Meleager of Gadara (Greek: Μελέαγρος) was a collector of epigrams active in the 1st century BCE. His original compilation of numerous epigrams from diverse poets, the flower of Hellenization, was the basis for the Greek Anthology.
He was the son of Eucrates, born in the city of Gadara, now Umm Qais in Jordan, which was then a partially Hellenized community in northern Palestine and is identified Ramoth-Gilead of the Old Testament. He was educated in Tyre and spent his later life in Cos where he died at an advanced age. The scholiast to the Palatine manuscript of the Greek Anthology says he flourished in the reign of Seleucus VI Epiphanes (95 – 93 BCE). The uppermost date of his compilation of the Anthology is 60 BCE, as it did not include Philodemus of Gadara, though later editors added thirty-four epigrams.
Like his contemporary Menippus, also a Gadarene, he wrote what were known as spoudogeloia (Greek singular: σπουδογέλοιος), miscellaneous prose essays putting philosophy in popular form with humorous illustrations, these are completely lost. Meleager's fame is securely founded on the one hundred and thirty-four epigrams of his own which he included in his Anthology. The manuscripts of the Anthology are the sole source of these epigrams.[1]
The Garland of Meleager
Meleager is famous for his anthology of poetry known as The Garland. Collections of monumental inscriptions, or of poems on particular subjects, had previously been created by Polemon of Ilium and others; but Meleager first did this comprehensively. His collection contained epigrams by forty-six poets, of all ages of Greek poetry, up to the most ancient lyric period. He entitled it The Garland (Greek: Στέφανος), with reference to the common comparison of small beautiful poems to flowers; and in the introduction to his work, he attaches the names of various flowers, shrubs, and herbs, as emblems, to the names of the several poets. The Garland of Meleager was arranged in alphabetical order, according to the initial letters of the first line of each epigram.[2]
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