MIMNERMUS of Smyrna fl. B.C. 634-600, and was the contemporary of Solon. He is spoken of as the "inventor of elegy", and was apparently the first to employ the elegiac metre in threnes and love-poems. Only a few fragments, about eighty lines in all, of his poetry survive.

ERINNA of Rhodes, the contemporary of Sappho according to ancient tradition, fl. 600 B.C., and died very young. There are three epigrams in the Palatine Anthology under her name, probably genuine: see Bergk, /Lyr. Gr./ iii. p. 141. Besides the fragments given by Bergk, detached phrases of hers are probably preserved in /Anth. Pal./ vii. 12 and 13, and in the description by Christodorus of her statue in the gymnasium at Constantinople, /Anth. Pal./ ii. 108-110. She was included in the /Garland/ of Meleager, who speaks, l. 12, of the "sweet maiden-fleshed crocus of Erinna."

THEOGNIS of Megara, the celebrated elegiac and gnomic poet, fl. B.C. 548, and was still alive at the beginning of the Persian wars. The fragments we possess are from an Anthology of his works, and amount to about 1400 lines in all. He employed elegiac verse as a vehicle for every kind of political and social poetry; some of the poems were sung to the flute at banquets and are more akin to lyric poetry; others, described as {gnomai di elegeias}, elegiac sentences, can hardly be distinguished in essence from "hortatory" epigrams, and two of them have accordingly been included as epigrams of Life in this selection.

ANACREON of Teos in Ionia, B.C. 563-478, migrated with his countrymen to Abdera on the capture of Teos by the Persians, B.C. 540. He then lived for some years at the court of Polycrates of Samos (who died B.C. 522), and afterwards, like Simonides, at that of Hipparchus of Athens, finally returning to Teos, where he died at the age of eighty- five. Of his genuine poetry only a few inconsiderable fragments are left; and his wide fame rests chiefly on the /pseudo-Anacreontea/, a collection of songs chiefly of a convivial and amatory nature, written at different times but all of a late date, which have come down to us in the form of an appendix to the Palatine MS. of the Anthology, and from being used as a school-book have obtained a circulation far beyond their intrinsic merit. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 35, speaks of "the unsown honey-suckle of Anacreon," including both lyrical poetry ({melisma}) and epigrams ({elegoi}) as distinct from one another. The Palatine Anthology contains twenty-one epigrams under his name, a group of twelve together (vi. 134-145) transferred bodily, it would seem, from some collection of his works, and the rest scattered; and there is one other in Planudes. Most are plainly spurious, and none certainly authentic; but one of the two given here (iii. 7) has the note of style of this period, and is probably genuine. The other (xi. 32) is obviously of Alexandrian date, and is probably by Leonidas of Tarentum.

SIMONIDES of Ceos, B.C. 556-467, the most eminent of the lyric poets, lived for some years at the court of Hipparchus of Athens (B.C. 528- 514), afterwards among the feudal nobility of Thessaly, and was again living at Athens during the Persian wars. The later years of his life were spent with Pindar and Aeschylus at the court of Hiero of Syracuse. He was included in the /Garland/ of Meleager (l. 8, "the fresh shoot of the vine-blossom of Simonides"); fifty-nine epigrams are under his name in the Palatine MS., and eighteen more in Planudes, besides nine others doubtfully ascribed to him. Several of his epigrams are quoted by Herodotus; others are preserved by Strabo, Plutarch, Athenaeus, etc. In all, according to Bergk, we have ninety authentic epigrams from his hand. There were two later poets of the same name, Simonides of Magnesia, who lived under Antiochus the Great about 200 B.C., and Simonides of Carystus, of whom nothing definite is known; some of the spurious epigrams may be by one or other of them.

Beyond the point to which Simonides brought it the epigram never rose. In him there is complete ease of workmanship and mastery of form together with the noble and severe simplicity which later poetry lost. His dedications retain something of the antique stiffness; but his magnificent epitaphs are among our most precious inheritances from the greatest thought and art of Greece.

BACCHYLIDES of Iulis in Ceos flourished B.C. 470. He was the nephew of Simonides, and lived with him at the court of Hiero. There are only two epigrams in the Anthology under his name. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 34, speaks of "the yellow ears from the blade of Bacchylides." This phrase may contain an allusion to his dedicatory epigram to the West Wind, ii. 34 in this selection.

Finally, forming the transition between this and the great Athenian period, comes AESCHYLUS, B.C. 525-456. That Aeschylus wrote elegiac verse, including a poem on the dead at Marathon, is certain; fragments are preserved by Plutarch and Theophrastus, and there is a well- supported tradition that he competed with Simonides on that occasion. As to the authorship of the two epigrams extant under his name there is much difference of opinion. Bergk does not come to any definite conclusion. Perhaps all that can be said is that they do not seem unworthy of him, and that they certainly have the style and tone of the best period. It was not till the decline of literature that the epoch of forgeries began. It is, however, suspicious that a poet of his great eminence should not be mentioned in the /Garland/ of Meleager; for we can hardly suppose these epigrams, if genuine, either unknown to Meleager or intentionally omitted by him.

II. Period of the ascendancy of Athens, and of the great dramatists and historians; from the repulse of the Persian invasion to the extinction of Greek freedom at the battle of Chaeronea, B.C. 480- 338.

In this period the epigram almost disappears, overwhelmed apparently by the greater forms of poetry which were then in their perfection. Between Simonides and Plato there is not a single name on our list; and it is not till the period of the transition, the first half of the fourth century B.C., that the epigram begins to reappear. About 400 B.C. a new grace and delicacy is added to it by PLATO (B.C. 428-347; the tradition, in itself probable, is that he wrote poetry when a very young man). Thirty-two epigrams in the Anthology are ascribed, some doubtfully, to one Plato or another; a few of obviously late date to a somewhat mythical PLATO JUNIOR ({o Neoteros}), and one to PLATO THE COMEDIAN (fl. 428-389), the contemporary and rival of Aristophanes. In a note to i. 5 in this selection something is said as to the authenticity of the epigrams ascribed to the great Plato [omitted in this text--JB.] He was included in the /Garland/ of Meleager, who speaks, ll. 47-8, of "the golden bough of the ever- divine Plato, shining everywhere in excellence"--one of the finest criticisms ever made by a single phrase, and the more remarkable that it anticipates, and may even in some degree have suggested, the mystical golden bough of Virgil.

To the same period belongs PARRHASIUS of Ephesus, who fl. 400 B.C., the most eminent painter of his time, in whose work the rendering of the ideal human form was considered to have reached its highest perfection. Two epigrams and part of a third ascribed to him are preserved in Athenaeus.

DEMODOCUS of Leros, a small island in the Sporades, is probably to be placed here. Nothing is known as to his life, nor as to his date beyond the one fact that an epigram of his is quoted by Aristotle, /Eth. N./ vii. 9. Four epigrams of his, all couplets containing a sarcastic point of the same kind, are preserved in the Palatine Anthology.

III. Period of the great Alexandrian monarchies; from the accession of Alexander the Great to the annexation of Syria by the Roman Republic, B.C. 336-65.

Throughout these three centuries epigrammatists flourished in great abundance, so much so that the epigram ranked as one of the important forms of poetry. After the first fifty years of the period there is no appreciable change in the manner and style of the epigram; and so, in many cases where direct evidence fails, dates can only be ascribed vaguely. The history of the Alexandrian epigram begins with two groups of poets, none of them quite of the first importance, but all of great literary interest, who lived just before what is known as the Alexandrian style became pronounced; the first group continuing the tradition of pure Greece, the second founding the new style. After them the most important names, in chronological order, are Callimachus of Alexandria, Leonidas of Tarentum, Theocritus of Syracuse, Antipater of Sidon, and Meleager of Gadara. These names show how Greek literature had now become diffused with Greek civilisation through the countries bordering the eastern half of the Mediterranean.

The period may then be conveniently subdivided under five heads--

(1) Poets of Greece Proper and Macedonia, continuing the purely Greek tradition in literature. (2) Founds of the Alexandrian School. (3) The earlier Alexandrians of the third century B.C. (4) The later Alexandrians of the second century B.C. (5) Just on the edge of this period, Meleager and his contemporaries: transition to the Roman period.

(1) ADAEUS or ADDAEUS, called "the Macedonian" in the title of one of his epigrams, was a contemporary of Alexander the Great. Among his epigrams are epitaphs on Alexander and on Philip; his date is further fixed by the mention of Potidaea in another epigram, as Cassander, who died B.C. 296, changed the name of the city into Cassandrea. Eleven epigrams are extant under his name, but one is headed "Adaeus of Mitylene" and may be by a different hand, as Adaeus was a common Macedonian name. They are chiefly poems of country life, prayers to Demeter and Artemis, and hunting scenes, full of fresh air and simplicity out of doors, with a serious sense of religion and something of Macedonian gravity. The picture they give of the simple and refined life of the Greek country gentleman, like Xenophon in his old age at Scillus, is one of the most charming and intimate glimpses we have of the ancient world, carried on quietly among the drums and tramplings of Alexander's conquests, of which we are faintly reminded by another epigram on an engraved Indian beryl.

ANYTE of Tegea is one of the foremost names among the epigrammatists, and it is somewhat surprising that we know all but nothing of her from external sources. "The lilies of Anyte" stand at the head of the list of poets in the /Garland/ of Meleager; and Antipater of Thessalonica in a catalogue of poetesses (/Anth. Pal./ ix. 26) speaks of {Anutes stoma thelun Omeron}. The only epigram which gives any clue to her date is one on the death of three Milesian girls in a Gaulish invasion, probably that of B.C. 279; but this is headed "Anyte of Mitylene," and is very possibly by another hand. A late tradition says that her statue was made by the sculptors Cephisodotus and Euthycrates, whose date is about 300 B.C., but we are not told whether they were her contemporaries. Twenty-four epigrams are ascribed to her, twenty of which seem genuine. They are so fine that some critics have wished to place her in the great lyric period; but their deep and most refined feeling for nature rather belongs to this age. They are principally dedications and epitaphs, written with great simplicity of description and much of the grand style of the older poets, and showing (if the common theory as to her date be true) a deep and sympathetic study of Simonides.