''Anacreontea'' ( grc-gre, Ἀνακρεόντεια) is the title given to a collection of some sixty Greek poems on the topics of wine, beauty, erotic love, and the worship of

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...

. The corpus date to between the 1st century BC and the 6th century AD, and is attributed

pseudepigraphically Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseu ...

Anacreon Anacreon (; grc-gre, Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ...

. The collection of poems by numerous, anonymous imitators was long believed to be the works of Anacreon himself. It was preserved in a 10th-century

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

which also included the ''

Palatine Anthology The ''Palatine Anthology'' (or ''Anthologia Palatina''), sometimes abbreviated ''AP'', is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantinus Ceph ...

''. The poems were published in 1554 with a Latin translation by

Henri Estienne Henri Estienne (; ; 1528 or 15311598), also known as Henricus Stephanus (), was a French printer and classical scholar. He was the eldest son of Robert Estienne. He was instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by his father and would eventually tak ...

, known as Stephanus, but little is known about the origins of the manuscript. Salmasius reports seeing the ''Anacreontea'' in the Palatine Library in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

in 1607. In 1623, it was given to

Pope Gregory XV Pope Gregory XV ( la, Gregorius XV; it, Gregorio XV; 9 January 15548 July 1623), born Alessandro Ludovisi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 February 1621 to his death in July 1623. Biography Early life Al ...

after the sacking of Heidelberg. It was later taken from the

Vatican City Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—' * german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ') * pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—' * pt, Cidade do Vati ...

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

in 1797, who had it rebound as two separate volumes. One of those volumes was returned to Heidelberg but the other remained in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In the 17th century, Thomas Stanley translated the ''Anacreontea'' into English verse. A few poems were also translated by Robert Herrick and

Abraham Cowley Abraham Cowley (; 161828 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his ''Works'' published between 1668 and 1721. Early ...

. The poems themselves appear to have been composed over a long period of time, from the time of Alexander the Great until the time that paganism gave way in the Roman Empire. They reflect the light hearted elegance of much of Anacreon's genuine works although they were not written in the same

Ionic Greek Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek. History The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...

dialect that Anacreon used. They also display literary references and styles more common to the time of their actual composition.

References

* ''Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympis to Alcman'' (Loeb Classical Library 143), David A. Campbell (Translator) (1988)
''Elegy and Iambus II: Elegiac Poets of the Fourth Century, The Anacreontea''
(Loeb Classical Library 259), J. M. Edmonds (Translator) (1931) {{Authority control Poetry collections Ancient Greek poems Greek literature (post-classical) Ancient Greek pseudepigrapha Ancient Greek erotic literature Texts in Ionic Greek

See also

References