Epigrams, Greek; Greek poetry -- Translations into English
MOSCHUS of Syracuse, the last of the pastoral poets, flourished
towards the end of the third century B.C., perhaps as late as B.C. 200
if he was the friend of the grammarian Aristarchus. A single epigram
of his is extant in Planudes. The Palatine Anthology includes his
idyll of /Love the Runaway/ (ix. 440), and the lovely hexameter
fragment by Cyrus (ix. 136), which has without authority been
attributed to him and is generally included among his poems.
To this period may belong DIOTIMUS, whose name is at the head of
eleven epigrams in the Anthology. One of these is headed "Diotimus of
Athens," one "Diotimus of Miletus," the rest have the name simply.
Nothing is known from other sources of any one of them. An Athenion
Diotimus was one of the orators surrendered to Antipater B.C. 322, and
some of the epigrams might be of that period. A grammarian Diotimus of
Adramyttium is mentioned in an epigram by Aratus of Soli (who fl. 270
B.C.); perhaps he was the poet of the /Garland/ of Meleager, who
speaks, l. 27, of "the quince from the boughs of Diotimus."
AUTOMEDON of Aetolia is the author of an epigram in the Palatine
Anthology, of which the first two lines are in Planudes under the name
of Theocritus; it is in his manner, and in the best style of this
period. There are twelve other epigrams by an Automedon of the Roman
period in the Anthology, one of them headed "Automedon of Cyzicus."
From internal evidence these belong to the reign of Nerva or Trajan.
An Automedon was probably one of the poets in the Anthology of
Philippus (/Garland/, l. 11), but is most probably different from both
of these, as that collection cannot well be put later than the reign
of Nero, and purports to include only poets subsequent to Meleager:
cf. supra p. 17.
THEAETETUS is only known as the author of three epigrams in the
Palatine Anthology (a fourth usually ascribed to him, /Anth. Pal./
vii. 444, should be referred to Theaetetus Scholasticus, a Byzantine
epigrammatist of the period of Justinian) and two more in Diogenes
Laërtius. One of these last is an epitaph on the philosopher Crantor,
who flourished about 300 B.C., but is not necessarily contemporaneous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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