Greek Anthology Book 9

ToposText · Greek Anthology · 827 sections

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§ 9.101 ALPHEIUS OF MITYLENE Few are the birth-places of the heroes that are still to be seen, and those yet left are not much higher than the soil. So, as I passed thee by, did I recognise thee, unhappy Mycenae, more waste than any goat -fold. The herds still point thee out, and it was an old man who said to me, “Here stood once the city, rich in gold, that the Cyclopes built.”
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§ 9.102 ANTONIUS On the same I, once the stronghold of sky-mounting Perseus, I, the nurse of the star so cruel to the sons of Ilium, am left deserted now to be a fold for the goat -herds of the wilderness, and at length the spirit of Priam is avenged on me.
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§ 9.103 MUNDUS MUNATIUS I, Mycenae, the city once so rich in gold, I who received into my walls the house of the Atreidae, sons of Heaven, I who sacked Troy that a god built, I who was the secure royal seat of the Greek demigods, lie here, the pasture of sheep and oxen, with naught of my greatness left but the name. Well hath Nemesis borne thee in mind, Ilion, since now, when Mycenae is no longer to be seen, thou art, and art a city.
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§ 9.104 ALPHEIUS OF MITYLENE Argos, thou talk of Homer, and thou holy soil of Hellas, and thou stronghold of Perseus once all golden, ye are perished, and with you the light of those heroes who once levelled the god-built battlements of Troy. Now Troy is a city more powerful than ever and you are fallen and are pointed out as the stalls of lowing cattle.
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§ 9.105 Anonymous I am a pine tree broken by the wind. Why make a ship of me who tasted on land the ship-wrecking gales?
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§ 9.106 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA I am a ship that, after I had traversed so many leagues of sea, the fire burnt on the land that had stripped herself of her pine-trees to build me. I, whom the sea spared, perished on the shore. I found her who bore me more faithless than the sea.
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§ 9.107 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA (?) They call me the little skiff, and say that I do not sail so well and fearlessly as the ocean ships. I do not deny it; I am a little boat, but small and great are all the same to the sea; it is not a matter of size, but of luck. Let another ship have more rudders; one puts his trust in this and another in that, but may I be saved by the grace of God.
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§ 9.108 Anonymous Said Zeus to Love: “I will take away all your darts.” Said the winged boy: “Thunder at me if you dare and I will make a swan of you again.”
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§ 9.109 JULIUS DIOCLES I know not whether to call thee a shield, thee, the faithful ally with whom I armed myself against many foes, or rather my little sea boat, since thou didst support me swimming from the doomed ship to the shore. In war I escaped the wrath of Ares, and on the sea that of Nereus, and in each case thou wast my defence.
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§ 9.110 ALPHEIUS OF MITYLENE I crave not for deep-soiled fields nor wealth of gold such as was Gyges'. I love a self-sufficient life, Macrinus. The saying “naught in excess” pleaseth me exceedingly.
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§ 9.111 ARCHIAS OF MITYLENE We should praise the Thracians because they mourn for their children when they issue from their mothers' wombs to the light, while on the other hand they bless those on whom Death, the unforeseen servant of the Fates, lays his hand. For the living ever pass through every kind of evil, but the dead have found the medicine of all.
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§ 9.112 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA The astrologers foretold that I would live thrice ten and twice three years, but I am satisfied with the three decades. For this is the right limit of men's life. Longer life is for Nestor, and even Nestor went to Hades.
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§ 9.113 PARMENION The bugs fed on me with gusto till they were disgusted, but I myself laboured till I was disgusted, dislodging the bugs.
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§ 9.114 PARMENION A child was peeping down from the very edge of a high tiled roof ( Death has no fears for little children), when its mother from behind turned away its attention by showing it her breast. Thus one fount of milk twice bestowed life on her child.
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§ 9.115 Anonymous on the Shield of Achilles The son of Laertes gained by the unjust judgment of the Greeks the shield of Achilles that had drunk the blood of Hector. But when he suffered shipwreck the sea robbed him of it, and floated it ashore by the tomb of Ajax and not in Ithaca.
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§ 9.115b Anonymous on the same Poseidon's judgment was far more admirable than Athena's.... The sea proved how hateful was the decision of the Greeks, and Salamis possesses the glory that is her due.
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§ 9.116 Anonymous on the same The shield cries aloud by the shore and beats against the tomb, summoning thee, its worthy bearer: “Awake, son of Telamon, the shield of Achilles is thine.”
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§ 9.117 STATYLLIUS FLACCUS When Pyrrhus on his father's high-piled tomb celebrated in his honour the mournful wedding of Polyxena, thus did Cissean Hecuba bewail the murder of her children, tearing the hair from her tear-worn head: “Once thou didst drag dead Hector tied to thy chariot wheels, and now thou art dead thou acceptest the blood of Polyxena. Achilles, why is thy wrath so sore against the fruit of my womb? Not even in death art thou gentle to my children.”
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§ 9.118 Anonymous Alas for youth and hateful old age! The one approaches and the other is gone.
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§ 9.119 PALLADAS If a man who is a ruler choose to put up with flatterers, he will sacrifice many to their vile mouths; so the best men, in righteous hatred, should detest the flattered as much as the flatterer.
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§ 9.120 LUCIAN A bad man is like a jar with a hole in it. Pour every kindness into him and you have shed it in vain.
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§ 9.121 Anonymous on the Hyacinth I am a plant for which Sparta and Salamis dispute, and I mourn for either the fairest of youths or the stoutest of warriors.
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§ 9.122 Anonymous, by some assigned to EVENUS To a Swallow Honey-nurtured child of Athens, is it a prattling cicada that thy prattling self has caught and carries for a feast to thy winged brood? Dost thou, the chatterer, prey on the chatterer; thou, the winged, on the winged; thou, the guest of summer, on the guest of summer? Wilt thou not drop it at once; it is neither meet nor just that singers should perish by mouths skilled in song.
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§ 9.123 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA (Isopsephon) A she- goat rushing to browse on a wild pear recovered her sight from the tree, and lo! was no longer blind in one eye. For the sharp thorn pricked the one eye. See how a tree benefited more than the surgeon's skill.
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§ 9.124 Anonymous on a Man cutting a Laurel with an Axe Where has Phoebus gone? Mars is on too close terms with Daphne.
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§ 9.125 Anonymous The brave Celts test their children in the jealous Rhine, and none regards himself as being the child's father until he sees it washed by that venerated river. At once, when the babe has glided from its mother's lap and sheds its first tears, the father himself lifts it up and places it on his shield, caring naught for its suffering; for he does not feel for it like a father until he sees it judged by the bath in the river, the test of conjugal fidelity. The mother, suffering new pangs added to those of childbirth, even though she knows him to be the child's true father, awaits in fear and trembling the pronouncement of the inconstant stream.
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§ 9.126 Anonymous (What Clytaemnestra might have said when Orestes was about to kill her) Where dost thou direct thy sword, to my belly or my breasts? This belly brought thee forth, these breasts nurtured thee.
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§ 9.127 Anonymous If a little sweet wine remains in a vessel, this remnant turns to vinegar. So the old man who has quite emptied life and has reached the depth of eld becomes sour-tempered.
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§ 9.128 Anonymous (but probably from the same poem as the following) The dragon crept down and drank water. The sources were exhausted and the river became dry dust, and still the brute was athirst.
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§ 9.129 NESTOR Part of it was crawling, part of it was about to crawl, and the rest was still torpid in its lair. But it thirsted and put its jaws in the stream. Then all Cephisus ran into them, and horrid gurgling sounded in its throat. As the water sunk, often did the nymphs lament for Cephisus that was no more.
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§ 9.130 Anonymous (The Olive-tree speaks) I am the plant of Pallas. Why do you clasp me, ye branches of Bacchus? Away with the clusters! I am a maiden and drink no wine.
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§ 9.131 Anonymous I was a sturdy pine on the mountain ridge, and the rainy south wind tore me up by the roots. Then out of me was built a ship to fight again with the winds. Ye men, ye never flinch from aught.
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§ 9.132 Anonymous Chastity and Love, meeting in the lists, both de stroyed life. Her burning love for Hippolytus slew Phaedra, and his pure chastity slew Hippolytus.
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§ 9.133 Anonymous If one who has once been married seeks another wife, he is like a shipwrecked sailor who sets sail again on the dreadful deep.
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§ 9.134 Anonymous Hope and Fortune, a long farewell to you both! I have found the way. I no longer take delight in aught of yours. Away with both of you! for ye lead men far astray. Ye present to our minds, as in visions of sleep, things that never shall really be, as if they were. Away with thee, poor puppet, mother of many woes; away with you both! Make sport, if you will, of whomever ye find after me, whose mind dwells on things he should not think of. Of a truth Fortune is a delusion for all mortals; for she is without force, and mostly even without being. {135}— Who wrote this, God knows. Why? Himself only knows.
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§ 9.136 CYRUS Would that my father had taught me to shepherd fleecy flocks, so that, sitting under the elms or piping under a rock, I might cheer my sorrows with music. Let us fly, ye Muses, from the stately city, and seek another home. I will announce to all that the pestilent drones have done mischief to the bees.
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§ 9.137 A CERTAIN HALF-STARVED GRAMMARIAN to the Emperor Hadrian The half of me is dead, and starvation is subduing the other half. Save, Sire, a musical semitone of me.'-' The Emperor's Reply thereto Thou dost wrong both Pluto and the Sun by looking still on the latter and failing to go to the former.
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§ 9.138 Anonymous I was once young, but poor; now I am old I am rich. I alone of mortals was miserable both in youth and age. When I was able to use riches I had nothing, and now, when I cannot use them, I have them.
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§ 9.139 CLAUDIANUS The wanton, accompanying her dance with shrill shrieks and castanets, beats the brazen clappers together with quivering movements. Her grey hair, the harbinger of death, is concealed by... She tortures her eyes to dart ineffectual flashes; her false colour is sicklied o'er by the pallor of shame; while a fictitious splendour clothes her hidden breasts.
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§ 9.140 CLAUDIANUS A serving-man stood in the porch of Helicon bearing on his shoulders a brazen-footed stool he had seized, and would not give it to me, tired as I was, to sit on and recite. Therefore ingenious necessity sharpened my wit to deal with the situation.
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§ 9.141 Anonymous A man in a lethargy and a maniac lying in one bed ridded each other of their respective maladies. For the one, made daring by his madness, leapt from the bed and belaboured the insensible man all over. The blows cured both, waking up the one, and his great exertion throwing the other into a sleep.
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§ 9.142 Anonymous We do worship to horned Pan, the walker on the crags, the leader of the Nymphs, who dwelleth in this house of rock, praying him to look with favour on all us who came to this constant fountain and quenched our thirst.
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§ 9.143 ANTIPATER OF SIDON Simple is this my dwelling (beside the big waves am I enthroned, the queen of the sea-bathed beach), but dear to me; for I delight in the sea, vast and terrible, and in the sailors who come to me for safety. Pay honour to Cypris, and either in thy love or on the gray sea I shall be a propitious gale to bear thee on.
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§ 9.144 ANYTE This is the place of Cypris, for it is sweet to her to look ever from the land on the bright deep, that she may make the voyages of sailors happy; and around the sea trembles, looking on her polished image.
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§ 9.145 Anonymous Diogenes the cynic, on his arrival in Hades, after his wise old age was finished, laughed when he saw Croesus. Spreading his cloak on the ground near the king, who once drew great store of gold from the river, he said: “Now, too, I take up more room than you; for all I had I have brought with me, but you, Croesus, have nothing.”
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§ 9.146 Anonymous I, Eunus, have set up Hope and Nemesis by the altar, the one in order that thou mayst hope, the other that thou mayst get nothing.
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§ 9.147 ANTAGORAS OF RHODES Hie ye, hie ye, ye initiated, to the Anaktoron of Demeter, fearing not the winter floods. So safe a bridge for you hath Xenocles, the son of Xeinis, thrown across this broad river.
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§ 9.148 Anonymous Weep for life, Heraclitus, much more than when thou didst live, for life is now more pitiable. Laugh now, Democritus, at life far more than before; the life of all is now more laughable. And I, too, looking at you, am puzzled as to how I am to weep with the one and laugh with the other.
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§ 9.149 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA Aristides the... had not much from many sources, but his fortune was one ewe and one cow. Yet, notwithstanding his poverty, he escaped not Envy, and in one and the same day wild beasts killed the sheep and a difficult birth the cow. Hating the sight of his yard, in which the sound of bleating was silent, he hanged himself by the strap of his wallet from this wild pear-tree.
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§ 9.150 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA All the wealth of Aristides was one heifer and one fleecy sheep. By their means he kept famine from the door. But he lost both; a wolf killed the sheep and the cow perished in labour. His poor stock was gone, and noosing his neck in the strap of his wallet, the wretched man died close to his cabin, which no longer echoed to the sound of lowing.
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§ 9.151 ANTIPATER OF SIDON Where is thy celebrated beauty, Doric Corinth? Where are the battlements of thy towers and thy ancient possessions? Where are the temples of the immortals, the houses and the matrons of the town of Sisyphus, and her myriads of people? Not even a trace is left of thee, most unhappy of towns, but war has seized on and devoured everything. We alone, the Nereids, Ocean's daughters, remain inviolate, and lament, like halcyons, thy sorrows.
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§ 9.152 AGATHIAS SCHOLASTICUS On Troy I am the once famous city of Priam, which not the ten years' war of the Greeks succeeded in sacking by open force, but the cursed Wooden Horse. Would that Epeius had died ere he had wrought that wooden trap. For never then had the Greeks lit the fire that licked my roofs, never had I sunk down on my foundations.
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§ 9.153 AGATHIAS SCHOLASTICUS on the same Where are those walls of thine, O city, where thy temples full of treasure, where the heads of the oxen thou wast wont to slay? Where are Aphrodite's caskets of ointment and her mantle all of gold? Where is the image of thy own Athena? Thou hast been robbed of all by war and the decay of ages, and the strong hand of Fate, which reversed thy fortunes. So far did bitter Envy subdue thee; but thy name and glory alone she cannot hide.
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§ 9.154 By the same on the same Have mercy on me, Athena, protectress of the city. I, wretched Ilion, as was meet, worshipped thee in thy temple resplendent with gold. But thou hast abandoned me to the spoilers, and all for the sake of an apple hast stripped all the glory from my walls. Better had it been for the cowherd, Paris, to perish, for if he broke the law, it was not his country's crime.
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§ 9.155 By the same on the same If thou art a native of Sparta, stranger, mock me not; for I am not the only one that Fortune hath used thus. But if thou art from Asia, mourn me not; for every city now bows beneath the Trojan sceptre of the house of Aeneas. If the envious sword of thy enemies hath emptied the temples of my gods, and my walls, and my streets, yet am I again a queen, and do thou, undaunted Rome, my child, set on the Greeks the yoke of thy just rule!
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§ 9.156 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM Look on the ambush that took Troy after ten years; look on the horse whose belly was big with the armed and silent Greeks. Epeius is building it and Athena is ordering the work, and all Hellas is emerging from beneath its back. Of a truth in vain did so great a host perish, if stratagem was more helpful to the Atreidae in the war than open battle.
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§ 9.157 Anonymous Who said Love was a god? We see that no work of the gods is evil, but he smiles at the blood of men. Does he not bear in his hand a sword swift to slay? Look at the incredible trophies of this deed of blood prompted by a god. The mother, with her child, lies slain, and on their bodies the man stoned by sentence of the law. This that we see is not the work of Hades or of Ares, but the work of Love. This is how the boy plays.
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§ 9.158 Anonymous Three girls once drew lots for fun, who first should go to Hades. Thrice they threw the die, and the cast of all fell on one. She made mockery of the lot, which nevertheless was her true destiny. For, unhappy girl, she slipped and fell from the house-top afterwards, as none could have foreseen, and went to Hades even as the lot had lighted on her. A lot tells no falsehood when it is an evil one; but as for better chance neither the prayers of mortals nor their hands can attain it.
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§ 9.159 Anonymous One, seeing at the cross-roads the skull of a dead man, wept not at the presentation of the fate common to all men, but stooping, picked up in his right hand a stone and threw it at the skull. The stone, a dumb thing in appearance, yet breathed vengeance; for, hitting the bone, it bounded off and blinded the thrower, robbing him of his sweet sight. Until his death he was punished, and bewept his foolish excellence of aim.
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§ 9.160 Anonymous Herodotus entertained the Muses, and each, in return for his hospitality, gave him a book.
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§ 9.161 MARCUS ARGENTARIUS As I was turning over the pages of a volume of Hesiod, I suddenly saw Pyrrhe approaching. Throwing the book on the ground I exclaimed: “Why should I be bothered by your works, old Hesiod? ”
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§ 9.162 Anonymous on a Pen I was a reed, a useless plant, bearing neither figs, nor apples, nor grapes; but a man initiated me into the mysteries of Helicon, fashioning thin lips for me and excavating in me a narrow channel. Ever since, when I sip black liquor, I become inspired, and utter every variety of words with this dumb mouth of mine.
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§ 9.163 Anonymous Through the hail of spears from the flames of Troy the hero Aeneas bore off his father, a holy burden for a son, calling to the Argives: “Hands off! The old man is no great gain in war, but a great gain to his bearer.”
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§ 9.164 Anonymous “ Justice, who hath vexed thee?” — “This thief who set me up here, but had nothing to do with me.”
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§ 9.165 PALLADAS OF ALEXANDRIA Woman is the wrath of Zeus, given to men in the place of fire, a grievous exchange. For she burns up and withers man with care, and brings hasty old age on youth. Even Zeus does not possess Hera of the golden throne unvexed; indeed he hath often cast her out from the immortals to hang in the mist and clouds; Homer knew this, and hath described even Zeus as being wrath with his wife. Thus never is a woman at concord with her husband, not even when she lies beside him on a floor of gold.
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§ 9.166 PALLADAS Homer shows us that every woman is wicked and treacherous; be she chaste or a whore, in either case she is perdition. Helen's adultery caused the murder of men, and Penelope's chastity caused death. All the woes of the Iliad were for the sake of one woman, and Penelope was the cause of the Odyssey.
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§ 9.167 PALLADAS Zeus, in place of fire, bestowed another fire, woman. Would that neither woman nor fire had come into being! Fire, it is true, is soon put out, but woman is a fire unquenchable, flaming, ever alight.
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§ 9.168 PALLADAS I, unhappy man, have married a wife who is " pernicious wrath," and my profession, too, obliges me to begin with “wrath.” Oh, man of much wrath, forced to consort with wrath in two things, my calling as a grammarian and my combative wife!
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§ 9.169 PALLADAS The wrath of Achilles was the cause of pernicious poverty to me too, since I adopted the profession of a grammarian. Would that that “wrath” had killed me with the Greeks, before the bitter hunger of grammar had put an end to me. But all to let Agamemnon run away with Briseis, and Paris with Helen, I have become poor.
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§ 9.170 PALLADAS I chastened my shameless belly by severe reasoning, correcting the troublesome gut by temperance. Indeed, if my intellect is in a higher place than my belly, how can I fail to subdue the inferior one of the two?
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§ 9.171 PALLADAS I am selling the implements of the Muses, the books that have made me groan so much, now that I am taking to another profession. Farewell, ye Muses. I bid thee good-bye, Learning, for syntax is the death of me.
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§ 9.172 PALLADAS I care no longer for either Hope or Fortune; their deceit is now of no account to me; I have reached the haven. I am a poor man, but freedom is my house-mate, and I turn my back on wealth which insults poverty.
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§ 9.173 PALLADAS The beginning of grammar is a curse in five lines. The first has the word " wrath" the second " pernicious," and after that “many woes ” of the Greeks; the third “leads down souls to Hades ”; to the fourth belong “spoil” and “ dogs ”; to the fifth “birds ” of ill-omen and the " anger of Zeus." How, then, can a grammarian avoid having many sorrows after five curses and five cases (falls)?
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§ 9.174 PALLADAS The teachers here are those men with whom Sarapis is angry; they start from " pernicious wrath." Here the nurse brings, perforce, the fee once a month, tying up the wretched pittance in byblus and paper, and puts the contemptible little paper, like a pinch of incense, by the master's seat, as if by a tomb. She steals some of the small fee and changes the coins, substituting leaden ones, and she receives her commission. If any one agrees to pay a gold coin for a whole year, he changes his teacher in the eleventh month before paying up, and is so ungrateful as to make fun, too, of his former master after robbing him of a whole year's fee.
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§ 9.175 PALLADAS I sell Callimachus and Pindar, and all the cases in the grammar, being myself a sore case of poverty. For Dorotheus has cut off the salary that supported me, sending this impious message of complaint against me. But, dear Theo, protect me, and do not let me end my days in conjunction with poverty.
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§ 9.176 PALLADAS I was invited to dinner by you, the orator, and if I failed to come I have the honour you paid me, and am still more your friend. For my heart does not rejoice in appreciation of viands, but is nourished only by the honour it tastes.
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§ 9.177 Anonymous A Phrygian, standing by the tomb of dauntless Ajax, began thus to insult the hero: “But Ajax no longer stood firm.” Then he from underground cried: “He stood firm.” At which the living man fled in terror from the dead.
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§ 9.178 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM I, Rhodes, who once was the Sun's island, am now Caesar's, and I boast of equal light from each. Then when I was near extinguished, O Sun, a new ray illuminated me, and Nero's light shone beside thine. How shall I say to which I owe most? The one brought me to the light from the depths, and the other saved me as I was sinking.
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§ 9.179 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA Who carved of frankincense the bowman Love, him who of old spared not Zeus himself? At length he stands a mark for Hephaestus, Love who ne'er deserved to be seen suffering aught else but consumption in the flames.
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§ 9.180 PALLADAS (This and the three following are written on the subject of a Temple of Fortune converted into a Tavern) Fortune, who pliest thy trade through all our life, whose nature is like untempered wine, thou who art ever mixing and pouring from vessel to vessel, now hast thou too become a tavern-keeper instead of a goddess, a calling suitable to thy character.
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§ 9.181 By the same Things are turned topsy-turvy as I see, and we now see Fortune in misfortune.
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§ 9.182 By the same And thou, Lady Fortune, how has evil fortune befallen thee? How hast thou, who givest us good fortune, become unfortunate? Learn thou, too, to support thy own changes of tide, learn to suffer the unhappy falls which thou sendest to others.
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§ 9.183 By the same And of thee too, Fortune, they make mockery now thou art changed, and at the end thou hast not even spared thy own fortune. Thou who hadst once a temple, keepest a tavern in thy old age, and we see thee now serving hot drinks to mortals. Justly bewail thine own mischance, fickle goddess, now that thou reversest thine own fortune like that of mortals.
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§ 9.184 Anonymous Pindar, holy mouth of the Muses, and thou, Bacchylides, garrulous Siren, and ye, Aeolian Graces of Sappho; pen of Anacreon, and thou, Stesichorus, who in thy works didst draw off Homer's stream; honeyed page of Simonides, and thou, Ibycus, who didst cull the sweet bloom of Persuasion and of the love of. lads; sword of Alcaeus, that didst often shed the blood of tyrants, defending his country's laws, and ye nightingales of Alcman, singing ever of maidens; look kindly on me, ye authors and finishers of all lyric song.
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§ 9.185 Anonymous These be the verses and sonorous iambics of Archilochus, the venom of wrath and terrible invective.
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§ 9.186 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA These are the volumes of Aristophanes, a divine work, over which the ivy of Acharnae shook in profusion its green locks. Look how the pages are steeped in Dionysus, how deep-voiced are the dramas full of terrible grace. O comic poet, high of heart, and worthy interpreter of the spirit of Hellas, hating what deserved hate, and mocking where mockery was due!
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§ 9.187 Anonymous The bees themselves, culling the varied flowers of the Muses, bore off the honey to thy lips; the Graces themselves bestowed their gift on thee, Menander, endowing thy dramas with fluent felicity. Thou livest for ever, and Athens from thee derives glory that reacheth to the clouds of heaven.
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§ 9.188 Anonymous Most exquisite utterer of the eloquent Attic tongue, the whole volume of Greek letters contains no voice greater than thine. Thou first, divine Plato, didst contemplate morals and life, directing thy gaze to God and Heaven. Mingling the loftiness of Pythagoras with the irony of Socrates, thou wast the loveliest monument of their solemn strife.
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§ 9.189 Anonymous Ye ladies of Lesbos, hie ye, whirling as ye foot it delicately, to the splendid sanctuary of bull -faced Hera, there to dance a lovely measure to the goddess; and for you Sappho, holding her golden lyre, shall strike up the tune. Ye are blessed, indeed, in that dance's delight; verily ye shall deem that ye listen to the sweet hymning of Calliope herself.
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§ 9.190 Anonymous on Erinna's poem “The Spindle” This is the Lesbian honeycomb of Erinna, and though it be small, it is all infused with honey by the Muses. Her three hundred lines are equal to Homer, though she was but a child of nineteen years. Either plying her spindle in fear of her mother, or at the loom, she stood occupied in the service of the Muses. As much as Sappho excels Erinna in lyrics, so much does Erinna excel Sappho in hexameters.
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§ 9.191 Anonymous on Lycophron's “ Cassandra ” Not easily, being in my labyrinth of many turnings, shalt thou find thy way to the light, if at all. So ill to read is the prophetic message that Cassandra, Priam's daughter, tells here to the King in crooked speech. Yet, if Calliope love thee, take me up; but if thou art ignorant of the Muses, I am a weight in thy hands.
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§ 9.192 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM A. “Ye books, who are ye, what do ye contain? ” B. “Daughters of Maeonides, and we tell the tales of Troy; one, the wrath of Achilles and the deeds of Hector's hands, and all the struggles of the ten years' war; the other, the labours of Ulysses and the tears of good Penelope by her widowed couch.” A. “I worship you and the Muses; for after your song the world could say it possessed eleven Pierian sisters.”
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§ 9.193 Anonymous on the History of Philostorgius By the grace and wisdom of God I completed my History, weaving into it the varied facts of truth.
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§ 9.194 Anonymous on the same The fair name Philostorgius contains twelve letters, and therefore I wrote as many books, the first beginning with the first letter, and so on, thus by the initial letter of each writing my name.
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§ 9.195 Anonymous Asclepius, the son of Constantinus, celebrating his city, wrote the ancient history of famous Anazarba.
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§ 9.196 MARINUS OF NEAPOLIS On the “Life of Proclus ” Marinus, who ever doth works pleasing to the gods, wrote this, too, with pious intent.
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§ 9.197 MARINUS OF NEAPOLIS Proclus of blessed memory, this, too, is an excellent deed on the part of thy divine self, that as a saviour and protector of souls in place of thy divine self thou hast left Marinus, the living image of all the immortals, the help of pious men. He, proclaiming the story of thy life, with which God was well pleased, wrote this book as a record of thy virtues for posterity.
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§ 9.198 Anonymous I am Nonnus; my native city was Panopolis, but in Alexandria I mowed down by my vocal sword the children of the giants.
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§ 9.199 Anonymous This is the work of divine Oribasius, whom Fate feared owing to his immortal art, and oft deferred cutting his life-thread.
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§ 9.200 LEO THE PHILOSOPHER The book of mechanics, the work of Cyrinus, his friend Marcellus participating in the task.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by William Roger Paton (1857-1921). Composed ca. 900 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.