1. General Introduction

The title Anthologia Palatina has been given to a collection that consists of 15 books and includes about 3,700 epigrams with over 23,000 verses, which were written from the 6^th century to the 10^th century A.D. This collection was the result of work of unknown scholars during the Macedonian Renaissance and constitutes the larger and more important work of its kind. It is preserved in a manuscript with two parts (codices). The main part, which includes the first 13 books, is kept today in the Palatina Library of Heidelberg (Palatinus Vaticanus gr. 23) and entirely for this, the collection was named the Anthologia Palatina.¹T he other part, which preserves the remaining 2 books, is found in Paris (Parisinus suppl. gr. 384). According to the commonly accepted point of view, the manuscript dates to the 10^th century, probably around 980, though some scholars date it to the 11^th century.²

The Anthologia Palatina appears to be a typical work of the 10^th century, a period characterized by a spirit of encyclopedism. In the same period, the Souda Lexicon and Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus's Excerpta historica Constantiniana were compiled, and in general emphasis was given to the compilation of former and contemporary knowledge.³ The work constitutes a very important source for the history of literature and the development of the Greek language.

2. The Original Structure of the Work—Constantine Kephalas

The original body of the Anthologia Palatina is based on one collection of epigrams (anthology) which Constantine Kephalas had published at the end of the 9^th century. Constantine Kephalas, a Byzantine scholar and clergyman who came from a prominent family, lived and was active in the reign of Emperor Leon VI the Wise (886-912) and a bit later. His name has been documented by some columnists and it is reported that in 917 he served as head priest (dean) of the imperial court.⁴

Kephalas' collection, which is not preserved today though its original form can be reconstructed by the Anthologia Palatina, consisted of books 3-7, 9-12 and perhaps 13-14.⁵ At the end of the 9^th century, he therefore wrote, possibly per order of Leon VI, a collection (anthology) of ancient and Byzantine epigrams, as well as funerary epigrams. He used old anthologies, such as Agathias' Cycle⁶and perhaps the collection of compiler Meleagros of Gadarenos⁷(100 B.C.). In his collection Kephalas also included a plethora of funerary epigrams, which originated from mainland Greece and Asia Minor, which magistros Gregory of Kampsa of Macedonia had collected on his behalf. Kephalas' collection was also used widely by the Souda Lexicon (quotations from 430 epigrams).⁸

3. The Later Additions – The Anthologia Palatina

Around 980 an unknown composer widened Kephalas' anthology and added the present books of the Anthologia Palatina: the 1^st (epigrams of Christian poets and numerous inscriptions from churches of the of the 4^th to the 10^th centuries), the 2^nd (Christodoros of Koptos's poem,⁹ “Έκφρασις των αγαλμάτων των εις το δημόσιον γυμνάσιον του επικαλουμένου Ζευξίππου”), the 8^th (funerary epigrams of Gregory of Nazianzos), evidently the 13^th and 14^th (epigrams of present and older poets, which generally present many problems), and the 15^th. The categorization of poetry in thematic groups is also attributed to this, a fact that often causes confusion regarding the attribution of epigrams to the poet in question, which resulted in enough of the poetry to be characterized as anonymous (masterless).¹⁰

4. The Meaning

Previously it was considered that the Anthologia Palatina is comprised of epigrams of Ancient Greek literature. This point of view relied mainly upon the style of the collection. The epigrams can be characterized as demonstrative, satirical, erotic, children's, admonitory, sympotic, arithmetic, enigmatic and others, while entirely missing synaxaria, troparia and other chief ecclesiastical works. It is noteworthy that the words that were used for the making of the anthology did not distinguish between ancient and Christian epigrams, nor did they wound the intended chronological line.

Ancient lyrical poets whose epigrams are in the Anthologia Palatina include, for example, Archilochus, Anacreon, Sappho and Simonides.¹¹ The weight of the collection however, fell upon the epigrams and the poems of eminent poets of the Byzantine era. The Byzantine epigrams do not follow the rules of the traditional ancient type with alternating digital hexametres and pentametres or combined in iambic trimetre. Epigrams of Byzantine poets are included mainly in the 1^st, the 8^th as well as the 15^th book.¹² The last one consists of epigrams of Arethas of Caesarea, Ignatios the Deacon and Kometas¹³ and from inscriptions from the Hippodrome. The great value of the Anthologia Palatina lies in the fact that it preserved works of poets and epigram composers, such as Agathias Scholasticus, Damocharis, the Macedonian, Metrodorus, Leo the Philosopher and Palladas, which would have otherwise been lost.

5. The Greek Anthology

The conventionally named Greek Anthology consists of the Anthologia Palatina and the Planudea, which classifies as the 16^th book. The subsequent anthology by Maximos Planoudes (cir. 1260-1310), known as Planudea (codexMarc. gr. 481), added 388 new epigrams.¹⁴ The poems of the Planudea usually originate from lost manuscripts of Constantine Kephalas or they are repeated from the Anthologia Palatina.