THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY, AS SELECTED FOR THE USE OF WESTMINSTER, ETON, AND OTHER PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Literally Translated into English Prase, CHIEFLY BY GEORGE BURGES, A. M. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. TO WHICH ARF ADDED METRICAL VERSIONS BY BLAND, MERRIVALE, AND OTHERS, AND, AN INDEX OF REFERENCE TO THE ORIGINALS. LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. MDCCCLII. PREFACE. Of all the remains of Greek literature, the most remarkable is that which passes under the name of the Anthology. It not only ranges over a longer period of time than can be assigned to any other, but it likewise exhibits the productions of poets, philosophers, and historians in their lighter hours; while the names even of princes are found in the company of those who have left no memorials of themselves except as the writers of Epigrams. For the preservation of different portions of the fugitive poetry of Greece we are indebted to a variety of authors, mentioned by Jacobs in the Prolegomena to his edition of the Anthologia, p. 34-90. But the principal labourer in "Flower Collecting"-for such is the literal meaning of Anthology— was Meleager, a poet of Gadara,, who flourished under the last of the Seleucidæ, about 96 B. C., and culled his "Garland" from the works of forty-six of, his predecessors, and from not a few of his contemporaries; to these he added many of his own, which are at least equal, if not superior, to any in the collection. To Meleager succeeded Philip of Thessalonica, who gave a supplement of Epigrams, obtained from thirteen writers not mentioned by Meleager. The next collector was Strato of Sardis, who directed his chief attention to poems of an amatory cast, and those too not the most delicate. From this, Constantine Cephalas, a friend and relation of the emperor Leo, |