreptika}, hortatory pieces; the "criticism of life" in the direct sense.

(6) {Sumpotika kai Skoptika}, convivial and humorous epigrams.

(7) The {Mousa paidike Stratonos} already spoken of. Along with these, as we have seen, there was in all probability an eighth section now lost, containing epigrams on works of art.

Within each of these sections, the principle of arrangement, where it exists at all, is very loose; and either the compilation was carelessly made at first, or it has been considerably disordered in transcription. Sometimes a number of epigrams by the same author succeed one another, as though copied directly from a collection where each author's work was placed separately; sometimes, on the other hand, a number on the same subject by authors of different periods come together. Epigrams occasionally are put under wrong headings. For example, a dedication by Leonidas of Alexandria is followed in the /Dedicatoria/ by another epigram of his on Oedipus; an imaginary epitaph on Hesiod in the /Sepulcralia/ by one on the legendary contest between Hesiod and Homer; and the lovely fragment of pastoral on Love keeping Thyrsis' sheep comes oddly in among epitaphs. The epideictic section contains a number of epigrams which would be more properly placed in one or another of all the rest of the sections; and the /Musa Stratonis/ has several which happily in no way belong to it. There is no doubt a certain charm to the very confusion of the order, which gives great variety and unexpectedness; but for practical purposes a more accurate classification is desirable.

The Anthology of Planudes attempts, in a somewhat crude form, to supply this. Each of the six books, with the exception of the {Erotika}, which remain as is in the Palatine Anthology, is subdivided into chapters according to subject, the chapters being arranged alphabetically by headings. Thus the list of chapters in Book I. begins, {eis agonas}, {eis ampelon}, {eis anathemata}, {eis anaperous}, and ends {eis phronesin}, {eis phrontidas}, {eis khronon}, {eis oras}.

On the other hand, Brunck, in his /Analecta/, the arrangement of which is followed by Jacobs in the earlier of his two great works, recast the whole scheme, placing all epigrams by the same author together, with those of unknown authorship at the end. This method presents definite advantages when the matter in hand is a complete collection of the works of the epigrammatists. With these smaller, as with the more important works of literature, it is still true that a poet is his own best commentator, and that by a complete single view of all his pieces we are able to understand each one of them better. A counter-argument is the large mass of {adespota} thus left in a heap at the end. In Jacobs there are upwards of 750 of these, most of them not assignable to any certain date; and they have to be arranged roughly by subject. Another is the fact that a difficulty still remains as to the arrangement of the authors. Of many of the minor epigrammatists we know absolutely nothing from external sources; and it is often impossible to determine from internal evidence the period, even within several centuries, at which an epigram was written, so little did the style and diction alter between the early Alexandrian and the late Byzantine period. Still the advantages are too great to be outweighed by these considerations.

But in a selection, an Anthology of the Anthology, the reasons for such an arrangement no longer exist, and some sort of arrangement by subject is plainly demanded. It would be possible to follow the old divisions of the Palatine Anthology with little change but for the epideictic section. This is not a natural division, and is not satisfactory in its results. It did not therefore seem worthwhile to adhere in other respects to the old classification except where it was convenient; and by a new and somewhat more detailed division, it has been attempted to give a closer unity to each section, and to make the whole of them illustrate progressively the aspect of the ancient world. Sections I., II., and VI. of the Palatine arrangement just given are retained, under the headings of Love, Prayers and Dedications, and the Human Comedy. It proved convenient to break up