Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/397

Rh PLANUDES. PlAUTius, ut possent specie numeroque senatum Fallere, personis imperat ora tegi." (Comp. Eckhel, vol. v. p. 276, &c.) 6. L, MUNATIUS Pl ANGUS, son of No. 2, Avas consul A. D. 13 with C. Silius. In the following year he was sent by the senate after the death of Augustus to the mutinous legions of Germanicus in the territory of the Ubii, and there narrowly escaped death at the hands of the soldiers (Dion Cass. Ivi. 28 ; Suet. Auc/.[; Tac. Ann. i. 39.) PLANTA, POMPEIUS, praefect of Egypt in the reign of Trajan. (Plin. Ep. x. 7 or 5.) PLANU'DES (IlAai/ouSTjs), surnamed Maxi- Mus, was one of the most learned of the Constan- tinopolitan monks of the last age of the Greek empire, and was greatly distinguished as a theolo- gian, grammarian, and rhetorician ; but his name is now chiefly interesting as that of the compiler of the latest of those collections of minor Greek poems, which were known by the names of Gar- lands or Anthologies {'2,T(<pavoi, ^AvdoKoyiai). Pla- nudes flourished at Constantinople in the first half of the fourteenth century, under the emperors Andronicus II. and III. Palaeologi. In A. D. 1327 he was sent by Andronicus II. as ambassador to Venice. Nothing more is known of his life with any certainty, except that he was somewhat dis- posed to the tenets of the Roman Church, which, however, a short imprisonment seems to have in- duced him to renounce. (See Fabric. Biil. Graec. vol. xi. p. 682, and the authorities quoted in Harles's note.) His works, of which several only exist in MS., are not of sufficient importance to be enumerated individually. They consist of ora- tions and homilies ; translations from Latin into Greek of Cicero's Somnium Scipio7ns, Caesar de Bella Gallico, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cato's Dis- ticlia Moralia, Boethius de Consolatione, St. Au- gustin de Trinitate and de Cimtate Dei, and Dona- tus's Grammatica Parva; two grammatical works ; a collection of Aesop''s Fables, with a worthless Life of Aesop ; some arithmetical works, especially Scholia, of no great value, on the first two books of the Arithmetic of Diophantus ; a few works on natural history ; Commentaries on the Rhetoric of Hermogenes, and on other Greek writers ; a poem in forty-seven hexameters, on Claudius Ptolemaeus, and a few other poems ; and his Anthology. (See Fabric, I.e. pp. 682—693, vol. i. p. 641, vol. vi. p. 348 ; Hoffmann, Lexicon Bibliographicum Script. Graec. s. v.) As the Anthology of Planudes was not only the latest compiled, but was also that which was recognised as 77ie Greek Anthology, until the discovery of the Anthology of Constantinus Cephalas, this is chosen as the fittest place for an account of the LITERARV HISTORY OF THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 1. Materials. The various collections, to which their compilers gave the name of Garlatids and Anthologies, were made up of short poems, chiefly I of an epigrammatic diameter, and in the elegiac I metre. The earliest examples of such poetry were, { doubtless, furnished by the inscriptions on monu- ments, such as those erected to commemorate heroic I deeds, the statues of distinguished men, especially !' victors in the public games, sepulchral monuments, and dedicatory offerings in temples (duaOrnxaTa) ; to which may be added oracles and proverbial say- us,»s. At an early period in the history of Greek VOL. m PLANUDES. 885 literature, poets of the highest fame cultivated this species of composition, which received its most perfect development from the hand of Simonides. Thenceforth, as a set form of poetry, it became a fit vehicle for the brief expression of thoughts and sentiments on any subject ; until at last the form came to be cultivated for its own sake, and the literati of Alexandria and Byzantium deemed the ability to make epigrams an essential part of the character of a scholar. Hence the mere trifling, the stupid jokes, and the wretched personalities, which form so large a part of the epigrammatic poetry contained in the Greek Anthology. The monumental inscriptions, to which re- ference has already been made, are often quoted by the ancient writers as historical authorities, as, for example, by Herodotus and Thucydides ; and by later writers, such as Diodorus and Plutarch, partly as authorities, partly to embellish their works. This use of inscriptions would naturally suggest the idea of collecting them. The earliest known collection was made by the geographer Polemon ^B. c. 200), in a work irepl twu Kurd TToAeis cTTLypafJL/jLdrwv ( Ath. x. p. 436, d., p. 442, e.). He also wrote other works, on votive offerings, which are likely to have contained the epigram- matic inscriptions on them. [Poleaion.] Simi- lar collections were made by Alcetas, -mpl twv Iv AeXipols dvaQin^dTcav (Ath. xiii. p. 591, c), by Menestor, iv tc^ trepl dvadrjfxaTuv (Ath. xiii. p. 594, d.), and perhaps by Apellas Ponticus. These persons collected chiefly the inscriptions on offerings (dj/a0r}/xaTa) : epigrams of other kinds were also collected, as the Theban Epigrams, by Aristodemus {Schol. in Apoll. Rhod. ii. 906), the Attic by Philochorus (Suid. s. v., the reading is, however, somewhat doubtful), and others by Neoptolemusof Paros (Ath. x. p 454, f.), and Eu- hemerus (Lactant. hisiit. Div. i. 9 ; Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 42). 2. The Garland of Meleager. The above com- pilers chiefly collected epigrams of particular classes, and with reference to their use as historical authorities. The first person who made such a collection solely for its own sake, and to preserve epigrams of all kinds, was Meleager, a cynic philosopher of Gadara, in Palestine, about b. c. 60. His collection contained epigrams by no less than forty- six poets, of all ages of Greek poetry, up to the most ancient lyric period. He entitled it The Garland (^Tecpavos), with reference, of course, 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 same idea is kept up in the word Anthology (dvdoAoyia), which was adopted by the next compiler as the title of his work. The Gai-- land of Meleager was arranged in alphabetical order, according to the initial letters of the first line of each epigram. 3. The Anthology of Philip of T/iessalomca. — In the time of Trajan, as it seems, Philip of Thes- SALONiCA compiled his Anthology {'AvOoKoyla), avowedly in imitation of the Garland of Meleager, and chiefly with the view of adding to that col- lection the epigrams of more recent writers. The arrangement of the work was the same as that of Meleager. It was also entitled (rT4(pavos, as well as dvdooyla. Another title by which it is q^uoted is avWoyT^ v4wu sniypaufxdTWK cc