Chapter Three ANTHOLOGIES AND ANTHOLOGISTS Between c ...

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Part One: Texts and Contexts
ful Runaway Love are particularly interesting because the poem was included in
the Garland of Meleager. This strongly suggests that Constantine the Sicilian
was familiar with the contents of the Garland already at a young age, which
may serve as an argument in favour of an early date for the compilation of
PCP: say, in the late 840s or the 850s.
Erotic epigrams and anacreontics seem to have been popular in the circle of
Leo the Philosopher. Theophanes the Grammarian is the author of an anacreontic
entitled in the index of Barb. gr. 310: “how he loves his friend and how
he is not loved in return because of his extreme affection” 64 . Unfortunately, the
anacreontic is not preserved in the manuscript, so we can only guess how
Theophanes may have treated this daring theme without getting himself into
trouble. Theophanes also wrote the following erotic epigram: “If only I could
be a white lily so that you may put me close to your nostrils and satiate me still
more with your skin” (AP XV, 35). The epigram is an obvious imitation of
AP V, 83 and 84, the second of which reads in translation: “If only I could be
a pink rose so that you may take me in your hand and put me between your
snowy breasts” 65 . In the Palatine manuscript Theophanes’ epigram can be
found near the end, but originally, in the anthology of Cephalas, it immediately
followed AP V, 83–84 66 . The beginning of AP V (nos. 2–103) contains a great
number of epigrams deriving from the so-called Sylloge Rufiniana. This was a
small sylloge of erotic epigrams by the first-century poet Rufinus; since the
sylloge also contained a few “Diogenianian” authors, such as Gaetulicus, Cillactor
and Nicarchus, it was probably compiled by the second-century anthologist
Diogenian 67 . It is impossible to reconstruct the original Sylloge Rufiniana,
but we can identify in AP V at least three sequences of epigrams deriving from
it (with additional material from other sources): AP V, 14–22, 27–51 and 66–84.
Theophanes’ epigram and the two epigrams that he imitated are found at the
end of the last sequence. What exactly has Theophanes to do with the Sylloge
Rufiniana? Not an easy question, but we should bear in mind the overall design
of Cephalas’ anthology. His anthology is basically a collection of Hellenistic,
early Roman and late antique epigrams. That is why AP V–VII and IX–XIV
do not contain contemporary poetry, with the tantalizing exception of a few
64 See the index in GALLAVOTTI 1987: no. 64.
65 For the text of these three epigrams, see CAMERON 1993: 283–285. Cameron supposes that
AP V, 84 is also the work of Theophanes, but attaches too much importance to an
incorrect reading in Arethas. He does not pay attention to the vocabulary. In AP XV,
35 Theophanes uses two Byzantine neologisms, croti8 (see ThGL) and ärg6nnaoß; AP V,
84, on the contrary, is written in Hellenistic Greek.
66 See CAMERON 1993: 283–285.
67 See P. SAKOLOWSKI, De Anthologia Palatina quaestiones. Leipzig 1893, 64–71, and
CAMERON 1993: 84–90.