

V.  Byzantine period; from the transference of the seat of empire to
    Constantinople, A.D. 330, to the formation of the Palatine
    Anthology in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, about the
    middle of the tenth century.

For the first two centuries of this period hardly any names have to be
chronicled. Literature had almost ceased to exist except among
lexicographers and grammarians; and though epigrams, Christian and
pagan, continued to be written, they are for the most part of no
literary account whatever. One name only of importance meets us before
the reign of Justinian.

PALLADAS of Alexandria is the author of one hundred and fifty-one
epigrams (besides twenty-three more doubtful) in the Anthology. His
somber and melancholy figure is one of the last of the purely pagan
world in its losing battle against Christianity. One of the epigrams
attributed to him on the authority of Planudes is an eulogy on the
celebrated Hypatia, daughter of Theon of Alexandria, whose tragic
death took place A.D. 415 in the reign of Theodosius the Second.
Another was, according to a scholium in the Palatine MS., written in
the reign of Valentinian and Valens, joint-emperors, 364-375 A.D. The
epigram on the destruction of Berytus, ix. 27 in this selection, gives
no certain argument of date. Palladas was a grammarian by profession.
An anonymous epigram (/Anth. Pal./ ix. 380) speaks of him as of high
poetical reputation; and, indeed, in those dark ages the harsh and
bitter force that underlies his crude thought and half-barbarous
language is enough to give him a place of note. Casaubon dismisses him
in two contemptuous words as "versificator insulsissimus"; this is
true of a great part of his work, and would perhaps be true of it all
but for the /saeva indignatio/ which kindles the verse, not into the
flame of poetry, but as it were to a dull red heat. There is little
direct allusion in his epigrams to the struggle against the new
religion. One epigram speaks obscurely of the destruction of the idols
of Alexandria by the Christian populace in the archiepiscopate of
Theophilus, A.D. 389; another in even more enigmatic language (/Anth.
Pal./ x. 90) seems to be a bitter attack on the doctrine of the
Resurrection; and a scornful couplet against the swarms of Egyptian
monks might have been written by a Reformer of the sixteenth century.
For the most part his sympathy with the losing side is only betrayed
in his despondency over all things. But it is in his criticism of life
that the power of Palladas lies; with a remorselessness like that of
Swift he tears the coverings from human frailty and holds it up in its
meanness and misery. The lines on the Descent of Man (/Anth. Pal./ x.
45), which unfortunately cannot be included in this selection, fall as
heavily on the Neo-Platonic martyr as on the Christian persecutor, and
remain even now among the most mordant and crushing sarcasms ever
passed upon mankind.

To the same period in thought--beyond this there is no clue to their
date--belong AESOPUS and GLYCON, each the author of a single epigram
in the Palatine Anthology. They belong to the age of the Byzantine
metaphrasts, when infinite pains were taken to rewrite well-known
poems or passages in different metres, by turning Homer into elegiacs
or iambics, and recasting pieces of Euripides or Menander as epigrams.

A century later comes the Byzantine lawyer, MARIANUS, mentioned by
Suidas as having flourished in the reign of Anastasius I., A.D. 491-
518. He turned Theocritus and Apollonius Rhodius into iambics. There
are six epigrams of his in the Anthology, all descriptive, on places
in the neighbourhood of Constantinople.

At the court of Justinian, A.D. 527-565, Greek poetry made its last
serious effort; and together with the imposing victories of Belisarius
and the final codification of Roman law carried out by the genius of
Tribonian, his reign is signalised by a group of poets who still after
three hundred years of barbarism handled the old language with
remarkable grace and skill, and who, though much of their work is but
clever imitation of the antique, and though the verbosity and vague
conventionalism of all Byzantine writing keeps them out of the first
rank of epigrammatists, are nevertheless not unworthy successors of
the Alexandrians, and represent a culture which died hard. Eight
considerable names come under this period, five of them officials of
high place in the civil service or the imperial household, two more,
and probably the third also, practising lawyers at Constantinople.

AGATHIAS son of Mamnonius, poet and historian, was born at Myrina in
Mysia about the year 536 A.D. He received his early education in
Alexandria, and at eighteen went to Constantinople to study law. Soon
afterwards he published a volume of poems called /Daphniaca/ in nine
books. The preface to it (/Anth. Pal./ vi. 80) is still extant, and
many of his epigrams were no doubt included in it. His History, which
breaks off abruptly in the fifth book, covers the years 553-558 A.D.;
in the preface to it he speaks of his own early works, including his
Anthology of recent and contemporary epigrams. One of the most
pleasant of his poems is an epistle to his friend Paulus Silentiarius,
written from a country house on the opposite coast of the Bosporus,
where he had retired to pursue his legal studies away from the
temptations of the city. He tells us himself that law was distasteful
to him, and that his time was chiefly spent in the study of ancient
poetry and history. In later life he seems to have returned to Myrina,
where he carried out improvements in the town and was regarded as the
most distinguished of the citizens (/Anth. Pal./ ix. 662). He is
believed to have died about 582 A.D. Agathias is the author of ninety-
seven epigrams in the Anthology, in a facile and diffuse style; often
they are exorbitantly long, some running to twenty-four and even
twenty-eight lines.

ARABIUS, author of seven epigrams in the Anthology, is called
{skholastikos} or lawyer. Four of his epigrams are on works of art,
one is a description of an imperial villa on the coast near
Constantinople, and the other two are in praise of Longinus, prefect
of Constantinople under Justinian. One of the last is referred to in
an epigram by Macedonius (/Anth. Pal./ x. 380).

JOANNES BARBUCALLUS, also called JOANNES GRAMMATICUS, is the author of
eleven epigrams in the Anthology. Three of them are on the destruction
of Berytus by earthquake in A.D. 551: from these it may be conjectured
that he had studied at the great school of civil law there. As to his
name a scholiast in MS. Pal. says, {ethnikon estin enoma. Barboukale
gar polis en tois [entos] Iberos tou potamou}. But this seems to be an
incorrect reminiscence of the name {Arboukale}, a town in Hispania
Tarraconensis, in the lexicon of Stephanus Byzantinus.

JULIANUS, commonly called JULIANUS AEGYPTIUS, is the author of seventy
epigrams (and two more doubtful) in the Anthology. His full title is
{apo uparkhon Aiguptou}, or ex-prefect of a division of Egypt, the
same office which Lucian had held under Commodus. His date is fixed by
two epitaphs on Hypatius, brother of the Emperor Anastasius, who was
put to death by Justinian in A.D. 532.

LEONTIUS, called Scholasticus, author of twenty-four epigrams in the
Anthology, is generally identified with a Leontius Referendarius,
mentioned by Procopius under this reign. The Referendarii were a board
of high officials, who, according to the commentator on the /Notitia
imperii/, transmitted petitions and cases referred from the lower
courts to the Emperor, and issued his decisions upon them. Under
Justinian they were eighteen in number, and were /spectabiles/, their
president being a /comes/. One of the epigrams of Leontius is on
Gabriel, prefect of Constantinople under Justinian; another is on the
famous charioteer Porphyrius. Most of them are on works of art.

MACEDONIUS of Thessalonica, mentioned by Suidas s.v. {Agathias} as
consul in the reign of Justinian, is the author of forty-four epigrams
in the Anthology, the best of which are some delicate and fanciful
amatory pieces.

PAULUS, always spoken of with his official title of SILENTIARIUS,
author of seventy-nine epigrams (and six others doubtful) in the
Anthology, is the most distinguished poet of this period. Our
knowledge of him is chiefly derived from Agathias, /Hist./ v. 9, who
says he was of high birth and great wealth, and head of the thirty
Silentiarii, or Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, who were among the
highest functionaries of the Byzantine court. Two of his epigrams are
replies to two others by Agathias (/Anth. Pal./ v. 292, 293; 299,
300); another is on the death of Damocharis of Cos, Agathias'
favourite pupil, lamenting with almost literal truth that the harp of
the Muses would thenceforth be silent. Besides the epigrams, we
possess a long description of the church of Saint Sophia by him,
partly in iambics and partly in hexameters, and a poem in dimeter
iambics on the hot springs of Pythia. The "grace and genius beyond his
age," which Jacobs justly attributes to him, reach their highest point
in his amatory epigrams, forty in number, some of which are not
inferior to those of Meleager.

RUFINUS, author of thirty-nine (and three more doubtful) amatory
epigrams in the Palatine Anthology, is no doubt of the same period. In
the heading of one of the epigrams he is called Rufinus Domesticus.
The exact nature of his public office cannot be determined from this
title. A Domestic was at the head of each of the chief departments of
the imperial service, and was a high official. But the name was also
given to the Emperor's Horse and Foot Guards, and to the bodyguards of
the prefects in charge of provinces, cities, or armies.

ERATOSTHENES, called Scholasticus, is the author of five epigrams in
the Palatine Anthology. Epigrams by Julianus, Macedonius, and Paulus
Silentiarius, are ascribed to him in other MSS., and from this fact,
as well as from the evidence of the style, he may be confidently
placed under the same date. Nothing further is known of him. Probably
to the same period belongs THEOPHANES, author of two epigrams in the
miscellaneous appendix (xv.) to the Palatine Anthology, one of them in
answer to an epigram by Constantinus Siculus, as to whose date there
is the same uncertainty. Two epitaphs in the Anthology are also
ascribed to Theophanes in Planudes.

With this brief latter summer the history of Greek poetry practically
ends. The epigrams of Damocharis, the pupil of Agathias, seem already
to show the decomposition of the art. The imposing fabric of empire
reconstructed by the genius of Justinian and his ministers had no
solidity, and was crumbling away even before the death of its founder:
while the great plague, beginning in the fifteenth year of Justinian,
continued for no less than fifty-two years to ravage every province of
the empire and depopulate whole cities and provinces. In such a period
as this the fragile and exotic poetry of the Byzantine Renaissance
could not sustain itself. Political and theological epigrams continued
to be written in profusion; but the collections may be searched
through in vain for a single touch of imagination or beauty. Under
Constantine VII. (reigned A.D. 911-959) comes the last shadowy name in
the Anthology.

COMETAS, called Chartularius or Keeper of the Records, is the author
of six epigrams in the Palatine Anthology, besides a poem in
hexameters on the Raising of Lazarus. From some marginal notes in the
MS. it appears that he was a contemporary of Constantinus Cephalas.
Three of the epigrams are on a revised text of Homer which he edited.
None are of any literary value, except one beautiful pastoral couplet,
vi. 10 in this selection, which seems to be the very voice of ancient
poetry bidding the world a lingering and reluctant farewell.





End of Project Gutenberg Etext Select Epigrams from the Greek by Machail

