ANTHOLOGY (Gk. dc190.0yia, antho/oyia, a flower-gathering, from flower + 2.i)Etv, legcin, to pick out). The title usually given to a book consisting of an unconnected se ries of choice thoughts, whether in prose or in verse, but generally in the latter. In ancient times, collections of this kind consisted largely of epigrams. 1. The earliest GREEN ANTHOLOGY was. compiled by Meleager, of Gadara. in Syria. abouL SO n.c. It was named Tlw Garland (ITIOcuos, Stephanos),and contained onehrindred and thirty of Meleager's own epigrams, and selections from forty-seven other poets, including Alca•s, Ana creon, Archilochus, Sappho, and Simon ides. more than one hundred years later, Philip of Thessalonica gathered the best epigrams of the preceding century into a collection, which he published in the reign of Caligula. and which at an early date seems to 'have been combined with Meleager's Garland. A third collection was made by Straton, of Sardis, in the second cen tury A.D.: and a fourth by Diog,enianus Hera cleota. The latter seems to have been the first to adopt the name "anthology" (i.flo2.6ytov irt ypapneirwr, anthologion epigrammaton). The writing of epigrams then languished, but it was revived again dining the sixth century Con stantinople ; and the productions there of Janus, Christodorus, Leontins, Paulus Silentiarius, and others gave occasion for a new anthology, made under Justinian by Agathias of Myrina and called by him The Cycle (Kiwaae, kyklos). Ap parently. the combined anthology of :Meleager and Philip was current for a long time beside the Cycle of Agathias. In the tenth century small anthologies, the so-called lgylloge Euphemuna and the NyHoye Parisina, were made. Better known is the large compilation of Constantius Cephalas in fifteen books, which dates from the early part of the same cent-ury. Four centuries later, the monk Maximus Plain ides made a careless selection from C'epha las's compilation in seven hooks. This latter was the only anthology known to western Europe until the seventeenth century. It is preserved at Venice in the single manuscript from which it was first published by Lascaris (Florence, 1494).
It has been frequently reedited, and was trans lated into Latin by Grotins.
In 1607, however, Salmasius discovered and copied in the Palatine Library at Heidelberg the single manuscript of Cephalas's larger compila tion, now known as the Palatine Anthology. Salmasius's copy was published first by Brunck in his Analeeta (1776) ; this edition was super seded by Jacobs's Anthologia Grffea (17911803; improved edition, 1813-17), and was again re edited with the addition of epigrams from in scriptions by Diihner (2 volumes, 1864; third vol ume by Cougny, 1890) ; Stadtmiille•'s critical edition of it is not yet completed (Volume 1., 1894; IT., 1, 1899). In all, over three hundred poets, from pre-classical to Byzantine times, are represented in this Anthology: the collection is invaluable as a mirror of Greek civilization and thought, and the epigrams express the entire range of human feeling with a brilliancy and cleverness that translation cannot repro duce. Translations have been made into English by Wrangham, John Sterling, Meri vale, Garnett, Symonds, and others. Consult: Symonds. Studies of the Greek Poets (London, 1393) ; Butler, Amaranth and Asphodel (Lon don, 1881) ; Mackail, Select Epigrams (London, 1891). On the smaller collections, consult Dil they, Dc Epigrammatum Syllogis Quibusdant Minoribus (1387).
2. Lynx ANTHOLOGIES. in 1573, Sealiger pub lished at Leyden, in incitation of the Greek an thology, a Latin anthology, under the title Cata lecta reterum • Pailarum, and Pitthaus one at Paris, 1590. A larger collection was issued at Amsterdam (1759 and 1773) by Peter the younger, under the title Antholoyia Veterum Latinorum Epiyraata+atucn et Poematunc. In the nineteenth century a more careful anthology was undertaken by Riese (1869-70), a second edition of which is in course of publication (Leipzig. 1394).
Asiatic literature is extremely rich in antholo gies, which consist sometimes of extracts from the best poets, arranged according to the subject, and sometimes of "beauties" of their best poets, with biographical notices, which are either placed in ehronologieal order or according to the coun tries in which the authors lived.