Emendata

The common opinion that establishes The Garland of Meleager as the first epigrammatic anthology is therefore misleading: papyri published in the last two decades testify, in fact, a far more ancient epigram spreading in the anthology-form.

Nowadays, there are still missing comprehensive collections of Greek epigrams on papyrus, which would be an essential contribution to the understanding of this literary genre on this writing support2.

However, before we get into the fundamental issue of my intervention - the crisis of the anthology-form of the second century in Egypt - it is appropriate to specify what is intended by 'anthology'.

In order to do this, I will abide by the categorization made by Argentieri (1998), with a diachronic approach, in this literary genre.