Scanned text contains errors.

PLANUDES.

4. DiogenianuS) Straton^ and Diogenes Laertius. —Shortly after Philip, in the reign of Hadrian, the learned grammarian, diogenianus of Heracleia, compiled an Anthology, which is entirely lost. It might perhaps have been well if the same fate had befallen the very polluted, though often beautiful collection of his contemporary, straton of Sar-dis, the nature of which is sufficiently indicated by its title, Movva ttcuo'iictj. About the same time Diogenes Laertius collected the epigrams which are interspersed in his lives of the philosophers, into a separate book, under the title of r\ Trdu/j.erpos. [diogenes laertius.] This collection, hoAvever, as containing only the poems of Diogenes himself, must rather be viewed as among the materials of the later Anthologies than as an Anthology in itself.

5. Agathias Scholasticus. — During the long pe­riod from the decline of original literature to the era when the imitative compositions of the Con-stantinopolitan grammarians had reached their height, we find no more Anthologies. The next was the Ku/cAos eiriypau/Adrwv of agathias scho­lasticus, who lived in the time of Justinian. It was divided into seven books, according to sub­jects, the first book containing dedicatory poems ; the second, descriptions of places, statues, pic­tures, and other works of art; the third, epitaphs ; the fourth, poems on the various events of human life ; the fifth, satiric epigrams ; the sixth, ama­tory ; the seventh, exhortations to the enjoyment of life. This was the earliest Anthology which was arranged according to subjects. The poems included in it were those of recent writers, and chiefly those of Agathias himself and of his con­temporaries, such as Paulus Silentiarius and Ma-cedonius. [agathias.]

6. The Anthology of Constantinus Cephalas^ or the Palatine Anthology. — Constantinus Cephalas appears to have lived about four centuries after Agathias, and to have flourished in the tenth century, under the emperor Constantinus Porphyro-genitus. The labours of preceding compilers may be viewed as merely supplementary to the Garland of Meleager; but the Anthology of Con­stantinus Cephalas was an entirely new collection from the preceding Anthologies and from original sources. As has been said above [cephalas] nothing is known of Constantine himself. Modern scholars had never even heard his name till it was brought to light by the fortunate discovery of Salmasius. That great scholar, Avhen a very young man, visited Heidelberg about the end of the year 1606, and there, in the library of the Electors Pa­latine, he found the MS. collection of Greek epi­grams, which was afterwards removed to the Vatican, Avith the rest of the Palatine library (1623), and has become celebrated under the names of the Palatine Anthology and the Vatican Codex of the Greek Anthology* Salmasius at once saw that it \vas quite a different work from the Planudean Anthology. He collated it with We-chel's edition of the latter, and copied out those epigrams which \vere not contained in the latter. The work thus discovered soon became known among the scholars of the day as the Anthologia inedita codicis Palatini. The MS. is written on

* The MS. was transferred to Paris, upon the peace of Tolentino, in 1797 ; and, after the peace of 1815, it was restored to its old home at Heidel­berg, where it now lies in the University library.

PLANUDES.

parchment, of a quarto form, though somewhat longer than it is broad, and contains 710 pages% without reckoning three leaves at the commence­ment, which are stuck together, and which are also full of epigrams. The writing is by different hands. The index prefixed to the MS. and the first 453 pages are in an ancient handwriting ; then follows a later hand, up to p. 644 ; then again an older handwriting to p. 705. The rest is by a hand later than either of the others, and in the same writing are some additions in the other parts of the work, the leaves which are stuck to­gether at the beginning, and some pages which had been left vacant by the former writers. The numbers of the pages are added by a still later hand, and the first three leaves are not included in the numbering. The most ancient handwriting is supposed to be of the eleventh century. The time of the others cannot be fixed with any cer­tainty. But not only is it thus evident that the MS. was written by different p?rsons and at dif­ferent times, but it is also quite clear that the original design of the work has been materially altered by the successive writers. There is an index at the beginning, which states the contents of each book of the collection, but, as the MS. now stands, its actual contents do not agree with this index. (The exact amount of the discrepancies is stated by Jacobs, who prints the index in his Prolegomena, p. Ixv.) The inference drawn from these variations is that the present MS. is copied from an older one, the contents of which are repre­sented by the index, but that the copyists have exercised their own judgment in the arrangement of the epigrams, and in the addition of some which were not in the older MS. It may further be pretty safely assumed that the older MS. was the Anthology as compiled by Constantinus Cephalas, the contents of which the index represents. But even in the index itself there are discrepancies ; for it consists of two parts, the first of which pro­fesses to give the contents of the book, and the econd their arrangement ; but these parts disagree with one another, as well as with the contents of the MS. itself. The order given in the index is as follows (we give the titles in an abbreviated form) : —

a. /3.

y. 8.

6.

5". £".

r\. 6.

]§aiov,

rot, rv

ra Xpiffrofiwpov rov

rd epwriKa

r

TO.

Ta rd

rd ^rpdrwvos rov

ta. afjiOfJi^riKd Kal ypijfya ffv/uuticra. i€. 'Iwdvvov 7 pa.]LL/ji,ar lkov Td^rjs c

AeotnaSa

(abv tta\ ire-

Trj'iov.

i9 k.t. A.

The actual contents, however, are as follows : — Pauli Silentiarii Ecphrasis, to p. 40 ; S. Gregorii Eclogae, to p. 49 ; Epigrammata Christiana, to p. 63 ; Christodori Ecphrasis, to p. 76 ; Epigram­mata Cyzicena, to p. 81 ; Prooemia Meleagri, Phi-lippi, Agathiae, to p. 87 ; Amatoria, to p. 140;