Biographies of the Epigrammatists

From J. W. Mackail

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.

Select Epigrams from The Greek Anthology

Previous

• Greek Literature From the Earliest Period to the Persian Wars
• Mimnermus of Smyrna
• Erinna of Rhodes
• Theognis of Megara
• Anacreon of Teos
• Simonides of Ceos
• Bacchylides of Iulis
• Aeschylus

Next