Meleager of Gadara

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Meleager of Gadara ( ancient Greek Μελέαγρος Meléagros , Latin Meleager ) was an ancient Greek writer. His lifetime falls in the late 2nd and early 1st centuries BC. He came from Gadara, today's Umm Qais in Jordan, grew up in Tire and died on the Greek Aegean island of Kos .

Meleagros wrote epigrams and satires . As a poet , he and his older contemporary Antipater of Sidon contributed significantly to the late Hellenistic resurgence of the literary epigram. This genus had in the first half of the 2nd century BC. BC lost much of its importance. From Meleager himself 134 epigrams on almost exclusively erotic topics have been preserved.

Meleager gained importance for the history of Greek literature above all as the compiler of an anthology of epigrams called Stephanos (Στέφανος, "wreath" or "garland"), which forms the historical basis of the Greek anthology . 70 BC He published his anthology, which brings together epigrams from six centuries of Greek poetry. The epigrams come from 47 different poets, including Archilochus , Alkaios , Anacreon and Simonides , which makes them an important source of literary history, especially on archaic , early classical and classical epigrammatics.

While at most traces of Cynical thought can be found in his epigrams , his satires are said to have been written in the spirit of the Cynic Menippus of Gadara (see Menippeian satire ). The satires that may have been written at a young age are lost; Meleager himself mentions them in three of his epigrams. Athenaios expressly describes him as a cynic.

literature

  • Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé: Méléagre de Gadara. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Volume 4, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 384-388
  • Doris Meyer: Meleagros from Gadara . In: Bernhard Zimmermann , Antonios Rengakos (Hrsg.): Handbook of the Greek literature of antiquity. Volume 2: The Literature of the Classical and Hellenistic Period. CH Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-61818-5 , pp. 271-275
  • August Oehler: The wreath of Meleager from Gadara. Selection and translation. Berlin: Propylaea 1920

Remarks

  1. ^ Klaus Döring : Meleagros from Gadara . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Schwabe, Basel 1998, ISBN 3-7965-1036-1 , p. 314.
  2. ↑ Athenaios, Deipnosophistai (Banquet of the Scholars) 11,502c; see. also 4,157b.
personal data
SURNAME Meleager of Gadara
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meleager from Gadara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late Hellenistic epigrammatist
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 1st century BC Chr.