The Greek Anthology
Edited with a Revised Text, Translation, and Notes, by J. W. Mackail
London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1890
Biographies of the Epigrammatists - Greek Literature From the Earliest Period to the Persian Wars |
Biographies of the Epigrammatists - Greek Literature From the Period of the Alexandrian Monarchs
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.

