My name — my country — what are they to thee?
What, whether base or proud my pedigree?
Perhaps I far surpassed all other men;
Perhaps I fell below them all; what then?
Suffice it, stranger! that thou seest a tomb!
Thou know'st its use; it hides — no matter whom. (Paulus Silentiarius, The Greek Anthology 7.307, translated by William Cowper)This wretched life of ours is Fortune's ball;
Twixt wealth and poverty she bandies all.
These, cast to earth, up to the skies rebound;
Those, toss'd to heaven, come tumbling to the ground
(Palladas, The Greek Anthology 10.80, translated by Goldwin Smith)The epigram was especially cultivated during the Hellenistic Period, which valued refinement and
brevity, and Hellenistic poets began to collect in anthologies epigrams of their predecessors and
contemporaries. The practice of composing and collecting epigrams continued for a thousand years, and
we are exceptionally fortunate that two substantial manuscripts have survived, one from the tenth century
and one from the fourteenth, between them preserving over 4,000 epigrams dating from the Archaic
Period down to the tenth century after Christ. The collective contents of these manuscripts are known as
The Greek Anthology, and they attest to the extraordinary vitality and continuity of Greek literature. Every
aspect of life, and death, is explored in this kaleidoscopic treasury of literary gems. In some cases, the
same theme is treated again and again by successive poets, each trying to improve on the refinement and
concision of previous generations of poets. The language and style of the epigrams are still essentially
those of the Archaic Period, whether the author of the poem is a Spanish-born Roman emperor or a
Christian bishop and saint from Cappadocia. These epigrams exercised an enormous influence on English
and European poetry of the modern period: Shakespeare, Johnson, Herrick, and Dryden, among many
others, either translated or adapted poems from The Greek Anthology in their own work.
Soon fades the rose; once past the fragrant hour,
The loiterer finds a bramble for a flow'r.
(Anonymous, The Greek Anthology 11.53, translated by Samuel Johnson)