REV. F. ST. JOHN THACKERAY, M.A. LATE FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD, ASSISTANT NEW EDITION LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS YORK STREET COVENT GARDEN 1874 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY CHISWICK PRESS:-PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. PREFACE. HIS Volume is designed to be a companion to a similar selection from the Latin Poets. In attempting a repre sentative Greek Anthology, greater difficulty has naturally been experienced in proportion to the longer period which the subject embraces, the richer and more varied stores which it presents, and the far greater vitality and superior originality which characterize the Poetry of Greece. In that of Rome, no really great names before the Augustan age can be mentioned but Lucretius and Catullus; while of the writers of the Silver Age, all, except Juvenal, are more or less imitative. The case was very different with the many-sided genius of Hellas. When her Epic, Lyric, and Dramatic poetry had passed away, the hand of Theocritus awoke from her lyre a music which had not yet been heard, and even among the later epigrammatists there is a sweetness of |