Greek Anthology

The Greek Anthology or Anthologia Graeca is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, which covers the entire period of Greek literature from antiquity to the Byzantine Empire.

Spending today are made up of two Greek manuscripts of the poem inventory, of which in the Electoral Palatinate Library (Bibliotheca Palatina ) appeared the older and more extensive early 17th century in Heidelberg and, therefore, bears the name Anthologia Palatina. In addition, there is a shorter collection, which was already known for some time, however, and was first printed in 1494, after their compiler named Maximus Planudes ( 1300 ) Anthologia Planudea.

The compiled sometime in the 10th century Anthologia Palatina contains over 3200 poems and is divided into 15 books. As the younger Anthologia Planudea only contains 388 epigrams that are not also part of the Anthologia Palatina, these 388 poems will be added in modern editions usually as 16 book. This compiled from two collections work is the Anthologia Graeca.

The epigram in ancient Greece

Epigrams - of one or more verses, each with a hexameter and a pentameter following existing sayings on various topics - were popular in ancient Greece as inscriptions on all sorts of objects. As easy to memorierende, short, yet perfectly formed little poems they belonged to the entertainment repertoire of the educated classes. They were happy to be carried forward in all possible occasions, especially at festive banquets (symposia ) for general amusement and mood elevation. This is serious worldly wisdom, historical reminiscences and rather slippery, refined through their poetic form sayings could be strung together informally.

Growth of the collection over a thousand years

The oldest reconstructable collection of epigrams is that of Meleager of Gadara, which published it under the title Stephanos ( " crown " or " garland " ) around 100 BC, in the late Hellenistic period. It contains poems by himself and 46 other poets, including Archilochus, Alcaeus, Anacreon and Simonides. Meleager wreath was popular enough to cause later extensions. One hundred years after him, Philip of Thessalonica took again his own poems as well as the other 13 authors who had written in the meantime, on. In conjunction with its wreath falls in the manuscript of the Palatine Anthologia also the first time the word anthology. Around the middle of the 6th century added of Agathias in his Kyklos ( "circle" ) more poems added and divided the material thematically in seven books. The prefaces Meleager, Philip and Agathias ' are preserved in the fourth book of Anthologia Palatina.

In addition, other Epigrammsammlungen had arisen in the meantime, so in the 2nd century AD, the grammarian Diogeneianos with satirical and festive epigrams and Mousa paidika ( " boyish Muse" ) of Strato of Sardis, a collection of homoerotic verse.

The final output of the Anthologia Palatina derived mainly from the 10th century and is usually assigned Konstantinos Kefalas; he worked for a collections of Diogeneianos and Straton and the epigrams from the text editions of Callimachus, Theocritus, Diogenes Laertius and others; also Christian epigrams, literary handed ( Gregory of Nazianzus ) and from churches gathered; Christodoros ' Description of still images in a Byzantine school, as well as inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus.

Kephalas divided his material into 15 books, which included a total of 3700 epigrams. His collection, which he probably has not finally edited, is not included in the original; However, it forms the basis of a newly expanded version of which a copy is received, who prepared four writers in succession and was created towards the end of the 10th century (Codex Palatinus 23). Also, this collection, which Anthologia Palatina, comprised 15 books.

The shortened version of the Planudes and the rediscovery of the original

End of the 13th century made ​​Maximus Planudes to its own edition of the Greek Anthology, which he added to a poetry and omitting those for other or " cleaned " (ie paraphrased! ), Which appeared to him unchaste. A number of epigrams to art, which is absent in Kephalas (or in the resulting transcript of his collection ) is obtained only by Planudes. Overall, it offers 2400 epigrams in 7 books.

A copy of his compilation remained in the autograph, that is, as a hand-written copy of the Planudes: written in 1301 the Codex Marcianus 481 ( according to the Library of San Marco in Venice), on the basis of the 1494 first edition was printed. For a long time this collection, which Anthologia Planudea, the main source of the knowledge of the Greek epigrams in Western Europe.

1606 discovered Claudius Salmasius in the library in Heidelberg said copy of the collection of Konstantinos Kefalas again, but the codex Palatinus Published 23 was the text until 1776, when Richard François Philippe Brunck einbezog him in his Analecta. The first text-critical issue is that of Friedrich Jacobs ( 13 volumes, 1794-1803, by seen 1813-1817 ). The manuscript itself came to Rome in 1623, 1797 in the National Library in Paris. 1816 a part to Heidelberg was returned, the other remained in Paris. The first printed editions were based on transcripts, which were made in Rome.

The material that provides Planudes addition to the Codex Palatinus, as mentioned, printed in today's editions of the Greek Anthology, the 16th book.

Expenditure

• Hermann Beckby (ed.): Anthologia Graeca ( Tusculum Collection ). 2nd edition Heimeran Verlag, Munich 1965 ff (4 vols in Greek and German language ).

• Dietrich Plane (ed. ): The Greek anthology in three volumes ( Ancient Library ). Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-7466-0096-0.

• Dirk Uwe Hansen ( ed.): Anthologia Graeca I: Books 1 to 5 Volume 72 of the series "Library of Greek Literature", Anton Hiersemann Verlag, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-7772-1117-6. ( German translation, which is to be continued in the coming years. )