lemon Periegetes and others; but Meleager
first gave the principle a comprehensive application. His selection,
compiled from forty-six of his predecessors, and including numerous
contributions of his own, was entitled _The Garland_ ([Greek:
Stephanos]); and in an introductory poem each poet is compared to some
flower, fancifully deemed appropriate to his genius. The arrangement of
his collection was alphabetical, according to the initial letter of each
epigram.

In the age of the emperor Tiberius (or Trajan, according to others) the
work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist, Philippus of
Thessalonica, who first employed the term anthology. His collection,
which included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to
Meleager, was also arranged alphabetically, and contained an
introductory poem. It was of inferior quality to Meleager's. Somewhat
later, under Hadrian, another supplement was formed by the sophist
Diogenianus of Heracleia (2nd century A.D.), and Strato of Sardis
compiled his elegant but tainted [Greek: Mousa Paidike] (Musa Puerilis)
from his productions and those of earlier writers. No further collection
from various sources is recorded until the time of Justinian, when
epigrammatic writing, especially of an amatory character, experienced a
great revival at the hands of Agathias of Myrina, the historian, Paulus
Silentiarius, and their circle. Their ingenious but mannered productions
were collected by Agathias into a new anthology, entitled _The Circle_
([Greek: Kyklos]); it was the first to be divided into books, and
arranged with reference to the subjects of the pieces.

These and other collections made during the middle ages are now lost.
The partial incorporation of them into a single body, classified
according to the contents in 15 books, was the work of a certain
Constantinus Cephalas, whose name alone is preserved in the single MS.
of his compilation extant, but who probably lived during the temporary
revival of letters under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, at the beginning
of the 10th century. He appears to have merely made excerpts from the
existing anthologies, with the addition of selections from Lucillius,
Palladas, and other epigrammatists, whose compositions had been
published separately. His arrangement, to which we shall have to recur,
is founded on a principle of classification, and nearly corresponds to
that adopted by Agathias. His principle of selection is unknown; it is