''Anacreontea'' () is the title given to a collection of some sixty

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

poems on the topics of wine, beauty, erotic love, and the worship of

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

. The corpus date to between the 1st century BC and the 6th century AD, and is attributed pseudepigraphically to

Anacreon Anacreon ( BC) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. Like all early ...

. The collection of poems by numerous, anonymous imitators was long believed to be the works of Anacreon himself. It was preserved in a 10th-century

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

which also included the ''

Palatine Anthology The ''Palatine Anthology'' (or ''Anthologia Palatina''), sometimes abbreviated ''AP'', is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantine Keph ...

''. The poems were published in 1554 with a Latin translation by

Henri Estienne Henri Estienne ( , ; 1528 or 15311598), also known as Henricus Stephanus ( ), was a French printer and classical scholar. He was the eldest son of Robert Estienne. He was instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by his father and would eventually ...

, known as Stephanus, but little is known about the origins of the manuscript. Salmasius reports seeing the ''Anacreontea'' in the Palatine Library in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

in 1607. In 1623, it was given to

Pope Gregory XV Pope Gregory XV (; ; 9 January 1554 – 8 July 1623), born Alessandro Ludovisi, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 February 1621 until his death in 1623. He is notable for founding the Congregation for the ...

after the sacking of Heidelberg. It was later taken from the

Vatican City Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State (; ), is a Landlocked country, landlocked sovereign state and city-state; it is enclaved within Rome, the capital city of Italy and Bishop of Rome, seat of the Catholic Church. It became inde ...

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

in 1797, who had it rebound as two separate volumes. One of those volumes was returned to Heidelberg but the other remained in the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...

in Paris. In the 17th century, Thomas Stanley translated the ''Anacreontea'' into English verse. A few poems were also translated by

Robert Herrick Robert Herrick may refer to: * Robert Herrick (novelist) (1868–1938), American novelist * Robert Herrick (poet) Robert Herrick (baptised 24 August 1591 – buried 15 October 1674) was a 17th-century English lyric poet and Anglican cleric. H ...

and

Abraham Cowley Abraham Cowley (; 161828 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his ''Works'' published between 1668 and 1721. Early ...

. The poems themselves appear to have been composed over a long period of time, from the time of Alexander the Great until the time that paganism gave way in the Roman Empire. One of the poems is attributed to Julianus the Egyptian in the ''

Greek Anthology The ''Greek Anthology'' () is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical Greece, Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Palatine ...

''. They reflect the light hearted elegance of much of Anacreon's genuine works although they were not written in the same

Ionic Greek Ionic or Ionian Greek () was a subdialect of the Eastern or Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek. The Ionic group traditionally comprises three dialectal varieties that were spoken in Euboea (West Ionic), the northern Cyclades (Centr ...

dialect that Anacreon used. They also display literary references and styles more common to the actual time of their composition.

References

* ''Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympis to Alcman'' (Loeb Classical Library 143), David A. Campbell (Translator) (1988)
''Elegy and Iambus II: Elegiac Poets of the Fourth Century, The Anacreontea''
(Loeb Classical Library 259), J. M. Edmonds (Translator) (1931) {{Authority control Poetry collections Ancient Greek poems Greek literature (post-classical) Ancient Greek pseudepigrapha Ancient Greek erotic literature Texts in Ionic Greek

See also

References