Chapter Three3. ANTHOLOGIES AND ANTHOLOGISTS
Between c. 850 and 950 many Byzantine intellectuals, among them bril-
liant scholars such as Leo the Philosopher, devoted themselves wholeheartedly
to the study of ancient, late antique and contemporary poetry. These hundred
years of Byzantine scholarship resulted in the compilation of two major
anthologies: the Palatine Anthology (compiled shortly after 944) and the
Anthologia Barberina (c. 919). The latter is a collection of Byzantine anacreon-
tics and alphabets, which can be found in Barb. gr. 310 (see below, pp. 123–
128). The former is essentially a copy of an earlier anthology of epigrams put
together by Constantine Cephalas at the end of the ninth century. The anthol-
ogy of Cephalas is not preserved, but we can reconstruct its structure in broad
outline with the help of various collections of epigrams that derive from it,
either directly or indirectly. Of these collections the Palatine Anthology is by far
the most important because it closely resembles the original anthology of
Cephalas.
The Palatine manuscript^1 was written by six different scribes^2. These six
hands can be divided into two groups: B^1 , B^2 and B^3 , and J, A^1 and A^2 ,
respectively. Both groups of hands can be dated approximately to the second
quarter of the tenth century: scribes B to c. 920–930, scribes J and A to c. 940–
9503.
The oldest part of the manuscript, copied by scribes B^1 , B^2 and B^3 , compris-
es the epigrams starting from AP IX, 563 to the end of AP XIV (pp. 453–642),
(^1) After the Napoleonic wars the Palatine manuscript, with the exception of its last 100-
odd pages, was sent back to Heidelberg (Pal. gr. 23); the remainder stayed in Paris (Par.
Suppl. gr. 384). For the curious wanderings of the Palatine manuscript, see CAMERON
1993: 178–201.
(^2) For a thorough description of the manuscript, see J. IRIGOIN, Annuaire de l’ École
Pratique des Hautes Études,1975–76. Sect. IV. Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, 281–
295.
(^3) Thus IRIGOIN (see footnote above), 283–284, and A. DILLER, in: Scripta Turyniana, ed. J.
HELLER. Urbana 1974, 520–521. M.L. AGATI, BollClass, t.s., 5 (1984) 42–59, dates both
sets of hands a few decades later: scribes B about 940–950 and scribes J and A about
960–970. CAMERON 1993: 99–108 suggests that the two groups of scribes, albeit working
in different scriptoria, cooperated in a joint venture under the guidance of the chief
editor J; this theory has been refuted by J.-L. VAN DIETEN, BZ 86–87 (1994) 342–362.