Biographies of the Epigrammatists

From J. W. Mackail

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 (elego}) 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.

Select Epigrams from The Greek Anthology

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• 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

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