INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Evidence from the Garland of Meleager, as set out below, proves that collections of epigrams ascribed to Simonides, Anacreon, and Plato, including some actually composed during the Hellenistic period, were in circulation before the end of the second century b.c.

Apart from these three authors, epigrams ascribed to famous names appear sporadically, seldom more than one and never more than three to each of a long list of names: Aeschylus (2), Agathon (1), Alcibiades (1), Antimachus (1), Archilochus (3), Bacchylides (3), Empedocles (2), Epicharmus (1), Erinna (3), Euripides (2), Hippon (1), Ion of Chios (2), Menander (1), Parrhasius (3), Phocylides (1), Pindar (1), Pisander (1), Sappho (3), Sophocles (2), Speusippus (1), Thucydides or Timotheus (1), and Zeuxis (1).

I On the authenticity of the epigrams ascribed to Simonides, Anacreon, and Plato

SIMONIDES

The present edition assembles eighty epigrams ascribed to Simonides and fifteen anonymous epigrams which come from his period or soon after it Among the former, where more than one source is available, the proportion of discrepant ascriptions is extraordinarily high:

1. A.Plan. 204 Σιμωνίδου, Athenaeus Πραξιτέλης = Sim. lvi

2. A.P. 6.2 Σιμωνίδου PPl, Πλάτωνος Syll. E = Sim. xix

3. A.P. 5.161 Ήδύλου, οι δὲ Ἀσκληπιάδου P, denuo post 11.9 Σιμωνίδου PPl = Asclepiades HExl

4. A.P. 6.144 τοῦ αὐτοῦ = Φιλίππου P, denuo post 6.213 τοῦ αὐτοῦ = Σιμωνίδου P = Anacreon xv

5. […]