Marcus Argentarius ( grc-gre, Μάρκος Ἀργεντάριος;
fl. ) was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
epigrammatist.
Some thirty-seven
epigrams
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two millen ...
are attributed to Marcus in the ''
Greek Anthology
The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...
'', most of which are erotic, and some are plays on words. Stylistic evidence suggests he wrote during the early days of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
, certainly not later than the middle of the first century AD, and his received epithet (''argentarius'', "money changer") supports a commercial Roman connection, but nothing more is known of his age.
[Smith, p. 280.]
Bibliography
*''Anthol. Graec''. XIII. pp. 860–861.
*''The Greek Antholog
' (Loeb Classical Library) translated by W. R. Paton. London: Heinemann, 1916–18.
*Higham, T. F. and C. M. Bowra (eds.) ''The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938.
*Smith, William (ed.
"M. Argentarius"
''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 p ...
,'' Vol. III, 1870.
References
External links
* Smith, Andrew (ed.
"Marcus Argentarius: Epigrams"
*Hendry, Michael
"Argentarius Once More"
Epigrammatists of the Greek Anthology
Ancient Greek erotic poets
Roman-era poets
Year of death unknown
Year of birth unknown
{{AncientGreece-writer-stub