f the later Stoic
philosophy. His gaiety and licentiousness are imitated and exaggerated
by his somewhat later contemporary, the Epicurean Philodemus, perhaps
the liveliest of all the epigrammatists; his fancy reappears with
diminished brilliancy in Philodemus's contemporary, Zonas, in
Crinagoras, who wrote under Augustus, and in Marcus Argentarius, of
uncertain date; his peculiar gorgeousness of colouring remains entirely
his own. At a later period of the empire another _genre_, hitherto
comparatively in abeyance, was developed, the satirical. Lucillius, who
flourished under Nero, and Lucian, more renowned in other fields of
literature, display a remarkable talent for shrewd, caustic epigram,
frequently embodying moral reflexions of great cogency, often lashing
vice and folly with signal effect, but not seldom indulging in mere
trivialities, or deformed by scoffs at personal blemishes. This style of
composition is not properly Greek, but Roman; it answers to the modern
definition of epigram, and has hence attained a celebrity in excess of
its deserts. It is remarkable, however, as an almost solitary example of
direct Latin influence on Greek literature. The same style obtains with
Palladas, an Alexandrian grammarian of the 4th century, the last of the
strictly classical epigrammatists, and the first to be guilty of
downright bad taste. His better pieces, however, are characterized by an
austere ethical impressiveness, and his literary position is very
interesting as that of an indignant but despairing opponent of
Christianity. 4. The fourth or Byzantine style of epigrammatic
composition was cultivated by the _beaux-esprits_ of the court of
Justinian. To a great extent this is merely imitative, but the
circumstances of the period operated so as to produce a species of
originality. The peculiarly ornate and _recherche_ diction of Agathias
and his compeers is not a merit in itself, but, applied for the first
time, it has the effect of revivifying an old form, and many of their
new locutions are actual enrichments of the language. The writers,
moreover, were men of genuine poetical feeling, ingenious in invention,
and capable of expressing emotion with energy and liveliness; the
colouring of their pieces is sometimes highly dramatic.

It would be hard to exaggerate the substantial value of the Anthology,
whether as a storehouse of facts bearing on antique manners, customs and
ideas, or as one among the influences which hav