At least three epigrams of a different sort rather make us regret that there are not more of the same kind, instead of the iteration of stock phrases. The first,[114] by Herodicus of Babylon, is a smart onslaught on the “fry of Aristarchus,” the “mono-syllabists” who care for nothing but ΣΦΙΝ and ΣΦΩιΝ and ΜΙΝ and ΝΙΝ. The second,[115] by Antiphanes, hails the “busybody race” of grammarians who “dig up the roots of other people’s muses,” with a great many more abusive but not quite inappropriate epithets and comparisons. The third,[116] by Philippus, is perhaps the best of the three, girding at the “whelps of Zenodotus” with a kind of combination of the other two, which is very likely actual and intentional. Philip (_v. infra_) was a careful student of the elders of his craft. Antipater of Thessalonica[117] has quite a group of literary epigrams. He celebrates the Nine Poetesses, takes part in the Antimachus-Homer debate, refusing the Colophonian primacy, but granting him second rank and the praise of rough vigour (“the Hammer on the anvil of the Pierides”), &c., and honours Aristophanes. Homer once more occupies Alpheus of Mitylene[118] and Antiphilus of Byzantium,[119] while Philippus of Thessalonica[120] devotes a “pretty but slim” comparison with flowers to the principal bards of the Anthology itself. Footnote 112: ii. 3. Footnote 113: ii. 18, _sq._ Footnote 114: ii. 64. Footnote 115: ii. 189. Footnote 116: ii. 207. Footnote 117: ii. 101, 102. Footnote 118: ii. 116. Footnote 119: ii. 157. Footnote 120: ii. 194. This same Philippus has also a not unhappy conceit[121] about Hipponax bidding the usual passer-by at his tomb “not wake the sleeping wasp, Whose shafts fly straight although his metres limp.” A pale addition to the garland of Sophocles comes from the doubtless alien hand of Stratyllius Flaccus,[122] and Hesiod supplies only a play on words to the better artistry of Marcus Argentarius,[123] while the accident of our order of reading—a genuine accident—finishes a volume, and the tale, with the marvellously lame and only epigram of a certain Pinytus[124] on no less a person than Sappho. Footnote 121: ii. 219. Footnote 122: ii. 240. Footnote 123: ii. 244. Footnote 124: ii. 264.