Greek Anthology

The Greek Anthology (Anthologia Graeca) is the largest surviving collection of ancient Greek short poetry, containing approximately 4,500 epigrams spanning over 1,500 years — from the seventh century BC to the sixth century AD and beyond.

The collection descends from two ancient anthologies: the Garland of Meleager (c. 100 BC), which gathered earlier epigrammatists, and the Garland of Philip (c. 40 AD), which continued the tradition. These were later incorporated into the Anthology of Constantinus Cephalas (c. 900 AD) and rearranged by the Byzantine scholar Maximus Planudes (c. 1300). The full text survives in a single manuscript, the Palatine Anthology, discovered in the Palatine Library at Heidelberg in 1606.

The epigrams cover every subject: love (both heterosexual and homosexual), death, nature, art, wine, philosophical reflection, satirical wit, and dedicatory inscription. The poets range from the great — Sappho, Simonides, Callimachus, Meleager, Palladas — to the anonymous. The collection is one of the treasures of world literature, an inexhaustible anthology of what Greek poets could do with a few lines.