Constantinus Cephalas

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A page of the Palatine Anthology (Codex Palatinus 23), 10th century, from the Library of the University of Heidelberg Anthologia Palatina p101.jpg
A page of the Palatine Anthology (Codex Palatinus 23), 10th century, from the Library of the University of Heidelberg

Costantinus Cephalas (also Constantine) was a Byzantine scholar known as the compiler of the Greek Anthology. He lived in Constantinople in the X century [1] and he held an official post in the City palace in 917 A.D. [2]

Some time before that he compiled an anthology of epigrams on which the Greek anthology was based. [3] Cephalas used several previous compilations in his work and also rearranged the poems.

The scholiast to the Garland of Meleager in that MS., after saying that Meleager's Anthology was arranged in alphabetical order, goes on as follows:—"but Constantinus, called Cephalas, broke it up, and distributed it under different heads, viz., the love-poems separately, and the dedications and epitaphs, and epideictic pieces, as they are now arranged below in this book". [4]

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